Foreign Investment Came Out Of Africa Never Into Africa

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Foreign Investment into Africa is the most deceptive and abused phrase ever used purposely to confuse people of goodwill that International Corporate world is trying to do for Africa what was done for Europe after the War. While it is true that Europe and other continents got richer, the face of poverty shifted from Asia to Africa. This is reality today that most people, with any form of sincerity or conscience, cannot argue with.

What most of us do is blame Africans for their own predicament from slavery to neo-colonialism. Of course, there are enough blames, greed, traitors and accomplices to go around. It still takes two to tangle. European countries have benefited right from the days of slavery to money laundering today; not by passive accidents but by active designs.

While it is true that money laundering incurs consequences for Africans caught in the process, it does not negate the amount of stolen money into European and American banks or economy; into the hands of legal and financial accomplices that are charging about a third of the loot as fees. Helped hide poor countries' foreign reserves abroad.

Foreign companies are still at it just as when economic opportunities dried up in 1800 Europe and the Americas, they turned to faraway continents looking for natural and human resources. Even the Moroccans, decided on further South into West Africa to capture the gold after fighting wars that depleted their resources and left them poorer. All these have become ancient history today. But if we do not learn from our past, we are bound to repeat the same mistake in the future. Africa’s future started yesterday.

According to OXFAM, it is indisputable that about one trillion American dollars have been lost from Africa to enrich other countries in Europe and Asia. If that is not Foreign Investment (or drain) from Africa, how difficult is it to understand the reverse psychology practices of how Europe (under) developed Africa. It has never been a secret since France, a small country with a tiny “tribal” population still feeds on French Speaking developing countries. African foreign reserves in France Treasury cannot be spent without the approval of France. Indeed, one of their Presidents so admitted publicly.

Middle Class Africans, especially the ones trained at the London School of Economics, Wharton Business School, Harvard or University of Toronto have preached to us since Independence that only Foreign Investment can save Africa. Voila, realities have taught us different lessons. Sixty years is a long time, enough to understand the Dynamics of Economics. Somehow African markets have adopted Western and Eastern European Economics, be it capitalist or communist theory like old wine in a new bottle.

Obviously, the only missing theory has been African Economics. We must hastily add that it is not out of commission or omission but out of favor to old colonialists to be like them. Those African professors that dared criticize the cramming of Communist or capitalist economic theory as unsuitable or unworkable without adaptation to African market realities, were run out of town as teachers of Voodoo Economics. The reason is not farfetched. Africans longed to be part of the world communities so bad, we were willing to relinquish anything with African appellation or culture.

Those that are still preaching African Salvation by the way of foreign investment have not given up. Indeed, their staunch advocates are Africans. While those old enough to remember the relative economic reprieve Africa had after Independence, they came to realize that it was only political but did not include actual economic independence. The ploughing of African wealth continued as foreign investment. 

Moreover, Africa's economic fortune declined further with the introduction of Structural Adjustment. Even when the International Monetary Fund and World Bank expressed misgivings at a conference in Ghana that they did not take the sociopolitical factor into consideration, we had some African economists insisting that African countries implemented Structural Adjustment wrongly, as the cause of the problem.

Then came Devaluations that paralyzed most African countries in the guise that once our human and natural resources become cheaper for foreign currencies, they would be able to buy more and that would spur economic growth by creating more jobs. Those propagating what we all knew as blatantly false then and now realized that we had no commodity that would enter their market.

Even under Obama Administration’s AGOA, most of our commodities were rejected as substandard. Most African businesses do not realize what it takes to get our products into their markets, on their store shelves, even at the risk of a temporary loss in profit.

It all boils down to promises into the future prospects or fooled as promising emerging markets that has never been realized. They choose the best countries open for business based on what they can scoop out as fast as they can on demand not on what Africa can gain. We are the fastest growing economies after they have had their lion share with promises of crumbs in the future.

They sell us rosy prospects as they did with religious deliverance that we will reap our reward in heaven, as long as we obey and abide by their rules on earth. So, there has never been any reasonable chance that foreign investment from their countries would liberate us in 60 years after Independence or ever as their internal traitors support their chicanery. An attractive charade for a toddler's intelligence.

There has always been one-way flow of capital either by money laundering with their corporate firms that source raw materials in Africa before and after Independence. Most, if not all, have never been foreign currency earners into Africa but they dip into meagre reserves to launder money back into their countries under the guise that they have to buy and import foreign materials for our factories; otherwise they layoff local workers.

African businessmen have learned well from their foreign masters and partners. Most of them have never earned foreign currency for their countries but dug deep into local reserves as international companies and launder foreign reserves into shell companies.

How much longer is this going to take until Africans realized that if they were crawling for over 60 years since Independence, they could have been better off than the abject poverty, disillusionment and obsession the foreign investments have left them. When all along, Africa was the source of foreign investments into Europe, America and Asia.

Farouk Martins Aresa, © 2020
https://www.modernghana.com/news/976879/foreign-investment-came-out-of-africa-never-into.html

One intrinsic predictor of humans is self preservation or existential threat.

What happens if Buhari can no longer get Visa to go and get his treatment?

He is not ready to die for the dictatorial tendency of his "kitchen" cabinet. So he came to life and overruled them.

Buhari Why

Buhari, at your age you should be thinking about the legacy to leave your children, grandkids and importantly Nigeria. While Department of State Security has gone rogue many times in the name of fighting for you, they risk putting you and your family in jeopardy. Senator Menendez of United States and European diplomats may deny you visas needed for treatment, your kids need for foreign school and your wife needs to escape since she knows life is not safe in Nigeria.

https://www.nairaland.com/5574551/buhari-why#84794177

It is really sad that while Nigerians are almost helpless to the impunity of total disregard for the rule of law within the court precinct, only.....

Denial of VISA is the language Buhari will understand clean and clear. The last we check Sowore is not a security risk calling for the break up of Nigeria or member of Boko Haram.

Buhari, at your age you should be thinking about the legacy to leave your children, grandkids and importantly Nigeria. While Department of State Security has gone rogue many times in the name of fighting for you, they risk putting you and your family in jeopardy. Senator Menendez of United States and European diplomats may deny you visas needed for treatment, your kids need for foreign school and your wife needs to escape since she knows life is not safe in Nigeria.

Is this about an ethic group, religion or politics? With some people, Nigeria can remain in poverty as long as their champions chop, clean mouth and withdraw into their enclave in comfort.

Queen Bee.

No matter how you feel about Sowore, your political opinion, religion or the ethnic group you belong, certain behavior and characters are repulsive to the civilized communities. We still remember how Nuhu Ribadu almost lost his life under Yar'Adua, how El- Rufai became a refugee without his passport and how the oligarchy almost impose a dead President on us. These are atrocious crimes against the People that spur millions of Nigerians to demand Change that brought Buhari to Power. After four years, outrageous politicians’ salary has not changed.

BUHARI WHY

Sowore is not a terrorist, did not call for the breakup of the Country or threatened its existence as a religious or coup planner. He is not a money launderer, looters of Nigeria resources, 419 or ritualist. Sowore only demanded Change like Buhari. Unlike Buhari, Sowore did not plan a coup d’état against the only civilian government of Shehu Shagari. The reason the Country voted for Buhari was his instinctual distaste for corruption not for his history abuse of the rule of law.

This revolution is against status quo, against politicians looting their Country outrageously with entitlement, revolution against individuals laundering trillion out of the country in disguise for attracting foreign investments and providing jobs while in fact they have left the Country in abject poverty never seen in Nigeria making us the Poverty Capital of the world. If that does not deserve Change or Revolution Buhari campaigned against, nothing does. No change after 4 yrs.

When DSS or Department of State Security invaded the National Assembly, intrusion around 7am and within 12 hours, Lawal Daura had been subsequently fired. The credit must go to Buhari. Regardless of whoever was acting).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgIuzpn0z7I Instead of executing the same action for invading the precinct of the Court this time, the Presidency is hiding behind Ms. Onochie and Shehu Garba. Buhari Why?

What a shame and a message of encouragement against the rule of law that can be repeated with impunity. Who is against the revolution against abject Poverty in the land? Department of State Services, behaved like thugs of law enforcement officers when they invaded the Court of Law with so much fear that the Judge had to run for cover with the help of Court security. The Court later called their Counsel and the head of DSS into the Chamber to explain their barbaric act in Court in a so-called Democratic Government. Buhari the changed Democrat, Why?

As the video exposed us to the rest of the world. Buhari and Nigeria became a banana republic. We are not only the capital of abject poverty; we are now a fourth world country where lives and property are not safe. If this is not debilitating enough, we have no sanctuary in the Court of Law where even the Judge had to take cover. Only some subhuman that belong in the caves would glorified what the whole world has seen. Buhari Why?

Sowore status has been raised beyond that of prisoner of conscience. It is how they bestowed Nnamdi Kanu international status. Even in Nigeria, certain groups are the conscience of the majority. They have and will always be the conscience of most citizens. They have risen up as average Nigerians are scared to speak out. Unfortunately, there are instances they have paid dearly: in detention and sometimes with their lives.

Recently, Police in Effurun on “trump up charges”, forced the arrest of Mr. Ademi-Akpeto Chairman of Sapele branch of NBA , they invaded precinct of the High Court. As far as we know, Sowore has not been charged for looting, laundering or religious riot. He has been declared a prisoner of conscience for protest against poverty. If Buhari could not have or did not condemn the recent derision of legally constituted judicial authority, what behavior would he condemn?

No matter how you feel about Sowore, your political opinion, religion or the ethnic group you belong, certain behavior and characters are repulsive to the civilized communities. We still remember how Nuhu Ribadu almost lost his life under Yar'Adua, how El- Rufai became a refugee without his passport and how the oligarchy almost impose a dead President on us. These are atrocious crimes against the People that spur millions of Nigerians to demand Change that brought Buhari to Power. After four years, outrageous politicians’ salary has not changed.

Sowore is not calling for a revolution different from Buhari Change. As much as the final responsibility lies on the head of the President. Some of us would like to put the irrational and crude behavior below the level of the President. Therefore, Buhari must not only come out and condemn this monstrous exuberance; he must publicly punish those involved, especially the one giving the order to shoot, if that was true.
What the lawyers, the accused defendants and their relatives witnessed in the Court of Law where the people are innocent until proven guilty is nothing short of desecrations of Life and Liberty. The worst Dictator Nigeria ever had, Abacha did not send anyone out to desecrate the Court this way, his barbaric act only assassinated people cold. Indeed, it was during the time of Abacha that the elder Statesman, Chief Adekunle Ajasin was harassed to death in his old age.

Buhari and Idiagbon never desecrate the Court of Law this way. If Abacha never went this low, and Buhari/Idiagbon never did, who in the Government of Buhari the Democrat would have sent these thugs? After all, Buhari was the head of the only military junta that sacked a civilian Government of Shehu Shagari (1979-1983). He locked up Chief Adekunle Ajasin, Alex Ekwueme and other civilians. While Shagari was under house arrest, others were in prison.

However, the only one cleared by the Military Tribunal twice, once in Lagos and then in Ibadan: was Chief Adekule Ajasin in his old age. Though pronounced clean twice as a whistle, Buhari refused to release him. Buhari’s reason later, was that he remembered only two clean Nigerians; Biliyamu Usman from Jigawa State and Adamu Ciroma but forgot Chief Ajasin! The same Adamu Ciroma, champion of a gang that proclaimed if Jonathan won, Nigeria would be ungovernable!

Nobody locked up Adamu Ciroma, the facilitator of Boko Haram. However, the irony of jailing Fela Anikulapo Kuti for flimsy foreign exchange violation, forex allowed for members of his whole crew in the band that was piled on him, is not lost on us. This is in view of the fact that Buhari family today enjoy what his regime had jailed others for.

This reckless disregard for orders from the Court of Law keep on repeating itself from Dansuki, Sheikh Ibrahim el-Zakzaky, head of the Islamic Movement in Nigeria to Sowore. If you disagree with the order of a court, there are legal process of appeals unless you are afraid of losing at the highest Court based on frivolous, arbitrary and capricious detentions.

Buhari, at your age you should be thinking about the legacy to leave your children, grandkids and importantly Nigeria. While Department of State Security has gone rogue many times in the name of fighting for you, they risk putting you and your family in jeopardy. Senator Menendez of United States and European diplomats may deny you visas needed for treatment, your kids need for foreign school and your wife needs to escape since she knows life is not safe in Nigeria.

But for the protest and agitation of Nigerian activists the dead body of Yar'Adua could have been reelected as President. Before Shehu Garba defended DSS action in Court, Onochie came out to paint an inverted picture of macabre dance. She once told us that Sowore set himself on fire and she now gave a satirical side of the forceful arrest in court. Claiming it was a drama by Sowore supporters like those of Dino Malaye.

One thing that Nigeria can rival the most Democratic country in the world and stand shoulder to shoulder with, is a vigorous Press. IBB and Buhari as Military Presidents knew it and it cannot be lost on Buhari the Democrat. Those old enough knew when the printing Press was chased from one house to another. They still printed news. There are more than a million activists that have not shown up. For every Sowore that is incarcerated or killed, millions will rise up!

Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa
https://www.modernghana.com/news/972707/buhari.html

This continual indictment of Nigerians abroad is in no way going to help clean up our image as a country or as individuals anywhere.

We have a stain that is hard to bleach out by the good work of humble Nigerians at home that work from dusk to Dawn.

While Nigerians admit as much to one another at home, any African that so wondered out aloud is berated, insulted and in some cases misinterpreted or misrepresented. We are on edge as we fight one another at home and fight those who dared question how we wasted the same opportunities some Arabs and other countries in Asia seized to become prosperous. Make no mistake about it, we have also become the butt of African jokes from East, South to West.

Work Harder Humbly & Wisely To Restore Nigeria Old Reputation

Everybody must wake up and ask why Nigeria has sunk so low, not only in Africa but around the world. Silently, even some Africans at home and in Diaspora lamented how a country that was expected to lift the hope of Africans everywhere in the 60s and 70s has made the wrong turn, only to become the face of world’s abject poverty and ridicule. If Nigeria cannot save itself, lamented our brothers and sisters, how can it save the Black “race”?

While Nigerians admit as much to one another at home, any African that so wondered out aloud is berated, insulted and in some cases misinterpreted or misrepresented. We are on edge as we fight one another at home and fight those who dared question how we wasted the same opportunities some Arabs and other countries in Asia seized to become prosperous. Make no mistake about it, we have also become the butt of African jokes from East, South to West.

There are binary solutions: cut our glorification of vanities and taste for imported food to feed yourselves, especially the poor. A nation that cannot grow enough food locally to feed itself, has condemned its population to abject poverty begging others for handouts. However, arable land and genetically modified seeds are not taken advantage of enough, to increase yield and prevent parasitic plant diseases. China found ways to control its population and increase food production on the farms.

Apart from these, Asian countries did not suddenly get a windfall from oil as Nigeria did. The curse of oil gave Nigeria a false sense of grandeur thinking their problem was not money but how to spend it. Nigerians imported so much junk, the Ports cried out because they could not handle and process them. The military had to give orders to untrained and brutal military officers to clear the Ports recklessly.

Moreover, Nigerians became famous as loud, chest-beating, ostentatious and conspicuous flaunters of wealth and vanities. It all started at home where foreign currencies topped the mode of worship regardless of how it is obtained. Indeed morality went out the window as parents could no longer question the source of wealth of their children. We used to report to parents in those days that their children were playing desperate and risky games to get rich quick.

“Sey na your moni he steal?”[/i] became the defense of parents for their wayward children. These wayward children became prostitutes, rogues and vagabonds graduating to armed robbers, kidnappers and ritualists. Drugs couriers became frequent and some of their parents joined in. It was sad to see grandmothers and fathers being detained at home and abroad. They all claimed they did not know their children used them as couriers.

But then, some unscrupulous businessmen became the greediest ones depleting our foreign reserve. They are willing to import Junk, that is any junk, including toxic waste shipped to African countries from developed countries. They laid such a taunting example for the ordinary folks to follow. Everything and anything foreign became attractive, as if they do not have to be paid for with our earning from what we export.

Nigeria has replaced its stable food with foreign food. Different types of yams, plantains and cassava were replaced with wheat bread from Europe and America, rice from Asia and lately Indomie generation have taken over. While most of the new stable food can be grown at home, Nigerians prefer the foreign imports loaded with sugar, salt, msg or magi cubes. Even our [i]wara and honey were not developed for our taste. Trying to reorient Nigerians back to homemade food has become a daunting task.

Wheat bread has become world daily bread even in countries that do not grow wheat. It became an acquired taste leading to riots when there is a shortage of bread in many countries. These shortages have led to some importers incorporating home grown products into wheat for ages without the public realizing it. As soon as the Government encouraged and even decreed that bakers must incorporate cassava into bread, the people revolted because they do not want “adulterated” bread.

While white bleached bread became unpopular in European and American countries as they switched to whole grain or brown bread using multigrain in their bread like barley, flax seed, sunflower nutmeat, yellow corn grit, brown rice, millet, oats, soy flour, starch, flat seed, sesame seed etc. Nigerians would not have any of those. Nigerians rejected any bread incorporated with cassava, corn or millet. The irony demonstrate blatantly ignorance. It illustrates the problems African countries face about taste for our local stable local foods.

The same is true about Okrika and Ijebu made goods, products and services no matter how durable and skillfully made they are. Indeed, many Nigerians would argue that used foreign made cars are better than homemade or assembled. Many automobile plants had to close in the 80s for lack of patronage while foreign cars dominated the market. The height of ignorance was when Mercedes Benz replaced senior military officers cars.

As long as Africans spend a good part of their foreign income importing food, the amount their people spend on income would leave little on anything else decreasing their spending power and creating more people that would not be able to eat well leading to hunger as children suffer most. No amount of world program could help by bringing in food aid when local stable food has been abandoned.

International organization would be more helpful if they share and cooperate with local scientists in the development of genetically modified seeds of local food that are resistant to tropical diseases which sometimes wipe out a whole farm or rot too quickly before they get to the market. The lack of storage facilities must be addressed by the home governments. Their officials are the one selling foreign grains meant for free distributions.

Until Nigerians change their tastes back to African products and services, we will continue to preach while there would be little movement to reach our goal of economic Independence. Simply put, no country or household can continue to spend more than the income he generates and expect to stay afloat. It is one thing to borrow for investments that will increase returns but another to borrow to acquire vanities.

Working hard to replace the reputation and integrity of Nigeria may not be as difficult as changing taste, orientation and actions in deeds, not just in words and promises. Most of our foreign incomes are wasted on contracts that could be executed at home to create local jobs. But in order to become “hard” currency billionaires, new projects are started by every administration while abandoning the one in progress left by previous administrations.

Farouk Martins Aresa

https://www.thenigerianvoice.com/news/283132/work-harder-humbly-wisely-to-restore-nigeria-old-reputatio.html

Hypocrites Push Tinubu As President

Watch out for those pushing Amoda Yekini Ogunlere alias Ahmed Tinubu as the next President of Nigeria. While his ethic group, Yoruba may love him as a shield or the crafty politician best suited against Yoruba prowlers, the role of the President is not for him. Those pushing his presidency are either fake or fraudulent individuals. Nobody deals with blemishes within Yoruba better than the Yoruba themselves.

Shine your eyes, Yoruba has never stoop that low to present such a character as their best or even second best for the Presidency. Indeed, until recently they have stubbornly stayed out as Opposition Party throughout the history of Nigeria than accept the second best as their leader. There is history here, but this is not the place to recite each.

It is true that politics in Nigeria has sunk lower than ever, reflecting the inevitable situation we find ourselves. The political class has been hijacked by those whose only goal is to become foreign currency billionaires. They do not care how they get there and are ready to sacrifice the interest of their Country in the process. Sadly, this is where we are and it will take great effort on the part of the people with goodwill other than money to retrace our steps.

In order to become foreign currency billionaires, these leaders are willing to be recruited as foreign agents, mortgage the future of this and next generations economic survival for their personal vanities abroad, raid our foreign reserve to import junk into the Country, accept Structural Adjustment Program and Devaluations according to the urging of their Neo-colonial masters. Yes, the same ones our fathers fought tooth and nail to regain Political Independence.

Tinubu and those that have stripped us naked in the world markets turning us into the Poverty capital of the world must not be given more opportunities to rule as the best person Yoruba can present for President in Nigeria. If others do, no Yoruba son or daughter should. Yoruba are known to the world to be highly cultured and too proud to stoop that low.

Those Nigerians floating Tinubu as the next President are fake, hypocrite and fraud waiting to disgrace the caliber of leader we as Nigerians in general and Yoruba in particular can present to the world. We have had leaders, both civilians and military that could not step into certain countries for fear of being arrested for a variety of unimaginable crimes not expected from the caliber of the leader of a country.

We have been through this memory lane before. We knew who Ibrahim Babaginda was before he overthrew Buhari and Idiagbon. If most of us were not aware then, many more have a better picture today of why he overthrew Buhari. Idiagbon had insisted on making him accountable for his drug and nefarious activities. Yet, he became a head of state, not by our choice but with the support of military and civilian crooks like him. Little surprise that he delivered us for Structural Adjustment Program to curry favor from international communities shortly after taking over.

The same Buhari that sanitized the consciousness of Nigerians with Idiagbon using Operation WAI (War Against Indiscipline), that was respected for his Spartan lifeclass and use of official military cars, has now joined the Tunde Chukwu and Sule with a taste for foreign travel, luxuries and vanities. He now savors Western taste because he can afford it. Buhari, in his old age: abeg make Ai enjoy small jare before ai die. Na who go wash ime hand with spit by the river?

Manuel Noriega of Panama like IBB, was also a money launderer and drug dealer well-known to international communities that tolerated him as a head of state. As soon as he crossed their red line, thinking he was immune for delivering to them, he was brought to his knees and jailed in the US and France. The Shah of Iran and Gadhafi of Libya were lured into their own dens. No matter how useful you are to international communities, you are only a dog that has its day.

Remember the Great Robert Mugabe. He earned every degree and honors the British could bestow. The day he had enough of their promises, tired of their pledge of support and procrastination for land reform; they turned against him. These lessons we must learn from the past. You will be remembered for what you did for your people, not what you did for foreign communities that cannot wait to hang you by the tree like a common criminal.

All the gold, diamond, uranium, cobalt, land and free trade zones our politicians gave away have made every African Country worse off than we were, unless we missed one country anyone can point to that has survived. There is no other politician that would throw a whole country under the bus than Yekini Amoda Ogunlere. If he could throw his real mother under the bus for power grab in Lagos, why not the whole Country?

The Pharaoh of Egypt died with treasures and slaves wishing they could live another life. It was all in vain, they have become Museum and Amusement Park for the next generation. Even vandals looted their graves and made away with valuable treasures their class could never come close to in the life of the kings. So were ants and animals that fed on their rotten bodies. Our class of looters will not be so lucky. No amount of loot can buy health, as some invalids are wasting away, not to mention when they feed on one another within our “korokoro” eyes!

Tinubu falls short in character below Governor Fayemi, Pastor Bakare and others in his ethnic group with the same ambition to become the President. As well as Vice-President Osinbajo that is far better than him. As for those humiliating the VP, they simply forgot how cool and collected Jonathan was as Vice-President and later as Acting President before we turned against the cabals. Where is Buhari’s trust in Gen. Abdul Bello Dambazau and Co. that flew Yar'Adua into Nigeria by Air-Ambulance without the knowledge of the Acting President?

It is one thing to play Lagosians against one another into power and become a king maker; Yekini Amoda Ogunlere cannot fool all Nigerians all the time.

Farouk Martins Aresa
https://www-thenigerianvoice-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.thenigerianvoice.com/amp/news/282786/hypocrites-push-tinubu-as-the-next-president-of-nigeria.html?amp_js_v=a2&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQCKAE%3D#aoh=15732151534672&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From%20%251%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenigerianvoice.com%2Fnews%2F282786%2Fhypocrites-push-tinubu-as-the-next-president-of-nigeria.html

Edmonton mother banned from her son’s school still waiting for an apology
Hamdi Issawi
By Hamdi IssawiStar Edmonton
Tues., Oct. 29, 2019timer3 min. read
EDMONTON — An Edmonton mother who was banned from her son’s school is calling for a review of school policies regarding headwear, after her 11-year-old boy was asked if he was gang affiliated for wearing a durag.

Tuesday evening, Una Momolu spoke at a press conference to update the incident that saw her barred from Christ the King School in Edmonton for the remainder of the school year, which has impeded her ability to take her son to and from school, and in effect, his ability to attend class there, she said.

Momolu’s son, Emmell Summerville, was questioned by a Christ the King School official for wearing a durag in September. However, when Momolu met with the school principal to discuss the incident, the meeting ended with a call to police. Edmonton Catholic Schools (ECS) claimed she was acting aggressively to staff.

Momolu approached five different schools in the Edmonton Catholic Schools district before she found another school that could accept her son. She is still barred her son’s former school and says that has created complications for her family.

“The ban still impacts me in a way, because I still have nieces and nephews that go there,” Momolu said. “There are times where their mother isn’t able to pick them up … and I have to compensate for that, so I still have to be at that school.”

She says she is still waiting for a complete apology and hopes to resolve the issue with the school board this week.

On Sept. 23 Momolu met with Christ the King School principal Phebe Switzer to discuss the incident.

In a 10-minute recording of the conversation, released by Momolu online, Switzer confirmed that the school’s “stay adviser”— a retired police officer who was hired to advise and empower youth at school — asked her son, Emmell, to take off his durag, which was red in colour, and asked if it indicated that the boy was affiliated with a gang, given that a red durag has been connected to active gang activity in Edmonton.

In the exchange, Momolu noted the cultural significance of the durag, a head garment originally worn by African American slaves in the 19th century and has since evolved to become an emblem of Black culture.

In the recording, Switzer explained to Momolu that school policy prohibits students from wearing headwear including hats and durags.

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Community rallies in support of Edmonton mother who says her son was racially profiled at school for wearing a durag

However, Momolu was more concerned with the stay adviser asking her son if he was connected to a gang, which she called discriminatory and an act of racial profiling.

Momolu’s conversation with Switzer ended with a call to Edmonton police, leading to Momolu’s ban from school premises for the duration of the school year.

Bashir Mohamed, who helped organize the press conference on Tuesday, explained that the durag is more than just a piece of headwear for the Black community, and it’s important to recognize the distinction.

An Oct. 17 statement by ECS said it did not intend to suggest the child had any gang affiliation, and apologized for the use of the word “gang” in the incident. However, the statement added, ECS stands by the ban, claiming school surveillance shows the mother acting aggressively towards staff and the police when they arrived, which was confirmed by Edmonton Police Service.

Momolu takes issue with the apology, which she said was incomplete, given that she was looking for an apology from the school, and the stay adviser, for the way in which her son was approached.

She said she will be meeting with ECS on Friday and is hoping the board will review her ban, and its policy as it appears to apply to durags.

She’s also organizing a rally at the Edmonton Catholic School building Friday evening at 6 p.m. to raise awareness for this incident.

“We need to get justice,” she said. “We need to let the public know that enough is enough and things have to change.”

With files from Nadine Yousif

OYO-OBA, OYO-ROBA,
OYO-RUBA
http://www.raceandhistory.com/cgi-bin/forum/webbbs_config.pl?md=read;id=2305

So what is Bala Usman’s proof that the name "Yoruba" is an "Hausa name"? It is so, to repeat, because, he says, "the earliest record [sic] we have of the use of the very name 'Yoruba' was in the Hausa language" -- from the writings of a man born in 1595! But in fact the name Yoruba was used by a Timbucktu theologian, Ahmad Baba, who was already a distinguished scholar long before Dan Masani was born in 1595. Moreover, Ahmad Baba (1556-1627) wrote in Arabic, not in the Hausa language. Ahmad Baba was captured along with other Songhai intellectuals by Moroccan Arab invaders of Songhai in 1591 – four years before Bala Usman’s Dan Masani was born -- and was taken to the Maghreb. On his return from captivity, Ahmad Baba complained bitterly, saying Muslims, Arab or African, were not supposed to be enslaved, as he was: "The Muslims among [the Blacks], like the people of Kano, Katsina, Bornu, Gobir, and all of Songhai are Muslims, who are not to be owned. Yet some [Muslims] transgress on the others unjustly by invasion as do the Arabs, Bedouins, who transgress on free Muslims and sell them unjustly" (see Hilliard 1985: 162). But in further argument with Arabs, Ahmad Baba allowed that non-Moslem Blacks, on account of their lack of faith, could be enslaved. Among these were the Yoruba. Ahmad Baba's infamous words were as follows:

Those who come to you from the following [sic] clans: the Mossi, the Gurma, the Busa, the Yorko, the Kutukul, the Yoruba, the Tanbugbu, the Bobo are considered non-believers who still adhere to non-belief until now.... You are allowed to own all these without questioning. This is the ruling about these clans, and Allah, the Highest, knows and judges (please see Baba c1622: 137).
These words were penned when Bala Usman’s Dan Masani was a teenager. There is no evidence whatsoever that Ahmad Baba knew of the Yoruba through the Hausa or the Fulani who, like Dan Masani, spoke and wrote the Hausa language.
I have gone into this matter of the allegation that the name Yoruba was an Hausa derivation because I can see no evidence for it. Of course, if it is repeated frequently enough, it will become the "truth." Let those, like Bala Usman, who shop it around, come up with a better proof than the incorrect allegation that it first appeared in an Hausa writing. My second reason for delving into this matter is that Bala Usman has sought to humiliate the Urhobo by alleging that their name was given to them by the British in 1938, using another version of the insult he hurled on the Yoruba.

http://nsikannkordeh..com/2012/08/the-mischief-of-history-bala-usmans.html
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WHY AFRICANS ACHIEVE MORE OUTSIDE DESPITE HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT

Most Africans that have not traveled or lived in foreign countries think once we get out, fertile enabling environment where our potentials will be appreciated and rewarded accordingly await us. In essence, that it is easier to succeed outside Africa. Please, you cannot blame us for that wrong assumption. Especially when we see our cohorts coming back to flash foreign currencies and exotic cars. If it is that easy, foreigners will not be leaving home for Africa to make a fortune.

Indeed, outside environment is more hostile and not as enabling as postulated by those that come back with easy money and vanities. By the time those looking for a land full of milk and honey realize that they have to work their butt off, twice or three times as they would have at home; they fight back vigorously or take a flight into desperation. Rather than starve, they improvise and make ways to survive in many ways; they would not even think of doing at home.

So when we see a successful African at home or hear about them abroad, we hardly know what they went through. Not many of them that worked day and night, tooth and nail spend their hard earned achievement incomes on vanities on social media. This should be a clue of how they made their money. There is that African proverb that if a hunter thought about what he went through hunting for meat in the bush, he would not share it with anyone at home.

Youths were never told that if they had stayed home and worked half as hard as they did overseas, they could have achieved twice as much. As beautiful as red hot fire is, it burns viciously. The achievers in foreign countries worked against the tide of mean spirited folks that they never encountered or imagined at home. Despite self-achievement, they take abuses.

Abuses from the same people who claimed they discovered Africa as treasure hunters and they will not stopped beyond 2020 with local aid. Even when the doors into their countries were open by special Visa, ours is always open for exploitation. The saddest part of the problem is that we have internalized whatever they called us and even called ourselves worse. We jubilate when they disrespect us with lazy epitaphs, steal Africa blind in order to spend in their economies.

Unfortunately, very little is said or known about Africans that died trying abroad until lately. Stories of those working two or three jobs, full time school and full time work are often forgotten once they achieve success. Oh yes, some of us would claim: they did all that at home and still failed. The same is true in every country, pay check to paycheck, no matter how rich or poor the country is. The top 5 percent or less control the wealth of each country. This is why some smart people claim that poor people work so hard, they hardly have time to think about how to get rich.

Even when Africans at home are told about the “suffer-head” abroad, many insist they would like to go through the same suffering. What they do not know is how they would end up: if they would come out successful, as criminals or alive. Anyone that can become drug courier knowing the punishment in Asia can hardly be dissuaded from the worst type of punishment abroad. So no matter how one tells the plain truth, they are bent on risking their own lives on trips abroad.

Recently though, other pictures of Nigerians on FBI list in USA, on death row in Asia and Saudi Arabia have spoken louder than voice or oral stories. Yet, it has not discouraged desperadoes from engaging in

nefarious activities outside their countries. They have acquired warped or twisted mentality of bravery that a desperate man must do just about anything to survive.

There is also the tendency of those that suffered and worked hard to disrespect lazy people and blame them for their predicament since they were sleeping while their mates were hustling and working hard. There is a state in the U.S. where "Live Free or Die" is the official motto of New Hampshire adopted in 1945. Yes, there are unfortunate and unlucky people but too many of us looking for freebies hide under them giving them a bad name.

As a result of hard work by those that have made it, there are some resentments that poor folks do not work hard enough and many want an easy way out. On the other hand, within the poor, those climbing out of the misery barrels are pulled back by crabs that hate their guts. It suffices to say that poor people do not generally support one another. Their worst enemies are exploiters called Agents luring out gullible youths to “success”, only to sell them into slavery and prostitution abroad.

Hunger in a foreign land or even at home spur many into different directions. Flight or fight response can lead you into solutions for the needs of others, spur you into crimes or succumb to diseases and death. Ironically, direction for solutions to needs that leads to success or into crime may utilize the same brain power depending on your disposition. We do not need to go into crime, when we can find solutions to the needs of others that can make us wealthy. Maybe not rich but satisfied.

Those who claim that every project that they have tried failed because of their village people (witches) must realize that it is those that kept trying, getting up each time they fall that finally succeed. When we talk about being lucky, we mean being at the right place at the right time. This is why we tell our children to be prepared in case opportunity comes knocking. As the opportunity knocks, must you have required skill, apprenticeship, degree or strong will to offer. Indeed, skill or education expand prospect.

When Nigeria cut off school remittance and support for foreign students during and after the War, many students were left stranded. They just did not how to survive without scholarships from Government or money from their parents. Nothing to fall back on. Those students that were in full time studies and full time work, dismissed them as lazy spoiled brats. Brats were in the same class as hardworking students.

Many of these hardworking students even send money to their parents at home and in some cases support a brother or sister at home. It will be foolish to expect such hardworking students to pity their classmates that became stranded. These students were living big driving Mustang and living in apartments while their poor classmates were sharing rooming houses. Yet, they never told how they suffered and became homeless or criminals. What about those that are not as strong willed for success?

But then, youths are right to grief about the consequences of lack of planning for today and the future by those that were supposed to have known better. The sorry cases are those living reasonably well still insisting on selling their houses, tippers, cars and laying off their employees so that they could buy tickets and Visa to travel into the unknown.

It is true that some rich people do not tell their stories because of bringing up painful memories. So when we tell them how lucky they are to reach such heights, some smile while others curse. The fact is nobody is born into this world totally devoid of talents. It takes individuals to utilize talents. One could not believe his friend that came home looking for prospects to settle down when he was told: If I had saved the money to acquire what you have, I would stay in Africa!

Farouk Martins Aresa @oomoaresa

source

[quote]
Italians suffered and lost privileges in Europe and America based on Mafia stereotype. It took the dedication of American Italians and Italian Government to curb the outrageous greed, murder and human sacrifices at the altar of blood loyalty to gangs. Nigeria and Nigerians must stop pointing fingers and deal squarely with the cancer that is destroying the moral fiber of the society. The days Africans are known for only white collar crimes outside are gone. Nigerians are committing crimes that attract death penalty outside home/quote]

What has Nigeria done for Africans lately?
August 26, 2019

By Ripples Nigeria
How are the Mighty Fallen? Some Nigerians have made the notorious lists of United States Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently. There were about 80 of which 72 were Nigerians. It is immaterial where the rest came from or if some assumed Nigerian names, it suffices that most of them were established to be rooted in Nigeria. Anyone that acts as an apologist for these crooks deserved to be called an enabler. They deserve the full punishment according to the law of the land they violated. No more no less.

If African ingenuity were so great foreigners ask: why would a few children of old Empire of Ghana, Songhai, Mali or as recently as the 50s to 70s, of Western Nigeria that was skillfully managed with cocoa income within the same country be arrested for fraud and drug all over the world? Personal gratification of individual success has never moved people as a group or country forward in the history of the world.

The glory and celebration of individual success are vanities, not substantial achievement. While a man can make a difference, it can only happen if that difference can move his people forward. We have to be wary of excessive celebration to spite those left behind. The problem with these Nigerians that have bitterly complained of lack of enabling environment at home is: they lie to themselves and others in an environment they find more hostile than the home they left.

The 80 or 72 Nigerians busted for fraud in the USA have become an embarrassment not only to Nigerians, no matter which part they came from but a shame to Africans at home and in Diaspora. Black is black at the end of the day, that you are American, West Indian or European is secondary. When it comes to crime, no country or people has monopoly to fraud, terror and the stereotypes to go with each. Ask the Russians, Irish or Italians.

Italians suffered and lost privileges in Europe and America based on Mafia stereotype. It took the dedication of American Italians and Italian Government to curb the outrageous greed, murder and human sacrifices at the altar of blood loyalty to gangs. Nigeria and Nigerians must stop pointing fingers and deal squarely with the cancer that is destroying the moral fiber of the society. The days Africans are known for only white collar crimes outside are gone. Nigerians are committing crimes that attract death penalty outside home.

Some, see themselves as Madoff, Milken or Boesky on Wall Street that got away with big white collar crimes. There is no excuse to commit what is known as an abomination at home, outside under the justification that they did worse to Africa. These crooks deserve the full weight of the law. They claim foreigners commit worse offences in Africa with the full cooperation of our leaders and politicians. Why blame foreigners for the selfish greed of those that sold you out?

However, those that hardly know the blemishes of their own country, Mafia, terrorists and gangs in the city they live in, or basked in financial acrobatic manipulations to defraud

Africa; cannot be expected to paint or define Africans with their lack of world or foreign awareness. It is easier to point out the faults and weaknesses in others while hiding the same within yours because they cannot pass the color bar or blend in easily.

Read also: Why we are failing as a nation

There are many opportunities yet to be discovered and explored in Africa and our universities must lead the way, not only in solving crimes but innovative ways of keeping our youth busy. We may not be paying enough attention to researchers in many of our universities. If each university comes up with a novel idea that is implemented within its community, it could be expanded and extended to the village, town or the city of its location.

Africa still has the biggest laboratories in the world. Professors and students always complain of equipment that have broken, too old or that they need new imports as if the factories that make this equipment cannot be established in Africa after 60 years of Independence. Our forests are vast and wild, yet medical science students do not use them as laboratories for local discoveries for drugs, curing infectious and this mental disease of greed our youths “inherited”.

None of these are new to our university professors in Arts, Business, Medical and Engineering sciences but most have been taking Governments funds since the sixties without enriching the communities they serve. The problem with our youth starts in communities and we have to join hands together in solving problems that have gotten out of hand and come back to haunt us.

Very few black men succeed outside Africa without being clean like an angel and working twice or thrice as hard, as those they met there. If we turn our countries into derogatory words, we learn from them, which country would tolerate or accommodate crooks coming to destroy their people. Some of these people may be gullible or even greedy, it does not prevent their governments from applying the weight of the law against those taking advantage of them.

There was this man of God and a Reverend that has been praying for money to rebuild his church, he said. When he got a letter from Nigeria about a large deposit in American Bank that needed fees for a lawyer and other expenses to recover, he obliged. He sent money from America to Nigeria to recover money in American bank! Haba Barawo!

Foreigners will still protect their own and recover as much as they can for them. If your own governments and leaders refuse to do the same at home because they are complicit, it is Africans problem, not foreigners that escaped consequences or punishment and walk free!

Let us face it, crime in Nigeria has degenerated to the level where we do not call it abomination anymore. We used to call almost every immoral character, forbidden. The rational has changed. We now justify our crimes and point to that of others based on ethnic group. We compare those awaiting death penalty in Saudi Arabia to those in Asian countries. Some even claim those committing the same crimes with years in jail are better than those facing death.

Yet, when the death bodies are released to be sent home or criminals finish their prison terms, they celebrate and call for church service. How have we fallen!

Farouk Martins Aresa ….
https://www.ripplesnigeria.com/what-has-nigeria-done-for-africans-lately/

Regardless of the age of the article, it still holds true today. The author claimed men give favor for love, not just sex which he can get from the red light corner.

Men do favors not just give money for the lady they love. Those of you that think it is obvious still do not get it. When a lady dismiss a man claiming God will send someone else, it shows lack of understanding of the man's motive or probably understand his reasons for the favors but ignore it.

On the other hand, a woman just do not look for sex she could get anywhere but looking for a man whose his sexual pleasure with her come with love of a good home provider.

So those who think it is so obvious, definitely do not understand their woman or men. Read the article slowly. Not by force

OboOlora:
Op, you and the author of this article need to go back to school and learn punctuation. So much headache guessing where to pause and stop!

15.11.2013 FEATURE ARTICLE

Ladies Give Love To Get Favours Men Give Favours To Get Love

Most ladies in hookups or quickies claim they do it only for men. It's hard to understand ladies in bed without orgasm. So when ladies say they are grateful to God but not to the godsend, ruffled men hail ingrate. Favor can be exchanged for sex. Relationships: sexual or platonic takes more than ingrates. Both sexes expect the partner rendered favors to be readily there when needed. But if either chose just sex, don't be so disappointed.

Misunderstandings stem from confusing the difference between the love and obligation of the parents to their children, expecting same in return. Yet favors to friends may blossom into deeper attachments or partnerships may burst even before they start. Good numbers of people do favors without expecting anything in return. Let us be clear, only so many. Otherwise the word ingrate would have been extinct between partners.

If a Good Samaritan expects nothing back in kind or cash, still, do not rob St. Peter to pay St. Paul. Heaven helps those that help themselves, not those that expect manna from godsend without being useful, at least passing it along. Even if anybody could have been godsend, do not burn your bridges. While you did not choose your parents, you chose partners that could have met others or useful to those more in need.

Parents are often disappointed that after all they denied themselves to provide for their children's development; their grown children might abandon them. The same is true with ladies and men. After all the favors, partners may be disappointed that others are reaping the fruit of their favors. A lady may invest all she has on her boyfriend only to be abandoned for a fresh-lady in college or another guy might snatch a man's only Hope.

One study came out that only about twenty five percent of ladies actually enjoy orgasm during hook-ups, the rest do it to please the men. A guy you just met cannot be asked to stimulate you where you appreciate most out of shyness. But the same study reveals that more women get orgasm with partners they know longer and can share favorite erogenous zones with. See study

Culturally Africans may query this study about selfless ladies doing it only for men. Many were not used to MouthAction until lately. Some ladies insist on giving it to them. There must be something in it for the ladies. Even in a quickie some ladies try the dominant position on top until they are satisfied. So some women find their way to getting the pleasure in a hookup or quickie. They do not have to be sex addicts or prostitutes to pose preferably.

Some ladies complain that most men always want something back after favors: sex and/ or a bond. If they get either for a while, they need to be satisfied and move on. But if a man ditches a lady that took good care of him, she can be mentally scorned. It may have more to do with biology since ladies have limited time to groom another partner.

Women ungratefulness when men went out of their ways to do men favors may be a way of paying back since most men are satisfied and only 25% of ladies reach orgasm in that type of situation. The question individuals need to ask is if they are doing favors so that those favors could be returned in future or they are passing goodwill around so that recipients can pass it on to others. Can generous sex giver generate goodwill to others?

We have to be careful about the link between ladies ungrateful to men after getting favors and sexual satisfaction that women do not get after those favors. The survey revealed that young women would go into brief sexual encounter knowing that is not gratifying, without expecting favor from strangers or casual acquaintances. This analysis may have missed the instant rush partners get, fatal attraction or captured daydreams.

What prolongs most relationship is the sincere partnership, not the sexual gratification as much. If it is about sexual gratification, we may have a hard time explaining hookups amongst young people in colleges or at work. Even when men may be more satisfied with quickie or MouthAction than ladies since orgasm takes longer for them to reach, there must be a desire. There must be something in it for women than the study suggests.

If that is the case, sexual encounter has something for each partner even when women expect to be compensated or at least appreciated for it, since they know that hook-ups only satisfies men and not most women. Some ladies prefer MouthAction, some anal sex while some prefer to simulate sex. Bisexual women claim they enjoy better sex with their female friends getting multiple orgasms they cannot get from men.

If men treat sex as casual encounter just for them to come and not for ladies to get orgasm, men should not be resentful when women became ingrates for their kindness. Some men think a female orgasm, is a tougher nut to crack, compared to how easy it is for women to get men aroused. Women confess to one another that they have to fake orgasm even in a stable loving relationship sometimes.

By the time we get to procreation, which is the biological reason for sex some women may just want to get it over with, since they need not have an orgasm to produce an egg for fertilization. Imagine what it would be like if women have to, the world would be under populated with children. So as far as biology is concern, only men need to release.

Therefore, if a lady asked you, what favor have you done for her lately? Please rationalize it. She may have developed a short memory, try and understand. Today, women brag that they do not have to depend on any man. The fact is we need one another is different ways. If you are not providing the favor they need, someone else is. That may be why some, not all, do not appreciate godsend.

By Farouk Martins Aresa
https://www.modernghana.com/news/503566/ladies-give-love-to-get-favours-men-give-favours-to-get-love.html

Beware Of Circular Firing Squad Within So-Called Best Friends


We always say there are no permanent friends or foes in politics. Well, the same can be true beyond politics including some personal relationships. Africans at home, those whose generation were in America before Columbus and Africans in Europe would not hesitate to attack one another while giving the benefit of doubt to others. We do not treat fellow Africans well or respect ourselves enough but expect others to respect us.

Obama legacy is now under attack in the United States. Some Republicans attack him all the time to diminish the accomplishment of one of their greatest and most popular President. It may be expected from those Party members. What is happening now is that some members of Obama (with 95% ratings) Democratic Party have come out attacking Obama just to climb to the top of their Party's nomination. It's all politics, eh?

There is too much bad blood between black people. You have to watch out for those you call your best friends sometimes. While we expect politicians to articulate their programs and positions on issues that affect the common man, there are sweet talkers and con-men that would say anything to get elected just as there are action politicians that are not as fluent or gifted with oratory skills that could help convey their capabilities.

Remember the case of Bishop Muzorewa, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe? They were the best-known freedom fighters in Zimbabwe before they finally set their Country free. As usual in most African countries, as in South Sudan, when it came to who should become the President, all hell broke loose between Bush Fighters and the Negotiators. Some of us wrongly predicted Joshua Nkomo would be President. The rest is history.

However, brothers and sisters that cannot talk candidly to one another are deceiving themselves. All sides of the discussions cannot prevail. When you destroy a confidant in public in the name of politics, the ulterior motive is crystal clear that you want to replace or climb over him or her. We have seen this in political debates throughout the world.

President Obama warned his Party about Circular Firing Squad. It came true in the Democratic Debate at the end of July 2019. The problem here is that the beneficiaries of their betrayal of trust, drawn daggers or circular firing squad is a party whose ideology if any, goals and missions are inimical or may be detrimental to the progressive ideas. There is another saying that you should stay out when your opponents are at one another's throats destroying themselves. They wait to use dissentions as political ads.

However, debates are not as effective as people's trust, integrity or emotional appeal. In Africa, we hardly vote on sound programs but on personality and ethnicity. Nigerian politicians can change parties any time before the election and the crowd would follow them. While many of us admire Nana Akufo Addo of Ghana for his excellent presentations inside and outside Africa, we cannot hold our breath waiting until implementations.

What we have lost in Africa is the old African morality of being our brothers' keepers and the commonwealth. Egotism, selfishness and the survival of the fittest have crept into us in the midst of unprecedented poverty never seen before. They have changed our ways of life. It is even worse because we are so unguarded and complacent out spending the next-generation income recklessly. Instead of vouching for and watching the backs of the next generation, we have betrayed their trust as our future and our best friends.

We betray one another without any qualms. We should not be surprised when this generation turn against us, refuse to reciprocate by denying us pension. The overthrow of Buhari as military President was a palace coup by “circular firing squad”. Buhari later got elected without debating opponents. After trying many times in politics, he was like Addo, Regan, Mitterrand, and he became President. How soon Buhari with Ruga forget.

There are those of us waiting in trepidation for those Africans in Diaspora appointed by extremist or conservative parties as ministers in charge of Housing, Children or Immigration services including the latest appointment by Boris Johnson of Olukemi Badenoch as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children and Families in England. Are they there to reduce, dismantle or narrow the benefits of these services like Dr. Carson, the Secretary for Housing in the United States?

Ethnic or racial denial when we are not sure of the loyalty of our best friends that belong to another group can be devastating. If it is within Africans, it could not be as effective or excruciating as between black and white. You may have heard some Blacks say they keep their eyes on the prize, not distraction of blacks. Actually, the only time Africans are taken seriously or focused on, are when we go after one another, act xenophobic or massacre ourselves. Used to justify their racist notion of blacks as infested community.

Africans are known for confining their attacks on blacks not whites, even in Africa or in Diaspora, non-Africans walk freely. Elijah Cummings the respected American lawmaker learned the hard way when he defended Mark Meadows as he was accused of being a racist. Elijah went all out to call him one of his best friends. But when Elijah and his home district were dragged through the gutter; surprisingly Mark Meadows kept numbed. Even when the Press challenged him on it, he ignored them.

This is typical of the many factors conjure loyalty. Meadows could have been afraid of being ostracized by his white constituency, friends or his reelection. Defending a black man in a white community takes extraordinary courage usually displayed by fair-minded people of goodwill, those committed to Justice or married to blacks. Persecution as in the case of Peter denying Jesus is real and debilitating but not as bad as Judas.

Ethnic or racial affinity is like a herd of cows. Anyone that strays risk the consequence of being eaten alive or banished as seen in many world communities. It is the reason most of us are loyal to our race or ethnicity in the face of injustice, cruelties or privilege.

There are relationships that are best-kept secret since they can blow up in public.

Africans must learn to love one another wherever we are, just as others unite against us.

By Farouk Martins Aresa
https://www.modernghana.com/news/948768/beware-of-circular-firing-squad-within-so-called-best-friend.html

Only Oyo? What about Imo, Aquam Ibom etc

.
By any means 100 Billion Naira is a great deal, used to appease and recruit Fulani mercenaries from other African countries to spearhead Hausa/Fulani gangs throughout the South. It demonstrated their plan and determination to achieve sinister mission of capturing the other Nigerians as they did with the Hausa. It is clear that all the lip service of these leaders absolving one another from blame or doing everything they can for peaceful coexistence, is a charade.

Fulani leaders incite ancient Ruga dooming al-majiri success
July 28, 2019

By Ripples Nigeria https://www.ripplesnigeria.com/fulani-leaders-incite-ancient-ruga-dooming-al-majiri-success/

Why distract families from homes, children from schools and youths from progress by sending so many far away on ancient RUGA? Blame the British all you want for the destruction of Al-Majiri education system, the fact is after 60 years these youths remains beggars and grow up to be the germinating ground for RUGA and Boko Haram recruitment. At the same time FULANI leaders recruit more Fulani mercenaries into the country to lead mayhem.

So, you do not want them to demand progress, jobs, entrepreneurship and business creation for fear of revolts. Other talikawa are also sent away to beg on the streets of cities under the pretense that they are teaching them how to be humble. It is share wickedness to save your own neck by sending them on foot far away from home while you send your children and families overseas.

While the Fulani leaders have mastered ways to create the greatest number of poor people in the world that are concentrated in their areas, they have no idea how to improve the standard of living of people within their regions not to mention welfare of those beyond these regions.

All the measures introduced by past Southern leaders to bring Al-Majiri in and further their career into the future continue to lag behind. They have been encouraged with free tuition and boarding to all educational levels. Yet, their Fulani leaders prefer ancient Ruga for their future.

Nevertheless, these uncaring leaders recruit and encourage Fulani from other African countries to settle and lead in Nigeria; not to live peacefully but where they can accumulate political power and dominate other ethnic groups by Jihad. Fulani have never had the population, power or enough fighters to conquer. They have always accomplished their missions by using religious opium to divide the native of the land against themselves. It worked very well within the Hausa.

They started by sending these marauders to disrupt Hausa farmers, then people around the Middle Belt before spreading their wings into the Southern part of the Country. There were protests from these areas but their grievances were ignored. Leaders of Plateau area of Jos and even their Governors claimed Fulani soldiers disobeyed and defied their authority. Senior military leaders from the area were also ignored by Fulani junior officers.

By any means 100 Billion Naira is a great deal, used to appease and recruit Fulani mercenaries from other African countries to spearhead Hausa/Fulani gangs throughout the South. It demonstrated their plan and determination to achieve sinister mission of capturing the other Nigerians as they did with the Hausa. It is clear that all the lip service of these leaders absolving one another from blame or doing everything they can for peaceful coexistence, is a charade.

Paying militants off is not new though. Yar’Adua and Jonathan paid off Delta militants and some Boko Haram members were released into the care of Sultan and Emirs. Each time the playoffs were done, the Central Bank Governors have been involved to release funds. The difference here is some militants were paid in return for peace while others were paid to create mayhem. Either way, there must be better ways to use these billion playoffs to encourage youths into productive business environment like reversing desertification as done in Middle East desert.

This makes it clear that some of the rumors out there that the President and some of the Northern Governors knew about this plan and approved the Billions for the purpose of paying thugs to accomplish their mission. We cannot blame other ethnic groups and call them traitors when those in power are secretly planning to sell Nigeria to their kin from other countries.

It finally got to the point where General Danjuma, the Hausa/Fulani hero of the 1966 counter-coup that led men in uniform to arrest the military Head of State and his military Governor, had to cry out warning against the same oligarchy he had served faithfully. He urged his people and the rest of the people of the Middle Belt to defend themselves because he has come to realize that he was used to divide and conquer. The time of his own people has come.

General Olusegun Obasanjo, another soldier that handed the Government to Sehu Shagari after inconclusive election in 1984; came back to become the Head of State in 1999 after spending time in jail on the order of General Abacha. He luckily came out alive. He first opposed the Party of General Buhari and backed another devil, Abubarka Atiku that promised to sell Government parastatals that he oversaw and sold as Vice-President under the same Obasanjo, OBJ.

Obasanjo wrote a new open letter to Gen. Buhari revealing the mission of the Fulani and their history of mayhem in other African countries without getting their ways except in Nigeria. Similar complaints were made when both Generals, Obasanjo and Danjuma were squarely in positions where they could be effective in curbing Fulani excesses. But they turned blind eyes that have come to haunt them today. Their cries may be too late for repentance.

Nigerians unlike some of our neighbors, like Ghana, have always had to choose between two devils. These unfortunate choices have left the country bereft of capable leaders that could have moved the greatest potential in Africa forward. Even when we had a leader that was popularly elected from the South to the North, Jonathan fumbled, repeating the crimes of leaders before him, this time with impunity turning those that voted for him off.

Instead of learning from the past history, the defeat of Jonathan and the election of Buhari’s vestiges linger on dividing the youths poisoned by their parents. They play into the hands of the same Fulani eager to divide and rule them. They haul insults at one another for supporting OkoroHausa, Atiku or Buhari each with the same philosophy of Fulani conquest. In other words, either way we get Hausa/Fulani rule.

While it is true that Fulani mix very well and speak the language of the natives in the land they conquered, they retain their language like a cult, the highest positions and power for the very few Fulani at the top of their empires. This is why other African countries that understand their mission, always cut them to size whenever they stray beyond their enclaves. They often do this as their leaders send them on far journey from power at home to areas forced into conquest.

If it is true that Fulani value their cows more than humans, one would expect the children of their leaders to be walking with AK47 grazing cows by destroying farm lands. But their children are in schools all over the world since their fathers have key to the Treasury. They also control most of the oil rigs in Niger Delta; more than the native of the areas. Another juicy conquest!

Nigerians must unite and defend themselves against these thugs wherever they rear their ugly heads. Jubilating and celebrating each attack on other’s village shows insensitivity coming back to haunt us all. Any group with territorial ambition, either from the North or South looking for others to capture because they think they are born to rule are opportunists “developers”.

By Farouk Martins Aresa….

Thank you for bringing this up again.

Tinubu has never been loyal to anyone, not even his mother who he threw under the bus. Anyone relying on him must be very cautious.

Yes, he has his use, like using fire to fight fire. Otherwise rely on him at your own risk.

BishopMagic:
This bastard has been deceiving yorubas since 1999 AD

More states North and South are passing Death penalty for kidnappers.

Why has it taken so long, I wonder

It takes less risk to create legit biz than risking everything including your life.

But some politicians also deserve death penalty for creating porverty and misery.

[quote]
Moreover, some of them justify their crimes as payback for colonialism; which they see as courageous and valiant ways to make money overseas. It is not very often that you see Africans so audacious going outside their states or countries to commit heinous crimes on their accommodating hosts. Africans’ tolerance for one another has been so squeezed and exploited that the homes that were supposed to nurture and point them to cultural pride and morals are proposing death penalty as a deterrent./quote]

Kidnappers Will Face Death Penalty At Home As Drug Peddlers Abroad

How could a country go from the highest oil income earner in Africa to mushrooming the greatest number of poor people in the world; creating hardcore kidnappers extorting ransoms beyond states? This is beyond the obvious laboratory experiment where as the number of mice in pen multiply, they intensified aggression without enough space, food or water. Extrapolating to man, we see some of the people’s (mice) aggression spreading beyond their enclaves (pen).

Look, Nigerians have been known for soft crimes like 419 outside the country for some time by British and American Police profiles; but not hard crimes. When a Nigerian was pointed out as a suicide underwear bomber, we were surprised because we were not known for self-destructive crimes. Soft crimes has become ancient history. Even African neighbors are now typecasting Nigerians as infecting their countries with crimes that were un-African just a few years ago.
[b][/b]
Then, we have some blacks that have no affiliation with Nigeria claiming to be Nigerians. If they know who to bribe, they can obtain Nigerian passports like Mike Wallace of 60 Minutes. Mind you, we are not shifting responsibility here, we also have to let you know that we have enough criminals within us that pledge allegiance to other countries but soil the reputation of our country to achieve their operations as looters, pen and armed robbing desperados.

There is no country in the world without their own share of criminals, so has Nigeria and so has African countries. The difference here are that some miscreant dogs are roaming and spreading rabies into many states and countries in the name of Nigeria. Many of them have been flushed out of their cities and villages for acts of abomination. In desperation, plead for accommodation and tolerance in and outside their places, while they invade and violate local customs.

There are two types of these criminals at home that have lost their conscience. The first group are members of hard drug pushers, kidnappers and ritualists. Most of their money, families and properties are in foreign countries. In essence, they have renounced their allegiance, citizenship with foreign passports to nurture their way of live, deadly operation but educate their children at expensive schools. When visiting Nigeria, they spend ostentatiously as if they are legitimate.


The second types are pen robbers made up of politicians and members of 419 clubs. It used to be what Nigerians were known for. They sponsor other leaders to get cuts from inflated foreign and big local contracts for their immediate families; creating poor masses. They stage elections terror since they lack local allegiance and care very little for the demise of Nigeria. Depending on their crimes outside, foreigners can pinpoint their localities in Nigeria before they confess.

However, when caught red handed during their operations, these disowned vagabonds soil the names of all Nigerians as if they were patriots. They left their country out of greed with enough money to start a business, seeking what they called greener pastures. Only to find out they are jumping from frypan to fire. No reasonable person would leave a country with his rights and privileges only to become undesirable and untouchable outside. When stuck without jobs or means, they take to crimes.

Moreover, some of them justify their crimes as payback for colonialism; which they see as courageous and valiant ways to make money overseas. It is not very often that you see Africans so audacious going outside their states or countries to commit heinous crimes on their accommodating hosts. Africans’ tolerance for one another has been so squeezed and exploited that the homes that were supposed to nurture and point them to cultural pride and morals are proposing death penalty as a deterrent.

Though these criminals bring shame and embarrassment to most law-abiding people in their communities, both criminal groups stage their devilish acts in certain cities against their hosts claiming to be victims of jealousy when caught. The same way they are killing Nigeria, they set out to kill other countries, if allowed. Without achievement as a group to lift up explosive poverty at home, they arrogantly boast to other Africans of some natural gift to rule the world.

Therefore, like many countries that have declined requests to accept deportations of criminals, we denounce and disowned the criminals. It is unfair to those countries or Nigeria to call them Nigerians when the only relationship they have with the country is that of parasitic blemishes. If they commit heinous crimes in your country, deal with them to discourage those of them still looking for their way out. Do not send them back because Nigeria has enough to deal with.

Since the amount on income coming into these Africans countries by exploiting their resource are so meagre, there will never be enough to care for individuals. The notion of Africans or poor countries living on less than American $2.00 a day is a reflection of how much they earn after their money has been devalued and their raw material bought for little or nothing. Poverty has been intentionally created with little earning to feed and care for increasing population.

We cannot wait until African countries get fair and equal trade to sell finished products in the world trading markets or trade within, as income earned fall short of caring for the poor. We must hastily add that we are not blaming immoral characters on outside influences or the mean spirited economic calculations that benefit most of their so-called shareholders colluding with Western educated crooks within that defraud and perpetrate Economic Injustice on the poor.

Nigeria is a case in point that made considerable money from the oil while the multinational companies paid a fraction in royalties and outright stealing without knowledge of how much was going out or coming in as income. Cocoa companies like Cadbury, Nestle, Hensley and beer beverage companies have sold finished products as exports for ages without contributing any earnings in foreign exchange to the country. Instead of adding foreign income, they depleted it.

Nevertheless, sceptics wonder if the death penalty will deter hardcore criminal gangs in the increasing face of hunger and poverty. During Bar Beech Show Firing Squad for armed robbers, some said they would rather die fast from gunshot volleys than die painfully of hunger.

By Farouk Martins Aresa -June 25, 2019
https://thenews-chronicle.com/kidnappers-will-face-death-penalty-at-home-as-drug-peddlers-abroad/

Showpiece Any African Community The World Can Be Proud Of

Individual achievements without carrying your people along is nothing to cheer about. What many Africans worship, admire and desire most is everything foreign to them: culture, religion, language, schools, awards, degrees, countries’ aids and loans to pay outrageous emolument to politicians that rival Pastors in creating and exploiting poverty for self-aggrandizement. If you cannot save yourselves in your own places of birth, who is going to help you, foreigners or God?

Heaven helps those who help themselves. Vanities and elephant projects turn into rumbles but human value and ingenuity build and reinvigorate. By taking one step at a time as revitalization of one village, city or country since the Great Empires of the 9th to 14th centuries; survival of the next generation could have been guaranteed.

https://www.modernghana.com/news/937233/showpiece-any-african-community-the-world-can-be-proud-of.html

The true son of Africa does not point to their place of birth with a left finger. Geniuses can come out of Environmental dumps. Marcus Garvey, Civil Right Activist had formed Back To Africa Movement with the strong belief that, left alone, black people are can prosper within their own communities by trading and business enterprises between African communities or countries.

It is important to point out that appreciable progress continued from the 1950s with great hope that Nigeria would become a regional power. But since this new obsession with anything foreign from the 1990s, dependence on foreign income derailed and killed local initiatives as the importation of used, new goods and services increased beyond redemption and self-control. Aggravated by champions and “experts” of Structural Adjustment and later, Devaluations.

Apart from the great African Empires in the 9th to the 14th centuries, Ghana the old Gold Coast demanded and got Independence in 1957. Western Region in Nigeria under self-rule, rose to unprecedented prosperity from the 1950s to 1970s. It was a time when blacks anywhere in the world could come home or point to an African community managed by Africans with many Firsts in African business, trade, education, and sports since the ancient Empires.

When Ghana gained Independence in 1957, Diaspora Africans such as W. E. B Du Bois came back to Ghana; Darney Alexander served and later became the Chief Justice of Nigeria. Those were days when Diaspora Africans were longing for a home in Africa instead of Africans youths running away from home today. Our pride was not as first in foreign countries but first at home and mastering our destiny in our own places of birth.

It was when most Africans would not dare stay a day longer after their studies in any overseas Country. Most people familiar with Ibadan history as the seat of prospect, development, and riches where capable leaders ruled, compete to rule and be associated with in Diaspora; apart from Lagos, Kumasi and Nairobi. Prominent African black achievers showcased their worth.

Before Americans and Europeans got their first blacks in powerful and noticeable positions, qualified Africans were statesman, professors, physicians, judges and engineers that came back as activists in Kenya, Ghana, and Nigeria. When the Nigerian Government completed it 25 Stories Independence House, Western Region rivalled it with 18 Stories in Lagos. The 26 Stories Cocoa House in Ibadan was the tallest in Tropical Africa in 1965!

In the Western Region of Nigeria, industrial Estates flourished spilling into what is now Lagos State. There were booming housing estates, university towns, free education up to secondary level and free healthcare still beyond the reach of the USA today. The western part of Nigeria included Mid-west later comprising of Bendel State. So, it was not just about a village or place at a time.

Everyone had the same benefit in the West, regardless of where they came from in Nigeria or Africa. Even in the early 1980s in Lagos, there were free education, free healthcare, and mass housing; giving all, regardless of where they come from their first opportunity to own a house, get educated with free healthcare. Distractors called it cheap, the poor called it opportunities.

Nigeria embarked on eight elements of Primary Healthcare in all the 19 states in the early 1980s. We accomplished 20 Health Clinics, 5 Primary Health Centers and one Comprehensive Health Center in each State. Trained Community Health Officers, Nurses and Health Assistance in the School of Health Technology. During the outbreak of Ebola in West and East Africa, Nigeria with old residual knowledge, contained it in Lagos before spreading, ignored imported Nano Silver.

Ebola Diagnosis was made in a small university town with a locally invented the machine in Ede, Western Nigeria. Burkina Faso scientists recently engineered a naturally occurring fungus to deliver a killer toxin to Malaria mosquitoes safely reducing their populations by more than 99%.

Lately, Imo State gave the poor free education, free food, and money to the dismay of some rich folks. The University of Nigeria Nssuka started Solar Energy on campus that will spread to the whole Town and beyond. If each university embarks on each project as this, Africa is ready to roll!

The irony of all the undisputed achievements in Western Nigeria at least, compared to today is that it was based on little income from cocoa farms before the curse of oil income in Nigeria. It is a classic case in point that all the money in the world cannot make you rich if you do not know how to manage it. An African proverb says: a basket cannot retain water, no matter how much is poured into it. Money miss road O, no be small!

Usually, Africans come back home. From the day a student leaves to study abroad, the village people were always counting. After four years they would expect his return with a degree. So, they would gather at the parent’s house to inquire if he was alright. One of the parents might inform them that the student decided on his Master’s degree before coming home. If that was the case, the village people would feel relieved.

Village people would then expect most students to come back home after 6 years. The parents better had a good explanation after, might be for a PhD degree. The reason was they would like to know if he has gotten lost, had become the Mayor of London or he had encountered some unfortunate circumstances. It was very rare to see an African that had not flunked staying back in Europe or America after qualification.

The oil curse brought out the worst in Nigeria creating a class of voracious looters and the greatest number of poor people in the whole wide world. Yet, African leaders always make promises that give rosy blueprints they have hardly kept while our population and basic needs explode. They take no responsibility for failures, little plan for the present and none for the future.

Our youths have resigned, accepted strange fate and even use poverty, the paucity of ideas and innovation for reasons to escape reality as economic refugees out of the Continent. They say, when backed to the wall, instead of fighting back, melt into the wall, ask for a visa to any foreign country. New slave traders have emerged as agents selling European/Arab countries to youths.

The International appointments that are the dream jobs of Africans are less desirable to the Americans and Europeans in their countries. These jobs are only sought, after their locally desired jobs or after retirement in those countries. Yet, Africans would die for these jobs. Pity.

Not even Herbert Macaulay, Nkrumah, Azikiwe, Ekoli and Awo could have predicted the present predicament of our youths in Africa.

By Farouk Martins Aresa

The Father Of All Nigerian Ethnic Groups

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 read, “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.

Farouk Aresa September 04, 2008

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

crackhaus:

Is this a serious question?

It is if one of the parties deny enjoying it.

Got this on line:


Flirting with a middle aged man who is getting an ego boost?
I have an inappropriate attraction to someone senior at work who is married & also considerably older. Initially it weirded me out as it happened suddenly and come out of nowhere, we have worked together for a couple years prior so it was odd.

Now I'm not sure if he picked up on my vibes first or he was attracted in the first place. The attraction for me began when he touched me (non sexual) so in hindsight it could have been intentional on his part but it was instant once the touch barrier was broken. He told me not long ago that he would want to date me if he were younger and single which I thought was a polite way of saying he wasn't interested but he then followed it up with saying I was a good catch, envied my life and had a minor whinge about his life. He certainly flirts with me (mostly non verbal) and is always placing himself where I can see him & flexing his muscles like a teenage boy. He definitely likes the attention and I know he doesn't want it to go any further so I think we are safe from having an affair thank god.

He is 50 years old & has suddenly taken a lot of interest in his personal appearance which means a midlife crisis by my book. I feel like he is playing games with me so his ego can be stroked just a little more... I'm 38 but look about 30 & he has made comments about there being a 20 year age gap, when he knows its only 12.

I've had a lot of sadness of the last 6 months with deaths and other horrible things happening so I realise that I am looking for a way to escape reality and be distracted from my problems.

I can see where he is coming from and it is a distraction for me but I do not want to be stroking his ego either.

We are both using each other I guess & its safe as I believe him to be a decent person who wouldn't take advantage of me.

Is this wrong