Al-Shabab and Boko Haram plan Kenyan Westgate-style attack in Abuja – Security sources

There are strong indications that members of the Somalia militant sect, Al-Shabab, aided Boko Haram militants in carrying out the attack on Nyanya Motor Park seven days ago.

The PUNCH’s investigations on Sunday also revealed that Al-Shabab, which has strong links with Al-Qaeda, had moved from providing technical assistance to Boko Haram to fighting alongside insurgents in some parts of the North-East.

It was gathered that security agencies received intelligence reports that Al-Shabab, which carried out the West Gate Mall attack in Kenya, was planning an attack in Abuja.

A top   military source, who confided in one of our correspondents, said the information was received two weeks before the March 31, 2014 attempted jailbreak at the Yellow House headquarters of the Department of State Security Service in Abuja.

Nyako is incapable of rising above “parochial sentiments and possesses morbid hatred for facts and truth in public discourse – Presidency blast Nyako

The Presidency has blasted the Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako  over his recent memo to northern governors, which was aimed at inciting the north against the government of Goodluck Jonathan, describing him as incapable of rising above “parochial sentiments and possessing a morbid hatred for facts and truth in public discourse. Reacting sharply to Nyako's memo on Saturday, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, described Nyako's memo as “an unmitigated leadership disaster and a sad betrayal of trust by a major beneficiary of the Nigerian nation.”

Murtala Nyako memo of lies and frustration: A call for the overthrow of Jonathan

The memo of Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako’s to the Northern Governors Forum by captioned “On On-Going Full-Fledged Genocide in ‘Northern Nigeria’, circulated on April 16, 2014 has been found to be packed with lies and twisted history, meant to cause disaffection and anarchy, that will lead to the overthrow of President Goodluck Jonathan’s government. In the memo Nyako exonerated Boko Haram (which he referred to as Phantom Boko Haram) for the various atrocities, which Boko Haram has claimed responsibilities for, and heaping virtually all of them on Goodluck Jonathan’s administration. Nyako stated that, “Cases of mass murders by its bloody minded killers and cut-throats are well known, but it attributes the killings to so-called Boko-Haram. Thousands of our young girls and boys have been kidnapped by clearly organised militia in the last few years and kidnapping is now a random affair all over the far North. These organized kidnappers must have the backing of the Federal administration for them to move about freely with abducted children just as those who convey ammunitions and explosives from the Ports to the safe-houses of so called Boko-Haram in the North.