THE Islamic State West African Province (ISWAP) is responsible for the attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, that led to the death of about 38 persons last Sunday, says the Nigeria National Security Council.

Briefing correspondents at the end of its meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, joined by the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Alkali Baba Usman, said security agencies are now zeroing in them.

While noting that their imprints have been determined in the attack, he said no arrests had made.

Aregbesola noted that the attack has no ethnic-religious connection as he affirmed that the group’s activity has nothing to do with real religion.

The minister stated that the council is also concerned about killings in the name of blasphemy and has directed security agencies to go after perpetrators of both incidents that occurred in Sokoto State and Abuja recently.

He added that enough security arrangement had been made for the Ekiti State gubernatorial election taking place on June 18, and Osun State in July. Aregbesola stated: “The National Security Council has just risen from its meeting today, which reviewed, very critically, all aspects of security situation in the country and came up with conclusions, commending the efforts of the military and other security agencies in mitigating the insurgency, particularly in the North-East, where the fundamentalists there have been weakened, degraded and equally in the NorthWest, where the bandits are equally weakened, and the North-Central, where we’re engaged with pockets of bandits.

“The council is quite concerned about the violent attack in Owo, Ondo State, and have been able to locate the perpetrators of that horrendous attack.

“From all indications, we are zeroing in on ISWAP. It is not an ethno-religious thing. The animals in ISWAP wanting attention, recognition, are suspected to have launched that attack. We have directed all the agencies concerned to go after them and bring them to justice.

“We are equally concerned about the spate of attacks in the name of blasphemy. The police have been directed to mobilise, identify all those involved in the blasphemy attacks in two areas of the country, namely Sokoto and Abuja, of recent.

“The assurance is that we are committed to maintaining law and order and providing adequate security for Nigerian citizens.

“Appropriate preparation is put in place for the elections coming up in Ekiti, this month, and Osun, next month, principally by Nigeria Police and supported by other security agencies, and to some extent, the military.”

While responding to questions on the alleged helicopter attack on villagers in Adara, Southern Kaduna State, the IGP said the force has not determined the veracity of the report.

He said, “As for the issue of helicopter attack, the allegations are there. We have not been able to say there is any helicopter attack on innocent citizens like you have suggested, but most of the times, these assertions are made and up till now we’ve not been able to see or we’ve not been able to identify any helicopter that is flying and killing people unnecessarily.

“But there are instances where our own helicopters, security forces’ helicopters, are flying, but we don’t have that allegation of innocent people being killed, except where in some instances in the past, where the military helicopters had, maybe in one way or the other, missed target or misdirected target and so forth.

“But that issue has not been an issue of discussion in the security meeting. We are still looking into the allegation and we are still looking into the assertions. If there are any leads to follow, we’ll do that.”

The police boss also said that there had been no arrest on the kidnap of the Prelate of Methodist Church Prelate, Samuel Kanu-Uche, but there were leads that the police were following.

He revealed that a total of 17,374 police personnel would be deployed to Ekiti or Osun governorship elections.