The Chief of Staff to the President, Malam Abba Kyari, early yesterday met behind closed-doors with service chiefs over the Boko Haram insurgency.
In attendance were the Chief of Defence Staff, General Gabriel Abayomi Olonisakin and the Chief of Army Staff, Major-General Tukur Yusuf Buratai, who were seen leaving the Aso Rock Presidential Villa in Abuja at about 9.00am.
The Minister of Finance, Mrs Kemi Adeosun, was among other top government officials who also attended the meeting which was held at the Office of the Chief of Staff. A presidency source told State House correspondents that the participants discussed the humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram insurgency in the north-east.
The source, who pleaded anonymity, said the meeting was convened to discuss ways of ending the crisis as quickly as possible. He added that the Chief of Air Staff, AVM Sadique Abubakar and the Chief of Naval Staff, Rear Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Iba, could not attend the meeting because they were not around.
The meeting came as the Boko Haram intensified intermittent attacks on remote communities in Borno State, with an increase in suicide bombing by the militants or their recruits on civilian and military targets.
The state police command yesterday confirmed the killing Thursday night, of seven persons after two suspected female suicide bombers attacked Mandarari ward in Konduga Local Government Area.
Murtala Ibrahim of the command’s Public Relations Unit confirmed the incident in a statement in Maiduguri yesterday.
“Yesterday at about 22.45 hours, two suspected female suicide bombers detonated explosives strapped to their bodies at Mandarari ward in Konduga LGA, killing themselves and five others. Six persons sustained various degrees of injuries.
“The corpses and injured persons were evacuated to General Hospital Konduga, and normalcy restored to the area,” he said.
Earlier three female suicide bombers who attempted to attack a military outpost known as “Gontanamo” along muna garage at about 10:05p.m. Wednesday military outpost were killed by soldiers after which their explosives detonated. They were shot after being sighted by the troops in their attempt to gain access to the premises.
The National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA spokesman in the north-east, Ibrahim Abdulkadir, said corpses of the suicide bombers were evacuated by emergency officials.
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