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Tag: Chibok girls

  • Buhari not emotionally connected to Chibok girls’ mothers – Ezekwesilli

    Buhari not emotionally connected to Chibok girls’ mothers – Ezekwesilli

    The Leader of the #BringBackOurGirls (#BBOG) movement, Oby Ezekwesilli , on Thursday accused President Muhammadu Buhari of not being emotionally connecting to the crying Chibok girls’ mothers that marched to the Presidential Villa, Abuja, on Thursday.

    Ezekwesilli said from the feedback they got, it was clear the President feels he has already given his best in the efforts to rescue the girls.

    The former minister of Education spoke after members of the group converged at the Unity fountain after their interaction with the President.

    She also said lack of response from government has made the girls’ parents to feel like they are being ignored simply because they are poor and reside in the village.

    Ezekwesilli also accused the Minister of Women affairs, Aisha Alhassan, of attempting to break the ranks of the movement through her comments.

    She said, “You heard all the parents said at the meeting, is it because we are poor? Is it because we live in the forest? Is it because we live in the village? But that has no meaning in any society, there is no basis for discrimination on the basics of social status, political view, religious belief and other primordial device against any citizen.

    “In the feedback from the President you can see clearly that the President feels that he has given his best in the efforts to rescue our Chibok girls, our President however was not able to emotionally connect to those crying mothers. That is an important attribute but we will continue to demand and we will take up the responsibility that the NSA has taken and we will make sure that we don’t stop until our girls are back and alive.”

     

     

  • Buhari, Chibok girls’ parents meet in Aso Rock

    Buhari, Chibok girls’ parents meet in Aso Rock

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday held closed-door meeting with parents of the abducted Chibok girls at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    Buhari arrived the venue of the meeting at the old Banquet Hall of the State House at 1:45pm after ending his meeting with the visiting President of Benin Republic, Boni Yayi, in his office.

    Journalists were asked to leave the venue of the meeting when Buhari entered the hall.

    The Chibok parents and other stakeholders, who had arrived the Presidential Villa at about 10:00am, had insisted on meeting the President one-on-one.

    The closed-door meeting is still in progress at the time of filing this report.

  • Chibok girls alive and kicking, says Boko Haram’s contact

    Chibok girls alive and kicking, says Boko Haram’s contact

    Ahmed Salkida, journalist cum confidant of the leadership of Boko Haram is confident the abducted Chibok girls are still alive with some of them refusing to convert to Islam.

    No fewer than 200 of the original 300 schoolgirls kidnapped from their dormitory in April 2014 are believed to still remain in the custody of the terrorists.

    President Muhammadu Buhari said in his maiden Media Chat on radio and television on Wednesday that government had no intelligence on the whereabouts of the schoolgirls.

    He promised to negotiate with the Boko Haram leadership if there is evidence showing where the girls are.

    Online publication, The Cable, quoted Salkida yesterday as asking Buhari to use state machinery to open up access to the militants rather than say he has no clue on the kidnapped girls whose abductions sparked off the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.

    “Most of the Chibok girls, whether they are split into groups or not, are alive, multiple credible sources have told me. And if a deal to release them will weaken national security and endanger the entire country, then the federal government shouldn’t make a deal,” Salkida said.

    He added:“I am confident that Chibok girls and other captives can return to their families if the government is half as strong-willed as some of the girls in captivity that have refused to be married out or give up their faith.

    “The girls would have never backed out of any process, no matter how irritating it is. They would stay on and negotiate hard until they get a deal that will earn them their freedom and stop such abductions so that no one else can ever witness their woeful plight.”

    Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau — from whom nothing has been heard in the last 10 months — once released a video of the schoolgirls and said he had sold them off to marriage. All efforts to free the girls have failed.

  • Fed Govt still tracking Chibok girls, says Lai Mohammed

    Fed Govt still tracking Chibok girls, says Lai Mohammed

    Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed has restated the Federal Government’s commitment to tracking and locating the missing Chibok girls.

    He said it was important for the military to adopt less lethal procedures when compared with the drastic measures employed by neigbouring countries along the Sambisa Forest.

    The minister said the public should hail the military and provide information to further decapitate insurgents.

    Mohammed, who spoke on a Channels TV programme, Sunrise, via phone, said: “We are a bit constrained. I know that some countries have set fire around the Sambisa forest to smoke out the Boko Haram insurgents, but we are being careful because we are still looking for the Chibok girls and we do not want unnecessary collateral casualties.

    “I know that many of our neighbours like Mali and Niger have employed certain procedures. Because of our major objective that we are still looking for the Chibok girls, so in some parts of Sambisa forest, we cannot adopt such drastic approaches.”

    The minister stated that prior to the assumption of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration, the entire Northeast was almost taken over by the insurgents.

    He restated the need to applaud the military for recovering about 20 local governments from the entire councils lose to the sect.

    “People must own the war. They must report suspicious movements and complement efforts of the military. How many bars or football viewing centres in Lagos can you secure? No, but if you have enough information to beef up security, it would help,” he added.

    “That is absolutely incorrect. It is possible for insurgents to lay ambush on the road. It doesn’t mean that they are in control of those local governments. I travelled 89 kilometres from Maiduguri to Bama.

    “We are not saying we are going to route or eliminate ambush or attacks overnight; it’s never done in any insurgency. But what we are just giving the fact, less than a year ago, the entire Northeast was almost in their control, today they don’t have that kind of command.

    “It’s just about one local government that they have swayed at all,” the minister said.

    He emphasised that the public should complement efforts of the military by contributing to intelligence gathering.

  • Chibok girls: The deafening silence

    Chibok girls: The deafening silence

    On Saturday, May 10, 2014, Wole Soyinka, professor and Nobel Laureate, appeared on the British Broadcasting Corporation’s programme, Hardtalk and added his voice to the growing international discourse on Nigeria, especially the issue of the disappearance, on April 15, 2014, of more than 250 schoolgirls from Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State. Among other things, Soyinka said: “The Nigerian nation-space is poised on a knife’s point; it is failing, but not beyond redemption. The rescue of the abducted Chibok schoolgirls and the outcome of the National Conference would help define the country’s future.”  Today, more than one month after, the opinion canvassed by the Nobel laureate remains fresh in our national psyche as the issue of the abducted Chibok girls remains unresolved.

    The country has been thrown into one huge, dramatic macabre dance since that midnight hostage-taking by the Boko Haram terrorists. The incident has drawn both the anger and dagger of civilised humanity all over the world who have continued, in unmistaken terms, to condemn it as sordid and barbaric. Regrettably, two months down the line, what we have been witnessing are empty talks and promises of a phantom rescue operation to free the girls from their captors who are in no way ready to relax their stranglehold on them. With various pressure groups mushrooming daily all over the place, the whole thing has now ascended a crescendo of pulsating emotional gyration, ventilation of anger and global condemnation. Perhaps, for the first time in the history of Nigeria, the entire global community is united in solidarity with the country.

    Many foreign countries have offered and are still offering assistance in several ways to help the country in its bid to rescue the abducted girls as well as defeat the terrorists who are now holding on to the country’s jugular. Everybody seems to be eager to get the girls out of the gulag. Unfortunately, days have turned into weeks and months, and nothing tangible or cheering has been on the horizon about the girls’ return to reunite with their loved ones. For the parents and relatives of the unfortunate girls, hope has turned into despair, and a big nightmare with no end in sight.

    While all these are going on, the military, saddled with engineering the release of the girls, appears to be stuck. On May 26, 2014, Alex Badeh, an Air Marshal and Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff, told a curious nation that the army have located the abducted girls. He said this while addressing members of the Citizen Initiative for Security Awareness (CISA), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), who were on a solidarity campaign to the Defence Headquarters. He assured them that everything was being done to ensure the girls’ safe rescue but he quickly chipped in that the military would not use force in the rescue operation. His words: “We want our girls back, I can tell you our military can do it, but where they are held, do we go with force? Nobody should say Nigerian military does not know what it is doing. We can’t kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back. So we are working. The President has empowered us to do the work and no one should castigate the military”.

    Good talk. Except that many weeks after this promise, there is hardly anything to show that those girls are getting nearer to their freedom. In the first instance, many people opine that what Badeh said was very unprofessional in that it was tantamount to playing into the hands of the enemy. Or else how does one view such a statement which is like giving away what should have been a closely guarded secret, while the army strategises to free the girls? Why announce to the whole world that the army was aware of the location of the girls? The terrorists’ response will be to simply relocate the girls further into the wilderness to avoid any surprise from the army. This is why people believe the statement was either totally uncalled for or grossly lacking in military diplomacy.

    Now, former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, has come up with yet another suggestion that he could reach out to Boko Haram on the fate of the school girls, but regretted that the Federal Government has not given him the green light to act. In an interview on the Hausa service of the British Broadcasting Corporation last week, Obasanjo said: “I have ways of reaching them (Boko Haram) but I have not been given the go ahead”. The former President expressed fear that some of the schoolgirls may never return home but added that the terrorists might free those found to be pregnant or have given birth. He also expressed worry that the girls might have been separated and kept in different locations.

    Earlier last week, some newspapers reported that the parents of the abducted girls had become disillusioned about government’s efforts to free the girls. In fact, some of the parents are said to have died heartbroken, while others have relapsed into all forms of depression as a result of the continuous absence of their loved ones. As they say, he who wears the shoe knows where it pinches. But for how long would these parents remain traumatized?”

    The above is an extract from an article titled: The ‘forgotten’ girls of Chibok, which was first published in this column on Wednesday, June 18, 2014. Since then, nothing reassuring has been heard on the fate of the unfortunate girls. I remember when the article was first published few months after the abduction. I received several SMS alluding to the fact that it was too early for anyone to say that the Chibok girls had been forgotten. But those who know this country called Nigeria well should know better. Nigeria is such a beautiful country, well endowed with human and material resources. But our greatest problem is leadership. The other is that all the good things that God has provided for this country are either mismanaged or stolen. That is the tragedy this country is confronted with.

    Now, with the Chibok girls still at large, we are being told that the war against Boko Haram has ‘largely’ been won. I think that is on paper. The fact that there is an escalation of Boko Haram attacks in some next door countries must be a cause for concern. Three days ago, the terrorists resurfaced again in Maiduguri. So, it is not yet Uhuru after all. Besides, the Chibok girls are still marooned in the forests in the North-east or some other places within and outside the country. It is rather dispiriting how they seem to have been forgotten. Nobody seems to be talking about them any longer.

    Last Friday was Christmas. Surprisingly, in all the goodwill messages from the leaders of this country, none mentioned anything about the Chibok girls. Yet, they all canvassed for peace. Peace? So that they can steal the nation blind as they have been doing? How can there be peace when those who are the tormentors-in-chief of the common man are the leaders themselves. Is there any common man involved in the scandal known as Dasukigate? Is there any common man involved in the oil subsidy fraud? Is there any common man involved in the pension scam? I can go on and on.

    In less than 48 hours from now, we will all be chorusing Happy New Year. Can this be meaningful to the Chibok girls and their families? What is New Year to the families when they are still in the dark over the fate of their loved ones who are yet to be accounted for? I think the government should stop these grandstanding and self-glorification and speak out on where the Chibok girls really are. Otherwise, the Boko Haram war has not been won!

  • Borno CAN: 17 parents are dead

    Borno CAN: 17 parents are dead

    About 17 parents of the Chibok girls abducted by Boko Haram terrorists are dead, Borno State Chairman of Christian Association of Nigerian (CAN) Rev. Titus Ponna said yesterday.

    Ponna, who spoke to The Nation in Maiduguri, said most of the parents of the abducted girls now prefer to know whether their daughters were dead to enable them make burial rites, rather than waiting in vain for their return.

    He said he visited Chibok to  fellowship with some of the girls’ parents.

    The cleric added that during the visit, he discovered the parents’ frustration.

    His words: “I went to Chibok and fellowshipped with some of the parents of the abducted girls. I think up to 17 of the parents are dead and some others are really disturbed.

    “So, I feel it is really important for us to pray for the parents and also for the abducted girls so that God will help to rescue them alive.

    “Some of the parents told me how they wished they knew that their daughters were dead so that they would finish the ceremony…,” Rev. Ponna said.

    The Chibok girls were abducted 624 days ago from their hostel at the Government Secondary School, Chibok.

  • Al-Makura demands probe of ransom for failed release of Chibok girls

    Al-Makura demands probe of ransom for failed release of Chibok girls

    Nasarawa State Governor Umaru Tanko Al – Makura yesterday urged security agencies to probe the whereabouts of funds collected from the treasury for the botched release of 219 Chibok girls.

    He also asked  a former Minister of Information Labaran Maku to explain the failed deal.

    Former President Goodluck Jonathan visited Chadian President Idris Deby at least twice ostensibly to solicit support to trace the whereabouts of the Chibok girls and to establish the true leaders of Boko Haram.

    It is believed that money was taken to that country.

    Al-Makura, who made the demands in a statement through his Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Ahmed Tukur, said Maku’s vow to open up on the $2.1billion arms deals was an afterthought.

    The statement said: “The beginning of the probe of the arms deals by security agencies must not end without probing those who allegedly collected money in the name of securing the release of Chibok girls and never did.

    “The public will be very much interested in knowing those behind the deals and how they came in contact with those who knew the whereabouts of our girls.

    “Nigerians demand  explanations from Maku as all along as Minister for Information he  had been feeding  the public with evil lies that the war against insurgency was on the right direction while millions of tax payers money were being siphoned to private pockets while he superintended over the Ministry of Defence.”

    The governor said “Maku’s recent outburst that he will soon speak over the $2.1bn arms deal was to draw public sympathy.

    “Maku must provide answers to the failed deals to facilitate the release of the Chibok girls from captivity and also explained why such deals were entered into.”

    The governor challenged Maku to explain his role in the Ombatse and Baba Alakyo crisis which led to the killing of 86 security operatives in the state.

    Al-makura praised President Muhammadu Buhari for his commitment to defeating Boko Haram.

    He added: “The signs are already clear that Boko Haram insurgents are on the retreat. I urge all Nigerians, especially the citizens of the North-East to support the President in this patriotic and honest drive to bring lasting peace and move the country forward.”

    Maku had said he would soon speak up on the $2.1bn arms scandal.

    “It is virtually too early for me as a former minister of information to begin to talk about what is going on at the moment.” However, he added that he would make his views known when the right time comes.

    ”I don’t want to comment on this administration now because I was in the previous government as minister of information and our voice was all over the nation. It is too early for me to say anything. The processes that are going on are in the full glare of Nigerians and what I will say is that the media should be very careful. That’s my advice and I will not say anything else.

  • Saraki’s wife bemoans ordeal of Chibok girls

    Saraki’s wife bemoans ordeal of Chibok girls

    Wife of the Senate President, Mrs. Toyin Saraki, has bemoaned the continued ordeal of over 200 Chibok school girls kidnapped by the Boko Haram sect over 590 days ago.

    Saraki, who is also the founder of the Wellbeing Foundation Africa, stated this when she represented the wife of the president, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, as the Special Guest of Honour at the premiere of ‘Searching’ – a film that vividly depicts the realities and struggles of the girl-child in Nigeria.

    She stated that while securing the release of the girls by security agencies is the most important step for now, schools must be protected to provide safe and quality education for all Nigerian children.

    She also called for increased access to education and the protection of the rights of the girl-child through the removal of social and structural barriers in girl’s education in the country.

    Recounting the ordeal of the 200 girls kidnapped from their school in Chibok, Borno State, over 590 days ago, she said: “Their kidnap and the continued assault against the rights of young children to an education by Boko Haram is part of a wider conversation that we must continue to have in Nigeria and all over the world.

    “Securing the release of every girl kidnapped by Boko Haram is the expected step, but we must return the focus to securing our schools and protecting the right to a safe, quality education for all of our children. This will ensure that the horrors of Chibok never happen again.”

    While expressing great concern about the plight of the girl-child in Nigeria, Saraki stated further, “As a nation, we must focus on developing the policies and initiatives that can empower girls and give them the tools that they need to lead.

    “As a nation, we must collaborate and unite to break the culture of silence over the rights and welfare of our young girls. We must continue to speak up and speak out against early marriage for our young girls. We must summon the inner will to say no to children giving birth to children. Storytelling is one way of driving these messages home and we must not be tired of telling their stories.”

  • Osun inaugurates N750m school named after Soyinka

    Osun inaugurates N750m school named after Soyinka

    •Osun inaugurates
    N750m school

    Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka has described the  Federal Government’s failure to rescue the missing Chibok girls as shameful.

    Soyinka enjoined the nation’s leaders to ensure that children were brought up to respect one another’s religion.

    According to him, sincere efforts must be made to ensure that school children were not differentiated along religious lines for a better Nigeria.

    He spoke yesterday at the inauguration of the N750 million Wole Soyinka Government High School in Ejigbo, Osun State.

    It was the first in the mega schools series under the education reform programme of the Rauf Aregbesola administration.

    The literary giant described the school as an “emphatic rejection of what Boko Haram insurgents preach”.

    The school is a 3,000-capacity complex with 72 classrooms of 49 square-metre, each capable of sitting 49 pupils. It has six offices for study groups.

    It is equipped with six laboratories, 18 toilets for girls and 18 for boys, one science library, one arts library, facility manager’s office, a bookshop and a sick bay.

    Soyinka praised Aregbesola, saying he was elated that such honour was bestowed on him. He pledged to visit the school often to see how it was faring.

    His words: “It is a shame that the nation cannot account for over 200 girls in Chibok. I sympathise with the religious policy of governments in school; children must not be brought up feeling that religion inhibits knowledge.

    “In schools, we need not distinguish our children, the fatalistic religious holiness and the holier-than-thou attitude must be reduced among our pupils.”

    Aregbesola said although the cost of the school was huge, he noted that it was a worthy investment.

    The governor promised that within the first quarter of next year his government would inaugurate another set of schools in the same category.

    He said no government could overspend on education, adding that education was a human resource and the primary way any family could get a lasting benefit from the government.

    Aregbesola averred that it was befitting that Osun named the school after Soyinka, who he described as an excellent product of public education in Nigeria and a distinguished academic.

    He said: “We can build a good road that will last for 50 years and we are doing that, but this can never compare to the enlightenment an educated person receives, in terms of its value to the society and humanity.

    “The state of education prior to our coming was appalling and frighteningly so. Zoos were better than the places where pupils were receiving knowledge. Many of them were dilapidated and falling down.

    “These schools were, therefore, not encouraging any serious learning or character building. The result was that the pupils were behaving like animals. They were forming cult groups, fighting regularly with weapons and engaging in immoral acts.

    “These are children aged seven and above. My heart bled to see the public education system disintegrate and become dysfunctional.”

    Deputy Governor Grace Titi Laoye-Tomori said: “The school was named after  Soyinka and it should be seen by pupils as an inspiration to succeed.

    “Our administration has provided functional education. We have invested heavily in turning the fortune of education in the state for the greater height.”

    Dignitaries at the ceremony included Chief of Staff to the Governor Gboyega Oyetola; Deputy Speaker, House of Representatives, Lasun Yusuf; member, House of Representatives, Mojeed Alabi; House of Assembly Speaker Najeem Salaam and Chief Judge Justice Oyebola Adepele Ojo.

    Others were: Owa Obokun of Ijeshaland Oba Adekunle Aromolaran; Ogiyan of Ejigbo Oba Omowonuola Oyesosin; Akirun of Ikirun Oba Abdul-Rauf Adedeji; Aragbiji of Iragbiji Oba Adularasheed Olabomi; Orangun of Oke-Ila Oba Adedokun Abolarin; Oloyan of Oyan Oba Adekeye Kelani; Timi of Ede Oba Munirudeen Lawal, Olobu of Ilobu Oba Ashiru Olaniyan and many others.

  • Why Nigerians must support Army

    Why Nigerians must support Army

    I just watched the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Tukur Buratai on Television after he visited troops in Geidam Community of Yobe State, as a result of Wednesday’s attack by Boko Haram militants who over-ran the military.

    Tn the attack, the insurgents killed 3 soldiers, carted away many weapons and ammunition abandoned by the military on the run and looted mostly food and petroleum products from the popular Wednesday market.

    I was particularly touched by the honesty of General Buratai who was obviously angry with the troops who had run away from Geidam town.

    In his words, the General said “How can you allow these criminals over-run you? How can you run away from this rag-tag and untrained criminals? You allowed them to operate here for 12hours unchallenged. You refused to come back until they withdrew.”

    On the surface, the words of COAS Buratai are very hurtful to the image of the Nigerian Army but this is the painful reality today.

    The Nigerian Army seems to be overwhelmed and demoralized.

    The image of the Nigerian Army has suffered so much damages in the eyes of Nigerians and the international community mainly because of the way they have handled the war against Boko Haram in the past 3years.

    These insurgents have repeatedly, for over 2years, embarked upon massive propaganda using social media to demonize the Nigerian Army.

    They have through so many online propaganda and campaigns portrayed our army as a weak and a cowardly army that cannot stand to fight.

    Many online media and personalities helped the insurgents to achieve their propaganda campaigns either intentionally or otherwise.

    It is important for us to know that all wars are fought both on ground, air, sea, land and in the minds of all parties involved in the war and most importantly in the psyche of the citizens. To win this war against Boko Haram, we must conquer the minds of Boko Haram with fear, win over our allies and friends by convincing them our army is capable and reliable and also boost the confidence of our troops through citizenry support since the morale of our troops are boosted when they know the citizens of their country are solidly behind them.

    The Nigerian Army and our other security agencies are our last line of defense against these barbarians since we cannot defend ourselves against their satanic attacks. If not for the efforts of the Nigerian Military and our other security agencies, these barbarians would have taken over the entire nation, enforced their barbaric and misguided religious tenets on all of us, restricted us to their false Sambisa sharia law system, forced our Sisters into sex slavery like they have done to the Chibok Girls and make us live in perpetual fear of terror.

    [quote font_size=”18″ font_style=”italic” bgcolor=”#000000″ bcolor=”#e2e2e2″]We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.”  ― Winston S. Churchill[/quote]

    If not for the Nigerian Army and other security agencies, many Muslims and Christians across our country would not be able to go to the mosque on Fridays or the church on Sundays.

    Boko Haram seeks to destroy Christianity and Islam and do not wish any of us well, Nigerians, irrespective of religious consideration, party affiliation and tribal affinity, must realize that Boko Haram are our common enemies and not just the Nigerian Army’s.

    The Army means well and are doing their very best to protect us all despite the overwhelming odds, they need our support at all times.

    This was what the opposition party in the days of President Goodluck Jonathan was admonished with but they refused to listen. They politicized everything.

    Sadly, they politicized the attempt by the former president to list Boko Haram as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO); they politicized the procurement of arms to prosecute the war; they politicized appointments of service chiefs; they politicized State of Emergency in the North East; they politicized Chibok and turned it into a campaign tool against Jonathan.

    The PDP-led Federal Government and the Nigerian Army, for inexplicable reasons, chose to see issues as an appendage of the PDP rather than the federal government.

    Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, now governor of Kaduna State and many leading APC chieftains then referred to the Nigerian army as Jonathan’s army. They politicized everything as regards the fight against the deadly sect.

    At some point in time, their presidential candidate now President Muhammadu Buhari called an attack against Boko haram an attack against Northern Nigeria.

    If the political class and all Nigerians had supported the then Federal Government and our security agencies in the fight against Boko Haram, may be we would have long won the war.

    The politicization of the war against Boko Haram caused more damage than good on the whole nation. Those who saw the war against Boko Haram as an avenue for them to keep scoring needless and cheap political points in the North, sabotaged the efforts of our security agencies.

    They got the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) to issue endless press releases kicking against the ban on Boko Haram and the plan of the then FG to list Boko Haram as an FTO which was needed to get arms from our allies to effectively prosecute the war.

    And finally, when Boko Haram was listed as an FTO, they began another campaign against the army saying former Chief of Army staff, Lieutenant General Ihejirika was also a sponsor of Boko Haram and was the one supplying arms to Boko Haram on the orders of former president Jonathan.

    Their allegations were so scary and consistent that our allies became skeptical of supplying us with arms, and the United States and Israel refused selling arms to us to fight the deadly sect.

    We had to turn to Russia for help. As if that was not enough, the former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako even did the unbelievable, accusing the FG of genocide against Northern Nigeria and suggested that federal troops were the ones dropping arms for Boko Haram with helicopters.

    Furthermore, it was Mallam El-Rufai that built a propaganda foundation which suggested that former President Jonathan was the one sponsoring Boko Haram against the North.

    He also tried to bring in the Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, Ex-Niger Delta Militants and others as possible sponsors of the terrorist group. El-rufai ensured he poisoned the minds of young people from the North and many of his followers on social media against the then president Jonathan by maintaining this lie. He further justified this lie when he spoke at Chatham House by presenting a table to justify his propaganda theory.

    The questions all Nigerians must now begin to ask those who refused to support the former administration of Goodluck Jonathan and our security agencies in their fight against Boko Haram then and who are suddenly supporting the Federal Government and the army now is, what has changed? Is Goodluck Jonathan still the one sponsoring Boko Haram with the help of his Niger Delta ex-militants? Is CAN still the one sponsoring Boko Haram? Explanations were offered to APC on why they should see the battle against the terrorists as a national issue rather than treated as a political one just for parochial and mundane reasons, that where national security is concerned, we must not play politics with it but they did not listen.

    They threw caution to the wind and were playing loudly to the gallery. Now see where that has gotten us to, in just 120 days of president Buhari taking over, the deadly group has killed more than 1,300 Nigerians and bombed Abuja twice.

    The message here is this, the enemy is Boko Haram, not the Federal Government, not president Buhari, and definitely not our ever caring Nigerian Army and the security agencies who daily spend their days in the heat and their nights in the cold while the rest of us spend times with families in the comfort of our homes.

    The military deserves our respect and support as they remain in the forefront in the fight against these barbarians.

     

    Deji Adeyanju is a Member of the PDP

    He writes from Abuja and can be contacted:

    Twitter: @adeyanjudeji

    Email: dejiadeyanju_1979@yahoo.co.uk

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