Tag Archives: Chibok Girls

Gov. Shettima Is Culpable For Chibok Girls’ Abduction, Says Fani-Kayode

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PDP Presidential Campaign Organisation on Tuesday insisted that Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State is culpable in the April 2014 abduction of over 200 girls from Government Secondary School, Chibok, by Boko Haram insurgents.

The Director of Media and Publicity of the campaign organisation, Femi Fani-Kayode, alleged that the governor, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Muhammadu Buhari and the party’s spokesperson, Lai Mohammed knew the whereabouts of the missing girls.

Mr. Shettima, however, denied the allegation, saying no one should take Mr. Fani-Kayode serious as he “is one Nigerian that is physically an adult but mentally an infant. We all know that going into exchange with an infant is like having a dialogue with the blind, deaf and dumb.”

Read More: PremiumTimes

We Want Our Girls Back, Not Rebuilding Burnt Schools, Chibok Parents Cry Out

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Almost one year after more than 200 secondary schoolgirls were abducted from their school in Chibok, Borno state by Boko Haram terrorists and their school set ablaze, members of the community and some of the distraught parents yesterday rejected attempt by the Federal Government to rebuild the burnt school insisting that all they wanted was to have their children back home.

Read More: Vanguard

Chibok Girls: President Jonathan’s Legacy of Failure

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Let us pretend we are a serious people, I know this is hard for us after been constantly fed mediocrity, we have become accustomed to this national pantomime called Government, we have, over time discard our ability to critically question what has become of us as a people. But for the sake of this article, let us assume the minds our fore fathers dreamt about, the one they sacrificed theirs to gain independence for and even lay down their lives for, in the dark nights of 1967. Let us assume the ability to think- even momentarily.

Today we are faced with a simple choice, a choice with historical repercussions. Today we are faced with an offer of continuity, a continuity of the last five years; five years of President Goodluck Jonathan and 16 years of his party; the People Democratic Party, until recently, Africa’s supposedly largest party. But we must ask what has the PDP done in the last 16 years to deserve four more years? Perhaps more specifically what has Mr. Jonathan done in the last five years to deserve four more years of our trust and loyalty? First we must appreciate what leadership is, Napoleon Bonaparte said “a leader is a dealer in hope”, Are we more hopeful for the future now, or afraid of it? Are we more unified today behind Jonathan or more separated by him? More succulently, Arnold H. Glasow, the American Humorist said “one of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency”. There is a leadership emergency today- however we might look at it, that leadership void is an indictment of the sustained incompetency of the PDP years.

On April 15, 2014, more than 219 innocent girls were brutally kidnapped from their school, by a band of renegades masquerading as religious fanatics, amidst International outcry for this and the Nyanya bomb blast, the President was busy shuttling from one Oba’s birthday party in Ibadan to another get together flimsiness in Kano- 325 days later- after endless Presidential promises, blatant lies and political clumsiness, the girls are still missing- unaccounted for, the renegades are still shooting YouTube videos of their atrocities, more than 13,000 thousand lives lost, Millions displaced, the North East’s socio-economical existence grounded yet the Mr. Jonathan wants 4 more years!

It was Jesse Jackson that concluded that– “leadership cannot just go along to get along; leadership must meet the moral challenge of the day”. The moral challenge of Nigeria today is the issue of corruption, the economy and security- even more desperately, the question of the missing Chibok girls, if this was a sane society by now Mr. Jonathan should have tendered this resignation letter for his failure to account for these innocent girls. Instead we are daily inundated with sad stories of his staff attacking the public for demanding the President do what he swore an oath before the world to do as President. What is more perplexing is the lackadaisical attitude that this administration continues to handle the issues of National Security. Beside the Civil war, at no time in our history as a nation have more people been murdered, maimed or rendered homeless than under his watch as President.

The numbers are staggering, the reality overreaching yet for more than five years, the Presidency choose to play Cat and Mouse with Nigerians on the issue of Boko Haram;  one day they told us that they had murdered Shekau, next day, he is in a new video! Then they told us they had a ceasefire, then they fire the ceasefire, next the President is saying members of his cabinet are members of Boko Haram, Next it is actually the Opposition, then they said they knew where the girls were but would not attempt a rescue because it was too dangerous, next they are apprehended in South Africa in a Pentecostal Plane trying to buy arms in the Black Market! This, mind you is a Sovereign country, the largest Black Country in the Galaxy, turned into some crude puppetry. The question we must ask is- what has the PDP-years done to our reputation, that despite our countless bilateral agreements, we could not find one single country willing to sell arms to us, such that we now have to resort to sneaking across International borders to buy Black Market arms like smugglers. Is this the continuity they are taking about?

Today, Mr. Jonathan is not the President of the whole country, because there are territories that are no longer answerable to him, territories occupied by Boko Haram, not subjected to his authority as Commander-in-Chief or the laws he swore to uphold. And for the records, this is also the first time since independence that an occupying force has taken and control a part of this country.  I am forced to ask again, what did the President do for five years while Boko Haram ravages the North East?

The primary responsibility of any President is to secure the territorial integrity of his or her nation; it’s the first and most important task of any President, on this, Mr. Jonathan woefully failed. We once had an army that was reverend in Africa, laced with glorious history, envied because of her successful military campaigns but under this President, our Military, the last standing Institute we shared pride in have become a tragicomedy- gleefully abandoning responsibilities, gallantly committing mutiny and tactically maneuvering into surrendering in neighboring countries! A politicalized Military, gradually groom for electoral permutations only.

Yet this same shamble of a military, who had besieged us with countless rounds of failures and mutiny was used to circumvent an election- in the name of National Security. Strangely enough, the so called renewed effort coincided with the set period for election, an election which by all accounts showed Mr. President was trailing, an election which was announced more than a year ago, endorsed by Mr. Jonathan who yet again, injudiciously approved a Military campaign to clash with the scheduled period of the proposed election- for a problem he has been dillydally with for five years!  Mind you, we have a docile Ministry of National Planning and as usual, the President presumes us all foolish to believe the six week election extension was a mere coincidence and he would wipe out in six week, a problem he could not fix in six years.

“Man cannot live by incompetence alone”. Charlotte Whitton, the Canadian feminist said but as a people we have been wallowing in brightly-coloured incompetency, bankrolled by a Presidency on auto Pilot, we have delegated the fight against Boko Haram to the Chadians and Cameroonians, we have subcontracted governance to various cabals, what we have today at the National Government is a conglomerate of interested proxies, from former Niger Delta Militants, Pentecostal Prophets, Oil Merchants, Political and Military conclaves etc.

But in the face of all these, Mr. Jonathan wants us to ignore all that; he wants us to focus on his refurbished railway projects, free fertilizers and epileptic power supply.  But how can we? How can we ignore the sadness of the Chibok girls, how can we move on to the promise of their polluted fresh air? Can we even begin to imagine the trauma these girls are enduring, the hopelessness that continues to define their existence or the hollowness that has become their parents’ lives? We cannot capture this tragedy in words; or the shamelessness that characterizes the school-boy attempt of this administration to rescue these girls.

The mistake the Presidency continues to make is to assume that all who opposes this administration are members of the APC. No, we are not all APC; we are just bored and frustrated with what has become of the last 16 years, and most importantly what has become of Mr. Jonathan’s 2011 promise of Fresh Air. We cannot even begin to talk of the fertilizer-powered corruption or the economic diarrhea that has encompassed us as a people. The hopelessness his leadership propagates has finally drained us of any aspiration. It’s not surprising then that Nigerians cannot wait for the new election date; we cannot wait to tell him “Thank You Mr. President” for this genuine effort however facetious and wish him safe journey back to Otuoke.

Anefiok Akpan (c) 

VIEWS EXPRESSED ARE SOLELY AUTHORS’S…

Chibok Girls Are Alive- Jonathan

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President Jonathan appearing on a Nigerian Television station for the first time apart from the government owned Nigerian Television Authority spoke on a wide range of issues including his chances of being re-elected in the forth coming election.

President Jonathan admitted during the programme that government under rated the capacity of the Boko Haram sect and this explains why they are so entrenched. Jonathan has assured the parents of the Abducted Chibok girls and all Nigerians that the girls are still alive and his government was doing everything possible to rescue them.

The president who spoke when he appeared on a Live Discussion programme on an African Independent Television (AIT), Kaakaki monitored in Abuja hinged his optimism on the assumption that had the girls been killed, the terrorists would have publicly displayed their corpses in order to induce fear.

Read More: Vanguard

Chibok: What Really Happened Last April

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Despite coming from a poor home in the desperately poor village of Jajeel in Borno State, Hannatu Ishaku, 16, always had big dreams. As early as when she was 10, she promised herself that she would be the first lawyer from her village, something that made her parents happy.

Today, however, her parents’ happiness has evaporated because Hannatu’s bold dream looks like it is dead. Grief, anger and regret have replaced happiness in their home.

Hannatu is one of over 200 girls who were kidnapped by members of the outlawed Boko Haram sect from the Government Girls’ Secondary School, GGSS, Chibok, on April 14, 2014.

For the Ishaku family, it was a double loss. Also abducted was Hannatu’s cousin, Anthonia Yohanna, 18, who lived with the family for years.

Adamu Ishaku, the patriarch of the family, spoke to our reporter shortly before last Christmas. He looked frail and sad-eyed, apparent consequences of the trauma her daughter’s abduction has brought on him.

“The five of us lived together,” Ishaku said. “Now it’s just me, my wife, and her brother. Without those two, the house is empty.”

Ishaku’s wife looks worse. The unfortunate event has sapped her of vitality. The little energy she has left was expended on weeping as she spoke with the reporter. Her daughter’s dream of becoming a lawyer no longer matters. What matters is for her to see Hannatu.

“I just want my daughter. I am not interested in her going to school anymore,” she said dejectedly in a tone that betrayed hope, not expectation.

What really happened in Chibok?

The world woke up one morning last April to the shocking news of the kidnap of over 200 girls who were writing their West African Examination Council, WAEC, examination at the GGSS, Chibok, Borno State.

Investigations by the icirnigeria.org in Chibok showed that there had been a lot of misrepresentation of facts about the kidnap of the girls.

Read More: elombah.com

Shettima Reveals Location of Chibok Girls

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The Borno State governor, Kashim Shettima, has revealed that the over 200 school girls abducted from Chibok, Borno by Boko Haram are still alive.

According to him, they are still held in fragmented camps in the dreaded Sambisa forest. The governor added that all things being equal, the girls could be reunited with their families.

Also speaking, the Secretary to the Borno State Government (SSG), Ambassador, Baba Jidda, said the issue of the girls safe return is beyond the Borno state.

He said: “The issue of Chibok girls is a national and indeed an international issue, and we still haven’t heard anything positive about their possible return, especially alive. So, we are praying that this New Year, something tangible would be done by the Federal Government to get back the girls alive to their parents.”

Credit: www.naij.com

#KakandaTemple ~ It’s Christmas in Chibok, Mr. President!

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You know what this is about. But, have you contacted their family to understand the meaning and depth of sorrow? Which family? This is the reason for this reminder.

While you feast, in the spirit of this sacred season, sharing love with your political family, especially the billionaire donors, there are, somewhere in the hinterlands of this country or between the borders of the country to Niger Republic, Chad or Cameroon, innocent citizens condemned to a slavery that can only be imagined by us.

I’m talking about the innocent school girls abducted at a government secondary school in Borno State. For these girls, Mr. President, December 25 doesn’t mean anything, having been held captive by savages to whom any Christian values and even the values of peace-building Muslims represent a threat they seek to exterminate, a fantasy for which they have killed thousands of your subjects, and which you seem to take for granted at our peril.

The question that your loyalists who proudly, actually shamefully, parade themselves as “Jonathanians” always ask is, are the girls of Chibok the only abducted since the wake of this insurgency, in their attempts to discredit the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and group? The answer to this has been proffered by members of the group from the incredibly energetic Mrs Aisha Yesufu whose resilience has been an inspiration for faint-hearted and absenting advocates of the movement like me to the courageous Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, on the back of whose charisma and audacity the campaign rose to the attention of the world, and now continues to dominate the discourse of man’s inhumanity in global politics.

The answer to this stubborn refusal to let go of this campaign and continuous call for the rescuing of Chibok Girls, as understood by all who still believe in the cause, is that it not only calls for you to bring back the missing girls, but any thinking person knows that any mission initiated to rescue the girls of Chibok will definitely result in the liberation of not just all the citizens abducted so far, but also the country itself from operations and oppressions of these ragtag agents of the Devil.

You see, #BringBackOurGirls is more than just a campaign, more than just a hashtag, more than just a sit-out, more than just a congregation of the nation’s finest minds, it defies the criticisms of all employed by you to frustrate and discredit it as a result of nothing other than this very singularity of the campaigners’ exact purpose: #BringBackOurGirls.

That this advocacy has survived all brazen fabrications and conspiracies against it, becoming the longest ever in Nigeria, is a tribute to the power of what the advocates themselves refer to as “the singularity of purpose” – keen focus on the efforts, reported those are, to bring back the 219 girls. This advocacy survived being dismissed as partisan, that it’s a tool of the opposition party. But even an excited APC chieftain, Mr. Audu Ogbeh, who, in his praise of the advocacy, tried to link it to the opposition party had to issue a press release at once, retracting his statement, and apologising for the mistake and embarrassment caused.

What I really don’t understand, Mr. President, is this: that your people’s daughters and sons and mothers and fathers, citizens of the country you’re elected to protect, have been in captivity without any update on efforts taken to rescue them, without any sobering, even if pretentious, assurance that they will be home soon, with their grief-stricken families. YET, here you are, again, asking for their votes, proud of your under-achievements and acting as though nothing has gone missing, not even the billions, because your family or interests are not affected. I just don’t get it.

Mr. President, if you actually believe the propaganda that places you on the same platform with the Mandelas of this world, which seems to have given you the audacity to ask these betrayed people for another opportunity to rule, to mismanage this animal farm, then your case is more than just political, it’s psychological. Or is it that I don’t really get it?

But, let’s agree that I don’t get it, can you give me, a curious subject, just one reason to cast my vote for you? You may be a good man in the closet – introverted, soft-spoken and ambitious, but your political decisions and even communication over these years, with this retinue of indecorous media aides you employ to insult citizens asking genuine questions, have only damaged you.

I know you may get elected again, a reality no sane citizen wants to ponder, because beside the few million agents of change whose decisions are based on the outcomes of their brains, there are several millions of victims of maladministration too hungry to use their brains, some, having been indoctrinated by certain political, ethnic, religious or regional overlords, are already possessed by dangerous sentiments.

You may empty even the nation’s foreign reserve which is now, I learnt, in red, but history will remember you as it does those who occupied the office before you: harshly. Wait, if the problems of this country are beyond you as shown, why desperate to remain in that Office?

While, to you, politics is a game, it’s a matter of life to us. The #BringBackOurGirls campaigners are immune to the partisan sentiments of your handlers and that of your opponents, are only interested in a nation under the leadership of a human being who is, not just a Muslim, not just a Christian, not just a Yoruba, not just a Hausa, not just an Ijaw, not just a northerner, not just a southerner, but responsible! For this, Nigerians across all divides, owe this group immense gratitude, if not for anything, for amplifying the voice of the ordinary Nigerian. The group has travelled the country and the world spreading the word of our miseries and keeping the reality of our hopelessness on the headlines of both local and international media, print, broadcast and online.

On Christmas Eve, while we empty shopping malls in our grand cities, and while you decorate the State House for another of your many fanfares, living as though all is well with the territory you have vowed to protect, members of the group, already known for their identifications of deficiencies at our squalid camps for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), were in action in Adamawa State to launch #ChristmasForIDPs campaign to excite the lives of those subjects of government that is everything but responsible. This humanitarian cause was led by another incredibly amazing advocate, Mrs. Bukky Shonibare.

And do you, Mr. President, know that Mrs. Shonibare, despite her schedules, have been posting photographs of herself holding a placard that reminds us of the days our girls have spent in captivity as she counted down to Christmas, optimistic that you may surprise her, and make the girls of Chibok and all in captivity return home to mark this Christmas with their loved aways, safe from those indoctrinating them, and protected from the monster they are being turned into? Thanks to this group which your media aides, in whose skulls that mass of tissue called brain is absent, once referred to as “psychological terrorists”, we learnt that this Christmas is the 255th day since the abduction of the Chibok girls, 255 days of miseries for over 200 families. I just want you to know, I just want to remind you that among other things missing, also #BringBackOurGirls. And for this horrifying reality, I may change the antagonist in my weekly prayer for the first time ever: may God save us from you!

By Gimba Kakanda

@gimbakakanda on Twitter

Watch: Chibok Girl’s Escape Story

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Deborah spent a day in the Sambisa forest before running away. Now she is afraid to return to school in Nigeria. She and some other escapees have secured funding with the help of an organisation called Education After Escape, to go America to finish school.

As she prepared to leave she decided to speak out on behalf of their friends who are still in captivity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wLEx9U4Smx0

Credit: BBC

Boko Haram: Chad Plays High Stakes in Talks

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Chad’s President Idriss Deby, a wily survivor of rebellions, is looking to bolster his powerbroker role in the Sahel and his nation’s own security by backing peace talks between neighbour Nigeria’s government and Islamist Boko Haram insurgents.

The Boko Haram rebels, whose five-year revolt has killed thousands and caused mayhem in the northeast of Africa’s biggest economy Nigeria, have been threatening Chad’s own frontiers and disrupting cross-border trade.

With jihadist fighters prowling Libya’s deserts to the north, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb active in the west, and rebels and janjaweed militia battling in Sudan’s Darfur region to its east, Chad already finds itself in the eye of the storm.

Deby, a former fighter pilot who took power in a 1990 coup, survived offensives by Sudan-backed rebels in 2006 and 2008. He can ill afford a violent Islamist onslaught by Boko Haram in the southern Lake Chad border region of his oil-producing nation.

To pre-empt this threat, Deby’s government quietly started in September mediating negotiations between Nigeria and Boko Haram, aimed at securing the release of 200 schoolgirls seized in April in the northeast Nigerian town of Chibok. Nigeria’s military unexpectedly made the initiative public last month.

Chad says the peace talks are still on track despite a recently released video that appears to show Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau saying the Chibok girls had been “married off” to his fighters, contradicting an earlier announcement of a deal to release them.

“We have a huge interest in resolving these talks,” said a senior Chadian diplomat, adding that Boko Haram’s activities in the porous frontier around Lake Chad were difficult to control.

“We’re worried that they’ll come here next.”

A breakthrough on the talks would help Deby strengthen his reputation as a regional powerbroker, a role welcomed by former colonial ruler France as it seeks to stop being ‘Africa’s policeman’ and hand that job to local African allies.

“One reason for Chadian involvement is the country’s posturing as a regional hegemon,” said Ryan Cummings, chief analyst at crisis management group Red 24.

Chad’s army is considered one of Africa’s most battle-ready and played a frontline role alongside the French in an operation in 2013 against Islamic fighters in Mali’s desert north.

Its soldiers also formed the backbone of an African Union peacekeeping mission in Central African Republic to the south, until they withdrew after U.N. accusations of killing civilians.

Last year, Chad earned a seat on the U.N. Security Council and Deby has gained prominence chairing regional summits.

Credit: Yahoo News

No Thin Line Between Jihad & Money: The “Ceasefire” Lesson

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“If you say, I pledge to Nigeria my country, it is wrong and act of paganism. For me, I pledge to Allah my God, to be faithful to my Allah and you to your country. I to my Allah, I pledge to my Allah. To be faithful, loyal and honest to serve Allah. Are you saying what? To serve Nigeria? To Serve Allah? Loyal and honest to serve Allah? That is what I will say; this is what you are saying in your reading of western education. With all your strength you said you will worship a land, this is what you people said…” 

 “Harvest Jonathan’s neck, harvest Kashim’s neck, Allah said cut out Burabura’s neck, even in Ka’aba if some is doing Salat for so long as he is deviating from what Allah said, he is infidel. Cut out their necks until the time that you will get majority over infidels of the world. And you will get it, Allah said it, time will come that you will form majority over infidels, face to face.”

 ” For me anyone that embraces Islam is my brother. Stupid Jonathan, no matter your infidel status you will be surprise. Until the land is soaked with blood, you have never fought me but I am angry with you, this is what I said. We will kill and imprison and never get tired or you bring your trillion, there is nothing we can do with your money, if you know us you will not think that of us.”

Direct English Translation of Shekau’s Threats…

 The above statements are like moisture compared to flood, that is, there is an ocean full of such statements and the above is an aroma taste of the whole soup. How then can we expect fresh water from the sea? It is insane to assume the word “Ceasefire” proceeding from a group guided by the above quotes.

 And then, Boko Haram is suddenly identified by another who is not the usual Shekau we knew. “Who the hell is  Danladi Ahmadu?” The question our military intelligence never asked. So in order to add up to their heap of disgrace, they made the 419 ceasefire public.

While the world is forming coalitions to wipe out terrorism, our own government was breeding within its mind to “sign an agreement” with bloody extremist who boasted about abducting little girls and told the whole world they would engage them in sex slavery. These are the same bastards who slaughter Nigerians like animals and even our very own Air Force Officer and the military wants to “reason” with them. What shame!!!

Come to think of it, why would they want to sign a truce when their mates in Syria and Iraq are generating Millions of Dollars from plundering crude oil, or is it not the same crude oil we have? Aside the fortune they will get when they trade women and girl slaves, these bastards have their eyes on national oil. These people want to own the bakery and not collect bread.

While the nation was debating on the authenticity of the ceasefire and military was busy sweeping truths under the rug, these guys have already hoisted their black flag in Mubi, which is a major achievable victory for them.

This jihad intends to abolish nationality and implement anarchy by all means and we are here accusing PDP or APC, when both parties may become completely irrelevant by 2015 if care is not taken. Who will stand and vote PDP or APC, when black flags are replacing our Green and White? Who will stand and vote at the thought of their daughters sexually servicing these blood thirsty retards? And to President Jonathan, Buhari, Atiku and Kwankwaso, which Nigeria will you govern when the nation stands the risk of ceasing to become a nation? The CIA predicted a failed state and we said “God Forbid” when a group of mad fanatics believe it is “God’s Will”.

Again, most people cannot come to terms with the bitter truth that our Chibok girls may be gone for good. Please let us leave optimism aside and face reality. Shekau made his intention very clear regarding the girls even before the release of the new propaganda video that most of us have not seen yet, thus the authenticity of the claims that the girls have been married off is also highly questionable. Even released hostages from Cameroon said they did not see little girls in the camp.

Point being that, if he said he was selling the girls, he meant it. Thanks to ISIS for being such an inspiration to them. This entire situation has gone out of hand and believe me, the Government may not be capable of handling it nor any other political aspirant. But history provides hope with the such similar accounts of mad men who wanted to enslave and destroy humanity but failed. Name them, the Nazis, Communists, etc, where are they today???

Man is the only living creature among all living and non living beings, created with a mind to compliment the ability to make choices. Freedom for humanity mandatory and somehow, the forces that established this default mode of liberty has not allowed any movement, belief or course to alter it. Just keep watching… Boko Haram in this country will die naturally.

 

Dinah Adams @didiYargata
First Published on: http://yargata.blogspot.com

Boko Haram says Chibok Girls “Married Off”, Denies Ceasefire

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Boko Haram has claimed the 219 schoolgirls it kidnapped in Nigeria earlier this year have converted to Islam and been married off, according to a new video obtained by AFP on Friday.

The Islamist group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, also denied claims by Nigeria’s government that it had agreed to a ceasefire and apparently ruled out future talks.

The new video comes after a surprise announcement by the Nigerian military and presidency on October 17 that a deal had been reached with the militants to end hostilities and return the children.

There was immediate scepticism about both claims. Previous ceasefires have proved fruitless and there is little trust in the influence of the purported Boko Haram envoy, Danladi Ahmadu.

Nigeria’s government maintains that talks are ongoing in the Chadian capital, Ndjamena.

But Shekau, speaking in Hausa, dressed in military fatigues and boots with a black turban, and flanked by 15 armed fighters, said: “We have not made ceasefire with anyone.

“We did not negotiate with anyone… It’s a lie. It’s a lie. We will not negotiate. What is our business with negotiation? Allah said we should not.”

He also said he did not know Danladi.

There was no indication of when or where the video was shot but it was obtained through the same channels as previous communications from the group.

Then, the militant leader said many of the girls had converted to Islam but in the latest, he indicated that all of those held had become Muslims.

“Don’t you know the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls have converted to Islam? They have now memorised two chapters of the Koran,” he said.

Shekau previously threatened to sell the girls as slave brides and also suggested he would be prepared to release them in exchange for Boko Haram prisoners.

In the latest message, he said while laughing: “We have married them off. They are in their marital homes.

Read More: Yahoo News/ AFP

 

 

Chibok Girls: 200 Days Later

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The nations of the world do not lack people in leadership positions. They lack genuine leadership in their leaders-Dr Myles Munroe

Several thoughts ran through my mind while writing this piece; thoughts like the inability of government to protect citizens and wondering what the benefits of being a patriotic Nigerian are. I read my previous piece on the 100th day of the abduction of the Chibok Girls and I was surprised that some opinions therein, were beginning to come to fruition and it would appear that nothing had changed. A salient thought ran through my mind. At the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs October Lecture which had the Independent National Electoral Commission Chairman (Professor Attahiru Jega) as guest speaker; Nigeria’s former External Affairs Minister during the General Babangida regime-Professor Bolaji Akinyemi; reeled out a number of “takeaways” which sought to hammer into our re-collective skulls, several vents that have occurred in 2014. He had to reel out these events (disappeared funds, Chibok Girls and the strange ceasefire, Nigeria-South Africa fiasco, Ebola et al) because; according to him, Nigeria is a nation that forgets (may I add deliberately forgets).

200 days later, the Chibok Girls haven’t been released; after government sources informed Nigerians and the world that the government had secured their release through a brokered cease-fire deal facilitated by a certain Danladi. Nor have the Chibok Girls been released; since according to government officials; the girls’ whereabouts were known to the government.

I wouldn’t bore you with grandiloquent sentences; but I would joggle your memory that it was due to Malala Yousafzai’s visit on the 90th day of the girls’ abduction; which prompted President Jonathan to meet the parents of the girls and those who escaped. Lest we forget (like we are wont to), there was a little fiasco pertaining to whether money was given to the Chibok Community to be shared. Was money handed out or it shared appropriately (or equally as Nigerians love to say); who knows?

I won’t bore you with the deliberate attempt to discredit the BringBackOurGirls’ organisers by some sponsored and faceless voices; who insinuated the organisers were card-carrying members of the opposition party.

200 days later, the girls have not been found; the trauma can not be visualised vividly. When the girls were abducted, the statements of President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda which I included in the piece of the 100 days; should be highlighted here.

Leaders stand for something-vision; leaders stand on something-values-Dr Myles Munroe

President Yoweri Museveni would state in disbelief and berate the current Nigerian administration headed by President Goodluck Jonathan; for calling on the United States to help him rescue the Chibok girls. In President Museveni’s words “We have never called the United Nations to guard our security. Me, Yoweri Museveni to say that I have failed to protect my people and I call on the UN: I would rather hang myself. We prioritized national security by developing a strong Army, otherwise our Uganda would be like DRC, South Sudan, Somalia or Nigeria where militias have disappeared with school children.” He said, inviting foreign power would be a vote of no confidence in his government, if the state can’t guarantee security of the people.

Also, President Paul Kagame (who doesn’t kowtow to the whims and caprices of the West) made this hard-hitting and sincerely blunt commentary. Don’t read his comments if you don’t have the guts to read the truth. For those who have read some of President Kagame’s speeches, you would concur that he tells you what several other African Presidents wouldn’t dare say. President Kagame went thus “When I am watching television and I find that our leaders, who should have been working together all along to address these problems that only affect their countries, wait until they are invited to go to Europe to sit there and find solutions to their problems…it’s as if they are made to sit down and address their problems, Why does anybody wait for that? In fact, the image it gives is that we are not there to address these problems…they are (African leaders) happy to sit in Paris with the President of France and just talk about their problems.”

The Rwandan President went further; “It doesn’t make sense that our leaders cannot get themselves together to address problems affecting our people.”

And he concluded by stating “African leaders, we don’t need to be invited anywhere to go and address our problems, without first inviting ourselves to come together to tell each other the actual truth we must tell each other,” he said.

The public didn’t know who their leaders really were-until the leaders became enmeshed in scandal-Dr Myles Munroe.

I opined in my previous piece and I would reiterate it once more. What this writer thinks goes thus; 2015 elections’ catalyst would be the Chibok Girls theme. If the Chibok Girls are rescued; it would be the best PR strategy cum campaign President Jonathan’s PR team (Levick) would deploy for another term. And if President Jonathan decides not to run again (rescuing the girls and leaving on a high; leaving the scene on a blaze of Glory), without any iota of doubt, he would become an instant global statesman sought around the globe. The only change in the aforementioned is that the President is gunning for the number one seat in 2015; therefore the opportunity of being a global statesman has been discarded.

People (male or female) who kidnap children and harms and inflicts on them untoward and unspeakable acts; aren’t normal but delusional and are certified paedophiles. Anyone who agrees to an amnesty with such persons and doesn’t let the law of the land take its course; has no future for the children of this country and would be informing parents and the world that the Goodluck Jonathan Administration doesn’t see anything morally and ethically incorrect by not prosecuting criminal-minded terrorists and paedophiles-for this is what they are.

Dolapo Aina,

Lagos, Nigeria.

Persisting Negotiation on Release of Chibok Girls- FG

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Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke,  addressed reporters after a meeting of the National Security Council in Abuja, Tuesday, saying that the service chiefs briefed the council on the negotiation between them and the sect.

Federal Government is thus still insisting that negotiations will still continue between them and  Boko Haram in the bid to release the abducted Chibok schoolgirls.

Mr. Adoke  said despite the recent violation of the agreed ceasefire from the Islamic militants, FG will in no way violate its decision to ensure the safe release of the girls.

Chibok Girls: Story of 3 Escapees

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Lami, Maria and Hajara were at school in Chibok, north-eastern Nigeria, when they were kidnapped in April. Best friends Lami and Maria escaped by jumping from the back of a truck. Hajara was taken to a camp but later fled with another girl.

Lami: It was Monday night. We had exams the following day. Then we started to hear shootings in the town. So we went out. We phoned our parents to tell them what was happening in the town. They told us to run away when we got the chance. We told them that the town was already surrounded so there was no way we could run.

Maria: Lami woke me up saying: “Maria didn’t you hear what’s happening? Haven’t you heard sounds of shooting from the town?”

I said we should climb the wall and run away. She said: “No. No-one has run away. We should gather in one place and wait to see what’s going to happen.”

Other girls said nothing would happen to us. “We’re girls. They don’t do anything to girls. We should wait and see what God would do.”

Lami: We were at the school when suddenly three Boko Haram members entered.

They said: “If any of you attempt to leave we’ll kill all of you.” When we went out they were everywhere. They gathered us where we have our school assembly. As we were there they kept burning the school. They burnt everything.

Hajara: They asked us to get out of the gate, saying that when we were out they would let us go back to our homes. They said whoever did not have a headscarf or shoes should go and get them. They then asked us to climb on to a lorry, on top of the food loaded in it. The lorry was so high that we couldn’t easily climb on.

Maria: They said to us: “You’re only coming to school for prostitution. Boko (Western education) is haram (forbidden) so what are you doing in school?”

We kept quiet. I think there could have been about 100 Boko Haram members – they were all over the school. They outnumbered us. They took us away in their vehicles. We were sitting on oil drums in the vehicle. Our vehicle was really overloaded. We were saying to one another that we should throw away our shoes and scarves so that if our parents came they would know the road we had taken.

Hajara: The vehicle became full before I could get on. There were about 100 of us walking. We stopped at one town and people brought us water. I saw one of those who brought us water changed his clothes and joined the Boko Haram men. They then put us in other vehicles.

They put the rest in the boots of cars. Some of the Boko Haram members were so small that if I were to grab their necks I could break them. Some couldn’t even carry their guns properly.

Maria: We were wondering where we were being taken to. When we entered the vehicle, Lami said to me: “Shouldn’t we jump out of the vehicle here so that we may possibly escape? There are no other vehicles close by.”

Hajara: I thought, it’s preferable to have these people shoot me as I run than have them humiliate me. They kept saying to us: “Make sure you put on your scarves. Make sure you put on your scarves. We’ll shoot any girl we see without a scarf. And any girl who jumps out will die.”

I was about to jump out when one girl held me back and said they’d shoot me if I did.

“What’s the difference,” I said. “Is it not to the same death we’re going? They should shoot me here and let my corpse be collected.”

I was crying and praying until we reached the camp.

Lami: There was a lot of dust on the road, they couldn’t see us. When we jumped out, we started to run. We were running without shoes. We found other people. We started to run away from them thinking they were Boko Haram. But they too had run from the town.

Hajara: Boko Haram gathered us in a forest around noon. Some of the girls were tired and were lying down. But I couldn’t lie down. The spirit of God was asking me to go. It was telling me: “Get up and go. Get up and go.”

So I went. Another girl followed me. When we were going I saw some of them [Boko Haram members] performing ablutions. We stooped as if we were trying to pull out thorns from our shoes, as if we were just going to wee. We’d walk a little then bend down for a little while as if we were looking for something we’d lost.

After walking for a while they couldn’t see us properly since it was forest. We then started to run. After we had run for a short distance, we heard them saying “catch those girls.” We kept running. Whether they came after us not, we didn’t know.

Hajara: We kept going and our shoes were ripped. We found a house, where a girl could speak Hausa. Her parents gave us a place to sleep. We reached the Chibok area in the morning. A man looking for a relative among the missing girls drove us on motorbike into town.

When I saw my elder and younger brothers, I fell to the ground crying. My mother and father were crying and all members of my family cried. Before I reached home it was as if there was a death in the house. Mats were spread. People were consoling my father and mother thinking that I had died.

Lami: The people we met said: “Your town is far away. You can’t go there now. Come here and wait until morning when we’ll take you into the town to get transport back home.” We stayed there till morning when they asked us to get up so that we go to the town. We couldn’t walk. Our feet were full of thorns.

They said: “Let’s go find a vehicle to take you home.”

Maria: The men who helped us took us to Chibok, and I cried. It was the second time that something like that had happened to me. My dad was a pastor; Boko Haram went to our house and killed him. They also shot my mum in the stomach; they gave her 2,000 Naira ($12) to have the bullet.

Lami: My parents warmed up water and cared for my feet. I was taken to the hospital and it was two weeks before I could stand up.

Maria: I continued to live with the thought that Boko Haram members were coming to get me. I couldn’t sleep.

Hajara: I was having nightmares every day. There was even a day when I dreamed that they gathered all of us who fled in one place, and said to us: “You girls have defied us and fled. We’re now going to burn you alive.”

I haven’t forgotten about the other girls who are still in the hands of those people. I keep praying for them.

Lami: God will never make us meet these people again. And for our sisters who are still in the forest, may God help them. And may the whole world cry out for these girls to get out so that we continue with our education in school again.

Maria: They should pray to God to forgive them their sins. I’d also ask them to bring back the girls they have kidnapped because their parents are in distress. Some of the parents of the girls have already died. It was the thought of their girls that killed them.

Hajara: God will do what he wills, but I don’t want to look at them because of what they have done to my life. They think they’ve ruined me, but God willing, they haven’t ruined me. I’ll continue with my education.

 

Seen on: www.bbc.com

 

Fingers Crossed for Chibok Girls’ Release

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Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshall Alex Badeh announced two weeks ago that the boko haram had agreed to a ceasefire following an agreement reached by both the government and militants, after which one Mallam Danladi Ahmadu, who addressed himself as the Director General of Boko Haram repeatedly gave the assurance that the latest deal will end the violence and release the Chibok girls.

According to Ahmadu, the Chibok girls will be released today,  being 27th October 2014, to the Chadian President Idris Derby, for onward presentation to the Nigerian Government.

The entire nation awaits with fingers crossed on the authenticity of the claims by the Director General of Boko Haram, Mallam Danladi Ahmadu, which will be determined by the release of of over 200 Chibok girls who were abducted by the Boko Haram sect on April 14 this year.

Aminu Wali ‘Optimistic’ Boko Haram will Free Chibok Girls

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Nigeria’s foreign minister said Tuesday that Abuja hopes to end the conflict with Islamist militant group Boko Haram soon and win the release of more than 200 kidnapped schoolgirls.

 “I can say with some optimism, cautious optimism, that we are moving towards a situation where we’d be able to, in the very near future, to be able to get back our girls,” Aminu Wali said in Berlin.

“There is a tremendous amount of improvement in terms of the discussions that are going on now and also the possibility of having total cessation of hostilities and at the same time bringing back the girls and also normalcy in that part of northern Nigeria.”

Wali was speaking at press conference with German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier following government discussions on the conflict in Nigeria as well as areas of cooperation between the two countries.

In a surprise announcement on Friday, Nigeria said it had brokered a ceasefire deal with Boko Haram that would end their five-year uprising and bring home the 219 girls seized from the northeastern town of Chibok in April.

However there have been signs that the deal will prove hollow as violence raged through the weekend and the credentials of the so-called Boko Haram negotiator have been widely questioned.

Wali’s position was not as categorical as the presidency, which said Friday that a deal had been reached both to end hostilities and release the girls.

But it is in keeping with national security spokesman Mike Omeri, who told AFP that no agreement had been reached to release the teenagers but that the government was “inching closer and closer”.

Steinmeier said he hoped that the ceasefire would lead to the release of the girls.

He said he and French counterpart Laurent Fabius will at the weekend visit Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country and biggest economy, where Germany is planning to build four solar power plants in the north.

Chibok Girls: Four More Escape…

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Four more out of the 200 Chibok schoolgirls kidnapped by Boko Haram, raising hopes for the young prisoners still held captive, according to a report.

The free girls, all between ages 16 and 18, escaped with the help of a teenage boy prisoner, who managed to get them out of the camp, according to Stephen Davis, a British-Australian negotiator who had tried to bargain with the extremist Islamic group for the schoolgirls’ freedom.

The girls, guided by the setting sun, walked west for three weeks, finally arriving in a Nigerian village, starving and traumatized.

“They were amazing — to first escape and then walk for weeks,” Davis said.  “They are the only ones that have escaped from a Boko Haram camp.”

Davis said the girls had been told that if they fled Boko Haram, their families would be killed.

Chibok Girls: Ezekwesili, Ita-Giwa Voicing for Release

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ChibokGirls11

Former Minister for Education and Convener of the campaign, Prof. Oby Ezekwesili with Sen. Florence Ita-Giwa are calling for the release of the Chibok girls at an event organized by the Public Affairs Department of the United States Consulate General’s office to mark the upcoming International Day of the Girl Child in Lagos.

Marking 178 days in captivity, Ezekwesili, said she cannot help put herself in the shoes of the missing girls. “If it had been thirty-five years ago when I was just about getting out of secondary school that such a thing happened to me, where would I be? And I just look at it and I say that only God knows what these girls are going through. That is why they need a voice, whether the people speaking out for them are ten or one million; the more the better for them. We must stand and insist that these girls are brought back, safe and alive. We do not know who these girls are going to be. They could be the ones that would solve our problems as a nation. So why should we give up on them. The voices of these girls have been taken, therefore we must become a voice for them. And we will be a voice. It comes at a price. I have been pelted with insults, I’ve been maligned, but it doesn’t matter, because nothing any of us is going through can be compared to the plight of those girls.”

 Ita-Giwa also added that the International Day of the Girl Child, scheduled to hold tomorrow, should serve as an opportunity to bring attention to the challenges facing girls around the world, added that the issue of the missing Chibok girls “has been a source of concern to everybody. It is so unfortunate. I do wish and hope that soon, they will come back home. According to what we are told by the security agencies, they have to be very careful so as not to put the lives of the girls in more danger.But as a mother, I cannot even think of what it would be like if it was any of my children that such a thing happened to.”

 

#KakandaTemple ~ A Letter to that Nigerian-Palestinian

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Dear Friend,

Before you accuse me of finding nothing worth praising about you and yours, let me quickly empathise with you, and of course myself, over the killings in Gaza. You, as a humanist, one whose empathy has no border, are a citizen of the world, one of the reasons the earth is still habitable by the sane. It would be morally irresponsible for anyone to frown at your frantic advocacy which seeks an end to the killings in Gaza, only that commonsense demands a man whose house is on fire to rush for the extinguisher for his own dwelling first, before attending to a similar fire elsewhere.

London stands up for Gaza, because London is not bereaved. New York Stands up for Gaza because New York isn’t being threatened by hurricane-somebody now. Palestine would not stand up for Chibok because they also have a strip of misery in which they are just as worthless: Gaza. And the young Malala Yousafzai who came and roused the conscience of her fathers in Nigeria, was not here as a Pakistani as you have announced in defending your geographically insensitive activism from my “secular advocacy”. She was here as a Birmingham, England-based NGO owner, to stand with the girls of Nigeria in whose education Malala Fund has invested thousands of dollars. She has, as the news says, even “offered to partner with the UN efforts to mitigate the impacts of the abduction and help the girls (whose welfare is a responsibility of her NGO) return to school.”

You see, it’s not the way you internationalise your empathies that disturbs me, it’s this seeming pretence that all is well in your backyard while you weep over the blazing fire in faraway Gaza. If you, and others like you, had been half as passionate and emotional in your reaction to local tragedies as you are over the killings in Palestine, the troubles in the northeastern Nigeria wouldn’t have escalated to its present extent. The Palestinians, and their global solidarity soldiers, have gone berserk over the burning of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, their citizen, and you, amnesiac activist of a burning nation, have also been losing sleep over Khudair, ignoring the tens of Khudairs who die in your backyard every day!

It’s not the internationalisation of your empathies that disturbs me, it’s your lack of wisdom to understand that Khudair has his fighters — and he’s fully named, his age too revealed –while all the killed and abducted Dantalas and Asma’us and Johns and Naomis of Yobe and Borno are seen as mere statistics, unworthy of collective advocacy by you.

Ours is not a criticism of the northern establishment, but that of its hypocritical allegiance to “brotherhood of faith”, which is what you say in your solidarity with the Palestinians, ignoring that we’re just as bereaved here, and unknowing that Palestine is also a home for non-Muslims. But, wait, what sort of a human being is responsive to the tragedies that fall upon just the people of his faith?

Ours is a criticism of the collective, not of a specific group. This is a reminder that we have not done enough, not a declaration that we have not done anything at all. It’s a criticism of me and you who, safe from the bullets of Boko Haram, have not done anything comparable to the emotions shown in the sensitivity of our countrymen to the happening in Gaza. Are you, my dear global citizen, trying to say that we, especially resident northerners, need CNN and Aljazeera to remind us that there are carnages going on in our backyard before we acknowledge them?
Haven’t we all lost friends and friends of friends and relatives and relatives of relatives in this madness? What media is more effective than being actually bereaved? The most effective media is our emotions, and on this I dare say that we haven’t shown and done enough. My participation in #BringBackOurGirls shows me the hypocrisy of our Muslim brothers and sisters who, dismissing our hashtags as a gimmick, are now loud champions of #FreePalestine.

See, we are as bereaved as the people of Palestine and it’s quite ironic that, instead of gathering our lots to empathise with ourselves first and demand solutions and justice, we pretend as though all’s well in our house. Why are the people of Palestine not empathising with the people of Borno if our “brotherhood of faith” is actually reciprocal? Why? I repeat: why aren’t the people of Palestine extending their “brotherhood of faith” to us in the hours of our bereavements? The Palestinians have never stopped fighting. They have their men up and running against oppression. Who’s up fighting for us, especially for Chibok and the larger northeast? Why leaving these campaigns against Boko Haram’s terrors to just the members of Civilian JTF and #BringBackOurGirls campaigners?

You even said that no atrocity is more than that going on in Gaza, and I ask: is there an experience worse than having minors abducted, savagely raped and impregnated by terrorists? Saying that no atrocity is as bad as that in Gaza means that the sanctity of a Palestinian’s life is higher than that of a Nigerian’s. And that, fellow countryman, is an unfortunate and disturbing utterance.

Similarly, you have to be really careful in your advocacy. At least get relevant history books to properly understand the religious and political complexity of the territorial conflicts that have turned Gaza into a prison-mortuary. Your alignment with the Palestinians, your brothers-in-faith, may lead you into something called antisemitism. And you also need to understand that it’s the peak of such misguided hatred that resulted into the formation of a racist ideology that once sought to promote the “Aryan” German race as the best of humans. Nazism, consequently, championed the killings of the innocent Jews, who were considered threats to proposed German nationalism.

In your analyses of the happenings in Gaza, you have, quite sadly, pandered to a way of the Hitler-led Aryan racists who considered the Jewish race abolishable pests.

Do have restraint in understanding that the happenings in Israel is not a crime perpetrated, and supported, by the whole of Jews. It’s a crime perpetrated by a monstrous ideology championed by a people of Jewish identity, just the way Nazism was not supported by the whole of Germans, but by a small but powerful National Socialist party clique. If you’re to adopt this form of flawed thinking in portraying ethnic or religious groups, obviously the whole of Muslims should be similarly persecuted for the crimes of Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabbab, the Taliban and even Boko Haram who all pretend to be advocates of rights for the Muslim!

Hate the Israelis who, under zionism, did to Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews, but do not go close to hating the whole of Jews. Saying I hate the Jews means I hate some significant figures that shaped me, mine and the larger world. Saying I hate the Jews means I hate Jesus, who in my theology is Isah (AS), needed to authenticate my belief; saying I hate the Jews means I hate Moses (AS), similarly needed; saying I hate the Jews is an ingratitude to Albert Einstein’s contribution to science; saying I hate the Jews is an ingratitude to Sergey Brin, the founder of Google, whose invention has redeemed me in ways I’m incapable of repaying; saying I hate the Jews is also an ingratitude to Mark Zuckerberg whose innovation is the reason you and I are “friends” – even though we’ve never met – sharing thoughts on the ways of the world.

As long as you’re on Facebook, and employ Google to aid your quests for knowledge, both creations of inventors of Jewish identity, declaring that you hate the Jews is a contradiction, a joke clearly on you. And, as Muslims, your faith is threatened the moment you withhold your love for Jesus and Moses.

Don’t let a criminal be a representative of his race, religion and nationality. This approach, this dangerous stereotyping, has been the reason for these many conflicts we are still unable to resolve in this damned world. We must embrace our humanity, the only thing we all have in common, if we’re indeed interested in resolving our racial, religious, political, regional, territorial and ethnic conflicts!

Unlike you, whenever I see a group of people, the first identity that strikes me is the human, not the religious, not the political, not the racial, and obviously not the ethnic. Aside from my immediate family, my next closest family are the righteous people, people always in pursuit of Justice without discrimination, and of their other identities I’m unmindful.

I’ve long overcome the naiveté of hating a people based on the crimes of a group of which they are non-compliant members, just the way I don’t owe any non-Muslim and southerner apology for the atrocities of the Boko Haram. I only owe them explanation, defence, solidarity and empathy. My seeming silence over the killings in Gaza is simply because I’ve also been mourning, and also holed up in a mess of immeasurable depth. The Palestinians, I know, have global solidarity soldiers fighting for them. But, beyond hashtags, who are actually fighting for the redemptions of this place in which we don’t need a visa to reside?

This week, at our Abuja’s #BringBackOurGirls sit-in, as I listened to Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, a woman whose public service records never really attracted my curiosity, but I’ve come to like as a humanist and patriot of impressive resilience, lament on the fate and conditions of the abducted girls and the dysfunctionality of the system in charge of our safety, something within me collapsed. So I withdrew from the crowd, hoping that could stem it, but I still couldn’t fight the tears. And that was how I left the sit-in, broken. This is because, in the cruel politics of migrations in this century, I have no home other than Nigeria, and the tragedy that befalls a fellow countryman, irrespective of his/her religious and ethnic and regional affiliations, is a shared grief.

I’m not inconsiderate to your reference to “brotherhood of faith” in standing for the people of Gaza, but I will never ever stand for them simply because we’re of the same religion. My own version of that excuse of yours is: “faith in the universal brotherhood of Man.” I only empathise with them because of a shared humanity. As for those who rightly explain that humanity has no border, which I also endorse, my belief in yours may only be confirmed if you also recognise the conditions of the Iraqi Christians who’re now fleeing Mosul, for they have been told by the ISIS animals to convert to Islam or lose their lives. Many of you are in Abuja, but participating in #BringBackOurGirls is seen as a “waste of time”, insulting those who defy the tasks of their 9-to-5 daily to be a part of the campaign, ignorant of the impending dangers, the danger of becoming refugees in your own city!

Yet, some of you have sought to typify my refusal to label corpses in order to know which deserves my empathy as simply a bid to earn a medal from the non-Muslims I’ve been struggling so hard, according to you, to impress; some of the same non-Muslims who, in a spark of mischief, have in their turn called me an “Islamic propagandist”, whatever that is, for condemning the profiling of northerners in the East, for endorsing a Muslim as presidential candidate… But I’m indifferent to their malicious labeling just as I’ve been to yours because you’re both incapable of denying me the rights to such expressions.

Humanity is still a joke because of this army of cerebrally malfunctioned brothers and sisters to whom we’re seen as hypocrites merely trying to impress the non-members of our group, for exposing a form of oppressive hypocrisy. Well, my dear friend, I don’t write to influence or change you; my writing is a sport that seeks to prove that I don’t think the way you do, and that the way I think is independent of yours. I hope this would be taken in good faith. May God save us from us!

By Gimba Kakanda
@gimbakakanda (On Twitter)