Boko Haram Captures Bara, Banki Towns In Yobe, Borno

Boko Haram terrorists have stormed an unguarded Bara town in Yobe and Banki town in Borno states without firing a shot; they seized and controlled the territory.
Residents of the seized Banki town told the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) that no one was harmed in the takeover but everybody fled the troubled areas to Maiduguri and the neighbouring Cameroon.
Confirming the incident to the BBC, a trader who escaped Bara, in Yobe State, Musa Abdullahi, said, “They (Boko Haram) invaded the town preaching in the whole town, asking people to leave government work and join them to fight for the sake of Allah.
“People were afraid, but they said that they did not come to kill anybody but to preach.”
Boko Haram’s attacks appear to have shifted in recent weeks away from simply creating mayhem to taking ground and holding it.
Traditional rulers in the captured towns, according to the agency, have now fled to Maiduguri, Borno State capital, despite denials by the government of Borno State and local vigilante groups that Bama remained under government control.
According to spokesman of the youth vigilante group in Borno State, Jibrin Gunda, “Bama has never been overrun or overtaken by the insurgents even for a minute.”
Among the towns captured by the Boko Haram are Marte, Gamboru Ngala, Dikwa, Bama, Gwoza, Damboa and Banki towns in Borno State and recently Buni Yadi and Bara towns in Yobe State.
Last month, the insurgents captured the remote farming town of Gwoza, along the Cameroon border. During the heavy fight, the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, declared in a video that the town was now “Islamic territory”.
Controlling Bama would bring the rebels closer to the Borno State capital, which is 70 km to the northwest, the birthplace of the Boko Haram movement. Fears that Maiduguri could be the next target led the government to extend a curfew in place there to 7pm to 6am; it used to start at 10pm.
A new report by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said 39,000 people have fled fighting in northeast Nigeria in the past 10 days over the border to Cameroon, adding that more than 700,000 people have been displaced externally and internally by the conflict.

Allegations Against Me Mischievous, Political
– Modu Sheriff
Former governor of Borno State Ali Modu Sheriff has declared that he does share the Boko Haram ideology and has never been a sponsor of the sect that has waged a relentless and bloody campaign against the Nigerian state especially in Abuja and in the north-east states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, who made this declaration yesterday during a world press conference in Abuja, debunked the recent allegations against him — orchestrated by an Australian negotiator Stephen Davies and published by certain media — that he was one of those sponsoring the deadly Boko Haram sect.
Those making the claim, he said, were mischief-makers hired to fabricate the stories in order to divert attention from the real issues at stake and cast a slur on his reputation for political reasons.
The former governor said he was constrained to speak out at this moment as the smear campaign had assumed a life of its own, in order to correct the erroneous and mischievous impression created about him in the eyes of the public, which has caused him plenty of hurt.
He read from a statement: “I must say that I have been utterly embarrassed by some of the negative comments, insinuations and unfounded accusations which were clearly misdirected, narrow and mischievous.
“After due reflection and over the dimensions the whole issue seems to be taking, and saddened by the persistent misrepresentation and misinformation in some quarters, particularly the recent castigations by the APC, it has become imperative that I set the record straight.
“Let me state categorically that I do not share the ideology of the Boko Haram sect, which is against western education, western culture and modern science or any sect with similar ideology.
“By my nature and upbringing, I have never associated myself with, nor shared the beliefs of, religious fundamentalists such as the Boko Haram sect or any other sect for that matter. As a matter of fact, they have also a lot of disdain for politicians and hate democracy with a passion.
“I wish to state with all sense of responsibility and modesty, for the avoidance of doubt, as a Muslim, I believe in the sanctity of human life and as a true democrat endorse all the rights enshrined in the Nigerian constitution.”
According to him, from the time he left office in 2011, he had been unfairly accused of so many things in connection with the Boko Haram sect, including entering into a pact to implement Sharia Law in exchange for the sect’s backing; that his government failed to act on a security report on the sect’s activities in order to contain it in time, and that these had emboldened the sect to flourish and turn bloody, allegations he described as totally baseless.
The former senator, who queried the authenticity of the Australian Stephen Davies who made the public allegation, wondered why the man who claimed he was contracted by the federal government did not submit his findings to the government, or the mainstream Nigerian media, and rather chose to speak to a “third-rate television station, ARISE, and ThisDay newspaper, both of which are owned by one person”.
He asked, “Of what particular interest is the said Davies in the politics of Nigeria that he rose in defence of APC leaders?”
Modu Sheriff also took strong exception to the uncomplimentary statements made by the APC national chairman, John Oyegun, during a press conference in Abuja on September 2 in which he called for the prosecution of Modu Sheriff and suggested that the latter was unworthy of the party.
“As much as I do not think that changing one’s political party is an anathema, I’m particularly concerned that my defection from the APC into PDP seems to further galvanise my detractors who have converted the matter into a political weapon,” he said, noting that it was ignoble for the APC to descend to this low level of mudslinging.
“Given the seriousness of the issue, I feel that it is highly uncharitable to try to trivialise the issue of terrorism on the altar of political rivalry. I believe strongly that some of those linking me with the sect are doing so either because of ignorance of the group, its history and development or are clearly being mischievous,” he said.
On the insinuation that the sect members were his political thugs who disagreed with him and turned wild, the ex-governor explained that the group’s activities predated the coming of his government in 2003.
Sheriff explained that Shariah Law was introduced into Borno by his predecessor, the late Alhaji Malla Kachalla, in year 2000, and he presented a document of the state government, dated February 1, 2001, and signed by the then Borno State SSG, Dr Shettima Bukar Abba, which listed the late leader of Boko Haram sect, Ustaz Mohammed Yusuf, as part of the 25-member Sharia Law Implementation Committee inaugurated under the chairmanship of Prof. Abubakar Mustapha, the former vice chancellor of the University of Maiduguri.