SHOLA O'NEIL'S BLOG: Boko Haram: We Will Retaliate - Niger Delta Milita...

SHOLA O'NEIL'S BLOG: Boko Haram: We Will Retaliate - Niger Delta Milita...:     Freedom Fighters (ex-militants) from in the Niger Delta region, under the auspices of Leadership Forum for Peace in the Niger Del...

Boko Haram: We Will Retaliate - Niger Delta Militants

 

 

Freedom Fighters (ex-militants) from in the Niger Delta region, under the auspices of Leadership Forum for Peace in the Niger Delta, have threatened to carry out reprisal attacks if the Islamic militant group, Boko Haram, continues with its attack on churches and Christians in the north.

The group’s President, ‘General’ Pastor Reuben Wilson, who led top members of the group while addressing in a press conference in Port Harcourt, also cautioned northern leaders to call Boko Haram to order.

He fingered key politicians in the northern geopolitical zones of instigating the people against their kinsman, President Goodluck Jonathan as part of a grand plot to discredit his administration and to prevent him from having a second shot at the highest office.

While recalling its own pasts, LFPND reminded sponsors of the group and other Islamic leaders, particularly in the northern parts of the country, that Boko Haram does not have the monopoly of violence and warned that the region’s warlords could be forced to launch reprisal attacks.

‘Gen’ Wilson, warned: “Northern leaders should allow Jonathan to serve his full term in peace and warn their boys because blood is still running in our veins and they should not take our silence and peace disposition to mean stupidity and cowardice.”

In the same vein, the group also advised the National Assembly to drop the threat to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan over 100 percent implementation of the 2012 budget, saying the president means well for Nigerians.

“He should be encouraged rather than being pilloried by (members) of a cabal who have woken up to the realization that power has shifted to the Niger Delta, where the wealth of this country is being produced.”

Port Harcourt News: Hawkers Protest Ban on Street Trading

 Street traders kick over plans to ban street trading

Street traders in Port Harcourt and Obio/Akpor Local Government Area of Rivers State have kicked against plans by the Rivers State Environmental Sanitation Authority to ban their activities from next Saturday, September 1.

It would be recalled that the RSESA Chairman, Mr. Isobo Jack, recently announced that street traders face both imprisonment and fine if caught flouting the new directives, which come into effect in the next 72 hours.

Jack said the decisions stemmed from the security implications of the activities of the street traders as well as their contribution to the filthiness of the Garden City and its environs.

Consequently, street trading is prohibited from Lagos Bus stop on the Aba Road to Eleme Junction, as well as within the Old and New GRA area, Ikwerre Road, Slaughter, Trans Amadi and other parts of the city.

The RSESA chairman warned that machinery has been put in place to apprehend and charge defaulters to court, warning that “they face being sent to jail and payment of fine.’

However, a cross section of the targeted traders on Aba and Ikwerre roads told our reporter this morning that the government’s action was “inhuman, unfair and inconsderate.”

Hygenius Onyekachi, a ‘Gala’ sausage hawker said: “Before they kick us out, what is their plan to give us job? This is the reason why people are stealing, because those who do not want to be armed robbers and criminals are being forced from their legitimate source of livelihood.”

Others who spoke on condition of anonymity warned that Mr. Jack’s claim that the directive would help curb crime in the city missed the point, with one saying, “they said destruction of ghettos will reduce crime, has crime reduced?”

MILITANT BILLIONAIRES - A MUST READ

Militant billionaires

.. TUESDAY'S THE NATION NEWSPAPERS' EDITORIAL

•Ex-warlords are now security chiefs in Nigeria’s oil industry!

THE recent revelation that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is paying about N5.6 billion annually to former leaders of Niger Delta militant groups to secure its pipelines is another unwelcome reminder of the Jonathan administration’s penchant for throwing money at problems instead of solving them.

The American newspaper, the Wall Street Journal, claims that the NNPC has a schedule of regular payments to several ex-militant leaders running into millions of dollars. Government Ekpumopolo, alias “Tompolo,” is paid U.S. $22 million a year; Mujahhid Dokubo-Asari gets about U.S $9 million; Ebikabowei “Boyloaf” Victor Ben and Ateke Tom annually receive $3.8 million each. According to the newspaper, the ex-militant leaders are paid to guard the NNPC’s pipelines which are vital to the evacuation of crude oil for export and the transportation of fuel products across the country.

Several questions immediately come to mind, many touching on the propriety of this arrangement. Is this a formal contractual agreement? If it is, where was the deal signed, and what are its terms? Why was an arrangement involving this amount of expenditure not disclosed to the relevant National Assembly committees overseeing the activities of the NNPC? Why was it kept secret from the Nigerian people? Were these ex-militant leaders not part of the government’s vaunted amnesty programme, on which it will be spending the equivalent of $450 million in 2012? 

The lack of transparency surrounding the whole affair is a virtual confirmation of its illegitimacy. Regardless of their nuisance value, neither Ekpumopolo nor Dokubo-Asari or any of the others is a trained security operative with a proven background in oil-facility security. Destroying pipelines and oil facilities is not the same thing as securing them; the demonstrated capacity to throttle the nation’s oil export capacity does not connote the ability to facilitate the unhampered flow of the product. The fact that the theft and illegal refining of petroleum products and attacks on oil facilities have actually increased in recent times is ample testimony to the failure of the ex-militants to justify their payments. 

The larger implications of the situation must also be considered, especially given the severe security challenges currently confronting the country. When a government decides to pay huge amounts to individuals who were involved in activities detrimental to the Nigerian state, they are encouraging others to do the same thing. Just as indigenes of the Niger Delta have legitimate grievances over resource control and environmental degradation, other nationalities have their own valid complaints. The Federal Government seems to be saying that organised violence is the best way to attract its attention and its finances. 

To make matters worse, these payments do little to resolve the issues that gave rise to the problem of militancy in the first place. The ex-militant warlords may be extremely well-off, but their extreme wealth stands in stark contrast to the overwhelming poverty and despair which assails the south-south as a whole. The millions of dollars the NNPC has chosen to bestow on a few individuals could have been used to accelerate the overall development of the sorely-deprived communities of the region. 

The pipeline-security payments constitute yet another of the Federal Government’s opaque dealings with former militant leaders. Earlier this year, it was discovered that contracts for securing the nation’s coastline were given to a company in which one of them had substantial interests. There was no public tender and no short-listing process; the terms of the contract are unknown. 

If the Jonathan administration wants to be taken seriously, it must refrain from acquiescing in actions like these which demonstrate such a profound poverty of thinking. Ex-militant leaders have a right to pursue a legitimate living in their country, but that does not mean that they should take part in the corruption that they once claimed to be fighting.

Delta News: Bizwoman Kidnapped, N.7m snatched

Robbers, Kidnappers Continue Siege

A 51-year-old block moulding company owner was this morning abducted in Effurun, headquarters of Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State in Nigeria.

The victim, identified as Mrs. Pat Fueta, was abducted by gun-wielding men who invaded her company located around an NNPC petrol station on a road leading to the Warri Refining and Petrochemical Company.

She was whisked away in Toyota Camry salon car driven by a member of the gang.

A police source at the nearby Ekpan Police Station said the incident was reported by the victim's brother.

Meanwhile, a middle-aged man was robbed by gunmen along Okere Road, by Robert Road junction, at about 1pm this Thursday.

It was gathered that the victim was dispossessed of N700,000 cash.

The incident occurred barely 20 minutes after the victim, a middle-aged man of Ijaw extraction, cashed a cheque at local branch of UBA located around Okumagba Avenue, by Total petrol station.

A reliable source close to the victim said he was accosted by the gunmen, who trailed the okada on which he rode in a car.

"Two men got out of the car and pointed a gun each to either sides of his body. They ordered him to surrender the bag containing the cash, if he valued his life."

Expectedly, both incidents sent shock waves down the spines of residents who had  thought  the activities of hoodlums have been brought under control.

Women Protest Against Anti-abortion Oath

 Ogbakiri women protest against antiabortion oath

…Say age long vow making them give birth like ‘animals'

Women of Ogbakiri Community in Emohua Local Government of Rivers State have call on government and women right defenders in the state to rescue them from the bondage of a traditional oath that forbids abortion by the community’s women.

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They blamed the oath for unwanted babies in the community, adding that it is making them “reproduce like animals”.

The women made the call during a protest on Tuesday and called for the reversal of the agelong oath.

Sources say abortion is regarded as sacrilege and a crime against the spirit of the land.

“Any woman born and married in Ogbakiri must respect the tradition and those who violated it die in the process of aborting their babies. No right thinking woman in Ogbakiri in this present generation can dare the gods,” an octogenarian in the community said.

However, the women said the protest was aimed at drawing the attention of government and human right organizations to their plights and to save them from the dangers inherent in the tradition.

Comfort Woji said: “We are no longer comfortable with the tradition that is why we decided to protest against it. We are human beings the law should not be greater than our lives. Most of us have more children than we can control because we are afraid of abortion.

“If as a housewife I have agree with my husband that I will not have any other baby again and mistakenly pregnancy comes I should be the one to decided if I am to keep it or abort it, no one should force me to do what I don’t intend to do,” she added.

Speaking in the same vein, Josephine Onu, said: “I am not saying I want to abort my babies, but such decision is personal and such personal right should be respected. I think NGOs in the state and Rivers State should come into this matter and rescue us from this law.”

But Chiyere Amadi said the fight to loose women from the bondage is for the sake of their daughters, saying, “For many years now we are in bondage, we are doing this to save our daughters in future we don’t want them to suffer what we are suffering today.”

PORT HARCOURT NEWS: Pirates Pick Up N.1B Ransom

N100million ransom’ paid for oil workers' release

Bini Suntek with Ambo's 3 children 

There are indications that a ransom of about N100million was paid to secure the release of four foreign workers of Sea Truck Groups, who were abducted from a work vessel, Jascon 33 off the Coast of Bonny Island in Rivers State, on August 4.

Unconfirmed reports indicated that equivalent of about N100million was paid in various hard currencies as ransom to secure freedom for the Malaysian, a Thai, an Iranian and Indonesian.

Muhammad Khairun Aseh, Chairman of United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) Youth public complaints bureau, who partook in negotiating the release, said the kidnappers refused to discuss with Nigerian official and held the negotiation under strict condition of secrecy with family members or their representatives.

Nation Evening Express gathered that family members were forced to cave into the demands of the gang when the Nigerian Navy, NNS Pathfinder, which lost two ratings in the August 4 attack, could not unravel the hideout of the criminals.

It was reliably gathered that the release of the expatriates were conveyed to their families and management of STG by the kidnappers.

Revelation about the communication between the criminals and the family affirmed suspicion that ransom was indeed paid to secure freedom for the embattled foreigners.

Bibi Suntek, wife of the Malaysian victim identified as George Lipih Ambo, confirmed negotiations with the pirates. She told a Malaysian news agency that she and her family were told not to discuss details about the case and if her family had received any demands for ransom payment

Similarly, the UMNO chief also kept sealed lips on how much ransom, if any, was paid.

He said: “George's family approached me for help. Before George was released, we requested to speak to him on the phone. He seemed to be in good spirits. Arrangements are being made for George to return home to Malaysia this weekend, pending approval from the Nigerian authorities,” Muhammad Khairun said.

 George Lipih Ambo, a technician, and others were flown to a Lagos hospital, where it was confirmed that he was not suffering from malaria even though he was bitten by mosquitoes during his captivity.

Bibi Suntek said she and her family, including her three sons, were grateful that her husband was safe and unharmed, adding, “My husband called me this (Thursday) morning and said he is unharmed,”

She said there are arrangements for George’s return to Kuala Lumpur, adding, “I will fly to KL to meet him.”

....COURTESY NATION EVENING EXPRESS