BOKO Haram terrorists have debunked myths that their organisation has been crushed and unable to operate by carrying out a daring attack on the Kogi State office of the Directorate of State Service (DSS) where they freed their detained colleagues and killed four people.
Over recent weeks, the Nigerian Army has enjoyed significant success against Boko Haram, recapturing territory from the terrorists and overrunning their bases. This prompted several senior military figures to boast that Boko Haram no longer had the capacity to operate as its back had been broken.
However, on Friday, in a defiant show of strength, Boko Haram mounted a daring raid on the DSS office in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital and freed about 30 of its members detained there. Four people, including an anti-riot policeman, were reportedly killed in the attack by the invading insurgents.
According to eyewitnesses, the attackers made for the cells of the DSS office located along Hassan Katsina Road, Lokoja and released all suspects kept there after gaining entrance. One source revealed that the heavily armed men appeared to have overwhelmed the DSS officials present, prompting a deputy director of the agency to quickly put out a distress call to the police at about 10.40pm.
A combined patrol teams of soldiers and policemen were later drafted to the place and they engaged the invaders in a gun duel for over seven hours. Eventually, the security operatives later overpowered the attackers and some of them fled into the bush but at the end of the shootout, the bodies of a policeman and three of the attackers were discovered.
Apparently, two of the attackers fled to Otokiti Housing Estate in Lokoja and forced themselves into one of the flats occupied by a woman. She then quickly invited soldiers who responded immediately and arrested then terrorists, taking then away.
Kogi State police commissioner Emmanuel Ojukwu, said the prompt response of the police command led to the death of three of the attackers, while at the end of the operation the command lost a policeman. He said he could not confirm whether or not the invaders succeeded in entering the DSS office.
Mr Ojukwu added: “We are still investigating and cannot say much for now until we are able to lay our hands on the suspects. We are working assiduously with other security agents in the state to ensure that we get to the root cause of the attack.”
Already, the DSS has deployed operatives from its Abuja headquarters to Lokoja to hunt down the Boko Haram suspects that escaped from its detention facility in the state. For now, the DSS is yet to have a definite number of the escaped suspects but hopes to do so within the next 24 hours.
