₦airaland Forum

What do you do if outsiders enter your village, your state or your country and procreate three or four times faster than residents? By pure democracy it is only a matter of time before they take over and rule. This fear of territorial takeover inspires the worst and subtle forms of discrimination. It is where the world is today in the callous treatment of citizens, immigrants or subjugation of natives unless they blend into a political culture.

Africa must create local industrial profit, not export people for profit. There are no more vacancies outside the Continent for immigrants. Those in Rome prefer Romans. America or Europe values its people; so must Africa. The Hutu, Tutsi, Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, Akan, Ewe, Mole-Dagbane, Guan, Ga-Adangbe, Swahili, Khoi-San, Xhosa, Zulu, Ndebele, Sotho etc. must coordinate at grassroots level, trust one another more and their leaders less.

The days of conquest are gone. It is time to work out accommodation, reconciliation and assimilation. If we can only learn about how women adapt into new families, the world would be a better place. Many women leave their race, country, state, village and extended families for marriage into another culture. No democracy, confrontation or war has gained territorial advantage in other peoples’ land as easily as women’s DNA.

There is little difference between rigging or no-elections in some developing countries like the Arab world and western suppression of minority registration of voters’ rights. So are privileged few unlimited money to bribe and misinform voters, relocation of voting areas, misdemeanor deportations, and paid repatriation. The Arabs have proved that the adaptation of western democracy does not create stability or solve endemic woes.

Democracy can be tedious and sometimes unproductive especially if elections have to be conducted in a short period of time as in Italy, recently as in Greece or costly as in Nigeria. Nevertheless, western democracy has worked in U.K, U. S, Canada etc. because liberals like Protestants in the face of Catholic Church have found ways to be tolerant and absorbed new talented people while alternating power with conservative parties.

China was condemned for its one family one child policy, but with overwhelming fear. Some of the universities put discriminatory process in place so that their own students could benefit from local institutions, jobs and welfare. It is the case within a country where in and out of state tuitions vary for students and less tolerance for neighbors. Unless we curb population growth by birth control, there is no place to export people.

What we are really witnessing is a gradual erosion of freedom of movement within the same country and obviously from one country to another. As a result immigration has become a testy issue for governments since politicians play to the demand and fear of their constituencies. Immigrants already in Europe and America are being discriminated against partly to curb their influence since they cannot curb their birth rate at home.

Western democracy form of government is being manipulated to the advantages of those in control in view of new immigrants’ population growth. The notion that the rich have money and the poor have children is in collision with election of majority to govern in European or American democracy. The only way to prevent it is through subtle form of discrimination practiced in U.K by Harold Wilson against British Uganda Indians.

Well, Like the Latino communities in United States, the children of Asians and Africans in United Kingdom especially in and around London have grown nevertheless since the seventies. During the latest riot when police “mistakenly” killed a person of color, the rioters made it clear they were born and bred there and would not take the indignities their rainbow parents tolerated.

Citizenship in Europe and United States regardless of who is in power will be harder to obtain and passage of citizen from naturalized citizen to their children is already curbed in Europe and will be stricter in years to come just to delay takeover of governments by children of immigrants. Discrimination is their way to prevent the eventual takeover. This may sound harsh unless they accommodate tolerance before it gets worse.

It gets worse. Conservatives in the western world have more in common with Asian and Middle East religious fanatics. Since Protestants broke away from Catholics, they have liberalized religion and attitudes towards fellow men. Conservatives in the West, Africa and in the Middle East share their love for democracy to propel them into political power only. Once entrenched, they change the rules to stay in power imposing ethics.

Indeed, western leaders are coming to grasp with the reality that they may have to deal with religious conservatives. The real struggle in the so called Middle East is between military and theocracy rule. By insisting on rulers that cannot accommodate women as equal, immigrants without path to citizenship and right to form unions, Muslim and Christian conservatives are bringing back slave labor to the detriment of working poor. They are losing their only ladder to middle class status.

We have population growth problems in Africa where we believe children are god-sent. Poverty cannot be blamed for everything but in case of Somali, where they have the same lineage, speak the same language and almost the same religion, they still cannot get along. So are the Hutu and the Tutsi after Independence created a power vacuum by the departure of the Belgian creating Rwanda and Burundi.

Nigerians call it the unfortunate mistake of 1914 on experimental basis and swore that they never knew one another from Adamu. It is a trying time in the Country exacerbated by reckless and voracious looting by most politicians with the creation of multi states and councils so that administrators can have access to oil money. What a mess!

The problem of Africa is greed in the midst of great potential that is more than enough to lift the Continent up. However, instant gratification as in readymade bribe offered by local and foreign contractors that are ready to invest and mortgage our people, are irresistible for politicians. This is further complicated by religion and ethnic bias used to fight their turfs and disguise their greed.

Africans do not have to export themselves as source of foreign currencies. The amount of hard currencies wasted on imports, foreign labor and so called expertise dwarf the amount brought in by African migrants workers disrespected and vilified in the same foreign countries.

Written By Farouk Martins Aresa
http://thewillnigeria.com/opinion/14997-CITIZENS-VOTING-RIGHTS-DENIED-DISGUISE.html

Be serious.

It is a bad habit. Even if he leaves the money for the meat, it does not mean he can eat more than his share while others do without. If there is scarcity, parents must do with less. In this case, it is not about scacity but about a bad habit that the man cannot let go. Yes someone said it already, freeze one third of the meat. In oder to train him, leave none in the pot after everyone has eaten. If he makes a special request for more or you want to satisfy his habit, cut the meat in his plate by a third. He can have that after his meal if he so desire.

If that is his special habit and you do not curb it in a friendly or subtle way, you will never have enough meat in the house.

There are men that spend big on food and drinks outside while they leave little at home. I hope this is not the case. But the lady have to be careful. You do not want to drive him to eating outside but must also curb his habit. Sometimes it is not out of greed but just a bad habit.

Robbing UNILAG to Pay Abiola

Names sell. Right now, our focus should be on doers, not just honors. Politicians honor one another for nothing and the calibers of their recipients have been discredited and diluted, anyway. Indeed, most Nigerians or old UNILAG students hardly know how their own get national honors but when you play a fast game on them, they feel insulted. It’s not a coincidence that many students do not know Herbert McCauley National Legacy.

Ebele is not different from other leaders that looked at alternative to June-12-resistance after consultation with Abiola’s ethnic advisers.*Nobody doubted Abiola won election in most of the states in Nigeria but was denied his mandate. Ebele reduced that obligation to local champion at the University of Lagos. The slight is most of UNILAG’s or the West did not see him as so deserving. The protests pointed to Abuja where he earned his due.*

When has Federal or State universities become the eighth day naming ceremonies for your children?*The irony is that the same money stolen from many of these children are used to start their own private institutions. You can fund your own universities with your own money, name it after yourselves or the name of your children’s godfathers like Babangida, Babalola or Igbinedion. Don’t reduced UNILAG to one of those as UNI-Abiola. *

By the way, please leave universities of Ibadan, Nigeria Nsukka, Ife and Lagos alone. They use local names to honor their own, foreign names to make money. Unlike we had from the old secondary schools days; Kings College, Christ the King etc. named for us. *The reasons for naming today’s private schools foreign names are both economic and “prestigious” as they wished they had attended but had no class or brain to get in.

So why pick on established universities as the place to install the legacy of your political friends nationally and political opponents locally? In most cases, they created primary, secondary or glorified higher college mainly for profit and named it after some foreign or well-known institution or saint outside Nigeria like American, Al Hikmah, Covenant, Babcock, Veritas, Caritas, Wellspring etc. to attract anything-wannabe but African.

There is this mania in Nigeria about universities that are left unfunded while the same politicians run overseas to donate money to rich universities in their names. The craving for some lofty achievement by those that have no potentials, but see the image of great men in the mirror baffles many of us. Same way, they killed local-made for import labels.

They would then go on recruiting spree in Europe, America and Saudi Arabia looking for retired teachers, homeless people and vagabonds. Get them good shower/bath, buy them summer suits and ties for outward bound planes to Nigeria. Mind you, there are many African qualified professors and primary school teachers looking for jobs, under- or employed, but they will never touch those. Didn’t some Nigerian professors sue Atiku for pay disparity with foreign recruits in his American University - of Atiku at Yola?

Almost every institution in Nigeria has been incapacitated. Our children study and live in debilitated environment. Private glorified schools, churches and mosques are the fastest growing foreign named businesses; not private technical vocational schools, agricultural factories and local innovations. Nigerians struggling to innovate are frustrated out.

Well, another complicated basis of name exploitation boils down to inferiority complex of both their clients at home and sure profit for proprietors. The clients for the primary schools in Nigeria prefer white teachers with European and American sounding accents. Words will spread that a new American school has just opened. Before you know it proprietors will be making money like selling olele (hotcakes) to the rich.*

If the demand is there, there is a market for smart entrepreneur to fill. The worst we can blame them for is bringing in unqualified teachers into the Country for our children to learn American English or Queens English. Once that need is fulfilled, they can throw in local math and science teachers paying them starving wages. Africans will not speak and write English like Americans that made up their own slangs. Africans love our idioms.

Boy, African English sweet o, I nor go lie. If you don’t like it, can’t enjoy it, go to China!

Before naming University of Lagos after Abiola, Liberty Stadium was named after a man that is dearly loved by Yoruba, Awolowo. Even before Ebele, University of Ife was named after him by Babangida as some Awo’s ardent supporters protested. Ebele, flattery and tokenism will not earn you any star no matter what obsequious Yoruba advisers tell you.*

Look at a name like Ife. This is a name that is respected and known worldwide over the ages. Just with a stroke of the pen, Babangida used one stone to kill two birds by robbing Ife to pay Awolowo. This display of ignorance, by thinking that he could not go wrong with a name like Awolowo has been repeated by Ebele. Who in his right thinking mind would argue for a better name in the history of the world than Ife?*

Why blame Ebele for following the same trend? OBJ as the President in Abuja was more concerned about his legacy as the first Yoruba, Nigerian and African that ever live(d). Father of Nigerian political party, Herbert McCauley that deserved more, never got such honor though he was a national leader of the NCNC that mentored Ikoli, Azikiwe, Awolowo, etc. during Nation’s emancipation. So if some Nigerians think Abuja finally recognized Yoruba national election winner, it has to be in Abuja not confined to West.

If the children and grandchildren of Herbert McCauley were efulefu like today’s politicians, they would be calling and visiting most leaders asking for handouts. Though they neither sought riches nor fame by rite of passage, their father and grandfather remains one of the greatest Africans scholars know. Nobody was harder than the Igbo on one of Azikiwe’s sons when some people were calling for Government to help.

Ebele’s choice of University of Lagos for Abiola is even worse than University of Ife for Awo since Abiola has no standing that can be compared to Awo’s in any Yoruba land.

Farouk Martins Aresa

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/main-square/71247-name-robbing-unilag-pay-abiola.html

Proof, easy. When they claim by their own words that there are more Igbo in Lagos than Yoruba, please tell me where those Igbo come from. An inquiring mind wants to know.

Wait until they release their soldiers from the Trojan horses?

The man is not stupid nah. When he finally goes to court, no be money he go take pay police, lawyer and judge? Abi no be Naija una dey.

When some of you have no idea what to say, you jump on English. American or European English is no better. I really enjoyed the piece. It gives a very positive angle to what even some Igbo have failed to explain properly.

Osu-Igbo Marriage had Basis in Taboo Against Corruption .Sunday, 17 June 2012 21:19

Written by Farouk Martins Aresa

Marriage is the only social pressure left, short of criminal conviction to forbid atrocities in most communities. The Igbo are no different from the British that sent rejected criminals to the evil forest across the ocean to the unknown America. The difference is while the Americans and the Osu have rehabilitated and prospered, a few communities in Ndi-Igbo still practiced a custom that is irrelevant and unproductive. Before you jump on the Igbo, look at the Americans today!


Since marriage is the beginning of family life and procreation of the next generation, avoiding abomination and corruption of the culture send the message of zero tolerance in our societies. It was supposed to instill good behavior and orderly conduct. If you knew that you would be banished or excommunicated with your next generations when found wanting in character, there was no greater incentive than to be of exceptional moral personality.

The fact that Osu fell from grace may not justify their treatment today, which has almost died down anyway. But it shows how powerful marriage was in checking corruption of the past. It did not stop at the foot of the transgressors; it extended to the family and kin. The sins of the father by abomination following the children must be prevented from infecting people from good homes. This by itself may not be fair, especially in cases of the innocent children.

The Igbo culture shares with the rest of the world marriage ceremony to check abnormalities. The form of discrimination itself was instituted to punish corruption of power by the Osu that abused their exalted position in the community. Osu fell from grace to abomination and were banished. Many uninformed people used the iniquitousness to condemn the whole Idi-Igbo. In today’s culture of corruption in Nigeria’s politics where only money counts; Osu is misplaced.

Most cultures share marrying into a good home in common. Families undertake very extensive background checks of one another even when they are from the same community. Some royal cultures of Europe go to the other extreme and marry their relatives or cousins mainly to keep privileges and advantages at home. It is their way of avoiding surprises and the embarrassment of marrying unknown commoners that may be embedded in corruption or abomination.

In most cultures like the Igbo, you do not marry into a gangster family that has soiled its name by running afoul of community’s etiquette. The way it used to be and still is in many cultures, you must conduct background checks into the family of the man or woman you want to marry to make sure there is no blemish in their past. Divorce was not as common. Investigators make extensive search, a standard none of the present political moneybags in Nigeria can meet.

The Osu accepted western education and religion before their neighbors, to break out. Some of the most beautiful women in Nigeria and some of the richest men are Osu that can marry into many families based on their good moral characters over the years. The culture of marriage played its important role then by decreasing the atrocities in the various communities. The same culture of marriage is badly needed in the culture of looter-maniac today.

While young men and women marry money no matter its source these days, the older ones remember when the question was posed: which house do you come from? If the golden rule of marriage of those days is still applied today, the stigma attached to corruption would be worse than those attached to Osu in the past years. It would deter reasonable men and women from being associated with politicians, most of whom have been rewarded as perpetual eyesore.

However, these political elites are the ruling class and like the ruling class of Europe marry one another. They have turned the purifying culture of marriage into infected culture of bacteria. They marry one another at their hill top mansions avoiding stone throwers. Their ceremonies are heavily guarded. One of these days, the sins of the Osu will catch up with them and their own sons concealing whatever, in their diapers will blow them up.

Outside Igbo land, young men and ladies boast of getting married to Osu and take them back home. One has to understand how hard work and loyalty is so entrenched in Igbo culture that they become valuable to their neighbors in Africa and beyond. The exploration into other parts of Nigeria and their acceptance did not come by self-interest alone. Failure for a young man is not an option in Igbo culture, so if they do not succeed at home, they must succeed outside.

Initially, Hausa or Yoruba would be more than willing to trust his business with an Igbo knowing their reputation for hard work and fierce loyalty than his fellow Yoruba or Hausa. But today, expediency and politics has taken over cultural purification of marriage. Though Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa do not trust one another anymore, may be if we go back to our cultures and revisit the reason we work so well together in the past, we may be able to rebuild our future.

The contribution of Idi-Igbo as a people is widely acknowledged, though a few noise makers beat their chests. The place for Osu treatment especially in marriage is cleansing our political system by denying vagabonds wife and husband. Marriage remains a very important ceremony that should be leveraged as purifying force instead of allowing vultures to take it over. In those days, if you see all members of a family married to foreigners, you started wondering.

One would expect that the Igbo culture that knows no kings would also know no Osu as an egalitarian society. Indeed, the Osu discrimination today is an aberration of Idi-Igbo culture where age may be respected but hard work is highly revered. Marriage in the Igbo culture, like other cultures, is a selective and purifying ceremony to weed out corruption from deviant characters. Osu was bad, but a far cry from history of gory French guillotine or Russian gulag.

Indeed, the next generation of President Mubarak of Egypt might be treated worse than Osu. Joseph was a powerful figure in ancient Egypt that saved the population from famine. Nobody would have guessed that the children of Joseph would be so badly treated in Egypt. Moses that led them out of Egypt was also raised in the house of Pharaoh. Time, education and enlightened population have overtaken the past sins of Osu and the injustices that follow their generations.

Do not be surprised if foreign researchers come to study marriage in Nigeria and leave with the impression that the culture of family introduction and investigation have been thrown away into the evil forest. What researchers will be left with is the impression of marriage where only money and status in a political party count. That is how Osu became a caste as punishment for past atrocities.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/farouk-martins/osu-igbo-marriage-had-basis-in-tabu-against-corruption.html

No wonder, a day or two after it was written, its contents are revealing itself in the Country. People who just refuse to learn, will continue to make avoidable mistakes again and again. Le us leave it to God to save Nigeria, Abi?

War On: Boko Haram Vs. MEND
Posted: May 16, 2012 - 19:10
http://saharareporters.com/article/war-boko-haram-vs-mend

There were 3 countries in Nigeria: Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. Which country were you? That was during the Nigeria/Biafra war.

Now there are three Boko Haram. Yusuf Boko Haram e dey, Criminals Boko Haram e dey and Ebele Boko Haram e dey. If we are to believe former President Buhari and Henry Okah, many of us belong to one of these Boko Haram. This is the fight of the elephants while the grassroots suffer.

Lately some leaders of Boko Haram have been identified as Yoruba and Igbo deeply in the Muslim religion. If you are totally confused, you may not be the only one. Many of us are because that is how it is supposed to work. They have to move the battlefield to Lagos and Enugu. A few months ago, President Ebele claimed his Government has been infiltrated by Boko Haram to the highest levels. Rivals claimed Boko Haram already had the Government and MEND is trying to flush them out.

Buhari might be the most disciplined leader vying for office in 2015 but any alliance with Tinubu in the South would soil the only reputation he has going for him, as Ribadu found out. Buhari lead by example: bring peace to Boko Haram war in the North, than blame it on your potential rival. Indeed, his main rival is Babangida in the North that overthrew his Government and would only see Buhari becomes Head of State over his dead body.

When these leaders promise war in the next election since we are already in war with so many innocent people dying especially in the Northern part of the Country, it is obvious that these leaders do not care about us or the blood of our brothers and sisters flowing almost on a daily basis on the streets, in churches and mosques. They are ready to hit more symbolic targets in the South. How much power do they want and how has the power acquired since Independence benefited the masses?

Old money, new money and foreign reserve are being spent recklessly by Loot-O-Crazies without any reservation. When Remi Babalola the former minister of state for finance said that Nigeria was broke the opposing cabals got him fired. He must have blown their cover. This is not Nigeria/Biafra war without borrowing a kobo, it is Boko Haram/MEND war spending themselves silly. They kissed at training camps in Libya and Afghanistan.

The immediate casualties are law abiding youths, NYSC and working poor that will have to go without pay. If you are one of the youths, better pay awaits you as a religious or ethnic militant. Those have so much money to spend on all types of gadgets from arms, ladies to iPods. Don’t you mind those of us watching them with envy since we do not know how to operate in dangerous zones. Even if we do, we cannot afford any.

Behavioral scientists would like to know what drives or motivates youths to engage in certain risky endeavors that make no collectively sense. There was news about a young man in China that gave up his kidney to buy one of those iPods so that he could keep up with his trendy friends. Another kid refused to fight the cause of his talikawa at home but decided on others’ cause on another continent to blow up his blokos in a plane.

There is no violence going on in Nigeria right now that has not been predicted by the prominent members of Jomo Ghomo and Adamu Ciroma. They are determined to have their ways or make sure Nigeria perishes. Governors negotiated for MEND as Emirs negotiated for Boko Haram; just to renew the mayhem perpetrated on innocent victims. Each drugged and sedated violent ignoramus is in hot pursuits of sadistic reward.

Nigeria is tearing itself apart. Elections are no more won by those anointed by power blocks and cabals but by those that can perpetrate the most violence and position themselves as candidates in the corrupted parties asking for heavy returns. Yet none of them have been able to move the Country forward. It’s easier to destroy than to build. Those who cannot, and would not let those who can, lead us to our full potential.

The students, working-class and the educated of those days sometimes sit together to reminiscent about the good old days’ struggles leading to Independence, union rights, free education and modest medical services. Indeed, some of them later became leaders implementing their dreams into realities. What happened to today’s children ability to revolt and dream of a better future for themselves and their children?

Some preachers tell them to close their eyes and pray while they loot. So has the Loot-O-Crazies drugged our youths into stupor with the lure of exotic religion, arm, virgin and gadgets, while covering their tracts with ethnic bigotries. Those that can think straight amongst our youths are labeled unsophisticated because they see beyond dangerous influences that kill African ingenuity. They get no encouragement or notice as militants.

This is why youths are championing freedom for their future in other countries while our youths drugged drunk in gratuitous exotic dreams. They left fathers and grandfathers to protest, tear-gassed and fainted by the roadside. Those youths that are brave enough to join their fathers and grannies in protest are beaten and detained by riot police.

There are father, mothers and grannies that must also share the blame in the situation many African countries find themselves today. Some of them refuse to let power go ruling into their old age, some perpetrate worse indignities on their populations and others sit tight and become Loot-O-Crazies and kleptomaniacs. The youths point to them as the cause of the present predicaments in Africa. So, wrestle power from them.

Why not stop complaining and revolt as other youths in other countries? The wind of change that is sweeping all over the world is leaving black Africa behind. Recently, the French and the Greek populations have had enough austerities and shared some lessons from Arab Spring. Even in the biggest capitalist countries, the people are recalling their oppressors from political power and replacing them with left of the center candidates.

By Farouk Martins Aresa

Nigeria Tire Me I Nor Go Lie
Posted: April 26, 2012 - 21:52

One of Nigeria’s dedicated ambassadors was “peppered” with questions about progress or achievements at one of the Ivy League schools in the United States recently. Some of us felt bad for him. He was a revolutionary in college days, and later a radical professor. Can he; dare separate a bulldog’s teeth sunk in a pound of flesh addicted in corruption?

It is a collective task to build a country, not a one man’s show. Each can form a quorum, or make a difference. He struggled to “rebrand” Nigeria and its President’s effort from Boko Haram to daily scandals of another probes set up to probe the probe before. The more he tried to explain actions never taken in Nigeria until Ebele came to power, there came a student that heard all from him a couple of years back, but Nigeria still wallow.

This is why nobody can blame the poor working masses of Nigeria that just go about their daily businesses, never expecting or getting anything from their own Country. There are many Nigerians at home and abroad that decided to tune out from the daily barrage of billions stolen but as soon as some of us tuned out, the fear of missing the latest billions missing, gripped us and we were back to local newsstand or TV.

The only lucrative jobs in town are contracts from politicians and senior civil servants. Their cuts before getting the contract disgorge everything including services, materials and “feferities” pending the next contract. People that wonder why contractors get paid the full amount before completing the contracts may be living in space and not in Nigeria. The greed that consumes our Country also consumes our next generation.

The silver linings in all these are the entrepreneurial spirits of Nigerians relying on their own business by selling and buying. Since more people become traders and market people, the rest of us have to find money to buy from them. When we are short of money - book me down. Otherwise many people would starve to death. When the urge for money to survive bites harder, we are turned into unscrupulous protesters or trades.

Nigerians like others are bestowed with talented people. How we utilize and manage our talents vary from one country to another. We must wonder in which country a student that got AI in nine WASCE subjects, like Tolulope Falokun and many like her are going to get the opportunity to prosper. We have many students all over the Country that have been stifled because they were born in the wrong place at the right time.

The demise of our Country stare in our faces every day when we see our university students aspire and worship accomplished leaders in foreign countries with futuristic ideas and attractive gadgets to sell to those that never appreciate theirs. How do we explain that the not-so-rich amongst us survive better outside the Country than within?

Nigerians are resigned to a stage where we pride our accomplishments on what we do in foreign countries, how we are acknowledged in foreign circles and the positions we lounged for in international communities, not what we can accomplish at home. No matter what our accomplishment, if it is not at home, we are useless to ourselves but useful to our foreign technical partners on promises.

Indeed, average Nigerians, on book me down, get more social services from their sellers than anyone would expect from government or the fat cats. At the same time, there are still some rich people that care very much for our citizens but shy away from publicity for many reasons including preserving their own lives so that more people do not rush at them demanding more than they could give. Many take on government social duties.

It does not take much to predict where a country is heading if you look at the major attraction in the community. During the time of Star War in United States, President Reagan increased the Defense budget attracting young generation of scientists while making the conservatives rich. They justified it with Armed Race that left Soviet Union in disarray since both powers had the capacity to destroy the world hundred times over.

In China, the Communist Party turned almost every citizen and the new generation into politics in praise of Mao. They justified it with the capability to regulate their population, saved themselves from starvation and then relaxed it with mixed economy to become a powerful world trading partner. All the sacrifice of their people and abuse of human rights were turned into development of cities as they could later redress rural areas.

If those are big countries, Dubai borrowed as much from the West as they could and built services and cities in the desert while they default on their loans but their lenders cannot uproot all the infrastructures and modern amenities built. As a matter of fact, they now dictate what and how they will pay back their lenders.

The point is Nigeria has never gained or learned anything from civil war; and corruption as the only game in town. We have used it to impoverish ourselves. There is corruption all over the world. Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Singapore are not free of abuses. United States went wild with financial engineering and plunged the rest of the world into recession after the new generation of financial wizard got hold of the market.

Unlike Nigeria, in spite of other countries’ excesses and abuse, they still have something to justify their misadventures. Nigeria’s next generation of young people has never seen their Country in progressive mood towards sustainable accomplishment. They are having children in a culture of corruption that only worship the dog that eats dogs. They are resigned to rat race for fear of being left behind.

The second coming of Obasanjo came with some hope, if not from his part of the Country, at least from the rest of Nigeria. He started well but ended up as those before him in disappointment. He came to avenge his bankruptcy that he forgot to cure the first time around. Ebele, not again! Could he be heading the way OBJ did or worse?

If all Abacha could do was to make Nigeria self or comparatively sufficient defying foreign debts, products and services, Nigeria could not be in a worse situation today. If all Buhari and Idiagbon did was turn us into a country of disciplined characters, we could have thanked them; that at least we went through fire like raw iron ore and came out like fine steel. All the war, suffering and the abuses we took and suffer for were in vain.

By Farouk Martins Aresa

http://saharareporters.com/article/nigeria-tire-me-i-nor-go-lie

The Father Of All Nigerian Ethnic Groups

Farouk Martins Aresa

It is very interesting that most of the Ethnic groups claim association to the Nile Valley, somewhere in Sudan, Egypt etc. but no association to one another in Nigeria. On their way from or to Egypt through what we now know as Nigeria, these Ethnic groups never met? Usually, they were each King or Queen, first lady. Who were their subjects? It may remind you of most of our parents who always took first in their classes when they were students. Who came second?

Africans are great sojourners, and they left their genetic traits all over the world. Please see YORUBA WORLD EXPLORATION AND THE LOSS OF DYNASTIES. If Africans were in Australia before the time of Christ, in America before Columbus and spread all over great distances, we should wonder why they never knew or had anything to do with one another until the British created NIGERIA!

Apart from the article mentioned above, I also relied on an article by Sola Omole on the Ijaw, another by the Ijaw Nation. Of course, I also depend on different histories of the Ethnic groups. However, I must admit that many are just like blind men describing an elephant we call Nigeria. Each was about its group but not how it relates to Nigeria, the giant of Africa.

Nigerians talk about relatives in Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Senegal etc. The distance between Maiduguri and Lagos is not as long as that between Nigeria and Australia, yet Nigerians deny each other at home. Ghana, Mali, Songhay Empires were not formed based on Ethnic groups because some of the Empires were bigger than Nigeria. Ibadan, here at home, was built as a cosmopolitan City made up of variety of people.

The people were around the same place from the beginning of time, and traded with one another before the British came. The Europeans heard about ancient civilization trading in gold, they named one place Gold Coast. They heard about Ivory and named another place Ivory Coast. They heard about Ile-Ife Arts and Sculpture - they thought they found lost civilization of Atlantis. They marveled at Benin Bronze; they heard stories of handsome skilful men and women with mystical power; and drugs that can cure many diseases. They discover aspirin, antibiotics and ancient form of writings on the body and tablets. At the same time, they dreaded the diseases of mosquitoes and tsetse flies, sparing us of earlier domination.

Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, 1st Century B.C, credited the Ethiopians (name for Blacks) as the first of all men created by gods, as founders of civilization and religion in Egypt imported to Greece.

Nigeria is just a “geographical expression” and 1914 are always in the papers and books written by many Nigerians. Awolowo is always credited with the former. It does not mean that he did not believe in one Nigeria, otherwise he would not have campaigned from the South to the North for the Prime Minister of Nigeria. Actually, Ahmadu Bello could have preferred that he stayed put in the South. We now have scholars from the North who actively support one Nigeria, while some in the South are going the other way. In Nigeria, we call that progress!

Sometimes, I wonder what difference it would have made if the Europeans divided Africa in slices north and south or in slices east and west. Most of the Ethnic groups have relatives across Africa east and west, and the same north and south. Could it have been a better Country that way? The so called main Ethnic groups with their relatives across West Africa could have formed one Country. I am sure nobody thinks that could have solved African problem.

Nkrumah, a man before his time, wanted a united African Country. Tafawa Balewa dismissed it as taking independence from the British only to surrender it to Nkrumah. Only Zik cried out loud when Ghanaians were thrown out of Nigeria in early eighties. Lately, the South Africans rejected free African movement for fear of Nigerians dominating their Country, as we did in Ghana in the sixties. When the East African were kicking out the Europeans, they were asked who would replace the educated labor force. Nigerians, they answered. They were warned – Nigerians were worse exploiters than the British! Some Nigerians, thinking about our politicians, may agree.

The difference between Hutu and Tutsi has to do with one being town boy and another country boy. The Somalis are from the same family with the same language, it is still not a peaceful Africa. After the war in Nigeria, the Ethnic groups have fragmented further, even more so in the south. There was an article I red, “My People are killing My People”, about the fight between close relatives – Ijaw, Itsekiri and the Urhobo youths. Or between Aguleri and Umuleri, or Ife and Modakeke or Fulani and Jakun, Tiv or Yelwa and Shendam. I have not added those between Sunni and Shiite, Moslems and Christians over foreign religions. Africans, calling one another unbeliever of foreign indoctrination.

There are autochthonous Africans in Nigeria, no doubt. I also believe these Africans especially in the rain forest are more or less the same in everything. Those in the northern part of Africa or our Country are so close that our origins cannot be different. Since one of the oldest human is dated around Lake Chad, how much distance is that to the sea that man could not have sojourned to?

No Ethnic groups deny each other more than the Igbo and the Yoruba. I am totally dismayed when I listen to young men and women who were not born during the political days of Bello, Awo and Zik trade insult as if they were there. Who passed personal prejudice to them? Check out their internet chart sites, it is full of hatred. When I pointed this out to some of my friends, they ignored it since most people stuck to their favorite sites. Some of the comments about our brothers from the North or vice versa are just as caustic. It boils down to ignorance. It is almost a conspiracy – they fear you may know one another as the children of the same father!

The Yoruba, a combination of OYO and OBA from Ife, has been known as YOBA well before the time of Christ in the Nile Valley and later, as far as Papua Guinea. They refused to be converted to later religions like Christianity and Moslem. The same is true about Oba Koso, King of Shango in Kush from the holy City of Ile-Ife - This was written in Coptic text, published in Paris in 1666.

Oduduwa has been thrown into question even within Yoruba and their close relatives in Ijebu and Benin. Fortunately, this ancient icon before Christ is not only known among the Yoruba as Adamu but among our own Ijaw and in Diaspora, during ancient time.

Each Ethnic group in Nigeria has translations for Yoruba and Oduduwa. Does that mean that these Ethnics groups have been in contact with one another as brothers and not willing to admit it? Since migrations happened in waves, those who came first might have recognized those who followed.

I can not fault Chukwu Eke interpretation of history. Indeed we may agree in more areas than disagree. The Igbo of the Southwest may be the same Igbo of the Southeast. I will also add the Northern part of the Country. These people were not known as Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Edo, Urhobo, Ijaw or Efik. They existed as one people moving freely in Nigeria and in neighboring Countries.

The Igbo also claimed affinity with the Nile Valley. They knew the Yoruba well as they claim they were the original inhabitants of the present western part. But Oba Mafimisebi, the Olugbo of Ugbo claimed they were the original inhabitants. After pestering the Yoruba, the Igbo fell in love with Moremi who gave out the secrete that dislodged them. According to Chukwu, the Yoruba called them Igbo (bush people) and in retaliation, Igbo called them Yoruba (Oyo oru Oba) that is “Oyo, slaves of Oba”. He also has a translation for Oduduwa, “Nkaa bu onye odudu wa or Nkka bu Odu wa”, that is their leader. Here, we part.

Phillip Emeagwali also gave a convincing relationship between Yoruba and Igbo. The Igbo had no king but the Yoruba relatives had Obi. He also pointed to a lost Yoruba dialect, Olukwumu spoken in Anioma, Idumu-ogu,Ubulubu, Ugboba and Ukwuzu. This dialect is still spoken in Brazil and Cuba. Onitsha could have come from Orisha. Orisha is still worshiped in Diaspora. I remember how mad some Igbo were that a man of his status would even dabble into such things. I am not surprise, I am a mere mortal and my friends laugh at me when I bring it up too. But it is not new, I heard it among my friends in the fifties - boasting as the real Ibo vs. the YorubaIbo.

I think once people realize that we are not selling out one group for another, education may overcome prejudices. There are only one related autochthonous people in the rain forest, differentiated by sojourners coming in waves from outside.

It took me a while to accept the link between linguistic and people because one can find any word and link it up. Is Ijebu-Igbo a Yoruba town, or Igbo people? Is alligator called oba by Igbo the name of a king? Even Obi has its own Igbo meaning: court house. But how does court house become a king? The similarity in meaning among us only points to common ancestor speaking the same language at certain point in time.

All I am stating is that there is a convincing link between the people of Nigeria. Herodotus 490-425 B.C described the scarification mark on the forehead of the blacks he saw in Egypt. We also know that it took a combined army of the Arabs to drive out the Africans, “sharp shooters of the eye”, out of ancient Iraq in those days. These Africans were not known as Igala, Kanuri, Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba, Ijaw or Efik. Anyone interested can pursue this further. Research is easier now than in my own days as a student.

The Hausa claimed that the Yoruba were one of the illegitimate children of Bawo from a different mother. They founded or ruled additional kingdoms of Zamfara, Kebbi, Nupe, Gwari, Yauri, Yoruba and Kororofa after they left Egypt. They claimed that Yoruba was the name they gave the people of the Southwest.

However, the Yoruba in name and religion were known in the Nile Valley and between the Arabs as unbeliever of their religion before the Hausa met them again in Nigeria. I would say they recognize their cousins again during another wave of migration. What can not be denied though is the relationship of both the Hausa and Yoruba to the Sudanese in terms of facial marks.

An article by Ibrahim Waziri on - The Unhappy Marriage of a Quadruple - described the mixture of people in the North with other so called Ethnic groups in Nigeria. Even though he is from the Saifawa dynasty that opposed the Jihaad of Usman Danfodio, like most Northerners, he has Hausa, Fulani, Kanuri, Yoruba etc in him.

Some Ijebu claimed that they were neither Yoruba nor part of Oduduwa dynasty. The Oba of Benin recently brought out a novel claim about Oduduwa as a lost Prince of the last Ogiso. Indeed, the Edo claimed they are the father of most southern Ethnic group. But the Ogiso and the Oba met the autochthonous people, Oru, Efa and Ijaw in Benin.

Professor Obayemi researched eight Ile-Ife, and we know at least two Oyo including the present location. The Yoruba, coming from or to Ife, passed through Borgu, Nupe in the North and the Nile Valley. These were the Cities that were documented; there must be others in between them unmentioned.

The Ijaw went through the same route through Borgu, Beni, Nupe, Ile- Ife, present Benin before spreading to the delta region.

Do all these parts of an elephant belong to the same animal?

If all these groups are the same, they should speak the same language or may be in different dialects and have the same ancestors. I think they all do.

ARCHEOLOGY: The best tools we have are the discovery made in Nigeria in spite of wet acidic soil that is not good for preservation. A relative comparison of discoveries inside and outside of Nigeria can be convincing evidence of our ancient civilization:

Iwo Eleru – 10,000 B.C Between Akure and present Ile-Ife

Nubia culture - 10,000 B.C

Indian culture - 6,000 B.C

Dafuna Canoe near Yobe dated 8,000 years old compared to oldest

Egyptian boat 5,000 yrs old

China culture - 3,000 – 2,200 B.C

Malenician and South Pacific Hawaii – 2,000 B.C

Olmec Mexico- 1,100 B.C

Igbo Ukwu - 10 AD In the heart of Igbo land



I have left out many Yoruba, Igbo and Benin Arts paraded around the world exhibiting African craft before our Asian and European neighbors caught on to our civilization.

The history of the Ijaw by the Ijaw is not that different from that written by Sola Omole. It links all the Ehtnics groups in the south one way or another. This is important because it collaborate our history beyond Nigeria with our relatives in Africa.

Ile-Ife is a common factor in the history of southern Ethnic groups. Other places, as indicated, are Borgu, Bassa, Nupe and Beni/Benin. The first wave came to Nigeria through the same Borgu, Nupe, Ile-Ife and Benin. The Ijaw spread to the delta region from present Benin.

Oduduwa/Adimu/Adumu/Adum. He created a dynasty before the time of Christ in more than one Ile-Ife. One of his descendants was Ujo, a Prince of Ijaw who ruled over the delta, even on his way back to Ife as he got lost. The Ijaw are familiar with Ogiso in Benin as some left Benin when the Ogiso arrived from the same part through Ife. They also know the last Prince of Ogiso Kaladiran/ Ekalederhan who fled before (or after?) Oranmiyan arrived from the Ife. The Benin are very proud of the Oba era but our history began well before that period.

Even the Ijaw met Autochthonous African in Nigeria and were able to rule over them or moved on. They were ORU who met Nigerians before they become Igbo, Hausa, Ibibio, Ijaw, Yoruba, Igala, Tapa etc. The Kumoni who may or may not be the ORU also came. So were the Bantu, Efa, and others.

In Yoruba land the OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO AND ORU became the son of the soil.

In Igbo land the UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA and BANTU became the son of the soil.

In Benin land the OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA became son of the soil.

In Hausa land the ORU and HAUSA and OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO became the son of the soil.

The Itsekiri are a mixture of OOYELAGBO/UGBO/IGBO and ORU and EFA.

The Urhobo are a mixture of ORU and EFA and OYELABO/UGBO/IGBO

All Nigerians are a mixture of autochthonous people, ORU and other so called Ethnic groups in different mixture giving rise to different languages/dialects adapting to different environmental stimuli.

How dare?

I blew your cover, man! Aborigines of Australia are your cousins, black Americans are your brothers, West Indians are your men. How are you related to them?

However, the ones you live in the same Country with are unknown and unrelated to you.

I was once a professional student in Toronto in the seventies when Stokely Carmichael, American Civil Right activist, came to University of Toronto or York University. One of the student said he was not an African. So Stokely asked him where he came from. He said Trinidad. (Stokely was born in Trinidad). The student said all the Africans died in the sea before reaching the shore. Stokely said he must be a seaman. As we were laughing, Stokely did not find it funny that such ignorant statement came from a student. He told the student that Trinidad was not a Country but a sugarcane plantation. We laughed louder.

Many of the Nigerian Ethnic groups in general and in the southern part in particular are familiar with the ORU people that many of us have ignored for centuries. In many of our villages they retain that name. Some of them have been relegated to the position of slave or ERU or OSU whenever they can be dominated. The same people created dynasties all over Africa and ruled over the autochthonous Africans they met in other places.

Oduduwa was born in Ife by marriage between OOYELAGBO and ORU. He sojourned north and south of Africa creating dynasties until he was overthrown and came back home. He was known in the Nile Valley as Adum, in Nigeria as Adimu/Adumu and among the Ooyelagbo as Oduduwa. The Yoruba are a good example of how we mix in Nigeria.

If this is the case, why can’t we live in peace in any part of Nigeria? Or in Africa?

Animal Behaviorist and Psychologists teach us that you can only have so many mice in a pen. Two will get along fine, especially a male and a female. As the number increases, discomfort and problem start. I will try to examine this in the future. Some of us are claimers of two states, one leg in each state. One leg (h)as an indigene, another leg (h)as a citizen. If you mix that up with land, son of the soil, off/on/in/out shore resources, wahala starts.

Most of us realize that resources can not keep us together and must not separate us. It is not the resources you have that matters, it is how much it commands in the market. Think! If I buy fresh fish for 50.00 naira, package it, and sell it as sardine to you for 150.00 naira. Add 50.00 naira for taxes, shipping and delivery. Replace fresh fish with raw gold, you get the same result. That is 200.00 naira. My brother, you are left poorer than when you started. As poor as Ghana, the Gold Coast.

Take another hint. How much was oil before the cartel and how much is cocoa now?

In order to conserve energy, many countries imposed heavy tax on oil, like tax on cigarettes. These Governments make more on taxes than they make on the bare products. Not in Nigeria, please!

I hope I have created enough doubt in the minds of none believers of Autochthonous people of Nigeria. Ironically, those with ulterior motives will never be moved. More research is needed to bring these people in us to light.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php?view=article&catid=84%3Afarouk-martins&id=1359%3A-the-father-of-all-nigerian-ethnic-groups&tmpl=component&print=1&layout=default&page=&option=com_content&Itemid=46

Children of the looter hiding their parents from jungle justice will also be dealt with by the same people that administer it to common thieves.

Here we go again. People pleading for due process. When they kill children and their babies with hunger, who give these victims due process? When soldiers and police kill for 20 naira on the streets, who give their victims due process. When Nigerians run out of their own country and die in the desert with babies in their hands or in water trying to cross, who gave them due process?

But when it comes to the greatest looters of all, some people plea for due process. Wont it be nice if petty thieves in the market get due process. Who decides jungle justice? The same people that decide jungle justice for petty and hungry thieves in the market.

TIME FOR JUNGLE JUSTICE ON CORRUPTION

How long are the working people going to wait before they tackle corruption in high places? The students that used to lead revolts in Nigeria are too complacent since their parents can afford to send them to universities anywhere are busy milking the Country. If revolution is too drastic on both the innocent and the guilty, jungle justice with all its faults is better targeted to the money bags we know living ostentatiously in our face.

Regrettably, corruption has become number one drive to outrageous inflation and no matter how much wage is demanded, the working class cannot catch up since money bags buy up materials without sweating for the money they spend. In a country where 69% of the people live on less than 300 naira a day by local statistic, there is very little they can buy with their salary. So the bread winners leave home early to avoid daily responsibilities and demands for “chop-money” from their spouses and children.

Most Nigerians are still intolerable of corruption, yet it is so wide spread amongst the Vagabond In Power one would think everyone on the street lives by it. The fact is most Nigerians are so hard working, even a visitor in the Country can notice it on the street where common people struggle from dusk to dawn eking out a living. Jungle justice is usually disproportionately rendered as deterrent to petty thieves, not by the worth of the stolen goods but by the pain and frustration of its loss to the owners, as deterrent.

When men of substance and caliber start calling for a revolution, we know something has gone wrong in the country of rogues with special privileges. Revolution is even worse than jungle justice. Revolution consumes the guilty and the innocent but jungle justice is by people's court and their abuse against the innocent is less than mass killing in a revolution. People use grudge against innocent enemies all the time including EFCC.

The argument has always been that Bar Beach Show when armed robbers were shot by firing squad did not reduce crime, but it did reduce the number of armed robbers. The same folks that condemned humiliation of rogues like the Thief of Police Tafa Balogun without due process, are the ones stealing the treasury blind indicating that they are only pleading their cases in advance before their day when caught redhanded.

No country in the world applies due process to a cancer that threatens it very existence be it corruption, terrorism or economic wizards in the stock market and financial houses without bringing them down first. The amount of money reserve for compensation if the system is wrong is much less than the amount of money stolen or deadly blows suffered by looking the other way while the country burns.

Nigerians will abuse any system or take advantage of any privilege in the name of due process and come out on top. The bottom line is what is lost bleeding the country to death and what is gained by compensating overzealousness on the part of vigorous prosecution and jungle justice by people on the street that had enough. Usually, the public is slow to react and when they react, it turns into revolution.

It is up to us if we want to wait for revolution that will consume everybody if guilty or not, or jungle justice administered to petty hungry thieves on the streets instead of big time crooks in states and Federal capitals. Nobody realizes it more than politicians and that is why they keep on throwing curves on our path encouraging Boko Haram instead of Riba Haram that will catch them red handed whenever they show their face in public.

Unfortunately, Nigerians apply a different standard to those that steal substantially in people's face and parade it contentiously and flamboyantly at gatherings to spite one another and the poor. If the same jungle justice that is applied to the petty thieves on the streets is applied to those in power, corruption will be dramatically reduced because of the stigma and the fear of being lynched publicly. On the same street where they should be lynched, they closed it to celebrate “success”.

Oteh and Hembe are not the first neither would they be the last. Probing of Federal Pension and other financial institutions will yield nada at the end of the day. If you Tarka me, I will Dabor you, did not stop tit-for-tat exposure nor did it end with OBJ-Atiku Show. But very serious cancerous disease infiltrating the very nerve of Nigeria is seen as entertainment or a joke in the vulture circles while the common man wonders if it will ever end. Well, it will not end until the man and woman on the streets are mad enough.

So mad, that they start jungle justice on their appropriate oppressors. Former Speaker Bank-ole, a cat looking for meat, used to inform us about how much was stolen by past governments. Senate and representative members pardoned one another. There are defenders of Abacha today claiming that he never stole a kobo while our children listen, watch Ibori and Alamsco. Ebele cuddles politicians like salary Santa. Youths watching, demand their share or opportunity to loot. Where is the deterrent in all these?

Corruption is no more hidden, no more an option but a demand or your life is in danger. The trickle obsession with bribes is publicly displaced on the streets by Police and Army demanding 20 naira and in some cases, public execution of those that dare defy them. It remains to be seen how long the directive of the Chief of Police to stop road blocks turned into menace, sticks. You cannot get a file clerk in the ministry to do the work he is paid for without greasing his palm.

Nigeria has been turned into a country where state leaders shamelessly demand money without generating internal products or effort for compensation. Africans watch in amazement wondering how many millions, billions and trillions there are in Nigeria before the oil well runs dry. Sometimes a drunken sailor comes to his senses, not those in charge of our Treasury. They demand more benefits and salary by legal looting, get more privileges while they dare anyone to remove them.

Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Story from The Nigerian Voice News:
http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/85741/1/time-for-jungle-justice-on-corruption.html

Published: Wednesday, March 21, 2012

YORUBA AND IGBO MUST REMAIN DIVIDED TO KEEP NIGERIA ONE

When Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe was taken to task to explain why he passed on Awolowo’s offer to become the Prime Minister.* He simply said it might have led to the breakup of Nigeria if the North was isolated. Either by design or omission, the logic still stands today but the reasoning and supporters of that logic may have changed. Actually Tafawa Balewa was unmoved by the so called Southern union, vowing to be Opposition Leader.

There has to be some positive spin to the division in the South. There is also division in the North but it is not as pronounced. No matter how you take it, no part of the Country can clearly delineate agreeable people within one region. Biafra has other ethnic groups that do not consider themselves part of the Nation. The same is true of the North Central. The Hausa that form the majority in the North are controlled by minority Fulani. Even the Yoruba, in spite of common lingua-franca, can only boast of Diaspora union.**

Therefore, as long as the Country stands as Nigeria, Yoruba and Igbo will always fight for political dominance and the Hausa will always come to their rescue so that they do not destroy our Country. Whenever you hear intellectuals and theorists debate about separation as a mere geographical expression; amuse yourselves. Listen if you can with guguru and epa to grace your precious time. They cannot agree on their base, yet they want Nigeria to split. Split into what?

If you are one of the frequent visitors to internet sites, you get some of the point here. We have young men and women born after the War going mercilessly at one another as if they were there. Even more disturbing, some of these young people have never been on the Nigerian soil. Needless to say, you know who is feeding them with venom about the Country on different version of their novel history.

The Igbo are well known for their adventures within the Country into various ethnic groups. You cannot but wonder why many call for separate nations more than others as if they would rather ask for visas into these separate nations in Nigeria. But we need to understand their frustration if at any little provocation in the North, they get the worst brunt of the mayhem. Indeed, they are safer in other parts of Nigeria.

Igbo in other parts of Nigeria have called on those in the North to come home or stop going back to the North after each clash. It is very difficult to heed such calls unless the foot is in the other shoe. No one wants to start all over after spending so much of their effort building a comfortable nest outside. The same is true of other ethnic group in the North as the Yoruba and others refused to come back home. Actually some of the ethnic groups within the North have no other home. So why call on Igbo?

The Hausa recently told Boko Haram to go to blazes, they are not moving out of Lagos. Every ethnic group feels comfortable in Lagos, some as a second home and others as the only home they known. So why would anyone in his right mind leave Lagos where they make their money and live peacefully to go anywhere else in Nigeria they do not feel as safe beats anyone’s imagination.

It will be hypocrisy if the feelings of other ethnic groups regarding settling amongst the Igbo are not shared here. Some think they are not as tolerable as they demand from others outside their base. May be if the gesture of tolerance is reciprocated in Igbo land, we will see more accommodation in the Country as a whole. It may be wishful thinking. But it is better to separate than kill off one another living together. *Except that we cannot. So after each crisis, Nigerians will always return to where they can make a living.

Igbo also have their grievances against “Yoruba diplomacy”. They claim you cannot hold Yoruba to a deal without expecting them to betray you. So the suspicion is mutual on both sides. No matter how we view the suspicion, it has served Nigeria well and held the whole Country together. Imagine the Yoruba and the Igbo as political ally, they would oppress the rest of Nigerians; and where is the President going to come from?

Let us be fair, Yoruba and Igbo do not always go after one another’s chin. After all, they dine, play, work and sleep together. But when it comes to politics, it is a no-go area. Their most recent encounter was the leadership of the House. As usual, they contested for it until the North came to the rescue. Some level headed people from each ethnic group have wondered if the Yoruba would support the Igbo for presidency in 2015.

Of course some Yoruba would support Igbo for presidency. Whether they are going to get majority of the Yoruba support is sheer speculation at this point. There is time to kiss and make up. Some Igbo have even said it publicly that they would cross that river when they get there and there is nothing to be worried about right now. Whatever each ethnic group can get right now is fair political game. *After all, they always fight and make up.

However, some Nigerians are wondering if it makes any sense to be rotating presidency between North and South. They postulate that we should allow the most competent man rule, no matter where he comes from. By now, we have had every region in the Country rule by hook or crook, by coup or militia. So do not be surprised to see potential presidential candidates coming out from every party regardless of their regions vying to be the Vagabond In Power. They are not different once in office.

Don’t you forget, the incumbent have not made any concrete promise to any party, region or cabal that he was not going to seek a second term as a matter of right. Nigeria is not the same country as South Africa and what may hold in that country does not necessarily hold in Nigeria. Indeed, some members of MEND are already warning others to stay clear. What we cannot predict is if Ebele will get votes from every region as he did before.

Farouk Martins Aresa

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/take/69244-yoruba-igbo-must-remain-divided-keep-nigeria-one.html

DanKan0 sarcasm and the writer moment of Nigeria reality have been vindicated by Dokunbo Asari. Deal with it or break the country into pieces.

DanKan0:
sarcasm bro

Edo.girl,

I agree with the writer and you at the same time, odd?

If it was Hausa or Fulani that carried out the operation on Sardauna and it was Igbo that carried out the operation on Ironsi even though both were controlling Nigeria, it would have been accepted. Yes, Joe is the President of the country but there are enough patriots in Bayelsa to hold him accountable for the whole of Nigeria. We become distrustful when it comes to our ethnic group but on a mission so important and learning from the past, we have to do it differently. If they don't, we know who the traitors are.

[quote author=edo.girl link=topic=845169.msg9956985#msg9956985 date=1326469836]there are legitimate questions to be asked about his leadership qualities and overall performance. it's unrealistic to suggest that only ijaws may raise these questions. he's the president of the country, not his village.[/quote]

joe cause the flood, made the rain.

]
ATTACK YOUR OWN ETHNIC LOOTERS NOT EBELE


There is one lesson we must learn from Nigerian Civil War: one ethnic group must not attack another ethnic group, let each ethnic group deal severely with their killers of our Country. Leave Ebele to his own ethnic group. If Hausa had killed Sardauna, Yoruba had killed Akintola and Igbo had killed Okpara, our history would be different today. Even when we have had enough, we must be reasonable.

There is no corruption going on under Ebele that is new in Nigeria. The same people that instituted and glorify corruption are still at play. Indeed, they are so entrenched in our system, they have to be appeased not to unleash their venom. They did not just corner the oil industry when Ebele got there, they live and breathed by it before him and they are determined to remain after him.

Take-Back-Nigeria as now presented us a golden opportunity to let vulture capitalists in politics, commerce and trade know that Nigeria is not going to return to status quo, no matter what. Nigerians have been called cowards that do not want to die, docile that accepted everything dished out to oppress them but there comes a time when enough is enough. When we are backed up to the wall, we are not going to disappear into it.

This is why Nigerians are been killed for protesting injustices by oppressors. It is not the fuel price increase alone, it is culmination of prices, taxes and tolls by police and states on the road we bought and paid for with our taxes and God given natural resources. Policemen are paid salary only to demand more at gun point from us inside private and public transportations on the road. Politicians take out loans in our names and load up debts for our children.

The argument about fuel price increase has gone circular trying to confuse the poor man. All we are saying is that whether we pay the increase or not, the money will disappear into politicians' pocket. We are just sick and tired of promises while we die waiting for results. It has not gotten better, it goes from bad to worse. Every head of state makes more promises upon promises. Where is the beef?

Those wishing for the take-over of the government either by military means or through impeachment have not learned their lesson. They are playing into the hands of the same mafia that got Nigeria on its knees. They think that by making the Country ungovernable, Ebele will be seen as weak. This is not to excuse Ebele because he has his own weakness as someone, with all his intellect that could not appoint Nigerians that have African bias.

In all sincerity, Ebele got more votes than any other candidate. As soon as he won, each ethnic champion positioned themselves in the name of their people for political payback for delivering their part of the Country. Even political arrangement or national character in the Party was disrupted in favor of one group over another. Ebele had to go along to get along. It is vicious to try to wrestle power from him by intimidation.

The politicians know the weakness of Nigerians along ethnic lines and they know how to manipulate it to their advantages. We must accept reality that Nigerians cannot live along ethnic lines. Africa is not demarcated north, south, east or west. We all have kin and relatives across the Continent. Differentiation is the reason we kept asking for more states and local governments. At the rate we are going, each family will become a country.

If we want Nigeria back, we must fight corruption from our backyards. Those politicians in Abuja and state capitals claim they represent us. If they do not, make it known to them in your towns and villages. We must not touch people from other ethnic groups because they happen to be our neighbors or go to other ethnic towns and villages to kill those we disagree with because we have guns like armed robbers.

If we want to be sincere with ourselves, our Northern brothers have been consistently demeaning and disgracing the killers of Nigeria in their midst. None of their politicians dare display the same level of ostentation and conspicuous spending Nigerians tolerate in the South. They throw more sands and stones than their Southern brothers. So their politicians keep them busy and tied their hands with religion.

Instead of providing for modern grazing for cows or cattle, Northern politicians turn nomads loose on other people's land within Hausa and others in the North towards the South. We know that is why the problem of these intra and inter-ethnic killings has not stopped. So as much as the Northerners have their problems, so do Southerners' greed. We do have a common problem we need to solve. Corruption!

Every region must rise up together if we want to displace the oppressors in Nigeria. If we miss a region and let the vultures there corrupt and devour others, we have failed to clean up our Country. We are infested by roaches and rats that can sneak and multiply through porous land. Put your own house in order so that the roaches do not infest the houses of others.



Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Story from The Nigerian Voice News:
http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/79660/1/attack-your-own-ethnic-looters-not-ebele.html

Published: Thursday, January 12, 2012

Breaking News: Otedola, Tinubu and Otudeko`s Homes Picketed

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Huhuonline.com can disclose that protesters have taken over the homes of Femi Otedola, Asiwaju BolaTinubu and Oba Otudeko.Our checks reveals that the three men were not at home when the irked picketers arrived. Sources close to them allege that the three men
have gone into hiding.

Femi Otedola is the chairman of Africa Petroleum and a member of President Jonathan`s Economic team, is alleged to be one of the beneficiaries of the oil subsidy. While the former governor of Lagos State, Bola Tinubu, owns OANDO Oil, but runs the company through his proxy, Wale Tinubu, whose where about could not be ascertained, as at press time.

http://www.huhuonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=4073:breaking-news-otedola-tinubu-and-otudekos-homes-picketed&catid=103:more-news

BOKO OR ISLAM HARAM GOVERNMENT CARE LESS ABOUT OUR ISSUES

The gruesome pictures of dead Nigerians killed for protesting the last straw will hunt us forever.* Nigeria’s problem is not oil subsidy, subsidy is the symptom of greater evil that ails the Nigerians working hard ready to go anywhere to make a living. Those losing their lives protesting on the streets have had it: enough is enough. If they cannot survive at home, they will shed their pride to make it out of town. The irony of it is most Nigerians never get government handouts, the rich do. They shun the easiest way to make money. *

Foreign partners of our politicians and their business cronies will tell you there are four money generators in Nigeria – foreign contracts, Arm dealers, outdated security gadgets and violence. Each related and patronized to bleed Nigeria financially; and to death. Yet, these same hypocrites would usurp the protest of the masses as their grievance too. All their police might that cannot catch Boko and Islam Haram is used to kill protesters.

How do we get out of all this mess? The way we got into it. Unpopular 1996 DECREED Federal Government too powerful and ignored people’s wish for true confederation. We then created a honey pot at the center to attract looters. We have been rewarding the most virulent militants to the Government by military, religious and rebellious violence. Boko Haram, Islam Haram, MEND, OPC, MASSOB realize it and fight their way to power.

What is even more petrifying is how deep some of these militants have penetrated and were retained at the highest intelligence. The President of Nigeria was warned by no less a heavyweight than a former minister Ciroma predicting the calamity we find ourselves today. On the other hand, fingers were pointed at the President when he was Vice and another leader of the Army as Niger Delta commanders of terrorist groups. Both traditional political allies compete for power to undermine and expose each other by violence, as the blood of the innocent flows. *

Nigeria is sinking deeper into chaos. We prayed so many times that the Country does not turn into Lebanon. We even assured others that not a single Nigerian will die for a cause or money he cannot enjoy alive. The new wave of bombings from the South to the North where the innocents, students, babies and old people are killed and kidnapped bear an ugly face compared to twenty years ago, we would not imagine when warned. *

Nigeria is like that baby in some holy books that neo-colonialism is ready to cut into two for Christian and Islam, three for Indigenous religion or four for atheist as individual parents claimed this baby found in potentially rich African Continent. The only problem is that if this baby, as big as an elephant, is cut into two, it will die. As wished by those waiting to divide us. It is no more Nigeria as we know it with all the beautiful, colorful and highly endowed land. So what part of this beautiful baby elephant do you want?

Boko Haram wants the sharia part, Islam Haram wants the Christian part, MEND wants oil rich areas, MASSOB wants the Biafra area, OPC wants the Oduduwa area, and the politicians want foreign contracts in all areas. The only people that want the whole baby elephant are the silent majority of poor Nigerians that want no part of a dead baby and are willing to let the baby remain whole in whatever hand so that the baby can survive. They are too busy craving a living to survive in their Country without fear of deportation.

On the other hand, others want out, cry enough is enough, they just want out of Nigeria, but nowhere to go! None of them can define South, North, East or West amicably. No African country is big enough to accommodate Nigerians; and Europe, Asia and America have removed their welcome mats. Some of us blaming those groups for returning to a part of the Country must have a place for them to start all over again after prospering the only way they know. Nigeria belongs to all as long as we respect our hosts’ diversity.

Many are adamant that there is hardly anyone that loves Nigeria except those on selfish missions. So far desperados are winning and Nigeria is being torn apart. Each see a part of the baby elephant like blind men and describe the characteristic of each part. In the holy books, the mother that wanted the baby won. But Nigeria is far from holy land or books. It is made up of those few that are so selfish, their ways of nothing – dead baby.

There is no need to hide under religion Jihad and Crusade. It is about subjugation, not about Nigeria self-interest. Religion is supposed to instill the fear of God in us so that Good Faith and Fair Dealings with one another can be accomplished. Instead greedy wise men dominated others by calling their gods and people they respected in their foreign communities as the only God and the only way to that god is through them.

Africans bought it wholesale, actually by retail and interest paying for it with their blood. The hypocrisy of either Boko Haram or Islam Haram is the war to wipe out one another because one is foreign; when in fact none of them is indigenous to Africa or Nigerians in particular. How can you deliver Africa from foreign religion by tulasi when Crusade or Jihad as a mission is anathema to most African religious conversion as Obangidi or Sango?*

The picture of Christians at Iwo protecting the Muslims while praying is touching.

Solutions can be divided into immediate, mid-term and long-term.* Immediately, put pending foreign contracts on hold and send all politicians back to their constituencies to listen to grievances leading to peace as part-time law makers paid on days they work until further notice. Designate certain Federal buildings or Barracks as relief centers for victims of bloodsheds and finance them with the rest of politicians’ benefits. No more government recognition of religious rites, subsidies or sponsor to Mecca or Jerusalem.

On Mid-term – The cost of government must be reduced by making them permanent part-time politicians with allowances only for days spent at Abuja for accommodation and food. The same goes for all state governments. Politicians do not need to work more than four scattered months in a year. Develop and encourage local talents.* Go to Europe or America and ask school children what they are.* Our children must pledge allegiance to Nigeria BEFORE any country, any religion and taught how to appreciate made-In-Nigeria. All materials used and brought to schools must be made in Nigeria.

On the long-term – A true confederation and share of revenues must be decided as a goal to make the Federal Government less attractive as honey pot. Reduce the states to four regions and the states to local councils. Our educational system needs national guidelines to each of the four regions. Local talents that are suited and geared to our environment are the only useful brains. No matter how good a brain, if it cannot relate to our culture and development, it is a useless brain.

Nigerians want solutions to greed and senseless mayhem in our midst that is foreign to our culture and furtherance of our being for survival. It is an insult to claim we are still young in our democracy when Africa has never been short of civilized way of life to rule empires. If we do not know where we are going with acquired socialism, capitalism, theocracy or hierocracy, we need to look back into our culture for adaptation to today.

Farouk Martins Aresa

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/forum/take/67898-boko-islam-haram-government-care-less-about-our-issues.html

Africans Selling Out Africans In Africa Again By Farouk Martins Aresa

Posted: January 5, 2012 - 23:30

By Farouk Martins Aresa

Africans must wonder what the next generation is going to use to pay off the Chinese, the Europeans and the Americans. We are borrowing and spending on foreign contracts like drunken sailors and nobody listens to those that are crying that we are receding into another colonial future. It was the chiefs that sold us into slavery yesterday, it is the turn of the politicians today. While accumulating debts and paying some off with dwindling resources, they claimed it is for the future of our children while blind and selfish liars laugh to foreign banks.

Our taste for everything that looks unlike us or not made by us shows no limit. The politicians lead and create the consumption index. In those days Africans were selling gold in exchange for mirrors, today we are selling crude oil and losing highly trained graduates in exchange for foreign mega contract and jobs that have marginally contributed or improved our development since Independence. Until we have locally serviceable infrastructure and locally suited graduates to our problems, our industrial takeoff and job creation for our youth will lag behind.

Graduates of our institutions of learning and culture are the most vulnerable since they don’t reflect our thinking or philosophy towards life. It is perfectly acceptable for African universities to compete with foreign universities in sciences but our experiments and study groups do not have to be in the same laboratories. It does not have to be the same Bunsen burners or the same test tubes in elaborate laboratories built like those at (MIT) Massachusetts Institute of Technology. We do not have to go out of the tropics to learn about tropical diseases. Our best example is training lawyers in local cases, though they pledge vigorous defense for criminals.

Indeed universal intensively trained engineers, doctors and PhDs are more drawn to foreign countries, when less suitably trained can be better locally. The Russians or the Chinese did not pride or look up to foreign universities as the benchmark for their success but they do steal foreign ideas and adapt them to their own. Nobody is asking Africans to rediscover slice bread but a Continent that has been deprived of it intellectual abilities must meet and reconstruct its educational system and culture towards independent goals in solving its local problem.

Fortunately, the solutions are in our hands, not in our stars. Africans have never been short of men and women of ideas and philosophies even in this new century. Some of us were privileged to have read Fagunwa, Achebe, Soyinka, Albert Luthuli or Nkrumah, Zik, Awo, Bello, Mandela, Nyerere etc. But our educated scholars would rather quote Milton, Max, Adams, Churchill and others whose philosophies may be comparatively good but actually parallel to our indigenous culture. They propel their civilization to what it is today, not ours.

We are not short of thinkers even amongst our present professors and politicians. Since power of the politicians drives our budget it is skewed to consumption of others’ products and not to home grown or made materials from infancy to finished products. Watch our politicians talk, you wonder where their ideas have been hiding but put them in charge, they lapse into self-indulgence chasing foreign consumer materials creating foreign jobs while neglecting us.

Let us pick on Sule Sanusi, the Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria as an example. One would not believe this is a man in charge of foreign exchange devoted to consumption making foreign money available to every Bobo that wants to import anything. The address or presentations he makes are opposite, squarely preaching production encouragement in allocation of our foreign currency but in practice, Central Bank allocation is for consumption.


Of course he is not the only one, his comrades in this hypocrisy is none other than Ngozi Iweala and Segun Aganga, present and former ministers of Finance. Their whole brain, especially the finance ministers are fabricated in foreign countries and their only way to Nigeria’s deliverance is to take orders from World Bank and International Monetary Fund. They are rewarded by all sorts of prizes, praises and unreliable rating agencies as they milk Nigeria for foreign interest.

One would think since Nigeria has a highly home-educated President, his advisers would be biased towards indigenous solutions to our economic problems. No, he showed his complex by relying on a former Finance Minister that paid off odious loans and penalties from a poor African Country to the richest nations on earth. Mind you, American and British best brains do not work for these international bodies, unless they have been used, spent and retired. Indeed, some of their best brains were beaten in class by African students in their own countries.

Since independence if each of the ministers in African countries were given a mission and ordered a failure if they cannot develop it from infancy or from farm to finished product, Africa would be exporting products not humans, at least to other African countries if not outside. Take Nigeria as the leading producer of cassava, what will it take Sanusi to convince the President to institute a program from farms to supermarket or Iweala to turn our oil into finished product or Aganga to turn our cotton and milk into lace and table milk, instead of importing same.

Sule Sanusi made more sense than the other two even during his presentation supporting the removal of oil subsidies. Yet each of them think the best place to start is to ask poor people already saddled with wages nobody can live on, police check points and toll gates leading to higher transportation fare, soaring food prices and dismal infrastructure on the shoulders of the poor to bear the brunt of oil subsidy removal. Cowards cannot face their colleagues first, so they ask poor people for more sacrifice that does not make as much dent as bleeders of coffers.

If Sanusi, Iweala and Aganga are so smart and daring, they could have demanded sacrifices from those powerful politicians and the highest paid civil servants to slash their privileges than create foreign contracts. By the time it reaches the poor folks to sacrifice the subsidy on oil, at least they would have been satisfied that the cabals that corner the subsidies have disgorged their loot. Oh no. The poor must pay first and keep on paying. They cannot dare those that sabotage Nigerian refineries and import took picks, it is the poor people they can dare.

They blame the attitude of Nigerians for preferring foreign products but never accepted the fact that those Nigerians copy and follow their tastes. Monkey see monkey
do. It is easier to say oil subsidy is not sustainable than to say foreign monies that is not printed in Nigeria cannot be available to frivolous consumptive tastes. Foreign reserve is spent as if it is easily replaceable. When in fact, all they care about is how much they can divert into their pockets before it is exhausted. We are selling ourselves out.

I do not understand why people are hiding behind taxes to wreck havoc on Lagosians. It has been said that the only government presence in that part of Lekki was the school built by Jakande years ago. People pay for their own security, water, electricity and now they have to pay to leave and get back into their houses. Na wo o.

With all the taxes, Fashola/Tinubu has generated more debt than the devil itself. How many grand and great grandchildren will it take to pay them off after Fashola/Tinubu are dead and gone? You do not cut your nose to spite your face in the name of taxes.

Omo Akotileta,

I was hoping and wishing you spill around me, which you just did. If you are a Lagosian at all, it is by way of Iragbiji.

However, this is not only about Lagosians, as the writer noted, it is about all Nigerians living in Lagos. I do not know how old you are but in those days Lagosians welcomed everyone. Any stranger that arrived in Lagos in the morning would be fed, clothed and given a roof before the end of the day. That was a common saying you never heard, anyway. Sorry folks, things have changed, everyone strives in the land of plenty these days.

Lagos has a unique opportunity to showcase Nigeria. During the time of the British, Ikoyi was it. It was Lagosians and other Nigerians that rivaled it with Victoria Island. You wont know that, both places are in disrepute in your time. Why, no services like PWD. You do not know the meaning of PWD, do you.

For those that do not know, Nigerians living in Lagos knew they had a duty to pay taxes. Indeed, if you are caught without paying, you lose more. But then we could see what taxes did. The aliens from Iragbiji have perfected tax collection into their pockets.

With or without Nigeria, Awolowo collected taxes in the West and Jakande collected taxes in Lagos, we witnessed what they did. But in Nigeria where everyone is blind, conspicous shows with maximum press of Tinubu/Fashola is the talk of the day and the one eye-man is the king.

Ekoile, you and your mentors will choke on that  university fees and tolls you collect. Watch!

Eko Ile:
Oloshi. Only a mad dog blames  our national problems  that's been manifesting since  independence one a many who just took  office a little over 4g years ago.

Is fashola the president of nigeria? Is he the only leaders and governor in nigeria? 

What's next ? Fashola is responsible for the air you breath too?



What a bunch  of  ignorant re, tards funny animals indeed.

This is what we are talking about. Pray, please pray that ignorance does not kill some people.

You do not know Jankade houses, small fishing villages and some inadequate shelters exist in, around and after your mentor toll gates?

Even if they don't, people are no longer free to come out and go back into their houses without paying toll taxes, and if they decide to go home on lunch, break or for fun without paying head taxes?

We are still waiting for one of you to mention the city and country where tolls are put in residential areas. Oh I remember a few local bridges made by neighbors around Eric Moore and Orile some years back. During raining seasons, there are human carrier that will also transport you from one side to another. Is that where your mentors got their ideas?

Where is that guy that cursed with Sango and Ogun again?

Akainzo:
Tell me all the people earning minimum wage of 18K per month live along the Lekki-Epe expressway?

It is this mad dog and call-boy-girl asss- licking named Eko-Ile that drives people crazy. He is well paid to behave that way while others are speaking from pain caused by greed of their politicians.

Read the article again and tell me how those on minimum wage or less with a working wife to make ends meet pay that wage on toll because they have an old jalopy to go find daily bread for their family.

The guy on another thread that was cursing with thunder and all sort was reprimanded because people do not understand the deepness of his pain. If the same guy manage to secure AK-41 and stated shooting people on Boudillon, they will respect him and negotiate with him like Niger Delta and Boko Haram. So what if he cursed? Can anyone cure his pain?

My only fear is that innocents will suffer in the next Agbekoya revolt.

This is why Nigerians need to wipe out leeches and their cronies.

See how they turn solid points upside down. Even using Moses. Moses took the children of God out of slavery. Fashola/Tinubu are selling Lagosians and their children into perpetual slavery. Can either of them pay off their debt or they are leaving it for the next generation to pay. Which next generation are going to pay. The ones without jobs or prospects or education today or imported investors that will pay what average Nigerians cannot.

Heear them talk about class when middleclass has been wipe out of the Country. Compare the salary, even the minimum wage of 18k to what these few tiny class are making. Bunch of bastards.

If Tinubu can, he will be glad to put toll on Boudillon to shake money out of his neighbors just as the Mafias do. Yet none of his cronies can tell us where in the world, tolls are put in residential neighborhoods, at the gate of your house, on existing roads or estate.

FINANCIAL CRIME HUNTERS CANNOT EVEN CATCH A MOUSE
07/12/2011 22:03:00 THEWILL

The story of Nigeria crime hunters is a sorry situation for those youths that are going to inherit an empty Country. There is no other way to explain a den of rats that are so fat, even the big cats back off. If it was the absence of cats that rats are taking advantages of, some of us can understand. This is a far worse situation in a country called Nigeria.

Where else do politicians, bankers and their cronies steal until loots start drooling from their mouth, even red-handed and they still go scot-free in the land of milk and honey? Oh, it gets worse my friends. If they get a slap on the wrist with the help of Senior Advocates of Nigeria and spend their little time in some cottage hospital, they throw a big party with the blessing of the Church and Mosque for how much money they have been able to retain.

Something has gone rotten in the land of African warriors that swear by the new forms of religion bestowed on us that looters can be forgiven for destroying the comfort and happiness of their fellow countrymen and women. Before we blame religion, the charity starts from our homes that have chosen looters as heroes of the day. Our children worship them and they help themselves to whatever they want amongst us. No questions asked.

We saw Bode George of Lagos State celebrate his home coming and lately Yekini Amoda Ogunlere alia Tinubu vowing to get even with the Federal Government by trying him unsuccessfully for violation of ethics for some foreign accounts opened while he was governor of Lagos State. Haba! How many times are they going to clear Tinubu again and again?

Tinubu has more money than God and everyone knows how he made the money but he has challenged anyone to prove that he stole a kobo! After all, he was cleared by Nuhu Ribadu that had claimed his looting was of international proportion. As soon as Ribadu became a politician, he backed off. Not only did he back off, he gave Tinubu a clean bill of health in exchange for a run as a presidential candidate of ACN. Abi, no be so?

In order to turn the sensitive stomach of those of us that can only catch small rat on the street that is unfortunate to be so poor and had to steal to feed a hungry belly, the fat rat that dares the big cat rode into Lagos in an open car with people singing his praise and congratulating him for his success at the Federal court since: they can’t touch this!

Oh heavens, where is Boko Haram when we them most. These unguarded youths and cleaner of rut have been distracted to become religious zealots instead of cleaning up the mess in our society. The fact that anyone, no matter how fat a rat; can loot above and beyond their heads, and come out, to celebrate is the beginning of Sodom and Gomorrah. Where is our conscience, our decency and pride as a Nation?

Nigeria is falling and tearing into pieces, not because we cannot unite as some people will like to fool us into believing; it is the injustice to steal the Country blind and get away with it that hails us ladies and gentlemen. We are imploding by the amount of resources we loot and give away to foreigners that help looters transact foreign exchange we can never have enough of.

The most patriotic Nigerians are the common people on the street that have given up on any services but have decided to labor on their own to provide for their family. The more they work, the harder it is to make ends meet. The politicians beg them to wait a little longer and in a very short time the people will live in paradise. They know they are liars buying time to loot some more. Even those that had their chances only to run the Country down wondering why it still survives want another chance.

They know that no matter how many times they make it back and whatever they loot, Nigerians will never punish them. Indeed, Nigerians will celebrate with them. There are no deterrents in our dear Country. The more you steal the greater the chances of getting away with it. Just as every dog has its day, every financial crime hunter has its price for now.

Watch, just watch cronies come out smoking defending their gods for pittance knowing their bag of rice will only last a month. For each of these ass lickers are others, asking how they can join them before they starve to death. Politicians have studied them and never give them enough to live on so that they can always come back for more.

Nigerians will turn anything to their advantage, like the rule of law to stay out of jail and civilized way of life to spend the loot on while stepping into gutter from their mansions. We have been fooled with increase in minimum wage as if it will buy us what we need to keep body and soul together. So if they pay us a minimum wage of 18,000 naira or even more, it can never buy us adequate food or shelter. The difference in income gap between the lowest and the highest ten percent is worst in developing countries. In Nigeria, it could be worse than 50 to 1 they have in Brazil while American youths Occupy Wall Street for 14 to 1.

Why? Nigeria is a developing poor Country, though with great potentials fretted away. The cost of food, goods and services increase with wage increase as if we live in a developed country. The cost of living is so high, even those developed countries will rather open factories in Asia where the cost of living is low and they can pay comparatively higher wages than the locals. So we have Europeans and Americans patronizing Indian and Singapore factories, hospitals and hotels as in tourism where their money goes further.

Our politicians do the same and more because they have money they do not work for and they are ready to spend it in Japan where cost of living is high or Arab countries where everything is subsidized. The problem is foreigners will tell you there is a lot of money to be made in Nigeria as long as you can hold your nose. They are welcomed by our politicians since the only projects they delve into are those with foreign exchange.

Tinubu is a typical example of what is wrong with our dear Country. The filthy rich can pay our high prices but ordinary Nigerians cannot. When was the last time friends join together to kill a cow or the last time ordinary people kill a ram for festival?

Written by Farouk Martins Aresa.

AGENTS OF THE RICH FLEECING DEAR COUNTRY TO DEAD

Nigeria Village Square

Africans have many ways of communications one of which is the Yoruba proverb that caution against the fleecing of dog that ends up killing both the dog and the flea. Ipa npa re, olohun npa aja. Before a revolution, we always witness celebration of greed in the high places while the working class is admonished for being poor because they are stupid and lazy. Indeed, many poor people spend so much of their time working two or three jobs, they hardly have time to think about how to milk the system. Yet, politicians and their agents demand more sacrifice from us.

They want to bring recurrent expenditure down by one hundred basis points per year in four years. In other words, by 4% in four years, just don’t get the rich mad. Ebele, if that is the radical change you promised for our future, you have started on the wrong foot. There are people like Nigerian trained Obiageli Ezekwesili ready to rock the boat you promised in Nigeria. Politicians may not agree with her echoing our voices on governors diverting local government allocation or Lamido Sanusi on jumbo salaries of politicians. We are waiting for Africa super-rich especially in Nigeria where billions are known stolen every day to hit them radically where it hurts, not hit the poor again and again.

Nigeria paid billions of dollars to Paris Club in interest and penalty that dwarf a loan the Country hardly needed then or now. In spite of OXFAM, Church of England, members of United States Congress and many respectable local and foreign economists crying out against powerful and rich countries taking such enormous amount from a poor African country, accomplices in World Bank worked out a deal, their greatest accomplishment, that made Nigeria paid more than we ever paid since the days of slavery.

We are in the days of greed is good because it is motivating and it is built on economic principle that has demonstrated the superiority of capitalist system of government. In order to be as successful, they must preach to Africa countries to move into the new millennium or perish. A fraction of their profit is calculated as foreign aid, development assistance, arms, genetically modified agricultural seed that can only be reproduced by big international corporations and foreign expatriates also bring them back huge profit. The suckers of these foreign aids see it as a welcomed development for Africa. None of all the aids combined to Africa is up to a billion of all the billions they took from Nigeria.

These same accomplices worked for World Bank, IMF and other International Thief Thief when they asked African countries to devalue our money. Africa middle-class has never recovered while IMF regretted, the accomplices, enemy within, kept quiet. There is a big complex in Africa that if you worked for international companies you must be better than those local economists from African universities; they will never listen to anyway. It does not mean all local economists are pure since we still remember respectable Mr. Ani, head of Peat Marwick that taught Abacha how to hide his loot. Another Nigerian President looking for foreign miracle, called one of the accomplices back again for encore, asking poor Nigerians for more sacrifice. What about shared sacrifice?

Segun Aganga and Okonjo-Iweala never emulate super rich billionaires in United States of America led by Warren Buffet that came out with conscience asking President Obama to ignore the no tax mongers because they are ready to share the sacrifices with the middle and working-class. The L’Oreal heiress Lillian Bettencourt of France also led her super rich colleagues declaring their willingness to pay a special contribution. More of the super-rich in other countries may follow. Of course there are people that will say the smart ones amongst the super-rich are being proactive before revolution starts, so that the unruly angry mobs will know which of the rich volunteered to pay more and which of them are scrooges. If foreign accomplices asking only the poor for sacrifice worked “miracles” for Obasanjo, it must work “miracles” for Ebele, abi no be so?

African leaders, politicians and business men and women always chose the rich outside the Continent to copy even when they leave their people in abject poverty. So it is not unlike them to compare their profit, salaries and loot to others as if they live and make their money there. Recently, Tea party politicians have made a name for themselves as selfish extremists willing to do anything to make a buck including bringing the Country down; hidden as tax breaks when tax is the lowest in generation in US. Watch World Bank, IMF and other International Thief Thief economists following the US Tea Party. Don’t get the rich mad. It is only the poor that can be asked to sacrifice.

Every country has law against aiding and abetting and receiving stolen property. But many banks in developed countries specialized in it while the law enforcements turn a blind eye to such crime even when they know enormous amount of money is coming from poor developing countries. While it is true that the super major international companies and rich also establish headquarters outside their countries to beat the tax system; poor countries suffer most from such practice. No accomplice researched that?

Rich people made countries poor by shedding their responsibilities for shared sacrifice. In Greece people do business under the table to avoid tax and the rich hide their money. While it is true that younger generation supporting the older generation social security and healthcare ratio calls for some creative modification, the developing countries have more than enough young population that are left uncared for. The only similarity is the greed of the politicians using that excuse to deny services in order to launder money.

Jobs creation is not a slogan, 100 basis points cannot create jobs. There is no choice, it is either massive job creation or another recession that will dislocate political parties, families and countries never seen since the depression. This is beyond ethnic ideology or political leaning except those deceiving themselves ready to kill a country with their greed as long as they gain power to allocate more financial resources to their pockets. By creating jobs either by government or business, demand for products and services is increased and more taxes are collected to take care of the young and old that spend all.

Greed is back in a big way. As the income gap between the rich and the poor widens, those fortunate enough to be born to the right parents, places and time think their achievement is through hard work, while others are losers that would not pull up themselves by their bootstraps. Never mind those without straps or boots. So the saying goes like if you work hard, no matter where your area code, zip code, postal code, postcode or location, you can make it. But we know quality of life depends on location.

Anyone that discourages hard work is a fool but a bigger fool is the one born with a silver spoon that derides those with born wooden spoon in their mouth. Sometimes the rich forget where they make their profit. If they do not increase middle-class, purchasing power and sell to the working-class in great numbers, they do not have demand and if there is no demand, they cannot make a profit. Even the rich that make money by trading in money and other creative financial transaction need the invested pension, savings, banking credit cards, loans and mortgages of the working–class. If they fleece dear country to death, there is nothing to go after but one another.

Farouk Martins Aresa

SOME WOMEN ARE NOT CUT OUT TO BE A WIFE

Women are usually more mature and smarter than men in spite of what many think. But most men want their gut instinct about a woman to be right. If they think she is a good girl, they want to give her the benefit of doubt in spite of suspicious evidence to the contrary. In the case of women, they can spot irresponsible men from a distant, no matter how he hides it. It is different from falling in love with a bad boy, which is a choice. They already know what is in store for them, though may wish they can change him.

Irresponsible men are easier to identify as a young person but harder to spot a girl that everyone expects to be a good wife and mother. Indeed, there are certain women that are attracted to irresponsible men they call bad boys. Many of them may do well in life as long as they do not turn to illegal activities. Some of them are even married to the best wives anyone can wish for and no amount of pressure will keep them away from those bad boys.

There are men and women that always get into bad relationships no matter how many times they try. A few are so well known and people can predict how long the relationship is going to last. In some communities, investigations are made before marriage in order to avoid a philanderer. In spite of that, some marriages break because we hate to see or accept the facts right before our eyes. We are not talking about relationships that break because of bad economic situation both partners have no control over. It is about being tied down as a wife.

As for young men, they know the party girls in school that flirt with everyone and party all night. If you end up with her, do not blame anyone if she refuses to shed old skin. Others girls forget about fun old days and may decide to settle down because she already had her fill. Take home a lady your mother will be proud of. The amount of divorce amongst young people is nothing to be happy about because of the consequences on the children.

Older men thinking they have advantage with money, have been warned to be careful after divorce or separation when looking for another wife, especially in the younger ladies. Women are much better as a friend sometimes than turning them into wives. There are certain distance that command respect as a friend than becoming husband and wife. Friendships are much better to handle than unrealistic expectations that must be fulfilled in a second marriage. Fortunately many women that are not cut out to be a wife prefer it that way too.

It is not only men that cannot be a good husband and father, there are laws to make them pay if they leave a woman pregnant and bare footed. Unfortunately so are some women that are not cut out to be a wife. There is a difference though, most women are good mothers no matter what they are to their husbands. The problem lay on the expectation of family and friends in the community. If community requires most women to get married, parents do not want their daughters and friends out for fear of being odd. Yet, many good women cannot find a good man.

Unlike some men bolting out of family responsibility, some women that are not comfortable being a wife can be hard working, responsible and in some cases catering for men and their children. Most of the symptoms are there early for women but families and friends keep on hoping that these women will change. There are cases where even the women struggle to be a good wife trying to be what is expected of them. Others try to have it both ways: a good wife while philandering like some men. While many can be discrete, others have affairs close by.

It is like the case of natural homosexual that family and friends try to cure with medical means or prayer. Usually, it is a misdirected effort in futility. Just as we have come to tolerate a man philanderer, we may have to let a woman, not cut out to be a wife, be herself instead of fooling their husbands, friends and family. We have to understand that a compulsive behavior require more than community norm to cure if that behavior is not illegal. The husband or wife has to realize that no matter what, the spouse will not change and it may be better to move on.

The same is not true about women that are not cut out to be a wife. Many men like them as girlfriends from a distance or on the other side but never a center of their life. There are men that are willing to marry an ugly girl as long as they know she is a good girl but others marry a pretty girl that gives them reason to being wary. The problem is that other men thinking like them may like the same ugly woman for the same reason. Being beautiful or ugly has little to do with being faithful. Every woman is endowed in some ways. Until you try, may not discover it.

There are cases, where friends and relatives are deadly against the choice of a man because they know the woman either for some reputation or suspicion. When a man is in love, he hardly listens until he finds out what others know. In cases where others keep what they know from him, the joke is on his head. By the time a man terminates the relationship, it could be out of shame because of what others know or out of disappointment.

A couple had an argument and the wife, a home maker told the husband a physician, that he knew that she would not normally marry a man below her like him. Puzzled by the argument, further information revealed that the lady was a high class girl at parties of the rich and famous before she married him. He was warned not to marry her but he rejected their advice. He might have been right to marry her based on the promise the lady made to forget her past.

This could have been a lady that was not cut out to be a wife but forced herself into that role based on family, friends and community pressure. Fortunately for her, she stayed in the role of a good wife, travelled out of the country and came back with her husband. By the time she got older and could no more be in demand as a party girl, she was glad with the decision she made and lucky with her choice of man.

These stories of women not cut out to be wives do not usually end up being rosy. By the time good time party girl realizes she has to settle down, time has gone. But then if she is a cash madam, toys boys are also available to fit into her life style. In that case, there is no loser. The family and friends just have to understand that just as some men are philanderers, there are some women created that way too.



Source: Farouk Martins Aresa
Story from The Nigerian Voice News:
http://www.thenigerianvoice.com/nvnews/58450/1/some-women-are-not-cut-out-to-be-a-wife.html

Published: Wednesday, August 17, 2011