Boko Haram crisis: Ogun evacuates indigenes from Borno

Boko Haram crisis: Ogun evacuates indigenes from Borno

Sunday, 17 July 2011 17:48

Hundreds of Ogun State indegenes resident in Maduguri and other cities in Borno state, northeast Nigeria, were over the weekend evacuated from the crisis-ridden state by the state government as tension over the security of lives and property continues to mount following the activities of the Boko Haram sect.

Sola Adeyemi, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Environment, while welcoming the rescued citizens in Abeokuta, the state capital, noted that the rescue mission was in fulfillment of the promise made by the state governor, Ibikunle Amosun, to protect lives and property of the people of the state wherever they are and whenever it is needed.

He hinted journalists that a team, which was led by the director of the State Emergency Maintenance Agency (SEMA), Timothy Oyenekan, was dispatched to Maiduguri after receiving distress calls from the students studying at the University of Maiduguri, whose school had been shut down since Tuesday, July 12 when the authorities made known its inability to provide them security.

Taiwo Sokanlu, who spoke on behalf of other students, thanked the state government, especially Amosun for the quick intervention, saying, “Maybe we would have been victims of (the) explosion because it happened very close to where some of us reside.”