Who Wants Osinbajo Dead?

Fri, Jul 24, 2015
By publisher
3 MIN READ

BREAKING NEWS, Politics

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THE alarm allegedly raised by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday, July 23, about insurgents planning to bomb his house was immediately corrected by his media office, saying Boko Haram militant group was planning to attack some unnamed very important persons in society

WHO wants Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo dead?  That must have been the question agitating the mind of many people as the media went viral with the report that Osinbajo on Thursday, July 23, raised the alarm over an alleged plan by insurgents to bomb his house. The vice president, VP, was said to have raised the alarm while presiding over the National Economic Council, NEC, meeting held in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

But shortly after the media report, the VP’s office said on Thursday, July 23, that Boko Haram militant group was planning to bomb the houses of very important persons, VIPs, and not just Osinbajo.

Laolu Akande, special assistant to the VP on media and publicity, said that the claim, sourced by journalists from the text of a press briefing after the NEC meeting had a typographical error. Akande said in a press statement: “A press briefing note circulated today by the Secretariat of the National Economic Council, NEC, contains a typo on the very last line of the last paragraph.

“That paragraph should read ‘The Vice President also disclosed that security report has it that scavengers are now being prepared by insurgents to dump refuse laden with bombs in the houses of VIPs.’ The last line erroneously says ‘in the house of the Vice President’.”

The earlier text said intelligence had confirmed that Osinbajo’s residence was being targeted for bombing.

In any case, Osinbajo had recently visited Gombe, Adamawa and Borno states to see commiserate with the internally displaced persons. During his visit to internally displaced persons’ camps and hospitals where victims of terrorism are being attended to in Maiduguri, Borno State, two suicide bombers had blown themselves up outside a village close to a government hospital in the capital city.

Also at the NEC meeting on Thursday, governors of Yobe, Borno, Taraba, Kaduna, Gombe, Plateau and Bauchi states took turns to brief the council about the security situation in their respective states.

Governors of Yobe and Borno states reported that five local government areas of the two states have been retaken by the terrorists. They, therefore, called for increased military deployment and provision of sophisticated military equipment to those areas.

On his part, Osinbajo regretted that the insurgency had affected the economic life of the Northeast and Nigeria, and called on the council to speak as a team to put pressure on military chiefs to increase their effort in fighting insurgency. “There should be increase in sensitisation and education channels like radio, television,” he said.

On cattle rustling and banditry, Governor Nasir el-Rufai of Kaduna State, disclosed that most of the cattle rustlers were in Kumuku national park. He said if the situation was not properly handled, it could result to another Sambisa forest. The meeting, however, assured that efforts were underway to deal with the threat.

— Aug 3, 2015 @ 01:00 GMT

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