•Boko Haram kills 5 in 2 hours raid on villages

With impunity, Boko Haram brazingly attacked two villages near Chibok, Borno State on Monday, killing five villagers in a two-hour raid. The terrorists carted away foodstuffs and livestock. This is even as Gov. Kashim Shettima blamed the society for the sect’s madness. He said provision of jobs to youths would be the antidote. Residents said some gunmen believed to be Boko Haram stormed Tohya and Wurojene villages near Chibok, where over 200 schoolgirls were abducted almost two months ago. The attackers opened fire on the residents as soon as they arrived at about 7pm on Monday, killing at least five people, Musa Yohana who lives in Chibok, said. “The attackers fired at the people and many residents fled into the bush. There was confusion everywhere as the attackers set fire on houses. They continued the attack for about two hours. They carted away foodstuffs, bags of grains and chickens belonging to our poor people,” he said. The villages are about 14 kilometres from Chibok, south of Borno which has recently witnessed many attacks including kidnapping by Boko Haram insurgents. Residents of Tohya and Wurojene are predominantly farmers who rely on their produce for feeding and economic survival. “Most of them slept in the bush throughout the night. The insurgents left after the killing and destruction without any resistance from the troops around the area,” another resident, who did not want his name in print, claimed. A security source said based on reports from the residents of the two communities, the insurgents were “very armed though not as many as they usually moved in previous attacks,” adding that soldiers around the area were not alerted on time. Meanwhile, Gov Shettima has said the current security situation in the country was as a result of the neglect by the society. Shettima, whose state had been mostly hit by insurgency, lamented that in the past two decades, Nigeria had built an uncaring society where the elite have become extremely richer, while the poor gets poorer. According to him, “we have an economy that is more touted as growing rapidly, but it is an economy that is not trickling down prosperity to the mass of our people. As I have always said, beneath the mayhem of Boko Haram lies the underlying cause which is social exclusivity and extreme poverty”. The governor said that once the nation engages the youth and create jobs, Boko Haram madness would stop. Governor Shettima, who was represented by his deputy, Alhaji Zannah Umar Mustapha, stated this in a keynote address he delivered at the conference on “Security and Human Rights in Northern Nigeria”, organized by the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), held in Kaduna yesterday. Shettima also lamented that the Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, was allegedly trivialising the Boko Haram crisis by blaming it on the state government. .He said Maku’s statement became more disturbing because, he was once the supervising Minister of Defence. “No one might ever know the extent he might have inflicted his understanding of the Boko Haram on security chiefs he had to work with. Maku spoke just days after President Goodluck Jonathan said at the Paris Summit held last month that Boko Haram attacks started in 2002. “He corroborated what we know and what had been reported, but the facts remain that for some time, this group went underground and resurfaced in various points to attack states like Borno, Yobe, Adamawa and Bauchi. In between the period they were going underground and resurfacing, one can see clearly negligence somewhere along the line,” he said. Shettima also lamented that it was unfortunate that people who were in the position of power believed that Boko Haram is an agenda to stop a southern president from doing his job. “Mohammed Yusuf, the founder of Boko Haram, was killed under President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, The attack snowballed into 2011 till date. So, what are we talking about? “I am deeply worried about the misunderstanding over the Boko Haram crisis because the solution lies in all of us understanding it and facing it with sincerity. The problem is that those who do not understand the crisis often inflict others that may include those in position to directly deal with it,” he said.