MILITARY authorities have revealed that one of the under-aged Boko Haram insurgents who was recently listed among the most wanted 100 terrorists is the missing son of a serving senior police officer.
Last week, the Nigerian Army issued pictures of the most wanted 100 Boko Haram terrorists and the list included nine under-aged children. An unnamed police officer has seen the pictures and said that one of the children, whose photographs were released by the military, is his missing child.
Apparently, some of the kids were also sighted with arms and ammunition in classified pictures and videos obtained by security operatives. Some of the boys were also sighted with human limbs of victims they allegedly killed while in action.
In the 100 photographs published by chief of army staff Lt General Tukur Buratai, the children are listed as numbers 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85 and 99. They were shown to enable members of the public identify the terrorists and report the whereabouts of any of them to the authorities.
One military source said: “Nigerians should not be agitated about these pictures as the military authorities are not passing a sentence on the kids. They are declared wanted because they have committed heinous acts against humanity and all these people were caught with weapons, while some of them carried out gory activities too unpleasant to mention.
“The pictures are very necessary and they are serving a strong purpose. Many parents don’t even know that their children are now fighting on the side of Boko Haram and the security agencies went a long way to get these pictures for a purpose.
Acting director of army public relations, Col Sani Usman, said that the military decided to release the pictures of the children alongside others in order to apprehend them and to prevent them from carrying out further acts against innocent Nigerians. He admitted that those whose pictures were released committed grave acts against innocent Nigerians and should be prevented from further destructive acts.
Col Usman urged Nigerians to cooperate with the security operatives in the search for the insurgents, by volunteering information that could be used to arrest them. Meanwhile, the Nigerian Army said that it has just cleared a suspected Boko Haram camp in Duwabafi village in Borno State.