He made the commitment when he met the Lawra Traditional Council on day 2 of his 7-day tour of the three regions of the North.

President Akufo-Addo noted that, the Upper West Region, like the two Northern and Upper East regions, are the most disadvantaged when it comes coverage and access to electricity.

“…this year, 2017, and next year, 2018, 106 communities in the Upper West are going to be connected to the national grid…The pledge I have given is that, by end of my term, there will be universal access to electricity to all parts of Ghana, including the Upper Region”, Akufo-Addo said at the forecourt of the Lawra Naa’s palace.

President Akufo-Addo also announced the creation of three new municipalities in Upper West Region, for which Lawra is one.

Touching on the initiatives undertaken by his government, he stated that, the Free Senior High School policy has resulted in an increase of over 90,000 children who have entered secondary school this academic year, who would otherwise have dropped out at this stage.

The President stated that, the Teacher Training allowances, as from September 2017, has been restored, with the Nurses Training allowance set for restoration from 10^th October, 2017.

The president stressed that his government has cleared GHc560 million out of GHc1.2 billion inherited from the previous John Mahama government on the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

He said his government is working to resuscitate the NHIS. He also appealed to the Chiefs to support his government to improve the living conditions of Ghanaians.

–

By: Jonas Nyabor/citifmonline.com/Ghana

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Four other villagers were killed while attempting to escape from their abductors, said Aji Khalil, Chairman, Sector 5 of the local vigilante group in Borno State.

Khalil who spoke on the telephone said: “More than 60 women were among the villagers abducted by Boko Haram terrorists.

“Some suspected Boko Haram members invaded Kumanza, Yaga and Dagu villages and kidnapped 91 persons.

“More than 60 married women and young girls as well as children and young men were forcefully taken away by Boko Haram terrorits. Four villagers, who tried to escape were shot dead on the spot”, Khalil said on telephone yesterday night.

Another source said: ”They went from one village to the other, killed about 30 people and took away many children and women.” He added that hundreds of villagers around the area have now fled to Lassa to take refuge.

The attacks were not immediately known in Maiduguri because of the remoteness of the area. The affected villages are about 100 kilometres away from Maiduguri, Borno State capital.

There was no official confirmation either by the military or police in the state at press time. Also, chairman of Damboa Local Government, Alhaji Alamin Mohammed could not be reached on his mobile phone while the council  secretary, Modu  Mustapha insisted he was not authorized to speak on the matter.

Meanwhile,  four suspected Boko Haram members have been arrested in Lassa few kilometres away to Kummabza, Gurdlagwal, Yafa and Yaza villages attacked weekend, residents said.

The four men were arrested while purchasing large quantities of foodstuffs at Lassa market, yesterday. The quantity of food items being purchased by the men, according to the source aroused the suspicion of traders and people in the market.

“People suspected the four men may be Boko Haram errand men, who came to the market to buy foodstuffs and also spy for the insurgents. “We’ve handed them over to the military for investigation,” a resident said.

Source: vanguardngr.com

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The suspected insurgents were said to be going to Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital in search of work.

The suspects were arrested at about 2 am when their vehicles were intercepted by soldiers between Arungwa Junction on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway and Imo Gate, the Abia State and Rivers State boundary.

They were said to be moving in a convoy of 35 Hummer buses when they were intercepted. However, two of the buses were said to have escaped arrest.

Cross section of Suspected Boko-haram Insurgence arrested between Aro-Ngwa and Imo gate along Enugu-Portharcort Express way in Abia state by the Nigerian Army attached to the state, insert are their
(33) buses.

According to Abia State Commissioner for Information, Mr. Eze Chikamnayo, who briefed journalists, yesterday at the military base in Asa, Ukwa West Local Government Area of the state, where they were being detained, the suspects are aged from 16 years upwards.

Chikamnayo who was accompanied during the briefing by the Commander in-charge of the battalion, Lt. Col. Rasheed Omolori, who also confirmed the arrest, said that the suspects allegedly came from Kano, Taraba and Jigawa states.

They were said to have claimed that they were going to Port Harcourt in search of work.

Lt. Col. Omolori, who however declined further comments on the arrest, said that a report had been forwarded to Army Headquarters, Abuja.

The commissioner, however, said that further investigation would assist in unraveling the true mission of the suspects but insisted that “the movement was suspicious”.

Chikamnayo commended the Army and other security agencies in the state for their vigilance and urged them not to relent.

Some of the vehicles which have been impounded by the Army authorities have the number plates: Jigawa RNG 98XA; Osun RLG 176XA; Kano AF 411 DAL; Lagos BDG 487 XK; Abuja EP 86 ABC and Bauchi ZAK 48 XA, among others.

Imo’s 8-point security measures

Meanwhile, the Imo State Government has announced far reaching security measures, following the botched bomb attack targeted at the Living Faith Church, Winners Chapel, Owerri.

Announcing the eight-point measures, yesterday, in Owerri, after several hours of special security meeting he held with security chiefs and a cross section of Imo people, Governor Rochas Okorocha, said that government would summarily take over uncompleted buildings found to be hideouts for criminals.

“Uncompleted buildings in the cities in the state and environs without security guards, will be taken over by the government because criminals use them as hideouts”, Okorocha said.

The governor, who branded the security measure as “operation know your neighbour”, also ordered hotels in the state, to install security cameras and should on a daily basis, forward a list of all their guests to the Director of State Security Service.

“Trailers bringing food items from the North would no longer be allowed to come into the state at night but only during the day and the food items would be off-loaded at a designated place, off the state capital”, Okorocha said.

While saying that lands left fallow for several years and not used for any economic or gainful purpose but taken over by criminals, will be seized by the state government, the Governor also banned the smoking of Indian hemp anywhere in the state.

He warned residents in the state to be very careful with broken bottles, cans, leather bags, parked tankers and vehicles around their homes, public places and public buildings.

“Traditional rulers in the state are directed to summon emergency meetings of their various communities to take stock of strange faces living within their autonomous communities”, Okorocha said.

The Governor then announced that government has concluded arrangements to meet all non-indigenes in the state, adding that nobody comes into a state to commit crime of any kind without an internal collaborator.

It was the considered opinion of Okorocha that since those who commit these crimes are human beings, they must also be residents somewhere, and their neighbours should equally be able to know them and what they do.

Boko Haram can’t be allowed in S-East— Obiano

Meantime, Governor Willy Obiano of Anambra state, said yesterday that the Islamic Terrorist group, Boko Haram will never be allowed to have a stronghold in the South Eastern part of the country.

Speaking with State House Correspondents after the governors of Enugu, Abia Anambra and Ebonyi states paid a solidarity visit to President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr Obiano said the governors of the South East were watchful of events in the country and would do everything to ensure that the sect’s activities do not get to the region.

According to him, the governors were in the Villa to assure the President that despite the challenge of insecurity, the people of the South East are with him.

On the possibility that Boko Haram may extend its activities to the south East, the governor said: “No, they can’t get there; I can assure you of that. We will not allow that to happen. I can’t tell you in any material details about bombs found or not found. All I can assure you is that we are very alert in the South-East and we are watching what is going on. I can assure you that Boko Haram cannot come to the Southeast” he said.

On the visit of the governors to the President, Obiano said: “The South-East governors came this morning to assure him that we are with him all through the way and that he can count on us.

“The President is a human being and he is under a lot of pressure and some other people are making the work a lot more difficult for him. Instead of supporting him to steer us out of these stormy waters, they are adding kerosene to fire. So we are here to tell him that we are supporting him and that he should count on us” he said.

On the erosion ravaging parts of the South East, the governor said that the World Bank with the state governments are working on a lot of erosion sites already.

“They have expanded the four erosion sites they are working on currently to 12; so they are adding eight more erosion sites. I believe that this intervention which is 50/50 per cent contribution will go a long way in helping to tackle the erosion sites we have in the state.

“We are also tackling erosion from the legal point of view. Bush burning will no longer be allowed, so also is cutting roads to lay pipes to houses. These are some of the factors that lead to erosion. We want people to do the necessary things that they should do; we want people to stop termination of drainages abruptly. We are putting a law in place to ensure that anybody that violates the law will face the consequences” he said.

Source: Vanguardngr.com

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Survivors told the BBC the attackers said they had come to preach, before opening fire on a crowd that gathered.

Meanwhile, residents and officials fear at least 200 people were killed in a wave of attacks earlier this week.

Maiduguri and surrounding areas have not suffered many attacks since a state of emergency was imposed a year ago.

Remote areas are now usually targeted instead.

Nigeria’s government has been facing growing pressure both at home and abroad to do more to tackle Boko Haram since militants kidnapped more than 200 schoolgirls in April.

The group has waged an increasingly bloody insurgency since 2009 in an attempt to create an Islamic state in Nigeria – and thousands of people have died in their attacks and the subsequent security crackdown.

Timeline of recent attacks

• Sunday – Tuesday: At least 200 people killed by gunmen in military dress in a wave of attacks on six villages in the Gwoza area of Borno state
• Wednesday: Some 45 people killed by militants posing as preachers in Barderi village near Maiduguri, the capital Borno State
• Thursday: Two killed in gunfire exchange in village of Madagali, Adamawa state

Villagers ‘tricked’The militants came into the village of Barderi, near the University of Maiduguri on the outskirts of the city on Wednesday night, telling people to gather to hear them preach, but then turned the guns on the crowd.

The insurgents have used various tactics to gather residents together when they enter a village before attacking them.

In Tuesday’s attack on Attagara village in the remote Gwoza area of Borno state, people believed the gunmen – who were dressed in military uniforms – were soldiers who had come to provide protection after an earlier attack on Sunday.

One witness, quoted by the Associated Press, said the militants gathered people together in the centre of the village before they began “to fire continuously for a very long time until all that had gathered were dead”.

The local MP, Peter Biye, told the BBC that it was impossible to know exactly how many people had died because everyone who could do so, had fled into the nearby hills and there was no-one to count the bodies.

Attagara is one of six villages where a total of at least 200 people are believed to have been killed.

They are near the Mandara Mountains, a known Boko Haram hideout close to the border with Cameroon.

There are reports that Boko Haram’s jihadist flags are flying in several villages in Gwoza.

Who are Boko Haram?

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau has been designated a terrorist by the US government

• Founded in 2002
• Initially focused on opposing Western education – Boko Haram means “Western education is forbidden” in the Hausa language
• Launched military operations in 2009 to create Islamic state
• Thousands killed, mostly in north-eastern Nigeria – also attacked police and UN headquarters in capital, Abuja
• Some three million people affected
• Declared terrorist group by US in 2013

Who are Boko Haram?

Profile: Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau

Why Nigeria has nor defeated Boko Haram 

In the early hours of Thursday morning, another attack reportedly took place in Adamawa state, one of the three states under emergency rule.

Residents of the village of Madagali told the BBC Hausa Service that over three hours, suspected Boko Haram militants exchanged fire with security forces, burnt down the administrative buildings and a church, and killed two people.

After they had left, the air force bombed the surrounding area and three people died, residents added.

A new report by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre and the Norwegian Refugee Council says 3,300 people have been killed by Boko Haram this year alone.

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One of those killed was a girl aged 12, they say.

Witnesses say the explosion was caused by a bomb in a car in the mainly Christian area of Sabon Gari.

The area has previously been targeted by Boko Haram Islamist militants but it is the first attack on Nigeria’s second biggest city for several months.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in Boko Haram attacks this year but the government has said it has pushed the militants back into their strongholds in the north-eastern Borno state.

This is where they seized more than 200 girls last month, in a case which shocked the world and prompted foreign powers to send military advisors to assist Nigeria’s army tackle the insurgency.

At least 22 people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack blamed on Boko Haram at a bus stop in Kano in March last year

The street in Sabon Gari was full of revellers and street hawkers when a car exploded.

The BBC’s Will Ross in Nigeria says that Sunday’s blast was so powerful that all that remains of the car is its engine. The blast could be heard from several miles away.

“At about 22:00 [21:00 GMT], we heard an explosion and immediately mobilised to the scene where we discovered a suicide bomber… Five people, including the bomber, were killed,” Kano Police Commissioner Adelere Shinaba said.

He said that the victims were “three men and a girl of about 12”.

Kano is the largest city in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria.

The bars and alcohol-sellers in its Sabon Gari area have been targeted on numerous other occasions.

In January 2012, about 150 people died there in a series of co-ordinated attacks by Boko Haram.

The group is fighting to overthrow the Nigeria government and create an Islamic state.

But it has often attacked Muslims, including preachers who disagree with its interpretation of Islam.

The Nigerian authorities are continuing the search for the kidnapped schoolgirls kidnapped.

The abducted schoolgirls, who include Christians and Muslims, were seized on 14 April.

Boko Haram released a video last week showing more than 100 of the girls and offering an exchange for prisoners.

African leaders meeting in Paris at the weekend agreed to wage “war” on Boko Haram, pledging to share intelligence and co-ordinate action against the group.

French President Francois Hollande called Boko Haram a “major threat to West and Central Africa”, and said it had links with al-Qaeda’s North-African arm and “other terrorist organisations”.

The unrest in Nigeria has not just been confined to the north.

Earlier this month a car bomb in the capital Abuja killed at least 19 people and injured 60 more.

The explosion happened close to a bus station where at least 70 people died in a bomb blast on 14 April.

Source: BBC

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The footage showed about 130 of more than 200 girls who were kidnapped a month ago from their boarding school in Borno state reciting Koranic verses.

Boko Haram’s leader says the captured girls who have not converted to Islam can be swapped for jailed fighters.

Nigeria’s government says it is considering all options.

In another development, the country’s president is seeking a six-month extension to the year-old state of emergency in three north-eastern states worst hit by Boko Haram attacks.

Meanwhile, the US has revealed it is flying manned surveillance missions over Nigeria to an effort to find the missing schoolgirls.

A team of about 30 US experts – members of the FBI and defence and state departments – is in Nigeria to help with the search. The UK, France and China also have teams on the ground in Nigeria and an Israeli counter-terrorism team is on its way.

‘Apprehensive’

The 27-minute footage was shown to some people in Chibok, the town from where the girls were kidnapped, on Monday evening.

Not all girls are from Chibok itself as pupils from surrounding areas had come to do their final year exams in April as the school in the town was considered relatively safe.

A community leader in Chibok told the BBC that school friends had identified three of the girls in the video.

A mother had also recognised her daughter from the girls who appear in a group wearing hijabs, the chairman of the parents-teachers association at the school told the Reuters news agency

“The video got parents apprehensive again after watching it but the various steps taken by the governments and the coming of the foreign troops is boosting our spirit, even though I have not seen the any one soldier in Chibok yet,” Dumoma Mpur said.

The girls’ families have said that most of those seized are Christians, although there are a number of Muslims among them.

Two girls on the video singled out for questioning said they were Christians but had converted to Islam. Another said she was Muslim.

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau said the girls could be exchanged for “our brethren in your prison”.

“I swear to almighty Allah, you will not see them again until you release our brothers that you have captured,” he said.

Last week, he had threatened to sell the girls into slavery.

Nigerian government statement said “all options” for the girls’ release were on the table.

Earlier, Interior Minister Abba Moro appeared to dismiss the offer, saying no exchange would take place. The reason for the discrepancy was unclear.

The BBC’s Mark Doyle, in the capital, Abuja, says it appears some sort of negotiations will take place because of the large presence of international advisers in the country, including hostage negotiators.

Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden”, had previously said the girls should not have been at school and should get married instead.

The militants have been engaged in a violent campaign against the Nigerian government since 2009.

President Goodluck Jonathan – whose government has been heavily criticised for its response to the abduction – said on Sunday that help from abroad had made him optimistic of finding the girls.

He said he believed the girls were still in Nigeria.

The kidnapping has triggered a huge international campaign with world leaders and celebrities calling for the children to be released.

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“Damning testimonies gathered by Amnesty International reveal that Nigerian security forces failed to act on advance warnings about Boko Haram’s armed raid on the state-run boarding school in Chibok which led to the abduction,” the rights group said.

Amnesty said it had verified the information about the abduction with “credible sources”.

“Amnesty International has confirmed… that Nigeria’s military headquarters in Maiduguri was aware of the impending attack soon after 7:00 PM (1800 GMT) on 14 April, close to four hours before Boko Haram began their assault on the town,” the group said.

The military however could not assemble the troops needed to suppress the attack, “due to poor resources and a reported fear of engaging with the often better-equipped” Islamists, according to Amnesty.

The 17 army personnel based in Chibok were overpowered by the attackers and had to retreat, the London-based group further said.

“The fact that Nigerian security forces knew about Boko Haram’s impending raid, but failed to take the immediate action needed to stop it, will only amplify the national and international outcry at this horrific crime,” said Netsanet Belay, Amnesty International’s Africa Director for research and advocacy.

Source: Vanguardngr.com

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They were kidnapped more than three weeks ago by Islamist Boko Haram militants from their boarding school in the north-eastern state of Borno.

The militants have been blamed for another attack on a town in the state on Monday, a busy market day.

A senator from the remote area said some 300 people had died in the raid.

Ahmed Zanna said the gunmen arrived in a convoy of vans in Gamboru Ngala, near the border with Cameroon.

They stole food and motorbikes, burned hundreds of cars and buildings during their rampage, the politician told the BBC’s Hausa service.

A town resident, who asked not to be named, told the BBC that as the call for Muslim prayer was heard at about 13:00 local time (12:00 GMT) on Monday, gunshots could also be heard.

He said the attackers were Islamist insurgents as they were shouting “Allahu Akbar [God is great].”

The attack lasted for about five hours and the town was busy with traders from other areas, he said.

Correspondents say it often takes time for news of such attacks to spread as mobile phone networks can be affected by the security crackdown in the region.

The market raid is the latest attack to be blamed on Boko Haram, whose leader admitted earlier this week that his fighters had abducted the girls in the middle of the night from their school in the town of Chibok on 14 April.

Abubakar Shekau threatened to “sell” the students, saying they should not have been in school in the first place, but rather should get married.

The group, whose name means “Western education is forbidden” in the local Hausa language, began its insurgency in 2009.

More than 1,500 are said to have been killed in the violence and subsequent security crackdown this year alone.

‘Heart-breaking’

A statement from the police said the 50m naira reward would be given to anyone who “volunteers credible information that will lead to the location and rescue of the female students”.

Six telephone numbers are provided, calling on the general public to be “part of the solution to the present security challenge”.

“The police high command also reassures all citizens that any information given would be treated anonymously and with utmost confidentiality,” the statement said.

Another 11 girls were kidnapped on Sunday night after two villages were attacked near the militants’ forest hideout.

The abductions have prompted widespread criticism of the Nigerian government and demonstrations countrywide.

The BBC’s Mansur Liman in the capital, Abuja, says many are questioning why it has taken so long for such a reward to be offered.

The girls are mostly aged between 16 and 18 and were taking their final year exams.

The governments of Chad and Cameroon have denied suggestions that the abducted girls may have already been smuggled over Nigeria’s porous borders into their territory.

A team of US experts has been sent to Nigeria to help in the hunt.

On Tuesday, US President Barack Obama described the abductions as “heart-breaking” and “outrageous” and said he hoped the kidnapping might galvanise the international community to take action against Boko Haram.

Security has been tightened in Abuja as several African leaders and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang are attending the World Economic Forum for Africa in the city, where two recent attacks have been blamed on the insurgents.

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