Community and Police worried as gunmen kidnap 4 persons at funeral near Nigeria’s oil city of Port Harcourt; President Jonathan’s government issue new threat to deal with MEND, kidnappers….
Special to USAfricaonline.com , CLASSmagazine (Houston), Nigeria360 e-group and USAfrica blog and PhotoWorks.TV
By Chido Nwangwu.
USAfrica, November 14, 2010: The menace of kidnapping in Nigeria continues to take new twists of criminal and abominable levels; and some of those have been reported here on USAfricaonline.com and our various blogs.
The new low is the incident almost 26 hours ago where a group of gunmen violently entered and kidnapped four individuals at a family’s event for a burial wake keeping or burial vigil (as it is popularly known in Nigeria) in the small town of Ihuaba (near the the oil-rich city of Port Harcourt in Rivers State).
According to one of the Nigerian police spokespersons Akin Fakorede who made a statement a few minutes ago, today, Sunday November 14, 2010: “The incident occurred at 01:00 am on Saturday in Ihuaba community (outside Port Harcourt, capital of southern Rivers State) during a vigil for a burial. The gunmen shot sporadically and made away with four men…. Police have launched a manhunt for the kidnappers.”
The government of President Goodluck Jonathan has been criticized for inadequately the brazen acts of violence and kidnappings in some key states of Nigeria especially in his local, primary base, the Niger Delta. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has openly taken credit for bombings and some kidnappings and its leaders and facilitators have been welcomed in the office of President Jonathan in Abuja, a few days after persons affiliated with MEND claimed responsibility for the October 1 deadly bombings during the 50th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence. A majority of local and international analysts and civic leaders criticized Jonathan for excusing and absolving MEND for the acts long before any investigations were made.
To his government’s credit, it intervened in the kidnapping mess in Aba in Abia State through heavy use of the army and the Police, and brought some calm to the evident 20-something months evident incapacities of the Abia Governor Theodore Orji and Abia local operatives on the problem. See related reports and hundreds of insights on USAfricaonline.com and the leading pan-Igbo e-group, IgboEvents.
But only a few days ago, the armed forces of Nigeria which has been in a back-n-forth with MEND/kidnappers/agitators/environmentalists/etc issued one of its many strong statements threatening to bring order and the weight of the law to those who make trouble and kidnappings.
Jonathan’s recently appointed chief of defence staff, Air Marshal Oluseyi Petiri issued a statement arguing that MEND’s camps set and moved around the creeks of the Niger Delta and the operations of other sub-grougroups camps “will no longer be tolerated…. These people are criminals and will be treated as such.”
Based on USAfrica analyses of the previous rhetorics and actions of government, reflecting the key connections, pressure groups and contacts of MEND reaching the Jonathan presidency, it is easier said than done. Special report and context by Chido Nwangwu, Founder & Publisher of the first U.S-based, African-owned newspaper website on the internet, www.USAfricaonline.com, Nigeria360, and about 10 other blogs.
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Related insight: Eight lessons of the 1994 Rwanda Genocide. By Chido Nwangwu, Publisher of USAfrica multimedia networks, Houston. https://usafricaonline.com/2009/11/01/chido-8lessons-rwanda-genocide/
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VIDEO of the CNN International broadcast/profile of USAfrica and CLASSmagazine Publisher Dr. Chido Nwangwu. http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2010/07/29/mpa.african.media.bk.a.cnn
President Obama, hate-mongers and mob cons. By Chido Nwangwu
https://usafricaonline.com/president-obama-hate-mongers-and-mob-cons-by-chido-nwangwu/
Obama’s Africa agenda, our business and democracy. By Chido Nwangwu, Publisher of USAfricaonline.com, USAfrica The Newspaper, Houston.
Why is usafricaonline.com trudging the clichéd path of stigma journalism made infamous by lazy Western journalists who would rather hang out at Abuja’s Hilton lobby, from where they file uneducated reports from Nigeria, as the spirit of duty-free cognac moves them, than develop serious capacity for fresh news perspectives? Some of us are sick of news perpetually stereotyping the Nigerian setting as goryland; the faint thought that a news organization of Africans reporting on Africa would for a change focus on our development strides is evaporating. There are security challenges in Port Harcourt, just as they have in San Francisco, Milan, London, Paris and elsewhere. But new model schools and health centres are also springing up in Port Harcourt; new towns and layouts are covering new horizons, more young people are getting scholarships to study locally and abroad and the city is no more insecure for foreign investors than Chicago or New York . . .
What a shame?
As human beings, one of the greatest gift from God which separates us from animals is conscience….we lose that unique and prized quality of conscience when we exhibit acts such as kidnapping people at funerals!