The military on Monday said it is worried about the
trend of some locals in the northeast declining to provide useful
information to security agencies.
At least 43 farmers were killed in a deadly assault in
Zabarmari, Borno on Saturday by suspected Boko Haram
terrorists.
The United Nations has said the death toll is as high as
110.
The attack was one of the latest in a series of violent events
being reported across the northeast.
READ ALSO: Governor Zulum Leads Residents To
Bury Farmers Killed By Boko Haram
But military spokesman, Major-General John Enenche, while
appearing on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, said
some local residents reduce the military’s effectiveness to combat
the insecurity scourge in the region by not providing relevant
information.
“That has been our worry,” he said. “It’s a concern to us. You
need a guide, you need information. Will they tell us? That’s a
question that we have to ask. Yes, sometimes. And most times, no.
And that was one of the issues we have been ensuring to overcome,
with civil-military cooperation activities, reaching out to them,
even sending people by proxy to talk to them.
“Those are the things that have been one of the banes of the
final success in the whole of this operation.
“Our patrols will pass through a route, in a village. By the
time you are going, some people are looking at you. When you are
coming back, the next thing is that you meet an IED planted on the
road. And people saw them, they won’t tell you. So that’s the area
I think we are all working together as stakeholders.
“And it is not possible to force information out of people. It’s
not possible, just like they say you force a horse to the river,
but not to drink water. So all we are trying to do is to build up
their confidence in the system and encourage them that look, this
is not good for you. Now they do not expect that this will happen,
even those ones that they deceived, that they are preaching to
them.”
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43 Bodies Counted, Yet
Responding to the United Nation’s report on Sunday that 110
people had been killed in the Zabarmari attack, Enenche said the
military’s casualty count still stood at 43.
“I have to respond, it is coming from the United Nations,” he
said. “This is a source that identified itself that 110 persons
specifically were killed.”
According to him, military officials accompanied Governor
Babagana Zulum to the site of the killings where the 43 bodies were
counted.
But some persons had earlier fled the scene, as they tried to
escape the onslaught.
The spokesman added that the military is still searching for
casualties.
“Probably we may count up to the figure he gave in the future,”
Enenche said. “But as it is, up till the time I came here, what we
have counted with the locals is still 43. And we are hoping that we
don’t get beyond that. So that’s the real situation.”
Replacing the Service Chiefs
The Zabarmari attack has intensified calls for the nation’s
service chief to be sacked.
The hashtag #SackTheServiceChiefs was one of the top trending
topics on the social media site Twitter on Monday morning.
When asked what the Military’s position was on the issue of
refreshing the military top hierarchy, Enenche declined to
respond.
“You are not being fair to me, asking me that question about
change of service chiefs,” he said. “It is beyond me.”