Friday 10 May 2013

Boko Haram, Northern Leaders & Conspiracy Of Silence


“…In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.
photo
When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations”.
—Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
I will never understand how this Boko Haram phenomenon got this far. Sometimes when I read about their atrocities, I pinch myself to be sure that this is still the same Nigeria where I grew up. Things have really gone out of hand in this country.
Incredible things have started to happen here. One of them is the total lack of respect for the aged. Things weren’t like this. In the days when I grew up, no one would dare harm the elderly. We all wanted to advance in age and we imagined that anyone who wanted to grow old would not disregard, let alone, do harm to an elderly person.
This was more so in the north where religious, monarchical and patriarchal authorities were almost incontestable. But all that has evaporated before our very eyes.
Just a few hours before I started writing this, Nigeria’s one time Minister of Mine and Power, Dr. Shettima Ali Monguno, was kidnapped in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. I found that as unbelievable as I found it disheartening, a telling sign of how fast we are plunging into the abyss. Ali Monguno is not just an extremely old man of 92 years, he was returning from Jumat service where he had gone to worship God. Those are two immutable reasons why no one should have contemplated snatching the old man, but I guess I live in ancient times. Things have so terribly changed that we can barely recognise ourselves again.
But maybe we needed to get here. For years now, Boko Haram insurgents have terminated the lives of thousands in a variety of violent ways. Some were slaughtered, some were bombed, some were shot, some were burnt alive. And sex or age did not matter. Men were killed; women were killed, so were children; these killers discriminated against nobody.
Although statistics will very likely show that more Christians and southerners, especially people from the South-Eastern part of the country have died in the hands of these godless human beings, there were times that they didn’t care where the people they were killing came from or what faith they professed. They killed in churches as they killed in mosques. They killed in restaurants and drinking joints, they killed in market places and on the streets, places where one would never be able to say who was who.
It was like they were possessed by the demon of destruction. At the last count, no fewer than 3,000 people, as the Human Rights Watch claims, had lost their lives in the hands of these misguided elements.
Yet, not one concerted effort at putting an end to this unfortunate menace has come from elders and leaders of the Northern stock. We are talking about a North which produced the current second, third and fourth citizens of the country. I mean the Vice-President, the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives. A Northern Nigeria which parades the likes of the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano and Shehu of Bornu, the Emir of Zauzau and so many heavy weight traditional cum religious leaders. We are talking about a region which produced former leaders such as Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulasalami Abubakar, all of who are still alive.
A region with countless elder statesmen and politicians, 19 state governors, God knows how many intellectuals in the various fields; federal cabinet ministers, chairmen of boards and government parastatals; local government chairmen and so on and so forth. All these people, even the big shots in government, do nothing but call on government to put an end to the killings.
The failure of these respected leaders to intervene in the insecurity that has taken over the North-East, parts of the North-West and North-Central of Nigeria has always bothered me. Not even attacks on the Governor of Niger State, the Shehu of Bornu, Emir of Fika and the Emir of Kano triggered the patriotic alarm in these leaders. I have concluded that there must either be some conspiracy at work or the North is not as united and homogeneous as we believed in those days.
We were told about a few mafia groups in the North and that whenever these groups got together and took a decision, the North fell in line. The last few years indicate that this either existed in the imagination of some people or the North is up to some grand conspiracy.
Oh well, I remember the recent blackmail of the President into considering amnesty for the terrorists. And in spite of how bitter that tasted in my mouth, I thought these leaders were at last standing up to the situation, only for me to hear the rejection of any amnesty by the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, as he indeed boasted that it was the Federal Government that should seek amnesty from the group. That shocked me to the bones.
Does it mean that those who canvassed for amnesty did not even talk to the intended beneficiaries before they started harassing government? Did they just assume that amnesty would work for Boko Haram insurgents? Shouldn’t these Northern elders, including governors have come together to arrest the attack on the total psyche of the North all these years?
In my opinion, it is the failure on the part of all these leaders that has brought us to where we are now. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost.
These criminals have moved from killing the common man to attempts on the lives and kidnap of high class target. Suddenly, no one has a hiding place, not the poor, not the rich, not the young, not the old; we are all at the mercy of these cheap crooks. We are all victims.
Our leaders have failed us by their silence and unless they find their voices promptly, there would be dire consequences for our future. I guess this is what the Russian writer and historian means in the quote above.
These leaders have kept quiet for too long. Thank goodness that it is not too late to save us all from the doom which continuous silence and tacit approval of this evil portend. Now is the time for everyone who commands some respect in the North to speak up and save the country from this avoidable bloodletting, unless of course, there is some subtle message that the carnage is meant to send to us. We all should remember that when fire gets out of hand, it could consume the man who lit it up!

Boko Haram, Northern Leaders & Conspiracy Of Silence


“…In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future.
photo
When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations”.
—Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn
I will never understand how this Boko Haram phenomenon got this far. Sometimes when I read about their atrocities, I pinch myself to be sure that this is still the same Nigeria where I grew up. Things have really gone out of hand in this country.
Incredible things have started to happen here. One of them is the total lack of respect for the aged. Things weren’t like this. In the days when I grew up, no one would dare harm the elderly. We all wanted to advance in age and we imagined that anyone who wanted to grow old would not disregard, let alone, do harm to an elderly person.
This was more so in the north where religious, monarchical and patriarchal authorities were almost incontestable. But all that has evaporated before our very eyes.
Just a few hours before I started writing this, Nigeria’s one time Minister of Mine and Power, Dr. Shettima Ali Monguno, was kidnapped in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital. I found that as unbelievable as I found it disheartening, a telling sign of how fast we are plunging into the abyss. Ali Monguno is not just an extremely old man of 92 years, he was returning from Jumat service where he had gone to worship God. Those are two immutable reasons why no one should have contemplated snatching the old man, but I guess I live in ancient times. Things have so terribly changed that we can barely recognise ourselves again.
But maybe we needed to get here. For years now, Boko Haram insurgents have terminated the lives of thousands in a variety of violent ways. Some were slaughtered, some were bombed, some were shot, some were burnt alive. And sex or age did not matter. Men were killed; women were killed, so were children; these killers discriminated against nobody.
Although statistics will very likely show that more Christians and southerners, especially people from the South-Eastern part of the country have died in the hands of these godless human beings, there were times that they didn’t care where the people they were killing came from or what faith they professed. They killed in churches as they killed in mosques. They killed in restaurants and drinking joints, they killed in market places and on the streets, places where one would never be able to say who was who.
It was like they were possessed by the demon of destruction. At the last count, no fewer than 3,000 people, as the Human Rights Watch claims, had lost their lives in the hands of these misguided elements.
Yet, not one concerted effort at putting an end to this unfortunate menace has come from elders and leaders of the Northern stock. We are talking about a North which produced the current second, third and fourth citizens of the country. I mean the Vice-President, the Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives. A Northern Nigeria which parades the likes of the Sultan of Sokoto, the Emir of Kano and Shehu of Bornu, the Emir of Zauzau and so many heavy weight traditional cum religious leaders. We are talking about a region which produced former leaders such as Gen. Yakubu Gowon, Alhaji Shehu Shagari, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida and Gen. Abdulasalami Abubakar, all of who are still alive.
A region with countless elder statesmen and politicians, 19 state governors, God knows how many intellectuals in the various fields; federal cabinet ministers, chairmen of boards and government parastatals; local government chairmen and so on and so forth. All these people, even the big shots in government, do nothing but call on government to put an end to the killings.
The failure of these respected leaders to intervene in the insecurity that has taken over the North-East, parts of the North-West and North-Central of Nigeria has always bothered me. Not even attacks on the Governor of Niger State, the Shehu of Bornu, Emir of Fika and the Emir of Kano triggered the patriotic alarm in these leaders. I have concluded that there must either be some conspiracy at work or the North is not as united and homogeneous as we believed in those days.
We were told about a few mafia groups in the North and that whenever these groups got together and took a decision, the North fell in line. The last few years indicate that this either existed in the imagination of some people or the North is up to some grand conspiracy.
Oh well, I remember the recent blackmail of the President into considering amnesty for the terrorists. And in spite of how bitter that tasted in my mouth, I thought these leaders were at last standing up to the situation, only for me to hear the rejection of any amnesty by the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, as he indeed boasted that it was the Federal Government that should seek amnesty from the group. That shocked me to the bones.
Does it mean that those who canvassed for amnesty did not even talk to the intended beneficiaries before they started harassing government? Did they just assume that amnesty would work for Boko Haram insurgents? Shouldn’t these Northern elders, including governors have come together to arrest the attack on the total psyche of the North all these years?
In my opinion, it is the failure on the part of all these leaders that has brought us to where we are now. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost.
These criminals have moved from killing the common man to attempts on the lives and kidnap of high class target. Suddenly, no one has a hiding place, not the poor, not the rich, not the young, not the old; we are all at the mercy of these cheap crooks. We are all victims.
Our leaders have failed us by their silence and unless they find their voices promptly, there would be dire consequences for our future. I guess this is what the Russian writer and historian means in the quote above.
These leaders have kept quiet for too long. Thank goodness that it is not too late to save us all from the doom which continuous silence and tacit approval of this evil portend. Now is the time for everyone who commands some respect in the North to speak up and save the country from this avoidable bloodletting, unless of course, there is some subtle message that the carnage is meant to send to us. We all should remember that when fire gets out of hand, it could consume the man who lit it up!

Welcome to PrimeTime Latest NaijaPlus Gist: If I’m Arrested, Nigeria Will Be History – Dokubo-...

Welcome to PrimeTime Latest NaijaPlus Gist: If I’m Arrested, Nigeria Will Be History – Dokubo-...: If I’m Arrested, Nigeria Will Be History – Dokubo-Asari 10 May, 2013 Local Leader of the Niger Delta Pe...

If I’m Arrested, Nigeria Will Be History – Dokubo-Asari


Leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force,  Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has dared the  House of Representatives and leaders of northern Nigeria to arrest him if they can.
Dokubo-Asari, who spoke with journalists on Wednesday evening in Abuja, said he stood by his words that there would  be no peace if Jonathan is not reelected in 2015.
He was responding to calls by members of the House, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and northern leaders, saying the leaders were cowards if he was not arrested.
The former President of Ijaw Youth Council  also added that any attempt to arrest him would make Nigeria “a history”, asking why those calling for his arrest turned deaf ears when some northern leaders like former Military Head of State Maj.-Gen Mohamadu Buhari, Alhaji Lawal Kaita and a former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Aliyu, among others.
He said, “I stand by my statement which I made in my early press conference. There will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere, if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015.
“I want to refresh your memories with comments made by these northerners, who had in the time past threatened war and break-up of Nigeria.
“In 2010, one Lawal Kaita said and I quote: ‘Anything short of a Northern President is tantamount to stealing our Presidency. Jonathan has to go and he will go. Even if he uses the incumbency power to get his nomination on the platform of the PDP, he would be frustrated out…The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Goodluck Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy’.
“Today insurgent groups, in furtherance to Kaita’s call a’re wreaking havoc, attacking military barracks and seizing weapon, but we will not sit and watch. Kaita made this statement, nobody arrested or call for the arrest of this fellow,  today he is walking free.
“Buhari made this statement in 2011, he was never arrested and nobody ever called for his arrest. In other countries, former leaders are being tried, but here, a man who overthrew a legitimate government, continues to threaten us with blood and nothing has happened.”
He added, “I am not afraid of arrest. I am saying it bold and clear without mincing  words, that the consequences of my arrest, Nigeria will be history.
“The last time Obasanjo arrested me, my arrest reduced Nigeria oil production to 700,000 barrels per day.  This time, it will reduce it to zero barrel, and we will match violence with violence, intrigues with intrigues. We are ready for them. Goodluck Jonathan will complete his tenure of two terms, whether they like it or not.
“I am daring them to arrest me if they can. If they don’t, they are cowards and shame on them.”

If I’m Arrested, Nigeria Will Be History – Dokubo-Asari

10 May, 2013
Local
Leader of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force,  Alhaji Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, has dared the  House of Representatives and leaders of northern Nigeria to arrest him if they can.
Dokubo-Asari, who spoke with journalists on Wednesday evening in Abuja, said he stood by his words that there would  be no peace if Jonathan is not reelected in 2015.
He was responding to calls by members of the House, Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State and northern leaders, saying the leaders were cowards if he was not arrested.
The former President of Ijaw Youth Council  also added that any attempt to arrest him would make Nigeria “a history”, asking why those calling for his arrest turned deaf ears when some northern leaders like former Military Head of State Maj.-Gen Mohamadu Buhari, Alhaji Lawal Kaita and a former member of the House of Representatives, Farouk Aliyu, among others.
He said, “I stand by my statement which I made in my early press conference. There will be no peace, not only in the Niger Delta, but everywhere, if Goodluck Jonathan is not president by 2015.
“I want to refresh your memories with comments made by these northerners, who had in the time past threatened war and break-up of Nigeria.
“In 2010, one Lawal Kaita said and I quote: ‘Anything short of a Northern President is tantamount to stealing our Presidency. Jonathan has to go and he will go. Even if he uses the incumbency power to get his nomination on the platform of the PDP, he would be frustrated out…The North is determined, if that happens, to make the country ungovernable for President Goodluck Jonathan or any other Southerner who finds his way to the seat of power on the platform of the PDP against the principle of the party’s zoning policy’.
“Today insurgent groups, in furtherance to Kaita’s call a’re wreaking havoc, attacking military barracks and seizing weapon, but we will not sit and watch. Kaita made this statement, nobody arrested or call for the arrest of this fellow,  today he is walking free.
“Buhari made this statement in 2011, he was never arrested and nobody ever called for his arrest. In other countries, former leaders are being tried, but here, a man who overthrew a legitimate government, continues to threaten us with blood and nothing has happened.”
He added, “I am not afraid of arrest. I am saying it bold and clear without mincing  words, that the consequences of my arrest, Nigeria will be history.
“The last time Obasanjo arrested me, my arrest reduced Nigeria oil production to 700,000 barrels per day.  This time, it will reduce it to zero barrel, and we will match violence with violence, intrigues with intrigues. We are ready for them. Goodluck Jonathan will complete his tenure of two terms, whether they like it or not.
“I am daring them to arrest me if they can. If they don’t, they are cowards and shame on them.”

What are you wearing today?

Ladies: What Is Your Body Shape? [Apple, Rectangle, Pear, ...]



It's essential to know what type of figure you have. It will help you to choose the right exercise and diet. Pear shapes and hour glass figures are likely to require longer cardio work outs to maintain their figures.



Pear body shape
Pear-shaped celebrities: Kim Kardashian, Eva Mendes, Jennifer Love-Hewitt, Katherine Heigl
          > Pear body traits: Your lower body is wider than your upper body — in other words, your hips are wider than your shoulders. Your bottom is                       
                  rounded and your waist is well-defined.
          > Your best assets: Shoulders, torso and flat stomach
          > Your fashion goals: Emphasize your waist and arms, add volume to your shoulders and upper body and minimize your hips.
Rectangle body shape
Rectangle-shaped celebs: Natalie Portman, Cameron Diaz, Kate Hudson, Hilary Swank
            > Rectangle body traits: The waist, hip and shoulder widths are similar and are usually on the slim side. Slender rectangles have an athletic look about them.
            > Your best assets: Your arms and legs — and you don't have to minimize any body features.
            > Your fashion goals: Create curves and show off slender legs and arms.
Apple body shape
Apple-shaped celebs: Drew Barrymore, Queen Latifah, Eva Longoria, Jennifer Hudson
         > Apple body traits: Most of your weight accumulates above the hips, which are narrow. Your back, ribs and shoulders are broad, and you may feel wider than other body types.
         > Your best asset: Those legs!
         > Your fashion goals: Elongate the torso, show off your legs and use fashion to create the illusion of a waist.
Hourglass body shape
Hourglass-shaped celebs: Beyonce, Salma Hayek, Scarlett Johansson, Halle Berry, Vanessa Minnillo
           > Hourglass body traits: Your shoulders and hips are similar in proportion and set off by a tiny waist.
           > Your best assets: Curves, curves, curves!
           > Your fashion goals: Show off your curves... without going overboard.

Fatal accident occured

A fatal accident just occurred  along Gwarimpa-Kubwa Expressway, Abuja. The driver of the SUV died instantly.

The driver was trapped in his seat and died on the spot.




Meet Miss Nigeria 2013 [PICTURES]
Story by Grace Ajose
Click for Full Image Size
These 60 pretty young girls were pre-selected from 5 states around the country based on their character, poise, personality and composure by the Miss Nigeria beauty pageant judges.

And now, it's time to cut that number to 36 as the public has been asked to vote for your favourite contestant based on beauty. The 36 with the highest number of votes/likes will move to the next stage.

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