BY NDAHI MARAMA, MAIDUGURI
Residents of Attagara village, in  Gwoza Local Government Area of Borno  state on Friday evening repelled attack on their community by suspected Boko Haram who invaded the area.

Attagara, a border community with Cameroon Republic is about 10 kilometres south- east of Pulka District, Gwoza Local Government Area of the state and about 130 kilometres drive from Maiduguri, the state capital.

Vanguard sources said the attacker invaded the village on motorcycles but met some women as they were entering the village. “They wanted to hit the women with the stick in their hands but their hands were hung in the air. Three of the insurgents fled but seven were not lucky when the women alert the people,” a resident of the area who returned to Maiduguri told journalists

He said the vigilante group in the community rushed to the scene and disarmed the seven insurgents, adding that the Boko Haram men were lynched by the residents who also destroyed their motorcycles. “Seven of the insurgents died,” he said.

Also a  Boko Haram leader, Hassan Ali, who was reportedly arrested by the local vigilante in Maiduguri three weeks ago, has confessed that he got “married” to two of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls in Sambisa forest.

According to reliably source leadership.ng  Hassan Ali, a native of Kwapchi-Kilakise village who was said to have killed his biological father, Mallam Hassan Arigizhe, and his uncle, Zakariya Ali, was also said to have sanctioned the killing of his younger sister whom he forcefully took to Sambisa when she refused to accede to the sexual demands of one of the Amirs (leaders) in Sambisa, an act that elevated him to the position of Amir too.

leadership.ng quoting officials of the Vigilante Group of Nigeria in Borno State, said Hassan was arrested by the Civilian-JTF and members of the VGN when he was spotted in a car trying to leave Maiduguri for Benisheik, along the Damaturu-Maiduguri highway.

A VGN official said: “It was on the first day that we mobilised to Pilgrims Camp when we wanted to be given permission to go to Sambisa in search for the missing girls. When he was asked to identify himself, he pretended to be a dumb person. But those that knew him said he was lying and they started to beat him up; it was when he sensed death that he later confessed that he was a member of Boko Haram, and that he was sent to come to Maiduguri to buy yams worth N200, 000. He said he had finished his transaction and the truck had since left for Sambisa.

“When we asked him about the abducted girls, he said they were all fine, that none of them was being hurt or molested; he said as a matter of fact he was betrothed to two of them as wives due to his position as Amir. He said they eat good food there – mostly canned foods and canned drinks; they eat spaghetti, rice, smoked fish and yam.

“I was the one that personally interviewed him when he was arrested near Njimtilo at the outskirts of Maiduguri, towards Damaturu. I even took some jotting of his statement before we later left him with the Sector-6 officials of the Civilian-JTF. I did not take his photograph but some of our local hunters who had camera phones did. Unfortunately, all of them had gone back to their various localities after the state government had disbanded us last week.”

LEADERSHIP cannot independently verify this report, even though many members of the Civilian-JTF in the state attested to such incident happening. None could tell the whereabouts of the Boko Haram kingpin, Hassan Ali.