“These are times of telling each other the home truth, which is that the Nigerian leadership has failed”. The Bama Town in Borno has witnessed several attacks by Boko Haram insurgents in the past one year leading to the death of hundreds of people. The latest of the attacks happened on February 18. The Boko Haram terrorists invaded the town, killed nearly 100 persons, burnt over a thousand houses, torched as much as 400 vehicles, and burnt the palace of the town’s traditional ruler, in an attack that left virtually all business outfits in the commercial town in complete ruins.The traditional ruler of Bama, Kyari Ibrahim Ibn Elkanemi, often described as a humble and patient man, has become unhappy at the repeated attacks.
In this interview held at his burnt palace, the monarch blames the Federal Government of Nigeria for the spate of terrorism in Borno State.
PT: How was the February attack carried out?
Shehu: At about 4 a.m. , one of my village heads called and informed me that somebody from a far village called Gonikurmi sent a message to him that he saw a long convoy of vehicles and motorcycles moving through the bush and passing by their village towards Bama.
Immediately, I called one captain at the college side in Bama and informed him about what I was told. He equally confirmed to me that two members of the Youth-vigilante, called civilian-JTF, had already informed him about it too. I did not stop at that, I called a major at the army barracks here and also informed him.
I also tried getting across to the Brigade commander and the GOC but all their lines were not reachable. Just some 30 minutes later, somebody called me to alert me that they have set fire on the low-cost housing estate that is at the outskirts of Bama Town; and that the gunmen were heading towards the central town.
People were running helter-skelter, we heard sounds of gun shots, grenades and all. I was later called by some of my subjects to alert me that the four sides of the palace were surrounded by women and children wanting to come into the palace for safety. As we were considering how to safely let them in, the gunmen came to the palace area and when they saw that there were hundreds of women and children all over the palace premises and the main gate, they ordered them to vacate the place at once. They were busy shooting to scare them away, and it was after that they tried to break down the palace gate; which they did using heavy sounding explosives.
When they gained entrance into the palace, they sorted out some of the vehicles like the Hilux Pilot car used in my motorcade before they began to set the entire place on fire. They practically set ablaze virtually everything from the main gate building of the palace, the office and main palace hall. They burnt virtually over 30 cars both official and private parked within the palace. We were in the inner part of the palace, then we saw the upstairs office of the palace on fire, so we had to evacuate everyone including the women and children, the palace workers went into the innermost part of the palace where it was safer so that we won’t get suffocated by smoke or blistered by the heat of the fire. All the while there were shootings outside. They remained in the town up to around 12 noon, that was about eight hours, until when we started hearing the sound of the air force helicopter hovering; we also overheard them giving instruction and trying to shoot down the helicopter.
PT: What was the number of casualties?
Shehu: We tried as much as possible to gather all the dead bodies in front of the palace where they were to be given funeral prayers before taken to the cemetery for burial. But before the message could go round the town, many people in other parts of the town have since buried their dead relations. But in the central mosque here near the palace, I partook in the burial of 34 corpses. And after that many others were still buried.
Widows, Orphans, meet Borno governor shettima after Bama killings, Borno state
Many people who did not see me before the burial and many who saw how the palace was destroyed were agitated and confused as they don’t know my where about. There was serious tension and concern about my whereabout, until I came out for the burial of the 34 persons, before tension simmered down.
PT: How did you survive the attack?
Shehu: Well that is by the grace of Allah and also part of my personal security arrangement. I don’t think I should discuss that for obvious reasons.
PT: How would you describe the attack and destruction on business areas?
Shehu: It was really an unfortunate development, to say the least. It was so sad that some two or three years ago, when fire gutted our main market, business activity was low until very recently when the state government came to the rescue of the people after a committee set up by the state government came to distribute N100 million to the affected traders, that business life picked up.
Bama, as you may know, has one of the largest markets in Borno State, and the entire town is strictly a business haven given the border areas we share with Cameroon. But with the attack by the Boko Haram insurgents, everything went to zero again; everything that is known as a business outfit here in Bama has been burnt to ash; when I say everything, I mean totally everything.
PT: What is the level of destruction?
Shehu:
Source:: http://newsrescue.com/despite-our-alert-the-army-gave-boko-8-hrs-to-massacre-us-shehu-of-bama/#ixzz2umqtNMj4
No comments:
Post a Comment