TROOPS FLOOD BORNO, YOBE, ADAMAWA •Begin ‘operation secure borders’ •Terrorists plotted secession before FG struck - Tukur

MEN and machines ready for the battle against insurgents are already heading to key areas being controlled by insurgents in Borno State, particularly areas such as Marte, Bama, Kukawa, Ngala, Kalabalge and Bama local governments.

Residents and Reuters reporters saw army trucks carrying soldiers enter Yola and Maiduguri to seek out militants from Boko Haram, whose rebellion has targeted the security forces, Christians and politicians in the mainly Muslim north.

A Reuters reporter saw six trucks carrying soldiers enter Yola, the capital of Adamawa State.

In the Borno State capital Maiduguri, the biggest city in the area and birthplace of the insurgency, residents also reported an influx of troops.

The mood was tense in that city. Shops were mostly shut and there were few people on the streets. Schools were closed.

Residents of Bama told Nigerian Tribune on phone that the soldiers are not molesting anyone but are seen carrying out their duties with some degree of regards and respect for the people.

Defence spokesman, Brig. General Chris Olukolade, disclosed that the operation which is commanded by Major General Jack Enwasiha, comprises all military divisions in the northern region and the Joint Task Force in the area.

According to him, the Nigerian Armed Forces, the Nigeria Police and other security agencies have commenced operations to rid the nation’s border territories of terrorist bases and activities.  The military operation will focus on tracking down criminal elements within the vicinity of border communities prone to terrorist activities.

He said that the operations which will involve massive deployment of men and resources is aimed at asserting the nation’s territorial integrity and enhancing the security of constituted governmental structures in all territories within Nigeria’s borders.

The operational plans have also briefed participating troops appropriately on arrests, cordon and search especially directed at apprehending those who have been violating sovereignty of Nigeria through terrorist training for insurgency and related activities.

The Director of Defence Information said the operation is expected to put an end to insurgent activities in these parts of the country.

The Defence spokesman, who disclosed that there is no time limit for the operation said that it will end as soon as the terrorists activities are checked and put to an end.

He added that the operation include anywhere insurgency can be found in the entire northern flank and that is why President Goodluck Jonathan is appealing to foreign countries in case the terrorists run into their country they should be chased back.

The declaration of the state of Emergency by President Jonathan, has generated mixed reactions, in view of its implications to the socio-economic of the state.

Most business people  in Yola the state capital, said the  imposition of the state of emergency would adversely affect their  businesses.

A former gubernatorial aspirant, on the platform of the ruling PDP, Dr Umar Ardo, who fielded questions on the issue, said that although the president has constitutional power to declare the state of emergency, was however of the opinion that there was hasty decision and  rash in its  imposition on Adamawa State.

“There are states in the north and other zones that have more security challenges than Adamawa, but to our surprise Adamawa is enlisted as one of the three states where state of emergency was imposed by Mr president.

“Instead of the whole state,the rule should have been imposed in the selected local government areas that there seems to be pockets of violence as earlier done in Yobe, Niger, Plateau and Borno states,” he said.

Borno gov speaks
Borno State governor also in a state broadcast Wednesday evening commended President Jonathan for the step he took in ensure safeguard of lives and properties of citizens and also urged citizens to cooperate with the military official in providing them with information that would help in ending the boko haram crises.

He said no responsible government would fold its arms while killings and destruction of lives and properties continued unabated.

According to Shettima, the steps President Jonathan has taken is in the right direction and what is expected of a leader.

He also called on the Boko Haram militant to see the amnesty programme as an effort by government in ensuring peaceful end to the crises.

Meanwhile, there is anxiety and tension in neighbouring states that the Boko Haram members are likely to flee to the stable and peaceful states to continue from where they stopped in the emergency-affected states.

Terrorists plotted secession —Tukur
The National Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur on Wednesday revealed that the terrorists behind the unending crises  in the Northern parts of the country had concluded plans  to secede and declare their own State before the Federal Government struck on Tuesday and declared emergency rule in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe states.

Alhaji Tukur who made the revelation in Abuja while receiving in audience a group of journalists  from Kaduna State who paid him a courtesy call said that President Goodluck Jonathan settled for emergency rule in the affected states for the sake of unity, peace and stability of Nigeria as a nation.

According to him“Mr President took the last option of declaring a State of Emergency because the terrorists were becoming more daring. They were even planning to declare a state of their own and these happened because many of us believed that the menace of terrorism has been a problem for the north alone.”

Alhaji Tukur, while expressing absolute confidence in the ability of the  nation’s armed forces and other security agencies to make the State of Emergency work in the affected states, pleaded with  politicians and other stakeholders to rally round the government with every means in their capacity to make the fight against terrorism succeed.

Speaking on why  the emergency rule was extended  to his state, Adamawa, Alhaji Tukur  said that the consideration of the government was that since Borno and Adamawa were geographically contiguous, it made a lot of sense to engage terrorists within the zones broadly in an attempt to break their network and areas of stronghold.

According to him, “both the Southern Borno and the Northern Adamawa share close affinity in social lives, ethnicism, religion, commerce and trade, such that the government needs to create a corridor and a buffer zone for engaging the terrorists in the two axis.”

Alhaji Tukur said that it was incumbent on the Federal Government to recourse to a preventive approach even in the fight against terrorists, a reason he said Adamawa fell in the list of states of the North to be safely protected if the State of Emergency should work.

He stressed the need for 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja to  join the war against terrorism in order to make the State of Emergency declared by President Jonathan work very effectively.

According to him, “though Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states will  be feeling the heats of the State of Emergency at the moment, all states of the federation must begin to guard their borders, as a proactive measure for limiting the scope and space for operations of terrorists.

How the deal was struck
Details emerged on Wednesday as to how the Federal Government struck the deal on the declaration of a state of emergency in the states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.

Sources close to the administration confirmed to the Nigerian Tribune that the determination to declare a state of emergency emerged following the killing of scores of security operatives in Nasarawa state.

The President had cut short his trip to South Africa and terminated the state visit to Namimbia following the dastardly killing of Policemen and men of the State Security Services in Nasarawa.  

The killings were immediately followed by attacks by Boko Haram jihadists in Bama village in Borno state.

It was gathered that the security meeting called by President Goodluck Jonathan gave a vivid account of findings from the intelligence networks and the failure of the political leaders of Borno and Yobe states to avail the government of the severity of the situation.

Sources told the Nigerian Tribune that it was a consensus among security chiefs that emergency situation was needed to resolve the growing insecurity in the North East.

Sources also stated that the intelligence circles gave graphic description of the situation in the North East, including the indication that Boko Haram fighters are becoming more daring and that they had apparently taken over some key border towns in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.

“There were series of meetings between the President and security chiefs. In some occasions, they would return from the Presidential villa and would be summoned again as they are settling down  in their offices,” a source said adding that it was difficult to put a finger to the number of meetings held with the President in the last one week.

It was gathered that as of last Friday evening, President Jonathan was convinced that drastic measures had to be taken to resolve the situation at hand.
The need to define the situation and the possibility of an emergency declaration made the president to open talks with the leadership of the National Assembly, a source stated, adding that the government needed to confirm the position of the lawmakers on the interpretation of Section 305 of the 1999 Constitution.

The National Assembly had persistently argued that the declaration of emergency does not envisage the removal of the democratic structures and that the constitution actually envisaged a situation where the governor and the state assembly can invite the president to declare emergency in their domain.

Some leaders of the National Assembly were said to have attended a number of meetings between Saturday and Monday morning, with a clear indication that the government was set to declare the state of emergency along the line of the thinking of the 1999 Constitution, as amended.

Sources also said that the delay in the transmission of the gazette containing the declaration of emergency was due to the need to further fine-tune the minute details of the declaration.

Senate Leader, Senator Victor Ndoma Egba, however, said on Wednesday that there was no cause for alarm, adding that the failure of the president to transmit the declaration of emergency to the National Assembly on Wednesday means the gazette was not ready.

“You start counting the days when the gazette is published and not when the announcement is made,” Ndoma-Egba told the Nigerians Tribune, adding that the time allotted to the National Assembly to affirm the declaration can only start counting after the publication of the Federal Government’s gazette.

He also said the National Assembly had remained resolute that the contemplation of Section 305 of the constitution was not to remove governors and state assembly officials.

He argued that an emergency should even make a governor stronger, rather than weaken his office, since the emergency had taken away some civil rights procedures that would ordinarily slow his operations.

“In an emergency situation, the military is in control of military operations, while the day-to-day running of the affairs lies with the governor,” Ndoma-Egba stated, adding that ordinarily, the governor should be stronger in an emergency situation.

It was also gathered that the president had contemplated a full fledged declaration of emergency in all the troubled states, including Kano, Nasarawa, Benue, Kaduna and Bauchi, but the full security report analysed at the series of meetings exonerated the other states, with a caveat that any of them could be returned to emergency rule if the situation degenerated.

Sources also confirmed to the Nigerians Tribune on Wednesday that top security chiefs were fine-tuning the details of the emergency, in collaboration with the office of the National Security Adviser and that a meeting of the security chiefs and the leaders of the two chambers of the National Assembly was planned for late night on Wednesday.

Why Adamawa was included
More facts have emerged over the inclusion of Adamawa State in the recent declaration of state of emergency, as administration official identified growing insurgency threat from northern area of Cameroon in addition to two other political reasons.

“In the last one year, the number of cross border attacks from the Cameroon area has increased dramatically. The killings like hit and run are also largely under-reported. The killings are alarming if one is to add up the number of attacks on monthly basis,” the official said.

Further checks showed that Islamists in northern Cameroon used part of Adamawa as transit and attack route, with the latest being the kidnapping of French tourists in Cameroon.

The emergency rule is said to likely focus on securing the Nigerian border region and control the influx of Islamists and terrorists.

‘Avoid excessive force’
The military has been cautioned against using excessive force in fighting the Boko Haram terrorists, since they are mixing with innocent people who could become victims of hard force.

This advice was given on Wednesday by Lieutenant-General Robert Fry, former Deputy Commanding General of the Coalition Forces in Iraq, while delivering a lecture, entitled: “The relevance of special force in contemporary military operations,” to Course 21 of the National Defence College, Abuja, where he also disclosed that amnesty approach is good as well, but could be abused.

Robert, who was also Commandant General of UK’s Royal Marines, cited many instances from the similar war being fought in Iraq and Pakistan to buttress his point that circumstances varied, adding that there was no hard and fast rule over how to use the soft and hard force in fighting terrorism.

He urged the military to first of all win the support of the people who would, in turn, be willing to help them in intelligence gathering.

According to him, although the appropriate response to terrorism is the use of military force, “but that will not lead to victory or eradication of the Boko Haram, because the government would be accused of using excessive force, this is why it must be judiciously used.”

Speaking on the proposed amnesty for the terrorists, the British General described it as an engagement device, adding that “it is not too early to introduce it, but it could be abused.”