DIRECTOR-General of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga, said, on Wednesday, that the corps members serving in Borno State would immediately be redeployed due to the security situation in the state.
He stated this at the NYSC orientation camp in Maiduguri, while addressing corps members during his nationwide tour of NYSC camps across the country.
He said due to the security situation in Borno State, the NYSC authorities deemed it fit to withdraw corps members from trouble areas, as enshrined in the constitution, adding that Borno State could not be an exception.
The NYSC boss said that not all
more after the jump corps members serving in Borno State would be redeployed, because according him, married women and indigenes of Borno who wished to serve in the state would remain behind and serve in the state.
Brigadier-General Tsiga stated that he was committed to the safety and welfare of all corps members serving in the country, adding that, that was why he fought for the enhanced allowances payable to them.
“I am very happy to announce to you that your allowances have been increased from the meagre N9,600 to N19,800 and whenever you start collecting such money, plan carefully how to spend it.”
He expressed surprise over the text messages going round that outgoing corps members should pay N1, 500 as administrative charges into a certain bank account before collecting their four months allowance arrears, stressing that the NYSC authorities would make sure that such fraudsters would be apprehended and brought to book.
He called on the press to always report, objectively, the activities of the NYSC in order to promote national growth and desist from causing unnecessary tension, as the NYSC was a sensitive national issue.
Boko Haram attacks former gov’s houseSuspected members of the Boko Haram sect, on Wednesday, detonated a bomb outside the residence of the late Borno State governor, Mala Kachalla.
Military spokesman, Colonel Victor Ebhaleme, said that the blast did not hurt anyone.
Mallam Kachalla died in 2007, but his family still resides at the house in Maiduguri.
Prior to the recent attack, Boko Haram struck in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital on Tuesday evening, killing three people riding in a van close to a military checkpoint.
Commander of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF), Major General Jack Nwachukwu Nwaogbo, said an explosive went off under the van as its driver slowed down at a military and police checkpoint in Maiduguri.
The blast killed the driver and two passengers.
Authorities blamed Boko Haram for the bombing, one of many attacks that have targeted security officers, local leaders and clerics in and around Maiduguri over the last one year.
General Nwaogbo added that civilians were not cooperating and that some were helping Boko Haram to carry out their attacks and that without the cooperation of residents, the joint military task force could not do anything.
Only, on Monday, the University of Maiduguri announced that it was shutting down indefinitely over threat letters attributed to the group.
University spokesman, Ahmed Mohammed, told newsmen that the institution could no longer guarantee the safety of its students and if anything happened to the students, the university would be held responsible.
The police in Maiduguri had also banned motorcyclists last week in an attempt to stop the group from committing motorcycle-mounted attacks.
The military blamed the Boko Haram sect, which in turn, had claimed responsibility for a series of bombings in northern Nigeria.
Kwara evacuates indigenes from UNIMAIDFollowing threats and reports of attack by members of the dreaded Islamic religious sect, Boko Haram, in some parts of Borno State, the Kwara State government has ordered an immediate evacuation of students of the state origin studying at the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) in Maiduguri, the state capital.
The state government has, therefore, dispatched 40 buses to Maiduguri, to convey the students back to their different places of origin in the state.
It will be recalled that the university authorities had, earlier in the week, announced the closure of the institution, following the spate of bombings in the metropolis by the religious sect.
Speaking while addressing drivers, security operatives and other government officials attached to the buses, Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Alhaji Isiaka Gold, cautioned the drivers against excessive speed or any act that could jeopardise the lives of the students.
The SSG also asked the parents of the students to remain calm, adding that the state government took the task of conveying the students back home because of its love for the people of the state.
Meanwhile, Alhaji Gold has noted that one of the major solutions to insecurity in the country was youth employment, saying that if the issue of unemployment was tackled headlong, it would go a long way towards reducing societal ills that had led to a state of insecurity in parts of the country.
He made the observation when the state commandant, Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Alhassan Audu Akar, visited him at the Governor’s Office, in Ilorin, on Wednesday.
He said the ongoing registration of unemployed youths in state was part of efforts by the state government to address the problem, while urging the NSCDC to join hands with other security agencies to maintain law and order in the state.
Baptist Convention condemns bombingThe Nigerian Baptist Convention has condemned the activities of the Boko Haram sect, stressing that it was high time the Federal Government beefed up security in the country.
This statement was made during a press conference at the national secretariat of the church in Ibadan, Oyo State.
According to the General Secretary of the convention, Reverend Dr S. O. Ayokunle, “the Islamic fundamentalists called Boko Haram arose of recent to condemn Western education and to begin unwarranted bombing of public utilities, police stations, churches and innocent citizens to the consternation of everyone.”
Condemning their activities, Ayokunle said these acts depicted that they lacked the fear of God, adding that they attached no value to peaceful co-existence, human life and dignity.
“If it is religion that has drawn them to that extreme, such a religious belief must be seen as undesirable in this country, because in Nigeria, we value peace and human life. We urge the government to give the security agents better training, in order to forestall the activities of these reckless bombers,” he said.
Speaking on the issue of Islamic banking, Ayokunle also called on the government to stop the governor of the Central Bank Nigeria (CBN) from granting licence of operation to that bank.
“We need to remind all here that our position is not because we hate Islam, but our position is borne out of the fact that Nigeria is a secular nation. Using our resources to train the Muslim alone for such a bank is a violation of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. If the governor of the CBN is not promoting any religion in this country, let him just introduce interest-free banking, which will be for all Nigerians, irrespective of their religious adherence,” he said.
Ex-Gov Sheriff meets JonathanThe immediate past governor of Borno State, Alhaji Ali Modu Sheriff, met with President Goodluck Jonathan at the State House, Abuja, on Wednesday and told correspondents later that he was not the mentor of the Boko Haram.
The chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Arewa Consultative Council (ACF), Lieutenent-General Jerry Useni (retd), had alleged during his visit to the State House, on Tuesday, that politicians of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in the state condoned the existence of the sect, because they used its members to prosecute elections.
Sheriff, who disclosed that he had not been to Borno since he left office, said he was in the State House to discuss matters that were important to him with the president, adding that there was already Boko Haram in Borno State before he became governor.
He also denied having anything to do with the arrest and subsequent execution of the sect leader.
According to him, “Boko Haram has been in existence before I became governor. The so-called leader of Boko Haram was arrested and was executed in Abuja before I even thought of becoming the governor of Borno State.
“So, people make comments on what they don’t know and in life, you don’t speak on matters that you are not very competent. Whoever said it that I am a mentor of Boko Haram, it is most unfortunate and there is no truth in the statement.”
The former governor also denied apologising specifically to Boko Haram as widely believed, saying what he did while he was leaving office was to apologise to the entire people of Borno State, including the sect, who he might have offended in the discharge of his duties.
“I didn’t apologise to Boko Haram. I apologised to every citizen of Borno State when I was leaving office in my speech on May 29. You can see that the Boko Haram said that they will stop what they were doing if the governors of Gombe, Bauchi and Borno apologise to them publicly. The two governors have done so publicly. I only lifted from my May 29 speech on what I have done in the last eight years.
“I said I have served them for eight years, I must have, in one way or the other, offended people. I ask everybody that I have offended, including Boko Haram to forgive me,” he said.
On a former member of the state executive council, Buji Foi, who was allegedly executed on account of his actions as a member of the radical sect, Sheriff said he had no hand in it.
“No. I want to make this very clear. Buji Foi was a politician. He was a chairman of his own local government area before I became the governor. And he was out of my cabinet two years before the Boko Haram crisis and if everybody that served in my cabinet will do something and I will be held responsible for it, then nobody can govern any state in Nigeria,” he said.
“Before the incident of Boko Haram, he was not in the government for two years. So, we couldn’t have taken responsibility and, most importantly, I didn’t know when Buji Foi was arrested or when he was killed and who arrested him and who killed him,” he said.
Sheriff said he was in the office of the State Security Service (SSS) recently of his own volition, adding that the solution to the Boko Haram crisis resided with every citizen.
“The solution is that every citizen of Borno State can help to bring solution to this. I am now an ex-governor and ordinary citizen of the state. So whatever I will do to bring an end to the crisis when I was the governor has been done,” he said.
On the ongoing military operation in Maiduguri, he said the problem in the area was serious and required serious solution, adding that “there are many ways of solving a problem. But when people are carrying bombs and guns, it is a serious problem that will need a solution, that also needs every possible intervention to control the situation.”
Source.....Tribune
