‘Boko Haram is trying to hit Lagos’ Boko Haram militia (File picture)

Abuja — A Nigerian security official says the Islamic extremist rebels of Boko Haram are trying to spread their violent campaign across Nigeria including Lagos, the country’s largest city.

Tony Opuiyo, spokesperson of the Department of State Services, Nigeria’s intelligence agency, said there has been a sudden influx of Boko Haram members in Lagos and other parts of the country, after security forces pushed the militants from northeastern centres.

Opuiyo announced that security agencies had arrested 14 Boko Haram suspects outside the northeast in the last two months, including cell leaders, some of whom admitted to involvement in recent suicide attacks. Authorities on Friday said they arrested a teenager who was spying on the capital’s main airport for Boko Haram. The 6-year-old Islamic uprising has killed an estimated 20,000 people.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram killed 56 villagers in a remote area, the governor of Borno State of the region said on Sunday, as the government warned that the extremists are trying to extend their violent campaign

Governor Kashim Shettima confirmed the attack in Baanu village during a meeting with the parents of the 219 girls abducted from a school in the region by the extremists last year. Thursday marked 500 days of captivity of the girls from a school in Chibok.

“I want us all to understand that the Boko Haram crisis is a calamity that has befallen us, as the insurgents do not discriminate whether somebody is Christian or Muslim, neither do they have any tribal sympathy or affiliations. Just yesterday they killed 56 people in Baanu village of Nganzai local government, as I’m speaking to you their corpses are still littered on the street of the village because virtually everyone in the village had to run for their lives”.

He did not provide futher details of the attack.

Fleeing residents of Baanu village said they were attacked by Boko Haram on Friday night.

“We returned back to the village in the morning after spending the night in the bush, we saw corpses in the streets of the village,” said farmer Mustapha Alibe. — AFP

 

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