Boko Haram massacres 43 students in Yobe

 They have a good cause
— Adamawa dep gov

—  Atiku weeps

At least 43 students were yesterday killed in a midnight attack by the Boko Haram sect at the Federal Government College Buni Yadi, Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State.

An online medium, SaharaReporters, quoted a source in Damaturu, capital of the state, who said he counted corpses brought into a General Hospital numbering 43.
“Ambulances have been bringing in bodies from Federal Government College in (the town of Buni Yadi,” a senior medical source at the Sani Abacha Specialist Hospital, Damaturu told French news agency, AFP, anonymously.

“So far, 43 bodies have been brought and are lying at the morgue,” he added.
“The attackers started the operation around 12:15 unperturbed until after 4am. The gunmen slaughtered the students and shot at them with guns”, the resident had said. “It was too horrible because some of the students were slaughtered, while others were burnt inside the hostel”.

The spokesperson of the Joint Task Force, JTF, in the state, Lazarus Eli, confirmed the attack to Aljazeera network. He however did not give the exact number of casualties.
Eli said the gunmen “opened fire on student hostels.”
He said details were still sketchy due to lack of telephone access and it is still not clear how many students were affected in the attack.

In a similar attack in the state in September 2013, at least 40 students were murdered at an agriculture training college when the insurgents stormed its hostels in the middle of the night and shot the students to death right in their sleep.
Meanwhile, the leader of Adamawa Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and deputy governor of the State Barr Bala James Ngillari, has attributed the wide scale violence rocking the country to injustice and looting.
Ngillari made the remark during the inauguration of Adamawa State office of Citizens Network for Peace and Development in Nigeria.

Ngillari said the prevailing injustice in the country was the foundation of the crisis being witnessed in the country saying “Boko Haram has a case, as a lot of them are victims of injustice.
“They are trying to make a case, we must be fair to them we must insist on good governance.”
He urged people to be wary of politicians who incite trouble, saying that most of them have sent their children to study abroad and would leave the country whenever it is on fire.

And in his reaction to the dastardly act in Yobe, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, wept over the incident.
Atiku, in a statement by his media office in Abuja broke down in tears when informed of the killings of of the students.
He said that all federal government had been doing about addressing the security situation in the North-east region of the country amounts to mere chasing of shadows if school walls cannot be protected from armed attacks.

The former Vice President particularly frowned at the impression given by President Goodluck Jonathan at his Presidential Media Chat on Monday that the government had been successful at pushing armed attackers to the fringes of the country.
“My heartfelt condolences go to families of the slain school pupils. It is unfortunate that innocent school children, will become victims of armed attacks.

“This will not be the first time in recent times that school children are being attacked, and it is particularly disheartening that the federal government is yet to devise a strategy of keeping our schools safe from terror attacks. If our counter-insurgency strategies are not strong enough to keep our children safe inside their schools, then one must wonder if such a strategy isn’t mere chasing shadows.

“It is important that the federal government ups its counter-insurgency strategy and desist from taking credits in pushing armed attacks to the fringes, as the President would like to put it. No Nigerian’s life is less in value to another,” he said.
He said it is imperative for government to ensure security in schools, in particular the Federal Government Colleges because of their unique role in forging national unity among pupils from diverse backgrounds in the country.