The Honourable Minister of Interior Lt Gen (rtd) Abdulrahman Bello Dambazau has said that Nigeria is collaborating with UNHCR through the Technical Working Group to actualize the voluntary repatriation of the refugees in safety and dignity. Gen. Dambazau disclosed this during the opening ceremony of the Technical Session of the Second Regional Protection Dialogue on the Lake Chad Basin holding in Abuja.

Represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Dr Mohammed Bello Umar, the Minister said, in line with international best practices, biometric capturing of IDPs/Nigerian returnees from Chad, Cameroon and Niger was conducted before resettling them. While enumerating the Federal Government’s achievements on the 2016 action statement, Gen. Dambazau stated that government has ensured ongoing capacity building workshops on strengthening state actors’ response to sexual and gender based violence, sexual agencies in four states which are: “Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno and Gombe”.

He said further that a tripartite agreement for voluntary repatriation of Nigerian refugees in Cameroon was signed in March 2017. Adding that Nigerian military and para-military agencies have collaborated in providing escorts to and during relief material distribution in the affected areas. Gen. Dambazau emphasized that a lot was being done to provide care, maintenance and livelihoods support to refugees and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in different parts of the country.

In her speech at the occasion, the Federal Commissioner for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced Persons, Hajiya Sadiya Farouq said that the Commission have increased the pace of registration, documentation and addressing of nationality issues of affected persons, adding “especially the new arrivals from Cameroon”. Hajiya Farouq said “We have equally developed the Convention Travel Document for Refugees to take the routine refugees status determination to a higher level. We have established new field offices and expanded existing ones in the six geopolitical zones of the country in order to enhance our capacity to provide protection and support services to persons of concern wherever they may be in Nigeria,” she said. Mrs Farouq noted that significant progress has been made in ending the Boko Haram insurgency.

According to her, Nigeria had demonstrated its commitment to implementing the Abuja Action Summit. The Abuja Action Statement on Protection was declared and adopted in June 2016 Four nations in the Lake Chad Basin region namely: Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon Republics, under the technical facilitation of the UNHCR jointly agreed to address the needs of refugees. The four nations agreed to proactively enhance protection and respond to the urgent needs of refugees, IDPs and other affected populations in the region.

Boko Haram militants attacked two military bases in northeast Nigeria’s Borno State, near the border with Cameroon, injuring six soldiers, two military sources told AFP on Sunday.

The attacks were the latest against military targets in the region, with security becoming a major campaign issue ahead of presidential and legislative elections next month.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who came to power in 2015 on a pledge to end the militancy, is seeking re-election in the February 16 polls.

Early on Sunday, troops fought off an attack by militants believed to be from the Abubakar Shekau faction of Boko Haram in the town of Pulka, along the border with Cameroon.

“The terrorists attacked around 1:15 am (0015 GMT) and soldiers engaged them in a 30-minute fight, forcing them to withdraw,” a military officer said in an account confirmed by another officer.

The militants’ intention was to attack and loot the town after overrunning the base, said the officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Late on Saturday, militants from the same faction attacked another base in Logomani Village near the town of Gamboru, leading to a fight that left six soldiers injured.

“Troops came under attack by Boko Haram terrorists who came in four gun trucks around 6:30 pm (1730 GMT),” the second officer told AFP.

“Six soldiers were wounded from bomb fragments,” he said.

Boko Haram has intensified attacks on military targets in the region over the past several months.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the militants attacked three bases in Borno and neighboring Yobe State, stealing weapons and burning the bases.

Boko Haram’s militancy in northeast Nigeria has claimed 27,000 lives since 2009.

More than two million people have also been forced to flee their homes, triggering a humanitarian crisis in the region.

(Source: Agencies)

A Nigerian Air Force helicopter crashed in combat, killing five crew members, as fighting raged against extremists for control of the strategic town of Baga in the northeast, the military said Thursday.

The crash occurred Wednesday at Damasak in northern Borno state, according to a tweet by air force spokesman Ibikunle Daramola. Officials did not say what caused the crash.

The military has been fighting to regain control of Baga, which the extremists seized last week. The town is a key base for a multinational force fighting the extremists. Many residents have fled to the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.

The fighting for Baga has been intense, the chief of army training and operations, Maj. Gen. Lamidi Adeosun, told reporters. “It’s a ding-dong situation but we are engaging them,” he said last week. “We are not in total control but Boko Haram have not taken control of Baga, either.”

The base in Baga, close to the border with Chad, has weapons, ammunition and other equipment that are a key target for the extremists, who also overran the base in 2015.

The Islamic State West Africa Province, an offshoot of the decade-old Boko Haram extremist group and the largest IS-linked extremist group in Africa, claimed to kill or wound “dozens” of soldiers in the latest attack, according to the SITE Intelligence Group that monitors extremist communiques.

Fifty-three police are missing, according to a senior police officer in Maiduguri, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

Use of drones

Nigeria’s defense minister, Mannir Dan-Ali, on Wednesday reiterated the military’s commitment to ending Boko Haram’s insurgency. He spoke to the press while on his way to neighboring Chad to discuss extremist activity in border areas.

Nigeria’s government recently confirmed the extremists had begun using drones, calling it a “critical factor” in a rise in attacks against military bases. The military rarely announces death tolls, but the government in November acknowledged dozens of soldier deaths.

President Muhammadu Buhari at the time held an urgent meeting with member countries to “enhance the capacity” of the multinational force.

The nearly decade-old Boko Haram insurgency has been blamed for some 20,000 deaths and thousands of abductions. The unrest and displacement of millions of hungry people have turned northeastern Nigeria into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Source: AP

Amnesty International says clashes between farmers and semi-nomadic herders in Nigeria have left more than 3,600 people dead since 2016. The UK-based rights group, in a report on Monday,documented an upsurge in communal violence involving chiefly Muslim herders and mainly Christian farmers fighting over land and water rights.

“The Nigerian authorities’ failure to investigate communal clashes and bring perpetrators to justice has fuelled a bloody escalation in the conflict between farmers and herders across the country, resulting in at least 3,641 deaths in the past three years and the displacement of thousands more,” Amnesty said.

The report said 310 attacks had been recorded between January 2016 and October 2018, most of them in 2018. “These attacks were well planned and coordinated, with the use of weapons like machine guns and AK-47 rifles,” said Osai Ojigho, Amnesty’s Nigeria director.

“Yet, little has been done by the authorities in terms of prevention, arrests and prosecutions, even when information about the suspected perpetrators was available,” she said.

An international rights group urges the International Criminal Court to launch a full-blown probe into the atrocities committed during the Boko Haram terror group’s campaign of violence in Nigeria.

Experts say climate change and expanding agriculture have aggravated the herder-farmer conflict over land and water. The International Crisis Group said in July that the farmer-herder conflict killed six times more people than the war with the Boko Haram terror group in the first half of 2018,

Ojigho further said, “In some places, because of the failures of the security forces, competition over resources is used as a pretext to kill and maim along ethnic or religious lines.”

“The conflict has also been dangerously politicized by some state government officials who have inflamed tensions by embarking on a blame game along political party lines,” she said.

The latest report could affect the results of the upcoming elections, in which President Muhammadu Buhari is seeking a new term. Buhari has been under fire for adopting a soft position on the herders, who come – like the president — from the Fulani ethnic group.

The administration of Buhari, who came to power on a pledge to eradicate militancy and corruption, has also been under scrutiny for failing to end the Boko Haram terror group’s campaign of violence in Nigeria’s restive northeast.

Abuja announced in 2015 that Boko Haram – which is affiliated to the Takfiri Daesh terror group, had been “largely defeated” in the northeast, but a multitude of Boko Haram attacks indicate the group’s active presence in that region.

In the latest instance of violence, Boko Haram terrorists on Sunday stormed a village near the city of Maiduguri, Borno State, firing indiscriminately and setting fire to homes there overnight. It was not clear if there were any casualties in the attack, which forced hundreds of people to flee.

A military source said troops and fighter jets were deployed to the scene and pushed out the militants after a “fierce battle.” Boko Haram has in recent months launched numerous attacks in a bid to capture Maiduguri, the birthplace of its founder, Mohammed Yusuf.

Over the past few years, at least27,000 have been killed and more than two million people displaced from theirhomes by Boko Haram.

Source: Presstv

Nigeria’s president has finally broken his silence about the deaths of dozens of soldiers killed by Islamist militants a week ago in the northeastern state of Borno.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s office issued a statement Saturday, saying that he had “expressed deep shock over the killing of military personnel.”

“Immediate measures are being taken to ensure that the loopholes which led to the fatalities are blocked once and for all,” according to the statement.

The president said he will meet with military and intelligence chiefs “in the coming days” to plan their “next steps.”

At least 40 soldiers were reported to have been killed Nov. 18 at a military base in the village of Metele.

Security sources, however, told Reuters that around 100 Nigerian soldiers were killed in the attack that they say was carried out by the Islamic State in West Africa.

The Nigerian Army did not acknowledge the attack until Friday and has not provided information about casualties.

Source: VOA

The Nigerian Army has confirmed one of the the deadliest attacks by Boko Haram on its troops with the known casualty figures rising as high as a hundred slain soldiers.

The Army in a statement on Friday said the attack on 157 Task Force Battalion at Matele indeed took place.

“Whilst it is true that there was an attack on the location on 18 November 2018, it has however, become necessary to correct several misinformation being circulated with regards to this unfortunate event,” the statement read in part.

The army explained that its delay in relaying the incident was because of procedural issues on having to inform the next of kin of affected troops before going public with such information.

Whiles claiming there was misinformation in figures and videos currently circulating on social media, the army failed to provide a casualty figure. They also urged against spread of Boko Haram propaganda materials.

“Furthermore, it suffices to observe that several social media, print and online publications have been brandishing false casualty figures as well as circulating various footages of old and inaccurate BHT propaganda videos and alluding same to be the attack on 157 Task Force Battalion.

“Whilst it is understandable how such misinformation can spread in this era of social media frenzy, the spurious circulation of some of these videos only contribute to further propagate the propaganda intent of the terrorists; to misinform the populace and portray themselves as what they are not.

“So far, the situation is that the location is under control as reinforcing units have been able to repel the terrorists and stabilize the situation,” the statement added.

Meanwhile the local news portal, The Nation Nigeria quotes an unnamed soldier that escaped the attack as saying an advanced team of the insurgents came into the based as friendly forces and went into the office of the commander where they fired at him and five other soldiers that were with him in his office.

The Army command in Maiduguri have evacuated bodies of soldiers killed by Boko Haram insurgents on Sunday at Metele village in Guzamala Local Government Area of North Borno State, the portal added.

Source: Africa News

Boko Haram militants have attacked three military bases in northeast Nigeria, putting the spotlight on insecurity in Nigeria just three months before presidential polls.

On Sunday, militants attacked a base in Metele, a remote village in northeast Borno state, near the Niger border.

Troops were “dislodged” from the base before it was reclaimed with aerial support, a military officer in the northeast told AFP.

“There are still no details of human or material losses,” said the officer, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak on the incident.

The same day, militants also launched a pre-dawn attack on another base in the town of Gajiram, some 80 kilometers north of the Borno state capital, Maiduguri.

“Soldiers fought off the insurgents after hours of fighting which lasted up to 5:30 am (0430 GMT),” said Kulo Gana, who lives 60 kilometers away in the garrison town of Monguno.

On Saturday, Boko Haram attacked a base in the town of Mainok, killing a soldier and seizing a truck from civilian militia fighting the militants.

“They faced stiff resistance from soldiers who fought them for an hour before the terrorists withdrew,” said a militia member in the town.

“We lost a soldier in that Mainok attack,” the military officer said.

Militants claim responsibility

Both Metele and Gajiram have been attacked in the past six months, underlining the persistent threat that Boko Haram poses to the ravaged region.

Boko Haram claimed Monday to have killed 42 troops in the Metele and Mainok attacks, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors militant activities.

The militant group said it killed “more than 40 Nigerian soldiers” in Metele and two more in Mainok, in addition to carting away “four tanks” and other vehicles and ammunition.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Texas Chukwu told AFP he had “no information” about any attacks. Neither claim could be independently verified.

Attacks on bases have increased in recent months and claims that the military has played down casualties.

The military said it repelled an attack on a base in Kekeno village, near Monguno, on Friday, in the second attempted takeover in two months.

Boko Haram also claimed another attack on a base in Kareto, 150 kilometers north of Maiduguri, last Wednesday.

More than 27,000 people are thought to have been killed in the nine-year militancy that has triggered a humanitarian crisis and left 1.8 million people without homes.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former army general who was elected in 2015 on a promise to defeat Boko Haram, is seeking re-election at polls in February.

His government maintains that the militancy is close to defeat.

(Source: AFP)