Biafra Panic: Kanu’s Father Ready To Quit Throne For Biafra

Biafra Panic: Kanu’s Father Ready To Quit Throne For Biafra

 

His Royal Majesty, Eze Kanu, the father of Nnamdi Kanu, has revealed that he will go as far as abdicating his throne for the actualization of a Biafra republic. In an interview with The Sun, the Eze Ikputu of Afara Ukwu Ibeku in Umuahia, said he was ready to quit his throne over the course for which his son is being detained. He said there was relief having heard that his son, the Radio Biafra boss, was arraigned in court in good health. The monarch also expressed his joy over the continued support of the “Biafran” people who rallied round the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB). In an appeal to President Muhammdu Buhari, Eze Kanu urged the federal government to release his son, because he has not done anything wrong in fighting his course with just words. He said there was no way to tell his son to backdown, stressing that Biafra is not just Kanu’s fight but the desire of the Igbo people. Eze Ikputu noted that the Igbo people are like slaves in the country, hence the the call for their liberation. He added that nothing but freedom will do for the agitators of Biafra, and that the separation in no way calls for war, seeing that other countries have gained their freedom without bloodshed. Meanwhile, Princess Chinwe Kanu, the sister of the detained Biafra leader, has cried out over how t he Department of State Services (DSS) plans to kill her brother while in detention.

ex-Senate President’s Son Sues Catholic Priest For N5bn Over Prophecy

ex-Senate President’s Son Sues Catholic Priest For N5bn Over Prophecy

Second son of 1st  Republic Senate President, Late Abyssinia Orizu, Prince Orji Orizu has challenged any Nigerian, native doctor, any child or agent of a native doctor and anybody connected to any native doctor in or outside Nigeria to come out and speak that he has visited, patronized or been seen in the house of any native doctor anywhere in or outside Nigeria.

Prince Nwafor-Orizu gave the challenge while addressing newsmen in his house in Nnewi, following allegations by Rev. Fr. Chidozie Chilaka, aka ‘Jesus Network,’ of the Catholic Diocese of the East (Orthodox Catholic) during his weeklong crusade at Nigeria Science and Technical College Nnewi, that Prince Orji Nwafor Orizu was responsible for the misfortunes of his uncle’s wife, Mrs. Elizabeth Orizu and those of her children.

The Mbaise-born and Isiala Mbano, Imo State, based evangelist had allegedly called out one Mrs. Orizu, Prince Nwafor-Orizu’s uncle’s wife, during his crusade in Nnewi and told her that she had been under a spell from Prince Nwafor-Orizu.

The priest allegedly told the woman that all her daughters’ broken marriages were caused by the legal luminary, promising that he would nullify curses inflicted on them by the former first Republic Senate President’s son.

Orji Orizu subsequently sued the Reverend Father for N5b for defamation of character.

Boko Haram kill seven in suicide attack, raid

Boko Haram kill seven in suicide attack, raid

The attacks happened on Tuesday in the northeastern state of Borno, near the group’s Sambisa Forest hideout, where the army is looking to flush out remnants of the rebel group.

President Muhammadu Buhari, who has made crushing the rebellion a priority, in December said a sustained counter-offensive had reduced the group’s ability to strike effectively.

The first attack happened in Izgeki village, said one resident, who gave his name as Isyaku, from the town of Mubi in neighbouring Adamawa state.

“I received information from my relatives who fled the attack… that some Boko Haram gunmen on bicycles attacked Izgeki across the river from Izghe on Tuesday morning where they killed two people.

“The attack forced villagers to cross the river into Izghe. The gunmen pursued them. One of them who had a suicide belt on him blew himself up near the market, killing five people.”

Izghe was previously attacked in February 2014 where more than 100 people were killed as the rebels torched homes, opened fire and set off explosives.

Thousands of residents fled the attack into Adamawa towards the town of Madagali and elsewhere but following the army’s recapture of territory, some managed to return and begin reconstruction.

Izghe is in the district of Gwoza, which Boko Haram captured in August 2014 and which the group’s shadowy leader Abubakar Shekau declared the centre of its self-styled caliphate.

Ayuba Chibok, an elder in the town of the same name, said there was also an attack in the nearby village of Nchiha at about 10:00 pm (2100 GMT) on Tuesday.

“Luckily no-one was hurt but they (Boko Haram gunmen) looted food and burnt a large part of the village,” he added. Residents managed to flee.

Boko Haram kidnapped some 276 girls from their school in Chibok in April 2014 in a daring raid that captured world attention. Fifty seven escaped soon afterwards but 219 are still being held.

Buhari set his military commanders a deadline to end the insurgency by December 31, after six years of fighting that have left at least 17,000 dead and made more than 2.6 million homeless.

AFP reporting of attacks indicated at least 1,624 people were killed since Buhari was sworn in as president on May 29 to the end of 2015.

The wisdom of setting a time limit, however, has been questioned with Boko Haram still conducting suicide and bomb attacks against civilian targets in towns and cities across the northeast.

Continued raids on remote rural villages have been seen as a sign the group’s supply lines have been cut.
On December 24, Buhari said in an interview the Islamic State group affiliate was now unable to mount effective “conventional attacks”.

“I think technically we have won the war because people are going back into their neighbourhoods,” the former army general and military ruler told the BBC.

Jacob Zenn, an Africa security analyst at the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, said Buhari’s strategy was working but warned the group was not defeated.

“Even if the Islamists appear to be on the back foot in Nigeria, this does not mean permanent defeat,” he wrote on the African Arguments website on Tuesday.

“Boko Haram may go into hiding like it did after the State of Emergency offensive in 2013 in anticipation that the security forces will let down their guard over time…

“The threat from Boko Haram has ebbed and flowed in the past five years and while Boko Haram is now on the downturn, the military group may have new tactics and strategies as well as a plan to return stronger than before.

“Nigeria’s security forces will need to anticipate this.”

YORUBA OPC MEMBERS NABBED WITH POLICE GUNS USED IN ROBBING DURING YULETIDE

Policemen attached to the Anti-Robbery Squad, State Department of Criminal Investigation, Yaba, have arrested three members of the Odua People’s Congress with two police guns.

The suspects ─ Gbadamosi Azeez, aka Agarasha; Salami Raufu, aka Orobo; and Waheed Oseni, aka Oosa ─ were apprehended with a pump-action rifle and an AK-47 rifle after a tip-off that the men were allegedly planning to rob Mushin residents during the Yuletide.
It was learnt that the police had first arrested Azeez, who allegedly used his tricycle to ferry ammunition for the group.
The suspect was said to have led the police team to Folarin Street, Mushin, on December 29, where Raufu and Oseni were arrested.
Azeez, an indigene of Ogun State, denied knowledge of the guns, saying he had been called by a leader of the OPC, Olori, to drive him to meet a friend.
He said, “I am a member of the OPC and I drive a tricycle. I have been doing this for two years now. Sometime in December, 2014, I had finished working and parked my tricycle by the roadside.

BREAKING NEWS!!! Explosion Rocks Bayelsa

BREAKING NEWS!!! Explosion Rocks Bayelsa

Speaker of Bayelsa House of Assembly, Kombowei Benson, has claimed that masked men, in Korokorosei bombed his country home,  hours to the supplementary election in Southern Ijaw Local Government and 101 polling units in the state.

Benson was accused by a group, Patriots of Ijaw Nation (PIN), of accommodating some former militants from Delta and Rivers states at his country home ahead of tomorrow’s poll.
 
Speaking on a live radio programme on the supplementary election, Benson disclosed that some people from the community sent a message to his wife’s phone that his house had been bombed.

Benson said no life was lost during the incident as he and his relatives were still in Yenagoa but that the explosion caused a huge damage, according to eyewitnesses account.

He narrated how he got wind of the development at about 4.00am yesterday morning. “I was asleep in my house here in Yenagoa and at about 4.00am, my wife’s phone rang and a message was sent to us that they had gone to bomb  my house with dynamite. It is not something unexpected because they had always been promising to attack, kill or assassinate me  or my family members.

Meanwhile, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of being the sponsors of the five suspects arrested by Bayelsa State Police Command over plans to attack strategic locations, including the home of former president Goodluck Jonathan.

The APC governorship candidate, former governor Timipre Sylva spoke on the arrest and said the police should do a thorough investigation and get to the root of the matter.

Sylva alleged the PDP was making frantic efforts to secure bail for the arrested hoodlums.

Dasukigate: EFCC Chair Summoned to Aso Rock Twice in 24 Hrs after Arrest of Buhari’s Associate, Isa

EFCC Chair Summoned to Aso Rock Twice in 24 Hrs after Arrest of Buhari’s Associate, Isa

THE Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Wednesday widened its reach in arresting suspects in the $2.1billion arms deal involving former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd) and some influential Nigerians.

The arrest of Brig. Gen. Jafaru Isa (retd), an associate of President Muhammadu Buhari and former military governor of Kaduna State, was the first chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), to be arrested in the alleged diver- sion of $2.1 billion meant for arms purchase by officials of the Jonathan administration.

The APC chieftain, who is now a guest of the EFCC, was the military administrator of Kaduna State from December 1993 to August 1996 during the military regime of the late Gen. Sani Abacha.

He was a very senior member of Buhari’s party, Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), that later aligned with other opposition fronts to form the APC on whose platform he contested the gubernatorial election of Kano State.

Our sources also disclosed that Isa is a very close friend of Dasuki, the embattled former NSA.
It was from his residence in Asokoro, Abuja that EFCC operatives picked him up that night.

Before his arrest, EFCC sources noted that Isa had been invited to appear before the commission on the same Wednesday he was arrested. But rather than comply with the invitation, he allegedly wrote the commission through his lawyer. EFCC’s investigation allegedly exposed payment of N100mil- lion to Isa.
EFCC’s dissatisfaction with Isa’s stance and response, ac- cording to its spokesperson, Wilson Uwujaren, led to his ar- rest to enable the suspect clarify the ‘questionable receipts’ from Dasuki. As he remains in EFCC detention, the commission noted that investigations into the allegations against him would continue.
In a related development, the Acting EFCC Chairman, Mr. Ibrahim Magu, has in the last 24 hours been sighted twice in Aso Rock Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He was first seen in the Villa briefly on Wednesday and yesterday, he was back there.
The EFCC boss did not speak with reporters.

Is Father Mbaka also among the DSS?

Abimbola Adelakun

On New Year ’s Day, Catholic Priest and Founder, Adoration Ministries in Enugu, Revd. Fr. Ejike Mbaka, prophesied that those who had benefitted from the humongous corruption perpetrated on the watch of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, would try to assassinate President Muhammadu Buhari. I have used the word “prophesy” guardedly because in Nigeria, many of the things that are

marketed as prophecies are a mishmash of commonsense, media reports, scientific research, and analyses carried out by people who study trends using academic tools.

For one, every leader in the world is in danger of being assassinated for either ideological reasons or for the sheer fun of it. That is why they expend huge resources guaranteeing their security. Even the Pope faces a similar threat regularly. It will not be “prophesy” if anyone says he is going to be killed. Unless Mbaka has contacts in the Department of State Services or he is an undercover agent, and therefore can share credible information about an impending presidential assassination, this is neither prophesy nor divine inspiration.

Many a “prophet” in Nigeria is simply a dowser and there is perhaps no better proof of this than how many of them prophesied how Jonathan would win the presidential election in 2015 and how Buhari would lose.

The beginning of the year presents an opportunity for these prophets to wave their sticks and make some more claims to guide their flock. I recently reviewed the 2015 prophesies of a notable Pentecostal pastor whose church proposes to have a parish in every street in Nigeria at least and could not but question how he could make more prophesies for 2016 with a straight face. Weeks after the science community already announced the discovery of a new sexually transmitted disease – Mycoplasma genitalium – he prophesied that one would surface. Those who missed the news in his church would think it is the prophesy coming to pass when they contract it. Prophesies by another popular pastor based in Lagos, whose church was involved in a building collapse last year, were development-oriented except his idea of Africa exchanging agricultural produce in return for technology from developed countries is far behind time. The Holy Spirit can surely do better.

In an article I did in 2008 titled, Nigerian Nostradamuses, I pointed out how these prophets provide an alibi for themselves even as they discharge these prophetic insights.

They tell us there will be divine wrath visited in the form of natural disasters but to avert it, we only need to repent of our sins and pray. Natural disasters, however, cannot but occur – and thank God for scientists who can predict them with far more accuracy. If it truly happens, they get the credit for having prophesied it. If it doesn’t occur, they ask us to thank God for answering our prayers. Whichever way it goes, they are indemnified against legitimate inquiry.

As tempting as it is for me to dismiss Mbaka’s proclamation of presidential assassination as another episode in the constant mis-employment of religion in service of propaganda, I concede that his sense of ownership of Buhari’s government is understandable. Mbaka took a definite stand for Buhari – a major risk – at a time it was not politically expedient to do so. Now that his gamble has paid off, he owes it to the public to do more protecting the same government by campaigning for Buhari in the name of “prophetic utterances.” Although he will claim divine inspiration, much of his New Year message reads like a press release from Lai Mohammed.

Let me be clear that I do not oppose clerics of all hues wading in the murky waters of politics. Like every one of us, clerics are citizens and can hardly afford to be neutral when the survival of the nation and her inhabitants are threatened. In the Old Testament, the mark of a great prophet was the one who could look the king in the eye and say, “Thus saith the Lord…” without pandering to or sweetening his message. Those times, the prophet was an equivalent of a social critic, channelling spiritual capital towards mitigating abuse of power by rulers who got high on the power they embodied. While Nigeria is lucky to have such intrepid men of the cloth, a number of “Daddys-in-the-Lord” are men who cannot afford to offend the powers that be because their fingers are deeply embedded in the king’s feast.

If the end goal of clerics engaging the state is not to liberate people mentally, politically and socially, then it is virtually useless. If, at the end of the day, it is about getting the president to come to your church or mosque, grant you import waivers, fly you to Jerusalem to go pray to an omnipresent God, and allow you to desecrate public facilities and institutions while practising your faith, then who needs such a self-serving agenda?

One should ask, what genuine contribution has Mbaka made to the polity by prophesying that Buhari would be killed other than generating fear among the vulnerable and sowing seeds of distrust that only need one unfortunate event to hurriedly germinate? In a country where people take pastors so seriously even when they prophesy STDs, should they not use words to edify rather than tear down fragile walls? Really, what is such a prophesy supposed to achieve even if it were true that Mbaka heard clearly from God? What is his congregation – and by extension, everyone who hears – supposed to do about it? Pray? Panic? Or just be prejudiced against those being accused of corruption so we can add the potential for murder to their list of sins?

If I may suggest to Mbaka, he should leave the job of the DSS to the men who are trained to spot and tackle such threats. That propensity towards running the President’s errands, combined with a lack of discretion, brought disrepute to Christian Association of Nigeria and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria under Pastor Ayo Oritsejeafor in the last administration. He was not only partisan, he became politically exposed; the kind he should be preaching against if he had had more restraint.

Mbaka, I am sure, does not want to go down that ignoble path. If he wants to get into the arena, he can take up a subtler role; the kind played by Prophet Nathan who made King David face his misdeeds in an audacious yet tactful way.

Buhari, I guarantee, needs such a voice of conscience in his head. One only needs to look around our leaders and see how their fawning admirers and sycophants use the cries of “Sai Baba” to insulate them against reality.

In these times when Buhari’s government that promised change is flailing, and even some of his ardent campaigners are getting worried that their great expectations are being shortchanged, it is important that some of those who are close to our leaders retain their heads and speak some earthy truth to him when necessary. Mbaka owes it to his constituency – and the nation in general – to help this government succeed in spite of its present shortcomings. He cannot perform the critical role his own involvement with Buhari has thrust on him by becoming a megaphone for the government. There are more than enough people already jockeying for that spot. For a man of the cloth, it is tantamount to self-debasement to join the league of Buhari fan club who have committed their lives to blind praise singing.

When Mbaka visited Aso Rock recently, Buhari thanked him for the role he played in getting him elected and declared him courageous. I assure Mbaka that the true test of his courage has yet to come. When he can face Buhari and like Prophet Nathan, tell him where he is missing it in the discharge of his duties to the state without minding losing presidential patronage, then he will know what courage feels like.