'Nigeria: the context for violence' (2006-2013)

[Chowing]

I've always admired the US Army and the concept of the citizen soldier. The British Colonial Army and its successors were not built on citizen soldiers. So if I have the opportunity to rule Nigeria, one of my ambitions is to mould the Nigerian Army on the US model (not the British).

KingJaja, what are your political aspirations?

[Chowing]

Part 1 is here:http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...-perspe-6.html

Part 2 is here: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...ve-part-2.html

Part 3 is here: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...ve-part-3.html

Part 4 is here: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...0574&Itemid=55

Part 5 is here:http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...0574&Itemid=55

This was a very interesting insight into the day to day life of a Nigerian military man. Some of it was not surprising to me, but because I saw the corruption, I did not entertain the idea that life was tough and corrupt for the soldiers as well.


All over Africa, to be a soldier is highly esteemed. That is, one would love to have a stable job and some authority. The military fulfills that. That does not mean all Africans respect the military, that is a far different matter.

[Stan]

All over Africa, to be a soldier is highly esteemed. That is, one would love to have a stable job and some authority. The military fulfills that. That does not mean all Africans respect the military, that is a far different matter.

You may need to take a trip to DR Congo. The only reason a person would love to be in the Congolese military is to have a firearm and extort and threaten the civilian population.

This, is precisely why most Africans don't like the military.

[KingJaja]

Chowing,

I have dreams. It is still a dream. It will be extremely difficult to actualise it in present day Nigeria.

But I can start small.

[KingJaja]

You may need to take a trip to DR Congo. The only reason a person would love to be in the Congolese military is to have a firearm and extort and threaten the civilian population.

This, is precisely why most Africans don't like the military.

Stan is right.

Not only that, soldiers are treated like crap when they retire.

Tears and regret still envelope tens of retired military personnel who over the past seven years have been living under the Wuse Zone 3 pedestrian bridge in Abuja, while some sleep in the open space in front of the former Military Pensions Board, a few metres away from the bridge.

Majority of them are grey-haired and cannot forage for livelihood, they have resolved to fate, praying for their daily bread from passers-by and the generosity of non-governmental organisations and festive periods, when some good spirited individuals put smile on their faces.

They never bother about their families and friends, nor do they seem to worry any longer about life, as they seem now only to be waiting for the day when death will cut-short their sufferings and agonies.

http://www.businessdayonline.com/NG/...-abuja-bridges

One of the reasons why soldiers extort and civil servants take bribes is because when you retire, you are on your own. Soldiers have the option of working as security guards at $200 per month (if their health permits). Civil servants are left to die or depend on their children.

[KingJaja]

The US must carefully choose what it wishes to accomplish with respect to its relationship with Nigeria. It is not possible to do everything at once.

I understand how this plays into US domestic politics, but I am worried about the wisdom of this move, given how opposed the average Nigerian is to homosexuality.

Gay marriage: Nigeria, US in diplomatic row We’re free to make our own laws - FG

NIGERIA and the United States may be heading for a significant diplomatic confrontation regarding the issue of homosexuality, which the Nigerian Senate recently criminalised in line with the country’s long-time values, beliefs and widely pervasive resentment of Nigerians to homosexuality.

According to an online news organisation, Empire Newswire, the United States president, Barack Obama and the US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, have taken critical steps to serve notice to countries like Nigeria, where homosexuality is a crime, indicating the readiness of the US government to diplomatically fight such countries on the matter, as if it is a human rights issue.

One immediate area that the fight may occur is in the US global funding, from which Nigerian civil society groups could benefit. The US government, sources said on Wednesday, would fund civil society groups in the affected countries like Nigeria where homosexuality had been criminalised to engage such government.

It was not clear on Wednesday night whether such countries like Nigeria could potentially lose existing US funding all together because of the homosexuality controversy. But agencies that Obama asked to implement the order include the US EXIM Bank and USAID, both of which have significant funding projects and assistance programmes in Nigeria.

At a formal press briefing on Tuesday by Senior US Administrations officials, it was made clear that “there are around 80 countries in the world where lesbians, gay bisexual and transgender status or conduct is still criminalised, so certainly, those 80 countries would be priority areas,” in the US diplomatic confrontation

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news...ur-own-laws-fg

[KingJaja]

I feared this would happen. The Yoruba ethnic group has responded to the threat of Boko Haram by parading its own militia.

A successful Boko Haram strike in South-Western Nigeria would lead to massive reprisal killings and maybe the beginning of the end of the Nigerian state.

LAGOS, Nigeria — The armed militia marched unstopped through Nigeria's largest city, firing shotguns and rifles in the air in what they called a protest against a radical Muslim sect responsible for killings across the oil-rich country.

The demonstration Thursday by members of the Oodua People's Congress highlighted the growing sense of insecurity and widening distrust among Nigeria's more than 160 million people and its major ethnic groups. Men armed with shotguns, rifles and machetes freely roamed the streets of Lagos without a sign of police, while passers-by shouted that their region of Nigeria should be protected – rather than the country as a whole.

"We don't want them to fight here in our Lagos because Lagos is for everybody, not for Yoruba alone, but for everybody," said Chief Orebiyi Ebenezer, a militia leader. "We need peace here in Lagos."

The Oodua People's Congress is a militia made up of Nigeria's Yoruba ethnic group, which dominates the country's southwest. The party takes its name from Oduduwa, the ancestor of the Yoruba race, and formed after military ruler Ibrahim Babangida annulled a presidential election in 1993 that many believe a wealthy Yoruba businessman won.

The group evolved into a quasi-political organization and likely receives the implicit support of major politicians in the region, though its members have been implicated in political violence and thuggery. Rumors abound in Nigeria's southwest that the group maintains a stockpile of firearms in a country where those weapons are strictly regulated by law, if not practice.

Those rumors appeared true as about 100 armed members riding in minibuses and marching by foot came into Lagos on Thursday, home to 15 million people. They fired long rifles and locally made shotguns into the air, unstopped by police as they ended up at Teslim Balogun Stadium, which hosted FIFA's Under-17 World Cup in 2009.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-w...eria-protests/

[davidbfpo]

I am sure we noted the attacks in Nigeria on Christmas Day, on Christian churches, what I had not read was this is the second similar strike in a row.

FP has a reasonable commentary IMHO on 'The Rise of Boko Harem', which has some salient points which I don't think we've seen before: there was a Nigerian Taliban that disbanded in 2000, the role of Niger, Cameroon, and Chad; an attempt to negotiate in 2011 and the declining presence of journalists in the north.

On the AQ links a quote from ICG:

Supposed links to al Qaeda doesn't cover up the fact that Boko Haram is very much a Nigerian problem. It should be understood within Nigeria's own endemic problems.

Link:http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article..._of_boko_haram

[tequila]

On cue:

Seven hurt as bomb hits madrasa

(Reuters) - Assailants threw a crude homemade bomb into a Madrassa in southern Nigeria's Delta state overnight, police said, wounding seven people and escalating tensions between Muslims and Christians after a spate of church bombings across the nation.

Six of the wounded were children younger than nine.

The attack at about 10 p.m. on Tuesday came two days after Christmas Day bombings of churches and other targets by Islamist militant group Boko Haram claimed about 32 lives in a coordinated strike that seemed aimed at igniting sectarian strife ...

[davidbfpo]

Tequila,

Thanks for spotting that report and I noted the location too, Delta State.

It is a dangerous point in an insurgency and in a terrorist campaign, when the insurgent adopts a strategy that demands everyone chooses which side they are on and to help this inevitable savagery along attacks those people and institutions that have remained neutral. (I'm not sure whether Boko Harem are terrorists or insurgents, not being mired in definitions unlike some on SWC).

Yes the murders in Delta State maybe the work of an individual or the disorganized, so can be downgraded.

One wonders how Nigerians think today; they know far better than external observers what choosing sides can mean.

[KingJaja]

As I said earlier, perception is more important than reality.

A Nigeria proverb says that "a child does not throw stones at an elder without the active encouragement of other older people". Southern / Christian Nigerians are convinced that certain segments of the Northern Muslim ruling elite are behind the "Boko Haram attacks".

This view may not be accurate but it does not matter.

As things stand, Nigeria may be one Church bombing away from full-scale sectarian clashes and much worse. The victims of the bombing were mainly from Nigeria's South East and Middle Belt.

An Iraq-style Sunni-Shiite sectarian crisis between Nigeria's Muslims and Christians is the goal of Boko Haram / Al Qaeda. It will devastate Nigeria and lead to the dissolution of the Nigerian state. Make no mistake.

[KingJaja]

It is a dangerous point in an insurgency and in a terrorist campaign, when the insurgent adopts a strategy that demands everyone chooses which side they are on and to help this inevitable savagery along attacks those people and institutions that have remained neutral. (I'm not sure whether Boko Harem are terrorists or insurgents, not being mired in definitions unlike some on SWC).

Boko Haram have been known to stop people on the road, demand they recite the Quran or risk death. Nigerian Christians are not exactly known for being gentle. If Boko Haram succeeds in stirring the hornet's nest, Iraq will pale in comparison.

[Chowing]

Exactly, Nigeria is on the brink of a terrible period of violence that they may not have ever seen before. I wish I could be more optimistic, but it seems Boko Haram can not only attack at will, but they have garnered a huge following. The Christians are not setting back, bombings have been attributed to them and the rhetoric of top evangelical clergy has turned stern if not fierce in the face of the perceived persecution. I wrote about this recently on my blog www.terrorisminafrica.com

[Chowing]

There is a lot of accusations and calls to arms from Christians and Muslims on twitter over the past couple of days. I guess we could call that the chatter of things to come. Not looking good at all.

[KingJaja]

Things are heating up (but the Western media doesn't seem to be following this very important story).

KADUNA – No fewer than 10,000 people marched in Zonkwa, headquarters of Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State denouncing and condemning the Christmas Day bombing of a church in Madalla, near Suleja, Niger State, where about 30 people were killed and several others injured.

The protesters called for a united action against terrorism, insisting that God had a divine purpose for creating Nigeria, and as such, the country must not be allowed to be destroyed by evil men posing as champions of religion.

Speaking after the three kilometre procession at the Zonkwa play ground, Chairman Zangon Kataf Council of the Christian Association of Nigeria , CAN, Rev. Sunday Ibrahim, said that God did not create man for another man to kill with satanic pleasure in the guise of fighting for God.

Said Ibrahim: “In Madalla, unarmed men, women and children were praying to God and were without provocation bombed. That was just one of the several terrorism acts carried out on churches by people who hate God and his children.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2011/12/c...est-in-kaduna/

[Bill Moore]

That was just one of the several terrorism acts carried out on churches by people who hate God and his children.

He is intentionally trying to mitigate tensions, or provoke further violence with these words? He calls for peace on hand, and yet points out the enemy with the other.

[tequila]

Things are heating up (but the Western media doesn't seem to be following this very important story)

It's Africa. The Western media has little interest in most things African, and thus devotes very few resources. Some 30,000 people have starved or died of disease in Somalia and Kenya since the summer with very little coverage despite the fact that many Western news orgs base out of Kenya and Egypt, if they have any African news bureaux left at all.

[KingJaja]

He is intentionally trying to mitigate tensions, or provoke further violence with these words? He calls for peace on hand, and yet points out the enemy with the other.

Every word he said is true. Attacks on churches in Nigeria did not start this year or even this decade. It is a decades-long phenomena.

Sometimes, the only way to deal with radical Islamists is through overwhelming violence. (Islamists don't mess around with Sikhs for that reason).

[KingJaja]

The influential Islamic group- Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI)- yesterday reacted angrily to the statement credited to the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN), Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor, that Christians will henceforth defend themselves, saying that the CAN leader has, by his utterance, declared war on Nigerian Muslims.

But the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) disagreed with the JNI, arguing that those who have been bombing churches are the ones that have declared war on their fellow citizens.

The Secretary General of the Jama'atu Nasril Islam (JNI), Dr. Khalid Abubakar Aliyu, at a press conference in Kaduna where he spoke extensively on the letter presented by CAN to the President on the Madalla massacre, described the CAN President as "intolerant."

He said Pastor Oritsejafor's conduct was unbecoming of a religious leader.

The JNI scribe said: "He went right into the heart of Aso Rock Villa to threaten the government and to say whatever he had to say before the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. He also accused the Muslim leadership, the religious scholars and other leaders within the Muslim community.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/201...president.html

The rhetoric is heating up!

[KingJaja]

A Niger Delta militant group, the Egbesu Mightier Fraternity, has claimed responsibility for the explosion in an Arabic and Quaranic school in Sapele, Delta State, which injured seven people yesterday.

The Ijaw militant group, which threatened more explosions, said in a statement that the incident was a reaction to continued Boko Haram killings in the North, climaxed last Sunday with the death of 50 worshippers in a Catholic church in Madalla, Niger State.

The statement, which indicated it was jointly signed by the group’s 'Revolutionary Council,’ said, ‘The Boko Haram killing will no longer be accepted and we are ready to equally kill any Muslim we see in southern Nigeria.

We gave this warning since October this year that if Boko Haram will not stop killing any southerner, we will also kill until they (Boko Haram) feel uncomfortable before we will stop killing; because no part of this country is constitutionally empowered to kill any Nigerian.’

The group affirmed that, ‘The Sapele killing in Delta State yesterday night was carried out by us (Egbesu Mightier Fraternity); even the ones of Warri and Sapele on the 8th and 10th respectively was carried out by us.

http://www.momentng.com/en/news/5703...---egbesu.html