The Borno State Government has said that underage marriage of female children has now become a punishable crime in the state and that any parent found guilty will be prosecuted.

The state governor, Mr Kashim Shettima gave the warning on Wednesday while addressing parents whose children are beneficiaries of the free basic education introduced by his government.

The government also presented parents with incentives which included food items and wears, as part of efforts to encourage them to send their female children to school rather than selling them off to marriage.

A Federal High Court sitting in Kano, has sentenced a 37-year-old man, Mashood Mohammed, to 24 months imprisonment for unlawful possession of cannabis sativa, popularly called Indian hemp.  The judge, Justice J. K. Daggard, however gave Mohammed, father of five, diagnosed of tuberculosis, N60,000 option of fine, as he is suffering from a communicable disease.

Wife of a commissioner in Zamfara and six children have been abducted by gunmen in the early hours of Tuesday at Gurbin Bore village in the state, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports. The abductors reportedly attacked the home of the Commissioner of Youths, Sports and Skills Acquisition, Alhaji Abdullahi Gurbin Bore in the village located in Zurmi Local Government at about 1:30am.

The Police have apprehended two suspected gang leaders who were declared wanted in connection with the April 2 multiple bank robberies in Offa, Kwara State.

This brings to 22 the number of suspects in Police custody.

A Police statement on the arrest said “following the publication of the pictures of the Offa banks’ robberies in the media, we have been getting several credible leads from the members of the public and as a result, the Intelligence Response Teams deployed by the IGP to Kwara, Ondo, Osun, Oyo and Ekiti states have been able to arrest two more gang leaders in the deadly bank robberies.”

Some vigilant residents of Gashua village in Gujba Local Government Area of Yobe State have averted a tragedy by successfully foiling a suicide bomb attack in the village. The civilians cited the female Boko Haram members when she was about to denotate the suicide vest inside a mosque.

A week after the chief of Army staff, Lt General Tukur Buratai gave soldiers stationed in the Birnin-Gwari axis of Kaduna state to flush out armed bandits that have been terrorizing and killing people in the area, three housewives have been forcefully abducted in Maganda village in the early hours of Saturday.