Friday, 3 January 2014

'Great Train Robber' Ronnie Biggs defiant even in death

A floral tribute stands against the coffin of Ronnie Biggs as his funeral cortege arrives at Golders …

By Alexander Winning

LONDON (Reuters) - "Great Train Robber" Ronnie Biggs arrived for his funeral on Friday in a hearse bearing a large flower display in the shape of an obscene two-finger "V-sign", a fitting emblem of his lifelong defiance of the British authorities.

Biggs, a small-time criminal who became a celebrity during a life on the run after the notorious 1963 robbery, died last month at the age of 84 in a London nursing home.

He had served just 15 months of a 30-year jail term when he escaped in 1965, fleeing to Australia, then Brazil, from where he flaunted his freedom, partying in exotic locations and giving interviews to the British press.

But after 36 years on the run, Biggs returned to Britain in 2001, broke and in poor health, going back to jail until illness prompted his release in 2009.

In his final year, Biggs appeared in public twice, frail and wheelchair-bound, but unrepentant for his role in the heist in which the gang stole 2.6 million pounds ($4.2 million) from a Royal Mail train, equivalent to about 40 million today.

At the funeral of the robbery's mastermind Bruce Reynolds in March last year, Biggs found the strength to stick two fingers up at the cameras.

On Friday, a cortege of Hell's Angels bikers and a brass band playing "When The Saints Go Marching In" led Biggs' coffin into a north London crematorium, followed by his family and various underworld figures, and watched by a scrum of media and some passers-by.

"Biggs was not a major criminal but he had a eye for publicity. This is a circus, and everyone has fallen for it," said local resident David Rose, watching as the coffin draped in the British and Brazilian flags passed by in heavy rain.

HERO OR VILLAIN?

The Great Train Robbery became one of the defining events of 1960s Britain, coinciding with the Profumo affair - a sex-and-spies scandal that rocked the British establishment - and the rise of the Beatles and other working-class heroes. It spawned several films.

Biggs, the most famous member of the gang, was a latter-day Robin Hood to some but an unrepentant villain to those who pointed to the violence used on the train driver.

Jack Mills was hit over the head with a iron bar during the robbery and died seven years later, with some people blaming the injuries for his death.

A 67-year-old local resident who came to see what the media fuss was about, but declined to give her name, said: "I am ashamed I have come to watch a common criminal being buried."

Biggs, who was born in south London, always said he had never regretted his role in the robbery as it had given him a "little place in history".

His life, chronicled in a 2011 autobiography entitled "Odd Man Out: The Last Straw", made ideal fodder for a film script.

After escaping from London's Wandsworth Prison in 1965 by scaling a wall with a rope ladder, he used his share of the loot for plastic surgery and passage to Australia.

He later fled to Brazil, via Panama and Venezuela, pursued by his great adversary, London police detective Jack Slipper ("Slipper of the Yard"). The fact that he had a son with a Brazilian woman eventually spared him extradition.

Tanned and sporting his white hair in a ponytail, he regularly gave interviews to British newspapers. In 1978 he even recorded a song, "No One is Innocent", with the British punk band the Sex Pistols.

In 1981 he was abducted from Rio by former British commandos who took him to the Caribbean on a yacht, hoping to sell him to the highest bidder.

YahooNews

Scholar Forces Nigerian Corruption Story To Global Agenda

By SaharaReporters, New York

Nigerian scholar and political anthropologist, Wale Adebanwi, Friday, put the story of Nigeria’s challenge with corruption back on the new year’s national agenda when his book, Authority Stealing: Anti-Corruption War and Democratic Politics in Post-Military Nigeria was picked by Foreign Affairs, a leading global journal on foreign policy and global affairs, as one of the best three books from Africa in the past year. [Download some pages of the book here: http://www.cap-press.com/pdf/2262.pdf]
A Nigerian edition of the book was published as A Paradise for Maggots: The Story of a Nigerian Anti-Corruption Czar, in 2011.
Foreign Affairs assesses that in Adebanwi’s book “Readers will be rewarded with a thorough education in the personalities, practices, and political culture that allow billions of dollars of Nigerian state revenues to disappear every year.”
Mr. Adebanwi, an associate professor in African American and African Studies, at the University of California, Davis, United States, holds two doctorates, one in political science from the University of Ibadan and another from the University of Cambridge in social anthropology.
The book, according to the journal, “ranges broadly across recent Nigerian history, [and that] its central purpose is to assess postcolonial Nigeria’s most serious campaign to eradicate large-scale corruption. In 2003, President Olusegun Obasanjo appointed Nuhu Ribadu as chair of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, a position he would retain until 2008, when Obasanjo’s successor, Umaru Yar’Adua, removed him.”
In an interview Friday, the scholar minimised the honour, tersely saying “very flattering,” and bouncing the honour to the subject of the book. “It speaks more to the value of what Nuhu Ribadu was able to accomplish at the EFCC despite intimidating challenges than to my own effort to document the process.”
Mr. Adebanwi’s book shares a place on the pick list with External Mission: The ANC in Exile, 1960–1990 By Stephen Ellis which paints “a fascinating history of the internal politics of the African National Congress (ANC) in the 30 years during which it was banned in South Africa and was forced to operate from bases outside the country,” and Poor Numbers: How We Are Misled by African Development Statistics and What to Do About It, by Morten Jerven, which “demonstrates with devastating clarity that African governments produce imprecise economic statistics that should not be trusted.”
Cambridge University Press will publish Mr. Adebanwi’s latest book, Yoruba Elites and Ethnic Politics in Nigeria: Obafemi Awolowo and Corporate Agency in an African Lifeworld in March 2014. http://www.cambridge.org/gb/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/african-government-politics-and-policy/yoruba-elites-and-ethnic-politics-nigeria-bafemi-awolowo-and-corporate-agency
Mr. Adebanwi who started his career as a news reporter before switching to the academia, has won honours around the world including the Bill and Melinda Gates Scholarship, UK, MacArthur Foundation (US) Grant, Social Science Research Council, New York Fellowship, Claude Ake Memorial Scholarship, Rockefeller Foundation, Bellagio, Italy, Fellowship and Rhodes Senior Scholarship, Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. In May 2013, he gave the prestigious Oxford University African Studies Centre Annual Lecture.
He has served on the editorial board of the Nigerian Tribune and is a contributing editor of TheNEWS magazine.

Saharareporters

BREAKING NEWS: Rivers Assembly Majority Leader, Chidi Lloyd, Arrested For Murder

The Rivers State Police Command said it had arrested the Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Mr. Chidi Lloyd, for the alleged murder of his kinsman, Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo and a police sergeant, Urang Obediah.

A statement made on Thursday night indicated that Lloyd was purportedly arrested on his way to join the state Governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, in his private jet in order to escape justice.

The statement sent via e-mail by the State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ahmad Mohammad, specified that Lloyd knocked down Obediah while pursuing Ejeuo, identified to be his political opponent.

Lloyd, who was still standing trial for his involvement in the fracas that took place in the State House on July 9, 2013, was said to have rammed into Ejeuo’s Passat car with a bulletproof vehicle and killed him (Ejeo).

The police command pointed out that it had initially thought it was an auto accident until Lloyd relocated to another hospital, “conscious of what he did.”

“The Rivers State Police Command has arrested Hon. Chidi Llyod of the Rivers State House of Assembly for murder of police Sgt. Urang Obediah and Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo, his kinsman and arch political opponent.

“He was arrested on his way to join Governor Amaechi Rotimi in his private jet at the Airforce base to escape justice.

“Hon. Chidi Lloyd on December 30, 2013 while pursing his political opponent, knocked down Sgt. Urang Obediah, in spite of his effort to stop him, rammed and killed him and went ahead to crush the Passat car of Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo was driving and killed him.

“Initially the Police thought that it was a mere accident, which ought to have been a manslaughter. The Commissioner of Police directed ACP Aliyu Garba, the Area Commander Metro, to visit him in his hospital bed and commiserate with him, conscious of what he did, Chidi Lloyd relocated to another hospital.

“Facts emerged that Chidi Lloyd drove a bullet-proof vehicle while pursuing his political opponent, late Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo, and he (Lloyd) knocked down Sgt. Urang Obediah, who died on the spot and (Lloyd) moved ahead to smash a political opponent in his Passat car who equally died instantly,” the statement reads.

The statement added that late Ejeuo, who hailed from the same place with Lloyd was believed to be in the PDP camp led by Elder Felix Obuah.

The statement also indicated that the Leader of the House allegedly escaped from the hospital where he was being guarded by four policemen.

However, a top government official told our correspondent that the claim by the police that Lloyd tried to join Amaechi in his (Amaechi) private jet in order to escape justice was a blatant lie.

It will be recalled that Lloyd, who presented himself to the Nigeria Police after a video clip showed him hitting a member of the House of Assembly, Mr. Michael Chinda, with a mace on the head, was charged to court on a six-count charge, including attempted murder.

Lloyd was later granted bail in order to receive medical attention after sustaining injury during the July 9, 2013 free-for-all in the chambers of the State House of Assembly.

InformationNigeria

PHOTO: SEE HOW Pastor Tries to Walk on Water Like Jesus, Then Drowns in Front of His Congregation

Walking on water is not easy. Not too many people have the ability. Let’s see, there’s Jesus, and well, that’s about it.

Unfortunately for one pastor on the West Coast of Africa, his attempt to become the second man to make this impossible feat a reality cost him his life.

Pastor Franck Kabele, 35, told his congregation that he was capable of reenacting the very miracles of Jesus Christ. He decided to make it clear through way of demonstration on Gabon’s beach in the capital city of Libreville.

Referencing Matthew 14:22-33, Kabele said that he received a revelation which told him that with enough faith he could achieve what Jesus was able to.

According to an eyewitness, Kabele took his congregation out to the beach. He told them that he would cross the Kombo estuary by foot, which is normally a 20 minute boat ride.

Sadly by the second step into the water Kabele found himself completely submerged. He never returned.

This is not the first incident of this nature in Africa. At Ibadan zoo in south-west Nigeria, a self-proclaimed Prophet claimed to be able to do what the Daniel of the bible did by walking into a den full of lions.

Though he was warned numerous times by zoo keepers, according to NG Newspapers, the Prophet thought of them as nothing more than enemies of progress. The Prophet, with a crowd of people watching, put on a long red robe and proceeded to enter the cage full of lions.

Within seconds of opening the door, the lions ripped the Prophet from flesh to bone. The bible should come with a warning label, “Don’t try this at home.”

Naij.com

RE: BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE (RE: OBASANJO’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN) - Mujahid Dokubo Asari

02 January 2014

Olusegun Obasanjo
Balogun of Owu
Obansajo Farms,
Ota,
Ogun State.

RE: BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE (RE: OBASANJO’S LETTER TO PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN)

Ordinarily, I would not want to dignify you with a reply to your ill-conceived letter, as that has a way of oiling your elbow or prop your self-importance - provoking your well-known self-will. I have also delayed my reply for one reason - to perfectly gauge public opinion on your latest onslaught against President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan – President of a country full of mind-boggling contradictions that you’ve always, falsely regarded as your personal creation.

At least that’s the spirit behind your insolence, impudence and make-believe that point to the fact that you’re above national censure, ideological / ethical direction and control. Finally, I have had to reply you because of the nature of my past encounters with you – encounters that I feel should convey my deepest sense of grief, as it relates to your recent gaffes, shocking errors and dwindling self-esteem.

It is a common knowledge that if not for the imperious nature of Nigeria and the monumental fraud that attended its creation, caused primarily by the 1914 Lugadian error, it would’ve been very difficult for the likes of you to stand before me, talk less address me as a leader. This is so as my royal pedigree, as an Amachree and as an Omubo with dignified accoutrements would’ve denied you such leverage. In comparison to your nebulous background, I doubt what your shadowy pedigree is, what you’ve always avoided in all your discourses, and which you’ve deliberately shrouded in obscurity. Because if indeed your pedigree is anything significant in the Owu quarter of Egbaland, many like me would’ve long known it, or deduced it from your puffy, inestimable swan-songs that reinstate your pride and vaulting ego.

Nobody has ever attested or verified the history of your background. The background of a man is important because it is what depicts his social standing and sense of history. Many even doubt if you are a true Yoruba man. With such strings of doubtful pedigree attached to your person and with a history of dreadful perversities that is attached to your memory – this is as your characteristic way of life- defeats customary belief, ground norms and persuasions.

I wish to state that but for history and posterity, my grandmother Princess Okukuba W.D.Goodhead scion of the great King Amachree, royal lineage of the Kalabari state, in the Ijaw heartland, taught me the need to clear all false accusation or charges that are designed to malign and mislead others, whenever they are hatched by depraved trouble-makers like you. Connected to this is the need not to allow any cowardly abuse or insult to go unanswered, especially when mischievously made by the lowest of the lowest amongst rascal folks, to whose rank you belong.

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that you once led this country.

I find this very enlightening that you seem to provide the true reason why this false entity called Nigeria; have had unending, mysterious and tragic incidences ever since you were thrown up to direct the affairs of this geographical area called Nigeria- striving vigorously to dictate her down-ward push, down the edge of a vaulting, irredeemable precipice. Your negative influence over Nigeria seems to define and redefine this fraud-state called Nigeria that has since her creation, done more harm than good to those entrapped in it.

In other to educate you on my background, I am Mujahid Dokubo-Asari; was born Melford Dokubo Goodhead( Jnr) to an aristocratic family in Kalabari. I am the son of my father, Hon Justice Melford Dokubo Goodhead (Snr) a descendant of a long line of jurists, inventors, scholars, statesmen and successful business men. Because of my outstanding background and seeming feat of personal success, I’ve repeatedly shunned the toga of false, foreign and dubious praise-singers that you crave in your bid to get every attention from all quarters. I don’t seek to be venerated by men or pursue inordinate hero-worship from perceived lackeys - what you’ve lived for and pursue with zeal. Therefore I remain who I am - Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, Alabo Edi Abali of Kalabari - a great scion of the King Amachree dynasty.

The Kalabari kingdom to which I belong, is rooted in the heart of the Ijaw nation and has been known for her sound ideals, strong mercantilism and sovereign links to the civilized nations since the 15th century, before it was stealthily and falsely brought under the present Nigerian contraption, by unenlightened British imperialist that the likes of you have officiously revered and worshipped being forebears of your programme of mass impoverishment, economic emasculations, genocide, and utter destruction of other nations with superior idealism and sound socio-political systems.

Despite the long history of deprivation, oppression and genocide that the Nigerian state has meted on the Isokos, Orons, Ibibios, Ogonis, South-South Ibos, and the Ijaw nation, just as you personally pursued a deliberate programme of mass impoverishment and total emasculation of these nations in all your brutal regimes- and the endangering of the aspirations and dream for their freedom, equality and development. I’ve never denied being an Ijaw man. This has been my way of life from the start and I will remain an Ijaw man till I die. I have had cause to assert this fact before you while you belatedly exhibited gross intolerance, denigration of the values of others, with unveiled tribal tendencies.

My first encounter with you on this flank occurred on Friday June 11th 1999, when you had just assumed then, leadership of one of Nigeria’s most regretful administration- being a beneficiary of a long war against military dictatorship, it is expected that you would run a people oriented and all inclusive government, instead you ran a Nazi style regime that perfected the art of ethnic cleansing and total disdain for the due process of the law.

On that faithful day – 11th June, 1999, I was one of the few Ijaw spokesmen that addressed you at the River State Government Executive Council Hall, where you came to troubleshoot on the conflict between the Ijaws and our Itsekiri brothers in Delta State; conflicts that were inflicted on our people by centripetal forces unleashed by the Nigerian state, and designed to upturn the fight for our freedom, unity and self-worth.

Your public rating then, was at its lowest ebb, as your acceptability across Nigeria, was in doubt. The structure of the Nigerian state was shaky, troubled and disgorged. Determined to translate your diabolic promises into action you moved against all forms of dissent maniacally.

And also because you were largely known as a foxy, brutal and vindictive soldier that had been hated in the past for gross abuses that all knew would reoccur even though you now wore a civilian look, having not won a single state in the South-West, dominated by the AD, at the presidential elections that you were said to have won, but which were rigged by your ilk; in which you did not win majority vote in your polling booth in Abeokuta.

Nigerians understood your antics when you said your re-election in 2003 would be a “do or die” miasma.

Your policy of mass killing of perceived opponents, in which high profiled leaders died on the streets, is part of your personal history.

If you recall the events of that day, Friday 11th June,1999, I didn’t stand up to honour the Nigerian National anthem when it was sung. Neither did I address you as “President” when I took the microphone to speak on behalf of my people. I never conceded to your leadership nor the status of this evil entity called Nigeria.

In the presence of your forces of repression and cruelty– police, state security officials and the military, I addressed you as an Owu man and you accepted it without hesitation. Was Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan the President of the Nigerian State at the time? Your confession at the time – which is the mind-set of all Nigerians, is that you are first and foremost an Owu man before a Nigerian.

I met you few months later at the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, as a member of a delegation of South-South elders where you exhibited your clannish fancies and preferences. As a frontline cultural ambassador of my people, and extremely proud of the ijaw culture, I tied a George wrapper as it is customary, and attended the meeting without shoes. The result was that you tongue-lashed and sought to persecute me. As soon as you saw me in the side-lines of the meeting, you asked disdainfully; “I hope you’re not an Egbesu Priest?” And I replied you; “I am not; I am a Muslim.” Later, not satisfied by your attack on me, and at the close session, you asked how I became a Moslem and I told you I was a Baptist before my reversion. And you replied; ‘You are a Moslem now, I said yes, I am.” And you retorted with a smack of officious persecution, diatribe and hypocrisy and said; “I am sorry, for you are lost.”

And I replied, saying; “you’re the one that is lost.” How then can you say in your letter to President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan that you’ve always believed in the unity of Nigeria that he shouldn’t see Nigeria as a North-South or Moslem-Christian dichotomy?

On another occasion, just before the heavily flawed 2003 election, you sought to muzzle me into the bandwagon of anti-people disciples, and I rejected your cruel and mischievous conspiracy. A delegation of South-South leaders led by Chief EK Clark came to see you. I was once again among the delegation as President of Ijaw Youth Council.

In the course of the meeting, I made suggestion as to how the NDDC - that you stifled with lack of funding - can be effective. My suggestion at that time was that a department for Women and Youth should be created in the NDDC so that the body will be broad based and people -oriented. You accepted my submission and immediately offered that I should become the first Director of the department and I promptly turned it down, and insisted that being the President of the Ijaw Youth Council , my position was better than your villainous offer and you were shocked and displeased. Some elders tried to persuade me to accept your offer and I told them it will be a betrayal of Ijaw youths who elected me as their President to come to you under the title of Ijaw Youth Council President and then sweep that aside to pursue a personal agenda.

I never saw you again until 30th September,2004, when you flew me with a Private Jet to Abuja, to make peace between me and your infamous federal government because the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force (NDPVF), in which I was a ‘volunteer’ had successfully disrupted and brought oil production to an all-time low after series of successful confrontation with the Nigerian Military, the Police, State Security Service officials, etc. After several days of meeting with you, and because the NDPVF – for the first time in the history of Nigeria aided the cancellation of the October 1st,Independence celebration, you gave a raucous state address which was centred around the activities of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force. At that time President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan represented Bayelsa state, as Deputy Governor, he was not President.

If you recall, I continually described the Ijaws as a nation – I did engraft this depiction into your psyche at that time - and you accepted to call Ijaw, Ijaw Nation.

At the end of the meeting, you told Engineer Funso Kpokulokun – your GMD, NNPC - to take care of my needs, which I said wasn’t necessary - which was once again a tactical bribe offered by you to vitiate my good intentions towards my people. Later, we agreed that the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force should disarm, and we completely disarmed and submitted 2, 335 riffles, over 1 million ammunitions, and other explosive materials to your government through the Nigerian military and state security service at Zamani Lekwot Cantonment, Bori Camp, Port Harcourt.

While I was in Mecca, on hajj-after 8 days in Saudi, Col Kayode Are, DG State Security Service, called me and asked me to quickly return to Nigeria; this was conceived to be very urgent and highly important. When I returned and landed at the Minna International Airport. I called Col Are and he directed the airline operator to bring me to Abuja. on arrival at Abuja, several vehicles were waiting for me at the Airport. I was driven straight to the State Security Guest House at Asokoro.

While the vehicles were waiting for me, I freshened and went to see Col Are and he told me that the President asked him to specially inform me that what I have been agitating for has been accepted by your government.

– that you’ve accepted our demands for the convocation of a National Conference. I asked Col Are whether it was a “Sovereign National Conference,” He said; “no, it was a Political Reform Conference.” And I told him that was not what my people wanted – the Ijaw and other oppressed people, who have been fraudulently conscripted into the Nigerian enterprise by the roguish British imperialist wanted nothing short of a Sovereign National Conference to determine their inclusion in the Nigerian state- I added that we can’t partake in any conference that doesn’t address the fundamental issues of sovereignty and the nationhood of various nations entrapped in the Nigerian State.

Col Are then continued to persuade me to see reason with you, being convinced of your intolerable sadism and bestial high-handedness - that if I opposed the conference in front of you, you will certainly be angry with me and perhaps do the improbable –maybe kill me the way you killed others and escaped without any sanction. That it is better for me to stoop to conquer than to put up any shade of opposition. As you are known not to tolerate your opponents or any form of opposition, and believes that you know it all- being utterly selfish, greedy and monstrously sly. I told Col Are that such hypocritical double-faced nature that was hinged in murderous threats, was at variance with the noble character of an Amachree.

This marked the beginning of my disagreement with you. This disagreement gathered momentum after I disarmed.

The next thing you did- while using Dr. Peter Odili, then Governor of the Bantustan of Rivers State, you pursued a policy of divide and rule by creating mutinous factions within the rank and file of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force. Being gullible, many of our commanders gave in to your conspiratorial incitement. They came up to say that monies given for arms at the disarmament programme should be shared among them, when more than 80% of the monies weren’t paid, and bulk of the money that was paid, had been given to those who supplied our arms.

Col Are became the personal friend of many of our commanders and did host and feasted with the likes of Richmond Yimbiri, Farah Dagogo, Olo Akalogbo and other volunteers of the NDPVF in Abuja. When the mutiny that you sought to provoke didn’t work, you pettily enlisted your friend, Judith Asuni to attack me, and she threatened that if I don’t become amenable to Government programmes, she will use the Press to bring me down, since according to her I am a creation of the Press. Lady Ann Kio Briggs then challenged her, and there was a big uproar. Judith Asuni thereafter became the mother of diverse cult groups and counter-struggle agents in Rivers state, creating systemic failure in the region and pursuing a dislocation of our local economy, crime-prone attacks and high profiled kidnappings became the order of the day. You as President clearly supported these pseudo-Niger Delta freedom and liberation groups that were secretly behind these anti-people indulgences - connecting them to the NDDC and NNPC through a special programme to empower them.

Another of your friend – a Jewish American security agent, Steve Davids, sensing your inveterate knack for bloodshed and subterfuge, warned me that you’re preparing to kill me or put me in prison forever. That I should be very careful of women - the unconventional weapon you’ve chosen to annihilate me with. I wish to emphasize here that anyone who calls himself a leader and uses such unconventional weapon such as “a woman” to execute his personal interests against perceived enemies, isn’t only devious but diabolically nauseating. Being immune to fear and having a huge capacity for faith in Allah , I told him that my life is controlled by Allah and not by the vicious plundering of wicked mortals like you.

On this I wish to digress a little to reinstate that am not just religious but also a very spiritual person. I’ve had mysterious spiritual encounters that threats from the likes of you are nothing but the ranting of a novice. I operate more in the spiritual realm than in the physical- I believe that Allah will not forsake me when minions like you, come up to attack or afflict me. Allah will raise up a standard against them. On my perceived spiritual fortification, Steve David told me he wasn’t surprised because the day he came to my camp, he saw my prayer mat and wondered how I could be the only Muslim among hundreds of gun-wielding non-Muslim, whose mental state wasn’t certifiable. And I told him it is not being a Muslim or frontline believer in Islam that mattered but the gravity of my personal relationship with my maker, who has always recued me in time of danger, dire difficulties, vicious conspiracies and violent tribulations.

There is need at this time to outline one murderous move you made on my life that shows how brutal and inhuman your mindset is – vindicating your daughter’s revelations. I want to remind you of the startling move you made on my life during the momentous days, leading to the historic Isaac Boro celebration on the 16th of May 2005. At that time the Bayelsa state Government was under Chief D.S.P. Alamieseigha.

Chief DSP Alamieseigha had warned that the 1million man march the NDPVF was organizing to protest the injustice of the Nigerian state against the Ijaws and other oil bearing nation should not hold and would not be allow into Bayelsa state because of a security report that emanated from you that I didn’t know at the time. The report or plot to truncate the march was grave and dangerous, as the Executive Governor of Bayelsa State Chief D.S.P. Alamieseigha, told me the Bayelsa State Government couldn’t guarantee our security – my security.
In the background of this starling murderous plot by you and feigning his lack of protective security shield occasioned by you, I was also shocked by the grave support that the Rivers State government offered us because it was happy that I was leaving Rivers state to Bayelsa state, and gave several vehicles to support our protests march.

The response we had from our people was startling and unprecedented, as huge crowds came, and well over 3000 vehicles, were hired from neighboring states of Abia,Imo,Delta, Anambra, Enugu and Edo state to convey participants to the Bayelsa state capital of Yenagoa.

On the appointed day, men of the Nigerian Military stopped us at Elele and refused to allow us free passage to Yenegoa. The Governor, Chief D.S.P. Alamieseigha was away in South Africa at the time. Goodluck Jonathan was then the acting Governor of Bayelsa state, and asked us not to come into Bayelsa state of course we brushed off all obstacles whether real or imagined that were mounted not to let us into Yenagoa. Many other participants in the proposed rally were also blocked at the Ahoada junction. We were surprised that the rally was being frustrated by the people, governments and institutions that ought to benefit from it.

Finally, after much persuasion we decided to converge at Obuama- my hometown. We stayed there till the next day, 17th of May, 2005, and dispersed without achieving our noble objective which was to sensitize our people, on the evils of the heart-wrenching Nigerian state that you’ve always pontificated in the media as your life creation and alter-ego.

When Chief D.S.P. Alamieseigha returned from his trip to South Africa, I made an appointment to see him through his Commissioner of Information, who was also a former Comrade – Barr Oronto Douglas – and met him at his private residence at William Jumbo Street, Portharcourt. In the course of our discussion, I accused Chief DSP Alamieseigha pointedly – in my usual bluntness and characteristic manner - for sacrificing Ijaw interests for his political gains and deceiving the people of the Niger delta that the Nigerian state will accommodate our Interests.

Chief D.S.P. Alamieseigha then informed me that you – General Olusegun Obasanjo, sent 5 snipers to kill me in Yenegoa and that he -Chief D.S.P Alamieseigha accommodated them at the government house in yenegoa. That he traveled out of the state and directed the Bayelsa State government not to allow me into Yenegoa to avoid my being killed in Yenegoa by your snipers - as he didn’t know if you had sent other snipers into the state.

It downed on me, why Dr. Peter Odili, gave us all the resources we sought– it was to push me into a den of your snipers – because he offered us assistance even when we are not the best of friends, providing all the resources we needed to convey us out of town.

I’ve decided to relate this incidence because of your reference to snipers while writing your hypocritical letter to President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan.

I wonder why you, the Chief Assassin of all times, would accuse President Goodluck Jonathan of training 1000 snipers and having a watch-list of political opponents when he has tolerated your insane excesses along with your mutinous gang which no head of government the world over would have so tolerated forgetting so soon that this was the same infamous journey you embarked on during the regime of General Sanni Abacha that nearly cost you your life.

Until date, the mystery surrounding the death of your kinsman and former Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Late Bola Ige’s death has not been unravelled. So also is that of my kinsmen AK Dikibo and Chief Marshall Harry. At the time they were felled, AK Dikibo was national vice chairman (south-south) of the PDP while Chief Marshall Harry was former national vice chairman (south south) of the PDP and also the national vice chairman (south-south) of the ANPP, as president of the Federal republic of Nigeria you were the national leader of the PDP. At that time, many public analysts described the PDP as a nest of killers. Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia state, clearly stated that your hands may not be clean regarding the brutal killing of the then Vice Chairman of South-South Zone of the PDP – A.K. Dikibo.

PART II

On this part I’ve resolved to dwell more on what I have said before – your veiled reference that President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan, is listening to his kinsmen - since I’ve chosen to ignore other parts of your letter.

I would start by saying that President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is an Ijaw man. There is no way you can remove that truism from him. It’s just as you are a Yoruba man - although that has some element of doubt. There is no way you can divulge a man of his roots – his clan, people and culture- to do that is to kill the man. My interest here is to state that you are more clannish than any other leader that has been conscripted to rule this backward enclave called Nigeria – no gainsaying the fact you’re the most clannish of them all.
As President of this sickening country that’s full of inequities, you were the Balogun of Owu – a tiny section of Egbaland. As Balogun of Owu, which means, Commander of Owu Armed forces, you were also Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces of the Nigerian state. How will a commander command two forces at the same time and be loyal to both- no one can serve two masters. There lies your infamous dubiety.

Secondly, and this is most annoying - you funded and midwifed the Yoruba Elders Council and armed it against the already existing Afenifere, in the battle for the control of the soul of the Yoruba people. Like an Octopus your clannishness is boundless, extending its vicious and overbearing frontiers to the level of your personal interests, untamable greed and forbidden frontiers – all these, while you were President of Nigeria.

Name one Nigerian leader that wasn’t known for his clannish, ethnic and tribal interests.

How has Nigeria fared since independence if not on the tuft of steely ethnic considerations?

How do you expect President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to be divulged of this, after you led many others in the display of ethnic and tribal purges?

Chief Obafemi Awolowo – one of the ' founders' of the Nigerian state was primarily, a super-founder and member of the Yoruba Social -cultural organization Omo Egbe Oduduwa. There was no time Chief Obafemi Awolowo, believed in a country like Nigeria – he defined it in his book, “as merely a geographical expression.”
Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Gambari Prince of the North and the leader of the Northern Peoples’ Congress said this “The new nation called Nigeria should be an estate of our great grandfather Othman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the north as willing tools and the south as a conquered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their future." – Parrot Newspaper October 12, 1960.He was always at logger-head with other 'nationalists 'from the contraption and had no ambition to rule such an entity– this was so because Nigeria didn’t really matter to him; what mattered was the Othmaniyyah Caliphate . To demonstrate this, he brought his political stooge- Alhaji Tafawa Balewa to be Prime Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, an equation which marked the beginning of Godfatherism in Nigerian politics that you are well known for today.

As leader of the Northern Union Progressive Elements, NEPU, Mallam Aminu Kano later sought a progressive path that would have cured northern redundancy and developmental ineptitude even then how many non-northerners were members of NEPU?
Aminu Kano’s progressive inclination was only progressive as it relates to his conception of northern Nigeria and has no inclination towards pursuing a progressive ideology that includes ijaws, Yorubas, tivs, igbos, etc.

Joseph Tarka followed suit and named his political voice, Meddle Belt Congress- MBC – concerned primarily with the affairs of the middle-belt that the oligarchic North believed were slave-port to fight her battles, and launder her parochial interests.
Our daddy in the politics of the time– Chief Harold Dappa Biriye, upon realizing the truism of Nigeria’s facile, clannish political thrust and boring leverage– founded the Niger Delta Congress, that was repulsed in the East for clamouring for the freedom of the Rivers Ijaw people.

it was only DR. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s NCNC that had a pretention to national universality, even then, your Yoruba brothers fought the NCNC to a standstill and ousted her from controlling the western region.

This is why I cannot be fooled by your recent mantra in your letter that President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan must rise above Ijaw beliefs or ethnic consideration as if President Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan fell from the sky– this is even as President Goodluck Jonathan has not done anything tangible for the Ijaw nation as is expected and as he should have done. The few Ijaw ministers still remaining in President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration were initially appointed into government by President Umar Yar Adua they are Deizani Allison-Madueke and Godsday Orubebe.

your record of impunity and Hitlerian tendencies were fully brought into play when you descended on fellow citizens placed under your care and protection by the constitution on which you took the oath of allegiance to protect; the people of Odi and Zakibiam are not different from the people of Damaturu, Maiduguiri or Bama. This Boko Haram scourge started under your watch and encouragement in 2012. You incubated it, so as to use as a vicious war head against succeeding governments, which was why you knew the homes of their leaders and embarked on a tragic journey to visit them. What was the outcome of this infamous journey?

as stated above, no Nigerian leader has been influenced to take any decision or advanced policy without primordial ethnic consideration? Why did IBB annul the June 12 election, adjudged to be the freest and fairest in Nigeria’s history? Was it not because he served the interests of the Gambari? Why have you singled out Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan to be sacrificed on the altar of ethnicity, sectional and bloody intrigues, designed to incite Nigerians against the Ijaws and his government? Is it because Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan is an Ijaw man or as you once described him - as a weak minority leader of Nigeria whose aspiration must be limited because he is an Ijaw man.

What often creates violence, especially in Africa is when unguarded utterances are made by well connected ethnic chauvinists that provoke untenable ethnic bickering, bad blood and insinuation of violence, amongst hitherto friendly people in a multi-plural state. I find your warning that PresidentGoodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan maybe the last Ijaw to rule Nigeria a little childish. I believe you think the Ijaws are far too small, too few and deeply insignificant to assert any ambition to rule Nigeria. The dream of Ijaws is not to rule Nigeria but to rule a country that is theirs – a truly great and free country that believes in the dignity of labour and the virtues of good leadership. If Ijaws won’t rule Nigeria then they must seek their own country, in line with universal principles of self- determination and rule ourselves because Ijaws won’t succumb to be made slaves- Never!

Therefore there is no gainsaying that Nigeria is a pseudo-nation of powerful ethnic, clannish and parochial interests, as shown by the gust of bitterness and ill feelings with which the North – Which you have joined to fight Goodluck Ebele Azikiwe Jonathan- awfully demonstrated when it resisted, fought and nearly frustrated His presidency.
I have met countless Heads of State, right from the days of military President Ibrahim Banbangida to you. I want you to know that none has the vaulting impudence and self-centeredness that you openly command. None is so ethnically flawed as you. Because as President you created billionaires from area boys, simply because they are your kit and kin, and made them the darlings of forbe’s list of billionaires – all from the stolen wealth of the Niger delta that you so artfully connered for eight years, as President and Minister of Petroleum. You attempted to pipe Niger delta oil and gas to Olokola, and create an LNG plant there. What influenced you in the siting of the LNG in Olokola if not ethnic and tribal considerations?

In a chat with Late President Ya’r adua’s special adviser on economic matters, Dr Tanimu Turaki, he told me your Olokola dream will not see the light of day, as it is an avenue to divert Niger Delta resources to the West – conceived and hatched under your control. What I find very intriguing however is your voodoo hypocrisy that you’ve always resisted sectional interests, etc. How many Ijaws has President Goodluck Jonathan empowered the way you empowered, stole and transferred the resources of the Niger delta to your Yoruba folks?

Finally, your evil plot to put me away before the 2015 general election failed in the Republic of Benin. insha Allahu I will be around to carry out the duties the almighty has assigned to me.

There is hardly any speech that you make nowadays without painting a vindictive and devious picture of my humble profile. A curious fact is the spate at which others- even former heads of states have joined you, in your point-blank black-mail of my person, and vexatious insinuations that I am capable of misleading President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. I find this very nauseating, traducing and embarrassing. Your reference to me in your letter to President Jonathan offers a full confirmation of your diabolical hatred for me that you exhibited long ago, when you tried to blackmail, intimidate and silent me with a treasonable felony charge and subjected me to an heroic trial and subsequent incarceration for nearly two years in several prison, detention centres and finally under solitary confinement at the state security underground dungeon for ten months and eleven days and – if you recall I refused to be brought under your influence even when you sought to break my spirit.
I end this piece by saying Allah is on my side. Despite your brutal attack on me, and plot to kill me, Allah has been my helper and has not abandoned me. Your blood-curdling incitement of the authorities of the Republic of Benin against me, at my exiled home, so as to have me docked, tried and sentenced for national security related offences replays what you did before. The fact that I escaped unhurt when all hope was lost is a pointer to my supernatural fortification, leading and protection. In your plot to have me sidelined, Allah used President Goodluck Jonathan to rescue me.
On this, I remain grateful to my Lawyer Barr Festus Keyamo, the Igbo and South-South Diaspora communities in the Republic of Benin and many others whose support and goodwill I enjoyed tremendously.

General Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo, I close this letter with the solemn pledge that our struggle is unstoppable.

Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo Asari

Alabo Edi Abali of Kalabari

Thursday, 2 January 2014

Edward Snowden: Person of the Year

By Margaret Kimberley

Edward Snowden mural. (Photo: Abode of Chaos)Edward Snowden is vilified as a “traitor” by politicians of the American political duopoly, and hunted like Public Enemy Number One by the global imperial apparatus. However, for a large proportion of Earthlings, Snowden has made the singular contribution to humanity of the year 2013.

Snowden is a living litmus test for people who claim to be progressives or supporters of our constitutional rights.

There is not very much democracy left in America, a country which endlessly brags about how democratic it is. Every now and again we are pleasantly surprised when the people and their interests are served instead of the 1% and their factotums in government. Those moments are few and far between but when they take place it is always because an individual decides to take on the system directly. In 2013 Edward Snowden was the person who risked his freedom to tell every human being with access to modern communications that they were under United States government surveillance.

Snowden was a cog in the very big machine of government defense contractors. Most Americans were not aware that the state intelligence apparatus has been privatized just like education, incarceration and nearly every other sector of society. There are more than 4 million people like Snowden. They have various levels of security clearances and they all have access to some parts of what ought to be private information regarding our lives.

The power of the National Security Agency (NSA) has grown by leaps and bounds ever since the terror attacks which took place on September 11, 2001. The Bush administration wasted no time in dismantling civil liberties and expanding government power through the Patriot Act. Every step he took was supported by both Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress and voices of dissent were too few and far between. Barack Obama made certain to not only keep those powers but to expand them beyond anything that Bush and Dick Cheney had imagined.

Snowden showed that the government not only keeps records of everyone’s phone calls and emails but does so with the help of social media and with every major cell phone carrier. Verizon and Sprint and ATT turn over whatever the government wants. Yahoo and AOL and Gmail are similarly acquiescent. Only Luddites escape the digital dragnet.

The Obama administration did everything in its power to silence Snowden.

Not only were individuals targeted but foreign governments as well. Even countries that are America’s allies like Brazil, France and Germany were under the spies’ microscope. The NSA wasn’t content to just spy randomly either. German chancellor Angela Merkel’s cell phone calls were monitored by the American government. Needless to say this revelation proved problematic for the president. He and Merkel had a heated discussion in which she compared the NSA to the infamous Stasiapparatus in her East German homeland. That moment was surely awkward.

It isn’t surprising that the Obama administration did everything in its power to silence Snowden, including cancelling his passport and even forcing the Bolivian president’s plane to land in the belief that Snowden was on board. Apparently an American’s right to seek asylum doesn’t exist if the president doesn’t want it to.

The Obama administration has been on the defensive from the moment the first revelations were made and when the Russian government granted Snowden temporary asylum, their panic only increased. NSA director James Alexander lied when called to congressional hearings about the extent of surveillance of Americans. Led by Republican Justin Amash, Congress came close, 217 votes to 205, todefunding the NSA domestic surveillance programs. When Glenn Greenwald, one of the journalists responsible for breaking the Snowden story, was scheduled to speak via teleconference before a bi-partisan congressional committee, the president who usually snubs the House of Representatives suddenly decided to show up that very day and forced a cancellation.

The government not only keeps records of everyone’s phone calls and emails but does so with the help of social media and with every major cell phone carrier.

Black m edia pundits have happily joined the Obama administration attack against Snowden. Most famously, Melissa Harris-Perry and Joy Anne Reid showed a willingness to throw Snowden, Wikileaks and the first amendment all under a bus so that Obama might be protected. Snowden is a living litmus test for people who claim to be progressives or supporters of our constitutional rights. There is now a sharply drawn line in the sand and we have Snowden to thank for it.

In recent days federal judge Richard J. Leon dealt a bit of a setback to the Obama administration. In a 68-page decision the judge held that the National Security Agency (NSA) policy of keeping metadata on the phone records of every American was “likely” unconstitutional. The judge also stayed his own injunction and gave the government an opportunity to appeal but this decision is pivotal and vindicates Snowden completely.

Ironically it was a conservative activist, Larry Klayman, whose suit was heard by judge Leon. Klayman argues that Obama is not an American citizen among other fringe right wing theories. He has long been a gadfly to Democratic presidents but his standing on the political spectrum shouldn’t be an issue. If Melissa Harris-Perry, Joy Anne Reid and their MSNBC colleagues were as progressive as they claim, they would have brought a suit against the president. Of course that kind of activism and careers in corporate media don’t mix.

The ruling shows that the need for government damage control is never ending. Edward Snowden continues to be attacked by the corporate media and politicians. The CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes presented a pro-NSA puff piec e which appeared coincidentally on the eve of Judge Leon’s ruling.

Snowden has beaten the Bush/Obama administration at its own game.

But outside of America Snowden is treated with all the respect he deserves. Legislators in the Brazilian government requested his help in determining the extent of spying in that country. In an open letter to the people of Brazil he explained that his inability to gain permanent asylum in any country makes it impossible for him to work freely as he would like.

Of course the corporate media twisted these simple and easily verified facts into a tale of treason. They falsely said that Snowden offered to spy for Brazil in exchange for being granted asylum. Brazil is among the many nations he asked for asylum but was denied because of pressure from the American government. Now he is being vilified because he again shows the extent of outrage around the world which is directed at the United States.

Edward Snowden succeeded where Chelsea Manning failed. Manning was caught and has succeeded only because the harsh treatment meted out against him shows the depravity of our government. Snowden has beaten the Bush/Obama administration at its own game and in so doing has given people another reason to be hopeful. That impact alone makes him the Person of t he Year.

TruthOut

Guess Who a Majority Of People Believe is the Biggest Threat to World Peace

By Emily Barasch

The news: The results of the Win/Gallup International’s Annual Global End of Year Survey show that a startling 24% of people questioned in 65 countries around the world believe the United States is the “biggest threat to world peace.”

Behind the U.S. is Pakistan (8%), China (6%), North Korea, Israel, and Iran (5%). It’s not surprising that Russia (54%) and China (49%) are the most fearful of the U.S., but countries like Australia (17%) and the UK (15%) also shared the sentiment.

Why? This result is likely due to the United States' heavily debated political and military interventions across the world — our presence is undoubtedly pervasive.

The U.S. has been in 11 major conflicts since 1908. The War on Terror has lasted since Sept. 11, 2001, and extends to this day across the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. As of 2010, the Department of Defense listed 611 military facilities around the world, excluding war zones. The U.S. also spent more on defense in 2012 than the countries with the next 10 highest defense budgets combined. In addition, with the revelations of Wikileaks, Chelsea Manning, and Edward Snowden, the extent of the America's intrusion has been exposed.

The big takeaway: In 2009, at the beginning of his presidency, Obama offered an olive branch to the Middle East with his now famous Egypt speech. Five years later, we’re still embroiled in several conflicts. 155 detainees remain imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. New NSA spying allegations seem to be announced daily, impacting our global reputation.

And yet, the poll also showed that America is the most desired country to live in. For those who would like to move, the survey showed that the U.S. (9% of respondents) is the most favored destination, with Canada and Australia both at 7%. It is a paradox that people want to live here but at the same time, an overwhelming majority question our capacity to be an agent of good. The U.S. gives $50 billion a year in aid to foreign countries, not to mention the countless American nonprofits working to make the world a better place. Our popular culture is consumed around the globe, but our presence in real-life situations is questioned. All this suggests that people believe some notion of “the American dream” exists, but only for Americans.

TruthOut