Friday, July 30, 2010

Northern Elites in last-minute religion-fuelled rampage for political power

Nigeria is witnessing a last minute desperate rampage by some caucus of northern elites who are bent on using religion as platform to achieve relevance and maintain political power. As they see the Hand of God turned against them at Nigeria’s Jubilee, they have now thrown caution or subtlety to the wind, openly seeking to destabilize the polity and grasping at whatever agenda is handy for support. But the One they contend with is none other than the Lord of Hosts Himself!
In recent times, we see “fulani herdsmen” ( the politically-correct name for Islamic jihadists field soldiers), intensity their desperate determination to secure the Middle-Belt buffer zone between Christian majority South, and Islam majority North. The middle-belters are in geographic north, but have a Christian majority. This region then constitutes the battle ground jihadists must overrun before their advertised goal of dipping the Koran into the sea can ever materialise. Hence the incessant attacks.
In what can only be the reflection of utter desperation, the Jihadists are out on naked rampage – not even seeking any excuse or “provocations” before their attacks. On July 3, a day after police stopped protecting the village of Kizachi, in Kaduna State, muslim miltants swooped in, in the dead of the night, and mercilessly slaughtered “at least eight Christian believers”. The police – in the state where God had recently divinely installed a Christian governor, against all imaginations - had withdrawn their presence claiming their salaries were not being paid. The next night, on July 4, it was the turn of neighbouring Plateau State, when murderous muslims matcheted and gunned to death three Christians in the Ganawuri community. (http://www.worthynews.com/8499-eight-Christians-killed-in-nigerian-muslim-attacks) The foreign press always refers to these cold-blooded murders as “sectarian clashes”!
The Nigerian Tribune begins its report on the next wave of attack, which happened on July 17 in this way: “NO fewer than nine persons were murdered in their sleep in Maza Village, Jos South Local Government Area of Plateau State in the early hours of Saturday by suspected Fulanis who invaded the village.” The report continues: “[A]rmed with guns, cutlasses, bows and arrows, [the muslim “warriors”] sneaked into the village,… around 1:00 am and descended on the people.” Among those hacked to death were Reverend Nuhu Dawat’s wife, two children and a grandson. Mr Gaya Suna lost his only daughter who was “caught while sleeping”. See details at http://www.tribune.com.ng/sun/index.php/front-page-articles/1626-nine-killed-as-jos-boils-again
Sadly, there is hardly any indication that these callous murdering are about to stop. Especially with no considerable visible progress being made in the case against the 405 arrested so far . (These include “Fulani Herdsmen” who confessed to have been hired by unnamed sponsors for sums ranging from N500 to N1000 each to kill over 500 villagers in Dogon Nahawa in March). Rather, some principal suspects are allegedly being released already! (http://thenationonlineng.net/web3/saturday-magazine/weekend-treat/4322.html) Now the “action” is spreading further south with the incident at Wukari, in Taraba state, with the chief instigator no less a person than an Area Commander in the Nigeria Police! (See story below).

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