Fighting between Nigerian troops and Boko Haram insurgents escalated in Mubi, Mararaba Mubi and Uba in Adamawa State on Wednesday.
Casualty figures could not be obtained as of 8pm but the development forced the state government to impose 24-hour curfew on the affected communities. Mubi, the second largest town in the state and host of two high institutions, was the worst hit.
Sajoh, who is the director of Press and Public Affairs to the former Governor Murtala Nyako, added, “Mallam Iliyasu of the Bursary Department of the state university, who is trapped in the town said by 2pm, the Police Barracks in the GRA was overrun by the insurgents, the prison was blown open while fighting was going on at the army barracks. The IDP camp at Lamorde area was thrown into confusion.
Sajoh said He said, “This morning, I got a call from my daughter who is a 200-level student. She was hysterical. I was in Abuja for a meeting, but her information forced me to head back to Yola immediately,I ordered her to leave the hostel and join her cousins to escape the town.
I called my father who confirmed the story. By the time I arrived at Yola airport, the town had fallen to the insurgents.“My parents are trapped while my daughter and her cousins are missing. We have lost contact for six hours.”
“The barracks are the least safe locations in the town. So far, there are no reported cases of killings or abductions. But fear and apprehension have taken over.”
A fleeing resident, Joshua Gajere, said several people might have been killed during the shootings that lasted for almost two hours in Uba and other villages.
He said, ‘‘We are in serious trouble as these boys (Boko Haram) have taken over our towns, splitting into groups and advancing towards Mararaba, Mubi and Vintim, the home town of the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh. They made the Nigerian troops to retreat to Mubi’’.
Gajere added, “As I am talking to you now, residents are scampering for safety, ‘Mubi has now become a ghost of itself as people in their hundreds are fleeing for their lives.
‘‘Even here in Maiha, we saw military vehicles zooming off towards Yola, the state capital.’’
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