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Boko Haram: Army speaks on offensive

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Nigeria’s military on Wednesday disclosed details of its offensive against Boko Haram militants, describing a series of events that saw insurgents take control of a remote area before being pushed out by soldiers.

Military officials also displayed weapons allegedly seized from Islamist extremist group Boko Haram, including anti-aircraft guns capable of being mounted on pickup trucks, grenade launchers and machine guns.

The disclosures were made to journalists during a military-guided tour of parts of northeastern Nigeria, where the government launched a sweeping offensive on May 15. The military’s claims could not be verified independently.

Assault weapons recovered from Boko Haram recently

Assault weapons recovered from Boko Haram recently

Shekau: group formally banned

Shekau: group formally banned

The carefully orchestrated visit to various sites offered the first outside glimpse of some of what the military claims its ongoing offensive has accomplished in Africa’s most populous nation and largest oil producer.

Nigeria’s military has come under major pressure over Boko Haram’s four-year insurgency, including accusations of abuses such as extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and unlawful detentions.

It has denied any abuses have occurred in connection with the offensive and claimed the insurgents are now on the run. It says the offensive will last as long as needed to bring an end to the insurgency.

However, authorities have cut mobile phone service in much of the region as part of the offensive and many sites are impossible to visit independently, making it difficult to verify the military’s account.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in a recent video refuted the military’s claims of success in the offensive, saying soldiers had turned and ran in battle. The military has dismissed his comments as propaganda.

“I was given three different tasks before I came here: to occupy Marte, to destroy all activities of Boko Haram and to … bring order back,” Lieutenant Colonel Gabriel Olufemi Olorunyomi said in the remote, sparsely populated district of Marte.

“The first and second have been achieved. We are on the third one. So presently we are on peace-building.”

The offensive involves three northeastern states where a state of emergency was declared on May 14 — Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. The sites shown to journalists on Wednesday were in Borno, the original home base of Boko Haram.

Journalists were shown one of the alleged camps where Boko Haram had operated from, burnt-out cars, clothes and empty food containers littering the dusty grounds of the area near the border with Chad and on the edge of the Sahara.

Military officials said soldiers flooded the area on May 16 with the help of air power and fought the Islamists at the camp and a nearby location, causing them to flee. They declined to say how many were killed or arrested in the process.

According to the military, Boko Haram members burnt parts of the camp themselves before fleeing.

“They put up a lot of resistance,” said Lieutenant Colonel Danladi Hassan. “For now, we were not able to count the casualties they left. We were in a dogfight.”

Village heads in Kirenowa, a tiny community next to the camp, said during a presentation overseen by the military and attended by several hundred residents that they had been forced to flee after Boko Haram infiltrated the area but now have been allowed to return.

In New Marte village and nearby areas, journalists were shown a burnt-out church, a badly damaged local government headquarters and a looted and damaged hospital, among others — all the work of Boko Haram, according to the military.

Olorunyomi said the Islamists had even hoisted their own flags in New Marte, though he was unable to provide details on what those flags looked like.

According to him, the Islamists have now been successfully pushed out of the area, though he could not say where they had gone. He also would not provide arrest or casualty figures.

Boko Haram has claimed to be fighting for the creation of an Islamic state in the country roughly divided between a mainly Muslim north and predominately Christian south.

The group however is believed to have various factions with sometimes competing aims.

Boko Haram members have trained with Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in northern Mali and possibly cooperated through other means.

The United States this week set a $ 7 million dollar reward for the capture of Shekau, the alleged Boko Haram leader.

Long criticised over its heavy-handed military approach to resolving the crisis, Nigeria last week announced the release of 58 women and children detained in connection with the insurgency.

President Goodluck Jonathan has also appointed a committee to look into ways of offering amnesty to elements of the group.

Some activists in Nigeria’s north have dismissed those moves as empty gestures, questioning whether those released will simply be replaced with new detainees while doubting the government’s commitment to dialogue.

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.

The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.

Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.

Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.

Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.

Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.

In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.

Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.

Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.

The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.

However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.

Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.

 

Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria

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COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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By Ugochukwu Alaribe

Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.

The market women, said to be  from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.

Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.

A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.

Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that  smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.

 

Sourced From: Vanguard News

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Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole

The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.

Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.

He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid  in January 2020.

‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.

She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.

He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.

The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police  Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.

Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.

He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’

He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.

Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend. 

He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart. 

Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.

The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad  problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”

The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad,  saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts.  This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”

When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose. 

Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them. 

Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter. 

“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said. 

 

Sourced From: Tribune

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