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Articles on Nigeria after 2002
A woman to be stoned to death because Allah say so
Hell in Kaduna: Islam kills again
Nigeria on the way to Islamic fundamentalism
Nigeria on the way to Islamic fundamentalism
Nigeria towards democracy

  • (November 2002) Hell in Kaduna: Islam kills again. Nigeria is rapidly becoming a new front in the Islamic crusade against the rest of the world. Kaduna is the Nigerian city which became famous in 2000 when Islamic mobs caused the death of 2,000 people. This time 105 people have died for an even sillier reason: a Miss World pageant. That is, in a nutshell, the difference between Islam and the other religions of the world: total, absolute, murderous intolerance of any other viewpoint.
    A journalist dared hint that the "prophet" Mohammed would have married the ladies of a "Miss World" beauty contest, and mobs of Muslims decided that was enough to justify burning Christian churches and killing Christians at random in the streets. Christians and pagans were burned alive in the streets for the simple reason that they were not Muslims.
    No surprise: this is what the Quran preaches, this is what Mohammed taught. They were shouting "Allah is great". They forgot to add "and is a danger to the rest of the world".
    Islamic fundamentalist groups had threatened for months of starting riots to protest the Miss World pageant and were only waiting for an excuse.
    After the riots erupted and innocents were being killed in the streets, the Islamic council Umma declared an emergency... but not because people were being killed: because the pageant was still going on.
    What has the Nigerian government done to punish the fanatical Muslims? It arrested the journalist! It sounds like the government of Nigeria will now arrest anyone whom the Muslims deem to have offended Islam. Which is precisely the definition of "Islamic dictatorship".
    In the meantime, Isioma Daniel, the 21-year old journalist who wrote the incriminating piece, has to hide, and may have to hide for the rest of her life, because a state issued a fatwa (death sentence) against her: every good Muslim in the world who has the opportunity is supposed to kill her. The government of Nigeria hasn't even provided her with a body guard, let alone tried to defend her freedom of speech.
    When will governments get the message and start teaching Muslims that Islam is just a barbaric superstition, instead of giving in to those barbaric superstitions?
    See Islam kills .
    TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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  • (October 2002) A woman to be stoned to death because Allah say so. While the world is busy protecting Islamic dictatorships from Iraq to Saudi Arabia, Islamic fundamentalists are taking advantage of the opportunity and planning to spread "sharia" (the divine law of Islam) to the rest of the world. Northern Nigeria has become such a testbed for Islamic law, which was introduced in six states during 2000. Amputations and summary executions have become the way of life. The faithful Islamic citizens of northern Nigeria enjoy the spectacle of executioners cutting hands off thieves and of people being flogged for drinking alcohol. Now a woman is to be buried in the ground up to her chest and then stoned to death by a crowd of cheering fanatics of Islam because Allah reportedly said so to the prophet Mohammed 1400 years ago. Needless to say, noone in the West is planning to bomb/invade northern Nigeria any time soon: as long as they don't trouble us, they are welcome to stone all the women they like. If hell exists, Allah and Mohammed will have company: all the men and women who knew and didn't do anything to stop this folly.
    TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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  • (December 2001) Nigeria on the way to Islamic fundamentalism A dozen states of Nigeria have adopted the Islamic law ("shariah") as the law of their territory. This means that, for example, a woman who does not wear the veil can go to jail and be subject to beating, a woman who cheats her husband can be stoned to death, a woman cannot defend herself in a court of law, etc. Non-muslims are discriminated and are leaving those states. Christians have been killed in several locations. This is a real epidemic: it started with a couple of states in the north and has been slowly spreading elsewhere. As usual, there were solid reasons to adopt a stricter code of behavior: widespread corruption, unreliable military and rampant crime. The central government of Nigeria is to be blamed as much as the religious extremists for bringing about a potentially explosive situation. If Nigeria becomes a new Afghanistan or a new Somalia, the effect would be ten times bigger, as Nigeria has more than 120 million people and has vast oil resources.
    Justice minister was killed in december 2001. He had been a critic of the introduction of shariah.
    TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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  • (October 1999) Nigeria towards democracy. Olusegun Obasanjo has inaugurated the first civilian government in 16 years, taking over the military regime that has bankrupted Nigeria. Obasanjo is himself a product of the army, but Nigerians consider him the good general, if nothing else because he surrendered power to the civilians when he was dictator and because the late and hated general Sani Abacha imprisoned him in 1996.
    Obasanjo has immediately restored order to Nigeria, fired high-ranking officers of the army and started a campaign against corruption, which is arguably Nigeria's biggest problem. He has mandated investigations in deals that go as far back as 1966, hoping to recover some of the billions of dollars that the military swindled away in those 16 years.
    His second biggest problem (after the military) will be to keep the country together. Nigeria is a federation of about 400 ethnic groups, patched together by Britain in 1914. As the world keeps recognizing the colonial borders, the same stupid tragedy is happening over and over again: peoples who never had anything in common get lumped in the same nation. Economics, as usual, stirs emotions: the Yorubas are bitter about their oil, which generates most of Nigeria's revenues.
    Furthermore, Nigeria is divided almost evenly between a muslim north and a christian south, and states like Zamfara, in the north, have announced that they want to introduce the Islamic law. The president is a Yoruba christian, like most of the governing elite. No surprise that muslims are growing restless.
    TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved.
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