₦airaland Forum

A northern group, Arewa Unification Congress (AUC) at the weekend described the sentencing of Major Hamza el-Mustapha to death by hanging by Justice Mojisola Dada of a Lagos High Court as nothing but a conspiracy to eliminate him by highly influential Nigerians.



Speaking at a press conference in Lagos, the group alleged that al-Mustapha, whom they described as a highly intelligent officer, knows so much about what transpired while he was Chief Security Officer (CSO) to the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha hence very powerful Nigerians are desperate to eliminate him.

The group alleged that former Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar flew into Lagos a day before what they described as a highly controversial judgement was handed over to the former CSO.

Chairman of the group, Ibrahim Aliu, an engineer, said the star witness, Sergeant Jabila Rogers made two contradictory statements during trial. According to him, Rogers had in a statement dated May 27,1999 asserted that he was not the person that shot Kudirat Abiola on June 4, 1996 and that nobody sent him to assassinate the deceased and that he was at his duty post at the Strike Force when he heard of the incident and at another time testified he was the one that shot Kudirat Abiola in June 4, 1996, that his then boss, Al-Mustapha asked him to eliminate the woman.

Besides, he averred that the former CSO, a military person ought to have been court-marshaled by the military, found guilty, dismissed and handed over to the police for prosecution before he could be tried by a civilian court and that to isolate Al-Mustapha in this negation of military rule the way it has never been done anywhere in the world smacks of gross injustice.

Relying on statement on statement credited to Prosecutor Lawal Pedro (SAN), Aliu argued that “conspiracy to murder is absolutely different from Murder itself and if proved is liable to 14 years imprisonment and not sentenced to death.”

Aliu said what was established against Al-Mustapha was conspiracy to murder, adding that
the man alleged to have conspired cannot be visited with a punishment reserved for those who actually pulled the trigger.

He described as noting but miscarriage of justice for Rogers who confessed pulling the trigger to be sent free and the his punishment visited on the alleged conspirator.

“At this juncture, sequel to the security challenges in the country, we call on the Federal Government to come to the aid of this contradictory evidence and one sided verdict as this cannot be accepted by any reasonable Nigerian”, he said.

Also speaking, woman Leader of the group, Alhaja Favour Adamu alleged that the presiding judge was a woman and a personal friend of the late Kudirat Abiola hence the matter was brought before her to nail the former CSO.


http://ascology.com/news/local-news/21777--Mustaphas-conviction-conspiracy---Arewa-Group.html

Vanguard gathered that the arrest was actually effected in Kaduna and not Maiduguri as was widely reported.


Also, information made available to Vanguard, yesterday, by very authoritative sources privy to the on-going interrogation of Qaqa, suggests that the terror suspect has owned up to being the one with the name Abul Qaqa.

"He owned up yesterday afternoon," according to the security source, " It should be said that he buckled under intense interrogation."

In a related development, Justice Gabriel Kolawole of a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, yesterday, threatened to quash all the four-count criminal charge preferred against Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume by the Federal Government, following his alleged convivial relationship with Boko Haram.

Ndume, who is representing Borno South Senatorial District was on December 12, 2011, docked before the High Court on allegation that he violated Sections 7(1) (b) and 3(b) of the Terrorism (Prevention) Act, 2011, by not only disclosing classified information to the terrorist group, but also furnishing them with phone numbers of top government officials, including that of the Attorney General of the Federation.


When Vanguard asked the security source whether the notorious interrogation technique known as water-boarding- a technique roundly condemned by a section of security experts in the Western World was being employed, the source emphatically said "No!"

However, the source was able to explain that one of the discoveries during interrogation was that Qaqa operated under many aliases.

He has also been confirmed to have been an Igbira from Kogi State as against the earlier rumoured origin of Igala.from the same state.

In fact, Vanguard discovered that the arrest of Qaqa "was the culmination of months' streneous efforts by men of the SSS.

Said the source: "We had been on his trail for some months now. He fled from Yobe where he is believed to own a house to Maiduguri, and then Potiskum, Kano before finally hiding in an aunt's residence in Kaduna. The aunt did not want to give him up but for another male member of the household, who did not know the value of the suspect in their house. It was while the said aunt was playing footsy that the male resident of the house prevailed on her to own up".

Vanguard was told that the 'aunt' was also arrested along with Qaqa on Wednesday.

While the intelligence and eventual arrest was carried out by armed men of the SSS, Vanguard was reliably informed that the military was called in for back up. According to the source, "this was meant to avert another Kabir Sokoto-style mess of last month."

As learnt, the confusion over Qaqa's arrest stemmed from the decision of the SSS top echelon to be careful and be sure of his identity before announcing his arrest to avoid a situation where the man in custody could turn out to be someone else other than the spokesman.

An elated team at the "Yellow House" is said to be working hard at arresting all the masterminds of the sect that has spread pain and sorrow to many parts of Northern Nigeria in the last three years.

It was learnt that the security agency would make its latest arrests public after it has satisfied itself of the appropriateness of such a move.

VolvoS60:
^^^
Good show OP.

The deceit and the fraud is being exposed and shown up for what it really is: a house of graft and sleaze built on quicksand.

My only regret is that Nigerians are a truly sad and broken lot who do not have the moral fibre or the strength of character to INSIST on accountability from their leaders and officials. That is what is heartbreaking in all of this. We don't have the backbone to stand and fight the good fight. We can't go the distance. We have no staying power. We just haven't got what it takes.

What more evidence is needed? There have been several probes and counter-probes over the last few years in which Nigerian public officials have come on camera to confirm our worst suspicions about how key public institutions are being run. If this is not a call to action I do not know what is. How much lower must we sink before we realize we are drowning?

The legislative hearing will be concluded, there will be more sensational headlines etc. but NOBODY will go to jail. NOBODY will be dragged out and shot. I challenge Nigerians to prove me wrong. I challenge Nigerians to warn their councillors and representatives in the House & Senate that if someone is not held to account, THEY will face the consequences, starting with a petition for immediate recall. (And that will just be the beginning)

But I know am wasting my time. In 2015, (if the country still exists) I know the "largest party in Africa" will win again with the full support of Nigerians. And the cycle of madness will begin anew.

Broken country, broken people.

+1

[color=Black][b]HOUSE OF REPS FUEL SUBSIDY PROBE: Farouk Lawan: what is Nigeria’s daily fuel consumption?
Diezieni: 52million Liters
NNPC: 35m liters
DPR: 43m liters
PPPRA: 24M liters
Okonjo: 40M liters

Farouk Lawan: What was the subsidy for 2011?
Diezieni: 1.4Trillion
Okonjo: 1.3Trillion
CBN: 1.7Trillion

Farouk Lawan: Can we have the KPMG REPORT?
Okonjo: I have to go through the report first
Diezieni: I have not seen the report

Farouk Lawan: What is the production capacity of our local refineries?’
NNPC: 30%
PPPRA: 20%
DPR: 13%
Diezieni: 15%

Farouk Lawan: Does Nigeria pay subsidy on locally refined Products?
Diezaini: it depends
NNPC: The lay man cannot understand how it’s done
PPPRA: yes
DPR: No

Farouk Lawan: Why is Kerosene still scarce?
Diezieni: Because its use by the aviation industry as aviation fuel
NNPC: Because there is no subsidy so NNPC overstretched its resources
PPPRA: it’s not properly deregulated

Farouk Lawan: what is the balance in the subsidy accounts?
Diezieni: it’s a virtual account
NNPC: There is no account in existence as the lay man will look at it
PPPRA: The account is a technical one
CBN: There is no account with us for subsidy
Okonjo: The account exists but not with a bank.
Hmmm, abracadabra, the more you see the less u understand![/b][/color]

OMG!!!  

This Is despicable to say the least. why are these Fulani's so heartless?

Hmmm. . . .

Born in Gusau, Zamfara State in May 5th. 1958. Elisted in Nigeria Police in July 30th 1979. Promoted to the rank of IG on 30th of November 2006. Due for retirement on 30th July 2014. He was indicted over Jos unrest in 2001 and recommended for outright DISMISSAL in 2002. Education qualification: Diploma in Public Admin/Criminal Justice. He became AIG Zone 12, Bauchi on 15 Nov 2011.

The Justice Niki Tobi panel constituted in September 2001 by former Governor Joshua Dariye on the Jos crisis had recommended the retirement MD Abubakar from the Police force. He ws also with Biu in d airport bomb cover up during Abacha era. D blast that killed Dr Omoshola.

In a White Paper released in Jos, the panel suggested that AIG Abubakar should be dismissed if he refuses to retire.

The panel said: "Religious fanatics should not be posted to head state police commands. The commission recommends that for his ignoble role during the September 2001 crisis which resulted in the loss of lives, the former Commissioner of Police, Plateau State Command, Alhaji M.D. Abubakar, be advised to retire from the Nigeria Police Force and in the event of his refusal to do so, he should be dismissed from the service."

Abubakar from Zamfara State who was indicted twice between 2004 and 2006 by a Jos crises Panel, is alleged to have sponsored some Islamist Militant Group when he was Commissioner of Police in Bauchi and Plateau States.


Source: www.thestreetjournal.org

@pendo89 - Thanks for your sound, sweet and straight forward advise.

Btw, I plan taking her out on a dinner tonight and tell her what i feel concerning this subject matter.

@Pendo89, Sijo01 and Mynd_44, Thanks for your input. I 'll try and talk her and see what she got to say 'bout it.

Hey Peeps,

My gf does this stuff that annoys me. We'll be in a restaurant having a conversation, her phone will make a noise and she'll whip it out to check it immediately, and if its a call, she'll answer it right there in the middle of a sentence. She will even wake me up in the morning talking on her phone because someone decided to call at the ungodly hour of 4am. She has this compulsive need to answer every call or text as soon as it comes in, regardless of the situation. It's annoying enough when it's just small talk, but if I'm trying to talk about something important and she interrupts me because her cousin is texting to ask if he can hang out, I get mad.

What should i do? I need a sincere advise on this.

Cancerous i would say, it's eating deeper. Something must be done and the earlier the better.

Na Wao! Which way Nigeria? This is getting out of hand. . .

Multiple explosions have rocked Kano, the biggest city in northern Nigeria.

The BBC's Yusuf Yakasai in the city says there is pandemonium with people running all over the place and plumes of smoke rising into the sky.

One of the blasts hit the police headquarters and two other police stations, he says.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, but Islamist militants have been behind a recent campaign of violence in the mainly Muslim north.

Our reporter says after the explosions, gunshots could be heard.

The blasts targeted different neighbourhoods of the city.

So far he is aware of explosions at the police headquarters in the west, one police station in the centre, and another police station in the south.

A reporter for the AP news agency said one of the explosions was powerful enough to shake his car several miles away from the blast.

The Islamist Boko Haram group, whose name means "Western education is forbidden", wants to establish Sharia (Islamic law) in Nigeria and started to stage drive-by shootings in 2010 on government targets in its base in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri.

It has stepped up its attacks in 2011, attacking the headquarters of the police and the UN in the capital, Abuja.

In recent weeks, southerners, who are mostly Christians or animists, living in the north have been the targets of deadly attacks.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-16658493

[color=Black]Movie: 24hours, Actor: NPF (aka Jack Bauer), Terrorist: Kabiru Sokoto (aka Boko Haram), President: GEJ (aka Mumu), Passerby: Twitter/Facebook[/color]

[color=Black]Comedy of the Absurd![/color]

[color=Black]A father’s regret , I brought him from London to serve his fatherland. Yet, they killed my son [/color]


The killing took place eight months ago but for Elder A. N Opkokiri, the brutal murder of his son, Obinna, in Giade, Bauchi State, by hoodlums during the post-election violence, has left an indelible mark.



Obinna, a graduate of Abia State University, Uturu, and nine of his colleagues, undergoing the National Youth Service in Giade were killed by hoodlums on April 18.

Engaged by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the elections, Obinna and the other corps members did their work diligently during and after the presidential elections on April 16, after which they retired to their lodge to rest.

But two days later, as the results were being released, protests broke out in parts of the north and Giade, a hitherto peaceful town in Bauchi State, was one of those engulfed.

Obinna and his colleagues fled to the Giade Police station after their Corpers’ Lodge in the town had been attacked by a group of hoodlums, who were angry that their candidate was losing the election.

At the station, Obinna and his colleagues were helpless as the police on duty could not calm the hoodlums, who had gone berserk. They eventually overpowered the policemen and killed a female police officer and the corps members before setting the station ablaze.

The bereaved father’s positive impression of the people of the state after the unfortunate event nearly changed after his son’s murder but for the approach of the state governor, Isa Yuguda.

“When this thing happened, I thought there were no people living in Bauchi. I was very angry with the way things went initially. If anybody had told me that this type of thing would happen to me, I would say it was a lie.”

Opkokiri, who spoke with this reporter in Israel, admitted that the manner in which his son, who was undergoing the national service in Giade, was killed initially left a bad impression about the North in his mind.

The retired civil servant from Abia State revealed that but for the loving sympathy displayed by the governor of the state, Mallam Isa Yuguda, he initially wondered if those living in Bauchi were human beings at all.

Opkokiri, who was among the 399 pilgrims sponsored by the Bauchi State Government to Israel, commended the governor’s gentle and kind disposition during the family’s ordeal.

He maintained that although all the sympathy and show of love by the governor and the people of Bauchi State towards the bereaved family would not bring Obinna back, the gestures had gone a long way in healing the wounds of his son’s untimely demise.

He said his meeting with the governor had also cleared the erroneous impression he used to have about Yuguda.

Okpokiri said he would remain eternally grateful for the love shown to his family by the state governor in their moment of grief.

He said the pain of losing Obinna, whom he described as a very kind-hearted person that deeply cared for others, was a shock.

He said: “Before they were killed, we were told that Obinna was encouraging his colleagues not to give up hope, he was encouraging them to be strong. Even when they were trapped at the station, I was told that my son was comforting them, assuring them that everything would be alright.”

But the situation went bad for Obinna and his colleagues as the account of a sister of one of the slain corps members showed.

Pleading anonymity, she said: “From what he was telling me when they were chased to the police station, I knew he was in trouble. My brother, who called us on phone did not want to say anything negative about their situation because he was a devout Christian. I asked him, please tell us, are they going to kill you people but he replied that ‘it is well.’ My brother told me that the DPO was trying to talk to the angry youths, who surrounded the station armed with dangerous weapons. Few minutes later we could not reach him on phone again.”

Elder Opkokiri said he still felt very sad that his son was murdered by the hoodlums. According to him, he regretted putting pressure on his son to come to Nigeria from his base in London to undergo the mandatory one year National Youth Service.

He said: “When Obinna finished his B. SC. programme in 2006, he went to the United Kingdom to live and work but I was not comfortable with the idea. I prevailed on him to come to Nigeria for the NYSC because his papers were not complete in the UK. I did not want him to be living there illegally.”

Obinna obeyed his father’s advice and he was among the 2010 batch of corps members posted to serve in Giade.

“Sometimes, I regret inviting him to come to Nigeria. He was a good bo, who was determined to be somebody in life and he worked very hard. I just wanted him to do the right thing because he was not living easy in the UK because of his papers. I believe my son is in heaven. I get on my knees everyday and pray for him.”

Elder Opkokiri said he had forgiven the people, who murdered his son but called on them to repent and accept God otherwise the blood of the innocent ones they shed would be on their head.

However, in all this, the bereaved dad said the magnanimity of Governor Yuguda throughout the ordeal of the family strengthened them and gave them a sense of belonging.

His words: “The governor was really concerned and touched and he has done quite a lot to heal the pains of the families and comfort us. He personally visited me in my home and his words of encouragement really made us strong. He has been a wonderful person and I want Nigerians to know that.”

When he finished she lay violated and abused so breathless she could not speak. We stand as witnesses to the despoil of the masses. He took her to the room and removed her subsidy without her consent.

She tried to protest but he was a stronger contestant, she even threatened to strike but he struck back hard, he sucked her excess account and squeezed her lovely economy.

Her wailing was in vain, what a shame! He went on to deregulate her downstream sector that was oily, she couldn't say anything. She cried as he pumped her 97 times without shoes.

He despoil.d her!

@op, i lost 12kg in 4months. And here is how i did it:

I exercise 4 times a week most time , but other days 5 times a week. 2hrs  to 3hrs par day.

I take 1 apple for breakfast before heading to the Gym.

For Lunch, i go for grill fish, spinach and carrot.

For Dinner, i go for salad made up of Cucumber, green vegetables, olives, broccoli and asparagus.

Note, i follow this diet base on my blood group, which is A+.

I take my dinner at least 3 hrs before i go to bed.

Tribal Bigots trolling

By Tim Cocks | Reuters



LAGOS (Reuters) - "Nigeria is not Animal Farm!" read one placard brandished during days of furious fuel price protests by Nigerians which have combined with a violent Islamist insurgency to move Africa's top oil producer closer to what many fear may be a breaking point.

The same political vices of corrupt leadership and abuse of power which George Orwell skewered in his 1945 novella "Animal Farm" have corroded Nigeria's politics since independence from Britain in 1960. Angry popular backlash against these is fuelling the latest violence and unrest in the African continent's most populous state.

This anti-establishment fury brought Africa's second largest economy to a standstill last week. Citizens from all walks of life have taken to the streets after President Goodluck Jonathan's government announced on January 1 it would scrap a motor fuel subsidy, more than doubling fuel prices.
The volcano of public rage has erupted at the same time that a spate of bombings and shootings by a shadowy Islamist sect is threatening to fracture the country's sensitive north-south, Muslim-Christian divide. This religious faultline has caused sectarian conflict claiming thousands of lives in the past.
Some are now asking whether this dynamic but troubled country of 160 million, carved by colonial rulers out of a jigsaw of ethnic and religious groups, can still hold together or risks plunging again into all-out conflict and even break-up.

Many still remember the divisive 1967-1970 civil war over secessionist Biafra that killed over a million people and caused mass starvation, dislocation and suffering.

"As the ripples of incessant bombings and massacres resonate , fear, anger and hatred have been woven into the very fabric of the nation's life," Soni Daniel, deputy editor of Nigerian daily Leadership wrote in an editorial on Saturday.

"Nigeria has never come as close to the brink of civil war," he added.
The nationwide fuel protests have become an outlet for thousands to vent their grievances against what they see as a venal ruling political class and incompetent government, which is struggling to tackle an insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamist sect based in the largely Muslim north.

"The bottom line is we don't trust the government to do what they say anymore," said student Remi Sonaiya, sitting on a car blaring out Afrobeat music in the heaving Nigerian metropolis of Lagos, while protesters thrashed an effigy of President Jonathan across the face with leafy branches.
Unions launched strikes against the fuel subsidy removal and these are estimated to be costing the country $600 million a day. They have also threatened to shut down Nigeria's 2 million barrel-per-day oil industry, rattling global energy markets.

Talks between Jonathan and labor unions on Saturday failed to reach a compromise, and the unions said the crippling strikes would resume on Monday. But the main oil union said it was not joining the walkouts for the time being.

FEARS OF CIVIL WAR


Jennifer Giroux, senior researcher for the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich University, says the fuel prices issue is "a common rallying point , A unifying issue that has had an immediate impact on the majority of Nigerians, most of whom are making $2 a day or less."
The crisis mood is a far cry from the cautious optimism that greeted Jonathan last April, when he won Nigeria's cleanest ever election on a pledge to fight graft, fix a crumbling power sector and attract investment into its huge oil reserves.
Then, foreign analysts saw a potential take-off for the economy if the former zoology lecturer could push through key reforms and take steps towards healing the north-south rift.

One such recommended reform was ending the fuel subsidy but the president's January 1 decision to remove it convulsed a country already shaken by a wave of Christmas attacks claimed by Boko Haram, including church bombings that killed dozens and stoked sectarian tensions.
Attacks have continued during the fuel protests. Targeting of minority Christians triggered reprisals by Christians on Muslims in the south, even though the majority of the two communities have shown in the past they can live in peace.

During fuel price protests in southwestern Benin City on Tuesday, five people were killed when a mob attacked a mosque, and 3,000 Muslims of northern origin fled.

Fears that the unrest and violence could degenerate into something even bigger seem to be gaining some traction.
"The situation we have in our hands is even worse than the civil war that we fought," Jonathan said in recent comments about the Boko Haram insurgency.
"During the civil war, we knew where the enemy was coming from. (Now) you won't even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house," he said, warning that Boko Haram members were in "all levels of government."

And in a recent interview with the BBC, Nobel prize-winning Nigerian author Wole Soyinka said the comparison with the traumatic Biafra war was "not unrealistic."

"We see the nation heading towards a civil war, we know that the (Biafra) civil war was preceded by serious killings by both sides of the regional divide, we've seen reprisals," he said.

"It is going that way, we no longer can pretend it's not. When you get a situation where a bunch of people can go into a place of worship and open fire through the windows, you've reached a certain dismal watershed."

[color=Black]PRESIDENT - AND ARMY - UNDER SCRUTINY[/color]

Some question whether civilian Jonathan, who as vice president first took power in May 2010 when his predecessor Umaru Yar'Adua died, has the capacity to lead Nigeria out of its multi-headed crisis.

They worry that his miscalculation of the public mood over the fuel subsidy removal, and his slow reaction to the escalating Boko Haram insurgency suggest he may struggle.

"There are serious questions about how in control the president is, with some really poor decision making. Is Goodluck Jonathan really able to provide visionary leadership?" asked Alex Vines, senior fellow and Africa specialist at London think tank Chatham House.

"There seems to be just drift and indecisiveness."
A civil servant who works with Jonathan says privately that his style differs from the many military rulers that have often run Nigeria in the past. He listens, even lets people interrupt, which some in Nigeria's macho politics may see as a weakness.
The son of a canoe carver in the oil-rich Niger Delta, Jonathan studied zoology, in which he earned a doctorate, and worked as an education inspector, lecturer and environmental protection officer before going into politics in 1998.

He was northerner Yar'Adua's running mate in a shambolic election in 2007, but his campaign to run himself after Yar'Adua's death was controversial because of an informal pact within the ruling PDP party that the presidency should rotate between the north and the south.

As a southeast Christian, by running for the leadership he upset that rotation deal in the eyes of many northerners.
The early signs that Jonathan's first elected term as president would not be smooth came hours after he was sworn in on May 30. A series of bombings killed at least 14 people in a drinking spot inside a barracks in the northern city of Bauchi.

Most observers see a political element to the recurrent violence in the north, which analysts say is also rooted in anger - as with the fuel price protests - against the lack of economic opportunities caused by decades of poor governance.
Boko Haram's heartland in the remote, semi-arid northeast is one of the country's poorest regions, where a failed education system and youth unemployment have conspired to provide easy recruits for extremists.

Last year, Boko Haram attacks spread and even hit the capital Abuja, yet Jonathan's reaction has often appeared low-key. Some critics have faulted him for initially treating the insurgency as a purely security issue, rather than as something requiring a political settlement.
"He's eerily calm considering we could be weeks away from a major confrontation," said Africa Confidential editor Patrick Smith. "The absolute failure , to wheel on southerners and northerners at the same time to say this is a national crisis and we have to pull together, is striking."

The biggest fear, Smith said, is that the army - whose upper ranks are all southern Christians, while junior officers and lower ranks are a mix of both from many geographical locations - could fracture if a section of it launches a mutiny.
There are already rumblings in the military, he said.

"The next big faultline is the army, and how well they stay together , If it splits, that is this country's nightmare."
In addition, that fact that Jonathan is an Ijaw from the southern Niger Delta means that any attempt to unseat him by force - especially by a northerner - could trigger a backlash in the Delta by militants who have fought the government before.
A former Niger Delta warlords Mujahid Dokubo-Asari said this month that his people taking up arms to defend Jonathan against Boko Haram was "minutes away.

[color=Black]ROOTS IN CORRUPTION, INEQUALITY[/color]

Despite the serious strains, many point out that Nigeria has often lurched from crisis to crisis but, at least since the Biafra war, has managed to avoid a total breakdown.

An armed uprising in the Niger Delta last decade - similarly driven by anger at the failure of politicians to deliver local services - lasted years and shut down almost half of Nigeria's oil and gas output at one stage. Nevertheless, Delta militants signed a peace deal with the government in 2009.

"The president can survive the dual crisis if he manages to keep the support of key political actors from the Parliament, the state governors and some sectors of the civil society," Gilles Yabi, West Africa Project Director of the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, told Reuters.
"I don't think that the level of radicalization and polarization that preceded the Biafra war can be easily reached today," he added.
Others feel however the country may have come to a crossroads. "Do things have to get either better or worse very quickly or can it just muddle along as it always has?" said Antony Goldman, who heads London-based PM Consulting.

Yabi said it was encouraging that the unions promoting the strikes had agreed to go into negotiations with the president.
Goldman noted that Boko Haram's leader Abubakar Shekau did not specifically rule out talks in an otherwise defiant online video in which he defended recent killings of Christians as justifiable revenge attacks and said Jonathan had no power to stop the group's insurgency.
In his video, Shekau appears to echo popular complaints against dysfunctional established politics when he says "injustice is unbelief, democracy is unbelief and the constitution is unbelief."

Stephen Ellis, a historian at the Africa Studies Center at Leiden University in the Netherlands, sees Jonathan as a wily politician who has already shown he has the skills to operate in Nigeria's challenging politics, which he calls "a very rough business , like a poker game , or juggling chain saws."
Ellis makes the point that all the country's power brokers, including those in the restive North who may be pursuing their own agendas by using the Boko Haram insurgency to pressure southerner Jonathan, are dependent on the national oil income.

"If you are a member of the Nigerian elite, including those in the north, you need the Nigerian state to be in business," he says, a factor which could lead, as in the past since the Biafra war, to a fresh political accommodation that restores calm.
But tackling the deeply and widely embedded corruption that lubricates all levels of Nigeria's political system is a much tougher challenge in the long term.

"A really determined effort to stamp out corruption would itself be massively destabilizing. It can only be done gradually," Ellis said.
But until this happens, outbreaks of angry protests and violence are likely to recur in an energy-rich country that pumps 2 million barrels of oil a day with the help of oil majors like Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil, while its citizens face crumbling roads, abysmal public hospitals, chronic power shortages and an economy rigged in favor of powerful import oligarchs.

"Nigeria , has been ruled by the same cult of mediocrity - a deeply corrupt cabal - for at least forty years, recycling themselves in different guises and incarnations," said famed Nigerian author Chinua Achebe in a recent interview with the Christian Science Monitor.
Achebe's acclaimed 1958 novel "Things Fall Apart" tells of social dislocation stemming from colonial rule and can be seen as a prescient foretelling of Nigeria's post-independence pains.

So any political deal may only buy some time before the next explosion of anger in a deeply fractured and unequal society.
"For ordinary people, it's become about everything that's wrong in Nigeria , about tens of millions of people paying for the champagne lifestyle of dozens of people," Goldman said.


(Additional Reporting by Pascal Fletcher in Johannesburg; Writing by Tim Cocks; Editing by Pascal Fletcher/Janet McBride)

Thank God!!

Doesn't surprise me one bit. Some of the nicest, most generous and caring people I have ever met have had next to nothing. But they have a ton of heart and goodness and God Bless them for that.

Here is to all Nairalanders!

Wishing you the Gifts of Peace and Happiness this Christmas and throughout the New Year

I weep for Nigeria, the politicians are r@ping the citizens openly, and nobody can do anything about it.

@PointB, I seconded NRI PRIEST based on the allegation which Ezeuche is being accused of. I hereby withdraw my nomination for  Ezeuche and throw my full support behind  Dede1.

^^^ Lmao!!!

Point B
Eziachi
High Chief
Onlythetruth
Ezeuche

God is one of the oldest concepts in human history and still the least understood. Today the world can be described as split on God into those who believe in Him (believers or the religious) and those who do not believe him (Atheists). Even amongst those who believe in God, there is no consensus about his nature, will, way and manner he interacts with human beings. The result is that the world is divided on God. Yet the idea of God elicits strong emotions that often threaten the very existence of humanity. The place of religion and the role God play in the life of Nigerians make God a very important part of our lives, hence this attempt to draw attention to God, with hope that it would open up enlightened debate that would improve understanding. If you are sure that you already have the truth, please read no further, for this article contains views that may impact on your faith.



Religion regards God as the all-knowing and all powerful creator who made the world and directs its affairs in a mysterious way, while atheists regard the idea of God as at best, spurious and tend to offer explanation for our existence of the basis of the theory of evolution and scientific empiricism. However, the fact is that God is an attribution system which man cannot really do without because he is the source of all man’s moral codes. However, atheists tend to argue for an evolutionary development of morality that has nothing to do with God while believers see God as the source of moral conscience that enable human beings to think in terms of good or bad, right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable, kind or unkind just and unjust, etc. It is this ability to think in a moral dimension that makes us human.


Without the sanctifying influence of God on our conscience i: e either as karma, Almighty Allah, the tri-personality Christian God, or the partisan Jewish God etc. Human beings would have been just another mammalian species struggling for survival without the concept of justice as fairness, sin and right and wrong. We would have been simply the most advanced vicious Ape with the biggest brain to destroy each other. Our planet would have been a lot worse than it is today. It would have been a real hell.

Without God, the concept of the survival of the fittest as proposed by believers in Darwinian evolutionary theory would have made a lot of sense; and anything done in the name of survival would have been understandable, acceptable and just. We would accept them as we accept that a lion commits no crime when it kills to eat. People who dispute the idea of God fail to acknowledge that it is the values derived from the concept of God that give rise to civil values and virtues that make us human. Without these values and virtues, we would just be the naked Ape with the biggest phallus described by Desmond Morris in his book the naked Ape.

Life on planet earth have become a struggle to understand our rightful relationship with our unseen maker which often dominate our lives, and the apparent contradiction we sometimes experience when we confront the mystery our existence, origin and essence of life. As we make the journey from cradle to grave, we are confronted with the reality of life and do not get the answers which our questions demand. We experience natural disasters that defy explanations, witness incomprehensible injustices which challenge understanding and wonders why they should exist if a loving, all powerful, just and all-knowing God exists. We are tempted to conclude like Shakespeare, that life is really a tale, told by a fool full of fury, and signifying nothing. Is this true? Are we just like the beautiful butterfly created to last only for a short time? Why do we come to existence through a process which at first is very pleasurable, only to become painful and difficult as the journey progresses. Why do we grow old? Why do we think? Why do we struggle to gain everything only to lose all in the end? Why do we spend our life accumulating that which we cannot keep? Why do we send men to war only to make peace after unimaginable destructions? Why do we have the need to dominate others? Why are we so intolerant of descent and differences? Why does the colour of one’s skin matter, why does what one believe about God matter? Why should ideas people hold in their minds about and unseen transcendence matter? It is the complexity of these questions that makes the case for God because only a correct understanding of God will enable us to begin to answer these questions and reconcile the contradiction at the root of our conflicts.

The evidence would suggest that God, if he exists as religion often claims or depicts Him, many not act in the way and manner religion often claims. While one can be persuaded to believe in the noble values attributed to God, it is difficult to reconcile such attributes with many of the things religion claim God do or did. It is this incongruity between the attributes of God and what religion ascribed to him that is the heart of the confusion of many religions which give atheist the impetus to ridicule God. It is illogical to believe that a God who has the character religion describes can behave in the many way religion claim he does. For instance how can religion claim that God is just and at the same time claim that he played favourite with Israel and promised them other people’s land? It is this discrepancy between the character of God and what religion often claims he does that suggest that a good God has been misrepresented.

It is certain that God is not on the side of any particular religion or nation, but works with individuals who do his will. By the will of God, I mean all the good virtues that have been ascribed to God. This is because the will of God is something that no human can know unless God tells him. Unfortunately, the evidence would suggest that God does not have a habit of talking to people face to face. The truth is that the loving, kind and just God cannot be the partial and vengeful God of the Jews, who sanctioned the atrocities they committed on their way from slavery to nationhood. In the same light, it is obvious that God could not have had anything to do with the Jihad and crusades carried out in his name. I have seen no evidence that God is a Jew or an Arab. Neither is God American nor European. Certainly God is not African, Asian or Chinese, or Japanese. God after all may be the composite attributes ascribed to him and does not exist in the form religion is desperate to believe. Indeed He does not act in many mays religion chose to believe.

In fact, God knows that it is not important for Him to exist in the forms he is often depicted or misrepresented by many religions. The evidence would suggest that God prefers to exist in our thoughts, values, principles and behaviours. God prefers to exist in our love, kindness, justice long suffering, tolerance and peaceful co-existence. These are the forms in which God exist and expects human beings to experience him. God does not seem interested anymore in men and women climbing smoking mountains looking for him, or walking round the tomb of ancient prophets expecting to find him.

The long rituals of religions and the elaborate ceremonies made in the name of God are contraptions of those who have discovered that a lot of untaxed money can be made in the name of God. The sacrifices made with animal blood do not mean anything to the real God, if the people offering them do not live out His characters in their daily lives. Many of the Jewish prophets said this much and more to the Jewish nations, only for the leaders to persecute them. Jesus said the same to the Pharisees and Sadducees of his time and the Apostle Paul found out the same fact on his way to Damascus the Bible reports. God often has nothing to do with wars, and terrorism that are carried out in his name and seldom has anything to do with the selfish self-serving activities of organised religion.

In fact God can be liked to food and organised religions like McDonald KFC and Wimpy, each clamming that they produce the best food but actually selling junks. These companies are in the fast food business to make money like many religious organisations in Nigeria of today. This is why men invented religion, to make money in the name of God while exercising control over their fellow men.

Today Robert Mugabe is terrorising Zimbabwe. He claims to be a Christian. He lives in hope that when he dies prayers would be said to God to receive him into heaven. His religious beliefs enable to live with himself after great evil in the hope that all he needs to do is confess to a priest and perform the necessary rituals needed for his forgiveness. Religion does not allow people to see the monstrosity and the often irreversible nature of evil and its long term consequences. Is it then surprising that members of the Sicilian Mafia and Columbia drug cartel are very religious and active in their churches. In Nigeria we had and continue to have leaders who orchestrate their religiosity, only to sit back, and loot the treasury, rig elections, protect criminals and kill their opponents, while remaining active member of his religious organisations.

If running a country on religious laws ever makes a country better, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Italy, Nigeria etc. would have been a beacon of peace and tolerance and heaven on earth. The fact is that religion is only right and appropriate for practice at individual level. God is interested in having personal relationship with individuals because it is the only way to make the world better. Such individual relationships bring about change from within. Religion is not meant to be imposed and enforced by law at national levels. It is supposed to be something people engage in by choice. A national religion or a religious state takes away this God given right and freedom of belief and conscience. History tells us that every attempt at establishing a religious country has been a disaster as religion deteriorates into an instrument of oppression, abuse and denial of individual liberty. From the Israelites to the Iranians, religious states have proved to be intolerant, authoritarian, oppressive, corrupt, against the truth and knowledge they cannot control. A country cannot become a religious state and remain true to the ideals of freedom, democracy and liberty of conscience, for the simple reason that it involves acceptance of predetermined values which are not subject to debate, common sense, and empirical evidence.

When I examine certain teachings and beliefs in the three Abrahamic religions, I wonder if there is a need in these religions to believe the absurd. Take the for instance the general teaching in Christianity that a Virgin gave birth without having sex at a time artificial insemination or in vitro fertilization was not known. This is most intriguing to a scientific mind who understands the science of reproduction. Of course, some religious people will simply conclude that people who question this miraculous birth lack understanding of the mysterious ways of God, or that they fail to take on board that God can do anything. They may be right. But I have considered them and concluded that God does not make square circles just to prove he is God. Take the claim by some Muslims about paradise and what awaits men who arrive there which spare no thought for the feelings of the seventy virgins who would be sharing one man. I wonder if they would consider such place a paradise. The claim by Judaism that they have a special place in heaven is another bizarre teaching which ridicules religion. The concept of trinity as I have argued elsewhere is another dogma in Christianity that defies logic. How can God exist in three different persons at the same time and one of the of the entities calls God his father? Christianity simply refuses to consider that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit may exist as a Triumvirate, sharing everything and ideals in common. Many would regard this as blasphemy while forgetting that Jesus was accused of blasphemy when he spoke truth about God which the Jews did not believe or shared. They refuse to wonder how a person can be someone’s father if both came into existence at the same time. The concept of father and son is based on the simple fact that the father existed before the son. But in religion logic makes no sense.


However, even if evidence is uncovered that the virgin birth is a hoax, there is still a lot in the life of Jesus to believe that he was sent by God. This is for the simple reason that God does not need to impregnate a woman for a human being to become his son. He created human beings therefore anybody born in this world is a child of God. In fact, God does not really need to be born in the way these religions claim, even though with God, the absurd and ridiculous may be true. I often wonder if there was really any necessity for the Holy Spirit to impregnate another man’s wife, while aware that any liaison with another man’s wife that results in pregnancy could be rightly described as adultery.


Cleckley in his book mask of sanity describes what human can become when completed devoid of the image of God in their mind. Now and then we see the full extent of what such minds can do when they gain power. In the lives of Idi Amin, who was a Muslim, Hitler, who was a Christian, Pol pot, probably Buddhist, to mention only but a few, we see what people can become when they lack the inner refining influence of the fear of God. Some religious people may argue that these men were possessed by the devil. However, they fail to understand that what they describe as possession by the devil is simply the absence of good. In fact, devil possession is something that happens when people reject goodness because evil is the absence of good.


From the above reasons and more, the choice to believe in God is very attractive and understandable. It is in fact it can contribute to a large extent to a moral life because God is the source of justice, freedom, choice, peace, kindness and the rule of law. In fact, God is simply good without the extra zero and when you add extra zero to God you get good. This is of course if you are thinking in English language. The extra zero in good means others. God is really about giving others the same consideration you give to yourself and your loved ones, and you do not need a religion to do this.


Murder, rape, paedophilia, greed, use of drugs, corruption, robbery and other vices which diminish humanity would have made a lot of sense without God. It is sane and cool to choose to believe in God for the additional reason that God represents values which make life worthwhile. Without them, life would truly be the result of the interplay between our selfish genes and the environment. A true survival of the fittest and anything done in the name of survival would have been understandable and right. Thank God, people can choose to believe in God, it makes human beings out of animals.


By E O Eke

RIP! Chukwuemeka Odimegwu Ojukwu.


@Bluetooth, omonnakoda, Namfav and all You Ojukwu haters - Your bigotry is sleeping out. You all should be careful. Maybe taking your heads out of your A.n.a.l orifice would help.