•Senate, Arewa leaders mourn Zirkusu, four others
•Insurgency, banditry will soon be history, says Air chief
President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the massacre of 15 persons in Goronyo and Illela local councils of Sokoto State, threatening that the perpetrators will not go unpunished.
Reacting to the incident from South Africa through his media aide, Garba Shehu, President Buhari said: “This persistent and unprovoked violence against unarmed civilians must be met with fierce response by the government.
“Let me, once again, reassure Nigerians that this administration will not abandon them to their fate in the face of this existential challenge caused by banditry. We are taking delivery of military equipment to improve the capacity of our security forces to effectively deal with this issue.”
According to him, the bandits are living in a fool’s paradise if they believe that they can’t be crushed.
THE Senate has expressed grief over the death of Gen. Dzarma Zirkusu and four soldiers recently killed by the Islamic State in West Africa Province (ISWAP) during a raid of insurgents by the military in Askira-Uba Local Council of Borno State.
Senator Ali Ndume (APC, Borno South), under Order 43 of the Senate Rules, drew the attention of the lawmakers to the demise of the senior military officer and four members of the Joint Task Force (JTF).
Ndume lauded the deceased officers for their exceptional display of gallantry in the military’s fight against terrorists in North East Nigeria.
ALSO, Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) has condoled with Buhari and the military over the death of the army officers. In a statement, yesterday, ACF spokesman, Emmanuel Yawe, said the sacrifices by the military multiplied since they started the fight against the terrorists, who brought anguish and pains to many homes in the country.
The Arewa leaders said: “We wish to, again, commend men and officers of the Nigerian Army in their thankless job of providing security for all us. In the pursuit of this arduous task, they have made sacrifices that cannot even be quantified.”
MEANWHILE, the Chief of Air Staff (CAS), Air Marshall Isiaka Amao, has assured Nigerians that the savagery of the insurgents and bandits will soon become a story of the past. This was coming three days after the loss of five soldiers to ISWAP terrorists in Borno.
The Senate, through its committee on Air Force, urged the military to up the ante in the onslaught against insurgents and bandits for the required peace and development in the affected areas.
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![[FILES] In this photo taken on September 15, 2016 women and children queue to enter one of the Unicef nutrition clinics at the Muna makeshift camp which houses more than 16,000 IDPs (internaly displaced people) on the outskirts of Maiduguri, Borno State, northeastern Nigeria. Aid agencies have long warned about the risk of food shortages in northeast Nigeria because of the conflict, which has killed at least 20,000 since 2009 and left more than 2.6 million homeless. In July, the United Nations said nearly 250,000 children under five could suffer from severe acute malnutrition this year in Borno state alone and one in five — some 50,000 — could die. / AFP PHOTO / STEFAN HEUNIS](https://www.afriupdate.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/idps-1062x598-1.jpg "UNICEF, NACA decry high rate of HIV, TB infections among Nigerian children 6")
