President Muhammadu Buhari has called on his fellow African leaders to go after the sponsors of terrorists, whose attacks across African nations bore similar trademarks of intense planning, strong alliances and proper financial sponsorship.
He insisted too that such sponsors must be thoroughly investigated and reversed.
“Terrorist activities always have financial sponsorships and this can be seen in their acquisition of weapons, their movements and other logistics.
“Here in Nigeria, we saw that Boko Haram had strong material resources and they had a close link to ISIL.”
President Buhari who spoke today at a farewell audience at the State House with the High Commissioner of Kenya to Nigeria, Mr. Tom Amolo insisted that ending insurgency in Africa will require stronger collaboration and commitment from governments, financial institutions and security agencies in tracking the sponsorship of terrorist activities.
The President said that African governments must make efforts to dissuade the younger generation from joining the ranks of terrorist groups, who explore youthful minds for suicide bombings.
“We need a whole cultural orientation in order to succeed against terrorism.”
This is even as the outgoing High Commissioner said he enjoyed his stay in Nigeria and still looked forward to returning to the country in the near future. [myad]

Workers of the 17 local government areas in Abia state have decried the nonpayment of their February and March 2016 salaries and have raised curse on the state governor, Okezie Ikpeazu.
The workers, some of who had taken loans from commercial banks, using their salaries as collateral, lamented that the none payment of the salaries has brought untold hardship to them and their families.
The workers, who raised curse on Governor Ikpeazu, said that none payment of their salaries have exposed them to the risk of banks always seizing any money paid into their accounts.
The workers feared that even as at the 4th day of the new month of April, there are no signs that salaries would be paid in the next one week. They blamed the situation on what they described as misplacement of priorities by the Ikpeazu led administration.
“The governor has not been fair to local government workers. He is always paying in arrears. December 2015 salary was paid in the first week of February; January salary was paid in March. February salary has not been paid, this is April, there is no hope that we will be paid this week. How can a worker plan and achieve any target with this system? Our leave allowances have been withdrawn. Yet we hear he (the governor) collects N750 million every month. Yet, he finds it difficult to pay us the pittance as salaries. The saying goes that a worker is worthy his wages, but this is not true in Abia state. Only God will judge our case with the governor.”
Meanwhile, an official of one of the old generation banks hinted that they have been directed by their headquarters in Lagos to stop extending loans to council workers because of the none payment of salaries leading to the creation of bad debts. [myad]

A young Igbo man whose name was given simply as Ugochukwu, is now cooling off in Kuje police detention room for sneaking into the hostel of the Government Girls Science Secondary School, Kuje in the Nigeria Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
A police source hinted that the young man acquired the school visitor’s card from his girl friend, who is a final year student of the school (name withheld), and used the card to gain entry into the school premises, where he spent the whole day with the girl.
The source explained that the female student, a Muslim, had stolen the visitor’s card from her father’s pocket during the last vacation, and gave it to the young man to use in gaining entrance to the school premises.
It was gathered that the school security personnel (gate men) had denied the girl’s father from entering the school premises because he could not produce visitor’s card, but that as soon as the girl’s boyfriend arrived, he was ushered into the premises on producing the required card.
Luck ran out on the two lovers when a senior teaching staff of the school, who saw the girl’s father at the gate, asked the gate men to allow him into the premises “on self-recognition.”
The source said that the girl had hid the intruding boyfriend in her room with the help of her room-mates and that immediately her father left, she settled down with the young man to eat the food her father took to her.
“It was when the young man made to leave the premises late in the evening that the vigilant gate men stopped him at the gate, subjected him to interrogation and eventually discovered that he was an intruder,” the source hinted.
It was gathered that the school authority, embarrassed by the development, promptly handed the young man to the police, even as the authority sent the girl parking out of the school premises.
The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) in Kuje was not immediately available to comment on the issue, but a senior officer confirmed that the young man is in detention and that investigation is ongoing. [myad]