JUST as Monguno Local Government Area of Borno State is about putting behind it the recent killing of six secondary school teachers, including a principal, the local government was again plunged into mourning as many students were, on Saturday, murdered in cold blood by some gunmen suspected to be members of the Jama’atul Ahlis Sunnah Lid’ Awati, also known as Boko Haram.
Sunday Tribune learnt that the gunmen killed many students of Monguno Secondary School by slitting their throats, after laying an ambush for them as they returned home from centres where they wrote the West African Examination Council (WAEC) Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE).
Monguno is 135 kilometres North of Maiduguri, the state capital; and it is considered to be an epicentre of activities of the Islamist sect.
The gunmen, according to a villager, Mallam Aisami, ambushed the candidates on their way home on foot and bicycles. He added that the assailants tied the students’ hands together at their backs and slit their
throats on the foot paths leading to the school premises in the afternoon.
He said when the dastardly deed had been done, the gunmen fled on three motorcycles towards Marte Local Government Area of Northern Borno before men of the Joint Task Force (JTF) rushed to the scene three hours after the students were already slew.
Spokesman of JTF, Lieutenant Colonel Sagir Musa, and the Borno State Commissioner for Education, Alhaji Musa Inuwa Kubo, confirmed the incident on Saturday.
They stated that it was a very “unfortunate and frightening incident,” decrying all that had been happening in the state.
Sagir and Kubo could, however, not ascertain the exact number of students allegedly killed by the suspects at Monguno.
Kubo, in a telephone interview, told journalists that; “I am calling on the people of Borno State to continue to pray and fast so that the incessant attacks and killings in the state cease peace and unity are restored.
“I pray that the trying and challenging times of insecurity of lives and property here in Borno will come to an end soon, by God’s willing and the full support of our leaders in the state.”
Sunday Tribune also learnt from JTF sources that; “until political leaders, along with traditional and religious leaders in Borno State, collectively condemn the activities of members of Boko Haram sect, there might be no peace, despite the deployment of troops and policemen to the state.”
In the meantime, Sunday Tribune investigations indicate that members of the Yoruba and Igbo communities in Borno States had been leaving their places of abode, relocating to other places considered to be safer and more secured.
