Politics

Two Cameroonian soldiers were killed this morning following the explosion of a mine on the highway linking Mora and Limani. Our military informant in Maroua revealed at the time of writing this report that one of the two Cameroonian soldiers was a captain serving with the Rapid Intervention Battalion.

The mine exploded under their vehicle on the road Mora-Limani in the department of Mayo-Sava region of the Far North of Cameroon. Our Chief intelligence officer also hinted that the mine was laid by fighters of the Nigerian Islamist sect Boko Haram. The department of Mayo-Sava, is one of four other administrative divisions of the 6 that make up the Far North Region, regularly under Boko Haram rocket and mine attacks.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

25.Feb.2015

Hits: 3622

The Cameroon army has announced that it has killed 21 fighters of the Nigerian Islamist sect.  Our military informant revealed that armed Boko Haram militants staged a surprised attack on the Motorized Infantry Battalion located in Tolkomari in Mayo-Sava Division in the Far North region. The Cameroon army reportedly responded vigorously to the attack. Eye witnesses say after several hours of fighting, the attackers retreated to the town of Sanda Wadjiri in Nigeria aboard motorcycles.

Boko Haram developed from the culture of impunity and unchecked state supervised criminality against civilians during military rule under the Northern Military establishment in Nigeria.  This is the culture of impunity that gave birth to claims for Sharia States in some Northern states and coordinated attacks against Christians in Northern Nigeria.  The sharia claims emerged only when Olusegun Obasanjo a Christian from the West was elected as the first democratic President of Nigeria after Military rule. The political motivation for this move using religion a lethal weapon was not lost on keen observers of Nigerian politics nor to the Southern Military establishment and politicians or even Obasanjo. The hidden hand of his military peers from the North behind these acts of destabilization was obvious. This did not happen during the military rule dominated by the Northern Military establishment so also the so-called Fulani herdsmen slaughter of Christians and burning of Christian Churches in the North and the Middle Belt.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

24.Feb.2015

Hits: 2471

Whenever Emmanuel Ali Talka hears news of a female suicide bombing in Nigeria, he is paralysed with fear despite having found relative safety in neighbouring Cameroon. Talka, a 36-year-old trader from Nigeria's Borno state, fled attacks by Boko Haram Islamists with his two wives and four of their children. In the chaos, though, his three daughters were separated from the family, last seen being dragged off by militants. Now Talka fears Happy, aged seven, and Daga and Lakwa, both five, could be strapped up with explosives and dispatched as suicide bombers. "I think of them all the time. I don't eat. I don't drink. I cannot sleep," Talka told Reuters at a refugee camp in Minawao, in north Cameroon, where rows of white tents now occupy fields where millet and coffee once grew.  "I don't know whether they are alive or not. They are very small and will not know what to do or defend themselves. I am dying inside," a fraught-looking Talka said, choking back tears.

Girls as young as 10 are known to have been used as suicide bombers by the Sunni jihadist group, which has waged a six-year campaign to carve out a caliphate in northern Nigeria and is now increasingly attacking neighbouring states. Nigerian forces have launched an offensive on the militants while neighbours Niger, Chad and Cameroon are seeking to hold the militants within Nigeria's borders ahead of a ground-and-air offensive by a regional task-force due to start from the end of next month. But there is deep concern over the plight of those forced to abandon their homes by the waves of fighting and killings. Aid workers estimate at least 1 million people in Nigeria have abandoned their homes. Another 157,000 have fled into neighbouring countries, according to U.N. figures. Talka and his family fled their home in Ngoshe, a village in the Gwoza area that is the heartland of Boko Haram's insurgency, after waves of attacks by militants killed hundreds and forced 20,000 people to scatter into Cameroon in September. They spent several weeks hiding in nearby hills. Then, on Oct. 1, the area was again attacked by Boko Haram fighters. "They were shooting all over. We ran in different directions and I lost my family," Talka said. Reunited with his wives and four of their seven children the next day, Talka crossed into Cameroon, where 32,000 Nigerians are crammed into the Minawao camp, initially built for 18,000.

Refugees lack toilets, water must be trucked in from afar and some have resorted to begging in nearby villages due to the shortage of food. Minawao is full of tales of suffering and escape like Talka's. Hassan Abba, a trader based in neighbouring Benin, returned to his home in Ashigashiya, in Borno state, in December. He was on holiday and hoping to set up a business and get married. These plans were torn up when Boko Haram militants stormed the town. "I ran into the bush, but my father and his brother were killed. They burned our house and everything I own." Abba re-emerged to bury his father and uncle, before crossing into Cameroon, where he has been since January, sleeping in a hall with 46 other new arrivals. Nigeria has delayed by six weeks a presidential election that had been due on Feb. 14, partly to allow the military to contain the insurgency in the northeast, where millions risked being disenfranchised due to violence. Few believe that the six-year uprising can be seriously dented in six weeks. But, for Abba and Talka in Minawao, reports of concerted action against the militant group are rekindling hopes of returning home to search for missing relatives. "As soon as I hear Ngoshe is free, I'm going back," Talka said. "I have to find my daughters whatever it takes."

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

24.Feb.2015

Hits: 909

Ghana’s Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) has moved quickly to dismiss rumors making rounds on Social Media that Boko Haram has succeeded in contaminating chalks used in Ghana with the Ebola virus. Over the weekend in Ghana, fears went high when rumors appeared on Social Media that Nigeria’s militant group, Boko Haram has contaminated chalks for writing in schools with the deadly Ebola Virus to punish Ghana for involving in the multi-national task force set up by West African leaders to fight them. The rumor quoted its source from the FDA. The FDA is Ghana’s public body which is responsible for checking foods and drugs standards before it is sold to the public. It has nothing to do with chalks used in writing in schools and it is unclear why the circulators of the hoax message linked it to the FDA. The rumor added that two teachers have so far died after coming into contact with the contaminated chalks supplied by Boko Haram.

Regional leaders in West Africa have approved a joint military force to fight Boko Haram. Ghana is playing a lead role in the mobilization of the team. Deputy Chief Executive in charge of Food Safety Division at the FDA, John Odame-Darkwah said in a statement that the rumor being peddled by some unidentified unscrupulous people is absolutely false and is only meant to create public fear and panic. He appealed to the Ghanaian public to disregard the information and go about their normal routines. Mr Odame-Darkwah explained that the FDA has notified the security agencies to investigate the source of such misleading information, advising the public to desist from circulating such information which is capable of causing intense fear especially among schoolchildren in the country. “The public may visit the FDA website, www.fdaghana.gov.gh to verify the source of any circulation purported to be originating from the FDA,” he said.

Independent security experts said last month that some Boko Haram fighters might have been on Ghana’s soil. And the Ghanaian Interior Ministry responded that the country is ready to combat any surprise attack by the group in any part of the country. The United States intelligence report on Boko Haram in May 2014 said there is no indication of the group in Ghana but did warned the Ghanaian security services not to be complacent. Boko Haram six-year insurgency has intensified this year. The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) has said Boko Haram killed more than 4,000 civilians last year. Boko Haram is a Hausa language which translates to mean "Western education is forbidden" and it sees schools and colleges as a symbol of Western culture. It has vowed to eradicate such institutions and create an Islamic state in the north of the country.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

24.Feb.2015

Hits: 979

2 Boko Haram militants were arrested on Sunday morning in a market deep inside the district of Fotokol in the Logone and Chari Division. The arrests were made from intelligence gathered from 21 other militants detained earlier this week by the Rapid Intervention Battalion in the Tolkomari locality.  In another development, unconfirmed reports from the Far North region say some 25 Cameroonian hostages taken by Boko Haram have fled. Our military informant hinted that the Nigerian Islamic sect seems to be losing control of its fighters and proper coordination as the military offensive by the anti Boko Haram coalition continues.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

23.Feb.2015

Hits: 2854

The Nigerian army says offensive against Takfiri Boko Haram militants is continuing after the recapture of the northeastern town of Baga from the extremists. "The cordon and search as well as patrol of the localities continue while the offensive on terrorists is progressing in other areas of the theatre of the counter terrorist campaign," said General Chris Olukolade, a spokesman for the army, in a statement on Sunday. Soldiers who have been participating in Baga operation have discovered various types of arms abandoned by the fleeing terrorists in the town and surrounding areas, the statement said. On Saturday, Nigeria’s army said it had regained control of Baga from Boko Haram, which overran the town more than a month ago. The extremist group has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly shooting attacks and bombings in various parts of Nigeria since the beginning of its operations in 2009. The five countries of Chad, Niger, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Benin pledged earlier in February to deploy an 8,700-strong force to fight the Boko Haram militancy in the region around Lake Chad. 

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.

The Nigerian/Biafra War was a curse on the conscience of the nation but a blessing to the Northern Military establishment. Many of these Generals made fortunes from the war and took the opportunity to entrench themselves in power. Olusegun Obasanjo like Good luck Jonathan came to power during that period as a beneficiary of the sad spoils of death. They were considered outsiders or trespassers to their god ordained power. For this reason, the country had to be made ungovernable to prove them and any person outside the North unfit to defend the constitutional order, national cohesion and republican values.  Under these dire circumstances, the Northern Military establishment, their feudal and religious confederacy would step in and take back power through democratic or other means. This is the rationale of the unfolding drama in the general elections coming up soon.

The culture of impunity and unchecked state supervised criminality against civilians during military rule under the Northern Military establishment in Nigeria was unprecedented.  This is the culture of impunity that gave birth to claims for Sharia States in some Northern states and coordinated attacks against Christians in Northern Nigeria.  The sharia claims emerged only when Olusegun Obasanjo a Christian from the West was elected as the first democratic President of Nigeria after Military rule. The political motivation for this move using religion a lethal weapon was not lost on keen observers of Nigerian politics nor to the Southern Military establishment and politicians or even Obasanjo. The hidden hand of his military peers from the North behind these acts of destabilization was obvious. This did not happen during the military rule dominated by the Northern Military establishment so also the so-called Fulani herdsmen slaughter of Christians and burning of Christian Churches in the North and the Middle Belt.

Details

Ngwa Bertrand

23.Feb.2015

Hits: 1160