On Wednesday, May 1, 2024, a group of suspected former Boko Haram militants, dressed in military uniforms, attacked the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency and Nigeria Customs Service checkpoints at Kasuwan Fara, a suburb of Maiduguri, forcing personnel to flee and setting the structures ablaze.
According to counterinsurgency expert Zagazola Makama, this incident followed a confrontation between the suspects and police at the Kasuwan Fara Divisional Police Office.
The suspects had attempted to free eight of their colleagues, arrested on April 24 for criminal activities related to drug trafficking. The area, notorious for criminal activity, had been slated for closure by the Borno State Government due to persistent drug peddling and sinister operations by dismissed military personnel, repentant insurgents, and hoodlums.
The arrested individuals were being held at the Kasuwan Fara police division until a group of about a dozen suspected repentant insurgents, also in military uniform, attempted to rescue them at around 7:40 am on Thursday, May 2.
The Divisional Police Officer alongside his men were able to repel the attack while the perpetrators fled.
“Consequently, the assailants, in an apparent transfer of aggression, reverted to attacking NDLEA and NCS personnel checkpoint along the Maiduguri-Gubio road Kasuwan Fara, where they burnt down the checkpoints alongside the sandbags heaped on the road and fled the scene.
Borno Police Command spokesman, ASP Kenneth Daso, who confirmed the incident, said investigations are ongoing to apprehend the attackers, and the arrested eight suspects have been transferred to Anti-Crack Squad Div HQ for further action, “ Makama reported.