At least 10 people were killed in several days of violence between herdsmen and farmers in eastern Nigeria, police said on Monday, but the cattle drivers gave a higher toll.

Clashes broke out in a number of remote herding villages in the Mambilla district of Taraba state last Thursday and continued throughout the weekend.

The violence is part of a wider series of clashes between largely nomadic cattle herders and farmers in central and southern Nigeria that has put pressure on the government to act.

“So far we have established the deaths of 10 people in the violence between herders and farmers in the Mambilla area,” said state police spokesman David Misal.

“Security personnel have succeeded in restoring normalcy in the area and there is ongoing security operation to consolidate peace.”

According to herders, Mambilla militia armed with machetes and spears stormed five herding settlements of Nyiwa, Yerimaru, Wuro-Mogoggo, Leme and Gagarum between Thursday and Saturday.

“From our records, 19 people have been killed and 23 injured in the unprovoked attacks in these five villages by armed Mambilla tribe militia,” said the head of the Nigerian herders union MACBAN, Mohammed Keruwa.

Nyiwa was worst hit with nine herders killed by the attackers who also “killed 318 cows, stole 38 cows, 158 sheep and 308 fowls,” he added.

Mambilla lies on Nigeria’s border with Cameroon and is a herding and farming hub reputed for fertile land, lush vegetation and abundant water.

Tensions have been running high for many years between herders and farmers over land and water rights.

The herders are Muslim and the farmers are largely Christian, which adds an ethnic and religious dimension to the tensions. Many herders have fled to northern Cameroon.

In January 2002, more than 20,000 herders fled the Mambilla plateau area into Cameroon following violence with farmers which MACBAN said at the time left 50 herders dead.

In June last year deadly clashes again broke out in the area. MACBAN claimed more than 700 herders were killed in the violence but the authorities gave a much lower toll.

The southern state of Benue has been a flashpoint in recent months after resistance to a new law banning open grazing for cattle.

In January, 73 people from the ethnic Tiv farming communities were buried at a mass funeral after a series of attacks blamed on Fulani herders.

(Source: AFP)

When President Muhammadu Buhari took office three years ago, eradicating Boko Haram militants and rescuing the hundreds of women and children they held captive was one of the main pledges in his inaugural address.

Another mass abduction of schoolgirls in the town of Dapchi has exposed how little progress has been made. It also shows that security is a major weakness for the former military ruler with less than a year to go before elections.

“The government is not doing sufficiently well as it relates to security because if they are, an experience like that of Chibok that happened four years ago, we had four years to prevent the recurrence of Chibok. Yet four years after we still have Dapchi, and not just that one or two girls or five girls, over a hundred girls were taken in one night.” Bukky Shonibare, a member of the Bring Back Our Girls Group

The kidnap of the 110 girls, mostly aged 11-19, almost two weeks ago bears similarities to Boko Haram’s 2014 abduction of more than 270 schoolgirls from Chibok.

“I voted for Buhari for change, but sincerely right now, the way things are, we are going backward and not forward. Before I used to come out in confidence, but now I come out in shame. If we find good change, I want Buhari but with the way things are, if it continues like this, I will not vote for Buhari.” Idris Mohammed, a generator repairer.

Buhari has declared the Dapchi abduction a “national disaster”.

Source: Reuters

Nigeria has confirmed another mass kidnapping of schoolgirls in the militancy-riddled northeast, saying it has deployed extra troops and planes to search for over 100 girls, who remain missing following a Boko Haram raid on their school last week.

Militants on February 19 drove into the town of Dapchi in northeastern Yobe State in trucks and attacked the school, causing students and teachers to flee into the surrounding bush.

It is not known how the girls were abducted, but witnesses say some of the attackers were camouflaged, making the students mistake them for army soldiers.

Government and police officials have been giving contradictory figures of those missing, with estimates ranging from 50 to 100.

The Yobe State government also added to the confusion on Wednesday, when it said dozens of the abducted girls had been rescued, prompting many locals, including the parents of the missing girls, in Dapchi to celebrate.

The next day, however, the local administration apologized for the “erroneous” statement, which it said had been based on inaccurate information.

Finally, the Nigerian Information Ministry on Sunday put an end to confusion and acknowledged that 110 girls are missing in a statement based on numbers obtained from parents who said their girls had not returned home since the school raid.

“The federal government has confirmed that 110 students of the Government Science and Technical College in Dapchi, Yobe State, are so far unaccounted for, after insurgents believed to be from a faction of Boko Haram invaded their school on Monday,” the statement said.

The statement said 906 students were in the school on the day of the attack.

Information Minister Lai Mohammed said additional security officials have been deployed to schools in the state.

The Nigerian Air Force also said the chief of air staff had “directed the immediate deployment of additional air assets and Nigerian Air Force personnel to the northeast with the sole mission of conducting day and night searches for the missing girls” in coordination with the ground forces.

The latest kidnappings have revived the painful memories of another mass abduction in April 2014, when Boko Haram militants attacked a girl school and kidnapped 294 girls in Chibok, Borno State. Many of the girls were released after negotiations, but more than 100 remain in captivity, their whereabouts unknown.

There has been growing anger among locals over the government’s handling of the recent incident as well as reports that soldiers had been withdrawn from key checkpoints in Dapchi last month.

The Nigerian government has claimed in the past that Boko Haram was defeated, but the Takfiri outfit continues to vex especially in the country’s restive northeast.

The Takfiri Boko Haram militant group has killed more than 20,000 people and forced two million to flee their homes since the onset of its terror campaign in 2009. It pledged allegiance Daesh in 2015.

Source: Presstv

The Nigerian military has managed to rescue 76 schoolgirls and recovered the bodies of two others out of an estimated 90 girls who had gone missing following an attack by the Takfiri Boko Haram militant group on a school in the country’s northeast.

“Everybody is celebrating their coming with songs and praises to God almighty,” said Babagana Umar, a parent whose daughter had disappeared, on Wednesday. “The only sad news is that two girls were dead and no explanation.”

According to Umar and other residents of the small town of Dapchi in the state of Yobe, where a school was raided by the terror outfit on Monday evening, at least 13 other students may still be missing.

According to eyewitnesses, the Boko Haram militants descended on Dapchi in trucks, some with heavy guns mounted on them and painted in military camouflage. They then went straight to the Girls Science Secondary School and began shooting sporadically, forcing panicked students and teachers to flee.

There are conflicting reports about how exactly the girls went missing. Police and state officials said that 815 of the school’s 926 students had later returned to the school after fleeing into the bush outside the town during the attack.

Police and state officials said that there had been no evidence that the missing girls had been kidnapped by Boko Haram, suggesting that the rescued ones had been recovered from their hiding places.

However, the Yobe government later said in a statement that the military had rescued some of the students from the grips of the terror group.

Separately, Information Minister Lai Mohammed said Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari had on Wednesday dispatched his foreign and defense ministers to Yobe to investigate the incident.

Since 2009, the Boko Haram militancy has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million others homeless.

Back in 2014, the Takfiri terrorist group kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in Borno State. The mass abduction triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country. An international campaign dubbed “Bring Back Our Girls” was also launched.

Of the 276 students originally abducted, nearly 60 escaped soon after the incident and some others have since been released after mediation. Some 100 are still believed to remain in captivity.

Last month, the terror outfit released a video allegedly showing some of the Chibok girls still in its custody, saying they do not wish to return home.

Source: Presstv

A total of 111 schoolgirls are missing after Boko Haram Takfiri militants attacked Dapchi village in northeast Nigeria, police say.

“Eight hundred and fifteen students returned to the school and were visibly seen, out of 926 in the school,” the police minister of Yobe state, Abdulmaliki Sumonu, told reporters on Wednesday. “The rest are missing. No case of abduction has so far been established.”
Earlier in the day, two sources said that a roll-call at the girls’ school in the village on Tuesday showed that 91 students were absent.

“I saw girls crying and wailing in three Tata vehicles and they were crying for help,” a witness from the nearby village of Gumsa, who was reportedly forced to show the terrorists the way out of the area and then released, told Reuters.

Meanwhile, seven parents said their daughters were among the missing.

“I hope my daughter is not one of those abducted as we learned that over ninety of them were not seen after going through their register book,” one parent said.

The two sources, several parents and other local witnesses spoke on condition of anonymity as Nigerian security and government officials warned them not to disclose the disappearance.

Eyewitnesses said on Monday that a convoy of pickup trucks belonging to Boko Haram descended on Dapchi in the Bursari area of Yobe state around 6 p.m. (1700 GMT). The militants went directly to the Girls Science Secondary School, and began shooting sporadically, forcing students and teachers to flee, according to the witnesses.

Since 2009, the Boko Haram militancy has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million others homeless.

If confirmed, the girls’ disappearance would be one of the largest since the Takfiri terrorist group kidnapped more than 270 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in 2014. The mass kidnapping triggered global condemnation and intense criticism of Nigerian officials in the country as well as an international “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.

Of the 276 originally abducted students, nearly 60 escaped soon after the incident and others have since been released after mediation. Some 100 are still believed to remain in captivity.

Source: Presstv

Takfiri Boko Haram militants have attacked a village in northeast Nigeria, unsuccessfully attempting to kidnap girls at a boarding school there.

Eyewitnesses said on Monday that a convoy of pickup trucks belonging to Boko Haram militants descended on Dapchi Village in the Bursari area of Yobe State around 6 pm (1700 GMT).

“When they stormed the village, they began shooting and setting off explosives,” said resident Sheriff Aisami. “This drew the attention of the girls in the Girls Science Secondary School, so the girls and the teachers were able to escape before the attackers got into the school.”

Unable to kidnap the girls, the Boko Haram fighters looted the school before fleeing.

It was not clear whether the violence caused any casualties.

“Obviously, the attack was meant to abduct school girls, but luckily they found none of the girls as they were taken away by teachers before they (the militants) arrived,” said a member of a local civilian militia battling the extremists.

Boko Haram notoriously kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls from the town of Chibok in April 2014.

Separately, Nigeria’s Justice Ministry announced on Monday that more than 200 people have been convicted in Nigeria on charges related involvement with Boko Haram.

The convictions of 205 people in mass trials marked the conclusion of the second stage of the country’s biggest legal action against Boko Haram, which began a militancy in 2009 aimed at toppling the government.

“Most of them were convicted for professing to belong to the terrorist group, (or) concealing information about the group which they knew or [were] believe[d] to be of material assistance that could lead to the arrest, prosecution or conviction of Boko Haram members,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

Jail terms ranged from three to 60 years, said the ministry.

It also said a total of 526 people allegedly affiliated with Boko Haram had been released for rehabilitation during the second stage, and said 73 cases had been adjourned.

Since 2009, the Boko Haram militancy has left at least 20,000 dead and made over 2.6 million others homeless.

Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, came to power in 2015 on a platform of stamping out the Boko Haram militancy. But despite retaking swathes of territory from the group, it continues to stage attacks targeting both civilians and military targets.

Source: Presstv

Some 19 people have been killed and dozens more wounded when three bombers blew themselves up in Nigeria’s northeastern Borno State, the hardest hit by Daesh-inspired Boko Haram militancy.

Damian Chukwu, police commissioner for Borno State, said on Saturday that the explosions occurred at a fish market about 20 kilometers (12 miles) from the center of Maiduguri on Friday evening.

Babakura Kolo and Musa Ari, from the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) assisting Nigeria’s military against Takfiri militants, also said the bombers were all men.

“We have 19 dead and about 70 others injured… Two of the bombers attacked the Tashan Kifi fish market. Then four minutes later, a third bomber struck nearby,” said Kolo.

“The victims included 18 civilians and one soldier. The Tashan Kifi is an informal market which serves as an eatery, market and also hang-out for residents,” the official added.

Kolo further said 22 out of the 70 injured are in critical condition, blaming the attack on the Boko Haram militant group.

“There is no question as to who did it: Boko Haram has targeted Konduga several times,” he said.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram started its deadly campaign in northeast Nigeria in 2009. The violence has claimed many lives in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger and Cameroon as well.

Boko Haram, which pledged allegiance to the Daesh Takfiri group in 2015, has been largely pushed out of its main strongholds in northern Nigeria, according to the country’s military and government.

The group, however, is still active in its Sambisa Forest enclave in Borno and launches sporadic attacks on civilians and security forces from there. The United Nations has warned that areas affected by Boko Haram face a humanitarian crisis.

Source: Presstv

Nigeria has been trying to contain the insurgency confronting it with all possible means. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has started playing a major role in this mission and has intensified air operations in North Eastern Nigeria.

NAF operations from December 20-22, 2017 neutralized scores of Boko Haram Terrorists (BHT) in Tumbun Rago, a settlement in the northern fringes of Borno state, bordering Lake Chad. The operations started with an intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) mission. This was followed by air interdiction to strike the identified targets. Then came Battle Damage Assessment (BDA) missions after the strikes to assess the nature and extent of damage to the targets. Finally, follow on mop up operations by helicopter gunships at multiple locations enhanced the degree of target neutralisation. A similar operation was carried out by NAF in conjunction with the Nigerian Army (NA) on January 3-4, 2018 in Sambisa, Njimia and Camp Zairo. These operations constitute a classical example of air power employment in anti-insurgency operations.

Nigeria is one of the most affluent and powerful West African countries, with the highest GDP in the continent. It shares land boundaries with four countries — Niger, Benin, Chad and Cameroon. The cumulative combat power and national power of these four neighbours is less than that of Nigeria by a large margin. The differential in combat air power between Nigeria and these four countries is even more glaring. Consequently, the prime focus of Nigeria’s creation and employment of air power has been to manage internal conflicts and insurgency, besides ensuring the protection of the coastline and exclusive economic zone (EEZ). The country is nearly square shaped (1100 km long and 1000 km broad). The three military air bases are strategically located and over 30 airstrips evenly spread across the country allow an efficient application of air power.

The only combat aircraft in the NAF inventory at present are 14 Chinese built F7 procured in 2005-08. MiG-21s and Jaguars have been phased out. For counter insurgency (COIN) operations, it has 13 Alpha Jets, 23 L-39 and 12 MB-339 aircraft, besides 11 attack helicopters made up of Mi 24/Mi 35s. The further growth trajectory of Nigerian air power can be assessed by analysing its defence budget and likely procurements. The proposed defence budget for 2018 with an allocation of $1.5 billion has nearly 77 per cent earmarked for salaries and overheads. This limits the funds available for modernisation and up-gradation. Out of this limited modernisation budget, an allocation of $66.32 million is planned for aviation assets, including payment for three light utility helicopters for the army, two helicopters for the air force, one UAV for the navy, and for the maintenance of two Alpha Jet aircraft and one C-130 transport aircraft. Nearly 53 per cent of the money earmarked for aviation assets is for part payment for the acquisition of three JF-17 Thunders from Pakistan.

A significant event took place on December 27, 2017 when the US Ambassador to Nigeria, Stuart Symington, presented the Letters of Offer and Acceptance (LOA) in respect of 12 A-29 Super Tucano Aircraft to the NAF. This will no doubt boost the NAF’s airpower potential. The Trump administration’s offer reverses the Obama administration’s decision to block the sale of military hardware to Nigeria. The LOA represents the official US Government offer to sell defence articles and services to the Nigerian Government. It is expected that the LOA would be signed and necessary payments made before February 20, 2018, to ensure the commencement of the production of these aircraft.

The $593 million deal includes aircraft, weapons, training, spare parts, aviation and ground support equipment, hangar, facilities, and infrastructure. These aircraft will augment the NAF effort in operations against the Boko Haram and ISIS West Africa, as well as Nigerian efforts to counter illicit trafficking both within the country and in the Gulf of Guinea. The deal also includes $29 million worth of weapons including 200 GBU-12/58 Pave Way II tail kits, 400 laser guided rockets, 2,000 MK-81 (250lb) bombs, 6,000 unguided rockets, 20,000 rounds of .50 calibre machine gun ammunition, seven AN/AAQ-22F electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) sensor and laser designators. In addition, all aircraft sold will include weapons software to support forward-looking infra-red (FLIR). Nigeria’s defence budget of 2018 will have to provide for this deal at the expense of some other equipment.

This deal, on fructification, will permit sustained and effective round the clock COIN operations by the NAF. The combination of sensors and precision weapons will be difficult for the insurgents to beat. Precision strikes by the proposed low-calibre guided weapons will also reduce the probability of collateral damage. However, the mission can be effective only when it is supported by adequate ISR and suitable communication grids. NAF is presently not very well equipped in this regard. With the available ISR resources, it will not be possible to fully exploit the offensive assets on its inventory. NAF has a large area to cover for surveillance and monitor activities in specific sectors on a round-the-clock basis. The time lag between the initial ISR mission and follow-on mop-up attacks in December 2017 and January 2018 is of the order of 24 hours. With the kind of mobility available to insurgents, this time is adequate to relocate safely, thus staying ahead of the ISR cycle. Operational necessity is to shrink the sensor-to-shooter time.

To upgrade its ISR capabilities, NAF is looking intently at UAVs. These provide an optimal low cost and safe solution for long duration, repetitive missions. A benign air defence environment makes a perfect backdrop for UAV operations. The issue however is of the availability of resources to fund this need. And the answer lies in a re-look of the operational environment and reassessing the combat equipment requirement. One deal that stands out in this regard relates to the JF-17. With practically no conventional threat on its borders, should NAF be equipping itself with the high-cost JF-17s at this juncture? Its existing fleet of F-7s is barely a decade old and adequate, along with ground-based radars, to ensure air superiority in its neighbourhood against known threats for another decade. The financial resources earmarked for the three JF-17s could optimally be utilised to upgrade the surveillance and communication network and reduce the sensor-to-shooter time for COIN operations.

Building up the capability to douse the current insurgency should ideally take precedence over the necessity to tackle a hypothetical conventional threat. Additionally, the procurement of just three JF-17s will not stand professional scrutiny with respect to its maintenance. A fighter platform like the JF-17 will necessitate the setting up of first and second lines of maintenance facilities for unhindered operations. This will tantamount to a sub-optimal utilisation of the investment in the project for just three platforms. In the absence of these facilities, the aircraft will be non-operational for a prolonged duration owing to the scheduled maintenance servicing. Either way, the cost of operation of the three JF-17s will further bloat the already burgeoning revenue expenditure. That will, in fact, prevent further modernisation. [Editor’s note – Nigeria may buy more JF-17s at a later date, and may have only budgeted for an initial three, with more funding possibly allocated later.]

Governments all over the world can allocate only finite resources for their armed forces. It is incumbent on the armed forces to assess the operational environment in a realistic manner and then draw out an appropriate equipment procurement strategy. Assets to tackle the existing security challenges must be provided for and only thereafter capabilities for tackling future threats should be built up. Unless reprioritised, the Nigerian defence budget will come under severe strain in the next three years.

Source: Defenseweb

Twelve people have been killed and 48 others wounded in an attack by suspected Boko Haram bombers on Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri.

Officials from the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) for Borno said two assailants struck a market in the Muna Garage area in the vicinity of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, on Wednesday afternoon.

Muna Garage, the site of a camp for displaced people, is a frequent target of Boko Haram attacks.

Witnesses reported that parts of the market were still ablaze in the wake of the assault.

More than 20,000 people have been killed since Boko Haram started its deadly campaign in northeast Nigeria in 2009. The violence has claimed many lives in neighboring countries of Chad, Niger, and Cameroon as well.

Boko Haram has been largely pushed out of its main strongholds in northern Nigeria, according to the country’s military and government. The group, however, is still active in its Sambisa Forest enclave in Borno and launches sporadic attacks on civilians and security forces from there.

On January 8, at least 20 loggers were killed near Maiduguri after Boko Haram Takfiri terrorists opened fire on them.

On Monday, a Boko Haram faction released a video purporting to show some of the girls abducted from a school in the town of Chibok in 2014, as well as a downed Nigerian helicopter and a group of policewomen captured last year.

Nigerian Police Force, NPF,  has explained  that leaders of Cameroon’s Separatist Movement who were arrested within Nigeria’s territory flouted the nation’s laws by operating training camps in Nigeria. IGP-Idris Vanguard’s investigation revealed that members of the Cameroon’s Christian Secessionist group, who were agitating an “Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB-styled” independent movement were arrested in both Taraba and Cross River states. The two states have boundaries with the Southern parts of Cameroon hence there is easy access to Nigeria.

According to a Police source, “the government of Nigeria cannot be seen to be habouring separatists from a neighbouring Country like Cameroon when both countries are cooperating and jointly fighting to uproot Boko Haram terrorists who are insurgents trying to impose their own Islamic state in the North east.

“Moreover, it is common knowledge that the federal government of Nigeria recently clamped down on the illegal activities of the IPOB (Independent Peoples of Biafra). So how can the territory of Nigeria be used to train separatists to cause civil disobedience in such a friendly country.”

A security source confirmed to Vanguard that the arrested leaders were caught red-handed within the training camps for separatist members for future confrontation with the Cameroonian authorities. It was gathered that the separatist leaders would be moved to Force headquarters, Abuja, since the issue of training camps across borders have become an international and diplomatic issue. There was also indications that officials of Nigeria’s ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cameroon’s Embassy in Nigeria were already holding discussions over the arrest.

Source: Vanguard