A Nigerian Senator, Muhammed Ali Ndume, on Sunday said he escaped an air assault when a military fighter jet targeted his convoy of vehicles near his country home, Gwoza, and dropped four bombs.
The military, according to Senator Ndume said it was an operational miscalculation as they were targeting some terrorists that killed eight civilians in a border village on Saturday.
The bombs reportedly missed their targets because the seven vehicles on Mr. Ndume’s convoy were moving at top speed.
The four bombs, PREMIUM TIMES learnt, landed in the village of Pulka when Mr. Ndume was on his way to Gwoza Local Government Area to perform two functions.
The first, according to the senator, was to condole and commiserate with some of his constituents who were attacked by terrorists in Ardoko Village, 185km from Maiduguri, leading to the death of eight people. The second was to deliver a letter of status elevation to the Emir of Gwoza; who was elevated from a second-class to a first-class traditional ruler by the Borno State Governor, Kashim Shettima.
The senator said he was told by the military in Borno that the bomb attack was an operational blunder, as they did not intend to kill him.
“Though the military insisted it was a mistake, but it really underscored the seriousness of the problem of the operational lapses of the army,” he told PREMIUM TIMES.
“I was on my way to Gwoza and had to stop by in Pulka village which is some few kilometers away from Gwoza to attend to some of my people that came to welcome me there. There was a military post there too and I even exchanged pleasantries with the soldiers before proceeding.
“But as we began to move through Pulka I heard a massive explosion and some others ones followed. Initially I thought it was the Boko Haram that were attacking us; we even thought it was some people waiving at us from the road side that detonated the bomb.
“When we stopped, one of the army personnel that were escorting me said ‘Oga, we have to take cover, the bombs were dropped by the Airforce’, so we had to immediately return to the military post that we left some few yards behind us for a cover.
“At the military base, the soldiers there tried to establish communication with the pilot of the jet but could not across. And after some minutes they said that it might be an operational blunder from the Nigerian Airforce,” he said.
The military has been using air and ground attacks in in its efforts to defeat the Boko Haram insurgents in the three states of Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa, which are currently under a state of emergency.
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