Seized aircraft in SA: CAN reacts, attacks El Rufai, Lai Mohammed & Sahara Reporters

The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, released a statement yesterday

 reacting to reports about the seized private jet in South Africa that implicated 

its National President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. CAN called out El Rufai and

 APC national spokesperson, Lai Mohammed for attacking Oritsejafor and

 Sahara Reporters for reporting in their own words 'falsehood'. Find the 

statement below

Our attention has been drawn to the desperation of some elements 

working for a particular political party within our society to tarnish 

the image of the President of Christian Association of Nigeria, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. They are working for the All Progressives Congress and they are not unknown to us.

Let Nigerians have this background for them to judge themselves. These shameless characters including a former Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nasir El-Rufai and National Publicity Secretary of All Progressives Congress, Lai Mohammed, went to UK to embark on an image laundering for their political party, the APC. El-Rufai had once said there are three sets of Boko Haram in Nigeria: Islamic Boko Haram, Politicians’ Boko Haram and Christians’ Boko Haram which he said are being funded by President Goodluck Jonathan and coordinated by CAN President, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor.

He went further to claim that the CAN President has been given N50 billion by the President and a Jet. The same characters, went head to sponsor a negative report in Saharareporters. I had expected that by now no sane mind will take any report by Saharareporters serious because it is an online news medium which thrives on falsehood and survives on false propaganda and blackmail. The aircraft in question is owned by Eagle Air Company and the CAN President is an interested party in the company.

Since August 2 2014, this Aircraft has been leased to Green Coast Produce Limited. They lease this aircraft and people rent it from them. Anybody in this country will attest to the fact that Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor has been following Chartered Airlines. All investigations about the plane should be directed to the management of Green Coast Produce Limited, a duly registered company. Further enquiries about this should be confirmed from Eagle Air Company which leased this Aircraft. El-Rufai has accused Jesus Christ severally in recent times. El-Rufai and his group met and decided to launch a blackmail against Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor because he is an ardent supporter of President Goodluck Jonathan.

This, he did, to elicit sentiment from the society. We want Nigerians to ponder over this: if Nigeria wants to buy arms, the government knows where to get their weapons. How did Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor come into this? The report is a well-organized orchestrated plan, all because of their desperation for the 2015 general elections. If not for the blindness and intellectual MYOPIA of some Nigerians, people in the calibre of El-Rufai shouldn’t be taken seriously and should not be walking on the streets. This was the same El-Rufai abusing Gen. Muhammad’s Buhari (retd) and ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo, calling them all sorts of names. El-Rufai is more of a Street Boy whose history and antecedents are very much known.

He has been the person defending Boko Haram and this is an opportunity for him to hide his misdeeds. We are waiting and we can assure you that at the appropriate time, he and his allies will pay dearly for it. The international community sees APC as an Islamic party; instead of El-Rufai to deny that, he was busy orchestrating spurious propaganda against Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor. The public should also not forget that it was Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor who went to the United States’ Congress and suggested that Boko Haram Islamic sect should be domesticated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). It is the same El-Rufai who is accusing the CAN President as the person behind Boko Haram.

A word should be enough for the wise!
Sunny Oibe Director of National Issues (CAN)

Iraq: History repeating

Will the mistakes of the recent past be made again as Iraq and its allies take the fight to ISIL?

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World leaders and global organisations have in recent days raced to
 condemn the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant for their lack of Islam.
 First among them was the US President Barack Obama who called the group
 "neither Islamic nor a state".
British Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in after the brutal execution
 of British aid worker David Haines, calling the group "the embodiment of
 evil". A group of British Muslims representing several organisations even
 went so far as to plead with the prime minister to stop referring to the group
 as "Islamic State", instead offering "Unislamic State" as an alternative.
 This statement was issued just hours before Haines's death.
Curiously, all of these groups have been silent about previous brutal
deaths at the hands of ISIL. I heard no such anger from anyone in
officialdom when my dear friend and cameraman Yasser Faisal al Jumali
 was killed in Syria in December 2013. I heard no condemnation for
 the eight people beheaded in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia last month
 alone. It seems the only way to galvanise the world to act is when
westerner's die brutal deaths.
There is historical precedent to back that statement up.
It is 2004 and Iraq is aflame with violence. Two men, unknown
 to each other but who are now forever linked, are in Iraq. Both
are helping rebuild after the American occupation. Nick Berg,
 a freelance American radio tower repairman, and British Civil
 Engineer Ken Bigley.
Both are beheaded by al-Qaeda, the killing of Berg in response to
 American atrocities that took place at Abu Ghraib prison.
Their deaths send shockwaves throughout the world. The then
US president, George Bush, tells reporters that there is no justification
 for Berg's death. House Majority leader Tom Delay goes even further,
 calling them "terrorists" and "monsters".
None of them mention Abu Ghraib.
Murderer or freedom fighter?
The outrage is similar when Ken Bigley is killed. The Muslim Council
 of Great Britain makes great steps to intervene and prevent his killing,
 but to no avail. ‎His is said to be a response to Iraqi women being held
 without charge by British forces, a charge the British government denies.
The man behind the group responsible for the beheadings is developing a
fearsome reputation. Abu Mus'ab al Zarqawi is a Jordanian national who
the US accuses of ties with Saddam Hussien before the war, ties that were
 never proven. After the war his group becomes one of the most feared and
 quickly picks up support from Iraqi Sunni groups who felt the war in Iraq
 was turning against them. Between 2004 and his death in 2006 he creates havoc.
The US puts a $25m bounty on his head, the same as Osama Bin Laden.
His impact on Iraq cannot be underestimated. A well trained fighter who
 honed his skills in Afghanistan, he fled to Iraq ‎in 2001. In 2003 he began
 to build his organisation, then called the party of "Monotheism and Jihad".
 He directed his anger toward Iraq's Shia community. For hims it would rally
 Sunnis to his cause. It worked and his campaign sent suicide bombers into
 markets, schools, and mosques in predominantly Shia areas.
In 2004, he caught the attention of Osama Bin Laden and pledged alliance
 to al-Qaeda. The merger made al-Qaeda a powerful force. It didn't last long.
 Zarqawi's tactics of beheadings and targeting civilians angered al-Qaeda's number
 two Ayman al Zawahiri. He wrote a letter critising Zarqawi's tactics and
 sent it to the man himself.
Zarqawi ignored the message and by 2006 wanted more power. He styled
 himself as a spiritual leader, and increasingly relied on a hardline interpretation of sharia for justification.
In Iraq itself, he killed Iraqi sheikhs who stood in his way. Globally
 he began to lose support of Muslims, who began to see him as a brutal
murderer rather than a freedom fighter. Sunnis in Iraq had by this point
 begun to turn against Zarqawi's organisation and the US capitalised by
 funding Sunni "Awakening Councils" to fight the group. In June 2006, the Americans finally hit his hideout and he was killed.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq had lost its leader and the foreign fighters Zarqawi relied
 on had disappeared. Taking the initiative the US put into place the "surge"
 in 2007 to finally rout the insurgency, and to train Iraqi forces to take over
from them so that they could leave. They finally pulled out in December 2011.
'We have been here before'
Fast forward to 2014. ISIL are now in the same position. They have
 developed a fearsome reputation. The international community wants
to take action against them. The group's leader has declared himself Caliph Ibrahim,
a title which gives him religious and political power. But, once again, the brutal tactics and beheadings have been criticised by other jihadi groups and many Muslim groups
 are distancing themselves from ISIL.
There are some differences. The Americans do not want boots on the ground,
 relying instead on air power. Unlike al-Qaeda in Iraq, ISIL has a safe haven in
Syria and a political situation it can exploit. 'Caliph Ibrahim' knows the appetite
 to go into Syria is low because ultimately it will help President Bashar al-Assad,
 and that is not something the US is willing to do. This time around it is going to
 be a much tougher fight to get rid of the group.
However, the issue with both Zarqawi and with 'Caliph Ibrahim's' organisations
 is the cult of personality that has developed around them. If the US has learnt
 anything from history then the lesson it must take away is that by killing the
 leader you can destroy the group.
But no Western Leader has put forward a strategy to deal with what happens after,
 and that is where history really comes into play. After Zarqawi died, the US
 abandoned the very men it relied on to fight al-Qaeda in Iraq. Then Iraqi
Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki, a Shia, ignored and marginalised the Sunni.
 ‎They lost hope and when Syria disintegrated, the jihadi's found a cause, and
 then from the ashes of that fire rose the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.
 Much of al-Qaeda in Iraq rose with it. The tactics, the ideology is familiar.
We have been here before.
The only questions are now these: The international community have begun
 to act, but will they be willing to move beyond just destroying ISIL?
Are they able to find political solutions in Iraq and Syria that will stop
 the rise of another Zarqawi or another 'Caliph Ibrahim'? Or are the
 mistakes of the past due to be repeated?

Beyonce shows off her amazing bikini body in new pics

Beyonce today took to her Tumblr page to share some pictures from her 33rd birthday which she celebrated with Jay Z, Blue Ivy, her mother and mother-in-law in the South of France. What a body she's got. See more photos after the cut...

Chibok Girls’ WAEC Results Ready – Education Minister

Nigeria’s education minister, Malam Ibrahim Shekarau, has told the House of Representatives Committee on Education that the results of the Chibok schoolgirls who wrote the April 2014 West African Examinations Council (WAEC) exams are ready.

 

Shekarau made the disclosure yesterday at a stakeholders meeting organised by the House Committee on Education, over the federal government’s directive to schools to resume on September 22, against the October 12 date given in consideration of the Ebola Virus Disease in the country.

According to Leadership, the minister said the results were being reviewed by the education ministry, because of the “haphazard” nature of the situation caused by Boko Haram’s abduction of some of the schoolgirls.

“By 1pm today (Monday), the president has scheduled a meeting, which I am attending, specifically to address some of the issues of girls’ education in that troubled zone (Nigeria’s North East). In fact, this morning, I got a communication from West African Examinations Council. The result of the Chibok Secondary School is out. 

We (the ministry) have to look at it (the results) vis-a-vis the security situation and implication, before the formal release. It is right now in my possession, because when the abduction took place, some remained, completed their exams. Some were taking exam and they were abducted. So, the result is haphazard. So we are addressing that this afternoon. 

This is just for the information of the honourable members. It is also a matter of great concern to us. I am sure by 1pm, four, five of us will be sitting with Mr President to address this issue,” he said.

In April, the abduction by the Boko Haram sect of more than 200 girls from the Government Secondary School in the town of Chibok in Borno State sparked global outrage. #BringBackOurGirls, a social media rallying cry, generated massive global attention. While some of the girls managed to escape after being abducted from their school, the majority are still being held.

In July, President Goodluck Jonathan told parents of the abducted schoolgirls that the government was doing everything possible to secure their release. The parents of 11 of the girls have died since their abduction, the Associated Press news agency reported. Boko Haram has offered to free the girls in exchange for the release of its fighters and relatives being held by the security forces.

Rihanna lashes out at CBS for pulling her song from NFL broadcast

Rihanna is pissed at TV network CBS...and when Rihanna is pissed, she doesn't
 hold back. Last week CBS pulled Rihanna's 'Run This Town' from the NFL opening
night credits in the wake of the Ray Rice domestic abuse incident citing her past
as an abuse victim as reason for their action...

CBS then decided to run the track for this week's football game, but Rihanna was
 not having it. She cussed them out on twitter, telling the network, 'F*ck You!'. Continue...

After her protest, CBS decided not to play the intro. New York Times reporter Bill
Carter announced it on twitter...

Ebola: Pres. Jonathan Defends Sept. 22 Schools’ Resumption Date

Abuja (NAN) – President Goodluck Jonathan on Tuesday defended the Sept. 22 school resumption date, saying there was currently no case of the disease in the country to warrant extension of the holiday.

Jonathan spoke to State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, when he reacted to the threat by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) to embark on strike over government’s refusal to shift the date.

He said that the disease had been effectively contained, adding that keeping schools closed would send a wrong message to the international community about the situation in the country.

The president said government was prepared and had put measures in place to deal with any possible future outbreak of the virus in the country.

He said: “Presently, there is no Ebola case in Nigeria; nobody in Nigeria has the disease now.

“Most of the people who came down with the disease have recovered. Out of the 19, we lost seven and the others have recovered, although there a few people we are still observing.

“I am not saying we may not record Ebola case again. As long as the disease is still in the West Coast – Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the likelihood that a character like the Late Sawyer may come in through one way or the other is there.

“But government is also very mindful of that. Presently our air and sea ports as well as land border posts are properly protected.

“If Sawyer were to arrive in the country now, no Nigerian would contact the virus because of the level of preparation.’’

Jonathan argued that those calling for extension of the holiday were ignorant of the wrong signals it would send to the international community about the Ebola situation in the country.

He said that Nigerians were being stigmatised and segregated in other countries because of the negative narrative about the status of the virus in the country.

“If you are a Nigerian today and you travel to some countries, they don’t even want you to enter the countries.

“Our athletes were segregated in China, they had to return back. In China they are even asking ministers of the Federal Republic to show proof of being free of the disease, and this is quite discouraging.

“What people don’t know is that as long as you close your institutions because of Ebola, the ambassadors from various countries that are here with us and the high commissioners send dispatches weekly or monthly to their home countries about what is happening in Nigeria.

“As long as we Nigerians close our public institutions because of Ebola, the dispatches that go out to the rest of the world is that Ebola is a problem in Nigeria.

“As long as we declare Ebola a problem in Nigeria, any Nigerian that travels out will be treated as somebody with Ebola.

“We’ve been able to manage the disease and the whole world is happy with us, and we must tell the world that we have managed Ebola and no Nigerian should be segregated because of Ebola.

“If NUT wants Nigeria to close schools until December, then invariably they are saying that until December Nigerians should be discriminated against.’’

Jonathan described the NUT’s threat as unnecessary and uncalled for.

He gave credit to all Nigerians for their cooperation and support to government in the effective management of the situation.

The president also lauded the state governors for their role in the success story, specifically those of Lagos and Rivers where cases of the disease were recorded.

About NAN

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) was established by the Federal Government of Nigeria in May 1976 to gather and distribute news on Nigeria and cover events of interest to Nigeria at the international level for the benefit of the Nigerian Media and the Public.

Tagged With: Ebola, Goodluck JonathanFiled Under: News

South African govt say 67 of its citizens died in Synagogue building collapse

South African president, Jacob Zuma announced today that 67 of its citizens
died in the Synagogue building collapse that occurred on September 12th.
 The South Africans were in Nigeria to seek spiritual help and were staying
 at the guest house before it collapsed.