Zulum: Military insists Boko Haram attacked Borno Governor

The Defence Headquarters (DHQ) has dismissed the allegations of Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, over the identity of who attacked him last week.

The governor's convoy ran into an ambush in the Baga area of the state on Wednesday, July 29, 2020.

The attack happened in the company of security personnel, including Nigerian Army soldiers, while the governor was on his way to some internally displaced persons (IDP) camps to supervise the distribution of palliatives.

While the military immediately blamed Boko Haram terrorists for the attack, the governor has alleged that soldiers staged the attack to prevent him from getting to Baga.

However, during an interview on Channels Television on Wednesday, August 5, DHQ spokesperson, Major-General John Enenche, said there's no truth to the governor's claims.

He said, "We investigated it immediately and the strategic level is cleared of that; operational level cleared of that, tactical level, cleared of that.

"We analysed the video. You will discover from the sound of the gunshots, it is not the professional weapons that we use.

"And of course, if you have operated with an enemy for some time - we call it enemy habit - from the analysis, it was purely that of the enemies, Boko Haram, in that area.

"From the tactics, and from the search conducted, it was the insurgents."

Major-General John Enenche said on Wednesday the attack was not a sabotage and that Governor Zulum's public remarks were worrying for the military's high command [DHQ] Pulse Nigeria

Boko Haram's insurgency in the northeast region kicked off in 2009 with the sect vowing to carve out a caliphate out of Nigeria and at some point controlling dozens of territories which it later lost over the years.

Despite its activities being significantly subdued by the military over the past few years, the group, alongside its influential faction the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), is still terrorising parts of the northeast and surrounding border areas in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger.

The group has killed over 30,000 people, and displaced over 2.5 million people.

President Muhammadu Buhari this week told service chiefs to immediately re-engineer the nation's security apparatus to effectively combat threats posed by terrorists and bandits whose activities have led to the loss of hundreds of lives this year.