Yobe killings: Army denies withdrawing soldiers from checkpoint before attack

The Nigerian Army on Wednesday debunked reports that a military checkpoint was withdrawn from the vicinity of the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, 24 hours before the gruesome killing of dozens of students of the school by suspected Boko Haram insurgents.
The sad incident occurred in the early hours of Tuesday. The Spokesman of the '3' Division Special Operation Battalion of the Nigerian Army, in Yobe, Capt. Eli Lazarus, said the claim was 'baseless, unfounded and unfortunate.' Media Aide to Yobe State Governor, Alhaji Abdulahi Begho, had reportedly stated that a few soldiers close to the school were redeployed without any genuine reason on Monday. But reacting to the claim on Wednesday, the JTF spokesman said the military do not deploy soldiers to gates of schools in the state. He said that it was not possible to deploy soldiers to all the boarding schools in Yobe state which, according to him, had up to 64 of such boarding institutions.
"In the first place, soldiers were never deployed to the gate of the school. We don't deploy in front of schools, give me one example where soldiers are deployed in front of a school. "We have 64 boarding schools in Yobe State, so we can't start deploying soldiers in front of every school. I wonder why somebody would say such a controversial thing. "There was no checkpoint close to Federal Government College; we had no soldiers close to the school, and there was no redeployment; that is absolute falsehood. "We have two deployments in the town, as you are entering the town. This claim is baseless, unfounded and unfortunate. "There are media reports that the Media Adviser to the State Governor, Abdulahi Begho, confirmed the story but I find it difficult to believe that he did so and if it is true, then it is quite unfortunate," he said it was gathered that the sect had attacked all telecommunication masts in the community two weeks before the attack on the Federal Government College to make communication to Military formations impossible during the attack. Report says the militants entered the school from a neighboring village in Borno on foot, through a bush path in order to avoid attracting any attention.

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