Boko Haram Captures Another Adamawa Town As Soldiers Flee

Boko Haram Monday added to the territory it
controls in Nigeria’s northeast, as it overran
the town of Maiha in Adamawa State.
Two of the captured towns had earlier been
renamed by the terrorists. Mubi, in Adamawa
was renamed ‘Madinatul Islam’, meaning the
“City of Islam,” after an October 29 invasion,
while Gwoza in Borno was renamed “Darul
Hikma” meaning “House of Wisdom”.
Although several residents have deserted the
town due to its closeness to captured Mubi;
Maiha is about 25 kilometres from Mubi; the
insurgents took over the town regardless,
expanding its captured territory.
Reports quote residents as claiming that
they saw many soldiers fleeing Maiha as the
insurgents stormed the town, as any of them
caught by insurgents would have been killed.
“The insurgents started trooping into the
town around 2:30 p.m. and engaged troops
stationed at Kosha before advancing to the
main town of Maiha. The soldiers, who
advanced to the area in their bid to recapture
Mubi, started running away as the insurgents
overran the entire town,” a fleeing resident,
Kabir Musa told online news medium,
Premium Times in a telephone interview.
Vanguard quoted another resident of the
town, Garba Baba, as saying that some
fleeing soldiers begged him to assist them
with civilian clothes so they would not be
traced by the insurgents. He said the
soldiers even threw their guns into the bush.
“The fleeing soldiers asked us to give them
our clothes so that they can camouflage and
escape from the area safely as some of them
discarded their weapons in the bush. A lot of
discarded weapons are currently lying in the
bush,” said Baba.
He said the Nigerian troops did not resist the
Boko Haram insurgents.
“The insurgents did not encounter any
challenge as they stormed the town in APCs
and Toyota Hilux vans, firing shots into the
soldiers’ directions , and chanting Allahu
Akbar. The Boko Haram insurgents had
ordered us not to run, saying that they were
not after civilians but soldiers and other
security people,” he said.
The insurgents were said to have hoisted
their flags at strategic points in the town.
The military had claimed to be making
progress in its onslaught to recapture the
towns taken by Boko Haram, but had just
complained that the terrorists’ tactics of
using women and children as human shield
had slowed them down in the operation. It
remains to be seen how the military turns
around the situation and save the territorial
integrity of Nigeria.