Boko Haram Peace Moves

It is now an open news, that Boko Haram handlers are desperately seeking peace deals with the Federal government. The big question is, what would be the terms of such a deal? Obviously, the least BH could ask for, even if it drops its demand that we all must be their slaves, would be that their prisoners be released. With all the efforts to compare the situation with the amnesty programme in the Niger Delta, it won’t be any surprise if a hefty financial demand is also brought into the bargain.

Now that would be utterly suicidal for any sensible government. If anybody thinks Christians’ refusal to be provoked into reprisals over the scores of lives wickedly terminated in the name of Allah, means the deaths were not painful and could be glossed over in order to buy supposed peace, that fellow will be making a grave mistake.

Though refraining from fighting evil with evil, Christians are certainly fighting – and are winning! With our prayers, severely compromised state machinery is working again; and against all odds, BH is fizzling out. The call for “peace” from BH is nothing but a confirmation of the desperate strait it is in. All it seeks is a breather so it can go re-gather steam. It is obvious that the insurrection is designed to last till the next presidential election in 2015!

To summarise our position: there is nothing wrong with talking peace with BH. Whether the insurrection is crushed on the field or on the table, it makes no difference – as long as the snake loses its head. What will never be accepted is anyone trying to ask that justice not be applied to the terrorists apprehended. Anyone who tries to test that ground will find the full weight of the Force that is humiliating BH turned against his personal life and family. Korah and company (Num 16 ), Sennacherib (2 Chr 32:21) and Herod (Acts 12:21-24 ) are examples of people who have tasted what we are describing here!

Hypocrisy of the Hijab jihad

We find the unabashed self-delusory hypocrisy involved in the Hijab jihad really amazing. It’s a common sight, for instance on University Campuses in the South West, seeing ladies in hijab asking for rides by the roadside – even from unknown male motorists with no one else with them in the car. Does not the same religion put equal weight on wearing hijab as never being alone with a non-family member of the opposite sex? And as for the school situation, would we not have to resort to segregating the classroom into males and females, not only for pupils but teachers as well? Remember Christianah Oluwaseesin was killed by her students in March 2007 in Gombe state for lacking proper Islam-mandated classroom etiquette. She “foolishly” seized (thereby touching!) a bag containing the Quoran from a pupil while invigilating an IRS exam! Read that horrible story again in Vol 10 No 2 ). If Muslims in the South West are reviving the call for the hijab in public schools, (which they unsuccessfully tried at University Medical schools etc in the past), they should be prepared to go the whole hog. Such Hijab-clad faithfuls should not be found alone in the company of non-family males – except of course they are prepared for the conditions for exemptions. Yes, there are conditions for exemptions. Back in May 2007, Dr. Izzat Atiya, head of Al Azhar University's Department of Hadith in Egypt, issued a fatwa, saying that female workers should "breastfeed" their male co-workers in order to work in each other's company. According to the BBC: He said that if a woman fed a male colleague "directly from her breast" at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be allowed to be alone together at work. "Breast feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage," he ruled. "A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breastfed." (www.meforum.org/3211/islamic-adult-breastfeeding-fatwas). In a later version (year 2010), high-ranking Saudi, Sheikh Abdul Mohsin al-Abaican issued another fatwa relaxing the requirement: the male co-worker does not necessarily have to suck directly from the breast, but can drink the milk served in a cup. (http://www.raymondibrahim.com/7570/fatwa-men-drink-breast-milk). As late as April 2012, the appropriateness of men drinking women’s breastmilk to confer on them the license to see their supposedly seductive hairs is still being affirmed in the Islamic world. (http://www.meforum.org/3211/islamic-adult-breastfeeding-fatwas)

Hijab seeks headway in Osun State, SW Nigeria

Following well-established patterns and precedents, played out in several countries all over the world, Islamists in South West Nigeria feel sufficiently empowered to make a powerful push to enforcing the Islamic dressing code in public schools in the state. This is no spurious allegation by any political party or state security for that matter. The crudely concocted plan is right in public domain. Championed by an Islamic faithful, Professor Is-haq Akintola of the Lagos State University, the first phase is right on course. The plan is simple, brazen, and makes no pretensions to finesse. Is-haq’s essay on his blog, titled Letter to Yoruba governors (http://drishaqakintola.blogspot.com/2012/04/hijab-letter-to-yoruba-governors.html) would provide a pseudo-intellectual basis for subsequent action by the Osun state governor – who is clearly the major addressee of the essay. “Your Excellencies, Ogbeni, Omoluabi, As-Salaam Alaykum” the article had began. The two additional titles used are exclusive titles adopted by Governor Aregbesola; and he is mentioned later in the body of the essay as having being previously involved on the subject matter. In any case, among his peers, Governor Aregbesola is easily the undisputed Sharia Champion in the region. The article, as is common with militant Islamism, was replete with thinly-veiled threats. “Signals coming from certain recent incidents in the region” are threatening the long-standing peace,” Is-haq warned. He seemed oblivious to the fact that it is he and his fellow Islamic activists that are disturbing the status quo with their insistence that school uniforms should no longer be uniform in the state. Rather, Muslim-labelled pupils must have their separate uniforms and presumably as many other religions or sects as wish could have theirs as well. One wonders what this has got to do with providing qualitative education! For good measure, Prof Is-haq threatened that the matter may result in “extremists from outside” the region capitalizing on it to foment trouble – a veiled reference to Boko Haram! (He was to mention BH directly by name later in the article). The professor of Islamic studies could not really articulate a basis to explain why Muslims have suddenly woken up to realize that the standard dressing by female students in public schools is “fit only for night clubs” and would certainly be the precursors for “HIV and AIDS, early pregnancy, juvenile delinquency, etc”. His attempt to refer to history was very clumsy. He seems to be saying that Muslim school children used to wear the hijab before the British colonialists “forcefully reversed this trend”. But that of course would not make any sense seeing there were no uniform-donning public schools before the advent of British missionaries (not the colonialists who were mainly interested in trade). He therefore concocted a very unreasonable and incredible scenario: that supposedly Christian teachers were beating up Muslim “students who wear the hijab outside the school premises”. He particularly referred to Iwo as the site of one such altercations. It would have been crazy enough for any teacher to beat up a female student on the streets simply because she was dressed in Islamic garb; it would be doubly crazy to do so in Iwo, the base of the now nationally famous TAWUNIL organization, and where it is a common street-sight, seeing female folks compelled to put on the hijab and flowing gowns irrespective of weather conditions – night and day. Ominously, Is-haq warned that despite the supposed “skilled diplomacy and personal involvement of the state governor to douse tensions” at Iwo, “Yet the last may not have been heard of the (matter)”. The big question is why this sudden life-and-death clamour for an Islamic uniform in public schools? (It is already mandatory in private Islamic schools in the state, and students from Christian homes who choose Islamic private schools for whatever reason are required to be likewise attired. In the Northern public schools which Prof Is-haq also referred to – it is mandatory that all students, whatever their religious affiliation, be uniformly attired in the Islamic garbs). Prof Is-haq himself provided some of the answers when he wrote: “What is in a school uniform? Muslims strongly suspect that a cut-throat game of numbers lies behind the opposition of Christians to Muslim demand for use of hijab in schools.” Cut-throat game of numbers. Now that’s a game Islamic activists are obsessed with. In fact, as we pointed out in a recent edition of CA! (Vol 14 No 6), that is precisely why accurate national census with religious affiliations indicated has proved impossible in Nigeria. Muslims always oppose and frustrate any measure to get accurate numbers, so they can go on quoting their self-deluding 50:50 figure as the Christian:Muslim ratio in Nigeria. In any case Christians know they can never use school uniform to reflect the number of people who have committed their lives unto the Lord Jesus. ”The cloak does not make the monk” it is said. It is Muslims that are obsessed with the idea. And that’s why, for instance, any Muslim who attains to any high public office is soon visited by the local Ummah and compelled to begin to use some Islamic names – so as to facilitate counting for their number game. Even more importantly, based on happenings elsewhere in the world, it is clear that the hijab is one effective way of forcefully bringing Muslim girls under control. For instance, in London’s Tower Hamlet, the Taliban regularly issues death threats to women who refuse to wear the Hijab. (see http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org); and in the Minya province of Egypt , Salafis are currently threatening to kidnap any girl (Christian or otherwise) found not wearing the hijab (http://www.copts-united.com/article.php?I=758&A=33765). Terror-stricken parents are reportedly keeping their daughters indoors, thereby missing school! Introduction of the hijab will be a direct way of requiring Muslim girls to declare their allegiance to Islam - and it is well known how Islam treats its apostates. As a matter of well-established doctrine and well-demonstrated practice, a Muslim who decides to stop being one is regarded as simply not fit to continue to live! Governor Aregbesola is currently on the spot for a number of allegations. While some he has refuted – such as his trying to substitute state security personnel with personal Islamic guards from the TAWUNIL organization (he says he is only supplementing with the guards); others his fans cheerfully admit as true – such as his openly and rancorously threatening to remove the governor of another state from office for the gross “sin” of refusing to change political affiliations. Hardly Omoluabi, to say the least! (see details in www.osundefender.org/?p=27647 for instance). Our candid advice will be that the governor squarely face the business of governance to justify and sustain the considerable goodwill he still enjoys from the state’s citizenry. In the meantime, Governor Aregbesola seems to be going ahead full-steam with the Islamic garb agenda. For now, he has decided that all public school students should wear the same uniform all over the state – and the state would design and provide the uniforms - with hijabs included, naturally!. (http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2012/apr/21/national-21-04-2011-08.html). Hence if this idea is eventually implemented, students will no longer be identifiable as students of particular schools (e.g. during school debates or sporting events), but rather as Muslim students versus Christian/animist/etc students. Quite sickening.

Chip lets smartphones see through walls, clothes

Researchers at the University of Texas, Dallas have designed a chip that could give smartphones the ability to see through walls, clothes or other objects. This was achieved when the team led by Prof Kenneth O tuned a small, inexpensive microchip to discern a "terahertz" band of the electromagnetic spectrum. All objects emit radiation spanning a wide band in the electromagnetic spectrum. Radiation with frequencies in the terahertz frequency range (between microwave and infrared) have the peculiar ability to pass through clothing, paper, cardboard, wood, masonry, plastic and ceramics. It can also penetrate fog and clouds, but not metal or water. However, their low intensity makes it difficult to detect them, compared with the radiation within the visible range, for instance, which can be detected by our eyes. What Prof O and his team have done is to devise an inexpensive microhip made using Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (CMOS) technology to detect radiation within the terahertz band of the electromagnetic spectrum. T-hertz signals coming from objects ordinarily hidden from view can be detected by the chip and they can be further processed into an image that would be displayed on the screen of the phone or similar device. "We've created approaches that open a previously untapped portion of the electromagnetic spectrum for consumer use," Professor O said, "There are all kinds of things you could be able to do that we just haven't yet thought about." (see http://news.yahoo.com/chip-lets-smartphones-see-walls-clothes-203036226.html)

Meanwhile, Some Psychiatrists are set to re-brand Paedophilia.

A group of psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, going by the name B4U-Act says it's time to change the way society views paedophiles - people who have sexual attractions to children. To achieve this end, the organization is lobbying for changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, - the guideline of standards on mental health put together by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). That was exactly how homosexuality, which used to be listed in the DSM as a mental disorder got re-defined, some 40 years ago after intense lobby by gay advocates and activists (see CA! Vol 7 No 6 and also our previous article at http://nigeriaworld.com/articles/2006/feb/072.html) B4U-Act attempts to justify its call for a revised view of paedophilia on its website, arguing that: "Stigmatizing and stereotyping minor-attracted people inflames the fears of minor-attracted people, mental health professionals and the public, without contributing to an understanding of minor-attracted people or the issue of child sexual abuse," Critics warn of a slippery slope to a time when pedophilia is "just another lifestyle choice" that won't warrant criminal charges—and will leave young children at risk. "Absolutely," Dr. Judith Reisman, a visiting professor of law at Liberty School of Law said. "Oh, they're very clear about that. Their goal is to take all shame out of the lust for children." For now, the APA official position, last documented in 2003 is that: "An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act and this is never considered normal or socially acceptable behavior." Unfortunately, this position may not stand the test of time in the years to come seeing how so many NGOs are active on the field in the service of people bent on redefining human sexuality in these so-called emerging post-modern days. For instance in a recent development, a New York court has ruled that viewing child pornography on-line is no longer a crime in the United States (Yahoo, Slideshow, May 9, 2012) Read more: www.foxnews.com/health/2011/08/24/mental-health-group-looks-to-remove-stigma-from-pedophilia/#ixzz1uTf2cZlr

Historical trial with Catholic archdiocese begins – targeting those who hid pedophile priests

(CNN) – Opening arguments have begun in Philadelphia in the first case in which an official of a Roman Catholic archdiocese has been accused of protecting abusive priests by moving them from parish to parish. Monsignor William Lynn has pleaded not guilty to conspiracy and endangering the welfare of a child. Lynn served as the vicar of clergy in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia from 1992 to 2004, a position in which he was responsible for investigating reports that priests had sexually abused children – mostly boys. A grand jury alleged that he knowingly allowed priests accused of abuse to continue in the ministry in roles in which they had access to children, according to the district attorney’s office. Lynn “acted as if his job was to protect the abuser, never the abused,” a January 2011 grand jury report concluded. Read the rest of the story at the CNN blog here: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/25/philadelphia-priest-abuse-trial-to-draw-plenty-of-attention/ In a related development, the attitude of another abusive Catholic Priest has been described as “A slap in Face to victims”. Former Belgian bishop, 74-year old Roger Vangheluwe admitted he had abused one of his own nephews for 13 years, beginning from when the boy was just 5 years old. But he said the whole situation was no more than “a little piece of intimacy” and that he paid the boy tens of thousands of euros in support while it lasted. His sexual abuse of another nephew he said was very short. Despite all these, the Priest insisted he had no plans to abandon the priesthood, though he has resigned from the office of Bishop. He said he fully realized what he did was wrong, and often went to confession about it.

Now, National Security Adviser Names Boko Haram Sponsors

Despite pockets of desperate acts - suicidal shootings and bombings - still directed squarely at the Church of God in Northern Nigeria, there are rising hopes that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel might just be around the corner. That the Boko Haram matter is fast approaching its climax and eventual terminus became evident when the National Security Adviser (NSA) to the President, General Gabriel Owoeye Aziza recently went public on who are the major actors behind the entire wicked saga. Incredibly, some people are insisting that even the NSA does not know what he is saying! (http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2012/may/08/national-08-05-2012-0018.html). Here is a man who sees all the reports, is familiar with all the arrests made (even though no known prosecution still!), and eventually gets all the blame for security lapses in the country. Yet people who are unhappy with his prognosis wasted no time in trying to discredit him and reduce his very weighty statement to a mere peppersoup-joint analysis. Any wonder why nobody had shown any enthusiasm about names-naming prior to this time? The personalities involved have got well established machinery most people would prefer not to get entangled with. Starting from their minions in the “free press”, the battery of SAN lawyers under retainership, to the professional killer squads. But even the NSA stopped short of mentioning names. Northern politicians within the ruling Party who were aggrieved at the zoning policy of the Party are behind the bombs, he had said. And he really did not need to say anything more! In any case, as if we didn’t know! When at the peak of zoning or no zoning palaver within the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar said he would make the country ungovernable and that violent change had then become inevitable, we all heard and the records are still there. Strangely the press, depending on their individual sponsors and their peculiar agenda all now comment as if Abubakar never said those things. The next episode in the tragi-comedy show ongoing in Nigeria is Charles Orkar now saying it was actually the President, Goodluck Jonathan, that organized the independence day bombing. Jonathan was having his first major outing as an elected president and he had invited the whole world to come celebrate Nigeria’s Jubilee with him - even despite severe threats by terrorists who insisted he must cancel the celebrations lest they bomb. The whole point of the threats was clearly to portray Jonathan as a weakling not fit for the office, and would have been followed even by more and more threats. Jonathan’s defiance and the resulting explosions at the precincts of the Eagle Square are now history. It is then comical that Mr Orkar should imagine anyone dumb enough to buy the words of a notorious terror-monger suggesting Goodluck Jonathan as the mastermind behind the bombing. More is the tragedy that some national dailies (for example the PUNCH) had the guts to put this accusation as screaming front-page headlines, with all manner of silly analyses insinuating that the allegation might just be true! Even more interesting is Orkar’s deposition (from his cell in South Africa) that the President organized the bombing in order to push the blame on Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida (IBB). Now that is some real, raw names-naming! IBB was one of the figures who desperately appealed, to no avail, to the Zoning formula of the PDP in order to edge out Jonathan from the presidential race in 2011. He was conspicuously absent at the Independence Day Jubilee ceremonies when the bombs were booming. It seems evident to us that Orkar is merely attempting to jump the gun. Now, before names become publicly named in Nigeria, and before hard evidences are produced in Court in South Africa - all no doubt implicating IBB (as if we didn’t know!) and Raymond Dokpesi (IBB’s right hand man and chief campaign manager), the desperate game plan is to make the association in public and reduce the trial to a media one rather than a sober legal one. As a media mogul (owning the very influential African Independent TV and sister radio stations), Dokpesi and his principal would be far more comfortable with a hyped media trial than a real one that will certainly send them to jail. Just like ex-governor James Ibori was humiliated at the courts in London, IBB and cohorts know what await them in a fair trial, particularly in a foreign land. Taking the cue from the NSA, the various security organizations are now putting together, for the first time, a Watch List comprising names of major actors to be placed on active surveillance with the goal of proving their culpability in the Boko Haram killings. And so, with fingers crossed and trusting in the wisdom of God to catch the crafty in their own conceits, we await the next developments which will help Nigeria permanently put these security failures behind.  The good news then about the NSA’s disclosure is that it indicates that the heat must be really getting to the bad guys, hence these desperate pranks. What broad lessons can Christians learn from all these developments? We see a desperate devil troubling the world using all means possible and all agency available (Rev 12:12). We take courage playing our God-mandated patriotic duties and thus not only saving ourselves from corruption, despair and despondence, we actually rise to save others, shine and do exploits (Daniel 11:32). Thus we confirm the Scriptures: “and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness comprehends it not” (John 1:5). Shalom.