About 31 villagers were on Saturday killed during attack by members of ISWAP, a breakaway faction of Boko Haram, on a village in Gubio Local Government of Borni State.
Many people were also injured in the wake of the deadly attack.
The second attack on the Gubio village took place around the same time Monguno, the country home of the current National Security Adviser, Major General Mohammed Monguno, was being attacked.
Monguno came under heavy attack at about noon, on Saturday, when armed insurgents stormed the town in large numbers.
Sources familiar with the Monguno incident confirmed that the insurgents came in about 13 pickup vehicles and gun trucks and immediately engage soldiers in a fierce gun duet.
“They split into two groups while approaching Monguno,” said an official of a local vigilante group, Malam Bunu.
“The first group moved straight into the town and headed straight to the military base, while the second group engaged the soldiers at the outskirt of Monguno. They came in a way, that they circled the soldiers who had to return fire from the middle.”
Some of the insurgents drove right into Monguno town in seven trucks and began to drop leaflets to the residents.
In the single-sheet typed letter, which was written in Hausa, the insurgents warned the residents to desist from cooperating with the military. They told the insurgents “not to allow the military to use them as a human shield because whereever the soldiers are based is our battlefield.”
Bunu said the civilian residents were not directly attacked by the insurgents, as “they stated in the warning letter that they would not fight civilians ‘except soldiers and those who took sides with their enemy.”
He said some soldiers were killed by the insurgents in Monguno.
“One of our members in Monguno informed us that he saw six bodies of slain soldiers at the entrance,” the vigilante official said.
The army is yet to speak on the Monguno incident and whether or not it suffered casualties from the attack.
Bunu also said he was informed that some facilities of the UN and other aid organisations were torched during the attack.
It was gathered that the insurgents later left Monguno and headed for Nganzai, a town 59km northeast of Gubio village where they also dropped leaflets.
A source confirmed that the insurgents also attacked Goni-Usmanti village in Gubio local government where they killed at least 31 persons.
“Goni Usmanti is not very far from the village where 81 persons were killed on Tuesday,” the source said.
“They went there at about the time Monguno was being attacked and opened fire on the residents killing about 31 persons. We are not sure if the number would be more than that because we learned that some people fled into the bushes and the insurgents went shooting after them.”
Sources who spoke to PREMIUM TIMES said there has been a long-standing acrimony between the villagers in Gubio local government especially the herders community and the ISWAP group.
“Due to the large scale business of animal husbandry in those villages, the insurgent used to harass the dwellers from time to time during which they would demand levies or forcefully take away their animals.
“With time the villagers began to resist them, by arming themselves with double barrel hunting rifles, Dane guns, and other non-ballistic weapons.
“So each time Boko Haram sends their traducers who usually visit them riding on one or two motorcycles, the villagers who are also spiritually charmed, would overpower the insurgents, kill and bury them. This has been going on for many months now, and by so doing the farmers were able to preserve their cows and other livestock.
