The Nigerian government is now trying its best to convince it critics that its decision, this year, to scale down its usually elaborate Independence Day celebration was “cost-saving measure” and not out of fear of terrorist attack.
Critics of the Nigerian government are, however, skeptical of the Nigerian government’s “cost-saving measure,” describing such concern as uncharacteristic of the Nigerian government which has always indulged itself in lavish celebrations of the country’s October 1 Independence Day anniversary.
Vanguard reports that this year’s October 1 Independence Day anniversary was a modest ceremony held in the forecourt of the president’s office in the Aso Rock Presidential Villa.
According to allAfrica.com, opposition party Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), has accused the Nigerian government of incompetence, saying it lacks the capability to protect the citizenry. ACN claims the Nigerian government suddenly found a new interest in “cost-saving measures” in marking this year’s Independence Day anniversary only out of fear of threats of bomb attack by the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram and the Movement for Emancipation of Niger Delta (MEND).
allAfrica.com reports that the Nigerian president, in effort to convince his critics that his government did not “chicken out” of the usual Eagles Square celebrations, announced that his government’s “cost-saving measure” will also be observed in 2012 and 2013.
President Goodluck Jonathan made this announcement at a press conference during a two-day visit to Rwanda in the week. At the press conference, held at the Rwandan presidential villa, the Nigerian president was at pains to convince foreign investors and tourists that Nigeria is safe for investments and tourism. The Nigerian president said:
“Only upper Tuesday I received Bill Gates, if not the richest, one of the richest people in the world, in Nigeria. So if Bill Gates could come to Nigeria and move freely that tells you Nigeria is safe. It is a very wrong notion that is being painted that we celebrated our independence anniversary in the State House[out of fear of attack]…no country — you are journalists you can tell me — no country celebrates their national day every year. Even an individual from the age of 40 and above, if you celebrate your birthday every year nobody comes again, nobody values it.”
Vanguard had reported, on September 26, that Nigerian security agencies received reports the militant Islamic sect Boko Haram, planned to attack strategic targets in the federal capital Abuja, during the country’s independence anniversary. According to Sahara reporters, the Nigerian government was thrown into panic after intelligence reports showed Boko Haram has al-Qaeda links through Mauritania.
The group Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad (“People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad”), nicknamed “Boko Haram,” (“non-Islamic education is sin”) is now waging guerrilla war against the Nigerian state over what it perceives as corrupting influence of “Western culture and science” in Nigeria. The leader of the group Mohammed Yusuf, in an interview with the BBC before Nigerian forces killed him in 2009, said he did not believe the earth is a sphere. He also rejected as fiction, the scientific explanation that rain comes from water the sun evaporates from the seas.