Billy Graham Abel, Yola
The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2019 governorship election in Adamawa State and former member for the House of Representatives for Gombi and Song, Emmanuel Bello, has frowned at the Nigeria’s Army’s conduct during the Boko Haram attack on Garkida town in Adamawa demanding that both the federal and state governments investigate the easy passage of Boko Haram into Garkida town without security intervention.
Bello lamented that the Boko Haram elements attacked the town for three hours unchallenged, a development which he said had “brought Garkida town under a barrage of unprovoked violent attacks by the bloodletting gang that left in their trail many homes destroyed or burnt and many lives painfully destroyed.”
The former governorship candidate stated this in a press release made available to journalists in Yola.
“The news of the recent violent attack on lives and property of the people of Garkida, February 21, 2020, by a gang of militia believed to be Boko Haram in Gombi local government of Adamawa State, is another incident that exposes the underbelly of the porous security architecture in the state and many other states in the country,” he stated.
He decried that, “since 2014, the situation in Adamawa has grown from worse to worst,” stressing that “the local security arrangements that once served as a buffer and safety belt to the people of the state have become non-existent.”
While calling on the federal government to investigate the alleged withdrawal of security personal stationed in Garkida just before the attack started and the failure to act when the insurgents held the town for over three hours, the former lawmaker described the inability to send in reinforcements to repel the insurgents “as untenable and should be investigated by the state and federal government.”
While expressing his grief and sadness over the attack on those who lost loved ones, property and investments as a result of the attack, Bello said: “The latest attack is a confirmation of a rising wave of insurgency in the Northeast and especially in Adamawa.”
“I call on both the Adamawa State government and the Federal Government to consider appropriate compensation to the affected residents.”
Emmanuel Bello’s house was among the many properties that were destroyed in the February 21st attack.
On that day Boko Haram fighters had invaded Garkida, a town in Gombi Local Government Area of Adamawa State and held the town under siege for several hours.
A source within Garkida had confirmed to Daily Sun that the community was informed of the impending attack and that they had reported the intelligence to the relevant security operatives within the town around 6 pm that evening.
The source added that the security operatives were said to have withdrawn from the area and failed to return until the insurgents had done their damage.
Grikida was one of the towns occupied by Boko Haram insurgents at the height of their onslaught in 2014.