The Pacesetter Frontier Magazine

Tag: Afghanistan

  • CSOs criticize Buhari’s unapproved spendings, expensive gifts to Niger Republic, Afghanistan

    CSOs criticize Buhari’s unapproved spendings, expensive gifts to Niger Republic, Afghanistan

    Nigerians at home and abroad are rightly scandalised by the recent expensive gifts of the Federal Government to Niger Republic and Afghanistan.

    But more nauseating is the failure of the National Assembly to checkmate these unapproved spendings and make the president to explain his action.

    This unfortunate situation reinforces a pattern that reflects the weakness of the country’s 109 Senators and 360 members of the House of Representatives to control and monitor the national purse.

    The civil society views this tendency and its escalation early this month when the Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, confirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari approved the sum of N1.145 billion for the purchase of ten luxury Toyota Land Cruiser V8 cars for the government of Niger Republic with serious concern, bearing in mind the words of the great thinker, Edmund Burke, who said that “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

    Also worrisome is the reality that many Nigerians have lately become lethargic, divided by ethnic and sectarian sentiments and weakened by widespread poverty brought on by the political class and bad governance.

    The citizens are too busy eking out a living, and so they have no time for the government while those who dare bother about happenings in government and have taken it upon themselves to keep people in government on their toes are labeled idle, lazy and even saboteurs.

    However, some activists and civil society groups, who spoke with the reporter, are not adopting the self-defeating attitude of the legislators and many other citizens who prefer to turn a blind eye instead of confronting the issues and demanding financial accountability from the government.

    According to them, the current administration’s construction of a $1.8bn railway line to Maradi, a city in Niger Republic, a country so dear to President Buhari, and the donation of $1m to the Taliban-controlled government of Afghanistan four months ago reflect its perceived culture of sympathy to cronies and promoters of extremist religious ideologies.

    Decrying the Federal Government’s penchant to dip its hand into the nation’s treasury and play the “Big Brother” without due process, the Executive Director of Resource Centre for Human Rights and Civic Education (CHRICED), Dr Zikirullahi Ibrahim, cautioned that until the Buhari administration purges itself of the tendency for misplaced spendings, the dwindling economy of the nation may never exit the woods.

    He said, “We are disturbed that the Federal Government recently donated $1 million to Afghanistan’s Taliban government.

    “That ill-advised donation ignored the fact that the Taliban is led by terrorists who have no respect for women, have prevented women from attending school, and are serially abusing the rights of Afghan citizens.

    “It is difficult to understand how the Buhari administration came to befriend the terrorist Taliban government in Afghanistan to the point of donating funds to them.

    “We categorically denounce this indiscriminate use of the nation’s funds, especially in these trying times. Aside from making little or no economic sense, such a gift should not come from a government that claims to be fighting terrorism within its borders,” he told The reporters.

    Three years ago, many Nigerians were worried when two governors from the Niger Republic graced President Buhari’s re-election campaign rally in Kano.

    Barely a year after President Buhari won the election, the Federal Government approved a $1,959,744,723.71 contract for a rail line that would link Nigeria to Niger Republic even when the pre-independence Eastern rail network remains comatose.

    The rail construction to Niger republic was an executive fiat which was followed by the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding for the importation of a paltry 15,000 barrels of fuel per day from the French-speaking country into Nigeria.

    Signatures were appended to the oil importation agreement between Nigeria and Niger Republic after N81bn had been reportedly spent on the Kaduna, Warri, and PortHarcourt refineries without any head way.

    Unfortunately, no one has been arrested for deceiving the nation and frittering away such a humongous sum of money in the name of rehabilitating the oil refineries in the country.

    Lambasting the National Assembly for failing in its constitutional role of checkmating the misplaced spending of the executive arm of the government, Comrade Deji Adeyanju, a human rights activist and convener of a pro-democracy, Concerned Nigerians, charged citizens to show more concern about the quality of those seeking legislative seats at the federal level in 2023.

    He claimed, in a chat with the reporter, that the leadership of both the Senate and the House of Representatives played the ostrich on the frivolous spendings on other sovereign states by the Federal Government, because they were imposed as firsts among equals by the executive and the powers-that-be in the ruling party.

    “It’s unfortunate that the President purchased N1.145bn vehicles for Niger Republic when ASUU is on strike.

    “This depicts the parody of a nation that we live in, because nothing else explains this in any form.

    “Also, the irony of the Federal Government giving $1m to Afghanistan without appropriation crowns it all by demonstrating the level of impunity in the country.

    “The illegalities of the government vis-a-vis the refusal to comply with the doctrine of separation of powers guaranteed in Sections (4), (5), and (6) of our Constitution, and the flagrant abuse of the Rule of Law and the Due Process has become characteristics of this current government.

    “It’s unfortunate that all these things the government did has indeed set a bad precedence for our democracy.

    “This is why we must stop electing weaklings into the National Assembly. As Nigerians are interested in who becomes the President, they must also show interest in who goes to the National Assembly to represent us.

    “We must also try as a nation to prevent the executive arm of government from imposing a leadership on the National Assembly as we saw in 2019 when Ahmad Lawan and Femi Gbajabiamila became Senate President and Speaker of the House of Representatives respectively.

    “Those kind of moves are counter productive for any democracy and does not augur well for checks and balances between the executive and legislative arms of government.

    “All these unapproved spendings happen, because of the way politics has been played. Regrettable, they have in no small measure dampened the tenets of democracy in our country.

    “It is sad and ironical. However, the citizens must rise up to the occasion to criticise the government the more and hold it accountable to the people,” Adeyanju lamented.

    Nevertheless, activists and civil society groups are not alone. Opposition political parties, that are warming up to wrestle power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2023, have also joined in condemning the Federal Government’s inclination to spend public fund on other countries without appropriation by the National Assembly. The New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), led by a former Kano governor, Engr. Rabiu Kwankwaso, described as absurd the tendency of the Federal Government to recklessly throw taxpayers’ money around while Nigerians are finding it hard to sleep with their two eyes closed.

    “It has been tales of woes across the country. The state of the nation is very bad.

    “This is not the time to play Father Christmas or Big Brother Africa as charity begins at home. National interest supersedes parochial sentiments when the nation is under siege and its territorial integrity violated with impunity by terrorists, insurgents, bandits and militants as if there is no constituted government in place,” the NNPP spokesman, Agbo Major, told the report.

    He counseled President Buhari to channel the nation’s resources to secure the populace in tandem with Section 24(2)b of the 1999 Constitution, as amended which states that the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.

    “So far, the outgoing APC-led Federal Government has failed woefully in this critical provision of the Constitution it swore to uphold, protect and implement,” the NNPP surmised.

    In all of these, what is clear is that Nigerians must begin to ask questions about what would become of them when a loan taken in the name of Nigeria but used to develop facilities in another sovereign state can’t be paid back? One possibility is that China may end up taking over facilities in Nigeria with no consequences to the Niger Republic.

    (Vanguard)

  • American airlines to aid Afghan Evacuation

     

    The United States on Sunday enlisted several major airlines in its frantic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans, Americans and other foreigners from Kabul following its fall to Taliban extremists.

    Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin activated the rarely-used Civil Reserve Air Fleet (CRAF) to aid the onward movement of people arriving at US bases in the Middle East, the Pentagon said.

     

    “We’re going to try our very best to get everybody, every American citizen who wants to get out, out,” Austin said in an ABC interview on the evacuation mission, adding that the same applied to America’s Afghan allies.

     

    Eighteen civilian craft, from American Airlines, Atlas, Delta, Omni, Hawaiian and United, will aid dozens of military cargo transports involved in the evacuation, the statement said.

     

    Rather than going in and out of Kabul, the planes will transport people from US bases in Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates to European countries and, for many, onward to the United States.

     

    With thousands of troops trying to secure the Afghan capital’s airport, Washington has set a deadline to complete one of the largest evacuation missions the Pentagon has ever conducted by August 31.

     

    But Austin didn’t rule out asking the president to extend the deadline.

     

    “We’re going to continue to assess the situation. And again, work as hard as we can to get as many people out as possible. And as we approach that deadline, we’ll make a recommendation to the president,” he told ABC.

     

    Up to 15,000 Americans need to be removed from Afghanistan, according to President Joe Biden, who says the administration wants to get at least 50,000 Afghan allies and their family members out of the country.

     

    — Chaotic exit –Widely criticized over the chaotic exit after a sudden Taliban victory, Biden has warned that the frantic effort to fly Americans, other foreigners and Afghan allies out of Taliban-occupied Kabul is dangerous.

     

    There have been reports of Taliban militants intimidating and beating people trying to reach the airport but Austin said the militants had largely been letting American passport holders pass through safely.

     

    The situation was further complicated on Saturday when the US government warned its citizens to stay away from the airport because of “security threats.”

     

    The Pentagon said Saturday that 17,000 people had so far been taken out since the operation began on August 14, with many flown first to Qatar or Kuwait. The total included 2,500 Americans.

     

    US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told CNN Sunday that the US military and its partners had flown out a further 7,900 people in the last 24 hours.

     

     

    “In terms of what we’ll be able to accomplish going forward… we can’t place a specific figure on exactly what we’ll be able to do, but I’ll just tell you that we’re going to try to exceed expectations, and do as much as we can, and take care of as many people as we can, for as long as we can,” Austin told ABC.

     

    The CRAF has only been activated twice — to fly troops for the 1990-91 Gulf War and again in 2002-2003 for the Iraq invasion.

     

     

     

     

     

    Source: www.punchng.com

  • Biden: Ending U.S.-Afghanistan military involvement the right decision

    Biden: Ending U.S.-Afghanistan military involvement the right decision

    President Joe Biden says ending military involvement with Afghanistan was the best decision taken by the United States government.

    Mr Biden, who spoke while addressing journalists at the White House on Monday, said that events of the past weeks justify the U.S. decision to withdraw its soldiers from Afghanistan.

    Further justifying the U.S. decision, Mr Biden said American soldiers should not die in a war that Afghan forces are unwilling to fight in.

    “Things did unfold more quickly than we have anticipated. So what happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country, the Afghan military collapsed sometimes without trying to fight.

    If anything, development of the past weeks reinforce that ending U.S. military involvement with Afghanistan now was the right decision,” Mr Biden said.

    “American troops cannot and should not be fighting in a war and dying in a war that Afghan forces are not willing to fight for themselves,” Mr Biden added.

    His comment comes after Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country following Taliban fighters’ takeover of government.

    Over the weekend, the extremists made major advances across Afghanistan as the U.S. and other countries started withdrawing their troops from the country.

    The original date for the full withdrawal of U.S. forces in Afghanistan was September 11, to mark the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

    The group took over most of southern, northern and western Afghanistan. Mazar-i-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province and the biggest city in the north, fell to the Taliban on Saturday, as regional leaders and security forces abandoned the city fleeing to Uzbekistan for safety.

    Despite promising to take over the country peacefully without harming civilians, several reports reveal that citizens and foreigners are fleeing the city, from people queuing at ATMs to withdraw money to helicopters evacuating staff from the U.S. Embassy.

    The U.S. government was forced to seize power from the insurgents in 2001 after a series of human rights abuses including executions; and extreme suppression of freedom of religion, expression, and education was recorded under the Taliban rule.

    However, in 2020, U.S. and the Taliban entered a truce, outlining a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan in exchange for Taliban commitments to restrain from attacks on the U.S. or its allies from Afghan territory.

    Mr Biden had in April announced that he will be withdrawing all American troops from Afghanistan over the coming months, completing the military exit by the 20th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks that drew the U.S. into its longest war.

    (Peoples Gazette)

  • Afghans brace for Taliban rule after militants take control of Kabul

    Afghans brace for Taliban rule after militants take control of Kabul

    Thousands scramble to flee country as US says all embassy staff have relocated to airport.

    Afghans were bracing themselves for life under strict Islamic rule on Monday after the Taliban drove the US-backed government of Ashraf Ghani from power to establish control of Kabul.

    Thousands of residents filled the airport and throngs of people tried to push their way on to planes in a desperate effort to flee after the Islamic fighters marched into the capital on Sunday.

    The Taliban’s capture of Kabul followed a sweeping offensive that saw the Islamic group overrun most of the country, facing little armed resistance as it encircled the capital.

    Analysts said that many Afghan troops had calculated that the fall of the unpopular government was inevitable and opted to surrender peacefully rather than die for an unpopular cause.

    Ghani, a former World Bank official, had resisted pressure to resign and initiate a power-sharing arrangement with the Taliban. He fled the country to an undisclosed location as an assault on the capital appeared imminent. Taliban fighters took control of the empty presidential palace and abandoned police posts in the capital without a struggle on Sunday.

    The US and other western governments urged the Taliban to “respect and facilitate the safe and orderly departure of foreign nationals who wish to leave”.

    Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said on Monday that the Taliban was in control of the country. “I have engaged through a third country yesterday to make sure we seek assurances from the Taliban to protect our people and indeed the people we’re trying to work to get out,” he told Sky News.

    The US has almost 6,000 troops in Kabul but military officials said their priority was to facilitate the safe and rapid evacuation of US civilians, other foreign nationals and some Afghan allies.

    Ned Price, US state department spokesperson, said all embassy personnel had been moved out of Kabul and were congregated at the airport, where a de facto embassy had been established.

    The Taliban ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 and enforced a strict interpretation of Islamic law, carrying out public executions, stoning women accused of adultery and cutting off the hands of accused thieves. The group was ousted by a US-led invasion following the terror attacks of September 11 2001.

    US forces deployed to the country were focused on securing the airport, but officials remained concerned about a potential Taliban attack.

    “[The Taliban] see those forces as invaders so they are likely to try to attack them,” Mike Morell, the former acting CIA director, told CBS news channel.

    But Morell warned that US troops could also be at risk from disgruntled Afghan security personnel, who felt betrayed by the abrupt American withdrawal.

    “There are many Afghan security forces that are immensely angry at what the US has done here, and they could take out their weapons and shoot the Americans that they’re working with,” he said.

    Many Afghans have raged at the US and other western governments for abandoning them to the Taliban. “My brain, my heart and soul died today,” Sara Wahedi, a former Afghan official wrote on Twitter. “I will get up and keep working — I know that. But we will never be the same, never.”

    (Financial Times)