Facebook Drama queen, Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo, 49-year-old daughter of former Oyo governor, Victor Omololu Olunloyo known to make controversial statement is at it again. She made this post yesterday via her Facebook page titled ‘An Open letter to Nigerians’.
Here is what she wrote:
AN OPEN LETTER TO NIGERIANS: If I were President–By Kemi Omololu-Olunloyo #ISLAM will be BANNED in Nigeria! All CHURCHES will be BURNED down #CHRISTIANITY will be illegal! Religion is an absolute disease that has killed our country! Nigerians are too busy hating on one another they are destroying themselves–WITH RELIGION! What do you think, would you do same?
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
It is my thinking (ominous) that in the few days to come, the only option open to the Bamanga Tukur led-national PDP is to suspend those it considers as rebels or rather anti-party members who are now romancing with the new factional PDP chaired by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
Though this may not come as a surprise to many a political observer but what we should watch out for is the witching hunting of the breakaway PDP members controlled by Alhaji Atiku in the coming days. Politically motivated assassination may envelop Nigeria. Pray you own person may not be killed as we watch out for the Surugede Dance according to the Igbos as it plays out. The above view is a ‘premonition’ which has continued to prick my inner mind. But will it come to pass? Your guess may be correct.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
I have just read your piece reflecting the subject above and could not agree more. I just have to react because it seems as though u and I were thinking alike from distance apart.
Just yesterday in Owerri, I was standing by to pay for a roasted corn when an “Honorable” member of Imo State Legislative Assembly drove past me and many others waiting to grab their own corn. Once the idiot in a larger-than-life SUV with ISHA plate insignia saw that traffic was heavy on a Right turn (we were at a T-junction) he turned Left against the traffic and was trying with all impunity to wave other vehicles (with the right-of-way) off the road so he may cruise more freely away.
Once I saw this, I lost my cool. I ran like I never did before, slapping my hands on the body of the car, shouting on top of my voice to attract attention: What manner of law do you guys make! Ehn! Tell me! What manner of law do you make for crying out loud! Do you realize what u are trying to do? ! Nigger you are breaking the law! The law you made!…and so many other invectives I was raining on the idiot as I could catch my breath. I was visibly mad, I tell you! By now people had gathered as he came to a stop as I was still shouting, banging on his Octopus of a truck, and acting, even telling him to take me to police or court for having “disrespected” an “Honorable Member”. Behold and Alas, he lost words, as more people had gathered; he rolled up his glass which was earlier rolled down to see the ant shouting and banging on his truck, and quietly turned back to join the legal direction of the traffic. So I agree with you that we don’t need laws when the law-makers are the law-breakers. As for their jumbo pays even as ASUU is asking for nothing other than Fed Govt honoring an agreement it already entered into in 2009, we cannot but appreciate the paradox Nigeria has come to represent. Where are we gonna run to? Shame on them for raping Nigeria in broad daylight. And for you: keep up the good work of informing and may you find peace and God’s blessings for “earning” your pay.
H. I. E. Ph.D. (Atlanta).
Just read ur piece on lawmakers. I worked with a senator from d biggest senatorial district in Nigeria. D constituency allowance which u d press constantly refer to as monthly salary is N106,000,000 every quarter for a Senator & N104,000,000 quarterly for a house of reps member barring the basic salary and other allowances.
Do the math for Abike Dabiri Erewa who has been there for 14 years now! Senator Ganiyu Solomon has been there over 10yrs now. Their various constituency project should definitely be in excess of 3,400,000,000 (Naira) per constituency!!!
We have 106 Senatorial Districs and 360 House of Reps Constituencies! But where are these projects? Where?
O. O. 2348086511995
… The politics in Nigeria is rob my back I rob yours. Not only the lawmakers are guilty, those fixing their wages are also laden with guilt. The executive (is) also rotten. Just recently a minister was accused of blowing N2 billion on chartered plane alone, no one has come up to deny that.
M. 2348033691236
Phew! I certainly appreciate the compliments, prayers and passion. I was ever so glad our communication was mediated by the networks or else I probably would have seen some eyes bulging out, neck sinews straining, spittle flailing in all directions and fingers tautly emphasising the words. However, two things struck me here.
The first is that Nigerians are understandably angry at the macabre dance of deception that politicians are doing in the name of governance. Development responsibilities have been ostensibly shared between the federal, states, local governments and the national assemblies. But between the federal, states, local governments and national assemblies, as the tradition goes in story books, nothing resembling development has really touched the people’s lives. All over, the farmers still go to their farms with little hoes slung over their shoulders, feet shod in rubber flip-flops, skins stretched by the sun, eyes hopelessly vacant and stomachs still as flat as when Noah worked on his ark in the heat of the noon day sun. The women too are still hewing wood for supper, fetching water from long distances, cleaning children’s running noses (thick with the stuff) with their bare hands (and sometimes, yerk!, with their mouths!), walking bare feet transporting the farm’s produce on their heads. Worse, Nigerian roads are still some of the worst in the world, and my house still does not get electricity during the day. PHCN now waits for me to be fast asleep before grudgingly giving my house some slivers of the stuff. I ask you! I ask you!
With the kind of money mentioned above, added to the development allocations from the federal, states and local governments, I honestly expect to have begun to see changes in the lives of the people. By now, I expect farmers to be wearing something closely resembling boots as they ride on their tractors across their endlessly stretching acres of farm. Naturally, tobacco-stained smiles will replace anxiety-induced frowns and I assure you skins will fill out through the power of the milk of kindness. By now, I expect the women to be using Kleenex for their children’s noses. I also expect clean water to be running through my Jacuzzi. Hey, there’s nothing wrong with dreaming about owning one. Someday.
The second thing that struck me is that even though the real power belongs to the people, they are more cautious about exercising it than leaders are about brazening their own acts of perfidy. The leaders know this and take advantage of it. Only when pushed to the wall will the people act. Acts narrated above are not frequent, but they have begun; and this is why leaders should begin to beware. What started the Arab Spring was really no more than pent-up anger that was looking for where to happen. The recklessness of the state provided the playground.
The recklessness of the Nigerian state seems to be rising daily. Murmurings about the emoluments and allowances of the assembly men and women had hardly dried up before we began to hear rumours about how the presidency and state executive members are giving gifts worth more than a billion Naira to the newly wed son and daughter of some government functionary in Abuja. Frankly speaking, I don’t know what they expect those children to do for a living. Work?! Yet, many Nigerians there are who technically ask their children to ‘focus’ on WAEC or GCE and leave JAMB for a while. Truth? They can afford only one or the other at a time. The wonderful thing is that the government pretends not to know these things.
Now, you do the math. The people are angry, and the people own the power. The day is not long when anger and power will come together in one cataclysmic gale. I would prefer that happens in the ballot box rather than on the streets. In the ballot box, you can control your emotion. You can restrain yourself by only punching a hole in the offending party’s box rather than poking your fingers in the eyes of people who are doing little or nothing and being paid in billions. A word is enough…
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Earlier this week, Cognoscenti ran a piece I wrote on the debate over gender disparity in the arts. Because I wrote from a place of genuinely not knowing (that is, I recognized my discomfort with the idea of fighting for equity in art, but was also surprised by this reaction and unsure where to locate it), I was especially eager to see what commenters might contribute to the conversation and to my own thinking. So I’d like to say thanks to many of the people who weighed in. You offered intelligent perspectives and shared them with generosity, integrity and commitment. You also got me thinking about how we think about this issue — and about whether it would be useful to find different ways of framing the questions that could lead to other avenues of understanding.
SMB commented that I failed to discuss how bias plays out in “the marketplace,” where success in the arts delivers practical benefits, from academic positions to money that buys time for more writing. Donna Herbert weighed in on Facebook, “Equity comes not from the creative process itself…It’s about who the gatekeepers are.” And Kim Triedman (a fellow Cog contributor) pointed out in the comments that “it is sadly now a fact of literary life” that writers must also be publicists for their work.
Absolutely. I’m not denying that inequity exists and people get hurt by it. These points are important when we think about art as a means to earn a living, advance in our careers, and reach an audience. They relate to art distribution: if we don’t all have equal access to the channels of distribution (and VIDA and others have made emphatically clear that within the literary establishment we do not), that’s an important social justice issue. But I’m what I’m asking here is a whole different question, one related to art making. Maybe I’m crazy to try to separate the two. Yet I can’t help but think there could be value in it.
A few items that helped crack open my ways of thinking about this:
1. A friend who has spent years studying art in Bali and working with Balinese artists in theater, dance, music, and puppetry, tells me how traditionally, when Balinese musicians release a recording, they do not list their individual names on the CD. Only very recently, she says, has this begun to change. The custom — and more than that: the very definition, the very understanding of what art is and what art means in this culture — has been to value the thing made, without affording emphasis or special relevance to the makers. As she explains it, in the Balinese view of art as a spiritual process, “artists” are simply those through whom the gift passes.
2. In the west, especially in capitalist societies, we are accustomed to placing great importance on the individual. In art, this means we focus attention on the one whose name is signed to a work. We give credit for the thing made to the “maker.” We tend not to ask questions about multiple makers, or about all the various kinds of energy behind the maker, the anonymous or uncredited laborers and supports that helped enable creation.
3. Something I love about the novelist, poet, essayist and farmer Wendell Berry is that many of his more than 50 books include in the author bio: “He lives and farms in his native Kentucky with his wife, Tanya Berry.” His author photo is often a picture of him together with his wife. In words and images he signals that he does not consider himself the solitary creator of his work. In this land where individualism is glorified and the persona of the maker often receives as much as or more attention than the work made, his choice is both wildly unusual and quietly radical.
4. The novelist Gish Jen published an excellent little book this past spring called “Tiger Writing: Art, Culture, and the Interdependent Self.” In it, she points out that the western tendency to privilege the qualities of “individualism, the isolated, the particular, and the extraordinary” in art is simply that: one tendency, perhaps culturally determined. It is not the only lens, much less the “correct” lens, through which to perceive value in art or to think about its provenance or its uses.
These examples of alternate perspectives get me thinking: Under what conditions would it be possible for us to step back — really, really far back — in order to view the issue free from the automatic assumption that parity in the marketplace is our paramount goal?
I understand that some readers may feel dismissive of my posing such a question, since I have admittedly already enjoyed some success as a writer. Gofigure left a comment scolding me for being hypocritical and selfish, writing: “You can’t reap the benefits…and then yank the ladder up behind you.”
I also know that what I’m proposing means giving up a lot of stuff we think we need or have learned to hold dear: notions of personal excellence and personal worth; individual attachment to the products of our labors; expectations that our art will build our reputations or secure financial stability; even the very human desire for posterity.
But truly: I’m not talking about yanking up ladders. I’m not even talking about a place you can get to with ladders. I’m talking about a drastic reorientation, the leap from viewing the earth from the surface of the earth to viewing the earth from the moon.
Read the original post: “The Debate Over Gender Disparity In The Arts — And Why I’m Sitting This One Out” (8/14/13)
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Truly speaking, we have a very, very long way to go as a people,” commented Iyke as the commuter bus glided through the surprisingly light traffic along the Oshodi – Oworonshoki road, en route to Obalende via Third Mainland Bridge. “Everything is just wrong! We are specialists in the copy and paste business, yet, we have not been able to copy the western world correctly.”
“We are very good copiers all right but we copy the aspects that suit us and leave the rest,” said Mike.
“If we are really copying everything, by now, we should have known that in the US for instance, if you live in Texas, you are regarded as a Texan and if you move to Alaska tomorrow, you are an Alaskan and you are free to contest election if you know you have what it takes,” said Iyke.
“Exactly! I remember an American lady called to ask me if a popular American football player was my relation because we bear the same last name and I said no, but he is from my home town. The way she quickly refuted that, you will think I had committed sacrilege. She said; “No, he is an American, may be his parents are from Nigeria.
“I didn’t know what to say. This was quite different from what is going on in our country. Here, a child is born in a town, grows up in the place, graduates and starts working, paying tax in that same state, may even buy land and build houses or open his own business and employ people; despite all these, he is still regarded as a settler, a stranger in his country and when the chips are down, he discovers that if he has no ties in his so-called state of origin, he is damned,” said Ada.
“As long as this attitude continues, we are simply going to be moving round and round the circle without making any progress,” noted Mike.
“The Black man is something else. He complains of the white man discriminating against him, and now he does even worse to his fellow Blacks. South Africa is a good example,” said Iyke.
“But the Igbos who are always seeking to move to other regions, buy land, put up structures and establish businesses, what is wrong with their own part of the country? Is it a taboo to establish their businesses there?’ queried Kaycee.
“I like what Hon. Dino Melaye said during a book launch in Abuja recently. The book was on the civil war. Melaye said the Igbos should forget about the civil war and forge ahead. He said 80 per cent of the hotels in Abuja are owned by Igbos, they are very enterprising so they should get themselves together and go and develop the South-East, make it a strong economic bloc and people will come looking for them,” said Austin.
“True talk! Some will tell you if they move their businesses to the South-East, (SE)people will not patronise them and I tell them it’s a big lie! Look at Onitsha Main market for instance, people come from all nooks and crannies of West Africa and beyond to buy things so if today, they decide to move down to the SE, believe you me, people who need what they have to offer will go looking for them,” said Iyke.
“Good point my brother. I think the ball is now in the court of the South-East governors to do something. They must create a conducive environment for businesses to thrive. I know that lack of federal government presence in the SE contributed to that movement but we can remedy the situation. It is not too late,” counselled James.
“The SE governors should provide the space and the business people will develop it because if you wait for government, you will wait forever. After all, all the places they built up outside the SE were done by the business people themselves and not government,” said Austin.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
“Ehn, wetin happen? Abati don get im own BMW gift from Oga?”
“For where? The car gift race na still 1-0 in favour of Okupe o. Maybe Abati will get his own car gift after writing a ten-part essay to abuse APC but no be Presidency parole I come yarn with una today o.”
“Okay, so na wetin come happen wey you dey agitated like dis?”
“Men, na dis country matter just dey taya me”
“Naija taya you na dat one be news? Abeg leave matter. Na who Naija no taya?”
“Dat’s not what I mean. What I’m saying is that I’m getting really pissed off with the way everybody is carrying on in this country about some women who were raped.”
“Rape? Who rape women? When?”
“No be dis country we all dey? Have you forgotten our husband has gone mad again?”
“Ah, yes, our husband has gone mad again! I know the man. Who does not know that action man in this country?”
“Well, he has gone mad yet again and raped some Amadioha women just because they are resident here in Kakanfoland instead of living in their birthplace of Amadiohaland.”
“Ah, ok, now I get it. You are talking about those Amadioha girls who were raped last week by our husband has gone mad again.”
“Yes, das why I say Naija taya me.”
“Naija taya you because our husband has gone mad again raped some Amadioha girls here in Kakanfoland?”
“No, Naija taya me because of the way these ungrateful Amadioha people have gone about the incident since last week.”
“Ah, my brother, I see where you are going. You are on point. Mesef, I never see anything like dat before. Such liars and exaggerators.”
“Abi o. They went about saying our husband has gone mad again raped 72 Amadioha girls when in fact he raped only about 14 or even less than 14 girls. This country sef. No ethics. No morality. A man rapes a mere 14 girls and you go about telling lies that he raped 72. Exaggeration is in the nature of Amadioha people.”
“The exaggeration is not even what I find most nauseating. What annoys me the most is that even people among them I thought were intelligent are making it sound like rape only happens in Nigeria. They cannot do simple statistical research. I’m sure you know that New York men regularly rape girls from other states who are resident in New York. Last year, almost 200 Nebraska girls were raped in Brooklyn; last month, 80 native Illinois girls were raped in Manhattan by the men of New York; last week, about 20 California girls were raped in the streets of Harlem. Once you are an out of state girl in New York, chances are you will be raped because New York men like to rape foreign girls in accordance with their belief that only sane and wealthy girls born in New York must live in New York. The statistics are there. Have you heard any of these people making noise in Nigeria talk about the periodic rape of out of state girls in most American states? No, they will not. It is only when rape happens in Nigeria that they start disturbing everybody.”
“My brother, you are very correct. But you are even going too far by talking about the regular rape of out of state girls in America. Have you not noticed the tribalism of all the idiots who are attacking our husband has gone mad again? Stupid tribalists. They are making it sound like he rapes only Amadioha girls.”
“Ah, my brother, di ting taya me o. I have thought about that too. I cannot stand the hypocrisy of Amadioha noisemakers. Here is a man who has frequently raped the daughters of Muhammad Rumfa and Othman Dan Fodio. In the last two years, I cannot count how many Kakanfo girls he has raped – from the daughters of Mesiogo to the daughters of Ogbeni. He has raped them all. Yet, instead of acknowledging his sense of justice and fairness as an equal opportunity rapist, Amadioha tribalists are skewing the picture to make it look like he rapes only Amadioha girls.”
“Na only dat one? What about regular rape even within Amadiohaland? How many times have girls been raped just because they do not come from a particular region of Amadiohaland? Do you hear any talk about that one? It is only the rape of Amadioha girls in Kakanfoland that you will them scream about. Even that obstreperous victim of Jesus Christ from Ikwerre land has started raping non-native girls in Port Harcourt and nobody is talking about it.”
“My brother, you are spot on. We must not allow tribalists to condemn our own. We must notlet them obscure his sense of fairness. We must continue to scream it out to the whole world that our husband has gone mad again rapes girls equally from every part of Nigeria. We must make the case that his counterparts in Amadiohaland also rape girls from Amadiohaland and are not even humane rapists like our husband has gone mad again.”
“Abi o. All the talk about rape don taya me sef. They go on and on flogging the issue as if it is more than rape. No be just rape? The more they flog the issue, the more I get bored. Abeg we need to move on jare.”
“Don’t mind them. We are ready for them. In fact, I cannot authoritatively tell you now but I hear that one of our brothers is going to deal ruthlessly with them in an essay tentatively entitled, “The Bitter Truth About Amadioha Tribalists”.
“Ah, my brother, now you are talking! Abeg, let him told dem! Let him told dem, my broda! What is that article about?”
“I cannot categorically tell you now what the article is about but I hear that the man will show them pepper. Our brother is working on that article as we speak because he is furious that Amadioha tribalists are not just claiming to be the owners of the girls who were raped by our husband has gone mad again but, also, the bed on which the girls were raped. Can you imagine that insult upon injury? Not content with exaggerating the number of girls who were raped, they are now saying that they own the girls and the bed. Our broda will teach them who own’s Papa’s bed in his article.”
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Text Of Gov Obi's Letter To The President On Gov Fashola's Callous Act of Deporting 72 Persons to Anambra State!
I wish to respectfully bring to your due attention a very disturbing development that has vast national security and political implications. Last September and again on 24 July 2013, the Lagos State Government contrived inexplicable reasons to round up Nigerians, whom they alleged were Anambra indigenes (most of whom the SSS report shows clearly are not from
Anambra state) and forcefully deported them to Anambra state, dumping them as it were in the commercial city of Onitsha (see attached SSS report). This latest callous act, in which Lagos State did not even bother to consult with Anambra State authorities, before deporting 72 persons considered to be of Igbo extraction to Anambra State, is illegal, unconstitutional and a blatant violation of the human rights of these individuals and of the Nigerian Constitution. Your Excellency, no amount of offense committed by these people, even if deemed extremely criminal, would justify or warrant such cruel action by a State authority and in a democracy. Even refugees are protected by the law. Furthermore, the extant provisions of the Nigerian Constitution states: “Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part, thereof, and no citizen shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereby or exit therefrom”. Sir, forced deportation such as this, which Lagos State seems to be making a norm in addressing its domestic challenges are egregious, and calls into question the validity of Nigeria and its federating components. Such acts violate human decency, the rule of law and constitutionally ordered liberties. Were Anambra and other States in the federation to resort to such extreme measures, there would be total anarchy.
It would amount to complicity on the part of the states and the federal government, if this issue is not thoroughly investigated and some form of censure brought to bear on Lagos State. I suggest, Sir, that you direct the Attorney-General of the Federation to investigate these incidents. Naturally, I have the obligation to protect the interest and welfare of all Nigerians resident in Anambra State irrespective of their States of origin and I would be left no option other than reciprocity or reprisal. I will, however, put any such reaction in abeyance until Your Excellency has had the opportunity to address our concerns. Please accept, Your Excellency, the renewed assurances of my highest regards.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
When Babangida Aliyu, the governor of Niger State, realistically mentioned that government should make law to limit the number of women all Nigerian men marry to two, because people who cannot afford to bring up children just go about marrying and giving birth to many children they cannot afford to take care of, some people said their religion told them to marry four wives. Babangida Aliyu was lambasted and called names.
Don't we all see the number of children roaming the streets of Nigeria, especially in Northern Nigeria where jobless nonentities just go about marrying as many wives as they can and giving birth like rabbits, children they cannot take care of.
Who do they expect will take care of this children for them free of charge? Government? Muslim leaders in the North should really help their people.
It is like this issue of Sani Yerima when you talk about a 60 years old man marrying a 13 years old and lobbying to see law passed to make women marry at 13 and some people are screaming that it is their religion. Religion, like I said sometime ago, without common sense, is a monster.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
President Barack Obama is currently visiting Africa, the second he would be making since he became president in 2008. On the previous occasion, which was soon after he became president he chose to visit Ghana.
The significance of the visit was not lost on anyone because no US president had ever visited the continent so soon after taking office, an indication that Africa, in their perception was not really central to global affairs. It is seen as a continent plagued by many woes, since they did not want to start their tenures dealing with other peoples’ self inflicted problems they had decided to keep away. But President Barack Obama had to come. It would have been un -African not to do so; indeed those steeped in tradition would even deem it sacrilegious bordering on abomination. Thankfully, the African blood running in his veins had directed him correctly, so he came. But he chose Ghana, not his native Kenya, perhaps, as his way of saying anywhere in Africa is home. But nonetheless it was a choice that had not gone down well with more a few of the cousins in Kenya who probably must have chuckled at what seemed to them like a slap in the face. It was just as well that he came because soon as it emerged that an Africa son had emerged as a front-runner to become the US president, a groundswell of African collective wish for good fortune arose from all nooks and crannies to invoke the benevolent African mind to give him victory. It was an enterprise that everyone chipped in including the marabous, babalawos (genuine and fake), malams –and all manner of claimants of clairvoyance and fortune tellers! Barack Obama got to know that there was a popular goodwill in Africa wishing him well and working for his success. The Ghana visit was therefore to say thank you all. In Ghana, he had looked trim and athletic; he gave a speech that was vintage Obama to the approbation and ovation of everyone present, including sitting presidents and heads of states whose discomfort was palpable because his speech was directed at them. He told them they had failed and let their peoples down by lack of performance in government but also boldly told them they were thieves, brigands and bullies who come to power just only so to feather their own nests. And immediately after the speech he quickly made a bee-line back home to his post in Washington to grapple with the dire economic straits George W. Bush had left behind. So 4 years after, he has deemed it appropriate to come again. Again Kenya is not included in his itinerary, neither has he included Nigeria, arguably Africa foremost country. But this time around he will be visiting Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania. Asked why Nigeria has again been conspicuously overlooked, US Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes made vague references to Nigeria’s security challenges and noted that not visiting Nigeria takes nothing away from the perception of the Obama administration that Nigeria remains the key to Africa’s rapid development. It is instructive that security or lack of it has been underscored as a reason why Nigeria is not on Obama’s itinerary. It is a reason no one can fault, anything contrary would have amounted to, at least in the eyes of the Americans, a death wish. Never mind that scores of US citizens come and go as they chose unfettered without any threat to their lives at all in Nigeria. Still, when it comes to the US president nothing can be left to chance, particularly with his wife and two daughters—Mala and Shasha in tow on the journey this time around. It is good to see the two girls blossom into ladies in these 4 years, they first came to world attention during the inauguration of their father as president when, as mere children they looked on as their father took the oath of office and later joined the long procession to the White House. For them the visit would amount to a poignant home coming to the ancestral land and a first- hand knowledge of where African -American journey started from. The visit to the slave camp in Senegal was therefore an appropriate beginning for them. It is hoped the journey would whet their appetite enough to make them want to come back some day. Other reasons could be adduced for Barack Obama’s itinerary. Security challenge has been given for the exclusion of Nigeria. To this should be added organised corruption in high echelon of government and a general perception that even though a semblance of democracy seems to be in place complete with its ponderous institutions, a huge question mark hangs over the process from which it evolved. The electoral process, though vastly improved of late but it is a long way away from attaining the desired state capable of stopping it from being subverted for selfish undemocratic ends. On the other hand Senegal and before that Ghana that he has visited have become bywords for transparent democratic tenets and good governance. Indeed Senegal has been ruled democratically for over 50 years and never witnessed any coups. As for Ghana, ever since it embraced democracy, it has resolved to stick to its best practices. As for South Africa, it is on the itinerary because it deserves to be. Not only has it left behind its odious past of racial bigotry but since 1994 when democratic rule was installed it has been smooth sailing with its tenets intact devoid of vengeance and vendetta that doomsayers predicted. Majority rule of the Blacks under the African National Congress (ANC) has been a good advertisement for how to build a multi-racial society devoid of rancour and retribution. The various races in South Africa have become welded together from its broken and splintered state under apartheid into a mosaic of peoples enjoying equal freedom, opportunities and possibilities. Obama, well aware of the struggle that achieved such a hallowed feat has now come to pay it homage. Similar feat had been wrought back home in the US which paved way for him to be able to attain his current position. It is fitting therefore to lend his presence and support to such a glorious enterprise for people who had done and still doing what he himself is engaged in back home—to empower the weak and the disadvantaged and build an egalitarian society. It is even more fitting to pay his respects to the Madiba- one person who made it all possible through personal sacrifice, particularly at a time when his mortality challenged.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Exactly a week ago, some cowardly gun men attacked a secondary school in Mamodo, a village 8 kilometres to Potiskum in Yobe state killing some 30 students while they were sleeping. The gruesome incident has been linked to the Boko Haram sect.
To be sure, the sect may well have undertaken this heinous escapade, after all its violent campaign, succinctly captured by its name-Boko Haram- is a repudiation of formal education. Therefore striking at a school and killing scores of innocent kids may just as well be in line with the sect’s sworn intent, which again calls for a redoubling of effort by the Joint Task Force (JTF) in its anti- insurgency campaign against the sect.
But having said that it is also appropriate to warn that it has become imperative to widen the anti- insurgency campaign to hitherto unsuspected groups or individuals out to exploit our fixation with the horrible deeds of the Boko Haram sect to undertake their own agendas—in form of personal vendettas, settling scores or undertaking horrid acts to achieve some sick and macabre ends. And judging by the fact that the way politics are being played has taken a vicious and despicable turn, it may not be far -fetched to attribute the Mamodo incident to the handiwork of some sick and desperate politician out to discredit some political foe.
Targeting of students in secondary schools should be cause for worry to all, particular in Yobe State which has been contending with the twin issue of dwindling number of enrolment of students in schools and poor grades posted annually in both the West African School Certificate Examination (WASCE) and the National Examination Council (NECO). The Mamodo attack would sorely test the resolve of parents who, in the first place, had been reluctant to send their children and wards to school, to now be told to allow them to go back with the possibility of being made easy target for some deranged, trigger- happy psychopaths bent on expressing their anger against society through snuffing out lives of innocent children on issues that are beyond them to understand.
Thus, even though the social cost of the Mamodo attack is yet to be undertaken, it surely has taken the good work Yobe State has been doing in educating its youth several years back. The fear of marauding attacks could force parents to insist on keeping their sons and daughters at home rather than sending back to school, or send them over to safer states, less prone to blood cuddling attacks as was witnessed last week in Mamodo. So, spare a thought for Yobe State in this auspicious Ramadan month and say a prayer for quick return to normalcy for it to be able to grapple with the issues of educating its youth and general pestilence that is threatening the future of its school children.
Goodluck Jonathan’s imprecations
President Goodluck Jonathan was so overcome by emotions when the news about the killing of 30 students in Yobe State reached him. So shaken and helpless was he that he chose to launch his own counter -attack through imprecations and curses, in addition to JTF’s rapid response to the incident. The exact words would not be repeated in this column.
At first, my reaction was ‘’serve the murderers right’’ for callously terminating the lives of a whole 30 students whose promising lives have now been ground into dust in their prime. For that they deserved all the maledictions in the president’s vocabulary, he could even invoke the patron –saint of Hades to seek the perpetrators out, one by one, and wreak vengeance on behalf of the nation. Yet something kept gnawing at my sensibility, urging me to breathe deeply and think through my support for the president. What the president felt was blind anger. Yes, blind but also righteous anger which being a parent with children of his own, he was entitled to feel. But being president he was not entitled to express his dark thoughts outwardly in form of blatant curses and swear- words. I am saying this not because I do not know that Goodluck Jonathan is a devout Christian who is well versed in the many injunctions in the good book about the import of the words one utters even in the face of bitter anguish which the killings in Mamodo must have evoked in him and many of us. But my concern is that soon the dark expletives uttered by the president could take on a life of its own and gain currency to become the standard way of interpersonal communication.
The argument being— if it could come from the president then it is correct and permissible—underscoring the fact that the president is a figure that is being looked up to, not only in leadership but virtually in all aspects of life. He is the president and therefore he can seldom be wrong both in his actions and utterances, ideally that is. All this implies that the president must be an exemplar from whom everyone takes his cue; an archetypal figure that is almost infallible. That being the case, giving vent to his inner, dark impulses outwardly, in form of imprecations, maledictions and swear words amounts to not measuring up to the high standard required of the office in etiquette, utterances and actions. The nation which he embodies is a force for good and that must always be maintained even in the face of utterly senselesss provocation.
Guns for sale
It was reported in the July 5 edition of the Daily Trust that Nigeria’s border areas are awash with guns put up for sale to whoever want them. According to the report an AK-47 sold for N10000.
The report contains nothing new that is not already in the public domain but to the extent that it focuses the readers’ attention to the present danger of a country awash with dangerous weapons, it served its purpose. The ever escalating incidence of violent crimes such as armed robbery, kidnappings and other sundry felonies is owed to easy accessibility to weapons that enable them to carry out these acts. The preponderance of weapons is well known but why the problem has continued to defy solution is a moot point.
Like crude oil, weapons bring in quick money. So it is a lucrative business for those who couldn’t care a hoot what fate befalls Nigeria, as long as they rake in millions of Naira and smile all the way to the bank always. These people include the high and mighty in government and business who wear a responsible and respectable facade but underneath this veneer is the ugly demeanour of the criminal. They are the ones whose luggages are likely to evade being checked at the custom posts.
Elsewhere outside Nigeria, there can be no opportunity of displaying these guns for sale because the customs depart and other security outfits would do their duty of apprehending anyone peddling weapons openly. Their Nigerian equivalent would look the other way if the correct price can be paid.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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