Military Commander Tells Corps Members Not To Travel By Road

The Commanding Officer of Januga Barracks in Kano State, North West Nigeria, has warned corps members hiding in the barracks not travel by road as they could be attacked by rioters, a corps member who attended the meeting told P.M.NEWS this morning by telephone.

Addressing corps members this morning in the military barracks, the commander told corps members who wanted to leave Kano State to go by plane, our source said.

However, our source said, the Kano International Airport was filled to capacity with most flights fully booked “as everybody was trying to get out of the state,” she said.

“The Cross River State Government has sent a plane to evacuate corps members from their state. We have not heard anything from the Lagos State Government. To travel by plane, you need to get to the airport and all flights are said to be booked there. Everybody is fleeing the state,” the corps member from Lagos said.

The meeting with the military officers came as Youth Corps Members who are electoral officers in polling units across Nigeria in the just concluded National Assembly and Presidential elections were threatening to boycott next week’s polls due to post-election violence that have erupted in Northern Nigeria.

Reports say that the riots have claimed the lives of many, including corps members in Kaduna, Jigawa, Kano and Bauchi. At least 50 bodies were recovered yesterday from the scene of the violence. The final tally is expected to be higher, the International Red Cross said yesterday.

In Jigawa State, a female Corps Member named Chinelo who was a member the Lagos-based Deeper Life Church and was previously living in Oshodi was killed along with her brother as they were heading to church.

P.M.NEWS could not confirm the identity or exact locations of other Corps Members who are said to have been killed, but many were injured with some battling for life in some hospitals in Kano, a Corps member hiding at Januga Barracks in Kano told P.M.NEWS this morning by telephone.

“We are at Januga Barracks. We came in here immediate riots broke out and we are about a hundred corps members here. We sleep in classrooms and we are not allowed to go anywhere. Reports here say that the attacks are mainly on Christians and Corps members, so we are stranded here.

“There is a church here that feeds us. It’s an Anglican Church called St John. The wives of the officers here also feed us. But we can buy bread here within the barracks and a few things.

“We are not ready to participate in the next voting exercise. The official political statement here is that we must participate in the next election, but corps members are not ready to waste their lives, because these attacks are mostly directed at Corps members and Christians and most of us here are both. We don’t want to die,” a female corps member said on telephone from Januga Barracks.

In Sokoto, Corps Members who spoke with P.M.NEWS today said they may not participate in next week election, explaining that their safety was not guaranteed.

“Many Corps members here are saying that they cannot participate in the election next week. When the riots started, we were asked not to go out for a whole day.

“But, things seem to have returned to normal now and we can move around. But, many corps members have already vowed that they will not participate in the election,” a corps member told us on telephone from Sokoto.

A corps member in Jos also told our correspondent that many corps members are not ready to die and may not participate in next week’s election.

—Simon Ateba