₦airaland Forum

oyb:
bunkum - if the nd secedes from nigeria, it will degenerate instantly into infighting - all those your ateke tom and co will be fighting for control - it will be a questio od who strikes first . . .odili may wind up becoming the local charles taylor  - as an aside  the idoko are a minority tribe - will be marginalized - so we can expect to see someone on ndland whining about how the republic of the nd is worse than nazi germany

I definitely concur.

^^^^

Dude, what are you talking about, mother chick or whatever nonsense that is has Zap all to do with anything. Im talking about norms in international politics. When the USSR broke up, didn't the larger Russian federation maintain a sphere of influence on smaller soviet states?? Isn't that still the case?
SS would only have the dutch disease anyway and would continue being a Rentier economy. Its not like the rest of Nigeria supposing they allow SS to secede peacefully would go broke immediately, to suggest that is simplistic thinking. The north would get interest free loans from the OIC and Islamic bank and jump start agriculture and oil and gas exploration that are currently ongoing in lake Chad and Bauchi and Benue or gold mining in Sokoto. Its not people will just sit down and stare.

chyz1:
Theres no such thing as SS seceding.Who has been calling for it?

Why are they arming themselves?? With the collaboration of their governors and top ranking military personnel.

Even if the SS were to secede, it wouldn't be good for a tiny oil rich country to be surrounded by a larger hungry country. That wouldn't make sense because they'd get overrun and dominated.

Saharareporters has obtained a secret report by the Nigerian Army implicating current National Security Adviser, Gen Andrew Azazi (rtd), former Governors James Ibori and DSP Alamieyeseigha, and former Director-General of the State Security Service, Lt. Col Kayode Are (rtd) in the massive diversion and sale of Nigerian army weaponry to Niger Delta militants.

SaharaReporters obtained the intelligence report one week after Sonny Bowie Okah denounced members of his family as “killers” and vowed to destroy them, and a few days after the State Security Services intercepted 13 container loads of arms being imported into Nigeria through the Lagos port.

Sonny Bowei Okah, a brother to Henry Okah, the leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta currently facing terrorism charges in South Africa, is portrayed in the report as a central character in the deals. Also mentioned in the document are Major Gen R.O. Adekhegba, a former Director of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, Henry Okah himself, Major S.A. Akubo, a serving army officer, and ten soldiers who worked with the Nigerian Army Ordinance Corps.

The 35-page report, which is dated November 2007, is the product of an intensive investigation by the headquarters of the Nigerian Army Intelligence Corps following a tip-off by a soldier and a red flag by the SSS that army weapons were flowing from an ordinance depots in Kaduna and Jaji to militants.

Azazi, who was chief of army staff at the time, Adekhegba, former army intelligence chief, and Are, the then SSS director, reportedly covered up the matter. Ibori and Alamieyeseigha were named as having financed the arms deals.

The report, suppressed for long by the military hierarchy and the Federal Government, details in shocking detail how Sunny Okah funneled over N100 million to Major Akubo and the soldiers in exchange for over 7,000 cache of assorted arms and ammunition.

The report reveals that, within a seven-year period, Sonny Okah colluded with Major Akubo to move the weaponry. “They would surreptitiously drive Isuzu pick-up vans and sewage disposal trucks into ordinance depots in Jaji and Kaduna and then ferry out high-caliber and light weapons, even ammunitions,” said a source within the intelligence community who also had access to the report.

The report describes Sunny Okah as the major middleman between the soldiers and the militants, including his brother Henry.

“The amount of weapons stolen are enough to hold not just Port Harcourt hostage but the whole of Nigeria,” the report notes. “Should criminals decide to spread out to major cities of Nigeria with just a few of these weapons and cause chaos simultaneously, it is doubtful if we will not have a national state of emergency situation in our hands.”

The weapons include rocket launchers, UMGs, GPMGs, G3 and Mark IV rifles, Barretta rifles, AK 47 and bagfuls of ammunitions.

The investigation was triggered when a certain Private Zamanu Adamu who, while on guard at the ordinance depot in Jaji, Kaduna, in September 2007, reported that the seal on the depot had been broken and that some items had been removed.

In its investigation, the army intelligence corps interrogated Sunny Okah, Major Akubo and the soldiers who confessed to the crime. The investigators unearthed the fact that there was an earlier arms sale at 1 Ordinance Base in Kaduna. Major Akubo is named as the prime suspect in that deal.

Our investigation revealed that, rather than get to the bottom of the case and bring perpetrators to book, both the SSS and the Directorate of Military Intelligence engaged in official cover-ups. Azazi, Are and Adekhegba spearheaded the campaign to bury the report.

“It’s true that the SSS launched an investigation quite all right, and even got the army authorities to release the suspects – Major Akubo and the soldiers – to it for interrogation,” said an army source. He added that “the investigation was soon truncated and the suspects, including Sunny Okah, were released even after they confessed to the crime.”

Our sources disclosed that then Major Akubo was taken in by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI), but was interrogated by a one-man panel appointed by Adekhegba. He was curiously released to return to his unit based on instructions from Azazi, even when his involvement in the scandalous deals had been firmly established.

At the time the arms thefts began, Azazi was General Officer Commanding the 1st Division in Kaduna. Investigators suggested that he handled the case shabbily in order to cover up his “command failure”.

“Is there a likelihood that this case was shabbily handled in order that Gen Azazi’s failures may remain undiscovered?” the report asked. “Did Gen Azazi use course mate influence on the then DG of DSS Lt Col LKK Are (rtd) to ensure that the case remain suppressed? Otherwise, why did it take until now when Are is no longer in office for the DSS to reopen the case and be willing to cooperate fully.” The report added, “Gen Azazi obviously has more questions to answer regarding his roles in this case.”




The report fingered Ibori and Alamieyeseigha as financiers of the arms acquisition. Both men, who were state governors at the time, allegedly provided the funds with which Sunny Okah went on his arms shopping spree.

“These two politicians are mentioned as financiers of the arms acquisition project,” the report said. “Certainly, they would not have provided money without knowing the source of the weapons. Simply put, a breach of security of this magnitude was deliberately masterminded by state governors.”

Major Akubo is reported to have confessed to investigators that Sunny Okah approached him in 2004 stating that Ibori and Alamieyeseigha had given him a job to source for arms on their behalf. Okah asked for Akubo’s help to deliver on the job.

Ibori recently appealed the ruling by a court in Dubai that he should be extradited to the UK to face charges for money laundering. Meanwhile Alamieyeseigha, a convict who served a short jail term for corrupt enrichment, is championing the President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential election bid.

The report recommended that Azazi and Adekhegba be sanctioned and that the indicted governors should be further investigated.

The recommendations were not implemented. In fact, shortly before the report was written, Azazi forwarded the name of the former DMI chief for a national award while Sunny Okah was set free. Sunny Okah has since been recruited by the Jonathan administration and is being used to press the case against his brothers, Charles and Henry, over the October 1 Abuja bomb blast.

A few weeks ago, Jonathan appointed Azazi as his new national security adviser. Despite his indictment in the report, Azazi enjoyed one of the fastest career elevations among Nigerian military officers. Between mid-2006 and mid-2007, he rose from Major General to Lieutenant General to General.

However, on August 20, 2008, months after the report was written, Umaru Yar’Adua fired Azazi as Chief of Defense Staff and retired him from the Army. Two sources have told Saharareporters that the arms deal report of 2007 influenced Yar’Adua’s decision to fire Azazi from his post. One of those sources revealed that then Vice President Jonathan was aware of the reason for Azazi’s firing. “By asking General Azazi to come out of retirement and become his NSA, is President Jonathan out to register his disagreement with the judgment of the late president?” asked the source.

However, Major Akubo and the soldiers have since been court-martialed, dismissed from the army and are serving jail terms.

The investigative report wondered how widespread the theft and sale of military arms thefts were, not just in the army but in the navy, the air force, the police, and other armed agencies. It also raised questions about the role of politicians as financiers of the deals, and wondered about how the arms shopping affected national security.

After an overview of the many issues raised by the arms deals and the highly placed individuals involved in them, the investigative report formulated a conspiracy theory. It suggested that there was a link between the aborted Orkar coup in 1989, the 2001 Ikeja Cantonment arms depot explosions, the arms theft at 1BODK, and the militancy in the Niger Delta.

“It is believed that there is an orchestrated plan by the Niger Deltans to secede from Nigeria which is being played out over the years with every opportunity they have,” the report concluded.

http://www.saharareporters.com/sites/default/files/uploads/Azazi.pdf

Katsumoto:
So if you were to ship in arms to start a conflict in Nigeria, you would ship in all your weapons in one major consignment?

So are you suggesting that thousands of containers have already been shipped behind the governments back? This is the only one that was caught? You should think man. Even if they were shipping for a "war" why so little at a time like 13??  when is the war 2020?  Theres no war being planned, Nigerians are exaggerators by nature, very hyper active conclusion jumpers!! Very ignorant and stereotypical crowd, not good with solid facts. No one in Nigeria want a war in the true sense and implication of that word. Even the militants are just chest pounding. A civil war will never occur in Nigeria because if you have no guts to challenge thieving politicians. How on God's green earth are you going to have the guts to fight a full blown war?
Nigerians specialize in cowardice, like kidnapping (unarmed people snatching) armed robbery (threatening poor unarmed people with guns in the middle of the night) and religious conflicts are gang wars with a group of muslims and christians clashing. By the time it gets to the media, its exaggerated. But show me the percentage of people that die in religious conflicts as against the population, a few hundred at a time against millions in the gen pop.

13 containers of arms and ammunition is not that much, how big is the container to begin with, also you have to factor in the fact that the weapons were hidden in crates along with tiles and other building materials so as to disguise them. In a country of 500 thousand, maybe and just maybe, 13 containers of arms will spark a major conflict that may not even be up to the degree of a civil war. But a country of 150 million, Its absolutely impossible for 13 containers to cause a "civil war" Many people seem to be shouting war without fully understanding the repercussions of war. This is probably the shipment for some gang who are thinking about taking things a notch higher. Not even a thousand containers can be enough arms to start a civil war in Nigeria. If you say 15,000 containers then my eyes will open wide.

Beaf:
The brand of Islam practised in Nigeria is Sunni. Unfortunately, Al Qaeda is also Sunni; Nigeria has terrorist groups affiliated with Al Qaeda in North Africa.

Al Qaeda groups will never recieve arms from Iran, in fact Iran see's Al Qaeda as a mortal enemy. However, Boko haram and Maitatsine cults in Nigeria practice Shiite Islam (the same as Iran ).

Nigerian politicians in the core North see the employment of shocking acts of violence as a short term route to gaining the upper hand; but this time, the omens portend a very dark future. I only foresee the core North dissolving into a sharia, Somali like cesspit when groups like Al Qaeda in North Africa (which sees the core North as its territory) begin to see the arming of shiite groups (Boko haram and Maitatsine cults) to sophisticated levels as an afront that deserves violent reactions.

Time to erect a wall to separate Southern Kaduna, Plateau, areas in Bauchi etc. Let us be onlookers, not partaker

See Beaf, you're ignorant and you come to NL to spew donkey Poo Points of correction

Boko Haram is not a shiite group, they're Sunni 100%
The only Shiite group in Northern Nigeria are the followers of Sheikh El Zakzaky and their base is in Zaria
You have pockets of Shiites in Kano, Sunnis dominate Nigeria by no small measure
Also, In Kano and Bauchi, you have Darikas or Sufis, who follow the teachings of sufi mystics like Tijjani and Abdul Qadr, hence their groups are called Tijjaniya and Qadiriya. You find quite a bit of them in Kano.
Politically from top to bottom, Sunnis are by far the majority. Maitetsine followers were sunnis not Shiites.

Heres a link to Nigerian sufi's practicing their brand of Islamic mysticism


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0NfPWMOAJk

Don't say things you don't know please, I know you like to assume you know everything but you dont at all especially in the case of Northern Nigeria, from your posts and many others on NL, you're completely clueless. Don't peddle rubbish, double check your facts, dont just write what you think in your head.

Igbos got those red hats from Hausa people, its so obvious, even Libyans have the same thing both the black and red version.

Andre Uweh:
The above post is brain crippling. Sometimes I wonder why people write rubbish about Igbo culture which they do not know anything about it. anyway, the red hat titled men wear in Igboland signifies struggle (blood). It is not borrowed from HAUSAS or any other culture. What Hausas wear is not even red hats but oxblood hats.

Just accept that fact that Igbos borrow certain things from other places. I know you're cultural supremacist but Its not everything that Igbos have that evolved only from them. Look at the pitures

So you can see that everyone has mingled and taken an aspect of someone else's culture even if its unknowingly, some yorubas will stop wearing agbadas if they know its origin is Arab, lol
Language, religion, dress, food, other aspects of culture.

The British took just about half of their words from Latin. The British aren't Latin, the were enslaved by Latin speaking Romans. English and Latin aren't even in the same language group technically speaking. Try not being too hard on yourself. We have to mingle to survive, not everything has to be of your making. We always borrow. Its not as black and white as "mental slavery" as some are alluding to.

Then

The Arab to the North African Arab/berber to the Hausa to the Yoruba.

Honestly, if we want to go down this road of who and who have been colonized, its a slippery slope argument. You can say Japanese people have their own religion and their own names but then you have to ask why they dress like Europeans. Thats also part of colonization, the adoption in a wholesale fashion of someone else's culture or aspects of their culture because it implies that at some point in time, you felt what you had was not good enough so you either willingly adopted someone else's or you were sort of forced to by colonialism, everybody is a victim of colonization one way or the other.
Why do Iranians who are Persians wear western/European clothes? Why do Nigerians wear arab clothes? coz the agabda, babban riga and Kaftan are all arab. Those red hats that Igbo chiefs wear are Turkish passed through Arabs and Hausa people to the Igbos! Goodluck Jonathan whole attire is foreign, his hat English, his clothes, if you trace the origins (the trousers and knee length gown) are attires that came from south west Asia. But its obviously been modified.

@poster. I don't see the need of asking this question. The fact is names come with either religion or colonization/ political-cultural influence or need for assimilation. Haven't you see Chinese people with English names, go to Hong Kong or the Chinese that live in America or the west in general. Go to Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, most of the "stan" countries, Brunei, Iran (persians), Turkey (they're not arab), Albania and so on. You'll see that they mostly have Arabic names due solely to Islam, a religion of about 1.2 billion people. So its not peculiar to Nigeria or Africa. The europeans have a lot of names that come from hebrew/aramaic and general semitic origin, they anglicized most like Joshua from Yeshua etc. So europeans got the names from semites and passed it onto to Africans. If a people subscribes to any of the Abrahamic faiths then they'll have the same names like Moshe for Jews, Moses for xtians, Musa for Muslims. Those 3 are the same names. If you have indigenous beliefs as in parts of India and Japan then you're likely to have your own names. Actually, you have to praise Africans because they adopted the Abrahamic faiths and still kept their names, you cant say that for most others. Just go to Pakistan and see whether its easy to find Urdu or Pashtun names.

excanny:
The bolded are still Arabic names.

Larai and Turai are an Hausanized form of the Arabic names Balarabe and Thurayya

Not true, larai is a hausa name, balarabe as in balarabe musa means "arab" in hausa, the female version of that is balarabiya, and there are women with that name in Nigeria. The Hausanized version of Thurayya is Surayya not Turai. Turai means you were born in a foreign land. Thats why a white person is called "bature" meaning foreigner. Bello is a hausa name, so is dalhatu, sarki, tafida, tukur, lamido, badamasi, gambo, tanko, mairo, dogara, dikko and many more.