The military mission sent to Baga, the
border town 180 kilometres north of Maiduguri, the Borno State capital,
has discovered that the fundamentalist Boko Haram sect has an
operational base in the town.
The team may turn in its report today.
Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Ibrahim
Ola Sa’ad is billed to receive the report from the team, led by the
Chief of Training and Operations, Defence Headquarters, Maj.-Gen.
Lawrence Ngubane.
Besides the confirmation of a
“well-established” Boko Haram base, the team also uncovered nine fresh
graves, contrary to the 228 graves counted by Senator Maina Maaji, who
is representing Borno North Senatorial District.
The submission of the report is without prejudice to other security reports or any other report on the massacre in Baga.
But it was gathered that the military
high command has decided that the troops of the Multinational Joint Task
Force (MJTF) will remain in Baga to ward off insurgency in the area.
A source, who spoke in confidence, said:
“When we got to Baga, we interacted with the Local Government Chairman
for Kukawa Local Government Area, Alhaji Kone, the District Head of
Baga, Alhaji Babagana Zanna, aid workers and residents.
“The first thing we discovered was that
Boko Haram has a well-established military base in Baga, and they have
been in total control of the place. There was no corner in the town that
we did not visit.
“In fact, when the sect clashed with the
MNTF troops, they set a part of the base on fire. We were still able to
recover some arms and ammunition from the place.
“This discovery has proven assumptions
wrong that Baga is not a terrorist enclave. It is no doubt a fishing
town but with a heavy presence of insurgents.
“Boko Haram has taken over the town in
such manner that most of the locals were afraid to talk because of
reprisals from the sect. They said each time they got information and
leaked it, Boko Haram would deal with them.
“So, Baga is an entrenched base for Boko Haram. It is more like an entry point to Northern part for the insurgents.”
Asked about the conflicting figures on
the death toll, the source said: “When we met with the local government
chairman, he said he was not in town when the incident took place. The
district head also told us that he had not been briefed.
“The team also moved round for two days and discovered only ‘nine’ fresh graves. Up till now, no mass grave was sighted.
“At a point, the team asked the locals
if there was any mass grave; they said it is rare for Muslims to have
mass graves as they do not like to lump corpses together.
“We want those who have counted 185 or
238 graves to also come up with empirical evidence of such. We went
round, filmed the town and took photographs.
“At the end, the President and
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces will have all reports, whether
from the military or civilians and do analysis to draw a conclusion. The
state government also has its own report.
“The fact-finding team may submit its report to the CDS on Monday (today) in line with the scope of its assignment.
“What is painful is that the situation in Baga was not the way it is painted before the international community.”
On the likelihood of the MJTF troops
pulling out of Baga, the highly-placed source said: “The troops will
remain in the town unless we want the sect to overrun Borno State.”
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