T. Y. DANJUMA'S CALL FOR SELF DEFENCE

What a respectable military should do, is investigate the accusations by former Chief of Army Staff, and also one time Defence Minister,  General T. Y.  Danjuma,  that some members of its organization collude with armed bandits like Boko Haram and Fulani herdsmen, to massacre Nigerians, rather than merely responding along the lines of such accusations been unfortunate, and capable of causing anarchy. This isn't the first time such accusations have been made, unfortunately on none of such occasions have any investigation been carried out, by the Defence Headquarters or the Nigerian Government for that matter.

GENERAL T. Y. DANJUMA AT THE MAIDEN CONVICATION CEREMONY OF TARABA STATE UNIVERSITY. 

If the security agencies have been alive to their responsibilities, statements like that by the former General at the maiden convocation ceremony of Taraba State University last weekend, would've been considered seditious by the majority of Nigerians. Unfortunately, the army is now treating the call that's now gone viral on social media, like it was directed against it, when in fact all he called for, was that the people should defend themselves against armed bandits, who now kill Nigerians with impunity, because of alleged bias and "collussion" from the military and security forces, as if they were part of the armed bandits he was referring to.

Unfortunately, we don't have a proactive President in Muhammadu Buhari, who in the face of the security challenges Nigeria is currently facing, should have as a matter of factly, sacked and rejigged the security henchmen and apparati. To bring in officers hungry not just for success but to also write their names on the green side of Nigeria's history. The way these ones have handled the security situation is less than admirable, and has made Nigeria a laughing stock in the comity of nations, making the discerning Nigerian wonder what motivation could probably be behind their lackluster performance besides protecting the interest of a few individuals and groups from a section of the country, over that of the generality of Nigerians.

If this government, and those who support it continues to see criticisms as politically motivated, then it means they are immature and unfit to be where they are, and Nigerians shouldn't hesitate to put them where they ought to be come 2019.

'kovich

NIGERIA'S ENDANGERED IDPS

During the Christmas holidays I saw a documentary on Al-Jazeerah about refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo domiciled in Malawi. It featured one of the Congolese refugees who was formerly a popular rapper in the DRC (before threats to his life forced him to flee and become a refugee), and showcased life at the refugee camp, as well as the rapper's attempt to regain as much as possible every bit of the life he left behind in the Congo. Many things about that refugee camp struck me as out of the ordinary, compared with those in Nigeria. For one, make shift shelters have given way to brick bungalows, raw food was adequately dispensed as and at when due, and I think to some extent quite more for some people, because the rapper in the documentary claims (and it was shown) he gives excess of his to families with more mouths to feed, seeing as he is a bachelor and lives alone. This United Nations administered refugee camp had running water, and was like a small town only that there is a gate that restricts movement, allowing people who had genuine reasons to go outside it to leave for a specified period only, then return. Believe me, except what I saw on that day was stage managed, I could have sworn that most people's existence in that camp was far better than those of most Nigerians who live free, talk more those who have found themselves in Internally Displaced Peoples', IDP camps because of the ongoing war against the dreaded Islamic Fundamentalist group, Boko Haram in the northeast.


I cannot recall at anytime, besides the provision of makeshift shelter, that the IDPs in Nigeria's northeast had any cause to celebrate, though not that anyone in an IDP camp would or should have anything to celebrate, but if one considers the austere situation that brought them to the camps, then little mercies like the one I highlighted with the situation in Malawi would've been enough cause to celebrate, unfortunately this hasn't been the case with the Nigerian IDP, whom I daresay, that save for the inclement weather Syrian refugees have to contend with presently, as well as political issues surrounding their situation in Europe, are far better in terms of welfare and related matters.


To say that the IDPs of Nigeria's northeastern states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, have been dealt the wrong hands of fate will be an understatement. These escaped literally with their lives in their hands, onto the protection of  government that provided camps for them. From the very first day they set their foot 'pon those camps, it's been one sad news to the other. At the initial stage when the economy was bouyant under former president Goodluck Jonathan, and even after stealing some of the funds allocated to the welfare of those displaced by Nigeria's "war on terror", the IDPs were not treated like humans. I saw pictures of IDPs been dished bland "jollof" rice using spades and shovels for instance. There were widespread reports of sexual abuse of mostly female IDPs at the hands of those who managed the camps, and personnel of security agencies deployed to those camps.


These cases worsened with the emergence of the President Muhammadu Buhari government with its "lean purse" policy. Now the people in authority, who had a bit to spare for the IDPs after  corruptly enriching themselves with the much in the days of plenty, had little or nothing to spare for the welfare of the IDPs after removing their part, as their cut now became the whole, and that scandal lingered for a while, till it fizzled out of press coverage, not because the situation got better but as with everything Nigerian, noise just simply dies down after a while (especially when government feeds to the press, yet another arrest of an opposition politician for embezzlement while in power, and the gullible get carried away by the frenzy thus created four another while), and the IDPs continued to suffer for no just cause (not that there's even a just cause for them to suffer). Those who escaped death at the hands of Boko Haram, found it at the hands of  government-induced malnutrition and hunger, and the pictures are there for all to see. Of course, the abuse of IDPs continued not only unabated but with impunity and  shamelessly, under a regime flaunting a no-nonsense approach towards corruption as it's credentials, so much so that the secretary to the federal government, awarded a contract for the clearing of weed around IDP camps to a company in which he has interest, and as if that wasn't even bad enough, the company had the temerity not to deliver on its trivial mandate for the millions of naira allocated to it, and yet the man neither resigned from his position, nor the government fired him.


And just as usual with all things Nigerian, when it seems government have become so steeped in its ways over a subject that the people simply just let go, especially at this period when Human Rights Activists have either in the main pitched their lot with the government in power, fearing retribution and silencing that's become the lot of those who felt to continue where they left off with the previous  government, only to hear that a Nigerian Airforce jet bombarded an IDP camp in the Rann (a border town between Nigeria and Cameroon) area of Borno state, on Tuesday. Depending on which media you're listening to, the death toll is between fifty and two hundred, involving personnel of Medecins Sans Frontieres, MSF, International Committee of the Red Cross, ICRC and several IDPs who according to eye witness accounts, were on a queue to collect humanitarian materials. As usual the  government owned Nigerian Television Authority, NTA has stuck with "accidental incident" at an IDP camp as the body of its news item concerning the unfortunate event, totally withdrawing the naming of the culprit in that dastardly act, except when it involved condemnation by the president and his order to concerned authorities to investigate the matter (with findings that will never be made public even if the order is complied with).

AFTERMATH OF THE BOMBING OF AN IDP CAMP IN RANN, BORNO STATE BY THE NIGERIAN AIRFORCE.

What is most baffling for many an observer of this event is how the Nigerian Airforce, which had in the past claimed that it restrained from bombing Boko Haram insurgents severally because they had people suspected to be innocent civilians (including at some point, the abducted secondary school girls from Chibok) in their midst and may be using same as human shield, yet in this matter opted to bomb civilians on a queue, not once, not twice, but thrice (according to eye witness account)! I cannot even begin to imagine the trauma, already  traumatized IDPs affected by this incident are presently going through, after the dehumanization they had witnessed at the hands of those saddled with the responsibility of their safety and well-being so far, only to now have to suffer this as well. When one of the survivors told the press that the government was out to wipe them out I couldn't but empathize with his situation. Who wouldn't think such, having gone through their many predicaments?


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.pulse.ng.com

ET TOUJOURS SHEKAU VIDEO

First, it was that the military said they had to approach "Camp Zero" from the ground and not from the air because Boko Haram insurgents were using their captives as human shield. Then of course, after critics voiced concern about how not even a single shot was fired according to reports, before "Sambisa" was overrun, they kind of recanted stating initially, that several members of the deadly group have surrendered, not to the Nigerian military but Nigérienne in the border town of Diffa. That also didn't sound right, so the claim that several members of Boko Haram, sympathizers and more hostages were rounded up in the takeover of the dreaded group's operational base, by the military came to be the new kite that was flown. And to prove to us that it's no joke, a Qur'an purportedly belonging to Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau and a black flag with the group's insignia, said to be the one in front of which he shoots most of his videos, was put on display by the sector commander, like that was going to make Shekau fall down and die wherever he is.


True to type, as we have repeatedly seen, since the war against this Islamic  Fundamentalist group started, especially since Abubakar Shekau took over the reins of power, a video of him surfaced, in which he (in Hausa and Arabic) denounced claims by the military of the defeat of his group, stating that he and members of his group are safe. Predictably, the military were quick to come out in condemnation of the latest video, calling it propaganda materia in a bid to cast a doubt on the veracity of the tape, especially as regards when it was shot, like they'd ever been proved right when they made assertions like that in the past. Even those who were carried away by news of a possible end to the insurgency with the declaration of victory by the military this Christmas season, are now like those who felt the celebration was hasty from onset, once the video hit the usual social media outlets.

SHEKAU DENOUNCING NIGERIAN MILITARY'S CLAIMS IN NEW VIDEO.

I personally feel that the military should've been the ones tempering the populace' eagerness to see an end to the group, even if Shekau had been killed. Somalia's Al-Shabab has severally lost leaders yet the group is far from decimation, even with foreign assistance to the Somali government, talk more a situation where the nomination of another by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS (to whom Boko Haram pledged allegiance) had done nothing to water down Shekau's influence, nor the several attempts at killing him, making the discerning begin to wonder if he's not enjoying some kind of protection from those who have been charged with the responsibility of putting him down.


Another issue which the happenings of the last few days have exhumed is that of the other Chibok girls supposedly still in Boko Haram captivity. There are fears that they may never again be seen, or at least not anymore in that number that made up the more than two hundred often bandied as the number of students abducted two years ago (except that in itself was grossly exaggerated as part of some conspiracy, as is speculated in some quarters). The back and forth concerning them have continued to fuel conspiracies in some certain quarters, of how all these may have been orchestrated by prominent personalities in Nigeria's northern region in a bid to recover power from then President Goodluck Jonathan, a southerner and to retain such thereafter, even far beyond a Buhari presidency, for which reason a Shekau alive, or the Boko Haram group or its like remaining formidable despite losses, remain an enticing proposition, as they could easily be activated as and at when needed, regardless of the harm it does to Nigeria's military and intelligence services.


As it is, Shekau and Boko Haram are not indispensable if the same forces (according to conspiracy theorists) are behind the killings in the north-central and southern states of Nigeria, put at the doorstep of militant Fulani herdsmen, which a recent report by an international terror watchdog, claim are one of the deadliest in the world, a claim further substantiated by Kaduna's Governor El-Rufai (a Fulani as well) when he went outside of Nigeria to pay Fulani of neighbouring countries some money so they stop killing Nigerians, as well as incriminating statements by leaders of the group to the effect that their murderous activities akin to genocide, because of its systematic pattern, is due to the penchant of farmers and farming communities in the affected areas of killing cattle which had encroached upon their farmlands. The systematic nature of the attacks in the religious and ethnic composition of those attacked, killed and/or displaced, suggest something far more organized, and possibly with the blessing of those in power or those close to them because of the impunity with which the acts are committed. One wonders what one is to think, when President Buhari said nothing after he was a no-show to events in the Niger Delta severally, to Enugu in the southeast last week, or even to Lagos months back; whose media aide said he needn't make a  statement about killings of Christians and animists in southern Kaduna over the Christmas weekend (having in the past reluctantly made one over the killings in Benue and Enugu states after wide criticisms greeted his silence months back), but on missing a scheduled visit to Bauchi in the northeast due to poor visibility owing to the harmattan haze (to which obsolete equipments, and poor navigational aids at Nigeria's airports had no answer to), he shoot a video, apologizing to the people of Bauchi in Hausa language, something the 5% in the south-south and southeast couldn't get, even in English.


'kovich



VIDEO CREDITS:
- http://www.saharareporters.com (https://youtu.be/6qNPTkzD8H8)

RELIGION À LA NIGERIA

I found myself in a situation last week, when my insomnia kicked in a great deal and I yearned to swipe over qwerty my thoughts, but was in a quandary over what to write, or recycle. To my aid came Philip Ip Lyricx and Snagga Mwangi, of Nigerian and Kenyan descent respectively. Ip wanted my view on how Islam and Christianity came into Nigeria despite protestations from me of not been a student of history, at least of the academic type, as well as what differences are there between the old and new testament, while Snagga advised that I start to run a review of the New Testament alongside the Old, seeing that at the snail speed I was going with the old, I'd be very advanced in age, probably list some cognitive skills by the time I'd get to the new. They both steered me in the direction of religion, and indeed very controversial aspects of it. This will be the first of two posts that will address the issues both of them raised.


Google is anyone's best bet when it comes to history these days, hence I won't even make any attempt to try to compete with the masters on any subject related to history. My intention here is to draw attention to how the past of the advents of these religions have led us to where we are in Nigeria today. While serving (NYSC) in the northwest about a decade ago, my direct boss startled me, when during a discussion, he said the religion of his people had always been Islam, and though he was much older than me, I wondered how much of history he knew to make such an assertion, when it is widely known that Islam came to those parts (not homegrown) from North Africa, even from the Arabs in the middle-east, and to the untiring effort of spreading the religion attributable to the jihad by the revered Sultan, Uthman Dan Fodio, who established a sultanate in Sokoto, from where he installed his kin as Emirs over conquered swathes of northern Nigeria, even as far as some parts of the west.


On the other hand, Christianity made inroads mainly in the south via the sea of European traders, first the Portuguese then much later the British as they traded with the peoples of those regions. By the time they got to the north, there was already a dominant Islamic culture, that could account for the posture which I stated earlier that my former boss took, concerning Islam as being his and his people's religion. The Christian missionaries didn't let that deter them but forayed further inland, and backed by the subtle coercive powers of colonialism much later, planted seeds of Christianity even in the most uttermost Muslim areas in the north, bringing with them schools, hospitals and churches, though not as widespread and vigorously as they did in and with the south, in order not to rock the boat of an institution they met on ground, that helped them keep the north in check and pliant to their overall rule.


The northern oligarchy and the extent of the caliphate in Sokoto was allowed to maintain and keep the power they had over their people and vassals, because that helped the British colonialists by way of reducing efforts channeled into governance seeing that a de facto  government was already in place. The tiny pockets of several governments and rulership and no governments/"republicanness" in many places in the south, meant that the British must intervene directly and forcefully, and their instruments of coercion extended from the mild and subtle in the many churches, schools and hospitals, to the brutal in police stations, prisons and the likes. They succeeded in even making some of the natives in the south forget and turn their backs on their culture, religion and the likes, replacing such with western ideas, where they could.


Today, the dichotomy in the manner in which Islam and Christianity came into Nigeria, appear to continue to determine how both are being propagated, as well as how they go about their business. The European missionaries passed their Christian message across using schools and hospitals as their main tools, especially in the South, these were mainly free (where fees were charged, there was also scholarships by the church, community or government to aid indigent students), while the community in most cases also contributed human and material resources to see to the successes of such institutions situated within their locality. Today schools and hospitals owned by the big Pentecostal as well as orthodox churches charge fees that are far beyond the capabilities of tithe-paying members whose contributions in the first instance enabled the much, if not all that went into the construction of the edifices that house the institutions, in fact in some cases, these offerings in church continue to fund the running of such institutions as going concerns, while the profit would usually go to owners or so called General Overseers of such churches, who live larger than life existences with the humongous proceeds, literally turning from Men of God to "Gods of Men".

GOD OF MEN, PREACH SPIRITUAL SECURITY TO THEIR FOLLOWERS, BUT ENGAGE PHYSICAL SECURITY FOR THEMSELVES. 

On the other side of things, there seem to be a resurgence in Jihadist tendencies amongst certain extremist Sunni Islamic groups in Nigeria's north, with the aim not only of ridding the north of Christians, animists, and most recently of Shiites, but also of not relenting until the Qur'an is dipped into the Atlantic Ocean in the South. While Boko Haram, like Maitatsine before it are the major anti-Nigerian Islamic insurgencies, more profound are the state sponsored, enabled, encouraged most times, activities of intolerance that bares it's fangs in the north, in the name of operation of the Shari'a law (seen in such parts as superior to the Nigerian constitution), attacks and lynchings of Nigerian, mainly non-Muslims accused of blasphemy, abduction and forced marriages to Emirs and Muslims of Christian underaged girls without the consent of their parents, amongst the general intolerance of people of a different opinion either politically or religiously, but have harm even death visited upon them under the guise of religion. Even more dangerous is the lack of will to prosecute and bring to justice perpetrators of hate crimes upon Nigerian citizens in the north because of differences in religious beliefs, coupled with outright genocide currently ongoing in the north-central region, and of late spilling into some parts of the south, which many suspect is in continuance of the agenda to dip the Qur'an in the Atlantic, using the excuse of herdsmen/farmers clashes, when most of the victims were murdered while unarmed in their sleep in their homes, while at work in the farms, or just being about in their location, by marauding so called Fulani herdsmen. Unfortunately, some of the funding of acts of terrorism within Nigeria and out of it, come from simple donations made in mosques even by moderate Muslims who think only to do some acts of piety in the name of Zakat.  A few even make donations on TV, on some Muslim shows that may look peaceful in outlook, till they start talking about the sufferings of Muslim Ummah in places like Somalia, Palestine, Syria, Iraq, even Nigeria, then ask for donations or those willing to help to call certain numbers via which aid can be pledged, when obviously aid organizations working in many of these places are Christian or western, with a sprinkling of Muslim organizations, some of which face investigations by international financial authorities for money laundering, especially on behalf of international terrorist organizations.

RELIGIOUS VIOLENCE IS BECOMING RULE RATHER THAN EXCEPTION IN NIGERIA'S NORTH. 

It's how we have found ourselves in a so called secular state that's no more than a religious state in actual fact, at war with itself. Recently I drew the attention of a colleague to how the two weeks of Christmas and New Year will gravely impact our business because of Christmas and New Year falling on consecutive Sundays respectively, and how Christians would insist on at least two working days after the appointed days, especially in a year when the sultanate wrongly predicted the appearance of the moon, which should signal the beginning of a Muslim festival that normally lasts two days in Nigeria, leading to a situation where it now lasted three days. It is that attitude that makes Nigerian Christians the only of their kind worldwide that go on pilgrimage, even when it isn't a stipulated "pillar" of their religion, which brought about an unfortunate situation recently where in the face of the dwindling fortunes of the Naira before the Dollar, yet it was heavily subsidized initially for Christian pilgrims, then much later for their Muslim counterparts, while Nigeria's foremost tomato puree company teetered on the verge of collapse, as the government continually turned a deaf ear to the pleas of its owner for foreign exchange relief to enable him meet his local and international obligations, amongst several such companies which had laid off staff severally, even shut down operations as Nigeria's economic woes deepens.


When I think about religion in the Nigerian context it's only aches and pains at the hurtful things it's done us than the good it's brought our society that readily comes to mind. The so called good is even such as bordering on selfishness and self preservation, "God-be-with-me-while-others-can-go-to-hell" mentality pervades the land. When the minister of power, works and housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola delivered a speech at the convocation ceremony of the University of Benin last week, he recounted a story about a professor who knew well to separate church/mosque from state in his mind, and in outlook, and how he as well has managed to do likewise, and though you could fault Fashola, a Muslim on many grounds, as former governor and now minister, you cannot deny the fact that his very cerebral personality, and his accompanying work ethic. Unfortunately, the larger population are still in the darkness imposed on us by religion, that's why metropolitan Lagos is littered, not only with churches and mosques, as against edifice and infrastructure that speak to growth and development, but also (especially at the crossroads) with earthen bowls of sacrificial food, fruit and barley offerings to gods and spirits, so strategically placed by some Lagosians, in the thick of night invoking such "powers" to intervene in trivia that the west have learnt to solve with logic, science and technology. The west having become their own gods, to the abandonment of the ones they sold us in their land, have variously converted the worship places of their gods to museums somewhat, or civic centres, some of which they use as voting centres, as I observed in the last presidential elections in the USA. Abeg, I don taya jare!


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- https://www.naij.com/1059328-see-number-security-men-follow-pastor-ayo-oritsejafor-wife-around-photos.html 

AS MUSLIM FANATICS MOWS DOWN EUNICE ELISHA IN ABUJA

I couldn't keep this bottled up any longer. Just this last Saturday a female preacher, and I hear assistant pastor of one of the Redeemed Christian Church of God, RCCG parish in Abuja, by name Eunice Elisha was murdered while doing her usual early morning preaching near her abode. This just a few weeks after a septuagenarian Christian woman (also a pastor's wife) from the southeast was murdered for blasphemy in Kano, followed by the escape from death by the whiskers of a young man in Kaduna for eating during the "Holy" month of Ramadan, even though he isn't a Muslim, and before all of that, the beheading of another Christian man in Niger State for blasphemy, which only came to light after the Kano story, meaning that there are many of such stories of religious intolerance in the north, that hardly comes to light, until one in a major city occurs and people begin to recount experiences in other places.

THE LATE EUNICE ELISHA, WITH HER HEAD RESTED ATOP HER BIBLE, AND MEGAPHONE ON THE SIDE, IN A POOL OF HER BLOOD AFTER HER MURDER BY SUSPECTED MUSLIM FANATICS IN NIGERIA'S CAPITAL, ABUJA.

And as usual, the police have swooped in to arrest the so called perpetrators of the act. An imam whom we are told asked some boys to "chase" the woman away, but apparently ended up killing her. These suspects supposedly now in police custody weren't named, just like those arrested in the case in Kano and Kaduna. Though unlike in the past where culprits in the killings of non-Muslims in the north were simply described as a mob and never arrested (with one henchman in a notable case, rising to hold  governmental position at one time, and even went on to become a powerful emir), there are now arrests made.


Unfortunately, beyond that nothing else seem to happen by way of bringing perpetrators to book following these gruesome killings. Not even the visit of the wife of the Vice President to the widower in this case is sure to change the status quo. No date will be set in court, no human Rights activists pressuring government, even the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN besides issuing a terse statement will go to sleep, and the Muslim ummah? I even read Facebook comments of Muslims who claimed Eunice was intolerant of Muslims in trying to convert them to  Christianity by preaching daily early in the morning in that vicinity, hence an infidel like her deserved to die the way she did. As usual I have only read of just one moderate Muslim on Facebook who condemned the dastardly act, while the Muslim umbrella bodies, as well as a government many suspect of harboring plans to islamize Nigeria have yet to release a  statement, even when the murder happened at its doorstep. If you thought that was because just a single human being was involved, then what would you say about the genocidal killings in Benue State (as recent as last week in Logo and Ukum Local Government Areas of the state with more than eighty dead), and other states in view of Fulani cattle and herdsmen, which the President Buhari-led federal government is yet to react to, amongst several, but quick to send condolences to Saudi Arabia over the suicide attacks in Medina last week, even appealing to warring factions in South Sudan to let peace reign while ignoring the smoldering embers in his backyard.


You know, some years back it was norm to find Muslims in northern Nigeria copy what Muslims in places like Pakistan and other places where Islam is fanatically practiced do. So, if there was a protest in such places over cartoons depicting the prophet in a supposedly "untoward" manner, or against Israel or America, fanatics in Nigeria's North take to the streets in solidarity, sometimes going to the extent of maiming and killing their Christian neighbors, even when the matter at hand has no immediate bearing on them. This copycat syndrome is what I think is at play now, as killings of non-Muslims in the north by radical Muslims reads like a newspaper cutting from anywhere in Pakistan, Bangladesh or the likes. These killings in Bangladesh for a long time had no one claiming responsibility for them, until recently when the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, ISIS began not just to take responsibility, but to expand recruitment in that country.


That is why this particular copycat situation is a very unfortunate one for Nigeria, because though the military may on the one hand be celebrating the success it has so far recorded against Boko Haram in Nigeria's northeast, there's no guarantee that a greater than Boko Haram isn't far away from us, as the conditions which bred Maitatsine before the Bokosites remains raw and quite alive in the north, and the  lackadaisical reaction of the federal and state governments to them, coupled with the conspiracy of silence of the state owned media outlets (like the Nigerian Television  Authority, NTA that was tweeted about the Dallas Shooting of police officers two hours after it occurred, while the killings in Benue of inhabitants by Fulani Herdsmen is yet to be considered newsworthy several days after), as well as some privately owned news media organization, and citizens conspire to ensure that the cycle of radical Islamic groups continue to dog this artificial contraption that we like to call Nigeria.


'kovich


PICTURE CREDIT:
- http://www.nigerianmonitor.com

NAIJA TOUR (4)

It must be the fact that we had crossed over into Kogi from Ondo that gave me so much rest of mind that I fell into what I can describe as a POWER NAP, and that was despite the uncomfortable atmosphere that the contraption that is the bus we were in provided. We were close to Lokoja when I came to, and I knew then that Abuja was just a matter of time, though it seemed that by the speed with which the driver was now going that he wasn't so keen at arriving Abuja before noon, a long shot from our ETA.

Lokoja, as beautiful as always had in its background intimidating mountains and hills, which in some areas, just like in Abeokuta, Ogun State, some less intimidated indigenes had taken the battle up to the mountain in erecting their abode in its belly, as far up as they figure they could go and yet be safe. The pictures they make is an interesting one to behold, so much so that I wonder if I could have something like that in the future, even though a beachside condo appears more appealing to me than the former.

You really have to witness the vastness of Nigeria when you travel by road to understand why foreigners come into Nigeria and make it. You can sell virtually anything here, and you'll find a market that asks very little questions, though like a mob they'll troop to patronize you when you don't disappoint, but will be quick to go the other way once their expectations aren't met. That is how fluid the market is, but they can also be very forgiving. It is painful that those in leadership position haven't been able to inspire among the people the much needed confidence to aspire to be the best they can be. The land surely is blessed and flows with milk and honey, of potentials. Unfortunately, the challenges are such that on all sides the country is pulled by centripetal forces aimed at dislodging it at it's centre, a painful sight to have to witness and live through.

Ok, enough of me waxing patriotic to noticing that Kogi might just be doing to me what Ondo has always done to me, but I will put that to anticipation or longing for the as yet elusive Abuja not necessarily because it is such a great distance to cover as such. I could see the many plans lined up for the time I was spending on the roads cancelling themselves out gradually, while others rescheduled themselves. Man as usual can only propose, as it is our inalienable right (amongst others) to so do, whether we get to carry out our propositions is another matter entirely, one which many times is beyond our control.

One of those plans was to put out online-real time everything, as I see them in my tour of some towns in Nigeria and there I was, barely into the first major city and Airtel Nigeria my phone's network for data knocks me off with more than 700MB to burn even after 24 hours I couldn't still be linked to the outside world besides the call I could make to my acquaintances. Anyway, before I knew that the situation would last that long, we managed to make it to Abuja but unlike my frequent visits, I elected to alight at Lupe before the bus made it into its terminal at the Utako area of Abuja, which going by the speed the driver was going in, could take another hour. From Lupe I boarded a cab to Area 1, from where I jumped into another to Mararaba but again alighted just before that ever busy part of the outskirts of Abuja for what looked like a newly developing park a few kilometers to Mararaba to board a cab to Keffi, in Nasarawa State where I had a deal to seal. With suicide bombers targeting notable parks to make their statements I intended to avoid major parks in Abuja as much as I could.

Something interesting happened though, when we approached the military checkpoint on the road to Keffi, just a few kilometers after we had passed Mararaba. I had gotten a call from Lagos over an issue I had to resolve with business there, and was doing so as we approached the checkpoint. That was when the Yoruba driver shouted in Hausa something I couldn't make out and couldn't care less because I was sure he wasn't talking about  or to me, until the boy sitting next to me snatched my phone from me and held tightly to it while we careered past the checkpoint, and I stilled myself from throwing up my custom "WTF" because of the end of the soldiers' AK-47 that was dangling close to my head by the window side of the back of the cab where I was seated.

ONE OF MANY MILITARY CHECKPOINTS IN NIGERIA.

Once we were out of hearing range of the soldiers, the boy apologized and returned my phone, explaining to me that we would've been made to alight, even punished (as "erring" passengers were sometimes asked to frog jump, I also learnt) had I been caught by the soldiers making a call. He had to do what he did when I didn't heed the drivers' rant to stop making the call on my phone as we passed by the checkpoint. My anger soon turned to a feeling of appreciation when the ramification of what had happened became clear to me, so I thanked him while wondering why the driver could've thought I could understand the Hausa language when I spoke the Yoruba, which he as well speaks fluently, but I put that to the terrain. When I narrated this event on Facebook much later, George said the ban on making calls at checkpoints was because suicide bombers used phones to detonate their baggage, and Robinson Onogu said I was lucky that my phone wasn't reduced to shreds while I got the pulp beaten outta me till I proved to the soldiers that I wasn't a member of Boko Haram (Islamic Fundamentalist group behind series of suicide bombings in Nigeria's north generally, and the Northeast in particular). I was left aghast!

'kovich

PHOTO CREDITS:
- http://beegeagle.wordpress.com

ENCORE BOKO HARAM

I just saw a recent video (http://t.co/Psky5vQ0sE) posted by the Islamic Fundamentalist group operating in Nigeria's Northeastern region, Boko Haram (seeking to impose a stricter form of the Islamic Jurisprudence, The Shar'ia on the country as it has successfully done in areas under its control in recent times) on youtube, which started by showing an onslaught against Nigeria's military forces in an unnamed location (may have been named in Arabic though) somewhere in what I suspect to be the Northeast of Nigeria, that ended with the beheading of a Nigerian soldier,

THE SOLDIER IN THE AFOREMENTIONED VIDEO

and a show of arms seized by the group after the attack. Contrary to what we are made to believe about the group striking a retreat each time they encounter Nigeria's military, the video shows members of the group surging towards gunfire, all of them without Kevlar.

Though the veracity of the video, especially as regards timing isn't easy to ascertain, it is not difficult to conclude that the footage may have been recently shot. If this is so, it makes a mockery of all that we have been getting as information from the military of successes recorded in the fight against the insurgents with assurances that they will be totally quashed by December, in the light of recent cases as well as frequency of suicide bomb attacks in Maiduguri (Borno State) and other parts of the Northeast, in which many civilians have lost their lives.

The stories of arrest of masterminds, including of so called financiers (with a few millions on their persons) with picture of an emaciated fellow as the suspect for instance, or of bomb makers, or of fuel suppliers (in Jigawa) amongst others, many of which there are no pictures to verify, nor names given makes the case of the military hardly believable in the face of mounting evidence of the activities of these Islamic Fundamentalist whose bombings go almost unchallenged, many times in the same vicinity within days with nothing to show that anything was learnt from the last suicide bombing either of a female suicide bomber, or from a male dressed like a female suicide bomber, or of a male suicide bomber. Even the pro-government media which helped this administration get into power, and then went further to keep mute over the resurgence of the suicide attacks (even of recent in Nigeria's capital, Abuja) appear to have realized the foolishness of their actions and now joined the foreign media to report these attacks as well as their frequency.

I was taken aback when President Buhari in an interview he granted an Al Jazeera journalist days back, claimed he hadn't read the report by an international Human Rights organization, that accused the Nigerian army of gross human rights violation in it's battle against Boko Haram in the Northeast, when one of the reasons Nigerians voted for him was on the strength of allegations against the past government on the way it had handled the war against the insurgents albeit with laxity. This is coming just days after Nigeria (which he led to New York) missed a key event at the United Nations, where the plight of Internal Displaced People, IDPs was up for discussion, of which fringe countries and Nigeria's neighbours attended and made their positions before the international community, while his handlers played down the importance of the event, rather than admit that a huge mistake had been made.

Sadly, what the president's handlers were concerned with was how President Buhari became Nigeria's first president to speak on the opening day of the UN's General Assembly. Just like they regaled us with how he was hosted at Blair House, that only few foreign Heads of State had had the pleasure of staying at during a visit to the United States of America, over and above the fact that nothing concrete was obtained of the Americans, especially with a President Obama who was nice enough not to have abandoned the Nigerian delegation in his haste to hurry off to Kenya, all because of a LEAHY ACT which prevents the American Department of State from assisting nations, whose military have been accused of human rights abuses militarily. It therefore was no surprise that a nation like Cameroon which made little or no noise, employing quiet and strategic diplomacy had just last week welcomed the first batch of a contingent of three hundred military experts from the US to help the country combat Boko Haram terrorists within her borders, and this while the Nigerian president was simply offered a visit by the commander of America's  Africa Command, AFRICOM.

Unfortunately, this Buhari-led administration jettisoned whatever gains was achieved by the last administration to chart a new course it is looking to be doing LEARNER at, when they could just have built on it. Now, in the latest interview he granted the foreign press (as if he detests the local Nigerian press), President Buhari stated that he wouldn't resign if Boko Haram isn't wiped out by the Decenber deadline he set for the military (whose command headquarters he relocated to Maiduguri, in Borno State which is the heart of the insurgent group), an indication that it may have dawned on him that the war against these Islamist may not be a thing of the past in the nearest future. A scary thing to ponder upon for the discerning.

I hate to think that this war against Boko Haram will be long drawn. Having followed the evolution of this group, beside writing about them (the latest been: LAFIYA NOT YET DO-LE | madukovich's cogitations https://madukovich.wordpress.com/2015/10/05/lafiya-not-yet-do-le/), I think that it is high time we begin to humanize some of the things associated with this war. I know that it may be difficult to get the names of victims at the hands of Boko Haram, but when such is possible, even of the injured, their names should be documented, even if (as is expected) that the government may abandon them to their fate. That way, somehow or somewhere in the future we may just be fortunate to find non governmental organizations, NGOs or even governments at different levels that may be interested in the welfare of such people to cater for them, not only physically but psychologically as well.

The military's quiet (even of denial as in the case of a beheaded member of the airforce few months back, at the hands of members of the dreaded group) over it's captured personnel must stop. The

THE SAME SOLDIER ABOUT TO BE BEHEADED

name of the latest victim in the video I saw (and that of many others, including a female member of the intelligence services), as well as many of our gallant men and women lost to these barbarians during combat should be made public so that Nigerians can honour them in anyway they might deem fit, and have their families feel proud of what their wards, fathers, mothers, sons, daughters, brothers and sisters etc, had done in sacrificing their lives for not just the peace and security of their beloved country, but for it's unity, rather than just focussing and making news of the court-martialling of deserters, even sentencing those who refused to sacrifice themselves because they were ill-equipped to face members of Boko Haram to death.

'kovich

PICTURE CREDIT:
- http://africanspotlight.com
- http://realchannel165.com.ng