by crossriverwatch admin
There was pandemonium yesterday in Obudu as most residents were seen frantically moving their things from villages and going to take shelter at the Obudu police station along Ranch road, Obudu.
CrossRiverWatch gathered that the confusion was occasioned by a mix up in communication when school children who returned from school due to the nation wide shut down of public schools by the Nigerian Union of Teachers, NUT told their parents they were sent back home due to ‘Boko Haram’ attacks.
Some of the parents who misunderstood the message began spreading the false alarm that there was an impending Boko Haram attack on Obudu. Some accounts even said the Boko Haram militants were already at Ikom LGA making their way to Obudu. The rumor was said to have spread very quickly generating panic and causing several people to run towards the town with the intention to take refuge at the police station.
A woman who identified herself as Ungie Ukpong Adie was seen running with two of her kids hopping behind her. She told our reporter that: “We are running because our children returned from school to tell us that their teachers have sent them home because the Boko Haram people are in Ikom and are capturing students from schools and that they are on their way to Obudu. The police station is the only place we can run to.”
Ferdinand Ugbong in his own account on his facebook timeline said: “In my own compound, I was quite ill and had just been discharged from the hospital where I had a bed rest for two days. I got home and was inside my house asleep. I did not know when every of the members of my compound packed their relevant things, especially clothes and ran away, leaving me alone in the compound/house. I got up and saw a deserted compound and I told myself never to worry”.
A policeman in the station who said the DPO was not around told our reporter that: “Even we, we don’t know where this rumor is coming from. People have been panicking and calling left and right and asking about Boko Haram. It is all a lie. There is nothing like Boko Haram in Obudu not to talk of Cross River State.”
In a chat with CrossRiverWatch, the Special Adviser on Security to the Chairman of Obudu Local Government, Mr. Spokesman Agogo said there is no threat of Boko Haram whatsoever in Obudu and advised the people to go about the businesses without fear of molestation as it was only a rumor.
“There is no threat whatsoever. It was merely a mix up in information with emanated from school children who were sent back home by their teachers as a result of the NUT nationwide shut down of public schools. I think the parents did not get the information correctly or the children did not communicate the information correctly. It started like a rumor and began spreading and that was what caused the momentary panic. All of that has died down now and life is back to normal”. He said.
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