AS 82 GIRLS ARE RELEASED: TIMES THAT TRY MUMS’ SOULS

AS 82 GIRLS ARE RELEASED: TIMES THAT TRY MUMS’ SOULS 

In a world with rare redemptive news, it was wonderful to learn of the release of 82 Chibok girls weeks after the 3rd anniversary of their abduction. One of the escaped girls in our US school project beamed as she showed me pictures on her cell phone gleaned from the internet of her recently freed cousin.

Here’s why this is important to her. One of the reasons the girls liked being relocated for their education was survivors’ remorse. “Anytime our friends’ mums see us, they would break into tears wondering where their own children are,” one said.

Yes in addition to being stigmatized and called “Boko Haram wives” at home and even “Boko Haram girls” in Western media no less, this is a real very personal cross the escaped girls have to bear.

After the initial euphoria, a certain disquiet is creeping in. Out of 195 missing girls less than half are back. Which parent won the 3-year lottery and which didn’t?

A few weeks ago I visited with Mary mum of one of the missing. I have never seen her so forlorn and it wasn’t because her meager government salary hasn’t been paid since last year. During the Christmas break, someone got word to her that the terrorists hadn’t released her daughter as punishment for her outspoken #bringbackourgirls advocacy.

Can you think of any worse pressure to put on a mum than to hold her responsible for her daughter’s captivity? She could do nothing to prevent her daughter’s abduction but is she doing something to prevent her release? Sadly enough she did try to prevent the abduction even requesting government officials who ran the school to let her daughter leave the dorms. Days after the denial, she was taken…

Dejectedly she shared how the parents of the 21 girls released last year came to town to see their daughters – and left without meeting her. No one said anything to her. Not even the government called her when her daughter was featured spokesperson in the last proof of life video…

Until one day, her phone rang. It was an anonymous number.  The girl on the other end was 1/21. “I asked my dad for your number,” she said. “Your daughter is fine. We were all asked to line up one day. They said they wanted 20 of us. They counted up to 20. Then they decided to add one more – the girl with the baby. Your daughter was #22. She cried when it stopped short of her but they said she’d be in the next batch to be released.”

There is anxiety in Chibok. Some names on the government list of freed girls are duplicates and some misspelt. This means someone’s daughter could be there but is not properly identified or vice versa. Most parents have not been notified by the government. With limited literacy and internet, all rely on outsiders to scour the web in search of the “lucky list” and tell them. It doesn’t help that there is simply no good, authenticated, official list of the abducted 276 out there.

No one wants to be the bearer of bad tidings to our friend that her daughter, #22, is not in this batch. Rather our team is nitpicking the list to find her erroneously tucked away somewhere in there…

This is where the government system needs improvement. There has to be a way to bring all the families together and give them updates and briefings instead of shuttering all the girls who returned last year away with prized intel. Some of the girls are dead. We have names but for a year now no one wants to bell the cat and tell the parents whose daughters’ names will never make the list…

These are times that try men’s souls, be it the pastor whose two daughters were taken none of whom appear to be released or the Muslim dad I met one of whose two daughters escaped back with a baby months ago but has no word on his other daughter.

I recall how I first heard of Mary, in 2014. One of the escaped girls we relocated to US phoned me from her residential high school. “Uncle, I called my friend’s mother to check on her. She asked me if anyone in America was still speaking about the missing girls. I told her ‘uncle Emma’ does.” I was so touched that this girl in the US would call her.

When I saw Mary recently I asked if the girl had called. Not anymore, she said. Instigated by covert agents of the Nigerian embassy, this girl mysteriously became part of some girls who dropped out of our program claiming they were “forced” to tell their stories to the media which incidentally is precisely a sore point for an embarrassed regime…

The internationalization of the #bringbackourgirls campaign is precisely the embarrassment necessary to force governments to do the needful as autocrats tend to be more vulnerable to foreign scorn than the home variety. As mostly poor, rural, Christian girls, the Chibok girls were at the bottom of the pecking order in conservative Muslim-dominated Borno state of Nigeria. Only pesky “do gooders” like a pro Nigeria regime apologist, Ada Obi, tagged us rights advocates in a spiteful op ed rant, could have revalued these girls’ lives to be worth a king’s ransom.

Mother’s Day will try women’s souls in Chibok this Sunday. Just like the parents in the waiting room after the Sandy Hook school massacre. A name would be called and parents would be escorted out of the waiting room. Until names stopped being called and no one came to get anyone. And everyone just sat there and knew – no more list.

Last summer, Sa’a, one of the escaped girls in our US program gave a moving answer about not feeling survivor’s remorse. “I feel God let me escape so I could be a voice for my classmates.”

Here’s why Sa’a who’s now in college is resilient. As her friend injured in the escape attempt hobbled along 3 years ago, she begged Sa’a to leave her to die and save herself. “What will I tell your parents if I go home and they ask of you?” Fired on by foresight, she found help and saved them both.

She may have skirted the problem of survivor’s guilt but the 21 year old has a new cross to bear. “I won’t stop speaking till they come back,” she says. With 83 more classmates back and 113 more to go, these truly are times that try many souls.

10 years after, here’s 10 reasons why the CIA didn’t bring back the kidnapped schoolgirls

truthnigeria.com/2024/04/10-reasons-why-the-cia-did-not-rescue-the-schoolgirls-as-new-book-claims/

Why the world should worry about Nigeria’s shambolic elections

• polls invoke horrors of Nigeria’s top human rights crisis, warns rights expert

You’ve probably received an email from a Prince in Nigeria trying to get lots of money out and needing just a bit of yours first. What you probably don’t know is the deadly side of a laughable e-mail.

For years, Nigeria’s police ostensibly trying to stop advance fee fraud (also known as 419) have profiled innocent young Nigerians for kidnap, torture, extortion and murder simply for owning an iPhone or laptop.

In October 2020, after one too many police brutality deaths, Nigeria’s youth again peacefully protested.
At first the Nigerian government headed by a ruthless deposed ex-military dictator Gen Buhari, arranged Muslim militias to violently attack the protesters claiming they were troublesome infidels.
Yet the protesters were Muslim, Christian and others who took turns watching each other’s backs when they prayed at Lekki tollgate turned #EndSARs’ shrine in Lagos state.

Finally on October 20, 2020, after shutting their internet and bank accounts didn’t cripple the protests, the army cut out the lights and massacred scores of dancing protesters in cold blood at Lekki.

On February 25, 2023, Nigeria’s youth turned up to vote out the regime who squelched their #EndSARs protest against brutality with more brutality.
However scores of young poll workers were assaulted, kidnapped and intimidated for refusing to rig in favor of certain politicians.
Again the IT portal for election result upload was mysteriously shut down for only presidential results – not other parliamentary races.

Over 96 hours later, a president-elect was announced – Bola Tinubu a former Governor of Lagos state who made himself tax-collection consultant for the state and operated the very Lekki Tollgate where the 102020 massacre occurred!

It’s almost inconceivable that there could be any worse outcome but there is.
Before the #EndSARs global campaign, Nigerian youths had also gained attention in another global campaign #Bringbackourgirls.

In April 2014, Nigeria’s federal education ministry asked the governor of terror-ridden Borno state not to allow students stay in remote areas for security reasons. The governor refused to heed the advise and almost 300 Schoolgirls were abducted by jihadi terror group Boko Haram leading in part to the defeat of the President then the next year. Nine years later, 96 of those Chibok schoolgirls remain missing in the world’s longest-running mass abduction. And the Gov who’s arrogance and recklessness caused this? Gov Shettima is now VP-elect!

But it only gets worse.
On May 28, 1969, Bruce Mayrock, an American 20 year old Columbia University student, set himself ablaze in front of the UN to draw attention to the Biafran genocide in southeast Nigeria.
More than half a century after Mayrock’s death and that of over one million Igbo people, Nigeria’s southeast is still politically marginalized leading to a resurgence of separatist demands.

A widely popular secessionist leader Nnamdi Kanu was illegally abducted abroad and detained by the Nigerian government for years now.
A former governor, Peter Obi, from southeast who was a surprising third-party favorite to win the presidential election given his erudition, record and integrity, had his votes massively stolen and his Labor Party supporters beaten, wounded and even killed.

In Lagos state, Tinubu’s mafiosi were recorded on video destroying ballots and injuring innocent Obi voters in front of security officers. This played out in multiple states including Shettima’s Borno state where Christians were brazenly disallowed to vote (Tinubu and Shettima are both Muslims in defiance of the country’s historical efforts at balancing.)
Biafra was the earliest and biggest global human rights campaign from Nigeria with Brock’s self-immolation as a human hashtag but even now the Igbo people are still suppressed in Nigeria. The Igbos are not allowed to LEAVE Nigeria and they are not allowed to LEAD Nigeria.

In one election and in one day, Nigeria was able to revive the horrors of its three most globally visible human rights concerns of over half a century.
This election outcome could not be any worse for the unity, history and future of the country and it’s the government’s fault.
Nigeria’s governments have tended to be the country’s chiefest organized crime syndicate.
A Nigerian socialite known as “Hush puppi” was convicted by the US for laundering money for North Korean internet scammers. USA requested extradition of Nigeria’s super cop after discovering that he was paid to punish a whistleblower. Nigeria refused.

It gets worse. While under investigation, super cop Abba Kyari was caught in a drug smuggling sting operation. For years, he himself had been part of police brutality atrocities against innocent Nigerians while allegedly involved with the real scammers!

Many years ago, a US anti-scam group called the Nigerian government the biggest scammer and its citizens the biggest victims. It appears that nothing has changed since and Nigeria’s youth remain hopelessly entrapped in a crime colony unable to break their shackles through free and fair elections.

In Lagos state, about 235 petitions were filed before a special #EndSARs Tribunal concerning 74 people murdered by police, 44 tortured and others jailed, extorted, shot and missing in captivity. 42 of these had obtained court judgments against Nigeria’s government but not a single one had been paid compensation! Yet USA continues to repatriate hundreds of millions of dollars stolen by an ex-military dictator to the Nigerian regime that doesn’t obey court orders to compensate citizens it brutalized. I have recommended to a US court and government that some of the Abacha loot being forfeited by the Department of Justice be used to compensate victims across the country. This is more urgent now after the travesty of an “election.”

In the meantime, thousands of Nigerians have been fleeing Nigeria for years by sea, land and air – many perishing in the Sahara desert or drowning in the Atlantic en route Europe.

The 2023 presidential elections were a breath of hope that the nation could be salvaged and misgovernance turned around thus halting mass exodus and even inspiring returns. But then hope was killed and the world will continue to feel the destabilizing impact of mass displacement of millions of Nigeria’s 200 million people just like it did during the Biafra civil war of 1967-1970 and Gen. Buhari’s ruinous tenure.

Next weekend, Nigeria’s citizens are faced with the prospect of another traumatic electoral heist to decide who their new looters and abusers will be in gubernatorial elections. It’s anyone’s guess if they’ll show up or just flee the nightmare of a heartbreak country.

• Emmanuel Ogebe, Esq
  is a Washington-based International human rights lawyer and reports for Diaspora Election Monitoring Observatory

Pix International human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe with head of US Observer delegation, Her Excellency Joyce Band former President of Malawi.

Ogebe with President of the Woodrow Wilson Center Ambassador Mark Green of the US observer mission

Pix High level US Observer mission members at post-election press briefing

On 75th Anniversary of Human Rights Declaration, US to Africa, “forget that old thing”

As promised in an earlier press release, I am revealing the name of an American victim of Boko Haram terrorism (covered up by the State Department for over 11 years) in the article below.

On 75th Anniversary of Human Rights Declaration, US to Africa, “forget that old thing”

– America sacrifices it citizens’ security to appease  Buhari

In the run up to the US Africa Summit, a DC lobbyist quipped, “who invites Africa’s presidents to Washington in the cold winter?” And during the World Cup too…

As the Summit ended, it was more than bad timing for soccer and the weather that were greater concerns.

Literally days after the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the US showed exactly how devalued it has become in a diplomatic charms race with China for Africa.

Africa’s human rights abuse portfolio is vast and varied but Nigeria, it’s largest by population, economy and trade with US, is an apt case study of what’s going wrong in Washington.

Secretary of State Blinken just issued designations of countries with Religious Freedom violations pursuant to the IRF Law. Nigeria, the deadliest country in the world for Christians for nine out of the last ten years, was conspicuously absent from the entire State Department rankings on which it has consistently appeared for 20 years prior to President Biden’s administration.

Besides religious freedom, Gen. Buhari cemented himself as the worst enemy of free speech in Nigeria’s history. As an ‘80s military dictator, he banned local news media and jailed journalists but as president now he banned global social media Twitter, criminalized public commentary and jailed citizens. There are at least half a dozen Nigerians on death row, imprisoned, assaulted, raped, missing and  possibly even state-murdered in northern Nigeria in recent times – for social media posts.

The week before the US Summit, as World Cup players kicked balls, Nigeria’s First Lady Aisha Buhari kicked Aminu Adamu a college student for tweeting that she fed fat on the money of the poor.

He was tortured at the same presidential villa where I was tortured as a young human rights lawyer by a military junta before my exile to America 25 years ago. Aminu’s case is  traumatically reminiscent of my horrifying abduction – me for sending a fax then and him for sending a tweet now.

The sheer criminality, impunity and horror of these Saddam-like actions cannot be overstated and yet President Biden described president Buhari as “a model of democracy.”

It gets worse. While Buhari was being praised by Biden, Reuters reported mass killings of thousands of kids by his troops.

While it is not unusual for African presidents to have mixed reviews, it is what happened before the summit that makes a mockery of US policy.

The State Department’s blackout of Nigeria’s religious freedom crises came weeks after ordering the unprecedented evacuation of most American diplomats and their families out of Abuja due to islamists bombing attempt on American diplomats’ homes in Nigeria – and Buhari’s inability to secure them!

Buhari’s delegation stayed in DC hotels alongside hundreds of US diplomats displaced from Abuja for six weeks. The US denial of the ongoing religious genocide by sacrificing hurting American families was an early Christmas gift to Nigeria at an unspeakable cost. It’s one thing to exchange a Russian convict for an American Olympian but trading Nigerians and Americans to appease terror over China is reprehensible.

The State Department’s State of Denial by the non-reporting continues to claim the lives of Nigerians needlessly and threaten the lives of Americans through intellectual dishonesty and diplomatic fraud. The Nigeria Religious freedom report just “disappeared” the way critics in dictatorships do. As Dr King said, “injustice anywhere is a threat to Justice everywhere!”

In a perfect epitaph to the Biden administration’s burial of religious freedom in Nigeria, during the summit Kano state sentenced to death by hanging an Islamic cleric, Abduljabbar Nasiru Kabara, for blasphemy.

Outrageous as this is, Nigeria is not an equal opportunity abuser as he didn’t get jungle Justice and even got a Court arraignment that Deborah Emmanuel never got when she was burned alive. The Christian college student was murdered for a post in her class whatsapp group as grotesquely as Iranian Mahsa Amini but with starkly less global attention.

In addition to Deborah Emmanuel, I am also honoring American victims of religious terrorism in Nigeria by name. This article is dedicated to Deborah and Vernice, my colleague  an American attorney who as a diplomat at the United Nations building in Abuja, survived its suicide bombing by Boko Haram the day we were supposed to meet in 2011. We remember you when your countries do not.

• Emmanuel Ogebe, an international human rights lawyer (and former Nigerian political prisoner) is a US Nigeria affairs expert and writes from Washington DC USA

US EMBASSY EVACUATION, A YEAR AFTER CPC REMOVAL, REPRESENTS ANOTHER FAILED POLICY CALL

Dear Ambassador MBL,

US EMBASSY EVACUATION, A YEAR AFTER CPC REMOVAL, REPRESENTS ANOTHER FAILED POLICY CALL

I trust you are well as you gallantly hold the fort in Nigeria at a tense time. I am writing to elaborate on the last issue raised at our meeting which time didn’t allow for.

 The US embassy’s elevated terror threat warning and unprecedented mass evacuation from Abuja, highlights grave security deterioration and a serial policy failure, barely a year after the State Department removed Nigeria from the CPC list.

A Failed bombing of a US diplomatic compound and Foiled bombings of four churches nearby by Islamist terrorists were at least two immediate incidents that triggered the post-haste  departure of your diplomats from the largest US embassy in Africa. 

Ironically this happened almost a year after Secretary Blinken’s November 2021 visit to Abuja when he removed Nigeria’s prior designation as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC) for egregious religious persecution.

I am concerned that in addition to ignoring the plight of Nigeria’s persecuted Christians over decades, the US government apparently also glossed over attacks on Americans in Nigeria leading inexorably to the current unfortunate situation.

Prior to the bomb discovery incident, an American missionary was kidnapped by Muslim Fulani Herdsmen in Nigeria’s middlebelt who said they were offered $20,000 to abduct a white person. Yet, this was neither reported in the news or in alerts to Americans in country.

In 2020, US Navy Seals rescued US missionary Philip Walton from Nigeria (where he was taken by the Fulani group who abducted him in Niger) to be resold to ISWA pursuant to the existing regional operational collaboration between the Fulani and Boko Haram jihadists.

Ex-captive sex-slaves of ISWA confirmed to me that among their fellow hostages in the terror camps were women kidnapped in Chad and sold to Nigerian terrorists. 

The recent killing of the Alqaeda kingpin Al-Zawahiri by a U.S. drone in Afghanistan has likely increased the threat to Americans in Nigeria.

It will be recalled that ISWA executed 11 Nigerian Christians at Christmas in 2019 to avenge America’s killing of ISIS leader al-Baghdadi.

But whereas the former US administration promptly designated Nigeria a CPC in 2020 weeks after the rescue of Phillip Walton from his Muslim Fulani abductors, the current Biden administration appears set not to rename Nigeria a CPC despite evacuating the entire US embassy from an Islamist threat!

It is notable that American diplomats were present at both of the first suicide bombings by Boko Haram in the nation’s capital Abuja in 2011. Yet the State Department resisted efforts to designate Boko Haram a Foreign Terrorist Organization until November 13, 2013 when myself and victim Habila Adamu testified in the US Congress https://pjmedia.com/tatler/2015/03/18/could-boko-haram-be-hillary-clintons-biggest-scandal-n199524

On this ninth anniversary of the belated FTO designation of Boko Haram,  I urge the Biden administration to redesignate Nigeria a CPC especially following its failure and inability to safeguard US interests from Islamist terrorists resulting in the precipitous and unprecedented mass evacuation of the US embassy in Nigeria’s history. It is high time for the US policy position to finally align with the facts.

The  Afghanistan-style evacuation is to be taken seriously as an indicator that rather than secure the nation, the Buhari administration has brought Nigeria to the verge of Talibanization even fleeing Nigeria for a two-week UK vacation in the height of the evacuations.

I urge the US government to take seriously our repeated concerns about religious extremism and persecution in Nigeria that has metastasized to the point that American personnel have now become Internationally Displaced Diplomats and to reinstate Nigeria’s CPC status. Americans have over the last dozen years been victims of both of Nigeria’s jihadi terrorists – Boko Haram and Fulani militia – once ranked first and fourth deadliest terrorist groups globally by the USG-funded Global Terrorism Index (GTI.)

The failure to designate and treat Boko Haram as the foreign global terror threat (FTO) that it was on time could arguably have resulted in the evacuation.

Similarly the failure to designate the Nigerian regime as an egregious persecutor (CPC) for its underwhelming actions against extremist groups has nailed the coffin of the next misconceived policy position and potentially portend more future risk to Americans.

Former US Ambassadors to Nigeria John Campbell led 20 others in a DOS letter to oppose an FTO designation of Boko Haram while Ambassador Howard Jeter joined me and hundreds of others in a White House petition to demand FTO designation. https://www.thedailybeast.com/hillarys-state-department-refused-to-brand-boko-haram-as-terrorists

Madame ambassador, you have an opportunity to be on the right side of history by supporting the reinstatement  of the CPC designation and thus help protect all – Nigerians and Americans alike.

You have earned plaudits for human rights in past posts. Nigeria is where you have the potential for greater impact and lasting legacy on human rights at the peak of your diplomatic career.

Thank you for your kind attention.

Have a happy thanksgiving!

Septembers to Remember

Septembers to Remember 

Last weekend marked 25 years since I set foot in God’s own country – unexpected and unexpectedly. My hastily executed escape plan was to take me from Abuja to Accra, to London and Johannesburg to hibernate from the brutal military dictator Gen. Abacha who had abducted, imprisoned and tortured me. Instead I first traversed three countries in 24 hours then a couple days later three continents in one day.  I had traveled through seven time zones – literally the longest day of my life thus far – 31 hours in one day that September 1997 when I accidentally arrived in America (details in my LinkedIn posts). It’s perhaps an interesting footnote of history that my 25th anniversary comes after the Queen’s demise just as my exile came after Princess Diana’s…

This milestone therefore returns thanks for the divine reordering of my footsteps and the resultant successes that made me the most consequential voice for Nigeria’s persecuted in America in a quarter century and the most prominent Nigerian human rights lawyer in the west.

With multiple policy victories at the ICC in The Hague, the US Congress, State Department, the UK and the UN etc, in the last decade and sustained relief efforts over 22 years, the plight of the deadliest country in the world for Christians was unveiled.

• in 2010 my legal monitoring of the Dogon Nahawa massacre of 500 Christians in Plateau State led to the first convictions of the Fulani Muslim herdsmen perpetrators.
• in 2011, I helped document the worst attack in contemporary Christendom – the destruction of 700 churches in 48 hours across 12 northern Nigerian states 
• In 2012 my research and analysis revealed that more Christians were killed in Nigeria than all the other countries in the world combined 
• In 2013, I succeeded in getting the US government to designate – at various times – the world’s deadliest terrorists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. I also got the ICC Prosecutor to determine that Boko Haram was probably perpetrating international crimes 
• In 2014, I organized the largest humanitarian airlift of terror victims to study in the U.S. and advocated for the UN ‘s sanctions on Boko Haram.

While these have been commendable, the situation remains precarious. For the 10 years where records have been maintained by World Watch Monitor, Nigeria has retained the dubious distinction of being the deadliest place for Christians in all but one year since 2012-2022!

The success in getting Nigeria designated a Country of Particular Concern for religious persecution by the US in 2020 was rolled back in 2021 just like it was in The ICC. https://m.theepochtimes.com/state-departments-skewed-reports-enabling-nigerian-violence-rights-advocates_4522644.html

These battles have not been without steep costs. The Nigerian regime was caught flat footed when it’s ambassador in Washington wrote a memo seeking the revocation of my passport as punishment and to prevent me from testifying in congress – a crime against US law and diplomatic conduct.

While facing my legal action for defamation in Nigeria, the regime of Gen. Buhari through its willing American pansy Doug Wead still sponsored derogatory stories about me in an effort to stymie my effective advocacy.

September 2021 however saw the indictment and arraignment of the American stooge of the Islamist Nigerian  Buhari regime rogue Republican operative Doug Wead for election foreign finance fraud.

Doug Wead who infamously collaborated with the Buhari administration to persecute me in the US, on the promise that Wead would be given the Chibok girls I brought to America, was criminally charged with another Republican rogue operative over a $100,000 fraud.

They duped a Russian businessman of $100,000 out of which they donated only $25,000 to the Trump campaign false claiming it came from them. It is of course a violation of US law to bring in foreign finance for US elections but this Judas who betrayed me also betrayed America for money.

The crimes were committed in 2016 at the very time Doug Wead was also acting as agent for the Buhari regime against me. It is unclear whether moneys changed hands between Wead, the Nigerian government or Murtala Mohammed Foundation whom he announced as his partners on his website.

Ironically Doug Wead also took two of the Chibok girls on a courtesy call to see Trump, whom he had duped, in the White House some months later. He has since died ignominiously. (See story below.)  He had also misappropriated funds raised for the care of all 12 girls I brought even when he had none and bribed the families of the only two schoolgirls he eventually got by building them houses in Nigeria.

God indeed rules in the affairs of men. Its 25 years since I fled to exile in America from a military dictatorship who had abducted, imprisoned and tortured me. Like David, I can say, the God who delivered me from the lion and the bear in Africa, delivered me from Goliath in America and all of Ann’s and Wead’s evil machinations and minions.

Though they’ve covered up his disgraceful end, as the article below shows, heaven knows! https://www.floridabulldog.org/2021/12/conservative-florida-pundit-awaiting-trial-funneling-russian-money-to-trump-dies/

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/political-operatives-indicted-alleged-scheme-involving-illegal-campaign-contribution-2016

https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/1434226/download

My defamer is discredited, arrested, dead and buried but I remain ravaged from his evils by those who would rather side with a crooked white guy than an innocent other. As they say, it is easier to be rich, white and guilty than to be poor black and innocent in America. Still, I press on.

But aside from poetic Justice above, there’s a stickier injustice I’d like to draw to your attention. Last month, the US government said it has reached a deal to return millions of dollars looted by my captor Gen. Abacha to the corrupt family that helped him launder it in the US. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/us-nears-agreement-nigerian-governor-084613737.html?mibextid=tv9c0b&fs=e&s=cl

What this means is that not only did late Gen. Abacha (he died eight months into my exile) not pay for his atrocities against me and others but even from the grave he and his cronies are getting paid millions of dollars by the US government for the crime they got caught for.

The US cannot argue that the insecurity and terrorism in northern Nigeria is not religious but a result of poverty, corruption and neglect and then reward the very people who looted billions creating the chaos! Rather we’re advocating for the Abacha loot to given to victims of his brutal reign, of present security forces and of terror.

I learnt of a child born to Boko Haram from an abducted Christian girl who helped a Christian college student escape captivity. She was born and bred in terrorism but she still managed to know and have the moral clarity and courage to do the right thing which so many governments have failed to do.

Please join her and others in stopping this travesty and seeking Justice and relief.

One quick update. In my final valedictory I shared about the murdered pastor’s daughter whom I relocated to the US. She was stolen from her Virginia school while I was ambushed by cops and taken to Tennessee where I only last year learnt that she dropped out of college with a teen pregnancy. The white family who took her apparently dumped her back in Nigeria, pregnancy and all.

This was devastating news to me as I had fought for her visa to come to America after two denials. With no skills and having become Americanized she was in grave danger. Worse still she gave birth to American interracial twins in Nigeria. I was glad to learn that she and the kids are now safely back to the USA despite the sabotage that undid the great effort I undertook to bring her originally.

Again hugely ironic that an 11 year old child of terrorists guided an adult Christian captive college girl to safety while adult American Christians dumped a pregnant college girl orphaned by Boko Haram in danger.

Incidentally, she was the first orphan I brought to the US, again, in September 2013…

I thank all who have been positive parts of my journey and my story during this last unplanned and unexpected quarter century.

 One of my life verses is Gen 50:20  But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. 

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Gen.50.20&version=AKJV

I daresay we gave it a great shot!

Accidentally American – a quarter century odyssey

The Longest Day – PART 1
Sudden Flight

I had to leave hastily. The tip off left me no choice.
Maybe I can say this now as time has passed. I recognized him in the congregation as one of my captors although he wasn’t in uniform.
“Duragi has escaped,” was all he said. It was all he needed to say. My fellow “state house prisoner” whom I had left behind in prison when I was freed last year had finally decided to “free” himself. This wasn’t good news. For me at least.

I fled Abuja for Lagos aboard an incognito flight. Then crossed the border to Benin. Crossed to Togo but by then the border to Ghana was closed.
“I can smuggle you into Ghana but you won’t have a stamp on your passport if you’re planning to fly out from there, “ a man at the motor park offered.
Sadly I had to spend the night in Lome, Togo – a French speaking country where I couldn’t understand what was going on after my “guide” checked me into a hotel and went home for the night.
My first night on exile was unexpected. Actually my exile was unexpected. This was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it…

The Longest Day Pt 2
In the wind

I woke up on what was to be my first full day in exile – in a strange country that I had never planned on being in.
My “guide” came and fetched me from my hotel, checked out and took me to the motor park in Lome for my onward trip to Accra Ghana as the borders were now open.
Afterwards, he asked me for a tip. I then told him how he had ripped me off the night before. I’d given him money to get me a meal at the hotel. He told me one price but I later went back to crosscheck and found he had inflated it.
It was a simple integrity check to know if he was truly helping or trying to dupe a stranded traveler – or both!
He hung his head in shame having been found out.
And so my first day in Togo, I had been slightly scammed.
Our taxi took off. The driver said he didn’t have change for me but would give me later.
We arrived Accra and I dashed to the airport to try and get on a flight out. As I made to pay the Accra taxi for the ride, I realized my Togo taxi never did give me my change. Two scams back to back…
At Accra airport, British Airways told me since I’d missed my flight the previous night, I would have to contact my travel agents to rebook me for the next available flight – in two todays.
I was stuck unexpectedly – in another country – again on my first full day in exile!

The Longest Day Pt 3
Hiber-nation

The checkin counter closed and the reality hit that I wouldn’t make the flight out that night to London.
Just then at Accra airport I remembered a conversation I had had on the eve of my escape from Nigeria with a friend who also happened to be visiting Lagos.
He’d said his uncle was with the UN in Accra.
I traced his house and introduced myself. I didn’t mention that I was a human rights lawyer fleeing my country. I hadn’t told my friend either. I figured the less people knew the better for them and me.
The kind professor took me in and hosted me for an idyllic weekend of deep conversations and exquisite cuisine from his idiosyncratic chef.
Till today, I marvel at the “coincidence” that a friend I ran into in Lagos – a mega metropolis of millions of people – just happened to mention that he had a relative in Accra who was able to put me up in my hour of need.
Some years ago I requested his uncle’s email and sent him a note of appreciation. He’s died of recent. I hope he got it…
I spent the next two days of my exile in limbo awaiting the next BA flight but in relative comfort, safety and serenity.

The Longest Day Pt 4
Black hole

On the appointed day, I left my comfy lodging at the UN compound for the airport. I boarded successfully with my one-way ticket to London about midnight.
We landed Heathrow around 5:30am and I joined the immigration line. Just as it got to my turn there was a changeover of immigration officers.
The new officer looked at my passport and began asking questions.
Why was I here?
I had a post graduate program to attend.
But it started last week?
I missed my flight and was delayed.
She said she’d have to check with the institution if I wasn’t too late for school.
I was moved to secondary inspection. There two officers thoroughly ransacked my luggage even squeezing out my toothpaste from the tube. It was then I knew the situation was serious.
The officer returned and informed me the school said I hadn’t paid a deposit on time so my admission had lapsed and so she couldn’t let me in.
I told her, well, she couldn’t send me back without creating an international incident as I was a human rights lawyer who had just fled a brutal regime.
The officer said she would call the High Commission in Abuja to verify my claims when they opened.
Some time later, she returned.
“You’ve got friends in high places. I understand you were recommended for a visa by our high commissioner.”
The hours dragged on and I was in legal limbo. I wasn’t in Ghana and I wasn’t in England. I was in an inter dimensional black hole of sorts.
Logistically, they couldn’t send me back because I only had a one-way ticket.
Politically, they couldn’t send me back because they had confirmed my status as fleeing a brutal regime.
Later that evening, the officer came to me.
“I can’t send you back but I can’t let you in either. Tell me, what do I do?”
It was a magical moment when my captor was seeking guidance from me on how to determine my fate.
“Well if you won’t let me in, why not send me on to another country that actually believes and practices democracy and human rights?”
“What country?” She asked.
“America”
“Do you have a visa?”
“Yes.”
She jumped up excitedly and dashed to consult with her superiors.
She came back shortly brimming with joy.
“We’d be happy to see you on your way to America.”
She searched for flights and found out only two flights were left to US from a different airport at 5pm and 6pm. Both to New York.
I had to buy a ticket immediately. Long story for another day.
Finally they got me a vehicle and we raced to stansted airport to catch the last flight to New York. America.

The Longest Day Pt 5.
Accidentally American

I landed in New York’s JFK airport that night. Unplanned. Unexpected. Exhausted.
I had first traversed three countries in 24 hours then now done three continents in one day.
The immigration officer began to interrogate me.
Why was I wearing a jacket in the hot weather?
I was dressed for UK weather not US but I didn’t explain that to him.
Do you have any money?
I had a bunch of Nigerian naira that I didn’t have the chance to change to dollars because of my sudden departure.
The currency confused him. It looked like I was going to be detained again in secondary inspection but I was too tired to care. Let the heavens fall…
What do you do?
I’m a lawyer.
Why didn’t you say that before? Here’s your passport. Welcome to America!
I was too exhausted to be exhilarated or otherwise. Frankly I was just in another country/city I didn’t plan to be in like Accra or Lome except that this New York in America was scarier.
After I crossed immigration, I had nowhere to go really. I walked to the pay phones against the wall because that’s what most people were doing but I didn’t have anyone to call.
Finally it was my turn in the queue and I phoned a human rights organization whose number I saw on a pamphlet I got in England during my prior visit earlier in the year. It went to voicemail. Of course. It was night time. No one would be in the office!
Then a young man and woman at the next pay phone beside me said, “we just called the YMCA in Manhattan. They have only two rooms left. If you’d like to split a taxi, we can go there now.”
I said, “yes.” I had no other plan. Not A, B or C. O!
We rode together from the JFK airport. While the Australian couple oohed and aahed about the sights of NY, I was slumped in the back seat too exhausted and apprehensive to look.
What on earth was I doing in America?

The Aussie’s split the fare two ways instead of three. I’d been scammed again but it was ok. That was their commission for helping get a room and taxi. YMCA I knew stood for Young Men’s Christian Association so the hostel must be safe, I imagined.

We got there. I paid and went up to my room. I walked in and saw something I had never seen in my life – a TV locked in a cage! What on earth was I doing in New York???

As I lay down in my bed, little did I realize the full import of the fact that I had lost complete control of my life and my plans from the moment Officer M. Richard’s took my passport into her hands at London Heathrow hours ago.

I traveled from Accra, Ghana at midnight and lost one hour when I got to London which was on GMT. Then traveled to New York and gained five hours on EST. I had traveled through seven time zones on three continents.

I had literally just spent the longest day of my life thus far. 31 hours in one day in September 1997 when I accidentally arrived in America.

BBOG: How White Media Misappropriation didn’t help escaped schoolgirls in USA but enriched American NGO

Lawyer calls out American NGO which got $1million donations over Chibok story, urges them to take care of Nigerian schoolgirl’s college debts in USA

Highlights

• majority of Nigerian schoolgirl victims of terror in US not fully funded by US sources
• American journalist’s article on Chibok girls’ abduction stirred donations to NGO not working in Nigeria which refused to help
• Humanitarian lawyer exposes how same medium that generated money for people not helping Nigerian schoolgirls then castigated him who was helping the girls

In 2014, former New York Time’s Pulitzer-winning columnist Nicholas Kristof narrated in an op ed about Nigeria’s infamously abducted schoolgirls, “The principal of the school, Asabe Kwambura, told me that 219 girls are still missing and lamented that the international campaign to help — #BringBackOurGirls — is faltering as the world moves on.
“Continue this campaign,” she urged. “Our students are still living in the woods. We want the international community to talk to the government of Nigeria to do something, because they are doing nothing.” “

Kristof pontificated that the,
“The Nigerian government’s most obvious response has been to hire an American public relations firm for a reported $1.2 million. That money could be better used to pay for security at schools. Global leaders talk a good game about education, but they don’t deliver. Sad to say, that includes President Obama.”

In self-righteous self-adulation, Kristof crowed, “One group has been responsive: Times readers. After I wrote about the Nigerian girls in May and mentioned a group called Camfed that sends girls to school in Africa, Times readers donated nearly $900,000 to Camfed. Thank you, readers!

Camfed says the money will help 3,000 girls continue in high school across Africa — girls like Katongo, a 16-year-old math whiz in Zambia. Katongo is an orphan who had to drop out of school for lack of money for fees, but she is now on track to become the first person in her family to finish school. She plans to become a nurse.”

This was an epic editorial ending. Wielding a stroke of his mighty pen sword, almost $1,000,000 was raised, unlike stingy Obama or misspending Nigerian leaders. This was a classic journalistic success story. The Nigerian schoolgirls would be just fine. Or would they?

As a human rights lawyer who had worked to get one of the world’s deadliest terror groups, aimed at destroying western education and Christianity, designated a Foreign Terrorist Organization by the US Government months before, I’d met Nigeria’s Chibok girls during Congressional Delegation visits.

We wanted to relocate a few we’d met with to school in safety in the US as they had abandoned education. We reached out to Camfed who had an unexpected million dollar windfall on account of the girls’ abduction to see if they would help.

Camfed said they had no programs in Nigeria. We said the girls could be supported when they came to US but Camfed said they didn’t support any program in the US. Basically no help.

Almost eight years after I brought the 11 Nigerian schoolgirls to the US on a no-shoestring budget, one of them has just earned a Master’s degree. Without Camfed’s help.

Today CAMFED says on its website, it “has launched a new 5-year strategic plan 2021-25, centered on our goal to support the education of five million girls in sub-Saharan Africa…

Since 1993, we have supported 4,885,221 children to go to school in Ghana, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe.”

In other words, eight years afterwards they have not assisted and still have no programs to assist girls in Nigeria!

Yet Nicholas Kristof named CAMFED- the Campaign for Female Education – as Grand Prize winner of the 2020 Kristof Holiday Impact Prize. Again, “Nick unleashed a groundswell of support among the generous readers of the New York Times, with more than 3,300 individuals choosing to invest in girls’ education in Africa.”

A couple of months after his 2014 NYT column, Kristof and I were guests at a girl education event to which myself and some of the newly-arrived Nigerian girls were invited. I was impressed by his speech although we didn’t meet. I am pretty sure his travel to the event was covered though mine wasn’t. Still he came across as genuinely caring just like his words.
“A fierce ambition to study explains why those 219 girls in northern Nigeria showed up to take their final exams even though they knew the risks of terrorism. Some of those girls dreamed of becoming teachers, doctors, lawyers — and now they may be enslaved in a forest and perhaps married off to Islamic militants. I hope we’re doing everything possible to locate and recover those girls: This is a rare case where, if the Nigerian government asked for our help, the world would applaud us for assisting in a raid. So let’s #BringBackOurGirls. But let’s not stop there…

Education is an escalator that can change the world, and we are now on the cusp of wiping out global illiteracy for good — if we sustain the effort.

Boko Haram is assassinating teachers, attacking schools and kidnapping students because it knows that literacy is the enemy of extremism. Terrorists understand the power of education. Do we?”

But those words ring hollow when I see that Camfed had $ 3,135,828 in assets at the end of 2014 which was almost two million dollars more than they started the year out with.

This means that after doing all their existing programming for 2014, they still had $2,000,000 left which conceivably included NYT readers $1,000,00 that could have been used to start a Nigeria program or help the Nigerian schoolgirls in US!

By December 2014, we had airlifted and relocated 11 Nigerian schoolgirls to the US, most of their international plane tickets purchased by me, until I was reimbursed from our paltry $25,000 budget – with no salary or compensation whatsoever. By February 2015, the project was bankrupt!

Unable to send two of the 11 schoolgirls who tested well for community college, due to lack of funds and sabotage, we still relocated a 12th schoolgirl who’d been shot in the head by Boko Haram. Finally, thanks to a Canadian grant of $25,000, in 2016, she and the other two went to community college. Camfed’s end of year net assets for 2015 was $2,773,526.

This is not a knock on Camfed which from all appearances is doing decent work. Paying fees for Katongo, a math whiz for school in Zambia is good. The problem is that Times readers are unwittingly helping to send 3,000 African girls like Katongo to school, by donating nearly $900,000 but not a dime to the actual Nigerian schoolgirls Kristof wrote so searingly about. The misdirect came from media misappropriation but it gets worse.

In 2017, I left a death-row appeal trial I had been working on for a decade in Indonesia and flew to New York to join our three Nigerian college students at the UN to advocate for girl education on International Women’s Day.

It was hosted by the selfsame organization whose guests Kristof and I had been in 2014. After IWD, the New York Times defamed me in an oped claiming that my advocacy with the Chibok girls in US was harmful to the girls in captivity in thinly veiled propaganda for the Nigerian regime!

The article was written by a Nigerian columnist for NYT who in 2016 had contacted me that the Nigerian government told her I was “beating” the girls in America. The new attack was a more subtle dig after the failed, implausible and fantastical falsehoods. The Nigerian president who misspent $1 million dollars on a US PR firm to counter advocates like me was replaced by a regime that opted for media influencing and anti-activist covert ops by its diplomatic missions.

Camfed’s Advocacy budget for the previous year was over $721,000. Our participation at the UN event with newly-minted Nigerian Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed covered travel expenses only. No honorarium or compensation for the college girls or myself but the NYT article canceled us from future IWD observances – because of the very advocacy Kristof had earlier written was pleaded for by the Chibok school principal Asabe because the government was “doing nothing” to which Kristof added “I hope we’re doing everything possible to locate and recover those girls.”

The college girls soldiered on nonetheless – all three graduated with B.Scs in 2019, 2020 and 2021. The young lady shot in the head earned an MBA last year after selling candy on the street & taking loans to finish her schooling.

This here is the point that by White media’s misappropriation of the story of the girl victims of Boko Haram for the benefit of an organization that did not do anything to help them, a grievous injustice was unleashed on the girls.

Kristof’s generic reference to kids “in Africa”, a gratuitous over generalization of a continent of 50 plus countries, is the equivalent of sending aid to Americans for a flooding in Mexico. It’s the same continent but not the same country!

Kristof may have had no ill-motive other than trying to help his favorite charity but he reinforced a terrible stereotype of ignorantly reductionist westerners who see Africa as one monolithic country and this is unacceptable for a journalist of three decades at NYT.

One will not go so far as to call this “obtaining by false pretenses” as I do not think it was fraud but I think in terms of media malpractice, it should be a misdemeanor. Kristof should have listed actual organizations working on Girl education in Nigeria and, if he really wanted to help Camfed, include it with a disclaimer that they did not work in Nigerian. This would have given NYT readers the information to donate accordingly.

According to UNICEF, 1,436 Nigerian School Kids and 17 Teachers were Kidnapped while 11,536 Schools were closed in 16 Months under Gen. Buhari’s Government – not in Zambia or Ghana. Last month, Christian teachers were ferreted out and beheaded or slaughtered based on their gender adding to the over 600 teachers reported killed years before.

Apart from the misdirect of funds to countries unaffected by edu-terrorism, the malicious attack on me by NYT for doing what Kristof did – advocate for the freedom of the girls and girl education – was particularly egregious as I was doing what Camfed failed to do – support the actual Nigerian schoolgirl victims!

Last weekend, one of them graduated with a Master’s degree. She couldn’t read when she first arrived in my home. Some others who would like to attend graduate school have no sponsorship or scholarships – yet their story helped others. Ironically, aside the recent Master’s graduate, most of the girls’ were funded from outside the US because of the withering defamatory attacks we continued to endure!

Although media misdirection and subsequent malice was primarily to blame, Camfed should at least have offered to help the Nigerian school girls too because it is simply the right thing to have done. For decency’s sake, they shouldn’t profit from the girls’ misfortunes.

Kristof is a hero of the human rights community but like knights in shining armor, occasionally there’s a chink in it. I don’t think anything unlawful was done but I think it was ethically incongruous at minimum. NYT readers deserved to know they were really helping the actual girl victims and not just someone of Kristof’s liking.

This month it will be one year since the young lady shot in the head earned her MBA – with tens of thousands of dollars in debt to pay off – in the health sciences discipline like several of the others. They could potentially be critical healthcare workers serving America’s pandemic-beleaguered medical system if they’re granted US residency post-graduation (one schoolgirl interned for Pfizer.)

It is not too late for Camden and Kristof to do the right thing by her – and NYT Readers who contributed – even if they can’t do anything to bring back the 109 still missing schoolgirls. Camfed’s net assets end of 2020 was $21.5 million. By 2017 the project was bankrupt again and I sold our townhouse to stay afloat.

I close paraphrasing Kristof.
“Global leaders talk a good game about education, but they don’t deliver. Sad to say, that includes President Obama.”

And I would add, for the Nigerian schoolgirls- “sad to say but that includes Kristof.”

I conclude with one group of New Yorkers that was responsive. A women’s chorus held a concert for the girls and gave a princely sum of $750 (before our travel costs). It was organized by a 70+ year old white lawyer Nancy who sheltered me as a young black political asylee fleeing Nigeria 25 years ago. I am privileged to know and love and once have been a New Yorker and I thank everyone who actually helped us help the girls.

Pix 1 – Photos of the awards & certificates of the first escaped Nigerian schoolgirls to graduate with a high diplomas in the US (magna cum laude)

Pix 2 – international human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe betwixt New York lawyer Nancy who housed him as a new asylee in the ‘90s and the first escaped Chibok schoolgirl in the world to graduate with a US University degree

Pix 3 Three star Nigerian college students in US marking international women’s day with Deputy Secretary General Amina Mohammed at UN New York supporting girl education

Pix 4 International human rights lawyer Emmanuel Ogebe with the first escaped Chibok girls in the world to obtain US high school diplomas (honors) in 2017 and the first BH victim to earn an Associate degree (2018) Bachelor’s degree (2019) and Master’s degree (2021)

• Emmanuel Ogebe, a human rights advocate writes from Washington DC

HATEFUL HAMAN’S HANGMAN: OBITUARY OF CONSUMMATE ROGUE DOUG WEAD

I just returned to Washington from NIGERIA this morning and confirmed that

Doug Wead the American conman who seduced two Chibok girls for the purpose of profiteering & also defamed and persecuted me has died barely two months after he was arrested and charged with financial crimes. Who God cannot handle does not exist!

Here under are 1. A news report of his criminal indictment by the U.S. government 2. An obituary of Doug Wead which I wrote and 3. My prior statement exposing the falsehood that Trump brought the Chibok girls to America.

– Emmanuel Ogebe

 American conman who made money fundraising for the Chibok girls, dies two months after he was indicted for financial crimes in Trump fundraising 

• Wead who offered Chibok girls to stay at his friends’ house for a donation of $300,000 fought to destroy Nigerian human rights lawyer who opposed the girls-for-hire scheme

1. Below is an except from media reports on his criminal indictment 

Federal prosecutors say former Springfield ‘Mystery Santa’ illegally funneled Russian money to Trump campaign

– Gregory J. Holman

Springfield News-Leader

Wead is charged with conspiracy to solicit and cause an illegal campaign contribution by a foreign national, effect a conduit contribution, and cause false records to be filed with the Federal Election Commission. (AP Photo/Jim Mone)

A 1980s-era Springfield resident — known for hopping out of a Corvette dressed as Santa Claus to deliver gifts and cash to needy families at Christmastime — is now the subject of a new federal indictment on charges of campaign finance conspiracy and cover-up.

Roy Douglas “Doug” Wead, 75, is one of two Republican Party operatives named as defendants by federal prosecutors in an indictment unsealed Monday.

Prosecutors accuse Wead of telling a Russian national, described as “Foreign National 1” in court papers, that he could meet an unnamed presidential candidate at a fundraiser event roughly six weeks before the 2016 elections — if the foreigner made a $100,000 political contribution.

The Washington Post reported Monday night that federal campaign records from the 2016 cycle make it clear that the money was intended for the campaign of then-candidate Donald J. Trump, though the former president is not named anywhere in the indictment filing.

It’s against the law to funnel foreign money into U.S. elections. Following the 2016 elections, numerous accusations of “collusion” between the Trump campaign and Russia culminated in the 2019 release of the Mueller report. That report, drafted under the direction of former special counsel and FBI director Robert Mueller, reflected investigators’ determination that they did not find sufficient evidence the Trump campaign “coordinated or conspired with the Russian government in its election-interference activities” in the 2016 election cycle.

In early 2020, Trump was impeached by the U.S. House, but acquitted by the U.S. Senate, over accusations that Trump had solicited foreign help in his 2020 re-election campaign and that the former president obstructed efforts by Congress to investigate the matter.

In the newly-unsealed indictment, federal prosecutors now argue that Wead’s co-defendant, 43-year-old Jesse Benton, set up a photo opportunity with the presidential candidate at a political fundraising event for Trump’s first bid to win the White House. Then, prosecutors argue, Benton and Wead falsified campaign finance reports required by law in order to make it look like Benton made the donation, not the Russian national.

Meanwhile, federal prosecutors wrote that the two operatives “concealed the scheme from the candidate, federal regulators, and the public,” according to the indictment.

Wead, now living in Bonita Springs, Florida, is author of at least 25 books translated into several languages, among them discussions of Christian life and glowing accounts of Republican presidents including Ronald Reagan and Trump. Wead raised money for the campaigns of former President Ronald Reagan and both former President George H.W. Bush and President George W. Bush, the News-Leader reported earlier. He also served as an aide in the George W. Bush administration.

In 2005, the New York Times revealed that Wead had secretly, but legally, taped conversations with George W. Bush as the younger Bush rose to political prominence. Wead reportedly advised Bush that former Missouri Gov. John Ashcroft would have made a good pick for Supreme Court justice or vice president.

News-Leader archives show that Wead was a preacher’s kid from Indiana who arrived in the Queen City in 1964 to study at Central Bible College. He dropped out, then sold shoes for a living and also later served as an Assemblies of God minister and an Amway distributor. After some “years of wandering,” in the words of former News-Leader editor and columnist Mike O’Brien, Wead returned to Springfield.

By 1980, the “Reagan revolution” meant conservative fortunes were cresting after the relative liberalism of ’60s and ’70s politics, and Wead began to make his name as “a player in national political circles while still living in the Ozarks,” O’Brien reported in 2005.

He also served as a guest and guest host for Jim Bakker’s TV show in the late 1970s and ’80s, O’Brien reported in 1992. According to a biographical sketch of Wead in News-Leader archives, in the ’70s and ’80s Wead was also a popular national motivational speaker.

Wead entertained former President Gerald Ford at his home in Springfield and encountered other presidents and first ladies socially. For the Bushes, Wead performed outreach work with evangelical Christians. News-Leader archives show Wead was even credited with coining a term that became a slogan among fans of the younger President Bush: “compassionate conservative.”

In the early 1990s, Wead moved to Arizona and ran for Congress in 1992. Despite Wead’s GOP bona fides, Arizona right-wing icon Barry Goldwater endorsed the Democratic Party candidate in the race, and Wead lost, according to multiple reports.

Reached Tuesday, O’Brien told the News-Leader he was surprised to learn that Wead had been indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice.

GOP operative charged with moving Russian money to 2016 Trump campaign

2. HATEFUL HAMAN’S HANGMAN: OBITUARY OF CONSUMMATE ROGUE DOUG WEAD

I received news of the passing of rogue Republican operative Doug Wead with an acute sense of intersection of the arc of Justice. It was a horrid end to a horrible man.

Wead who was a congenital crook, a pathological liar and an indicted criminal has hounded, hunted, harassed and haunted me because I refused to let him ship off the escaped Nigerian Chibok schoolgirls who I brought to the US to his business partner for the summer in exchange for a princely sum of  $300,000. In three decades of human rights work against numerous third world dictators and corrupt regimes, no one has stalked me as Wead did.

Utilizing his privilege as a white, male, Republican activist, Wead sicced the US Embassy Nigeria, the Nigerian Embassy USA, the FBI and DHS on me after I made the mistake of first reporting him to the US authorities for his fraud in relation to the Nigerian schoolgirls.

Despite illegally providing them my confidential and privileged (attorney work product) communications spanning several years, and obsessively pushing them to act against me, I was never once interviewed by the US authorities on any allegations whatsoever. 

In the end however, in a brazen abuse of his old boy Network including a serving senator on whose presidential campaign he served, seven of 12 Nigerian schoolgirls I brought to the US in 2014 were taken from schools I’d placed them in and handed to Wead in 2016 from where five successfully escaped from him just weeks later. Apparently his alliance with the brutal Nigerian regime against me, failed due to mutual double crossing.

In 2018, the fourth year of his obsessive stalking of me, Wead got published in the Wall Street Journal a highly defamatory piece on me that essentially accused me of all the things he had done (that article is now in litigation).

Casting himself as the white messiah who rescued the Nigerian schoolgirls from me a “human trafficker” , Wead finagled a White House meeting with the Trumps to celebrate World Anti-Trafficking day.

Meanwhile the story of his Nigerian rent-a-girls caper kept evolving. First it was Congresswoman Wilson – not me – that brought them to America then finally it became it was Trump who brought them to America (2020 election special edition!).

It seemed he had won. He was on top of the world – I was culture canceled, he had two Chibok schoolgirls for his Girls-for-hire roadshow and he even got a Twitter thumbs up from Trump for his pro-Supremacist and anti-racial Justice rhetoric.

However in September 2021, Doug Wead was criminally indicted by the very US government he had tried to use against me for financial crimes related to his fundraising.

He was hung on the gallows he built for me as Hamman was for Mordecai in the story of Queen Esther.

But the story doesn’t stop at the fitting end to an obnoxious fiend. 

His credits include the five schoolgirls who had to escape from him in summer 2016 who have mostly floundered in the five years since. Other credits include the two girls whose parents he bribed and who dubiously went from 8th grade level to High School Diploma in one year, not surprisingly at a school he headed, and then just graduated this summer from a college run, again coincidentally, by Wead’s church denomination!

It is hoped his legacy of lying and exploitation in the art of the con will not ruin these young ladies’ futures.

It is pathetic that a man who blackmailed a US president for profit stooped so low as to stalk an immigrant human rights advocate for profit.

The world is a slightly happier place today because the divine justice system works.

The serpent is out of the garden but all must now toil for the future including the young ladies he beguiled and misled.

It is unfortunate that the US government did not act in 2015, when I first reported him to be a fraudster, probably on account of his race and power and my lack thereof. This would have prevented his committing fresh crimes in 2016 that he is now charged with.

A thorough examination of his actions and that of his cohorts over the Chibok girl’s fundraising and rent-a-Nigerian-schoolgirl gambit should NOW be undertaken as that scam ran concurrently with the Russian fundraising crimes.

Ironically his Nigerian collaborator in the concerted attacks on me, Nigerian Government Minister for Women Affairs, Aisha Alhassan also died this summer. She’d held a national press conference and claimed that I never even put the girls in school in America – they were just enslaved to white people in America! (Also now in defamation litigation.)

The Arc of the Universe is strong and it bends against injustice but at the end of the day, Hateful Hamman’s hangman was himself as was Wead.

In a life spent monetizing relationships and politicizing religion, Wead ended up as a common criminal fallen from the Olympian heights obtained by crass opportunism. In his final scam act, he cheated the earthly justice system by his death.

Death belongs to everyone but not everyone must belong to death. Even if I die today, I thank God that I saw my chief  persecutor in America criminally charged before he died.

The folly of godfathers is that the fail to factor in the Father God. The God who wrought justice on the brutal military dictator Gen. Abacha who imprisoned, tortured and almost killed me in Africa 25 years ago, has come through again with maniac political powerhouse Doug Wead who sought to do the same in America. I know my redeemer liveth and I would see his salvation and vindication on the face of the earth. 

Emmanuel Ogebe

3. Previously released.

• Trump’s policies could send Chibok girls and Nigerian International Students in USA back

Washington November 1, 2020
Dear Members of the Press,
TRUMP DID NOT SPONSOR CHIBOK GIRLS TO USA – I DID!
We read with consternation a report by the Guardian in which a Trump campaign official falsely claimed that Trump brought escaped Chibok girls to America. This is flatly and blatantly false.
The Guardian newspaper of July 23rd said the claim was made during a campaign outreach to voters of African descent tagged “Africans for Trump 2020.” No date was given of the purported zoom event.
The article reads in part, that a Trump official “assured that Trump is passionate about development in Africa, (while he) listed a plethora of President Trump’s accomplishments on the continent of Africa.”
Further, “Brewer said Trump, saddened by the Chibok situation in Nigeria, reached out and ensured that the girls who were lucky to escape captivity, were brought to the United States, where his daughter, Ivanka hosted the girls at the White House as they were cleared for college education on scholarships.” https://guardian.ng/news/world/trump-engages-africans-in-diaspora-for-us-presidential-campaign/

This is completely false. The Chibok girls referenced above were only two out of 12 schoolgirls that I brought to the US. They landed at Washington Dulles airport where I received them on September 1, 2014 courtesy of flights paid by a Nigerian pastor.
Trump was neither president nor even running to be president at the time. He was in no shape or form involved in their coming to America and any claim to the contrary is a blatant falsehood.
Furthermore even the man who took them to the White House to see Trump and Ivanka did not bring them to the US. The girls were handed to him by the Nigerian Embassy in 2016 two years after they arrived in America.
Although a Republican operative, the man Doug Wead was not even in the Trump camp but was working for Senator Rand Paul’s presidential campaign which contact he used to try and obtain the girls from my custody to justify the money he had been raising in their names. Again there was no Trump connection to the girls even in 2016 when he was running.
We reached out to the Guardian newspaper on several occasions to ascertain the origins of this bogus claim but never received a reply. Ironically a former Editor of the Guardian was one of those who met me and one of the Chibok girls in USA in 2015 when Trump was not in the picture.
The Trump claim of sponsorship seems to continue the trend of White appropriation that the Chibok girls issue has faced in America. Wead and his cohorts have made every effort to establish themselves as the benefactors (“White messiahs”) of the schoolgirls while denying and vilifying the role of the Nigerians who brought them here through bogus reports.
For avoidance of doubt even the university scholarship for the two girls in question was paid for by my pastor in USA and not Trump in 2017.
The most shocking aspect of this is not just Trump claiming to have sponsored the Nigerian schoolgirls but that rather his policies threaten to expel them from the US.
Some months ago, the Trump administration ordered all international students having online classes because of the pandemic to return to their countries.
Although the administration cancelled the policy after it was sued by many universities, in September they unveiled another policy specifically targeting Nigerian students amongst others who it limited to a two-year stay in US.
Some of the Chibok girls taken by the Nigerian Embassy in 2016 have not made significant academic progress in the past four years. Under Trump’s new policy, they would have had to leave the US after two years.
The Trump policy which was published for public comment attracted over 32,000 responses in 30 days overwhelmingly condemning the policy as “racist” and “unfortunate.” Regulations.gov – Docket Browser

It is therefore ironic that Trump is claiming sponsorship of Chibok schoolgirls when in fact he is doing the exact opposite!
While politicians worldwide will say whatever it takes to garner votes, the list of Trump policies on Nigeria are self-evident:

1. January 2020 banned Nigerians from immigrating to America
2. September 2020 introduced policy limiting Nigerian students to two-year stay in America 
3. April 2020 Opposed second term for Dr Adesina as President of ADB
4. October 2020 Opposed appointment of Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala – a Nigerian American – as DG of WTO in favor of a Korean 
5. 2017 canceled funding to UNFPA the agency responsible for catering to the Chibok girls remaining in Nigeria.

It is important to clarify that Trump is not the only politician to use the Chibok girls for politics.
The government of Borno state under the previous administration in 2016?claimed to have been paying millions for the welfare of 57 escaped Chibok girls for years while we had been taking care of 10 of them since 2014 without a dime from Borno state or any other government in the world.
Of course Buhari also used the Chibok girls issue for political mileage as well only to change once he secured power and attack BBOG and myself too.
However it is to be noted that all this political exploitation is not helpful. One of the girls taken over by the Nigerian embassy reportedly dropped out of school again and one attempted suicide in US last year after previously running away from the counsellor who the Nigerian embassy collaborated with to take her away. The counsellor herself is in divorce proceedings after she abandoned her husband and the Chibok girls to go to Nigeria for a contract.
Like one of the released Chibok girls in Nigeria who survived Boko Haram captivity but attempted suicide once under the care of the Buhari regime, like a recurring decimal an escaped Chibok girl here in US also attempted suicide under the “care” of the Nigerian Embassy. Those not taken by the embassy have graduated at various levels.
It is important that this is clarified for the record.

Thank you.Emmanuel Ogebe

PREVIOUSLY 
On Apr 7, 2020, at 7:39 AM, Glo Counsel <usnigerialawgroup@icloud.com> wrote:

EXCERPT FROM COURT FILINGS 

A.    Background

12.        Plaintiff Ogebe has been involved in human rights work in Africa for a quarter century. Since 2010 Mr. Ogebe has been working pro bono to assist victims of terror and persecution. In 2014, Jihadi Terrorist group Boko Haram abducted hundreds of schoolgirls in Northern Nigeria and during one of his fact-finding missions with members of Congress, they discovered that some of the escaped girls were neglected – without healthcare, education, security or support from the Nigerian government – despite a worldwide #bringbackourgirls twitter campaign.

13.        Plaintiff Ogebe consequently created a project to relocate some of the schoolgirls and other victims of terror and persecution to the US to enable them complete their high school education in safety. 12 girls arrived in US on two year study visas.

14.        Although five of the gifted and talented schoolgirls successfully completed high school, community college and university in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020 respectively, seven schoolgirls who remained at 8^th grade levels at the end of their 2- year visas in 2016, dropped out to pursue GEDs at the instigation of the Nigerian embassy which neglected them in the first place. This case revolves around the under-performing students who dropped out in 2016 and their excuses for doing so in 2016. Defendants never acknowledged the schoolgirls who did not leave the Plaintiff for the embassy in 2016 and who all went on to achieve great successes every year since then.

15.         In 2018, Defendants WSJ promoted a carefully crafted hack attack on Plaintiff, hatched since 2014 and using documents as old as 2015 & 2016 to assassinate Plaintiff’s character. Defendants relied on documents they knew to be false, which contained information that was highly improbable, and interviewed people who admitted they were liars and relied on parties who had been sued for defamation on the very same subject in reckless disregard for the truth.

16.        Plaintiff is a lifelong humanitarian lawyer who the embassy of Nigeria in Washington targeted as a dissident for his critique of the government’s poor human rights record. It collaborated with an unscrupulous American opportunist, Doug Wead, to sabotage & discredit Plaintiff at every turn. They found a willing pansy in Defendants to publish the false narratives they had pitched for several years (Exh H)

17.        Defendants, while fully aware that Plaintiff had sued the Nigerian government for defamation, (See Appendix 4A-B) that the embassy’s reports were glaringly inaccurate, highly improbable and one-sided, while quoting the girls whom Defendants admitted were liars, then published falsehoods and recklessly disregarded the truth. 

Defendants fabricated evidence they claimed to have and created fictional accounts of places and actions that plaintiff was never at or did. Defendants sought to delimit Plaintiff Ogebe’s constitutional freedom of speech by abusing their free speech.

1.      Indicative Timeline of Events

2014 – Plaintiff brings 11 schoolgirls to two high schools in USA on 2-year student visas

2015 – Plaintiff brings a 12^th school girl to school in USA 

2016 – Plaintiff places three high-achieving schoolgirls in community college, four remain at high school, five are in middle school by the end of their 2-year student visas

2016 – Nigerian embassy takes away seven students from school – 2 high schoolers and 5 middle schoolers, accuse Plaintiff of exploitation and not putting them in school.

2017 – The two remaining non-government school girls in high school graduate with diplomas (one magna cum laude) and begin community college

2018 – 1st non-government college student graduates (magna cum laude) with associate degree in science from community college, begins full degree program

2018 – Wall Street Journal publishes defamatory article against plaintiff regarding the seven underperforming drop outs from 2016

2019 – Non-government college student above, graduates full university with bachelors degree in science; 2^nd non-government community college student graduates with associate degree in science, begins university

2020 – 3^rd non-government college student, graduates from university with a bachelor’s degree in Criminology

The G word

1. Definition
   genocide

noun geno·cide \ˈje-nə-ˌsīd\
: the deliberate killing of people who belong to a particular racial, political, or cultural group

2. Fact one: targeted killing of southerners

http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/02/how-our-husbands-were-killed-by-boko-haram-widows/

3. Fact two: targeted killing of Christians

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/reject-apathy/violence/churchs-enemy-number-one-boko-haram

4. Fact three: self-declared targeting of infidels
   Just a reminder on what Boko Haram says: “This is a war against Christians and democracy and their constitution, we have not started, we will be in Abuja, and in your state. This war is against Christians, I mean Christians, generally the infidels. Allah says we should finish them when we get them.”
5. Conclusion: the facts adduced above are irrefutable evidence that Boko Haram is indeed conducting genocide in Nigeria.
   If the activities of ISIS were branded “genocide” by the European Parliament last week, then Boko which killed more people than ISIS in 2014 has exceeded the fatalities threshold.
   BTW let me state that I have personally met and interviewed victims in two case case studies cited above and as a top global subject matter expert have thoroughly validated the on ground reality.
   To claim that it is homegrown is erroneous. BH started out as the “Nigerian Taliban”, its members have trained in Somalia, Mali etc its leaders were funded abroad and indeed were on exile in Saudia at a time.

I want to conclude by saying how surprised I am at the need for such continuing awareness even amongst our people.

I have heard people say “let them kill themselves” erroneously assuming that it is a north eastern problem. Few realize how badly others have been impacted.

Indeed in case study one above, our findings show that the difference between this and the pre-Biafra civil war progrom is that bodies were brought back then on trains while now they are brought in luxurious buses.

In conclusion, here is the most outstanding comment I have seen posted by an individual who just did some basic comparative analysis:

Nigeria: what do the victims say?
“It is a jihad, a religious war against Christians for refusing to embrace Islam. So, they are using terrorism as a weapon. That is the reason you see that the target of their attacks are Christians and our churches” (Persecution.org 17 July 2012).

What do the perpetrators say?
“For peace to reign in the land, all Christians must convert to Islam. Allah has tasked all Muslims in Quran 9:29 to continue to attack Jews and Christians who refuse to believe in him and his messenger, Prophet Mohammed.” Abu Qaqa, of Boko Haram (FaithFreedom.org 19 June 2012).

What does Koran 9:29 say?
“Fight those who do not believe in Allah or in the Last Day and who do not consider unlawful what Allah and his Messenger have made unlawful and who do not adopt the religion of truth [i.e. Islam] from those who were given the Scripture – [fight] until they give the jizyah [extortion tax] with willing submission..”

What does the US Government say?
“the U.S. government consistently has urged the Nigerian government to…. addressing problems of economic and political marginalization in the north, arguing that Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic.”

What is the formal name of the group nicknamed Boko Haram?
“The Group of Al-Sunna For Preaching and Jihad”. – comment by Mike Copeland

I rest my case.