Boko Haram rebels kill four Nigerian soldiers in ambush

Boko Haram rebels killed four Nigerian soldiers in a night ambush outside the northeastern city of Maiduguri and several insurgents also died in the firefight, according to a statement on Wednesday from Defence Headquarters.

Soldiers fired shots in the air at Maiduguri barracks on Wednesday because they were angry with their commanders about having been made to return at night to the city through an area where Boko Haram is fighting an insurgency, soldiers told Reuters.

"Troops on patrol around Chibok were ambushed by insurgents yesterday. Troops engaged the insurgents in a fierce combat and extricated themselves from the ambush killing several insurgents. Four soldiers however lost their lives during the ambush," said a statement from Defence Headquarters.

"On evacuation of the remains of the fallen troops, the General Officer Commanding addressed the troops who registered their anger about the incident by firing into the air. The situation has since been brought under control," it said.

Boko Haram has waged a five-year insurgency in northern Nigeria for an Islamic state. A month ago its fighters stormed a school in the village of Chibok and seized 276 girls who were taking exams. Some escaped but about 200 remain missing.

On Monday, Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau released a video showing some of the girls in captivity and offered to exchange them for Boko Haram prisoners held by the government

A fool says in his heart that 'there is no God'

GOD DEY O!

No doubt about it! God is good — 

good to good people, good to the good-hearted. 

2 But I nearly missed it,

missed seeing his goodness. 

3 I was looking the other way,

looking up to the people 

4 At the top,

envying the wicked who have it made, 

5 Who have nothing to worry about,

not a care in the whole wide world. 

6 Pretentious with arrogance,

they wear the latest fashions in violence, 

7 Pampered and overfed,

decked out in silk bows of silliness. 

8 They jeer, using words to kill;

they bully their way with words. 

9 They're full of hot air,

loudmouths disturbing the peace. 

10 People actually listen to them — can you believe it?

Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words. 

11 What's going on here? Is God out to lunch?

Nobody's tending the store. 

12 The wicked get by with everything;

they have it made, piling up riches 

13 I've been stupid to play by the rules;

what has it gotten me? 

14 A long run of bad luck, that's what — 

a slap in the face every time I walk out the door. 

15 If I'd have given in and talked like this,

I would have betrayed your dear children. 

16 Still, when I tried to figure it out,

all I got was a splitting headache . . .  

17 Until I entered the sanctuary of God.

Then I saw the whole picture: 

18 The slippery road you've put them on,

with a final crash in a ditch of delusions. 

19 In the blink of an eye, disaster!

A blind curve in the dark, and — nightmare! 

20 We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing.

There's nothing to them. And there never was. 

21 When I was beleaguered and bitter,

Ps 73:1-10

o doubt about it! God is good — 

good to good people, good to the good-hearted. 

2 But I nearly missed it,

missed seeing his goodness. 

3 I was looking the other way,

looking up to the people 

4 At the top,

envying the wicked who have it made, 

5 Who have nothing to worry about,

not a care in the whole wide world. 

6 Pretentious with arrogance,

they wear the latest fashions in violence, 

7 Pampered and overfed,

decked out in silk bows of silliness. 

8 They jeer, using words to kill;

they bully their way with words. 

9 They're full of hot air,

loudmouths disturbing the peace. 

10 People actually listen to them — can you believe it?

Like thirsty puppies, they lap up their words. 

11 What's going on here? Is God out to lunch?

Nobody's tending the store. 

12 The wicked get by with everything;

they have it made, piling up riches 

13 I've been stupid to play by the rules;

what has it gotten me? 

14 A long run of bad luck, that's what — 

a slap in the face every time I walk out the door. 

15 If I'd have given in and talked like this,

I would have betrayed your dear children. 

16 Still, when I tried to figure it out,

all I got was a splitting headache . . .  

17 Until I entered the sanctuary of God.

Then I saw the whole picture: 

18 The slippery road you've put them on,

with a final crash in a ditch of delusions. 

19 In the blink of an eye, disaster!

A blind curve in the dark, and — nightmare! 

20 We wake up and rub our eyes. . . . Nothing.

There's nothing to them. And there never was

21 When I was beleaguered and bitter,

totally consumed by envy, 

22 I was totally ignorant, a dumb ox

in your very presence. 

23 I'm still in your presence,

but you've taken my hand. 

24 You wisely and tenderly lead me,

and then you bless me. 

25 You're all I want in heaven!

You're all I want on earth! 

26 When my skin sags and my bones get brittle,

God is rock-firm and faithful. 

27 Look! Those who left you are falling apart!

Deserters, they'll never be heard from again. 

28 But I'm in the very presence of God — 

oh, how refreshing it is!

I've made Lord God my home.

God, I'm telling the world what you do! 

An Asaph psalm.

(from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language © 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved.)

Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau opens" the door to a resolution. He wants a swap.

"There are two ways to which you can get these girls free,
"The first is to use force, and the second is through dialogue. The use of force is not an option for now in the sense that nobody knows where these girls are kept.
"And even if you know, these girls have been embedded in with the insurgents who are heavily armed. And any attempt to rescue them will be putting their lives in further danger." the National Orientation Agency, said all options, including negotiations, are under consideration
The Nigerian government has negotiated with Boko Haram for the release of kidnapped girls before,
Last year, the militant group won the release of some 100 of its imprisoned members after reaching an agreement to return about a dozen kidnapped girls.

"I believe that the lives of these girls is more important to us than the insurgents that have been in detention. And we have nothing to lose if we send the insurgents and we can swap them with these girls back. The Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau appeared to open the door to such a resolution.
"By Allah, these girls will not leave our hands until you release our brothers in your prison," he said.
If not, they'll be sold as slaves, he said.
Rights groups have accused Nigeria of using heavy-handed tactics such as illegal searches, torture and extrajudicial killings to crack down on the militants

Time & Value Group: Are you having a problem with decision making?.......

Time & Value Group: Are you having a problem with decision making?.......: Toss a coin? Are you nuts? That´s no way to make important decisions! I had been sitting deep in my thoughts. I needed to make a bi...

Are you having a problem with decision making?..... Why not toss a coin?

Toss a coin? Are you nuts? That´s no way to make important decisions!

I had been sitting deep in my thoughts. I needed to make a big decision about my job. It seemed that the more I thought about it, the more complicated the issue became in my mind. My friend had invited me over for lunch and now looked at me with a slightly bored expression. No wonder - I hadn´t talked much, thinking about my problem.
toss a coin!
 Why don´t you try? I have a special coin just for the occasion.

She opened her bag and took out a small purse. When she opened it I saw only one coin. A genuine old silver dollar.

This belonged to my grandfather, she said, - And he always used it to make important decisions when he did not know which way to go.

You mean your grandfather flipped a coin and based his decisions on it?

When ever he couldn´t decide, yes.

Now I had know her grandfather and always thought of him as one of the most down-to-earth kind of a person.

You can´t be serious… I looked at my friend, unbelieving.
She just gave me the coin. It felt heavy in my hand.
Quickly. Decide which answer is heads and which is tails.
Oh what the hey - why not play along. I nodded to show I had made my decision.

Now toss it.

I did.
Heads. That would be "Yes". But that can´t be so! I mean if I did that, it would mean… What are you smiling at?
She really was, and looked very amused.
You see: you got your answer.
No, I didn´t! It showed "yes" but that can´t be right…
I shut up. I got it.
Now you see why my grandfather used to toss a coin. He did not follow the answer it showed - head or tails, yes or no. Instead he listened very carefully what was his first emotional reaction to the answer the coin gave. And THAT was the real answer. With this coin he passed his analytical mind and let the subconscious wisdom come through.

I looked at the coin in my hand.
Wow, I never thought about it that way.
Well - now you know. Can I have my coin back? And perhaps we could have a meaningful conversation from now on?

That we did.
To toss a coin to get answers to questions must have been a habit of man for thousands of years. I remember reading one Donald Duck cartoon as a small kid where our poor duck got into real trouble by tossing a coin to make even the smallest decisions. I found the story hilarious and only later learned that it really is an ancient habit. There is interesting information about coin tossing, for example check what Wikipedia has to offer: fascinating information, isn´t it!

Mankind uses many ways to talk to the subconscious - but in the end the point is to listen to your own inner voice and not take any outside "oracle" as your guide. If you start directing your life according to outside advice only, you´ll soon find yourself lost.

Instead learn to know yourself, listen to your own emotions - and respect yourself as the person who best knows best what is good for you. When you learn to do this, there´s no need for you to toss a coin to get the answer - it is enough just to think of the question and the answer comes.

So do this little exercise every once in a while:

1) Relax the best you can.

2) Think of a question you want an answer to and then...

3) Be quiet. Notice any physical sensations you might have. Notice any emotions you feel. Those are signs from your own mind. With time you learn to interpret their meanings and the process gets quicker and more reliable. You are waking up your own intuition.

4) In the beginning you might want to write down your feelings - both physical and emotional. They are easy to forget.



Read more: http://www.inspirational-short-stories.com/toss-a-coin.html#ixzz31d4n92U5

Welcome to Linda Ikeji's Blog: See photos of abducted Chibok girls from new Boko Haram video

Welcome to Linda Ikeji's Blog: See photos of abducted Chibok girls from new Boko Haram video

STRICTLY FOR THE NORTHERN ELITES: Has your hypocrisy towards modern education been of any value to the north?

 Boko Haram's rise is not only driven by global trends in themselves but by how globalization has melded with the internal dynamics of Nigerian education.

 The Christian South in Nigeria is much more prosperous than the Muslim North, and that economic gap is growing rapidly. The roots go back to the British colonial period from the late 19th century to independence in 1960. The British ruled the South directly, which was also being rapidly Christianized by missionaries. Missionaries ran many of the schools.
In the Muslim North, the British practiced "indirect rule," governing through the clerical and traditional elites and allowing local religious institutions to operate autonomously (with some limitations, for example, banning slavery).
The impact of missionary schooling was to 'bring Western education into Nigeria', and this has had direct bearing on economic development for the regions where such schools predominated -- and this legacy is with us to this day. Access to Western-style education has been key for enabling people to adapt to a modern economy. In the north, some missionary schools were established, but traditional elites always resisted them for obvious religious reasons and because those schools threatened to generate an alternative elite. Instead, the schooling that predominates in the north of Nigeria consists of religious schools, or the al-Majiri education system -- often informal, with students congregating under a tree. These students are completely unequipped to work in a changing economy (and overall, Nigeria is economically growing rapidly). Some of these schools have dubious teachers who exploit the usually impoverished students by getting them to beg in the streets for the teachers' own gain.

In the wake of September 11, there was extensive discussion of Muslim schools and the extent to which some were inculcating extremism, for example madrassas in Pakistan. Some have claimed that Muslim education, properly taught, would provide an inoculation against extremism. But that debate lost 

sight of a larger issue, whatever the theology of such schools. The graduates of those schools are often adrift in globalized economies without marketable skills and modern education, and more vulnerable to at least tolerating extremism.which brings us back to the language of Boko Haram. The leadership has ranted against any form of secular education. It teaches that European colonists introduced modern secular education into Islamic societies in a conspiracy to maintain colonialist hegemony over Muslim societies: The West aims to 

corrupt pure Islamic morals with liberal norms. Likewise, the leaders believe that the West wants to replace proper gender roles with sexual permissiveness. Secular subjects like chemistry, physics, engineering, meteorological explanations of rain, the theory of evolution are all denounced as contrary to the Quran.

In our research in the area, and in other surveys, it is evident that students coming out of the religious schools are more likely to sympathize with Boko Haram, significantly even those who are not particularly religious in practice. Equally significantly, religiosity as such does not necessarily bring with it a tendency to back Boko Haram. The issue is the education system, not religious belief. 

In the eyes of Boko Haram, the abduction of schoolgirls is a triple strike against what they view as Western depravity: against Western schools, against  the obscenity" of having girls in school at all and against Christianity, to the degree the schoolgirls are Christians.

If northern Nigeria is to have a more stable and prosperous long-term future, it is essential to develop an education system that prepares students for a modern, globalized economy. This is especially the case in the northeast, where Boko Haram is most active. Nigerians in northeastern Nigeria, who in part may sympathize with Boko Haram's fight against corruption, are however alienated by Boko Haram's  bloodlust. And most will support developing an education system that provides the foundation to make a living.

Culled from-  David Jacobson. Atta Barkindo and Derek Harveys' submission on CNN editorials.