Nigeria has banned all cars, public transport, horses, donkeys and camels in Borno state to prevent an attack by militant group Boko Haram over the Muslim Eid al-Adha holiday.
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Some 40,000 personnel are to be deployed across the country to ensure security, particularly at vulnerable locations such as markets, places of worships and bus stations. “The government should have learned from the past”, he told IBTimes UK. People also slaughter lambs during Eid, but because of the restriction, the price of the lamb has risen and this is not good.
The explosions also followed a warning from Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari that “conventional” Boko Haram attacks were decreasing but that suicide and homemade bomb outrages could continue.
This was disclosed on Wednesday by Deputy Director, Army Public Relations, Colonel Tukur Gusau via a statement.
President Buhari assures all Nigerians that the days of Boko Haram are numbered.
The group declared an Islamic caliphate in Gwoza, along the Cameroon border, in August 2014.
Amnesty global said earlier this year that Boko Haram had seized more than 2,000 women and girls since January 2014, as part of their quest to establish a hardline Islamic state in the region. The Nigerian army recently slammed an audio message release by the group as “cheap propaganda” and called for its leader, believed to be still Abubakar Shekau, to step down.
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.
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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.
