In mid-May, President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the states of Yobe, Borno and Adamawa following an attack on Police barracks in Bama in Borno state by Islamist militants.  Members of the Boko Haram group are blamed for most of the violence, having being linked to the deaths of around 2,000 people since 2010.

A massive deployment of men and resources are aiming to assert the nation’s territorial integrity, since the militants cross frontiers virtually unchallenged.  The President said that attacks on government buildings and the killing of officials and other civilians amounted to a declaration of war.

Amnesty International have accused Boko Haram of committing widespread atrocities in the mainly Muslim north.  The name Boko Haram means ‘Western education is forbidden’.  They are fighting to overthrow the government and create an Islamic state.

Rev. Ibrahim reports that “Although the Federal Government inaugurated a committee on amnesty for the Boko Haram sect, they kept killing Nigeria’s security forces. Hopefully, now that security forces are at war with the insurgents, the unnecessary killings of believers in that axis will be reduced.

Thanks be to God that we celebrated the 2013 Democracy Day without a record of any blasts, courtesy of the quenching of Boko Haram insurgency by the Presidential declaration of the state of emergency.”.