Sunday, August 31, 2014

The ‘Saint’ Plots The Ultimate Coup

by Eze Eluchie

Illegal and unconstitutional acts may tarry for awhile, but eventually their consequences will come to haunt all who partake therein or acquiesce thereto.

Muhammed Attahiru Jega, the ‘Saint’, who presides over the Independent National Electoral Commission, seems to have, with his skewed and devious allocation of Polling Booths to be used for the 2015 General Elections, perfected the ultimate coup against the Nigerian contraption.

With the following Zonal allocation of Polling Booths amongst Nigeria's 6 geopolitical zones, the fraud reinforced by the several fraudulent population data of the Nigerian contraption has been taken to new harrowing and despicable heights:
North West -7, 906
North East – 5, 291
North Central – 6,318

FCT - 1,120

South West – 4,160
South South – 3,087
South East - 1,167

By the Saints estimation, there will be more voters in the infamous terrorist-infested Sambissa Forest than there are in some of the States in the South East region.

The ‘Saint’, most incredulously, allotted nearly the same number of Polling Units to Abuja, the sparsely populated Federal Capital Territory (FCT) as he gave the entire 5 States of the Nigeria’s South East geopolitical zone (Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu and Imo States)!

I had warned, and even proceeded to litigate over the propriety and constitutionality of having this character preside over our contraptions electoral body; but the system had declined to act as appropriate.

There is yet time to renegotiate and restructure our contraption before ‘the Saint’ lights the fuse that will eventually set off a chain reaction of unimaginable horrific consequences.

(earlier piece on the 'saint')
http://ezeluchie.blogspot.com/2013/03/impunity-saints-rules-at-inec.html




Picture: The ‘Saint’, Muhammed Attahiru Jega


Thursday, August 28, 2014

For Fear Of Ebola, Boko Haram Wins!

by Eze Eluchie

The militant Islamist group, Jama'atu Ahlus-Sunna Lidda'Awati Wal Jihad, which roughly translates to: "People Committed to the Prophet's Teachings for Propagation and Jihad", is primarily motivated by a disenchantment of the secular system and the perceived need to superimpose extreme Islamist ideologies as the basis of governance of the Nigerian State, or at the very least, the governance of the extreme northern parts of the country, areas ordinarily presented by the various flawed census figures as populated predominantly by persons subscribing to the Muslim faith.  

A core objective of this militant group as reflected in its alias, Boko Haram, a phrase in the local Hausa dialect, which means ‘western education is forbidden’, is an abhorrence for western education, foreign influences or anything perceived as non-Islamic. In furtherance of this core objective, BH, with spectacular vengeance and relish, has visited its campaign of violence and terror against the people and Government of Nigeria, with particular focus on decimating and disrupting our educational institutions.

From the 6th July 2013 attacks at the Government Secondary School Mamudo (Yobe State) where 42 students and staff were murdered, the 29th September 2013 slaughter of 40 students at the Cpllege of Agriculture, Gujba (Yobe State), the 25th February 2014 mass murder at the Federal Government College in Bunu Yadi (Yobe State), where over 30 students of the Secondary School were slaughtered, and the infamous ‘abduction’ of hundreds of female students of a Secondary School in Chibok (Bornu State), the desire of BH to disrupt, and if possible ensure the closure of schools, had been cardinal. As a mark of its ‘influence’ and ‘successes’, many schools have been closed in the extreme Northeastern section of Nigeria and the few schools that had kept their doors open, had witnessed a drastically diminished student attendance levels.

It certainly would have been a BH wish and dream to ensure the closure all educational institutions in Nigeria. The leadership of this outfit would have given a leg and an arm to have all schools in Nigeria closed.

Then came Ebola!

With just one well contained localized occurrence of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Nigeria’s extreme Southwestern city of Lagos, Federal Education authorities, in an ill-thought and knee-jerk response to the EVD outbreak, played directly into BH’s hands by announcing an incredulous postponement of the resumption date of all Primary and Secondary Schools throughout Nigeria by an extra 4 weeks. In the same draconian swoop, Nigeria’s Federal authorities also urged all tertiary institutions in the country to remain shut for the foreseeable future! – Without firing a single shot or blowing up any more schools, bridges or limbs, BH had had its wishes granted! ‘Western Education’ had been halted in Nigeria!!

BH leadership must be celebrating their most unexpected victory, thankful they had been spared any further need to take risks blowing up stuff or engaging in shoot outs to scare people off from attending schools. All it will probably now take to ensure continued closure of all schools in Nigeria, ad infinitum, would be to intermittently, deliberately instigate well coordinated, ‘outbreaks’ of EVD in any part of the country! With terrorists willing to die as 'suicide-bombers', BH will not be in short supply of persons willing to sacrifice as vectors for EVD.

The folly in the Federal Governments directive to close all schools is highlighted by the fact that whilst the children and youth are denied education under the pretext of protecting them from exposure to EVD via the forced closure of their schools, their parents/guardians continue to risk exposure to EVD in their various places of employ (or unemployment), a disease which they will readily bring back home to their children/wards. Moreover, the Federal authorities seem to have totally discountenanced the fact that children are far safer in the school environment and structure of educational institutions than when left to their own antics (home-alone).

Rather than help BH attain its objectives of abhorrence of ‘western education’ and destruction/destabilization of the formal education structures, by the closure of educational institutions, the Nigerian Government should have strengthened the ability of our Education and Public Health authorities to continue to contain, mitigate and effectively address any further outbreak of EVD or any other infectious disease for that matter. It is difficult to begin to imagine that the Federal Government did not properly assess the implications of closure of schools for such a long period over a very isolated outbreak of a disease that has the potential of reoccurring elsewhere in the country. What happens if there are more outbreaks the week before schools are scheduled to resume? Another extension of the closure?

Now that BH is aware of the impact of infectious diseases towards attaining its core objectives, we really do have to be at the ready.

It must be emphatically stated that terrorists must neither triumph nor be seen to be triumphant. Each day our school system remains unnecessarily shut represents a capitulation to terror.


Picture: Schools closed


Saturday, August 23, 2014

The new phase of terror – The Suicidal Bio-Terrorist.

by Eze Eluchie

Whilst countries on the front-line of terror have spent, and continue to spend, billions of dollars fortifying their military defense systems; training and retraining their security personnel on evolving patterns and approaches to tackling violent terror groups; sensitizing their citizenry on the individuals role in identifying and supporting the States efforts at combating terror; and increasing international collaboration and information sharing strategies to addressing a scourge that is becoming an increasing blight to our humanity; a new and rather innocuous form of terror, with equal, if not more devastating effects as the violent terrorists, crept into our consciousness – the Suicidal Bio-terrorist, a person who gets into another entities territory, imbued with and terminally afflicted by biological agents and intent on causing maximum fatalities and harm by spreading the offensive agent!

The notion of suicidal bio-terrorists, previously restricted to fiction novels, has for over two decades now, attracted the attention of various global powers inclusive of the United States Army which has devoted enormous resources and undertaken extensive research on the topic, particularly on the issue of release of viruses using human or animal vectors. The US Army, had ironically, delved deep into the prospect of using such viral disease agents as Ebola as a tool for the suicidal bio-terrorist of the future.

Currently beleaguered by ‘regular’ terror attacks from Boko Haram, for Nigeria, in the course of the current outbreak of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) ravaging countries in the extreme western flanks of West Africa, the fiction of a Suicidal Bio-Terrorist has metamorphosed into reality.

The example of Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American who served as human vector to transport EVD into Nigeria is worthy of understudy by persons interested in confronting this new brand of terrorism. Indisputable and publicly verifiable details of the Sawyer-episode include:
*Mr. Sawyer who had contracted EVD during his regular visits to his sister (who later died of the disease) in Monrovia, was suspended by his employers to prevent him from infecting other employees of the firm with the virus.
*Sawyer's deteriorating health condition was known to Liberian authorities who placed him on a watch-list and restricted from making foreign trips during his period in quarantine.
*The same Sawyer, not being a staff of the Liberian Government and whose health was now terminally in decline due to EVD, surreptitiously, got himself nominated by the Liberian Government as a delegate to a regional conference of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) taking place in Calabar, south eastern Nigeria.
*At the Monrovia Airport on his departure for Nigeria, security surveillance facilities record Mr. Sawyer as being in serious pains and deliberately avoiding contact with other airport users.
* Upon arrival in Nigeria a few hours later, Mr. Sawyer, whose condition had deteriorated sharply, becomes quite generous with contact, embracing and shaking at will until he collapses in the waiting arms of Airport Health personnel, in the process viciously distributing the dreaded EVD to Airport Staff.
*Despite specific questions from medical staff at the high-brow hospital where he had been rushed to as to likely EVD connections, Mr. Sawyer deliberately lied to his care-givers that he had never had contact with anyone suffering from EVD. In execution of his devilish plot, Mr. Sawyer at one point, forcefully removed a medical device affixed to his persons and deliberately splattered his blood on the bodies of Nurses and Doctors giving him care – thus ensuring they contracted EVD. Within 2 weeks of contact with Mr. Sawyer, 4 of these medical personnel are now dead and over 200 secondary contacts are placed on quarantine or surveillance to monitor for possible EVD infection.
*Despite Mr. Sawyer’s deteriorating condition, officials of the Liberian Embassy in Nigeria made spirited efforts to forcefully secure his escape from the hospital, citing diplomatic immunity, on account that he had important functions to perform for the Liberian Government at the ECOWAS meeting in Calabar – the Hospital authorities declined, potentially saving Nigeria what would probably have been a more devastating outbreak of EVD.
*Sawyer died 5 days after his arrival in Nigeria. The EVD he brought along has set Nigeria on edge ever since: overstretching our already stressed public health infrastructure; costing incalculable sums in financial damages; the stigmatization of hundreds of Nigerians at home and abroad; creating disquiet amongst our civil populace; and several other continuing unsavory outcomes.
*Sawyer’s Minnesota, USA based-widow further complicates matters when she states that her husband (an American citizen with access to American health facilities) opted to travel to Nigeria with EVD because he had ‘confidence’ in the ability of the Nigerian healthcare system to ‘take care of him’. Really? Did Sawyer prefer Nigeria's healthcare system to his own country’s (the USA’s) system? Or is there something Mrs. Decontee Sawyer is keeping away from Nigerians and the international community?

Trite facts emanating from the Sawyer episode is that the attack was neither natural nor coincidental and that the deceased Liberian-American was not acting alone in his suicidal bioterroristic attack on Nigeria. Questions that directly emanate include:

1. Whodunnit?

2. Who stands to benefit, if there is actually any benefits to be derived therefrom?

3. Was someone worried that over 100 days after the outbreak of EVD in West Africa, the disease was yet to touch-base with Nigeria? A ‘hit’ that will, on account of the size of the Nigerian population, certainly galvanize more international attention for EVD?

4. Was this a test case? How will a country cope with many Sawyers arriving at different entry points all laden with human-borne biological or chemical weapons?

5. Is it feasible that several suicidal bioterrorists, in the mold of Mr. Sawyer, already resident in a given territory, deliberately infect themselves with an incurable infectious disease and proceed to ensure wide distribution of their disease condition?

The projections here are dire, and with present realities, real.




Picture: the Liberian-American, Mr. Patrick Sawyer, the harbinger of EVD to Nigeria.


Monday, August 11, 2014

Rooting for terror: #BringBackOurGirls = #BringBackOurTwinTowers

by Eze Eluchie

Listening to its leadership and observing its activities, one is convinced that if the characters behind the #BringBackOurGirls gang were American citizens, they would have set up a #BringBackOurTwinTowers ensemble soon after the dastardly 9-11 terrorist attacks, rallying to castigate the President George Bush presidency in the United States for inability to prevent or stop or rescue/resuscitate the victims of 9-11.

Matters get further complicated for the Nigerian Government with some civil society elements and a government agency (Human Right Commission) ever ready to lampoon Security agencies for efforts at tackling terror; this again would have been akin to Human Right Watch, Amnesty International and the US State Departments Annual Human Right Report on the United States equally castigating the US security forces and personnel for their robust war on terror, which often times led to rights violations of the rights of terrorists or suspected terrorists.

The Government and peoples of Nigeria are thus trapped in a ‘heads-we-lose-tails-they-win’ scenario with our war against terror.

The presence of vociferous, obstructionist and anarchist opposition who often times express tacit and clear support for terror in Nigeria, serve to compound the woes of our domestic authorities efforts at tackling terror. This again is comparable to a situation where the United States’ Democratic Party, which was in opposition when 9-11 occurred, to soon after the terrorists attacks on the United States, take upon itself the role of frustrating any and all State efforts to confront terror, inclusive of obstructing requests for funds to better equip the Security agencies.

The oddities highlighted in the Nigerian polity after the country came under sustained terror attacks by BH and like-minded groups, is not totally unexpected of a contraption founded on very faulty foundations. The contraption is perceived by most as a cow to be milked, and very few bother about such mundane matters as sustainability, propriety and patriotism.


The call for a holistic restructuring and renegotiation of the contraption is factored on the need to spare ourselves and particularly the West African sub-region, and beyond, of the dire consequences of our continuing folly – we do not have forever to do the needful.



Picture: Scene of a BH terror attack in northern Nigeria