₦airaland Forum

GetMeRight:
I wanted to react negatively just like others but I noticed something. I didn't see the drivers' representatives at the meeting complaining. That means given the various smaller multiple amounts they were paying before, this harmonised version must be a better deal for them.

foryourmind:
For the remaining sensible people, IPOB has announced the cancelation of sit-at-home since last year. Anything you see happening is propaganda by low IQ Nigerian government elements who are trying to make people hate Nnamdi Kanu and Biafra.

Alusiizizi:
Fake news!! IPOB designated Monday alone(17th as sit at home) and directed that anyone enforcing sit-at-home on a day different should be regarded as a criminal.

Iceman2017:
My dear, this news is fake. Today in the east, there is a total lockdown. Even governors and those in governments are also indoors. So tell me how the media got this their information with even interviewing residents.

Many are still indoor

Sit-at-home enforcers storm Catholic Church in Onitsha, disperse worshipers

January 18, 2022
By Vincent Ujumadu


EARLY morning worshipers at the St Theresa of Calcutta Catholic Church, Awada Onitsha had a raw deal on Tuesday when some middle-aged men who claimed to be enforcers of the sit at home stormed the church and ordered the worshipers to disperse.

The boys, who are with sticks said they were members of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, adding that the worshipers had no reason to step out of their houses on a day the IPOB leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu was appearing in court.

A female worshiper who said her house is three buildings from the church said the invasion of the church by the boys caused pandemonium as many people ran helter skelter, adding that it was the wisdom of the parish priest and the celebrant at the Mass that saved the situation.

She said: “This morning (yesterday) I went for the 5:30am morning Mass in my church, St Theresa of Calcutta Parish in Awada, it is close to Ukaegbu junction.

“We were half way into the Mass when some group of boys suspected to be members of IPOB entered the church. They were carrying sticks and cans and went straight to the alter.

“They approached our parish priest, Rev Fr Joseph and asked him why he was celebrating Mass on a day their master was going to court. They were quite a number of them and were visibly angry.

“Everybody in the church took to their heels. There would have been a stampede because there were a lot of people in the morning Mass today. I ran to a building close to the church.

“Father Joseph told them we were holding Mass today to pray for the release of Nnamdi Kanu. He used diplomacy to talk to them, and even asked them if they were really for Ndi Igbo or Against Ndi Igbo? They now said okay and if that was so, the people in the church were for them.

“They called back everyone to continue the Mass since they were convinced that the church people were Biafrans.

“Some of us were so afraid that we could not return, so we went home from there. They apologized to the priest and left.

“The same group went out and saw a tricycle rider. Nobody knew why the man was outside because on sit- at -home days, one hardly saw tricycles outside. They beat up the man and set his tricycle ablaze”.

It was gathered that as the information of what happened at the church went round, many people who tried to travel very early to beat the sit at home, had to turn back.

As usual on sit at home days, most streets were deserted and there is hardly any vehicle on the road.

Many schools directed their students not to come to school on Tuesday, while all the markets remained closed.

Vanguard News Nigeria

How Nigeria succeeded in clipping Twitter's wings


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Twitter has agreed to a raft of conditions to end a seven-month ban in Nigeria, in what feels like a big win for President Muhammadu Buhari's administration in its efforts to regulate the internet, some analysts say.


Nigeria - Africa's most populous country - now joins the likes of India, Indonesia and Turkey, which tightly regulate social media companies. This is something other African governments are likely to take note of, as they try to prevent the use of social media for mobilising opposition groups.

Some of the conditions accepted by Twitter have raised concerns about its future operations in Nigeria.

"It is definitely concerning that Twitter may have capitulated to an arrangement that would allow Nigeria to pressure it into decisions it would not otherwise make," David Greene, director at US NGO Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), told the BBC.

He said Twitter should have agreed to obey local laws only if they upheld human rights. The agreement gave the government the advantage in enforcing take-down orders and data demands against the company, Mr Greene added.


Turnaround after Nigeria snub

Human rights groups say President Buhari's administration has a history of abusing the rule of law and freedom of speech, with a number of journalists and activists locked up for criticising the government.

Now there are concerns that there will be an increase in crackdowns on social media users and more tweets will be flagged and pulled down by Twitter.

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A long-running campaign has been waged against curbs on free speech in Nigeria

Twitter has refused to comment on the agreement it made with Nigeria, leaving many frustrated.

The company only tweeted that it was "pleased" to be "restored" and "deeply committed to Nigeria".

However, the BBC understands that the company agreed to the conditions stated by the government before its service was restored.

It feels like a huge turnaround for a company that announced last year that it was opening its Africa headquarters in Ghana, citing it as "a champion for democracy, supporter of free speech, online freedom, and the Open Internet".

Many considered that decision to be a snub to Nigeria, Africa's biggest economy.

Now though, Twitter has become one of the first digital companies to be brought to heel under a new digital tax law passed in 2020.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister Zainab Ahmed said that non-resident companies providing digital services would be required to pay 6% tax on their turnover from this year in order to boost public revenue at a time of "emerging fiscal constraints".

Twitter has agreed to pay tax in Nigeria, and establish a legal entity in the country, although it is not clear if that means it will open an office or merely register an intermediary.

"The difference might be significant with respect to how much pressure Nigeria will be able to exert against Twitter going forward, and Twitter's ability to resist future disproportionate or arbitrary demands from Nigeria," said Mr Greene.

Young Nigerians, especially the digitally savvy, adore Twitter. It is more than a platform, serving as a one-stop shop for everything - from job openings, to a missing persons portal, and a civic space to hold public officials to account.

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Young people have used Twitter to organise protests against police brutality

Twitter made its biggest political impact during the #EndSars demonstrations in 2020 when it became the platform of choice for young demonstrators who forced the president to abolish the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (Sars), a police unit that was notorious for its brutality.

The #EndSars protests morphed into calls for an end to bad governance in Nigeria and President Buhari has said that the protesters wanted to remove him from office.

The government blames Twitter for fanning the protests and holds its former boss, Jack Dorsey, who showed support for the protesters, responsible for the destruction that ensued after the demonstrations were hijacked by criminals.

Government supporters celebrate

In many ways, Twitter's travails in Nigeria felt like a personal battle between Mr Dorsey and Mr Buhari, culminating in the president's tweet being deleted last June.

The tweet referenced the 1967-70 Biafran civil war and warned that "those misbehaving today" would be dealt with in "the language they will understand".

In the wake of Twitter's climbdown, it is hard to see how protests such as the #EndSars demonstrations can be organised on the platform without it being accused of violating local laws such as "inciting violence".

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Nigeria's government says social media is used to stoke unrest

But Gbenga Sesan of Nigerian digital rights group Paradigm Initiative believes it was actually the government which lost out during the seven-month ban as it could not get its message out.

"The real winners are Twitter and the Nigerian people, the government are the biggest losers," he said.

His organisation is part of a consortium challenging the ban and Mr Sesan believes the government rushed to announce the lifting of the Twitter ban to save face as a ruling is expected this week by a court of the regional body Ecowas.

"Shame on him [President Buhari] because this is a legacy thing, first shutdown in Nigeria," he said.

But supporters of the government are celebrating its victory and saying that the authorities forced Twitter to bend over.

Many of them felt that deleting the president's tweet was the height of political interference by a private firm and they fully supported the ban.

The company is now being mocked for accepting the government's conditions and returning in time for next year's general elections.

Election campaigns in Nigeria are among the most expensive in the world. Presidential candidates can spend up to 15 billion naira ($36m; £26m) on campaigns and social media adverts account for an increasingly large part of the budget.

It is the sort of windfall that Twitter, a company that wants to grow its revenues in Africa, would not want to miss out on, government supporters say.

Although the return of Twitter in time for the polls also suits Nigerian politicians from all parties.

Maxymilliano:
But no single poster or banner to indicate the meeting was for Atiku Presidential ambition, not even a faze-cap ...

Oladimeji Fabiyi of the Amalgamated Atiku Support Group with ranking members of UK @OfficialPDPNig and other Coordinators of EU Chapters at the end of meetings in London. The next phase of Nigeria cannot be left to a few people. Nigeria will only work when we all come together.

The Time Has Come To Choose Wisely

By Senator @KashimSM Shettima

Being a keynote address at Support Group Conference, organised by Support Groups Management Council (SGMC), in honour of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the International Conference Centre, Abuja, on January 17, 2022.

I stand here today honoured by the burden of expectations upon me and, more tellingly, strengthened by the convictions of the patriots with us in this journey to make history.

We are brought together by a forest of ideas, but what defines us and sets us apart from other political groups is this collective realisation that the future of this country rests on the choice of a unifying leader; a leader who panders to neither ethnic nor religious agenda, and one who isn’t bound by toxic regional solidarity and yet known for a track record of outstanding leadership.

If you look round this country in search of such a noble character, the count easily falls on the subject of this gathering: Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. So much has been said about this political enigma and most of them by hacks with a poor sense of history.

The path that led us to Asiwaju didn’t happen by chance. His propensity for sacrificing his comfort to save our democracy has been duly documented across time. When uncertainty loomed over the country during the military era, this was the man who disbursed his resources to fight for the return to this democracy. Even in exile, he provided sanctuaries for fleeing patriots who are still around to testify to his large heart.

Our younger compatriots must be in the know of Tinubu’s memories from two decades past—when he was a backbone of the opposition and fiercely antagonized and politically ostracised by the then ruling party, the People’s Democratic Party. He even built the economic foundations of the modern Lagos State at the time the State was isolated by a vindictive federal government.

While Tinubu’s political contemporaries were trading their principles for a place at the table in Abuja during President Olusegun Obasanjo’s era, and throwing their political allies under the bus, he took the risk to build a political alternative to the ruling party and his choices of candidates underlined his political credentials. He became, and has remained, a dependable sanctuary of victims of political witch-hunts.

In 2007, he offered his political structure to former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to run for President under the Action Congress (AC) banner. Four years later, he made this structure available for Malam Nuhu Ribadu, and this foresight of the Jagaban Borgu would also set the tone of the 2015 general elections. His place as a fulcrum of the All Progressives Congress re-asserted his essence, and we all owe him a debt of gratitude and deserved loyalty for prioritizing principles over personal gains.

Asiwaju’s choices and endorsements of northerners as presidential candidates while others were masterminding ethno-regional solidarity and fuelling socio-cultural affinities readily affirm his pan-Nigerian profile. Where others see divisions to exploit, he sees collaborations. Where others chase an easy route to power, he reminds you of Geoffrey Chaucer’s immortal wisdom—that patience is a conquering virtue. And it’s this patience that has brought us together today, to remember the examples he’s set and the debt we owe him.

he mudslinging that has trailed Asiwaju since his presidential bid took the top spot in the country is a mere acknowledgment of his political track record and inimitable influence on our political scene. The attempts at weaving ridiculous fiction to override the history we’ve all witnessed demonstrate the detractors’ utter desperation and cowardice. One of such is the mischievous fixation on his age and the wild conclusions that he’s physically unsuitable for the Office of the President.

This obsession characterizes the thinking of those who have no understanding of Asiwaju’s incredible work ethic.

A few days ago, I joined him on a trip to Zamfara state to condole with the people and identify with their realities, and the experience made a nonsense of the propaganda that he’s unfit to run Nigeria. On the eve of the trip, Asiwaju had retired at 6 am, after Subhi prayers, and was already awake and attending to guests by 11 am.

We departed for Sokoto around 2 pm and had to traverse the menacing hinterland of that part of the North-West for seven hours from Sokoto to Gusau—where he made a generous donation of N50 million as he had in other places struck by tragedies—and then back to Sokoto.

On returning to Abuja by midnight, his schedule was entirely a series of meetings that kept him up till 3 am. Now, excuse my curiosity, how many of us here can match or endure such a demanding schedule?

Asiwaju’s alacrity, therefore, has never been a subject of scepticism for those who’ve worked with him, and even his critics are aware of this. If he were half the man in their tales by moonlight, they would’ve long succeeded in subduing him. The mark of true leadership isn’t the ability to lift a bag of cement. It’s the mental effort to think rationally of solutions designed to redeem one’s people and territorial jurisdiction.

This was why leaders like Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd president of the United States of America, stood out. Roosevelt took power in a country wrecked by the Great Depression of the 1930s and guided its economy through the Second World War, and the quality of his thoughts and ideas made the United States a superpower under his watch.

Similarly, the accident that had Kenya’s Mwai Kibaki confined to a wheelchair didn’t disable his ability to produce sound ideas, and Kenyans were sold on his virtue that they chose him as their President over what some would consider a fitter option.

I’m not asking you to tone down critical assessments of your future leaders, but redirect you to see the bigger picture. We are not here to prepare for the Olympics, but an institution that relies on the superiority of ideas to thrive.

Asiwaju’s credentials aren’t only appealing, they are proof of the qualities this country needs to redeem its vast potentials and possibilities. We are here to testify to this power of ideas—one that overturned the fortunes of Lagos state and sustained its supremacy as the largest economy in Sub-Saharan Africa and kept the opposition alive when it was more profitable to sell out.

mastery of the dynamics of the modern economy, testified leadership skills and competence, and, very significantly, sensitivity to the complexities of Nigerian sociology. Pause to reflect on the man we are here to celebrate, and what you see is a tested, accomplished, and large-hearted leader who’s invested his resources in building an extensive network of political mentees who’ve risen to the peak of their career.

But in politics, of course, the camps with nothing to sell always choose the mud. We are not going to take the bait. We are going to keep them talking and busy with irrefutable records of Asiwaju’s suitability to lead this country to the promised land.

I’m not saying it’s going to be easy, for those who’ve been in the system for long understand that some character’s loyalty has a thing in common with a chameleon. What we promise, however, is to make sure that all Nigerians are presented with a side of the Jagaban Bornu other than the fiction and half-truths from political desperadoes clinging to the rigging of a sinking ship.

This is why we are here—to build and mobilise a network of believers and volunteers at the grassroots to help us deliver the Nigeria of our dream.