Buhari overstated his ability to stop terrorism – British media

– British media express their dissapointment over President Buhari’s broken promises
– A deadly attack in Dalori is a vivid example of the presidency’s inability to defeat the terrorists
–  At least 86 people were killed and 62 more injured in the attack that lasted for about four hours
– “There is a difference between what he would like to do and what he is able to do.”
– Terrorism, corruption, economic and other issues are yet to be addressed

Editor’s note: Alistair Dawber, the reporter of the British national newspaper The Independent, claims that Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari overstated his ability to stop the Islamists, as a deadly attack in Dalori village clearly shows that the fight with Boko Haram insurgency is far from its end.

The reprisal attack where the terrorists burnt children alive

The attack in the village of Dalori began when three female suicide bombers detonated their explosive belts in the name of Boko Haram. Four hours later, after the jihadists had firebombed houses with local people locked inside, 86 men, women and children were dead.

Women and children look at burnt out houses following an attack by Boko Haram in Dalori

“They came in through the bush, some of them riding on motorcycles and some in cars. People ran helter skelter for safety. Some crossed the river behind our village and we made distress calls to the soldiers but no help came. They started shooting and burnt the town. They even beheaded some of us and set the elderly, who could not escape, on fire,” a resident of Dalori, in Nigeria’s violent north east, told Channels Television

Boko Haram, the band of Islamists that has sworn loyalty to Isis and which wants to extend its writ across West Africa, is a group that President Muhammadu Buhari has previously said he has beaten. Its continued presence is an embarrassment for the retired army general.

Last weekend was Mr Buhari’s worst since winning the election 11 months ago

To make matters worse, as news of the attack filtered through, his government had been forced to go cap in hand to the World Bank and African Development Bank, asking for $3.5bn in loans as the fall in the price of oil has caused the Nigerian economy to falter.

Nigeria’s rating on the list of least corrupt countries of the world.

Last weekend was probably Mr Buhari’s worst since winning the election 11 months ago – and it capped an uncomfortable time in office.

He came to power on a promise of ending the endemic corruption that had become rife under his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, and offering his own guarantee as a military man that Boko Haram’s days were numbered. He has largely over-promised and under-delivered.

“There is a difference between what he would like to do and what he is able to do. He made a promise to tackle corruption, in a country where the only way to get something done is to bribe somebody. Nigeria is almost ungovernable, but he has also been slow to make reforms,” said Richard Dowden, director of the Royal African Society.

Buhari promised “normalcy” for the people in the North-East but failed

If Mr Buhari, “a straight talking military man” according to Mr Dowden, has had little time to cement changes in Nigerian society, he has been quick to laud apparent successes against Boko Haram. In an interview at the end of last year, he said that the Nigerian army, criticised in some quarters for its ineffective performance against the insurgents, had “technically defeated” Boko Haram.

It is true that the military has enjoyed a number of successes, and Nigeria’s regional standing has gained currency – there is now more cooperation between Nigeria and its neighbours. But, as the attack in Dalori shows, the fight is far from at an end.

The war between jihadists and the Nigerian government has killed 20,000 people in the last six years and driven nearly 2.5 million from their homes. Mr Buhari has promised “normalcy” for the people in the North-east areas around the town of Maiduguri, the worst affected area, but it appears that the normality is Boko Haram’s ability to act with impunity.

Economic issues

If the Nigerian president has been too quick to declare his successes against Boko Haram, he has had little chance to solve the other problem in his in-tray. Nigeria’s economy relies heavily on oil – about 70 per cent of national income comes from sales of crude – but the recent collapse in its price has caused the country’s deficit to grow. Just a third of Nigeria’s income is expected to come from oil revenues this year.

The price of oil over the last month

Gene Leon, the International Monetary Fund’s representative in Nigeria, told the Financial Times that Nigeria faced “significant external and fiscal account challenges”. Africa’s biggest oil producer is looking to borrow up to $5bn to shore up its economy. Up to $3.5bn will be sought from the World Bank and African Development Bank, with the rest borrowed from the capital markets.

“We have held exploratory talks with the World Bank. We have not applied for emergency loans,” said the finance minister, Kemi Adeosun.
Some of this, at least, has been sheer bad luck for Mr Buhari. The price of a barrel of oil has halved since he was sworn in last May. According to the IMF, Nigeria is expected to report growth of about three per cent for 2015. If accurate, it would be the lowest growth rate for more than a decade.

COAS Buratai go the extra mile to end Boko Haram (photos)

– The chief of army staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai led a delegation of senior officers to Colombia
– Colombian chief of army staff, General Albert Jose Mejia briefed Nigerian COAS and his delegation
– Nigerian COAS and his delegation went on a tour of Colombia military formations

The chief of army staff (COAS), Lieutenant General Tukur Yusufu Buratai, a relentless effort to end insurgency ravaging the Northeastern part of Nigeria, has led a delegation of senior officers to Colombia to inspect major military formations and institutions of the Armed Forces of the country.

COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, in a hand shake with the Colombian Army Chief, Gen Albert Jose Mejia, during the visit

This was contained in a statement issued today, February 4, by Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman, acting director army public relations, a copy obtained by Naij.com.

The COAS who is embarking on his first visit to the country since his assumption of office said the purpose is to offer the delegation an opportunity to inter-face with the Colombian Armed Forces on their efforts so far in resolving insurgency and possible lessons for the Nigerian Army.

COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai, presenting a souvenir to the Colombian Army Chief, Gen Albert Jose Mejia, during the visit

It was contained in the statement that Lieutenant General Buratai and his delegation on arrival at the Colombian Army Headquarters were well received by the Colombian Chief of Army Staff, General Albert Jose Mejia.

General Mejia briefed the COAS and his entourage on different categories of operations by his country’s army and compared what his country is going through and that of Nigeria in justifying the visit of the Nigerian COAS.

The Colombian COAS brief were highlighted as follows; the 50 year war against the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia and other insurgent groups that have culminated in the ongoing peace talks, the deliberate effort by the Colombian military to unravel the identity of the various insurgent groups which composed of support groups, political groups, core fighting groups, leading to the decapitation of key leaders of the insurgents, the establishment of joint operations, emphasis on civil- military cooperation to win the hearts and minds of the local population in areas where government presence were non-existent, among others.

COAS, Lt Gen Tukur Buratai (5th left), Colombian Army Chief, Gen Albert Jose Mejia (6th right), senior officers and other dignitaries in a group photograph

General Mejia after the briefing took the Nigerian COAS and his delegation on a tour of his country’s formations, military institutions, aviation unit and the Engineer Corps of the Colombian Armed Forces.
Colombian army is believed to be very tactical in fight against insurgency as the country has been battling armed insurgency in the last 50 years.

It is pertinent to mention that Lieutenant General Buratai’s visit to Colombia was aimed at brainstorming with his Colombian counterpart on the most suitable strategies to curb insurgency in Nigeria.

The Nigerian soldiers have been on the trail of Boko Haram members, killing thousands of them in a foiled attack as well as chasing them out of their alleged captured territories in parts of the country.

The war against insurgency would have been over by now according to the general officer (GOC) commanding 3 Division of the Nigerian Army, Brigadier General Musa Aliyu, who revealed that the war is been delayed because terrorists are hiding among innocent Nigerians because they no longer have a defined territory in the country.

The destructive activities of the terrorist group so far is expected to cost the Federal Government a fortune as Retired Lt.-Gen. Theophilus Danjuma, who is the chairman, presidential committee on Northeast initiative, on Wednesday, February 3 at the commencement of a two-day security seminar, organised in Abuja, by the Alumni Association of the National Defence College, revealed that a whooping sum of N2 trillion is needed in the short-term to rebuild areas destroyed by the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeastern part of Nigeria.

Female corper allegedly gets pregnant for JSS 2 male student

According to report by a twitter user, @d_yaeger, a female member of the National Youth Service Corps in Osun state (NYSC) allegedly got pregnant for a male junior secondary school 2 student.

NYSC logo

See the tweets below:

Corper pregnant for jss2 student sigh

— Mad eye moody (@d_yaeger) February 4, 2016

So apparently they said the jss2 boy used jazz for the corper
— Mad eye moody (@d_yaeger) February 4, 2016

The students in these schools don’t really care about education

— Mad eye moody (@d_yaeger) February 4, 2016

@d_yaeger Heard this gist too during my service year.
— † (@teeVaa_) February 4, 2016

@d_yaeger Yes, I did. Some of their secondary school students are pretty notorious.

— † (@teeVaa_) February 4, 2016

What should we call this?

Nigeria immigration service to recruit 5, 000 officers

The legacy of former president Goodluck Jonathan lives on as the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) has announced plans to recruit 5, 000 personnel to boosts its work force, The Nation reports.

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Officials of the Nigeria Immigration Service during parade.

In a statement issued on Thursday, February 4 by the public relations officer of the service, Ekpedeme Kings, the approval for the recruitment of 5, 000 officers was obtained under the immediate past administration of Jonathan since 2012, but was still pending.

Kings while responding to the alleged recruitment scam in the immigration clarified that the service has not started any fresh recruitment, noting that the service only replaced the over 2, 000 officers that died in Boko Haram attacks in the North East as well as resignation and retirement of officers at the junior cadre in the last few years.

Recall that there was a recent report on a national newspaper earlier this week with the tittle: “NIS in fresh recruitment scam.” The paper reported that the recruitment was allegedly carried out in December, 2015, adding that another recruitment exercise was conducted in December, 2015 and that those recruited have already collected their January 2016 salaries.

But the immigration spokesman denied the report when asked, saying: “We did replacement of over 200 officers. The fact is that Boko Haram has been rioted out of the North-East zone and now for the Army to carry out its operations in other areas it is common knowledge in the country that the para-military, are to continue to take over the areas that have been conquered.

“We should be able to maintain the peace in that area for developmental proposes. The Army will go on with the war, while the paramilitary gives support and also while government is reconstructing the area.
“Because we have not been able to recruit for the past five or six years, due to our failed recruitment exercises we have not been able to have the kind of man power that is needed to carry out this administrative occupation of the North-East zone.

“So that services approached government that so many officers have died in the North East zone, others have retied because they have completed their years of service or on account of age, others have been moved due to several reasons.

“The workforce we are putting to this places are not actually the middle cadre or the senior officers it is the inspectorate that is level 1-7. We have the senior officers that are already there.

“We pleaded with government to replace these people and government considered and government gave the approval. The number I do not know but it is over 200 and not 300.

“The 5, 000 vacancies were approved under the past administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan for fresh recruitment in 2012, which is still pending.”
\Kings disclosed that the 5, 000 officers that would be recruited soon are to be deployed to the borders across the country after obtaining proper training.

Recall that in 2014, immigration recruitment tragedy occurred on Saturday, March 15 when 6.5 million people from all the 37 states of the country including the FCT stormed various recruitment centers in the country for the 4, 000 vacant positions in the service. No fewer than 16 job seekers lost their lives while several others sustained various degrees of injuries. The main causes of death was based on overcrowding, stampede, exhaustion, and impatience of the job seeker.

Meanwhile, Lt. Gen. Abdulrahman Danbazzau, minister of interior who gave a speech in Sokoto state, revealed that out of the over 1, 500 routes into the country, only about 100 are currently manned by the security forces, leaving about 1, 400 routes unmanned.

Twin sisters share one husband

– Twins often hate to be separated by things like marriage

– These twin sisters have decided they don’t want to be separated, so they have agreed to share one husband

The twins and their husband

Twin sisters Owami and Olwethu Mzazi from South Africa, have allegedly married the same husband. In a country where polygamy is widely accepted, relatives did not have any problems with the twins decision to stay together with the same man, till death do them part.

According to reports, this didn’t come as a surprise, as the twins had always dreamt of marrying the same man. The 26 year old twins are married to 51 year old Mzukiseni Mzazi. Here’s what one half of the twins, Owami, had to say:

“We have always done everything together…that is how our grandmother raised us. So when we decided to marry, we said any man that wants to marry one, will marry the other.” 
Here’s hoping they all have a life of bliss together.

Thugs invade APC meeting in Edo

A meeting held by the Edo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over who will  should succeed Governor Adams Oshiomhole was thrown into confusion when thugs numbering about 100 invaded the venue of the meeting and attacked everyone on sight.

There has been internal crisis in the Edo state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over who would Governor Adams Oshiomhole.

According to the Tribune, the meeting which was called by the Edo south (Benin) senatorial vice chairman, Barrister Gentleman Amegor at his residence was interrupted by thugs loyal to a governorship aspirant from the party.

The thugs said Amegor was not fit to call a senatorial meeting of the party since he had been suspended a month ago by leaders of the party over anti-party activists.

The hoodlums laid siege at the venue of the meeting to prevent the meeting from holding.

They also beat up journalists at the venue forcing party members who were already arriving for the meeting to take to their heels.

Meanwhile, governors belonging to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are happy with the decision of the Supreme Court which recently upheld the election of all its governors.

They were reacting to the court’s ruling on the elections of Governors Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom and Okey Ikpeazu of Abia state. The ruling by the apex court follows the December 18th Appeal Court ruling which nullified the election won by Governor Udom and the decision of the Court of Appeal, which nullified Mr. Ikpeazu’s election on December 31, 2015.

Saraki condemns President Buhari’s budget

– Senate president Bukola Saraki described the 2016 budget as ambitious.
– Saraki asserted that the non-oil and independent revenue generating sectors should be made the crux.
– Saraki explains why MDAs defend their proposals before the senate committees.
The Senate president, Bukola Saraki, has condemned the 2016 budget presented by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The Senate president, Bukola Saraki, has described the 2016 budget as ambitious.

The Cable reports that Saraki, who entertained questions from senate correspondents after commissioning the newly upgraded and refurbished senate press centre at the national assembly in Abuja, on Tuesday, February 2, described the budget as ambitious.

The Senate president explained that for the budget to be genuine and successful, the non-oil and independent revenue generating sectors should be made the crux.

He disclosed that the lawmakers would concentrate on the revenue generating sectors and make sure all leakages are clogged. He expressed optimism that despite the fact that the budget proposal was ambitious, it could be accomplished if all that was necessary to make it work was put in place.

When the Senate president was asked if the 2016 budget is implementable considering the fall in crude oil price at the international market, he said: “I think this is one of the reasons why we are having the MDAs defend their proposals before the committees to be able to test some of the scenarios and some of the assumptions, particularly on the revenue side.

“If you look at the revenue, out of about N3.8trillion, N3trillion is coming from non-oil and independent revenue. The success of the budget, in my own view, is less on the benchmark. It is more on those two items, non-oil revenue and independent revenue, and that is why we directed our Committee on Finance and other relevant Committees to really scrutinize the revenue side.
“Even the Senate leadership intends to also engage with the ministries as well to really check those two lines, because that is really where the questions come on whether it is achievable. Before we put our signature to it, we need to be sure that those funds are there.

“I believe they are ambitious but it is a good sign, because it begins to make us less dependent on oil… because if N830billion is coming from oil revenue and it is only 23%, even if the price of oil goes down or up, we are not really so much vulnerable than the time when oil revenue was accounting for 70 of our revenue. From that point of view, I believe that once we can do that, it is achievable.”
Saraki urged the executive arm of government to instill an appropriate strategy for implementing the budget since the National Assembly was working to pass it without much delay.
The Senate president further disclosed that the national assembly would soon amend the Public Procurement Act to expedite quick implementation of the budget.
“But also talking about being achievable or implementable, already, some of the things we are going to look at and which we are going to advise the executive on is that while we are working on the budget now, they too should also start making a plan on how to implement the budget because what tends to happen is that even after we have passed a budget, the administration or its bureaucracy sometimes makes the budget difficult to be realisable.
“And two areas: one is looking at the procurement process and it is very likely that we will need to come out with an amendment bill as regards to certain areas of the procurement law. That is something that we are likely to come out with very soon. People are looking at that now to see again how we can assist the executive to see that the budget is implementable,” he said.
Saraki, while responding to question on the need for transparency and openness in the National Assembly budget, said: “On the issue of national assembly, I think I’ve kept on repeating this many times. If you remember, even during the time the leadership was constituted, one of the issues that came forward was that we will have an open and transparent eighth senate and I still want to be held to that. Also during this process, of course, national assembly budget too will also be debated and by the time the final document is out, I can assure you that we are going to move away from the time of one-line item for the national assembly to a national assembly where there will be a break down according to different sections of the institution.”
Meanwhile, the Senate committee on education on Monday, February 2,recordedhuge success after it discovered that about N9, 982, 258, 479 was hidden in the 2016 budget of parastatals by the Federal Ministry of Education. The discovery was made by the committee at the commencement of its 2016 budget defence.