— Condoles with New Telegraph over Bisalla
By Ezrel Tabiowo
Abuja
Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, has slammed the masterminds of Wednesday’s bombing of an Abuja shopping mall, describing the act as “villainous.”
He also condoled with the New Telegraph newspaper family over the death of its Managing Editor (Northern Operations), Malam Suleiman Bisalla, who was killed in the incident.
In a statement issued yesterday by his Special Adviser on Media, Uche Anichukwu, he said the sole motives of the terrorists were to “break the spirit of Nigerians and instill fear through acts of mass murder and destruction of property.”
He, therefore, enjoined Nigerians not to stand firm and united in the fight against terrorism and insurgency.
He said: “This is another sadistic act to annihilate Nigerians, spurn our religious and cultural values as well as all that we hold sacred as a people. It is a common saying amongst our people that nobody throws stone into the market square because even his or her kinsmen could be the victims; that these bands of terrorists even bomb market places warns us again that something is fundamentally wrong with their values and that we must all stand together to fight our common enemies.”
Meanwhile, Ekweremadu has described the late Bisalla as a “seasoned professional who paid his dues towards national development.”
In a condolence letter to the board and management of the New Telegraph Publishing Company, he said Suleiman’s covered the Senate diligently and described his death as “a huge loss” not only to the Nigerian media, but also the entire nation.
He observed that the void created by the journalist’s untimely death would be difficult to fill up.
He prayed for the peaceful repose of the dead and quick recovery of the injured.