TERRORISTS have struck at unusual targets in Bauchi and Borno states as the raging violence in Maiduguri escalates.
They torched the regional office and equipment of five Global System of Mobile Communications (GSM) firms in the state.
The incident, which occurred at 8 p.m. on Tuesday, has disrupted telecommunications services in the metropolis.
Prior to the attacks on the GSM firms, gunmen operating in the state and other parts of the North had made worship centres, markets, banks, military and police facilities and personnel their main targets.
Three hours after the Borno attacks, the terrorists bombed masts of some GSM firms and injured one person in Bauchi town. The blast occurred at 11p.m. on Tuesday. Their attempt to bomb a mosque in Kofar Idi near Bauchi was foiled by the police anti-bomb squad, which arrived the area and diffused the device.
A resident of Kumshe Ward in Maiduguri, said the attack on the GSM firms was one of the “desperate attempts” of the Boko Haram sect to disrupt communication services used in providing information to the military Joint Task Force (JTF) and police on the hideouts and modus operandi of the terrorists.
The masts destroyed in the attacks, according to Borno Police Commissioner, Yuguda Abdullahi, belonged to Airtel, Visafone, Etisalat and Glo.The regional office of MTN at the West End Roundabout was torched by the terrorists.
Abdullahi said he was yet to get the details of the attacks on the GSM firms’ facilities and office.
He said: “Suspected armed hoodlums launched attacks on the regional office of MTN at the West End Roundabout. Other GSM services providers, which masts were attacked are Airtel, Glo, Visafone, and Etisalat that dot the various areas and wards of the Maiduguri metropolis.”
The police chief said as soon as the Police Commander of Operations, briefed him on the incidents, the media would be briefed on the casualties and the exact number of masts and offices of torched.
An eyewitness however told The Guardian that eight GSM masts were torched in nine areas of Maiduguri metropolis.
The affected areas, according to him, are Dala-Almadiri, Kumshe, Adam-Kolo, Bolori, Gwange, Limanti, Railway Quarters and Sulueimanti Ward on Damboa Road.
A top security source in Bauchi told journalists that “as far as we are concerned the incident was a failed attempt because we have information about plan by hoodlums to attack some places. We have taken adequate security measures and deployed soldiers and policemen and other security personnel to guard every identified flash point to ensure that they did not give them chance to attack even the one targeted at the mast was exploded outside the gate because the hoodlums dropped it and it was exploded. A security man guarding the place was on red alert. Everything inside the mast was intact except the metal door, which injured the security guard and he was treated and discharged.”
Another security source said: “We have foiled an attempt to bomb a target on Gombe Road. They (hoodlums) dropped explosives there, but we are happy it did not explode before we diffused it.”
A resident said late on Tuesday night that they heard a loud sound of explosives and when we got there, they found that a metal door was affected while there was fire near the expulsion but the air-condition and generating set inside the mast building were working.
The increasing damage to Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure across the country has been described as a great disincentive to investment in the sector.
At present, the sector has attracted about $25 billion Foreign Direct Investments in the last 11 years.
The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, Dr. Eugene Juwah, affirmed this, when he said the FDIs increased from $18 billion in 2009 to $25 billion by 2012, which put the growth rate at 39 per cent within the last three years.
At a roundtable yesterday in Lagos on the need to protect telecoms infrastructure to ensure quality of service and safeguard investments, the Chairman of ALTON, Gbenga Adebayo, said it had become imperative for the Federal Government to protect ICT infrastructure, stressing that the state of insecurity in the country has remained appalling.
While the meeting was going on, Adebayo informed that the news reaching him, revealed that some telecommunications infrastructure in the North Central zone were under serious attack.
“Information just filtered in now that series of bombings early this morning (yesterday) in some North Central states of the country have reduced to rubbles, about 25 base stations,” he said.
The representative of the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar, Ishaku Barau, said the police or other security operatives lack equipment to fight crimes in the country.
Barau described the increasing damages to ICT infrastructure as very unfortunate, stressing that government must do more in providing jobs for the teeming Nigerians.
The Cross River State Governor Liyel Imoke has described security as an important tool in the promotion of tourism in Nigeria. Receiving the new Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG) for Zone 6, Mr. Muktari Ibrahim in Calabar, Imoke said security is seen all over the world as a veritable tool for growth in the tourism sector.
He explained that Calabar, which is the headquarters of Zone 6, is peaceful and urged the new AIG to sustain it.
Earlier, Ibrahim, who described his posting to Calabar as home-coming, praised the state government for ensuring that Cross River is safe and serene.
To address security challenges, abject poverty and unemployment in the North, its governors must revive its ruined economy through “re-thinking and multi-dimensional approaches,” instead of their clamour for a review of the current revenue sharing formula, the Head of Economics Department of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID), Prof. Dahiru Balami, has said.
In an interview with journalists yesterday in Maiduguri on the collapse of the North’s economy due to three years of Boko Haram insurgency, the don said the destruction and the systemic collapse of the economy in the 19 northern states, could only be reversed through the implementation of multi-dimensional approaches towards reviving the textile, agricultural and livestock sectors.
He said even before the Boko Haram insurgency, job creation and revenue earning sectors were dumped, as the governors continued to rely on the oil revenue collected monthly from the Federation Account.
Balami asserted that the calls by the governors for increased revenue sharing from oil and natural gas would not address security challenges in the region.
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