Flashback: Nigeria - Sultan of Sokoto condemns Boko Haram crackdown

CC™ Editor's Flashback

The sultan of Sokoto, the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims, has condemned the military crackdown against the Islamist Boko Haram sect.

"We cannot solve violence with violence," Mohamed Sa'ad Abubakar told a meeting of religious leaders.

The Boko Haram, based in the north-eastern city of Maiduguri, says it is fighting for Islamic rule.

It has been behind recent assassinations of prominent figures and a wave of bombings.

Two years ago, Nigeria's security forces brutally suppressed an uprising by the sect, destroying its compound in Maiduguri - the capital of Borno state - and then capturing and killing its leader Mohammed Yusuf.

Instead of disappearing, the group, which opposes Western education and is fighting for Islamic rule, re-emerged last September and vowed to avenge its leader's death.

Last month, it said it had carried out an attack on the headquarters of the Nigerian police in Abuja, which killed at least six people.

But the response of the security forces has led to criticism from rights group and the governor of Borno state.

Correspondents say many residents of Maiduguri are now more scared of the army than they are of Boko Haram.

"That problem can never be solved by drafting soldiers into cities where there is [a] problem - and in the process innocent lives were lost," said the sultan, who once served as military officer.

It is the first time the sultan has spoken about the Boko Haram insurgency.

Muslim clerics who have criticised the sect have been among those targeted for assassination in drive-by shootings over the past year.

The sultan also said the five policemen who have just gone on trial this month for the killing of Mr Yusuf should not be given bail.

Boko Haram's official name is Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati wal-Jihad, which in Arabic means "People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad".

But residents of Maiduguri, where it was formed in 2002, dubbed it Boko Haram. 

Loosely translated from the local Hausa language, this means Western education is forbidden.

Boko Haram sees such education as corrupting Muslims.

Nigeria - Africa's most populous nation - is split between the predominately Muslim north and largely Christian south.

Editor’s Commentary - This piece was published on July 29, 2011 and another Southerner, Goodluck Jonathan was President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Sultan Mohamed Sa'ad Abubakar has always been a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In the piece in question from 2011, he (Sultan Abubakar), the leader of Nigeria’s Northern Muslims, vehemently opposed the military crackdown on the terrorists at the time, particularly because it was being led by a Southern Chief of Army Staff, a South-Easterner (Retired Lieutenant general Azubuike Ihejirika) to be precise, and it was also yielding results in terms of decimating the insurgents in a devastating way. 

Sultan Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai and ex-president, Muhammadu Buhari are religious and ethnic Fulani irredentists, who secretly and overtly (as El-Rufai did as Kaduna State Governor) subscribe to the tenets of Fulani supremacy and dominance by any means necessary. The hypocrisy of the Sultan of Sokoto is not debatable and he lacks (and will always lack) credibility when it comes to the twin issue of ethno-religious intolerance in Nigeria, as it relates to the ethnic cleansing in the Middle-Belt and other parts of Nigeria by the Fulani Herdsmen and Boko Haram.

Band of thieves and purveyors of ineptitude.....

"BARBARIANS AT THE GATE"

CC™ Viewpoint 
By Boyejo A. Coker - Editor-in-Chief

It actually does not matter what aisle of the 'political' spectrum you belong to, this rudderless leadership has failed Nigerians, more-so even worse, since the inception of the 4th Republic in May, 1999.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held sway for fifteen mostly inglorious years (1999-2015) under the stewardship of the following:

a) Rtd. General Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007)

b) The late Umaru Musa Yar'Adua (2007-2010)

c) Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (2010-2015).

For at least 12 of those first 15 years of the 4th Republic, corruption, by and large, became the norm while the climate created by avaricious greed, further engendered a general state of lawlessness.

Kidnappings and killing orgies became commonplace and have continued unabated, till today.

While some may say that there was a certain degree of accountability, with the accompanying restoration of some semblance of sanity during Yar'Adua's brief reign, the truth remains that his vision of a better Nigeria was never going to see the light of day, given the scavengers and marauders he was surrounded by.

For this piece, we will absolve Umaru Yar'Adua of some of the PDP misrule when one considers that he was never in charge, as the cabal (whose stranglehold on the proverbial throat of Nigeria has never been in doubt) led by the one Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo et al essentially pulled his strings. When he (Yar'Adua) then dared to think for himself, he was murdered by the demonic powers behind the Nigerian throne of oppression.

Then came Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo again, as in his quest to maintain his inordinate hold and that of his fellow 'barbarians at the gate' on the destiny of Nigeria, he ensured that the next Nigerian leader would come from his "political family tree' (unfortunately, nothing good has ever come from any Obasanjo tree including his biological family tree). Thus, the dysfunctional reign of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, an absolute and utter misfit for any public office, was visited upon Nigerians.

It remains telling that only Goodluck Ebele Jonathan could have made an ethnic and religious bigot attractive to the same Nigerians that had rejected him (Muhammadu Buhari) a resounding three times (2003, 2007 and 2011) prior to his resounding victory in the 2015 general elections.

In case some have forgotten how we got here, this was the "scorecard" of the PDP misrule, particularly under Jonathan:

a) Coffers-to-personal account accountability (or lack-there-of) where public funds were used for personal gain including the extravagant wedding of GEJ's daughter http://www.myjoyonline.com/…/goodluck-jonathans-daughter-re….

b) An aviation industry (once led by Femi Fani-Kayode and then later by the certificate forging Stella Oduah) that was nothing short of a death trap. I should know as I lost a close relative, Deji Falae (Ondo State Commisioner for Culture and Tourism at the time) to one of those unfortunate but far-too-common air crashes under the PDP misrule.

c) Fabricated economic numbers embellished masterfully by sycophants in the Finance and Economic Ministries to obfuscate the fact that the average Nigerian could not afford the most basic amenities under the Jonathan misrule.

d) Religious over-reach where Jonathan consistently employed openly the advise and services of so-called Christian Pastors and even embarrassed the country by taking his whole cabinet to Israel to "pray". Can you imagine the outcry from the same hypocritical CAN (Christian Association of Nigeria) and their egunje leadership if PMB had gone to Saudi Arabia with his whole cabinet to pray?

e) Under Jonathan, the bigotry and balkanization of Nigeria was effectively set in motion as Jonathan was essentially committed to the disintegration of Nigeria; and this was made even more apparent with the systematic decimation of the Nigerian Armed Forces. Jonathan, in an act of subterfuge against the Nigerian state, then employed foreign mercenaries (former South African soldiers under the apartheid racist regime) to fight Boko Haram at the end of his unfortunate misrule. 

f) Do Nigerians also forget that Jonathan attempted to scuttle the democratic process during this period of shame and disgrace to the Nigerian nation by postponing the elections?

g) The use of the DSS to terrorize, intimidate and kill (thousands of people disappeared without trace) Nigerians in the North, the SE and the SW (in particular) with Femi Fani-Kayode, Ayo Fayose and Musiliu Obanikoro leading the assault on political opponents in the SW with the firm support of the DSS, much like the days of Nazi Germany. Unfortunately, that weaponization of a State Security apparatus against the citizenry has continued under the autocratic administration of Muhammadu Buhari.

h) Nigeria became a pariah state under Jonathan and effectively lost its voice both on the African continent and globally. Anyone who underestimates the forces that are against this current administration with its stated desire to sanitize the nation must be truly misinformed. The forces are both spiritual and physical and I will caution Nigerians that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it.  

And the circus has continued under the rudderless and despotic rulership (note I didn’t use the term leadership) of Muhammadu Buhari, who has proven himself to be just as incompetent a leader as he was as a soldier. Sadly, the teeming masses of hardworking and highly industrious Nigerians remain saddled with an unbecoming band of brigands and marauders as so-called leaders.

Nigerians need to realize that they are merely pawns in the game of high stakes chess being played by a corrupt and morally bankrupt political class. The truth is they (the political class) even intermarry and are not bothered by ethnic or religious so-called differences, while at the same time fanning the embers of ethnic and religious warfare among the desperately poor who just would like to have a fair shake in life, for once. 

As the late Sunny Okosun said in his famous song from almost three decades ago, "Which way Nigeria. Which way to go?" The answer lies squarely in the hands of the Nigerian people and the sooner they realize how much power they have to make a change, the sooner that change will come.  

Heaven, as they say, helps those who help themselves. 

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We want Akpabio to stop the ‘Yorubanization’ of the financial system - Northern Senators

CC™ Global News

By Justina Otio 

Fresh reports have indicated that the controversy trailing Senate President, Godswill Akpabio is the suspicion of his incapacity to checkmate what some northern senators are calling the ‘Yorubanization’ of the country’s financial system and economy.

There have been various conspiracy theories claiming that some senators are plotting Akpabio’s downfall.

However, the Senate refuted the report, maintaining that the lawmakers are united behind Akpabio’s leadership.

Despite the denial, fresh details emerging from Daily Sun have claimed that some senators are angry with the senate leader because of his inability to checkmate the domination of the Yoruba in the financial ecosystem and also deal with some powerful interest groups, particularly some petrol importers and the electricity distribution companies on some proposed financial deals bordering on 40 percent electricity tariff hike and payment of outstanding money to fuel importers.

Among the senators who are alleged to have regrouped with a mission of standing up to Senator Akpabio are some former governors drawn from the North and at least one from the South-South.

The group has now formally come out by presenting Senator Elisha Abbo, APC, Adamawa North, as the face of the group.

Over the weekend, Abbo, in newspaper interviews, accused Akpabio of marginalising his rivals in the leadership contest and their supporters in the distribution of the committee positions.

Sources within the group told the aforementioned publication that “The main issue is our fear that Akpabio cannot check this Yorubanization of the financial system that is going on now.”

The source, who spoke on the basis of confidentiality, alluded to the appointments at the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Federal Inland Revenue Service, Customs, among others that have recently been infused with Yoruba leadership.

“Yes, the reason why you can see that Northerners are mostly involved is that most of those being removed and replaced with Yoruba are northerners,” the source further revealed.

It was further gathered that the aim of the senators is to enthrone a senate president the group believes can checkmate President Bola Tinubu.

NAIJA NEWS