In what an insider called "one of the first steps in a major overhaul of the security architecture", the president has appointed the General Officer Commanding (GOC) 82 Division of Nigerian Army, Maj. Gen. Sarkin Yakin Bello, as his new adviser to counter the rising wave of bombings in the country
In another counterterrorism measure, the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has launched an operation against illegal aliens in the country, leading to the deportation of nationals of six countries, including Somalia, for "security reasons".
Maj. Gen. Bello was the Commander of the Joint Task Force (Operation Restore Hope) in the Niger Delta in the heyday of militancy.
Before then, Bello, who was promoted to the two-star rank in December 2008 by the late President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua, was the Commander of Operation Flush Out III in Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
In Kano, the state command of Immigration Service at the weekend deported illegal immigrants from Somalia, Chad, Mali, Sudan, Niger and Senegal.
It is strongly believed in security circle that many of the "suicide bombers" trained by Boko Haram are not Nigerians, and the country's porous borders as well as the cultural affinity between cross-border towns may have blurred the true identities of the extremists.
A senior Immigration officer at the Kano Command told reporters over the weekend that the deportation was in the national interest and would continue for now.
He confirmed that "hundreds" of foreigners had been sent back to their countries as they had no valid papers to remain in the country.
"They are usually engaged in menial and undignifying jobs in the state, and as such could be ready tools in the hands of mischief makers," he said.
He also revealed that the service had adopted a "quiet, tactical approach" in purging the country of illegal immigrants so as to deport as many as possible.
We learnt that all the state commands had been instructed not to make their mode of operation public so as not to jeopardise efforts aimed at ridding the country of illegal immigrants.
The deportees are to be handed over to their home governments, the official said.
Boko Haram, which has claimed responsibility for the recent spate of bombings including the attack on the United Nations House which claimed 23 lives, said in June that it had trained suicide bombers in Somalia, a country where extremist group al-Shabaab, linked to Al-Qaeda, is in control. Revelations in the last one week have also shown that many of the Boko Haram members had been trained in Algeria and Afghanistan.
Source: ThisDay
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