fled to Cameroon during a fierce gun battle with Boko Haram insurgents
in Gamboru Ngala, Borno State had returned to Nigeria.
A military source said on Monday that the soldiers arrived in Mubi,
Adamawa State by road around 5pm on Tuesday. Mubi is near the nation's
border with Cameroon.
He added that the troops would be reunited with their counterparts in
the North-East to continue with the ongoing operation against the
insurgents.
The Defence authorities had explained on Monday that the soldiers
"strayed" into the neighbouring country and therefore did not defect
as widely speculated when the news broke on Monday.
The PUNCH gathered on Monday that additional 1,000 troops were
airlifted to Maiduguri on Tuesday and that the insurgents had
converted the palace of the Emir of Gwoza to their operational
headquarters.
The additional troops, investigations showed, were meant to reinforce
soldiers, engaged in a battle to dislodge the insurgents from Gamboru
Ngala .
The fighting was said to have been raging as of Tuesday evening.
Efforts to get the Director of Defence Information, Maj.Gen Chris
Olukolade's comments on the latest developments in Gwoza and other
parts of Borno State did not succeed as calls to his mobile telephone
did not go through.
Olukolade had told our correspondent on the telephone on Monday that
the 480 soldiers who "strayed" into Cameroon were on their way to the
country following discussions between the heads of military
authorities in the two neigbouring countries.
Meanwhile, a security source said on Tuesday that Boko Haram
insurgents had started coordinating their attacks on Nigerian troops
from the Emir of Gwoza's palace.
The leader of the militant Islamist sect , Abubakar Shekau, had in a
video obtained by theAgence France Presseon Sunday, announced that
Gwoza had become an Islamic Caliphate.
He had also vowed that the group would not leave the town.
Meanwhile, the International Emergency Management Society of
Nigeria/West Africa, has called on the Nigerian military to stop the
ongoing displacement of Nigerians in the North- East.
The group, in a statement by its Director of Communications, Mr.
Adesanya Adejokun, also urged the political leadership to allow the
military to take on the insurgents decisively without political and
ethnic colouration.
The group which is led by Air Vice-Marshal Muhammad Audu-Bida(retd.),
a former Director-General, National Emergency Management Agency,
described the killings , destruction and displacement of millions of
people in the North-East as an embarrassment which the military must
stop.
It warned that the attack on the Police training academy by
insurgents on August 21, 2014 would embolden them unless steps were
taken to halt their advances.
It quoted Audu-Bida as saying "As a former military general myself,
I am aware that our military is capable of quelling this insurgency
because they have the training, courage and equipment to accomplish
the task of securing the country's territory but they should be
allowed by political authorities to carry out their duties unfettered
by political, ethnic or religious coloration and or sentiments..
"For the good of millions of Nigerians, the military should take
decisive action now to stop further displacement of Nigerians,
destruction of farmlands, lives and property as well as occupying our
territory, a situation which has become very embarrassing to
Nigerians, government and the armed forces," he said.
However, camps of rebels have reportedly been uncovered between Danka
and Kwandere in Lafia North, Nasarawa State.
A former magistrate in the state, Zachariah Allumaga, made this known
while speaking to journalists on the crisis in some communities
which claimed more than 30 lives in the past four days.
Allumaga said he had every reason to believe that the over 400
people camped in the state were insurgents from Yobe and its
environs.
According to him, other insurgents were camped several months under
the pretext of internally displaced persons from Yalwa Shandam in
Plateau State and Takum in Taraba State.
''The camps said to be for refuges are in the other way meant for
insurgents to kill the ancestral people of the state," he claimed.
PUNCH
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