This is what Mama Winnie Mandela had to say
about Nelson Mandela:
“You all must realise that Mandela was not the only
man who suffered. There were many others,
hundreds who languished in prison and died. Many
unsung and unknown heroes of the struggle, and
there were others in the leadership too, like poor
Steve Biko, who died of the beatings, horribly all
alone. Mandela did go to prison and he went in
there as a burning young revolutionary. But look
what came out."
“Mandela let us down. He agreed to a bad deal for
the blacks. Economically, we are still on the
outside. The economy is very much ‘white’. It has a
few token blacks, but so many who gave their life in
the struggle have died unrewarded."
“I cannot forgive him for going to receive the Nobel
(Peace Prize in 1993) with his jailer (FW) de Klerk.
Hand in hand they went. Do you think de Klerk
released him from the goodness of his heart? He
had to. The times dictated it, the world had
changed, and our struggle was not a flash in the
pan, it was bloody to say the least and we had
given rivers of blood. I had kept it alive with every
means at my disposal."
“Look at this Truth and Reconciliation charade. He
should never have agreed to it. What good does
the truth do? How does it help anyone to know
where and how their loved ones were killed or
buried? That Bishop Tutu who turned it all into a
religious circus came here."
“He had the cheek to tell me to appear. I told him a
few home truths. I told him that he and his other
like-minded cretins were only sitting here because
of our struggle and me. Because of the things I and
people like me had done to get freedom."
“Look what they make him do. The great Mandela.
He has no control or say any more. They put that
huge statue of him right in the middle of the most
affluent ‘white’ area of Johannesburg. Not here
where we spilled our blood and where it all started.
Mandela is now a corporate foundation. He is
wheeled out globally to collect the money and he is
content doing that. The ANC has effectively
sidelined him but they keep him as a figurehead
for the sake of appearance.”
- Winnie Mandela.

TeNDuLKaaY:
Yeah just like we keep sending troops to all parts of the world, when there is insurgency in various parts of the country. Tommorow when the likes of Mali, Liberia, Cote d'ivoire, Sudan and the likes attain social stability, they would come back to mock our security situation. Its time to stop this 'big brother attitude' and find solutions to our problems.

Well said bro.It's high time we stop the big brother attitude if truly we are determined to attain development within our boundry before looking outside..!

iamdsam: You've said it all. You're so right.

Tnks boss...!

dedons: I returned and saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift,nor the battle to the strong,neither yet bread to the wise,nor yet riches to men of understanding,nor yet favour to men of skill;but time and chance happens to them all.

This is my time to be FIRST TO COMMENT.

you better rejoice with me so that your own time will also come.

CLICK LIKE if you believe that you'll achieve your near dreams before the end of this year.

Nice Quote but i dont need to CLICK LIKE before achieving my dreams as its already on my door step. GLORY BE TO GOD

May God help us all in this country called Nigeria!

vicoloni: I had refrained from joining any school of thought on Nigeria's political arena for many reasons but after reading this piece I am forced to express my utter disappointment and disgust in the way Mr. President is running the affairs of this great nation called Nigeria.
Even under military rule, Nigeria used to be much feared and respected by other African countries and most western states but what do we have today? Widespread disdain for anything Nigeria even among the ranks of its citizens.

In a saner society, the 'vote of no confidence' letter written by Mr. Obasanjo alone is more than enough to make a president resign!

My 10 cents!!

are you saying South Africa ignored Nigeria because of Jonathan? Wow! Mind you, this thread is not realy abt Nigeria (even if the topic says it is) but about the bigger and more significant Africa and its leadership.

Ojowanle: It’s amusing to see the same people who jailed Mandela several years ago falling over themselves to eulogise him at his death. This is not only because he showed in his life time that he is made of better material than all of them put together but also because we Africans allowed them to take centre stage.

Africans always allow Europeans and their American cousins to call the shots. It was Europeans who sent Mandela to jail and the same Europeans released him after he was considered more dangerous locked up than free.

They dismantled apartheid when it became an embarrassment to them.

Now they are the ones telling us Mandela’s life story and all the efforts other African countries, especially Nigeria, played to set him free have been carefully deleted from history.

A wise man once said, “history is merely a piece of fiction written by the Victors”.

When Mandela left prison a wiser and more matured man than when he was thrown into jail he confounded his captors who quickly switched gears and became his best friends.

On the other hand, a disappointed Mandela was hoping to find an independent Africa with progressive leadership but what he discovered was that most African countries were actually in a worse state than they were under colonial leadership when he went to jail.

It was only natural for him to become best friends with the same people who jailed him especially after he discovered that the economies of most African countries were still tied to the apron strings of their former colonial masters.

If Nelson Mandela died with any regrets it’s probably the fact that he was the only African leader that Europeans and Americans had any respect for.

Take for instance his memorial service where America’s president was given centre stage to read an eulogy. President Jonathan was at the same memorial service but no major media organisation acknowledged his presence.

Yeah, nobody acknowledged the presence of Goodluck Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria at Mandela’s memorial.
Nobody remembers that Nigeria spent millions of Dollars to support the African National Congress (ANC) members in exile.

It was Nigeria that led a successful boycott of the 1986 Commonwealth Games in protest against the attitude of the Thatcher led Conservative government to apartheid South Africa.

Nigerian passports were issued to opponents of the apartheid regime so that they could travel around the world and drum support for release of Nelson Mandela and dismantle apartheid when the South African government wouldn’t issue them passports.

For several years, Nigerian Civil Servants were contributing a part of their salaries to support the struggle against apartheid.

What we got paid in return is not appreciation but a complete airbrush from history and it’s not because Mandela and South Africans are ungrateful but because they are too ashamed to associate themselves with our leaders.

Mandela would sooner travel to a country where there is stable power supply and security; make friends with Clinton and Blair, who were held accountable to the people they governed, than hang around those who would treat him like a god while oppressing the people who elected them to office.

Mandela would rather associate himself with a country where a cabinet minister resigned over accusations he insulted Policemen on duty than hang around a President who refused to sack a minister facing legislative probe for spending $1.5 million dollars on bullet proof luxury cars.

Madiba avoided Africa because the state of affairs in so many African countries reminded him of how black South Africans were treated by white South African only worse because it’s now black Africans oppressing other black Africans.

When the tide turned around for Mandela, the organised western world – the same people who jailed him – made a decision to claim his legacy while his African brothers, who paid a price to get him freed, were busy tearing down the good work they built.

The same way he realised that the way forward for South Africa was forgiveness and reconciliation he also realised that the sensible thing to do was to fraternise with the people who jailed him and not the profligate and corruption ridden African leadership.

We pushed “our” Mandela back into the arms of his jailers even after he had been set free from a physical prison because he realised that African leaders may be parading themselves around in luxury cars and private jets but they were still ideologically imprisoned.

Since he didn’t want to go back to any kind of prison he aligned himself with those who put him in jail because they did not only set him free from a physical prison they also had the power to set him free from the ideological prison that other African leaders were still trapped in.

They are now the ones re-writing Mandela’s life story and thanks to our leaders our children will probably never know the role we played in setting him free from jail and South Africa from an evil political system.



- See more at: http://www.urnaija.com/nigeria-airbrushed-out-of-mandelas-life-story/

If it surprises you that the Western world now pays tribute to Mandela despite their earlier disposition then you did not understand what Obama meant when he said in his speech: it took a Madiba to liberate not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well. Mandela himself said he didn't give dignity to the black man, he gave dignity to the white man- there is no dignity in oppressing others. He taught people that there is darkness, not only in suffering injustice but also in being unjust; and he turned on the light for both alike. Ban Ki-Moon called him "one of our greatest teachers", and he did indeed have a lesson for everyone - black, white, world leader or citizen. If he has made disciples out of those that crucified him, that only attests to how convincing Mandela was as man through his convictions. People will always want to be part of something as profound as the Mandela legacy.

And Nigerians are not excluded. I know we like to believe that our contribution to the South African struggle was the coup de grace that ended Apartheid; and that by extension, South African's owe us their freedom, their allegiance, their souls but I think that it's in poor taste (bordering on shameless, even for us) to focus on that chapter of our collective history, at this time when we are all supposed to be honoring the life of Mandela at his passing. We didn't ask for recognition of our anti-apartheid efforts when he was released from 27 years of incarceration; perhaps that would have been a more auspicious time. We didn't ask to be recognized when he became President. But now, when 91 world leaders pay tribute to such a deserving man, Nigerians want to tell people how they are responsible for his success story. Have we no shame?

Never mind about who writes what, Mandela wrote his own story when his memory served him well. Nigeria was not forgotten after his long walk to freedom (just google Mandela Nigeria) and maybe if we had the decency to bear our own generosity in silence then our actions would have continued to be seen as acts of humanity in the face of gross injustice. But now we want to be identified as co-achievers of Mandela's legacy.

Johnathan didn't speak at the memorial service and Nigerian's felt slighted. Luckily for us, no one else in the world thought we had been slighted because, although they acknowledge our effort, no one else in the world believes our contributions to anti-apartheid were as earth-shattering and deserving of international accolade as we do. A stingy man hardly gives a dime, but when he does the whole world is going to know about it. Do we really have so little in our hearts to give, that we are fighting so hard to account for the bit we showed South Africa?

And now we criticize the South African Government for deporting Nigerian drug traffickers despite our anti-apartheid contributions? by doing so we are cheapening that involvement; where we would have deserved the benefit of doubt, we would now invite deeper scrutiny as to our motives, especially when set on a scale with the "Ghana must go" fiasco and the subjugation we suffer in our own country. That act of brotherhood now becomes a matter of convenience and politics.

It is in our DNA to be dominant, warranted or not, and that's a quality that does not endear us to our African brothers but we should remember the Good book says:"And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted' - Matt 23:12.

The people who spoke at "our Mandela's" memorial didn't come to "claim his legacy" (as if it were possible to do that!), they came to pay their respects and that's what we all should be doing. We should all rise above our need for self-glorification - this is not the time for that. Regarding the corruption that has ravished Nigeria, Mandela did voice his displeasure about that; but his disgust was for the people who allow bad government to thrive because it shows that even though we claimed to be sympathetic towards his cause, we did not even understand it. We do not understand that oppression is as much the fault of the oppressed as it is the fault of the oppressor; we do not understand the integrity of standing up for our convictions; We do not understand the difference one man, far from the corridors of power, can make in a nation if he is willing to sacrifice for freedom.

Raggedy_Ann:




If it surprises you that the Western world now pays tribute to Mandela despite their earlier disposition then you did not understand what Obama meant when he said in his speech: it took a Madiba to liberate not just the prisoner, but the jailer as well. Mandela himself said he didn't give dignity to the black man, he gave dignity to the white man- there is no dignity in oppressing others. He taught people that there is darkness, not only in suffering injustice but also in being unjust; and he turned on the light for both alike. Ban Ki-Moon called him "one of our greatest teachers", and he did indeed have a lesson for everyone - black, white, world leader or citizen. If he has made disciples out of those that crucified him, that only attests to how convincing Mandela was as man through his convictions. People will always want to be part of something as profound as the Mandela legacy.

And Nigerians are not excluded. I know we like to believe that our contribution to the South African struggle was the coup de grace that ended Apartheid; and that by extension, South African's owe us their freedom, their allegiance, their souls but I think that it's in poor taste (bordering on shameless, even for us) to focus on that chapter of our collective history, at this time when we are all supposed to be honoring the life of Mandela at his passing. We didn't ask for recognition of our anti-apartheid efforts when he was released from 27 years of incarceration; perhaps that would have been a more auspicious time. We didn't ask to be recognized when he became President. But now, when 91 world leaders pay tribute to such a deserving man, Nigerians want to tell people how they are responsible for his success story. Have we no shame?

Never mind about who writes what, Mandela wrote his own story when his memory served him well. Nigeria was not forgotten after his long walk to freedom (just google Mandela Nigeria) and maybe if we had the decency to bear our own generosity in silence then our actions would have continued to be seen as acts of humanity in the face of gross injustice. But now we want to be identified as co-achievers of Mandela's legacy.

Johnathan didn't speak at the memorial service and Nigerian's felt slighted. Luckily for us, no one else in the world thought we had been slighted because, although they acknowledge our effort, no one else in the world believes our contributions to anti-apartheid were as earth-shattering and deserving of international accolade as we do. A stingy man hardly gives a dime, but when he does the whole world is going to know about it. Do we really have so little in our hearts to give, that we are fighting so hard to account for the bit we showed South Africa?

And now we criticize the South African Government for deporting Nigerian drug traffickers despite our anti-apartheid contributions? by doing so we are cheapening that involvement; where we would have deserved the benefit of doubt, we would now invite deeper scrutiny as to our motives, especially when set on a scale with the "Ghana must go" fiasco and the subjugation we suffer in our own country. That act of brotherhood now becomes a matter of convenience and politics.

It is in our DNA to be dominant, warranted or not, and that's a quality that does not endear us to our African brothers but we should remember the Good book says:"And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted' - Matt 23:12.

The people who spoke at "our Mandela's" memorial didn't come to "claim his legacy" (as if it were possible to do that!), they came to pay their respects and that's what we all should be doing. We should all rise above our need for self-glorification - this is not the time for that. Regarding the corruption that has ravished Nigeria, Mandela did voice his displeasure about that; but his disgust was for the people who allow bad government to thrive because it shows that even though we claimed to be sympathetic towards his cause, we did not even understand it. We do not understand that oppression is as much the fault of the oppressed as it is the fault of the oppressor; we do not understand the integrity of standing up for our convictions; We do not understand the difference one man, far from the corridors of power, can make in a nation if he is willing to sacrifice for freedom.

Went through your posts. Lots i can learn from you. Following now.

ConquerAll: If I say I'm not greatly touched by this piece, then, I'm lying.

I'm not sure if the world can find any politician in this country called Nigeria they can accord their respect to. The only person I can think of is Abdulsalami Abubakar for his singular act of kowtowing to the yearnings of his people in 1999 (although, he left the treasury in ruin)

I really don't know what is wrong with Africa. Sometimes I conclude that this is how it was originally design to be. No wonder almost all share identical skin color, black.

I still strongly believe the problem is nothing but lack of LOVE for our fellow man.

Blacks are deficient of genuine love towards themselves.

Another one of these silly threads, what is with nigerians?