Boko Haram disguise as epileptic patients- Adamawa Govt

Adamawa state government has revealed that the dreaded Boko Haram terrorists now pretends to be epileptic or stomach pain patients where large number of people gather to seek sympathy and later detonate bomb.

The state government, while urging Nigerians to be careful of the new tactics said it has embarked on advocacy across the state to parents to help teach their children not to collect gift from people they don’t know.

Speaking in an interview with newsmen in Abuja, yesterday, Adamawa state Commissioner for Information Mr. Ahmad I. Sajoh, said “the government is taking proactive measures but difficult to read the minds of people who are satanic.

“We are also aware that the terrorists now have another tactics which is that, they come to a place where people are gathered and begin to pretend as if they are epileptic or having severe stomach pain, and once people gather to assist them they will detonate the bomb.

“So, we are also doing advocacy to tell people not to fall for such tactics. We have had it in the past; the first bomb blast in Yola was engineered like a street fight. Two people were fighting and people gathered to watch the fight and they detonated the bomb.

“The second one, they went to a tipper garage where laborers were buying food, they declared the food free of charge, paid the woman and started giving people five hundred Naira gift, then people rushed down and gathered and then, the bomb was detonated.

“We have now understood and going on advocacy to the parents to tell their children not to collect something from people they don’t know”, he said.

While narrating how the terrorists were able to detonate bomb that killed two children last week, the commissioner said: “What happened last week was very simple, a man was driving a vehicle and he stopped somewhere he saw some children playing, he gave them a parcel to take to their parents but unfortunately for these kids and fortunate for the parents, it was suppose to be a timed bomb but children being children continued playing and did not immediately take the parcel to their parents.

“By the time they took the parcel to take it to their parents, the bomb exploded and two of them, age 8 and 7 died immediately while three others were injured”.

On the recent measures taken to forestall cases of bombing in the state, Ahmad said just before the Ramadan, the government realized that terrorist all over the world normally up their game during Ramadan, “so,we had series of security council meeting and in fact we would not sleep over this in the first two days of Ramadan, and we took some measures”.

He said as part of the measures taken, the government interface with all the traditional rulers, followed by local government chairmen with instructions that they should also do that with their councilors.

“We also interface with all the Chancellors, Rectors and their heads of security in anticipation that something like this could happen. We took several measures but you know somebody who is planning evil may have more ways than you can imagine”, he added.