₦airaland Forum

In Nigeria, you don't dodge potholes when you are driving you just choose the ones you will enter. -Pastor Sam Adeyemi

People react by repeating the "teachings" on the devil, but fact is, when you observe the way he is portrayed, you will see that it is exactly as you say. For example, they tell you the devil is not omnipresent, but they acknowledge him to be active everywhere. You ask them, and they tell you he dashes back and forth. Lie!
They tell you the devil is not omniscient. But they acknowledge him to thwart even the plans in your mind that you have not expressed. You ask them, and they tell you he is old enough to guess.
The devil is somehow able to make things go bad all the time but God seems to be slow in correcting things.

I can conclude strictly based on popular sentiments and perceptions, that the Devil is God's alter ego. That is what the evidence shows if you go by people's portrayals of both and popular sentiments of both.
For example, He is everywhere (just like God), knows everything, (just like God) so you have to pray against him in everything, makes men do what he wants, controls men in every way (unlike God), is present in every situation (like God) for bad, affects all situations (unlike God) negatively, has strength to undo and spoil every plan (like God's omnipotence), is able to kill at will (even when God can't keep those people alive), etc etc.
When I sat down and asked myself, who else can be this all powerful and all pervasive, I could only think of God. Only God has all those attributes and can do all these things. So it is evident that from popular perception, he can only be God's alter ego!

In Nigeria, you don't dodge potholes when you are driving you just choose the ones you will enter. -Pastor Sam Adeyemi

For the record, let me state that Pastor Oritsejeafor is not a good poster boy for Christianity (never mind the various caps he wears, anyone can be anything in Nigeria’s Pentecostalism). I make this point – debatable, of course- not just because of his Bling Bling jewellery like 50 Cents or even his bond with the present occupant of Aso Rock Villa; there is something about him –and I came to this conclusion after watching him raise an offering on Cable TV- that doesn’t seem to me would wait for God to supply all his ‘greeds’ according to his riches and glory.

His private jet was presented while he was sandwiched, like Jesus between two thieves, in the presence of a President who bizarrely declared he couldn’t see how corruption and road accidents are interlinked and, a governor whose public morals fall below average. Rev. Fr. Matthew Kukah could not have put it better: Oritsejeafor’s moral authority is undermined by these dalliances.-Adelakun Adunni Abimbola

“I have seen the Jonathan presidency do some pretty filthy things, but smuggling Mrs. Oduah into Israel at the height of the corruption uproar against her at a time she was supposed to be facing an investigating panel is one of the dirtiest”

Death:
If you fear, one day, death will take you.
If you are bold, one day death will take you.
If you fear of death, and you refuse to fight for the rights of the poor because of being kill, one day, death will kill you by himself.
If you are rich, and you refuse to use your richness to defend the poor masses, the messengers of death will first waste your riches and finally blow you. If you are in position today to help the masses, do so, tomoRrow may be too late.

Couldnt Watch The Match,Cos I Was Quite BUSY...However,Just Saw On-Line That NIGERIA Massacred IRAQ 5-O...Hmm!!!,Quite A Gratifying Result That Parabolically Flings Our GOLDEN EAGLETS Into The 1/8 Finals Of The Competition.__.As For The Group's Whipping Baby(IRAQ),Why Would They Know How To Play Football,When All They Know Is Strapping BOMBS In Their Underpants,Blowing Buildings/Vehicles,Shooting & Killing People Needlessly..Mtscheww!__~UP NIGERIA's GOLDEN EAGLETS~

President Jonathan And His Embattled Aviation Minister, Stella Oduah, In Israel.

I must state at this point that despite what has happened, we should not diminish the achievements of Oduah in the aviation sector. And whatever the misgivings about her recent statement following the Associated Airlines plane crash, I believe it was more a case of mis-speak than a display of insensitivity. But I find it difficult to rationalise the purchase by the NCAA of such expensive toys for her official pleasure. I am also worried about the process (or lack of one) that led to the acquisition of these cars; the implications of having an agency over which the minister has oversight buy them; and the little details of whether indeed the vehicles cost as much as the stupendous amount of public money being claimed by the NCAA authorities. Coscharis should also be worried about why almost every public procurement scandal involving vehicles is about the company---from COJA to First Lady Summit and now aviation!


However, the most critical issue in this unfortunate saga is its implication for the credibility of this administration. For instance, in the face of the ASUU strike that has grounded public universities for four months now, how would the federal government convince the lecturers that some of the demands they are making are unrealistic (given the nation’s limited resources and competing demands) when a quarter of a billion Naira was spent to buy two cars for just one minister? How do you justify such profligacy at a time several Nigerian university graduates are unemployed and majority of our people wallow in abject poverty? And then the most pertinent question: what exactly is the meaning of public service when so much resources could be cynically committed to the maintenance of just one official whose personal interest (even if in the guise of security) is deemed to be more important than that of the people on whose behalf she is in office?


Let us be clear about something: this sort of scandal is not limited to the Ministry of Aviation or for that matter, the federal government. It can be located at virtually all levels of government in our country. In fact, majority of the governors spend huge sums of money (sometimes running into billions of Naira) buying state-of-the art automobiles, chartering airplanes and feeding all manner of indulgences and personal vanities at public expenses. So what has actually caused problem for Oduah is not the act itself (as reprehensible as it is) but rather the contempt with which her officials responded to the issue. Yet public office holders who believe in their own invincibility are poor students of history. Malcom Gladwell, famous journalist and author, (remember “The Tipping Point”), made that point rather poignantly in his most recent book, “David and Goliath”. Power, according to Gladwell, has an important limitation. “It has to be seen as legitimate, or else its use has the opposite of its intended effect”, which may then come with dire consequences.


All said, I do not believe that the systemic abuse that is evident in this matter will be resolved with the sack of Oduah by President Goodluck Jonathan who yesterday instituted a probe. That won’t happen anyway and the well-connected minister who is currently in Israel ahead of the president must know that. Besides, on the balance of available evidence, I am of the opinion that it is the NCAA that should actually be held accountable for this sordid drama. But even at that, what has come out quite clearly from the entire transaction is that in the conduct of government business today in our country, we have gone beyond impunity to “tani o mu mi”--a strange place where both the codes of morality and the boundary between right and wrong have simply disappeared. That is what should worry all of us.-Segun Adeniyi of Thisday Newspaper

In a decent world, Oduah would not be defending the scurrilous affair but answering questions from anti-fraud agencies - The Punch

Hmmm! Is Ojukwu family trying to validate the claims of Kemi olumiloyo

The Evil that Nigerian Politicians and leaders do surprises even the Devil!

NAME: Barack Obama.

MARITAL STATUS: Married with Children.

OFFICE: President of the United States.

LEGION OF ENEMIES:

Al Qaeda, Hamas;
Army of Islam;
Ku Klux Klan;
Red Brigade;
Abu Sayyaf;
Republican Party;
U.S. War veterans;
Al Badr;
Baader Meinhoff;
Orange Volunteers;
Hezbollah;
Islamic Jihad;
IRA;
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia;
November 17 Organization; Mohammedan Army;
Ansar Dine;
Taliban;
Tamil Tigers Movement;
Ulster Movement;
Libyan L.F.G;
Palestine Liberation Front;
Al Shabaab and lots more too numerous to mention.

OFFICIAL CAR:

2009 Cadillac DTS Limo a.k.a "The Beast"

QUANTITY : 1

CAR PRICE: $300,000 ( N47 million).
........................................

NAME: Stella Oduah, Miss.

MARITAL STATUS: SINGLE

OFFICE: Minister of Aviation, Nigeria.

ENEMIES:

Mama Ekene,
Mama Sikira,
Ex-husband,
Femi Fani-Kayode,
Village witches,
Dana Airlines,
Rotimi Amaechi;
G7 Rebel Governors;
Adams Oshiomhole;
Dino Melaye;
Obiageli Ezekwesili;
Wole Babalakin;
Bi Courtney;
Airport Touts;
ETC

OFFICIAL CAR:

2013 BMW 760iL HSS a.k.a "BMW Vex Die"

QUANTITY: 2

CAR PRICE: $1.6million (N255million)

Is anyone still in doubt if we call our's a Republic unfit to be named after a BANANA?!

writers4hire: Just look at this silly thread and how it was quickly rushed to the front page as an example https://www.nairaland.com/1489717/stella-oduah-absent-fec-meeting

Go and join Madam Soyoyo in Jerusalem before you run mad.

NA LIE I DEY TALK?

Failed Taliban suicide bomber was arrested and a full body search by police revealed a protective metal shield around his genital area. Asked for it's purpose, his response was damn funny, he wanted to keep his penis safe after blowing himself up, so as not to have any sexual problems when he meets 72 virgins in paradise.

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=423529317769149&set=a.108308285957922.10232.107372946051456&type=1&theater

Failed Taliban suicide bomber was arrested and a full body search by police revealed a protective metal shield around his genital area. Asked for it's purpose, his response was damn funny, he wanted to keep his penis safe after blowing himself up, so as not to have any sexual problems when he meets 72 virgins in paradise.

www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=423529317769149&set=a.108308285957922.10232.107372946051456&type=1&theater

dheaven: How was the agreement obtained by Premiumtimes?

Investigative journalism.Photoshop journalism does not add value!

When shall we have NIGERIAN CARS?A nation of consumers!

The Golden Eaglet of Nigeria hope to continue their sparking form later today when they take on Sweden at the on going U-17 World Cup in UAE. However, history has it that, Nigeria has never lost to a European side at the group stage of the FIFA U-17 World Cup.

In China'85 Nigeria beat Italy 1-0 in its opening match
In Canada'87 drew 1-1 with Soviet Union (now Russia)
defeated Spain 2-1 in its last group game of Ecuador'95
In T&T'01 and South Korea'07 respectively defeated France 2-1
and drew 3-3 with Germany at the Abuja national stadium in 2009 edition.

This is why I like Yorubas.They don't charge you too much when you want to marry their daughter,so they bride's family give garri to guests as sounvenir on wedding day!

Why is it that when pastors need something, they come to the congregation

''Folks, we need money for rent, buy a piece of land, do this and fix that''

But when the people have a need, they send them to God. Next time the church has a need, it should equally go to God and not the congregation or is this not just another sign that God does not answer prayers?

Segeggs: so japan of africa can burn!

Very soon the victims will start running to lagos.

They are no longer contented with Jews of Africa?

History has it that, the Golden Eaglet has never lost any of its opening game at the U-17 World Cup.

In China'85 Nigeria beat Italy 1-0
Canada'87 drew 1-1 with Soviet Union (now Russia)
Scotland'87 Nigeria beat Canada 4-0
Japan'93 Nigeria beat Canada 8-0
Ecuador'95 Nigeria drew 1-1 with Qatar
T'T'01 Nigeria defeated France 2-1
Finland'03 Nigeria drew 1-1 with Costa Rica
South Korea'07 Nigeria defeated France 2-1
and in Nigeria'09 the Golden Eaglet forced Germany to a 3-3 draw at the Abuja National stadium.

History has it that, Nigeria has never lost a game in Asian soil. It would be recalled that the maiden edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup took place in China in 1985 and the Golden Eaglet emerged as champions without losing any game. Eight years later in Japan, the Nigerian lads would go on to lift the trophy for the second time with an excellent result in 1993. And then in South Korea 2007, the Haruna Lukman led U-17 team went on to win the cup for the third time for Nigeria in the continent of Asia with another unbeaten result.

The Golden Eaglet have played 19 games in Asia, with eighteen victory and just a draw.

Nigeria's opponent in today's game Mexico are not push overs. The Mexican U-17 team are simply one of the World's best at the U-17 level. Mexico is the only side to have won the competition twice outside Ghana.

History has it that Mexico was the first country in the World to beat Nigeria at the U-17 World Cup. At the second edition of the FIFA U-17 World Cup staged Canada'87 Mexico beat a formidable Nigerian U-17 side that paraded the likes of Fatai Atere (Captain), Oladuni Oyekale, Philip Osundo (tournaments best player), Christopher Nwosu and Oladimeji Lawal (Dashing right winger) amongst others 1-0 at the jeux Canada Games Stadium in Saint John in the very last game of the group. It would be recalled that Nigeria's Charles Obazee was sent off in that trilling encounter that was played on July 16, 1987.

I don’t like sounding like I enjoy scathing religion but when I turn around all I see is what religion is doing to my society and to my people what am I supposed to think or believe?

My intention is never to proselyte or get anyone to share in my school of thoughts or see things the way I see them but just to open up peoples’ minds and let them explore the options available to them.

It is good to also view things differently and explore other school of thoughts.
It must not only be the religious way or the high way.

Religion is a vacuous concept with one agenda that is to kill, neuter and butcher.
If there is another option why is our own about bad news and killings only?

Why is boko haram thriving? Why was Galileo killed for saying the truth?

Life gives one the best gift on earth a sense of reasoning and a brain to think but man gives to man another worst gift religion and it is that which forms man’s quest to dominate another.

Religion impoverishes and debases humanity and that is why I will never be religious because I hate it more than anything I can imagine.

Aids kill but a few but religion wipes out a race.

Every Salah year a soul is buried in the Sarakis compound right from when his father the Oloye was alive and every year people still troop down to go gamble with their lives knowing that the previous year one of them died and the Sarakis did nothing to assuage their plights.

This year 20 people died, yes 20 humans, 20 Nigerians you heard me right and come next year my people would troop down again to die may be then it would be 40 persons since it doubles every year. SAD!

When Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac on his way to doing so the holy books said God provided a ram in place of Isaac hence the short aphorism the “Lord shall provide”

But the way that these people, humans, Nigerians are being sacrificed in modern day Sarakis household bothers me greatly.

This happened last year, the previous and the previous, what mechanisms have they put in place to avoid these unfortunate happenings?

My guess is nothing after all it is the poor, of what use are their lives to them except when they need their votes?

What is really wrong with these so called poor people too?
Who told them that they cannot afford their rams?

Well someone shared the insight to those niggling questions today on my previous post on this same matter he said that ……….the Hadiths of the prophet says the rich must share with the poor. SMDH!

Meaning the poor has been relegated to everlasting poverty and their manner must forever come from their masters table the rich.
You see why I say religion impoverishes and closes humans’ minds?

You see how stupid and backward humans, those living and breathing with minds and souls have decided to accept their fates and also believe in some doctrines and dogmas of centuries long gone and we are in 2013.

Every society fluxes and evolves but hell no not Nigeria.
The Kawarans have refused to wake up from their dogmas and backwardness and address the mental slavery that confronts them and if care is not taken would confront them forever.

What happened that 20 innocent persons have to be stampede to death in the process of scrambling for a piece of meat and rice?

So Nigeria one of the richest nations in the world potentially still has humans that are so hungry to the point that they have to die in the process of begging for food?
Something is fundamentally wrong and I wish someone can help me ask Bukola Saraki.

Is he using them as part of his better sacrifice to Allah who prefers humans more than ram according to Shekau the boko haram leader?

My heart bleeds o! That Nigerians have been so impoverished by the ruling class that we have to line up and scramble for the crumbs from the masters table and even those crumbs we have to struggle until we are finally snuffed out of life in the process.

Mr Saraki can you please buy the ram next year or when they give them to you as free gifts as they always do, could you tell the poor go to the markets and take it and go home to their families to enjoy in peace and quiet that way they would not die.

That way they would not be sacrificed I mean if you really mean well for these people.
Just my two pence advice.

But why the show of piety and generosity?
Why don’t you give them in such a way that they don’t come and die in your compound or where ever.

Is the show and demonstration on Sallah day for the world to see just to justify your loots from them and cushioned your corrupt ways?

#Just me thinking as always#

If you can do this Sir, that way the husbands that died would be alive for their wives and children and the women that died would be home for their husbands and children.

Sir don’t you feel bad about these happenings in your home every year?
The ground is groaning because our nation is soaked in the blood of the innocent humans.

But really our psyche needs to be revisited and our mentality seriously re-examined.

Poverty should not be synonymous with stupidity.

Fellow Nigerians, today is not one of my happiest days. I’m sorry to start on such a depressing note. But that is the way I usually feel on every October 19, since 1986, when one of Nigeria’s finest journalists of all time, Dele Giwa, was blasted into smithereens, by God-knows-who. Dele Giwa and I were brothers who never met, but had our paths steeped in similar upbringing. We were both born in the ancient city of Ile-Ife. Our parents migrated from the old Mid-Western region, now Edo State and settled in Ile-Ife to engage in odd jobs. Though we never met one on one Dele loomed larger than life and we all knew him like the man next door. I studied his life like a textbook, followed his world trajectory, and fantasised regularly about meeting him some day. The other man who had such magnificent effect on me is the one and only Sonala Olumhense who I was privileged to meet and who later gave me the honour of contributing to the birth of Ovation International in London in our exile days.

My God, those gentlemen had such rare gift of the pen. While Dele Giwa was very bubbly and swashbuckling, Sonala was ostensibly reserved and unquestionably cherubic. Dele Giwa was always going to stand out in the crowd. He gave journalism in Nigeria a lease and its practitioners a life. He challenged the stereotype that journalists were poor and scruffy by appearing most of his life like your High Street Banker. Just as Dele was loved by those who idolised him, he was feared by men of power for his ability to expose their foibles and egocentricities in his indomitable style. It was an influential position that made him susceptible to love and hate in almost equal measure. The life of a successful journalist is usually a delicate balance of standing between friends and enemies. And only a thin line separates the two. One negative article is just enough to obliterate 99 positive ones. No one ever remembers to thank you when you write that beautiful story but everyone remember to curse you and your family when you write that one that seems unpalatable.

That is what I call the dilemma of a journalist. My guess is as good as yours. Dele Giwa must have stepped on very powerful but sore toes who felt uncomfortable about his temerity to take on a system that made him who he was. The nation had not attained such level of tolerance to understand the job of a journalist was to write about friends and foes alike. There was always a channel of communication available to the aggrieved. The law courts are essentially there to serve as arbiter and secure rectitude for the victim of yellow journalism in any event.

The problem was not just that Dele died it was the manner of his death. For years, I carried the gory spectre of that bizarre murder in my memory. According to reports at the time, a parcel bomb was delivered at his Ikeja, Lagos home, somewhere off Adeniyi-Jones, in the presence of another accomplished journalist, Kayode Soyinka, now the Publisher of Africa Today. He was luckier to escape with not more than his damaged ear-drums as well as an indefinite sojourn in exile. Dele wasn’t that fortunate. He bled to death and his family comprising of an aged mother, relations, wife and children were thrown into perpetual mourning. The whole country was engulfed in utter shock while the outside world marvelled at our ability to settle scores in the most deadly manner under the flimsiest provocation.

At the time of his death, Dele Giwa was the Editor-in-Chief of Newswatch magazine and easily the most celebrated journalist of that period. His former wife, Florence Ita-Giwa, recently told me she fell in love with Dele because of his effervescent style of writing. By the time they met there was no protocol because she was already head-over-heels in love with awesome diction and rhapsodies. They became inseparable from that moment on. Dele was such a debonair writer who brought a lot of razzmatazz into the media industry. He was young, dashing and daring. He was a power-dresser, a fashion icon but above all an intelligent, inspiring writer and analyst.

Dele Giwa’s column, Parallax Snaps, was a must read for guys of my generation. It was impossible not to be attracted to the writings of Dele Giwa, Ray Ekpu, Dan Agbese and Yakubu Mohammed, the powerful quartet that founded Newswatch magazine around 1984, shortly after their dramatic exit from Concord newspapers. These were the authentic superstars who titillated us with beautiful prose that dripped with poetic and colourful words. And they lived up to their billing. Newswatch was an instant success and the hottest cake out of the oven. Every issue was a collector’s item. It is hoped that under the new management, that glory would be restored no matter how daunting.

I had followed Dele Giwa in particular like a true devotee. He was a pen-god who was worshipped at the altar of investigative journalism, and admired irreverently by the high and mighty and the low and meek. His pen was mighty; in fact, mightier than the sword. He was considered a proponent of fairness and justice in governance. Newswatch was a reader’s delight any day. Every week, the magazine went behind the scene to bring us hidden stories that were buried beyond our prying eyes. Newswatch did not just tell stories, its daredevil reporters told it in elegant style. The team was simply awesome: Nosa Igiebor, Dele Omotunde, Onome Osifo-Whiskey, Dare Babarinsa, Dele Olojede, Kola Ilori, May Ellen-Ezekiel and other journalism greats. Kayode Soyinka reported majestically from London. I will never forget his amazing scoops on the Umaru Dikko saga during the Buhari-Idiagbon military era.

Everything was going well for Newswatch, or so it seemed. The dream of the founding fathers of the magazine evaporated one hot afternoon as the powerhouse of the organisation was inflicted with the most iniquitous brutishness ever experienced in our vengeful society. Neither the exact motives nor the particular identity of the perpetrators has ever come to light. At the very best, all we got were conspiracy theories and circumstantial evidence but there was nothing conclusive till this day. A private prosecutor, Gani Fawehinmi, who took it upon himself to unravel the mystery and jigsaw, met brick-walls at every turn. The labyrinth of esoteric cases he filed at different junctures died with Gani without recording any major success or victory.

One could easily have concluded that such a dastardly act occurred because we were living at that time under the jackboots of the military who knew no other way to persuade its critics than shutting up their mouths through cold blooded murder. Its microphone was the gun-nose and the loudspeaker was the barrel. The military knew no other way to offer superior logic and simply did not bother. And we all prayed and hoped that the evil cup would pass over us. Unfortunately, not much has changed.

Even in the democratic dispensation that we have supposedly enjoyed these past 15 years or so the curse of unsolved extra-judicial cold-blooded murders of our critics and activists continues unabated.

More journalists have lost their lives in the line of duty under the civilian dispensation in our strange country. The list is painfully long enough. The politicians and their cronies are getting more and more intolerant. Power has become a matter of life and death. I doubt if that was the purpose of fighting for democracy. What I find sadder is that there is a new crop of young people who are being brainwashed and indoctrinated by desperate politicians to cause mayhem and confusion all over the place. It has become almost impossible to have decent conversation and cerebral debates without resorting to vulgarities and vitriolic attacks. This trend can’t continue. If it does, it will certainly portend great dangers for the future of our nation and has the likelihood and potential of descending us all into anarchy.

As we remember Dele Giwa today, let’s try to have sober reflections and reach the decision that all disagreements of whatever ilk can be resolved through peaceful, gentlemanly means.

BY:DELE MOMODU

We have forgotten the Gloria Okon rumours, forgotten Akilu and Togun's threats, forgotten Togun's subsequent semi-confession, forgotten the mighty efforts Gani Fawehinmi made to get justice up to the Supreme Court, forgotten the impunity of power displayed at the Oputa panel. Our amnesia is fatal, it is fatal.

Madam minister of aviation u stupidly bought armored cars at such a whopping and crazy amount, i hope u also got an armored house too, armored cloths including ur night gown, pants and bra. And for those who always claimed to know how to criticize constructively, i am waiting to hear how constructive they are going to be on this one...o. Transformation agenda continues!