Boko Haram kills 15 in Adamawa

• Ekhomu seeks robust executive protection for emirs

Boko Haram again, went on the rampage yesterday, kill­ing 15 people through bomb­ing at Kaban, in Mubi, the commercial nerve centre of Adamawa State. At least 15 victims of the blast were hospitalised.


The latest attack came after the Emir of Gwoza, Alhaji Idrissa Timta, was shot and killed by the insurgents last Friday. The Adamawa victims, according to sources, were watching a football match while others met their waterloo during a bomb blast at a beer parlour at Kaban. The place is close to a football field and the Mubi General Hospital.


Police spokesman in the state, DSP Abubakar Othman, confirmed the incident. He said the command had been alerted by the Mubi Area Command and that the police were helping in transport­ing the victims to hospital. Soldiers have condoned off the area and helped in tak­ing the injured to hospital and dropping bodies in mortuaries.

However, as at press time, the Army spokesman, Captain Nuhu Jaafaru, said he had not got details of the blast, noting that our reporter would be availed further details of the incident.

According to sources, the blast oc­curred just as residents were returning home to beat the 7pm curfew imposed on Mubi and its environs because of the high rate of insurgency recorded in the area. The town is not far from Maidu­guri, Borno State, the traditional home of Boko Haram.

Mubi and its environs had been the target of insurgency since 2011 to date. Early last year, 35 students of Federal Polytechnic, Mubi were killed by Boko Haram and a number of residents also killed in the Mubi International Cattle Market.

Meanwhile, a security expert, Dr. Ona Ekhomu, has called for robust executive protection of emirs and other traditional rulers in the northeast to prevent further assassination of traditional rulers by Boko Haram.

He said that given the grave terrorist threat facing traditional rulers, not pro­viding adequate executive protection was tantamount to criminal negligence..

Reacting to the murder of Emir Timta and the attempted assassination of the Emir of Askira and Emir of Uba last Friday, Ekhomu said the attack on the royal fathers could have been prevented if proper executive protection was in place. He described as unfortunate the fact that a first class traditional ruler was travelling in the northeast zone with minimal protection. He said that it was common knowledge that Boko Haram terrorists often set up roadblocks along the highways of the northeast in order to kill travellers.

The road trip to Gombe by the emir should have received enhanced security cover,” he said.
Ekhomu, who is the President of the Association of Industrial Security and Safety Operators of Nigeria, said that terrorist attacks were usually contingent upon the capabilities of the organisation, the philosophy of the insurgents and the environment where the crime is taking place. Since the Emir of Gwoza in April this year complained about the increased spate of terrorist attacks in Gwoza LGA and consequently called for military patrols in the area, it was foreseeable that he would soon be attacked by Boko Haram.

He said that Boko Haram usually conducts surveillance of its victims prior to an attack. If the Emir had competent executive protection specialists in place, they would have been able to conduct counter-surveillance and threat assess­ment to adequately protect the Very Important Personality (VIP). He said that the terrorists were able to target and kill the traditional ruler since he did not have a target-hardened transit security arrange­ment.

“A well-trained executive protection specialist would have conducted an ad­equate threat assessment that would have let him know that Boko Haram had the capability, intention and motivation to as­sassinate the emir. Assassination attempts on the Emir of Kano, the Shehu of Borno and Emir of Fika by Boko Haram have shown that Boko Haram is not perturbed about taking the lives of prominent tradi­tional rulers,” he said.

Ekhomu said that several district heads have been assassinated by Boko Haram, showing that they had the intention to kill monarchs.

In a related development, a chieftain of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) and a member of the National Conference, Mr. Antony Sani, has said speculations about those behind Boko Haram may prolong the insurgency in the northern part of the country.

Sani, who is the immediate past National Publicity Secretary of ACF, insisted that as long as one section of the country was alleging that the insurgency was the manipulation of the Presidency to cripple the North politically and eco­nomically, the crisis would continue.

He told Daily Sun that since another part of the country believes that the insurgency was designed to topple the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan, Boko Haram would always have a field day killing innocent persons in the society.

He said the only way out of the seem­ingly unending crisis was to admit the fact that it was not being sponsored by any section of the country.