Unic Press UK: The Nigerian security forces failed to act on advance information that Boko Haram, a Jihad-driven terrorist group, was headed towards Dapchi, a town in Yobe State, located in the North East region in Nigeria. Consequently failed to prevent the abduction of more than 100 schoolgirls on February 2018, said the Amnesty International in its report published yesterday.
“The Nigerian authorities have failed in their duty to protect civilians, just as they did in Chibok four years ago. Despite being repeatedly told that Boko Haram fighters were heading to Dapchi, it appears that the police and military did nothing to avert the abduction,” said Amnesty International’s Nigeria Director, Osai Ojigho.
Amnesty International said its team gathered testimonies from a multiple of credible sources, illustrating that the Nigerian armed forces, particularly the army and the police, were contacted up to four hours before the terror group’s armed fighters invaded Dapchi [a town in Yobe State, Nigeria] and kidnapped 110 schoolgirls.
The organization said the Nigerian security forces received at least five calls between 14:00 hrs to 18:30 hrs on 19 February, alerting them that an armed group was headed towards Dapchi.
“The first call was made to the army command in Geidam, 54 km from Dapchi, informing them that Boko Haram fighters had been seen at Futchimiram heading to Gumsa, a village about 30km from Dapchi”, said Amnesty International in its 20 March 2018 report ‘Nigeria: Security forces failed to act on warnings about Boko Haram attack hours before abduction of schoolgirls’.
About the Boko Haram
- Jama’atu Ahl as‐Sunnah li‐Da’awati wal‐Jihad [simply called Boko Haram] is a Jihad-driven terrorist organisation that was founded in 2002 by one Mohammed Yusuf. This terror group held the belief that Western education/lifestyles were completely against the teachings of Islam.
- M Yusuf, the founder/spiritual head of Boko Haram was ‘extrajudicially’ executed in 2009 after the group clashed with Nigerian Police Forces in 2009.
- The end of Yusuf’s earthly life in the hands of Nigerian security operatives is widely seen as a critical turning point in the history of the Boko Haram. Many have contended that the killing of Yusuf further radicalized his followers, thereby escalating a bad crisis.
- It was after the killing of Yusuf that this terror group commenced full military operations in 2009, killing more than 15,000 people as of 2016.
- They have attacked a number of places, including military barracks, police stations, churches, mosques, motor park stations, United Nations building in Nigeria’s federal capital territory, and so on.
- In 2015, Boko Haram pledged allegiance to Daesh (Islamic State).
- Boko Haram’s goals center on Islamization of Nigeria, to enforce sharia law throughout the gamut of Nigeria. This goal is utter delusion as Nigeria is a secular state, a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural country of circa 200 million people. More than 50% of Nigeria’s population are Christians, most of whom reside in the southern part of the country.
- Abubukar Shekau, an eccentric character who appears deluded by virtue of his utterances in Boko Haram’s numerous videos, is the head of the main group. This is one man the Nigerian security forces had claimed several times to have killed, but each time the news of his death circulates, the man Shekau rises from nowhere proclaiming to the world that he is still alive.
- In 2015, the Global Terrorism Index, published by the Institute for Economics and Peace, said that Boko Haram topped the ranking of terror groups having killed 6,644 people in Nigeria in 2014 when compared to Daesh’s tally of 6,074 people in the same period.
