Army restricts vehicular movement during sallah in Borno

“Similarly, all vehicular movements into and out of Maiduguri town will also be restricted within the period till further notice”. People consider the curfew as a kind of postponement of the celebration. “What the government should have done was to maximise the security and allow people to move”.

“I am afraid. I am not going to any mosque to observe the Eid prayers because nobody is sure”. My business is usually closed on Sunday because I don’t work during this day, as part of my religion.

According to Ali Mohammed, the owner of a children clothing boutique in Maiduguri, the government should come up with alternative plans.

President Muhammadu Buhari has given his new military high command until early November to end the rebellion, which has claimed at least 17,000 lives and made more than two million homeless since 2009.

Col. Tukur Gusau, the army’s deputy director for public relations, said the decision had been taken with a view to preempting potential security threats during the annual Islamic festival.

Who are Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorists?

The Vanguard newspaper reported that the arrest Boko Haram Commander, Bulama Modu, who had been on the wanted list of security agencies, even as another 241 hostages, particularly women and children were rescued.

A youth vigilante Idris Baba, said the Monguno attack happened at about the same time 54 persons were killed through bombs planted by members of the Boko Haram Islamic sect in Maiduguri on Sunday.

In neighboring Adamawa state, a university opened after Boko Haram was forced out by the military has hired local hunters to defend students and staff from Boko Harm attacks. Boko Haram’s leader Abubakar Shekau last weekend dismissed the military’s assertion the group was a spent force as “lies”. They are actually the ones whom we have driven away.

Since the turn of the year, troops – assisted by counterparts from neighbouring Cameroon, Chad and Niger – have clawed back captured towns and villages and apparently hit the rebels’ capacity to fight.