Nigeria military accused of ignoring warnings of Boko Haram rebels

NIGERIA’S military was yesterday accused of ignoring repeated warnings about the movements of Boko Haram fighters before they kidnapped 110 schoolgirls in the country’s restive northeast.

The students – the youngest of whom is aged just 10 – were seized from the town of Dapchi, Yobe state, on February 19 in virtually identical circumstances to those in Chibok in 2014.

Then, more than 200 schoolgirls were taken in an attack that brought sustained world attention on the Islamist insurgency and sparked a global campaign for their release.

President Muhammadu Buhari has called the Dapchi abduction a “national disaster” and vowed to use negotiation rather than force to secure their release.

But as in Chibok nearly four years ago, human rights group Amnesty International claimed the military was warned about the arrival of the heavily-armed jihadists – yet failed to act.

There was no immediate response from the Nigerian military when contacted by reporters.

Amnesty said that between 2pm and 6pm on February 19, at least five calls were made to tell the security services that Islamist fighters were in the Dapchi area.

Locals spotted about 50 members of the Islamic State group affiliate in a convoy of nine vehicles in Futchimiram, about 30km from Dapchi, then at Gumsa.

In Gumsa, where Boko Haram stayed until about 5pm, residents phoned ahead to Dapchi to warn them. The convoy arrived at about 6.30pm and left about 90 minutes later.

The Dapchi abduction has thrown into doubt repeated government and military claims that Boko Haram is on the brink of defeat, after nearly nine years of fighting and at least 20 000 deaths.

Boko Haram, which has used kidnapping as a weapon of war during the conflict, has not claimed responsibility, but it is believed that a faction headed by Abu Mus’ab al-Barnawi is responsible for it.