Photo: Man who supplies fuel, food to Boko Haram arrested – Nigerian military

Man who supplies fuel, food to Boko Haram arrested 

The Nigerian military said it has arrested a man who specialises in supplying food and fuel to Boko Haram insurgents in the North Eastern part of Nigeria.

The culprit, the military said, was arrested Sunday morning in Daban Shata, in the suburbs of Baga, Borno State’s third largest community.

The Defence Headquarters spokesperson, Chris Olukolade, in a statement said the supplier, wanted by the military, was eventually nabbed in the early hours of Sunday morning. He said the culprit is currently undergoing interrogation as the military continues its offensive against the insurgents in the north-eastern part of the country.

The arrest and interrogation may lead to answers to questions that have been asked on how the insurgents were able to fuel their convoy of vehicles and motorcycles with which they carried out their attacks in the past years.

The spokesperson also said 260 women and children were rescued in the outskirts of Chalawa village in Adamawa State. These are separate from the 275 women and children rescued by soldiers from Sambisa forest in Borno who were earlier handed over to the emergency agency, NEMA.

Mr. Olukolade said the 260 rescued were held up while trying to escape from the terrorists. He said soldiers took them back to their various communities in Madagali following normal security profiling.

“Some of them disclosed that they had to abandon their homes to escape from the terrorists when Madagali came under their attack, while others were actually abducted and taken there,” Mr. Olukolade said.

The Major General said some terrorists were killed in an encounter with troops who caught up with them as they fled prior to the recovery of the women and children. Some of the terrorists, however, escaped with varying degrees of gunshot wounds.

Others who were captured are now being interrogated by intelligence officers.

Mr. Olukolade added that a machine gun, some rounds of ammunition, and some motorcycles and bicycles were also captured from the terrorists.

A member of the vigilante group serving as guide to the troops was, however, wounded.

He said operations in Sambisa forest are continuing.