In his rumination on ‘Latest China-Africa Summit’, published in his column in this newspaper this week, eminent historian, diplomat, administrator, author and statesman, Professor Jide Osuntokun, discussed partly the pertinent lessons that Africa and Nigeria in particular can learn from China’s near-miraculous trajectory from the backwaters of humiliating underdevelopment to modernity and economic as well as military global power status in a few relatively short decades. According to Professor Osuntokun, “The phenomenal development of China within a living memory should be what our people should try to emulate. Borrowing money and opening our markets to all kinds of junks was not the Chinese way to development. The way the Chinese mobilized its huge population should be an example which a country like Nigeria can follow rather than importing all kinds of Chinese goods into our country. Instead of wasting our time and the little money we have on constitutional debates and writing and rewriting our constitutions, we should take our ploughs, hoes and cutlasses and go to farms with the aim of not only feeding ourselves but the rest of the world”.
The Chinese,Japanese or Indian transformational miracles are replicable here if we have the right leadership that can harness, mobilize and unleash the energies of the vast but trapped potentials of the Nigerian people to actualize this goal within the shortest possible timeframe.
Coming to power at perhaps the most critical and difficult period in the socio-economic and political history of Nigeria, the President Bola Tinubu administration, more than any of its predecessors, has the responsibility to mobilize the mass support of the people behind its manifesto tagged the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’. The administration is implementing two far reaching economic reform programmes – removal of fuel subsidy and substantial merger of the hitherto existing parallel foreign exchange markets- that have had unsavory consequences for the majority of Nigerians in terms of escalating inflationary spirals as regards cost of essential items like food, transportation, drugs and electricity among others and the consequent abysmal drop in living standards.
The hunger experienced by large number of Nigerians has been exacerbated by continued large scale insecurity that has kept millions of farmers off their farms in the agriculturally fertile zones of the country. While a not insignificant number of Nigerians understand that the administration’s reforms are inevitable and that, in any case, all major political parties during the campaign for the last election, promised to remove the fuel subsidy in particular, the degree of current hardships make it easy for rabble-rousing opposition figures and their conspiratorial allies to sow seeds of alienation between the incumbent government and the people. It is therefore critical that the administration demonstrate beyond any scintilla of doubt in its expenditure patterns that it feels the pains of the people and that those in government are making sacrifices just as they are asking the people to.
It is certainly no exaggeration to submit that the situation in Nigeria today is difficult to distinguish from a polity at war. There have been the sustained pitched battles resulting in a near stalemate between the armed forces and other security agencies on one hand and an assortment of criminal elements including terrorists, religious insurgents, kidnappers and bandits on the other. There is also the low-intensity warfare between the architects and managers of the administration’s economic reform agenda and entrenched vested interes determined to continue to benefit from a continued depreciation of the value of the Naira for instance. One must also mention the ferocious battle waged against thousands of innocent persons by an inclement and hostile weather and climate in many states in the country.
Writing about his experience in managing the country’s economy during the civil war (1967-1970), the then Minister of Finance and Vice Chairman of the Federal Executive Council, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, stated that “In any situation similar to the one in which we found ourselves where recurrent revenue trails behind fleet-footed expenditure, the obvious first line of attack is to economize, and maximize available resources. Unless this was in done and done with draconic firmness, it would be futile to raise additional revenue; and any claim to prudent financial management would be sheer reference”. The Tinubu administration and all sub national levels of government must take this admonition to heart.
For Nigeriia and other African countries experiencing similar conditions of debilitating and humiliating underdevelopment, what is the most critical factor necessary to overcome this obstacle to maximizing human potential m their respective jurisdictions? It certainly cannot be the variety and abundance of natural resources in the bowels of their earth. For,if that were the case, Africa should be one of the most developed areas of our contemporary world. Neither can it be the superfluity of liquid financial assets in their coffers. For, a military leader of Nigeria once declared that the country’s problem was not the availability of money but how to spend it. Yet, the humongous amounts reaped over the years by the country particularly from
petroleum revenues have been either stolen or mindlessly squandered.
Chinua Achebe, the great novelist and thinker, wrote nearly five decades ago that the singular most critical problem with Nigeria was a deficit of visionary leadership. Yet, there are those who contend that a follower-ship that does not demand higher ethical value and performance standards from its leaders is no less to blame for our continued tragic romance with backwardness. Even when we have had brilliant and competent leaders, their inability to inspire, motivate and mobilize their followers towards aspiring to and achieving a higher national developmental purpose is critical to understanding the persistence of underdevelopment in our polity.
The title of this piece is an adaptation from that of an address to the Nigerian Political Science Association (NPSA) by the renowned political economist, Professor Okwudiba Nnoli in 1984 when he served as its President. It was a period immediately after the collapse of the Second Republic when prices of essential commodities hit the rooftops, the International Financial Institutions were advocating the removal of subsidies on social services including the pump price of fuel, tuition fees in higher institutions as well Medicare costs in the sector and governments at all levels were laying off workers in droves.
Even as experts of all shades and hues were recommending a potpourri of sophisticated solutions to a national economic crisis that had become intractable and unresponsive to the policy medications of civilian administrations and military regimes alike, Professor Nnoli’s solution was simply and concisely captured in the title of his aforementioned presidential address: ‘The masses are the answer’. But all too often, members of our well educated elite classes look down on the masses and dismiss their political consciousness and awareness as inferior. Thus, the depository of developmental energy innate in them remains dormant, untapped and unexploited and the nation is the worse for it.
As Nnoli graphically and vividly painted the picture of the plight of the Nigerian masses at the time, “The people are battered and buffetted. They are cheated and defrauded by the Royal Niger Company; killed, pacified and then insulted as primitive and barbaric «natives» by the colonialists; mesmerized and cynically manipulated by the petty bourgeois nationalists; sold to the cabinet system of government, bought back by the military, and resold to the presidential system; used as cannon fodder ,in a fratricidal war for petty bourgeois advantages; whipped with kobokos and assaulted in various dehumanizing ways by law enforcement agents; and fed with unappetizing propaganda meals of Operation Feed the Nation, Green Revo- lution, Ethical Revolution, War on Indiscipline and other illusory concoc- tions. They are socialized into the norms of philistinism and opportunism, bribed into disbelief and cynicism, and thoroughly alienated from their work
and society. Today, they are an empty shell of themselves. There is no food, no water, no light, no drug, no education, no security. Simply nothing! They live a life of nothingness. And tomorrow? The beat goes on. Cheers for the music”.
Does Nnoli not sound as if he is speaking of the poorest of the poor in contemporary Nigeria? Yet, the distinguished professor uttered those words four decades before the emergence of the Tinubu administration. The incumbent administration can thus not be blamed for its inherited multidimensional problems that weigh down the country. Yet, the great expectations that ushered it into power places on the Tinubu administration the responsibility of effectively mobilizing the currently inert millions of Nigerians to contribute their quota to the actualization of his Renewed Hope Agenda.
Surely, the people appreciate the distribution of palliatives in the form of basic but expensive food items to them when these are allowed to reach the target groups of vulnerable Nigerians by a largely cynical and selfish political elite. But more importantly, the people can be mobilized on a large scale to grow food items in abundance not only for domestic consumption but also for export to earn ample foreign exchange. It is inexplicable and inexcusable for a country to possess large swathes of arable land as well as conducive weather to plant a wide variety of crops in diverse zones and yet have a sizable proportion of its able bodied young men and women idle, unemployed or chronically underemployed.
In a number of states especially in the North, substantial numbers of civilians have signed up as members of joint civilian-military task forces to fight terrorists, bandits and religious insurgents. A good number of these volunteer civilians have perished in the course of service to their fatherland because they are poorly armed and motivated compared to the enemies of the country that they have sacrificed their lives to fight. Surely, the people can be better organized and equipped to be at the forefront of Nigeria’s dire quest for security of lives and property across the length and breadth of the country.
The great sage, Obafemi Awolowo, averred four decades ago that “The crucial point, which I want our rulers, planners, and official advisers to note is that man is the sole dynamic in nature; and that accordingly, every individual Nigerian constitutes the supreme economic potential which this nation possesses. It is axiomatic that man can create nothing. But, by an intelligent and purposeful application of the exertions of his body and mind, he can exploit natural resources to produce goods and services for immediate consumption and for capital outlay. Therefore, other things being equal, the healthier his body and the more educated his mind, the greater will be his morale and the more efficient and economical he becomes as a producer and consumer”.
This is why man must be the centerpiece, the be all and end all of President Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda. As time rolls remorselessly on towards the administration’s second term in office, it must do everything to get the people, not ethnic entrepreneurs or zonal godfathers on its side. This will be a function of its fidelity to its manifesto, the boldness and creativity of its policies and the efficiency of their implementation as well as its transparency, accountability and prudence in resource management. Ideally, the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress(APC) should be the administration’s closest link with the people and the most critical agency for mobilizing the grassroots in its support. But a party with organs that function only perfunctorily and haphazardly making it no more than an election-contesting machine can hardly play this role. But luckily for the ruling party, the major opposition parties do not appear to be any better in this regard.
If I were to choose between self-proclaiming peoples’ heroes- (journalists, human right lawyers and civil society groups), the governed and government, I will without hesitation settle for government that is today under vicious attack from which it cannot adequately defend itself.
I cannot see any evidence that peoples’ heroes currently fuelling the fire of EndBadGovernanceinNigeria, Tinubu must go campaign took some pains to understand the nature and character of Nigerian society. It is also of little relief that the public faces of the nationwide EndBadGovernanceinNigeria, campaign which include Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa (SAN) Deji Adeyanju and Demilade Adenola, from their outbursts are perhaps the most uninformed when it comes to the sociology of our nation.
First, they tried to draw an absurd parallel between western developed democracies and our society that harbours millions of out of school hungry and angry children who never knew love, thousands of orphaned victims of insurgents in IDP camps and thousands more that could not read and write as a result of ‘bad governance’ in the respective states that unleashed them on Lagos. They then self-conceitedly dismissed fear expressed by government and our security apparatus that the planned protest could be hijacked by criminals. The trending videos of bare-footed underage children vandalising public property or invading private property confirmed government fears. The governor of Borno State also admitted most of those involved in violent demonstration in Borno State were under-aged.
The governed, who in the main are insane, are in a world of ‘the survival of the fittest’, fortune seekers. And surreptitiously leading the governed in its current confrontation with government, are those who after taking more than their proportionate share of our natural resources, now seek freedom to preside over an empire of slaves.
For the informed, it is difficult not to sympathise with the government which is saddled with the onerous challenge of keeping man who as we pointed out, is insane, under control. Besides its primary responsibility of protecting lives and properties of its citizens, government also has the misfortune of having to protect the wicked, the evil doers and others sworn to pulling it down either through reasoned argument by heroes of society and if that fails, through rioting and social dislocation in the guise of protest over hunger and hardship occasioned by government’s harsh economic policies
But to the governed, government is a Leviathan- a huge fearful sea monster responsible for all their woes including the hungry, the jobless, husband seekers, philandering husbands and warring wives, the deprived and depraved. We also have those who want to live questionable lives, enjoy freedom without responsibility with rights to questioning government’s exercise of power and authority.
But this is not to say that government as an institution run by a few ‘ordinary’ people does not sometimes shoot itself in the leg because of the ephemeral nature of power and the paradoxical nature of politics which may change a leader from a saint to Satan overnight, the reason why we have very few politician-statesmen.
For instance, while there is a consensus that many of the rampaging mobs involved in looting of houses and shops in Kaduna and Borno last week and their sponsors do not understand the nature of our crisis of nation-building, it is difficult to fault their demand for the resettlement of those condemned to IDP camps across the country by Boko Haram insurgents and herdsmen terrorists. For many Nigerians, that would have been the cheapest and shortest route to justice, fairness and equity for those violently uprooted from their ancestral homes. Unfortunately that was the route President Buhari refused to traverse all through his eight years in office.
If for eight years, Buhari played the ostrich while pandering to the threat of Miyetti Allah’ (patron of cattle farmers) to make the country ungovernable unless their demand for open grazing across federating states in Nigeria was allowed, most Nigerians had thought President Tinubu would not have such constraints. But that the president had to be reminded of the imperative of justice for those condemned to IDP camps by demonstrating youths last week was evidence enough that the president has also become hostage to northern politicians who were behind his 2023 presidential victory.
But in spite of some evil men in government and the imperfection of ‘little men’ that run it as an institution, none including our self-proclaiming peoples’ heroes who never provide rational argument to back up their demand for government protection, the governed who is incapable of making a fundamental distinction between rights and obligation of citizens while questioning governments power and authority, can do without government.
Between Sanwo-Olu and Igbo Caucus of the NASS
Governor Sanwo-Olu on Sunday acknowledged a post by Lagospedia that called on the Igbo to vacate Lagos and Southwest of Nigeria and brace up for a massive hashtag #Igbomustgo protest from 20th to 30th August. The governor however has distanced government and good people of Lagos from ‘the reckless, divisive and dangerous rhetoric’ while assuring everyone that ‘Lagos remains home to every Nigerian citizen regardless of their ethnic nationality’.
Finally, “Governor Sanwo-Olu dismissed the reckless and divisive post as an attempt to sow a seed of discord between the Yoruba in the Southwest and other tribes, especially those who have made Lagos their permanent place of abode.”
The governor was right. It is not in the character of the Yoruba to be hostile to strangers in their midst. That was why sociologists describe their culture as ‘social’. I am not sure if it is because of Igbo votes, but I deeply feel Sanwo-Olu missed an opportunity to advise our Igbo brothers to respect the values and cultures of their host communities.
I grew up in the village, knowing only Uncle Uncle Sunday who handled the oil palm inside my father’s cocoa plantation. At home, his room was opposite my father’s. He participated in all our social and cultural activities. When he eventually left us, it was as if we were all bereaved.
Similarly, today our Ekiti Southwest LGA is made up of three major towns. The biggest shops in each of the three towns are owned by Igbo. There has never been any problem between them and their host communities.
If the people of Ikorodu or Lagos Island want to invoke Oro (spirit) to avert impending doom in their communities, I don’t think the Igbo in these communities have anything to fear. As the saying goes, “When in Rome, behave like the Romans”. No one should also begrudge Igbo for observing their culture. The other day, fearing Yoruba could go to war over the annulled June 12 1993, Igbo in Lagos trooped back to the East ostensibly to celebrate New Yam festival. A quote in Chinua Achebe’s “No Longer at Ease” ‘where he said “we are strangers in this land. When calamities befall the owner of the land, we return home leaving behind the owners of the land who know how to appease their own gods” captures this aspect of Igbo culture.
While some Igbo youths organised One million March in Abuja singing ‘Abacha today, Abacha tomorrow Abacha forever”, the Yoruba relied on her culture to wage a five year war of attrition against Abacha.
National Assembly’s Southeast Caucus had earlier raised concern about what it described as “dangerous ethnic profiling of Igbos”. The statement concluded by asserting that :“ It was such profiling that led to the millions of deaths in Nigeria from the 1950’s to the unfortunate civil war in 1967 to 1970”.
I think the caucus should emulate the deputy speaker of the Lower House who had advised Igbo “to exhibit weakness” for a change especially in a stranger’s land. Excessive display of Igbo in strangers land has been the bane of Igbo urban dwellers..
With Sowore’s call for ‘revolution and day of rage” statements by Ebun Adegboruwa, Deji Adeyanju, Adenola, it was obvious the protest in Lagos was organized by Yoruba professional agitators, who the British pre-colonial administration referred to as “Lagos noise makers”. But is it not a paradox that most of those interviewed or captured by the camera arguing with the police were Igbo protesters? The target of the 1953 northern elite sponsored Kano attack was SLA Akintola and his AG supporters. But because it was Igbo that exhibited strength in other peoples land, the 33 people killed were Igbo. And contrary to the caucus claim, the unfortunate massacre of Igbo in the north in the sixties was not as a result of ethnic profiling but because of Igbo’s exhibition of courage which found expression in unrestrained celebration of the 1966 assassination of Ahmadu Bello by Chukwuma Nzeogwu on the streets of northern cities.
Gaza, you Black woman! Gaza, you trash! Gaza you bitch! Gaza, you daughter of a huge whore, just like your mother Gaza!”- Lior Narkis.
The popular Israeli singer Lior Narkis sang these disturbing and deeply insulting words to a wild and ecstatic crowd of dancing and cheering Israeli soldiers who received them with wild and loud expressions of joy, adulation, praise and adoration as he went on a tour of numerous Isreali military camps whilst Gaza was being bombed and a few days before they began their ground offensive.
I am constrained to ask the American Jew, Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro), who is the leading Zionist, pro-Israeli columnist, author and commentator in the United States of America and a man who has enormous influence throughout the world given the fact that millions of people read his write-ups, value his opinion and follow him on both the social and traditional media, the following question: is this the sort of rhetoric and sentiment and the type of people that you and your Zionist collaborators expect the civilised world to offer their unquestioning support and applaud?
As someone rightly asked, why is this vile and racist singer touring IDF bases rather than facing charges for hate crime?
The answer is simple: he reflects the mindset and thinking of the Zionists and their views, not just about the Palestinians and the Arabs, but also about people of colour.
His songs and views are SICKENING and unacceptable and my Christian faith compels me to resist it and those that encourage and applaud it with every fiber of my being.
I wonder whether you, as the greatest defender and apologist of Israeli genocide and the wholesale slaughter of Palestinian children in America today, has anything to say about this or can muster the courage and moral gravitas to condemn it?
Sadly, judging from your consistently obstinate, implicitly racist, intellectually bankrupt, logically flawed, constantly shallow and habitually bigoted contributions in your inglorious column in the American Daily Wire and your handle on X, I doubt it very much.
Permit me to share another relevant contribution from no less a figure than Brazilian President Lula Da Silva for your consideration as well. He said,
“If Hamas committed acts of terrorism when it did what it did, the State of Israel is also committing acts of terrorism. I have never heard of children being the preferred victims in a war. The number of women and children who have been killed in Gaza is unheard of in any other war. They (the Israelis) are killing innocent people.”
I would suggest that you carefully ponder on these profound and deeply insightful words and take them very seriously indeed because they reflect the thinking of the entire civilised world.
Now to the point.
My dear Ben, I am sharing my concerns with you in this open letter simply because I am inclined to take you more seriously than others of your ilk due to the fact that your level of doublespeak, deceit, misinfirmation, disinfirmation, historical revisionism, mendacity and propaganda are second to none and this makes you very dangerous.
To put it mildly you are literally America’s version of Josef Goebels (Hitler’s Nazi Minister of Propaganda & Information) on steroids only your target audience is not just Nazi Germany or America but rather the entire world.
Yours is to defend the indefensible and to justify the unjustifiable.
You continue to mislead and confuse millions of people all over the world with your pro-war, pro-apartheid, ultra-conservative and ultra-Zionist essays, podcasts and social media contributions when you present falsehood as truth and truth as falsehood.
Had it not been for the fact that so many gullible and naive individuals read and listen to your every word and consider them as gospel truth I would not have bothered puttng pen to paper and writing this epistle to you.
However your constant disrespect and contemptuous disdain for the basic facts and plain truth when it comes to the abominable atrocities that are being perpetuated in Gaza by the Israeli Government and Armed Forces coupled with your constant bullying, armtwisting and misplaced rage and wrath visited on anyone and everyone that does not accept or propogate your false and perfidious narrative constrains me to do so.
Before I go into the ugly events in Gaza permit me to remind you of just one example of the expression of your inherent racism and debilitating insolence.
On September 27th 2010 you posted the following on your X handle:
“Israelis like to build. Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage. This is not a difficult issue”.
Kindly tell me what you would call this type of rhetoric if not hateful racial stereotyping and bigoted and ignorant racism in its most vulgar, crass, primitive and crude form?
Your racial slurs against Arabs remind me of the the language employed by the Afrikaans-speaking White Boers of apartheid South Africa who regarded black South Africans and black people generally as nothing but “sub-human, low born field hands and slaves” and who described them in their apartheid constitution as nothing but the Biblical “hewers of the wood and drawers of the water”.
Again your words remind me of those of the infamous Dutchman, navigator and sailor Jan Van Reebeck, who was one of the earliest Europeans to arrive in South Africa and who upon landing on the beaches of the South African Cape in 1652 referred to our African brothers and sisters as “stinking black dogs”.
The truth is that those that speak and think like you are worst than the German Nazi’s who subjected your forefathers to such horrendous treatment and sought to wipe them out.
Quite apart from that, given your racist disposition, I suspect strongly that you were conceived, born, bred and raised in the same crap and open sewage that you have accused the Arabs of living in.
Now to Gaza.
Permit me to begin with the graphic and moving words of His Excellency Abdullah Abu Sawesh, who is the High Commissioner for the State of Palestine to my country Nigeria.
In a press statement which was released earlier this week he wrote, inter alia, the following:
“The unconditional, unshakeable political, military and media support that the Israeli occupation is receiving from western countries has perpetrated the current textbook genocide and the continuance of the Palestinian NAKBA that started 1948. By continuing airing and screening the occupier’s propaganda and picking the side of the executioners, the main western media outlets are completely complicit in the current textbook genocide. On the 40th day of this frenzy textbook genocide all the news that still came from the occupied Palestinian territories and in particular from Gaza are heartbreaking. As unfortunate as it is, I have no other choice except to start with the bloody statistical figures. With the deepest sorrow the death toll among the Palestinian civilians has exceeded twelve thousand (12,000) and the majority of them are children and women. Out of more than two thousand still missing, there has been groaning still coming from under the rubble which means that some are still breathing and fighting for their lives. The casualty toll in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, has also climbed up as Israeli occupying forces and settlers ratchet up their violence on Palestinian civilians, now 186 killed, including 46 children, and 2,400 injured. Hundreds of bodies of Palestinian victims are decomposing in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital, on the streets and under the rubble and there is no opportunity to bury them with the respect they deserve. More than 750 journalists from dozens of news organizations signed an open letter, condemning Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza and criticizing the Western media coverage of the aggression against the Strip. The letter, amongst many other things, said newsrooms are “accountable for dehumanising rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.”
Can anyone hear such words and not shed a secret tear for the people of Palestine?
Can we not acknowledge and recognise the fact that there is indeed a grand plan and not so hidden agenda to externinate them and wipe them off the face of the earth?
This is not about fighting Hamas or seeking the terrorists out for destruction: this is about killing or displacing every single Palestinian man, woman and child and turning their entire race into a distant and fading memory.
What the white Americans of the old “wild west” did to the native “red” Indians of the mid western and western prairies is precisely what the Jews, the Zionists and the State of Israel wish to do to the Palestinian people.
They wish to break them, kill them, displace them, destroy them and herd those that are left alive into barren reservation camps in the Sinai desert where they will be treated like worthless slaves and beggars and turned into feeble minded and pitiful drug addicts and alcoholics.
May God forbid that this should ever happen.
Yet this is precisely what degenerate and twisted little Zionist monsters like you Ben actually pray for and crave in your lust for land, power, hegemony, expansion, domination, control, subjugation, conquest, treasure, gas and oil, plenty of which lies below the soil of Gaza and off its coast.
A few days ago you posted a picture of a hole in the ground on the same X account for your 6 million followers.
You claimed that this hole is under a Gaza hospital & you alleged that it leads to a web of military tunnels below the hospital.
As usual you have provided no evidence to substantiate your allegation or the veracity of your assertion but the truth is that such “trivial” matters like the provision of credible evidence means little or nothing to you.
You expect us to believe what you have said and regard it as truth simply because YOU said so and YOU must never be doubted, disbelieved, denied or challenged in the presentation of YOUR so-called facts.
Worse still anyone that challenges those “facts” in your twisted, warped and intellectually anaemic mind must be “antisemitic”, “an enemy of the State of Israel” and “a Jew hater”.
Such base and infantile poppycock is rarely seen in serious public discourse or intellectual debate but of course people like you always lower the bar.
The truth is that the hole whose picture you shared and passed off as a passage to a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists may well be one that simply leads to the hospital sewers or to the hospital basement.
Yet you expect us, nay command us and demand of us, to believe your assertion and categorisation that it leads to a complex network of Hamas military bases & tunnels simply because you & the Israeli Defence Force @IDF have said so.
Whatever the case, is this your justification for bombing hospitals & butchering 12,000 civilians, 6000 of whom are children in Gaza and 186 others, 46 of whom are children, in the West Bank all in 5 weeks?
Is this your rationalisation for killing or causing the death of one child in Gaza every ten minutes?
Is this your justification for turning Al Shifa hospital into a stinking and death-stenched cemetery for children and babies and a concentration camp filled with rotting and maggot-infested bodies?
Is this your reason for targetting hospitals, killing little babies in incubators by denying them oxygen and electricity and turning them into what can best be described as little mice being prepared for the slaughter?
Is this your rationalisation for slaughtering over 1/2% of the entire population of Gaza & flattening 60% of its infrastructures in that same space of time?
As Professor Norman Finklestein, the respected Jewish American scholar and author posted on X,
“it is now 24 hours since Israel invaded al-Shifa hospital. No sprawling Hamas command-and-control center. No arms caches in the tunnels. No secret passageways. No nothing except: DEAD BABIES IN INCUBATORS WITHOUT FUEL.”
Can you Ben Shapiro or your Zionist collaborators and co-conspirators legitimately dispute this?
Frankly you make me sick. You are not only a delusional & blood thirsty degenerate but you are also a psychopath who has a craving for the spilling of human blood.
Whilst the world is sickened by the heartless slaughter of Palestinian women, children & babies you, like the twisted voyeur and perverted sexual deviant that you are, sit back in your chair, bring out the popcorn & enjoy watching it every night.
You are a troubled little man who has an insatiable appetite for the spilling of children’s blood & whose secret desire is to subiect every single Arab (both Christian & Muslim) to mass murder, genocide & ethnic cleansing & wipe them all off the face of the earth.
You are worse than Hamas, ISIS, Boko Haram, Daesh, Al Shabab, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah & Al Qaeda all put together because you are not only a brutal, blood lusting, merciless beast & terrorist enabler & sympathiser that has no value for life & no interest in peace but you, like Hitler’s Nazis, also seek to rationalise your unrelenting barbarity with a pseudo-intellectual garb trying to defend & present as acceptable something that no civilised or sane individual with even the tiniest modicum of humanity can EVER accept as being normal.
Your hateful and provocative rhetoric and disgraceful & deeply insultng commentry about the Islamic & Christian faiths over the years & your unacceptable insults on the greatest, most noble, most righteous and most reverred Prophet of Islam, Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu ‘Alayhi Wa Sallam) coupled with your denigrating and demeaning description of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Lord of Hosts, the Ancient of Days, the Creator of all that is, the Lord of the Universe, the El Shaddai, the Elohim, the Adonai, the Alpha and the Omega and the Resurrected Lord as “just another Jew who died for a cause” has not gone unnoticed.
You are of course entitled to your views but let me tell you frankly that if every Jew had your deplorable, warped, bigoted, racist, asinine & utterly despicable mindset & deplorable disposition about the two greatest & most popular faiths on earth the world would be filled with anti-semites & Hitler would have been celebrated as a saint & a hero even though we all regard him as one of the worse monsters & tyrants that ever lived.
You are the biggest & single most repugnant, perfiduous, malevolent, deceitful, malicious, insincere, wicked, malodrous, dangerous & intellectually dishonest voice in the Zionist camp today & you have made more enemies for the State of Israel by your vicious & unrelenting racism, your endorsement of apartheid, your blatant lies, your pathological mendacities & your inexplicable & unfathomable fabrications than any other human being on earth.
I do not agree with everything that men & women like Dominique De Villepin, Professor Norman Finklestein, David Icke, Professor Naom Chomsky, Jackson Hinkle, Mehdi Hassan, Clare Daley MEP, William Scott Ritter Jnr., Colonel Douglas Macgregor, Andrew Tate, Professor John Mearsheimer, James Corbyn MP, Julius Malema MP,
Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Oman, Professor Cornel West, the Torah Jews, Professor Isa Pantami, Antonio Gutteras, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus & all the other pro-ceasefire, pro-peace voices say but every single one of them displays a level of logic, foresight, justice, equity, compassion, sensitivity & humanity that you are incapable of doing & they are better & far more enlightened than you in their rationalisations, reasoning & historical knowledge of the events in the Middle East and Palestine.
Unlike you they do not suffer from tunnel vision and they are not blinded and encumbered by their own subjectivity or delusional emotions.
Even the hitherto reticent Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau, who all along had refused to criticise the genocidal excesses of Israel appears to have finally found the courage to join the ranks of these noble men and women, the forces of light and the legions of the righteous and speak up for the oppressed and suffering people of Gaza when, just a few days ago, he said the following during the course of a press conference. He said,
“I urge the Government of Israel to exercise maximum restraint. The world is watching on TV, on social media. We are hearing the testimonies of doctors, family members, survivors, kids who have lost their parents. The world is witnessing this killing of women, of children, of babies. This has to stop”.
Let us hope he goes even further and calls for a total and complete ceasefire.
Unlike you, each of these men and women are motivated by truth & guided by their consciences and the quest for justice & fairness.
You do not share these noble qualities, virtues or motivations.
You are no better than a primitive, half naked cheerleader & court jester dancing naked in the town centre and attempting to get noticed like a stale & out of fashion village idiot and lady of easy virtue that is well past her expiry date.
You are just a lost, irredeemable, unconciable soul that has no conscience, that has lost his humanity and moral compass and that is being paid and sponsored to write unadulterated rubbish by the pro-Israeli lobby in the United States of America and the State of Israel.
By all means defend Israel if that is your decision but you do not need to throw away your humanity and fully embrace depravity to do so.
Sadly that is what you have done but what the hell do you care because you sold your soul to satan years ago in return for notoriety and infamy.
Hell awaits you Ben and when you get there you can exchange notes with your soul-mates and fellow beasts like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, King Leopold 11 of Belgium, Genghis Khan, Mohammed Al Baghdadi, Idi Amin, Jeanne Bedie Bokassa, Christopher Colombus, King Herod, Pharaoh, Osama Bin Ladin, Saddam Hussein, Nebuchadnezzar, Vlad the Impaler and so many others.
You will learn the hard way that supporting the evil that is being perpetuated in Gaza today by Israel will eventually have dire consequences for the Jewish state herself and indeed the entire world.
I have always loved Israel and a part of me still does. Together with millions of others all over the world, I wept for her when she was attacked and brutally savaged by those that are worse than animals on October 7th and I not only condemned it but share the view that Hamas must be eradicated from the face of the earth.
Despite that I simply cannot bear what the Jewish state is doing in Gaza and I hate those who are cheering them on in their barbaric slaughter of innocent civilians.
Permit me to garner this contribution with a few posers.
Are we supposed to stand by Israel even when she is indulging in blind, rage-induced and vengeance- motivated genocide?
Are we supposed to join the Americans and say that Israel can do and get away with ANYTHING and not demand for a ceasefire?
Are we supposed to clap for the Israeli Minister of Heritage when he says “anyone who carries a Palestinian flag should not be allowed to live?” or when he says a “nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza” or when he says “Gaza’s 2.5 million people should be pushed in the desert or sent to 100 different countries as refugees at 25,000 Gazans per country?”
Is this the sort of rhetoric we are expected to espouse, endorse and support?
Is this what criminally insane, genocidal maniacs and complicit religious bigots and messianic zealots like you Ben Shapiro expect us to embrace?
Are we expected to jump with joy and applaud him when the Israeli Minister of National Security says “even those that are sharing sweets on the streets of Gaza should be targetted and slaughtered as well?”
Are we supposed to express our approval when the Minister of Defence of Israel says “what is being done to Gaza may also be done to Beirut?”
Is this wholesale espousal of barbarity, slaughter and savagery to be regarded as the new norm? Are we expected to accept and celebrate it?
Is there no more sanity in the world?
Are we supposed to accept it as the norm when the Israeli Finance Minister says “there is no such thing as a Palestinian nation, there is no such thing as Palestinian history and there is no such thing as a Palestinian language”?
Are we supposed to hop up and down with joy and express our unending adoration when a Member of the Israeli Knesset (Parliament) is questioned about the fact that thousands of innocent Palestinian women and children are being killed by Israeli bombs in Gaza and his response was “there is no such thing as an innocent Palestinian” meaning that every single Palestinian, whether man, woman, child or infant, should be bombed, crushed and wiped off the face of the earth?
Where is this hateful and genocidal rhetoric coming from and why should we shy away from challenging it?
Are we cowards? Should we be filled with fear and trepidation and shy away from speaking the bitter truth about what Zionism has done to the Jewish state?
Does the Bible not tell us that “God has not given us a spirit of fear but one of power, love and sound mind”?
Does is not admonish us not to fear the one that can kill the body but “only He that can throw the soul into hell”?
Today the Jews that have taken objection to others saying “from the river to the sea, Palestine must be free” and that claim that such words are nothing but genocidal hate speech and an expression of a sinister and subterranean desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the earth are themselves saying that Gaza and the Palestinian people should be totally eradicated.
They are themselves wiping out Christian and Muslim children in Gaza and judging from what the Israeli Defence Minister is saying it may soon be Lebanon and Beirut as well.
Does this double standard make any sense? Is it just? Is it fair? Does it not make any right thinking person sick? Is it right or proper for anyone to be talking about wiping out any race in this day and age?
Are Israel, the Zionists and the Jews above the law and do they have the right to do unto others what they do not want others to do unto them?
Has Israel not taken us down the sanguine and bloody path of carnage and madness where restraint and the application of even the most basic norms of military engagement, international law and the law of war no longer apply?
Are crimes against humanity and war crimes against innocent civilians, including women and children, now acceptable forms of combat?
This may be so in Ben Shapiro’s Zionist controlled insane world but not in mine.
Today it is Gaza, tomorrow it could be your city or country. Think about that whilst you are watching the show of shame and unprecedented carnage from the comfort of your home and bedroom on CNN, Al Jazeera or the BBC.
May God have mercy on us all.
Permit me to conclude this contribution with the following.
I have written thousands of words over the last few weeks about the horrendous slaughter that the State of Israel was subjected to by a group of savage and barbaric demons in human flesh on October 7th.
The attack was unprovoked and indefensible and the carnage that it left in its wake beggars belief and was second to none.
It was undoubtedly the worst and most devastating attack on the Jewish state and the Jewish people since the holocaust and I joined millions of Nigerians and indeed people from all over the civilised world of every faith, including Muslims and Christians, in condemning it and insisting that Israel not only has the right to defend herself but also a duty to totally and completely wipe out the terrorist organisation known as Hamas.
These are all “givens” or what lawyers describe as “settled law” but what puzzles me is the fact that when some of us express our angst, disgust, opprobium and horror at the disproportionate and sickening overreaction and incontrovertible savagery and barbarity that the State of Israel is subjecting the innocent people of Gaza to in the name of fighting and crushing Hamas and the fact that we are utterly mortified by the sight of Palestinian women, children and infant babies being blown to pieces and slaughtered like sallah goats and christmas turkeys whilst in their homes, hospitals, steeets, ambulances, schools, churches and mosques and when we cry out in horror and say enough is enough and that this must stop, we are treated with disdain and contempt by the pro-Zionist and pro-Israel lobby and declared as being antisemitic, anti-Jewish and anti-Israel.
Is this not absurd?
Should the wholesale slaughter of Muslim and Christian babies and infants not attract the same level and degree of anger and horror as the wholesale butchery of Jewish and Israeli ones?
Are they not all babies before being Muslims, Christians or Jews?
Do Christian and Muslim babies, women and children not have the right to life as well and are they not worthy of being considered for protection at a time of war or should such consideration be offered to only the Jews and citizens of Israel?
Does the Holy Bible tell us that killing babies of ANY race or religion is the right thing to do?
Does the New Testament of the Word of God not specifically and clearly tell us that the violent abominations of the Old Testament such as ethnic cleansing, mass murder, genocide, racism, religious bigotry, injustice, inequity, racial and religious intolerance and the slaughter of our fellow human beings for ANY reason whatsoever is no longer acceptable and that instead we must treat one another with compassion, kindness, mercy, charity, forgiveness, patience and love?
Does it not say that we should “suffer not the children” and that we should treat women, the young, the elderly, the defenceless, the poor, the sick and the vulnerable with kindness and sensitivity?
Is it not for this specific reason and purpose that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ came and sacrificed Himself on the cross?
Did He not say that the greatest display of love is to treat our fellow human beings as we would treat ourselves and that we should be ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of others?
Did He not say that “vengeance is mine, I will repay” and that we should “turn the other cheek” when assaulted or insulted?
Those that have overlooked these biblical admonitions and that refuse to acknowledge them or that are still stuck in the angry, violent, frightful and vengeful rhetoric of the Old Testament of the Holy Bible are truly lost.
They forget that the New Testament is not only a fulfillment of the Old but was also established to ameliorate its harshness and excesses and those that think otherwise must be reading a different Bible to mine.
The Christian that says that Jews and the State of The Israel can do no wrong simply because they are supposedly “God’s chosen people” and that it is alright for them to commit mass murder and kill babies is not only a lost and pitiful soul but also an accomplice to and enabler of genocide.
Such a person is not a real Christian but an insensitive, misguided, ignorant and deluded barbarian.
Christianity can NEVER support injustice or the murder of innocents and neither can Islam.
Why should the Jews believe they can do so under ANY circumstances and get away with it? Why should they regard themselves as being infallible and untouchable?
Should a Jew bear hatred or resentment for Christians or Muslims simply because his people have suffered persecution in the past given the fact that millions of members of both of these great
faiths have stood by Israel on several occassions, defended her and acknowledged her right to exist?
Is this not what the “two state solution” is all about?
Was that not the basis on which Camp David and the Oslo Accords were established?
Is this not enough to prove that not all Muslims are ISIS and Hamas and that not all Christians are Nazis?
Did millions of Christians and Muslims from all over the world not sacrifice their lives during WW11 fighting against the German, Italian and Japanese Nazis whose sole purpose and intention was to wipe out the Jewish race and erase them from the face of the earth?
Has humanity not paid its dues to the Jews by re-establishing the State of Israel in 1948 and displacing millions of Palestinians from their homeland just to do so?
These are pertinent and relevant questions given what Israel is doing in Gaza and given the fact that those of us that have said they have gone too far and that it must stop are now being branded and labelled as anti-Jewish by the likes of Ben Shapiro and the Prime Minister of Israel himself, Benjanin Netanyahu.
Must the barbarity and obscenity of infant and child slaughter be considered acceptable when it is perpetrated by the Jews and only condemned when unleashed on Jewish children?
Is this right and proper?
I think not.
Surely all life and all children are precious and the burchering of ANY, regardless of race or faith, MUST be condemned by ALL.
And those that think otherwise like Ben Shapiro are obviously suffering from a rare form of mental illness which needs to be exposed, challenged and contained lest they plunge the entire world into Ww111.
Just how long do they think the Muslim world particularly will sit by idly and watch members of their faith being slaughtered in this way?
Do they not know that everyone has a limit to what they can take and that if this madness does not stop there will be a terrible and irresistible reaction which Israel may not survive?
Can people like Ben Shapiro and the Jewish extremists and Zioninsts that think like him not see this coming?
Can Israel fight against the whole world bar America and survive it? Will America herself risk her survival for an Israeli state that has gone rogue, lost its mind and become a terror to the citizens of the world?
Do Christian and Muslim lives not matter too and is Jewish blood any more precious than ours?
Again are Jewish babies more important than that of the Arabs or ours?
Where is this madness coming from and why are so many egging it on in the name of political correctness and out of fear of the Jewish lobby and America?
And if the truth be told this madness, hypocrisy and double standard is driving the world to the precipice of a conflagration the likes of which have never been witnessed before.
I say this because the entire Muslim world is boiling with rage and anger.
Nothing reflects this growing anger and grave danger better than the words of the Afghan Taliban Government when they were asked why they did not attend the recently concluded summit of Arab and Muslim leaders in Riyadh Saudi Arabia last week.
Afghanistan was the only Muslim country that did not attend.
They offered an explanation for their absence by writing the following on X:
“Saudi Arabia sent us an invitation to which our Supreme Leader replied, ‘we don’t need an invitation: send us the location where Muslim armies will be gathering.”
This was indeed a chilling and sobering response if I ever saw one.
Thankfully Saudi Arabia withdrew their invitation after that but the words of the Afghan Government have eloquently and graphically depicted the rage and extreemly dangerous sentiments of the overwhelming number of Muslims in the world.
And frankly, who can blame them?
Israel needs to sheath her bloody sword and stop the carnage in Gaza and the West Bank before the more moderate Arab Governments and Muslim leaders can no longer hold the line, are swept away and the whole world is confronted with a massive and irresistible jihad in which literally millions of people on all sides of the political, religious and ethnic divide will be killed and after which the world will never be the same again.
For the record it is not just the Muslim world that is enraged. South Africa, along with a number of other countries, have not just broken diplomatic ties with Israel as a direct consequence of their barbarism in Gaza but they have also called for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Clearly the clock is ticking for the Zionists that take pleasure and pride in the slaughter of infants.
By her despicable, graphic and morbid display of savagery and her clear reflection of what can best be described as a psychopathic, murderous and barbaric disposition, the State of Israel has now become a danger to the peace and security of the world.
The world is now left with a choice about what to do with her but in my view the bottom line is best reflected by the following anecdote.
Consider this: when a lion runs mad and seeks to kill every single living thing because its cubs were attacked and killed by a rogue pride you can understand its rage but you cannot allow it to kill and decimate every single living thing in the jungle as an act of vengeance.
You must save it from its momentary madness and violent grieving rage by putting a bullet in its head before it wipes out everything that has life including itself.
That is the story of Israel and if she is not reigned in at the soonest and compelled to regain her senses that is what her fate may ultimately come to.
This is a hard and bitter truth which many do not wish to acknowledge or accept.
Permit me to end with the following points.
On 3rd of October 2022 Hilary Rodham Clinton, the former Minister of Foreign Affairs (Secretary of State) of the United States of America and a former presidential candidate posted the following on her X handle. She wrote,
“If the Russian leadership would rather not be accused of war crimes they should stop bombing hospitals”.
I urge Mrs. Clinton, the lady that rejoiced when Muammar Ghadaffi was brutally murdered, to refrain from her application of double standards and cowardly and complicit silence when it comes to Gaza and offer the same counsel to the Israeli Government and to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
This would go a very long way indeed in helping the situation and redeeming her utterly battered and discredited image.
An Israeli-American activist, Miko Peled, offered the following insight about the mindset of the Israeli war machine. He said, “the Israeli Army’s entire purpose is terrorism”.
Given what is happening in Gaza, the West Bank and Southern Lebanon today can anyone dispute this? Is what he has said not the bitter truth?
Have the events in Gaza not proved that and provided ample evidence to substantiate Peled’s allegation?
And just in case anyone is inclined to dismiss him as being delusional or just another self-hating, liberal American Jew that does not care for Israel they should consider his antecedents and noble lineage.
His grandfather, Avraham Katsnelson, signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence.
His father, General Mattiyahu Peled, fought in the war of 1948 and 1967 and later condemned the Israeli military for seizing the West Bank, Gaza, the Egyptian Sinai and the Syrian Golan Heights.
This is indeed a distinguished family of warriors and achievers. They are men of truth, courage, conscience and character, they are forthright and righteous souls and they are notable heroes who risked their lives for Israel and who never shied away from speaking the truth to her leaders when they got it wrong.
Peled is far more worthy of our attention and respect and needs to be taken far more seriously than pin size, puppet propagandists with a questionable pedigree and a thoroughly uninspiring lineage like little Ben Shapiro.
On his part Major Scot Ritter, a retired US Marine and former Military Intelligence officer offered some laudable and timely counsel and advice. He posted the following on X:
“the United States needs to bring this to an end. An immediate ceasefire in Gaza and the deployment of Turkish peacekeepers to protect the Palestinians from the IDF is a must. The Israelis simply don’t care anymore. They are a nation consumed with bloodlust”.
Ritter has hit the nail on the head. Let us hope President Joe Biden and the Zionist hawks around him will listen.
Finally President Erdoğan of Turkey issued the following warning to the Zionists and the State of Israel. He said,
“I would like to speak very bluntly. Israel is a terrorist state. They consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation but Hamas is a political party that won the collective vote in Palestine and after they won the election you have seized and usurped their rights. Israel and the US have seized those rights. Two-thirds of the 12,000 people who have been murdered by Israel in Gaza are women and children,” he said. Israel is carrying out the most heinous attack against women and children in all of history. They [Israel] have been speaking about murdering all those people using nuclear weapons so let me call on Benjamin Netanyahu: do you have nuclear weapons or not? Explain this if you have the courage! You are threatening people with atomic bombs, nuclear bombs. It does not matter what you have, you are a goner!”
It appears that the quest to exterminate the Palestinian people will not go unchallenged and cannot be fully implemented without strong resistance and a bloody fight.
Let us hope that Ben Shapiro and his Zionist co-travellers whose intention is to rid the world of the Palestinian people are listening.
A word is enough for the wise.
Sadly despite all “listening” does not appear to be on the horizon given the fact that despite the gathering clouds, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel appears to have thrown all caution to the wind and refused to even attempt to hide his bellicose and murderous disposition and genocidal intentions.
He confirmed this two weeks ago when he said, with reference to the attack on Gaza, that the State of Israel was “waging a war against Amalek”.
The import of this utterly chilling, frightful and utterly comment is not lost on many and it is highly instructive.
For those who do not fully appreciate what he means I would suggest that they read the Old Testament of the Holy Bible which tells us that the Jews were ordered by God and therefore have a divine obligation to wipe out and exterminate every man, woman and child that is a descendant of Amalek in their quest to enter and occupy the Promise Land and establish, protect, defend and secure the State of Israel.
Amalek’s descendants were collectively referred to in the Bible as the Amalekites and today they are known as the Palestinians.
Can you put two and two together?
Do we need any more evidence about what the intentions of Israel really are?
Need I say any more?
May God deliver the people of Gaza, the Palestinian people, the Middle East and the entire world from evil and bloodthirsty men, whether they be the animals and terrorists of Hamas, the barbaric hordes of ISIS and Islamic Jihad, the butchers and child killers of the Israeli Defence Force or the fanatical zealots and extremist disciples of the divisive, racist and cancerous philosophy and plague known as Zionism.
•Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, the Sadaukin Shinkafi and the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, is a lawyer, a former Minister of Aviation and a former Minister of Culture and Tourism
In his address to the United Nations in September 2011, President Barack Obama stated, “Peace is hard, but we know that it is possible.” I wholeheartedly believe in his statement. Achieving peace is challenging, but it is also attainable. Sustainable peace is within reach.
It is widely acknowledged that charity should begin at home, and since we view the world through our own perspectives, it’s fitting to commence this discourse with my homeland.
The story of Nigeria embodies the essence of the topic – how people, politics, and power can sustain peace. It raises important issues for contemplation. Nigeria’s diverse landscape, comprising 371 ethnic groups and tribes, each with a unique set of languages, religions, and cultures, creates a fertile ground for conflict. These conflicts range from trade and tribal disputes to religious tensions. Nigeria has experienced a tumultuous history, marked by colonial rule, insurgencies, tribal and religious divisions, competition for state resources, and political upheaval.
Despite these challenges, Nigeria has consistently displayed resilience and determination to overcome them. Our journey towards peace has been arduous, but it has imparted valuable lessons.
In May 2015, I assumed the role of governor of Akwa Ibom State. At that time, insecurity loomed large. Militant groups held sway, instilling fear in the population, and nightlife was non-existent. It was a tough situation, but I shared President Obama’s belief that despite the difficulties, peace was attainable. We initiated dialogues, engaging with various segments of society – militants, students, youth, women, professionals, from grassroots to the diaspora. It was a gradual process, but inclusivity became our guiding principle. Everyone felt a sense of ownership over the state and its resources. Equitable distribution of resources, prioritizing education and affordable healthcare, rendered the conditions that previously fuelled militancy obsolete. Peace prevailed. Since then, Akwa Ibom State has been recognized as one of the safest regions in Nigeria.
The Akwa Ibom State experience is a testament to the success of politics that empowers the people and fosters sustainable peace. However, not all peace projects have been as successful, and I believe that peace, like any project, goes through initiation, incubation, and manifestation phases.
To achieve sustainable peace, empowering the people is paramount. Ensuring the welfare and inclusive participation of all citizens, regardless of their tribe, gender, or religious affiliation, as demonstrated in Akwa Ibom State, is crucial.
On April 27, 2016, the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council adopted resolutions aimed at achieving sustainable peace, which underpinned the 2015 review of the UN Peacebuilding Architecture. These resolutions represent a comprehensive commitment to global peace. Seven years later, how have we fared?
At present, various countries, including Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Libya, Mali, Somalia, South Sudan, and Syria, grapple with civil wars. Approximately 34 countries are in conflict, and more teeter on the brink, including Israel and Palestine. This is in addition to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, proxy wars, and localized insurrections and tensions worldwide. These conflicts, varying in severity and duration, significantly impact populations, often beyond the immediate areas, leading to devastating physical and humanitarian consequences.
Beyond traditional causes of war and unrest, the 21st century has introduced new challenges that threaten peace. These include environmental degradation, food insecurity, climate catastrophes, escalating poverty and inequality, socioeconomic exclusion, and democratic misrepresentation. These challenges necessitate the active involvement of people, the influence of politics, and the responsible use of power.
The wealth and well-being of a nation, as well as the happiness of its citizens, fall under the purview of politics and power and serve as the foundational elements for sustainable peace. It is undeniable that achieving sustainable peace hinges on how power and politics are structured, the extent to which state power is applied, and how inclusive or alienating the political system is.
Power and politics determine resource allocation, the decision to go to war or prioritize peace, tax rates, funding for various programs, and much more. They shape the distribution and size of the societal “pie” and influence what is subsidized or heavily taxed. In the realm of government and governance, where decisions are made, power and politics play a pivotal role as principal determinants of sustainable peace.
Power comes in various forms, but fundamentally, it denotes the ability to persuade people to act in ways that benefit society as a whole. It grants authority to decide what is discussed, who gets what, why, and how. It is in this process of distribution and redistribution that sustainable peace is either nurtured or jeopardized.
Politics, with its profound influence, plays a crucial role in fostering and maintaining peace. Therefore, it is essential that the “right people” are elected to positions of power. While politics may be daunting for many, it is a vital responsibility that, when mishandled, can quickly erode existing peace. Power should be entrusted to individuals who understand the importance of inclusivity and equitable distribution of state resources. Misuse or abuse of power has the potential to undermine peace and stability. Power must be exercised with the utmost responsibility, transparency, and accountability.
Power and politics are expected to create conditions that provide people with an acceptable standard of living, a prerequisite for peace and fulfilment. Regardless of its form, power must be rooted in the people to survive. Legitimacy, earned through a government’s commitment to its citizens, safety, fairness, and people-centric policies, is crucial for sustaining peace. Governments must demonstrate fairness; otherwise, people’s dissatisfaction with power and politics can threaten peace.
Achieving peace takes time and effort and may face setbacks, opposition, and challenging days. Just like any project, peace goes through initiation, incubation, and manifestation phases. To attain and sustain peace, politics and power must intentionally transition to a system that is inclusive of the people, guided by participation, engagement with government and governance, and grounded in international human rights laws and standards.
•Excerpts from keynote address delivered by former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Emmanuel, at the 8th London political summit held at the House of Parliament, Westminster Palace.
Tessa Jones knows death is coming via end-stage lung cancer. Chemotherapy, she knows, can buy her a few more months but she rejects it because of the pains that come with it. She opts to plan her funeral with her husband. One of the things she hates is people saying nice things behind her back. So, she decides to witness her memorial and have people say all they want while she is here at a Shakespeare-themed going-away ceremony. There, guests dressed in different Shakespearen characters say their goodbyes through poetry, monologues and so on.
Tessa’s story is the subplot in ‘Love At First Sight’, a movie which debuted on Netflix on September 15, about a British Mathematics nerd and an American babe who meet on the plane from New York to London. The nerd is Oliver, one of Tessa’s two sons. The lady is Hadley, who is attending her father’s second wedding and finds a love she feels doesn’t make sense but all- powerful.
While seeing this movie, one book kept crowding my head: Chimeka Garricks’ ‘A Broken People’s Playlist’. After the movie, I sought the audio version on Scribd and listened to it all. The reason the book came to my mind while seeing the movie is that one of the twelve stories in this collection is the story of a man who knows he is dying and chooses to witness his own funeral service dressed in designer wear, sunglasses and matching shoes. He wants to have his estranged wife at the service but she ignores him and only comes after he has been cremated. She had wished to spit on his grave for all the domestic violence she experienced while married to him and the sexually transmitted diseases he gave her. But he has no grave because he was cremated.
The book, first published in Nigeria some years back by Masobe Books, early this year got an international edition done by publishing giant Harper Collins.
‘A Broken People’s Playlist’ also has stories about extra-judicial killings, the literal and metaphorical darkness in Nigeria, the corruption, and other ills. It boasts of many unforgettable characters, whose flaws would have made us slap and almost beat to coma if only we could meet them; its prose has the power to make you savour it like palm wine fresh from the tree; and pacing and focus do not suffer from unnecessary swerving in this smooth-singing, hard-hitting collection.
The collection shows that literature is a reflection of society. The major themes include domestic violence, extra-judicial killings, extra-marital affairs, love, hatred and family. There is a recurring motif of searching for meaning and redemption in this laudable collection.
The first story in the collection is about Sira and Kaodini. They had known each other since childhood. They played together, smiled together, cried together, and together they pitied people who assumed that they were lovers. Sira, a lawyer, moves to Lagos and becomes a partner in a law firm. Kaodini stays back in Port Harcourt and rebuilds his life by starting a farm after his father’s wealth runs dry like a cursed river. Each of them had relationships at different points but with time it occurs to them that they should be together, but there is a snag: One being in Lagos; the other in Port Harcourt. Kaodini offers to relocate to Lagos, where Sira has a thriving career. She kicks against him abandoning his farm, his dream. He eventually finds someone to run the farm and the countdown to his relocating to Lagos to join Sira begins. But what she hears from his mother shortly before he is to join her is: “Sira. My baby, our baby. He is dead.”
The collection has another story set in Port Harcourt, a city battling the side effects of soot, where your shirts, shoes, televisions and other property are ever at the mercy of smoke from kpo-fire, the illegal petrol refiners. All Godson, a resident of this city’s waterside settlement, wants is a job to support himself and his mother. Corporal Enenche, on the other hand, is looking forward to quitting the police and joining a private firm. He has three weeks to go. On one of his last assignments, he and his team led by Shehu, who is always pronouncing ‘pay’ as ‘fay’, arrests Godson and minutes after arresting him, he fits into the description of an armed robber who struck earlier in the day. Before giving him jungle justice, Shehu steals his phone on the excuse that he has gay porn on it only to end up later that night masturbating to the porn. Enenche makes away with his white sneakers. But where will the one who stole the king’s trumpet play it?
‘In The City’, a crime thriller with puzzles you have to piece together, can get the heart racing and wonder: What are they going to do to him? It is a story rendered in moving language.
Some of the stories are linked. Two of such are titled ‘I Put a Curse on You’ and ‘I’d Die Without You’. Dr. Tonse features in both tales. The narrator in ‘Music’ also features in another story where he is drunk-calling his ex-wife. ‘Love is Divine’ also has a link with ‘Hurt’.
Garricks’ dexterous management of suspense makes it practically impossible for a reader to guess right. There are good twists to the tales of the characters who can as well be citizens of a nation known as Republic of Broken People.
The author’s handling of his characters guarantees a damn good collection that will be remembered long after closing the last page.
My final take: As shown in the book and the movie, life is a journey, a journey whose trajectories we aren’t in a position to fully decide. Despite this, we still need to be ready, to be prepared for where life is taking us.
A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Ogun State, Otunba Adewale Adenaike, has said that he is passionate about the development of Ogun State and the uplifting of the downtrodden.
Adewale who has indicated his interest in Ogun State governorship race, said in a release, that he was determined to serve in order to add value and inject his experience over the years in the Diaspora to the development of Ogun State.
“We must as a matter of urgency begin to do things according to the global best practices by changing the mindset of the people, firstly; away from money politics to enable them embrace quality leadership that would bring more development to the state and guarantee a future for their children.”
Adenaike said although the various progressive leaders that had led or still leading the state have tried their best but that the current level of economic deprivation and general hardship needed to be addressed by a more experienced personality which he represents. “We are all aware of the economic siege, the state of lawlessness, moral decadence, political gluttony and the apathy that heralded the current progressive administration of the All Progressives Congress (APC); after several years of deep rot in the polity. To erase the gloom of hopelessness and bring back the sunshine would take effective management and I am prepared to continue with the good foundation laid by the outgoing governor and inject our gifted thinkers both at home and in the Diaspora into our development agenda if elected into office,” he said.
The governorship hopeful warned that it would be another wasted efforts if delegates to the gubernatorial primaries in Ogun state sacrificed their integrity for a pot of porridge. He affirmed that all things being equal, he would be victorious at the primaries. “I am not a moneybag but a principled and result oriented politician who knows what it takes to lead a group of people as intellectually endowed as the people of Ogun State and I believe that the people deserve a matured and skilled human and resources manager to lead them and I am the most qualified,” Adenaike stressed.
Police in Mozambique said 10 people were beheaded in an attack over the weekend in an area where previous Islamist attacks have been reported.
Radio Mocambique said police in the capital Maputo could not immediately give details of the attack in a village near the town of Palma, close to Mozambique’s border with Tanzania and near one of the world’s biggest untapped offshore gas fields.
“unknown persons killed by decapitation at least 10 people in recent days in the administrative post of Olumbi, Palma district, in the north of Cabo Delgado province,” Radio Mocambique said in a brief report.
The radio station did not provide any further details on the attack.
Portuguese news agency Lusa, quoting national broadcaster TVM, said two children were among those beheaded but this could not be independently verified.
Palma district administrator David Machimbuko told the station that authorities had moved security teams to areas where further attacks were feared.
Police spokesman Inacio Dina said officers were gathering information from a team dispatched to the north.
Local media have reported a series of attacks carried out by Islamists since October 2017, when police stations were attacked in the north, a predominantly Muslim region.
Mozambique has not been a focal point of Islamist militant activity in the past and police have been reluctant to ascribe the attacks to Islamists.
Muslims make up about 18 per cent of Mozambique’s population.
Roman Catholics form the largest single religious grouping, with about 30 per cent of its 30 million people.
The gas project is located in the Rovuma basin off the northern coast of Mozambique, an area where oil firms are exploring.
Experts say the reserves are enough to supply energy to Britain, France, Germany and Italy for over 20 years. (Reuters/NAN)
Adekunle Osibogun, the Convener of the Young Progressive Nigerian Initiatives (YPNI), has led some volunteers on a sensitisation tour of the Ogun East Senatorial District. In this interview with reporters in Lagos, he identifies red-tapism and other bureaucratic bottlenecks as reasons for the refusal of people to collect their permanent voters cards (PVC) in the Southwest geo-political zone. Excerpts:
Could yoy share the experience you gathered during the recent PVC sensitisation campaign tour in Ogun East Senatorial District?
I’ll say the experience was quite humbling in the sense that there is a high level of enthusiasm amongst the populace towards the upcoming 2019 general elections. We however observed that a lot of people are not aware of the important role the Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) will play during the elections. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has indicated that PVCs will play a key role in the upcoming election process, and this I believe is already being reflected in the allotments of the new polling units (PUs). I observed that the regions with the higher PVC collection rates were allotted a higher number of PUs. Consequently, the Southwest region got the third least number of new PUs, behind the Northcentral where citizens have been displaced by the herdsmen crisis, the Northeast which has been ravaged by the Boko Haram, and the Northwest which has been notorious for underage registration and voting. Unfortunately, only a few of the populace in Ogun East senatorial district have gotten their temporary voters cards. Some of them have not even registered at all, while there is a large number of people who complained that they have either lost or damaged their voters’ cards. We also observed that some eligible voters who relocated to Ogun State after the 2015 elections are anxious to transfer their registration to the state, but lack information on the process. I’ll say that INEC still has a lot of work to do in Ogun State, particularly in Ogun East, because based on our survey the amount of eligible voters who have not yet obtained their PVCs, which includes those that only have their temporary voter’s card, is very high and if we are looking to have successful general elections in 2019, it’s important that these people are also given not only the opportunity, but also the encouragement to pick up their PVCs.
Residents of Ogun State are highly politically active, which is most evident in the vibrancy of the political campaigns and the level of enlightenment amongst the populace. When it comes to political education, majority of the populace know their civic rights and duties and are actively involved in the political process. However, when it comes to the level of PVC collection, especially in Ogun East, my observation was that the level of PVC collection varied from area to area. I observed that while some locations we surveyed had a high rate of PVC collection, others had a very low rate. Also, the densely populated areas reported a lower collection rate than the thinly populated ones. So, for example, locations within the waterside area reported a higher collection rate than the Ijebu-Ode and Odogbolu areas. To address our findings, we have set up teams of volunteers to engage and encourage people to go to their local government offices and registration centres within the district to pick up their PVCs. We are also taking steps to set up a special team that will provide guidance for those who have either lost or damaged their cards or intend to transfer their registration.
What is responsible for the low collection in the South and higher collection in the North?
I haven’t surveyed the North to know the reason for the high PVC collection there, but I can speak about the low collection rate in the South. I will attribute it primarily to bureaucracy and red-tape. We have citizens who wake up as early as 5am to go and queue at INEC offices, spend the whole day there and may still be unable to pick up their cards. Now, that is discouraging. To encourage people to pick up their PVCs, which is a civic duty, it is important that we make the process a lot easier and more seamless. Without a shadow of doubt, there is a need for more registration machines, especially in Ogun East district, where the registration machines are not sufficient. It is important for INEC to intensify efforts by increasing the number of registration machines in the South; investing more in awareness and sensitisation campaigns amongst the populace for those with lost or damaged their cards or those seeking to transfer their registration; and by reducing the bureaucracy and red-tape prevalent in the PVC collection process. It is noteworthy that the bureaucracy in transferring registration within a state takes approximately 10 months, even if it is within the same district. The customer service can also be better. This is why my foundation is focusing on providing guidance and support to help ease the stress that the average citizens are currently experiencing during the process of registering and collecting their PVCs.
From your experience, do you think Nigerians are prepared for 2019 general elections?
I’ll say Nigerians are better enlightened going into the 2019 General Elections than any of our previous elections, but their level of preparedness is low, becausemajority of the populace are yet to collect their PVCs. Based on the vibes coming from INEC, the PVCs will be the instrument that will qualify citizens to participate in the voting process for the 2019 General Elections. So, no matter how enlightenedyou are, no matter how passionateyou are, if we haven’t all gotten our PVCs then all our efforts will be in vain because we will all be unable to participate in the voting process, which defeats the purpose of democracy.
especially on PVC collection nationwide, but they can do more.INEC can do more especially in the South-WestRegion because the level of PVCs collected in the South-West as a whole compared to the growing population of the South-West isvery low.It’s therefore urgent that INEC now pays special attention to the registration and collection of PVCs in the South-West to ensure the General Elections in the South-West Region are a true reflection of the hopes and aspirations of the people.
What Is Your Position On The #NotTooYoungToRun Campaign?
I strongly believe there is a need to transit from the old generation of politicians to a younger and more vibrant generation of political leaders, who understand the challenges of Nigerians in the 21st century and who are prepared to proffer lasting solutions,inspire their peers, and work tirelessly towards addressing these challenges. This, I believe is also the objective behind the #NotTooYoungToRun Campaign. Majority of our youths have lost faith in Nigeria because of the growing disconnect between their aspirations and those of our political elites. The discontentment of our youths with the political elite can be better expressed with reference to the surge in the numbers emigrating through our boarders in search of a better life. We have continued to lose our youths who voluntarily make the suicidal journey across the Sahara desert, others opt for the citizenship of foreign countries, while those who elect to stay have resigned to their faith or taken to crime or armed banditry. This is the current reality facing Nigerians. Our political elites have continuously failed to inspire our youths, so if our youths choose to be their own inspiration towards building a better country for future generations, we must support them.For Nigeria to develop, people with fresh ideas, innovation, drive and focus must be given the opportunity to govern, and I make bold to say that Nigeria will only transit from its current predicament if young reputable Nigerians take up the responsibility of governance.
Any Political Aspiration For Adekunle Osibogun in 2019 General Elections?
I am currently encouraging my peers to actively participate in the 2019 General Elections because it is my desire to see a large contingent of us occupying elective offices in 2019, so we can attempt to rescue our dear country from its current downward spiral. I therefore intend to lead from the front by contesting in the 2019 General Elections. I know your next questions will be for what office? So let me save you the trouble by telling you that it will be an office I am best suited for based on my qualifications and experience, and where I will be better able to contribute to solving our current challenges and building a better Nigeria. But be rest assured that all will be revealed in due course.
What is the driving force behind the Adekunke Osibogun Foundation?
The Adekunle Osibogun Foundation is a private foundation that supports and inspires civic engagements and services in local communities, strengthen, promote, and where necessary protect the socio-economic rights of young Nigerians through intervention programmes in areas of education, entrepreneurship, leadership, citizenship awareness, agriculture, and youth empowerment. The origin of the foundation date back to 2009 when I met with other young patriots in Abuja to set up a platform to encourage and promote a sense of patriotism among Nigerians, which eventually birth the Young Progressive Nigerians Initiative (“YPNI”) for the benefit of our peers and local communities. After the establishment of YPNI, I was motivated to financially support my commitments to promoting patriotism amongst Nigerians and enhancing the quality of life of Nigerians through initiatives that promote national development, entrepreneurship and educational opportunities. Hence, the establishment of the Adekunle Osibogun Foundation! Through the years, I have supported and funded numerous intervention programmes of various non-governmental organisations, as they provide free skills acquisition trainings, mentorship and leadership programmes, entrepreneurship development programmes, and access to financial and legal advisory services for small and medium sized enterprises.
Photo caption:
Volunteers of the Adekunle Osibogun Foundation in a Group Photography with the Gbegande of Ososa, Oba Dr. Adetoye Alatishe during the sensitization on the collection of Permanent Voters Card (PVC),sponsored by the organisation in Ososa, Ogun State recently.
A 35-year-old man, Salisu Useini, has been arrested by the police in Niger State for allegedly parading himself as a soldier.
Useini, a motorsaw operator at Tufa village in Gurara Local Government of Niger State, confessed that he had passion for the Army and loved using it to intimidate people.
He said: “I love wearing Army uniform to intimidate people, to have my way. I don’t use it to rob people; I just love wearing Army uniform to move about.”
The suspected fake soldier said he had no regrets dressing like a soldier, adding that he would do it again if given a chance.
The suspect, a father of four, who was arrested by the anti-kidnapping squad attached to Gurara, following a tip-off, was alleged to have been parading himself as a soldier for the past five years.
The Nation learnt that Useini, who wears the uniform on a daily basis, used it to molest people, causing trouble.
Command spokesman Muhammad Abubakar, while parading the suspect, said Army cap, trousers, police belt and 15 photographs of him in Army uniform were recovered from him, adding that the suspect could not give a satisfactory account of how he got the uniform.
The Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi yesterday said the maritime security contract approved by President Muhammadu Buhari and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) is being frustrated by some powerful Nigerians.
The contract, Amaechi said, was awarded by the government about two years ago to secure the nation’s maritime domain.
Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum organised by the Nigerian Maritime Administrator and Safety Agency ( NIMASA), in Warri, Delta State, Amaechi threatened to give the names of those that are sabotaging the efforts of the government if the issue becomes messy and could not be resolved on time.
The theme of the event is ‘ Implementation of Executive Order 1 on Ease of Doing Business in a Secure Maritime Environment.’
Amaechi identified high level of insecurity and criminalities going on in the Delta region as one of the major reason to protect the waters.
He said the eastern ports are not attractive to business because of the ‘war’ insurance rate imposed by the international shipping companies on any vessel calling at the ports in the area.
“The war insurance means if the goods cost $10,000 in Lagos I will $20,000 here because there is extra cost on it. There are people in the system sabotaging the $195million contract that will restore sanity and security on our waterways,”he said.
