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Obasanjo defends actions in Nigeria
State of emergency necessary to quell violence, he says
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo said Saturday the state of emergency he declared in part of his country was necessary to quell deadly religious violence. "The tension all over the country went down, and people, no matter where they live and how they live, no matter their religious affiliation or their ethnic background, now feel a sense of relief," Obasanjo said. "They feel that they have hope, they feel that, ’Oh yes, this is the best thing.’ " Obasanjo initiated the controversial policy a week ago. He spoke to CNN Saturday in his first interview since the decision. In February and March, dozens were killed in clashes between nomadic Muslim Fulani herdsmen and Christian farmers in the central state of Plateau. The government sent in forces to halt the violence, but the fighting escalated over the following weeks, threatening to spread north into Muslim areas.
Fat lot of good that did then, no?
On May 14, some Muslims in the northern state of Kano went on a killing spree, leaving about 40 Christians dead. Muslims described the attacks as revenge for the fighting in Plateau.
Or maybe just a continued campaign of persecuting Christians.
The next day, Obasanjo declared a state of emergency in Plateau -- but not in Kano.
Fat lot of good ... but I repeat myself.
He sent military forces into Plateau and assigned an administrator -- retired army Gen. Chris Alli, a Christian -- to oversee the state. The governor of Kano got only a verbal warning -- prompting outrage among many Christians.
Nothing like a stern lecture to subdue muderous cutthroats. These guys must have all gone to the same Yemenese military academy.
Obasanjo said Kano "is a flow out of Plateau. If the governor in Plateau had taken the right steps, there would not have been Kano. You don’t deal with symptoms and leave the disease."
Disease = Obasanjo. BandAid = Alli
He insisted the move was constitutional and said the government at every level "must provide security for every Nigerian wherever they stay. We cannot allow a situation where Nigeria is degenerating almost endlessly into chaos and insecurity."
Such unrest interferes with the proper course of grafting and corruption!
Check to see where the money and ideology is coming from.
Obasanjo said the decision was not made without considerable thought and that the situation had been worsening for three years.
All without much in the way of any substantial intervention.
"Some people, of course, naturally, will say, ’Well, where does it end?’ I sincerely hope that I will not have to take such a drastic decision again," he said. Obasanjo said he chose to declare a state of emergency because of the severity of the situation. "My heart bled when I saw the situation there. So something had to be done, something drastic and this is what has to be done." Although violence has decreased, there were isolated incidents of violence in Plateau on Friday, when Alli began a controversial process of handing out cash in exchange for weapons.
For those unclear on the concept, we’ll do a short drylab thought experiment. When you purchase weapons, you must offer the holders of said arms more than they are worth, or else, why should they sell them? Those individuals will then turn around and buy another, potentially better, weapon. Obasanjo and Alli have effectively financed a weapons upgrade program. Sheer brilliance!
Posted by: Zenster 2004-05-23
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=33719