Boko Haram scare in Enugu, Police guard churches

 Many Christian worshippers in Enugu went to church with fears,Sunday following speculations that a member of the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram was arrested by the police at Ninth Mile Corner on his way to Enugu to bomb some churches during their services.

Text messages which origin could not be ascertained were circulated to members and leaders of various churches in Enugu Saturday night alerting them of the presence of the Boko Haram members in the state with a call on them to make necessary security arrangements to forestall any attack on their places of worship.
Some church leaders who received the message before Sunday’s service actually beefed up security around their church premises with some inviting policemen to guard their premises. In some of the churches, vigilant security men were seen patrolling the premises and looking out for strange faces.

Many of the churches yesterday devoted enough time to pray against the activities of the sect even as some worshippers who got the text message Saturday night went to church with panic.
The short text messages sent to head of churches and other church workers had read as follows:  “Plse pass this to the pastors and other workers. One Boko bomber now in 9th mile police as was caught and tortured, he revealed there nos as 50 dat was sent for churches in this state. Pls let mechineries be put on alert especially during church activities”.
Unconfirmed sources said when the arrested person was interrogated by policemen at Ninth Mile, he reportedly revealed that about 50 members of the Islamic sect were deployed to Enugu State to attack churches and that he was prepared to give further details about their operations.
But the State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Danazumi Job Doma said when contacted on the development yesterday that he was not aware of the arrest of any member of the Islamic sect by any Police Division in the state, stressing that if there was anything like that it would not be the responsibility of the Ninth Mile Division alone to handle.
“This is almost 3.30 pm (today) and I don’t think that such a matter could have happened and the DPO till now has not briefed me. We don’t have knowledge of this and I want to tell you there is nothing like that.  The police is not sleeping and I ask residents to be free to go about their businesses and to always remain alert” the CP said in a telephone interview.
The State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu who was also contacted on the issue, said that the residents may have mistaken an arrest made by the Police at the Division two days ago to that of a Boko Haram member but he did not give details of the said arrest or the identity of the arrested suspect

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