Boko Haram: Nigerian army urged to review telecom ban

Nigeria’s military authorities ban on telephone services in the states where emergency rule is in force has given birth to an unintended consequence: preventing the people from alerting the security men about security breaches.


An elder statesman in Yobe state, where a massacre of 42 people, many of them students of the Government Secondary School, Mamudo took place early Saturday, has called on the authorities to review the ban.
The review, he said, has become necessary to enable the people “to provide the security with relevant and timely information.’’

“The attack on the secondary school in Damaturu three weeks ago would have been averted if there were telephone services to communicate with the JTF because, the residents noticed suspicious movements some hours before the attack,” he said

Hassan Yusuf also urged the Federal Government to equip the Security Joint Task Force (JTF) with sophisticated gadgets and weapons to effectively combat terrorism.

“It is practically impossible to manually search all the vehicles traveling on Nigeria’s highways.

“The JTF cannot effectively search cars and other long vehicles with tonnes of haulage traveling across the country without sophisticated gadgets including detectors,’’ he said.

The elder statesman regretted that the security operatives and people traveling across the state were losing several hours to stop and search operations which were not properly done due to limited working equipment.

He commended the security operatives for improving army and civilian relationship in the state since the declaration of emergency by Federal Government.

“Initially, the relation was suspicious between the security and the civilian populace but the army later developed a relationship based on trust and confidence which encouraged the people to provide the security with useful information,’’ he added.

Hassan charged the authorities to expose those sponsoring insurgency in the country .
“A lot of people have been arrested but Nigerians have not been told of the brains behind sponsorship of these groups and, I think everything should be laid on the table for everyone to see those involved in insurgency.’’

Hassan Yusuf was interviewed by the News Agency of Nigeria.