₦airaland Forum

“I wonder why we still refer to them as bandits, as far as we are concerned, in Kogi, we have long tagged them terrorists and they remain terrorists.

We must clear all criminals, we must not condone, we must not negotiate, there must not be pardon for terrorism, we must go all out to make sure we subdue them....."

saaron:
Saraki led Senate is miles ahead of the Rubber Stamp Senate Nigeria has today.An appendage of a regime that approves every loan request and every evil bills cannot be said to be an independent arm of govt.

DISINTEGRATION OF NIGERIA WILL SAVE MILLIONS OF LIVES FROM FULANI TERRORISM!! SUPPORT IT.

Mysticwebb:
Nothing APC can not do in their desperation to get to power in the state. They are professionals in playing dirty politics. This may be a staged play to get sympathy and remove attention from the recent physical and verbal attack on the governor gone wrong.

During 2015 election, Boko Haram attacked a particular presidential aspirant convoy whom they even chose to negotiate with government on their behalf. Today, all can see how the same candidate is treating those Boko Haram boys.When you link the incident then and the treatment they are receiving now, you will see that all na stage.

saaron:
Buhari's sole purpose of becoming president is to advance FULANI AGENDA over Nigeria. Nothing more nothing less.Bloody useless regime.

DISINTEGRATION OF NIGERIA WILL SAVE MILLIONS OF LIVES FROM FULANI TERRORISM!! SUPPORT IT.

A recent reintroduction of the vexatious National Water Resources Bill, which was rejected in 2018 by the National Assembly (NASS) is curious at this time.

President Muhammadu Buhari, whose office returned the Bill, must have some inexplicable motive for pushing it at all cost. The surreptitious plot to ram it through the federal legislature speaks volume for some hidden agenda.

Aisha Buhari, wife of the president, has urged healthcare providers to take advantage of the federal government’s N100 billion credit support for the sector.

Speaking after a medical trip to Dubai, she said there is an urgent need to develop the health sector in order to reduce medical tourism.

She was flown to Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE), for medical treatment during the Sallah break.

She reportedly suffered persistent neck pains after returning from a condolence visit to Florence Ajimobi, widow of a former governor of Oyo.

In a statement on Saturday, the first lady thanked Nigerians for their prayers and well wishes, adding that she has fully recovered.

“I want to use this opportunity to thank all Nigerians for their prayers and well wishes while I was away for medical treatment. I am well now and fully recovered and have since returned back home, Nigeria,” she said in a statement.

“On our way back, the Nigerian Air force Flight encountered a violent clear air turbulence which was navigated safely and professionally by the Captain and crew of the Flight.

“I want to commend and appreciate the courage and professionalism of the Captain and his crew, the wonderful gallant servicemen and women of the entire Nigerian Airforce for their dedication to duty and the quality of maintenance of its Fleet.

“I recall hosting the private healthcare Providers earlier in the year and we had a very productive engagement where the issue of building the capacity of Nigeria health sector was the major focus, and funding was discovered to be the major challenge.

“I, therefore, call on the healthcare providers to take the advantage of the Federal Government’s initiative through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) guidelines for the operation of NGN100 Billion Credit Support for the Healthcare Sector as was released recently contained in a circular dated March 25, 2020 to the Commercial Banks.

“This will no doubt help in building and expanding the capacity of the Nigerian health sector and ultimately reduce medical trips and tourism outside the Country.”

Earlier in the year, the president, who has embarked on numerous medical trips to the UK, had said frequent medical trips abroad must stop because they are not beneficial to the country.

“Nigerians have suffered so much going abroad for medical treatment. This is not good for us and it must stop because we can’t afford it again,” Buhari had said.

By Femi Adesina

The Nigerian President is different things to different people, depending on the prism from which he is being considered. To some people, Muhammadu Buhari is a father figure. At 77 years old, he qualifies.

To some others, he’s the greatest crowd pulling politician the country has seen for some time, and may yet see for a long time to come. True. And yet, to some others, he’s the strict man of discipline and integrity, who sets his face as flint against all forms of graft and avarice. Very true.

President Buhari is all these, and even more. But how does the international community see him? How do leaders of other countries, and people of weight and reckoning see the man who is a gift to the Nigerian nation?

For those of us who travel with the President round the world, it is sheer delight to see how the Nigerian Leader is venerated, and held in high esteem by the international community. Never to be forgotten are the words of the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, when he met with President Buhari at the sidelines of the 74th United Nations General Assembly in New York, United States of America, in September, 2019.

Inviting the Nigerian President to Euro-African Forum that his country was to host, de Sousa said: “Please come and declare the event open, even if it’s for half a day. We have been waiting for you to visit for three years. Many African leaders have come, but we want Nigeria.”

Truly, President Buhari is that Nigerian Leader that is in demand not just in the West African sub-region, where his colleagues virtually compelled him to be Chairman of Ecowas in July 2018, in Africa, where he was made Champion of Anti-Corruption by the African Union (AU), and in the uttermost parts of the world.

One of his earliest international visits was to America in July 2015, just two months after assumption of office for the first term. He was guest of the then American President, Barack Obama, who said of him during a bilateral meeting at the Oval Office:

“President Buhari came into office with a reputation for integrity and a very clear agenda, and that is to make sure that he is bringing safety and security, and peace to his country.”

In September of 2016, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, President Obama said of the Nigerian President again: “I am very pleased that we have been able to build a very strong working relationship with President Buhari, and he’s come in and initiated some very bold efforts at reform.

“On the security front, because of President Buhari’s leadership, he has been able to reform the Nigerian military.What of President Donald Trump, who succeeded Obama in office? At a meeting during an official visit by the

Nigerian Leader in April, 2018, he declared: “I especially want to thank President Buhari for Nigeria’s partnership and leadership in the fight against terrorism. He’s been a real leader.”

And never to be forgotten is that meeting between Presidents Obama, Buhari, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada, during the Nuclear Summit in America in May, 2016.

President Obama introduced the Nigerian President to Trudeau, saying; “Have you met President Buhari? He’s doing a good job.Every good Nigerian felt proud of his President round the world, at that endorsement.

Let’s go back in time to London, May 2016. The Queen of England had just turned 90, and after a thanksgiving service, she was in conversation with the then Prime Minister David Cameron, and Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. It was in the build up to a summit on corruption that London was hosting, and unknown to Cameron, a microphone was picking their conversation. He said: “Actually, we have got some leaders of some fantastically corrupt countries coming to Britain. Nigeria and Afghanistan- possibly two of the most corrupt countries in the world.”

But the Archbishop interjected, talking of Buhari. “But this President is not corrupt.”Another fine moment in praise of integrity.

President Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China: “Under the leadership of Your Excellency, the Nigerian people have been committed to safeguarding the nation’s stabilization, development of economy, and elevation of livelihood and achieved gratifying outcomes.”

At another time, President Jinping said: “ President Buhari is as decisive in dealing with terrorism as China.”

Thabo Mbeki, former South African President: “Here you have a person whose principle and practice is hostile to corruption. His detention (in 1985) was not for corruption, but for standing against corruption.”

Dame Patricia Scotland, Secretary-General of the Commonwealth: “Nigeria’s effort to combat corruption has been awe-inspiring. Thank you, Mr President.”

And Rex Tillerson, then American Secretary of State: “President Buhari’s work has resonated across Africa with his recent recognition as the African Union’s anti-corruption champion.” That was in March, 2018.

How about a fellow African leader, Dr Hage Geingob, President of Namibia? “A brave son of Africa is here, who has declared war against corruption.”

Many other testimonials trail President Buhari from different parts of the world, but this piece won’t be complete without mentioning the inspiring words of the UN Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, about Nigeria’s exploits against the global plague, Covid-19. And it was all under the leadership of President Buhari.

“Nigeria is a developing country that has shown a remarkable capacity to respond to the Coronavirus… I was quite impressed to see, for instance, Nigeria putting in place and immediately establishing a hospital. And I saw difficulties in countries that are much more developed to do quickly the same.”

Of a truth, Nigeria is blessed to have President Buhari at a time like this. His footprints are surely already left on the sands of time. Indelibly.

By 2015 when President Muhammadu Buhari defeated President Goodluck Jonathan, it was a weeping North that “voted” overwhelmingly to oust the ruling Peoples Democratic Party.

Today, 5 years down in time, the North bleeds.

In the last three weeks, over 300 lives were lost to armed bandits operating in Southern Kaduna, Taraba, Benue, and, of course, the North East states of Borno and Adamawa.Added to this were Kebbi, Zamfara and the President’s home state of Katsina.

A rueful Governor Aminu Bello Masari lamented this way “I am a very unhappy person because we have never had any moment of respite within the last five years that the leadership of this state can describe as comfortable.”

Five years is for how long Katsina State’s son of the soil has been in charge of Nigeria, and recall that he came as the righteous man of integrity who will rescue the country from corruption which was believed to be the bane of the insecurity that was ravaging the land under Goodluck.

The whole of this week has seen the hitherto solid groundswell of support for President Muhammadu Buhari eroding down to its lowest ebb, with past diehard associates vehemently voicing their description of Buhari as incompetent and a failure.

APC Chieftain and Professor of Parasitology, Shehu Usman Modibbo, renowned scholar, Dr. Usman Bugaje, and the entire cyberspace of activists, have condemned the inability of the government to stop the wanton vicious bandit killings, kidnapping and rape being perpetrated in the North.

Last Friday in mosques was a babel of prominent Imams angrily lamenting the wanton killings and vicious crimes in the “neglected” North, not even stopping calling President Buhari by name and raining curses.

Much of all, this is on the social media, in hope that the gut feelings of the frustrated would find its way to President Muhammadu Buhari and elicit action.

Professor Ango Abdullahi who leads the Northern Elders Forum lamented that the North in its entire life had never known this level of insecurity.Said he, “Northern Elders Forum (NEF) is alarmed at the rising insecurity of communities and their properties in the North.

“The recent escalation of attacks by bandits, rustlers and insurgents leave the only conclusion that the people of the North are now completely at the mercy of armed gangs who roam towns and villages at will, wreaking havoc.

“It would appear that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari and governors have lost control over the imperatives of protecting people of the North, a constitutional duty that they swore to uphold.”

Ango attributed this to the insurgents “sensing a huge vacuum in political will and capacity” and exploiting same “with disastrous consequences on communities and individuals.”In 2015, our insecurity was mainly the raging war against the Boko Haram insurgency in the North East.
Today, the entire Northern Nigeria is where to live and die in senseless violence.

Nigerians, and Northerners especially, are exasperated because they can see clearly that the Military, hard as it has tried, is at wits end to find answers to the rising territorial wave of banditry and other vicious crimes.No one seems to have the answer to the question as to why the North is bleeding.

This paper’s columnist, Mahmud Jega, opened his Monday piece this week, asking, “when and how did Northern Nigeria become the Ground Zero of insecurity in Nigeria, playground for insurgents, kidnappers, cattle rustlers, bandits, armed robbers, epicentre of senseless killings, burning of villages and springing up of IDP camps in every available school building and open space?”

The North is bleeding because the problems of ignorance and poverty have finally come to a head.Banditry is a reaction to Buhari’s economic policies which seek to address the national predicament but sadly ruin the hopes of ordinary people, for long, left uneducated, poor and without any governance benefits in amenities.

To use a Martin Luther King Jnr quote that has become popular recently, “Violence is the language of the unheard.”

Buhari’s war on corruption had humiliated Northern elite hitherto held in high esteem by ordinary folks, whose eyes today, have opened to the perception that all that wealth was from proceeds of crime, and the choice of criminal activity seems to be paying the local unlawful.

Far from the reach of the law, they raid vulnerable villagers freely, loot livestock, food, and valuables, kill the men and rape women indiscriminately, usually high on mind bending and sex enhancement drugs.

The North is getting rewarded for its neglect of education, its failure to develop agricultural industries while yet, providing abode to the abjectly poor, and over 10 million street children.

No one is to blame but the leaders.They ruined one another in their jostle for power & now their entire poorly developed region is a flowing river of the blood and tears of their disadvantaged rural dwellers.

And what direction are some of Buhari’s Northern Ministers looking?

-Sadiya Umar Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development of Nigeria, feeds school children in their homes within two weeks in the pandemic lockdown with N13bn.

-Alhaji Muhammed Sabo Nanono, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development for Agriculture, meanwhile, is going to kill pests in the North with another N13bn.

I argue that if you spend just N4bn, you could buy 5000 AK47s even from the black market.N3bn to raise and train and pay a defence force of 5000 men against bandits.

You could still spare N6bn to commit to logistics and quieten Katsina, Zamfara, Kebbi and even reserve some for Borno.As for the N13bn that fed children in two weeks and they are again hungry now, a serious government could have borrowed from Jigawa State’s Sule Lamido.

With every N400m, you could have loaned 1000 peasant farmers a pair of oxen work bulls, a plough, a harrow, and a carte (wagon).Peasant farmers keep promises and pay back loans.

We here, wasted a chance to have food sufficiency, with pastoralists making money to replenish their stock and live in peace and harmony with farmers.

Now the North bleeds while in contrast, the South has, having lost leadership, tidied up its act and in the midst of all the adversities in the past 5 years, stabilised its polity, grown its economy and is thriving.

Military force alone did not quieten the South and will not stabilise the North either.Poverty must be addressed with opportunity to pursue economic purpose.Enterprising communities will not take up banditry.And politically, will the North offer the nation leadership in 2023? Not with the Buhari trail of tears and blood.

The Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG), Mr. Nastura Sharif, has been arrested by the police “in connection” with the protest against the massive killings in the north.

The group held the protest on Tuesday in Katsina, the hotbed of banditry. Similar protests are to hold in other northern state capitals on Saturday, June 20, 2020, according to a statement issued by the group on Monday.

Sharif’s arrest was announced in Kaduna on Wednesday in a statement by Aminu Adam, the group’s Director of Operations.Adam said Sharif was arrested by the police after “the peaceful protest”.

The group had staged the  protest, demanding an end to the persistent invasion and mass killings in rural communities across the northern states, especially in Katsina, Kaduna, Zamfara, Sokoto and Benue.

He said after “the protest ended peacefully,” the Katsina State Police Commissioner, Mr. Sanusi Buba, invited leaders of the group for an interactive session in his office.

Adam said five of the officials of the group including himself and Sharif honoured the invitation by the police commissioner.

“After the protest ended peacefully, the Katsina State Police Commissioner, Mr. Sanusi Buba, invited us to his office for an interaction during which he told us that the Inspector General of Police wanted to see Sharif.

“The commissioner handed us to a team of policemen, headed by the OC (Officer in Charge), Federal Operations Bureau (FOB), who led us to Abuja.

“We drove from Katsina to Abuja with the police team in a white bus and a Hilux.However on getting to Force Headquarters in Abuja, they told us that Sharif is under arrest for the protest and they put him in detention,” Adam said.

The CNG and another group, the Coalition of Northern Youth Groups under the umbrella of Coalition Against Killings in Northern Nigeria (CAKIN), had in separate statements on Monday in Kaduna, asked the federal government to stop the massive killings and raiding of communities in the north by bandits and the Boko Haram insurgents.

Both groups had demanded the sacking of service chiefs, lamenting that five years into President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, the security situation has continued to escalate, leading to massive killings and destructions.

The Convener of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Prof. Ango Abdullahi, had earlier on Sunday, expressed concern over banditry in the north, saying President Buhari has failed in addressing the security challenges bedevilling the region.

The CNG in the statement, had declared that besides the Katsina protest, similar protests against the killings are holding across the northern state capitals on Saturday, June 20, 2020.

The group had maintained that: “The rise in the spate of violence and bloodshed in Katsina, Borno, Taraba, Sokoto, Kaduna, Zamfara and several other northern communities has become a major trying point for everyone but the President  who has remained detached from the reality.”

Infuriated by the incessant killing of Nigerians in the Northern part of the country, the Coalition of Northern Groups has described the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration as the “worst set of incompetent, ineffective, unfocused and generally unwilling leaders”.

The group in a statement by its spokesperson, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, said the country was experiencing deterioration in social, security and political issues that are not being decisively addressed by the government.

The coalition stated that the reality on the ground now was one of pervasive fear and uncertainty all over the North, noting that everybody was feeling unsafe, uncertain and traumatic. Muhammadu Buhari

It added that this government had invariably failed in the discharge of its most fundamental responsibility, which is the protection of life and property.

The statement reads, “The CNG is saddened to observe that Nigeria, in the entire period of its independent existence, has never had such worst successive leaderships as the ones we have in this fourth republic from 1999 to date.

“With the inception of the current dispensation in the last five years, Nigeria, in particular, the North has had the worst set of incompetent, ineffective, unfocused and generally unwilling leaders manning all the arms and levels of governance.

“We find it ridiculous for the federal government to be pretending to celebrate a certain Democracy Day while in the actual sense, the nation is supposed to be observing days of mourning.”

The coalition condemned the inactions of the state government in containing the attack by bandits in different states.

It lamented that government had left the killings unattended while all attention has been shifted to the outbreak of coronavirus in the country. 

The coalition stated, “The audacity with which bands of armed criminals ride freely to terrorize, massacre, loot and displace Katsina communities without any counter-response from government troops, call to question the willingness, readiness, sincerity and capacity to curb the drift towards anarchy in these affected parts.

“The role of some top officials of the Katsina State government under Aminu Bello Masari in this regard is similarly suspicious.

“It is an unexplained reality that in a single day's massacre across Borno, Katsina and Sokoto states alone, more people were killed than the coronavirus reportedly in three months nationwide.

“Yet, the government at all levels in Nigeria has diverted attention to a COVID-19 fight and relegated the issue of insecurity to the background.”

It urged the Northern Elders Forum to summon an urgent meeting of all stakeholders, to agree on definite conclusions to halt the continuation of decay and destruction of the North and its people and define practical measures to save Nigeria.

Bizibi:
her issue is controversial and efcc and fg are making it look like they are hiding something too.

An anti-corruption advocacy group, the Human and Environmental Development Agenda, has faulted the composition of an ad hoc committee by the Lagos State House of Assembly to probe corruption allegations against the Speaker, Mudashiru Obasa.

HEDA contended that the House of Assembly’s ad hoc committee could not reach a just outcome, as it was allegedly composed of Obasa’s cronies.

According to HEDA’s Chairman, Olanrewaju Suraju, some of the members of the committee had already spoken in his defence.

Suraju, in a statement on Sunday, maintained that the allegations against Obasa were criminal and should be handled by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

He described the proceedings of the Assembly’s ad hoc committee as a shenanigan, designed to arrive at a predetermined outcome.

Suraju said it was curious that the committee, which claimed to be probing Obasa, gave a notice of less than 24 hours for HEDA to appear before it and testify.

He said, “The panel set up by the Lagos State House of Assembly is made up cronies of the Speaker. There is no way justice will be delivered to the people of Lagos, whose resources Obasa was said to have pillaged.

“Under the principle of fair process, the House is unfit to be a judge in its own case by constituting a committee to investigate allegations of crime against it.

“The Speaker cannot constitute a committee of his loyalists, many of whom have defended him on these allegations through the vote of confidence passed on him and expect any iota of seriousness or credibility attached to the committee or its recommendations. This simply goes without saying.

“The allegations against the Speaker are criminal in nature and completely outside the parliamentary power of the Assembly. We have directed these petitions to the appropriate law enforcement agencies for their actions. It would be honourable for the Assembly to allow these agencies discharge their statutory responsibilities of investigating this matter.”