Boko Haram offers bomber N10m each
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- Category: National Security
- Published on Friday, 30 September 2011 16:06
- Written by Admin
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They would be paid through a popular bank (name withheld) and so far, 38 fundamentalists have volunteered to carry out various attacks.
Leaflets entitled “Top secret for committed Muslim brothers and sisters” containing the N10 million offer were widely circulated in Warri, Delta State yesterday, causing panic.
Some of the leaflets were also circulated in Anambra and Rivers states.
They were signed by a top Islamic activist.
It was also gathered that the ground plot to carry out a jihad had been planned since February.
A cleric, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, declared that Christians in the oil-rich city are living in fear and praying for the plans to be averted.
He said that materials for the bombing would pass through some neighbouring countries to Kaduna, Kano, Bauchi and Plateau to Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).He declared that 650 fundamentalists are still undergoing training in Eritrea and Somalia on the use of explosives while another set of 850 have purportedly returned from Yemen and Somalia.
The leaflet reads: “We are fighting a jihad, a religious war of protecting Islam. It is our belief that before the end of this year 2011, we shall conquer Abuja, and the other Northern and Middle Belt States of Nigeria which we shall Islamise”.
From Abuja, the volunteers would move to other states where some of them have been sent to study the Christendom and strategise on how to infiltrate the Niger Delta region.
The development is already causing tension among some churches in the South-East and South-South because the threat contained in the leaflet revealed that leaders of targetted churches have blasphemed Allah.
The churches listed to be bombed are 10. A parish of one of them was attacked recently in Abuja.
Also, about nine clergymen are listed as targets.
The leaflet hinted that the churches would be destroyed by the suicide bombers on Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant-General Azubuike Ihejirika, has expressed regrets that the spate of bombings and attacks on some key locations across the country by Boko Haram has eaten very deep into the resources and funds of the Nigerian Army.
The COAS, who said that the Nigerian Army had committed so much resources into curtailing the menace of the religious fundamentalists, however, charged the finance sector of the Army to judiciously utilise the available resources to be able to meet its obligations to the government and Nigerians.
Ihejirika made this disclosure yesterday in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, while declaring open the Nigerian Army Finance Corps Biennial Training Conference, 2011 held at the 2 Division Officers' Mess, Agodi, Ibadan.
He was represented by Major-General Bala Usara, Chief of Army Administration, while the Minister of State, Finance, Dr. Yerima Ngama, was ably represented by the Director, Finance and Accounts, Mr Mamman Idris.
Also in attendance to elucidate on the annual lecture entitled: "Effective Utilisation of Fund for Meeting Contemporary Challenges by the Nigerian Army" was the Chief of Accounts and Budget (Army), Major-General Abdullahi Muraina and Governor Abiola Ajimobi, who was represented by his Deputy, Mr Moses Adeyemo.
In his address, the COAS said: "You are aware of the increasing wave of socio-political and ethno-religious crises threatening the nation's security lately. This has assumed a higher dimension, witnessing spates of bombings and attacks on key points, vulnerable points and other strategic areas of interest to the country. This has left serious demands on Nigerian Army resources.
"We also know that funding is fundamental to containing these security challenges", advising, therefore, that "success calls for prudent and efficient management and application of available funds.
Expressing the hope that the Army would effectively manage its available resources, the COAS said, "this will enable the Army to meet contemporary challenges".
In the same vein, Ngama acknowledged the importance of the Finance Corps of the Nigerian Army as a major instrument of national security/defence policy, noting: "The Corps must, therefore, proffer useful financial strategies, techniques and methods of optimising the use of funds allocated to the Nigerian Army".
The governor noted that the issue of managing resources cut across the country, while calling for transparency, accountability, consistency and honesty among all stakeholders for Nigeria to be counted among the best in the world.
He said: "Financial management is very essential to the grassroots we are governing over. Anywhere people collect salaries, prudent management of resources and funds is necessary," Adeyemo stressed. (Compass News)
