Bad roads fuel Boko Haram terrorists’ activities in Borno-Buratai
COAS Lt. Gen. Buratai
Dilapidated and inaccessible road network has been described as responsible for continuous Boko Haram terrorists and insurgency activities culminating in loss of man hours in Borno State.
The Chief of Army Staff, (COAS) Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai, raised the concern while addressing the media at the 242 Recce Battalion in Mongunu on challenges of bad roads to end Boko Haram menace in the North-East.
According to him, the affected roads are in border areas of Niger and Cameroon including the Lake Chad region, which is only accessible by air for ongoing counter-insurgency operations.
He said with accessible standard roads, troops can quickly respond to any terrorists activities that had claimed many lives and property.
Buratai said: “We have plied the 270-kilometre Damasak-Gudumbali-Kukawa-Monguno road for four hours. If the road was good, it takes only two hours to reach Monguno, instead of four.
“By the time communities alerted our troops of any attack or infiltration of insurgents, two hours had be wasted, while the damage to lives and property had been done by Boko Haram insurgents along the road,” he explained.
The roads, according to him, included Dikwa-Gamboru, Maiduguri-Monguno, Maiduguri-Bama-Gwoza and Maiduguri-Damboa-Biu roads with total distance coverage of 783kilometers.
He called on the Federal and Borno State governments to intervene and fix all the dilapidated roads that link several communities for the ongoing military operations.
He lamented that because of the poor state of roads, 50 per cent of troops’ insurgency response time is being delayed and wasted.