B/Haram planted more bombs than during the civil war – IGP

More bombs were planted by the Boko Haram terrorist group in the north-east than the ones buried during the Nigerian civil war, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, has said.

The IGP said this yesterday in Lagos at the commencement of a four-week anti-bomb training for 60 Nigerian policemen by the United States of America.

Idris, while flagging off the training, said “It is on record that mines buried by Boko Haram in the Northeast are far above the ones buried during the Nigerian Civil War. So, we are fortunate to have US anti-bomb experts to cone and train us on how to detect buried mines.”

Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Operation, Joshak Habila, who represented the IGP at the event, said the training is part of efforts to equip the police to finally take over from the military reclaimed areas in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states. According to him, it is also geared towards boosting the cops’ capacity in the fight against militants in the Niger Delta and other troubled areas in the country.

The facilitators, Jon Demarthino and Rick Hahn, both from the US Anti-Terrorism Assistance Group, said the training would be hard and tasking, and urged the participants to give it their all in order to achieve desired results.

Earlier, the Commissioner of Police, EOD, Chika Maidama, said the training would increase his personnel’s knowledge.

Noting that the participants were officers between Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) and Superintendent of Police (SP) ranks, Maidama said the idea was to train unit leaders who would go back and train their subordinates.

Also the event was the Lagos Police Commissioner Fatai Owoseni.