₦airaland Forum

This is an old article written in 2004.
I wonder in the light of each ethnic supremacy claim on one another if it still holds.


The Father Of All Nigerian Ethnic Groups
By
Farouk Martins
Omo Aresa
faroukomartins@netscape.net


It is very interesting that most of the Ethnic groups claim association to the Nile Valley, somewhere in Sudan, Egypt etc. but no association to one another in Nigeria. On their way from or to Egypt through what we now know as Nigeria, these Ethnic groups never met? Usually, they were each King or Queen, first lady. Who were their subjects? It may remind you of most of our parents who always took first in their classes when they were students. Who came second?

Africans are great sojourners, and they left their genetic traits all over the world. Please see YORUBA WORLD EXPLORATION AND THE LOSS OF DYNASTIES. If Africans were in Australia before the time of Christ, in America before Columbus and spread all over great distances, we should wonder why they never knew or had anything to do with one another until the British created NIGERIA!

Apart from the article mentioned above, I also relied on an article by Sola Omole on the Ijaw, another by the Ijaw Nation. Of course, I also depend on different histories of the Ethnic groups. However, I must admit that many are just like blind men describing an elephant we call Nigeria. Each was about its group but not how it relates to Nigeria, the giant of Africa.

Nigerians talk about relatives in Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal etc. The distance between Maiduguri and Lagos is not as long as that between Nigeria and Australia, yet Nigerians deny each other at home. Ghana, Mali, Songhay Empires were not formed based on Ethnic groups because some of the Empires were bigger than Nigeria. Ibadan, here at home, was built as a cosmopolitan City made up of variety of people.

The people were around the same place from the beginning of time, and traded with one another before the British came. The Europeans heard about ancient civilization trading in gold, they named one place Gold Coast. They heard about Ivory and named another place Ivory Coast. They heard about Ile-Ife Arts and Sculpture - they thought they found lost civilization of Atlantis. They marveled at Benin Bronze; they heard stories of handsome skilful men and women with mystical power; and drugs that can cure many diseases. They discover aspirin, antibiotics and ancient form of writings on the body and tablets. At the same time, they dreaded the diseases of mosquitoes and tsetse flies, sparing us of earlier domination.

Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, 1st Century B.C, credited the Ethiopians (name for Blacks) as the first of all men created by gods, as founders of civilization and religion in Egypt imported to Greece.

Nigeria is just a “geographical expression” and 1914 are always in the papers and books written by many Nigerians. Awolowo is always credited with the former. It does not mean that he did not believe in one Nigeria, otherwise he would not have campaigned from the South to the North for the Prime Minister of Nigeria. Actually, Ahmadu Bello could have preferred that he stayed put in the South. We now have scholars from the North who actively support one Nigeria, while some in the South are going the other way. In Nigeria, we call that progress!

Sometimes, I wonder what difference it would have made if the Europeans divided Africa in slices north and south or in slices east and west. Most of the Ethnic groups have relatives across Africa east and west, and the same north and south. Could it have been a better Country that way? The so called main Ethnic groups with their relatives across West Africa could have formed one Country. I am sure nobody thinks that could have solved African problem.

Nkrumah, a man before his time, wanted a united African Country. Tafawa Balewa dismissed it as taking independence from the British only to surrender it to Nkrumah. Only Zik cried out loud when Ghanaians were thrown out of Nigeria in early eighties. Lately, the South Africans rejected free African movement for fear of Nigerians dominating their Country, as we did in Ghana in the sixties. When the East African were kicking out the Europeans, they were asked who would replace the educated labor force. Nigerians, they answered. They were warned – Nigerians were worse exploiters than the British! Some Nigerians, thinking about our politicians, may agree.

The difference between Hutu and Tutsi has to do with one being town boy and another country boy. The Somalis are from the same family with the same language, it is still not a peaceful Africa. After the war in Nigeria, the Ethnic groups have fragmented further, even more so in the south. There was an article I red, “My People are killing My People”, about the fight between close relatives – Ijaw, Itsekiri and the Urhobo youths. Or between Aguleri and Umuleri, or Ife and Modakeke or Fulani and Jakun, Tiv or Yelwa and Shendam. I have not added those between Sunni and Shiite, Moslems and Christians over foreign religions. Africans, calling one another unbeliever of foreign indoctrination.

There are autochthonous Africans in Nigeria, no doubt. I also believe these Africans especially in the rain forest are more or less the same in everything. Those in the northern part of Africa or our Country are so close that our origins can not be different. Since one of the oldest human is dated around Lake Chad, how much distance is that to the sea that man could not have sojourned to?

No Ethnic groups deny each other more than the Igbo and the Yoruba. I am totally dismayed when I listen to young men and women who were not born during the political days of Bello, Awo and Zik trade insult as if they were there. Who passed personal prejudice to them? Check out their internet chart sites, it is full of hatred. When I pointed this out to some of my friends, they ignored it since most people stuck to their favorite sites. Some of the comments about our brothers from the North or vice versa are just as caustic. It boils down to ignorance. It is almost a conspiracy – they fear you may know one another as the children of the same father!

The Yoruba, a combination of OYO and OBA from Ife, has been known as YOBA well before the time of Christ in the Nile Valley and later, as far as Papua Guinea. They refused to be converted to later religions like Christianity and Moslem. The same is true about Oba Koso, King of Shango in Kush from the holy City of Ile-Ife - This was written in Coptic text, published in Paris in 1666.

Oduduwa has been thrown into question even within Yoruba and their close relatives in Ijebu and Benin. Fortunately, this ancient icon before Christ is not only known among the Yoruba as Adamu but among our own Ijaw and in Diaspora, during ancient time.

Each Ethnic group in Nigeria has translations for Yoruba and Oduduwa. Does that mean that these Ethnics groups have been in contact with one another as brothers and not willing to admit it? Since migrations happened in waves, those who came first might have recognized those who followed.

I can not fault Chukwu Eke interpretation of history. Indeed we may agree in more areas than disagree. The Igbo of the Southwest may be the same Igbo of the Southeast. I will also add the Northern part of the Country. These people were not known as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo, Urhobo, Ijaw or Efik. They existed as one people moving freely in Nigeria and in neighboring Countries.

The Igbo also claimed affinity with the Nile Valley. They knew the Yoruba well as they claim they were the original inhabitants of the present western part. But Oba Mafimisebi, the Olugbo of Ugbo claimed they were the original inhabitants. After pestering the Yoruba, the Igbo fell in love with Moremi who gave out the secrete that dislodged them. According to Chukwu, the Yoruba called them Igbo (bush people) and in retaliation, Igbo called them Yoruba (Oyo oru Oba) that is “Oyo, slaves of Oba”. He also has a translation for Oduduwa, “Nkaa bu onye odudu wa or Nkka bu Odu wa”, that is their leader. Here, we part.

Phillip Emeagwali also gave a convincing relationship between Yoruba and Igbo. The Igbo had no king but the Yoruba relatives had Obi. He also pointed to a lost Yoruba dialect, Olukwumu spoken in Anioma, Idumu-ogu,Ubulubu, Ugboba and Ukwuzu. This dialect is still spoken in Brazil and Cuba. Onitsha could have come from Orisha. Orisha is still worshiped in Diaspora. I remember how mad some Igbo were that a man of his status would even dabble into such things. I am not surprise, I am a mere mortal and my friends laugh at me when I bring it up too. But it is not new, I heard it among my friends in the fifties - boasting as the real Ibo vs. the YorubaIbo.

I think once people realize that we are not selling out one group for another, education may overcome prejudices. There are only one related autochthonous people in the rain forest, differentiated by sojourners coming in waves from outside.

It took me a while to accept the link between linguistic and people because one can find any word and link it up. Is Ijebu-Igbo a Yoruba town, or Igbo people? Is alligator called oba by Igbo the name of a king? Even Obi has its own Igbo meaning: court house. But how does court house become a king? The similarity in meaning among us only points to common ancestor speaking the same language at certain point in time.


All I am stating is that there is a convincing link between the people of Nigeria. Herodotus 490-425 B.C described the scarification mark on the forehead of the blacks he saw in Egypt. We also know that it took a combined army of the Arabs to drive out the Africans, “sharp shooters of the eye”, out of ancient Iraq in those days. These Africans were not known as Igala, Kanuri, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Ijaw or Efik. Anyone interested can pursue this further. Research is easier now than in my own days as a student.

The Hausa claimed that the Yoruba were one of the illegitimate children of Bawo from a different mother. They founded or ruled additional kingdoms of Zamfara, Kebbi, Nupe, Gwari, Yauri, Yoruba and Kororofa after they left Egypt. They claimed that Yoruba was the name they gave the people of the Southwest.

However, the Yoruba in name and religion were known in the Nile Valley and between the Arabs as unbeliever of their religion before the Hausa met them again in Nigeria. I would say they recognize their cousins again during another wave of migration. What can not be denied though is the relationship of both the Hausa and Yoruba to the Sudanese in terms of facial marks.

An article by Ibrahim Waziri on - The Unhappy Marriage of a Quadruple - described the mixture of people in the North with other so called Ethnic groups in Nigeria. Even though he is from the Saifawa dynasty that opposed the Jihaad of Usman Danfodio, like most Northerners, he has Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba etc in him.

Some Ijebu claimed that they were neither Yoruba nor part of Oduduwa dynasty. The Oba of Benin recently brought out a novel claim about Oduduwa as a lost Prince of the last Ogiso. Indeed, the Edo claimed they are the father of most southern Ethnic group. But the Ogiso and the Oba met the autochthonous people, Oru, Efa and Ijaw in Benin.

Professor Obayemi researched eight Ile-Ife, and we know at least two Oyo including the present location. The Yoruba, coming from or to Ife, passed through Borgu, Nupe in the North and the Nile Valley. These were the Cities that were documented; there must be others in between them unmentioned.

The Ijaw went through the same route through Borgu, Beni, Nupe, Ile- Ife, present Benin before spreading to the delta region.

Do all these parts of an elephant belong to the same animal?

If all these groups are the same, they should speak the same language or may be in different dialects and have the same ancestors. I think they all do.

ARCHEOLOGY: The best tools we have are the discovery made in Nigeria in spite of wet acidic soil that is not good for preservation. A relative comparison of discoveries inside and outside of Nigeria can be convincing evidence of our ancient civilization:

Iwo Eleru – 10,000 B.C Between Akure and present Ile-Ife
Nubia culture - 10,000 B.C
Indian culture - 6,000 B.C
Dafuna Canoe near Yobe dated 8,000 years old compared to oldest
Egyptian boat 5,000 yrs old
China culture - 3,000 – 2,200 B.C
Malenician and South Pacific Hawaii – 2,000 B.C
Olmec Mexico- 1,100 B.C
Igbo Ukwu - 10 AD In the heart of Igbo land

I have left out many Yoruba, Igbo and Benin Arts paraded around the world exhibiting African craft before our Asian and European neighbors caught on to our civilization.

The history of the Ijaw by the Ijaw is not that different from that written by Sola Omole. It links all the Ehtnics groups in the south one way or another. This is important because it collaborate our history beyond Nigeria with our relatives in Africa.

Ile-Ife is a common factor in the history of southern Ethnic groups. Other places, as indicated, are Borgu, Bassa, Nupe and Beni/Benin. The first wave came to Nigeria through the same Borgu, Nupe, Ile-Ife and Benin. The Ijaw spread to the delta region from present Benin.

Oduduwa/Adimu/Adumu/Adum. He created a dynasty before the time of Christ in more than one Ile-Ife. One of his descendants was Ujo, a Prince of Ijaw who ruled over the delta, even on his way back to Ife as he got lost. The Ijaw are familiar with Ogiso in Benin as some left Benin when the Ogiso arrived from the same part through Ife. They also know the last Prince of Ogiso Kaladiran/ Ekalederhan who fled before (or after?) Oranmiyan arrived from the Ife. The Benin are very proud of the Oba era but our history began well before that period.

Even the Ijaw met Autochthonous African in Nigeria and were able to rule over them or moved on. They were ORU who met Nigerians before they become Igbo, Hausa, Ibibio, Ijaw, Yoruba, Igala, Tapa etc. The Kumoni who may or may not be the ORU also came. So were the Bantu, Efa, and others.

In Yoruba land the OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO AND ORU became the son of the soil.

In Igbo land the UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA and BANTU became the son of the soil.

In Benin land the OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA became son of the soil.

In Hausa land the ORU and HAUSA and OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO became the son of the soil.

The Itsekiri are a mixture of OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA.

The Urhobo are a mixture of ORU and EFA and OYELABO/UGBO/IGBO

All Nigerians are a mixture of autochthonous people, ORU and other so called Ethnic groups in different mixture giving rise to different languages/dialects adapting to different environmental stimuli.

How dare?

I blew your cover, man! Aborigines of Australia are your cousins, black Americans are your brothers, West Indians are your men. How are you related to them?
However, the ones you live in the same Country with are unknown and unrelated to you.

I was once a professional student in Toronto in the seventies when Stokely Carmichael, American Civil Right activist, came to University of Toronto or York University. One of the student said he was not an African. So Stokely asked him where he came from. He said Trinidad. (Stokely was born in Trinidad). The student said all the Africans died in the sea before reaching the shore. Stokely said he must be a seaman. As we were laughing, Stokely did not find it funny that such ignorant statement came from a student. He told the student that Trinidad was not a Country but a sugarcane plantation. We laughed louder.

Many of the Nigerian Ethnic groups in general and in the southern part in particular are familiar with the ORU people that many of us have ignored for centuries. In many of our villages they retain that name. Some of them have been relegated to the position of slave or ERU or OSU whenever they can be dominated. The same people created dynasties all over Africa and ruled over the autochthonous Africans they met in other places.

Oduduwa was born in Ife by marriage between OOYELAGBO and ORU. He sojourned north and south of Africa creating dynasties until he was overthrown and came back home. He was known in the Nile Valley as Adum, in Nigeria as Adimu/Adumu and among the Ooyelagbo as Oduduwa. The Yoruba are a good example of how we mix in Nigeria.

If this is the case, why can’t we live in peace in any part of Nigeria? Or in Africa?

Animal Behaviorist and Psychologists teach us that you can only have so many mice in a pen. Two will get along fine, especially a male and a female. As the number increases, discomfort and problem start. I will try to examine this in the future. Some of us are claimers of two states, one leg in each state. One leg (h)as an indigene, another leg (h)as a citizen. If you mix that up with land, son of the soil, off/on/in/out shore resources, wahala starts.

Most of us realize that resources can not keep us together and must not separate us. It is not the resources you have that matters, it is how much it commands in the market. Think! If I buy fresh fish for 50.00 naira, package it, and sell it as sardine to you for 150.00 naira. Add 50.00 naira for taxes, shipping and delivery. Replace fresh fish with raw gold, you get the same result. That is 200.00 naira. My brother, you are left poorer than when you started. As poor as Ghana, the Gold Coast.

Take another hint. How much was oil before the cartel and how much is cocoa now?
In order to conserve energy, many countries imposed heavy tax on oil, like tax on cigarettes. These Governments make more on taxes than they make on the bare products. Not in Nigeria, please!

I hope I have created enough doubt in the minds of none believers of Autochthonous people of Nigeria. Ironically, those with ulterior motives will never be moved. More research is needed to bring these people in us to light.

http://www.gamji.com/article5000/NEWS5174.htm

My gosh, Fulani wannabes have taken to their heels. May God save our Hausa brothers from bondage of the Moroccans that destroyed the last African Empire of Songhai and the Libyans that continue their victimization of Africans today as the Christians continue to squeeze Africa economically.

Amen in the name of Jesus and Mohamed SAW!

Ojiofor:
They are not complaining,in fact they are happy with their masters.Mind your business op.

The first time I saw this article, I know the author will get banged from all sides. But the one that got me cracking and laughing was the above quote.

I do not know how old the guy who thought Hausa never killed their brothers for being kaferi is. He needs to go back home and ask. Hausa are very indigenous to Nigeria. It is the Fulani that are not.

Believe it or not, until the Hausa are free from the religious trance Fulani put them in, they will continue to see their Nigerian brothers and sister from the religious lens Fulani got them into. Think about the causes of most religious riots and killings in the North.

Southerners must embrace their brother and free them from Fulani choke-hold. It's got nothing to do with dividing the North. North has never been one as political expediency would like to claim.

By the way, that quote up there reminds me of what they say about slavery during the fight for abolition.

So the Hausa have more schools graduates, more hospitals, less infant mortalities and famine than the Niger Delta?

Hausa Are The Most Marginalized Nigerians
November 25, 2017

If you want to tame, culture and shape humans to submit to your culture blindly, you come as explorers, then as missionaries to show them the path to heaven and finally colonize them for political and economic gain. It works all the time, in Africa Nkrumah called it colonialism to Neo-. Once people are gripped by religion, they are ready to kill for converts. Otherwise there would be no Crusade or Jihad. Hausa are still religious zealots of Usman Dan Fodio after all the years.

If faith preachers cannot wait to get to heaven before they live in luxury on your tithes, why should you? Religious houses in every street, cramming the Koran, Bible and incarnation from our pastors, imams and babalawo are drugs on faith that cannot produce a pin, feed our hungry bellies or change water into wine. It creates jobs and wealth for those exploiting our delusions, misery, faith and hope that one day salvation would come or when we get to heaven.

Throughout the history of Nigeria, Hausa/Fulani wannabes have ruled more than other ethnic groups but their folks are the least beneficiary of basic needs. Hausa, the descendants of kings of African Empires are a good example of how radical religions stunted advancement. The good intention of Federal Character was to make sure that every area is ameliorated by national income and Federal presence. However, Federal Character has been hijacked by the privileged and the elite politicians to secure pieces of the pie for one another instead of infrastructure.

Read Also : BUHARI: Does he deserve an automatic ticket?
The Southerners, if the current trend of glorified pastors, imams and Voodoo men continue, are just becoming as hooked on faith as Northern Muslims. There are pastors and imams raising the dead, predicting calamity and threatening the end of the world until they establish churches and mosques on every street where tithes can easily flow into their pockets. Their believers are so overcome by persona, they are in the early stages of charlatanry as the Hausa or Kanuri boko haram in search of converts from houses on every street to establish their business centers.

Despite leadership from the North, the Hausa remained the most marginalized based on past history with the Fulani that captured their City States and replaced their Emirs with only those that can demonstrate their Fulani blood. Unfortunately, the obvious exclusion of real Hausa has gone beyond religious power and made it into political power. The hierarchy established by Usman Dan Fodio radical Islam replaced prior established Muslim and their indigenous beliefs.

Islam was not new to the Hausa, Dan Fodio brought his radicalized version displacing the one he met and more important, suppressing Hausa indigenous religion. Therefore, no head of State from the Northern part of Nigeria would be accepted without following the established hierarchy of the Fulani blood. Indeed, when he took over, General Gowon, a tactically chosen Christian, assured the Fulani indirectly by reminding them this was a Northerner in charge.

Ironically, Gowon from the Middle Belt is not even a Fulani or an Hausa but like General Banbangida and those without Fulani blood like Gen. Abacha and Abubakar that led after him, they had to preserve the legacy of Fulani blood in their appointments. While Southerners decried the lack of Federal Character in appointments, Northerners did not care since they have to answer to established norm prevailing after the Hausa lost their City States to Dan Fodio.

One would expect the Hausa to be better off than the rest of the ethnic groups in the North or South but not even the Federal Character could save them from Fulani religious hierarchy. The amount of funds supporting Federal Character individually deprived most communities of basic infrastructure. They end up as talikawa and some as beggars all over the Country.

The Southerners now have their own Dan Fodio competition in the miracles of pastors, imams and Voodoo men. Before pastors, imams and medicine men established themselves as the only way to salvation and the means of acquiring wisdom in the South, Hausa and most Northerners were just as fanatically glued to the teaching of their spiritual leaders that influence and in most cases dictated their political lives. It is not that most cannot read or write, but only in crammed Koranic verses so that they can be submissive and obedient to their Allah representatives.

Since most of these lessons come from the Middle East, they even face that direction when praying. The distraction have closed their minds to other forms of learning in order to function in the real world. While Middle East countries send their children to western universities, most Hausa value Arab religious teaching or pilgrimage to Mecca. Southerners relapsing into trance by the heavenly promises of pastors, imams and Voodoo priests are not far behind.

Religious relapse has closed the minds of most Hausa to western education which their western trained leaders hypocritically called boko-haram. In spite of all the enticement to go to secular schools up to level they want, free of charge, most Northerners would rather cling to religious teaching encouraged by their religious and political leaders that reward their trust and loyalty. Even worse, is the charlatan obligation to convert or kill those they see as unbelievers: kaferi.

Once Hausa can overcome their religious bias and attend western schools or universities, they are guaranteed position of power as long as they retained or claimed relationship to the Fulani hierarchy. While this is adequate for political power or field of study, it is detrimental when given position they are least qualified for, as Federal Character deprive community of amenity.

Northerners have potential to feed not only Nigeria, if they increase high yield production for storage. More could be done if their leaders can think beyond dominating political fields. Those political positions only allow you to loot selfishly. Primary skills needed for infrastructure which Nigeria lacks are imported. If Hausa leaders are serious about catching up with their Southern brothers and sisters; welders, plumbers, carpenters and ironworkers must be trained there.

Though younger generation are better educated in the South, skilled trade is still looked down on by many, only to import them from the foreign countries they contract with to build bridges, other infrastructure the Country needs badly. We are the only educated folks that contracted Ajaokuta Steel without stipulation for trained Nigerians after 5, 10, 20 or 25 years. Even Eastern and Southern African countries now demand that in their foreign contracts.

Farouk Martins Aresa
https://www.ripplesnigeria.com/hausa-marginalized-nigerians/

Why is anyone surprised that Redeem and not one of the long established universities got the assignment to diagnose Monkey Pox Virus?

Why was Ebola zero carrier Taylor taken to private hospital and not one of the established teaching hospitals?

Nigerians, it has nothing to do with religion but more to do with technology even in a meager.

Must Explore Excavate & Create Arts & Sciences End Products


Why does Africa remain poor despite its resources? After independence African countries still depend on foreign companies to explore, excavate and manufacture finished products in 2017! It is true that these are big companies that need special technologies. Yet there are Africans in many fields spread all over the globe that can be enticed into regions where division of labor based on country’s technology is assigned. Europeans argue about trade, we fight on ethnicity.

Ghana should not at this point be depending of the Chinese to mine its gold, Nigeria should not be depending on the British to refine its oil and Congo should not be depending on Americans to refine its diamond. Instead of going it alone or trading everything individually abroad, each African country should be assigned a technology based on the amount of resources it produced, by African skilled experts to be enticed home or other formula deliberated by African Union.

China , Russia and United States have abundant natural resources, yet they buy up Africa’s because ours are cheap compared to their finished products they sell to us. Common sense tells us that we will always have a deficit if we buy more expensive products we are too lazy to make from the cheap raw material we sell. We have a great deal to learn from China because when they were starving and had to institute one child per family, Nigeria was feeding its neighbors.

The recent controversy about exportation of yams from Nigeria points to another mentality of exporting raw materials as yam, cassava and cocoyam while turning around to import starch. In Uganda , the majority of imported starch is used by the pharmaceutical industry (53.6%) followed by paperboard (32.5%), food processing (13.5%) and commercial laundries (0.4%). We have enough raw agricultural products for bread but prefer the taste of refined wheat abroad.

Yams, belonging to the genus Dioscorea, are staple root crops cultivated in many parts of Africa and South East Asia. Their high starch content, ranging from 70% to 80% of the dry weight, and cheap cost have made them potential source of industrial starch which could be explored commercially in the food and pharmaceutical industries – Adebayo & Itiola 1998 .

While Osu Sate revives old biofuel tech; Nigerians scoffed at Sokoto backing (MOU) signed by Oldang International Limited, China’s Halkoff Logistics and Hornson Dev. Ltd, to produce non-fossil energy cars for Nigeria’s entry into the global shift to electric cars from January 2018.

If the government does not create enabling environment, there must be something we could do to make a difference. We all complain about lack of amenities, well equipped laboratories and machineries but we fail to improvise, copy and study and break foreign patent laws. If it is Okrika or Ijebu made, we reject it and ask for original. It simply means it has to be made in U.K or America before it can meet our standard. Some prefer Japanese used card to new cheapo.

We also sap all our energy fighting one another while others spend their time creating arms we can use to fight, thinking about how to make life easier for themselves and the future of their children. Nature blessed Africa with enough population that we can exploit and trade across the Continent but we prefer to trade with others because we appreciate their products more. This is true, even if their products are the same or inferior Chinese plastics turned into anything.

Until we start looking at exploration for manufacturing finished products, our raw materials will never be able to pay off others for their finished products, no matter how much of each natural resources we have. Since independence, all we have been fed with are finished products paid for by abundant and dwindling natural resources. At some point, we will run out while foreign countries load up on our natural resources in addition to theirs.

It is very embarrassing that we echo others in condemning ourselves that nothing good could come out of Africa except misery and asking for handouts as portrayed on foreign televisions. Most news about Africa is negative except when our children prosper in Diaspora. Actually some are relying or claiming that only those children could come back and save Africa.

False, only Africans in Africa can save Africa. Putting so much burden on Africans in Diaspora working against all odd while we fail to grab our future at home is unrealistic, procrastinating and share wishful thinking. While it is true that some of us have seized some opportunities in Diaspora that were not available at home, it is because we have given up on our potentials. Indeed, harsh difficult environment can stimulate inventions by one person for a whole world.

Hubert Ogunde was asked if he could have heightened his dramatic skills more had he gone overseas for training in one of the universities. He replied that it would have changed or killed his instinct. This Hamitic hypothesis that everything that looks great in Africa is brought here by Hamites or Caucasians must be stopped by our own will to contribute to humanity. There are better ways to control our bulging population. We do not have to fight ourselves “to finish”!

Nurse Justina Ejelonu and Dr Ameyo Adadevoh died treating Nigeria first Ebola patient. Nigeria displayed a rare scientific prowess during this outbreak. Though government doctors were on strike in Lagos; aides, senior and private doctors took the bull by the horn; followed quarantine protocol, contact tracing the old fashioned way. From plane passengers to Airport officers with Ebola contact. It showed the rest of the world, we could! Resilient primary healthcare saved us.

Credit must be given to these frontline workers of physicians, nurses and aides that physically restrained Mr. Taylor losing their lives in the process. Lately, this writer realized that there was another hero that confirmed the diagnosis of Ebola in Ede’s Redeem University laboratory in 48 hours. By the time all the world experts rushed to Nigeria, Professor Christian Happi told them to hold their horses because Nigerians knew what to do, and indeed, had confirmed Ebola!

When Professor Happi related this story at Harvard’s conference on Contagion: Exploring Next Modern Epidemics, the house burst into applause. Not only has Prof. Happi trained students from different countries on their method of molecular biochemistry in diagnosis, others rubbed on him claiming joint ventures in solving the next epidemic. Leadership in Arts and Science must come from some of these universities we have in Africa to gain world respect.

Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Published: Wednesday, November 1, 2017

https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/259299/must-explore-excavate-create-arts-sciences-end-products.html#

These are their excuses not reasonable reasons for evil acts

HOW RITUALISTS TURN CHURCHES & MOSQUES INTO BUSINESS CENTERS

[b]Churches and Mosques played their roles in the indoctrination of Africans towards Western and Arab religious values. Though they established early modern schools, hospitals where outcasts and the poor could obtain free services. Compared to the new churches and mosques we have today, most Africans would give credit to those charity services of foreign religious bodies. You wonder if African religious bodies are indifferent, into it; for self-enrichment and rituals.

Every church and mosque have their rituals which they follow or adhere to. While some do not worship image of any kind, others pray to their images of saints. The United Nations and the so called “civilized” world were disturbed by the reckless destruction of historical statues in Iraq; and Afghanistan where Taliban militia supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar issued a decree ordering the destruction of all statues including ancient pre-Islamic figures. These objections were not based on religious grounds but on historical preservation of the past.[/b]

Since the days of Abrahamic religions when he almost sacrificed his son to God, the world has moved on and religions condemned human sacrifices. Ritualists replaced human sacrifices with animal blood. The blood and body of Jesus, replaced with bread and wine. However, it has not stopped powers from using human lives to please their gods or ego for fetish wars. They make distinctions between thirst for wars and human sacrifice; even when both result in loss of lives.

There is no doubt that the richest religious bodies today are the old churches and mosques that have made their money from tithes, endowments, investments including real estates all over the world. We now have empty churches and temples except in developing countries. Religious bodies are growing fast in poor countries while their members are declining in richer countries. There must be a link between poverty and religion, even among the poor in rich countries.

This may not be surprising because the poor and the outcast in Africa first ventured into church, mosques and their institutions like schools and hospitals while the rich ones were still in doubt or suspicious of the intentions of the new religious bodies in their mist. This is the reason that most of the first educated Africans were the outcasts and the poor who were the experimental breeds as test to fully understand the benefit of foreign religions, schools and hospitals.

Of course, there were others that were curious and decided to attend. Many of you that have read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart would remember that when sceptics like Okonkwo heard that they were serving wine as blood of Jesus, he decided to attend church. He also brought his horn with him for the drink of wine. Like many wealthy Africans, they later realized that these new religions were in Africa to seek converts into their own way of life.

Until later, in order to be accepted into their schools and hospitals, you must be converted to their religions. Indeed, they changed African names to English or Arabic names, so that Africans could be freed from the worship of the devil. Even if your name is Oluwatoyin or Chukwuemeka that had God in it, it had to be changed to Jesustoyin, Godwin or Abudu (slave of God)!

Nevertheless, Africans never totally gave up their religion. Even when taken overseas as slaves, they practiced Santeria in Cuba and Voodoo in Haiti. Bookman held on to Voodoo and invoked Sango to free his people while fighting for the Independence of Haiti. Slave owners were made to believe that Cuban slaves were praying to the Christian God, while in fact they were praying to African God. None of the foreign religions fully took Africans loyalty away from their God.

However, false prophets and evil doers have bastardized African religions by still practicing rituals others religions have given up after the time of Abraham. Evangelic religions have also sprung up exploiting the poor in the mist of poverty and sorrow; promising heavenly bliss on earth if they only pay their tithes dutifully. They have predicted calamities, cured the sick, walk on water and woken the dead to demonstrate their power and increase their congregations.

Instead of creating schools and hospitals for the poor, they used their tithes to build expensive schools for any religion. Schools most members of their congregations cannot afford to attend. They create churches and mosques as business centers to channel money into their coffins only to be used to their lavish lifestyles and hedonic appetites. Pastors instill fear, entice with lottery while buying mansions, exotic cars for their families, girlfriends and cronies at home or abroad.

The two shrines with human skeletons that brought attention to most Nigerians were in Okija and Oshogbo. Those in the know and many that patronized them faked ignorance and started pointing fingers across the Niger. It has since been revealed almost daily across the Country in churches and mosques that these were business centers where human parts were traded for money, cars and mansions. The last mission on their mind is how to care for the sick and poor.

These atrocities in the name of God have been going on for ages. People were kidnaped and their living bodies were chopped off, frozen and flown out of many countries for transplants overseas. Unfortunately, some recipients are prestigious hospitals that never want to know where the body parts were coming from. But locals usually think about people used for magic where live bodies were used for incarnation that produce money from the head or mouth!

Whatever was left from the bodies are then sold off to those asked to bring various body parts by some medicine men. These same evil men invoke the name of ancient Abraham, willing to kill his son for God. Desperate poor souls seeking money, fame, trying to get pregnant, miracles or salvation, met these horrible demands by locating someone for sacrifice. It is the same evil men that would demand that seekers of miracles cures in sickness or health sleep with some madmen or homeless women, sleep with their own relatives, children or albino to cure HIVs.

May devil not lead us into temptations or desperation where we could be driven by sickness or needs into the hands of evil doers waiting to take advantage of our situations? Some pastors, imams and Babalawo are no different from kidnappers seeking an eye, arm or leg for sale as body parts. When they become the head of churches or mosques, they have perfected and legitimized their trade in the open, licensed to extort anything from people.

What happened to the spiritual powers of Badoo, evil pastors and imams while police operating tractors, never seized or broke, while destroying their shrines and temples?

Written by Farouk Martins Aresa

http://thewillnigeria.com/news/opinion-ritualists-turn-churches-mosques-into-business-centers/

RITUALISTS TURN CHURCHES & MOSQUES INTO BUSINESS CENTERS

[b]Churches and Mosques played their roles in the indoctrination of Africans towards Western and Arab religious values. Though they established early modern schools, hospitals where outcasts and the poor could obtain free services. Compared to the new churches and mosques we have today, most Africans would give credit to those charity services of foreign religious bodies. You wonder if African religious bodies are indifferent, into it; for self-enrichment and rituals.

Every church and mosque have their rituals which they follow or adhere to. While some do not worship image of any kind, others pray to their images of saints. The United Nations and the so called “civilized” world were disturbed by the reckless destruction of historical statues in Iraq; and Afghanistan where Taliban militia supreme leader Mulla Mohammad Omar issued a decree ordering the destruction of all statues including ancient pre-Islamic figures. These objections were not based on religious grounds but on historical preservation of the past.[/b]

Since the days of Abrahamic religions when he almost sacrificed his son to God, the world has moved on and religions condemned human sacrifices. Ritualists replaced human sacrifices with animal blood. The blood and body of Jesus, replaced with bread and wine. However, it has not stopped powers from using human lives to please their gods or ego for fetish wars. They make distinctions between thirst for wars and human sacrifice; even when both result in loss of lives.

There is no doubt that the richest religious bodies today are the old churches and mosques that have made their money from tithes, endowments, investments including real estates all over the world. We now have empty churches and temples except in developing countries. Religious bodies are growing fast in poor countries while their members are declining in richer countries. There must be a link between poverty and religion, even among the poor in rich countries.

This may not be surprising because the poor and the outcast in Africa first ventured into church, mosques and their institutions like schools and hospitals while the rich ones were still in doubt or suspicious of the intentions of the new religious bodies in their mist. This is the reason that most of the first educated Africans were the outcasts and the poor who were the experimental breeds as test to fully understand the benefit of foreign religions, schools and hospitals.

Of course, there were others that were curious and decided to attend. Many of you that have read Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart would remember that when sceptics like Okonkwo heard that they were serving wine as blood of Jesus, he decided to attend church. He also brought his horn with him for the drink of wine. Like many wealthy Africans, they later realized that these new religions were in Africa to seek converts into their own way of life.

Until later, in order to be accepted into their schools and hospitals, you must be converted to their religions. Indeed, they changed African names to English or Arabic names, so that Africans could be freed from the worship of the devil. Even if your name is Oluwatoyin or Chukwuemeka that had God in it, it had to be changed to Jesustoyin, Godwin or Abudu (slave of God)!

Nevertheless, Africans never totally gave up their religion. Even when taken overseas as slaves, they practiced Santeria in Cuba and Voodoo in Haiti. Bookman held on to Voodoo and invoked Sango to free his people while fighting for the Independence of Haiti. Slave owners were made to believe that Cuban slaves were praying to the Christian God, while in fact they were praying to African God. None of the foreign religions fully took Africans loyalty away from their God.

However, false prophets and evil doers have bastardized African religions by still practicing rituals others religions have given up after the time of Abraham. Evangelic religions have also sprung up exploiting the poor in the mist of poverty and sorrow; promising heavenly bliss on earth if they only pay their tithes dutifully. They have predicted calamities, cured the sick, walk on water and woken the dead to demonstrate their power and increase their congregations.

Instead of creating schools and hospitals for the poor, they used their tithes to build expensive schools for any religion. Schools most members of their congregations cannot afford to attend. They create churches and mosques as business centers to channel money into their coffins only to be used to their lavish lifestyles and hedonic appetites. Pastors instill fear, entice with lottery while buying mansions, exotic cars for their families, girlfriends and cronies at home or abroad.

The two shrines with human skeletons that brought attention to most Nigerians were in Okija and Oshogbo. Those in the know and many that patronized them faked ignorance and started pointing fingers across the Niger. It has since been revealed almost daily across the Country in churches and mosques that these were business centers where human parts were traded for money, cars and mansions. The last mission on their mind is how to care for the sick and poor.

These atrocities in the name of God have been going on for ages. People were kidnaped and their living bodies were chopped off, frozen and flown out of many countries for transplants overseas. Unfortunately, some recipients are prestigious hospitals that never want to know where the body parts were coming from. But locals usually think about people used for magic where live bodies were used for incarnation that produce money from the head or mouth!

Whatever was left from the bodies are then sold off to those asked to bring various body parts by some medicine men. These same evil men invoke the name of ancient Abraham, willing to kill his son for God. Desperate poor souls seeking money, fame, trying to get pregnant, miracles or salvation, met these horrible demands by locating someone for sacrifice. It is the same evil men that would demand that seekers of miracles cures in sickness or health sleep with some madmen or homeless women, sleep with their own relatives, children or albino to cure HIVs.

May devil not lead us into temptations or desperation where we could be driven by sickness or needs into the hands of evil doers waiting to take advantage of our situations? Some pastors, imams and Babalawo are no different from kidnappers seeking an eye, arm or leg for sale as body parts. When they become the head of churches or mosques, they have perfected and legitimized their trade in the open, licensed to extort anything from people.

What happened to the spiritual powers of Badoo, evil pastors and imams while police operating tractors, never seized or broke, while destroying their shrines and temples?

Written by Farouk Martins Aresa

http://thewillnigeria.com/news/opinion-ritualists-turn-churches-mosques-into-business-centers/

Like it or hate it, IPOB has dominated the news

SEPARATIST FATIGUE SYNDROME: IPOB IS SQUANDERING GOODWILL

The goodwill built by generations that were known for hard work, humility and earned trust Igbo enjoy in their country is being eroded by IPOB, in their pride before fall. Army have to be careful with Kanu seeking martyrdom. OBJ met Dokubo Asari, which elevated him to a tin god. After ridiculing Buhari in sickness, wishing him the worst when he was down, OBJ asked Buhari to meet Kanu. Who does he represent and what bad blood would he discuss, emissaries nko?

As a result, AREWA Youths came out giving son of the soil Quit Notice in their own Country. It is so provocative that it has led to vagabonds taking the law into their own hands. In normal times, this could be glossed over but in the context of what led to Nigerian civil war, the Police should have “invited” over the leaders of the gangs. When people’s fears are genuine, previous harms and damages real, example should have been made out of those irresponsible Arewa youths.

Other Nigerians owe the Igbo apology for the way they were treated during that war, since they contributed to building this Country and sacrificed a great deal in the process. The hurt and disappointment should not be transferred to Igbo children in order to start another war. We must all commit to the process of rebuilding, join together and face ethnic distractors in getting rid of those perpetrating greed and corruption. Open our eyes while we cry not closed and pray.

IPOB grievances can be better expressed, not by confrontations and the songs of war. Though some parents that went through the last war might still nurse physical and emotional scars; not retaliation. Few Igbo neighboring states have not returned properties to owners. Indeed, some Igbo died without realizing their hard work and sweat from those assets. War cry reminds many of us of starving and suffering babies used as politics of negotiations by both sides of the war.

OPC, Arewa, MASSOB and MEND have become activists preying on separation and they have become rich cornering contracts from the Federal Government. More organizations noticed and started their separatist movements expecting to become rich as well. IPOB rivals MASSOB, they have declared MASSOB rich and as a sell out so that they can wrestle contracts away. We have youths whose lives and hope are being wasted by depending on IPOB shallow promises.

On the other hand, are patriotic Igbo that have left home and established in their world biggest market: Nigeria. They just want to be left alone in peace to live their lives. Even those in their states have suffered from the dislocation of their normal day to day business and trade because of either militias parading themselves as local police or Federal Force checking their movements. This has led to some bloody confrontations and death.

We all have Separatist Fatigue Syndrome: sick and tired of demands and threats made by all the militias. IPOB is just the latest and people have had enough; giving up and ready to split the Country along ethnic lines. But ethnic association is just a distraction used by corrupt Nigerians who know no ethnic or kin when sharing our money as loot. Ethnicity is only used as bargaining chips. When they share their loot in billions, all ethnic leaders and activists are represented.

Look, Igbo are not going anywhere. They have invested too much blood, sweat and hope in the Country of their birth. They are just as patriotic and proud as any Nigerian. Actually, they have more investments outside their home of origin than other Nigerians in theirs. Very few folks will squander all these to follow some leader that just woke up looking for aggrandizement. We all know that anyone looking for attention can wake up and claim to be an activist for separation.

Igbo had many sympathizers within Nigeria and the rest of the world. As ruthless as Benjamin Adekunle was during the war, he gave Nigeria’s ammunitions to Igbo opponents to open a new front at their Northern border. They did not. They converged on their relatives in the Mid-West and proceeded to the West until they were stopped at Ore. These were their sympathizers for goodness sake. A continuing case of familiarity breeds contempt in the Mid-West and the West.

Unfortunately, this time around, IPOB would not enjoy such empathy within and it is doubtful if IPOB have as many sympathizers as Biafra enjoyed during the last war. IPOB has divided not only Nigerians but the Igbo-Nigerians as well. While they enjoy the irrational exuberance of some youths that never knew war, others cannot be swayed by their propaganda. IPOB leader has few followers that are resourceful and worthy except those using them as bargaining chips.

Therefore, Igbo have more to lose when they separate than other average Nigerians. It puts Igbo comfortably residing outside Igbo-land at a disadvantage. They have everything to lose and nothing to gain by separating from their biggest market in the world. The mere noises of IPOB create suspicion and doubts on dedicated Igbo-Nigerian. Indeed, most Igbo are proud Nigerians wherever they are. In some cases, they dominate organization and groups representing Nigeria.

Nevertheless, IPOB claim to speak for these dedicated Nigerians. Instead of peaceful rallies, they have instigated provocations and clashes in some states inside and outside theirs, putting law abiding Igbo lives in danger. Many of these youths may not be old enough to know that political alliance in Nigeria is not new. Indeed, Igbo have formed political alliance with the North throughout the history of Nigeria after Independence. Nobody calls them names for the alliance.

What does Igbo want that they never got in their coalition with Tafawa Balewa, Obasanjo or in Jonathan’s Administration? Those outside Balewa and Jonathan’s Administration never cried for separation. When Ironsi declared Unitary Government, ironically the only people against it were the Hausa or the North. They have since got used to it, mastered it and used it to their advantage. Whenever the government of the day is not in coalition with Igbo; Nigeria sucks?

So far there is only one region that has demonstrated that it could stand on its own without Federal Government in the past. It was not Eastern Region. There are certain states right now that have been able to generate enough Internal Revenue to support themselves, Igbo states are not one of them. Yet, we continue to hear how they are going to turn Biafra into land of milk and honey. If outsiders cannot survive within Igbo states and many Igbo could not, show us some evidence of how you can change this equation for the masses you are calling home.

Out of Separatists Fatigue Syndrome: they all became repulsive, telling each to go if it wants to.

Farouk Martins Aresa
Source

Children of Edo story fell apart in the presence of documented facts and tHeir motives

It is a shame that educated people or those we expect to be thinkers refused to read a short article for solution but base all their comments on headlines or first paragraph. Someone even claimed the writer was paid.

fergie001:
We can talk all day,we have identified the problem,what is the solution?how do we go about it?That is the harder part.

Spend half of the time on Badoo and Evans types on politicians!

Africans are so mad, a leader was beaten up in France. Nigerians apply juggle justice to armed robbers, kidnappers, Badoo groups, but unfortunately to hungry people that steal food in the markets. The burning anger on the street is so red hot, it can burn the Senate and the House. However, it is confined to streets. Looters are on notice, sooner or later, it will catch up with them. People are so angry and hungry, not even the ethnic diversionary tactics would work.

So the writer is pro establishment. Honestly I feel sorry for that are intentionally ignorant so that they can have their pay, their day and their reign at the expense of the whole country. The money that is stolen by a few people does not belong to all of us. I guess it belongs to them. Your mentality is worth crying for.

surgical:
Its either the writer is a paid agent and there are quite a number of them this days or he is ignorant, his write up is not objective.just the usual pro establishment.

This is not true, is it?

How does EFCC the hunter of looters become the hunted? These cannot be the voices of the youths that are suffering, dying, without jobs that cannot start or support their families. There are youth leadership organizations without followers sprouting up in support of vagabonds parading themselves as politicians after beating a corrupt system that let these dogs out in the House and Senate. Repeated bank and gubernatorial looters like Saraki claiming vindication!

Saraki was the latest that got away the same way Tinubu did, not to mention many others like Ibori while innocent and respectable people like Dr. Adenike Grange and Professor Fabian Ngozichukwu Osuji were made examples for being naïve. Ask any kid growing up who they want to be like when they grow up, you will get an answer to the future of the country you live in. It is true that every country has corrupt leaders but the rate, magnitude and proportion of their pilfering to Nigeria’s income are staggering!

Hypocritical Verdicts Abet Poverty & Deaths

EFCC has been ridiculed and reduced to a joke in the land of loot-and–go free. Mocking EFCC, many of us as Prof. Osagay; Human Rights Lawyer, Mike Ozekhome (SAN) on Saraki’s victory : “What we saw from the EFCC stable as usual was the usual Baba Sala’ Alawada Kerikeri’s Odeon histrionics”. Haba, so it is all EFCC’s fault. He could do better than Magu. Unfortunately, even Nuhu Ribadu, they criticize almost to death. Some even tried to assassinate him by car crash!

If these are fruits of democracy, brings Ezeogwu or Gadhafi laughing in his grave after warning Libyans that invited freedom! The only people these Human Rights, rule of law and democracy peddlers cry for are the rich. There are poor people in jail without trial, youths, women and children whose daily bread are being denied and have to suffer the pains of hunger to bed or languishing in the seas and desert after being denied funds by looters laughing to the banks.

African countries lose $50b every year to corruption , through our own leaders begging foreign countries to accept it so that they can beat tax avoidance and money laundering at home and abroad. People that should be held to face firing squad like Oyenusi and Aninih. These are the ones enjoying human rights, rule of law and democracy while demonizing and frustrating EFCC officer working with resources far less than those at the disposal of vagabonds.

Seriously Mr. Mike Ozehhome, do you think the rich and the mighty need you as Human Rights lawyer to defend them or you are just looking for clients? Crooks that were caught red-handed, that were soliciting favors from lawyers were recalled as judges but you did not see anything wrong with that because the money they were caught with could be spread to fixed judgments.

Saraki was booed and called OLE at the prayer ground last year in Ilorin so he avoided Eid-el-Fitri this year. In spite of videos showing angry crowd he denied the booing. Na our bodi e dey?

How does EFCC the hunter of looters become the hunted? These cannot be the voices of the youths that are suffering, dying, without jobs that cannot start or support their families. There are youth leadership organizations without followers sprouting up in support of vagabonds parading themselves as politicians after beating a corrupt system that let these dogs out in the House and Senate. Repeated bank and gubernatorial looters like Saraki claiming vindication!

Saraki was the latest that got away the same way Tinubu did, not to mention many others like Ibori while innocent and respectable people like Dr. Adenike Grange and Professor Fabian Ngozichukwu Osuji were made examples for being naïve. Ask any kid growing up who they want to be like when they grow up, you will get an answer to the future of the country you live in. It is true that every country has corrupt leaders but the rate, magnitude and proportion of their pilfering to Nigeria’s income are staggering!

Only a fool would not believe that corruption fights back. Each time looters win, it’s people that loose. Yet, some youths celebrated and congratulated looters that were let lose by the courts were repeat offenders. Judicial corruption is endemic in the system. Hardworking, reputable, honest lawyers and judges soiled are aggrieved: imposing fines on frivolous claims against EFCC.

We need to search our conscience and confess if we are really serious about war on corruption. Each time an administration shows some good faith in tracking looters of funds that should be used to take care of the people, we find reasons to kick against it based on “human rights”. It is based on ignorance, self-inflicted pain against our own interest. Nuhu Ribadu was hounded like a squirrel. He was labeled as a stooge. They have Magu now to kick, even refused to confirm.

Yet majority of the people are not in any position to steal or embezzle. If anything, most work like serfs from dawn to dusk. It is so obvious on the streets, in the markets and multitudes of traders eking out a living because there is no social net or infrastructure to enhance existence. The consequences are armed robbers, kidnappers, prostitutes, 419s and drug peddlers. Even foreigners have taken advantage of desperate youths by disguising death camps overseas.

Is there a logical rational for Youths or rented crowd to be celebrating in jubilation of verdicts bought, signed and delivered to set looters free? There is nothing more revolting and repulsive when you see youths that are condemned to death in perpetual poverty celebrating depleted funds that should be used to ameliorate their state, embezzled with impunity. It is not how many of these brazen vagabonds in power got away with murder but which of them did not.

Looting the treasury dry unites all ethnic groups, political parties, separatists and one nation advocates. Unfortunately, proceeds flow into administration of justice corrupting lawyers and judges, police, pastors, imams, government and private companies: in short across every social and economic leadership strata. It has polluted the psych of the country and destroyed families where many people are devising ways to defraud one another or their own relatives.

Once vagabonds are under trial, they are represented by multitudes of lawyers poaching on democracy and the rule of law. Most claim one cancer or the other asking for medical leave abroad in some hospitals that could not be established at home for lack of funds stolen by them. They look for sympathy to travel out to prevent them from dying. How ironic that the same people that sentenced women and children to death for lack of care are afraid to die!

Most of them have given up their interest, stakes and rights as bona fide citizens of the country of their birth they loot to death and have taken up residences abroad where all the money stolen are stashed for their wives, girlfriends, children and relatives. Most of them do not attend local schools and would never be treated in local hospitals. So why should they care about the country they are ready to bleed to death?

Africans are so mad, a leader was beaten up in France. Nigerians apply juggle justice to armed robbers, kidnappers, Badoo groups, but unfortunately to hungry people that steal food in the markets. The burning anger on the street is so red hot, it can burn the Senate and the House. However, it is confined to streets. Looters are on notice, sooner or later, it will catch up with them. People are so angry and hungry, not even the ethnic diversionary tactics would work.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/786800/hypocritical-verdicts-abet-poverty-deaths.html#

Saraki and all his Army of cabals with conspirators cannot prevent this Osinbajo from becoming President - a position he never clamor or aspire for.

He was not even a politician before that Thief Amoda Yekini sought him for cover.

He is in no hurry to succeed Buhari.

Sometimes we should pay attention to insightful writers.

I do not think this writer actually wish all these but, eh, white happens.

Kidnapper Evans Capable Of Organising Jailbreak" - Security Operatives' Dilemma - Crime - Nairaland

Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Crime / "Kidnapper Evans Capable Of Organising Jailbreak" - Security

True true talk. Basically undisputable

While we are motivated by oil income to keep the country one, leave or not to leave - India announced to produce only electric cars by 2030.

United Nigeria and secessionists, what are you going to do without oil income for survival?

A dey laff O!

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/03/technology/future/india-electric-cars/index.html

Those who claimed oil was the root of all evils that has befallen Nigeria must reassess their thinking because oil would be archived in less than ten years when clean energy and electric vehicles take over. Nevertheless, the agitations for Biafra will not stop as an ideological sound reaching a deafening level to those that want to listen

I need not add more but Yoruba let this nonsense of history from children of Oranmiyan - that bear Yoruba names, speak Yoruba as palace linquq franka and bury the head of their Oba in Ife- go too long thinking it was a joke.

Each time they are asked to explain the meaning of ASHIPA, a common name in any Yoruba land, they come with fake spelling. Ashipa, the First King of Lagos is well known to Lagosians.

Anyone looking for relevance in life or their novel histories, must attack Yoruba to gain attention.

BIAFRA: TO LEAVE OR NOT TO LEAVE

It is no longer if Biafrans will leave but when and if they will survive without all of the old Eastern Region. There are there three types of agitations ringing from the former Eastern part of Nigerians: the 1) Igbo 2) Biafrans and 3) Ibo. Not all Igbo are Biafrans and some Igbo resent the label of Ibo while others far from the hinterland embrace it. Indeed many Igbo think this is a conspiracy after the War to divide and conquer them ideologically. In other words, there is no difference between the Igbo; Igbo is Igbo.

We have just witnessed some new development that only confirmed established facts. There are too many states created out of Nigeria, most of which cannot generate enough Internal Revenue to sustain themselves. While most of these states are in the North, some Igbo states also exposed their inability to do so. In Biafra, hopefully they would not be so fragmented and would survive on commonwealth.

The weakest logic demonstrated by latest shutdown of commerce is that Biafra will not get the old East. Unfortunately, the shutdown and loss of revenues only affected the same Igbo, most especially those that had to obey reluctantly and close their shops losing billions in trade and commerce. There is also the thorny question of what to do with Igbo that stay in Nigerians no matter what. While those in Biafra will see them as traitors, the rest of Nigerians will also be suspicious. Damn if you do damn if you do not.

Nigeria has no choice but to listen to the Igbo that wants out of Nigeria. Their voices cannot be ignored. Their indirect referendum, like Brexit, of shutting down trade and commerce, their livelihood, did not deprive the rest of the country. Nevertheless, it is an affirmation that Igbo local areas support Biafra. We know that in United Kingdom, some areas would want to be part of European Union and some areas want to be independent of the Union. Yet British Government at the center would wants all areas out.

Those who claimed oil was the root of all evils that has befallen Nigeria must reassess their thinking because oil would be archived in less than ten years when clean energy and electric vehicles take over. Nevertheless, the agitations for Biafra will not stop as an ideological sound reaching a deafening level to those that want to listen. When children of yesterday and grown men of today that have never been in the country or even speak the language take it up as a cause, we must heed to those at home.

There is no situation that is exactly the same, so referendum like Brexit may not be a perfect answer. Those of us that know the Igbo as children, brothers, sisters, wives and husbands have never seen such insults between ethnic groups, even before the War. We have not learnt from what led to the war and the words are getting to a point: where it may be better to separate peacefully than repeat the mistake of killing one another. Some Nigeria are actually daring Biafrans to leave or be kicked out!

What is surprising in all of these is the recent animosity between Igbo and Yoruba. It is surprising in the sense that Igbo or Yoruba blood has never been spilled in each other’s domain. Of course, the war itself was uncalled for; an exceptional circumstance no one in his right mind wants repeated. However, the owners of the future, that is our youths, have no respect for one another. Their fathers and mothers would recoil or cringe if they know the insults used against one another by the internet warriors.

Igbo were not strangers in Yorubaland. There may be others there before them: like cousins from Benin, Calabar, Togo and Ghana etc. Igbo rose amicably especially in Lagos where Azikiwe even represented Yoruba in Ibadan. Whichever tactics or method Igbo used in those days to be fully accommodated and accepted is what is obviously lacking today. This is apparent because no other ethnic group faces the same type of hostility Igbo now face verbally from their Yoruba hosts. How did we get here?

The case of accommodation in Northern Nigeria is more tenuous and even regrettable. Many Igbo have vouched for the safety of Yoruba and Hausa in their states. But they don’t have or attract the same number of Yoruba and Hausa willing to sojourn in Igbo land. While the name Umaru Altine, an Hausa Mayor elected in 1956 in Enugu always comes up; there are Hausa traders, Yoruba students and civil servants, it was not enough to guarantee peaceful co-existence; not only in Igboland but in Nigeria.

Nevertheless, the Igbo have suffered disproportionally in the North than any other group and that is undeniable. Unfortunately, as opportunities in Nigeria dwindled, Nigerian youths have abandoned their country in greater number than we have ever seen. They risk everything including their lives to get into any other country, no matter how rich or poor. Would Igbo risk their life to stay or cross back to Nigeria?

It is even more depressing when Nigerians risk death penalties in Asia countries, 419 and drugs peddling. While our youths have capitalized on these at home and tried to pin prostitution or drugs on an ethnic group, 419 on another, they are all known as Nigerians outside. It does not make any sense to turn 419, drugs and prostitution on one another when we know every corner of the country is involved though less so in the Northern parts. We have even seen grandpa and grandma used as mules.

Therefore, the attraction to move out of Nigeria and find solace anywhere will not stop after creation of Urhobo, Ijaw, Arewa, Oduduwa, Edo or Biafra Nation. The point here is that creation of each of these nations will not stop infiltration or crossing artificial borders created as a result of agitations. Indeed, it will make life more difficult for those that left since they would have lost the privilege of citizenships. There are fewer compelling reasons to amicably accept Biafrans, Arewa or Odua back once they leave.

If it were so easy to define Biafra, Oduduwa or Arewa republics there would be one less obstacle. It is not. A referendum in the former Eastern part of Nigeria cannot gather enough votes for Igbo alone to capture the old Eastern Region. While sympathy for Biafra may be strong in some states, that would not be enough to commit all Igbo into Biafra. We must remember that before the war, Ojukwu asked all Igbo to return. He did not get all. Well-situated Igbo outside poses a big problem for agitation of Biafra.

Many Igbo are patriotic Nigerians that would not leave their country permanently for another or a new country. Their immense contributions and love of country are against separation. Indeed, mass boycott has created fear despite ECOWA! Igbo have been fully represented in government since Obasanjo’s rule. The Igbo voted for as representatives and senators can call for referendum if they think Biafra is the way to go. So far, none has rejected their post or form a Separation Party like the Party Quebecois in Canada.

Since these agitators cannot muscle other ethnics in the old Eastern states to follow them into Biafra, some people see them as wanting in both ways, in and out, looking for recognition as leaders. Some of them are seen as blackmailers looking for political positions and contracts. Once they get what they want, they become one of the looters sharing kickbacks. No one can differentiate Biafrans from other Nigerians at their parties for weddings, birthdays, remembrance and awards. They are fully represented!

We have seen other African examples in Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali with little amiable results. But this Biafra, they claim, is different. It is going to be like Europe where countries with less area and people are very rich. Some even claim they may become a satellite of Israel. Well, they need to go inside Israel and ask how well Ethiopians and Eritreans that gained access are treated. Like Party Quebecois, may mellow.

Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Published: Thursday, June 1, 2017
https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/251871/biafra-to-leave-or-not-to-leave.html#

https://www.ft.com/content/193bbffc-38af-11e7-821a-6027b8a20f23

Ant Financial’s $1.2bn takeover of MoneyGram has drawn fresh criticism from US lawmakers who say the acquisition of the US cash-transfer group by an affiliate of China’s Alibaba, in which Beijing holds an indirect minority stake, poses a national security threat.

FIVE HUNDRED AFRICAN CURRENCY TO ONE IS ILLOGICAL BY GOLD STD

Why would alien countries name present day Ghana Gold Coast, then abandon gold standard to back their promissory notes with mere printed paper? African currencies used to have some value under their rule before Independence. While they gave Independence, they would not relinquish economic independence. They have been able to exchange African resources with printed paper enhancing what Nkrumah titled Neo-colonialism. We have more American $100 bills outside than inside. Aliens never gave up African gold chase, they expand it to other resources.

Are you then surprised that Ghana have to sell its gold mine to aliens in order to gain economic freedom and become rich as western countries? Ghana is just a case in point, it is true for every African country and how their currencies became 500 or 1000 to one foreign currency. Nigeria’s naira used to be one and a half to one American dollar. Liberalized forex has made it worse!

They have been able to convince many African economists as their proponents to preach liberal market that hardly exist in their countries as a way for Africans to be rich or be threatened with the fate of Zimbabwe dollar. In order words, African countries must open markets to dump expensive finished products made from cheap raw materials. The irony is obvious; Africa cannot exchange enough currency or supply sufficient raw materials to buy inflated finished products.

Indeed, there are certain industries that are highly protected in western countries that other companies outside the country cannot buy. When China was allowed into the Rich Club as a trading partner to spite Russia, United States and Europe declared certain companies off limit for sale. Even companies on Bond and Wall streets that are traded daily, have limits and regulations on what can be sold. But African markets must have no limit and left unprotected.

Tsetse fly and malaria had prevented them from invading the rain forest where gold actually came from as they tried to displace the Mossi and Mandinka as middlemen supplier. The British got around that by ship along the coast. Today they resorted to devaluing African currencies to get the same gold, diamond, uranium and other essentials that cheaply subsidize their economy and lifestyle. Mwalimu Nyerere reacted to Pres Reagan when told men should be taught how to fish: how many tons of cocoa do Africans have to work for to buy one tractor in 1960s to 80s?
In spite of the fact that World Bank and International Monetary Fund publicly regretted policy of Structural Adjustment Program in Ghana that devastated and impoverished middleclass, they always find other ways to buy our resources cheap by devaluation. The same way Foreign Portfolio Investors drive African stock markets up and check out. Bitcoin or altcoin is next.

Meanwhile, their markets are heavily guarded and you have to be a member of the rich club to to trade with them. Even within the rich trading club, goods and services are regulated as long as it favors one another. There are always clauses to pull out once it is no longer bearable. United States, the richest debtor in the world has recently threatened to do so with its trading partners. However, African countries must leave their markets wide open for dumping.

They preached liberalized markets to Africans that in most cases only have one or two raw materials to sell. Since they want to buy these raw materials as cheap as possible, they asked each African country to devalue its currency. With a little foreign currency, they could buy the biggest farm cheaply. Usually, if you have junk like China to sell to a trading partner, you can devalue your money so that these countries could buy more of your finished faked products.

So, why cry or condemn devalued currency in China that has cheap labor, plastics and imitated fake finished products to sell but encourage devaluation for Africans with REAL raw materials?

When China penetrated the Rich Club with devalued currency so that Europe and American could buy more of their plastics, steel and other manmade finished products competing with their local companies at home, they cried out against China’s manipulation and devaluation of its currency. Recently, China tightened up when their privileged class started using loopholes and abusing devaluation that reduced its foreign reserve. Point is China can control its currency.

If African countries have manmade materials to sell to the Rich Countries Club like Japan and China, there would be no problem devaluing African currency. But African countries have no trading privileges and the only material they can sell are dictated by the rich countries to their detriment because that policy drains and depletes African gold, diamond, uranium, coffee, cocoa etc. Since Africa have the most arable land, they are buying up the cheap arable land too.

It boils down to predatory mentality of exploiting the ignorant and the poor with colo-mentality that appreciate alien products more. The fact that you have well trained Africans in their most prestigious universities as their proponent preaching liberalized market to African countries but not access to Rich Countries Market, worsen the situation. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi it was, that used to preach that India did not want aid but access to western market to trade.

African countries love foreign educated economists or those specializing in principles of African domination theories preached by their alien mentors. They are showered with appointments and awards in foreign countries as if they have delivered a single economic miracle to a single developing country. The younger generation must ask them what exactly it is these economists have done since independence apart from echoing their masters’ voices.

The glut of steel in the world market is an indication why Ajaokuta Steel never actually took off in Nigeria. Russia was called to help build it after the western capitalist countries procrastinated and eventually refused. All countries are looking for where to dump or sell their steel including Russia that never completed the Steel industry in Nigeria. China has been accused in United States of dumping their cheap steel in their market.
The logical way is to make sure raw materials produced in a country has secondary industry to produce finished products. Since 1957 oil discovery, Nigeria oil industry has not been able to fully develop its secondary industry so that all the oil produced and its byproduct like gas are enhanced to the full maximum potential. Therefore, gas is still flared and wasted since western corporate bodies do not see the benefit of making an African country less dependent on them.

Farouk Martins Aresa

Source

If you read beyond headlines, you might learn something.

subtlemee:
Too long a post...but if one must loot lives should be touched not loot and bury or hide, that's why people are angry,we all know there's no deterrent no point pretending things will get better as the crooks already do have recruits from our youths

Let heaven fall on all of us, I must get mine


YOU HAVE TO BE DEAF AND DUMB NOT TO LOOT AS IT IS

Why are we so mad at looters? A friend said it right. Some of us are angry because we never got the opportunity to loot. There are those that would do worse if given that opportunity. We still remember Bankole, the young Speaker that complained on a daily basis about the amount of money leaking out of the treasury, only to find out he was a rogue himself. So his only problem was waiting on the wing to claim his turn. Most people have forgotten his case.

There was one Professor Osuji, a reputable man caught in the process for trying to secure and defend their funding before the Senate. So was Dr. Adenike Grange that chickened out of the end of the fiscal year sharing process by designating it to her secretary. Apart from the fact that the secretary vanished, she was made to bear the responsibility in jail as the rest of her sharing team. There is a lesson here: that to get along, you have to play along. Kill the country together.

Dr. Grange and Professor Osuji are like many of us that are too timid, innocent and naïve to play that game. You may as well call us deaf and dumb where most people steal more than enough to share with their team, the House, the Senate, police, the right lawyers that know the judge to bribe before you can sail to freedom. As you can count, there are many heads and hands to grease. The more hands to grease, the more money to loot. Demanding relatives nko?

Say what you want about our Northern brothers, they have confronted and disgraced more of these political looters than our Southern brothers. If people are so sick and tired of buried U.S dollars, euro, pound sterling and naira languishing in the cemeteries, sewage tank, farms and foreign account, the revolution against incorrigible kleptomanias is going to start in Abuja as it did in the North. Southern brothers and sisters would rather risk lives across the desert and sea.

Promised jobs overseas only to be sold as slaves or slaughtered like goats for organ transplants. We have seen threats made on social forum hailing that heaven and earth would fall. Once a “Samaritan” comes calling, all would be forgiven. Indeed, some of the rogue politicians are skillfully playing the lottery game in their constituencies. They would “donate” one or two first year scholarships, a car or distribute money or bags of rice to hungry men and women. These lottery winners get maximum publicity of good tidings for the rest of the hungry constituencies.

These people are not foolish; they succumbed to immediate hunger that is taken care of right there and then. The closer it is to the election, the better. Otherwise the good deeds would immunize rogues from instant justice projected on those that steal food in the market. This misplaced anger is often displayed on our television screen. The silver lining: it shows that people are still consciously indignant of stealing from others, especially hard working folks.

However, the cost of food stolen or other materials cannot justify the punishment meted out. Ladies have been stripped naked, boys beaten mercilessly and men lynched for stealing. It is impossible to reconcile the anger shown with the complacency big time rogues and criminals in the Senate enjoy from the same folks. These are the people that preside over state’s affairs.

Curiously, many of these treasury looters are celebrated and welcomed into their villages and towns after prison sentences, if any, like heroes returning from a war front victoriously. There are very few places, even in the most corrupt countries, where looters that were caught red-handed could still go to court to challenge the prosecutors. Even worse, they get a court that would throw out their cases after the prosecutors rest and without opening any defense!

This is not a matter of rarity, once or twice; it is a common practice that has become acceptable pattern. The system has big loophole for rogues. So many rogues are waiting for their turns, as there is no deterrent. If they do not get the opportunity, they shout, complain and fight. They see what is going on around them, so they go into politics: to join the House of Thieves.

If you are wondering why the system has not collapsed, there are still dedicated people working hard from dusk to down with little confidence and indifference to governments. Some of them may take children out of school to work or after school to support the family. There are market women and men that buy and sell to feed us and meet our needs. Many of their children are university graduates helping out since they have not been able to land their dream jobs.

We all know those unsung heroes in high places in the government that live in modest houses, could not even afford another car after the last one broke down. Many of them disrespected or ridiculed for not making it despite the high positions they hold. Others are teachers, professors and farmers still waiting for promises made by successive governments. So are handy men and women, making modest living from their trades. Leaches suck blood out from their cheap labor.

We could have seen more old people on the streets but for remittances sent by their children from different countries abroad. Unfortunately, these are the last generation that would send money home. Most of their grandchildren have only been “home” on a visit once or twice. They would probably come back home to bury their parents and leave immediately. Their parents are their last connection to Africa. Some old folks lost hope and stay abroad for free healthcare.

Individual contributions of the masses are holding up the economy not the invisible hands of some gods. Heaven only helps those that help themselves. Poor people are trained to pray and contribute the little they have to pastors. System has not collapsed after such abuse because of invisible hands of folks propping up the economy while minority loot their blood and sweat to export foreign currencies, if they are not languishing under the sewage tank or soak-away.

If prayer were what is needed to achieve progress, many African countries would be richer than China, Indonesia or South Korea. While the people of China were starving and forced into one child per family, Nigeria was producing ample food to export and accommodate other Africans. While praying, other countries in Asia with the same background of colonial rule worked hard for good grade schools and universities producing and creating modern technologies for export.

Even deaf and dumb people have made progress with sign language, rich environment and training because they cannot loot the treasury the way vagabonds loot the system as it is. Only generation claiming stakes can invoke deterrent; wrestle away, change the system or sidon look!

Farouk Martins Aresa

Source; Modernghana.com

This is interesting. We now have people defending police culture in Nigeria. We know the type of people that defend them in your wannabe culture.

This same police that pick up innocent people at bus stops and lay all types of charges until they get bailed out or figure out a violation as you drive on the streets.

If anyone is blackmailed, ask Otedola how to involve police.

Ladies are now on notice and powerful men now have police as weapon of little destruction.


Don’t ask for money before granting bail, CP warns officers, men

HE Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Mr Rabiu Yusuf, has warned officers and men against demanding for money or any form of favour before granting bail to the suspects.

Yusuf also cautioned them against illegal investigation of cases, unlawful detention of suspects and prolonged detention, saying that they should respect human rights in the course of all investigations.

The police chief spoke at a lecture/ parade with officers and men working at State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Divisional Crime Officers and Investigation Police Officers (IPOs) in the state.

Yusuf, according to a statement issued by the command’s Public Relations Officer, DSP Magaji Majiya, said that the era of bribery and corruption was over in the police circle.

“Nobody should accept or demand money or any form of favour for bail.

“Any senior police officer found to be engaged in corrupt practices will be queried and sent to the Force Headquarters for disciplinary action.

“Inspectors and rank and file found wanting will be sanctioned appropriately,” Yusuf said.

He urged them to exhibit professionalism and diligence during investigation by collating all relevant evidences and witnesses and forward the case files to the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) for Legal advice where applicable.

Yusuf urged the Legal/Prosecution Department to ensure diligence and logical prosecution of cases in the Court of Law and that cases should be judiciously followed up to gain conviction of criminals.

http://tribuneonlineng.com/dont-ask-money-granting-bail-cp-warns-officers-men/

Abouzaid,

There is still hope as long as people like you and the writer continue to speak out. Not only are pastors powerful because of the number of their followers, notorious people are hard to defend. It is not about Kemi but about many innocent ladies and children. Children of Catholic priests that were abused worldwide have come out and many got treatments and compensation EXCEPT in African countries.

abouzaid:
believe it or not, Nigeria is a zoo.

Sir,

Which one is your church again?

If we go by your standard of defamation or criminal defamation or military defamation that you guys are using, half of the population of any country would be locked up. At the same time, no lady, wife or even prostitutes would dare file complain against any abusers, politicians or pastor.

Illiterate,

Did you read the article to know where it belongs or somebody read you the headline

Rockyrascal:
And OP you brought this to the politics section