₦airaland Forum

Thousands of protesters took to the streets in the early hours of Monday to protest what they termed the negative insinuations and propaganda against Northern Nigeria.

As they marched through Kaduna metropolis, the protesters condemned the insinuations doing the round that the ‘North is bleeding’ instead they shouted that ‘the North is not bleeding’

According to them, the region is going through healing process, adding that there were efforts by security agencies to tackle the various security challenges facing the region.

The convener of the protest under the auspices of Coalition of Northern Activists for Peace (CNAP), Kaduna State, Prince Zubairu Mukhtar, said the rally was organised in appreciation of the efforts of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration and the security agencies in addressing the challenges that have bedeviled Northern Nigeria.

“The North has over time been on the spotlight with issues of insecurity, specifically banditry, terrorism and cyber propaganda. We all know for certain that the issues at stake require a multi-stakeholder approach, which is necessary considering the dynamics of the issues that have affected the socioeconomic well-being of the peaceful and loving people of Kaduna State and indeed Northern Nigeria.

“It is a known fact that the past 12 years have been challenging, especially with the havoc caused by the activities of the Boko Haram insurgent group and other militant organisations in states like Borno, Yobe, Katsina, Bauchi, Plateau and our dear Kaduna State.

“It is indeed a statement of fact that the actions of these criminal elements brought sorrow, tears and blood in a most barbaric and condemnable manner.

“As concerned stakeholders in Northern Nigeria and in kaduna State, we cannot feign ignorance to the issues affecting our state and the region, which by all indications are politically motivated.

“This is in cognizant that successive governments attempted to address the issues. However, their best wasn’t good enough, so much so that we feared that Armageddon had come.

“My comrades, Ladies and gentlemen of the press and the good people of kaduna State, we don’t need a soothsayer to tell us about the heavy economic losses that have risen due to the activities of non-state actors. We also do not need a prophet to say that hundreds of thousands of mothers and children have lost their lives in the carnage.

“At some point, we feared that peace would never return to the north. Our fears were brought about by the inability of those saddled with the responsibility of protecting lives and properties that seemed handicapped for ethnic, social and political reasons.”

Xantel:
I want to know

Ficient:
I'm a federal civil servant, wife just got a job in the UK as a nurse. This has been our plan, although she initiated the idea which I supported especially bcuz of our kids. As the time is getting closer I'm developing some cold feet, but eventually I'm sure I will move. Don't really know if leaving my civil service job and farming business is a good idea, I don't really have an Abroad game plan yet.

Hashabiah:
Baba na muslims be this o. Repraisal attacks to happen in the coming weeks . Make Christians for that place dey careful ...especially during Christmas and New Year

The Imo state governor, Hope Uzodimma, on Saturday said 18 suspects arrested by security agencies have given dependable evidence on the names of sponsors of insecurity in Imo state, adding that their names will be reeled out on 3 January 2022.

The governor disclosed this in Owerri while addressing elected officials of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the state.

According to Uzodimma, the names of the sponsors will be made known during his Imo stakeholders meeting in January.

According to the governor, “APC is the Party in power in Imo State and remains the Party to beat and as such, his government will not shy away from supporting the Party that created the government. We will grow the Party. The Party will be involved in my government. We will support the Party that created the government.

“Elected APC officials should consider it a rare privilege that they were elected by their people to serve them, hence they owe God a lot of gratitude. The opposition has been plotting so much evil against APC members and their leaders and encouraged the Party faithful to be at alert.

“My government will do all within its powers to ensure that Imo State is safe and that anyone working to destabilise the system or encouraging criminality, no matter how highly placed, would be made to face the full wrath of the law.”

“Let me say these two councillors were recently killed and that those who killed them have been arrested and they have owned up to the crime. 18 persons are now in custody in connection with different dimensions of crimes against the people and that they have also given dependable evidence about their sponsors who, he said, he will make known at Imo State stakeholders by January 3, 2022.

“Don’t be intimidated. So long as I remain Governor in this state, they will face the law. We have evidence of those who are behind the insecurity based on information from the suspects. By January 3, 2022, when I will hold Imo stakeholders meeting I will reel out their names one after the other with the evidence of their role.”

Gunmen suspected to be kidnappers have abducted a Department of State Services operative during an attack on residents in Abaji, Abaji Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, on Saturday.

The hoodlums also reportedly killed a vigilante member during the incident which occurred overnight.

The armed men were said to have invaded the community in their numbers and attacked a DSS outpost in the area.

During the exchange of gunshots with the DSS operatives, the gunmen successfully kidnapped a DSS operative.

Our correspondent could not confirm if the gang had demanded a ransom for the abducted officer.

The FCT police spokesperson, Josephine Adeh, said she did not have information on the incident and referred inquiries to the DSS.

But the spokesman to the secret police, Peter Afunanya, had yet to respond to inquiries as of the time of filing this report.

Our correspondent reports that Abaji has become notorious for criminal activities, including abductions of residents and travellers on the Abuja-Lokoja highway.

AS president in 2011, Goodluck Jonathan did all he could to ensure South West grabbed the country’s number four seat, including lobbying then opposition leaders from the zone, to no avail. The North West eventually grabbed the seat, supported by South West leaders in opposition to then ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). 

Former Governor of Osun State and now statesman, Chief Bisi Akande, made this revelation in his autobiography, “My Participations” which is currently dominating political and national dis- course. 

Aminu Tambuwal, now Sokoto State governor, won the seat, against the preferred pick of his party, Mrs Mulikat Adeola Akande, from the South-West. Defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, then a fledging opposition, which had Akande and his soulmate, former Lagos State governor, Senator Bola Tinubu, as front- line leaders, openly asked its elected members of the House of Representatives, mostly from the South-West, to work against their region and back Tambuwal from North-West. 

The opposition party’s support carried Tambuwal through the contest against Akande, then ruling party’s favourite for the speakership seat.

In his book, Chief Akande revealed that former president then as incumbent, personally reached out to Tinubu, who is now believed to be nursing presidential aspiration in 2023 and himself, but couldn’t convince them. 

He wrote, “President Jonathan, immediately after the meeting (with political parties), called Bola Tinubu aside into a lobby to broach the matter of ACN support for a choice of who would become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

“That same day, President Jonathan talked to me on phone about the same matter. He disclosed that PDP had zoned the position to the South-West but that only one Muraina and another Mulika won elections on PDP ticket from the zone into the House of Representatives. 

“I quickly reminded him that, as at (sic) that date in the United States of America, while the Democrats produced the Senate President, the Republicans (the opposition) produced the Speaker of the House of Representatives. I boasted that ACN was capable of suggesting to him ten names of members from the South West from among whom to choose if PDP would be magnanimous enough to practice democracy the way it was being practised in the USA, from where we imported our presidential system. 

“He seemed pissed off and stopped the conversation,” he said.

In the era being referenced by the former national chairman of the defunct opposition party, the controlling party in each of the chambers of the Congress in the United States was in the majority, which wasn’t the case with ACN when the Ila-born politician was making his claim.

He also revealed in the book that their political platforms had their sight on working against the then ruling party. 

“In the aftermath of the 2011 elections, many of our people were dissatisfied. Under the PDP, our country has become thoroughly decadent. Those of us who saw the then ruling party as an extension of the military corrupt politics preferred to work with all the major opposition parties which would eventually lead to a merger if we were to uproot the entrenched PDP and its evil tendencies. The first party that came to mind was the CPC which like us, was resolutely opposed to the PDP. 

“Immediately after the elections, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila led a team of ACN boys to Bola Tinubu and me to suggest support for Hon. Aminu Tambuwal, a PDP member from Sokoto, to become the Speaker of the House of Representatives. 

In the meantime, President Goodluck Jonathan was pressing for a government of national unity, with a bid of sucking ACN into manipulative extinction.” 

Another major revelation from the book is the involvement of a former National Security Adviser and a Sokoto prince, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd) in the presidential project of now President Muhammadu Buhari preparatory to the 2011 presidential election against then incumbent Jonathan. 

Jonathan defeated Buhari in the contest, before Buhari triumphed in their replay in 2015. 

Interestingly, Dasuki would go on to become Jonathan’s most senior security adviser, but also ended up spending 1,484 days in detention, while being prosecuted by the Buhari administration, for alleged corruption while serving in the Jonathan administration. 

He was eventually released on December 24, 2019, after many court orders for his released had been spurned by the administration. He was accused of siphoning fund meant for arms to fight insurgency in the North-East. 

The author, however, paid the embattled former security chief compliments for his role in facilitating a merger between ACN and CPC in the build-up to the 2011 poll, to defeat Jonathan. 

He said, “The reaction of CPC to this letter (to CPC from ACN and published on the same page), began the failed negotiation between ACN and CPC which attracted further intervention by some national leaders like General Babangida, Atiku Abubakar and others. 

“This eventually crashed at the threshold of the 2011 presidential elections which President Jonathan of the PDP won again. 

“The efforts of the former National Security Adviser– Colonel Sambo Dasuki is worth mentioning in this political bridge-building attempt between ACN and CPC. Dasuki was then in support of Buhari becoming the presidential candidate of the alliance. 

“Sambo Dasuki was coming around, begging us, to support Buhari’s presidential aspiration. Nuhu Ribadu, whom we had earlier chosen as our presidential candidate in the ACN, said he was ready to step down for Buhari. He said when he accepted to run, he did not know that Buhari was also interested in running.”

fergie001:
It's not true.....I know what I am saying, they wouldn't do that to any nairalander.

fergie001:
I endorse the return of the bill to the National Assembly.

....insisting that parties’ supremacy and rights to opt for direct or indirect primaries must not be tampered with.

(This is where I have always based my arguments)

Bluntcrazeman, seunmsg