WORRIED by the incessant spate of violence in some states in the North as a result of menace from the Boko Haram sect, the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has said that it will hold a peace and unity conference in Kaduna on December 6.
The ACF, however, said that it was helpless in curbing the sect as there was little or nothing that the group could do about the threat posed by the militant Islamic sect.
Addressing a news conference in Kaduna on Wednesday, the ACF National Publicity Secretary, Mr Anthony Sani said: “There is nothing we can do but to condemn, talk and appeal. We are making some efforts but I don’t want to say we have enough. We’ll continue to make efforts.”
Sani said that the conference became imperative so as to stem the high rate of violence in the region.
According to him, the activities of the Boko Haram sect had caused untold hardship to the people, adding that the attendant insecurity also constitutes hindrance to the socio-economic development of the entire country.
Sani, who said that the current security challenges confronting the Nigerian nation should not be misconstrued as solely a northern problem, stated that the Federal Government should see the rising wave of insecurity in some parts of the North as a national problem.
He said given the importance of peaceful co-existence to the country, national security is a collective responsibility and not that of government alone, adding that the ACF leaders, along with some other northern leaders, had thought it wise to organise the peace conference as part of their own contributions towards attaining permanent peace, not only in northern part of the country but also across the nation.
Sani also explained that the forthcoming peace conference was in line with the United Nations (UN) resolution which mandated people to address underlying concerns of those engaged in communal violence and acts of terrorism, adding that “this is more so when consideration is given to the reality that most of those who get involved in acts of terrorism believe they have nothing to lose on earth and more to gain in death.”
He argued that the resolutions at the peace conference could bring about lasting peace and security in the region.
Sani stated that the ACF has put up mechanism to ensure implementation of the resolutions of the conference.
Meanwhile, the Department of State Security Service (SSS) has smashed four different syndicates, which specialised in sending threat text messages to very important personalities (VIPs) in the society.
The spokesperson for the service, Ms Maryln Ogar, told newsmen in Abuja on Wednesday that already, seven members of the syndicates, including a fake secretary of Boko Haram, three fake military officers and three others, have been arrested.
Ogar listed the target of the syndicates to include “key government officials, foreign embassies and other strategic corporations in the country.”
The SSS spokesperson disclosed that the suspects were operating in different parts of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Niger, Kaduna, Cross River and Edo states, before they were arrested by the operatives of the service, following a tip-off and that many highly placed Nigerians had been victims of the syndicates before their arrest.
According to her, the suspects claimed that the telephone numbers of their victims were often obtained from refuse dumps of Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs), memos, correspondence, complimentary cards and the internet.
She disclosed that investigations so far had revealed that the suspects had only capitalised on the security challenges in the country to exploit, threaten and stir apprehension among the members of the public.
She said the SSS, in addition, discovered that improper disposal of official and personal documents also provided avenue through which the members of the groups exploited innocent Nige-rians.
According to her, “their sole intent was to instill fear and cause panic with the aim of defrauding unsus-pecting members of the public with text messages like: “someone wants me to assassinate you, but I will spare your life if you pay a ransom to me Intercon-tinental Bank account.’”
Ogar said in the case of the fake secretary of the Boko Haram, Mallam Haruna Alhaji Hassan, who disguised as Alhaji Madu Gana, he had threatened a former governor, who is now a serving senator; a federal permanent secretary; a woman party leader from Borno and another party chieftain from Maiduguri and collected huge sums of money from them before he was arrested.
She said one of the suspects also sent threat messages and e-mail to foreign embassies, which caused panic and anxiety, leading to the travel alert issued by some embassies to their citizens during the last Eid-el-Kabir celebration.
The seven suspects, who were paraded before newsmen, admitted their involvement in sending threat messages to highly placed Nigerians and organisations, adding that their actions were meant to extort money from their victims.
Ogar, who promised that all the suspects would soon be arraigned in court, stressed the need for the public to be more careful on how personal or official documents or issues were handled, to avoid falling victims of fraudsters.
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