₦airaland Forum

odumchi:
The ball is in our court, all we need to do is dribble.

Gone are the hate-filled years of the 70s, the uncertain years of the 80s, and the strict military rules of the 90s, Nigeria is now a nation in which any group can grow politically. A perfect example of this is GEJ who, despite being a "minority", was able to overcome and become leader of Nigeria. Nonetheless, Igbos being a "majority" are also capable of seating an Igboman on Aso Rock.

I think that if a honorable and worthy Igboman/Igbowoman vies for election, He or she will win atleast the SE including Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Cross Rivers, and Lagos.

jason123:
Let God's will be done! If God says its an Igbo man, it WILL be an Igbo man. But God should please give us a "NIGERIAN" PRESIDENT!

ezeagu:
Please, those aren't all the same people. We need to rotate around Delta Igbo and South east Igbo at least, before others. It's fair.

PointB:
Expect more deadly attacks – Boko Haram



News Monday, November 7, 2011

Islamic sect, Boko Haram has threatened to carry out more attacks, a day after a series of blasts and gun battles claimed by the group killed more than 100 people in the country’s northeast, the Nigerian Red Cross has said.

Ibrahim Bulama, an official from the humanitarian organisation, said on Sunday that the death toll is expected to rise as local clinics and hospitals tabulate the casualty figures from Friday’s attacks in Damaturu, the capital of rural Yobe state.


One of the scenes of the mayhem in Damaturu. Photo: Sahara reporters

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A spokesman for the Islamist armed group, using the name Abul-Qaqa, promised “more attacks are on the way”, speaking hours after witnesses reported “scenes of carnage”.

The US Embassy in Nigeria has issued an emergency warning to its citizens living there that bomb attacks could be possible at luxury hotels in the capital Abuja.

Boko Haram, which means “Western education is sacrilege”, has claimed responsibility for previous attacks and the latest was the deadliest since the group attacked a UN building in Abuja in August, killing at least 20 people.

“We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians,” Abul-Qaqa said in an interview with the the Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria’s Muslim north.

Suleimon Lawal, the police commissioner of Damaturu, told Al Jazeera a suicide bomber drove a vehicle apparently laden with explosives into a building housing the anti-terrorist court.

Lawal said the attack killed 53 people but he did not disclose how many among the casualties were security officials.

“The explosives rocked the building and there were casualties. Two of them [suicide bombers] perished in the bomb,” he said.

Lawal insisted the group was not gaining an upper hand and vowed that it would be crushed.

“My strategy is a security strategy [that] I cannot disclose on air. So as they’re not [Boko Haram] disclosing their security strategy, I don’t think it is safe for me to tell the whole world what I am doing,” he said.

The violence followed a series of attacks reported in the neighbouring cities of Maiduguri and Potiskum on Friday afternoon.

“There’s that fear that something might possibly happen again,” Ibrahim Bulama, a spokesman for the Nigerian Red Cross, said.

Security vehicles torched

News agencies, quoting officials, said after the attack on the building, armed men went through Damaturu, blowing up a bank and attacking at least three police stations and five churches, leaving behind their rubble.

People began hesitantly leaving their homes on Saturday morning, after seeing the destruction left behind, which included military and police vehicles burned by the armed men, with the burned corpses of the drivers who died still in their seats.

Boko Haram wants the strict implementation of Islamic law across the nation of more than 160 million people, which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north.

Nii Akuetteh, a former executive director of Africa Action, a Washington-based rights group, said the group appeared to be growing strong.

“The government has been saying that it will deal with them and that it will get a handle on the problem, but it’s not been able to,” he told Al Jazeera.

“Previously, the attempt made was to try and fight them militarily – to send the secuirty forces after them – but that has created its own problem.

“I know for a fact that there’re Nigerian groups in and outside the government, including the media, who are suggesting that the government should try to talk to Boko Haram.

“But my own impression is that they don’t seem to be particularly ready or inclined to talk.”

Split into factions

The AP news agency, quoting a diplomat, said the government was facing an increasingly dangerous threat from Boko Haram, adding that the group had split into three factions, one allied with al-Qaeda’s North Africa branch.

It said one faction remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence while another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to MEND, which has been fighting for a greater share of Nigeria’s oil wealth.

The attacks occured just before Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, celebrated by Muslims around the world.

Police elsewhere in Nigeria had warned of violence in the run-up to the celebration in the country that has previously been rocked by religious violence.

Goodluck Jonathan, Nigeria’s Christian president who took office amid religious and political rioting that saw at least 800 die in April, cancelled a trip to his home state of Bayelsa for his younger brother’s wedding on Saturday.

His spokesman, Reuben Abati, said the president did not consider those who launched the attacks “true Muslims,” as the assault came during a holy period.

Abati also promised that “every step will be taken” to arrest those responsible – the same pledge made again and again as Jonathan has visited other sites bombed by Boko Haram.

“The security agencies will tell you that what happens on this scale is even a fraction of what could have happened considering the scope of the threat,” Abati said.

“The security agencies are busy at work trying to make sure the will of the majority of the Nigerian people is not subverted by a minority [group] with a suicidal streak.”

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Isaac Olawale, a researcher for Oxford University Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity, says: “The present attempt to deal with the problem using confrontational strategies will not work.

“There is poverty all over the country and an increased number of Nigerians are jumping into the warm embrace of ethnic, chauvinist and religious fundamentalism.

"Boko Haram expresses some of the social upheavals we are witnessing in Nigeria.”

http://odili.net/news/source/2011/nov/7/327.html

Desola:
The ND belongs to the elites and the western nations and the sooner Nigerians accept that fact, the better it would be for us.

Yorubas need to get back to basics and start some serious farming and cocoa production if they really are bent on having no relations with the Hausa or align with Ghana and neighbouring countries for food supply.

If they so wish, they can focus on their gas market and start to drill for oil in Lagos(offshore) by adding ogun to it also but that would be some costly shiatsu and take us back to aquare one as it were in Nigeria.

Right now, our main focus should be crop production and opening our borsers up to low income earning migrants from our non former Nigerian neighbours to replace the Hausas that would leave.

Ibos wouldn't be missed as we would get our own people to replace them, selling good quality products. We held that market firmly before we let them take over so, that should be a doddle. Technically, ibos make more off us than they contribute because they only employ their own and although their taxes come to the lgs government, the bulk of their money is spent in their own econmy. We need to put a stop to that shiatsu and make sure that thw slogan "owo eko, eko lo ngbe" is practised! We replace them with our people, employ our own people and/or low income workers from benin and togo and make sure the money stays in our region.

We already run industries and are second to none in administration so we should be good to go.

kokoA:
You forgot[b] AZIKIWE[/b]

greateros:
Jonathan’s Election Cause Of Insecurity In Nigeria – Us Agency


Sun, 06/11/2011 - 1:28am | A notable United States based civil society organisation, Fund for Peace, has blamed the eruption of violence in different parts of the country on the ascension of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to the presidency, in violation of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) rule of zoning that, if followed in April, would have given the northern part of the country the presidential slot for another four years.

In its report on the April polls released recently entitled "Unlock Nigeria", and exclusively obtained by LEADERSHIP SUNDAY, the organisation interested in peace and conflict resolution across the world attributes the present ethnic and religious tensions in the nation to its politics.

"The alternation of the presidency between the North and the South every two terms has been the rule since 1999, as per a PDP agreement. However, the death of President Yar'Adua mid-term in 2010 has thrown this delicate balance off kilter.

"This current term was expected to have been Yar'Adua's (a northerner) second term, instead of Jonathan's (a southerner) first elected term. This, coupled with an opening up of the political space and great strides being made in democratisation, has threatened those with vested interest in the status quo and brought ethnic and religious tensions to the surface," the report states in part.

The US organisation's report rated Delta, Kaduna and Bayelsa high on violence, as it predicted violence in the 2012 Bayelsa governorship poll.

"Looking ahead, UNLocK participants are very concerned about the potential for violence in Bayelsa state's upcoming gubernatorial election, slated for February 2012.

"This is particularly concerning, given a history of political violence between politicians at the state level in Bayelsa, and the state government's frequent use of state and non-state armed forces in a manner outside of the rule of law," the report states.

The organisation also described the general elections in April this year as riddled by irregularities and violence.

"While the elections held in April 2011 were hailed as the fairest in Nigeria's history by international observers, political intimidation, election irregularities and violence, including riots and bombings, occurred throughout the North and South.

"Though the previous report noted many of these incidents, more reports were compiled at a recent UNLocK workshop in Port Harcourt.

"For a more complete summary of the period, this edition overlaps with the previous report to include election and post-election incidents between the months of April and September 2011."

On the other states, the report states in part: "As highlighted in this report, within southern states such as Akwa Ibom and Delta, there were incidents of election violence and irregularities, especially at the gubernatorial level."

http://allafrica.com/stories/201111060039.html

sheyguy:

sheyguy:
nairaland's religious,politic and culture section is officially a hate forum
Gbamm!!!
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most u guy turn every thing into hate argument/e-fighting, oyedepo cursed when they struck a church  he can vouch for, i dont expect him to act when they strike churches he does not know of, we have Churches of satan,mammon and probably fake churches of christ. Now i expect the founders and vision-er of such churches to act instead of some funny characters on NL assuming Oyedepo is the police force of christianity and anything church.

sheyguy:
nairaland's religious,politic and culture section is officially a hate forum
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most of u guys turn every thing into hate argument/e-fighting, oyedepo cursed when they struck a church  he can vouch for, i dont expect him to act when they strike churches he does not know of, we have Churches of satan,mammon and probably fake churches of christ. Now i expect the founders and vision-er of such churches to act instead of some funny characters on NL assuming Oyedepo is the police force of christianity and anything church.

lakhadimar:
Why didnt he say anything about boko haram until his church was tourched? I thought the bible says we should love our neighbours as ourselves & when our enemies slaps us on the left cheek we should turn the right one over. So why is he cursing boko haram? He ought to pray for them instead. God doesnt answer curses, he answers prayers

Phillfree:
Now that his business, sorry Church has bn touched why won't he make noise? Mayb he is hearing of boko haram for the first time. Is he even a true man of God? Hell nooooooo! Don't get me wrong peeps but if i may ask, why was he quiet until the BH's touched him? Indirectly once you don't worship at winners u re not a human being and dis guy doesn't give a damn about you. Rubbish

CyberG:
LMAO . . .can the moderators please remove every irrelevant post as this one? Some people must just stifle factual questioning of their blindly-held position and this fella is one. Mods, can you help remove ALL "e-fighting" posts 'cos it's not gonna help elicit and factual information from the people who actually saw the war?

Mister, open your own thread and I will meet you there for a different conversation. Well, I have also lived in other places not just GRA (in Naija) and if your illegal status makes your head explode, well it's your unfortunate destiny and laziness and cowardice - not my fault. Now, you have also confessed your job is drug pushing - no surprises. . .LOL. Since you are making a lot of mouth and noise here - I will give you a chance to actualize your fantasies and meet me in REAL life only if your illegal status lets you move around freely. But NOTE from today, NO ONE on this whole NL fought in the war and anything you say is colorated tribal BS that belongs in the shitdump!