These are trying times for the great nation of Nigeria! Self-acclaimed international agencies have clamped down on the country without respect for its independent entity, sovereignty or territorial integrity and have taken the government and its citizens to the cleaners! There is no aspect of Nigeria's social, political and economic life that has not been maligned and torched by these agents of destabilization!


Another attack deliberately targeted at embarrassing and discrediting the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) government, very close to the 2019 General Elections, came recently (17th December, 2018), in the form of a damning report tagged "Harvest of Deaths", by AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL (AI) Nigeria Chapter. The report condemned and claimed that Nigeria's security architecture was the worst kind and that the Nigerian Army (NA), and APC must be held responsible for their assumptions which were totally based on uninvestigated, biased and baseless allegations gathered from disgruntled politicians and fifth columnists opposition elements of the society!
Amnesty also claimed that government's failures fuelled escalating conflict between farmers and herders in a three-year bloody clash as death toll got close to 4,000, in a state- by-state chart and that hundreds were still displaced in many parts of the country! This Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), which claimed to champion and seek redress against human rights abuses, asserted that: "resources scarcity and not religion and or ethnicity, was at the heart of the crisis", and also sought for accountability/justice for victims and their families!
And dwelling on those half truths/fabricated foreign reports, the internet remained awash with all manner of hate publications/speeches by undemocratic citizens, especially the unrepentant members of the Opposition Peoples Democratic Party and their cohorts who should have been highlighted by AI and be held accountable for Nigeria's security challenges and lapses from 1999-2015, which ripple effects had proved very difficult to surmount in the past three-and-a-half -years by the incumbent administration under the watch of President Muhammadu Buhari!
With that kind of one-sided report, can this "non-profit organisation" prove its integrity, probity or righteousness as a truly neutral arbiter in this very delicate issue touching on the life and death of innocent citizens of Nigeria on both sides of the WAR? If the incessant human right abuses perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists in NINE years against Nigeria metamorphosed from religion to a War of Attrition and that of the Killer Herdsmen onslaught progressed from ethnicity to successive brigandage, do the transformation of these heinous crimes that have resulted in 3,641 recorded deaths according to AI statistics, ERASE the initial motif of the perpetrators?
The people of Zamfara, Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa, etc, have been divided along both religious/ethnic lines in all the years of these devastation and by extension the entire citizenry’s psyche had constantly been put on edge! Was it not high time that AI released its report on human abuses by Boko Haram terrorists and the killer herdsmen against the innocent citizens of Nigeria from 2009 to date with facts and figures?


ROLE OF THE NIGERIAN PRESS IN DISSEMINATION OF BIASED FOREIGN REPORTS!
There is no doubt that a sizable percentage of the Nigerian Press (print/electronic), are aversed to the new policies of the Change mantra which are masses focussed and people-oriented, having been very comfortable with the PDP corrupt governments that held sway for 16 consecutive years because they disseminate fake news, hate speech advertorials, negative commentaries - local/foreign - like they were normal way of life! Whenever Nigeria was painted black for unexplainable reasons by those who hated Nigeria and President Buhari with passion, the Nigerian Press goes wild with excitement to publish comments based on half truths only to retract them when threatened with court actions!
Gone are the days of vibrant, articulate, educative and investigative journalism pioneered by icons like Herbert Macaulay, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, and anchored by Alhaji Lateef Jakande, Alhaji Babatunde Jose, Peter Enahoro, Theresa Ogunbiyi, Adamu Ciroma, 'Dele Giwa, Dan Agbese; etc, etc, which produced the "first fruit" of Independence - A PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM of government that birthed the rapid economic growth of Nigeria through the political class within a short span of SIX years before military incursions!
However, the same cannot be documented for the 21st Century "mercenary bread and butter" members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm, licensed by previous and current 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to act as the government's "Watchdog", for accountability to the people, BUT WHO HAVE GOVE TO ROOST! The free-for-all and uncensored internet technology information had robbed the "modern journalist" of his endowed, innate/investigative prowess and rendered him stupefied, very lazy and unproductive!
PROGRESS MONITORING MUST CHANGE HANDS NOW!
Was it not high time that DEVELOPING NATIONS established NGO'S to monitor and evaluate on annual basis, all discrepancies of GOVERNANCE in the so-called developed nations and publish such for global consumption and comparisons? Was it an African or Asian NGO that indexed the annual unemployment ratio in both America and Britain at 4.4 per cent abreast? Greece was not adjudged as the poorest nation in spite of its ONE DECADE OF ECONOMIC DOWNTURN!


FEDERAL GOVERNMENT/NIGERIAN ARMY COUNTER AI REPORT!
Government says that AI's report was wrong, outdated and a misnomer! The Minister of Information and Culture was categorical that government did not look the other side while terrorists rampaged its territory, contrary to AI's assertion and revealed the following facts:
1. FG arrested 947 suspected terrorists, prosecuting 841, while 68 of them had been convicted; with the breakdown as follows; (a) Taraba State, 49 arrested and 42 being prosecuted; (b) Plateau State, 43 arrested and 31 being prosecuted; (c) Benue State, 120 were arrested, 81 being prosecuted and 68 convicted; (d) Niger State, 47 were arrested and 40 are being prosecuted; (e) Zamfara State, 172 were arrested and 162 are being prosecuted; (f) Nasarawa State, 43 are arrested and 40 are being prosecuted; (g) Adamawa State, 38 arrested and 34 being prosecuted; (h) Yobe State 42 arrested and 38 are being prosecuted; (i) Bornu State, 40 arrested and 36 being prosecuted; (j) Katsina State, 49 arrested and 46 are being prosecuted; Kogi State, 23 were arrested and 20 being prosecuted!
He further disclosed that Operation Absolute Sanity in the North East and North Central, arrested 158 suspected terrorists and 150 are being prosecuted while the Inspector General of Police Response Team had arrested 123 and is prosecuting 121, which clearly debunked AI's allegation of government's inaction! Amnesty International should update its report to reflect that perpetrators of those killings were being brought to justice, the minister concluded!
FOREIGN BRAGGARTS SHOULD FACTOR GOD INTO THEIR LIVES!
WHAT DOES GOD EXPECT FROM FOREIGN ASSESSORS - THAN FOR THEM TO DO THE NEEDFUL - LIFT THE FEEBLE HANDS OF DEVELOPING COUNTRIES UP AND TAKE THEM UP THE LADDER OF POLITICAL/SOCIAL / ECONOMIC GROWTH RATHER THAN CLASSIFY THEM AS UNDER-DEVELOPED/ THIRD WORLD, POOREST, ILLITERATE, BACKWARD ETC,!
NEITHER AMERICA NOR BRITAIN WOULD HAVE PROSPERED WITHOUT IMMIGRANT DOCTORS, NURSES, ENGINEERS, TECHNICIANS, BUILDERS, ROCKET/SPACE SCIENTISTS, ETC, FROM, AFRICA, ASIA, HISPANIC & INDIAN NATIONS!
WAS IT NOT HIGH TIME THE UNITED NATIONS HEADQUARTERS AND ALL ITS AGENCIES RE-LOCATE TO AFRICA TO CONTRIBUTE TO ITS POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT? They should not forget that we have something in common - CLIMATE CHANGE AND ENVIROMENTAL DEGRADATION - conditions that are no RESPECTER OF NATIONS, CREED, CASTE, OR COLOUR!
"The earth is the LORD'S and the fullness thereof, the people and they that dwell therein." (Psalm 24:1).
Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall. (1 Cor 10:12).

I am, yours sincerely, Dr. David B.A. Olufon. 08130669886, 08098194390. 08080243066. g-mail- dvdolufon@gmail.com

Of course we believe Amnesty International, they're an unbiased umpire.