Nigerian president Muhammadu Buhari says the country will do all it takes to combat the negative image that some citizens have saddled the country with.

He stressed that all will be done to combat the activities of such elements, be it at home or abroad.

Speaking at a side event at the ongoing Tokyo International Conference on African Development, TICAD, in Yokohama, Japan; Buhari said: ”There are few Nigerians in the Diaspora that are giving us a bad name by engaging in criminal activities.

“These Nigerians are a minority, they do not represent the values of our country, and I plead with them to change their ways.”

“We will not condone any crime whether at home or abroad, and we will also not allow these Nigerians define us as a people with reputation for criminality,” he added.

Nigeria has long been associated with financial crimes especially online fraud. The country endured bad press weeks back when FBI arrested a famed entrepreneur and scores of online fraudsters – in under a week.

Nigerians on Twitter bemoaned the impact of the reports on the country’s image with some calling for a government response to the arrests.

Source: Africa News

Eight people, including three soldiers, were killed in attacks on an army base and village in northeast Nigeria ahead of Monday’s Eid al-Adha festival, military sources said.

Three troops and three civilians died on Saturday when fighters from the Daesh-aligned ISWAP group attacked a base in Gubio, a town 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the regional capital Maiduguri, two sources said Sunday.

Three soldiers were killed “defending the base from ISWAP terrorists who wanted to overrun it”, the first source said.

“Three civilians were hit and killed in crossfire,” said the source, an officer who asked not to be identified for fear of punishment.

Two soldiers and six civilians were injured, he said.

The militants attacked the base in eight pickup trucks fitted with machine guns, leading to a two-hour long battle, said the second source, who gave the same toll.

The attack was repelled with the aid of a fighter jet which deployed two hours into the clashes, said the officer.

“The terrorists were pulverised and forced to withdraw. Eleven of them were killed and three of their vehicles were seized,” he said. 

ISWAP ransacked the same base in May, killing three soldiers.

In a separate assault on Sunday, rival Takfiri Boko Haram terrorists killed two residents and burnt homes in an attack on the village of Ngwom, 14 kilometers (eight miles) from Maiduguri.

Gunmen in pickup trucks stormed the village in a pre-dawn attack, shooting dead two male residents before robbing women of jewelry and torching four houses, anti-Boko Haram militia leader Babakura Kolo said.

“A woman had one of her ears chopped off by the insurgents as punishment for resisting being robbed,” Kolo said.

The militants attempted to seize a nearby military base after the raid, but were rebuffed following a one-hour gunfight, Kolo and a military source said.

The decade-long insurgency in northeast Nigeria has killed over 27,000 people, displaced some two million and spilled over into neighboring countries.

The militants are notorious for stepping up attacks during the Eid season, prompting heightened security across the region.

ISWAP split from the Boko Haram faction headed by long-time leader Abubakar Shekau in 2016.

Since mid-2018 ISWAP has ramped up attacks on the military, while Shekau’s group tends to hit softer civilian targets.

On Saturday, several soldiers were also wounded when their vehicle hit a mine planted by ISWAP near the border with Niger, the military sources said.

(Source: AFP)

Three civilians have been killed and eight others wounded when two female bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of people in northeastern Nigeria.

The twin bombings took place in the town of Mafa, some 50 kilometers from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, late Tuesday.

“The female bombers killed three people and wounded eight others,” Bello Danbatta, head of security for the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) in Borno state, told AFP on Wednesday.

Danbatta added that the attackers entered the town among a group of local women who had gone to bring firewood for cooking.

Local district spokesman Adamu Mohammed confirmed the toll, noting that the bombers waited until almost 8:30 pm (1930 GMT) before conducting their attack.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the attack, which bore the hallmarks of the Boko Haram terrorist group.

The group uses female bombers, many of them young women and girls, to attack soft targets such as mosques, markets and bus stations.

Also on Tuesday, militants set fire to 11 houses and stole food in an assault on the village of Kotori, 12 kilometers outside Maiduguri, Danbatta said, noting that no one was hurt in that attack.

Boko Haram and its Daesh-supported ISWAP splinter have intensified attacks on civilian and military targets in recent months, despite the Nigerian government’s insistence that the terrorists have been defeated.

Some observers allege that certain Nigerian officials are profiting from the unrest via corruption and have little interest in ending the bloodshed.

Rights groups have accused some Nigerian security forces of abuses in the fight against Boko Haram, including extra-judicial killings and mass arrests.

Around 27,000 people have been killed in the decade-long Takfiri terrorism which has spilled over into neighboring Chad, Niger and Cameroon and forced more than two million people to flee their homes.

On Monday, three civilians were killed when a gun fight erupted between Nigerian forces and ISWAP fighters who made an incursion into the garrison town of Monguno in Borno state.

Presstv

The Presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the February 2019 presidential election in Nigeria, Omowole Sowore, has reportedly been arrested by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).

According to SaharaReporters, Sowore’s online outfit, he was picked up at his apartment in the early hours of Saturday, with an eyewitness confirming that his phone was forcefully taken from him.

Local media report his arrest by the DSS could be as a result of his plans to mobilised people in Lagos and many parts of the country for a revolution protest tagged ‘Days of Rage’ to demand a better Nigeria

Sowere and some other Nigerian activists are staging a ‘RevolutionNow’ protest planned for August 5.

Nigeria police has warned Nigerians to stay away from the planned demonstration saying it would amount to a felony and terrorism.

Hiw party, the African Action Congress (AAC) had declared 5th August for the commencement of revolution protest tagged ‘Days of Rage’ across the country to demand a better Nigeria.

Omoyele Sowore, disclosed recently in Abuja at the end of the party’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting that the protest would be sustained until the country is put on the right path of honour where justice prevails.

However, Mohammedu Buhari’s administration and the security forces said they are working heavily to address the multi-faceted crisis in the country, thereby calling on citizens to be patient for the efforts to yield the desired result.

Source: Africa News

The Islamic Movement in Nigeria has challenged a ban imposed by the Nigerian government in a Federal High Court. 

The court action challenging the banning of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria was filed at the Federal High Court Abuja by lawyers representing the movement. The lawyers said the order was hastily filed and granted, and that it violates the Nigerian constitution.

The Federal High Court had earlier granted an application by the Nigerian government banning the activities of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, and designating it a terrorist organization. In an announcement after the court order, the Nigerian chief of police said any protester arrested in connection with the movement would be prosecuted under the terrorism act. The team of lawyers representing the Islamic Movement in Nigeria wants the Federal High Court to intervene.

Supporters of leader of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, have been engaged in several protests demanding the release of the prominent cleric who has been in detention for close to four years in violation of a court ruling ordering his immediate release.

Members of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria have time and again stressed that the Nigerian government is determined to portray a negative impression of the Islamic Movement in order to justify the continuous oppression and murder of its members. They have pledged to be peaceful no matter the level of provocation.

Source: Presstv

Police in Nigeria have tightened security ahead of a bail hearing for imprisoned Muslim cleric, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Zakzaky, whose supporters are expected to stage protests for his release during the court hearing.

The Kaduna State High Court will on Monday decide whether to grant bail to the cleric, who isin dire need of medical treatment overseas.

The cleric, who has been in prison since December 2015, was reportedly poisoned in prison and requires urgent medical care abroad, according to members of Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN).

IMN members regularly take to the streets of the Nigerian capital to call for the release of Sheikh Zakzaky, who has been in detention since 2015. Nigerian forces have used live ammunition against the protesters.

Just days ahead of the court hearing, a Federal High Court in the capital Abuja granted the government permission to label the Islamic movement a “terrorist” organization.

Police in Kaduna said in a statement on Sunday that they have deployed a security detail to the city in anticipation of protests as a result of the court hearing.

Security forces killed at least 20 members of the movement during protests on Friday, according to a spokesman for the IMN.

Protests have also been underway in recent weeks outside the Nigerian embassy in the British capital, London.

On Monday, Zakzaky’s supporters were staging protests outside the Nigerian embassy in London ahead of his appearance in court.

The London-based Islamic Human Rights Commission, (IHRC), have previously called on the Nigerian government to immediately release the cleric and send him abroad for urgent medical treatment.

The IHRC, which sent a medical team to Nigeria in April to examine the health and overall condition of Sheikh Zakzaky and his wife, has already said the specialist treatment they require can only be fully accessed outside the African country.

Sheikh Zakzaky, who is in his mid-sixties, lost the ability to see using his left eye in a 2015 raid by security forces, which left more than 300 of his followers, and three of his sons dead. His wife also sustained serious injuries.

The cleric was charged in April 2018 with murder, culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, disruption of public peace and other accusations. He has pleaded not guilty, vehemently rejecting all accusations brought up against him by the authorities.

In 2016, Nigeria’s federal high court ordered Zakzaky’s unconditional release from jail following a trial, but the government has so far refused to set him free.

Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, announced on Wednesday that it had began probing a two-time governor of the southern Imo State.

Rochas Okorocha, a member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, is currently serving as a Senator. The EFCC said its operatives had so far marked properties in his name as well as that of family members and cronies.

“It was the outcome of painstaking investigation, and as a result of the failure of those to whom they were traced to, to honour the EFCC’s invitation for interrogation. Operatives neither “raided” nor “harassed” anyone in the course of the action.

“They include: Dews of Hope Hospital traced to Dr. Paschal Obi, ex-Principal Secretary to Okorocha; Market Square Supermarket; All in One Shop, and premises belonging to Imo State Broadcasting Corporation now hosting Rochas Foundation College owned by Senator Okorocha,” an EFCC statement read.

“Others include: East High Academy and East High College, owned by Okorocha’s daughter, Uloma Okorocha-Nwosu; Royal Spring Palm Hotel and Apartment, a 16 block cum 96 flats and eight bungalow multi-million Naira estate traced to Okorocha’s wife,” it added.

State governors are powerful political voices across Nigeria, most of them have serially been accused of high-level corruption but they are shielded by immunity whiles in office.

A former governor of Ekiti Stae, Peter Ayodele Fayose, is currently being probed by the EFCC. In the north central Kano State, the incumbent governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, is the subject of a dollar bribe saga.

The ex-governor during his tenure which ended in March 2019 is no stranger to controversy. He justified and built a number of statues with over $1m of tax payers money.

He constructed Imo’s infamous statue avenue which has honoured among others, Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and South Africa’s Jacob Zuma. President Buhari also has one of the larger-than-life statues in Imo State.

In 2017, then governor Okorocha appointed a Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfillment. He handed the portfolio to his sister Ogechi Ololo.

She had previously held the position of Deputy Chief of Staff and special adviser on domestic matters. The decision received flak on social media with many Twitter users asking whether there is really the need for the post.

Source: Africa News

Rescue team search for survivors in Jos, Central Nigeria following a three-storey residential facility collapse that killed 13 people on Tuesday.

An official of the Red Cross said 7 survivors are receiving treatment at a local hospital.

Taiye Segun Folorunsho is resident in Jos. He was injured in the incident. This thing that happened to our neighbours and our loved ones is heartbreaking.

“I was in the shop working with my dad, suddenly we just saw the building collapse. I stood up and tried to run and I fell down and I could not move my legs”, Folorunsho recounts.

“This thing that happened to our neighbours and our loved ones is heartbreaking. The house that they were living in collapsed leaving some of the occupants injured and some dead’‘, said Jos resident, Ali Baba Mairam.

Nigeria frequently witnesses building collapse in a country where millions of people live in dilapidated buildings and building legislation is regularly flouted.

In March, 20 people died when a building housing kindergarten and primary school pupils collapsed in Lagos.

AFP

Militants have launched a triple bombing attack in northeast Nigeria killing a multitude of people in Borno State.

Local emergency services workers reported on Monday that 30 people had died in the triple blasts in the town of Konduga, 25 kilometers from the state capital Maiduguri.

They said three bombers detonated their explosives outside a location where football fans were watching a match on TV on Sunday evening.

The militants, suspected to be members of the Boko Haram terrorist organization, have carried out numerous attacks on civilian and military targets in northeast Nigeria, and elsewhere.

Boko Haram Takfiri terrorist group began its deadly attacks in northeastern Nigeria in 2009.

An estimated 27,000 people have been killed in its attacks which have forced 1.8 million people to flee their homes.

Since then, the terrorist activities of Boko Haram and a Daesh affiliate, which broke away in 2016 and is now considered by security experts as the stronger of the two, have extended into the neighboring countries of Niger, Chad, and Cameroon.

To make matters worse, criminal gangs have been wreaking havoc and terrorizing villagers in remote areas, as well.

Armed bandits on motorcycles killed 34 people in remote villages in Nigeria’s northern Zamfara state on Friday. Days before that, motorcycle-riding bandits also attacked several villages in the far northwestern Sokoto state, killing more than two dozen of the local residents.

With the lack of a strong police force and an effective judicial system in Africa’s most populous nation, villagers have established local vigilante groups to defend civilians against militants.

But the vigilantes are themselves accused of disrupting peace and justice, engaging in extra-judicial killings.