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The death toll in Wednesday’s deadly ambush by Boko Haram in Borno State may have risen to 33, reports from the area say.

The attack came in the implementation of a 40-day “clearance” operation declared by the Chief of Army Staff, Yusuf Buratai, in which he said he wanted Boko Haram leader dead or alive.

Fresh reports show that no fewer than 12 soldiers were killed while at least four out of 12 staff of the University of Maiduguri equally lost their lives. Two of the soldiers were officers, one of them identified as Lt. M. Medawa, who was due to be decorated on Thursday as Captain, a rank to which he was recently promoted.

In the ambush, some officials of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and members of staff of the University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) undertaking a research project concerning oil exploration in the area were abducted.

On Wednesday evening, military sources and local vigilantes said that some of those people have contacted their relations.Providing an update at about the same time, the Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman, said in the statement that as soon as information about the ambush reached the Brigade mobilized and sent reinforcement, search and rescue party that included the Armed Forces Special Forces and guides that worked and pursued the terrorists throughout the night.



University of Maiduguri bombing
NEMA


“So far, they have rescued all the NNPC staff and recovered the corpses of the Officer, eight soldiers and a civilian have who have been evacuated to 7 Division Medical Services and Hospital,” he said. SaharaReporters has not independently confirmed how many of those who were abducted have regained their freedom.

Another military source, who requested anonymity, confirmed the arrival of the eight bodies in Maiduguri on Wednesday, with four more arriving at Maimalanri Cantonment on Thursday at about 6pm. [But it is not yet 6p.m Thursday!!]

In addition, top leader of the “civilian JTF” who participated in the evacuation disclosed that 11 members of their own group, including the chairman of the Magumeri Civilian –JTF branch, were also killed.

"We just came back from Magumeri this evening, 11 of our members are dead and some are currently receiving treatment at various hospitals," the top leader of the civilian group said.

Concerning those who have been reported to be safe, he said, “Some have called that they are in Damaturu, we strongly believe that the remaining ones will soon return. Let me tell you, this can't stop us; no hiding place for Boko Haram, we shall flush them out."

Local vigilantes also said that six of their members who were with the team of oil explorers and troops from Magumeri were also snatched in the ambush.

"Six of our members fell into the hands of their enemy, they are all from Magumeri branch of [the] local vigilante," a vigilante source told SaharaReporters.

In another development, a source at the University of Maiduguri said the younger brother of the Vice-Chancellor of the institution was among victims.

"I just received a phone call that [on Friday], there will be a funeral of the younger brother of our Vice Chancellor at UNIMAID central mosque, " that source said.

At the University of Maiduguri Teaching, a member of staff who works in the mortuary has also confirmed that four corpses were brought into the facility early on Thursday (Nigerian Time), identified to have been on the staff of UNIMAID.

He added, however, that two others on the UNIMAID staff had contacted their VC, saying they are receiving treatment at the military facility.

Earlier on Wednesday, SaharaReporters reported that many had been killed or were missing after suspected Boko Haram terrorists ambushed a convoy of troops, oil prospectors, University Geologists and others on Wednesday at Borno Yesu in Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno state.

In his update, Brigadier-General Usman said the ambush took place on Tuesday at about 3p.m., and that it involved the escorts as well as a team of NNPC staff returning from oil exploration at Borno Yasu, Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno State.

Of the military response, he said, “The [search and rescue] team recovered 4 vehicles one of which includes a gun truck mounted with an Anti-Aircraft Gun, 2 white Hilux taken away from NNPC staff and 1 blue Hilux belonging to CJTF. They team also recovered large quantities of arms and ammunition, several spare tyres, many jerry cans of containing Petroleum, Oil and Lubricant, assorted drugs, Improvised Explosive Device (IED) making materials, reflective jackets and a Motorola handheld radio, among others. The team also neutralized many of the terrorists.”

Although he stressed that the troops are not relenting in their efforts, it is unclear how Tuesday’s ugly incident will impact the oil exploration efforts in the Lake Chad Basin.

http://saharareporters.com/2017/07/26/borno-oil-prospectors-ambush-death-toll-said-be-over-30-many-still-unaccounted

President Muhammadu Buhari has received the Boko Haram insurgents’ flag recovered from the Sambisa Forest by the military.

The flag was presented to Buhari in Abuja by the theatre commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, Major-General Lucky Irabor, late Friday night at the 2016 Regimental Dinner organised by the Presidential Brigades of Guards...

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/buhari-receives-captured-boko-haram-flag/178539.html

how ...

na waoo

U.S. Military Leaders Are Worried That A War With Russia Could Start By Accident



David Wood of The Huffington Post says Russian jets are playing "chicken" with U.S. planes in international airspace with alarming frequency, and that a rash response could lead to all-out war.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. My guest, David Wood, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning military correspondent for The Huffington Post. In his latest article, he reports now that Russia is determined to destabilize the West, Russia and the U.S. are brushing up against each other in perilous ways with alarming frequency in international waters and airspace. He says one miscalculation by one startled pilot can lead to a world war. And that scenario is keeping the military establishment up at night.

Tensions between the U.S. and Russia are also escalating in Syria, where Russia is fighting in support of the Assad regime, and U.S. planes are dropping bombs on ISIS. Now that the U.S. appears to be considering the option of taking military action against Syria's Assad regime in response to its chemical attack on Syrians this past weekend, Russia and the U.S. could end up fighting on opposite sides of the conflict.

David Wood's new article on The Huffington Post Highline about the U.S. military's run-ins with Russia is titled "This Is How The Next World War Starts." Wood won his Pulitzer Prize in 2012 for his reporting on veterans who returned home with severe life-changing injuries caused by IEDs. He was embedded with American troops in Iraq four times and Afghanistan five times and wrote a book about the moral injuries that soldiers suffer called "What Have We Done."..

http://www.npr.org/2017/04/06/522857262/u-s-military-leaders-are-worried-that-a-war-with-russia-could-start-by-accident

President Muhammadu Buhari’s delay, in appointing ministers, three months after coming to power may not be unconnected with his believe that civil servants and technocrats are the ones who do the job of governance more than the ministers. Buhari-France24 Buhari: Ministers make a lot of noise… Buhari who departed Nigeria for France on Monday, during an exclusive interview with France 24 tv François Picard, on Wednesday, however, said he intends to stick with his decision to name his cabinet before the end of the month, but however, opined that ministers are only there to “make a lot of noise.” Asked if the absence of a Minister of Finance was affecting the Nigerian capital market and economy,

Buhari said: “No. It is what we know –and which we learnt from the western system. The civil service provides the continuity, the technocrat. And in any case, they are those that do most of the work. “The ministers are there, I think, to make a lot of noise; for the politicians to make a lot of noise. But the work is being done by the technocrats. They are there; they have to provide the continuity, dig into the records and then guide us, [those of us] who are just coming in. “They have been there, some of them for 15 years, some for 20 years. So I think this question of ministers is political. People from different constituencies want to see their people directly in government, and see what they can get out of it.

“As for the cabinet, I said we will have one by the end of the month, and time flies. The end of the month is coming too quickly for my liking. “Yeah, I will stick to it. I will send the names to the national assembly.” Reminded by Picard that “some have quipped that the country runs better without ministers”, the President said: “When you started introducing me, you said I was around 1983 to 1985. Even then we had ministers. So under this system, we have to have ministers; and we are going to have ministers.”

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/ministers-make-a-lot-of-noise-buhari/

Funny set of people

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigeria's 2017 budget, signed into law by the acting president a month ago, has still not been finalised and is being amended due to disagreements between parliament and the presidency, two sources familiar with the matter said.

Any delays to government spending could hobble recovery in Africa's largest economy, now in its second year of recession.

The 2017 budget, still not finalised in the second half of the year, was meant to spark that return to growth after the first downturn in a quarter of a century...

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nigeria-budget-exclusive-idUSKBN19Z1YT

Am still around

I have never been an agitator for the state of Biafra all my life. What I have been is a very conscious Igbo man so fond of his identity like other normal human beings.

Even the Nigeria I belong to right now, until otherwise stated, I am a passionate citizen for the image of Nigeria. What I hate with passion is the Nigeria system that no reasonable person should actually applaud. Nigerian is a prison and should not be cherished. Of course no right thinking person relishes a system which has the best and outputs the worst. Anybody who knows this country has the potential to be among the best in the world would never rejoice about this contraption.

And only a change in the system popularly called RETSTRUCTURING would unleash the potential energy of Nigeria.

Reporting Nigeria over the years, I have travelled to 90% of the states with the eyes of a reporter and saw that all of them have enough to make them live in plenty and comfort. It is only this retarding system that lulls the regions of Nigeria into lethargy and atrophy. And that must change unless we want our children to hate us for bequeathing something faulty to them. In every meaning of it, Nigeria operates a faulty system.

Although beneficiaries of the animal farm delude themselves otherwise, but unless we change the structure, Nigeria must certainly explode someday soon.

In the present melee, I have read and heard many argue that the reason Igbo or especially the Biafra agitators demand secession is that they plan to appropriate the oil of the neighbouring South South states.

That is the most uninformed argument by anyone that thinks he or she knows anything about Nigeria. But it also goes to prove that the same people stand against any secession just because their minds and psyche have been rigidly tied to the same South South oil and don’t want to lose the gains.

Before we come to whatever decision, I tell the oil-centric Nigerians that no oil producing country in the world is among the richest economies. None of the richest economies relies on oil, in fact, 95% of them don’t have a semblance of oil.

Moreover, if oil is the wherewithal, why then has Nigeria that was Africa’s largest oil producer and world’s number six for years been crawling in over 60 years of living on oil?

What has always grown and would always grow an economy is human resource. It is human resource that made us know that we had oil all the ages gone underneath our feet and also made it useful by creating those technologies that rely on oil.

To bring an end to this crass argument of Igbo eyeing South South oil, may I educate those who don’t know and those who claim not to know that from the NDDC creation, Imo and Abia have been among the nine oil producing states. I decided to make it an issue after the jaundiced interview by former Commissioner of Police Abubakar Tsav who joined street urchins that know nothing going on to argue the same way. It’s quite unfortunate that malice beclouds our knowledge. Tsav and others should have known this fact, and that Imo had been the 5th largest oil producing state.

From the table of quota of production, the two Igbo states, which Yakubu Gowon malice spared after ceding Igbo lands out, still produce 25.5% of Nigeria oil, and the South South taking the lion share of 70%, out of which they earn a benefit of just 15%. The South East takes 11% as the rest go to feed those that slander Igbo for targeting other people’s oil. The South West of Nigeria in Ondo State produces the remaining percentage of the Nigerian crude supply.

The same old tricks had stopped Nigeria, through her over reliance on oil, to abandon the coal deposits in Enugu. To a large extent, the abandonment of the coal in Enugu after the war was another of Gowon’s tricks to cripple Igbo economy. So, we can sing eureka today that our neglected coal is there to provide us electricity should the push come to a shove. I am sure that up till today, China, the country with the largest electricity generation in the world still relies on coal power to the extent of 65%.

You know why the oil produced in the two Igbo states doesn’t seem to be known by the man in the street, and even Tsav who should know? It is because the host communities of the states have rather preferred to be peaceful and never toed the militancy line. Because Nigeria only listens to those that rake up mud and spit fire and violence, it has gone unnoticed that there is oil in Igbo land and the likes of Tsav make it the propaganda against us.

No matter their thinking however, if the structure of Nigeria is changed tomorrow, Igbo know better than relying on oil, the same undoing of Nigeria that created artificial poverty in this land of plenty. Only fools don’t learn from history.

However, if oil is what it all takes, I remind the canvassers of this idea that the first oil find in Nigeria was in Edda in present Ebonyi State in February 1927. I dug up the archived pages of the laboratory analysis and reports from the National Archives Enugu for a report on abandoned oil finds in the South East published in the Saturday Sun of March 26, 2011 (see this link (http://www.gasandoil.com/news/discoveries) That’s one of the internet reproductions from The Sun website.

This article gives details of the oil finds in Anam region of Anambra that necessitated the Orient Petrochemical Plant that is still in the making, the natural gas finds in the Eha Alumona and Awgu areaa of Enugu State and others.

In December 1999, President Olusegun Obasanjo visited Ebonyi State and I was at the gathering when then Governor Sam Egwu told him story of the Ebonyi oil finds and urged him to include the state in the NDDC list.

http://sunnewsonline.com/igbo-secession-and-south-south-oil-ignorance/

Good one

What are the reasons for Modakeke Indigene from Ife East L.G.A still dont call themselves as Modakeke in public.

Why modakeke dont like Ife people?

A Modakeke man once told me he can never forgive Ife.

Am quite young when the conflict happened.

A little down the memory on what really caused the conflict will help.

Nigerians, particularly members and supporters of the People’s Democratic
Party (PDP) that are still hoping for a revived PDP someday, former
President Olusegun Obasanjo has a word for them.

Obasanjo for the second time in less than three years, said the party is
dead, sunk and gone, praying that the fortune of Nigeria should also not
sink – apparently like that of the PDP.

The former Board of Trustees (BoT) of PDP reiterated his position on
Friday while replying comments by former National Chairman, Alh. Ahmadu
Ali, about their past relationship in government during an International
Symposium titled: “Purpose and Utilitarian Values of Presidential
Libraries” at the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library, Abeokuta, the
Ogun State capital...

http://pointblanknews.com/pbn/exclusive/pdp-dead-gone-obasanjo/

PIQUED by the generalisation of all states in the northern part of the country as one entity call North, the Association of Middle Belt Ethnic Nationalities (ASOMBEN) said it is wrong to lump Middle Belt with the North saying the old Northern Region and all the other 3 region ceased to exist when General Aguiyi Ironsi abolished them through Decree 34 on 24th May, 1966.

The Acting Chairman of ASOMBEN, Barrister Sule Kwasau who stated this at the association special meeting with 2014 National Conference Delegates in Jos, Plateau State said the erroneous believe that the Middle Belt is part of the larger north should be discarded adding that the people of Middle Belt had since stop addressing themselves as part of the north.

“Whenever people refer to the “North”, they tend to include Middle Belt of Nigeria. We wish to put it on record that the old Northern Region and all the other 3 former regions ceased to exist when General Aguiyi Ironsi abolished them via Decree 34 on 24 the May 1966.

“We therefore do not call ourselves Northerners any more. We either use our constitutional State names now, or we use the North Central zone, which should have been appropriately named the Middle Belt”.

On the ultimatum by some northern youths to the Igbo to relocate from the north within 90 days, the acting chairman of ASOMBEN said what the so-called “Arewa” youths did was tantamount to treason and called on the security agencies to prosecute them accordingly.

Barrister Kwasau said the association strongly believed that restructuring is the best option for solving myriad of problems confronting Nigeria and called for the implementation of the 2014 conference report adding that any attempt to block its implementation should be resisted by all patriotic Nigerians.

On aggression of Fulani herdsmen in some States in the Middle Belt, Barrister Kwasau who said no concrete response from federal government to tame the ugly incident added that no one has deemed it fit to call for the disarmament of the killers.

He implored all states in the Middle Belt to emulate Ekiti and Benue States who had passed anti grazing law and charged Nigerian Police, the Ministry of Interior and the Directorate of State Security to wake up to their responsibilities of protecting the lives and properties of Nigeria citizens.

http://tribuneonlineng.com/wrong-lump-middle-belt-north%EF%BB%BF%EF%BB%BF-%E2%80%95asomben-chairman/

Just few days after the Niger Delta militants unveiled their currency note, Middle Belt of Nigeria also released own currency note. Major Gideon Gwaza Orkar appeared on the new banknote. He was a Nigerian army officer who staged a violent coup against the government of General Ibrahim Babangida in 1990.

The Niger Delta Avengers militants have recently vowed to break away from the federation of Nigeria. They have been carrying out attacks on oil and gas facilities of multinational oil corporations in the region. Niger Delta Avengers which have claimed responsibility for the attacks have promised to stop at nothing until a sovereign state of the Niger Delta is actualized...
https://www.naij.com/847909-shocking-nigeria-break-imminent-middle-belt-unveils-currency-photo.html

By Philip U. Effiong

On this day (July 6, 1967), exactly 50 years ago, my family lived in Enugu in what was then eastern Nigeria, when the Nigerian Government set out to implement its “Police Action” against the breakaway nation of Biafra. This was essentially a declaration of full-scale war that would lead to the loss of over two million lives, mostly Igbos and mostly to starvation. With military support for the Nigerian side from the likes of Britain, Egypt and Russia, the war would ultimately personify the worst in human misery and Biafra’s demise was imminent despite its gallant efforts at resistance.

That the war lasted as long as it did is a miracle, considering that Biafra had to contend with total economic blockade, a devaluation of its currency and the perpetration of a series of documented and undocumented war crimes. Preceding well-known tragedies in places like South Africa, Sierra Leone, the Sudan, Liberia and Rwanda, it is ironic that desperate steps have been taken in the past 50 years to conceal information about Biafra. But the suppression is over, what with a recent escalation in the number of voices that are determined to preserve the Biafran legacy.

For two and half years, I was a Biafran child and the spirit of Biafra will always live in me! It was a spirit of self-determination and security, and of unprecedented ingenuity, creativity, efficiency and resourcefulness. It was all the above, notwithstanding its imperfections, and a valid reason why I am extremely proud to have been nurtured by that young nation. We were not rebels; who were we rebelling against? A regime that itself was enthroned by means of a rebellion? A government that was not legitimately voted into power? We were not Biafrans because we suddenly embarked on a self-centered mission to separate from Nigeria and destroy its “glorious” oneness. Like thousands of eastern families that were chased out of northern Nigeria and, to a lesser extent, places like Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan, we were compelled, in fact ordered, to return to the east. We are still confused about why we were asked to leave, and why we were suddenly exposed to such venom, since we had not committed any crime. My father, our patriarch, had served diligently since enlisting in the Nigerian army in 1945, eventually serving as its first indigenous Director of Ordnance. He has never been accused of participating in or supporting any coup, or of embezzling a penny of government money. But we didn’t wait for answers to our perplexity, and left Kaduna and Lagos as we were required to. We were actually fortunate to have made it out safely; after all, there were thousands who also agreed to leave, but were slaughtered before making the trip back home.

My father and his younger brother fought conscientiously for Biafra; they never regretted and never apologized for their military roles. Like them, I also make no apologies and have absolutely no regrets or shame for being a Biafran. I remain eternally grateful for the protection that Biafra afforded my family against a ruthless enemy; Biafra was our only source of hope at the time!

Written by
Philip Effiong
Associate Professor at Michigan State University

http://scannewsnigeria.com/opinion/biafra-yes-apologies-no/

Buhari to return home 'in a matter of days'

Femi Adesina, the media adviser to the Nigerian president, says Mr Buhari is 'not ill', 'on holiday in the UK' and in the meantime undergoing 'routine medical tests'. Government officials have been forced to deny that the seventy-four year old head of state has died, and this week published photos showing Mr Buhari meeting Nigerian politicians in London. So Bola Mosuro and Tom Hagler called Femi Adesina and tried to find out exactly what is going on.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04sgddz

Some people are mean on presido. Why the hurry..

Trending T shirt
with code

We core North

The radio is still on

The TV is on

Flash front

False !