Monday, November 19, 2012

Four killed in religious riots in Taraba


No fewer than four people were killed in riots that erupted in Ibi, Taraba State yesterday after a Muslim was killed at an illegal checkpoint.

A local government chairman, Isiaku Adamu, told an international news agency, the Associated Press, that rioters burned houses and shops yesterday in Ibi, about 230 kilometers from Jalingo, the state capital.

He said Christians had put up the checkpoint to stop Muslims from nearing their church during the Sunday service as a response to church attacks in other parts of the country.

Three weeks ago, an explosion injured worshippers at a Catholic church in the north central city of Kaduna.

A Taraba State government spokesman Emmanuel Bello confirmed the development yesterday, adding that the authorities have sent troops to the area.

A spate of church attacks largely blamed on a radical Islamist sect known as Boko Haram have exacerbated religious tensions in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, elder statesman, Alhaji Shettima Ali Monguno at the weekend sharply disagreed  with former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo over his recent comments on President Goodluck Jonathan’s response to corruption and the Boko Haram threat, noting that the former Nigerian leader was wide off the mark.

Obasanjo had during an occasion to mark the 40th anniversary on the pulpit of clergyman, Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor criticized President Jonathan’s handling of government’s response to corruption and the murderous activities of the Boko Haram.

The former President also faulted government’s approach in arresting the threat insinuating that President Jonathan was weak.

Obasanjo added that the present government missed an opportunity to solve the problem by not going tough on the insurgents at the early stage comparing the present approach of President Jonathan to his response to the killing of 19 soldiers in Odi in Rivers State.

But Alhaji Monguno, speaking to journalists in Maiduguri, Borno State, faulted former President Obasanjo, noting that he had no moral right to criticize his successors.

He said, “Somebody who wanted to extend beyond the constitutional term, tried his very best to extend but was rejected is now advising government to do the wrong thing”.

The former Minister of Petroleum vehemently disagreed with the former President, noting that his prescription of military action the type of which he unleashed on the Odi community would only compound the problem.

“I do not agree with our former President that the President should use force, use the military to crush what they always call the Boko Haram,” Alhaji Monguno said and added that though he does not believe what he sees, hears or reads in the media, describing the President as weak does not even arise. He said that even in the military, soldiers do not want to go to war unless it is absolutely necessary.

He noted that even the world body, the United Nations does not believe in using force in situations like this and advised former President Obasanjo to look back on his military and political way of life.

Alhaji Monguno said that rather than use force, President Jonathan should explore peaceful means of resolving the Boko Haram threat.

“The President could come out and still employ the same tactics, which he and the late president (Umaru Yar’Adua) employed to have persuaded the militants. He could have employed the same methods to the Boko Haram of the north. The northerners were expectant that he was going to use that”, Alhaji Monguno said.

The one-time Petroleum minister called on government to realize that every child born belongs to Nigeria and attention should be given to all to improve standard of living.

Speaking in similar vein, a civil society group, Coalition for United Nigeria (CUN) has said the charge of slowness by former President Olusegun Obasanjo against President Goodluck Jonathan in dealing with the Boko Haram issue is tantamount to incitement to unleash genocide on some northern cities.

But CUN appealed to President Jonathan to ignore Obasanjo and continue with the present technique of identifying and taking out Boko Haram insurgents, instead of employing extreme military actions against Maiduguri town and other places in the north as he (Obasanjo) did in Odi, Bayelsa State, when he was president.

Speaking on behalf of the group, its Chairman, Alhaji Mustapha Dangana, declared weekend in Abuja that “Obasanjo does not mean well for the North and Nigeria by suggesting that President Jonathan should have replicated the Odi treatment in the North to nip the Boko Haram menace in the bud.”

Obasanjo had, on the Odi genocide, he said: “I attended to a problem that I saw; I sent soldiers; they were killed; 19 of them (were) decapitated. If I had allowed that to continue, I would not have the authority to send security anywhere again.

“I attended to it…. If you say you do not want a strong leader, who can have all the characteristics of a leader, including the fear of God, then, you have a weak leader and the rest of the problem is yours.”

The group said unleashing genocide on a community or an ethnic population as Obasanjo did in Odi was not a sign of strength but “a demonstration of inhumanity and irrationality by a blood-thirsty civilian dictator in whose hands the people had committed the mandate to rule them.”

According to the group, “It is now clear that Obasanjo was not even sincere about his effort to broker a truce when he visited Maiduguri last year on the permission of President Jonathan to open dialogue with some elements in Maiduguri on the Boko Haram scourge.  That move had run into a storm when the insurgents killed Obasanjo’s host three days after he left the town.

“The truth is that he wanted to capitalize on the raging Bokom Haram problem to seize the national platform to present as a statesman, which was a part of an ingenious design to promote personal aggrandizement as against national interest.  He wanted to be seen as a leader who was deeply touched and found a solution to the Boko Haram menace in the north.

“But, it was clear to us from the outset of his enterprise that his motive was self-serving; it was also contradictory of his past inactions.  When he was president, what reconciliatory effort, for instance, did he take to address the militancy in the Niger Delta?  Was it not the late President Umaru Yar’Adua that addressed the militancy with his popular amnesty deal?

“Why was he trying to present to the world as a peacemaker with his failed truce-visit to Maiduguri when he was and still is not; he has now amply confirmed that he is a pretender and blood-thirsty individual by suggesting the Odi treatment in the handling of the Boko Haram scourge in the north.

“After his well-publicized visit to Maiduguri last year failed, he has now decided to slam Jonathan for purportedly being slow in dealing with the Boko Haram issue and has argued that a comprehensive military action would have nipped it in the bud.  It is now clear why he decided to go to Maiduguri: for possible public adulation if he had succeeded.

“Our group considers Obasanjo’s latest position as ungodly and inhuman.  We urge President Jonathan to dismiss the charge of slowness against him as having come from a man who wanted to goad him on an uncivilised path and continue with the present effort of targeting and dealing with Boko Haram elements while ensuring that the innocent civilian populations do not fall victims of the operations of the military Joint Task Force (JTF) in Maiduguri.”

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