At least, 20 policemen, including an assistant
commissioner of police, were on Tuesday killed in Alakio village, about
10 kilometres from Lafia, the Nasarawa state capital.
Blueprint
leant
that out of the 11 troops-loaded trucks that were deployed to recover
cache of arms in the possession of the leader of the militia group,
known as Ombaste Baba Lakwo, only nine have made it back with policemen
numbering about 20.
Although casualty figure was still sketchy at the
time of filing this report, Governor Umaru Tanko Al-Makura confirmed to
newsmen in Abuja, after a meeting with the Vice President, Mohammed
Namadi Sambo, that over 20 cops were killed in the mayhem.
The policemen were at Alakio as part of a security measure to avert the breakdown of law and order in the area.
Al-Makura told State House correspondents in Abuja that over 20 policemen were killed by a group of cultists known as Ombatse.
The governor said he was at the State House to seek
the assistance of the federal government to curtail the excesses of the
group, adding that the state government had a year ago dislodged the
group, but only re-surfaced about a fortnight and continued unleashing
terror and mayhem on the people.
The governor said that his administration was
determined to uproot the group, adding that he would hold an emergency
meeting of the state security council to decide on what action to take.
He said: “The incident happened in a village called
Alakio about 10 kilometres from Lafia, the state capital. The position
of this militia is unacceptable to the government. Already, we are
taking appropriate steps to see that the perpetrators of this act are
brought to book.
“That is why I have given the necessary information
at the federal level so that by the time we begin to take on these
perpetrators, nobody should cast aspersions on the justification.”
Meanwhile, addressing newsmen in his office at Lafia,
the state commissioner of police, Mr. Abayomi Akeremale, said that the
operation was meant to avert religious crisis by stopping the forceful
administering of concoction by the leader of the group, popularly called
Baba Alakyo.
When our correspondent visited the Dalhatu Araf
Specialist Hospital (DASH), in Lafia, it was discovered that no fewer
than nine officers who managed to escape from the crisis area were being
attended to by the medical personnel.
Slain cops’ wives reject Shettima’s N5m donation
In a related development, wives of slain policemen
and other security agents in Bama, Borno state, yesterday rejected the
N5 million donated by Governor Kashim Shettima.
Instead, the women demanded for the impossible return of their husbands back to life.
An emotionally drenched Shettima who, yesterday, has
paid a second visit to Bama town in less than a week to commiserate with
victim’s of the army, Boko Haram shootout that almost razed down the
entire town, however, pleaded with the women to accept death as an
inevitable end for every human being.
The National Emergency Management Agency (NAMA) said
it has recorded over 300 internally displaced persons after the police
and military authorities said Tuesday that more than 50 persons died as
soldiers, police and Boko Haram turned the commercial border town into a
battle field.
The Police Area Commander in charge of Bama, Sagir
Abubakar, said he has lost many of his men, even as he lamented that the
District Police Officer (DPO) of Bama, Eko Lawu, has been missing since
the gunmen ran over the police formation.
Shettima, who drove through Bama amidst heavy
motorcade of security details, couldn’t helped, as he wept profusely
when he accosted a group of bereaved police families who kept wailing
and chanting: ‘We want our husbands; please help us bring back our
fathers; we don’t want money’.
Some of the women, who went out of control laid on
the road before the governor’s motorcade, daring to take their own lives
if vehicles were not provided to take them to their home towns.
The governor, moved by what he saw, instantly took
the decision to adopt three kids, whose parents were killed on Tuesday.
The kids are Saviour, John and Emmanuel.
Shettima ordered that some of the badly injured
police officers, who were still reeling in pain without medication, be
transferred to Maiduguri.
Blueprint
gathered
from sources that the worst hit by the Tuesday fight were officials of
the Nigeria Prisons Service whose officials were massacred in cold
blood.
A resident, who pleaded anonymity, said that apart
from the 14 prisons officials declared killed on Tuesday, many others
were also killed in their houses.
At the prisons yard, it was gathered that some of the
prisoners turned against their jailers by pointing out to the Boko
Haram attackers where prisons officials were hiding within the prisons.
A police officer told Blueprint on condition
of anonymity that the “Boko Haram terrorists came like a full army
brigade with different kinds of sophisticated rifles, including
anti-aircraft guns. We ran out of ammunition, while they kept on firing;
that was how most of our officers were killed. We became helpless at a
point until one of our courageous officer took the personnel armoured
car and drove to our 33 mobile base to get us more ammunition’.
The officer, a sergeant, said the gunmen carted away most of the corpses of their killed colleagues.
Dialogue should not be taken as sign of weakness – Jonathan
President Goodluck Jonathan has condemned the attack
by armed terrorists on Bama which claimed scores of lives, saying that
the federal government’s decision to resolve the current security
challenges in the country through dialogue was not a sign of weakness.
In a statement issued by the presidential
spokesperson, Dr Reuben Abati: “The president warns that the federal
government’s consideration of dialogue as an option for the elimination
of some current threats to security should not be seen as a weakening of
its resolve and determination to use all the forces at its disposal to
crush all brazen affronts to the powers and sovereignty of the Nigerian
nation.
“The President urges the armed forces and police not
to be disheartened or daunted by the loss of their colleagues, but to
remain focused and undeterred in discharging their responsibility for
the security of lives and property in all parts of Nigeria”.
President Jonathan promised that the federal
government would continue to give the armed forces and the police the
fullest possible support to enhance their ability to meet the continuing
challenges of terrorism and insurgency.
“President Jonathan extends sincere condolences to
the families and colleagues of the soldiers, policemen and prison
officials who lost their lives in the dastardly attack. President
Jonathan also commiserates with the families of the innocent civilians
who were either killed or injured in Tuesday’s attack on Bama,” the
statement said.
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