By Blessing Tunoh Asso
Hundreds of worshippers in Mallam Fatori village of Abadam local government of Borno state took part in eid prayers in the town for the first time in eight years.

Abadam has been the only Borno local government under the control of the insurgents for many years, impeding the state government’s effort at resettling internally displaced persons.

Mallam Fatori is one of the largest towns in northern Borno sitting on the border with Niger Republic at the Lake Chad region.

Since 2014 the Boko haram insurgents have been consistent in their onslaught on that axis, strategic to their transborder crimes.

This has crumbled the thriving commercial and transportation hub even as the army base was overrun by Boko haram.

The town remained under Boko Haram control till the Nigerian armed forces recaptured it in 2016, but the terrorists reorganised and intensified attacks on the location leading to the killing of personnel including military commander Lieutenant Colonel Abu Ali,  killed in the battle for Mallam Fatori in November 2016. 

The town was eventually liberated and the army base reoccupied. 

According to the Headquarters of Multi National Joint Task Force, the army had repelled over 300 attempts to dislodge the troops and reoccupy the town.

But the gallant and courageous troops of the sector 3 supported by MNJTF sectors in Bosso and Diffa in Niger republic always stood their ground.

IDPs of Abadam origin housee by the government at MOGOLIS, a school in Maiduguri were resettled last year in Auno, a village in Konduga due to the security situation in Abadam at that time. 

But the improved security situation has encouraged the return of internally displaced people and refugees who celebrated the eid for the first time in eight years, in their ancestral home.

The eid prayers held at a temporary camp in Mallam Fatori led by the local cleric, Sheikh Gwani Modu.