Boko Haram Crisis: Nigerian Truck Drivers Open Up

Nigerian truck drivers who have been affected by Boko Haram insurgency have criticized the administration of President Goodluck Jonathan.

According to them, he has not handled the Boko Haram conflict well and has been complicit in the group’s growth over the years. Some say his complicity lies in his neglect of the north-east.
Some even refer to him as “the chairman of Boko Haram“, BBC reports.

Some of the truck drivers who have survived a journey through Boko Haram territory relax out of the sun under the porch of a building.

One of the truck drivers identified as Mr Abubakar said: “President Jonathan is just as guilty as those Boko Haram killers because he has chopped off all the money to repair the roads.
“The killings are too much and have been going on for too long.
“President Jonathan is not doing anything. We hope he will leave – we want change.”

All the truck drivers also expressed anger over the postponement of the February 14 presidential elections by six weeks.

Some of the Nigerian truck drivers who have survived a journey through Boko Haram territory open up about their ordeal. Most of those in the group drive tankers of petrol, diesel or kerosene to and from Maiduguri, the city at the heart of the Islamist insurgency in the north-east and the capital of Borno state.
Gathered at the Ogere Trailer Park, about 50km (30 miles) north of Lagos, they say they have all been affected by the six-year conflict.

The drivers can spend several weeks at Ogere Trailer Park as they wait to get clearance for Lagos port.

Most of them say they have lost relatives, wives and children have been kidnapped and their homes destroyed by the insurgency.

Speaking about their perils as truck drivers plying the Lagos-Maiduguri route, Abubakar and his colleagues said it takes two and a half days when a tanker is empty and four and a half days when full. Aside the dangers of Boko Haram, there are so many potholes on the roads.
“Ten of my colleagues who ply this route have been killed in the last three weeks. The militants stopped them and cut off their heads with an electric chainsaw and burned the trucks.

“Boko Haram is usually only interested in commandeering smaller vehicles, sometimes the fighters will take the lorries, but most of the time they burn them,” Mr Abubakar said.

According to another truck driver, if a driver looks ‘powerful’, the insurgents may kidnap him and conscript him to be a fighter but if you are looking weak, they will definitely kill you.
“If you reach Damaturu by five in the afternoon, you dare not continue on the final leg to Maiduguri,” he said, explaining that a driver may not manage the last 130km before the sun sets, when they would be most vulnerable to attack.

Recounting his own ordeal with the sect, driver Trap Bukar said he was in the town of Bama when it was captured by Boko Haram last September.
“It started early in the morning. Suddenly they came. There was shooting, in my presence I saw four people go down; the soldiers fled. I could tell you many unhappy tales,” he said with tears in his eyes.

According to Kullima Ali, 18, who has been a motor boy for four years, it is very difficult to tell the militants from soldiers, as they dress in camouflage, with only their eyes visible.

Kullima Ali, who has worked as a motor boy for four years, lost two of his brothers in a Boko Haram attack.

He explained that he is now his family’s only bread winner as the insurgents killed his two brothers and burned their house in Maiduguri in January 2013. He now has only his mother and sister.

In recent times, Nigerian troops have been successful in reclaiming several towns previously seized by the insurgents.

After scores of attack on neigbhbouring countries, Nigeria’s neighbors decided to form a multinational army to confront Boko Haram, pledging to help Nigeria defeat the extremists.