The 7 Division of the Nigerian Army in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, has appealed to journalists to, as a matter of urgency, give a total blackout to Boko Haram activities in the country.
The army division said doing so will not only boost the confidence of members of the public but will also put fear in the heart of the sect’s members as most of them have been killed and dislodged from their camps.
Spokesman of the Division, Lt.-Colonel Mohammed Dole, made this appeal yesterday in Maiduguri in an interview with journalists on the update of the ongoing operation of the division.
He said the sect’s members were fleeing Goho and Marguba villages in Beneshiekh, the council headquarters of Kaga, where scores of the terrorists had been killed in a raid of the terrorists’ camps.
“I want to urge journalists, who mostly in the past, communicate with the spokesman of the Boko Haram sect, who have since been killed by the military to start giving a total blackout to Boko Haram attacks, as giving them publicity will not help the fight against terrorism,” he said.
Dole recalled that unlike in the past when the sects have different people as their spokesmen, who passed information on their attacks and activities, gone are those days where journalists have access to unfiltered and distorted information regarding any terror acts from the sects.
Almost all those responsible and who claimed to be spokesmen for the group have been killed or arrested by the security agencies.
On Wednesday’s military attack on the terrorists, who were sighted trying to cross over the Maiduguri-Damaturu federal highway around Beneshiekh town, Dole said, the Division is yet to ascertain the number of terrorists killed in the operation.
But the troops were able to recover two vehicles and three motorcycles used by the terrorists, before they abandoned them and run into the bushes of the Sambisa Forests.
“During the offensive on the terrorists, our troops discovered that the sect’s members are very smart as they make sure they evacuate their dead bodies and runaway with them. This tactics shows that a lot of the terrorists killed were taken over by their fleeing colleagues,” Dole said.
Though, he said the combined team of the military, who are still pursuing the fleeing terrorists, found it very difficult to penetrate the thick forests with their vehicles in the pursuance of the fleeing terrorists.
