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Sultan to Nigerians: stop blame game, unite against terrorists, other criminals
• CAN boss tasks security agencies to learn from US
Sultan of Sokoto Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III yesterday advised Nigerians to desist from the blame game and unite against terrorists, bandits, and other criminal elements in the country.
Alhaji Abubakar, who lamented the rising insecurity in the country urged Muslims to stop accusing Christians of promoting killings in the North.
He also called on Christians to disregard the recent threat by unknown persons to kill anyone found in churches in Zamfara State.
At the fourth quarterly meeting of Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) in Abuja where the Sultan spoke, Christian Association of Nigeria President Samson Ayokunle urged security agencies to learn from the United States, strategies for tackling insecurity.
The meeting with the theme: ”NIREC, security agencies and peace in Nigeria” was also attended by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Boss Mustapha and a former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Martin Luther Agwai.
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The monarch expressed displeasure over the killings and kidnappings in the country and enjoined Muslims, Christians, and adherents of other religions to stop the blame game.
He said: “The blame game has to stop so that we can work in unity to overcome” those he described as “our common enemies. If I continue talking about the insecurity in the North, we will not leave this room. A few days ago, we read media reports on how people were killed in a bus in Sokoto. There is no single day that passes without people being killed in the North especially in the Northwest.
“When I saw a note that the bandits are threatening Christians in Zamfara, I asked what is the work of our security agencies?
“I will not stop going to the mosque to pray because I saw in a paper that if I go to the mosque I will be killed, let me be killed, I must die, so Christians should not be afraid of going to church to worship because an anonymous person is threatening them.”
The Sultan said since Nigeria has many challenges, it “behoves on leaders to wake up and come together to understand and tackle them.”
The Sultan added: ”Let’s not deceive ourselves, everything is not alright. I have said this so many times. Knowing that you have a problem makes it easy for you to solve it. The earlier we rise up to the occasion together, the better for us,”
He charged religious leaders to be wary of the kind of things they say to their followers who believe that they rely on the Bible and Koran.
While advocating dialogue to address some of the challenges in the country, Sultan Abubakar said the elite are the major problems of the nation.
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“I believe dialogue is the best option. We must come up with possible solutions to our problems. The elite are the problems of this country because they always want things to go our way,” he added.
Rev. Ayokunle recalled the way and manner the US rescued its abducted citizen in Nigeria from Boko Haram and advised security agencies to learn from that operation.
He wondered why persons would be kidnapped and the security could not trace them and their abductors through intelligence.
The CAN boss said he was particularly worried that Nigerian roads “have become a den of kidnappers and a no-go-area for travellers”
He said:”Travelling from one point to another by road, in particular, has become a very great risk, kidnappers are everywhere and they don’t only come out to kidnap but also to kill, so you don’t know who the next victim is going to be.
“Why should these people be killing and hiding people in our territory without being challenged, why should it be easy for them to hide people somewhere within the state and the security agencies in the state within a few days or weeks will not be able to fish them out?”
Ayokunle, therefore, called for an increase in intelligence gathering, and on the public to volunteer information to the security agencies.
The Nation
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Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers
Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers
Operatives of the Rivers State Police Command have successfully neutralized a suspected cultist and kidnapper, Gbarani Bume, popularly known as Pelele, in Luawii Community, Khana Local Government Area.
Bume, a reportedly known member of the Iceland cult group, had allegedly been terrorizing the Beree/Tabaa area of Khana LGA alongside his gang.
The Command’s Public Relations Officer, Grace Iringe-Koko, confirmed the incident in a statement released in Port Harcourt on Sunday.
According to Iringe-Koko, the police acted on intelligence that Pelele and his gang were attempting to abduct a site engineer in Luawii. Upon arrival, the operatives were met with gunfire from the suspects. In the ensuing shootout, Pelele sustained fatal injuries and later died, while his accomplices fled with gunshot wounds.
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The statement reads: “The Rivers State Police Command has made a significant breakthrough in its efforts to combat crime, neutralising a notorious cultist and kidnapper, Gbarani Bume, a.k.a. Pelele, a native of Bere Community in Khana LGA.
“He was a member of the Iceland Cult Group, which has been terrorising the Beree/Tabaa axis of Khana LGA.
“On the 15th of November 2024, operatives from the Bori Division, acting on a tip-off, were mobilised to Luawii Community where Pelele and his gang were attempting to kidnap a site engineer.
“Upon sighting the operatives, the hoodlums opened fire, resulting in a fierce crossfire, during which Pelele was fatally wounded. His accomplices escaped with various degrees of bullet wounds.
“Items recovered from the suspect include one AK-47 rifle, two magazines, and 10 rounds of live ammunition.”
She further stated that investigations are ongoing to track down the fleeing gang members, emphasizing the Command’s commitment to tackling crime and enhancing public safety in the state.
Notorious cultist, Pelele, gunned down in Rivers
metro
Court stops police from arresting 68 Obaseki’s allies
Court stops police from arresting 68 Obaseki’s allies
metro
26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes
26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes
Strikes by the Israel military killed dozens in Gaza on Sunday, the civil defence said, while also hitting a Hezbollah stronghold near Beirut’s international airport.
Israel has been fighting on two fronts since September, intensifying attacks on Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah after nearly a year of cross-border clashes alongside its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
A year after the Gaza war was triggered by Hamas’s October 7 attacks on its south, Israel vowed to stop the Islamist militants from regrouping in the north of the Palestinian territory, launching a major assault there.
In the latest violence in the besieged Palestinian territory, the civil defence agency said Israeli air raids killed at least 46 people.
The deadliest strike, in the middle of the night in Beit Lahia in the north, killed 26 people, including women and children, and left at least 59 others buried under the rubble, said civil defence spokesman Mahmud Bassal.
Another strike killed 10 people in the Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, where a separate strike on a house claimed the life of a woman, he said.
An Israeli drone strike killed five people in the southern city of Rafah, Bassal said, adding another strike killed three women and a child in the Nuseirat camp.
Hamas-run Gaza’s health ministry on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846.
The majority of the dead are civilians, according to ministry figures, which the United Nations considers reliable.
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Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the war resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
– Lebanon rescuers mourned –
On Israel’s second front in the north, AFPTV footage showed several strikes hit Hezbollah’s south Beirut stronghold, shortly after the Israeli military warned people to evacuate.
Columns of smoke were seen rising over the capital’s southern suburbs, where Lebanon’s only international airport is located.
Further south, overnight Israeli air strikes and shelling hit the flashpoint town of Khiam, the Lebanese state-run National News Agency reported.
Following the bombardment, the Israeli army said about 20 projectiles were seen crossing from Lebanon into Israel, and that some of them were intercepted. Emergency services did not immediately report any casualties.
Israel has escalated its bombing of Lebanon since September 23 and has since sent in ground troops, following almost a year of limited, cross-border exchanges of fire begun by Hezbollah militants in support of Iran-backed Hamas in Gaza.
Its military on Saturday said Hezbollah had already “paid a big price”, but vowed to keep fighting until tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from the north can return home.
Israeli forces also shelled the southern area of Lebanon along the Litani River, the NNA said on Sunday.
The news agency had earlier reported strikes on the southern city of Tyre, including in a neighbourhood near UNESCO-listed ancient ruins. Israel’s military said late Saturday it had hit Hezbollah sites in the area.
In Lebanon’s east, the health ministry said an Israeli strike in the Bekaa Valley killed six people including three children.
Hezbollah said it fired a guided missile that set an Israeli tank ablaze in the southwestern Lebanese village of Chamaa.
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In eastern Lebanon, funerals were held for 14 civil defence staff killed in an Israeli strike on Thursday.
“They weren’t involved with any (armed) party… they were just waiting to answer calls for help,” said Ali al-Zein, a relative of one of the dead.
– Gaza famine alert –
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,452 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel announced the death of a soldier in southern Lebanon, bringing to 48 the number killed fighting Hezbollah.
A UN-backed assessment on November 9 warned famine was imminent in northern Gaza, amid the increased hostilities and a near-halt in food aid.
Israel has pushed back against a Human Rights Watch report this week alleging that its mass displacement of Gazans amounts to a “crime against humanity”, as well as findings from a UN Special Committee pointing to warfare practices “consistent with the characteristics of genocide”.
A foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the HRW report as “completely false”, while the United States — Israel’s main military supplier — said accusations of genocide “are certainly unfounded”.
In Israel, police said they arrested three suspects after flares shot near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the central city of Caesarea, south of Haifa, while he was away.
Demonstrators in Tel Aviv on Saturday reiterated demands that the government reach a deal to free dozens of hostages still held in Gaza.
The protest came a week after mediator Qatar suspended its role until Hamas and Israel show “seriousness” in truce and hostage-release talks.
26 dead, 59 missing as Israel hits Gaza, Lebanon in deadly strikes
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