Nigeria’s neglected Israeli drones, thought won’t help find girls

Nigeria bought Israeli surveillance drones years ago that might have been used to hunt for more than 200 girls held by Islamist rebels, but poor maintenance has left them grounded, two official sources and the aircraft’s manufacturer said.
“To the best of our knowledge, these systems aren’t operational,” Tsur Dvir, marketing officer for Aeronautics Defense Systems, a firm based south of Tel Aviv that supplied Nigeria with Aerostar unmanned aerial vehicles, said on Tuesday.
A Nigerian government source and a former military attaché to Nigeria both confirmed the information, although they said details were sketchy owing to the secretive nature of Israeli-Nigerian military cooperation.
The Nigerian military did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the disclosure could further embarrass President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, which has been criticized for its slow response to the hostage crisis.
Israel last week sent intelligence and hostage-negotiation officers to Nigeria to work alongside U.S., British and French experts helping the Nigerian authorities in the search, an Israeli official said on Tuesday.
“These are not operational troops, they’re there to advise,” the Israeli official said, speaking on condition of anonymity
The April 14 abduction of the girls by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, and the inability of the military to locate them after more than five weeks, have stirred a global outcry.
Failure to maintain equipment is seen as one reason why Nigeria’s military has been unable to quell the militants. Nigeria argues counter-insurgency is something it never had to deal with until the Boko Haram uprising five years ago, and so is having to slowly learn.
Dvir, speaking on the sidelines of a conference organized by Israel Defense magazine, told Reuters that since the drones were purchased several years ago, Nigerian clients had not commissioned Aeronautics to carry out any routine maintenance.
“We did receive an inquiry from them about spare parts, but it never turned into a deal. I wish it had,” Dvir said, arguing that with their extensive flying range and thermal cameras capable of picking up body heat at night, the Aerostars could have helped scour northern Nigeria for the missing girls.
“They (drones) are probably parked in a yard somewhere.”
OBSOLETE EQUIPMENT
Dvir did not say how many Aerostars were bought by Nigeria.
Nigeria’s defense spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.
The former attaché said the deal was struck in 2006, with a view to deploying the drones in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where militants were attacking crude pipelines and kidnapping oil workers before an amnesty three years later. They never flew.
Last December, Nigeria also unveiled a locally made drone at an air force base in Kaduna, although it has not flown since.
A government adviser said the Israeli drones were among many procurements that quickly went obsolete owing to lack of maintenance.
Neither source, nor the company, knew how many had been bought, but an aerospace industry source said they each would have been worth between $15 million and $17 million.
The U.S. military is already flying manned and unmanned surveillance aircraft over Nigeria to look for the girls, whose seizure piled pressure on President Jonathan to deal with the rebels.
Boko Haram has killed thousands of people in its campaign to establish an Islamic state in mostly Muslim northeast Nigeria.
Israel has defense ties with a number of African countries. Last September, it sent advisers to Kenya to help in a siege at a shopping mall in Nairobi, where Islamist militants killed at least 67 people in a gun and grenade attack.

BOKO HARAM: “Prepare For War Against The North” – Asari Dokubo Charges South-South People

The founder of the Niger Delta People’s Volunteer Force, NDPVF who said the killings by the sect is designed to unleash terror on the people of the region made this statement at the 10th annual Major Isaac Adaka Boro Public Lecture in Ughelli, Delta State.
Asari warned the people of the region to act fast to avoid being enslaved as he said the growing onslaught of the Boko Haram was a war rehearsal of the ‘Fulani feudalist’ against the region which produced the country’s economy mainstay.
He said: “What Boko Haram is doing is military exercise, its war rehearsals in the north, they are coming down. Sorry for Urhobo , sorry for Benin , sorry for Esan land , sorry for Isoko land, na here dem go pass come meet Ijaw people.
Ijaws alone cannot fight this battle, we are not strong enough to fight this battle, we need the collective strength of every one of us, and this is the last battle.
“Goodluck no get mouth to say he won’t contest the next election. I will be 50 years on the first of June, I have twenty children and all my children from the age of ten can shoot gun, all my children are trained in martial arts, they can disable an able man.
We must prepare for it, now I have gone back to the village because a war is coming, the time of ‘no victor, no vanquish is gone’, this time it is ‘no retreat, no surrender’.”

#BringBackOurGirls: AY & Mabel Makun, Joke Silva, Tony Rapu, Ufuoma Ejenobor Walk for their release

God Bless Nigeria Church recently embarked on a freedom walk to join the global campaign to help find the 200+ school girls abducted by Boko Haram in the Chibok area of Borno State. Resident pastor of the church Pastor Orohnor, as well as Pastor Tony Rapu, AY and Mabel Makun, Joke Silva, Bimbo Akintola, Ufuoma Ejenobor, and the Youth Association of Kibaku in Chibok joined the walk to the National Stadium in Lagos. View photos and the video.

President Jonathan Canceled Chibok Trip

Nigeria’s President Goodluck Jonathan has called off a visit the town where more than 200 schoolgirls were abducted, officials say.
Sources had told the BBC he would stop in Chibok, in the north-east, on his way to a conference in France on the threat from Boko Haram militants.
But the visit was called off for security reasons, the officials said.
The president – under pressure over his government’s failure to rescue the girls – will fly direct to Paris.
The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse in Nigeria says the cancellation of this visit underlines just how fragile the security situation is in the north-east.

#BringBackOurGirls- One of The Girls That Escaped Identifies Classmates from Boko Haram Video

One of the students who escaped during the insurgents’ raid is presently identifying her classmates at the ongoing identification exercise at the Government House in Maiduguri, Borno State.

Boko Haram Deadly Commander Abubakar Shekau Exposed

Do you want to know Abubakar Shekau? He is the face of terror. A ruthless leader with a twisted ideology. And the sadistic architect of a campaign of mayhem and misery. And yet, very little is known about Shekau, the leader of the dreaded Boko Haram terrorist group.
He operates in the shadows, leaving his underlings to orchestrate his repulsive mandates. He resurfaces every once in a while in videotaped messages to mock the impotence of the Nigerian military. And he uses his faith to recruit the impressionable and the disenfranchised to his cause.
He’s elusive. Even his age is unknown — estimates range between 38 and 49. The U.S. State Department has Shekau’s year of birth listed as 1965, 1969 and 1975.
He’s a loner. Analysts describe Shekau as a loner and a master of disguise. He does not speak directly with members, opting to communicate through a few select confidants.
Shekau was born in Shekau village that borders Niger. He studied under a cleric and then…
Attended Borno State College of Legal and Islamic Studies for higher studies on Islam. That’s why he’s also known as ‘Darul Tawheed,’ which translates to an expert in monotheism, or the oneness of Allah.
He speaks several languages fluently: Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri and Arabic. But English isn’t one of them. After all, he heads a group that rejects all things Western.
He uses many aliases: Abu Bakr Skikwa, Imam Abu Bakr Shiku and Abu Muhammad Abu Bakr Bin Muhammad Al Shakwi Al Muslimi Bishku among them.
He was an unruly No. 2. Boko Haram was founded by Mohammed Yusuf, a charismatic, well-educated cleric who drove a Mercedes as part of his push for a pure Islamic state in Nigeria. He wasn’t too effective as a leader and had a hard time keeping his second-in-command in check. Shekau was more radical and had grander designs. And merciless as No. 1.
Mohammed Yusuf was killed in a security crackdown in 2009, along with about 700 of his followers. That left Shekau in charge. He vowed to strike back, and his group has spared no one: government workers, police officers, journalists, villagers, students and churchgoers. Human Rights Watch estimates that in the past five years, more than 3,000 people have been killed.
He’s come back from the dead. The military has touted Shekau’s death several times, only to retract its claim after he appeared alive and vibrant in propaganda videos.
They almost got him in September 2012 when they raided his home, where he had snuck in for his six-day-old baby’s naming ceremony, according to the International Crisis Group. He managed to get away with a gunshot wound to the leg; his wife and three children were taken by the military.
He uses Islam to recruit and radicalise. The northeast, where Boko Haram has been most active, is economically depressed and among the least educated regions in Nigeria.
There’s no firm evidence as yet that Boko Haram has ambitions beyond Nigeria. But its campaign of terror has spilled into remote parts of Cameroon and it appears to have informal links with militant Islamist groups in Mali and Niger.
It was in May 2013 that Shekau first announced in a video that Boko Haram would start kidnapping girls. The kidnappings, he said, were retaliation for Nigerian security forces nabbing the wives and children of group members.
The most horrifying instance was last month’s abduction of 276 girls from a girl’s school.
“I abducted your girls,” he taunted with a chilling smile in a new video that surfaced this week. “There is a market for selling humans. Allah says I should sell. He commands me to sell.”
There’s a $7 million bounty on his head. Shekau has been on the radar of U.S. officials since he came to power in 2009. Last June, the United States put a bounty on him, offering a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his location. But that’s yet to yield results.

General Muhammadu Buhari Speaks On Abducted Chibok Girls

Over the past few weeks, the abduction of the school girls at Chibok, Borno State has underscored the threat we have been facing as a nation in recent times from the actions of misguided persons masquerading as adherents of Islam.
Our hearts are with families who have lost loved ones in this cycle of senseless violence. We also empathize with the parents of children whose daughters are in the custody of a group of anarchists.
That horrific video posted on the Internet is a clear manifestation of the mindlessness of the bigots. It shows them for whom they are, such men cannot threaten nor should they be allowed to violate our sovereignty. It is clear from what they profess that they are not followers of God. They do not mean well for our country and her citizens. I am a Muslim, I am versed in the teaching of Christianity and I understand both religions to seek peaceful co-existence of all humanity.
I wish to reiterate that there is no justification whatsoever for this unrestrained disregard for the sanctity of human life. It has no place in the Holy Quran and neither does it have a place in the Holy Bible.
Let these people know that the entire civilized world is united against their terrorist act. We are grateful to the world for standing by Nigeria at this trying time. We hope and pray that the young ladies will be reunited with their respective families in the days to come
While the Federal Government and the nation’s Armed Forces are working to ensure citizens’ safety under the present situation, we believe that more could still be done to ensure the safety of Nigerians and the Nigerian nation. We are therefore glad that the Federal Government has accepted international support in the search for the missing girls and for an end to the insurgency in parts of the country.
I fought for a united Nigeria. In my old age, I want my grand children, your grand children, our youths and indeed all Nigerians to benefit from a prosperous and united country devoid of sectarian violence whether home grown or imposed on us from outside.
Now is not the time to play politics. Now is also not the time to trade blames and amplify our ideological differences. The unity of Nigeria is not negotiable and nothing should divide us as a people. I therefore urge all Nigerians at home and in the Diaspora to support the country in her effort to bring an end to this attack on defencelesscitizens and indeed a united nation.
We must put aside all other considerations and ensure that our country Nigeria pulls together now so as to recover our sovereignty. After all, we all know that Nigeria is the ONLY country we have that we can call our own.
God help and bless Nigeria.
Thank you.
GENERAL MUHAMMADU BUHARI, GCFR

P. Diddy Joins the Protest #Bringbackourgirls

American heavyweight pop star Sean Combs AKA P Diddy posted the above pix in support of the #Bringbackour girls campaign.
It’s amazing how loads of A listed American celebrities turnout in support of this and i must say….I’m impressed.
Thanks to you all…..God Bless us all