SAN FRANCISCO, September 22, (THEWILL) – Just recovering from the horror and anguish of the devastating Boko Haram attack last Tuesday along the Maiduguri/Damaturu highway in Benisheikh, Borno State residents on Sunday called on the military authorities to restore the telecommunication services shut down in the state over four months ago following the emergency rule declaration on the state by President Goodluck Jonathan .
Many of the residents maintained that the disadvantages of the shut down of the GSM services now far outweigh the advantage, saying had there been telephone services, the rate of casualties during recent Boko Haram attacks, especially the Benisheikh ambush, would not have been as high.
Their plea came on a day Christians in Maiduguri, the state capital, organised thanksgiving services in Churches to thank God for surviving the Benisheikh killings. Some said they passed through the highway few moments before the insurgents went on rampage killing at will.
A pastor in one of the Churches said he was in Damaturu that fateful Tuesday to make calls but was lucky as the insurgents took over road some minutes after he passed.
Lawan Aji , a resident of Maiduguri, said: “Many of the victims of the Benisheik attack last Tuesday were those who went to Damaturu to make telephone calls to their families and business associates but unfortunately ran into Boko Haram. Hundreds of them were slaughtered. If there is telephone service, they wouldn’t have traveled to Damaturu. ”
According to him, “The casualties would have been less and perhaps, families and friends of those on the road on their way to Maiduguri may be from Kano, Jos, Bauchi or Potiskum would have called them on phone and warned them not to proceed to Benisheik because people would have got wind of the attack through phone calls.”
A victim of the Boko Haram ambush, who escaped with a bullet wound , narrated his encounter on his hospital bed in Maiduguri. According to him,: “I went with a colleague of mine to Damaturu to make a phone call and met some strange looking persons dressed in military camouflage who flagged my vehicle down but because they looked suspicion and some of them were carrying axes.
“I slowed down as if I was going to stop but within a moment went on top speed, they began to shoot at us and in the process I got hit by the bullet and my colleague was shot dead. ”
The victim, who lectures at the University of Maiduguri, maintained that “The lockdown of GSM lines has outlived its usefulness and it is more dangerous that we are not allowed to make phone calls than the edge they claim it is given them over the insurgents.”
With fears still being expressed that without the restoration of GSM services, the insurgents may continue their reign of terror, the Brigade Commander of the 21 Armoured Brigade of the Nigerian Army Maiduguri, Colonel Muhammed Idris Yusuf, who accompanied Gov. Kashim Shettima to Benisheikh on an assessment of the situation, had pleaded with the people not to lose confidence in the military.
But the residents are insisting that the continuing shut down of telephone services “is counter-productive,” saying the soldiers could have called for reinforcement from the army brigade in Maiduguri if there were telephone serves.
“The insurgents operated for hours unhindered, they had field day, shooting, slaughtering even with saw machine as people claimed. They even had the time to sort out their victims and lined them up for massacre all with ease. Nobody could contact anybody or anywhere while more unsuspecting travelers from Maiduguri and Damaturu ends ran into the killing since there was no warning . At the end of the day about 143 lives were cut off. It is time for authority to release GSM services after all many of the security chiefs and people in government have assess to different communication gadgets which they are using.
“They told us the use of satellite phone is forbidden, yet many of them move around with such facilities. We are tired of this total blackout in communication and they should release telephone services ,” a university lecturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said.
