The Root Cause Of Boko Haram And Other Insurgent Groups In Nigeria

By Taiwo Adetiloye

Boko Haram (B-H) is predominant in the North Eastern part of Nigeria in states like Borno, Yobe and Adamawa. They have in the last half a decade or so, become the most dangerous insurgent group that Nigerians have witnessed. There fundamental ideology is “Western education is forbidden”. They are known to destructively attack churches, mosques, schools, police stations and government, private and public owned facilities with a kind of guerilla warfare tactics.
In this writing, attempt is made to use the Five W’s and one H questions whose answers are considered basic in information-gathering to identify the root cause of B-H and other minor insurgent groups in Nigeria. It is hope that it will assist the relevant organs of the Nigeria government, in particular our security agencies and other concerned citizens of the world to salvage the situation before it becomes absolutely late. The author of this writing has no connection whatsoever with any notorious groups and like any concerned citizens of the world only deems it fit to air his views.
So we begin:
Part 1:
Who is B-H?
From the earlier introduction, it can be simply put that Boko Haram is an insurgent terrorist organization that belong to a much larger terrorist network. In a broader definition, Boko Haram can be said to be an individual be it a part of government or otherwise that is insensitive to the plight of the common man and possesses the weaponry to inflict hardships on the populace. The broader definition is a paraphrase of the statement by the current Nigeria President, Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), who once clearly stated that B-H are also in the Nigeria government including his cabinet.
What has B-H caused Nigeria?
B-H have claimed responsibilities for over a thousand deaths of mostly Nigerians. The terror group have also caused damages going into millions worth of properties, the aftermath which are severe economic losses and lives lost.
Why B-H?
It is relatively easy to say that B-H believe that western education is forbidden. However, a critical look at the “Why B-H?” question with perhaps the 5-why technique can be juxtaposed with the analogy of a man who goes to the supermarket to buy some tomatoes for his night meal. He assumedly trust the new salesman so well to do what is right that he just paid for his tomatoes and left. On getting home, he discovered that the tomatoes were all in near rotten state. He, then, hurriedly went back to the store to make a complaint and ask for refund. Alas, the salesman denied his tomatoes were rotten and even swore and, of course, he refused to give him back his money. Supposedly while all these was going on, there stood a policeman who witnessed the best part of the events, but had been bribed and weakened to the extent that he can only compromise or subvert justice in favor of the salesman such that at the end of the ding dong arguments between the two and the seemly partial security agent, the man left in sadness.
Before I conclude the “why B-H?”, I like to draw attention to the fact that a few developed countries of the world like Canada, Japan and Singapore with well-established rule of law do not have terror groups. In these countries, elections are free, fair and credible with elections results released within hours after their citizens’ votes. In Nigeria, the opposite is the case and not to talk of how much guts the ruling party and the sitting president have to wage their way and retain power by  rigging elections using sinister manipulative means.
Part 2: The root cause of Boko Haram and other Insurgent groups in Nigeria.
When did B-H come about?
When there exist wide gap between the rich and the poor, there comes a breaking-point where there is bound to be a class conflict that materializes in various forms of revolution such as  the Arab spring, Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND), Biafra and others. It can be said that whenever the rich man living inside his mansion peeps out his glass window, he sees the poor man living outdoors. The poor man looks up and wish he could at least have a small shelter, get if possible one meal a day and have a cloth from the rich man. On the other hand, the singular wish of the rich man is never to lose his wealth and become a pauper. It is reasonable then to have something close to a mid-point between these two desires such that neither have to worry about the other.
In Nigeria, the case has been years of economic stagnation in a country blessed with great natural resources enough to cater for everyone but for which few elites preposterously accrued to themselves and their cronies the wealth of the nation. There are so many examples to garner from the history of Nigeria since independence on the elitist lifestyles of most Nigerian leaders from past till present. The gravities of their doings have brought the nation to its present horrific status quo where B-H is now a big issue to chew. The worrisome part is the insensitivity of the current ruling government to the plight of the common man and its failure to learn from history.
When people begin to build great walls around their homes then it a first augury of what not to come next. So what else can be said when the Abacha family stole over $550 million and the federal government (FG) under President GEJ rubbed their shoulders and shook their hands with a centenary award? What can be said when a Stella Oduah as an aviation minister walked free after she lied about her certificate aside the revelation of purchasing expensive bullet proof cars not in her ministry’s allocated budget while during her period the aviation sector became a death-trap? What else can be as unfair as when our political office holders in the senate are the highest paid people’s representative in the world? What else ought to be said when a presidential spokesman in person of Dr. Doyin Okupe, a man who never experienced hardship in his entire life, goes public at the slightest opportunity to polish the image of the president with misleading statements such as over one-million invisible and unverifiable jobs that have been created since inception?
What happens when the coordinating and finance minister, Dr. Ngozi Iweala, a Harvard trained economist that has worked with the World Bank goes to a youth gathering at UK Ted-Ex to do an “I go chop your money” dance parade ridiculing her nation in front of the global community? This woman even oversimplified the pronouncements of the World Bank that Nigeria stands amongst the extremely poor nations of the world; for an oil rich nation where over 80% sleep in total night darkness and many result to buying expensive gasoline to fuel their air-polluting generators? What ensues when government officials incapable of governance fail to honorably tender their resignations all for the sake of greed? What else can surface when the President has a fleet of over 10 planes that run on tax payers’ money? What follows when a Petroleum minister, Alison Madueke, spent N10 billion on private jets for foreign trip extravaganzas while there are no satisfactorily performing refineries to boast?
And, what about when the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) together with the Independent and Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) can be better said to have been cleverly substituted by the efforts of the FG at carpeting corruptions amidst the insensitive and corrupt presidential cabinet? The believers can help expand their prayers to God to save Nigeria from the Government B-H plus the ones hiding in the Country’s North-east forests and hills.

Jonathan’s Presidency Arrogant And Confused, Says Nyako

By SaharaReporters, New York

Adamawa state governor, Murtala Nyako has replied today’s reaction of President Goodluck Jonathan over a memo sent to Northern Governors by Nyako.
Nyako in a statement via his spokesman, Ahmad Sajoh said the Presidency is arrogant and confused and inept in tackling security challenges of the country.
Below is the full statement:
The response by the Presidency to Governor Nyako's memo to Northern Governors has further proved that those running the Federal Government are arrogant and confused. They arrogate all knowledge and wisdom to themselves alone. We hold the statements we released as true and challenge those who claim to have a sense of history to cut-off the use of jaundiced semantics to address the issues raised in this and several other documents before it. By telling black lies about the attack on Governor Nyako which was never investigated no acertaind, the Presidency is providing further proof that it knows more than it is willing to admit in the whole saga. Feeding the public with untruth is becoming a new culture in Abuja. The statement on the supposed rescue of the abducted girls is enough to prove that. It is a pity that responsible and supposedly educated people could manufacture statements and attribute them to others just to create an escape route from their glaring failures. None of the statements attributed to Governor Nyako by the Presidency were ever made by him. They were all manufactured for lack of a sound counter argument.
If indeed the Presidency is not complacent about the killings in the country how come the President went dancing a day after several citizens were killed in Abuja? If they claim that Nyako does not deserve to be Governor, are they fit to be where they are? When we say the Boko Haram phenomenon is phantom we are talking based on several testimonies by the President. At one point he said there are Boko Haram in his Government, at another point he said they are ghosts he cannot dialogue with ghosts, yet recently he admitted that the young poverty stricken persons so far arrested cannot afford the guns they carry. And we say to them you have full command and control of the Armed Forces and Security outfits with all the Intelligence units, investigate their activities, expose their patrons, sponsors and strategic commanders and arrest them. We also challenge them to expose their sources of arms. We still repeat the earlier questions we raised.
1.      How come the insurgents move about unchallenged at night in our states under so called emergency rule when we have a night time curfew in place?
2. How come the insurgents operate for many hours unchallenged when we have military units all over the place? 3. How come the insurgents move with a large convoy of vehicles through routes that have 24 hours military check points? 4. How come statements by the Presidency and other authorities in Abuja are always at variance with realities on ground at the theatres of conflict? We want answers not insults or empty rhetoric.
3.       On the issue of creating divisions among the people, no one does it better than a Presidency that urges its backers to direct its people to implicate innocent Northerners in Bombings they know nothing of, or one whose known official uses online sources to implicate someone it chooses to hate for no just cause. This Presidency also encourages some of its spokespersons to speak ill of certain persons and religion without a reprimand. This is the most divisive leadership in the history of this country and it also the most desperate to cling to power even at the cost of several lives of innocent citizens. Unfortunately it is also the most inept, confused, greedy, corrupt and incompetent regime ever.
4.       On the corruption mantra, while the Presidency is fond of asking Governors to account for allocations given, we challenge them to live by the same token, declare what you got and account for it. After all we now have proof that certain projects which are not executed have been announced as completed such as the Hong to Mubi road in our state which the Minister of Information announced its execution at their Bauchi Rally. Meanwhile, someone should help us ask the President under what Budget sub-head did he get the money he allegedly gave Governor Kwankwaso to bribe delegates to vote for him which was allegedly diverted. We think rather than vent their venom in insulting people, presidential spokespersons and media managers should do better by re-focusing the man to be more open minded and competent in grappling with the myriad  of challenges facing the nation.

2015: Governors give PDP, Jonathan three conditions

 by: Yusuf Alli

Protest votes threat rocks ruling party over automatic tickets, others

Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors have given three conditions to back President Goodluck Jonathan’s yet-unannounced re-election bid.

The conditions are:

•allowing outgoing governors to choose their successors;

•automatic second term tickets for those running first term in office; and

•automatic senatorial seats for governors aspiring to be in the Senate.

Although Jonathan is set to emerge the sole presidential candidate of the PDP, all is not well within the party on how to meet the demands of the governors, a source told The Nation.

Some of the governors are threatening protest votes in their states if they are not allowed to have their way.

PDP National Chairman Adamu Muazu is said to be battling to manage the situation.

Muazu, who is opposed to automatic tickets, has to devise means of accommodating the agitation of the governors, a source said.

Of the 36 states, PDP has 18 governors. APC has 16 governors. APGA and Labour Party have one apiece.

Some of the governors believed to have senatorial ambition in 2015 or being prevailed upon to go to the upper chamber are Liyel Imoke of Cross River; Theodore Orji (Abia); Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom) ; Sullivan Chime (Enugu); Martins Elechi (Ebonyi); Gabriel Suswam (Benue); Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta); Babangida Aliyu(Niger); Ibrahim Shema (Katsina); Saidu Dakingari (Kebbi); Jonah Jang(Plateau); and Isa Yuguda(Bauchi)

Those seeking second term are Henry Seriake Dickson(Bayelsa); Ramalan Yero(Kaduna); Ibrahim Dankwabo (Gombe); Idris Wada( Kogi)- when due; Acting Governor Garba Umar ( Taraba);

There has been disquiet in the party on the demands of the governors.

A governor said: “All the governors are united in their demands to have a say on who will succeed them and second term tickets for their colleagues who still have the opportunity of another term in office.

“They said if the President can enjoy automatic second term ticket, it should spread across the board.

“The party is thinking that such a development will shut out other good hands in the party.

“But most of us do not buy into that argument at all. We believe whatever is sauce for the goose ought to be sauce for the gander.”

Responding to a question, the source said: “The likelihood of realignment of forces and protest votes cannot be ruled out.”

Another governor said there was no way the party would not make concessions to allow the second term ticket of the President to sail through.

“The PDP leadership may say there is no automatic ticket but there will certainly be negotiations to make certain things to work. Mark my words, the PDP governors cannot allow Jonathan to have his way without anything in return. This is politics,” said the governor, who requested not to be named.

“We are back to the 2003 era when ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo wanted the second term ticket. Governors want to be politically relevant after leaving office and fairness demands some concessions.

“We have been making our demands known to the party. We hope it will accommodate these agitations to keep the party intact for 2015 poll.”

The National Publicity Secretary of PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, was unavailable last night. His mobile lines were switched off.

But the National Chairman of PDP, Alhaji Adamu Muazu had on January 28 declared at the National Assembly that there would be no automatic tickets for members seeking offices in 2015.

Muazu spoke at a session with PDP members in the National Assembly.

At the meeting were Uduaghan, Imoke, Shema, Yero, Aliyu and Orji.

Muazu said automatic tickets were only given by parties that were undemocratic.

“We have a democratic process and we will go through that; those that deserve it will surely get it,” he said.

Muazu stressed that he inherited no records of any promise made by the immediate past national chairman of the party, Bamanga Tukur, of giving automatic ticket to any member.

A member of the NWC, who spoke last night, said: “Neither Muazu nor PDP has changed its position; there will be no automatic ticket for any member in 2015.

“I can tell you that our position against automatic ticket has not changed.”

TheNation

Putting Back the Fight Against Terrorism on the Rails, By Muhammadu Buhari

Former head of State, Muhammadu Buhari

Sinister terror and hatred have again reached from the shadows to steal the lives of innocent Nigerians.  In Nyanya, seventy-two people were killed by a car bomb. Hundreds more were injured in the devastation.  Their killings served no purpose except for those who exalt in evil. The bomb blast quickly came and went like the deadly thief it was; but we shall be left to endure the pain and loss from this terrible act for a long time to come.

What the nation lost is irreplaceable.  The number 72 seems like just another grim tally among the death statistics that have become all too common.  But what occurred is much more than that. We must really stop and take notice of where evil is attempting to drive us to. The abduction of over one hundred school girls is unacceptable, condemnable and saddens me greatly.

We cannot allow these merchants of death to make us numb to the tragedy they manufacture.  Those who were killed were not merely numbers on a page. They were human beings, made of flesh and blood body and soul like all the rest of us. They were someone’s father or mother, brother or sister. They had parents; they were someone’s child. They were husbands or wives, neighboring friends and colleague. They had dreams and hopes. They were loved and loved others in return. Now, life has been taken away and those who cared from them must bear a grief no person should be asked to carry.

These people committed no wrong. Their only crime was to be ordinary working class people seeking to eke out a livelihood and tend for themselves and their families. For this, they were killed.

They represent the backbone of the working people. Not many of them lived an easy life. Most worked hard and long for modest wages. They lifted themselves up every morning to earn their daily bread. They faced the many social and economic challenges and obstacles our society poses, yet they worked not to destroy but to make this a better place by bettering the lives of their family and loved ones.

These people lived anonymously and died the same way. We do not yet know their names. But, in a fundamental sense, we know who they were. They were part of us. They shared the same aspirations we all do. We seek an improved fate for our children and hope to leave them a better life. We want to work and live in dignity and respect.  We want a life of peace and harmony with our neighbors regardless of religion, ethnicity or background. We seek prosperity not poverty. We seek brotherly understanding not strife. We seek peace, not bombs.

It was not just 72 people who were taken in this depraved assault.  Each of us lost something that day. Yet, despite the loss and suffering, we must not cower in fear, and let the purveyors of death believe they have scored a victory over us.

Those who committed this act have declared war on all that is decent and good. They have declared war not against the state or even the government. They have declared war on Nigeria and all Nigerians because this murder took men and women, old and young, Christian and Muslim alike. In trying to scare, frighten and divide us, the evildoers committed injury to their own cause. For they have shown us that we all suffer inhumanity in the same way.

No matter our religion or place of birth, we all bleed and are wounded the same way by injustice. Decency runs through the teachings of each religion and ethnic group that comprise the people of Nigeria.

We may have our differences, but the vast majority of Nigerians stand united against the appalling violence committed in Nyanya and other places.

These acts have no place in Nigeria. Those who commit them have no place in our country.  The perpetrators may look like human beings. They may have limbs and faces like the rest of us but they are not like us.

In killing innocent people, they have become inhuman. They live outside the scope of humanity. Their mother is carnage and their father is cruelty. They have declared war against the people of Nigeria. They have shown that they do not want to liberate the people. They want to kill them. Yet, with all the energy of their evil and ignorant hatred, they shall fail. The good people of Nigeria shall triumph.

Such a wicked mission shall not succeed. We have gone too far in our journey to nationhood and endured too much to allow these terrible acts to divert us.

Not only have these agents of death killed innocent people, they also abducted over 100 young women from their school. Why abduct school girls? Whatever they plan, they should be ready to face the wrath of Nigerian people. They should release these young girls unharmed. Anything else would be an abominable crime.

We all must take close heed at this moment and recognize the severity of what is upon us. A small minority seeks to bring the nation to its knees through terror. Thus, we must stand tall and united. We can ill afford to allow their crimes to go unpublished united.

I call on the government to improve and redefine its strategy in the light of this expanding menace.  Clearly, its intelligence gathering needs to be improved so that it can break terrorist plots before they hatch.  Moreover, it needs to enact greater social and economic reform in the blighted areas of the nation to win the hearts and minds of the people.

Give the youth a viable alternative and they will not be duped by the lure of extremist dogma. A major initiative with immediate and long-term strategies for mass employment should be introduced right away.

Nigeria must and will overcome this scourge but it cannot do so merely by wishful thinking. We need wise and decisive strategy.

As for me and my party, we deplore and condemn these and all such attacks. Those who commit them must know that the nation stands four square against them.

While we are engaged in tight political competition against the ruling party, we shall not play politics on this issue so vital to our national survival and wellbeing.

We pledge ourselves to the unity and safety of this nation and shall do nothing to undermine national security.  We seek no political advantage from this calamity and wish the present administration success in fighting it.

We stand ready to help in any meaningful and productive way to fight this battle against evil.  We extend our hand and earnest offer of cooperation in this regard.

Nigeria and Nigerians have suffered enough. Those who now lead the nation and those who would lead her must overlook political differences to find whatever ways we can cooperate to make this a safer, more secure nation for all.

Thank you and May God Bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

General Muhammadu Buhari, GCFR was one time Nigerian Head of State and a former presidential candidate.

PremiumTimes

Our Stand: This State Has Failed

Leadership Editors

It’s about time we admitted it: Nigeria has become a failed state. For the past 10 years, the signs of collapse have been visible but the picture has been progressively clearer since 2011. About a third of the country’s land mass has been under emergency rule for the past one year for reasons that are glaring also in at least another third of the country including the Federal Capital Territory: mass murders, kidnapping for ransom, daylight armed robberies, breakdown of law and order, and unrestrained stealing of public funds.

Several authorities identify a failed state as one that can no longer perform its basic duties in such areas as security, power, eradication of poverty, education and job creation. Even the Nigerian constitution recognises that the reason for government’s existence is protection of life and property as well as maintenance of law and order. Events of the past few years indicate that Nigeria has since exceeded the minimum requirements for classification as a failed state.

Currently, the nation is still in grief following the massacre of over 100 people and injuring of more than 200 others by a bomb planted by terrorists in an overcrowded motor park in the nation’s capital city on Monday. On the night of the same Monday, Boko Haram, which has been working together with international terrorist groups al-Shabab and al-Qaeda, seized about 100 female students from a school in Chibok, near the Sambisa Forest in Borno State, after shooting dead a soldier and a policeman guarding them. Meanwhile, scores of young women abducted in the state since February are yet to be found.  A few weeks ago, all schools in Borno State were closed; the latest kidnap victims had been recalled to take their senior secondary exams.

No day has passed in the past weeks without a tale of one horrendous atrocity or the other committed by the bloodthirsty hoodlums. Is it the mass murder of students in their sleep? Is it the kidnap of married and unmarried girls for use as sex slaves and cooks? Is it the invasion of military barracks and sack of police stations? Mosques, churches, villages, banks and farms have come under the terrorists’ fire without challenge from those paid to provide security of life and property.

After each act of terror, the Nigerian president, Dr Goodluck Jonathan, has made promises that he has never fulfilled. Time and again, he has set deadlines for ending the terror threat but he has always defaulted. The number of Nigerians killed in the Boko Haram war is inching towards 7, 000, and, with the security situation worsening, more than one million Nigerians have been forced to live in makeshift camps after they have been sacked by insurgents.

And so, we ask again: what is a failed state? In this same country, 6 million university graduates applied for 4, 000 job slots in the Immigration Service. Almost 800, 000 of them were invited for an interview during which 23 of them died as a result of stampedes at some centres. That tragedy of March 15 belies the official figures of the country’s unemployment and poverty rates–24 and 70 per cent respectively. Even though these figures are still very high, it is known that they were the outcome of guess work. Common sense dictates that the joblessness rate is closer to 80 per cent while the poverty rate is closer to 95 per cent. Has a state in which these exist not failed? World Bank president Jim Kim did not mince words in declaring, penultimate week, that Nigeria is one of the countries where extreme poverty exists.

Our country has, in recent years, always featured on the list of the  world’s failed or failing states. In its Failed States Index 2013 released recently, for instance, The Fund for Peace (FFP) ranks the country 16th out of 178 countries. It is only a few points looking better than war-torn Somalia that is ranked first. So are DR Congo, the Sudans, Chad and Afghanistan. But, even in these other countries, innocent people and children don’t get killed with the reckless abandon we have seen lately in this country. And school girls don’t get kidnapped in the numbers we have been witnessing in Nigeria. No wonder the country performed poorly on all indicators used by the FFP: mounting demographic pressure, movement of refugees or internally displaced persons, vengeance-seeking group grievance, human flight, uneven economic development, poverty or severe economic decline, legitimacy of the state, progressive deterioration of services, violation of human rights, security apparatus, rise of factionalised elites and intervention of external actors.

As the State of Emergency imposed on the three states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa expires this Saturday, President Jonathan should not attempt to extend it, unless he wishes to extend it to a larger part of the country. The leaders of the three states have made it clear that they won’t welcome an extension. After all, the entire nation is in emergency already, as clearly shown in the war with terrorists in the north, and the failed amnesty programme in the Niger Delta leading to the militants’ resumption of hostilities; armed robbers and kidnappers rule the roost in the south-west and the south-east. No doubt, the theatre of war now covers the entire country.

The Jonathan regime has demonstrated a frightening incompetence in the handling of the state’s affairs. It is now beyond doubt that the regime is incapable of protecting the people. This government cannot even protect Nigerians from the next attack or even the following day’s attacks. Before the latest kidnap of school girls in Chibok, nobody seemed to have been looking for or even as much as discussing those kidnapped earlier. All Nigerians now live in extreme fear.

When a state has failed, it should not be left to be propped up by failed leaders and failed politicians. But nothing is unstoppable. This trajectory can still be reversed before it is too late. That is why statesmen must speak up now!

Habiba abubakar urges Generals to overthrow President Jonathan

The multiple award winning United National Ambassador, Hajia Habiba Abubakar has lashed at President Jonathan for taking a trip to Kano State while Nigeria was mourning the death of more than 70 and abduction of more than 100 innocent Nigerians.

Speaking with Naija Center News (NCN) She said: “I Say Goodluck Jonathan is Insane over 2015 Elections that nothing matters to him any more.“Goodluck Jonathan is a disaster to Nigeria as a whole. 200 People bombed in Abuja, 200 young children taken in their sleep to unknown destination and yet this PDP heartless leader could still go out campaigning and even dancing.”

She called on Nigerian Generals, Major Generals, Air Marshall, Admirals to do everything within their powers to overthrow Jonathan’s administration, who she said does not have feelings for its people. Habiba said that President Jonathan is heartless, careless for the common man in Nigeria and gradually turning Nigeria into Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sudan and Somalia.

“Where are those Nigerian Generals, and Major Generals, Air-visa Marshall, rare Admirals please come out and over throw this government who has no feelings for its people, who careless about the common man in Nigeria, please come and over throw this government who are heartless, they are slowly turning Nigeria in to Pakistan, Afghanistan , Sudan and Somalia”, she said.

She berated the President for dancing in Kano while Nigeria was heartbroken. “Look at them dancing in Kano, they dare not go to Kano alone they had to import people from neighbouring States to make it look they are welcomed, funny. This people are animals first class with their big stomachs full of evil dancing!! Did you hear me dancing!!!!!!!

Three people were short in a School in America, Obama was on air condoling the families,and offering support to the community, cancelled all his plans for the day to pay respect to them, but Jonathan and his people are dancing in Kano."

"Boko Haram: Retract accusation against me and apologize or face legal action, Buhari tells PDP"

GMB issues the PDP and it's thugs a deadline, I am suing next week

A former head of state and a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, has issued a seven-day ultimatum to the PDP to retract its wild accusation linking him with the Boko Haram terrorist acts, tender an unreserved public apology to him or face a legal action.

In a statement he personally signed in Kaduna on Thursday Gen. Buhari said: ''I cannot sit back and allow my image, and that of my political party be smeared by falsehood in the name of politics.''

He said the widely publicized and very serious allegations made against him by the PDP and its spokesman, Olisa Metuh, to the effect that his utterances were responsible for the current state of insecurity and terrorism bedeviling Nigeria, were absolutely without basis

''To support his claim, Mr. Metuh engaged in twisted logic and outright distortion - which he called facts - in which he said that I, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, beckoned on my 'supporters to go on lynching spree' should I lose the 2011 presidential election, as a result of which 'an unprecedented violence broke out claiming the lives of hundreds of innocent people.

''I take very serious exception to this grave accusation against me by the PDP Publicity Secretary. It is a false allegation aimed at tarnishing my image and reputation in the hope of destroying my political and electoral standings, and that of my party, the APC, in the country.

''Firstly, it is public knowledge that Boko Haram as a terror organization long preceded the 2011 presidential elections. My utterances or lack of them on the 2011 presidential election could not therefore have created nor sustained the Boko Haram insurgency.

''Secondly, the PDP Government of President Goodluck Jonathan constituted the Sheikh Ahmed Lemu Panel of Inquiry to investigate and report on the post-election violence in some parts of the country. The panel discharged its duties within its terms of reference and
submitted its Report to the President. This Report was accepted by government and a Whitepaper issued. Nowhere in that Report, a product of thorough investigation of that unfortunate incident, was I mentioned in the remotest way to have uttered a word or acted in any form or manner that sparked off the violence. If I had, certainly that investigation would have uncovered it. The truth is that I had not.

''Thirdly, 2011 was not the first time I contested a presidential election and was declared defeated, it was the third! If I had had no cause to 'beckon on my supporters to go on lynching spree' in the two previous occasions, I would have had no cause to change in 2011 – and I did not,'' Gen. Buhari said.

The APC chieftain sald the PDP National Publicity Secretary also deliberately misquoted the interview he gave in Hausa on May 14, 2012 in which he said the opposition was determined to fight in the 2015 elections.

''I used the Hausa idiom ‘Kare jini, Biri jini’, which is a metaphor for a very tough fight. But, like the Islamic fundamentalist toga they falsely put on me because they cannot impinge on my personal and professional integrity, PDP apologists deliberately twisted this idiom to mean I called for violence.

''I am not a violent person and, other than my professional calling as a soldier, I have never associated with violence, I abhor violence and have never advocated it. I have always been a law abiding person who insists on due process and the rule of law in all my private and
public affairs.

''It is therefore a grave infraction to my person, personality and integrity that such a false and malicious accusation is being leveled against me by the PDP. This is dangerous politics by the ruling party and it must stop forthwith,'' Gen. Buhari said.

General Muhammadu Buhari GCFR
Kaduna, Thursday 17 March, 2014