-40 dead in Adamawa, three in Maiduguri
-Security chiefs move to Mubi
THE drums may have been silent on Independence Day. Not so the guns of yet unknown assailants who stormed Mubi, Adamawa State’s second major town, on Monday.
No fewer than 40 students were killed by the gunmen who unleashed a storm of bullets on a community where students live. But the police said 25 people died.
There are three higher institutions of learning in the town – the Adamwa State University, the Federal Polytechnic and the School of Health Technology.
Three students of the University of Maiduguri were killed also on Monday.
The three were murdered by unknown assailants in their apartments at 202 Housing Estate.
Residents of the estate said the assailants sneaked into the area and killed two of the students – a woman and a man. The third was said to have escaped through the back door but was shot.
“He died in the hospital. He was a friend from southern Borno but his father is in Abuja,” one of his colleagues who identified himself as Ezekiel, said.
The bodies of two of the slain students were discovered at an isolated area near the Maiduguri Water Treatment Plant.
The killing of the students has heightened tension among parents and residents.
However, the University of Maiduguri said it cannot comment on the incident for now. “I’m sorry, we can’t comment on the incident now,” Chief Information Officer of the institution, Ahmed Tanko Mohammed said.
Wuro Fatuje, a suburb of Mubi where off campus students stay, was attacked by the gunmen at about 10pm, according to sources.
The curfew in the town, which had been in place since the security swoop last month, was slightly relaxed on Monday because of the 52nd Independence anniversary events.
Mubi is the town where 13 Igbo traders were killed during a village meeting in January. Most of them hailed from Anambra State.
The Boko Haram sect has also been operating almost unchallenged in the town where people have been killed and GSM equipment destroyed.
Last month, after a swoop by security men, two bomb factories were destroyed. Not less than 300 Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) and 25 assorted brands riffles were recovered.
Boko Haram Kingpin – Abubakar Yola (a.k.a. Abu Jihad) was killed during the ‘Operation Restore Sanity’.
The casualty figure in Monday’s bloodshed was unclear.
“I counted about 16 bodies being evacuated after the shooting and I cannot really say whether all of them were dead or not,” a resident, who pleaded for anonymity, said.
Another said he counted over 20 bodies, pointing out that both students of the polytechnic and those of the nearby School of Health Technology were tenants in a hostel that was attacked. The facility houses over 50 students.
Adamawa Police spokesman Mohammed Ibrahim confirmed that 25 people were killed, 19 of them students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that the embattled town of Mubi had been under curfew since the past 10 days, following series of killings and destruction of communication masts.
The 24-hour curfew was relaxed to 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. five days ago by the State Government, following some arrests and recovery of explosives in the house-to-house search in the commercial border town.
The president of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi Students Union, Elias Pwanidi, told our correspondent on the telephone, that six bodies, of the 34 that he claimed were killed, had been identified at the Mubi General Hospital Mortuary.
He said the majority of those killed were students of the institution who were preparing for the start of second semester examination yesterday.
He listed some of the dead as including: Chimonbi Festus (Civil Engineering HNDI) the PRO of the students union and Lucky Emmanuel (ND II) the outgoing president of the Mass Communication Students Union.
Others are: Ishaku Ibrahim (ND II Mass Communication), Ayo (surname unavailable) ND I Electrical Engineering and Emmanuel (surname unavailable) HNDI Electrical Engineering.
The Nation could not confirm the names last night as the school’s authorities could not be reached.
Many injured – some critically – in the attacks which lasted more that one hour are on admission at the Mubi General Hospital.
The shootings kept the city residents awake all night.
A source said 40 bodies were deposited at the Mubi General Hospital, adding that as at yesterday morning, more bodies were still being recovered from the scene of the attack.
The incident came barely a week after the Joint Military Task Force recorded a major breakthrough arresting over 156 suspected terrorists and discovering a local bomb manufacturing factory as well as a cache of arms and ammunition.
The Brigade Commander of 23 Armoured Brigade, Yola, Brigadier General John Nwoaga, Commissioner of Police Goeffrey Okereke, Director of State Security Service (SSS) and other Service Commanders have relocated to Mubi.
A Federal Polytechnic spokesman said it was a “commando style attack”.
The spokesman said the unknown gunmen invaded the area, shooting sporadically at any moving person, for over one hour.
“There was heavy gun fire of different calibers around 10 pm till 11pm, when it subsided.”
He said 26 students of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi are among the dead. While the others are students of the other two institutions in the town.
The internal joint security task force headed by Brig-Gen. Nwoaga and Police Commissioner Geofrey Okeke, were rushing reinforcements to Mubi.
Some agencies gave another account of the attacks.
“They are conducting elections in the Federal Polytechnic and unknown gunmen just entered and sprayed people with bullets,” said Abdulkarim Bello of the Red Cross, adding that more than 10 people were killed.
A National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) spokesman said initial reports indicated some of the victims were candidates in the polls.
There were conflicting reports over whether the elections were being held or had been carried out in previous days.
“It was shooting by unknown gunmen,” said the agency’s Yushau Shuaib. “A number of people died.”
A military spokesman confirmed that there was an incident involving gunmen, but could not provide further details.
“I am now on my way to Mubi in the company of other security officials,” Lt. Saleh Mohammed Buba told AFP. “There was an incident at the polytechnic involving some gunmen.”
The killings caused an exodus from the town by both students and staff of the institutions.
A lecturer on condition of anonymity said he learnt that about 40 bodies had been deposited at Mubi General Hospital Mortuary.
Some of the fleeing lecturers of the polytechnic, who are not authorised to speak, said they saw at least 10 truckloads of soldiers and riot policemen moving into the troubled town.
Some of the students were said to have converged on the Rector’s home with their luggage as early as 7am yesterday.
The BBC had earlier reported that “at least 20 students have been shot dead by unknown gunmen in Mubi, north-eastern Nigeria”, a police source.
“The attack happened at a student hostel away from the Federal Polytechnic Mubi campus,” the source said.
A lecturer told the BBC that more than 40 students had been killed.
The reported killing comes days after a major operation against the Boko Haram militant group in the town.
The lecturer, who did not want his name to be used, told the BBC’s Hausa Service that the students were asked to say their names after lining up.
He says it is not clear why some were killed and others spared – some of those killed were Muslims.
“Everybody is scared and staying indoors now,” he said.
He added that students were now leaving the town, many with tree branches over their cars- a traditional sign of neutrality in Nigeria.
Mubi is in Adamawa state, which has a mixed Muslim and Christian population and borders Borno State, where Boko Haram came to prominence in 2009, staging an uprising in the state capital, Maiduguri.
Boko Haram has not yet commented on the Mubi attacks.
