by Stanley Azuakola

Some optimists who had hoped that radical Islamic sect, Boko Haram, would call a ceasefire in observance of the holy month of Ramadan had their hearts broken when the sect struck in Maiduguri last week. Their victims were two Indian nationals and an Islamic cleric.

As if that wasn’t enough, a Joint Task Force (JTF) patrol vehicle was attacked in the Shehuri ward of Maiduguri on Friday. However, the JTF did not take the attack lying low. They engaged the gunmen in a bloody fifteen minutes gun battle, killing two of them.

On the JTF side, two men were wounded, and according to the spokesman of the JTF, Lt. Col. Sagir Musa, they “are responding to treatments of the injuries they sustained in the attacks at University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH).”

In a press statement issued yesterday to newsmen in Maiduguri, the spokesman said that, “Twenty-five suspects are, so far, arrested in connection with the episode.”

The spokesman also claimed that men of the JTF detected and detonated an explosive device on Friday at the Bulunkutu area of Maiduguri.

If the 25 people reportedly arrested by the JTF are included, it brings the total number of suspects so far arrested since the killing of the Indian nationals and Islamic cleric to 51.