With few days to Christmas, Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Abubakar, has put the entire police formations in the country on red alert, to safeguard all Nigerians and public property.
Christmas, in the last three years in Nigeria, has been the favourite time by Boko Haram terrorists to inflict maximum damage to the country.
But the police are not leaving matters to chances, as per the latest directive by MD Abubakar.
According to police spokesman, Frank Mba, the IGP has ordered extra patrols, surveillance and covert operations to better secure potential targets during the festive period.
The Boko Haram militants have struck every Christmas for the past three years, most dramatically in 2011, when they bombed three churches. One of them, on St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger state, killed 37 people and wounded 57.
“All the strike forces and specialized units of the force have been adequately mobilized to … provide water-tight security.
“Covert operations, round-the-clock surveillance, and robust vehicular patrols are being intensified, while particular attention is now constantly paid to strategic public places, including places of worship, recreation centres, shopping malls, business plazas, motor parks, strategic highways, government installations and other important locations so as to forestall any possible criminal activity and guarantee the safety of the citizenry,” Mba said in the statement.
The spokesman further revealed that the IGP has directed all Assistant Inspectors-General of Police and Commissioners of Police in all Zonal and State Commands of the Force to retool their security infrastructures in line with international standards, taking into consideration their local environment and peculiar security situation in order to protect the citizens adequately.
President Goodluck Jonathan has been criticized by the opposition, the media and Western diplomats for failing to protect civilians during the four-and-a-half year insurgency, which began as a clerical movement opposed to Western influences but morphed into a fully fledged insurrection, forging links with al Qaeda-inspired groups in the Sahara.
Like those groups, Boko Haram believe Christians are infidels who must be converted or killed.
A wave of church attacks around early 2012 raised fears they were trying to trigger a sectarian civil war in a country with the world’s largest mixed population of Christians and Muslims, although the feared reprisals never materialized.
President Jonathan last month extended a state of emergency in the northeast areas worst affected by the insurgency. A military offensive since May has failed to quell the rebellion, and Boko Haram has mounted several counter-attacks.
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