OccupyNigeria Protesters shut down Town Hall meeting with Minister of State at the Grand Hyatt hotel, New York, NY.
Nigerian activists from the Nigeria Liberty Democratic Forum (NDLF) last night protested at the Town Hall meeting called by the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Professor Viola Adaku Onwuliri, shutting down the event until the New York Police Department was called in an hour later.
The meeting, which was scheduled to start at 6: 00 p.m., did not start until 7:45p.m, as the minister came late.
Prof. Onwuliri is one of three Ministers in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of a top-heavy, free-spending government. About 10 days ago, in one of his broadcasts on the oil subsidy crisis, President Goodluck Jonathan said he would drastically cut down on foreign travel; Mrs. Onwuliri’s tour of the United States, like the lavish tour of South Africa of Mr. Jonathan’s team to the ANC 100th anniversary, is evidence of the emptiness of that pledge.
The activists led by Bukola Oreofe of the NDLF waited patiently in the hall as officials of the Nigerian consulate in New York and organizers of the event started with opening prayers and the Nigerian national anthem. As soon as the anthem ended and the Consul-General of Nigeria in New York moved towards the podium to deliver a prepared speech, NDLF activists took over the microphone on the aisle which was set aside for those who wished to ask questions. They announced that the Minister was late, and pointing out that it was another sign of disrespect and contempt for Nigerians.
United States Report Calls Boko Haram A Threat…To The United States
A new report by the Committee on Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence of the United States House of Representatives, dated today, November 30, 2011, calls for focus on the threat Boko Haram poses to US interests and even the US Homeland.
The report, “BOKO HARAM: Emerging Threat to the U.S. Homeland,” which was signed by the Chairman of the subcommittee, Rep. Patrick Meehan, and a ranking member, Rep. Jackie Speier, draws attention to recent US experience in which its intelligence community underestimated the intent and capability of such terrorist groups as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, and Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban) to launch attacks against the U.S.
It notes that Boko Haram’s August 26, 2011 suicide-bombing of the United Nations House in Abuja, Nigeria, using a vehicle borne improvised explosive device (VBIED,) was the first time the group had targeted an international entity, and marked “a significant shift” in the targeting and goals of the group.
“Boko Haram’s attacks are occurring at their greatest frequency since the sect emerged from hiding in 2010,” says the report. “The sophistication of its tactics, use of the Internet, and its recent attack on the U.N. headquarters in Abuja all point to a dangerously evolving organization.”
Nigeria’s Solar Projects Yield Both Failure And Success
In the shadow of Nigeria’s business capital, Lagos, where some of the richest Nigerians live, lay the Onisowo lands. On an island in Lagos Lagoon, (map) Onisowo is 15 minutes west by water from the prestigious Ikoyi Boat Club, where the wealthy dock their yachts, and 10 minutes east of the private beaches Ibeshe and Ilashe, where they weekend.
Despite its prime location, the island is far removed from robust development elsewhere in the country.
Five years ago, the Lagos state government launched a solar electrification project at the Onisowo village of Bishop Kodji-the first of its kind in the state. The project was built to power water pumps, fish driers, and street lamps, giving the tiny fishing and boat-carving community’s 5,000 residents easier access to drinking water, securing their sandy streets, and strengthening the oceanic island’s fishing economy.
Things didn’t go as planned.
“We don’t know what’s going on,” said Azime Anthony, a traditional leader in Bishop Kodji. “It only worked for about three months, then it stopped. All the places where we are supposed to have light are dark and they never came back to try to fix any of it.”
The solar system breakdown in Bishop Kodji is just one example of the failures that have typified energy delivery in Nigeria. Nearly 70 percent of people in the West African country do not have access to the national power grid, and the 30 percent who do have access cannot rely on steady power. While the federal government develops and extends the national grid, state governments have increasingly sought alternative energy sources-such as the Bishop Kodji solar project-to meet the shortfall.
Nigeria Senate Approves Anti-gay Marriage Bill - AP
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s Senate has passed a bill banning gay marriage in Africa’s most populous nation, where gays and lesbians already face abuse and discrimination.
The Senate voted Tuesday to pass the bill. It was not immediately clear if it would then go to Nigeria’s House of Representatives or to President Goodluck Jonathan for his approval.
Under the measure, couples who marry could face up to 14 years in jail, and witnesses or anyone who helps couples marry could be sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
The proposed law also has drawn the interest of European Union countries.
The British government also recently threatened to cut aid to African countries that violate the rights of gays and lesbians.
Boko Haram: Senator Ndume Arraigned On Terrorism Charges
The Nigerian senator detained in connection with links to islamic militant group Boko Haram appeared at an Abuja Magistrate court today to face terrorism charges.
The Peoples Democratic Party Senator, Mohammed Ali Ndume from Borno earlier confessed to knowing the spokesperson of the dreaded Boko Haram sect operating in the northeastern parts of Nigeria.
Senator Ndume represents Borno South Senatorial District at the Nigerian senate.
The Boko Haram spokesperson, Ali Sanda Umar Konduga, aka, “Usman Al-Zawahiri” was arrested and paraded in public yesterday by the Nigerian secret police, State Security Services (SSS).
He spoke openly about Senator Ndume’s support in helping the group frame threat messages to various politicians and Nigerian officials via text messages.
The embattled senator was arraigned alongside the self-confessed spokesperson of the Boko Haram sect, Ali Sanda Umar Konduga (A.K.A) Usman Al-Zawahiri at magistrate court Abuja.
Jonathan Sacks EFCC Chair, Waziri
President Goodluck Jonathan has removed the chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, Mrs. Farida Waziri.
Her removal was contained in a three-paragraph statement signed by Jonathan’s spokesperson, Dr. Reuben Abati in Abuja on Wednesday morning.
Jonathan named Mr. Ibrahim Lamorde as the Acting Chairman/Chief Executive of the lame duck commission.
Larmode was among the effective team of the former chairman of the commission, Mr. Nuhu Ribadu.
Apo Six And Justice Denied - Trial Of Murderous Polices Officers Involved In Killing Six Abuja-based Young Traders In 2005 Drags On - TheNews Magazine
Families of Ifeanyi Ozo, Chinedu Meniru, Isaac Ekene, Paulinus Ogbonna, Anthony Nwokike and Tina Arebun, all between 21 and 25 years old who were brutally murdered in 2005 by policemen as they were returning from a night-out are still wondering if the killers will ever be brought to justice. The trial of Deputy Commissioner of Police, Danjuma Ibrahim; Assistant Superintendent of Police Othman Abdulsalami (still at large) and corporals Nicholas Zacharia, Emmanuel Baba, Emmanuel Acheneje and Sadiq Salami has been on at a Federal Capital Territory High Court presided over by Justice Isaq Bello since 18 January 2006.
The trial has suffered many adjournments and followers of the case believe the court seems to be pandering too much to the wiles and subterfuges of the accused policemen to prolong the trial as long as possible in the hope of eventually evading justice.
Justice Isaq may not be unaware that all eyes are on him over the many adjournments he has granted which have been responsible for lack of progress in the prosecution of the police officers. “It is very sad that this case is going on like this. Though I know that I have good conscience over this case, we cannot ignore what the people are saying outside. This is not good for the image of the judiciary. I think this is the third time the fifth accused person is changing his lawyer. We cannot continue like this,” he said at one of the hearings early this year while reacting to information by Chief Chris Uche, the prosecution lawyer that Ezekiel Acheneje, the fifth accused person, has no lawyer for his defence and, therefore, the trial has to be adjourned. The lawyer had noted that in a murder trial, an accused person must either be represented or provided with a lawyer. But Acheneje seemed to have perfected a way of “hiring and firing” counsels to stall his trial.
Nigerian Professor Wins International Book Prize In African Studies
Professor G. Ugo Nwokeji was Thursday, November 17, 2011, unveiled as The 2011 Melville J. Herskovits Book Award winner in Washington, D.C.
Nwokeji, who is a professor of history and African American Studies at the famous University of California, Berkeley, won the award for his book, The Slave Trade and Culture in the Bight of Biafra: An African Society in the Atlantic World, published by Cambridge University Press in 2010, selected from more than 200 books nominated for the award this year.
Awarded by the African Studies Association (ASA), the Herskovits Award is considered the premier book prize for non-fiction in African Studies worldwide. The ASA was formed in 1957 and is the largest of all scholarly associations that focus primarily on Africa.
Given to the author of an outstanding original book published on Africa in the previous year, The Herskovits Award has been awarded continuously since 1965 in honor of preeminent American anthropologist, Melville J. Herskovits, who was instrumental to the emergence of both African studies and Afro-American studies as academic disciplines in the United States.
Is Goodluck Jonathan Plain Stupid? By E. C. Ejiogu
When you think you have seen it all—including the most bizarre—in the caricature land, which Nigeria is, something silly and bizarre quickly crops up in or about the place or its conscience-deficient minders. At the time when Olusegun Obasanjo actively foisted the walking corpse, Musa Yar’Adua as president of the place, some people who have refused to write the Nigeria project off as a lost cause, still let their hopes linger on the belief that the place might be turned around someday. Even as they hoped, it didn’t take long before it became self evident that Yar’Adua was truly dead, in fact, too dead to function credibly as the president of anywhere except Nigeria.
He remained there all the same—shuttling regularly to Germany for what was called medical attention as his handlers indulged themselves looting and stealing public funds. It got to the point when the Germans refused to admit him any longer in their hospital. But the bizarre absurdity continued as the Saudis took over. Even when the Saudis washed their hands off him, and he was parceled back on life support and left outside the seat of power in Abuja in an ambulance where he decomposed away, he was kept on as president.
As all that went on, there was Goodluck Jonathan, rolling over silently in the full view of the world, contented with being the vice president to a president who was as far as anyone knew, dead! When they eventually knocked something together for him and called it acting presidency, he concurred, literally flashing his signature sheepish grins.
One of Jonathan’s first acts after Yar’Adua’s decomposing corpse was finally wheeled out of the seat of power, and way was paved for him to assume de facto control, of state power in the project, was to bother the autocrats in Saudi Arabia to let him come over and thank them for ‘taking care of’ Yar’Adua. Again, he simply grinned some more after they turned him down.
In the last several months, every reasonable person watching as things continued to unfold spiral down in Nigeria has been rankled by the ease with which the Boko Haram Islamist terrorists sustain their blood-letting all the way from Abuja to several parts of the Sokoto Caliphate areas. They have done that in a manner that fits what obtains in climes that are devoid of governance. It got to the point where the US intelligence establishment stepped in to furnish what became the only credible security warning over the menace. Directed at American citizens who were cautioned to stay away from two luxury hotels in Abuja, the alert came handy also for everyone else, including Jonathan and elements of his hapless make-believe government, who free-loaded on the alert that their own outfit is incapable of generating credibly, and deserted the two locations fingered in the alert.
Nigeria's Secret Police Parades Boko Haram Spokesperson In Abuja
Nigeria’s Secret Police, the State Security Service (SSS) today paraded Ali Sanda Umar Konduga (A.K.A) Usman Al-Zawahiri before journalists in Abuja. The SSS claimed that Sanda was the spokesperson for Boko Haram, the islamic militant group based in Maiduguri, Borno state.
However, Sanda claimed that he has been suspended from Boko Haram after the sect accused him of leaking information to the security agencies.
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Achebe: Fighting Corruption With Fame-Boston Globe
The revered Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe says there is a moral obligation “not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.’’ The author of the 1958 novel “Things Fall Apart’’ recently lived up to his words once again by rejecting one of his nation’s highest civilian honors for the second time in seven years as a protest against public corruption. It’s an inspiring example of how an individual can use his fame to hold governments accountable.
Achebe, 80 and currently teaching at Brown University in Providence, first rejected the award from President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2004, citing the nation’s insecurity and corruption and calling his home state a “bankrupt and lawless fiefdom.’’ This time he turned it down from the new president, Goodluck Jonathan, despite the latter’s pledged reforms and the warm reception he received from the White House in June.
US Embassy In Nigeria "Denies" Special Forces Deployment Against Boko Haram
The United States embassy in Nigeria has denied that it is sending troops to combat Boko Haram militants in the North of Nigeria.
Yesterday, SaharaReporters reported that a covert operation by US Special Forces aimed at fighting the militants is in the offing. Our source said Marines from Forth Carson in Colorado got a 48-hour notice to prepare to deploy to the troubled area through Niger and Chad.
But Deb MacLean, a spokesman of the US Embassy in Nigeria told Associated Press reporter Jon Gambrell today US soldiers are “not coming.” The AP reporter claimed Ms. Mclean was responding to our exclusive report.
Our sources say the planned deployment is hampering ongoing underground discussion with the militants by the Nigerian government.
Bomb Targets Nigeria Governor's Motorcade In Maiduguri - AFP
(pictured: Undated photo of Borno state governor’s motorcade)
MAIDUGURI, Nigeria — A bomb targeting a police vehicle in a governor’s motorcade and two other blasts rocked the volatile Nigerian city of Maiduguri, but no casualties were reported, police and residents said Tuesday.
The blast involving the motorcade of Borno state Governor Kashim Shettima occurred Monday when suspected members of the Islamist group Boko Haram threw a bomb at the police vehicle on the road from the Maiduguri airport.
The governor was returning from the capital Abuja and was being welcomed by supporters along the airport road following his victory in a legal challenge to his election win in April.
“There was a blast targeted at one of our vehicles, but it did not hit its target,” Borno state police commissioner Simeon Midenda told AFP. “It was a mild explosion. Nobody was killed or injured.”
Midenda said a second explosion targeted a military checkpoint around the Abbaganaram area of the city Monday evening.
“The assailants detonated a bomb by the roadside around 7:30 pm in order to attract the attention of JTF (military Joint Task Force),” he said.
“When the JTF heard the blast, they went to the scene and the Boko Haram members started firing indiscriminately and the JTF members fired back. At the end of the day, the assailants fled.”
Suswam’s Aide Aaving An Affair With Brother’s Wife – ACN
The Benue State chapter of the Action Congress of Nigeria has said the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor Gabriel Suswan of Benue State, Dr. Cletus Akwaya is having relationship with his brother’s wife.
The party said in a statement issued in Markurdi, the state capital on Monday, that this was the reason angry youths from his area molested and rough handled him in the state on Saturday night.
The statement, which was signed by the party’ state chairman, Comrade Abba Yaro said there was no iota of truth in the claim by Suswam that Akwaya was shot by the opposition.
See the statement below:
Makurdi: November 14, 2011
Dr. Cletus Akwaya: Bullets of Adultery - Says Benue ACN
The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) finds Governor Suswam’s claim that his Media Adviser, Dr. Cletus Akwaya, survived an assassination attempt sponsored by the opposition as the characteristic irresponsibility of the Suswam-led government and the Suswam persona.
Suswam is the Governor who covers the immorality of his Aides with accusations on the opposition instead of serious reprimand.
The facts have emerged that Dr. Cletus Akwaya was not shot at by anybody. A scan was done on Akwaya at Bishop Murray’s Medical Centre, Makurdi and if the government claims that Dr. Akwaya received six-gun shots in the head, they should make the result of the scan public.
The truth of the matter is that, Dr. Akwaya is in an adulterous relationship with his brother’s wife; Mrs. Maria Wawegh Kula. Akwaya played David by causing Governor Suswam to drop Kulas as Gubernatorial Liaison Officer (GLO) for Vandeikya Local Government Area; thinking it will weaken the man economically and promote the infidelity of his brother’s wife.
SaharaReporters is an outstanding, groundbreaking website that encourages citizen journalists to report ongoing corruption and government malfeasance in Africa. Using photos, text, and video dynamically, the site informs & prompts concerned African citizens & other human rights activists globally.
National Awards: The Hypocrisy of the Nigerian Media by Jide Johnson
On Wednesday the 16th of November 2011, in the thick of the enormous national and international denunciation that trailed the recent reprehensible jamboree called the 2011 National Honours Awards, and also in response to The Punch editorial written in reaction to the same subject, I sent the following comment to The Punch Newspaper for publication in its MY NEWS DOT COM segment: “Excellent point of view expressed by The Punch in its editorial of November 16, 2011, titled RESTORING THE DIGNITY OF NATIONAL HONOURS.
This position resonates with the vast majority of Nigerians who condemn the chicanery that the national awards have become. However, if The Punch felt so strongly about its position as published it should have adopted an advert blackout mechanism (instead of going ahead to even publish a bulky supplement of congratulatory adverts on the subject) or could even have mobilized the Nigerian print media to reject all congratulatory adverts in protest of the charade. Unless we match words with equal action, we would all be equally complicit in the same situation we intend to change.” The Punch, of course, did not publish my comment. Or maybe it will, someday.
Did I expect The Punch to publish my comment, as it usually did, in spite of my criticism of its perceived double standard on the National Honours Awards conundrum? Yes. And no. Yes, because the Newspaper still manages to maintain a fair position in the hearts of many who have reposed a residual measure of confidence in the news outfit for objective reportage and commentary. Yes too, because the Newspaper constantly maintains on its page 2 that “We are guided by the principles of factual, balanced and fair reporting and commentaries. We believe that these principles and ethical conduct are the basis of public trust and confidence”.
However, I say no, because the Newspaper sadly began to fall short of my personal expectation for it during and shortly after the 2011 general elections when it appeared to have joined forces with most of the national dailies at that time to sacrifice fair, objective and balanced reporting on the platter of explicit or implicit support for the Goodluck/Sambo Presidency.
And by support I do not refer to the share of advertising voice as this often depends on the budget of the individual candidates and their parties (and we all know the PDP broke the bank and spent fortunes in that regard). I refer instead to the share of objective news, unbiased views and issues presented on all the candidates to help readers and the larger audience make up their minds on who to vote for and who not to.