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March 30, 2006

Militricians Taku!

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- Sadly, Charles Taylor saga overshadowed US press questions on third term after Bush meeting with Obasanjo. The silence by Obasanjo versus the return of Babangida while the sudden death of any of the Ethnic militia leaders still loom are back on our lap.

They had complained of not getting the medical care they need in prison. One thing is to volunteer to die for Nigeria in the army but not in paradise, I mean in office. It is a different situation altogether if one dies as a martyr for the cause of his people as Saro Wiwa.

My fear is if Nigeria is dislocated by economic invasion today, we may miss the loyalty of some Nigerians standing up to fight for the Country. Audu Ogbe had asked: with the population of Nigeria, which Country can take in its refugees? It is true that a reasonable leader will curb the excess of the Ethnic militia all over the Country. But a problem when that militia is more popular than our police, and in many cases appointed leaders. There are warnings on the wall that the fight against militia can not be won by artillery because each of them has deep sympathy within the community that is stronger than that of our armed forces. Some of them get involved in nefarious activities that can not be condoned but are tolerated in the community because the alternative is worse.

I hardly have anything good to say about our militricians apart from bringing looters to justice but that does not mean all of the Armed Forces are bad. Indeed, I am very proud of their constitutional duties and their unrivaled best peace keeping duties in the world.

When Ironsi became the head of State, one of my uncles who was his comrade in Congo told us how a perfect gentleman and a soldier he was. As a kid, I translated that to mean that if my uncle did not leave the Army as a nurse, the type we call health officer today in Nigeria or physician assistant in the US, he could have been a leader too. Unknown Nigerian soldiers, especially from the North took part in all the World Wars but never got any marshal dividend as promised. As Ironsi stood out, so did Fajuyi who died with him.

Nigeria peace keeping role in Liberia and in the World is second to none. We stood up on land while others waved from the ocean. Our role in removing Charles Taylor as nobody would take him is commendable despite the atrocities he committed against Nigerians. At that point, they just wished him out. He relied on our promises with the support of world leaders then. Our word in peace keeping role in Africa is important. They do not want him back in Liberia where we got him. Outside influence and threat forced him out of Nigeria into Liberia and Sierra Leone. I am also proud of the role of General Victor Malu as ECMOG Commander, the oppressor of Odi who became the oppressed in Zaki Biam.

Nevertheless, Nigeria export peace which we do not have at home. The only achievement that militrician pride themselves on is the ability to keep Nigeria one. It is only Obasanjo that can do this, it is only Babagida that can do that. Enough and thanks, do not insult our intelligence because we do not control the guns into Treasury. It is not enough in itself to keep Nigeria one, it must be kept one for a reason: to be the greatest, the fairest and contented in each region. Extremists can be isolated by their unreasonable demand, from the majority of their base. It can not be done by military tactics, but by civilian prowess.

I do not think every Igbo agrees with Uwazurike on secession from Nigeria but even those that disagree with him are not too happy with their status quo. This President, more than those before him, has made his mark on Igbo appointments. He has to, so that those Igbo who support him can demonstrate some dividends. Gone are the days of Fawehimi’s cases in Court to get the Igbo into the cabinet. Those with hard earned popularity in their community, not only have to be treated fairly; they have to be seen as being treated fairly by their base. After all he was able to declare a strike in most parts of the Southeast. He has tapped deep into grievances that are now being addressed. We have been humbled, that no matter how brotherly our love for Igbo is, only Igbo can articulate Igbo cause.

Asari Dokubo even generates more sympathy within his community. Never mind that he does not represent the rest of the Ethnic groups in that area, they agree with him up to a point. Short of the point where he starts boasting of dominance over the others in the area because he was uncannily elevated by Presidential invitation. That they are heavily armed is not the real threat but if equal and overbearing force is used against his militia causing too much heavy collateral damage; it becomes indistinguishable from the abuse of force and power. Future generation will see him as Abiola who died in prison. So we have to take caution as expressed by leaders of the Nigerian Navy. These are not terrorist, most Nigerians understand their cause. Delta oil of course was in Bush/Obasanjo discussion.

When you see a frog in the day, as the Igbo saying goes, there must be something after his life. A 70 years old accomplished medical doctor, who can be comfortable for the rest of his life as Fasehun, do not become an activist and a militia if there are no burning reasons. In 1999 there was a rumor of Obasanjo’s death. He sent out a warning that it must not happen, if they were testing the waters. Should he die in prison under the watch of the same man? If you want to hang a dog, you give it a bad name. It is the Court that determines his case, but this Administration presented false alarm against him in court. It was under Obasanjo’s watch that Matriarch Funmilayo Anikulapo died, as it turned out, Obasanjo had nothing to do with it.

In spite of our differences with ethnic militia, we have sought them or used their name to make our points. When negotiation fails, leaders are known to claim that their youth will fight for what is theirs as a matter of right. Indeed, some of them have been financed and armed by the same leaders only to loose control. They have also done a better job than our almighty police in the area of security. The police are so jealous of their success in this area, they turn them into enemy. Instead of eliminating armed robbers, the police fight militia for territory. They always show up at the end of home invasion by robbers.

I do not think that Northern leaders found it funny when the Arewa youth turned against them. The youths demonstrated and even pelted the leaders with stones at one of the gathering, calling them barawo. Nigerians were impressed when all the Nigerian youth organizations met and pledge peace after some riot some years ago. One may be tempted to ask if it is easier for the youths of various Ethnic groups to come to terms than for our leaders to see eye to eye. However, some of them are so full of untapped exuberance we have to make sure they do not negotiate the unity of the Country or get carried away.

There are too many issues on fire right now and care must be taken to prevent explosion. We need fire fighters that understand the needs of Nigerians both at the local and at the National levels. Not those who rub their hands with spit(e) when they can utilize water by the ocean and hose down burning issues. When it gets to the point where hell can break loose, who is going to blink first or bear the brunt of it, our cause is already lost.

We are now at a point where certain powers are warning us about third term, only God knows what they are encouraging in secret diplomacy. They are negotiating directly with our youths because we have abdicated our responsibilities. Do we know what they are promising them? Which of the youth militia are they going to negotiate with next?

While the Ethnic militia leaders are concerned about local issues that are important to the welfare of their people, hedonist leaders are concern about how to stage a come back or how to prolong their rule by hook or crook. Politicians must compete for the love of their people with militia leaders. It is probably the same as competing for votes. The danger is if the votes can be rigged, it destroys the propensity to clamor for the love of the masses creating a default for the militia to run away with.

The third term campaigns all over the Country by some Governors, and the shakers of power, plus the recent silence of the President, have created only one Ethnic casualty. Now we know how the Hausa/Fulani feel in other shoe when leaders who never benefited their people parade themselves as saviors of Nigeria. We lump every Northerner together as if they have raided only our pockets forgetting that the ones that suffer worse than us, on the streets are also Northerners. Uneasy lays the head that wears the crown. During coalition Governments, those in opposition never wish for heaven to fall and Nigeria to break into pieces until they were denied their free, fair and hard earned election victory.

Akintola did not call for the break up of the Country but for the right to share a piece of the action at the Federal level. He cried that Yoruba could not be in opposition for ever and decided to be part of Federal Government. The situation has changed in this last seven years in the history of Nigeria. Obasanjo has invited insults on his people. There are rumors of grand design to rule Nigeria forever by Obasanjo and by association the Yoruba. Since when have they been the power house of Nigeria politics? Please do your cronies a favor, Obasanjo tell them to stop this madness called third term so that you can preserve your Yoruba name in history. The love of Nigeria is not based on what Yoruba can get from the resources or gains of others but on what Yoruba have been contributing.

Oil is not worth dying for. It was the Arab embargo in the seventies that turns oil to gold. Otherwise they will still be buying it for very little. If the choice is between oil and the brotherly love of fellow Nigerians, take the harmony and run. Since men in uniform tasted power in the sixties, it seems they can not let it go for too long. They show no fundamental remorse, only changed from khaki to agbada to retain power. Khaki no be leather. We need a virgin (in sin please) from a new region to lead Nigeria.

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
Faroukomartins@netscape.com

Posted by Administrator at 01:52 AM | Comments (0)

March 29, 2006

Globalization, Free Trade & Xenophobia?

by Paul I. Adujie (New York, United States) --- We have all heard the positive advantages and benefits of globalization and free trade. It endear all humans in the proverbial global village to one another and all humans will live happily ever after in a strengthened global economy.

Globalization and free trade is presently lopsided and that is a fact.
Crusaders and apostles of unfettered globalization and free trade, will not hear of the apparent and obvious disadvantages, such as the fact that many parts of the world, are only recipients of goods and services and without commensurate opportunities for providing goods and services for other parts of the world, in effect, globalization, under current arrangements and practice, presupposes a complete acceptance of domination of peoples of Southern hemisphere by those of Northern/Western hemisphere.

Simply put in plain words, the old stratified economic advantages of the West, remains favoring Westerners at the expense of those of us, of the Southern hemisphere. The North-South hemisphere dichotomy will remain undisturbed, under present globalization-free trade mantra. Globalization and free trade as presently pursued, will be a one way traffic, of benefit only to highly industrialized Western countries, while developing countries will serve as mere dumping grounds for products and services from the West.

In essence, current globalization and free-market, allow goods and services to flow in a unidirectional manner, from the Western hemisphere to the rest of the world, without recourse to standard economic principles, theories and concepts, such as comparative advantage, cost efficiencies, specialization and even division of labor.

Agriculture subsidies which is heavily practiced in the Western hemisphere, makes it impossible for the less industrially developed Southern hemisphere peoples to hope to have a comparative advantage in farming, farms and farm products, even though, a great percent of the national economies of the South is agrarian. Developing countries/economies cannot compete in such economic circumstances that are heavily stacked against them.

The usual or ordinary economic principles, if taken as a given, the inhabitants of societies that are mostly agrarian, would do the farming and production of farm products, (raw materials)? which would include, planting, harvesting, storage and exports to the inhabitants of the more industrially advanced Northern/Western hemisphere; who would concentrate in the manufacture of goods and as well as the provision of services related thereto. And globalization and free trade would have achieved its worthiness.

However, two events or incidents in the past several months have clearly, and demonstrably indicated the impossibility of such smooth arrangements or any thinking in that direction.

First it was the fierce resistance to the Chinese by the Americans. The Americans fiercely and vigorously, resisted attempts that were made by the Chinese to acquire a petroleum oil behemoth on American soil, (Unocal Oil Corporation) there were loud protests with screeching tongues and all, by politicians, business magnates etc, and in the end, the Chinese were goaded into withdrawing their multiple billion dollars bids, in favor of an American bidder who had bid several billion dollars less than the Chinese (CNOOC) bidders! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=national+security+adujie&btnG=Google+Search it was botched by pressures emanating from the Americans against the Chinese. The Chinese company is CNOOC and the American company is Unocal Corporation.

The Americans who were opposed to the sale had no scintilla of economic or marketplace arguments whatsoever, but instead, they hinged their opposition on, and in, their so-called national security implications of such a transaction! As they argued that oil, is the engine room of all economies, and by extrapolation, allowing the Chinese to buy, own and control such huge oil prospecting, oil exploration, an oil services company would be contrary to American national interests. In the end, the sale was consummated between two American corporations and it was not merely a business deal or regular market place transaction. It put a lie to the loud American talk about free trade and globalization. The American company doing the selling, exposed its shareholder a loss, in billions of dollars less than what the Chinese had offered in their higher bid.

Again, another opportunity soon presented itself. Another foreign company, the World Port of Dubai, which owns and operates tens of ports in tens of countries worldwide, attempted to acquire about six major sea ports in the United States. And all hell broke loose! Republicans, who are for the most part apostles of globalization, free trade and free markets and the preachers of the general superiority and suzerainty of the principles of supply and demand, were suddenly singing a different tune! Ensuring the death on arrival of the prospective take over certain six American ports by World Ports of Dubai, became one such issues in which Republicans and Democrats, Conservatives and Liberal American politicians could suddenly finds agreement! The Republicans joined the Democrats in fighting President Bush in their insistence that he killed the purely economic deal in the name of national security of America.

Arguments, grandstanding and avalanche proselytizers from both political parties (Republicans and Democrats) assembled to ensure World Port of Dubai’s deal, entered into, in their British subdivision of the company, remained comatose. High profile American politicians were literally jumping over each other to propose federal legislations, state and local legislations to ensure that the deal entered in England, never materialized in the United States. States and local authorities, labor unions opposed it too.

The acquisitions made in England, through WP holding there, would have made take over of the US seaports in question uneventful, the same company and management (WP) own properties in many countries without incidents, and it would have assumed ownership and control of these US ports, as WP has done everywhere else. American political and economic leaders effectively made it an impossible task for WP.
WP Dubai is an Arab entity, those with unbridled biases, bigotry, prejudices, hatred and brazen discriminations, exhibited their xenophobia and camouflaged it all in national security parlance, even though WP has never been found wanting. WP operations have not experienced significant or substantial security lapses in any of its ports. And yet, it was compelled to hands off the American ports, as a result of vehemence to its acquisitions of six American seaports. Some people, in the post September 11 world, equate all Arab persons and companies with terrorism or as purveyors of terror.

The opposition to WP Dubai in the US was surprisingly bipartisan !
In the end, globalization, free market are such excellent ideas when it benefits some, but national security becomes euphemism for expressing superiority complexes and even xenophobia?

Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com
New York, United States

Posted by Administrator at 07:58 AM | Comments (0)

My Mother in-law is in the Trunk: A Response to Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde

by Paul I. Adujie (New York, United States) --- An undiscerning reader of Mrs. Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde’s article, titled “African Mothers-In-Law And The Cycle Of Abuse” will be forgiven if such a reader comes away with the impression, albeit false, the impression created by Folasayo, that, African women are monsters!

Whether such African women are mother in-laws, sister in-laws or aunt in-laws! African women, as a general rule, gladly torture other African women giddily, and gloatingly, just for the mere fact of such other women’s marriage to their sons or brothers. No exceptions!

African women as presented by Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde, (hereinafter referred to as, simply, Folasayo), and if you take Folasayo’s words for it, African mother in-laws are monsters in laws!

And thanks to African men, African women monster in-laws, got the way they are, abuse, torture, brutality and all, tortuously, in a brutally honest way. All African women are victims of abuse from African men, and heck, abuse victims tend to become abusers of others, themselves!

But consider this foregoing statement made in a recent book review in The New York Times, about in-laws and mother in-laws, who incidentally are not Africans, but in connection with the universality of the subject. Dividing the Man From His Mother," the "tug of war between a mother and daughter-in-law over a man is an age-old phenomenon, the stuff of sitcom jokes and Greek tragedy," her take is so fresh and witty one hardly notices the clichis inherent to the subject 'I Married My Mother-In-Law,' edited by Ilena Silverman; A Fine Old Conflict, Review by PAMELA PAUL http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/

And what do we make of all these? Why was Folasayo singularly focused on Nigerian, African mother in-laws? Dr. Phil McGraw just had series of shows about monster in-laws right here in the United States, Dr. Phil did not particularize the evil mother in-laws, but instead dealt with the phenomenon in its universality. http://drphil.com/shows/archive/?date=2006-02

Is it not the case that there are virtues and vices among all humans? Wherever the sun rises and set, and wherever humans live, the human condition tends to exhibit itself!

My mother is an African mother in-law! I was raised with three other siblings we were comprised of two boys and two girls and my experiences growing up and ever since, are night and day compared with the gory, highly emotive melodramatic tale foisted upon us by our gifted embellisher in-chief, Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde!

Let me begin by declaring that I am a male feminist and if Folasayo was a man? I would have called her a male chauvinist pig and misogynist for her offensive generalizations against African women (mother in-laws) I detest Folasayo’s sweeping generalizations regarding African women, of mother in laws, sisters in laws and aunt in laws etc.

The generalizations in her article did not bother to consider the facts, or even possibility that, for every bad African mother, sister or aunt in laws that you made evil through you skillful presentation, there are equal numbers of excellent African mothers, sisters and aunt in laws! If you are an African lady, someday, you will become a mother in-law in the natural course of events, so, we expect Folasayo to catch this pervasive pervading virus that turns all African mother in-laws into monster in-laws?

In reading Folasayo’s piece, you are tempted to conclude that drama is her favorite catch-phrase, as she repeatedly, used drama as a catch-all term for all the hell she claims African mother in-laws unleash at whims!

Drama aptly describes Folasayo’s melodramatic commentaries about all African mother in-laws, Folasayo engaged in very generous generalizations, she, as if factually, described all African women as some sort of monolithic homogenous lot, without differentiation of class, education, refinements, taste or even a scintilla of individuality! According to Folasayo, African mother in-laws are innately evil, all African mother in-law regal in torturing their daughter in-laws, it is something African mother in-laws’ genetic marker! Evilness is in the DNA of all African mother in-laws!

No doubt that there are some obnoxious, cantankerous and vile mother in-laws in America, Asia, Europe and perhaps there are some in Africa as well! But there are bad accountants, bad lawyers and bad writers everywhere too! Why would anyone make African mother in-laws any uniquely bad breed of in-laws among mother in-laws of the world?
Folasayo’s article is replete with hasty broad brush generalizations that would convince an undiscerning reader that African women invented evil and pure wickedness! The stereotype of African mother, sister, and aunt in laws, clearly shows a predilection to degrade things Nigerian, nay African, especially measured by and with New York parameters. Folasayo could not even allow herself to accept that there are Nigerian Languages, full fledged Languages! Folasayo talked only of Dialects, what a very European condescension regarding anything African!

I have friends here in New York, friends, some Nigerians, some African Americans, some Jewish Americans, Indians, Irish and in short, all shades of colors and ethnicities that are American and New York. I have found that their complaints, their pet peeves, their grouse and personal gripes about mother in laws and father in laws, are for the most part actually identical to what is presented by Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde’s tales of woe Nigeriana-Africana.
The truth is that, there are a plethora of complaints and angst about mother in laws; Indeed, it posses a universal quality to them. That means that there is nothing peculiarly Nigeria, nay African, about the charges that have been trumped-up against African women in Folasayo Dele-Ogunrinde’s article. I did not believe it possible for an African woman to attack all African women or all African mother in-laws, the way Folasayo has!

I personally know many Nigerian and other African mother in laws, and that makes me wonder, about the mother in laws for which these generalizations has been fomented

Folasayo’ss article is written as if there is nothing advantageous or beneficially useful in African mother in laws! And I will like to meet her, her mother, and if she has sisters? I volunteer to marry one of them, as a useful social experiment, to enable me understudy her mother, as my in law of course, I will determine if she is an in-law from heaven, or to conduct some empirical analyses upon real data, to determine whether Folasayo’s mother is she like the rest of African mother in-laws such as the ones in her article? Or is that other African mothers are just bad, but not Folasayo’s mother, my mother in-law to be?

It now appears to be the vogue, the popular thing to do, to say African things and Africa are economically, socially and culturally unsustainable, and if Africans and Africa desire progress and development, there is no need to even bother?

My recent experiences indicate a crescendo, or watersheds of movements toward a complete rejection of all scintilla of African anything, as a Nigerian man tells wife not to cook fufu or akpu and craw fish, which he asserts, stinks up the house and his breath, causing him monumental embarrassment in America! Meanwhile Chinese Kimshi is made and sold, right here in America, how do Kimishi, Garlic and other ethnic delicacies smell?

Recently, I attended a seminar organized by the American Jewish Committee, AJC for short, under the of Nigeria in Diaspora Organization (NIDO), during which Nigerians attendees learned the rudiments of political organizations, lobbying for better national image, political, economic engagement, diplomatic representations of national interests through lobbying US Congress, the presidency and other political and economic leaders in the United States. The seminar opened my eyes to how everything we gripe about regarding Nigerians’ apathy to political, economic and diplomatic benefit of Nigerians in Diaspora, to Nigeria, and the benefits which we can confer on Nigeria, remain unappreciated by some Nigerians. Why can’t Nigerians in the Diaspora be to Nigeria, as Jews worldwide are to Israel?

In Jews lobbying efforts etc. it turns out, that in AJC’s 100 years of existence, AJC has just about had every experience possible, in every respects, what we thought was unique, an experience, for Nigerians struggling to get Nigerians in the Diaspora interested, focused and engaged in selfless public service for Nigeria, has also happened to Jews in America, every step of the way, as veterans in political actions for the protection and preservation of Israel and Jews. AJC told Nigerians, don’t sweat it!

Folasayo overplayed her own her in her melodramatic swipes at all African women or African mother in laws, sister in laws and aunt in laws. This is made more embarrassingly so, in her narration of her Nigerian man date incident.
At some point, Mrs. Dele-Ogunrinde appeared pointlessly condescending, such as when she wrote: Her only pride and joy is now going to re-channel all his love and attention to you and she is not going away easy. If he also happens to be her retirement plan as is the case in LOT of African situations, you have to be bridle lest you meddle with the flow of cash. So you see, you’re fighting against lot of odds. Haba Madam!

Does her generalization vary with education of the mother, sister aunt in laws? Does it vary with income?, or was she just writing to inform the world that Africans are poor and needy, with sons as retirement plans and all? What a newsflash-splash she has! I want to be married into Dele-Ogunrinde's family, and foreswear to protect my wife against attacks and torture from my mom and Mrs. Dele-Ogunrinde's mom, African mothers in laws both!
Here below is an excerpt of a recent book review piece in The New York Times regarding mother in-laws.
(There Are Other Mother In-laws) outside Africa
February 5, 2006

'I Married My Mother-In-Law,' edited by Ilena Silverman A Fine Old Conflict Review by PAMELA PAUL http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/05/ Given how callous, scheming, selfish and altogether exasperating in-laws can be, there is little conversational sport more gratifying than badmouthing them. While denouncing family members to the outside world is rife with peril, vilifying in-laws who serve as a kind of proxy family is not only socially accepted, it's encouraged. There's only one catch: the in-laws themselves, and often the spouse, can never get wind of what you're saying. Even in our tell-all age, the only safe way to discuss certain in-laws is when they're dead.

Herein lie the conundrum that Ilena Silverman, an editor at The New York Times Magazine, faced while compiling her anthology, "I Married My Mother-in-Law." When she contacted writers about contributing, "many said they'd love to read a book about in-laws, they just couldn't write about their own." As she explains, relationships with in-laws were "fraught enough; who wanted to ratchet things up by taking it public?"

So it's a considerable feat that Silverman pinned down enough writers and worthy ones at that to assemble an absorbing, often affecting, collection of essays. Though authors like Amy Bloom, who offers a vicious post-mortem on her lesbian partner's parents in "Dead, Thank God," operate at an advantage (divorced writers also have license to savage, and the one pseudonymous writer, in an essay called "My In-Laws Made Me Do It," rips her former in-laws rightly as "not simply eccentric, but bred-in-the-bone cruel"), some of the best writing is more nuanced. Martha McPhee's wistful essay about never meeting her husband's dead parents, Matt Bai's beautifully written "Family Without Stories" and Jonathan Goldstein's hilarious account of his emotionally needy father-in-law are standouts. Tom Junod's contribution about the improbable friendship between his reckless, indulgent parents and his cheap, modest, prudent in-laws also made me laugh aloud.

The book comes complete with a pair of glittery writer-couples. The Harrisons, Colin and Kathryn, deliver strong essays, each dealing with death, though in very different ways. Michael Chabon describes the loss of a father-in-law in an early divorce. And though, as Chabon's wife, Ayelet Waldman, writes in her counterpart, "Dividing the Man From His Mother," the "tug of war between a mother and daughter-in-law over a man is an age-old phenomenon, the stuff of sitcom jokes and Greek tragedy," her take is so fresh and witty one hardly notices the clichis inherent to the subject.

Nonetheless, there's a formulaic diversity to therapeutic anthologies like this one a kind of something-for-everyone-ness, whatever your sociopolitical identity or emotional sore spot. We've got the lesbian daughter-in-law, the interracial couple, the clash of classes. There's the cross-cultural barrier, the political rift, the early misunderstanding since overcome. The ideal in-laws, the terminally ill in-laws, the downright crazies.

Still, Silverman doesn't rely on vinegary screeds, and that makes the book especially worthwhile. Many of the relationships described are affectionate, some even loving. In-laws are, after all, our half-chosen families the source, and often reflection or amplification, of those we love. While Colin Harrison's father lies on his deathbed, Kathryn Harrison writes: "I don't know how much my father-in-law has given me in the years since I married his son. . . . Here's what I do know. I love him, unreservedly."

Pamela Paul is the author, most recently, of "Pornified: How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives, Our Relationships and Our Families."

As you can see from The New York Times piece above, bad mothers-in-laws are bad, whether African, Europeans or Americans are same. Mother in-law is in the trunk or boot! is an American car sticker!

Does anyone know why? It is probably because there are some mother in-laws from hell in America, a clear indication that hellish mother in-laws are not the exclusive preserve of Africans, as some would have the world believe.

When I was married my mother did not bother my American wife... my mother was just happy that I was married! Some mothers would have mentioned the fact that my marriage was childless.... but my mother NEVER made any such reference to her or to me.

My mother would qualify as an African mother in-law... and she does not have any rift with my brother’s wife! My sister in-law and my mother actually frequently conspire against us about a lot of things..... and they jointly harangue me about re-marrying! My sister in-law and my mother ..... are both STRONG in Christ.... when my mother vacations with my sister in-law, I try not to talk to them.... because they do tag-teaming on me..... about why I should serve the LORD and why Marriage is God's will etc.

So, which mother in-laws in Africa is Folasayo talking about.... where is the research or empirical data? In the absence of research, I am relying on my personal experience! Folasayo should be told that it is quite possible for human qualities to be individually idiosyncratic.

All mother in-laws world wide ... are equal, or all mother – in-laws are individuals with individual merits or lack thereof.... read the above generalizations slowly, and you will realize that it is hazardous to accuse African mother in-laws in a sweeping generalizations sorts of manner brought upon African mother in-laws, courtesy of Folasayo, who appears loathe to call Nigerian Languages, Languages! She instead calls Nigerian Languages Dialects!

Folasayo, went overboard in too many instances in her article, for instance, she claimed that African mother in-laws, actually hate potential daughter in-laws before they set eyes on them! As when Folasayo states “those who even before meeting you have their gun barrels loaded!” Isn’t it, the case that there are bad husbands, bad wives, bad daughter in-laws, bad father in laws in every culture? Isn’t it equally the case that there are immature husbands in every culture? Isn’t there a universal precaution to be observed by all and sundry going into holy matrimonies or any meaningful relationships for the long haul?

As a general principle, no mature man or woman should allow anyone to plow over or bulldoze their spouse verbally or physically, no mature and reasonable spouse should tolerate such idiocy, but why would anyone pretend that human foibles and sun rise are limited to Africa?

And why would Folasayo and some other African women in the Diaspora pretend to want the selfish benefit of mother in-laws as babysitters, but careless about corresponding obligations of the wellbeing for mother in-law baby sitters? I take the view that no one can nurture your child better than you, not even mothers of the spouses! You must make your mistakes and learn along, as you raise your child, but heck, my mother I trust more than ten babysitters! Financial costs are not everything in childrearing!

I read Folasayo’s article with consternations as the article was simply another unneeded pile-on, pile-on unto the already large and heavy heap of stereotypes that have been dumped on Africans over extended period of time, African women this time, were take severe beating from the hands of a daughter, not a husband.

Folasayo’s article neglected to inform her readers that there all sorts of negative stereotypes and unedifying pejorative references to mother in-laws in America where Folasayo lives, unedifying references such as ones on car bumper stickers “My mother in-law is in the trunk” or T-Shirt proclaiming similarly offensive sentiments about mother in-laws, and so are some books and television sitcoms on the vileness of some mother in-laws. In the face of all these, why the undue hyperbole and extreme exaggerations by Folasayo, regarding the unthinking wickedness or evil of African mothers, especially the in-laws among them?

Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com

Posted by Administrator at 07:45 AM | Comments (0)

Open Letter to the Management of Federal Polytechnic Bida Niger State: What a Candidate?

by Gimba A. Bida (Bangbara Bida, Niger State, Nigeria) --- Ordinarily one will not be interested in who occupies a position in an establishment, except of course if such a position has an over bearing effect, not only on the day to day running of the institution but also on the product of such an Institution, more so if such product happens to be human resources, that have a long time and multiplier effect on a developing nation like ours that is already be deviled with corruption.

This is the reason why concerned citizens will like a candidate for a Registrar of such an institution like polytechnic to be a person of upright conduct.

The post of a Registrar of an academic institution like Polytechnic is a position that demands a high level of responsibility not only because it is an academic institution, but because that post deals with both the mature minds and developing young generation who are the future leaders of industries of the nation. Hence the Chief Administrator of such an institution must demonstrate a high level of sincerity, equity, justice, honesty and trustworthiness. He must be thoroughly detribalized and focused so that he would be able to carry everybody along. He must have the interest of the institution and regard and respect for his subordinates and not a self-centered person.

In addition to all these the person must be a moral role model, never found wanting in his working career. He must be of a sound academic background with high level of relevance to administration, which must be backed up with administrative refresher courses in order to be able to cope with ever changing and challenging managerial skills.

With these in mind, one would like to look at the credentials of the present acting Registrar of Federal Polytechnic Bida, Niger State, who is aspiring to be the substantial Registrar of the Federal Polytechnic.

The acting Registrar is a 1978 graduate of Geography (B.A), about four decades without additional qualification, irrelevant and expired knowledge. He had earlier attended interviews for the post of Registrar at the Federal Polytechnic, Idah, Kogi State and the Federal Polytechnic, Offa, Kwara State but was found unsuitable.

As a Students Affairs Officer in 1984/85 academic session, he was found to have collected illegal monies from the students (N800.00 per student) who had hostel accommodation, as against N90.00 official accommodation fee without receipt, totaling about N56,000.00. The panel set up to look into the case under the chairmanship of Mr. Koroma, the then Polytechnic Bursar found him guilty of the offence and recommended for his dismissal. However, after a serious lobby by Engr. Oladimeji, the then Deputy Rector, he was not dismissed but suspended for 18 months (11/2 years) before he was recalled.

As if unrepentant, 10 years after, in Academic Affairs Office in 1994/95 academic session, he illegally cleared some students who gained admission into the institution with fake O’level results and caught during verification exercise. This he did by collecting between N5,000.00 and N10,000.00 from each affected student. Some of the students that were illegally cleared include:

(i) Afeikhole Salamatu – 94/02/019 - (Pre-SLT) on 18/7/95
(ii) Udegbunam Patricia – 94/15080 – (ND 1 BS) 16/6/95
(iii) Adakole Onjefu – 94/05/287 (Pre-BS) 18/7/95
(iv) Edile Joseph Anibe – 94/16816 (ND I Elect)

The above named students and a lot of others graduated from the institution with fake results when he was occupying that possition.

In the same session he offered an admission to a student into Pre-Business Studies department on 5th September, 1995 at the end of the semester and deferred it after collecting money from the candidate.

The Acting Registrar was known to have been involved in so many illegal deals such as wrong admissions, especially JAMB admissions including those who did not even sit for JAMB examinations, and was collecting not less than N10, 000.00 per candidate.

As Acting Registrar, he corruptly used his office to issue a promotion letter to his friend without ANAN certificate as against the directive of the Appointments and Promotions Committee.

He defended and suppressed a case of theft by a staff who made away with Polytechnic equipment worth more than eighty-five million naira (N85, 000,000.00).

He used his office to mobilize his girl friend who was not yet due to go on National Youth Service and also issued her original Higher National Diploma Certificate at the NYSC orientation camp, while 1997 grandaunts have not been issued their original Diploma certificates.

Above all the Acting Registrar has no regards and respect for his subordinates; a boss and not a leader with high-handedness. He cannot work with any intelligent staff, because such a staff could not be used as a stooge in order not to interfere with his shoddy deals. He suspects every staff to be dubious because he is one, is it not said “it takes a thief to catch a thief”.

He is highly tribalistic and never cared for anybody or thing unless he has an interest in such a person or thing.

From the foregoing therefore, it is clear that this candidate, current Acting Registrar of the Federal Polytechnic Bida, lacks the qualities of a good leader and administrator, has in the past demonstrated a very corrupt leadership and need an ICPC opium before he can be allowed to even contest for such a sensitive position which he has abused in the past. All that is stated in this letter are not only facts but are documented for any interested person to see with very little effort digging in to the past records of the Polytechnic.

Thank you.

Gimba A. Bida
Bangbara Bida, Niger State

Posted by Administrator at 01:01 AM | Comments (1)

March 27, 2006

A Vote of Thanks by Paul I. Adujie

by Paul I. Adujie (New York, United States) --- For Seminar/Workshop Organized by American Jewish Committee (umbrella for Jewish Organizations) for the benefit of Nigerian Community Leaders in North America Under the Auspices of Nigerian In Diaspora Organization (NIDO)

March 6, 2006


Shalom Chaverim!

It is my distinct pleasure and a great delight to be here.

Through your generosity, you have given me an opportunity to perform a great mitsvah.

I am here among, and with fellow Nigerians, who are the happy beneficiaries and recipients, of your altruism and benevolence.

American Jewish Council has been engaged in the service of humanity for about one hundred years, American Jewish Council has during this period been very active in the advocacy for and in the provision of common good, public good, for both Jews and non-Jews.


It is public knowledge that Jews were actively involved in the formation of Civil Right Organizations in America, established to fight bigotries and hatreds, anti-Semitism and racism etc. The active participation of Jews in the advocacy for civil rights for all, are historical facts that are well known.


We also know the good works of Jewish organizations that have endeared Israel to Americans and the world, Nigerians in the Diaspora will like to play such laudable roles for Nigeria and even all of Africa.


Slavery and the Holocaust are adjudged the worst tragedies and catastrophes in human history. Jews in America have been involved in public enlightenments regarding the issues surrounding bigotry and hate. We Nigerians, here present would like to follow in your giant footsteps in these and other respects.


On a personal level, I have had the opportunity to observe closely, learn and benefit, from Jewish traditions. As a matter of fact, some of my first jobs here in New York were with Jewish Organizations, including Synagogue and Torah Centers on Ocean Parkway and Avenue S, as well as another one on Eastern Parkway and Kingston Avenue.

Thereafter, I was again, employed by the Jewish Board of Family and Children Services which is headquartered at 120 West 57th Street, near Carnegie Hall; The Jewish Board provided a plethora of wonderful services to the Jewish community and all New Yorkers.

At the time, Ms. Diana Torres a member of the minority community here in New York, she was the Human Resources Director, doing the hiring, and being the head of a very diverse workforce at the Jewish Board.
Best practices of diversity, does not get any better than what I saw there.

There were employees of various and every ethnic background. That is saying a lot, especially considering that the Jewish Board is a private community organization!

There were services for the blind, the physically challenged, and those with substance abuse issues or challenges. The Jewish Board provided many, many services to all residents of our great city, New York City, which is an assemblage of countries of the world

While so employed with the Jewish Board, I was exposed to this sense of care for others, among Jews, and I came to observe and recognize Jewish traditions that nurtures and sustains the Jewish experience worldwide.

I particularly admire your sense of community, and I have hoped then, that I will be able to replicate Jewish public spirited works that I experienced first-hand.

I remember writing to the Jewish Board, a note of appreciation, in which I mentioned how I wished, that I could replicate such lofty services and programs, in the Nigerian community, in the African American community, and to all residents of New York city and to all of America, Nigeria or the rest of the world, as is being undertaken by the Jewish Board.

I could not have predicted then, and little did I know then, that I will be taking that step today, and my participation here in this workshop or seminar, are in efforts to garner the knowledge and methods, from veterans of service to the public; That knowledge and methods, that enables Jewish Organizations and community, to have positive impact on many lives of Jews and non-Jews.

I did not know then that this golden opportunity would arise today! And it has!


Now, because of the sundry experiences with your community, particularly, the American Jewish Council for Nigerian community representatives here gathered, I feel like a part of your family, and I feel like we are mispacha.

Nigerians here present, now have the knowledge and support of your organization, to provide social services to the Nigerian community here in North America.

American Jewish Council has, an established tradition of doing public good for common good; Nigerians here have during this seminar or workshop, benefited from YOUR wealth of knowledge and experience

And we promise you that we will pass the tradition along between ourselves and to future generations of Nigerians and others.

You have unleashed a good thing. You are creating international understanding, which is the basis for world peace. Your good works are weapons, more powerful than weapons of mass destruction.

I urge Nigerians and Jews worldwide, (but particularly, Nigerians and Jews) in this gathering, I urge you to become engaged in the Jewish tradition of public spirited works for common good, works and workers that never asks for personal benefits. Works and workers that never require us to ask the question, what is in it for me?

And to our host in particular, we promise you, that we will replicate your good deeds in the pursuit of a better New York City, a better America, and indeed, a better world for all.

To the fellow Nigerians who have participated in these events, I say congratulations! And to our Jewish friends, I say, Mazel-Tovfor a job well done! Keep up the good works!


LeChaim (to life)

On behalf of Nigeria, on behalf of our peoples (Jews and Nigerians that is) Todah Rabah! (I thank you very much.)

_____________________
Additional note: Please note that the seminar was attended by Nigerians from all corners of the United States, Canada and Brazil

Posted by Administrator at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)

Obasanjo's Earth-Shattering Achievements: 1999-2006

by SpinCity Spinoza --- If you want to know the health of an entire nation, you do not go to the nation's psychiatric wards or to its hospitals. Instead, you count the number of babies born in a particular period, usually in one year. Then you count the number of those babies that die within the same year.

This is how infant mortality rate is measured. Infant mortality rate gives the overall health of a nation. Has Nigeria improved significantly in her overall health under your King Messiah?

GDP Per Capita is also an important measure. It tells you how much each individual in a nation would have if all the values produced in the economy are totaled and divided among the entire population. How did your OBJ perform in improving the GDP Per Capita under the increasing oil prices?

A dead man or woman has no freedom to enjoy, no home and car as properties. Life must first exist for one to enjoy liberty of expression or liberty of education. Life expectancy is very important for human beings because if you are dead nothing else matters. Has Nigeria gone backward or forward under King God of Yoruba Land in life expectancy and why?

These are serious quantifiable questions!!! Either you have what it takes to produce results or you don't. If you do, show us how and where. If you don't, then stop deceiving yourselves and go back to your "intellectual" vacuum in your own corner of the Nigeria jungles of retards and bastards.

Source: CIA World Factbook 2000-2005

By SpinCity Spinoza

Posted by Administrator at 05:03 AM | Comments (0)

Census 2006 Counts some out of Lagos, Again

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- On my way back to Nigeria some years ago, I was advised by a lady that I would not find a civilized person living in Lagos. Since I was hired by the Federal Government, I might not have a choice over my station. Luckily, I was stationed in Lagos.

On my visit to Campus Square, my old neighborhood, one of our uncles there told me if I walk from Tokunbo Street to Lafiaji, nobody would know me even if I told them my name. Can you imagine going unrecognized in your village? The fact is Lagos has changed for the worse. It simply can not handle the number of people trooping into the City.

One can easily be a good Nigerian and a dedicated Lagosian just as one can come from any place in Nigeria and be a good Nigerian. Nobody that has lived in Lagos in the fifties or sixties would go there today and not feel sorry for a fallen City. Yet I hear about how much others have contributed to Lagos. They live there, have children there, build their houses there, established businesses and pay taxes there. As soon as there is a Muslim or Christian or Ethnic festival, they vamoosed. That is the only time I can recognize the old Broad Street, and Nnamdi Azikiwe Street. Martins Street is so congested, it flows into side Streets. I could not even locate the tombstone of my great grand Father moved to Ita Akanni from Martins Street because it has been crowded over by the market.

In spite of the announcement by the President and the Governor of Lagos State that people should be counted where they live, Lagos has been deserted again. The Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Ibibio, Kanuri, Fulani and many more have taken to their heels back to their State of origin. Why have you forsaken Lagos you claim to love so much? Are you coming back to run for office in the same State you turn your back on?

Actually, Many Lagosians claim they love it when everyone leaves hoping they will not come back again. It is the only time Lagosians can breathe some fresh air. I was surprised that Tinubu did not leave. At one point, the Governor, the Chief Justice, the Head of Service were not from Lagos. As soon as higher political offices open up in their States, they desert Lagos and run home. Where can Lagosians go? Oh, Jakande, a bona fide Lagosian who claimed he is Tapa from Kwara because of politics. Well, so was the mother of Shango, Oba Koso a Yoruba King known all over Africa. Aiye gba Tapa, o kole Igunnu. Out of complacency in Oshodi Lagos, they established a masquerade.

I have decided to ask my brothers from Onitsha, the Yoruba-Igbo to make some land available to some of us to build. The same will be asked of my Hausa-Fulani brothers in Sokoto. If that fails, I will have to petition both the Obi of Onisha and the Sardauna of Sokoto. It has got to the stage where some of us can not afford to buy or build houses in Lagos. In case you are wondering what happened to all our land in Lagos, I will ask you to please let our dead fathers and uncles rest in peace. They sold houses to enjoy fine wine and women and they hardly worked. We have rained enough abuses on them. One of my uncles sold so much houses and land; he sold the one he was living in!

We have to be careful about how we now lease and rent to avoid any form of discrimination against fellow Nigerians. A few Omo Eko were raining curses at those who sold or lease those houses out. One of my sisters was on a visit listening to us. As I was laughing at the fools who gave away family houses, she turned to me and asked me if I know that the first floor of our family house at Enu Owa in Isale Eko had been leased out. My laughter at the fools ended immediately. The joke was on me.

Greed can kill some Lagosians. When people started leasing houses, still better than selling, they would only lease to the highest bidders. So traders from outside realizing this, would bid very high and for three or five years. The problem was that it would be the last money collected for a long time. When they go home for census, on vacations or ceremonies, they lock up without paying rent or lease.

The only way to get the house back was through lengthen litigations. Now that many owners realize this, they stopped their greed and lease or rent to reputable people with surety. This created a charge of discrimination. When the allegation was looked into, Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa landlords refused to rent to Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa that are opportunists to avoid problems. So it was not one Ethnic group against another.

I came to realize what a girl was telling me one day at the library. She told me she is a Lagosian, but I know her name is not from Lagos. So I told her to mention her compound in Lagos. She said it was in Isale Eko. I later realized that she could have been born in one of those compounds rented or leased out. I grew up with so many Nigerians who adopted the name of the compound they were born. Some of them know no other place but Lagos and marry into Lagos families. They will be counted during census and can hold any position. Those with European and Arabic names like ours know that even if we marry into that culture, we can never be fully assimilated as in most African cultures. Yoruba will even accept the Tokunbo and Omowale from overseas.

There is a friend of mine who starts his introductory greetings to me with: Omo Eko living under Carter Bridge, selling houses to eat, too lazy to work, fine dressing and so much pride. Please do not say that to me, this is my close friend. I will not tell you how I greet him back. The next minute, he wants me to sell him land if there is any left. He was the same one I met in school in our first year in college. He wondered aloud what Omo Eko was doing in the University when I could be driving a Mustang.

Some people have told me they do not live in Lagos but live in Lagos State, so Census should not matter to me since many Lagosians discriminate against those who live across Carter Bridge. That is true because I remember people were very upset that University was built in a swap at Akoka with all the land in Lagos. But all that changed when we were forced to move to Surulere, New Lagos. Now I have cousins who live at Alagbado Okokomaiko, Ipaja, Aboru, Ijaije, Opeilu, Meiran and other strange names in those days. Yes, that is Lagos now. My friend’s daughter asked the Dad how I can be a Lagosian and do not know all those places. As a kid, it took me a while to realize that Iga and Ibeshe were actually Towns in the West, I thought they were slang, please forgive my ignorance.

The problem is Lagos can not plan for the people that are not counted. If ten people are counted during census, there is no way the State can accommodate 100. It means that the resources meant for ten will be utilized by a 100. It is the reverse where people fled to. They will inflate the number of people there. That way people in those areas will be enjoying planning meant for more people than are actually there. This may be the reason we have many local governments in Nigeria without people. They all live in Lagos!

We have to find solution to this problem. There are many things we can do. The most obvious will be to block all the roads into Lagos and tell them to go back to where they were counted. That will be crude and Lagosians are not crude.

Many people brag that they pay a great deal of taxes in Lagos. It may not be unreasonable to tell them to show receipt of those taxes before they are allowed back into Lagos. That will mean we have to create another group of bribe takers who will not deliver the money into the State coffer.

The problem with taxes in Nigeria as a whole is that people only pay when they need services from the Government. Unfortunately, poor people do not get Government services, only rich people ask for Government services for their houses, cars or permits to export. Even then, there are fake receipts and fake tax collectors.

Another idea is what I will call exchange program. For every person that comes into Lagos. The State s/he comes from must take a Lagosian who would like to settle there. Well, talking about One Nigeria. That will be a way to go. Everyone born in Lagos must take a Yoruba name or be adopted into one of the Lagos family. The same goes for those who are exchanged into Borno or Aba, they must take names there. That is what many of us did outside Nigeria to “blend” in. Did we?

If none of the above works, Lagos must secede from the rest of the Country and join with Calabar that used to be the capital or Port Harcourt, another cosmopolitan City. What about Abuja, Jos or Enugu?

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
faroukomartins@netscape.net

Posted by Administrator at 04:49 AM | Comments (0)

President Obasanjo might not Attain the Outright Victory that he Hopes for

by D. Akinsanya Juliuson (Great Britain) --- It's so easy to be strong when other people are giving us their support. When everyone agrees with our point of view, when we are being praised and applauded for our actions, when we feel sure that our course of action is correct, we can march bravely ahead in spirit of determination.

It's not so easy though, when we feel vulnerable, unsure of ourselves and doubtful of our ability to make an accurate judgement. President Obasanjo can and must be strong about what he sees as important, but is he doing the right thing now? All that any of us ever want to do is ‘the right thing'. Given that such a noble aspiration runs through the heart of every human – and given, too, that the right thing is surely what we were placed here to do, we'd think our world be full to bursting point with ‘right things'. Where, then, do all those wrongs come from? Presumably, from our propensity to think that wrong things are right things – vice versa. If our President really wants to do the right thing, now, he should be open to the idea that he could be doing the wrong thing. Like all great powers, the power of creativity can be a tremendous force for good – or for bad, depending on how it is applied. Artists, musicians and writers are by no means the only people who apply imagination constructively.

We can all cook up false fears, silly conflicts and irrelevant problems. I'm urging Nigerian politicians to cast some caution to the wind and be careful what they allow themselves to create and develop now. I also advise President Obasanjo not to put himself in a situation where he could lose everything. He is not only being highly ambitious, he is upsetting people who don't agree with his view of what needs to happen. He is refusing to be distracted from a goal that he has set. The President is determined to reach it, regardless of who disapproves. He is right to believe that something is possible, because it is. The question now is not,' Will he attain his target?' He might. The question is, quite how tactfully will he do it? How are things going to turn out? Will they go one way – or another? Will President Obasanjo gain what he hopes to gain? Or will he, in the process of attempting to succeed, lose something that is precious to him? The answer is,' the result might not be as clear cut as he wants it to be.' He might not attain an outright victory that brings all he hopes for. But if he does what is right and appropriate, he will get a result that is fair and just.

Mr President should let that be encouraging enough now to do the right thing in the interest of Nigerians that are suffering and smiling. He should avoid the use of coercive diplomacy; allow peace into his life and the lives of others. Nigerians want a solution – and a resolution. This generation want a convincing, conclusive answer to a pressing question. We want to come to an arrangement and start a brand new regime. Nigerians are tired of the way in which things are just trundling on in the same old unsatisfactory way. Did I say tired? A much stronger word is probably more appropriate. Yet there's not much point in dwelling on the strength or intensity of what Nigerians feel right now. That's neither going to speed up change nor is a belligerent attitude. But we do have a choice. For now we will keep on talking. Even if nobody seems to be listening to us, we will be heard in the end, that I'm very sure of.

PRESIDENT OBASANJO CAN STABILISE A SITUATION NOW OR STIR IT UP
Many would argue that tyrants, corrupt governors and other abusers of power and authority are not leaders at all- at least not the word is currently used. This assumption is dangerously naïve. Bad leadership compels us to see leadership in its entirety. The dark side of leadership – from rigidity and callousness to corruption and cruelty – is not an aberration. Rather bad leadership is as ubiquitous as it is insidious – and so must be more carefully examined and better understood. Bad leadership makes it clear that we need to face the dark side in order to become better leaders and followers ourselves. Many disasters are preceded by clear warning signals that leaders either miss or purposely ignore. There is always a systematic framework that leaders can use to recognize and prioritise brewing disasters and mobilize their institutions or governments to prevent them. I am not here to highlight the phenomenon that holds grave consequences – But, I'm challenging our leaders to always find the courage to act before it's too late. People who are in the wrong never say so! On the contrary, they loudly proclaim themselves to be in the right. If they cannot get away with pretending that no mistake has been made, they'll turn their energy towards the task of blaming someone else. What is even more ironic is that there are other people who, despite being in the right, feel too shy – unnecessarily guilty to defend themselves. I strongly believe the future will bring proof of how wise they've been – and how well they've chosen. Right now, we can make a kind choice or continue with the harsh one.

Whether it's for a child or an adult, let's do what is nicest. President Obasanjo can stabilise a situation in our country now or he can stir it up. With all due respect, he is quite entitled to take either course of action as long as he understands what he is doing. What he doesn't want is to pick a route that seems to lead in one direction, only to find that it takes him somewhere else. Some of the political disasters currently parading themselves as the makers of heaven and earth, without the tools of parliamentary diplomacy, like to think of themselves as reasonable sort of souls. I am to be honest not suggesting that this is not so. Sometimes though, their actions are slightly less reasonable than their words. They are very good at explanations. They can make almost any wild course of action sound sensible and well thought through. But just between you and I, I have to ask, is their current strategy in danger of causing them to go just a little too far? Not everything in life has to be sensible though. Let's just imagine what people must have said to the Creator of heaven and earth when He first announced plans for a nation such as our blessed country. That I'm sure is going to take us ages. And to be honest, what on earth is the damn point? And the Most High's accounts department would have gone ballistic,' All those trees, Natural Resources etc? ‘We can't afford any of them! But something somewhere had faith in Nigeria; our country was worth the effort and that we much always appreciate.

OUR LEADERS HAVE FAILED NOT AT CREATING A VISION BUT AT IMPLEMENTING IT

We are entering special territory now. Let's think of ourselves as a traveler in a foreign land ‘called democracy', and adapt to the different culture. The words we might normally use will mean nothing here. The gestures we may feel inclined to make will carry no weight. Our money won't help us either. They use another currency entirely in this place – where cheap things are costly and vice-versa. Only one thing remains the same, ‘Sincerity'. This land where honesty and simplicity reign supreme, we need to summon those qualities and we'll get everything we need in addition to the fruits of democracy. Democracy is like any other mutual relationship - what you've got to do is to work at it. The success of any relationship turns on the spirit in which it is conducted, and not on the performance of its minimum obligations. And the relationship between Government and the people also turns on obligations. For its part, the Government is determined to increase the rights of people in their relation to the State itself. Many Nigerian presidents have failed not at creating a vision but at implementing it. In our system, compromise, inclusion, and some tolerance of dissenting views are essential to developing a practical pathway to success.

As words, tolerance and civility carry a certain semantic baggage, the product of use and sometimes misuse. As is often the case, the best definition is a clear statement of what the word does not mean. It must be clear that tolerance is not a surrender of conviction. Tolerance does not require one to sacrifice personal ideals or water down beliefs to a toothless 'least common denominator. To be tolerant is by no means the same thing as to believe that any proposition is as true as any other. Nigerian Constitution does not reduce tolerance to some form of moral equivalence, to degrade the truth of things. At its best, tolerance promotes a marketplace of ideas where diverse viewpoints collide to create a higher level of understanding. If we can listen to each other with humility, the positive—almost sacred—accomplishments and qualities of the Nigerian experience can enrich and fortify us to live the fullness of the Nigerian dream. Other people and nations have their ideas about what we should be doing, where we should be heading and who should be leading us now. We though, have our own. Or, at least, it is to be hoped that we do. It is fine to feel inspired to make compromises on behalf of other people but it's dreadful to feel obliged to do this. The political, social and emotional pressure that Nigerians are under now should be not so much resisted as addressed. We need to re-educate those who seem to think that we (Nigerians) ought to be at their beck and call. By doing this, we will see that, a little explanation goes a long way sometimes. We might not realize it but Nigerians are remarkably well equipped and blessed. Among the resources we take for granted are some exceptional assets – ones that other people and nations would dearly love to have at their disposal. Admittedly, if we are unable to use these to our advantage, there's nothing so enviable about our situation and us. However, we can now. It's time to take an inventory of our opportunities and then start seizing the best of these. Let's never mind what's not possible, let's look at what is FEASIBLE….and our tomorrow will yet prove immensely rewarding.

IS IT TRUE THAT HEAVENS HELP THOSE WHO HELP THEMSELVES?

Few people go to law school. Of those, few are called to the bar. Even less of these rare beings become elevated to the judiciary. And yet…we are all judges. We all keep, in our back pockets, a little olde worlde wig, a potable gavel and a pair of spectacles. Several times a day in our imagination, we don the appropriate apparel and pass judgement on our fellow humans. Nobody stops us. Everyone else is too busy playing the same game. We (Nigerians) need to watch out now for many convictions based on wildly insufficient evidence. Some people know how to lay down the law. They also get a kick out of doing things by the book. So much so that sometimes, even when there really is no book to do things by, they invent one. They cite rules that have not actually been passed.

Nigerians are not such a stickler for protocol. Indeed, we can be and what about our actors? Don't they do much the same thing; day after day, week after week? Some of us though, are not actors, so we don't have to live other people's lives without having to pay the price. If actors are appearing in a long-running play, they will speak precisely the same lines whilst making identical gestures. Throughout the run of the show, additional nuances in the script will be discovered. Even the writers may be surprised by what they later realise were the true depth of their words. Nigerians, I believe are not now stuck in any kind of rut. Nor are we going round in circles like our politicians. Nigerians are just getting ready to make an enormous, amazing breakthrough that's long overdue. It's so funny that, whenever we play it too safe, we sell ourselves short. We end up settling for the tried and tested, when we could be embarrassing the mixed magic of the glorious unknown. Whilst the opposite also applies – and if we dance too close to the edge for too long, we might fall over it. There are times though, when it's wiser to take a risk than to wallow in the mud of mundanity.

However, is it true that, Heavens help those who help themselves? Well, I believe it rather depends on what they happen to be helping themselves to. It's not that the Heavens discriminate, they really don't judge. But if people are helping themselves to the things that aren't so good for them, the Heavens can't help them. Or can they do much for those who are doing little or nothing. How exactly do we help ourselves now? By looking to see how the Most High is trying to help us. But should we go out of our ways to give others especially poor Nigerians and those children a tough time? Some people seem to think so. They argue that life is often sad and stressful. On that basis, we may as well help prepare our offspring for their own inevitable brush with difficulty and disappointment. On the other hand, we can all do what is within our power to create a comfortable, cosseted environment in the hope that this will give them a happy memory to refer back to in later life. I believe it's not too late for us to start doing what pleases God and then, Heavens will be too pleased to help us.

D. Akinsanya Juliuson

Diplomacy Practitioner and Specialist Investigator

Posted by Administrator at 04:33 AM | Comments (0)

Our Hedonist Leaders Lack Local Voters' Desired Qualities

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- Nigeria has been blessed with local populist leaders displaying impeccable qualities that can rule any country in the world but they have failed to win national elections. We end up with National leaders in variance with our desire who sometimes appoint our local leaders.

If all politics are local, it must not have taken almost the end of term for Appeal Court to confirm Peter Obi as the Governor in Anambra. There are many local heroes that you would vote for like Peter Obi in Nigeria and that have never made it to the center.

These unknowns were very much like Aminu Kano, Michael Imoudu, Udo Akpabio, Sam Mbakwe, Adelabu Adegoke. While they did not occupy the center stage, they were heroes that were respected in their chosen areas worthy of their causes. This is not about their wives, children in Abuja, Houston, Kent, or Cairo. It is not about Peter Obi per se or leaders that have been written about too many times. It is about local heroes. The way to understand why these patriots never became the ruler of Nigeria is to look at someone in your village, a local hero as Aminu Kano but undiscovered. How can they lead Nigeria?

Their impacts are better felt only at the local levels throughout Nigeria. The difference in US or Britain is that local leaders in those countries gain local prominence that propel them into center stage where they have been able to use their program for the benefit of the majority of the population. Their politics is local, with the Federal interest. Tafawa Balewa apart, our appointed leaders compete with local heroes, displaying Federal might.

Many of those who made it to National level anywhere else contested locally but could not take populist idea for granted as shown by Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan debate. Those who thought Mondale won and would win the election were wrong, it wasn’t him they wanted. The same could be said between the debate of Al Gore and Baby Bush. When Harold Wilson left as Prime Minister of Britain, some of those who desire someone like him later got Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher. Throughout these reigns, the populist whose program could have benefited the poor and the down trodden, lost elections. Petroiska and the fruit of glasnost failed the populist in Russia.

There are certain amount of self righteousness, arrogance and complacency on the part of the populist that they can appeal to the basic instinct of fairness of their people and just win elections as in Western Nigeria in 2003 or Lagos State with the election of Otedola. They ignored other factors that were also important thinking they could take us for granted with populist label. In Nigeria most people will tell you that they want a good leader, not necessarily their ethnicity that has not benefited them. Sure right!

One factor that is very common amongst conservative is symbol of nouveau riche. They dangle it with the hope that each and everyone can attain it if they try. They also preach prosperity by displaying their heavy weights that had made it. Who no wish for better days? Indeed, many Nigerians will tell you frankly that if they get there, they will chop.

Whether we accept it or not, hedonism is an intrinsic part of us, a doctrine of Aristippus that pleasure or happiness is the best thing that ever happens to man. John Milton exploration of the means and ways of its attainment has been questioned even amongst Yoruba whose philosophy I am more familiar with that predated foreign philosophers we quote. Simply put, the means does not justify the end. So when politicians display their own hedonism, we buy into it without thinking about if it will last us until the day after.

There was this story about Aminu Kano. He was offered a generator in his modest house. He said he did not like the noise, so they offered him one without noise. He asked them if everyone in his neighborhood would get one, if not he did not want any. The fact is he never wanted it in the first place. He did not want to live in comfort in the midst of poverty. His followers and admirers could have bought him off to a luxurious life. In case some of you may not know, there are houses in Nigeria where once you step in, forget you are in a slum until you step out again. You would think you are in Potomac, where those rich Nigerians we envy buy houses in US.

The same story can be told of Michael Imoudu who suffered physical abuse in and out of jails while leading the labor movement or Adelabu, a lawyer who prefer the company of the so called “illiterate”. Sam Mbakwe was labeled a crying Governor because of his heart felt message of his people. We have even forgotten Ibang Udo Akpabio, a prominent man who went to the same Lincoln University with Azikiwe. None of them were propelled to the Country leadership. Do they lack the appeal of the heavy weights that sunk Nigeria because they are populist, not hedonists?

In the defense of conservatives, they appeal to orderliness, just and normal society free of aberration. They ask for status quo. While their opponents get too tolerant of permissive society, they hold on and warn of Sodom and Gomorrah. We all know the role the fear of homosexuals in Ohio African Churches played in 2004 Presidential election in the US.

We are now glorifying the return of military men and colonial masters! In the case of the military men, they established law and order which the society needs to function. We missed the colonial days where planning and sanitation reigned. It seems some have given up on themselves, lost their confidence and would function better if we were ordered like zombies. We still have a vigorous press that are not maimed and killed at will militarily, but still muzzled. At least activists live in, and travel into the Country.

No matter what, justice delayed is justice denied; Uba is happy, but local winner Obi lost valuable time. We can not be proud of the way our courts of law are being disrespected and its ruling ignored or intentionally misinterpreted, laying a very bad precedent for future democracy in our Country that may come back and hunt this Administration. The same way its precedent decrees were used against it in the past. Every dog has its day.

This attraction of the conservative in their feverish principle of what they believe in, not necessarily what they practice has its faults. We have the case of religious schools that discriminate against certain segment of the society. Yet, we are all children of God. There are countries that proclaim one religion but are ready to invade other countries with their religion. There are those who prescribe castration for rapist only to find out they take the wife of followers and sodomize children. By their belief and devotion, no one questions their hypocrisy and lacks of populist ideas but they espouse conservative values we love.

It is with the same passion they win elections. They know their goals and make calculated plans of how to achieve it, then, worry about the consequences later. This is what we have in Nigeria. I have been told since the seventies that Nigeria will never elect a progressive government. A progressive government may flourish at the State or regional level but not at the center. All it takes are the display of wealth of the party members, expensive gifts and promises during the election and if any of these do not work, the use of the Supreme Court as in the US, or outright rigging. They overshadow local heroes.

Religion is meant to educate, civilize and instill the fear of God in us; so that we can be kind to and love one another. It has been hijacked as instrument of war in the name of crusade and jihad by those seeking superiority complex. They clad themselves in religious robes, cassock, military uniforms only to find out with time that they are hedonists worse than those they replaced.

Communication across our Country is much easier now than it has ever been. We have educated people in any language, religion or cultures all over Nigeria. We have discussed these problems as we should in the newspapers and on the internet. It is about time we discuss solutions. How can we transfer our desire to our leaders so that local ideas can be reflected in the decision making of our Country? Start village and grassroots discussion.

Some years ago, while engaged in one of that academic diarrhea of the mouth, one of my cousins asked me if those at home in Nigeria were better than me. This was in the days we had a burden of guilt if we did not go home as soon as we finished school. My own guilt never rested until I got on the soil and started working.

Alas! Situation has changed. People do not say, come back home before you kill your mother anymore. They ask you to get them out of here. When you are at home and it gets to a point where you start complaining about the bags of gari, rice, beans and corn flour being depleted too fast, which you never did before. They know it is time to go back and make money overseas, if you still have the citizenship you obtained to get certain grants, scholarships for school or for certain jobs. Today some dangle citizenship to inform us they have pledged to take up arms against Nigeria. What else would they do?

As long as we go on generating conversations about our views and misconceptions and start looking for ways to solve it, we may start propelling local political heroes who would do what most of us wanted instead of taking care of their hedonistic values. Nigerians are now sponsoring politicians from overseas to go home and reflect their views. Some of them get elected and some of them come back empty. If we do not want to get into politics personally, we can make our views and ideas known in the villages and our neighborhoods. Someone may be motivated to run and express those ideas.

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
faroukomartins@netscape.net

Posted by Administrator at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)

Two Nigerians Apart Naturally

by Peter Opara (Boston, Massachussettes)--- The following articles caught my attention recently - Farouk Martins’ – “No Single Ethnic Group Can and Will Carry Nigeria,” and Babayola Toungo’s - “Confederation Is It!”

Let me here discuss the articles and may be direct or redirect the authors, as the case may be, relative to the thrust of their articles.

Toungo’s article was remarkable for its exclamation. “Confederation is it!” It seems an epiphany of sorts on the part of Toungo, after a reflection, particularly on what has become of his once proud north under the staid, benevolent Sir Ahmadou Bello.

Toungo became attracted to the idea of confederate Nigeria, if only as a way to regain his once proud north. However, how rooted is Toungo’s attraction to confederacy is the question, as it seems that Hon. M.T. Mbu’s reference to the north, as “arrogant”, according to Toungo, spurred Toungo’s attraction to confederacy – even if partially so. But Toungo and the rest northerners should have noted long before now the opposite of confederation – which I shall touch later in this piece - has been the bane of the north in particular and Nigeria as a whole.

Groups and/or individuals work best in their respective best interest, and on this, the nations trapped in Lugard’s cage cannot be exception.

For those still interested in Nigeria as an entity that ought not be restructured, even liquidated, social or political arrangements to remedy it then ought to be driven by realism, not emotion. Mere reference such as attributed to Hon. Mbu, must not drive any arrangement that has any chance of remedying Nigeria and/or the diverse nation tribes trapped in it. This is to say that not only do I fancy Toungo’s attraction to confederation, I deem it a right-headed attraction to which Toungo must hold fast and for which he must recruit converts in his neck of the wood.

It is in order at this point to mention that “perestroika”, a Soviet dictum popularized by the indefatigable Mikhail Gorbachev, has been muted often and severally in the north – a most unlikely place for such musing. I applaud those sons and daughters of the north who see the need for perestroika – restructure(ing) at least of what their revered leader Sir Bello rightly referred to as “mistake”. Why would not sane people think of fundamental remedy of a “mistake” or really doing away with a “mistake”? Why?

It is my feeling that Nigerian nations enjoyed some measure of confederacy or autonomy in my childhood days. A sense of Nigeria, as a federation prevailed then, one might say. The times of proud north of Nigeria, the times of proud west of Nigeria, the times of proud east of Nigeria, were times when the peoples and their regions exercised however much autonomy or independence in the management of their affairs.

How did that all change?

Toungo, my friend will have to inquire to know, what, other than selfish acts or self-serving acts of beneficiaries of Sir Bello’s benevolence, were responsible for the reversal of northern fortunes and pride, and that of the rest regions of Nigeria for that matter.

To that, I will suggest to Toungo to think public policy. Think embezzled public policy of the year 1966. Think public policy of that year that northern leaders rose against overwhelmingly, only to turn around to embrace, implement and sustain to this day. Think public policy that was partly or solely responsible for the murder of General Aguiyi Ironsi. Think public policy that was sabotaged by its detractors to ignite the fire of Igbo phobia especially in the north.

Toungo, think “Unitary System” as propounded then by the government of General Ironsi. Think “Unitary System” which called for no more than closer relationship of the regions of Nigeria then, a kind of close working together in the manner of regional “harmonization” as in today’s Nigerian parlance. Think “Unitary System” that was branded “Igbo control” plan, Toungo.

“Unitary System” governance is about strong center, such as exists in Nigeria today – indeed since the murder of General Ironsi exactly 40 years ago this year. Neither General Ironsi nor any Igbo for that matter thought beyond regional harmony in Nigeria, for the sake of peace and progress. That is to say, some saw a system of strong center, as means to something other than regional harmony. Evidence exists today to bear out this theory/proposition.

The unspoken irony then and now remains that the north rose against the supposed total Igbo control of Nigeria designs via “Unitary System”, only to turn around to covet the same total control of Nigeria plan – Unitary System.

With General Ironsi murdered by his mainly trusted northern aides, the north ran with “Unitary System” of governance policy that reposed all powers of state and federal at the center such as exists in Nigeria today, staunchly defended by one like Obasanjo, a premier northern pupil.

That in effect, Toungo my friend was the end of quasi-autonomy that the regions hitherto enjoyed – including northern Nigeria. Why the north embraced, sustained and maintained a policy that they initially revolted against, a policy that stunted and eventually vaporized the groundnut pyramids is for you, Toungo, to find out. Toungo, find, as believed by many, if Britain had something to do with nudging and encouraging northern leaders then to covet Unitary System against which they had risen earlier.

Do not forget, Toungo, that confederacy for Nigeria was also the position of Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu when it became clear even to the blind that things were no longer at ease in Nigeria. Even Yakubu Gowon himself the leader of Nigeria then gave moral reference to total break-up of Nigeria thus – “The basis for Nigerian unity does not exist”.

You will have to find out, Toungo, why a few months later, the same Gowon led an armed charge against Odumegwu-Ojukwu and his Igbo people with the motto – “To Keep Nigeria One Is A Task that Must Be Done”. Gowon made a categorical, unequivocal statement that – “The basis for Nigerian unity does not exist”, only to reverse himself a few days later.

If you dug a little deeper, Toungo, and if your elders will be candid with you, you should be able to nail the beginning of the end of the entity Sir Bello referred to as “the Mistake of 1914”. That for your information – pardon me for I don’t know how old you are – is Nigeria, a creation of a British “vagabond” Lugard, for the benefit of his Queen and his country – Britain.

Now our friend Farouk Martins wants and expects all ethnic groups - rather nations - to carry Nigeria. “Nigeria has to be carried by each and every ethnic group in our country for the sake of Africa, for the sake of blacks in the world” – Farouk exhorted. It does not seem to matter to Farouk or he does not countenance the fact that some of the ethnic groups – the nations that comprise Lugard’s cage are no more willing to shoulder the burden of the “Mistake of 1914” for themselves, talk less shouldering same “for the sake of Africa and for the sake of blacks in the world”.

“A tree cannot make a forest”, Farouk implored. “Nigeria {needs} unity on earth, not in heaven”, Farouk wrote in yet another piece, wherein also he asked – “If Nigeria cannot save itself, how can it save the black world?”

Toungo should see how Farouk negates his desire for economic emancipation of his once proud north. The north must help carry Nigeria “for the sake of the black world and for the sake of Africa”. The North will have to forgo the desire to resurrect groundnut pyramids, hides and skin of yesteryears that made its citizens proud, all for the sake of Africa and the black world.

There goes your confederacy, Toungo. You must give up this dreams that could be basis for resuscitation of northern pride and progress of the past for if you do not, Africa will loose, the black world will loose.

Farouk may tell us what Africa, the black world stand to loose should Toungo’s confederacy come about. Some of us should have known, if indeed Nigeria as an entity has imparted any lessons to Africa and the black world even of late, such that certain debilitating ripples shall occur in the black world should Nigeria cripple or collapse or liquidate.

If you follow my drift, confederacy Toungo desires will ensure to leave it up to the north to decide which comes first, to save the north or to save Africa or to save the blacks in the world. In other words, the north will set its priorities, as it deems proper. But to borrow Farouk’s question to Nigeria and Nigerians, I suppose – “If Nigeria cannot save itself”, as is demonstrably evident, “how can it be expected to save the black world?” All and sundry await your answer, Farouk, since you seem to have chosen to ride willing horses – peoples of Nigerian nations – to death – by this Nigeria-save-Africa-save-blacks-of-the- world exhortations.

Now, the yardstick for measuring a critical balance that one may assume Nigeria plays in the black world might be what happens to a country like Ghana, should Nigeria cease to be. On what basis shall a country like Ghana miss Nigeria? On what basis shall Cameroon miss Nigeria? On what basis shall African-Americans or Afro-Caribbean miss Nigeria? These questions are to be addressed and answered, if one is to be convinced that Lugard’s cage – Nigeria is to be carried or shouldered at all cost, as Farouk seems to suggest, for the sake of Africa and the black world.

Then one pauses, ponders and asks - Was it not Ghana, a smaller neighbor to “mighty” Nigeria, that toiled to keep “mighty” Nigeria together – when the “Mistake”, the “geographical expression” the “Contraption” was about to unglue – nearly 40 years ago? I am talking about Aburi deliberation in 1967, chaired by Ghana’s General Ankrah.

Not long after the Ghana deliberations, as Nigeria remained a sickly, teething and crawling baby, Africa, the black world and the world at large watched with baffled admiration as a young nation – Biafra bubbled up where Nigeria once stood.

In fact it was at the Ghana organized and chaired deliberations that Odumegwu-Ojukwu muted the idea that Nigerians must move apart for the sake of peace – in effect Toungo’s confederacy. That was nearly 40 years ago, as Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s kinsmen were mercilessly slaughtered across the length and breadth of Nigeria.

Farouk failed to recall this indelible fact – the slaughter of Igbo - this sad and sordid fact, as he recounted how they cried when “we were told we would need passport to cross to Biafra”. Farouk was a child then, and so was this writer. Then he wondered, according to him – “How could our brothers and sisters suddenly become foreigners to us?” The celebrated Igbo author Chinua Achebe was deemed a foreigner in Lagos at the time in question, and there in Lagos, Chinua Achebe was asked when he was going to leave for the east, his place of origin.

Though I am both ambivalent and nonplussed about this, still I ask: Is it not confounding how the supposed “Igbo brothers and sisters” to the west hardly understand, no, say refuses to understand how the Igbo feel stemming from sundry ungodly treatment meted them especially by Nigerian policy makers of Yoruba extraction?

Read Farouk in a later piece of his referring to “untiring guts” of Ukpabi Asika! And Igbo must applaud? Read a Reno Omokri, an Itsekiri – the same westerner - exhorting Nigeria to find Igbo with whom it can work and forget the rest Igbo. Well, well, well, kid, western kid that is, Igbo are familiar with the type of Igbo that Nigeria always chooses to work with. Ukpabi Asika. And on Asika, Farouk is clearly oblivious of what Igbo think of this man whose guts he praises. If only Farouk cared to know. If Farouk could only ask his kinsman Olusegun Obasanjo what Igbo think of Asika.

Indeed, Obasanjo who chose Asika and for whom Asika was a proxy to abuse and assault Igbo, has all shades of Asika working for him today in his “nest of killers” – Aso Rock.

Once, I encountered a Yoruba fellow, a member of NADECO when they were chanting sanctions against Nigeria. He wondered why I was on the other side. Then I asked him, if he has ever been hungry any time in his life and had nothing to eat. It was a pointed eye-ball-to-eye-ball question. After regarding me for a while, the guy quietly walked off, without saying a word.

The Yoruba or those in the west of Lugard’s cage, the entity Chief Obafemi Awolowo referred to as “a geographical expression” – Nigeria - does not understand, or they refuse to understand. The latter is more like it.

Imagine economically sanctioned Nigeria, where the resulting burden falls on the poor, whereas the Yoruba will find his way to Benin Republic for items sanctioned in Nigeria, where will the Igbo go? This is giving one of the reasons why I was on the other side of NADECO; in addition to the fact that NADECO, as far as I am concerned, consisted of socialists and anarchists.

Now, Igbo do not care, that the Yoruba do not care or understand how they feel. Phoenix they are, Igbo are pulling their weight in decrepit Nigeria, in spite of institutional policies arrayed against them at every level.

This brings me to the man about whom Farouk seem to rib Igbo for according to him, not giving the man his due – Chief Jeremiah Obafemi Awolwo.

“Yoruba did not declare war against Biafra”, Farouk wrote. Indeed. But Yoruba spearheaded the war against Biafra. The first shot fired into Biafra was by a contingent led by a Yoruba officer in Gakem – Ogoja. Indeed the bulk of Nigerian vandals, that is Nigerian soldiers noted by outside observers as crude and ill disciplined, were all Yoruba.

The vandals were at different times led by two prominent Yoruba. First was Col. Benjamin Adekunle. Adekunle bragged that he commanded his vandals to shoot at anything that moved in Biafra, including cassava leaves. For the first time in a war, Red Cross bearing aeroplanes were shot at and refused landing – by Adekunle and his vandals. The second was Matthew Okikiolahan Aremu Olusegun Obasanjo, who picked up where his mean, ugly brother Adenkule left off. This is not to say that Obasanjo was or is a better sight to behold. Obusonjo!

At the end of the war, the same Obasanjo swore to ensure that Igbo does not rise again, so, according to him, they do not “threaten Nigeria”. He went ahead along with northern leaders to fashion and implement policies that dispossessed Igbo of their monies, their land, their property – you name it. Any piece of Igbo land adjoining another state was carved into that state – often non-Igbo state. That was Obasanjo land-grab policy that he implemented in Igbo areas with reckless abandon.

But as the war in which Obasanjo and Adekunle put their vandal relatives to optimum use raged, not a single Igbo deemed the Yoruba an enemy. Farouk my friend, you can take my word for it. Igbo quarrel was with the Hausa/Fulani who had engineered the slaughter of Igbo in the north and across Nigeria. But Yoruba and all of southern Christians contracted the Hausa/Fulani war of Igbo liquidation, and fought, as slaves are wont to for a master they love. Farouk, are you with me?

Even when Victor Banjo, a bosom friend of Head of State of Biafra – Emeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, headed west, Odumegwu-Ojukwu instructed him that the Yoruba were not Igbo enemy. The western axis to Biafra was only to be liberated from northern forces that had garrisoned the entire Yoruba land. The move was a strategic imperative for Biafra. Yes, many Yoruba elites including the late Bola Ige welcomed Biafra’s move in that direction – to “overrun” Yoruba land. But Banjo pulled a Yoruba.

Biafra engaged Yoruba in such healthy state of churchianity even while the Yoruba sage, Awolowo and his cousin Anthony Enahoro designed and visited hunger and famine upon Biafra. And this writer – a “brother” was their victim – for every single hour that I was hungry in Biafra and had nothing to eat. There is no forgetting that.

To Chief Awolowo and Enahoro, hunger was a weapon of war. Do you Farouk know how many Igbo died on account of the evil policy directed against your “brothers and sisters” in Biafra? Awolowo and Enahoro even shipped food laced with cyanide to Biafra. The world knew about that, and I know a family whose young baby was a victim of Nigeria’s cyanide-laced milk. She died. The baby drank milk and died. Thanks to Chief Awolowo and his cousin, Enahoro and the rest southern Christian slaves of northern Muslims.

How is any Igbo to apologize to the Yoruba for the reason that according to Farouk Awolowo’s “life was threatened in the east”? There he was, Awolowo, seeking votes from a people that had just emerged from the depth of death and despair he designed and implemented.

By the way, Farouk, you have to check how long it was after Awolowo’s meeting in Enugu with Odumegwu-Ojukwu, following his release from Calabar prison, when he indicated that the Yoruba might break from Nigeria or play a neutral role in the east/north debacle, before he instituted his starvation as weapon of war policy? For the promise of Nigerian presidency by Gowon, Awolowo, decided to liquidate all Igbo.

As to Chief Awolowo’s “desire” according to you, to make Nigeria what he made of the west…” can you tell which Igbo clamored for this Awolowo’s “desire”?

Do you need any to tell you that at the time in question, Igbo had Michael Okpara? Do you need any to tell you that Okpara at the time in question made eastern region the fastest growing economy in Africa? So what was this desire of Awolowo for the east that would have replaced Okpara’s feat, and for which you seem to be telling Igbo to cry and worship Awolowo – a man that visited upon them nothing but evil – death and suffering; a man that repaid Odumegwu-Ojukwu’s kindness with Luciferous meaness; a man that cheated all Igbo out of their sweat and toil?

Banal groupthink is pervasive among Yoruba relative to Igbo history and experience of the last 40 years. A Yoruba fellow contacted me once, after reading my article in response yet to another Yoruba. He insisted that Igbo must remain part of Nigeria. Why? I asked him. “Two heads are better than one” he responded. See the parallel, Farouk, a similarity to your “A tree cannot make a forest”; “Nigeria has to be carried by each and every ethnic group”. And so to the Yoruba, none should opt out of this “geographical expression”, this “contraption” – apology to Awolowo, all because for reasons best known to Yoruba, they are staying put in Nigeria. What nonsense. It will not matter to them that after due reflection, a northerner named Toungo exclaimed - “Confederation is it!” And Toungo is not the first Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika ( restructuring) minded northerner to speak up. It will not matter that a young Ibrahim called on his fellow northerners that “it is not written in the Koran that Nigeria must be one”. It will not matter that the Igbo is sick and tired of an entity that does nothing but hold them down and destroy their blessed talent. No! It is what the Yoruba wants. Yoruba has got the best out of Nigeria, sponging off everyone else’s sweat but theirs. That is what matters, and that is why Nigeria must stay and remain one. Let those who do not know what a Total Parasite is behold it.

However, as for all of the ethnic groups that must carry Nigeria, and all of the heads, two or however many that are better for Nigeria, is not Lugard’s Nigeria a country of 140 Million heads? Are not 140 Million heads more than two heads that is supposedly better than one? Are not 140 heads more than enough for Nigeria? Each of the ethnic groups that constitute this contraption by “vagabond” Lugard, constitute the now 140 Million heads that have been carrying Nigeria since before Farouk and Peter were born. Do you not think, Farouk, it is time to lessen the number of heads carrying this load – Nigeria, as many heads may be doing it more harm than good?

In all likelihood, Farouk has not given thought to the fact that Nigeria is too big for its own good? But if he did, would he not consider parting of Nigeria’s parts even slightly by way of confederacy to allow some air into this rot of an entity?

Was it not Awolowo who insisted in the early times thus – West for West; let each region develop at its own pace? It is a fact, not a supposition that Awolowo was only mindful of the ethnic differences in Nigeria and of course the pleasant cocoa economy of the time. Yet, on the same ethnic difference, whereas Nnamdi Azikiwe attempted to underplay that factor, muting that Nigerians must forget their differences, Sir Bello insisted otherwise, that Nigerians must be mindful of their differences. Even as early as 2000, nearly 40 years later, Anthony Enahoro, the one who proudly propagated the Igbo starvation policy, the man who was said to have moved the motion for Nigeria’s independence founded a political party called MNR, in whose constitution is contained a “secession” clause – secession – the same reason Enahoro wanted all Igbo starved to death. Enahoro explained that the secession clause was there to allow any group that wanted to secede, to do just that. He then went on to bountifully opine on Nigeria’s ethnic differences that makes it difficult for Nigerians to work together. Now going back to when Chief Awolowo and Sir Bellow insisted on Nigerians capitalizing on their differences so to say, it then gave rise even if in part to the proud north of Toungo’; to the proud west of those days; to the proud east of those days too. It was regional autonomy as I remember it, a confederacy of sort.

Such thinking allowed autonomy that allowed every region to capitalize on their best – brain and geography to bring about groundnut pyramids in the north, cocoa in the west, and palm oil and palm kernel in the east. Oil, the liquid gold also in the east, had no role in the eastern economy then manned by Dr. Okpara.

This brings me to an unmitigated mendacity by Alhaji Umaru Dikko, which Toungo touted however little in his article. Alhaji Dikko had allowed during the Obasanjo wayo national conference that the north funded oil development in the Niger Delta. Niger Delta was in eastern region at the time in question.

Every northerner of the current and future generation must and should know the simple truth, and the truth is that their parts had and have no part in oil development in eastern region or Niger Delta, not then, and certainly not now.

The simple fact is that Shell D’Arcy came to town in the vicinity of oil and gas laden Owerri and greater Owerri environ, with money and equipment to prospect for oil. That is the simple fact. Anyone disputing this fact will have to furnish papers where it was written that northern region of Nigeria loaned Shell D’Arcy money to prospect and develop oil in eastern region.

Perhaps with this information, Obasanjo will now move to carve Owerri and the greater Owerri environ into a contiguous state – Rivers State or somewhere in Ijaw Land, as he has done in the past. What is to stop Obasanjo from doing this, when he carved Obi Igbo land – the heart of Igbo - into a non-Igbo state? I mean if God were said to be Igbo, Obasanjo would pluck him from heaven and put him in a non-Igbo land. I mean Obasanjo has the hands of Lucifer for Igbo.

Back to Toungo’s “Confederacy is it”; confederacy is the least political arrangement Nigeria can engage now to liberate itself, and thus all of the independent nations trapped in it.

Anything less is for naught and worse, fraught with turbulence and violent conflagration that all can see even as I write.

March 15, 2006

______________________________
Peter Opara is a communications consultant, and author of Understanding the Nigerian Nation Tribes – Why they Boil; Think In Time – Essays and Encounters of the last Quarter of the 20th Century; The Man of Biafra – in the City Where America Began.

Posted by Administrator at 03:56 AM | Comments (0)

Why Must we Kill Ourselves?

by Paul I. Adujie (New York, United States) --- I received with deep sorrow, the sad news of sectarian strife which occurred in Nigeria last week. It began inauspiciously, in Maiduguri, a city dear to my heart. The serene Maiduguri that was my home for many years, Maiduguri was suddenly dragged into the sordid tale of murderous riots. Riots that sought its victims solely based on the victims ethnicity and mode of worship.

The illogic of the riots and the rioters would have made me an instant victim. A victim of a murderous riot, that would have consumed me, even though I have not participated in any wrongdoing or affront and even though the “reason” for the riots would have had nothing whatsoever to do with me. It would have been simple enough that my first name is Paul and that makes me a non-Muslim and that would have also made me dead man!

In retaliation for the insanity that had occurred in Maiduguri, Onitsha, the city on the banks of River Niger, the most vibrant commercial in Nigeria, the city on the hill, was suddenly dragged into the sordid tale of murderous riots as well, just like Maiduguri, your only qualification for death would have been your first name, Adamu!

Another factor in either Maiduguri or Onitsha would have been that your grandparent or great-grant parents were neither natives to Maiduguri or Onitsha. Nigeria Must Redefine Citizenship; Regardless of religion, ethnicity or region. All Nigerian citizens must feel safe in every part of Nigeria, whatever their religious beliefs

When I was in Nigeria and younger, I never imagined the gory events that occurred last week were possible ever again. After the Nigerian Civil war, too many of us were so convinced that the possibility of Nigerian murdering Nigerian in the manner it was perpetuated last week, was remote or in any event, even impossible.

Some of us actually erroneously believed that Nigeria had crossed the great divides of the past, the barbarism of hacking fellow Nigerians to death because they worship a different god or gods, a different holy. Why have some of our brethrens in Maiduguri and Onitsha return to barbarities? Could it be economic hopelessness and desperations? Or are all these truly in the name of God? What type of God is that!

Nothing in the would could excuse the hatreds, the barbarities and bigotries that motivated the irrationality of actions, which in turn led to the hacking to death of fellow Nigerians by some fellow Nigerians in Maiduguri, and nothing could justify the retaliations or reprisals in Onitsha. After all, it is Christian not to seek revenge; It is said in the bible that vengeance is for god. What decent Holy Book recommends mass murders? Neither the Koran nor the Bible supports heinous murders for God.

I had thought that the era of an eye for an eye, the Law of Moses sorts of rules were left in the Middle-Ages of the ancient times? I am a barbarian if I answer barbarism with equal or rivaled barbarism. A defense cannot be found in, “they started it first”

The Nigerians in Maiduguri and their counterparts in Onitsha have one thing in common, and it is their absolute disregard for human life, the lives of fellow Nigerians, and worst of all, they demonstrated absolute disregard for the tenets of Islam and Christianity!

Any religious that inspire the killing of another Nigerian is not worthy of respect in my opinion. Any religion that does not emphasize the sanctity of life is not worth my respect.

Murder is murder, in Maiduguri or in Onitsha, there can be no excuse for a Nigerian who kills another Nigerian. Christian or Muslim. Two wrongs by aberrant followers of two faiths. None is righteous here. None!

Observing Nigerian public debate in the past couple of years led me to believe that our nation is in dire need of re-orientation as to the value and worth or benefit, of our Nigerian-ness. I am a strong believer in the multitudes of advantages inherent in Nigeria’s wondrous diversity.

Nigeria is composed of an exciting quilt of ethnicities, religions, regions to the nth power.
I have come to believe that too many Nigerians unfortunately, emphasize the negative variable and negative common denominators.

Whereas, there are so much more that Nigerians have in common, than most Nigerians realize or are willing to admit. When I lived in Nigeria, I traveled the length and breadth of Nigeria, by road and by air and I could never have enough of Nigeria spectacular splendor and terrains. One of my eternal pain and regret, is actually the fact that I have had to live outside Nigeria thee tens of years! And I still get excited here in New York, on realizing that the other person in the room is a Nigerian!

It does not matter to me, whether such Nigeria is a Christian, Muslim, Igbo, Hausa, Tiv, Ijaw or Yoruba etc. But meanwhile, the Nigerians who are in Nigeria appear not to be able to stand each other’s ethnicity, religion or region! Why can’t we get along, regardless of our subtle differences? We are Nigerians. We are one. Though ethnic and tongue or religion may differ, we are forever one. Nigerians!

I strongly believe now, more than ever, that there is an urgent need for a national awareness campaign regarding our Nigerian-ness, the advantages, benefits and worthiness of our Nigerian-ness.

ALL Nigerians must realize, and must be made to realize that the plight of the average Nigerian is essentially the same in all of the 774 local government areas of Nigeria. The issues of abandoned, neglected, decayed public infrastructures are the same everywhere in Nigeria. The absence of clean water, electricity, employment etc are same nationwide.

Nigeria’s urgent issues are economic and political, actually more economic than anything else. I know Nigerians here in America, who are professionals, and of different faith and they are married and happy. And in Nigeria, when the economy was good, Christians and Muslims existed cordially side by side, peacefully and without animosities and these murderous riots.

All Nigerians at home and abroad must rededicate to fixing Nigeria and uplifting Nigeria. When Nigeria is economically buoyant, we will or at least, tend to forget who is Muslim or Christian, Jehovah Witness, Hare Khishna or who worships Ogun, Sango or Amadioha

Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com
New York, United States

Posted by Administrator at 03:15 AM | Comments (0)

Nigerian Unity on Earth, Not in Heaven

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- There are so many events lately that have given ammunition or might vindicate those who pledge for the break up of Nigeria. One of the new friends I made urged me to join them in the break up of my beloved Country. The sad part of these events is that it is not new.

These are recurring problems after which committees are set up; promises made to investigate culprits that would be swiftly brought to justice. It’s all talk and little action.

Even more distressing is the caliber of people who are fed up of defending the integrity of the Country. People are becoming indifferent. The younger generations have a bigger stake than those who want to seat tight until they die in power as African leaders are known for. If you are one of those who would die for Nigeria, people would tell you they are not ready to clean up your mess. Please go home and die in bed peacefully. Is Nigeria that much of a burden to carry? One only lives and dies for the Country one cherishes.

There have to be solutions to these barbaric acts to gain economic, political and self deluding awe in the name of Jihad, Crusade, Democracy and Ethnocentrism. We have lived like this for many years and still can not find solutions. We know the problems but we wait for God to either give answers or let us separately go our own ways instead of killing one another. If the answers are that easy, it would have been implemented a long time ago. We can leave God out of this for now, since He did not create our problems.

For a start, we have to stop fooling ourselves. These killers are not morons or crazy, they are average men on the street instigated and worked up by headless leaders using human blood as sacrifice to test and flex their muscles. These leaders are known and courted as power brokers or godfathers, thereby becoming untouchable. We have them in every part of Nigeria bragging of mayhem unless they get their way. They were thugs who lost their sense of direction, reincarnated themselves as politicians turned money missed road. In some cases they unwittingly loose control of the Frankenstein they created. As soon as they perform their unholy act, other politicians line up to spin atrocities in their favors.

Nigerians from Maiduguri to Warri know what provocation is in the case of Onitsha, and they have so expressed in different fora. We know Onitsha area to be the most cosmopolitan area in Igbo land. While the Igbo have no kings, the Onitsha people do as the Benin or Yoruba. They are related to other Nigerian Ethnic groups. See THE FATHER OF ALL NIGERIAN ETHNIC GROUPS. So it is ironic that retaliation came from there. Those who think they are the real Igbo, watch out for the Igbo of Onitsha. We can not take people’s gentility for granted.

This is in not an endorsement of violence. If anything, all the areas that have remained calm throughout any of the crisis have not gotten their due respect and encouragement. There are so many law abiding places in the Northern, Eastern and Western parts of Nigeria. Nobody flood those places with investment projects and showcase them in the evening news. We may need to give awards and start recruiting peace activists from these areas to other parts of Nigeria that continually burn. Nigerians of different Ethnic groups get along well and care less about separation there. Indeed, Muslims and Christians marry one another so much that it may be difficult to start any problem along religious line.

It is not easy for anyone to relocate and start all over again after spending youthful life building safety nest in another part of the Country, only to be disrupted by hooligans when one should be enjoying his past labor. Come back to the village, come back home, come back to what?

If we want to break up into City States again, we have to agree on what to separate into. Some people do not learn. Before we were Nigeria, we were mini City States or Nations as the Ethnic groups name themselves. We wage war against one another, took one another slaves sometimes over minor incidents as the chiefs’ voracious appetite for women. After we were invaded, we exchanges mirrors for gold, sold one another into another world where we were previously respected as Kings and Chiefs. Finally, we were cut into pieces on negotiating table belonging to England, France, and Portugal etc.

As we became Gold Coast, Ivory Coast, Slave Coast, Pagan Coast, Unbeliever Coast etc, we started dividing ourselves again. Some wise men in Nigeria wanted creation of States as the solution to all our problems, so we started creating them for political and economic reasons. Other wise men wanted their own local government, so we created so many local governments; some of them have more members in the council than their villages. We have more administrators than what to administer. Yet some of my brothers are saying let us try it again as if we have never gone through all these stages before. We will never be satisfied until every village head becomes a Head of State.

Some of my brothers dreamed about a small State like Belgium, Taiwan, and Luxemburg as if those do not have protectors and masters they trade with. What about Trinidad, Jamaica, St Lucia, Cape Verde, Haiti? Which Black Country in this wide world would we like to be like? I know many black countries that envy Nigeria. If we divide North, East, West or Niger Delta into Urhobo, Ijaw, Itsekiri and Anioma Nations; would that solve our problem? Did that solve any problem in Lebanon or Yugoslavia?

Every month or so each of these States and Local Governments ask Abuja for their allocations as if the money is coming from their backyard. On top of that, they complain about lack of infrastructures in their backyard as if they are generating internal income. Taxes, they refuse to pay. After taking their “share” and mismanaging a good part of it like a drunken sailor, they want to separate from the same finger that is feeding them.

Has anyone ever wondered what happened to “First in Africa” in the West; all the coal, discoveries and inventions in the East; all the groundnut pyramids in the North? We still have abundant herbs in our gardens or forest but no adequate teaching laboratories in our Universities to turn them into world class products. They have been replaced with easy oil money that has caused war and misery in our land. Niger Delta is the only backyard that takes less than it gives. They have a right to demand all their money and let the rest of Nigeria feed on their sweat. If they start starving, they may be preoccupied with solutions as India, Pakistan and Bangladesh did. They still fight along their borders.

Niger Delta is not the Gulf around Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi where billions are made from oil in the mist of poverty. Before the people can get out of Hurricane Katrina, the oil rigs came back to live. That is the might of oil as in Niger Delta. Those who call them all kinds of names and give them labels are pots calling the kettle black. If they are lazy, what are we, the collectors? We all know they get world attention when they vent. By venting, we can reason, rather than kill. We can map out solutions through this worthy media created by young men and women many of whom are loosing money now.

Where are the persuasive spirits of Azikiwe, Awolowo, Aminu Kano, Tarka etc that persuaded the North to see reason for a United Nigeria? Where are the untiring guts of Ukpabi Asika, Issac Boro, Saro Wiwa, Effiong etc that chose Nigeria in the face of human suffering? Let us invoke their spirit if there is something like ekurube magic. Nigeria, the land of the brave, the mighty, the intelligent, the arrogant (ask any African) and the clever, we need to put the brain we are recognized and known for throughout the world into use to stop destruction of lives and property. Nigeria is not our enemy; we are one another’s enemy. Hatred is not in our stars but in our mirrors. It must stop.

Here we are, trying to formulate the Continent into a Country while others are trying to break it into pieces. Go to any Country in Africa or outside and see how Nigerians are disrespected and treated as aliens out to destroy their economy with clever tactics. We have been killed, booted out of every Country in the World including the smallest African Country but we can not send our police to restore our rights and status there.

Now we want to treat Nigerians as aliens in their own Country? But then, how much can we say about a Country where its budding men and women are ready to risk death crossing the desert into anywhere knowing they will be treated as alien without right or status? When our Country breaks into pieces, we may not need to travel far to become the same aliens in the place we claim these rights, status and demand justice as Nigerians. We need to think again. If we are so smart, they ask, why is our Country falling apart?

Some of us have never been out of our backyards or been to other African Countries before finding ourselves in Europe and America. Africans are just beginning to trade with one another. It used to be more expensive to fly to East or South Africa than to fly to Europe. There was no need to facilitate communications, trade or diplomacy. We used to pride ourselves as English, French or Portuguese Africans. Before Kofi Annan became United Nation Chief, the French and the English tried to create artificial barrier as to whose turn – English or French African. They took us for a ride, stop blaming them; we are now taking one another for a ride.

If we can not find anyone to trade or play with, there are enough people in Africa and other people of goodwill around the world to play and trade with. If Nkrumah had his way, we will be talking about one Continent, one Country and one Destiny. If Nigeria can not save itself, how can it save the Black World? Nigeria, heal thyself!

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
faroukomartins@netscape.com

Posted by Administrator at 03:09 AM | Comments (0)

Nigeria's Version of the Muslim anti-Cartoon Riots: Matters Arising

by Henry Chukwuemeka Onyeama (Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria) --- As I write this I recollect an interfaith seminar organized by Muslim youth corp members in Awka, Anambra State, in which I participated as a representative of the association of Catholic Corps members some five years ago. It was a frank exchange of ideas.

Although there was no consensus on some fundamental points there was no doubt that no one who participated in that session went home without some understanding of the ‘other people’s’ faith.

So what went wrong in February in Maiduguri, Bauchi, Katsina and Onitsha? Why did the global grievance of Muslims against the unsavoury depiction of Prophet Mohammed by European press become a bloodbath in Nigeria?

Many reasons have been cited for the mayhem. No one doubts that extremists took things out of hand. From every indication there was a lousy reaction by the security agencies in the affected states, especially Borno and other first flashpoints. We may wonder why the state governments involved did not take a proactive stance, given that the entire Muslim world was boiling over the cartoons and it was only a matter of time before the wave engulfed Northern Nigeria. Hopefully, the Federal Government will unearth the causes of the crisis and the roles of both state and non-state actors.
But my concern is much more fundamental: is Nigeria too small for Christians and Muslims to co-exist peacefully? Are the practitioners of these alien religions incapable of living together without affixing an arrow to a bow or pulling a machete at the slightest provocation? Does the fault lie in the religions or Nigerians’ interpretation of their tenets? In answering these posers let us not unduly emphasize the so-called clash of civilizations, which has dominated global consciousness since 9/11 and U.S.A.’s war on terrorism (which some interpret as a war on Islam). Blaming Nigeria’s religious woes on the crises in the Middle East is only partially correct. The demons that occupy the seats of our souls gained their entrance well before 9/11. Let the records speak: 1987 (Kaduna), 1991 (Bauchi), 1992 (Zangon-Kataf), 2000 Sharia Riots, etc. Underlying causes transcend religion in all these mayhem. But religion has become the shield for mischief, giving credence to Blaise Pascal’s observation that: ‘Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as they do it from religious conviction.’

Both religions are exclusivist by nature, and this makes them susceptible to extremism. For all the historical connections, there are dissimilarities, which every adherent imbibes by virtue of identification with the faith.

But does this mean there isn’t enough space for both faiths, indeed all faiths (including atheism) in Nigeria? I doubt it. Maybe the problem is the deep-seated prejudice and lack of understanding of each other’s point of view. Perhaps it suits the political and ethnic champions to continue keeping the masses under their thumb in the name of a God who is clearly unhappy on the slur we are casting on His name. Maybe it is because most Nigerians, having lost hope of a better life on earth, are so heaven-bound that they snap at efforts to denigrate or deny them heaven. Perhaps it is a lack of education – which is different from literacy (after all Osama bin Laden is a qualified engineer and Pat Robertson who called for the death of President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela is no illiterate American bum) – which will temper the excesses of an uncritical interpretation of religious tenets so common among Nigerians. Above all, political forces are at play.

A scary element, which has entered the religious conflicts gradually engulfing Nigeria, is what I describe as MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction). The Nigerian version of MAD looks like the real thing back in the Cold War days, when both U.S.A. and former Soviet Union targeted nuclear warheads at each other, thus deterring ‘total’ war. But in our case, we strike, and my fear is that these limited engagements may someday spiral out of control. So when Igbo Christians in Bauchi are slaughtered Hausa-Fulani Muslims in Onitsha are butchered in retaliation. This trend began with the 2000 Sharia riots in Kaduna. But then, matters are not so clear-cut. To the uninformed Hausa-Fulani everyone South of the River Niger is a Christian. But there are pockets of Islam, even among the overwhelmingly Christian Igbo and Niger Delta. Uninformed Igbo conclude that everywhere up north is Hausaland. A report in one of the newspapers told of how an Edo man came close to being killed in Onitsha because his features looked like those of a Hausa. Imagine a situation where Nigerians cook a pot of religious intolerance spiced by xenophobia. While nobody has a monopoly of violence, no one can really say how far it will take us.

While external developments should not be overstressed, we only ignore them at our own peril. Since 2001 intolerance has bestridden the world like a colossus. President George W. Bush wasted the global goodwill for the U.S.A., and by extension, the West, after 9/11 by invading Iraq. The antics of his Christian-dominated government in the Middle East fuelled the fire of those who want to establish an Islamic hegemony. This does not mean that people like Hamas leaders are saints fighting a just cause. The atrocities of the Taliban are condemnable by all standards. The strains of the post 9/11 world have activated monsters in Europe, compelling Muslims to rise up against anti-Muslim sentiments and practices. But Europe belongs to all its inhabitants, both Muslim and non-Muslim. At least in theory. The spillover, combined with her problems of poverty, ethnicity and misrule is what Africa (including Nigeria) is suffering.

I plead with Nigerian leaders to realize that this situation does not allow for power juggling exercises. If President Obasanjo and his team do not get to the heart of the violence threatening Nigeria 2007 may be a mirage. Finally, where is the meeting-point between press freedom and religious sensibilities?

Posted by Administrator at 02:58 AM | Comments (0)

America/Europe, Israel, Palestine, Hamas & Democracy

by Paul I. Adujie (New York, United States) --- Shock and amusement are the words that best sum up my feelings regarding the reactions generated in America, Europe and Israel to the electoral victory secured by Hamas in the recent Palestinian elections.

At once, I am shocked and amused by these reactions because they are in stark contrast to what the Americans, the Europeans and yes, the Israelis persistently claim they want and need from Palestinians, from Arabs and the entire Middle East.

I am shocked because America, a country that prides itself as the mother of all that is democratic, and the grandmother of all that is freedom and liberty of all the world, is loathe to see Hamas triumphed at the ballot box in Palestine.

This American, European and Israeli stance, are in complete disregard for the national interests of the people of Palestine, and the fact that Palestine has just had a free and fair election by all accounts. Palestine elections were adjudged to be free of irregularities and fraud, Palestine elections were devoid of acrimonies of the Florida and Ohio types.

Then of course, I am amused, thoroughly amused, because, America and Israel seem to be saying to Hamas, and by extension, to all of Palestine. Be reasonable do things our way! Be our puppet! America, Europe and Israel seem to only want a puppet, and interloper-interlocutor who will do what he is told? And that will be the democracy in Palestine that is acceptable? A democracy and a leadership that is subject to manipulation.

But who indeed, defines democracy? In Algeria, duly conducted elections were disregarded or nullified, just so, citizens of Algeria with Islamic credentials or manifestoes would not see the light of day, and a chance to implement their political and economic programs. But in America, President Bush’s election was buoyed by the evangelicals and ultraconservative religionists. These social and religious conservatives have been trying vigorously to install conservative justices on the United States Supreme Court they also are the engine room that continues to drive President Bush’s domestic and foreign policies. Whether such policies are social, economic, political or judicial etc.

Why is it okay to have the evangelicals drive American public policies, but clerics are for some reason, not allowed to influence policies in Iran, Iraq or Palestine? How about what the locals and the local electorate in Palestine or Haiti want? Only recently, Ambassador Curran, the US former ambassador to Haiti publicly recounted his gory experience in Haiti, how agents of the Bush administration were frustrating the ambassador’s effort to steady democracy in Haiti. The US government armed insurgents, rebels and criminal elements to overthrow the legitimate and constitutional government in Haiti, while the same US government publicly pretended to be interested in democracy in Haiti, according to the former US Ambassador to Haiti. http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=former%20US%20ambassador%20to%20Haiti&date_select=full&srchst=nyt And President Aristide was pushed out!

Again, the Islamic Brotherhood in Egypt who sought to attain political power through the ballots box and democracy, were similarly undermined by the Western powers. President Hosni Mubarak has flagrantly announced the suspension of more local elections, soon after his Western friends expressed outrage over the elections of members of the Islamic Brotherhood.

The same financial muscle-flexing against Haiti guaranteed the failure of President Aristide of Haiti, as those who wanted him to fail, guaranteed and ensured his failure with multi-facetted efforts the World Bank approved financial assets were blocked from Haiti
President Bush has during the preceding five years argued and repeatedly stated that his mission was to democratize Iraq, Palestine and in fact, the entire Middle East Arab World, the undiscerning of the world agreed with President Bush pretexts.

And some gullible were sold the Regime Change idea, regime change to enable the installation of democracy in Iraq, and perhaps every where else in the Middle East. Regime Change to get rid of oppressive and corrupt government. Anyone who believed Bush, may have therefore expected many installations or inaugurations of a governments that are transparent and accountable to the people.

Did anyone believe that the United States, under the President Bush administration was indeed interested in exporting democracy? Did anyone believe that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has anything to do with democracy? It is all about strategic interests.

Clearly, anyone who thought that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was a missionary undertaking to install good governance, must now think again! Iraq is spiraling into anarchy and lawlessness. Iraq has no democracy, at least, not at the present time and Iraq cannot therefore serve as any example of anything that resembles democracy. Iraq has this week actually moved closest to civil war and sectarian strife and outright disintegration along the lines of Shiite, Sunni and Kurd.

What is worse, in all of these, is the fact that President Bush is apparently not proud of his achievement as an exporter or deliverer of democracy to the Arabs of the Middle East, especially, if such Arabs or Middle Easterners include members of Hamas?

But it would appear that the members of Hamas, have followed the precepts and concepts of power through the ballot box, as instructed by the owners of democracy, freedom and liberty. And Hamas won the hearts of the Palestine electorate. Hamas obeyed all the applicable rules and Hamas prevailed at the polls! What now? Why the blackmail and intimidation of members of Hamas? Why the plan to starve it of funds to ensure its failure and collapse? Why the hurry to visit Palestine with plan obsolescence?

The world is by now familiar with the violence between Palestine and Israel; For over fifty years since the creation of Israel, smack in the center of Arab land and front and center of Palestine country. It is safe to conclude that neither Palestinians nor Israelis are disciples of nonviolent political methodology made famous by Mahatma Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Neither Palestine nor Israel can claim to have followed the teachings of Mother Teresa. It must be borne in mind that Israel is seen by Palestinians as occupier and usurper of Palestine lands, Israel has never limited itself to lawful tactics, Israel has not been shy to apply aggressive military tactics in Sabra Shatila, or in the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and everywhere else in Palestine and all of the Middle East of Arabia.

Israel has acted too often, outside of legal norms and United Nations conventions and protocols. In fact, Israel has been known, to have historically disregarded UN resolutions, including Nuclear non-proliferation rules, strategic ambiguities and all.

Hamas is reputed for its violent struggle with Israel and even with moderate Arabs. Hamas military wing, engaged in bloody campaigns and a zero sum policy toward Israel, all these, in search of a free Palestine that is not beholden to anyone. Palestine insists they are fighting colonialism and occupation, these are not friendly endeavors worldwide and history is my witness.

Hamas is not all military, and violent in their campaigns for a free Palestine. Hamas has provided social services, including medical services, schools and trainings etc which won the hearts and minds of the average man and woman in Palestine.

Hamas became synonymous with effectiveness and efficiency compared with the established government of the Palestinian Authority administered by the Fatah party, the offspring of the PLO, a brainchild of the late Yasser Arafat.

Hamas has now nominated Mr. Haniya to be Prime Minister of Palestine, and all of a sudden there are threats and intimidations emanating from America, Israel and even Europe!

It is a wrong headed policy on the part of the United States, Israel and all others who are attempting to stifle or strangle democracy and governance in Palestine, just because, the ballot box has not produced a puppet or someone that is subject to sundry manipulations.

Hamas won their elections fair and square. Hamas is not accused of any electoral malpractices or frauds. Hamas must be allowed to form a legitimate and constitutional government without outside interference and intermeddling by the United States, Israel and Europe. Israel should unfreeze monies meant for Palestine. In the alternative, Palestine should declare nationhood and create her own currency and institutions!

President Bush should be proud of Hamas for accepting his preachment of democracy. Hamas has embraced constitutionalism and legality. Hamas accepted President Bush's favorite export to the Arabs in the Middle East. Now, who is afraid of democracy or the success of democracy?

It may well be the case that President Bush’s democracy export has worked in Palestine by default. But Hamas now stand as the elected representatives of the people of Palestine and the Americans, the Israelis and Europeans do not have to like that fact, but they must accept it. Accepting Hamas will put to rest, some concerns already expressed regarding the permanent double standards that the Western world frequently indulges in.

Two instances in the past several days stand out clearly. First, David Irvin was convicted in an Austrian court for saying the Holocaust never happened (which of course is contrary to the facts of history and therefore, a ridiculous and absurd thing for David Irvin to say, write or teach. But we must be reminded about freedom of expression and freedom of thought, even if such thoughts or expressions are absurd and illogical!

Soon after, the Mayor Ken Livingstone, mayor of London was suspended for one month beginning on March 1, 2006. Mayor Livingstone was suspended because he used inappropriate and insensitive language in addressing a journalist Mr. Oliver Finegold, who happens to be Jewish. Some have already described the suspension of the Mayor of London, as an overreaction. And they may be right, given the fact that the whole world, particularly Western Europe, have been deriding Muslims for reacting with umbrage to a "mere" cartoons and caricatures of Prophet Muhammad and Islam.

The bulk of the defense of the cartoonists and caricaturists, were hinged on press freedom and freedom of expression. But do these same fine rules of freedom also apply to David Irvin and Ken Livingstone? The world is watching and sees these manipulations and double standards.

Hamas on their part, has now has a very huge responsibility. Hamas must publicly accept peace agreements entered in the past by leaders of Palestine. Hamas must demonstrate to the world in words and actions that they have not engaged in gratuitous violence or violence for its sake! Hamas must reach for the olive branch and declare itself partner with Israel in the peace process.

Hamas elected officials must now emphasize democratic credentials and the value of peaceful negotiations and diplomacy.

Both Israel and Palestine must renounce violence. Targeted killings must stop. Suicide bombing must stop. Israel and Palestine must now give peace a chance.

America, Israel, Europe and the whole world will do well to respect democracy and freedom as expressed through the ballots in Palestine. Hamas members elected by the people of Palestine remain the elected representative of Palestine and that is democracy at work.

Paul I. Adujie
Lawcareer@msn.com
New York, United States

Posted by Administrator at 02:38 AM | Comments (0)

There are Three Investment Ratings for Nigeria

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- Investment ratings are the best way to attract money to a Country, a project, or a cause. The way to grow out of poverty is through substantive investment, not promises. In an environment of relative peace and secured life, we may fit into these three investments: Paris Club ratings, Niger Delta Club ratings and Western Union Money transfer ratings.

Each of these generates foreign capitals, hard currency as we call it in Nigeria. So we should not be surprised at the celebration we witness recently in Abuja regarding FIS and S&P ratings. They were BBB or B minus, on par with a “respectable” junk bond or a little above. The celebration could have been even more but for those of us who know very little, wondering about the big deal on the previous jubilation. I did not see any celebration when we were rated the happiest people on Earth.

The best rating to attract business from another country or other parts of Nigeria is by providing safety for people’s dear lives, good roads, and good sanitation including clean water. You never know when wanton destruction of lives and property will rear its ugly head in Nigeria. We have the rating of being very religious in our back pocket, yet two foreign religions kill more in Nigeria than where these religions were imported from. Before the Slave Trade, one of the religions was used to spy and baptize us. Later to bless us as departing slaves. The other religion of Mohamed Ali from Egypt destroyed Great Sudan, while Songhai Empire was sacked by Moroccans. The killings for gold must stop.

It was a few years ago they were holding Ghana as the postal Country and Rawlings actually bragged about how far they had come only to find out that Ghana sold off its jewels in return for nothing but apologies about World Bank wrong policies in the developing Countries. Only those with extra cash or discretionary income, looted funds and money to blow would dare try this type of B rating investment portfolio even in Paris Club countries. Ghana had to ask Abacha who thumbed his nose at World Bank for loan.

Do not be fooled. Most people stay away from risky junk bonds and third world countries because of uncontrolled crime rate, unstable government, and endemic corrupt practices. In the case of Nigeria there are 419 and amenities that are taken for granted else where but are luxuries in my Country. Nevertheless, people do business in countries at war as long as the price is right. Others do business in unlikely places out of desperation. Take the case of mine workers or the night soil men who went against the activists trying to improve their working environment. There has to be real money or desperation to go to certain places for business. So Nigeria may not need BBB ratings to attract desperadoes.

According to Nuhu Ribadu when asked if he feared for his life, he said anyone living in Nigeria is taking a risk. Armed robbers can invade your space; take your life and property anytime. Our love for Nigeria is beyond comprehension. As for moi, as long as I can pump some water into the tank, fine. The best use of my car is to find water when I can not pump because of NEPA, oh PHC. Who am I anyway, what about those who are stuck or “world happiest” in Nigeria anytime? What rating from Fitch or S&P will change this?

What bothers me is the amount of effort that went into getting these ratings. We have to pay $13 billions plus commission of about $100.000.00 a month to foreign technical experts to help us navigate our way. We also have to sing, dance and wine them into favor. By the end of this wahala or rub my back I will rub your back, how much will flow into Nigeria? What dividend? You can not spend money you don’t have.

Right now we do not know the billions of dollars left from those Paris Club Countries that have forgiven the odious loan and those who still insist on payment, like Britain. Thanks to unrelenting Nigerian cries and pressure echoed on their members by religious bodies and International Non-Profit organizations. More pressure is needed because the way unmoved Nigerians leaders do business, corruption and commission of “technical experts” may eat up that difference! We are watching carefully, Ribadu please take note.

I have worked with some of the experts in Nigeria. They are a little above Peace Corps in the States or CUSO in Canada (Canadian Unemployed Shipped Overseas). Sorry Canada. Now we have them from India, China, and Russia etc. I once met one of these “technical experts” while in St. Louis, Missouri USA. He told me I could be making more money in Nigeria than wasting my time outside. He said there was money to be made in Nigeria as long as you could hold your nose. We could have been partners if I had cooperated. So I am not surprised that you can get a higher return in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world, going by recent Standard & Poor ratings. Gold diggers are still present in Nigeria!

However, our biggest and surest source of investment, Delta, gets no respect. Trillions of dollars that can never be made anywhere else has been made from that area. In order to get good ratings from Niger Delta Club, you would expect that we would sing, wine and dine our relatives there. Can they manage their 50% demand any worse than Abuja? One thing about Paris Club is that no matter what they think about our black ass, they will hold their nose and kiss it until the money runs dry. That is one of the qualities of a shrewd businessman. Somehow, we forget how we invested money and educated South Africans in our schools during the time of Apartheid, why not Boro’s and Wiwa’s Delta?

The third rating is from Nigerians performing all kinds of tasks to send money back home through Western Union and other means. They invest their money in Nigeria not because of what they can take out but because of what they can put in, the satisfaction of starting his own business. These are not JJCs who look for gira where they can get gari in Nigeria. These are Nigerians who contribute whatever they can into the Country.

All of us can not start a business, but we can still contribute in our own way. I had the opportunity to work with Dr. Adeniyi-Jones after he left international organizations. All he asked for was a small office space at UNICEF Marina, Lagos in order to contribute his expertise for the second time around.
Many Nigerians will certainly qualify as small business persons that create more jobs all over the world these days than the big corporations that are downsizing. Small business can turn as big as Microsoft, Federal Express, Google, KF Chicken, Ebony did in the US.

If you have sent money home recently to buy a land, start a foundation, send school fees, start a trade for a brother or sister, you are one of them. Others have gone further by opening repair shops, restaurants, stores, buy okada and taxi for a relative. The multiplier effects of each and every one of these are creation of jobs for some one who would buy and sell. It has now been estimated that the amount of money sent back home is more than all the foreign aids we get from Paris Club countries. Many developing countries can not survive without these transmittals. Where are their investment ratings?

You may have heard about trade fairs in Nigeria where the best foreign products are displayed and my Country has nothing to sell. Since we spend a great deal of money to attract foreign credit ratings and product, how about some of that money in the direction of Nigerians bringing their sweat equity home? Dedicated Nigerians will invest in our Country, no matter what, but we can still encourage them which will multiply the number of those doing good for their soul and their Country.

The amount of money you spend to attract business must not be more than the worth of business. Nigeria recruited farmers from East Africa to Kwara State because our talented indigenous farmers take incentives and spend it on intangibles. Lately some of the youth organizations are going into cooperative farming, like OPC farming in Kwara. There must be MASSOB, MEND, AREWA, BAKASSI BOYS cooperative farming too. Give them something to contribute instead of killing one another and watch our ratings soar!

One of the presidential candidates during the 1999 election promised to give loan/grants to those graduates who wanted to start businesses. Even if one third of them were successful, they would employ more people than all their colleagues plus many high school graduates. These are incentive that multiplies many times over.

Nigerians have to realize that it is not the money generated from the oil alone that will lift us out of poverty but what we do with our brains to invest in ourselves and trade with fellow Africans. It is only then that we can break world trade barriers. Japan and Korea are doing it. China and India are feeding their large population again.

I do not want to pretend that all these are easy; there are difficulties and road blocks on the way. I have stories about people sending money home only to become failed contracts. Some will not sell the products you bring until you leave. Even mothers would give your money to your siblings promising to pay you back if you complained too much.

Of course we have to trade with foreign companies and multinational corporations. India or China made a deal with Boeing for airplanes with stipulation for repair parts and training in the Country instead of flying them out. We have been producing oil for about half a century and we are still importing refined oil products. How much crude oil does it take to import the same amount of refined oil? African, Blackman what is wrong with us?

Posted by Administrator at 02:23 AM | Comments (0)

Is a Drop of Oil Worth a Drop of Blood?- Part 1

by Henry Chukwuemeka Onyeama (Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria) --- The wave of kidnappings of foreign oil companies workers by Niger Delta guerillas in the past two months have once more focused the world’s attention on the oil-producing but impoverished region of Nigeria.

Spectres are rising, not unlike the ones that emerged following the violence that tore Warri, also located in the Niger Delta, apart nearly three years ago. If the Niger Delta implodes, what will happen to Nigeria?

A commissioned research work on the Warri crises in 2004 compelled me to delve into the love-hate marriage between oil and politics in the area. I came to realize that as James Agee wrote in Time Magazine, quoting the psalmist ‘no man may deliver his brother, nor make agreement unto God for him.’

Whatever is stated here are deductions based on my interpretation of facts. I hope they will go some way in contributing to the search for peace in the Niger Delta.

DEFINITION

What exactly is the Niger Delta? Maybe it is because many of those who struggle for the region’s oil have given the world the generally accepted depiction of the Delta. Or maybe it could be because the ruling elite of Nigeria has, through their power juggling exercises, thrust an unrealistic image of the Niger Delta on our consciousness.

Defining the Niger Delta is not easy. According to a 1999 report by Human Rights Watch on the area aptly titled The Price of Oil the Niger Delta, from a geographical perspective, is ‘one of the world’s largest wetlands, and the largest in Africa: it encompasses 20,000 square kilometres. It is a vast floodplain built up by the accumulation of centuries of silt washed down the Niger and Benue rivers, composed of four ecological zones – coastal barrier islands, mangroves, fresh water swamp forests, and lowland rainforests – whose boundaries vary according to the patterns of seasonal flooding. The mangrove forest of Nigeria is the third largest in the world and the largest in Africa; over 60 percent of this mangrove, or 6,000 square kilometres, is found in the Niger Delta. The freshwater swamp forests of the delta reach 11,700 square kilometres and are the most extensive in West and Central Africa.’

But to where does this vast crisscross of rivers and creeks extend within Nigeria? How do the peoples who dwell there define themselves?

In his presentation at a seminar organized by the Shell Petroleum Development Company, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, stated that it was scholars of the Niger Delta phenomenon who, in a bid to bring some order to their subject, classified the Niger Delta into wetlands and highlands. Communities in the area, in the pre-colonial era, defined themselves according to their peculiar cultural realities.

The Niger Delta was an administrative creation of the British who imposed their regime on the numerous self-governing entities there. Just as in the 20th century, the area, in the 19th century, was an oil-spinner. In this case it was palm oil and, just as the contemporary world’s heartbeat is petroleum, palm oil was the soul of the world then. Thus, it was known as Oil Rivers. Quite a few scholars of the submerging of the Niger Delta into global petrocapitalism believe that it began with the appointment of John Beecroft in 1849 as the first British Consul of the Bights Benin and Biafra (which is approximate to the Niger Delta/South-Eastern Nigeria).

So do we define the Niger Delta by the presence of oil? Oil cannot be divorced from the Niger Delta. But the woes of this region predate the discovery of petroleum, though it is central to the conflict claiming heads presently. Dr. Kimse Okoko, the President of the Ijaw National Council, one of the pan-Ijaw organizations of the Niger Delta, asked rhetorically, “now that oil has been found in Bauchi, does it make Bauchi a member of the Niger Delta?” Bauchi is in the northern part of Nigeria, straddling the savannah and the sahel area.

Various ethnic units who speak different languages dwell in the region. Quite a few of them have sub-units and it is not unusual to notice affinities between some of these units and others which some people regard as being outside the Niger Delta, including Nigeria’s three major ethnic groups – the Igbo, the Yoruba and the Hausa/Fulani. An example is the Itsekiri whose language is related to that of the Yoruba. The Ijaw, the biggest of the Niger Delta ethnic groups, has various linguistic and geographical divisions on both the eastern and western sides of the Niger Delta. Indeed, Okoko has identified fifty-two different communities with different names as belonging to the Ijaw. A number of other groups like the Ikwerre speak languages related to Igbo. Historical records indicate that inter group relations between some of these nations, prior to British colonialism and the birth of Nigeria in 1914, were sometimes hostile.

In the contemporary world, particularly in the Nigerian milieu, the existence of petroleum has become the yardstick for determining which community is in the Niger Delta. Based on this reality, quite a few places geographically outside the Niger Delta is classified as the Niger Delta. Those who define the Niger Delta from an economic perspective may not accept Akinyemi’s classification of Niger Delta as Southern Nigeria minus Yoruba and Igbo. Currently, the following states of Nigeria – going by the composition of membership of the Niger Delta Development Commission – belong to the Niger Delta: Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Cross Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Edo, Imo, Abia and Ondo. Imo and Abia are predominantly Igbo while Ondo is mostly Yoruba. And Edo’s significance as a member of the Niger Delta lies more in its proximity to the oil-rich Delta State than the quantity of oil deposits it has. The violence rocking the Niger Delta is mostly concentrated in Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers and parts of Ondo (the major petroleum states), and one suspects that this is partially because they are the heartbeat of the Niger Delta.

Posted by Administrator at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

President Obasanjo is "a Dog in a Manger" for Ndi Igbo

by Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.) (Raleigh, North Carolina) --- It is odd how President Obasanjo is using the Igbo to play on the Igbo – all for money. Are these Ndi Igbo that he uses trying to live up to the proverbial Igbo whose death is tested and confirmed only when he does not awaken to the sound of a few pieces of coins in a tin-can, shaken at his ears? Almost all of Obasanjo’s chorus boys are or have been Igbo – Ojo Maduekwe, Paul Udujie, Okey Ndibe, Frank Nweke Jr., Chris Uba, Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani, etc inspite of all the atrocities Obasanjo has committed against Ndi Igbo, and continues to commit on daily basis.

Do these people not realize ythat they are selling Ndi Igbo for a mess of pottage? Obasanjo’s latest on Ndi Igbo is his order to close Ibeto’s Cement Factory in Port Harcourt, which provides employment for hundreds of the people that he could not provide for. There is no Federal Government presence whatsoever in the South East, especially in Igbo land, except civil war memorials. And what Ndi Igbo are able to do for themselves, the President, who is supposed to cater for all the citizenry, closes down and destroys. Is this the type of Obasanjo’s wicked diplomatic finesse that Paul Udujie wants Ndi Igbo to write home about – to herald?

This is a proper case of “a dog in the manger” – who would not eat what is in the manger, but would allow the any one that would eat to come close or to eat. How much more wickedness could President Obasanjo exhibit towards Ndi Igbo to satisfy his sadism and cruelty towards them, simply because they had to defend themselves in a war that he and his colleagues unleashed on them? Are Ndi Igbo the only people that have ever been involved in a civil war? What about the US to which he turns for everything? Ndi Igbo have been made to understand, according to an interview granted to Chido Nwangwu by Ikemba Odumegwu Ojukwu that he, President Obasanjo, had asked Ikemba Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu to denounce Biafra so that they could work together. I suppose, by extension, so that he could also forgive Ndi Igbo and Biafra. I think that he would wait forever for Ikemba to renounce Biafra. Ndi Igbo would also be ready for more of Obasanjo’s antics against them; continue to work for the realignment of Nigeria; and do all they could to outlive Obasanjo and his ilk!!!

NDI IGBO WHO ARE PROMOTING OBASANJO TO BEWARE

Ndi Igbo who are promoting Obasanjo for credibility and a further term of office, like Chris Uba and Governor Chimaraoke Nnamani should as Ndi Igbo put it: “Fie isa n’anya”, which , literally, means to: “Wipe their eyes with all their fingers seven times”, Furthermore it is said that: “Onye atu gbulu nna ya ejiro mpi atu anwu mmili”, that is to say that: “One whose father was killed by a buffalo does not drink with the cup of a buffalo’s horn”. Besides, “Ejiro okwu ochu amu okwu”, and that is to say that: “One does not learn to speak by adopting murderous words or expressions”. Ndi Igbo who are supporting and promoting President Obasanjo’s further term in office should know what they are doing and where they are heading. Do yhey not know that the longer he stays in office, the longer he would be in a position to persecute Ndi Igbo? They should also take a cue from the cases of Major Hamza Al Mustapha, Lt. General Ishaya Bamaiyi, and Co. with General Sani Abacha. That direction would appear to be leading to the promise of: GOD’S CASE, NO APPEAL!!!!

Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.)

Posted by Administrator at 12:15 AM | Comments (1)

Are You Winning the Deceptiion Game? Not Necessarily!

by SpinCity Spinoza --- If only the current administration and its champions are interested in justice and in developing Nigeria, or in keeping the nation united as one Nigeria, then those who defend their actions and inactions would have a leg to stand on; they could point out what the present administration has done to forestall the present mayhems in Nigeria; how and when Femi-Kayode came out in his usual combative mode to criticize and caricature the use of violence and murder as the only means of political protest.

But you will never find any such productive criticism or action from the present administration and its supporters because the present mayhems and conflicts are their own purposeful designs and productions; the violence and senseless loss of lives, confined to only the North and the East, are the products of the monsters intended to distract the public from their illegal tribal ambitions.

As we speak, their terrorist State Security Service (SSS) and police forces are busy arresting innocent Nigerians and charging them with terrorism; the former Speaker of Bayelsa State House of Assembly, Boye Layefa Bedekeme, was arrested and hauled to Obasanjo’s gulag on an alleged charge of funding terrorism. Recall that Boye Layefa Bedekeme is the same patriot who refused to cave into their illegal pressure to illegally impeach Alamieyeseigha. They were able to illegally impeach Alamieyeseigha by first forcibly impeaching Boye Layefa Bedekeme as the speaker of the State House.

A similar injustice happened on two separate occasions a few days ago. It occurred when more than 500 terrorist policemen were used to squash the lawful gathering of politicians from Niger Delta. A second occurrence was in Katsina when the same terrorist policemen shot and killed some innocent citizens who were demonstrating the illegal intention of mutilating the constitution to service the narrow interests of the Yoruba Hitler.

The obvious parallel is there. While many Nigerians are being murdered by the concocted riots, the present Yoruba Hitler and his thugs are busy looking for credible political opponents perceived as standing in their way to perpetual occupation of Nigeria. Therefore, Nigerian masses are being terrorized by those who are entrusted with the power to protect and to service the interests of the entire nation.

Several questions are in order now: Why should Nigerians continue to surrender their lives to this murderous administration? If Nigerian masses can no longer gain protection from the members of the current government, why should they continue to obey and to surrender their God-given rights to such a tyrannical administration?

Every government is founded on the need of the members to gain protection from the savaging instincts of human nature. Because each individual needs and requires such a protection from himself and from others, the institutions of government were created to procure these needs. This is the basis of all governments, whether democratic or monarchic. If the protective function exists, then there is an effective government. If there is an effective government, then the lives and properties of all citizens are secured and safe. Once life and property are no longer safe, then there is no more protection.

The Yoruba Hitler and his fanatical thugs and supporters are in the contrary opinion that the current dysfunctional state of affairs in Nigeria serves them well. But they are dead wrong. The protective function of the government is a self-interested function that serves every member of the society, including the rulers and the ruled. Every instance of dysfunctionality therefore harms the interests of all. But because of their short-sighted congenital tendency, which they have failed again and again to alter, Obasanjo and his clan of thugs have once more preferred to pursue immediate transitory pleasure at the expense of more expansive distant advantages associated with the protective function of an effective government. That this course of action is massively short-sighted and disadvantageous to Hitler Obasanjo and his clan of thugs, the following argument is hereby adduced.

The Nigerian government retains its usefulness only if the rules of justice are obeyed by all members of the nation, including the rulers and the ruled. Every instance of violation of such rules harms the interests of every member. If the rules are suspended today so that group A can plunder groups B, C, and D, then the precedent is set for future plundering of every other group. Group A’s plundering harms the interests of groups B, C, and D by depriving these groups of the protective function of the rules of justice. Group A’s plundering also harms the interests of group A because it undermines the benefits of having the rules of justice available for group A. When Abacha and his clan of thugs were busy undermining the rules of justice and plundering everybody’s resources for their own private gains, they were harming both their own interests and the interests of every other group. The coquettish decay they left on their path is available for all to see.

Therefore, all groups need the rules of justice to be enforced both for short-term advantage of protecting every group and for long-term advantage that the rules must be obeyed by every group if the rules are to be of advantage to any group. The Yoruba Hitler and his fanatic thugs and supporters can momentarily suspend the rules so that they can plunder every other group today. It necessarily follows that all groups, including the Yoruba Hitler and his lawless clan of thugs, are set to be plundered by all future plunderers since the benefits of the rules of justice have been effectively undermined.

Therefore, you must be reminded that you are not necessarily winning your game of politics because your “smart” schemes of perfect deception are at least as impracticable as any “smart” scheme of perfect virtue. If you must impose the rules of justice on other groups and never upon yourself and your clan of thugs, then we know that it is in our best interests to freely choose our own leader who will impose the rules of justice upon everybody without exception.

By SpinCity Spinoza

Posted by Administrator at 12:03 AM | Comments (0)

March 26, 2006

Obasanjo's Three Administrations and the Rights of Women in Nigeria

by Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.) (Raleigh, North Carolina) --- Nigerian women have been suffering under all sorts of disabilities of the denial of their human rights under the three administrations of President Obasanjo: 1986 – 1979; 1999 – 2003; 2003 – to the present. For instance, there are the disabilities of Childhood Marriage; Female Circumcision; Illiteracy; Not Enough Political Participation; Punitive Widowhood Practices; Trafficking of the Girl-child and male child; Etc.

President Obasanjo should take a cue from Burkina Faso’s Melegue Traore, the traditional chief and former president of Burkina Faso’s National Assembly when he said, according to the Authoritative Link: "We are in no way abandoning African culture when we abandon female genital mutilation." We also hope that the conference of politicians, health and human rights NGOs, religious experts and traditional leaders in the Senegalese capital included Nigerian Christian and other religious leaders, whose stance has been to support retrogressive native cultural practices rather than Christian progressive and forward-looking reformations. We hope that Nigerians joined them in their rejection of female genital mutilation as not being against tradition.

West African religious and traditional leaders meeting with political officials the first week of December 2005 affirmed their commitment to eradicating female genital mutilation, saying that: “To abandon the practice is not to reject traditional or religious values”. Nigeria must be one of the 28 countries of Africa and the Middle East where three million girls still undergo some form of genital cutting annually, according to the UN World Health Organization, as reported by the Authoritative Link.

PUNITIVE, DEHUMANIZING WIDOWHOOD PRACTICES IN NIGERIA

The Banjul Charter also includes the right to health, the right to be free of cruel and degrading practices, the right to sexual and corporal integrity, and the right to reproduction. A right to health is also provided for in Article 16 of the Banjul Charter, which states: Every individual shall have the right to enjoy the best attainable state of physical and mental health. In addition, Article 18(3) declares that the state shall ensure the elimination of every discrimination against women and also ensure the protection of the rights of the woman and the child as stipulated in international declarations and conventions. The women of Nigeria still live under punitive, demeaning and dehumanizing widowhood practices because the woman lost her husband as a man would lose his wife. Why must widows - young or old - suffer untold torture, hardship and deprivations, INCLUDING DISPOSSESSION OF LIFE AND PROPERTIES from their husband's families? Since these punitive, humiliating and dehumanizing practices obtain in all the ethnic nationalities of Nigeria, it is a matter for the Federal Government to legislate against for the whole country, and to stop such practices forthwith. What has President Obasanjo done to effectively extricate the women of Nigeria from these inhuman practices? NOTHING! Yet he is very proud of the Nigerian women he has appointed into his Cabinet who still live under these oppressive conditions described above in their respective ethnic nationalities. What diplomatic finesse are there for the women of Nigeria to herald for President Obasanjo?

THE RIGHTS OF TRIBAL GROUPS VERSUS THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN

The preference of the International Organizations to support the tribal groups right to IDENTITY AND RECOGNITION as opposed to the RIGHTS OF THE GIRL-CHILD AND WOMEN TO BE FREE FROM CERTAIN PRACTICES, SAY, CHILD MARRIAGE, is the same trend of male domination which extends from the individual, to the family, to the community, to the state and to the international organizations. Tribal identity and recognition, as it were, are only found in the practices that oppress women, never in such practices as FACIAL SCARIFICATION BY MEN (Igbu Ichi), which has been banned ages ago without any fanfare. Ultimately, patriarchy establishes interdependence and solidarity among men, which enables them to dominate women - in most cases to hoodwink women. And in Igbo parlance, they say: “Ka eme nya ife ana-eme nwanyi”. (Do to her what is normally done to women). In effect, to trick her or hoodwink her, or leave her in confusion, wondering just what is going on or what has happened, while men get on with “taking care of business as usual”. The men at higher levels can buy off those at the lower levels by offering them power over those still lower, including women. It is this interdependence and solidarity, and closing of ranks among men, which is the strength of their domination over women, and by which men in authority, who can help women, just pay lip service. What has President Obasanjo done to break this chain of injustice in favour of the girl-child and women? NOTHING!!!

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN IN NIGERIA

The practice of wife-battering, which is condoned by Native Laws and Customs, to tame and discipline the woman, is one of the marks of IDENTITY of tribal groups. Domestic Violence or Wife Battering is treated with levity in Nigeria. Section 252 of the Criminal Code Laws of Nigeria 1990 defines assault and section 351 penalizes assault.

The criminal code is however silent on wife-battery. In reality, wife battery is treated by the Police as FAMILY AFFAIR and is, therefore, neither investigated, nor the batterer charged to Court or even restrained from battering his wife. IRONICALLY, IF THE WOMAN IS BEATEN TO DEATH, THE HUSBAND IS CHARGED TO COURT FOR MURDER. See the case of Nafiu Rabiu Vs. The State 1980 8-11 Sc. WHY MUST THE AUTHORITIES WAIT UNTIL THE WOMAN IS KILLED BEFORE THE PERSECUTOR IS RESTRAINED OR PROSECUTED? What has President Obasanjo done for women in this regard except keep quiet and pretend that these conditions do not exist? NOTHING!!!

Nigeria is a signatory to many International Conventions and Treaties and Human Rights Laws that guarantee women’s freedoms from discriminatory practices and equal fundamental rights as men. Theses include:

International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women;
Convention on Political Rights of Women;
Slavery Convention of 1926 as amended; and
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade; and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.

It is the duty of the Federal Government, headed by President Obasanjo who goes to defend the human rights of the women of other African countries, to implement the international conventions and treaties concerning the fundamental human rights of the girl-child and women in Nigeria. These have been neglected over long periods of time, ESPECIALLY BY THE MILITARY RULERS WHO DO NOT WANT THEM TO EVEN BE MENTIONED.Yet he as well as the other MILITARY MEN WANT WOMEN TO CONTINUE VOTING FOR THEM TO CONTINUE RULING NIGERIA.
President Obasanjo should tell us which one of these United Nations Conventions he has domiciled and implemented for Nigerian women in the last nine years that he has been in the saddle, as Head of State of the Federal Government of Nigeria?

WHEN WOMEN WILL NO LONGER COMPLAIN

If the Constitution would be properly amended and the provisions of these Charters and Conventions complied with and enforced in Nigeria, women would not be complaining at all. But the snag is the unfavorable attitudes of the dominant group in power - men - towards implementing them. Therefore, the Charters, Conventions and Treaties, of the African Union and the United Nations, become mere paper tigers, toothless bulldogs, and the epitome of: Justice Delayed Which Is Justice Denied! A law just on paper is a stillborn and moribund law and, therefore, useless, void and of no effect! What has President Obasanjo done to change the situation? NOTHING!!!

ABROGATE, AMEND, CODIFY, CUSTOMARY LAWS AND HARMONIZE THEM WITH STATUTORY LAWS INTO ONE BODY OF LAWS

It will do a world of good to the people, especially to women, to have the most obnoxious of customary laws abrogated, some amended, and then codify and harmonize them, with the statutory laws, into one body of laws for each ethnic people, as it has been done in South Africa. There is no need to continue to have two or three bodies of laws, complicated with the unwritten and un-codified customary laws, for one and the same people. After all, the governments – customary and constitutional - are all in the hands of the people now as there are no more foreigners to hide from, fight or compete with. When the Laws are harmonized, then and only then will women know what laws that govern them and which they have to live by; not the ever fluid and changing customary practices as they are now. This is an initiative that a Head of State will have to take for the modernization of the laws of the land and governance. Has President Obasanjo or any of his predecessors in-office done anything about it? THE ANSWER IS A CAPITAL NO!!! what then do we herald?

FEMALE GENDER SPECIFICITY IN THE CONSTITUTION

The Constitution of Nigeria, which President Obasanjo, the man with diplomatic finesse has sworn to protect and to defend, lacks specificity about the female gender. For instance: the lack of specificity or the unwillingness of the Government, and even the international organizations, to specifically write in the feminine gender separately, in the Constitution and in statements to include women as persons, causes confusion, ambiguity and lacks clarity. The idea that the female gender is inclusive in the male gender is a fallacy and unfair. It is the same deliberate tactics of leaving women out, and having them go on to protest and to pressurize to the ears of men, which have been tuned off and deafened, that is still going on. If women are meant to be included as persons, much time and energy and stress would be saved by simply saying or writing in: “men and women; he and she; him and her”; from the very beginning. This ambiguity of the female being included in the male is mischievous, trickery, hoodwinking, fraudulent and a manifestation of the Government running with the hares and chasing with the hounds. President Obasanjo should be pressurizing, in behalf of women, to have the Constitution amended to re-arrange references to women equitably and to accommodate the girl-child and women properly, rather than to amend it so that he can stay on in office. What has President Obasanjo done for women in this regard? NOTHING! And yet they are expected to herald his diplomatic finesse!!!

TRAFFICKING OF THE NIGERIAN GIRLS AND BOYS

The children of Nigeria – girls and boys - are still being trafficked at home and abroad, with impunity, for domestic labour and sex trade. What has President Obasanjo done to save Nigeria’s children from this shameful state of affairs, other than to look the other way, as the home and foreign mass media report? NOTHING! I have read of a case where more than 50 children were going to be shipped overseas in ocean-going crates used to carry fish across the ocean to Europe and America before the traffickers were caught. This may not be an isolated case. But suppose that this consignment was not caught? The economic conditions at home that make parents to give up their children, to be taken overseas, in the belief that they would soon be sending money home to them, must be very desperate.

NO SOCIAL WELFARE BENEFITS OF ANY KIND TO ANYBODY IN NIGERIA

Above all, with all the oil-wealth of Nigeria, which Udujie says she is awash with, there is no Social Welfare Support for anybody in Nigeria - indigent widows and orphans, the unemployed and elderly or handicapped and destitute, etc. Why? It is because the Treasury of the country is looted by the men in high offices; there is no transparency in accountability; there is widespread financial impropriety and mismanagement; there is insatiable appetite of those who loot even though they have become richer than the State and Federal Governments; and because they have no PATRIOTISM and SHAME! THEY HAVE DONE NOTHING FOR THE PEOPLE! YET THEY ARE REQUIRED TO HERALD WITH FANFARE WHAT THEIR PRESIDENT HAS BEEN DOING FOR OTHER COUNTRIES!

OBASANJO IS AN ARCH CHAUVINIST AND A MISERABLE HYPOCRITE

I read it sometime ago when he said, while addressing a democracy group in Mexico, that all the Nigerian men with him there were chauvinists, because they believed that men will always be first. You see, that is what is mainly wrong with President Obasanjo’s assessment of situations in Nigeria – he and his chorus boys discount himself as being involved. As far as I am concerned, he is the first and foremost chauvinist in Nigeria. Every Nigerian man, except a handful of them, is a chauvinistic. Of course; any man who is a polygamist is an arch-chauvinist by equating so many women to himself as wives. Above all, polygamists in public office are super-arch-chauvinists of the first order, by usually using one wife to suppress the others, and by appearing and making the people and the world believe that they are what they are not. What diplomatic finesse is there in this hypocrisy to be heralded?

THIRD TERM OR FOURTH TERM BID IS REAL

It is very good that Mr. Udujie outlined some of the things that are wrong with the PDP as well. Well placed PDP members have said it that what is wrong with their Party is President Obasanjo himself, because he would not let other people elected into offices do their jobs. He tries to do his job as well as the jobs of the other people. In other words, he meddles too much in other people’s jobs and businesses beyond what it should be. The President has also been reported as saying that he is all and all in the Party and in the Government, and that no one else in Nigeria can do the job as well as he would or better than he.

Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.)

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March 09, 2006

Remembering the Bravest of them All

by Peter Opara (Boston, Massachussettes)---

He challenged them to try; they knew he meant business and did not venture out. For us in the violence zone, it was a good respite from fear.

“Nobody has the right to kill another.” So wrote a clearly pained Nigerian regarding what is truly a usual and customary behavior in his country – bloodshed and mayhem.

The writer then went on to commit heresy – favorable mention of a brave, no nonsense former Nigerian Head of State General Sani Abacha.

What has ever gone wrong in Olusegun Obasanjo’s Nigeria in the past six years that has not been blamed on General Abacha?

The famous Shakespeare’s statement that many are wont to mistake, misuse and misapply - here truly is it – “the evil that men do lives after them; the good is of’t interred in their bones, and so…” in this instance, let it be with Abacha.

“Enough is enough” was the maxim of the man who the Nigerian Daily Times of a day or two following the coup d’etat of 1984, dubbed “The Action Man” – Abacha.

Is there a Nigerian today that yearns not a call from the seat of power thus – “Enough is enough” of the killing of innocent men and women in Nigeria? If not from Abacha..since he is no more, and some people forget.. would it then matter if such call came from Obasanjo who has uttered nothing but trite or trifle since the maiming, killing and burning of people’s belongings began in Maiduguri last week?

One does not mean empty “enough is enough”. One is talking credible “enough is enough” sustained by established aura and capacity to act as at and when needs be for common good. How such is wanting in Nigeria of today is common knowledge even to the perennially oblivious.

General Abacha’s “enough is enough” was as good in private, as it was in public. He never minced words, you knew where he stood – with you or against you; he brooked no nonsense, that is, he brooked not whatever he did not like, and he made it clear to you.

From a distance, one watched him chase his friend - sit-tight Ibrahim Babangida, out of office. This is a fact not known to many Nigerians. He had made the mistake of aiding the same Babangida to office in the first place, to replace the noble General Muhammadu Buhari, whom, he, General Abacha, successfully recruited to help in remedying Nigeria. How brave should one say was Abacha, when he tried recruiting the father of all no nonsense – Brigadier Tunde Idiagbon in the same Nigeria-remedy endeavor?

Yet still, one watched from a distance, as General Abacha easily disposed of the bumbling incompetent, illegal arrangement headed by Ernest Shonekan – a robber of his kinsman’s mandate, a pretender to leadership. One watched, as General Abacha clamped down on sundry crimes and criminals – 419ers, abandon contractors, thieves a la loan, fraudulent bank operators – most of who trooped abroad and constituted the bunch of “human rights” protesters.

One watched General Abacha say to rebels in Sierra Leone – “enough is enough”. When they failed to listen, he went into Sierra Leone, kicked out the rebels and reinstated the democratically elected government of Ahmed Tejan Kabba.

One watched from a distance as General Abacha said, “enough is enough” to warring Liberian thugs. When they failed to listen, he went in, grabbed one of the recalcitrant thugs, and brought him to Nigeria.

These decisive actions by Abacha paved way, however slightly, for peace in Sierra Leone and Liberia.

“The evil that men do, lives after them, the goods are interred in their bones”. Here were good deeds of Abacha that none remembers. Now need for the brave beckons?

None dare talk about good deeds of Abacha, else you will be branded “evil” or supporter thereof. Then one asks, what evil? Who does not see sundry evil that pervade Nigeria today, 6 or 7 years since General Abacha is been gone?

The so-called man of God that serves in General Abacha’s stead has, every Nigerian can attest, recorded more evil deeds in his six years in office than all past Nigerian leaders put together.

Today, corruption is the arrow with which Obasanjo’s regime hunts anybody it does not like. But corruption resides well inside the seat of the regime, while it blames and chases General Abacha’s shadows and those whose faces it does not like.

Then the usual and customary bloodletting Nigerians are known for, that abated when General Abacha was at the helm, erupted, not once, not twice, not thrice…keep counting.

Only days ago, an event that had its beginning in far away Denmark sparked blood orgy in far away Nigeria. It has been days and the all-knowing Obasanjo has uttered nary a word – just trite and trifle. If Obasanjo could borrow from General Abacha or at least pretend and yell, “enough is enough”, then rioters could be reminded that there is a limit.

And what does clearly pained citizen Joseph Rinyom do than to remember when it was that killing and maiming of fellow human beings on the basis of religion or ethnicity ceased - the time of General Abacha. Thus Joseph Rinyom remembers -

…Abacha was not all that evil, as a commentator made it out to be, especially for those of us within the middle belt (which we refer to as the religious war belt). I cannot recall a single religious crisis during his time, and it was not for the want of trying on the part of Muslims. When he (Abacha) appointed Col. Dominic Oneya, as the first ever Christian governor of Kano, the sheiks swore that he would not be sworn in. He (Abacha) simply asked the military units in Kano to roll over anyone found rioting. No one came out in the streets.

When he (Abacha) imprisoned El Zakzaky, the firebrand Zauzzau (Zara) sheik, his followers threatened brimstone. He (Abacha) challenged them to try. They knew he meant business, and did not venture out. For us in the violence zone, it was a good respite from fear.

Remembering the goods, some of them - “interred in the bones” of the bravest of them all.

________________________
Peter Opara is a communications consultant, and author of Understanding the Nigerian Nation Tribes – Why they Boil; Think In Time – Essays and Encounters of the last Quarter of the 20th Century; The Man of Biafra – in the City Where America Began.

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Nigerian Governments can Achieve Most Things Now if it Really Tries

by D. Akinsanya Juliuson (Great Britain) --- It is perfectly possible for a person to be highly intelligent yet wildly out of touch with his own intuition. Conversely, there are some folk who have impressive powers, yet we wouldn't want their help if we were trying to solve a crossword puzzle.

In an ideal world, we would all learn to listen to our heads and our hearts. We would neither be too logical nor too poetic. I believe we (Nigerians) are naturally inclined to think very deeply. That ability deserves respect. But now, what matters more is what we feel very deeply. Murphy's Law states that “If anything can possibly go wrong, it will”. But wait a minute, 'Anything? Well, in that case, Murphy's Law itself can go wrong from time to time. If, or when, it does, anything that can work out well has to do so. Many people have been hoping for a breakthrough in this country of ours, for a very long time now. It could be about to occur...who knows. Weirdly, that feels worrying rather than reassuring. It won't feel that way to someone like I, though, once it actually happens. The future of our country now, is not subject to Murphy's Law unless we want to
make it so by worrying to the point where our judgment becomes skewed.

There is no law that says Nigerians can't be optimistic. And there is no reason to think that, if we expect the best, we won't get it. If we are floundering in the ocean of uncertainty, any piece of driftwood is a boon. An idea or opinion, no matter how ill-founded, can help keep that horrible sinking feeling at bay. It's not so helpful, though, if we continue to cling to it, even when a luxury liner comes into view. 'I don't trust that ship, so I'm going to ignore it and stick with my existing support system.' Before we can
find the right sort of certainty in this country of ours, we might first have to entertain even deeper doubts. Let’s not be afraid of these. Our government can achieve most things if they really try and listen enough to intelligent Nigerians. It helps enormously though, to know what it is that they are trying to achieve. Can they stop and think, for a moment, about their current goal? If they are really trying to accomplish the objective that they claim to be interested in, why are they going about it in one particular way? Might they have mixed motives? Could they be even telling themselves one thing, whilst inwardly trying to fulfill a different need entirely? Are they going round in circles? It may seem that way - but actually, they are spiraling. There is a subtle but crucial difference. Circles take them right back round to where they started. Spirals appear to be doing much the same but with each rotation, they end up getting a little higher - or going a little deeper. There is something very constructive about the situation our government now find themselves in. Even if they feel confused or they fear that they are just repeating some old and overly familiar exercise, I strongly believe, they are making real progress. However, is confusion preferable to delusion in Nigeria now? Only time will tell, but I still believe in that dream of a better, stronger and successful Nigeria.

WHY WE NEED TO HAVE FAITH IN THE FUTURE OF OUR COUNTRY

It never hurts to be prepared for any circumstance, but it's even more helpful to have the genuine expectation that things will work out for the best. With that kind of winning attitude, how can we go wrong? Stories never begin with, “... and, they all lived happily ever after.” If they did, in our country (Nigeria), we wouldn't want to hear them. The pay-off means nothing until the scene has been set, the challenge has been defined and the difficult objective has been attained. Our tale is only just starting to be told. All the exciting twists and turns lie ahead. Once they take place, we will feel much happier about the circumstances we now face in our beloved country. These are merely the problems that we are eventually going to solve
with the help of the Most High in a satisfying way. They ay, 'There's no gain without pain.' What people like my humble self want to know is, who are the 'they' who say this? And why do they say it? I reckon they are a bunch of masochists, running an insidious campaign to infiltrate mainstream society by creating catchy little phrases like this. Not every gain has to involve pain. Nor must it be followed by a loss. The universe doesn't always give on one hand and take away with the other. Sometimes, good things happen, and they just carry on happening. We must have faith in the future of our country now. Sometimes, when we can't agree, we have to agree to differ. And when we can't do that? We just have to differ, whether it's agreeable or not. Some of us would very much like to restore harmony in our
country where there has lately been far too much tension.

If we offer an olive branch, do we look foolish if it is thrown back in our face? Perhaps, but we would be a lot more foolish to let pride stand in the way of a possible reconciliation. The very best solution is to make a generous gesture now. Clean sheets don't just give us a better night's sleep; they give us a better start to a new life! 2006 may not be quite as fresh and new as it was a sometime ago but, like a recently stained top, its grime has not yet become ingrained. There's still time to remove the sticky psychological residue of yesteryear and give Nigerians the best possible start. It is not
too late to successfully bring about the change we (Nigerians) most desire. Whatsoever on earth we're worried about, it will all come out in the wash. So far though, the year is doing its best to give the impression of being just another, ordinary year. Let’s not be fooled. Though the old routine is keen to clasp us in its overly familiar embrace, but trust me, our nation has a very different destiny in store, and the year itself will soon show us another face before we finally enter the mother of them all….2007. Happily we will both change in a compatible fashion at a mutually convenient time! Meanwhile, if we need information, let’s stop guessing, assuming or
fabricating. Let’s learn to ask someone who is not a character assassin, blackmailer and or parasite. Let’s ask some persons who knows. If we don't ask a question, how can we possibly get an answer? We may not feel able to ask it because we are not sure how it will be received. In that case, let’s try asking around the question. Let’s try dropping hints and making suggestions. It's not what we say. Nor, necessarily, is it how we neither say it, nor even who we say it to. Often, what really makes a difference is when we say it. We can hold the same conversation a hundred times and exchange little by way of new information. The same old words will fall on the same old half-deaf ears. Then, one day, someone will be in the mood to really listen, properly. The right moment will have come. I believe that,
somewhere within a seemingly unsolvable problem, there is always a real way to move everything forward especially in our beloved nation. However, I surely believe what my heart is telling me. 2007 will be a year of restoration for the most beloved nation, Nigeria.

OUR LEADERS USE A LOT OF WORDS, BUT THEY OFTEN SAY VERY LITTLE

People who hold passionate beliefs find it hard to talk to folk who see the world differently. Or rather, they find it easy to talk to them, but hard to listen to them. If we want to hold a constructive conversation now, we need to put our own beliefs aside for a while. This will help in two ways. It will enable us to hear what's being said to us and, even if it doesn't inspire the other participants to go beyond their own preconceptions, it will at least ensure that they tell us everything we need to know. We all like to know where we stand, especially when it seems likely that we will have to stand there for a considerable length of time. We want and like to be able to get comfortable and make plans. That's why the possibility of change, even if it is positive and much needed, can be more disturbing than the notion of perpetual stalemate. It isn't easy to talk when our mouth is full. Sadly, though, there is no similar physical impediment to speaking when our ears are blocked. Most people speak without listening to themselves or anyone else.

That's why, despite the fact that we hold so many conversations, we experience so little by way of real communication. Our leaders use a lot of words, they often say very little. Our non-verbal communications often, work the other way round. We only have to raise an eyebrow by a millimeter in order to express a vast amount of enthusiasm or disapproval. We must start paying close attention, now, to what some persons, groups and nations are trying to tell us. Let’s not respond until the information has been properly understood and carefully digested. Then, we will surely end up with real power. We need to watch someone or some people's body language now. We need to listen to their tone of voice. These are being carefully crafted to convey a rather different meaning. We need to detect some people's true motives and their real interests. Nigeria belongs to this and future generations, we must do all we can to protect our nation,
our government and the poor souls. Let’s make Nigeria a nation no longer deserted, for that’s what our country deserves.

WHY ARE WE INTERESTED ONLY IN THE PART OF THE FUTURE WE THINK WE CAN
FORESEE?

Something, very soon I believe, will remind us of how much more there is to life than a particular topic which has lately been absorbing so much of our energy in this country. We'll then see life from a higher perspective. For now, we should be grateful for small mercies. Large ones don't require our gratitude. They are the gifts that the world bestows on us, regardless of whether or not we feel thankful. The smaller blessings tend to involve matters of personal preference. They may mean a lot to us but that isn't always obvious to the world. When then, it inadvertently graces us. We should let it know as loudly as possible in the hope that it will keep repeating the trick. Sometimes, life gives us what we like. Then, it is easy to appreciate our circumstances and surroundings. What are we supposed to do, though, when it presents us with something we are not so fond of? We can put a lot of energy, right now, into resenting or trying to change a situation that seems less than ideal in our country. If, we set about trying to find something within it that we can admire and respect, we will surely have a lot more peace and happiness and we won't compromise our eventual ability to bring about a change that we yearn for. I believe none of us really knows where we are going, because we don't know where we have been.

We arrive in this world with our memories wiped, like reconditioned
computers, fresh from the workshop. We can relate only to what we can
remember. We are interested only in the part of the future we think we can foresee. The universe never gives us more than we can cope with, but it sometimes gives us as much as we can cope with. When we are being tested in this way - or taken to our limits - or required to wrestle with an intense dilemma, we must have faith. Really, faith is all we need in this country now. Let’s do our best. Let’s trust that, as long as we do this, everything will eventually take care of itself. We might not yet be able to see a solution to our nation’s biggest problem. But I believe, it is nearer than we might think. They say, 'Where there is life, there is hope'. This is planet earth. It is teeming with life. Surely then, it must also be bursting
at the seams with hope. Is all that hope in vain? I believe NO is the
answer. It's just that, sometimes, we forget we are entitled to allow
ourselves an experience of hope. Then, effectively, we deny ourselves a worthwhile experience of life, too. Let’s hang on to our greatest hope of a better Nigeria today. It might yet spring delightfully into life.

In addition, let’s remember to keep our thoughts positive, for our thoughts becomes our words; let’s remember to keep our words positive, for our words become our actions; let’s remember to keep our actions positive, for our actions become our habits; and last but not the least, we must remember to keep our habits positive, because our habits become our destiny. What our leaders must do is to put on their thinking hoods, find some ways or discover some ideas that will enable them to accomplish what they set out to do. I believe playing “follow the leader” gets neither you nor the leader nowhere. They must draw attention in some ways to what they are doing. They
need new ideas or maybe a purpose, something quite different that has never been done or tried before for our country and Nigerians. Whatsoever on earth they do, must be different! This might not sound like an easy task. It might sound like a tall order, and it is, so they should get their thinking hoods on NOW, to fathom out or discover some unusual ideas that will get attention and will enable them to raise the standard of living, bring peace and unity
needed in our country. God will surely bless our country and bless us with peace of mind.

D. AKINSANYA JULIUSON
Diplomacy Practitioner and Specialist Investigator

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Ozodi Osuji Weekly Series on Psychology 2006, #14 of 52: Our Addictions to Mood Altering Agents

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- Addiction is a human issue. Unfortunately, many Africans tend to see addiction as a Western issue. It is not only a Western issue, it is our African issue. Many of us, Africans, are addicted to mood altering substances but we just do not know it. I doubt that there is a human being out there who does not have some sort of addiction?

In this essay, I will review the nature of addictions and what is to be done about it. This review is introductory and basic and is not meant as detailed information on the subject. My goal is to make folks aware of the nature of addiction and if they believe that they have an addiction, they ought to go seek help from Professional Chemical Dependency Counselors.

One is addicted to any activity that one finds ones self doing compulsively, doing it as if one no longer has the freedom not to do it; and if one tried not to do it one felt anxious and to reduce that anxiety do it.

Given this definition, it follows that some addictions are positive and others negative. If you are a runner, as I am, you find that you must run. If you do not run every other day, as I do, for five miles, you feel unhappy, and go run. When you run you feel good about yourself. Running is a mood altering mechanism for you. You are addicted to running. This is positive addiction; it is good for you, although it might have some negative aspect: damage the cartilages of your knees etc.

The compulsion to do something and obedience to that compulsion, unfortunately, is not reserved for positive activities like exercising, hard working and reading books only. The individual tends to be addicted to activities that are positively correlated with harm to his life.

Human beings tend to be addicted to over eating food, over drinking alcohol, sex, doing drugs like Cigarettes, Coffee, Marijuana, Cocaine, Heroine, Amphetamines, LSD, Valium, Librium, Xanax, Morphine, Pocadan and many other drugs, legal and illegal.


PSYCHOLOGICAL AND PHYSIOLOGICAL ADDICTIONS

There are essentially two types of addictions, psychological and physiological. In psychological addiction the individual has an over powering mental desire to do something and finds himself unable to resist doing so. A sex addict, for example, may experience an over powering desire to go to a whore house or pick up a street worker, and have sex with her. He finds himself unable to concentrate on doing any other thing unless he goes and has sex with a hooker. Once he does so, he feels relaxed and is now able to concentrate on other activities. His craving for indiscriminate sex with any woman is psychological; it is in his head, not in his body. (Homosexual men have similar cravings; some of them cruise city parks trying to have sex with other men, men they do not know; lesbians, daggers, generally go to bars and pick up total strangers, queens, and have sex with them. It is a strange, strange world we live in. If you are a therapist, like I was, you get to hear the amazing things that human beings do while pretending to be saints, like the pastor driving around city streets looking for a girl under age twelve to have sex with while talking rubbish about his god, Jesus Christ.)

In psychological addiction the desire is in the mind. In physiological addiction, on the other hand, the desire is not only in the mind but now also in the body. The person is not only mentally addicted but physically addicted.

Consider the alcoholic. He may have begun his drinking vocation through social drinking and becomes psychologically addicted to alcohol, and finally graduates to physiological addiction. When he is physiologically addicted his addiction is now not only in his mind but in his body; his body craves alcohol and he must have it or else he cannot function. He now needs his drug of choice to be able to functional normally.

The physiologically addicted alcoholic gets up in the morning and must have his beer or wine or gin or whisky (whichever is his drug of choice) or else he cannot function on the job. If he does not have alcohol in his body, his body shakes rather uncontrollably (DTs, Delirium Tremens it is called), his nerves are raw and he cannot concentrate on thinking; he feels anxious and restless. No kidding, this person cannot do anything unless he downs some alcohol.

There are many stages of alcoholism, from mild to high. We shall not concern ourselves with such detailed knowledge here. All that we need to know is that the physiologically addicted alcoholic now lives to drink. He must drink to seem alive, to function in society. Without his alcohol he is unable to do anything. Of course, that alcohol is taking a toll on him: destroying his liver (cirrhosis), his kidney, his brain. In late stage alcoholism these folks memories are gone, literally gone; their short term memories are kaput: “What did you do yesterday?”, “I do not know,” No kidding; this is the real world, man. Yet this man will spend his last penny on booze.


TOLERANCE AND WITHDRAWAL

Folks begin drugs gradually and their bodies build up tolerance. Consider smoking cigarettes. The first time a twelve year old child (twelve is the typical age kids begin to experiment with drugs) smokes a cigarette he probably chokes on it and coughs a lot. As he persists in smoking, however, he tolerates a cigarette and soon many cigarettes. He may get to a point where he smokes three packs of cigarettes a day. His body is building tolerance. The level of nicotine in his body that used to give him a feeling of stimulation, or whatever else he believes that he gets from smoking, no longer does so, and now he needs more and more cigarettes to get the same feeling.

The same goes for alcohol and other drugs. A beer may have given one the “rush” but in time one may need six or more beers to feel that rush. The cocaine taker may have felt high with a snort of cocaine but, in time, may need a noseful (and burns holes in his nose) to feel the same sense of high his first cocaine gave him. His body has built tolerance for that drug.

As ones body builds more and more tolerance one spends enormous time trying to acquire the high quantity of the drug one needs to have to feel some effect from it. One becomes hopelessly addicted to ones drug of choice.

One is addicted to a drug if when one tries to stop taking it one feels intense withdrawal symptoms. Those who are addicted to alcohol talk about having hallucinations, heart palpitations, shaking of their muscles, mental confusion, and preoccupation with the drug. When they finally get that drug into their system the withdrawal symptoms go away.

That is to say that one is now a slave to ones drug of choice; one must have it to avoid the painful feeling of withdrawal. The circle is closed and the addict is now totally in the hands of the demon, drugs, and his master. He is no longer a free person; he is a person in bondage to his master the drug.


If you are addicted to Valium, it has the same effects as alcohol addiction. If you try to quit it you may, in fact, experience visual hallucinations, heart palpitations etc just as alcoholics do. Alcohol and drugs that mimic it slow down the addicts heart beatings so that a sudden withdrawal from alcohol and or the Benzodiazepams could lead to heart attack.

The withdrawal symptoms are so bad that often an addict needs to be in a hospital for a month or so, so that physicians monitor changes in his heart and body to make sure that he does not go into cardiac arrest and die. (Alcoholics may be given Librium as transition drug, for sudden cessation of alcohol in their body could bring about a shock to their entire bodies and they die.)

Those who are hooked to street drugs like heroine often have to be given replacement drugs like methadone otherwise they seem unable to cope with the powerful withdrawal symptoms of their drug of choice (muscle itching and twitching, restlessness, mental confusion, agitation etc.).

Drug addicts so fear withdrawal symptoms that some of them can turn tricks (prostitution) to get money to buy their drugs; some of them steal from stores and resale the goods for the price of their fix…say, steal a leather jacket that costs three hundred dollars and give it to the drug pusher for a fix that costs twenty five dollars.

Some drug addicted fellows, in fact, abandon their children and devote their lives to the career of seeking and getting drugs into their bodies.

Some intravenous addicts, like Heroine addicts, literally inject every part of their bodies with needles and have ugly scare marks all over their bodies and yet must do it to feel good from their drugs.

Folks who are addicted to cocaine and amphetamine sometimes experience all the classic symptoms of paranoia; in cocaine high, they believe that some one, say the police, is after them, is trying to get them and they run from him; some of them may hear a knock on their doors and erroneously think that it is the police knocking and jump out of the upstairs window and hurt themselves, even kill themselves.

A fellow on cocaine run for days is often not different from a certified delusionally disordered person. (This would seem to suggest that there is biochemical causation of mental disorders…that too much dopamine may cause schizophrenia… cocaine initially leads to out pouring of dopamine, a neurotransmitter, which makes the drug addict feel fine for a while; but in time he builds tolerance and needs more and more drugs to feel fine. His paranoid reactions tend to be part of his late stage reaction to drug addiction. These days, schizophrenics say that they have brain chemical imbalance disease, but that is not yet demonstrated as a fact.)

LSD has hallucinogenic effects: seeing what is not there as there. It also produces flashbacks, that is, re-experiencing the effect of the drug years later. Marijuana has some hallucinogenic effect.

My goal here is not to provide technical information on drugs and their effects, but to talk about them at a basic level.

Let me talk a bit about caffeine addiction and addiction to nicotine, popular addictions that many people can identify with.


Hi, my name is Thomas, I am an addict. I am addicted to caffeine. (I tried cigarettes when I was in college and gave it up; I sometimes, say, every few months, drink a beer or two, but no hard liquor.)

I am a heavy coffee drinker. I have been drinking coffee since I was 12 years old. So here we are at an AA (Alcohol Anonymous) meeting and I get up and tell the room full of addicts that my name is Thomas and that I am a caffeine addict.

I am serious; I am seriously addicted to caffeine, both psychologically and physiologically. I have read many books on caffeine and know that it is correlated with heart diseases and pancreatic cancer etc. I would like to quit but somehow I always come right back to drinking my java.

I guess that is why I live in Seattle, Java city. Starbucks, you owe me one, for if I calculate the $4 dollars a pop, that I spend every day at your joint, you have taken thousands from me…just as alcohol joints take money from alcohol addicts.


Caffeine has psychological and physiological addiction. If you try to quit it you feel serious withdrawal symptoms, such as agitation, muscle itching, dizziness in your head, even heart arrhythmia. Folks, this is serious addiction, do not minimize it. I know folks whose teeth have fallen off and their gums receded all from drinking coffee and they still drink it.

Didn’t I tell you that we are all addicts? No shame, man, I own up, I am a coffee addict.

What is your own addiction? Cigarette? Do you smoke a pack or two a day? Do you know what you are doing to yourself? You are courting lung cancer, heart attack, and all sorts of somatic disorders. Are you still in denial?

If you are a Nigerian, do you have that peculiar Nigerian pattern of denial, of believing that you do not have mental issues and that only white folks do?

(Just about every Nigerian I see has emotional and or mental health issues, but he does not always know it; he thinks that he is okay. Poor guy. If only he knows that I am taking the time to write this stuff and give it away, for free, because I see his issues and want to help him.)


So you do not have drug addiction, eh? How about addiction to food? Have you seen some Nigerian big men lately? Their tummies are so fat that they look like pregnant women. Actually, they are heart attack waiting to happen…and in their primitive superstitions they would attribute it to juju and other such rubbish.

How tall are you? The typical Nigeria is about five feet eight inches tall. That means that he should not weigh more than one hundred and sixty pounds. So what is your weight, wise guy? Two hundred and fifty pounds? Are you pregnant? “Big man afo shi” we used to say when we were kids.

Loose that ugly weight and loose it now. Find out your natural weight, as delineated by medical science and do not weigh more than that.

To not be over weighted you must eat right. I will not tell you what to eat. There are good nutritionists out there that can tell you what to eat.

Are you a food addict? Are you using food to deal with your frustrations in life? Did you not get that girl you want, that job you want etc and feel disappointed and sad and eat to make you feel good? Food is used to make us feel good when our lives are going to the pots.

Clearly many Nigerians are addicted to food and alcohol. Just look at their sizes, the women with fat tummies and thunder thighs, the men with grossly fat bellies that they hide in folds of agbada.

I do not think that these folks need any one to tell them that they are in a bad shape. Get up and go exercise; run, swim, buy a bicycle and ride it to work rather than drive to work, play tennis, play golf, do weight training etc, do everything to make you sweat and loose that ugly fat.

(There are three types of exercises: cardiovascular, like running; strength, like weight training; flexibility like calisthenics, yoga…you already know all these, now practice them.)

I would like to spend some time on addiction to sex. Nigerians, indeed Africans are unaware that there is such a thing as addiction to sex. Yet sex is the most addicting activity known to man. How so?

When folks have sex, the men ejaculate and the women have orgasm. This gives them a sense of wellbeing. It momentarily alters their mood, their brain chemical balance and makes them forget about their troubles.

Why do you think that folks take drugs? They do so to alter their chemical balance so as to feel good, albeit momentarily. You achieve the same end through sex.

So you are tense and all stressed out and have a little sex, eh? You feel relieved. You associate physical release with sex. So you desire sex and repeat the behavior until it becomes a habit, an addiction.

In Nigeria, there are whorehouses just about everywhere you look. As kids growing up at Lagos we knew where the whores lived.
The whore houses usually contain the bottom of the barrel in the profession of harlotry. Those prostitutes who consider themselves a bit more sophisticated tend to walk the streets or hang around hotel lounges. I once lived at Victoria Island, right opposite Federal Palace Hotel. In the evenings, the hookers lined up the street leading to the Hotel. My friends and I used to go talk to these street women, most of them our age. There were fourteen year olds among them. When the police came, they scampered everywhere, vanished. These types of hookers considered themselves high class and preferred expatriates, whites. They used to tell us about their sexual exploits with white men. It was fascinating hearing the sisters talk about what they do. Interestingly, it never occurred to me to actually find out what they did.

Look, prostitution is everywhere in Nigeria and we do not need to play coy and pretend that reality is not reality. Indeed, some well to do Nigerians practically turn their junior staff and or students to sex slave status. Rich folks have arrangements for their mistresses, concubines and what not.

The Nigerian big man seems to believe that it is his right to have sex with as many women as he pleases. As a matter of fact, he does not even think that it is wrong to do so. If you ask him why he does what he does, he is likely to tell you that his fathers used to have many wives and that since the white man and his religion now limits him to one wife that he is somehow gratifying his polygamous tradition by having mistresses.

Is it really true that in traditional African society polygamy was the norm? Where is the evidence? Let me speak about my family. My father, my grandfather and my great grandfather…those that I knew…were all married, each to a woman. I have done a retrospective analysis of my ancestors to as far back as is possible, they were all in monogamous marriages. And least you think that they were monogamous because they could not afford many wives, let me quickly tell you that in our village, we are the first family, the Opara, and Ndi Ishi Muo.

So what is the point? People in my town, particularly, the well to do ones were monogamous. It is therefore a crock to say that polygamy was the norm in traditional Africa. In so far that there was some polygamy in my town it was always the riff raffs, the nothing trying to seem like they are something big by having many wives.

Generally, those fellows who married many wives were burned, quick, and returned to their senses and accepted that one wife is more than enough for a man to handle. In fact, the average man cannot even deal with the Wahalla of one woman how much more many women!

I am saying that it is not true that we should justify modern Africans polymorphous perverse sexuality with so-called African tradition of polygamy. Our traditions were very strict. In my area if you committed incest you were killed; if you engaged in adultery you were ran out of town. No sir, our African past was not morally loose, as decadent liberal cultural relativists would like to tell us.

Those Nigerians who have sex with many women have sex addiction, period. They must accept their addiction and deal with it and stop being in denial.

A human being is at his best if he limited his sexuality to one woman (and in his late fifties, avoided sex altogether and concentrated on spiritual matters).

Sex is best limited to monogamy, in marriage between a man and a woman. Within this context, sex is best if it is done out of love.
Do you love your partner? Do you care for her welfare? Do you see her as a total person, or do you see her only as a sex object? Is she a sex toy for you, a parlor trophy with which you decorate your house or do you see her as a life long partner with whom you go through the journey called life on earth?

Sex done in the context of marital love is proper sex. Sex with different women, persons one does not love, persons that one uses to obtain physical tension release is sex addiction.

If you pursue sex just to alter your mood, to feel good, you are not different from the chap addicted to heroine, you are an addict, a sex addict. Do you get it or do I need to stand on my head and say the obvious? Those Nigerians with several mistresses are sex addicts. They need to be healed of their addiction to a mood altering drug, the sex drug.

Like most addicts, however, these folks are probably in denial and need to accept their disease.

If you do have sex with more than one woman, please go to a sex addicts meeting and publicly declare yourself an addict. You must tell the world: Hello, I am James, I am a sex addict.

Accept your disease, for there is no healing until the addict stops being in denial and accept his disease in a public forum.

Just look at the price of sex addiction in Africa: folks contracting sexually transmitted diseases like gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, chlamydia, and now the killer HIV AIDS. Africans are exposing themselves to unnecessary diseases and are dying from them and giving their children all sorts of deformities from these diseases.

I remember when I was in secondary school and some of my friends would go to the various whore houses and a few days latter say that they are having difficulty urinating. Some one says: he has Clap. Some one would direct him to street vendors selling antibacterial and other snake oil remedies for clap. He bought them. I hate to tell you this fact; many of those boys are now dead. They would have been fifty one this year, but their reckless lifestyles shortened their lives.

Look, there is always a price to be paid for every behavior we engage in. We must restrict our sexuality to monogamous marriages if we want to live healthy lives.


ADDICTIONS AFFECT THE FAMILY

Addiction to drugs adversely affects the family. In fact, all members of the family are affected if one member is a drug addict. Whereas we are not talking about family counseling here, let me briefly observe that family therapist operate under what they call family system’s theory (See the writings of Healy and Virginia Satir). As they see it, the family is a system and whatever happens to disrupt any part of the system disturbs all parts of the system. All persons in a general system adjust to disturbances in any part of it.

If a father is an alcoholic the chances are that it would negatively affect his role as the primary bread winner of the family. Booz is expensive, you know. A pack of cigarette is half the minimum wage, you know. A cup of java is half the minimum wage. Simply stated, drug addiction affects family finances.

Moreover, drug addiction affects the psychological role of the addict. Have you seen a real alcoholic? Alcohol becomes the only important thing in his life, sometimes more important than his wife and children. As a matter of fact alcohol becomes more important than life itself, for now he lives to drink, not drink to live. He is hopelessly in the grip of alcohol addiction; he is now in the demon’s fangs.

The alcoholic and or the drug addict would rather spend his time at the bar or cruise the streets looking for drugs rather than go home and help his children do their home works. He may stay out till late at night and then stagger home and stagger to bed. In the morning he starts drinking, again, for now he needs his alcohol to steady his shaking hands. This man is lost to the human race; the devil has won him over, he is gone insane and now lives in the stupor of alcohol.

The alcoholic father or mother is unable to perform his or her family role. Some one else has to perform that role. If the man is the alcoholic or drug addict and is hopelessly dysfunctional all the other family members become dysfunctional too. The wife plays the role of the enabler, telling lies to cover up for his mistakes and thereby perpetuating his insanity. The children adopt certain roles: one the hero, or the rescuer, or the scapegoat, or the family rebel.

We covered these roles when we talked about children’s mental health issues. Find out about them. It might also help you if you know what role you tend to play in your social life, for it may be a carryover from your role in a dysfunctional family.

For example, my parents worked around the clock. Both father and mother got up at 5AM and by 6AM were out of the door, to work. They did not come home before 6PM for mother and 8PM for father. The five boys in the family were given material things but other than that were essentially left alone to fend for themselves.

I grew up with more material goods than the children of rich folks (my mother actually bought her first son a car, a motor cycle etc).

The children learned to take care of business for themselves. I developed the role of a family rescuer, helping the younger ones, rescuing them.

What do you think that I have been doing with my life? I went into the mental health field to save the mentally ill and learned that I could not. I went into teaching trying to make folks learn.

What am I doing here? I am compulsively giving out information to those I feel need it. I do not have to do any of these things, you know. I could be a typical Nigerian and parade around and be called Dr Osuji and find a sinecure job and leave it at that. But, instead, I am spending my Saturday afternoon in front of my computer typing this material for you.

And what do I get from you? Perhaps, headache from Igbos; they must find something to criticize in one, if only to show the world that they are better than one; they cannot stand any one else seeming good. Yet I must play my role, for I over learned it in my dysfunctional family.

All families have their own issues. All families are dysfunctional. Find out about your own family dysfunctions. Then try to heal it. These dysfunctions are multi-generational; that is, they are passed from one generation to another.

Nobody in my family drinks alcohol more than the occasional beer; no one that I know of in the kindred do drugs. But you know what? Everybody in my family tends to be a workaholic. My junior brother, Geoffrey, works eight hours for the government and does another eight hours private work, six days a week. That is who we are. I get up in the morning and work until I am tired and go to sleep at 11 PM. This type of lifestyle obviously affects our children. We must, therefore, be mindful of it and make time to take our children to the Zoo, Library, Museum, and Gym etc.

I know what my problem is and I am doing something about it. How about you? Do you even know that you have a problem? And if you do, are you doing something about it? I hope to God that you are dealing with your family dysfunction issues. You see, the Nigerian middle class, essentially abandon their children and they grow up with myriad of problems. Only God knows what kinds of problems our future children will have. I guarantee you that it will not be rosy.

We have the poor who cannot feed their children and these, like children from broken homes, all over the world, feel not cared for and do not care for any one. Some of them are so angry at society that they gravitate to street gangs and eventually make antisocial, criminal activity their lives career.

So will you do your part to make sure that our children are loved and nurtured so that they would grow up not messed up?
You will not say that nobody has told you about these problems. I am telling you about them. The ball is now in your court, so go do something about it and stop drowning your existential sorrows with alcohol, food, cigarette, coffee, sex and even the harder stuff like street drugs.

Go get help for your addiction issues. Do not be afraid to acknowledge that you have an addiction issue; I have not seen a human being who does not have one, negative or positive, but one nevertheless.

What is your own addiction? Identify it and treat it, for it is a serious problem, do not deny it, do not minimize it, do not blame other people for it, just accept it as your issue and deal with it. It really does not matter how you come about the problem; there is no use blaming others, accept responsibility and deal with it, now, not tomorrow.

But be warned that if you have a serious addiction issue, it might take several trials before you succeed. They say that the typical smoker of cigarettes often takes ten quitting episodes before he finally sticks to it. Alcoholics often under go ten treatments before they finally quit (or die).


POSITIVE ADDICTIONS

Addictions have always been part of the human condition. I doubt that we can ever eliminate all addictions. To be human is to be prone to addictions.

Some claim that we are on earth because we are addicted to the ego; that the allure of the separated, individuated self, the special, superior self created self, the ego is why we are here and that we are addicted to it. They claim that we must let go of our wish for separated self and return to the acceptance of our true self, unified self, before we can overcome all addiction. Indeed, there are those who claim that all addiction is a spiritual disease. The Founders of AA certainly believed that addiction is a spiritual disease. As the AA Big Book sees it, our primary problem is our swollen ego. We are addictable because we have big egos. To overcome addiction, the AA book says that we must let go of the ego and let in God.

Let go and let God. (As a matter of fact, that is the first of the twelve’s steps that addicts must go through to heal.)

I am in agreement with the AA movement that addiction is a spiritual disease; nevertheless, I want to focus on the here and now world.

If you are addicted to something please accept your addiction. Do not deny it. I urge you to try to replace your negative addiction with a positive addiction.

Reading books is addictive, working very hard is addictive, exercising is addictive, and serving other people is addictive. If you start doing any of those things you will find it difficult to quit doing it; that is, you are addicted to it. They are positive addictions. Your wife may not like it if you are an exercise addict, a reading addict, a workaholic who lives for work, but at least you are not killing your self with drugs.

Positive addictions have their draw backs but they are superior to negative addictions.

In the long run, however, you must find some sort of meaning and purpose for living here on earth. Here spirituality comes in. I do not believe that one can heal ones addiction if one has not solved the existential question: what the hell are we doing here on earth?

I have friends who are vegetarians, do not drink any kind of alcohol, no coffee, no cigarette, no drugs, folks who live clean wholesome life. If I examine their lives, I see folks who are less egotistical, folks who have surrendered to a higher power, whom they call God.

As for yours truly, I hover between heaven and earth, unable to give up my ego. I am still egotistical hence I drink coffee and it is killing me. When I finally let go of my belief in my own powers, my ego, and totally accept God as my only source and rely on him, I am sure that I will lick my coffee drinking habit.

If you have an addiction, please understand it and seek treatment, do not deny it. There are many chemical dependency counselors out there who are willing and are able to help you.


CONCLUSION
In this essay, I merely called your attention to the issue of addictions. I did not aim at a complete explication of the nature of addictions. I am not a Chemical Dependency counselor, I am a mental health professional (Psychiatrists, psychologists, clinical social workers).
If addiction is your issue, please go seek the help that you deserve and stop making a mess of your life, and the lives of those around you.

Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

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To your Tents Oh Nigeria!

by Chibuzo Onubogu (Clayton, NC, USA) --- While being an ardent supporter and advocate of one united Nigeria, I will not fail to register my displeasure for the recent unprovoked killings of my people by the Muslim Northerners. What exactly did these Nigerians being killed in Katsina and Maiduguri do to deserve these attacks?

Why are you these Muslims so bloodthirsty and murderous that they feel they can just take to the streets and start killing innocent Nigerians? A Danish cartoonist makes a caricature of Mohammed and Nigerians have to be killed for it? I need someone to explain it to me.

Please tell me why Southern Christians have to suffer once again for something they have no knowledge of. When will you Muslims stop shedding the blood of innocent Nigerians? This recent incident has come to prove that maybe we need to separate. Maybe we need to fight another civil war since it seems we are not satisfied with the previous one. One thing that irks me is how Muslim leaders come and tell us the same nonsense about how Islam is a non violent Religion; yet time after time their followers take to the street to kill people who have done absolutely nothing to them. Just like always we are sold the dumb idea that it was done by hooligans. Who are these hooligans, and why are they always after Christians especially the ones from the South? Someone needs to convince me that you so called Muslim leaders are not the ones behind all the mayhem and carnage brought upon unsuspecting innocent Southerners.

I want to use this opportunity to call on Christians to stand up and fight back. I do believe it is time to stop dividing yourself by tribe and get together and fight your own religious war. Are you going to continue to be murdered and butchered anytime the Muslims feel like it? Just as I was writing this I saw the reprisals in Onitsha. Let’s not relent in our efforts at retaliation. We need to kill more Muslims so that they will think twice before they start their murderous acts again. I am calling on well meaning Christians in all the southern cities to join the people in Onitsha and burn a few more mosques.

I think that this incident is one of the reasons a lot of people do not want Nigeria to remain one country. The life of a typical southerner is seen as worth nothing by these Muslim fanatics. Just like racism in which blacks suffer against whites, religious intolerance is often relegated to the realm of extremists, but I beg to differ. It is my contention that moderates will always outnumber extremists of any political, religious or tribal group, but the tendency to be complacent and sit on the sideline and watch will make them lose their power to change the order of things to the radicals or extremists.

If we cannot guarantee that there will not or never be a Muslim attack on innocent Christians anymore, then we ought to start singing “Nunc Dimitis” on the concept of a united Nigeria. I will always contend that we ought to work together to build a great nation one and all, but if the lives and property of Christians will continue to wasted by Muslims, then it would be better if Nigeria ceases to exist.

Chibuzo Onubogu writes from the USA

Posted by Administrator at 09:26 AM | Comments (2)

March 07, 2006

Arise Biafra: A Poem

by CID Oguagha (New York, USA) --- Fulani and Hausa whopper scythe whet in the bloods of our heroes
It is Islamic trophy in all Northern homes
It is priceless among their Yoruba allies

I have sworn we would not forget our slain heroes
Their garments manure the tendrils of our second and final testament
Their bones form the superstructure of Biafra tower

Hapless mother of untold tears and torture
You took delivery of rail-freights of body parts of your progeny
And the Islamic scythe that left nothing standing

Wail no more, cheer up for resolution
We have come to the threshold of our destination
The state we espy will soon rise from falling heroes

CID OGUAGHA
NY

Posted by Administrator at 08:55 AM | Comments (1)

Ozodi Osuji Weekly Series on Psychology 2006, #13 of 52: The Correlation of Idealism and Paranoid Thinking

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- Idealistic thinking is wishing that things be different from the way they are. The idealist sees reality as it is, but wishes that it were different from what it is. In paranoid thinking the individual sees himself as he is, imperfect, and wishes that he were different, perfect. No amount of wishing makes the earthly self perfect.

The paranoid person uses his imagination to invent an ideal and perfect self for himself and identifies with it, defends and protects it. He wants other people to acknowledge his imaginary perfect self as who he is, in fact, and resents those who do not acknowledge his false fictional superior and perfect self. He feels demeaned when other people do not respect his false superior self. As it were, he wants to con the world to accept his imaginary ideal self as who he is. If he is self deceived and believes that he is his imaginary ideal self he is now totally in the world of delusion; he is no longer not just a paranoid personality but delusional disordered.

He knows that his real imperfect self, the bodily ego self will die and so he wishes that his imaginary ideal perfect self would survive his physical death. He works to make his imaginary perfect self survive and in doing so gives his life on earth false meaning and purpose.

The reality is that the false perfect self is not going to come into being and the world is not going to be ideal.

The earthly self, real or imaginary, has no worth and is valueless. What survives is the dreamer, the conceptualizer, the thinker, the wisher of separation, the ever lasting spirit in us, not his wished for separated self and not the world of that wished for self.

Delusional disorder is trying to make the ego separated self ideal and important and has other people acknowledge the importance of the fictional self. The deluded person wants to make his imaginary ideal self important and make the world of that imaginary self important, that is, make human civilization important and ever lasting, all these are futile efforts.
LAUGHTER, PLAYFULNESS, PEACE, HAPPINESS

If one recognizes that the false self, the ego, cannot be important and that its civilization cannot be important now what should one do?

One should love the dreamer, the Spirit in us, not his dream self and dream world. One should play with the dream self and dream world, play with other dream selves, egos and their activities without taking them as important, for they are not and will never be important. This world you are looking at will eventually be blown up in nuclear evisceration; the world is a smoke and will disappear from sight.


FLEXIBLE VERRSUS INFLEXIBLE PURSUIT OF THE FICTIONAL SELF AND ITS WORLD

When one is inflexibly pursuing the rigid important self, ones body reflects ones thinking, mind, and are inflexible and rigid in its quest for importance. Ones body is tort and uptight.
One should go exercise and become flexible and enjoy the dream but not take it seriously.

Ego mind thinking is reflected in body but body itself is neutral; body represents what the mind wants to think and experience, ego importance or experience ego play.

The idealist and the paranoid rejected the empirical world; both saw that world, the world of science, as not good enough and used their minds to invent and construct an ideal alternative to it.

This process began in childhood, and by age six, at least, is perceivable in the individual.

All human beings, up to a point, engage in this process, that is, posit an ideal self and ideal world and seek to bring them into being.

The pursuit of self ideal and ideal world, a self and world to replace the self and world created by God, is what life on earth is all about, making our dream selves and dream worlds seem real.

God created a formless, spirit self, a unified self, a self that is the same and equal; we invented separated special selves housed in bodies and that live in the world of space, time and matter and want to realize our imaginary self and its world.

This process is accentuated in the so-called paranoid personality and even more so in the psychotic person. In the insane person, the insanity of the world is apparent. In the paranoid person you see defense of a non-existent self and its non-existent world done with vigor. The defenses are also taking place in the so-called normal person but in a flexible manner.

GIVE UP IDEAL SELF AND IDEAL WORLD AND ACCEPT FORMLESS UNIFIED WORLD

This rejection of empiricism, rejection of phenomena, rejection of matter and the human body, rejection of the imperfect self and invention of an ideal self and defense of that ideal self and its ideal world is chimera, it is recipe for despair since what is wished for is not going to come into being no matter how much one wishes for it.

Meaning and purpose given by illusions are not real meaning and purpose. The only real meaning and purpose are found in God.

On earth the only realistic thing to do is to embrace empiricism and study science and psychology and deal with people as they are, dream persons and dream things, not real selves , not valuable selves and things. Love the dreamer but not his dream.

One should never take the dream self and the dream world seriously. One should be flexible and enjoy the dream and then leave it upon death.

SUICIDE IS NOT A REALISTIC OPTION

One should never kill ones self, out rightly as in suicide or slowly with drugs like cigarette, coffee, over eating, alcohol, cocaine, heroine, amphetamine, over sexing. If you commit suicide you will return to this world and live again, until you get it right and then leave the world, never to return to it.

The only way to leave the world permanently is to understand that the ego and the world is a dream. As dreams one should not defend them and have a happy dream before one leaves them. If one forgives the world, loves the dreamer, not his dreams, one has overcome the world. One no longer has a wish to be an ego, to dream a separated, special self and wish for a world to make that dream seem possible. One will not return to the dream, the world. One stays near heaven, heaven’s gate, has a happy dream and works with those still in the world, helping them to realize that the world is a dream. When all people have had this realization and come to the gate of heaven, the gate opens and all the separated children of God enter and return from the journey without a distance and resume the awareness that they are forever and ever one with their father and all their brothers.

CHANGED PATTERN OF THINKING AND BEHAVING

If a person accepts the philosophy of this essay, that is, accepts that our true state is formless unified spirit and that our present state, separated forms, is false, he must necessarily be a different person; he must think and behave differently.


FEARLESSNESS

If one is formless and eternal spirit it follows that one would no longer be afraid of death. One would understand that though ones body could be harmed, even destroyed, that such happenstance does not affect ones true self. Ones real self is eternal spirit and no human being can harm or destroy it. Thus, one would no longer give in to fear, when it rears its ugly face, as it must to all those who mistakenly see themselves as separated selves living in bodies.

ANGERLESSNESS

One would be less prone to anger. Anger is a response to perceived attack on ones body and ego self. Anger is an attempt to defend ones body and psychological self, the separated self concept living in body, space and time. Anger defends the separated self and its body. If one is not a separated self in body, it follows that when one perceives attack on ones body and separated self, one ignores it, overlooks it with the understanding that only the dream, false self is being attacked, not the real self.

One is in a dream and projects out other dream selves and bid them to attack ones dream self. One attacked ones self through other people. One takes responsibility for such attack and does not feel angry. One forgives those who attack one, and since they are part of one, in forgiving them one forgives ones self ones attack on ones self and on other selves. Other selves who are one with one.

NO DEPRESSION

One will no longer be prone to sadness and depression for if one is an eternal spirit self what cause is there for sadness and depression? All depression is rooted in our belief that we are bodies that will die. But if body is mere instrument for dreaming in the world of dreams and ones true self is eternal then there is no point in being depressed.


NO PARANOIA

If one is eternal spirit and no one can harm one, one cannot be paranoid. Paranoia is a product of ones awareness of the worthlessness, valuelessness and inadequacy of ones separated self housed in body, the ego, personality and ones invention of an imaginary ideal self and identification with that fictional self and defense of it. The ideal self is a magical self and is meant to enable one adapt to the physical and social exigencies of ones world; but it does not enable one adapt for it is an illusion and an illusion does not affect reality. One must, therefore, not defend it for it is in defending it that it seems real to one when it is not real. The fictional ideal perfect self, the paranoid self must be let go into the nothingness whence when one conjured out from; it does not exist and it does not help one adjust to this world or to any other world for that matter. If one accepts that one is part of unified spirit one lets go of the false ideal ego self and, therefore, is no longer paranoid.


NO MANIA

If one accepts the unified spirit self and is no longer seeking to become the ideal perfect self one would no longer use ones thinking to speed up ones quest for the ideal self. One would no longer be manic. In mania, the individual uses his thinking to think rapidly so as to convince himself that he is the grandiose self he wished he were. He is now god, the most powerful man on earth, the richest man on earth and other such nonsense. If the unified self is accepted and the ego is given up, the individual would no longer be prone to mania and its delusions.

NO HALLUCINATIONS

Insane persons hallucinate in pursuit of false ideal goals. The mad man hears voices telling him that he is god, a very important person. If he did not wish to be an important ego self he would not hear voices (and or the other hallucinations: auditory, visual, olfactory, tactile, and feeling). If there is no wish for special separated self there would be no psychosis, no insanity, no madness, and no lunacy. Human beings are nuts because they desire to become ideal, perfect selves.


NO JUDGEMENT

If one knows that ones real self is spirit and that other people’s real selves is spirit and that the apparent selves we see on earth, the separated selves housed in bodies are dream and false selves, one would no longer judge the dream selves with the standards of the ideal false self.

All judgment is rooted in using the standards of the fictional ideal self to judge separated selves housed in bodies, perceiving their imperfections vis a vis the imaginary perfect ego self and wishing that they were as perfect as the imaginary ideal selves.

People are not ideal selves and cannot become ideal selves. It makes no difference whether one illusion is better than others; they are all illusory selves and, at any rate, each individual formulates his ideal self and you cannot do so for him.

Each person used his inherited dream body and dream experiences to invent a self concept, a personality for him. You did not form his self concept for him and he did not form yours, though each of you has perceptions of each other.

Because the self concept is individualistically formed it is not up to you to change others self concepts, you cannot succeed no matter how hard you tried. So you might as well stop trying to change other people, changing dream selves.

The only person that you can change is you. However, you cannot change you to become an ideal dream self; you can change you by giving up all efforts to formulate ideal dream self concepts for you and just accept the real self that God created you, the self that is always already there, but hidden, masked by you, clouded and veiled by your ego self concepts.

Stop constructing ideal selves and see the unified light self that the Holy Spirit has already reinvented for you and then eventually experience the non-physical self, that is, your real self.

PLAY AND LAUGHTER

When you accomplish this goal, your life becomes one of joy and peace. You see this world as a play thing and play with other persons, your fellow dreamers. You laugh at your and other peoples efforts to invent replacement selves for you all. Life on earth becomes a thing of mirth, a joyful play.

The life of an enlightened and illuminated son of God is fun; he is always smiling, laughing and in peace and happiness. His presence, even the mere remembrance of his name, Christ, gives all people peace and happiness.

If you have a job in this world you do it playfully. For example, if you are a medical doctor, you still heal people’s bodies, for as long as people see themselves as bodies and get sick they need the services of medical doctors.

If you are one of the exclusive ones that cannot operate in the world of ego and body and can only teach about spiritual things, a teacher of God, a minister of God, a servant of God and people, then you find peace and joy in talking about spiritual matters, provided that you love and forgive all people, for all your teaching amounts to nothing if you lack charity. Charity is giving without asking for anything in return, for you know that in giving to other people, in loving other people, you only give, love you. The so-called other person is you.

In forgiving the brother that attacked you, you forgive you; in loving him you love you, for he is you projected out to do what he did, so that you see it and correct it, first in you and later show him an example of how to correct it in him.

A part of your spirit is in him…he must learn to love and accept his real self and stop thinking that he has to become a rich, important, ideal person before he accepts himself; he must stop being paranoid and in doing so become peaceful and happy.

You first give your self peace and extend that peace to all our brothers.

Giving is receiving; all people are part of ones self and in giving them love and forgiveness one gives that to one; in giving them peace and happiness one gives that to one.

On the other hand, in giving other people hate and anger one gives ones self hate and anger. Giving to others is giving to ones self.

Love knows that it is one, that all people are parts of its self, that as one does to ones self one does to others and as one does to others one does to ones self.

In this knowledge lies peace of mind for it is the truth.
The brother who in his paranoia misinterpreted your motives as attack on him and attacked you shows you how in your own paranoia you misinterpret other people’s motives and attack them. Learn to forgive him and love him and in so doing correct your own thinking and know peace and happiness. When you have peace and happiness you give it to the rest of the world.

The world, other people, are yearning for peace and happiness, are calling on you, teacher of God, to learn love and thereafter teach them love.

This is your true function, your true role and your true vocation. For this you came to this world.
It is also other people’s true vocation but that may not yet be their exclusive function, they may still find some satisfaction in performing ego roles, such as medicine, but in time they, too, will get there.

In the meantime, it is your exclusive function, perform it and it is on your performing it that all children of God, you, are saved. The saving of the children of God, you, rests on you. Perform your savior role, forgive and love all. See what others do to you as what you do to you. Study people’s attacks from secular psychologically perspective, that is, see it as paranoia at work, and then transcend secular psychology with spiritual psychology. This means understanding that all attacks is a call for help, for love and loving the attacker via forgiveness. Overcome your own paranoia and teach others how to overcome their paranoia, for all human beings, in degrees live in paranoia.

To live in paranoia is to live in fear; to live in fear is to live in hell. Show our brothers who live in hell how to live in heaven via forgiveness and love. This is the function of the teacher of God, teacher of love, teacher of union.

THE SECRET OF SALVATION

The secret of salvation is the realization that one and all of us did this thing to ourselves; we brought our suffering to us. No one else did this to us, we did it to us. On the individual level one did it to one, one brought about ones own suffering; one is not a victim, no other person did this to one; God or Satan did not do this to one, one did it to ones self. How so?

In eternity all is one; all is formless unified spirit; all are the same and equal (for only the same, equal and spirit can unify). Somehow, out of nowhere the idea of the opposite of eternity entered our minds and we pursued it.

Eternity is unified and the idea of separation entered our minds; eternity is the same and equal and the idea of differences and inequality entered our minds; God created us and the idea of self creation entered our minds; we desired to create ourselves, create each other and create God.

These set of ideas are impossible of gratification in eternity and its reality. What we could not satisfy in reality we dreamed. We formed a world of illusion, Maya, to go seem to satisfy our desires for there to be a will that opposes God’s will. Thus, as it were, we cast a magical spell on ourselves and went to sleep and seem to dream a world that is the opposite of God’s world. We find ourselves in the world of space, time and matter, a world that opposes the unified world of God.

Our world of space, time and matter requires that we take time to travel from one point to another; our world of bodies ( we used bodies to make separated selves seem real) require that bodies be hurt and pained so as to seem real to us, so we do feel pain and fear pain.

Simply stated, we do suffer in our world. But suffering is built into the world of space, time and matter and in as much as we desire that world we brought our suffering unto us. Indeed, we can stop our suffering by giving up the desire that brought it about, the desire for specialness and separation.

When we stop desiring special self and separation we exit this world of separation and return to the consciousness of oneness, union with all being, a world of no you and I, no space and gap between people, a world of no seer and seen, a world of no subject and object, a world where each of us is in each of us; God is in us and we are in him, the whole is in the part and the part in the whole; a world of peace and joy, a blissful world.

We attain that peaceful and happy world via forgiveness and love.


CHANGING AND EVENTUALLY GIVING UP ALL CONCEPTUAL SELVES


We came to this world to seem special and separated from God and from one another. The first order of business we engage in upon birth in this world is to invent a separated self concept for our selves. Each of us builds on his inherited body and social experiences and constructs a self concept. He also constructs self concepts for other people (for we do not relate to other people as they are, but as we think that they are).

We transform our self concepts into self images in bodies and see ourselves in bodies. On earth, we think in concepts and images. The external world is in fact the out picturing of our individual and collective thinking.

All self concepts and self images are false. For one thing, each of us has limited information available to him at any point in time, particularly when we were children, during which time we invented our self concepts aka personalities and egos.

However, the main reason why self concepts are false is because it is not up to each of us and all of us to invent self concepts for us. God has already created us unified self and our efforts to invent separated selves are disobedience of God’s will.

We disobey God’s will by having self concepts (egos and human personalities). This world is a conceptual self, hence is a world where we disobey the will of God.

No one can disobey the will of God. All we do is have wishes and dream that we have accomplished our wishes but, in fact, we have not done so. We dream and in our dreams see our wishes seem realized.

Dream self concepts and dream world is not the real world. In reality, we remain as God created us, unified with him and with each other, while dreaming that we have separated from God and invented replacement and substitute separated self concepts. Our human personalities are dream selves and not real at all.

In as much as we want to seem separated and dream that we have separated selves, we have to change our separated self concepts and make them congruent with the unified self God created us as.

ON EARTH ORGIVENESS IS THE TRUE MEANING OF LOVE

We have to transform our self concepts and make them approximate the real self God created. We do so by using our separated selves housed in bodies to forgive and love other seeming separated selves housed in bodies. When we use our self concepts and our bodies to forgive and love other people, we purify them, and we approximate heaven’s self.

Forgiveness does not take us into heaven; it brings us to the metaphoric gate of heaven. We are still not in heaven for heaven is unified self, whereas in forgiveness we still live in separated selves, but now we are at the gate of heaven. Heaven is perfect peace and happiness, bliss; those who are at heaven’s gate experience some peace and joy in their lives.

Ultimately, we have to relinquish all separated self concepts, give up all efforts to define ourselves by ourselves and stay quiet (as in meditation) and God would reveal to us our real self: formless unified equal selves that are infinite in numbers yet are one self. This spirit self cannot be explained by separated self categories.

NO SEPARATED SELF DECISION MAKING

In the illusion that we have separated selves we make separated decisions. Making decisions is part of the delusion that separation is possible. Each of us makes decisions regarding what to do with his life on a day, to day, and minute to minute bases.

One must give up the illusion that one can make decisions for ones self. The fact is that by ones ego self one does not know what is good for one. Only God knows what is good for his son and can decide for one.

God, in fact, has already decided that his son is best served staying in him and with him in unified spirit.

In as much as God’s son wished to be separated from him and seem to be on earth, he must now ask God, the Holy Spirit, to guide him.
Before one makes a decision one must ask God to decide for one. Do not make a decision by yourself, always ask the immanent God in the temporal universe, the Holy Spirit, to decide for you.

When the children of God seemed to separate from their father and came to this world of separation, God entered their minds, their thinking, their separated world as the Holy Spirit. The function of the Holy Spirit is to remind the children of God that their true identity is unified self, and that their true home is unified state, aka heaven. He does this teaching through interpreting love as forgiveness. Whereas in heaven love is union, on earth love is forgiveness, for forgiveness unifies warring people.

The Holy Spirit is ones right mind; he is the agent of God and his true son, Christ, in our sleeping ego minds. Ask him what he would have you do before you do anything.

The Holy Spirit would always ask you to love and where there is attack to forgive it. He would teach you that attack is a call for love where love is perceived as missing. The Holy Spirit’s gospel is that forgiveness is the meaning of love. Jesus listened to this gospel and taught us forgiveness as love and forgave those who seemed to destroy his earthly body and ego. The entire gospel of Jesus Christ is love is forgiveness; he taught his followers to forgive one another so as to return to God, to unified state.

Listening to the Holy Spirit means that before you do anything, you ask yourself why you are doing it: Love or hate, for the good of all humanity or for the good of your selfish ego.

If love for all human beings motivates your action, go ahead and do it. If you made a mistake and behaved on behalf of selfish interest hence attacked other people and they attack you in self defense, then forgive them and forgive yourself. Always love and forgive yourself and all people.

But do recognize that what your selfish ego would want you to do is not what the Holy Spirit, love and forgiveness, would want you to do. Your ego may want you to work to seem important, wealthy and important. The Holy Spirit wants you to do work that gives you peace and happiness and gives all people peace and happiness. That is to say what your ego wishes is not what the Holy Spirit wants for you. What your ego thinks is good for you, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God in us, knows is not good for you.

The ego perpetuates your stay in hell, on earth; the Holy Spirit wants to liberate you from hell and take you to heaven. The ego asks you to do what adapts to this world and the Holy Spirit asks you to do what overcomes this world and takes you back home. The ego is your guide to staying in this world; the Holy Spirit is your guide on the homewards journey to God and his heaven.

Therefore, make sure that you are listening to the Holy Spirit, not to your ego. How do you know who you are listening to?
If you listen to the ego you are in conflict; if you listen to the Holy Spirit you are in peace and happiness.

Are you at war or in peace? That would tell you whose voice you are listening to: the voice for the ego or the voice for God; the voice for love or hate; the voice for union or separation; the voice for Christ or ego; the counselor for this world or for heaven?


You, as the ego, do not know what is good for you. What you think is good for you, ego power, wealth and fame, from the Holy Spirit’s perspective, is bad for you, for it generates conflict whereas love and forgiveness generates peace for you and for all people. What you and other people consider failure, such as not making it in the world’s work world, the Holy Spirit knows as success, for it is in failing in the egos world that you have the time to think about the things of God; seldom do people who succeed in the world have time to think about the things of God.


INTELLIGENCE AND INDIVIDUATION



There is one source of intelligence in the universe, God. God is intelligence. In eternity, that one intelligence expanded into each of us and on earth manifests in all of us. One God extends to each of us. In that sense, each of us is as intelligent as other persons; no one is more intelligent than other people. In eternity, heaven we are equally intelligent.

In the world of space, time and matter; in the material universe it is obvious that not all people are equally intelligent. Not all of us are Galileo Galilee, Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, Dalton, Albert Einstein, and Max Planck, Schrodinger, Pauli, Heisenberg, Bohr and the other outstanding brains of the past centuries.

In the world each of us inherited a set of genes, a body. Body is a mask through which universal intelligence manifests. Each individual’s body is a filter and allows only so much intelligence to shine through it. Our bodies and egos distort how universal intelligence operates through them.

If the individual wants to change his level of intelligence on earth he must begin by changing his genes and body, for body and genes determine how and what type of intelligence he manifests on earth. Since it is not yet possible to alter our genes it follows that each of us has certain intelligence level for the duration of his life on earth. But in the future, genetic science and engineering would be able to tinker with children’s genes and make the currently dull ones smart.


IGBO PARANOID INTELLIGENCE

I have pointed out at several places that Igbos tend to have a higher incidence of paranoia. In my twenty something years of working in the mental health field, I have seen Igbo paranoid personalities than other groups (Hausa, Yoruba etc). The few delusional disordered persons I have seen included two Igbo women. This is a fact, not conjecture. On Naija politics there is a certified Igbo paranoid personality on it. You could see his dance of intelligence. He is pure reason at work but he is foolish intelligence. He says things that are essentially true but things said without love and forgiveness hence things that could generate war at any moment. No leader and manager would make him a supervisor or manager (and I know what I am talking about for I have run organizations). This man is very bright but has warped social intelligence, every time he says something he alienates people yet he believes that he is doing so in the service of truth. Truth does not bring war but peace and reconciliation.

What I would like to do is talk a little bit about paranoid intelligence. I hope that my paranoid Igbo brothers would discard their tendency to see me as their enemy and learn a thing or two from what I am about to say.

Paranoids are persons who are individuated and rational persons. Igbos worship individualism and are rational persons.

Paranoid intelligence, Igbo intelligence, is devoted to individualistic and idealistic goals.

The paranoid rejected his real self and seeks to become an ideal self. He also rejected other people’s real selves and wants them to become ideal persons; he also wants society to become ideal. He pursues ideal social institutions. This is what Igbos do.

The pursuit of ideal self in the service of the separated ego self is what paranoia is all about. The individual rejected the real separated self in body and wants an ideal separated self, also in body, but this time primarily disembodied since his ideal self is mentally derived and is a mental construct.

As a mental self, the ideal self does not take into consideration the realities of body, matter, space and time hence is not going to come into being, it is a wish of the wisp.
The Igbo ideal self, in the final analysis, like the paranoid ideal self, serves only the individual Igbo’s ego self interests. It does not serve social interests; it does not serve the good of other people. Igbos served only their individual interests and sometimes their family’s interests. Their level of social interest is almost zero.

(The typical Igbo are motivated to be an individual superstar and seldom care for other people’s interests. If you want to do things collectively you do not go to Igbos for help, for each of them wants to be a chief, the narcissistic person who makes it to the top and gets all the attention, admiration and glory. Igbos do not work together; working together requires shrinking ones ego and devoting it to common good. You must be the greatest idiot on planet earth to think that an Igbo man could work with you to attain organizational goals that transcend his ego; he is in the organization to serve his personal interests. This is sad but it is the reality of the Igbo ego state and you ought to be realistic when you are dealing with these people. It will probably take several hundred years before these people’s egos are shrunk and civilized and made to serve social interests. As they currently are, they seem incapable of serving larger organizational interests. They are poor leadership and management materials. Igbos are suited for technical positions where they shine as individuals, but seldom suitable for leadership positions where they are supposed to lead other people in pursuit of organizational, collective goals, for goals that transcend their individual interests.)

Igbos must learn to redirect their goals and serve social and collective interests rather than their selfish ego interests. They must stop seeking what is good for only the individual and seek what is good for all humanity. If they do so they would become truly intelligent. In fact, if they do so they would be second to none in the world. They would permit universal intelligence to shine through them and bless the world through them.

I believe that when paranoia is healed in the individual he becomes a truly productive intelligence serving the collective good. When Igbos heal their paranoia they would start producing scientists like no other group on earth. Why so? They are a gifted people; their gift is currently warped by their collective paranoia.

My goal is to help heal the Igbo paranoids I see all around me.
I know that my considering Igbos prone to paranoia could be construed as making negative statements about Igbos. Some infantile Igbos, in fact, circulated the notion that I hate Igbos. If only the fools realize that I am a true Igbo and am working for our social interests, but in a manner that they may not yet understand.

I am a brother that came to heal (change people’s pattern of thinking, change minds, from self interest to social interest hence sane, peaceful and happy), not to crucify my brothers. At any rate, nothing is new under the sun: the helpers of the world are generally misunderstood. But we cannot stop trying to help a world that needs help.


CONCLUSION

In this essay, I pointed out that the human condition disposes people to hate and reject their earthly real selves, their bodies and egos. They use their imaginations to construe imaginary ideal selves. They then work to become the wished for ideal, perfect self. Pursuit of this imaginary, fictional self is what paranoid persons do in the extreme.

Human beings must reconceptualize their self concepts, change them, and make them forgiving and loving selves. If they do so they experience some peace and happiness in their lives, not the total peace and joy, bliss of heaven, but an attenuated form of it. Ultimately, they must give up all conceptual selves, transcend the ego separated self concept and the body that houses it to experience their real selves, the unified self, the Holy Son of God who is one with his father.

God and his Son, Christ, can be experienced but cannot be explained with our current ego categories. I cannot explain God and Christ, the unified self. Oneness can be experienced when the separated self is dropped but it cannot be explained by the categories of manyness.

I give you my peace and happiness. But to receive my gift, you must jettison your separated, individuated ego and become aware of the Christ in you, your unified self.




* People are at different places in space and time; at different levels of spiritual evolution. Those that are meant to read and benefit from this essay will do so and those that are not yet able to benefit from it, will not read it and if they read it would not understand what it is trying to teach them and would respond to it with off the mark comments.


Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

Posted by Administrator at 08:39 AM | Comments (0)

Un-sung Hero of Africa: Robert Mugabe

by Dharma L. Appavoo --- Hail to the Chief ! It is the moral obligation of every major city in sub-Saharan Africa to erect a statue to Robert Mugabe.

Every major city in the former British Empire has a statue of Queen Victoria or some Army General and his Horse. But there is not a SINGLE statue of an African Hero on the soil of the entire sub-Saharan Africa.

Robert Mugabe is the most highly-educated politician on the African continent and he will eventually go down in history as a great hero.

Historians will catalogue him with the other heroes of the African continent…….such as Hanibal, Dingaan, Chaka Zulu, Rosa Park, Martin Luther King, Mandela, Bishop Tutu and Walter Sisulu.

In the United States of America there are only two Public Holidays named after individuals. The first was George Washington and the second was Martin Luther King.

But there is not a single accolade to a black African Patriot on the entire African continent !
It is high-time that the African nations memorialise their very own black Martyrs, Heroes and Patriots.

Mugabe is an audacious and fearless man and he has set about to rectify a three-hundred year-old iniquity.

Negative reviews about Mr. Mugabe are a reflex phenomenon.
The Western World did not expect to see an “audacious nigger” with the courage of his convictions. Nor with the “balls” to match his bravado !

No Zimbabwean has ever been allowed to reside in the United Kingdom without appropriate documentation issued by the Home Office.

By contrast several thousand White Farmers have taken up residence in Zimbabwe without ever discussing the matter with the natives of the land.

Furthermore these invaders have usurped the most fertile farmland and they have printed their very own Documents to validate their tenure.

There is no record of any payments ever having been made to the natives of Zimbabwe for the farmland. Three hundred years have elapsed and the native Zimbabweans have never yet been paid. Nor have they been taught how to become farmers.

Zimbabwean natives were enlisted as farm labourers but they ended up as troglodytes ! They were so poorly paid as to remain shabby, unclean, bare-footed, under-fed and under-nourished.

Until Mugabe assumed control of his own country the native citizens were doomed to perpetual humiliation and serfdom.
They were so very poor as to contrive shanties for shelter.
They were sexually exploited, but they were never treated as “truly human”.

And after three centuries in the country the White Settlers continue to actively avoid forming close friendships or behaving like caring neighbours.

Mr. Mugabe has successfully withstood the onslaught of the British and other Westerners.

I hope that his African neighbours will exhibit the largesse to acknowledge his Valour and to follow his Example……and to do so whilst he is still alive !

And, it may be a sterling idea for the membership of the African Union to get together and to arrange for the erection of a statue of General Sanni Abacha in Geneva and in Zurich because he exported Nigerian wealth that enhanced the lifestyle of the Swiss people and enabled them to live in luxury!

I REQUIRE FINANCIAL BACKING TO RUN THIS CAMPAIGN

I WILL COMMISSION THE DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF THE STATUE. IT WILL CONSIST OF A PROUD MUGABE WITH CHIN UP, ARMS AKIMBO AND WITH WINGS AND A HALO. HE STANDS BACK TO BACK WITH A HORNED AND STOOPED SANNI ABACHA WHO WILL BE DEPICTED WITH AN ARROW-HEADED TAIL AND A BAG OF LOOT SLUNG OVER HIS SHOULDER. THIS STATUE WILL BE DONATED TO EVERY CAPITAL CITY ON THE AFRICAN CONTINENT AND TO THE CITY OF GENEVA AND ZURICH.

Dharma L. Appavoo,
President,
Buddhist Group of North America.

Email loudmouth @ sasktel.net

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March 05, 2006

Ozodi Osuji Weekly Lectures on African Countries #7 of 54: Cameroon

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- 7. CAMEROON

Formal Name: United Republic of Cameroon.

Term for Citizens: Cameroonians.

Capital: Yaounde. Population: 1, 480. 000.

Independence Achieved: January 1, 1960, from France.

Major Cities: Douala, Yaounde.

Geography:

Cameroon is in West Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean, Nigeria, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Central African Republic and Chad. Cameroon encompasses 183, 568 square miles. The topography has four natural regions: northern plains, central and southern plateaus, western highlands and mountains, and coastal plains on the Gulf of Guinea. The climate is tropical with two distinct seasons, wet (April to October) and dry (November to March). Heavy rainfall at the coastal regions, tapering off inland and sub-arid north.

Society:

The population of Cameroon is estimated at 16, 018,000. The heaviest concentration is in the southwest. 40% urbanization.

Ethnic Groups: There is an estimated 200 ethnic groups.

Languages: French and English are the official languages.

Religion: Muslim North and Christian South and the rest of the population profess indigenous beliefs.

Education: Free primary education. Literacy rate estimated at 79%.

Economy: Small-scale crop production is rampant, especially cocoa, coffee, logs, cotton, rubber, palm products, and peanuts. Some light manufacturing activities exist. The economy is heavily dependent on France as destination of its exports. GDP estimate: $27 billion; Per Capita GDP: $800 US. Monetary Unit: CFA Franc BEAC (XAF).

History and Government:

Cameroon was colonized by Germany in the late 19th century. After the defeat of Germany in world-war I, the territory was taken away from Germany and divided between France and Britain; and ruled as trustee territories. In January 1, 1960 French Cameroon gained independence and a part of British Cameroon opted to join French Cameroon and another to join Nigeria. Cameroon established a unitary national government with highly centralized administration. A unicameral legislature dominated by the ruling party. The president is very powerful; he appoints the leaders of the various districts (departements). The country is divided into 10 provinces for administrative purposes.


CONTEMPORARY POLITICS
In the 16th century the Portuguese came to the area now known as Cameroon. In fact, it was the Portuguese that named the country, Camarao, a place where prawns are found. Subsequently, nothing much was heard of the area until the 1870s when the newly unified Germany took interest in it.

Germany colonized Camarao but when Germany was defeated during the First World War her African colonies, including Camarao was given to the victorious countries. In 1919 Camarao was divided into two and one section was given to the British and the other to the French as League of Nation’s mandated territories.

At the end of the Second World War, The United Nations replaced the lackluster League of Nations and in 1946 took over Cameroon as a United Nations Trusteeship.

In 1960 France gave independence to its portion of Camarao. That same year the English section of Camarao held a plebiscite and the Southern part chose to join the French Cameroonians and the Northern part chose to join Nigeria. In 1961 Southern Cameroon merged with French Cameroon to form the Republic of Cameroon.

Ahmadou Ahidjo, a Muslim man from Northern Cameroon, became the president of Cameroon and was in power for over twenty years, until 1982 when he resigned and his prime minister, Paul Biya, became the president. Mr. Biya is still in power 24 years later.

Mr. Biya is from Southern Cameroon and is nominally a Christian. His first order of business was to clean house and replace the Northern oligarchy that was in places of authority with his Southern Christian henchmen. This house cleaning led to resentment and Ahidjo was said to have threatened the government and fled the country before he was apprehended by Mr. Biya’s police authorities. Thereafter, Mr. Biya consolidated power and since then has essentially established a one man rule in Cameroon.

In the early 1990s there was said to be a wave of democracy going through Africa. Mr. Biya, apparently, joined the wave and allowed a multiparty election in 1992. Mr. Biya won the election and has won every other election since then. These elections fairness has been a subject of contention.

Mr. Biya, the president, has executive powers and pretty much is the government. He calls the 180 members Parliament, the National Assembly, into session, three times a year, and determines what agenda the Parliament legislates into law.

The National Assembly essentially exists to enact into laws the president’s legislative desires and can hardly be said to have independent will of its own.

Indeed, the president, through his ministry of Justice, also controls the judiciary. On paper the Supreme Court has the powers of judicial review but may only review the constitutionality of a law with the approval of the president.

Cameroon is divided into ten provinces and these are directly and indirectly controlled by the president.

Regardless of how he won his elections, Mr. Paul Biya has managed to make Cameroon one of the well governed African countries. He has paid attention to economic activities particularly to the agricultural sector. Cameroon has one of the best managed agricultural economies in Africa.

Cameroon has free and compulsory elementary school for all its children. Just about every Cameroonian child goes to elementary school. Cameroon has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa, 79%.

The political cleavages in Cameroon are between the North and South and the English South and the French South. The North is Muslim and during the rule of Ahidjo dominated Cameroonian government. Under Mr. Biya, the Christian South dominates Cameroonian government. This has led to resentment in the North.

In the South itself the English speaking part formed Southern Cameroon National Council, SCNC, to work towards seceding from what it perceives as French speaking dominated Cameroon. This secessionist movement is still active despite clamp downs by the central government.

With the discovery of oil in Bakassi peninsula, a section of Nigeria claimed by Cameroon, conflict has raged between Nigeria and Cameroon. In 1994 and 1996 there were brief military skirmishes between the two countries. Cameroon was no match for the Nigerian army and took its claims to the world court. The Court appeared to have awarded Cameroon the oil rich peninsular but Nigeria has not relinquished its claims to the area.

Considering that Bakassi is part of the English speaking Cameroon that wants to separate from French dominated Cameroon, it would seem that the indigenes of Bakassi are not exactly too eager to rejoin French speaking dominated Cameroon.

Mr. Paul Biya appears to have his hands already full trying to keep Cameroon together, working against the Northern Muslims and English speaking Southern agitators for separation to effectively take on its next door colossus, Nigeria.

To keep his country from fragmenting, Mr. Biya resorted to suppression of freedom of the press. Newspapers are closely monitored by the government and journalists that print material that seem to oppose the government often go missing or jailed by the government. The government owns the only national television, CRTV in the country and essentially controls what is broadcast by the TV and radio networks.

(There are now an independent TV, TV Max and some independent radio stations but these are closely monitored by the government and reporters are harassed should they say anything Mr. Biya does not find to his taste; at least, so said Reporters Without Borders, an international Media rights group.

There are no two ways of saying it: Cameroon appears to have a one man rule with all the attendant dictatorial tendencies. Every now and then, shows of democracy are made but those are exactly that: shows, not substance.

The good news is that despite his high handed rule, Mr. Biya seems to have managed to contribute to economic development in Cameroon. By African standards, Cameroon can be considered to be doing well even though its income par capita is only $800 US. And because of the poor standard of living and other factors, professional Cameroonians are increasingly fleeing to the West. This brain drain impoverishes the country further.

On the whole, Cameroon appears a fairly stable African country, it is yet to be seen whether power can be successfully transferred in a democratic manner? Like most African countries, given its multiethnic make up and consequent conflicts, breakup of the country seems a possibility for Cameroon. Perhaps, it is as well that a strong hand maintains the country’s fragile unity?

AIS African Countries
Ozodi Thomas Osuji, PhD
Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

Posted by Administrator at 10:40 AM | Comments (0)

No Single Ethnic Group can and will Carry Nigeria

by Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa --- A tree can not make a forest. Nigeria has to be carried by each and every Ethnic group in our Country for the sake of Africa, for the sake of blacks in this world. I pride myself as a dedicated Nigerian but sometimes I find it easier to be an African.

I must confess that I was ticked off by the recent headline that Yoruba have betrayed the Igbo AGAIN. The fact is Yoruba have never betrayed any Ethnic group, have never sought territorial advantage or dominance on others’ soil and have never craved the ambition to rule others in their domain. Indeed the Yoruba, who coalesced from many African Ethnic groups by long tradition of accommodation and tolerance, has found itself in a position of fighting to retain its own in Nigeria.

The statement Awolowo made still stands today. Yoruba can not and will not carry Nigeria alone. If the Hausa or the Fulani or the Kanuri decides to leave Nigeria today, Nigeria has lost its meaning. If the Ijaw or Ibibio or the Idoma or Urhobo decides to leave Nigeria today, Nigeria has no relevance to the world. It has to be seen as the beginning of the end. As secondary school children we cried when we were told we would need passport to cross to Biafra. How could our brothers and sisters suddenly become foreigners to us? I watch with dreaded sympathy how families are separated by wars of demarcation all over the world. Right here in the Delta and North-East between Nigeria and Cameron, families cry and protest about separation.

Heated discussion any where does not bother me. Highly coded message from people who are supposed to be responsible leaders to generate fear and hatred pissed me off. I have decided to agree to disagree on Awolowo with some of my brothers. Only hypocrites who knew the effort of Awolowo through his helicopter campaign all over Nigeria and his desire to make Nigeria what he made the West will doubt his sincerity. How can anyone grudge a man for that? All his life, he insisted on working with every Nigerian and the Igbo in particular loosing some of his colleagues in the process. He finally gave up his campaign when his life was threatened in the East.

This same man has been portrayed as ethnocentric, and worse still a racist. Somehow, it was traced from the time educated Yoruba dominated elite Nigeria Youth Movement in the thirties and forties when Awolowo supported Ernest Ekoli, an Ijaw and Zik supported Chief Samuel Akinsanya. The fact that Awo supported Ekoli and not Zik turned him into tribalism champion. Anyone can read whatever they want into that.

If it was about the war, Yoruba did not declare war against Biafra. If it was about the war, Zik the biggest Biafran asset deserted, refusing to destroy the house he helped built. So it has to be about what Awo did and nobody else could have done for the Yoruba. He offered to do the same for every Nigerian but was “the best President that we never had.”
In a way, attacking Awolowo as a leader that was chosen and loved by the Yoruba is one thing, lumping him together with Obasanjo that was chosen and elected by those who denied Yoruba their chosen leaders is chicanery.

There are brothers and sisters claiming that the only stars in Obasanjo’s administration are Igbo. How wonderful? It was only yesterday that all Nigerians of goodwill claimed that Igbo were excluded from the scheme of power in Nigeria. This may not be enough, but it was about time. Does he get any credit? I doubt it.

I saw the picture of powerful women of all Ethnic groups posing after some meeting. They looked glamorous, confident and proud. When was the last time we had so many women in the cabinet? Does Obasanjo get any credit? I doubt it. So no matter what a Yoruba man does, chosen by Yoruba or by them, forget about credit and do your best. One may have to thank his maker if the same people who got appointed by Yoruba do not come back and attack. A colleague of mine thought I was naïve to have given away jobs.

Each time Yoruba will is twisted; they look for a clever Yoruba lawyer to interpret two third. How many Yoruba supported Akinjide interpretation of two third and to whose benefit? He defended his client vigorously as a lawyer should. They are using the same two third to over throw Ladoja and blaming - you guess who. Did Obasanjo/Adedibu represent the will of the Yoruba as Obasanjo/Uba represented the will of the Igbo? People forget that Yoruba chosen leader’s chance to rule Nigeria has not come but were resigned to the will of fellow brothers and sisters, yet the label of tribalism did not leave.

Years in opposition did not eradicate the in built fairness Yoruba are known for. That is why the strongest critics of the third term agenda of Obasanjo’s cronies are Yoruba. Most Yoruba have given up on presidency and one of their chosen leaders, Falaye indicated that Obasanjo has wasted Yoruba’s chance. So which credible Yoruba is fighting for it?

We can not live together and not tell one another how we feel but do we have to exploit old wounds for our children? Nobody has monopoly on grudges. It is usually that the Yoruba has not done this or has done that. What has anyone done for the benefit of the Yoruba in his backyard? Yoruba has suffered everywhere in Nigeria including their own backyard because when nobody protest, it is the Yoruba that stand up. Dearly they have paid, in some cases with their lives. Even when the beneficiaries are not Yoruba.

Someone did ask Wole Soyinka to apologize for the Yoruba. If the person has any moral, knowledge about Nigeria, or not mischievous, would he point to Soyinka of all people? It was only yesterday that Yoruba were in perpetual opposition in Nigeria and still managed to survive. Yoruba were called cowards who could not fight. They were ridiculed. There was a brother from the North-west who claimed that if Yoruba was serious about fighting Abacha, they would have put up a presidential candidate against him but did not. When he was reminded that Tunji Braithwaite, a respectable lawyer and Activist, came out as a Presidential candidate. He laughed – A Lagosian, who would take you seriously?

Indeed, Yoruba would rather deal with traitors amongst them than go out and fight others. But there is a limit to human endurance and when push came to shove, Banjo who led Biafra soldiers into his fatherland was routed accordingly. It is true that OPC enjoys some sympathy in Yoruba land but Abacha created them!

Go to anywhere in Nigeria where Yoruba are, they are domicile and humble to their hosts. There are other parts of Nigeria that one would even see fewer of them because of hostility and restriction on what they can sell in the major markets. Yet in Yoruba backyard, people are so complacent, they violate the custom and culture of their host sometimes with impunity.

The JJC never fail to compare us to Britain and USA where everyone is free to live, work and assume political leadership anywhere. How naïve? They need to ask the owners of the soil or the bread and born Japanese in those places how they end up in “camps”. JJC you better keep your Nigeria passport and pray for the unity of the Country instead of speaking katakata.

In Lagos, our parent told us to be accommodating. I still remember older folks saying if a stranger enters Lagos in the morning, he would be fed and clothed before the night. One high life music claimed – you get money you no get money o, Lagos na so so enjoyment.

If I have to rely on the stories Yoruba tell us about their sojourn in other parts of Nigeria since my visits were brief or on working assignments, history will also bear out the fact that the safest place for all Ethnic groups to intermingle is in Yoruba backyard.

Herbert Macauley trained and brought many of the politicians that ruled Nigeria into prominence without thinking about Ethnic groups. When people talk about Yoruba, they conveniently forget the role of this Nationalist who formed Nigeria National Democratic Party. The first and the last Yoruba President of the National Council of Nigeria and Cameron. It was after him that Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe became the leader of NCNC.

It is unfortunate that the Yoruba are the object of the most virulent attack in Nigeria, yet they can not be accused of either calculated mutilation of leaders or genocide against others. They have just started to fight back after years of humiliation in opposition.

There used to be a time Yoruba could take all the attacks and brush it off. However, the time has changed and Nigeria has lost most of its useful resources resulting in the fight for ones’ life. Yoruba youths are now wanting and hungry just as everyone else. This situation has diminished tolerance everywhere including Yoruba backyard. Only fools do not realize that crude oil from the Delta is a limited resource. That is why we can not blame people from that area fighting tooth and nail to grab their resources before we waste it on ourselves while they remain poor and desolate. The income on oil can not and will not carry the whole of Nigeria for now or for long.

It is still my wish that we do not pass on our grudges, prejudices and open old wounds to our children. We have enough problems as it is, why create more? Nigeria will survive all of us in one form or another but hopefully as a just society. We have spilt enough blood to clean many generations to come.

Farouk Martins, Omo Aresa
faroukomartins@netscape.net

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Ozodi Osuji Weekly Series on Psychology 2006, #12 of 52: Nigerians and Domestic Violence

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- I will begin this essay by making the following assertion: there is absolutely no difference between men and women except the obvious anatomical ones. Men and women are the same and are equal. In fact, in standardized tests, such as IQ tests, on the average, women tend to do better than men. Any college professor knows that, on the average, women tend to do better than men in his course works.

I found it necessary to begin this essay with the above obvious assertions because I am addressing this essay to Nigerians, a group of people whose cultural heritage somehow gave the false impression that men are better than women. If any one of them has that baggage he must drop it and drop it now.

Culture is organic; it is always growing and changing. Any culture that does not change with the times, like any people that refuse to change with changing times, dies out. Culture must be dynamic and not static.

The times we live in accept equality of men and women, black and white, adults and children and if you have any problem with that reality, you had better go heal your problem. That is all there is to it. One must deal with reality and not take refuge in the past, as scoundrels do.

In some parts of the third world, Nigeria included, it was not unusual for men to beat their wives and children.

Some Nigerian men in the USA do beat their wives and children. They do so physically and or verbally or emotionally or sexually. Physical, verbal, emotional and sexual abuse is a criminal activity and is punishable by American law.

In the part of the USA that I am fairly knowledgeable about, California to Alaska, the law is that if the police is called to a scene where a spouse had abused a spouse (physically, verbally, emotionally and sexually) the police is required to arrest him and take him to jail and book him and jail him. He must, at least, spend a night in jail before he is bailed out. He then goes before a judge to defend himself. The least punishment he can get is one year of domestic violence treatment, also called barterers treatment. This entails that he would be required to go to group therapy, once a week, usually for about ninety minutes. He pays for the treatment out of pocket, usually about fifty dollars a week.

The therapist submits quarterly reports to the court on how the individual is doing. If, in his opinion, the individual has not learned how to cope with anger, he may ask the judge to extend the period he is in treatment. Some brothers have been in such treatments for years on end. Since many of the therapists providing these treatments are white women, they may see hostility in the brother’s relationship with them and judge them as still not respecting women hence keep them in treatment.

Anger management is the least punishment a guy can receive for beating his wife and or children. Not long ago, I went to Los Angeles, California to plead with a judge to release a man who had beaten his wife in the public and was arrested by the police. The judge refused to do so and sentenced him to two years in prison, to, of all places, San Quinton prison, and the worst prison in the State of California. (Since he is a naive country rustic, he is probably being raped by the hardened criminals in that prison.)

The relevant point is that folks do get sentenced to prison for abusing their spouses. No one has a right to abuse another human being, be it physically, verbally, emotionally or sexually. You may not know this fact: every time you touch someone against his or her will you have actually committed a crime. Many high school kids are sent to juvenile detention centers for merely touching a girl’s buttocks against her wishes. Do not touch any one unless they gave you permission to do so. Do not even come close to someone unless they ask you to; three feet or a yard is considered personal space in the American culture, and if you invade people’s personal space they can sue you.

Do not verbally abuse any one unless they are masochists and see you as a sadist and ask you to abuse them.

WHY DO MEN ABUSE WOMEN?


Some men say that they were given the right to beat their wives by their cultures. As far as I know, this is a crock. No culture on earth gives men the right to beat their spouses. Every culture actually seeks extra ways to protect women and children for they are usually the most valued members of society. Without women the species would not reproduce.

POWER AND CONTROL ISSUES

Those who abuse women do so not for cultural reasons but for personal reasons. The currently accepted view is that abusers do so for power and control reasons. Such persons, apparently, want to exercise power and control over those they abuse. As it were, some men have a need to be powerful and exercise total power over their wives and children. They want to dominate their spouses and children.

Apparently, such men see their wives and children as their personal properties and want to control them. Well, no human being is another human being’s personal property. A husband and wife are two friends, two partners who voluntarily agreed to go through the journey of life on earth together, sharing their lives. One does not own the other and if the man somehow sees the wife as his property he is deluded, period. He does not own his wife and children. His children are placed in his temporary stewardship until they grow up and leave him and if for any reason he thinks that he owns them he is smoking something and needs to be disabused of that drug. No human being owns another human being, be it his wife or children.

DELUSIONAL JEALOUSY

Men do not abuse women and children because they are reasonable; no, they abuse them because they are unreasonable, because they are delusional.

Delusional disorder is belief in what is not true as true and acting on the basis of that false belief. There are five types of delusional disorder: grandiose, persecutory, jealous, erotomanic, and somatic.

Briefly, the grandiose type means that the individual believes his self to be too important when, in fact, he is like you and I, ordinary. Believing himself godlike, he may expect his wife to collude with this insanity and beat her up if he thinks that she did not respect his deluded self concept. Thus, he beats his wife and children because they did not respect him.

In persecutory delusion, the individual believes that other people are out to get him, even kill him, when they had no such intentions. Deluded husbands often believe that their wives are planning to do bad things to them and abuse them on that account. Some would believe that the wife is out to poison them and take their money and stop eating her food (and or go marry another wife, only to repeat the same delusional pattern).

Erotomania does not seem to apply to domestic violence. (Here some one, usually a woman, believes that a very important person is in love with her or is her husband.)

Somatic delusional disorder also does not seem to apply to domestic violence. (Here the individual believes that he has a physical sickness and goes from doctor to another seeking treatment when he does not have a sickness, or exaggerates a minor sickness.)

The aspect of delusional disorder that applies most to domestic violence is jealousy. Just about all abusive men have delusional jealousy. These people feel that their wives or girl friends are always cheating on them. The jealous man watches his woman closely to see if she is cheating on him. He would examine her clothing to see if she had sex with other men. Some follow their women around trying to catch them in the act of cheating on him.

The Los Angeles case that I mentioned above had to do with a young Owerri man who believed that his wife was cheating on him. She was not. He would drive around spying on her. One day, he saw her talking to a fellow class mate, both attended Los Angeles City College, and jumped to the false conclusion that they were having an affair and started hitting her, right there in the public. He beat her so badly that she was hospitalized. Since the beating took place in the public domain, apparently a passers by called the police and he was arrested and jailed.

I was called upon to do what I could to help him. The district attorney, a female, did not buy our argument for him to be released to the kindred group for help. He was sentenced to two years at San Quentin.

Many abusers have delusional disorder, jealous type. These people are insane, period. In delusional disorder, the individual has an area of his thinking where he has systematized belief in what is not true as true and otherwise the rest of his intellectual functioning seem rational. Thus, he may believe that his wife is cheating on him, which is not true, and beat her up; while still working as an engineer, that is, being rational in other areas of his life.

GET AWAY FROM THE ABUSER

If you are living with an abuser, a physically, verbally, emotionally, sexually abusive person, you are living with an insane man. You must get out, and get out now. Deluded people can kill, for they do believe their delusions, even though to you what they believe in is not true. Do not minimize the danger you are exposed to, for the insane man can hurt and or kill you, leave him now.

You should leave him and then insist that he go obtain treatment before he sees you and your children. He should not be near the children unless he is obtaining treatment for his mental disorder.

Psychosis is characterized by the presence of delusions and hallucinations. In schizophrenia there is both hallucinations (hearing voices, seeing what is not there as there etc) but in delusional disorder there is no hallucinations. Because the deluded person does not hear voices or see what he is not there, his mind seems intact and he can go to school and be a professional etc. But he is insane, nevertheless. He is insane because he believes in what is not true as true. He does act on the basis of his insane beliefs and could harm or even kill on their account. Therefore, you are risking your life and your children’s lives if you keep staying with a deluded person.

In major US cities, there are safe houses where abused persons can run to. These houses are usually not publicized to prevent the abusive husband from following the spouse to them. If you call a mental health Crisis line they would direct you to such safe houses.


Usually deluded persons do not see themselves as sick. In fact, they have no respect for therapists.

Deluded persons tend to seem rational and engage in facile rationalism. When forced into therapy by the law, they do their best to convince the therapist that he is the sick one, not them.

They are usually very argumentative and will argue forever about how they are right and other people are wrong. They never accept defeat and will never see themselves as wrong.

They do not voluntarily go to therapy; indeed, they consider themselves smarter than therapists and do not believe that they should do what therapists ask them to do.

Most therapists tend to give up on the paranoid character, for on the surface he seems normal but when you get close you see a sick human being who nevertheless does not know that he is sick.


ANGER AND THE PARANOID PERSONALITY

Paranoid persons are usually very prone to anger. Their anger is generally rooted in their grandiosity. They constructed grandiose, that is, big but false, self concepts. They fancy themselves very important persons. They pretend to be very important persons. They present their imaginary very important persons to other people to relate to. If you allow them to fool you and see them as important they feel okay, but if you treat them as if they are not important they feel angry at you.

Their anger is mostly from injured vanity. It is called narcissistic rage, when their pride is affronted they become angry and can kill in that moment of anger. Merely joking around with the paranoid personality, saying something that he feels demeaned him, belittled him, degraded him, humiliated him, insulted him etc could arouse his anger and he acts out violently towards you.

When they feel belittled, and depowered they act out to try to make them selves seem powerful, grandiose power, that is, not real power. These brothers are sick; do not fool around with them.

Please remember that we are not talking about reality here but delusion. What you did may be perfectly rational but the paranoid person misinterprets what you did and feels demeaned by you when you had no intention of insulting him and he acts out against you.

ANGER MANAGEMENT

As noted, the least treatment required by the law for domestic violence perpetrators is anger management/barterers treatment. Let me briefly review this treatment modality. First, let me try to explicate the nature of anger.

Anger is a natural phenomenon. All human beings are prone to anger. In fact, anger has survival aspect to it. Anger and fear are useful for human survival.

When an animal organism feels that his life is threatened, his body unleashes certain neurochemicals that forces his bodily processes to work faster so as to enable him to either run or fight whatever is threatening him.

The flight aspect of this response is called fear; the fight aspect of it is called anger. Fear and anger (the same physiological responses are involved in the two) are used to remove the threat to ones life. These responses are engaged involuntarily.

In fear and anger, the thinking part of the brain, the cortex, shuts down and the individual behaves strictly from the part of the brain we share with other animals. He pours out adrenalin which excites his heart, lungs, nerves etc. His entire body works faster enabling him to fight or run from the danger he perceives to his life. (I will not bother you with the intricacies of this physiological aspect of fear and anger response.)

The individual in fear and anger response is fighting for his life. If, in fact, his life is threatened his fight is realistic. But since his life may not be threatened and only his psychological self is threatened he may not be fighting a realistic fight.

If an individual has a grandiose self concept, that is, sees himself as very important, which he is not, in fact, and that false grandiose self feels that you did not respect it, it feels threatened and reacts with anger. It does not matter that you did not aim not to respect him, what is at work is his misperception of your intention, motive and behavior. The paranoid angry person almost always misinterprets other people’s intentions.

It is the false grandiose self that feels angry in the paranoid character. Thus, he feels that his wife or children did not respect his imaginary important self and feels angry at them and hits them. In effect, he is insane; his anger is a product of his insane thinking processes. His anger is not realistic. But realistic or not, he can still hurt or kill you, the object of his anger.

WALK AWAY, DO NOT ARGUE WITH AN ANGRY PERSON

When the individual feels his life threatened, real or imaginary, he goes into anger mode. He is now a pure animal and is acting from the hypothalamus, not from his reasoning faculty, cortex part of the brain. You, therefore, cannot reason with him. In fact, if you tried to reason with him, you would only succeed in enraging him more.

Paranoids always blame other people, particularly when things go wrong in their lives; nothing is ever their fault, it is always other people’s fault; it is always their wives fault, their children’s fault, their coworkers fault, any body but themselves is at fault. They must see you as faulty and themselves as the perfect ones.

Paranoids want to seem perfect, to be godlike and therefore cannot afford to seem blameworthy so they must project blame to other people even if there is no one to be blamed. They want to be perfect and you imperfect; they want to win and you to lose. So when they are angry and you try to reason with them they see you as trying to make them lose and that redoubles their desire to win hence they would not listen to you.

Therefore, never argue with an angry man. If your husband gets angry, just walk away from him. That is the best thing that you can do.

When you leave the immediate vicinity of the angry person, you remove the stimulus (you) making him angry. He is then able to calm down…his body reverses the hormones it poured out or destroys them via complex enzyme activity.

As long as you are in front of the angry person, he would continue to be angry. So leave. Do not say one word; just leave him.

Even if you are right, which probably is the case, let him believe that he is right, gratify his delusion of always being correct and others wrong. Humor him please. It is necessary that you do so, for your safety may depend on your not saying anything.

If the angry person blocks your way, as irate husbands often do, stay calm and say nothing. If you are calm and do not show fear and weakness, he would not feel that you are about to attack him. If you are flustered and angry, he may believe that you are about to attack him and attack you some more, this time, with the delusional belief that he is protecting himself. Moreover, the angry person acts like a terrorist and uses intimidation to arouse fear in you and in doing so control you. Ultimately, do whatever you can to get out of his sight.

WALKING AWAY

In case you are the one with anger reaction, and want to manage your anger, anger management consists in understanding the PHYSIOLOGY OF ANGER RESPONSE. Watch when your body starts to become excited.

Let us say that you are talking to some one and he called you a nasty name. You feel insulted and start feeling angry. You notice physiological changes in your body. Your heart pounds faster, your lungs bit faster, your body releases sugar and your blood carries it to the muscles preparing them to fight the person who put you down. When you try to talk you TALK RAPIDLY, for your nervous system is working faster, sending and retrieving information from your brain. Your FIST CLINCHES, preparing you to hit that person. Your face turns RED (FACE) as blood is rushed to it and to your muscles and they TENSE UP, PREPARING YOU TO FIGHT.

The first thing to do in anger management is to notice physiological changes in your body. If you notice them, do one thing and one thing only: WALK AWAY FROM THE STIMULUS.

Leave the presence of the person that makes you angry. Just leave him, for if you stay you might hit him and both of you might get into a fight. Leave the stimulus. When you leave him your body calms down.

If you cannot leave, say your boss is saying what makes you feel angry and you can not just get up and leave, then COUNT TO TWENTY. Do so quietly. Preferably, count backwards: twenty, nineteen, eighteen etc. The idea is to give your brain an abstract mathematical function to perform and that way trick it to ignore the threat in front of you. Try counting, it works.

Try to BREATHE SLOWLY. Inhale slowly and hold your breathe for a while, and then let it out slowly. When you breathe in oxygen it helps to calm your over excited cells and neutralize the carbon dioxide that builds in your body as it becomes heated during anger response.

When angry your skin feels hot, for through the pores on your skin your overheated body is trying to reduce the heat in your body. The air you exhale from your nose is also hot, for you are getting rid of heated energy from inside your body. The various chemical reactions taking place inside your body when you are angry or fearful produce heat that your body must get rid of.

If slow breathing does not work for you try VISUALIZING BEAUTIFUL SCENES. Imagine yourself walking on a beach, walking in a rose garden, or doing anything thing that you find relaxing.

Ultimately, the best way to manage your anger is to get away from the situation that is making you angry. Take a walk. A thirty to sixty minutes walk is the best thing that you can do when you are angry. (If you have a gym go work out for that amount of time; or go run, swim, ride your bicycle, or engage in any VIGOROUS EXERCISE that would help you burn off the excitatory neurochemicals your body poured out during anger response.

PROCESSING THE ANGER

When you have taken your time out and calmed down and feel that you are now rational, again, you can then process the anger. Talk about it as calm as is possibly. But as longer as you are still angry, please do not talk about it. If it takes you a month, even a year to calm down take that amount of time before you talk about it to the person who made you angry.

In anger your brain has shut down the rational part of it and is now in the irrational animal attack mode. Take your time and feel calm before you talk to the person who made you angry.
In the meantime, you can process your anger on paper. Write in your journal. Type your feelings but do not show it to the person who made you angry, remember he thinks that he is right and you are wrong, particularly if he is the paranoid type.

If you have a mature friend that you trust go and talk to him about the incident that made you angry, this helps to get it off your chest, to vent.

TAKING OWNERSHIP FOR ANGER RESPONSE

In barterers groups, the first goal is to convince the barterer who beats up on his spouse and children that he is not right, as he generally believes that he is. The Owerri man who beat his wife senseless and was sent to jail still believes that he is right and her wrong. As he sees it, why was she talking to that man? Never mind that the man was a fellow class mate and that both of them had assignments to do together. It never even crossed her mind to cheat on him. We are not talking reason here, we are talking insanity. The brother is insane and in his insanity believes himself right and his wife wrong. That is where he is at. The goal of therapy is to show him that he is not always right.

Epictetus, a Roman philosopher, says that though you do not have control over environmental stimuli you have control over how you interpret and respond to it. You do not have control over another person calling you a bad name but you can choose to see the event differently.

So he called you a nigger, eh? That makes you angry? If another person makes you angry you have given your power to him. You can keep your power and not feel angry and instead see him as an idiot, for if he were reasonable he would not be trying to put you or any one down.

A healthy human being appreciates the human condition, understands that living on earth is already a depressing business, and tries his best to make all the people to feel happy; he does not depress folks.

You can choose to respond with anger, fear, sadness, shame, anger etc to others behavior; it is all up to you. How you respond to others behaviors is up to you.

The only power we have is the power of choice. We choose how we respond to environmental events. We have the free will to choose, to decide how we respond to others behaviors. (As I pointed out lest week, we can choose to see others attack on us as a call for us to forgive and love them.)

CONGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY


Most anger management therapists, in some form or other, employ Albert Ellis Rational Emotive Therapy, the ABC method. I have essentially reviewed it in the above statements. It entails your choosing how you respond to others behaviors. You do not have to simply respond with fear or anger; you can reorient yourself to respond differently to the same situation.

Cognitive reorientation and reconstruction is the goal of cognitive behavior therapy. You can see the same world differently and behave differently. The choice is yours to make.

NIGERIANS TENDENCY TO RATIONALIZE THE IRRATIONAL, ANGER

Over the years, I observed how Nigerians behave towards their wives and children. Whereas some of them tend to respect their wives and children, many of them tend to abuse them. They are very disrespectful of their spouses.

Many of them rationalize this uncivilized behavior. They look you straight in the face and tell you that their culture permits them to insult their family members. It never occurs to them that if they disrespect their wives and children that they are giving them low self esteem and that those with low self esteem tend not to do well in the outer world. If you make your wife to feel bad about herself she will raise children who do not feel good about themselves. That way you produce progeny who are not going to do well in the world of work. Common sense tells one to respect ones wife and children, to make them feel like the best persons in life, and they are, actually.

Children go to school and if their teachers see them as unhappy and ask them what happened and they tell the teachers that their fathers yelled at them, there is trouble for the fathers. The teacher tells the school counselor who reports it to the State’s Children’s Protective Services. A social worker visits the child’s home and before you know it, he or she is removed from the home and placed in a foster home. The father is deemed abusive and told to go seek anger management before he can see his child again.


CHANGE OF SELF CONCEPT/SSELF IMAGE

If you have an anger problem the chances are that you have a self concept, self image problem.

Each of us constructs a self concept, who you think that you are, during his childhood. The self concept is then translated into a pictorial form, a self image. Thus, each of us has a self concept and self image.

The self concept is constructed with building blocks like our inherited genes and our social experiences. Building on those and the information available to us, each of us constructs a self concept for himself.

By and large, the majority of the people tend to have realistic self concepts. That is, they see themselves as the same and equal to other people.

Unfortunately, some persons construct unrealistic self concepts and self images. Somehow they see themselves as superior to other people or want to seem superior to other people.

Those who want to seem better than other people generally have personality disorders, including narcissistic and paranoid personality disorders. Those who actually believe that they are better than other people are deluded, that is psychotic, they are no longer operating in the world of reality since in reality we are all the same and equal.

We are the children of one family; we are members of God’s one family. Whether you like it or not, all human beings, black and white, man and woman, adult and child, are the same and are equal.

God created us equal and it is not up to you to decide who is better than other persons. You are not the creator of human beings and have no business imagining yourself as better than other people.

Those who desire to be better than other people tend to be the ones who engage in unnecessary anger tantrums. When they feel that other people did not recognize their imaginary big selves they act out. They may act out verbally or physically. Their narcissistic rage is designed to make them seem powerful; to rehabilitate their felt diminished self worth.

These people need to deconstruct their false self constructs. They have to deconstruct the self they made during their childhood. Now, as adults, they have to accept reality, as it is, and construct a realistic self construct, one that sees them as the same and coequal with all people, men and women, adult and children.

If you have an anger problem, you have a self concept problem. Therefore, deconstruct your self construct and reconstruct it on a rational footing. Give up the wish to be superior. It is will of the wisp. You cannot be superior to any human being, no matter how much you try. Indeed, if you believe that you are better than others you have left neurosis and are now psychotic.

The anger prone person has a faulty self concept and self image and needs to work on it, to change it so that he comes to see himself as the same and equal with all persons. In as much as he tended to see himself as superior to his wife and children he must now come to see them as his equals. You must see yourself as equal with your wife and children.

A sense of sameness and equality is the indicator of sanity. At any moment you wish to be better than other people you are neurotic and if you believe that wish you are psychotic.

SOME METAPHYSICS

Some observers point out that it is the wish for superiority that led to the formation of our empirical world. In their view, in eternity, in God, in spirit, in heaven we are perfectly the same and are equal and know that God created us. But we resented that God created us and want to create ourselves and create each other. That is, we wanted to seem better than God and each other. That desire for specialness led to the formation of this world, the dream of the opposite of God, opposite of love, opposite of sameness, opposite of equality, opposite of union, a world of separation and differences.

Each of us must reverse the wish that led to the invention of this world, the desire for personal superiority. Each of us must reconstruct his self concept to one of perfect equality and oneness with all people.

When this is accomplished, one is now only capable of loving all people. One no longer resorts anger in a foolish effort to solve interpersonal conflicts through violence. One practices forgiveness and love, for they make for peace on earth.


In the here and now, if you have anger management issues, please go seek professional help for it. You do not have a right to hit your wife and children; you do not have a right to verbally abuse any one. You should love members of your family and all people. Read as many books as is possible on the subject of anger.


CONCLUSION
My goal in this essay is to call the attention of my fellow Nigerians to the problem of anger and domestic violence that is apparently rampant in our community. We must stop sweeping this problem under the rug. We must bring it out of the closet and into the open and deal with it.
If you have ever hit your spouse or child and or have anger issues, do not deny that you have anger issues; please go seek professional help for your anger problem.

Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

Posted by Administrator at 08:20 AM | Comments (0)

Buhari and Kalu: Do not be Deceived; OBJ is in Free-fall to Illegal Third Term

by SpinCity Spinoza --- Obasanjo is in free-fall to his third term ambition if you allow yourselves to be deceived by his thugs. Every object under the influence of free-fall is not necessarily free of its own will. Instead, there are forces at work, propelling the object to some destination. General Obasanjo’s destination is his third term ambition, and the forces being used to propel him there are the current instability, violence, and mayhem in Nigeria.

Christianity and Islam are now his chosen vehicles for actualization of his illegal ambition. Therefore, many innocent Nigerians are bound to be the casualties of this illegal scheme. To think otherwise is to fall into the trap of the dubious mind of this dubious monster.

The current moment of instability and mayhem is the reason Uba and Adedibu are the best friends of the monster. Both thugs are now at work, causing religious tensions in many parts of Nigeria so that the selfish Yoruba monster can achieve his third-term ambition.

It is a well-known fact that the monster does not care about the rulings of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. It is also widely known that many important personalities and opponents of the monster have been murdered without adjudication. It is therefore conceivable that the mad man and his lawless thugs are now using religious riots and mayhems to destabilize Nigeria so that the illegal third-term ambition can sell through.

Despotism knows nothing about legalities and human decency, and is, by definition, the absence of established decorum and laws. Despotism in Nigeria today is the presence of illegal power and authority given to several individuals, notably Uba and Adedibu, to ferment destabilizing riots and bone-chilling mayhems capable of actualizing their intended illegal occupation of the nation. Since the inception of the present administration under the present mad men, despotism has been everywhere and in everything they touch. Every policy, every action, and every move they make has despotism written on it.

Their objective is not to develop Nigeria or to care for our people. Their leading despot has been given ample time to prove that he does not care about the growth and unity of the nation. His only objective is to prove that he is the Messiah sent by Allah to rule Nigeria as he sees fit. He has left enough destruction in his trails. The rule of law has been effectively incapacitated by his careful calculations. Since the laws of Nigeria mean nothing to the monster and his thugs, the constitution of Nigeria is perceived as an impediment to his illegal third term ambition.

In all human societies where human life has value, all citizens know what to expect from one another because laws control and constrain human behavior and empower individuals as they contribute to the social order. In Obasanjo’s Nigeria, the contrary is the case; human life has no value because there is no law to define and constrain human actions. Anybody and anything can be murdered so long as they stand in the path of his personal ambition or so long as doing so can help to actualize such an ambition.

In all democratic arrangements, the presence of laws means the presence of rules of action, prescribed by a legitimate authority invested with competent power and rights to apply the laws. The authority is legitimate because it is instituted by a documented and popular consensus. The power and rights are competent because they are invested in respectful and respected body of wise men. These two conditions are present in all democratic governments of the human world.

In Nigeria today, both conditions are wanting because one mad man thinks and acts as if the state is his private organization. The courts of Nigeria, as the competent authority to interpret and to apply the laws of Nigeria, mean nothing to him because he is the strategic Jesus of Yoruba Land, sent by God to liberate some ignorant goats. Under the Hitler of Yoruba Land, everything is done from his arbitrary whims and commands. Hence intimidation, violence, brutality, and murder are the accepted ways of discharging the daily business of the masses of goats. All credible oppositions are quickly hauled to their graves or to his personal gulags.

It is therefore not beyond the wicked mindset of this wicked traitor and his lawless thugs to use religious riots as the motivating force for keeping Nigerians locked up in their homes so that the constitution of Nigeria can be freely mutilated to actualize the illegal third term ambition of the despotic monster. If Nigerians are frightened to death by religious riots; if mayhems and instability are unleashed on the streets of Nigeria; if our masses are turned against each other, how can they be able to plan for the future of Nigeria? How can they forestall the impending illegalities on the constitution of Nigeria? If General Obasanjo and his thugs, with the terrorist police forces behind them, are allowed to intimidate and frighten our masses into submission to this illegal third-term ambition, then Nigeria is on the way to disintegration. They can freely and lawlessly fall to their third-term destination, but what happens afterwards will be unheard-off in the annals of human history. They can use illegal force, murder, and mayhems to destabilize the nation so that they may perpetuate themselves in office.

But they must know that we, the people, also retain our God-given rights to use any means necessary and available to retake our country. If the blood of our children and fathers and mothers is necessary to propel you to your illegal personal destination, then your blood and the blood of your children and grand children and mothers and fathers must be spilled to dethrone you from your pedestals of lawlessness and murder and mayhems.

Posted by Administrator at 08:09 AM | Comments (0)

March 02, 2006

Whites in Africa or white Africans?

by Chido Makunike (Dakar, Senegal) --- I couldn’t help laughing at the over-eager tone of the Daily Telegraph’s stories in recent days about a claimed about-turn by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe’s government in regards to the role of white commercial farmers. No doubt we will soon found out if indeed there has been a significant reversal of the last several years’ aggressive moves to remove white farmers.

Time will also tell if any policy reversal would lure back a significant number of those former farmers or not. As one such farmer pointed out in one of the Telegraph’s stories, Mugabe’s assurances of security of tenure may not be worth the paper they are written on.

But I wish to focus on the attitudes reflected in the Telegraph stories themselves, rather than what Mugabe is thought to be thinking of doing or what the reaction to that might be.

Mugabe has been a stinging rhetorical nemesis of the British in recent years, so perhaps it is natural that a British paper would react in a triumphal tone to speculation about what would be a major climb down by Mugabe. Quite apart from that, even the most rabid Mugabe supporter can no longer deny that his violent disruption of a sophisticated commercial agricultural system developed over decades has been disastrous for Zimbabwe. If there was ever any doubt, it has become glaringly apparent that the white farmers had a valuable, unique skills base.

In addition to the economic benefits that accrued to the country from that skills base, it gave the white farmers as a group an arrogance that was partly their undoing at the hands of the politically cornered, clever, and willing-to-be-a-demagogue Mugabe. The mix of their economic power and social attitudes carried over from the Rhodesian era made their scape-goating by Mugabe for his loss of political support in the face of declining national economic performance a relatively easy affair.

The cry of land reform struck a responsive chord amongst black Zimbabweans for obvious racial, historical, economic and other reasons. It is a fact of history that the issue of a pattern of land distribution that was so cynically and crudely tailored to the whites’ benefit was one reason a bitter guerilla war was fought to bring about an independent Zimbabwe. In addition to these reasons, many blacks also did not mind Mugabe bringing down a powerful racial and economic block who lauded their power over the blacks in many subtle and not so subtle ways.

While the white farmers can be forgiven for never having imagined that they would face the wrath of Mugabe in the way they did, it was also foolish of them to not see how their psychic isolation from the blacks demographically and literally all around them made them vulnerable to demagoguery. The Commercial Farmers Union had been happy to go to bed with Mugabe’s government for many years. The two lived in a fairly happy state of co-existence as long as the white farmers felt unthreatened by any major changes in the long-untenable pattern of land distribution that served them so well, and as long as the white farmers’ skills benefited the economy and Mugabe’s government in various ways.
This unspoken pact was broken by a combination of economic problems that put political pressures on Mugabe, and in his eyes the white farmers unforgivable, public support of the then new and upstart opposition MDC party that came onto the scene with such a bang in the 2000 general elections. When Mugabe unleashed his fury on the white farmers, they found that they did not have significant linkages with any part of the majority population. Even their support of the MDC was in a deprecating, cheque-book waving way that only emphasized a certain patronizing smugness. And indeed up to then their economic power had made it possible for them to set the tone and determine the nature of their relationship with the black majority. That meant keeping blacks at a psychological and social distance, and being able to pick and choose when, in what manner and how far to temporarily come down from that aloofness.

I have heard many whites furiously retort how they paid their workers better than their neighbours, built farm schools for the workers’ children and so forth. None of this addresses the point I am trying to make, which is essentially about respect. Respect towards your countrymen and good neighbourliness towards them that goes much deeper than dispensing largesse from a lofty perch. The attitudes associated with being an isolated, privileged community may have been a group habit inherited from the Rhodesian days, but in the evolving group power re-arrangement of independent Zimbabwe, that did not serve the whites well.

I keep using the word “group” because there are individual whites who have long perceived the necessity and inevitability of these changes and have consciously worked to change how they see themselves in the wider society and their interactions with it.
My point is that for whites as a group in Zimbabwe, and quite likely in the rest of southern Africa, their long term interests and survival is determined by shifting group identity from “whites in Africa” to white Africans. Some will not be able to make this psychological shift for many reasons, but their prospects are poor.

Part of the reasons for that difficulty is that by and large whites in southern Africa as a group have had very little experience in NOT being in charge of everything. There are all kinds of attitudes and behaviours to do with being a member of a small racial minority that economic and political power protected them from having to learn. But as power relations shift, bringing with them a changed conciousness and more confident, less servile and reverential attitude towards them amongst the blacks, the group attitudes amongst the whites that might have had no consequences to them 10 or 20 years ago do now.

Blacks in any western country instinctively know the ways they must adapt to the white majority culture for them to get ahead. Those who choose not to make that adaptation in terms of language and many parts of the majority culture have to pay the price of being marginalized even more than the rest of their communities. Whites in Zimbabwe on the other hand felt no such pressure to adapt themselves to the majority milieu at all. They, and the blacks, were accustomed to the Africans doing all the adapting to their ways.
This was always going to be a temporary state of affairs. Without Mugabe’s political gambit to scapegoat the whites for his failures it might have taken decades for these group dynamics to evolve to reflect the demographics and their attendant social, political and cultural realities. But all these issues were suddenly brought to the fore in a way that cannot be undone even if the old despot kicks the bucket today.

Whites who want to hang on to the view of themselves as a special group above the natives in southern Africa will likely never feel comfortable and secure. Apart from legal guarantees to farmland or citizenship, there needs to be a critical mass of whites who do and are seen to be identifying themselves as Africans. There is no longer a group benefit to holding on to the self-image of an elite group which just happens to be in Africa, enjoying still generally privileged status but also vaguely disdainful of the Africans and only comfortable dealing with them in situations where they are in control, making as few cultural, linguistic and social accommodations as possible. That difficult-for-many but necessary shift is what will best secure their place in Africa. Far more than money, duration of lineage on the continent, title to land, citizenship papers, the reigning political dispensation at any given time, or farming expertise.

Chido Makunike
I am a Zimbabwean in Senegal.

Posted by Administrator at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

Ozodi Osuji Weekly Series on Psychology 2006, #11 of 52: Children's Mental Health Issues

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- Some time ago, I visited a Nigerian in a different state from the one that I live at. This man and his wife are rich; I mean rich. They are probably millionaires? They have several houses in the city they live at and have at least six luxurious cars. They live in a six bedroom mansion. By all accounts this couple has made it, they have arrived.

The couple has four children ranging from four to twelve years. They brought their mother from Nigeria to take care of their children while they are out making money. They left house before seven in the morning and seldom came back before nine in the evening.
What is the problem with this picture, you ask? Don’t you like the smell of money? Are you jealous or something? Get out of here.
The problem is the couple’s children. The three of them at a nearby elementary school were all in special education classes, that is, classes for children judged mentally deficient.
Here is the picture. In the morning, the children walked to the school, only a few blocks from their house. School is over at 3PM and they walked home. Grandma was there and stayed with them. They watched TV and did whatever they could to entertain themselves. Grandma does not speak English (she speaks Pidgin English) so the kids really could not relate to her and generally amused themselves the best way they know how. Essentially, there is no one around to help them do their homework. By the time their parents are back from their work the children are in bed. The parents are generally out of the house in the morning before the children get up from bed so it is up to grandma to get them up and get them ready for school.
When I stayed with this very generous couple, I had nothing to do in the evenings, so I decided to help the children with their homework. We would sit by the humongous kitchen table and do their arithmetic, English, science and social science assignments.
On weekends, I took the children to the gym and had them swim; I played basketball with them; I worked out with weights; we played table tennis and tennis. In fact, the oldest boy began running with me (I run every other morning, five miles, at last). On the whole the children had an adult play with them, a new experience for them. Their parents are busy working hard to have the time to go do fun things with them. As you can imagine, the children developed strong attachment to me. The bonding was so strong that some wanted to go home with me. Nigerians, generally, do not play with their children. Some of them think that they are too important to go play soccer with their children. This is very unfortunate, for there is nothing more joyous than playing with ones children. I used to run with my son, Obi, and no wonder he runs for his university.
One day, I walked the children to their school and out of curiosity decided to talk to their teachers. I talked to all three teachers, primarily to find out why the children were judged special education material…they seemed to me like normal, averagely intelligent children and I expected them to be in regular classes. After talking to the teachers, I went to talk to the school psychologist. I asked her why the children were placed in classes for the mentally challenged, whether she tested them and found them deficient. She told me that she received information from teachers that the children were not doing well in school and requested permission from their parents to test them but that they refused. Since they were nevertheless not doing well she sent them to special education classes. I told her that I thought that the children were normal average kids and that with special effort that they would return to regular classes.
In the couple of weeks that I stayed with this fine couple, I taught the children the basics of arithmetic’s: addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, fractions, decimals, ratios etc. In fact, I began teaching the twelve year old algebra, geometry and trigonometry. I brought them up to snuff with the basics of English grammar, science and social science. Before I left town, I went back to the school and insisted that the children be returned to regular classes; one was.
My encounter with these children got me thinking about the plight of Nigerian children.
Nigerian children, like children everywhere in the world, have psychological issues but seldom do their parents have an inkling of what is going on with them. Many Nigerian parents just assume that their children are okay and that that is all there is to it. Poor fellows.
Nigerian children, like children everywhere, suffer from the whole array of psychological problems found in children. In this essay, I will briefly review the major psychological issues found in children. My goal is for parents to be aware of them and observe their children to see if they show signs of them and if so take them to mental health professionals who are equipped to handle such problems.
What is my qualification regarding children’s mental health? Long ago, I was a licensed therapist and worked as children’s therapist, then supervised a bunch of children’s therapists in a children’s psychiatric hospital. I have done just about every job there is to do in the mental health field. At any rate, it is up to you to listen or not. My self assigned task is to share information with you; what you do with it is your issue, not mine.
The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is divided into to several sections: one section is devoted to children’s mental health issues, another to organic mental disorder issues, a third is devoted to drug and alcohol issues and another section is devoted to adult functional, as opposed to organic, mental health issues. If you are interested in today’s subject, please peruse the relevant section of the DSM. You can also write to me and request a list of books on Developmental Psychology, that is, children’s psychology.


There are many psychological issues first encountered in childhood. I cannot possibly cover all of them. What I will do is briefly define the major ones that you are likely to encounter. They are separation anxiety, oppositional defiant disorder, conduct disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, autism, reactive attachment disorder, Asperger’s disorder, Down ’s syndrome, mental retardation etc.
Separation anxiety is seen in children during their first days of school. The child’s mother takes him or her to school and he does not want to be left at school and cries and wants to go home with the mother. He does not want to be left at school to be with strangers. I can speak from personal experience here, for I had terrible separation anxiety. At age five, my mother took me to school and I would not let her go. I simply clung to her legs and did not want to let her go. I cried my little heart out. Go she had to go and after a few weeks of this scenario I got somewhat adjusted to the school environment.
What is going on here is that the child has anxiety issues. Anxiety is exaggerated fear. All people have felt fear and therefore know what anxiety is. Anxiety is feeling of fear in a situation that should not arouse fear in people. In fear the individual’s heart pounds fast, he breathes fast, his nervous system works rapidly, he experiences a powerful urge to run (flight or fight response). These physiological responses are mediated by neurotransmitters. I am not going to get into the science of anxiety disorder, let me just say that neuroscience has shown that anxious children are born that way and inherited quick danger alerting system in their bodies.
(If you are interested in this research, please see Jerome Kegan’s efforts at Harvard University; also see Isaac Marks writing on anxiety.)
The anxious child feels fearful when there is no threat to his life and experiences an urge to run, hence he clings to his mother’s legs for protection. This problem is generalized: such children tend to be anxious across board. In fact, they tend to develop social anxiety (sociophobia) and or avoidant personality (fear of others rejection and avoiding people to avoid rejection). Some such children may develop obsessesive compulsive disorder and any of the anxiety related personality disorders.
Some children tend to have opposition defiance disorder, ODD. Where this problem exists, you can see it in nine year old children. Such children do not want any adult to tell them what to do. They resent their parents and teachers telling them what to do. They are constantly in power struggle with adults, resenting being told what to do. While resenting adult authority they gladly conform to their peer groups demands on them. Indeed, they may even accept leadership from the leader of their cohort.
If not handled properly, ODD children tend to drop out of school and go do their own things. As adults, they tend to be oppositional to authority figures and do not listen to their bosses and tend to be fired by bosses or simply quit their jobs because they do not want to be pushed around “by the freaking, god damned son of a bitch of a boss”.
These children simply do not want any one to tell them what to do with their “freaking lives”.
I have written extensively on this subject and do not plan to repeat myself here. Why some children do not want adults to tell them what to do has always intrigued me, since I am somewhat of a rebel myself. This resentment of adult authority is probably rooted in the child’s desire for autonomy and separation from the whole, God and man.
Some children have conduct disorder. In addition to not listening to adults, as ODD children do, they engage in anti social behaviors; they steal, tell lies and beat up other children etc. If not helped, such children tend to progress to adult antisocial personality disordered persons.
By elementary school age, you can already make out children with conduct disorder; they usually start smoking early, drink alcohol early, and do drugs early. (Visualize the twelve year old boy in your secondary school who tells lies, smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, gets into fights with other boys, and generally does not bother with other people’s well being.)
Conduct disordered children tend to be self centered and do not care for other people and do not feel guilty or remorseful for their hurtful behaviors. These children are heading towards criminal behavior and eventually to jail, their adult home. Their encounter with the law generally starts around age fourteen when they are arrested for law breaking and sent to juvenile detention centers. Thereafter, it is in and out of correctional facilities until they are burned out in their forties.
Some children have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD. These children are hyper active and cannot sit still for twenty minutes without fidgeting. Their minds tend to wander all over the place and they are unable to concentrate on their class work. They are every teacher’s nightmare; they are disruptive of the class process.
These days’ teachers generally refer them to school psychologists who test them and refer them to physicians for medications. The various psychoactive stimulants (Ritalin, Adderol etc) seem to have paradoxical effect on these children: calm them down. That which stimulates adults calms them down. Coffee also calms them down. This problem is very pervasive in American schools and no one quite understands why the sudden increase in ADHD.
There are all kinds of speculations as to what causes ADHD and its milder form ADD. Some attribute causal factors to dysfunctions in the brain; others see it as a result of ingesting too much sugar, yet others see it as a product of the break down of parental authority in society. (These days if you raised your voice at your children and or punished them corporally you could be arrested and jailed for child abuse.)
Suffice it to say that we do not yet know what caused this problem. At any rate, in this essay, I am not interested in a causal analysis; I am just pointing out some childhood issues that you may want to know about.
Some children have autism. Here the child looks normal but does not care to socialize with other children. He keeps to himself and occasionally self stimulates (strikes his head on the wall etc).
Some children have a milder form of autism called reactive attachment disorder or Asperger’s disease. They do not know how to get alone with their peers and just want to be left alone. They develop poor social skills as result.
I have written extensively on this disorder. I think that it has to do with not loving and caring for children. If a child is not loved and is emotionally abandoned he tends to learn to build a psychological wall around himself and not want anything to do with other people. As it were, he says: if you relate to people, they will hurt and or abandon you, so don’t even bother relating to them; keep to yourself.
Children who were raised in orphanages and or placed in numerous foster homes where they were either abused or ignored tend to develop reactive attachment disorder.
Since many Nigerians really do not pay attention to their children their children tend to feel emotionally abandoned and develop some forms of reactive attachment disorder.
Some children have Downs’ syndrome. These children inherited serious Chromosomal deficits which are generally severe enough to make them less educable; they tend to think concretely, not the abstract thinking required for education. In the past this disorder used to be called Mongolism, for such children look oriental even if they are born in Africa. Women over age 35 are more likely to have children with Downs’s syndrome than younger women.
Some children have mental retardation. Every parent has the illusion that his or her child is a genius but the fact is that children have different levels of intelligence.
IQ testing breaks down as follows: IQ under 70 is mental retardation. IQ 85-115 is average intelligence. IQ of 118-128 is above average intelligence. IQ over 132 is superior.
Generally, about 2% of the population has mental retardation, 2% has superior intelligence, 90% has normal intelligence and about 6% has above average intelligence.
The most used IQ test instruments are WAIS for adults, WISC and Stanford Binnet for children.
If a child tests out below 70, he is generally unable to learn in regular classrooms and cannot really graduate from elementary school. It takes average intelligence to do school work and certainly to complete secondary school.
If you want to know how smart you are, hence how smart your children are, take IQ tests. But you pretty much already know your intelligence level. If you were mostly a C student, you are average. If you were mostly a B student you are above average. If you consistently were an A student you are gifted. Of course, it all depends on the type of school that you attended, for an A in a yucky school is a C in an outstanding school.
For our present purposes, some children have mental retardation and are usually sent to special education classes until they turn eighteen and are seldom able to read or write beyond the first few grade levels.
High intelligence is not correlated with success in adult life; what it is correlated with is ability to do well at school.
If your child has high IQ you had better send him to a school for the mentally gifted if you do not want him to be bored by the drivel taught at public schools. Every school district in the USA has a school for exceptional children. These children tend to learn quickly and tend to feel bored and may get into mischief unless you give them more difficult tasks to perform. They thrive on solving difficult intellectual problems.

Most children, like most adults, are normal, psychologically and mentally. That is to say that at least 90% of the children at a typical school are normal children and do not give teachers a hard time. Schools are geared towards the normal-average child. As in adult life, some children are not normal.
The seriously intelligent child, the child prodigy, is not a normal child; in fact, he finds other children too silly to play with. As a matter of fact, he finds most adults too idiotic to worth his time. I had such a child in my Sunday school class at my church. He was only ten years old and knew more physics, chemistry and biology than university students. He graduated from Harvard before his peers entered university.
Then there is the reality of the mentally deficient; there are the children with anxiety issues; and finally there are children with conduct issues.
This is the real world. The real world exists in Nigeria, as it exists every where else. Nigerians tend to think that just because they do not think about these psychological issues that they do not exist.
Nigerians are human beings and suffer from the whole array of psychological problems human beings are prone to. If you randomly select one hundred Nigerians, you will see that two of them are psychotic, six of them have personality disorders, two of them are mentally gifted, two of them are mentally retarded and ninety of them are average and normal. This is reality. It is as simple as that. You can wish all you want to, facts are facts.
If you are trained in psychology and you relate to people you can see the whole array of mental health issues in the people before you. There is nothing you can do about it for such is life, cest la vie. You cannot make a dull chap brilliant just by wishing for it. Nor can you make a normal person a neurotic by wishing for it.
Most people are the way they are because of a combination of inherited biological constitution and social experiences. You cannot change them. All that you can do is work with them as they are, without illusions that you can change them. You are not God and cannot change people. However, if these problems are found in children there is a lot that we can do to help them before they become rigid and inflexible in their dysfunctionality.

My recommendation is for you to observe your children. The chances are that they are pretty much normal and do normally at school and society. But if you see some of the problems that I briefly mentioned above, please take the child to mental health professionals for help. Put away your pride and go get your children help. If you have the resources, it might be useful to have your children tested for intelligence and personality. These tests are very expensive and will probably set you back a thousand dollars.
Nigerian children have the issues children all over the world have and there is no use pretending that they are different. They are not.
In American schools Nigerian children are increasingly relegated to special education classes. Get involved with your children’s education, help them do their homework; that way you will prevent your children from being sent to classes for dumb kids.
Many white persons assume that just being black makes one unintelligent, thus if your child shows the least sign of not following what the teacher is doing, it is off he goes to Special Ed. His issue may not be intelligence but poor language skills, poor culture skills etc. As a matter of fact, if your child is brainy and was tested and scored very high the chances are that the white psychologist may doubt it. I remember taking the IQ test and the white psychologist not believing that an African can be smart and had several others test me, all with similar results.
Please pay attention to your children’s education. The world out there makes wrong assumptions about Africans and it is up to us to correct those assumptions.


COUNSELING

If your child has any of the identified issues mentioned above get him into therapy. Whereas I am not proposing to do therapy here, I will briefly mention some of the therapeutic modalities available for children. They are individual, family, group and play therapy, and these days, medications or, as it is also called, pharmacotherapy.
Therapists make the assumption that a child is a member of a family. He is intricately connected into the web of family: father, mother and siblings. This family triangle (triangulation) is the child’s world.
The family is a system where member’s behaviors affect other members. What one member does is reacted to by other members and adjusted to and that reaction sets in motion responses from other members. The child cannot be outside his family system and wily nily must adjust to it. His personality is, in fact, largely influenced by his manner of adjusting to his family system. Personality is shaped by biological factors, the family climate and peer relationships. The family web is crucial in forming the child’s future patterns of behaving in the larger society.
Most children have normal families and adapt to them. Some families are abnormal…dysfunctional families. Children exposed to dysfunctional families form dysfunctional patterns of relationships.
Consider a family where the father is an alcoholic. The mother probably copes by playing the role of the enabler, making excuses for his behavior. She learns to tell lies for him. When he is too drunk to be able to go to work she calls his work place and tells them lies, such as say that he is sick. By and large, she does things that prevent him from taking the consequences of his problematic behavior, such as get fired from his job.
The alcoholic father creates a whole lot of problems for all members of the family and the children adjust to the dysfunctional home individually. In this pathological family, one child may play the role of the hero, another rescuer, another scapegoat, another rebel and yet another mascot etc.
The hero intervenes and does what the emotionally absent father is supposed to do and essentially becomes the man of the house. The rescuer does what helps every person in the hurting family. The scapegoat does things to get into trouble with the law and society. The mascot or family clown tries to become a comedian so as to reduce the tension he sees in the family.
Each child develops a pattern of behavior and takes it to the larger world. The clown tries to make his classmates and later all people happy, the rescuer devotes his life to helping other people (as I am doing here), the hero saves every body around him, the scapegoat or family rebel is always getting into trouble so that other people would rescue him, or talk about his issues. The scapegoat, in time, get into so much trouble that eventually he brings the family to the attention of authorities who then require them to be in therapy. The identified patient actually helps all members of the family to receive the help they desperately need.
The salient point is that people develop behavior patterns in their families, patterns of behavior that they take to other arenas in their lives and act them out there.
To help a child, therapists, therefore, want to do family therapy with him. They invite the entire family to sessions, usually for an hour or more a week. They observe the family’s interaction patterns, family dynamics, and note dysfunctional pasterns, if any, and try to intervene and get everybody to behave differently.
Consider a very common family pattern in Nigeria: husbands as terrorists. Many Nigerian husbands are psychological terrorists; they use fear to intimidate their wives and children to obey them. As a result, they produce members who are essentially fearful persons, persons who are afraid to use their God given minds to think for themselves. Children who come from family milieu where they were not encouraged to think tend not to be creative, whereas children who were encouraged to think and their opinions were respected tend to think and contribute to social discourse in a meaningful manner.
We have some psychological terrorists on Naijapolitics; they try to intimidate folks to think as they want them to think and if you dare think freely they go on a campaign of intimidation. I have in mind two Igbo engineers on the forum; both are terrorists and need serious psychotherapy. One has to dismiss them as psychologically stunted and warped fellows and delete their silly posts, all efforts to intimate folks into conforming to their half baked positions on social issues.
For our present purposes, some families terrorize their children and make them fearful persons. Family therapy enables them to learn to love and respect each other.
No therapist can work with a child without doing some family therapy, for the child is an intricate member of a family system and is affected by members of the family. You cannot heal him and have him go back and adjust to a dysfunctional family. You have to heal the entire family if you want to heal the child.
Therapists do individual sessions with children. They use whatever methodology they have to try to deal with the child’s issues. Question: how would you help a child with oppositional defiant disorder? How about if I gave you an assignment to read three books on that subject? Do so.
Your child may not be listening to you and you may be in constant power struggle with him. Each of you digs in your heel, trying to win and the other to loose. You see yourself as right and your child as wrong; he does the same. So who is going to win this battle of wills?
Find out a better way to handle your child’s need for autonomy and share power with him while still guiding him, setting boundaries and limits for him. There are many good books on how to raise children. I can think of the one I used to use called 1-2-3 Magic (it is also in videos). It teaches parents how to ask for time-outs and discipline their children without resorting to physical violence.
(All adolescents go through a rebellious phase where they do not like to listen to their parents. This is a natural development and is not the same thing as opposition defiance. Each adolescent must reject his parents and their values so as to go out there and find out who he is and define himself. You must therefore distinguish between normal teenage rebellions from ODD. The ODD teenager will stay out all night long if you ask him to come home at a certain time, will quit going to school if you insist on him doing so etc. The ODD child is a rebel without a course.)

Each therapist gravitates to particular methodology in his psychotherapy. There are tons of psychotherapies out there. I used to practice Adlerian and Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
Alfred Adler teaches that children feel inferior and want to feel superior and that most of their acting out behavior is rooted in their efforts to seem powerful; as Adler sees it, children want to have control and mastery over their world. He teaches parents how to handle this power issue in children.
Cognitive behavior therapists like Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck teach how to use reasoning to correct folks distorted thinking patterns. Change cognitions and change behavior and teach new patterns of thinking and behaving.
As the Roman philosopher, Epictetus said: it is not what is happening out there that makes you anxious, sad, or angry but how you interpret and respond to it. You can interpret stimuli differently and respond to them differently.
Suppose a white racist calls you put down names. You can respond to him with anger or with compassion. He is a stimulus but the type of response you exhibit is up to you. For example, the two Nigerian bullies on naija politics are so out of control that instead of being angry at them one can learn to pity them. They do not need to make you angry. You can choose how you respond to them.

You can teach children how to think in a rational manner and behavior in socially appropriate manners.

Many therapists employ group therapy in working with children. Here a number of kids are in a group and process their issues within the group. Group therapy is useful for it teaches interpersonal skills. We are social animals and must live together; groups help us learn how to get along with other members of our society. In group sessions, problems are solved through every members input. Members not only receive feedback from other members but learn that their problems are not unique to them, that other people have similar problems. This makes them feel not alone in the world.
Consider the anxious child. He is afraid of other people. He is afraid of speaking up in the group. He often experiences stage freight in classrooms particularly when teachers call upon him to come to the front of the classroom and speak, such as answer questions. He feels that if he spoke up that other people would think that he is no good, is unintelligent and as a result reject him. He does not want to be rejected by other people, so he keeps quiet in the group, classroom etc.
One can use group’s sessions to teach the shy, socially avoidant child to overcome his timidity and become assertive rather than passive or aggressive. He can learn that he can speak up in groups and that even if he is rejected by a few members that it is not the end of the world. He can be taught assertiveness skills.
In assertiveness one says ones bit and protects ones rights without putting other people down, without disrespecting other people. In aggressive communication one disrespects other people in pursuit of ones rights. In passive communication style one allows other people to walk all over one; one is a door mat. Obviously the aggressive person does not get what he wants for he alienates people and they oppose him; the passive person is ignored by other people. It is the assertive person who mostly gets what he wants out of life

Very young children are mostly treated with play therapy. Children learn mostly through playing, so the therapist can play with the child and through doing so help to identify his issues, solve them and teach him new social skills. There are many good books on play therapy, browse through some of them.

These days’ psychiatrists are increasingly resorting to using medications in treating children. I know six year old children who are already on anti depressants such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac. I know ten year old children who are on the various neuroleptic medications, such as Risperdal, Seraquel, Geodom, Zyprexa etc. I know six year old children already on Lithium, Tegretol and Depakote. I know children on psychostimulants.
Obviously, sometimes medications are called for but to subject six year old children to these psychotropic medications, medications with serious side effects? I will let you decide that one for your child. All that I can say is that if I had a child who had, say, ADHD, I would use behavior management to deal with his issues rather than medications.
(The psychological issues that your children have probably run in your family and you ought to know how to solve them through observing your family tradition. For example, if you are shy and anxious the chances are that one of your parents is shy and anxious. Indeed, if you have a certain type of personality the chances are that other members of your family have it. Family genes and culture determines similar behaviors in members. If you have successfully learned how to cope with your own issues the chances are that you can help your children cope with their issues.)
I am not in the business of giving medical advice. I am only trying to explain the various psychological problems found in children. If you see these problems in your children, it is up to you and your doctor what you do about them. What you should not do is ignore them and think that they would go away. They do not go away and need to be dealt with.
You see what is going on in Nigeria. Parents see their children developing conduct disorder and ignore it. The children grow up to become antisocial personalities and go into politics and transform their office into avenue from which they rob the country down. If we are going to change Nigeria we have to start by paying attention to our children, making sure that they are taught prosocial behaviors and that they internalize appropriate social norms. The climate of every behavior goes that exists in Nigeria is obviously not sustainable. Civilization cannot exist in the chaotic, anarchic milieu that is contemporary Nigeria.
Civilization, as Sigmund pointed out in Civilization and its Discontents, requires repressing Id instincts (sex, aggression) in children and sublimating them to prosocial behaviors. The price of civilization is suppressing our putative anti social proclivities.
If you give free rein to all desires and wishes then you live in a jungle. The jungle is not the best place to live, for as Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan) reminds us, in it the strong eat the weak and consequently life is perpetually nasty, brutish and short. We need to discipline the little savages called children, and make them respect the laws of society.

CONCLUSION

My goal in this essay is to point out the psychological issues seen in children. I am not aiming at showing how to heal them. If the reader believes that his children have some of these issues, he should take them to mental health professionals (psychiatrists, psychologists and clinical social workers) for help. Do me a favor, will you, do not ignore your children’s issues for they do not go away, they get worse. If you need evidence, look at Nigeria and see what ignoring children’s needs have done? If we want a better tomorrow, we must take good care of our children today.

Ozod@africainstituteseattle.org

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Population Control: Target Africa

by Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.) (Raleigh, North Carolina) --- IF AIDS IS NOT DEACTIVATED, WITHIN 66 YEARS THERE WILL BE NO BLACKS IN AFRICA

Although the "Special Virus" (SVCP) 'Flow Chart' is seemingly structured in such a manner that the world would not immediately recognize the real purpose of this officially sanctioned U.S. Federal Program, one has to ask oneself: WHY was the flow chart ever structured in the first instances??? If AIDS is not deactivated, within 66 years there will be no blacks in Africa. comments ~~~ Dr. Basil E. Wainright, Physicist & Three Time Nobel Nominee, Nairobi, Kenya November 2, 1999.

Click here to enlarge flowchart

Really, the pertinent questions are: Why was the flow chart ever structured in the first instance? If AIDS is not deactivated within 66 years, and there will be no blacks in Africa, does it imply that only whites or Caucasians will occupy it? Is that the real purpose for the flow chart? Is it to wipe off blacks entirely in Africa, populate it with caucasians, whites, Aryans, as well as occupy their own continents, and make the presence of blacks in Africa as their native continent a thing of the past? Has this kind of elimination and repopulation been going on down in history? As Ndi Igbo say: "Dulu mmo gbue mmadu, dulu mmadu jebe akwa ya, which says that: One goes with a masquerade to kill somebody, and goes with a person to his funeral". Is this not hypocrisy of the first order?

I have read that:

President Clinton Announces Major Step in Effort to Save the Lives of People with HIV/AIDS around the World. This afternoon at the Clinton Foundation's New York office, President Clinton announced that his foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative reached new agreements to significantly reduce prices of both HIV tests and the drug treatments that keep HIV-infected patients alive and healthy. The Clinton Foundation also annouced that almost a quarter of a million people in 50 countries are receiving drugs through Clinton Foundation Agreements.

Is the deactivation of HIV/AIDS within 66 years what President Clinton is tryng to do? Why did he change his mind about genocide on Africans after championing the removal of the UN Peace-keepers from Rwanda to allow the completion of the decimation of the Tutsi by the Hutu, which happened on his watch?

I have also read the following report:

1971 AIDS development flowchart is absolute proof: AIDS is the "best-choice" Weapon of Mass Destruction by Dr. Boyd Graves 24 mon R (2 responses) URL: /forums/m.asp?f=237&i=518 Date: 1/8/2004 6:38:00 AM The 1971 flowchart of the U.S. Special (AIDS) Virus program is page 61 of progress report #8 of the mostly secret federal virus development program. In other words, review the 15 progress reports of a federal virus program you never knew about and voila, you will resolve not only HIV/AIDS....

GENOCIDE 0F BLACK POPULATION AND THE THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES ALL OVER THE WORLD: BIRTHS AND POPULATION CONTROL

The truth is that population control is the process by which Global Europe (whites, Caucasians, Aryans) seeks to guarantee its perpetual domination of the rest of the human race because of its own fear of annihilation. According to Dr. Frances Cress-Welsing, it is this fear based on the fact of their numerical minority status and their low level of surface melanin, which drives them to commit the most atrocious crimes against humanity, in particular, the most feared nation of all, Global Africa (Black people).

See Global Eyes Your Weekly Window in the Mirror of the World with Spartacus R. The editor of Global Africa Pocket News and author of "Violation" and "The Maat Mystery" takes another look at the world. Population Control is GENOCIDE (This interview with Sister Aset was first published inGlobal Africa Pocket News (GAP News)Vol. 1, No. 7 Sept. 1994. It was submitted to Caribbean Times in January '96 but never published) #14.

It is the Caucasians, who want to rule the world indefinitly by not only controllong its economic and political resourses but also by controlling its population, wherever they are, so that their own population, even though declining, will never be swamped. Hence their population policy to reduce, if not wipe out the populations of non-Caucasians,especially in the third-world countries, and more so the blacks. This policy is especially directed towards the blacks in the USA and in Africa.

Then there was the notorious NSSM 200 (National Security Study Memorandum 200), sometimes called the "Kissinger population paper," in which it was stressed that oil and mineral-rich Nigeria could easily cope with a far larger population and would gain sufficient status to compete with the US influence over Africa. It has also been learnt that they continue to inject the disease into new-born babies whose parents do not have HIV/AIDS. How come? They want to force Nigeria which did not listen to Obasanjo's policy-ruling of three children to one woman population control in 1987?

There were other documents produced at around the same time to corroborate this intense interest in Nigeria, the country's population, and its oil wealth. The US Information Agency or USIA (which operates the Voice of America on other propaganda actions around the world) does yearly reports on the US interest in various countries.

They, too, cites the pervasive worries about Nigeria becoming the economic and demographic giant of Africa, capable of spreading an anti-American ideology all over the continent, and likewise stressing that agency goals should serve the larger objective of increasing US influence over Nigeria's politics and culture.

"The 1971 flowchart makes it perfectly clear, the design, intent and purpose of the U.S. Special Virus program. As Dr. Peter Piot, Executive Director of UNAIDS says, the HIV/AIDS virus is the result of many steps in the laboratory, it was no accident.

The 1971 flowchart provides absolute evidence of the United States' intent to kill its own citizens and others." ~~~ Dr. Boyd E. Graves September 28, 2002

(picture) Boyd E. Graves, J.D. displays the 1971 HIV Flow Chart after urging UN AIDS officials to provide oversight during the US GAO's investigation into the missing appropriations of the mostly secret virus development program, "US Special Virus". (photo courtesy: John Price)[FLOWCHART DOCUMENTS HERE] Copyright Zygote Media 1998-2006.

"Dr. Graves is obsessed with getting the word out and sees himself as a modern day David battling the formidable Goliath of the US government. "I'm involved in a modern venue of David and Goliath because there is no more bigger giant than the United States Government. The truth provides strength. I find comfort in the truth and it gives me the drive and initiative to get up each and every day to continue our efforts to expose the truth because over time the truth has always risen to the top and its going to happen here."

"Graves put the flow chart on his website www.BoydGraves.com and over 26,000 people have downloaded it. "We've got two dozen scientists and medical doctors who have reviewed this material and to a person, they all agree this federal program is at the heart of the genesis of HIV and AIDS."

"Graves has a special interest in the program for he was diagnosed HIV positive. In doing his research he came upon a patented cure for AIDS which he took and now says he is symptom free".

"The United States patented the cure for AIDS in 1997 and that patent number is 5676977 and I tell people to go to www.google.com and type in U S Patent and that number and the information will come up. I tell people to go to the main library and look into the world catalogue data base and put in 'Special Virus Cancer Program' and you will find at least three, four or five of those progress reports of the development of HIV are in the main library. Some of these reports are in the public domain."

"Graves knows of what he speaks because he took the cure himself in 2001. "Twenty-two months ago I took the US patented cure for AIDS. It is a one time injection, I call it an infusion because it takes about twenty minutes. It's a large plunger kind of thing but that is all I've had and physically I am fine and symptom free."

THE DIAGNOSTICS, DRUGS AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE TREATMENT MUST BE TOTALLY FREE TO PLACE THE RESPONSIBILITY WHERE IT BELONGS

I must say categorically that I am not impressed and that it does not make any sense that this effort is just to reduce the cost of drugs to the victims of HIV/AIDS. This is because the disease was, deliberately, callously, impassionately, albeit sadistically, inflicted on them by the Government of the United States of America. Now President Bill Clinton turns around to extend yeoman's service of finding inexpensive drugs and diagnostics for them and expect us to be grateful. Inexpensive to who? I think that we will only begin to listen and to think about it when the DIAGNOSTICS, the DRUGS and their ADMINISTRATIONS are ENTIRELY FREE to the victims, with the US Government taking the lead, in the application of the patented medicine for the cure of HIV/AIDS, Patent #5676977; not a generic make-shift paliative to keep them well and healthy. The sinister motive of wiping out the Black Population is still unfolding unabated as the contagious cancer is spreading like wildfire among black people and in Africa. The fact that the patented medicine, Patent #5676977 Tetrasil/Immusil Cure for Aids, has been available for many years before Nelson Mandela's son, among millions of others died of Aids only a few months ago, and many millions are dying on daily basis, is criminal.

UNSUSTAINABLE POPULATION - LACK OF SPACE, FOOD AND EXPENDABLE RESOURCES?

Is it true that the world is over crowded and moving towards an unsustainable population level?

"No. Absolutely not. Overcrowding can be measured by one method only, that is whether there are too many people to fit in the space available. The most densely populated continent area in the world is Europe, (see GAP News #7, Population Figures), but do Europeans think there are too many people in Europe? Of course not. But they believe there are too many African and Asian people in Europe. That is not overcrowding that is racism".

TARGET AFRICA

"What about all those starving Africans? If they can't feed themselves surely, there must be too many of them.

"No, that is not the case. Those "starving Africans", Asians and other "Third World" peoples produce most of the world's surplus food. Most of the food they produce are luxury or raw, unprocessed goods which are sold cheaply as exports and re-imported as expensive processed foods.

FOOD WASTAGE BY GLOBAL EUROPE

"The main reason though, why there appears to be not enough food to go around is not because the so-called third world cannot feed itself, it is because Global Europe, less than 25% of the world's population uses or wastes over 80% of the worlds food goods (consumables) but produces less than 15% of it. So the "third world" make up 75% of the world's population, produce 85% of the world's consumables and consume less than 20% of all that is consumed. If they consumed as much as they produced, Global Europe would be dying of starvation, not Africa.

IS AFRICAN POPULATION EXPANDING TOO RAPIDLY? THE ANSWER IS: NO!

"Lets look at the evidence: After being systematically depopulated for 400 years, Africa is now the least populated continent in the world with a density one-sixth of Europe's. Africa's death rate is more than twice that of Europe. To be level pegging, Africa's death rate should also be one-sixth of Europe's. When these dishonest people talk about population they make reference only to birth rate. They show that Africa's birth rate is nearly three times that of the European rate, but forget to mention that the infant mortality rate is 5 times higher in Africa.

"They never talk about density except in reference to Asia or to say that "Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa". They forget to say it was a quarter the density of any country in Europe. They forget also, to tell you that in order for Africa to get to the same population density as Europe (is Europe overpopulated?) the African birth-rate has to be more than 12 times that of Europe (6 times if the death rate becomes equal) for a whole generation.

"So, when they talk about "equalizing" or reducing the African birth rate, while at the same time nurturing conflict, manufacturing famine, and importing disease to increase the death rate further, you begin to get the picture. If the birth rates were made equal and everything else remained the same as they are now, each time Europe's population doubled Africa's population would be halved. The world's population may become "stabilized" as they like to say it, but the percentage ratio between the nations would continue changing to their advantage. (See GAP News #5)

"It is understandable then, why Cardinal Alfonso Lopez Trujillo, a senior Vatican official cried that if the precepts of the UN Population Control Conference in Cairo were to be implemented the world would experience "the most disastrous massacre in history". He should know, it was his organization, the Roman Catholic church, which sanctified the trade in African lives, resulting in the death of over 200 million people".

The UN too? To whom and from where do the blacks obtain protection, justice, redress? No body? No where? Please God, be our refuge and helper!

"Some of the liars say that deaths in war time make very little difference to the population growth because after a war birth rates usually increase to compensate. Certainly, that is true when mostly male soldiers are killed. But when two thirds of the female population are murdered, like the Rwandan slaughter, it would take 4 or 5 generations to get back to where it was before the war. And that is the key. The women.

"Global Europe have done everything they could to destroy our people but we are still here and still strong. They are now trying, through an apparently limitless line of African and Asian female mercenaries, posing as leaders, to co-opt us. To convince us that regardless of our particular environmental conditions, contrary to our own community's social and economic needs, it would be in our individual interests to have fewer or no children at all.

"Women have the power to determine the fertility or sterility of our nation. It is imperative that we do not allow ourselves to be misled into committing generational suicide. We carry the future of our nation in our hands. We are here because those before us gave us life. Let us give life to our children. We deserve to live"

.

Manufacturing incurable diseases in their chemical laboratories and inflicting them on the other populations of the world, by hook or crook, is one of their methods. The monkeys in Africa theory as the original carriers of the AIDS Virus has failed. The 1971 aids FLOWCHART and manufacture of the disease viruses and implanting them in Africa via the immunization processes for the treatment of diseases, has let the cat out of the bag.

THANKS TO DR. BOYD E. GRAVES!!!!!

"The 1971 flowchart was first located in February 1999, (on President Bill Clinton's watch) it has withstood all stupidity to date. It is absolute evidence, my govt has sought to kill me (and others). Quickly note PHASE -IV-A ("IMMUNOLOGICAL CONTROL"). These are the secret program's vaccines and cures. Our call for "full disclosure" of the U.S. Special (AIDS) Virus program continues to garner support from every sector of the globe. It is odd we have no teeth here on the internet when it comes to saving Black people. Boyd Ed Graves, in propria persona, NINTH CIrucit, CASE NO. : 03-56812 Graves v. U.S.A. www.boydgraves.com 216-382-9252

FOR EXPERT COLLEAGUE REVIEW: www.boydgraves.com/comments/

"The Smoking Gun of AIDS: a 1971 Flowchart by Boyd E. Graves, J.D. December 6, 2000

"In 1977, a secret federal virus program produced 15,000 gallons of AIDS. The record reveals the United States was represented by Dr. Robert Gallo and the USSR was represented by Dr. Novakhatsky of the diabolical Ivanosky Institute. On August 21, 1999, the world first saw the flowchart of the plot to thin the Black Population.

"The 1971 AIDS flowchart coordinates over 20,000 scientific papers and fifteen years of progress reports of a secret federal virus development program. The epidemiology of AIDS is an identical match to the "research logic" identified in the five section foldout. The flowchart is page 61 of Progress Report #8 (1971) of the Special Virus program of the United States of America. We today, challenge world scientists to discussion of this document find.

"We believe there is a daily, growing number of world experts who are all coming to the same conclusion regarding the significance of the flowchart. Dr. Garth Nicolson has examined the flowchart as well as other top experts from around the world. It is time for Dr. Michael Morrissey of Germany to examine the flowchart and report to the world. In addition, we have now examined the 1978 report. It is heresy to continue to further argue the program ended in 1977.

"The 1978 report of the development of AIDS leaves no doubt as to the ("narrow result") candidate virus sought by the United States. The flowchart conclusively proves a secret federal plot to develop a "contagious cancer" that "selectively kills."

"Following the presentation of the flowchart in Canada, the same information was presented to the United States in the rotunda of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. Shortly thereafter a major African newspaper called and for four days in a row, this issue was the feature story in an uncensored press. The people of Africa already know about the U.S. virus development program. It is time for the rest of us to know.

"In January, the U.S. had no response to my two page abstract submitted to the African American AIDS 2000 conference. In February, the U.S. Congress had no response to the 3000 Americans who signed signature petitions calling for immediate review of the flowchart and progress reports of the secret virus development program. We firmly believe once the dust settles from the current election marathon, reviewing the special virus program will be the single most important pursuit of the 21st Century.

"More scientists and doctors must join with Dr. Nicolson, Dr. Strecker, Dr. Cantwell, Dr. Horowitz, Dr. Lee, Dr. Wainwright, Dr. Halstead and Professor Boyle. In any public debate on this issue, we will continue to present the flowchart of the secret virus development program, as the "irrefutable missing link" in the true laboratory origin of AIDS.

"We have successfully navigated a federal maze and matrix and found a curtain surrounding the issue of AIDS. The 1999 discovery and presentation of the AIDS flowchart is a "smoke detector" wake up call. Society has an obligation to do more than don masks".

Non-inclusive random endnotes:

U.S. Special Virus program, Progress Report #8 (1971), pg. 61 (the flowchart)

National Security Defense Memorandum (NSDM) #314, Brent Scowcroft (1975).

"Special Message to the U.S. Congress on Problems of Population Growth", Richard M. Nixon, July 18, 1969

Public Law 91-213, "To Stabilize World Populations", John D. Rockefeller, III, Chairman, March 16, 1970

National Security Council Memorandum (NSCM) #46, "Black Africa and the U.S. Black Movement", Zbigniew
Brezinski, March 17, 1978

http://www.boydgraves.com

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Clinton FoundationBody,P, TD{FONT-SIZE: 11px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif}H1{FONT-SIZE: 16px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#800000;}H2{FONT-SIZE: 13px; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color:#800000;}If you have trouble viewing this email, view it as a webpage. 01/12/2006Donate Now "Eight thousand people die of AIDS in the world every single day. It's our problem. It's a big problem. I'm working hard on trying to help the victims of Katrina. I'm working hard on trying to help the victims of the tsunami. But we have a tsunami-like death toll once a month with AIDS."
- William J. Clinton

Dear Supporter,

President Clinton Announces Major Step in Effort to Save the Lives of People with HIV/AIDS around the World.

This afternoon at the Clinton Foundation's New York office, President Clinton announced that his foundation's HIV/AIDS Initiative reached new agreements to significantly reduce prices of both HIV tests and the drug treatments that keep HIV-infected patients alive and healthy. The Clinton Foundation also annouced that almost a quarter of a million people in 50 countries are receiving drugs through Clinton Foundation agreements.

These major agreements represent another powerful step in the fight to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS: the agreement on second-line HIV/AIDS treatment will lower prices of two antiretroviral medicines by 30-50 percent for 50 countries, making it possible for hundreds of thousands of people to receive these drugs and stay alive.

"With more than one million people on treatment in developing countries, we face a growing challenge to keep costs affordable as we reach out to millions more in need. Affordable drugs and accessible testing are essential to make prevention and treatment work, and while we have made a lot of progress, there is much more to be done to help those in need."

Second-line Drugs:

Today's agreements represent a first step in the Foundation's effort to lower the cost of second-line treatment. Treatment, once started, is a lifelong commitment, and over time patients move from low-price first-line drugs to second-line combinations that are at least 10 times more expensive.

Diagnostics:

Affordable and accessible testing is essential to preventing the spread of HIV/AIDS, and the deal we are announcing today reduces the cost of HIV diagnosis by 50%. The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative is committed to continuing to increase access to low-cost, high quality HIV treatment, and today's announcement is an important step toward ensuring that the cost of treatment remains sustainable over patients' lifetimes.

Learn more about today's announcement:

Read the entire press release. Get the details on second-line antiretroviral drugs and diagnostics. President Clinton in China:In September, President Clinton traveled to China to support the work of the Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative there. Dan Rather of CBS's 60 Minutes accompanied President Clinton on this trip and the interview aired on Sunday, January 1, 2006. In China, the Clinton Foundation is working in support of the national government's treatment scaleup efforts, focusing on projects including: establishing the Chinese Ministry of Health-Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Service Fellowship Program with the purpose of encouraging Chinese physicians to treat HIV patients in underserved areas of China; donating a one-year emergency supply of PMTCT drugs to cover an unforeseen shortage and to help China move to the international standard of triple-drug therapy for HIV+ women and other family members identified during pregnancy; and expanding the pediatric initiative to treat more Chinese children.

Watch the full interview.

Read the transcript from the interview.

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CBS 60 Minutes follows President Clinton as he travels to China to further his work to combat AIDS.

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Update, January 13, 2004: "A Cure for AIDS/HIV, mysteriously withheld."

To whom it concerns:

It is apparent, to me, that Compassion Response Network ( www.compassion-response.net/ ) is engaged, quite likely unknowingly, in a cover delaying diversionary tactic (for some inexcusable reason) in regards to making the known non-toxic, one injection Tetrasil/Immusil cure for HIV/AIDS accessible on a massive global scale, with all deliberate speed. I hope I am correct about the "unknowingly" part.

The pertinent facts in brief, as I know them, are: [1] There are no logical reasons for anyone anywhere to be doing any additional, very limited "trials" with "six single injections" of Tetrasil/Imusil, given the facts that [2] the October 17, 1997 patent application filed with the US Patent Office states "...further testing revealed complete 100% destruction of the AIDS virus in vitro at 20 PPM, and the fact that said devices were harmless when ingested and inhaled, being non-toxic..."

Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.)

References
_____________________

1) Population Control is GENOCIDE, by Spartacus R.
2) HIV/AIDS is Manufactured in US Labs (Zygote Media)
3) The Smoking Gun of AIDS: a 1971 Flowchart
4) Just as you, I Believe that HIV-1 was a Laboratory Creation, Prof. Garth Nicolson, Institute for Molecular Medicine February 12, 2001
5) 1971 AIDS development flowchart is absolute proof: AIDS is the "best-choice" Weapon of Mass Destruction
6) 1971 AIDS Development Flowchart too Much for national Press Club
7) The Smoking Gun of AIDS: a 1971 Flowchart (at BNW Reference Librarian)
8) Boyd Graves AIDS Activist Takes on The US Government
9) Cure for AIDS/HIV

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March 01, 2006

Nigeria and the End of Humanity?

Njoku's Review: by Uzochukwu J. Njoku, Ph.D. (Leuven, Belgium) --- The title of this essay has the capability of causing consternation. It may direct the reader’s mind to the apocalyptic catastrophism, which some fundamentalist Christian groups propagate (the rapture or the end of the world). This essay is not about the end of the world or the annihilation of the human race.

It does not intent to argue in any sense about the physical termination of humanity either in the country presently called Nigeria or in the world at large.

“Humanity” as used in this text proceeds from the philosophical tradition, which conceives the human person as a bundle of infinite positive possibilities. An example is the Igbo saying: “anaghi ajụ nwoke (madu) ọga eme gini. Maka ịjụa ya ihe ọga eme, ya eme ihe.” (To ask a person ‘what can you do?’ is to throw a challenge to him or her, which is usually received and responded to, with every seriousness). Granted that conceiving the human person as a bundle of possibilities could mean ‘possibilities for good and evil’, my use of ‘humanity’ in this essay, builds on the direction ‘of infinite possibilities for good’. This does not mean, being blind to other realities like slave trade, genocides, the Inquisition and other dark sides of the human history. It does not overlook the familiar stories of poisoning, witchcraft, assassinations, and other processes aimed at putting tears on the faces of others. Nevertheless, the human possibilities for evil (though real) cannot negate the human infinite possibilities for good. The human possibilities for destruction cannot negate the human possibilities for creation and innovation. The human possibilities for deconstruction cannot negate the human possibilities for positive construction. The human possibilities to tear down cannot negate the human possibilities to build up.

These two sides of understanding the human person are (in no doubt) at war with each other. However my Igbo background influences my philosophical reflection on humanity from the perspective of infinite possibilities for good. My ideas are influenced by the Igbo word for humanity or person – madụ. Madụ could mean two things. In the first place it could mean mma-dụ(ị) – “there is beauty or goodness”. In this sense, the human person or human life ought to be a concrete affirmation of the metaphysical qualities of beauty and goodness. In the second place madụ could mean mma-(n)dụ - the beauty of life or existence. In this sense the human person or human life ought to epitomise the beauty of creation, the pearl and crown of the cosmos, the bearer of meaning and goodness. This idea could be said to share the same insight as contained in the second creation narrative (Gen 2), where God brought animals and birds to the man he created “each one was to bear the name the man would give it.” (v. 19). The significance of this is that it is the human person who gives meaning and beauty to creation. Another biblical passage that shares the insights of the human person as mma-(n)dụ (the beauty of existence) is Psalm 8, which praises God for making the human person ‘little less than a god’, “crowned him with glory and beauty, made him lord of the works of your hands, put all things under his feet.” (5-6).
Whether it is in affirming the beauty (or goodness) of existence or in crowing the beauty (or goodness) of existence, the concept of humanity in Igbo thought underscores the centrality of goodness or beauty. (The Igbo root word for the human person ‘mma’ means beauty or goodness. ‘Mma’ shares the same alphabets with the Igbo word for knife but the pronunciations of the two words indicate that the ‘mma’ of the human person relates to beauty rather than to knife). Consequently, the expression ‘the end of humanity’ as used in this essay is an attempt to raise questions about the worth and meaning of humanity in a context that is not only consistently loosing the mark of beauty but also in which human persons (and communities) seem to be increasingly loosing the characteristic of infinite possibilities to change society for good or maintain it on the path of beauty and goodness.

This essay argues that goodness or beauty ought to constitute the central dimensions of understanding the human person and human communities. It insists that any human existence (personal and communal), which is deficient of beauty or goodness and which manifests lack of either courage or power to strive towards it has come to its end. The questions which I intend to raise in this essay include: where has the infinite possibilities of the human person (and community) gone in the face of the fast deteriorating social amenities and infrastructures in Nigeria? Where have the human appreciations for beauty and goodness gone to in the face of the dilapidating structures of social welfare? Is there really a relationship between the human person and the metaphysical qualities of beauty and goodness? What do beauty and goodness mean? Does beauty mean cosmetics?

The Ariaria market Aba is one point, which helped to inspire this writing. Before I left Nigeria in 1997 for further studies in Europe, I had cause to always visit the city of Aba and the mega market Ariaria. The roads that led in and out of the market were terrible in themselves (nevertheless, one managed to drive through with difficulty). I could still drive from Faulks road through the market itself to the Enugu/Port-Harcourt motorway. I visited Nigeria some years later, and attempted my old routes. I was shocked not only to discover that the road through the Ariaria market has become impassable with a car but also even becoming increasingly difficult to go through on foot. I paused a while not just only to contemplate on the next possible route to take but also to watch how human beings were struggling to make their ways through the pools of dirty waters on the roads, through the pillars of refuse bins, through roads almost cut into several parts by erosion, through valleys that have replaced the road I once used. As I looked at the movements of people before me, the nature of the entire environment and the hopelessness before me, I could not make sense out of the clapping of hands, the loud blast of radio sounds from nearby houses, the smiles and laughter of the passers-by. It was a typical replay of Fela Anikulapo Kuti’s ‘suffering and smiling’. I wondered how people sleep and wake up in this environment, make babies, make money, live ‘happily’ and unperturbed irrespective of the general ‘Armageddon’ unfolding on their streets and business areas. The scene reminded me of the reference to “the valleys of the shadows of death” in Psalm 23. Although I do not know what the valleys of the shadows of death look like, but I thought one stood before my eyes.

This scene contrasted from propagandas of the Abia state government-owned media house (BCA), which gives the false impression that every place in the state was like paradise. My mind recalled how I spent over three hours on the Ariaira end of the Enugu/Port Harcourt motorway a week before due to the fact that heaps of refuse deposited beside the road had expanded unto the road. Secondly, the smoke rising from the refuse heaps and the obstruction on the road helped to cause a long uncomfortable drive. Some other towns, which I visited during the trip either to deliver messages or to do other things bore almost semblances. Onitsha, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Owerri are some examples. Beautiful houses and mansions in front of water-logged and impassable roads. Latest and expensive automobiles produced in Germany, France, Japan and USA plying on ‘valleys of death’ called roads. Police checkpoints located at about every 500 meters, oppressing commercial vehicle operators and extorting money from other innocent road users while armed robbers pass freely on the same roads. Schools, hospitals and other institutions of social welfare being consistently turned into huge jokes. Politicians, public officers and public affairs increasingly leap into the abyss of recklessness while the general populace almost helplessly watch the evolving scenario before their eyes. These features demonstrate the level of decay, which our country has fallen into.

These situations raised questions in my brain: does the human person have the power to change his environment for good? Where is the ‘mma’ in the ‘ndu’ of the human person? Is beauty only restricted to how I build my house and the type of car I drive or the cosmetics I use? Does it involve the entire framework of society? Where is the so-called philosophical claim of the infinite possibilities of the human person for good? Are the human possibilities for good come to an end in Nigeria? In fact, is humanity, (understood as the dynamism of persons and their infinite abilities for goodness) came to an end in Nigeria?

As I was lost in this contemplation, the announcement of a passing vehicle distracted me. It was inviting people to a deliverance crusade and healing service. All the sick, all those who have bad dreams, and those who experience other problems were being specially invited to be healed by God. I asked myself how can a person who lives in such an environment before my eyes not have bad dreams, how can he or she not be sick? I turned around and looked at the announcers of the healing service. I wanted to ask them when the general apathy of our people, our defeated mentality and our growing collective inability to confront social evil would be healed.

Uzochukwu J. Njoku. PhD

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Ozodi Osuji Weekly Series on Psychology 2006, #10 of 52: Igbo Culture and Paranoia

by Ozodi Thomas Osuji, Ph.D. (Seatle, Washington) --- SYNOPSIS OF IGBO CULTURE: Igbo culture is characterized by individualism and competition. The culture is not ascriptive and does not recognize status as inherent in persons. It is achievement oriented; it encourages people to do their best. People are socially rewarded on the bases of their individual achievements.

There is an Igbo saying that “if a child washes his hands well he eats with elders”. This means that if an individual does what the culture expects of him, is outstanding in lines of work approved by society; he is rewarded with high social status. No matter where the child began in life, if he attains valued social variables he is rewarded with social acceptance. Social importance is predicated on achievement; it is not inherent in the individual’s birth.

(See Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart, for description of traditional Igbo society. The chief character of the book, Okonkwo, was born by a poor man and “washed his hands well”, did what his society rewarded and despite his impoverished background achieved high social status. Along the line, he developed paranoid personality disorder.)

Igbo society is very conditional in accepting its children. It encourages children to do what society expects of them and accepts them to the extent that they do so. If a child is good at sports, school, and work and generally succeeds he is seen as an important person, but if he is not good at doing those valued social activities, he is generally regarded as a social nobody, a fool and is either ignored or out rightly rejected.

A failure in Alaigbo is called all sorts of names, including Anuoha (bush animal), Okpokoro manu (useless person). Often times, he is not permitted to speak in Umuna (kindred) meetings. When he tries to speak up at such meetings, the successful members of the group shout him down by saying: “do not listen to that okpokoro manu”.

Igbo culture is very competitive; it allocates social honors on the basis of competition. It is democratic and republican. It rewards entrepreneurship. (I doubt that socialism and communism can take hold in this capitalistic society.)

Many psychologists recognize that conditional acceptance of people, particularly children, is tailor made to produce neurotics.

A neurotic (see Karen Horney, Neurosis and Human Growth) is a person who constructs an ideal self-concept and its image form, ideal self image for himself and wants to become that person. Generally, he presents his ideal self concept to society to approve and relate to. He is afraid of being his real self, particularly if it is not good enough, as defined by society, lest it is rejected by society. Afraid of social rejection, he pretends to be the ideal self he invented for himself, a self that seems to meet the acceptance criteria of his society.

Since that ideal self is not who he is, in fact, he is afraid of not seeming it. Thus, he lives with tremendous anxiety from fear of not being his idealized self concept and self image. (See Alfred Adler, The Neurotic Constitution; Carl Rogers, Client Centered Therapy.)

Generally, the cure for neurosis is for the individual to desist from trying to be his wished for superior, ideal and perfect self and simply be who he is, in fact, his real self (whatever that is). When the individual stops aspiring after an ego ideal and accepts his actual self he tends to relax, feel less tense and lives in peace and happiness.

THE NEGATIVE EFFECT OF CONDITIONAL SOCIAL-SELF ACCEPTANCE

As long as the individual tries to approximate his wished for ideal self, he tends to live in tension, stress and anxiety. When he stops doing so, he feels like a great deal of weight has been lifted off his shoulders; he breathes easier.

A human being is psychologically healthy to the extent that he is not pretending to be ideal self. A healthy person is a person who accepts himself as he is and presents that real self, imperfect as it may be, to other people and tells them, in effect, accept me as I am or leave me alone but I am not going to pretend to be who I am not for you to accept me. I am not going to be a neurotic, a false ideal person, for you to accept me. If I must be phony, a sham self for you to accept me, the price of your acceptance is too great and I am not willing to pay it. I will not seek your conditional acceptance.

The price of seeking to become ideal self, the self that other people would accept is perpetual anxiety and tension (and cardiovascular diseases). Those who insist that their fellow human beings approximate ideal selves before they accept them are actually killing them with tension. Igbos kill other Igbos by making them neurotic and giving them tension and heart attacks.

(Of course, Igbos do not necessarily understand that this is what they are, in fact, doing by accepting each other conditionally. They are ignorant of their murderous behaviors. The purpose of science, in this case, psychological science, is to describe phenomenon, as it is, and show people what they are, in fact, doing and, hopefully, they would change their untoward behaviors, if they want to produce different effects.)

THE SEEMING POSITIVE EFFECT OF CONDITIONAL SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE

Igbo conditional acceptance of Igbos seems to have some positive aspects. Western civilization came to Igbo land in the early twentieth century. Although the Anglican Church, under Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther, had established a missionary outpost at Onitsha in 1851, Christian missionary penetration of the Igbo heartland, Owerri, did not occur until 1902. For all practical purposes, Igbos were exposed to Christianity and accompanying Western civilization in the twentieth century.

Late as was their exposure to Western civilization, Igbos are probably the most Western educated Africans? They embraced Western civilization with enthusiasm and went for it with total dedication. These days, most Igbo children take it for granted that they are to attend elementary, secondary and university schools. In only one hundred years of exposure to the West, Igbos have accomplished what even has not been accomplished in the West: attendance of college by just about all young men. This is an amazing accomplishment by anybody’s standards.

Igbos accomplished this seeming impossibility because of their competitive and individualistic culture. The culture does not accept failures. One must achieve something significant to be accepted in Alaigbo. To fail and be a nobody is not an option, for failures are socially rejected and laughed at.

Igbo young persons engage in what is called Imanjakiri. Here, they verbally and emotionally abuse each other, putting each other down to the extent that they did not do well in what society wanted done well.

Igbo school children are placed under tremendous pressure to succeed; the price of failure is to be socially disgraced. To fail at examinations is to become a social nobody, to be an anuohia.

During my secondary school days, ones greatest fear was to not be first in class. Second? You were given a lecture by your elders as to how you are useless. When I took the West African School Certificate Examination many of my classmates literally experienced what I now know as anxiety disorder. They were inordinately afraid of failing the examination, for they realized the consequences of doing so. Those boys studied like they were driven. (No society should put such pressure on teenagers.)

The day the result came out was the most dreaded day in our lives. The first question was: did you pass? If you did, the next question was: what kind of grade did you have, division one, two or three? If not division one, you are no good. If division one, was it less than aggregate ten (each subject was graded 1-4, I believe, with 1 being the best; one had to pass eight subjects to pass the School Cert, so if you had 1s in all eight subjects that would give you an aggregate of eight; ordinary pass required an aggregate of less than twenty four).

Some of my dormitory mates, in fact, collapsed when they learned that they did not make division one.

Thereafter, it was on to high school. At the end of those two grueling years, students took their examinations. They go through another round of tension. Did one make mostly As in the required four subjects or not?

Thereafter, it was unto university. Again, the question was: how well did you do, all As, Bs or Cs? God forgive you if you are mediocre and worse if you failed.

Finally, it was unto graduate school and eventually the much desired doctorate degree. The Igbo likes to achieve the PhD and be called Doctor; apparently, to be so-called is a symbol of achievement (not for what it is supposed to be: a person dedicated to the search of knowledge).

Then the next question was attaining high social status, via success on the job. Failure is not an option for Igbos. Failure meant being considered okpokoro manu and anuohia.

By my mid thirties, I recognized that I was dancing a neurotic dance and dropped out of the rat race. I accepted that which I was afraid of, that which my neurotic Igbo culture told me to be afraid of, failure. I accepted being a failure. I simply quit trying to succeed in any external endeavor. I looked myself in the mirror and accepted what I saw and did not want to meet any society’s criteria before I accepted myself. In doing so, for the first time in my young life, I obtained somatic and mental peace. Psychologically speaking, I healed my neurosis and became mentally healthy.
From my new stand point, I became aware that most of my Igbo brothers are engaged in the rat race for success and have attendant mental upsets.

A PATHOLOGICAL CULTURE

The Igbo culture is the most tension making culture there is on planet earth; it is the most neurosis making culture there is in the world; and for our present purposes, it is the most paranoia making culture in the world.

I am afraid to say it, but the truth must be said for truth is what heals people. I have not seen an Igbo man who is not a bit paranoid in personality structure. In fact, the incidence of the more serious forms of paranoia, delusional disorder and schizophrenia, paranoid type, is high in Igbo land. I have worked in the mental health field for over twenty years, the few delusional disordered persons, a very rare mental disorder that I have seen, included Igbos. Only last week, I witnessed paranoia at work in an Igbo brother.

PARANOIA DEFINED

The term paranoia derives from Greek. It means to seek to become who one, in fact, is not. The paranoid person is trying to become who, in fact, he is not. In fact, he is like all human beings. In truth, he is weak, powerless, inadequate and imperfect. This is the human condition.

The paranoid person does not want to accept the reality of the human condition. Instead, he uses his imagination and thinking to construct an ideal alternative self, a self that is everything that his real self is not in fact. (Personality is a self construct. See George Kelly, The Psychology of Personal Constructs.)

The ideal self is made to seem superior (where the real self feels inferior), made to seem powerful (where the real self feels weak), made to seem wealthy (where the real self feels poor), made to seem intelligence itself (where the real self feels ignorant), made to seem all handsome (where the real self is ordinary looking); in short, the ideal self is the polar opposite of the real self.

The paranoid person hates and rejects his imperfect self and attempts to replace it with an imaginary ideal and perfect self.

He does so obsessively and compulsively. That is, he wishes to become an ideal self, as if he is driven to be so by an inner pressure he cannot resist. It is as if he is obeying an inner force that he must obey or else he feels anxious. As it were, he is now a slave to the desire to become an ideal self. He must pretend to be an ideal self or he feels anxious, like he is nothing worthwhile.

BIOSOCIAL-EXISTENTIAL CAUSATION OF PARANOIA

What is the origin of the inner pressure to become an ideal self? Psychological theorists have had a field day speculating on the origin of this pressure. Since this is not a paper for professionals but for the general public, I will not explore the biochemistry of personality. I will simply state that the pressure to become ideal results from a combination of biological, sociological and existential factors.

The paranoid person generally inherited a problematic body. He tends to be prone to anxiety disorder and anxiety disorders appears rooted in inherited somatic constitution. Certain neurotransmitters are involved in anxiety disorder.

I will not dwell on the role of such neuro transmitters as excess norepinephrine and deficient GABA in the etiology of paranoia. I will instead simply acknowledge that biology plays a role in the origin of paranoia and leave it at that. This essay will concentrate on the role of social factors in the causation of the phenomenon of self rejection and desire to become an ideal self.

Igbo culture is not unconditionally positively accepting of its children. Igbo culture is conditional in accepting its people. It accepts successful people and rejects failures. As a result of being brought up in this culture, most Igbos fear failure and aspire towards success. They tend to accept themselves mostly only when they seem successful.

Igbos tend to fear failure more than other human beings. In their hope for success and fear of failure, they live with tremendous anxiety disorder.

(Achebe probably intended showing how achievement oriented his Igbo society was by using Okonkwo as the exemplary Igbo character. Unwittingly, he ended up telling the world that his people are, in fact, paranoid, since the chief dramatic personae of the novel, is diagnostically paranoid personality disordered. Okonkwo, like paranoids, was filled with fear of failure, acted out violently when his young wife demeaned his desired high self esteem and found it easy to kill a person, Ikemefuna, so as to obtain social prestige.)

The anxious Igbo person does what anxious persons everywhere do: he masks it with alcohol and sex. He does not know that drinking too much alcohol and or seeking frequent sexual outlets is an attempt to relax his over tense body.

THE PERVASSIVENESS OF PARANOIA

Every human being is a bit paranoid. In normal persons, paranoia is masked. In neurotic paranoia, the disease is overt in the individuals’ personality structures. In psychotic paranoia the disease becomes a way of living.

The most normal person exhibits paranoid symptoms during periods of social tension and uncertainty. When Moslem Arab terrorists attacked America on September 11, 2001, just about every American felt paranoid. Folks felt attacked, felt insecure and felt anxious. The month subsequent to that attack saw many normal Americans trooping to their doctors for medications to help them relax. Naturally, they were given the various anti anxiety (anxiolytic) medications. The amount of Valium, Librium, Xanax, Ativan etc popped by Americans in September of 2001 was incredible.

The relevant point is that all human beings, normal or not, have some paranoia and that this tends to be masked in normal persons. (Similarly all human beings have depression and anxiety, in masked forms in normal persons, waiting to come out when the situation stimulates them.)

SOME SYMPTOMS OF PARANOIA

(I will stay away from technical jargon and stick to pedestrian language; I do not think that it is going to help the reader for me to talk about ideas of reference, ideas of centrality, religious ideation, thought insertion, thought broadcasting etc.)

The paranoid person feels that the world he is living in is a dangerous place. He feels that other people could harm, even kill him. He, therefore, resolves to defend himself, to protect himself from the HOSTILE universe he believes that he is living in. (Is it true or not that we live in a hostile world? There is always some truth, albeit exaggerated truth in paranoia.)

Believing that he lives in a hostile world, the paranoid is GUARDED and DEFENSIVE. He SCANS his world trying to see if there are hidden DANGER AND THREATS that might sprint on him. If he believes that he has been ATTACKED, he goes into action defending himself. Generally, he MISINTERPRETS other people’s innocent actions as attacks on his GRANDIOSE, important self and defends himself.

He is always accusing other people of DEMEANING him, belittling him, putting him down, degrading him, humiliating him, criticizing him. Since, by and large, other people do not think that they are insulting him; they take offense at his constant ACCUSATIONS. Thus, they feel angry at him. Now that they seem hostile at him, they seem to have justified his earlier presupposition that people are hostile towards him. This is called the SELF FULFILLING PROPHECY of paranoia.

The individual has a false premise: he believes, wrongly that people are out to get him and stimulates attack on him and is attacked and uses that to justify his earlier preconception of what people would do to him. What he does not seem to realize is that he is the one stimulating other people’s hostility towards him by accusing them of being hostile towards him?

What is really going on in paranoia is that the individual feels inordinately INADEQUATE, POWERLESS and SMALL. He then tries to hide this sense of LITTLEMENT with false sense of grandeur. He uses his imagination, thinking, to construct a self concept and self image that he is a very important person, a powerful person, a wealthy person, a handsome person, the most intelligent person in the world etc.
Having constructed a fictional ideal self, he identifies with that imaginary self and comes to think that it is who he is.

If he merely wishes to be that IMAGINARY IMPORTANT person but knows that he is not that person, he is a neurotic PARANOID PERSONALITY. He is still able to test reality, he is not completely deluded.

If, in fact, he believes himself to be the perfect ideal self he wants to be, he believes in what is not true as true, hence he has DELUSIONAL DISORDER. This is a very rare form of paranoia.

Finally, if in addition to being delusional he also HALLUCINATES (hallucination could occur in any of the five senses: AUDITORY, VISUAL, TACTILE, OLFACTORY, FEELING), he is SCHIZOPHRENIC, paranoid type. (Schizophrenia has many types, including paranoid, disorganized, catatonic, organic, undifferentiated, residual, simple etc.)

World wide, less than one percent of the population is schizophrenic. (Another one percent has Bipolar Affective Disordered, manic-depression, to make up the two percent of people with severe, chronic mental disorders.). As noted, delusional disorder is even rarer than schizophrenia. What is quite common is paranoid personality disorder.

Many Igbos have paranoid personality disorder and anxiety disorders. (There are many types of anxiety disorders, including PANIC ATTACK, AGORAPHOBIA, SOCIOPHOBIA, GENERALIZED ANXIETY, OBSESSIVE COMPULSIVE ANXIETY etc.)

(In this essay, I am not focusing on the serious aspects of paranoia. But for the sake of reference, let me briefly note that delusional disorder has five types: GRANDIOSE, PERSECUTORY, EROTOMANIC, JEALOUS, AND SOMATIC.

Briefly, in the grandiose type, the individual feels very important and may see himself as god; in persecutory type, the individual feels that other people, his ancestors, police etc are out to get him and hides from them; in jealous type, the individual feels that his spouse cheats on him, does not trust her, watches her movements and misinterprets her innocent behavior as evidence of her cheating and beats her up, domestic violence is rampant here; in erotomanic type, the individual feels that a very important person, say, Jesus, is in love with her or is her husband; in somatic type, the individual feels that he has a somatic, physical disease that is not real and goes from doctor to doctor seeking help.

All delusions are rooted in the individual’s desire for existential importance when he feels excruciatingly unimportant and does not want to accept that unimportance.

In schizophrenia, in addition to delusion is the presence of hallucination. The schizophrenic may hear a voice telling him that he is god and or Napoleon or Bill Gates. Conversely, she may hear voices telling her that she is a whore etc. The voice generally tells him that he is important thus gratifying his desire for importance; hallucinations are wish fulfillment.

Some schizophrenics will look you straight in the eye and tell you that they are god, Jesus, Zeus…whatever makes them seem special and important…and tell you that you ought to be worshipping them, that is, they are expressing their desire to be superior to you.

In MANIA/BIPOLAR AFFECTIVE DISORDER, there is excitement, euphoria, poor judgment and some times hallucination. The manic may say that he is Elvis, to compensate for his wish that he was a famous musician etc; he may write checks for money that he does not have, to compensate for his wish to be rich; he may claim to be Cleopatra, that is, the most beautiful woman on earth, to compensate for her sense of being homely and or ugly. There is always delusion in mania.)

In demeanor, the paranoid person, be it of the personality or delusional or schizophrenic variety generally looks serious and guarded; he lacks genuine sense of humor; he is uptight, stressed and anxious; he wants to be seen as a very important person and fears being seen as a small, insignificant person.

At all times, he defends what he believes is his dignity. He is stiff and inflexible in body, is not relaxed and happy.
He is generally very rational and argumentative. (Two Igbo brothers on naira politics exhibit these argumentative and pseudo rational aspect of paranoid personality disorder.) Such persons want to win and have other people loose; they want to be right at all costs and have others wrong. They will argue insignificant subjects that most people would take in stride. Their goal is to win and you, the person they are arguing with, to lose. They must be right and you wrong.

Why do they have this desire to be right and have others wrong, to win and have others loose? Think about it. If I am right and you are wrong; I am the winner and you are the loser, what does that make me? It makes me better than you. The desire to win and have others loose, to be right and others wrong is part of paranoid grandiosity.

Deep down, paranoia is rooted in desire to be godlike. The paranoid person feels small and sees god as all powerful. He wants to be godlike in his powerfulness.

(Although I want to devote this essay to strictly secular psychology, so that every mental health professional, that is, psychiatrists and psychologists, would accept it, I must digress and point out that there is such a thing as SPIRITUAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Spiritual psychology points out that we, as manifested in the paranoia person, want to displace GOD and become God. The Son of God, as it were, wants to kill his father and replace him as God; he wants to become the creator of God, the creator of himself and the creator of other people; he wants to be the author of the universe. God created us and, apparently, we resent that fact and want to create our self. Paranoia, in this spiritual sense, is an effort to be God and create ones self, create other people and be the lord of other people. Enough Metaphysics, already. Let us dwell on secular, that is, scientific psychology.)

The paranoid personality likes to seem PERFECT. He generally cannot stand himself as imperfect. When he makes a mistake he seeks a SCAPEGOAT to BLAME for it. Whenever anything goes wrong, he blames those around him. He is forever blaming his spouse, children, friends and colleagues in any and all organizations he is a member of. It is always OTHER PEOPLE’S FAULT, not his, that they did not achieve their organizational goals.

This OBSESSIVE-COMPULSIVE blaming of others is obviously an infantile attempt to make himself seem perfect and others seem imperfect. It is an attempt to seem better than other people, when it is obvious that he is not better than any other person. SANITY, mental health lies in seeing ones self as the SAME AND COEQUAL with all HUMAN BEINGS, men and women adult and children, black and white.
At any moment you feel inferior and or superior to other people, you are insane; you are neurotic and or psychotic.

PARANOIA AND SEX

Paranoid people’s attitudes towards SEX are very interesting. The sexual act is obviously an animal act. Sex and defecation are probably the two most animalistic acts human beings engage in.

In their thinking, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet observed, human beings are often like the gods. In sex, the presumed gods behave like anything but godly. Lord Chesterfield observed that in sexual act people look ridiculous. Visualize whomever you construe as a very important person…since I am a Catholic, I visualize the Pope…engaged in sexual intercourse. What do you see? Not only is that person suddenly no longer important in your estimation, he looks ridiculous and absurd.

The paranoid person wants to be god like. He elevated himself to the level of the gods. To engage in sexual act makes him feel insignificant and animal like. Since he wants to retain the illusion of being dignified, he tends to feel tremendous shame from sex.

The paranoid is generally a very proud person and easily feels shamed from whatever seems not deifying; sex is one such activity. Generally, the paranoid engages in sex in a hush-hush, hidden manner but does not talk about it. (See David Shapiro, Neurotic Styles; also see his Autonomy and the Rigid Character.)

Clearly, the sex act seems ridiculous. But, then again, such is human life on earth. If one puts on ones philosophical hat and engages in pure reasoning, one would see no meaning and purpose to our lives on earth. What folks call meaning and purpose are mainly make belief.

Nevertheless, health persons accept the absurdity of being human and that includes sex. If you are going to have sex, then have it and that is all there is o it. For Christ’s sake do not be ashamed of it. Do not pretend that you are above sex. Just do it. What is worth doing is worth doing well? You might as well have fun while at it. Sex is part of the human bodily condition. People came here to be egos housed in bodies and might as well enjoy their bodies. There is no use for ambivalence towards sex, as neurotics tend to be. Do it whole heartedly or do not do it at all.

Mystics reject the human ego and the body that houses it and give up all pursuit of sensual enjoyment. They concentrate on the things of God, only. Thus, folks like Buddha, Jesus etc overcame the attraction of flesh and live in the world of spirit.

The average person is not an enlightened, illuminated and real self realized person. As long as the individual has a pull to have sex, he or she ought to do so but do so as St Paul said: within marital situations, only.

I must confess that I accept the Catholic Church’s morality on sexual matters. I want sex restricted to the marital situation. This gut level position, however, is not as emotional as it seems, for if folks limited their sexual activity to their married partners only, they would spare themselves the prospect of contracting gonorrhea, syphilis, herpes, HIV-AIDS, and other diseases that could kill them.

IGBO BOASTFULNESS

Have you been around Igbos? They are always trying to seem better than other people. They are extremely jealous of each others achievements. In fact, they do not like any one to do better than them and should they perceive you to be doing better than them their competitive spirit kicks in and they do all in their powers to bring you down. These people prefer to be lone stars and cannot work in groups for to work in groups is to subordinate ones ego to other egos, to accept others leadership. They detest others leadership. No wonder in their traditional society they did not develop political superstructures beyond the town level to rule them. Igbos do not accept chiefs. “Igbo ama eze”. Each of them wants to be the chief, the boss and does not tolerate other people’s leadership.

(Igbos, so far, do well in sole proprietorships but tend to fail in forming partnerships and corporations. Corporations have advantages that other forms of business organizations do not have. Igbos tend not to have big businesses; they tend to end up with mom and pop shows. Apparently, Igbo unbridled egotism militates against their success in collective business ventures.)

Igbos are always boasting about their accomplishments, trying to make themselves seem better than others. They fancy themselves better than other Nigerian ethnic groups when it is self evident that all human beings are the same and equal. This desire to be superior to other people is paranoid behavior, but Igbos do not know it. They are trying to seem perfect and have you seem imperfect; they are unaware that such behaviors are the mark of madness.

Let me illustrate the sad aspect of this phenomenon from the events that happened around me only last week.

We were at a meeting. My wife insisted on our need to abide by the LAW and limit our behavior to what the law permits us to do. She said this in obvious reference to an Igbo brother who has a tendency to take chances with the law. He tends to want to do whatever he wants to do without regards to the law. My wife, being a typical well socialized North American, understands the need to live by the laws of the land. North America is a land of laws. She said what she said because she wanted to protect all of us, to prevent us from running afoul of the law. She had no animosity towards any one.

The Igbo brother in question became angry, I mean angry. He was totally enraged. He looked menacing, ranting and raving about how a woman cannot tell him what to do, how he is tired of her bossing him around, how she bosses me around and now wants to boss him. He went on and on jabbering all sorts of meaningless rubbish for about ten minutes.

I had enough of his freak show and made the mistake of trying to redirect him to the issue at hand, and he let loose on me. (When a man is in anger, he is temporarily insane; one should never try to reason with him; I should have just walked out of the house and said nothing.) He called me every name under the sun. I have never before been subjected to as much verbal and emotional abuse in my life. He asked us to leave and as we were doing so he got up and started pushing us. He was totally insane.

The following day, he wrote me a series of email letters. He went on and on boasting about how he is rich and powerful and would do this or that to me if he liked. He wrote about ten pages of nonsense. (I showed his letters to two psychiatrists and both agreed that he was delusional and experienced transient psychosis and could be committed to a psychiatric hospital against his will, if he continued in his threatening behaviors.)

What is going on here is that the brother has paranoid personality disorder. He feels inadequate and compensates with fictional adequacy. He presents that imaginary important self to other people to relate to. When they affirm it, he feels okay and when he feels that they did not validate his superior self he feels demeaned, belittled and angry. Apparently, he felt that my wife did not recognize his grandiose self image and wanted to put her in her place.

In his paranoid grandiosity, he believed that women are inferior to him, men and ought to obey men.

Men and women are equal and any sexist views are insane. (In IQ tests, on the average, women tend to score higher than men so, in effect, women could be construed as smarter than men.)

Obviously, the brother’s reaction was based on injured pride; it was showing paranoid cum narcissistic rage. In that rage he was temporarily insane and could kill. That is correct, he so over identified with a false important self that he could kill any one who did not collude with his insanity and tell him that he is the fictional important person he imagines himself to be.

Paranoid persons often kill those they believe do not respect them, those they believe do not accept them as very important. (In delusion, they attack those they believe are out to kill them…folks that are not out to kill them.)

This brother’s obvious psychotic decompensation and paranoid behavior got me thinking about my relationship with my fellow Igbos. I recall many of them exhibiting similar paranoid boastings as this brother.

It became apparent to me that many Igbos tend to have grandiose self concepts and when they feel that you did not acknowledge their imaginary important selves they boast about how important they are and try to make themselves seem better than you. They are always boasting and talking nonsense about how their fathers are governors, ambassadors, chiefs, millionaires and whatever else they think would make them seem important. They tend to feel outraged when you do not humor them and go along with their infantile efforts to seem better than you.

The angry brother that tried mightily to convince me that he is better than me is mediocre. But here he was boasting of how he is the smartest man on earth, the richest man on earth, the most powerful man on earth and writing me about how I am a failure and nothing compared to him.

The relevant point is not what a temporarily insane man said but why he said it. He felt totally inferior and everything he said was in an attempt to seem superior and powerful.


As a known fact, all human children are weak. I am weak. I am powerless. I am poor. I am not the most intelligent man on earth. I am a human being, which means that I am imperfect. If am truthful to myself, I would accept all that I know myself to be: imperfect. If I do so, I am relaxed, peaceful and happy; I am not a phony, sham hypocrite who pretends to be who he is not in fact.

Igbo culture insists that I should not accept myself as I know myself to be but must strive to be successful, powerful etc before it accepts me. Igbo culture encourages me to deny my real self and pretend to be whom I am not; Igbo culture asks Igbos to be phonies. The average Igbo I see is a pretentious phony who presents himself as he is not in fact, big.

I had to drop out of Igbo culture, so as to be able to accept myself as I know myself to be: a worthless, valueless nothing, as the paranoid Igbo brother called me.

This Igbo brother is in his Igbo culture. Within that culture, he knows that people do not accept him as he is: a mediocre person. He is currently unemployed and he knows that his Igbo culture sees him as a failure (and projects his sense of being a failure to me.)

He thinks that other Igbos would accept him if he seemed perfect. Thus, he invented a perfect self-concept and self-image and latched unto that imaginary self and uses it to relate to other people.

He relates to other people from his fictional all important self. He tells lies about himself if in doing so he seems his important self. In the processes he became a pathological liar, a man who tells lies compulsively, even when telling lies is not called for.

I have eyes to see. I could see him and evaluate him as accurately as is possible. A man who is not working, at this time, but calls himself a professor is not persuasive. A man whose wife, a nurse, works double shifts to support them is not exactly rich. A man who often does not have the money to buy gas for his car is not exactly a rich man.

Simply stated, this brother ought to accept himself as he is without shame. But his Igbo culture disposed him to think, erroneously, that he needed to be important before society accepts him. He is forced by the pressure of paranoia to pretend to be who he, in fact, is not, a powerful self. In doing so, he lives in tension, stress and anxiety, and every once in a while acts out in narcissistic rage.

He is a psychologically sick man. He needs to be healed of his paranoid ideations. Unless he is healed, he is a danger to those around him, for since he consistently misinterprets their motives and behaviors and sees insults where non-exists, he is likely to attack people (as he did to me). He probably physically, verbally and emotionally abuses his wife and children; he is most likely to do so when his paranoid grandiosity feels that they did not respect it.


NORMALCY, NEUROSIS AND PSYCHOSIS

Essentially, there are three types of people in the world: normal people, neurotic people and psychotic people.

Normal people are the majority of the people, say 90% or more of the people in any given society. Psychotics are generally less than two percent of the population. Neurotics make up the balance.

In normalcy, the individual internalized the norms of his society and, more or less, is like any other person in that group. He is at home in his group’s world and in his own skin.

In neurosis, the individual is not at home in his group (and not even at home in his own body). Like the normal person, he, too, internalized his group’s norms. But for any number of reasons, he feels like an outsider in his group (and in his own body). He desires to be different from the group but at the same time wants to conform to the group. He is alienated from human beings but want to be part of human beings. Somehow, he is unable to do what the group requires of him to become an accepted member and feels like an outsider to it.

If the neurotic accepts his outsider-ness and gives up trying to become a member of the group, an outstanding intellect or artist is born to the world.

The normal person operates within the box; his group’s present parameters and is seldom able to make seminal contribution to art and science. It takes a bit of alienation from the group, neurosis, to see the group, the world a bit clearly.

Whereas, in aggregate intelligence neurotics are not smarter than normal persons, but because they are operating outside their group’s frame of reference they may use their intelligence more effectively. Consider the paranoid neurotic. He insists on rationalism. He attempts to seem rational. Of course, he is not more intelligent than normal persons but, by and large, he tends to make a few rational contributions to social discourse.

A particularly ultra rational Igbo brother in Naija politics insists on pure rationality. Every once in a while he actually says something that is worth paying attention to. Unfortunately, in the main, because his rationality is devoid of love for himself, love for his people and love for all human beings, it tends to be critical without understanding. He lacks wisdom. Most paranoids may have intelligence but they lack wisdom. Wisdom only comes from love and forgiveness of human foibles.

(The paranoid is the quintessential egotist; he bears grudges and grievances and seeks revenge and is vengeful; he wants to punish those who wronged him. The wise person wants to forgive those who wronged him for he knows that human beings make mistakes and need correction not hatred or punishment. The paranoid is litigious, he sues those he believes insulted him, to punish them and prove his social importance.)

Paranoia, among other things, emanates from the individual’s efforts to UNDERSTAND HIMSELF, OTHER PEOPLE AND, WHY THINGS HAPPEN THE WAY THEY HAPPEN; IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO PREDICT THE FUTURE. Particularly, the PARANOID WANTS to understand why the things that happen to him happen to him.

He does not have objective answers to his questions, so he speculates. In the process, he attributes false motives to other people. The fact is that we do not know what other are thinking about, and we do not know why things happen the way they do. We have to accept that uncertainty and live with it.

We must live with ambiguity and not pretend to know many things. The paranoid person is unable to live with not knowing, so he speculates and believes that his speculations are true and act on their basis.

Thus the paranoid brother speculated on my motives, reached false conclusions as to why he thinks that I do what I do…boss him around and demean him…all false ideations and to rehabilitate his injured vanity attacked me, to show me that he is powerful and is my boss.

For our present purposes, whereas it would seem that neurotics are more insane than normal persons, they are not. Normal persons are masked insane persons. A normal person could exhibit the symptoms of most of the mental disorders if subjected to stress: he could show paranoia, depression, mania, delusion even hallucination.

A normal person is an insane person who is sheltered by his group. As Eric Fromm (see Escape from Freedom) sees it, the adjusted normal person is not yet given birth to full individuation.
The neurotic is struggling to become truly individuated: separation from God and the human group.

Alas, separation and individuation is a problem. The world is a place where we live in the fantasy that separation and individuation is possible.

The psychotic optimizes the fantasy of individuation and lives in his own world without reference to other people.
Mystics point out that our spiritual reality is union, not separation. (See Meister Eckhart, St John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila; Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism; Helen Schucman, A Course in Miracles.)


PARANOIA AS DESIRE FOR AUTONOMY

In his book, Autonomy and the Rigid Character, David Shapiro wrote that the paranoid neurotic (what we now call the paranoid personality) desires autonomy. As Shapiro sees it, the paranoid is a person who desires excessive independence from the group. He desires extreme individuation (Carl Jung wrote extensively about individuation.)

This person sees the group as squelching his individuality and does not want to be swallowed by the group. He strives to seem individuated.

The paranoid character is seeking autonomy from the whole (God and human society). He does not want any one, God or man, to tell him what to do. He wants to do his own thing. In social and work organizations, he resents authority figures telling him what to do.
To tell him what to do makes him feel powerless. He wants to be the boss or else he is not a member of the group. If he stays in the group, he finds ways to do things his own way.

In work organizations, he is generally perceived as loose cannon, for he does not accept authority readily. Experienced managers understand this aspect of the paranoid employee and tolerate it. They cannot change him; they can, however, delegate to him those things that require individual efforts, such as technical jobs; it is a mistake to make a paranoid character a leader, supervisor, manager etc; this is because he does not know how to smoothly relate to people; to relate to people requires subordinating ones own ego to group needs.

You must leave the paranoid alone to live in his world of individual power. If you do not respect his need for autonomy and do things that make him feel imposed on, he may indulge in passive aggressive efforts to destroy the organization’s goals or engage in overt aggression.

Like all egotists, the paranoid believes in power and violence. He believes that problems can be solved by attacking, even killing people. He sees violence and attack on people as making him seem powerful. In fact, he sees killing other people as making him seem powerful. He is the quintessential egotists, a confused human being.

He has not evolved to a level where he understands that peace, love and forgiveness are the true signs of power. Jesus was a peaceful, loving man and never resorted to anger and violence to solve problems, as such, he was the most powerful human being that lived on earth.

Hitler used violence to solve conflicts, he killed people to seem powerful; in reality he was the most powerless man to live on earth.

Do not bother trying to change the paranoid. He is who he is in evolution. He is who he is from about age six on wards. At best, you can understand him and learn to handle him with care but you cannot change him. Only he can change him self, if he so desires, when he learns to give up his pursuit of imaginary egotism and accept his real self, a weak self, and, ultimately, accept our shared unified spirit self.

I must emphasize that one should never aim at changing the paranoid personality. If one tried, he is most likely to see himself as the healthy one and one as the sick one. Paranoids do not go to therapy because in their pseudo rationality they fancy therapists useless and see themselves as more informed than therapists. They usually believe in their supercilious knowledge.

Paranoids are mentally disturbed persons. They have been so from their childhood. You cannot ask persons who have been sick most of their lives to suddenly change and become healthy. It would take a lot of work for them to change (to change ones pattern of thinking, from egoistic to loving and forgiving is to heal). All that one should do is learn how to get along with these sick brothers. They are not going to become healthy overnight.

Let me dispel the notion that just because paranoids are sick that they cannot hold down jobs. Paranoia is an interesting mental illness; it affects only a part of the intellect, not all of it. The paranoid has systematic delusion in certain areas, not all areas of his thinking. He can be as paranoid as a mad dog and see the entire world as out to kill him and is defensive and yet can be a successful medical doctor, engineer and lawyer. Indeed, he can be the president of his country. Richard Nixon, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin and many African heads of States were and are paranoid personalities. In fact, your colleague at work, a successful professional, for all you know, may be a paranoid personality. You might even be one! Paranoia is an interesting human psychological disorder; we all have to understand it and work to heal it, as much as it is possible to heal it.

In as much as all human beings have a bit of paranoia, we should never make fun of those people that have the problem in exaggerated forms. We should understand and help them, as much as we could. I am trying to help my paranoid brothers in my own way, by sharing information on the phenomenon.


Whereas the paranoid person seeks autonomy, on the other hand, he has not developed the courage to accept his individuation without social reference. He still wants other people to like and accept him. He does everything he does to get other people to like and approve him. Therein lays his problem. He wants to be individuated and at the same time wants to be part of the group. You cannot have it both ways. To be part of the group one must reduce ones indivualism and conform to the group’s conception of reality.
The paranoid person lives in perpetual psychological conflict: to be truly independent and or to be part of the group? He is unable to make up his mind on this critical existential question.

The paranoid wears the mask of social and existential importance because he thinks that that is the person that society would accept. Igbos accept successful persons, so the Igbo paranoid tries to seem successful and important, so as to be accepted by the Igbos. On the other hand, he wants to be individuated. Obviously, he has to resolve the conflict by resolving to be his true self. If he does so, he becomes free, freed from the shackles of the group. He becomes relaxed, peaceful, happy and mentally healthy.

PERSONALITY DISORDERS

For the sake of fuller understanding, I will briefly mention the other accepted personality disorders.

Personality is the individual’s habitual pattern of relating to other people and to his world. It is usually formed before age twelve and once formed is very difficult to change except if the individual has organic brain injuries or underwent religious conversion (like Paul did on his way to Damascus).

Most human beings have normal personalities, that is, they successfully adapted to the mode people in their cultural group adapt to their world. I would say that more than ninety percent of the people have normal personality structures and that about six percent has serious personality disorders, that two percent has serious mental disorders and two percent has mental retardation (IQ under 70).

The mental health field’s nomenclature accepts ten or eleven personality disorders: paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, borderline, avoidant, and dependent, obsessive compulsive and passive aggressive. Most human beings have traits of all these personalities but some have more of each hence have such personality disorder.

Briefly, the paranoid personality wants to seem very important and fears not being important; he is sensitive to being demeaned. The schizoid personality does not care whether other people like him or not, he just lives his life regardless of what other people say about him. The schizotypal personality tends to be interested in pseudo spiritual matters and may believe that she has supernatural powers and claim psychic abilities and is odd and eccentric. The narcissistic personality fancies himself superior to other people, thinks that he is special and that other people ought to admire him; he tends to exploit other people, use them for his goals and discard them when they are no longer useful to him; he does so because he believes that other people are inferior to him. The histrionic personality tends to seek attention through drama, the drama queen and tends to gravitate to men who pay her attention but seems not to pay them attention; she has shallow affect. The borderline personality has many dysfunctional areas in her life; she is confused in many areas and wants other people to take care of her and may cut on herself if others ignore her; she does not seem capable of giving love and attention to other people but craves it from them. The antisocial personality steals and kills and does not feel remorse or guilty; he has a sense of entitlement; he is the typical Nigerian politician, a criminal. The avoidant personality feels inferior and believes that if other people come close to him that they would reject him, so he keeps away from people, while hoping that they take the initiative to accept him. The dependent personality wants other people to take care of him and is a follower and lacks initiative. The obsessive compulsive personality thinks obsessively and acts compulsively and wants to seem perfect. The passive-aggressive personality pleases every body, goes along with all people’s demands on him but resents being imposed on and often finds indirect means to get back at those he feels are imposing their will on him.
I am not going to elaborate on theses personality disorders. You can read up on them. Each of them is an area of specialization in itself.

DISCUSSION

In his analysis of Judge Shreber’s autobiography, Sigmund Freud hypothesized that there is latent homosexuality in paranoia. Generally, paranoid persons feel weak and restitute with desire to seem tough. Any thing that reminds them of their weakness tends to make them angry.

In our society, homosexuality is equated with weakness. Paranoid persons, therefore, tend to resent homosexuals. If you called a paranoid person a fag, he could kill you. Let me illustrate how this works from a situation I was involved in.

During my first year at the University of Oregon, there was another Igbo chap there. On weekends, both of us went around looking for girls. One Saturday evening, we were in downtown Eugene and heard music coming out of a joint and went in to check it out. We did not know that the joint was a gay bar. We sat down and immediately this middle aged white man sauntered towards us and sat down with us. He said: “boys, (both of us were under twenty) can I buy you drinks”. We said yes. He ordered us two beers. We talked. Then he said: “boys, do you want to have a little fun tonight?’ We asked him how. He said, and I quote: “How about coming to my house for a little sex?” My friend asked him: “Do you have some chicks in your shack?”

The man said: “Don’t be silly, I mean with me”. Before he was done with saying what he said, my friend had slapped him.

Apparently, my friend felt demeaned that this old gizzard saw him as his sex object and hit him real hard. I literally had to drag him out of the gay establishment.

Being approached by a queer for sex made my friend feel small and he tried to restitute, to feel big, with anger and physical violence. If you sexualize a paranoid personality, you make him feel belittled and he could attack you. Paranoid persons can, and do, in fact, kill gay men who approach them for sex.

Freud said that paranoid persons do what they do because, deep down, they are latent homosexuals who repressed their attraction to same gender persons. In the case of the judge he was analyzing, he said that the man, who liked to cross dress, dress as a woman, was a homosexual.

I am not a Freudian and do not accept Freud’s often tortured explanations of human behavior. I think that the more likely explanation is that paranoids feel weak and being seen as homosexual makes them feel weaker and to restitute they attack who ever saw them as homosexual.

My friend attacked the idiot who asked us for a little sex not because he had latent homosexuality, but because, like most overachieving Igbos, he feels inadequate and restitute with desire for superiority and the gay man sexualizing him made him feel like he was weak.

It is interesting how I responded to this incident. It was my first encounter with real life gays and did not know what homosexual people actually do. I went to the library and read up on what the phenomenon is all about. I could not believe what I read, that gay men place their penises into other men’s anuses and that lesbians placed their tongues into other women’s vagina! This is sexual activity? This is absurd.

My attitude towards gay and lesbians is that there is something wrong with them, what it is I do not pretend to know. It is wide world and I do not have to understand everything. I can live with differences provided if you want to practice this form of human depravity you are not around me. I would vomit if I actually see folks doing this sort of thing.

I am an Igbo African; Freud was a German Jew; he probably had different experiences and his experiences led him to his conclusions.

I do not have to accept any idea that does not make sense to me. I do not accept the whole psychoanalytic concept of id, ego and superego, the deal on the unconscious and oedipal complex. Freud hypothesized that we are born with Id instincts (for sex and aggression), that those motivate all our behaviors and that the superego, that is, internalized social norms, tries to restrict the id; that the ego, a sort of referee, mediates between our id (animal nature) and our superego (socialized nature).

Freud further hypothesized that boy children want to have sex with their mothers and that girl children want to have sex with their fathers (oedipal complex). He believed that these desires are not approved by society and are punished should they be given rein to; hence people repress them into their unconscious mind. From the unconscious they still exercise pull on people hence people behave irrationally no matter how rational they hope to behave. Freud would all people came to him and his apostles for psychoanalysis, come lay on his couch and free associate, say whatever comes to their minds without blocking them with reason and that way cathected, bring what is buried deeply in their unconscious to the conscious for him to analyze. Freud believed that it is only after such analysis that people become somewhat normal, otherwise they are hopelessly confused.

On the whole, I do not care much for Freudian speculations. I am an Adlerian, better still; I am me, an Osujian. So, let us move on.

William Meissner (The Paranoid Process) believes that the paranoid person is really a depressed person. He sees paranoid bravados, boastings and quest for power as mask over the individual’s sense of inferiority and personal worthlessness.

Moreover, since the paranoid insists on pure rationality, he appreciates the meaninglessness and purposelessness of being and experiences existential depression. But instead of accepting his depressed view of himself and the world, he uses several ego defense mechanisms (See Anna Freud, The Ego and its Defense Mechanisms) to deal with them. He DENIES what he knows to be true; he DISSOCIATES from his weak real self; he RATIONALIZES his weaknesses, he PROJECTS what he sees in himself that he does not like to other people; he BLAMES other people for his faults; he INTELLECTUALIZES instead of deal with his issues, and engages in REACTION FORMATION, SUBLIMATION, FANTASY, REPRESSION, ACTING OUT, and so on.

My experience with paranoid persons teaches me that they are existentially depressed but deny it and mask that depression with their paranoid efforts to seem powerful. When finally they face their existential reality they must deal with their underlying depression.
(Depression is characterized by loss of interests in activities of daily living, lack of interest in food, sex, sports, interpersonal relationships, work, a feeling of tiredness and lethargy and lack of personal grooming and eventually a wish to kill ones self, and if untreated suicide. Depressed persons, these days, are treated with the various anti depressant medications. I am interested in existential depression, not clinical depression; this aspect of it requires cognitive restructuring and reorientation so that the individual accepts his reality as it and stops seeing him as no good or seeing him as all good. COGNITIVE BEHAVIOR THERAPY ala Albert Ellis and Aaron Beck helps depressed persons to accept their real selves as is and not put on masks of being who they are not.)

CONCLUSION

As I see it, the paranoid person wants to seem powerful and independent of others control. He seeks autonomy. Unfortunately, we live in social groups where society controls us. (See Swanson et al, The Paranoid, also see American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, latest edition, sections on paranoia).

The paranoid person is a human being who feels powerless and wants to seem powerful. I think that his inherited biological weaknesses and existential realities make him feel little.

We are born and we shall die. We are mere food for worms. This reality makes us feel vulnerable and powerless.

If we think about it, we are really nothing special. We are nothing. We are valueless and worthless.

But we do not like these existential facts and compensate with imaginary pursuit of importance and worth.

I see human beings trying to seem very important. I know that they are not important; after all, any one of us can kill any one of us. If you want to, you can kill me and if I want to, I can kill you. That is how unimportant our lives are. (Some people use religion to find worth. As Freud pointed out in the Future of an Illusion, some people postulate a father figure who seems to protect them from the precarious world they live in; more importantly, they believe that when they die that they would go to that father figure’s house, heaven, and live there forever and ever and that gives their apparent meaningless existence seeming meaning.)

If I am important how come any human being can kill me? My life is in every human being’s hands. I am very vulnerable, so are you.
I accept my impotence and vulnerability and am at peace with that reality.

My Igbo brothers, like human begins everywhere, refuse to accept their existential reality. Instead, they juxtapose an imaginary important self and want to become it. In pursuit of their various fictional ideal selves, they develop the various mental and personality disorders.

To not have a personality, mental and anxiety disorder, the individual must desist from seeking to be an ideal self that he is not. Unfortunately, people think that they must approximate the ideal selves their cultures bid them to be otherwise they would be nothing.

My Igbo brother called me a failure because I voluntarily took myself out of the social rat race to become somebody important and he is still in that race. He fancies himself struggling to become somebody important and indeed fancies himself already important. He lives in tremendous anxiety and paranoia. He is a miserable man but does not know it.

The paranoid does not know what happiness means; happiness is just being who you are, without pretending to be somebody else.

My goal in this paper is to help my paranoid brothers, those who hate their real selves, reject their existential and biological reality and attempt to become the imaginary ideal selves that their minds constructed to give up their pursuit of chimera. The ideal self is a mental construct, a product of imagination, ideation and cognition. It does not exist in the real world and it isn’t going to exist in the empirical world.

The self concept, real or imaginary, exists only in wishful thinking, in the mind. Ideas leave not their source. The ideal self concept is an idea and is always in the mind that thinks it real. It is not real.

Use your thinking to deconstruct your already constructed self concept and reconstruct it on a better footing. Now construct a healthy self, one that sees you as the same and equal with all people. Use your thinking, mind, to construct a self concept that sees you as unified with all human beings. Go further and see all creation as one.

Oneness can only exist in non-physical form, for the physical must be separated. Matter, space and time are means of separation. We can only unify in formlessness; we can only be in unified state where there is no matter, space and time. Folks call that world the world of God, the polar opposite of our world.

I am not going to allow myself to escape into wooly metaphysics. I just want to describe paranoia and point out the contribution of conditional social acceptance to its genesis.

Of course, other factors, such as inherited individual biology and existential matters play a role in the etiology of paranoia, as they play in most mental, that is, thinking disorders.

In as much as mental disorders are thinking disorders, we can change our thinking so that they are now ordered. When the individual stops desiring unrealistic importance and sees himself as the same with all people and works for our common social interests, he tends to be in peace and is happy. What else can you ask for beside peace and joy?

Peace and happiness is good enough for me. As for material wealth, if it can be obtained while one is at peace, I want it, too, but it is not worth the disturbance of my mind and body.

Igbo society must change and accept all its citizens and all human beings in a non- conditional, positive manner. It must do so if it intends to stop producing paranoids, albeit functional ones. If people are accepted as they are, they become peaceful and happy.

A healthy society gives people peace and happiness. Igbo society must become healthy and give its people peace and happiness.

I dedicate myself to healing the social pathology I see in Alaigbo, Nigeria, Africa and the world.

Ozodi@africainstituteseattle.org

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President Clinton and the Movie “Hotel Rwanda”: Why the Change of Mind after Supporting Genocide in Rwanda 1993-94?

by Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.) (Raleigh, North Carolina) --- After reading former President Bill Clinton's: ANNOUNCEMENT OF MAJOR STEPS IN HIS EFFORTS TO SAVE LIVES OF PEOPLE WITH HIV/AIDS AROUND THE WORLD, including Africa, I wondered why he changed his mind about supporting GENOCIDE in Africa? I felt just the way I felt after watching the Movie "Hotel Rwanda".

On President Bill Clinton's watch, in 1993 - 1994, a most senseless war erupted in Rwanda between its two prominent ethnic groups - the Tutsi and the Hutu. "On April 6, 1994, Rwandan President Juvenal Habyarimana's personal plane, a gift from French President Francois Mitterand, was shot down as it returned to Rwanda, killing Habyarimana, Burundian President Cyprien Ntarymira, and members of their entourages. The two Presidents were returning from Tanzania, where they'd met with regional leaders concerning events in Burundi. Habyarimana himself was pressed to implement the power-sharing Arusha Accord his government had concluded with the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) in August 1993, which capped three years of war, cease-fires and negotiations. To do so, however, would mean the effective end of his 20-year, one-party rule over Rwandan politics and society. Extremists in the military and government bitterly opposed the accord; they are the likely culprits in his assassination.

"Within an hour of the plane crash, the Presidential Guard, elements of the Rwandan armed forces (FAR) and extremist militia (Interahamwe and Impuzamugambi) set up roadblocks and barricades and began the organized slaughter, starting in the capital Kigali, of nearly one million Rwandans in 100 days time. Their first targets were those most likely to resist the plan of genocide: the opposition Prime Minister, the president of the constitutional court, priests, leaders of the Liberal Party and Social Democratic Party, the Information Minister, and tellingly, the negotiator of the Arusha Accord. Those who hesitated to join the campaign, such as the governor of a southern province, were quickly removed from positions of influence or killed. As a US intelligence analyst noted in late April, 1994.

'The plan appears to have been to wipe out any RPF ally or potential ally, and thus raise the costs and limit the possibility of an RPF/Tutsi takeover… No end to the unprecedented bloodshed is yet in sight." (US Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Intelligence Assessment, "Roots of the Violence in Rwanda", April 29, 1994)

"As the killing intensified, the international community deserted Rwanda. Western nations landed troops in Rwanda or Burundi in the first week to evacuate their citizens, did so, and left. The UN mission (UNAMIR), created in October 1993 to keep the peace and assist the governmental transition in Rwanda, sought to intervene between the killers and civilians. It also tried to mediate between the RPF and the Rwandan army after the RPF struck from Rwanda to protect Tutsi and rescue their battalion encamped in Kigali as part of the Accord. On April 21, 1994, the United Nations Security Council, at the behest of the United States — which had no troops in Rwanda — Belgium, and others, voted to withdraw all but a remnant of UNAMIR. The Security Council took this vote and others concerning Rwanda even as the representative of the genocidal regime sat amongst them as a non-permanent member.

"After human rights, media, and diplomatic reports of the carnage mounted, the UN met and debated and finally arrived at a compromise response on May 16. UNAMIR II, as it was to be known, would be a more robust force of 5,500 troops. Again, however, the world failed to deliver, as the full complement of troops and materiel would not arrive in Rwanda until months after the genocide ended. Faced with the UN's delay, but also concerned about its image as a former patron and arms supplier of the Habyarimana regime, France announced on June 15 that it would intervene to stop the killing. In a June 22 vote, the UN Security Council gave its blessing to this intervention; that same day, French troops entered Rwanda from Zaire. "While intending a wider intervention, confronted with the RPF's rapid advance across Rwanda, the French set up a 'humanitarian zone" in the southwest corner of Rwanda. Their intervention succeeded in saving tens of thousands of Tutsi lives; it also facilitated the safe exit of many of the genocide's plotters, who were allies of the French.

"On July 4, the RPF took the capital, Kigali; two weeks later, it announced a new government comprised of RPF leaders and ministers previously selected for the transition government called for in the Arusha Accord. With the RPF's takeover, and with the encouragement of extremist radio, Rwandans implicated in the slaughter, their relatives and those who feared the arrival of the RPF, fled to neighboring countries. In the end, the extremists killed nearly one million Rwandans, approximately one-tenth of the population. Were it not for the RPF's military prowess, the genocide would have continued.

"Despite overwhelming evidence of genocide and knowledge as to its perpetrators, United States officials decided against taking a leading role in confronting the slaughter in Rwanda. Rather, US officials confined themselves to public statements, diplomatic despatches, initiatives for a ceasefire, and attempts to contact both the interim government perpetrating the killing and the RPF. The US did use its influence, however, at the United Nations, but did so to discourage a robust UN response (Document 4 and Document 13). In late July, however, with the evidence of genocide littering the ground in Rwanda, the US did launch substantial operations—again, in a supporting role—to assist humanitarian relief efforts for those displaced by the genocide".

Document 4

US Department of State, cable number 099440, to US Mission to the United Nations, New York, 'Talking Points for UNAMIR Withdrawal", April 15, 1994. Confidential.

Source: Freedom of Information Act release by Department of State.

"This telegram forwards Department of State guidance to the US Mission to the UN in New York instructing US diplomats there that 'the international community must give highest priority to full, orderly withdrawal of all UNAMIR personnel as soon as possible." Advising that this withdrawal does not require a UN Security Council resolution—which would have likely focused international criticism—the Department instructs the mission 'that we will oppose any effort at this time to preserve a UNAMIR presence in Rwanda." April 15 was the first of two days of UN Security Council debate on next steps in Rwanda—for which the Rwandan ambassador was present and about which he reported back to the interim government in Rwanda. Over that same weekend, aware the UN Security Council was in retreat, the interim Council of Ministers, the genocide's architects, met in Kigali and decided to take the program of extermination to the rest of the country".

The US President Clinton, who had no troops in Rwanda, insisted that the troops of the other foreign Peace-keeping Forces in Rwanda, the UNAMIR, should be withdrawn leaving the Tutsi minority open to unabated massacre by the Hutu majority. After a few months, the peace-keepers came back, evicently, to see to the orderly withdrawal of the remaining UN Forces, when the purpose of the massacre and genocide of the Tutsi had been accomplished".

Is it not the same genocidal war of extinction that has been going on in Nigeria against Ndi Igbo and Biafra, since 1966 to the present, with the support of these same Governments that supported the genocide in the Tutsi in Rwanda?

Document 13

US Department of State, cable number 127262, to US Mission to the United Nations, New York, 'Rwanda: Security Council Discussions", May 13, 1994. Confidential.

Source: Freedom of Information Act release by the Department of State

Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Peter Tarnoff and senior officials, including the Director of the Joint Staff, drafted and approved this cable delivering instructions to the US Mission in New York for Security Council debate over replenishing UNAMIR. With much of the killing completed and most of the remaining armed forces fleeing the RPF's countrywide advance, US officials argue against a UN plan for a robust effort launched into Kigali to protect surviving Rwandans, rescue others, and deliver assistance. Such a plan, 'in current circumstances, would require a Chapter VII mandate", and the US 'is not prepared at this point to lift heavy equipment and troops into Kigali". It is however, willing to consider its own plan, 'outside-in", by which protective zones would be established on Rwanda's borders. Even this plan, however, is likely to be 'an active protection operation requiring the use of lethal force." As for the several thousand Rwandans in Kigali under deteriorating UN protection, 'we recommend that these ad hoc protective efforts should continue until a suitable alternative arrangement can be ensured." Even when a plan for 5,500 troops with a protection mandate is finally approved on May 17, the troops would not all be in place until September, two months after the RPF captures the country and one month after Gen. Dallaire completed his service in Rwanda".

AFTER THE TUTSI GENOCIDE 1993-94 AND THE MOVIE "HOTEL RWANDA"

After viewing the Movie "Hotel Rwanda", I wrote to President Bill Clinton as follows:

Date: Fri, 18 Nov 2005 10:36:32 -0800 (PST)
From: "Oyibo Odinamadu"
Subject: My misgivings about your good intentions for Africa after watching the Movie - "Hotel Rwanda".
To: bclinton@clintonfoundation.org

Dear President Clinton, I received your Newsletter - Experience my trip to Africa - and I sent you a reply, acclaiming you a 'citizen of the world'. At one time when you were in Nigeria, the Nigerian Mass Media extolled you as "the First Black American President". All that was before the Movie, "Hotel Rwanda".

"Since watching the Movie, annotated variously as: "When a country descended into madness; And the world closed its eyes; He (Paul Rusesabagina, the 5-Star Hotel Mille Collines Manager) opened his arms; He created a place where hope could thrive; He saved over 1000 lives of refugee-guests in the hotel", I have been disillusioned about you and wondered about the genuineness of the current good deeds you are extending to Africa. This is because you made yourself and your Administration part of the "world that closed its eyes to Rwanda".

"This disillusionment stems from the fact that it was on your watch and insistence, as the President and Chief Executive of the Government of the United States of America, that the nations that contributed troops to the United Nations Peace-keeping Force withdrew them from Rwanda. That was at the height of the genocidal massacre of the Tutsi minority by the Hutu majority, whom the Hutu called the "Cockroaches".

"A few months later, the U.N. Troops went back but only to assign the leaders of the Tutsi to different countries for asylum. The Hutu Manager of the Hotel Mille Collines, who saved more than 1200 Tutsi lives in the Hotel, by shielding them and managed to find food and whatnot to keep them was assigned to Brussels, Belgium where he now lives with his family. "During the period of the UN withdrawal, the Hutu Army commanders bragged about the departure of the UN Peace-Keepers. The genocide escalated, to the extent that thousands of the bodies of slain Tutsi were discovered by Paul, laid up like bricks, for miles, on a road. That was the road the unsuspecting Hotel Manager was told by the General-Commander of the Hutu to take as being safe and secure, in a chauffeured vehicle he provided for him. It was a road on which he could not detour; and if he did, would be killed. To his chagrin, he had to be driven on the bodies and he forced the chauffwur to turn back on those bodies, damning the consequences.

"After assigning the Hutu leaders away, the solution the world, including you and your administration, could find was to allow the Tutsi minority to leave their country, enmasse, to South Africa, and Burundi, Tanzania, and whereeverelse they could. "After watching the Movie, I have had serious misgivings about the sincerity of your intentions towards Africa and Africans. And I have wondered whether your activities to save lives now in Africa is an act of remorse; apology; damage-control; restitution or of medicine-after-death?"

In conclusion, I have a few questions for you:

i) Do you think that you can ever make up for the part you played in withdrawing the Peace-keepers from Rwanda and facilitating the massacre of the Tutsi by the Hutu?

ii) Do you think that you can ever live down the guilt of your contribution to the Tutsi being pushed out of their own country, all of which happened during your watch?

iii)Can you ever forget that it all happened when you, as the leader of the Free-World, while the rest of the Free-World, looked the other way, withdrew your support for the weak and down-trodden, at the time they needed it most?

iv)Do you think that the country, and the lives of the Tutsi of Rwanda can ever be reconstructed?

v) How come you now find it necessary and easy to raise billions of dollars for relief-aid and reconstruction for the victims of disasters all over the world, and trudge around, even in your ill-health, now that you are being sent as an errand-boy by your successor-in-office, but not when you were substantively in that office with full powers and sway?

vi) Do you think you can get your colleagues in power in the USA and elsewhere to react to disastrous situations and sufferings of the third world and of the defenseless poor and lowly of the world, including the USA, compassionately, preventively, and promptly, before it is too late?.

vii) Do you think you can get your your colleagues in power to realize that Africa is the 'Continent of the Future', and to stop the lip-service, cosmetic programmes of assistance and development they now extend to her, and to be more serious and dedicated in a more meanibgful way?

Nothing has been said about Somalia and the massacre and genocide there of the same period; and about Daffur in the Republic of Niger of the present day. I still like you, but the images of the Movie - "Hotel Rwanda" - leaves a very bad taste in the mouth about the genuineness of your compassion now towards Africa. Believe me, it greatly distracts from the aura you normally exuded in those activities.

While I wish you well in your efforts around the world "to create hope and bring succour", I cannot stop looking at it as an after-thought and a damage-control to cover up the untold damage that had been done by your unconcern in the past! I DID NOT RECEIVE A REPLY.

Yours in a quandary,
Oyibo E. Odinamadu {Mrs.}"

"Dear President Clinton,

Greetings! I am disappointed that I did not receive a reply from you concerning my letter to you after viewibg the Movie: "Hotel Rwanda". Now, having read about all the efforts you are making to provide less costly drugs for the victims of AIDS/HIV in Africa and elsewhere in the world, I am just wondering what has brought about your change of mind about genocide on Africans, after the very prominent role you played in fostering the genocide on the Tutsi using the Hutu in Rwanda, by your role in having the UN Peace-keepers withdrawn, and the inaction of your US Government, to help, on your watch?

Do you not think that the whole process of the diagnostics, drugs and administration of the CURE FOR AIDS on the unfortunate victims should be ENTIRELY FREE to them by the US Government, helped by you, because the contagious cancer was deliberately manufactured and patented for Africans and people of African descent, and was spread and administered to them deliberately, callously, maliciously and sadistically, without any kind of Christian compassion, so as to clear their population, completely, out of the continent of Africa, within 66 years, for your kind, the Caucasians, to occupy? What is your explanation for this genocide on the Africans? You are looking for and obtaining cheaper alternative drugs for the victims, which will take about six doses, while you and President G.W. Bush are sitting on the patented AIDS CURE - TETRASIL/IMMUSIL PATENT 5676977 - ONE DOSE CURE. Why the holding back of the patented Cure? Is it the cost? Is that drug costlier than the lives that the contagious cancer is taking in Africa and around the world? Nothing else will do but the provision and administration of the PATENT 5676977 IMMEDIATELY NOW FOR EVERY AIDS/HIV VICTIM SO AS TO DEACTIVATE IT, COMPLETELY, WITHOUT A TRACE, LONG BEFORE THE 66 YEARS.

Thank you for being the Agent!

Oyibo E. Odinamadu (Mrs.)"

References:
__________________

1) Haunted by a History of Genocide, Rwanda and Burundi have danced a Tortured Tango of Terror since Emerging from Colonial Rule over three Decades Ago by J. R. Bullington, in the the Virginian-Pilot

2) The US and the Genocide in Rwanda 1994: Evidence of Inaction, by William Ferroggiaro, Editor

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