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Military intensify manhunt on Turji, dreaded terrorist kingpin

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It is a matter of time before Bello Turaji, the terrorist kingpin responsible for the current security nightmare in parts of the North West, would be captured and fed with his own medicine, was the solemn promise of Christopher Musa, Chief of Defence Staff, to the troubled victims and other Nigerians, on Tuesday.

Turji, who is believed to be behind the massacre of more than 150 people in Sokoto recently as well as the high-level other crimes including kidnapping, slaughtering and imposing illegal levies on hapless residents in Zamfara, Katsina and other areas of the North, particularly imposed an N30 million levy on the residents for their protection against attacks in Zamfara State, a few weeks ago.

But, taking up the challenge, Musa, a General in the Nigerian Army, who described Turji as “a deranged” individual, promised that the bandit leader, would soon be history, as he would soon be deleted or be captured and made to face the law, so as to give the people currently under his clutches the breather they needed.

His words: “On the issue of Turji, like I said, he is just a deranged individual who feels power, but I can bet you that it’s just a matter of time. It is a matter of time, we’re going to get him, and I can assure you that it will be within the shortest possible time. We’re going to address that issue on the issue of payment of levy (to bandits). That is what they live on. And it shows you the desperation they are in.

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“One, even when they get the money, they don’t have a way to use it. Two is that the money they’re getting, they know, is blood money. And that is why we all must come together to work with members of the armed forces and security agencies to deny them the ability to move freely within our communities.”

He said the support received by the bandits from residents was fuelling their activities.

“Please do not give them any support. Do not give them information on the movement of troops because this is what is happening. Most of the area where this thing is continuing is because we have informants within the communities.”

Regarding what he said was the harmonisation of military operations in the zone, the military boss, added: “We have reviewed the entire operation and realized that we need to harmonise our operations together. As you notice, we have Operation Hadrin Daiji and Operation Whirl Stroke, both within the Northwest region.

“We have seen the need for us to harmonize those operations into one operation like we did in the Northeast where you have operation Hadin Kai. The same thing is being done now for the Northwest operation. We have one unified operation. It’s going to be called Operation.

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“Kasar Yamma which is securing the North West. Now the intention is to ensure that we synergize all our efforts in addressing the security challenges in the Northwest. So now what we are doing is that since we are harmonizing the whole operation, we will come under one commander. And then the commander will be able to utilize all the equipment and troops together to ensure that we address this critically. And I think that’s the best solution we have for it.

“And I can assure you, all the assets that are required to do that will be done. Citizens must stop giving support to bandits while lamenting that locals invited the bandits to attack the troops’ armoured vehicles when they broke down.

“The bandits intend to just show that they are present. And that’s why we’re appealing to Nigerians not to provide any support. If you remember, the last time we had this issue where our APC was, the MRAP was bogged down, and the terrorists came.

“It was some people who called them and told them that the troops were having issues with their vehicle and they should come around. And they came in mass. That was what exactly happened. And that’s why we’re appealing to individuals.”

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Between Jezebel and Esther: My letter to Iyom Bianca Ojukwu

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Between Jezebel and Esther: My letter to Iyom Bianca Ojukwu

By Sunny Igboanugo

Iyom,

I feel compelled to write this letter to you today for several reasons. I had thought it was a bad joke taken too far when I saw your name among the seven nominees named by President Bola Tinubu to his cabinet on Friday, October 25, 2024. My immediate reaction was that the move would have elicited a prompt and angry riposte from you.

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I had thought that you would have issued a statement instantly, rejecting the offer as an outright rubbish and warned the purveyors of that inglorious attempt to delete your name from their paper and from their lips permanently. In my Facebook account, I had described you as a deity, which would instantly reject a tainted sacrifice and rather than bless the assault and insult, visit its anger on the harbinger.

When none of such happened, I had hoped that you had decided to take the second option, which was to ignore the move as an irritation, not worthy of your attention. That was until I saw you in body and spirit at the Senate Chambers of the National Assembly fielding questions from the members, some of them salivating like Pavlov dogs, not being able to take their eyes off you, to the extent that Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President had to intervene and demand that they concentrated on the issue at hand.

You could then imagine my emotions at this development. Disappointment is a huge understatement to describe my feelings! I was completely gutted – speechless – eviscerated! How do I describe it? I have not really gotten over this feeling and I had hoped to wake up to the realisation that it was all a bad dream. I have since woken up, the morning after and discovered that it was not a nightmare after all, hence this letter.

I must confess that I know very little about you as a person, having not had any close encounter with you at all. But before I left Enugu to Lagos, I was a regular visitor to the Number 4 Isi-Uzor Street, Independent Layout, home of the late Ikemba Nnewi, Eze Igbo Gburugburu, in my 10-year-stint as the Correspondent of The Guardian, in Enugu. Needless to say that sitting down in the same company with Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, was one of my most cherished experiences as a journalist.

However, I discovered that during those many years, I never set my eyes on you except during ceremonies that required your presence. One of such occasions was at the celebration of the taking of that title from Adama Nri, at the said residence. Another occasion was during the state banquet in honour of then President Olusegun Obasanjo during an official visit to Enugu.

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I recall how the Dikedioramma Ndigbo, Amuma N’Egbe-Igwe, Odenigbo Ngwo, who was seated on the same table with the former President, sprang from his seat and rushed to the entrance of the hall to personally lead you to the seat beside him. Outside its fascination and drama that sent a reverberating sensation in the entire hall, neither the significance nor the optics was not lost on anyone. It underscored your place in the heart of the revered Igbo leader and by extension Ndigbo in general.

Though I have not had the privilege of meeting you in person, those who did, have always given you out as highly cerebral, articulate and resourceful. The rest I had always picked from your other public engagements in the media. I recall some of your epistles on the crisis in the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) leadership, which pitted you against some of the elements of the party in Anambra State.

So, in the main, I know that you are not just a beautiful face. Aside being intellectually-mobile, you also have a name to yourself – both your family name and the one you decided to pick up through marriage. You were not only born with the proverbial silver spoon, you are also the owner of gold and silver yourself.

Your personal outlook, also suggests that your closet must be suffusing with nice apparels, while your treasure box must be filled with precious jewels of silver, gold, peals and diamonds. Therefore, it ought to be obvious that these are not your desires in making this move. It would be terrible otherwise.

Now, who could have forgotten that hot slap you delivered to Ebelechukwu Obiano, wife of Willie Obiano, former Governor of Anambra State, as part of the fallouts of the APGA leadership issue? The echoes are yet resonating across the land. That singular incident clearly established demonstrable evidence that you are also a no-nonsense, fearless character, not beholding to any form of inanities of high office.

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So, the question is why this? Interestingly, just a few days before this uncanny development, during your keynote address at the annual national conference and convention of the American Veterans of Igbo Descent (AVID) in Dallas, Texas in USA, you accused Igbo leaders of “conspiracy of silence” while using the case of “illegal” detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, to elaborate your position.

You were specifically quoted as saying: “It is only when the leaders in Igboland rise up, jettison their perceived conspiracy of silence and confront the truth will there be the slightest possibility of healing and recovery from the unfortunate condition which Igboland currently finds itself in.

“The initial nonchalant attitude towards his (Kanu’s) illegal rendition and continued unlawful incarceration contributed greatly towards inflaming the tensions within the South-east region today. This nonchalant attitude also brought about the unforeseen consequences of opportunistic criminal elements not even remotely connected with the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) coming into the picture.”

Now, what does your being named to Tinubu’s cabinet a few days after this outing and your subsequent acceptance of same suggest? Is it your own way of breaking this “conspiracy of silence?” Is it your own answer to dealing with the issue, which by your own account from that US outing shows you are quite seized of the subject in today’s Igboland?

I ask, Iyom, because I know something must have impelled you to travel this route? Are we expecting that MNK, would be free soon? Were you promised that freedom for the IPOB leader is tied to your playing a role in Tinubu’s government as a quid pro quo, and you had to bend backwards to accept, in order to save Igboland and the people you love so much from the current suffering? Was that the deal?

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If in the affirmative, be it known that this journey will have the blessings and prayers of Ndigbo. The spirit the land will bless the footstep. But if on the other hand and in the unlikely event that it is out of hunger for power, perks of office, glamour and the klieg-light, it will be most unfortunate – a most terrible mistake of tragic proportion.

I will not be the one to tell you that APC is a disaster that is happening already. It is not only the most underwhelming government in the history of Nigeria today, it is the most brutal, insensitive, soulless and clueless. The outcry in the street out there tells the full story.

The number of people jumping into the lagoons in Lagos alone and those drinking Snipper to end it all rather than continuing the terrible life of odindu onwu ka mma, are almost competing with those being killed in the streets or in the bushes where their abductors kept them over inability to pay ransoms. The nightmare is indescribable.

But that is on a general level. Specifically, for Ndigbo, it is a totally different tale altogether. It is the civil war doing an encore in a different form. Yes! You may argue that the civil war was more devastating. But that could only be in terms of magnitude of physical damage. But in terms of the spirit driving the current situation, there is hardly any difference.

The bombardment of market places, hospitals, schools and churches may not be there, or the images of the refugee camps of children with distended stomachs, glazy eyes buried in sunken sockets on oblong, hairless heads, carried by tiny necks, but there is another form of blitzkrieg. It is evident as you travel from Enugu to Onitsha or Owerri to Onitsha. Yes! It is there in the eyes of the the people, depicting nothing less than the fears and hopelessness of the war-time hue. It is there in the villages in the noticeable peace of the graveyard that assaults the usually serene firmaments.

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There is no mistaking the deliberate wickedness against Ndigbo these past nine years of APC government in Nigeria. It is not only deliberate, it is intentional. Right from the formation of the party, the structure from the distribution of the officers to the appointments in its governments, has been designed to exclude and deny them a space at the dining table.

Any Igbo man or woman laying claim to being part of the APC structure, is simply joking. Not even some lick-spittle elements going overboard to build a university in Igboland where Tinubu would be taught as a subject would change anything. After all, did an Igbo governor not describe Muhammadu Buhari, his predecessor as “next to God?”

What did it fetch him. The people it is meant to please know the game and could distinguish between the pure buffoonery of such outing so quickly so soon. Instead of advancing the course of the people, it only attracts more disdain and deepens the mockery.

Did the same Buhari not ignore him with that trademark disdainful, dismissive expression reserved for Ndigbo alone, when push came to shove? Despite obviously believing that Buhari would make him President if only he could prove how much he could hurt Ndigbo, he did not even get up to five votes at the APC convention for all his efforts at kowtowing, grovelling and spittle-licking to achieve that selfish, if not shameful ambition.

Even the case of MNK depicts another example of the prevailing APC mindset. Before you, every revered Igbo man had tried and failed. They were snubbed in the most disdainful, scornful manner. Ben Nwabueze, had died begging for his freedom.

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Mbazulike Amaechi, had pleaded for it as the last favour the Nigeria he fought for its independent should gift him. He died begging. Chukwuemeka Ezeife, went the same way. Not even his June 12 affinity with Tinubu could swing the favour for him. George Obiozo, former President of Ohanaeze, came from the angle of diplomacy. With his immense on-the-field experience, including working as former Director General of the prestigious Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA) and Ambassador of Nigeria to the US, he travelled through the known channels. He failed.

Then came his successor, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu, a business mogul, a powerful politician with links to men of timber and calibre, coconut and juggernaut like him across the land. He came pulling his own strings, thinking it would work. Did it? Nada! They all died. The thickness of the bad blood was just too hard and heavy to penetrate.

Incidentally, those in the same shoes of the IPOB leader and even with worse cases, are now walking the streets as free men after receiving less than a tap on the wrist, even going ahead to up the ante. The other day, one made a song and dance of a fresh move as he was seen submitting a letter to Number 10 Donning Street, the United Kingdom seat of power for a separate state of the Yoruba people.

As you are reading this letter, nothing has come out of the attempt beyond the usual banal statement from Abuja. In fact, the next day, a video of groups of people throwing their hands in the air amid solidarity songs for that purpose, went viral on social media.

Funny enough, at the death of each of the Igbo leaders, the same people they prostrated for to seek freedom of their son, some, as their last wish, would be the first to issue press statements professing their greatness, how highly they were held in the scheme of things and how Nigeria would miss them.

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I wonder if anyone would miss the intended pun? Certainly not you! The mockery were clearly obvious in each case. I hope this would not be your fate by the time this whole saga is over and the history of today is written tomorrow. That is the APC government you chose to work for. We shall see!

Iyom, let me conclude this letter by reminding you of the biblical depiction of Jezebel and Esther. Both were wives of powerful kings. The former loved power for its sake and used it for destruction, the other did not court power, but when it was entrusted on her, she used it to do good – to save her people. Where will history find you?

May the day never come when you will mount the rostrum to sell this wicked government – which I suspect could be the real reason for your appointment – as others before you have done, just to remain in office even as a junior Minister, which I personally believe is an insult to what you represent. Your intentions must be nobler and your deeds evident.

Nwa agu a-di ata afifia. You need not reply me. The answer I seek will come in few days – or let us say – months from now. Iyom, anya saa! May God lead your footsteps!

My name is Sunny Igboanugo and I am The Tiny Voice!

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BREAKING: One week after DHQ denial, Tinubu names Oluyede as Acting COAS

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Just a week after the Defence Headquarters declared the office of Acting Chief of Army Staff as non-existent in the hierarchy of the Nigerian Arm, President Bola Tinubu on Wednesday, named Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede, a Major General, to that position.

Oluyede is to act on behalf of Taoreed Lagbaja the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), said to be on medical tourism abroad as part of his yearly leave, according to a statement by Bayo Onanuga, Tinubu’s spokesman.

Onanuga, said: “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, has appointed Major General Olufemi Olatubosun Oluyede as the acting Chief of Army Staff (COAS). Oluyede will act in the position pending the return of the indisposed substantive Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Taoreed Abiodun Lagbaja.”

Last week, Tukur Gusau, a Brigadier General, and spokesman of the DHQ, amid speculation, said: “The Defence Headquarters wishes to clarify that it has not announced the appointment of any senior officer as Acting Chief of Army Staff, contrary to speculation by certain media outlets. For the record, no such appointment exists within the AFN.

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“The Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Taoreed Lagbaja, is currently on a well-deserved rest as part of his 2024 annual leave. The AFN is professionally managed, and all Service Chiefs are performing their duties as stipulated in the Constitution of the FGN. Major General Abdulsalam Bagudu Ibrahim, the Chief of Policy and Plans, is providing routine briefs to the COAS in accordance with SOP.”

Warning those behind the several rumours against the Army to desist from such acts, he added: “The DHQ urges individuals spreading unfounded rumours to desist from doing so immediately.”

Oluyede, 56, a family man, married with three children, who until his appointment, served as the 56th Commander of the elite  Infantry Corps of the Nigerian Army in Jaji, Kaduna, is a course mate and member of the 39th  Regular Course with Lagbaja.

Commissioned a second lieutenant in 1992 effective from 1987, he rose to Major-General in September 2020, with some strategic command positions to his name including Platoon Commander and Adjutant at 65 Battalion, Company Commander at 177 Guards Battalion, Staff Officer Guards Brigade, Commandant Amphibious Training School.

The General, who also participated in several operations, including the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group (ECOMOG) Mission in Liberia, Operation HARMONY IV in Bakassi, and Operation HADIN KAI in the North East theatre of operations, where he commanded 27 Task Force Brigade, also earned many honours for his meritorious service in various fields of operations.

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They include: The Corps Medal of Honour, the Grand Service Star, Passing the Staff Course, and Membership in the National Institute, the Field Command Medal, the Field Command Medal of Honour, and the Field Training Medal, while receiving the coveted Chief of Army Staff Commendation Award.

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My record as ambassador speaks for me – Bianca Ojukwu

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Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu on Wednesday, flaunted her achievement as Ambassador of Nigeria to Spain before the members of the Senate, as evidence of her qualification to serve as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, the office to which she was appointed last week by President Bola Tinubu.

One of the seven Ministers so named by the President on Friday, October 25, the former beauty queen and widow of the late Ikemba Nnewi, Chief Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu expressed, told the lawmakers her feat in transforming the Nigerian Mission in Spain to an enviable status during her time.

Expressing dismay on the state of the nation’s foreign missions, Ojukwu, who is also the daughter of Christian Chukwuma Onoh, former Governor of the old Anambra State, said: “The Nigerian Embassy in Madrid that you see today is the product of my time in that country. Today, the Nigerian Embassy in Spain is magnificent. The building was not only that, but the residence of the ambassador was also given a facelift”.

Also detailing how she also represented the country on various international platforms, notably building a bridge between Nigeria and Spain, said that her work earned her the prestigious title of Africa’s Most Outstanding Ambassador.

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“As a former ambassador to the Kingdom of Spain, I spent an entire year in one hotel room because when I got to Spain, the mission building was in such an appalling condition. With the recruiting and training of officers, we conducted a massive preservation of works, not just the mission building itself, giving Nigeria a name that is truly deserving of a designation of outstanding.”

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