The Adamawa State police command has debunked media reports that vigilance groups in Madagali Local Government Area handed over seven members of the Boko Haram to it after a massacre at the weekend, which claimed over 70 members of the sect.
The spokesman of the command, ASP Abubakar Othman, told our correspondent in a telephone interview that such killings did not take place anywhere in Adamawa.
According to him: “Borno and Adamawa share the same border. To the best of my knowledge, the incident did not take place in Madagali but in a village in Borno State close to Madagali.”
Also, men of 23 Armoured Brigade in Yola have relocated their operational headquarters to Madagali to track down fleeing insurgents after local security operatives laid an ambush on them.
The spokesman of the Brigade, Lt. Nuhu Jafar, told our correspondent on the telephone that his men moved there to track down the insurgents.
“As I am talking to you now, the authorities of 23 Armoured Brigade, Yola are already in Madagali Local Government area of the state following the report we had that local security laid ambush on the outlawed group and killed over 70 members of them.
“Surely, we will return back to Yola, the state capital on Monday to give details of what really happened there.”
It was gathered that members of a vigilante group in the town laid a siege and killed more than 70 Boko Haram members who came to purchase food items and handed over seven captured militants to the police.
There were reports that the vigilantes acted after they were tipped off by a local food vendor that the militants were coming to get supplies before heading out for a major operation to raid villages in the area.
The vigilant group mobilised, laid ambush and waited patiently for the militants, a source in the village disclosed.
The source added that as soon as the Islamist insurgents numbering more than 100 showed up in the village to pick up their favourite meals, the vigilantes attacked them, killing most of them in a hail of bullets.
Some of the villagers, who spoke to reporters, said that they believe soldiers have not done much to put an end to the activities of the sect’s members who unleash havoc on them at will.
“We feel that there are fundamental things wrong in the way our security agents are fighting the Boko Haram insurgents who terrorise us here.
“We are pushed to the wall and are not afraid to die because they are men like us. And we are tired of folding our hands and allowing them to kill us, to kill our wives and to kill our children while the government is not doing anything about it,” one of them said.
via nigerianeye
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