₦airaland Forum

The United Nations General Assembly recently re-elected members of the Human Rights Council. China, which has a notorious human rights record was also re-elected into the Council. Issues of human rights persecution in China such as oppression of religious freedom in Tibet, Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang, the prohibition of local language in Inner Mongolia, and implementation of the "National Security Law" in Hong Kong have triggered discussions on crimes against humanity in the UN General Assembly.

The human rights situation in China has been a focus of debate among democratic countries in international organizations including the UNHRC. There are increasing calls for China to stop human rights violations against Muslims in Xinjiang.

In the past week, Germany issued a statement at the United Nations on behalf of 39 countries showing concerns about the human rights situation in Xinjiang and the latest developments in Hong Kong after the implementation of the new version of the National Security Law. The statement was opposed by Pakistan and Cuba, the other bad actors of human rights and dubbed Germany’s statement as an interference in China’s internal affairs and expressed support for China’s Xinjiang policy.

An important feature of the United Nations Human Rights Council is to ensure a fair assessment of the human rights situation in each country and try to resolve human rights violations that occur anywhere. The ultimate goal is to improve the human rights situation in all countries. The re-election of China, which is notorious for its human rights situation, runs counter to the Council's goal of promoting and improving human rights. It will be difficult to achieve fair and just expectations when the United Nations Human Rights Council meets next time to consider human rights cases in China.

In the past, when human rights groups have questioned China's persecution of Uyghurs in Xinjiang at the Human Rights Council, Chinese representatives not only hindered these questions by manipulating council rules, but also thumped the tables to show their aggressive protest.

China's arrogant show was apparent in these actions.
In recent years, China has taken advantage of its economic strength and the support of the "Belt and Road" and the "Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank" to buy off many weak and small countries. If some smaller nations do not support China, they receive threats of discontinuation of economic incentives.

China has placed personnel in international organizations such as the United Nations Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, and the International Civil Aviation Organization, and its manipulation of deliberations on relevant resolutions or personnel arrangements within these organizations have been rampant.

In 2018, the election of some countries with poor human rights record as member of the United Nations Human Rights Council aroused dissatisfaction among many countries, as a result the United States withdrew from the United Nations Human Rights Council.

In May this year, President Trump dissatisfied with China's hiding of the Wuhan epidemic, criticized the "World Health Organization" as a "Chinese puppet", announcing that he would withdraw from the World Health Organization and suspend funding to the World Health Organization, highlighting the seriousness of China's manipulation of international organizations.

The election as a member of the "United Nations Human Rights Council" once again demonstrates China's arrogance and the decline of the "United Nations Human Rights Council", becoming a "Chinese puppet" following in the footsteps of “World Health Organization". Although U.S. President Trump announced his withdrawal from some of these international organizations, the U.S. withdrawal will not prevent China from bullying on the international stage.

On the contrary, it will reduce the resistance to China's hegemony. Hence, democracies such as US and India should push for reforms of UN and its affiliated bodies to stop China and other bad actors such as Pakistan from acting contrary to the basic principles and roles of these international organizations.

The Trump Administration had taken an appropriately aggressive approach towards countering the malicious and tyrannical policies of the Chinese communist government. With the elections in USA over, all eyes are on President elect Joe Biden - What will be his strategy to contain China's nefarious intentions? If experts are to be believed, China is going to have a very tough time in the wake of Biden's presidency.

During a meeting of bipartisan governors at Delaware, Joe Biden was asked if he wanted to punish China for the way it has been behaving. Taking a tough stance, he responded by saying that it wasn't about punishing the Chinese, but about making sure they understand they have to play by the rules. There's no doubt Joe Biden is not a fan of the current Chinese regime. In February, he made it clear during a debate that he would not allow the Chinese to build critical US infrastructure, going as far as to call the Chinese President, Xi jinping, a "Thug".

Biden has also made it clear that those Chinese companies that steal US technology - as they've been known to do so on multiple occasions - will be cut off from the US market and Financial system. Despite China's disapproval, he has long been in support of Taiwan and it's democratically elected government.

The abuse of Human rights by the Chinese regime is also major issue raised by Biden. Biden's campaign had labelled the targeting of Uyghur Muslims a "genocide" back in August. He also enjoys this support of the pro democracy advocates in Hong Kong, where the Chinese have cracked down of civil liberties. In September, Biden announced that if he was voted to power, he would sanction the Chinese officials responsible for Human rights abuses in Tibet. He added that he would meet the Dalai Lama and appoint a new special coordinator for Tibetan affairs.

Embittered by Biden's win, Zheng yongnian, a Chinese government adviser said that it cannot be assumed that US-China relations will get better under the new administration. He added that Joe Biden was a very weak president who could start a war. It is very apparent that Beijing is scared that Biden will put an end to it's bloodthirsty egocentric agenda.

The Chinese shouldn't forget Biden has decades of experience when it comes to dealing with China. During his tenure as the Vice president under Obama's administration, he visited Beijing multiple times to gather support for Obama's key policies. It would nothing but foolishness on the part of the Chinese to take Biden lightly.

As the world grapples with a fresh round of alleged Islamist terror attacks, this time in France, the Muslim world is once again looked at with suspicion. This has been the bane of this mighty segment of the world population ever since Islamic terrorism, unchallenged by ordinary, secular Muslims, crossed Europe and entered the United States in 2001, even as it spread across the Middle East and Asia.

There have been many provocations, most recently the re-publication of the Prophet Muhammad caricatures by satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo as a follow-up of their original publication in 2015, but the victims, apart from those killed by the terrorists, are the Muslims in general.

Notwithstanding the rationale behind Christian countries coming down heavily on Islam and terrorism following the latest spate of attacks in France, it is a reality that the Muslims have to one day come out in the open to stand between Islam and terrorist groups and orthodox clergy. They are free to argue that such situations exist within other major religions in the world, but that does not help them ward off the world’s suspicion about them.

There is certainly the argument that President Emmanuel Macron of France could have measured his outburst following the violence. The outrageous beheading of a teacher, Samuel Paty, on October 16 and a similar attack on a 60-year-old woman and two others in the Notre-Dame cathedral in Nice two weeks later, provoked Macron to say: “Samuel Paty was killed because Islamists want our future and because they know that with quiet heroes like him, they will never have it. They divide the faithful and the unbelievers.” An overwhelming majority of French felt in an opinion poll that “Islam had declared war on France”.

The French Council of Muslim Faith lost no time in condemning the violence: “The horrible assassination […] reminds us of the scourges which sadly mark our reality: that of the outbreaks in our country of radicalism, violence and terrorism, which claim to be

Islam, making victims of all ages, all conditions and all convictions.”
Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, said in a tweet: “We strongly condemn today’s terrorist attack in #Nice.” In an apparent reference to the caricatures, he tweeted that “This escalating vicious cycle -- hate speech, provocations & violence -- must be replaced by reason & sanity.”
The rest of the Muslim world was up in arms against Macron. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan questioned Macron’s mental health. Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan tweeted: “This is a time when President Macron could have put a healing touch and denied space to extremists rather than creating further polarisation and marginalisation that inevitably leads to radicalisation.” Former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad was more virulent in his tweet: “Muslims have a right to be angry and to kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past.”

On the face of it, the heads of both Turkey and Pakistan hardly have any credibility to speak about religion, given the blatant way they promote Islamic orthodoxy. Nobody really cares what Mahathir Mohammad says anyway, because he is given to routine outbursts of the irrational kind.

The Muslims from across Muslim-majority countries in Asia and Africa came out with criticisms and protests. Well-known mixed martial fighter from Dagestan, Khabib Nurmagomedov, flayed Macron and called for “the Almighty to disfigure the face of this creature”. He went on Instagram with a picture of a boot mark on the face of Macron.

Faced with such criticism, Macron eased off a bit. The man who once said that there was a need to “free Islam in France from foreign influences” mellowed down a bit to tell Al-Jazeera a few days ago with reference to the Muslim objections to the Charlie Hebdo cartoons: “I understand the feelings this stirs, I respect them. But I want you to understand my role: my role is to calm things down as I’m doing here, and to protect those rights.”

The incident has overall seen some churning among the ordinary Muslims and those from the educated, urban sections. NazihaMayoufi, a member of Les Musulmans, an association of Muslim groups and mosques in France, told The New York Times that “she felt ‘dread and infinite sadness for the families of the victims, for our Catholic friends’”. She at the same time expressed the fear that the attacks will make politicians to freely label Islam as an “enemy from within”. Her final statement is self-explanatory: “As Muslims,we pay the damages of those two forms of extremism.”

She continues to be a small but powerful voice to admit that Muslims were victims of terrorist groups and a section of the anti-west clergy misinterpreting Islamic tenets for their own purposes. The Muslim world needs more such voices for sanity to prevail.

After 9/11, when the world’s anger against Osama Bin Laden and “Islamic terror” was at its peak, well-known Pakistani nuclear physicist, Dr. Pervez Amir Ali Hoodbhoy, was quoted in an article in the American Humanist: “Leaders of the Muslim community in the United States, and even President Bush, have routinely asserted that Islam is a religion of peace that was hijacked by fanatics on September 11.These two assertions are simply untrue.” He went on to say that Islam is neither about peace nor war. “Every religion is about absolute belief in its own superiority and the divine right to impose its version of truth upon others.”

In an article in the Washington Post, Dr Hoodbhoy famously wrote of Islam, touching the core issue: “The religion is as heterogeneous as those who believe and follow it. There is no ‘true Islam’.”

His statement has been analysed over and over to mean: Uniformity in Islam is confined to the five pillars: confession of faith, prayer ritual, religious fasting, giving alms to the poor and performing the Haj pilgrimage. Terrorist groups and obscurantist schools have sought to introduce and wrongly interpreted version of ‘jihad’ as the sixth pillar. There is no clarity on the meaning of the word with each section of Muslims having its own interpretation. Several scholars have agreed that the history of Islam is replete with “accounts of divergences in the theory and practice of the religion”.

There is no dearth of literature that analyses the periodic changes in the interpretation of the Quran and the Hadith ever since the formative period of Islamic thought. A western scholar, W. Montgomery Watt, authored a book in which he says as the Islamists transited from oral tradition to a written form of God’s words, the then territory where Islam took birth was experiencing tumultuous times of war, expansion and control, different school of Islamic law came up in different areas with their own, separate interpretations. And as the religion spread to other continents, it took diverse forms and nuances according to local customs and necessities.

With such a multifarious past, only the element of practical humanism can give Islam the authority to stamp out those who misinterpret or misuse it for their own purposes, be it terrorists or super orthodox clergy.

Watt counsels in his book and it is relevant today: “What should thoughtful people infer from this whole narrative?...Muslims need a secular and democratic state that respects religious freedom and human dignity and is founded on the principle that power belongs to the state…We have but one choice: the path of secular humanism, based upon the principles of logic and reason.”

Albert Hourani, a British historian of Lebanese descent, in his Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, 1798-1939, wrote: “Modern Muslim terrorist groups are more rooted in national liberation ideologies of the 19th and 20th centuries than they are in the Islamic tradition. Although these terrorist groups adopt various theological justifications for their behaviour, their ideologies, symbolism, language and organizational structure reflect the influence of the anti-colonial struggle of the developing world. For instance, the groups often use expressions . . . imported from national liberation struggles against colonialism [which] did not emerge from the Islamic heritage. In short, modern Muslim terrorism is part of the historical legacy of colonialism and not the legacy of Islamic law. According to the Islamic juristic tradition, terrorists would have no quarter.”

American Humanist in a 2002 edition quoted author Salman Rushdie: “If Islam is to be reconciled with modernity, these [critical Muslim] voices must be encouraged until they swell into a roar. Many of them speak of another Islam, their personal, private faith…The restoration of religion to the sphere of the personal, its depoliticization, is the nettle that all Muslim societies must grasp in order to become modern... If terrorism is to be defeated, the world of Islam must take on board the secularist-humanist principles on which the modern is based and without which Muslim countries’ freedom will remain a distant dream.”

The proverbial Damocles Sword hangs on Pakistan from the FATF, although the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog, retaining it on the grey list, last week allowed more time to complete the tasks assigned to the Imran Khan Government. It's a reprieve, not relief.

While the government and a section of Pakistan’s media are in a self-congratulatory mood, the FATF has given till February next year only a narrow window of time and opportunity. This makes the government’s work daunting.

The six remaining tasks from out of the 27 are precisely the most difficult ones. The government cannot complete them without the cooperation of other parties in parliament. But the main opposition parties, having already staged three back-to-back protest rallies, are in a hostile mood. Whatever the issues, the government is up against a Peoples’ Democratic Movement (PDM) that appears to be gaining momentum.

In the prevailing mood, the FATF itself has become a political football. The opposition parties were sore at the way the government pushed through three legislations pertaining to the FATF by holding a joint session after the opposition had refused to cooperate and had defeated them on the floor of the House. Their anger stemmed from the suspicion/belief that in the name of FATF, the government was surreptitiously pushing provisions that could be used to curb the political activity in future. Media reports indicate that even in a joint session, the government succeeded by ensuring ‘absence’ of many opposition lawmakers.

Dealing with the FATF has become a political issue judging from the PPP’s seeking the government’s ‘explanation’ for its ‘failure’ to get the country out of the grey list. Its Senator Sherry Rehman has countered the charge that past regimes had allowed conditions that require FATF to act by claiming that her government had succeeded in getting Pakistan out of several situations that could attract sanctions when the security situation was much worse and terrorist activity was rampant. She gave no details, though. This, she argued, had been done without attributing motives to the government’s critics, as was the present case. She has called the government’s effort a ‘circus’.

The government’s show of jubilation is for the domestic audiences that are being buffeted by its claims and the opposition repost. The official claims are contradicted by leaders of the PDM campaign. Pushing through any FATF-related legislation seems difficult.

Prior to the FATF meeting, the government’s nervousness was palpable in the way it rushed to dismiss as ‘fake’ a news report that ally Saudi Arabia and some other countries had “voted against” Pakistan at the FATF meet.

Dawn newspaper reported: “Some social media posts had claimed on Friday that a few countries, including Afghanistan and India, voted against Pakistan at the FATF plenary and some others, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, abstained from the vote”.

A cautious Khan Government this time on did not flaunt names of China, Turkey and Malaysia. The relief came in the shape of there being no voting and the meeting reaching conclusion by consensus. That there was no voting was claimed as Pakistan’s “diplomatic victory”. Far from it -- the US is in throes of an election and others are too busy fighting off their own devils, including the Coronavirus.

Underscoring seriousness of the task ahead, Dawn (October 25, 2020) said in its editorial: “We have been given a very narrow window of time to achieve the rest of the targets — tougher ones pertaining to law enforcement’s capacity to identify and investigate the “widest range of terrorist-financing activity”. It wants “the investigation and prosecution [to] target designated persons and entities, and those acting on behalf or at the direction of the designated persons or entities”. Further, Pakistan has to demonstrate that terrorist-financing prosecutions result in effective and dissuasive sanctions. We also need to show the world that the provincial and federal authorities are on the same page on enforcing measures”.

It also pointed to the FATF’s expectations from “a country like Pakistan where large parts of the economy operate in the shadows and where law enforcers have little or no training in identifying, investigating and prosecuting financial crimes”. This is both, the ground reality, also an excuse on behalf of the government from a newspaper whose top honcho is in trouble with the government.

How a beleaguered Imran Khan deals with this during Pakistan's winter of discontent will be watched by the world com unity concerned about terrorism and terror financing.

Lord Acton once famously said that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This truism applies to all leaders who are drunk on power, but this untrammelled power also leads or induces leaders to become headstrong and ultimately lead in the direction of self-destruction. Chinese history, has many instances of leaders who thought they were emperors who could do no wrong and President Xi Jinping illustrates this with aplomb. Xi’s problem is that he seems to think that as head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) anything he does will be correct and that party cadres will agree. However, the results of his actions in Tibet, Hong Kong, Mongolia and Xinjiang all indicate that things are not going well at all.

Xi has since becoming President and CCP Chairman taken an increasingly aggressive, authoritarian, and expansionist line with regard to internal politics and external security. Consequently, China has been encircled by more detractors than ever before. This situation became even more pronounced with the China virus taking hold of the entire globe and a concerted effort made to blame the origins of the virus on China. This has led to new heights of confrontation with the United States, both directly and in the South China Sea, with a belligerence shown by China that goes well beyond diplomacy. Foreign policy has been substituted by Xi’s policy, a personalised, vendetta driven mechanism that aims to tackle head-on any dissent internally and attempt to overpower anyone who opposes China externally.

President Xi Jinping is also Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC). In 2016, Xi took on a hands-on approach to the Chinese military by initiating a major reorganization that centralized military power. It also resulted in a large percentage of top officers having to pledge personal loyalty to him. As with many of Xi’s power plays, this was supposed to reduce “corruption,” but has not deliver on the promises. President Xi’s constant exhortation to the PLA to be loyal to him and the CCP is a way of ensuring control over the armed forces. With the Chinese forces spreading themselves across several fronts, Xi plans to rejig the entire organization and structure with the aim of intensifying party control.

An agency is saying that what Chairman Xi is doing is simultaneously pushing China to the brink of military confrontations in several theatres. It is here that one sees the personal touch of Xi like when he authorised the launch (26 August 2020) “aircraft carrier killer” ballistic missiles into the South China Sea.

At the same time, Xi has been tightening control over internal security units by putting them under the direct control of the CCP instead of the government bureaucracy and its oversight committees. Xi is fond of cementing these power grabs by presenting each unit he takes control of, with a brand new flag in a “pompous ceremony.”

In a democracy with adequate checks and balances, conventional political wisdom would have demanded a pause for the leadership to take stock of the situation before forging ahead. But in regimented and one-party ruled China, there is little opposition to Xi. Instead, he has prepared himself for the long haul since 2012-2013, fighting an anti-corruption campaign, promoting his own continuance in office and ensuring that everyone, and this literally means everyone in the party show loyalty to him. Is it possible that soon he may declare himself “Chairman Xi”?

For instance, a perusal of Xi’s recent instructions to party cadres in Tibet demonstrates his hard-line approach to ethnic minority tensions in China’s periphery. He called on the party cadres to build an “impregnable fortress” to guard against “splitism”, or separatism, and ensure ‘frontier security’ in Tibet. The latter is a message to Tibet to guard against a possible Indian attempt to grab territory in Ladakh. Look at who is grabbing territory!! Xi also insisted on further subjugating Tibetan Buddhism to socialist principles.

It is ironic that President Xi wants to impose more restrictions on a land and people that have been under 24*7 surveillance, its cultural ethos forcefully merged into Han culture and its religion to be followed only by observing the strict rules laid down by the CCP for the last 70 years!

The ‘occupied’ nature of Tibet is crystal clear and anyone who is aware of the narrative on Chinese rule in Tibet knows that this is story of repression, destruction of religion and cultural ethos. Going further back, the series of self-immolations by Buddhist monks and before that the aerial bombing of monasteries to destroy them as symbols of Tibetan Buddhism during the invasion of Tibet remind us of the horror perpetrated on the Tibetan people.

One has to only turn the pages of the 2019 US State Department report on Religious Freedom, which highlights the ongoing “forced disappearances, arrests, torture, physical abuse, including sexual abuse, and prolonged detentions without trial”. By any standard of international and humanitarian law, these are crimes against humanity.
There is a link between what the CCP is doing in Tibet and what is happening in Xinjiang.

The Chinese state and its representative in Tibet, Chen Quanguo put in place a series of oppressive measures when he was appointed to oversee party affairs in 2011 and converted TAR into a police state which today is the model being followed in Xinjiang. This included using technology to connect all police stations in TAR and tagging all Tibetans to ensure that they could be tracked anywhere. Replication of this model in Xinjiang has allowed the CCP to round up more than a million Uyghurs and put them in “re-education camps” for things as irrelevant as having a Whatsapp account.

Absurd as it may sound, the Chinese State insists on Sinification of its minorities as part of its effort to unify China as a single nation, i.e., a Han nation! However, of far greater concern and pressing immediacy are the reports of the state engaging in a campaign of forced sterilisation, contraception and abortion aimed at reducing the birth rate of the Uyghurs.

These are crimes against humanity, too.
There is another instance of how Xi has demonstrated his obsession for achieving his dream of a “Chinese nation”. Last month, street protesters in Hohhot, capital of Inner Mongolia, and other cities denounced moves by the CCP to limit the use of the Mongolian language in schools and make Chinese the language of use. “Mongolian is our mother language! We are Mongolian until death!” students shouted.

Significantly, former Mongolian President Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj tweeted, “We need to voice our support for Mongolians striving to preserve their mother tongue and scripture in China. The right to learn and use one’s mother tongue is an inalienable right for all. Upholding this right is a way for China to be a respectable and responsible power.”
The case of Hong Kong is only too well known to the world and is telling example of Xi defiance in the face of international opprobrium.

The imposition of the draconian state security law effectively meant that President Xi was willing to go the down to impose authoritarian rule in a ‘democratic’ Hong Kong and challenging the West to respond. For the time being, China has the upper hand as the world is struggling with the pandemic. Not too far away from Hong Kong is Taiwan, which China has been threatening to seize by force for a long time. There is increasing military pressure from China with a sense of urgency that indicates that Beijing may be planning a military invasion of Taiwan in the near future.

The scenario is that President Xi may have calculated that the West having given up on Hong Kong may not intervene, if China invades Taiwan. A chaotic, election mode America may well keep to itself is a situation that Xi may have pondered on and this could lead to a conflict that the world does not need now. In the midst of the enormous row that China has kicked up, President Xi also launched a surreptitious attack on India along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) starting in May 2020.

However, this effort too has rebounded on President Xi. Resultantly, reports suggest that Xi is planning a purge in the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA). According to a report in Nikkei Asian Review (NAR) Chinese leader Xi Jinping is planning “another brutal purge” of his military leadership, this time around he is apparently displeased with the performance of the PLA against Indian troops on the border.

An earlier NAR post (June 2020), written after the brawl (15 June 2020) between Indian and Chinese soldiers along the LAC in Ladakh, suggested that that Xi had not expected his forces to get ‘thrashed’ by the Indians in hand-to-hand combat, that too on the day he celebrated his 67th birthday! Sources say Xi was severely displeased by the resulting loss of “face.” Xi clearly expected his extensively reorganized and centrally controlled military to perform better, which clearly underestimated the Indians’ determination to stand their ground.

China’s strategy has usually been one of slow, patient encroachment and intimidation by pushing its borders steadily outward, assuming its victims will not dare to object too strenuously, until one day announcing the territory it covets has now been fully garrisoned and is an eternal part of China. Why is Xi behaving so aggressively?

Cai Xia, a former party professor says his centralisation of power and purging of party rivals have made him a more formidable figure than Chairman Mao, but he is still insecure. On the other hand, President Xi does what he does simply because he is the emperor of China, and seeks a legacy as the great unifier of China. Is there anybody to stop him, anybody to say “no”? Not as yet, but in the future this may well happen.

As life returns to normal following the COVID-19 restrictions, any corps members looking for a place to serve on Lagos mainland should call: 0817 331 6480.

But such a candidate must be a good writer; graduate of mass communication or English language. Must also be type fast on a computer.

The work is at Yaba, Lagos.

Sorry o, I know you have long been counting down to 7pm of July 19, 2020, but I can't help but ask why the fifth season of BBNaija must start now? Indeed, I am further forced to ask: couldn't the popular reality television show be shelved for now or even forever? Don't organisers of the programme have any milk of human pity? I mean mercy for those they are supposedly entertaining! Ironic, you may say but this paradox is well intended by yours sincerely. Who did this to us? It's obvious that what we have in our hands is like a person being bitten and blown by a rat all at the same time. 
 
Now that you may be getting my drift, kindly suffer me for being such a spoilsport or like someone would say "vibe killer". But then, I just have to kill this vibe for the good of my compatriot and country. In plain language, I am kvetching over the start of Big Brother Naija because of the distraction or escape from griping reality that it offers. Distractions from more important matters and escape from what we should be confronting concertedly. Unfortunately, the distractions have started barely hours into the programme. 
 
My neighbour told me about the dilemma he had to contend with last night...

Read full article here: https://allnews.ng/news/oh-no-why-must-bbnaija-2020-begin-now

The Director-General of Igbo Nsukka Unity Front (INUF), Comrade Chineme Onyeke has observed that Enugu North District is blessed by providence in virtually all sectors, stressing that Nsukka land in Enugu State should naturally be the academic hub, agricultural base and the leading tourist destination in Nigeria. 

In an address forwarded to AllNews on Tuesday, he however regretted that these great potentials have not been harnessed "due to a lot of things chasing Igbo Nsukka, some of which are a combination of carefully orchestrated marginalization agenda against Nsukka people and ineffective and visionless leadership of our people".

Hon. Onyeke disclosed that his group's visits to wonderful sites littered across Nsukka land revealed that "Igbo-Nsukka should naturally be the leading tourist destination in Nigeria, (examples, Ezzimo Waterfalls, Nkalagu Obukpa Cave, etc). Also, Nsukka should be the Academic hub of Nigeria, Nsukka should be the Agricultural base of the South-East, and other innumerable potentials of Nsukka Land".

He explained that it is in combating the combination of the "anti-Nsukka agenda and bad leadership that has pauperised our people" that the Igbo Nsukka United Front came up with a three-point agenda which the group intends to vigorously pursue in order to birth the latent greatness in Nsukka land.

The DG explained the agenda as follows: "to give Igbo Nsukka a voice: Having gone through series of marginalization, degradation, and oppression, and being looked down upon by almost all cultural zones around us, within and outside Enugu State, it has become imperative for us to stand and speak for our people, to promote our people, our culture, our heritage, our achievements, and our heroics. Prof Chinua Achebe in admonishing African Writers once said "if you don't write your story, another person will do it the way you may not like" which will culminate in what Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie terms *"the danger of a single story"* Igbo Nsukka United Front is to form a rallying ground for Igbo Nsukka men and women where we converge and put heads together to plan for what will benefit the entire Igbo Nsukka Cultural zone, thereby attracting tremendous development to our land and make Igbo Nsukka the most desirable place to live in or to come from in the entire Igbo Land. 

"Industrialization of Igbo Nsukka:  The best way to attract development to a place is to create Jobs there and the best way to create Jobs is to build industries. This informed our quest for the industrialization of Igbo Nsukka land, especially in Agriculture and Information Communication Technology ICT. To achieve this, we will need a University of Agriculture that will drive the rapid industrialization of this zone. On this basic agenda, we are to do everything within our power to ensure that a University of Agriculture is established in Igbo Nsukka and fully operational before 2023.

"To ensure that Igbo Nsukka is not left out in the 2023 power equation and beyond: Having fought really hard before we were "given" the chance to lead Enugu State in 2015 which culminated in the former Gov. Sullivan Chime sacrificing his political ambition for Nsukka to take what is rightfully theirs in the Political equation of Enugu State.  We are not even sure if this 4th republic will last until then, and also borrowing a leaf from what happened in the tenure of Chimaroke when he totally neglected Nsukka Zone.
"Even at that, during the turn of Enugu East Senatorial Zone, they had the Senate President and the Federal Ministers that joined hands with the governor to develop their area. During that of Enugu West Senatorial Zone, they had the deputy Senate President and the Federal Ministers, including UNN Vice Chancellors that all joined hands to develop their place, but when our turn came, it was only the governor and nothing more.

"Therefore, we must stand and insist that the next round of the zoning arrangement starts from Nsukka, especially, because we are the last and in the principle of equality, equity and fairness, (traditional ISUSU) the last person to take in the first round should be the first to take in the second round. Hence, it is the rightful turn of Igbo Nsukka to produce the next Governor of Enugu State come 2023."
While clarifying that it is neither fronting nor opposing any individual, politician, group or political party, INUF stressed that her only interest "is the well-being of Nsukka men and women and the development of Nsukka land hence any man, woman, boy or girl that is against the interest of Nsukka Land is automatically against us and anyone supporting the interest of Nsukka Land is automatically for us."

Click here to view pictures: https://allnews.ng/news/what-igbo-nsukka-should-be-to-nigeria-but-for-marginalisation-poor-leadership-onyeke

Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega has observed that the clamour for a restructuring of the Nigerian federation, true federalism and actualization of the sovereign state of Biafra are interconnected, noting that these demands have become so heightened to the extent of overheating the polity.

The Professor of Political Science warned that the consequences of seceding from Nigeria to the secessionists and the remaining citizens would far outweigh what it would cost the country and Nigerians to have a restructured federal system.

https://allnews.ng/news/attahiru-jega-links-biafra-agitation-with-demands-for-restructuring-true-federalism

Chief Celestine Okanya is a seasoned technocrat cum diplomat currently at the peak of his career with all the attendant pecks, yet yearns for a better-governed Enugu State. His passion for the development of the state has seen him take on the establishment as he explains in this explosive interview with Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi. For South-East politicians agitating for Nigeria to produce a President of Igbo extraction in 2023, he left this message: "Victim mentality does not attract power, victor mentality does". AllNews now brings you excerpts of the interview:

https://allnews.ng/news/okanya-blasts-gov-ugwuanyi-exposes-ojebegocracy-as-real-reason-enugu-politicians-aren-t-accountable-interview

Fresh information has surfaced surrounding the emergence of Prof Ibrahim Gambari as the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari and how the appointment connects to the reported gunfight at the Aso Rock Villa involving First Lady Aisha Buhari's ADC and the President's private secretary cum blood relative, Sabiu Yusuf.

Read details here: https://allnews.ng/news/kperogi-links-gambari-appointment-to-aisha-buhari-s-gunfight-with-sabiu-yusuf-in-new-claims

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The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila has posited that prison experience for any politician is a “badge of honour”.

AllNews had reported that Federal High Court in Lagos last week ordered the release of Senator Orji Uzor Kalu from the Correctional Centre. This was after the Supreme Court in Nigeria nullified the conviction of Kalu and ordered the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to reassign the case for a fresh trial.

The former Abia governor was convicted by the Lagos Division of the Federal High Court on Thursday, December 5, 2019, and sentenced to 12 years in prison for N7.65 billion fraud. He was convicted for defrauding the government of Abia State where he was a governor for 8 years using his company, Slok Nigeria Limited.

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/going-to-prison-is-politicians-mark-of-honour-gbajabiamila-tells-orji-kalu

National President of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, has said that Fulani herdsmen do not need anybody’s approval or permission to occupy any land in any part of the country, adding that MAKH’s own security outfit is set to roll out between 5,000 to 100,000 vigilantes to be deployed across all the states of the country.

The Leader of the socio-cultural association also claimed that the Fulani race founded Nigeria, therefore, they will forever produce the country's leaders. He pointed out that the Fulani are in the majority in Nigeria and "are everywhere if they want they will be producing elected officials".

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/fulani-produced-nigeria-they-must-rule-forever-miyetti-allah

It was on April 10, 2018 that Nigerians were treated to the shocking scene of a governor weeping publicly. Well, the same Governor, who at the time cried over an epochal N1.3 trillion budget he proposed for his state, is at it again. This time, however, the poverty level of his people moved him to tears.

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State on Thursday broke down in tears while inaugurating an anti-tax agency headed by Bishop Emma Isong

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/it-is-very-painful-nigerian-governor-cries-publicly-again

The perception that party differences do not really matter to Nigerian politicians played out Wednesday evening when Spokesman of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign, Kassim Afegbua, put up a robust defence of the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Adams Oshiomhole against the appointee of an APC Governor, Godwin Obaseki. 

The issue at stake is the upfront payment of 75 per cent for the construction of the Edo Specialist Hospital as Oshiomhole, a former Edo governor, had come under fire for purportedly breaching the state’s Public Procurement Law which states that any contractor working on a government project should not receive more than 25 per cent upfront payment upon the award of a contract.

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/pdp-spokesman-defends-oshiomhole-against-apc-governor-s-appointee

The President of Bioresources Development Group and a consultant pharmacognosist, Prof. Maurice Iwu, has pointed out other major factors that offer Africans some form of protection from the Coronavirus aside the hot temperatures in most parts of the continent. 

“An issue is high humidity in most African countries, not just hot temperatures. Because of the density of the virus in tropical Africa...

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/covid-19-how-africans-are-protected-from-coronavirus-aside-hot-weather-maurice-iwu

A United States-based professor from Kwara State, Farooq Kperogi, has advised those expecting the new Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, CoS, Ibrahim Gambari to be as powerful as the late Abba Kyari in that office to discountenance such thought. 

He foreclosed such possibility because the new CoS purportedly cannot function well enough in the Hausa language and "Buhari has difficulty forming deep informal interpersonal relationships with people who don’t speak Hausa". 

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/why-aso-rock-cabal-chose-gambari-as-buhari-s-chief-of-staff-kperogi

Making it clear that his intervention has nothing to do with partisan politics, President Muhammadu Buhari's main opponent in the 2019 general election, Atiku Abubakar says the Buhari government's revision of the 2020 budget with a difference of N71.5 billion during a time of austerity is no reduction but at best a window dressing.

He insisted that the mere 0.6 slash to the 2020 was grossly insignificant to heal the nation's economy reeling from the adverse effects of Coronavirus on the world economy, and expressed surprised that the federal government would still choose to ‘merry’ in a time of austerities.

AllNews recalls that the Federal Executive Council, FEC chaired by Buhari in a virtual meeting on Wednesday reduced the 2020 budget from N10.594 trillion signed into law to N10.523 trillion. The Minister of Finance, Mrs Zaniab Ahmed told journalists after the meeting that the development saw the inclusion of new expenditures into the budget to mitigate unenvisaged effect of coronavirus.

According  to her, “This is because, as we cut down the size of the budget, we also have to bring in new expenditure previously not budgeted, to enable us adequately respond to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The federal government in this budget will have direct revenue of funding the budget of N5.158 billion. The deficit to this budget is N5.365 trillion and this will be financed by both domestic as well as foreign borrowing.”

Reacting to the development on Thursday, Atiku insisted that there was no noticeable difference between the former and the revised versions of the budget and advised Buhari on the best possible way to withstand the harsh economic realities occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Atiku, a former Vice President, asked Buhari to jettison billions budgeted for his travels and feeding as well as those of his deputy, Professor Yemi Osinbajo.

Writing on a topic 'Nigeria Cannot Afford Luxuries During an Austerity' on his Facebook page, Atiku also asked Buhari to do away with the N37billion budget for the renovation of the National Assembly, urging him to downsize the massive budgets to run both the Presidency and the Legislature.

The ex-Vice President also counselled that the budget for purchasing luxury cars for the President, his vice, and other political office holders must be abandoned, and advised Buhari to sell 8 or 9 of the jets in the Presidential Air Fleet as well as reduce the salaries of political appointees.

The opposition leader, however, warned against touching the salaries of civil servants.

He wrote: “It is to my consternation that despite the crash in the price of oil, and the inability of Nigeria to expand our revenue base through the non-oil sector, the Federal Government of Nigeria has only seen fit to slash our budget by a mere 0.6%, from ₦10.594 trillion to ₦ 10.523 trillion. This represents a reduction of only ₦71 billion.

“Putting politics aside, this is grossly insufficient and betrays the fact we have lost touch with the current realities in the global political economy.

“For the avoidance of doubt, when this budget was presented to the National Assembly on Tuesday, October 8, 2019, it was predicated on a projection that our nation would generate crude oil production of 2.18 million barrels a day, at an expected oil price of $57 per barrel.

“Today that is no longer the case. Both our production, and the price of oil have been severely affected by the coronavirus pandemic, to the extent that we have unsold vessels, and our income has tanked by more than 50%.

“Given that this is the case, how can anyone justify a reduction in expenditure of just 0.6%? We cannot be the only nation bucking the trend?

“Saudi Arabia, a nation with a much stronger production capacity than ours and with a larger global market share, as well as a foreign reserve that is 12 times ours, has slashed her budget by almost 30%. Ditto for other oil economies.

“Nigeria cannot make up for the loss of expected revenue by taking out more loans and issuing out more bonds. Debt will be the death of our economy, and bonds will put our people in bondage.

“The best way out of this economic quagmire is to reduce our expenditure. And a 0.6% reduction is no reduction. It is only window dressing.

“My counsel to the Federal Government of Nigeria is this: put Nigerians first and cut your coat, not according to your size, but according to your cloth.

“Realistically slash the budget. Every pork barrel has to go. The billions budgeted for the travels and feeding of the President and Vice President has to be reduced. The ₦27 billion budget for the renovation of the National Assembly has to go. The massive budgets to run both the Presidency and the Legislature has to be downsized. The budget for purchasing luxury cars for the President, his vice, and other political office holders must be abandoned. Leave the salaries of civil servants alone, but reduce the salaries of political appointees. Sell 8 or 9 of the jets in the Presidential Air Fleet.

“Any budget slash that is less than 25% will not be in the interest of Nigeria. And beyond a budget slash, Nigeria needs a budget realignment, to redirect expenditure away from running a massive bureaucracy, into social development sectors like education, infrastructure, and above all, healthcare. We must invest in the goose that lays the golden egg – the Nigerian people.

“These are the types of sacrifices that we need in a time of crisis. We do not need empty gestures that will lead to empty treasuries.

“In times of austerity, no nation, not the least a mono-product economy, such as ours, should be living in luxury at a leadership level.”

https://allnews.ng/news/atiku-puts-politics-aside-over-buhari-s-cost-saving-measure-amid-covid-19

The British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing has expressed delight over President Muhammadu Buhari's appointment of Ibrahim Gambari as his Chief of Staff, but goofed in the process. 

The seasoned diplomat, whose appointment as Nigeria's Chief of Staff has been trending since Tuesday, was officially presented to the Federal Executive Council, FEC, today during their virtual meeting. 

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/british-envoy-laing-commits-grammatical-blunder-while-lauding-gambari-s-appointment

The founder and General Overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, SCOAN, Prophet TB Joshua, is at it again, asserting this time that unfortunate events like the novel Coronavirus must afflict the entire universe once every 100 years.

The controversial cleric, who had given a failed prophecy on Coronavirus pandemic ending late March, said God revealed to him that...

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/something-like-coronavirus-must-hit-the-world-every-100-years-tb-joshua

Although his last intervention in that regard brought him flak, founder and chief executive of Cable Newspaper Ltd, Simon Kolawole has continued to speak on his relationship with Nigeria's former Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, who died last month as a result of complications from COVID-19.

A tribute to his deceased friend published by the veteran columnist on the back page of ThisDay attracted him so much backlash which he claimed were sponsored by the same persons who demonized Abba Kyari while alive. 

"I wrote just one article and they have replied with about 46 rejoinders as at the last count. It’s an industry!", he pointed out in an interview...

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/abba-kyari-asked-me-to-become-buhari-s-campaign-spokesman-simon-kolawole

The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, on Monday described as politically tainted and statistically unreliable, unbelievable, untenable, the latest poverty rate of Nigeria as issued by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, which fixed the current poverty rate at forty percent.

It dismissed as absolutely absurd, the NBS explanation that a new methodology was adopted in reaching the very recent determination of the estimated percentage of Nigerians that are poor in which case the percentage of poor people in Nigeria when Goodluck Jonathan was President in 2012 was now higher than the statistical data under the Muhammadu Buhari presidency.

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/nbs-claim-that-more-nigerians-were-poor-under-jonathan-than-buhari-absolutely-absurd

The claim by Mamman Daura that when former President Olusegun Obasanjo was selected "as PDP candidate, a group of women and youths in the PDP lobbied Obasanjo to pick Malam Abba Kyari as his vice presidential running mate" has been rubbished by an authority on Nigeria's presidency, Tony Eluemunor.
AllNews recalls that Daura, a nephew to President Buhari, recently disclosed that Abba Kyari was recommended as running mate to Obasanjo when Nigeria returned to democracy, adding that "Malam Abba was among those enthusiastically espousing the cause of General Obasanjo”. This disclosure was made in a tribute mourning Kyari's death. 
Eluemunor has now come out to puncture the claim...

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/how-mamman-daura-lied-about-abba-kyari-almost-becoming-obasanjo-s-vp

Former Executive Secretary of the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, Prof Usman Yusuf has accused Kano State governor, Dr. Umar Ganduje of spreading Coronavirus across northern states, warning that what is currently happening in Kano can bring down the whole of Africa.

He categorically warned that if urgent steps were not taken to halt the spate of deaths, Nigeria’s end has started in Kano "because if Kano goes down, the whole of Nigeria goes with it, as well as Africa".

Read more: https://allnews.ng/news/ganduje-planting-coronavirus-across-north-kano-may-kill-nigeria-ex-nhis-boss-warns

The Director-General of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, Dr. Chikwe Ihekweazu, on Saturday forecasted that Nigeria and the rest of the world would not return to normalcy until next year at the very least. 
The NCDC boss, who stated this during the 24th edition of The Platform, hosted by Poju Oyemade’s Covenant Nation, said the short term pains are sacrifices Nigerians must make for a safer long term.
When asked how soon Nigerians would stop being expected to wear face masks and observe social distancing and the rest of the COVID-19 precautions, Ihekweazu said until next year at least. 

Read more here: https://allnews.ng/news/covid-19-not-ending-soon-normal-life-won-t-return-until-2021-ncdc-dg

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