Nigeria: Arrests And Repression Of Boko Haram Is Not Enough

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Military repression alone is not enough to resolve the Boko Haram emergency, said to MISNA Father John Tagwana, head of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Maiduguri diocese in north-east Nigeria, where clashes, summary executions and arrests of militants continue.

“The Boko Haram are strong for two reasons: due to the support of top political figures, such as the former governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff, and the social and economic crisis, which in the Maiduguri diocese is even stronger in respect to the Kano area or others areas of northern Nigeria”, added Fr. Tagwana.

Nigeria
Nigeria

Fr. Tagwana spoke to MISNA from Mubi, a city in the State of Adamawa, which since Sunday is theater to a joint army-police offensive against the group.

According to the online This Day news service, 150 Boko Haram militants were arrested in the raid and Abubakar Yola, considered the commander of the group, was killed. The police also sequestered 300 explosives, 25 containers of rifles and an unspecified number of Kalashnikov rifles.

Mubi is around 400km from Damaturu, another city of the diocese of Maiduguri, where the offensive is concentrating. According to some media correspondents, soldiers and police searched hundreds of homes in the city for combatants or suspected supporters of the Boko Haram. Some residents reported that 50 homes were torched or destroyed.

MISNA

MISNA, or the Missionary International Service News Agency, provides daily news ‘from, about and for’ the 'world’s Souths', not just in the geographical sense, since December 1997.

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