₦airaland Forum

Why advice doesn't work.

What you see outside looking in isn't what you see inside looking out.

Why.

Your emotions influence what you see inside looking out.

You don't see the same thing.

Those looking outside in aren't distorted by the emotional lens.

Ain't the same thing. Paul Portesi

Obi By: Sam Omatseye

Suddenly, it is all quiet on the eastern front. No street heckles or flag waving or mooning over a yellow sun, no hooting or baying in public. The rabble no longer raves. Few wonder what happened to the Nnamdi Kanu crowd. Some may wonder if they are withering?

The answer is before our eyes. The Biafran babblers are alive and well. They just swapped icons, rechristened the shrines and rewrote the rites. They left the prophet for a secular priest. They have had a switch of battle gear.

Maybe it is not quiet. We can hear and feel the cacophony. The chants and caterwauling are everywhere, especially on the phones. The twitter bees, the Instagram grimes, the Facebook freaks. They are alive and well, but they have not been at war at the side of their icon, who is griping in detention.

It’s farewell Kanu. Welcome Obi, at least until the new priest peters out. They are at his worship. They embrace it because it does not, for the first time in years, feel like they are outside the mainstream. They are not falling foul of the law, not howling from the fringes. They have Peter Obi as their man. He is mainstream. He belongs, not to the MASSOB, or Kanu’s assembly called IPOB. They can say they have a legitimate tribe and rhetoric. They may pretend to love Nigeria. They may claim to embrace INEC, cling to a political party no one in the police or DSS will harangue.

But that is where it stops. They have transferred the temperament of their former master into the new. And they have not spared any incoherence, any lack of finesse, and threats and tantrums, any show of rabid, primitive cants, or any ululations. They have abused, cursed, thrown imprecations. They have hugged lies about their candidate. They have pelted lies about others. They have distorted material.

Obi has turned out to be an excuse for even closet Biafrans to betray open emotions about Biafra without being accused of it. This includes intellectuals who did not show mercy to him while he reigned in Anambra as a pharisaic chief executive. It is like wearing a colour beneath another colour. Obi has become a shelter for both miscreants and activists of the crowd.

Obi knows this. He is happy to be their catharsis, to be their excuse for unfurling their bile at the system, for acting like revolutionaries. He is playing to it by acting as though he is the saint of Nigerian politics. Perhaps the purists of the Biafran cause are unhappy, and they unleashed a past video clip of Kanu on the social media. In it, Kanu lashes out at Obi as governor and stated what this essayist wrote about him over building a NEXT supermarket while still the governor of Anambra State. The video clip referred to him as a sort of sexual being on the fringe. You can imagine an Aso Rock sweltering with romps of the evil flesh. His so-called Obidients know this. But it counts for little.

They also know that this is the same Obi, whose emissaries were intercepted, while a governor at Apapa, by then police chief Marvel Akpoyibo with over 200 million cash. The matter became a cause celebre with impeachment dangling until the timid state house of assembly was on the take. This is the man they call stingy because he dared to spend on himself and his family, his wife being accused of spending N1.5 billion on tours. The man that admitted he placed Anambra money in his family account, and was not ashamed to confess when confronted. He did not follow due process. This is the man who is speaking from both sides of his mouth for maintaining an offshore account while a governor. This is Obi, who claimed he saved money, while pensioners were looking desperately at their graves.

I can excuse those who think that being stingy is good for the economy because they are looking at how they run their family and personal finances. But no economy works in history by saving money. It stifles the economy. He has not been able to tell us how he will do it, and whether he has done it. We have no landmark in Anambra State to attribute to him, no enduring legacy.

But this essayist can understand why Obi knows that the crowd that adores him will not question him. He is therefore using religion as a bait. He is now on a weekly pilgrimage to churches. Jonathan did the same. The pastors, ever opportunistic, see him as a darling. He is visiting a sectional hue of pews. This is the man who divided the church in Anambra State in his time between Catholics and the others. He is trying to push himself as the Christian candidate of the south while his messengers foul the air with sanctimonious growl about Muslim-Muslim ticket. I am sure Kanu will chuckle in his cocoon, especially when he contemplates what he alleges as his sinful romps in hotels.

There is a divide here. He is pushing himself as a southern candidate. His core followers are advancing him as the Igbo candidate. But how do we reconcile the Biafran with an Obi, who even MASSOB, has denied has anything to do with them? Obi is taking a Machiavellian attitude to the matter. If Biafran impulse will propel him, he will take it. The Biafrans on board believe Obi is their best revenge on the Nigerian state. They can take over the zoo by acting as members of the zoo.

But this psychology is nothing new. The private man and public man may not always cohere. In their huts, they are Biafrans. On the frontlines of battle, they are Obi. It is like Mr. Mani in A.B. Yehoshua’s novel who calls himself a Jew but does not believe in Jehovah. He embraces the culture but renounces its mystery. One of 20th century’s top philosophers, Hannah Arendt, obsesses over this schizophrenia in his opus, The Origins of Totalitarianism. The Obi followers accept Biafra but reject Nigeria. They abandon the mystic of the cause, Nnamdi Kanu, and have followed Obi, its inauthentic saint. It is the pragmatism of the cause. Kanu is the unarmed prophet, sulking behind bars. Obi is out in the open, a bird in hand. Machiavelli warned against the unarmed prophet, who fights without power. Elijah was armed against his foes. So was Jesus until he was crucified. They see Obi as armed with electoral quest. It is their own version of the Trojan War. Obi is the Greek Gift that they will ride in the battle for conquest.

They have now evangelised others from outside the southeast to give a regional legitimacy to their cause. They call themselves Obidients but they obey only one call: the sound of the east. Those in south-south have been seduced as by the cooing of Obi’s voice as by evangelism of the Biafrans. Mind you, they have not abandoned Kanu. But their icon has no power for now. Obi is like Zik, Kanu like Ojukwu. One is a flair, the other a flare.

While Obi hops from church to church and beclouds the hypocrisy among political pastors, the nation watches as his sectional army taunts and harangues others. But Obi will do nothing to restrain his rabble because he knows they are doing a good job in keeping the faithful within their own bubble where they reinforce their own self-delusions. That will last until their last call at the polls. This is not the time to properly interrogate in details the false intimations of Obi’s agenda and hypocrisies. But it is safe to say one thing. Before he peters out and hurtles towards an electoral Obi, the country knows the content of the crowd and its origin. They are a caterwauling group trying to seduce, without much success, those outside its ethno-religious tent.

Peter Obi is still an apprentice in governance, too immature, inexperienced and doesn't have close to the wherewithal to handle presidency - Gov Ifeanyi Okowa

Onyemair

Roma reach agreement with Andrea Belotti. cc Airmark

Chelsea are interested in signing Brighton’s Marc Cucurella after talks stalled with Man City. Chelsea have discussed internally the idea of a swap-deal.

~
@Nathan_Gissing

For those saying Haaland didn't make good runs watch this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yr9IuPm8DQ4

THE pan-Yoruba socio- organisation, Afenifere, has urged Nigerians to disregard information from any social media account claiming to belong to Pa Ayo Adebanjo.

The organisation’s National Publicity Secretary, Jare Ajayi, said in a statement on Sunday that the Twitter account which some electronic and online media quoted from did not belong to Adebanjo or any of the Afenifere leaders.

“It is hereby being clearly stated that Chief Adebanjo has no social media account of any sort, be it Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

“Whenever he has anything to say to the public, he does so directly by addressing the press, through an interview or a press statement. He also addresses the public through the Secretary General or the National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere,” Ajayi said.
The statement added that the social media account was created by mischievous persons for nefarious objectives, as could be gleaned from one of the posts purporting to explain why Adebanjo is supporting Mr. Peter Obi in the forthcoming presidential election in 2023 instead of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, a Yoruba man.
Ajayi quoted Adebanjo as saying that his support for Obi is “more fundamental and constitutional than the reason being purported in the spurious social media account” under reference.

“In view of the fact that Adebanjo usually speaks directly with the press, both print and electronic, any information purporting to have emanated from the said ‘social media account’ should be totally disregarded because he has no such account in any form or manner,” Ajayi said.
He added, “Since the elder statesman does not have any social media accounts, whatever is found in the Twitter account could not be said to have come from him. He has no such accounts as he speaks directly to the media or causes his views to be channelled to the public via the organisation’s Secretary General or the National Publicity Secretary.

“The media and members of the public are hereby enjoined to disregard any statement purported to have been sourced from Pa Adebanjo’s social media account because he has none.”

I am impressed with what I have seen of Sesko I think Chelsea should sign him and loan him back to Salzburg to further his development, the boy is technically good and fast for his size but he needs game time to fully develop into the finished product.

Citizen Journalism

Nigeria is the Most Valuable Nation brand in Africa, according to the 2021 Nation Brands report.

Nigeria is placed 38th in the world while Egypt and South Africa are 45th and 50th.

#StatiSense

Oasis007:
Let this be on record here as well.....!

Dude has deleted the tweet and claimed he is being misconstrued.

JUST IN: Intelligence Operatives reportedly arrest 4 Informants behind Kuje Prison Attack & Recent Attacks in Abuja, FCT. Weapons, Walkie-Talkies, Old Chinese made phones without data connections were also recovered. PRNigeria reports.

I won't mind Chelsea doing the unthinkable by getting De Bruyne the guy seems troubled by Pep's treatment of him.

Switches of play down the sides of Man City’s defensive structure.This is a weakness that LFC consistently looked to exploit during the Community Shield. Cancelo & Walker can switch off positionally and neither Mahrez or Grealish are diligent trackers.Klopp knew the correct plan. Premier League Panel

DissTroy:
While the halfwitted Shekau-lite was on this thread defending Fulani herdsmen and whitewashing them, the same herdsmen went on a murdering spree killing policemen and vigilantes, invading farms and wrecking havoc yesterday:

https://www.nairaland.com/7255542/suspected-bandits-kill-three-kogi .

I'm not whitewashing anything I offered a solution to an existing problem and gave reasons for some of the failures we've recorded, due to your preconceived notions about my person you went about misconstruing my viewpoints. Name-calling won't obscure the fact that you aren't as smart as you're portraying yourself, there's more to the crises than you'd like to believe so I will allow you to bask in your ignorance.
For instance in 2016 or so in my hometown two persons were attacked by cattle traders when they went to buy cattle immediately this caused an outrage in the town and some started attacking innocent Fulanis who knew nothing about the issue, then investigation was launched to ascertain the truth of the matter it was discovered that the traders were buying rustled cattle for cheap in the bush while bringing same to sell. The owners of the cattle got to know that this is what's going and set a trap for the buyers of their rustled cattle, unfortunately the man who was buying the stolen cattle didn't come on the fateful day of attack he sent his salesmen to purchase the cattle at an agreed location on getting there his men were busted by the owners one of them was able to escape out of two but the other was badly injured due to stab wounds and he died afterwards.
Some of the locals who weren't aware of this background information went ahead and started attacking Fulanis they even went ahead to attack them in their settlements, then reprisals followed too. It was the intervention from the paramount ruler of my town that brought about peace.
Also, I remember mentioning that a relation of mine was kidnapped and the mastermind behind it was her driver, so when I speak on some of the things I speak about i do so from the position of knowledge and insight. Of course there are exceptions to my narration but the issue of kidnapping and other associated crimes is not what we are meant to believe by the media.

Haaland made some good runs that were ignored by his teammates De Bruyne and Grealish in particular were culpable though he was match rusty but he timed his runs well.

According to Dean Jones, Jamie Vardy is being discussed as a ‘last-minute’ option by Chelsea this summer.

{Chasing Green Arrows YT channel}

Klopp has a method of penetrating Man City & it’s based heavily on switching play over the top of Man City’s defensive structure instead of going thru it.KDB & his wide men won’t necessarily track back quickly into wide areas.Thiago & Trent are masters of playing those switches. Premier League Panel

OG rigger who should spend the rest of his life doing acts of kindness and Charity so that perhaps he may be granted pardon for all his wrongdoings in the past is also partaking in act that could dent his hopes of getting pardon by engaging in slander and muckraking.

In Hillary Clinton's voice, "Basket of Deplorables" are on the prowl again. When you know what you know you need not need to convince naysayers, let the curse you place on slanderers do the needful.

OkpaNsukkaisBae:
Oga Amoto94...pls educate me. Apart from Benue state , which other northern states rejected RUGA?....DID ZAMFARA state reject RUGA? Literally you're trying to spin & absolve the government of incompetence.... RUGA or no RUGA... PMB is a failure. Home & abroad he failed.

OK.

GloriousGbola:
I am happy they blocked ruga. Fulani that have no regard for their fellow northerners and fellow Muslims, in a government backed program that gives them land and access in infidel, Southerner territory?

For all we know it was also fulanis that were behind that ondo massacre. Maybe the BBC will also investigate that and then we can hear how they are again glorifying terrorists

I hope Buhari continues along this line of madness. Maybe when they stop allowing him to come to UK for treatment his head will clear.

Read up on sendero luminoso and Tupac amaru. These were revolutionaries threatening Peru. The then president alberto fujimori, dealt with them and shut them down. Tupac amaru went as far as to storm a Christmas party and take several diplomats hostage. They were still beaten.

But when you do not even want to listen to the truth but to scyhopants who tell you Nigeria is fine, where do you even start?

Herders are everywhere herding for locals as well as for themselves we may not like to hear it but the truth is in some instances the owners of the cattle they're herding who are locals provide them with weapons to secure their investments from rustlers which in turn some of them use to commit crimes. Whether we like it or not they're stakeholders in animal production and we should work with their leadership to address some of the challenges they posed to others as well as themselves, a negotiated peace no matter how imbalance it may appear is better than no peace.
On the Ondo issue I think ISWAP is responsible which is very plausible because there are ISWAP cells in Kogi and knowing the proximity of Ondo to Kogi they can easily attack, it is Yahaya Bello that's keeping them (ISWAP) at bay in Kogi.
I don't think the president is shielding them because he's ordered that they should be dealt with and operations are ongoing but how far have they gone is what I don't know. One of PMB shortcomings is the fact that he trusts people easily which is not a bad thing in an ideal situation, due to this several people are taking advantage of his trust on them thereby abusing it.

There are several whitepaper reports detailing farmers/herders crises since the creation of this country and recommendations were made on how to mitigate against them. RUGA was supposed to address some of the solutions but it was shutdown by negative press and fed govt had to backtrack and asked states to decide.

On the issue of ransom payment no government will agree that they pay ransom to free hostages but they do pay because when you are in a position of weakness you negotiate, no person will want his/her family member to be lost during a rescue mission which makes the matter more complicated. Blueyraydick I will like to ask you a question God forbid if any member of your family is in the hands of kidnappers alongside others will you like them to be used as a bait to free others?
Anybody who said the authorities don't know the whereabouts of some of these people is not truthful or doesn't his/her work. There are intels detailing the movements and whereabouts of those people but bureaucracy sometimes gets in the way of operation and the bad guys are taking advantage coupled with saboteurs in the system.
el-Rufai had to remind PMB that he was threatened by terrorists because he was unaware, during a discussion with at work yesterday I related it to someone who was close to Abacha govt he said that Abacha news was filtered as well so he isn't surprised, GEJ complained several times that he was unaware of some issues though we mocked him but that was his reality.

School Accountant position in Abuja

BlueRayDick:
Kadaria is wrong on this one. How did the BBC video propagate terror? In fact, the documentary opened the eyes of some of us to what exactly is going on the Northwest particularly zamfara.

Ordinarily most people in the south do not know it's a conflict between the Fulani's and Hausas that has degenerated to what is being referred to as banditry. The video also exposed the lack of will power on the part of government to find a lasting solution to what has now become a big issue for almost everybody now ( not just Northerners anymore)

A serious government should be looking at how to address some of the issues revealed by the documentary. For example the case of where a man lost his son while he came to pick up his kidnapped dauther that has just returned ; one would think the goverment of the state will learn that going forward the emotions of Ur people should be well managed. You don't start sitting for hours doing political nonsense while the children and their parents are longing to hug and hold each other's hands for as long as possible. The government is expected to apologize for the incident and if possible put a stop to such political jamboree in the future that can lead to flying emotions on the part of the people.

By the way, Aljazeera and other international news agencies from time to time meet terrorists and interview them.

Will BBC report the story in the same manner if it were to be in UK? She cited an example of IRA and how the media covered them in UK, they could have done a better job by blurring the faces of some of them, and edit certain parts out.
That AlJazeera and others are granting air-time to terror groups doesn't make it right, in fact it was when I watched one of al-Qaeda propaganda documentary on AlJazeera that's how I stopped taking them serious because you can't tell me you're just doing your work if there isn't any strong links between you and the group.
Those who are acquainted with the herders farmers crises know that it is what snowballed into a full-blown carnage because of leadership failure in addressing the crises, BBC added an oxygen to a fire and it's intentional. Now nobody is talking about solution but the ethnicization of the issue as both Hausas and Fulanis on social media have started having a go at each other.
Desertification, urbanisation and the attendant consequences are from the major factors driving the crises but instead of tackling the root cause and providing adequate security and enacting law and order we are being sensational.

Sterling used in a central role, collecting the ball in deeper spaces to connect attacks. You can’t do that with someone like Werner because the technical level is too low.Elite team attacks need a base level of technical security.Chelsea should add more of it. That man is Depay. Premier League Panel