No fewer than 10 perons died at the weekend in two attacks in Plateau State.
The attacks in Mangu and Barkin Ladi local governments have forced the special military task force Operation Safe Haven to move its headquarters to Barkin Ladi to end the killings.
Six persons died in the Saturday night attack in Mangu. Four died early yesterday in the Barkin Ladi incident.
The attacks followed those of June 23 when scores died.
Confirming the continuous killings despite the curfew and heavy military presence, the media officer of the task force, Major Adam Umar, said: “The OPSH notes with dismay the continued attitude of some criminals in the state that are bent on making the state ungovernable through some unwarranted attacks on some communities and innocent villagers despite the tireless efforts of the task force.
“We regret to say that about 0300 hours Sunday morning of 1st July, our men at Dorowa received a distress call from a resident of Mararaban Kantoma of Barkin Ladi Local Government that they were under attack by some armed bandits.
“On receiving the distress call, our men mobilised to the scene immediately to repel the attackers. The assailants who were given hot chase by our men escaped with various degrees of injuries while four of them were arrested.
“However, It is regrettable that before our men could get to the scene of the attack, four persons had already been killed by the attackers.
“Consequently, in its avowed commitment to ensuring that the renewed attacks are promptly brought to an end, the commander of the task force, Major General Anthony Atolagbe, has relocated the headquarters of the task force from Jos to Barkin Ladi.
“The Commander has also relocated with all his principal officers to the epicenter of the renewed attacks. To this end, the commander will be coordinating the day-to-day running of the task force from the new operational headquarters in Barkin Ladi.
“We wish to call on citizens of the state especially the residents of Barkin Ladi Local Government, to continue to have faith in the operations. We are fully on ground to continue to discharge our duties of protecting everybody in the state and we remain resolute to achieving our mandate in the state.
“We therefore use this opportunity to warn any criminal making or planning to make life miserable for innocent citizens to desist from the act forthwith.” The Nation
Have you ever wondered what happened to Naij.com – the popular online news platform? Buhari happened to it.
During the whirling of the IPOB turbulence, Naij.com published rare exclusive reports on Nnamdi Kanu. The reports were mostly free of affectations – not embellished, which is permissible in the practice of journalism. But the government found them offensive.
The reports unsettled the President Muhammadu Buhari government, which through the office of the National Security Adviser (NSA), shut down the online operation of the news platform in the interest of “national security”.
Naij.com had to mutate to Naija.ng to remain a business concern.
A popular columnist was effectively disengaged from an official assignment a night before the event for criticising the government’s branding of IPOB as a terrorist organisation. A few other writers have had their columns suspended by newspapers owing to threats by the government.
Even TheCable, a foremost online newspaper, has not been spared of attacks despite its unbiased and middle-ground approach to reporting. A few months ago, the website of the newspaper was hacked and shut down for a few days after it published a series of reports of corruption in the handling of the Abacha loot by the office of the attorney-general of the federation.
I strongly believe the Buhari government’s onslaught on the media is deliberate and targeted at crushing the last phalanx of check, and perhaps opposition.
The government has reduced the national assembly to a broken cymbal, and the PDP, which should naturally play the obverse role, is destitute of moral capacitance for opposition. With the media as the only institution of check, the government is desperate to extirpate it to garland its path to tyranny.
What could explain the recent tagging of newspapers (online and offline) dispassionately reporting the killings by herdsmen as “herds-media”? I believe this is an attempt to profile and stigmatise media houses doing the bounden duty of reporting objectively just like every public figure who opposes the government is tagged “looter” and “corrupt”.
An editor of a national newspaper told me that the government asked all media houses to stop tagging the killers in the north-central region as “Fulani herdsmen”, but as bandits. He said he asked them, “But these killers are Fulani and herdsmen? And the militants in the south-south are called Niger Delta militants?”
The editor said he was told the opposition would exploit the ethnicity of the killers to blackmail the president, and that it was in the interest of “national security”. This clearly reflects the thinking of the government - every issue is pickled in a political jar of sour sauce.
The media must not fall to the caprices, intimidation and harassment of the government. It survived brutal military regimes, it will survive Buhari. It is the last frontier of the masses.
Fredrick is a media personality, he tweets @FredrickNwabufo
Ghali N’Abba, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives, has faulted President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of the crisis between herdsmen and farmers across the country.
N’Abba said Buhari can’t resolve the crisis by working alone, hence he needs to engage communities and their leaders.
Speaking in Abuja over the weekend, the former Speaker said the current administration was not prepared to resolve the crisis which it inherited.
N’Abba said: “I think a long time ago, communities must have been engaged properly by this administration. I don’t think communities are being engaged. These conflicts have been raging on even before this administration and I thought the administration must have been prepared enough to meet with most communities where these conflicts have been taking place with a view to engaging them not on one-off basis but on a continuous basis. I don’t see this happening.
“I don’t think it has been handled in the most appropriate manner. I don’t think Buhari can handle this problem alone and the impression he has given most people is that he is working alone.
“If he wants to solve problems in this country, he has to engage many people as possible- elders, the party and everybody that can assist. Problems cannot be solved just by ruling and that is what I think they are doing and not everybody in the government possesses the right kind of wisdom for them to be able to solve these intricate problems.” - Daily Post
The Assets Management Company of Nigeria (AMCON) says there will be no more room for negotiation with obligors.
Ahmed Kuru, managing director and chief executive officer of AMCON, said the company is tired of debtors coming to their office and telling lies about wanting to embark on a staggered payment which they ended up never complying.
He said most parts of the N5.4 trillion had been with the banks for five years before AMCON bought them over saying the debtors are yet to pay after seven years.
“Resolutions through staggered plans have never worked. Let us not forget that before those loans were transferred to AMCON they have been with the banks for over five years,” he said.
“Now, AMCON is almost seven years, so the facility has been running bad for 12 years. It is not easy to recover those kinds of facilities.
“So now we have changed our strategy from sitting down and drinking tea and the obligors telling us lies and we pretend that we don’t know you are telling us lies.
“There is no more time for lies because we have a sunset period. So now our focus is on recovery. We do not want to hear anything, you cannot come and tell me you are going to pay me in the next six years, I do not have that time.
“If you cannot pay me the money now then give me my assets because the assets belong to AMCON so that we can sell it.”
Kuru said in the situation where the assets of the indebted company are not enough to clear the debt, AMCON would go after the directors and their private companies.
He also said directors of companies would now be sought after so that they would be forced to take part in repaying the loans.
“We have changed our strategy. Before our strategy had been only resolution: you come, you give us a payment plan and we respect it.
“But we have realized that more than 80% of AMCON’s recoveries are as a result of either forfeiture or taking over of businesses or outright cash payment.
“My law allows me to not only go after the assets that are served as collateral but I can also go after the directors of companies. I can go after the assets that have not been served as collateral.
“This is where we are now heading to because the law had anticipated this situation that we are now in.” - Cable Nigeria
Jimoh Moshood, public relations officer of the Nigeria Police Force, has blamed the industrial action in Borno state on the delay in the passage of 2018 budget.
Responding to inquiries by TheCable, Moshood said the allowances of the aggrieved officers would have been cleared if the budget had been approved earlier.
On Monday morning, some mobile policemen blocked major roads in Maiduguri, Borno capital, demanding the payment of six months allowances.
“Some police personnel on special duty; the ones drafted from other states to prevent crime because of the situation around Maiduguri went to the police headquarters in the state today to make inquiries about non-payment of their special duty allowances,” he said.
“Not the officers engaged in war against Boko Haram. These ones are being paid. Since we go the report, we assured them that now the budget has been signed and approved, their allowances will be approved.
“The delay in passage of the budget caused the non-payment but since the budget has been approved, they will be paid. There is no protest. They have all returned to their duty post.”
President Muhammadu Buhari sent the budget proposal to the national assembly in November but it was approved in May. - Cable Nigeria
