Police sources said on Thursday that 80 percent of the 200 people arrested in connection to the recent wave of attacks in the north are Chadian “mercenaries”.
The mass arrests comes barely a week after the deadly wave of coordinated bomb and gun attacks, targeting security and police buildings in northern Nigeria’s largest city of Kano that claimed over 180 lives.
Nigeria’s dreaded Islamic sect Boko Haram had released a statement through its purporrted spokesman, Abul Qaqa, claiming responsibility for the attacks and explaining that it had carried out to punish the state’s government for perscuting sect members.
In an effort to crack down on further attacks and bring the culprits to book, police officers and security agents have carried out a series of mass arrests and a majority of those hauled in by security operatives are Chad nationals.
According to a Bloomberg report, Nigeria’s government has reached out to Chadian authorities, calling on them to find out if Boko Haram has roots in Chad, especially if they have training facilities in Chad.
“The most likely scenario in this case is that the Nigerian police received intelligence suggesting the participation of Chadians in the Kano operation and have gone on to round up as many Chadians as they can find,” Sebastian Boe, a London-based analyst for IHS Global Insight said in the Bloomberg report.
“While the participation of a number of Chadians is certainly plausible, I very much doubt that Boko Haram recruited 160 of them for the operation.”
However, arbitrary arrests are common in Nigeria, especially following major attacks. Nigerian authorities, under pressure to find answers, often resort to “dragnet arrests, rather than arresting people on the basis of a reasonable suspicion that they committed an offence,” Amnesty International said earlier this week.
Security forces have also been known to gun down individuals who they claim to be suspects or definite members of the sect.
Earlier this week, a joint task force team in Hotoro district in Kano had attacked a man in his home, gunning him down and killing his pregnant wife in the process. They had claimed to have evidence proving the man to be a member of the Boko Haram sect. His relatives denied it.
Eager to boost the nation’s dwindling confidence in ill-equipped police force, Jonathan took some major steps on Wednesday, relieving the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Hafiz Ringim, of his duties and appointing Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, the Assistant Inspector General, as the acting IGP.
In a press statement the President explained the move was the first step towards the comprehensive reorganization and repositioning of the Nigeria Police Force to make it more effective and capable of meeting emerging internal security challenges.
