GUNMEN KIDNAP FLOUR MILLS MANAGER

THREE gunmen suspected to be Boko Haram members on Tuesday attacked the premises of the Nigerian Flour Mills in Maiduguri, Borno State, and kidnapped its Administrative Manager, Malam Umar Baba Mai Salati, at gunpoint and whisked him away in his vehicle to unknown destination. Also, some gunmen attacked Bama and Damboa towns and the Gombouru ward in Maiduguri metropolis, killing four residents, including an officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC). The hoodlums also shot the Secretary to the House of Assembly at his Damboa farm on Tuesday. The armed kidnappers, according to an eyewitness, were three in number. They pretended, at the Flour Mills gate, as if they were waiting for someone, before forcefully whisking Salati away. A security guard in the company said yesterday that, “shortly after he (Salati) came out of his office around 6.15p.m, one of the assailants pointed a gun at him and told him to stop. It was then that all the three gunmen entered his car and directed him to zoom off to unknown destination.” Another eyewitness told The Guardian that Salati was picked up and whisked away at gunpoint while on his way home shortly after he closed from office. Confirming the incident yesterday in Maiduguri, the Borno State Police Commissioner, Abdullahi Yuguda, said the police were on top of the situation, as security agents have launched investigation to fish out the culprits. “We have preliminary information on the kidnap of Salati. This information could assist us in trailing the suspects, as this is the seventh incident and latest kidnap in this state,” Yuguda said. Damboa, according of the Joint Task Force (JTF), had been severally attacked, during which 18 local hunters were killed at one of the markets for allegedly selling pork. According to an eyewitness and resident of Damboa, Yohanna Isa, the Assembly Secretary, Alhaji Imu, was trailed by the gunmen on two motorcycles to the farm in the morning and shot in the leg and chest after he was sighted at a distance. He was rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) by the JTF and police for treatment. Yohanna said: “We were shocked yesterday when the gunmen on motorcycles terrified our people here with sporadic gun shots into the air. The farmlands were deserted as the people working on the farm fled to adjourning villages for safety.” In Bama, 78 kilometres southeast of Maiduguri, some gunmen shot dead the NSCDC officer at his residence at about 8.25p.m on Tuesday, while in Gambouru ward, another gang of suspected Boko Haram members shot dead three residents and injured a12-year old child with stray bullets. Confirming the separate incidents in Maiduguri, the Police Commissioner, Yuguda, told newsmen that there were multiple attacks and killings at Bama, Damboa and in an area of Gambouru ward, where three residents and NSCDC personnel were feared killed. He said none of the assailants was arrested. GUARDIAN