We Are Boko Haram By Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde

An in house survey into the cultural origins of boko haram movement in Nigeria __________________________________________________________

So many readers have sent text messages asking me to write on boko haram. I was afraid that a Chaji would pick his pen and compel me to divulge my view on the crisis which started from Bauchi and which is the more reason why Chaji would grill me. Chaji and his likes have constituted a terror to regular writers. They deny us the privacy of opinion; everything we know or think of is a public property which we must render regularly. We have no right to silence. Chaji? May good fortunes save me from the wrath of his pen! Well, to escape that, today, I have decided to say something about the phenomenon. The reader must be ready to wear armour because the piece is written with a very sharp knife.

It is futile to speak on the halal or haram of boko. I rather intend to discuss the cultrual roots of the movement. But first let us settle the issue of nomenclature which some writers got wrong. On the authority of Professor Mahdi Adamu Ngaski, a celebrated historian, author of The Hausa Factor in the History of West Africa, and former Vice Chancellor, Usmanu Danfodio University, in Hausa, ‘boko’ simply means ‘fake’. Before it was largely consigned to western education, boko was often used to connote the “fake bride’, amaryar boko, who rode the horse in place of the real bride as the convoy of celebrants escorted her to her new home. The real bride would secretly be carried earlier by two or three women to her home. So when western education came to Hausaland, the learned rejected it and gave it a derogatory connotation, ilimin boko, ‘fake education.’ Sadly, this name has remained the standard translation of ‘western education’ among all Hausa speaking people of West Africa and I have never heard of any effort to change it, except the ilimin zamani that is sparsely applied. To date, there is no alternative nomenclature for makarantar boko, 'fake school' that connotes modern schools for western education. My discussion with the Professor on boko took place in December 1984 in Sokoto.

One would wonder how much has changed in our perception of western education during the last century. (By ‘our’, or the third person plural throughout this article means Muslims living in Northern Nigeria.) Though we have schools and universities, governments and companies, all founded on the western models, there are still problems in varying degrees among different groups with the assimilation of western education as an acceptable cultural medium or its recognition as body of knowledge which is indisputably necessary for our survival today.

To many, the perception is like that of our ancestors: boko is haram – forbidden – so it must be rejected or, if acquired, abandoned, as we have seen in the case of the present boko haram group. An extreme variety of this thought was represented by the maitatsine movement, which in the early 1980s rejected even the use of western technological products like watches, bicycles, radio and television, unlike the new boko haram who allow the use of even cameras, handsets and computers, as explained by its leader in his final moments.

Akin to this belief is the notion among some learned traditional Islamic scholars that ‘government’ is haram and public property and finances belong to nobody, so they can looted whenever possible. I came across this idea in Sokoto in the aftermath of 1983 coup. The mighty who lived fat on public funds were arrested. It was then I heard someone justifying stealing public funds in a private discussion: to, malammai sun ce halal ne cin dukiyar gwamnati tunda bat a kowa ba ce. My effort to present the contrary was futile.

Mainstream Muslims in this country view western education as useful, but they still hold the West with a lot of suspicion due to the existing hostile relations between the Muslim World and the West. Though this group recognizes western education as a body of knowledge to which Islamic culture has significantly contributed for centuries in the past, the lingering suspicion has continuously hampered the domestication of the knowledge and its internalization in the region. So we go to school only obtain a certificate that will earn us a job without imbibing the principles and fundamentals that enabled the West to excel in such knowledge and technology; those principles and fundamentals are seen as alien, never to be imbibed.

We deride whoever embodies western practices like keeping to time, pubic accountability, banking, gender equality, family planning, etc. Early scholars, like the late Egyptian, Muhammad Abduh, who visited Europe and returned to say “they have seen Islam where there are no Muslims” are castigated as ‘westernized,’ while those who called for wholesale adoption of western values and culture, like the late Taha Husein, are condemned as westerners; some even would not hesitate to call them infidels.

Here is Hausaland, a bature is not only a European, but anyone who adopts western practice like keeping to time, monogamy, family planning, games, leisure, tourism, reading, western dress, etc, though only few of such practices contravene Islamic injunctions. Though Islam is still revered as the reference point of culture and the ultimate arbiter of cultural conflicts, we readily mock anyone who attempts to practice it as the Arabs do. For example, we reject the honest public servant by suggesting that he relocates to Saudi Arabia where Islam is practiced: “Wai shi gaskiya. To in gaskiya yake so, ya koma Madina da zama”. Even the Qur’an is not spared. When one recites the Qur’an as it should be recited, following the rules of tajweed, we deride him as a balarabe – Arab: Mhm. kakale, wai shi balarabe. It took centuries and a national competition on Qur’anic recitation that started in the mid 1980s before northerners finally accepted the practice.

More dangerous, perhaps, is our reluctance to use our faculties to simplify our lives and improve our productivity. We have not invented anything in agriculture beyond the basic tools which our ancestors used for millions of years: the same hoe (fartanya), and plough (garma). Governments had a Herculean task selling the idea of fertilizers to farmers.. Now that they have accepted it, corruption, which some malams justify, has prevented them from accessing it. Also, the dress has been the same since we borrowed the babbar riga from Mali and kaftans from the Arabs. The bante (which the kanuri call afuno) was very much prevalent in the region as late as the early 20th Century. We wear them both the riga and the kaftan during the Harmattan cold and during the hot summer. Any attempt to borrow other wears to suit the weather as shown by the Qur’an is repulsed, unlike in the Arab world where they have different dresses for different situations. In fact, if you do not wear these ‘uniforms’, many of us do not consider you as fully Muslim.. Simple. The hijab, on the other hand, is now imposed even on babies!

Research and extension personnel in agriculture are daily frustrated with the strong repulsion to any new idea, variety or practice. Foreign breeds of cows were imported forty years ago by the Sardauna but we still look at Murtala Nyako with admiration because he alone was the first to defy the odds and maintain a modern dairy farm for many years. For over four decades, we condemn the high milk yielding Frisian or the high meat yielding varieties of cows as foreign, shanun turawa. This inertia also contributed to the ‘death’ of the tractor and other instruments of mechanization such that governments’ focus on boosting agricultural production is now limited to supply of inorganic fertilizer for the additional reasons of fat contracts and lucrative middlemanship. So glaring is our boko haram attitude that many state governments recently preferred to import farmers from Southern Africa and support them with free land, huge capital and heavy subsidies. They argue that if we are given agricultural loan, which hardly reach us anyway, we prefer to invest it in human, instead of crop, propagation. How true they are!

Our general contempt for knowledge is outstanding, making us to prefer ignorance as a companion. The more knowledgeable you are or try to use that knowledge, the lesser are your chances of survival. Our entire political ethos is built on ignorance such that hardly would anyone succeed except if he is ready to put aside the correct thing he knows and behave as, or obey, the ordinary or ignorant who has never been to the four walls of high school. In interviews, a good performing candidate is rejected for a mediocre that will play the game of his sponsors.

The overwhelming majority of our political representatives and appointees are not the best from their constituencies, some cannot even write their names properly; that is why they hardly contribute to debates in the National Assembly. In our conferment of traditional titles, there has never been an occasion where the educational contribution or the honesty of anyone was celebrated with a traditional title; it is simply sycophancy and money, no matter how dirty.

An illustration of our contempt for knowledge lies in the way we tackle problems when they arise. How else can we explain the cold blooded massacre of boko haram members in Bauchi and Maiduguri, much of which is now correctly loaded on President Yar’adua, the foremost proponent of the rule of law? Where is the rule of law when the President ordered the Police and the army to crush them or deal with them ‘siquayale’? In fact, so ruthless was this Malam B that just before embarking on his Brazil trip, he told the world that the group will be crushed by that evening. He succeeded in crushing them but at the expense of justice, earning the country another medal of shame as an uncivilized nation, and attracting sympathy for the sect. Well, we are hardly visited by justice anyway. In-group hostility has always been our identity. That is why the same President who ordered the immediate massacre of boko haram members readily offered amnesty and money to Niger Delta rebels who are a thousand times more armed, who have killed, maimed, kidnapped lives, destroyed property and crippled the economy.

From the foregoing, it appears that we are culturally repulsive to any thing modern, from whatever direction it comes. Simply put, we are boko haram. Otherwise, what could explain our backwardness in every national endeavour – economic, social and political? Why do we have, for example, the lowest per capita income in the country, the lowest life expectancy, the lowest academic achievements as exemplified in our having the least number of academic institutions, fewer numbers of graduates and higher education applicants despite our high population? Why do we have, on the other hand, highest poverty and highest maternal and infant mortality rates? Why do we fail to see the disjoint between our collective repulsive attitude to common sense and modernity, our boko haram attitude precisely, on the one hand, and modernity on the other? Why do we choose to be blind? Why can’t we come out of self-imposed boko haram prison that our ancestors built over a century before?

Unfortunately, we are today paying a very high price for this negative attitude. It has led to the shrinkage of our social sphere. We are increasingly isolating ourselves by our escalating intolerance for the attitude and cultures of other Nigerians. Honestly, that is why we lost the ground in the so called Middle Belt. Politically, our preference for mediocrity has heavily reduced our significance from where it was, say, during the Second Republic. Also as a result, those of us from northern north have even considerably lost the sympathy of Muslims from the Middle Belt because we have built notoriety for ethnic self-preference and unfounded superiority complex which is based on nothing but ignorance.

The future is even bleaker if we consider the attitude of our youths. On campuses today, for example, we allow our students to grow with this isolationist attitude: in almost every faculty or department they now form societies of Muslim students, something unheard of in the 1970s and early 1980s when we were undergraduates. Of course, Muslim Student’s Society, like Fellowship of Christian Students, was there as an umbrella for all Muslims on the school and campus, but never was such a religious grouping formed at the departmental level where we freely socialized and exchanged ideas with Christians and even pagans. It is in our interest to actively discourage this new segregationist trend.

Also, as we graduate, we sort of come across a barrier that socially separates us from other Nigerians. We have thousands of avenues to socialize in addition to our places of work. But we hardly do so. Christians will socially associate with Christians only, and Muslims with Muslims. How can we have peace then? Let me quickly affirm that the Qur’an has permitted such associations between us and the People of the Book (Christians and Jews) even to the extent marriage and nutrition. Oh. I have forgotten that the Qur’an is a body of knowledge, and knowledge is the last thing we will subscribe to.

The boko haram group of late Malam Muhammed Yusuf was therefore a natural offshoot of our culture. We must admit this much because we have actively done very little to prove otherwise. And to be candid, Muhammed Yusuf was never the first to propagate such ideas and be accepted by our elites. The anti-western books of Abdulkadir as-Sufi, an English convert to Islam, were popular among many Muslims on our campuses in the early 1980s. That too led to many dropping from universities and abandoning public appointments, though not on a large scale or in a confrontational way like boko haram. What is more interesting here is the concord against modernity between two opposing sects of Islam: Sufism, as represented by as-Sufi, and Salafiyya, as represented by Mohammed Yusuf. This is no coincidence, though, but a fact that shows there is something inherently and universally wrong in how many of us conceive the role of Islam in this modern age.

Boko haram ideas will remain with us for quite some time unless we consciously change our attitudes and actively campaign against them. What is sad is the danger of how the group will leave behind the technology of making bombs among a population that is characterized by conflict, poverty and ignorance. This will certainly affect the future of peace in the region. The people who those bombs will hit will not be the masses but the leaders who have financed and exploited such groups to achieve their political ends.

I wish we Muslims in this part of the country will adopt the attitudes of the first generation of Muslims, the sahabah and those that followed them in righteousness (may God be pleased with them all) who, in pursuit of the teachning of the Holy Prophet (SAW) opened their hearts to various forms of knowledge and technology and from all sources: Chinese, Indian, Persian, Roman, European, African, etc. They revived the writings of Aristotle and bequeathed them to medieval Europe. They partook in technological development just as any other society, leaving behind a legacy of discoveries that were ironically the foundations of the very boko we ignorantly reject. They freely associated with everyone and were so liberal that their domains served as sanctuaries even to Jews when they were twice expelled from Europe. Many of them and partnered with them in trade and war and married Christian wives. I wish we will liberate our minds and give scholarship its due regard because with ignorance as our anchor we will have little to achieve and everything to lose.

In conclusion I must say that Yar’adua would need more guns to silence the anti-modern boko haram attitude in us. If he cannot, the burden then rests with us. We must shoulder the task of giving our society a new inspiration that will integrate it into the world of knowledge, society and culture. We must come out of our boko haram enclave to embrace civilization in all its ramifications and make meaningful contributions to the future of this country and the world at large. This is my opinion on boko haram hoping that mighty Chaji will spare me an interrogation and that my reader has not sustained a deep cut from my bold assertions.

Dogara tried to pad N30 billion into budget – Sacked House Appropriation chair

July 21, 2016Premium Times

The former chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Appropriation, Abdulmumin Jibrin, has spoken of what he claimed were the real reasons for his removal on Wednesday.
Mr. Jibrin, a former ally of the speaker, Yakubu Dogara, had said that he chose to step down for personal reasons.
In a statement he released late Thursday, Mr. Jibrin raised a humongous allegation of fraud against Mr. Dogara.
He accused the speaker of attempting to pad N30 billion into the controversial 2016 budget.

Read his full statement:

I am obliged to make further statement after listening to the full statement of Speaker Yakubu Dogara on why I had to leave as Chairman Appropriation. It is a fact I went up to the Speaker and told him clearly I wanted to leave. He confirmed this in his statement but it appeared he wished he had fired me instead of my personal decision to step down.
Thereafter I proceeded to my office. I was therefore not surprised when an aide of mine walked into my office to inform me that the Speaker had announced my departure. I was relieved and went straight to address the press and released a statement. It was only later in the evening while monitoring the news that I watched the full statement he made on the floor. Speaker Dogara’s statement was a complete misrepresentation of the facts, false, mischievous, unfair and a calculated attempt to bring my name to disrepute, blackmail, silence and use me as a scape goat.
The plan is to execute it just before the recess so that by the time we return I would have been buried and the issue forgotten. Mr Speaker, this issue will never be swept under the carpet. We are closing for recess with it and we shall commence the next session with this issue. This was the last option they had after every attempt to find something to nail me failed. It is a known fact that I am a very blunt person by nature. I don’t know how to pretend. I don’t do eye service neither will I ever be a sycophant. I don’t give returns. I just do my job faithfully and dedicatedly. My offence was asserting my independence and insisting that we do the right thing at all times and expose corrupt people in the House.
Lately I openly disagreed with some principal officers on the issue of immunity for Lawmakers and budget issues. I still maintained I will never support immunity. I strongly believe with every conviction that in cleaning up the budgeting system and considering what transpired during 2016 budget which I have all the facts documented, Speaker Dogara, Deputy Speaker Lasun, Whip Doguwa and minority Leader Leo Ogor should resign. These members of the body of principal officers were not comfortable with my independent disposition and my refusal to cover up their unilateral decision to allocate to themselves 40billion naira out of the 100billion allocated to the entire National Assembly.

The four of them met and took that decision. In addition to billions of wasteful projects running over 20 billion they allocated to their constituencies. They must come out clean. My inability to admit into the budget almost 30 billion personal requests from Mr. Speaker and the 3 other principal officers also became an issue. I have every documented evidence to this effect. After the submission of the first version of the budget which was returned by Mr. President, I briefed members in executive session and told them as agreed at our pre budget meeting with chairmen and deputy chairmen of standing committees, we simply adopted their reports with little amendments. No body faulted my submission.
Members insisted they must know how the N100 billion was allocated. I told them the truth. Since after that meeting, Mr Speaker with the suport of the three other principal officers effectively blocked me from briefing members, ensured I was not at the last executive session and refused to investigate issues I raised that I believe must be addressed if we intend to build a better budget system for the House. I gave Mr. Speaker statistics of 2000 new projects introduced into the budget by less than 10 committee chairmen without the knowledge of their committee members he did nothing about it because he was part of the mess yet he is talking about improving the budget system. I did nothing wrong. I worked within the rules of the House and instructions of Mr. Speaker. During the budget period, Mr. President graciously granted myself and Sen. Goje audience.
It was a very good meeting. Speaker Dogara took it extremely personal that we saw the president without his knowledge and went on to scuttle all our efforts to help the president during the budget process because he wanted to be seen by the president as the only good man. He forgot that he sees heads of MDA’s daily which he enjoys doing more than his job as Speaker for reasons best known to him anyway, without Mr. President’s knowledge. That is how petty and narrow minded Dogara can be. A coward, hypocrite and pretender of the highest order. Mr President must be very careful with him. He wines with Mr. President and dines with Mr. Presidents enemies. I am glad that I am finally free from his emotional blackmail of constantly trying to make me see my appointment as appropriation chairman as a favour.
He has failed to realise that I came a long way and even attained chairman finance when he was chairman House services before this appointment. Seeing as the Speaker claimed that they have taken the decision or were going to take decision to replace me, he now has a responsibility to tell the world why they took or were going to take such decision. I challenge them to tell the world why? I will be releasing a more detailed statement in due course.
Meanwhile, I intend to explore all internal avenues of the House to brief my colleagues in detail and testify against Speaker Dogara, Deputy Lasun, Whip Doguwa and Minority leader Leo Ogor on why they should resign. If I am not allowed to exercise my privilege, I shall consider legal options. I can no longer bear the brunt of abuses and baseless allegations keeping quiet all in the name of “confidentiality” expected of an appropriation chairman. I will not allow anybody no matter how highly placed to destroy my life as intended by the full statement of Speaker Yakubu Dogara. Now Nigerians will see clearly the ulterior motive behind the desperate moves for immunity for principal officers of the National Assembly.

Speaker denies

The speaker has denied the allegations.
A statement by the spokesperson for the house, Abdulrazak Namdas, dismissed Mr. Jibrin’s claims.
Full statement:
Our attention has been down to media statements made by the former Chairman of House Appropriation Committee, Hon Abdulmumuni Jibrin wherein he made wild allegations against the House of Representatives and its leaders.
We wish to say that it is the prerogative of the Selection Committee of the House to appoint and remove Committee Chairmen. That power has been so exercised in the case of Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin as chairman of Appropriation Committee.
Most of the allegations on the 2016 budget process and his opposition to immunity of Presiding officers are non-issues and mere afterthought manufactured simply because the House relieved him of his position.
If he had all these ‘facts’ before, why didn’t he make them public? Why is he doing that now?
Hon. Abdulmumin Jibrin, like any other member of the House knows that there are conventions and precedents as it relates to budgets and projects for principal officers of the National Assembly. Why is he making it an issue now? In any case, he is entitled to his opinion as a Nigerian and as a legislator while acting within the laws of Nigeria and rules of the House.
We must make it abundantly clear that he was not removed because of his support or otherwise on immunity bill. After all he is not the only one who opposed the bill.

The bill is still pending before committee on review of constitution and it has to be voted upon by each and every member of the House, get Senate concurrence, endorsed by two-third of the 36 State Houses of Assembly and be assented to by the President. It is a cheap blackmail on the part of Hon. Jibrin to even insinuate that he was removed because he opposed immunity bill.
He should not distract the House from giving legislative support on important issues facing the government concerning the revival of the economy, insecurity in the country, pursuit of anti-corruption measures, poverty alleviation, infrastructural development etc. The Nigerian people are simply not ready to waste their time on personal issues and personal egos of our leaders. We should face the urgent tasks before us for which we were elected.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Unveiling The Killers Of Dele Giwa

THE LONG AWAITED CONFIRMATION OF THE SUSPICION ABOUT DELE GIWA'S DEATH (MUST READ)
Mohammed Buba Marwa delivered the letter bomb that killed Dele Giwa – Dr. Taiyemiwo Ogunade
On Sunday, Professor Taiyemiwo Ogunade gave a bombshell interview to The NATION newspaper in which he made startling revelations about those who killed Dele Giwa in 1986. In a subsequent chat with Saharareporters, he spoke specifically about the role of former military administrator of Lagos State Buba Marwa in the assassination of the colourful journalist.
Dr. Ogunade disclosed that soldiers loyal to the slain General Mamman Vatsa identified Marwa as the person who delivered the parcel bomb that killed Giwa, the Newswatchmagazine founder.
He said the revelation came from a confidential discussion he had with one of the military boys who came to the City University of New York (CUNY) to press the college to train Nigerian military officials in “Peace and Conflict Resolution”. He said that Vatsa gave a four-hour long testimony to the military tribunal that tried and later sentenced him to death for a phantom coup plot against former military dictator, Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida.
Saharareporters : Do you know who delivered the bomb that killed Dele Giwa?
Ogunade: I believe that Buba Marwa did it. Some Mamman Vatsa boys told the full story in New York during a visit to my college to lobby our college to accept to train Nigerian military officers. Ambassador Olusola was on that entourage. (My informant) told me Dele Giwa was killed because he was in possession of a tape containing Vatsa’s testimony before the military tribunal. For four hours, Vatsa requested to tell the full story about how the Babangida regime was operating and his knowledge of the workings of IBB’s mind. He pointed out that after Halilu Akilu and Col. A.K Togun of the military intelligence prepared the parcel it was handed over to Buba Marwa to deliver to Dele Giwa. Marwa is a well–known “IBB boy”. But I was the one who gave Dele Giwa the tape.
Saharareporters : How did you get the tape?
Ogunade: Vatsa had a copy made by his friends in the tribunal and smuggled out to me and I “loaned” it to Dele Giwa who got on the case immediately. I still don’t know how Dele Giwa found out that I had the tape till this day.
Saharareporters : Do you still have a copy?
Ogunade: Yes, but you know I left Nigeria hurriedly after the death of Dele Giwa. I left (the tape) with my aged mother, who did not know the value then. I won’t say more, let the military release that tape to the Nigerian public.
Saharareporters : Did Dele Giwa return the tape to you?
Ogunade: Yes, he returned it after 24 hours. Don’t forget that I loaned it to him; I think he went and played it to Babangida’s people and they eliminated him after they heard the tape.
Saharareporters : What about Gloria Okon? It’s been said that Dele Giwa’s discovery of her was the reason he was killed?
Ogunade: Gloria Okon is actually Chinyere, that’s her real name. She married Charles “Jeff” Chandler, the fellow who killed Nzeogwu and was killed a day later. Chinyere, Maryam and Princess Atta were young friends who hung out together. They all married into the military, because the military was a proud and respectable profession then. Charles Chandler, who was Tiv, married Chinyere who I think is from Imo State. IBB married Maryam from Asaba and Mamman Vatsa married the princess. So Chinyere became a widow and resorted to trading between UK and Nigeria. And then she was caught with drugs; Mamman Vatsa was the person who put Chinyere on the next available flight from Kano to London – and then claimed that she was dead by parading a dead woman picked out of the mortuary. Dele Giwa later found out that she was in London having delivered a baby by another man. He sent a French photographer to the place and they saw Maryam Babangida at the event. Kayode Soyinka brought back the photographs.
Dele was sitting across the table from Kayode examining the photos taken of “Gloria Okon” (Chinyere, Richard Chandler’s wife) at the naming ceremony in London. Maryam Babangida was there. And then a letter parcel was delivered to him and he said excitedly that it must be from “Mr. President” referring to the discussions he had with IBB days earlier. The bomb exploded and severed his lower abdomen; he died a few hours later.
Saharareporters: Did you ever meet Marwa again? And did you ask him about his involvement?
Ogunade: Yes, Marwa was very active in the Nigerian embassy in New York. For a long time he was the “military attaché” to the Nigerian mission in New York while I was a professor of Black Studies at the City University of New York. He came to my college to sign a $30 million contract with the college so that members of the Nigerian military could attend a “Peace and Conflict Resolution program” and then be awarded a masters degree upon completion of the program. I fought bitterly against it, but the chair of the department, John Muyibi Amoda, badly wanted the money. I kept fighting and one day the college authorities acceded to my request. When I got home the college had dismissed me, but also I got a fax message saying the $30 million had been returned to Marwa. But between Marwa and Abacha they never returned that money to the Nigerian treasury. They shared it. I heard between him and Abacha, over $250 million was laundered through an account used by the New York mission of the Nigerian embassy. Marwa later set up an airline with his share of the loot. When he showed up to run for president I was the one who petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to investigate him. He confessed to money laundering in handwritten statements to the EFCC, but today he is the ambassador of Nigeria to South Africa. The police officer that investigated him, Ibrahim Magu, is permanently suspended from the police force after he was humiliated by the EFCC. It is a shameful country.
Saharareporters : What else did you do?
Ogunade: We helped start the Obama phenomenon in Chicago.
Saharareporters : How?
Ogunade: We fought and exposed Carol Mosley-Braun who was Abacha’s agent in the US Senate. She was removed from the US Senate because she took $5 million from Abacha to help cover his tracks in the US. We exposed her, which was how it became possible for the brilliant Obama to become the US president today. We set the stage for it.
“Any evil done by man to man will be redressed; if not now then later, if not by man then by GOD …” – Dele Giwa

We Were Forced To Create HIV Virus To Wipe Off African Race - Dr. Robert Gallo

A site run by a friendly and reasonably honest woman I know recently reposted a text titled “The Man Who Created AIDS: Robert Gallo.” The text went super-viral, over 80,000 shares on Facebook alone. Once I read it, I was aghast at how much misinformation and how many scientifically illiterate statements were in the text and attached video. I wrote her explaining my reasoning, and she immediately agreed to take down the text. It still exists on other, less responsible, sites. 

Unfortunately, a large part of the damage has already been done, and that among other articles has helped foster the continued existence of a completely unfounded theory based primarily on not understanding what a patent is in molecular biology. A patent on Ebola or HIV is not the same as a patent on an engine.

How I Increase My Blokos Size & Stopped Premature Ejaculation Issues That Scattered My Relationship For 2years.. Click HERE for Details

Whereas the engine’s patent is reserving the production of that type of engine to the patent holder, a patent on HIV or Ebola is a patent meant to specify how the virus was isolated, how the genotype was determined, and what this consensus genotype is. 

In biology, you can patent things you found to concretely identify that component, potentially for use in a more complex system later. Keep in mind that you can even patent seeds obtained from cross-pollination: the patent does not mean the species was genetically modified in a laboratory. 

The same way a patent on cross-bred species does not mean it was created in a lab, a patent on a virus genome does NOT mean it was created in a lab. Robert Gallo first published his isolation and identification of HIV in 1984, and patented this in 1985. After older blood samples were then analysed in a search for this virus, it was then found in the past: it didn’t suddenly occur in the 1970s or 1980s. 

Despite the claims of the article whose damage I am working to undo, the earliest samples of HIV positive blood did not originate from New York homosexuals from the 1970s, but instead date back to 1920s Congo. 

The virus most certainly did not originate from biological weapons programs, which are only today becoming advanced enough that creating such a virus is even theoretically possible. They were most certainly not advanced enough in 1920, or even 1960, to create a synthetic retrovirus, which I might add, has still never actually been accomplished. One of the articles I saw blaming Gallo comically claims that chimps were supposedly deliberately infected and released in 1979, which somehow led to the virus occurring in New York in 1971. 

The viral “Gallo did it” article that I convinced my friend to take down had an embedded video, where a man “explains” over dramatic music that HIV was created through “combining lymphoma, leukemia, and carcinoma viruses.” I literally burst out laughing, because none of what he listed was a retrovirus or even a virus, and cancer has literally nothing to do with HIV. 

You could spend your entire life combining lymphomas, carcinomas, and leukemia, and you would still never end up with a retrovirus at the end. 

All of these theories make very specific claims, without any evidence. They encourage me to believe that a man (who thinks cancers are viruses) has special knowledge and access to untold classified documents. To prove his point, the video displays extremely blurry documents that are barely legible beyond seeing Gallo’s name. 

For all we know, these documents are completely fake, or actually completely harmless. We don’t know, because as is the norm in such articles or videos: no sources are supplied. Yes, the United States did and maybe still does have biological weapons programs. The Soviets did, and Russia still runs its “Vector” high-security lab, as well. 

This is absolutely no indication that HIV is a bioweapon, especially considering the actual time-line of infections. There are even more reasons why Ebola is certainly not a bioweapon, but that is beyond the scope of this text. 

Gallo was a scientist, and a researcher, and his position in the public eye is yet another reason to doubt him being an evil mastermind. There is no historical evidence actually implicating Gallo, or any others, in creating a HIV virus. 

All of the historical and scientific evidence, as well as a general understanding of patents in science, point to a legitimate researcher, along with his peers, simply trying to identify understand a human illness. There may very well be one or more synthetic doomsday viruses sitting snugly or being worked on in undisclosed locations (or in BSL-4 labs), but HIV and Ebola are not examples of this.

OSHIOMHOLE HAS NO HAND IN PLOT TO REMOVE PUBLICITY SECRETARY

All Progressives Congress

Edo State Chapter

No 72B Airport Road, Benin City

Office of the State Publicity Secretary

Tel: 08073707846, 08023521622, 08033905725

E-mail: apcedostatechapter@gmail.com    14/07/2016

The allegation that the Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole allegedly released N10, million for APC State Chairman to impeach the State Publicity Secretary, Comrade Godwin Erhahon is not true after all.

Detail investigations revealed that the source of the information merely wanted to create bad blood between the Comrade Godwin and the Publicity Secretary.

The Publicity Secretary, Comrade Erhahon disclosed this to newsmen in Benin City yesterday, saying the informed merely wanted to fuel the in-house tensions arising from the June 18, Governorship primaries.

He said though there were move by some persons to impeach him, the Governor was not in any way involved.

He therefore expressed regret for the embarrassment the publication caused the Governor and said he was sorry about it.

Comrade Erhahon said majority of the aggrieved aspirants who lost out at the primary having fully reconciled with the Party and their supporters directed to team up for APC victory, all hands are now on deck to ensure  that the people devourers party does not return to destroy what APC has built.

Comrade Godwin Erhahon

State Publicity Secretary.

EDO STATE GOVERNOR COMRADE ADAMS OSHIOMHOLE SHOULD STOP USING EDO STATE APC CHAIRMAN AND COHORTS TO INSULT EDO SOUTH PEOPLE.

Barr. Anselm Ojezua, the Chairman of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Edo State is known to have come from a respectable, humble and successful parental background. Also as a product of the renowned Catholic Mission School, Immaculate Conception College (ICC) Benin City, It is expected that he has imbibed very high morals and excellent education

The present utterances emanating from him is a sign that he is fastly falling below expectations by joining Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and his cohorts in insulting Chief John Odigie Oyegun the APC National Chairman as reported in the Vanguard Newspapers of Saturday July, 2^nd 2016. Chief Odigie Oyegun, the 77 year old APC National Chairman has the records of having midwifed various political parties that merged to form APC, peacefully conducted the affairs of the party and achieved successes is the 2015 respective primaries state and winning the general elections that produced the Federal and 26 states Governments in Nigeria. He is also a renowned retired Super Permanent Secretary at various Federal Government Ministries and the first Executive Governor of Edo State. For Anselm Ojezua to publicly insult Chief Oyegun is to incur the curse of God.

Since trust begets trust, how can anyone trust Anselm Ojezua when he could not use his office as APC State Chairman to stop Adams Oshiomhole, Edo State Executive Governor, the chief security officer and attendantly the chief Umpire to have deployed his state exco members, APC Executives and State resources to publicly procure the Governorship candidature for Mr. Godwin Obaseki at the expense of other eleven aspirants. That he, Anselm Ojezua as a lawyer to aver that the Saturday, June 18^th Governorship Primaries in Edo state was free and transparent is proof of his degree of dishonesty and indecorum. In order to give credibility to Nigeria electoral system, Chief Odigie Oyegun and his national executives had remained neutral during the APC presidential and State Primary Elections. Is it not for the same reason that President Barrack Obama had remained neutral throughout the just concluded Democratic Party presidential primaries in the United States of America?

Could Anselm Ojezua have been drunk to have joined Oshiomhole to criminally pervade Edo Sate electoral system by foisting Obaseki as his successor in Edo State? Also should Oshiomhole not have to conferred with Chief Odigie Oyegun and Dr. Osagie Ehanire as the National Chairman and Federal Minister and other Edo South Stakeholders respectively before foisting Obaseki on Edo South people?

And where was Oshiomhole and his cohorts of Barr. Osarodion Ogie, Hon Charles Idahosa, Chief Osaro Idah among others when APC Edo South got 0% in the 28^th March, 2015 Presidential and National Assembly general elections as result of protest votes against Oshiomhole’s foisting candidates and boasting in bill boards adverts that “A Vote for Oshiomhole is a vote for Buhari”?

In 1991, the late Admiral Augustus Aikhomu, as Nigeria Vice President and Tom Ikimi as National Rebublican Convention (NRC) National Chairman foisted Lucky Igbinedion on the people of Edo South. Attendantly, stakeholders had crucial meeting and adopted Oyegun. Thus swinging the NRC 90% dominated Edo South Local Governments in voting SDP to give Oyegun a win and Governorship. It was a repeat feat that turned Edo South 0% defeat at the March 28^th, 2015 elections into 100% victory at the April 11^th, 2015 election, purely to protect and enhance a Benin Son Chief John Odigie Oyegun’s position as APC National Chairman.

Also let it be known that the current apathy in Edo South is due to Adams Oshiomhole’s foisting Godwin Obaseki on Edo state as governorship candidate which is seen as his actualisation of Oshiomhole reported agenda as contained in the Vanguard Newspaper of 5^th May, 2015 Agenda to rule from Iyamoh through a surrogate Governor. Thus, in spite of Edo South stakeholders continued efforts to protect and uphold a Benin worthy son, Chief Oyegun’s position as APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole and cohorts are warned and advised to urgently stop all actions of shame, and public insult on all people of Edo South. Worst still Governor Oshiomole political god son, Philip Shuaibu has been appointed as dep. Governor to Godwin Obaseki which is an indication of Oshiomole’s 3^rd term in office. A slap on the faces of Edo people and harm of APC in the state.

Let it be known that Oshiomhole has been committing many abominations in insulting General Samuel Ogbemudia, Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, Col Paul Ogbebor (Rtd), Chief John Oyegun true and credible sons of Edo south among others. He has been going free because it was the people of Edo South that massively voted him as Edo State Governor in 2007 when his people of Edo North rejected him as a member of an unwanted tribe that should not be allowed to rule over them.

However, it is Barr Gentleman Ameghor as APC Vice Chairman and Hon. Pius Odubu as deputy Governor that will take the blamed for the APC Edo South current political debacle. This is on the ground that for the duo short sightedness and quick gains that they have purposely betrayed the Benin Leaders when in 2015, they conspired with Adams Oshiomhole in undermining the body. Unfortunately for Ameghor and Odubu, they are now being persecuted by the same Adams Oshiomhole with their having nobody to run to for requisite rescue; hoping they will learn the lesson of unity in strength.

Therefore Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is given two weeks to mend fences with the requisite Edo South stakeholders. We also therefore call on the so called APC Chairman in Edo State, Barr. Anselm Ojezua to quickly retract his insulting and uncomplimentary statements on the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie Oyegun and the entire people of Edo south. Gentlemen of the press, we want to thank you for your time and urge you to give it the best publicity you have been known for as the watchdog of our nascent democracy.

Thank you all and God bless you all

Efosa Aguebor President (BCG) Benin Consultative Group

Ojiezua Lied against Oyegun

A Text of Press Briefing BY EDO STATE PUBLICITY SECRETARY OF ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS APC, COMRADE GODWIN ERHAHON, ON JULY 8, 2016 IN BENIN CITY.
My Respected Colleagues, Gentlemen of the Press.
Thank you most sincerely for responding to my invitation to this briefing at such a short notice. I called you to hear my reactions to the content of the interview granted by my State Chairman, Mr. Anselm Ojezua which was published on page 38, of last Saturday Vanguard Newspaper in which he attempted with obvious malice and naked falsehood to discredit and disparage our able National Chairman and first Executive Governor of Edo State, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun. I waited this long because I expected Mr. Ojezua to deny some of the false assertions that were credited to him in the interview. Several group of Chief Oyegun’s loyalists and sympathizers approached me in protest against the interview and threatened street protests but I calmed them down with the promise that if Mr. Ojezua refused to correct himself within a reasonable time, I will react to put the record  straight as an insider.
Before delving into the area affecting Chief Oyegun in the interview, let me quickly observe that for a State Chairman who claims to be seeking reconciliations of aggrieved parties with the party to refer to Engineer Chris Ogiemwonyi and Barrister Ken Imasuangbon, the two aspirant who are seeking redress though due process, as mischievious, is in itself a wild demonstration of mischief and it rubbished the purported bid for reconciliation.
Above all, it exposed the immaturity and bias of the State Chairman himself.
Mr. Ojezua accused the National Working Committee of our great Party of isolating the State Government and the State Executive Committee from the process leading to the primaries. He grumbled that forms were sold at the National Secretariat instead of the State Secretariat.  Gentleman of the press, you were witnesses to the fact that at the beginning of the process our State Governor openly expressed preference for a particular aspirant out of about fifteen of them.
In fanatic pursuit of the governor’s preference, the State Chairman and some of the State Officials became vicious campaigners for the “preferred aspirants” with unbearable hostilities towards others. With such unprecedented bias and hostility from the officials who ought to be co-umpires in the process, the National Working Committee took the right decision to exclude the State EXCO and bypass the State Secretariat headed by those biased and hostile officials from the entire process.
The hostilities of the State Chairman and his group were so vicious that till date, they still keep malice with those who visited the Deputy Governor, Dr. Pius Odubu, then the leading governorship aspirant, after some sponsored gunmen attacked his campaign rally at Auchi and shot six persons including one of his police orderly, an inspector, who lost an eye to the gun shots. The Chairman has not called or visited the Deputy Governor till date. Besides, soon after the “preferred aspirant “came to campaign to the State Executive, the Chairman refused access to other aspirants to the State Secretariat to campaign.  How then would the National Working Committee have allowed nomination form to be sold at the State Secretariat that had been declared a no-go-area to other aspirants?
It is instructive to State here that till now, neither the Governor nor the State Chairman has discussed their preference of an aspirant with the National Chairman who hails from Edo State. Nor have they mentioned it to Prince Tony Momoh another national leader of the party who hails from Edo State. The State Chairman never discussed it with the State Executive Committee either. Rather, they wanted everybody to obey the governor’s preference as law without questioning.  You can see how they misled Mr. Obaseki and made more enemies for him within his party.
Mr. Ojezua lied when he alleged that Chief Oyegun mutilated the delegates register for the primaries. The National Headquarters, headed by Chief Oyegun only resisted attempt by the State Chairman and his agents to smuggle names of selected members of the campaign organization of their preferred aspirant into the register as replacement for those who have left the party as delegates, including party officials who were not supporting their preferred aspirant.
This was after the State Working Committee resolved that there should be no replacement of delegate till after the primaries. I challenge Mr. Ojuzua to show evidence, if any of a meeting where the State Working Committee reversed itself on the decision to disallow replacement of delegates.
Rather, the State Chairman substituted the State Executive Committee with the Campaign Committee of the preferred aspirant.  He never discussed   with the Executive  of the Party at any level except with the said Campaign organization  even  after the preferred aspirant  has emerged candidate and when effort ought to have been made to bring all hands on deck. It is no longer secret to insiders that till this moment, Mr. Ojuzua is still instigating most members of the Campaign organization of the preferred aspirant, an organization that ought to have terminated with the primaries to refuse reconciliation with the officers whom they mischievously suspended.
Were Chief Oyegun as petty as Mr. Ojezua, he would have dissolved the State Executive Committee since or suspended Mr. Ojezua. After all, for daring to agitate for the sanction of those who openly worked for PDP for the March 28, 2015 Presidential/National Assembly election in Esan Central Local Government Area where Mr. Ojezua hails from, the Chairman of Esan Central Ward one, Mr. Ikhine was summarily and unconstitutionally removed by him without reference to the Local Government Area, Senatorial District and State Working Committee of the party through which the disciplinary process of any Ward officer is supposed to pass.
Mr. Ojezua quickly silenced those seeking sanctions of those who sabotaged voting for President Buhari because he was one of them hence he lost his unit, Ward, LGA and Senatorial District at that election. And inspite of his current position, he can not win his unit come September 10. At the time Mr. Ikhine moved for the sanction of the saboteurs Mr. Ojezua was already hustling for Federal appointment from the Presidency.
Is it not ridiculous for Mr. Ojezua to have confessed in that interview that he complained to the Deputy  National Chairman on the way the preliminaries to the Edo State Governorship primaries were being handled by the National Working Committee instead of the National Chairman himself who is from Edo State? The fact is that, he was afraid to meet Chief Oyegun who knew all that he was doing wrong in Edo State.
Mr. Ojezua was trying to hide the facts of how badly he has belittled the State Executive Committee of the Party when he boasted that he set up a reconciliation committee soon after the primaries whereas it was the Governor who set up the committee with a member of the Board of Trustees, Prince Malik Afegbua as Chairman and six members drawn mainly from the campaign organization of their preferred aspirants who were among those who caused the grievances.
The committee was a still-birth because most members dare not meet the aggrieved aspirants and leaders whom they offended in different ways. If Mr. Ojezua expected them to succeed, he would not have condemned the most aggrieved aspirants whom they were supposed to appease as “mischievous” in his interview under reference.
Gentlemen of the press, it was from some of you that I learnt that the statement announcing the purported suspension  of the State Vice Chairman (Edo South), Barrister Gentleman Amegor was released to the press from the office of the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor. Some of you called to confirm the suspension from me as the State Publicity Secretary whose responsibility it ought to be to announce such suspension if it was genuine. That was how I heard of it.
Were you therefore surprised that the lifting of the suspension was also announced by the governor himself and not the party executive? Today, reconciliation of aggrieved leaders and officers is more complex than the campaign for the election itself as I rightly predicted because some persons are impersonating God and refusing to humble themselves and penitently apologize to those they have offended and whose support we now seriously need to win the election.

I decided to bare my mind on these issues today because they threaten the chances of APC in the September 10 governorship election and I believe that the public deserve to hear the truth. I see the vicious outburst of Mr. Ojezua on Chief Oyegun as a part of attempt to discredit him. It seems to me part of a scheme to bring down those Benin leaders who have risen above state level. As I hinted earlier, I am aware that some groups from across the state are planning to protest against the unjustifiable attack on Chief Oyegun if by tomorrow, Mr. Ojezua fails to retract his statements. They see it as the voice of his master, not his.
As a Benin son, I will not keep silent while the heroes of my fatherland are being pulled down. Enough is enough!