Boma Achenimie 
In a surprising turn of events, nine out of the 102 Gamboru-Ngala, Borno State Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) abducted by Boko Haram terrorists while fetching firewood in the bush on Sunday, March 4, 2024. have returned home.
New Telegraph reports that the United Nations (UN) also confirmed the abduction of over 200 IDPs were abducted by terrorists suspected to be Boko Haram.
However, the Borno State government dismissed this narrative, asserting that the individuals had merely lost their way back home from the wilderness.
He said, “In fact, we don’t even believe that they were abducted,” Dr Barkindo Mohammed Saidu, the Director-General of Borno SEMA, who led the state government fact-finding team to Ngala immediately after the reported abduction, had told newsmen in Maiduguri, on Friday, March 8.
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“We believe they only lost their way back home, not abducted, because if they were abducted, the abductors would have, by now, called for Ransome; but nobody has called anybody for any Ransome yet.”
“We have been reliably informed that nine out of the ‘missing’ IDPs traced their way back to the camp last Friday, March 8,” Dr. Saidu revealed to The Punch on Sunday.
He added; “Officials at Ngala have been instructed to mount an intensive and extensive vigilance to inform us about any trickling number returning.”
The Borno SEMA helmsman maintained, “You would have observed that the state government restrained all along from quoting any number because we know the IDPs very well because we are the ones managing their affairs; they are economical with the truth.”
Dr Saidu explained: “We don’t believe the IDPs in this abduction narrative and the number of those they said were abducted; the IDPs are not trustworthy.
“There is no trust between them (IDPs) and government and between them and NGOs; there is even no trust among themselves; if it is about food and other essential commodities distribution, or they want to raise public sympathy for them among the public, they exaggerate numbers; if it is about anything they don’t want, like immunisation, they reduce numbers.”
“This is why we don’t even believe the abduction story and the numbers quoted.”
