Released Deji Adeyanju Now or Face the consequence, Civil Society Groups Warn Police.

The arrest of Prince Deji Adeyanju by the police over his mobilization of Nigerians to rally against the secret trial and freedom of Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader, will spell doom for the nation. This much was contained in a statement signed by the Convener of the Movement for the Advancement of National Transformation (MANTRA), Comrade Jude Ndukwe on behalf of other civil society groups.

Deji Adeyanju, the Convener of Concerned Nigerians, a Pro-Democracy group, had organized the Pro-Nnamdi Kanu rally scheduled to take off at the Unity Fountain, Abuja, today, to call the attention of the world to what it called “the serial injustices and acts of brutality meted out to the leader of the IPOB group by the tyrannical government of the day”.

The statement reads in full below:

Following the urgent nature of the issue on ground, I have the mandate of over 50 civil society groups to make the following statement.

We have just heard of the arrest of Prince Deji Adeyanju, Convener of Concerned Nigerians, over his organization of a peaceful rally tagged #FreeNnamdiKanu which was meant to, once again, bring the attention of the world to the many inhuman treatments which the despotic government of Muhammadu Buhari has subjected the IPOB leader to including the secret trial he is forced to pass through.

Without much ado, we urgently and strongly demand that Mr Adeyanju be released immediately or this government which has so shamelessly descended into brazen fascism and tyranny in a supposed democratic dispensation will have the wrath of a resolute coalition of civil society organizations to contend with. This nonsense has got to stop!

The wanton arrests, detention and or even killing of journalists, bloggers, human rights and political activists and opponents, religious adherents etc, by this government has got to its height and we have to put an end to it now. We can no longer afford to continue to fold our arms while a very tiny fraction of our society as represented by the police and the military stifles us and deny us our inalienable rights. Enough is enough!

This government should be ready to face a flurry of furious protests capable of shutting government activities down if Deji Adeyanju and all those arrested with him are not released immediately.

The cause for which Deji was arrested is a just one. Nnamdi Kanu has no reason to be subjected to any secret trial and other deliberate humiliations from Muhammadu Buhari and his whimsical servants while notorious and murderous Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen terrorists are given kingly treatments and even paid compensations for murdering fellow Nigerians who do not share the same religion and ethnicity with those in power.

We have been in the trenches with Deji for some time now. We organized the Anti-Social Media Bill rally. It was peaceful. We organized the #IstandWithNigeria rally. It was peaceful. We organized the pro-Amnesty International Rally. It was peaceful. We organized a rally to warn the executive to stop undermining the legislative arm of government. It was also peaceful, and many more.

Deji Adeyanju is a peaceful activist. None of the rallies he called or participated in has ever gone violent. So why arrest such a man if not that this government is deliberately on the path of incurring the wrath of civil society groups?

We are watching and warning. The keg of gunpowder upon which this nation has been sitting since the inglorious second coming of Buhari is about to go off. Free Prince Deji Adeyanju now or face the consequences.

Signed:
Jude Ndukwe
Convener, Movement for the Advancement of National Transfomation (MANTRA)
For and on behalf of Coalition of Civil Society Organisations

Southern Kaduna killings: We hold El-Rufai Responsible - Bishop Bogobiri

In a brusque statement, the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan in Jema’a local government area of Kaduna State, Most Reverend Dr. Joseph Danlami Bogobiri has pointed the finger at Governor Nasir el-Rufa’i over the continuous killings in Southern Kaduna.
He accused him of taking sides with the suspected killer Fulani herdsmen, saying “Governor el-Rufa’i has in most cases seemed to have abdicated his responsibility of being Governor to them all, and instead gave in to the luxury of waging an unrelenting media campaign against Southern Kaduna people.”
Bagobiri who is also the Chairman, Southern Kaduna Christian Elders Association, stated categorically that, “He (el-Rufa’i), unabashedly takes sides with the armed herdsmen (His kinsmen) thereby failing in his responsibility as a true statesman, becoming therefore a biased umpire who blames and criminalizes Southern Kaduna victims as the cause of the mayhem.”
The Catholic Bishop harshly criticized Mr. el-Rufa’i in the statement he issued on Tuesday. His words: “The sole aim of these attacks is to conquer our people and occupy their lush lands and turning same into grazing fields for the marauding nomads. The Governor of Kaduna State is pursuing this detestable policy by his plan to forcefully take over lands in Southern Kaduna and turn same to Grazing Reserves and Routes for his kinsmen.
“To show Government’s insensitivity on this volatile matter, there are ongoing expansionist plans to annex more land to the already existing grazing reserves at Ladduga in Ikulu Chiefdom of Zangon Kataf Local Government area and transmute that locality from being a district into an emirate.”
According to Bishop Bagobiri, “On 15th April 2017, at about 7:00 pm, an attack was launched by Fulani militias in Asso village, Jema’a local government area of Kaduna state. The attack came when the people were in the church for Easter vigil celebration. The killers took advantage of the event by sporadically shooting at the faithful killing at least 12 persons on the spot with many injured.
“The attitude of the state government has been marred by lots of complicity and bias which exacerbated rather than ameliorated tensions. The Governor has made several efforts in the media to discredit figure of casualties that were arrived at through painstaking research, and is known for trying to change the true narrative by presenting the victims as the villain and the aggressors as the prey.
“The Governor has the penchance of using state apparatus to insult, denigrate, intimidate, arrest and put in prison all voices of reason from Southern Kaduna who dare to challenge his handling of this crisis. Among those that have fallen victims of his tyranny are: traditional rulers, journalists, youths, political leaders, academicians, while threatening our lawyers and other leaders (Religious and Unions) with arrest for daring to speak out against the genocide.
“The primary responsibility of government as enshrined in the constitution is the protection of life and property of citizens irrespective of ethnic and/or religious persuasion. Any breach of this fundamental principle of social contract contravenes the very reason for which Government exist for.
“Unfortunately, our government both at the Federal and State levels have failed woefully in this regard because of their inability to rise above ethnic and religious bias. If anything, government has shown outright partisanship in favor of the herdsmen to the disappointment of the majority Southern Kaduna indigenes.
“Because of government’s inability to serve as an un-biased umpire in the face of these crises, we are sometimes tempted to belief that there is a well-planned Jihad against the people of Southern Kaduna, and Christians generally in Northern Nigeria as this is amply demonstrated by the incessant attacks and atrocities committed against the aborigines of the Middle Belt region in Northern Nigeria.
“The killings continue unabatedly in fields and bushes, thereby preventing farmers from visiting and cultivating their lands. This is happening today as the Military and other security forces mount road blocks in towns and major roads while bushes remain un-safe for farming.
“In the Godogodo and Pasakori attacks in Jemaá Local government area for example, the military merely watched and supervised the killings and burning of homes on the pretext that their mandate did not include fighting the herdsmen.
“When the youth mobilized themselves to repel the attackers, the soldiers deliberately blocked them from entering the town. The herdsmen and their collaborators turned the towns into killing fields and killed mostly women, children and the elderly who couldn’t run for cover.
“The level of barbarity was such that pregnant women got their wombs blown out and massacred before their children. And these innocent children were not spared either. This level of viciousness was never witnessed even in the brutal tyranny and regime of Adolf Hitler.
“What is most intriguing is the level of sophistication of weapons; Ak 47, Machine Guns and many other deadly instruments of death are being freely used by the herdsmen, leaving wondering how these weapons got to their hands.
“The governor has described the Fulanis as vindictive and un-forgiven people. This may simply be the projection of the Governor’s own mindset to an entire people. Our experience living with Fulanis for decades does not prove this. The indigenous communities of Southern Kaduna have been living peacefully with the Fulani herdsmen who came to join them as neighbors until the architects of the view that the average Fulani man is vindictive and un-forgiving came into power.
“The mayhem and killing with impunity in Southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt region and beyond by the Fulani herdsmen, using sophisticated weapons is a recent development fueled by this kind of philosophy. To present any person or group of persons as revengeful and to go ahead to support and sponsor a praxis of retaliation as we are witnessing in Kaduna State today, is not only a detestable behavior but an evil mentality that will not engender social cohesion and harmonious coexistence in a plural and heterogeneous setting such as ours.
“The natives and herdsmen of Southern Kaduna have always had their differences as is common in herdsmen and farmers relationship everywhere in the world. These differences sometime end up in clashes and skirmishes resulting from invasion of each other spaces, but such differences have assumed an un-precedent height under the current government with the use of very sophisticated weapons of destruction.
“What we are witnessing in Kaduna state is not the so called un-forgiving spirit of the Fulani people towards others, but the transfer of a hate mentality from a handful of people in leadership within the State to an entire ethnic group, with disastrous consequences. All humans are created by God with rationality and the milk of human kindness in their hearts. This often shows itself in love expressed in mercy, compassion and forgiveness. No rational human person is created without the disposition to overlook some offences committed against him or her. Only those with dead consciences are indisposed to show compassion and forgiveness. A world that does not forgive is doom to fail. An eye for an eye philosophy renders the whole world blind it is said. Describing an entire people as un-forgiven is not a plus but a minus for such people.
“If the Fulanis stop the aggression in Southern Kaduna today, there will be peace in the environment and the entire State. The non-retaliation of Christians to great abuses and violations of their human rights is termed as weakness, which is not correct. God has put the feeling of mercy and compassion in each of us regardless of our ethnicity and religious affiliations.
“If the Southern Kaduna had been trouble shooting people, they too would have established militia groups and go on rampage in domains other than their own. But alas this is not what is happening. They are being attacked in their sleep and places of worship right in the land that divine providence has given as their own. And even at that, they are told not to defend themselves in the face of aggression.
“The earlier we rediscover this truth of conscience (that all rational beings are imbued with a spirit of mercy and compassion) and begin to live this truth to the full, the better for our Society. Therefore the promotion of the philosophy that any offence committed is like a debt that must be avenged for either now or in the future is not only false and un-wholesome but it is the figment and projection of the personal idiosyncrasies of a few but powerful people. This mindset if not checked and corrected has the potential to erode the fabric of any social organization.
“The killings with impunity in Southern Kaduna must not be allowed to continue. And Government in the State has a special and irreplaceable role in bringing this scourge to an end. The current Government in the State must follow the example of past Governments by initiating measures that would unify rather than divide the people of the State on ethnic and religious lines as this Government has been doing since its inception.
“We have had our challenges on harmonious coexistence in the past. But past Governments demonstrated statesmanship in Governance by bringing stake holders across board to parley on how to resolve our indifference. The current administration in the State seems to dread this kind of interface which had proven to be effective in the past.
“Government must change its attitude from alignment with people of one ethno-religious group in the State, she must resist the temptation of acting as the mouthpiece of one group against others and begin to display true statesmanship in seeing and treating the entire state as its constituency.
“The current Government got it all wrong right from the beginning when it openly stated that she will treat the citizens of the State not on the merits of their being Kaduna state indigenes but on the basis of who voted and who did not vote for the party that won the election. This is a wrong premise to operate under a democracy such as ours, which promotes and respects diversity particularly on political matters. We cannot all become members of one Party in Kaduna state. It is unfortunate that this kind of segregational mindset seems to be teleguiding government’s policies, utterances, appointments, and the distribution of infrastructure for development and social initiatives.
“This Government has taken discrimination on religious and ethnic lines to a height that has never been witnessed in the history of Kaduna. Today we are left with a situation where there is much concentration of development in the North and Central Senatorial districts to the utter neglect of the Southern Senatorial District which is predominantly Christian. The Northern part of the State monopolizes the Executive, the legislative, the Judiciary and occupies all slots of federal appointments such as the ministerial and those of parastatals.
“This disgusting mentality of premeditated discrimination and marginalization is shown by the lopsidedness in both political appointments, locations of infrastructural facilities, and worst still the delineations of political constituencies and polling units which institutionalizes rigging at source. While the Hausa/Fulani dominated areas in Kaduna State have cornered over 48 Federal Institutions to their domain, southern Kaduna can hardly boast of one of such institutions in her domain. Instead of the current government to work towards redressing this disturbing, inhuman and unjust imbalance, she is rather shamelessly contemplating the removal of the Kaduna State University (KASU) Campus and the College of Education (COE) from Southern Kaduna to his Fulani dominated space. What a shame and a slap to justice, fairness and objectivity in dealing with people.
“In all these we have watched with pains and patience for about two years now how government in the State is being managed as a personal estate in a way that excludes many stake holders from the State. We want to state emphatically that Kaduna State is for all of us, regardless of political, ethnic and religious affiliations.
“The Governor should stop running it as his personal establishment. Kaduna State is the only State that we can call our own. And because Kaduna State is our State, we are contributing significantly for its progress not only on the Spiritual level, but also our works in the areas of education, medi-care, social upliftment and building of capacities of the people cannot be ignored. Government must recognize us as equal stake holders in the management and running of the affairs of the State. We do not accept being treated as aliens in our State.
“Despite these imbalances in our nation and in our State, here we are again celebrating another feast of the resurrection of Christ. The fact of our Lord’s resurrection revolutionized the lives of the Disciples of Christ. It transformed them from being a timid and sometimes a seemingly clueless group of disciple, to a fearless and courageous team that turned Jerusalem at some point upside down. Our faith therefore in the risen Christ must so influenced and transformed our lives as it did to the lives of the Disciples of Christ particularly at the times of persecution such as we are facing.
“The injustices in our Society notwithstanding, we exhort believers not to be fainthearted but courageous in facing the challenges of our time. We are to renew our faith and commitment to the living and resurrected Jesus, who triumphed over death and evil as the way to surmounting all the abuses and discrimination that we suffer in Nigeria today”, the Catholic Bishop said.

Credit: Kaduna Telescope.

THE SOUND AND FURY OF ANGO ABDULLAHI AND THE MENDACITIES OF TANKO YAKASAI, BY FANI KAYODE.

Professor Ango Abdullahi is the spokesman and de facto leader of the Northern Elders Forum.

His notorious mendacities and constant submissions and assertions remind me of Shakespeares's profound words in his classic play titled 'Macbeth' where he spoke of "a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing".

A few days ago the Professor claimed that, "the  north sustained the entire Nigerian state from 1914 up to 1974".

This is a lie from the pit of hell. The truth is that the opposite is the case: it is the south that  sustains the north and it has been doing so from 1914 up until today.

Lord Lugard was the first Governor-General of colonial Nigeria and the architect of the 1914 amalgamation between what were formerly known as the "northern" and "southern" protectorates of Nigeria.

In 1914 he described the north as "the poor husband" and the south as "the rich wife". Can someone please tell me how a "poor husband" can sustain a "rich wife"?

It is rather the "rich wife" that sustains the "poor husband" and this has been the case in Nigeria despite the fact that he has been pillaging, raping, beating, abusing, sodomising and cheating on her for the last 103 years.

If not for the south with its kind and gentle disposition, its liberal and cosmopolitan tendencies, its intellectual virility, its generous and accomodating population, its massive mineral and human resources and its never-ending and charitable quest and desire to be its brother's keeper, the core north would be the poorest and most barren place on earth today. Professor Abdullahi knows this and so do all those that think like him.

Without the south the core north would have been a poverty-striken, land-locked, waste-land and barren desert with little hope and few prospects.

Despite all their pretensions they owe everything to the south That is the bitter truth.

With his disdainful and disrespectful comments Professor Abdullahi has distorted the truth, attempted to revise history, insulted the south and been uncharitable and unfair to his benefactors. 

This is a monumental error and a grave miscalculation on his part because gone are the days when southerners can be intimidated into silence.

I say this because a new crop of southern and Middle Belt leaders are silently on the rise. They are proud of their identity, history, culture and ethnic heritage, they have wholly espoused the nationalist cause, they refuse to be cowered, subjugated, intimidated or enslaved and they reject the notion of being being labelled as second class citizens or "drawers of the water and hewers of the wood".

The problem with people like Abdullahi is that falsehood is in their genes. Their submissions are manisfestly dishonest and their words are rooted in deceit, mendacity, doublespeak and, worst of all, misplaced and baseless arrogance.

I believe that 103 years of a forced marriage, an unhappy union and an abusive cohabitation is long enough. There can be no fellowship with the core north because there is no common ground and many northerners view southerners as nothing more than serfs.

We have tried for many years to plead with them to see reason and to let us live together peacefully but they have refused.

Instead they have taken us for granted and they have taken our charity, generosity, kindness and meekness for cowardice, stupidity and weakness.

They insist that In all matters they must always have their way and they must always dominate. They claim that they were "born to rule" and that we were "born to serve".

They assert that the rest of us are subhuman slaves and serfs. They insist that we live and flourish at their pleasure and that they have the power of life and death over us.

They are the poorest and most backward zone and they have little or nothing to offer yet they insist that they must always wield the power and that they must always lead and rule.

Yet all they bring to the table is rancour, division, strife and conflict, whether it be the quest for perpetual domination or covert support for Boko Haram and the Fulani militias and herdsmen.

I say enough is enough! The only way forward is to restructure Nigeria or break her.

Whether anyone likes it or not I have spoken the bitter truth. I have reflected the minds and hearts of millions of people from the south and the Middle Belt.

Abdullahi and those that think like him must understand that their insults, their arrogance, their lies, their dangerous nonsense and their reckless and provocative historical revisionism must stop.

The south has come of age and more than ever before southern unity and a common resolve has become a reality.

He would do well to learn from the timely interventons of his core northern brothers like Governor Nasir El Rufai of Kaduna state and Emir Muhammad Sanusi 11 of Kano.

Last week, in a direct response to his welcome assertion that "the north is now ready to divide Nigeria", the two of them said that the core north would not only be the "poorest place on earth" if Nigeria were to break up but that the zone would also be "worse than Afghanistan".

They are absolutely right.

Instead of insulting our sensibilities with false tales of a glory that never was, Abdullahi should get on his knees and beg the people of the Middle Belt and south for forgiveness for 103 years of core northern and Hausa Fulani cheating, lying, violence, aggression, insults, domination, subjugation, mass murder and ingratitude that we have had to put up with. They should be begging and pleading with us not to go.

It is in the interest of his people to do so and anything less than that would be spitting in the wind.

Permit me to take this opporrunity to respond to Alhaji Tanko Yakasai who is often referred to as an elder statesman.

However when he described those that wish to restructure our country as "misguided" and those that wish to exercise their God-given and lawful right of self-determination and peacefully leave Nigeria as "shortsighted irritants" he did not speak or behave like one.

A few months ago he also said that the Yoruba were to blame for everything under the sun and that it was the people of the south west that are "misleading the Igbo" into wanting to seceed.

He appealed to the Igbo "not to trust the Yoruba" because they would "lead them astray and later betray them".

My response to him is as follows: the days of trying to divide the south with absurd and nonsensical tales that are spun and woven by desperate core northern bigots who secretly tremble at the thought of a united southern front are long over.

Again the days of divide and rule and internal colonialism are dead. Whether the likes of Alhaji Tanko Yakasai and Professor Ango Abdullahi like it or not, It is only a matter of time before the people of the south and the Middle Belt liberate themselves from the evil subjugation and bondage of the Hausa-Fulani core north.

If it is the Nigeria that the Legal Advisor of Miyetti Allah (the umbrella group for the Fulani militants and herdsmen), one Mohammed Bello Tukur, has just been appointed as the Secretary of the Federal Character Commission by President Muhammadu Buhari, I assure you that its days are numbered.

If it is the Nigeria where 808 Christians were slaughtered by those same Fulani herdsmen in Southern Kaduna on Christmas day, 1000 others were butchered in Agatu, Benue state sometime last year and yet another 13 were massacred in Southern Kaduna on Easter Sunday, I assure you that the die is cast.

If it is the Nigeria where Igbo youths that belong to IPOB and MASSOB are slaughtered at will, where Shiite Muslims are massacred in their homes and where the sons and daughters of Ile Ife are killed like flies on their own land just for being accomodating, kind and generous to the Hausa Fulani setters, I assure you that the bell is tolling.

Finally if it is the Nigeria in which more Christians have been butchered and martyered than ANYWHERE else in the world in the last 67 years I assure you that the countdown has begun.

The latest round of mass murder in Southern Kaduna just last Sunday brings bad memories of this Easter.

Yet today permit me to plant a seed of hope for a brighter day. Our oppressors may have today but tomorrow belongs to us. As long as Jesus sits on the throne ultimately the victory shall be ours.

The price for our new nation has already been paid in blood and nobody can stop it from coming to pass.

For centuries these Amalekites, Chaldeans and Janjaweed butchers have been raiding our cities and villages, setting them ablaze and kidnapping our people to sell as slaves.

We have to fight for our children  now or there will be no place left for them to call home.

The fact that some misguided individuals actually believe that this can never happen and that Nigeria can never break serves to prove the level of confusion, ignorance, darkness and delusion that flourishes in their sordid little minds.

Whether they wish to acknowledge it or not, the truth is that If the core north does not retrace its steps, not only will Nigeria break into two or more pieces but people like Professor Ango Abdullahi, Alhaji Tanko Yakasai and all those that come from that zone will suffer immeasurably as a consequence of it.

It is at that point that they will rue the day that they once shed so much innocent blood, that they once subjugated and enslaved the people of the Middle Belt and that they once poured scorn and contempt on the people of the south.