Are Igbos really foolish? (1) - Culled from VANGUARD

Dr Junaid Mohammed,a member of the House of Representatives in the Second Republic and currently coordinates the Coalition of Northern Politicians, Academics, Professionals and Businessmen. He treats other zones of Nigeria with little respect, and obviously cannot hide his hatred and disregard for Ndigbo of the South East Nigeria.

In the Punch Newspaper of September 12, 2014, he described the just concluded National Confab as a waste of time, and that it achieved nothing, and argued that the agenda of the different regions of the South failed.

According to him: Those who wanted to use the result of the conference for their own political good, like Goodluck Jonathan and the Peoples Democratic Party have failed woefully; the Igbo wanted to use the conference to achieve their demented agenda of equality or parity between the North-West and the South-East.

In his words: “If you are to use a serious map that is scientifically based, to show respective areas where you show the North-West as the palm of a hand, the South-East will only be a dot”.

Continuing, he said: The South-South request for resource control also failed; the recommendations of the Confab would not scale through the National Assembly that has Northerners in the majority; any of the presidential candidates in 2015 election who commits to maintaining the current revenue allocation formula would not win; anybody who commits himself to maintain the preponderance of the Igbo in all our financial agencies, ministries and department will also not win the next election; Goodluck Jonathan has already started boasting that he has given the Igbo more than anybody in the past, for that alone he will not win the next election. If he rigs it, there will be mayhem.

Dr. Mohammed has said it all; he should be held responsible for any bloodshed after the 2015 elections. He must be coming from a school of thought that believes Northern Nigeria must always produce the President and the heads of all Federal Government ministries and agencies in Nigeria.No wonder Northerners are swarming the NNPC through which they milk Nigeria as their inheritance as given to them by Great Britain and exposed byAliyu Gwarzo.In their wisdom, their tribe is meant to reap where they have sown nothing, while denying the actual owners of the oil any benefits with the vehemence of a suicide bomber!They cannot stand women in powerful positions as we have them now.

For the likes of Dr. Mohammed and his brother Murtala Nyako, GEJ is an Igbo man; how unfortunate!

A great beneficiary of the years of Northern rule of Nigeria, Dr Mohammed needs our sympathy and understanding because the tide in the affairs of Nigeria has continued to change as ordained by God who created the heaven and the earth. The refusal of any mortal to accept the will of this sovereign God over this nation is rebellion against God, and the consequences include destruction. God will judge that, and He does not fail.

Dr. Junaid Mohammed was reported recently as calling Igbos selfish and shameless in an interview published on the Hope for Nigeria website. I do not blame him. He is saying it as he sees the Igbo man. There are reasons to think that the Igbo man is selfish and foolish, I mean very foolish! After all, an Igbo Proverb, says that the madman knows what he does, but may not know why he does those things. Dr. Junaid may not know why he is saying the things he said, as a matter fact.

Let us face it, here is a people who were massacred in the North of Nigeria in 1966.They were killed in hundreds of thousands which culminated in a three years civil war.

What did the Igbos do right after the war? They quickly ran back to the same spots where they were killed in 1966 and re-established businesses in a bid to survive the hunger from the war.

They remained in those states,built houses, estates, hotels, and expanded the economy of their erstwhile killers! Some have children born in such places who can’t speak Igbo language!Is it wise to think that your enemy will love you because you came back to make money? No man will hate your father and turn round to love you! Igbos know this too well, but refuse to change, it is shocking!I was in the war, as a young boy, in the Biafra Organisation of Freedom Fighters,BOFF.

We were told then, that one way the Nigerian soldiers confirmed that an Igbo soldier was really dead was to shake a few coins noisily in his ears. If he did not move, then he is dead! This captured the greed or selfishness of an average Igbo man as perceived by Nigerians. This wrong notion may have accounted for the different attitude of some of us; the products of that training to money. We see money as the reason Igbos are insulted by every fool in Nigeria!

Since after that war, Igbos have succeeded most in working against themselves. First was the Onitsha sea port which the then Alhaji Shehu Shagari government wanted to build for Igbos, but ended up building that small canoe jetty in the name of seaport at Onitsha. Igbo sons were part of the deceit at that time, and it remains a scar on the conscience of those who betrayed their land by refusing to use that opportunity to give Igbo land a sea port.

When you demand for a seaport in Igbo land today, the Northern interests would get an Igbo professional to tell you that it cannot be done, forgetting that the United Arab Emirates built one of the biggest seaports in modern world today, in the desert! If these Igbo professionals that are being used are not fools, what will you call them? We know them, yet we clap when they vomit upon us!

Clement Udegbe, a legal practitioner, wrote from Lagos.

Col. Adekunle: A hero or a war criminal?

When the news of Adekunle’s passing at 78 was announced recently, it barely gathered traction as a piece of news. However, on resumption of the National Assembly from vacation, the Leader of the House of Representatives, Hon. Mulikat Akande, who represents Ogbomosho, Adekunle’s hometown in Oyo State, officially brought the news to the Green Chamber. Since Adekunle fought for the federal side during the war, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, asked his colleagues to stand and honour him with a one-minute silence. As the House rose, some Igbo Reps members refused to comply. Their grouse was that Adekunle was a “war criminal” who allegedly killed a lot of defenceless civilians. In fact, he was quoted in some written works of boasting he would “kill everything that moves” in “Iboland”.

Following this event, a big fight (predictably) ensued across the social media forums between Igbo and Yoruba commentators. These fights are always breaking out whenever a historic figure dies on both sides. It happened when Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and Professor Chinua Achebe joined their Creator. When Obasanjo, Prof. Wole Soyinka, Generals Yakubu Gowon and Theophilus Danjuma eventually go, you can be sure of more fights among these, mainly young people, most of who do not properly understand the full underpinnings of our history and why people played the roles they had to.

What happened in the House of Reps was unfortunate, but I fully understood it. When it comes to the events that culminated in the civil war and their aftermath, we can never feel the same when we remember. Nigeria won independence in 1960, but in 1966, the crises that followed the independence overflowed after the January 1966 military coup. A civil war was fought when the East (Igbos) declared secession. The war was a gang-up of the rest of the country and their foreign backers to force the Igbos back to Nigeria. Those, like Adekunle, who played prominent roles at the war front towards “keeping Nigeria One” qualify as heroes of the Nigerian civil war

.

The Igbos who felt the heat of the war will, naturally, not be amused when such people are being celebrated because, for them, one man’s war hero is another man’s war criminal. It is an interplay of democracy that while one side is celebrating their war hero the other side chooses to abstain.

The Benjamin Adekunle story is free for all. If he was your hero, celebrate (or mourn). If he was not, put him where he belongs. Personally, as far as events of those days were concerned, I would rather honour Col. Adekunle Fajuyi as a true hero and man of great example (who chose to go down with his visiting boss, General Aguiyi-Ironsi, rather than join his murderers) than an Benjamin Adekunle who derived demonic pleasure from killing defenceless people.

In any case, look at the One Nigeria they fought for, where everyone is crying tears, sorrow and blood, irrespective of which side they belonged. More than forty years after the war, Nigeria is yet to recover from the rapacity of those who fought to keep it one. They waged a mindless war on its resources and condemned its future. Was this what Adekunle, who returned from the war front to a life of recluse, fought and joyfully killed for?

And I am wondering: if Adekunle hated Igbos so much that he was ready to kill everything that moved during the war.                                               

                                                                            Culled from the VANGUARD

Exposing the CBN Boko Haram “sponsor”

Nigeria’s Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, has added his voice to this allegation, affirming that his own independent inquiries showed that the same individual is indeed culpable. He went on to say that the name of the person has been made available to the highest authority in the land.

The question on the lips of Nigerians is: who is this person? What is so special about him that he cannot even be named? Why can’t he be brought out for the public to see the person who has helped in sending thousands of Nigerians to their early graves while the nation is faced with the greatest threat to her unity since the Nigerian civil war nearly fifty years ago? Why has the CBN remained mute about this issue, since its name is being dragged to the mud? Why hasn’t the CBN seen it fit to tell Nigerians what it knows about this matter?

Happily, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), a social crusader organization, has taken up the gauntlet and given the CBN a fourteen-day ultimatum, based on the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act. SERAP demands information about the persons involved in the money laundering and sponsorship of Boko Haram sect. A statement from the group said the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, is required to explain the exact nature of any such transactions.

We commend SERAP for wading into this matter clinging to the force of the FOIA. We are waiting patiently to see how the CBN under a new manager, Emefiele, will respond to this challenge. It will be a major metric for measuring the seriousness he attaches to his work and the need to keep the Bank clean of scandals.

We are greatly worried that the Presidency and the security agencies have chosen to keep the Nigerian public in the dark about the truth or otherwise of this individual’s involvement.

Although the very thought that an individual in the top echelon of Nigeria’s ultimate Bank and regulator of the financial system will become a bankroller of our enemy, yet it is only such a high level conspiracy that can make Boko Haram to grow into the monster it has become.

When this fellow is identified, tried and convicted, we will expect him to face the full wrath of the law. - VANGUARD

 

If you are desperately in search of a sugar mummy, then search no more as controversial actress turned singer, Cossy Orjiakor has come to your rescue.

If you are desperately in search of a sugar mummy, then search no more as controversial actress turned singer, Cossy Orjiakor has come to your rescue.

The busty actress said, her male fans wouldn’t let her be, as they want her to be their sugar mummy.

On that note, the actress has reeled out some criterion for considering them. Yes they have actually been disturbing me for that. But I told them that if you must be my sugar boy there is need for you to be a good cook, a good house boy and a driver.

I have even asked some of them to send a picture of themselves cooking in the kitchen and what they are preparing. But they weren’t sending the picture I want.

At the moment, none of them is qualified to be my sugar boy. If they had qualified, I would have employed at least three of them and placed them on salary,she said -VANGAURD

Passports Go Mobile

Airplane boarding passes went mobile a long time ago, and now passports are joining the digital age, as well.

United Airlines this week announced that customers can now scan their passports to check in for international flights via their iOS and Android devices, making United the first U.S. airline to offer such functionality. The airline is still testing the feature, but it's now available through United's mobile app.

"We are focused on building the most useful travel app in the industry for our customers. The new passport scanning feature saves valuable time and provides customers with more options to control their travel experience," Scott Wilson, United's vice president of merchandising and ecommerce, said in a statement.

Customers will be able to access the passport scanning feature when checking in for international flights up to 24 hours before their departure. After firing up the app's check-in feature, you'll have the option of either verifying your existing stored passport data or scanning your passport for the first time.

The app uses your phone's camera to capture your passport, similar to a mobile banking deposit. For added security, the credentials management company Jumio will then verify your passport. Once the verification process is complete, you can obtain your boarding pass.

Those requiring additional travel documentation, such as a visa, will still need to check in at the airport.

United said it will collect feedback during this testing phase, and hopes to improve the experience based on the comments it receives.

The move comes after United in 2007 became the first U.S. airline to introduce mobile boarding passes. United currently offers mobile boarding at 54 international airports, including all domestic airports it serves in the United States, the most of any U.S.-based carrier.

US SURVEILLANCE FLIGHTS SPOT ABDUCTED CHIBOK GIRLS

Recent U.S. surveillance flights over northeastern Nigeria showed what appeared to be large groups of girls held together in remote locations, raising hopes among domestic and foreign officials that they are among the group that Boko Haram abducted from a boarding school in April, U.S. and Nigerian officials said.

The surveillance suggests that at least some of the 219 schoolgirls still held captive haven’t been forced into marriage or sex slavery, as had been feared, but instead are being used as bargaining chips for the release of prisoners.

The U.S. aerial imagery matches what Nigerian officials say they hear from northern Nigerians who have interacted with the Islamist insurgency: that some of Boko Haram’s most famous set of captives are getting special treatment, compared with the hundreds of other girls the group is suspected to have kidnapped. Boko Haram appears to have seen the schoolgirls as of higher value, given the global attention paid to their plight, those officials said.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, who faces re-election in February, is under political pressure to secure the girls’ release, with some people urging him to agree to a prisoner swap.

His government has ruled out a rescue operation, saying it is unwilling to risk the girls’ lives, or a prisoner swap.

“We don’t exchange innocent people for criminals. That is not in the cards,” said Mr. Jonathan’s spokesman, Reuben Abati, last week in an interview.

In early July, U.S. surveillance flights over northeastern Nigeria spotted a group of 60 to 70 girls held in an open field, said two U.S. defense officials. Late last month, they spotted a set of roughly 40 girls in a different field.

When surveillance flights returned, both sets of girls had been moved. U.S. intelligence analysts say they don’t have enough information to confirm whether the two groups of girls they saw are the same, they said.

They also can’t say whether those groups included any of the girls the group has held since April. But U.S. and Nigerian officials said they believe they are indeed those schoolgirls.

“It’s unusual to find a large group of young women like that in an open space,” said one U.S. defense official. 

“We’re assuming they’re not a rock band of hippies out there camping.”

A wave of intermediaries acting on their own has tried to negotiate the girls’ release, Mr. Abati said, adding that the president has neither authorized nor discouraged those efforts.

Several of those intermediaries have said Boko Haram’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, has ordered his fighters to treat the girls as valuable hostages—not sex slaves—one senior Nigerian security adviser said.

“He gave a directive that anybody found touching any of the girls should be killed immediately,” the adviser said. “If true, it is cheering.”

It would also show that Boko Haram is trying to follow an al Qaeda tactic of swapping hostages for money and political gain.

The group is accelerating its kidnapping of foreigners and politicians: Over the past two months, it has been blamed for abducting a German expatriate, 10 Chinese laborers in nearby Cameroon and the wife of Cameroon’s deputy prime minister.

Boko Haram has used hostages in the past to demand the exchange of its prisoners held in both Nigeria and Cameroon, which was one of the conditions for the release of a French family from captivity last year.

Now, the group appears to be testing the bargaining power of a group of girls who had been ordinary teenagers at a school—until their abduction on the night of April 14. That night, fighters with the Islamist insurgency—which is opposed to modern education— stormed a boarding school and drove 276 girls away hours before their final exams. Fifty-seven later escaped.

The captivity of the rest became a cause célèbre, prompting a Twitter campaign, #BringBackOurGirls, that was joined by notable figures including Michelle Obama and Hillary Clinton. It also spurred Boko Haram’s latest effort to get its captives released from crowded Nigerian prisons—a long-standing grievance. Three months after seizing the girls, Boko Haram’s leader, Mr. Shekau, appeared in a video demanding a prisoner exchange. “You are saying bring back our girls,” thundered the bearded gunman, before firing his AK-47 into the air. “We are saying bring back our men!”

Dozens of demonstrators still gather in the capital each day to press for the girls’ freedom.

Their rallies have become a referendum on whether Nigerian women—particularly poor, young, Muslim girls—are valued by a government of mostly wealthy, elderly, Christian men.

Mr. Abati said Mr. Jonathan has worked tirelessly to win the girls’ freedom.

It isn’t clear how many of the girls Boko Haram can deliver. A former Nigerian president, Olusegun Obasanjo, who has a history of contact with the group, has said some of the girls are likely dead or pregnant. Only about 130 of them—out of 219 missing— appeared in the sole video of the girls that Boko Haram has ever provided.

Meanwhile, the international effort to find the girls has waned: The U.S. military is now carrying out just one surveillance flight a day, mostly by manned aircraft, totaling only 35 to 40 hours a week, said U.S. defense officials, as drones have been shifted back toward other operations.

Some accounts suggest the burden of providing for scores of girls has become a point of dissension in Boko Haram’s ranks.

In July, four girls and women aged 16 to 22 hid in their bedrooms as Boko Haram fighters broke into their home in the town of Damboa, they each said in an interview last week. They feared they would be kidnapped.

When their aunt, Fatima Abba, argued on their behalf, the roughly 20 Boko Haram insurgents decided not to kidnap them—and instead began to complain about the scores of schoolgirls they already have.

“They are always crying. They behave like children,” Ms. Abba quoted the Boko Haram fighters as saying of the schoolgirls. “We don’t want them around.”