Terrorists’ threat to abduct Buhari laughable, says Lai Muhammed

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Muhammed has described terrorists’ threat to abduct President Muhammadu Buhari as laughable.

Recall, on Sunday, July 24, 2022, terrorists who carried out the Abuja-Kaduna attack in a video while flogging the abducted victims over the inability of the government to accede to their demands for the victims to be released issued warning threat that their next target is President Muhammadu Buhari, Malam Nasir Rufai and other government officials.

However, the minister speaking after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting in Abuja, on Wednesday, July 25, 2022, described the comment as mere propaganda and should be ignored by Nigerians.

“As to those who have issued threats to Mr. President, I think it’s mere propaganda. It is laughable,” Mohammed told State House Correspondents.

Meanwhile, Mohammed also said that the council approved a memo by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, for a standard operation procedure on maintaining the civilian and humanitarian character of asylum seekers in Cameroon.

He said: “You all know that due to the insurgency in Cameroon, Nigeria has witnessed an influx of Cameroonian asylum seekers and there are basic standard procedures for you to be granted status as an asylum seeker.

“This is what the council considered and approved today. And basically is that anybody from Cameroon who is seeking asylum in Nigeria must first convinced the authorities that he or she has actually renounced armed struggle, before you can even be considered as an asylum seeker.

“Also they are cases of some of them who have come even when they claim to have surrendered their arms, go back at times, to join the separatist movement in Cameroon.

“So, the procedure was explained and approved today that will evaluate the basic criteria to grant asylum.

“So, all we have done today is to establish the standard procedure to ensure that those who claim to be asylum seekers are actu“ally not insurgents themselves that have come to destabilise Nigeria or people who will come and be launching attacks against their own country from the comfort of Nigeria,” he said.