Borno APC Chairman, Lawmakers Scale Fence For Refusing To Pay Hired Thugs

Maiduguri—Borno State chairman of All Progressives
Congress, APC, Ali Bukar Dalori and some members of the
state House of Assembly, who were meeting at one of the
government’s lodge in Maiduguri, were, Tuesday, forced to
scale the perimeter fences for dear life, following a clash
between the police attached to the former and hoodlums
claiming to be members of the vigilante group, popularly called
Civilian JTF.
A sign near a checkpoint of a vigilante group reads Civilian
J.T.F or Civilian Joint Task Force in Maiduguri,. Young men
and women have in recent weeks formed vigilante groups,
hunting down Boko Haram Islamists who have sneaked back
into the city following a military offensive on their camps on
the Nigerian border with Niger, Chad and Cameroon with
remarkable success.
Although Vanguard gathered that the incident did not involved
any registered member of the Civilian JTF, the political thugs
claimed to be members of the group.
The clash, according to investigation, erupted when police
attached to the APC Chairman attempted to stop some youths,
who claimed that the APC Chairman assigned them to carry
out certain assignment against PDP, part of which was to
remove all PDP billboards, flags in Maiduguri.
The youths said after accomplishing their mission, they ended
up disappointed as they were denied payment.
‘They’re impatient’
Sources closed to the APC Chairman said: “The hired thugs
are impatient. When they came demanding to see the
Chairman, they were told that he is in a meeting. But they were
not ready to wait.
“They told the police that they are in a hurry and that it would
take nothing for the Chairman to come out and settle them
before he goes back to continue with his meeting. But you
know, the instruction was given the police and they need to
carry it out.”
A Civilian JTF, Mallam Labor Yahaya, confirmed the clash, but
said members of his group were not involved in the fracas.
He said: “The thugs, who also carried Dane guns, started the
shooting. The police shot one of the rampaging youths in the
leg and one of the thugs also shot the policeman in his leg.”