Saturday, May 31, 2014

Boko Haram Has Exposed Nigeria

By Charles Ofoji
If a nation is at red alert, yet a terror group like Boko Haram
strikes at will and ups the number of its victims, then such
a country is obviously a cassava republic that cannot
guarantee security of lives and property.
While Aso Rock makes noise about the determination of the
government to bring back the abducted Chibok girls and
also to finally thumb Boko Haram, the group continues to
strike audaciously as it pleases – in Borno (four times, with
the recent killing of forty soldiers and policemen), Kano and
Plateau (twice).
It seems they want prove that this government has no clue
of what it is talking about. Boko Haram wants to tell
Nigerians that we live at their mercy. And that our so-called
leaders are only making speeches – as usual.
Nigeria is now a laughing stock, especially among Africans,
who had seen our country as a giant in the continent and
had looked up to us for leadership. A Ghanaian, living in
Berlin, had recently joked that they (Ghanians) never knew
they were fearing Nigeria for nothing. „So we could have
defeated Nigeria in war?“he had jested, due to the inability
of the Nigeria State to deal with a little insurgency.
Though a war against terror is a different ballgame, the view
of the Ghanian might not necessarily be correct,
nevertheless it is representative of how others see us at the
moment.
The helplessness of our poorly trained and poorly equipped
military (no thanks to corruption) to deal with a hitherto
unknown terror group is a national embarrassment with
international acclaim. I felt sorry for President Goodluck
Jonathan when he was corrected by the United States of
America that Boko Haram has nothing to do with Al-qaeda.
In their bid to mystify Boko Haram and excuse their inability
to crush the group, Jonathan was misled by his intelligence
chiefs into believing that Boko Haram is an offshoot of Al-
qaeda. And he believed!
Nkem Chidebelu is a student of University of Jos. Her late
mother, Monica Chidebelu, an orange seller at the Jos
Terminal Market, threw all she got from peeling oranges
into making sure her daughter does not end up like her. She
sent her to the university to acquire education. While she
studied, amid her numerous challenges as the daughter of
an orange seller, her mother was her life-wire.
Unfortunately, that wire was cut when Nkem's mother was
sent to her early grave as terrorists bombed the Jos
Terminal market last week.
Speaking to one of the national dailies, Nkem regretted that
she was born a Nigerian. She could not understand why the
Nigerian government, with the amount of resources at its
disposal, can not protect the citizens.
I understand Nkem's disenchantment and frustration.
Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo Iweala recently revealed
that defence takes almost a trillion of the budget. During a
press conference in Abuja last Friday, Okonjo-Iweala
disclosed that the Federal Government has released a total
amount of N130.7bn to the Ministry of Defence for military
operations between January and April this year. She also
told journalists that in 2013, N281.51bn was allocated to
the three security agencies (Army, Air Force and Navy) in
Nigeria. This is almost $2billion US dollars.
Juxtaposed against the impunity with which Boko Haram is
killing the citizens, one can only ask: where did this money
go? If $2billion dollars were diligently spent in the fight
against terror, surely Boko Haram would have been history.
As I said on this platform recently, the country is in the
mess it is because of depraved corruption. The defence
budget has been seen over the years as a big cake to be
shared by the top military brass and their collaborators in
government.
The result is that we now live in a country that cannot
actually be called a country since it is incapable of
protecting its citizens. This is also why over 200 Chibok
school girls, who thought they could pursue quietly their
dreams by seeking education, were taken into bondage by
Boko Haram (we should not forget the 59 school boys who
were also butchered by the same group in February).
The lives of the Chibok girls got shattered, because like
Nkem, they had the misfortune of being born citizens of one
country called Nigeria. Whether Jonathan finds them as he
promised, with international help, certainly their lives will
never be the same again. If they ever return alive, they will
forever live with the trauma of their ordeal in the captivity of
Boko Haram.
Normally, people aspire to govern because they have a
vision or a direction of where they want to take the country
or people. But in Nigeria, people aspire to govern because
they want to line up their pockets with public funds. This is
a national tragedy. Our leaders, apart from being vision-
less and clueless, are simply wicked people. They neither
love the people nor their country. They never spare time to
sit down and figure out what is good for the people and the
country.
For them, leadership is a frolic and meeting at midnights to
decide how to share the budget. A typical Nigerian leader
would do everything to get money to maintain a permanent
suite at Hilton Abuja for his girlfriend than to do the least
that would benefit the shoeless boy in Otuoke. So is anyone
still trying to figure out why we got where we are today?
Nigeria was not run how a normal country should be. The
leaders were fooling the people (they foolishly failed to
realize that they were in the same boat with the people).
That foolishness left Nigeria a skeleton of a nation.
Mindless corruption and bad governance reduced the nation
to a bubble. Now, Boko Haram has burst that bubble.
*checkpointcharley@yahoo.de

Friday, May 30, 2014

NEW PLOT AGAINST OPERATIONS OF NIGERIAN MILITARY - DEFENCEPRESS RELEASE

The Defence Headquarters has been alerted of a plot by
some interest groups to embark on a renewed campaign
aimed at attracting international condemnation and
indictment of  the Nigerian military and its operations in the
Northern part of the country. The campaign which is to rely
heavily on doctored and falsified audio visual materials,
some of which are already trending in the social media, is to
be coordinated and funded by a prominent political leader
whose state is presently under the State of Emergency.
The details of the plan which is already being fine-tuned by
a group of media practitioners, is to be presented for the
final ratification and funding by the political figure. The
design is expected to forcefully whip up sentiments of
genocide allegedly targeted against a particular religious
group. The planners of this multi-media crusade also hope
to use it to gain some mileage in the drive to secure
international attention as they have not achieved this
sufficiently despite previous efforts. The programme
which is also meant to reinforce the ongoing media
campaign against the military was adopted as an
alternative by those who are bent on politicizing the
ongoing counter terrorists operations in the northern part of
the country.
It will be recalled that a newspaper, apparently testing the
waters, last week published some of the doctored pictures
which the Defence Headquarters instantly repudiated,
pointing out that they do not represent activities or
operations of the Nigerian military.
This Headquarters wishes to reiterate its rejection of
pictures and video footages from unverifiable sources
claiming to reflect activities or so called atrocities
purportedly perpetrated by Nigerian security forces. They do
not reflect or depict the true state of affairs or operations of
Nigerian military or any of the security forces. The public is
advised to watch out and not allow themselves to be
hoodwinked by these acts of infamy orchestrated by this
desperate group.
Once again, it must be emphasized that the dastardly acts
of terrorism are against all Nigerians and all peace loving
people all over the world. No amount of propaganda by
apologists of terror group can justify the evil acts of
terrorism by attempting to cast the Nigerian military and
security forces in bad light.
CHRIS OLUKOLADE
Major General
Director Defence Information

Thursday, May 29, 2014

(PHOTO OF THE DAY) Cross section of APC paid Social Media Critics


CLOSET APC JOBBERS OUTED THEMSELVES
Had their mouth soiled, palm greased and finally bought by Gov. Amaechi on behalf of APC. Next time they do their usual little hit job against President GEJ then you know where they are coming from. Identify the characters.

You be the judge!

Courtesy Ukaegbu E. Ukaegbu

You may want to know more about their mission in Port-Harcourt
Follow this link - http://bolabankole.blogspot.com/2014/05/exposed-gov-chibuike-amaechi-and.html?spref=fb

EXPOSED: Gov. Chibuike Amaechi And The Bribing of Nigerian Online Critics


SaharaReporters can authoritatively reveal that the people whose names listed below were indeed paid by APC through Amaechi during his birthday celebration.

These people were sent air tickets to fly to Rivers State. The governor took them round the state where he showed them his only achievement in his 8-year reign as a governor - model secondary schools - that Nigerians cannot manage but Indians. In these schools, Indians, NOT Nigerians are the administrators.

The aim of this gesture by Amaechi is to shut the mouths of these Nigerian online critics from criticizing anything bad done by APC, their members and supporters.

The highlight of the event was a dinner and brown envelopes which contained cheque of N5million each and were handed over to the following persons:

Kelechi Jeff Eme , Femi Adeoya. Petra Akinti Onyegbule, Preye Aganaba, Jasper Azuatalam, Japheth J Omojuwa, Soni Akoji, Theresa Ugwuanyi, Danjuma Azemobo Musa, Kelechi Deca, Oviebor Okeh Goodluck, Eba Okorodudu White, Mercy Ugo and Uche Igwe. Those that did not attend due to work engagement like Victoria Ohaeri-Ibezim, Bukky Hassan, Tokunbo Aremodua, Susan Henshaw , theirs were sent to them.

The question SaharaReporters wants to ask is, what benefits would the Rivers People get from this invitation and huge sum of money spent on these people???

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