CC™ VideoSpective
In April 1994, the Super Eagles of Nigeria were ranked 5th in the FIFA World ranking, the highest FIFA ranking position ever achieved by an African football team to this day.
HISTORYVILLE
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Flashback: The Smoking Cellphone: A Fulani jihadist killer's phone has numbers of Nigerian police and Army arms dealers
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| This cell phone had the numbers of Nigeria Police/Army contacts |
CC™ Breaking News
Witnesses said more than 100 attackers rampaged through the village, shouting “Allahu akbar” as they shot people and burned homes.
The phone was left behind after more than 100 jihadists terrorized a predominantly Christian village in Angwan Magaji, located in the center of Nigeria’s badlands.
“My house was one of the first to be reached by the Fulani terrorists Sunday around 6 p.m. when about 160 of them charged from all sides of the village firing their rifles,” said Ezekiel Isa, a 27-year old farmer, who leads a group of young men loosely called vigilantes. “They came to my community mainly to kill us and burn our houses.”
“The attackers were all Muslims. They were shouting ‘Allahu Akbar,’” Isa said. “They were speaking Fulani language, which we don’t know, but we could understand their words in our Hausa language, and they were saying ‘kill 150, kill 150, they are infidels, kill them!’ This is not the first time we faced attacks by the Fulani terrorists. They had killed many of our village last year.”
The Fulani, who practice Islam, although one of Nigeria’s minority ethnic groups, have become very powerful and influential over the decades by virtue of their clout in business, politics and government, the military in particular. While many are nomads, a number of prominent Nigerians—including President Muhammadu Buhari—are Fulani.
Isa said he rushed through the village telling women and children to run into the bush as fast as they could. He then retrieved his hidden shotgun and rallied the vigilante youth to return fire.
The Fulani attackers used rifles and machetes while the handful of vigilantes fired mostly primitive shotguns. “Our youth hid behind houses and stayed close to the ground to avoid being hit,” Isa said.
Although calls were made to the Nigerian army, no soldiers arrived to help, according to the villagers.
“The district police officer of Kamaru came on Monday around 5 p.m. together with the Honorable Shuaibu Goma, chairman of the local government, to consult with us over the killings,” Isa said. “The chairman said to us that he will bring relief materials for us but due to the challenges of COVID-19 pandemic, it may take some time before he will come back again.”
The Fulani terrorists went from house to house, setting each on fire, until they had torched more than 50 houses in the hamlet holding approximately 600 residents. Vigilantes and terrorists exchanged shots for approximately 2 hours.
“Last year my father was killed, now they killed my mother” said Talatu Joseph, 35 as she broke into tears in front of her torched house. “My mother was telling me to go and hide, so I didn’t see their faces, I just ran save my life, and as I did my mother was killed.”
“The Fulani terrorists killed four people from my community,” Isa said. “Three were killed as a result of gun shots while one elderly man died of shock. Three older women were killed running to escape. They were the first to fall, but my vigilante group with vigilantes from neighboring communities killed one of the Fulani and injured some with shot.”
Jerry Adi, a 15-year-old vigilante, said he is the youngest on the defense team. “I am the youngest vigilante in my village, I am not afraid of Fulani herdsmen, I am ready to fight them, I have never killed any Fulani terrorists, but I will defend my community when there is no police support from the government.”
The cell phone found after the Fulani raid was not unique. A cell phone was recovered at an Irigwe village massacre in Plateau State in 2018 and was turned over to police. No arrests or prosecution followed, according to barrister Yakubu Bawa.
A series of terrorist attacks have been launched against several villages in the rural area in far western Plateau State since 2002, according to Kyle Abts, director of the International Committee on Nigeria, which tracks terrorist incidents.
“This is the fourth straight week of attacks in the area,” said Abts. “It is not a fight between ethnic groups, nor a pastoralist versus herder conflict. It is a coordinated and premeditated onslaught that has implications for government ineptitude, cover-up or involvement.”
Yet none of these attacks, taking hundreds of lives, were followed by prosecutions by Nigerian authorities, Bawa said.
Word of the killings in Kaduna State drew comment from Nigerian clergy of churches with majority expatriate members. “It is hard not to believe that the Nigerian government isn’t colluding with these attacks,” said the Rev. Sunday Bwanhot, a pastor of the Evangelical Church, Winning All. “We are pleading that the U.S. government will step into this situation to bring this colossal human abuse situation to control.”
Human rights observers called the attack evidence of an ongoing genocide. “The size of this attack by an organized, heavily armed Fulani militia numbering over 100 attackers is proof that these attacks are not “isolated incidents,” said Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, founding president of Genocide Watch, a human rights watchdog. “The attacks are not simply due to “traditional” herder-farmer ‘conflict.’ They are one-sided genocidal massacres.”
Tina Ramirez, president of Hardwired, a human rights organization with offices in Jos, agreed. “The recent attack on Christians in Bassa, Plateau State and the newly reported massacre in Ungwan Magaji in Kaduna State expose the grave failure of Nigeria’s government to protect its citizens—and the urgent need for officials to ease gun laws and allow communities to protect themselves and their families,” she said. “The glaring trend of violent attacks on Christian communities in the north cannot be ignored, and the government must be held accountable for failing to protect its citizens and leaving them defenseless against attacks.”
Source: Zenger News
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Flashback: Neo-Colonialism as the golden shackle: IMF declares 40% of African countries buried in debt..... Rich continent, poor masses
The Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Kristalina Georgieva, says 40 per cent of African countries are in debt distress.
She described Africa as a continent of opportunities and one with many troubles, noting that the focus was to help countries have sound macro-economic policies, improve the investment climate and show it to the rest of the world.
"Africa is a continent of opportunities and what we are looking for is for this opportunity to be harnessed to the maximum. It is also a continent with many troubles; so, we have to be mindful of these risks especially security risks," she said.
Commenting on the debt levels of countries, the newly appointed IMF MD said, "Are we worried about debt levels in Africa? Yes, because 40 per cent of the countries have gone into debt distress levels.
"In some cases, we are concerned about that but in other cases, we see that investment is going to pay off over time.
"Take the case of Kenya, we advise Kenya to be more cautious in building debt but we have seen good macroeconomic policy in Kenya.
"In cases where debt is dangerous like Zambia, we do say you need to get a handle on your debt. In Ethiopia, we say you need to renegotiate some of your debts because it is non-concessional for things that should be on a concessional basis.
"One has to remember that debt on its own is not bad. It is bad when it goes with the wrong things and when it goes with the speed that the economy cannot handle."
Georgieva said countries that were experiencing higher growth rate had done so by borrowing for investments that could generate growth and eliminating red tape for local and foreign investors.
She said the IMF would hold a 'concentrated' meeting with African leaders in December to discuss debt sustainability.
Source: The Cable
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