TheCable

Nigeria’s neighbouring country, Cameroon, says its military has freed a German hostage kidnapped in Nigeria by the Boko Haram militant group.

BBC quoted the Cameroonian government as saying that Nitsch Eberhard Robert, a teacher who was abducted by the sect in July 2014 in Adamawa state, Nigeria, has been freed.

The government said he was freed in a special operation of the Cameroon armed forces and security services of friendly countries, whose names were not disclosed.

Boko Haram has seized control of towns and villages in north-east Nigeria and launched raids into Cameroon, with a threat to kill Paul Biya, president of the country.

Martin Schaefer, spokesman of the German foreign ministry, told the AP news agency that the man was now safely in Cameroon’s capital, Yaoundé.

He added that a crisis team had been working on the case for months and thanked the Cameroon government for its “very good and trusting” co-operation.

As Boko Haram expands from a national problem to a regional problem in West Africa, neighbouring countries are beginning to show more concern in its eradication.

Biya earlier vowed that his government would wipe out Boko Haram by taking decisive actions against the group, including sacking two senior officers over the inability to contain the excesses of the insurgents.

In response, the sect came out in an 18-minute video threatening to terminate the life of the president.

“Oh Paul Biya, if you don’t stop this your evil plot, you will taste what has befallen Nigeria,” Shekau said in Arabic in an 18-minute video released on YouTube.

“If you do not repent, you will see the dire consequences. Your troops cannot do anything to us. I advise you to desist from following your constitution and democracy, which is unIslamic. The only language of peace is to repent and follow Allah, but if you do not, then we will communicate it to you through the language of violence.”

Suspected Boko Haram militants were reported to have kidnapped 80 people in a cross-border raid near Mokolo city in Cameroon’s Far North region on Sunday, but at least 20 of them were later freed.