₦airaland Forum

Bandits have shot two policemen and kidnapped seven family members in Bwari Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

According to Daily Trust, a middle-aged man, simply identified as Alhaji, who led policemen to foil the kidnapping of the seven family members, was shot dead by the bandits.

The victims included a father, Mansoor Kadriyar and his five children.

It was gathered that the man killed by the bandits, Abdulfatai Kadriyar,  was a brother to Mansoor Kadriyar.

The publication had reported that in recent days, bandits had been been invading villages under Bwari Area Council, abducting and killing residents.

A resident of Bwari, Isaiah Samuel, who confirmed the incident on Friday, January 5, 2024, said the attack happened in the early hours of Wednesday, when the bandits invaded Zuma 1 in Bwari central ward of the council.

He said the bandits positioned themselves at strategic places after they had identified their victims’ house, saying the victims upon suspecting a strange sound immediately placed a call to a relation identified as Alhaji (deceased)

“It was when the man suspected a strange sound in front of his house that he immediately called his brother, popularly called Alhaji to alert the police,” he said.

Alhaji was said to be leading a team of police to the house when one of the bandits hiding at a corner shot him dead.

Samuel said the police also immediately started exchanging fire with the bandits, which he said led to two of the officers sustaining gunshot wounds.

“The bandits eventually succeeded in whisking away the man and his family members, because the distance from the victims’ house to where the police engaged the bandits is far,” he added.

Samuel also recalled how the bandits in the early hours of Tuesday, invaded Barangoni, still in Bwari central ward and abducted three persons, while injuring a vigilante member. Makesense pm reports,

He called on the authorities of the council to come to the aid of the residents by liaising with security agents to tackle incessant kidnapping in the area.

The truth is that Bwari area council is under siege, because for the past two weeks now, bandits have been moving from one community to another killing and abducting people,” he said.

A former National President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines, and Agriculture and the Iyalode of Yorubaland, Chief Alaba Lawson, is dead.

The prominent educationist and founder of the popular Alaba Lawson Group of Schools, Abeokuta died in the early hours of Saturday.

The news of her demise was contained in a statement signed by the Executive Secretary of Abeokuta Chambers of Commerce, Industry Mines and Agriculture AbdulRahman Maku.

The statement made available to journalists on Saturday morning partly read, “We regret to announce the demise of NACCIMA past President and ABEOCCIMA Matron and Chairman, Board of Trustees, Iyalode Alaba Lawson, MFR, JP (Iyalode of Yorubaland) which occurred in the early hours of today, Saturday 28th of October, 2023. Burial arrangement to be announced later by the family. May God Almighty grant repose to the soul of Iyalode”.

Lawson was born on January 18, 1951, and was a Nigerian business magnate, entrepreneur, academician and champion of women’s upliftment and empowerment.

She was until her death the Iyalode of Egbaland and Chairman of Chairman Board of Trustees of ABEOCCIMA.

The Lagos State Police Command on Friday revealed what the operatives of the command discovered in the Lekki apartment of the late musician, Ilerioluwa Oladimeji Aloba, better known as Mohbad.

The State Commissioner of Police, CP Idowu Owohunwa while speaking during the press conference held in Ikeja opened up what they found at the Lekki home of the 27-year-old singer.

It would be recalled that the state police command is currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the death of Mohbad who died on Tuesday, September 12 at the age of 27 years.

Speaking at the media briefing, CP Owohunwa revealed that several members of the Nigerian Police Force had visited Mohbad’s home in Lekki, Lagos State, to conduct an investigation.

According to him, the goal of this visit was to obtain CCTV footage documenting the activities that took place in the singer’s residence before his passing.

However, the CCTV camera was found to be broken, preventing potential insights into what happened on that fateful day.

The only items the police were able to discover in the singer’s home were syringes and drug residue that had been identified as having been used by the assistant nurse who was in charge of Mohbad’s treatment.

Many depot owners may soon shut down their facilities due to the inability to meet the new financial requirement of about N10bn by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited as the cost of lifting fuel from its ships, The PUNCH has learnt.

The PUNCH on Wednesday noticed that many filling stations in Lagos State were not selling products to the public.

Sources at the depots told The PUNCH that depot owners were struggling to raise between N5b-N10bn to make new orders from the NNPCL.

“NNPCL has enough stock in-country and we still buy from them pending when arrangements would be made for us to start ordering our products ourselves. Now, we have to raise about N10bn, some N5bn depending on the volume of the order to be able to access new products,” the sources said.

He added that the amount was in addition to the payment already made before the increase in the price of petrol.

The National Controller, Operations of the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria, Mike Osatuyi, told The PUNCH that the affected stations did not have products due to the increase in the prices of products at the depots.

According to him, filling station owners are currently required to have between N22.5m and N23m to buy a truck of petrol, adding that one truck was sold for N8m before May 29.

A former Chairman of the Major Oil Marketers Association of Nigeria, Tunji Oyebanji, also told The PUNCH that 33, 000 metric tonnes of petrol at depots had shut up to as high as N21m.

The PUNCH learnt that many depot owners currently do not have stock as they had exhausted their stocks before President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of the petrol subsidy on May 29.

“Many depot owners would not be able to access funds because banks are skeptical of granting loans to the downstream sector,” a source added.

The pump price of petrol, which was between N179 and N200 per litre before subsidy removal, has skyrocketed to over N500 per litre after the President’s pronouncement.

Oyebanji told The PUNCH that many smaller firms in the downstream sector would be forced to shut down operations and may be bought over by bigger ones due to their inability to meet up with the huge financial obligations to secure new products from the NNPCL.

Sources at the NNPCL told The PUNCH that the company had been having challenges accessing forex from the Central Bank of Nigeria, since the removal of petrol subsidy.

“Since full deregulation started, CBN has stopped giving us forex. We also have to source for dollars just like every other player in the downstream sector. So, depending on the dollar rates and other market indices, we import and have to also factor other costs before we sell to marketers,” the sources noted.