Jonathan declares amnesty for Boko Haram members.

SOURCE

Minister of Youth Development, Mr. Boni Haruna, on Thursday disclosed that President Goodluck Jonathan has announced amnesty for members of the Boko Haram sect as parts of his administration’s youths-friendly programmes and policies. (After killings thousands of innocent people including Biafrans)

Haruna disclosed this while giving an overview of youth’s position in the present administration’s transformation agenda at a special event tagged “A day with young leaders of Nigeria” to mark the nation’s Democracy Day in Abuja.

The minister said series of integration programmes have been lined up for members of the sect who would surrender their arms and embrace peace.

He therefore called on them to embrace the government’s gesture.

The minister said, “President Goodluck Jonathan has also declared amnesty for members of the Boko Haram sect.

“Series of integration programmes have been lined up for the members of the sect who would surrender their arms and embrace peace.

“Let me use this opportunity on behalf of the Federal Government, to call on the members of the Boko Haram sect to embrace the government’s gesture and key to amnesty programme.”

He recalled that in the wake of youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, the government came up with a development programme which provided an opportunity for the youth to express themselves and have a meaningful life.

Haruna said although the amnesty programme was a fallout of a bitter national security, its effect on the youth had been profound.

He disclosed that 30,000 youths have benefitted from the programme which has seen beneficiaries transforming from militants to wealth creators, employers of labour and skilled citizens.

Jonathan, while answering questions from youths who attended the programme, said military alone was incapable of stopping terrorism or any kind of radicalism.

He said terrorism could not succeed in any community without local supports.

He stressed the need for people who are respected by the insurgents to join hands with government to persuade them to desist.

The President said, “Terror succeeds with local support. It will be difficult for terror to thrive where people reject it. It is a major challenge to all of us.

“Military alone cannot stop terror or any radicalism. Terrorists have people they respect, they have community, traditional and opinion leaders they respect. All of us can deradicalise them.

“We will through persuasive activities encourage people to shun violence.”

He said his government was already working out the modalities for reintroducing moral education into school curriculum.

This, he said, would assist in re-orientation the young people in order to distinguish between right and wrong things.

Jonathan promised that his administration would continue to encourage young people because they are no longer leaders of tomorrow but of today.

He said youths are already leading because they decide who rules at all levels of government by virtue of their population which he put at 60 per cent of the electorates.

The President also reiterated his position that the nation’s income distribution was skewed.

While saying that government was working hard to redistribute wealth, he added that one of the emphasis of the government is to encourage self-employment.

Responding to a question on the need to have a youth as the Minister of Youth Development, Jonathan said “the best person to take care of a child may not necessarily be a child.”

He added that the young ones needed to tap from the experiences of older ones.

He also stressed the need for political parties to give women more opportunities.

The event which was held at the International Conference Centre, Abuja was nearly marred by interruption in power supply.

The ugly incident occurred at the time Jonathan mounted the podium to present a compendium of his administration’s achievements in the last one year and answer questions from youths who attended the event.

Jonathan remained standing in front of the participants with his security aides for about 15 minutes while the power failure caused by the generating set being used lasted.

He was at the verge of returning to his seat to give organisers time to rectify the fault when power was finally restored.

President of the Senate, David Mark; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal, were among dignitaries who were conspicuously absent at the special event.

Among former Heads of State, only the former Head of the Interim National Government, Chief Ernest Shonekan, attended the event.

He was joined by a former Vice President, Chief Alex Ekwueme; and a former Chief of General Staff, Oladipo Diya.

Jonathan attended the event alongside his wife, Patience; Vice President Namadi Sambo; and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Maryam Mukhtar.

The tone for the event was set by the Minister of State, Foreign Affairs, Dr. Nurudeen Mohammed, who narrated the circumstances leading to his appointment as a minister at a young age of 33.

The event featured the presentation of the third anniversary of the present administration’s transformation agenda in book form by the President, a video documentary of the third anniversary of the transformation agenda and the launching of Youth Entrepreneurial Mentorship and Empowerment Scheme among others.

Highlight of the event also included a motivational talk by the Chief Executive Officer, Mara Foundation, Mr. Ashish Takker, said to be the youngest African billionaire.

By: Restore Biafra On 5/29/2014

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How To Face or Point Towards Biafra Land.

With regards to the upcoming event; #30THMAY2014 remembrance day for the Biafran Fallen Heroes, Heroines and starved children, we have been searching for a convenient mobile App to assist our people face towards Biafraland. Considering the significance of this singular act, we have tested different Apps on the Android market.

After a careful review of the capabilities of the Apps, we came up with an Android App called "Pointer". The best feature is that if can work offline i.e. without internet connection. Unfortunately, it is difficult to install this directly via your mobile phone, you have to install it via your computer.

To install it via your computer, you need an internet connection. Login to your google account on Android market at https://play.google.com/store and go to this LINK, find your phone on the drop-down list (Make your phone is connected on the same network, to make it faster) and click install. That is it, check your phone and see that the App is installed. See the images below so that you can recognise the App when you see it. It is possible that they will have the App in other brands of mobile phone e.g. Windows phone, Blackberry and so on.

How to Use it.

• Open the App and select "Options" from your phone.
• Touch on "Points".
• Touch on "Add Location Manually".
• World map will appear with a search box, enter Enugu in the search box and hit "Search".
• Enugu, Nigeria will show up, hit that one, and the pointer rotates towards Enugu; the capital of Biafra.
• Do all that you can to make the #30THMAY a success. If we all face towards Enugu on that day, something will happen, believe it.

Pictures.

By: Restore Biafra On 5/26/2014

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Another bomb explosion rocks the city of Jos.

Another explosion has shaken the city of Jos in central Nigeria, just a few days after a twin car bomb attack killed more than 200 people in the same city.

Police said the blast happened near an open-air TV viewing centre where people were watching the Champions League football final.

It is not clear if there are casualties. Unconfirmed reports said a suicide bomber had died in an apparently botched attack.

Tuesday's bomb attack was blamed on Boko Haram Islamist militants although they have not publicly claimed so.

A spokesman for Plateau state governor Jonah Jang said the blast happened on Bauchi Road at about 21:30 local time (Saturday night).


SOURCE 1

By: Restore Biafra On 5/24/2014

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More than 118 people killed in Jos bomb blasts. Numbers to rise...

At least 118 people were killed when two car bombs ripped through a busy market in the central Nigerian city of Jos, police said on Tuesday.

Plateau state police commissioner Chris Olakpe told reporters that 45 others were injured in the blasts, which happened in the New Abuja Market area of the city.

Also the Plateau State Government says it is “not in a hurry’’ to release the casualty figures from Tuesday afternoon’s two bomb blasts which hit the Terminus Market in Jos.

“The casualty figures have not been ascertained because the figures are still being collated from various hospitals,’’ the state’s Information Commissioner, Olivia Dazyam, told newsmen in Jos on Tuesday. 

She however said the figures would be made available “as soon as possible’’.

The commissioner said security agents had been drafted to the scene of the blasts, and advised hospitals to accept the victims and begin treatment immediately.

“Full investigation has begun on the incident. But we want people to be calm and pray, especially for the victims.

“We also want everyone to support the authorities in these trying times,’’ she said.

President Goodluck Jonathan condemned the attack and said he remained committed to fighting terrorism.

Although Boko Haram has previously targeted Jos, the capital of Plateau state, the city has been relatively calm for almost two years.

Plateau state lies on the fault-line which divides Nigeria's largely Muslim north from its mainly Christian south.

SOURCE 1   SOURCE 2

Commentary:-

Once again the Biafrans are killed in their hundreds. Although the police say 46 now, the figures are likely to increase soon. We will be updating this page as the news come in. Remember that these areas are very busy market places.

By: Restore Biafra On 5/20/2014

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Biafra National Anthem and the Patriotic Song.

BIAFRA NATIONAL ANTHEM --- LAND OF THE RISING SUN.

Listen to the MP3 http://www.nationalanthems.info/bia.mp3 .

1. Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish,
   Beloved homeland of our brave heroes;
   We must defend our lives or we shall perish,
   We shall protect our hearts from all our foes;
   But if the price is death for all we hold dear,
   Then let us die without a shred of fear.


2. Hail to Biafra, consecrated nation,
   Oh fatherland, this be our solemn pledge:
   Defending thee shall be a dedication,
   Spilling our blood we’ll count a privilege;
   The waving standard which emboldens the free
   Shall always be our flag of liberty.


3. We shall emerge triumphant from this ordeal,
   And through the crucible unscathed we’ll pass;
   When we are poised the wounds of battle to heal,
   We shall remember those who died in mass;
   Then shall our trumpets peal the glorious song
   Of victory we scored o’er might and wrong.


4. Oh God, protect us from the hidden pitfall,
   Guide all our movements lest we go astray;
   Give us the strength to heed the humanist call:
   ‘To give and not to count the cost” each day;
   Bless those who rule to serve with resoluteness,
   To make this clime a land of righteousness.

PATRIOTIC SONG --- ALL HAIL BIAFRA

Listen to the VOICE at Link 1

Or with INSTRUMENTAL at Link 2

Or with BALLARD at Link 3

1. All hail Biafra
   Land of the rising sun, we love and cherish
   We have vanquished our enemies, all hail Biafra
   God Bless Biafra, in Him we trust
   Shout it sing it, all hail Biafra


2. God bless Biafra
   We have emerged triumphant, from all our foes
   Through the crucible unscathed, we passed victorious
   Our trumpets pealing, the glorious song
   Play it, sing it, all hail Biafra


3. Oh hail Biafra
   We shall always remember, all that perished,
   In the struggle for our freedom, all hail our heroes
   Our prayers shall bemoan, both day and night
   Say them always, all hail Biafra


4. All Hail Biafra
   Now our star shines everywhere, we crave humility
   God guide and protect us all, all hail Your Wisdom
   Shielding us from fury, unleashed by our enlightenment
   Biafra, Biafra, shinning forever

By: Restore Biafra On 5/15/2014

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Civilians Kill 200 Boko Haram Terrorists In Borno Attack

The rise of the civilians against terror took the Boko Haram saga to a new turn in the early hours of Tuesday morning when citizens of Rann, headquarters of Kala-Balge local government area, Borno northeast, who had fore-knowledge of an impending Boko Haram attack, decided not to remain sitting ducks but prepared for battle.

According to reports we received from Civilian sources in Borno, over 400 Boko Haram terrorists stormed Rann and neighboring villages in the early hours of Tuesday, with their usual convoy of hilux trucks, motorcycles and APC (Armored Personnel Carriers) only to meet villagers ready for them this time. The civilian villagers pounced on the terrorists with mere rocks, bows and arrows, local Dane guns, swords and “charms,” but as we have earlier reported, Boko Haram are more frightened of Civilian-JTF than they are of the Nigerian army, and run from the civilians even if they—the civilians—only have knives. The battle raged till the sun came up and ended with the civilians killing over 200 Boko Haram terrorists, capturing several prisoners and recovering several of their vehicles.

From an account of a civilian who participated in defending the neighborhoods, as reported in DailyTrust, “Our people also recovered over 70 motorcycles that the attackers came with. They also collected 2 Hilux vehicles and an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) while some of the attackers were captured alive.” [http://dailytrust.info/top-stories/23962-200-insurgents-killed-in-kala-balge-by-villagers]

This amazing victory of good over evil, promises a new direction in the war against terror that has wrecked hundreds of farming villages in the north of Nigeria in the last four years, largely unchecked by State security. Civilians determined to arrest a situation they believe the Nigerian security services has permitted to destroy their farming villages in various towns in the north east, have apparently decided take up a fighting posture against Boko Haram terrorists; no longer waiting for a military response that hardly ever comes.

Civilian-JTF

Last week, Boko Haram terrorists ravaged Gondura Ngala town, freely without any hindrance from the Nigerian military drafted to the north, and decimated the entire town, killing over 300 residents. On April 14th, Boko Haram stormed Chibok and abducted over 200 girls. In that episode, Amnesty International reported that the Nigerian security services were fully informed of the impending attack, by civilian vigilantes and other Intel, several hours prior, yet did not alert or defend the village nor engage the terrorists for a full eight hours of the abduction, looting and destruction of the village.

A mother from Chibok reportedly told CNN, that “if the army is not ready to fight Boko Haram, then we will fight them ourselves.” Apparently that day has come.

The Civilian-JTF and ENDS.ng civil rights group is pressing the Nigerian government for the civilians to have the right and government support, to bear arms, to end the terror scourge once and for all. The government is yet to officially respond to this urgent request as villagers remain at the mercy of Boko Haram terrorists.

The Shehu of Bama is reported to have ordered his citizens to go get guns, after his town was completely decimated twice by Boko Haram terrorists with no military response for the full eight hours of carnage. More towns are expected to follow suit as the nations leadership sleeps and permits terrorists the largely unhindered freedom to operate, massacre and destroy Nigeria’s farmers and northern farming villages.

SOURCE

By: Restore Biafra On 5/14/2014

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Remembrance of 3.6m Biafrans in Nigerian News

SOURCE

The director of Biafra Radio, Nnamdi Kanu has revealed plans by Biafrans all over the world to mourn the 3.6 million Biafrans who were killed during the civil war.

Kanu, who spoke with our correspondent in a telephone interview, also warned that unless the Indigenous People of Biafra are allowed to become a sovereign nation on or before December 31, 2015, there would be dire consequences.

Unfolding plans for the memorial, the director said, “For the very first time, in over 42 years, we are going to remember the over 3. 6 million  people that Nigeria killed with the help of the British.”

We are the only people that failed to remember those that died, until our dear brother, Godswill Akpabio did something about it, and we commend him.

“The reason why he did it is because he listens to Radio Biafra. Every sensible person listens to Radio Biafra. In fact, most people get what is happening all over the world from Radio Biafra, not from any other source. So, on the 30th of May 2014, everywhere in the world, starting from Japan in the East 12 noon, as soon as the sun is directly overhead, we shall hold a two minutes silence for our fallen people. As the sun is hitting midday on every time zone across the length and breadth of this earth, we shall remember them. We want to tell the world that we have presence on every time zone in the world”.

He also gave an insight on the strength of the media organisation, “Radio Biafra is the mouth piece of the Indigenous People of Biafra. We are in over 88 countries around the world, and that is where we derive our strength and formidability from. It’s the mouth piece for every Biafran in the world. If you are a Biafran, Radio Biafra is your radio”.

He also lambasted the leader of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra( MASSOB), Chief Ralph Uwazurike, whom he described as a traitor used by enemies of Biafra to ensure that the struggle is frustrated, adding that the man has betrayed those who believed in him and goes about collecting hand-outs from politicians.


Commentary

Now, Uwazuruike has officially left the struggle. Read through his comments here.

By: Restore Biafra On 5/07/2014

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Nigeria is hiding from its past.

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

On the margins of my happy childhood, there was a shadow: the Biafran war. I was born seven years after it ended, and did not experience any material deprivations—I had a bicycle, dolls, books—but my family was scarred by it. In 1967, after massacres in northern Nigeria that targeted southeastern Igbo people, the southeast seceded and formed an independent nation called Biafra. Nigeria went to war to prevent the secession. By the time that Biafra was defeated, in 1970, at least a million people were dead, including my grandfathers—proud, titled Igbo men who were buried in the unmarked graves of refugee camps. My parents lost other relatives, and everything they owned. A generation was robbed of its innocence. The war was the seminal event in Nigeria’s modern history, but I learned little about it in school. “Biafra” was wrapped in mystery. At home, my parents spoke of it rarely and obliquely; I heard many stories about my grandfathers’ wisdom and humor, but few stories about how they had died.

I became haunted by history. I spent years researching and writing “Half of a Yellow Sun,” a novel about human relationships during the war, centered on a young, privileged woman and her professor lover. It was a deeply personal project based on interviews with family members who were generous enough to mine their pain, yet I knew that it would, for many Nigerians of my generation, be as much history as literature. In 2006, my publisher and I were braced for the Nigerian publication, unsure of how it would be received. We were pleasantly surprised: “Half of a Yellow Sun” became one of the best-selling Nigerian novels published in the past fifty years. It cut across different ethnic groups, started conversations, served as a catalyst for previously untold stories. I was heartened to hear from readers whose families had survived Biafra and those whose families had been on the Nigerian side.

But the Biafran war is still wrapped in a formal silence. There are no major memorials, and it is hardly taught in schools. This week, Nigerian government censors delayed the release of the film adaptation of “Half of a Yellow Sun” because, according to them, it might incite violence in the country; at issue in particular is a scene based on a historically documented massacre at a northern Nigerian airport. It is now up to the State Security Service to make a decision. The distributors, keen to release the film before it is engulfed in piracy, are hoping that the final arbiters of Nigerian security will approve its release. I find this absurd—security operatives, uniformed and alert, gathered in a room watching a romantic film—but the censors’ action is more disappointing than surprising, because it is part of a larger Nigerian political culture that is steeped in denial, in looking away.

Partly the result of an unexamined past and partly of the trauma of years of military dictatorship, a sustained and often unnecessary sense of secrecy is the norm in Nigerian public life. We talk often of the “sensitivity” of issues as a justification for a lack of transparency. Conspiracy theories thrive. Soldiers are hostile to video cameras in public. Officials who were yesterday known as thieves are widely celebrated today. It is not unusual to hear Nigerians speak of “moving forward,” as though it might be possible merely to wish away the unpleasant past.

The censors’ action is a knee-jerk political response, yet there is a sense in which it is not entirely unreasonable. Nigeria is on edge, with upcoming elections that will be fiercely contested, religion and ethnicity increasingly politicized, and Boko Haram committing mass murders and abductions. In a political culture already averse to openness, this might seem a particularly appropriate time for censorship.

But we cannot hide from our history. Many of Nigeria’s present problems are, arguably, consequences of an ahistorical culture. As a child, I sometimes found rusted bullets in our garden, reminders of how recent the war had been. My parents are still unable to talk in detail about certain war experiences. The past is present, and we are better off acknowledging it and, hopefully, learning from it.

It is sadly easy, in light of the censors’ action, to overlook the aesthetic success of the film. Its real triumph is not in its politics but in its art. The war is the background to the complicated romance of characters played by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Thandie Newton, both of whom give the most complex performances of their careers. As a flawed professor, Ejiofor is finally freed from the nobility that was central, and limiting, to his past major roles. Here, his range is breathtaking. Newton brings a nuanced blend of strength and vulnerability to a character for whom she eschews the vanity of a beautiful movie star. On the screen, their chemistry breathes. Cinema, Susan Sontag once wrote, began in wonder, the wonder that reality can be transcribed with such immediacy. Director Biyi Bandele’s eye is awash with magic, but also with a kind of nostalgia, a muted love, a looking back at a country to which this film is both a love letter and a rebuke.

Nigerians are sophisticated consumers of culture and, had the censorship board not politicized the film by delaying its release, I suspect that few people would have objected to it at all.

SOURCE

By: Restore Biafra On 5/02/2014

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