Boko Haram in control of Mubi as 3,000 relocate

FIVE days after Boko Haram terrorists seized Mubi, the second largest town in Adamawa, the insurgents are still holding on to the town even as about 3,000 residents who managed to escape have joined

other internally displaced persons at an NYSC camp in Yola. Some of the survivors of the invasion have also recounted their ordeals.

Most of them who ran for safety were students of the Federal Polytechnic, one of the students, Gift Ugo, a Mass Communications undergraduate of the Polytechnic from Abia State who said she spent four days in the bush where she hid from the prowling eyes of the insurgents said it was a miracle that she escaped alive.

She said: “I am based in Kaduna but schooling in Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa. I am studying Mass Communication. Actually, the incident happened on Wednesday morning although we never knew it would be that serious as the jets were dropping bombs. We had thought it was the usual incident that would just pass by but before we realized it, sounds of gunshots were everywhere. About 150 students ran to Cameroon border and were accommodated by the Cameroonian soldiers but we decided to stay back in the hostel to see how safe it would be until they called us that an HND 1 Accounting student had been killed. We were told that the crisis spread into the school premises as the university had been burnt down while the next target would be the Polytechnic.

“We had to run for our lives. We tried to get to where we could get a vehicle because the roads had been taken over by the insurgents. We saw them with our eyes. They have blocked all the access roads leading to the town, so nobody could leave or enter the town. The moment you come into the town, you are sure you are going to die and if you were inside the city, you had to run for your life because nowhere is safe inside Mubi right now. We have not been eating anything. We were just taking water with thorns piecing through our legs. Walking in the bush for four days has not been easy for us.”

Another student, Queen Samuel, an indigene of Benue State, studying Purchasing and Supply, also shared her experience. She said, “we have been running, we have lost almost everything. We trekked all the way from Mubi to Hong and got a cab that took us here. The situation in Mubi was very, very terrible. Immediately we left, we learned that the insurgents had burnt our hostel. There were gun shots and bomb blasts everywhere. We saw the Boko Haram people from the bush where we were hiding. Two of them were on a motor bike and some were riding in Keke Napep (tricycle) armed with guns, so we hid. It was by the grace of God that they didn’t see us. We spent three days in the bush. There was no security there at all in the town.