President Muhammadu Buhari has decried “the senseless loss of lives” in Borno and Katsina States.

Presidential spokesman Garba Shehu said the President holds the victims in his thoughts and his prayers and warned that killings across the country were part of the plot to cause division and hate among the populace.

Perpetrators would be brought to justice,as terrorists and bandits have been reduced to scavenging from artisanal miners and farmers for survival.The President said.

The Nigerian people must come together and stand firm in defiance of those who would seek through terror and violence to divide us along religious, political or ethnic lines”, Shehu noted.

The government appealed to citizens to “be at our strongest in times like this.”