Chilling Account On How Boko Haram Has Been Disguising Like Army To Kill Soldiers And Civilians

Dressed in full military fatigue and armed with
anti-aircraft guns, rocket propelled grenades
(RPGs) and a fleet of armoured tanks that they stole
from Nigerian soldiers, the Boko Haram insurgents
now stage bolder attacks and even overrun federal
troops in northeast Nigeria.

There are fears that the continued attacks on the
military and the looting of arms by Boko Haram
also threatens the fragile peace being enjoyed by
residents of Maiduguri in the past three months.
There are also concerns that Boko Haram’s
continued attacks on towns and villages located
around a 100 km radius of Maiduguri, could
possibly weaken the defence around the capital
city.

In the past month, Boko Haram has carried out
several gory attacks on both civilians and soldiers
on the five major routes that lead in or out of
Maiduguri, and these point of attacks are all less
than 80km away from, Maiduguri.
Last Tuesday, Boko Haram gunmen, in their
hundreds, staged their second attack in a week on
the town of Benisheik, 75 km away from
Maiduguri. They left at least 140 persons either
injured or dead. About a hundred homes and
businesses premises were burnt and scores of
vehicles, including military tanks, looted. 

We visited Benisheik and interviewed some eyewitness
and victims of that bloody attack.
Carnage on the road
A commercial cab driver, Sani Babayo, said it was
another day of horror along the Kano-Maiduguri
Highway.
“We thought they were soldiers because their
uniforms, vehicles and guns suggested so,”
recalled Mr. Babayo. “But when they ordered us to
come down from the vehicle and began to ask if we
are residents of Maiduguri, it immediately dawned
on us that we had fallen into the hands of Boko
Haram.

“After separating the women and girls from the
group, they ordered the men to run into the bush
for our lives. No sooner had we started running
than they opened fire on us. I saw many of my
passengers fall after being hit by flying bullets. I
kept running for my dear life until I was out of
their range of fire.”
Mr. Babayo, who looked dishevelled with tell-tale
bruises on his skin and blistered feet, was among
few of the very lucky travellers who escaped the
Tuesday carnage. Many did not.
Most of the victims were those who had gone to
make phone calls in the neighbouring Yobe State
capital, Damaturu, 136 km from Maiduguri.

For four months now, telecom lines have been
grounded as a security strategy to combat Boko
Haram. Residents of Borno State, since the
restoration of phones lines in Yobe State, had had
to travel over there to make calls.
A young woman, Sarah Hyeladi, was returning to
Maiduguri from Damaturu, where she and her
elder brother, Markus, had gone to make phones
calls when they encountered gunmen. Ms. Hyeladi
was lucky but her elder brother was not.

“When our vehicle was stopped at about 6 p.m.,
and we saw how those ahead were being shot at,
Markus and I had to run into the bush, but
suddenly some uniformed gunmen appeared from
the bush and ordered us to go back,” Ms. Hyeladi
recalled.
“We had to comply because one man was pointing
a big gun at us. As we were going towards where
people were being killed, one of the gunmen
dragged Markus and put a knife on his neck.
Before I could beg them to spare him, my brother
was writhing on the floor in a pool of his own
blood.”

“Many people died from bullet wounds but a lot
were killed by something that looked like an
electric saw; the moment they put it on a person’s
neck, the head will go off,” said a middle aged
woman who was spared.
“They asked us to get out of the vehicle and
ordered the men to start running into the bush,
then they would shoot at them,” said the woman
who wouldn’t say her name.

“They were heartless and wicked in the way they
took people’s lives. Most of them speak Hausa,
some Kanuri but others who don’t look like
Nigerians speak some foreign language,”she said.

A soldier in Benisheik said they could not stand
the superior fire power of Boko Haram.“They were
using anti-aircraft guns while we were using AK47
rifles and some RPGs. They came in droves driving
about 20 pickup trucks accompanied by two light
armored tankers, all wearing our military colours –
desert-camo . We had to retreat to our base to
reinforce after running out of arms. But they
followed us down there, surrounded our base and
began to to shell our building. We couldn’t stand
the heat of their superior fire power. We had to
retreat into the village after they killed two of our
soldiers and three policemen. They left with an
armoured tanker and four military patrol trucks,”
the soldier said.

At the palace of the district head of Benisheik,
where vehicles were taken away and one burnt, a
staff, Abacha Wakil, narrated to journalists how the
gunmen attacked and beheaded people in the
village.
“The Boko Haram gunmen invaded the town at
about 7:45 p.m., after attacking the military base at
the outskirts of the town. The soldier ran to us
here at the palace of the District Head and warned
us to run for our dear lives. They said they had ran
out of ammunition and the terrorists are carrying
sophisticated arms.

“No sooner had the soldiers warned us than the
Boko Haram gunmen arrived in droves; all dressed
in military uniforms and carrying guns. They came
in about 30 vehicles. We had to run for our lives. I
took refuge inside the millet plantation near the
District Head’s palace. The gunmen spread out and
began to shoot and set houses ablaze. They did not
leave until about 3:30 am. We all spent the night
inside the bush. In the morning, we found that
they had beheaded 14 persons, mostly those in
the Civilian-JTF, and left with at least 21 vehicles
and a Tata truck filled with food items looted from
the shops they also set ablaze.”

Mr. Wakil said most of the young men killed were
beheaded.
“Their bodies were completely separated from their
bodies. The death could have been more if the
soldiers had not run down to warn us in good time
that we should run for dear lives.”
Environmental health workers, who continued to
pick corpses even as late as Friday, said they could
not venture into the bushes to search for dead
bodies.

“We only pick those not far away from the road
sides. We understand most of them died while
running away from bullets while others were found
without their heads. Even if we later found the
heads we often don’t know which head belonged to
whom.
“We believe there could be more corpses ahead in
the bush because others could have ran further
before they died. But after today, Thursday, their
bodies cannot be picked because even the ones we
had picked now have decompsed already,” said the
Environmental official who declined mentioning
his name for official reasons.

Some of the corpses that were conveyed to
Maiduguri could not be identified because they
either had their heads cut off or their faces
shattered by bullets. It was an emotional sight
when the daughter of a woman, who had given up
searching for the body of their father, suddenly
pointed at a swollen decapitated body shouting,
“Mummy, this is daddy’s shoe, this is daddy,”
And when the mother searched the pockets of the
headless corpse, they found her husband’s ID
card. The woman and her daughter caused
everyone gathered to shed tears when the daughter
tearfully asked, “Daddy where is your head?”

Hundreds of residents have since fled Benisheik in
fear of another possible attack.
“If they could walk over soldiers and send them
running for their lives, who are we to remain
here?” Bala Sanusi, a local butcher said. Promises
and compensation
Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, who
visited the village on Thursday, pleaded for
residents to remain in their homes and not to flee.

He said more security would be provided to guard
the community.
He approved the sum of N50 million for the
reconstruction of the damaged towns, while the
sum of N250,000 would be given as compensation
to the family of the 14 people slain in the village.
The Brigade Commander of Borno State,
Muhammed Yusuf, explained to the few confused
villagers that the army did not abandon them, but
only left to get more arms after running out of the
ones they had.

There are lots of concerns by embattled residents
of Borno State who see the Federal Government as
playing lip service to the issue of insecurity. Many
had wondered why the almighty Nigeria Army still
found it so difficult dealing with Boko Haram once
and for all. Many are of the view that the military
hierarchy, although losing personnel and
equipment, are making huge pocket-lining gains
out of the monies the Federal Government is
pumping into the state towards tackling the
violence and insecurity.The Borno State House of
Assembly, on Friday, faulted the way the Federal
Government was dealing with the situation. 

The lawmakers felt the situation was getting worse;
particularly, with the increasing attacks.
They urged the Federal Government to step up its
act by giving the military a marching order to
utilise modern and appropriate equipment and
technology to solve the Boko Haram crisis once
and for all.
A top public affairs commentator, who does not
want to be named for fear he might be targeted by
the military, told we “We, as group of concerned
citizens, are compiling our dossier on how the
military hierarchy may have been feeding fat on
these crisis from the billions of naira federal
government spends to end the insurgency.