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34 People Perish In Benue Attack
The death toll from the attack on Yaav and Mbadura council ward in Turan community, Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State, by armed men suspected to be herdsmen has risen to 34, as 15 more bodies recovered today.”
Our correspondent, who spoke to a local source from the community who identified himself as Ordue Akough through a telephone conversation, explained that the attackers who invaded the Yaav and Mbadura communities in different directions at about 6pm were shooting sporadically at all directions, killing over 19 people on the spot.
According to him, apart from the 19 corpses recovered on the spot, another 15 corpses were in surrounding bushes on Tuesday morning by community members who were combing the nearby bushes in search of their loved ones after the attackers fled the scene.
Akough maintained that the attackers, apart from the killings, also set over 1,000 houses, including crops and barns, ablaze.
He said, “To date, security personnel have yet to visit the scene of the attacks to instil confidence in the minds of residents who have continued to flee in droves.
He said over 30 people are still missing while over 50 persons who sustained varying degrees of injury are receiving treatment in different hospitals in the Local Government, and those in critical conditions have been taken to the Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi (BSUTH) for treatment.
“As I am talking to you now, one out of the eight persons brought to the teaching hospital Makurdi for treatment has lost his life, and they are making arrangements to bring his corpse back home for burial.
Recalled that over 16 persons were on Saturday, 15 February, by the marauding herdsmen, and their bodies were thrown into the River
When contacted by the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Catherine Anne said she saw the report and called the Divisional Police Officer in charge of the area, but she had yet to be briefed.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the Senator representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Rotimi Oyekanmi, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.
“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.
The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.
Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.
Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.
“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was thereafter suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of its rule of conduct.
The National Security Adviser, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, has handed over 19 kidnapped victims rescued by the security agencies to the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa.
The brief ceremony took place on Thursday at the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC), Office of the National Security Adviser in Abuja.
The victims included Ambassador Gideon Yohanna, the former Director-General of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brigadier-General Maharazu Tsiga (retired) who had spent 56 days in captivity and 17 others, including a child.
Both Ribadu and Musa pledged to remain relentless until the criminals are wiped out and normalcy restored in the country.
“As a result of the work of our armed forces and other security services, we are able to rescue and bring back our own people,” he said.
“This time, it involves important personalities who served this country. We thank God for their lives, we are grateful to those who made it possible.
“This is an ongoing operation and we are doing it quite silently, we will go after the bad ones.”
Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan on Thursday applauded the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for rejecting a petition to recall her as the lawmaker representing Kogi Central Senatorial District.
The female lawmaker, who was a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said the electoral umpire should have thrown out the petition long before it did on April 3, 2025.
“I’m a lawyer. I’m a senator and I understand how Nigeria works. For me, the most important thing is this recall process has been stalled.
“I give kudos and credit to INEC even though I believe they should have thrown it away from the get-go.
“I think it was void ab initio because there is no law in the Electoral Act that says a petition should be discarded just because there is no address but again, what if the address is false?”
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain argued that most of the addresses provided in the petition for her recall were false because most houses in her district weren’t labelled.
“Even though INEC did count 208,000 signatures, I bet you if they had gone into the verification stage, they would have struggled to even have 500 people come out to attest to signing that,” she added.
She accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio, Governor Usman Ododo and ex-governor Yahaya Bello of sponsoring her failed recall.
In a much-awaited statement on Thursday, INEC said the petition for the recall of the lawmaker did not met the requirement of Section 69(a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended).
“Therefore, no further action shall be taken on the recall of the Senator,” INEC declared.