Free Republic

The Nigerian government says it has "indefinitely suspended" Twitter's operations in the country, the Ministry of Information and Culture announced in a statement on Friday. "The Federal Government has suspended, indefinitely, the operations of the microblogging and social networking service, Twitter, in Nigeria," it read. The statement, which was posted on the ministry's official Twitter handle on Friday evening, accused the American social media company of allowing its platform to be used "for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria's corporate existence." The suspension comes two days after Twitter deleted a tweet by President Muhammadu Buhari that was widely perceived...

Boko Haram... released another execution video. In it, a masked Muslim child holding a pistol appears standing behind a bound and kneeling hostage, later identified as Ropvil Daciya Dalep, a 22-year-old Christian... kidnapped on January 9 while traveling to his university, where he majored in biology. After chanting in Arabic and launching into an anti-Christian diatribe, the Muslim child proceeds to shoot Ropvil several times in the back of the head. — Independent Catholic News, January 23, 2020; Nigeria.[snip]After Muhammad 'Awad, 32, was arrested and questioned as to why he tried to murder Rafiq Karam, 56, he confessed that he...

A prominent Christian group in Nigeria has accused U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of being “discriminatory...and divisive” during a recent trip to the West African country. Kerry was in Nigeria on Monday and Tuesday and was hosted by the Sultan of Sokoto, Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III, the most senior Islamic cleric in the country. The U.S. diplomat also met with 19 governors of Nigeria’s northern states and held talks with President Muhammadu Buhari, who is also a Muslim. The president of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Reverend Supo Ayokunle, told reporters on Thursday that Kerry’s visit showed a “lack...

The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) were a major driver of the rally in oil markets over the past several months, as the outage of roughly 600,000 barrels per day helped push up crude oil prices. In June, a 30-day ceasefire between the NDA and the Nigerian government led to a few weeks of relative calm, and Nigeria’s oil minister said that the country was able to bring back a large chunk of the disrupted supply, bringing output up from 1.4 million barrels per day to 1.9 mb/d at the end of June, but still down from the 2.2 mb/d Nigeria...

Shell has evacuated nearly 100 essential oil personnel from a major production facility in the Niger Delta, following a series of attacks from a newly formed militant group that has vowed to renew the fight abandoned after a 2009 amnesty deal. Some 98 Shell personnel were airlifted from the Shell-operated Eja Oml 79 oil production facility in the Niger Delta over the weekend, bringing into question the facility’s 90,000 barrel-per-day production capacity. The facility is run by Shell’s Nigerian subsidiary, SPDC (Shell Petroleum Development Corporation). The evacuations come after militants of the Niger Delta Avengers attacked an offline oil platform...

Situation in Nigeria For a country that produced nearly 2.4 million barrels of oil (NYSEARCA:USO) per day just a few months ago, Nigeria is facing some really serious issues. A militant group called the Niger Delta has disrupted the country's 2.4 million b/d of production by blowing up pipelines, hassling producers, and threatening to destroy additional oil producing facilities. As a result, Nigeria's oil production has fallen from 2.4 million b/d to 1.4 million b/d and further pressuring a growing nation more and more reliant on its oil as revenue. Nigeria is a fast growing country. Its economy is the...

A militant group has however since February 2016 been making headlines through their capacity to destroy oil infrastructure. Their attacks have driven Nigeria’s oil output to near a 22-year low. Contrary to popular opinion, the group, Niger Delta Avengers, NDA for short, according to them is not just made up of Niger Deltans but has support from other parts of Nigeria, namely Northern, Western and Eastern part of the Country with the sole purpose of crippling the Nigerian Economy until their demands are met. According to reports, Diplomats and security experts say the group has shown a level of sophistication...

In an early Wednesday attack, Niger Delta militants have blown up two Chevron oil wells in Warri, leading a shut down in the wells and promising further output drops for Nigeria. The Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) have claimed responsibility for the attack via their Twitter feed, not that they “blew up Chevron oil well RMP 23 and 24 [at] 3:44 am this morning.” These are Chevron’s Bibi oil wells, run by Chevron Nigeria Limited. The militant group also noted that it had a “heavy presence of 100 gunboats, 4 warships and jet bombers,” and that the attack was meant “to...

Americans do well with moderation. It is in our national DNA. It is also a by-product of the freedom of expression and allowing different perspectives in the public forum. In foreign policy, non-interventionism is the moderate stance, and it has served Americans well in her four hundred or so years. As British subjects, American colonists were compelled to fight for the British crown, until they felt compelled to defend themselves against the king’s army. After centuries of European conflicts dragging Americans into war, national independence yielded a non-interventionist foreign policy for the infant nation. George Washington advised in his farewell...

The progressive movement that has overtaken the Democratic Party gains its moral authority in a morally relativistic world in part based on its support of the “oppressed” over the “oppressor.” As Joshua Muravchik ably argues in his Making David Into Goliath, in this construct, Israel has morphed into the oppressor, swapping roles with the Muslim countries that have wished to destroy her from the time of her founding. The Leftist-Jihadist nexus of which Andy McCarthy writes, on display from elite college campuses to the president’s cabinet, is perhaps stronger than it has ever been. It believes in punishing the ultimate...

Lagos – The Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Most Rev. Adewale Martins on Tuesday praised President Muhammadu Buhari for dissociating Nigeria from same sex marriage. Martins, who spoke at the 3rd anniversary of his ordination and installation as the Archbishop of Lagos held at the Holy Cross Cathedral, Lagos, said that Buhari’s rejection of same sex marriage on behalf of Nigeria indicated that he was a responsive leader. “About a week ago, the President won the applause of most Nigerians when during his visit to the United States he made it clear that Nigeria considers same sex union as contrary to...

Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed new defence chiefs after sacking the heads of the army, navy and air force. The sackings were expected as the president has repeatedly criticised the military's inability to defeat Islamist group Boko Haram. The Islamists have recently launched a series of deadly guerrilla attacks, killing more than 250 people. Boko Haram is thought to be responsible for more than 10,000 deaths since 2009. Both the new head of the army, Maj Gen Tukur Yusuf Buratai, and the National Security Adviser, Maj Gen Babagana Monguno, are from Borno State which is at the heart of...

They’re Nigeria’s unlikely saviors – most being white, in their 50s and 60s and combat veterans of the former South African apartheid regime. But, tainted resumes notwithstanding, they’ve been getting the job done in northern Nigeria, hitting the Islamist terror group Boko Haram hard enough to send the jihadists into retreat, liberating dozens of villages and freeing hundreds of women and girls held as slaves and “bush wives” during a six-year-long reign of terror, reported London Telegraph. Boko Haram recently pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. In recent years, Boko Haram has slaughtered entire...