Sahara Reporters

I am absolutely sad and disheartened to observe what is going on at the moment as regards the turbulence and destructive activities of the so-called Boko Haram in our country. Since our independence in 1960, we faced so many disorderliness and confusion within our nation. I dare say that before independence, ours was a land flowing with milk and honey.

Then we largely depended on agriculture; cocoa in the South West; groundnut, millet and sorghum in the North; palm oil in the East with yam, cassava and cotton all over the place. Then we were never in the red and there was nothing like national debt. The first problem we encountered after independence was the coup and counter coup. That was the beginning of our national calamity because the Military took absolute control of the country, dealing death and destruction with anyone who dared question their authority. They reigned and ruled exclusively and absolutely.
 
Our next misfortune was that of the civil war and the Military leader that led it against the rest of Nigeria was Dim Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, who died recently and likely to be buried in February. The Military ruled for many years with all its ups and downs and turbulence. The view of the public at large was that the coup de tat that resulted in the civil war was ethnically motivated. Nigeria therefore, embarked upon damage control policies. One of which is the establishment of the National Youth Service Corps as well as the policy of Federal Character, which culminated in the creation of the Federal Character Commission.
 
On the political scene, there has always been allegation and counter allegation of marginalization and accusation of winner takes all. Nevertheless, the option A4 system was also put in practice. Then came the claim and agitation of resource control, particularly the oil revenue that we were exploring and exploiting in heaps and bounds in the South Southern part of Nigeria. With all the attempts by the Government to please the people of the Niger Delta and its environs, the agitation kept escalating because of their demand for larger share of the oil revenue. Attempts to placate the situation were made by the Government, which led to the creation of the Niger Delta Development Commission. Nevertheless, the militants of the Niger Delta waged their own war against Nigeria and even planned to secede. Happily, it was to the credit of late Alhaji Musa Yar’Adua who settled the ensuing economic chaos. With all these antecedents of ethnic, political and economic turbulence, many Nigerians felt that our problems were over and we have taken good care of them all and we should now settle down after fifty years of independence to good governance in our polity.
 
Suddenly, we are now faced with a disturbance of a very serious religious dimension, the type that we have never experienced in this country before, either during the colonial era or since our independence. One horrendous aspect of it is even the international dimension that it has created for our dear country, thus alarmingly destroying the image of our nation as a peaceful giant of Africa. We now suffer being viewed as a pariah State and the name of Nigeria now stinks. But it is equally capable of destroying our whole country which people like us have laboured with well meaning others to build. Religion is an emotive issue and our constitution, although not perfect, tries to make it a secular issue. However, ours is a multi religious nation and we have lived harmoniously thus for over fifty years and before. In the South West, we have pursued a civilized approach to this matter in the belief that we are all serving the same one God as perceived by the two received faiths.

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Out of fear of possible Boko Haram bombing, the 2012 Afan Festival, also known as Kagoro Day in Southern Kaduna, has been cancelled. The event, the largest and most popular ethnic festival in Northern Nigeria, is normally held on the 1st of January.

The cancellation is in recognition of the bombings the Boko Haram sect vowed to unleash on Christian communities on 31st December 2011 and 1st January 2012.

The cancellation came today as President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan was vowing in Abuja that his government will fight Boko Haram, the “group of evil-minded people who want to cause anarchy, to the end”.

Mr. Jonathan was speaking to Mr. Mohame Bazoum, Deputy Prime Minister of Niger Republic, who brought a solidarity message and condolences to Nigeria for lives lost during the Christmas Day attacks from President Issoufou Mahamadou.

Today’s unprecedented cancellation of Kagoro Day was contained in a statement SaharaReporters received today in Kagoro, Southern Kaduna. 

Signed by Sunday Gwafan, National President of Kagoro Development Association, it said, “The Traditional Council and the Kagoro community in Kaura local government area of Kaduna State, wish to inform the general public and in particular, the friends and well wishers of Kagoro Chiefdom that because of the current mood of the nation the usual National Afan Festival which holds every 1st day of January of the year will not hold in the usual manner.
 
“Instead, the Kagoro community being predominantly Christian, has decided to observe the festival in a solemn manner in all Churches, praising and worshiping our God and thanking Him for all the blessings of the year past and praying for peace, protection, unity and more blessings for the chiefdom, state and nation at large.  We therefore invite all Kagoro sons and daughters, including friends and well wishers, to come home for these prayers that will be held on the 1st January 2012 in all Churches in Kagoro land. The Chief of Kagoro and other government functionaries will worship at ECWA Hausa Fadan Kagoro by 10:00 am.”

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At least four people have been killed and several others wounded due to a bomb explosion in Maiduguri on Friday.

A Maiduguri resident and eyewitness said the blast occurred near a local Mosque while people were finishing Friday prayers.

“There was a loud blast near the mosque just after the Friday prayers as people were trooping out of the mosque. Everybody scampered to safety, leading to a stampede,” the resident said.

According to Lt. Colonel Hassan Mohammed, the Nigerian Joint Security Task Force Spokesman, no further details have yet been discovered.

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A family of four people was killed in a machete attack in Nigeria’s ethnically and religiously mixed Plateau state on Wednesday, the state government’s spokesman said.

Plateau is a tinderbox of ethnic and religious rivalries over land and power between local people and migrants from other areas. These often take the form of sectarian strife between the state’s Christian and Muslim communities.

A series of bombings by Islamist militants across Nigeria on Christmas Day killed over two dozen people, raising fears that they are trying to provoke a sectarian civil war.

The attacks included a bombing at a church in the Plateau state capital of Jos which killed no one, although a policeman died in a subsequent shootout with militants.

“This attack is regrettable coming at a time when the state government has put … measures for security (in place),” state government spokesman Abraham Yiljap told local broadcaster Plateau Radio Television. He gave no further details.

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Citizen reporters affiliated with Saharareporters have reported another bomb explosion in the Hausa quarters in Sapele, Delta state.

The explosion happened at  an Arabic school along Urhobo Road. The explosion was similar to the one that ripped through a Mosque in the township on December 10. 

There are unconfirmed reports of 3 injuries.

Saharareporters will continue to provide details as they become available.

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The Delta State police command has confirmed that another bomb was detonated in the Hausa quarters in Sapele, Delta state. The bomb explosion happened at a Qu’ranic school along Urhobo Road in Central Sapele as earlier reported by Saharareporters. The attack was similar to the one that ripped through a Mosque in the township on Dec. 10 at a local Mosque in the area known as “Hausa quarters.”

There are confirmed reports of 7 injuries according the the Delta State police spokesperson Charles Mouka.

A source in the vicinity of the attack said the explosion shook the entire area. The bomb appeared to be aimed at a Quranic school and  Islamic centre on Urhobo Road by King Street where Muslim children usually gather to study and cram sections of the Koran.

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Despite the wide publicity given to the fifth edition of celebrate Benue women organized by the First Lady of Benue Arch. Mrs. Dooshima Yemisi Suswam, the occasion was scarcely attended, The Premier investigation has revealed.

The fifth edition which also featured the second anniversary breakfast prayer fellowship and book lunch witnessed a scanty population of women both at the IBB square and Aminu Isa Kontagora Theater Complex with almost the whole space at IBB square empty and most seats unoccupied at the Aminu Isa Kontagora complex.

Press coordinator to the first lady Samuel Orbunde, a day to the occasion told Nongov women who paid a solidarity visit to the first lady at the Government House that to whom much is given much should also be expected.

Orbunde further acknowledged the first family for taking good care of Benue women all these while, and requested that it was the women’s turn to also pay back “you are all invited to the book launch that day at the IBB square, therefore all of you stuff your pockets with money to support the first lady that day” he invited

He was perhaps speaking the mind of the first lady, one of the women who spoke with The Premier shortly after the visit on anonymous condition wondered.

According to the women, if the media coordinator was not speaking her mind she would have quickly disassociated herself from the statement.

The premier investigation has it that the first lady was actually out to have her own pound of flesh on Benue women on this fifth edition of celebrating the Benue woman.

The press coordinator to the first lady Samuel Orbunde in reply to this medium in a text message to confirm allegations that over One Hundred Million Naira (N100M) was released to the planning committee for the organization of this event, described the figure as outrageously outlandish adding that “even though the books are not with me now, this can’t be”.

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Five explosions rocked the beleaguered townships of Damaturu and Potiskum in Yobe State today as combined teams of the Nigerian police and army engaged Boko Haram militants in sustained firefights overnight.

Meanwhile Saharareporters has confirmed today that two senior police officers and 13 others were killed in the attacks that started yesterday. Yet unconfirmed reports also disclosed that 10 soldiers were also killed by the Islamist militants. Among the casualties on the police side were Ibrahim Abubakar, the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of operations, and the squadron commander of the mobile police unit 41 a superintendent of police (SP) whose name was simply given as Kabir. Both men died at the hands of the militants.

Fierce but sporadic fighting started yesterday in the Northeastern cities of Maiduguri, Damaturu and Potiskum as Boko Haram militants engaged in bombing and shootouts with the police.

Yobe State Police Commissioner Lawan Tanko told SaharaReporters earlier today that the police had started trailing the heavily armed militants, but that his forces were yet to capture any of the sect’s terrorists responsible for detonating bombs across the state. 

An unmistakable irony marks the current crusade of Africa’s Christians against what they see as the evil of homosexuality. Let’s call it the holy irony, though unholy might be the apt modifier given the stunning absence of Christian love and understanding that characterises it.

It is the irony of a people once enslaved and colonised by Europe partly for their heathenism now assuming the mantle of “The Black Man’s Burden.” Which makes it Africa’s reverse “mission civilisatrice” to save Europe and the world from the Armageddon-like repercussions of the greatest sin of all: same-sex sexual relations. For that unpardonable sin, remember, Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed and Lot’s wife turned to a pillar of salt for merely casting a backward glance at the raging fire of destruction.

The unbounded zealotry of Africa’s reverse missionaries reminds me of two minor characters in those classic dramas of our (post)colonial existence: Chinua Achebe’s Enoch in Things Fall Apart and Wole Soyinka’s Joseph in Death and the King’s Horseman.  They symbolise the frenzy of the reformed prostitute or criminal who espouses an impracticable morality. And so Enoch, son of the priest of the snake cult in Umuofia but eager to prove the fervour of his new-found faith, slays and eats the sacred python, even though Mr Brown, the white missionary, preaches against just such “excess of zeal.” For his part, Joseph resigns his post as houseboy to the colonial officer because the white man who should know better had scolded him for acting as if “all that holy water nonsense has wiped out your tribal memory.” Saul, the chief persecutor of Christ, presents us with the biblical version of this figure after his Road-to-Damascus conversion.

The lion-heart of this crusade to save Europe from an even worse heathenism than Africa had been accused of is the Rev. Jasper Akinola, former primate of the Anglican Church in Nigeria. He seized the limelight eight years ago when his was the most strident voice against the ordination of gay bishops in Britain and the United States. By threatening to lead his fellow literalist interpreters of the bible out of the Anglican Communion, Akinola set himself up as the moral torchbearer of the faith, the-truth-and-the-way to the uncorrupted revelation of God’s mind from Moses and Jesus to St. John the Divine of the bizarre book of Revelation. Wearing the collar and cassock of this new gospel as chairman of the Global South Primates, he co-authored a 2005 letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury in which he describes Europe as “a spiritual desert” and the Church of England’s humane acceptance of same-sex partnerships as “evil.” Never was evil so harmless! Although three co-signatories, including Bishop Clive Handford of Jerusalem (no less!) and the Middle East, denied signing or approving the letter and described Akinola’s action as “scandalous,” that has not dulled the halo around Jasper-the-Lion-Heart. And he has since taken steps to set up the Anglican Church in North America in opposition to the sinful Episcopal Church of the United States.

Since 2006, Akinola has been the moving spirit behind the bill to ban same-sex marriage and relationships in Nigeria, a bill that has now been passed by the pious senators and awaits the assent of the righteous representatives. Those feverishly engaged in this diversionary moral warfare claim to be acting on behalf of an omnipotent God. The promise of rewarding everyone, homosexuals included, according to their deeds on judgement day is not enough for them. God is either too slow or too liberal or cannot be trusted. By the same token, God-the-Son, founder of the faith that they profess, is not to be heeded when he declines to rank sins, or when he commands his followers thus, “Judge not, that ye may not be judged,” warning that only the heavenly father who sees the innermost of hearts is fit for that office. Besides, “all our righteousness is like filthy rags.”

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The shameful checkpoint bribe collection culture of the Nigerian Police claimed another life on Saturday in Akwa Ibom State.

Divine Asubob, a 32-year old oil worker at the Qua Iboe oil fields operated by Mobil Producing Nigeria, was crushed to death at a police check point in Esit Eket local government.

SaharaReporters learnt that the deceased, who was riding a motorbike, met his untimely death when he was flagged down by policemen at the check point and was then hit from the rear by a truck. 

Witnesses said the policemen, knowing what they had done, and desperate to forestall reprisals from the community, hurriedly abandoned the check point and returned to the Esit Eket Police station.  

They offered no help to the victim, who died on the spot in a pool of his own blood. His body was at the scene of the incident for three hours before it was evacuated to the morgue of the Immanuel General Hospital, Eket.

Family sources revealed that the deceased, a technician with Petrostuff Nig. Ltd, supported his siblings and his mother, a civil servant whose wages are usually several months behind schedule. He was on his annual vacation.

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The insurgent Islamist group, Boko Haram, yesterday confirmed that three of its members were killed by their own bombs in Saturday’s explosion in Shuwari, Maiduguri.

A spokesman of the group, Abul Qaqa, made the confirmation in a telephone conference with newsmen in Maiduguri on Sunday.

“We have hundreds of members that are willing to sacrifice their lives in this crusade,” said Mr. Qaqa, adding, “the unfortunate incident of Saturday will not discourage us. If anything, it will encourage us to strategize and diversify our techniques because we are not afraid of death.”

The Joint Task Force (JTF) on Operation Restore Order had told newsmen on Saturday that three suspected members of the group died in an early morning explosion at Shuwari in Maiduguri.

Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh, the Public Relations Officer of the JTF, had told newsmen that large quantities of unused Improvised Explosive Devices, AK 47 rifles, ammunitions and other vital items were recovered from the scene of the blast.

The military spokesman disclosed that the task force had also seen three unidentified mutilated bodies of suspected Boko Haram militants suspected to be running the illegal bomb making factory.

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Charles Okah and Obi Nwabueze, who were arraigned in October 2010 for alleged involvement in last year’s the Independence Day bombing in Abuja, have warned the Comptroller-General of Prisons over the harsh and inhuman treatment they are enduring in Kuje Prisons.

In a petition filed today by Ogbenovo Otemu and Matthew Omonade on behalf of Festus Keyamo Chambers, the lawyers alerted the Comptroller-General of impending legal consequences if he fails or neglects to redress the injustice to their clients in his custody.

The complaint said that that unlike other suspects awaiting trial, Okah and Nwabueze are being kept in solitary confinement. “They are deprived from worshiping God like other inmates in the worship center, they are not allowed to participate in sporting activities and when their wives and relatives visit them, they are not allowed to see them,” the complaint states. 
 
It also said that Mr. Okah’s wife has on several occasions been humiliated at the prison and prevented from seeing her husband, contrary to the orders of the court that she and other relatives be allowed access to see him.  

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“If a man happens to meet a virgin who is not pledged to be married and rapes her and they are discovered, he shall pay her father fifty shekels of silver. He must marry the young woman, for he has violated her. He can never divorce her as long as he lives.”

 That is Deuteronomy 22:28.  The holy Quran’s Surat Al-Mā’idah 5:38 commands: “As for the thief, the male and the female, amputate their hands in recompense for what they committed as a deterrent [punishment] from Allah. And Allah is exalted in Might and Wisdom.” These are some of the injunctions which in their days were normal and fair but today, thousands of years later, by general consensus we find them proceeds from a completely bizarre morality. Through rigorous philosophical critique of natural laws, through scientific findings and codification of human rights and fundamental freedoms, the human society have advanced from the dark ethics of yesteryears into a brighter modern society.  Unfortunately some horrific concepts and ethics of old are still allowed to persist to date.

It used to be a normal practice to kill twins immediately after birth because they are strange; strange because the society refused to be open-minded.  Since it was common for women to have a kid at once, the natural law was narrowly interpreted to mean that giving birth to more than one is an abnormal occurrence hence evil. It took Mary Slessor an arduous campaign of enlightenment to turn this practice around in Nigeria.  Now it is not baby twins that are seen as evil, it is their murder at birth.  For every law of nature there will always be an exception. We are black people, yet we have albinos among us. They are not bad or evil, they are just different. Cat and dogs are meant to be enemies, but we have some that are best of friends.  There are some men that have certain features of women and some women have features that traditionally belong to men. Also, there are the hermaphrodites. They are not evil, they are just different. If we have not heard of homosexuality before, meditation on the wonders of nature and how she breaks her own laws supposed to convince us that men who love men and women who love women would exist somewhere. This is neither bad nor evil. It is just nature asserting her rights to break her own rules and enrich the world with differences.

Homosexuality is not evil. Homosexuality is not a western invention. Homosexuality is not a cultural fad. Homosexuality is not a measure of cultural decadence nor is it the sign of end time. Homosexuality is simply a biological fact. You cannot become gay unless you are born one.  It is on this note that I find the Senate’s ratification of the Same Gender Marriage Prohibition Bill condemnable.  The presidency or the lower House should claim the moral high ground and quash the bizarre bill.  Legislation like this should be responsible to modern scientific findings and rooted in ethical reasoning instead of being founded on wilful ignorance or on discredited Arabic or Semitic injunctions of thousands of years ago.

The Senate that supposed to put the pin back into the grenade by educating Nigerians on the normality of homosexuality is allowing homophobia to regain composure, become more virulent and worse, become legal and fashionable. Sen. Baba-Ahmed Yusuf Datti of Kaduna and Dr. Ishaq Akintola have declared with impunity that gays should be murdered.

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The family of Chief Ogbe Onokpite, the candidate of the Citizens Peoples Party (CPP) in the Delta State 2007 and 2011 gubernatorial elections who died of police gunshot wounds on November 26, has appealed to the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Commission to commence a thorough investigation of the incident in order to bring to justice the policemen and officers responsible for it.

In a statement signed by the bereaved family by Festus Keyamo, the Onokpite family also called for an urgent Coroners’ Inquest towards obtaining “the autopsy report and a full Criminal Investigation Report of the murder of an innocent citizen.”

It would be recalled that a police report of the incident claimed that the late governorship candidate was in the process of purchasing arms in the hotel in which he was arrested and shot.
Ibrahim Tsafe, the Delta State Commissioner of Police, said in an interview that Chief Onokpite ‘and his accomplices were ambushed by the police detectives who were deployed in the hotel from the Area Command of the Nigeria Police Force, Warri.”

Chief Onokpite, he said, “was negotiating for arms in the hotel,” and that when he was coming down from the hotel, “we asked him to surrender but he declined to surrender, instead he confronted the police in company with his men”.

Mr. Tsafe said that a gunfight then erupted in which Chief Onokpite was fatally injured, and “he died before help could get to him in the hospital”.

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Workers at Nigeria’s National Assembly today got more than what they bargain for as the combined team of  security agencies subjected them to rigorous screening as Jonathan submits 2012 budget.

A team of heavily armed anti riot mobile policemen and plain cloth operatives were stationed at the main gate. Also a mobile scanning vehicle was stationed at the main gate scanning all vehicles coming in and out of the National Assembly complex.  At the second gate where a dusty car park was located staff were asked to line up in a single file for check.

Soldiers were also stationed beside the gate brandishing with guns . But the entrance of the white House (main building) was a different ball game as  staff were asked to follow the Senate or House of Rep. wing entrance after a long walk from the main gate.                 

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The restive northeastern city of Maiduguri experienced yet another bomb explosion this morning. A bomb exploded on Ali Ngoshe street in the London-Chiki area of the city.

A source told SaharaReporters that there are no known casualties so far.

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A civil society group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has dragged the Federal Government to court over “alleged failure to release information and documents on the spending of recovered stolen funds.”

The suit filed last week at the Federal High Court Ikeja followed a Freedom of Information request to the Accountant General of the Federation dated 26 September 2011.

The motion exparte with suit number FHC/IKJ/CS/248/2011 was brought pursuant to section 20 of the Freedom of Information Act, and Order 34 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2009, and signed by Adetokunbo Mumuni.

The plaintiff is arguing that under the FOI Act, it has the right to request for or gain access to information which is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or institution.

The suit is seeking an order “granting leave to the Plaintiff/Applicant to apply for judicial relief and to seek an order of mandamus directing and or compelling the Defendants/Respondents whether by themselves and/or their agents to disclose to and or make available to the Applicant the information requested as contained in a letter dated 26 September 2011 to the Accountant General of the Federation.”

According to the plaintiff, “the disclosure of the information requested will give the general public a true picture and a clear understanding of how the spending of recovered public stolen funds have impacted on the lives of the poor and indigent and other disadvantaged Nigerians.”

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Senator Mohammed Ali Ndume (PDP, Borno) who is facing terrorism charges, was today remanded in State Security Services (SSS) custody by a Federal High Court, which will decide on his bail application next Friday, December  16.

The Senator was arrested for his links with the Islamic militant group Boko Haram.  In court today, the prosecution counsel, Mrs. Fatunde, argued that Senator Ndume’s detention was proper, and that he was not detained unlawfully, as was claimed by his lawyer, Ricky Tarfa.

Mr. Tarfa, in turn, told the court that his client has been detained since November 21, and that he has been denied access to his lawyer and family members.

Today’s court appearance of the Senator witnessed the heavy presence of security operatives following a rumour that the dreaded sect-Boko Haram would attack the court to free the accused person.

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26- year-old Khomeini Bukhari, a British citizen, is still recovering from an incident that he said left him “psychologically traumatized,” and he will not find rest until media outlets throughout the world know what happened to him.

Bukhari wants justice for the harassment he recently encountered from a couple of Nigerian police officers.

That’s why he contacted the likes of Sahara Reporters, The African Herald Express, Punch news, This Day, The Guardian Nigeria, Nigeria’s Vanguard, Nigeria’s Sun, the Guardian UK, The Metro, the UK Times series and the London Evening Standard. 

He will soon be featured on African Independent Television and will appear next week on Ben Television in the UK. He told SaharaTV that he has also contacted Press TV, BBC, Sky TV, CNN and Al Jazeera.

Bukhari won’t stop until “appropriate action is taken by the police of Nigeria,” Bukhari wrote in a letter to Sahara Reporters.

Bukhari, head of the Africa division of Peel Aston Global Resources Limited, claims that two Nigerian police officers, whom he identified as Samual Ekpah and Daniel Marcus, harassed him on the evening of October 29, 2011 in Abuja’s Millennium Park.

“…two drunk police officers stopped me, they told me no visitors are allowed after 6pm, I explained to them I didn’t know this as I’m a visitor and when I entered at 7pm there were lots of people and nobody stopped me at the gate. I pleaded with them and they were threatening to beat me and strip me naked and kidnap me and the rest. They asked for my I.D and I said I left it in the hotel, they then searched me,” Bukhari explained.

He alleges that the officers located and took 200,000 NGN (which converts to about 920 euros; $1,233 USD; 788 GBP) from his pocket as well as his Breitling Chronomat Evolution Wristwatch, worth up to 1.3 million NGN.

The whole ordeal left him “shocked and traumatized” — but it didn’t stop there.

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The Nigerian Red Cross is backing eyewitness accounts that yesterday’s blast in Kaduna, in which several people were killed, was a bomb blast, not a gas explosion, the Associated Press (AP) has said, based on an internal Red Cross report on the incident a reporter saw today.  

Yesterday, the Nigeria Police in Kaduna claimed that the explosion had resulted from a gas cylinder, dismissing eyewitness accounts which said two men riding a motorbike tossed a bomb into the area.

The Kaduna State Police Commissioner, Mr. Ballah Magaji Nasarawa, roundly dismissed reports of the two motorbike riders.  “That is not true,” he said.

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On Thursday December 1, the Minister of Finance, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, cringed when the senate joint committee investigating the management of funds set aside for petroleum subsidy handed her a seven-day ultimatum to produce a secret forensic report on the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation in her custody.

The audit, done for her ministry by renowned audit and advisory consultancy, KPMG, which exposed the massive financial malfeasance and monumental corruption in the NNPC, is one document the federal government, the petroleum ministry and the NNPC have worked hard to conceal for a little over a year now.

The report, which could trigger a fierce face-off between the federal and state governments, is one of the most closely guarded secrets in Nigeria today.  It contains shocking details of how the NNPC, and by implication, the federal government has been swindling the states.

So when the committee requested Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala to produce it, she became a bit uneasy, knowing that doing so might embarrass the administration and sparked some troubles for the NNPC, a source close to her told the Times. Initially the minister didn’t make any commitment, but when pressed by committee members, she reluctantly acceded to the request.

It is not known at press time whether she has sent the document to the committee. Contacted yesterday, her spokesperson, Paul Nwabuikwu, said he had no information on the matter.  Calls to the chairman of the senate joint committee, Magnus Abe (PDP, Rivers), were unanswered. But as at noon today, long after the ultimatum given to Mrs. Okonjo-iweala expired, a source close to the committee said the minister was yet to make the report available. He said there was high-powered lobby by the NNPC not to make the document public.

Nigerians are often in the news abroad for Advance Fee Fraud and similar offences.  According to the following story, published on December 8, 2011 by The Guardian (UK), Osita Mba was just the opposite: a principled lawyer who reported how officials of HM Revenue & Customs had compromised their positions in favour of Goldman Sachs.  He may be fired, or prosecuted.

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Nigeria’s late President Umaru Yar’Adua grew so weak while in office that at one stage he needed to be carried by a soldier during a state visit to Togo, ultimately becoming unable to speak in the last weeks of his life, according to a new book by his former spokesman Olusegun Adeniyi. Umaru Yar’Adua died in May 2010 and according to a book written by his former spokesman the ill president became a political pawn in a charade that saw soldiers deployed without authorization and rumors of a possible coup in the oil-rich nation. 

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Is Sunny Ofehe a terrorist or a peace activist? The question before a court in the Netherlands will remain unanswered for some time. On Monday, his trial was postponed once more, this time to allow for further investigation.

It is to be hoped that when the trial resumes, the proceedings will finally shed light on why the man who calls himself a peace activist was charged with conspiring to commit terrorists acts in Nigeria’s oil-producing region, the Niger Delta.
 
The packed public tribunal sits in silence, trying to disentangle the subtle legal battle going on. Most of the 45 people or so are Nigerian men who say they came to offer moral support to their fellow countryman. Mrs Dorothy Ofehe is present too, as at all of her husband’s public appearances. Dutch environmental activists have come, and a Dutch socialist MP who helped put the Niger Delta on the parliamentary agenda.
 
From the press, two prominent dailies are represented. A young filmmaker is following Ofehe and wants to draw parallels between him and the Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa who was executed by a Nigerian military regime. The accused, wearing a shiny black suit and stylish, polished shoes, listens attentively to his lawyers’ plea through an interpreter sitting next to him.

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Professor Richard Joseph of Northwestern University has described Nigeria as one of the Big Messes of Countries in Africa. He made the declaration at the 3rd Achebe Colloquium on Africa going on at the Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts at Brown University. Other countries he classified as such are Sudan, Congo and Somalia.

Professor Joseph was speaking as part of the panel that looked at The Arab Spring: Challenges to Democratization and Nation Building.  He suggested that the West should stop viewing Islamists emerging from the Arab Spring as a force to be crushed.

Earlier in the program, the former Secretary General of The Commonwealth, Mr. Emeka Anyaoku said that Africa’s old way has failed and a new order is emerging. In his keynote speak at the event he chronicled Africa’s journey to this new dawn.  Tapping into his experience at the Commonwealth, he stated that the absence of good governance is responsible for the economic underdevelopment on the continent. He warned that until politics is seen as a call to service and until anti-corruption agencies stop trapping the small fish while letting the big fish go free, sub-Saharan Africa has a long way to go. “Every African country has to find its own way to a democracy that suits its history and tradition.”

Other contributors in the panel discussion included Daniel Serwer of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at John Hopkins University. He spoke about the unresolved trajectories of the revolution aftermath. He told the participants that the big issue in the emerging Islamic countries is the introduction of Islam not just a religion but as law.

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Former president Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement that, ‘there is the possibility of having the Arab Spring in Nigeria if similar conditions, hardship and unemployment which gave birth to it are not addressed’ is highly commendable.

Whereas Chief Obasanjo as a former president who presided over the affairs of the country in the midst of unprecedented oil revenue, cannot absolve himself of the disconnect between economic growth and employment generation, the slide of Nigeria into Arab Spring and manifestation of a poor country of few rich people; however his statement is a challenge and cannot be swept under the carpet by President Jonathan.

Accordingly, Conference of Nigerian Political Parties {CNPP} ‘s commendation of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s statement is predicated on the fact that it is coming at a time when President Goodluck Jonathan and his economic team are hell bent on removal of fuel subsidy; despite subsisting national consensus against the removal.

The Nigeria Labour Congress, Trade Union Congress, the National Assembly, the Clergy, opposition political parties and all patriots have in no uncertain terms said emphatic no to Removal of Fuel Subsidy; yet President Jonathan and his cohorts are glossing over the danger and the consequences of an Arab Spring.

Now that his mentor has spoken, ‘it doesn’t matter which way you look at it today, people are now talking of Arab Spring.’ we hope President Jonathan will listen to wise counsel and come to terms with the hard realities that the goodwill he had before the April elections had evaporated and Nigerians are cynical and skeptical over his capacity to prudently manage the monies which will accrue from the withdrawal.

For the avoidance of doubt, with the list of beneficiaries of the fuel subsidy unveiled by the Senate Committee on Fuel Subsidy and the billions lost on privatization listed by the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on Privatization; Nigerians expect Mr President to prosecute the culprits. Failure to do so will further erode the confidence on him or whomsoever he appoints to chair the palliative committee, hence trust is central to the opposition to the removal of fuel subsidy.

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An Abuja magistrate court has sentenced to three-year jail term an ex-spokesperson of the Nigeria’s extremist Boko Haram sect blamed for scores of attacks, including the August suicide bombing of UN headquarters here, killing 23 people and injuring more than 80 others.

Chief Magistrate Oyebola Oyewumi had convicted Ali Konduga for felony on November 22 after he pleaded guilty to the one-count charge against him and asked for leniency.

The magistrate however deferred sentencing to a later date because the second accused person in the case, Ali Ndume, a serving senator, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

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