{"id":1333,"date":"2014-09-03T08:11:49","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T08:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1333"},"modified":"2014-09-03T08:11:49","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T08:11:49","slug":"confusion-over-bama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=1333","title":{"rendered":"Confusion over Bama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Boko-Haram-leader-Abubakar-Shekau-360x225\"<\/a><\/p>\n

There was confusion on Tuesday on whether or not the outlawed Boko Haram sect had overrun Bama, a town 70 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.<\/p>\n

While Rueters<\/em> news agency quoted security sources as saying\u00a0\u00a0 that the\u00a0\u00a0 members of the sect\u00a0\u00a0 had overrun much of\u00a0\u00a0 the town after hours of fighting on Monday night and early hours of Tuesday, the Deputy Governor of the state, Zannah Mustapha, and the Civilian Joint Task Force\u00a0\u00a0 dismissed the report as false.<\/p>\n

But what was\u00a0\u00a0 clear to our correspondents as of press time on Tuesday was that the casualty figure had risen from\u00a0\u00a0 59 to 180.<\/p>\n

The militants had launched an attack on\u00a0\u00a0 Bama on Monday but were initially repelled. They however\u00a0\u00a0 came back in greater numbers overnight, the security sources and witnesses said.<\/p>\n

The sources said there were heavy casualties on both sides. One said at least 5,000 people fled the town.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/em> quoted a soldier involved in the Bama battle as having said\u00a0\u00a0 that\u00a0\u00a0 several of his colleagues were killed close to the Bama armoury in a bungled strike by a fighter jet targeting the insurgents.<\/p>\n

He said the troops called in air reinforcements as they took on the insurgents but by the time a fighter jet arrived, they\u00a0\u00a0 had mostly lost the battle in the area .<\/p>\n

\u201cThe jet then bombed the area but accidentally killed everyone there, both Nigerian troops and insurgents,\u201d it quoted the soldier as saying.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe situation is bad. We lost so many of our men,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Senator representing Borno Central, Senator Ahmed Zannah, had also confirmed Reuters<\/em> report.<\/p>\n

But the Borno State Deputy Governor told journalists at a news conference in Maiduguri\u00a0\u00a0 that the military was in full control of the security situation in the town.<\/p>\n

Although Mustapha was silent on the casualty figure, he revealed that over 2,000 people who fled\u00a0\u00a0 Bama\u00a0\u00a0 had been resettled in the National Youths Service Corps orientation camp and the Government Girls Secondary School in Maiduguri.<\/p>\n

He added, \u201cThe attack on Bama yesterday (Monday) was very unfortunate; but I want to reassure our people that government is on top of the situation. Already, those in the camps are being taken care of and our security forces are engaging the insurgents in a fierce battle which is worthy of commendation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Appealing to the people to desist from\u00a0\u00a0 creating unnecessary tension in the state, he said he was\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cparticularly happy for the cooperation we have so far received from Gombe and Adamawa state governments.\u201d<\/p>\n

At an earlier press conference in Maiduguri on Tuesday, the Chairman of the\u00a0\u00a0 Civilian JTF, Jubrin Gunda, had said\u00a0\u00a0 that 35\u00a0\u00a0 insurgents were arrested in Bama.<\/p>\n

Gunda said the report by some international media that quoted Senator Ahmed Zannah as saying that the town had been overrun by the insurgents should be discountenanced.<\/p>\n

Admitting that\u00a0\u00a0 the insurgents\u00a0\u00a0 attempted to overrun Bama, he said they were subdued by the military at the periphery of the town.<\/p>\n

Gunda, who added that the death toll had risen to 180, said, \u201cWe categorically deny and disassociate ourselves from an interview granted to some foreign media by one Senator Ahmed Zannah as what he stated is not true facts on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cMore so, the interview he granted has contributed in instilling fears in the minds of citizens of Borno State, especially\u00a0\u00a0 the residents of Maiduguri.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we want to reassure the citizens of Borno State that, nobody should panic and no one should leave Maiduguri because all that have been said are mere rumours.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll citizens should desist from making unguided and false information which will further frighten the citizens unnecessarily.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zannah had also told one of our correspondents over the telephone that the insurgents were in control of Bama.<\/p>\n

He said, \u201cLike I said yesterday(Monday), Bama is in the hands of Boko Haram, nothing has changed today(Tuesday). The Borno State Government is trying to play politics with the issue. I don\u2019t know if they are trying to appease the military or the Federal Government.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven this(Tuesday) morning,\u00a0\u00a0 my brother\u2019s two children were killed. Anybody telling you that Boko Haram is not in control of Bama is telling a lie. Many people were killed in the fighting.I don\u2019t know the number because there is no access to the place. Some of those who died have not even been buried yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Investigations\u00a0\u00a0 revealed that the military authorities had sent\u00a0\u00a0 fighter jets during hours of fierce fighting between troops and the insurgents early on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

A security source said\u00a0\u00a0 that the military leadership in the North-East had made preparation for the strafing of the town by telling all the civilians and even military personnel to relocate from the vicinity of areas under the control of the insurgents.<\/p>\n

It was learnt that some security personnel and civilians who obeyed the advice\u00a0\u00a0 were being quartered at Sectors 8 and\u00a0\u00a0 9 in Maiduguri.<\/p>\n

It was further gathered that the intensity of air attacks on the insurgents aided the soldiers in pushing them out of Bama.<\/p>\n

As of the time of filing this report, the insurgents were said to be massing on the outskirts of Bama apparently to carry out another assault on the town.<\/p>\n

The security source said that Monday\u2019s attack by the insurgents was coordinated from Gwoza, which the insurgents captured last week.<\/p>\n

The security source said that soldiers and the insurgents were still engaged in a gun duel over the control of the town even though the troops had been able to push them out of the town.<\/p>\n

However, there were fears in Maiduguri as some\u00a0\u00a0 residents\u00a0\u00a0 said it was time for them to start planning relocating from the town.<\/p>\n

One of them , Sunday Emmanuel,\u00a0\u00a0 said his apprehension was based on the news filtering through Bama and the influx of people from the town into Maiduguri.<\/p>\n

He said, \u2018\u2018There is everything to believe that the insurgents are closing in on Maiduguri with the capture of Damboa, Gwoza and now the attack on Bama<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There was confusion on Tuesday on whether or not the outlawed Boko Haram sect had overrun Bama, a town 70 kilometres from Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. While Rueters news agency quoted security sources as saying\u00a0\u00a0 that the\u00a0\u00a0 members of the sect\u00a0\u00a0 had overrun much of\u00a0\u00a0 the town after hours of fighting on Monday night […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1334,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1333","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Boko-Haram-leader-Abubakar-Shekau-360x225.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-lv","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1333"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1335,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1333\/revisions\/1335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}