WELCOME TO THE BURNING ROCKS

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

3 minutes of silence for Leke Akande, Tola Odusola, and Ibukun Oluwatosin Akinjogbin



Kindly if you are reading this, please observe 3-minutes of silence for Leke Akande, 23years old; Tola Odusola, 20years old; and Ibukun Oluwatosin Akinjogbin, 23years old……..
The above are three members of the National Youth Service Corps, who were until their death serving in Pankshin, Jos central, in Plateau State. They lost their lives, were murdered in the recent crisis in Jos.
Questions to ask: q1) were they mere casualties of an uproar or were the murders planned? q2) we they killed because of their religious convictions? q3) were they killed out of inter tribal sentiments or because they failed to show their support for a particular political party.
We can ask so many questions but none of the answers we may find will bring back the dead.
According to various media reports, members of the All Nigerian Peoples’ Party, who, suspecting they were about to lose the elections to the dominant party in the state, the Peoples’ Democratic Party, took to the streets in protest, especially as they claimed that the election was being manipulated in the favour of the PDP candidate.
The manner in which the protest took place cannot, however, be said to be mere protest. With the huge number of people involved in the act of protest and the kind of weapons of mass destruction used to wreak havoc, it can be concluded that the riot was pre-planned, probably an act of defense on the part of ANPP who must have believed that with the rigging tendencies PDP was largely known for, they would be dealt an unfair hand in the election.
It had to be, for even if a protest was to be staged against electoral injustice, it needed not be against innocent citizens who probably did not even vote in the elections. Of course, there were killings and reprisal killings and that generating into a larger crisis, soon assumed a religious dimension.
Words are not enough to express the sadness felt when a life is lost. The positions occupied by the above promising Nigerians, in their respective families can not be replaced. Money will not replace them. Time will not replace them. Nothing will. I pray that God Almighty will bring succour and comfort the the parents, brothers, sisters and family members of the deceased.
May their gentle souls rest in Perfect Peace.
‘My son’s killing in Jos is Satanic’
Three young men on the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme in Jos were on Friday morning killed in the rampage that broke out over the council polls. They were among the hundreds killed in the crises. Joke Kujenya spoke with family members of one of the victims, Ibukun Akinjogbin
The gloom that pervaded the Lagos State Low Cost Housing Estate, Meiran, Ojokoro, Lagos, residence of Mr. and Mrs. Akintola Tokunbo Akinjogbin, yesterday can be felt with touch. The woman, emotionally broken, laid on the bed while female members of her family and friends sat around to share in her grief. Her eyes bore the image of a woman that is wearied from shedding excessively painful tears.
The second son of the family, young Mr. Ibukun Oluwatosin Akinjogbin, 23, was one of the fifty people whose lives were brought to a cruel end by the rampaging voters in Jos on Friday morning. He was killed along with his nephew, Mr. Leke Akande, 23, and a friend, Mr. Tola Odusola, 20, all youth corps members, in the home of Ibukun’s uncle, Mr. Bisi Akinjogbin, an Abuja-based businessman. The hatchet men, who broke down the high gates and stormed the residence along Katako Junction by 7Up depot in Jos about 9.15am on Friday morning; caught down the three young men in the presence of Mrs. Doyin Akinjogbin, the uncle’s wife while her daughters also watched in horror.
Mrs. Doyin Akinjogbin is already placed under sedation as a result of the shock she suffered from witnessing the killings of the young men in her home.
The three men were among the scores of youths doing their one year mandatory youth service scheme in Pankshin, Jos central, in Plateau State, till they were killed.
Riot had broken out in Jos on Thursday, due to attempted manipulations with the results of the local government polls. The election was said to have been widely won by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), candidate.
Mr. Akintola Akinjogbin, who seemed to be taking the incidence with calmness, said the killing of his son is “barbaric, satanic and uncalled for.”
One of the three youth corps members, Ibukun Oluwatosin Akinjogbin, a 2001 to 2003 Quantity Surveyor student from the Obafemi Awolowo (OAU), Ife, was said to have been in contact with his family on phone up till the last minute that life was ebbed out of him.
According to the father while narrating the gory ordeal, Ibukun was about coming to Lagos when the incident caught up with him without prior warning. He said prior to that day, the late young Akinjogbin had finalised plans to visit Lagos after a while.
He said: “My son had reported for the NYSC on August 26, 2008. We were in constant touch with him because mine is a very closely knit family. He would have actually returned to Lagos on Thursday but could not because it was rather late. So, I called him around 6. 20a.m on Friday morning and he said he was on his way to the park. Then later, he called that he was going back to his uncle’s home because the riot going on in Jos was quite heated. I said it was a good decision. So, he ran back into the house and we remained in touch.
“From that time, there were several calls and it was as if he was giving us situational reports. Then, his elder brother, Kayode Akinjogbin, an Investment Analyst with Lead Capital in Lagos, took over from me and kept monitoring his brother.”
Speaking, Kayode said Ibukun started asking for prayers. “Please start praying for us’’; he had begged. “They are moving towards our side of the town. In fact, they seem to be getting close to our gate. Please pray Bro. Kayode. They are outside our house now. I don’t know why they came to us but they are here,” Ibukun was reported to have said.
“Now, our gates are down,” were the last direct words the young man could say to me, said Kayode. “Then I started hearing him beg them. Later there seemed to be some struggles but my younger brother was still pleading. Then, I heard cries and I was afraid while at the same time shouting his name. I heard the voices of women screaming and praying to God for help. For some time, everything seemed to get silent but by this time, I was almost running crazy when my colleagues in the office grabbed my phone from me to calm me down.
“A few minutes later, after I had regained my composure, I picked my phone to call my younger brother. But it was a Hausa man that replied me. And he said in Hausa tone and seemed to be mocking at the same time: ‘Ya broad, im dey die, im det die…hHa ha, now, im don die’. And at that point, the phone went dead. And that was when I blacked out too,” Kayode said.
Akinjogbin senior said his son had come to the Uncle’s house because of the visit to Lagos. “The uncle is like their father over there. They all go to his house whenever there is need. Ibukun served as a Works Officer with the Pankshin Local Government council because he was a Quantity Surveyor. But what can I do now than to throw my hands up to God and accept my fate?
“My concern however is why the Nigerian government should subject our children to death on annual basis? Every year, Youth Corpers die in their numbers. The government should please scrap this programme. Parents would have laboured to educate their children and in the process of doing the youth service, those children will die. This is very unfair,” Akinjogbin said.
“Ibukun was a core gentleman. He was very quiet and easy-going. Everyone that ever dealt with him knew that. And how can a people kill such a young man? Nigeria is one country and we should all learn to accommodate one another regardless of religious differences. As a matter of fact, how does a political riot change to religious fight? This is why government must tame these people up North. They can’t just be killing innocent people and go scot-free all the time. If they have been dealt with in time past, they wouldn’t have done it again. For me, the NYSC stuff is a bad taste that has left a traumatic mark in my family. I just pray God to grant my wife the grace to bear the incident with calm equanimity.
Kayode also described late Ibukun as a promising, enterprising and diligent and gentle young man that everybody said something good about in his life time. “Rather than brawl, Ibukun will usually hold his peace over any issue. Sadly now, he has been caught off in his prime with his hopes and aspirations all gone with him.”
In another instance, a young youth corps member, Mr. Gesham Jagboro, 26, a graduate of Geology from the Federal University of Technology, Akura (FUTA), was reported dead in an automobile accident in Lokoja, while returning from Jos where they had gone to attend a Christian conference, last weekend. According to family members, young Jagboro was among the few corps members chosen by his team of corps members to represent them at the programme.
Mr. Akinjogbin said the charred remains of his son’s body would be brought to Lagos on Monday so that he can be given due burial.

Monday, March 8, 2010

Where is LOVE?









Nigeria cracks down after attacks

The bodies of the dead lined dusty streets in three villages south of the regional capital of Jos. At least 200 bodies had been counted by Sunday afternoon. However, on Monday Dan Manjang, an adviser to the Plateau State government, put the death toll at 500. "We have been able to make 95 arrests but at the same time over 500 people have been killed in this heinous act," he said.

The bodies of children tangled with each other in a local morgue, including a diaper-clad toddler. Another young victim appeared to have been scalped, while others had severed hands and feet. One woman victim in the morgue appeared to have been stripped below the waist, but later covered by a strip of black cloth.

Jos has been under a dusk-til-dawn curfew enforced by the military since January's religious-based violence. It was not clear how the attackers managed to elude the military curfew early Sunday.
Nigerian authorities have arrested nearly a hundred people in connection with attacks near the central city of Jos that killed more than 500 people.
Police and soldiers surrounded the village of Dogo Nahawa, about 15km south of Jos, as survivors buried the dead in mass graves on Monday.
Residents said herders from nearby hills attacked their village at about 3am (02:00GMT) on Sunday, shooting into the air before using machetes to cut down those who came out of their homes.
At least two other villages nearby were also targeted in an area close to where sectarian clashes killed hundreds of people in January.

Al Jazeera correspondent quoted police as saying that the attackers were Muslim Hausa-Fulani herders while the victims were mainly Christians from the Borom community.
But she added that while many people would view the violence in a religious context, people she had spoken to said the violence was about indigenous groups, who are mainly Christian, and migrants and settlers, mainly from the Hausa-speaking Muslim north, competing for access to resources.
The latest violence in the centre of Africa's most populous nation comes at a time of uncertainty for the country, with Goodluck Jonathan, the acting president, trying to assert his authority while Umaru Yar'Adua, the president, remains too sick to govern.
The situation is a test of Jonathan's ability to show that he has the power to deploy the police and army as commander-in-chief, and many people will be watching to see how he deals with the situation, our correspondent said.
In a statement after Sunday's attack, Jonathan's office said he had "directed that the security services undertake strategic initiatives to confront and defeat these roving bands of killers".
Mohammed Lerama, a police spokesman, said the official death toll stood at 55 so far, but Gregory Yenlong, Plateau State's Commissioner for Information, said: We are estimating 500 people killed but I think it should be a little bit above that."
Yenlong added that "soldiers are patrolling and everywhere remains calm", but security officials have been criticised for failing to prevent another outburst of violence just weeks after hundreds died in Muslim-Christian clashes.
The violence in the three, mostly Christian, villages on Sunday appeared to be reprisal attacks following the January unrest in Jos when most of the victims were Muslims, Robin Waubo, a Red Cross spokesman, said.

Washington, D.C. - International Christian Concern (ICC) has received additional details on attacks by Islamic extremists against Christians and churches in Maiduguri, Nigeria. ICC first reported this story on July 29 ("Islamic Extremists Kill Pastor, Raze Churches in Nigeria"). We have now learned that the Islamists killed 12 Christians, including three pastors, and razed twenty churches.

Sabo Yakubu, pastor of a Church of Christ congregation in Nigeria, Rev. Sylvester O. Akpan, pastor with National Evangelical Mission, and Rev. George Orji, pastor with Good News of Christ Church, were killed by members of an Islamic extremist group known as Boko Haram (which means "education is prohibited"). The group opposes Western education and fights to impose Sharia law throughout Nigeria, including areas that are majority Christian.

The Islamists also razed churches including: Deeper Life Bible Church, St Joseph's Catholic Church, St. Michael's Catholic Church, Church of the Brethren, Church of Christ in Nigeria, the National Evangelical Mission, Life Church, the Charismatic Revival Ministries Watchman (Lord's Chosen), Elijah Apostolic Church, the Good News of Christ Church, and the Celestial Church of Christ.

"Mohammed Yusuf, the Islamic sect leader, who initially said their targets were government property and security agencies, later changed and started setting ablaze churches and killing pastors who had nothing to do with their activities," said Rev. Yuguda Zubagai Ndurvuwa in a statement quoted by the Guardian. Rev. Ndurvuwa is the chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria.

Boko Haram started the attacks on July 26 in Bauchi state. The violence later spread to the northern Nigerian states of Borno, Kano, and Yobe. Seven hundred people including police, Islamic militants, and civilians, were killed, and twenty church buildings worth an estimated $966,962 were demolished.

Nigerian security officers have captured or killed some leading members of the group including Mohammed Yusuf, the group's leader, who was killed while in police custody. But the group, which styled itself after Afghanistan's Taliban, is still believed to have over half a million followers in Nigeria.