Soldiers open fire on Borno governor’s convoy in error

Borno State Governor Kashim Shettima

Troops in Maiduguri, Borno State, ‘mistakenly’ opened fire on the convoy of Governor Kashim Shettima   as it approached a military garrison near the airport.

Read more

Shettima was on his way to visit   soldiers, who were wounded in the simultenous Boko Haram   attacks on Maiduguri, Monguno and Kodunga when the incident occurred on Monday.

Security sources, according to SaharaReporters, said   the governor’s protocol unit was to blame for the incident as it   failed to notify the military authorities about Shettima’s intention to visit the military facility on Monday evening.

An aide to the governor   was quoted by the online news portal as having said that the governor, who was unharmed in the encounter, returned to his office unruffled.

The report however did not say if anyone in the convoy was hurt. It also was silent on whether or not Shettima’s security aides returned fired.

A Government House source however claimed that the governor’s convoy heard sporadic gunshots about one kilometre from the 33 Battalion and therefore made a U-turn.

He added that Shettima stopped his convoy at the 707 Housing Estate to calm tensions and debunk the rumours that the gunshots were by   Boko Haram insurgents that were attacking people at Njimtilo.

Our correspondents could not get the spokesman for the 7th Div., Col S.K. Usman, to comment on the issue as   calls to his mobile did not connect.

Attempts to also get the reaction of the Director of Press and Communication to the governor, Mallam Isa Gusau, were unsuccessful as of the time of filing this report.

Calls to his mobile   indicated that it was either switched off or out of coverage area.

But the state  Commissioner for Infromation, Mohammed Bulama,   said what happened was a “friendly gunshot.”

“It was not an attack on the governor. It was a friendly gunshot that was not directed at Gov. Shettima nor his convoy. The shots were fired into   the air by soldiers who were hailing the governor for saluting their effort in repelling the insurgents.”

Fleeing residents of Monguno on Tuesday   told The PUNCH in Maiduguri, that corpses of people were   decomposing on the streets of the captured town.

One of them, Babagana Modu, who arrived in Maiduguri   on Monday evening, said, “The pathetic thing is that our dead family members are allowed to decompose on the streets without   burial.

“The fools (insurgents) are treating us worse than an animal. Definitely, these people do not know any God.”

A woman, Yagana Mohammed, who lost her husband and two children to the attack, said   she would have preferred to die too.

She said, “I would have liked to be killed with my dead husband rather than living with the memory of the day   he was slaughtered. The matter is made worse by the fact that there   would   be no grave for me to show to my other surviving children.

“How will I explain to them when they grow up   that their father and brothers were   slaughtered and left to rot on the streets.”

The military is however still engaging the insurgents in a battle to reclaim the town.

It was gathered   that more troops were deployed in the town with an instruction to chase the terrorists out .

“As I am speaking to you our men are still engaging the insurgents and hopefully they will push them back soon and allow the people of the town to return home,” a military source told The PUNCH.

Meanwhile, a suspected Boko Haram bomb maker has been arrested by security operatives in   Potiskum, Yobe State.The man, identified simply as Ba’na, is suspected to be behind the fabrication of explosives used in a series of Boko Haram suicide attacks.

According to an Agence France Presse report on Tuesday, the suspect was arrested with nine accomplices.

“He confessed to being responsible for the manufacture of the explosives used in at least three suicide attacks and the car explosion outside the divisional police station,” a police officer told the AFP.

Ba’na was said to have moved to Potiskum from   Damaturu three years ago and worked as a stonemason and water vendor before getting married.

“He was quite good at his disguise and his mason and water vending jobs gave him perfect cover,” the officer said.

But the spokesman for the Nigerian Police Force, Emmanuel Ojukwu, told the news agency that he did not have     any information on the arrest.

Potiskum, the commercial capital of Yobe State, has been hit by a wave of bombings in recent months, including a suicide attack on a secondary school in November in which 58 people were killed.