B’Haram raids stall Buhari’s Borno, Yobe rallies

Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in this month’s presidential election and his campaign organisation “have not attached a date” to the party’s presidential campaign rally in Borno and Yobe, two of the states most ravaged by insurgency in the northeast.

There were fears that Buhari had in fact postponed his rallied in the two states owing to the volatile security situation, but Garba Shehu, spokesman of the APC presidential campaign organisation, told TheCable on Monday that the party was only being careful in picking dates for the two states because it did not want to jeopardise the safety of its candidates in the presidential election.

Garba said the organisation was still studying the security situation in the two northeastern states to know the best dates to hold the rallies.

“The rallies in Borno and Yobe states are considered as a security issue therefore not subject to discussion on an open table. Nobody will take chances on the security of their candidates,” he said.

“There was a plan to go there on an open date .All things must come together. The security end must be tied up to ensure that no chances are taken; a short notice is given and we go in there and come out. That is what we will do.

“We have not cancelled the rallies and we have not announced a date either. It is on the calendar, but there is no date attached.”

On Sunday January 25, one day after Jonathan’s campaign rally in Maiduguri, capital of Borno state, Boko Haram launched an unsuccessful attack to gain control of the city.

The president’s advance medical, media and security teams were trapped in the attack and could not leave the state on the day as planned.

The terrorists made a second attempt to seize the town on Sunday, launching attacks from its different entry points, but they met with stiff military resistance and several of them died in the process.