BOKO HARAM: Soldiers flee to Cameroon, Nigerian military says its ‘tactical manoeuvre’

The Nigerian military has admitted that hundreds of government troops have fled heavy fighting with Boko Haram, but said their apparent escape to neighbouring Cameroon was a “tactical manoeuvre”. 

The Cameroonian army said Monday some 480 Nigerian soldiers who sought refuge in the country, had been disarmed and accommodated in schools.

The news came a day after Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau, released a new video in which he declared Gwosa, a town captured by the group, as part of an “Islamic Caliphate”.

A spokesperson for the Army spokesperson, Lt. Col Didier Badjek, was quoted by the BBC as saying that the Nigerian soldiers are currently in the Cameroonian town of Maroua, about 80km from the Nigerian border.

Biodun Sowunmi Wrote about Ekiti Election

I was in Ekiti State to monitor the election. One undisputed fact is that APC leaders in each town, local government areas, and the State executives were either arrested or driven underground by the security forces led by Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State for Defence and Adeshiyan, Minister of Police Affairs. Journalists and observers were harassed, arrested, and the Osun Broadcasting Corporation 4-man crew were deported to Ora a border town with Kwara State on the flimsy excuse that they conducted an interview with Chief Segun ONI in his Ifaki home. Many people who were not journalists were arrested in most hotels in Ado-Ekiti. Not one person has been paraded as a thug.


When I learnt of the storming of EMAX hotel Ado-Ekiti from a female reporter, I drove down to the hotel in the night and met soldiers harassing occupants of the hotel. 6 people were made to sit on bare floor. A man who claimed he visited the hotel to eat was taken away to identify his residence. No one in the hotel ever saw him again.

Ekiti, Osun Elections: What Adesiyan, Obanikoro should do by Gaius Nosa

As the Governorship Elections of both Ekiti and Osun states are at the corner, the two seemly concerned ministers in charge of security in the President Jonathan administration as been implored to act according to what will please God and not their political godfathers as the later may be the beginning of their destruction.

According to Gaius Nosa "As June 21 and August 9 governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states draw nearer, I implore these two ministers (Jelili Adesiyan and Musiliu Obanikoro) in charge of the nation security to have the fear of Allah which is the beginning of wisdom neither than having the fear of their godfathers which will be the beginning of destruction."

Sambo The Rambo By Fola Ojo

In 1982 was an action powerhouse movie called RAMBO which starred Sylvester Stallone as a Vietnam veteran who used his advanced military techniques, machine guns and bare hands to fight off the entire police force of a few towns. RAMBO turned these towns into warfronts with his armaments. In Nigeria, there is now our own RAMBO in Vice-President, Namadi Sambo who has promised that Osun and Ekiti states will be warfronts in the coming gubernatorial elections. This time, he seems to be promising us; it will not be a movie!

What is making this threat more unsettling is the optics of several incidents we now see in the aftermath of the statement. A couple of days after the utterance, we saw Ayo Fayose, the Ekiti ambassador in the state Governorship election cladded in a bullet-proof vest during a campaign event. That confirms that some kind of war is looming in that state. Musiliu Obanikoro, Minister of State of Defense mobilized men in army uniform to the site of the Ondo bye-election that was just concluded. The location was filled with pandemonium and violence and INEC indicted him.