₦airaland Forum

We spent the rest of the night watching movies and yabbing the night out of one another

The next day was rather slow.
Continued with the deep and important topics that I was reasoning with Steve-ray the night before.
With weird things happening around the hotel room
Kenosky would show up with his craze to liven things up.

Spent most of the day hopping from one hotel room to the other, dining, meeting more peeps, helping them in collecting final travel documents, gisting and resting. You would think I was also Middlesbrough bound

The few times I wanted to go, you will hear; Ol boy! You dey work today? Where you wan go? You no dey go anywhere o! Stay with us o!

Fast-forward to 6pm, checking-out time.
Kenosky et al were already down at the reception, with their luggage.
Helped Steve-ray with some of his luggage down the reception only to meet the rest of the train at the reception, all with their luggage.
I have never seen a group of excited peeps in such a long time. You could catch the excitement in a nylon bag; all you need do was to open it in the air

I was immediately surrounded by various groups in a picture snapping session.
Being indoors most of the day, most peeps thought Opoks! had gone home.
While everyone else was dressed in their semi-winter drabs ready to hit the UK weather, I was the only one on native, ready to hit the mild Lagos harmattan

Then came the emotional part.
I now saw all the guys I had not seen the night before. And many more I had never seen in my two short visits to Eko Hotel.
The hugging session was very emotional.
In Nigeria, we no sabi express emotion, boys no fit cry. But when a man gives you a hug and looks you straight in the eye with that Opoks! you should have been here look, you kind of get the message.
And when you get the same hugs from the same guys, over five times in less than 20 mins, even if you were insensitive, it kind of sinks in.
We fought back tears.

But boys got to be strong.
It wasn't just about NLNG. I have gotten so close to some of those guys that you would think we were childhood friends who played ball, plucked mangoes and grew up playing pranks together.
It was about Friendship. This thread has touched more lives in ways I could not imagine and Opoks! had helped in touching them.
It was also about Courage. Few if anybody expected Opoks! to stay on till this last moment.
A few peeps called me by the side to salute my courage and the fact that I stood to wish them well.


Fast-forward to 6:20pm, the bus had arrived to take peeps to the airport and I even helped several peeps carry their luggage to the bus.
It was amazing watching a Biolabee acting conductor with the luggage and then crying out in frustration for help

Watching peeps board the bus for a final take off was another emotional moment.
Peeps stopped for a final hug, those who were already seated-tight in the bus waved.
Chukka stopped at the door for a hug, Crazy Ken stepped down for a hug and other guys I can't remember their names.
By then, I didn't know what I was feeling

Final pleasantaries with Muhammad and Shabba and the bus door shut and slowly made its way out of Eko Hotel to Murtala Muhammad International Airport.
Opoks! made his way out of the Hotel
Meanwhile I called my friends and hommies; Lindiwe, Wandel, pgm, Kenosym and Adrianic to tell them in Christ's words; it is finished!

I couldn't get to the Airport 'cause that would have kept me till 11pm.

Life continues, friends made, fights fought, drama erupted and impressions formed that would be hard to erase.

Seeing this part of Which Way NLNG? concluded was a privilege to me.

It has not dulled my own plans which continues with renewed vigour.

I'm only afraid that pgm, Wandel and Kenosym have invited me for another session as from 28th of January, 2008.

Make una no break me o!

Looking at this again, I must confess I found it well written. Opoks, you do have considerable literary skill!

Hurrah to hear from you, Kenosky! Indeed you are giving this thread an Intercontinental appeal. We now have posters from Nigeria, the United States (David), and England (Kenosky).

Waow! I suppose it is winter there? And though the time down here is 12.09 pm, it is probably 11.09 am over there. This of course is because Nigeria is 15 degrees longitude from the GMT (England's time), and consequently one hour ahead.

Today, you must know, Nigeria is playing against Mali, after having lost to Ivory Coast by a lone goal. I hope you will be able to watch it over there. I hope the weather is not too cold. Kano is very cold at this time; but I know I cannot compare it to England.

My dear, how are you? I feel so excited that you are posting on our thread all the way from England! How was the trip? I want to know all about it, all the details. Where are you guys staying? In a hotel, or is there a boarding facility? (You know, like when I was at Intercontinental training school at Ofada and it was a typical boarding house scenario). Is that what you have over there?

What is the course of study going to be like? I am told you guys are to spend six months. Please tell us how you are coping. On the thread, and privately (kuwena@yahoo.com).

Frankly, news from abroad excites me, because it seems that is where my heart is.

About tax, just thank God you're not the one paying (lol). So just have fun and be cool. Keep posting; love to hear from you. By the way, how are the people like; I mean the whites: are they friendly? I hear English people are diplomatic; has that been your experience? Please fill me in with all the details. ALL THE DETAILS. ALL. Okay?

All my love!

I concur with Opoks! I wish this may not be your last post here. I rejoice with you that you can see the big picture that your future presents. I hope it turns out exactly as you envision. Like you say, it is well.

Opoks! I am sorry as well. I guess it was all a huge misunderstanding. Your apology is taken; I hope mine is taken as well.

I am glad for my NLNG brothers who have gone to London for training. God will be with you all. I read my bible today (even though I no longer go to church, I still read my bible). I read about Daniel. My bible told me that in all matters of the mind, Daniel was found to be ten times smarter than all his colleagues. This is what I wish to happen to all my NLNG brothers in London.

Once again, may God bless you all. Amen.

By the way, David, would you be kind enough to give me your email address or phone number, or both, so that I could be contacting you once in a while for guidance on what I am doing? Would this be too much to ask of a Nigerian brother in the USA? Hope to hear from you soon.

Thanks.

When I look at this forum, called Jobs, I cry and I laugh at the same time. I cry because this unemployment thing is very very serious. A lot of people may not have grasped the seriousness of it yet, but I can assure you that it is very serious. There are people out there who are losing faith in themselves, who are almost going mad even, because they have to sit home doing nothing, donkey years after finishing school. It is serious; and still many of them are not trained in order to learn the skills with which to so something meaningful with their lives; and every where they turn, someone wants to rip them off. It is such a pity. But this is the situation in which we find ourselves. Whence cometh our help? The much needed one.

SOMETHING FOR YOUR RELAXATION, TO BRIGHTEN YOUR DAY.


Let's face it: English is a stupid language. There is no egg in the
eggplant, no ham in the hamburger, and neither Pine nor apple in
the
pineapple. English muffins were not invented in England; French
fries
were
not invented in France.

We sometimes take English for granted. But if we examine its
paradoxes
we
find that Quicksand takes you down slowly, boxing rings are square
and
guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If writers write, how come fingers don't fing? If the plural of
tooth is
teeth, shouldn't the plural of phone booth be phone beeth. If the
teacher
taught, why didn't the preacher praught. If a vegetarian eats
vegetables,
what the heck does a humanitarian eat? Why do people recite at a
play
yet
play at a recital? Why do people Park on driveways and drive on
parkways.

You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language where a house
can
burn
up as it burns down and in

which you fill in a form by filling it out. And a bell is only
heard
once it
goes!


People, not computers, invented English and it reflects the
creativity
of
the human race (which of course isn't a race at all). That is why
when
the
stars are out they are visible, but when the lights are out they
are
invisible. And why is it that when I wind up my watch it starts but
when
I
wind up this story it ends? And there's more,

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery? If love
is
blind, why is lingerie so popular? Why is the man who invests all
your
money
called a broker? Why is a person who plays the piano called a
pianist,
but
a person who drives a race car
not called a racist? Why are "a wise man" and "a
wise guy opposites"? Why do overlook and oversee
mean opposite things?

If horrific means to make horrible, does terrific mean to make
terrible?
Why
isn't 11 pronounced onety-one, since 22 is pronounced twenty-two?
If
lawyers
are

disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn't it follow that
electricians
can
be delighted, musicians denoted,

cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked and dry
cleaners
depressed?

Why is it that if someone tells you that there are 1 billion stars
in
the
universe you will believe them, but if they tell you a wall has wet
paint
you will have to touch it to be sure? If you take an Oriental
person and
spin him around several times, does he become disoriented? If
people
from
Poland are called "Poles," why aren't people from Holland called
"Holes"?

BECAUSE OF ALL THESE DISPARITIES, I DECIDED TO BE SPEAKING YORUBA
ANYWHERE I
GO. EVEN THE LAST TIME I TRAVELLED TO LONDON AND HAD AN OPPORTUNITY
TO MEET
WITH PRINCE CHARLES, I SPOKE TO HIM IN YORUBA LANGUAGE. HE WAS SO
DELIGHTED
THAT HE ASKED ME TO TEACH HIM IGBO. YOU CAN
IMAGINE, , ,


When Insults Had Class,

He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill "I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
-- Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the
dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway ) "I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
-- Mark Twain
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
-- Oscar Wilde
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play,
bring a friend, if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

followed by Churchill's response:
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second, if there is one."
Winston Churchill "Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any
address on it?"
-- Mark Twain

"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop "He had delusions of adequacy."
-- Walter Kerr
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
John Bright "He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
-- Paul Keating
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb "He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
-- Samuel Johnson
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
-- Oscar Wilde

Subject: The E-mail


A man checked into a hotel in Pretoria . There was a computer in his room,
so he decided to send an e-mail to his wife. However, he accidentally
typed the wrong e-mail address, and without realizing his error, he sent
the e-mail. Meanwhile , somewhere in Cape Town a widow had just
arrived home from her husband's funeral. The widow decided to check her
e-mail, expecting messages from relatives and friends. After reading the
first message, she fainted. The widow's son rushed into the room, found
his mother on the floor, and saw the computer screen which Read:

To: My Loving Wife
Subject: I've arrived
Date: June 3, 2005

I know you're surprised to hear from me. They have computers here now, and
you are allowed to send e-mails to your loved ones. I've just arrived and
have been checked in. I see that everything has been prepared for your
arrival tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing you then!
Hope your journey is as uneventful as mine was.
P.s. It is damn hot down here!!

We have the grace to see another week. Today is Sunday, a day on which we rest and prepare for the next. I stumbled on this on intranet mail:


I Love My Job!

The Lost Dr Seuss Poem

I love my job, I love the pay!
I love it more and more each day.
I love my boss, she is the best!
I love her boss and all the rest.

I love my office and its location,
I hate to have to go on vacation.
I love my furniture, drab and gray,
And piles of paper that grow each day!

I think my job is really swell,
There's nothing else I love so well.
I love to work among my peers,
I love their leers, and jeers, and sneers.

I love my computer and its software;
I hug it often though it won't care.
I love each program and every file.
I'd love them more if they worked a while.

I'm happy to be here. I am. I am.
I'm the happiest slave of the Firm, I am.
I love this work, I love these chores.
I love the meetings with deadly bores.

I love my job - I'll say it again -
I even love those friendly men.
Those friendly men who've come today,
In clean white coats to take me away!


For those who love their jobs as the writer seems to, I rejoice with them. For those who are hanging on by a thin thread, I sympathize. I hope that one day all of us will find what exactly we were made to do on this earth, because I know for a fact that a life without purpose is painful.

But then, have we really suffered most? What of those in prison, or on hospital beds, or without a limb or two? Even then, have we enjoyed the most? What of those in palaces, or living in untold luxury, who have never endured any pain?

We are who we are by philosophical accident. We will be who we will by choice.


Have a blessed week.

I came online again.

By the way, David, your blogsite is cool.

Hey, congratulations to you all! This thread is growing, much like ours, Which Way NLNG? Oboywhynow, I think you have posted on ours before, and I say a huge congratulations! Keep the flag flying!!!

Bye for now. One love.

I'll talk to you all tomorrow. Goodbye for today.

I love you all.

May this 2008 be happy for all of us, and may it be a year of actualizing our dreams. My first manuscript is now being reviewed by the publishers in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I hope it turns out well.

Let us also pray for Nigeria, that she may one day be able to keep her geniuses at home. I wrote this for your pleasure:

















Grim Economy

Grim economy chokes the citizenry
Prevents freedom from fiscal gloom
A third world state is strung abase
Hating progress, shrieking technology
Vast farmlands, cattle in droves
Dark jungles, oil-drenched rivers
Are left untapped
High-handed public officers
Skirmish for vain reward
Exchanging popular wealth
For private enjoyment
Unchecked
Feral relish of the common coffers
Bought by the beguiled vote
At yesterday’s charade
Over rigged balloting
And the swearing-in ceremony
Succeeded by bottles of wine at the club
Shared by the incumbent and his predecessor
Are wrought by debased hegemony
Conscience is stilled and
Hungry rulers call in the white investors
Expatriate domination
Of blue-chip firms
Pay lip service to democracy
In dog-eat-dog society
Policies on chopsticks
Bestridden by gluttonous aristocrats
Squelch intelligent youth,
Deflate swelling morale
Sag racing heads;
No money is given
And there is no other support
Not even the push afforded by good example
Or the calm prodding by hopeful achievement
Fed to willing protégés
Searching still for mentoring
To fill the want of hope
Created by the dragging day
Ever caught regressing for the worse
But nature is known to abhor a vacuum
And ambitious, educated youth
Hence haste to better lands.






















Enjoy!

Forgive me for talking too much, but read this as well:





P H I L I P E M E A G W A L I
A C a l c u l a t i n g M o v e
It's hard to say who invented the Internet. There were many mathematicians and scientists who contributed to its development; computers were sending signals to each other as early as the 1950s. But the Web owes much of its existence to Philip Emeagwali, a math whiz who came up with the formula for allowing a large number of computers to communicate at once.

Emeagwali was born to a poor family in Akure, Nigeria, in 1954. Despite his brain for math, he had to drop out of school because his family, who had become war refugees, could no longer afford to send him. As a young man, he earned a general education certificate from the University of London and later degrees from George Washington University and the University of Maryland, as well as a doctoral fellowship from the University of Michigan.

At Michigan, he participated in the scientific community's debate on how to simulate the detection of oil reservoirs using a supercomputer. Growing up in an oil-rich nation and understanding how oil is drilled, Emeagwali decided to use this problem as the subject of his doctoral dissertation. Borrowing an idea from a science fiction story about predicting the weather, Emeagwali decided that rather than using 8 expensive supercomputers he would employ thousands of microprocessors to do the computation.

The only step left was to find 8 machines and connect them. (Remember, it was the 80s.) Through research, he found a machine called the Connection Machine at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which had sat unused after scientists had given up on figuring out how to make it simulate nuclear explosions. The machine was designed to run 65,536 interconnected microprocessors. In 1987, he applied for and was given permission to use the machine, and remotely from his Ann Arbor, Michigan, location he set the parameters and ran his program. In addition to correctly computing the amount of oil in the simulated reservoir, the machine was able to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second.

The crux of the discovery was that Emeagwali had programmed each of the microprocessors to talk to six neighboring microprocessors at the same time.

The success of this record-breaking experiment meant that there was now a practical and inexpensive way to use machines like this to speak to each other all over the world. Within a few years, the oil industry had seized upon this idea, then called the Hyperball International Network creating a virtual world wide web of ultrafast digital communication.

The discovery earned him the Institute of Electronics and Electrical Engineers' Gordon Bell Prize in 1989, considered the Nobel Prize of computing, and he was later hailed as one of the fathers of the Internet. Since then, he has won more than 100 prizes for his work and Apple computer has used his microprocessor technology in their Power Mac G4 model. Today he lives in Washington with his wife and son.

"The Internet as we know it today did not cross my mind," Emeagwali told TIME. "I was hypothesizing a planetary-sized supercomputer and, broadly speaking, my focus was on how the present creates the future and how our image of the future inspires the present."


















The article is read online, following this link:


http://www.time.com/time/2007/blackhistmth/bios/04.html












































Let us celebrate our stars.

Behold The Man!

What we need to move Africa forward is people who are willing to think positively, and forget totally about envy. When we have geniuses who are concerned about technology and art, and progress, and less about envy and witchcraft, then we may move forward. Simple.

We need more of these:

1. Emeagwali
2. Oprah
3. Ben Carson
4. Farah Gray
5. Nelson Mandela
6. Erastus Akingbola
7. Cecilia Ibru
8. Okonjo Iweala
9. Kenny Ogungbe
10. Desmund Tutu
11. Condoleezza Rice
12. Barack Obama
13. Doris akunyili
14. Michael Jordan
15. Chinua Achebe
16. Wole Soyinka
17. Chike Obi
18. Francis Arinze
19. Yvonne Chaka Chaka
20. Muhammad Ali
21. Jim Ovia
22. Aliko Dangote
23. Dehinde Fernandez
24. Mariam Makeba
25. Alice walker


We need more intelligent and envy-free people. We need a new Africa. We need a new you and me. We need all of us, renewed; we need a blessed black nation, within the African continent, and in diaspora.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The early life of Philip Emeagwali seemed destined for poverty in his native land of Nigeria. He was the oldest of nine children and his father, who worked as a nurse's aide, earned only a modest income. As a result, at age 14, Philip was forced to drop out of school in Onitsha. Because he had shown such great promise in mathematics, his father encouraged him to continue learning at home. Every evening, Philip's father would quiz him in math as well as other subjects. He would ask these questions in a rapid-fire manner, prompting Philip to think quickly on his feet. Eventually, Philip was tasked to answer 100 question in an hour, which to his father's delight, he succeeded in. Unable to attend school, Philip instead journeyed to the public library, spending most of his day there. He sped through books appropriate for his age and moved up to college-level material, studying mathematics, chemistry, physics and English. After a period of study, he applied to take the General Certificate of Education exam (a high-school equivalency exam) through the University of London and he passed it easily.

Having achieved this success, he decided to apply to colleges in Europe and the United States and at age 17 was offered a scholarship by Oregon State University in the United States. He began his studies at Oregon State in 1974 and received a Bachelor Degree in Mathematics in 1977. He then moved to the Washington, D.C. area and received a Master's Degree in Environmental Engineering from George Washington University in 1981 and a second Master's Degree in Applied Mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1986. During the same period of time he received another Master's Degree from George Washington University, this time in Ocean, Coastal and Marine Engineering. He worked for a period of time as a civil engineer in Maryland and Wyoming, but his real success was yet to come.

In 1987, the Emeagwali was accepted into the University of Michigan's Civil Engineering doctoral program and received a doctoral fellowship. At the time, in the United States, the government and many in academia contended that there were 20 Grand Challenges that faced the world in the areas of science and engineering. One of these challenges was petroleum reservoir simulation. In the petroleum industry, oil is generally found within underground rocks in reservoirs. The oil is extracted by drilling down into the rock and extracting the oil but because of the uncertainties of locating the pocket of oil, industry experts could only confidently hope to extract 10 percent of the oil within a known reservoir and that was done by utilizing supercomputers (which could cost upwards of $30 million) to simulate oil fields and anticipate the flow of the oil therein. In order to extract the oil, water or gas must be pumped into the field to force it upwards. Unfortunately, if done incorrectly, the oil could be forced into an inaccessible pocket and the natural oil flow could be interrupted, thus forcing the oil company to commence drilling again, at considerable expense. Emeagwali, having grown up in Nigeria which boasted grand oil reservoirs., understood that at the time, with oil selling for $20.00 per barrel, just a one percent increase in production from a 20 billion barrel field would result in another $400 million yield, a staggering amount. As part of his doctoral dissertation, he decided to take on the challenge.

Emeagwali had read a 1922 science fiction article written by Lewis Fry Richardson entitled "Weather prediction by numerical processes" which suggested using 64,000 mathematicians do weather forecasting for the entire planet. Based on this article and on the work of German mathematician Paul Fillunger and Russian mathematician B. K. Risenkampf (in partial differential equations), Emeagwali determined that rather than using a supercomputer that used 8 processors, he would instead use 65,536 microprocessors (a microprocessor is basically what is found in desktop computers) to work the necessary computations. He based his decision on an old premise that a large number of chickens, if coordinated in strength and efficiency, will be able to do a better job than a small number of oxen. Thus, his 65,536 microprocessors would work together as chickens and theorized that the could outwork the eight processor (eight oxen) supercomputer. He originally theorized that the 64,000 processors could be used instead of mathematicians to predict the Earth' weather, but then decided to turn his theory towards the petroleum reservoir simulation.The obvious problem was how to gain access to that many computers and how to connect them. Instead he turned to the Connection Machine, a device developed by a company called Thinking Machines. The machine was designed such that it could contain within it up to 65,536 microprocessors interconnected, each with its own RAM and each processing one bit at a time. Emeagwali found that there was a Connection Machine at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (NANL) in New Mexico. Scientists were having a difficult time programming the computer to simulate nuclear blasts and it sat unused for much of the time. He submitted an application and NANL approved his use the their Connection Machine which he accessed remotely through the Internet from Michigan. After setting the parameters, Emeagwali ran his program and was astounded when the machine was able to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second. The program had also determined the amount of oil in the simulated reservoir, the direction of flow and the speed at which it was flowing at each point. The impact of his experiment was immense. By discovering a practical application for utilizing supercomputers, he opened up a whole new market for them. Just seven years later it was estimated that 10 percent of massively parable computers had been purchased by the petroleum industry. Furthermore, it provided the theory of connecting computer around the world to provide a scalable, network through which to share and process information. Using this concept in conjunction with the existing internet backbone, the world wide web would emerge as an new entity for providing communications and enhancing commerce. In 1989, in acknowledgement of his discovery, Emeagwali was awarded the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Gordon Bell Prize which recognizes outstanding achievement in high-performance computing applications.

Encouraged by his success and newly found status, Emeagwali moved forward with further research and provided new theories and concepts for computer design. Many of these were based on the idea that computers were simply an extension of the function of nature and thus that they should be designed based on nature. One of his theories is aimed at exploring long-term effects of greenhouse gases and global warming. Emeagwali offered a new design for a computer based on honeycombs. Based on the theory of tessellated models, Emeagwali broke the Earth's atmosphere into sections that resembled honeycombs created by bees. He reasoned that bees are able to use the most efficient methods to develop their honeycombs and that following principles of honeycomb design in a computer will allow it to work in an optimal fashion. He believes that his hyperball computer will allow for weather forecasting far into the future and for simulated global warming trends in order to address the problem.

In addition to the aforementioned concept, Emeagwali have created hundreds more. He has lectured around the world and been lauded by for his achievements. He was named the Pioneer of the Year by the National Society of Black Engineers, as well as Scientist of the Year in 1991, the Computer Scientist of the Year by America's National Technical Association in 1993 along with dozens of other tributes.

For someone who was born with little, Philip Emeagwali was able to achieve a lot and has served as an inspiration to millions of people, especially in Nigeria. Former United States President Bill Clinton summed up worldwide sentiment by declaring Emeagwali "One of the great minds of the Information Age."




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The above article is published by www.blackinventor.com. You can access it via this link: http://www.blackinventor.com/pages/philipemeagwali.html

Still on this Emeagwali issue (please forgive me if I seem to be talking too much about him), I must say these, hoping that they will prick your conscience:

1. To start with, Emeagwali was born to very poor parents in Akure, in 1954. He could not attend regular school, and with such a poor background, he was destined for poverty in Nigeria (cf www.blackinventor.com). He had to go to school on private study. And through this, he was able to get a basic education, and subsequently a scholarship to Oregon State University to study math.

Significance of 1: The above tell us something true: We live in a limiting society. This society could not discover Emeagwali, because it was too distracted with Civil Wars and mediocrity. It had to be the USA to pick him up and polish him, else we may never have heard of Emeagwali today. Now think of the many people you know who have talents but are wasting away, here in Nigeria, because they are poor. Recall as well what David Pelzer, author of A Child Called It, said: 'And I came to realize that America was the one nation wherein a person could come from less than humble beginnings and make it to the top from within.'

2. Next, Emeagwali studies wide in the fields of mathematics, engineering and computing. He did a lot of professional work and graduate study. He went through a lot, also as a result of his being black. He created a very fast computer, faster than most have ever been. Then there came a year, he submitted his supercomputer to the Gordon Bell people; it was said that his work was the second fastest, and the real fastest was made by a research team at Mobil. But that research team had already won a prize that day, and the Gordon Bell people did not want to give them two prizes, so they declared that Emeagwali had the fastest computer, and they gave him the prize.

Significance of 2: I do not think that Emeagwali would have won the Gordon Bell prize if he was not a genius. Even though some people say he did not make the fastest, but only the second fastest, history has it that he was awarded for the fastest. Besides, he worked alone, and those that they say made the fastest were a team. And he was black.

3. Emeagwali has spoken severally all over the world, and has worked for the most prestigious institutions in the USA, even though he is black. Time Magazine said, and I quote: 'The Web owes much of its significance to Emeagwali.' Also, CNN (Cable News Network) said, and I quote: Emeagwali is a Father of the Internet'. Not only that, Bill Clinton himself called him 'one of the great minds of the information age'. Emeagwali is also very very wealthy.

Significance of 3: Despite the fact that the man is black, he has achieved a lot. There are many white people who say that black people cannot achieve much, but people like Oprah, Emeagwali, Obama, and others are proving them wrong. We need more of them. Sadly, it is we black people that sometimes run one another down. Instead of us to come together and praise our own, we are consumed by envy, and help the white man to being them down. Indeed, many times the white man does not lift a finger; he just watches us bring one another down, and he sits, leg-crossed and arms-folded at laughs to his heart's delight.

Overall lesson: LOVE THOSE WHO DO WELL. IT HELPS. DO NOT ENVY.

Philip Emeagwali was born on August 23, 1954, in Akure, Nigeria, the son of James Emeagwali, a nurse’s aide, and his 16-year-old wife, Agatha.
Originally Published: November 19, 2005.


Philip Emeagwali was born on August 23, 1954, in Akure, Nigeria, the son of James Emeagwali, a nurse’s aide, and his 16-year-old wife, Agatha. In April 1967, he was withdrawn from school as his family hid in refugee camps during an ethnic cleansing in which 50,000 Igbos indigenes were killed. At the age of 14, he was conscripted into the Biafran army as a child-soldier in one of Africa's bloodiest conflicts. After six months in the army, the civil war ended and he was reunited with his family. He attended school briefly and then dropped out again because his parents could not afford to pay his school fees.

He earned his first diploma from the University of London (through self-study) in 1973 and, subsequently, won a scholarship to Oregon State University. From 1977-93, he did graduate study, professional practice and academic research at Howard University (civil engineering), Maryland State Highway Administration (transportation engineering), George Washington University (environmental, ocean, coastal and marine engineering), United States Bureau of Reclamation (civil engineer), University of Maryland (mathematics), University of Michigan (scientific computing), University of Minnesota (supercomputing), and Army High Performance Computing Research Laboratory (research fellow).

For six years, he served as a distinguished lecturer of both the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (the world's largest technical organization) and the Association for Computing Machinery (the oldest computer society). He has delivered many major lectureships all over the world, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO, Paris) and the International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics.

In 1974, Emeagwali read a 1922 science fiction article on how to use 64,000 mathematicians to forecast the weather for the whole Earth. Inspired by that article, he worked out a theoretical scheme for using 64,000 far-flung processors that will be evenly distributed around the Earth, to forecast the weather. He called it a HyperBall international network of computers. Today, an international network of computers is called the Internet.

Initially his proposal to use 64,000 computers to form an international network was rejected by peers on the grounds that it would be "impossible." Denied funding and employment for a decade, he quietly developed and wrote up his calculations in a thousand-page monograph which described the hypothetical use of 64 binary thousand --- the equivalent of 65,536 --- processors to perform the world’s fastest computation.

In 1987, an experimental hypercube computer with 65,536 processors became available at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, the United States government's prime nuclear weapons research center. Frustrated by their inability to program 65,536 processors to simulate nuclear blasts, the Los Alamos officials had a hunch to allow physicists simulating problems similar to theirs. Fearing that the Lab officials will not accept him if it was known that he was black, Emeagwali decided to submit his proposal remotely. The Lab officials approved his usage of its computers and he remotely programmed 65,536 processors in Los Alamos (New Mexico) while living in Michigan.

"It was his formula that used 65,000 separate computer processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations per second in 1989," said CNN. "That feat,” CNN continued, "led to computer scientists comprehending the capabilities of supercomputers and the practical applications of creating a system that allowed multiple computers to communicate."

Emeagwali's discovery started making front page headlines and cover stories in 1989, a feat that is a rarity in science. [Time magazine reported that the odds of a scientist "becoming even a little bit famous are a lot worse than 5,000 to 1."] The Chronicle of Higher Education (June 27, 1990) wrote:

“Philip Emeagwali, who took on an enormously difficult problem and, like most students working on Ph.D. dissertations, solved it alone, has won computation's top prize, captured in the past only by seasoned research teams … If his program can squeeze out a few more percentage points, it will help decrease U.S. reliance on foreign oil.”

With his success, academic journals that formerly rejected his work began to sing his praises:

“The amount of money at stake is staggering. For example, you can typically expect to recover 10 percent of a field's oil. If you can improve your production schedule to get just 1 percent more oil, you will increase your yield by $400 million,” wrote the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize Committee in the academic journal Software (May 1990).

In the bimonthly news journal of the Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics, mathematician Alan Karp wrote: "I have checked with several reservoir engineers who feel that his calculation is of real importance and very fast. His explicit method not only generates lots of megaflops, but solves problems faster than implicit methods. Emeagwali is the first to have applied a pseudo-time approach in reservoir modeling.” (SIAM News, May 1990)

His success in using 64 binary-thousand processors gave credibility and renewed interest in his formerly rejected proposal to use 64 thousand far-flung computers to forecast the weather for the whole Earth. Because the topology of his rejected international network of computers was similar to, but predated that, of the Internet, it was rediscovered and called an “idea that was ahead of its time” and “a germinal seed of the Internet.” For his contributions, the book History of the Internet profiled him as an Internet pioneer, was voted one of the twenty innovators of the Internet, and CNN called him "A Father of the Internet."

A measure of his impact is that he was rewarded with the 1989 Gordon Bell Prize (supercomputing's Nobel Prize) for his contributions which, in part, inspired the petroleum industry to purchase one in ten supercomputers.

Emeagwali's use of 65,000 processors to perform 3.1 billion calculations, in part, inspired:

Apple Computer to use his multiprocessing technology to manufacture its dual-processor Power Mac G4, which had a peak speed of 3.1 billion calculations per second; IBM to manufacture its $134.4 million supercomputer, which had a peak speed of 3.1 trillion calculations per second; IBM to announce its plan to manufacture a 65,000-processor supercomputer, which will have a peak speed of 1,000 trillion calculations per second; and every supercomputer manufacturer to incorporate thousands of processors in their supercomputers. Each day, visitors to his Web site, emeagwali.com, view one billion bytes or the equivalent of one thousand books. Materials from his Web site are frequently reprinted in small newspapers across Africa.

Another measure of his influence is that one million students have written biographical essays on him --- thousands wrote to thank him for inspiring them. President Bill Clinton called him a powerful role model for young people and used the phrase "another Emeagwali" to describe children with the potential to become computer geniuses.

Emeagwali considers himself to be "a black scientist with a social responsibility to communicate science to the black diaspora." In other words, he has a dual sensibility of being deeply rooted in science while using it as a tool to remind his people in the Diaspora of where they have been and who they are.

Dubbed a "renaissance man" by the media, he is admired not just for his enormous scientific contributions but for his deep and broad knowledge of literature and the arts. The media contacts him, daily, for interviews on issues as diverse as brain drain to Islamic fundamentalism to the future of the Internet.

During his career, Emeagwali has received more than 100 prizes, awards and honors. These include the Computer Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association (1993), Distinguished Scientist Award of the World Bank (1998), Best Scientist in Africa Award of the Pan African Broadcasting, Heritage and Achievement Awards (2001), Gallery of Prominent Refugees of the United Nations (2001), profiled in the book Making It in America as one of "400 models of eminent Americans," and in Who's Who in 20th Century America. In a televised speech, as president, Bill Clinton described Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the Information Age.”

His wife, Dale, was born in Baltimore, was educated at Georgetown University School of Medicine, conducted research at the National Institutes of Health and the University of Michigan, and taught at the University of Minnesota. In 1996, she won the Scientist of the Year Award of the National Technical Association for her cancer research. They both live near Washington, D.C. with their 11-year-old son.





The article reproduced above is courtesy BWP Newswire, and published February 2007. You can read it online via: http://www.blackwebportal.com/wire/DA.cfm?ArticleID=558

something for your relaxation.

By the way, why University of Rochester? And, more specifically, what course are you doing? The school I am applying to give assistantships in communication, and I am thinking I can apply for one of those; and the reason I took the TOEFL is that it was specifically requested for, in addition to the GRE. Especially because in this IBT format, there is a speaking section, which tests if you are good enough to teach there in spoken English. The results should be out any time soon. So, tell me sincerely, how is America for YOU. YOU.

Now, back to your story. You are on a Fellowship. I know that mostly it is PhD students that get one. Does this mean that in the three years of your being there, you have finished your Master's and gone ahead to study a PhD that, as you say, is fully funded by a Fellowship? Do you wanna end up a lecturer? What are your vocational plans.

One more thing: There you go again saying the USA is not paved with gold. I do know that, okay?

lmao! Davidlyan! Of course that was what I meant by 'drop-out'. Exactly that. He left, to found Microsoft. Simple. The point I was trying to prove was that when a person does not finish school, it does not mean that he is not intelligent. Feel me?

I went to the hospital, and now I feel hale and hearty. Good luck to all of you, and safe journey to my beloved who are going to London for their NLNG training. I love you all.

Phillip Emeagwali: Icon or Con Man?       
Written by Jonathan Elendu     
Thursday, 28 July 2005 
In 1987, the University of Michigan accepted him as a pre-candidate doctoral student of the College of Engineering. Two years later, he won the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for his work in super computing. Using more than sixty-five thousand processors, he programmed "the connection machine to compute 3.1 billion calculations per second…to simulate oil reservoirs."                     


Nigerians heard of this amazing feat by one of their own and celebrated it. We have heard other wonderful stories about Phillip Emeagwali, the Nigerian born computer scientist. Many wonderful things have been written about him in the media, especially the Internet. CNN has been quoted as calling him one of the fathers of the Internet. Only problem with that claim is that nobody knows which anchor or reporter and on what show Emeagwali was described as one of the fathers of the Internet.




Genuine stories about Phillip Emeagwali have not garnered the same level of publicity. These include his suit against the University of Michigan for refusing to award him a doctorate degree in super computing or engineering. On the morning of Friday, 1 August 1991, Emeagwali had a meeting with Erdogan Gulari, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the College of Engineering. At the said meeting Gulari told Emeagwali that for him to be considered for a PhD, he had to submit his dissertation by 1 October 1991. This was in addition to other requirements. Emeagwali agreed to this condition. Sometime in the middle of 1992, Emeagwali submitted his dissertation.


Emeagwali's dissertation was reviewed by a panel which comprised of people within the University of Michigan and some external academics. They concluded that Emeagwali's work did not merit a Ph.D. In 1996, he sued the University, alleging racial discrimination. The suit was summarily dismissed. In October 1999, Emeagwali appealed and the Michigan Court of Appeals which comprised of William B. Murphy, Donald E. Holbrook, J., and Hilda R. Gage, concurred with the lower court and dismissed his appeal.


Phillip Emeagwali has been described by some websites as one of the most popular of Africans. He is ranked in achievement and popularity with the likes of Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and Nelson Mandela. Yet, some writers have suggested that these claims are misleading and dubious. Why? Most of these websites crediting Emeagwali with these glowing tributes are owned by him, or his wife.


In an interview with one Mary Bellis, Emeagwali claims to have been homeless from 1967-1970. While that claim is true, he fails to mention that millions of other Nigerians from the East were homeless too, as the area was a war zone at the time.  There are many lingering questions which this reporter wants answered. Is Emeagwali an icon of his time, or a con man who has engaged in a very sophisticated public relations campaign that has been sustained for over a decade?


We contacted Phillip Emeagwali's office and emailed Dr. Donita Brown, who is claimed to be a curator on one of the Emeagwali web sites. Our calls to "Emeagwali research" were answered by a lady who promised to forward our calls to him. And Dr. Brown responded to our email as follows:


Jonathan:

I am sorry we did not respond to your previous emails. Some emails get misdirected or filtered by our anti-spam software.

He prefers that we not forward interview requests to him.  He only gives about one African-media interview in five years and has not travelled to Africa in 18 years.

The URLs below contain 250 pages of his answers to FAIQs (Frequently Asked Interview Questions) regarding his scientific work and his thoughts on contemporary issues. 

We plan a major update (100 additional pages) in late September 2005. Best wishes on your story.

Regards,
Webmaster,
emeagwali.com


As a rule we, at Elendureports.com, do not take excerpts from answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) in lieu of an interview. However, the email reproduced verbatim, except for the web links, has raised more questions than it answered.


Emeagwali has described himself as “the Bill Gates of Africa,” yet he has not set foot on African soil in eighteen years. The real Bill Gates has spent more time in Africa in the past twenty years than Emeagwali. How have Africa and its diverse population benefited from Emeagwali's success? The email response states that he grants one interview every five years to an African media. While the answer may be true, albeit preposterous, it suggests the mindset of an individual who has a bloated estimate of his own worth. 



Claims of Emeagwali holding patents to forty-one inventions are splashed on his websites. We searched for these patents at the appropriate places and came up with nothing to corroborate those claims. Where are these patents registered? Who in the scientific community is aware of these inventions? Could it be that the computer on which I am writing this story was invented by my tribesman and I don't know?  "I have expertise in five different fields which helps me to easily understand the analogy between my scientific problems and those occurring in nature. First, I identify an analogous problem in nature and borrow from it. It is smarter to borrow from nature than to reinvent the wheels." What are these five areas of expertise?
If the University of Michigan did not award Phillip Emeagwali a Ph.D., then where did he obtain his doctorate degree? In the same interview with Mary Bellis he claims to work with a fifty-five million dollar computer. Where does Emeagwali practice his trade?  "Today, I have access to a $55 million super computer while many African scientists do not have access to a personal computer. The greater opportunity enabled me to make important discoveries and inventions" he told Mary Bellis. 


Emeagwali has been married to Dale Emeagwali since 1981. Is Dale Emeagwali the same person as Dr. Donita Brown? Our research indicates that Donita Brown is Dale Emeagwali. Isn’t it curious that while she is called Dale Emeagwali on their family website, she is called Donita Brown other websites registered either by herself, or her husband, Phillip? Certainly none of these websites were registered before 1981. When asked if Donita Brown, the lady we spoke to in Emeagwali's office told us she did not Phillip Emeagwali's relationship with Donita Brown. Pray, this person works in Emeagwali's office and knows Donita Brown! The natural question is why does Emeagwali's wife have two identities?


We were also curious to find out how a man who claims to love Africa and its people so much, and have given speeches on the "brain drain" syndrome proudly exhibit as one of his greatest achievements, the thirty-five members of his immediate and extended families he relocated to America. There are no records to indicate that these people went back to Africa after their studies. From all available records, Emeagwali's five siblings live in the United States as do his parents. Yet, the man has no qualms giving speeches on the harmful effects of "brain drain" on the continent of Africa and what can be done to stem the tide.


Even more curious is that a man, who positions himself as a serious scientist, has a website dedicated to showing off his family photos, yet there is no website dedicated to showing his inventions. Nobody should quarrel with a man who wants to spend time and resources showing off his wardrobe, wife, and son. However, other writers have suggested that such behavior is at odds with the characteristics of a serious-minded scientist. Is Philip Emeagwali a showman, who has set up virtual edifices to bolster his ego, or a scientist with too much time on his hands?


A critic of Emeagwali, Chioma K. Ezeilo in a piece entitled, "Self-Promotion and Self-Authentication…," spoke to Emeagwali's showmanship: "I understand that Hollywood stars and musicians and others of that ilk have what they term their official website, where fans can read all about them and learn what these individuals have accomplished professionally…Philip Emeagwali is not a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, so I wonder why he believes it necessary to build this online shrine to himself." But she was more concerned about another matter, as she states, "The thing that bothered me was the outright lies, half-truths, and numerous unsubstantiated claims that permeated the website." Elendureports.com tried to contact Chioma K. Ezeilo, but our efforts yielded no fruit. Mary Bellis did not respond to our request for interview before press time.


Since we published our story on Prof Gabriel Oyibo, we have been inundated with emails asking all kinds of questions about this gentleman. There have also been questions about Nigerians who are supposed to be very accomplished, yet, making fraudulent claims that astonish their colleagues and contemporaries. While a fair minded person would be inclined to believe that the jury is still out on Phillip Emeagawli and his accomplishments, there is a question that needs to be asked and answered: Is it greed, ego, criminal ignorance, or in-built self destructive tendencies that lead our people to make claims that cannot be substantiated easily?

@michael77, please, do not call Emeagwali my idol. Is this the article you are referring to? The article did say that Emeagwali did not get his PhD and sued the  university for that. It did not say he was not intelligent enough not to get the PhD.

Secondly, the article was written by a fellow Nigerian. Why is it that all the articles I have seen that rubbish the man are written by fellow black people?

Thirdly, Bill Gates is a drop out. To follow your logic, he could not even graduate. Does that make him any less a genius?

Fourthly, in Igbo culture we say that if a gecko falls from a tree and no one praises him, he should praise himself. This the man has done.

Fifthly, he did win the Gordon Bell prize, and there can be no disputing the fact.

Sixthly, he is a cherished American, and Bill Clinton did boast about him before the National Assembly, here in Nigeria.

Lastly, Emeagwaly DID help make a fastest supercomputer, as you can confirm from from credible sources that are not his personal website.

Love those who do well.  It helps.

Davidlyan, so I take it that you are studying a science course? Is that what made it easier for you to get an I-20? And may I ask which school is that you are attending? Did you get (are you currently enjoying) any source of funding? If yes, is it by way of an assistantship? Do you work as well as school, or are you folks back here responsible for your training to any extent? How easy was it for you to get a Visa; when did you leave for the USA? Which embassy (Lagos or Abuja) granted you the 'winning' interview? What other challenges did you face? I would indeed like a little more fill-in with your story.

Believe me, I KNOW FOR A FACT THAT AMERICA IS NOT PAVED WITH GOLD. You do not have to keep saying that. I probably know it more than you do. I have at least three people I know who went there and returned disillusioned, and have refused to ever go there again. I know at least one other person who regrets even getting to know the place. SO relax. I know it is not a bed of roses. It may even be harder making it there than here, for a good number of people.

I also know that a lot of people over there are living on credit. They are what Robert Kiyosaki would call those in the rat race.

Davidlyan. The point is, share withme information if you care; do not keep trying to dampen me; it is not fair. Okay?

America is not heaven. It is not easy. I KNOW THIS. I KNOW THIS. OK?

Davidlyan, one more thing: and this is a personal request. Could you please share with me either in private (kuwena@yahoo.com) or on this thread your own journey, concerning going over there (for further studies, I presume?) You know, I could use some tips, as I just wrote TOEFL a few days ago, and had earlier written GRE.

Someone else told me to get a life: believe me, I'm trying to. Phew! It ain't that easy.

Davidlyan, when I say I love America, I do not mean that I see it as an eldorado. No way. I know it for what it is. And I know as well that it may be harder making it over there than even here.

Adrian, this thread may not die for a long time. I'm getting used to it.

For the one that said I never knew God, suit yourself. What is, is; what has been, has been.

Let me go to the clinic. See y'all later. I think it is typhoid I have, because my stomach hurts, and I feel weak. I think I'll go for injections. They're faster. I have the day off. Later.

I love you all, for what it counts.

Again, let me say this about religion, and why I think I may no longer permit myself to be religious. Have you read the book of Maccabbees? Those that are Catholics may. Now, that book tells us the story of the time described as when 'The Abomination of Desolation' was implanted in Jerusalem, or what Catholic theologians have described as the First End of the World. (The Second End of the World was the death and burial of Jesus the Christ, and the Third End of the World is when a human being dies, and his own 'world' ends).

But I was talking of the story ambienced by the period. It is a factual story, and it took place when Antiochus was Patriarch of Asia Minor and modern day Palestine. (He would later divide his kingdom among ten smaller kings, as Daniel himself prophesied, and John the Beloved made allusion to in the Apocalypse). The story had it that a pagan ruler forced a certain Jewish leader to profane the Judaistic culture by worshipping idols. The Jewish leader refused, and he urged other Jews to refuse as well. But one Jew went ahead and worshipped the idol, at which the noble Jew struck him dead, and fled, with his sons and loyalists, to the hills.

There in the hills, they formed themselves into an army and began to fight what may be described as a just cause against the pagans. The fought on successfully, as they perceived Yahweh to be with them. They persevered, and then the noble man died and was buried. Judas, one of his sons continued the war. He fought and fought very gallantly, as he felt Yahweh was with him. Until he fell into a trap, and was slain by Antiochus. His brother Simon took over from him. Simon fought very gallantly, and he too felt that Yahweh was with him; he fought and fought and fought, until he too was caught in a trap and killed by Antiochus Epiphanes.

The issue is: Paganism endures till date; Judaism endures till date; not all the blood of Judas and his brothers could end Paganism, and not all the wickedness of Antiochus could stop Judaism; who then was wrong, and who was right? This seems to me to be the problem with religion. The Jews killed Jesus the Christ, who was said to be the Son of God. Catholic theologians said that in killing Christ, they instituted a Second End of the World; they wanted to wipe out Christ and all he stood for; they fought the followers of Jesus, thinking they were in the right; till date, Judaism endures, and Christianity endures. Who was right and who was wrong? Not all the blood of Jesus could end Judaism, and not all the blood of the High Priests could end Christianity.

It is the same thing today. Christians have fought Crusades against moslems; the pope had told kings to slay 'unbelievers'. It is on record that when a king reported to 'the Holy Father' that so so and so 'unbelievers' had been slain, he would be awarded the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the faith). But Islam remains strong today, as does Christianity. Who was right, and who was wrong? Not all the Crusades of the Christians, or the Jihads of the moslems could end either religion. Allah is still one, as moslems say, with Mohammed (peace be upon him) as his messenger; Yahweh is still one, as the Christians say, with Jesus (Isa eis salaam) as His son.

It was the same thing when the white man tried to impose their religion on the black man. They said that the local gods and goddesses: Ani, Amadioha, Icheke, Osimiri; Osun, Sango, Obatala, and so on were all fake; they said they were no gods at all. They probably quoted Psalm 115 (which used to be one of my own favourites): 'Whereas their gods are of silver and of gold, the product of humsn skill; having eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear; mouth, but cannot speak; feet, but cannot work; hands, but cannot touch; and there is not a breath in their throats. Their makers will come to be like them, as well as all who trust in them.' They claimed that African traditional religion was balderdash. But not all their claims could stop the local religion from thriving; it still goes on today, and through its efficacy, people like my uncle have succeeded in making my life a hell.

Enter Kuwena. I thought I was right. I thought I could fight my uncle. I looked him in the face and told him off. I accused him of having a diabolical hand in the death of my father. I said I could succeed without him, and four years ago, I banged the door on him and walked off. Then I began to succeed. Everything I did, I succeeded: was it school? I made a smashing First class; nobody born of woman has done what I did at Imo State University, and I do not know when next a human will. Was it scholarship? I bagged the most expensive and prestigious of them, the Chevron scholarship. Those days, I used to fast and pray like Elijah; the psalms were my favourite. I knew many of them by heart. My best was Psalm 129:

Upon all the bad things they have been doing to me since I was young
Israel should say this again:
Upon all the bad things they have been doing to me since I was young
They have not overcome me;
Plowmen have plowed on my back with longer and longer furrows
But now, Yahweh the Righteous has overthrown the enslaving power of the wicked.
May they all be thrown into confusion; be routed who have hated Zion;
Be blasted by winds from the East like grass sprouting on the roof,
Which has never filled reaper's arm or binder's lap
And to which no one passing by them would ever wish Yahweh's peace or blessing.

Back then in IMSU, what miracle did I not experience? Chai! People used to call me 'oku n'ere ere'. I was a flaming fire. You need to have seen me praying those days! My God! I once completed a seven-day dry fast; I concluded two separate three-day dry fasts; I prayed a six-hour-non-stop midnight prayer once, and also went to Awhum Monastery for a three-day retreat once. And I swear, I DID feel that Yahweh helped me. Yahweh, if You do exist, then know that I am grateful, and I truly love you.

But look at me now. The singer chanted:

Take a look at me now
There's just an empty space
There's nothing left here to remind me
Just a momory of your face
Just take a look at me now.

Indeed, take a look at me now. Who is right, and who is wrong? Me? My uncle? I think we are both right, and we are both wrong. And that, to me, is the problem with religion. All creeds seem to me to be right, and wrong at the same time. I had a belief. I said to myself: My uncle is a bad man. He has used juju to kill my father (was I there?) and now he does not want any of my father's children to progress in life. And so I will run away and pray to Yahweh, and he will help me to succeed. So I ran. And I did succeed. So I was right. And then, when I planned to take my success back to him, to fling it in his face and 'liberate' those I called his captives, my brothers, I failed; NLNG, I confess, is my worst pain in my 27 years of living. So, I was wrong. And I failed. My uncle too was right. He had been succeeding in keeping all his nephews under his feet, and oppressing them; he felt that noone could challenge his authority, and succeed in doing so. I proved him wrong. He failed in keeping me tied down. But in keeping all the others who are loyal to him or afraid of him tied down, he is right; in extending it to me, however, he is wrong. The message to him then may be: Yes, you may be right by your authority to keep all those afraid of you bent; but when there comes one who will spite you without batting an eye, you will be wrong.

Think of all religions: I think they are all right and wrong, including Christianity (forgive me for sounding blasphemous); but this is my thinking: All religions say something, and hold it as a creed (in this regard, I recall that Frederick Engels said: When we discover something we think is new, we must force it on the whole world as the supreme truth). Take Christianity for example. They say that Jesus (Isa eis salaam) is the Son of God. They are right, because up to a fifth of the world believes it. And when this percentage of people call on Jesus (Isa eis salaam), they say he works for them according to their faith. But they are wrong in that when the rest of the four-fifths of the world say that Jesus (Isa eis salaam) is not the Son of God, they also claim that their faith in his not being the Son of God works for them as they desire. Moslems call Jesus a prophet, and they prosper; Saudi Arabia is one of the richest countries on earth, and controls nearly a tenth of the global economy. They also hardly ever steal there. It is said that you can do business in Saudi Arabia without fearing being cheated. Yet they do not recognize Jesus.

But they are wrong to say that Jesus is not the Son of God, because a reasonable proportion will say that he is. And both will act on their faith, and both will say it works for them. But when one fights the other and tries to fling his creed in the other's face; neither ever seems to win. And it does not seem to me that a day will come when Christians will succeed in forcing the rest of the world to be like them; nor will there come a time when the rest of the world will force Christians to be like them. So it is each according to his faith, I think. And that to me is the problem with religion. It always seems to thrive on division, on the mentality of 'us against them'. Indeed, even Jesus said: 'Do not think that I came with peace; I came with a sword, to divide family members, one from the other.' Christians, behold your saviour. I do not say he is not; and I do not say he is.

Let there be peace. That is all I wish. The rest, I cannot say I know.