Amid media reports that Boko Haram terrorists abducted a large but unspecified number of teenage girls last weekend, Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State on Tuesday constituted a seven-member fact-finding committee to establish the fact behind the claim.
The committee was given three days to submit its report.
It would be recalled that the terrorists were reported to have stormed Bam-Buratai in the early hours of Saturday, a community in Biu local government area of Borno State, during the weekend, killing four persons and abducting many girls.
Bam village is about seven kilometres from Buratai village, the hometown of Nigeria’s Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai.
The latest reports of abduction of teenage girls in Bam village brought back sad memories of the mass abduction of teenage girls from Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, last year April with the girls’ fate unknown.
The Special Adviser on Communications and Strategy to the Governor, Isa Gusau, in a statement yesterday, said members of the committee were mostly selected from indigenes of Biu local government area where the affected community is located.
Gov. Shettima, who met members of the committee shortly after the committee was set up, said they should deploy every lawful means including interface with their kith an kin in the affected community and surrounding areas with a view to establishing all facts concerning the reported abduction and present findings to him not later than Friday, December 4 for appropriate action.
The committee is chaired by a member of the Borno State House of Assembly, representing Biu, Aliyu Kachalla.
Other members of the committee include: Adama Badawi, secretary, Habib Yusuf, Baba Isa, Usman Buratai, Ibrahim Miringa and Hamma Adama Biu.
Governor Shettima also called on citizens to remain calm and go about their normal businesses, assuring that the State Government was working assiduously to support security agencies and youth volunteers to end the Boko Haram insurgency.
