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Lai Mohammed Lambasts Obasanjo Says His Comments On Boko Haram Divisive, Depressing

Published

4 years ago

May 21, 2019

Tolu Akinsiku

The Federal Government has described former President Olusegun
Obasanjo’s comments imputing ethno-religious motive to Boko Haram and ISWAP as deeply offensive and patently divisive, saying such indiscreet comments are far below the status of an elder statesman.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, the Minister of Information
and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said it was particularly tragic that
a man who fought to keep Nigeria one is the same one seeking to
exploit the country’s fault lines to divide it in the twilight of his life.

He said Boko Haram and ISWAP are terrorist organizations pure and simple, adding that they care little about ethnicity or religion when
perpetrating their senseless killings and destruction.”Since the Boko Haram crisis, which has been simmering under the watch of Obasanjo, boiled over in 2009, the terrorist organization has killed more Muslims than adherents of any other religion, blown up more mosques than any other houses of worship and is not known to have spared any victim on the basis of their ethnicity. It is therefore absurd to say that Boko Haram and its ISWAP variant have as their goal the ‘Fulanisation and Islamisation’ of Nigeria, West Africa or Africa,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said President Buhari put to rest the mis-characterization of Boko Haram as an Islamic organization when he said, in his inaugural speech in 2015, that ”Boko Haram is a mindless, godless group who are as far away from Islam as one can think of”.

The Minister said Obasanjo’s comments are therefore as insensitive and mischievous as they are as offensive and divisive in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious country like Nigeria, wondering whether there is no limit to how far the former President will go in throwing poisonous darts at his perceived political enemies.

He said Obasanjo’s prescriptions for ending the BokoHaram/ISWAP crisis, which include seeking assistance outside the shores of Nigeria, are coming several years late, as President Buhari has done that and more since assuming office, hence the phenomenal success he has recorded in tackling the terrorists.

”Shortly after assuming office in 2015, President Buhari’s first trips outside the country were to rally the support of Nigeria’s neighbours – Benin, Cameroon, Chad and Niger – for the efforts to battle the terrorists. The President also rallied the support of the international community, starting with the G7, and then the US, France and the UN.

”That explains the massive degrading of Boko Haram, which has since
lost its capacity to carry out the kind of spectacular attacks for which it became infamous, and the recovery of every inch of captured Nigerian territory from the terrorists,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said Obasanjo’s call for wide consultations with various groups as
part of the efforts to tackle the Boko Haram crisis has been neutralized by his ill-advised comments which have served more to alienate a large number of Nigerians, who are offended by his tactless and distasteful postulation.

The Minister called on the former President, whom he said took bullets for Nigeria’s unity, not to allow personal animosity to override his love for a united Nigeria, saying it will not be out of place if he withdraws his unfortunate statement and apologizes to Nigerians.

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North East Commission; Group Heads For Court Over Reappointment of Former MD. Mohamed Alkali

Published

23 hours ago

September 23, 2023

The Gleamer

…. Exposed How Billion was looted

Crises situations in the North East, might assume another dimension, as the North East Commission statutory established to address humanitarian crisis and infrastructural deficit, as a result of insurgency , is embedded in management crises over the appointment of the management Director.

Just as the Reappointment of Mohammed Alkali Goni, after serving his five years as tenure in office as the managing Director has become a matter of litigations, allegations of mismanagement of resources in the Commission has emerged over the weekend in Abuja .

Addressing newsmen, in Abuja on Saturday, North East pressure Group, said that the appointment of management Staff of the Commission has been politicise to a level where every appointment zone to the North East has been taken over by Borno state

The Coordinator of the group , Dr. Haruna Garus Gololo, a political activist, who led the group in a terse press Statement said that the group will be left with no option than to approach the Court to seek redress , if the concerned authorities failed to address the rot in the Commission.

” We are constraint, to draw the attention of the President and Commander of the Armed Forces, Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to the abuse of the Act. establishing the North East Commission ( NEC), by his Vice president, Senator Kashim Shettima over the statutory appointment of the managing Director of the Commission “

” The Act . clearly defined the procedures and laid down rules on the appointment of the Managing Director upon the approval by the National Assembly, which stipulates five years tenure, it is this act that has been subjected to gross Constitutional abuse with the Reappointment of Alkali, after years in Office ” he said.

Dr. Gololo, also an All progressive Congress ( APC), Chieftain said that
” Since the inceptions of this administration, every Federal appointments meant for North East is being taken to Borno state with impunity .”

Continue, the one coordinator of the All progressive Congress (APC), pointed at the appointment of the Minister of Agriculture and the recent Reappointment of Mohammed Alkali Goni, for another five years as against the Constitutional provisions “

” There are about six states in the North East, Gombe , Bauchi, Yobe and Borno, but all the appointment have been to Borno”
He warned that” we have concluded our investigations using some auditors and discovered the billions of stolen in the Commission, rather than addressing the challenges in North East, the management has become part of the crises because of their desperation to cover up the monumental Corruption”

Gololo, accused the Vice president, Senator Kashim Shettima of the implications of supporting the Reappointment of Alkali, as this may further create another crises in the Commission.

” We are given the presidency only Seven days to reverse the Reappointment of Alkali, because it is the turn of Gombe state, we have competent people in Gombe and Bauchi “

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