BOKO HARAM: Abuja is under siege — Retired Army generals

There are indications that the Boko Haram attack on the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on Thursday might not be last of the deadly onslaughts on the seat of the Federal Government.

Barely three weeks after the sect carried out a car bomb attack on a motor park in Nyanya, a suburb of Abuja, killing over 75 persons, the sect attacked the same vicinity again with another car bomb, which claimed about 30 lives on Thursday evening.

Some retired Army generals and former senior security operatives, who spoke to reporters on Friday, said Abuja was under siege and urged security agents to rise up to the challenge and stop the sect from overrunning the FCT.

They also said the increased attacks on Abuja were aimed at making a global statement and discrediting the Federal Government, which is billed to host the World Economic Forum on Africa, in Abuja from May 7 to May 9, 2014.

Though the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, didn’t mention the World Economic Forum in his 28-minute video message some weeks ago, he boasted that the insurgents were in Abuja, and were ready to carry out more attacks while claiming responsibility for the April 14 Nyanya blast.

A former Chief of Defence Staff, Lt.-Gen. Alani Akinrinade (retd.), while decrying the attacks, told one of our correspondents, that Abuja was under siege by Boko Haram and warned that they were likely to carry out more attacks on the nation’s capital.

He added that terrorists had infiltrated Abuja and every other part of the country.

Akinrinade, who was the Chief of Army Staff from October 1979 to April 1980 before his elevation to the office of the CDS, also decried the lack of adequate intelligence gathering by security agencies. He said the situation had made the creation of state police a necessity.

He said, “I will not be surprised if Boko Haram carried out more attacks on Abuja. What is the guarantee that all the people (terrorists) who bombed Nyanya died in the blast?

“They will return and reinvent it. Those saying such are right; that is what to expect.”

He added, “When you have a cell of terrorists — who we call urban guerrillas and five of them are operating in a community, it is not a very simple thing to find out.

“State Police is the beginning of intelligence. It is about people who go to drink in bars at night and those who go to night clubs. That is the beginning of intelligence. We don’t have that. They’ll recruit a man from Sokoto and send him to the Kaduna Police School. Immediately he finishes, they post him to Mushin where there is violence. How useful will he be?”

He said Sambisa forest, which is widely believed to be a major base of Boko Haram insurgents in Borno State should be invaded.

Akinrinade said, “I cannot really think of why security forces have difficulty in locating the site called Sambisa forest, however large it may be. I do not believe it is impossible for security forces to run over the place and find out what exactly is going on or happening there. I can’t believe that.”

Similarly, a former Commandant, Nigerian Army School of Infantry, Brig. Gen. Williams Obene (retd.), said the second attack on Nyanya was expected because the sect was out to discredit the Nigerian government ahead of the World Economic Forum.

He said, “The World Economic Forum summit that is going to hold in Abuja has attracted terrorists. Their aim is to discredit Nigeria, portraying it as unsafe to host the summit. Therefore, they are likely to continue attacking Abuja. I think they would still carry out more attacks, especially, on soft targets in and around Abuja in order to create fear and doubts about the ability of Nigeria to host the summit.

“It’s very likely that the insurgents will attack the Abuja city centre, unless security agents are on top of their game. The populace should also be security conscious wherever they are.”

Obene, who is a counter-terrorism expert, said the sect might not be able to penetrate high-value targets in Abuja, so they would go for soft targets like shopping complexes and market places, where there is likely to be mass murder.

He also noted that no part of the country was immune to Boko Haram attacks.

Obene said, “The way international terrorism is now, you can’t say distance will make certain places immune to attacks; that is self-delusion. We must all know that Nigeria is at war with terrorism, whether that war has been officially declared by government or not.

“It’s an asymmetric war, where there are no boundaries or specific location of the enemy. The enemy is everywhere, anybody can be a suspect. It is the entire nation that is at war. The insurgents can attack anywhere in the country.”

Also, former Aide-de-Camp to former Head State, Gen Sani Abacha, Maj.-Gen, Abdulmalik Jubril (retd.), described the bomb blasts at Nyanya, Abuja as a very painful development.

In a telephone interview with one of our correspondents in Ilorin, he advised security agencies to tighten security in other vulnerable places, while concentrating on the Nyanya area.

He said terrorists divert attention from their main target before they strike.

“Some people were analysing certain things they saw at the scene of the first blast. They saw a certain inscription: 1,2,3. We do not know what it means. It can be they are just telling us the number of times they want to strike that place. That was why they did the first one and now they have done the second one,” he said.

In the same vein, former director of the State Security Service, Mr. Mike Ejiofor, told SUNDAY PUNCH that it was not strange that Abuja was attacked twice within three weeks.

He said with the nature of terrorism, insurgents always aim at springing surprises.

“Abuja has witnessed bombings before, even the heart of the city. People tend not to understand that this is an asymmetric war and terrorists will always want to exploit any element of surprise.

“We should show some understanding and encourage our security forces,” he stated.

Ejiofor said Boko Haram cells were everywhere in the country, including Abuja and that unknown to the public, security forces had been discovering them and making arrests.

He noted that some countries had fought insurgency for many years.

“Ireland, for instance, fought it for 26 years. We are not praying that it should last for long but Nigerians should show understanding with government and security agencies,” he said.

Also speaking on the two bomb attacks in Nyanya, a former Commissioner of Police in Lagos, Abubakar Tsav, called on Nigerians to join security forces in the challenge to overcome the threat of terrorism in the country.

Tsav lamented that terrorism was escalating because the “President did not pay the expected attention to insecurity from the beginning of his administration.”

Meanwhile, the Federal Government on Friday deployed a large number of plainclothes security men in Abuja to forestall more bomb blasts.

A credible security source in the Presidency said all the security agencies had been instructed to ensure that further killings were prevented.

Our correspondent further gathered that the blast that occurred on Thursday at Nyanya was targeted at Mogadishu Barracks, on Abuja-Keffi Road.

The source, who pleaded anonymity, said a suspected member of the Boko Haram sect was also arrested last week in Abuja.

Our correspondent could not get the Director of Defence Information, Maj.-Gen Chris Olukolade, to comment on the issue, as calls to his mobile phone did not go through.

He was said to be at the Presidential Villa for a meeting.

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