Nigeria: Homelands Under Siege!

 By Sunny Awhefeada

Homeland holds significance in many ways. It embodies the phys­ical, psychological and spiritual essence of man. Homeland could be a birthplace or an adopted place of origin. Both ways, a homeland has an endearing and enduring impact on people. It has a pull that is difficult to ignore or avoid. Before modernity and globalization came with displacement and tendency to see everywhere as home, the idea of the homeland carried with it a romantic allure that it became a motif in po­etry and music.

 The enduring impact of the homeland magic and mystic finds eternal resonance in Evi Edna Ogholi’s “No Place like Home”. Her scribal brothers, Gabriel Okara, Tanure Ojaide, Ibiwari Ikoriko, Joe Ushie, Ogaga Ifowodo, Ebi Yeibo, Obari Gom­ba, Peter Omoko and Stephen Kekeghe, in their poetry romanticized an idyllic home­land that was lost to capitalist rapacity em­bodied in oil multinationals and insensitive successive governments under the firm grip of comprador bourgeoisie. People had gone to war to defend their homeland. No matter how far people sojourned in the distant past they always made attempt to return to their homeland.

Benue-Plateau: Tinubu’s Last Chance

 By Ochereome Nnanna

After two years as President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu has the last chance to prove himself in the Benue and Plateau theatres of the Fulani herdsmen genocidal attacks on indigenous Nigerian communities. These terrorists drawn from domestic and foreign Fulani jihadist bandit groups were named by the Global Terror Index back in 2014 as the fourth “most murderous” terror group in the world behind ISIS, Al Shabbab and Boko Haram.

*Tinubu

But here in Nigeria, they are protected, armed and facilitated in their genocidal campaigns, which the Federal Government, the military and even the undiscerning sections of the media deceptively call “farmers-herders clashes” or “farmers-herders crisis”.

The Nigerian Alignment Is Faulty

 By Owei Lakemfa

It was a triumphant occasion. The venue was the Muhammadu Buhari Cantonment, Giri, Abuja. The joyous occasion was the destruction of over 2,400 illicit arms. The chief celebrant was the National Centre for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons, NCCSALW. The five-star guests included the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, members of the National Assembly, representatives of the service chiefs, heads of other security agencies and top military brass.

The man given the honour to set fire on the arms, was the National Security Adviser, NSA, Malam Nuhu Ribadu. He waxed lyrical as he carried out this task. However, his claims that soldiers and policemen were selling arms to terrorists, bandits and criminals, were within days, challenged by the Defence Headquarters.