President Buhari’s Illusion Versus Reality

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It should be clear by now to the citizens who are genuinely concerned about saving the country from careering into mortal catastrophes that their first task is to rescue their president. It is not a redemption from his hobbling medical condition. London doctors are equal to this task. This they have uncannily demonstrated by giving President Muhammadu Buhari a new lease of life. Now, apparently far from an afflicted president who was in dire need of the citizens’ empathy and prayer for his good health, Buhari has resumed office with so much vigour that he easily underscores his toughness by casting his expectations from the citizens in fire and brimstone.

*President Buhari in Zamfra (March 2017)

What Buhari is in urgent need of rescue from is his illusions about his fellow citizens, his country and the world. It does not matter that he claimed to be abreast of developments at home and the other parts of the world while he was away. In less than a week since his return, Buhari has shown that he is fixated on his misbegotten notions of governance that he had before his medical sojourn abroad. A graver danger is that these notions have degenerated as they have assumed a misanthropic character. Those who thought that his ill health would have sobered him up and purged him of his self-created distance from the citizens have been sorely disappointed. He has come back home to reprimand them with a sledgehammer for intolerably going errant ways while he was away. After all, in his reckoning, most of those who want a redefinition of the terms for the co-existence of the people have not been confronted with the prospect of their shedding their blood for the survival and unity of the nation.

Nnamdi Kanu, Hate Speech And Our Ostrich Attitude

By Nnamdi Okosieme

Before I address the issue above fully, let me a few points clear.

1. I do not think much of Nnamdi Kanu; I am not a fan of his; I do not agree with his methods but concede he is entitled to seek a better life for himself and his people.
I also think we would have been spared all his drama, shenanigans and tantrums if our president had not been heedless enough to arrest him instead of finding a more workable approach to tackle the challenge he presents.

*Nnamdi Kanu

2. I believe that those who call for tinkering with Nigeria as it is presently constituted not only have every right to do so but are indeed right for there is a lot that is wrong with this country. That tinkering can come either by way of geopolitical restructuring or constitutional amendment or whatever works best. But tinkering? Certainly!

3. I believe that it is wrong to threaten to lop off someone's head or disembowel him simply because he does not subscribe to your views. In that regard, Kanu and others threatening people with death are way off the mark and dead wrong. In the main, rather than advance their cause, it actually diminishes it.

Now, to the issue above. Hate speech is decidedly abhorrent for if left unchecked engenders violence and spawns genocide in the end. When Hitler was threatening Jews and pigeon-holing them, the rest of the world went about their business unperturbed. Europe and America which had the political and military might to intervene looked the other way until the chickens came home to roost.

The Insensitivity Of The Nigerian Senate

By Ray Ekpu

The failure of the Senate to approve the devolution of powers from the centre to the federating states is a colossal misreading of the country’s temperature. It sends the wrong message to the agitators campaigning for ethnic self determination, total resource control and confederation. It says to them that the Senate thinks everything is okay in the country; that there is nothing to worry about and that the country as it is, is working just fine. This is a most regrettable decision and if the current tension arising from the dysfunctional state of Nigeria reaches an irreversible crescendo the Senate should hold itself largely responsible.

*Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki

Here are the facts: there has been a massive agitation by some Igbo youths for a Biafra Republic. The numbers are increasing and on May 30, they grounded all the five Igbo states as a show of their strength. Some Arewa Youths have asked the Igbos in the north to go away from their territory before October 1, 2017 otherwise… Some militants in the South South also say that northerners in the South South should also go away from their territory before October 1 otherwise… A group in the South West has already drawn a map of an Oduduwa Republic meaning that they are ready to secede except… The Acting President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, has called a series of fence-mending meetings but no mending has yet taken place. 

The Nnamdi Kanu group which calls itself the Independent Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) has already declared that there will be no governorship election in Anambra State in November except there is a referendum on the idea of Biafra. Anambra is coincidentally the home of Emeka Odumegwu–Ojukwu, the Oxford trained historian – soldier who led the Biafran revolt (1967 – 1970) that ended in a monumental disaster. One million dead persons later, Kanu is embarking on another Biafra misadventure which is catching the attention of the youths who have never been victimised by the horrors of war but are enthused by the prospects of a putative utopia of that ill-fated name.

Buhari’s Search For Jackals And Hyenas

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is a Monday morning. President Muhammadu Buhari has just resumed in his office after his over two months’ medical vacation. He would have loved to have more rest. But he has been inundated with tales of the intrigues to take over his job. He just has to muster every ounce of energy to take back his office. A file is presented to the president. In it is a list that contains the names of those who were hell-bent on scuttling his presidency while he was away. On the list are ministers. There are also special aides and other officials in the presidency. All these are to be sacked. Welcome to the post-London Buhari era in Aso Rock.

*Buhari 

The criteria for the mass cleansing are only clearly known to the helmsman of Aso Rock. However, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo who was the Acting President while Buhari was away is not on the list. He has been found extraordinarily loyal despite all the machinations and intrigues of some people to intimidate and blackmail him into resigning, Buhari considers him as having judiciously represented his interest while he was away. What exemplifies Osinbajo’s fidelity to Buhari’s vision is his maintaining the position of the president that the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) could remain in office till 2019 despite his not being confirmed by the Senate. Again, Osinbajo refused to succumb to the clamour for restructuring that ruled the polity.

Buhari has always believed that nobody should tweak the structure of the country as it is. He is on the same page with former President Olusegun Obasanjo who also fought the civil war to keep the country together. But as for former Military President Ibrahim Babangida, Buhari would respond to him appropriately at the right time for taking a position on restructuring that is different from that of the president. Of course, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has always been coveting the president’s job. But there is a way to also pay him for turning himself into a jackal.

Will Nigeria Survive Biafra?

By Bob Majiri Oghene Etemiku

In real life, people are told that quitters never win and winners never quit. That aphorism has proven true at the level of individual entrepreneurship and endeavour. Most people have often found out to their chagrin that just after they quit, success arrives. But how far nations can carry on, from what has been perceived as an unholy and uneven matrimony remains to be seen. The same is true with Nigeria, especially after the recent and successful stay-at-home call made on the people of the South East by their de-facto leader and the reactions which followed.

Before we log on to the question for today’s discussion, let me quickly affirm my love for my fatherland. Nigeria is a great country. Foreigners boast that our mangoes are some of the best in the world. Our women are beautiful and our young men strong. Our Jollof rice beats that of the Ghana and the Senegal. I have had the privilege of travelling to the North, South, East and West of this great country. I have met Northerners, Easterners and Westerners, and if they don’t speak their language they don’t look any different from the dudes on the other side. As a matter of fact, when I found myself in the North for my NYSC, I wanted to add a Northern aka to my name because of its phonetic and semantic affinity with my local name. Therefore, today, I manage to find my way with a dash of Hausa, Yoruba and some Ibo, and though I am bothered that this triumvirate do not speak my language, I have carried on nevertheless. 

Osinbajo And The Troublemakers

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

It is a predictable path that Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has taken in his response to threats that are nibbling away at the nation’s unity. Unfortunately, this path has consistently failed to engender national healing and boost the prospect of fidelity to the vision of a united people. For, what our leaders like Osinbajo are unable to successfully disguise is their insincerity in responding to the overarching challenges of our contemporary society.

*Yemi Osinbajo

His was a response cast in the mould of a warning to those who are fomenting trouble that poses an egregious threat to the peace of the nation. At a meeting with northern leaders over some northern youths who have given an ultimatum to the Igbo in their region to relocate, he vowed to crush troublemakers. Since Osinbajo did not say that the warning was specifically directed at the northern youths, we must not limit it to them in order to appreciate its futility. We must appropriate troublemakers as all those who have grievances against the state since the northern youths only responded to the position of some aggrieved youths in the south-east.

The current threat to the nation’s unity is not what could be wished away by threatening fire and brimstone. It requires a more rigorous examination before proposing a solution. As Osinbajo himself rightly observed, disagreements are bound to exist in any union. But what he did not acknowledge is that the Nigerian nation has failed to adopt an enduring mechanism for resolving these conflicts. Again, why should disagreements whose source can easily be located and resolved permanently be allowed to fester as the Nigerian nation is doing ? In this case, what plague the Nigerian nation are not just conflicts that are inevitable in a union. They are rather crises the country and its leaders have refused to resolve because they benefit from them.

Now That Nigerianism Has Failed!

By Abraham Ogbodo

Last week, the movement for the restructuring of Nigeria got more converts from an unlikely quarter. Some 16 youth groups in the North rose from a meeting late on Tuesday to declare the unwillingness of the North to continue in a Federation that has the Igbo as part. The groups, which met in Arewa House, somehow the symbolic throne of the Northern establishment and which gave the meeting added significance, were actually more far-reaching.

As if they were the appointed deciders of the fate of Nigeria, which has been hanging precariously on a balance for more than a century, they gave till October 1 for every Igbo man, woman and child in Northern Nigeria to leave for the ‘Republic of Biafra’. Next day, some Northern elders including Governor el-Rufai of Kaduna who said they were taken aback by the action of the youths dissociated themselves from the quit notice and even called for the arrest and prosecution of members of the groups.

Nothing happened. Instead, the youths returned a day after to reinforce their declaration. For opposing the declaration, Nasir el-Rufai and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State were isolated for some tongue lashing. A statement signed by spokesman of the Northern youth coalition, Mallam Abdulazeez Suleiman said: “we are particularly disappointed by the treacherous positions assumed by Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai and Kashim Shettima who in pursuit of their blind ambition for the vice presidency chose to side with secessionist Igbo against the interest of peace-loving Nigerians.”

The statement said there was nothing altruistic about the position of el-Ruffai and Shettima on the quit notice because both governors “are openly known to be waiting in the wings for President Muhammadu Buhari to die so they can further their plot to seek the presidency.” Specifically on Shettima who spoke on beh: “Shettima has disconnected from reality as he gets intoxicated by immoral wealth and property acquisition at the expense of people of the state suffering the devastation of Boko Haram.” This was what Robert Louis Stevenson described in Treasure Island as ‘quarrel among the pirates.’

Nigeria: Breakup, Northern Style

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

With northern youths giving Igbo residing in their region an ultimatum to quit before October 1 or face dire consequences, the agitations for the dissolution of the Nigerian union are fast reaching frenzied heights. What obviously provoked the rage of the northern youths were the ceaseless agitations for self-determination by some indigenes of the south east. Such agitations being championed by the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) and the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) culminated recently in the shutting down of the major towns of the south east on May 30 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the declaration of the quest to create a Biafra Republic out of Nigeria.

President Buhari, Sultan of Sokoto,
Sa’ad Abubakar

Of course, the northern part of the country, like other regions that make up the Nigerian nation, has the right to respond to the clamour for secession by the Igbo. But what is intolerably scandalous is that the approach they have adopted amounts to self-sabotage. For, it rather portrays them as a people who are not really interested in responding fully to the demands of restructuring of the polity but are rather only motivated by greed and the envy of the success of the Igbo.

If the Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar’s claim during his visit to the south east that the Igbo easily become objects of hate and annihilation because of their success were a Freudian slip, the position of the northern youths do not disguise their hankering after the wealth of the Igbo. If the northern youths were really interested in restructuring, the first step they should take is not to give the Igbo an ultimatum to leave their land. Even if Nigeria breaks up today, this does not give the northern youths the right to seize the property of the Igbo. Are the Igbo war criminals or their property are proceeds of corruption that the northern youths would seize them? The Igbo are free to live and own property in any part of the world, including the north as foreigners if the country breaks up.

Besides, it is not only the Igbo who have been asking for a redefinition of the terms of the existence of the Nigerian nation. The south south and the south west have also called for the same purpose. It is ludicrous for the northern youths to single out the Igbo for intimidation and possible liquidation as if other people were comfortable with the injustices upon which the nation has been built for decades. They should not think that after allowing the Igbo to go they would continue to feed off the resources of the south south.

Nigeria Must Decide What They Want From The Igbo

By Azuka Onwuka

Before August 9, 1965, the Singaporeans were seen as an irritation in Malaysia. Then Singapore was one of the 14 states of Malaysia. Singaporeans were viewed as arrogant, stubborn, and domineering. While the United Malays National Organisation wanted affirmative action or “quota system” for the Malays, the People's Action Party of the Singaporeans insisted that the best thing for the country was a merit-based policy on all issues, so as to bring out the best in the nation and create a spirit of excellence.

*Odumegwu-Ojukwu

This constant disagreements and tensions resulted in racial riots. It got to a point, the Malays could take it no more. So on August 9, 1965 they convened the parliament, with no Singaporean parliamentarian present. At that sitting, the legislators voted unanimously (126 - 0) to expel Singapore from Malaysia.

When the Singaporeans heard that they had been expelled from the nation, at first they were devastated. But they took their fate in the hands and started building a new nation. And indeed, by applying merit and the pursuit of excellence, Singaporeans built a country that moved from Third World to First World in record time, overtaking Malaysia in all ramifications.

Interestingly, despite this sad way of parting, Malaysia and Singapore have remained good neighbours. In spite of the success Singapore has recorded, it has not made Malaysia not to record its own success.

There are many similarities between the story of Singapore and Malaysia and Igbo and Nigeria. The Igbo are not happy with the quota system policy used in the admission into federal schools and federal positions. They want competitiveness in every sector, which will lead to the best being selected, for the sake of excellence.

The Igbo are seen as arrogant, noisy, domineering, greedy, over-ambitious, to mention but a few. Many Nigerians see them as irritants. They get killed frequently, especially in the North, at the least misunderstanding. Sometimes the cause of the provocation is someone from Denmark, Cameroon or another part of Nigeria.

There are many Nigerians who will easily tell you: “We will never allow an Igbo person to rule Nigeria.” There are many who believe that the problem of Nigeria is from the Igbo, and that once the Igbo are done away with, Nigeria’s problems will disappear.

Nigeria: A Nation Of Cowards And Docile Citizens

By Nnanna Ijomah

It is said that “a nation of sheep is governed by wolves”. Nigerians have not only become sheepish and docile but also whiners and cowards. Docility has become our middle name and we have come to display it on our chests as badges of honor. I don’t know when we became this way but I’m sure it’s been long in the making. Over the years it has become more evident that we have become a very timid and spineless people, with a high degree of acceptance and tolerance of whatever mistreatment our leaders, both at the local, State, and Federal levels mete out to us. There is a popular saying, “the future belongs to those who change it”.

In Nigeria today, we have as its citizens, though ethnically, linguistically and culturally diverse, a people who are scared or reluctant to effectively bring about real change and not the fake change promised by the APC. A people who continuously elect and re-elect people whose past track records does not show any evidence of any real effort in terms of policies or actions to improve their lives or their standard of living. This is what Aribisala said not long ago about the President on this issue.

“He, Buhari commanded the support of a significant number of the Northern poor, in spite of the fact that there is absolutely nothing in his curriculum Vitae about advancing the interest of the poor.”

Here he, the President is not alone. The same can be said of most of our Governors and national Assembly members. The reality of our situation in Nigeria today is that we wallow in the status quo and seem to be content with it. We whine and complain daily about our leaders and the deplorable state of our existence but fail to acknowledge our role in electing them or the courage to hold them accountable.

The more I read about events in Nigeria or the state of the nation, the alarming scope of corruption despite the war against it, the ineffective or none -existent economic policies and its aftermath, the increasing poverty rate in the country especially in the North, the complicity of INEC and our security officials in rigging elections, the non-payment of worker’s salaries both at the state and federal levels, the religious massacres by herdsmen and the lack of a tough response or arrests by federal government officials and the financial appeasement by a state governor, the instability in the Niger Delta, the agitation for Biafra by the Igbo’s, the unending blame campaign of the President of his predecessor, etc. etc., the more I feel morbidly entranced like a homicide detective gazing into a pool of freshly spilled blood. I use the phrase freshly spilled blood literally because that’s what each new unfortunate event looks like. If I may borrow the words of Pat Utomi in a recent comment he made, “Nigeria is a paradox of progressive degradation, where every Government is worse than the one that preceded it”. As the new year begins this month I have become more apocalyptic about the future of the country and its political stability.

President Buhari, Dialogue Matters

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

With an air of imperial finality, President Muhammadu Buhari has ruled out the possibility of holding a dialogue on how to resolve the crises in the Niger Delta. From initially pretending to support a dialogue with the leaders of the region, Buhari has moved to declaring that there are no credible leaders to talk with in the region and now finally that a dialogue is not even necessary. He says the problems of the region are already known.

The position of the president which was articulated by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo during his visit to the Niger Delta seems to be only about the oil-rich region. But it actually reflects the stance of Buhari concerning the whole country. Buhari does not want any dialogue; all he wants is for the citizens to be quiet, wait patiently as he hands them a roadmap for the development of the country. But this approach of Buhari is not acceptable to the citizens simply because he cannot be trusted to take the right decisions on their behalf. Any roadmap for development that Buhari contemplates can only be tilted to suit his askew sense of development and equity.

As regards the Niger Delta, Buhari can only end up like his predecessors whose sense of development without the input of the people from the Niger Delta has paved the way for the gleeful allocation of oil blocks to people from other parts of the country while the indigenes of the region are neglected. Past governments were aware of the despoliation that has resulted from oil exploration in the region, yet they failed to take any significant step to address the situation. From Isaac Boro to Ken Saro Wiwa, the agitations by the people of the Niger Delta for development of their oil-ravaged region have often been met with brutal responses.

Or can the people really trust the president when he has failed to begin the process of the development of the Niger Delta almost two years after he came into office? And now it was not even the president, but his deputy, who went to the region after so much prodding. If the president were really sincere, he should have gone to the Niger Delta himself to understand the urgency of looking for solutions to the problems of the region. And he should have done this earlier. Rather, he has been preoccupied with how to crush agitators in the region. There is a good reason to suspect that what Buhari is doing is just verbal pacification to secure a peaceful environment for him to get more oil to run his government. With the history of Buhari’s lackluster responses to injustices in different parts of the country, the people of the Niger Delta have good reasons to be skeptical about his avowed developmental roadmap for the region. These responses have perpetually diminished our humanity, collective and individual, and thus we are obliged to be eternally vigilant in accepting his promises.

The Case For Pro-Biafra Agitators

By Onyiorah P. Chiduluemije

Since President Muhammdu Buhari assumed the mantle of leadership of Nigeria on May 29, 2015, the country has witnessed incessant killing of the members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) for obviously no cause by security agents. More often, if the killing was not based on the falsehood that the IPOB members were the first to attack members of the Nigerian armed forces and as such had to be killed in return, it would be predicated on the spurious grounds that the hapless victims were obstructing the free flow of traffic and thus needed to be dealt with (which for the military entailed killing them) in order to clear the way for motorists and other road users.

Meanwhile, in all of these series of killings of peaceful protesters, the Buhari-led government is yet to come out with a single video record showing members of the Nigerian armed forces being killed by the pro-Biafra agitators.

But thus far, the reverse has always been the case in the aftermath of every peaceful protest duly organized by pro-Biafra agitators in Nigeria, all in pursuit of their legitimate demand for a sovereign state of Biafra. And besides the fact that thousands of members of this separatist group have been mowed down in their prime for merely thronging the streets of Nigeria in demand for self-determination as adequately guaranteed by international laws and practices, the Amnesty International recently had to lend its strong voice in total condemnation of the Nigerian government’s persistent and cruel clampdown and massacre of these unarmed and peaceful protesters.

According to this highly esteemed international body, no less than a hundred and fifty unarmed civilians belonging to the separatist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra, were brutally murdered in cold blood using torture, live bullets and other weaponry by members of the Nigerian armed forces – during the Biafra Remembrance Day of May 30, 2016.  And further to its graphic report titled Bullets Were Raining Everywhere, the Amnesty International’s findings clearly showed that the assertion that the peaceful protesters were the first to court the trouble and/or attack members of the Nigerian armed forces was neither here nor there. Strangely, as if the killing was not provoking enough, the same  security forces had to even go extra miles invading churches at Onitsha and its environs in Anambra State of Nigeria in furtherance of their killing spree and the hacking of peaceful protesters who happened to be in or had sought refuge in these hallowed places of worship.

Again, Why Tinubu Must Rescue Nigerians From Buhari!

 By John Darlington
There is no denying the fact that bad economic and foreign policies can precipitate serious crises like such we experience today in Nigeria capable of sparking off dangerous political consequences thus making politicians demand arbitrary power to deal with emergency situations caused by bad government policies. When times are bad many people have no option but are often too willing to go along and support terrible things that would be unthinkable in good times. In Nigeria, for instance, we have had dictators in military garbs and it took us years of dogged fighting, dingdong struggles, and battles to return the country from military dictatorship to constitutional democracy like such Nigerians enjoyed in the past one and half decades ago.

*Tinubu and Buhari 

Prior to the freedom that held sway in the past 16 years of Nigeria's civil democratic rule, Nigerians languished under the jackboot of the military that saw the emergence of many pro-democracy groups, the most vibrant of all being the National Democratic Coalition (NADECO). Many of the NADECO chieftains who stood toe-to-toe with the military had their lives cut down by state agents calling to mind the sensational murder of Pa Alfred Rewane and others.

Bola Ahmed Tinubu, one of the vocal voices of the pro-democracy struggle was left with no option but to flee Nigeria at the period under sad review when it became clear his life was on the line. As the threat to lives hung over our heads like the ancient sword of Damocles, this writer climbed in on the bandwagon to this part of the Old World where he has been to this day watching behind the scenes in open-mouthed astonishment.

Tinubu represented and spoke for the voiceless in the Nigerian society, otherwise, he as one who is well-off could have decided not to confront the military authorities who ruled Nigeria then with a caprice. He saw the evil of the day and decided to join forces with other dissident voices to overthrow tyranny and as luck would have it, tyranny died with his boots on June 8, 1988!

Nigeria began another military adventure under the leadership of Abdulsalami Abubakar who by a twist of fate returned Nigeria to a civil democratic rule in 1997. After a hotly contested presidential election, Obasanjo a retired General and military Head of State emerged the winner and was sworn in as a democratically elected civilian president who ruled the country for eight calendar years under the platform of the Peoples' Democratic Party (PDP).

However, the ideals which Tinubu joined forces with other pro-democracy fighters to fight that Nigerians enjoyed through to 2015 is fast being eroded from Nigeria's political firmament while tyranny has staged a come-back and rearing its ugly head on the ascending order of magnitude and this, I dare say, cuts across every facet of our national life.

For starters, it is not in dispute that aspiring dictators give away their intentions by an evident desire to destroy opponents with hate concealed in their hearts, they move on to destroy every perceived opponent and we see this at play in President Buhari whose ways and actions reek of disdain for a particular tribe in our geo-polity. He has demonstrated this in so many ways during his first appearance on the Nigeria's political scene that saw the inceration of many politicians of southern extraction while their counterparts of northern extraction were detained in cosy house arrest calling to mind the detention of Alex Ekweme in Kiriki Maximum Security Prisons while President Shehu Shagari was detained in a cosy apartment in highbrow Ikoyi area of Lagos. Even when others were released they never stayed alive healthy before going the way of all flesh. Prof. Alli went blind in prison and died afterward after his release.

With Buhari's obnoxious Decree Number 4 at the period under sad review, many people were detained without trial with trumped up charges, some of them developed ailments while in detention which some of them later succumbed to in the long run. Today, however, we see a similar scenario unfolding with flagrant abuse of court order that is again attracting the attention of the international community.

How To Resolve The Biafra Question

By Charles Ogbu

It is no longer news that a secessionist group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) led by Nnamdi Kanu who is currently being detained by the Federal Government is seeking the separation of the South East states from Nigeria. The group wants the states to form a new country to be known as Biafra, the name by which the defunct Eastern Region was once known in 1967-1970. IPOB cites institutionalised marginalisation by the Nigerian state and state-sponsored killing of Igbo as reasons for its actions.

Successive Nigerian governments have responded with arrests, detention and outright killing of the group members. Some time ago, the Amnesty International released a damning video detailing cases where the Nigerian military under President Muhammadu Buhari killed not less than 150 members of the group inside a church and other locations in Onitsha, Anambra State on May 29/30 where the group had gathered to remember their heroes who died in the Biafra war four decades ago.

Also contained in the Amnesty report is a case where members of the Nigeria security agencies comprising police and soldiers swooped on unarmed IPOB members praying inside Ngwa High School, Aba, Abia State on February 9, 2016 and opened fire without warning, killing dozens of them and injuring hundreds.
 This, most certainly, cannot be the best way to solve the Biafra question. When a people complain of marginalisation in a country they call theirs and express a desire to secede as a result of that, it shouldn’t take the genius brain of Albert Einstein to know that the best way to attend to such a sensitive issue is not by rolling out the tanks against them. You don’t use force to keep an aggrieved partner in a relationship he/she has expressed a desire to quit. The easiest way to keep this aggrieved partner in the relationship is by addressing his/her grievances. This is what I believe the government of President Muhammadu Buhari should do with the Biafra issue.

Regardless of what anyone may think about the Biafra question, what even Buhari himself cannot dispute is the fact that some of the grievances of the IPOB group are genuine. It defies common sense that the government has repeatedly vowed never to negotiate with this unarmed group. Personally, I find it criminally offensive that a  Buhari government which is currently negotiating with the deadliest terror group in the whole world, Boko Haram, cannot bring itself to hold talks with the unarmed IPOB group which has been largely peaceful in carrying out its activities. You cannot be negotiating with the Boko Haram terror group which has killed thousands of Nigerians and displaced millions and protecting the murderous Fulani herdsmen with a strong 1000 man military taskforce while you are busy killing the unarmed and largely peaceful IPOB members. This cannot be right!

Buhari, El-Rufai: From Democracy To Guncracy?

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

No one can easily impugn the sense in making democracy to be responsive to the special needs of the milieu in which it is practised. But such domestication retains its validity to the extent that the objective is to serve the people. We need not split hairs in so far as the reformulation of the concept of democracy is not a precursor to an accommodation of the crude cravings of some benighted leaders. What must, however, trigger vigilance is an attempt to tinker with an essential principle of the democracy – periodic elections.

*Pres Buhari and Nasir el-Rufai

For here in Africa, we are not unfamiliar with the truncation of democracy through such tinkering. From Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Algeria, Chad, Congo, Sudan, to Burundi, there are relics of democracies that held so much promise when they began but were later truncated through the greed of their leaders that made them to choose to perpetuate themselves.

Back home in Nigeria, democracy has been subjected to serial betrayals by the nation’s leaders. Either they are failing to make the people choose those they want to serve them or they are reworking democracy to be amenable to their quest for self-perpetuation through a third term. It is in this regard that we must take note of the contemporary reformulation of democracy by President Muhammadu Buhari and Nasir El-Rufai, governor of Kaduna State. 

Yes, they are not yet afflicted with the incubus of self-perpetuation like the Robert Mugabes of Africa. Yet, they have demonstrated a tragic propensity to rework democracy to serve not the people’s interest but their own. What the duo have brought to the table of democracy is neither a celebration of the rule of the majority nor a clarion call for adherence to the rule of law and equality of all. It is rather the reformulation of democracy in such a way that it derives its legitimacy from the barrel of the gun.

Clearly, Buhari and El-Rufai got to their offices on the back of elections that they won. But if they got to offices through elections by the majority, they are not now being sustained in those offices by amenability to the wishes of the majority. What is obvious now is that Buhari and El-Rufai are now beholden to a travestied version of democracy that could be identified as guncracy – a process of legitimising democracy through guns. In no way are guns metaphorical here. For even in unlawful incarceration as in the cases of a former National Security Adviser Sambo Dasuki, whom courts have asked for his freedom many times and the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) Nnamdi Kanu, the guns of the state security operatives were used to shove them into prison having been branded as implacable threats to the state.

Buhari has long embraced guncracy. He has demonstrated this in the South South and South East. In the South South, Buhari has deployed soldiers. They are on the prowl and under the guise of searching for militants and safeguarding oil facilities, they are destroying property and killing innocent people. And in the South East, Buhari has deployed soldiers under the portentous rubric of Operation Python Dance. This was shortly after the Amnesty International indicted the military for killing and maiming innocent citizens in that part of the country.

Root Causes Of The Biafra Struggle

By Femi Aribisala
In the eight years of Obasanjo’s presidency, there was no headline-grabbing demand for Biafra. Ditto for the eight years of the Yar’Adua/Jonathan presidency. However, within months of Buhari’s presidency, the Igbo demand for Biafra has become deafening. Without a doubt, the blame for this new impetus must be laid firmly at the doorstep of President Buhari. Moreover, rather than attenuate it, the president and the APC have exacerbated separatist tendencies in the country.

This was part of the reason why people like me did not support Buhari’s election as president of Nigeria. I have written severally in Vanguard that Nigeria must remain a united nation. In my column of 4th March, 2014 entitled: “Re-Inventing Igbo Politics In Nigeria,” I maintained that: “Nigeria cannot survive without the Igbo.” The following week on 11th March 2014, I wrote another article entitled: “Nigeria Cannot Do without the North.”

I remain persuaded by both positions. But if Nigeria is indeed to remain united, there are certain things that must be said and done. The problem with the Buhari administration is that it seems totally impervious to these imperatives.

There is no question that, as one of the major ethnic groups in Nigeria, the Igbo have been hard done by. Since the civil war 45 years ago, they have been treated as if they were a minority ethnic group in Nigeria when in fact they are one of the majorities. No Igbo has been considered worthy of being head-of-state. The South East of Ndigbo is the only one of the six geopolitical zones of the country with five states. All other zones have six or more. Indeed, the number of local governments in the North-East is virtually double that of the South-East. As a result, the Ndigbo receive the smallest amount of revenue allocation among all the zones, in spite of the fact that some of the South-eastern states are among the oil-producing states.

The roads in the South-east are notoriously bad. Government after government have simply ignored them. Inconsequential ministerial positions are usually zoned to Ndigbo. Time was when it seemed the lackluster Ministry of Information was their menial preserve. It is also a known fact that every so often the Igbo are slaughtered in the North under one guise or the other. Many are forced to abandon their homes and businesses and run for dear life. The people who perpetrate these acts never seem to be arrested or prosecuted.

When a major tribe is treated procedurally as second-class in their own country, there will be a demand for self-determination sooner rather than later. When a group of people feel unsafe in their own country, they cannot but be expected to decide to opt out. It is not the responsibility of the government to imprison the Igbo in Nigeria. It is the responsibility of the government to ensure and guarantee that they feel safe and are treated with respect.

Discrimination against the South: While these issues have been brewing under the surface for some time, the lop-sided tendencies of President Buhari have brought them all out to boiling-point. In his first-coming as head-of-state in 1984, Buhari antagonised Ndigbo by locking up Vice-President Alex Ekwueme, an Igbo man, in jail in Kirikiri; while President Shehu Shagari, a Fulani man was only placed under house arrest. In addition, Buhari arrested and jailed Ojukwu, another Igbo icon for no just cause.

Buhari’s Python Christmas Gift To Ndigbo

By Ochereome Nnanna

The Christmas season is here. In no other part of the country is the Yuletide celebrated as much as it is in the South East and South-South (the heart of Nigeria’s Christendom). It is a time when a chunk of the Igbo Diaspora returns home for the annual communal and family reunions.

Even though it has long been predicted that this year’s Christmas is going to be hard on all Nigerians because of the economic recession (depression, some economists now say), something special is in the offing. President Muhammadu Buhari, through the Nigerian Army, has a special Christmas gift for the people of the South East: a military operation code-named: “Operation Python Dance”.

According to a statement signed by Colonel Sagir Musa, the Deputy Director, Army Public Relations, 82 Division of the Nigerian Army, Enugu, this operation has already started on 27th November to end on 27th December, 2016.

According to Musa: “the prevalent security issues such as armed robbery, kidnapping, abduction, herdsmen-farmers clashes, communal clashes and violent secessionist attacks among others will be targeted”.

The statement went on: “Above all, an elaborate Civil-Military Cooperation (CIMIC) Line of Operation has been planned during the Exercise. Interestingly, Nigerian Army Corps and Services would conduct activities such as medical outreach, repairs of roads, schools and other infrastructure across the South East Region”.

Before we examine the meaning and implications of this exercise, let us reflect briefly on the army’s current operational engagements nationwide, particularly the language in which they are coded. This will offer insight into the psychological mindset of our nation’s elite fighting forces: the Nigerian Army. Have you noticed that the motto of our Army is written in Arabic, then translated into English as: “Victory is from God alone”? I keep wondering how and when Arabic became part of our official lingua franca, such that it is boldly used to write the motto of an Army that supposedly belongs to all Nigerians. I thought English was our sole, official language? For that matter, how did Arabic get mixed up with our national currency, the Naira? What was the rationale for it, and when did we sit down to agree to do it? Could it have been inserted there with the impunity of some vested interests which has been growing wild of late?

Does President Buhari Have A Conscience?

By Femi Fani-Kayode 

“Aside the 105 soldiers killed by Boko Haram, additional 34 soldiers were killed two days ago but it wasn’t in the news”– Deji Adeyanju.

I concur with Mr. Deji Adeyanju. The most heartless and reprehensible thing that our government could have done is to cover-up the fact that 105 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram a few days ago. To do such a thing is simply evil.

A soldier ought to be honoured in death and this is especially so if he died in the course of doing his duty and fighting for his nation.

The government has not only dishonoured them by not acknowledging their sacrifice but they have also buried them in the wilderness like rabid dogs.

This is wickedness of the highest order and President Buhari, his Chief of Army Staff and his Minister of Defence should bury their heads in shame.

Anyone that buys the lie and propaganda that the 105 soldiers never died and that they are still alive is a compound fool or a village idiot.

Will the military also deny the fact that a few days ago 34 of our soldiers were killed by Boko Haram? These boys died for their country. Why deny them?

I am outraged by the fact that a soldier will sacrifice his life for his country yet the citizens and authorities of that country don’t even appreciate it.

Pictures of the dead bodies were posted on social media. Everyone in the military knows that those soldiers are dead. It is an open secret. Yet because government denies it so many people just choose to believe them.

The truth is that Boko Haram must have used chemical weapons in the attack. When you look at the pictures of the dead bodies this is obvious. It was probably mustard gas.

All we want from the military is the truth. If 105 soldiers were not killed then how many actually were?

The whole episode happened last week in Borno State and the military authorities are denying it. I am sickened by that.

If others cannot appreciate the importance of honouring our dead soldiers, I can. I will not be intimidated and I will not remain silent.

Tell us where our boys are buried and if you refuse to do so we will keep asking. There must beaccountability and respect for those who have made the supreme sacrifice just to keep the rest of us safe. Our soldiers deserve that much.

Finally, let it be said loud and clear that since President Buhari came to power he has not bought one bullet for the military. Considering the fact that we are in the middle of a protracted and very bloody war I believe that this is utterly shameful. If you say you want to fight and defeat Boko Haram then why are you not buying arms for your troops?

This brings me to other matters and raises other questions about our President’s sincerity of purpose and commitment.

You say that you are fighting Boko Haram yet you are travelling the world drinking tea with world leaders whilst your soldiers are secretly being slaughtered.

You say you are fighting Boko Haram yet you were nominated as their spokesman and chief negotiator two years ago in a proposed peace talks with the Federal Government.

You say you are fighting Boko Haram but the man you appointed as your National Security Adviser was retired from the army a few years ago for ordering the release of Boko Haram terrorists under suspicious circumstances.

You say you are fighting Boko Haram but the first thing you did when you came to power was to remove military checkpoints. This guaranteed Boko Haram free movement and access to the entire country.

You say you are fighting Boko Haram yet last year you told the world that an attack on Boko Haram is an attack on the North.

You say you are fighting terror yet since you came to power Boko Haram has grown in strength, has regained lost territory and has been declared the “worlds number one most deadly terror group” by the Global Terror Index.

Biafra And The Business Of Killing

By Okey Ndibe

Except in extremely isolated cases — for example, as an act of self-defense — it is morally indefensible for individuals to engage in extra-judicial killing. When a government makes it its business to slaughter unarmed citizens that government reveals itself as criminally thuggish and the state in whose behalf that government kills loses its moral legitimacy.

That, I am afraid, is the burden that President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has placed on itself.

Last week, Amnesty International (AI), a human rights group, released a chilling report on the Buhari administration’s excessively brutal response to members of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) who have been agitating for the rebirth of Biafra. The AI report is a thorough job, based on interviews of 193 people (most of them eyewitnesses), analysis of 87 videos and 122 photographs “showing IPOB assemblies, members of the security forces in the process of committing violations and victims of these violations.” Much of the 60-page report is devoted to offering painstaking accounts of how Nigeria’s security agencies, including the military, killed, maimed, and tortured pro-Biafra agitators.

For those who can’t stomach much gore and horror, I would recommend AI’s executive summary, which highlights the sad, sobering facts. That summary begins, “Since August 2015, the security forces have killed at least 150 members and supporters of the pro-Biafran organisation IPOB (Indigenous Peoples of Biafra) and injured hundreds during non-violent meetings, marches and other gatherings. Hundreds were also arbitrarily arrested.”

According to Amnesty International, “Video footage and eyewitness testimony consistently show that the military, which has been deployed instead of police to control pro-Biafran events, has dispersed peaceful gatherings by firing live ammunition with little or no warning. This report documents extra-judicial executions and the use of excessive force by military, police and other security agencies. It also shows a worrying pattern of arbitrary arrests and detentions, including soldiers arresting wounded victims in hospital, and of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees.”

As the head of the Nigerian state, President Buhari bears ultimate responsibility for the carnage committed by Nigeria’s security agents. He is not the first Nigerian ruler to oversee mindless mass killing. Under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, Nigerian troops went on a homicidal rampage in Odi, Bayelsa State, and Zaki Biam, in Benue State. The late President Umaru Yar’Adua was in control when Nigerian soldiers swept through Maiduguri and other cities in Borno State, killing hordes of men on mere suspicion that they belonged to the Islamist group, Boko Haram.

President Buhari has earned a place in the bloodlust. Under his watch, troops slashed and burned their way through a Shiite neighbourhood near Zaria, Kaduna State. His inflexible stance on the vexed issue of Biafra, marked by a dismissive tone, has helped to create a violent climate. Perhaps encouraged by the President’s hectoring style, heavily armed soldiers and other security personnel have gleefully mowed down agitators who dared hoist up IPOB banners.