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Justice Mahmud Mohammed Nominated As Next CJN, NJC To Meet Tomorrow

Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) has recommended Justice Mahmud Mohammed to replace the outgoing Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar.

The FJSC recommended Justice Mohammed to the National Judicial Council which will tomorrow meet to take a final decision and recommended him to the President for approval.

Justice Mukhtar, who made history as the first female CJN will retire on November 20 when she would have attained the mandatory retirement age of 70. She was born on November 20th, 1944.

Justice Mohammed is the next most senior justice of the Supreme Court. Succession to the post has always been based on seniority.

Presently, Justice Mahmud is the Deputy Chairman of the NJC. The CJN chairs both the FJSC and the NJC.

The council will also nominate Justice Walter Nkanu-Onnoghen alongside Mohammed to succeed the latter as the deputy chairman of the NJC.  Nkanu-Onnoghen is next to Mohammed in seniority.

Justice Mohammed, who hails from Jalingo in Taraba State, was born on the 10th of November 1946.

He studied for his Bachelor’s degree in Law (LL.B) at Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, graduating in 1970, after which he attended the Nigerian Law School in Lagos and was subsequently called to bar in 1971.

He began his career in the public service with the Ministry of Justice of the defunct North-eastern and Gongola States, as well as serving on the bench in Gongola.

In 1991, he was appointed the acting Chief judge of Taraba State, and later confirmed as the substantive Chief Judge of the state in the same year.

Prior to being appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court in 2005, he was a justice of the Court of Appeal and then its presiding justice.

Should he be recommended to the President by the NJC, his appointment will have to be ratified by the Senate.

Ini Edo, Ivie Okujaiye, Mbong Amata, Stella Damasus, Gbenro Ajibade, Majid Michel & Others Looking Glamorous At 2014 GIAMA Awards

The 2014 edition of the annual Golden Icons Academy Movie Awards (GIAMA) took place in Houston, Texas and as expected, Nigerian and Ghanaian movie practitioners were well represented at the event.

They all looked glamorous in various colourful and well tailored outfits. Some of the very popular faces at the awards include: Ini Edo, Stella Damasus, Majid Michel, Emem Isong, Belinda Effah and Charles Novia.

It was indeed a star studded event and these pictures are a delight to watch. Who’s the best dressed in your opinion?

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Photo Credit: Instagram

Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi: Reps-Prescribed Life Pension And Its Inherent Crassness

Imagine that a man diligently serves the fatherland for 35 years, contributing a specified sum out of his salary to become his pension when the feebleness of old age sets in. Yet, at the end of the day, he gets pittance out of such accumulated life saving. It even eludes him at other times as he endures harrowing experiences just to lay hold on same. Many of his peers lose their lives in the process of pursuing this due which should ordinarily be theirs effortlessly.

Also allow your imagination to capture the case of soldiers who usually get caught up in the grim and grisly milieu of warfare, subjecting themselves to the mercies of bullets, wild life and the tyranny of the elements, yet they hardly enjoy retirement benefits befitting of what the nation took from them. If they don’t die in wait of their pension, they die trying to collect same which most times gets stolen as in the case of the Police Pension scam. Yet, these are people who had invested 35 years of difficult service to the fatherland.

Having imagined the foregoing, can these instances be in any way correlated with what obtains in the conditions of service of a Senate President, Deputy Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives or Deputy Speaker? Even though, these positions are highly placed to the extent that they are rated third, fourth, fifth and sixth when it comes to protocol, it can be strongly argued that the actual work done by those occupying these positions cannot be equated to that executed by a civil servant or an average police officer. How can it be when even the number of days they take as recess is more that the ones they spend working for the nation?

The most unfortunate aspect is that while what civil servants are expected to ultimately enjoy is supposed to be a fragment of their earnings which is being held in trust for them, the principal lawmakers would, so to speak, be reaping from where they did not sow. Going by the proposed amendment, they would simply be reaping from our Common Till until they die. Given that they did not sow with a part of their salary and that the labour they exerted is one that is akin to energy spent on feeding, why then would they want to reap like and possibly above those who actually sowed?

While the place of the legislative arm of government in the nation’s democracy cannot be undermined, that does not warrant those leading both chambers of the National Assembly to be placed on life pension. It is the height of insensitivity for them to arrogate to themselves a perk which will by far surpass what the unsung majority of civil and public servants who lasted more hence gave more in service to the fatherland would ever dream of getting.

This forms one of the reasons Nigerians were incensed and embarrased when the members of the House of Representatives smuggled in, while amending 71 clauses in the 1999 Constitution last Wednesday, life pension for the four top members of the National Assembly provided they were not impeached from office. It is worrisome that as much as 252 members who adopted the amendments out of the 261 House members present at the sitting couldn’t see anything wrong in this particular alteration. It appears the lawmakers whose number exceeded the mandatory two-third vote (240 of the 360-members) were blinded by the 70 other amendments which appeared altruistic. Yet that cannot be an excuse as they actually knew what they were doing.

Anyone who is a keen observer of developments in our country must have seen this coming when governors started awarding mouth-watering life pensions to themselves and their deputies using their state houses of assembly. Although, the principal members of the National Assembly had coveted the life benefit enjoyed by their counterparts in the executive arm of government, they only needed the move by greedy governors who use their state assemblies to guarantee an outlandish lifestyle for themselves once out of office, to sate their long-nursed avarice.

But if we allowed well-padded severance packages for those in charge of the Executive arm because we wouldn’t want fear of life after office to lure them into dipping their hands into the cookie jar that is under their care, what reasons would make us do same for the principal officers in the Legislature? Perhaps, it will be to encourage them into passing bills without waiting to be lobbied financially. But should that be the case, then should we be ready to pay life pensions to all members of the National Assembly because, the last time I checked, a bill is not passed into law by just the votes of the Speaker and his deputy alone. This actually brings to the fore the dangerous precedent these guys are setting for our country.

But then we refuse to be deceived. This issue of life pension may have been pre-planned in such a manner that the case of the principal officers of the National Assembly would be a test-run. One that would later open the floodgates and provide basis for the entire federal lawmakers to demand and secure life pensions for themselves. How more callous can these people be? While they are yet to satisfactorily debunk the allegation that as much as 25 per cent of our national budget overhead goes into servicing them, they still have the temerity to scheme a life pension for their principal officers and possibly the remaining 465 of them. They should really consider themselves blessed operating in an environment like ours where the citizenry are nonchallant about the misdeeds of those in government.

Nonetheless, we should remember that before the reps members get what they are seeking, we still have Speakers and Deputy Speakers of the various state houses of assembly to contend with.

Since these proposed amendments to the 1999 Constitution will hold no water until they get the nod of at least two-third of the 36 houses of assembly in the country, I can bet my left foot that the principal officers of the state legislatures would also want to be a partaker of what their seniors at the federal level are seeking to enjoy. Abi na dem go carry last?

Of course, they wouldn’t, since a look at both left and right directions spurs them on. By this I mean that when they cast their eyes towards their governors; they see a reason to award themselves juicy severance packages just as they spot when they look towards the direction of the National Assembly. One keeps wondering how the Fintiris of this world would behold an opportunity like this and allow it to pass them by.

To say the least, what the House of Representatives members are seeking is inordinate and self-serving. The Speaker, Hon. Aminu Tambuwal and his colleagues have got the admiration of a great majority of Nigerians owing to the way they have been comporting themselves of late. They have also been widely appreciated for standing with the masses in opposing unpopular decisions of government. They should be wise enough not to allow this controversial life pension which is being widely criticized by Nigerians to take the shine off them in the twillight of their term as lawmakers.

The House of Senate which is believed to be dominated by more mature minds should not allow members of the lower chamber to pooh pooh all the gains of this National Assembly with an amendment that flies in the face of reason or rhyme. They should know that a good number of Nigerians are still of the highly-plausible opinion that lawmakers should be engaged by the Nigerian state on a part-time basis. This life pension aberration would therefore make that particular line of argument to become more popular among Nigerians.

They should for Christ sakes allow the pervasive poverty ravaging the country to lead them into freeing up the money they want as life pension for government to use in pursuing policies that would fight poverty and unemployment. Their desire for this life pension after all the wealth they accumulated as lawmakers alongside the fact that they are paid off at the end of their tenure in the National Assembly show how insatiable man’s quest for material things are. It is also an indication that even when they succeed in getting the said life pension, that wouldn’t remove the Oliver Twist in them. Little wonder the Wise Man described it all as vanity.

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Article written by Ugochukwu Ugwuanyi @ugsylvester

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It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
Opinion pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of NewsWireNGR.

 

 

Screen-goddess, Uche Jombo & Her Growing Baby-Bump Spotted At ‘The Other Side’ Premiere

Nollywood actress, Uche Jombo-Rodriguez is expecting a baby soon and she flaunted her baby bump at an event last night (Sunday).

It was the premiere of a movie, ‘The Other Side’. She was spotted wearing a black one-arm ankle-length gown as she posed for pictures with other guests such as: Alex Ekubo, Ruth Kadiri and Elizabeth Daniels

At NewsWireNGR, we wish her safe delivery when the time comes.

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Photo Credit: Instagram

Photos From Osas Ighodaro’s 26th Birthday Party

Actress, ex-beauty queen and hostess of Maltina Dance All Competition, Osas Ighodaro turned 26 yesterday and she celebrated last night with friends at the Fuse Lounge in Victoria Island, Lagos.

Some of the celebrities who were in attendance include: Seyi Shay, Dimeji Alara, Ono Bello, Kemi Adetiba, Marcy Dolapo Oni and Clarence Peters.

DJ Xclusive was on the wheels of steel and entertained the guests with great music. Here are some of the photos from the event:

 

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Photo Credit: Instagram

Olajide Omojarabi: When Campus Politics Mirrors A Divided Nation

 

The two major entrances into the Samaru campus of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria have long, tiled paths. Flanked by these paths are trees and neatly trimmed flowers barricaded with lawns, dry carved woods hanging loosely from them with stern warning: No lawn crossing. This is to protect the blooming flowers and evergreen landscape from being trampled upon. The trees, some of which look like they’ve been planted since the school was first built, have trunks  large enough to accommodate students’ posters for social programs on campus or pitch politics to you with campaign posters. The posters on wall paths and tree trunks are bits of what to expect as you approach student hostels and lecture theaters.

You’d find the students in clicks. Cohorts are either devising winning strategies for their candidate or an opposition group is discussing the stunt pulled by their opponent overnight. You might be run into, by a contesting candidate himself, distributing flyers and canvassing for votes for a particular office. The semester is fast folding to an end, and despite the rigor that comes with the preparation for exams, the students are driving campaigns around the campus, heating it up with strategies.

The student union elections in ABU, like most Nigerian campuses and the general elections in the country, is not devoid of sentiments. This bitter reminder of how divided we are re-surges as soon as the election bells are rung. And so, out of the desperation to win by a contestant who perceives himself as an underdog due to the fact that he is neither a Muslim nor core Arewa, there is an intense search for a name that is northern-like, and an outfit that portrays him as “one of us” on campaign posters.

Bello Rilwan, the president of political science students, a Yoruba-Muslim, thinks this as plain folk. According to him, “it’s a strategy that has been working over the years for some students who think the only means of winning an election in a school on the northern soil is dressing and bearing the names of people from such region.” The campaign posters come in different qualities and styles. On it, some candidates give a phrasal line of their manifestos; and some boldly flaunt names and pose in pictures with traditional outfit on the posters, beaming as if nomenclatures could be automatic tickets to victory. You may find a northern-Christian with a name like Audu Farouk John. The “Farouk” may be a middle name that has never been adopted before. A daring contestant may even abbreviate the John as “J”, blurring every possibility of outright rejection.

While the political science president perceives this as a working means for some, another candidate contesting for a post of secretary general, Nathaniel Haruna, a southern-Christian, thinks it is pure inferiority complex to conceal your identity just to win an election. He believes that “competence and responsibility” are the tools he possesses, and these will ultimately help him win the election. In a country where merit has been clouded by tribe and religion, some may perceive his clairvoyance as illusions. His opponent, a northern Muslim may not be as half competent, or could be more competent than he is; but so many are of the opinions that past experiences show sentiments prevail over competence, regardless of who is better qualified.

There has been raging debates ranging from where this problem of ethnic and religious politics stemmed from. The social background, including family upbringing, religious homes and parochial beliefs has often been attributed as the breeding spots for such myopia. Bello Rilwan agrees, too. And most students from the department he is currently leading think he has done a tremendous work as a leader. Born and raised in Lagos with education been his only contact with the north, he thinks service should be the forerunner of any political aspirant. It is, however, not certain if this quest for service was the strategy that worked for Rilwan when he emerged as the president of his department last year.

Another contestant, who didn’t like to be named, thinks the environment influences the disguising choices aspirants make. Just like majority of voters in Nigeria’s general election would weigh money and material comforts over competence, students, he claims, often prefer a fellow religious partner and tribal person over any other candidate not inclined towards their beliefs. He is frank about this and wouldn’t budge when I cited Rilwan as yoruba who had won, beating a northern candidate. Nathaniel, however, thinks politics of sentiment is fast dwindling in his faculty due to the orientation the social science students are receiving from their enlightening courses. He is of the belief that it may, someday, totally end.

While doubters may disagree with Nathaniel’s opinion, an event which recently happened in his faculty has been perceived by some as a beginning to an end of such polarization. A President of a department in the faculty was charged with misappropriation of funds and the duo who raised this alarm with constructive petitions were a southern-Christian and a northern-Muslim. Their courage was a bold step that opened the eyes of many to what they were seemingly blinded to. Even though this president may have misappropriated with impunity, the charge by these whistle blowers was a conscious awakening that though we may not unanimously vote you into office, we will collectively expose you. This may be a first bold step; optimists like Nathaniel are likely to think, towards fighting a political ill that is pervasive in a nation divided across thick ethno-religious lines.

 

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Article written by Olajide Omojarabi  @olaomojarabi

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It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
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Ogundana Michael Rotimi: Sincerely, The Ceasefire And Chibok Girls’ Release Is A Scam

The Chibokgirls Release and The Ceasefire Scam!

It is my wish that this piece was a congratulatory and welcoming speech for the Chibok girls and a new dawn to the peaceful coexistence in Nigeria after the federal government raised our hopes in an acclaimed ceasefire with the violent sect and a possible release of the chibok girls.

After immense pressure from both local and international concerned fellows, most especially from the campaigners of the bring back our girls group, and following the need to impress the public towards getting their vote in the upcoming elections, the federal government had no choice than to prove to the people that she was indeed concerned about the release of the chibok girls, kidnapped by the violent Boko Haram sect about six months ago.

Consequently, on 17th October 2014, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Military, said that it had agreed to a ceasefire deal with the ferocious sect- Boko Haram, and that the Chibok girls would be released soon. The deal was made public by the Chief of Defence Staff; Air Marshal Alex Badeh.

I`m personally among the Nigerians who do not believe that a ceasefire deal could be reached between the federal government and Boko Haram sect because both parties are made up of men with low integrity.

Surprisingly, on the evening of Thursday, 16th October 2014, a ceasefire deal was announced to have been reached by both parties in Saudi Arabia.

Considering the space of time involved in the negotiations between the federal government and the violent sect, it was so shocking that a ceasefire deal could be reached between the two parties just like.

The whole processes look too fast, too cheap and more or less like something being staged. It wouldn’t` t be an overstatement to call it a scam.

Also, you may not come across in history when a ceasefire between two parties is one sided and seems beneficial to one party and not to the two parties involved. During the announcement made by the Federal Government through the Nigerian Military, what the sect intended to benefit from the ceasefire was not announced. The announcement only mentioned what the federal government will benefit from the ceasefire- that is the release of the Chibok girls.

Definitely, it must have been a kangaroo ceasefire orchestrated to impress the people to show that efforts are being made to rescue the over 200 abducted girls.

Patiently and anxiously, caring and concerned Nigerians including the international community waited for the release of the girls as announced to take place on Monday, 20th October 2014. But patiently, we all waited in vain.

As at the time this piece was written, over one week after the expected date of release, the girls are yet to be back home.

Instead of the release of the girls, the ceasefire deal was broken in less than 24 hours after it was reportedly sealed. Maikadiri villages in Abadam Local Government Area of Borno State, and Sina and Grata villages in Adamawa States, were attacked by the sect, with heavy casualties.

Afterwards, Nigerian troops, also killed 25 members of the Boko Haram sect in a bloody clash with the sect members in Sabon Gida town in Damboa Council of Borno State.

Apparently, somebody should begin to tell Nigerians and the international community the true story about the purported release and ceasefire. The people definitely need answers to the following questions:

Was the government scammed by the violent sect? Did the government try to scam the violent sect? Did the government try to scam the masses? Or did both parties try to scam themselves? Who is fooling who?

One thing that is so important is that the violence must come to an end, there must be restoration of peace in the region and very importantly is that the Chibok girls must be released.

In that case, it is very important for the government to put all forces, tactics and logistics together to make sure that a lasting peace is secured and maintained in the region and all over the country and that the violent sect is completely defeated.

If the government needs to go back to the negotiation table with the sect, it should do that fast and get the right people to negotiate with.

It is a disgrace to our country that we left our girls in the hands of a brutal sect for this long.

No doubt, efforts may have been made to secure the safe release of these young girls. Nonetheless, the fact is, efforts are not often recognized if there are no results to show for it.

This is a call to the government, there must be an end to all forms of terrorism and sectarian violence in our land and the end must be now.

God Bless Nigeria!

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Article written by Ogundana Michael Rotimi @MickeySunny

 

Disclaimer

It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
Opinion pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of NewsWireNGR.

 

 

 

40 Women And Girls Seized In Adamawa, Additional 30 Children, Including Girls As Young As 11, Kidnapped In Borno

Boko Haram has used kidnapped young women and girls on the front lines of its insurgency, according to a new report published on Monday, after a fresh abduction in Nigeria’s far northeast, reports News Agency.

Human Rights Watch made the claim as it outlined testimony from dozens of former hostages who documented physical and psychological abuse at the hands of the militants.

Suspected Islamist fighters kidnapped about 30 children, including girls as young as 11, in Borno state at the weekend. A week earlier, at least 40 women and girls were seized in neighbouring Adamawa.

Both kidnappings — and continued violence in northeast Nigeria and northern Cameroon — have cast doubt on government claims of a ceasefire deal and agreement for the release of 219 schoolgirls held since April.

In the human rights report, one 19-year-old woman who was held in militant camps for three months last year said she was forced to participate in Boko Haram attacks.

“I was told to hold the bullets and lie in the grass while they fought. They came to me for extra bullets as the fight continued during the day,” she said.

“When security forces arrived at the scene and began to shoot at us, I fell down in fright. The insurgents dragged me along on the ground as they fled back to camp.”

In another operation, she said she was handed a knife to kill one of five captured civilian vigilantes brought to one of the camps and summarily executed.

“I was shaking with horror and couldn’t do it. The camp leader’s wife took the knife and killed him,” she said.

A wave of attacks by female suicide bombers earlier this year prompted speculation that Boko Haram may have been using abducted women and young girls to carry out attacks.

But there has been no concrete evidence to prove whether the attackers were kidnap victims who were coerced or volunteers.

In July, a 10-year-old was detained in Katsina state, northwest Nigeria, and found to be strapped with explosives.

– Forced marriage, conversion –

In all, 30 women and girls between April 2013 and April this year were interviewed, including 12 of the 57 who fled when the militants raided a school in Chibok, Borno state, taking away the 219 others.

The women, who were held from between two days to three months, were seized from their homes and villages, while working on the land, fetching water or at school.

They described how they were held in eight different camps thought to be in the vast Sambisa Forest area of Borno and the Gwoza hills, which separates Nigeria from Cameroon.

Human Rights Watch said more than 500 women and girls have been abducted since the start of the insurgency in 2009, although other estimates put the figure in the high hundreds.

In the camps, they described seeing other women and children — some of them infants and others as old as 65 — but were unable to say whether all of them had also been kidnapped.

They were made to cook, clean and perform household chores. Some were forced to carry stolen goods seized by the insurgents after attacks.

The report gives an insight into life for the kidnap victims, including those from Chibok, whose plight attracted worldwide attention.

One of the interviewees said she saw some of the Chibok girls forced to cook and clean for other women and girls who had been chosen for “special treatment because of their beauty”.

The women also talked about rape as well as physical violence, including one who said she had a noose placed around her neck and was threatened with death until she converted to Islam.

One 15-year-old said she complained that she was too young to marry one of the militants but a Boko Haram commander dismissed her concerns, saying his five-year-old daughter got married the previous year.

Boko Haram has used kidnapping as a tactic since the start of its insurgency in 2009 but Human Rights Watch said the authorities had done nothing to prevent it or bring those responsible to book.

Survivors were not receiving adequate support such as mental health and medical after-care on their release, said Human Rights Watch’s Africa director, Daniel Bekele.

Funds had been set up for the Chibok escapees but support had not been provided to other victims, he added.

Sufuyan Ojeifo: Muhammadu Buhari And The Politics Of Fear Mongering

Former military dictator and presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress (APC), General Muhammadu Buhari, is continuing his trademark politics of bitterness, blackmail and fear mongering. At a Northern stakeholders’ meeting of the APC, held on Saturday, October 18, 2014, in Kaduna, Buhari once again threw caution, which is expected of an elder, to the winds and launched a subtle jibe at the judges of the country’s apex court. He said, “I tried to be a President three times; three times I failed. I challenged the election up to the Supreme Court. Who were the judges of the Supreme Court? What were their decisions? The most interesting one was in 2007 where three of the seven-man panel of judges said the election was not done according to the law….”

It is worrisome that an elder of Buhari’s standing will make utterances which insinuate that judges of the Supreme Court were compromised or suborned to arrive at a verdict not favourable to him, an indication that he has no respect for the judiciary. If, as Buhari said, “three of the seven-man panel of judges said the election was not done according to the law” in 2007, does it not follow that the remaining four judges were of the legal opinion that the election satisfied the requirements of the law? Or, would Buhari have preferred to be handed a victory on the basis of the three judges who were ostensibly in support of his case against the four judges who were not?

Moreover, that Buhari, in 2014, is still talking about his 2007 loss at the Supreme Court is a pointer to just how unsportsmanlike he can be and how long his bitterness can last. It also brings to the fore the fear mongering with which Buhari has often laced his public statements, some of which, if one is to be kind, can only, at best, be described as not statesmanlike.

Lest Nigerians forget, it was Buhari who once told the world during a BBC Hausa Service interview that, “If what happened in 2011 should again happen in 2015, by the grace of God, the dog and the baboon would all be soaked in blood.” And if we are to follow Buhari’s example and go back to the past, let every well-meaning Nigerian challenge Buhari to search his conscience whether his utterances before and after the 2011 Presidential Election did not stoke and encourage the violence in some parts of the north that led to the loss of many Nigerians after the election.

Coming back to the Saturday, October 18, 2014 event in Kaduna, Buhari further scored a new low in fear mongering while reinforcing the APC policy of demonizing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He said: “another four years of PDP will send this country down the drain.” This is a classic example of Buhari’s brand of politicking, which is to mix fear with blackmail and intimidation in the hope that voters will be cowed into supporting him. It is simply incredible that after three failed attempts at winning the presidency through the ballot box, instead of the military coup that he once used, Buhari’s handlers cannot advise him to change his flawed tactics.

In reality, what does Buhari’s “another four years of PDP will send this country down the drain” mean? Nigerians are intelligent beings and can fact-check things for themselves. Yes, the PDP has been in power for 15 years, in which time the country has witnessed many positive changes. To be clear, nobody is saying Nigeria has reached the state of Utopia; but then, again, which country can be said to have reached Utopia? However, the many positive changes that Nigeria has witnessed under the PDP include tremendous growth in the areas of telecommunications, agriculture, women empowerment and, perhaps, most importantly, freedom of democratic expression.

It is this freedom of democratic expression that allows Buhari to go around making unguarded statements aimed at stoking anger against the government of the day, something which Buhari, the military dictator, would never have tolerated.

For those who may have short memories, let us recall that Buhari is one of the very few Nigerians who have had the privilege of ruling Nigeria in the past. Let us recall specifically that Buhari is, indeed, a former military dictator who truncated the democratically elected government of President Shehu Shagari in 1983. Let us remember that Buhari’s Decree No.4 remains one of the most draconian laws against press freedom that the entire world has ever seen. And let us never forget that Buhari’s regime incarcerated many Nigerians, including former Vice President Alex Ekwueme, for long periods of time without trial.

So if today, as is the case, retired General Muhammadu Buhari, a man who appears negatively rigid and incapable of putting on a democratic temperament, offers himself for service as Nigeria’s democratically elected president, and he seeks to achieve this feat through the misguided politics of fear mongering, intimidation and outright blackmail, Nigerians have the right to look him in the face and say, “Thanks, but no thanks, General! We’ve seen your style before. It did us no good then and it would do us no good now.”

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Article written by Sufuyan Ojeifo.

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It is the policy of NewsWireNGR not to endorse or oppose any opinion expressed by a User or Content provided by a User, Contributor, or other independent party.
Opinion pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of NewsWireNGR

Ijaw Youths Blast Gumi Over Open Letter

The Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide has urged a Kaduna-based Islamic cleric, Sheik Ahmed Gumi, to stop inciting Muslims against the Christians in the country. The Prominent Islamic Cleric had told President Jonathan not to contest the 2015 elections.

The council was reacting to an open letter written by the cleric to President Goodluck Jonathan that the President should not contest the 2015 Presidential election. The cleric had said that Jonathan’s victory would set the country ablaze and that his leadership was sectional and biased against the Muslims.

In a statement on Sunday by the group’s spokesperson,  said the allegations by Gumi against President Jonathan were baseless and unfounded.

In a statement released on Sunday, spokesperson for the IYC, Mr. Eric Omare, said “The IYC condemns the letter in its entirety. It is disappointing for such a letter to be written by a religious leader who ought to be an agent of stabilisation in the country rather than acting as an agent of destabilisation.

“Gumi’s letter is solely motivated by political reasons to satisfy his political interest and paymasters. It is a well known fact that the Islamic religion is the most potent weapon used by northern politicians in mobilising against Christians in the North which has resulted in the killing of thousands of innocent Nigerians.”

“Therefore, the group calls on the relevant security agencies to proactively investigate Sheik Gumi’s inciting letter and bring him to justice. It is totally unacceptable for some persons to hide under the umbrella of religion to promote their political interest and in the process waste the lives of innocent Nigerians.”

 

Opinion: The Words Of A Haramite And The Perfidy Of The ‘Bring Back Our Girls’ Campaign

”When I say that the Presidency must come to the north next year I am referring to the Hausa-Fulani core north and not any northern Christian or Muslim minority tribe.

The Christians in the north are nothing and the muslim minorities in the north know that when we are talking about leadership in the north and in Nigeria, Allah has given it to us, the Hausa-Fulani.

They can grumble, moan and groan as much as they want but each time they go into their bedrooms to meet their wives and each time they get on their prayer mats to begin their prayers, it is we the Fulani that they think of, that they fear, that they bow to and that they pray for.

Some of them are even ready to give us their wives and daughters for one nights sport and pleasure. They owe us everything. This is because we gave them Islam through the great Jihad waged by Sheik Uthman Dan Fodio.

We also captured Ilorin, killed their local King and installed our Fulani Emir. We took that ancient town away from the barbarian Yoruba and their filthy pagan gods. We liberated all these places and all these people by imposing Islam on them by force.

It was either the Koran or the sword and most of them chose the Koran. In return for the good works of our forefathers Allah, through the British, gave us Nigeria to rule and to do with as we please.

Since 1960 we have been doing that and we intend to continue. The Igbo tried to stop us in 1966 and between 1967 and 1969 they paid a terrible price. They were brought to heel and since then they have been broken.

No Goodluck or anyone else will stop us from taking back our power next year. We will kill, maim, destroy and turn this country into Africa’s biggest war zone and refugee camp if they try it.

Many say we are behind Boko Haram. My answer is what do you expect? We do not have economic power or intellectual power. All we have is political power and they want to take even that from us.

We must fight and we will fight back in order to keep it. They have brought in the infidels from America and the pigs from Israel to help them but they will fail. The war has just begun, the Mujahadeen are more than ready and by Allah we shall win.

If they don’t want an ISIS in Nigeria then they must give us back the Presidency and our political power. Their soldiers are killing our warriors and our people every day but mark this: even if it takes one hundred years we will have our revenge.

Every Fulani man that they kill is a debt that will be repaid even if it takes 100 years. The Fulani have very long memories”.

These are the words of an unrepentant Haramite by the name of Aliyu Gwarzo who I am told hails from Kano. I might add that his views do not represent the thinking of the majority of hausa-fulani people but it does represent a tendency which is, more often than not, kept as hidden and as secret as possible.

The fact that it is not often spoken or publicly expressed does not mean that it is not there. Whether we like to admit it or not there are some individuals, like Gwarzo, in our country that fully espouse the doctrines of apartheid and who honestly believe that they were born to rule and that Nigeria was bequethed to their fathers and ancestors. Wining and dining with such people is like making merry with a cult of vampires: one must do so with a very long fork and knife.

To them the return of power to the north, and when they say north they mean the small cabal of ultra conservative fulanis and no-one else, is an imperative that must be achieved by any and every means necessary. To them cheating, lying, killing, maiming, deceiving and pretending is fair game providing that objective is achieved.

It is an insidious, deadly and dangerous agenda which, sadly, many from outside the north that have aligned with the opposition and particularly the Buhari presidential aspiration are unknowingly feeding into.

Luckily for us the Aliyu Gwarzo’s of this world do not speak for or represent the thinking of the ordinary working class hausa-fulani, or indeed northerner, who are as much of a victim of this chronically racist cabal as anyone else.

Neither do they speak for the more enlightened, progressive and civilised elements within the northern ruling class that are silently rising up like the Kashim Ibrahim Imams, Abubakar Umars, Nuhu Ribadus, Sambo Dasukis and Ahmed Muazus of this world who are doing their very best to swim against the tide and establish a new northern Nigeria where racism and ethnic bigotry has no place and where all men, regardless of tribe or creed, are regarded as being equal before the law and before God.

Unfortunately I cannot vouch for some of the leading members of the opposition and particularly the Buharis of this world in the same way. One of the strategies that the hegemonists have employed to achieve their objectives is the insidious attempt to use the Nigerian chapter of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign group (BBOG) to undermine and rubbish the attempts of the present government to get the Chibok girls back home.

It would be interesting to know who funds this group and who the hidden forces, foreign or otherwise, that gives them orders really are. Are they involved with the CIA? Are they linked to the South African intelligence agencies? Are they in bed with M16?

These are questions that need to be answered. Every single Nigerian yearns and prays for the return of the Chibok girls but when this otherwise laudable initiative and noble activism becomes a rallying point for everything that is anti-Jonathan, anti-government and anti-military it gives cause for concern.

In their determination to denigrate the efforts of our intelligence agencies and our armed forces the leaders of the BBOG campaign seem to forget that men and women of the Nigerian military and security agencies are being killed every day in their attempt to protect us against Boko Haram.

These courageous and patriotic Nigerians are risking their lives for us and they are giving their today so that we may have our tomorrow. It is as a consequence of their gallant and courageous efforts that many of us can sleep well late into the night in the knowledge that we are safe and secure. Yet the leadership of BBOG do not appear to appreciate this and instead of commending our armed forces and security agencies for their noble sacrifice they constantly ridicule their efforts on CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and elsewhere. Worse still they are clearly in bed with the opposition.

If it is true that the Nigerian wing of the ”Bring Back Our Girls Campaign Group” is the political wing of APC as Chief Audu Ogbeh, the Director General of the Buhari for President Campaign Organisation, has said then some of it’s leading figures have some hard questions to answer.

Whatever happened to their claim of impartiality and neutrality when it comes to political matters? This has proved to be the lie of the century. Some of us knew all along that they were manipulating the system and using the Chibok tragedy just to embarass the Federal Government and the PDP.

I smelt a rat right from the beginning when it was brought to my attention that virtually every single key figure in the Nigerian wing of the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign is an APC member or sympathiser and when I noticed that they constantly shied away from attacking or criticising Boko Haram itself.

Instead of doing that they have channeled all their anger and toxic frustrations towards the Federal Government and saved all their vitriol and hate for the President.

One would have thought that they would blame the terrorists, kidnappers and abductors as much as the security agencies who failed to find the girls and rescue them but this is not the case.

As far as the key figures behind the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign are concerned the Federal Government, who have not been able to find the girls and return them home safely, are the demons whilst Boko Haram, who are the ones that actually abducted the girls and subjected them to rape, slavery, torture and the most extreme and brutal form of physical abuse, are the angels.

This twisted logic is a manifestation of their sheer perfidy and a reflection of their confused minds. They are a handful of heartless people that will do and use anything or any situation to gain some political mileage for their friends in high places.

This is so even where the liberty,welfare, future and lives of innocent little children are involved. The truth is that those behind the Bring Back Our Girls Campaign in Nigeria are shedding crocodile tears and they have been doing so for the last few months.

They do not mean what they say and they do not want those girls to be found and brought home because the political party that they represent are getting so much political mileage out of this whole sordid episode.

This is sad and unfortunate but it is the bitter truth. It is utterly despicable to use the plight of those poor girls for political purposes.

Worse still it is clear to me that Boko Haram, the military wing of the APC, are working closely and in tandem with it’s political wing which, according to Audu Ogbeh, is the BBOG campaign organisation.

The former are a bunch of sadistic murderers, pyschotic beasts, perverted child rapists and reprobate sociopaths who actually carried out the kidnapping and stole our girls from their school in the middle of the night whilst the latter are a bunch of sanctimonious ”holier than thou” pretenders who have an insidious and dangerous political agenda, who do not give a hoot about the welfare or well-being of the girls and who take pleasure and delight in gloating over the fact that the Federal Government has been unable to locate, find or rescue them.

If the BBOG group really want those girls to be brought back they should talk to their associates in the military wing of their political party, the APC. Audu Ogbeh has confirmed that they are all working together in the same party and for the same evil cause.

From what he has said one thing is clear to me: if enough pressure is brought to bear on the leading figures behind BBOG by our security and intelligence agencies they will eventually crack and they will be compelled to bring their immense influence to bear over their associates in Boko Haram to free those girls and return them safely to their homes.

It is time for this motely group of malevolent and politically-motivated personalities to stop using the tragedy of the Chibok girls for their own subterranean agenda and for gaining cheap political mileage.

As an addendum to this series of ugly and unfolding events permit me to end this contribution with the following observation. The Australian negotiator Stephen Davis, a man that was widely celebrated by the opposition and the BBOG group when he alleged that Alhaji Modu Sheriff, now a leading member of the PDP and Major General Ihejirika, the former Chief of Army Staff, were sponsors of Boko Haram, has now alleged that elements in Nigeria’s opposition do not want the Chibok girls to be freed and that they are frustrating all attempts to get them released.

This is indeed grave news but I am not surprised. Some of us have been saying it for the last few months but few would believe it or even listen. I wonder what the leading lights of the opposition have to say about Davis’ latest allegation and I would be interested to know whether they still love and admire him as much as they once did.

I wonder if they still believe that he is the modern day hero whose intentions for Nigeria are noble, who can tell no lies and who can do no wrong. Most important of all I wonder how the leading lights in the BBOG campaign, who clearly have a strong affinity with and empathy for Stephen Davis, feel about his latest allegation. May God deliver us from these pretenders and may He bring our girls back home at the soonest.

__________________________

Femi Fani-Kayode is the Former Nigeria’s Aviation Minister

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Nigeria At Risk Over Falling Oil Prices – Finance Minister

The Federal Government, yesterday, raised an alarm over the decline in the global crude oil prices, saying that it is already putting in place stricter measures to cushion the effect of the drop on the Nigerian economy.

It said should oil price dip below $78, the country would have to draw down on the Excess Crude Account (ECA).

Cordinating Minister for the Economy, Mrs Ngozi Okonjo Iweala told The Financial Times that  “Nigeria has two to three months of rainy day savings to cushion it while contingencies are put in place should world oil prices continue to fall,”

 “Our intention is not to run in there and raid it, but even if prices continue to go down we can survive sufficiently for two to three months. That is the time needed to get other measures in place. What you don’t want is a hard landing.”

“Our buffers are slimmer this time,” Okonjo-Iweala acknowledged, adding that there is about $4bn in the ECA at present, $2bn short of what the International Monetary Fund had recommended.

She further stated that the country needs to ramp up our non oil revenues on the fiscal side, adding that global consulting firm, McKinsey, has been engaged to carry out an extensive review of revenue services in order to identify potential gains.

Okonjo-Iweala added that she was encouraged by an exhaustive data review, which saw Nigeria’s economy overtake South Africa’s as the continent’s largest, showing that the economy had diversified to a much greater extent than previously thought.

She said, “In an oil country you can never feel at ease exactly. But I feel we can master this situation because we have a diverse base.

“We will have to look very hard at recurrent expenditure, and identify overlapping agencies. When the price is heading down everyone sees the necessity but that doesn’t stop them hating you.

Okonjo-Iweala agreed, however, that lower oil prices would provide a stronger incentive to government to rein in oil theft, which has cost billions of dollars a year, and help to drive through stalled oil sector legislation to stimulate production.

“That would enable us to pick up quantity to help us cushion on the price side,” she said.

The Federal Government, which depends on oil typically for about 80 per cent of revenues, is assuming an oil price of $78 per barrel for its 2015 budget, up from $77.5 per barrel in 2013 and precariously close to recent world prices.

Nigeria was in a much stronger position last time the world price of oil tumbled, with about $22bn squirrelled away in the ECA. Those funds helped the country weather the 2008 global financial crisis with economic output relatively unscathed.

But during recent boom years the government has persistently used the ECA, dividing out the proceeds among the 36 states in the federation, which are constitutionally entitled to their share.

Nigeria also holds foreign reserves equivalent to $39?billion. These have come under recent pressure as the central bank has stepped in to prop up the naira, but still cover nine months worth of imports.

Nigeria’s ratio of non-oil tax revenues to GDP, at 4.5 per cent, is among the lowest on the continent. McKinsey helped South Africa broaden its tax base to the tune of about $3bn and Okonjo-Iweala believed similar gains were possible over the longer term in Nigeria.