₦airaland Forum

The southerners are real coward and noisemakers.They are talk about SNC for long,now that north is ready for break up they silent.The concern of the north is not derivation just peaceful end of this fake marriage called ''Nigeria''.

The press conference was well attended by all media houses but christian control media decided to ignored it,what a hypocrisy.Hmmmm

The Military authorities yesterday said the church member killed by fellow worshippers in Jos a week ago was the same person thought to have facilitated entrance for a suicide bomber into the COCIN church premises.


Adams Joseph Ashaba was lynched allegedly because he was seen alighting from the suicide bomber’s car shortly before the blast penultimate Sunday, but it later emerged that he was member of the attacked Church of Christ in Nigeria.



After the deadly bombing, church leaders alleged that a military man was noticed assisting the car bomber to gain entrance into the church.

But the Military authorities yesterday said there was no solider close to the church as alleged, and that the late Ashaba was the person attacked by the worshippers in the belief that he aided the bombing.

“During investigation, it was discovered that the alleged suicide bomber who was lynched to death by worshippers and in military uniform was same Adams Joseph Ashaba,” Director of Information of the Nigerian Navy, Commodore Kabir Aliyu, said at the briefing in Abuja by the Joint Security Information Managers Committee.

Reading from a prepared text, Aliyu said, “The Defence Headquarters wishes to clarify that contrary to the earlier report that a soldier was lynched by aggrieved members of the church for allowing the bomber to gain access into the church premises, no soldier was anywhere close to the church before the explosion.

“Investigation revealed that on February 27, one Mr. Julius came to the Special Task Force (STF) headquarters to explain of his missing brother, one Mr. Adams Joseph Ashaba.

“He claimed that the said person was at the COCIN Church headquarters on Sunday, February 26, to worship when the explosion rocked the area.

“He later confirmed that he was informed that his brother’s dead body was picked in a bush by men of the civil defence corps and deposited at the Jos University Teaching Hospital mortuary.

“He then went to the JUTH where he identified the corpse as his brother, Mr. Ashaba, and was directed by the hospital staff to go to STF for clearance.

“During investigation, it was discovered that the alleged suicide bomber who was lynched to death by worshipers and in military uniform was same Adams Joseph Ashaba.

“With this development, Reverend John D. Harung and two other clergy men from the COCIN headquarters were invited to the headquarters of the STF to ascertain that he was a member of their church and not a soldier as alleged.

“The hasty allegation levelled against the military in the unfortunate incident is a calculated attempt to frustrate the operations of the JTF by the same elements who have been unduly calling for the withdrawal of the STF in Plateau state.”

In their account of the bombing in Jos, worshipers said they saw a Golf car with two men arriving at the gate of the church on February 26 and made attempt to enter the premises.

The church security, made up of Boys Brigade volunteers, asked the men to go to the parking lot outside the premises of the church. But a man in military uniform, who was believed to have alighted from the car, intervened, asking the security guards to allow the driver into the premises.

Witnesses said as soon as the car passed the gate, it exploded, killing the driver, while the other person at the front passenger’s seat attempted to escape but was seized and lynched by a mob.

Worshipers also claimed that the solider seen at the scene was attacked and wounded.

Hours after the attack, a purported spokesman for Boko Haram told journalists in Maiduguri by telephone that the sect was behind the bombing.

But on the same in nearby Miya Barkatai in Bauchi State, a bomb attack on a COCIN church by eight Christian men was foiled. The eight men were arrested, detained in Bauchi and later moved to Abuja by the police.source:www.dailytrust.com

Boko Haram: US says FG should reach out to ‘poor’ No

The U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria said yesterday his nation is offering support for the West African country’s fight against Boko Haram, but ruled out sending troops into a region vital to American oil supplies.
Ambassador Terence P. McCulley said the U.S. encourages Nigeria to reach out to residents in its desperately poor Muslim north while using security forces to target and apprehend terrorists.

He said the U.S. is also considering opening a consulate in Kano, the biggest city in Nigeria’s north, to burnish America’s own image among a people still suspicious about Western influence.

However, he was unequivocal when asked in an interview with The Associated Press whether U.S. troops should be deployed in Nigeria.

“That’s not on the table,” McCulley said. “No, absolutely not.”

Nigeria, a multi-ethnic nation of more than 160 million people, is under increasing attack from members of a sect known as Boko Haram. This year, the sect is blamed for killing at least 304 people, according to an AP count. At least 185 people died in Kano last month in the group’s deadliest assault yet.

Nigeria’s central government appears unable to stop Boko Haram, which analysts and diplomats believe has splintered and made contacts with two other al-Qaida-linked groups in Africa.

“It’s of a great concern to us,” McCulley said. “We’ve seen an increase in sophistication; we’ve seen increased lethality. We saw at least a part of the group has decided it’s in their interest to attack the international community.”

The U.S. is working with Nigeria’s police to help them learn how to carry out forensic investigations, while a bomb expert from the FBI has been working with authorities on how to detect explosives planted by the group before they detonate, McCulley said. The U.S. also would be open to training Nigeria’s military in counter-terror techniques, though the country hasn’t asked for that assistance, the ambassador said.

“It’s not going to be solved exclusively by treating it as a security issue,” McCulley said. “It needs a holistic solution. Government needs clearly to have a targeted approach on security that targets the bad guys, that targets perpetrators of these horrible attacks and doesn’t injure innocent civilians or damage property.”

Intelligence-gathering also remains a concern for the U.S. in Nigeria, especially after a failure by American authorities to take seriously a warning about Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before he boarded a U.S.-bound flight that he attempted to bring down with a bomb in 2009. While McCulley declined to give details, he said that “adequate systems” were now in place to receive such warnings and that the U.S. maintained “robust relations” with Nigerian intelligence agencies.

The current unrest has not affected oil production in Nigeria, an OPEC nation. Nigeria now produces about 2.4 million barrels of oil a day, with much of it shipped to the U.S. However, China has shown an increased interest in Nigeria in recent years, taking part in large-scale public projects as it expands its economic reach into the nation’s crude-rich Niger Delta.

However, McCulley said he had no worries about Chinese influence in the country.

“We believe in , competition,” the ambassador said. “My own personal feeling is there’s a level playing field and the U.S. investors or the U.S. business is going to do very well against any competition.”source:dailytrust.com

Written by Tony Adibe, Enugu Sunday, 29 January 2012 05:00


The 27 men from the northern part of Nigeria with 19 local guns and other dangerous weapons who were arrested by the police at Nsukka (Thursday night) for unlawful possession of fire arms were hunters, and have no link to the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, Sunday Trust learnt from a reliable police source.

Our reporter learnt that upon arresting the men, the traditional ruler of Adani Community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State was actually contacted and he confirmed that the men, among them a 70-year-old man, were hunters who went on expedition. The men were armed with axes, long knives and other harmful objects.

It was gathered that the last time the hunters visited the town on similar expedition was about three years ago, and that they usually settled at a camp in Adani, although they are still under police custody.

“The security situation in the country now does not permit one to carry guns about from one state to another since that will create more tension plus the already existing tension the land,” said the source.

The Nsukka Division of Enugu State Police Command had Thursday night arrested 25 persons and their two drivers, including local guns, which they concealed in bags of fertilizer with axes and long matchets. The suspects were reportedly traveling from Zamfara state with a bus bearing Zamfara state government number plate Thursday night when they were intercepted by the police at Nsukka.

The Divisional Police Officer at the Nsukka police station, who drove away reporters, and prevented them from taking pictures of the suspects, however, quoted to have said that the suspects were hunters who were traveling from Zamfara on a hunting expedition to settle in Enugu, and not actually members of the Islamic sect.

Our reporter gathered that a powerful team of police had been sent from Enugu Police Command to transfer the case and suspects to the state police Headquarters at Enugu for further screening. “The state government does not want to take chances,” the source said.

The State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Ebere Amaraizu, who confirmed the incident said the Hausas were “really intercepted on their way from Zamfara, they were coming to settle in Enugu. They had den guns for hunting and not terrorism adventures.”source:www.sundaytrust,com.ng

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, national leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), has urged the Federal Government to seek genuine consultation with Boko Haram leaders to find out why they are aggrieved.

Fielding questions from journalists on arrival at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, Tinubu said the activities of the Boko Haram sect have continued to threaten the Nigerian society.

Tinubu, who commented on the appointment of the ACN presidential candidate, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, as chairman of the Petroleum Resources Task Force, said the panel was a ploy to cover all the political donations the ruling party (PDP) received from oil and gas companies.www.dailytrust.com

Jaiz Bank to open 13 branches this year


        Nigeria’s first non-interest bank, Jaiz, said it is targeting to open 13 branches from its current three before the end of the year.
The bank started its operation on January 6, after receiving a provisional license from the Central Bank of Nigeria.

General Manager of the Bank, Hassan Usman who led a three man delegation to the Daily Trust corporate head office in Abuja, yesterday said in the past one and half months of its operation, the bank has made reasonable progress with the opening of branches in Kano and Kaduna, beside the head office in Abuja.

The new branches would be opened in the North East and North Western part of the country.

He also said the bank would spread its branch networks to other parts of the country early next year, including, Port Harcourt and Ibadan.

“The three branches we have opened are now online real time. We believe that in two to three weeks time, we would be like every other bank in terms of services and product rendering,” he said.

Non- interest banking is derived from the Islamic laws which prohibits earning interest on loans/lending and financing of businesses such as gambling and liquor, among others.

The banking option basically operates through joint ventures, leasing and sales from whence it makes it profit. It is in operation in the UK, US, Malaysia, Arabia countries and other climes.

Usman explained why the bank chose to have a low key start and why it started with current account only.

He said: “Unlike the conventional banks, we have limitation as to what type of investments we can make. We have to develop the business outlay on how to invest savings. If you are a savings account holder and you are giving us your money, we don’t have the liberty to put it on Treasury bill to earn daily interest due to the peculiarity of our operations of non-interest banking.

“We want to service everybody in this country. We have to manage the resources and invest them to get a profit (not interest).  So, our priority first is to identify all the different investment outlets who will give us reasonable returns. We have discussed with reasonable number of partners and in the next few days, we should be able to start operating savings accounts. That takes some little time to do. That is being overcome and as soon as we are done sorting out logistical issues, we would embark on a media campaign to inform the general public of our operations.”

On employment, he explained that Jaiz is an equal opportunity employer that does not discriminate on the basis of creed, race or sex.

“We are open to do business with any one provided the business does not contravene our charter. We employ anybody. What we need is competence to drive quality service delivery to our customers and partners,” he said.

http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=154708:jaiz-bank-to-open-13-branches-this-year&catid=2:lead-stories&Itemid=8

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has warned that the rampant poverty that plagues oil-rich Nigeria felt most acutely in the north is fueling the religious violence now tearing at the nation.

Speaking Monday night in Lagos at the ThisDay Awards, an annual ceremony hosted by Nigerian newspaper magnate Nduka Obaigbena, Clinton admitted he remained “really worried” about the security challenges in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation.

“You can’t just have this level of inequality persist. That’s what’s fueling all this stuff,” Clinton was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

New government statistics released Monday showed that in Nigeria’s northwest and northeast, regions besieged by Islamic insurgents, about 75 percent of the people live in poverty.

Analysts say that poverty, despite decades of military rule by leaders from the north, coupled with a lack of formal education has driven the region’s exploding youth population toward extremism.

Clinton urged Nigerians to embrace their similarities, and asked the government to speed public works projects such as providing electricity.

“It is almost impossible to cure a problem based on violence with” violence, Clinton said. “You also have to give people something to look forward to when they get up in the morning.”

However, Clinton acknowledged Nigeria cannot rule out using military or police force when dealing with the instability.www.dailytrust.com

Mr.John okiyi kalu .when will you realise that the divide and rule game used in the north during last general election is over.This your meaningless monotonous essay is not working.
Your brother GEJ used Christianity as his main slogan during campaign and got support of some middle beltans christians.My question to you after the election tell me one major appointment given to northern Christians as a compensation for their support.I remember during obj's regime the chief of army staff is a northern christian while during Yaradu's government the DG SSS is a northern christian.Do you think they a fools?
Just last weeks Hausas were attacked by your brothers because of the crime committed by a son of middle beltan[idoma],if to your eyes senator waku is not a northerner why the attack.

God punish criminal soludo.My money is still in savanah Bank

Contrary to speculations, the Ohaneze youth president in Kano State, Mr. Martin Igwe has said that there is no threat to the lives and property of Northerners in the South-East region. Igwe, who is also the spokesperson of the Free Al-Mustapha Youth Movement, told our correspondent in Owerri yesterday after he visited all the states in the zone to ensure that Northerners there are not being harassed or molested.

“I was in Onitsha before coming to Owerri, and I have been to Enugu and other states in the zone, and I want to confirm to you that there is no threat to the lives of Northerners in the South-east,” he said.

He maintained that the continuous stay of Northerners in the South-east region will add value to the economic development of the zone.

Igwe, who commended Northern governors for assisting victims of the bomb blasts, urged them to stop dealing with Igbo leaders, except the Ohaneze leadership.

He lamented that some of the financial assistants given to Igbo victims by some Northern governors do not get to the real victims.source:www.dailytrust.com

President of the Civil Right Congress (CRC), a human rights organisation, yesterday described the donation of N100 million by the Central Bank of Nigeria to victims of the recent Kano attack as commendable.

The president of the Congress, Shehu Sani in a statement, said criticisms against the donation are not based on sound reasoning.

“The recent donation of N100 million to Kano victims of Boko Haram violence is a welcome development that should attract commendation and not condemnation. The criticism against the donation is not based on rational reasoning, but on chauvinistic and narrow minded logic. There is nothing wrong with the donation as long as it is going to benefit families of those affected. Criticizing the donation is an insult to the grieving families.

“Families of victims of violence in other places have the right to demand for similar assistance, but criticism against the Kano donation is irrational and utterly sentimental. Sanusi Lamido Sanusi did nothing wrong, those calling for his sack are chauvinists and ethnic irredentist whose ethnic veils have denied them the wisdom of seeing the compassionate side of the donation. Sanusi Lamido has done a commendable job,” he said:source:www.dailytrust.com

@anonimi.Mts, over N100Million to a small parking space and you are talking of value for money.Abeg give better reason to depend your christian bigot soludu.The money is backdoor donation to CAN.

The attidute of christain in this country is highly amazing.Sanusi religious bigot?How much CAN was collecting during soludu's time as CBN Gov.in the name using christian centre as CBN parking space,despite the fact there is enought parking space in the CBN premises .morethan N100 million annually.what do call that?

Honestly the problem with majority of southerners is this issue of lion in the cage.They believe every northerner is a hausa man.the guy is christian from benue state.This type of time happened to me last week in lagos.we were in a garage waitng for our evening vehicle to move.there were  two ladies inside the vehicle from jos with jeans half of their breast were outside,they asked one yoruba man that he look like somebody that they knew.The yoruba man reply them,that is not hausa may be they are looking for their hausa brother.In my mind i said this is the same tribe that eat hausa's flesh.

Is a shame people went distroying propeties of Hausas in the name that,the killer cop is a hausa,his name is corporal SAMUEL OJONA.the guy was dismiss from police and arraigned in court yesterday.

Responding to a question during a CNN interview on Saturday, Professor Wole Soyinka, Nigeria’s only Nobel laureate, said the emergence of Boko Haram was the crude response of the north, having lost power because the PDP did not stand by its earlier arrangement of alternating the presidency between the north and the south.

I do not belong to the PDP, so I cannot speak for the northerners in the PDP. And those that have been following my views will, in fact, agree that I have been against the exigency of power rotation. I have, for a very long time, consistently insisted on true democracy only, devoid of election rigging. I maintained this position even before the PDP was born. Rotation, I have often argued, deprives Nigeria of its best available materials, especially at the very top. And rotation must never be misconstrued as federal character, which I support.

Also, I cannot speak for the north on rotation, but I know enough to know that Professor Soyinka is dead wrong. Soyinka is no ordinary Nigerian and he has done very well for himself and his country by winning the Nobel Prize. Nigerians and indeed the world at large would be right to rely on people like him for mature, reasoned and intelligent viewpoints on issues that relate to the country. On this, the Nobel laureate has oftentimes lived far below expectation. During the same CNN interview, when asked if he was hopeful about Nigeria, the professor of literature used the opportunity to obliquely canvass the break-up of Nigeria as he has done for as long as we have known him.

On the issue of Boko Haram, Soyinka is wrong because Boko Haram is a direct consequence of the failure of government. Boko Haram had existed long before the last election and even their avowed agenda of fighting the Nigerian state and all those against them including Islamic clerics and Christians (in accordance with the hate gospel according to Abubakar Shekau, its self-proclaimed leader) does not make any reference to the issues propounded by Soyinka.

The first thing everyone must know about the Boko Haram phenomenon is that its ideology and belief systems are not shared by Muslims in Nigeria. Ninety per cent of the victims of Boko Haram’s murder expeditions so far have, in fact, been Muslims. And, about six weeks ago in the United States, someone who had misinterpreted the Boko Haram insurrection as a war between Christians and Muslims asked me why adherents of the two religions were at war.

My immediate response to him was that a small terrorist group which had overpowered and flooded out the government was killing both Christians and Muslims. The Boko Haram people must have their grievances. But that does not give them or any other group, including MEND and OPC, the latitude or licence to commit crimes against the Nigerian state including mass murder, which is in fact classified as an international crime or crime against humanity. Today, the whole of the north, Christians and Muslims, including those whom Soyinka accused of renting or organising the Boko Haram as a revenge against the Jonathan government for usurping their right to the presidency, are scared stiff of the renegade sect. This numbing fear is not, strictly speaking, of the sect, but for the fact that it is now clear to every Nigerian that the government cannot protect them from Boko Haram. As it is today, the government officials who should be working their brains out to find out how to protect Nigerians against the terrorist activities of Boko Haram are desperately racking their brains for new ways to protect themselves and their families. The rest of us are on our own, apparently, and must resort to self-help. That’s how bad the situation has become.

Boko Haram is obviously a consequence of the failure of the Nigerian state to live up to its responsibility to its people. In 2002, hopeless youths in Maiduguri started massing around Mohammed Yusuf, who was said to be a brilliant student of another very influential Muslim cleric, Sheikh Jafar Adam. They abandoned their primary and secondary school studies on the grounds that western education was a sin (boko haram). The youths had seen many graduates who had remained unemployed for as long as they could remember. With time, the more militant and violent members of the group took advantage of the growing discontent of the youth and broke away from the main group and relocated to Kanama village at the borders of Niger Republic in Yobe State, the birthplace of Yusuf. By 2004, they had started striking Muslim targets that did not share their doctrine, and it has been said that it was members of the group that murdered Sheikh Jafar, their teacher, in 2007.

Sheikh Jafar was thoroughly against their philosophy. They also killed some of his close associates and several Islamic clerics.
In 2009, 17 members of the group were shot and killed by members of the police force during a peaceful procession. The sect members and their sympathizers said they were killed in cold blood, but a top policeman I spoke with said they were going to bury the bodies of those they had killed. The top police officer said the sect had become accustomed to killing people in cold blood by then. By that time, Mohammed Yusuf had started enjoying an opulent lifestyle and driving around in big cars. This was the point at which some people started suspecting that he must have been receiving sponsorship and funding from outside our shores.

The extra-judicial killing of 17 of the sect members played into the hands of the extremists among them who used that as an alibi to launch a spate of murder operations against Islamic clerics and politicians in Maiduguri who challenged them. Mohammed Yusuf also ordered all his members to gather in Maiduguri as a result. At this point, he had succeeded in reconciling the different tendencies within the sect once again under his leadership. In 2010, an all-out war broke out between the sect and the police. The soldiers were called in to put down the insurrection. The military succeeded in quelling the crisis, killing several hundreds and capturing thousands including Mohammed Yusuf himself. In the war, the sect members killed several policemen including DSP Abdulazeez Farouk, the son of retired police commissioner Usman Farouk, who was the governor of the defunct North-Western State (today’s Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara and Niger states) during the Gowon regime. The police force was also accused of extra-judicially killing the former Borno State commissioner of religious affairs, Buji Foi, and the father-in-law of Yusuf, Baba Fugu.

After this incident, a very virulent leader of the sect called Abubakar Shekau emerged. It has even been said that Shekau and Yusuf were never on good terms and that Shekau would have killed Mohammed Yusuf if he had had his way. That would have hardly been surprising, as it was also members of the sect that murdered their original leader Sheikh Jafar. Shekau it was who added Christians to their enemy list.

But Boko Haram has since become a huge franchise for all kinds of outlaw groups. And it will definitely not be correct to blame all crimes on the group. Quite curiously, some Christians were implicated and arrested in connection with the burning of St John’s Catholic Church in Bauchi, said to be masterminded by a certain Lydia Joseph. Another church, God’s Grace International Ministries Church, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, was said to have been burnt down by another character called Wisdom King who was dressed in kaftan and a turban. Obviously, the more you see, the less you understand. Many armed robbers also operate in the name of the group, even though Boko Haram itself had invaded banks with bombs and grenades to steal money for its operation.

A large part of the Boko Haram membership is now composed of foreigners from Chad, Niger Republic and Sudan with their own fanciful idea to break up Nigeria so that they can use the northern stump as their own Somalia.

Of course, these foreigners who have no stake in Nigeria cannot ply their criminal activities in their own countries because the governments in their lands have been more successful in defeating their terrorist activities. Sudan, Niger, Chad and even Libya have been involved in wars for a very long time and the Nigerian government should have known that the very dangerous weapons deployed in those wars could find their way very easily into Nigeria through our famously porous borders, if not checked. They eventually did. The bombing of the UN building is believed to be an opportunistic attack and some people point at the Libyan elements among them, who wanted to avenge the UN’s stand against Ghaddafi. Otherwise, the UN is an unusual, if not an unlikely, target for the Boko Haram, intelligence sources say.

So, a personality of the intellect of Wole Soyinka should not be as simplistic as he often appears to be. He is dead wrong on his analysis of the origin of the Boko Haram. As to his insinuation about the break-up of Nigeria, I do not think that somebody of the status of Soyinka should be talking like an OPC member. Of course, any section of Nigeria that wants to break off should come for a send-off party, but, at a higher level of discussion, all of us should know that the oneness of Nigeria and its indivisibility is worth defending. We are what we are in world affairs today because of our size and population, the same asset that other countries have put to good use. Indonesia, with a population of 245 million people, is the biggest economy in South-East Asia; Brazil with a population of 203 million people is a global economic power; and, of course, India and China with over one billion people each are forcing a shift of world economic power from the west to the east.

Even in spite of our current embarrassing self-inflicted problems, with a population of 167 million people, Nigeria’s economy is faring better than anticipated. This, of course, is because the private sector has decoupled from the government and our large informal economy has existed as if there is no government. This is so largely because of our size and population. The Nigerian economy will, in a couple of years, overtake the South African economy, according to several international economic think-tanks.

I’d rather align with another literary intellectual, Professor Chinua Achebe, who himself is well-deserving of a Nobel Prize, in the analysis of the Nigerian paradox. The problem of Nigeria, Achebe said a long time ago, is squarely a failure of leadership. Nothing more, nothing less.:Source:www.leadership/nga/columns

Written by Adamu Adamu.

Professor Wole Soyinka, who appears totally ignorant of the most burning issue in international current affairs, betrays an unacceptable level of illiteracy on a related issue at home. On the issue of culpability for the origin of Boko Haram, Mahmud Jega says of Soyinka that he thinks he knows; Sam Nda-Isaiah says he doesn’t, and is hopelessly dead wrong; Mohammed Haruna says he only peddles pure rubbish. All the three are right, but the truth really is that he doesn’t even understand—and probably never will.

This is because the tunnel vision with which he sees the country has been conditioned by three factors—an unfounded cultural superiority complex, a hubristic pagan worldview and an experience in which he saw the man died.

The issue of Boko Haram merely gave him another opportunity to take on his imagined old adversary—the Northern Establishment, which he now holds responsible for the creation of Boko Haram. This is simplistic and laughable; but it saves this unready analyst the trouble of having to know the background to the situation, engage in serious analysis of the issues involved, draw the necessary conclusions and find a way forward for society.

Certainly, a knowledge of the varieties of groups on the Islamic revival scene, which no one on the international scene should today be without, the fact that Boko Haram predated the Jonathan administration, and is confined to a corner of the country that is held by one of the opposition parties, and is opposed to all constituted authority including that to be wielded by the Northern leaders that were supposed to have founded it, would make Soyinka’s simplistic explanation all too obvious—and it might have been made to draw attention away from suspected US involvement.

No doubt, Soyinka suffers from tribal hubris of which he needs to be cured. Going by the themes of his literary output, he seems to believe that his race is the greatest and the most cultured—and therefore, by implication, his pronouncements must be the best and the final word the world is waiting for.

But what is this Yoruba culture in which people like Soyinka take so much pride? No doubt, his people love their language and love singing in it; they love their bodies and love waltzing them into a variety of dance forms. They love their lives and are always impulsively proud to say that they love the culture that has come to define the way they see themselves and view others.

However, what Soyinka holds aloft is not culture: it is paganism; though it must be admitted that it is quite elaborate. But the possession of a pagan past is no accomplishment; it is a fact of history and every tribe has had one; and after the advent of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, there is nothing more to glory in animistic heathenism: it is there at the centre and origin of every type of primitiveness. The issue therefore should not be the promotion of the pagan culture of a distant past, but the cultivation of culturedness in present conduct.

The proof and relevance of culture should be in its attitudinal pudding, measured by its practical moral utility in setting the standard of what is acceptable in human conduct; and not in the elaborateness of ancient idolatrous rituals.

For us, it represented the sub-humanness of our primordial cultural history; and we are not proud of it, and nor are we any more captivated by its elaborateness or by the depth of meaning and the symbolism of its meta-paganism. Of course that is not to say that cultural mores are without meaning. Not at all. They may often in fact be too pregnant with a variety of meanings capable of interpretations; but their import is for a world that is past and gone—and better forgotten.

Man’s cultural and social development have today passed the ignorance and obscurantism that paganism has to offer and the superficialities of the animus of those whose antipathy to divine values today finds expression in the cultivation and promotion of this new international pagan culture.

But there is no superiority in paganism: there was nothing in Yoruba native forest theology that was more diabolical than the heathenism of the Savannah, where, in the Benue valley, there is magic that is blacker than Sanponno; and in Niger valley, a Satanism that is darker than Esu’s; and among the Maguzawa there are totems that, though benign, are no less occultist.

The rituals of Tsumburbura were every inch as complex and elaborate as the possessed incantations of Ogun or the thunders of Sango, and no less diabolical. The Satanology of Santolo would beat every mumbo jumbo of Ifa Orisa divinations. The rites of Mai Barhaza would any day be more picturesque than the dance of the Egungun masquerade; and Babule and Dan Galadima more demonic than Ogboni totemism, and of women just as chauvinistic.

In lasciviousness and pure voluptuary the Gelede Festival pales in comparison to the Dala Dance of unclothedness. In number, in hideousness of Satanism and in the comprehensiveness of misguidance Obatala’s 4,000-odd Orisas would prove no match for the fetishism and atheistic devilry of the numberless Iskoki of pre-Islamic Bahaushe. Or of the pre-Christian Tiv man, for instance. But all these are facts of which no one is today proud, or on account of which cultural superiority is assumed over others.

Perhaps Soyinka’s—and Nigeria’s—problem lies in the fact that the Nobel Laureate considers himself an intellectual whose word the world looks forward to. And he is not. True intellectualism is not the mere fact of having been to school or teaching in one. It is all about being conscious, sensitive and aware of the circumstance and of one’s role in it and one’s readiness to sacrifice and suffer to make it better.

You are either born an intellectual or you are not: it is an attitude that cannot be learnt; because education and experience only help to refine and sharpen an already existing predisposition—being analytical, being objective and being truly concerned. While some intellectuals choose only to expose a bad situation, others, in addition, fight to change it; and of these, those that succeed are those unencumbered by prejudice of the kind that Soyinka has always exhibited.

It is not a quality that the receipt of an international prize—not even a Nobel—can confer on one; and a literary career based solely on the exploration of themes in Yoruba paganism is insufficient a social platform for someone like Soyinka, who is really not fully intellectualised, to articulate usefully on any of the many contentious national issues. That is why Soyinka is never known to have offered a solution that works; or that, when looked at closely, makes any sense. Of issues even within their areas of primary interest, they have no real knowledge—only fancy and conjecture and an overarching desire to belong to the cultural metropolis from which they unconsciously take their cue in spite of all the parroting of authentic Ogun-ness.

Nigeria has changed from the closed society of 1964, but those unable to see, or are averse to seeing, healthy change in the nation have decided to cling to the uncreative fiction of the Wetie. And the fact that he is not understood—in his literature and in his analyses—and is therefore not generally effective shouldn’t mean that he doesn’t belong to that distinguished class of tribal jingoists and sectional propagandists; because even if his analysis is not clear—and is probably not even an analysis—his objective is always only too obvious, not least because, as far as the North is concerned, what he bandies about as analysis of its condition and role has remained unchanging over all these years.

Three decades and someone has still not grown culturally or developed intellectually; and what a coincidence that Boko Haram also originated in Bo-ro-no State! Someone like him who has chosen the narrowness of a pagan worldview and eschewed the universalism of divine guidance or even that offered by objective secular multiculturalism will never taste the sweetness of true intellectualism. With a mind fixated on hatred and all muddled up with an incurable anti-Northern animus, it has become permanently set and is now a part of character, but too superficial and too ossified to be of any intellectual use.

In our situation, it is not those who do not know who are lost, it is those who do not want to learn who are; and all those pretentiously bookish creatures whose knowledge is only from books are in reality ignorant even of them. Of this and of Boko Haram, he doesn’t really understand—and probably never will.


[Last week, I inadvertently referred to His Excellency Ambassador Moshe Ram of Israel as Moshe Arens. The error is regretted.www.dailytrust.com

One of the star witnesses in the murder case of Kudirat Abiola, Muhammad Abdul, also known as Katako, who during the trial testified against Major Hamza Al-Mustapha has yesterday said that he was bribed by the government to lie, and that Al-Mustapha is innocent.
Katako made the startling revelation in an interview with the Hausa service of Radio France International (RFI), monitored in Abuja.
“Yes, I lied. But later I reflected over my life and what I will meet in the hereafter. Whatever financial reward one gets here for giving false testimony, one will one day definitely die. So, I realized what I was doing was mortgaging my hereafter, and went back to the court and told them that I lied”, he said.
Asked why he gave the false testimony in the first instance, Katako said, “I was promised so many things. But let me clarify something first. When I was arrested my case had nothing to do with Major Al-Mustapha. I was arrested concerning the issue of Mohammed Sani Abacha. They told me they wanted to recover some money from him and they promised me 10 percent of whatever they will recover, plus a house at any place of my choice. After convicting him, they will also take me to any country of my choice.
“Then later, they brought Al-Mustapha’s case, read all the charges against him and told me what to say when I am taken to court. That was how I found myself among the witnesses introduced in court”, he said.
Among the people who lured him into the trap, according to him, were “Colonel Kayode Are (rtd), former Minister of Justice, Chief Bola Ige, former Lagos state Commissioner of Justice, Yomi Oshibanjo and his deputy, Fola Author-Worrey. We sat with these people several times. These are lawyers. I asked them if anything was going to affect me negatively; and they said no. They said I should not worry about any anything. They said these people are your lawyers; they will not lie to you. After all, this is a government case and you are a government witness.”
Katako said he now regrets his action, because as a Muslim he is supposed to be a good person, not the cause of someone’s pains or death.
“But even though I went back to the court earlier and said that I lied, still the court decided to discard my second testimony and based its judgment on the lies I told earlier. That’s why I now want everybody to know the real truth, through other means”, he said.
Asked if the lofty promises made to him were fulfilled, he said: “Only one promise was fulfilled. They bought me a house in Jos,” he said.
He however added that it was not because of the unfulfilled promises that he was spilling the beans, because even if the rest were fulfilled, he will not accept anything from them now.
“My conscience is pricking me; that’s because of my false testimony against an innocent person. That person is now facing death by hanging. If he is killed, his blood is in my hands; and no matter how long I live, one day I must die.
“So, I want the world to know that he is innocent” , Katako concluded

SOURCE:www.people-dailyonline.com
http://www.peoplesdaily-online.com/news/national-news/29723-i-was-bribed-to-nail-al-mustapha-says-katako

God bless you Bashir.while other northern leaders are coward they are silent on all insult from idiots including pegan and mad men,you did a nice job may God protect you.

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) yesterday called on the public to support the acting Inspector General of Police Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar to tackle crime.

The association met with the inspector general in Abuja. FCT CAN Chairman Reverend Dr. Israel Akanji said the essence of the meeting with the IG was to pray for peace and for all policemen to fight all forms of crime. “Every policeman needs our support from the IG down. We also thank the FCT Minister Bala Mohammed for his effort in maintaining peace.”

He said the meeting was organized to “let our people know that the police have made adequate security arrangement to protect them. Policemen were deployed to cover our churches. We also encouraged our people to report suspicious activities to the police.” He said the Christian communities have met with Muslims recently at the National Mosque Abuja where they both agreed to work together at addressing insecurity.

The IG represented by the FCT Commissioner of Police Mike Zuokumor said everyone has the right to practice their religion without harassment and the police will continue to provide protection to people irrespective of their religion. He commended the association’s pledge to support the police in their work as well as work together with the new IG.

Freegaza u are right.presently nyako is leading bcs christian buid their campaign on religion they are with ACN candidate, 80% of adamawa are muslims. All the three senators are muslim

by your definition of middle belt Atiku,Ibb,Abdusalam,Abdullahi Adamu and rest of the criminals are in middle belt.I dey laf

This morning, I intend to join in the search for a meaning to the disastrous events in Kano ten days ago, and I hope to do so by adding to the existing confusion.

The attack on Kano was a human, security, economic, morale and public relations disaster for the country. Yet, in a perverse way, it reduced developing national tension because it demolished the earlier perception of a Muslim versus Christian war that was gaining currency after the Madallah church bombing and the Mubi attack on an Igbo community meeting.

Though Christians died in the Kano attack, an attack on Northern Nigeria’s largest and richest city was clearly an attack on the Muslim community. Why didn’t Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor ask Muslims to defend themselves? Instead, he called for calm!

Some Northern Muslim youth bloggers who had been saying in recent weeks that the government may be behind the attacks blamed on Boko Haram were shocked into silence. It could be that a government conspiracy could unleash armed attacks and bomb explosions, but where will government hire suicide bombers? Besides, Boko Haram had earlier published an open letter threatening to attack Kano because it said its members were arrested there.

That the Emir of Kano, who never shows emotions in public, shed tears when President Jonathan paid a visit suggests this was the most traumatic event in Kano since Lord Lugard demolished its walls with a Maxim gun and occupied it in 1903.

Yet, some people were still saying that the Northern Muslim Establishment was sponsoring Boko Haram in order to destabilise the Jonathan presidency. I saw Ambassador John Campbell saying as much on BBC television at the weekend. Asked what would be the solution to this problem, he said Jonathan should make overtures to assuage the feeling of marginalisation now felt by Northerners.

Even though no one regards me as an “expert” in these matters the way Campbell is “internationally” recognised, but as a man who was born and bred and who lives here, I will categorically state that Campbell is completely off the track on this one. No overtures by Jonathan to the Northern political establishment will in themselves contain the Boko Haram problem.

If, for example, Jonathan announces today that he will not run in 2015 and will support a Northern Muslim as his successor, which is the kind of overture that Campbell is talking about, I don’t think it will have the slightest effect on the Boko Haram sect. Even if Jonathan goes a crazy notch above that and, say, resigns and hands over to Vice President Namadi Sambo, such a Northern Muslim president will still find the Boko Haram problem top on his plate of problems.

Then there are many Northerners who are saying the Federal Government should dialogue with Boko Haram because it dialogued with OPC and Niger Delta militants. I concede to their good intentions, but the situations are dissimilar. Both OPC and the Niger Delta militants did a lot of havoc variously by staging inter-communal attacks, kidnapping oil workers and sabotaging oil installations. Yet, Boko Haram’s policy of targeted assassinations, bombings, bank robberies, wholesale attacks on cities and suicide bombings of a church, Police Headquarters and the UN Building have gone way beyond that.

And that’s not even the main problem. The OPC thugs were politically in tandem with the Yoruba Establishment, pursuing alongside it the feelings of political marginalisation in the wake of the June 12 election annulment. Niger Delta militants’ cry of resource deprivation and environmental spoilage tallied with their Establishment’s demand for resource control and derivation principle. Hence both problems were solvable. The stated Boko Haram agenda of wholesale Islamisation of the society through the rigorous adoption of all aspects of Shari’a is not at all shared by the Northern Muslim Establishment or, for the matter, most Northern Muslims. So how will appeasing the Establishment solve this problem?

Now, there are those who say that poverty in the North East caused the Boko Haram problem. Certainly, poverty has a lot to do with the size of the pool of unemployed youth that can be recruited to perpetrate mayhem. However, there are important qualifiers to this assertion. One is that the most poverty-stricken people in Nigeria, namely the rural peasantry, are also the most obedient and peace-loving, so long as you do not directly touch their farmlands, fish ponds or wives.

The nomadic cattle herders too, who enjoy almost nothing in Nigeria in terms of amenities, are very peace-loving so long as you do not directly threaten their cattle herds. In fact, I remember reading a tract written by a World Bank economist in the 1990s who said “poverty is actually very stabilising; it is the development process with its crisis of rising expectations that is destabilising.” It looks to me he is right, because the urban poor, which in many ways is better off than the rural peasantry, is more crisis-prone than the former. Remember also that we had the Maitatsine uprising at the height of the Oil Boom in 1980.

Let’s move on. Groping around for what to do in the circumstances, President Jonathan apparently decided to apportion all blame to the police, sacked the Inspector General and 6 DIGs and promoted an AIG to acting IG. Very good. I have had my own personal frustrations with the Nigeria Police, but I do not think they are the main culprits in the government’s failure to adequately respond to the Boko Haram threat.

Since May 1999, the police has had 7 IGs [Musliu Smith, Tafa Balogun, Sunday Ehindero, Mike Okiro, Ogbonna Onovo, Hafiz Ringim and MD Abubakar], or less than 2 years in office each. There are more than enough cases of theft, local disputes, armed robbery, communal clashes, local riots, fraud, traffic accidents, murder, assault and political crises in the country to keep the Nigeria Police well and truly occupied. I doubt if an IG can be blamed for not devoting a lot of thought to a problem such as domestic terrorism. What is the State Security Service and the National Security Adviser supposed to do?

Promoting an AIG to IG was clearly done for Federal Character reasons, because in this country, the Service Chiefs are shared among the geo-political blocs. In the Jonathan arrangement, the Muslim North was allocated Air Force Chief and Police IG, so the president had to look over the heads of all the DIGs to find a replacement for Ringim.

Let me add that he wasn’t the first to do so. In 2001, when President Obasanjo removed IG Musliu Smith, he had to go over the heads of all DIGs to find another Yoruba Muslim, then AIG Tafa Balogun, to replace Smith. Once you begin politicking with such a professional post, there is no end to it. Now some people are saying M.D. Abubakar shouldn’t be IG because he was indicted by a Plateau State government white paper in 2001 of being a partisan in the state’s inter-communal disputes.

The fact that police authorities ignored that “white paper” since 2001 I think says a lot. To be frank, a Plateau State Government indictment of a Federal official with respect to that state’s intractable inter-communal crises shouldn’t wash with the President for the simple reason that PLSG itself is a partisan in those crises. Over the years, it has tried to harass and discredit any Muslim security officer deployed to Plateau State either as GOC, Police Commissioner or Joint Task Force Commander. How can its “indictment” be taken seriously?

In the wake of these security challenges, some activists have revived the old cliché of a “sovereign national conference” to “discuss the basis of Nigeria’s unity.” At the height of India’s crisis with the Sikh militants culminating in the attack on the Golden Temple at Amritsar in 1984 and the subsequent killing of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, I didn’t hear calls for a “sovereign national conference” in New Delhi, Mumbai or Kolkata. I hope I added to your confusion this morning

what is the definition of middle belt?

Written by Tony Adibe, Enugu Sunday, 29 January 2012 05:00


The 27 men from the northern part of Nigeria with 19 local guns and other dangerous weapons who were arrested by the police at Nsukka (Thursday night) for unlawful possession of fire arms were hunters, and have no link to the Islamic sect, Boko Haram, Sunday Trust learnt from a reliable police source.

Our reporter learnt that upon arresting the men, the traditional ruler of Adani Community in Uzo-Uwani Local Government Area of Enugu State was actually contacted and he confirmed that the men, among them a 70-year-old man, were hunters who went on expedition. The men were armed with axes, long knives and other harmful objects.

It was gathered that the last time the hunters visited the town on similar expedition was about three years ago, and that they usually settled at a camp in Adani, although they are still under police custody.

“The security situation in the country now does not permit one to carry guns about from one state to another since that will create more tension plus the already existing tension the land,” said the source.

The Nsukka Division of Enugu State Police Command had Thursday night arrested 25 persons and their two drivers, including local guns, which they concealed in bags of fertilizer with axes and long matchets. The suspects were reportedly traveling from Zamfara state with a bus bearing Zamfara state government number plate Thursday night when they were intercepted by the police at Nsukka.

The Divisional Police Officer at the Nsukka police station, who drove away reporters, and prevented them from taking pictures of the suspects, however, quoted to have said that the suspects were hunters who were traveling from Zamfara on a hunting expedition to settle in Enugu, and not actually members of the Islamic sect.

Our reporter gathered that a powerful team of police had been sent from Enugu Police Command to transfer the case and suspects to the state police Headquarters at Enugu for further screening. “The state government does not want to take chances,” the source said.

The State Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Ebere Amaraizu, who confirmed the incident said the Hausas were “really intercepted on their way from Zamfara, they were coming to settle in Enugu. They had den guns for hunting and not terrorism adventures.”source:www.sundaytrust,com.ng

Samaila isah is the owner of bullet construction company who has on his payroll over 4000 southerners.He truely spoke the mind of an average northerner.We are waiting for the promoters of the conferance to react and set the ball rolling.This fake queen marriage is not working,let us take our separate way.imagine living in the same country with the killers of innocent children in the name of withcraft.This time round we dont want usualy lagos press conferance,show us you are serious.

@ Darui.Neither who want live in the same country with gang rapists.419,arm robbers etc.Have you ever take time to know the number of your brothers and sisters that are waiting hang man in china,Singapore,Korea etc in respect of hard drug related offences.

if they are angry,they should go and drink burukuto with poison.mts, lazy animals

An average southerner is a noisemaker without action.They have been talking about sovereign conference for years.Roll out the modalities and see who will back out.

Political leaders of the Northern part of the country are not afraid to discuss the future of Nigeria at the so-called sovereign national conference, Chairman of Bullet Construction, Malam Samaila Isa, said yesterday.

Speaking at the 9th Annual Daily Trust Dialogue, Isa said some political leaders from other parts of the country have turned the issue of sovereign national conference into a sectional agitation.

“If somebody wants a sovereign national conference in Nigeria, do you think those of us from this part of the country will say no? The person is welcome.

“What is sovereign national conference? People just want to lead some group of people. I am not being parochial and anybody who knows me knows that I have crossed that boundary, but if anybody wants sovereign national conference so be it.”

Isa said the North could survive without oil revenue. “We have land, we can feed ourselves. Is oil not a curse on us?”

He said elder statesmen and political leaders from all sections must refrain from making comments that could aggravate tension in the country.

Reacting to an advertorial by elders from a section of the country claiming blood affinity to President Goodluck Jonathan, he said “many of those that signed their names on that paid advert, some of us who know them closely were not surprised.

“But, there are few of them that we were surprised by virtue of what position they held in this country, they should be the last people to get involved in such a thing, even if it is going to be done.”

Isa said there are however an editorial in a newspaper owned by a South-south indigene and comments by some individuals that proved that such ‘elders’ lacked support of the majority for the position they took.source:www.dailytrust.com