Nigeria News
Boko Haram: Army Arrests Orange Seller Spy With N600m
An orange seller who acts as a spy for Boko Haram has been arrested in Kaduna, northwest Nigeria.
He was arrested in Kawo area of Kaduna by soldiers and N600 million was found in his account after he was investigated.
The General Officer Commanding (GOC) 1 Division, Nigerian Army, Kaduna, Major-General Garba Wahab, disclosed this at the weekend in the wake of an offensive against insurgents in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States.
According to the GOC, “When we stop those who are hawking and carrying wheelbarrow, and we said we want to check, people will shout, ‘why are you disturbing the average person?’ And I give you example; we arrested somebody called mai lemu (orange seller) in Kawo here. And in three months when we checked through his account, over N600 million has passed through that man’s account, and he sells orange here by Kawo bridge.
“He is there as a lookout. He is like a spy. He looks around, gets information and feeds these guys, says this is what is happening. That is why I said we are not dealing with idiots. We are dealing with people who have one or two guys working and thinking , and giving them information. And we know that before they attack they must look at the softest locations.”
Speaking on Thursday’s attacks in Daura, he said military personnel adhered to the principles of rules of engagement, saying, “I called this press conference to fill the gap on the attack that occurred in Daura, Katsina State. We don’t want a situation where people will be speculating. Yes the criminals came, they bombed vehicles, and they packed money using improvised explosive devices (IEDs) to bomb everywhere. Nobody will give an instruction for an innocent life to be lost, so in whatever we do, we keep the rules of engagement given to us and that is go out, it’s like it is encouraging the criminals and they start to think they have upper hand.”
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Dr Reuben Abati, said Sunday that the Presidency has offered amnesty to any Boko Haram member who surrenders.
Abati disclosed this to Reuters, a foreign news agency on telephone.
According to him, “Mr President has urged Boko Haram members to surrender their arms and embrace the amnesty option which is still open as the committee is working on the option of dialogue for a peaceful resolution.”
In another development, a key city in northeast Nigeria was on lockdown Sunday as the military enforced a 24-hour curfew and blocked supply routes in its sweeping campaign against Islamist insurgents.
The operation against Boko Haram, the group that wants an Islamic state in northern Nigeria, is aimed at retaking territory seized by the militants and ridding the country of “terrorist activities,” the military told AFP.
The offensive has included air strikes on Boko Haram strongholds in remote parts of northeastern Borno state, and has spread to the state capital Maiduguri, the insurgents’ traditional home base — which residents said Sunday was under a blockade. The defence ministry in a mission update said 14 insurgents and three soldiers had been killed in battles since Saturday and that Special forces troops were continuing “the advance and attack on identified terrorist camps”.
“Patrols are also ongoing to secure towns and villages from infiltration, while curfews on identified flash points are being enforced,” the ministry statement said.
Soldiers have sealed roads heading out of Maiduguri, blocking supply routes to remote towns where Boko Haram Islamists have seized power, residents said.
“There is a huge build-up of trucks loaded with essential commodities… along the Baga road on the way out of Maiduguri to the northern part of the state,” said resident Ibrahim Yahaya.
“The drivers said they have been prevented by the military from going northward,” he told AFP by email.
The phone network in Borno has all but collapsed since President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday declared a state of emergency there and in two neighbouring states, Adamawa and Yobe.
The military on Saturday imposed a round-the-clock curfew in 12 Maiduguri neighbourhoods considered Boko Haram bastions.
The curfew was being enforced on Sunday, with most roads deserted, an AFP journalist reported, while some living in areas not impacted by the curfew also stayed indoors.
“My area is not affected but I have to stay at home with my family,” trader Ezekiel Adamu said.
He explained that he was afraid of coming across soldiers, who “seem to have more power with the state of emergency”.
Supplies were also running short in the city, where Boko Haram was founded more than a decade ago by the radical cleric Mohammed Yusuf, who was killed in detention in 2009.
The price of basic goods has soared with supply lorries prevented from entering the city.
“We’ve been eating without meat since Friday… but there is nothing I can do. This is the challenge of emergency rule,” said resident David Olutayo.
Supply shortages and price hikes have also started to bite in the town of Gomboru Ngala, on the border with Cameroon, where some Borno residents have fled to escape the air raids.
“Trucks bringing in goods from Maiduguri have ceased since last week,” said resident Grema Babagoni, adding that prices had soared as much as 25 percent.
“If the blockade continues for some time we may completely run out of supplies,” he told AFP
Residents in Gomboru Ngala can be reached by phone as the service uses Cameroonian lines.
The town has seen an influx of people fleeing the nearby Marte district, one of the areas where Boko Haram chased out the government and removed Nigerian flags.
Marte has been among the areas targeted by air strikes, residents have told AFP.
A senior rescue official who requested anonymity told AFP that he had could not say what impact the offensive has had on civilians because his staff in Borno and Yobe have been unreachable.
“I have sent emails and texts but have not heard anything yet,” the official said.
The operation could prove to be the largest ever against Boko Haram.
A brutal crackdown on the insurgents in 2009, concentrated in Maiduguri, killed more than 800 people and forced the Islamists underground for a year.
Since re-emerging in 2010, they have carried out scores of attacks, including gun raids and suicide bombings.
Many fear that like the 2009 crackdown, the current campaign may fail to crush the group.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and top oil producer, has been urged to tackle root causes of the conflict, including acute poverty and excessive government corruption which has helped radicalise many young Muslims in the north.
There is also a risk of high civilian casualties, with Nigeria’s military having been accused of massive rights abuses in the past.
The conflict is estimated to have cost 3,600 lives since 2009, including killings by the security services.
Jonathan has said that negotiations remain possible amid the sweeping offensive, but the Islamists have so far shown no signs of wanting to talk.
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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
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
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.
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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