Boko Haram: Troops to guard Maiduguri Hajj camp.

The 7 Division of the Nigerian Army, Maiduguri is to deploy a battalion of troops to the Borno State Muslim pilgrims camp to secure this year’s 1700 intending pilgrims from the state from attacks by Boko Haram militants.

The Executive Secretary of the Borno State Pilgrims Welfare Board, Alhaji Ajagana Bukar, made this announcement in a chat with Daily Trust in Maiduguri, yesterday, assuring that as the airlift for this year’s Hajj commences on 10th August, the intending pilgrims would be properly secured at the camp, the screening centre and the airport until they were airborne.

“This follows our series of meetings with all the security agencies in the state to plead with them to secure the intending pilgrims up to the boarding point,” Bukar said.

Inspecting the inoculation exercise of the intending pilgrims in the Maiduguri metropolis, the executive secretary said that every intending pilgrim would be inoculated to avoid the Saudi Authorities’ incessant accusations that Nigerian pilgrims often pretended to have been inoculated and presented their Yellow Cards to the Saudi officials.

The exercise is taking place simultaneously in Northern and Southern Borno. The intending pilgrims in the five local government areas of Biu, Bayo, Shani, Hawul and Kwaya-Kusar in Southern Borno are being inoculated in Biu, while their counterparts from the remaining 22 local government areas are having theirs in Maiduguri.