Vigilantes joined Nigerian security forces in fighting to blunt a Boko Haram attack on Maiduguri, the capital of northeastern Borno state, after the Islamist insurgents gained access to the city.
The army was doing a ’’mopping-up operation’’ after regaining control of Maiduguri and the town of Konduga, about 20 miles (35 kilometers) away, Major-General Chris Olukolade said in a statement late on Sunday. Meanwhile, Boko Haram insurgents captured Monguno, a town north of Maiduguri, vigilante member Ibrahim Hassan said by phone from Maiduguri today.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who was in Maiduguri yesterday to campaign for re-election, left before the attack, Olukolade said. Jonathan promised to restore peace to the northeast after a six-year insurgency to impose Islamic law in Nigeria has led to the deaths of more than 13,000 people. Boko Haram, which roughly translates to “Western education is a sin,” is escalating its campaign, seizing territory to form a so-called caliphate.
“If Boko Haram take Maiduguri, it will be the first time they will sack a sitting state government,” Freedom Onuoha, a research fellow at the Abuja-based National Defence College, said by text message. “It will be politically and strategically devastating.”
Hostages Freed
Amnesty International said in an e-mailed statement that the government’s “failure to protect residents of Maiduguri at this time could lead to a disastrous humanitarian crisis.”
About 75 miles (120 kilometers) away, around 200 female hostages were freed last night, said a local hunter, Idrissa Yusuf. The women were part of a group of more than 250 people abducted from Katarko in the northeastern state of Yobe by insurgents in early January, Yusuf said. Meanwhile, more people were kidnapped in deadly raids in the Michika area of the nearby state of Adamawa, lawmaker Adamu Kamale said by phone from Yola.
Boko Haram has kidnapped hundreds of women, among them more than 200 teenage girls snatched in April from their school dormitory in the northeastern town of Chibok in Borno state. The disappearance of the schoolgirls, who remain missing, drew international condemnation.
“Whatever it takes to ensure the return of the Chibok girls, we will do,” Jonathan said in Maiduguri yesterday.
