Politics

Nearly 1000 Boko Haram prisoners of war are to face trial soon in Cameroon, a security source, who sued for anonymity, has told Cameroon Concord. The fighters from the Nigerian Islamist sect were captured during fighting in various areas of the Far North region. Cameroon has suffered more than 120 attacks from Boko Haram and Cameroon as a nation can boast that the Nigerian Islamic sect could not occupy an inch of its territory. Cameroon has killed many Boko Haram assailants, captured dozens, and seized war material.

The Yaounde regime has promised justice despite all the atrocities committed on Cameroonian territory. Facing the media on Friday,  Issa Tchiroma, Cameroon's Minister of Communication said that all Boko Haram detainees will be tried according to the laws of the Republic . Said Minister Tchiroma “Several hundred Boko Haram terrorists captured by our defense forces, are currently being held in our prisons, without any exaction or any act of torture committed to their detriment. Many were arrested with arms. Some had smart phones on which you could see disturbing images of atrocities they had committed. Yet they have not been summarily executed. They are in our custody and will be judged according to the laws of the Republic”. The minister added that Cameroon is badly in need of substantial financial resources devoted to their monitoring, feeding and maintenance before their trial process begins soonest.

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Ngwa Bertrand

15.Mar.2015

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Boko Haram is carrying out ethnic reprisals against Arabic speakers in northern Nigeria accusing them of aiding Chad's army fighting against the Islamist group, military officers and residents say. Cameroonian military authorities say these attacks against Shuwa Arabs, an ethnic group speaking the form of Arabic common in Chad, have forced some 10,000 refugees from Nigeria across the border into Cameroon in recent weeks. Chad has deployed about 2,500 troops to Nigeria's border regions with Cameroon and Niger as part of a regional effort to tackle Boko Haram's six-year insurgency, which is threatening the stability of the impoverished region. Chad's battle-hardened troops have won a series of clashes, seizing towns and pushing back Boko Haram fighters from the border region with Niger and Cameroon. 

But in border villages near Cameroon, Boko Haram militants have singled out many Shuwa Arabs for reprisals, a Cameroon military officer said. "Boko Haram has branched into a sort of massacre strategy against the Arab population suspected to be collaborators with the Chadian forces," Cameroon Special Forces Major Belthus Kwene told Reuters. Chadian Arabic, also known as Shuwa Arabic, is spoken by over a million people spread across southern Chad, northern Nigeria, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic and Sudan. Most of the refugees who settled in the Cameroonian villages of Amchoukouli, Wangara, Djabrari and Nigue were women and children. They said Boko Haram militants had massacred the men in their villages. "They killed 25 men," Fanne, a Nigerian refugee in Djabrari, told Reuters television. Boko Haram fighters forced the whole village to assemble before embarking on a killing spree, she added. "Nobody escaped. They shot some and slaughtered others with machetes and axes," she said.

Boko Haram, which translates roughly as 'Western Education is Forbidden', has killed thousands of people in a bloody campaign to carve out an Islamic caliphate in the north of Africa's largest oil producer. Fanne, like the hundred others who managed to escape the group's reprisals, sleeps under a tree with the few possessions and domestic animals she brought when she fled to Cameroon. Most refugees have declined to be moved further south to the main refugee camp in Minawao, already overcrowded with over 33,000 people. "These people are hoping that peace will return soon so that they can go back to their communities. They prefer to wait here," said Hayatou Oumarou, administrative head of the border town of Fotokol.

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Ngwa Bertrand

14.Mar.2015

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Members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) have drafted a resolution to financially and logistically support a five-nation regional African force to fight the Takfiri Boko Haram militant group, which is based in Nigeria. According to the draft resolution, which was obtained by AP on Thursday, the 15-member UN Security Council will provide financial aid, equipment, troops and intelligence “for the successful deployment of the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF)” to “create a safe and secure environment in the areas affected by the activities of Boko Haram.”

The text also calls for the immediate release of anyone abducted by Boko Haram, described as “one of the most serious threats to international peace and security.” The resolution is expected to be approved as early as next week, one of the Council members, Chad, said. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon (pictured below) is to establish a trust fund to receive contributions from the international community to help the regional force ahead of a UN-backed benefactor conference scheduled for next month. The UNSC draft resolution does not specify the figure of the aid that would potentially be granted to the African force.

The development comes about a week after the African Union (AU) approved the creation of the five-nation force to fight Boko Haram. Nearly 10,000 forces from Chad, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger and Benin make up the force to fight the extremist group, which has recently launched atrocious cross-border assaults in Nigeria’s neighboring countries. The draft by the Security Council also threatens to impose sanctions on individuals and groups that arm, support, or finance the Boko Haram terrorists. Part of the new regional offensive against Boko Haram is meant to stabilize Nigeria before the March 28 presidential elections.

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Ngwa Bertrand

13.Mar.2015

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The Nigerian army has managed to retake full control of the northeastern state of Adamawa from Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists. “Troops today succeeded in clearing terrorists out of Madagali, the last of places held by the terrorists in Adamawa,” the Nigerian military tweeted on Thursday, adding that a clean-up operation is underway in the liberated area. There were no casualties among the government troops, according the army announcement. This victory by the Nigerian military has pushed many political commentators to opine that President Goodluck Jonathan will get a deserving second mandate as Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian armed forces----a situation that will provide much relief to the leaders of the anti-Boko Haram coalition.

In an interview published on Wednesday, Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan predicted that the three violence-wracked states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa in the northeast of the country would be recaptured in the next three weeks. On the same day, Mike Omeri, the coordinator of Nigeria’s National Information Center, also said the country’s armed forces freed 36 towns from Boko Haram since the start of a military operation by regional West African countries against the Takfiri group. Crucial “co-operations and alliances” have brought victories against the militants, Omeri said, adding, “It is hoped that the unfolding regional cooperation will hasten the total defeat and extermination of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the sub-region.” In February, four nations of the Lake Chad Basin - Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria - launched a joint campaign, together with a contingent from Benin, to confront the rising threat of Boko Haram in the region.

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Ngwa Bertrand

13.Mar.2015

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Nigeria has recaptured 36 towns from Boko Haram since the start of a military operation by regional West African countries against the Takfiri group, an official says. Nigeria’s National security spokesman Mike Omeri said on Wednesday that four towns, located in Nigeria's troubled northeastern states of Borno and Yobe, have been retaken since last Friday. Crucial "co-operations and alliances" have brought victories against the militants, Omeri said, adding, "It is hoped that the unfolding regional cooperation will hasten the total defeat and extermination of Boko Haram in Nigeria and the sub-region.”

The official further thanked regional states for cutting off "the supply lines of the terrorists,” who are wreaking havoc on Nigeria and its neighbors. Back in February, four nations of the Lake Chad Basin - Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Nigeria - launched a joint campaign, together with a contingent from Benin, to confront the threat from Boko Haram in the region.

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Ngwa Bertrand

12.Mar.2015

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Niger says it has killed more than 500 members of the Boko Haram terrorist group since February 2015. Niger's police spokesman Captain Adili Toro said on Wednesday that some 513 terrorists had been killed since February 8, adding this number does not take into account those killed in land and air operations launched on Sunday jointly by the armies of Niger and Chad against Boko Haram militants in Nigeria. Niger has also lost 24 soldiers in the operations that have also killed at least one civilian and wounded 38 soldiers, Toro stated.On March 8, Nigerien and Chadian military forces launched a joint operation against the Takfiri terrorist group in northeastern Nigeria. The military operation took place following the African Union's final decision to establish a regional force of up to 10,000 men to battle the terrorist group, which has pledged allegiance to ISIL Takfiris.

 Boko Haram in Nigeria is a child of Nigerian history and the impunity of Northern Nigeria’s Military establishment. Armed conflict is part of Nigeria history. It is also a business which has enriched many.  People including generations unborn learn from history. The savaged brutality meted on civilians and civilian objects in Nigeria pre-exist Boko Haram. These acts of impunity were some of the methods deployed by successive military regimes, most of them from Northern Generals to accede and sustain power. The ongoing slaughter by Boko Haram follows the same pattern which in 1966 led to the Nigeria/Biafra War. The underlying cause of the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Southerners, mainly of the Ibo ethnic groups in the North was never comprehensively investigated, if at all.  There is no gainsaying that had the crimes been investigated, the result would have pointed to some powerful individuals within the Nigerian Military structure of Northern origin. For these, political power and control of the economy could only be attained through scapegoating communities whom they perceived as serious competitors.

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Ngwa Bertrand

12.Mar.2015

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