Saturday, December 30, 2017

Fuel Scarcity: Where Are The New Refineries?

By Erasmus Ikhide
General Muhammadu Buhari sold a dummy to Nigerians in 2015 at his electioneering when he promised to build more refineries and fix the old ones if elected the President of Nigeria in the next four years.
Three critical years of his mandatory four years in office have been wasted on revitalizing his troubled health. He has been chasing supposedly corrupt imaginary political enemies without actual prosecution, while his favoured kitchen cabinet members like Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff and Maikanti Baru, the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) have been massing up billion of dollars for his reelection in 2019.
President Buhari’s democratic governance style has shown that a new type of military tyranny which does not require physical strength or actual presence to secure its callous suzerainty is blooming at full mast all over Nigeria.
 Nearly two decades after the military was literally chased to the barracks, a democratically elected president has become so clueless and adamant like a rogue tyrant superintending over the gloom and despondency of the suffering mass of Nigerian people.

Israel And The Arab World

By Sunday O. Ajai
A few weeks ago, the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, recognised Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. His statement shook the whole world especially the Arab league. As expected the Arab nations rejected President Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
The Arab league recognised a division of Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine state. Not only do they think Israel has no right to exist as a state, but they think the Jewish people have no right to survive. 
The resistance of the Arab countries to Israel’s national aspiration has always been tied to the Muslim world’s ultimate resistance to the right of the Jewish people to exist at all.
Peaceful co-existence has never been the goal of the Arabs nor even have Jews living dispersed in other lands without a country. The real goals have been the abnegation and in its worst extermination of the Jewish race itself.

Friday, December 29, 2017

Donald Trump, Jerusalem And The United Nations

By Chris Akiri
On Tuesday, December 7, 2017, the U.S. President, Donald J. Trump, declared Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, promising to relocate the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Following this declaration, there was mass hysteria in the Arab world, condemning the declaration as a dead set against the peace mediation process in the Israeli-Palestinian imbroglio and against International Law. I dare say that a sizeable crop of the anti-declaration protesters inveighs against the U.S. recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel from the angle of vision of religion and cheap, emotional sentiments. 
*US President Donald Trump and Israeli
PM Benjamin Netanyahu
From a remote period of antiquity, except on those excruciating periods when it was conquered and occupied by more powerful enemies, the City of Jerusalem, located in the Judean Hills of Israel and appears 719 times in Bible verses, has been the capital of the United Monarchy of Israel over which ruled countless Hebrew monarchs, including, but not limited to, David and Solomon (1 Kings 1:37, 2 Samuel 8:11-21 and 1Kings 8:21).

Nigeria: The March Of Progress And The March Of Misery

By Dan Agbese
Klump. Klump. Klump. It is the inexorable march of human progress. Nations march; individuals march. Kings march and commoners march. Rulers march and the ruled march.
*Benin-Auchi-Okene Federal Highway
The grand purpose of our relentless march is to move away from the undesirable to the desirable; from a life of hard scrabble in a village, for instance, to a modern life of luxury in towns and cities, as in Lekki in Lagos, Asokoro in Abuja and other enclaves of the wealthy and the well-heeled. Nations march to move from being under-developed to developing and thence to developed nations. The developed nations march because they want to develop even more and uneven the score.

Thursday, December 28, 2017

President Buhari’s Year Of Sleaze

By Paul Onomuakpokpo
It would have been an intriguing surprise if this year were to end without the government of President Muhammadu Buhari being further begrimed with its scandalous quest for $1 billion to fight insecurity. It is not unexpected that since the Buhari government has been bogged down by cases of corruption from the beginning of the year, it is ending it with the controversial $1 billion quest that betrays the vacuity of its claims to zero tolerance for corruption.
*President Buhari 

We should remember that the Buhari government has gleefully touted its successful trouncing of Boko Haram as a validation of its electoral mandate and a loud rebuke of the government of Goodluck Jonathan who floundered in the face of the insurgents. Now, the same Buhari government wants to deplete the Excess Crude Account by $1 billion to fight the already defeated insurgents. And this is after reportedly paying three million pounds for the release of some Chibok girls.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

Gov Okorocha Restores Assumpta Avenue, Owerri

The Imo State Government has corrected what it called the “error” or oversight of “wrongly installing a street sign suggesting (the) renaming” of Assumpta AvenueIt has equally apoligised for the very unpopular action.

Assumpta Avenue which was named after Maria Assumpta Cathedral of the Owerri Catholic Archdiocese was reportedly changed to Muhammadu Buhari Road by Governor Rochas Okorocha.  
*Gov Rochas Okorocha
In a statement issued in Owerri by the state commissioner for information, Professor Obiaraeri N.O, the government informed the general public that the street’s name, Assumpta Avenue, remains unchanged.

It would be recalled that the decision of Governor Okorocha to rename the street drew the ire of the Roman Catholic community in Owerri and across the nation.

Sunday, December 24, 2017

‘The Human Side Of President Buhari’

By Fredrick Nwabufo


The header of this article is the title of a 55-minute documentary on President Muhammadu Buhari.
 
The documentary has been scheduled to air on NTA this evening.

The presidency says “the documentary portrays the president in a light that majority of Nigerians have not seen him”.
 
I find this – ‘human side of Buhari’ – farcical and puerile. Does it mean the president has an animal side? What other human side could he have than his much vaunted “sense of humor”?
 
Buhari’s “sense of humor” has been elevated by his media handlers to a national diadem.
 
His media handlers are always quick to play on this harp – “Buhari’s sense of humor” – whenever there is citizen angst.

Elegy For Bola Ige: A Soul Uncle

By Lekan Alabi
On Saturday, 23rd December this year, it will be 16 years that the late Chief ’Bola Ige, SAN, a former Governor of Old Oyo State and sitting Attorney-General and Minister of Justice of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, was assassinated in his Bodija Estate, Ibadan home.
*Late Bola Ige
I was a press secretary to the late Chief Ige, when he was governor of Oyo State and also the chairman of the Protocol and Publicity Sub-Committee of his Burial Planning Committee.

Friday, December 22, 2017

As Wicked As The Nigerian State

By Dan Amor
Anyone living in Nigeria especially since the 2015 general elections and the subsequent emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as President would have known that politically the nation is sitting on the keg of gun powder. There is a regime of palpable fear in the land as the political thermometer cannot easily be interpreted by analysts no matter how discerning they might be. The situation is compounded by an unnerving weight of mayhem that appears to have engulfed the entire geo-political space like a cankerworm. Rampaging Fulani herdsmen on killing spree have turned many states in the North West and North Central, and many parts of Southern Nigeria to killing fields thereby sentencing thousands of armless Nigerians to their early graves without a blink of an eyelid from the government.
*President Buhari 
In fact, the quality of democratic practice in the past two and a half years has been abysmal, with public functionaries at all levels of government consciously exploiting the weaknesses of the system to advance interests that run counter to the common good. Within the same administration, the Directorate of State Services and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission are at daggers drawn just as the Ministry of Justice and the same EFCC do not see eye to eye. There is a huge disconnect in the security architecture of the country. Aside from Boko Haram and herdsmen insurgency, there are still pockets of mockery killings and kidnappings across the country. In spite of all this, the government does not care any hoot about the survival of the average Nigerian amidst the total collapse of social infrastructure across the country.

Thursday, December 21, 2017

Chinua Achebe’s ‘Things Fall Apart’: 60th Anniversary: A Global Celebration

2018 will mark the 60th anniversary of Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

To mark this milestone, the publishing giant, Penguin, has released a new edition of the classic novel with cover artwork by the distinguished Nigerian artist, Victor Ekpuk. 

Conferences, seminars, art exhibitions, and music festivals are being organized across the globe to celebrate the archetypal modern African novel in English; which now exists in 57 translations across the world, with 20 million copies sold.


Please watch out for further announcements and posters.

Niger Delta: Letter To The President

By Jide Oyewusi
Your Excellency, ever since the discovery of crude oil in the Niger Delta region in 1956, the fortune of Nigeria as a nation has never remained the same, especially from 1958 when Nigeria’s first oil field came on stream.

The discovery of the black gold by Shell BP, the sole concessionaire at the time has led to some level of development in the country even though a far cry from what ought to be considering the huge resources that have accrued to the nation from the oil trade.
So while many view the discovery of oil as a blessing in view of those developments achieved especially during the oil boom era of the 70s, some would rather see the discovery of crude oil as bringing nothing but doom to the nation.

Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Rebirth Of PDP And The Challenge To Buhari

By Yakubu Mohammed
By which ever means the panjandrums of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, were able to patch it up, their national convention, the first since its ouster from power in 2015, has come and gone leaving in its trail the usual post- convention trauma that features some teeth gnashing, some wailings, some threats, real and imaginary and lots of conjectures about what would be and what would not be thereafter. 
But nobody, not even the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, can dismiss what the opposition party, the PDP, successfully put up as a non-event. What is left now is to see how the PDP executives under the chairmanship of Uche Secondus, manage themselves from now through to the 2019 presidential election.

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Selling National Assets To Fund 2018 Budget: Signs Of The End For Nigeria

By Arthur Agwuncha Nwankwo
Nigeria is in serious difficulty now as never before. This assertion may not be politically correct but certainly it is empirically correct. Irrespective of your political leaning, truth is that Nigeria is in dire straits. Since Nigeria’s political independence, many people have doubted the capacity of the leadership to take Nigeria to safe shores.
This pessimism is anchored on the fact that some of our leaders, even from pre-independent times, demonstrated obvious incapacity to offer genuine leadership. This leadership deficit was worsened by the forceful intrusion of the military into political leadership of the country; the worst period being from 1983 when Muhammadu Buhari and his fellow coupists overthrew Shagari’s administration to 1999 when the northern-dominated military cabal ran the country aground in a relay-like manner. Nigeria’s economy was irreparably destroyed, and corruption was entrenched as an article of faith in the governance process.

Hijab: We Exist And Die As Either Christians Or Muslims

By Nnedinso Ogaziechi
The past two weeks came with a cocktail of events that made me both proud on one hand and very sad on the other. As a proud alumnus of the University of Ilorin, I was shocked that the University that had been flying the country’s flag as one of the best in global rankings from Africa had slipped down to number five in the National Universities Commission’s recently released rankings.
On the other hand, I was over the moon that all the alumni scattered across the globe are doing extremely well and are very concerned about the progress in all spheres of life in Nigeria. The 2017 reunion parties in Chicago and London brought together the stars that the University had produced over the years.
Then last week, two alumni of the University, a royal father, Oba (Dr.) Michael Odunayo Ajayi, the Elerinmo of Erinmo, Ijesha in Osun State and Nonye Adeniji organized a well-attended Empowerment Programme Training Event for the Erinmo people. Individuals left the training empowered with self-sustaining skills and start off equipment. The sponsors and organizers are neither politicians nor prepared to seek political offices. In a country, where politicians and political aspirants invite and hug media klieg lights to publicize regular activities that they not only owe the people but are paid to do so, these Unilorin alumni and others not under reference here are doing their best to live out the true promise of their humanity and learning.

Monday, December 18, 2017

Will President Buhari’s 2019 Ambition Ruin His Anti-Graft Agenda?

By Martins Oloja
Verily, verily, we should say it to President Muhammadu Buhari and the men and women who are assisting in running his government that this is not the best of time to say ‘silence is golden’. Surely, silence can’t be a strategy in Nigeria at this time when there are serious concerns and questions about the future of the most populous black nation on earth.
*President Muhammadu Buhari 
Before the president’s reputation managers start screaming blue murder and resume their blame game on the previous administration, the concerns raised today are not about them. They (concerns) are about the office of the president from the office of the citizen. The president and his men should note that before they begin to raise huge funds for the 2019, there are weightier matters of governance, especially about corruption that they should settle quickly, lest they will be the last in 2019.
Indications are daily emerging that politicking around 2019 is beginning to becloud sound judgment in the presidency. As I noted here last week, there is no need reading the president’s lips anymore: I advised us to read his leaps in Kano the other day. 

Friday, December 15, 2017

Vote For Me In 2019

By Promise Adiele
This is not a treatise on campaign or a call for votes towards 2019. I am sure those who identify me as an unrelenting critic of misrule and socio-economic polarity at any level will immediately think I have inevitably joined the desperate among us who are already clamouring for votes towards 2019. No, I have no such ambition and even if I do, I lack the financial muscle to actively participate in the thorn-strewn landscape of Nigerian politics. I am not schooled in the inordinate ideologue of the current political class whose activities in recent times continue to advertise Nigeria as an exemplar of political mediocrity. For our politicians, 2019 is here upon us, no stone should be left unturned, all hands must be on deck, the electorate must be conquered and the price, the luscious nucleus of the exchequer, must be won.

Vote for me in 2019 has become a subliminal, recurring ingredient in the speech menu of expired and aspiring politicians who have started campaigning towards the 2019 general elections although INEC has not lifted the ban on political activities. The amusement in our political widening gyre has prematurely commenced, the scheming for the bounty from our land is on, the aggregation of interests, subterfuge and manipulation is in full gear.

Libya: Tragedy Of A Promising Nation

By Akinkuolie Rasheed
The NATO-led military campaign which eventually destroyed Libya started in early 2011 and Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader was killed in October the same year by dissident groups. Since then, the country has not known peace and the crisis is still raging. 

Libya under Gaddafi was an epitome of development and good governance. It had the highest Human Development Index (HDI) in Africa, which is an aggregate of living standards, such as, access to education, medical services, potable water and such amenities which make life comfortable and worthwhile for ordinary people. Libyans were not paying water rates, electricity bills and income taxes.  
A newly married couple would be entitled to a free furnished apartment by the state and, in addition, substantial sums of money to settle into their new life. 

Thursday, December 14, 2017

Ahiara Diocese And The Tyranny Of Nigerian Bishops

By Ikechukwu Amaechi
Let me say from the onset that I am very distraught over the treatment meted out to the Catholic faithful in Ahiara Diocese by Nigerian bishops. I am troubled because I am involved. The situation in the diocese is the classical tinderbox in wait for a match. Why would Nigerian bishops be the ones willing to spark the light?
*Francis Cardinal Arinze 
I have resisted joining the fray, at least not publicly, all these years because of two main reasons. First, I am aware that in most faith-based issues, reason is a casualty and the Ahiara Bishopric saga is no exception. Second, when it comes to Catholicism, I am old-fashioned, having been brought up to believe that the clergy are God’s direct representatives on earth who are beyond reproach. All things considered, that is illogical but as Karl Marx would say, religion is an opium.

Rotimi Amaechi Is An Ignoramus: Here Are Facts To Prove It

By Reno Omokri
It is quite possible that Mr. Rotimi Amaechi is losing his marbles otherwise why else would he be asking former President Goodluck Jonathan to account for the $65 billion that former President Olusegun Obasanjo left in the Excess Crude Account when there was never any such amount? Former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the former Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria who served under his tenure, Professor Charles Soludo are both alive and journalists can take advantage of the Freedom of Information Act signed into Law by former President Jonathan to verify from them if there was ever any $65 billion in the Excess Crude Account.
*Rotimi Amaechi
 Rotimi Amaechi is a notorious ignoramus who speaks without thinking and it is suspected that he is going senile. The reason I say so is because Rotimi Amaechi as Chairman of the Nigerian Governors Forum is precisely the reason why the Excess Crude Account had to be phased out and below are the facts:

Rochas Okorocha’s Ministry For Happiness And The Animal Farm Called Nigeria

By Reno Omokri
Rochas Okorocha, a man who has spent more money on statues than he has on living human beings has now appointed his biological sister as “Commissioner for Happiness and Couples’ Fulfillment”. What sin did Imo people commit to deserve this embarrassment as their Governor? And this Rochas, a man that so wants his people to be happy that he creates a ministry for happiness for them nevertheless delays their salaries and pensions. 
And when his unpaid workers and pensioners take to keke riding to augment their income, he bans that too.
*Governor's Rochas Okorocha
Apparently, Rochas has provided enough statues to make them happy! And the so called commissioner for happiness is anything but a happy camper. One could even ask whether she is commissioner for happiness or commissioner for ANGER? Her public comments since her appointment projects RAGE rather than joy. Perhaps she should have been made Imo state’s commissioner for DEFENSE?

Wednesday, December 13, 2017

The Deepening Crisis In Libya

By Lansana Gberie
As Libya crisis escalates, the UN and the AU search for solutions.
Perhaps no major political or humanitarian disaster is as overlooked as the ongoing crisis in Libya. For example, although the New York Times in September 2017 published a total of seven articles mentioning Libya, only one of them touched on the violence ripping it apart. Even the Times’ gesture merely highlighted the latest permutation of the US government’s foreign military decisions.

The article, by Eric Schmitt, cited the Pentagon’s Africa Command and stated that the United States military had carried out a half-dozen “precision strikes” on an Islamic State training camp in Libya, killing 17 militants in the first American air strike in “the strife-torn North African nation” since Donald Trump was inaugurated as president.

Dr. Alex Ekwueme: A Tribute

By Uzodinma Nwala
The day was Thursday, August 13, 1998. The setting was a meeting of the nascent People’s Democratic Party (PDP) which just metamorphosed from the activist group, G-34, in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city. The agenda was to decide on the policy of the emergent party, especially power-sharing and rotation of the presidency.
*Dr. Alex Ekwueme
The buildup started much earlier with Dr. Nelson Mandela of South Africa’s second visit to Nigeria to meet with Gen. Abacha, after his 1995 release from prison. He was here to advise Gen Abacha to loosen his tight grip on Nigeria and allow the air of democratic freedom to flow in. His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, had earlier undertaken a similar mission, albeit with no success. Mandela had specifically called for the release of the likes of Chief M. K. O. Abiola, General Olusegun Obasanjo, General Shehu Yar’Adua, Ken Saro Wiwa and his Ogoni colleagues. But, Abacha was adamant on Nelson Mandela’s entreaties. Even though his trip to Nigeria produced negative results, Dr. Nelson Mandela, the world-acclaimed doyen of revolutionary struggles in Africa, was prepared. He did not relent, he had a Plan B. Mandela turned his attention to Nigeria’s pro-democracy groups, asking them to come to the rescue. He invited them to South Africa, hoping to inspire them to take to militant opposition. 

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Buhari’s Mission To Kano: Loud Dress Rehearsal For 2019

By Martins Oloja
There is no need discerning the president’s body language about 2019 presidential election declaration anymore. Did you read his leaps, or hip lips? The taciturn Muhammadu the soldier and Buhari the politician will surely run – as long as his health remains stable as it is at the moment. The Mission to Kano, his stronghold, last week was a loud dress rehearsal. And the people of the ancient town have signalled to the only politician they can trust to take the plunge again. He has been told (in Kano) that even ten Wazirin Adamawas can’t remove any steam from the political support that the epitome of loyalty called Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje can guarantee for him in 2019.
*President Buhari in Kano. Right is Gov Ganduje
Ganduje is indeed a politician in whom there is no guile. Buhari can always trust him to deliver more than two million votes in 2019. What is more, we may have been carried away by some infantile sentimentality in the southern zone that some extreme hunger and pervasive poverty in the land now can erode the Buhari’s once solid base in the core north. Some boisterous social media analysts may have told us that no one wants to hear about Sai Baba slogan again because of anger nurtured by hunger in the north. This may not be true, after all.

Monday, December 11, 2017

Between Gov Ayo Fayose And Gov Nasir El-Rufai

By Abraham Ogbodo
I have an award for good governance to give and the choice of a winner is between Governors Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State. One is APC and the other PDP. On this alone, I am seeking to be properly guided in this difficult choice to escape the charge of partisanship. It will also be unwieldy if too many factors are loaded into the assessment. I have therefore limited the scope to recent happenings, like the way the two governors have engaged workers in their respective states. 
*Govs Fayose and El-Rufai
First, Kaduna State. Governor el-Rufai woke up one morning and sacked 22,000 primary school teachers in the state. Less than a week after and when the furor of the first massive sack had not settled, there was a follow up with the sack of more than 4,000 workers across the 23 local government councils in the state.

Altogether, some 26,000 persons were made jobless (and perhaps, homeless too) in less than two weeks. According to the governor, the sacked workers had been profiled and found to be grossly unfit for public sector operations in Kaduna State. Naturally, the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) failed to appreciate the argument of Governor el-Rufai that the 22,000 teachers failed basic test for competence and had become more of an affliction on than a solution to the pupils. The council workers were mainly sacked for redundancy.

Friday, December 8, 2017

If Nigeria Makes The mistake Of Bringing Back Buhari In 2019!

By Femi Fani-Kayode
In both 2008 and 2012 I warned the world and particularly Africa and the Middle East about the evil of Barack Obama. No-one listened. In 2011 I warned the world about the consequences of removing Muammar Gadaffi for Africa and the Middle East. No-one listened. In 2015 I warned the world and Nigeria about supporting and electing Muhammadu Buhari as President of our country. No-one listened. 
*Femi Fani-Kayode
In 2016 I warned Nigeria and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) about making Ali Modu Sheriff National Chairman of our party. No-one listened. In 2015 I told the world that Donald Trump would win the nomination as flag-bearer for the Republican party and that he would go on to win the American presidential election in 2016. No-one listened.

In 2016 I warned Nigeria and the world that Buhari’s health would present a major challenge for the rest of his tenure. No-one listened. In each of these cases I have been proved right. Now I shall give two more warnings and whether anyone listens to me or not takes absolutely nothing away from me. Mine is to pass on the message and it is left for those that hear it to accept it or not. 

The first is that if Nigeria makes the mistake of bringing back Muhammadu Buhari as president in 2019 that will be the end of our country as a viable, cohesive, tolerant, medium-power democratic nation-state where the rule of law, the principle of equality and the most fundamental civil liberties, human rights and basic freedoms for the individual are guaranteed and respected. Worse still she may NEVER recover. 

President Trump’s Recognition of Jerusalem In 2017 And Judah Ben Samuel’s Prophecy

By Ogan Steve
The proclamation of Jerusalem as the Capital City of Israel by President Donald Trump yesterday, the 6th of December, 2017, is a Jubilee gift to the city, to Israel and all lovers of the Jewish nation. It came on the 17th day in the Bible 9th month of Kislev, a time of birth and rebirth.
*Israeli-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
and US President Donald Trump 
It signals the final stages of the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ based on an ancient prophecy by a Jewish-German Rabbi. Judah Ben Samuel was a German Rabbi who as far back as the 12th century accurately predicted the tides and times of Israel and Jerusalem. He was prolific as an author and pious as a consecrated follower of God. Using “Biblical calculations” and astronomical observations, Judah Ben Samuel prophesied that the Ottoman Turks will conquer Jerusalem and rule the city for eight jubilees. According to the Rabbi, “Afterwards, Jerusalem will become no man’s land for one jubilee, and then in the ninth jubilee, it will once again come back into the possession of the Jewish nation – which would signify the beginning of the Messianic end-time.”

How Rich Are The Super-Rich In Nigeria?

By Dan Amor
I think it was John Paul Getty, the American-born British billionaire, philanthropist and heir to oil industry fortune, who quipped, when asked how rich he was: “No one is really rich if he can count his money.” In Getty's days, anyone with one million British pounds (or even one million dollars) was rated as “rich” and anyone with more than five million pounds was “very rich”.
*Adenuga and Dangote
Above that and you were in the “super rich” category, and when you got above the fifty million pounds level, you rated as a “can't count”. Nelson Bunker Hunt, who with his brother inherited a fortune even greater than Getty's, was a “can't count” man before he tried to corner the silver market. Asked by a Senate Committee how much he was worth, he snapped, “Hell, if I knew that, I wouldn't be worth very much”.

Thursday, December 7, 2017

We Totally Condemn The Massacre Of Nigerians In Numan By Fulani Militias – The Middle Belt Union

Press Release
The Middle Belt Union totally condemn the massacre of Nigerians in Numan by Fulani militias. We hold the government of President Muhammadu Buhari responsible for this crime against humanity. There were plans to massacre by Fulani herdsmen in reprisal attack over attack on Fulani village by an alleged Bachama militia, but the government of Adamawa State and the federal government did nothing about it. We have reasons to believe that the government allowed this to happen deliberately as everyone saw it coming.

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration have not only protected both local and foreign Fulani herdsmen/militias and defended them, but kept making excuses on their behalf, trying to paint these incessant terrorist attacks as communal clashes instead of terrorist attacks, when local law abiding peaceful farmers are being painted as the aggressor thereby encouraging the Fulani militias who know they can get away with any crime anywhere in Nigeria.
We thank the Sultan of Sokoto for his statement on the barbaric incident in Adamawa. The Sultan sternly told the government to protect the people as it is their duties and responsibilities to do so and to arrest perpetrators.
The Buhari administration has completely failed in handling the Fulani herdsmen problem and kept aggravating it by their inactions and utterances. 
We, the people of the Middle Belt, want to show our disaffection by saying that if the government refuses to take immediate action and arrest the terrorists, we would mobilize our people against the ruling government in the coming election because it will be that the government does care about us.
By George Onmonya Daniel,
PRO,
The Middle Belt Union

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RELATED POST

Stop These Savage Killings In Adamawa!

Wednesday, December 6, 2017

Stop These Savage Killings In Adamawa!

The state of Adamawa lies in the northeastern part of Nigeria, with its capital at Yola. It was carved out in 1991 from part of Gongola State, with four administrative divisions, namely Adamawa, Ganye, Mubi and Numan. It is one of the largest states in Nigeria and occupies about 36,917 square kilometres.
The great people of Adamawa State are mostly renowned as farmers. This is reflected in their two notable vegetational zones, sub-Sudan and northern Guinea Savannah zone. Their cash crops are cotton and groundnuts, while food crops include maize, yam, cassava, guinea corn, millet and rice. The village communities living on the banks of the rivers engage in fishing, while the Fulani are cattle rearers. Little wonder that all these have been encapsulated in the slogan of the state, ‘The Land of Beauty.” A visit to the state will not be complete without going to Mubi. Mubi’s clement weather is scintilatingly accommodating for human habitation and Nuhu Auwalu Wakili’s Palace will keep your memory of the state at all times.

Nigeria: The Last Chance For PDP

By Fred Onyeoziri
A Political party is an association of interest organizations competing for the power to govern in a national society. And the major strategy for that competition is elections. It is winning the election that gives the party the power to govern.
In the context of a free and fair election, commitment to the interest of the party is the condition for winning success for a party.

PDP’s failure to enforce respect for the party’s interest was the major reason it lost power in 2015. It allowed all manner of private interests – impurity, imposition, factionalism, god-fatherism, and money politics – to distract it from enforcing respect for the true interest of the party. 

Anambra: Why Gov Obiano Was Re-elected

By Ray Ekpu
In any election incumbency packs a punch. The incumbent always has something to show, completed projects to flaunt, ongoing projects that are nearing completion or even ones that are on the drawing board. He has the paraphernalia of the civil service, the MDAs, the contractors, women and youth groups hired and unhired, all of them are often in the corner of the incumbent. The incumbent is also seen as a bird in hand, the reality not the dream, the person on the job not the one who wants to be on the job. In most elections, all of these factors often work in favour of the incumbent.
*Gov Obiano
It worked for Chief Willie Obiano, the newly re-elected Governor of Anambra State. As all incumbents normally do, Obiano published a long list of his completed projects and asked that the public should crosscheck and establish for themselves the veracity of his claims.

Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Anambra, Gov Obiano And The APGA Revolution

By Ifeanyi Afuba
A new Anambra State is in the making. It is an evolving society in which the government-citizen pact is growing roots. The cultivation of this social progressive force reached a new height with the resolution of the November 18, 2017 governorship poll. Some say the journey started with the revolt of the Chris Ngige regime shortly after it came to office in 2003. I disagree.
*Gov Willie Obiano
Yes, there was an attempt at a new consciousness but it was circumstantial, narrow in objective and largely driven by sentiment. The radical shift came with the reclamation of Peter Obi’s stolen 2003 governorship mandate. That democratic empowerment ushered in the season of citizen-centred governance. But, after eight years of this wind of change, the road of renewal ran into fresh challenges from both predictable and unexpected quarters. Governor Willie Obiano’s programme of consolidation and expansion soon met with opposition from not just the old order, but foundation members of the movement. Consequently, the November 18, 2017 poll effectively became the plebiscite on which road to travel. 

Libya: The Slave-Trading Capital Of Africa

By Israel Ebije
Activities of slave merchants trading off migrants stuck in Libya have earned the country a reputation once an exclusive preserve of countries like Italy, France, Portugal, Britain and Spain, which shipped Blacks from Africa in 1492 to work in farms as slaves. While it was marginally understandable for the Whites to subject Blacks to slavery based on the repugnant concept of racial superiority, the Libya notoriety is abysmal, condemnable and bereft of explanations. Their victims are sold for as low as $400 to a lifetime of hard labor. 
Libya has an estimated one million migrants locked up in various dungeons across the country. They are funded and equipped by European Union and Italy, to stop the migrants from crossing the precarious Atlantic ocean where an estimated 5,000 refugees have died in recent years. The administrative willpower of the Libyan government is put to question amidst accusations of complicity in the heinous slave-trading. The quest to get free labor to make extra money from migrants has made the slave market lucrative, with cartels expanding in the bestial trade on daily bases.