The Final Push: Boko Haram's intensified coordinated attacks across Nigeria marks the beginning of the end

The Final Push: Boko Haram's intensified coordinated attacks across Nigeria marks the beginning  of the end

Nigeria is finished - only the blind will fail to see this. For the umpteenth time Boko Haram yesterday demonstrated they can hit any part of Nigeria at will with reckless abandon. In a well coordinated attack, Boko Haram hit strategic targets on Sunday night and Monday morning without the security forces getting a wind of it. Three state capitals Ado Ekiti in the southwest, Damaturu and Maiduguri in the hotbed northwest were attacked.

Bomb explosions were used to attack Maiduguri, Borno State capital and lethal combination of IEDs and gun attacks were used to attack security formations in Damaturu, Yobe State capital. Vanguard reported that more than 100 persons were feared dead in the attacks as several places, including police formations, were burnt. Damaturu is 135 km west of Maiduguri and they attacks were clearly meant to weaken Nigeria's security agencies capabilities to prevent the impending overrunning of the two states in the next couple of months.

The Final Push: Boko Haram's intensified coordinated attacks across Nigeria
marks the beginning  of the end

In Damaturu, residents in the Gujba Road area of the city were jolted out of bed by the sound of gunshots and explosions at about 4:45 am as many fled.

Sada said: “I was woken by huge blasts and the sound of heavy gunfire around the Mobile Police barracks. The gunmen came in numbers. They burnt down the Police barracks. They are now advancing towards two housing estates. We have left our home. We are now in the bush. We don’t know what’s going to happen.”

Another local resident, a government official who asked not to be identified, said: “It’s chaos all over the town. All I can hear are explosions and gunfire from my house. I couldn’t go out for morning prayers because this started before dawn and I’m afraid to leave in case I get caught up in it.”

In Ado Ekiti, the terrorist used both guns and bombs to attack a federal prison were some of their hardened fighters were kept. The attack in Ekiti is quite significant as Ekiti is in the supposedly peaceful parts of the country were terrorists attacks were not expected at least for now.

In what appears to be a replay of Kotonkarfi, Kogi state, jail break, where Boko Haram members forcefully freed their members, unknown the terrorists, the terrorists attacked the Federal Prisons, Ado Ekiti, on Sunday night,  killing at least one person suspected to be a prison official and releasing all their men in the prison.

About 60 terrorists stormed the prisons located at Afao Ekiti Road, Ado Ekiti  at about 10.30pm,in seven Hilux trucks blowing up the main gate with IEDs in order to gain entrance into the prison yard. Killed all  20 sniffer dogs tied in front of the gate.

They brandished dangerous weapons such as cudgels, cutlasses, AK 47 rifles , charms and chanted ‘Allahu Akbar’ as they shot sporadically into the air. Vanguard reported that the gunshots and the bombing were so intense that the inmates had to run in different directions to prevent being hit by stray bullets.

The state government had initially accused the All Progressives Congress thugs (APC) for the attack.
A statement aired on the state's radio, alleged that the action was carried out by APC thugs to free a leader of Oodua People’s Congress (OPC), Niyi Adedipe who was remanded by the court over alleged murder of a former chairman of National Union of Road Transport Workers, NURTW, Chief Omolafe Aderiye.

The APC image maker in the state , Chief Taiwo Olatubosun, who spoke on the telephone however denied any link with the party. ‘’What shall we gain for doing that? We cannot do such things. It is not in our character to do such things," he retorted.


The Comptroller of Prison, Ekiti State, Mr. Kehinde Fadipe , who  confirmed the attack, stated that the prison had no Boko Haram member in the prison to warrant attack from the Islamic sect, saying it would be preposterous to draw conclusion now on where the attack actually came.

While adding that some of the escaped inmates “have been recaptured and kept in police cells, he failed to give the figure of those that escaped and those that had returned to the prisons on their own.

One thing that is clear in the Ekiti Attack was that it was pepetrated by Islamists. It is either Boko Haram already has an active cell in Ekiti State or that the Yoruba Muslims have finally formed their own Boko Haram. In any case that marks the end of Nigeria, as it demonstrate that there other terrositst cells in every part of Nigeria, waiting for an opportunity to strike or that Yoruba Muslims have joined their brothers in the North to finally destroy Nigeria.