Obasanjo’s obsession with Biafra versus facts of history
By Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, usafricaonline.com | Published May 23, 2001
In the broader Nigerian political calculations therefore, Obasanjo’s politics of anti-Igbo virulence is predicated on constructing an anti-Igbo alliance (as was done against Biafra) but he must increasingly find it very depressing that this strategy doesn’t seem to be working. The historical circumstances that help to create or enhance the creation of alliances or coalitions for a specific political project are ever in a state of flux, ensuring, thankfully, that they are not recreated subsequently as some mathematical construct. So, despite the vehemence of Obasanjo’s anti-Igbo tirades in Yenegoa, the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People reaffirmed its determination to control their resources themselves in a statement it issued after: ‘Resource control is an inalienable right. The human right to development also implies the full realisation of the very right of people to self determination which includes the exercise of their inalienable right to full sovereignty over all their natural wealth and resources.’
Army ‘genocide’ says Nigerian speaker
By BBC | Published 15 November, 2001
One of Nigeria’s most senior politicians has strongly condemned the killing last month of more than 200 unarmed civilians in central Benue state by soldiers. After a visit with a parliamentary group to the destroyed towns and villages, the speaker of the House of Assembly, Ghalin Na’Abba, described the attacks as an act of near genocide. President Olusegun Obasanjo has justified the army action as part of a peace-keeping operation to deal with the conflict between the Tiv and the Jukun peoples of the area and rejected calls for the soldiers responsible to be punished.
Nigeria massacres blamed on soldiers
By BBC | Published 24 October, 2001
Eyewitnesses earlier spoke of at least 200 people being summarily executed in the villages of Anyiin, Gbeji, Zaki-Bian and Vaase, on the border between Benue and Taraba states. The regional government official, who spoke to the French news agency AFP, said soldiers had gone on the rampage to avenge the killing of 19 comrades by tribesmen on 12 October. “Over 100 people have been killed since Monday evening,” he said.
Nigerian Soldiers Carry Out Massacres
By WSWS | Published 27 October 2001
This week hundreds of villagers in Nigeria have been massacred by the army. In four ethnic-Tiv villages in Benue, soldiers rounded up and killed over 200 unarmed civilians. Zaki Biam, a town of about 20,000 people, was completely destroyed. According to eyewitnesses, the military team came in eight armoured cars. They came to Anyiin first where they were said to have summoned all the villagers to Gbeji public square, claiming that they had an urgent message for them.
Protest against Afghan bombings sparks ethnic conflict in Nigeria
By WSWS | Published 20 October 2001
Dozens of people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes last weekend between gangs of Muslim and Christian youths in Kano, the main city in northern Nigeria. Accurate figures of those killed and injured are not available but community leaders put the number dead at over 200. The Nigerian Red Cross said it was “safe and reliable to quote a figure of over 100”. The Nigerian authorities have sought to play down the conflict and official police figures state that only 18 were killed. According to the Red Cross 18,000 people, most of them non-Muslim have been displaced by the fighting and 300 people injured.
- Northern Nigeria hit by floods
- By WSWS
Published 5 October 2001
This is not the first time that flooding of this kind has happened. In fact, it has become an almost annual occurrence. In 1988, flooding in Kano State displaced more than 300,000 people. In 1999 and last year, more than 200,000 people were displaced by flooding in Niger State, where it is believed that about a million people living in the low-lying plains of the Niger River are at risk.
- What Ails the American Economy?
-
By Kevin Phillips, Barry Gewen
28 Feb 2009
Even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.
- What Ails the American Economy?
-
By Kevin Phillips, Barry Gewen
28 Feb 2009
Even if his pessimism doesn’t seem wholly warranted, a sense of foreboding surely is, which is why his warnings have to be taken seriously. Mr. Phillips writes that the inventors and marketers of the new financial instruments didn’t entirely understand them. An executive of Fidelity International says a panicky feeling has set in on Wall Street because no one knows where the risks really are. The finance minister of France observes that investments may have reached such a level of complexity that no one can assess them. And Charles R. Morris, in his own gloomy book, “The Trillion Dollar Meltdown,” reports that even Citigroup’s chief financial officer “did not know how to value his holdings.