Mild drama ensued at a petrol station located along Damboa road in Maiduguri, Borno state on Tuesday when a Boko Haram suspect was whisked away by the civilian Joint Task Force (JTF) fighting insurgency in the North-East, for allegedly attempting to bomb the station.
The suspected Boko Haram member had reportedly mixed with the hundreds of people seeking to buy fuel in the station, but was apprehended after a member of the civilian spotted him with a substance that looked like an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
According to online news portal, Daily Post, a pump attendant at the station said: “Today, we are very lucky because there are over 500 people with hundreds of cars waiting for fuel when the sect member approach the crowd with 5 litres gallon, pretending to have come to buy fuel.”
The pump attendant, Garba Hussaini, said one of the boys maintaining order in the petrol station because of the long queue occasioned by the fuel scarcity in the country, told the suspected sect member not to enter with his gallon, but he pulled a knife and attempted to stab the boy.
It was at that point the civilian JTF member saw the object suspected to be IED tied around him, turned on him before he could detonate it and whisked him away.