Boko Haram insurgents on Wednesday hijacked a commercial bus and kidnapped the passengers on board in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital.
A relative of one of the kidnap victims, Isa Musa, told Reuters that between 10 and 20 people were kidnapped by the insurgents. It was uncertain the exact number of people abducted.
“Boko Haram attacked a commercial vehicle and abducted some civilians – over 10 men and women were abducted,” Musa said.
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He stressed that his
“uncle was in the bus with some other passengers, men and women, about 20 of them, when the incident occurred.”
The incident was confirmed by a soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The latest incident comes two days after the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, restated that the Boko Haram terrorists had been “highly degraded”.
Buratai had on Tuesday said that there was no resurgence of insurgency in the North-East as being insinuated in some quarters.
Buratai, who spoke in Jaji at the graduation of 55 Special Forces from “Advance Water Markship Training”, however, said “in warfare, one must suffer some setbacks”.
Wuzup Naija reports that in the last few days, there have been media reports of terrorists’ attacks on troops in the North-East in which they claimed a number of soldiers had been killed.
The army, however, denied the attack and loss of personnel.
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Buratai was in Jaji in the company of the visiting South African Army Chief, Lt.-Gen. Lindile Yam.
“You are all aware of the events in the country, especially the security landscape between 2013 and mid-2015.
“I am referring to the situation in the North-East where a band of insurgents, employing terror held sway over nearly the entire region, including large part of the North-Central and Northwestern parts of the country.
“However, from middle of 2015 to date, the insurgents have suffered high degradation. They no longer hold any territory within our sovereign state,” Buratai said.
