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From Molly Kilete, Abuja and Timothy Olarenwaju, Maiduguri
Members of the Boko Haram terrorists group on Tuesday, killed nine soldiers and one civilian in Borno State.
The soldiers were said to have been ambushed while providing escort for a team of personnel from the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), on oil exploration at Barno Yasu, in Magumeri Local Government Area.
Already, the Nigerian Army said it had recovered the bodies of the deceased soldiers, consisting one officer and eight other ranks and that of the civilian and deposited in the mortuary.
Oil workers who were abducted by the insurgents in the attack were later rescued by a team of soldiers from the Armed Forces Special Forces sent on reinforcement.
Confirming the killing of the soldiers, Army spokesman, Brigadier-General Sani Usman, said the soldiers and staff of the NNPC, were returning from the exploration site when they came under attack from the terrorists.
The Brigade headquarters was alerted and immediately mobilised reinforcement and search and rescue party who worked through the night.
He said rescue team succeeded in rescuing all the NNPC staff and recovered the bodies of the soldiers and weapons of the terrorists.
He listed the items recovered to include four vehicles, one of which had a gun truck mounted with an Anti-Aircraft Gun, two white Hilux seized from NNPC staff and one blue Hilux belonging to CJTF.
The team also recovered large cache of arms and ammunition, several spare tyres, several jerry cans containing petroleum, oil and lubricant, assorted drugs, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) making materials, reflective jackets and a Motorola handheld radio, among others.
The NNPC has been surveying for more than a year for what it says could be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin, a region wracked for eight years by an Islamist insurgency, which has killed at least 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes.
Nigeria relies on oil for two-thirds of its revenue. The NNPC is trying to reduce its reliance on crude from the southern Niger Delta where militant attacks cut production by more than a third in 2016, deepening the recession in Africa’s biggest economy.
NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu also confirmed the attack
“About 10 members of the University of Maiduguri geology and surveying department were abducted by suspected Boko Haram members,” Ughamadu said. The group included academic staff, drivers and other contractors, he said.
The university said some of its lecturers, who were accompanied by security staff, had not returned on Tuesday from a prospecting trip. Its spokesman said the university was waiting for a report from security agencies.
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Boko Haram, which attained international notoriety after kidnapping 270 girls from their school in the town of Chibok in 2014, is trying to create an Islamic state in the Lake Chad Basin area.
The conflict has not deterred NNPC’s search for oil in the region.
“We are working with the security agencies for an early return to the Chad Basin,” aiming for drilling to start in the fourth quarter of the year, NNPC chief Maikanti Baru said at the beginning of July.
In May, the NNPC said it would resume oil exploration in the northeast “on the heels of (the) improved security situation”.
Nigeria’s government and military have repeatedly said Boko Haram is on the verge of defeat. In December, President Muhammadu Buhari said the group’s last stronghold, an enclave in the Sambisa forest, had fallen.
But insurgents have launched attacks with renewed zeal in the last few months.
At least 62 people have been killed in Maiduguri and its environs since early June. Seventeen people were killed in the city in one week this month.(Reuters)
