News
Gunmen Storm Plateau Community, Kill 20 in Fresh Attack
At least 20 people have been killed after armed gunmen invaded Binper community in Kombun District of Mangu Local Government Area, Plateau State, in a fresh attack that stretched from Monday night into the early hours of Tuesday.
The attackers reportedly moved into the community around midnight and targeted residents in their homes.
Several people were also injured, while others are still unaccounted for following the assault.
Residents said the gunmen, who were heavily armed, went from one house to another and forced their way inside. Some victims were reportedly attacked while they were asleep.
An eyewitness said the attackers “were moving from house to house, opening the doors of people who were sleeping and slaughtering them.”
The eyewitness added that more than 20 bodies had been recovered from different parts of the community, while efforts were still being made to locate residents whose whereabouts remained unknown.
The attack also caused extensive damage to property. Several houses were reportedly set ablaze, while farmlands and crops were destroyed during the invasion.
A resident who spoke about the incident described the situation as “terrible” and questioned why security personnel did not arrive while the attackers were still in the community.
According to the resident, the delayed response allowed the assailants to operate for several hours before leaving the area.
The latest attack has heightened fear among residents of Binper and surrounding communities, particularly farmers who depend on their farmlands for their livelihood.
Victims who survived the attack with injuries were taken to nearby medical facilities for treatment. Community members and local volunteers also began searching for missing persons and recovering the bodies of those killed.
Security personnel were later deployed to the community on Tuesday morning as authorities moved to restore calm and prevent further attacks.
The Plateau State Police Command confirmed that an attack occurred in the area but said it was still working to establish the exact number of casualties.
The command was also expected to conduct an assessment of the affected community and determine the extent of the destruction.
The new Commissioner of Police in the state, CP Ayodeji Faniyan, alongside other senior officers, was reportedly heading to the affected area to assess the situation and receive a firsthand briefing from residents and security personnel.
Mangu has remained one of the areas affected by recurring violence, with previous attacks resulting in deaths, displacement and the destruction of homes and farmlands.
The violence has also affected farming activities in several communities. Residents have repeatedly raised concerns about their ability to access their farms safely, particularly during the farming season.
The Binper community has previously featured in reports concerning insecurity and destruction of crops.
Farmers in the area have complained about attacks on their farms and the difficulty of protecting their crops from armed groups.
The latest incident has therefore raised fresh concerns about the safety of residents who remain in vulnerable communities across Mangu.
Meanwhile, the Mwaghavul Youth Movement, MYM, has condemned the latest attack and expressed anger over the continued loss of lives in communities within Mangu Local Government Area.
The group said the killing of residents and destruction of homes and farmlands amounted to a serious threat to the survival and future of the affected communities.
In a statement signed by its Director of Public Affairs, Tubwot Joël Sunday, the movement said residents should not be forced to rely on themselves for protection when security agencies have the responsibility of safeguarding lives and property.
The group also claimed that local youths had played a role in protecting residents during the attack by remaining on guard throughout the night.
It, however, warned that community self-defence could not replace an effective security system.
The movement called on Plateau State Governor Caleb Mutfwang and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take urgent steps to address the security situation in vulnerable communities.
It also demanded a transparent investigation into the attack and other incidents recorded in Mangu, saying those responsible must be identified and prosecuted.
The group said the repeated killings could no longer be treated as isolated incidents because the attacks were affecting not only human lives but also homes, farms and the economic activities of entire communities.
It urged authorities to take what it described as “uncommon action” to stop the continued violence and prevent further loss of lives.
May & Baker Nigeria Plc has dissociated itself from the ‘M&B Equity Stake’ investment scheme, noting that the purported investment opportunity is fraudulent and unauthorised by the company.
The company disclosed this in a regulatory filing signed by Adetoun Abiru, Secretary of Marina Nominees Limited, on Tuesday, urging the investing public to disregard promotional materials that promise daily or guaranteed returns for the equity stake.
This followed the circulation of “fraudulent materials” through social media, messaging applications and other online platforms, purporting to offer an investment opportunity described as an “M&B Equity Stake.”
“The company hereby unequivocally dissociates itself, its subsidiaries and affiliates from the purported ‘M&B Equity Stake’ investment scheme and any person, platform, website, group, publication or other communication promoting or soliciting funds in connection with the scheme,” May & Baker said.
The consumer foods manufacturer stated that any person, platform, flier, message, website or other communication soliciting funds under the guise of May & Baker Nigeria Plc is unauthorised and was not issued by or on behalf of the company.
It advised Nigerians to disregard the communications, refrain from making any payment or disclosing personal information in response to the ‘M&B Equity Stake’ investment materials.
“Report any such fraudulent activity to the appropriate authorities,” the pharmaceutical and beverage company said, urging the investing public not to disclose their financial information to anyone.
The company confirmed that it is not currently undertaking any Rights Issue, Public Offer or other capital-raising exercise involving the solicitation of investments from the public.
ALSO READ: May & Baker posts 215% profit growth in mid 2017 result
“Any future capital-raising exercise will be formally communicated through the Company’s authorised communication channels and conducted in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and the requirements of the Nigerian Exchange Limited and other relevant regulatory authorities,” the company added.
It further urged its shareholders, customers, employees and members of the general public to remain vigilant and verify any purported investment opportunity or communication relating to the company through its official communication channels before taking any action.
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Companies are still grappling with exactly how software development should work in the AI area, but one early answer is the so-called software factory. Essentially an agent loop that’s built around the traditional stages of software development, the software factory approach has become a popular way for companies to remake their engineering organizations for the AI era.
Now, a system from Warp could make that transition a lot easier. On Tuesday, the AI coding company introduced Warp Factories, a new system designed to make building and operating AI software factories as easy as possible.
Operating as an infrastructure layer, Warp Factories gives companies a simple environment for deploying agents and a roadmap for how to use them.
To be clear, many companies are already having success with the factory model without any help from Warp. Stripe has been particularly public about its technical progress, developing a “minions” system to automate development within its own codebase. Ramp has made similar progress, developing a background agent that can monitor its own code after it is deployed.
As Warp CEO Zack Lloyd sees it, the target market for Warp Factories will be smaller companies without the resources to develop a system from the ground up.
“[If you look at] things like running your agents in the cloud and steering those agents as they run, or bringing the work that they’re doing into your local environment, or setting up memory that goes across those agents, or setting up evals that go across those agents — it’s actually a huge infrastructure undertaking to do this right,” Lloyd told TechCrunch.
In Warp Factories, the architecture is already built out of the box, with many of the most difficult decisions already made. Warp’s system is based on the standard phases of software development (triage, specification, implementation, review, and verification) but the agentic approach means any of those steps can be automated.
Users can choose their own coding model and harnesses as necessary; the system works as well with Codex as Claude Code. It also integrates with ticketing systems like Linear and Jira, and messaging systems like Slack and Teams, in an effort to plug in seamlessly to existing workflows.
Beyond just shipping code, Warp Factories will also give managers the tools to track how well the factory is performing. With all the agents running in the same environment, it’s easy to compare performance metrics for different configurations, and to keep an eye on the overall token spend. Warp Factory also allows for self-improvement loops to optimize the overall system, automating management of the process itself.
Even so, Warp Factories is not built to completely replace software engineers — just give them an easier way to collaborate with the new agentic workforce. In Lloyd’s own experience, there are still a lot of tasks that require a human at the wheel.
“We automate like 30% of our tasks, 30 to 35% on a weekly basis,” Lloyd told TechCrunch, “and as models improve, as the context improves, as the harness improves, I think that that number is going to go up over time.”
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