₦airaland Forum

Why the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ must get into dictionary before September 21st
https://mrrightsng..com/2018/09/why-word-peacebuilding-must-get-into.html

Foundation for Peace Professionals (FPP) is part of a global campaign to get the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ into dictionaries on or before 21st September 2018.

We have teamed up with other organizations around the world to advocate for the inclusion of peacebuilding into dictionaries to celebrate this year’s International Day of Peace.

In many history books and academic materials, war mongers are usually painted as legends and their stories often told over and over again with so much glitz and fanfare. Stories of great Empire’s all over the world are usually stories of war and war mongers, not that of peace and peacebuilders.

Peaceful leaders in time past are relegated and accorded very little or no space in our history books and if not, where are the stories of leaders who opposed to war in time past?

Where are the stories of peace builders of our world?

It starts with small omissions like not having the word, ‘’peacebuilding’’ in the dictionary, whereas, ‘’warmongering’’ is properly captured.

The word, ‘’peacebuilding’’ is not in any dictionary and we must make some efforts to prevail on the publishers of the dictionaries to get into it on or before 21st September, 2018.

In the past 6 months, Foundation for Peace Professionals (FPP) has used the word, ‘’peacebuilding’’ more than 100 times. In our recently published Nigeria peace Index (NPI), a national replica of the renown Global Peace index (GPI), the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ was repeated close to 30 times.

For organizations like ours and several of its kind around the world, the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ is an indispensable word that can’t escape being used in our daily conversation.

While the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ is being used on daily basis by individuals and organizations working to safeguard humanity against war and violence, it has never occurred to many that the word itself doesn’t exist anywhere in the dictionary.

This is why it was more like a surprise, when Mr Mike Jobbins, Head of Policy and Partnerships at Search For Common Ground (SFCG), a global peace building organization contacted us to bring this to our attention and also informed us about the effort of their organization in partnership with International Alert to get the word into the dictionary on or before the 21st of September 2018.

We at the Foundation for Peace Professionals (FPP) support this campaign and we urge all lovers of peace to join us by tweeting at the dictionaries to include the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ in the dictionary on or before 21st September 2018. We also commend Search for Common Ground and International Alert for leading this process.

Although, there is no universal definition for peacebuilding, but the definition adopted by International Alert says, ‘’peacebuilding is the action of seeking to build peace’’.

For us, we align with this definition, but would also put for consideration, the definition of peacebuilding that says, peacebuilding is a process of strengthening a society’s capacity to manage conflict in non-violent ways. These two definitions of peacebuilding can go side by side.

It has been stated that, if the word, ‘’WARMONGERING’’ which means action of seeking to bring about war could find its way into dictionaries, ‘’PEACEBUILDING’’ which seeks to bring peace also needs to get in there as quickly as possible.
As the world continue to search for peace, let us, as a matter of necessity, give peacebuilding more attention and space, starting with including the word ‘’peacebuilding’’ in the dictionary on or before 21st September 2018.

Abdulrazaq O Hamzat is a Human Rights Ambassador and an Executive Director at Foundation for Peace Professionals (FPP). He can be reached at discus4now@gmail.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOTJai6kwSY

Realdeals:
If he wins the ANN ticket, what will now be the fate of PACT aspirant, Fela Durotoye?

They will all unite behind him and obviously, he his far more prepared and capable to lead the country.

slivertongue:
Sale ur capacity on hw 2get nigeria out of economic failure nt ur story of grass 2grace. naija has gone byond 2015 model

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfdaHxAM_YQ

Realdeals:
All these story and no video? We're in an evidence based generation, less talk, more videos and pictures.

Bros, video of what precisely?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0if8uvPcwLo

?

I love what they are doing

your opinion

God is in this church

A church, Omega Power Ministry (OPM) has caught my attention with it's Godly and unrivalled humanitarian activities.

In this era of pastors buying private jets and charging exorbitant fees for their schools, OPM is actually doing the reverse.

Not only is the church building world class schools and offering free nursery and primary education, it also providing pupils with free books,free meals and free uniforms.

According to the church, their mission is to build schools in every city around the world and offer completely free and qualitative education to the children of the poor.

To them, the essence of the church is to provide humanitarian services to the people.

Omega Power Ministries (OPM) was founded in 2006 by Apostle Dr Chibuzor Gift Chinyere.

Apostle Chinyere insisted that it is wrong for any church to receive offering from the poor and build a school their children cannot attend.

He maintained that, the church has a duty to channel all of it's resources into empowering children of the poor by uplifting their situation.

He said the missionaries who came to preach the gospel succeeded because of their humanitarian services to the people and his church is ready to return the church to those good old days.

Though, I am not a Christian, but I commend this church and it's founder.

I will be glad to meet this pastor.

Source: https://web.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10215062800394833&set=a.1407229952179&type=3&theater

GboyegaD:
Nice. At least he has a head on his shoulder. I sometimes feel some of these guys can make more impact in the legislature or even as state governors. I hope we can have people like him at state levels too. More so, what we need mainly from Federal government is direction.

You are right bro.

SalomonKane:
good lawd! All dis wan 4 1 pesin. Kai!

Audray:
Please...The average Nigerian escapes death way too much in one day. Which one we go avoid? Auto crash,ritualists,robbers,police,sars, falling building, falling bridges,bad belle friends, village people, carelessness, negligence,cows,even ourselves sef

We need leaders who can fix this problem.

GboyegaD:
Very articulate and have a good view to life. I like people like him who are not defined by material things and have no sense of entitlement.

This is the kind of leaders we need in this country and unknown to many, this guy has an energy company generating about 500 megawatt electricity for the country without any kobo from government.

ozcarbenson:
So lengthy, but worthwhile

Truly worth while.

Mankosi:
Ee yaa he escaped death 4times and that means he's destined to be great so as a result he now want to become our president?. Pls can sb tell him that we escape deaths on daily basis plying our nigeria roads only not to talk of the free flying bullets from the police.

I guess that's why he wanted to be president to fix the problem, so that people don't have to go through such horrible experience ever again.

Tipsbest:
Chai.... This one is touching

Honestly.........

Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim: I Was a Lonely Child Who Cheated Death 4 Times While Growing Up

2019 ANN Presidential Aspirant, Politician and Chairman of Oilworld Limited, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, is a charming personality. He is not physically, intellectually and spiritually encumbered. Whereas, spiritually, his rodomontade is in his personal relationship with the Almighty God, which bond, according to him, is an essential summation of his high point in life. Sufuyan Ojeifo captures the atmospherics of his modest residence in the serene Life Camp district of Abuja and the nuances of his responses to questions that bordered on his birth, his formative years, and the social-economic conditions that contoured his philosophical voyage through student unionism; politics and business

Judging by the circumstances of his birth and the number of times he cheated death in his childhood, it would not have been too difficult for even the undiscerning mind to foretell that Mr. Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim was destined to be great in life. We pumped hands as he welcomed me into his living room and ushered me to a seat. I could see that he was eager to get down to brass tacks. But he would first reinforce the human interest focus of the interview to be sure of the kind of questions to expect. So, it was made clear from the outset that it was not an interview bordering on politics for which he is currently preparing to engage in the 2019 presidential enterprise.

With a somewhat emotion-laden voice, he intoned that were it not for the caring hand of the Almighty of God, he would not be sitting with me for the interaction that was intended to mediate the distance between his past and his present or, in other words, reconnect his present with his past for some historical narrative. At ages four and seven, he had cheated death in some inexplicable circumstances.

According to him, “The caring hand of God has always been there for me. I have had very tough experience like when, as a four-year kid, I was drowning in River Niger. It was only the hand of God that saved me. I could have passed on. After I was rescued, they pressed my stomach and water was coming out from my nose, my mouth, from everywhere.”

Three years after that incident, he was involved in an auto accident and when he was in his final class in the secondary school, his life was again threatened. He said: “I had an accident as a seven-year old kid. I fell off a speeding Volkswagen combi bus and I spent months in the hospital. That was a close shave. In the secondary school, every six weeks, I was on hospital admission. In the secondary school, I wrote my final year WASC examinations on the hospital bed. But when the result came out, I cleared all my papers at first sitting. So, I have had tough moments; I won’t say low points, yes tough moments, but God has always been there for me to provide strength.”

Life as a lonely kid

His formative years were characterised by solitude because he grew up with the family of his stepfather and intimate attention was not given to him: “I was a lonely kid in the sense that sometimes I was in the boarding house and on the visiting day, parents were coming and everybody was being called that she/he had visitors and I was not called, I would start crying.” To aggravate that, his best intentions were sometimes not appreciated and, as he put it: “I found out that those things that I held dearly were even turned against me to define me wrongly. It could be very painful. When you are in such a circumstance, it is only God that can give you the strength to continue. But in all these, the caring hand of God has always been there for me.”

Interestingly, Gbenga Olawepo-Hashim, who was known and addressed by his associates as Gbenga Olawepo until some few years ago, explained the sudden manifestation of Hashim that is now compounded with Olawepo, perhaps, was to douse whatever satanic suspicions that are possibly being nurtured and harboured by some disingenuous minds.

His account was succinct: “I was born in Yelwa, Yauri in Kebbi State, and precisely in 1969, on June 28 at 6 am on a Saturday, at the Methodist Clinic in Yauri because my mother was then a hospital assistant and my father was a cadet in the police. He just finished his cadet course as a young police officer at the time I was born. My father was Alhaji Hashim Abdullahi who died as police commissioner and commandant of the Police College in Kaduna. But I grew up with the family of my stepfather, Mr. Julius Bamidele Olawepo, who worked as works manager in Kainji Lake Research Centre.” Although there was the problem of distance initially between him and his biological father, that distance was mediated in 1996 long before he passed on in 2006.

Overcoming psychological pressure

Surviving the socio-economic condition of the time and the attendant pressures was critical in the life of the young Olawepo-Hashim despite being raised by a relatively prosperous family. That relative prosperity was toned down by personal issues that essentially piled on him some psychological pressure because, “as a child, I was not raised in the same way my step brothers and sisters were raised. We went to different schools; and as a child that had a way of giving me some kind of psychological pressure.”

But that experience did not turn out negative for him. He quipped: “I would say that it helped me more than it affected me because I grew up not having a sense of entitlement. I was raised to depend a lot on myself. So, in that sense, I did not become a spoilt kid. Whatever God had brought my way, I have had to work for them; and, when I was going to secondary school, for instance, there was nothing that showed that I came from a middle class home. In school, maybe I had a small tin of pronto and garri and you would find the children of drivers coming with cartons of geisha and all that and I just depended on whatever I was given.”

While in school, Olawepo-Hashim was exposed to the good, the bad and the ugly sides of life. One of the ugly sides would later define his essence: “I was interested in the handball team and I was playing number six and because of the quality of my games wears, there was this assistant coach that was very nasty and who was always telling me to file out of the team and leave the court because my games wears were not very nice enough. But the senior coach was more caring and understanding. It did not matter to him the quality of my games wears; but, anytime this very mean assistant coach was at the court, he would just look at me and yell at me to get out of the handball team; and, I would go by the side and cry. But that did not hurt me psychologically.

“What it did for me was that early in life, I taught myself that material things would not define me. So, I was a very good kid in class and some of the positions that I had right from secondary school were basically about my academic performances rather than how I looked or my games wears. When I was appointed prefect and that was after our class four promotion exams, it was based on the best students in arts and sciences. They were made prefect, basically.

“My very good teacher, Tope Aluko, was one of the first people who ever inspired me and really showed me that I am important rather than the treatment that I got on the handball court. Aluko called me one afternoon; and, of course, I had always participated in his class very well; even in the year four exam, I had distinction in Government; and, he said, look, Gbenga, we had a meeting in the staff room today and I nominated you as a prefect and I hope you won’t let me down. I promised that I would not let him down. We used to have fantastic debates in class that time about the nationalist struggle of Zik and all that; and, then the curriculum of that era was very rich. So people like Tope Aluko already imprinted in me the self-confidence to have a self-worth beyond being defined by material things.”

Whatever the magnitude of his intellectual prowess today, Olawepo-Hashim claimed that the foundations were laid at the secondary school and the School of Basic Studies. According to him, “Every other thing, even in the University of Lagos or in my masters’ class was just like icing on the cake. I was just developing or consolidating along the line, but the foundations were laid in the secondary school and the School of Basic Studies. The curriculum in the School of Basic Studies in Ilorin was excellent. I was a responsible student of Duro Onimola who taught us Introduction to Political Science. You could not be an idiot if you were a good student of Duro Onimola and you know the curriculum in the School of Basic Studies was a mixture of GCE A’ Level London and the IJMB by ABU Zaria. So, people like Duro Onimola and co. did a lot to also sharpen me intellectually.”

The ultimate role model

But picking role models in politics, Olawepo-Hashim very easily settled for the late human rights activist, Alao Aka Bashorun, whom he described as democrat extraordinaire, a very brilliant mind and successful lawyer. According to him, “Aka Bashorun was very humble even with all his attainments. He would handle cases for us, student union leaders in those days, pro bono, and even though we were not paying him and the age difference was much, he could even be older than my father but he related to us like colleagues and we were free to talk to him anyhow and he would still be very calm and just smile.

“He inspired me in the way he was humble, in the way he was true, in the way he was real without looking for any accolade. Then you talk about people like the Chief Solomon Lar and Alhaji Abubakar Rimi. Alhaji Rimi inspired me particularly because of his courage and stubbornness. He was very courageous and stubborn about his principles. The leaders of those eras who inspired us-people like the late Adamu Ciroma, the late Sunday Awoniyi, were disciplined in their lifestyles. This made them role models to some of us in politics.”

Set for political and business leadership

His decision to proceed to the University of Buckingham in the United Kingdom, where he studied and obtained a Masters degree in Global Affairs, was motivated by the multi-disciplinary nature of the course: “After a lot of politicking, I took a break and I wanted a multi-disciplinary course that could be useful both for me in my business and my future public career and global affairs was just perfect then because it was a multi-disciplinary course- a lot of international finance and I had very good lecturers like Professor Jeffrey Woods, one of the leading advisors to Central Banks all over the world, who taught me international finance.”

He continued: “And then there was international economics, and economics has always been my first love. So it did offer me that opportunity and there was the other module-the history of international systems that was taught by the secretary of the governing council then; there was international trade law, global security one and two and environmental politics and all that. That course gave me an opportunity for an intellectual platform to have a certification in the knowledge of the modern international political system and the norms and conventions, practices and theories that govern it….

“I think, to be quite honest, you cannot be an effective president of a country or an effective leader of a global corporation without an elementary knowledge of how the international political and economic system operates now. And just having advisors would not be enough because most deals in the economic and investment realm are brokered – when you are one-on-one, either with your colleague president or with your colleague head of corporation, without your aides and assistants in a dinner; or in a one-to-one talk, playing games and relaxing. That is where the crux of the matter and the ice is broken, where you do not have the cameras and where you do not have the aides. So, in making those deals, you must have at your fingertips the grasp of exactly what you are gunning for.

“Indeed, when memos are passed to you and you do not even have quality advisors, you would not know when you put your signature to genocide, when you order some troop deployments and there could be consequences; and, that is why you see that for most successful countries of the world, right now and countries that matter in the global economic realm, you see some mastery of economic and global governance issues by those who lead them. The truth of it is that there is no significant country in the world that can be led right now by people who do not possess some minimum levels of education.”

Rich but simple lifestyle

Having been defined early in life as not given to material things, his immense wealth has not been able to get into his head. In his riposte to a poser in this regard, he declared: “I do not put too much premium on material things. I have a modest lifestyle and, therefore, material things have not defined me. When I was in the University of Lagos, I did not have more than two pairs of sandals and it did not make any difference to me. You could count the number of clothes that I had then and it did not make any difference to me; and, as I grow up, I see people who probably do not have one over hundred of what God has blessed me with driving expensive cars, wearing expensive wrist watches and it does not matter to me because that is what gives them happiness and that is probably what defines them. However, it does not mean that I do not have my own social life. The thing that gives me pleasure is to see how we can solve problems for people. That gives me pleasure more than any other thing.”

http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2018/09/01/gbenga-olawepo-hashim-i-was-a-lonely-child-who-cheated-death-4-times-while-growing-up/

google is your friend

garetz:
Bernie sanders is not US most popular politician by a mile

No one can argue about Bernie being the most popular.

Everyone knows this

Alejoc:
No crime in trying...Trump is a good example!

True

oodualover:
Mrs Folasade, there was no way you could have defeated a popular politician like Sanders.

Maybe, maybe not. Politics is an interesting game

Last week Adeluola said Sanders is too focused on national politics and should no longer be representing Vermont. “He is cruising around the nation campaigning for 2020 instead of doing the right thing for Vermonters,” “It is time for Bernie to retire, it is time for him to go,” “He’s not a Democrat.” She said

Despite Adeluola’s objections, the Vermont Democratic Party says it plans to throw its full support behind Sanders regardless of the label beside his name on the November ballot. Adeluola has filed to be on the general election ballot as an independent, according to the state elections office.

Adeluola, however, takes many of the same positions as Sanders. She favors expansion of Medicaid and Medicare, a more progressive tax policy and a $15 per hour minimum wage, immigration reform and LGBTQ rights. "I am nobody trying to stand up for the Vermonters, because then I would become somebody," Adeluola said. "Fighting hard for the Vermonters. The Vermonters need a full-time senator."
Adeluola said if she loses the primary, she will run as an Independent in November.

Nigerian born U.S Senate aspirant challenged U.S most popular politician Bernie Sanders
https://mrrightsng..com/2018/08/nigerian-born-us-senate-aspirant.html

A Nigerian lady, Folasade Adeluola who challenged U.S. most popular politician, Senator Bernie Sanders in Democratic primary election, has filed a complaint with the state, saying she should be declared the Democratic nominee.

Last week, the presidential hopeful, Bernie Sanders won nearly 91 percent of the vote to defeat Adeluola who only has 5.4 percent of the vote.
Adeluola filed a complaint with the Vermont Secretary of State Office on the eve of the primary, decrying Sanders’ practice of declining the Democratic Party nomination and instead running as an independent in the general elections.

The 55years old Folashade says she is self-employed in insurance and accounting. She is registered to vote in Shelburne and cast her ballot in Shelburne Aug. 14. Originally from Nigeria, Adeluola said she is a single mother of a child with Down syndrome and heart issues; she says she has been an activist since 1994 when she became a U.S. citizen.

Adeluola argues that Sanders was not “a true contestant” in the Democratic primary because he doesn’t accept the party nomination. “The regularity of Sanders’ infidelity to the Democrat party and the Vermont primary process flies in the face of the clear intent of Vermont’s constitutional demand that ‘elections ought to be free and without corruption in electing officers to their government,’” her complaint states.
It says Sanders tries to “game” elections and keeps “legitimate” Democratic candidates off the ballot. The complaint asks that the secretary of state declare Adeluola the “true candidate” and winner of the party’s nomination.

Sanders, who came close to winning the national Democratic nomination for president in 2016, has served in the U.S. Senate and earlier in the U.S. House of Representatives as an independent who caucuses and often votes with Democrats.

In his long career in Vermont politics, Sanders eschewed party labels, although his tenure as mayor of Burlington gave rise to Burlington’s Progressive Coalition as a third party in city and eventually state politics.

Sanders, 76, is now seeking his third Senate term and is considered a potential contender for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. His populist message has gained a strong national following as he promotes economic issues such as universal health care through a “Medicare for all” plan.

It's time for a new Nigeria

ANN distances self from ‘Presidential Aspirants Coming Together’

The Alliance for New Nigeria, ANN, has distanced itself from the coming together of about 14 presidential aspirants to form a consensus ahead of the 2019 elections.

A statement by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Akinloye Oyeniyi, said that “though three of our aspirants were involved, albeit in their individual capacities.”



The statement read: “This is to inform both our immediate and remote publics, that our party, Alliance for New Nigeria, ANN, is not the same as the Presidential Aspirants Coming Together, PACT, and not involved in its activities.

“This clarification became necessary due to the suggestive ways some news platforms especially Channels Television, are reporting PACT activities as if ANN as a political party has been part of its arrangements and has reached an agreement in line with the PACT consensus candidate.

“We hereby inform our teeming members, supporters and other Nigerians, that ANN is yet to be in any consensus or alliance talk with any political party or group of persons, and whenever the party is to so do, all will duly be informed.

“We also want to make it clear that ANN presidential candidate will emerge at the party primaries that would be announced in due course according to INEC guidelines.”

https://dailynigerian.com/ann-distances-self-from-presidential-aspirants-coming-together/

hum

Its devine