The National Security Council, on Thursday, said the Islamic State, West African Province (ISWAP) terrorists are responsible for the attack on St. Francis Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State which left over 25 people dead.
The Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, disclosed this while briefing State House correspondents shortly after the council meeting presided over by the President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja.
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Aregbesola, who spoke in the company of the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, said security agencies are closing in on the perpetrators through their traces.
He also said the council is gravely concerned about spate of blasphemy-linked killings and has directed security agents to hunt those behind the killing of Deborah Samuel Sokoto State and a more recent case in Abuja.
Those who attended the security meeting included Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno, the Chief of Defense Staff, General Lucky Irabor; Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Farouk Yahaya; Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Awwal Gambo; and the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Isiaka Amao.
However, security analysts have expressed scepticism about the allegation by the Nigerian government.
“I think we should be prudent,” Vincent Foucher, a research fellow at the National Centre for Scientific Research, told Al Jazeera. “It is better not to pin it on them too quickly because they usually claim and they usually claim quite fast.”
“There is a lapse because ISWAP [readily] claims responsibility for their attacks,” Idayat Hassan, the director of Abuja’s Centre for Democracy and Development, a research think-tank, told Al Jazeera.
“It rises their profile within the Islamic State hierarchy. They love publicity,” she said.
