“Solomon was never satisfied with the security arrangements made by the military. He actually backed down from the trip on that final day saying that he did not want to risk his life in any way due to the loopholes he saw and complained bitterly about.
“It took the combined efforts of colleagues to get him to agree to mount his vehicle and to go with them on that fateful day. He knew something was not correct about the security arrangements and told me he would not risk another one after this because the military did not give them enough protection.
“They have been going to different locations looking for oil for more than three weeks and coming back from the same region yet that day was different. I am his pastor, so he raised the alarm from day one, telling me to pray with him that the whole security network did not look safe. He actually wanted to back out, but knowing the conditions in which we all live in, he braved it and saw the results.
“The security was about three trucks of mostly JTF and vigilante men and he complained persistently about the whole set up. But there was a director in the NNPC team who gave him the impetus to go on, but in his heart, he was not satisfied,” said the man of God.
According to the Pastor of Good News Riverside Church off Lagos Street, Maiduguri, “he had just defended his PHD some months ago and looked forward to live life to the fullest, but his zeal and patriotism made him to move on even when his mind was objecting.”
According to Pastor Ayuba also a keraikerai like Solomon from Yobe State, he complained the previous night that some key people withdrew from the team before that final day when the first phase of the exploration would have terminated.
“Two of the directors leading the team did not go on that fateful day while he pondered over the tightness of the security. Even the captain who had led the team from the beginning did not show up, rather he left the task with a lieutenant who had already been made a captain and was supposed to have been decorated on that day while he was still in the bush where he fought and lost his life in the process.
“He suspected that some of the people who did not go had information about what was going on which was why most of them abstained that day. They stayed back on that day particularly after being involved in the three-week exercise which took them to many locations,” the pastor said.
The pastor said that the sad news suddenly pushed the madam into premature labour and she had to be rushed to the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital UMTH where t he baby was brought out through cesarean operation.
On the wrong information dropped by the military over the abduction, he wondered how bringing back dead bodies would mean the same as every body is home, adding that his church members were very unhappy about the wrong information passed by the spokesman Sani Usman.
“While we were praying for them we heard the news of the ambush and low and behold they brought corpses to the Mortuary. There was no need for them to have passed such a misleading information to all their families. It is painful now that we have seen him in their video. It would have been better for the spokesman not to say anything at all.”
On the capacity of soldiers in protecting the people in the theatre, the man of God said that the soldiers should be given more weapons to withstand the wildness of the insurgents who are misbehaving terribly these days at a time when the military claims to have been done with them.
The attack started with the killing of the fellow who was mounted on the hilux machine gun vehicle and since no soldier was ready to replace him, the rest had to scamper for cover while the vigilante and jtf fought on in response to the ambush.
and then