The Deputy Governor of Edo State, Philip Shaibu, has extended an apology to his political mentor and former governor of the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, regarding his past choice of language during their political differences. Shaibu, however, stressed that his aspiration to succeed his principal, Governor Godwin Obaseki, as the next governor of the state stems from a divine conviction to serve the state and restore governance to the people.

Shaibu made these remarks during a live interview on a private broadcast television station in Lagos, which was monitored in Benin City. He said that his decision not to engage in conflicts with his boss, despite their strained relationship, was to avoid using language that might haunt him when he secures the ticket of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He said, “I want to be the next governor of Edo State not because l am Philip Shaibu, it is my constitutional right. Before publicly declaring my interest to contest, l had consulted widely with many persons and groups within and outside Edo State. Moreover, l went into prayers to seek guidance and direction from God. The signs l received encouraged me to go ahead with my aspiration, though it was obvious the Governor had his own plans of supporting another person.

“If my party wants to win the election in Edo State, give it to Philip Shaibu but if they want to lose, they should give it to somebody else, not because I am a superstar but because I have the content, I have the quality, I have the experience.”

Addressing his past disagreements with Oshiomhole, Shaibu expressed regret for his choice of language. He affirmed his apology to Oshiomhole and expressed his intention not to repeat such mistakes.

“I regret the language I used in our disagreements. The only aspect I apologise for and continue to apologise for to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole is the language I used. I don’t want to repeat the same mistake,” Shaibu remarked.

While reiterating his allegiance to Governor Obaseki, the Deputy Governor noted his commitment to supporting the Governor and the Government despite ongoing disputes and challenges to his constitutional rights.

“I have over time been deprived of my constitutional rights as Deputy Governor. This has not in any way affected my loyalty to the Governor. I have had to make lots of personal sacrifices to ensure a good relationship and deliver on our promise to Edo people. Sometimes, one has to play the fool for a relationship to survive,” he said.

Mr. President,

The joy expressed by you in your New Year message in welcoming your “compatriots to this brand new year 2024” cannot be understood or shared by several millions of our countrymen and women, particularly the people of Mangu, Bokkos, Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas of Plateau State, where over 200 innocent villagers were killed by terrorists, with more than 300 persons injured, several properties destroyed and thousands of people have been displaced, between Christmas Eve, Friday 24th and Monday 26th December 2023.

The SMBLF commiserates with the affected families, and people of Plateau State, and commends the United Nations (UN), Amnesty International, the Pope, and the International Community, generally, for their unequivocal condemnation of the killings on the Plateau, while urging that the world be conscious of the grave implications of these happenings on the corporate existence of the Nigerian Federation.

The unrelenting massacre bordering on ethnic cleansing and armed occupation of the territories of the indigenous peoples of the Middle-Belt and most parts of Northern Nigeria by identified ethnic militias have shown without any doubt that the Nigerian state, its government, and security forces have continued to fail in the fundamental duty of the security and welfare of citizens as the primary purpose of government as stated in Section 14(b) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Mr. President, unfortunately, and as it was with the Buhari administration, rather than accept the reality of the danger posed to the corporate existence of the federation by an extra-territorial agenda of the Fulani ethnic nationality, backed by organized and well-armed militias, which was, since 2018, declared by Amnesty International as the "4th most deadly terrorist organization in the world", your administration has also, now, in bad faith, dressed this evil in the false garb of “herders/farmers’ clash”, and the blood-thirsty ethnic militias as mere bandits. It is a conflict where one side, fully armed, continues to attack and kill the innocent, who are being deliberately defanged by agents of the Government.

Mr. President, your predecessor had all the facts and evidence of an ideological Fulanisation agenda but preferred to pander and prevaricate than bring justice to the victims of oppression and genocide.

The cycle of attacks, government inaction, and provable official complicity engendered a situation where no less a personality than General T. Y. Danjuma Rtd, former Chief of Army Staff and former Defence Minister, openly advised victims of terrorism to arm themselves, since the Government appears unwilling to stem the atrocities being committed against the indigenous peoples.

Commodore Kunle Olawunmi, a former member of an elite group of Intelligence officers in our military on national television posited that a list of sponsors of Terror was in the hands of the government, with names of those behind these dastardly acts in the country. In addition to the list, the then Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), admitted to having received a list of Terror Sponsors from the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Of course, nothing was done!

The audacious and reckless assertions by some prominent personalities of Fulani Extraction like Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, and Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State, who ought to be more "civilized", lent credence to the Fulanisation agenda. Nasir El-Rufai reportedly threatened that “whoever kills a Fulani herdsman, including the army, takes a death loan, repayable in 100 years” on an alleged plan by the military to dislodge a Fulani-occupied settlement on other people’s ancestral home in the outskirts of Jos, Plateau State. He warned that “if the Nigerian Army goes and removes the Fulani settlement, any person wearing Nigerian Army uniform in 14 Western African countries is at risk..”

Governor Bala Mohammed, on his part, justified the possession of AK-47 weapons by the Fulani herders as self-defense in “practicing the tradition of trans-human, pastoralism” throughout West Africa with no regard for national boundaries not to mention ancestral lands of other groups, which has no affinity to the Fulani.

The Buhari administration tried all the tricks in its wits to create Fulani settlements in other people’s territories throughout Nigeria by different strategies of "land grabbing" in the guise of RUGA, Grazing Routes, Cattle Colonies or contrived integrated agriculture Schemes, where new estates would be built for pastoralists with better amenities than the host communities whose lands would be acquired by the Federal Government, contrary to the provisions of the Constitution, which make land use regulations an exclusive state affair. The then Presidential spokesman betrayed the mind of the government when he advised the people that "it was better they released lands than lose their lives".

The horror of the Christmas Eve massacre in Plateau State is not different from the situation in Benue where several communities, particularly in Kwande, Gwer-West, Guma, Makurdi, and Logo Local Government Areas are perennially attacked by the pampered armed Fulani ethnic militias who have taken over other people’s lands and homes.

In Kaduna State, and Southern Kaduna particularly, Chikun, Kajuru, Kachia, Zangon Kataf, Kauru, Lere, Birnin Gwari, and Giwa Local Governments are largely under the control of terrorists. The operations of these armies of occupation claimed to be foreigners were allegedly boosted by El-Rufai's admission of payment of huge amounts of money to Fulani militants across West Africa only to end up lamenting that these associates of his invariably made Kaduna State ungovernable.

The situation in Niger State is not different, if not worse, as according to the immediate past Governor of the State, Abubakar Sani-Bello, terrorists (he called them bandits) have taken over 12 local government areas in Niger State as confirmed during his visit in 2022 to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) at the Central Primary School, Gwada. The worst hit Local Governments in the state include Rafi, Munyan, Shiroro, Magama, Mashegu, Mariaga, and Wushishi some of which the terrorists not only have their flags hoisted but also collect taxes and levies, in a state bordering the FCT.

In the Zuru district of Kebbi State, terrorists are so much in control that they audaciously opened fire and killed military men deployed to the area following an earlier killing of scores of vigilantes otherwise known as Yan-Sa-Kai by the terrorists.

In Zamfara, Sokoto and Katsina, peasant farmers of the Hausa as well as other non-Fulani nationalities can no longer access their farms as a result of Fulani terrorism. The case of Zamfara is worst having been virtually rendered ungovernable except for the State capital, Gusau.

Former President Buhari deliberately handicapped himself by a deceitful mindset that people of the North-West were of the same tribes and religion and wondered why they were fighting amongst themselves.
The truth however is that the north-west geopolitical zone is most diverse in ethnic content and the war therein is orchestrated by the desire for new territorial spaces for the Fulani both within and outside Nigeria against the other ethnic nationalities especially the Hausa majority which has for ages been falsely touted as being indistinguishable from the Fulani.

SMBLF holds as indisputably self-evident that all ethnic nationalities were and have settled in their portions of Nigeria before the amalgamation and establishment of Nigeria in 1914, and thus, the current rabid territorial ambition and quest for the alteration of the demographic structures of the federation will lead to chaos and internecine wars, the end of which may be the dismemberment of the fragile Nigerian Federation.

In light of the foregoing, the SMBLF, moved by the patriotic desire for the corporate continuity of Nigeria and, the peaceful and mutually respectful coexistence of its diverse nationalities strongly urges that you, Mr. President consider the following:

1. Your government holds an honest and truthful security inquiry to determine communities wherein the original inhabitants have been displaced in the last 2 decades and enforce the immediate return and resettlement of the people in their ancestral homes.

2. Further to the above, the government should, in no distant future, close all IDP camps to end the shameful and sinful policy of building such refugee camps for the indigenous peoples while their ancestral homes are allowed to be occupied by the armed invaders.

3. That the Security agencies, including the police, the Civil Defence Corps, and others be specially trained and equipped to rise to the challenges as Nigeria is fast becoming a banana or pariah state of its kid-gloves treatment of terrorism.

4. That the Nigerian state which fought a tribal civil war to secure its corporate existence should not allow another internecine war of diverse tribes brought about by its permissive handling of provocative activities of local Fulani militias aided by collaborators from the West African sub-region and the Sahel.

5. The desire of the Fulani to be treated as an exclusive “race” cannot be allowed to continue in a free and egalitarian Nation. They should seek land for their trade in the same way other Nigerians buy and manage land and stop this sense of entitlement.

Urgent steps be taken to restructure Nigeria in line with the tenets of true federalism, to legitimize multi-level policing such that states and communities will provide commensurate security for their people.

6. That you, Mr President, should rise to the occasion and dare the powers that be; decisively deal with the perpetrators of the senseless killings, end the massacre, and guarantee the safety of lives and property of citizens in all parts of our country, especially the Middle Belt Region, and restore the dignity of citizens and national pride; for which you will ever be remembered!

Mr. President, kindly accept the assurances of our highest regards.

Signed:

Chief (Dr.) E. K. Clark, OFR, CON, Leader.
Chief Ayo Adebanjo, Leader Afenifere.
Chief Dr. Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, MFR, OFN, CFR – President-General, Ohaneze Ndigbo Worldwide
Dr. Pogu Bitrus, President, Middle Belt Forum
Senator Emmanuel Ibok-Essien, FNSE, National Chairman, PANDEF

The Defence Headquarters has characterised the deadly Christmas Eve attacks in Plateau State, which resulted in nearly 200 deaths, as a calculated attempt to embarrass and undermine the Federal Government.

The incident occurred during the seventh month of President Bola Tinubu’s tenure.

In an interview with Channels TV, the Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, labelled the attacks in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi as “unfortunate” and without justification.

He suggested the attacks were intended to “embarrass everybody and make the government look stupid.”

Musa said, “The shocking incident that occurred in Bokkos, Barkin Ladi, was quite unfortunate. There was no reason for the attack.

“I think the purpose is to embarrass everybody and to make the government look stupid.”

General Musa disclosed that the Nigerian military is making arrests related to the Plateau Christmas Eve killings and also addressed the military’s delayed response to the distress calls from the attacked villages.

Naija News had earlier reported that over 195 deaths were recorded in the attack.

President Tinubu condemned the violence and ordered relief for survivors, while Vice President Kashim Shettima visited the state to offer condolences.

In his New Year message, President Tinubu, however, did not mention the Plateau attack, asserting improved security since his May inauguration.

However, Amnesty International criticised Tinubu for failing to protect communities in Plateau State and across Nigeria.

The National Hajj Commission has extended the deadline for payment of 2024 hajj.

In a statement on Tuesday, its Assistant Director on Public Affairs, Fatima Sanda Usara said the new deadline is now January 31, 2024 as against December 31, 2023.

Daily Trust had reported that the commission was in dilemma over low turnout and might have to extend the deadline.

NAHCON, however, insisted that it would go ahead with the number of intending pilgrims who made the payment before the December 31 deadline.

But the commission has finally backtracked, admitting that the extension was inevitable.

“The extension was in response to the heartfelt concerns raised by religious clerics, State Pilgrims’ Welfare Boards/Agencies/Commissions, State Governors and other stakeholders,” she said.

Usara stated that the federal government’s approval for an extension of the deadline provided an additional opportunity for individuals to participate in this sacred pilgrimage.

“The overwhelming request for extension from various religious communities underscores the significance of ensuring accessibility to a broader spectrum of the faithfuls eager to embark on the spiritual journey of Hajj.

“Consequently, NAHCON is confident that before expiration of the new deadline, with the support of its sister agencies, the commission would have determined the total cost of 2024 Hajj,” she said.

Usara noted that the extension would provide a window for new registrants to do so and by the end of January, those who need to balance up payment would be able to do so as well.

“NAHCON seizes this chance to remind intending pilgrims and other stakeholders that the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Hajj and Umrah has slated 25th February as end date for signing all contracts, signaling the end of payments into IBAN accounts. With this extension, NAHCON has barely a month to finalize payment of all Hajj deposits into its IBAN account for the 2024 Hajj.

“This extension, even though overstretches NAHCON’s preparatory timeline, reflects the Commission’s Chairman, Malam Jalal Ahmad Arabi’s commitment to accommodating the concerns of stakeholders. He expressed gratitude to religious leaders, state boards, and governors for their advocacy on behalf of the pilgrims. Malam Arabi described this collaborative effort as a testament to the shared commitment to facilitating a meaningful and inclusive Hajj experience for all. He prayed all Hajj handlers would utilize this opportunity well for success of 2024 Hajj operations,” she added.