Itzcoatl Ocampo: Ex-Marine Corps Serial Killer

This dairy is basically an informational update of The Sordid Truth about the United States Marine Corps now that some significant details are available on the suspected serial killer.

In the MarineCorpsTimes today we have this:

SANTA ANA, Calif. — A 23-year-old Iraq war veteran charged with the stabbing deaths of four homeless men in a rampage that terrorized Southern California had selected additional victims, prosecutors said Tuesday.

Former Marine Itzcoatl Ocampo chose the final victim because the man appeared in a news article about police warning homeless men to be careful, Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas said.

His father, Refugio Ocampo was homeless and living on the street. His son, Itzcoatl Ocampo, visited him just a few days before he was arrested. “He was very worried about me,” Refugio Ocampo said. “I told him, ‘Don’t worry. I’m a survivor. Nothing will happen to me.’”

Also from Marine Corps Times we have these additional details:

Itzcoatl Ocampo was a fun-loving teen who liked to hit on girls when he joined the military. But after he was discharged and returned home he kept to himself, trusted no one and drank a lot, they said in interviews with The Associated Press.

“He came back from the war and was never the same,” said Brian Doyle, 23, a friend from high school.

Ocampo’s little brother, Mixcoatl, 17, said investigators who came to the family home seized his own computer — his brother did not have one. They also took the gift his brother gave him for Christmas, a DVD box set of the 2008 HBO series “Generation Kill,” the story of a reporter embedded with a Marine battalion during the invasion of Iraq.

Itzcoatl Ocampo was arrested Friday night after a locally known homeless man, John Berry, 64, was stabbed to death outside an Anaheim fast-food restaurant. Bystanders gave chase, and a police officer who was part of a perimeter set up in response to 911 calls made the arrest.

Anaheim police Chief John Welter has said investigators are confident they have the man responsible for the string of murders that struck fear into Orange County’s homeless since Dec. 20. Prosecutors have yet to file charges, and authorities have provided no information on evidence against Ocampo, or a possible motive.
...
Mixcoatl Ocampo said his brother followed a friend into the Marine Corps in 2006 and went to Iraq, where he apparently was not involved in combat, and was honorably discharged in June 2010.

That same month, Itzcoatl Ocampo’s friend Cpl. Claudio Patino IV, 22, of Yorba Linda, was killed in combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

“He took that really hard,” said Mixcoatl Ocampo. “Once he received the news, he was never the same.”

Mixcoatl Ocampo said his brother visited Patino’s grave twice a week.

Doyle had difficulty describing the change he saw in his friend from high school.

“He went from being a tall, geeky kid, really fun-loving ... ” he said, trailing off.

Doyle said he once offered his friend a self-help book based on Eastern philosophy that he had found useful but Itzcoatl Ocampo rejected it.

Doyle said he tried to find out what was going on with his friend but didn’t press it, never imagining something like the serial killings.

“Everyone’s got their issues, you know?” he said.

In addition to Berry, James Patrick McGillivray, 53, was killed near a shopping center in Placentia on Dec. 20; Lloyd Middaugh, 42, was found near a riverbed trail in Anaheim on Dec. 28; and Paulus Smit, 57, was killed outside a Yorba Linda library on Dec. 30.

Really to its credit, Marine Corps Times is giving this case the best coverage out there:

Just months after he was deployed to Iraq in 2008, a Marine veteran now suspected in the deaths of four homeless men in Southern California sent his family a short, upbeat video greeting.

The video, which was mostly in Spanish, showed Itzcoatl Ocampo wishing his father a happy Father’s Day and reading an excerpt from Dr. Seuss’ “Green Eggs and Ham” to his then 10-year-old sister.

The former Marine’s 17-year-old brother, Mixcoatl Ocampo, recalled how happy his family members were when they got the video in the mail that summer. They all gathered around the television in the living room to watch Itzcoatl Ocampo, who appeared in fatigues and talked against the backdrop of an American flag.

“We hadn’t seen my brother since he got deployed,” he said. “Dad saw the video, and when he first saw it he was thrilled.”

According to friends and family, a much darker Ocampo returned home after he was discharged in 2010. His parents separated, and his father eventually became homeless.

Now, Ocampo’s family is left trying to reconcile the smiling, slightly nervous-sounding Marine in the video greeting friends and family with the blankly staring man in the police mug shot accused of murder.
...
Ocampo’s father, 49-year-old Refugio Ocampo, said his son came back a changed man after serving in Iraq, expressing disillusionment and becoming ever darker as his family life frayed and he struggled to find his way as a civilian.

The father said he lost his job and home, and ended up living under a bridge before finding shelter in the cab of a broken-down big-rig he is helping repair.
...
The son followed a friend into the Marine Corps right out of high school in 2006 instead of going to college as his father had hoped. Itzcoatl Ocampo was discharged in 2010 and returned home to find his family in disarray, his father said.

The same month, one of Itzcoatl Ocampo’s friends, 22-year-old Cpl. Claudio Patino IV of Yorba Linda, was killed in combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

“Once he received the news, he was never the same,” Mixcoatl Ocampo said. He said his brother visited Patino’s grave twice a week.

Refugio and Mixcoatl both described a physical condition Itzcoatl suffered in which his hands shook and he suffered headaches. Medical treatments helped until he started drinking heavily, both said.

“He started drinking like crazy — too much, way too much,” the father said.

A neighbor who is a Vietnam veteran and the father both tried to push Itzcoatl to get treatment at a Veterans hospital, but he refused. Refugio Ocampo said he wanted his son to get psychological treatment as well.

The Sordid Truth about the United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps made the news twice this week. First there was the international scandal in which four Marines stationed in Afghanistan came under suspicion of pissing on the dead bodies of their enemies, who, it seems, were Afghans fighting a foreign invader in Afghanistan.

And now a former US Marine who also served in Afghanistan has been charged with killing four homeless men in Orange county, CA with a knife. So among the questions this case raises is: Where exactly did he learn to kill with a knife? I'll wager one answer; The United States Marine Corp.

I'll admit that I don't think it necessarily needs a lot of training. While physically and psychologically harder than killing with a gun, I still think pretty much anybody could do it given the right circumstances. Anyway I think I could. I know technically what needs to be done. I know if you slit someone's throat, they will die. I know that if you stab them in the heart or other vital organs, they will die. I know that if you stab them in enough places period, they will die, and this is apparently how these homeless men were killed.

Whether I could mentally bring myself to take another person's life, that is a different question. I'm pretty sure I could in defense of my own life or someone I loved. I like to think I can in defense of an innocent about to fall prey to the murderous intentions of another. I hope never because my government told me they wanted to make their country communist or Islamic or whatever.

I have in fact "been trained" to kill with my bare hands, which is to say I got as far as a green belt in karate. And I have been trained to kill with a firearm, at least I was trained how to shoot a rifle. That was in the Wash U. ROTC Army rifle range in the engineering building attic. I was not in ROTC, I was a campus radical but the kind sergeant allowed me and a girlfriend to shoot there and he trained us. I attained Marksmen status, but Vivian was the best. She beat all the ROTC cadets, much to their chagrin, but I digress.

I can say that I was "trained" on how to not kill with a knife. This was after I got out of jail for protesting the war in 1970 and was paroled to New Jersey. He was a Vietnam vet, ex-special forces type. He lived in the woods near Vineland, NJ. He hunted his own meat. He knew too much about killing and he liked to live alone. In spite of this, we became friends. He taught me this rather humane knife fighting technique, which I will now pass on to you, for what its worth. He suggested you go for a horizontal slash across the forehead. He said it would make a nasty cut, but there was little chance of inflicting a lethal wound because of the bone behind it, and the profuse bleeding into your opponents eyes would likely put a quick end to the fight.

Anyway given the relatively limited sources for extended training in how to kill with a knife, I'm willing to bet that this OC serial killer, like so many before him, was trained to kill by our government.

More to the point: Where did he learn to piss on human life like that? Again, I'm willing to wager, the United States Marine Corps. After all, that's what they do. They take ordinary human beings and they turn them into serial killers. They also teach them to kill people they don't even know and they teach them to kill for the most insane reasons.

And that's the real trick of military training because, frankly, the actual techniques of killing with a knife, much less with a gun, ain't that hard, I mean, its not like killing with rocket science. Getting young people to kill people they don't even know on command, that's a whole 'noher matter because humans don't normally operate that way. There's a not so well publicize aspect of the military sciences that addresses this problem. It is called killology. From the Wikipedia article:

Grossman's theory, based on the World War II research of S.L.A. Marshall, is that most of the population deeply resists killing another human...

As a result of Marshall's work, modern military training was modified to attempt to override this instinct, by:

using man-shaped targets instead of bullseye targets in marksmanship practice
practicing and drilling how soldiers would actually fight
dispersing responsibility for the killing throughout the group
displacing responsibility for the killing onto an authority figure, i.e., the commanding officer and the military hierarchy (See the Milgram experiment)

By the time of the United States involvement in the Vietnam War, says Grossman, 90% of U.S. soldiers would fire their weapons at other people.

In this powerful 10 minute talk, Ryan Endicott relates how our Marines are brutalized and dehumanized in today's US military:



Meet Scott Camil



Scott Camil was a US Marine who served two tours in Vietnam. In the course of making Vietnam: American Holocaust, he became a friend of mine. I won't use the well worn phrase "highly decorated." Scott has a WikiPedia page, so I can just go ahead and list them:

He served with the Marines from 1965 to 1969, earning two Purple Hearts, Combat Action Ribbon, two Presidential Unit Citations, Good Conduct Medal, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Service Medal with three stars, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Silver Star, Vietnam Cross of Gallantry with Palm Leaf, and Vietnam Campaign Medal during two tours in Vietnam. With Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, 1st Marine Division, he acted as a forward observer for artillery. He was a sergeant when honorably discharged.

He was also a serial killer that liked to kill with a knife. He described one such murder in my documentary [transcript] What follows is from his 1971 Winter Soldier testimony:

Another time I had a friend of mind killed and I was very upset and I asked this Vietnamese for his ID card and he says "cum beck" which means 'I don't understand' in Vietnamese and he just pissed me off so I pulled out my knife and I killed him and it didn't bother me at all. I just called it in and I said "One VC killed." and they said "How do you know he's a VC?" and I said "because he's dead" and they laughed and said "okay" you know.

He also described one of the "fun" things he participated in as a forward artillery spotter:

The calling in of artillery for games, the way it was worked would be the mortar forward observers would pick out certain houses in villages, friendly villages, and the mortar forward observers would call in mortars until they destroyed that house and then the artillery forward observer would call in artillery until he destroyed another house and whoever used the least amount of artillery, they won. And when we got back someone would have to buy someone else beers.

And he graphically described the murderous culture our government created in Vietnam:

And It got to be where it was like someone says okay "You come stay on my farm and you can go hunting everyday for free and I'll give you all the ammo you want and you can hunt and there's no limit and you can go and all go out together and just hunt." It was like a hunting trip. The more people we killed the happier our officers were, you know. It got to be like a game. The object was to see who could kill the most people and the different ways you could prove how many people you had killed would be like cutting off ears. Now if you brought back someone's ears, pretty likely you'd have to kill them to get them. And people would, whoever had the most ears they would get the most beers. You'd trade your ears for beers. And it got to be like a game.

In Afghanistan, American soldiers collect fingers, not ears.

There were hundreds of My Lais that never made the newspapers, Scott Camil described one he was involved in this way:

In Operation Stone we were sitting up on the rail road trestle with a river on each side. There's another company behind each river. And like the people were running around inside. And we were just shooting them and the newspaper said Operation Stone like World War Two movie. We just sat up there and wiped them out, women, children, everything. Two hundred nine-one of them

Rape was common the the treatment of women disgusting. Scott relates:

I saw one case where a woman was shot by a sniper, one of our snipers. When we got up to her she was asking for water. And the Lt. said to kill her. So he ripped off her clothes, they stabbed her in both breasts, they spread-eagled her and shoved an E- tool up her vagina, an entrenching tool, and she was still asking for water. And then they took that out and they used a tree limb and then she was shot.

Snipers are trained to kill individuals they are looking at. That is a special skill. The Marines accused of pissing on the dead Afghans are snipers. I don't know what the Marines taught the OC serial killer but I do know that as long as our government spends billions of dollars taking earnest young men, and now women, and turning them into serial killers, this problem will continue to haunt us. What goes around, comes around.

Scott is doing much better these days. After he left the Marine Corps, he joined Vietnam Veterans Against the War, became an anti-war activist and has been so for more that 40 years. He is currently the president of the Gainsville, FL chapter of Veterans for Peace. This is an interview I did with him at the Winter Solider: Iraq and Afghanistan hearing held by Iraq Veterans Against the War in 2008:



One of the people this ex-Marine in OC murdered was a homeless Vietnam vet. Now how sick is that? If I may be allowed the liberty of stereotyping this individual, I would guess he might have been in his mid 60's and he was homeless because that war left him with such demons that he couldn't live with other people, or hold down a job, and he didn't have a woods to hide in like my friend.

The Current Situation in Libya

I have been planning forever to do a follow up diary on Libya. If you have been following me here you know that no sooner than the Libyan revolution was moving into the clean-up phase of the military campaign, that I found my focus dramatically driven to downtown Los Angeles. Even the death of Mummar Qaddafi became a footnote to events.

I had already done all that I knew to support their revolution from afar, and while, in the age of the Internet, not all politics is local, most of it still is. Occupy Los Angeles became my new beat. Anyway, it seemed that the longer I waited to do this diary, the better and more solid the news became. Then today an interview with Ali Ahmida came out and it is absolutely the best summation I've heard on the current situation in Libya. More about that below the fold.

I never entirely lost track of events in Libya and mostly I have been very pleased with what is happening and the progress they have been making.

Even the question of the armed militias that is the big bugaboo that most commentators of the left and right, not to mention the present Libya government and the TNC, seem to worry so much about, doesn't bother me that much. Certainly it can be a major problem if they start fighting among themselves, and that is why everyone wants them gone. You beat Qaddafi. Good. Thanks. Go home. Get a regular job.

On the other hand, they made this revolution, they truly are a people's army and many of them say they are not ready to lay down their arms until they can be sure they get the government they have been fighting for. I support that position, as long as they don't start fighting among themselves.

So I have had a close ear to the ground, as have most Libya watchers, for signs of conflict. I saw a tweet "Gun fire, not celebratory, many areas of Tripoli" in mid November, but could find no corroboration. There was another incident, not widely publicize, on December 11, between a Zintan militias and the Libyan army over control of the Tripoli airport in which four people were killed and this more recent incident in Tripoli in which five people were killed. I heard three different stories about that. One said someone from Tawergha assaulted someone from Misrata, was arrested by the Tripoli brigade, then the Misrata brigade tried to take custody and a fight broke out. Another story also called it a fight between those two brigades but for a different reason. And the third story was that it was simply a robbery gone wrong and the robbers shot it out with the Tripoli brigade.

That is all I've heard about since October, nine people killed in inter-militias fighting in this country of 7 million in this immediate post military phase. I think that is pretty damn good; which is to say I think it compares very favorably with the number of people killed in inter-gang warfare in Los Angeles in the same period. So I don't worry too much about the militias because the militias, they call themselves brigades, seem to be handling things very well to this point.

I also think their decision to accept air support from NATO, and consequently, my support for that decision, has been proven correct. According to a recent NY Times study spotlighted on Democracy Now, NATO killed between 40 and 70 civilians in its Libyan campaign. Those sources tried to make the most of that, describing the deaths of some of those in passionate detail, but I think that is remarkable. The number could be double that and my conclusions would still be the same. 30,000 Libyans died in that war. The vast majority were killed by Qaddafi's forces, many while in his custody. Certainly, NATO killed thousands of Qaddafi soldiers, but those soldiers were killing other Libyans, mostly civilians, so by doing that they almost certainly saved many Libyan lives and shortened the war.

So there were no massive civilian causalities from NATO bombs as the anti-interventionists predicted, and there were no NATO boots on the ground, as the anti-interventionists predicted.

I know, I know. There may have been spooks. There was a CIA station there even before Feb17, I'm sure they never left. Special forces? A lot of speculation but very short on proof. Even Qaddafi claimed to have captured 17 foreign special forces in Sirte, video to follow. It never showed up. Besides that's not what the anti-interventions were talking about in the beginning. That just became their fall back position because the Marines never made it back to the shores of Tripoli.

Libya just had $87 billion unfrozen by the EU and oil production is already coming back on line, so I think their financial problems will quickly be resolved. Not many countries can say that these days.

Another thing that is becoming clear now is just how little real support Qaddafi had. While there was that one sneak attack against an oil terminal while Qaddafi was still alive, there has been nothing since. The guerilla war by Qaddafi supporters against the revolution has simply failed to materialize, and while wavers of the green flag still have had some freedom to demonstrate openly, as this video illustrates, there just haven't been very many of them.

And I was personally very please to find that my mention of Racism in Libya at the end of my recent diary on Occupy Nigeria led to a new round that that article being retweeted among Libyans.

So I think things are shaping up nicely in Libya. I don't even worry about the Islamic Brotherhood or other Islamic forces coming to power, not in Libya or anywhere else in MENA. That is part of democracy and maybe that is something they have to go through so that they can grow out of it. How long will we have to suffer the Republicans?

Still there is all the minutia of building a new revolutionary Libya, and for more on that, I turn the floor over to Ali Ahmida.

Today my worlds come together. At 10:30am I go back to Africa. There is an Occupy Nigeria protest in Hollywood organized by Nigerians of Southern California. Then at 1:00pm there is a Southern California Occupy Meet Up in Long Beach. It'll be a busy day.

Current Political Situation in Libya: An Interview with Ali Ahmida

Libya is back in the news with increasing tensions among various militia groups and political factions struggling for power, sometimes through street battles.

Three months have passed since the regime of Muammar Qaddafi was dislodged in Libya. So what is happening in Libya today? What forces are in play, and what has become of the revolutionary militias? And what about the issue of outside influence in today's Libya, given the crucial role played by NATO forces as well as governments such as Qatar in bringing an end to Qaddafi's autocracy.

Khalil Bendib spoke with University of New England political science professor Ali Ahmida, who just returned from Libya.

Current Political Situation in Libya: An Interview with Ali Ahmida by Jadaliyya

Click here for a list of my other blogs on Libya

Occupy Nigeria - 1st African fruits of Qaddafi gone?

Follow #OccupyNigeria on twitter for the latest news.

Uploaded by AnonymousNigeria on January 9, 2012

”Out of Africa always comes something new” wrote the Roman historian Pliny, (23-79 A.D.) With Mummar Qaddafi gone from Libyan, this old adage will almost certainly gain new meaning because Qaddafi was not only the dictator who ruled Libya with the whip for 40 years, he was a major power in African affairs. He sought to unify Africa under his leadership and saw himself as "King of all the African tribes." Well, with the kickoff of Occupy Nigeria, we are seeing something new in Africa today.

Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa, 160 million people or 1 in 6 Africans live in Nigeria, so any movement there is bound to have a big impact on the whole continent. Could this have anything to do with Qaddafi's recent demise and the success of the revolution in Libya? These are the main questions I wish to touch upon in this article. But first a quick update for those that have not been glued to news out of Africa all day.

3 people were killed and at least another 20 were injured as Nigerian state security used tear gas and rubber bullets and finally resorted to live ammunition in attempts to suppress mass protests in Lagos and other major cities in Nigeria. Except for the rallies, the streets were eerily empty, and shops and businesses closed as most of the country was brought to a grinding halt by a nationwide general strike which its organizers have named "Occupy Nigeria."

This nationwide general strike was sparked by the government's decision to discontinue fuel subsidies. This resulted in a more than doubling of gasoline prices overnight. Nigeria exports more crude oil than any other African country, but only has refinery capacity for 25% of its own needs. It must import, at great expense, most of the gasoline it uses and the government subsidies make the cost bearable in a country where most people live on less than $2 a day. In fact, most Nigerians see the fuel subsidy as the only benefit of being an oil rich nation that trickles down to ordinary people.

Al Jazeera English has been giving good coverage to this story. For more details and background I would recommend Nigerian fuel protests turn deadly

Here are two YouTube Videos of today's action
It is so symbolic of the way this movement has circled the globe in one year that they have named it Occupy Nigeria because this is an obvious nod to Occupy Wall St. and the occupy movement which got its impulse from the Arab Spring which began in another African country, Tunisia, just north of Nigeria. It was also just about a year ago, on Jan. 2, 2011 that the hacker group Anonymous launched OpTunisia in support of the people's struggles in Tunisia. On Jan. 5, 2012, The Naija Cyber Hactivists in conjunction with the allied forces of Anonymous announced Op Nigeria, which had been running since at leat May 2011, was moving in support of Occupy Nigeria by defacing the website of the Federal Ministry Of Transport. Over the weekend more Nigerian government websites were defaced by NCH including the National Insurance Commission [owned], National Information Technology Development Agency [owned] and MNNA [owned] It is very significant that Occupy Nigeria is taking place all across the country and has been able to unite people across tribal, ethnic and religious lines. Nigeria has a long history of religious strife that has threatened to tear the country apart. Most recently Nigeria was in the news because of the Christmas bombings of Christian churches by the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram. Those terrorist attacks killed dozens of Nigerians. For historical reasons Nigeria has been pretty evenly divided between Muslims and Christians with the Muslims concentrated in the North and the Christians concentrated in the South. This religious difference has been the main locus of conflict in Nigeria with most of the North states implementing Sharia law and the indigenous Salafist group, Boko Haram trying to be the Taliban of Nigeria. The demise of Qaddafi and the events in Libya almost certainly have something to do with this recent upsurge in activity by Boko Haram. Mummar Qaddafi may have been for uniting all of Africa but he was also for the break up of Nigeria. From his position as president of the African Union, he advocated the division of Nigeria into separate Muslim and Christian states and at the same time he worked to unite all of Africa into one Muslim state. It is now very clear that he did much more that just speak in favor of the break up of Nigeria. He put his money, meaning Libya's national treasure, were his mouth was. Kingsley Omonobi of Abuja, Nigeria wrote on the Vanguard website days after Qaddafi was killed:

Slain Libyan leader, Col. Muammar Gaddafi was a major sponsor of terrorism activities and religious fundamentalism in the country, resulting in his supply of arms and ammunition to sectarian groups during religious uprisings, terrorist attacks and even the post elections violence that rocked the nation soon after the 2011 presidential elections, Saturday Vanguard has learnt. Security sources disclosed that they had been aware of the intention of Col. Gaddafi to instigate the destabilization of Nigeria with a view to bringing to fruition, his proclamation early this year, that Nigeria would disintegrate into several parts unless the country was divided into two, with North going their own way and the South forming their own country. Saturday Vanguard was told that it was in his bid to make this happen, that Col Gaddafi massively funded the construction of Mosques and other Islamic Centers of worship in Kano and other cities of the North. He was also said to have embarked on several humanitarian donations and visits to Kano and these other Northern states, most times unannounced, after which he would journey back to his country. “There were also several visits by several top and influential Northerners, especially those of the Islamic faith to Libya ostensibly on the invitation of the late Libyan leader when he was alive and held sway in Tripoli before the revolution against him started which security agencies were aware of and we closely monitored these persons”, the source said. It is against this backdrop and that of several well documented destabilization plots, allegedly sponsored or supported by the late Libyan leader, Saturday Vanguard gathered, that Nigeria moved swiftly in recognizing the National Transition Council after Gaddafi had fled Tripoli... Asked to give an example of how and when the security agencies discovered Gaddafi’s plan against Nigeria, the source said, “As far back as 2003 and 2004, some armed bandits who had been terrorizing Adamawa, Yobe, Kano states, were caught with about 40 double barrels, lethal rifles, machine guns and ammunition. After investigations, and coupled with confessions from the suspects, the weapons and ammunition were found to have a special Gaddafi insignia on them.” So why did Nigeria keep quiet all these years till Gaddafi had problems with his people? The source said he was not in a position to explain, adding that such answer can only come from the federal government.

One example: Mujahid Dokubo-Asari, head of the Niger Delta Peoples Volunteer Force was one such Qaddafi trained Nigerian separatist. For many years he led a violent campaign to turn Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta into an independent republic. He was born a Christian but converted to Islam. He was trained in Libya in 1990 and 1991. He told AFP

"I was invited by the Libyan government and given a scholarship to go study Islam," he said. "When I arrived in Libya, they thought that I had revolutionary ideas, so I became close to the leadership and I started talking to them."

He talked to Gaddafi as late as 2010 and has acknowledged receiving money from him but now that Qaddafi is dead he says his movement is on "sabbatical." Another Nigerian commentator saw it this way:

Gaddhafi was the chief sponsor of terrorist activities in the Niger Delta and in the North. Listen to Asari Dokubo and you will see reasons. Now he's gone, no more funds for them to carry out terrorist attacks against the state of Nigeria.

As might be expected of one who fashioned himself king of all Africans, Mummar Qaddafi had a long history of cultivating close ties with Africa's most populous state and while Nigeria doesn't share a common boundary with Libya, it is very easy to travel overland between the two without much government interference. The countries in between, Niger, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso and Northern Sudan all are weak states with little or no control of their international boundaries. Nigeria, for example has over a thousand border entry points but only 25 of those are peopled! Nigerian immigrants regularly made the perilous journey to Libya in search of work. Some of that work ended up being fighting in Qaddafi's mercenary army. According to Agaju Madugba in September:

"More than 200 Nigerians were arrested in Libya by the TNC, while about 20 were executed last week on allegations of supporting Gaddafi, as mercenaries."

Three are known to have died in his service. More have returned to Nigeria now that the fighting has ended, along with thousands of Nigerian immigrant laborers displaced by the upheaval in Libya. There has also been a problem with Libyan weapons showing up in Nigeria now that they are being used less in Libya, and more significantly, some of Qaddafi's senior leadership is said to have fled to Nigeria. All of this has no doubt had a destabilizing effect on Nigeria, but it is mostly a short term effect. Even the recent carnage created by Boko Haram can probably best be seen as a rather desperate explosion by a movement that just lost a major sponsor and knows that it will soon be weaker. These immediate problems will be quickly overcome in the face of the unity being expressed in Occupy Nigeria. The important thing is that with Qaddafi gone, a major opponent of Nigerian unity has been removed. That is why Ochereome Nnanna could speak of,

the unbridled sense of euphoria sweeping Libya and even Nigeria at the fall of a man who dominated his country – and to some extent, the continent – for 42 years.

and why yesterday Emmanuel Iduma titled his blog on Black Looks:

See, The Nigerian Revolution Has Begun

Uploaded by AnonymousNigeria on January 4, 2012 My other pieces related to this story: Helter Skelter: Qaddafi's African Adventure Racism in Libya
Sat Mar 24, 2012 at 10:08 PM PT: In the north, the struggle against Boko Haram is getting fiercer. This was just yesterday:

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — An hours-long gun battle raged Saturday in a northern Nigerian city that's the spiritual home of a radical Islamist sect, and a car bomb exploded during a gun fight with members of the group in another city in the restive region, authorities said. At least six people were killed.

Recently the sect rejected efforts to began indirect talks with the government and now the government is pressing its military campaign against them with renewed vigor.
Meanwhile the Occupy Nigeria movement, like the occupy movement everywhere, continues its growth outside of the lime light, as example by this article two days ago: Occupy Nigeria: Nneka on the "Vagabonds in Power" or this one from five days ago: Occupy Yourself, Occupy Nigeria By Malcolm Fabiyi

Occupy Nigeria Hollywood Protest

Follow #OccupyNigeria on twitter for the latest news.

There was a small protest rally in Hollywood on Saturday of Southern California Nigerians and other supporters of Occupy Nigeria, the Nigerian General Strike demanding the reinstatement of fuel subsidies recently dropped at the behest of the International Monetary Fuel. I shot some video and photos with my DroidX. This is the video I made:
Occupy Nigeria Hollywood Protest. January 14, 2012

Nigerians in Southern California (NISC) held a rally on Saturday, January 14 at 10 A.M @ 6430 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90028-7906 (Near CNN Building) to decry the oil subsidy removal by the government of President Goodluck Jonathan. In a statement the group sent a specific message to Mr. Jonathan, reminding him that

“A leader who demands loyalty, but offers nothing in return builds tyranny; and tyranny offers nothing but failure. Empower every citizen, and you will gain strength. Offer security and justice in the form of liberty, allowing every citizen to be safe from conviction without cause or prison without charge - to work, eat, and live on the sweat of his or her own brow – and you will be great. Not only will you receive the loyalty of your people, but their love as well. GEJ, this is your chance to be great - don't waste it. Lead from the heart.”

The statement further said:

Describing the hardship that removal of the oil subsidy removal will bring to the average Nigerian, NISC said the government should:

• Revamp all the refineries and build new ones;
• Provide regular power supply;
• Provide public transportation systems such as railways;
• Repair the roads;
• Eliminate the corruption associated with supply and distribution
  of petroleum products in
• the downstream sector of the oil industry;
• Trim excess wages and entitlements allocated to high government
  officials;
• Adhere to the rule of law;
• Be transparent;
• Be accountable;
• Govern well; and
• Lead by example

Here are a couple more videos of this event. FACEBBOOK VIDEO OF OCCUPY NIGERIA..LOS ANGELES SOLIDARITY RALLY See also: Occupy Nigeria - 1st African fruits of Qaddafi gone?
8:16 PM PT: This just in. From Al Jazeera:

Nigerian unions call off national strike
Union leaders in Nigeria have called off a week-long nationwide strike that has been paralysing the country's economy, following a decision by President Goodluck Jonathan to roll back fuel-price increases.
Jonathan announced on Monday that he would reduce fuel prices in response to protests and strikes that sprang up after his government withdrew fuel subsidies at the beginning of January.
But his announcement failed to quell all of the protests, and soldiers reportedly used force to shut down demonstrations in Lagos, the country's commercial capital.
Under Goodluck's new plan, the Nigerian government will reduce fuel prices by 30 per cent, to around $2.75 per gallon, by restoring some of the subsidies. That price is still considerably higher than the roughly $1.70 per gallon Nigerians paid before the subsidies were removed.