Nigeria, Boko Haram Not America’s Priority, Says Retired US Army Chief


20 Jan 2015


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The Executive Dean, College of Criminal Justice and Security at the University of Phoenix, Major Gen. James ‘Spider’ Marks, has said that the growing insecurity and pogrom in the North-eastern part of Nigeria is not a priority to the United States of America.

Marks, who retired after 30 years of service in the US Army, said this in an interview on CNN, which has since gone viral.

Responding to questions on why over 40 world leaders including about four million people took to the streets in France when 17 people were killed by terrorists recently, whereas during the same period, over 2,000 people were allegedly massacred in Baga, Borno State without any global outcry, the ex-military general maintained that Nigeria and the entire black Africa was not a priority for the US.

He explained: “The stack difference is that while world leaders are in complete solidarity and outrage against what happened in France vis-à-vis Nigeria. Truly, that should be surprising because what is happening in Nigeria is real madness, but it is not a priority.

“The United States can do anything it needs to do to rid Nigeria of Boko Haram, it could be a long-term effort, but it can be done. The US has the capability, we have all the elements and power, but it is not a priority.”

Continuing, he said: “This is the problem, we are committed elsewhere in the world, but black or Western Africa is not the priority. That is the case right now and it may be hard to say. Boko Haram is a regional issue.

“But if it appears in some other regions of the world, like white Africa, which is North Africa, or in the Middle East or somewhere else, we would be alarmed. But it is a regional issue.”

About 2,000 people were said to have been killed in Baga. However, the Defence Headquarters (DHQ) last week put the figure of those massacred at 150, while satellite images released by Amnesty International showed the large-scale destruction in the area.

Meanwhile, Boko Haram yesterday freed two dozen hostages after a mass abduction by its militants in Cameroun, as Chad prepares to engage in the international battle against the extremist group.

Twenty-four of the 80 people taken hostage by Boko Haram in the north of Cameroun Sunday were released as Cameroonian armed forces pursued the Islamist extremists, according to a government source.

The Boko Haram fighters then fled back into Nigeria, with the fate of the rest of the hostages taken in the raid, the worst of its kind to date, still unknown.

An army officer based in Cameroun’s far north said Boko Haram had attacked two villages and kidnapped what Camerounian state media said were 80 hostages.

As the militants retreated, the Chadian army said it was putting 400 military vehicles, attack helicopters, and still unspecified number of soldiers amassed in northern Cameroun into action against Boko Haram, as part of what has become a regional effort to defeat the notoriously violent group.

“We are going to advance Modnay towards the enemy,” Chadian army colonel Djerou Ibrahim, who is leading the offensive against Boko Haram, told AFP from the strategic crossroads town of Maltam in northern Cameroun.

“Our mission is to hunt down Boko Haram, and we have all the means to do that.”

But Camerounian Communications Minister, Issa Tchiroma Bakary, warned that the armies of the two nations still had considerable planning to complete before being able to launch offensives against Boko Haram.

“Military planners must evaluate the forces being coordinated and coalesced,” he said. “That takes time. Don’t expect to start seeing the results of that tomorrow."




Tags: News, Nigeria, Featured

LUGBE, ABUJA SUBURB WITH THE HIGHEST PREVALENCE OF HIV/AIDS

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Lugbe, a suburb of Abuja, has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS in Abuja, the Capacity Development Officer for SURE-P, Jummai Danuk, has said.


She made the disclosure on Wednesday in Abuja at a sensitisation on HIV testing and counselling held in Lugbe.

The campaign was jointly organised by the National Agency for the Control of AIDS, NACA, and Subsidy Reinvestment and Empowerment Programme, SURE-P.

The campaign, aimed at encouraging the community on voluntary HIV/AIDS testing, witnessed a large turnout.

Mr. Danuk, who represented Sebastian Wakdok, Project Director, NACA/SUPE-P HIV/AIDS programme, said Lugbe was chosen for the campaign due to the Prevalence Surveillance Survey conducted in the area recently.

She said “We needed to take the treatment to the grassroots; Lugbe is the ideal place because it is along the expressway which makes it easy to access the satellite villages.

“The Prevalence Surveillance Survey shows that Lugbe has the highest prevalence of HIV/AIDS along the axis; this informed our choice of coming to Lugbe for the exercise”, she said.

Mr. Danuk said due to stigma attached to the disease, Lugbe communities had not felt the impact of what development partners were doing in area of access to services for treatment.

She said Abuja ranks number eight in states with the highest HIV prevalence in Nigeria and attributed the development to its cosmopolitan nature.

“The influx of people from other states have adverse effects on HIV/AIDS prevalence in the FCT”, Mr. Danuk said.

She said that prevention was important in the fight against HIV/ AIDS or any other disease, adding that it was necessary that an individual should know his status irrespective of age, s*x and social status.

Mr. Danuk expressed concern that foreign donors assisting Nigeria in the fight against the disease were leaving the country as they no long classify HIV as a serious issue.

Speaking earlier, Micah Jiba, the Chairman, Abuja Municipal Area Council, represented by Josephine Nneme, Supervisory Councillor for Health, commended NACA and SURE-P for considering Lugbe for the free medical outreach.

(NAN)

RIVER OF TEARS

With the coo of Doves,
So peaceful it was a time.
Graciously guided her heritage
Like a Panther she prides herself in the ways of survival.


Oh! Benue my Home

So peaceful
Like a giraffe she stands tall amongst her peers
Carve a name that blesses all like the rain.

Oh! The Food Basket of the Nation

Oh! Tears and tears,
Again and again
Washing away our heritage we once guided.
We run and run without saying
Goodbye to our yams, our pride
No more River Benue,
But, the Red sea.
The river of blood
Where are the Pharaohs from?
Like scatter sheep,
Mothers cry for their children
Children for their mothers
But the blood separates both

Oh! Benue my people

I AM THAT I AM

Like a child HE does embrace everybody
Come let us reason together HE says
But we maintain a distance
Though we chose to live in enmity with HIM
HE opens HIS arms but we embrace HIM not
HE is ready to hear even though we are not ready to call
Come to Me but we decline the invitation
Follow me but we prefer our lead
Be still but we say the worries are too much
Take my path we say life is a choice
Even though u wasted my divine energy of creation
But my providence is for u to take
Worry not my child
For I AM the all-knowing GOD
Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee

DR. DRE TOPS FORBES

Here’s a report from FORBES, of the highest earning musicians of 2014, Dr. Dre is the highest of the highests.
Fifteen years ago Dr. Dre wondered aloud whether people had forgotten about him. If there was a question then, it has certainly dissipated throughout the next steps of a career filled with highlights—most recently the sale of Beats, the company he co-founded, to Apple AAPL -1.88% for $3 billion.

Dr. Dre took home $620 million this year before taxes, thanks largely to that deal, making him the world’s top-earning musician of 2014. More remarkably, that number also marks the largest single-year haul of any musician, ever.

Dr. Dre’s payday gives him the widest margin in history between the first and second spots on list—half a billion dollars separate him from the No. 2 earner, Beyoncé, who pulled in $115 million. Her most lucrative year yet comes courtesy of her Mrs. Carter Show tour, a surprise album and endorsements with the likes of Pepsi and H&M .

Also on the list is The Eagles with $100 million, Bon Jovi with $82 million, Bruce Springsteen with $80 million, Katy Perry with $40 million, Miley Cyrus with $36 million and Lady Gaga ($33 million).

Justin Bieber ($80 million) and One Direction ($75 million) are the only acts under age 30 to make the top ten; Taylor Swift finished at No. 11 ($64 million

OBASANJO'S WATCH

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has blamed the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging some parts of northern Nigeria on the Niger Delta amnesty programme, as he described the programme as a failure.


The ex-president also stated that President Goodluck Jonathan administration’s approach to curbing the activities of the Niger Delta militants “had taken the form of throwing money at the problem, particularly stuffing the pockets and bank of the militants’ leadership with obscene cash in reckless and unsustainable manner”.

These views were expressed by Mr. Obasanjo in his controversial autobiography, My Watch, a three-volume memoir, which was launched in Lagos Tuesday.

According to the outspoken former president, the way and manner in which the militants were enriched by the federal government fuelled the Boko Haram insurgents.

“The idea is that ‘what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander’. After that (Niger Delta amnesty programme) is accomplished, I suppose the Movement for Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) in the South-East will make their own demand, which of necessity must be heeded. And finally, Odua Peoples Congress (OPC) in the South-West will not be left out”, he stated.

Obasanjo also lashed out at his successor, late President Umaru Yar’Adua and the present administration on security under their watch, stressing that it was one of the things that “got me worried”.

Commenting on President Jonathan’s response to the abduction of schoolgirls in Chibok, Borno State, Obasanjo said “the one incident that overtly and graphically exposed the ineptitude, ineffectiveness, inefficiency, carelessness, cluelessness, callousness, insensitivity and selfishness of Goodluck Jonathan was the abduction of about 276 schoolgirls from Chibok in Borno State by Boko Haram.

“The reaction and attitude of our president and his household was that of non-belief, to the extent that 18 days passed before he grudgingly conceded to accept the reality of the abduction. If serious action had been taken within 48 hours, the story could have been different. Seventy-two hours was, for me, too late. After all, there would have been logistics required for moving almost 390 girls through the bush and small settlements by the Boko Haram”.

In the third volume of the book entitled ‘Now and Then’, Obasanjo described President Jonathan as a failure to the country.

He said: “After watching, reaching out to, studying, talking to and listening to the president himself and the people around him, I came, sadly, to a number of conclusions that mark Jonathan out as a man of adequate intelligence to run the affairs of Nigeria but lacking in broad vision, knowledge, confidence, understanding, concentration, capacity, sense of security, courage, moral and ethical principles, character and passion to move the nation forward on a fast trajectory”.

The former president also decried what he described as the selfish interest of Mr. Jonathan, saying he places his personal interest far above both national and party interests.

Referring to the 2011 general elections, the former PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman claimed that heavy financial prices were paid to Lagos and Ondo states’ opposition to secure votes for President Jonathan against the interest of the PDP at the state levels.

“I had watched Jonathan and stood close to him in picking the national chairman of the party and chairman of board of trustees that succeeded me. What I saw and heard from him disgusted me to no end. Where Jonathan’s interests are concerned, there can be no decorum. Everything can be ‘rofo rofo’ and no party or national interests matter”.

He, however, restated his “unrepentant optimism” that Nigeria will once again remain united and regain its lost glory.

“When I became president in 1999, some people told me that I will be the last president of Nigeria, but there have been many presidents after me up until now and there will be many more presidents for Nigeria in many years to come. Nigeria has many challenges, but if we are determined we will make right everything that had gone wrong”.

APC PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY: BUHARI IN EARLY LEAD

Muhammadu Buhari

As vote counting continues
Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Shola Oyeyipo in Lagos

The former Head of State, General Muhammadu Buhari, has taken an early lead over four other presidential aspirants as the counting of votes progresses this morning.

Signs of Buhari's commanding lead came as officials kept announcing his name as most of the votes were being announced .

The result so far has thrown up surprises with the Kano state Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso being the one giving Buhari a close chase while former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar is trailing behind with Rochas Okorocha and Sam Nda-Isaiah.
At the moment, vote counting has gone half way.