Cech would consider Arsenal and Liverpool moves

The Chelsea stalwart would consider a move to their London rivals and would also provide the perfect solution to Brendan Rodgers' goalkeeping conundrum, according to his agent

Liverpool have been encouraged to bid for Petr Cech while he would also consider a move to Arsenal, according to the Chelsea goalkeeper’s agent.

The experienced Czech international has been forced to play second fiddle to Thibaut Courtois since the Belgian was recalled from his loan spell at Atletico Madrid in the summer. 

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho insists Cech will not move in the upcoming January window, a view shared by the 32-year-old’s agent Viktor Kolar, who believes Arsenal missed the boat by not bidding in the summer. 

“It’s unlikely Petr will leave Chelsea in the January transfer window. The club and coach want to keep him to help win the title," Kolar told Czech newspaper Sport.

“I think Arsenal should have made an offer to him. I think Petr would be considering it.” 

Arsenal No.1 Wojciech Szczesny has endured an inconsistent season thus far, while summer signing David Ospina’s chances of making an impact have been hampered by injury.

Liverpool have also experienced problems in the goalkeeping department this term with Brendan Rodgers recently forced to axe Simon Mignolet after a string of poor performances and Kolar believes Cech would provide the perfect solution.

“Liverpool need to strengthen their position in goal and they know Petr will be available in the summer,” he added. 

“We’ve been in contact with Real Madrid, but they don’t need a keeper just now.”

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The former Manchester United manager was full of praise for the England international, while he urged fans to "watch United go" when Louis van Gaal's stars return from injury

Alex Ferguson believes Michael Carrick is the best midfielder in the Premier League and is convinced Manchester United will keep getting better as their injured stars return.Carrick saw his start to the season hampered by injuries, but he has returned to the first team and helped the Red Devils win six of their last seven games, with a 1-1 draw against Aston Villa the only blot on their copybook.

The 33-year-old has also been named as vice-captain to Wayne Rooney, underlining his importance to Louis van Gaal, and Ferguson is convinced he is the most effective midfielder in England.

"I think Michael's the best central midfielder in English football," the legendary former United manager told BT Sport. "I think he's the best English player in the game."

Carrick has been joined on the treatment table by the likes of Marco Rojo, Daley Blind and Angel Di Maria this season, and Ferguson has warned the rest of the Premier League that United will be a force to be reckoned with when Van Gaal has a fully fit squad to choose from.

"I don't know how Louis van Gaal can expect to get the best results with the injuries he's had," Ferguson continued.

"When he gets the best players back, you watch United go - because he's a great coach, he will do well.

"I'm not interested with what is happening with the players he's brought in, as that will take time.

"When I brought in Patrice Evra and Nemanja Vidic in the January of the same year, they were all over the place. They took five months to get used to playing for Manchester United - the culture and the history of the club. These new players will be exactly same."

Ferguson believes United still have a raft of world-class players in their ranks, and singled out David de Gea for particular praise after his fine recent form.

"They have still got great players," added the Scot.

"The World Cup has maybe taken a little bit out of Robin van Persie, but you watch him in the second half of the season. He will be fine.

"Rooney is back flying and he will always get you a goal. Having a goalscorer in your team is always an advantage.

"The one that is most pleasing to me is David de Gea. When we bought him as a kid he was really skinny but he had ability. He has special talents and he is showing that now and I'm really pleased for the kid.

"When we get those players back, we will be fine."

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Jonathan to contest against semi-literate candidate –PDP

The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has said that its presidential candidate in the forthcoming election, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will be contesting against a semi-literate candidate.

Ostensibly referring to the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), the party also said the election would be between Jonathan and “a military jackboot.”

Buhari, a former head of state, is the only presidential candidate who has a military background .

Section 131(d) of the 1999 Constitution allows anyone with school certificate qualification to contest any elective office in the country.

The PDP, through its National Secretary, Dr. Wale Oladipo, said when some leaders of the PDP in the Diaspora visited its national secretariat in Abuja on Monday that there was no way the President would not win the election.

It said, “The next election is going to be between darkness and light. It is going to be between a cosmopolitan highly-focused Ph.D holder and a semi-literate jackboot.

“Our candidate is a man who believes in integrating the economy of Nigeria into the world economic order. He is   a man who believes that the power sector should continue to be reformed so that we will attain the level of power generation and distribution that is commensurate with our aspiration in terms of industrial development. Nigeria cannot afford to go back. We will continue to move forward.”

The party said having won three presidential elections in which Buhari ran on the platforms of different political parties, there   was no way it would not floor the APC which had decided to field the former military leader as its     presidential candidate.

Describing the APC as a party not ready to offer alternatives,  the party advised Nigerians to remain with it.

It said, “Even though we are not a perfect party, our mission is perfect.

“We do not belong to any religious organisation and we don’t belong to any ethnic group. In preparing for the next election, which is not going to be like previous ones because for the first time, the opposition has coupled together a contraption that is called the APC.

“They have passed through the motion and endorsed their perennial candidate. We have beaten him three times, we are going to beat him once again.

“The APC is not a political party that is ready to offer an alternative to the teeming masses of this country. The only agenda they seem to have is to see our back.”

The PDP said that God had decided that Nigeria would not only continue to wax stronger,   he had also “decided that this country will not go back to 1983 when we had to start doing trade-by-barter with Brazil; when we went back 500 years to start practising what our ancestors practised when there was no currency in this country.”

“God has decried it that we   will continue to pilot the affairs of this country and continue to implement the transformation agenda,” the PDP added.

But the Director of Publicity of the Buhari 2015 Support Group Centre, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe, expressed shock about the PDP comments, saying they showed the depth of their understanding of Buhari.

He said, “How can the PDP refer to a man who had his initial military training in Nigeria and the best officer cadet training institutions in the world as semi-literate. They are so lazy that they can not check Gen. Buhari’s profile in this internet age.The general went to the Military Training College in Kaduna; the Mons Officer Cadet School in the United Kingdom; the Defence Services College in India and the Army War College in the United States. The certificates given by these institutions are equivalent to university degrees.

“If they want a copy of the general’s CV(Curriculum Vitae), they are welcome to have one.”

The BSGC boss advised that it would better serve public interest if the record of performance of Buhari was put side-by-side that of   Jonathan.

According to him, it was pedestrian for the PDP   to reduce the issues at stake to educational qualification.

Maduekwe said, “Buhari had the opportunity to govern this nation in the past and his records are there for all to see.

“He managed our economy very well and paid up our debts and built up our foreign reserves. This was a man who was in charge when our refineries were built; this was a man who was in charge of the PTF(Petroleum Trust Fund) and left an enviable record.

“Contrast him with our Ph.D holder (Jonathan) who has run our economy aground and our foreign reserves depleted and we are today raking up debts.

“Under this Ph.D holder, Nigeria has come last among nations in the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals with a 2015 deadline. Nigeria came last because; we have a PDP government which is visionless. Nigerians certainly do not want a continuity of this suffering.”

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Jonathan’s N21bn donation: Impunity taken too far

THE Peoples Democratic Party Fund Raising Dinner held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, to boost President Goodluck Jonathan’s campaign war chest has been attracting public attention. The event, which took place last Saturday, was attended by business people, multinational organisations, interest groups and individuals who donated a sum of N21.27 billion to support his campaign for the 2015 presidential election.

But the President and his party will definitely have trouble explaining away this latest bizarre development in regard to the law of the electoral game and the morality in politics.

Though how a political party’s candidate raises his or her campaign funds is the party’s affair, the process must comply with the extant laws and pass the integrity test. First, Nigerian laws are unambiguous on campaign expenses and funding. The 1999 Constitution in Section 221 clearly states: “No association, other than a political party, shall canvass for votes for any candidate at any election or contribute to the funds of any political party or to the election expenses of any candidate at an election.” The Companies and Allied Matters Act also expressly forbids companies in Section 38 (2) from funding or donating gifts, property or money to any political party or association. Then the Electoral Act 2010, as amended, specifies in Section 91 (2) that “the maximum election expenses to be incurred by a candidate at a presidential election shall be N1 billion.”

But Jonathan, the ruling PDP and its 21 state governors took lawlessness to a new height on Saturday when one Tunde Ayeni, leading other donors, gave N2 billion on behalf of himself and his unnamed “partner” and “friends.” Jerry Gana, a permanent fixture in successive governments, announced N5 billion on behalf of his equally mysterious friends and “associates in the power sector.” Not to be outdone, oil and gas sector “friends” also pledged N5 billion; real estate and building sector, N4 billion; transport and aviation sector, N1 billion; food and agriculture, N500 million; power, N500 million; construction, N310 million; road construction, N250 million; National Automotive Association, N450 million; and Shelter Development Limited, N250 million. Going by the Electoral Act, which caps the donation an individual could make at N1 million, 5,000 donors must have been behind Gana’s N5 billion gift.

There is no doubting the fact that these donations raise salient questions verging on transparency. At a period when the government should be taking interest in enforcing compliance with the money laundering laws, people should not come out to announce donations on behalf of themselves and their “friends,” without actually naming those “friends.” It should also be of interest to know if those donors and their anonymous “friends” have complied with appropriate tax obligations. International best practices stipulate this as the minimum irreducible requirement.

Many Nigerians will also be interested in knowing how the Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission, which was credited with producing N15 million, came about its donation. As a government agency, where did it derive such powers to donate to a political party from? Having done this for the PDP presidential campaign, will the commission also make a similar amount available to other parties?

As for the sectoral donors, there is also the need for total disclosure. Who were the actors in the oil and gas sector that donated N5 billion? If they are publicly quoted companies, did they get the approval of their shareholders before going on the spending spree? How did the power sector that has not been able to muster enough investible funds come about a N500 million donation? With the automobile industry donating N450 million, it is no longer surprising that it benefited so much from the government’s controversial waivers.

Ayeni, a legal practitioner whose consortium recently acquired NITEL and Mtel, is also the chairman of Skye Bank Plc and a director in the Ibadan Electricity Development Company. Given that these big time sectoral players have suddenly become the big donors to the President’s campaign, what is the guarantee that regulators would be able to control them? It is little wonder that the government, after selling the power sector to private operators, is still interested in arranging a N213 billion bailout for them.

So, except the players in the various sectors donated their own money, they have brazenly violated the law if they did so on behalf of their companies. The relevant authorities should demand their tax returns. As of 2010, domestic airlines collectively owed banks and regulators over N300 billion. To say the least, this is another outrageous example of brazen impunity in government.

Indeed, a string of ugly scandals has dotted the Jonathan administration. Among the most unsettling cases is the N2.53 trillion paid out in 2011 as petrol subsidies to cronies and “ghost” businessmen when the National Assembly approved only N245 billion that year. We also recollect the mind-numbing loss to the national treasury of some questionable waivers that cost the country N64 billion in first six months of the year. Funds that disappeared from the public till can now find their way back as campaign donations. There is also the unresolved issue of missing billions of dollars at the state-owned oil company.

This scale of campaign slush funds and illegal contributions in return for some political and economic favours is deeply worrying. On moral grounds, leveraging on political power to raise campaign funds is corrosively anti-democratic. That it was done by previous administrations should not be a justifiable excuse for the flagrant abuse of power. There is next to no doubt that some of these funds are of doubtful origin. It is just sickening to find a President who claims to be fighting corruption fraternising with the venal high and mighty.

But a graver worry is how the toxic donations will further poison the electoral process and shore up the system of patronage. We are also faced with a total collapse in political morality, with corruption worn now as a badge of honour. It is sad to note that there is an instinctive conclusion among the Nigerian public that the Jonathan government is the most financially corrupt, fiscally irresponsible, politically insensitive and socially disconnected in Nigerian history. What a shame! The 21 PDP governors should also explain if their state legislatures approved the N50 million each they donated and whether they will extend the largesse to other parties.

In real democracies, laws regulate the conduct of candidates and international best practices demand transparency and specificity in campaign financing. In the United States, for instance, campaign contributions from government contractors, personal or business funds, individuals or sole proprietors who have entered into a contract with the government are prohibited by law. Any infraction or suspected questionable behaviour is investigated and culprits punished. This explains why French authorities since 2013 have been investigating Nicolas Sarkozy, the immediate past French President, over the allegation that he received €50 million from the late Muammar Gaddaffi as financial help for his 2007 presidential campaign. The US federal prosecutors have launched a clutch of corruption investigations against politicians such as Washington Mayor, Vincent Gray, and Virginia governor, Bob McDonnell, who received money from local businessmen they claim was in accordance with accepted campaign finance practices.

Impunity starts from little things left unpunished. These financial irregularities inside the Jonathan re-election campaign should also be investigated. While Section 8 (1) of the Federal Inland Revenue Service enabling law empowers the FIRS to adopt measures to identify, trace, freeze, confiscate or seize proceeds derived from tax fraud or evasion, Section 35 (3) says “…the Service may cause investigation to be conducted into the properties of any taxable person if it appears to the Service that the lifestyle of the person and extent of the properties are not justified by his source of income.” Most of the donors in this bizarre event fall within this category. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has sufficient grounds to investigate the suspicious financial transactions.

It is all evident that Jonathan has failed badly to build a credible, honest and minimally effective government for almost half a decade that he has been President. This is regrettable indeed.

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B’Haram attacks two state capitals again

At least 29 people were   killed and more than 65 others wounded on Monday   in two separate attacks by suspected Boko Haram insurgents on the capitals of Gombe and Bauchi states.

The Gombe State attack was   by a female bomber who struck at the Dukku Motor Park in Gombe. She killed 19 and left 40 others injured at about 10.58am.

Almost five hours and 28 minutes after, another insurgent   detonated a bomb hidden in a shop at the ever-busy Central Market in Bauchi.

It could not be ascertained if the bomber was a male or a female.

The Gombe bomber was said to have disguised as a passenger carrying her lethal weapon hidden   in a sack .

Eyewitness said she   detonated the explosive   near a bus   loaded with passengers.

“The bomber chose her  target carefully. She probably was standing by and observing  when some of the buses in the park were fully loaded before setting off the bomb.”

The witness, who said that two buses were completely burnt, added that majority of the victims were passengers and hawkers .

The Police Public Relations Officer of the state police command, Fwaji Atajri, and the National Emergency Management Agency confirmed   the death of 19 people .

While Atajri said 25 were injured, NEMA, in a statement by its Information Officer, Manzo Ezekiel, gave 39 as the figure.

The PPRO said that  the injured were being treated at the Gombe Specialist Hospital.

The statement by Ezekiel read, “Following the explosion in Dukku Motor Park in Gombe on Monday, the NEMA-led rescue operations evacuated all persons affected by the incident to the hospital while the area has been cordoned off.

“Most of those evacuated were taken to the Gombe State Specialist Hospital where they are now receiving treatment from injuries sustained in the explosion.”

At about 5.28pm on Monday, another bomber struck at the Central Market in Bauchi when traders were preparing to close for the day.

When visited the scene, tension was high as some angry youths ordered journalists to leave or be attacked .

Gunshots were fired by security agencies at the scene to scare away the youths but they   responded   with stones and other dangerous objects.

An eyewitness,  Mu’azu Musa, said  he saw bodies of the victims being evacuated from the scene of the blast.

Musa, a commercial motorcyclist, added that he found himself in the hospital after losing consciousness on seeing the charred bodies of the victims.

At the Abubakar Tafawa Balewa Teaching Hospital, one of our correspondents  saw injured victims taken there by Red Cross officials.

The Deputy Chairman, Medical Advisory Council of the hospital, Saidu Kadas, told journalists that the actual casualty figure could not be ascertained  as more victims were being brought in.

Also, the Chairman of the ATBUTH branch of the Nigerian Union of Allied Health Professionals, Mr. Idris Ado, said that striking health workers   had been called upon to report for work on Tuesday(today) to help in treating   the wounded victims.

Governor Isa Yuguda, in a statement, condemned  the blast as most unfortunate and barbaric.

The governor, according to the statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Ishola Adeyemi, said those behind the attack were cowards.

He told the people that his administration would not relent in its efforts to ensure that their lives and property   were protected .

Southern hunters to join anti- Boko Haram campaign

Meanwhile, hunters in Southern Nigeria on Monday announced that they would join   their colleagues in the North-East in   ending   what they described as the “senseless war” against Boko Haram.

The hunters, under the Association of Animal Hunters of Nigeria, told journalists in Benin, Edo State,   that the war in the North-East had persisted for too long.

The President of the association, Mr. Raymond Macaulay, said, “We just want to be there, and put this nonsense behind us. We want to let our fellow hunters there know that they are not alone. As hunters, what hurts one hurts all.

“We are feeling what they are feeling. And now, we are going there in our thousands to end this nonsense. Their business is our business. It’s time for action.”

While arguing that no country could end insurgency through the military alone, Macaulay advised the Federal Government and other well-meaning Nigerians to urgently empower his group with logistics to enable them to “move immediately to the North-East, especially in view of the renewed bombings and abductions of women and girls.

He said, “Hunters out-number insurgents and even security agents. We can no longer allow antelopes to harass our people in the North. We are ready to join our brother-hunters in the North-East to stop the   mindless destruction of our people.”

The   President of the Senate, David Mark, has challenged security operatives to bring their intellect and investigative skills to bear in finding out those behind the insurgency in Nigeria.

He also implored community leaders and other Nigerians to collaborate with the security agencies in order to expose the financiers of the criminals forthwith.

Mark, according to a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Paul Mumeh, stated this in Abuja after decorating his Aide-camp, Mr. Abel Miri, with his new rank of Assistant Commissioner of Police.

The Senate President reasoned that one of the ways to end insurgency was to unmask their sponsors within and outside the country.

Mark said, “The unabating situation demands extra-ordinary measures to handle. All of us, irrespective of status must be alert to our responsibilities.

“Let us rise as one people faced with a common problem to say no to these harbingers of death . Let’s come together and work hard to free ourselves .

“All Nigerians, must see these terrorists as a threat to our existence. Nobody should sit on the fence any more. It is a choice we have to make in chasing these terrorists away or wait to be consumed by them.

“This is not about politics, religion or ethnicity. It is about our survival as a nation.”

Mark told his newly decorated security aide that his new rank “demands higher responsibility and dedication to the service of his fatherland.”

Blaming Jonathan for insurgency won’t exonerate APC

The Peoples Democratic Party also said on Monday that no amount of allegations against President Goodluck Jonathan can exonerate the All Progressives Congress of blame for the   wave of violence in the North-East.

The PDP, in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh,   alleged that the body language and inciting utterances of APC leaders,   had served as fuel to the raging flame of terrorism.

It said that by going to the international media recently to distance themselves from complicity and in turning round to blame it (PDP), the APC was asking Nigerians to suddenly forget the barrage of earlier statements by its leaders

The PDP statement reads, “Nigerians have not forgotten the spontaneous violence and mayhem on innocent citizens following a statements by (Muhammadu) Buhari and other APC leaders in the defunct Congress for Progressive Change , upon losing the 2011 presidential election.

“The APC leaders have so far left no Nigerian in doubt of their party’s violent disposition as Gen.Buhari in May 2012, remorselessly stated that ‘the monkey and baboon will be soaked in blood’ should he lose the election.

“Nigerians have also read and heard other ricocheting calls for violence and threats of parallel government from other leaders of this same party. These are not just mere slips but incontrovertible snips from the agenda of the APC to sustain insurgency and set the stage for carnage after they lose in the 2015 general elections.”

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Mourinho ecstatic at players attitude in win over Stoke

Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho hailed his side’s 2-0 Premier League victory at Stoke City as one of their most significant yet this season.

But it was the manner of the victory that pleased Mourinho the most with Chelsea forced to win a physical battle.A second minute header from John Terry and Cesc Fabregas’ finish in the second half gave the Londoners a three point lead at the top of thew table over over Manchester City at Christmas.

"To win here we must play a very good game and we did it because we adapted well to their style of play," he said.

"When we had the ball we tried not to lose our identity and play our game.

"They are always strong in this stadium, the crowd are always behind them. They have good players and a good bench. It was a very difficult victory.

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Chelsea's manager Jose Mourinho leaves the pitch following their English Premier League match ag …

"It was a victory that means a bit more than the three points. It was not just difficult but you need more than just your quality to win here.

"The players coped well with the difficult style and were not afraid to have responsibilities and our creative players were not afraid to assume the game.

"Our defensive players were very solid. Only with a great team performance was it possible to beat Stoke."

Mourinho saluted captain Terry who scored in the Premier League for a 15th consecutive season.

"He is very dangerous in set piece, he is very good player in the air, he is always a threat," he said.

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Chelsea's Willian (C) fights for the ball with Stoke City's Steven N'Zonzi (R) and Marc  …

"More importantly is the way he has been playing this season again. When I came here last year he was in a bit of trouble, his career was a bit up and down. He was not playing regularly for Chelsea.

"But suddenly in the last two years he is playing basically every game and for me at the same level as when I was here 2004-2007.

"It’s just our way of work. He adapted well to our training methodology with his body type.

"He feels sharp and fast in good conditions. He is happy and when you are happy and feel confident it feels easier in every job. Football is very specific on that. He knows I trust him and is very confident and playing very well."

Stoke full back Phil Bardsley was booked for a bad tackle on Belgian star Eden Hazard in the first half but Mourinho, who was incensed at the time, thought it should have seen him sent off.

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Stoke City's Steven N'Zonzi (R) fights for the ball with Chelsea's Nemanja Matic during  …

"From my position and in the flesh it looks for me a red card but I don’t know," said Mourinho.

"What I know is that if it was a bad tackle it was the only one. It was a clean game but an aggressive one. The referee kept the game under control. The players were fair.

"It was a good fight. Physicality, duels, lots of long balls. But the game was perfectly clean and correct. If it was a red card it was an isolated action. And we need to consider that."

His Stoke counterpart Mark Hughes took heart from his side’s display as they matched Chelsea all the way until Fabregas’ strike on 78 minutes.

"It was the worst possible start," said Hughes, who numbered Chelsea among his clubs as a player.

"You don’t want to concede early to a top quality side like Chelsea. We’ve talked till we are blue – or red in the face.

"But we stuck at it.

"We did not offer them too many clear cut chances. It looked like we might get back on level terms."

Unsurprisingly Hughes -- a combative player himself in his prime for Manchester United and Barcelona -- didn't see Bardsley's as being a red card offence.

"It was two teams committed to winning the game. I see no harm in that, every challenge was an honest one. That physicality will always be there. It was more to do with an outstanding team," said the 51-year-old Welshman.

"At the time of the Bardsley one I thought it was just a mistimed challenge. I’ve not seen it but I think my instinct was yellow was fair."

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Nigeria child bride confessed to killing husband: police

A packed Nigerian court heard testimony on Monday that a 14-year-old girl admitted to killing her 35-year-old husband with rat poison, and signed a police confession with a thumbprint because she cannot write.

Wasila Tasi'u, from a poor and deeply conservative Muslim family, has been charged with murdering her husband Umar Sani days after their marriage in northern Kano state.

Because she did not understand English, homicide investigator Abdullahi Adamu translated her statement from the Hausa language dominant in the region and gave her the document to sign.

She could not write her name, so "she had to use a thumbprint," he told the court during his testimony on the last day of the prosecution’s case.

The state's lawyers, who are seeking the death penalty, also called to the stand Tasi'u's "co-wife", a term referring to the woman -- identified as Ramatu -- whom the deceased farmer had married previously in a region where polygamy is widespread.

Ramatu said she got along well with Tasi'u and that the two had prepared the food together on April 5, the day Sani died.

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14-year old Wasila Tasi'u speaks with an unidentified defence counsel outside the courtroom duri …

She testified that because it was Tasi'u's turn to share a bed with Sani, Tasi'u was also entitled to serve him his meal.

"After putting the food in the dish I didn't see anybody put anything in it," Ramatu said.

She told the court she saw her husband sometime later being helped back to the house by a neighbour, unable to walk and foaming at the mouth.

As she spoke the court was overflowing, with people peering in through the open windows and a crowd so large it spilled out of the gallery door.

The case has sparked outrage among human rights activists who say Nigeria should be treating Tasi'u as a victim, noting the possibility that she was raped by the man she married.

But others in the region, including relatives of the defendant and the deceased, have rejected the notion that Tasi'u was forced into marriage.

They have said that 14 is a common age to marry in the deeply impoverished region and that Tasi'u chose Sani from among many suitors.

A motion by defence lawyers to have the case moved to juvenile court was rejected, despite claims by human rights lawyers that she is too young to stand trial for murder in a high court.

Further complicating the case is the role of sharia (Islamic law) in northern Nigeria, which allows children to marry according to some interpretations.

While sharia is technically in force in Kano, law enforcement officials have no guidelines concerning how it should be balanced with the secular criminal codes, creating a complex legal hybrid system.

According to Human Rights Watch, Nigeria is not known to have executed a juvenile offender since 1997, when the country was ruled by military dictator Sani Abacha.

The trial has been adjourned until February 16.

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Boko Haram Threatens Nigeria’s Emir of Kano as 191 Abducted

The Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram threatened the Emir of Kano, Muhammad Sanusi II, the nation’s second-highest Muslim leader, after he urged followers to defend themselves against the militants.

The threat came as it emerged 31 people were killed and 191 abducted in the remote northeastern village of Gumsuri on Dec. 12, the insurgent’s single largest kidnapping since more than 200 schoolgirls were taken from Chibok in April.

“You Sanusi I am talking to you, it is too late for you the Emir of Kano and the Emir of bank,” a man dressed in combat fatigues and claiming to be the group’s leader, Abubakar Shekau, said in an unverified 19-minute video posted on YouTube Inc. Sanusi, the former central bank governor, told Nigerians last month to fight back against Boko Haram.

The man purporting to be Shekau fired an AK-47 rifle into the air and was flanked by masked gunmen and Hilux trucks mounted with machine guns bearing the group’s trademark black flags showing Arabic slogans.

Gumsuri Attack

Sanusi, 53, was the central bank governor of Africa’s largest economy until February. He was suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan after saying as much as $20 billion in state oil revenue was unaccounted for. He was appointed to the royal post in June when Ado Bayero died after reigning more than half a century.

Boko Haram, whose name translates loosely as “Western education is a sin,” has been fighting in Africa’s biggest oil producer since 2009. In that time it has killed more than 13,000 people, according to the government.

During the Dec. 12 attack in Gumsuri, near Lake Chad, Boko Haram fighters “abducted a lot of able-bodied young men and women, including children,” Mamadou Bukar, a leader of a militia group in the region, said by phone from Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. “Our people had been resisting Boko Haram but this time they overpowered our men.”

‘Gone Astray’

In the video, the man claiming to be Shekau said civilian militia fighting Boko Haram had deviated from Islam. The militias, also known as vigilantes and hunters, have helped take back territory and towns captured by the militant group.

“Vigilantes and hunters you have gone astray, you should repent and put hands together and work for God, even you Sanusi if you repent we can work together,” the man said in the footage. “Don’t you see that I am furious.”

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Lawyer defends acts of Nigeria soldiers sentenced to death

A human rights lawyer says 54 soldiers have been sentenced to death because they embarrassed Nigeria's military by demanding weapons to fight Islamic extremists, and says they were justified in not going on what would have been a suicidal mission.

Defense attorney Femi Falana said Thursday he will take all legal measures to prevent authorities from carrying out a "genocidal verdict" of death by firing squad delivered Wednesday night by a court-martial.

A statement from Falana describes evidence given during the court-martial that is an indictment of Nigeria's military establishment and, the lawyer said, the reason journalists were barred from the trial.

All the soldiers convicted are aged between 21 and 25 and most joined the army around 2012, he said.

With little or no training, they were deployed against Nigeria's home-grown Islamic extremist group, Boko Haram. The lawyer charged that money for salaries and to purchase arms is often diverted by corrupt officers.

"Instead of bringing such unpatriotic officers to book, the military authorities have engaged in the diversionary tactics of wasting the lives of innocent soldiers by sentencing them to death without any legal justification," Falana charged.

He said Boko Haram on July 9 attacked the soldiers when the battalion of 750 troops was down to just 174. The extremists killed 26 soldiers including three officers and seriously injured 82. The soldiers demanded to be properly armed and were assured this would happen, he said.

Instead, the battalion was ordered Aug. 4 to recapture three towns controlled by Boko Haram. The few soldiers who deployed were ambushed and kidnapped. When some weapons were made available Aug. 8, a second group of soldiers recaptured the towns and liberated their colleagues, Falana said.

"They were commended for their bravery and sacrifice. But for some inexplicable reasons, the army authorities ordered that the soldiers be charged with mutiny for allegedly exposing the armed forces to embarrassment by asking for weapons!" his statement said.

Falana told The Associated Press another 43 soldiers including a few officers remain on trial for mutiny and cowardice for refusing to fight the extremists.

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Another Black Boy Gunned Down By Police

We will never learn of the names, lives and deaths of countless Black men and boys murdered by police -- and slavery enforcers, hate groups, vigilantes, and a host of others -- dating back to the earliest days of this country's history. The names and stories of a slew of recent victims of extrajudicial executions, such as Eric Garner and Michael Brown, and the exoneration of their killers, have become widely known through the blowback of public fury.

This is a tale of another Black boy whose name and wrongful death were never reported in any official document or national media. The policeman responsible was not charged, indicted, or prosecuted. This child's prematurely snuffed life was not spent in the U.S. but in the Black nation of Haiti, though the U.S. government subsidized his murderer.

In Port-au-Prince on a sweltering day last spring, the collective taxicab I was traveling in turned onto Bicentennaire Street, barely avoiding the prone body of a young teen. Arms thrown out like a startled baby's, he lay in a pool of blood. I spun around in the seat to look. A Haitian passenger, more accustomed to gritty daily reality, looked at me strangely. "What's wrong with you?" she asked.

One truck of Haitian police and two more of UN occupation troops next to the body raised my suspicion, as both parties have been responsible for incalculable harm.

I extricated myself from the crowded cab and ran to the scene. The boy had been shot in his skull and eye. The part of his T-shirt that was not yet covered with blood, which was still flowing from the holes, gleamed white. His mother or sister had surely recently hand-scrubbed that shirt with care.

A policeman told me he had been shot by a "bandit." A bandit robbing and shooting this boy was implausible: emaciated children from that destitute neighborhood do not circulate with riches. That he himself might have been involved in banditry was equally incredible: plastic flip-flops do not make good getaway shoes.

I began asking onlookers and street merchants if they knew what had happened. But two policemen followed me, and so no one had observed anything. As I continued my investigation up a dirt alleyway, one of the cops asked, "Where are you going?" "Just walking," I said. "Don't you need company?" he replied. They laughed.

At a bend in the alley, I ducked behind a tin fence before the police caught up with me and asked a man welding what he had seen. He said the police had driven up andthen the shots had rung out.

Police brutality is a time-honored tradition in Haiti. Today, under fraudulently elected President Michel Martelly, the force's killings and abuses -- especially of demonstrators, activists, and journalists - are growing. Just this past Sunday, December 14, police attacked anti-government demonstrators in the capital city, killing one.

The U.S. has had a hand in taking down these Black lives. In the three years since Martelly was imposed, the U.S. has underwritten his unaccountable "security" forces to the tune of $73 million, courtesy of our tax dollars. The US has also sold the Haitian government weapons that make the assaults possible. (This same support has gone to many a Haitian autocrat, notably François and Jean-Claude Duvalier.)

Likewise, UN troops - globo-cops - have assassinated, raped, arbitrarily arrested, and committed other human rights violations during their ten-year occupation of Haiti. Moreover, the force is responsible for the deaths of more than 9,000 through cholera, after troops infected with the disease dumped their raw sewage in a river. When families of the victims filed a lawsuit for compensation, the UN claimed legal immunity. (The cholera lawsuit continues nevertheless.)

Haitian and UN forces are Daniel Panteleo, the NYPD officer who strangled Eric Garner to death as he placidly vended cigarettes on a sidewalk. They are Darren Wilson, the St. Louis cop who shot the unarmed teenager Michael Brown seven or eight times. These badge-wearers, and so many more like them, stand above the law.

The continual malfeasance, and exemption from accountability and punishment, of the Haitian police and the UN occupation force would be unthinkable, unacceptable, in a high-income white nation. However, those who control power and those with white skin typically respond to state-sanctioned lawlessness in low-income Black neighborhoods and countries by choosing to remain uninformed; ignoring the matter; or rewriting the narrative as gang activity, Black-on-Black violence, or common crime.

In the global division of capital and human value, a dead Black Haitian like the one lying on Bicentennaire Street was IS? one more worthless body in a worthless life in a worthless piece of real estate.

Both the street-beat cops and the blue helmets are themselves predominantly low-income and Black or brown. They are pawns in a globalized system of political and physical violence, underpaid proxies helping to maintain dominance of the world's elite nations and classes. On the streets, they mirror on a micro-scale the unjust global relations, endowed as they are with personal power that allows them to be protected perpetrators of crimes on those more vulnerable than they.

Two ambulances joined the police and UN trucks. The officials sauntered between the vehicles, talking to each other. No one paid any attention to the blood-drenched body. The men wrote nothing, photographed nothing. Finally, gloved corpse-slingers approached and searched the pockets of the child's nylon shorts; they found them entirely empty. They tossed the cadaver into a litter and into the back of the ambulance. I suspected they would dump him in a potter's field, perhaps after a quick stop at the morgue, and that that would be the end of the story. I would have wagered a large bet that there would be no time spent preparing documentation for headquarters or for possible later identification by his desperate mother. I would have bet everything I owned that a forthcoming lunch mattered a lot more to those men than due process. Likely, this had been just another stop in a routine day. 

Still, more public resources were being spent on the boy at that moment than throughout his entire life. Now, however, they were too late to be of any use to him.

Walking back home, I got caught in a wave of little children leaving kindergarten with their parents. They were a sea of blue shorts, blue pinafores, and blue hair ribbons. Which of them would be blown away by their government?

And which would grow up to be protesters in marches, and advocates in campaigns, like those going on all over the US now? Which would commit him or herself to a country in which everyone's husband, father, son, and brother - and wife, mother, daughter, and sister - have worth? And what country would they create?

As I penned this article under the drone of police helicopters that circulate every night from sunset until well past midnight above the interlocked towns of Oakland and Berkeley - both of them in full rebellion -- an email came in from a workers' rights group in Haiti. It read, "We are made nauseous by seeing assassination after assassination by the US police, with impunity, on any citizen - as long as they happen to be Black... and also by the complete protection of the corrupt justice system... We salute the mobilization of people in that country."

May the resistance and protest grow in strength. May they flourish into strategic organizing and sustained movement-building for physical security, economic and social equality, democratic rights, and government accountability vis-à-vis Blacks and other people of color. May this be so in the US and Haiti and everywhere that is sickened by the poison of structural racism.

Black lives matter.

A revised version of this article appeared as "Another Poor Black Boy Dead in Haiti", Truth Out, April 7, 2013.

Beverly Bell has worked for more than three decades as an advocate, organizer, and writer in collaboration with social movements in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the U.S. Her focus areas are just economies, democratic participation, and gender justice. Beverly currently serves as associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and coordinator of Other Worlds. She is author of Walking on Fire: Haitian Women Stories of Survival and Resistance,  Fault Lines: Views Across Haiti's Divide, and Harvesting Justice: Transforming Food, Land, and Agricultural Systems in the Americas.

Copyleft Beverly Bell. You may reprint this article in whole or in part.  Please credit any text or original research you use to Beverly Bell, Other Worlds.

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