Nigeria: Boko Haram undermines security in the Northern parts
By Correspondent Chinyere Ogbonna – Suspected members of radical islamist sect, Boko Haram on Friday 27 May, attacked a Police station in Borno state, Northeast Nigeria with explosives and assault rifles killing at least 13 people including civilians.
According to the Police Command in the state, the attackers detonated explosives and opened fire on the Divisional Police Headquarters in Damboa, South of Maiduguri, northeast Nigeria.
They also attacked a nearby bank and Police Barracks in the neighbourhood.The State Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Jinjiri Abubakar blamed Boko Haram, a radical sect whose members have been responsible for almost daily killings in recent months, including frequent attacks on Policemen, Soldiers and local leaders.
The group’s first was uprising in 2009, with attacks on government buildings and leading to days of gun battles with the security forces in which as many as eight hundred people were killed. The group was also blamed for a series of explosions at Police stations last week.
Meanwhile, security in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, has already been beefed up ahead of the Presidential Inauguration on Sunday May the 2th.
Boko Haram (literally, “Western or non-Islamic education is a sin”) is a controversial Nigerian militant Islamist group that seeks the imposition of Shariah law in the northern states of Nigeria.
The “Boko Haram” name combines haram, a borrowed Arabic word meaning “forbidden by Islamic law”, with bokò, a Hausa word that according to Paul Newman and Roxana Ma Newman, Modern Hausa-English Dictionary, means 1. Western education 2. Hausa written in Roman script 3. Mock arrangement : yakin ~ army manoeuvres. 4. Adulteration, fraud, trick.
The group believe that such education “spoils the belief in one God”. It become known internationally following sectarian violence in Nigeria in 2009.
