President Goodluck Jonathan on Thursday paid a surprise visit to Maiduguri, Borno State, one of the three North-Eastern states worst hit by Boko Haram insurgency.
Jonathan embarked on the trip shortly after laying a wreath at the National Arcade, Abuja in commemoration of the Armed Forces Remembrance Day.
There had been clamour for him to visit the zone since April 14 when over 200 schoolgirls were abducted in Chibok by the sect.
Critics also chided the President for continuing his presidential campaign without visiting or not making a direct comment on the January 3 killings in Baga and Doron Baga in Borno State by Boko Haram.
Amnesty International had said on Monday that reports it got from the locals showed that over 2,000 people were killed and their houses razed. But the Defence Headquarters in Abuja denounced the international human rights agency’s claim, saying about 150 people died in the attacks.
Before the Thursday visit which came barely a week ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party presidential rally scheduled to hold in Maiduguri on January 24, the United States denounced the latest Borno killings as “an enormously horrendous slaughter of innocent people.”
At the 7 Division of the Nigerian Army at the Maimalari Cantonment where he met with the officers and men currently in the frontline of the war against terrorism, Jonathan thanked them for their patriotic service to the nation.
He assured them that the nation would soon see the back of the Boko Haram insurgents as the military were now better equipped to take them on.
The President said that the briefing from the service chiefs showed that the 10 local governments in the state under Boko Haram control would soon be recaptured.
“Let me assure you that we will soon take over all the areas. From the briefing I have received from the service chiefs, I assure you that we will take over the towns and communities, “ he added.
Jonathan’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, later issued a statement in which he quoted the President as telling the soldiers that the nation was proud of them for their commitment to the defence of the civilian population against terrorists.
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