₦airaland Forum

How Boko Haram slaughters babies with double-edged knives and collects their blood in buckets

Boko Haram insurgents kill their sons and use blood to wash their hands when they return from fighting, a report funded by the Pulitzer Centre on Crisis Reporting has revealed.

The story, which is on the cover of this week’s New York Times Magazine, is based on the testimony of four boy soldiers of Boko Haram who escaped from the insurgents’ enclave.

Sarah Topol, the journalist who wrote the story, spoke with 25 children in Borno State about their abduction.

“The stories they told me about rituals like infant slaughter and bathing your hands in blood have not been previously reported as part of life under Boko Haram. But their stories were consistent, and rumours of such acts have circulated around northeast Nigeria,” Topol wrote.
One of the boy soldiers, Mustapha (not real name), who rose to become a deputy to an emir in one of the Boko Haram’s units, narrated how infant killing and washing of hands with blood were carried out.

“Whenever a woman at Mustapha’s base delivered a son, he reported the birth to the babban emir. The other emirs did the same,” Sarah wrote.

“One month after the birth, a man from the palace would come to collect the baby, and everyone would know. In the palace courtyard, the baby would be put on a special table with a hole in the middle.
“Anybody could watch as they lay the baby flat, neck over the hole. The emir from the unit would be given a special knife — sharp, double-edged with a black handle. He would use it to slaughter the baby. The blood would drain through the hole and into a bucket. That was how the insurgents slaughtered their sons. Mustapha couldn’t ask questions. He slaughtered four babies this way. It was just something that needed doing.”

Whenever Mustapha and other insurgents returned from fighting, they would go through the ritual of soaking their hands in blood. The blood was collected from the slaughtered infants and adults killed by the insurgents in their base.
Topol wrote in the report that she interviewed the boys over several days in her hotel through an interpreter.

The boys, who are now between 14 to 18 years old, were kidnapped by Boko Haram in Baga.

According to the report, Boko Haram has kidnapped 10,000 boys over the last decade.

Source: https://icirnigeria.org/revealed-boko-haram-fighters-slaughter-sons-wash-hands-blood/

Last week, the Christian Association for Nigeria (CAN) alleged that out of all the parastatals in the ministry of education, only four are headed by Christians.

Samson Ayokunle, the CAN President, made the allegation when criticising some of the topics added to the new syllabus of Christian Religious Studies (CRS).

“To say the least, that is a misleading statement from a Minister who is not only trying to Islamise the ministry with all the appointments he has made but denying the reality of discrimination policy under his watch,” Ayokunle had said.

“A situation where 13 of their heads are Muslims while the remaining four are Christians is an ill-wind that would blow no one any good.”

17 PARASTATALS — IS THAT TRUE?

Ayokunle’s statement implied that there are 17 parastatals/agencies in the ministry of education. This isn’t true.
According to the website of the ministry of education (www.education.gov.ng), there are 21 parastatals, but these include the West African Examination Council (WAEC), which is a sub-regional body and is not under the direct control of the ministry. The chairman is Evelyn S. Kandakai, a Liberian.

So if one excludes WAEC, then there are 20 parastatals on the list.

However, the list of newly appointed heads of education parastatals, released in August 2016, featured the Nomadic Education Commission and the National Institute for Nigerian Languages, both of which were not listed as parastatals on the website of the education ministry. These two take the number of education ministry parastatals to 22.

ANSWER: No, there are at least 22 parastatals in the education ministry.

13 MUSLIMS, 4 CHRISTIANS — IS THIS TRUE?
Here is a table containing the parastatals in the ministry and the religion of their heads

See More: https://icirnigeria.org/fact-check-are-education-parastatals-over-populated-by-muslims-as-alleged-by-can-president/

Discussions about the “removal” of Christian Religious Studies (CRS) from Nigeria’s secondary school curriculum have been ongoing since June 14 when a delegation of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) paid a courtesy call on Acting President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House.

During the visit, Samson Ayokunle, the CAN president, pointed out that whereas the new curriculum stipulates that CRS – also referred to as Christian Religious Knowledge (CRK) – will no longer exist as a subject on its own, Islamic/Arabic Studies and French have been introduced.

Ayokunle told Osinbajo that the curriculum had earlier been dropped by the ministry of education after CAN raised objections. He however expressed surprise that the same curriculum had resurfaced.

“This curriculum is the brain-child of Nigerian Educational Research Council, an agency of the Federal Ministry of Education. To us in CAN, its introduction is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good for so many reasons,” he had said.

THE GENESIS
The curriculum, which has now assumed national importance all of a sudden, actually took effect from the beginning of 2015 as announced by Ismail Junaidu, Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), a parastatal of the federal ministry of education.

This means that it was drafted and approved by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.

The education ministry explained that a new curriculum was introduced to prune down the number of subjects offered by primary and secondary school students in accordance with international best practices.

Among other things, a new subject called Religion and National Values (RNV) was introduced in the new curriculum, comprising Christian Religious Studies (CRS) and Islamic Religious Studies (IRS), Civic Education, Social Studies, and Security Education.
All these used to be separate subjects on their own, except Security Education, which was newly introduced as a result of the challenges of the Boko Haram insurgency.

SO, WHAT IS THE MATTER?

Harmless and innovative as the idea may sound, religious leaders from both the Christian and Muslim divides think it is a bad idea to merge CRS and IRS.

They feel both should remain separate entities as they have always been and let children be taught the religion of their parents instead of forcing a Muslim child, for instance, to take CRS lessons or vice versa.
According to Nicholas Okoh, Primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria, the ministry of education has no right to merge both subjects into one. “We recognize our differences, but we call for unity … Let Muslims be Muslims and Christians be Christians,” the clergy man was quoted as saying in May.

This was strongly supported by Ralph Madura, a priest and the secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), who said that that the so-called merger “would create confusion”.

“Every right-thinking person knows that religion is a very sensitive issue in this country,” he added.

Lakin Akintola of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), the new curriculum reduces the role of religion in national development.

According to him, by merging the study of the two biggest religions in the country, FG is simply telling the kids that religion does not matter.

Continue reading: https://icirnigeria.org/fact-check-has-buhari-removed-crs-secondary-school-curriculum/

Soon, you won’t be able to watch Shekau’s videos on YouTube


As the wave of terrorist attacks sweep across Europe and America in recent times, American multinational technology company, Google says it is stepping up its efforts to identify and remove videos related to terrorism and violent extremist content, particularly on its YouTube platform.

Abubakar Shekau, Boko Haram leader, periodically uses threat-filled videos, many of which end up on YouTube.

But the technology company revealed that it used “video analysis models” to find and assess more than 50 percent of the terrorism-related content that were removed in the past six months.

“While we and others have worked for years to identify and remove content that violates our policies,” Google said, “the uncomfortable truth is that we, as an industry, must acknowledge that more needs to be done now.”
First, the company says it’s increasing its use of technology to identify videos that contain extremist messages.

Google says it will devote more engineering resources to apply “our most advanced machine learning research to train new ‘content classifiers’ to help us more quickly identify and remove extremist and terrorism-related content”.

The company acknowledges that technology can’t fully solve the problem, so it is also adding 50 expert NGO’s to its YouTube Trusted Flagger programme. Flaggers, the company said, can better identify the difference between violent propaganda and news and that they are more than 90 percent accurate. Google says it already works with 63 organisations as part of the programme.

Google said it would also be taking a “tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies”. It said videos that “contain inflammatory religious or supremacists content” will appear with a warning. People will not be able to make money off them, or to comment on or endorse them.
“That means these videos will have less engagement and be harder to find,” it said. “We think this strikes the right balance between free expression and access to information without promoting extremely offensive viewpoints.”

In a fourth step, Google said it would “expand its role in counter-radicaliwation efforts” through what it calls the “Redirect Method”.

“This promising approach harnesses the power of targeted online advertising to reach potential ISIS recruits and redirects them towards anti-terrorist videos that can change their minds about joining,” Google said..

“In previous deployments of this system, potential recruits have clicked through on the ads at an unusually high rate, and watched over half a million minutes of video content that debunks terrorist recruiting messages.”
The steps were first published in an opinion piece Sunday on the Financial Times website and can now be found on a Google blog.

Google’s steps follow a recent Facebook announcement that the social media giant is using artificial intelligence to combat terrorist content.

Earlier this year, the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Centre issued a report critical of organisations like Google and Facebook. The anti-hate group said the companies “have done little to counter the use of their platforms to spread hateful, false “information”, from conspiracy theories accusing various minority groups of plotting against America to websites promoting Holocaust denial and false “facts” about Islam, LGBT people, women, Mexicans and others.”
Source: https://icirnigeria.org/soon-you-wont-be-able-to-watch-shekaus-videos-on-youtube/

Tunde Bakare, Senior Pastor of The Latter Rain Assembly, says “the king may be very cold, may be very old and in need of warmth, but the king is not yet dead.”

Bakare made the statement — believed to be in reference to ailing President Muhammadu Buhari and directed as those seeking to replace him — on Sunday at his church in Ogba, Lagos, while speaking on ‘The birth pangs of a new Nigeria’.

Reminding the latter group that “the next in line does not translate automatically to the next king”, he cited similar scenarios in the Bible, mentioning the likes of Absalom, who, in a bid to overthrow the king, embraced everyone and warmed his heart into the minds of the simple and gullible; and Adonjah, who confused birthright with leadership rights and assumed that the next in line is automatically the next king whenever the current king is no more”.
“The next in line does not translate automatically to the next king. I kept quiet since, because I knew that the day I will speak, all arrows will begin to fly. But guess what? I’m beyond the enemy’s reach,” said Bakare, who was Buhari’s running mate in the 2011 presidential election.

“What is happening in Nigeria is not new; it’s not strange. But if you don’t have the wherewithal, and your wife is in intense labour, you will panic. What is happening in this nation is not new, it’s not strange. Our nation is going through birth pangs; Nigeria is in intense labour.”
He said he had been “bombarded with requests for interview by the organised press for a very long time now, regarding the situation of the country”, but he had deliberately kept mum.

“I hope the message today will answer their questions and allay all our collective doubts and fears,” he said.

“Our president, who I believe is on the path to sure recovery, has recently been serving the nation he loves with diminishing energy due to his ill health.

“As a result of the president’s present condition, all over the land, Absaloms and Adonijahs are springing up. Again this is not unusual…
“One major fact, the king may be very cold, may be very old and in need of warmth, but the king is not yet dead; the final authority is still in his hands. All the actors in the corridor of power can keep acting, but the residual power is still in the man who is cold.”
Source: https://icirnigeria.org/bakare-buhari-king-may-cold-old-not-yet-dead/

Abdulmumin Jibrin, suspended member of the house of representatives, says Yemi Osinbajo, Acting President, played into the hands of the national assembly by signing the 2017 budget.
In a statement he released on Monday, tagged ‘2017 Budget Series: In defence of Acting President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo’, Jibrin praised the current head of the executive arm of government for his courage in signing the budget despite the decision of the legislature to introduce new projects into the document submitted to them.

He said it was a risk that appeared like striking a deal with an untrustworthy partner, adding that time would tell if ” this seeming pact is calculated or not”.

The FULL STATEMENT
The Ag President made what, in my opinion, was a harmless remark when he observed that the National Assembly has no powers to introduce new projects in the budget. In the same statement, however, he admitted the powers of NASS to allocate resources as that is its core powers of appropriation. I consider his statement very objective. His tone wasn’t confrontational, neither was his body language. Ag President Osinbajo had a day earlier signed the 2017 budget noting that there were grey areas, especially funds lifted from key projects, to introduce new projects by NASS.

He further stated that he agreed to sign the budget after the assurance of commitment from NASS to restore the lifted funds. That demonstration of faith in NASS was unprecedented, and the most generous concession in budget negotiation by a President since 1999. No any President has ever agreed to sign the budget into law on the basis of extracting commitment from NASS to attend to outstanding issues after the budget is signed into law, the reasons being:

I. Once the budget is signed into law, the President MUST implement it, whether NASS makes the correction or not.

II. There are only two ways to achieve such corrections: supplementary budget or Virement, both of which are as good as going through the entire budget process all over again, and will require the Executive to go the full length of lobbying and massaging the ego of NASS, a process they detest so much.

III. The unpredictable nature of the relationship between the Legislature and the Executive, as the state of such relationship at a particular time determines how friendly and expeditiously NASS attends to requests from the Executive. This is not peculiar to Nigeria. A national daily reported today that Osinbajo’s comment threaten Executive, NASS Virement deal but how could such a harmless statement create an uproar of such magnitude. Already an unhealthy prevailing circumstances is being created that will make the process tough and place few people in NASS to negotiate some selfish interest only beneficial to themselves. That has been the name of the game. The NASS should know that how it handles this historic concession granted it by the Executive under the guide of Ag President Osinbajo will determine the approach of the Executive Arm in future budget negotiation.

So, the only other way to make corrections in the budget, which is not applicable in this situation, is through corrigendum – a power vested in NASS to make minor corrections to the budget. There are instances where corrigendum has been used to commit budget fraud. I will discuss that and give you such instances in subsequent episodes of this series.

Recall that in 2016, President Buhari returned the budget to NASS on two occasions, to ensure that all the grey areas are resolved before he appended his signature. All the grey areas were resolved, and corrections too effected. In fact, this was done with an unusual tact and dutifully, out of understandable reverence, and yes FEAR, of President Buhari.

In this case of Ag President Osinbajo, perhaps beyond the respect he enjoins, he must strive to also be feared, through resistance to compromising settlements in his relationship with NASS. The reason isn’t far-fetched: all attempts to flatter and hoodwink President Buhari into signing the 2016 budget, by assuring to make corrections later, met an impenetrable brick wall. He saw through the smokescreen, and thus even refused to be blackmailed by threats of possible backlash from NASS if the budget is not signed before corrections are made and also the need to save time.

On one occasion, the President said, “If we have waited for six months, we can as well wait for weeks for NASS to correct the grey areas before I sign.” That has been the pattern with successive presidents. No President was ready to take the risk with NASS but Osinbajo did, as it appeared like striking a deal with an untrustworthy partner. Whether this seeming pact is calculated or not, is left for time and the scrutiny of vigilant and critical Nigerians to determine. What is obvious, however, is: the Ag President has played into the hands of NASS.

What the Ag President has given to NASS is a victory it has never had in the budget process since 1999, understandably to strengthen the relationship between the two frequently hostile arms of government. And so, he deserves a reciprocal gesture and unmistakable friendship from the lawmakers, not attacks and threats. This is my position.

In the next episodes of this series, which we intend to run for three months, we will do a recap of the 2016 budget fraud with new revelations of facts and key actors involved. We will talk about fraud in 2017 budget, how members of the Executive arm collaborate with NASS in this venture, new strategies to beat vigilant eyes, concealment, abnormality, reckless spending, budget revenue frame work, and 2 dollar extra benchmark.

Also to be addressed are N140 billion increment in budget size amidst dwindling revenues (the largest in recent years), poor economics, the “reformed” budget process, public hearing of budget, page by page consideration of details, corrigendum, the lies, facts and half-truths of budgeting, conspiracy of a few members of NASS in the budget process against majority of the 359 Members and 108 Senators and, very importantly, how to stop these infractions. We look forward to beneficial engagements, for a more transparent Nigeria.

Source: https://icirnigeria.org/jibrin-by-signing-budget-osinbajo-played-into-national-assemblys-hands/

One of the volunteers at the Grenfell tower fire in London has told journalists that the government and police authorities are insincere with the casualty toll of the incident.

According to her, about 500 people died in the fire.

The lady, who said she lived in the neighbourhood, challenged the authorities to produce a comprehensive list of all the people in the building.

She also claimed that the authorities intend to send all the donated food for the victims of the fire incident to Red Cross and Oxfam, urging the people not to allow it.

Watch the video:
https://icirnigeria.org/watch-angry-volunteer-says-500-people-killed-in-grenfell-tower-fire/

In less than three months, five deadly terrorist attacks, or at least suspected attacks, have taken place in the United Kingdom — hitherto considered one of the safest countries in Europe.

Most of the incidents have occurred in London, the UK capital being governed, for the first time in history, by a Muslim mayor, Sadiq Khan.

Below are the details of the attacks so far:

WESTMINSTER ATTACK
On March 22, 2017, Khalid Masood, a 52-year-old Briton, drove a car into pedestrians on the pavement along the south side of Westminster Bridge, close to the British Parliament.

After the car crashed into a perimeter fence, the attacker ran into the New Palace Yard where he fatally stabbed an unarmed police officer.
He was then shot by an armed police officer and died at the scene. In all, six persons, including Masood, were killed.

THE ’22’ ATTACK IN MANCHESTER
Exactly two months after the Westminster attack, a suicide bomber detonated a homemade bomb at the exit of Manchester Arena in Manchester, England, following a concert by American singer Ariana Grande.

This particular attack had the figure 22 written all over it. The day was May 22; the attacker, Salman Ramadan Abedi, was a 22-year-old Brit of Libyan descent; and the number of casualties was 22, excluding the bomber.

One hundred and nineteen others were injured in the attack, 23 critically.
On Saturday, June 10, a white van ran through pedestrians on London Bridge, in the centre of London, at about 10 pm.

When the vehicle stopped, three men – later identified as Khuram Butt, Rachid Redouane and Youssef Zaghba – got out and embarked on a stabbing spree, attacking people in the nearby Borough Market.

They were however shot dead by the Met Police eight minutes after an emergency call was put through.

Eight people, including the attackers, were killed and at least 48 people injured.

GRENFELL TOWER FIRE
The Grenfell Tower fire occurred on June 14 2017 at a 24-storeyed building of public housing flats in North Kensington, West London, England.

Official death toll in the fire outbreak was initially put at 30 but the Metropolitan Police has said that 79 people are missing and presumed dead, with five of the dead so far formally identified. The toll is expected to rise in the coming days.

It was not clear yet what caused the fire, though some reports have attributed it to a faulty refrigerator belonging to one of the residents of the tower.

However, authorities said a detailed investigation was underway, adding that nothing – including terrorism – has been ruled out. Could this be a case of terrorism as well? Question!

FINSBURY MOSQUE ATTACK

In the wee hours of Monday, June 19, 2017, a 48-year-old man drove a van into pedestrians near the Finsbury Park Mosque in London.

One man was killed in the incident and eight people were injured. The attacker was arrested by the police but his identity is yet to be made public.

Prime Minister Theresa May said the police were treating the case as “suspected terror attack”.

Source: https://icirnigeria.org/five-attacks-3-months-uk-becoming-new-home-terror/

aolawale025:
While the government embraces "those who steal" and even put them in positions to make policies for the country

Very true....

Yemi Osinbajo, Acting President, wants churches to start ostracising “those who steal”, whether from the public purse or from private establishments

According to Osinbajo, who was speaking on Sunday at the Aso Villa Chapel, if the church does this, then Nigeria will not have the type of problems confronting it.

“Every time that we come to church, we are told about giving. But we need to talk more about honesty,” Punch quoted him as saying during a special service to commemorate this year’s Fathers’ Day.
“We need to talk far more about honesty. In the same way we talk about giving, we need to talk more about honesty.

“If the church says you are not allowed to steal and we will ostracise you in our midst if you did… If what a man has does not measure up to what he earns, if we found that a man has more money than he should have, if a man is earning a salary of a civil servant or a public servant and he has houses everywhere, we have to hold him to account.
“He must be held to account in the church. He must be told first in the church that ‘we will not allow you here’.

“If the church says ‘we will not accept you here’ or that ‘we will expose you if you are stealing the resources of the country or stealing the resources of a private company or other establishment where you work’, then we would not have the type of problem that we have in this country. If only the church does so. Just the church.”
Source: https://icirnigeria.org/osinbajo-church-must-ostracise-steal/

He's a good man and he deserves it....CONGRATULATIONS

Misogynist2014:
They call them 'bodyguards'. They are wiser now.

Misogynist2014:
They call them 'bodyguards'. They are wiser now.

tell dem

zleemshaddy:
Op u no add this one people from imo state, mbaise precisely re too wicked, stingy I Knw each tribe hve their own flaws bt to judge certain group of pple, u should judge them individually biko ..

I wonder ooo...

R.I.P

nice writeup......

congratzzz