A young security guard, whose name is yet to be ascertained, is currently cooling his feet in the custody of the police in Kano for allegedly tearing off and stepping on portions of the Holy Quran. The suspect, in his early 20s, was said to have been rescued from being lynched by members of his community at the Kuntau area of Kano metropolis by operatives of the Hisbah Board. He was subsequently handed over to the police and is currently in detention with an investigation said to be ongoing. A brother of the owner of the house where the suspect is working, Sunusi Ashiru, told Daily Trust he was told that the young man escaped being lynched. He said: “I wasn’t there when he did it but I came back and saw people with different types of arms trying to kill him. “When I enquired, they explained what he did and that is when he was rescued by the Hisbah operatives who afterwards handed him over to the police.” The event happened on Sunday, Daily Trust further gathered. The spokesman of the police command in Kano, SP Abdullahi Haruna Kiyawa, confirmed the incident and said the suspect is in police custody. He promised to find out the full details of what transpired as well as the progress of the investigation and revert back to our correspondent.

  The Federal Government is set to launch a national sensitization campaign against the growing scourge of money rituals, which has already claimed many lives, especially those of women and girls, in the country. Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, announced this in Abuja on Monday when he paid a working visit to the corporate headquarters of the Media Trust Limited. “Gentlemen, our visit today is coming at a time of great concern across the country over the rising cases of ritual murders by unscrupulous people, most of them very young, who are seeking to get rich at all cost. We have therefore decided to use this opportunity to begin the process of raising national awareness on this scourge.   “For those who may still be in doubt, ritual killings have assumed a worrisome dimension in recent years. According to an NGO, Foundation for Partnership Initiatives in the Niger Delta (PIND), 150 women and girls were killed for ritual purposes between January 2018 and December 2021,” he said, while also citing recent ritual killings in other parts of the country. Alhaji Mohammed said the National Orientation Agency (NOA) is already partnering with religious and traditional organizations as well as NGOs to forge behavioural change, especially among the youth, some of whom, he said, are afflicted by the get-rich-quick syndrome. He also announced that he has directed the National Film and Video Censors Board, the regulatory body for films and videos in the country, to take the issue of ritual killings into consideration while censoring and classifying films and videos, in addition to engaging with stakeholders in the industry to express the concerns of the government and Nigerians on the need for Nollywood producers to eschew money ritual content in their movies. The minister called on the media to lend its strong voice to the efforts to stamp out the growing menace of ritual killings. Alhaji Mohammed said the fact that some ritual killers said they learned the money-making tricks from some social media platforms has further given a fillip to the Federal Government’s campaign to rid social media of unwholesome content.

  The family as well as a lawyer to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, have raised fresh concerns over his safety, claiming that they have twice, been denied access to him. Kanu’s younger brother, Prince Emmanuel Kanu, told Vanguard that he was at the Abuja headquarters of the Department of State Services, DSS where the IPOB Leader is currently detained but was not allowed to see him. Prince who said he was also at the DSS headquarters on Thursday last week to see his brother as directed by the Court but denied access to him, expressed worry over the reason behind the action of DSS. He said he was no longer convinced that his brother was in good shape, hence, the secret police does not want to grant the family access to him. “I have been denied access to see Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (IPOB Leader) on two separate occasions at the Department of State Security Services Abuja. “It goes to show that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s life is in grave danger. It remains the order of the court that Mazi Nnamdi Kanu (IPOB leader) must be seen twice weekly, Mondays and Thursday. “Why can’t I see him? Has he been killed or poisoned? There must be proof of life. We demand proof of life”, he later posted on his Facebook page. Similarly, Kanu’s Special Counsel, Mr Aloy Ejimakor, who took to his Twitter handle, demanded explanations for the action of the DSS which he said was suspicious. “Last Thursday, we were not allowed visitation with Onyendu because, according to DSS, the “special squad” in charge of visitations went on “outside assignment. ” They asked us to come on Monday (today). Today, we are at DSS. They are telling us the same thing. We disagree!” During Kanu’s last court appearance on Wednesday, February 16, his lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, SAN, had informed the presiding judge, Justice Binta Nyako that DSS had also not allowed Kanu change of clothes despite to his earlier order. But DSS claimed that the clothes brought to him by the family had an insignia that should not be tolerated.