Category: Insecurity

Bandits have reportedly killed over 50 persons in an attack on the St. Francis Catholic Church in Owo, headquarters of Owo Local Government Area of Ondo State.

Apart from worshippers, the bandits stray bullets hit a passer-by. Witnesses said the attack occurred during the church Sunday service.

The injured and the dead were rushed to the Federal Medical Centre Owo, for medical attention. Chief Medical Director (CMD) of FMC, Owo, Dr Liasu Adeagbo, said many medical personnel have been deployed to cater for the injured persons.

But a nurse at Owo, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was not enough medical personnel on ground to attend to the victims at the emergency unit of the hospital. She said many of the victims were taken to a private hospital.

Islamic scholar, Sheik Ahmad Abubakar Gumi, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to ensure adequate appeasement of the Fulani race before leaving office next May.

Gumi spoke, on Thursday, as a resource person at the ongoing two-day First Interactive Policy Dialogue and Cultural Festival organised by the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore Socio-Cultural Festival with the theme, ” The Future of Fulani Pastoralists in Nigeria.”

The Islamic scholar claimed that the Fulanis have been wrongly demonised and feel alienated.

He maintained that with dialogue and genuine commitment to peace, those who engage in kidnapping and banditry which have complicated security situations in both the North West and North-Eastern part of the country would surrender their arms.

The Islamic scholar particularly tasked the Muhammadu Buhari administration to create Ministry of Nomadic Affairs to mitigate herders-farmers clashes.

He also demanded that adequate funds, in trillions to match the appeasement of Niger Delta militants with the creation of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs be done for the bandits.

He said: “The children that were killing and kidnapping people opened their doors freely to us when we visited because they heard we were there to preach the gospel, all they want is to dialogue. Send them people that they respect to dialogue with them and they will listen by the grace of God and this problem will be resolved.

“Everyone is to blame for their actions, including the bandits. They feel the world has developed and left them behind, all the injustice being meted out to them. “How do we resolve this, we need to walk amongst them, embrace and ensure that all they deserve is given to them. The havoc they are causing is hindering farming, villages have been displaced because they feel that they were also displaced from their homes.

“We are at war and the solution is what was done for the people of the Niger Delta, how the government got them justice and even gave them a Ministry, why can’t the government give us a Ministry of Nomadic Affairs? Education will be inclusive and empowering, and hospitals.

“They still have respect and behave like everyone else when you meet with them, we need to come together, politicians, security agencies, traditional and religious leaders and assist them. They are acting out because they have been pushed to the wall, since the inception of Nigeria as a country, they have never gotten real assistance.

“Now gather all their monies and give to them. Calculate how much you have given to the Niger Delta region since they started their agitations, I heard it is running into trillions, so the Fulani want theirs, gather all their monies and give to them, I am calling on the President, before you leave office, hand over the money, meet their leaders to get to them. 99.9 per cent of Fulanis are peace-loving, only 0.1 cents are causing all the havoc, which is not being caused for mere mischief but because they have been pushed to the wall.

“We have to engage these people to have a positive result, my only fear is the infiltration of terrorists into their midsts, it’s a factor we have to consider seriously and even the terrorists themselves, I think there is neglect. Until now, Boko Haram is not a hopeless case, so we have to protect our herdsmen from their infiltration.”

Sheik Gumi however cautioned the Nomadic Pastoralists to cultivate the habit of living in peace with non-Fulanis and non-Moslems, as he noted that killings of innocent citizens were against the prescription of the Holy Quran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed.

“There is a treaty we have with all non-Muslims in Nigeria to live together in peace, which was reached with the colonial masters which are renewed every time we elect members of the House of Assembly so no Muslim has the right to injure or kill any non-Muslim in this country under the treaty and the Prophet has instructed us not to kill any soul that we enter into a treaty of peace with and we have agreed constitutionally to stay in peace with all non-Muslims so no Muslim has the right to use his hand to kill any non-Muslim.”

Abdul-Azeez Onike, the Chief Missioner, Nasrul-Lahi-l-Fatih (NASFAT), has urged law enforcement agents to investigate and arrest everyone of the Muslim fanatics involved in the killing of Deborah Samuel.

Mr Onike made the plea in a statement on Friday, while reacting to the killing of Ms Samuel, a student of the Shehu Shagari College of Education, Wamako, Sokoto.

Ms Samuel, a student of Shehu Shagari College Education, Sokoto, was reportedly killed on Thursday by Muslim extremists for allegedly making blasphemous statements against Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

“I urge the law enforcement agents to do a thorough investigation, arrest all culprits and speedily bring justice to bear,” Mr Onike said, adding that “extra-judicial punishment is alien to Islam and unacceptable in Islam”.

The NASFAT chief missioner advised against reprisal attack and unnecessary maligning of a particular tribe or religion, for fear that jungle justice was “fast becoming rampant in our country”.

He said: “To understand the anathema of the sad incident of extra-judicial punishment meted out to a lady in Sokoto recently, which resulted in her death, let us look at the following narration which depicts and represents the expected reaction of any follower of our Noble Prophet Muhammad (saws):

“Anas Malik reported: While we were in the mosque with Allah’s Messenger, a desert Arab came and stood up and began to urinate in the Mosque.

“The Companions of Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) said: Stop, stop, but the Messenger of Allah said: Don’t interrupt him; leave him alone.

“They left him alone, and when he finished urinating, Allah’s Messenger called him and said to him: These Mosques are not the places meant for urine and filth, but are only for the remembrance of Allah.

“It is a place for prayer and the recitation of the Qur’an, the Holy Prophet then gave orders to one of the people who brought a bucket of water and poured it over.

“Can you imagine what would be the reactions of some people, if they see someone ignorantly or deliberately urinating inside a Mosque?,” he queried.

A mob on Thursday killed a female student identified as Deborah over alleged blasphemy at the Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE) Sokoto.
Deborah, who was killed in the premises of the College, was accused of insulting Prophet Muhammad (SAW), during a hot argument with fellow students.

Commissioner of Information, Isah Bajini Galadanchi, told reporters the State Government has ordered security agencies to investigate the incident to ascertain its remote causes.

The deceased was said to have lived with her parents in Old Airport Road area of Sokoto metropolis.

The Government also ordered immediate closure of the college.
A statement by the Commissioner reads: “It has come to the notice of Sokoto State Government, the unfortunate incident that took place at the Shehu Shagari College of Education (SSCOE) Sokoto in which a Student of the College, lost her life.
“The Government has ordered the immediate closure of the College.

The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, psc(+), NPM, fdc, has condemned the unruly conduct of the Police officer caught in a viral video, singing, dancing, and brandishing a rifle in praise of a particular confraternity (cult).

The officer has been identified as Corporal Matthew Isaac, attached to the Ebonyi State Police Command. The act of the officer in question, which is clearly calculated to portray the NPF negatively, is a discreditable conduct in line with the provisions of the First Schedule to Regulation 370 of the Police Regulations. His actions equally violated the provisions of the NPF Social Media Policy (SMP), penal laws, and other extant laws regulating the conduct and discipline of all Police officers.

The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, psc(+), NPM, fdc, has directed the Commissioner of Police in charge of Ebonyi State to detail the Command’s OC Provost to hand over the erring officer to the Force Provost Marshall for necessary disciplinary actions.

The IGP further warned officers to ensure total compliance with the laws guiding the Force as any breach would be severely sanctioned. CSP OLUMUYIWA ADEJOBI, mnipr, mipraFORCE PUBLIC RELATIONS OFFICER,FORCE HEADQUARTERS,ABUJA.

“Today we must set politics aside and speak the bitter truth.

100 murdered in cold blood in Plateau state and 25 butchered in Benue by terrorists.

This is disgraceful, indefensible and unacceptable.

How much longer can we put up with this?

We weep about the carnage in Ukraine but we say and do nothing about the slaughter that we are witnessing on a daily basis on our own doorstep.

How many more innocent souls need to be slaughtered before we cultivate a sense of national outrage?

When will our people and Government say “enough is enough!”

Do we have any self-respect and pride?

These are NIGERIANS that are being butchered!!! Our very own people and our very own compatriots!!!

When will something be done to stop the wholesale carnage?

We have endured the pain and shame in silence for far too long, hoping and praying that the authorities will rise up to the occasion and that things will change for the better.

Sadly things appear to be getting worse.

We cannot sit back and watch silently anymore as our compatriots are being cut short by a bunch of ruthless, vicious, evil and savage militias made up of primarily foreign barbarians and bloodthirsty bandits.

The Federal Government has an obligation before God and the Nigerian people to do far more.

They have a few more months before their tenure comes to an end to put a stop to this madness.

They have a few more months to stop the war crimes, the crimes against humanity, the genocide and the unprecedented terror and hardship that has been unleashed against the people of this country by these villainous and heartless enemies of humanity.

They must empower our security and intelligence agencies, give them the green light and stop holding them back.

They must send send our Armed Forces into the dark forests and filthy holes where these bloodlusting animals take refuge and wipe them out once and for all.

They must crush the enemy with a degree of ruthlessness that has never been witnessed before in the annals of our history.

Anything short of that would be a monumental failure on their part and a deep insult and spiritual wound to the Nigerian people.

There is no honor or decency in showing restraint before those that kill innocent men, women and children.

There is no decency in treating those that seek to wipe out our people with kid gloves.

They deserve to be sent to their maker in the most brutal and decisive manner and we demand no less from the Federal Government”- FFK.

Jihad Analytics says Nigeria has overtaken Iraq as the country where the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) has claimed the highest number of operations.The Geneva-based open-source intelligence outlet made the revelation on Friday in an infographic. “Since the beginning of the year, the Islamic State has conducted half of its attacks in #Africa. For the first time in the history of the jihadi group, Iraq is no longer the country where #IS claims the highest number of operations: the group #ISWAP is now more active in Nigeria,” Jihad Analytics tweeted on Friday. Nigeria has 162 attacks claimed by IS, with Iran and Syria trailing behind at 120 and 77 attacks. ISWAP, a breakaway insurgent group from Boko Haram, has plagued Nigeria’s northeast region killing scores and displacing over two million people in the region.The Global Terrorism Index named the IS as the world’s deadliest terror group, replacing the Taliban. Nigeria ranks in 6th place with a score of 8.233. The reports pegged IS, Al-Shabaab, the Taliban and Jamaat Nusrat Al-Islam wal Muslimeen (JNIM) as the terrorist groups responsible for the most deaths in 2021.The report also noted that the groups had killed about 3,364, representing 47 per cent of total deaths in 2021.The IS and its affiliate groups Islamic State–Khorasan Province (ISKP), Islamic State–Sinai Province (ISSP), and Islamic State in West Africa (ISWA) recorded the most attacks and deaths of any terrorist group in 2021. IS deaths represented 29 per cent of all deaths from terrorism globally in 2021.

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Soldiers from the 32 Artillery Brigade, Ondo State and operatives of the State Security Network dubbed as Amotekun Corps, on Tuesday evening, clashed over the seizure of over 100 cows by the latter in Akure, the state capital.The cows were seized for allegedly violating the state’s anti-grazing law.According to sources, Amotekun operatives seized the cows after receiving distress calls from farmers.Farmers in the Oke-Aro axis of Akure metropolis neighborhood had cried out over the invasion of their farms by the cows and herders where crops were destroyed.One of the sources said the military invaded the location and stopped the cows from being taken away.The soldiers were said to have claimed that the cows belonged to their superiors in the barracks.

Barely 24 hours after terrorists attacked an Abuja-Kaduna train, friends and families of victims are soliciting help in various forms.

Since the attack took place a few kilometres to the Rigasa Train Station in the Igabi Local Government Area of kaduna State on Monday, no definite number of casualties has been given. But, currently, families of survivors are trying to save them in any way they can.

The relatives of one of the victims identified as Abdulahi have been called by the terrorists who kidnapped him to prepare their minds for a ransom.

Nigeria is becoming a safer place with each passing day, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said.

The minister, who spoke in Abuja, on Monday, March 28, said this is as a result of the string of successes being recorded in the fi#ht against Boko Haram, ISWAP, bandits and other criminal elements.

According to him, the security forces had taken the b@ttle to the bandits and put them on the run and their ranks are being decimated by the day.

“I am proud of our security forces, our men and women in uniform. Despite a myriad of security challenges, they are living up to the billing.

As the terr#rists and their camps are being decimated, thousands of terr#rists and their families are surrendering in droves. The effectiveness of the security forces has been enhanced by the leadership provided by President Muhammadu Buhari and the unwavering commitment of the armed forces and its leadership,” he said.