Our fathers used our resources to make Nigeria what it is today – Northern Elders

06:25 ondopdp 0 Comments


By on May 15, 2013

As the battle heats up for the 2015 presidential election, the Northern Elders Forum, NEF, yesterday averred that the presidency should be shifted to the region comes 2015 as a mark of equity and justice, saying that the region made Nigeria what it is today.
Secretary of the NEF, Prof. Ango Abdullahi said this, when he led other members of the forum, on a courtesy visit to Borno state Governor, Kashim Shettima at the Government House in Maiduguri.
Abdullahi, who was a one time Vice Chancellor of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, ABU, blamed their failure to win the 2011 presidential election on the connivance of some state governors of the region.
He noted that the region will never again compromise what rightly belongs to it, adding that the forum was already putting efforts together to return power to the region.
His words, “I was one of the founding members of the Peoples Democratic Party,PDP, who outlined the zoning formula of presidency between the north and the south, but unfortunately, following the demise of former president, late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the formula was immediately put aside to achieve unjustifiable course.”
According to Abdullahi, north has the population, resources and all it takes to make it produce the next president, stressing that the forum will liaise with relevant stakeholders of the region to ensure that what has been r taken away from them is returned in due time.
“Presently, we don’t have a particular political party or presidential candidate, instead, the north is our party and candidate. We will join forces with anyone willing to see the restoration of power to the region”, he added.
He noted that the north must rediscover itself to fight through its present predicaments, saying that “the future of the younger generation of the northern people is to be become promising.
“Our fathers had used the resources of the north to make this country what it is today, and those who do not know the history of this country are now thinking that they can over run us politically. Our hands must be on deck and we must prove to them that we would rise again to glory, because the problem of the north is the north and we must ensure we resolve our differences for the betterment of our children,” Abdullahi declared.
He further condemned the present security challenges confronting the north and the way security forces are handling the issue.
He specifically faulted the Baga killings, describing the acts as barbaric, saying, that the forum was presently collating information and facts to take the case to International Criminal Court.
He also commiserated with the government and people of the state over the loss of lives and property occasioned by the insurgency.

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Nigerian troops shell Boko Haram hideout as jets join renewed offensive

06:21 ondopdp 0 Comments


Officials say more raids will follow the fighting in forest used as insurgents' training camp near Maiduguri, capital of Borno state.
State of emergency in three states of Nigeria
Nigerian soldiers on a shooting range in the northern state of Bauchi, which neighbours Yobe, Borno and Adamawa, where a state of emergency has been declared. Photograph: Deji Yake/EPA
Nigerian troops shelled a remote hideout of Boko Haram as fighter jets joined a renewed military offensive aimed at flushing out the group.
The Islamic insurgents have seized swathes of the north of Africa's most populous country.
Soldiers shelled the Sambisa forest reserve in Borno, a state whose porous borders straddle three neighbouring countries, a military source said. "This is their main training camp in Nigeria," the source told The Guardian. "It is their men from here who snatched the French family," he added, referring to the kidnap in February in Cameroon's Waza park, part of the same forest reserve that spans the two countries.
The raid comes as Nigeria's president, Goodluck Jonathan, steps up the fight against the extremists, whose four-year battle to carve an Islamic state in Africa's most populous nation has left more than 3,000 dead. Since he declared emergency rule on Tuesday, troops have poured into the three north-eastern states of Borno, Yobe and Adamawa.
Telephone services were cut off for two days in Borno state, the group's spiritual home, and would remain shut off to prevent insurgents from communicating until several other planned raids had been carried out, said two military officials.
Analysts say a military crackdown has already weakened urban cells in the group's main bases. But as blasts hit two police stations, a prison and a bank in north-western Katsina state late on Thursday – the first high-profile attack there since 2011 – some fear that the military risks being drawn into a drawn-out campaign against operatives who are adept at melting away and reappearing elsewhere. "What these bombs suggest is that they are going to try to widen the theatre of battle in order to stretch our armed forces," said a senior military officer.
Adding that troops had been put on "red alert" across the entire northern belt, he said: "This is what is militarily known as a long war. It's going to keep erupting and subsiding before it is finally won."
In Borno, the group's main operational base, which has been hardest hit, some residents began to flee the increased presence of soldiers. "I am leaving today because my wife and kids are so afraid," said Sam Yashim, a telecoms engineer. "I can't even go to service some phone masts because soldiers won't let me go near certain areas."
Elsewhere, soldiers were greeted with cautious optimism. "People are watching them set up checkpoints all over town, but we are happy if this means the area will be secured," said Dankano Umar, a resident in Adamawa state, who said fighter jets had flown over the city in the past few days.
"Some areas of the city are like a cemetery, deserted, but most people are just trying to get on with their lives."

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