Secession, Insecurity End Products of Injustice – Shehu Sani

Secession, Insecurity End Products of Injustice – Shehu Sani

A Senator of the 8th Assembly, Senator Shehu Sani said the agitation for break up of the country by various interest groups and insecurity was fuelled by systemic injustice and impunity by President Muhammadu Buhari-led government.

Shehu Sani

The Senator said as long as poverty, corruption and bad governance continued to grow and failure of government become apparent the bandits and terrorists would not drop their arms.

He stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a symptom titled ” Minimum wage, Unresolved National Question and Insecurity In Nigeria organized by Movement for a Socialist Alternative ( MSA ), Take It Back Movement ( TIB ), Committee for Defence of Human Rights ( CDHR ), Socialist Party of Nigeria ( SPN ) and Democratic Socialist Movement ( DSM ) and others.

Sani said those calling for break up of the country were once patriots and nationalists who believe in Nigeria but could not bear the gross injustice in the system therefore resorted to agitation for
self-determination.

The senator noted that Nigerian leaders have never seen themselves as servants who suppose to serve the people but as conquerors who have conquered a country and dominate it.

According to Sani, “The revolts and storms you see in this country today are reaping from what has been sowed by Nigerian political class. And as poverty continues to grow and failure of government becomes apparent you will not see bandits or terrorists dropping their arms, you will rather see people moving the other side of the divide.

Sani said ” Insecurity is not only a threat to the existence of the people but today one of the most important factors that are precipitating the agitation for the break up of Nigeria.

” I am a believer in the unity of Nigeria and unity of African as a state ( United States of Africa ). But there is a need for us to ask ourselves most of the persons who today have become the face of separatism and break up of Nigeria were once nationalists and patriots who believe in this country.

From IPOB to Oduduwa group, from Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho, they were believers in Nigeria. What went wrong? That is the question we should ask ourselves “

” Today the military is more interested in constructing event centers, shopping malls, universities and commissioning housing scheme. You can hardly see a policeman with a weapon without a sellotape, sometime you will even ask if sellotape was part of the Nigerian weapon system. This is how low things have become.

He berated the Minister of Finance and the federal government for not be able to justify how the sum of N1.08trillion released to the Nigerian military within 28 months was utilized.

The Senator said it was laughable for a country to invest such an amount of money on security agents and still find it difficult to locate and rescue 30 abducted students in 55 days.

“Today in my own part of the country the northwestern part of the country,
bandits have become more than authority and a state to themselves. Almost 60 to 70 percent in Niger state senatorial constituency have been wiped out by bandits.

They kill, they terrorise and displace poeple from their ancestral lands or they give you condition of living under the authority and command. This is how the state has regressed and thishow the government has abandon its people” Sani added.

Stop Manipulating Nigerians With Religion and Ethnicity – Sowore

Stop Manipulating Nigerians With Religion and Ethnicity – Sowore

Human rights activist, former Presidential Candidate, and National Chairman of the African Action Congress ( AAC ), Omoyele Sowore has told Nigerian politicians to stop manipulating and dividing Nigerians with religious and ethnic sentiments.

He said those in positions of authority are the ones behind sowing the seeds of hatred and bigotry using tribal and religious sentiments as bait to achieve their aims.

The activist stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a symptom titled ” Minimum wage, Unresolved National Question, and Insecurity In Nigeria.

The activist noted that the myriads of problems befalling the country were a result of the Internal colonization of Nigeria by few greedy leaders who resorted to divisive gimmick of religion and ethnicity as tools to manipulate the mind of Nigerians.

He added that politicians with despicable characters from every region of the country were responsible for the nation’s misfortune.

They know that religion and ethnicity were to fool you and they have successfully fooled you with it. When they want to share Nigeria’s money they speak the language of greed. There’s no religion or ethnicity.

Sowore said;  “I am not saying we should be proud of our colonial history but the reason Nigeria is the way it is today is not because of the way they put us together. It is because of the characters they put in Nigeria from the West, East, North, and South.

“The damage that was done to Nigeria today was not about national cohesion. The national cohesion is what people are posing as their own way of looking to get out of the cold the sack.

“If you scoop Nigerian leaders today and take them to the United States of America, in six months there will be no electricity. They are special criminally minded people. In six months they would have sold US atomic bombs to another country and pocketed the money “.

He enunciated further on how the Buhari-led government made Nigeria degenerate to a failed state, therefore, making the country to be governed like a zoo.

“Nigeria is not a nation. I don’t even want to call it a contraption. Some people one time called Nigeria a zoo and people are getting upset. I said a zoo is better than Nigeria because if you go to a zoo they have zookeepers.  The animals in the zoo except for Nigerian zoos have doctors, psychologists. The zookeepers care for animals about what they eat, when they rest. Does the Nigerian government give you any of those things? ”

“It is a crime to say Nigerian workers are earning minimum wage. What they are earning is what we call slave wage. The other side of slave wage is ‘wage slave’. When your entire existence depends on whatever you get as a wage, that is a crime against humanity.

“The second issue that people don’t like to talk about is the role of our Labour leaders in the whole conspiracy against Nigerian workers. I am not afraid to say that the Labour Union is criminally involved in the slavery visited upon Nigerian workers. They have conspired to be earning themselves a maximum wage.

According to Sowore, the refusal by many state governors was borne out of a conspiracy theory between them  (governors) and some Labour leaders who decided to help themselves and formed an unholy alliance at the expense of public trust.

“Next time if we want to fight for a minimum wage it must start from Labour headquarters because I know that those leaders are complicit in ensuring that workers don’t get what is due to them”

He said the sum of N100,000 he (Sowore) proposed for workers as the minimum wage was too small considering the damage the current political leaders have done to the economy.

Sowore added that no worker in Nigeria would spend less than one thousand nairas for feeding per day considering the damage the current political leaders have done to the economy.

He, therefore, called on Nigerians to embark on more protests in the country and fight systematic and institutional injustice.

Other panelists include; Senator Shehu Sani representing Kaduna Central in the 8th Assembly,  former General Secretary Nigerian Labour Congress, Owei Lakemfa. Trade Unionist Hauwa Mustapha and others.

Buhari’s Decades of Misrule, Lopsided Appointments Fuelling Insecurity, Secession – Falana

Buhari’s Decades of Misrule, Lopsided Appointments Fuelling Insecurity, Secession – Falana

A human rights activist, Femi Falana has attributed the security challenges confronting the country and agitations for break-up by several groups to the several decades of the legacy of misrule, lopsided appointments,  bad governance, corruption, and diversion of the commonwealth and anti-people’s policies.

He said killings and kidnapping were on the rise across the country due to the failure of the regime to control the violent attacks on farmers and the destruction of farms by the marauding herdsmen.

Falana stated this on Thursday in Abuja at a Commemorative Anniversary public lecture of 80th Birthday Anniversary of Prof. Omotoye Olorode title ” Labour and the quest for Nigeria’s National Development: Reflection and Prognosis on the Way Forward.

The human rights lawyer noted that it was obvious that the State was not capable of ending kidnapping or rescuing abducted citizens and foreigners thereby forcing family members and friends to pay ransom to the abductors to secure the release of their abducted love ones.

He said the Buhari-led government has run out of ideas and incapable of finding lasting solutions to the worsening security challenge facing the country.

Falana said ” The failure of the regime to control the violent attacks on farmers and destruction of farms by a group bearing AK 47 rifles operating as herders and lopsided appointments by the Buhari administration have fueled the separatist agenda of several groups.

“Despite the programme of its own party for restructuring or power devolution from the center to the other federating units, President Buhari has sworn to defend the status quo. A regime that had negotiated and granted amnesty to terrorists and bandits has rejected the call for dialogue with all separatist bodies in the recent past.

“It is our submission that several decades of a legacy of misrule and bad governance, corruption, and diversion of the commonwealth and anti-people’s policies have led to the ascendancy of insecurity in the country. No part of the country is safe as marauders have been abducting people including undergraduates, secondary school students, and even primary school pupils.

Falana said the country may either break up or engage in a full-scale civil war if the worsening insecurity in all states of the federation and the federal capital territory was not checked.

” Having been overwhelmed by the security challenge the ruling class will not hesitate to sabotage the democratic process or plunge the country into another civil war. No doubt, the central labour unions, and individual trade unions have routinely condemned the booming business of kidnapping.

“Since 2009, the armed forces have been waging the counter-insurgency operations in the northeast region. Realizing that the armed forces are ill-equipped and ill-motivated the immediate past Chief of Army Staff, General Yusuf Buratai has predicted that the war on terror will last for another period of 20 years.

“Since the Nigeria Police Force has been demobilized from maintaining law and order by successive regimes the overstretched armed forces have been deployed and mandated to free many communities that have been overrun by nihilist forces in the various states” Falana stated.

Femi Kuti Threatens To Sue Tinubu, APC Over Use Of Fela’s Trademark For 2023 Presidential Campaign

Femi Kuti Threatens To Sue Tinubu, APC Over Use Of Fela’s Trademark For 2023 Presidential Campaign

The family of the popular Human Rights Activist and Afrobeat pioneer, Late Fela Anikulapo Kuti, has threatened to sue Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress for using the musician’s trademark on 2023 Presidential campaign T-shirts for the APC National Leader.

Fela KutiFe

Femi Kuti, the eldest son of the legendary musician, took to his Twitter page to call out the Nigerian politician’s campaigners and his political party the APC to desist from using the radical artiste’s name to promote Mr. Tinubu and his party; All Progressives Congress (APC).

“I have seen the tweet by @APCNigeria and confirm that use of Fela’s name on the T-shirts bearing the name “JAGABAN”  was never authorized. The family owns the trademark and the use constitutes an infringement and disregard of our legal rights.  The user is advised to cease and desist and to immediately delete this tweet,” Mr. Kuti said.

He stated further that the legend’s name should never be used to promote any political agenda of any sort, as the family does not align with any Nigerian political party.

“We are carefully assessing the situation and failure to comply with this demand will leave us with no other option but to explore any legal options” he added.

Fela’s family threatens to take legal actions against Tinubu and the APC if the parties fail to comply.

Nigerians Pass Vote Of No Confidence On General Buhari Over Insecurity and Impunity

Nigerians Pass Vote Of No Confidence On General Buhari Over Insecurity and Impunity

Thousands of Nigerians have started passing a Vote of No Confidence on President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in a spontaneous social media campaign that started on Wednesday.

General Muhammadu Buhari

 

SaharaReporters observed that about 12,000 Nigerians had already tweeted, “Vote of No Confidence” on Twitter in a global demand aimed at ending Buhari’s inefficient and clueless administration under which kidnappings for ransom, killings, and terrorism have grown unchecked.

The campaign was started by human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, who called on Nigerians who were tired of the precarious situation in the country to join in raising their voices to demand change.

 

Sowore tweeted, “If there is anyone still out there who hasn’t placed a ‘Vote of No Confidence’ on the @MBuhari regime, that person or group of person needs help! #BuhariMustGo #RevolutionNow

 

“Let’s all start by repudiation, let’s pass a Vote of No Confidence on the @MBuhari regime here on @twitter just write ‘No Confidence’ as your response and let’s see if we can get 100 responses! #BuhariMustGo

 

“Fellow Nigerians: We are passing a ‘Vote of No Confidence’ on President Muhammadu Buhari over his abysmal performance in office. We only need you to retweet this by writing. I hereby pass a Vote of No Confidence on President Muhammadu Buhari’s leadership. #Buharimustgo.

“What if a million Nigerians on Twitter paa a ‘Vote of No Confidence’ on President @MBuhari? It will change the game! Let’s keep going, let the world know we are tired of the tyrant, a bigot, a nepotistic ruler, an incompetent ex-general. Let’s go to work! #BuhariMustGo.”

 

The trending social media campaign is coming a day after parents of some abducted students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State, protested at the National Assembly, Abuja.

 

Sowore who also joined the protest had accused the government of being insensitive to the plight of the parents who have been traumatised as a result of the incident.

 

The activist had lambasted the Nigerian government for failing in its constitutional responsibility of protecting life and property and has no moral justification to manage the affairs of the country.

 

Sowore had said, “The only thing the Department of State Services can tell you is that if you are speaking out at this time, they will come after you but they can’t come after kidnappers. They can’t come after bandits and they can’t come after terrorists including those in government, they can’t go after them but they are very happy to go after you if you speak your mind.

 

“I feel sad for Nigeria, I feel sad for all these students in captivity; students who wanted a bright future. They could as well have taken to kidnapping themselves so that they can make quick money but they opted to go to school and look at what our government has done to them.

 

“As a person who has been kidnapped before by the Nigerian government, I know what it means to be in captivity. I know what it means to have zero expectation of when you will leave and when you will join your family.

 

“Nobody is doing anything about your plight. They are not interested. The Federal Government does not care about you. The Kaduna State Governor does not care about you, I heard him say he will never negotiate with terrorists. The same El-Rufai who was blaming former President Goodluck Jonathan for not negotiating with the Boko Haram when Chibok girls were kidnapped has suddenly realised that he can’t negotiate with terrorists.

 

“I am not here to appeal to the government. The Nigerian government has failed the Nigerian people. It is up to the Nigerian people to decide how long they want to continue to tolerate this failure. Don’t be afraid of security agents because they have failed too. Soldiers are being kidnapped. A DSS operative was kidnapped, they paid the ransom and they killed him and nothing happened.

 

“The reason they will not negotiate with terrorists is because the government itself is a terrorist government. Otherwise, they don’t know how to negotiate with terrorists.”

Buhari, El-Rufai Insensitive To Plight Of Abducted Kaduna Students’ Parents — Sowore

Buhari, El-Rufai Insensitive To Plight Of Abducted Kaduna Students’ Parents — Sowore

Human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, has said President Muhammadu Buhari and Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, are not interested in the release of 39 abducted students of the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation, Afaka, Kaduna State.

He also accused them of being insensitive to the plight of the parents who have been traumatized as a result of the incident.

Abuja Protest

“As a person who has been kidnapped before by the Nigerian government, I know what it means to be in captivity. I know what it means to have zero expectations of when you will leave and when you will join your family.

“Nobody is doing anything about your plight. They are not interested. The Federal Government does not care about you. The Kaduna State Governor does not care about you, I heard him say he will never negotiate with terrorists. The same El-Rufai who was blaming former President Goodluck Jonathan for not negotiating with the Boko Haram when Chibok girls were kidnapped has suddenly realised that he can’t negotiate with terrorists.

“I am not here to appeal to the government. The Nigerian government has failed the Nigerian people. It is up to the Nigerian people to decide how long they want to continue to tolerate this failure. Don’t be afraid of security agents because they have failed too. Soldiers are being kidnapped. A DSS operative was kidnapped, they paid the ransom and they killed him and nothing happened.

“The reason they will not negotiate with terrorists is that the government itself is a terrorist government. Otherwise, they don’t know how to negotiate with terrorists.”

He pointed out that Nigeria was the only country in the world where people were being beaten and not allowed to cry.

He accused the government of bias and not being proactive enough in their approach towards making efforts to rescuing the students unlike similar cases in the past.

Sowore queried the discrimination against abducted students in Afaka, noting that if the Buhari government can pay the sum of N800 million as ransom for the release of kidnapped schoolgirls in Niger and Katsina states within a week, same should be done for Afaka.

“There is discrimination against Afaka forestry students; there is something there and it has to do with hardened hearts and wickedness of Kaduna state government and Federal Government. This government said they don’t know how to negotiate with terrorists. There was a time Boko Haram appointed Buhari to be their negotiator. If he can be trusted enough by Boko Haram, he should trust himself enough to lead negotiation to release the Afaka and Greenfield students.

“They love it when people are suffering; they love it when there is pain. Blood and tears are flowing in the land. That is why I am not here to appeal to any government, the truth is that you don’t have a government, and the earlier you accept there is no government, the better for you.

“We must not live in the nightmare that these students have died in the captivity. May it never happen to any of us.”

The rights activist appealed to the abductors to have a rethink and release the students, adding that they were holding innocent and poor people who were not part of their problems.

Buhari Giving AK47 To Soldiers In Abuja, Gives Old Weapons To Soldiers Facing Terrorists – Ndume

Buhari Giving AK47 To Soldiers In Abuja, Gives Old Weapons To Soldiers Facing Terrorists – Ndume

Senator Ndume who’s a member of the President’s political party, the APC has accused General Muhammadu Buhari’s regime of rationing ammunition for frontline soldiers.

Nigerian Army

The APC Senator accused the Nigerian government of arms rationing, citing that frontline soldiers are only provided with old weapons to fight bandits, Boko Haram, and ISWAP terrorists.

“I interact with the soldiers, I have gone through the formation, I cannot see a soldier holding brand new AK47. It is so bad that the Nigerian Army is rationing ammunition among soldiers. I can be quoted.

“In a budget of N13 trillion, you are allocating the N30 billion,” said Ali Ndume, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Army, to the finance minister Zainab Ahmed on the issue of financing the Nigerian military.

On Tuesday, Peoples Gazette reported the spending spree of Mr. Buhari’s regime as exposed by BudgIT, put at over N10 trillion since 2015 to date.

During an interactive session of his committee, Mr. Ndume stated this during an interactive session with representatives of the chief of defense staff and the chief of army staff.

The senator is a member of the country’s ruling party, All Progressives Congress, along with Mr. Buhari. The APC rose to power in 2015 on the wave of a pledge that it would end Nigeria’s protracted war against terrorists in the North.

Lamenting the poor funding of the army, Mr. Ndume wondered why the Nigerian Army received only N30 billion out of the nation’s 2021 budget of N13 trillion, describing it as unreasonable.

The senator further stated that the only place he saw well-kitted military men armed with new AK47 rifles in the country was in Abuja.

“As I said, I can be quoted: the only place I see new AK47 is in Abuja. That is necessary because that is the image of Nigeria.

“Nigerians are looking forward to this meeting hoping that we can resolve it, in terms of addressing the challenges of the Nigerian Army,” he explained.

Mr. Ndume disclosed that Mr. Buhari’s regime spent about N54 billion to fund operations of the Nigerian Army between 2019 and 2021.

We Swore Oath Never To Tell Nigerians The Truth About How We Print Money – Amaechi

We Swore Oath Never To Tell Nigerians The Truth About How We Print Money – Amaechi

Nigeria’s Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Ameachi was caught on tape admitting that President Muhammadu Buhari has always ordered the Central Bank of Nigeria to keep printing money since the APC assumed office in 2015.

Mr. Buhari who vowed to revamp the Nigerian economy in his campaign promises has been criticized for worsening the economic situation of the country over the past six years of his regime.

In an interview with journalists prior to the 2019 general elections in which Mr. Buhari was re-elected, Mr. Amaechi disclosed that they (Nigerian politicians) swore an oath never to publicly admit to Nigerians that the government was on a printing spree of the national currency;

“And most of you didn’t know at the time we took over, most Nigerians don’t even know because we have sworn to an oath not to tell anybody we were printing money,” Mr. Amaechi said.

“Do you know when a country prints money? When it has no money at all,” he said. “We were just printing money to pay the debt.”

Mr. Amaechi’s comments further exposed the cover-up that has followed Mr. Buhari’s widely condemned approach to the country’s economy, as millions of citizens continue to plunge into poverty. Nigeria has since emerged as the country with the highest number of poor people in the world. The country also has the poorest electricity supply, and the second country with the most jobless people worldwide.

Earlier this year, renowned credit rating institution Fitch said the Nigerian central bank under Mr. Buhari has been printing money at an alarming rate, warning that such tactics could engender additional economic woes for the country’s 200 million people.

Last month, Governor Godwin Obaseki expressed concerns on crude oil revenue, disclosing that the federal government printed an extra N60 billion for states to share in March.

DSS Cannot Intimidate Nigerians Into Forced Patriotism – AAC

DSS Cannot Intimidate Nigerians Into Forced Patriotism – AAC

Nigeria’s main opposition party, the African Action Congress (AAC), has called out the Department of State Security (DSS) over its intimidation of citizens in favour of President Buhari.

The AAC in a statement released on Monday 3rd of May, 2020 and made available to the Press, says;

“IN THE ABSENCE OF SOCIAL JUSTICE, THE DSS CAN NOT INTIMIDATE NIGERIANS INTO FORCED PATRIOTISM”.

“It is no news anymore that the polity has been engaged by Nigerians with a lot of agitations for social, political, and economic justice.

“There is no over bloating that these agitations are being orchestrated across the full length and breadth of the country with Nigerians in diaspora not excluded. In the acceptance of the aforementioned, the Department of State Services (DSS) in a press statement released on 2nd May 2021 and signed by its Public relations officer, Mr. Peter Ifunanya has taken its usual uncivilized posture of heating the polity with threats and subversive statements against the constitutional rights of Nigerians to freely speak, assemble and protest against the unfortunate trend of insecurity, poverty, corruption and total lack of respect for citizenship. It is indeed unfortunate that this security outfit that has been grossly incapable of fishing out terrorists, bandits; ‘’unknown gunmen’’ both on our streets and inside government offices; such gross incompetence, that has turned the country into a hotbed of kidnappings, terrorism, and banditry has suddenly found its reed voice and has taken to the market to threaten Nigerians whom in a harmonious manner have passed a vote of no confidence on the tyrannical and anti-people Buhari regime. For a country that now ranks 3rd most terrorized nation in the world, it is rather pathetic that instead of addressing this ridiculous ‘’feat’’, the regime concerns itself with a misplaced priority of chasing after protesters and critics while empowering, protecting, and defending terrorists”. The AAC said in a statement which was signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Olorunfemi Adeyeye.   “It is evident that the DSS needs a course on democratic tenets and principles and how people’s rights to disagree must be respected. The act of drawing a red line to people’s rights must be condemned by all and sundry just as we have always maintained in the African Action Congress (AAC). As a party, we have long come to the conclusion that the Buhari regime is incapable of running a democratic and highly effective government guided by the rule of law. It is our position at the African Action Congress that the rights of Nigerians to freely assemble, organize and express themselves without any intimidation must be fully respected. We reiterate for the umpteenth time that patriotism cannot be forced on people who have been denied social justice”. The statement further reads.

AAC Passes Vote Of No Confidence On Kogi Party’s Chairman, Appoints Orunja As Acting Head

AAC Passes Vote Of No Confidence On Kogi Party’s Chairman, Appoints Orunja As Acting Head

Twenty local government chairmen, state executive, and aggrieved members of the African Action Congress (AAC) in Kogi have unanimously passed a VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE on the state chairman, Ojodomo Musa Thomas, and the state executive of AAC while adopting Hon. Orunja Gilbert as the new acting chairman.

Released in a report by the party’s faithful, Hon. Apeh Kelvin Abuchi, Ojodomo was ousted from his position on the grounds of impersonating as the Governorship Candidate of the party during the last Kogi election; flouting the rules and decisions of the party; engaging in dishonest practices; defrauding the party; carrying out anti-party activities, and monopolising the party amidst other negligent acts.

While all executive positions at the state level were resolved, other states’ positions were left pending when their congress elections hold.

There to witness the event was the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) and the Police Force.