The commander of the Joint Task Force, Major-General Jack Okechukwu Nwaogbo, confirmed this to the Nigerian Tribune in Maiduguri, on Sunday.
“I was there and I counted eight people that were killed, while 15 others were injured,” he said.
Although other details of the incident could not be ascertained at the time of filing this report, eyewitnesses revealed that many persons were killed in the blast which occurred in the middle of the usually congested beer market.
In another development, suspected Boko Haram gunmen, on Saturday, killed four persons in Bulabulin-Ngaranaram and Galadima wards of Maiduguri, Borno State, leaving retired soldier, Pa Joseph, 59, who was shot when they climbed the wall of his residence around 1.45 p.m injured.
The victims were Abba Panama, a bricklayer, 45; Sani Umar, a student of School of Nursing, Maiduguri, 25; Apagu Umar, an oil businessman, 30 and Pa Alao, a resident of Galadima.
Confirming the attacks and killings, Major-General Jack Nwachukwu Nwaogbo, said “we could not get the reports of the multiple attacks and killing in the two wards until late in the night around 1.25 a.m when distress calls were received from two residents that their father and two relations were shot and killed in their houses at 11.00 p.m on Saturday by three suspected Islamic sect.”
He said three gunmen climbed the wall of the residence of Panama at Bula-buli-Ngaranaram ward, before firing several bullets into his head and chest, adding that barely 30 minutes later, Umar was also shot and killed within the same ward.
On the inability of members of JTF to reach the scenes of the attacks and killings, he said the gunmen muffled their rifles with pillows to silence the sounds of the gunshots, adding that “by the time we reached the houses that were attacked and some residents killed, the suspects had fled into the neigbouring Bolori and Kumshe wards.
According to him, “it seems that the armed Islamic sect members have changed and resorted to quiet attacks and shootings, where both neighbours and task force members could not hear the sound of any gunshots to arrest the suspected killers.”
Adamu Musa, a trader and a relation to the slain Apagu, said “what have we done to the Boko Haram sect? Our brother had been selling fuel to some of the sect members on credit, amounting to over N40,000 without paying. And now, they shot and killed our breadwinner in cold blood.”
General Nwaogbo said several arrests were made on Sunday morning, following a tip-off on the fleeing gunmen, adding that the suspects were being interrogated at an undisclosed location before they would be handed over to the police for prosecution in court. culled from Nigerian Tribune
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