Police Report On IPOB Alleged Plan To Attack Lagos

Press Statement

 1) The attention of Pan Yoruba groups has been drawn to reports by the Nigerian Police Force, NPF that Indigenous Peoples of Biafra, (IPOB-IGBO) are planning to attack Lagos. The Lagos State Commissioner Odumosu made the allegation in Lagos today. He speaks for the police high command in Abuja. 

2) While we cherish the responsibility of the police to do their work, we are concerned about the public declaration of the alleged IPOB plans to attack Lagos by the Nigerian Police. 

3) We are worried that since the police already claim to be in possession of what appears to be a confidential information, the proper thing would have been to discreetly go after the IPOB members to arrest them unless the police is not sure of its information. 

Nigeria: This Country Belongs To Us All

 By Dan Amor

Even as the River Niger surges still along its wonted paths to its dalliance with the River Benue and the consequent emptying of the passionate union into the mazes of the Delta, and, thereafter, into the vast, swelling plenitude of the all-welcoming seas, it is Nigeria, our Nigeria. True, Lagos is still Lagos; Abuja is still Abuja. It is, indeed, injury time in a new country under a new democracy, our democracy! Yet, everywhere you look, things look pretty much as they always have been. Still, the sway of buffoonery and unintelligent greed; still the billowing gown arrogance of the supposedly powerful, the surface laughter of the crashing rivers celebrating the disquieting crisis of democracy, the riveting appearances of things. 

Splendid is the current! Yet, into the heart of the average Nigerian pop uninvited intimations that we live today in the cusp of a new age, a new country and a new democracy. Alas, it is a new era. But in the lull between the passions and exertions and excitations of our workaday world today, at these times when the body yields to repose and the mind nestles in shades of quietude, it hits you: it is the dawn of change! But, what manner of change is this? From better to worse?

Leah Sharibu, Chibok Girls, And The International Women's Day

 By Charles Dickson 

All idiots are morons, but not all morons are idiots. 

It was the International Women's Day 2021 recently and the theme was 'Choose to Challenge'. So today I choose to challenge us, the people of Nigeria, hoping that someone is reading and listening, a quick caveat, I will be sometimes uncomplimentary in my choice of words, phrases and conclusions but that’s the essence; a challenge and yes a choice. 

*Leah Sharibu

Over the last decade, I have done a sizable amount of work on not just Boko Haram but also the Chibok girls, killings, abductions and Nigeria’s conflict torn Northwest region. 

So listening to Leah Sharibu’s father, Mr. Nathan speak touched all the wrong cords, hear him, “He has promised several times to the family, he promised the nation, he promised the whole world that his administration will do his possible best to see that my daughter returned home safely. So, I’m pleading to him to be a father, a grandfather, to do his possible best to see my daughter return home safely. Please, I'm begging him”. 

Nigeria’s Invincible Gunmen

 

By Jerry Uwah

Nigeria’s security crisis has taken a precarious nose-dive. Inveterate gangsters derisively tagged gunmen by the Nigerian media have practically turned the country into one huge killing field. 

Last Tuesday the gunmen killed 21 innocent people in different parts of the country. The previous day they killed 18 in one community in Anambra state. The situation in Rivers state is so deplorable that the governor had to declare a curfew. 

The strange development in the escapades of the gunmen is that they are now bold enough to take on those paid and armed to protect the society. In the last two weeks, dozens of policemen have been mowed down by the gunmen who take on police stations as cheap targets. 

Nigeria: Isa Pantami Should Be in Jail

 By Yemi Adebowale

In Law, Ignorance is not an excuse. Confessing to a crime is not immunity against trial. Again, the fact that an offence was committed years back does not mean the offender will escape justice. The person can be put on trial anytime the facts of the crime emerge. That was why the American government put former film producer, Harvey Weinstein on trial for sex offences dating back to the late 1970s. 

*Pantami

Weinstein was arrested, charged with rape in New York in May 2018, convicted and sentenced to 23 years in prison. Nigeria’s Communication and Digital Economy Minister, Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, for his past extremist and flammable preaching, is liable for trial for incitement; inciting Muslims against Christians, inciting Muslims against the federal government and the military. In criminal law, incitement is encouraging another person to commit a crime. It is committed when one person counsels, procures or commands another to commit a crime, whether or not that person commits the crime.

Risks And Rewards For South African President As He Takes The Stand At Corruption Inquiry

 By Richard Calland

President Cyril Ramaphosa's decision to appear before the Zondo Commission of inquiry into corruption in South Africa comes at a delicate time. A great deal hinges on it. When a sitting President appears before a Judicial Commission of Inquiry it is always a significant moment.

*Ramaphosa and Zuma 

Sometimes a Commission will be concerned with a failure or with misconduct that has taken place under the particular head of government's own watch. But other times, it may be that it is the mistakes of a previous administration or President that are under scrutiny.

Ramaphosa's case is unusual as it is neither one nor the other. The Commission's terms of reference are focused clearly on events that took place while Ramaphosa's immediate predecessor ,Jacob Zuma, was President , between 2009 and 2018. Ramaphosa was elected president in February 2018.

Is Nigeria Still the Giant of Africa?

 By Reno Omokri

The 2019 xenophobia attacks in South Africa, for which President Muhammadu Buhari visited South Africa on Thursday, October 3, 2019, was the defining proof that the rest of Africa needed to see, to convince them that Nigeria, under Muhammad Buhari, has become a paper tiger, whose bark is worse than its bite.

Come to think of it. How can Nigerians be attacked in unprovoked xenophobic outrage in South Africa, and it is the Nigerian President who goes to grovel to the South African leader, a neophyte, like Cyril Ramaphosa, nonetheless?
It beggars belief. Obasanjo would never have done that, and former President Jonathan did not do it.

Nigerians may recall that on March 4, 2012, South Africa deported 125 Nigerians over Yellow Fever Certificates. The very next day, then-President Jonathan ordered the retaliatory deportation of 84 South Africans.

Nigeria: Buhari, Pantami And The Burden Of A Nation

 By Charles Okoh

The recent unearthing of the not-so-wholesome past of the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr. Isa Ali Pantami, has brought doubts on the sincerity and desire of the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to end insurgency and all sundry security issues that currently engulf the nation.

 *Buhari and Pantami

Pantami has shown little or no regards for the tenets of democracy and democratic principles in his capacity as a minister in a democratic government. He has carried on as a despotic leader who would brook no contrary view no matter how genuine and objective. His disposition to governance would only come as a surprise to those who knew little about him before the tremor caused by the expose on his sordid past came to the fore recently. 

Nigeria: The Bad Example of Zenith Bank

 By Dulue Mbachu

When the news broke some weeks ago that Zenith Bank had declared an annual profit of 230.5 billion naira for 2020, it crossed my mind that my 148,354 naira withheld by the bank for the past year may have been counted as gain. 

On February 10, 2020, I used my Zenith Bank app to settle a bill to Quickteller (owned by Interswitch) for an Arik Air ticket priced 47,111.00 naira. Though my Zenith Bank account was charged, Arik didn’t issue the ticket because, it said, the money didn’t get to it. 

Interswitch confirmed it received the payment and due to some glitch it didn’t go through to Arik. So I paid for a fresh ticket while Interswitch promised to reverse the transaction, with the funds due in my account by February 20. Interswitch then sent me evidence it had initiated the payment reversal, and copied me in an email sent to no less than 14 people and units in Zenith Bank, including their key reconciliation officials, providing them the reversal instructions.

Buhari Is Encouraging Secession – Ayo Adebanjo

 

*Adebanjo 

The National leader of the pan-Yoruba socio-cultural organization, Afenifere, Chief Ayo Adebanjo, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari’s unyielding opposition to the widespread yearning of Nigerians for the restructuring of the country is swelling the ranks self-determination agitators and fueling the demands for secession.

Speaking at the Service of Songs in honour of the late Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, at the Police College Ikeja on Thursday, April 22, Adebanjo stated that if Buhari claims to be a democrat, he would not have refused to gratify the yearning of the people to have the country restructured:

“It’s Buhari that encourages secession. Those of us calling for restructuring are the people who want Nigeria to stay. They mention Igboho, they mention Nnamdi Kanu. These people represent the youths here, because the suffering is much; the suffering is bad. And if they don’t restructure Nigeria, we’ll have more Igbohos, we’ll have more Nnamdi Kanus. I don’t support secession and don’t oppose it,” he said. 

Was Deby, Chadian President, Assassinated?

 President Idriss Deby of Chad is dead.

Army spokesman, General Azem Bermandoa Agouna, in statement broadcast on state television, said Mr Deby died of injuries he sustained on the frontline while visiting Chadian soldiers waging a bitter war against rebel fighters in the north.   

President Deby “has just breathed his last defending the sovereign nation on the battlefield,” General Agouna said in the statement.

Anambra International Airport Is On Course

 

By C. Don Adinuba

1. As the first commercial plane is scheduled to land at Anambra International Cargo/Passenger Airport on April 30, 2021, to test-run the facilities at the airport, a faceless group of hired propaganda guns has crafted and posted on the Internet a so-called news report alleging that the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Ministry of Aviation, has refused to give the Anambra State Government a licence to operate an international airport but has rather offered the State Government a licence to run a domestic airport. The scammers attributed the purported decision to the Minister of Aviation, Senator Sirika Hadi, a well-respected captain and administrator.  

Nigeria: A Nation On The Brink Of Collapse

            

By Mike Ikhariale

Anyone watching the series of unpleasant events that have taken place in Nigeria in the past few years cannot but conclude that this is a country on a calamitous plunge. The sad part of the whole development is that it does not appear as if the leadership and even the citizens themselves fully appreciate the danger that is looming headlong like an onrushing train as things have, to an exceptionally alarming extent, been treated in the habitual lackadaisical manner of “business as usual” despite the increasingly cataclysmic developments that are manifesting all around them and to which they have no rational answers.

In a way, I feel as if I have the unusual misfortune of talking ceaselessly about the danger being posed to the polity by bad leadership and corruptive political culture with no one in a position to act positively taking notice of them. For those benefiting from the ongoing misfortunes and tragedies of the country, I might have already earned the sobriquet of an alarmist and possibly that of a prophet of doom.

Nigeria: The Truth My Fulani Friends Must Accept

 By Dele Momodu 

“Everything that has a beginning must have an end. As they say on the street: “E fit take time, but one day, one day, Monkey go go market”

I love this quote about injustice:

“Every person remembers some moment in their life where they witnessed some injustice, big or small, and looked away because the consequences of intervening seemed too intimidating. But there’s a limit to the amount of incivility and inequality and inhumanity that each individual can tolerate. I crossed that line. And I’m no longer alone.” – Edward Snowden.  

“One day, and very soon, Nigerians will cross that line too. For there is indeed a limit to human endurance. One day, we all shall rise to say Enough is enough. One day!”

                         *Dele Momodu and President Buhari 

Fellow Nigerians, I have had to shelve the continuation of the celebration of Ovation International magazine at 25 in order to address matters of pressing national importance. I have just received some new horrific videos of bestial killings in some parts of Nigeria, and it is obvious Satan himself has landed in Nigeria. 

NSCIA Has Exposed Itself As A Promoter Of Bad Governance And Injustice In The Buhari Regime – CAN

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) has frowned at what it called the  "vulgar, immature language and unprintable words" deployed by the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) to describe the umbrella body of Christians in Nigeria, in its (NSCIA) attempt "to justify the obvious lopsided appointments of the Federal Government in favour of its members."

In statement entitled “Re: NSCIA Accuses CAN of Campaign of Calumny over Shortlisted Justice of the Court of Appeal: A Rebuttal” and signed by CAN's General Secretary, Barr. Joseph Daramola, the Christian body reminded NSCIA that according to the Nigerian Constitution, all Nigerians, both "Christians and Moslems are stakeholders in this country," and that the votes that put the present regime in power "were not collated on the basis of religion."

Muhammadu And Aisha Buhari: Very Early In Their Marriage

 Muhammadu Buhari and Aisha Buhari got married in 1989. Here is a picture of the couple during the early days of their marriage...

Umar’s “BIAFRAN Boys” Dig Up Part of Nigeria’s Unofficial Igbophobia

 By Farooq A. Kperogi

Danladi Umar, the notoriously vain and sickeningly skin-bleached chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, was caught on camera on March 29 physically assaulting a securityguard identified as 22-year-old Clement Sargwak. 

Umar flew into a tempestuous rage because Sargwak besought him to not park his car at a spot that obstructed traffic in Abuja’s Banex Plaza in Wuse 2. 

                          *Danladi Umar 

In the aftermath of the swift, across-the-board social media denunciations that his cowardly physical violence against a lowly security guard roused, Umar caused the head of the Press and Public Relations unit of the Code of Conduct Tribunal by the name of Ibraheem Al-Hassan to issue an agonizingly dreadful and error-ridden press release that, among other things, singled out nameless “BIAFRAN Boys” for blame in a show of shame in which he is the main villain. 

Whither Nigeria?

 By Odia Ofeimun

Each time it was discovered that the ship of state was foundering, without compass, and no one seemed to have a handle on how to navigate with a proper goal-orientation, the question, Whither Nigeria?, has been asked as a way of giving expression to where we are as a country, where we are going or where we should be going. Mostly, the issues have emerged from trying to think beyond the scramble by the various nationalities in the country. In a multi-ethnic society, reality tends to be resolved around levels of perception in the practice of governance.  

                *Odia Ofeimun 

I am interested in how we’ve been fixed by history, and how we’ve always managed to have so many unresolved issues, so embarrassingly many, even now, when the most intense marker of dissension in the Nigerian firmament is the Boko Haram Insurgency in the North-East which has sought many times, unsuccessfully, to declare a Caliphate over parts of the country. Take the other issue around MASSOB (Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra) and the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB). They have raised the Biafran secessionist flag contentiously and ambitiously over what used to be the Eastern Region. Successive Federal Governments have pursued them with punitive measures as if the civil war of 1967-70 did not quite come to an end. Now, look, the clouds are gathering, as fractions of the Yoruba, at home and in the Diaspora, are angling for a secessionist binge of their own, unless, as it is stressed, ethnic nationalities are allowed to become self-governing within the Nigerian Federation.

Yahaya Bello: The Ugly Face Of APC

 By Eniola Bello (ENI-B)

For several weeks now, Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello has been running a daily front page strip advertisement, in at least four newspapers, which are, on the surface, a campaign for new membership for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in his capacity as Chairman, APC Youths, Women and PLWDS Mobilisation Committee. Looking closely, however, the daily strip front page advertisement with one bold message, “Join Africa’s Largest Political Party”, is simply Bello’s drive for cheap visibility in pursuit of his much-trumpeted ambition to take over from President Muhammadu Buhari in 2023.

                       *Gov Yahaya Bello (middle) dancing on a                                                 street in Lokoja 

Since the beginning of the year, some members of Bello’s cabinet, Secretary to the State Government (SSG) Folashade Ayoade and Information Commissioner Kingsley Fanwo in the forefront, have enjoyed listening to their own voices, granting interviews, addressing press conferences, and organising marches all for Bello 2023 Presidency. The Matthew Kolawole-led Kogi Assembly even visited their counterparts in Sokoto to drum support for Governor Bello. The Kogi governor has also played host to all manner of youth groups pledging support for his ambition and honouring him with some funny awards. Some ex-Super Eagles players, with Jay Jay Okocha in the forefront, packaged the latest of such awards, ‘The Captain and Pillar of Nigerian Youths’.

What Do Yoruba People Want?

 By Olusegun Adeniyi

Even with a mask practically covering his face, I saw the expression of surprise when I posed this question to the Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola. Seated directly in front of his desk at the Osun State Government House in Osogbo, I was observing every gesture.

                        *Awolowo 

After a long pause, he said: “That is a very difficult question but I will answer it.” Another long pause followed during which he was apparently processing his thoughts. Then finally, the governor responded: “What Yoruba people want is a peaceful, secure and prosperous region in a just, peaceful and prosperous Nigeria that every citizen would be proud to call their country.”

The governor was candid as he explained the challenge of insecurity in the South-west, the process that led to the establishment of ‘Amotekun’, the operational guidelines and structures that are still evolving from state to state and the need not to mix security with religion or ethnicity. At the end, I left Oyetola better educated about the problem South-West governors are trying to confront and the stand of the Yoruba nation within a diverse Nigeria. The governor also explained how he was able to defuse the crisis in the Osun education sector as well as the financial engineering and alternative project funding that has helped the state to rid itself of the notoriety for non-payment of salaries while still embarking on a number of infrastructural projects. These of course are issues we will come back to another day.