No To 'Operation Crocodile Smile' In The Niger Delta

By Dan Amor

To all intents and purposes, the reported mobilisation of soldiers to Cross River State and other states in the South South geopolitical zone in a military jamboree code named "Operation Crocodile Smile", is needless and avoidable. Unfortunately, Niger Delta youths who call themselves militants have once again played their much-abused region which, ironically, produces the wealth of the nation, into the willing hands of the establishment under the watch of a central government with an unstated or hidden agenda to totally exterminate the goose that lays the golden egg from the face of the earth.

 Even while the region was yet relatively peaceful, when the reawakened restiveness had not reached fever-pitch, President Muhammadu Buhari, even in his inaugural speech alluded to how he would combat and defeat Boko Haram and Niger Delta militants. One can then safely assume that the current war is directly or indirectly orchestrated by the powers that be just to create room for them to execute their plan against the region.

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?

Buhari’s Isolation Of Igbo: A Blessing

By Clement Udegbe

“Facing it , always facing it, that’s the way to get through. Face it” —Joseph ConradMore.

Igbos have come to that point in the national life of Nigeria, where they just have to face it. They have to face the realities of these times. No one will develop the South East for them except they face it. No one will stop crime and kidnapping for them, except they face it. No one will spare their land from Fulani herdsmen, whether they play the politics or not, they just have to face it.

*Buhari

No one will terminate the buds of islamisation from growing in Igbo land for them, except they face it. No one will stop the killings at the least provocation in the north except they face it. No one will stop shooting at unarmed Igbo Youths under whatever guise, except they face it. Some Igbos think they have money, but none of them is on the Forbes list of  the richest 100  in the world, and none is on the list of the richest 100 in Africa, they have to face it. And to face these and many more, they must, if they will get the Igbo land they deserve from this Nigeria we live in today. Igbos have to face the fact that as a people, they got it wrong after the 1996 to 1967 civil war. They have to face the fact that dispersing like the oil bean seed all over Nigeria while neglecting their own region, and blaming all others is not the way to push forward your agenda in the new Nigeria.

None of them will become President without a solid political base at home, and joining other peoples’ base will never help them. The South East has many rich sons who started political parties perhaps just to access the money INEC was dolling out to political parties in those days. They had no intentions to develop their region politically, and they were not interested in forming any political base in that region. Thus, their political parties died as soon as the free money from Federal government for parties dried up. These Igbo men wanted quick money without power, and today they keep scheming to join and jostle for positions in main stream political parties that were formed by their colleagues who targeted power and money, and remained faithful to that cause.