Nigerian officers face court martial over links to Boko Haram fighters

ABUJA: Nigeria has ordered a brigadier general and 21 other army officers to face a court martial over alleged sabotage in the war against Islamist militant group Boko Haram, two military sources said on Tuesday.
The charges were not specified.
Some officers have long been suspected of colluding with Boko Haram, with President Goodluck Jonathan saying in May that the Jihadist group had “infiltrated ... the armed forces and police”.
This is the first time senior army officers have been put on trial for offences relating to the fight against Boko Haram.
The militant group killed an estimated 10,000 people last year in its battle to revive a medieval caliphate in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and its biggest energy producer.
Hundreds of people from four villages near the devastated Nigerian town of Baga have been forced to flee after a warning from Boko Haram militants, witnesses and community leaders said on Tuesday.
News of the exodus from Kekenu, Budur, Yoyo and Mile 90 villages came as Niger hosted a meeting on how to fight the rebels as concern mounted at the threat to regional security.
Boko Haram fighters attacked Baga on January 3, looting and burning down homes and businesses in the town and at least 16 surrounding villages on the shores of Lake Chad.
Hundreds of people, if not more, are feared to have been killed, although there is no official confirmation of the toll as the town is still in rebel hands, residents said.
Security analysts said the attack, in which a regional military base was captured, potentially puts the group in a strong strategic position to strike southwards and launch cross-border attacks.
Lake Chad forms the border between Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon and tens of thousands of people have streamed across the frontiers seeking sanctuary from the relentless violence.
Abubakar Gamandi, head of the Borno State fishermen’s union, said residents from the affected villages told him Boko Haram fighters had visited “and asked people to leave -- or else”. One woman who fled Baga to the Borno State capital, Maiduguri, on Monday confirmed that she joined the crowds fleeing the four villages.
“When we came to Mile 90, we found it almost empty with some remaining residents staying behind to pick up personal belongings,” said Ma’agana Butari. “We also found Budur, Kekenu and Yoyo deserted and we caught up with some of the residents moving towards Monguno,” the 32-year-old mother of five said by telephone from Maiduguri.