CC™ VideoSpective
Wednesday
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
Tuesday
Aremu Obasanjo unapologetic over treatment of Yoruba Monarchs
CC™ NaijaBeat
By Rachel Fadoju
Former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has said he is unapologetic over his recent statement and actions towards traditional rulers in Oyo State last week.
Naija News reported that Obasanjo, in a viral video, had condemned the monarchs for failing to stand and greet the state governor, Seyi Makinde.
The former president described their behaviour as a sign of disrespect for the Governor and his office.
This prompted Obasanjo to order the traditional leaders to stand up and greet Governor Makinde.
Obasanjo’s actions and statements generated outrage among some Yoruba leaders and political elites, including the Oluwo of Iwo, urging him to apologise to the traditional rulers.
However, speaking in a statement through his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, Obasanjo said he stands firmly and uncompromising to the statement as the Constitution gave the Governors power over the royal fathers.
He said, “Obasanjo affirmed that he stood firmly, unapologetically and uncompromisingly on the position that the Governor of a State holds the highest office in the State.
“By that position, the respect, protocol and dignity that must be given to the office by virtue of the Constitution must not be denied. To do otherwise is to deride the office and the Constitution.”
Reacting to the apology issued on Sunday by his self-acclaimed wife, Taiwo Martins, Obasanjo said she is not his wife or a member of the Obasanjo family.
He described her as an imposter, adding that nobody makes statements on behalf of the Obasanjo family except those delegated.
He said, “For the records, Ms. Martins has two children, Jonwo and Bunmi, for Chief Obasanjo, but to say emphatically that she is neither his wife nor a member of the Obasanjo family.
“Her posturing as Chief Obasanjo’s wife is false and that of an impostor. Nobody makes statement on behalf of the Obasanjo family except Chief Obasanjo or people delegated by him to do so.
“It must be noted that the state of health of Ms. Martins is known to all and sundry and whatever she says or does has nothing to do with Chief Obasanjo as an individual or the Obasanjo family as a whole.”
NAIJA NEWS
Monday
Sunday
Lost MiG-31K’s Kh-47M2 pseudo-hypersonic found a month later by a tractor driver sticking in the ground
CC™ MilitarySpective
By Mak Panasovskyi
On August 11, 2023, Russia launched one of many missile strikes against Ukraine. However, not all launches were successful. A MiG-31K fighter jet lost a Kh-47M2 pseudohypersonic missile.
Here's What We Know
On that day, the Kh-47M2 missiles were sent to an airfield in the Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Russian military reported to the leadership about the successful launch, however, one aeroballistic missile was lost on Russian territory.
What is most interesting is that no one went looking for the expensive weapon. It lay in the Tula region for a month. 12 September 2023 sticking in the ground missile Kh-47M2 found a local tractor driver near the village of Biryulyovka.
Law enforcement officers and representatives of the design bureau "Mashinostroyenie" went to the site. According to the results of the analysis it was decided to detonate the missile in view of the impossibility to deliver it to the plant and restore it.
Source: @vchkogpu
Saturday
The Russian Navy will receive a nuclear-powered submarine armed with SS-NX-30 ballistic missiles with a thermonuclear warhead and a range of 9,300 kilometres
By Mak Panasovskyi
The Russians have announced plans to take into service a fourth-generation nuclear submarine "Emperor Alexander III". This was announced by the Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
Here's What We Know
According to the head of the Russian defence ministry, the Russian Navy will be replenished with a dozen surface and submarine ships. One of them will be the nuclear-powered submarine "Emperor Alexander III".
The submarine is being built under the modernised Borei-A project. It was launched in the last days of 2022. The submarine "Emperor Alexander III" will join the Pacific Fleet. Very often the words of Russian officials have nothing to do with reality. So only time will tell when the new ship will be inducted into the fleet in 2023.
"Emperor Alexander III" will be part of the nuclear triad. It will be armed with 16 R-30 Bulava ballistic missiles (SS-NX-30 according to NATO classification). The missile has a maximum launch range of 9,300 kilometres and can deliver 6-10 thermonuclear warheads.
SOURCE: RIA NOVOSTI
Friday
U.S. Court takes decision in Atiku’s case after Chicago State University confirmed female Bola Tinubu transcript
CC™ Politico
By Chukwuani Victoria
The judge of United States District Court for the Northern District, Jeffrey Gilbert presiding over a subpoena application for Nigerian’s president, Bola Tinubu’s records has reserved judgement after learning that the politician’s college transcript, which he used to gain admission into Chicago State University (CSU) in 1977, indicated it belonged to a female.
The judge, according to the People Gazette had earlier scheduled September 12, to rule on the matter, but said he needed additional time to digest his decision after learning that there was a transcript bearing Bola A. Tinubu released by CSU under a separate court subpoena that carried the owner’s gender as female.
Trying to demonstrate the frivolity of the case, Tinubu’s lawyer, Christopher Carmichael, raised the female issue, dismissing it as a fishing expedition based entirely on a conspiracy theory being peddled in Nigeria by Tinubu’s political detractors.
‘It is like Donald Trump coming up in 2010 to claim that Barack Obama was not born in the United States,” Carmichael said.
But lawyer to plaintiff Atiku Abubakar, Alexandre de Gramont quickly informed the court that the possibility of Bola Tinubu, who attended CSU in the same 1970s, being a woman was first revealed in records produced by the school itself.
The school had, in mid-2022, submitted Tinubu’s records in its possession while complying with a state court subpoena.
The records, handed over to Nigerian civil rights lawyer Mike Enahoro-Ebah, showed that Bola A. Tinubu was admitted into CSU in 1977 based on a transcript from Southwest College Chicago that was marked as belonging to a female.
Judge Gilbert became confused after CSU lawyer Michael Hayes confirmed that the school had indeed turned in records to Enahoro-Ebah in 2022, but insisted that the Nigerian president, Tinubu was the one who attended and graduated from the school.
Hayes, however, said he could not explain the contradictions, and the school’s administrators would not be able to state under oath that the certificate Tinubu has been parading was genuine or otherwise.
“Is the diploma authentic or is it a forgery? My client can’t answer yes to either of those questions,” Hayes said of Tinubu’s certificate that he submitted to be Nigeria’s president.
Consequently, a confused Judge Gilbert said he would need additional time to process the confusion, especially given Hayes’ confirmation of the records released last year by CSU.
“I will have to take this matter under advisement,” the judge said, adding that his court would communicate a new judgement or hearing date with counsel to all parties.
The judge said additional documents or clarification about already submitted documents may be required from the parties.
NAIJA NEWS
Thursday
Opinion Flashback: Muhammadu Buhari - From tyranny to democracy and back again to tyranny
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| Nigerian soldiers were buried in secret graves |
It is becoming increasingly difficult to defend President Muhammadu Buhari.
As news of a general descent into lawlessness permeates the Nigerian and indeed global airwaves, the neutral among those that supported Muhammadu Buhari's aspirations for the highest office in Africa, as well as one of the most influential in the world in 2015, have been left rather disappointed and almost embarrassed at the turn of events in the country.
The recent proscription of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN) the Shiite Muslim sect in Northern Nigeria by a Fulani president of the Sunni faith, is further proof that PMB's propensity for tyranny was indeed a valid fear harbored by millions of Nigerians before the 2015 elections. This move could not have come at a worse time and adds to the litany of missteps by a man reputed by his military peers for being impatient and reactionary, two traits not conducive to ensuring good judgement as a leader.
When the same Buhari came into power in 2015, this time through the ballot as opposed to the bullet (as he had done in 1983 in overthrowing the late Shehu Shagari), most Nigerians were hopeful that he had learned his lessons and was a more mature, open-minded and cerebral leader. Unfortunately, the decisions that have been made by this administration, from the Fulani herdsmen terror of the Nigerian people that still rages on, to the recent proscription of a religious sect that was demanding the release of their leader (as has been already ordered by the highest court in the land), have left a lot to be desired and the environment is becoming even more fertile for a potential conflict of civil war proportions, if things continue the way they are going.
President Muhammadu Buhari rode the wave of a popular democratic uprising at the polls like has never been seen before in the history of Nigeria and indeed Africa. For the first time ever, an incumbent democratically elected president was defeated at the polls, and Buhari assumed office without a single shot being fired!
The previous administration under the abjectly clueless Goodluck Jonathan, was an absolute train-wreck and had in fact ceded some Nigerian real estate to the Boko Haram terror group. PMB promised to deliver on security as he was a retired General who had also fought in the Nigerian civil war.
To date, the president has not delivered on that singular promise and if recent reports by the Wall Street Journal are anything to go by, the war is anything but won as PMB recently declared. Things are actually getting worse in the brutal war being waged by Boko Haram and its affiliates, with Nigerian soldiers reportedly being buried in unmarked secret graves. Thus, family members and indeed Nigerians (and possibly the president himself) are being lied to by the military with regard to the true state of things on the war front.
Whether it's the continued detention of the only Christian among the kidnapped Chibok female students - Leah Sharibu (with reports now saying she may have been killed by her captors), while her Muslim peers were all released, the heavy-handed response to IPOB, the selective prosecution of supposed corrupt individuals (while Buhari himself remains surrounded by corrupt benefactors), the equally heavy-handed response to the Shiites in Nigeria (which risks another Boko Haram-like insurgency) while turning a blind eye to the murderous escapades of the Fulani herdsmen, the president has shown a propensity for jaundiced ethno-religious and parochial malfeasance.
At the last elections in 2019, given the President's vulnerability as a result of his political missteps, if the PDP or any of the opposition parties had fielded a credible candidate, Buhari would have had to resort to massive rigging to stay in office. Some may say he did but Atiku, his main rival lacked the moral fabric or political cache to move the needle across the Nigerian landscape.
In closing, President Buhari must do better as history will judge him as a man that was given so much but gave back so little, if anything. There needs to be an inquiry by the legislative arm of the government into the report by the Wall Street Journal of Nigerian soldiers being buried in secret graves. There is a good chance that most, if not all of the soldiers being given such a horrendous treatment, are probably from the South or the Middle-Belt (my reliable sources tell me). Nigeria will not survive at this rate and no amount of intimidation by the security forces can stop the impending revolution that will surely follow, if the status quo remains.
Nigeria as presently constituted, is unsustainable and it is incumbent upon those that truly have the best interest of the nation at heart to stand up and be counted. There is currently a Jihad being waged by the Fulani hegemony in Nigeria (please do not be fooled by the appeals of the Sultan of Sokoto - as he is the third arm of Nigeria's own Third Reich), but it has already failed as these are different times and the people are prepared. If the genocide currently being perpetrated against Christians, Middle-Belters and Southerners continues, not only will Nigeria collapse, but President Buhari and Nasir El-Rufai may end up having a case to answer at the Hague.
Nigeria must not only survive, but also flourish (as it should) for the good of Africa.
Wednesday
China's Fujian aircraft carrier, which will house fifth-generation J-35 fighters, will pose a major threat to Taiwan
CC™ Military News
By Maksim Panasovskyi
A few days ago, a photo of China's Fujian aircraft carrier appeared on Chinese social media. Taiwan's Ministry of Defence is wary of the promising ship of China's People's Liberation Army.
Here's What We Know
Taiwan's defence ministry believes the Fujian will pose a major threat to the country in the event of a military conflict. China is expected to begin testing the aircraft carrier's electromagnetic catapults soon.
The Fujian will be one of the largest aircraft carriers in the world. It will be only a few metres shorter than the USS Gerald R. Ford. The future ship will be China's first aircraft carrier with electromagnetic catapults. The People's Liberation Army now operates the Shandong and Liaoning with outdated springboards.
The deck of the Fujian aircraft carrier will carry J-35 and J-15T fighter jets. The former will be the Chinese analogue of the US F-35C Lightning II aircraft. The J-15T, on the other hand, is a deck modernisation of the fourth-generation J-15 fighter. It is expected to be the one that will participate in the electromagnetic catapult test.
The Fujian will have a displacement of 80,000 tonnes, an increase of 20,000 tonnes compared to the Shandong and Liaoning. China's third aircraft carrier will join the fleet in two years.
SOURCE: SCMP
Tuesday
FRANCE AND ITS PERMANENT COLONIES: It ruined Haiti, the first black country to become independent in 1804 • It is on course to ruin all its former African colonies
By Toyin Falola
It is no coincidence that the recent spate of coups in Africa has manifested in former French African colonies (so-called Francophone Africa), once again redirecting the global spotlight on France’s activities in the region.
And that the commentaries, especially among Africans, have been most critical of France and its continued interference in the region.
This is coming against the backdrop of France’s continuous meddling in the economic and political affairs of “independent” Francophone countries, an involvement that has seen it embroiled, both directly and indirectly, in a series of unrests, corruption controversies, and assassinations that have bedevilled the region since independence.
Unlike Britain and other European countries with colonial possessions in Africa, France never left—at least not in the sense of the traditional distance observed since independence by the other erstwhile colonial overlords.
Instead, it has, under the cover of a policy of coopération within the framework of an extended “French Community,” continued to maintain a perceptible cultural, economic, political, and military presence in Africa.
On the surface, the promise of cooperation between France and its former colonies in Africa—which presupposes a relationship of mutual benefit between politically independent nations—where the former would, through the provision of technical and military assistance, lead the development and advancement of its erstwhile colonial “family—is both commendable and perhaps even worthy of emulation.
However, when this carefully scripted façade is juxtaposed with the reality that has unfolded over the decades, what is revealed is an extensive conspiracy involving individuals at the highest levels of the French government.
Along with other influential business interests—also domiciled in France—they have worked with a select African elite to orchestrate the most extensive and heinous crimes against the people of today’s Francophone Africa.
A people who, even today, continue to strain under the weight of France’s insatiable greed.
The greed and covetousness that drove the European nations to abandon trade for colonialization in Africa are as alive today as they were in the 1950s and 1980s.
The decision to give in to African demands for independence was not the outcome of any benevolence or civilised reason on the part of Europe, but for economic and political expedience.
Thus, when the then President of France, Charles de Gaulle—who nurtured an ambition to see France maintain its status as a world power—agreed to independence for its African colonies, it was only a pre-emptive measure to check the further loss of French influence on the continent.
In other words, the political liberation offered “on a platter of gold” was a means to avoid the development of other costly wars of independence, which, after World War II depleted France, was already fighting in Indochina and Algeria.
Independence was, thus, only the first step in ensuring the survival of French interests in Africa and, more importantly, their prioritisation.
Pursuant to this objective, De Gaulle also proposed a “French Community”—delivered on the same “golden platter”—as a caveat to continued French patronage.
As such, the over ninety-eight percent of its colonies that agreed to be part of this community were roped into signing cooperation accords—covering economic, political, military, and cultural sectors—by Jacques Foccart, a former intelligence member of the French Resistance in the Second World War, handpicked by De Gaulle.
This signing of cooperation accords between France and the colonies, which opted to be part of its post-independence French Community, marked the beginning of France’s neo-colonial regime in Africa, where Africans got teachers and despotic leaders in exchange for their natural resources and French military installations.
Commonly referred to as Françafrique—a pejorative derivation from Felix Houphouet Boigny’s “France-Afrique,” describing the close ties between France and Africa—France’s neo-colonial footprint in Africa has been characterised by allegations of corruption and other covert activities perpetrated through various Franco-African economic, political, and military networks.
An essential feature of France is the crookish mafia-like relations between French leaders and their African counterparts, which were reinforced by a dense web of personal networks.
On the French side, African ties, which had been the French presidents’ domaine réservé (sole responsibility) since 1958, were run by an “African cell” founded and managed by Jacques Foccart.
Comprising French presidents, powerful and influential members of the French business community, and the French secret service, this cell operated outside the purview of the French parliament, its civil society organisations, and non-governmental organisations.
This created a window for corruption as politicians and state officials took part in business arrangements, which amounted to state racketeering.
Whereas pro-French sentiments in Africa and elsewhere still argue for France’s continuous presence and contributions, particularly in the area of military intervention and economic aid, which they say have been critical to security, political stability, and economic survival in the region, such arguments intentionally play down the historical consequences of French interests in the region.
Enjoying a free reign in the region—backed mainly by the United States and Britain since the Cold War—France used the opportunity to strengthen its hold on its former colonies.
This translated into the development of a franc zone—a restrictive monetary policy tying the economies of Francophone countries to France—as well as the adoption of an active interventionist approach, which has produced over 120 military interventions across fourteen dependent states between 1960 and the 1990s.
These interventions, which were either to rescue stranded French citizens, put down rebellions, prevent coups, restore order, or uphold French-favoured regimes, have rarely been about improving the fortunes of the general population of Francophone Africa.
French interventions have maintained undemocratic regimes in Cameroun, Senegal, Chad, Gabon, and Niger.
At the same time, its joint military action in Libya was responsible for unleashing Islamic terrorism that threatened to engulf countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and Nigeria.
In pursuit of its interests in Africa, France has made little secret of its contempt for all independent and populist reasons while upholding puppet regimes. In Guinea in 1958, De Gaulle embarked on a ruthless agenda to undermine the government of Ahmed Sékou Touré—destroying infrastructure and flooding the economy with fake currency—for voting to stay out of the French Community.
This behaviour was again replicated in Togo, where that country’s first president, Sylvio Olympio, was overthrown and gruesomely murdered for daring to establish a central bank for the country outside the Franc CFA Zone.
Subsequently, his killer, Gnassingbé Eyadema, assumed office and ruled from 1967 until his death in 2005, after which he was succeeded by his son, who still rules. In Gabon, you had the Bongo family, who ran a regime of corruption and oppression with the open support of France throughout 56 years of unproductive rule.
As for Cameroun’s most promising pan-Africanist pro-independence leader, Felix Moumie, he died under mysterious circumstances in Switzerland, paving the way for the likes of Paul Biya, who has been president since 1982.
France also backs a Senegalese government, which today holds over 1500 political prisoners and singlehandedly installed Alhassan Ouattara as president of Cote d’Ivoire.
Therefore, the widespread anti-France sentiment spreading through the populations of Francophone Africa and beyond is not unfounded, as it has become apparent to all and sundry that these countries have not fared well under the shadow of France.
In Niger, where France carried out one of the bloodiest campaigns of colonial pacification in Africa—murdering and pillaging entire villages—and which is France’s most important source of uranium, the income per capita was 59 percent lower in 2022 than it was in 1965.
In Cote d’Ivoire, the largest producer of cocoa in the world, the income per capita was 25 percent lower in 2022 than in 1975.
Outside the rampant unemployment, systematic disenfranchisement, and infrastructural deficits that characterise these Francophone countries, there’s also the frustration and anger of sitting back and watching helplessly.
In contrast, the wealth of your country is being carted away to nations whose people feed fat on your birthright and then turn around to make judgements and other disparaging comments on your humanity and condition of existence.
The people are tired of being poor, helpless, and judged as third-world citizens! France is a dangerous country.
It is indeed overdue for France to cut its losses—whatever it envisages they are—and step back from its permanent colonies to allow the people of Francophone Africa to decide on their preferred path to the future.
After nearly 200 years of occupation, the people have had good reasons to say France should leave.
The restlessness and coups that have become commonplace in the region are symptoms of deeper underlying social, economic, and political problems, including weak institutions, systematic disenfranchisement, poverty, corruption, and/or misappropriation of national wealth.
And as we call on France to do the honourable thing and withdraw, we should also rebuke Africa’s leaders, who have not only put their interests above those of their people but have also turned the instruments of regional intervention and development (like the AU and ECOWAS) into tools for ensuring their political survival.
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