BOKO HARAM, REVEALED: It Was PDP That Promised To Make Nigeria Ungovernable in 2011, Buhari Never Did!

For the record and your information, I, the author am definitely never PDP, but I am not APC either. I will only support the best human beings from whichever party they emanate. I am totally not a political animal; I am averse to democratic politics. The only party I ascribe to as yet and have invested thought and finance in is SNP. So for those taken to lies and slander, you can call me a paid whatever and APC author all you care, you will know deep inside that you do not even succeed in fooling yourself. My people, have never been in power, and I do not care and ever see power coming to my people. Now let’s proceed.

There are several important points to be presented here. Best highlighted:

1. Major General Muhammadu Buhari never said he will make Nigeria ungovernable in 2011 in any public format

2. It was a PDP politician, Alhaji Lawal Kaita who actually said Nigeria would be ungovernable if Jonathan became president in 2011.

3. It was Jonathan’s media spokesman, Reuben Abati who sat down and largely concocted the slanderous libel against Buhari’s name in April 2011.

4. General Muhammadu Buhari took Reuben Abati to court for damaging his name.

5. The Jonathan Presidency begged Major General Buhari to settle the case with Reuben Abati and the Guardian out of court.

6. General Buhari obliged and settled out of court. Reuben Abati with The Guardian published an unreserved apology to Buhari in the Guardian of 11th July, 2013.

7. Late General Azazi referred to the PDP “ungovernable” crises and anger that did actually lead to Boko Haram terror franchise hired by the PDP.

These are amazing facts which I have been shocked to discover since I paid attention to this matter.

To imagine that the PDP can know that Buhari never made this statement and that they (the PDP Presidency) begged and apologized for it, yet all they did was kept Reuben silent and threw out other canines, Metuh and co, to continue right where Reuben stopped, is some of the most sick and evil stuff one can encounter or ever imagine. All this against the elderly, respectable General, because they see it as a fancy tool to generate animosity against their strongest single adversary… as a tool to hold on to power?

It is one thing to fabricate a lie against someone. It is another thing to transplant an evil of your doing unto a person who you know is innocent. That is the most evil, evil in the books in my humble view. This precisely is what PDP did and continues to do. Buhari was nearly bombed to death and the dogs continue to utter their putrid trash and invented slanderous concoctions against the poor elderly gentleman. It is frankly satanic. He is such a compassionate gentleman, no joke, if it was me who had all the facts you will read below, I would have been all over the place letting the truth be known and getting the slanderous liars locked up forever.

╝A Timeline of Lies and Slander:

 Major General Muhammadu Buhari never said he will make Nigeria ungovernable in 2011 in any public format

Point number one needs no referencing. I’ve done the research tons of times. Since I wrote my article, “Now that Nigeria is ungovernable, what next,” on the 15th of March, 2014 [http://ends.ng/?p=679], no one has commented and refuted my results. Buhari never in any public media threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable in 2011. That is final fact. Nothing more need be said.

 It was a PDP politician, Alhaji Lawal Kaita who actually said Nigeria would be ungovernable if Jonathan became president in 2011.
It was a PDP politician, Alhaji Lawal Kaita, who is quoted to have said,

“The North is determined if it happens, to make Nigeria ‘ungovernable’ for President Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy.”

The big problem was in PDP. When Yar’Adua died, PDP northern politicians wanted power to stay in the north and as such they insisted that Jonathan should not succeed him. It was PDP politicians and only PDP politicians who threatened to make Nigeria ungovernable if Jonathan emerged the party nominee and ascended to the presidency that will make the nation ungovernable, which they did. And Jonathan knew this and know them full well. He eats and dines with them but has watched us die in our thousands and lose our farming land and livelihood whole he has not brought a single one of them to book. He protects and goes to bed with them so long as they focus the ungovernability on the north. One now understand why Jonathan’s best man, former PDP Chairman and now appointed Railway head, Bamanga Tukur famously said that Boko Haram was fighting for justice and another name for justice. It’s an in house thing. Boko Haram became an invaluable tool to be hired and utilized by the party, and to be sustained as a weapon of slander against party opponents. It helped to galvanize votes by nurturing strange harmony in extremists and religious fanatics, especially northophobes who never cared to study the truth. (Truths like- northerners select southerners like Obasanjo or support Middle Belt Christians like Gowon into power; and truth like; why will northerners bomb up their own home-land and purposely destroy their chief resource – farming – to make a point).

 It was Jonathan’s media spokesman, Reuben Abati who sat down and largely concocted the slanderous libel against Buhari’s name in April 2011.

It was Reuben Abati of The Guardian; that our friend, that spun the yarn about Buhari. It was Reuben that sat one dark night and concocted the malicious slanderous tales, rerouting the PDP terror statement to Buhari’s person. Reuben capitalized on our sectarianism, knowing full well that to most of us, one Hausa, or Fulani man was just the same as another Hausa or Fulani(to be more correct) man. Knowing that we had heard the statement made by PDP’s Kaita, and with Buhari’s “Baboon and Gorilla” Hausa adage with which he did promise that if what happened in 2011 repeated in 2015 (note the year), the Nigeria would witness a people’s upheaval; Reuben manufactured a tale one April night in 2011 and published this in the Guardian. It was captioned, “For the attention of general Buhari.” This was the article that was well buffered to make many careless Nigerians jump on the evil and satanic bandwagon of Buhari accusers. I have again fully well described Reuben for who he is and what he did and how he did it, in the recent past. See: “Reuben Abati: Nigeria’s Most Evil Genius?” [http://ends.ng/?p=1252]

 General Muhammadu Buhari took Reuben Abati to court for damaging his name.

Of course, like anyone of us would, Buhari did not fancy this and he promised to take Reuben and the Guardian to court, and he did. Buhari took them to court for libel and slander. ‘Usual suspect’ General Muhammadu Buhari’s lawyers threatened to sue the President of Nigeria’s spokesperson, Reuben Abati in a letter sent on the 11th of July, 2011 for “inventing libelous” allegations against the person of the ex-President, accusing him of instigating post-election violence. The letter was sent on behalf of General Buhari by Harrison Ogalagu for his lawyer, Tope Adebayo. The accusations had been made against him in Rueben’s Guardian newspaper publication. [See: Post Election Violence: Buhari Threatens To Sue Reuben Abati For Libel; SaharaReporters, Jul, 17 2011]

 The Jonathan Presidency begged Major General Buhari to settle the case with Reuben Abati and the Guardian out of court.

This is hard to believe but true. It was in all major news media. The Jonathan Presidency did beg General Muhammadu Buhari to settle out of court. And the noble man that Buhari is; he accepted. When this was happening, many of us read it but did not really realize what matter it was about – that it was about the great tarnishing of General Buhari’s name. It was in different media under the various captions – “Presidency begs Buhari to settle slander case out of court,” in DailyPost [http://dailypost.ng/2013/01/13/presidency-begs-buhari-to-settle-slander-case-out-of-court/], and “Presidency Begs Buhari To Settle Abati Libel Suit Out Of Court,” in Leadership, etc.

Here’s a quote from leadership:

“The presidency has convinced former head of state General Muhammadu Buhari to settle out of court the libel suit he had initiated against the special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Dr Reuben Abati.

Abati had on page 51 of the April 22, 2011, edition of The Guardian newspaper, written an opinion article entitled “For the attention of General Buhari”. In it, he claimed that Buhari made an inciting statement which led to the post-election violence that rocked some parts of the north.

The former presidential candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), however, regarded the publication as defamatory, intended to lower his integrity and to bring him into public ridicule. Buhari consequently dragged Abati and The Guardian to court via suit no. ID/837/2011 and demanded N1billion damages from them.

But in a copy of the Terms of Settlement exclusively obtained by LEADERSHIP SUNDAY and filed before a Lagos High Court in Ikeja, the parties have agreed to settle the matter out of court.”

But after begging Buhari to make little of it, Reuben just shut up thereafter and the other Presidency’s men went right on with the very same slander. Buhari being the gentleman, in fact over-gentlemanly, that he is, just sits back and watches these young desperate people secure their positions in hell for a little penny. It’s really stunning and terribly sad.

 General Buhari obliged and settled out of court. Reuben Abati with The Guardian published an unreserved apology to Buhari in the Guardian of 11th July, 2013.

And here is the post-settlement publication and retraction by The Guardian and Reuben Abati:

GUARDIAN Re: For the attention of General Buhari
Thursday, 11 July 2013 00:00 Editor

SIR: “On April 22, 2011, The Guardian Newspaper published an article on page 51 titled “For the attention of General Buhari” wherein certain allegations were made against General Muhammadu Buhari’s alleged role in the violence emanating from the elections.
The publication was based on information which we believed to be reliable at that time. Since the publication, however, we now have reason to believe that certain parts of the story were not verified to be correct before the publication.

We assure General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) GCFR of our highest esteem and regret any distress or embarrassment which the said publication may have caused him.” — Editor

http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=126723%3Are-for-the-attention-of-general-buhari-&catid=77%3Aletters&Itemid=613#.Ud6sCDHgyY4.facebook

 Late General Azazi referred to the PDP “ungovernable” crises and anger that did actually lead to Boko Haram terror franchise hired by the PDP.

Of course, we all remember what made NSA General Andrew Azazi a most-wanted and the things he said before he was killed in that helicopter crash. Andrew Azazi occupied the position of the top security man in Nigeria. No one else will be privy to information on the truth of Boko Haram as the head of nation’s security. Andrew Azazi clearly knew and could not take it. He spilled the beans. And he was martyred for it. Boko Haram died when Yar’Adua destroyed them. That was the end of Boko Haram. What remained was some scampering thugs without path or finance.

But as Andrew Azazi explained to us before he was martyred; these rag tags “suddenly got sophistication and finance” as a result of PDP zoning and primary power tussles. In Azazi’s words:

“PDP got it wrong from the beginning, from the on-set by saying Mr A can rule, Mr A cannot rule, Mr B can rule, Mr B cannot rule, according to PDP’s convention, rules and regulation and not according to the constitution {applause} and that created the climate for what has manifest itself, this way. I believe that there is some element of politicization. Is it possible that somebody was thinking that only Mr. A could win, and if he did not win, there will be problems in this society. Let’s examine all these issues to see whether the level of violence in the North East just escalated because Boko Haram suddenly became better trained, better equipped and better funded, and in any case how did they get it all done…”

May General Andrew Owoye Azazi's soul rest in perfect peace. We will surely avenge his death in the Lords Mighty name. Amen.

Truth is, – everyone at the top knows these things. All the politicians on both sides of the aisle know the truth; it is only you and I, the masses who have been taken for a ride here and of course, it is only us who die… well, Buhari almost did. What a shame it would have been had he passed before most of us realized what he had and is being subjected to and are able to seek his forgiveness for participating in the wicked lies against him.

These are the facts. Everyone is invited to join this discussion and contribute what they know, so the truth can finally be clearly revealed and the guilty can be shamed while the innocent can be begged for forgiveness while they are still here with us. Let the devil be the liar.

“Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” – Romans 3:13

Dr. Peregrino Brimah

BREAKING: Jonathan sacks NNPC boss, appoints replacement

President Goodluck Jonathan

President Goodluck Jonathan has fired the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, Andrew Yakubu.

Read the press statement announcing the sack and the appointment of a replacement below.

Details later…

STATE HOUSE PRESS RELEASE

PRESIDENT JONATHAN APPOINTS NEW CEOs FOR NNPC AND NPDC

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan has approved the following appointments and changes in the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and the Nigerian Petroleum Development Company (NPDC):

1.         Dr Joseph Thlama Dawha – Group Managing Director, NNPC

2.        Mr Anthony Ugonna Muoneke – Managing Director, NPDC

3.        Ms Aisha Mata Abdurrahman – Group Executive Director, Commercial and Investment, NNPC

4.        Dr Attahir B. Yusuf – Group Executive Director, Business Development, NNPC

The new Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Dr. Dawha hails from Borno state. He has served previously as the Group Executive Director, Exploration and Production, NNPC and Managing Director of Integrated Data Services Ltd (IDSL), a subsidiary of the NNPC.

Mr Anthony Muoneke, the new Managing Director of the NPDC, hails from Anambra state. Called to the Nigerian Bar in 1985, he has over 29 years’ experience at both local and international levels in the oil and gas as well as the energy and power sectors, including serving as Executive Director, Finance & Admin, Niger Delta Power Holding Company Ltd. (NDPHC).

All the appointments are with immediate effect.

Reuben Abati

Special Adviser to the President

(Media & Publicity)

August 1, 2014

NIGERIANS IN DIASPORA: WHY BISHOP KUKAH WAS RIGHT

by Jideofor Adibe

Bishop Kukah’s recent public lecture to mark Wole Soyinka’s 80 years on earth managed to spark controversy and intense conversations – for the wrong reasons.

  Entitled “Wole Soyinka: 80 Years of Genius & Prophetic Outrage”, the paper was written, according to the Bishop, to celebrate a “very complicated man of genius”.  As if to warn that he was not going to follow the tradition of pouring encomiums on the celebrant, the Bishop opened the essay with a story of his first encounter with the Nobel Laureate, which, short of its nuances, was telling us about Soyinka’s rather too much indulgence with red wine.  Soyinka, we were also told, does not have flattering views of people and institutions you would expect to be his ideological allies – from NADECO, to Gani Fawehinmi to Anthony Enahoro.
Bishop Kukah’s very brilliant paper very tangentially mentioned the condescending attitude of SOME [emphasis, mine] Nigerians in the Diaspora to those living in Nigeria and for the lack of empathy and self-censorship in some of their writings about the Nigerian condition.
 For inexplicable reasons the Bishop singled out Professor Okey Ndibe for special mention as one of the worst offenders. Ndibe, replied in characteristic (or is it Soyinkarist?) manner, wrongly suggesting that the Bishop’s paper was about him rather than about Soyinka and his ‘prophetic rage’. Before you could say, ‘Ibrahim’, another brilliant writer, Sonala Olumhense, had weighed into the matter, unabashedly on the side of his friend and compatriot, Ndibe.  Sonala went a step further by calling on the Bishop to offer public apologies to Okey.
Let me quote the paragraph both Okey and Sonala found reprehensible: “To be sure, there are many who are struggling to see what they can contribute to building a new nation, but I often resent the condescending attitude and outright smugness of some Diaspora Nigerians who believe in their superiority simply because they have a second passport.” Part of Ndibe’s rebuttal was: “Let’s be clear: Bishop Kukah’s attempt to create a division between home-based and foreign-based Nigerians is an old trick, but it’s a tool of deception. Many Nigerians, whether they live at home or abroad, speak courageously about the shortcomings of their country. They dare to dream of a better, more humane and more just country. Enlightened Nigerians must reject Kukah’s false and dangerous dichotomy of home-based and foreign-based Nigerians.”
There are several possible layers of intervention in this conversation. I will however like to limit my intervention to the Bishop’s point about the condescending attitude of some Diaspora Nigerians and the virulent manner they criticize their country.  On both counts I believe the Bishop was spot on. I also believe Okey was wrong when he accused the Bishop of creating a false dichotomy between Diaspora Nigerians and the home-based ones. The truth is that the dichotomy is not only there but there is also a thinly veiled antagonism between the two groups. The perceived condescending attitude of Diaspora Nigerians mentioned by the Bishop is in fact one of the reasons for the no love lost between the two groups.
Let me mention that I have some relationships with the three aforementioned public intellectuals.  I have known Okey Ndibe since his days in the now rested Concord newspapers in the 1980s and still regard him as a friend – though we do not keep active contact. Again in 2009, my publishing firm, Adonis & Abbey Publishers (www.adonis-abbey.com) co-published with the Nordic Institute for African Studies, Uppsala, Sweden, a book, Writers, Writing on Conflicts and Wars in Africa, co-edited by Ndibe and the Zimbabwean writer, Chenjerai Hove. There is no doubt that Okey is a very brilliant writer, even if I disagree occasionally with both his arguments and his choice of words.
I have never met Sonala, though I have been an avid reader of his writings. In February 2009, he wrote a rather very moving story about one Ebo Chigbo Socrates, who reportedly made First Class Honours in Philosophy from Nnamdi Azikiwe University and additionally had a Master’s degree but was unable to get a job. I made contacts with Sonala and got the Socrates’s contact details. At that time I had a bookshop in Lagos and was planning to move some of our publishing activities from London to Nigeria.  I offered Socrates a job – and if I remember well – I paid him the equivalent of two months’ salary upfront and gave him about 20-30 books to start the process of setting up an office in Enugu. Socrates simply vamoosed with both money and books. He made several appointments he never kept and later stopped picking my calls.  When I got tired of trying to reach him, I contacted Sonala to complain that the obvious character flaws in Socrates were probably among the reasons why he was unable to get job.
Like many Nigerians, I have known Bishop Kukah’s works as a public intellectual for years. In the last couple of months, however, I have also become a bit closer to him through my involvement with his Kukah Centre in Abuja. The Bishop probably trusts me enough to ask me to present a paper on his behalf during the government sponsored inter-party conference on June 12 this year.
Let me also mention that I feel qualified to speak both as a Diaspora Nigerian and a home-based one. I lived in Europe for 23 years and acquired citizenship in two countries (Denmark and United Kingdom). Since March 2011, I have been living and working in Nigeria.
In the over three years since I returned, I have experienced and been privy to conversations about the way home-based Nigerians see Diaspora Nigerians. I have also witnessed severally the nauseating arrogant conceit of some Diaspora Nigerians. The perception by many Nigerians is that even cab drivers and dishwashers in the Diaspora return home to pretend that they are embodiments of excellence and professionalism while everyone else does things the wrong way. One of the consequences is a thinly veiled animosity by the locals against Diaspora Nigerians.
Anyone who doubts the existence of thinly veiled antagonism between Diaspora Nigerians and home-based Nigerians should get in touch with the Nigeria Diaspora Alumni Network, NIDAN (www.nidangroup.org). This is an association of Nigerians who had lived in the Diaspora and have now either returned fully or are planning to relocate back to the country. NIDAN helps returning Diasporans to settle down and also embarks on a number of social responsibility projects in a bid to give something back to the society. Its recent projects include capacitating a school for the blind in Abuja and organising a security summit to help in finding solutions to the current security challenges in the country. The point is that though some Diasporans are guilty of haughtiness as charged, there are also those who have a different attitude and who recognize the need to work collaboratively with home-based Nigerians.
The other limb of my intervention is on the angry and virulent Diaspora Nigerian critics. Obviously some Nigerians abroad write in anger because they unconsciously blame their country for their condition of self-imposed exile and whatever indignities and inconveniences they feel they go through. There are however also writers in which anger is part of their oeuvre. Angry writing is an art form – just like certain forms of music are associated with expletives and cursing. In fact, growing up I connected more with the works of such angry writers as Dambudzo Marechera, James Baldwin, Wole Soyinka, Naiwu Osahon, Dilibe Onyeama and Obi Egbuna than the works of Chinua Achebe. I believe that it is perhaps the Bishop’s non-recognition that angry writing is an art-form with its own constituency of readers, that made him single out Okey for special mention. In fact, a number of creative writers, who comment on public issues (especially those who exhibit ‘artistic temperament’), tend to be extremely cynical, critical and difficult to deal with. This was perhaps the reason why Camilo Cela, the late Spanish novelist and 1989 Nobel Laureate in literature, told us that a writer “is necessarily a denunciation of the times in which he lives”.  And the late Zimbabwean novelist Dambudzo Marechera also told us that he was against wars and against those who were against wars.
Most creative writers who are public intellectuals tend also to have a simplistic view of society partly because they do not really have the necessary tools for proper analysis of most of the topics they comment on. Their notion of society is therefore often a simplistic binary of ‘the good guys versus the bad guys’. Their one dimensional, often predictable commentaries, also seem to follow this mantra: “we reject the institutions that govern us, let us tear them down.” For such writers, the imagery of tearing down and rebuilding is a ‘revolutionary’ act on its own.  In fact, if you remove anger from their writing – and their skills with language – you de-robe them and kill their art and even interest in commenting in public affairs.
This is not to suggest that angry writers do not make useful contributions to public discourses. The point is that  I read writers for a variety of reasons – some because of their analytical skills, others because of their sense of history or new perspective they bring to a debate, some because of their gift of language and yet others because of their courage or rascality in telling truth to power.

Bishop Kukah’s Uncharacteristic View By Obi Enweze

However, many were loudly curious when, through his writings, he was seen as supportive of another Matthew, this time the infamous Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Obasanjo. The noise even became louder when the great cleric allegedly declared that he was a Nigerian first, before being a Christian. On the face of it, the statement sounded innocuous and correct, but many put different twists and turns to it. It became a rather controversial, even discomfiting proclamation.

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BY OBI ENWEZE

Bishop Hassan KukahSahara Reporters MediaBishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, or simply Bishop Kukah as the legion of his admirer call him, is from the once harmonious Zangon-Kataf Archdiocese of Kaduna, but was appointed Bishop of Sokoto on June 10, 2011. He was introduced to the Nigerian national conscience through his fiery and relentless advocacy for the suffering majority of Nigerians, through his insightful and erudite publications in the New Nigerian Newspaper.  Truly his conscience was nurtured by truth, as the motto of the newspapers proclaims.

With his incessant championing of the poor, distressed and economically strangulated Nigerians, Bishop Kukah became an instant hero, and gained celebrity status. His fame grew in leaps and bounds, even beyond the borders of Nigeria. Yet, he professed to hate politics like leprosy. He once told Vatican Radio, “When it comes to the problem of poor governance, the country is blighted by monumental corruption." He went on to say: "Politics in Nigeria is almost like armed banditry…as the price is so high and because a climate of impunity has become so predominant."

With words like these, Bishop Kukah was seen as a voice of hope and reason.  At the height of his social crusading, the affable Bishop authored a powerful “Prayer for Distressed Nigeria.” This prayer was adopted across the nation by Christians and is recited till date in churches across Nigeria.

However, many were loudly curious when, through his writings, he was seen as supportive of another Matthew, this time the infamous Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Obasanjo.  The noise even became louder when the great cleric allegedly declared that he was a Nigerian first, before being a Christian. On the face of it, the statement sounded innocuous and correct, but many put different twists and turns to it. It became a rather controversial, even discomfiting proclamation. Even so, that proclamation did not taint his respected image as his open support for Obasanjo did. While many condemned what was seen as a leap into the murky waters of politics, I was one of those who excused it.  My reasoning then was simple. Obasanjo had endeared himself to many Christians through his speeches after he was freed from jail, and cleared of the charge of treasonable felony (allegedly for planning a coup, which carried a death penalty). Obasanjo had openly declared, “God gave me a second chance and I will use it to do good.”  

Obasanjo had professed his gratitude and love to God for granting him another opportunity to remediate his past errors and the consequent damages. His words resonated with Christians and many people of goodwill and faith. In a nation looking for salvation, Obasanjo capitalized on the deep sense of the ailing nation and presented himself as the God-sent messiah.  Therefore, it was understandable that a Bishop who devoted his life to the distressed would favor someone who came in promising to walk in the ways of the Lord.

Even so, Obasanjo’s presidency revealed itself as ungodly, and Bishop Kukah saw that first hand, too.  A clear example was when Obasanjo appointed Bishop Kukah to the Oputa Panel that probed human rights abuses over many years in Nigeria. Obasanjo assured the Bishop and Nigerians that “there will be no sacred cows.” However, when Nigerian sacred cows, including former military ruler Ibrahim Babangida, refused to even acknowledge requests for appearance by the Oputa Panel, Obasanjo blinked and left Justice Oputa, Bishop Kukah and other members of the panel to close shop without prying into many areas and instances of serious human rights violations. To make matters worse, Obasanjo invoked sedition, a crime that is no longer in many criminal codes, to go after some journalists.   

In what many agreed was the purging of all political taints, Bishop Kukah was quick to tell the whole nation how worthless Obasanjo’s words and promises were. In all, we heaved a sigh of relief that the love-fest between an imperial president and a credulous priest was over and that our social crusading Bishop had learnt not to trust even his brothers once he stepped into the arena of politics. From the look of things we were wrong, because the prelate seems about to repeat the same exact mistake.

Bishop Kukah’s first misadventure into partisan politics started through small messages and little signs here and there. Some of us who respect and love him are today worried that his recent attack on Okey Ndibe is one of the signs that he is, once again, inching closer to the powers-that-be. Okey Ndibe’s criticism of the Nigerian government’s inadequate response to the ceaseless killing of defenseless and innocent Nigerians by a dangerous sect, Boko Haram, and his relentless advocacy for the poor is well known. He recently wrote an article where he contended that the manner in which the lives of Nigerians are disregarded has become troubling to the point of being tragic. In his signature style of driving points home with elaborate example, Ndibe poignantly but colorfully argued that the Nigerians who are daily slaughtered in the most gruesome manner by Boko Haram were being treated as if they were ants and not human.

In a move that surprised most of us who admire him, Bishop Kukah recently deviated markedly from the subject of his public lecture to unpardonably excoriate and ridicule Ndibe. The most troubling part of Bishop Kukah’s uncharacteristic message was when the Bishop stated, “If Ndibe were a Ugandan, Rwandan, Zimbabwean or indeed, from most African countries, would he write this and still come back to his country? Indeed, the answer is that there is hardly any other African that can write this rubbish about their own country, even if they had no family in the country.”

For a cleric, a Bishop for that matter, to so shamelessly incite the government to violate a writer’s human rights as a proper deterrent for those who offer social commentaries is most shocking. The message was crystal clear: there should be danger for those who critique their government. And such danger should not be limited to them, but also extend to their families. For once, I am happy that President Goodluck does not seem keen to muzzle voices of dissent.  As a devout Catholic and one of the folks to whom Bishop Kukah ministers, I urge and expect a retraction.

I want Bishop Kukah to remember the wonderful and living example of Cardinal Anthony Olubunmi Okogie. As Archbishop of Lagos, Okogie was a staunch advocate for respect for human life, the dignity of man, justice and fairness. He fought selflessly against oppression and was a regular commentator on issues of national importance. Many still remember how Cardinal Okogie volunteered to die in place of a Muslim woman condemned to death by stoning for adultery. But for people like Cardinal Okogie, the tyranny and human rights violations during the military era would have been more.

Obi Enweze is the former Secretary of NADECO in USA and CANADA, and a Knight of the Catholic Church.

How to end Boko Haram insurgency, by Buhari

Buhari

Former military head of state, Gen, Muhammadu Buhari (rtd), wants an immediate end to bickering between the federal and state governments over security issues if the ongoing threats to life and property in the country must cease.

Buhari, reviewing the situation in the country, advocated a holistic approach.

“Security agencies of the (federal) government need closer cooperation with civilian security infrastructure which is in place but seldom considered as a part of the security effort,” he said against the backdrop of the effort to rescue the over 200 girls abducted by Boko Haram in Borno State.

He added: ”The local government structure from ward to district to state level is an excellent starting point for an over-all new security initiative. State-wide effort should be carefully coordinated with federal authorities. It should be a bottom-to-top operation. The bickering between Abuja and the states should cease if we are serious in wanting to win the war and end the conflict. All moneys voted must demonstrably be seen to be spent on security.”

He asked all Nigerians to “come together with unequivocal support to the government and security agencies in this fight against mindless violence and mad-cap ideologies.”

He said the country should have “one narrative” about Boko Haram, which he slammed as an abhorrent, anti-Islamic, anti-religion and anti-human sect.

He welcomed the internationalization of the rescue effort but said the command and control of the operation should be led by Nigerians while foreign forces should “respect the country’s sovereignty and be wary of local sensitivities.”

On the economy,General Buhari ,faulted the recent rebase of the economy which made Nigeria’s the largest in Africa.

He said the figures “are at variance with the lived experience of our citizens” with poverty,according to him, “so visible, so general and so extreme.”

Government, he stressed, “must take a serious look at our economic policy priorities and rebalance our policies in favour of agriculture and manufacturing to take people out of poverty and make them consumers for the expansion of the productive private sector and manufacturing.”

Such policies, he said, must create jobs for millions of young unemployed and create opportunities for the millions entering job market every year.

Buhari spits fire, accuses President Jonathan of declaring war on Nigeria

Sani Tukur

Buhari, CPC leader

The former head of state says despite being a politician, he has a duty to speak out

Former Military Head of State, Muhammadu Buhari, has urged President Goodluck Jonathan, to promptly halt what he called the government’s “runaway train of impunity” which he said now threatens the nation’s democracy.

In a blunt remark Monday, Mr. Buhari, now a leader of the opposition All Progressives Congress, APC, blamed Mr. Jonathan for the impeachment of the Adamawa State governor, Murtala Nyako, and the recent gale of impeachment threats against other APC governors.

“Whether or not President Goodluck Jonathan is behind the gale of impeachment or the utilization of desperate tactics to suffocate the opposition and turn Nigeria into a one-party state, what cannot be denied is that they are happening under his watch, and he cannot pretend not to know, since that will be akin to hiding behind one finger,” Mr. Buhari said in a statement.

He accused the government of subverting the constitution to impeach a governor, and deploying the institutions of state “just to kick an out-of-favour state governor in the groin”.

“’The dangerous clouds are beginning to gather and the vultures are circling; and these have manifested in Nasarawa where the ordinary people have defied guns and tanks to protest the plan to impeach Gov. Umaru Tanko Al-Makura in a repeat of the bitter medicine forced down the throat of Gov. Murtala Nyako,” Mr. Buhari said.

“’The people’s protest in Nasarawa is a sign of what to come if the federal authorities continue to target opposition state governors for impeachment. In the long run, the impeachment weapon will be blunted. Positions will become more hardened on both sides and Nigeria and Nigerians will become the victims of arrested governance and possible anarchy.”

Mr. Nyako was removed last Tuesday by state lawmakers, accused of misspending government funds.

The opposition APC accuses Mr. Jonathan and the ruling Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of being behind the move, an allegation fuelled by speculations that more APC governors are targeted for impeachment.

After Mr. Nyako’s ouster, lawmakers in Nasarawa State moved against their governor, Tanko Al Makura, threatening impeachment also on allegations of mismanagement.

The presidency and the PDP have denied responsibility for the happenings in Adamawa and Nasarawa States.

But Mr. Buhari said as president, Mr. Jonathan cannot feign ignorance of the unfolding political events, and warned of serious threats against a nation already facing grim security troubles with attacks on defenceless civilians by the extremist Boko Haram sect spiralling out of control.

Mr. Nyako’s impeachment, or similar threats against other APC governors, are aimed at “decapitating” the opposition, he said, warning of dire implications for Nigeria’s “tenderfoot democracy”.

Mr. Buhari, who has thrice vied and failed to become president, said President Jonathan should remember no democracy can thrive without a virile opposition, “hence it will amount to a man cutting his nose to spite his face for anyone to embark on a journey to decapitate the opposition, as the current central government is doing”.

He said a man of power must realize he cannot always do things just because he could do them.

“I, along with many other patriotic Nigerians, fought for the unity and survival of this country. Hundreds of patriotic souls perished in the battle to keep Nigeria one. The blood of many of our compatriots helped to water the birth of the democracy we are all enjoying today.

“Let no one, whether the leader or the led, the high or the low, a member of the ruling or the opposition do anything to torpedo the system. Let no one, whether on the altar of personal ambition or pretension to higher patriotic tendencies, do anything that can detonate the keg of gunpowder on which the nation is sitting. It is time for all concerned to spare a thought for the ordinary citizens who have yet to see their hopes, dreams and aspirations come to reality, within the general context of nationhood,” Mr. Buhari said.

The ex-military ruler said he has a duty to speak out regardless of his status as a politician and an opposition leader, and that he resorted to public comments after unsuccessfully trying to have the president reconsider his tactics after he discussed with him privately.

“In my capacity as an elder statesman, rather than a politician, I have spoken to President Jonathan in private over these issues, but indications are that the strategy has not yielded positive fruits,” he said. “I cannot, just because I am an opposition politician, fail to do what is expected of me as an elder statesman to help rescue our nation in times of great trouble and palpable uncertainty.”

The retired general said history will not be kind to him if he sits back while things turn bad only to avoid being accused of partisanship.

“Yes, I am a politician. Yes, I am in the opposition. Yes, there is the tendency for my statement to be misconstrued as that of a politician rather than a statesman,” he said. “But I owe it as matter of duty and honour, and in the interest of our nation, to speak out on the dangerous trajectory that our nation is heading.”

Mr. Buhari said in his extensive leadership experience since the civil war, he is witnessing the worst violations under the current government.

“I can say, in all sincerity, that I have seen it all, as an ordinary citizen, a military officer, a head of state, a man who has occupied many other sensitive posts and a politician. I have been a close participant and witness to Nigeria’s political history,” he said.

“Our country has gone through several rough patches, but never before have I seen a Nigerian President declare war on his own country as we are seeing now. Never before have I seen a Nigerian President deploy federal institutions in the service of partisanship as we are witnessing now. Never before have I seen a Nigerian President utilize the common wealth to subvert the system and punish the opposition, all in the name of politics,” he said.

He urged the president to “pull the brakes” and tarry “a while, take a deep breath and ponder the impact of recent events in the polity, under his watch, on the survival of the nation and the sustenance of its democracy”.

100 Days of Fruitless Narratives

Canticles...

Did you realise that it is already 100 days since the Chibok girls went missing?
Oh yes, the events of last Wednesday by those busy bodies called BringBackOurGirls campaigners, reminded me.

You call them busy bodies? That’s not nice!
How else do you want me to describe them? Can’t you see how they have been labouring to be more Catholic than even the Pope?

You mean you do not realise that but for them, the story about the over 200 kidnapped girls would have been long forgotten? Are you not aware that there was even a denial that no girl was kidnapped? Did Madam at the top not even order the arrest of some persons demanding the release of the girls? Did the military authorities not claim the girls, except a few have all been rescued and returned to their parents? Have you forgotten? Don’t you know that if the authorities had their way, the story of the Chibok girls would have long been history?
That is not true, and stop being mischievous. The authorities have been doing everything possible to rescue the girls alive and return them home. The authorities have deployed more and more troops to the troubled zones. Do you even realise the amount of human lives (on the part of the fighting soldiers) and resources the government has lost in the dutiful task of rescuing the girls?

Really? So what is the outcome of this so-called dutiful task? The young innocent girls, whose only sin and offence is that they wanted to be educated, have remained with their demonic captors for over a 100 days now, while the government keeps parroting claims of strategic planning with the flourish of a Dues ex Machina, yet nothing visible is being achieved. Look, my brother, it is like saying a football team is so good and efficient, and yet is not able to score goals. Until the team is able to score goals and win matches, its claim to efficiency will be mere shibboleth. It is the same thing here. Whatever the government claims to be doing will amount to nothing unless and until the Chibok girls are rescued.
Yes, and that is the problem with Nigerians. We are often in a haste. We are not a patient people. We always want a wash-and-take solution to every problem. The truth is that…

(cuts in) Please hold your truth. You are just mouthing vexatious platitudes. If your daughter is among the 214 girls yet held by the Boko Haram knaves, would you say Nigerians are impatient? Answer me! Don’t just mope at me? Would you say Nigerians are impatient? This is more than 100 days after. Who can be more patient? Are we Job?
You don’t understand. Government spends One trillion Naira every year on the military. It has even gone ahead now to acquire more sophisticated military hardware, including modern  fighter helicopters fitted with in-built night vision technology. The State intelligence network  is working round the clock to tame the insurgents. They indeed avert many more attacks which the public never gets to know. They help to arrest Boko Haram kingpins, including the recent extradition of one Mr Sadiq Ogwuche, the mastermind of the Nyanya Bomb blast from Sudan. So much is being done unannounced. So it is not fair to say the government is doing nothing. That is a silly idle talk, the lingo of the opposition group.

Don’t drag politics into this discussion. You people keep dodging the issues, preferring to whip up political sentiments. Is it not a crying shame that it took a 17-year-old little girl—Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani, to make the President realize that he should see the distressed Chibok parents, 100 days after?  Is it not a shame that over 100 days after, some criminals in the name of terrorists will capture innocent people and the sitting government is still talking back and fro, yelling and pushing arguments that are not more than a headless narrative? Is it not a shame? What has politics got to do with this? As I said earlier, the bottom line of all the efforts must culminate in the release of the girls. Anything short of that is balderdash.
We must be realistic. The fight against terrorism is not the usual warfare, where you can profile and define your enemy. Here, the enemy can be your neighbor, staff, colleague. If you doubt me, ask Mr President who had said there are Boko Haram persons in his government. So how do you reasonably fight the person you cannot identify? And we must realize it is a new and strange doctrine in Nigeria: that Nigerians who are usually epicureans, will suddenly transform to become suicide bombers. We must admit that our military forces are dazed by this type of grid war, powered by new thinking. We must show understanding in this regard.

It is even more worrisome that there is no hope yet on the horizon on the girls returning. It is yet a tale of leaking hope.
It is not a leaking hope. The Nigerian military has located where the girls are. They know where the terrorists  hid them. They just do not want to apply force so it does not endanger the lives of the girls. Of what use is applying a hasty force and cause the girls to be killed by their insurgent captors?

You people are very funny. The captors have demanded that their detained colleagues be released before the girls will be released in recompense. Government has ruled out either negotiating with them, or   obliging them prisoners-swap. So there is a stalemate. No side is budging. And this has stretched for the over 100 days. So what will break the jinx now? How long shall Nigerians be punished with the trauma of hoping against hope as it concerns these girls and their parents? Are we not all victims?
You know Nigerians are very prayerful. People are fasting and praying. Churches and mosques are organizing various shades of programmes for the Chibok  girls. God will answer from heaven. And you will hear one day that the Celestial army has routed the Boko Haram criminals. And the land will be healed and restored….. Say Amen!

Amen! But I hope that after the Kaduna and Kano blasts of last Wednesday and Thursday respectively, the Celestial army will step in, take over the show and protect Nigerians from these Luciferous agents.
You have said Amen to my prayers. Leave it at that. Don’t open another chapter. Believe!