Residents flee Maiduguri as Boko Haram surrounds city

Residents of Maiduguri are fleeing in droves for
fear of an attack by the terror sect,Boko Haram.
An earlier attempt last Sunday was repelled by
soldiers.
But with residents whispering yesterday that
members of the sect had surrounded the city
preparatory to a fresh attempt,hundreds have
rushing out of town.
The Damaturu/Kano/ Bauchi/Jos high way which
is the only safe route in and out of the town has
been recording heavy vehicular traffic in the last
few days.
A resident of Damaturu in neighbouring Yobe
State,Aisha Abdullahi told our correspondent that
she almost called off her official trip to Maiduguri
yesterday on seeing the large number of cars
racing out of the city.
“I almost turned back looking at the way people
were leaving the town.I just don’t know where the
courage to continue the journey came from.I
prayed all through the ,” she said.
Usman Kakami Bulama who moved his seven
children to Kano said that Maiduguri residents
have not been sleeping well since President
Goodluck Jonathan’s recent campaign visit to
Maiduguri.
“I have become worried just like many other
people in Maiduguri. The city has not had this kind
of threat of recent until the president came here
and left last Saturday. We don’t sleep with our
eyes closed any longer and the tension is growing
stronger every day.
“I have never moved my family anywhere since this
problem started but I am afraid that this time
around something dangerous will happen. It is
better for my family to leave and I stay alone than
all of us staying here. It does not make sense
though its painful and the cost implication is also
there,” Bulama said.
Hundreds of people besieged motor parks on
Damaturu/Kano road on their way out of the city.
Many of them said they might return to after the
election.
Augustina Andrew who was travelling to the
Southeast with her two children mentioned said: “if
Nigeria is alive after May 29, 2015, I will come
back otherwise, it is bye bye to Maiduguri”.
Abaganna Yunusa however dismissed the threat on
Maiduguri by Boko Haram, saying :“Let them come
inside Maiduguri, they will see fire. The day they
enter Maiduguri will be their last day. We are
going to kill all of them. Enough is enough. We are
tired of them.”
The army has remained silent on the feared attack.
Commercial activities are however going on
smoothly in the metropolis. Commercial
institutions like banks are still operating in the city
while schools, both private and public are also in
session.
The magazine—Newsweek—yesterday quoted John
Campbell, former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria and
editor of the Nigeria Security Tracker – a tool
which monitors violence in the West African
country – as saying: “In terms of the encirclement
of Maiduguri, we try to track the villages that Boko
Haram occupies around Maiduguri and indeed it
looks like a noose.”
Boko Haram launched an offensive on the city last
week to coincide with the visit of U.S. secretary of
state John Kerry to the capital, Lagos, to meet with
both presidential candidates, incumbent Goodluck
Jonathan and opposition leader Muhammadu
Buhari.