YOU HAVE BETRAYED DEMOCRACY AND PROMOTED GENOCIDE - PROF. HAGHER

AMB. HAGHER’S OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT MUHAMMADU BUHARI ON THE BENUE GENOCIDE.
Jan 5th, 2018.
HIS EXCELLENCY,
President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR.
President and Commander-in-Chief
Of the Armed Forces of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria
Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja

Your Excellency Mr. President,
YOU HAVE BETRAYED DEMOCRACY AND PROMOTED GENOCIDE
I would have loved to wish you a happy new year, but I am not a hypocrite. I am not happy and nobody in Benue is happy today, because many of our citizens did not have a happy new 2018. Genocide on citizens of Nigeria has escalated in earnest in Benue State. This genocide has turned their happiness to nightmare and death. Let me also apologize for making this letter public. It is not in my character. In this case there is an emergency and urgency, which cannot wait.
I am pained that you ignored my advice in my private memorandum to you dated 30th July 2016. I had warned you of the possibility of a horrendous genocide in Benue, Plateau, Taraba, Southern Kaduna, and Southern Adamawa States. I asked you to be proactive and stop the genocide that has been ongoing but which would burst out in the open and shock the world within 18 months. Your office replied my letter on September, 28th 2016, and the reply was couriered to me in the United States, thanking me “immensely” and giving me the assurances that the advice would be heeded.
With the current situation on ground, I regret to now inform you that it is seventeen months since my warning and prediction and your government did nothing to pre-empt or prevent the genocide. The nomadic terrorists have finally accelerated the ethnic cleansing in Benue State. They have strategically moved against the Tiv, the largest minority ethnicity in northern Nigeria. These perpetrators believe that if they can ethnic cleanse the Tiv, then nobody can stand in their way to possess the land and carve a new geo-polity and demography for the middle-belt.
1. Now that you have allowed the genocide in the Middle Belt to go on unimpeded you have betrayed your campaign promise to Nigerians that your government ‘‘will always act in time and not allow problems to irresponsibly fester’’. In allowing the Benue genocide to take place your government has acted irresponsibly and has allowed problems to fester and failed to act on time. You have also failed to lead from the front; giving the impression that centrifugal forces around you are dictating vicious anti-people agenda!

2. Mr. President, the protection of lives and property of the citizens is more important than your war against corruption! The protection of lives of citizens is the most sacred responsibility of the state and your presidency. Your government has failed woefully in this regard. Mr President there is no greater corruption than the government looking the other way while the strong bullies and kills the weak with impunity and pleasure!
3. Your Excellency, in your passion (monomania, I think!) to rid the country of corruption, you have totally ignored nation building and ended up with a very divided country. You have failed your immediate Northern constituency by your inability, failure or lack of the political will to end northern poverty through measures that enhance school enrolment, promote girl-child education, and revive dead industries. You became Nigeria’s president on the altar of northern unity when the northern minorities abandoned President Goodluck Jonathan to vote for you. You have now desecrated that altar. By refusing to arrest those that brutally butchered defenseless innocent Benue women and children, you have imperiled northern unity and taken sides with evil.
4. Many Nigerians think you have failed the country by the lack of a clear vision and a lack of capacity to provide needed infrastructure and a composite holistic development; more significantly, they think you have failed to institute a political culture of integrity. You are often compared with the lone King Sisyphus of Ephyra who was punished by the gods to roll an immense border up the hill, only to watch it roll back down, then condemned to repeat the same rolling action forever. This is the picture people have in mind of your war against endemic corruption. You honestly deserve pity and prayers, but certainly not support for a second term.
5. Nobody can deny that you still have a horde of admirers, which still look up to you with great admiration; however, the Benue genocide seriously questions your integrity, and your capacity to lead a plural modern state. Is there a rule of law in this country? Why does the Miyetti Allah act with so much impunity? Is this because this terrorist group claims you as their life patron? Do not accept the clamor of those who for their personal political reasons urge you to contest in the 2019 election to be a second term president! Mr. President, please rise above the impression being given that you are just another power obsessed and hungry politician!
6. Step aside and open the political space for another person to continue your war against corruption with a more comprehensive development program that Nigeria needs and deserves. For now, modernize infrastructure and try to banish poverty. And while your party campaigns for 2019, take a sabbatical from partisanship and build national unity, good governance and concentrate on getting rid of Boko Haram and the Herdsmen Terrorists. After all, great people are not great for winning elections; rather they are known to be great by the legacy they leave behind. With what legacy do you wish the country to remember you for? It is unfortunate that family members of those that were hacked to death will remember you as the genocide president!
Your Excellency Mr. President,

I remain respectfully Sir,

Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher. Ph.D. OON. FSONTA, FIMC, CMC.

President African Leadership Institute USA.
Former High Commissioner to Canada
Former Ambassador to Mexico
Former Minister (2 times)
Former Constitutional Conference member
and 2nd Republic Senator

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BREAKING :GUNMAN KILLS FOUR, INJURED EIGHT IN SOUTHERN KADUNA.

BREAKING: Gunman Kills Four, Injures Eight In Kaduna.

Channels Television 
December 23, 2017

At least four persons have been killed and eight others injured in an attack by a lone gunman in Kaduna State.

The incident occurred on Friday night around the Nindem village axis in Godogodo district, Jemaa Local Government Area of the state.

Confirming the incident in a statement, the spokesman for the Operation Safe Haven, Colonel IK Ekpeyong, said, the gunman invaded Godogodo village as the residents were holding a carol at the community square at about 9 pm shooting sporadically, and in the process, killed four persons and injured eight others.

He disclosed that the bodies had been deposited in a mortuary while the eight wounded persons were taken to the Kafanchan general hospital for treatment.

He also added that some people suspected to be masterminds of the attack have been arrested for further interrogation, while more troops have been deployed to the area to avert a fresh attack or reprisal.

Maina: What they don't want Buhari to know

*Who is the devil between the persecutors and Maina? - By Olajide Fashikun

Believe it or not. This is strict be nice backly media trial. QED. I am asking if Mr President was told these seven issues which nobody fighting Maina would want him to know. For the sake of posterity, I will ask and let the seven issues be public.
I know the pension matter so well. I and Danlami Nmodu of www.newsdiaryonline.com met working on the pension scandal. Ironically, both of us graduated from the University of Ilorin. He worked in Tell Magazine while I was in TheNews Magazine.
We broke the first story’s details. At a point, I got calls to back off the report. I refused. I had my three-week Camry car crushed by a strange truck that massively rammed into the vehicle. Checks revealed where it came from.
I was attacked 10 days later with a gun. All they took was my 15-inch Apple laptop with a footnote: “go and continue writing all those nonsense you dey write on us.”
Now. Having established my depth. These are fundamental truths no one will tell President Buhari. Having forced Mr President to dance to a massive media barrage which painted Abdulrasheed Maina as blacker than Lucifer, who will tell President Buhari these truth like I do know? I owe the public and I thus, ask.
Did anyone tell Mr President that on 2nd November 2013, that achieve its objective of deceiving the Senate and Nigerians, the Senate Joint Committee Chairman, Sen. Alloysius Etuk accused the Chairman of the Task Team, Abdulrasheed .A. Maina, of embezzling, Stealing, misappropriating and mismanagement of N195billion of Pension funds on live television between 2005 and 2010, belonging to the following offices: Nitel Pensions, Nipost Pensions, NEPA Pension, Railways Pension, NPA Pensions, NNPC Pensions and all the Pensions offices in Nigeria.
Maina’s committee never existed until 2010. Senate lied.
These institutions: Nitel Pensions, Nipost Pensions, NEPA Pension, Railways Pension, NPA Pensions, NNPC Pensions NEVER had anything to do with Maina’s committee. Senate lied again.
Did they informed Mr President that the Senate Committee headed by Etuk was alleged to have collected N3billion in dollars from the people Maina caught for pension thieving?
A petition written against the Joint Committee Chairman Senator Etuk by some aides of one of the suspected Pension thieves, Shaibu Sani Teidi, is before the EFCC and ICPC detailing the grand conspiracy against the PRTT and its Chairman;
Why has the petition not received any action but instead ONLY the Chairman is being hounded by the operatives of EFCC;
EFCC CANNOT investigate nor prosecute Maina because they were a member of the Inter-ministerial Task Team working on the Pension Reform;
Did they tell Mr President that Goodluck Jonathan administration without due process and obedience to the Civil Service Rules dismissed Maina for being absent for three days?
while his life was under threat following gun-shot attack on his person in front of Head of Civil Service Office, where his office was located in February, 2013.
He was shot at with five bullets on the car he was in a day after the Senate railroaded the Executive against him;
Did they informed Mr President that Based on perceived injustice and lack of fair hearing by the Senate Joint Committee on Establishment and Public Service and States and Local Government Administration co-chaired by Sen. Alloysius Etuk and Sen. Kabiru Gaya under the leadership of Distinguished Senator David B. A. Mark, the PRTT and its Chairman (Maina) took the 7th Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to court at Abuja Federal High Court in a suit Ref: FH/ABJ/C5/65/2013 where it obtained a favorable judgment on 23rd March, 2013.
The judge in his ruling held that Senate (7th National Assembly) failed to meet the constitutional provisions of Section 88 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended).
The judge ordered Maina to be restored back to the civil service;
Till date, the Senate has failed to appeal the judgment of the Court or reverse its decision upon which it passed a resolution for the Chairman of the PRTT (Maina) to be sacked from the Civil Service. It has failed to comply with the provisions of Section 88.
Did they tell Mr President that while the PRTT was making efforts at recovering over N3 trillion Pensions Funds using its intelligence know-how, then Minister of Finance and coordinating Minister of Economy without off-setting our expenses in line with Presidential Directives of 23rd October, 2012, established the Pension Transitional Arrangement Department (PTAD).
Iweala co-opted most of the Deputy-Directors including Mr. Kaigama (D.D Accounts of PRTT) among others to the new structure;
Maina out of 13 members is the only person accused of stealing, misappropriating and mismanaging over N195billion of pension fund.
Later, when Kabiru Gaya recanted the N195billion story, they changed the charge to $2million!
Today and sadly, the Income Salaries and Wages Commission approved a special salary scheme for staff of PTAD with the DG earning as much as N43, 848,513.00 per annum over and above the salary of President as approved by Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC).
Did they also remember to tell Mr President that the then Minister of Finance and coordinating Minister of Economy have failed to account the balance of the N282billion retrieved by Maina’s team (in the CBN) from where N74billion was factored into the National Budget of 2012.
(a) Did they also tell Mr President that Senator Kabiru Gaya told Nigerians via interview he granted the Sun Newspaper of 3rd April, 2016 with caption “Buhari’s One year better than PDP’s 16 years – Sen. Kabiru Gaya” to discharge Maina of the unfounded allegation of stealing, misappropriating and mismanaging N195billion between 2005 and 2010 even when the PRTT was not in existence.
His words: “You remember I was a member of the 6th and 7th Senate and I am still a member of the 8th National Assembly. During the 7th Senate, we were able to do a probe of the Pension Scam. I was a co-chair of that committee. During that investigation, we were able to discover N195BN stocked in accounts of various Departments, Agencies and Ministries (MDAs) for Pension and they were not using those monies.
Did they tell Mr President that Maina is the ONLY Civil Servant out of 13 members of PRTT that is under prosecution? Where are other members of the Task Team?
Could he have singlehandedly stolen those monies without the knowledge of his team when recoveries are made in team movements;
Yet, all monies paid had to be signed by the Head of Service from where the CBN pays into commercial banks and to beneficiaries;
(b) Did they tell Mr President that there were complaints in writing of a subsisting case in the Industrial Court brought by Mr. Abdulrasheed A. Maina (Chairman, Pension Reform Task Team) against his illegal dismissal from service by the Office of Head of Service and Federal Civil Service Commission, to the office of the Attorney-General, the chief legal officer of the nation, who reviewed the matter and decided to obey the court pronouncements directed that Mr. Maina be re-instated as ruled by Justice Adamu Bello in his judgment of 27th March, 2013, since there is no subsisting appeal by the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria or any other interested party;
If the President was told these seven posers we won’t be where we are. Two, the media trial of Mr Maina is certainly beyond what the public is made to believe. His return means that some folks whose activities have not been exposed will be possibly exposed.
Was one of the 43 persons under prosecution not a major shareholder in a large media organisation in the country. He stole from poor pensioners and used the proceeds to buy into the newspaper."

Source: New Diary Online

Copied from the Facebook page of Chief Okoi Obono-obla.

El-Rufai : Why I strucked, By Muhammad Lawal Shehu Molash.

September 25, 2017

I have been indaunted with calls from most parts of the country, in connection with my present stand on Elrufai’s government. On a personal note,I have been Elrufai’s fan for almost two decades, to the extent that i read his “ACCIDENTAL PUBLIC SERVANT” more than 50 times.
But in developed democracies, vibrant oppositions are welcomed to put the people in power under check. Eight months ago, I was an unrepentant Elrufaits. But not any more. My position is hinged on the fact that, certain things are wrong with the way governance has been reduced to. How come the official houses of the state house of Assembly members were sold cheaply and secretly without the OPEN BIDDING SYSTEM, as it was done in the case of the civil servants? How comes a government that was massively voted to ensure that the rule of law prevails, will allow Sole Adminstrators as local government chairmen, when the constitution declared them ILLEGAL? Is it constitutionally right to refuse to conduct the local government elections on the vague excuse of waiting for some super machines from China? It seems the governor does not even trust the card reader that ushered him into the government. Why collect taxes on behalf of the local councils?
Why do you have to abolished the INDIGENSHIP in Kaduna state and embarked upon a “WHITE ELEPHANT ” venture called “RESIDENCY CARD? Is Kaduna state more cosmopolitan than Lagos and Kano? The civil servants have had to contend with endless verification for about 18 times! Perhaps, someone, somewhere is benefiting from this verification that hav left over 20,000 workers without some salaries of several months. In Addition, No person that retired after 2015 has collected his gratuity. Another angle which I premised my opposition to Malam Nasiru Elrufai, is the much hyped Educational “Revolution ” in Kaduna state, where the manpower aspect, arguably the most important, in any genuine “revolution ” has been neglected. It is a fact that a GOOD TEACHER can impact knowledge to his students, even under tree shades.
The use of CONSULTANTS in almost every sector in Kaduna state is one area i am not comfortable with. In any case, they mostly help in making a state governor to misprioritise, misplace, misapplied public funds.
Furthermore, our party, the APC, is facing extinction owing to its non conformity with the INTERNAL DEMOCRACY MECHANISM, set in place by our revered leader, President BUHARI. Pointer to this fact, emerged from the Kangaroo delegates elections and the recent charade, called ENDORSEMENT. We should also be mindful of the fact that it is only in KADUNA STATE in whole of the North West that we have a Former Vice president, PDP National Chairman and the only PDP Senator from the Zone. The so called achievements in employment is laced with fallacies.
Kaduna state has about 1500 health centres. But of the much celebrated 255 health centres, only 6 are completed after 2 years! The 10 billion spent on school feeding within eight months, should have been channelled into providing decent healthcare centres or complete the 300 bed specialist hospital started by Namadi Sambo. Kaduna state, with about 5 million people, has less than 200 medical Doctors and the governor is celebrating the repainting of some PHCs that even fall below the minimum requirements of a standard primary health care centre.
In any democratic clime, human capital development is one of the major indicators of the success or failure of governance. But in a situation where a government is marketing poverty to its electorates and declaring them unfit to participate in rendering even the most elementary of them all like WASTE COLLECTION, then it is most unfortunate. A certain Yoruba lady has to be “imported” for that purpose.
Based on campaign promises, he’s performing below expectations, which is why am disappointed with the quality of roads being churned out in the name of “INFRASTRUCTURAL DEVELOPMENTS.”The roads can not withstand two raining seasons. In two years, not a SINGLE primary school teacher was employed.
Hundreds have either been sacked or frustrated into retirement. No provision of materials: Chalk, Registers, Broom, Cutlass and he is “committed to revamping education”
In Kaduna, the running of a close circuit leadership which negates the tenets of democracy seems to be the order of the day. Of the six top appointments, the Minister from Kaduna state is Elrufai’s cousin, Ambassador is his cousin, SSG is his close friend, Chief of staff is his close friend. Political adviser is his very close friend. And they all come from Zaria, in addition to two commissioners, head of service and several SAs and heads of parastatals.
If anyone think that the above detailed explanation does not “ring a bell” then I rest my case.

Molash is a Member of the Kaduna Restoration Group and wrote in from Kaduna

Buhari's Health Issues Persist as President Coughs Uncontrollably.

Strong rumours have it that President Muhammadu Buhari who spent about 104 days in London, United Kingdom on a medical vacation is still sick. President Muhammadu Buhari’s return to work on Monday got off to a limp start despite the celebrations which accompanied his return to Nigeria on Saturday, his health clearly not much improved despite the best spin efforts of the cabal in the presidency. Aso Rock insiders who had been made to believe a rejuvenated and energized President would kick-start governance with energy and commitment became disillusioned as they came to terms with the fact that President Buhari is still reeling in poor health condition. Several Presidency sources told Saharareporters that the manipulative cabal managing the president made a number of moves in the 24 hours preceding Mr. Buhari’s return aimed at consolidating the fictional story of his having fully recovered from whatever ails him. Since arriving in Abuja however, it has become clear he is in no better shape than before he traveled, characterized by incoherence and inability to stay composed and alert for more than 10 minutes at a time before lapsing into some form of health crisis and serious coughing. The first assignment of the day, the sources said, was the 7 AM speech which he supposedly gave to announce his return to the country. But the villa sources said the speech was pre-recorded, with no one being sure when it was recorded. But if the managers thought the Monday breakfast speech would make the president look good to Nigerians, it seems to have achieved the opposite, many Nigerians condemning him for failing to speak about his prolonged absence from work and the nature of his illness. Instead, the President addressed perceived division caused by Biafran agitators and the insecurity caused by Boko Haram. He also vaguely addressed Arewa youths concerning their ultimatum to the Igbos to leave the north. While that effort clearly rubbed concerned and nervous Nigerians the wrong way, Buhari’s media managers followed up with photos of him signing his resumption letter, with a very short video clip on Twitter showing him and his controversial Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari, and another voice in the background giving directives as to which letter would go to Senate or the House of Representatives. Later in the day, the office of the President released more photos showing Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visiting him for a “briefing”. Presidency sources disclosed that although the VP was around for close to two hours, there was nothing plausible to write home about as the President was only “present” for a few minutes, making the meeting very brief and unproductive.

President @MBuhari this morning signed a letter to the National Assembly notifying of his return to work from medical vacation. pic.twitter.com/WeyBIROxGh — Presidency Nigeria (@NGRPresident) August 21, 2017

One clear strategy by the cabal, sources stated, was to keep the President from making offhand comments that could reveal his true health status. That trend started when President Buhari’s cabal began letting visitors see him in London after he regained a semblance of normalcy following intense treatment that lasted for months. The practice has been to release very short clips of him joking or saying a few words. In today’s media game, three different sets of photographs were released to the public with President Buhari donning three different hats in one day. In some photos, he looked quite robust, while in other photos he looked decidedly emaciated. Meanwhile, President Buhari’s Special Assistant on Media has revealed that Mr. Buhari could be heading back to the United Kingdom for medical treatment, a decision many Nigerians have criticized, especially in the light of his failure to disclose his diagnosis. SaharaReporters had revealed that President Buhari’s doctors asked that he remain in London for another month but his handlers insisted that he come home for the Sallah so as to maintain his appeal to his base. Of all the persons in high office who have talked about President Buhari’s health situation, the Governor of Sokoto State, Aminu Tambuwal interestingly stated that that Mr. Buhari needs more prayers, which is contrary to the impression created by his inner circle that he is completely “recovered”, in effect, available fully to resume his office. Analysts point out that contrary to that impression, it is instructive that it has now been announced that a leader who is supposedly fully recovered from an illness will now again work from his residence. Some aides have said in that regard that his main office is under some renovation, a claim our sources dismiss as false.

I will Contest 2019 Election,Says Buhari.

The presidency has declared that President Muhammadu Buhari will seek re-election into office in 2019. One of his spokespersons, Malam Garba Shehu, maintained that the president is “good enough to continue” if given the opportunity to contest the 2019 presidential election. He lamented that many were ignorant about Buhari’s ailment, assuring that that the president would speak to Nigerians when he returns from his medical vacation. “The main issue is the president comes back home in full health and resumes office,” Shehu told Thisday. “It is left for Nigerians to decide. I know the decision is with the people. But President Muhammadu Buhari is good enough to continue”. Shehu insisted that he could not speak specifically on the nature of Buhari’s illness. “I cannot tell because I do not know the nature of his ailment. As he is, the president does not need prompting from anyone before he comes out and tells Nigerians what happened to him. “When he came back last time, President Buhari told Nigerians what he went through in the United Kingdom. I think the president will choose the right moment to talk to Nigerians. “In the constitution, there is nowhere the president is required to disclose his illness. “This is a country where past presidents never fell ill before. Even when they fell ill, nobody knew about it. “This is a country where past presidents never handed over to their deputies. We had a president who was dying in office. Nobody was ready to talk”. He faulted those demanding Buhari’s resignation due to his illness and long absence, noting that their agitation was linked “to some elements in the opposition”. “In any case, we are in a democracy. We cannot stop people from protesting or demonstrating. “In a country of 170 million people, we only have two dozen people protesting and all of them with links with the opposition. Every person is entitled to his or her own view. “Nigeria has a huge population. But there are people praying in churches or mosques for the president’s recovery,” Shehu added,

Why I returned back to acting - Emeka Ike

Nollywood actor Emeka Ike is back to movie making- The actor who was away from the industry after he failed to emerge as the president of Actors Guild of Nigeria (AGN) - Ike reveals who made him come back to Nollywood The news of Emeka Ike’s return to Nollywood was greeted with much applaud as he has been aware for many years. On his return to the movie making industry, Emeka Ike has revealed that he was begged by some concerned industry operators. The veteran actor spoke in a phone chat with HVP explained the reasons behind his return. Emeka Ike explains reason behind his second coming to Nollywood.
Ike revealed that a particular movie producer has been begging him for over two years before he made up his mind to heed his request. He said:

“He has been begging me to star in his film for two years now. At a point, I decided to oblige him his request.”

Ike got involved in the leadership tussle of the Actors Guild of Nigeria ( AGN). He went to court to contest the emergence and leadership of Ibinabo Fiberesima. For two years, he was involved in marital crisis with his wife of 17 years. He later got divorced from her in January, 2017. Since his divorce, he has been throwing shades at his estranged wife.

Barcelona refuse to confirm Neymar's move to PSG, until they receive the 222m

The club will not send on the forward's International Transfer Certificate until they have received and verified all the funds from the mammoth deal.  Barcelona have affirmed they will not clear Neymar's world record transfer to Paris Saint-Germain until they have received all of the €222 million fee agreed between the clubs. Neymar was forced to sit out PSG's first Ligue 1 match of the season against Amiens last week due to the lack of official clearance for his transfer. The French club must first present an International Transfer Certificate to FIFA confirming the move before Neymar is eligible to play, a usually routine piece of paperwork that in this case has caused the player's debut to be delayed. And Goal understands that it is Barcelona who are holding up the process, as they await full payment of the mammoth fee to be completed before they yield the necessary documents to the Spanish FA (RFEF), who in turn are entrusted with sending them on to France. Club sources insist there is no wrongdoing on their part, and that it is standard procedure for Barcelona in such cases to validate all transfer income before releasing a player's registration. The exceptional nature of the transfer, which more than doubled the previous record that took Paul Pogba from Juventus to Manchester United, is cited as the reason for the delay. The RFEF also confirmed there were no issues with the Certificate. "It is being handled following the normal process, it will be sent when it is ready," Goal heard from the governing body. The mood in Paris, however, is far from calm. PSG have until Thursday evening to register Neymar's International Transfer Certificate, or face losing the Brazilian for yet another Ligue 1 clash this weekend away to Guingamp.

Gbagyi People Writes Gov. El-Rufai over Attempt To Rename Chiefdom.

His Excellency Mallam Nasir A. El-Rufia Executive Governor of Kaduna State Sir Kashim Ibrahim House Kaduna.

Your Excellency, Sir,

RE-APPOINTMENT OF COMMITTEE TO REVIEW THE EXISTING CHIEFTAINCY SYSTEM IN THE STATE

Upon the receipt of the letter date 24th July 2017, by Sa Gbagyi (Dr. Danjuma S. Barde), in respect of the above subject matter from the sub-committee on Nomenclature, requesting him to propose a more suitable title/name for his chiefdom for adoption. After several consultations by the Gbagyi Sound Minds (a socio-cultural pressure group) and other stakeholders, we extensively and intensely deliberated on the request and resolved as follows: While we commend His Excellency for his dynamism and zeal with which he pursues governance in our dear state Kaduna, we wish observe that some of the decisions, actions and inactions of the Governor are too dicey to an extent that they tend to give false impression of what the problems of the state are. Recently, your administration embarked on the illegal sack of district and village heads across all chiefdoms and emirates, which to you have been ‘successfully concluded’ but under legal litigation. On the line now is the review of the chieftaincy system in the state, for which a committee was constituted and currently in business. The first term of reference of this committee is to “examine the nomenclature of the graded chiefs which emphasizes ethnic identity and propose new ones based on town/location…” pursuant to this the sub-committee on nomenclature has requested our chief to propose a most suitable title/name… for adoption”, so that the much needed unity and harmonious co-existence amongst your diverse communities would be achieved. With humility and every sense of responsibility, we wish to emphatically and unequivocally bring to His Excellency, that this is an exercise in futility and will end up bearing no good fruit, and it will amount to squeezing a piece of rock in other to extract water from it. Therefore, we hereby suggest that the government should redirect its energy and strength to areas of greater priorities rather than shadow chasing. Gbagyi Sound Minds thereby invite His Excellency to note and be guided by the following reasons, but permit us to school you on how the Gbgayi Chiefdom emerged: Gbagyi chiefdom or Gbagyi traditional council have been in existence long before the coming of the British colonialist. History has it that Gbagyi people were the first aborigine in the present day Kaduna state, though the Usman Danfodio jihad hoisted their flags in our communities after conquering our communities and our people thereby subjecting us to the absolute monarchism under the Zazzua rule in Zaria. Being fully aware of our distinct cultural and traditional differences with the Hausa/Fulani in Zaria, we therefore sought and struggled for our own chiefdom to called Gbagyi Traditional Council and a leader known as Sa-Gbagyi-1 of Kaduna state, this struggle started as far back as November 28th 1992. Worldwide, but notably in former colonial societies and particularly in Africa, traditional rulership or chieftaincies are relics of the social conditions and systems of social organization of primitive or pre-colonial societies, including our own in Kaduna and Gbaggyi in particular. This system of organization was design to function around distinct communities whose members were bound together by a common ethnicity/culture which gave them their identity. To use an anthropological concept, each ‘tribe’ was and should be recognized by the totality of its ways of life (culture), which is an embodiment of it traditions, values and language. The minorities of Northern Nigeria many of which are non-Islamist societies including our own in Kaduna should be in this light. Modern day traditional institutions/rulership are therefore intended to recognize the diversity in the cultures of various ethnic nationalities which should serve as veritable channels of programme formulation and implementation in modern state administration. Thus, denying them recognition by their ethnic appellations and the titles of their chief’s amounts to transforming them to something else other than traditional institutions. In other states of Nigeria and most African civilizations, such institutions are similarly recognize by their ethnic names not their town/location as proposed by your administration. Examples, O’Childoma, Estu Nupe, Chu Mada, Ohinoyi Igbirra, etc. elsewhere in Africa the same situation obtains in Buganda (Uganda), Zulu (Rep. Of South Africa) and Ashanti (Ghana) kingdoms, Kikuyu of Kenya. We respectfully think that His Excellency missed the point when he eludes the change in nomenclature as the panacea to peaceful and harmonious co-existence. We hereby challenge His Excellency to cite one example where the ethic nomenclatures of any chiefdom has ever been identified as the cause of conflict or recommended to be amended in order to achieve peace. A study of the structure and composition of our chiefdom reveals that an inbuilt mechanism is already in place to accommodate people who are not of the same ethnic stock in the chiefdom just as the Gbgayi people feel comfortably accommodated in other chiefdoms/emirates. Uniformity has never been and can never be the basis of the organization and administration of traditional institutions in the context of modern state administration. We want to make it abundantly clear that even before the coming of the British colonialist, the Gbagyi system of traditional administration is native to its people since creation by God. It may interest you to know that the title of our chief, “Sa-Gbagyi” connotes someone like God, a representative for the Gbagyi people. Your Excellency, Sir we wish to restate that this agenda that you are now pursuing in respect of traditional institution will in no way help your administration. It will rather throw the state into greater chaos and therefore truncate the peaceful co-existence you claim the exercise will achieve. Go into your history books and you will understand that the chiefdoms you have today were achieved after over a hundred years of struggle and sacrificing of blood by the people of Kaduna. The same was achieved with greater relative ease and peace and evolved as a natural process of the development of society in other minority enclaves in Northern Nigeria. What joy then do you derive in rubbishing the genuine efforts of your predecessors (colonial, military and civilian democratic government) in putting structures that will sustain peaceful and harmonious co-existence among the diverse communities of the state? May we close by requesting that much effort should be devoted in helping us incorporating former Gbagyi indigenous communities, were our people have been displace and ruled out of our entity back to our rulership and traditional institution. Therefore, we end by letting you know that if you are pursuing this agenda behind the Gbagyi Cheifdom, we will continue to recognize our chiefdom as “Gabgyi Chiefdom” and the title of our chief as “Sa-Gbagyi-1 of Kaduna state” meaning all status-quo should be maintained and so shall we continue to recognize both till eternity. Respectfully yours, Comrade. Jim Gami Makama, President Gbagyi Sound mind. ————————– Comrade. George Benjamin, Vice-President Gbagyi Sound mind. ————————– Mr David Tanko Jesse, Secretary General, ————————— Mr. Samson Yari, Member ————————— Mr. Noah Audu, Member —————————- Mr. Tobias Aboki, Member ——————————

Osibajo is sick, his nightmare has just started - Fani-Kayode.

Former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, has blasted Acting President Yemi Osinbajo for denying that he called those clamouring for restructuring “political jobbers”.  Fani-Kayode, in a series of tweets, described Osinbajo as a “short deceitful little imp” and claimed “his nightmare has just started”. He wrote: “Osinbajo now says that he never said that those that wanted restructuring are political jobbers. “Seriously? Does anyone take this short deceitful little imps comments seriously anymore? “He never said what he clearly said? The man is sick. His nightmare has just started.” Osinbajo expressed surprise at reports, quoting Chief Ayo Adebanjo as saying he described those agitating for restructuring as political jobbers. In a press statement signed by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr Laolu Akande, the Acting President said: “At no time did the Acting President say that those asking for restructuring were political jobbers looking for appointments. “The video, audio tapes and full text of his speech at the National Security summit organised last week by the Department of State Services, DSS are publicly available.”

Former BBNaija House mate Uriel Shows off her Beauty in New photos.

Former BBNaija house mate Uriel shows off her beauty in new photos - The Payporte ambassador shared the stunning photos on her social media page - Uriel who has a crush on boxer Anthony Joshua mentioned him in her new photos BBNaija's Uriel knows the importance of looking good. In a recent post the former BBNaija house mate release completely stunning photos of herself revealing her style and delicate beauty.
Urile who has a crush on Anthony Joshu mentioned the boxer in the caption of her photos, suggesting that she was waiting for him in one of the stunning photos. It's hard to tell if Anthony Joshua is involved with anyone right now but after seeing this photos of Uriel, he might just slide into her DM.

Source: Instagram, Uriel She shared the lovely photos of her rocking a peach dress and captioned it: "

Saraki Returned Pension Payments -Kwara Govt.

The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has stopped collecting pension and returned all payments made to him, the Kwara State Government has announced. A statement by Isiaka Gold, Secretary to the State Government, on Wednesday said Mr. Saraki stopped collecting the payment since August 2015 and had returned all he collected prior to that time. Earlier, Mr. Saraki had said he had returned the pension paid to him to the state government following criticism of state governors collecting pension while holding new political offices. The senate president had come under attack, especially on social media, following reports that he was still receiving pension from the state government. But Mr. Gold said Mr. Saraki, on his own volition, considered the morality of the situation in which the pension would put him since he is still a serving senator and “chose to abandon his legal rights.” The statement read: “The (Kwara) State Government wishes to make the following clarifications. “That Dr. Saraki, as a two-term governor, is entitled to pension as stipulated by the third schedule, Paragraph D (i) of the Governor and Deputy Governor ((payment of pension) Law, No. 12 of 2010 of Kwara State. “That the said pension has been duly remitted to his account, like other former governors’, since he left office but when via a letter dated 20th August 2015 addressed to the state government, Dr Saraki requested that the payment of pension to his account be stopped and the amount already credited to the account be refunded to the government, the state government promptly complied.  “That the government not only stopped the payment of the said pension, the amount already paid into Dr. Saraki’s account since he left office was deducted from the money owed to him as well as his other outstanding lawful entitlements.” Commenting further, he said: “it should be noted that neither the Kwara State Government nor Bukola Saraki violated the state pension law or any other law for that matter. The State Pension Law empowers the State Government to pay pension to former governors of the state. “That the Kwara State Government will want to reiterate the fact that it was Dr Saraki who on his own volition considered the morality of the situation in which the pension would put him since he is still a serving Senator and chose to abandon his legal rights. We believe he should be commended for decision.”

Credit :Premium Times.

Boko Haram kills 31 fishermen in Lake Chad.

8th August 2017.

Kashim Shettima of Borno on Tuesday confirmed that Boko Haram insurgents had killed 31 fishermen at Baga in Kukawa Local Government Area of the state. Mr. Shettima made the confirmation at the presentation of relief materials donated to the state by the Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, to the Internally Displaced Persons in Maiduguri. He said that the attack indicated that the Boko Haram insurgents were still unleashing terror, killing and maiming people in the Lake Chad Basin. Mr. Shettima noted that the military and other security agencies were yet to verify the report. “Somebody called me this morning and informed me that the insurgents had killed 31 fishermen in the Lake Chad Basin. “The security agencies have not commented on the attack; so, you cannot confirm it. “This shows the level of crisis we faced in Borno, as the so-called Jihadists continued with their inhuman acts in the Lake Chad basin,” Mr. Shettima said. He, however, commended the efforts of the military toward ending insurgency and ensuring that peace returned to the North-East region.  The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the insurgents had attacked and killed 31 fishermen in separate attacks between August 5 and 6 in Baga. It was reported that the incident occurred at Duguri and Dabar-Wanzam fishing communities in Kukawa Local Government Area of the state. An anonymous member of the Civilian Joint Task Force, CJTF, disclosed that 14 persons were killed at Duguri, while 17 others were murdered at Dabar-Wanzam. The source noted that the attack came barely four weeks after the fishermen returned to Baga and resumed fishing. NAN reports that the lifting of ban on fisheries by the military attracted thousands of fishermen to the area. The military had earlier banned fishing on the Nigerian side of the lake, following accusations that Boko Haram was using proceeds from fishing to fund its armed campaign. (NAN)

Nasiru El-Rufai: A humorous classical prelude to failure - By Mark Jacobs.

April 26, 2017.

Elrufai….”I will not meet with SOKAPU, I will not speak with them.”

You may think you are doing something new, something great,something unique and outstanding, but heyyy it is the same old story. To hate, despise and antagonize the Southern Kaduna people has been there for ages. Infact it was the culture before your father was born.
You boast that you will not meet or talk to the Southern Kaduna people because they are making noise, you call them names, you describe them as bigots, you maintain that they are the catalysts of violence, you threaten to do “something” drastic to them very soon and yes you are working very hard to bring reconciliation, harmony and peace in southern Kaduna. A humorous classical prelude to failure.
You demonise everyone that dares to stand up to your rascal accidental antics, you are at war with everyone. The Politicians even in your political Party you fight, the Clergy even the ones in your religion you fight, the traditional Rulers even in Zaria you harass and disregard, thus it is no surprise that you have thrown a traditional ruler from Southern Kaduna into prison. You spend time and resources prowling social media commentary from where you target and cause the arrest and detention of any Southern Kaduna person that has published any objection to your accidental mishandling of the killings in our state. You have threatened to arrest and imprison our Bishop etc etc.
It is clear you have no respect for anyone neither do you listen to anyone except yourself; surprisingly you boast about that deluding yourself in self praise, thinking it is a sign of toughness/strength. Take a brief study of all failed despots, you will discover that they started this way.
In the words of Bob Marley,
we refuse to be what you wanted us to be,
we are what we are
that’s the way its going to be.
The people you so much hate, have survived humiliation and varied versions of oppression from the pre colonial era through deadly slave/tax raids in the hands of wicked Hausa and Fulani marauders to the post Colonial era of the wicked neo colonialist imposition of Emirs and District heads. The military era witnessed the sustenance of the wicked system of impositions but it is on record that we survived it all. Infact the Military allowed our people to complain and speak loudly against every known evil or injustice which contrasts what you are doing as a Civilian Governor. Your hate and disdain for the Southern Kaduna people is unmatched and very apparent such that even in your appointments there is no single southern kaduna indigene among your personal staff, you have asked that all Policemen of Southern Kaduna origin be transferred out of Kaduna State. Policemen of southern Kaduna origin earlier posted to Government house have not only been withdrawn, but some of them are undergoing orderly room trial because you allege that they were part of or failed to arrest the women that staged a peaceful protest against you. Your utterances at every given opportunity magnify such hatred. Our biggest sin is that WE DARE TO SPEAK UP against the classic failure of your government to protect lives and property of citizens you are on oath to protect.
Perhaps you have not read the words of Patrick Henry while talking about peace building and reconciliation to King George 111 of England……
“The process of healing requires a peace package for the community of people whose lives were touched or altered in any manner……..Greater injustice is to ask people who have been massacred and hurt not to talk about it.”
The simple point I make here is that we remain who we are because we are proud of our roots as Southern Kaduna people and as history has shown we are survivors. We shall survive all and every form of wickedness you exact upon us. You have so many of our kith and kin in detention centres, including traditional rulers, you have threatened to arrest and prosecute more, you have stopped our children from attending school by shutting down the schools in Kafanchan environs etc etc..

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.

Easter in the Air!

Easter in the air!
Happy Palm Sunday! Hossana, Hossana in the highest. Wishing you a blessed Sunday! God make me an instrument of blessing this Easter and always. Amen.

NASIR AHMAD EL-RUFAI: A GRAPHIC TESTIMONIAL BY OLUSEGUN OBASANJO ("MY WATCH" VOL2; Pages 110-112).

“…. I should bring up my comments on Nasir el-Rufai here because of the greatest insult he piled on me by the comment he ascribed to me in his book, The Accidental Public Servant, on the issue of third term”.

“Nasir’s penchant for reputation savaging is almost pathological. Why does he do it? He is brilliant and smart. I grant him that also.  Very early in my interaction with him, I appreciated his talent and brilliance.  At the same time, I recognized his weaknesses; the worst being his inability to be loyal to anybody or any issue consistently for long, but only to Nasir el-Rufai.  He barefacedly lied which he did to me against his colleagues and so-called friends.  I have heard of how he ruthlessly savaged the reputation of his uncle, a man who was like, in the African setting, his foster father.  I shuddered when I heard the story of what he did to his half-brother in the Air force who is senior to him in age”.

“A leader must know the character and ability of his subordinates.  Character wise, Nasir has not much going for him.  But he is a talented young man who can always deliver under close supervision.  So, when Osita Chijoka approached, among others, propping Nasir as my possible successor, believing that whoever I supported would make it, which was a false belier; I did not hesitate to point to Nasir’s naivety and immaturity, talk less of his inability to give honour to whom honour is due”.

“My vivid recollection of him is penchant for lying, for unfair embellishment of stories and his inability to sustain loyalty for long.  Two years after I had left office, Osita came to me to confirm how right I was on my assessment and judgement of Nasir.  I knew what I could make him to achieve and he achieved it for my administration and for the country.  I believe that he can still be used in public service but under guidance and sufficient oversight, making allowance for the psychology of “his petit size and his elephantine brain”.  He was described as a malicious liar.  He was more than that; he is a pathological purveyor of untruths and half-truths with little or no regard for integrity.  In all of this, he unwittingly does more harm than good to himself.  Of all his claims and what he credited against me in his book, referred to above, only one is partially true.  As a statesman and committed Nigerian, I have always maintained that the descending order of my concern and interest in Nigeria first, my political party second, and any government of Nigeria third.  It meant that while I am looking after the interest of, and showing concern for, my political party, I must not ignore the higher concern and interest for Nigeria.  In 2011, while I left no stone unturned in my support for Goodluck Jonathan to win the presidential election, first to stabilize the Nigerian polity, and second as a candidate of my party.  I was mindful that the unexpected could happen.  That is, though somehow remote and not to be absolutely ignored, the possibility of Buhari winning the election.  For Nigeria, Buhari would not be a good economic manager.  I know him well enough that he would be a strong, almost inflexible, courageous and firm leader.  If Nigeria would avoid a stubborn mismanagement of the economy, what should be done to a possible Buhari emergence as an elected president?  I agonised on this issue, but came to the conclusion of pairing Ngozi okonjo-Iweala’s technical competence and experience in economic management with Buhari’s strong political leadership.  I asked Nasir to sound Buhari out, while I would sound Ngozi out by myself.  Nasir came back to say Buhari said yes, but Ngozi said no to me by herself and that was the end of that issue.  I knew that like all human beings, Ngozi has her weaknesses, but I also knew that a strong and firm leader can manager her weaknesses that I identified and got the best out of her technical competence.  Except those that Nasir might have talked to directly or indirectly or those that Ngozi might have talked to directly or indirectly, I discussed the issue only with two main dramatis personae.  Whatever else Nasir might have added to that issue, must be the figment of his imagination or his playing himself up to give himself more ‘height’ than he has. Whichever way, he has my sympathy. It was characteristic of him.  Unfortunately, his character could also be seen as a reflection of his upbringing, which may spread the blame beyond him.  In typical African society, it would be asked, “Did he not receive home training or did he reject home training?”  Is there nobody in the family to call him to order? One may also wonder how much his losing his father at the tender age of eight years had rendered him devoid of fatherly care, guide and paternal direction and home training”.

“The most outrageous is the allegation by el-Rufai that I said, “No third term, no Nigeria.”  Under no circumstance would I have said anything like that.  Those who know me very well know that I would not pursue anything in my life to the extent of destroying Nigeria or not to wish Nigeria well.  Nasir know quite well that he never came to ask me about third term.  He went on in his prologue, “The truth of the matter was that the third term project was believed by many of us in the administration to have been initiated by Lagos businessmen.” That too was a blatant lie and was widely and wildly different from the account of Senator Ibrahim Mantu and Senator Oman Hambagda as laid out in the early part of this chapter.  I could see the vain glory of Nasir as he portrayed himself as my unsolicited close adviser on almost anything.  Psychologically, he needed all that to boost himself.  Not even the Chief of Staff, General Abdul Mohammed, nor the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Ufot Ekaette, who were the closest of my advisers, would claim advising me in the language Nasir used in his book.  People asked me what I feel about Nasir’s book. I always replied that if his so-called friend, Nuhu Ribadu, could claim, “There is a huge integrity deficiency in el-Rufai’s book”, the best I could do is to have a great pity for him.  He wrote his book essentially to pull other people down so as to push himself up.  Atiku, who could have told them the story of my only visit to his official residence when he was sick and could not go to office, denied ever telling Nasir that I knelt down for him.  I read the book and it confirmed my impression of him as a man of first-class brain but arrogant, full of himself, immature and nauseating, trying to make up for his diminutive stature in what is called “the small man syndrome”. When I realised el-Rufai’s psychological and potential upbringing problem, I tried, as he dramatically and exaggeratedly narrated on pages 329-354 of his book, to fill some of the void.  But he is impervious to absorbing life-changing instruction or advice”