Yobe: Army denies withdrawing soldiers from checkpoint before attack

    
The Nigerian Army on Wednesday debunked reports that a military checkpoint was withdrawn from the vicinity of the Federal Government College, Buni Yadi, Yobe State, 24 hours before the gruesome killing of 43 students of institution by suspected Boko Haram insurgents in the early hours of Tuesday.
The Spokesman of the ‘3’ Division Special Operation Battalion of the Nigerian Army, in Yobe, Capt. Eli Lazarus, said the claim was ‘baseless, unfounded and unfortunate.’
The Media Aide to Governor of Yobe State, Alhaji Abdulahi Begho, reportedly said that a few soldiers close to the school were redeployed without any genuine reason on Monday.
There were also similar reports attributed to some residents of Buni Yadi that a security checkpoint in the area was removed a day before the attack.
But the JTF Spokesman said in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Wednesday that it was not the pattern of the military to deploy soldiers to the gates of schools in the state.
Lazarus challenged those making the claims to mention one school in Yobe State where soldiers were deployed to the front of the institution.
He said that it was not possible to deploy soldiers to all the boarding schools in Yobe state which, according to him, had up to 64 of such boarding institutions.
 “In the first place, soldiers were never deployed to the gate of the school. We don’t deploy in front of schools, give me one example where soldiers are deployed in front of a school.
“We have 64 boarding schools in Yobe State so we can’t start deploying soldiers in front of every school. I wonder why somebody would say such a controversial thing.
“There was no checkpoint close to Federal Government College; we had no soldiers close to the school, and there was no redeployment; that is absolute falsehood.
“We have two deployments in the town, as you are entering the town,”
“This claim is baseless, unfounded and unfortunate…
“There are media reports that the Media Adviser to the State Governor, Abdulahi Begho, confirmed the story but I find it difficult to believe that he did so and if it is true, then it is quite unfortunate,” he said
A very senior military source said on Wednesday that the Boko Haram crippled all the telecommunication masts in the community two weeks before the attack on the Federal Government College to make communication to military formations impossible during the attack.
It was further recalled that the attackers entered the school from a neighboring village in Borno on foot through a bush part in order to avoid attracting any attention.
The source said that the students killed were between the ages of 10 and 13 years