UPDATE on Mubi Massacre: Police arrest suspects, residents allege cover-up

Mubi residents decry the attitude of the state and security agencies to the killing. The Adamawa State Police Command has made some arrests in connection with the killing of over 40 people, many of them students in Mubi, Adamawa state.

The police spokesman, Muhammed Ibrahim, who announced this on Wednesday, also said some of the students were not shot but slaughtered. “The police force headquarters will come out with more appropriate information about the incidence in due course,” Mr. Ibrahim said while refusing to say the number of persons arrested.

Mr. Ibrahim said the attackers might have known their victims personally because they identified them (the victims) before killing them. “Some relatives of the slain students said the assailants of their sons called them out by name midnight of Monday before they were killed. “Honestly there is insider in this killing because majority of the victims were slaughtered like goats while others were killed by gun shots,” the police spokesperson said.

The alleged cover-up Residents of Mubi, who would not want their names published for security reasons, have accused the state government and the police of a cover-up on the disaster. An elderly resident told PREMIUM TIMES that the rumours that the killing were done by rival cult or student gangs were completely false.

“Everybody know that it is Boko Haram that carried out this attack. I don’t know why the Adamawa government is trying to paint a different picture,” he said. Another resident questioned how any group of students would have dared violate the curfew, in the heavily militarized town, to carry out the attack.

“Everybody in Adamawa know that there is curfew between 3.00p.m. and 6.00.a.m. Nobody but Boko Haram dare go out within such time to commit such atrocities,” the Mubi resident said. He questioned the efficiency of the security operatives saying since the attack lasted over one hour, with heavy gun shots heard by all, and within a curfew period, the men of the Joint Task Force could have stopped the attackers even if it was during the attack.

The Adamawa State Government had initially declared a 24-hour curfew in Mubi during which the JTF said they killed some and arrested several members of the Boko Haram group. The curfew was relaxed last Thursday from 24 hours to between 3.00p.m. and 6.00a.m.