Killing of Shekau: Security surveillance heightens •Group calls on JTF to show proof

SECURITY operatives have heightened security across the country following security report that members of Boko Haram sect were planning a revenge attack following killing of their leader, Abubakar Shekau.
Spokesperson of the Military Joint Task Force (JTF), Lt Col Sagir Musa had said Shekau may have died as a result of injuries he sustained during June 30 gun battle with security operatives in a forest in Maiduguri.
Following the death, it was gathered that there was an intelligence report that members of the sect are planning an attack.
Security operatives were said to have received a report that members of the sect planned to revenge the killing of Shekau by carrying out bomb attacks in the northern part of the country.
To that effect, security outfits had mobilized to prevent till attacks across the country.
The agencies, it was gathered, were on an instruction, although part of their tasks was to ensure that attacks were not carried out.
In the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Force headquarters, United Nations building and ThisDay newspapers had been attacked.
Nigerian Tribune monitored the streets in Abuja up to 8pm yesterday and noticed that the security agencies were on top of their jobs to nip any eventuality in the bud.
Stop-and-search operation continued, while motorcyclists at satellite towns were made to continue to switch off their ignition upon approaching a check point.
Meanwhile, A group has challenged the leadership of the Joint Task Force (JTF) to substantiate its claim that the leader of the dreaded Boko Haram sect, Abubakar Shekau, had been killed.
 Military authorities had, last week, issued a statement informing Nigerians that the leader of the militant group died in Cameroun as a result of the gunshot wounds he sustained from men of the JTF.
 However, raising doubt over the claim, the group, Muslim Media Watch Group (MMWG), in a press statement issued in Abuja on Wednesday, said its members were still keeping their fingers crossed on the veracity or otherwise of the information.
 The group, in the statement signed by its national coordinator, Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim, said its doubt over the information was informed by such information in the past that later ended to be untrue as regards leading figures of the Boko Haram sect.
 “The Muslim Media Watch Group of Nigeria does not believe in the story being carried in the mass media that Abubakar Shekau, the leader of the Boko Haram, has been killed. This follows several information to that effect in the past on some kingpins of the group which were later denied.
“The JTF story would be believed to the extent to which corpses of casualties recorded are displayed and facts ascertained that insurgents were truly captured or killed as being reported,” the statement read in part.
  The group, however, called on all Nigerians to continue to pray hard for peace, stability and progress to return to the land and  called on the political class to stop paying lip-service to the fight against corruption in the land.
  It said the Federal Government was expected to have published the names of beneficiaries of the illegal petroleum subsidy claims and how much had been refunded so far.
 It also challenged the government to come to the open on what is delaying the over 80 per cent illegal payments not yet refunded since the last 20 months when the scam was first exposed.
  The group also challenged the leadership of the National Assembly to react very factually to the allegation leveled against it by a former Minister of Education, Mrs Oby Ezekwesili, that not less than one trillion Naira had been spent on its members by the country in the past eight years.
 It noted that such an allegation, if indeed it was true, was a confirmation of agitations by concerned Nigerians that legislative business should be made part-time job in order to save the funds needed for the survival of the country and its teeming masses.
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