Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, the former Chief of Army Staff, barely survived last Friday’s shooting attack on his convoy in Borno State by suspected Boko Haram fighters.
This was disclosed by Borno South Senatorial District politician Senator Ali Ndume during his Sunday appearance on Channels Television’s Politics Today. According to Ndume, Buratai and the soldiers he was with were attacked close to a military base on the front line. The state of our security is catastrophic. Buratai was attacked at the Borno front operations base just two days earlier. “The insurgents were able to destroy a number of military assets, but his team responded with great courage,” he said. According to him, the militants destroyed some of the valuable equipment and weapons they targeted, including machine guns, tanks, and Mine-Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicles (MRAPVs).
Borno’s position is rapidly getting worse. Now that they have more freedom, insurgents steal and burn military hardware. “It’s turning into a major crisis,” the lawmaker stated. Security issues are present in all six geopolitical zones, albeit to differing degrees. We are struggling with economic sabotage, such as oil theft, even in the South-South. The South-West now seems to be the only area that is reasonably safe. Buratai was a key player in Nigeria’s counterinsurgency effort during the Muhammadu Buhari government. He was Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff from 2015 to 2021.
