₦airaland Forum

laa:
@people that Dont believe magun exist i have a girl friend that have a magun on her we can make a deal 50,000 for every trialist
Or You give me your atm card and pin number incase of incasity

Let's make it N2,500 and you have a deal. My anti-magun cream is NAFDAC certified. 

I think you can all see that Africans are more intelligent than Westerners trully.

For the reading pleasure of anybody interested. See below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penis_captivus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaginismus
http://www.webnuns.org/grun/arch_thread_GID7_TID3930.htm
http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1374754&lastnode_id=1258885
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1596579

davidylan:
Sometimes its not how much money accrues to the government per head that matters. If food was cheap (a vibrant agricultural sector), roads where good, i didnt have to pay for generators or boreholes, i didnt have to hire a maiguard, public transportation was cheap and reliable, health insurance scheme was working, public schools were good and free e.t.c. then i could more than survive on N5000/month.

If we have a vibrant Mechanised Agricultural sector, then the over-dependence on Oil revenues will be reduced and that confirms the earlier comment that we need to diversify our economy. Good roads are only that good because of proper maintenance culture which we lack. The previous question was not if you can survive on N5,000 monthly but what Government responsibility will you be able to perform or take care of?

diphor:
With all these i will suggest that after each months revenue generation Yaradua should just share the mone for all Nigerians.lol becaus if it is shared people will do all the things Goverment claim will be done for ove 40 years.i prefer cocoa days to this so called oil rich nation

@ diphor

Assuming a current Oil production of 2.5 Million b.p.d and US$75 gets to the Government as @ today and US$ = N125 with population of 140 Million.

Daily Earnings = 2,500,000*75*125/140,000,000 = N167 per head.

If you are given (N167*30 ) N5,010 monthy as your share of the National cake, What Government responsibility will you be able to take care of?

US$600 Billion from oil in over 50 years with a population of over 140 Million to cater for when The United States military budget for 2007 is US$532.8 Billion. This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120 Billion in 2007).

Untill we diversify our economy the "relatively chicken change" oil money will never be enough for sustenable development. New York State fire service budget is bigger than Nigeria's annual budget.

penfold:
Magun is very very very real, I have seen the effects first hand (not experienced it o!)
I also know that it can be neutralized
Its effect is linked to the man's ejaculation, as long as the man does not ejaculate, there's no problem but if he does--------
That means that unless a condom will prevent the man from ejaculating, the victim still dies, condom notwithstanding

Tell that to the marines. 1st hand ko, 2nd leg ni.

But seriously my anti-magun cream has ejaculating-stopping effects.

just me:
What is magun if i may ask. I know its got something to do with sex but what exactly is it.

Magun is supposed to be Dont-Climb Magic Portion or JuJu used on Women to stop them from having illicit affairs.

It is believed to cause the person having sex (usually assumed to be a man since lesbian relationship is believed to be no sex) with the lady to sometimes summersault and later die. There are different flavours of magun and with some the lover only dies after eating certain foods. The efficacy of Magun on sex-toys is currently being researched. The findings will be published in due course. .

BlackMamba:
Yes, because Magun detects only human penetration. Condom, been a foreign object, Magun will assume wifey is just masturbating with a vibrator which do not contravene Magun law.

The Late Fela Kuti once called Condom Ko-Do-Mi meaning he no do nothing. If you believe in Magun, you will believe anything.


I have anti-magun cream that mimicks condom use on any magun-infested lady. A trial will convince you and it is only N200. Any interested buyer can PM me for details.

Get well soon denex.

Africa is the original home to mankind be they black, yellow, red, brown, pink, white or albino.

The black indigenous people of the Pacific Islands, Australia, South Asia do not refer to themselves as Africans.

touche:
@jayon & poster:
Question:
What car would you rather drive? A 'made in Naija' peugeot 504 or a Mercedes Maybach?

Answer:
Mercedes Maybach.

We "mumu's" appreciate premium, world class soccer. Our passion doesn't imply that we are unpatriotic.

@ touche

Question 1:
What team will you like to support in FIFA World Cup 2010?

Answer:
Nigeria

Question 2:
Did you support the USA against Nigeria's Falcons @ the last Womens World Cup?

Answer:
No, I'm a patriotic Nigerian.

Question 3:
Do you prefer to live in your rich friend father's house rather than your father's house and use the rich man's surname?

Answer:
No, But this not the same thing as a football club.

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Monkey wey no fine, the Mama must like am.

blasterman:
LITTLE DO YOU KNOW THAT YOUR PASSION FOR CHELSEA,ARSENAL AND MANCHESTER UNITED IS HELPING TO MAKE ANOTHER COUNTRY RICHER AND MORE ADVANCED THAN YOURS.

A STADIUM IN THE UK ALONE EMPLOYS ABOUT 1000 PEOPLE FOR EVERY MATCH YOU WATCH ,THE MAJORITY OF THE MONEY COMES FROM TELEVISION RIGHTS.

IF YOU CAN GIVE HALF OF THE PASSION YOU HAVE FOR THIS OVERSEAS CLUBS TO YOUR LOCAL CLUBS THERE IS NO WAY THAT THE LEAGUE WILL NOT BE BETTER OFF .

IF YOU TELL A BRITISH MAN YOU ARE A CHELSEA FAN, HE WILL BE THINKING IN HIS MIND , "MUMU , WETIN CONCISE THIS BLACK SHIT WITH CHELSEA"

SO BROTHERS AND SISTERS PLEASE FOR GODS SAKE TRY TO SEE REASON AND UNDERSTAND THAT THIS YOUR LOVE FOR THE OYINBO MAN FOOTBALL IS DEVELOPING THERE COUNTRY AND CREATING JOBS FOR THEM MEANWHILE IN OUR COUNTRY THERE IS ARMED ROBBERY EVERYDAY.NO JOBS FOR THE SECONDARY SCHOOL LEAVERS,NO JOBS FOR THE UNIVERISTY GRADUATES, ABEG TRY CHANGE

Don't mind the naija football haters who want to be more catholic than the pope.

Charity, they say begins at home. If you hate your naija football clubs so much then you dont love your country.

I'm also preaching the "love your own football" message.

Nigeria is a very poor country with a wrong notion of being very rich.

Nigeria's population makes its oil earnings look like a pittance.

Former US president George Washington  never attended college but he had a classical education in morals, manners and gentlemanly conduct which matters most.

He was a Planter, farmer and soldier, and was a professional surveyor at age 16

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some relevant views are below.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-81381.0.html

http://www.nigerianmuse.com/spotlight/?u=NASS_FORUM_Brawls_in_Parliaments_Around_the_World_An_NM_Compendium.htm&PHPSESSID=b202155bc49eb93a385aa8b1c314e00d


Brawls in Parliaments Around the World

1. Russia


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZGaaqH2o6I
Fight in Russian Duma (Parliament) [the most civil of the fights, ]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tszrmFiar_U&NR=1
Politician Fight

2. South Korea


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoaxLI_oZ2w
South Korea [Asiatisches Brauchtum / Asian Custom - fight in parliament.] - short; old man slapping young man

3. Bolivia


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ob9oMlvuMw4
Bolivia [very interesting one - you can see a judo belt guy there readying, !]

4. India


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYewI_l-aAI&mode=related&search=
Indian Parliment Fight [particularly kinetic, meaning exciting, ]

5. Somalia


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WtlUFN2Vxw
Somalia [raw chair-use, ]

6. Nigeria


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dany8sr7AZ8
Brawl in nigerian paliament over 628 million naira


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_dMLazlTNg&NR=1
Politicians trade punches in Nigeria

7. Taiwan

It appears that Taiwan has a chronic problem:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78gSpUYB7-E
A dirty slap in Taipei,Taiwan parliament [must see the ladies too, ]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xCn3ZYTU0Y&NR=1
Taiwan again - a shoe is thrown,


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbSvPtyCoEs
Taiwanese Legislature Fight


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A31grS8VFk4
MTN Blooper Brawling Legislators in Taiwan

or this hilarious parody


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_-Eigd7RbU
The Best Taiwanese Parliament fights of all times,

This additional information does not excuse the fisticuffs, just gives it an international dimension, so that we don\'t feel, em, exclusive.


I quit.


NM
Shaking all over
With a belly laugh
We learn every day

PS: Please vote for the best brawl by number,

[quote author=I-man link=topic=81162.msg1527014#msg1527014 date=1190656086]

In all countries practising democracy, and where they have an elected house, people from every work of life are elected based on the popular vote.

The only problem with the above is that its untrue.You will find that most people who occupy such positions often have stellar academic credentials.[/quote]I repeat that in all countries practising democracy, and where they have an elected house, people from every work of life are elected based on the popular vote.

May I ask you, what are the stellar academic credentials of the last Speaker of the House of Representatives Alhaji Aminu Bello Masari? or did the "stellar" academic credentials of former Senate President Chuba Okadigbo save him from impeachment on grounds of misappropriation of funds?

Mamajama:
Don't we have actors and wrestlers in politics? I heard there was a porn star in politics too. Lol

Yes, we do have actors and wrestlers in politics and also chicken farmers and shipyard workers too.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cicciolina

Ilona Staller a.k.a Cicciolina  is an Hungarian born Italian porn-star turned politician and the first hardcore performer in the world to be elected to a democratic parliament.

[quote author=I-man link=topic=81162.msg1526836#msg1526836 date=1190651587]Its about competence.The job requires a high level of competence which one might not expect in a hairdresser[/quote]Who or What professional is competent to be speaker by your own definition?

It is very puerile that many people have chosen to lay much emphasis on the fact that the speaker is a hairdresser, as if that disqualifies her from possessing common sense. You don't go to school to learn how to be Speaker of The House of Representatives or House of Assembly. In all countries practising democracy, and where they have an elected house, people from every work of life are elected based on the popular vote.

BTW the current speaker is a 3-term lawmaker.

There is supposed to be dignity in labour but some people keep reminding us that the speaker is a hairdresser as if a chicken farmer was not once US President.

In the USA, some states elected  wrestlers and body-builders as their governors.

Without OBJ's monetisation policy we would have also been talking about N3-5 Million furniture allowance for each legislator as well as anything between N5-15 Million each for renovations too.

Stop the criticisms based on her previous profession so that we can focus more on the substance.

How much was spent to renovate Aso Rock after OBJ?

http://www.tribune.com.ng/08092007/for_d_records1.html

Etteh: Long Way From Impeachment [/color]


From late July 2007, the two chambers of the National Assembly proceeded on a one-and- a-half-month-recess and were due to resume plenary from September 4. But controversy over financial regulations, which is fast becoming the hallmark of the Nigerian legislature, broke out from the House of Representatives as to the circumstances leading to the award of contracts for the renovation of the official residence of the Speaker of the House, Patricia Etteh, and her Deputy, Babangida Ngoroje.

The crisis, many believe, is principally a fallout of the composition of the House Standing Committees announced by Etteh on the eve of the recess by the members of the lower House. There are 360 members in the House with each of them positioning for the less than 100 committees chairmanship positions. Indeed, standing committees of the House has never at a time exceeded 80 in number, and the Speaker had at the start of her tenure announced the decision to reduce the committees in line with the low profile disposition of the incumbent government.

There were loud grumbles as soon as Etteh announced the composition of the committees. Owing to that, it was expected that the announcement would not just go without an incident. Some ranking members who had their eyes on certain committees felt shortchanged by the decision of Etteh and the House leadership to place them in other committees. The House leadership equally knew the enormity of the problem associated with the composition of committees. They knew that their action or inaction in certain regards could lead to eruptions in the House, the magnitude of which no one could envisage. Thus, when it was being insinuated that the Senate was ready to announce its committee positions, the leaders of the House were said to have sent emissaries to the upper chamber to hold the decision so as not to heap too much pressure on the lower chamber.

When the leaders of the House of Representatives were eventually ready with the committee list, there was nothing to show that the decisions went well with the group of legislators described as the “vocal minority,” the group of ranking members. The ranking members had defended Etteh during the processes that led to her emergence, and it was believed that appointment into relevant or what is regarded as ‘juicy’ committees would be the natural payback. It was, therefore, not strange that when the crisis over contract awards broke out, those who backed Etteh’s emergence in June were also at the forefront, with many of them granting media interviews calling for probe.

While most of the stories were restricted to the media during the recess, the tense atmosphere reverted to the premises of the National Assembly as the September 4 date for resumption of activities drew close. On Friday, August 31 and Monday September 3, a group of youths converged at the main gate of the National Assembly bearing placards condemning Etteh. Some of the placards called for her removal, while others condemned her alleged act of impropriety in awarding the contracts. Some legislators in the lower chamber – including Farouk Lawan, Mercy Almona-Isei and Halims Agoda, prominent figures in the immediate past Assembly– had taken positions against Etteh and were at the forefront of spreading what the Speaker’s loyalists would term the bad news.

On September 2, the management of the National Assembly attempted to douse the tension when it addressed journalists covering both the House of Representatives and the Senate, to explain the contract awards in the House of Representatives. Director of Information and Publications in the National Assembly, Mr. Monima Daminabo, who addressed the press on behalf of the Clerk of National Assembly (CNA), Alhaji Nasiru Arab, said that the media had been fed a lot of half truths and incoherent figures, while insisting that contracts awards in the House followed due process.

Daminabo, who addressed the press conference in company with the Chairman, House Committee on Media and Publicity, Eziuche Ubani, and the acting Clerk of the House of Representatives, Mr. Niyi Ajiboye, said that only N52 million had been paid out to the contractors out of the N579,216 million total sum of the contracts. He also clarified that the official residences of the presiding officers of the legislature had reverted to the control of the National Assembly following the sale of Apo Quarters by the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA), adding that the National Assembly management had undertaken the upgrading of the residences in accordance with provisions made in the 2007 budget.

According to the National Assembly spokesman, the scope of work done at the residences of the presiding officers of the House of Representatives was not confined to “mere renovation but entails a comprehensive upgrade of the affected premises to the standard that befits their status.” He added,. “Due process was followed at every stage in the award of the contracts. The tender notices for the projects were duly advertised through conspicuous display on the official notice boards throughout the National Assembly premises, as is the practice. The only disbursements made so far in respect of the contracts is 25 per cent of mobilisation and to only one contractor.”

As the Assembly resumed for plenary on Tuesday, there were high expectations on the side of those pushing for Etteh’s removal on the basis of the allegations that the day would advance their cause. The media had also expected a stormy day in the chamber of the House of Representatives. But it was the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, who made the first move, when he went into consultations with Etteh just before the day’s sitting commenced.

Although many had insinuated that Mark’s visit to Etteh was to ensure stability in the House, the Senate’s spokesman, Senator Ayogu Eze, told Senate correspondents that Mark went to consult with Etteh over the burial plans for the late President of the Senate, Chief Evan Enwerem, who died in August. It was also the death of Enwerem and the need to protect the legislative tradition that saved the Tuesday for Etteh.

Plenary had to be suspended in honour of the former chairman of the National Assembly in keeping with legislative tradition. It was not surprising that both chambers of the National Assembly suspended plenary that day. The suspension of plenary early Tuesday ensured that the different caucuses of the House could meet to finetune strategies and reach positions on the raging controversy. That possibly had great effects on the proceedings of the following day, which was less rancorous. Members simply went into the business of appointing the nine-member adhoc committee to probe the allegations against Etteh and the committee was given two weeks to complete its assignment.

While the issues had been largely pursued in the media, many members came on Tuesday to get the full briefing on the issues. There are two sides to the issue at stake. There are those who believe that the troubles of Etteh were basically attached to the composition of the committees, while there is the class of purists who believe that any inkling of fraud should be isolated. But from that class of members are also some who feel that while the message (that the House leaders should not be allowed to perpetrate fraud), might be right, the messengers are not the right carriers of such a message. Members of this class believe that the messengers of impeachment song are only trying to ride on the back of others to achieve what was not given to them during the committee composition. The dilemma of this group is hinged on their suspicion that the harbingers of Madam Speaker’s travails can easily yield to negotiations as per the composition of standing committees.

Going by the nature of the parliament, the Senate has not been completely detached from the happenings in the House of Representatives. There is also the fear that whatever affects the lower chamber could easily affect the upper. Though some sources had unearthed the execution of the contract for the Senate president’s mansion with the sum of N450 million, the Assembly had since clarified that the contract was executed during the tenure of the former President of the Senate, Chief Ken Nnamani, and that it was executed by the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA).

Mark has not been silent on the House controversy. In Lokoja, Kogi State last weekend, he told newsmen that he was on he side of the Speaker as far as she has not been found guilty of any fraud. Besides, he was known to have shelved his foreign trip shortly after the crisis erupted during the recess to intervene in the matter. Mark told his colleagues in the upper chamber on Wednesday that they needed to be cautious on the House matter.

Daminabo also told newsmen in the National Assembly that the contract awarded for the upgrading and renovation of the Speaker’s residence stands at N238,853,192.25 (two hundred and thirty eight million, eight hundred and fifty three thousand one hundred and ninety two naira and twenty five kobo).

A breakdown of the contracts awards in the official residence of the Speaker, Daminabo said, included upgrading of the [color=#770077]main mansion of 10 bedrooms and seven sitting rooms, private office and private study. Other parts of the residence set for upgrading include the three-bedroom guest house, the three-bedroom ADC’s House, the four-bedroom domestic staff house, reception block, radio room, power house and the lock-up garages. Other items that make up the contract for the Speaker’s residence include the construction of the new security house, relocation of the mosque into the compound, construction of a chapel, furnishing, fittings and communication gadgets, payment of 5 per cent VAT and one year maintenance.

The National Assembly management also said that the sum of N90.2 million was to be spent on the upgrading of the Deputy Speaker’s residence, while another N55.2 million would be spent in furnishing the residence. Daminabo gave the breakdown of the contract to include the upgrading of the main mansion, which consists of seven bedrooms and five sitting rooms, a private study and private office.

There is also the ADC’s apartment, security house, power house and the three bedrooms guest house. He said that other components of the contract awarded for the deputy speaker’s house include the fence upgrade, provision of a 100KVA generator, security system, external works, payment of 5 per cent VAT and one year maintenance.

The National Assembly spokesman also said that the contract awards that have become a subject of controversy in the House of Representatives include the purchase of 17 official cars approved for the two presiding and eight principal officers of the House of Representatives as approved by the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation Commission. He said that the old vehicles inherited by the office of the Speaker and the principal officers could no longer do the job after they had been used for four years. He gave the breakdown of vehicles to include one Toyota Land Cruiser VX V8 Jeep and two Peugeot 406 for the Speaker, two Mercedes Benz 500, one Toyota Jeep, two Peugeot 406 and one Toyota Hilux for the use of the Deputy Speaker. Each of the eight Principal Officers are to be allocated one Toyota Land Cruiser Jeep.

Daminabo said that while the management of the National Assembly would not want to join issues with the politicians, it felt that the public had been fed with half truths and figures that were not commensurate with those contained in the contract awards. While the defence by the management of the National Assembly will so far stand in the public domain as the strong point of the Speaker’s claim, the adhoc committee will have to look deep into the issues. The committee will for instance determine whether the control of the houses of the presiding officers of the Assembly has indeed reverted to the National Assembly unlike the practice prior to the sale of Apo Legislators’ Quarters and whether indeed due process was followed during the process of the award. One germane issue is whether the Tenders’ Board met before the contracts were awarded and which of the two Tenders’ Boards in the National Assembly handled the awards. There is the Principal Officers Tenders Board and the Management Tenders’ Board.

As the probe committee flags off its activities, it is certain that the Speaker’s traducers have got a long way to go if they must get through the intent to impeach as they have espoused in the media. This is because other than claims of morality, there is nothing in the rules of the legislature that says a presiding officer cannot sit over his or her own case. Again, with the fact that any impeachment of the Speaker or Senate President must be backed by two-third majority of the chamber, it might just be a huge task getting her to step down.

I have gone to IBB's house before and that is not the place.

The title should have been Africa before Trans Atlantic Slavery.

There was Trans Sahara Slavery and Trans Indian Ocean Slavery as well as "Intra-Africa"  slavery which still persists till today in Mauritania, Sudan amongst others.

ow11:
The rules of the game is as complex as rugby. even rugby players struggle with the rules. i think africans want something they can watch without having to bring out their calculators. you know the runs total to chase and that something-duck rule for delayed ODI. its so difficult to get it right.

in my own opinion, test cricket should be scrapped and twenty20 should be encouraged. its more interesting.
but for now they should make the 20-20 more open much like the fifa world cup

It is called Duckworth-Lewis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duckworth-Lewis_method

In the sport of cricket, the Duckworth-Lewis method (D/L method) is a mathematical way to calculate the target score for the team batting second in a one-day cricket or Twenty-20 cricket match interrupted by weather or other circumstance. It is generally accepted to be a fair and accurate method of setting a target score, but as it attempts to predict what would have happened had the game come to its natural conclusion, it generates some controversy.

Banderas:
The question is: Is he young

Very Young Indeed!

But I think he should go straight to Super Eagles so that he can be better nurtured.

You will recall that in 2000, Chuba Okadigbo spent $225,000 (N28 Million) on garden furniture! Yes, $225,000, not N225,000. And yes, the furniture was for the GARDEN, not the house. And not the sparsely furnished schools in his Anambra district. By the time that he was thrown out of his leadership position, Okadigbo had 32 government vehicles attached to his office.

It was reported that the former speaker Masari carted away some of the old furniture after he left office.

chidichris:
in every country, there is always fake and real news. the other day almost all the sport news medias at international level reported that chelsea had signed dani alves from servila but the news was not real at the end of the day.
tell obj to go ahead and sue the newspaper companies and let us see how the court will handle the matter. we will reffer him to court cases under his leadership were decissions of the court were overlooked.
we will remind him of his madness when yar adua upheld the decission of the court to remove andy uba as the gov of anambra. we will remind him of his foolish reaction to the decission of court to retain ararume as the gubernitorial candidate of pdp in imo state.

OBJ is only being sarcastic, He also told Yar'Adua that Tribune is among the few Nigerian newspapers that are objective. How did he know that if he doesn't read newspapers?

Can you remind OBJ also when he upheld the decision of the court to reinstate Dariye & Ladoja. Which decision is foolish among the following ?
- Court insists PDP must field "unwanted" candidate for Imo Guber Polls
- PDP withdraws from Imo Guber Polls.

The moral is that you can force a horse to the stream but you cannot force it to drink water.
Some problems can only be solved politically and not by judicial means.

HiTV paid up the mandatory $28 million (N3.5 billion) to put to rest speculations on the broadcast rights ownership of the Premiership for the next three seasons. The company also paid an additional 6.9 million Euros (N1.2 Billion) for the Spanish La Liga for the whole of Africa. Currently, HiTV has made the Spanish game available to local television stations in Nigeria through Optimum Sports Management International (OSMI).

In mid-June the South African Premier Soccer League announced a landmark deal with SuperSport which is on DSTV (HiTV's main rival in Nigeria) platform. The pay-TV channel had bought the television broadcasting rights to South Africa’s football showcase for the next five years. The price? A cool R1.6-billion (N3.2 billion). But well worth it according to SuperSport CEO Imtiaz Patel.

As at today Nigeria Football League is only on DSTV and the vast majority of the youth in Nigeria have an obsession with European football to the detriment of Local football resulting in few spectators at the games and the newspapers sport pages are dominated by Internet articles on European football. The obsession with European/Foreign goods has been our weakness since time immemorial. The youth of today will become the foreign-hospital-loving political leader of tomorrow.

HiTV should concentrate on developing Nigerian Music, Movies and Sports (Football, Basketball, Athletics, Table Tennis, Boxing) and not European football. Monkey wey no fine, the Mama must like am period.

In Nigeria some reports claim 5% of the population control between 80% - 90% of the wealth. http://allafrica.com/stories/200701110121.html
http://publicintegrity.org/aids/country.aspx?cc=ng
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0704/28/i_if.01.html

Now what really makes Nigeria different from Zimbabwe save for the colour of the skin of the Zimbabweans who own majority of the wealth?

Who really owns the Land? Is it the black Zimbabwean who got the allocation after it was seized from the white Zimbabwean who bought it from the family of a white Rhodesian who seized it 150 years ago from a Shona who seized it from an Ndebele 250 years ago who in turn acquired it as spoils of war waged against the Bantonkas and Venda who displaced the original humans living in present day Zimbabwe 500 years ago?.

The land issue is a problem that may not necessarily be racial/tribal/ethnic but political and material. The Yoruba's say "Ti Oluwa Ni Ile ati Ekun Re" (God owns the Land and its riches)

A just distribution of land is good as long it is done in the overall interest of the country and its economy. But in Africa we are naturally a migrating "people" and the indigene and settler issue is very political.

In Rwanda & Burundi, the minority Tutsi rule over the majority Hutus, In Northern Nigeria of Old, the minority Fulani rule over the majority Hausa. Also in Liberia before 1980, the minority Americo Liberians ruled over the indigenous people for almost 150 years and later the Krahns, a minority ethnic group, simply became the new elite, replacing the Americo-Liberians. Citizens of a country no matter their ethnicity should have a chance to partake in the government of their country as long as it is democratically done.

All human beings are settlers anywhere they may be since Humankind originated from East Africa and then spread all over the world. Mitochondrial DNA evidence attests to this fact. In a nutshell some settlers are older than others.

Commercial White Zimbabwean farmers are chased away from their farms with their skills and replaced with Party faithful without faming skills or inadequate skills in an economy dominated by agriculture.

Some of Zimbabwe's Loss is Nigeria's gain in the Kwara State Backed Agricultural scheme.

Tunde Bakare should be ignored.

Below is an old reaction to Harold Smith's Tales


http://www.ceddert.com/Rigging_nigerian_history.htm


The Rigging of Nigerian History

Dr Alkasum Abba, Department of History,

Ahmadu Bello University,

Zaria, Nigeria.

I have read, with keen interest, the two cover stories of TELL magazine published earlier this month. These focused on Nigerian political history in the 1950s and the 1960s, as seen from the view point of Mr. Harold Smith, a former British colonial Labour Officer posted to Lagos in 1955-1960.



The Packaging of Harold Smith

The first story has a screaming and sensational headline: “How Britain Rigged Elections, Census for the North - Former Colonial Officer.” This was published on the March 7th 2005 edition of the magazine. It covered a total of 13 pages with a one-page introduction by the editor of TELL, Ayodele Akinkuotu, captioned: “The Evils The British Did”.

In this introduction, an attempt has been made by Mr. Akinkuotu to paint a saintly picture of Harold Smith, in order to give credence to what he wrote and said. The rest of the 12 pages of the cover story were made up of carefully selected excerpts of the unpublished autobiography of Mr. Harold Smith, titled, Blue Collar Lawman.

These excerpts are clearly aimed at denigrating the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons, NCNC, its President, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and its Federal Minister for Labour and Finance, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh. The excerpts also painted a similar picture of the Northern Region and its ruling party, the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC. But in a sharp contrast to the above two cases, the excerpts paid glowing tribute to the Action Group, AG, and its leaders Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Chief Anthony Enahoro, presenting them as virtual saints; and claiming that they were victims of political machinations of the British, the NCNC and the NPC.

After a fortnight, on 21st March 2005, TELL came out with another sensational headline on Harold Smith. This time, Harold Smith was brought live with an interview through the Internet. This interview was published as the cover story with a title: “Exclusive Interview: The British Expected Nigeria to Break Up - Harold Smith, Former Colonial Officer”. This covered 10 pages of the magazine.

It was also divided into two parts. The first part was made up of 3 pages of introduction to the interview. This was titled: “A Bureaucrat as an Idealist,” written by Dele Omotunde, the Deputy Editor-in-Chief of TELL magazine. In this write up, Harold Smith was again eulogised:

“As a patriot, Smith is also fighting for the reinstatement of British honour which he says had been cruelly defiled by the sordid, evil machinations of men at the helm of affairs in the old colony who handed over a counterfeit democracy on the eve of independence in 1960.” (P.26)

The second part of the cover story is made up of an interview with Harold Smith, covering pages 29-35 of the magazine. The questions raised followed the pattern of the selected excerpts from the unpublished autobiography of Harold Smith.

The Credibility of Harold Smith

The two editions of the TELL magazine on Harold Smith’s version of recent Nigerian political history, made me to go to his website and read the story, in its complete form, as he wrote it. I had to do this, because decolonisation is the subject of research I have been actively involved in for nearly twenty years. Indeed, I had spent one year in the UK, 1989-1990, recovering written and oral primary source material on this subject.

In the course of this research, besides the field, library and archival work I have done in Nigeria, I had interviewed, in the UK, a number of former colonial officials and had combed libraries there and worked in the Public Records Office, London. The evidence in the primary sources which I have recovered, assessed and studied, up to now, contradict this picture of this period of Nigerian political history painted by Harold Smith and eulogised by TELL magazine. After reading the story of Mr. Harold Smith from his website I identified three important elements which call into question his whole credibility as a source for Nigerian political history in this period.

Firstly, Mr. Harold Smith’s claim that he refused to obey the orders of the Governor-General of Nigeria, Sir James Robertson, to take part in the rigging of the 1956 election into the Western Regional House of Assembly, in Warri, the political base of Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, in favour of the NCNC, is not substantiated by any evidence and by the subsequent course of his career in the colonial service in Nigeria. But, although he claims that he refused to obey what he calls, an “illegal order,” to rig elections, he was not queried nor officially sanctioned by anyone.

According to his own account, in his autobiography, it was only, four years later, in 1960 that he claimed that, the Governor – General, Sir James Robertson, invited him to the Government House, Marina, Lagos, to warn him to shut up over this “illegal order” and threaten him. What explained the gap of four years between his refusal to obey the instructions of the Governor-General of Nigeria in 1956 and the warning and threat from the Governor – General in 1960?

Was it because it was only in 1960 that he decides to expose the Governor General’s “illegal order” of 1956, and the Governor –General learnt of this and moved in to warn and threaten him? If that is the case, where is the documentary evidence that he was going to use to expose the Governor – General? Or, was he only going to rely on hearsay, by word – of – mouth, to expose such a high – ranking official of the British colonial establishment, as Sir James Robertson? If he has any documentary evidence for this whole episode over the elections, and anything else on Nigerian politics and elections, why has he not put them in his autobiography, giving their sources and posted them on his website?

How come, that, after his refusal to obey the orders of the Governor – General in 1956, he finished his first two-year contract in 1957, and went to the UK on six months leave and the Colonial Office renewed his contract with the Ministry of Labour in Lagos, for another two years, without any problem? This second contract also run its natural course and ended in 1960, when he departed for UK, like any other colonial official.

Even if it is true that he was summoned by the Governor – General in 1960 and warned and threatened over these 1956 elections in Warri, this did not seem to have made any differences to his employment in the British colonial government in Nigeria. How credible, therefore, are all his stories and claims?

Secondly, Mr. Smith was not a political officer, he was just a Labour Officer at the Ministry of Labour headquarters, in Lagos and, was, therefore, not in a position to know, the real wheeling and dealing among Nigerian politicians and between them and the British colonial government, in the critical period of transition to independence, 1950-1960.

Mr. Harold Smith was on the margins of the Nigerian political environment. The Colonial Office recruited him into the Labour Department in 1954, and he arrived Lagos in 1955. Even in Lagos, he was pre-occupied with the problems of his Labour Department, where he was busy working on the Factories Act and the Provident Fund. These were clearly where his duties were located in the colonial service.

Therefore, the claim by Ayodele Akinkuotu that Harold Smith was “neck-deep in laying the foundation for the British retreat from Nigeria” is false, and is without any foundation. He was not, in any way even near those, “neck-deep” involved in laying the foundation for the British retreat from Nigeria.

Indeed, the claim of Mr. Smith that, “when I suggest that the British Government meddled with the democratic elections in Nigeria, I write as an authority” is patently false. He was only a minor official in a specialised department of the British colonial government in Nigeria, where he served for about five years, 1955-1960, entirely in Lagos. Even in Lagos, he did not mix with Nigerians and therefore remained on the sidelines.

In addition, he had no experience in colonial service and colonial political intrigues because his Nigerian service was the only record of experience he had in the massive, worldwide, British colonial machinery and it was the only formal employment he himself maintained in his entire 78-year life.

Thirdly, he was not close to a single Nigerian politician, or to a British colonial political officer as is clearly evident from his autobiography. In fact, the closest he got to a Nigerian politician, was that he was a staff of the Ministry of Labour when Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh of the NCNC became its Minister, shortly after his arrival in Nigeria.

His Hatred for Okotie – Eboh and Nwokedi

Part of the problem of Harold Smith as a source, is that he hated Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh with an irrational intensity, for reasons, which are not clear, except the accusation of corruption against the Chief. Even in this case, he did not substantiate it beyond the claim that the Chief sold one of the buildings of the Ministry of Labour in Apapa. He did not give any details to substantiate this accusation. He just accused Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh of being a stooge of the British colonial government without evidence.

In fact, I am tempted to argue that Harold Smith did not like Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh because as the Minister he represented the fact of Nigerian independence. For Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh becoming a Minister meant that Harold Smith, who had failed to secure a good employment, in UK before, and after, going to the University of Oxford, and had to seek for employment as a Labour Officer in colonial Nigeria, would have to retrace his steps back.

This becomes logical when we put into account that Harold Smith also hated Mr. Francis Nwokedi, the most senior Nigerian civil servant in the Labour Department. He was a supporter of the NCNC and rose to become Harold Smith’s Permanent Secretary. In fact, he did not mention in his autobiography, the name of a single Nigerian in the Labour Department, or any other Department that he was close to, or interacted with.

He merely called these Nigerians clerks, typists and African staff, without mentioning their names. Maybe, he did not think that it is important to know their names and mention these in his autobiography, in the way that he did to each and every European staff that he worked with, or even came across. The truth is that the closest Nigerians to Harold Smith were his household servants, whose names he knew and mentioned them in his autobiography.

Harold Smith’s hatred for Nigerian independence, and for those who personalised this independence to him, like Okotie – Eboh and Nwokedi, because he had to work under them, is clearly stated in the first paragraph of chapter one of his autobiography, where he states, categorically, that:

“The British retreated from West Africa almost in a state of panic. A few African nationalists were making noisy demands for freedom from the Colonial yoke, but the riots and rebellions hardly existed and no blood was shed in Nigeria expelling the forces of Imperialism [!!]. The British withdrawal took place in haste, because world opinion was beginning to demand that the Colonial powers spend money on their African possessions. If this suggests that Britain exploited its Colonies it simply is not true [!!]…

The vast mass of the African people was indifferent or actually would have preferred the British to stay” [!!]. (p.1)

Harold Smith makes a blanket condemnation of the performance of the leaders of the former British West African territories, which became independent in the 1960s. He clearly denounced African independence. He was even calling for the return of British colonial rule when he said:

“Whatever the shortcomings of British Colonial Administration in Africa, some of the more or less well ordered systems which were handed over to the native populations in the 1960's degenerated fairly quickly into corrupt, one-party states. Many of the native peoples must have looked back with regret to Independence and wished once more for British rule.” (p. 4, my emphasis)

The Claims of Harold Smith

This brings me to the substance of Mr. Harold Smith’s autobiography, which obviously, the TELL magazine wanted to disseminate. They revolve basically around four issues.

Firstly, Mr. Harold Smith claims that the British colonial government rigged the 1956 regional elections in the Western Region in favour of the NCNC. Secondly, he claims that the NPC and the NCNC were favoured to form the independence government by the British against the Action Group. Thirdly, he claims that the British government rigged census figures to favour the Northern Region. Fourthly, he claims that the violent overthrow of the First Republic was brought about because of the persecution of Chief Awolowo due to the effective role he played as the Leader of Opposition. I will take these one –by - one, to show that Harold Smith has no credibility as a source for this period of Nigerian political history. Mr. Harold Smith, far from exposing British rigging of Nigerian elections is just trying to rig Nigerian history for his own purposes.

The 1956 Western Regional Elections

According to Harold Smith, he was instructed by Sir James Robertson, the Governor General of Nigeria, to make available vehicles and staff of the Ministry of Labour to NCNC candidates contesting election into the Western Region House of Assembly at Warri, the hometown of the Minister of Labour, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh. He said he refused to carry out the order. This is how he reported it in his autobiography.

“I was one of the British officers serving on the headquarters staff in Lagos, chosen by the Governor General, Sir James Robertson, to mastermind the covert action to rig Nigeria's elections. This secret operation hatched in Whitehall was of course a gross betrayal of trust by Prime Ministers Sir Anthony Eden and Mr Harold Macmillan. The orders which arrived on my desk from the Governor General before the elections for the Western Regional Government in 1956 were quite illegal and in direct contravention of Nigerian and British law.” (p. 5)

Mr. Smith, however, did not give any details of the alleged rigging of the election in favour of the NCNC, either in Warri or any other constituency in the Western Region. Mr. Harold Smith did not follow the events by collecting all the relevant materials to prove the rigging of the 1956 elections. For he should know that it is not enough to throw accusations of election rigging against the British, and the NCNC, without bringing out the facts and the figures of how this rigging took place.

How did the staff and vehicles of the Lagos Office of the Ministry of Labour help to rig the election in Warri and elsewhere in the Western Region? Unless Harold Smith can bring out the evidence of this, he would appear just to be engaged in trying to rig the history of these elections for his own purposes.


The NCNC, the AG and the British

I have raised these issues and questions because the NCNC was the leading political party produced by Nigerian nationalists in the course of the struggle for independence. This is in the sense that the process of its formation in 1944, its objectives and activities involved, for the first time, the massive mobilisation of the colonised people of Nigeria from cities, towns and villages, to struggle for their emancipation from colonial yoke imposed on them by the likes of Harold Smith. The successes recorded by the NCNC in the mobilisation of the ordinary people of Nigeria to struggle for independence, earned the party and its leadership, particularly Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, the dislike and hostility of the colonial administration and some of its leading officials.

I would like to cite few examples of the formidable achievements of the NCNC, which earned the party the dislike and hostility of the British Colonial Government in Nigeria and the Colonial Office. One of the first important acts of the NCNC after its formation in August 1944 was to join hands with the trade unions under the leadership of Michael Imoudu to organize the first Nigeria-wide strike by workers in 1945. It was so successful and effective that even night soil men joined it and British officials were forced to do menials jobs. This strike lasted for 44 days and its impact was politically and economically devastating to the British.

Soon after this strike ended, the NCNC increased the pressure by organising a national mobilisation campaign in 1946 to get the oppressed people of Nigeria to reject the attempt to divide them along ethnic and regional lines through the Richards’ Constitution. This constitution created three regions and made them new centres of political power. The objective of this reginalisation of Nigerian politics was to block the political ascendancy of the NCNC, which was mobilising Nigerians across the ethnic, religious and regional divides. The 1946 campaign was so successful that the NCNC became a household name in Nigeria.

The NCNC rejected regionalism and fought against it and the successes the party recorded at the initial stages frightened the British the more. Thus, when the first elections were held into the regional parliaments in 1951, the NCNC contested in all the three regions, unlike its regionalist’s rivals, the AG and the NPC. What even astonished the British was the fact that in the election, the AG, which was created as a Yoruba party lost to the NCNC in the Western Region. The Action Group won, only 29 seats, while the NCNC won 35 seats! Regionalism was in danger. There were, however, 16 seats won by small parties and independent candidates available for negotiation.

Through behind the door negotiations, which involved some British officials, these 16 seats went to the AG. This was how the Action Group and the British succeeded in turning the electoral victory of the NCNC into a victory for the AG. Far from the NCNC working for the British, it was indeed the Action Group, which was very close to them, in this and many other instances.

But the NCNC did not relent in its refusal to reject regionalist and tribalist politics. Thus, in the next election it came out in full force to inflict a decisive defeat on the AG in the first federal election into the House of Representatives held in 1954. The NCNC won 23 seats, in the Western Region, against 18 by the Action Group. This defeat of the Action Group by the NCNC in the Western Region frightened both the British and the leaders of AG.

As a result of this significant NCNC nationalist victory, the Colonial Office, the Nigerian Government, the Action Group and the Northern Peoples Congress, NPC, made desperate attempts to cripple the NCNC, as a nationalist party in order to entrench tribalist and regionalist politics. This conspiracy to weaken the NCNC involved a proposal to merge the Action Group, the NPC and other smaller political parties together, in order to prevent the NCNC from leading the Federal Government. The evidence for this conspiracy, which had the AG and the NPC, working closely with the British, against the nationalist forces in the NCNC, comes from a top-secret report no. G.221/97, now available in the Public Records Office, in London. The Chief Secretary to the Nigerian Colonial Government in Lagos, Mr. Ralph Grey, sent this report to Mr. T. B. Williamson of the Colonial Office on 31st December 1954. The Chief Secretary reported that:

“Abubakar [Tafawa Balewa] dropped in again this morning to report further on the “situation.” He showed me a paper, which recorded the results of his talks with Mr. Akintola and Mr. Rosoji on 16th December. (These followed an earlier meeting on 15th December at which the Sardauna and someone else from the Action Group, possibly Mr. Awolowo, were present).

2. I glanced through the paper very quickly and wished that I had a better photographic memory. The main thing was to form a United Front Party- consisting of the NPC, AG, UNIP and KNC – under NPC leadership. All members of those parties elected to the House of Representatives would sign a declaration of adherence to the new party…

4. An undertaking was taken by the Action Group that they would cease to press for the Regions to be broken up into States or for an alteration in the North/West boundary, ” (PRO, CO554/1178)

As far as the colonial records are concerned, the attitude of the British Government towards the NCNC and its leader Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe did not change in any significant way as to turn the party and its leadership into stooges over an election in the Western Region, where the party was a formidable force in its own right. The British records are available on this subject and Harold Smith should bring his own evidence, which contradicts these colonial records, unless he just wants to rig Nigerian history.

The 1959 NPC-NCNC Alliance

It is obvious that the dislike of “the North” by Harold Smith is an extension of his dislike of the NCNC. This is particularly because the NCNC formed an alliance with the NPC against the Action Group, which he liked and supported. His support for Awolowo and the Action Group was based on the fact that the Action Group based its party on those of the Conservative Party of the UK. In other words, Harold Smith was quick to recognize that the AG was at that time, a conservative party.

This was not a coincidence because Harold Smith comes from a family, which was poor and Irish, but wanted to become English and had supported the Conservative Party in the UK. In fact, even as a poor youth, Harold Smith was active in the trade unions, fighting communists after the end of the Second World War. He went to the University of Oxford on scholarship. This was why he became an ideal material as a colonial Labour Officer in Nigeria, where the trade unions were active and had been part of the struggle for independence on the side of the radical NCNC.

Harold Smith made every effort to denigrate the election results from the North because of his dislike of the NCNC, whose alliance with the NPC resulted in the formation of the first independent government of Nigeria. He described this alliance as “sordid”! But what Harold Smith did was to display his ignorance of Nigerian politics of the 1950s. The NPC – NCNC alliance, to form the Federal Government of Nigeria in 1959, was a necessary outcome of the actual realities of these politics.

In an address delivered at the meeting of the National Executive Committee of the NCNC held in Lagos on 22nd December 1959, the President of the party, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe explained the reasons for the NPC-NCNC alliance. Among these reasons was the possible break up of the NCNC because of the objection of its members from the Western Region to any alliance with the AG. There was also the issue of the hostility of the AG towards the NCNC in the past eight years, which was expressed in terms of the Awolowo Government of the Western Region seizing the house of Dr. Azikiwe in Lagos and refusing to pay compensation. The AG was also accused by the NCNC of funding its dissidents like Mr. Eyo Ita; attacking its leaders and supporting the break up of the Eastern Region at the Minorities Commission. But, above all, the NCNC were concerned about the threat to national unity at the point of independence.

For given the division of Nigerian politics as North verses South, it was wrong for the NCNC as a party with a national outlook to forge an alliance with the AG, which would amount to an isolation of the North. These were some of the reasons that made Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe to reject the offer of becoming the first Prime Minister of an independent Nigeria under the NCNC-AG alliance. He was concerned about the unity of Nigeria and was less concerned about holding the office of the Prime Minister. The NCNC and its NEPU ally were determined to prevent what they called the “Pakistanisation” of Northern Nigeria, by the British and went out of their way to pre-empt that by becoming close to the NPC.


Nigerian Censuses and Northern Nigeria

The attack of Harold Smith on the NPC-NCNC alliance also involved the attempt to discredit the Nigerian census figures especially as they related to the North. Smith writes:

“The massive power of the North rested on the census figures produced by the British officials in early 1950s. All attempts to confirm those census figures since have proved a failure and this has become the most bitterly contested issue in Nigerian politics.” (TELL, March 7,2005, p. 41)



The last census conducted by the colonial government was in 1952, when Harold Smith was a student in the UK. So, how could he claim to know what happen in the course of the conduct of the census when he was not in Nigeria? Did he attempt to check the figures? Harold Smith should know that an autobiography involves writing about events and activities that one is involved in. He was not involved in the 1952 census and therefore had to cite his sources for the allegation that it was rigged in favour of the North.

Leading scholars on the Nigerian economic statistics, like Professor Gerald Helleiner, noted the shortcomings of Nigerian census figures, but thought that the range of error was in the region of 25%, and that the accuracy of the censuses from 1921-1952 was improving. In the three colonial Nigerian censuses of 1921, 1931 and 1952, the Northern Provinces and the Northern Region had the majority of Nigeria’s population. If Harold Smith wants to question that he should do so with reasons and evidence and not just attempt to rig the history of Nigerian censuses, by throwing around accusations, which lack any foundations.

The Violent Overthrow of the First Republic

The last aspect of the rigging of Nigerian history by Harold Smith, which I would like to draw attention to, is his claim that the violent overthrow of the First Republic was brought about because of the persecution of Chief Awolowo due to the effective role he played as the Leader of Opposition. As a student of Nigerian political history, I have kept on asking, what actually went wrong with both Chief Awolowo and the Action Group?

I had to pose this question because as of the time of independence, the AG emerged clearly as the fastest growing political party in Nigeria. I have said so, because the party went a long way to transform itself from the political wing of the Egbe Omo Oduduwa (The Society of the Descendents of Oduduwa), which was Western Region and Yoruba centred to a national party after, the severe defeat it received in the hands of the NCNC in the 1954 Federal Elections in its home base, the Western Region. This transformation of the Action Group becomes very clear from the electoral status achieved by the party on 1st October 1960, when Nigeria gained independence from Britain.

On that day, the AG was the official opposition party in the House of Representative. It had 73 out of the 312 members of the House of Representatives with elected members cutting across the three regions. The party had in fact, established itself as the most national political party after the 1959 federal elections by winning 33 out of 62 seats in the Western Region; 14 out of 73 in the Eastern Region; 26 out of 174 in the Northern Region; and 1 out of 3 in Lagos. The spread of its seats made the AG, the second most important political party in the East, the North and Lagos while it defeated the NCNC in the Western Region in the 1959 Federal Elections. In the case of the regional parliaments, the AG was the ruling party in the Western Region and provided the Leaders of the Opposition in both the Eastern and the Northern Regional Houses of Assembly.

Yet, this party and its leaders played politics in ways that led to tragedy to itself, its leaders and to the Nigerian nation. Despite this, we have people like Harold Smith exonerating Chief Awolowo from blame and responsibility for this tragedy. This is of course consistent with the worshipful attitude he now claims to have towards Chief Awolowo and Chief Enahoro.

In his TELL interview Harold Smith said, “My idea of heaven would be Awo and Tony giving their ideas and advice.” It is not clear what he would like them to advice him over, in this heaven, where he has Awolowo on one side, and Enahoro on the other!!

According to Harold Smith what happened to Chief Awolowo was because he was such a great politician and an effective Opposition Leader, as to constitute a great threat to the NPC-NCNC alliance government. What explanation could Harold Smith give for the failure of Chief Awolowo to keep his party together? This is an essential question because it was the break up of the AG that sparked off the Western Regional crisis, which became a major factor facilitating the violent military overthrow of the First Republic. To argue, as others have attempted to do that it was the disloyalty of Chief Akintola is definitely not a sufficient answer. To even argue that it was the NPC, or the NCNC, or both of them combined to instigate Chief Akintola is in itself an indictment of the leadership of Chief Awolowo, who had been an active politician since 1938, on the platform of the Nigerian Youth Movement. Chief Awolowo knew the Nigerian political terrain very well, and the personalities, inside out, yet he played a key role in the break-up of the AG.

As if this was not enough, Chief Awolowo got himself dragged into an attempt to change the Federal Government by violent means, at a time when he was leading the fastest growing political party in the country, with a decisive national spread, and considerable support in all the three regions.

As one of the leaders of the AG who was also a leading actor, deeply involved in the conspiracy with Chief Awolowo and Chief Enahoro, late Mazi S. G. Ikoku, stated in a conference held in Kaduna in 1993, that they were planning the overthrow of the government by force. This confession of S. G. Ikoku has been published in a book titled, Inside Nigerian History, edited by Drs. Bala Usman and George Kwannashie and was published by the Presidential Panel on the History of Nigeria Since Independence, Ibadan, under the chairmanship of Professor Tekena Tamuno. This is how on Monday 7th June 1993, S. G. Ikoku responded to a question on the civilian coup attempt led by Chief Awolowo in 1962 in which he too was actively involved:



“All I can tell you in all honesty is that we were fed up with the way the Nigerian system, the Nigerian state and the Nigerian government were operating, we were deeply committed to a change of government and we saw that waiting for elections would not produce any solution to the problem…

This is what we did. We started preparations for it and the preparations had gone very far and I believe we would have pulled it off. But unfortunately for us, our leader [Chief Awolowo] was so kind to the Nigeria Police that he had a police informant among his planners and so the police knew every move we were making. And so it was easy to trip us up. Well, after the act, people have been saying, there was no coup because we went to court, there was no plan to overthrow the government. Naturally, if you catch me over a coup plot and take me to court, I have to enter a plea of not guilty, I did not do it. This is normal. But then the whole thing has blown over. We served our term. We have been granted pardon, we have been rehabilitated, our leader even became the number two citizen in the country. I felt it was time to tell the country the truth, so that our history would be correct. So, all I am saying is that, yes, there was an attempt to overthrow the government. Yes, I took part in the attempt. Yes, it failed. ” (Inside Nigerian History, pp. 43-44)



No one, including Chief Anthony Enahoro, has come out to deny this confession by S. G. Ikoku, yet people like Harold Smith still go round claiming the innocence of Chief Awolowo in the political tragedy of Nigeria from 1960-1970.

The Motives of Harold Smith

It is not quite clear to me as to why Harold Smith has been making attempts to rig the history of Nigeria, decades after he left the Nigerian colonial service. I could not even understand why he made an attempt to write an autobiography, since people write their autobiography to specifically bring out the contributions they made from their own point of view and the lessons to be learnt. But going through what Harold Smith wrote as his autobiography, it is clear that he has nothing to tell people about his life. I have said this because Harold Smith only worked in any serious sense for about five years in Nigeria, 1955-1960. This was his only regular employment in his whole life.

Since he left Nigeria 45 years ago, at the age 33, he was staying at home and living off his kind wife, and possibly his two daughters. It appears as if he needed to create a sensation about Nigerian politics and elections to justify his staying idle for 45 years. This must be why he has been alleging that the British Government vowed to block him from getting employment in the UK. But if he really created such a sensation in 1956, why was he kept in the colonial service up to 1960? Why was his two-year contract renewed in 1957 and he came back to Lagos to continue with his job as Labour Officer? There are a lot of unanswered questions about Mr. Smith and his stories about Nigeria, about political harassment by the British Government and even his sickness. Mr. Smith should know that a lot of colonial primary historical materials are now available, which shed light on some British activities in Nigeria. He should stop rumbling and fumbling around, he should come out straight and clean with the truth, if he has anything truthful to tell us about British rule in Nigeria. Otherwise his motives on Nigerian political history are questionable.

Conclusion

The TELL magazine has found Harold Smith’s stories interesting at this time of Nigerian history when the National Conference on Political Reform is going on, to attack “the North”. This must be why excerpts of Harold Smith’s autobiography were published with two sensational headlines: one attacking the North, while the other threatens the corporate existence of Nigeria.

But, surely, the TELL magazine should do a better job of this, by using a more credible source. Clearly, Harold Smith has very little credibility over what he has attempted to recount as regards Nigerian political history. He has only tried to rig Nigerian history by throwing around unsubstantiated accusations about the rigging of Nigerian elections in the 1950s. But these types of accusations cannot fool Nigerians. They need evidence. Harold Smith has not provided this evidence. He has simply attempted to rig Nigerian history.

denex:
homosexuality is not natural, just like suicide it is very very abnormal that is why we can't just leave them alone.

Abi suicidal people, no be themselves them wan kill? Why you think say people suppose stop them? Because that is not what they were created to do.

Homosexuality is immoral, it is evil, it is demonic and now it is spreading among underage children because of the favourable stance taken by the satellite media on homosexuality.

It must be curbed now. God hates it, man hates it, animals hate it, hell, even machines hate it.

What is wrong with you people? How man go put prick inside man nyash?!

These are the kinds of things that make me believe that God is powerless if at all he exists. How can he possibly sit and watch all this happen? It's disgusting jare.

Next thing some people will start advocating for the right to practice bestiality. Yes. How much different is it from homosexuality? Man wey fit plug man, e go fit plug dog!

@denex, you failed to answer my previous question.

Bonobos are the closest to humans among the primates and they are  naturally bi-sexual.


http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/07/0722_040722_gayanimal.html


Homosexual Activity Among Animals Stirs Debate




Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. So go the lyrics penned by US. songwriter Cole Porter.

Porter, who first hit it big in the 1920s, wouldn't risk parading his homosexuality in public. In his day "the birds and the bees" generally meant only one thing—sex between a male and female.

But, actually, some same-sex birds do do it. So do beetles, sheep, fruit bats, dolphins, and orangutans. Zoologists are discovering that homosexual and bisexual activity is not unknown within the animal kingdom.

Roy and Silo, two male chinstrap penguins at New York's Central Park Zoo have been inseparable for six years now. They display classic pair-bonding behavior—entwining of necks, mutual preening, flipper flapping, and the rest. They also have sex, while ignoring potential female mates.

Wild birds exhibit similar behavior. There are male ostriches that only court their own gender, and pairs of male flamingos that mate, build nests, and even raise foster chicks.

Filmmakers recently went in search of homosexual wild animals as part of a National Geographic Ultimate Explorer documentary about the female's role in the mating game. (The film, Girl Power, will be screened in the US this Saturday at 8 p.m. ET, 5 p.m PT on MSNBC TV.)

The team caught female Japanese macaques engaged in intimate acts which, if observed in humans, would be in the X-rated category.

"The homosexual behavior that goes on is completely baffling and intriguing," says National Geographic Ultimate Explorer correspondent, Mireya Mayor. "You would have thought females that want to be mated, especially over their fertile period, would be seeking out males."

Well, perhaps, in a roundabout way, they are seeking males, suggests primatologist Amy Parish.

She argues that female macaques may enhance their social position through homosexual intimacy which in turn influences breeding success. Parish says, "Taking something that's nonreproductive, like mounting another female—if it leads to control of a resource or acquisition of a resource or a good alliance partner, that could directly impact your reproductive success."

Sexual Gratification


On the other hand, they could just be enjoying themselves, suggests Paul Vasey, animal behavior professor at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. "They're engaging in the behavior because it's gratifying sexually or it's sexually pleasurable," he says. "They just like it. It doesn't have any sort of adaptive payoff."

Matthew Grober, biology professor at Georgia State University, agrees, saying, "If [sex] wasn't fun, we wouldn't have any kids around. So I think that maybe Japanese macaques have taken the fun aspect of sex and really run with it."

The bonobo, an African ape closely related to humans, has an even bigger sexual appetite. Studies suggest 75 percent of bonobo sex is nonreproductive and that nearly all bonobos are bisexual. Frans de Waal, author of Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape, calls the species a "make love, not war" primate. He believes bonobos use sex to resolve conflicts between individuals.

Other animals appear to go through a homosexual phase before they become fully mature. For instance, male dolphin calves often form temporary sexual partnerships, which scientists believe help to establish lifelong bonds. Such sexual behavior has been documented only relatively recently. Zoologists have been accused of skirting round the subject for fear of stepping into a political minefield.

"There was a lot of hiding of what was going on, I think, because people were maybe afraid that they would get into trouble by talking about it," notes de Waal. Whether it's a good idea or not, it's hard not make comparisons between humans and other animals, especially primates. The fact that homosexuality does, after all, exist in the natural world is bound to be used against people who insist such behavior is unnatural.

In the US., in particular, the moral debate over this issue rages on. Many on the religious right regard homosexuality as a sin. And only this month, President Bush vowed to continue his bid to ban gay marriages after the Senate blocked the proposal.

Already, cases of animal homosexuality have been cited in successful court cases brought against states like Texas, where gay sex was, until recently, illegal.

Yet scientists say we should be wary of referring to animals when considering what's acceptable in human society. For instance, infanticide, as practiced by lions and many other animals, isn't something people, gay or straight, generally approve of in humans.

Human Homosexuality

So how far can we go in using animals to help us understand human homosexuality? Robin Dunbar is a professor of evolutionary psychology at the University of Liverpool, England. "The bottom line is that anything that happens in other primates, and particularly other apes, is likely to have strong evolutionary continuity with what happens in humans," he said.

Dunbar says the bonobo's use of homosexual activity for social bonding is a possible example, adding, "One of the main arguments for human homosexual behavior is that it helps bond male groups together, particularly where a group of individuals are dependent on each other, as they might be in hunting or warfare."

For instance, the Spartans, in ancient Greece, encouraged homosexuality among their elite troops. "They had the not unreasonable belief that individuals would stick by and make all efforts to rescue other individuals if they had a lover relationship," Dunbar added.

Another suggestion is that homosexuality is a developmental phase people go through. He said, "This is similar to the argument of play in young animals to get their brain and muscles to work effectively and together. Off the back of this, there's the possibility you can get individuals locked into this phase for the rest of their lives as a result of the social environment they grow up in."

But he adds that homosexuality doesn't necessarily have to have a function. It could be a spin-off or by-product of something else and in itself carries no evolutionary weight."

He cites sexual gratification, which encourages procreation, as an example. "An organism is designed to maximize its motivational systems," he adds.

In other words, if the urge to have sex is strong enough it may spill over into nonreproductive sex, as suggested by the actions of the bonobos and macaques. However, as Dunbar admits, there's a long way to go before the causes of homosexuality in humans are fully understood.

He said, "Nobody's really investigated this issue thoroughly, because it's so politically sensitive. It's fair to say all possibilities are still open."


For more on animal homosexuality check out
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6066606.stm
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101990426-23309,00.html