THE President of Christ Apostolic Church (CAC), Worldwide, Pastor Abraham Olukunle Akinosun has commended President Muhammadu Buhari over the release of 21 Chibok girls.
He described the release as a step in the right direction as it has brighted that hope that the remaining girls would soon be released.
Fielding questions from reporters, Pastor Akinosun said the entire nation was happy at the news of the girls’ release and he urged the President to expedite action on the release of the remaining girls.
His words: “We are very happy at the release of the girls. Some were saying Boko Haram prisoners were exchanged for the girls, some said they were freely released, whatever the method used, the end seems to justify the means.
All we are after is for the rest of the girls to be released to join their families. That is what will give us lasting happiness.”
The cleric commended the Federal Government and the Nigerian Armed Forces for keeping the insurgents at bay. But he added that government should not think the battle had been completely won until the last bastion of Boko Haram insurgents had been routed.
He also called on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency on the incidence of kidnapping, which he said has assumed a terrifying dimension.
The cleric said: “Many people may be blaming the current economic downturn in the country for the upsurge in kidnapping. But as Lord Denning pointed out many years ago, no one is justified to commit evil on the ground of expediency.
“The Bible also affirms that the wicked have gone astray from their mothers’ womb… (Psalm 58: 3). While the evil-minded people will perpetrate their evil, no matter the state of the economy, the government should devise means of combating this evil in a holistic way because kidnapping is an ill-wind which blows no one any good. No one can guess who is going to be the next victim”.
He suggested a collaborative effort between telecom industries and security agencies as one of the wyas to tackle crime.
The cleric also urged government to install security cameras in crime prone areas.
Tag: Chibok schoolgirls
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Chibok schoolgirls’ release: CAC lauds Buhari
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Nigerians laud Fed Govt over release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls
NIGERIANS have commended the Federal Government over the release of 21 Chibok schoolgirls by the Boko Haram insurgents.
The citizens told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday that the release of the girls had raised hope that the rest of the school girls still in captivity would also be released.
Dr Khalifa Dikwa, a security analyst, said the use of international organisations such as the International Red Cross and Swiss Government to negotiate the release of the girls had “knocked out any political tone’’ in the arrangement.
Dikwa, a former lecturer with the University of Maiduguri, also commended the Nigerian troops for their professionalism in degrading and decimating the insurgents to the extent that they could no longer move freely.
“The terrorists cannot move as it was the case in the past when they were moving from one point to another, to destroy and kill, and retreat.
“That is to say that the Nigerian Armed Forces are now complete professionals, no politics,’’ he said.
The residents of Bauchi have also lauded the Federal Government over the release of the 21 school girls.
They told NAN that the cheering news had raised their hopes on the possibility of freeing the remaining girls still in captivity.
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Buhari on 3-day official visit to Germany
President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday departed the Nnmadi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, for Berlin, Germany, on an official visit from Oct. 13 to 15.
The president, before his departure, was briefed on the release of the 21 abducted Chibok schoolgirls by the Director-General, Department of Security Services (DSS), Alhaji Lawal Daura.
The president, while expressing delight on the development, assured that negotiation would continue until the remaining girls and other Nigerians abducted by the insurgents were released.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that while in Berlin, Buhari would confer with Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on issues of interests between the two nations.
A statement earlier issued by Buhari’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, said the president would discuss issues of further security cooperation with Merkel.
The president, Adesina said, would also discuss issues on humanitarian situation of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Nigeria with Merkel.
He said Buhari would discuss issues on the rehabilitation of the North-East as well as on trade and economic relations between both countries.
NAN reports the president, who is being accompanied by Governors Kashim Shettima of Borno, Rochas Okorocha of Imo and representatives of the National Assembly, will meet with President Joachim Gauck.
He is expected back to the country on Saturday.
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Secret service on BringBackOurGirls ‘franchise’
Going by the reaction of the Department of State Services (DSS) to the BringBackOurGirls protests in Abuja, it is clear that the federal government continues to loath the gathering, perhaps because officials see it as an embarrassment to the government and a reminder of its impotence in the face of the abduction of 219 Chibok schoolgirls that has lasted for about three months. Addressing a press conference in Abuja last week, the DSS spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar, told a disbelieving country that the protests had become a franchise organised in a way that its aims and objectives could no longer be described as altruistic.
According to Ms Ogar, “BringBackOurGirls movement has become a franchise and security forces know what they are up to. If it is an ordinary movement seeking to pile pressure on government or security agencies to free these girls, there will be no need for the group to begin to have tags and insist that you must be registered. Security forces also know that they have bank accounts. We also know that they want to simulate a protest march inside Asokoro Extension in Abuja and claim that they were doing so inside Sambisa Forest, to be reported in some foreign media. We also know that they brought in some experts from outside the country to teach them how to beat security when they are demonstrating; to withstand police teargas and security operations. We are waiting to see when these things would work…”
If the secret service knows all these things about the protests and their organisers, it is surprising that it has not made any arrest. The accusations against the protest organisers are so weighty that the DSS seems to be saying they had become subversives. It will be recalled that in May, the Federal Capital City (FCT) police commissioner, the controversial Mbu Jospeh Mbu, had attempted to ban the protests by also suggesting its organisers had become anarchists and subversives. Higher police authorities had to wade in to countermand the ban and save the country a huge embarrassment at a time the whole world was still demonstrating in solidarity with Nigeria over the abductions.
Mr Mbu’s embarrassing order itself came after presidency officials and the first lady tried unsuccessfully to persuade the country to doubt the abduction story, suggesting carelessly that the story was cooked up to dishonour the presidency and undermine it. In spite of reports from security agencies in Borno State where the abductions took place confirming the crime against the schoolgirls, the federal government had to set up another panel to confirm the abduction and the circumstances that surrounded it. Useful time was lost in rescuing the girls.
Apart from the troubling fact that the Jonathan presidency is run along amateurish lines, as the world attests without equivocation, the DSS now gives the unsettling impression it has little respect for the constitution and seems unmindful of the fact that its actions and words indicate the secret service is more pro-Jonathan and pro-PDP than it is pro-Nigeria and pro-constitution. After many years of gaining respect for its professionalism and impartiality, the Nigerian Army is also unfortunately suffering from the same malaise of seeing itself as an instrument in the hands of Dr Jonathan and the PDP.
The present attitude of the DSS and the army suggests something even more sinister – that increasingly the leadership of both security organisations lack the character necessary to stand up to the president and resist all subterranean efforts to undermine the constitution and the law. Indeed, the army keeps reaffirming its support for and defence of democracy. But its actions demonstrate otherwise. It lends itself to brazenly partisan tasks in its eagerness to stifle the opposition, muzzle the press and carry itself generally above the law. The credibility of the DSS and the army will continue to be eroded if their commanders fail to embark on the deep soul-searching they need to unite their men behind the law and the constitution and retain the respect and admiration of the country. If they fail, the fault will lie squarely on their drooping shoulders.
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‘Insurgency is product of bad governance ’
The whereabouts of the over 200 abducted Chibok schoolgirls remains unknown, 51 days after their abduction. In this chat with Senior Correspondent Evelyn Osagie at a literary event in Ikenne, Ogun State, the Editorial Board Chairman, The Nation, Mr Sam Omatseye, spoke on this issue and others.
Do you see what is happening now, especially the insurgency, as a repeat of history going by what happened before the Civil War?
The insurgency is a more complicated issue. The insurgency is a product of bad governance, especially in the North, over a long period of time. It is a product of Nigerians moving into a psychology of self-help. In Nigeria, we have been helping ourselves with so many things: we have been helping ourselves with water, electricity, education, transportation, accommodation and employment. We have been in a situation where individuals have been involved in a lot of self-help. Violence is also another manifestation of self-help. They are using violence to get whatever they wanted. And they seem to be dangerously committed to it and getting away with it.
This is what has led to the kidnap of the 276 girls at Chibok. Even at that the government’s immediate reaction did not show leadership. The president has not inspired anyone: he is acting as though there is no emergency. He went to dance Azonto when mothers cannot find their wards that were taken by randy bigots. We don’t have a country and we are just pretending.
It appears that the future is bleak and Nigerian youths are worried. Where do we go from here?
Nigerian youths today are very irresponsible. When we were students in the university, if this kind of abduction happens, the whole country will shut down. University students now do not act as though the kidnapped students belong to their generation. What are they doing with their time? They are involved in “yahooyahoo” and all kinds of resort to self-help and so on.
In those days, for matters that were not even as grievous as this, we’d shut down the country. We made sacrifices because we knew that the country belongs to us.
Over 200 youths are missing. The only people protesting are elders. Where are the young people? We have seen the mothers protesting across the country; what are the young people doing about the abuse of their own generation?
Youths are suffering from self-abuse. I am not saying that the youths are the only ones responsible for this problem. My generation created the problem for the present generation. After protesting and showing the sense of responsibility when we were young, we got into position of powers and we have forgotten the values that we fought for. But the younger ones need to regenerate themselves; that was what we did when we were young. We separated ourselves from our leaders and parents and said: “we wanted a society that was better”.
Don’t you think their reaction is a result of their disillusion towards a country that seems not to care about their plight?
Then, the youth need to fight for themselves for what is right for the country and for s better tomorrow.
What do you think of the North’s positions on revenue allocation to be reduced to five per cent and on separation of power?
Reducing the oil revenue of oil producing states to five per cent does not bear relevance to the fact that the people who own the oil are supposed to have their oil. In a true federal state, those who produce should enjoy it. When you are producing 100 per cent and you are only getting 13 per cent, it is an insult to the people who are producing the oil. And still some are saying that the 13 per cent is too much. I think that such statement was very provocative and irresponsible. It does not really pursue any agenda of national unity or national sensitivity.
That the North funded the civil war was even a false claim. They created the Civil War. On what resources did they fund the war? At the time of the war, Cocoa was booming in the South-west; we had rubber and farm produce in the East and in today’s Niger-Delta, where there was already oil. We had groundnut in the North then, which was just a subset of our large natural resources. But to say that the North funded the civil war is untrue.
They did not even know how to fight the civil war. The North is a vast territory with a lot of natural resources. But their leaders are building a feudal state of hunger and exploitation of resources.
Some say the conference is dead on arrival, others say its a repeat of what others, like the ‘Oputa Panel’, sought to achieve. What is your take?
The conference is just an opportunity for some to fret out emotions. There is nothing going on there that is unique. We don’t have a national conference. We don’t have a real template for what we are to do. Watch out for what is going to happen with all the discussions that happen there! As always, it is going to amount to nothing. It is just a place for people to vent emotions, arguing over resource control, devolution of powers. Do the people who are there even represent Nigerians? They were handpicked by the elite to discuss elite’s problems. Does the ordinary man have a say on who is there?
Even the journalists did not know who were there to represent them. I am a top editor in Nigeria, but I had to know much later who would be representing the Nigerian Guild of Editors. That place is not representative of anybody. It is just a group of people coming together to collect N4 million a month and then waste our time.
Sir, what advice would you give to best curb insurgencies?
We need to hold France to account.
Why France?
During the time of Charles de Gaulle, all French-speaking countries in Africa, except Guinea, went into an accord to get protection, economic co-operation and all sorts of agreements to subject themselves, even though they had Independence, under the French government. France has an overwhelming influence over the French-speaking countries in Africa. If we want Cameroun to work with us and they are unwilling, we need to hold France responsible internationally, in fact blackmail them, if the need be, internationally and make them do to Boko Haram, in those place like Cameroun and Chad, what they did in Mali to wipe out the insurgence there. They can do it if they want to; but we need a leadership that understands geopolitics to do that.
Having said that, if they say Boko Haram is outside Nigeria, and that they operate outside and run inside, when they are inside, what have we done to hold them in? It is one thing to say that a rat spoils what you have in your kitchen. Why not block where the rat is coming from? Even at that, you have to know how to deal with the rat when it comes to your house because that rat is already under your control. The same logic should be applied when dealing with Boko Haram.
Imagine the scenario where men went to school and abducted over 200 students; it is not like having just a few students taken away in a private car. It was like a convoy. How did that happen in a state of emergency? It’s like vehicle after vehicle, moving through town. How did that happen in a state of emergency? Have we answered that question? Did we have to wait till the world started shouting before we could understand the brunt on our national ego or before spurring into action. We are just not serious.
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Outrage in US over Nigeria’s abductions
The United States said it considers the abduction of more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls by the Boko Haram sect “an outrage” and is offering help to try to rescue them.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was being briefed as his national security team was monitoring developments.
Earlier, a video emerged of the leader of the Boko Haram group saying the militants intended to sell the girls.
They were taken from a school in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, the BBC reports.
Their whereabouts remain unknown and there is mounting anger and frustration in Nigeria at the failure of the government to find them.
“We view what has happened there as an outrage and a terrible tragedy,” said Mr. Carney in a White House briefing.
“The president has been briefed several times and his national security team continues to monitor the situation there closely. The state department has been in regular touch with the Nigerian government about what we might do to help support its efforts to find and free these young women.”
He added that the US was offering counter-terrorism help to Nigerian investigators that involved “information-sharing” and improving Nigeria’s “forensics and investigative capacity.”
Six US senators have introduced a resolution supporting the Nigerian people and calling for the immediate return of the girls.
Senator Dick Durbin, one of the resolution’s sponsors, called the kidnapping “an affront to the civilised world.”
“We and our African allies should do everything to help the Nigerian government rescue innocent girls and return them to their families,” he said in a tweet.