BUGI CITY

It is disheartening that no one has been convicted or held responsible for the genocide that happened recently in Southern part of Kaduna.

President Buhari decided to remain mute on the killings after many days but was quick to condemn the Boko Haram attack on University of Madiguiri Mosque that happened today. Time will tell very soon if he is our president or president of some group of people.

El-Rufai has showed to be a leader with no sense of responsibility with his comments and the ways he has been handling the Southern Kaduna killings. I cannot be more disappointed in him.

My View On Generality of Islam:

I have known Islam to be a religion of peace. I have muslim friends and families and many muslims contributed to who and what I am today. Those hiding under radical Islam to commit murder and various crime are wrong stereotype of Islam and we must all rise up to fight them and speak against them either you are a Muslim or a Christian.

Every life is valuable and shouldn't be taken at every slightest sight of provocation. I expect many muslims to condemn the killings and preach peace but majority have decided to keep quiet even the educated ones who I believe know better and should stand with justice and what is right. Posterity will judge us all.

On Self-Defence:

Since Kaduna State government has decided not to protect the minority Christians in the south who have been victims of radical Islam killers, it is time they start protecting themselves. This is not the time to be speaking in tongue or turn the other cheek. You must all protect yourself by all means possibe. Self-defence should be the goal now. You don't need to wait for one idiot who value a cow more than human being to approach you before you fight back. Carry gun, carry knife and do whatever it takes to defend yourselves.

On Recent Bishop Oyedepo Outburst:

I dare to stand with Bishop Oyedepo and I salute his courage and I hope other christian leaders will follow suit soon. The church cannot be keeping quiet when innocent Christians are being murdered by herdsmen and radical islamists. Probably the reason why many Christian leaders have been keeping quiet is because none of their family have been a victim.

We the church must arise to defend ourselves. Enough of speaking in tongue and praying, let back up our prayers with actions. I support self-defence in the face of unprovocative killings.

Evils persist in any society when goodmen do nothing!
#yestoreligioustolerance
#notounprovocativekillings

"ITS HIGH TIME THESE KILLINGS CAME TO AN END"

INTRODUCTION

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent the Merciful
O you who believe, be consistent in standing firm for Allah, as witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just. Be just; that is nearer to righteousness. And fear Allah ; indeed, Allah is Acquainted with what you do. (Quran 5: 8)

The Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs (NSCIA) wishes to use this medium to express, once again, its sadness over the recent dastardly acts of brigandage and heinous crimes perpetrated by elements who have sold their hearts and soul to evil in Southern Kaduna. The NSCIA is particularly seized by these events not only because these faceless elements succeeded in wrecking such destruction of lives and properties but equally because such horrendous actions were hitherto deemed to be possible only in the jungle. Even then, the Council is concerned that whereas acts of killings in the jungle are said to be premised on the simple principle -'eat or be eaten', the kind of killings that this nation has witnessed recently in Southern Kaduna and in other parts of the country where criminality has become fashionable is such that even the animals in the wild would be ashamed to engage in.

Further, the NSCIA is compelled to issue this new statement having realized the ease with which the event in Southern Kaduna is being exploited by shameless political jobbers and over-night religious zealots and critics as an opportunity to gain cheap popularity and political relevance. We are equally concerned that as it is common in this nation, the opportunity offered by the unfortunate event in Southern Kaduna for this nation to correct existing anomalies in the system run the risk of being lost, no thanks to fetishized analyses of issues involved and the laundry of extremely jejune and simplistic argument that the event in Southern Kaduna is all about Christians in the region, not Nigeria as a whole. The NSCIA is concerned that when the "part begins to see itself as the whole", those imbued with intellection must quickly intervene. Such intervention, however, must show fidelity to history; it must separate myth from reality; it must equally distill between the grain and the chaff. It is in service of the above arguments that NSCIA proposes the following issues for resolution and attention of the Federal and Kaduna State Governments:

1. Who Owns Southern Kaduna?
The NSCIA is concerned that whereas the earliest instance when parts of Southern Kaduna probably entered into historical record was in 1810 when Mallam Usman Yabo, the son of Sarkin Kabin Yabo, Muhammadu Mayijo, established what later came to be known as the Jama'a Emirate in Southern Kaduna, there appears to be conscious efforts on the side of elements within and outside Kaduna State to reconstruct history in order to give the impression that at no instance had there been a contact between Islam and that part of Nigeria. This approach to Kaduna history, which largely feeds on amnesia, is partly responsible for the incidence of conflicts that this nation has continued to witness in the region. It has led to violent transactions in identity politics and the assumption among the citizenry in the State that "Southern Kaduna belongs to "Us" not "them". In other words, the conflict in Southern Kaduna is nothing but contest for space and place or contestations over history and geography. While some citizens in the area see the whole of Southern Kaduna as belonging to Nigeria and by extension to all Nigerians, no matter their ethnic or religious persuasion and affiliations, others, backed by an extremely powerful clique and buoyed by an extremely partial section of the media, have continued to see the area as belonging to a particular ethnic and religious group. Thus while Nigeria as a nation constantly strives for national integration, a particular group in Southern Kaduna holds that cultural puritanism and one which would preserve their slippery assumptions of historical and primordial superiority and ownership over the area is an end for which no means, in the Machiavellian manner, is too Sacred to be deployed in order to achieve their irredentist and narcissistic objective. These assumptions, the NSCIA holds, operate at the core of the violence that Kaduna State has been witnessing over time.

2. Is the "Genocide" of 2016 not reminiscent of the ones before it?
Perceptive observers of socio-political trends in the north would equally observe that before 26 December, 2016, Southern Kaduna had played host to orgies of violent ethno-religious conflicts in which lives of innocent Nigerians have been lost. In other words, as it was on the 26th of December 2016, so it was in April, 2011 consequent upon the general elections in the country. Again, as it was in April, 2011, so had it been since 1981 when that part of the country began to achieve notoriety as the bastion of inter-ethnic and inter-religious intolerance and conflicts. The point as issue is this: any attempt at solving the problems in Southern Kaduna without due attention being given to previous occurrences in the area would amount taking the tree for the forest.

3. Is Southern Kaduna Nigeria's Achilles Hill?
Perhaps the above question could be cast in another way: why is it that of all the states in northern Nigeria with substantial presence of Muslims and Christians, it is always Southern Kaduna that has continued to witness these incessant orgies of violence? This question is urgent and important because perceptive observers of conflict trends in the northern parts of the country would likely argue that Southern Kaduna appears to be Nigeria's Augean Stable. The reason for this argument is this: In large parts of the north, in places like, for example, Zamfara, Sokoto, Kano, Katsina, and Jigawa where Christians are in the minority, the ratio of inter-religious and inter-tribal conflicts in these areas could be put at 1:10. But in Southern Kaduna where Muslims are said to be in the minority, the rate at which violent conflicts constantly break out among Christians and Muslims is in the ratio of 9:10. Thus the question needs be asked: Is there a particular agenda that drives these conflicts? Besides that, and this is the most unfortunate, each time the said conflicts break out in the area, the media would be awash with ribald commentaries and extremely inane arguments that whatever was happening in the area was part of an orchestrated attempt by Muslims to "Islamize" the country. Since falsehood sells faster than truthfulness, it is this type of news that most media houses would then begin to repeat ad nauseam. Little or no attention is usually paid to dig into the reasons for the conflicts nor to properly listen to the pain and wailing of the victims of such crises.

4. Is Southern Kaduna Nigeria's Theatre of Impunity?
The NSCIA is of the strong opinion that the event of 26 December 2016 called attention, once again, to the evil effect of impunity in our nation's socio-political and cultural reality. In other words, it is arguable to say that Southern Kaduna would not have become a theatre of the absurd that it turned out to be last December had the Nigerian government, at the Federal and State levels, made efforts at punishing those responsible for previous hara-kiri, acts of criminality and brigandage in the area. Put differently, since 1981 when the first acts of violence broke out between the so-called 'settlers' and 'indigenes' in the state, successive governments in Kaduna state have failed to bring the perpetrators of the various heinous acts to justice. For example, despite the graphic (video) evidence which the perpetrators of the massacre in Zonkwa in 2011 released to the world and in spite of their indictment by the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into the genocide of that year, no punitive measure was taken either by the Kaduna State government or the Federal Government against the perpetrators of the said crime. Thus the question "who were those who perpetrated the massacre of 26 December, 2016 in Southern Kaduna" would gain strength if we ask the additional question: "why is it that we failed to deal with those who perpetrated similar atrocities in the past?"

5. Is Southern Kaduna the Sacrificial Lamb in the Hands of the Political Elites?
Again, the NSCIA is of the view that any attempt at solving the Southern Kaduna problem would be incomplete and invalid if the role of the political class in promoting and fanning embers of hatred and violence is not accounted for. Recent experience has shown that the Nigerian political class, like its counterparts in other parts of the world, is like hyenas: they profit from and feed on the tragedies of helpless members of the masses. They are the ones who sow seeds of discord and hatred in the minds of the ignorant populace; they are the ones who procure weapons of violence for the poor and thereafter encourage the latter to visit his neighbour with violence at the dead of the night. It is the political class that has cornered the commonwealth and unjustly appropriated unto itself what belongs to the citizenry. What they have bequeathed to the populace instead are tell-tale signs of unemployment, poverty, inequality and underdevelopment. It is these valences that, in part, drive the genocide we see in this country on a daily basis.

6. Observations
a. the NSCIA delightfully notes the right intervention of the Federal  and Kaduna State governments in providing permanent security presence in the region of Southern Kaduna, in forestalling future occurrence of such acts of insanity and anomie. It therefore, urges the governments to ensure full actualization of the set plan.

b. the NSCIA applauds the commendable efforts of the Kaduna State government in arresting and naming the alleged masterminds of this horrific killings. It also urges the governments to desist from the previous practice whereby, such culprits were usually allowed to go scot-free without letting justice take its full course.

7. Recommendations
While the above represents only perspectival analyses of the dialectics in the issues that are inherent in what the media have termed the genocide in Southern Kaduna, the NSCIA strongly recommends as follows:

a. that the Federal and Kaduna state governments approach the conflict in Southern Kaduna holistically with a view to preventing similar occurrences in the future.

b. That machinery be put in place to determine the causes, scope and victims of the conflict and that punishment be meted out to deserving perpetrators according to the law.

c. that adequate compensation and rehabilitation should be given not only to those who suffered human and material losses during the event of 26 December 2016, but equally to those who experienced similar losses during the massacre of April 2011.

d. that constructive peace-building efforts be embarked upon by the Kaduna State government with a view to putting an end to the notions of indigenes and settlers among the citizenry in Southern Kaduna.

e. that the Kaduna State government should tap into some of the recommendations of the 2013 National Conference with a view to implementing aspects of the resolutions of the Conference with regards to the establishment of grazing reserve areas.

f. that the National Orientation Agency (NOA) should be mandated to embark on national campaign that would promote national integration, peace-building and give full effect to constitutional provisions that guarantee the survival of all citizens of Nigeria anywhere in the country no matter their ethnic or religious affiliations.

g. that the Kaduna State government should uphold, at all times, equity and justice in political and social representation. In other words, the state government should put into full effect the plurality of Kaduna State in all matters possible such that appointments into public offices, recruitment into Civil Service, Military and other security institutions, and location of development projects should reflect the above diversities.

h. that Kaduna State government should constitute a Truth and Reconciliation Commission with fair representation of all stakeholders to work towards ensuring lasting peace in Southern Kaduna.

i. that Media practitioners in the country should uphold the eternal ethical standards in journalism which give pride of place to objectivity and honesty in news gathering and disapproves of sensationalism and falsehood.

j. that while all Nigerians should commend the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallantry and sense of duty in combating the menace of the Boko Haram in the North-East, the task of ridding the nation of weaponry and illegal arms and ammunition remains an engaging and an urgent task. When citizens, no matter their orientation and education, begin to have unmitigated access to instruments of violence, then we can imagine how quickly our nation would descend into the abyss of insanity and anomie.

8. Conclusion
The NSCIA believes that no nation can thrive where injustice and hatred for the other, be he the religious or ethnic, are given free rein. It is based on this eternal truth that the Council calls on all Nigerians to avoid all actions that would escalate the situation in Southern Kaduna. While the Council calls on the Federal and Kaduna State governments to take all necessary steps that would bring lasting peace to Southern Kaduna and other parts of the country where there are conflicts, it, once again, commiserates with all those who have suffered untold loss of lives and properties in the event of 26 December, 2016. The Council prays that may the Almighty grant the nation as a whole the courage to learn from the unfortunate event in order to chart a better cause for and in the future.

Signed
Ustaz Christian Isa Okonkwo,
Director of Administration,
NSCIA.

Twenty-one senators currently receiving pensions from government as ex-governors and deputy governors.

The current senators who once served as governors are Bukola Saraki of Kwara, Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso of Kano, Kabiru Gaya of Kano, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom, Theodore Orji of Abia, Abdullahi Adamu of Nasarawa, Sam Egwu of Ebonyi, Shaaba Lafiagi of Kwara, Joshua Dariye of Plateau Jonah Jang of Plateau, Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko of Sokoto, Ahmed Sani Yarima of Zamfara, Danjuma Goje of Gombe, Bukar Abba Ibrahim of Yobe, Adamu Aliero of Kebbi, George Akume of Benue and Isiaka Adeleke of Osun.

The  former deputy governors in the Senate are Ms Biodun Olujimi of Ekiti and Enyinaya Harcourt Abaribe of Abia. Danladi Abubakar Sani served as the acting governor of Taraba state.

Many former governors are also in Buhari's Cabinet as Ministers. This includes: Ngige, Fayemi, Amaechi and Fashola (SAN).).

In Akwa Ibom State, the law provides that ex governors and deputy governors receive pension equivalent to the salaries of the incumbent. The package also includes a new official car and a utility vehicle every four years; one personal aide; a cook, chauffeurs and security guards for the governor at a sum not exceeding N5 million per month and N2.5 million for his deputy governor.

In Rivers, the law provides 100 percent of annual basic salaries for the ex-governor and deputy, one residential house for the former governor “anywhere of his choice in Nigeria”; one residential house anywhere in Rivers for the deputy, three cars for the ex-governor every four years and two cars for the deputy every four years.

It is alledged that in Lagos, a former governor will get two houses, one in Lagos and another in Abuja, estimated at N500 million in Lagos and N700 million in Abuja. He also receives six new cars to be replaced every three years; a furniture allowance of 300 percent of annual salary to be paid every two years, and a N30 million pension annually for life.

This is the reality for all the 21 ex govenors and deputy governors who are currently serving as senators. This same is also true of ex governors who are now serving as Ministers.

NOW I ASK:
How many years did these guys serve their states as governors and deputy governors? Is it more than 8years? Is that a reason to be entitled to pensions for life? Even if they are entitled to pension for life, must it be so outrageous?

As if that is not enough: HOW on earth can any public servant with conscience collect salaries and allowances as a senator or minister, and still have the audacity to claim pensions equivalent to the salaries of a serving governor in Nigeria?

IT ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE......

Once you are elected a senator or appointed a minister, you must forfeit any pension accruing to you from government at any level until you vacate office. This should also apply to senators collecting military pensions like former Senate President David Mark.

Yet these senators are in the Senate that is inviting the current finance minister to discuss the recession of Nigeria's economy. A senator pockets approximately 30 million naira monthly as salary and allowances. Our "honourables" are not interested to make laws that could restructure our country into economically autonomous federating States/Regions to save the country from sectional agitations that is threatening  to destroy Nigeria. The sad and hopeless situation is that the rest of Nigerians are busy arguing based on party, ethnic and affiliations while these enemies of state continue to rape us.

Do you know that it costs tax payers 290m Naira yearly to maintain each member of our National Assembly in a country where nothing works & 80% of population earn below 300 Naira a day ? A working day earning of a senator is more than a yearly income of a doctor; it's more than the salary of 42 Army generals or 48 professors or 70 commissioners of police or more than twice the pay of the US President or 9 times the salary of US congressmen.

It's high time the country had a referendum on those outrageous salaries of Senators, House of Representative members and other political office holders.

By Ayo Oyoze Baje

“Woe unto them that call evil good / and good evil;/ that put darkness for light/and light for darkness;…/woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes”
-Isaiah 5 verses 20-21
The Holy Bible had long predicted man’s scarce regard for the sanctity of fellow human life. “Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood.Their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths”:  Isaiah 59 verse 7.Yet, in all his grand self-deceit he cannot create a strand of human hair. This is the class of people God calls ‘rebellious children’. It is no different here in Nigeria.What with the recent heartless and hideous killings of mostly Christian faithful  by fully armed Fulani herdsmen in places such as Jema’a, Sanga, Kanra and Kauru in Kaduna state . Add that to the wanton waste of irreplaceable lives, unleashed on our dear fatherland by the premeditated Boko Haram insurgency, over the past few years and the image of a cruel and conscienceless people is brought to the global space, again.
Equally outrageous is the sordid silence of those who swore by Nigeria’s constitution to ‘protect our lives and property’. Honestly, this rankles deep. So does the insulting and erroneous belief in some quarters  that some Nigerians, whether by ethnic colouration, religious or political persuasion are superior to others. Ordinarily, perpetrators of heinous crimes against humanity should be behind bars grinding their teeth in utter remorse, waiting for the Day of Judgment. But it becomes worrisome when proactive and preventive measures, either on the part of state or federal government are few and far between. Such would have curbed, curtailed or out rightly stopped senseless killings of innocent citizens. For instance, in August last year villages in Southern Kaduna, including Gad Biyu, Akwa’a Agwan Ajo were attacked by the armed herdsmen but the expected rapid response from the  government was not forthcoming.
Similarly, going by the account of the Catholic Diocese of Kafanchan, it boggles the mind that it would take the deaths of some 808 voiceless victims sent to their early graves, by the vampires in human skin; with 57 injured after series of attacks on 53 villages,16 churches and 1,422 houses burnt to ashes before some form of government  intervention would come!Even then, the curfew placed in villages such as Zango Kataf, Jema’a and Kaura local councils could not stem the rising tide of mindless mayhem  by the herdsmen. Even on Christmas Eve, several communities in Southern Kaduna still fell victims to their killing spree.
Not long after, and as if adding fuel to an already flaring flame of the ethnic/religious distrust in the troubled state,the  governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai claimed he had paid  an undisclosed ransom to some of the suspected killers so as to sheathe their swords! Such a controversial government policy, including questionable amnesty granted to criminal gangs in states such as Benue, Katsina, Rivers, Imo and Kano is viewed as a tacit support for mass murder by some political leaders, by not a few peace-loving Nigerians. Inadvertently, it pays to threaten the lives of other citizens; maim rape, waste their property and their lives and wait to be paid for such brazen bestiality! Can you imagine that in a 21st Century Nigeria?
This of course, triggers the burning questions, as rightly demanded by the Southern Kaduna People’s Union(SOKAPU).What was the source of the fund? What is the identity of the beneficiaries of the money? Are the lives of the perpetrators of pure evil more precious than that of their most unfortunate victims? Was it true, as claimed that the government was implementing an aspect of the recommendations of the previous administration t of late Patrick Yakowa? And if so, did the payment for cows killed in crisis, as proffered equate to paying herdsmen to have mercy on defenceless citizens? Who, indeed has been arming the Fulani herdsmen that have been on rampage in communities and states such as Agatu in Benue, Uzo-Uwani in Enugu, Taraba, Zamfara, Katsina, and Niger? The latest is the killing of four policemen in Kwahine, Gidandadi and Karahali villages in Adamawa State.
Only credible answers to these troubling questions would go a long way to finding lasting solutions to the collective injustice against the Nigerian state. One cannot but therefore, support the clarion call of the esteemed members of the Catalysts for Peace and Justice Initiative (CPJI) as well as the Catholic Arc diocese of Kafanchan for the setting up of a panel of inquiry into the immediate and remote causes of the killing spree by the herdsmen, especially over the past one year. Indeed, the fragile fabric of the nation is gradually being undermined by the twin evils of corruption (not just financial scams) and the self-decimating incubus of impunity. We cannot afford any form of religious crisis, worse still with the biting economic recession.
For the peace-loving  people of Kaduna, the religious crisis in 1987,the subsequent killings in Zango Kataf in 1992 and the post-election violence in 2011 through  which we lost some youth corpers should be sobering enough to prevent a repeat performance. We should have learnt enduring lessons from the events that led to the setting up of Oputa Panel and the attendant Report.
Over the centuries, no nation, or part of it that sheds so much innocent human blood has enjoyed sustained peace or prosperity. From the ethnic cleansing of the Jie people in China in 350 AD, through that of Sicilian Vespers in Italy, in 1282, the religious persecution of a quarter million Jews in Spain between 1492 and 1614, the killings of herdsmen in Central Kalahari in the 1990s,to the Sudan crisis in 2003 and Uzbeks in 2010s should have informed us of the folly of taking the lives of those we can never replace. Vengeance, as all the holy books say belongs only to God. And history, repeats itself for a people who refuse to learn from its open hands.