Ajadi Rescue Movement Reaffirms Unity and Youth Empowerment in Taraba

The Ajadi Rescue Movement, Taraba State Chapter, held a vibrant and unifying meeting on Saturday at its state headquarters in Jalingo, reaffirming its commitment to youth empowerment, national unity, and social development across Nigeria’s northern region.

The event, attended by state and zonal executives, local government coordinators, and representatives of various ethnic groups, began at 10:00 a.m. with the arrival of the state and zonal executives, who distributed branded shirts and caps to members. Excitement filled the atmosphere as delegates awaited the arrival of their special guests.

By 11:00 a.m., the Nineteen Northern States Coordinator, Mr Ibrahim Shuibu, arrived alongside his cabinet and was warmly received by the state and local government coordinators. The meeting opened formally with the rendition of the Nigerian National Anthem at 11:03 a.m., followed by a prayer led by the Deputy State Coordinator, Mr. Babangida Sani Muhammad.

In his welcome address, the Taraba State Coordinator, Comrade Dabo Nuhu Muhammad, commended members for their steadfastness and discipline. He lauded the founder of the movement, Ambassador Olufemi Ajadi Oguntoyinbo, for his visionary leadership.

“Ambassador Ajadi has given the Nigerian youth a renewed sense of direction,” Dabo said. “His message is simple — unity, productivity, and patriotism. The Ajadi Rescue Movement is not just a group; it is a mission to redefine youth participation in governance and national development.”

Following a round of self-introductions by the Northern Zonal coordinator, Mr. Shuibu delivered a keynote address emphasizing the importance of peace, religious tolerance, and inter-ethnic understanding among Nigerian youths.

“We must rise above religion and tribal sentiments,” Shuibu urged. “Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. The Ajadi Rescue Movement is a platform for young Nigerians to build bridges, not barriers.”

He also spoke passionately about the founder, describing Ambassador Ajadi as “a leader who believes that the true wealth of a nation lies in its youth.”

The highlight of the meeting was the arrival of the royal father of the day, His Royal Highness, the Galadiman Muri, who graced the event at 12:00 p.m. and was received with traditional respect by the coordinators and members present
“We must rise above religion and tribal sentiments,” Shuibu urged. “Our diversity is our strength, not our weakness. The Ajadi Rescue Movement is a platform for young Nigerians to build bridges, not barriers.”

He also spoke passionately about the founder, describing Ambassador Ajadi as “a leader who believes that the true wealth of a nation lies in its youth.”

The highlight of the meeting was the arrival of the royal father of the day, His Royal Highness, the Galadiman Muri, who graced the event at 12:00 p.m. and was received with traditional respect by the coordinators and members present.

In his address, the Galadiman Muri commended the leadership of the movement for fostering inclusivity and for mobilising young Nigerians toward positive causes.

“I commend Ambassador Ajadi and his team for building a movement rooted in unity and discipline,” he said. “I urge him to consider scholarship opportunities for our teeming youths, as education remains the foundation of progress. I pray that God strengthens this vision and blesses our state and nation.”

The meeting also featured goodwill messages from representatives of various ethnic and regional groups in Taraba. The Yoruba Coordinator emphasised collaboration among ethnic groups; the Calabar/Akwa Ibom representative praised the movement’s spirit of inclusiveness, while the Hausa/Fulani representative reaffirmed the northern youths’ commitment to peace and solidarity.

The Women Leader of the movement, in her remarks, celebrated the increasing participation of women in leadership and called for continued support for female empowerment within the organisation.

“The Ajadi Rescue Movement has given women a voice,” she noted. “We will continue to support initiatives that promote equality, education, and empowerment.”

During the question-and-answer session, the Central Zonal Coordinator, Mr Rayyan Hassan, raised pertinent questions on youth capacity-building and national integration. These were addressed jointly by Mr Shuibu and Comrade Dabo, who assured members that new skill acquisition programs were underway.

The event ended with refreshments, a closing remark, and prayers led by Mr Simon, followed by a group photograph capturing the day’s vibrant unity.
As the participants dispersed, one message echoed clearly across Jalingo — the Ajadi Rescue Movement is not just a political platform, but a youth-driven revolution for national renewal

On Faith, Fiction and the Facts: Nigeria Will Not Be Lectured

By O’tega Ogra

Editorial Note:
_Following renewed claims from certain Western voices, including United States Senator Ted Cruz and television host Bill Maher, alleging “Christian persecution” in Nigeria, O’tega Ogra, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Digital Engagement and Strategy, offers this measured response. It reflects the growing insistence within Africa’s largest democracy that its story will be told by its own citizens, not rewritten from abroad._

It is remarkable how quickly concern for Nigeria resurfaces whenever some in the West need a new stage for their moral theatre. This time a senator with a well-kept beard and a television comedian have found new applause lines in our pain. Different microphones, same script, same ignorance dressed as concern.

I begin where truth stands unshaken. There is no Christian genocide in Nigeria. There is terrorism, the same plague that tore through Iraq, Syria and Libya, and now creeps through the very West that once exported it. Yet Nigeria confronts it daily, in a few regions, without foreign sympathy or selective outrage.

Our soldiers, Muslim and Christian alike, fall side by side defending one Republic under one flag. Nigeria will not be lectured by those who confuse our struggle for security with a struggle of faith.

Before preaching righteousness they might read a little history. Islam flourished on our northern plains centuries before America existed. Christianity found harbour on our southern shores before the American Republic was conceived. Both have lived within this geographic expression now called Nigeria longer than that Republic itself, often side by side, rarely apart.

Our constitution forbids any state religion.
Our streets echo with both the imam’s call to prayer and the Sunday choir. In many homes Christians and Muslims share one table, one grief, one dream. That is the Nigeria they never see, because unity does not trend.

When a United States senator whose own colleagues have admitted that Washington’s interventions helped arm groups like Boko Haram now accuses Nigeria of religious persecution, the irony borders on self-parody. You cannot set a region on fire and then accuse the victims of arson.

Now the same senator, Ted Cruz, seeks to legislate Nigeria’s faith from Washington.
That is not religious freedom. That is old colonial arrogance dressed in modern language. Nigeria does not legislate for Texas, and Texas will not legislate for Nigeria.

You cannot wrap interference in scripture and call it compassion. Concern is easy when it costs nothing. Facts are harder when they expose convenience. Nigeria does not seek validation, only accuracy.

And to the comedian crawling for propaganda dollars, faith in Nigeria is not a punchline. It feeds the hungry, shelters the displaced, and gives hope to the weary.
Mocking belief may earn applause abroad. Here it earns silence, the kind that comes from people too busy rebuilding to laugh.

Nigeria’s challenge is not faith. It is terror and the exploitation of pain for profit. Those who frame our fight as sectarian warfare only serve the very extremists they claim to condemn.

We recognise the choreography and the dance of shamelessness. This is a coordinated narrative designed to divide, to paint Africa’s most complex democracy as chaos, and to drain our story of dignity.

But Nigeria does not perform for foreign theatre. We stand, we rebuild, and we believe with partners, not patrons.

As President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said, “Nigeria may bend, but we do not break.” If persecution is what they seek to find, they might begin by examining how many wars were fought in the name of their own exceptionalism. In our culture, when a visitor sets fire to your roof and returns with a bucket, we do not call him a hero.

The real story of Nigeria is not persecution but perseverance, a nation of more than two hundred million who rise each dawn determined to live together, to fight together, and to build together. We are not perfect, but we are not pawns.

Nigeria is not a victim to be pitied. It is a nation to be respected. The cross, the crescent and the ancestral spirit stand here, not in conflict but in covenant, and this is our simple truth. We will defend it calmly, firmly and without apology.

History has taught us that nations built on conviction outlast those built on condescension. Nigeria will outlast both their pity and their prejudice.

_~ O’tega Ogra is Senior Special Assistant to the President of Nigeria on Digital Engagement and Strategy. He writes on governance, digital diplomacy and Africa’s evolving voice in global affairs._

CHRISTIAN GENOCIDE AND THE CONSPIRACY AGAINST NIGERIA BY FFK

I listened attentively to the words of
@billmaher & @CNN’s @VanJones68 who have both accused Nigeria of indulging in “Christian genocide” and pondered on them deeply.

If, as a Nigerian, their words and narrative do not concern you or scare you then, as @realDonaldTrump would say, you cannot be a very bright bulb.

When one adds their words to the recent contribution of @SenTedCruz, the greatest defender of Israel and advocate of ‘Christian Zionism’ in the American Senate, where he accused Nigeria of the same and where he said that he was introducing a Bill in the Senate to do “something about it” and “protect Christians in Nigeria” then you will get an even clearer picture of what is unfolding and the horrendous agenda those behind it have in store for us.

To add to that is the alarming resolution, passed two days ago, by the Canadian Parliament that Nigeria is one of the most dangerous places in the world for Christians to live and that Christians are targetted and slaughtered here all over the country on a daily basis.

The first question that needs to be answered is since when have the Americans and the West generally cared about anyone but themselves, least of all the Christians in our country.

How come they have suddenly started mouthing this fake battle cry and how come the same rhetoric is suddenly coming out of places like the Canadian Parliament and other western capitals?

The sooner those in power in Nigeria and the Nigerian people themselves get a clear grasp of what is really going on the better.

More importantly we need to do something to counter the narrative and we need to do it fast. This is because it is spreading like wildfire all over the world and sadly people are buying into it.

The truth is that the Americans, their allies and their local collaborators are carefully and craftily preparing the ground for a religious war in our country and they want us to tear ourselves apart.

There can be no doubt that Christians have been targetted and killed in Nigeria in huge numbers by Islamist terrorists, whether they be Boko Haram or ISWAP, over the last 14 years but it is also a fact that as many Muslims have been targetted and killed by the same Islamist terrorists over the same period of time.

There are two points that need to be made and properly understood.

Firstly the terrorists that have plagued our nation and slaughtered our people, both Christian and Muslim, for the last 14 years were established, armed, funded and protected by the very same Americans and their western and Israeli allies that are crying more than the bereaved today.

Worse still they refused to sell arms to us or allow us to buy arms from anywhere in our attempt to resist the terrorists ourselves. Remember that?

They even refused to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organisation for many years and did not do so until it suited their purpose.

The second point to grasp is that the reason that they are now all talking about Nigeria and what they have labelled as “Christian genocide” is not because they love Nigeria or care about Nigerian Christians but because they want to shift the world’s attention away from Gaza and focus it on Nigeria.

They also want to punish us for taking a bold stand at the United Nations against the genocide that the Israelis have unleashed on Gaza which they are supporting and funding.

Standing up for humanity: that is our “crime” and I for one, as a Nigerian, make no apology for it.

In my view it was indeed our proudest moment and finest hour when our Vice President stood before the world at the United Nations and boldly proclaimed that we were against the genocide that was being unleashed on the Palestinian people, condemned what was going on in Gaza and insisted on a two state solution to resolve the conflict.

Unlike others we did not sit on the fence or buckle and sadly we are now paying the price for it.

This is the reason for their sudden venom, subversion and malice and we must not for one moment think otherwise or delude ourselves into believing that they really care.

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with them wanting to help our country fight the terrorists and neither is there anything wrong in them showing concern.

As a matter of fact that would be a welcome development.

What is wrong and unacceptable is the false narrative that they are peddling that it is Christians alone that are being killed.

The question that needs to be answered is why is it being framed in this way?

Yes Christian lives matter but do Muslim ones not matter too? If we are counting Christian bodies should we not count Muslim ones too?

If they had said that terrorists were killing Nigerians of all faiths their concern would have been welcome.

But when they say only Christians are being killed and they are attempting to stir up the hearts and souls of Christians from all over the world to unleash a crusade on us in the name of defending Nigerian Christians that gives cause for concern and the perpetuation and sustenance of such a wicked and distorted narrative and agenda which will not end well for our country.

As a matter of fact it would tear us apart, swell the ranks of Boko Haram and ISWAP, alienate the Muslim population in our country, divide our ranks, encourage more violence and conflict, exacerbate both religious and ethnic tensions and eventually lead to chaos and carnage in our nation the likes of which we have never seen before.

Brother will kill brother and we will end up fighting a never-ending civil war which is precisely what they want.

This is why this new-found rhetoric from the West is so dangerous.

We must join hands as Nigerians and re-emphasise our unity, our plurality of faith and our pride in our nation and we must resist this insidious attempt to divide us with a false narrative that, if we do not manage carefully, will push us over the cliff.

If there was a Christian genocide going on in Nigeria I would be the first to expose, oppose, resist and fight against it because my faith is EVERYTHING to me.

The reality is that it is not a Christian genocide that is going on in our country but rather a genocide against all Nigerians, both Christian and Muslim, and it is being perpetuated by a heinous, evil ISIS-inspired and Al Qaeda-like group of barbaric and savage terrorists and criminals that take pleasure in killing people of all faiths.

They do not represent Muslims but rather satan. And in other countries that have been afflicted in a similar way both Muslims and Christians have joined forces to fight them.

That is what we need to do here and we must not allow the Americans or anyone else to divide our ranks and make us think otherwise.

We cannot win the war against terror by turning on ourselves.

We welcome the concern of our detractors but we reject their false narrative and their attempt to divide and destroy us.

Permit me to end this contribution with the following.

A number of years ago I was amongst those that erroneously believed that only Christians were being targetted and subjected to genocide by the terrorists in Nigeria.

This was the case until 2020 when I went on a tour of the North West and North East and discovered that as many, if not more, Muslims and Muslim communities had been targetted and subjected to mass murder, ethnic cleansing and genocide as the Christian ones in that area.

What I witnessed in Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Adamawa, Gombe and other parts of the majority Muslim core North shocked and shattered me and constrained me to accept the assertion that this was not an onslaught against Christians and Christian communities alone but rather an attack on Nigerians of every faith.

And it is the same in the Middle Belt where these evil demon-possesed barbarians are targetting and slaughtering Christians and Muslims in equal measure.

For example I discovered that they attacked Niger, Kwara, Nassarawa and Kogi states and their predominantly Muslim communities as much and as frequently as they attacked Benue, Plateau and Taraba which are predominantly Christian states.

From the day I came to appreciate all this I took an oath before God and man that I would speak out against the atrocities being perpetuated against not just Christians but also Muslims.

I also accepted the fact that to do anything other than that would not only be inherently intellectually dishonest but also would add to the problem and make it worse rather than solve it.

The sooner we accept the fact that we are all victims of the same evil and heartless beasts the better it will be for us all.

What we must never do is accept the bogus narrative or harbor the perfidious notion that the West is trying to establish that only Christians are being killed in our country.

As Christians we are, after all, meant to be our brothers keeper and as human beings we are meant to feel the same degree of pain and I daresay shame when either innocent and defenceless Christian or Muslim men, women and children are murdered in cold blood in our shores.

When the barbarians drop their bombs, wield their machetes, fire their RPG’s and shoot their AK47’s they do not ask their victims what faith they belong to.

The notion that they do is as asinine and far-fetched as it is ignorant and mischevous.

Beasts don’t care whether you are Christian or Muslim when they knock at your door: they only care about spilling your blood and taking your life.

May God guide us all, may He grant us peace and may He bless, defend and protect the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

(FFK)