By EMMANUEL OGEBE, USA

. . . Eyewitness of military complicity killed on day of Miango massacre anniversary

Gen Muhammadu Buhari has made history as the first Nigerian head of state to be ransomed from bandits and possibly the first in the world to be ransomed in absentia if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed.

While the WSJ publishes false stories and they’ve also been compromised by the Nigerian govt, a good journalist who also knows WSJ dubious reporting however quoted their story about the Nigerian Airforce paying $50,000 to recover anti aircraft weapons to protect Buhari’s plane from bandits.

Here are some of the problems with WSJ’s story:

“Most of the bandits are from the Fulani ethnic group, a traditionally cattle-rearing society, whose herdsmen have been fighting for years with farmers over access to dwindling grazing lands.”

COMMENTARY: THEY ARE PUSHING THE FALSE NARRATIVE OF CONFLICT OVER SCARCITY OF LAND. THE LAND HAS ALWAYS BELONGED TO THE SEDENTARY CHRISTIAN/AGRARIAN COMMUNITIES NOT THE NOMADS

“More recently, some herdsmen have reorganized into kidnapping gangs, seizing everyone from villagers to prominent politicians. Last month, bandits raided a military training college in Kaduna state north of the capital, killing two soldiers, grabbing more weaponry and kidnapping a ranking military officer, a major at the country’s national defense academy.”

COMMENTARY: AGAIN FALSE. IT IS NOT RECENT. THE KIDNAPPING HAS BEEN GOING ON FOR AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN YEARS!

SIMILARLY THE ATTACK ON NDA WAS IN AUGUST NOT LAST MONTH (SEPTEMBER) AS THESE SLOPPY JOURNALISTS REPORT.

“In the past three months, bandits have been blamed for abducting political leaders and Catholic priests, and for regular killings of policemen.”

COMMENTARY: AGAIN FALSE. NOT 3 MONTHS. CATHOLIC PRIESTS HAVE BEEN ABDUCTED AND KILLED FOR YEARS NOW. FATHER ADEYI IN BENUE WAS KIDNAPPED AND KILLED ABOUT FOUR YEARS AGO.

Despite the blatantly inaccurate reporting, the main crux of the story that the government paid protection money for the president may not be improbable.

Just today, videos emerged of customs officers admitting they bribed bandits with goats for safe passage.

Before now reports emerged that the government spent millions paying of bandits not to kidnap air travelers who had to transfer by road from Kaduna to Abuja during the capital city’s airport closure.

Since the 2018 Dapchi Schoolgirl mass abductions where authorities appeared to have operated in tandem with the terrorists, there has been a suspicious burgeoning of the kidnap-for-ransom hostage-cottage industry.

Now more students have been kidnapped in the past 10 months than in the previous seven years making Nigeria the kidnap capital of the world.

However the history of government condonation and collusion with terrorists goes way back.

In 2005, I alerted the Nigerian embassy in Washington of a report on NBC news that the owner of NASCO corporation was blacklisted for terror financing. https://www.facebook.com/1434215680211765/posts/2753499584950028/?d=n

I was invited and then met with a senior diplomat who I later learnt was actually with the Defense Intelligence Agency.

It was therefore no surprise to read about it again over 15 years later in Hundeyin’s explosive exposé. The greater bombshell was that all the arrested Nigerian terror supporters who were mysteriously freed are now publicly hobnobbing with Nigeria’s president.

It should be recalled that Muhammad Yusuf Boko Haram’s leader was also arrested and released before going on to unleash much mayhem that has kept this country at war for a dozen years.

Even more painful is that notwithstanding the revelations in Hundeyin’s brilliant investigative journalism, not only have these terror supporters not been interrogated but rather it is Peter Obi, billionaire businessman and former Anambra state governor who has been invited for interrogation over claims that he did not declare foreign family assets while in office.

The rank injustice, double standards and unfairness with everything that pertains to Nigerians from the south in contrast with the impunity and extremity of those from the “right” region and religion is precisely what fuels sympathy for the Biafra separatist movement!

The ruse of asset declaration is the same gimmick the Buhari regime utilized to unconstitutionally oust Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen for the crime of being the first Chief Justice from the “wrong” region and religion in more than 30 years. An intellectually bankrupt regime has no fresh ideas!

Even Lebanese terrorists who established Hizbollah weapons bunkers under the guise of legitimate businesses long after NASCO’s Eritrean founder was exposed walked away with impunity.

Nigerian foreign fighters for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan returned freely to Nigeria despite warnings and intelligence provided to Nigeria’s DIA head at the embassy in Islamabad by the US. President Obasanjo informed me a couple of years ago that he didn’t receive such intelligence reports.

But worst of all is military complacency and complicity in ongoing atrocities as forcefully illustrated by recent updates on our human rights report from 2017 below.

Four years ago, I wrote this factfinding situation report:

“Hours ago I returned from a mission to Nigeria during which one of the most brazen attacks by the government occurred.

1. CHURCH STRAFED BY AIRFORCE PLANES

A Lutheran Church in northeast Nigeria was bombed not by terrorists but by Nigerian Air Force planes. Deaths were reported and villagers are still trying to identify remains.

Unlike the bombing of an IDP camp early this year which the government claimed was accidental, local Christians maintain this was a targeted bombing.

They were fleeing an attack by killer Fulani Muslim Herdsmen and ran to the church for safety only to be bombed their by the Air Force. This is unprecedented in the history of persecution of Christians in Nigeria.

Christians insist that the Air Force provided air cover for the Muslim herdsmen who had clashed with them previously. It is particularly disturbing coming against the backdrop of public threats by prominent Muslim leaders that preceded the bombing.

This church air strike on defenseless citizens is not only potentially a crime against humanity but also proof of Nigerian government complacency and now complicity in the face of Fulani Herdsmen attacks. General Muhammad Buhari is a Fulani Herdsman.

It may also be just cause to block US airplane sales to the Nigerian government for continuing egregious human rights violations.

1.1 SITUATION UPDATE COMMENTARY:

ONE DOZEN PLANES HAVE NOW BEEN SUPPLIED TO NIGERIA AND THREE ERRONEOUS AIR STRIKE ON INNOCENT CITIZENS HAVE OCCURRED IN RECENT MONTHS.

2. CHRISTIANS SEEKING MILITARY PROTECTION SLAUGHTERED

The church bombing comes just after another bizarre incident after my last trip. Christians who went to the military for protection from killer Fulani Herdsmen in north central Nigeria were kept in a School for safety where they were abandoned and left to be slaughtered by the herdsmen.

This week I interviewed a survivor of that attack who left the schoolroom when he noticed the army retreating. He had not been interviewed by media prior to my visit. Local leaders say the soldiers were to be court-martialed but nothing has happened since the October attacks.

2.1 SITUATION UPDATE COMMENTARY:

A 4th Memorial event was scheduled in the US this month for the October, 15th, 2017 massacre of 29 Christians villagers at LEA Primary School Nkiendoro, Plateau state. However days to the anniversary, the sole survivor and eyewitness of the military’s betrayal of the villagers whom we interviewed in 2017, was mysteriously ambushed and murdered last week in Nigeria.

3. ARMY RAPES ESCAPED GIRLS IN IDP CAMPS

Girls fleeing Boko Haram find the nightmare continues in the hands of government. HIV and birth rates are booming in the camps.

https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/12/08/world/africa/boko-haram-nigeria-security-forces-rape.html?referer=http%3A%2F%2Fm.facebookcom

3.1 SITUATION UPDATE COMMENTARY:

Women and girls continue to be abducted as sex slaves by terrorists weekly in Nigeria. During our recent mission to Nigeria, we interacted with several escapees who were helped by the military with no reports of abuse.

4. CHRISTIANS STUCK ON BESEIGED MOUNTAINS FOR YEARS STILL

This week our team interviewed some refugee kids in a camp in northern Nigeria. One boy Eddy described in painstaking detail having to flee Boko Haram terrorists, hiding under a bed for 34 hours, dressing as a girl to escape certain slaughter after getting lost from his family...

He told us that in about 4 years he doesn't know if his family is dead or alive. He's even lost touch with the pastor who brought him to the orphanage in 2015.

The next day before we returned to the US, we learnt

Eddy's dad and mum have been found alive. They were living/hiding atop a mountain besieged by Boko Haram terrorists for years!

Christians have been trapped on Gwoza mountain since 2013 at least.

It is a rare piece of good news in an otherwise depressing field of human rights work.

Thankful for tender mercies.”

4.1 SITUATION UPDATE COMMENTARY:

Four years later, Fulani herdsmen burnt down the Miango orphanage where we interviewed Eddy displacing him and 155 others. Our rescue effort to relocate him to Abuja for further schooling failed due to his ill-health.

Our condolences go to all the victims of continuing complacency, compromise and complicity of Nigeria’s government of terrorists, by terrorists for terrorists.

•Emmanuel Ogebe, Managing Partner, US NIGERIA LAW GROUP, Washington, is a News Express Special Contributor.

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