chosen04: ABUJA (AFP) – President Goodluck Jonathan has questioned whether deadly Islamist attacks on churches in his country and other violence worldwide could be signs of coming “end times”/

ROSSIKE: This Jonathan just talks anyhow. He needs to understand he's the president of a country, and thus should not be publicly uttering religious gibberish about ''end times''.

"We have challenges, no doubt, especially the recent terrorist attacks on all of us and the church is one of the main targets," [size=18pt]Jonathan said. When the preacher "was making reference to the bombings ... I was just wondering, could this be a clear way of telling us that the end times are so close?"[/size]

Boko Haram, whose name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the Hausa language of Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north, continues to attack civilians and government forces at will, despite a heavy presence of soldiers and police officers there. The sect wants the multiethnic nation of more than 160 million people to enact strict Shariah law and release its imprisoned members. It also has loose connections with al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and Somalia's al-Shabab, according to Western military officials and diplomats.

Just in the last few days, gunmen suspected to belong to Boko Haram attacked a village in Nigeria's arid northeast, rounding up men, women and children and killing at least 15 by cutting their throats.

Speaking Sunday before an EYN church in Abuja, Jonathan acknowledged the sect killed people this holiday, but said his government had stopped the group from committing more killings.

However, his speech offered stark comparisons to the situation in his country, comparing it to Syria and the Central African Republic, which now faces rebel attacks that threaten the nation's stability.

The CAR rebels "were quite close to taking over the capital city just as Boko Haram is taking over Abuja (and wanting) for me and those working in government to run and hide somewhere else," Jonathan said. "Let me agree with you that we have challenges. ... No part of the country is free."

[size=18pt]This isn't the first time Jonathan, who sometimes fumbles through public speeches, has made dire pronouncements about security in Nigeria. On Jan. 8, 2012, speaking before another church service, Jonathan said the threat of Boko Haram was worse than the nation's 1960s civil war, which killed 1 million people. The president also suggested Boko Haram had infiltrated the government and the nation's security forces.
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"Some continue to dip their hands and eat with you and you won't even know the person who will point a gun at you or plant a bomb behind your house," Jonathan said at the time.

mankevo: It has always been known that those that defend this ''disaster of a president'' wont hold on so long. Almost a page gone and none of them has summoned courage to utter their defence. Still waiting for em to come and tell us ''...its a slip of tongue caused by Tinubu's corruption and Buhari's extremism''