President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed shock and outrage at reports of killings of innocent persons in Omoku, Rivers State and the traditional ruler, the Etum Numana, Dr Gambo Makama, and his wife in Sango Local Government Area of Kaduna State in the New Year.
\nAt least 20 persons were killed on thdir way from a cross-over service in Omoku in Rivers State, while the chief of Numana, Etum Numana, Gambo Makama, in Southern Kaduna was killed alongside his pregnant wife early on new year’s day. His son escaped with gun shot wounds.
\nAt least 10 persons have been killed in the last week in Southern Kaduna, peopled mostly by indigenous Christians who accuse herdsmen of been behind the attacks.
\nGovernor Nyesom Wike has promised a N200 million bounty for information on the killers who mauled down even women and children with their guns. He spoke on a visit to the community with the heads of security agencies in the State.
\nThe President, according to a statement by one of his spokesmen, Mallam Garba Shehu, described the incidents as \u201creprehensible and unacceptable,\u201d and directed law enforcement agencies in both states to intensify their current efforts in order to speedily bring the perpetrators to face the wrath of the law.
\n\u201cI have always maintained that nothing justifies the taking of the life of an innocent person,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cpeople in our communities must learn to live peacefully.\u201d
\nPresident Buhari appealed to the communities affected not to embark on reprisal attacks, but allow the security agencies to carry out comprehensive investigations to properly punish the culprits.
\nHe commiserated with the families of the victims and wished the injured faster recovery.
\nOn his part, former Governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Ameachi, puts the blame on his successor, Nyesom Wike. He told State House correspondents after a meeting with the President: \u201cI think there should be much more than age to qualify to be a governor because it takes much more than age.
\n\u201cI was governor of Rivers State, I did not play PDP\/APC politics. Life is life, it has no symbol. Nobody has APC life or PDP life.
\n\u201cThe first responsibility of a governor which is what the oath of office requires, is that you swear to protect lives and property.
\n\u201cWhen you don\u2019t protect life and property, what do you do? It is impeachment. Unfortunately, there is no House of Assembly in Rivers State.
\n\u201cThere is too much noise coming from Rivers State. The governor just wakes up and starts shouting, abusing people. That is all he does. Mr. Project painting roads.
\n\u201cThe first thing you do is human capacity development and keeping human beings and we are losing lives every day.\u201d
\n\u201cI just don\u2019t know because the things are there for him to work with. He is not like me when during my second term, President Goodluck Jonathan took away Police, SSS. The Army brigade commander couldn\u2019t visit me.
\n\u201cBut in his case, everyone is disposed to him. He can see the Commissioner of Police, director SSS, unlike my period but we fought insecurity.
\n\u201cBut because he needs these people for election purpose that is why they are still there, that is why they are killing, we need much more than that.
\n\u201cUnfortunately, I swore not to be talking about Rivers anymore but you don\u2019t keep quiet in the face of 21 lives, you can\u2019t just keep quiet.
\n\u201cI have said it that nobody should criticise his successor. But a successor that watches the lives of people go like that and does not care? God will bless him.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed shock and outrage at reports of killings of innocent persons in Omoku, Rivers State and the traditional ruler, the Etum Numana, Dr Gambo Makama, and his wife in Sango Local Government Area of Kaduna State in the New Year. At least 20 persons were killed on thdir way from a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":6879,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6878"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6878\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}