Boko Haram murder 8 as Nigeria’s election gets delayed, nearly 200 terrorists surrender in Cameroon
Boko Haram fighters have killed eight people in an attack in Nigeria’s northeastern city of Maiduguri, a leader of a civilian task force said. This attack occurred hours before Nigeria’s electoral commission announced it was postponing Saturday’s presidential and parliamentary elections by a week.
Two residents were shot dead and two suicide bombers blew themselves up in Friday’s attack on Maiduguri’s Jiddari Polo neighborhood.
The Islamic terrorist group overran a military base north of Maiduguri on Thursday, stealing an armored vehicle and torching buildings in the attack. “Several soldiers” went missing in the Thursday’s attack, two military sources spoke to the media on condition of anonymity.
A day earlier, at least four people were killed when Boko Haram terrorists struck a convoy belonging to the governor of northeast Nigeria’s Borno state, of which Maiduguri is the capital.
President Muhammadu Buhari is running for a second term, and his main rival and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has used the spread of those aligned to an Islamic State against Buhari.
Atiku has seized on Buhari’s failure to defeat the terrorists, while the president claims the “insurgency” has weakened.
In nearby Cameroon Thursday, nearly 200 Boko Haram members broke from the jihadist group to return home and surrender to the authorities.
“They don’t represent any danger or any risk – quite the opposite, everything will be put in place for them to resocialize, learn the spirit of patriotism and public duty,” provincial governor Midjiyawa Bakari said.