Crowd gathers outside an area where a bomb was planted at a Christian church in Nigeria near the capital of Abuja. The Boko Haram group has claimed responsibility., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.
Defence chief, others urge caution over Boko Haram’s cease-fire pledge
TUESDAY, 29 JANUARY 2013 00:00 FROM SAXONE AKHAINE (KADUNA), KARLS TSOKAR (ABUJA) AND NJADVARA MUSA (MAIDUGURI) NEWS - NATIONAL
Nigerian Guardian
THE ceasefire pledged by the insurgent Boko Haram is being received with a pinch of salt, as the group has been given at least one month to prove that it keeps its words, the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Admiral Ola Ibrahim, has said.
Similarly, the leader of the Northern Civil Society Coalition, Shehu Sani, and former governor of old Kaduna State, Balarabe Musa, have expressed doubts over the ceasefire assurance.
Meanwhile, barely 24 hours after the Boko Haram sect announced a ceasefire, gunmen suspected to be of the same sect on Tuesday morning attacked the patrol vehicle of a private security firm, Crown Security Guards, killing its personnel, Athanasus Sabo, near the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) main entrance.
Admiral Ibrahim stated this yesterday while fielding questions from journalists in Abuja at the third Seminar on National Security, organised by the Alumni Association of National Defence College (AANDEC). He added that the excitement that had greeted the announcement not withstanding, “we must treat them with a lot of caution.”
This year’s theme, “Contemporary National Security Challenges: Policy Options,” according to the President of AANDEC, Rear Admiral A.G. Adedeji (rtd), “seeks to address the issues that had kept the entire country under some form of insecurity.
“Given that Boko Haram has continued to hit hard, the incidents of kidnapping too go on unabated and so are the crimes of armed robbery, illegal bunkering/oil thefts and pipeline vandalisation.”
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