A suicide bombing at a Shiite ceremony killed at
least 15 people in northeastern Nigeria on
Monday while 132 inmates were at large after a
daring prison break.
The attack in Potiskum, the commercial capital of
Yobe state, came as Shia Muslims marked
Ashura, the anniversary of the death of Hussein,
the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.
The prison break saw armed gunmen use
dynamite to blast open the detention facility in
central Kogi state late on Sunday, more than two
years after Boko Haram launched an attack at the
same facility.
Meanwhile in Adamawa state, also northeast
Nigeria, tens of thousands of people fled their
homes to refugee camps after the militants seized
control of the commercial hub of Mubi.
The three incidents underscored fragile security in
Nigeria and again looked likely to dent
government claims of a ceasefire deal and peace
talks to end five years of deadly Boko Haram
violence.
The group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, on Friday
dismissed the government’s assertion of talks
and an end to hostilities as “a lie”.
He also claimed that the 219 schoolgirls
kidnapped in mid-April, whose plight caught world
attention, had all converted to Islam and been
“married off”.
– Ashura attack –
In Potiskum, police and eye-witnesses said a
bomb went off 10 metres (32 feet) from a
seminary where Shia worshippers had gathered
for the Ashura festival after visiting the local
emir’s palace.
“We lost 15 of our members in a suicide blast at
the end of our Ashura procession,” the head of
the city’s Shiite community, Mustapha Lawan
Nasidi, told AFP.
Fifty people were also injured, he said, adding
that several others died when troops who
deployed to the scene opened fire. There was no
immediate response from the military.
Potiskum is the economic capital of Yobe, which
with Borno and Adamawa states have been under
emergency rule since May of last year because of
the insurgency.
The area has seen repeated violence, including
attacks on the minority Shiite community.
In July, four Shiites were killed in a bomb attack
blamed on the Sunni Islamists of Boko Haram at
an open-air mosque in the Dogo Tebo area of the
city.
– Prison break –
In Kogi, national police spokesman Emmanuel
Ojukwu said unidentified gunmen blew up the
prison with explosives late on Sunday, allowing
scores to escape.
Jacob Edi, spokesman for Kogi’s Governor Idris
Wada, added: “There were 145 prisoners at the
time of the attack.
“One died, eight have been recaptured and four
surrendered voluntarily. The rest are at large.”
Kogi is far south of Boko Haram’s main area of
operations but the Islamists claimed a prison raid
at the same facility in 2012 that freed more than
100 inmates.
Many of the group’s fighters were thought to
have been held at the targeted Koton Karfi
prison.
Ojukwu said the raid was not linked to the five-
year Islamist uprising, blaming it instead on
“criminal activity.”
Nevertheless, Boko Haram have previously made
a prisoner swap a condition for the release of
schoolgirls, who were seized from the town of
Chibok in Borno state on April 14.
Other prison breaks such as the March 14 raid on
a military detention facility in the Borno state
capital, Maiduguri, have been linked to Boko
Haram’s need to replenish its ranks.
– Mubi overrun –
In Adamawa, the National Emergency
Management Agency (NEMA) said they had
recorded at least 10,496 internally displaced
people in five camps in the state capital, Yola,
after violence in Mubi.
Thousands of residents from Mubi, which is
Adamawa’s second-largest town, have fled in the
past week after Boko Haram’s take-over of the
town last Wednesday.
Mubi, which is 200 kilometres (120 miles) from
Yola with a population of 150,000 is the
commercial hub of Adamawa state and has been
repeatedly attacked by Boko Haram.
The town has seen an influx of thousands of
residents from nearby towns and villages seized
by Boko Haram in the past two months.
Hundreds of residents were still reportedly
trapped in Mubi.
Nigerian soldiers reportedly fled to the town of
Hong, 100 kilometres from Yola, according to
residents who saw them en route.
In Mubi itself, resident Saleh Abdullahi said Boko
Haram “came with their women and children and
are now in firm control”.
“They move about in vehicles and on foot
patrolling the streets and keep telling people we
are now under the authority of an Islamic state,”
Abdullahi said.
Source Vanguard.
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