A Nigerian sentence to death in Indonesia for drug trafficking

Jakarta – Local media report on Thursday in
Jakarta, said another Nigerian, Simon
Ezeaputa, has been sentenced to death in
Indonesia for drug trafficking.
It said the district court in Tangerang, near
Jakarta, on Wednesday found Ezeaputa guilty
of controlling a drug transaction from his
prison cell, where he was serving a 20-year
jail term for drug offences.
The report said the transaction involved 350
grams of crystal methamphetamine.
With the latest development more than 60
people are on death row in Indonesia for drug
offences.
The report said Indonesia executed six drug
convicts in January and was preparing to put
to death another 10 death-row inmates.
It said these include two Australians who have
been the subject of a diplomatic row between
Jakarta and Canberra.
Meanwhile, the Amnesty International said in
its annual report on the death penalty
worldwide released on Wednesday that
“Indonesia stood out for all the wrong
reasons.”
Papang Hidayat, Head, Amnesty Researcher,
Indonesia, said the death penalty was always
a human rights violation.
He said there were many issues in Indonesia,
in particular fair trial concerns, that make
death sentences more complicated.
Hidayat said investigations by human rights
groups have found that individuals sentenced
to death have been tortured and forced to
sign police investigation reports.

Terrorists kill 147 in Kenyan University.

AFP

No fewer than 147 people have been killed
after an Islamic group stormed a university in
eastern Kenya, the country’s interior minister
said.
This is just as the President of Nigeria,
Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attack
and commiserated with the families of the
victims.
Sky News reports that two police officers are
among the dead following heavy gunfire and
explosions in a campus building at Garissa
University.
At least 79 others have been wounded.
Interior minister Joseph Nkaissery claimed the
siege was almost over.
“We are mopping up the area,” he told
reporters.
Somalia’s al Shabaab militant group has
claimed responsibility for the pre-dawn attack.
“We sorted people out and released the
Muslims,” said spokesman, Sheikh Abdiasis
Abu Musab.
“There are many dead bodies of Christians
inside the building. We are also holding many
Christians alive. Fighting still goes on inside
the college,” he added.
Two of the militants have been killed and one
arrested as he tried to flee, according to
Kenya’s interior ministry.
The Red Cross counted 50 students that had
been safely freed, while the interior ministry
said 500 of 815 students had been accounted
for.
Student Michael Bwana, who managed to flee,
said most of the hostages were girls.
Kenya Police Chief Joseph Boinet told
reporters that gunmen forced their way into
the university at 5.30am by shooting at the
guards manning the main gate.
“The gunmen shot indiscriminately while inside
the university compound,” he said.
“Police… engaged the gunmen in a fierce
shootout; however, the attackers retreated and
gained entry into one of the hostels.”
A gunfight between security services and the
perpetrators lasted several hours, according to
the Red Cross.
The area has been sealed off and the army
called in to try and “flush out” the attackers.
Students reported seeing five masked
gunmen.
The authorities have offered a $215,000
(£145,000) reward for a man called Mohamed
Mohamud, who has been linked to the attack.
Collins Wetangula, the vice chairman of the
student union, said he was preparing to take a
shower when he heard gunshots coming from
a dorm.
“All I could hear were footsteps and gunshots;
nobody was screaming because they thought
this would lead the gunmen to know where
they are,” he said.
“The gunmen were saying sisi ni al-Shabab
(Swahili for we are al-Shabab).
“If you were a Christian you were shot on the
spot. With each blast of the gun I thought I
was going to die.”
Grace Kai, a student at a neighbouring
college, said there had been warnings of an
imminent attack.
“Some strangers had been spotted in Garissa
town and were suspected to be terrorists,”
she said.
“Then on Monday our college principal told
us… that strangers had been spotted in our
college. On Tuesday we were released to go
home, and our college closed, but the campus
remained in session, and now they have been
attacked.”
Kenya’s northern and eastern regions, which
border Somalia, have been most affected by
attacks blamed on al Shabaab Islamists from
Somalia.
The militants, who have links to al Qaeda,
have vowed to take retribution against Kenya
for sending its troops to Somalia.
Al Shabaab was responsible for the deadly
attack in 2013 on the Westgate shopping mall.
At least 67 people were killed when a group of
gunmen rampaged through the centre in
Nairobi.
On the latest raid, Kenya’s President Uhuru
Kenyatta said: “I extend condolences to the
families of those who have perished in this
attack. We continue to pray for the quick
recovery of the injured, and the safe rescue of
those held hostage.”
He added that 10,000 police recruits would be
fast-tracked following the attack.
Meanwhile, President Goodluck Jonathan on
Thursday commiserated with the government
and people of Kenya as well the families of
those who died in the terrorist attack.
In a statement by his spokesman, Reuben
Abati, the President condemned what he
called deliberate targeting of innocent persons,
schools and other soft targets by terrorists.
He said such barbaric acts of violence ought
to have no place in any civilised society.
The statement added, “The President assures
President Uhuru Kenyatta and the brotherly
people of Kenya that Nigeria stands in full
solidarity with them as they come to grips
once again with the aftermath of another
heinous terrorist attack on their country.
“Nigeria, President Jonathan affirms, will
continue to work with Kenya, other African
countries and the international community to
rid the world of all terrorist groups.
“The President believes that the attack on the
Kenyan University and other similar atrocities
across the world must strengthen and solidify
the resolve of the global community to take
more urgent and co-ordinated actions to
speedily defeat the agents of global terror.”

Explosion near bus station in Gombe kills 5.

An explosion near a bus station in the
northeast Nigerian city of Gombe killed at least
five and injured 15 others, witnesses told AFP
on Thursday, in an attack that bore the
hallmarks of Boko Haram.
“We had an explosion outside the motor park
(bus station) this evening around 8:30 pm
(1930 GMT) which killed five people and
injured 15 others,” said Muhammad Garkuwa,
a drivers’ union official.
“The explosion was from an explosive left by a
woman in her handbag beside a bus waiting
to convey passengers to Jos,” he said in an
account supported by a nearby food seller.
The attack is the latest in a string of similar
explosions against so-called “soft targets”
such as busy bus stations and crowded
markets in the restive northeast, which has
been hit for the last six years by Boko Haram
Islamists.
The group has been pushed out of captured
territory in Yobe, Borno and Adamawa states
since February by a four-nation coalition of
troops from Nigeria, Niger, Chad and
Cameroon.
Since then, the group has reverted to guerrilla
tactics, including suicide bombings and
attacks on civilians in urban centres.
Garkuwa said he loaded the casualties into a
vehicle while Yusuf Darazo, who sells food
near the bus station, said the female suspect
left her bag after being told the bus’s
destination.
“No-one suspected her. People around
assumed she was making calls before the bus
filled up,” he said.
“As she was talking in the phone she moved
away from the bus towards a row of kiosks, as
if she wanted to buy something, leaving her
bag where she was standing.
“She disappeared and the bag exploded soon
after, setting the bus on fire. I saw five dead
and several injured.”
Boko Haram fighters were suspected at the
weekend of attacking a number of polling
stations in Gombe state as Nigerians went to
the polls to elect a new president.
At least seven people were killed and there
was a wave of attacks on Saturday and
Sunday in neighbouring Bauchi state,
prompting a an indefinite round-the-clock
curfew, including in the capital, Bauchi city.
The lock-down has now been lifted.
Residents in Kasheri, about 60 kilometres (40
miles) from Gombe city, and nearby Pindiga
and Tumu, reported seeing suspected Boko
Haram fighters and that they were firing in the
air.
Some were barefoot and appeared
disorientated, asking for directions, they
added.
Nigeria’s military insists that it finally has Boko
Haram in the run, after more than 13,000
people have been killed and some 1.5 million
left homeless.
President-elect Muhammadu Buhari on
Wednesday vowed to crush Boko Haram,
vowing to rid Nigeria of the scourge of
“terrorism”.

Vanguard News.

Pictures of under age voters across the northern states in the 2015 presidential elections.

 This is how elections are won in this part of the world.  What a shame!

PDP congratulates Buhari, alleges irregularities.

The national leadership of the Peoples
Democratic Party has congratulated Maj. Gen.
Muhammadu Buhari(retd.) for winning the
March 28 Presidential Election.
It said if the outcome of the election, which its
candidate, President Goodluck Jonathan, lost,
was the wishes of the people, it would respect
it.
The party’s position was contained in a
statement by its National Chairman, Alhaji
Adamu Mua’zu, in Abuja on Thursday.
His position appears to be at variance with the
views expressed by agents of the party during
the collation of the votes in Abuja early this
week.
One of the party’s agents, Col. Bello Fadile
(retd.), had said the party would challenge the
outcome of the election at the election
petitions tribunal.
Mua’zu, in his statement, also said the party
noticed some irregularities in the conduct of
the election.
The party’s complaints on such irregularities,
he said, would be channelled through the
appropriate quarters.
The former governor of Bauchi State
nevertheless went ahead to congratulate
Buhari for winning the election.
He said, “We also congratulate the APC flag
bearer, Gen. Mohammadu Buhari, for his
resilience and victory in this election while
wishing him success in the onerous task of
leading our nation once again.”

Details later…

Punch.

At least 15 Christians killed in Kenya university attack.

At least 15 people have been killed and 65
wounded in an ongoing attack Thursday by
Somalia’s Islamist insurgents on a Kenyan
university, police sources and media reports
said. “Fifteen have died from the attack,” a
police source said, with Kenyan media
reporting the same number, including the
bodies counted at the mortuary and hospital in
the northeastern town of Garissa. The interior
ministry said one of the suspected gunmen
had been arrested as he tried to flee.
Shebab gunmen on Thursday seized Christian
hostages at a Kenya university near the border
with Somalia, in an pre-dawn attack that killed
at least 15 people and wounded scores more.
A spokesman for Somalia’s Al-Qaeda-linked
Shebab, told AFP the group was behind the
early morning assault on the university in
Garissa and had taken non-Muslims hostage.
“When our men arrived, they released the
Muslims. We are holding others hostage,” said
Shebab spokesman Sheikh Ali Mohamud
Rage, without giving numbers. He said those
seized were Christians and added that “our
people are still there, they are fighting and
their mission is to kill those who are against
the Shebab.”
“Kenya is at war with Somalia,” Rage said,
referring to the thousands of Kenyan troops in
Somalia as part of an African Union military
mission. Gunfire could still be heard
sporadically six hours after the attack began,
as Kenya’s interior ministry said the “attackers
have been cornered in one hostel.” Kenya’s
interior ministry also said “one suspected
terrorist” had been arrested attempting “to
flee scene”.
At least 15 people have been killed, according
to a police source and media reports, while
Kenya’s official National Disaster Operation
Centre said a further 65 had been injured,
many suffering from gunshot wounds. The
Kenya Red Cross, which is leading the
medical response to the attack, said there
were “an unknown number of student
hostages” and that “50 students have been
safely freed”.
Rage did not give details of casualties but said
“there are very many.” The town of Garissa is
around 150 kilometres (90 miles) west of
Somalia and has in the past been targeted by
militants from the Shebab. “Gunmen forced
their way into Garissa University by shooting
at the guards manning the main gate at
around 5:30 am,” said Kenya Police Chief
Joseph Boinet. “The gunmen shot
indiscriminately while inside the university
compound.”
The sprawling campus, on the outskirts of the
garrison town, has both teaching areas as well
as residential blocks. The university has
several hundred students from different parts
of Kenya. The number of teachers and
students trapped inside the campus was
unclear as gunfire and explosions were heard
coming from the site. “Police… engaged the
gunmen in a fierce shootout, however the
attackers retreated and gained entry into one
of the hostels,” Boinet said, adding that
reinforcements had arrived and were “flushing
out the gunmen.”
- Attack ongoing -
A witness, Ahmed Nur, said he saw the bodies
of two university guards, shot by the attackers.
Kenya Red Cross, quoting local health
officials, said that 30 people had been taken
to hospital, “the majority” with gunshot
wounds. Kenya has been hit by a wave of
grenade and gun attacks, often blamed on
sympathisers of Somalia’s Shebab Islamist
fighters and sometimes aimed at police
targets, since the army crossed into southern
Somalia in 2011 to attack Islamist bases.
A series of foreign travel warnings in response
to the threat have crippled Kenya’s
economically important tourism industry. On
Wednesday, just hours before the attack in
Garissa began, President Uhuru Kenyatta said
Kenya “is safe as any country in the world”.
Kenya’s government has been under fire since
the September 2013 Shebab attack on the
Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, in which at
least 67 people were killed in a siege involving
just four gunmen and which lasted four days.
In June and July last year Shebab gunmen
killed close to 100 people in a series of attacks
on the town of Mpeketoni and nearby villages.
In November Shebab claimed responsibility for
holding up a bus outside Mandera town,
separating passengers according to religion
and murdering 28 non-Muslims. Ten days
later 36 non-Muslim quarry workers were also
massacred in the area.
Students in Garissa on Thursday reported
seeing up to four masked gunmen entering
the university compound before dawn. The
area surrounding ​​the university was sealed off
by the Kenya security forces and the army
called in.

Vanguard News.