Nigeria: Report Gives Details, Says Terrorist Groups Gaining Foothold in Nigeria

"The government must fish them out and tell us those responsible for the crises. This thing did not start today. Stop blaming every violence on Boko Haram," the spiritual leader of Nigeria's Muslims told other clerics in the northern city of Kaduna.

Nigeria's northeast, particularly the city of Maiduguri, has seen almost daily bomb blasts and shootings in recent weeks blamed on the sect known as Boko Haram.

There has been intense speculation over whether some of the violence has been politically linked, as well as the sect's source of support and financing.

The sect has claimed to be fighting for the establishment of an Islamic state in Nigeria, Africa's most populous nation of 150 million people split roughly in half between Christians and Muslims.

Hundreds of troops have been deployed to Maiduguri to deal with the violence and have in turn been accused of serious abuses.

"If members of Boko Haram are known, then what is the best way to solve the problem? The problem cannot be solved by violence. The problems cannot be solved by drafting soldiers to cities where there is (a) problem," he said.

Boko Haram launched an uprising in 2009 put down by a brutal military assault that left hundreds dead.

It seemed to reemerge last year with shootings by gunmen on motorcycles of police, soldiers, politicians and community leaders.

Bomb blasts have become more common in recent months, with most occurring in Maiduguri, though an explosion ripped through a car park at police headquarters in the capital Abuja last month and several blasts have occurred in Suleija, near the capital.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (World Service) in English -- world news service of the independent French news agency Agence France Presse]

Nigeria: Suspected Islamic Sect Gunmen Kill Police Auditor, Informant in Borno

AFP20110730598001 Lagos The Guardian Online in English 2300 GMT 29 Jul 11

[Report by Njadvara Musa: "Boko Haram Kills Police Auditor, Informant in Fresh Attacks"]

Security personnel are still endangered species in Borno State. After a few a days' lull, armed men of the Boko Haram sect have resumed their hostilities.

Twice on Thursday, suspected gunmen of the group struck in Maiduguri, the state capital. As usual, their targets were policemen, whom they shot and killed. One of the victims was the auditor of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) headquarters, Simon Amos, 48. The other was an informant to the Police in Bama, Hassan Zaki, 45. The two incidents occurred at 3.45 p.m. and 6 p.m.

Amos was killed at his residence in Jiddari ward of Maiduguri at 3.45 p.m. before his son, Ali Simon, who raised an alarm that this father was shot in the chest and head by two suspected gunmen with a Kalashnikov rifle hid under their flowing gown.

The murder of the auditor and informant were confirmed by the state Police Commissioner, Simione Midanda yesterday. He said: "Yes, it is true that one of our official in the Abuja office was shot and killed by two suspected Boko Haram gunmen at about half past three in the afternoon.

"We received the distress call yesterday (Thursday) at 4 p.m. when his son cried that 'daddy is killed...daddy is killed' over the phone from their Jiddari residence."

Midanda said barely two hours after; another distress call was received from the Bama Divisional Police headquarters that one of the Police's informants and butcher in the town was also shot and killed by two suspected armed Moslem sect on a motorcycle taxi.

He told The Guardian that this brings to two, the people killed by the suspected armed Islamist sect in Bama.

He said the information officer, in the state's Ministry of Information, Modu Mala Fara, was recently gunned down by members of the sect on a motorcycle taxi at his residence at 8.45 p.m.

According to him, no arrests were made in the two attacks and killings in Maiduguri and Bama.

And three weeks after the ban on commercial motorcyclists in the state, Governor Kashim Shettima, has raised a 12-member panel to identify those affected by the July 7, 2011 action.

The state government plans to distribute tricycles to unemployed youths, commercial motorcycle operators, clubs and associations at 33 per cent subsidy of N200, 000 each.

Inaugurating the panel at the Government House, Maiduguri, Shettima said the distribution and sale of tricycles are aimed at overcoming job losses and offering other means of livelihood to the people affected by the recent ban.

He gave the terms of reference of the panel as including the drawing up of mode of distribution and sale, recovering of tricycle loans; and documentation of all the beneficiaries and other information that could prevent default in repaying the tricycles' loans to the state government.

The governor urged the affected residents to exercise patience, as the tricycles would be given out as soon as the panel submits its report.

[Description of Source: Lagos The Guardian Online in English -- Website of the widely read independent daily, aimed at up-market readership; URL: http://www.ngrguardiannews.com/]

Nigeria: Ekiti Governor Accuses Northern Politicians of Creating Islamic Sect

AFP20110730598002 Ibadan Nigerian Tribune Online in English 30 Jul 11

[Report by Femi Ibirogba: "Boko Haram, Creation of Northern Politicians - Fayemi"]

Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, has said that the Boko Haram sect is a creation of northern politicians who want to hold on to power, adding that religion is a ready tool to recruit impoverished youths into such a group.

Dr Fayemi said this on Thursday at the Oduduwa Hall of the Obafemi Awolowo University (OAU), Ile-Ife, while delivering a lecture on Socio-economic Development in Western Nigeria: Challenges and Prospects, organised by Ekiti Development Network, an association of academics from Ekiti State.

He said regional system of government, in which more power and resources are given to each region, was the best instrument for transforming Nigeria.

Speaking further on the crisis of Boko Haram, Fayemi added that the issue was a debate on democracy and Nigeria, saying political transition in Nigeria had not led to demilitarisation of the system and had not translated to societal development.

These, he said, were factors aggravating violence, Boko Haram crisis and post-election violence.

"The political structure that produced President Goodluck Jonathan is now breaking the North apart. Boko Haram was a creation of politicians in the North, who were bent on holding on to power, and religion is a ready mechanism for recruiting people into such a group.

"As long as we have the unemployed people and the impoverished, the manipulators will always have their way," Fayemi said.

He also attributed the Boko Haram crisis and the prevalence of violence and crime in the country to loss of culture of compromise and tolerance; loss of culture of dialogue and high rate of unemployment.

He blamed former President Olusegun Obasanjo for extending authoritarian and military styles of government into his administration, which, he said, had inpacted negatively on the country.

Speaking on the failure of the political structure in Nigeria, Fayemi said, regional system held the key to development in the country.

He said collaboration, if properly explored and utilised, would bring rapid development among states in the Western Nigeria, adding that Western states were planning to build a concensus on growth and development of the region.

"Our quest is to return the West to the path of honour and accelerate development.

"Regionalism will not destroy the national structure or unity. It will rather promote it. It simply implies giving more power and resources to a region.

"I do not believe in destroying the Nigeria state. I believe the national structure should be limited in power and resources," he added.

[Description of Source: Ibadan Nigerian Tribune Online in English -- Website of the privately owned daily; URL: http://www.tribune.com.ng]

AFP: Al-Qa'ida Releases Video of British, Italian Hostages Kidnapped May 2011

EUP20110803765001 Paris AFP (North American Service) in English 03 Aug 11

[AFP headline-"Video shows Briton, Italian hostages 'held by Al-Qaeda'"]

A British man and an Italian kidnapped in May in northern Nigeria appear for the first time since their capture in a video sent to AFP Wednesday in which they say their abductors are from Al-Qaeda.

The roughly minute-long video sent to AFP in Abidjan is the first proof of life of the engineers since they were kidnapped from their apartment in Nigeria's northwestern Kebbi state on the border with Niger.

It was not clear when the film was made and this was impossible to verify independently.

The video shows the hostages blindfolded and on their knees. Three men holding weapons stand behind them, their faces hidden by turbans.

The hostages give their names, which AFP has chosen not to make public, and each deliver a statement urging their governments to meet the demands of the kidnappers, whom they say are from Al-Qaeda.

The Italian hostage refers to "these Al-Qaeda people", while his British colleague asks his government "to meet the demands of Al-Qaeda."

However no details of the abductors or their demands are given.

The engineers work for the B. Stabilini construction company, founded by Italians but based in Nigeria. They were kidnapped on May 12 by gunmen who stormed their apartment in Birnin Kebbi, capital of Kebbi state.

Police said at the time that a German colleague managed to escape by scaling a fence, while a Nigerian engineer was shot and wounded.

The video is accompanied by photographs of the hostages without their blindfolds. A source close to the case told AFP on condition of anonymity that the photographs are "about 10 days" old.

The British Foreign Office and foreign ministry in Rome refused to comment about the video and photographs.

Abductions are rare in mainly Muslim northern Nigeria although there have been several kidnappings for ransom in the south, around the oil-producing Niger Delta region.

Al-Qaeda's north African branch, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), has claimed kidnappings of foreign workers in neighbouring Niger in recent years, but never in Nigeria.

The Islamist Boko Haram sect is active in northern Nigeria, where it has carried out a series of deadly attacks, but there has been no indication so far it has ever been involved in kidnappings.

[Description of Source: Paris AFP (North American Service) in English -- North American service of the independent French press agency Agence France-Presse]

Nigeria: Radical Islamist Sect Considers Ceasing Hostility in Bauchi State

AFP20110804683005 Islamic Brothers Blogspot in English 04 Aug 11

[Unattributed report]

Hypocricy

The hypocricy of governor patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of Kaduna state and other northern state governors. Last year during the Ramadan period, he and others approved money for the feeding of the Muslim ummah who were under-priviledged in their state solely meant to impress and to curry favour of the electorates, as elections were behind the corner then. Now that they are in power, they have not deemed it fit to re-introduce the feeding programme for the less priviledge. Hypocricy of the highest order. only Bauchi state government has so far approved the sum of Naira 339 million for this year feeding programme for the less priviledge in the state. and with this gesture, we will consider ceasing hostility in Bauchi state, except when provoked or underfire from the enemy.

[Description of Source: Islamic Brothers Blogspot in English -- Website used as messaging outlet for the Boko Haram Islamic extremist group known for staging terrorist attacks in Nigeria; URL: http://yusufislamicbrothers.blogspot.com/ ]

Senator Asks Islamic Scholars to Demagnetize Brain-Washed Boko Haram Members

AFP20110804619004 Lagos Insider Weekly in English 01 Aug 11 - 08 Aug 11 32-33

[Interview with ACN Senator Chris Ngige, former Anambra State governor by Insider Weekly correspondent by Titus Akhigbe in Benin City; date not given]

Senator Chris NwabuezeNgige, former governor of Anambra State, and a chieftain of the Action Congress of Nigeria, spoke to journalists in Benin City on a number of burning issues affecting the nation. Titus Akhigbe, Assistant Editor, was there for INSIDER Weekly

Q: There is this rumor that you may abandon the legal battle as regards the governorship election since you are now in the Senate, is that true?

A: No, no, no, I have not abandoned the governorship legal battle. I went to court to challenge two things. First, I said that the man who was declared winner did not meet the constitutional requirements.

He has majority of the votes cast quite alright but he did not score 25 percent of all the votes cast in 2/3 of all the Local Governments in Anambra state. Anambra state has 21 local governments and 2/3 of 21 should be 14.

He has that percentage in 13 but they are claiming that what we are talking about was that all the votes cast were not valid. In the INEC manual, they defined all these things. That is the first leg.

Then the second leg is the voters register. Seventeen percent of people in Anambra State were alleged to have voted and that 17 percent translated to about 203,000 voters. Out of it you have 1.8million voters.

The issue of whether that registers was valid, that is the big question. Can we start to go for an election? INEC has partially answered it.

After their retreat in Uyo they declared that Nigeria’s voters’ register was faulty and in particular that of Anambra and Akwa Ibom States. So, the question becomes when you deprived people of voting, people who registered and they turned out on Election Day and their names were not seen, and the people are in the majority, about 83 percent, can such an election said to be in compliance with the Electoral Act?

We are saying no it should be nullified and a fresh election should take place. So, the case is still on as a matter of fact the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu, delivered judgment two days ago, saying that we should go back to the Tribunal that a new tribunal should be set up for us to try the case de novo.

So, we are waiting now for the Court of Appeal to give us a new tribunal to try the case. Some people say ah but Ngige has become a senator why does he want to pursue this matter, is that not greed? But I say those people are short-sighted.

We went to court to enforce our fundamental human right to fair hearing and justice. It is me today; it can be another person tomorrow. So what we are doing is not Chris Ngige, we are going there to make sure there is justice in the land.

If the court decides any way I will take the result, we are even deepening our democracy with our quest that the right thing be done. It is not a question of Chris Ngige being governor or not, I have been governor before so even if I don’t become governor again nobody can take that away from me.

So, I am fulfilled. The two elections are not the same; one is the National Assembly while the other is the governorship. So saying that I should abandon it because I am now a senator is not the issue. The issue is the cardinal principle of justice.

Q: It seems you enjoy having political battles with people; recently it was with Prof Dora Akunyili, how do you feel always in a battle?

A: I am a man of battle all my life. From the time I was in the secondary school I have never had it easy. And I am not scared of battle. When I wanted to go to the university to read medicine, we were 8,000 people vying for 81 chances.

It was battle royal, we did the first entrance they said that there was a second entrance just like the post UME you have now. And I passed after that and joined the university. I joined the civil service and I met bullies there too.

I met a bully as a director and I battled him. I am not afraid of battles. I became governor and I met a President (Obasanjo) who was a bigger bully and we battled ourselves to a standstill. He gave me wounds and I gave him wounds too.

I am ever battle ready. I don’t look for battles but once justice is not there I will not run away from it because I am not a coward. I will stand to fight.

Nigerians are mostly cowards, they will say why fight after all I am not the only one suffering. But I don’t have that principle of your not the only one. Once the thing is at my door step and if it is not the right thing, I will stand there and battle you.

God has been kind to me, I lose some of my battles, I win some but at the end of the day I always win the war. That is the important thing. As for Prof. Akunyili, she is my family friend, I don’t want to discuss her but it is good that we are in this political logjam now and it affords one the opportunity to re-appraise the relationship we had in the past and know whether that relationship was blossoming because one is gaining from you or the other way.

It is unfortunate that we found ourselves in this situation. Unfortunate in the sense that at least Prof. Akunyili came to solicit for my blessing as former governor of the state sometime in October last year and she came again in December.

That time I had not made my interest known because my party had not told former governors that we are the ones that will carry the party’s flag in the senatorial elections so that we can make our party alive. And that was what I did.

Apart from the fact that going to the senate has been my dream ever before because the legislature offers you the opportunity to say your mind on issues which in the executive you cannot do. When I declared, I told her and I told the governor of the state.

They wished me well and I wished them well too. But when we started the fight to get votes they did so many unorthodox things which I will not talk about now. But at the end of the day I was declared winner the first time, but they said no.

They got INEC to cancel some wards which were my stronghold. I got the decisive votes from those areas. We went back and as God will have it, even though they allocated votes to themselves, I overtook them and I was declared winner again.

Initially they said that they won’t go to court, Akunyili said that she needed a rest but I was alarmed when I was served court paper barely one month after that. But we are in court with her now and because they have found out that their petition is technically deficient, they now applied that it should be transferred to another court, that the tribunal is bias.

We have been given a new date of 25th to come back now and we are hopeful that God will see us through.

Q: What is your focus in the senate?

A: The 7th senate will be the best Nigeria will have. As a matter of fact, the 7th National Assembly will be different. We have many former governors there and apart from that, we have people who came from the House of Representatives.

We have also some senators coming back for third term and fourth term like the senate president. So the membership is already a qualitative one. Again Mark as senate president is very experienced; he went to school and versed in many ways.

So, he knows the politics of the place. So we have good leadership. And when Senator David Mark wanted to come back, some of us voiced our apprehension about the image of the senate. And we knew that one of the cardinal things that made the image bad was the so-called jumbo pay.

And before we came in we surveyed that issue of jumbo pay and we discovered that actually it was not a question of salaries and allowances of senators that were called the jumbo pay, it was a misconception.

Whatever they took in terms of allowances and salaries were as prescribed by the Revenue Mobilization Commission, so it is constitutional. It is this same commission that fixed the salaries of President, Vice President, Judges, senate president and National Assembly members.

So, the National Assembly members did not breach that. What people misconstrued as jumbo pay was the running cost of the National Assembly. And that was what Sanusi was alluding to that it was gulping 25 percent of the national recurrent expenditure not the entire budget.

Overhead cost, which includes refreshment, fuel, stationeries and others, so this is what is called recurrent expenditure. So in order for the National Assembly to feel the pain of the ordinary Nigerians, we advised that these must be slashed.

And the senate president, being the chairman of the National Assembly, consulted with former Speaker Bankole before we were sworn in. And they agreed that the money must be slashed and after we were sworn in he informed us that some of those things we were talking about before swearing in have been taken care of 40 percent slash of the recurrent expenditure.

And it is a very big sacrifice because it means that even the travels and tours the funds were slashed. And from this recurrent expenditure you take care of your own constituency offices and sometimes it is actually very expensive because you have to open constituency offices in your area like I am planning to open seven constituency offices which I will furnish and employ people there.

So, I want the Nigerian public to understand this in its true perspective. Some of us are comrades, we feel for the masses. We are in the National Assembly now to protect the interest of the masses.

Not the interest of the elite like myself. We cannot do that anymore. So, we are going to make laws that will benefit the common Nigerian. Take for instance the New Wage Bill we will support it to the fullest.

If it means some constitutional amendment so that the states can get some money, we will do that. But at the same time we are doing it the states should also look inwards to generate more money. I was governor of a state before and I know that the potentials to generate money are there.

If there are areas of conflicts with the federal government, we will make sure that these states appropriate back those powers that can give some financial autonomy and independence.

Q: Recently the senate screened the ministers and they have since been given portfolios. What is your take on this?

A: From the screening we did, we knew the ministers that will do well. We know those whose performance will be above average, average, and below average. And let me tell you, committees in the senate will do serious job this time around.

Places where we suspect, we will ensure that very knowledgeable people are made chairmen of committees of that particular ministry or agency. Or even qualified members will also be put in such committee.

Our committees, we will look at sensitive areas of needs of our people such as power, everybody needs electricity. Our economy must have to grow. Then good roads, that has to do with the Ministry of Works.

Whatever happens, there will be very important to us such as the Ministries of Housing, Health, Education, Finance, and Economy. Not as if any committee will not be important but I want to tell you that this senate will focus on these ministries mentioned because of Nigerians.

We will support the president to do the right thing. I know we are in opposition but as a matter of fact, we are the ones that will even save him from his party men and women. We know the behavior of the PDP members. We are in opposition and I am happy to be in opposition.

Q: What will you say on the Boko Haram issue?

A: It is a socio-political religious problem. We need jobs for these people to keep them busy. We need skill acquisition centers. When people apply skills they will discover that they will make more money than those working in the offices.