Kanu needs guidance. He’s throwing away goodwill, support and trust of millions. His language is increasingly belligerent, uncouth, his logic tilting towards the irrational and his attacks on Christianity, the Clergy, individuals, groups and other institutions, untenable and unnecessary.

He should limit himself to issues that solely have to do with the restoration.
There presently is a huge leadership crisis in the land under a comatose leader, who can’t tell his ankle from his knee. Kanu could seek ways to take advantage! Offer a strongly interesting alternative!

In addition, he could look for ways of stirring up the awareness of the people as banditry, terrorism, killings, corruption, erosion of every single national value have plagued the country.
So many people are disillusioned and will buy into the struggle if he displays tact and maturity!

Kanu could play down on that Elohim stuff.Dwell more on quota system, federal character and their inner workings. Nnamdi could say little on Jubril, reveal more on the injustice of oil wells ownership and the destruction of the ecosystem of the Niger Delta. Mazi could focus less on events in Aso Rock and tell us more about the untapped wealth in the bowels of the earth in SE and how it will be harnessed. Wealth deliberately unexploited by the FG!

Nwannekaenyi could draw our minds to what Biafra could do for the thousands of creative, innovative, well-gifted young men and women in Nnewi, Onitsha and Aba who could singlehandedly put us on the world science and technology map when given the right impetus, excellent environment and moral support!

Onye-ndu could and should harp on the bright side of Igbo/Yoruba relationship; the goodwill of individuals like Fani-Kayode, Adekunle Fajuyi, T.O.S. Benson, Adeniran Ogunsanya, Bashiru Owoade. Men who remained loyal to their Igbo friends/bosses/proteges. Make a narrative from the goodwill of the Western regional government that returned Igbo properties at the end of the war!

This is better than cast aspersions on an entire people, a good number of whom acknowledge that Igbos and people of old Eastern region have been dealt a bad card.When you highlight the goodness in inter-ethnic relationships, many people key consciously and unconsciously into your struggle; you further undermine those who have created the stifling and oppressive system that has retarded the country and left it broken, battered, bloodied and destroyed!

The church is a powerful institution. Kanu should realize there are people far more eloquent and persuasive on pulpits scattered across the land than he is! They could undermine his immense support and destroy his struggle!
I have heard pastors, priests and bishops stick out their necks to rail against the status quo and support the agitation. Where does this blanket tagging of all of them as criminals and unsavoury characters leave them and their churches?

He could call on clerics to preach equity and justice, condemn terrorism, impunity and cluelessness of the state. He’ll find far more resonance with the clerics when he does this than when he alienates them. They too have been victims of the slaughter of herdsmen, Boko Haram and bandits. Co-opt them as comrades in the struggle instead of this humiliating chastisement.
Kanu could retain his fiery exterior without recourse to insulting sensibilities of people or sections of the populace…It is also not every criticism he should respond to.

Many may not like this post, but Igbos are eternal democrats. We speak our minds! It is not his fight alone! We all are stakeholders. Great hunters of old used to say…”Ihe meturu nwanza ga-emetu nwaobu.” – That which disturbs the Sparrow will hurt the Robin…”

Do the elders not say the length of the night does not give an impatient man a hunch back? You have done well thus far, but in the way of Ndigbo and related people, we ask you to discard the baggage that brings opprobrium!

Source: Chetam Obilo

KING Philippe of Belgium descends from his heavenly throne this week to sign a letter to President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, DRC, acknowledging for the first time in 113 years, Belgium’s genocide in that country. Philippe danced round the subject of his country’s massacre of over 15 million Congolese men and women, children and adults, the old and the young.

He mentioned “deepest regrets” for the “suffering and humiliation” Belgium inflicted on the African people. But he never rendered an apology. That would be too much for a Belgian monarch, one of whose  predecessors, King Leopold II, led Belgians to inflict unconscionable pain on humanity. Rather, he talked glibly about  the need  “to further strengthen our ties and develop an even more fruitful friendship”, adding “we must be able to talk about our long common history in all truth and serenity”.

It was to mark this Tuesday, the 60th anniversary of the DRC’s independence, one which lasted three months before the murderous Belgians and their British and American first cousins unleashed another round of atrocities, murdering more Congolese for another four decades.

Belgium’s genocide in the DRC has been the bloodiest, most atrocious, most inhumane and most outrageous in human history. While the Holocaust in which some six million Jews were exterminated by the Germans in one of the most insane acts ever perpetuated by human beings is still being talked about, documented and made into films with memorials, there is silence in the Congo case which had three times more casualties.

The difference is that those killed in the Holocaust were Whites while the victims in the Congo were Blacks. That is why the beneficiaries of the African tragedy who, until today, swim in the riches stolen by King Leopold II cannot apologise not to talk about returning part of the stolen wealth.  Leopold II  from his business of killing so many human beings and amputating hands and limbs, made  a personal profit of some 220 million francs (or $1.1 billion in today’s dollars) from a country he never set foot.

In his insulting letter, King Philippe, a cousin of the butcher Leopold II wrote: “Our history is made of common achievements but has also experienced painful episodes. During the period of the Congo Free State, acts of violence and cruelty were committed, which still weigh on our collective memory.” What are the “common achievements” between the robbery squads from the Belgian monarchy and governments, and the Congolese people

Leopold II wiped out villages that did not meet his rubber quota demands, children as young as five years were amputated if they were found not to be hard working; it was death penalty for adults who did not meet quota allocations. For education, the Belgians allowed only orphans to be taught in Catholic schools, to be soldiers or workers for the King. His criminal enterprise also brought people from China, Nigeria, the Caribbean, Zanzibar and other African countries to slave in the DRC.

Although they were all colonialists carrying out forced labour, theft, exploitation of the African peoples and massacre of the colonised people, and despite being first cousin of Britain’s Queen Victoria, the European establishment thought Leopold’s atrocities were too extreme and moved against him by establishing an International Commission which confirmed the genocide. But rather than allow the Congolese to be free, the country was handed over to the Belgian government whose further 52-year rule was better only by degrees.

If the King cannot apologise, what about the Belgian government?  In 2019 during a visit to Belgium, a team of United Nations Human Rights experts established “clear evidence that racial discrimination is endemic in institutions in Belgium”. So, will such a system apologise to the African people?

Yes, there have been Black Lives Matter protests in Belgium during which some made critical remarks against Leopold II, but there are many in the country’s leadership who see nothing wrong in his criminalities. Just in June, Prince Laurent, King Philippe’s brother, rose to the defence of  Leopold II with the unintelligent talk: “He never went to [DR Congo] himself. I do not see how he could have made people there suffer.”

He, however, said whenever he met African heads of state he always apologised “for the actions Europeans have done to Africans in general”. That is his way of saying Belgians were not the only criminals who looted Africa blind. A possible difference is that while other Europeans looted Africa as governments or traders and colonised it, Leopold II saw the DRC as his personal estate over which he had proprietorial control over its people, resources and lands like a man owns a farm and its animals.

Yes, to him, Africans were not human beings, they were at best animals who were not even entitled to animal rights. Yet the size of the DRC is 2.345 million kilometres while the entire Belgium  is 30,689 kilometres, which means the DRC is 7,581 percent larger.

Despite the documentation of his unspeakable Hitlerite actions, Leopold believed he was a missionary. He was quoted as saying: “I undertook the work of the Congo in the interest of civilisation and for the good of Belgium.”

The DRC was led to independence by a principled trade unionist, Patrice Lumumba, a former postal worker. Within weeks of the June, 1960 independence, the Belgians sent troops to strengthen a revolt in the Katanga region. As Prime Minister, Lumumba asked for United Nations troops, but under the influence of Belgium, Britain and United States whose  President Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered Lumumba’s assassination, the UN troops put Lumumba under house arrest.

He escaped from the UN troops but was captured in flight. Taken to the rebel enclave of Katanga where he and two other senior officials were tied to trees in the forest and executed under the command of the Belgian troops. The corpses were then butchered and soaked in acid. One of the Belgian officers, Gerard Soete, took Lumumba’s teeth as trophy which until today, is kept in his house in Belgium.

The DRC, Africa’s richest country in terms of natural resources, remains unstable until today with local and international gangsters  roaming the country and looting its resources.

Source: Owei Lakemfa

In this era, as the world grapples with scapegoating the digital citizens, this caveat seems necessary and compelling. All internet users starting from the digital natives (the iGeneration) through the digital pioneers (Millennials or the Generation Y) to the digital migrants (Generation X) should bear in mind that the Internet neither forgives nor forgets. Similarly, the digital strangers (Gen. Boomers) can and do also experience the boon or bane of the Internet.

Everything one enjoys in life has a price. There is no free lunch even in Freetown, for, generally, someone pays. This reality informs why we need to be careful in our indulgence with the Internet. Every action has its consequence; nothing is free. Except for the Christian faith, which teaches that salvation is free because Christ has paid in full, every other thing in life has a cost. Therefore, one pays for everything else, somehow, somewhere and sometime; and the Internet is no exception. You pay! The Internet has no debt cancellation program. It never forgives. It never forgets. Beware!

Besides the fact that someone sees and can locate whoever is using any device that has a tiny front camera (cell phone, tablet, laptop or desktop), you leave digital footprints each time you use the Internet. Is it not surprising that often the search engines and online marketing platforms suggest to you things similar to what you have already searched for or bought? This fact is possible because you leave digital footprints.

These footprints are indelible on the Internet so long as the Internet exists. Deleting is a pure scam because it gives you the impression that the stuff is gone. But it remains. It is gone from one level of internet operations but remains at other deeper layers. All our digital footprints and records are all stored in the cyber cloud. A simple analysis of your activities on the Internet for the past ten years will shock you the extent the Internet remembers.

With artificial intelligence, the Internet can write your biography with surprising details probably only known to your intimate circles, especially your confessors and best friends. The Internet keeps tracks; it follows you and introduces you to your interviewers, prospective employers, suitors and contract awarding authorities. It acts like a spell that spells the lives of unsuspecting fellows. Undoubtedly, the Internet has assumed the status of a critical stakeholder in the lives of many, who, often, are not mindful of its character.

God always forgives, humans forgive sometimes, but the Internet never forgives. While the human mind is a faculty that forgets, the Internet never forgets. With its alluring charm, the Internet ruins the lives of some who, out of youthful exuberance, depression, the euphoria of pleasure or power, untrained emotion or sheer indiscipline, engage in shameful, reprehensible and disgusting acts online. Some of these unwholesome acts could be criminal and fraudulent transactions or even uploading of nude pictures and videos, thus succumbing to exploitation through cyber-sex. In so doing, they barter their peace and happiness.

It is common knowledge that those behind the internet platforms engage in a sort of digital voyeurism, thus unethically prying on users. The hi-tech guys and digital eavesdroppers follow you about such that cyber-world is not a haven. Each time you visit any site, you leave footprints and can always be located. These footprints cannot be erased. Any website you have visited is retained and kept in memory for you.

Deletion is a scam; it is deceptive. It is also a fact that with digital technology, ubiquitous online spies and hackers have made worthless the concepts of obscurity and privacy. The internet voyeurism by the proprietors of the cyber-tech companies and smart guys out there has made the Internet not safe for any person with disreputable intents. They use data from you to advance their businesses.

The Internet makes users, many of whom firm their lives on the pillars of social media, easily susceptible to blackmail. The young ones innocently abandon themselves to various forms of atrocities ignorant of their repercussions and ramifications. The Internet tells the world of your deeds, good or evil. As such, the consequences of stripping or dancing naked for money or engaging in online fraud (yahoo) on one’s personality in later life are dire since the Internet remembers.

Not a few have missed dream jobs, wonderful opportunities or privileges because of unconscionable acts like lying in connection to politics, uploading nude pictures,  and engaging in all manners of evil online. The Internet leaves them devastated.

Yet responsible use of the Internet can be a boon for a young person such that it is unlikely to have a smartphone and be poor. A stitch in time saves one from falling prey to the gripping destructive ramifications of the abuse and misuse of the Internet. Rightly said, unexamined use of the Internet and irresponsible indulgence with the social media stages psycho-socio-emotional turbulence that upsets progress and ruins a person.

While engaging the Internet, be mindful that your activities today can work against you in near, distant or eternal future when you might have grown or changed. What you do with and on the Internet when you are unknown can promote or destroy you when most people know you. Refrain from doing or writing stupid things. And avoid foolish and silly trends to prevent shame, regret, defamation and pain in future.

The Internet never forgets; so be cautious of your activities on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, Snapchat, Whatsapp and Pinterest. While engaging in social media, project into the future, so as not to allow the Internet doom your dream. Indeed, some suffer dire consequences because of their naivety, carelessness or ignorance. Keep in mind always: the Internet neither forgives nor forgets.

Pray for my dad, Patrick Adimike, who died on the 11th of June. May he find peace and happiness in the embrace of the Eternal Father’s welcome, amen.

Source: Fr George Adimike

In just the space of about one week Nigeria, “the giant of Africa”, was involved in no less than two, maybe three, diplomatic debacles, each of which can be traced to an incremental reduction in the quality of governance over so many years that has now resulted in the country’s loss of influence among Nigerians and the rest of the world.

The first piece of depressing news came out of the Ghanaian capital, Accra, where the Nigerian High Commission was besieged by what could be described as a well-organised mob. In plain sight of security agents, a residential building in the precinct of the High Commission came under direct attack as it was demolished in gross violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations to which Ghana is a signatory.

Under this Convention, the premises of a foreign mission are inviolable and can only be accessed with permission. Acting otherwise could even be viewed as an act of war that could at the very least lead to a breakdown in relations between concerned countries. But not only were what might be considered the hallowed grounds of the Nigerian High Commission in Ghana violated, but parts of its residential area were also reduced to rubble under the onslaught of bulldozers in the service of Ghanaian citizens.

An attack like this could easily get out of hand as happened in Libya after the ouster of Muammar Ghaddafi when the American Embassy in Tripoli was attacked and the ambassador was murdered in cold blood. Any of the Nigerian occupants of the residential building could have been injured or, even worse, killed given the belligerence that characterized the incident as captured on available video footage.

It stretches credulity that Ghanaian authorities could not be summoned early enough to respond to the distressed cry of the Nigerian occupants of the building for the period the attack lasted. We are not here talking of some surreptitious activity by ordinary thugs or petty hoodlums. What was on display was organised thuggery executed with the probable connivance of the Ghanaian authorities.

The goal was apparently to embarrass the Nigerian government for its alleged failure to live up to its responsibilities. For the point at issue, one line of narrative claims is that the lease Nigeria took on this property in which it houses her diplomats had lapsed without the High Commission either renewing it or moving out. Not only did Nigeria fail or refuse to do either of this, it went ahead to construct additional structures on the property that is owned by the Osu Traditional Chieftaincy, a private entity that resorted to self-help in the apparent face of official, though foreign, impunity.

If the claim of the expired lease is true, then the authorities in Ghana could not have executed the demolition without ruffling diplomatic feathers and risking the ire of Nigeria. Which then stands to reason that what Ghana could not do by direct use of force, it did through the moral authority and outrage of her private citizens. Ghana has, however, in the wake of the attack regretted the action of the perpetrators of this heinous act while admitting that Nigeria bought the piece of land on which the High Commission constructed its property 20 years ago.

Except Ghana is engaged in some tongue-in-cheek exoneration of Nigeria from the irresponsibility of not paying due rent, then it ought to bring the full weight of the law to bear on the perpetrators of the demolition. This should be in addition to its apologies to Nigeria and promised reconstruction of the demolished portion of the High Commission. But should it turn out that Ghana is only trying to help Nigeria save face after embarrassing her publicly, then it serves Nigeria right as this country has no business conducting itself as outlaws outside her borders.

An increasing number of Nigeria’s missions abroad appear distressed with reports of staff with a backlog of unpaid salaries working in dilapidated buildings and even rundown office spaces that aggravate the already deplorable image of the country in certain quarters abroad. For effective and proper management of resources, including cost-saving, Nigeria could cut down on the number of its diplomatic missions or reduce the status of some.

We do not need ambassadors in every nook and cranny of the world. In some cases, there is no justification for this proliferation of embassies other than to provide jobs for the boys, compensating associates, cronies and friends among scores of other political lackeys and journeymen and women masquerading as diplomats. Let us do this and save ourselves the embarrassments of angry creditors setting thugs on diplomatic staff and thereby putting diplomats lives in harm’s way. The dust from the demolition job in Accra had hardly settled than there was an invasion of the Nigerian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia.

This time the attackers are (wait for this) Nigerians protesting against their treatment in the hands of Indonesian immigration agents; in this instance, leading to the death of a Nigerian who allegedly plunged to his death from the ninth floor of a building while running away from agents that wanted to arrest him. It is not at all clear how these angry Nigerians thought the embassy could have been of help.

But their sense of moral outrage was such that their only line of defence was to make Nigeria accountable for their situation. In expressing their grievances, they set upon the embassy’s property, vandalising vehicles and desecrating the Nigerian flag. While such actions are neither new nor peculiar to the embassy officials in Jakarta, the protesters need to know that being Nigerians does not excuse any anti-social behaviour nor can an embassy provide cover from the law for Nigerians thought to have violated the laws of their host nations.

It is sheer foolishness to think otherwise. Fugitive or no fugitive, foolish or not, it is a reflection of a high level of cynicism that the gap between the rulers and the led has so widened that it has, in turn, resulted in a loss of faith in Nigeria as a country worth living in or dying for. This is why Nigerians will without scruples sooner deny their country than affirm faith in her survival. Nigerians must begin to reappraise their relationship with their country and not tie their disillusionment with the country’s leaders to the very idea of having faith in Nigeria as a country.

Nigerian leaders are not Nigeria and their conduct at any time, in or out of office, should not be viewed as representative of the Nigerian character, dream and worldview. What could have been a third incident was again a self-infliction, namely, the reported closure of the Nigerian embassy in Germany. What’s this about? Another non-payment of lease disguised as the need for repair work? What a week!

Source: Rotimi Fasan

Buhari at the APC NEC meeting that resolved a lot of issues

When a couple of days ago I wrote that APC, unlike PDP, will soon resolve her issues, some didn’t believe.

It will implode, it will soon disintegrate so said the so-called analysts.

They never wished our party well. This is not to say there are no genuine critics of our party.
I argued then that even if our problems are as high as Mount Everest we have wise leaders in President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo and our National Leader Bola Ahmed Tinubu as well as many of our governors too who are reasonable and patriotic. They are not all self centred. They are men ( hope we have women soon ) who subscribed to the ideas and ideals of our party and not only what they can get .

As you have all seen, all of that brouhaha of last week has subsided if not vanished. My friend and brother Giadom came like a comet and vanished. My Comrade brother Oshiomole won one and lost one and we are matching forward to the future.

Don’t get me wrong . I am not saying things are perfect now. But think about it: no organization, just as no human being, is perfect. Wherever two or three people are gathered in pursuit of interests there must be conflict. It is the ability by the custodian of the larger interest to resolve the conflicts that makes for the resilience of such a group.

Make no mistake about it, there will still be conflicts in the future. It is the way we are able to resolve it that makes the difference between us and PDP.

When as soon as the emergency NEC was over three days ago I called and talked to the dramatis personae including Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and they all expressed their gladness with the way it went. I knew we have disappointed our party’s enemies.

We are still a very young party.

ANC is more than a hundred years old and yet members and blocks within the party disagree. In the Republican Party today there are disagreements between President Donald Trump and some whose families are synonymous with the Party.

APC was formed in 2014. As we go along we will continue to perfect our acts and internal mechanisms.

We shall work assiduously to keep this party together and grow it because for many of us we cannot go to another party . It is either the progressive movement or retirement from public affairs .

As I said today on a radio programme if I die and someone brings PDP flag close to my coffin, I will wake up , tear it, burn it and go back to sleep.

We therefore thank all our leaders as well as the entire members of our party for their love for the progressive cause. Let us stay resolute to our commitment to bring about meaningful change to Nigeria. Let us serve our people more. Let the people put in charge of our public till imbibe the character and integrity of our dear President . Let us think more of our people than our selves.

Let us rededicate our lives to the service of our Nation.
Just as the task of rescuing our country is a work in progress so is the building of a virile and unassailable APC .

Now we know we will go to election in Edo and Ondo without any legal encumbrances. The party too and the gentleman governor from Yobe State handling her affairs for the next six months has promised to look into the grievances of members across the country. We also have the Chief Bisi Akande Panel.

We shall all listen and cooperate with them as we pray for the committee to organize a successful convention in no distant future.

APC survives! Thank you President Buhari. Thank you all our leaders. God bless our teeming members and supporters. Let us continue to keep the faith.

Source: Babafemi Ojudu