Nigerian citizens were put on alert on Sunday, October 23, when the diplomatic missions of the United States and the United Kingdom in Nigeria circulated security advisories warning of an elevated risk of terrorist attacks in Nigeria, particularly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The advisories listed places of large gatherings such as hotels, government buildings, international organisations, schools, transport terminals, places of worship, places visited by tourists, among others as likely targets. Further to that, the United States has authorised evacuation of its non-critical staff and their family members from Nigeria. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In reaction to the disclosure of security threats, the\nInspector General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba announced the commencement\nof a counterterrorism operation, \u2018Operation Darkin Gaggawa\u2019 as part of efforts\nto secure the FCT, as well as put Commissioners of Police across the States of\nthe Federation on alert. The Department of State Services (DSS) also disclosed\nthat necessary precautions are being taken to secure the FCT and other parts of\nthe country. In addition, there are reports indicating that the military is\nalso working to avert any planned attacks by identifying and tracking persons\nsuspected to be members of the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP)\nterrorist group who have infiltrated the FCT. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It will be recalled that just three months ago, in\nJuly 2022, terrorists belonging to ISWAP claimed responsibility for the invasion\nof the Kuje Custodial Centre in the FCT, in which several hundreds of detainees\nwere freed despite security intelligence made available before the attack. On\nthe same day, the convoy of President Buhari\u2019s advance party was ambushed in\nhis home State, Katsina. A few weeks later, eight officials of the 7 Guards\nBattalion of the Nigerian Army Presidential Guards Brigade were ambushed and\nkilled in the Bwari area of the FCT. In the light of these attacks,\nparticularly the Kuje Custodial Centre attack that was not forestalled despite\navailable intelligence, the emerging threat of attacks is quite worrisome.\nCitizens expect that in the wake of terrorist attacks within and outside the\nFCT and the lingering insurgency in the country, the Nigerian government and\nsecurity agencies should intensify efforts\nto combat terrorist activities and secure the lives of citizens. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigerian citizens were put on alert on Sunday, October 23, when the diplomatic missions of the United States and the United Kingdom in Nigeria circulated security advisories warning of an elevated risk of terrorist attacks in Nigeria, particularly in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja. The advisories listed places of large gatherings such as hotels, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2978,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2974"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2979,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2974\/revisions\/2979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}