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The Niger Delta Crusaders, The Muslim Pilgrims and The United States of Nigeria (Part 1) By Femi Fani Kayode

"If Boko Haram kills Christians and burns down churches, we will slay Muslims and raze down mosques. We want to warn them that we, the Niger Delta youths, in this 21st century will not accept the killing of innocent Christians or the burning of churches. That if they try it in the north or any part of Nigeria, we the Niger Delta youths will not see any Muslim or mosque in the Niger Delta”- NIGER DELTA REVOLUTIONARY CRUSADERS, VANGUARD NEWSPAPER, 5th AUGUST, 2016.
It is no longer news that the new leader of Boko Haram, Mr. Abu Musa Al Barnawi, who apparantly has the backing of ISIS, has said that he will target only Christians and burn down all the Churches in the country.

He has also said that Muslims and mosques will no longer be targetted and that Mr. Abubakar Shekau, the erstwhile leader and principal voice of the terror group, is no longer the leader.

Mr. Shekau has responded by saying that he will continue to slaughter whoever he pleases and that he remains the authentic leader. There appears to be a very serious rift in the ranks of Boko Haram which is good news.

As far as I am concerned the two factions can do us all a favour by destroying one another and burning in hell.

Anyone that targets Christians and Churches, or indeed any innocent civilians for slaughter, is not worthy of life. They are nothing but vermin and, like the cockroaches that they are,  they must be crushed.

Mr. Shekau is evil but Mr. Al Barnawi is even worse: he is the devil incarnate. He represents ISIS and we all know what that means.

Whichever way we look at it and whatever is going on within the ranks of Boko Haram we must not loose sight of the bigger picture. And that bigger picture points to one thing: Nigeria is in a mess.

Quite apart from the poverty and hardship that has afflicted the land coupled with the total destruction of the economy and quite apart from the shattering of peoples dreams and the drastic reduction in their standard of living by the ineffectual and barren fiscal and economic policies of an inept and incompetent government, our President did not stop there.

He also went as far as to appoint as his Minister of Sports a man who is clearly (to use Donald Trump's words about Hilary Clinton) "unbalanced and unhinged".

This is a man that can barely speak english and who, during the week of the Olympics, publicly referred to our country as "the United States Of Nigeria" whilst reprimanding our Olympic football team for getting stuck in America and  arriving late in Brazil.

Someone should tell Honorable Minister Solomon Dalung that it was HIS job to get our boys to Rio De Janeiro on time and that it was something of a scandal and a national embarrasment that it took the last minute intervention and assistance of Delta Air, a private American airline, to get them there in time for their match with Japan.

Whilst our boys did us proud by going on to defeat Japan and later Sweden, the video of the Minister disparaging them and spouting nonsense about some fictitious and imaginary country called 'the United States of Nigeria' whilst wearing his ridiculous red beret went viral on the internet. A fool goes by no other name.

In normal climes the Minister would have been forced to resign the following day and he would have been compelled to apologise to the nation that he is purportedly serving for forgetting its name. Sadly though there is nothing that is "normal" about Nigeria or the Buhari administration.

Equally abysmal was the recent outing of Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola, President Buhari's "super Minister" of Power, Works and Housing, on BBC TV's Hardtalk.

Before millions of viewers from all over the world, the Minister told his host Mr. Stephen Sackhur a shameless and pernicious lie by claiming that he never promised Nigerians an increase in power generation and supply.

It is his inability to be forthright, to appreciate the virtues of telling the truth and to keep his election promises that has earned my aburo Tunde Fashola the nickname of Minister of Darkness.

Since he was appointed 'super Minister' the power generation in our country has dropped from 5000 megawatts at the time when President Jonathan left office just over a year ago to under 2000 megawatts today. Worst still he has not managed to construct or complete the refurbishment of a single road.

Yet it is not the crippled economy, the erring and dim-witted Minister of Sports, the intellectually dishonest and lying Minister of Power, Works and Housing or any of the other numerous foibles of the Buhari administration that gives us the most concern today.

It is rather the gradual and systematic  generation and invocation of a frightful and cataclysmic atmosphere of war and the looming threat and increasing likelihood of a great and violent ethnic and religious conflict, the likes of which Africa has never seen before.

If it is not Boko Haram that is slaughtering our people it is the Fulani herdsmen. Worse still they are doing these despicable things with the active connivance and support of a few people that are in the corridors of power today whose objective is to islamise our nation, plunge us into a fiery abyss and create chaos.

The bible says 'there is no fellowship between light and darkness'. We have said it before and we will say it again: we must restructure Nigeria before it is too late. If we fail to do so we will have no choice but to reconsider our so-called unity.

If things don't change quickly we must consider the possibility of dividing our country and renegotiating our union.

We cannnot afford to wait any longer because we are playing with fire and we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder. We must attempt to do whatever needs to be done peacefully and we  must not allow the butchers and those that kill in the name of their god to provoke us into another civil war.

Nothing represents the danger of the war that is looming more than the response of the Niger Delta Revolutionary Crusaders (an affliate of the Niger Delta Avengers) to Al Barnawi's threat.

They responded by saying that if Christians and Churches are targetted by Boko Haram they will kill all the Muslims in the Niger Delta area and they will burn down all the mosques. It is a simple case of "action" and "reaction" and I sincerely hope that those that are used to killing others and not being killed themselves take them seriously.

Clearly we are living in dangerous times and I sincerely hope that those that brought religion into our politics in 2015 and that used Islam and the Boko Haram offensive as a political tool against a southern Christian President are seeing the fruits of their labour.

When you invoke the proverbial genie and let it out of the kettle you must be prepared to live with the consequences and whatever follows.

Yet the folly does not stop there. As if our sensibilities were not already sufficiently provoked President Buhari took the religious dance to yet another level last week by directing the Central Bank of Nigeria to sell foreign exchange to Muslim pilgrims that were on their way to Saudi Arabia for hajj at 197 naira to 1 USD.

This whilst everyone else, including students, manufacturers, businessmen, Christian pilgrims, the ailing and holiday-makers, must continue to buy at 400 naira to 1 USD. When the math is done this amounts to a whooping N7.9 billion naira concession for Muslim pilgrims.

And all this in a country that is not only impoverished and whose people are suffering from the worst economic hardship and poverty crunch since independence but also one that is meant to be a secular state.

Such is the national outrage that President Buhari's forex concession to his Muslim brothers and sisters has provoked that a well-known political commentator and activist Mr. Paul Achalla wrote the following on his Facebook wall on August 5th:

"N410 to $1  for business, education, entrepreneurship, food processing, manufacturing, etc. and N197 to $1 for pilgrims going to Saudi Arabia? Bluntly put, Boko Haram ideology won Nigeria's 2015 general election!!!"

Paul Achalla is right. How can this sort of nonsense be justified in a multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, multi-religious secular state? Is Buhari's Nigeria crafted only for the Muslim north?  Is Saudi Arabia now the spiritual headquarters of our nation?

If it is not the Sultan of Sokoto declaring public holidays, it is the President giving subsidised rates of foreign exchange and preferential treatment to members of his own religious faith.

If it is not that he is leading our country into a sinister and dangerous military coalition of Sunni Muslim nations it is that he is holding conferences in Abuja with foreign Muslim clerics whose stated objective is to "spread sharia throughout Nigeria" and islamise our country.

Worst still virtually all his Service Chiefs and principal commanders in his Armed Forces together with his National Security Advisor, his Minister of Defence, his Minister of Internal Affairs, his Inspector General of Police, his Chief of Defence Intelligence, his Director General of State Security, his Chairman of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, his Commander of the National Civil Defence Corps, his Comptroller General of Customs, his Comptroller General of Immigration, his Comptroller General of Prisons and ALL his other security, para-security and intelligence agencies, bar one, are northern Muslims.

Can there be any greater form of corruption, abuse of power, injustice and betrayal of trust than this? Does this not prove the fact that our country is in dire need of restructuring? (TO BE CONTNUED)

Lagos state Governor Emerges one among the 4 Nigeria's Top Performing Governors..to be honored in New York

The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Akinwumi Ambode has emerged the winner in a keenly contested online poll conducted by the African Leadership Magazine UK. Mr. Ambode polled 37.2% of the total votes cast to emerge Nigeria's best performing Governor.

Mr. Ambode is closely trailed by the Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike with 29%; while Governor Willie Obiano of Anambra state secured 18% of total vote casts to maintain a spot in the third place.

In the fourth place is Delta State Governor, Patrick Okowa with 13%; and Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state sits in the fifth position with 5% of vote casts. The Good Governance Poll, which ended on Wednesday 3rd, 2016, by 2:pm, Nigerian time, was initiated by the African Leadership Magazine UK, in line with the magazine’s objective of providing credible information and support to leaders in Nigeria and Africa at large.

The Poll is part of the group's strategic engagement tool designed to monitor performance, gauge the mood of the electorates, promote good governance, as well as engender peer review mechanisms amongst leaders in Nigeria and Africa at large. The Good Governance Poll is particularly important in Nigeria, following the country's prevailing realities; while some Governors in the country have been unable to meet their obligation to the electorates, others have been ingenious in managing state resources and also making concerted efforts towards shoring up their IGR. These States Chief Executives deserve to be celebrated.

The Publisher, Dr. ken Giami , in announcing the winners of the Good Governance Poll, stated that "African Leadership Magazine leverages its robust offline and online engagements - with about 2.2 Million daily online post reaches and over 400,000 Monthly magazine circulation to promote purposeful leadership and actively engage leaders for the greater good of the citizenry."

He also maintained that "Mr. Ambode's emergence as the winner of the polls is a clear indication, that more Nigerians are increasingly becoming aware of his strides in Lagos State, which is quite commendable.” One of those polled noted that “Akinwunmi Ambode came to power with his blue-print for the greater development of Lagos State which he has since then pursued with precision. His pursuit of 24-hour economic mechanism, when attained, would propel revenue generation for Lagos State in ways unmatchable by any other state in Africa.”

The online poll which commenced on the 5th of July 2016 attracted Nigerians from all works of life voting to select the country's top 5 Best Performing Governors in the country. The Winners of the Poll will be formally decorated with the prestigious African Leadership Excellence Award as Best Performing Governor, during the International Forum on African Leadership, billed to hold at the Waldorf Astoria, New York on the 22 September 20016, by 11.00am-3.00pm.

The winners would also be presented with endorsement from various US State's and non-state actors, and hosted to Investment & Partnership discussions on the side-lines of the event. This is no doubt a further validation and commendation for the good work they have been doing in Nigeria and the continent and the hope they represent for the future of Nigeria - in spite of the monumental challenges being faced by the country today.

Cute dog who has 79,000 followers on Instagram

It might look like a fluffy, comfy cushion but it's got teeth, in fact, it's a dog. Tori is a Bichon Frise, a specie of dog popular for their cuteness, Tori however is super cute thanks to her full hair. The mutt, who lives in Daegu, South Korea, has garnered more than 79,000 followers on her Instagram account and her owners make sure to keep her teeming admirers updated on her latest looks. Weighing only 5–10 kg and measuring about 23–30 cm tall, the Bichon Frise is a small dog breed. More photos after the cut.

Assisted suicide is false compassion says Pope Francis

Vatican City, Jun 10, 2016 / 02:13 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Physician-assisted suicide is part of a “throwaway culture” that offers a “false compassion” and treats a human person as a problem, Pope Francis told medical leaders on Thursday.

“True compassion does not marginalize anyone, nor does it humiliate and exclude – much less considers the disappearance of a person as a good thing,” the Pope said. He criticized “those who hide behind an alleged compassion to justify and approve the death of a patient.”

“You are well aware of the meaning of the triumph of selfishness, of this ‘throwaway culture’ that rejects and dismisses those who do not comply with certain canons of health, beauty and utility,” he said.

The Pope addressed the managers of the Medical Orders of Spain and Latin America in the Apostolic Palace on June 9.

According to Vatican Radio’s translation, he described compassion as “the just response to the immense value of the sick person.” This response is composed of respect, understanding and tenderness “so that the sacred value of the life of the patient does not disappear or become obscured, but instead shines with greater splendor precisely in suffering and helplessness.”

Compassion is a necessary part of the medical profession, Pope Francis stressed.

“The doctor’s identity and commitment depends not only on scientific knowledge and technical competence, but principally on the attitude of compassion and mercy towards those who suffer in body and spirit. Compassion does not mean pity, it means ‘suffering with’,” he said.

Technological and individualistic culture does not always consider compassion well, he said. It even disdains it and regards it as humiliation.

“Frailty, pain and infirmity are a difficult trial for everyone, including medical staff. They call for patience, for ‘suffering-with.’ Therefore, we must not give in to the functionalist temptation to apply rapid and drastic solutions, moved by false compassion or by mere criteria of efficiency or cost-effectiveness,” he added.

“The dignity of human life is at stake. The dignity of the medical vocation is at stake.”

“Nothing must prevent you from ‘putting more heart into your hands’,” the pontiff told the medical leaders, citing St. Camillo de Lellis.

Pope Francis reflected on the theological aspects of health and medicine. In the biblical tradition, there is a close link between health and salvation.

“The Fathers of the Church used to refer to Christ and His work of salvation with the title ‘Christus Medicus’ (Christ the Doctor),” the Pope explained. “He is the Good Shepherd who cares for the wounded sheep and comforts the sick. He is the Good Samaritan who does not pass by the injured person at the roadside, but rather, moved by compassion, cures and attends to him.”

The Pope added he likes to bless doctors’ hands as a sign to recognize “this compassion that becomes the caress of health.”

Military withdrawn from N’Delta communities - FG

By Isidi Monica

For several hours on Tuesday, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo met with governors of oil producing states and service chiefs in his office at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Governors who attended the meeting were Nyesom Wike (Rivers), Olusegun Mimiko (Ondo), Ifeanyi Okowa (Delta), Okezie Ikpeazu (Imo), Dickson Seriake (Bayelsa), Odom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) and Adams Oshiomhole (Edo). The service chiefs in attendance were General Gabriel Olonishaki (Chief of Defence Staff), Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai (Chief of Army Staff ) and Vice Admiral Ibok Ette Ibas (Chief of Naval Staff). The meeting was believed to be in connection to the threats by the new militant group, Niger Delta Liberation Force (NDLF) to bomb the Aso Rock Presidential Villa, the Defence headquarters, National Assembly among other strategic government facilities especially in Lagos, Abuja and Kaduna. Prior to the emergence of the new group last week, the Niger Delta Avengers had been engaged in serial bombing of oil facilities in the Niger Delta region, reducing oil production per day to less than 1.5 million barrels as against the 2.2 million estimated in the 2016 budget. The meeting was also believed to have discussed the way forward in resolving the knotty issue of the current agitation by militant groups in the oil rich region. President Muhammadu Buhari had threatened in his Democracy Day nationwide broadcast last week that the militant groups whose activities were disrupting oil production would be brought to book. But the Federal Government recanted on Monday when Osinbajo announced a cease fire to allow for meaningful engagement with leaders of the oil producing communities. Briefing State House correspondents after the meeting, Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa said, however, that the meeting resolved to have the ongoing military operations in the region distilled, while the communities would be engaged. “We have also agreed that there is a need to distill military operations directly in communities, but the military needs to actually remain on our waterways to ensure that we adequately man the waterways itself while we engage the communities and that engagement process is starting any moment from now.” Okowa also disclosed that the security chiefs briefed them on the situation in the region while the governors also shared their perspective and they agreed on intelligence sharing on the situation, going forward.

“We governors of the oil producing states, security chiefs and ministers who are concerned met with the Vice President and I believe we had a very fruitful meeting. “One thing we identified which is the synergy between the Federal Government and the States which is very important and this meeting has raised a lot of issues and we believe that the collaboration will help us to tackle the issues in the Niger Delta.

“Of course, we were briefed by the service chiefs and the governors also have their own perspectives along with the minister of state petroleum. “We have taken a lot of decisions which will help us mitigate what is going on currently in the states particularly Bayelsa and Delta. We believe we are going to find solution to it.

“One of such is that there is a need for us to share intelligence which is very important and for us to be proactive, working together with the various stakeholders in the states to achieve a better result going forward,” the governor narrated. Also speaking after the meeting, Oshiomhole emphasized the need for government to sustain the amnesty programme so that skills acquired in the training could be effectively utilized. He also cautioned that Nigerians should strive to resolve any differences amicably rather than sing war songs. He said: “Nigeria is not at war and we cannot be at war with ourselves. “If we have conflicts, we will talk through those conflicts.

There are laws that have to be enforced. “I think that in all of these the whole idea is to find peace that is functional, that creates environment for very decent Nigerians to live their lives.” Meanwhile, the Embassy of the United States in Nigeria on Tuesday expressed concern over reports of attacks and other incidents in the Niger Delta. This was contained in a statement issued by the Embassy’s Public Affairs Unit in Abuja.

The Embassy stated that the U.S. mission to Nigeria was monitoring reports of attacks and other incidents in the Niger Delta and it shares the concerns of all Nigerians about these attacks. “The U.S. remains supportive of efforts, including the promotion of dialogue, to address grievances in the Niger Delta,” it stated. It appealed to all parties to resolve their disputes through peaceful means and emphasize that human rights of all Nigerians must be protected. It called on all Nigerians to persevere in efforts to achieve common goals.

It stressed on the need to end violence and curb the activities of criminal elements. It called for the establishment of conditions and mechanisms for profound, positive, and lasting changes in the region. According to statement, there is the need for the provision of economic opportunity and the needed services for residents of the Niger Delta.

Source: dailytimes.ng

Ex- Super Eagles coach Is Dead

One of the most iconic captains of the Nigerian national football team, the Super Eagles, and former coach of the team, Stephen Okechukwu Keshi, is dead.

According to reports, the death of the former international was confirmed by his relatives and close associates.

Mr. Keshi had lost his wife of 33 years, Kate, to cancer last year.

“He was not ill at all, never showed any signs of illness, but we suspect he never got over the death of his wife,” TheCable quoted one of his friends, whose name was not given, as saying.

Mr Keshi, popularly called the Big Boss, is the only Nigerian coach to have won the Africa Cup of Nations.

He also became the second person in history to win the competition as a player and as a coach after Mahmoud El-Gohary of Egypt when he led the Super Eagles to win the tournament in 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He rose to national prominence when debuted for the Super Eagles in 1981 at age 20. The late Central Defender withdrew from the national team in 1994. He had 64 caps and scored nine goals.

As coach, he qualified an unlikely Togolese national team for the 2006 World Cup in Germany but was sacked and replaced with German Otto Pfister, just before the tournament.

He however, achieved his dream to manage a team at the World Cup when he coached the Super Eagles side to the tournament in 2014.

He is the fifth member of the glorious 1994 Super Eagles team to die, after Uche Okafor, Thompson Oliha, Rashidi Yekini and Wilfred Agbonavbare.

He is survived by four children and his

 mother.

Source: national mirror.com