Contemporary news
CHIBOK GIRLS: MEET THE UNSUNG HEROES.
The search for Nigeria’s abducted girls has claimed the lives of three (3) gallant Nigerian soldiers. Worse than their untimely death is how the media has ignored their painful sacrifices to #Bring Back Our Girls. Here are the 3 soldiers who were killed in one week by the evil bullets of Boko Haram in their search for Chibok girls.
IN HONOUR OF FALLEN NIGERIAN TROOPS IN THE COUNTER-TERRORISM WAR
I do not care whether you are from the North or South, East or West,
I don not care if you are a Yoruba, Hausa, Ibo, Tiv, Kanuri, Ngas, Kataf or Itsekiri,
I don not care if you are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu or even Atheist,
I do not care whether you are Izala or Darika, Catholic or Protestant,
I do not care whether you are PDP or APC or APGA or non-partisan,
I do not care whether you male or female, rich or poor, educated or not,
That you are a Nigerian gallantly obeying the last command even if for the supreme price is all I care about,
That you took up arms against the brutal gangs of terror up in arms against our State is all I care about,
That you fought in the cities and villages alike so that we your Nigerian brothers and sisters will savour peace is all I care about,
That you fought to bring back our girls is all I care about,
I can see your lifeless bodies riddled with bullets, nay batches testifying of your gallantry,
I am at ease to write this piece because you sacrificed your ease to grease my peace,
We may not have known or met personally, but I personally know that we will surely meet in the world beyond.
Adieu brave and gallant officers and men of Nigeria!
Long Live Federal Republic of Nigeria. Long Live the Lion Of Africa. Long Live Africa. ~First Son Of Africa.
Share this to celebrate this unsung heroes.
BOKO HARAM AGAIN: PICTURES OF TODAY’S FOILED KANO EXPLOSION BY BOKO…LOOK AT BOKO HARAM’S BOMB.
The Nigeria Police Force reported earlier that “Kano Police operatives, acting on intelligence, tracked and recovered a Mitsubishi Station Wagon car, ash in colour, with registration number Kano – AE 756 GSW loaded with assorted gas cylinders, one container of fuel and other electrical components of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs)
.” Here are the pictures.
Meet The Princess of Saudi Arabia and Her Struggles.
This will shock you. The daughter of the King of Saudi Arabia is a beautiful, modern woman, who goes out in public wearing a scarf on her head that reveals her hair which is ‘un-islamic’.
Adlah bint Abdullah bin Abdel Aziz Al Saoud is an islamic activist who fights for the freedom of muslim women and who believes that “Al Niqab” is more of a tradition, while the scarf represents what Islam instructs.
Adlah is an active woman in Saudi Arabia. She participates in welcoming foreign delegations, she attends plays and events, she poses for photos with younger women and men.
Adlah sees that there’s a real problem with underage marriages and calls for setting the rules straight and setting an age for marriage. She debates that an ancient islamic law does not fit into a modern society and thus must be reviewed.
She also sees no problem in women and men working side by side, as long as there’s mutual respect and laws that indict harassment.
Let’s know your opinion.
Do you agree in the struggles of Saudi’s Princess?
BOKO HARAM: U.S DRONES DISCOVER BOKO HARAM SECRET CAMPS.
CHIBOK-Revealing photographs of Boko Haram fighters have been taken by United States manned and unmanned aircraft as American military and intelligence specialists intensified the hunt for Nigeria’s missing schoolgirls.
However, US officials have expressed frustration with the country’s inability to act on these and other fresh intelligence about the Boko Haram extremists who took more than 200 school girls captive and threatened to sell them into slavery, The Los Angeles Times has reported.
“Images from US surveillance drones and satellites over the last week has shown suspected bands of Boko Haram militants setting up temporary camps and moving through isolated villages and along dirt tracks in northeastern Nigeria,” the report quoted US officials as saying.
It said the Obama administration has shared the images with President Goodluck Jonathan’s government in Abuja. “But Nigeria’s security forces are hampered by poor equipment and training and have failed to respond quickly,” said a US official familiar with the growing search operation.
US Defence officials, according to the report, believe the insurgents split the girls into several groups after the April 14 abduction from school in Chibok village. The leader of the militants, Abubakar Shekau, said this week that he would release some of the girls in exchange for imprisoned members of his group.
Bolstered by international help, the Nigerian-led search has now expanded to include an ungoverned area of desert and that crosses the porous borders into neighbouring Chad, Niger and Cameroon, US officials say. The girls’ locations are still unknown, however, the report said.
Meanwhile, mounting US frustration with the case spilled into the open on Thursday at a US Senate hearing where US officials complained of lack of decisive actions on what had been harvested so far.
“It is impossible to fathom that we might have actionable intelligence and we would not have the wherewithal — whether by the Nigerians themselves or by other entities helping the Nigerians — to be able to conduct a rescue mission,” said Senator Robert Menendez, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“In general, Nigeria has failed to mount an effective campaign against Boko Haram,” Alice Friend, the Pentagon’s principal director for Africa, told committee members. “In the face of a new and more sophisticated threat than it has faced before, its security forces have been slow to adapt with new strategies, new doctrines and new tactics.”
The United States, however, said it will continue to deepen its efforts, Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, said while traveling to Saudi Arabia.
“However, I have seen no intelligence come back that I am aware of that shows that we’ve located those girls,” he said.
For now, the United States is not sharing raw intelligence from its surveillance aircraft with Nigeria’s armed forces because the countries have still not established the intelligence-sharing protocols and safeguards needed for an intelligence-sharing agreement, Pentagon spokesman, Colonel Steve Warren, said.
That said, the intelligence gathered through the surveillance flights is being fed to an interdisciplinary team on the ground, and that team is analysing it and providing advice to the Nigerian government, he said.
Warren added that the manned and unmanned aircraft being used are unarmed.
WHO IS THINKING?
THE WORLD HAS FORGOTTEN MALAYSIA’S MISSING FLIGHT #MH370 SO SOON. WE JUST HOPE NIGERIA’S MISSING GIRLS WON’T BE FORGOTTEN AND ABANDONED IN THE HANDS OF THEIR ABDUCTORS. SHARE IF YOU’RE CONCERNED.
BREAKING: Boko Haram wants to kidnap male students to marry kidnapped school girls.
Boko Haram has sent a letter to Government College, Markurdi threatening to attack the school, the school principal, Godfrey Ugudu has said.
Ugudu, at a news conference on Saturday, May 17, 2014 said the school received two letters on May 14 which both had the same content.
He said: “It is true that we saw two letters informing us of the intention of the sect to invade our school on Friday or Monday by Boko Haram.
“The letters were dated May 14, 2014, stating that they were coming either of the two days to abduct our boys whom they would marry to the secondary school girls abducted in Chibok.
“In the letter, we were asked to inform the Mount Saint Gabriel Secondary School opposite us to also get prepared as they promised to invade the place too.’’
The school principal said the police department and commissioner of education were notified, and commended them for their prompt response.
The Government College has about 700 students of which about 500 are boarders while Mount Saint Gabriel is purely boarding.
“We immediately alerted the police and the Commissioner for Education. A report has been made to the Governor on the issue,” he added.
Ugudu said: “The two letters, which were written in pidgin English, were sighted inside one of the classrooms and the second one was slipped into the staff room.”
He assured that security checks have been done to ensure the safety of its students. The principal also said that he had informed the principal of Mount Saint Gabriel about the threat from Boko Haram.
Dan Ezeala , the police public relations Officer in the state confirmed the report and assured that the police were at high alert.
The Islamist insurgents on April 14 kidnapped more than 200 female students of Government Secondary School, Chibok in Borno state.
SUDAN WANTS TO HANG A PREGNANT WOMAN FOR BEEN A CHRISTIAN
Image Posted on Updated on
SUDAN WANTS TO HANG A PREGNANT WOMAN FOR BEEN A CHRISTIAN AND THE WORLD IS SILENT AND WATCHING. STEP OUT FROM THE CROWD AND SPEAK UP FOR #MERIAM’S RIGHT TO LIVE.
DORA AKUNYILI: MEDIA ADVISOR ISSUES STATEMENT.
Following rumors of the death of Professor Dora Akunyili, Nigeria’s former information minister which filtered through the social media in the past 72 hours, her media advisor, Isaac Umunna has released an official statement (reproduced below) stating the medical state of Mrs. Dora.
My attention has been drawn to the rumour circulating on social media claiming that immediate past Minister of Information and Communications, Prof. Dora Akunyili, is dead. I have also received several enquiries in this regard.
This rumour is not only baseless but also the height of wickedness. I spoke with Dora’s husband, Dr. Chike Akunyili, and her brother, Dr. Francis Anayo Edemobi, both of whom are with her in the hospital, and they both assured me that she is responding to treatment. The conversation took place from 2:20 this afternoon and lasted for some minutes.
As I said in an earlier statement issued on Wednesday evening, Prof. Akunyili fell sick over the weekend and was first attended to by doctors in Abuja but had to travel to India on Sunday on their advice for further medical attention. She is grateful to Nigerians for their prayers and remains confident that Almighty God will hear our prayers and grant her quick recovery.
The public is advised to disregard any rumours or reports to the contrary. Those engaged in spreading this satanic rumour should desist. What Prof. Akunyili needs at this time is not prophesies of doom or alarming false reports about her health condition but continued prayers and best wishes.
Isaac Umunna
Media Advisor to Prof. Dora Akunyili
Lagos, May 16, 2014
EXPOSED: HOW OBAMA THREATENED NIGERIA WITH SANCTIONS FOR FIGHTING BOKO HARAM IN 2013.
Africa Thisday reported an unpopular conspiracy theory linking the Obama’s administration with Boko Haram.(Click here for the full text of the report). However, a Canadian Journalist, Fred Dardick has published yet another unpopular fact exposing how Obama’s administration had threatened Nigeria with Sanctions for fighting terrorism. The full text is reproduced below:
“Obama Administration Threatened Nigeria with Sanctions in 2013 for Fighting Boko Haram,” by Fred Dardick, Canada Free Press, May 14, 2014:
Hillary Clinton wasn’t the only Obama administration official who went to bat for Boko Haram over the past few years.Soon after John Kerry took over as Secretary of State, the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Terence P. McCulley, accused the Nigerian government of butchery during a confrontation with Boko Haram terrorists in Baga, a Nigerian town on the shores of Lake Chad, and in May 2013 threatened to withdraw U.S. military aid from the West African nation.
Boko Haram militants attacked a Nigerian military outpost in April 2013 outside Baga, killing one soldier. Following the three-day battle human rights activists, including the George Soros-funded and liberal aligned Human Rights Watch, which is not exactly known for its impartiality when it comes to reporting on Islamic issues, claimed the Nigerian military wantonly slaughtered 183 civilians and burned down over 2,000 homes and businesses.
The Nigerian government denied the claims saying the death toll and destruction had been vastly overstated by its enemies, and in fact 30 Boko Haram terrorists, 6 civilians and one soldier, had died in the fighting. Reports from the Baga clinic, which treated 193 people following the battle, but only 10 with serious injuries, seemed to back up the Nigerian government claim that no large-scale massacre had occurred.
The U.S. Nigerian Ambassador, blindly believing any Islamist sob story that crossed his path, responded in a May 2013 meeting with human rights activists by defending Boko Haram:
Mr. Terrence announced to the activists that the US congress had previously passed a law that bars the United States from rendering military assistance to any government that violates basic rights of citizens. He said the Obama led US government has therefore ceased to assist Nigeria militarily in obedience to the law.
The threat of military sanctions, and whether or not they were actually implemented, is an open question as there has been zero coverage of this issue in the mainstream media, may have had a chilling effect on Nigerian military operations against Boko Haram. Since Ambassador McCulley’s proclamation the Nigerian civilian death toll by Boko Haram Islamic militants has skyrocketed over the past year.“
EXPOSED: How Facebook Is Killing Free Information
Recent changes made to Facebook’s algorithm now limits the amount of reach a single page has to 1%, if you are really lucky, 2%. What this means is, the freedom to share quality information is being limited to those who have money to pay Facebook to share their content. This is bad news for people who want to have an influential voice in the world.
The need for people to band together and work together is becoming greater with changes like this.
According to Facebook themselves:
“Your brand can fully benefit from having fans when most of your ads show social context, which increases advertising effectiveness and efficiency.”
“We expect organic distribution of an individual page’s posts to gradually decline over time as we continually work to make sure people have a meaningful experience on the site.”
“We’re getting to a place where because more people are sharing more things, the best way to get your stuff seen if you’re a business is to pay for it.”
What this means is if you have a meaningful message and you want to freely and organically share it across Facebook, you can’t anymore unless you want to pay for it. Perhaps it was FB realizing that anyone could reach a lot of people easily that made them see the potential for profit should those people still want to reach people, or maybe this is their way of trying to clean up Facebook. Either way, this is going to do nothing but cripple pages ability to reach their audience who they worked a long time to build.
What Does This Mean For Meaningful Content?
It means the days of using Facebook to create larger movements against corporations like Monsanto are going to be greatly limited. Protests, marches, awareness campaigns and the spread of life changing and meaningful content across Facebook is now going to be limited to a tiny portion of networks unless they are willing to pay a pretty coin to have it seen. It is likely now that businesses with big bucks are going to be appearing in news feeds more as they are going to be the few with enough advertising capital to handle Facebook’s new methods.
The Need For Backlash
Since this happened, bloggers and page admins all over the world have been creating a backlash about it and this needs to continue. Facebook needs its users to participate with the platform for FB to have any value, if they keep doing things like this it is going to force people to other social platforms, so if backlash is created, Facebook will have no choice but to adjust their numbers back to what they were.
Here’s what you can do:
1. When you find good content you want to see shared, ‘Like’ it, comment on it and share it. This helps get it out there and push it the extra mile.
2. After reading article which speaks out about this problem, HIT YOUR SHARE BUTTON. This way, we can all have a voice about the issue and work towards getting it changed.
If we want to continue to make an impact and join together easily as people in sharing a message to the world, we have to work together. Whether this means working around these adjustments or creating a new social media platform that a large part of the world uses, something needs to be done.
Africa Thisday’s First son of Africa called most social media sites as Digital Capitalists and warns Africa to mind how they spend on such sites.
AFRICA THISDAY 