THE IGBO GIANT STRIDES AGAINST ALL ODDS
9 years ago
Last Valentine’s Day, Oscar Pistorius killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp after firing four times through a locked bathroom door in the middle of the night. He thought Steenkamp was still in bed next to him. He thought she was an intruder, he said, offering up the flimsiest of defences for the indefensible. It was as if Pistorius knew he didn’t need to come up with a plausible explanation and so he did not even try.
Since the trial began in March, we’ve watched and waited and hoped for justice. It has been a bit surreal, given the facts of the case, to imagine an outcome where justice would not be served. Or it has been a bit surreal to accept that we live in a world where a man can justify shooting an unarmed woman through a locked door. Then again, this is also a world where an armed police officer can shoot an unarmed young black man. Whether in South Africa or Ferguson, Missouri, the rules most of us live by hardly seem to apply to white men.
Today, we have a clearer understanding of what justice means for certain groups of people, which is to say that justice can mean far too little. Judge Thokozile Matilda Masipa has found Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide rather than premeditated murder. Hers is a verdict that raises the question – what does a man have to do to be found guilty of murdering a woman?
Among her comments, Judge Masipa, who has acquitted herself well throughout the trial, noted that Pistorius’s defence of his crime can “reasonably possibly be true”. The evidence against Pistorius for premeditated murder was “purely circumstantial”. He did, however, act negligently because “a reasonable person with a similar disability would have foreseen that the person behind the door would be killed, and the accused failed to take action to avoid this”. Those words are hollow because a reasonable person never would have been in such a situation in the first place.
We might be able to say that this is a failure of prosecution, that the prosecutors did not do enough to prove that Pistorius committed premeditated murder. Those words feel flimsy right now. A woman is dead at the hands of her intimate partner. She is dead under the most implausible of circumstances because what would an intruder be doing, locked in a bathroom in the middle of the night? We know, because of details that emerged after she was killed, that Steenkamp and Pistorius had volatile moments in their relationship. We know Pistorius had a penchant for modern weaponry. We know a woman is dead, and still what we know is not enough.
Among the other counts Judge Masipa adjudicated, Pistorius was convicted of the negligent handling of a firearm after he misfired a gun in a restaurant last year. One cannot help but feel that interrupting a meal and interrupting a woman’s life are offences held in somewhat equal regard in this world. Now we will have to wait until 13 October for sentencing to find out what the judge sees as a fitting punishment for this lesser crime. That punishment, too, will not be enough.
What makes this all the more offensive is how Pistorius has, essentially, framed his defence as a fear of blackness. By evoking an unseen intruder he has exploited the complex and fraught racial history of South Africa to help justify his crime. As Margie Orford wrote, in these pages, “This imaginary body of the paranoid imaginings of suburban South Africa has lurked like a bogeyman at the periphery of this story for the past year. It is the threatening body, nameless and faceless, of an armed and dangerous black intruder.”
Pistorius would have us believe that he thought his girlfriend was safely in bed next to him. He would have us believe this mythical black intruder was locked in his bathroom. He would have us believe this mythical black intruder was whom he was killing when he fired through a closed door four times, as if somehow that would be justifiable. Though early this morning I may not understand this world we live in, Oscar Pistorius understands it and what he can get away with, perfectly
CULLED: THE GUARDIAN
First of all, it’s not in your head. Mosquitoes really doprefer some people to others, says Dr. Jonathan Day, a medical entomologist and mosquito expert at the University of Florida. And that time your grandmother told you your skin was just sweeter? There’s some truth to that, Day says. “Some people produce more of certain chemicals in their skin,” he explains. “And a few of those chemicals, like lactic acid, attract mosquitoes.” There’s also evidence that one blood type (O) attracts mosquitoes more than others (A or B). Unfortunately, your genes dictate your blood type and the chemical makeup of your birthday suit. Genetics also determine several other factors that could make you an object of blood-sucking affection for your local mosquito population, Day says. Maybe the most important: Your metabolic rate, or the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) your body releases as it burns energy.
Mosquitoes use CO2 as their primary means of identifying bite targets, Day says. Why? “All vertebrates produce carbon dioxide, so what better way could there be for a mosquito to cue in on a host?” And while it’s true that you can moderate your metabolic rate through diet and exercise, you can only change your metabolism so much, Day says.
“Pregnant women and overweight or obese people tend to have higher resting metabolic rates, which may make them more attractive to mosquitoes,” he explains. Also, drinking alcohol or physically exerting yourself raises your metabolic rate—and also your appeal to winged biters, he adds. (Exercising before grabbing a beer and heading outside = asking for trouble.)
While CO2 detection is the primary technique mosquitoes and other blood-sucking bugs use to spot hosts, they also rely on secondary cues to differentiate you from cars, decaying trees, and other CO2-producing objects. And you can control some of those secondary cues, Day says.
For example: Dark clothing is more attractive to mosquitoes than light oufits. Why? “Mosquitoes have problems flying in even a slight wind, and so they keep close to the ground,” Day explains. Down there, they spot hosts by comparing your silhouette to the horizon. Dark colors stand out, while light shades blend in, he says. At the same time, lots of motion distinguishes you from your surroundings. So if you’re moving around a lot or gesturing, you might as well be shouting, “Hey, mosquitoes! I’m right here, ladies!” (Only the females bite, Day says.)
Obviously, you’re not going to spend the summer sitting stock-still in a white suit. So what are the best ways to avoid itchy bites? Day recommends protective clothing, which doesn’t mean baggy jeans and long-sleeved sweatshirts. “Lots of the lightweight, breathable fabrics made for athletes or fishermen are woven tightly enough to protect you from bugs,” he says.
If your summer style isn’t negotiable—or for those parts of your body you can’t cover up—Day recommends a mosquito repellant with 15% DEET. Just make sure to follow the label’s instructions for safe application. “Spray it into your hands and then rub it on your skin to avoid inhaling it,” he says. “That’ll protect you for around 90 minutes.”
Also, mosquitoes usually feed at dawn and dusk when the wind tends to die down and the humidity rises, Day explains. If you can stay indoors at those times, you’ll avoid bites. A good fan pointed in your general vicinity will also do a great job of keeping the bugs away. “Mosquitoes can’t fly in a breeze faster than 1 mile per hour,” Day says.
If all that fails, hug a bite-free buddy. Maybe some of his mosquito-repelling skin chemicals will rub off on you.
Culled: Time
There is no gainsaying the fact that joblessness or call it unemployment is usually the nightmare of most graduates across the globe. In a bid to disentangle oneself from the biting grips of this ugly situation, most jobless folks have adopted different approaches from the conventional to the radical. Here are three pictures of three jobless folks in three different climes, one here in Nigeria, the other in Tunisia and another in UK.
In the first picture we can see an unemployed graduate of Mechanical Engineering from Ekiti State University, Mr. Sunday Omotayo, being pleaded with by a police officer to get up after he allegedly jumped out of a speeding Toyota Hiace expecting to be crushed by oncoming vehicles.
According to him: “There is no state that I have not gone to in search of a job in the past 10 years. I came to Akwa Ibom because this is my last hope because of the stories of Governor Godswill Akpabio and his uncommon transformation. I came with the hope that with what is going on in the state, getting a job would be easy so that I can begin to be a man. But since I came, I discovered that many people from Akwa Ibom are also crying because of poverty and joblessness.”
The riots and demonstrations that have swept through Tunisia during the past 10 days also began with a small incident.
Rioting followed and security forces sealed off the town. On Wednesday, another jobless young man in Sidi Bouzid climbed an electricity pole, shouted "no for misery, no for unemployment", then touched the wires and electrocuted himself. The reactions to these events in Tunisia quickly spiralled out of control and snowballed into the Arab Spring that Swept away Muommar Gaddafi & Hosni Mubarrack of Libya and Egypt from power.
For Mr Sunday and Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid , hopelessness had set in after years of joblessness and hence their choice to express their frustration in the manner they did. But that was not obviously the case with Alfred, who graduated in May and have been applying for jobs ever since. Though Alfred has been finding it very difficult at the moment, one morning however, Alfred stood at the entrance to a busy station holding a sign that read: 'Marketing graduate (BA Hons 2:1 Coventry Uni) Ask for CV.'
Alfred's direct approach received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential positions. According to him, he realised that there are thousands of students out there using the same old methods of applying for jobs on-line and through recruitment agencies and so I thought I'd try something different.
'I got up early and went to the station he said. At first people just looked at me but after about 10 minutes people starting stopping and talking. They said they'd never seen anything like it before and were really impressed.Alfred's direct approach received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential positions. According to him, he realised that there are thousands of students out there using the same old methods of applying for jobs on-line and through recruitment agencies and so I thought I'd try something different.
As I write, another batch of corpers have just left the orientation camp. For some of these corpers, especially those of them that will come to terms with the reality inherent in the distorted acronym of NYSC as "Now Your Suffering Continues"; the morale lesson from these stories is for them to confront the situations the find themselves with approaches that are not only acceptable to the climes they find themselves but approaches that wont be counter-productive.
If out of frustration, a Nigerian graduate decides to tow the line of the Tunisian duo of Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid both of whom took their lives in order to draw attention to their plights, that fellow can be rest assured of a double jeopardy in the sense that he or she wont only have failed to better his lot or that of others but will also be dismissed as an outright failure because our society does not approve of such suicidal missions. Thank goodness that Mr. Sunday Omotayo's suicidal mission was not successful but even if he had been crushed by incoming vehicles as he had wished, he would just be dismissed as a lazy man and thus confined to the ash bin of history.
Alfred's direct approach in UK may have received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential job offers but the success of such approach will be minimal here in Nigeria. The reason being that the jobs are not just there. What we need is a new orientation towards job creation or self employment. While this may be a hard nut to sell, it surely remains the best option for any graduate that would not like to be frustrated.
If out of frustration, a Nigerian graduate decides to tow the line of the Tunisian duo of Mohamed Bouazizi as well as Sidi Bouzid both of whom took their lives in order to draw attention to their plights, that fellow can be rest assured of a double jeopardy in the sense that he or she wont only have failed to better his lot or that of others but will also be dismissed as an outright failure because our society does not approve of such suicidal missions. Thank goodness that Mr. Sunday Omotayo's suicidal mission was not successful but even if he had been crushed by incoming vehicles as he had wished, he would just be dismissed as a lazy man and thus confined to the ash bin of history.
Alfred's direct approach in UK may have received a warm response from commuters, with many stopping to discuss potential job offers but the success of such approach will be minimal here in Nigeria. The reason being that the jobs are not just there. What we need is a new orientation towards job creation or self employment. While this may be a hard nut to sell, it surely remains the best option for any graduate that would not like to be frustrated.
A British soldier who spotted a boy with a terrible deformity while on patrol in Bosnia has spent ten years fundraising to finally deliver his promise of giving him - a new FACE.
Staff Sergeant Wayne Ingram, 44, met four-year-old Stefan Savic a decade ago while on peacekeeping duties in Eastern Europe.
The youngster was born with a debilitating condition Tessier facial cleft which meant his eyes were 4.5cm further apart than normal and he had no proper nose.
But father-of-two Wayne, formerly of the 9th/12th Royal Lancers, was so moved by Stefan's plight he vowed to get him state-of-the-art medical help.
He collected an amazing £85,000 with a fundraising drive across Bosnia and the UK before bringing Stefan back to London's Great Ormond Street Hospital in 2003.
The youngster underwent 12 hours of surgery with plastic surgeon David Dunaway who cut his face in half before moving his eyes closer together and building him a nose.
The op was a success but Mr Dunaway warned that a second surgery would be needed a decade later.
Just a normal, playful little boy
Determined Wayne kept in touch with Stefan and his parents Slavenka, 36, and Milos, 44, raising a further £20,000 to bring him back to the UK to finish his treatment.
Stefan, now aged 14, returned to Great Ormond Street this week for his second operation with Mr Dunaway to improve his face and help his breathing.
Modest Wayne, from Weymouth, Dorset, said he was just happy to complete the remarkable job of helping Stefan lead the life of a normal little boy.
He said: "I was on a routine patrol In Bosnia when I was introduced to his father and went to meet Stefan.
"The condition had been left untreated and had grown between Stefan’s eyes, crushing his skull, forcing his eyes apart to the point he couldn’t see what was ahead of him.
"But aside from the facial deformities he was just a normal, playful little boy. He was confident and cheeky, climbing all over me as we played football in the yard.
"He was too young then to be self-aware. But his facial cleft was blocking his airways and without medical attention could kill him.
"I had two young sons myself at the time and there was no way I could stand back and do nothing. I knew in an instant I had to do everything I could to help."
Massive fundraising drive
As Wayne set about raising funds, he wrote to a long list of celebrities - but only David Beckham replied, politely explaining he had already chosen his charities for that year.
Mr Dunaway was offering his services for free but Wayne still needed to pay for flights, accommodation for the family, as well as essential hospital costs.
He raised 6,000 Euros by staging a charity football match in Banja Luka, with Muslim, Serb and Croat players setting aside their conflicts to help Stefan.
And back in the UK, Wayne launched a massive fundraising drive, persuading his local Asda to put collection boxes beside their tills.
Wayne said: "Donations poured in and I was bowled over by the generosity.
"Stefan needed three operations back then - one to remove his teeth, another to reconstruct his nose and another to reconstruct his skull.
"He was back and forth to the UK many times, staying for as long as a month at a time.
"The doctors warned us it wasn’t over, however, and that ten years later Stefan would need follow up surgery.
"But we have kept in touch ever since and as ten years neared I let Stefan’s family know I would raise the necessary funds - over £20,000."
As Wayne set about raising a second lot of cash to pay for visas, hospital costs and flights, he was once more amazed by people's generosity.
In his native Dorset one anonymous donor, calling herself simply ‘the kind granny' contributed a "large, undisclosed" amount.
And this time celebs including comic Jim Davidson and musician Billy Bragg also answered his SOS.
Honouring a promise
With the funding in place, brave Stefan underwent his four-hour follow-up operation with Mr Dunaway on Saturday and is making a good recovery.
Mr Dunaway, who once more waived his fees, said: "This operation was really about reconstructing his nose and improving his nasal airway.
"His nose was very wide and he basically didn't have a tip to it at all.
"We took a cartilage from one rib, fashioned it into the shape of a nose, then used it to reconstruct his nose.
"This will allow him to breath more easily, eat more easily, it will improve his speech and he will look much more like the rest of us.
"To have the opportunity to greet him again and finish it off so he can lead a normal life and not worry about these things is just great."
Stefan will likely need a further operation on his nose and orthodontics to realign his teeth before one final surgery to correct the roof of his mouth.
Wayne, who was so inspired by Stefan's medical progress he became a paramedic after leaving the army, says he'll be there every step of the way.
Wayne, whose own sons Harry and Toby are now 18 and 16, added: "Stefan has never moaned or complained the whole time I've known him.
"His mum says that after his latest operation he looked in front of the mirror and said: 'this is the best thing that has ever happened to me'.
"For me this was about honouring a promise I made all those years ago and doing everything I could for Stefan.
"He's changed my life as well and inspired me to become a paramedic. We'll always have an inseparable bond."
Wayne's fundraising efforts have been supported by the Facing the World charity, which provides life-changing surgery to children from developing countries with severe facial disfigurements.
To make a donation visit facingtheworld.net
SOURCE MSN
No Kidding! Baby Goat Has Eight Legs
A goat born in Croatia this week had one befuddled farmer questioning his own eyes when he counted eight legs on the kid.
Nicknamed "octogoat," the baby also had both male and female reproductive organs, leading local vets to believe that the newborn's condition was a result of an under-developed twin, ITV reported today.
"I counted his legs and I thought I was seeing things. Then I called my neighbor to make sure that I am not crazy," farmer Zoran Paparic told inSerbia.
He said his goat Sarka gave birth to the kid at his farm in Kutjevo, in northeast Croatia.
It's unlikely the goat will survive, the vets said, but Paparic said he would keep the goat as a pet if it survives.
Source ABC News
In a nation where accountability is in short supply, there is perhaps no greater threat today than the impunity with which government officials and their spouses, at practically all levels, appropriate to themselves and cronies scarce public resources. They fly private jets (where they don’t buy one with government funds), stay in the most expensive hotels both within and outside the country, erect big mansions they hardly live in while moving around in convoys of the latest automobiles. To compound the situation, it is not enough that they enjoy such luxury at the expense of the people while in office, they also want to continue with it after office hence they now make laws to confer on themselves such criminal indulgences as private citizens.
However, as I said earlier, Peter Obi is different. He remains probably the most modest person to have been governor under the current dispensation while his lifestyle must have saved Anambra State billions of Naira, especially when compared with the cost of maintaining his colleagues. Even when he was already a wealthy man before assuming office, Obi exhibited uncommon decency and humility while in office. Within the country, he travelled light, just with one aide and always on commercial airlines as opposed to his colleagues who travelled by private jets. And whenever he travelled outside the country, you would only find Obi in the business class compartment.
As we therefore mark the 15th anniversary of our democratic journey under the current dispensation, Obi’s story is particularly instructive against the background that on Monday, the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly passed an executive bill which guarantees Governor Godswill Akpabio about N200 million annually for life. At a time he would have left Uyo (and probably while still earning several millions of Naira as a sitting senator in Abuja), Akpabio would be entitled to a pension at a rate equivalent to the salary of the sitting Akwa Ibom governor.
The law which only “upgrades” the earlier version signed by his predecessor, Obong Victor Atta, also provides for a former governor and his spouse a sum not exceeding N5 million per month to employ domestic staff and free medical services at a sum not exceeding N100 million per annum. A befitting accommodation not below a 5-bedroom maisonette in either Abuja or Akwa Ibom is also waiting for a former governor. Of course, the bill does not forget to take care of the deputy governor who is also entitled to some form of luxury after office. Yet as scandalous as the foregoing may seem, Akwa Ibom is only following in the footsteps of several other states where former governors have literally put their people in perpetual servitude.
In several of these states, there is a law binding the government to provide mansions both in choice areas of Abuja and their state capital for a former governor who is also entitled to several vehicles and retinue of aides. Kano perhaps provides a prime illustration of this scandal and I enjoin readers to just google the name Shekarau or Kwankwaso over “pension residence” for former governors to understand the abuse to which a simple constitutional provision could be subjected in pursuit of inordinate private interest.
However, as I said earlier, Obi is different because he managed Anambra State resources as he would his own. What is even more remarkable is that in a milieu when many governors have virtually bankrupted their states with loans that can hardly be accounted for by any meaningful projects, Obi left substantial amount of money for his successor without any debt. Yet we are talking of a state that is number 22 (among 36 states) in revenue sharing.
Due to the fact that I visited Anambra State only once throughout his extended tenure, I do not know much about Obi’s stewardship beyond what I read in newspapers. So this piece is not about his achievements in office for which I am not in a position to comment. It is nonetheless noteworthy that the 2013 West African Examination Council (WAEC) results released a fortnight ago put Anambra State students top on the chart. Yet a time was when young men from the state that has produced some of the brightest and the best of our country would rather go to Lagos to sell spare-parts than go to school. To the extent that the state now leads in WAEC, Peter Obi must have done something right with education even though that is not the real essence of this intervention.
On March 17 this year when he handed over to Mr. Willie Obiano, the former governor said he was leaving behind billions of Naira in the state treasury. At the time, I thought it was a remarkable development and I wanted to take it up on this page. Before I could write on it, however, there were advertorials in the newspapers which suggested that Obi might not have presented an accurate picture of things. That prompted me to investigate the veracity of his claim.
In the hand-over note to Governor Obiano dated March 17 this year, Obi indeed gave a summary of the full financial statement of Anambra State as at the close of business on Friday, March 14 (effectively his last day in office) as follows: Local Investments (N27 billion); Foreign Currency Investment (US $156 Million the Naira equivalent of which was put at N26.5 billion); Certified State/MDAs Balances (N28,165,985,574); Federal Government Approved Refund (N10 billion) and estimated balances, including March salaries, pension and gratuity as well as approved certificates of already executed projects (N5 billion). That put the total net balance at about N86.67 billion.
The question therefore is: Is the claim true? I believe it is. A March 5, 2014 document originating from Fidelity Securities Limited and addressed to the Anambra State Accountant General on the investment mandate from the State Government reveals the details of the Eurobond securities purchased for the state as follows: Access Bank with 25 July, 2017 as maturity date amounts to $7,413,619; four federal government bonds which will mature in 2018, 2021 and 2023 total $20,382,500; two Gabonese government bonds which will mature on 12 December 2024 total $7,008,750; a Ghanaian government bond which matures on 4 October, 2017 amounts to $5,451,319; Guarantee Trust Bank bond which matures on May 19, 2015 gives $4,307,500 and a First Bank of Nigeria bond which matures on August 7, 2020 will yield $5,254,062. According to the document, the state has already received “total coupon amounting to $855,400 to date from investment in Access Bank and Nigerian Sovereigns” while awaiting “instruction on account to credit with the Naira equivalent.”
Aside the $50 million invested on behalf of the State Government on 31 October, 2013 by Diamond Bank, an Access Bank document dated 31 January, 2014 also confirms the investment of the sum of US$49,966,504.08 on behalf of Anambra State in six Eurobonds for a period ranging between one and five years and an average yield of between 6.2 and 7.1 percent.
While there may be a debate as to the actual total sum of the investments left by the Obi administration since I do not have all the details, it is remarkable that we had a governor who was not only thinking of the immediate but also considered it imperative to invest for the future, especially at a time he would no longer be in office. This is important because he could have spent all the money since there is never a shortage of projects to undertake.
In a way, we can link Obi’s frugality to his background as a successful business man prior to going into politics. He merely transposed the virtues of private business practice onto the management of public affairs. This contrasts with the vast majority of governors who prior to coming to office had no track record in the management of any organization. Because Anambra State has the added advantage of having one of the most entrepreneurial people in our country, a population that uses self-help for development can only complement the work of a frugal and result-oriented governor.
The greatest challenge of our country today is poverty accentuated by the gulf between the haves and the have-not, which seems to be getting wider by the day. Yet many of our public officials flaunt their decadent lifestyles and revel in ostentation at public expense. Today in Nigeria, the cost of maintaining public officials is huge, and accounts for most of the resources that ordinarily should go to development. That is what endears Obi to me. In or out of office, he remains a simple man and a shining example of what a public servant should be.
Living fast lives at public expense is not only becoming an unbearable burden in Nigeria, it is such wasteful and patently criminal tendencies that now increase poverty, unemployment and insecurity. Because our people have practically endorsed impunity, majority of these governors and other political office holders in the country are crossing the ethical boundary by the manner in which they expend scarce public resources without any regard for the common good.
That I have singled out Peter Obi for commendation is because he has a sense of responsibility when it comes to public fund and has chosen the road less travelled. On such a day as this, Obi’s modesty and frugality are definitely worth recommending to the current and future generations of Nigerian political office holders. Even at that, I hope governors who are making laws for their own post-office comfort can see the danger of what they are doing and the dire implications for the future of our democracy. The lesson is all too clear: If and when they eventually push the people to the wall, there will be serious consequences, not only for them but also unfortunately for all of us.
olusegun.adeniyi@thisdaylive.com
Saturday, August 11, 2012
SHOULD a man's trousers slip down his legs in the full glare of a busy street, the frantic attempt to redeem the situation almost always results in greater "calamity": the elongation of his rear end (buttocks) while bending to reach the errant trousers! It can be quite embarrassing no matter how briefly or swiftly executed; the public often gets a glimpse of some most confidential commodities best left out of print...
It is however legitimate to wonder why the slip occurred in the first place. Only a curious brand of sloppiness will cause a full-grown man to handle zipping up and belting down (or tying down) of his trousers (or sokoto) with levity.
With the killing machines which the Northern elite has bred and nurtured within its domain over time now out of control and ravaging the region, their pants are way down their knees. And the so-called elders of the region have refused to bend their knees to redeem their trousers. Rather, they prefer to stand, trousers down, talking back at sane advisers from other regions of the federation. One of their ranks, a common rogue of international repute, even imagines himself to be a statesman. Eleleya.
Now, their sins (age-old treachery) has caught up with them; and they stand naked on the streets .
But they are not ashamed.
What is wrong in an elder like Chief Edwin Clark expressing the opinion that Northern leaders were not speaking out against increasing violence in their own region? Or in specifically charging Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buhari to speak out? Clark had, after all, personally led efforts to dialogue with Niger Delta militants.
The response of these people was a mob attack and a barrage of insults.
The greatest calamities that have assailed Nigeria have come from these ranks. From the 1966 pogrom when Igbos in the North were slaughtered in their thousands to the May 1980 riots in Zaria, the December 18-20 religious riot of Zaria the same year which claimed over 4,100 lives, to the Maitasine wahala in Kaduna, Maiduguri, Borno in 1982, Maitasine wahala in February/March 1984 where over 500 were slaughtered, to Zango Kataf of 1992.The annulment of the June 12 presidential election won by a southerner by Ibrahim Babangida (Evil Genius) almost tore Nigeria apart . The lingering crises in Plateau State is another.
And the still ongoing slaughter of men, women and children in "God's" name by the Boko Haram lunatics.
The North has been a disaster to everybody in Nigeria--including itself. These so-called Northern elders, under whose supervision the masses of their people-especially --youths-- have been misguided by religion and impoverished by profligacy have failed woefully both as parents and leaders.
In their "mob" attack on Chief Edwin Clark's sensible advice, they have unanimously distanced themselves from the sect.
Arewa consultative Forum(ACF) spokesman, A.Z Sanni, insisted that " it is unhelpful to associate Boko Haram with any region..."
Really? Such brazen inanity. With what region should it be associated?
Junaid Mohammed, on his part asks "where is proof" that Northern leaders are culpable over the Boko Haram insurgency. Was Kabir Sokoto not caught in the Borno Governor's lodge? Did Zakari Biu, a Police commissioner not confess to aiding Sokoto's escape? Has any of these criminals or the marauding Fulani herdsmen been sentenced anywhere? What step have any of these northern leaders taken to ensure the criminal elements among them are punished? Has the Plateau State Governor, Jonah Jang, not complained repeatedly that these northern killers are usually spirited away to Abuja or God knows where to escape trial in Plateau state?
What of Senator Ndume, who is standing trial for aiding and abetting Boko Haram? Was an emir in Borno State not fingered in Kabir Sokoto's escape?
Also reacting, Yerima Shetimma of the youth wing of ACF said "this madness must stop...nobody should accuse the North... " Oh oh! So Shetimma knows there is something called "madness"? But not northern elders tacitly aiding and abetting of mass killings of innocent Nigerians.
Kaita Mohammed, on his part claims "northern leaders want peace for this nation"
Haba! Lah ilah ilah LIE!
Do they imagine that Nigerians have forgotten the northern elders' vow, through Alhaji Lawal Kaita, a northern leader in October 2010, to make Nigeria ungovernable if the president did not come from the North? And Ciroma, and his cohorts gave tacit support. Imagine the contempt in which they hold the rest of Nigeria to make such treasonable vow publicly.
In the 2012 Budget alone, over N900billion has been earmarked for security due to the northern madness. Think what that could have done in terms of development if the North had not been part of Nigeria.
Dinosaurs were supposed to have died out millions of years ago. These northern Nigeria elders may be poof that Science is sorely mistaken...
Bend down and retrieve your trousers. Your bums are unsightly!
N.B: Before this gets to be published in the next 72 hours, I pray the northern Frankeinstein Monster does not strike again...
After many speculations on where the Islamist militant group, Boko Haram, are getting the weapons they frequently use to unleash terror in the north-eastern states of Nigeria and Abuja, their main sources have been unveiled.
According to US network TV NBC, most of the Islamic terror group’s weapons are either stolen from Nigerian military stocks or purchased on the thriving Central African arms black market, say the experts, including current and former U.S. officials.
While many have often wondered where the insurgents source their weaponry from, given both the sophistication and the sheer number, ThisDay reports that the group blamed for last month’s kidnapping of nearly 300 Nigerian schoolgirls routinely raids police stations andmilitary bases in search of weapons
It was also gathered that in some cases, Boko Haram sympathizers in the Nigerian military abet the theft.
“There are hints that sympathizers in the Nigerian army will deliberately leave doors of armouries unlocked for Boko Haram,” said John Campbell, U.S. ambassador to Nigeria from 2004 to 2007.
It could also be recalled that a top military officer was indicted several years ago in Kaduna, for supplying the weapons of the Nigerian army to Niger Delta militants, led by, now jailed, Henry Okah.
The terror group has been conducting its campaign of terror in the northern states of Nigeria and neighboring Cameroon on the cheap, making mayhem with a makeshift collection of small arms, automatic weapons, rifles, rocket- propelled grenades and mortars, experts on the turbulent region say.
The report also stated that apart from weapons, the rebels frequently seize non-lethal equipment that helps them carry out their terror attacks, quoting one U.S. official.
Apart from benefiting from sympathizers in the Nigerian military, the Islamic terror group is said to be able to purchase small arms and occasionally some larger weaponry in nearby conflict zones, “probably Libya, probably Chad.
These arms are believed to be acquired through “shady, black market” arrangements across barely marked borders, as the official put it.
The porousness of the Nigerian borders was also said to beencouraging the proliferation of the country with illegal arms, according to Michael Leiter, a former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst.
“The collapse of Libya has further flooded the market,” said Leiter. “Whether these came from Chad, Nigeria, or Libya is almost irrelevant, as such arms are widely available.”
Arms trade expert William M. Hartung agrees. “It’s one conflict after another,” he said. “Because of the nature of the conflict … theconcentration of conflicts … the black market in Central Africa is more vibrant than other places.”
Campbell, the former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, says the array of small and automatic weapons, grenades, mortars, mines and perhaps car bombs “is all Boko Haram’s soldiers need to carry out their brand of terrorism.”
It could be recalled that officials in Cameroon on Tuesday showed a cache of weapons they said was seized near the Nigerian border last month following a rescue of some other kidnapped victims.
A Cameroon defense ministry spokesman, showing off a variety of weaponry including Russian-made AK-47s, said the cache represents what they are up against on a daily basis in trying to combat Boko Haram.
SOURCE: eCruzi
