MILITARY ALERT THE PUBLIC TO NEW STYLE OF BOKO HARAM ATTACK

K The resort to the use of female suicide bombers by the deadly terrorist group, Boko Haram, has become additional source of worry to the Nigerian Military, which says it brings another dimension to the insurgency rocking parts of the country. Director, Army Information, Brigadier General Olajide Olaleye, who was reacting to an attempt by a hijab-wearing female suicide tried to attack a military barracks in Gombe killing herself and the officer that conducted the search about one week ago, told Sunday Independent that the trend was capable of depriving women their place of respect both religiously and ethnically since according to him, they would now be searched thoroughly before accessing any public place to know their motive. “The emergence of female suicide bombers poses serious challenge to the ongoing war on terrorism because by our custom and religion, we don’t normally search women. This is because women were taken to be beyond crime but now they have to undergo serious search and scrutiny,” he said. And to achieve this, he said it would bring additional task on the military since females soldiers would now be posted to such public places since a man cannot search a woman. “Instead of moving freely like it used to be, we are deploying female soldiers to public places and women will have to undergo serious scrutiny,” Olajide said. Meanwhile, residents in parts of Northern Nigeria have expressed fears that the emergence of female suicide bombers in the ranks of Boko Haram may worsen the security situation and put them on more precarious security conditions. Report from Bauchi shows that residents are no longer comfortable with the preferential treatments given to females by security agencies during checks, urging them to intensify effort in checkmating the activities of terrorists. Sunday Independent findings revealed that women were, in the past given subtle security checks because they were considered harmless. A resident of GRA in Bauchi Metropolisis, Kauna Daniel, who confirmed this in an interview with Sunday Independent said, “It seems the security problem is getting worst following the detonation of a bomb by a woman in Gombe last week, may be very soon they will start using children, who knows why they are kidnapping school children, may be they want to also train them to become suicide bombers, God forbid.” Kauna said, “Women are always allowed to pass free at security’s check points without undergoing any checks because they believe that they cannot engage in such criminal activities, but the Gombe Incident should be an eye opener to everybody so both male and female should be check thoroughly so that we don’t experience what happened in Gombe”. She said. A source who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity said he was not allowed to park his car in front of a shop along Wunti Market road with the reason that cars are not allowed to park anymore along the road due security challenges. “But to my surprise a woman was allowed to park at the same point where they disallowed me from parking, so when I went back to asked them why they allowed a woman to park, they told me they allowed her because she is a woman that only came to market to buy items for her family but in my own case, they don’t know my mission. But unfortunately a woman detonated bomb in Gombe recently so we have to be security conscious on both male and female” he said. When contacted, the Police Public relation officer of Bauchi State Command, DSP Haruna Mohammed, said police have embarked on massive and aggressive security checks on both gender in order to avert such incident as well as ensure security of lives and properties in the state. He therefore called on residents in the state to be security conscious and report any suspicious activities to the police