₦airaland Forum

From Nankpah Bwakan, Jos

Apparently frustrated by the noose tightened on Plateau state by the emergency rule imposed by the Federal Government, Governor Jonah Jang yesterday sought the withdrawal of the military and the return of security responsibilities to the police.
This is coming on the heels of decisions taken lately by the Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Oluseyin Petirin leaving the governor with little or no control of security matters even as the chief security officer of the state.
Speaking at Governor’s lodge, in Jos while receiving a delegation from the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji in Kaduna, undertaking a study with the theme “Current Security Challenges and Socio-Economic Development in Nigeria”, Jang said the soldiers have overstayed their welcome and stood to be compromised if they were kept for too long in a particular place and became too familiar with their hosts and the environment.
This observation tallied with series of the governor’s allegations a few months back that the troops were partial in their dealings in the state.
According to him, this would compromise their profession but however regretted that the police which should take charge of internal security lacked adequate manpower. Thus the need for the Federal Government to properly train the mobile police to guarantee the security of all Nigerians.
According to him, “When you keep military men for too long in an internal security operation, they get spoilt and start losing their background as military personnel.
“The military is supposed to come in briefly when the police is unable to cope during crisis and get out for the police to take over when the situation is brought under control”.
Jang appealed to Nigerians to shun violence of any sort so as to enable the military return to the barracks and focus on their professional calling.
Jang observed the more the military spent time controlling internal security, the more it loses time for the profession.
According to him, all the great countries now developed, passed through security challenges saying Nigeria should experience its own share of the crises even though he did not wish that the country continued in the bloodbath taking place in some parts of the country.
In his words “Developed nations went through worst crises than ours. They fought civil wars and today they are great countries; some of them have been around for about 200 years. Nigeria is only 51 years.”
He called for proper documentation of the current security challenges in the country so that the next generation could adequately informed of the trials adding the future of Nigeria would be build on current events in the country.
Jang expressed confusion on the nature of the current crises in the country and said he could not describe whether they were political, ethnic or economic.
He urged the military look at security situation objectively and make recommendations to Federal Government suggesting ways of ending the senseless killings in the country.
Speaking earlier, the leader of the delegation Brig. Gen. Ohifeme Ejemai said the students were undergoing professional training to prepare the students ahead of future security challenges and were in Plateau state to see the situation first hand, particularly the foreign students

From Osaigbovo Iguobaro, Bennin

In what appears to be an aberration from the tradition of his constituency, a top military officer yesterday appealed to the Federal Government to urgently explore the option of dialogue in dealing with the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram, due perhaps to the apparent failure of deployment of troops to contain the insurgency.
Leader of Course 34 study group of the Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna state, Navy Commodore, Ferguson Dukas Bobai, made the appeal during a courtesy visit on the Benin monarch in Benin City, Edo state, Omon’Oba N’edo, Oba Erediauwa.
The military chief’s appeal came barely three days after the deadliest attacks by the Boko Haram sect on security agents and civilian residents of the commercial city of Kano, which led to the killing of at least 200 people last Friday.
The plea also came on a day the police in Kano said they discovered no fewer than eight vehicles laden with bombs scattered in different parts of the city, more so when the Emir of Kano, Alhaji Ado Bayero and the state governor, Engineer Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso led Muslim faithful to pray for peace.
The top military officer’s demand also coincided with the killing of four men suspected to be members of the dreaded Islamic sect, also known as Jama’atu Ahlis Sunnah lid-Da’awati wal Jihad in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital.
Decrying the current state of insecurity in the country, Commodore Bobai said: “The most worrisome is the issue of these bombings. I like to say in my own assessment that in the resolution of the security challenges we must employ more than force.
“If you look at the military powers, like America, America deployed their soldiers to Afghanistan in pursuit of terrorists (people who do the same thing Boko Haram is doing). Has there been a solution? They are still fighting. The colossal sum of money that America is using to maintain their troops became so colossal that it had a severe burden on America’s economy that when Obama came he said ‘No, we can no longer sustain this; we have to pull back our soldiers so that we can save the money we are spending’. What is the Afghan government doing now? They are beginning to talk with a view to brokering a truce and resolving this issue.
“Yes, we are training soldiers and police on anti-terrorism operation; once they graduate, they are deployed to Maiduguri or some of these places where these things are happening, but yet the people are still bombing. It is not easy for you to see somebody and say this man (is Boko Haram).
“If the Boko Haram can come out and wear uniform, we can engage it. I still believe that there must be a way of identifying those that are behind them so that we can engage them in dialogue. (Ask them) what they want and what can we give them?
“, If we deploy the whole military, they will still be bombing. You might be able to reduce it, at the same time inflict some inconvenience on the society. So I believe it is a political solution that will resolve this problem rather than we chasing one another about. Let’s sit down and talk; let them come out and put their grievances on the table, that is my own candid opinion”, he said.
The Commodore further suggested that President Jonathan should to take a cue from President Barrack Obama who was forced to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, Iraq, Sudan amongst others when the cost of maintaining American soldiers began to take a huge toll on their economy.
On illegal oil bunkering and smuggling by pirates on the Atlantic Ocean, the Commodore Bobai, who said he began his Naval carrier in Warri, Delta state during Buhari administration, said the military was doing its best to curtail the menace, adding that the Federal Government was on the verge of procuring a coastal radii that will complement the warship to put pirates out of business.
In his response, the Oba commended the group and urged them to make the best out of the opportunity to restructure the nation’s security. “Ok, I think God will help all of us”, he said.
The theme of the 2012 study group is “Current Security Challenges and Social Economic Development of Nigeria”.
During their meeting with Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo state, also yesterday, the governor called on the Federal Government to properly equip the police and other security agencies with modern equipment to tackle the new security challenges facing the nation.
According to him, “Though the Federal Government collects the lion share of 52.6% of the Federal account, we expect that the Federal Government should fund the security agencies adequately. Because even if I am not a security man, I know that these days you need the right type of technology, and with the right technology, you need less manual effort and less guess work. These tools require resources and my impression is that the Federal Government is not funding the police and SSS adequately to enable them have gadgets and instruments they need to enable them fight crime”.
In Maiduguri, four suspected members of Boko Haram believed to be on a suicide mission were shot dead on Sunday in Pompomari area of the town by operatives of the Joint Military Task Force (JTF).
Field Operations Commander of the JTF, Col. Victor Ebhaleme who disclosed this to newsmen yesterday claimed that various improvised explosive devices (IEDs) ready for detonation were recovered from the Volkswagen car of the suspects.
Col. Ebhaleme said that the suspects were involved in the killings in Maiduguri and environs. According to him, the sect members have been under the surveillance of security agencies before they were killed on Sunday during an encounter with JTF personnel. He warned that those harbouring the sect members should desist from the act and report to security agencies for prompt action.
Meanwhile, some gunmen on Sunday night shot dead a registrar with the Borno state high court.
The court registrar who was identified as Baba Loskurima, according to witnesses, was shot dead by the gunmen in front of his house in Tandari area of Maiduguri around 7pm.
Our correspondent gathered that the gunmen took away his car and undisclosed amount of money before they fled the scene.
The deceased, it was gathered, was a principal registrar and protocol officer to the state Chief Judge, Justice Kashim Zanna.
Spokesman of the state Police Command, ASP Samual Tizhe confirmed the incident, said the victim was shot at his residence Sunday night.
In Kano yesterday, the police said they found at least eight vehicles filled with explosives in the city, while also upping the official death toll in Friday’s bombings in the city to 185.
In the meantime, Governor Kwankwaso and the Kano Emir led other top government officials and clerics at the city’s Eid ground to offer prayers for peace to reign in the city and other parts of the country after the deadly attacks of last Friday.
“I will pray to God that we should never re-live the catastrophe that resulted in the deaths and maiming in our city,” Governor Kwankwaso told newsmen after the prayers yesterday.
On his part, Alhaji Ado Bayero told the clerics: “I enjoin you to continue praying for peace and stability in our city. I call upon you to use any religious fora to pray for peace in our land.”
“Without peace life would not be worth living and religion itself can’t be practiced”, he said.source:www.peoplesdaily-online.com

Operatives of the State Security Service (SSS) yesterday arraigned two Adamawa State politicians, Mr Edward Ogundani and Mr Charles Tomlava , before a Yola Magistrate’s Court for the circulation of inciting text messages and pamphlets of purported plans by Muslims to launch Jihad against Christians in the state.

Ogundani is the spokesman of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) gubernatorial candidate in the state and is said to be a member of the syndicate which has four other members of the group under investigation at the SSS office in Yola.

The state had recently witnessed communal conflicts and gun attacks resulting in the loss of lives and property.

The suspects were alleged to have been using the text messages and pamphlets to heighten tension in the state ahead of the re-scheduled governorship elections billed for early February.

The prosecutors told the magistrate that “the arrested culprits commenced sending of text messages, circulating pamphlets purportedly written by yet to be identified one Sheikh A.Y. Muhammad that Muslims will launch Jihad against Christians ahead of the elections, a situation that has created panicking in the state.”

The chief Magistrate, Susan Ellam ordered that the accused be remanded in prison custody and adjourned the case to February 2.

The SSS has in recent times submitted names of politicians who it said were in its “black book” to their respective political parties for reprimand.

Although the SSS declined to release the list to newsmen, the State Director, Mr. Alfred Olusegun Ajayi, stated that the action became necessary because of the bad records of some politicians in the state.

Ajayi said that while some of the parties and their officials had been playing the game according to the rules, others engaged in acts inimical to law and order.source:www.dailytrust.com

You and your friend are big liars.why should north celebrate over his death? Pls. Stop posting scrapt in naira land

The attention of Major-General Muhammadu Buhari has been drawn to a statement credited to President Goodluck Jonathan that the former Head of State has thrown his weight behind the anti-people measure called "subsidy removal" which the PDP government wants to force down the throat of Nigerians.



Speaking at the 17th Nigerian Economic Summit(NSE) in Abuja on Thursday,the President said:
"That is why I can now appreciate people like General Buhari,who in terms
of politics was my major competitor, he is the only one person who has
come up clearly that the issue of subsidizing petroleum products is a fraud.
He is not playing politics with the development and future of Nigeria"

While it is true that General Buhari has dismissed what government officials call "subsidy" as a fraud, his position has been misrepresented and misapplied by the President to suit the unpopular measure the government wants to take.

General Buhari insists that most of the elements that goes into what is called "subsidy" is the cost of corruption in the opaque business of oil import that has become a cash cow for the alliance of oil importers and government officials bleeding Nigeria white.

He maintains that the sharp practices that characterize importation of petroleum products suggest that the state of our refineries is a deliberate sabotage by these powerful forces who are doing illicit business at the expense of the welfare of the people of Nigeria.

"If this were not so, why is it that the public does not know how much a litre of petrol is bought from the international market and the places we are buying from?Why is consignment deliberately left at the Ports for I4 days to attract demurrage?Why go and pile charges at private jetties again which is also part of the landing costs" he asked.

He further buttressed his assertion with the deadlock between the Federal Government and Staes over the N250b that was to be deducted as first line charge for "oil subsidy" for only September 2011 when that was the amount budgeted for the whole of 2011:

"It took rejection of cheques by the states for about 2 weeks before N65b was returned from this amount into the pool.Why has the cost of subsidy been rising monthly since January when volume of import has not increased and prices of petroleum products have not gone up in the international market" he queried.

As man who has stood against corruption in both private and public spheres all his life,General Buhari cannot lend his support to a measure that aids corruption and further impoverishes the people as all the Federal Government wants to do is to jerk up the pump prices.

His panacea is that Government must fix our refineries and facilitate the building of new ones so that we can refine locally for the benefits of our economy and the people and derive maximum benefits from the 114 additives of oil.

When this is done Nigeria can be in league with other OPEC countries where the cost of fuel is Saudi Arabia $0.12(N18 per litre),Kuwait $0.79(N32 per litre),UAE $0.37(N57 per litre),Venezuela $0.05(N7per litre),Qatar $0.22(N34 per litre),Iran $0.42(N17 per litre) and Algeria $0.20(N31per litre).

Pending when the above will be done,the Federal Government must get out of fuel importation and let the marketers do their own business of importation in a competitive way that can modulate prices up and down.

This is General Buhari's way of rising beyond partisanship to offer suggestion in the overall interest of the country- not by backing oil cabal agenda of impoverishing the people to satisfy the greed of a few.

Yinka Odumakin.
Spokesman to General Buhari:www.saharareporters.com

President Goodluck Jonathan yesterday praised General Mohammadu Buhari, his major opponent in the 2011 presidential election for not playing politics with the issue of subsidy removal unlike other politicians in the country.

The President made the remark during the presidential dialogue with the Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) of global corporations at the 17th Nigeria Economic Summit in Abuja with the theme, “Attracting foreign direct investments through global partnership.”

The President said that prior to government’s decision on the removal of subsidy, he knew a lot of players in the country who were against subsidy but who quickly changed their stand when the government made the pronouncement.

“We are in the part of the world, Africa, developing countries where we play politics with everything even issues of development. I know some key players, some key actors who before this time were against subsidy but now, they have brought politics into it. The same people are now speaking from a different side of their mouths.

“That’s why I can now appreciate people like General Buhari, who in terms of politics was my major competitor, he is one person who has come up clearly that the issue of subsidizing petroleum products is a fraud. He is not playing politics with development and the future of Nigeria but not everybody will have the mind like General Buhari.

“Many people, I don’t want to call names, now see it as an opportunity to bring down the government and under that situation, you must take pains to explain it to the ordinary Nigerians both students, the youth, market people,” the President said.

He also said that though the people know the truth, but for political reasons, they will rather misinform the people, adding that deregulation only serves the interest of the elite who have 10 jeeps to fuel and not the ordinary poor masses.

The President also assured the global and Nigerian business community that the issue of Boko Haram is a temporary one which will soon be over, adding that “anybody who does not want to come and invest in Nigeria now because of the incident of Boko Haram, will really regret it because this is very temporary.”

“If people begin to think that Nigeria will continue to be a place where people will manufacture and come and dump, I think the days of dumping are going. I will advice that the global players should look at the economy and see areas where they will come and invest.

“Yes, we have challenges in terms of power but security, there is no country that is completely safe even as powerful as America is, they don’t sleep, they monitor and watch. It’s just that terrorist activities are new in Nigeria,” he said:source:www.dailytrust.com

Boko Haram leaders yesterday asked some Nigerians to return the money they “fraudulently collected” from top federal and Borno State governments’ officials on the pretence that they would facilitate dialogue with them (the sect members) to lay down their arms.

The group did not mention the names of the people it suspected or the government officials that gave the money.

Spokesman of the group, Abul-Qaqa who spoke to Daily Trust on phone yesterday, said after serious threats, some of the “negotiators” had responded positively.

“We have so far recovered over N12 million from the fraudsters,” he said.

The group also alleged that some non- governmental organizations were collecting money from top government officials “in the name of striking a deal with our group.”

Abul-Qaqa said such individuals and groups must surrender what they collected or prepare to accept the consequences of their actions.

According to him, “Some people have made our noble struggle a business venture of collecting millions of naira from various governments. We know the perpetrators and they must stop. They must also surrender all the monies they collected on our behalf if they want to live in peace.

“So far, we have contacted some of the persons that are linked with such deals. Some of them have confirmed to us that they were indeed given money, but some are proving stubborn. We know where all of them live and we know their movements,” he said.

He added that, “Anyone who returns the money for us to use it for the cause of Allah will be spared by us, but those that are not cooperating will be visited by our members very soon and their names will be given to journalists”.

Efforts to speak to government officials in Maiduguri were successful. The telephone lines of the commissioner for information and that of the governor’s spokesman were not going through.source:www.dailytrust.com

The Chairman of presidential panel on the pre and post election violence in some parts of the country, Sheikh Ahmed Lemu, said yesterday that the committee did not indict former Head of State Gen Muhammadu Buhari in its report. Sheikh Lemu told the BBC Hausa service that so many politicians called on their supporters to guard their votes just like Buhari did.

When asked whether his committee said Buhari’s comments were responsible for the violence, Sheikh Lemu said: “If you take a look at our report, what we said cleared Buhari of any complicity. Because we showed that he was not the only one, there were other prominent politicians, who asked the people to protect their votes. And we said that statement was misconstrued to mean a call to violence, and they did.

“But when we went to Buhari, we later realised that he was also a victim. They destroyed his property and other things. We discovered that there was no way he could have been responsible for the violence. You know if people want to mischievous, they will interpret things the way they like. But we have cleared him of any complicity.”www.dailytrust.com

President Goodluck Jonathan has assured international investors of his commitment to peace in Nigeria and regretted the impression in some quarters of Nigeria as a difficult place to do business.

Speaking at Nigerian Investment Summit and Exhibition organised by the African Business Forum in New York yesterday, he assured international investors that there was not much to worry about over terrorism in the country saying that even though the problem of Boko Haram and terrorism was new in the country, government was rapidly creating infrastructure to deal with it and put it behind very soon.

He also announced that he has approved the issuance of 10 years visa for deserving British businessmen as a way to encourage them to invest in the nation’s economy.

The President has also advised the United Nations Security Council to return to the path of preventive diplomacy as a way of reducing the growing conflicts in parts of the world to the barest minimum.

In a statement he delivered at the Council in New York yesterday as part of the 66th General Assembly of the United Nations, Jonathan abhorred the use of force in conflict resolution.

He said that when Nigeria convened the open debate on Preventive Diplomacy in July 2010, the government was motivated “by a profound concern that the nature of conflict was out-pacing our collective ability to respond effectively to it.” Justifying his call for peace, Jonathan said Nigeria has invested resources to support the campaign for Preventive Diplomacy, especially within the West African sub-region. Meanwhile, Jonathan yesterday met with several world leaders as part of the activities of his participation in the United Nations’ General Assembly.

A statement by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Reuben Abati, said the president, accompanied by the First Lady, Dame Patience Jonathan, attended the reception hosted by President and Mrs. Barack Obama for world leaders attending the 66th UNGA, at the New York Public Library. Abati said Jonathan met with President Jacob Zuma of South Africa, President Alassane Ouattarra of Cote d’Ivoire, President Pal Schmitt of the Republic of Hungary and President Isaias Afewerki of the State of Eritrea where bilateral issues were discussed.source:www.dailytrust.com

Inexperience in handling official state matters has earned Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Chief Anyim Pius Anyim queries from President Goodluck Jonathan, Peoples Daily learnt.
One of the stumbles of the SGF started recently when he was said to have minuted a memo to the president approving the annual leave of some ministers in usurpation of the powers of his boss.
Anyim had apparently mistaken the president’s directive asking ministers to report to him on very important state matters to mean direct powers over them including approval of leaves without presidential assent.
The SGF was said to have stopped the buck on his table and wrote “for your information” on the leave memos forwarded to the president.
Aso Rock sources told one of our reporters that when the president saw the memos, he quickly queried the SGF, pondering the implication of a minister proceeding on leave without his consent when urgent official matters arise.
Another instance of the SGF’s flip-flops relates to the organisation of a retreat for top government officials in which the job routinely done by the bureaucracy was contracted to private consultants against the advice of bureaucrats.
An official, according to our investigations, had told the SGF of the mandatory Oath of Secrecy administered on government employees who usually organize the events but Anyim flatly rejected it in preference for the consultants.
According to our sources, the consultants are yet to write any report on the retreat. They however produced an 18-page communiqué which ended up on the president’s table.
President Jonathan immediately queried the lengthy communiqué and asked for it to be rewriten to a more concise form by government officials who had served as rappoteurs during a previous retreat oganised under the Jonathan leadership in 2010.
The SGF, who had already settled the consultants handsomely, had to revert to the government experts for a better communiqué. Our sources revealed that the experts have yet to release the repackaged document to the SGF in expectation of their allowances for the communique.
Other modus operandi of the SGF are also ruffling feathers in office. For instance, Peoples Daily learnt, most permanent secretaries working with Anyim have been sidelined with the passing of their responsibilities to Special Assistants (SAs) appointed from outside the civil service. President Jonathan approved five SAs namely Media, Legal, Admin, Research & Documentation and Political for the SGF.
This, we learnt is contrary to the tradition where secretaries to the government appoint only one SA especially because no fewer than eight permanent secretaries are usually posted to his office to handle such matters relating to administration, special duties, general services, research and documentation, as well as political, legal and cabinet matters.
Our reporters also gathered that Anyim also has in his coterie of aides, the Chief of Staff, who like the five designated SAs were engaged outside the federal civil service.
In total, the SGF has 12 personal aides competing with the president’s 20 approved by the National Assembly in an administration striving to cut cost.
Anyim, according to our source, is the first SGF in Nigeria with such a huge number of personal aides against the backdrop of eight permanent secretaries reporting to him.
In his current style, memos referable to the senior technocrats are now directed through the rookey SAs for action before sending them to the permanent secretaries.
This chain, Peoples Daily further gathered, slows down the process of decision making and impacts negatively on government business.
Reacting when contacted, Special Assistant on Media to the SGF, Mr Sam Nwaobasi, described the report as “unfounded, malicious and an exercise in futility,” and called on those behind it to think of positive ways of contributing towards the nation’s growth.
Continuing, Mr Nwaobasi said “I cannot really deduce anything meaningful from this whole question you are asking. How will someone come up with stories on issues that never transpired in the first place? Let’s not give attention to trivial issues, instead we should be concerned about serious state matters,” he advised.
He said, “We are always available to offer clarifications on issues that concern the daily activities of the SGF. We don’t withhold any information meant for the public”.source:peopledaily-online.com

The Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) has given a blow-by-blow account of how the April 16 presidential election was rigged in favour of President Goodluck Jonathan and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In his evidence in chief at the presidential election tribunal, Acting National Secretary of the party,. Buba Galadima, an engineer, revealed how excess ballot papers printed by a local printing company, Tulip Press Limited, were used to inflate the scores of President Goodluck Jonathan in the presidential elections in the South-south and South-east regions of the country.

In addition, he told the tribunal, headed by Justice Kumai Bayang Akaahs that the votes recorded in favour of President Jonathan, his Deputy, Namadi Sambo and the PDP were products of multiple thumb printing by few individuals who unlawfully gained access to the many ballot papers in favour of the PDP’s logo (5th respondent) on the ballot papers to give an undue advantage to the 3rd respondent (President Jonathan).

He added that in spite of the low turnout of voters in many states of the federation Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) still went ahead to score President Jonathan with over 95 per cent of the total votes cast in many states of the federation.

According to Galadima, “INEC had claimed in many fora prior to the election that the contract for the supply of sensitive electoral materials such as ballot papers was awarded to a foreign company for security reasons.
“That the claim of INEC, 2nd respondent, was widely reported in the print and electronic media in the country.
“That the Chairman of INEC, Attahiru Jega (2nd respondent) also made this declaration when he addressed a meeting of the leadership of political parties in the country in preparation for the election in the country on steps he had taken to ensure a free, fair and credible elections in the country,” he added.

Galadima further averred that; “the election was originally to begin on April 6, 2011 but was postponed by Jega on the ground that the foreign contractor was unable to meet the deadline. The postponement of the election was deliberate and intentional when voting had commenced in most parts of the strongholds of the petitioner thereby giving the 3rd 4th and 5th respondents (President Jonathan, Vice President Sambo and the PDP) an opportunity to study the voting pattern of the electorate with a view to taking neutralizing measures.”

“But INEC and Jega attributed the postponement to inability of the contractor to airlift election materials on time due to the civil war in Libya and the Tsunami disaster in Japan even when Jega had in less than 24 hours to the election addressed the nation and assured it of adequate preparations for the election and that the sensitive materials were already in the vault of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN),” he added.

The CPC scribe further stated that: “It was later discovered that the statement of Jega that the contract for the supply of sensitive electoral materials such as ballot papers was false, misleading and calculated to deceive Nigerians including the petitioner. I know for a fact that the contract was awarded to local companies owned by stalwarts/agents and members of the PDP that eventually took unilateral responsibility of distributing election materials with the exclusive collision of INEC and Jega while the petitioner was excluded.
“That one of the contractors was Tulip Press Limited which belongs to leading members of the PDP and that on or about April 10, 2011 two men, Messers Akinolu Akinto and Habila Stephen were caught with a van loaded with about 100, 000 ballot papers for the presidential elections scheduled for April 16, 2011 by the police in Abuja.

“That on investigation by the police, it was found that the ballot papers were printed by a printing press belonging to Tulip Press Limited belonging to one Bello Gwandu, a former managing director of the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA) and a staunch member of the PDP,” he stated.

Galadima noted that; “on thorough search of the printing press, additional one million copies of the ballot papers meant for the presidential elections scheduled for April 16, 2011 were found. About 12 people were arrested by the police and were kept in custody at Utako Police Station. The Divisional Police Officer for Utoko Police Station, Usman Umar told newsmen that the case was transferred to the force headquarters and until this moment the 12 people arrested have not been arraigned before a court of competent jurisdiction.
“That I know as a fact that fake papers meant for the presidential elections scheduled for April 16, 2011 in Kebbi, Sokoto, Zamfara and other parts of the North-west geo-graphical zone were printed by Tulip Press Limited,” he added.

Galadima further alleged that; “just before the presidential elections of April 16, a lorry load of ballot papers were removed from the stores of INEC to the presidential Villa, Aso Rock, Abuja ostensibly for the viewing of President Jonathan and when INEC was confronted with this fact, it said the matter was under investigation.”
CPC produced five witnesses yesterday including it Deputy National Chairman, Salihu Mustapha (North) and National Publicity, Rotimi Fasaki, who refused to be intimidated by the legal team of INEC, President Jonathan and the PDP.
Hearing on the petition continues today.

Even keyboard voted for Governor Patrick Yakowa of Kaduna State during the governorship election in Kaura Local Government Area, the governorship candidate of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Alhaji Haruna Saeed Kajuru has alleged.

Speaking to our correspondents in Kaduna, he said the level of rigging and corruption that trailed the election in the state was unprecedented and that he would go to any length to get back what he called “his stolen mandate”.

He also presented a computer printout of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) titled, Valid registrants for Kaura Local Government Area in which at polling unit 010-bondon 1 Unguwar Raymond Agang, keyboard was registered as an eligible voter.

The keyboard was number 84 on the list with registration number, 90F518406296489662. Our correspondents report that unlike in other cases where photographs of registered persons were affixed, in this case it was the photograph of a keyboard that was affixed.

The entry was as follows: name: keyboard, gender: male, age: 110, occupation: public servant. According to the CPC candidate, thousands of such cases were recorded in Kaura and other local government areas in the Southern part of the state.

Also speaking, the lead counsel of the CPC, Mr. Adeniyi Akintola said they have presented the case as an exhibit before the tribunal.

“That was not voting, how can keyboard or computer vote? It shows the amount of fraud that was committed during the election. In that same local government, INEC did not produce one single result sheet. There was no election there, yet they credited PDP with 75,000 votes,” he said.

When contacted, the Administrative Secretary of INEC in Kaduna State, Mallam Musa H. Adamu said he could not speak on the matter without the permission of the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner.

And when our correspondents visited the INEC headquarters in Kaduna, mobile policemen stationed there said the REC was not on seat and they prevented them from entering the secretariat.source:www.dailytrust.com

A middle aged woman has been arrested and kept under the custody of Bauchi Police Command for allegedly attempting to set St. John’s Cathedral Church situated along Yandoka Road in the Bauchi State capital ablaze.

The Catechist of the church, Mr. John Daniel, said he was at the residence of the priest of the church when the incident occurred. Daniel who identified the suspect as one LYDIA JOSEPH, who was converted by the Charismatic Renewal Ministry of the church said: “She used to come and fellowship with us but she is not a member of the church.”

Mr. John said the suspect after entering the church poured fuel on the chairs inside the church and lit a lighter and was on her way out when a member who was in the church to pray saw her and raised an alarm.

“We had to rush in and put off the fire. Fortunately for us, a man praying in the church saw her and shouted that the gates should be locked, but many including the security men did not understand and before the gate was locked, she had ran out and the man followed her and caught her”, said the catechist.

A member of the church who gave an account of the incident said Lydia Joseph went into the St. John Catholic Church at about 12: 30 in the afternoon last Saturday with a jerry can of fuel.

Lydia lied to the security men at the gate that the content of the jerry can was kerosene, and that she wanted to pray.”

Confirming the incident yesterday to Daily Trust in Bauchi the Police Public Relations Officer, ASP Mohammed Barau said the members of the church arrested the woman and alerted the police that a woman was caught with a jerry can and a lighter while trying to set the church ablaze. The suspect is currently in police custody.source.www.dailytrust.com



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NOBEL Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has condemned the apprehension that greeted the proposed Islamic banking by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Mallam Lamido Sanusi.

Delivering the keynote address at the ongoing Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) conference in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, on Monday, Soyinka said the structural woes facing the country did not generate from any mode of banking, suggesting rather that the nation needed to unite to move forward.

This was preceded by the upbraiding of the NBA by the Rivers State governor, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, who delivered the opening address.

In his address, Soyinka said it was not the Islamic banking system that was responsible for the breakdown of social infrastructure such as education, health, power supply, among others, in the country.

He said any Nigerian had the right to apply for any system of banking, as much as such process conformed with the laid down laws of the nation, expressing surprise as to how the non-interest Islamic banking had contravened the law of the land.

He said non-interest banking, which exists in other countries like the United Kingdom and the United States of America, did not, in anyway, lay the foundation for the global financial meltdown, the militancy crisis in the Niger Delta and the Boko Haram in some states of northern Nigeria.

He, however, said “we need to come together and engage the protocol of national conference and dialogue,” which, he said, was the surest way of moving the country forward.

In his address, Governor Amaechi advised the NBA to stand as the beacon of hope to the common man, noting that the rule of law would not be achieved if corruption subsisted.
SOURCW:www.tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/27049-no-need-for-apprehension-over-islamic-banking-soyinka

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday told the Presidential Election Tribunal headed by President of the Court of Appeal Justice Ayo Salami that allowing the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) access to the biometrics data base of registered voters used for the April presidential election will jeopardise national security.


This is just as the Tribunal adjourned to August 29 for the interpretation its earlier order granting CPC access to INEC sensitive materials and also entertain CPC’s motion seeking to declare its presidential candidate in April general elections General Muhammadu Buhari as President would be heard.



The CPC had filed a motion praying the Tribunal to give the party judgment, alleging that the INEC disobeyed the tribunal’s order by denying the party access to the sensitive material used during the April 2011 President.

But in INEC’s counter affidavit, the commission said that if the CPC were allowed access to the data base, it would technically contravene the rights of the voters under the provisions of the Electoral Act and the Nigerian Constitution as a whole.

“This is because it would expose the identity of the voter and it would threaten our national security, this is our contention,” INEC counsel Hassan Liman said.

He said that INEC did not disobey the court order as alleged by CPC.

“There is no disobedience to any court order, what happened is that they are not even entitled to apply for such judgment because what they had sought from the Court has been granted to them so they cannot come simply because they have not been granted access to database they would ask for judgment of the Court.

“That is our contention and that is our counter affidavit which their lordships would determine 29th of this month, the motion which is pending.”

Liman said INEC has complied with the court orders. “The necessary materials to prosecute their (CPC) petition we have given them. What they want is to know who you voted for, that is threat to national security under section 125 of the Electoral Act, secrecy must be protected.”

But counsel to CPC, Mr Oladipo Kposeyi (SAN), said “The biometric data is the main strength on which the party could prosecute its petition. If we are denied the main strength of the case, then it is an obvious case of frustration.

“Be that as it may, we are law abiding, we are not interested in persecuting anybody, but let the truth liberate us all as Nigerians,” Kposeyi said, adding that the electoral body should not have problem allowing the party access to biometric data of voters if it had nothing to hide.source:www.dailytrust.com

Again, i must reiterate that the issue of my boss dying on top of women was a great lie just as the insinuation that General Sani Abacha ate and died of poisoned apples was equally a wicked lie. My question is: did Chief M.K.O Abiola die of poisoned apples or did he die on top of women? As I had stated at the Oputa Panel, their deaths were organized. Pure and simple!

It was at this point that I used our special communication gadgets to diplomatically invite the Service Chiefs, Military Governors and some few elements purportedly to a meeting with the Head of State by 9a.m. at the Council Chamber. That completed, I also decided to talk to some former leaders of the nation to inform them that General Sani Abacha would like to meet them by 9a.m.

Situation became charged however, when one of the Service Chiefs, Lieutenant General Ishaya Rizi Bamaiyi, who pretended to be with us, suggested he be made the new Head of State after we had quietly informed him of the death of General Sani Abacha. He even suggested we should allow him access to Chief Abiola. We smelt a rat and other heads of security agencies, on hearing this, advised I move Chief Abiola to a safer destination. I managed to do this in spite of the fact that I had been terribly overwhelmed with the crisis at hand.

But then, when some junior officers over-heard the suggestion of one of the Service Chiefs earlier mentioned, it was suggested to me that we should finish all the members of the Provisional Ruling Council and give the general public an excuse that there was a meeting of the PRC during which a shoot-out occurred between some members of the Provisional Ruling Council and the Body Guards to the Head of State

When I sensed that we would be contending with far more delicate issues than the one on ground, I talked to Generals Buba Marwa and Ibrahim Sabo who both promptly advised us – the junior officers – against any bloodshed. They advised we contact General Ibrahim Babangida (former Military President) who equally advised against any bloodshed but that we should support the most senior officer in the Provisional Ruling Council (PRC) to be the new Head of State.

Since the words of our elders are words of wisdom, we agreed to support General Jeremiah Useni. Along the line, General Bamaiyi lampooned me saying, “Can’t you put two and two together to be four? Has it not occurred to you that General Useni who was the last man with the Head of State might have poisoned him, knowing full well that he was the most senior officer in the PRC?”

Naturally, I became furious with General Useni since General Abacha’s family had earlier on complained severally about the closeness of the two Generals; at that, a decision was taken to storm General Useni’s house with almost a battalion of soldiers to effect his arrest. Again, some heads of security units and agencies, including my wife, advised against the move.

The next most senior person and officer in government was General Abdulsalami Abubakar, who was then the Chief of Defence Staff. We rejected the other Service Chief, who, we believed, was too ambitious and destructive. We settled for General Abubakar and about six of us called him inside a room in the Head of State’s residence to break the news of the death of General Abacha to him.

As a General with vast experience, Abdulsalami Abubakar, humbly requested to see and pray for the soul of General Abacha which we allowed. Do we consider this a mistake? Because right there, he – Abubakar – went and sat on the seat of the late Head of State. Again, I was very furious. Like I said at the Oputa Panel, if caution was not applied, I would have gunned him down.

The revolution the boys were yearning for would have started right there. The assumption that we could not have succeeded in the revolution was a blatant lie. We were in full control of the State House and the Brigade of Guards. We had loyal troops in Keffi and in some other areas surrounding the seat of government – Abuja. But I allowed peace to reign because we believed it would create further crises in the country.

We followed the advice of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida and the wise counsel of some loyal senior officers and jointly agreed that General Abdulsalami Abubakar be installed Head of State, Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces immediately after the burial of General Sani Abacha in Kano. It is an irony of history that the same Service Chief who wanted to be Head of State through bloodshed, later instigated the new members of the Provisional Ruling Council against us and branded us killers, termites and all sorts of hopeless names. They planned, arranged our arrest, intimidation and subsequent jungle trial in 1998 and 1999. These, of course, led to our terrible condition in several prisons and places of confinement.

.source:www.dailytrust.com

At the continued trial in lagos yesterday over the 1996 murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, the prosecution obtained permission of the Lagos High Court to cross examine former Chief Security Officer to the Head of State Major Hamza Al-Mustapha today regarding what it said were discrepancies between what he told the court on Tuesday regarding the death of his boss General Sani Abacha in 1998 and his statement on the same subject in his prison notes many years ago. We reproduce here the notes he allegedly wrote, which is the subject of today’s cross examination.



My Boss, General Sani Muhammad Abacha, died at the early hours of Monday, 8th June, 1998. I had prepared him for a workshop organized by the Federal Ministry of Information for that day as he was expected to deliver an address as the Special Guest of Honour. His speech was drafted and fine tuned by the Chief Press Secretary, Chief David Attah who had submitted it to the Aide-De Camp for vetting and necessary amendments by the Commander-in-Chief.



Contrary to insinuations, speculations and sad rumours initiated by some sections of the society, I maintain that the sudden collapse of the health system of the late Head of State started previous day (Sunday, 7th June, 1998) right from the Abuja International Airport immediately after one of the white security operatives or personnel who accompanied President Yasser Arafat of Palestine shook hands with him (General Abacha)

I had noticed the change in the countenance of the late Commander-in-Chief and informed the Aide-de-Camp, Lt. Col. Abdallah, accordingly. He, however, advised that we keep a close watch on the Head of State.

Later in the evening of 8th June, 1998, around 6p.m; his doctor came around, administered an injection to stabilize him. He was advised to have a short rest. Happily, enough, by 9p.m; the Head of State was bouncing and receiving visitors until much later when General Jeremiah Timbut Useni, the then Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, came calling. He was fond of the Head of State. They were very good friends.

They stayed and chatted together till about 3.35a.m. A friend of the house was with me in my office and as he was bidding me farewell, he came back to inform me that the FCT Minister, General Useni was out of the Head of State’s Guest House within the Villa. I then decided to inform the ADC and other security boys that I would be on my way home to prepare for the early morning event at the International Conference Centre.

At about 5a.m; the security guards ran to my quarters to inform me that the Head of State was very unstable. At first, I thought it was a coup attempt. Immediately, I prepared myself fully for any eventuality.

As an intelligence officer and the Chief Security Officer to the Head of State for that matter, I devised a means of diverting the attention of the security boys from my escape route by asking my wife to continue chatting with them at the door – she was in the house while the boys were outside. From there, I got to the Guest House of the Head of State before them.

When I got to the bedside of the Head of State, he was already gasping. Ordinarily, I could not just touch him. It was not allowed in our job. But under the situation on ground, I knelt close to him and shouted, “General Sani Abacha, Sir, please grant me permission to touch and carry you.” I again knocked at the stool beside the bed and shouted in the same manner, yet he did not respond. I then realized there was a serious danger. I immediately called the Head of State’s personal physician, Dr. Wali, who arrived the place under eight minutes from his house.

He immediately gave Oga – General Abacha – two doses of injection, one at the heart and another close to his neck. This did not work apparently as the Head of State had turned very cold. He then told me that the Head of State was dead and nothing could be done after all.

I there and then asked the personal physician to remain with the dead body while I dashed home to be fully prepared for the problems that might arise from the incident. As soon as I informed my wife, she collapsed and burst into tears. I secured my house and then ran back.

At that point, the Aide-de-Camp had been contacted by me and we decided that great caution must be taken in handling the grave situation.

This is well research piece form unbiase columinist

The most amusing story out of all Africa last week was probably the one out of Mombasa, Kenya, when former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo expressed indignation that former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak appeared before an Egyptian court two days earlier, bedridden and in a cage like a circus tiger.

Speaking at an African Leadership Conference, Obasanjo said the treatment meted out to Mubarak was bad for the image of Africa as a continent. He said, "Put him in a cage? It is not proper. He deserves a better treatment. This is not good for the image of Africa.” Obasanjo also demanded dignified treatment for Mubarak, saying as a former head of state, he was entitled to personal dignity befitting his status.

Very good. I am not surprised at all that Obasanjo was horrified by the caging of Hosni Mubarak, the last in the long line of Egyptian Pharaohs dating back 5,000 years. Old man Obasanjo must have seen many parallels between his own life and that of Mubarak. Hosni Mubarak was a soldier [actually an airman] who became a civilian ruler, though not a very civil one. Obasanjo too was a soldier who later became a civilian ruler, though he never really became civil; one day in 2001, he snatched a cane from the hands of a Civil Defence corpsman in Lokoja who was whipping spectators at a public event and gave him several strokes of his own cane.

Mubarak was once the Chief of the Egyptian Air Force before he became one of Anwar Sadat’s three vice presidents. Obasanjo had been the General Officer Commanding the 3 Marine Commando Division during the Nigerian Civil War, and was later Federal Commissioner [Minister] for Works before he became Chief of Staff, Supreme Headquarters, i.e. vice president, in 1976. Both Mubarak and Obasanjo rose to the top jobs when their bosses were assassinated, Obasanjo’s in 1976, Mubarak’s in 1981.

Obasanjo’s biggest regret, from all indications, was that when he took over after Murtala’s killing in 1976, he made the mistake of handing over power to civilians in 1979. By 1995 he was in the Yola Prison cage, and he didn’t like the taste of it. He was lucky to have bounced back to power 20 years after he handed over. He must have been envious that Mubarak, who took over in 1981, was still there when he returned in 1999. Obasanjo ruled for another 8 years and Mubarak was still there. 5 years after Obasanjo left Aso Rock, Mubarak was still there, so he was very envious of this exemplary sit-tight African ruler.

Come to think of it, Obasanjo’s Third Term agenda must have been inspired by Mubarak, who ruled Egypt with an iron hand for nearly 30 years. Even the alleged crimes for which Mubarak was put in a cage, i.e. the shooting protesters at Tahrir Square, old man Obasanjo had pioneered them, for under his watch, soldiers shot protesting students at Unilag and ABU, Zaria in 1978, and still later under his watch, soldiers ransacked Odi and Zaki Biam towns, killing scores of innocent people.

Okay, maybe putting Mubarak in a cage was not very good for Africa’s image, as Obasanjo said, but the kind of things that African rulers like him did, where does he want us to put them in the event that we catch them? On golden beds?

I want to ask the African statesman Obasanjo: between putting Mubarak in a cage and the live television images we saw early this year of pro-Mubarak tribesmen charging into a very crowded Tahrir Square on camels, trampling scores of people as they went, which one did more damage to Africa’s image? I also want to ask him: when Emperor Jean Bedel Bokassa lined up thieves in a public square in Bangui in 1972 and personally beat them to death, would putting him in a cage be more damaging to Africa’s image? Okay, when agents of the Ugandan Bureau of State Research drove a six-inch nail into the skull of the country’s Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka in 1975, assuming we caught Field Marshall Idi Amin Dada after he fled to Jeddah in 1979, would putting him in a cage be more damaging to our image? If we catch the “unknown soldier” who threw Fela Ransome-Kuti’s mother from a storey building in 1977 and put him in a cage, is that more damaging to our image? In short, which one is better for our image: television pictures of children starving to death due to misrule, or the culprit ex-rulers in a cage?

There were many African leaders who ran away when their people were looking for them. If we catch any of them and put him in a cage, would that be more damaging than what they did during their years of misrule? Maybe even if Ugandans had caught Field Marshal Idi Amin Dada, Life President and Conqueror of the British Empire, no Ugandan carpenter could construct a cage big enough to hold Big Daddy, the former military boxing champion who had the girth of a sumo wrestler.

Maybe if Somalis had captured General Siad Barre [who, incidentally, was hidden by the Nigerian government], putting him in a cage would have been less damaging to Africa’s image than the ongoing piracy in the Indian Ocean, or the spectre of a country without a central government for 20 years, not to mention the impending famine.

Chief Obasanjo himself pioneered the sheltering of rogue African rulers on Nigerian soil when he offered asylum to Chad’s deposed ruler General Felix Maloum in 1978. Soon afterwards, Nigeria serially sheltered Siad Barre, Liberia’s Prince Yormie Johnson, Sierra Leone’s Corporal Foday Sankoh and Liberia’s President Charles Taylor, all of whom deserved to be in cages somewhere, not in posh guest houses.

If the Ethiopians had captured Lt Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam when he fled Addis Ababa in 1991, the cage that will hold him must be reinforced with barbed wire, given the Dergue boss’ notorious temper. Was it for nothing that Sir Dauda Jawara fled The Gambia in 1994 after ruling for 33 years? Or that Colonel Mobutu Sese Seko took off from Gbadolite in northern Zaire to Morocco and ultimately to the French Riviera; if he had stayed in Kinshasa when Joseph Kabila’s troops entered town, would putting him in a cage made from Zairean copper be worse for Africa’s image than the murder of Patrice Lumumba in 1961?

Fair is fair; Mubarak was not the first alleged criminal that the Egyptians ever put in a cage. The soldiers that shot President Anwar Sadat in 1981, led by Lt Khalid Ahmed Showki al-Islambouli, didn’t they appear in court in a cage? Many elements of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as the blind cleric Sheikh Omar Abdul-rahman, later jailed in America for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, all appeared in Egyptian courts in cages. Actually the Egyptians are benevolent; isn’t caging better for Africa’s image than cutting off a former president’s ear and putting it in his mouth, as Prince Yormie Johnson did to the captured Liberian President Samuel Kanyon Doe in 1990?

I am even suspicious of that African Leadership Conference in Mombasa. Anybody who ruled a giant African country for a total of 11 and a half years, yet he was not given the $5m prize for good governance by the Sudanese telecoms tycoon Mo Ibrahim, must himself be a candidate for the cage. Why did they invite him to a conference on African leadership?

Already, there are signs in Nigeria here that a man handpicked and installed in power by Obasanjo is fascinated by the Mubarak/Obasanjo example and has abandoned promise delivery for tenure elongation. That is the kind of thing that makes some people candidates for an Egyptian-style cage.Source:www.dailytrust.com

The Chief Of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant-General Azubuike Onyeabor Ihejirika yesterday assured Nigerians of the capability of Nigerian Army to bring the activities of members of the Boko Haram sect to a stop any moment from now.

Ihejirika who spoke at the opening of the second Chief Of Army Staff conference holding in Abuja, said the activities of the group which has resulted in the loss of innocent lives and property in some parts of the country in the last one year, is an opportunity for officers and soldiers of the Nigerian Army to prove to the generality of Nigerians of its capability to adequately protect and defend the nation’s territorial integrity from external and internal aggressions.

The COAS, while noting that the bomb blast tactics implored by the group was relatively new to the country, announced that the army will use the opportunity of the conference to fashion out a lasting solution so that Nigerians can move freely and go about their lawful businesses without fear of being attacked by members of the group.

The army chief while assuring Nigerians to be calm as the army was on top of the situation, said, “I want to assure Nigerians that we are equal to the task. But as you are aware, we need to convince Nigerians beyond doubt of our capability and this is again the reason for this particular conference.

The Boko Haram menace and the tactics they implore are relatively new to the country and hence the need for this particular conference so that as commanders we will put our heads together and find out solutions. I am sure very soon the country will begin to witness improved security performance generally.”

Gen. Ihejirika, while stating that the two-day conference was aimed purely at discussing the current security situation in the country vis-a-vis the Boko Haram activities, told defence correspondents that “at the end of this meeting, we will come out with several decisions and I think during my press briefing on Wednesday,(tomorrow), we will give you highlights of some of the decisions. It is going to be a closed-door session because the issues we are tackling are issues bothering on security.

On the deployment of soldiers to man security check points in all the entry points into the Federal Capital, Ihejirika said the measure put in place is not limited to Abuja alone but that the army would extend same to other parts of the country.

source: http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2011/june/28/national-28-06-2011-004.html

source:www.dailytrust.com.Fear of Boko Haram is the begining of wisdom

Former Gombe State Governor Muhammad Danjuma Goje has apologised to the Jama’atu Ahliss-Sunnah Lidda’awati Wal Jihad, popularly known as Boko Haram, for whatever wrong he might have done to the group during the outbreak of the Boko Haram crisis in the North East.

Spokesman of the group, Abu Zaid, in an interview published in Daily Trust on Friday, blamed Danjuma Goje and two other governors for their alleged roles in the Boko Haram crisis.

Goje’s statement reads: “My attention has been drawn to a publication in the Daily Trust of Friday 24th June 2011 following an interview granted the paper by one Abu Zaid , spokesperson for the Jama’atu Ahli Sunnah Lidaawati wal Jihad demanding a public apology from me, for my role as the then Governor of Gombe State at the outbreak of the Boko Haram crisis in the North East.

“As a true Muslim, who believes in peace and brotherhood, as entrenched in both the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith of the Holy Prophet Muhammad (SAW), I hereby tender my PUBLIC APOLOGY to the organisation for any wrong done to it in the course of performing my duty as the then Governor of Gombe State.

“We pray to Allah (SWT) to continue to promote Islam, peace and brotherhood for humanity throughout the
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| .

, Accuse Jonathan, mark of planning to Christianize Senate
From MODESTUS CHUKWULAKA, Abuja
Thursday, June 23, 20

Senators from the North-east geo-political zone have insisted that the position of the Senate Leader must be zoned to the region as agreed earlier by the leaders of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Senators from the region, who do not want their names in print told newsmen in Abuja, yesterday that they had resolved not to accept any position given to them by the party other than that of the Senate Leader.
They argued that, the National Working Committee of the PDP had adopted a proposal, zoning the position to the region but President Goodluck Jonathan and Senate President, David Mark were working to deny them the position because the president was said to have insisted that Senate Victor Ndoma-Egba from Cross River State must be the one to become the next Senate Leader.

“The NWC made the proposal for us to have the position but they said they wouldhave to wait for the president to come back from America to seek his endorsement but when they took it to him he insisted that, the South-south must have the position and Senator Ndoma must be the one to occupy it.

“Instead of even giving us the next most important position, which is the Senate Whip, they now said we would only be given the Deputy Leader, which is the fifth in line. They have a grand plan of making the Senate to be more of Christian enclave but they won’t succeed because they are only using the platform of Christianity to achieve their selfish interest, that is why many Christian Senators, even from the South-south are not with them.
“Are they saying that, the North-east is not part of the PDP or is the South-south more PDP than us?

“We are also aware of the plot to alienate us from the scheme of things, which is why when the President was confronted with the issue, he said religion and geo-graphical location would not be used as a basis to select the Senate Leader.

The lawmakers maintained that, they would make the Senate ungovernable for Mark if he continued to “trade the path of dishonesty and selfishness” as it is apparent in the matter under question. “We will figth this with the last drop of our blood,” the Senators added. The Senate Leader is the third most important position in the Senate after the Senate president and his deputy both of whom are Christians.

Originally, the North-east was given the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives along with the Senate leader but with the emergence of Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and Emeka Ihedioha as speaker and deputy, the region is now left with not presiding officer in the seventh Nation national assembly.SOURCE:www.sunnnewsonline.com
GEJ and his presidency we are watching.NSA,DG SSS,DG NIA,CODS and COAS all christian

Since the shocking bombing of Louis Edet House, the headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Abuja, by the now much dreaded Boko Haram Islamic sect, the issue of terrorism has become the pre-occupation of just about every Nigerian. The big question, of course, is how to deal with it.

There are many people who think the solution is to go after the sect’s members with a sledgehammer, regardless of the rights and wrongs of their motives. Such people obviously believe that any attempt to discuss the roots of their terrorism is an attempt to justify it.

They couldn’t be more mistaken. This, I believe, is the big lesson of the failure of the attempt by the authorities to crush the sect two years ago. Apparently what the military counterinsurgency merely succeeded in doing was to drive the sect underground temporarily, only to resurface in a more monstrous form.

On the occasion of the first anniversary of the attempt to crush the sect I said as much in the piece dated August 4, 2010, whose edited version I’ve decided to reproduce below because it looks to me that the authorities still have not learnt the right lesson about their failure. This is simply that you can only solve a crime – which is what the actions of Boko Haram are – by being as hard on its source as you are on the crime itself.

From all indications, especially from President Goodluck Jonathan’s statement that he regarded the bombing as a personal attack, which itself is a far cry from his attempt at exonerating the Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND) from the even more horrendous 50th Independence Anniversary bombing close to Eagle Square, Abuja, it seems two years after the first Boko Haram insurgency what is being contemplated as solution is merely more of the same arbitrary use of power in the name of security.

Obviously the sect’s wholesale rejection of modernity and of the West is unreasonable and untenable. Their methods of bombings and killings are even worse. But its attacks on the police, except for their audacity of going right into the police headquarters, are no more criminal than previous attacks on security forces by ethnic militias like MEND and Afenifere.

At any rate, the fact is that there is no problem on earth that genuine dialogue cannot solve. On the other hand, repression as the opposite of dialogue has never solved any society’s problems.

However, the question, as the President of the Kaduna State chapter of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Sam Kujiyat, asked the other day, is “Who are they that you want to go and dialogue with?”

It is a valid question but it is not a difficult one to answer in spite of the fact that the sect’s top leadership was eliminated through extrajudicial killings two years ago. Obviously the vacuum it left has since been filled. There is a chance, no matter how slim, that if the outcome of the panel that looked into those killings are published the new leadership would come out in the open, change its attitude of disdain for the authorities and accept the offer for dialogue that had been made by at least the authorities in Borno State, the sect’s home base.

Boko Haram: One year on

Penultimate Tuesday saw the presentation of a 188-page book titled The Paradox of Boko Haram by Abdulkareem Babangida Mohammed, a Kano-based television journalist and media consultant. The presentation at Bolingo Hotel, Abuja, coincided more or less with the first anniversary of the uprising by Boko Haram, the Muslim sect which has denounced Western education as evil.

The uprising started in Bauchi, capital of Bauchi State on July 26, 2009 and within four days spread to the neighbouring states of Borno, Yobe and Kano. Failure of the police to put down the uprising led to the order by late President Umaru Musa Yar’adua, then on his way out to Brazil, to the army to crush it. The army did but in the process anywhere between 800 and 1000 lives, mostly innocent civilians, were reportedly killed.

Among those reportedly killed were the sect’s leader, Sheikh Mohammed Yusuf, his deputy, Sheikh Abubakar Shekau, his father in law, Ba’a Fugu Mohammed, and the sect’s chief financier, Buji Foi, a former commissioner of religious affairs in Governor Ali Modu Sherrif’s Borno State Government.

All four, it soon transpired, were victims of extra-judicial killings by the security forces. At first the police claimed Yusuf was killed in a shoot-out attempting to escape capture. The army promptly put the lie to this claim when it released a transcript of its interrogation of the man which showed it handed him over to the police in a one piece and in handcuffs.

Within days of the end of the uprising, a 40-second video clip also surfaced which showed Foi, dressed in a long white gown with both hands and legs in chains, being taken out of a white Toyota Hilux pick-up van by an unidentified policeman. Seconds after he was left to walk away from the van alone gun shots rent the air with voices shouting “kill him” , “ba an bada oda ba?” in Hausa, meaning haven’t orders been given (to kill him?)

Fugu Mohammed seemed to have suffered a similar fate to Foi’s. According to his children he reported himself to a police station following the crushing of the uprising when he heard he was wanted by the police. He never returned home alive.

Recriminations soon followed these revelations. President Yar’adua, on his return from his trip to Brazil early August, promised to order an investigation into the alleged extra-judicial killings. More than six months later there was no investigation. Or if there was one the public was not told.

Last February Al-Jazeera, the English channel of the Doha, Qatar, based global television station, aired a shocking footage in its news bulletin which showed the security services going on an arbitrary house-to-house-search-and-arrest of presumably Boko Haram followers and then lining them up and shooting them in the back.

In the course of this monstrous killings one voice was heard saying “Shoot him in the chest not the head, I want his hat.” Other voices were heard shouting “No mercy, No mercy.” It was a mark of the impunity with which the security forces indulged in the killings that the officers who appeared to be in charge of the operation did not bother to hide their name tags on their chests.

Expressions of outrage in and out of the country soon followed Al-Jazeera’s story. An apparently very outraged Attorney-General of the Federation, Chief Adetokunbo Kayode, screamed blue murder and gave marching orders to the Inspector-General of the Police to investigate the killings.

“The Federal Government of Nigeria,” he said, “unequivocally condemns all extra-judicial executions and all other unlawful killing.” This was in early March.

About six months on not one word has been heard from the authorities about this blatant act of cold-blooded murder.

Perhaps Mohammed, the author of The Paradox of Boko Haram, chose to present his book penultimate Tuesday, the 1st anniversary of the sect’s bloody uprising, as a reminder to the authorities that the world still awaits their reaction to their heavy-handed handling of a rebellion. From the look of things it would be a miracle if the world ever gets the answer.

All the same the author’s effort in chronicling the rise and fall (?) of the sect - early last month the “dead” second-in-command of the sect, Imam Abubakar Shekau, emerged in a video claiming he has assumed its command and would continue from where Yusuf left off - cannot be in vain, if only because it contains lessons on the central paradox of why a sect which shows no qualms in using the fruits of Western civilization – cars, CDs, cassettes,, mobile phones, etc, would condemn it as an unmitigated evil.

It should be obvious to the authorities, that if they wish to stop the re-emergence of the likes of Boko Haram they must, like the author of our book in question says, evolve and implement policies that end the poverty and ignorance which breeds recruits for such dubious sects.

More specifically they must end the terrible extra-judicial killings that has often characterized government’s handling of the kind of extreme opposition to mainstream values which sects like Boko Haram represent if only because arbitrary killings merely drive such sects underground instead of ending their appeal to the poor and ignorant.

The Federal Government of Nigeria owe Nigerians and the world an explanation on why one year after the leaders of Boko Haram and hundreds of innocent civilians were killed in the name of ending an ostensibly religious uprising no arrests have been made, never mind any one being tried.

SOURCE:dailytrust.com

MEMBERS of the Jama’atu ahlus Sunnah lid da’awati wal Jihad, popularly called Boko Haram, said yesterday that they were responsible for the suicide bombing at the Force Headquarters in Abuja. They also said they did not accomplish their mission because their prime target was the Inspector General Hafiz Ringim.


A statement from a senior member of the group, Abu Zaid said the attack at the police headquarters was to prove a point to all who doubt the capabilities of the sect. The statement came barely two hours after another bomb exploded in Damboa town, about 87 kilometres from Maiduguri the Borno state capital, which killed four children and injured two others.



The bomb, which exploded around 1pm, was buried in between a residential building and a church, the Eklisiyyar Yan Uwa a Nigeria (EYN).

Police spokesman in Borno State Lawan Abdullahi who confirmed the incident said the children were playing around the area when the bomb exploded.“The victims were small children…I can’t estimate their ages but they are children. They were caught unawares while playing around the area,” he said.

He said two others that sustained injuries have been taken to the hospital, adding that no arrest was made so far. “We are investigating the matter and we need serious cooperation from the people in order to succeed. Security is the responsibility of all,” he said.

The statement signed by sect leader Abu Fatima said, “Of recent, he [Ringim] has been going to places and making unguarded utterances to the effect that he will crash us in a number of days…This is unfortunate. We attack his base (police headquarter) in order to show him that action speaks louder than words.”

He also said the sect members will continue to launch attacks at the police headquarters. “We would not relent and by the grace of God, we shall see who is on the right track,” he said.

Meanwhile, security has been beefed up in Maiduguri and environs. Our correspondents who went round the town saw many stop and search points mounted by members of the Joint Task Force.

At London Ciki, Costain, Westend, Post office and Lagos Street, Okada riders and their passengers were being directed to disembark from the motorcycles and push them to at least 50 metres away from the checkpoint before they can continue with their journey.“This is a very difficult and trying moment for us,” Jummai Stephen, a school teacher said.SOURCE:www.dailytrust.com

Coward! Tell joseph waku to resign as ACF VP,suswan to stop attending northern governors meeting,Benue senators to quit thier membership of northern senators forum and Tor Tiv to quit his membership northern traditional council under chairman of SULTAN OF SOkOTO.please find time and ask your elders at home the meaning of Makurdi.Jobless boy.

The South-west caucus of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has petitioned President Goodluck Jonathan against the emergence of Hon. Aminu Tambuwal as speaker of the House of Representatives and demanded an urgent review of the House leadership in favour of the zone.


Speaking to journalists in Ibadan yesterday, the Oyo State secretary of the party, Alhaji Basiru Akanbi, said the PDP state chairmen and secretaries across the zone had submitted the petition to the Presidency through Vice President Namadi Sambo and the National Secretariat of the party in Abuja. According to Akanbi, the posture of the South West caucus is that there is no going back on the zoning arrangement of the party, while Tambuwal’s election as the speaker of the House is not acceptable in the zone.



He decried what he termed relegation of the South-west from the Federal Government, saying the zone would not fold its arms and be sidelined in the affairs of the country. He said discipline must be installed among members of the party.

“The number four position in the country was zoned to South-west and we are ready to reclaim our position in the country. We all worked for the party to win at the federal level and we should be partakers of the sharing formular,” he said.Source:www.dailytrust.com

Five very odd events characterised the Nigerian political scene last week. The oddest event of all of them, I think, was the apology tendered by the new House Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal and his deputy, Emeka Ihedioha, to the PDP’s National Working Committee [NWC] for having stood for election and winning it to become the two top House leaders. It was the first time in the political history of Nigeria that anyone had apologised for winning an election, for that matter with a landslide margin. Usually, it is those who lose elections in Nigeria that are apologetic and who go around alleging all kinds of things.

Why was Tambuwal apologising? Allegedly because Ihedioha and himself contested the election against the wish of the Presidency and the party bosses, who had zoned the Speaker’s chair to the party’s near-extinct South West wing. Very good. This is a reminder to President Goodluck Jonathan that he has not yet apologised to NWC for winning the party’s presidential ticket when the party’s chairman had publicly stated in May last year that it was reserved for the North under a 2002 National Caucus agreement, to which Jonathan was a participant and a signatory.

Rather than comply with the party’s decision, Dr. Jonathan used his accidentally acquired position as President to make the EFCC to arrest Vincent Ogbulafor over a forgotten 10 year-old scandal. He then forced the party’s NEC last September to adopt the most ambiguous resolution in its history, saying the party’s constitutionally-enshrined zoning and power rotation policies were still valid, but that everyone was free to contest the then upcoming primaries.

Commenting for the first time publicly on Tambuwal’s election in New York last week, Jonathan said, “the House of Representatives in their wisdom voted for their own candidates against the wishes of the party and I don’t think it is a problem. Other options could be explored to balance the positions in the House.”

The President’s mild public response to an event that greatly jolted him politically was just as well. As PDP’s national leader, his moral authority to enforce the zoning policy was very weak indeed. Last September, on the day he went to collect the party nomination forms, Dr. Jonathan delivered a self-serving reading of the party Constitution, saying that zoning did not apply to the choice of the President, but of other offices after the president is chosen. The NWC never came out to read the relevant sections of the party constitution to him.

Now, unlike Dr. Jonathan in 2002, Tambuwal was most probably not present and was not a signatory to the document produced by a small party clique at the Obudu Cattle Ranch last month which allocated the House Speaker’s chair to the South West. If the party could not force a member to abide by an agreement in which he personally took part, how can it seek to enforce it on a man who was not present when a decision was made? Instead of huffing and puffing and arresting rebellious members, why didn’t the party bosses simply declare that the zoning of House offices still remains, but that Tambuwal, Ihedioha and everyone else were free to contest, in line with NEC’s ambiguous decision of last September?

Instead, PDP national secretary Abubakar Kawu Baraje issued a very odd statement on behalf of NWC on Tuesday. He said, “The principle of zoning is still an integral part of the PDP Constitution. The idea of zoning is a well thought-out philosophy for national stability and integration, Prior to the election of Principal Officers that took place in the Senate and the House of Representatives on the 6th of June 2011, the NWC in collaboration with other decision making bodies of our party made spirited efforts to build a consensus around the zoning formula. The NWC is currently consulting other organs of the party to re-assess the entire scenario and will come up with an appropriate policy in due course.” A veiled threat was what it was.

The next very odd statement was made the next day by acting party chairman Dr. Bello Haliru Mohamed when the Speaker and Deputy Speaker called at party headquarters. He said NWC accepted the two men’s apology, but that they should go and make amends by adhering to zoning in the allocation of the remaining House leadership positions.

Mohamed said, “We wish you better and more rapport with the party and our first directive to you now that what has happened has happened, the remaining positions in the House, you should allow the party to look at how we can balance it, so that each of the other zones are taken care of before we come back to you to give you the chance to lead your people in electing to reflect balance in the leadership of the House. Thank you very much for this visit, we accept your apology.”

Stated simply, he was saying that the next most senior position, i.e. House Leader, should be given to the South West, most probably to Mrs Mulikat Adeola Akande, the original choice of the party bosses to occupy Tambuwal’s chair.

This demand by the acting chairman may look reasonable to some people, but it is not easy at all for Tambuwal because the overwhelming majority group that brought him to office must have shared all the other offices among themselves. How can he now turn around and say to them, “Let us give the House Leader’s post to Mulikat in order to appease the minority faction and the party bosses”? The man [or woman] to whom the post was allocated by the group will say, “Is that? Because you have won your own, you are now saying that we should give my own post to Mulikat? Is this how you will reward your loyal supporters?”

It is the same dilemma faced by state governors when it comes to the nomination for ministerial and other juicy Federal posts. To an outsider, it looks like the right thing to do is to offer the state’s ministerial slot to the man who lost to the governor in the party primaries in order to unify the party, but it is more complicated than that, because the governor must have already promised the job to someone else within his own group as part of the process of building a winning coalition.

This is what grassroots Kebbi politician Alhaji Garba Dandiga once said, “The man who is himself indebted, can he extend credit? You have not repaid your own supporters for their loyalty, how can you go around extending lines of credit to opponents?”

The next very odd political statement last week emanated from some Yoruba leaders, who condemned Tambuwal for usurping a position allocated by the party bosses to their region. Well, well. This was the first time since the debate over zoning and power rotation erupted last year that South West PDP leaders were coming out behind the zoning idea. If they truly believed in zoning and turn by turn politics, where were they last year when Jonathan usurped the turn of the North?

They ought to be reminded of what the old German priest Pastor Martin Niemoeller of the Evangelical Lutheran Church once said, “In Germany, the Nazis first came for the Communists, and I did not speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I did not speak up because I was not a Catholic. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one to speak up for anyone”.

All that can be said about last week’s many odd events was that PDP’s leaders got their just deserts. And, how sour those desserts were!

SOURCE: www.dailytrust.com

This is a fake story.It is time this type of nonsense should be challenge in the court.

@ ekt bear.The same thing that attracted Labour party,APGA and ACN to supported GEJ.

Recent claims by the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the effect that over six million under-age voters voted for the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) during the April 16 presidential election has vindicated the CPC’s claim that the election was not free, fair and credible as the PDP wants the world to believe, CPC’s presidential candidate, Muhammadu Buhari said yesterday.

Buhari, who spoke through his spokesperson, Yinka Odumakin said PDP “has now been forced to eat its words (and those of its many accomplices) that the elections were free and fair with a self-shot at the foot that “six million under-age voters” voted for the CPC.”

This development, according to Buhari, “has further strengthened our position that the elections were not credible.” “We understand the panicky moves of the Jonathan Presidency though. It stole the presidency in a hurry and is now scared stiff that its tracks are not covered at all,” he said.

He explained that “if indeed the Independent National Electoral Commission (not CPC) allowed six million unqualified voters in one election, the electoral body has serious questions to answer and all elections conducted based on such a fraudulent N87b voters register should be nullified.”

The CPC presidential candidate said that “Nigerians have not forgotten so soon how the ‘credible’ Professor Attahiru Jega told the country he was going to clean up the voters register of multiple-registrations and only to return with extra 11million voters after the ‘clean-up’.”

A lie repeated by 1000 people is still a lie, for the attention of all the praise singers of polls fraud as “free and fair” and “a wide margin that cannot be closed at the tribunal,” Buhari said.SOURCE:www.dailytrust.com