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Day Buratai Made Boko Haram’s Shekau Cry

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5 years ago

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By Suleiman Uba Gaya
The global telenovela entitled The Rich Also Cry will forever remain in our memory because of the  principal characters, in the same way the war against Boko Haram will forever remain in our memory because of its principal characters, namely Lt.  General Tukur Yusufu Buratai, on one hand, and Imam Abubakar Shekau on the other.
The former, as we all know, is the Chief of Army Staff of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, while the latter has been the leader of the Boko Haram terrorists since the killing of Mohammed Yusuf, the group’s founder and chief instigator, in 2009. Buratai has been known to be doing everything he could to rally the armed forces of Nigeria to extinguish terrorism from our national psyche. Shekau, on the other hand, has been engaged in serious efforts to undermine the Nigerian state with a view to converting it to a caliphate under his brutal rule. There was even a time in our national history when Shekau was controlling a territory of Nigeria, but that, gladly, has stopped since 2015 when Muhammadu Buhari became Nigeria’s President. Over the course of 11 years, however, Shekau has succeeded in building a terror group that America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) once cited as the deadliest in the whole world.
For those interested in knowing how serious the government of the day has been in its avowed determination to finish off the remnants of Boko Haram and other terrorists fighting the Nigerian state for about 11 years now, you need to know or be informed that the last time the Chief of Army Staff, Buratai set his foot in Abuja was in March. This, therefore, makes it the third month he is in the battlefront, personally and gallantly leading the patriotic troops of the Nigerian Armed Forces in liberating the country from a needless war stoked and fuelled by reckless, desperate politicians.
Now, courtesy of the intervention of the Army Chief, the Boko Haram war is finally going to be over, much faster than the American forces have been able to extinguish the war in Afghanistan against the Taliban, a war that is still ongoing for over 20 years, in spite of deployment of the most sophisticated weaponry known to mankind.
I am in a celebratory mood because I am one Nigerian who does not see the armed forces as Buhari’s forces, as some compatriots mistakenly do. I believe the armed forces are for all Nigerians, and, as an institution that has been in existence for over 100 years, it will outlive all of us and continue to make Nigeria proud. Before Buhari, we had Jonathan as Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. And after Buhari another Nigerian, probably from the cosmos of the opposition, is going to assume that position.
Now, courtesy of Buratai’s involvement, and because of the personal example of selflessness and sacrifice that he has shown, the armed forces of Nigeria are finally going for the kill. Shekau, the thoroughly-heartless and arrogant Boko Haram leader, is now scampering for safety and begging for mercy, one attribute he has never shown his unfortunate victims that he slaughtered and killed with glee. According to many credible NGOs operating in the North-East, Shekau is now desperately begging for his life, as he continues to witness his troops getting decimated by the day.
Earlier in the week, Nigerians woke up to the very pleasant sight of this same heartless Shekau in a video weeping profusely, in a submissive voice that knew the end, God willing, is very near. He was heard begging the remnants of his troops not to abandon him, pleading with them to hang on and fight for the irresponsible cause he indoctrinated them to accept. He also prayed to God, the same God whose creatures he raped and killed, to come to his aid against the superior firepower of the gallant troops of the Nigerian armed forces.
So effective and comprehensive is what the armed forces is doing that even Ahmed Salkida, my media colleague and friend seen as having the closest connection to Boko Haram leadership, and who is perceived by many as being sympathetic or even supportive of the terrorists, could not help writing that even the casualty figures released by the Defence Headquarters is seriously downplayed.
Writing in an online newspaper, titled humangle.ng, Salkida wrote on May 11 instant that “although the Nigerian military declared that the army killed 343 insurgents in recent combat operations, investigations have established that there were heavier casualties suffered by the insurgents between March 18 (when Buratai took over command of the war) and May 5.”
Continuing, Salkida wrote that “sources familiar with the war disclosed that the Boko Haram fighters fleeing the recent Chadian military offensive in April were only about settling down in choice locations in Alargo and the Marte flank when the Nigerian armed forces identified, targeted and bombarded scores of the fighters in air and ground operations.”
“Independent sources,” according to Salkida, “put the casualty figures that resulted from the raids above 500, an indication that the figure given by the military was clearly understated.”
And then the clincher, from the same Salkida: “analysts who follow the insurgency in the Lake Chad Basin tend to place the recent audio message released by Abubakar Shekau, which was exclusively reported by HumAngle in context and conclude that the message mirrors the bloody nose the insurgents are receiving currently in the war fronts. HumAngle sources have highlighted the loss of no fewer than 60 war commanders between March and May this year, an indication that our earlier reported elimination of 18 commanders across Boko Haram factions was lower than the actual numbers.
Now, those who are privy to the war, including Ahmed Salkida, are reporting that “sources within the camps of the insurgents said unlike the case previously, the Boko Haram fighters could no longer move in large groups in daylight. Ground troops have also intensified in artillery fire, and are combing the Alagarno and Sambisa forests. The military operations have also resulted in overrunning insurgents camps in Durfada, Allafha, Timbuktu, Bulajabi and Gonikurmi in and around Sambisa.
So serious is General Buratai in his avowed determination to finally see to the end of this war that not even the death of his mother last week, or the month-long Ramadan fasting period during which Muslims are barred from eating or drinking from 5am to about 7pm daily have stopped the momentum he has built.  He has been in the trenches with the troops, leading by example and reminding the soldiers that they all signed up to defend the territorial integrity of the Nigerian state and that every act of terrorism or incursion must be repelled.
This is a General who came to office fully-ready to rid Nigeria of terrorism and banditry  Many Nigerians have forgotten that a few months after being appointed as the Chief of Army Staff, General Buratai convened a leadership programme where officers were charged to handle ethno-religious upheavals and terrorism resolutely. The 2016 series, dubbed “Nigeria Army Leadership Development Seminar 2016, had as its theme “building smart strategists and creative thinkers in the military.  I recall at that time interviewing the then Ag Chief of Accounts and Budget, Brigadier-General (now Major-General) JE Jakko, and he told me the event was the Army Chief’s strategy for lieutenant-colonels and above to improve their leadership qualities and be fully ready and better equipped to confront the myriad of challenges facing the country. This has since been followed-up by many innovative programmes that have since made our officers and men some of the best in this part of the globe.
A media colleague, incidentally one of those who has never been impressed with all the sacrifice of the armed forces in the war against terror, is on record to have attributed the current victories of our military to the heavy casualty inflicted on Boko Haram by troops of the Republic of Chad. He even claimed that what the Chadian forces did accounted for more than 80 percent of the war, and that what remained for the Nigerian armed forces to execute was a mere 20 percent or even less. But nothing is further from the truth.
While the stride by the Chadian forces is definitely commendable, the reality is that, all along, Nigeria was finding it impossible to finish off the remnants of Boko Haram terrorists because its forces always run to the shores of Chad whenever they were pursued by Nigerian troops. There have for years been allegations that the government of that country was giving them sanctuary, until the terrorists made the mistake of killing about 100 troops of the Chadian forces.
It was simply a case of striking at a guest you are harboring in your house. You know the bedroom or other corners of the house where he is staying, and you could easily target him with precision. That informed why the Chadian forces found it rather easy to kill about a thousand Boko Haram terrorists. Strangely, many Nigerians believe the figure released by the government of Chad, but only few ever believe figures released by the armed forces of our own country, who are fighting and staking their own lives not for their own sake, but in the interest of every human being living in Nigeria.
To the credit of the Chadian forces, Boko Haram members now no longer have Chad to run back to whenever they were pursued from Nigeria. But at an estimated fighting force of several thousand terrorists, one thousand terrorists reportedly killed by Chad only represents a percentage of the population of the terrorists and their sympathizers.
With the massive victory being attained by our gallant armed forces, it is up to the civil authorities to block all angles that make it easy for the terrorists to replenish their fighting forces whenever they suffered such heavy casualty. The Buhari Administration, which has done a lot in supporting the armed forces, must work seriously hard in reducing widespread poverty by deploying the anti-corruption agencies to ensure the reduction of unprecedented corruption at state governments levels.
It is saddening that Nigerians will always complain about corruption at the federal level, forgetting that states and local governments collectively collect a bigger percentage of our national wealth, the statutory allocation they receive monthly, with most times little or nothing to show for it.
A weighty report released by the Premium Times newspaper last year showed how state governments in Nigeria have pocketed N15.5 trillion local governments allocations in 12 years. Inspite of some measures employed by the Federal Government, such as in making the Financial Intelligence Unit to monitor local governments funds, many governors have since devised different corrupt means of collecting back, often in hard currency and in cash, those monies remitted to the accounts of local governments under their domain.
That alone has helped in buoying poverty and hopelessness in many young Nigerians, who, hitherto, would one way or the other make some gain out of those funds because of the easier access that they have to chairmen of their respective local governments.
Also, the Buhari Administration has to, as a matter of serious urgency, induce serious transparency and accountability to the Social Investment Programmes (SIPs) it has introduced to curtail poverty and hopelessness across the country. The harsh reality is that right now, the programme is far from being accountable, meaning it will hardly achieve the noble aims and objectives for which it was created. As a journalist, I have searched far and wide and still do not know or hear of even one person that has been benefitting from the Conditional Cash Transfer to the so-called poor of the poorest, a project that has so far engulfed several billions of naira. Of course the fact that I do not know does not mean the programme is not alive.  But none of the several Nigerians I have asked is aware of who the beneficiaries are.
I am very certain that if the government ensures transparency and accountability in the SIPs, and compel state governments to allow local governments run their statutory allocations without any state interference, the deep level of poverty ravaging the land, which makes it easy for Boko Haram and other criminal gangs to recruit soldiers, would significantly reduce or be a thing of the past. It is the only way we could sustain the gains recorded and ensure Boko Haram or some other terrorist group does not resurface next year or any time in the future.
 Gaya – Vice President (North) – Nigerian Guild of Editors .

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Deputy Senate President Distributes New Motorcycles To Barau FC Players, Officials

Published

1 month ago

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October 21, 2024

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The deputy president of the Senate, Dr. Barau I. Jibrin, donated motorcycles to the Barau Football Club players and officials.

In a statement signed the club’s Media Officer Ahmad Hamisu Gwale, revealed that the distribution of the motorcycles was held on Sunday 20 October 2024, during an event at the Aztec mini stadium centre, Dangi, roundabout, Kano.

Recalling that, Barau Jibrin had on June this year (2024) promised donations of a brand-new motorcycle to each player and official of the team, in celebration of their triumph and promotion to the Nigerian National League NNL.

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Speaking at the ceremony, Barau I. Jibrin, said the gesture was to ease the movements of the players and officals, with a view to boosting the welfare of the clubs.

Represented by his chief of staff, Professor Muhammad Ibn Abdullahi, the deputy president of the Senate, reiterated his commitment to contribute and making the club self-reliant.

“This is not the first, and it will not be the last. By Allah’s grace, he will continue to carry out our intervention programmes to enable our people to be self-reliant,” Mr Abdullahi said.

In his remarks, the Barau FC Chairman Ibrahim Shitu Chanji, thanked Barau Jibrin for his endavors commitment to the club.

He also commended the Deputy President of the Senate for his commitment to football development in Kano and the country.

Najib Yusuf, while speaking on behalf of the players, thanked Barau Jibrin, satisfied to play for the Barau Football Club, commited to admiring being part of the team.

The distribution ceremony, attendent by Shawwal Barau Jibrin, the President of the Barau FC, Professor Abdullahi Shehu Ma’aji, managing director of North West Development Commission NWDC.

Also, the event had gatherd thousands of the Deputy President of the Senate aids, supporters, and well-wishers were all attendance.

 

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Muslim-Muslim Ticket: idea fixation pathetic, religion be excluded in politics and governance, says El-Rufai

Published

2 years ago

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June 11, 2022

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The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has described the possibility that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, would run a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential election as mere speculation.

Making a remark on Channels TV’s political show, Politics Today, he said, Nigerians’ obsession with religion – when it comes to voting – rather than competence is sad. “This fixation of Nigerians on religion instead of competence, capacity, and capability is quite sad and pathetic.”

El-Rufai said that anyone asking him questions about the controversial Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket is asking the wrong person, because, in the 2019 general election he settled for a qualified Muslim woman as a running mate and won the election in Kaduna State.

He said, “I don’t look at people from Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian angle. Most of my closest friends are Christians. It was Pastor Tunde Bakare, a Pentecostal pastor, that took me to the CPC, not President Buhari. I’m very close to Bakare. I’m very close to many Christians. I don’t think the business of governance has anything to do with religion. I think we should look for the best person for the job. A person that will get the job done and let him do that.”

He advised Nigerian journalists to keep religion out of politics and government. He said, “I don’t think we should be looking at religion. We want to develop this country. When I get into a plane, I don’t ask about the religion of the pilot. When I go to the hospital, I don’t ask for the doctor’s religion of the doctor, I just want to get well. I just want to get to my destination when in an aircraft.

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Nigerian Universities, the interference of Professional bodies, and the time bomb

Published

3 years ago

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November 4, 2021

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Having worked with multidisciplinary teams during my PhD at the Department of Engineering of the University of Leicester and postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Electric Power Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), I decided to experiment the acceptability of a multidisciplinary team in Engineering departments in Nigerian universities in 21st century on my return in 2015. Then, I was already due to be a Senior Lecturer in ABU since 2014. So I sent my CV and an application letter for the position of Associate Professor to the VC through the Head of Electrical Engineering Department of one of our public universities in November 2015. And I received the following not very surprising reply.
“Having perused your application documents, I found them interesting and relevant to the need of the department. However, I cannot pass your application for further processing because of the post applied for. For your information, the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nig. (COREN) has fixed the bar of an Engineering lecturer who is not registered with COREN at Lecturer I regardless of the number of his/her publications.”
The question that came to my mind was that is the regulation of engineering lecturers in universities part of the mandates of COREN? I read the reply again and he was very emphatic on my PhD and postdoctoral research experience and the relevance to his department. I was made to understand that the University has no academic staff in the area of high voltage engineering, but for them to utilize my experience in high voltage engineering, if I was actually ready to move there, I have to accept to be demoted for 4 years because COREN said so. And I can’t grow no matter my research output till I am registered with COREN. Amazing offer! It will take a complete idiot to accept such an offer. That is the reality of the compartmentalization of our university system and the destruction of the Nigerian university system and the structure by supposed professionals.
This was completely different from my experience in my two universities in Europe. Prof. Len Dissado had a first degree in chemistry and a PhD in chemistry but was a Professor of Engineering at Leicester because his research area was in Dielectrics, a topic very relevant to High Voltage Engineering. He was retained as Emeritus when I left in 2012. Dr. Steve S. Dodd had his first degree in Physics and PhD in Physics but was employed as a Senior Lecturer in Engineering (High Voltage Engineering group) because his research area was in Electrical insulation materials. He retired as a Reader in High Voltage Engineering. The HoD of the Electric Power Engineering as at the time I left the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2015 had a PhD in Physics and was a Professor of Electric Power Engineering. Universities in the rest of the world are closing gaps, while we are widening the gap. Since I could not close the gap, so we decided to have a High Voltage Laboratory in the Physics department.
In universities, we are academics and research workers. Irrespective of the field, we are employed to teach and do research. The yardstick for evaluating your performance is research output. Engineering graduates in academia are not left out. They are not employed as Engineers. Universities have their Engineers to do the engineering work. As an academic, you can be COREN registered to enable you to practice outside the university but not for the classroom and research labs in the university. I once asked a colleague some years back if as a university worker, he is an Engineer for real or a teacher and he was silent. I asked about the value of COREN registration in his teaching of Engineering courses, research output, and student project supervision and he could not give me a straight answer.
I still find it weird that COREN, a body regulating practicing engineers on the field is now setting standards for promotion in the Engineering departments of Nigerian universities. They will soon be telling Nigerian universities what to teach and what not to teach. The other councils of professionals will soon follow to set what they perceived as standards for the respective faculties or departments.
The interference of the Councils of professionals in the affairs of Nigerian universities has grown beyond setting promotion guidelines. They are now deciding the establishment of faculties and the duplication of academic departments. It does not matter the burden of running such faculties and departments on the universities. I am still wondering how they are able to twist the hands of NUC and the universities’ Senate and Governing Council to achieve all that. Not long ago, the Faculty of medicine in Nigerian public universities were converted to Colleges of Medical Sciences with 4 faculties and several departments, thanks to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
What baffled me was the fact that the Department of Biochemistry, for example, that has taught medical students the biochemistry they know since the inception of the study of medicine in Nigerian universities is suddenly no more qualified to teach medical students because the Lecturers do not have a degree in medicine. Very amazing! We now have duplicated Biochemistry departments across Nigerian universities that they called “Medical Biochemistry” in the college of medicine. The “medical biochemistry” will possibly be taught by the Medical Doctors based on what they learned from the Biochemists in life science while in medical school. Could this be a case of trading quality for ego?
We also, for example, have a medical microbiology department in the college of medicine, a microbiology
department in the faculty of life science, and a vet microbiology department in the faculty of Veterinary medicine.
The microbiologists will be able to explain to us the difference between the different versions of the microbiology.
I was in Norway in 2014 when the Norwegian couple at NTNU shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine with a Professor at the University College London (UCL). I tried to check the structure of these 2 universities. The faculty of medicine at NTNU has no biochemistry department. The Department of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, a replica of the Biochemistry department, is in the faculty of natural science and they provide service to the faculty of Medicine as we had before the coming of the colleges of medicine in Nigerian universities.
How the increased number of departments helping to improve the quality of our academic output is what I can’t figure out. Rather than the duplication of service departments that will only increase the number of academic departments and won’t really add much value to the system but increased running cost, we should have created a college of life sciences and pulled the relevant faculties and departments into it.
Individualistic research is going extinct and most of the novelties of the 21st century are from interdisciplinary researches. One of the winners of the 2014 Nobel prize in medicine John O’Keefe is a neuroscientist in the Faculty of life sciences at the UCL with his degrees in Psychology. But the others, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser are both neuroscientists from the Faculty of Medicine at NTNU and received their first degree from the Department of Psychology and PhD in neurophysiology at the Faculty of Medicine in Oslo.
There is nothing more fascinating than the fusing of different ideas together to produce a unique product. That is the exploration in the 21st century. The world has left us behind in individualistic ideology and moved into multidisciplinary academics. If we must make progress in our universities, we must break our erected artificial barriers that are keeping us apart. The academics in physical sciences and engineering must come together with possibly a research centre that is into cutting-edge research that will involve research groups from all the relevant departments. Same way to bring life science and medical complex together.
I have seen graduates of mathematics that became Professors of Econometrics in Economics departments in universities in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. I have seen a graduate of Chemistry that became a Professor of Engineering in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. I have seen a graduate of Physics that became a Professor of Electric Power Engineering in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. In Nigeria, I have seen Engr (Prof) XXX boldly written on our doors in the department but not in the universities in Europe. Are we having an identity crisis?
Professional bodies that are supposed to focus on the regulation of Professionals in the field should focus on their mandate and not be given free hands to change University policies as it pleases them. If we don’t end their interference, just like the medical council, COREN could wake up one day to tell our universities that there is a need for colleges of Engineering with departments of mathematics and physics to service the college because those in Mathematics and Physics departments are not qualified to teach engineering students because they don’t have engineering degrees. Vet council, Pharmaceuticals council, builders council, architects council, Quantity surveyors council, etc, may follow. So, how are we going to handle that?
Let’s stick to the founding principles of the university. Universities have world standards. We can stick to our British standard or borrow a leaf from the world’s top universities to improve our system, instead of allowing professional bodies to manipulate us and create barriers within the university system that will further slow down the progress we are to make.
Our universities are not in it’s best form and we have to do what we have to do to improve them. We should be more preoccupied with that. We should be discussing how to reposition Nigerian universities to be able to stand up to our various challenges and not duplicate departments without facilities because some Councils of professionals said so.
Finally, to my colleagues in Electric power engineering or high voltage engineering in Nigerian universities, you are welcome to experience our High Voltage Materials Laboratory in the Department of Physics, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. We have a 400 kV DC generator and 100 kV AC source with a partial discharge measurement system to serve you. Join us to learn the physics of electric power equipment. We do not have barriers!

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