TB Joshua
The
founder and General overseer of the Synagogue Church of All Nations,
Prophet T. B. Joshua has said Boko Haram may be responsible for the
collapse of a six-storey building in the church premises.
Joshua, who told members of his church on Sunday not to be afraid, said the attack was targeted at him and not at them.
The prophet made it clear that the
collapse of the six-storey building at around 11.45am on Friday which
led to the death of no fewer than 16 persons was a Boko Haram attack.
Joshua buttressed his claim by showing to
his congregation on the Emmanuel TV the chronology of events shortly
before and after the accident as captured by the church’s CCTV.
He said, “I received a phone call
immediately I got here, just 10 minutes later when I was in the church,
that there was a jet hovering over the mountain where I had just left.
They said it was hovering at a close range. Before I knew it, I received
another phone call that the same jet was now at the church hovering
over the building, passing it four times at a very close range before
the building collapsed.”
Joshua read to the church a letter which
he said was addressed to him by a Boko Haram member, confessing how he
had attempted to plant a bomb inside the church.
Joshua said his church was being attacked to scare away members.
“This environment at Ikotun Egbe, we have
never witnessed an accident of a building collapse. This is a very
stable terrain. I have been here for the past 30 years. I am pregnant
with words, but we have left the security agencies to do their job. Let
us believe and educate our people and be alive.”
Assuring his congregation that God would
bring the perpetrators of the attack to book, Joshua said that the
decision of the insurgents to focus on his church might be the end of
the Boko Haram’s activities in the country.
He said,“I know you will ask why the
church? It is because of the spiritual blessings that God has bestowed
upon us. A big head wears a large hat.
“Don’t forget about the Ebola issue too,
it was God that rescued the church. Probably they would have dropped an
Ebola patient inside the church, so that they would said, ‘there is an
Ebola patient in the church, don’t go there.’
“They are trying to scare you from coming
to church. Don’t be scared, you are not the target, I’m the target. I
know my time has not yet come. I have not yet finished my job.
“I want to assure you that our God will
get back at them and you will know when he gets back to them. May be
this would be the end of the whole thing.”
Meanwhile, the death toll had officially risen to 44, while 130 people were said to have been rescued alive.
The National Emergency Management Agency
on Sunday said that 44 dead bodies had been recovered, while 130 people
trapped in the collapsed Synagogue building had so far been rescued.
The Public Relations Officer of NEMA, Mr. Ibrahim Farinloye, confirmed this via a text message to our correspondents.
Farinloye, however, told reporters that 80 per cent of people rescued from the collapse building were women.
He said that two female children, aged four and eight years, were among those rescued from the building.
Wages of Impunity, By Wole Soyinka
The
dancing obscenity of Shekau and his gang of psychopaths and child
abductors, taunting the world, mocking the BRING BACK OUR GIRLS campaign
on internet, finally met its match in Nigeria to inaugurate the week of
September 11 – most appropriately. Shekau’s danse macabre was surpassed
by the unfurling of a political campaign banner that defiled an entry
point into Nigeria’s capital of Abuja. That banner read: BRING BACK
JONATHAN 2015.
President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard.
It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level. It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration.
The bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-governor, Sheriff, notorious throughout the nation – including within security circles as affirmed in their formal dossiers – as prime suspect in the sponsorship league of the scourge named Boko Haram, was presented to the world as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became: was the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a governance yardstick?
Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does this say of any president? How come it that a suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-host with the president of that nation?
Where does the confidence arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared totally at ease. What the nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation of a governance principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with precedents galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more political reprobates – thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or police investigations – than any other Head of State since the nation’s independence. It has become a reflex.
Those who stuck up the obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read Jonathan right as a Bring-back president. They have deduced perhaps that he sees “bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner stone of governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now sorely needs – for instance, electricity and other elusive items like security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the insurrection in the Delta region under President Umaru Yar’Adua. I have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table is not as high as his - thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that light.It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again that one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have been detached from the Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier statements, I have interacted with the late National Security Adviser, General Azazi, on occasion – among others. I am therefore compelled to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered cannot be dismissed out of hand.
It cannot be wished away by foul-mouthed abuse and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is an absolute waste of time and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor Sheriff in the parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever, and I believe that the evidence is overwhelming. Femi Falana can safely assume that he has my full backing – and that of a number of civic organizations – if he is compelled to go ahead and invoke the legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The evidence in possession of Security Agencies – plus a number of diplomats in Nigeria – is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the man face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also take many others down with him.
Regarding General Ihejirika, I have my own theories regarding how he may have come under Stephen Davis’ searchlight in the first place, ending up on his list of the inculpated. All I shall propose at this stage is that an international panel be set up to examine all allegations, irrespective of status or office of any accused. The unleashing of a viperous cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens qualifies as a crime against humanity, and deserves that very dimension in its resolution. If a people must survive, the reign of impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail – is in the interest, not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of the international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
From very early beginnings, we warned against the mouthing of empty pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to inundate the nation but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation had moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter surmounted slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle began to strike into the very heart of governance, but all we obtained in return was moaning, whining and hand-wringing up and down the rungs of leadership and governance. But enough of recriminations – at least for now. Later, there must be full accounting.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko Haram financier within the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to give backing to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy whose government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to its independent investigation into some money laundering that involved the Central Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns: “Bring Back Our Honour.”
President Jonathan has since disowned all knowledge or complicity in the outrage but, the damage has been done, the rot in a nation’s collective soul bared to the world. The very possibility of such a desecration took the Nigerian nation several notches down in human regard. It confirmed the very worst of what external observers have concluded and despaired of – a culture of civic callousness, a coarsening of sensibilities and, a general human disregard.
It affirmed the acceptance, even domination of lurid practices where children are often victims of unconscionable abuses including ritual sacrifices, sexual enslavement, and worse. Spurred by electoral desperation, a bunch of self-seeking morons and sycophants chose to plumb the abyss of self-degradation and drag the nation down to their level. It took us to a hitherto unprecedented low in ethical degeneration.
The bets were placed on whose turn would it be to take the next potshots at innocent youths in captivity whose society and governance have failed them and blighted their existence? Would the Chibok girls now provide standup comic material for the latest staple of Nigerian escapist diet? Would we now move to a new export commodity in the entertainment industry named perhaps “Taunt the Victims”?
As if to confirm all the such surmises, an ex-governor, Sheriff, notorious throughout the nation – including within security circles as affirmed in their formal dossiers – as prime suspect in the sponsorship league of the scourge named Boko Haram, was presented to the world as a presidential traveling companion. And the speculation became: was the culture of impunity finally receiving endorsement as a governance yardstick?
Again, Goodluck Jonathan swung into a plausible explanation: it was Mr. Sheriff who, as friend of the host President Idris Deby, had traveled ahead to Chad to receive Jonathan as part of President Deby’s welcome entourage. What, however does this say of any president? How come it that a suspected affiliate of a deadly criminal gang, publicly under such ominous cloud, had the confidence to smuggle himself into the welcoming committee of another nation, and even appear in audience, to all appearance a co-host with the president of that nation?
Where does the confidence arise in him that Jonathan would not snub him openly or, after the initial shock, pull his counterpart, his official host aside and say to him, “Listen, it’s him, or me.”? So impunity now transcends boundaries, no matter how heinous the alleged offence?
The Nigerian president however appeared totally at ease. What the nation witnessed in the photo-op was an affirmation of a governance principle, the revelation of a decided frame of mind – with precedents galore. Goodluck Jonathan has brought back into limelight more political reprobates – thus attested in criminal courts of law and/or police investigations – than any other Head of State since the nation’s independence. It has become a reflex.
Those who stuck up the obscene banner in Abuja had accurately read Jonathan right as a Bring-back president. They have deduced perhaps that he sees “bringing back” as a virtue, even an ideology, as the corner stone of governance, irrespective of what is being brought back. No one quarrels about bringing back whatever the nation once had and now sorely needs – for instance, electricity and other elusive items like security, the rule of law etc. etc. The list is interminable. The nature of what is being brought back is thus what raises the disquieting questions. It is time to ask the question: if Ebola were to be eradicated tomorrow, would this government attempt to bring it back?
Well, while awaiting the Chibok girls, and in that very connection, there is at least an individual whom the nation needs to bring back, and urgently. His name is Stephen Davis, the erstwhile negotiator in the oft aborted efforts to actually bring back the girls. Nigeria needs him back – no, not back to the physical nation space itself, but to a Nigerian induced forum, convoked anywhere that will guarantee his safety and can bring others to join him. I know Stephen Davis, I worked in the background with him during efforts to resolve the insurrection in the Delta region under President Umaru Yar’Adua. I have not been involved in his recent labours for a number of reasons.
The most basic is that my threshold for confronting evil across a table is not as high as his - thanks, perhaps, to his priestly calling. From the very outset, in several lectures and other public statements, I have advocated one response and one response only to the earliest, still putative depredations of Boko Haram and have decried any proceeding that smacked of appeasement. There was a time to act – several times when firm, decisive action, was indicated. There are certain steps which, when taken, place an aggressor beyond the pale of humanity, when we must learn to accept that not all who walk on two legs belong to the community of humans – I view Boko Haram in that light.It is no comfort to watch events demonstrate again and again that one is proved to be right.
Thus, it would be inaccurate to say that I have been detached from the Boko Haram affliction – very much the contrary. As I revealed in earlier statements, I have interacted with the late National Security Adviser, General Azazi, on occasion – among others. I am therefore compelled to warn that anything that Stephen Davis claims to have uncovered cannot be dismissed out of hand.
It cannot be wished away by foul-mouthed abuse and cheap attempts to impugn his integrity – that is an absolute waste of time and effort. Of the complicity of ex-Governor Sheriff in the parturition of Boko Haram, I have no doubt whatsoever, and I believe that the evidence is overwhelming. Femi Falana can safely assume that he has my full backing – and that of a number of civic organizations – if he is compelled to go ahead and invoke the legal recourses available to him to force Sheriff’s prosecution. The evidence in possession of Security Agencies – plus a number of diplomats in Nigeria – is overwhelming, and all that is left is to let the man face criminal persecution. It is certain he will also take many others down with him.
Regarding General Ihejirika, I have my own theories regarding how he may have come under Stephen Davis’ searchlight in the first place, ending up on his list of the inculpated. All I shall propose at this stage is that an international panel be set up to examine all allegations, irrespective of status or office of any accused. The unleashing of a viperous cult like Boko Haram on peaceful citizens qualifies as a crime against humanity, and deserves that very dimension in its resolution. If a people must survive, the reign of impunity must end. Truth – in all available detail – is in the interest, not only of Nigeria, the sub-region and the continent, but of the international community whose aid we so belatedly moved to seek.
From very early beginnings, we warned against the mouthing of empty pride to stem a tide that was assuredly moving to inundate the nation but were dismissed as alarmists. We warned that the nation had moved into a state of war, and that its people must be mobilized accordingly – the warnings were disregarded, even as slaughter surmounted slaughter, entire communities wiped out, and the battle began to strike into the very heart of governance, but all we obtained in return was moaning, whining and hand-wringing up and down the rungs of leadership and governance. But enough of recriminations – at least for now. Later, there must be full accounting.
Finally, Stephen Davis also mentions a Boko Haram financier within the Nigerian Central Bank. Independently we are able to give backing to that claim, even to the extent of naming the individual. In the process of our enquiries, we solicited the help of a foreign embassy whose government, we learnt, was actually on the same trail, thanks to its independent investigation into some money laundering that involved the Central Bank. That name, we confidently learnt, has also been passed on to President Jonathan. When he is ready to abandon his accommodating policy towards the implicated, even the criminalized, an attitude that owes so much to re-election desperation, when he moves from a passive “letting the law to take its course” to galvanizing the law to take its course, we shall gladly supply that name.
In the meantime however, as we twiddle our thumbs, wondering when and how this nightmare will end, and time rapidly runs out, I have only one admonition for the man to whom so much has been given, but who is now caught in the depressing spiral of diminishing returns: “Bring Back Our Honour.”
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