passengers forced to sleep in the open Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State yesterday caught some soldiers and policemen forcing travellers who did not have the national identity card to pay N1,000.
The governor was on his way to Jakana, a village 45km from Maiduguri where terrorists launched an attack on Saturday.
While on the way, the governor met thousands of stranded commuters allegedly being extorted by security operatives at Jimtilo, a village in the outskirts of Maiduguri, along the Damaturu-Kano road. Yesterday’s incident in which soldiers and policemen blocked the highway for several hours, and forced the governor to stop, had caused heavy gridlock of buses and heavy trucks that were either going into, or out of Maiduguri to Damaturu, Kano, Kaduna, Jos, Abuja and other parts of the country.
Daily Trust reports that of all the five entry routes to the Borno State capital, the Maiduguri-Damaturu road is the relatively safest from Boko Haram ambush, hence the heavy traffic during the day. Though the military and other security operatives, last year reopened the Maiduguri-Bama-Biu road, Maiduguri-Damboa, Biu-Gombe road, Maiduguri-Dikwa, Gamboru-Ngala road and Maiduguri-Monguno-Baga road, passengers and drivers are up till now sceptical of plying them because of activities of ISWAP and Boko Haram insurgents.
