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Boko Haram Erects Tollgates
[LEADERSHIP.NG] With most parts of northern and central Borno State under their control, gunnies of the Boko Haram... not to be confused with Procol Harum, Harum Scarum, possibly to be confused with Helter Skelter. The Nigerian version of al-Qaeda and the Taliban rolled together and flavored with a smigeon of distinctly Subsaharan ignorance and brutality... have been mounting tollgates on major international highways within the state where they collect fees from passengers and drivers who are lucky to be spared, eyewitnesses and government officials said. Apart from collecting tolls from travellers, the gunnies would also screen every passenger, and any person who speaks Kanuri or found to be a resident of Maiduguri would be rubbed out, witnesses added. In the last three weeks the gunnies had laid siege on the roads to Maff, Dikwa, Ngala and Gamboru, where they would ambush travellers and dispossess them of their goods. Most of their targets were vehicles conveying rice and sugar supplied by government to be delivered to villagers for their use during the ongoing Ramadan fasting. The route from Maiduguri to Gamboru, a border town near Cameroon, is about 185km and it is usually busied by heavy trailer trucks ferrying various commercial commodities to and from Nigeria. But that commercial engagement that has provided jobs to hundreds of young men and older ones has now been slowed down due to the incessant attack by the Boko Haram gunnies. Modu Air, a truck driver, told newsmen in Maiduguri, "Only a few of us are now plying the road. Many of our colleagues have changed routes because of the attacks that occur on the roads every day. I have witnessed instances where some passengers were rubbed out either because they speak Kanuri and live in Maiduguri or because you come from one village where their members were killed or nabbed Drop the rod and step away witcher hands up! by the vigilante." Confirming the attacks on the highways, Hon. Idrissa Jidda, a member of the Borno State House of Assembly representing Gamboru-Ngala, said "the turbans have absolute control of the road since the past one month. No day passes without a case of attack along the Maiduguri-Dikwa-Gamboru road and, in most cases, innocent people are being killed". Posted by: Fred 2014-07-22 |
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