Timothy Olanrewaju, Maiduguri
Survivors of the last Thursday Boko Haram attack on a commercial vehicle conveying some travelers including soldiers and police personnel on Borno highway have revealed how Boko Haram abducted seven people.
Suspected Boko Haram militants in military camouflage and two military-coloured 4-wheel drive vehicles intercepted a mini bus along Maiduguri-Damaturu highway last Thursday at about 11:40am.
Two survivors who were in another vehicle behind the mini bus told Daily Sun on condition of anonymity how the insurgents with assault rifles, stopped the driver of the vehicle conveying some travelers around Jakana town.
“A soldier came out of the Sharon car and identified himself as a personnel. He thought those who stopped the vehicles were military personnel. He didn’t know they were Boko Haram but in military uniform,” one of the survivors said.
He said the soldier had come out of the Sharon mini bus thought the men in military camouflage were soldiers he persuaded them to allow the vehicle pass as is often with military personnel in plain clothes traveling along the road.
“They asked if he was actually a soldier and he brought out his army ID card. So he was asked to stay aside while they evacuate the other commuters in the Sharon bus,” another survivor said.
A military source said his wife and a policeman were among the other six abducted from the vehicle by Boko Haram who fired several guns into the air before they zoomed off in their vehicles with the victims.
Neither the military nor the police have commented on the incident, the first of such attack on the road this year.
Barely two days earlier, the convoy of the Theatre Commander, Maj Gen Olusegun Adeniyi was attacked by the terrorists around same area. Two soldiers were wounded and the commander’s official car was badly damaged.