Nigerian Troops Sweep into Northern Cities

Nigerian troops have moved into cities in the northeast where President Goodluck Jonathan has declared a state of emergency as part of a campaign to rein in the armed group Boko Haram.

Residents said they had seen six army lorries ferrying soldiers into the cities of Yola, capital of Adamawa state, and Maiduguri, according to the Reuters news agency.

Jonathan, whose government has been battling Boko Haram fighters for years with limited success, declared the state of emergency in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa on Tuesday during a televised address.

The group has recently stepped up attacks on government installations and security forces and is understood to control substantial territory around Lake Chad, where local officials have fled.

Reuters reported shops and schools were mostly shut and there were few people on the streets as troops made their way into the cities. 

"What I saw this morning scared me," said one man in Maiduguri, Ahmed Mari. "I have never seen soldiers on the move quite like this before."

Another man, Kabir Laoye, voiced widespread fears that civilians could be caught up in the conflict. "There is a lot of apprehension about the state of emergency," he said.

Military officials in the northeast, and at headquarters in Abuja, the capital, were not immediately available for comment.

In his statement on Tuesday, Jonathan said troops would "immediately" be deployed to the areas.

He made a similar move in January 2012 following a spate of Boko Haram attacks, but in that case the decree only applied to specific local government areas in four states.

Officials say fighters control at least 10 local government districts of Borno state and are using porous borders with Cameroon, Chad and Niger to smuggle in arms and mount attacks.

Dozens of Boko Haram fighters in buses and trucks mounted with machine guns laid siege to the Borno town of Bama last week, freeing over 100 men from prison and leaving 55 people dead, mostly police and other security personnel.

Two weeks earlier, scores were killed in the fishing village of Baga, on the shores of Lake Chad, when troops from Nigeria, Niger and Chad raided it looking for fighters who had killed a soldier.

Local residents said soldiers were responsible for many civilian deaths.