Sulaimon Popoola is a journalist dedicated to community reporting and grassroots storytelling. His work focuses on issues that affect the daily lives, rights, and welfare of ordinary people, bringing attention to local challenges, voices, and solutions often overlooked by mainstream media. Passionate about social justice and accountability, he uses journalism as a tool to amplify community perspectives and drive positive change.
Bishop David Oyedepo Of Winners Church Bans The Use Of Ear Plugs In His Church,Says It is the Devil’s Tool.
In his statements: “Young generation, please listen to me all these things you plug in your ear is to block your way forward. It is designed by the devil to block your way forward.
“No time to hear from God. Many have never heard anything from God. They even plug it in anywhere, on the streets; noise, noise, noise! Zero access to divine guidance. Noise in the morning, afternoon, night.
“You plug something in your ears, while you are in Church? Never. Go somewhere else. Never, you sit down tight, hear the Word or stay on the road. Life is about discipline.”
Kaduna Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has said the only way to put an end to banditry in the country is for the military to bomb the forests where they are hiding and eliminate them completely.
“We need the combination of air power, and we need troops on the ground augmented by local expertise and knowledge. We need just one, two, three months operation to just try to kill all the bandits. It’s the only way to stop this. So long as these bandits are being paid, it’ll remain a business. So the only option that we have is to ensure that we kill them all.”
The Kaduna governor claimed there has been a decline in the operation of bandits across the northern part of the country. He said the reduction in banditry is due to the efforts of the Nigerian air force.
“I’m very happy that the chief of air staff has been bombing them. So, you’ll see there’s a decline in banditry. What you see is the coordinated action with air power, use of drones.”
A report by a United Nations (UN) independent news organisation, The New Humanitarian (formerly IRIN News), has uncovered a secret programme by the Nigerian government tagged, Suhlu, aimed at pulling top commanders of terrorist groups, including Boko Haram and the Islamic State for West African Province (ISWAP) out of the forests, rehabilitate them and provide them with a means of livelihood.
According to the UN organisation, Sulhu grew out of the behind-the-scenes attempts to free the more than 270 Chibok schoolgirls seized by Boko Haram in 2014, and is applauded by its supporters as smart warfare – a means to remove the senior jihadists from the battlefield more effectively than the orthodox military campaign.
The discovery follows intelligence agencies’ investigations into the recent surrender of over 1,200 terrorists and their families in the last three weeks, to the Nigerian government, to ascertain whether the surrender was genuine or a ploy to activate and coordinate terror sleeper cells across the country.
Ripples Nigeria reported that the Borno State government had announced its decision to reintegrate over 1,000 repentant Boko Haram fighters into society. But the development was greeted with annoyance by Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in the North-East. The IDPs’ anger was because they were still languishing in pain and sorrow caused by the Boko Haram terrorists in the North-East, particularly in Borno State, which was the epicentre of the insurgency.
Following the outcry by IDPs, the Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum has said the state was in a very difficult situation over the ongoing surrender of Boko Haram insurgents and the agitation by the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) against accepting the repentant terrorists.
Also, Shehu of Borno, Alhaji Abubakar Umar Garbai El-Kanem, had raised concerns that the communities where thousands of people were killed by the terrorists and houses destroyed might not be in the right frame of mind to accept the surrendered insurgents.
However, the report by The New Humanitarian, which comes after six months of research, revealed that Sulhu was reaching out to “senior jihadist fighters” in the bush to encourage them to abandon their goal of building a caliphate by force of arms, and to defect. According to the UN organisation, the programme is so controversial that no government representative agreed to go on record to discuss it, while only a few Nigeria-based civil society figures agreed to be named.
The report quoted an Abuja-based analyst, who didn’t agree to be named to have said, “We have a proof of concept; it’s working. It’s depleting the enemy’s fighting force.” However, the men on the Sulhu programme are almost certain to have been involved in atrocities. Although they have not been granted a formal amnesty, it is unlikely that they would be held to account for the crimes they committed in the brutal conflict that is now in its twelfth year.
The Nigerian government had also come out to reject calls by different stakeholders, including those from the North, to prosecute the repentant terrorists, saying it would not do so. The report revealed that one Malam Aliyu, a Boko Haram/ISWAP commander involved in the Bama massacre of 2014, which killed hundreds of civilians hasbeen set up with a rent-free house in Kaduna, a business license, and a small monthly stipend provided by Nigeria’s Department of State Service (DSS).
A former government-Boko Haram intermediary that was interviewed by The New Humanitarian, who didn’t want to be mentioned, was quoted to have said, “These are mass killers, yet on a programme sponsored by Nigerian taxpayers.” Meanwhile, people familiar with the Sulhu programme said a total of 150 mujahideen was reported to have surrendered their weapons and crossed over since 2019.
The report stated, “A total of 150 mujahideen have surrendered their weapons and crossed over since 2019, according to people familiar with the programme. In the last few weeks, there has been a separate surge, related to internal feuding within the jihadist movement following the death this May of Abubakar Shekau, who had led Boko Haram since 2009.
“Some of those mujahideen, like Aliyu, were commanders, known as qaid – in charge of several districts. Such was the importance attached to the initial group that they were invited to Abuja, where they met representatives of President Muhammadu Buhari. “Under sulhu, defectors are enrolled in a six-month “deradicalisation” course in the military’s demobilisation and reintegration centre in Mallam Sidi, in northeastern Gombe State. After promising to renounce violence and be good citizens, they are issued with a graduation certificate, signed by a high court judge – and some have then gone on to set up businesses, from cap-making to chicken-rearing. “Sulhu is run by DSS and the military but is separate from the army’s much larger disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration initiative, known as Operation Safe Corridor (OSC) and also based in Mallam Sidi.
“OSC is aimed at low-risk former combatants, although as many as 75 per cent of those on the programme may never have held a weapon – just villagers snagged in the military’s catch-all dragnets, with years spent in detention without trial. “Those on the sulhu initiative are the turbaned rijal seen in the low-res YouTube videos, exultant in victory, killing without remorse. Before joining ISWAP, prior to the 2016 split from Boko Haram, these men had been obedient to a maximalist “takfir” creed, promoted by then-leader Shekau, who declared that anybody living outside their zone of control was an infidel, punishable by death or enslavement.”
A North London mum was shocked when firefighters turned up at her home after neighbours mistook her singing ‘Holy Ghost Fire!’ to be a plea for help.
Mercy, 60, who attends her local place of worship on a weekly basis and prays along to her daily church service on Facebook Live, could not believe it when two fire engines showed up at her home on Wednesday morning (August, 11).
Her daughter Vivienne, 26, a fellow songstress who appeared on ITV’s The Voice in 2020, had just arrived home from the gym, and said that within minutes of entering the house, she saw firefighters park outside the family home.
The singer said: “Within seven minutes, two fire brigades pulled up and at first I thought ‘there’s no way, there’s no way’. Vivienne wasn’t sure who called 999, but assumed that one of their neighbours heard her “prayer warrior” mother shouting the impassioned gospel lyrics, during the call and response segment of the streamed sermon.
The Londoner said: “I came back from the gym so I caught the aftermath of it, but I could hear that she was praying. “She has a Facebook live stream that she watches in the morning so she prays to that. “She was was kind of doing the call and response thing. I could hear it as I was coming up and kind of said ‘hi’ and went in the house”.
Vivienne said the firefighters appeared perplexed as they asked if anyone had been shouting the word “fire”. Vivienne said: “They said we’ve been called for fire, and we said ‘there isn’t one’ and then confirmed the address and they said ‘are you sure, have you checked everything’s fine?’.”
The Londoner watched on as the puzzled firemen left the house after quizzing the family, “to go and listen to the original call”, returning once more to clarify their confusion.
The North London resident said: “They came back again and said, ‘we’re not being funny but was anyone shouting the word “fire”?’. Vivienne and her mum, Mercy, say they were hesitant to explain the reason why the matriarch’s heartfelt shouting had been mistaken for alarm.
The 26-year-old said: “I thought, ‘I’m not going to answer personally’, and my mum was like ‘mmm I’m not sure, I’m not sure’. “The firemen said, ‘it’s fine if you were, it’s just that somebody called and said that’s what they could hear’, and we said, ‘there’s nothing going on’ The Londoner says the emergency service workers asked to check the house and questioned whether the musical family had problems with their neighbours, which could have motivated them to pull a prank or target them by calling police.
The singer said: “We just said, no, everything’s all good’. We said, ‘sorry about the confusion, we don’t know what has happened’. Vivienne found the experience “hilarious” and said the firefighters also laughed during the baffling moments.
Overall, the Londoner felt that the call was definitely a result of culture clash in the “gentrified” neighbourhood. Vivienne said: “I thought it was hilarious. I just thought I can’t believe this is real, it feels scripted because they were all laughing as well.
“It’s 100 percent culture clash. If it was 10 years ago before our road became a lot more gentrified, I don’t think that would have happened. “But they [whoever called 999] didn’t understand the context and didn’t do any work to figure out what was actually going on”.
Vivienne felt that they could have at least checked the home first, before calling the emergency services number, and that she hoped they had learned their lesson and felt that the same incident wouldn’t happen again. The 26-year-old said: “In a sense, it was out of care potentially but also a misinterpretation of culture there. “I’m thinking they learned their lesson and they won’t call again, because really, I think they should have checked before calling. “Because if you can’t see any smoke or smell anything, I would have just checked.
“If you hear someone saying fire, go and investigate first”. A spokesperson for London Fire Brigade said firefighters from Holloway and Hornsey were called at 10.07am and they had established there was no fire within 10 minutes.
Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police (IGP), Alkali Baba Usman has charged Police officers to arrest and deal with any member of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Mr. Usman made the charge on Monday in Asaba during a visit to the Delta state police command. He said: “It is expected that whatever affects Anambra State may likely affect, especially Asaba. It is just the bridge that is separating the towns.
“There are always spill over of agitations and demonstrations from Onitsha to Asaba. “That is why you need to get prepared to deal with any crime or criminality to ensure that those trouble makers are brought to book.” “You (officers) need to brace up to the IPOB challenge because it is a proscribed organisation, and treat them as such.”
Commending officers and men of the command for their successes, Usman who was Commissioner of Police in the state between 2014 and 2016, urged them to improve on their crime fighting efforts.
A UK-based Nigerian woman, who returned to the country for her mother’s burial, was shot dead along the Lagos/Ibadan expressway in the presence of her children.
Bolanle Aworetan Omojuwa hosted loved ones at the Civic Centre, Victoria Island, Lagos, to celebrate her late mother’s life. After the funeral reception, she decided to visit Oyo State.
Unfortunately, while travelling with her two children on Thursday, August 19, 2021, she was shot dead in her car by gunmen at the Guru Maharaji village, on the Lagos/Ibadan expressway.
The chairman of the Kano State Gas Pipeline Project Delivery and Gas Industrialisation Committee, Muaz Magaji has deleted his Facebook post where he was celebrating the victory and takeover of Taliban in Afghanistan.
Magaji oversees the Ajaokuta–Kaduna–Kano Natural Gas Pipeline (AKKP), a project coordinated by Nigerian Gas Company, a Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation subsidiary.
Taliban fighters had on Sunday gained access into the city of Kabul, hijacked power, forcing President Mohammad Ashraf Ghani to flee the country. Reacting to the takeover news, the NNPC boss wrote, “It’s a win-win in Afghanistan today!”, on his official Facebook page with over 47,000 followers.
He however deleted the post after hit had garnered over 140 comments and 500 likes and has been shared by no fewer than 20 persons.
Magaji had first been sacked for celebrating the death of the late Chief of Staff to the President, Abba Kyari, but later reappointed to his current position.
The police command in Ebonyi has warned the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) against forcing South-East residents to sit at home.
The police command in Ebonyi has warned the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) against forcing South-East residents to sit at home. The police stated that along with other security agencies, they would embark on “state-wide intensive” patrols as part of efforts to protect lives and properties over the sit-at-home order by IPOB.
IPOB had fixed every Monday for residents in the South-East to sit at home. The police, however, warned against any groups or organisers of the sit-at-home order, saying, “We warn any group or persons planning to disrupt the lawful activities of law-abiding citizens to desist from it.”
In a statement issued on Sunday by the command’s spokeswoman Loveth Odah, police commissioner Aliyu Garba directed area commanders, divisional police officers, heads of tactical/operational units to monitor the group’s activities.
Mr Garba reiterated the command’s zero-tolerance for lawlessness, warning that security agencies in the state will deal with any groups or persons that infringe on the rights of law-abiding residents in the name of a sit-at-home order.
He urged the residents to go about their lawful activities without fear of intimidation or harassment. “The general public, especially parents and guardians, should monitor and discourage their children/wards from engaging in any unlawful activity or criminal acts as the long arm of the law definitely will catch up with any criminal,” the police commissioner warned.
An Islamic cleric, Sheikh Dahiru Usman Bauchi, the leader of the Tijjania Islamic Movement, has vowed that if compensation is not paid to the families of his members who were killed and injured in Jos, Plateau State, on Saturday, August 14, his followers will take extreme retaliatory actions as they will neither “forgive, nor forget” the incident.
Sheikh Bauchi, while appearing on a BBC Hausa Service programme on Tuesday, called on Governor Simon Lalong and the Plateau State government to expedite actions in paying the compensation to the families of his followers or they will bring down the state.
Sheikh Bauchi also urged Gov. Lalong to not only compensate the victims but also ensure there is no recurrence of such incidents. “Each time my people are on their way, travelling to deliver the gospel of Allah, they get attacked and killed in Jos, Plateau State. As a result of this, we will take action now.
“But this time, we will not forgive and forget. We will take action that is acceptable by the Islamic religion,” Sheikh Bauchi said “We are calling on the Plateau State governor to pay compensation to those that were killed and those that were injured. The Plateau State government should promise that such will never happen again.
“We are waiting for the government’s quick intervention and decision. If the government’s decision is not okay with us, we will take action by our hands.
“We are giving them a time frame to make a decision. But for now, we will remain calm and wait for them but let me warn them that if they refuse to do what we want, they will regret it,” Sheikh Bauchi said.
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