Sect abducts women, children in Adamawa

As the House of Representatives reconvenes today to begin consideration of the $1 billion foreign loan request by President Goodluck Jonathan, it has called on him to investigate how the Defence Headquarters and other security agencies have spent budgetary allocations to the defence sector.

Chairman, House Committee on Rules and Business, Hon. Albert Sam- Tsokwa, told reporters yesterday in Abuja that in view of the huge sum of money being allocated to the sector yearly and the formidable challenge faced by the military from Boko Haram, there was need to look inward.

He spoke just as Jonathan turned spiritual in his efforts to tame the insurgents who have killed about 4,000 people this year alone and have launched spirited attacks on towns and villages in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe States in a bid to carve a territory for themselves.

Besides, the terror group in a fresh offensive at the weekend, kidnapped women and children in a raid on Gulak, Adamawa State. Sam-Tsokwa, who unfolded the priorities of the legislature on resumption, said the lawmakers would demand a probe into defence spending to ensure that the nation got value for the huge sums it had put in the sector in a bid to curb insurgency.

“In doing that, we would tell the president to investigate the spending of the military to know the true position on the state of the nation or we would be forced to take up the matter,” he added.

According to him, information coming out on the activities of Boko Haram unleashing terror on soldiers is worrisome; therefore, the House wants the president to do soul searching. He said: “I don’t think that our inability to contain insurgency is due lack of funds because never in the history of the Nigeria has huge fund being appropriated for defence. I think Mr. President should look inward and find out exactly what is happening to the defence budget.

“That’s why military personnel on official assignment are being attacked freely; the Boko Haram members are nonentities. Why are they having an upper hand? Let the president do an in-house search, but certainly there are enemies within.”

Sam-Tsokwa also said the House would discuss the outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) and efforts taken to contain it. “Significantly as we resume, we have certain pressing issues, first we have the Ebola issue which is so threatening.

“Just before we proceeded on recess, we passed a resolution, urging the Federal Government to put in place measures to forestall its spread to Nigeria from other West African countries; although the president had taken measures we still want to be very sure that the virus is completely contained in the country,” he added.

The insurgency ravaging the country also engaged the attention of the president yesterday in Warri as he urged Nigerians to pray for the defeat of Boko Haram. The president, represented by the Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan, said in an address at the Catholic Bishops’ Conference that the Federal Government would not be able to defeat terror without the support of the people. “I need the cooperation of the entire country in the fight against Boko Haram.

In doing this Nigerians should also pray for the defeat of Boko Haram,” he stated. As the president was appealing for support to defeat Boko Haram, there was a report that the insurgents raided Gulak and abducted women and children. Witnesses who fled the area said the insurgents embarked on a house-tohouse search to abduct their victims who were put in vehicles and driven to an unknown destination.

One of the residents, Buba Gulak, said: “They were shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ (God is great) and shooting sporadically. There was confusion everywhere. They started packing our women and children into their vehicles, threatening to shoot whoever disobeyed them.

Everybody was scared.” A security said they were aware of the incident but were still investigating the details. ‘’Yes, we have been told that members of the sect (Boko Haram) have kidnapped several women and children, though we are yet to get the full details,’’ he said. Another resident, Bitrus Musa, said the group kidnapped at least about 70 women in Gulak town.

Also, a community leader who asked not to be named, told reporters in a telephone interview that he was trapped in a village near Gulak before he escaped on Sunday. “Several women were loaded onto several vans and then taken away.

Some women brought the news that Boko Haram forcibly took some of them away, including a sister-in-law to a friend of mine. The situation is getting worse by the day and our hope is that this problem will end one day,” he added.

A former Chairman of Madagali Local Government Area, Mr. Maina Ularamu, while confirming the incident, said: “The information I have is that they selected some women and locked them in the local government secretariat.”

However, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission has reaffirmed its determination to cage the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria as well as other regional threats. ECOWAS Commission President Kadre Desire Ouedraogo said yesterday in Abuja at the opening ceremony of the 10th annual ECOWAS development partners coordination meeting that stabilising the region, ensuring peace and security would top the agenda of ECOWAS.

Ouedraogo told New Telegraph that the region should not expect a world where there would not be any security threat and assured the international community that ECOWAS would curtail the menace to its barest minimum. According to him, the objective of ECOWAS is not to let the insurgents destabilise countries in the sub-region but to degrade the insurgents’ ability to threaten the security and peace of the population of the sub-region.

Meanwhile, the result of the Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) taken by students of Government Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State before over 200 girls participating in the examination were abducted by the Boko Haram sect members may be released soon. Minister of Education, Mallam Ibrahim Shekarau, said yesterday in Abuja at a meeting with the House of Representatives Committee on Education that the Federal Government would, however, have to review the result before releasing it.

He explained that the government decided to review the result as a result of the circumstances under which the examination was conducted.