Mark To Northern Leaders: Boko Haram May Break Nigeria

25/06/2012 14:15:00 WRITTEN BY EMMA UCHE, IN UYO
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R-L; PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN, PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, SEN. DAVID MARK, DEPUTY PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE, SEN. IKE EKWEREMADU WHILE BEHIND IS SEN. UDOMA EGBA DURING THE OPENING OF THE SENATE 2012 RETREAT IN UYO, AKWA IBOM STATE. JUNE 25, 2012

… Says Religious Fundamentalism, Not Poverty Responsible For Boko Haram Crisis

UYO, June 25, (THEWILL) - President of the Senate, David Mark on Monday sounded a strong warning to Northern Leaders to check the rising violent activities of the deadly fundamentalists group Boko Haram, saying its activities could lead to the nation’s disintegration.

Mark, who made the remark at the Senate Retreat in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, also declared that the northern leaders’ code of silence on the issue in the face of the Boko Haram’s continuous violence shows that the leaders are as guilty as the perpetrators of the mayhem.

“If the elders in the North cannot speak out and stop this menace let them tell us. Let them come out and say so boldly, because the belief out there is that some elders know about these people and decide to keep quite. If care is not taking, the way things are going, if the Boko Haram menace is not halted, it can lead to break up of Nigeria. Because there is an extent to which the people can take it,” Mark stated.

Mark, who also debunked often-touted insinuations that poverty is the root cause of the crisis said, “It is all about religious fundamentalism and ideology.

“Poverty is not the cause, otherwise if every poor person decides to carry arms then Nigeria will seize to exist. So if people talk about poverty and hunger as the cause of the Boko Haram menace I say no.”

The Senate President further added that bombing of churches almost every Sunday and killing of innocent Christian worshippers has stretched the patience of the people to the limit; such that the leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to persuade their followers not to seek retaliation. “There is limit to human endurance,” he chipped.

Nonetheless, Mark cautioned Christians on the danger of retaliation saying, that doing so means that they (Boko Haram) have succeeded in achieving their target. “Leave vengeance to God”, he appealed.

“I think it is time we educate the suicide bombers in the North that it is a wrong belief that killing innocent people would automatically take you to heaven where they would inherit 17 virgins. Of course it would be an uphill task for one person to handle 17 virgins,” he contended.

He said religious leaders and preachers should desist from indoctrinating their adherents into suicide bombings, adding that government should think seriously on issuing licenses to preachers as a way of checkmating the evil ones among them.

Mark also called on government to seek international collaboration with its neighbours as well as Western countries on ways to tackle and uproot the Boko Haram sect.

While declaring open the retreat the 2011 Senate Retreat taking place at the Ibom Meridien and Golf Resort, the Senate President attributed the emergence and upsurge of terrorist activities in the country to some “disgruntled and over-ambitious politicians.”

Also addressing senators at the retreat tagged “The National Assembly and National Security: Securing the Future for Development”, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan noted with sadness that unguarded remarks and statements by ‘do-or-die’ politicians had led to destruction of several lives and properties in the northern parts of the country.

President Jonathan warned such politicians to stop promoting ethnic and religious politics adding that national security should not be sacrificed on the altar of partisan politics.

He called for joint collaboration between the executive, legislature and judiciary arms of government on the need to review and strengthen existing laws on terrorism to reduce the activities of the Sect.

Meanwhile, host governor, Godswill Akpabio while welcoming the participants described the retreat, as a divinely arranged coming at a time Nigeria is experiencing security challenges.

Akpabio said that a strong union between the executive, legislature and Judiciary was capable of solving the Boko Haram problem.

According to the Governor, “the bombs and the killings would not deter the government of President Goodluck Jonathan from delivering on its mandate of transforming the country.”

Get Julius Berger back to PH A.S.A.P

These roads look like crap, compared to those in UYO

Johnnie Carson, the US and Boko Haram
Wednesday, 18 April 2012 08:37 Opeyemi Agbaje
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Johnnie Carson is the United States Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs. His recent speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, Washington DC on April 9, 2012 was entitled “Nigeria, One Year After Elections” but may have been more appropriately entitled “Appeasing Boko Haram (and its Sponsors): A Marshall Plan for Northern Nigeria”. After initial platitudes, Carson explained his theory – “Nigerians are hungry for progress and improvement in their lives, but Northern Nigerians feel this need most acutely. Life in Nigeria for many is tough, but across the North, life is grim.” He cited vague statistics purporting that while life for Southern Nigerians is merely tough, life is brutish and grim in Northern Nigeria. Actually, Carson, life is grim all over Nigeria!

According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, relative poverty was 69 percent in 2010 (112.5million people); absolute poverty was 60.9 percent (99.2million people); and $ per day poverty was 61.2 percent. The Bureau projected 2011 poverty prevalence as 71.5 percent, 61.9 percent and 62.8 percent for relative, absolute and $/day poverty, respectively. A few facts expose the distorted propaganda Carson has swallowed – Niger State, up North, has lowest poverty prevalence nationally with 43.6 percent relative and 33.9 percent $/day poverty; Borno (Boko Haram’s home) has 61.1 percent relative poverty, significantly lower than Ogun (69 percent) and Anambra (68 percent). Benue has higher poverty (74.1 percent) than Kano (72.3 percent). Poverty is more prevalent in South-East’s Ebonyi (80.4 percent) than Northern Gombe (79.8 percent), Jigawa (79 percent), Kaduna (73 percent), Kano (72.3 percent), Nasarawa (71.7 percent), Taraba (76.3 percent), Yobe (79.6 percent), and Zamfara (80.2 percent). Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial, industrial and financial capital, has relative poverty of 59.2 percent. Edo in the South has higher poverty (72.5 percent) than Kano, Nasarawa, Borno and Niger in the North; and poverty levels in “oil rich” Bayelsa, Rivers and Delta States are 57.9 percent, 58.6 percent and 70.1 percent, respectively.

When Carson declares that “poverty in Northern Nigeria is increasing”, he makes no point. Actually, poverty is increasing EVERYWHERE in Nigeria! Again, NBS says relative poverty rose from 27.2 percent nationwide in 1980 to 69 percent in 2010. While higher poverty levels prevail in parts of the North, Nigerian poverty is incapable of North-South compartmentalisation. The 67 percent of South-Easterners who are poor are not different from the 76.3 percent North-Easterners or 77.7 percent North-Westerners in the same condition. Almost 60 percent of South-Westerners (59.1 percent), 67.5 percent in the North-Central, and 63.8 percent in South-South are poor. Poverty is acute, dear Assistant Secretary, everywhere in Nigeria!

Relying on this distorted overview of Nigerian poverty (sold by a well-motivated cast including John Campbell, Jean Herscovits, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and his Financial Times friends, especially William Wallis), Carson could only go wrong. Before his predictably defective conclusion, however, he asserts that the 2011 elections were fair and transparent, but then subtly implies that since most Northerners voted for the opposition, something must be done to appease them (John Campbell recommends, and Wallis/Xan Rice of Financial Times hint government should appoint “strong Northerners”, whatever that means, into government!) – shouldn’t Cameron also co-opt strong Labourites into his coalition (and invite London looters and rioters for dialogue)? Actually, Obama tried and it incensed rather than appease angry Republicans. The fact, however, is that Northerners are ruling party chairman, vice-president, Senate president, House speaker, head of civil service, ministers of Defence, Federal Capital Territory, Interior, Water Resources, Education, Transport, chiefs of Navy and Air Force, Central Bank governor, Chief Justice, Court of Appeal president, Inspector-General of Police, etc. No other region of Nigeria can boast a richer haul!

Carson asserts that “religion is not driving extremist violence in Jos or Northern Nigeria”. It is not necessary to explain how he arrived at this conclusion. Boko Haram victims and Northern Christians bombed to death in their churches (and several pastors decapitated by Boko Haram) may find it difficult agreeing with him, but then dead people are of no strategic significance to the US. There is a confounding portion of Carson’s speech – he acknowledges the hypothesis that Boko Haram is “being funded by a handful of resentful politicians nursing their wounds from the last election” but turns to preaching and exhortation – “This would be deeply unfortunate if true,” he says, “but I have not seen any evidence” to support the theory. Ignoring the fact that he offered no evidence in support of his other suppositions, one would then expect him to proffer alternative theories regarding Boko Haram funding since evidently it cannot be the Northern poor providing sophisticated arms and ammunition, IEDs, AK47s, training, logistics, and operational intelligence for Boko Haram. Who does Carson suggest is funding Boko Haram, or isn’t that question worth pursuing?

Based on faulty diagnosis, Carson’s prescriptions are inevitably incomplete – the Nigerian government should establish a new social contract with Northern citizens (there’s an excellent social contract with the South?); government should de-emphasise the use of the military (to give Boko Haram room to re-group as its sponsors and apologists want?); government should create a ministry of Northern Affairs (not original – Sanusi Lamido already told the Financial Times about a Marshall plan!; and complaints about special funding status for Lagos, and massive erosion and infrastructural collapse in the South-East and South-West minus Lagos are irrelevant?); and a comprehensive economic strategy (presumably for the North too!) to address social and economic context of Boko Haram.

The fact that Southern poverty manifests in economic dimensions – armed robbery, kidnapping, “area boys”, gang violence, drug and human trafficking, fraud, white collar crimes and 419, prostitution, and desperate emigration amongst others, rather than religious extremism and fundamentalist terror – was rather remote for Carson and his advisers to grasp. The millions of Southern poor can go to hell, resort to revolution or form their own terror groups to get attention!

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/analysis/columnists/36138-johnnie-carson-the-us-and-boko-haram

[size=14pt]Sanusi’s Boko-Haram economics theory[/size]


Phillip Eyam-Ozung

Wednesday, 01 February 2012 00:00

Nigerians first heard the name ‘Boko Haram’ sometime in year 2009 when the group reportedly attacked a number of Churches and schools in Bauchi on the grounds that Western education is sin! After security forces somehow flushed the group from Bauchi, it relocated to Maiduguri where it unleashed an SinParty of violence that took Nigeria’s military the better part of a week to quell after so many lives had been needlessly lost.

Since then, Boko Haram has continued to insist both that ‘Western education is sin’ and that ‘Nigeria must be totally Islamized’ and to underscore its seriousness, the sect has rapidly grown more sophisticated and audacious in its terrorist attacks which reached their climax with the attack on the UN House in Abuja in August 2011 which claimed the lives of many innocent Nigerians as well as foreign nationals who were UN staffers!

While Boko Haram has not relented in its terrorist acts despite the global outcry that greeted its attack on the UN house in Abuja, its all-out war against the ancient city of Kano which claimed as many as 200 lives a fortnight ago left no one in doubt that it portends greater danger to Nigeria’s security and stability than many had hitherto imagined! Shortly before it launched its Kano mayhem, Boko Haram upped its game by uploading a video on Youtube in which its new leader, Imam Abubakar Shekau, sat between two AK 47 rifles in an Osama Bin Ladin-type posture. In the said video posted on Youtube, the leader of Boko Haram reaffirmed their religious agenda which seeks the creation of an Islamic Nigeria in which Sharia education will replace Western education with absolute finality! As if to leave no one in any doubt about its religious agenda in pursuit of which it’s waging a religious war on parts of the nation, when President Jonathan challenged Boko Haram to identify itself and define its demands so as to give the government a basis of engaging its members, the group posted a new video on Youtube in which its leader called President Jonathan a coward and insisted that dialogue could only take place if the president repented and became a Muslim!

Thus, while we can still speculate about who the real brains behind Boko Haram may be, [size=14pt]the group has repeatedly made it abundantly clear that it’s mission is 100 percent religious and not economic as the CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi claimed in his recent Financial Times interview in which he expressly linked the emergence of Boko Haram to stark imbalances in the distribution of national resources. saying ‘There is clearly a direct link between the very uneven nature of distribution of resources and the rising level of violence…when you look at the figures and look at the size of the population in the north, you can see that there is a structural imbalance of enormous proportions. Those states simply do not enough resources to meet basic resources while some states have too much money…This imbalance is compounded when the cost of an amnesty program for militants in the delta is included together with an additional 1% for a special development body for the Niger Delta! [size=14pt]Why was Sanusi more concerned about rationalizing Boko Haram’s emergence (which he completely blames on the uneven distribution of national resources)than condemning its terrorist acts? [/size]This question is especially pertinent given that Sanusi’s linking of the emergence of Boko Haram to the so-called skewed allocation of resources to the Niger Delta region flies in the face because in the 80s when oil-producing states didn’t receive special derivation and there was neither a special budgetary allocation for the development of the Niger Delta nor militants requiring an amnesty budget, the Islamic Matasine Sect terrorised many parts of the North to the point where the then military government had to dispatch combined military/police teams to battle them especially in Maiduguri, Kano and Jos!

[size=14pt]It’s most unsettling that rather than seize the opportunity presented by his Financial Times interview to denounce the Boko Haram terrorist group’s misguided cause and the extreme violence and international embarrassment that it’s visiting on Nigeria, Sanusi chose to rationalise its emergence which he blamed on the uneven distribution of Nigeria’s oil revenues which he considers to be disproportionately in favor of Niger Delta states![/size] Sanusi even demonstrated that he was both fully-prepared for his Financial Times interview and intent on publicising a carefully- articulated pro-Boko Haram position by backing everything he said about the uneven distribution of resources between the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta and the states of the North-east region with official statistics!

The question is, why did Sanusi spend so much time and energy attacking the economic fortunes of the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta region while saying little or nothing about the atrocities of Boko Haram? Why should Sanusi plead the 13 percent derivation accruing to the oil-producing states of the Niger Delta region, the expenditure on the amnesty programme for former Niger Delta militants and the budget of the Niger Delta Development Commission as the prima facie reasons for the emergence of the Boko Haram group when the group itself has never pretended that its mission is economic?

[size=14pt]In view of the unmistakable clarity with which Boko Haram terrorists have repeatedly proclaimed their religious agenda, why was Sanusi desperately attempting to re-engineer the Boko Haram agenda from a purely religious cause to an economic cause as a means of mischievously equating the Boko Haram terrorists with Niger Delta militants whose cause was 100 percent economic/environmental?[/size] Truth is, no matter how many press statements Sanusi issues in his feeble attempt to force a harmless interpretation of the position he canvassed in his Financial Times interview on a bewildered Nigerian public, it’s self-evident that he’s both insinuating that ‘what’s good for the Niger Delta militants is good for Boko Haram terrorists’ and giving voice to the predominant mindset of most Northern elites and leaders who have all along refused to openly condemn the terrorist exploits of Boko Haram prior to its attack on Kano! This is the kernel of Sanusi’s patently-flawed Boko-Haram economics!

Finally, Sanusi’s Boko-Haram economics is historically-flawed because it’s all too well-known that the stark economic differences between Nigeria’s North and South predate both the amalgamation of the Northern and Southern protectorates in 1914 and Nigeria’s discovery of oil in 1957. As a matter of fact, it’s this North-South economic imbalance that Sanusi is rationalising in year 2012 as the reason for the emergence of Boko Haram that started in 2009 that influenced Lugard’s amalgamation decision way back in 1914 as it’s reported that ‘The amalgamation was done for economic reasons rather than political-Northern Nigeria had a budget deficit and Frederick Lugard sought to use the budget surpluses in Southern Nigeria to offset this deficit and also believed that administration of the whole area would be easier if united, especially since Northern Nigeria had no access to the sea. At the time, neither Lugard nor other British administrators, nor Africans, considered Nigeria to constitute a potential national unit-in fact, the North and South were considered culturally radically different-and the merger was an economic and administrative convenience. Under an umbrella administration for all Nigeria, the North and South continued to have their own separate administrations, and each had its own Lieutenant-Governor answering to Lugard and his successors.’ Whether as an economist or as a scholar, Sanusi cannot claim ignorance of this well-known fact of Nigeria’s history![/size]


http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/index.php/analysis/columnists/32447-sanusis-boko-haram-economics-theory

Nigerian Accent 5 Sexiest in the World- CNN

6.Irish
5.Nigerian
4.Czech
3.Spanish
2.French
1.Italian

Famous tongues: King Sunny Adé, Omotola Jalade Ekeinde

Dignified, with just a hint of willful naiveté, the deep, rich “oh’s” and “eh’s” of Naija bend the English language without breaking it, arousing tremors in places other languages can’t reach. Kinda makes the occasional phone scam worth the swindle.

Sounds like: The THX intro with teeth

http://www.cnngo.com/explorations/life/worlds-sexiest-accents-130333?page=0,1#disqus_thread

overhyped:

Why is this thread not on the front page?

Beats me. . Mods please put this on the front page

I would love the Powers that be to get this message loud and clear. .

ications, bcc: dailynews, bcc: info
show details 11:04 PM (17 hours ago)

An Inept Leadership[/b]By Paddy_lo

As i sit in my living room,going over the events of the past couple of weeks as regards the global economy and Nigeria's place in it.
I cant but help to shudder at the inept and Incompetent leadership coming out of the Political and economic managers in Aso Rock, the CBN,and the Senate/House of Reps

[b]ASO ROCK
The global economy is currently in turmoil, all risk assets(commodities,equities,
oil) are in free-fall.However in Nigeria we live in a bizarro alternate universe where
Govt continues to spend like drunken sailors,with little or no insight on the impending doom. President Jonathan has not seen it fit to address the nation or reassure
the markets like his counterpart in the USA,even though we are more vulnerable than they are.
The President does not seem to realize that his 2011 budget is anchored on an unrealistic benchmark($75/barrell oil), with the free fall in oil and the Gigantic
increase in recurrent expenditure exacerbated by the new increase in minimum wage. It seems to me and most Analysts that sooner rather than later, the ish is going to hit the
fan literally.

The President is today looking to me ( a hitherto avid supporter), as not only clueless but way over his league. When was the last time he met with his Economic
advisers,or the CBN Governor? Who took the decision to Nationalize Nigerian banks?,why the sudden assailing of Privatization by the also rather clueless and colorless
vp? How the heck do u assail Privatization in one breadth and in another expect to conduct your power sector reforms, which is expected to attract a minimum of
$3.5Billion from Private sector investors? Does the President Understand that Nationalization is a terrible signal to send to investors? How is the hapless Aganga
(Minister of Trade and Investment) expected to attract FDI, with the Mind boggling head scratching policies of this GOVT?

Why has the President allowed the CBN Governor to run riot, without at least informing him of his displeasure on some of his Growth killing policies?
When Obama took over from bush in 2008, he regularly met with the Federal Reserve Chairman(Ben Bernanke)even though he was a bush appointee who was right
leaning.After a time Bernanke signaled support for some of Obamas policies like the stimulus and a stricter regulation of wall street.
why is this President unconcerned about the tremendous damage being done to this country by a CBN Governor who is more suited to politics than Economics?

GEJ is running an Inept and Intellectually Incompetent Leadership(at least when it comes to the Nigerian Economy), because we have depleted the excess crude account
under his watch while oil was high, and now that the real crises has just begun we have no cushion to fall back on.
The President is sending poor signals on his commitment to free markets with his ill conceived Nationalization agenda and Mischievous attack on Privatization.
The President has refused to use his bully pulpit to meet with the leading Private sector operatives in our Economy such as MTN,GLO,etc and offer them incentives
(say 15% rate on corporate taxes,and sponsor a bill to that effect,instead of the ill conceived tenure elongation nonsense) to list their shares on the Nigerian Bourse

This President has lost Focus and needs to wake up fast. He has so far earned the dubious distinction of being the first democratic President since 1999 to oversee
the Nationalization of Stock Market listed Private sector assets leading to wealth destruction and massive job losses.

THE CBN
The CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is a hard man to read, sometimes he strikes one as a Politician trapped in a central bankers body.Sometimes the reverse is the
case.whatever it may be, he has proven over and again that courting controversy rather than conservatism is his Mod-us Operandi
The Latest is the totally ignorant and Insensitive Nationalization of 3 Major Nigerian Banks right at the onset of another global recession.
In the last recession of 2009 the USA Fed Governor,Treasury and Obama,made sure to signal the markets that there would be no nationalization.and there was none
The Treasury instead took a stake in Citigroup,which continued to trade on the stock exchange and today that stake is gradually being sold on the exchange
by the US Government

Sanusi However has never missed an opportunity to threaten Nationalization or Liquidation of our local banks.Why the imprudent rejection of the Vine Capital/
Afribank deal?
Why Does this CBN GOvernor revel in idiotic controversies instead of focusing on his core mandate of low Inflation and Macroeconomic stability?
Why is there a controversy over Islamic Banking?Why not simply remove the Religious connotations in the recently released NIFI guidelines?

Why does the CBN Governor in a Supposed Free Market Economy like Nigeria revel in attacking the IMF, and Sounding exactly like a clueless Politician?
I hold no briefs for the IMF, but i dont need my CBN Governor making speeches attacking the IMF like a CBN Governor from zimbabwe or Venezuela would do.
The IMF Proposition for countries like Nigeria is to simply cut wasteful Govt Spending, Privatize Inefficient Govt enterprises, remove wasteful subsidies on things
like Petrol, which has little benefits but causes major distortions and impedes Investments in the sector, and don't use Scarce reserves to defend consumption
by supporting an artificially high exchange rate for the Naira.Most Analysts will agree that Nigeria needs more of the above not less

The CBN Governor should know that the Naira will strengthen when Nigerian companies become more productive,and we spun more Dangotes that will go out there and earn
Forex for the country,anything outside that is postponing the evil day, which is coming sooner than we think. Let us see what this Central bank will do
when oil falls below the budget benchmark,the Global economy enters recession and reserves fall below $30Billion. will he still lampoon the IMF for cheap publicity?
I await the end of this comical Farce

Sanusi is running an Inept and Intellectually Incompetent Leadership(in the Nigerian Central Bank),because he is failing in his core Central Banking Mandates
The External reserves are falling, While other Emerging markets like Brazil and South Africa are dealing with excess Inflows pushing up the value of the Real and Rand,
we are busy defending the Naira with scarce Dollars,There is currently a very wide differential btw the Laughable CBN official rate and the Black Market rates.
There is little or no imagination in tackling Inflation except in Jacking up the MPR rate in a period of expected Global Slowdown,talk of the ultimate Pro cyclical move

Sanusi is Failing because he has shown no imagination in resolving the Nigerian Banking crises. The CBN Governor normally does no critical analysis of topical Issues
before commenting on them.The last headline emanating from Sanusi was about the use of Pension Funds to Invest in Infrastructure.
Well we all know that ok,its a no brainer.the real issue to tackle is bank-ability of projects,water tight PPP Legal Framework and so on

The CBN is under Inept Leadership because we have a Governor that prefers to play to the Gallery,than sit down and engage in critical thinking.to solve critical
problems. A Governor that has deliberately chosen to spread Uncertainty instead of Prosperity.


SENATE / HOUSE OF REPS
Lately the Senate and Reps have begun another fishing Expedition called the probe of sales of Public sector companies under the Privatization Process of the past decade
This is indeed a needless distraction at this critical period of global uncertainty.How do u attract FDI to Nigeria when u are sounding so anti-Privatization?
How about the senate probe how the budget benchmark was jacked up to $75 a barrel without an idea about how to fund it if oil prices fall below that benchmark?
How about a probe on the non accretion to Nigeria external reserves in a period of high oil prices, with a summon of the CBN,NNPC,FINANCE MINISTRY,DMO etc to
provide answers to this seemingly baffling question of GOVT revenue Leakages?
How about the Senate just do its job and pass the PIB Bill?Why is there no movement on this all important bill that will regulate the sector that currently brings in
80% of Nigeria's Dollar Earnings?

The Senate and House of Reps members come across to me as a bunch of unserious charlatans who prefer to fiddle while the world burns

The Senate/House of Reps are Incompetent and Incapable of Providing Leadership to Nigeria in a time of global Crises like we are now approaching.
They are the weakest link in the chain(Irrelevant to most Nigerians) and they don't even seem to know it


CONCLUSION

SO what a motley crew we have. An Ineffective and colorless President, an even more inept Vice President who as chair of the National Council of Privatization(NCP),
all the same lampoons Privatization as failed(u cant make this up). A CBN Governor that is either bi-polar(thinks he is a Politician) or Not qualified for the Post
he holds and a Senate/Reps who have utterly no clue as to how global economics work,refuse to learn but rather prefer to bask in Ignorance.

Does the VP(chair of NCP) understand the implication of his words,and the negative effects therein? Does the CBN Governor understand that Nationalization failed in
1970 Nigeria and is bound to fail today?Does he understand more than a rudimentary Knowledge of Economics?

Do the Reps and Senators understand how wealth is created by the Private Sector(and i don't mean Jumbo Payments made to self).Do they Understand that
Government has Failed Nigerians and do they know that they(the Senators/Reps) are unproductive and are basically a tax on Nigeria?

Finally does the President(Jonathan) understand that time is short? As of today his legacy is one of Falling Stock Markets,Poor Job creation,inept leadership
depleted For-ex/Excess Crude Account,Non Take off of the Sovereign Wealth Fund,Bloated Federal Workforce,A lack of communication on the Economy,
Inconsistent Policy Thrust,and Distractions instead of a laser-like Focus on what is Important to most Nigerians from the Investor class to the Average Joe.

Looking at all the above i am exasperated as i ask,Is there a brain box in the GEJ Administration/presidency,is there a critical thinker that can see the big
picture and how to get there?
I can only keep my fingers crossed.

Paddy has a BSC in Economics and an MBA in Finance. A Former Resident of Philadelphia USA,moved back to Nigeria in Dec 2010,and currently Lives and works in Lagos

[size=14pt]Professor Hired for Outreach to Muslims Delivers a Jolt[/size]

Islamic Theologian's Theory: It's Likely the Prophet Muhammad Never Existed


By ANDREW HIGGINS

MÜNSTER, Germany -- Muhammad Sven Kalisch, a Muslim convert and Germany's first professor of Islamic theology, fasts during the Muslim holy month, doesn't like to shake hands with Muslim women and has spent years studying Islamic scripture. Islam, he says, guides his life.

So it came as something of a surprise when Prof. Kalisch announced the fruit of his theological research. His conclusion: The Prophet Muhammad probably never existed.
Theology Without Muhammad

Read a translated excerpt from "Islamic Theology Without the Historic Muhammad -- Comments on the Challenges of the Historical-Critical Method for Islamic Thinking" by Professor Kalisch.

Muslims, not surprisingly, are outraged. Even Danish cartoonists who triggered global protests a couple of years ago didn't portray the Prophet as fictional. German police, worried about a violent backlash, told the professor to move his religious-studies center to more-secure premises.

"We had no idea he would have ideas like this," says Thomas Bauer, a fellow academic at Münster University who sat on a committee that appointed Prof. Kalisch. "I'm a more orthodox Muslim than he is, and I'm not a Muslim."

When Prof. Kalisch took up his theology chair four years ago, he was seen as proof that modern Western scholarship and Islamic ways can mingle -- and counter the influence of radical preachers in Germany. He was put in charge of a new program at Münster, one of Germany's oldest and most respected universities, to train teachers in state schools to teach Muslim pupils about their faith.

Muslim leaders cheered and joined an advisory board at his Center for Religious Studies. Politicians hailed the appointment as a sign of Germany's readiness to absorb some three million Muslims into mainstream society. But, says Andreas Pinkwart, a minister responsible for higher education in this north German region, "the results are disappointing."

Prof. Kalisch, who insists he's still a Muslim, says he knew he would get in trouble but wanted to subject Islam to the same scrutiny as Christianity and Judaism. German scholars of the 19th century, he notes, were among the first to raise questions about the historical accuracy of the Bible.

Many scholars of Islam question the accuracy of ancient sources on Muhammad's life. The earliest biography, of which no copies survive, dated from roughly a century after the generally accepted year of his death, 632, and is known only by references to it in much later texts. But only a few scholars have doubted Muhammad's existence. Most say his life is better documented than that of Jesus.
[Sven Muhammad Kalish]

Muhammad Sven Kalish

"Of course Muhammad existed," says Tilman Nagel, a scholar in Göttingen and author of a new book, "Muhammad: Life and Legend." The Prophet differed from the flawless figure of Islamic tradition, Prof. Nagel says, but "it is quite astonishing to say that thousands and thousands of pages about him were all forged" and there was no such person.

All the same, Prof. Nagel has signed a petition in support of Prof. Kalisch, who has faced blistering criticism from Muslim groups and some secular German academics. "We are in Europe," Prof. Nagel says. "Education is about thinking, not just learning by heart."

Prof. Kalisch's religious studies center recently removed a sign and erased its address from its Web site. The professor, a burly 42-year-old, says he has received no specific threats but has been denounced as apostate, a capital offense in some readings of Islam.

"Maybe people are speculating that some idiot will come and cut off my head," he said during an interview in his study.

A few minutes later, an assistant arrived in a panic to say a suspicious-looking digital clock had been found lying in the hallway. Police, called to the scene, declared the clock harmless.

A convert to Islam at age 15, Prof. Kalisch says he was drawn to the faith because it seemed more rational than others. He embraced a branch of Shiite Islam noted for its skeptical bent. After working briefly as a lawyer, he began work in 2001 on a postdoctoral thesis in Islamic law in Hamburg, to go through the elaborate process required to become a professor in Germany.

The Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S. that year appalled Mr. Kalisch but didn't dent his devotion. Indeed, after he arrived at Münster University in 2004, he struck some as too conservative. Sami Alrabaa, a scholar at a nearby college, recalls attending a lecture by Prof. Kalisch and being upset by his doctrinaire defense of Islamic law, known as Sharia.

In private, he was moving in a different direction. He devoured works questioning the existence of Abraham, Moses and Jesus. Then "I said to myself: You've dealt with Christianity and Judaism but what about your own religion? Can you take it for granted that Muhammad existed?"

He had no doubts at first, but slowly they emerged. He was struck, he says, by the fact that the first coins bearing Muhammad's name did not appear until the late 7th century -- six decades after the religion did.

He traded ideas with some scholars in Saarbrücken who in recent years have been pushing the idea of Muhammad's nonexistence. They claim that "Muhammad" wasn't the name of a person but a title, and that Islam began as a Christian heresy.

Prof. Kalisch didn't buy all of this. Contributing last year to a book on Islam, he weighed the odds and called Muhammad's existence "more probable than not." By early this year, though, his thinking had shifted. "The more I read, the historical person at the root of the whole thing became more and more improbable," he says.

He has doubts, too, about the Quran. "God doesn't write books," Prof. Kalisch says.

Some of his students voiced alarm at the direction of his teaching. "I began to wonder if he would one day say he doesn't exist himself," says one. A few boycotted his lectures. Others sang his praises.

Prof. Kalisch says he "never told students 'just believe what Kalisch thinks' " but seeks to teach them to think independently. Religions, he says, are "crutches" that help believers get to "the spiritual truth behind them." To him, what matters isn't whether Muhammad actually lived but the philosophy presented in his name.

This summer, the dispute hit the headlines. A Turkish-language German newspaper reported on it with gusto. Media in the Muslim world picked up on it.

Germany's Muslim Coordinating Council withdrew from the advisory board of Prof. Kalisch's center. Some Council members refused to address him by his adopted Muslim name, Muhammad, saying that he should now be known as Sven.

German academics split. Michael Marx, a Quran scholar at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, warned that Prof. Kalisch's views would discredit German scholarship and make it difficult for German scholars to work in Muslim lands. But Ursula Spuler-Stegemann, an Islamic studies scholar at the University of Marburg, set up a Web site called solidaritymuhammadkalisch.com and started an online petition of support.

Alarmed that a pioneering effort at Muslim outreach was only stoking antagonism, Münster University decided to douse the flames. Prof. Kalisch was told he could keep his professorship but must stop teaching Islam to future school teachers.

The professor says he's more determined than ever to keep probing his faith. He is finishing a book to explain his thoughts. It's in English instead of German because he wants to make a bigger impact. "I'm convinced that what I'm doing is necessary. There must be a free discussion of Islam," he says.
—Almut Schoenfeld in Berlin contributed to this article.

Write to Andrew Higgins at andrew.higgins@wsj.com


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