₦airaland Forum

It is enough that he led his life in the path of  truth and light. I believe anyone that does this will go to a better place. Many good people in this world are not Christians. Christ by his life shines the way. Not every one need be a christian to go to heaven.

The golden rule is to do unto others as you will want others to do unto you. That is the law, the entire law. All the rest is commentary.

kadman:
I asked him the same in a previous post, and somehow I don't think it would be 20 pages of condolences. . .
Really, you are right. This is food for thought on how we relate to people when we are alive.

Particularly on NL.
Bawo's family can go through his posts on NL and be proud of him. And this is coming from a not frequent NLer.[quote author=duduspace

A legislators should be a part time job. They should be seated no more than 60 days a year. The more they meet the bigger the damages done to the nation. We need part-time legislators that will be paid only seating allowances. This system is ruinous and unsustainable and will inevitably lead the military to come back. It is a matter of time. The system is broken from foundation.

Legislators should be a part time job. They should be seated no more than 90 days a year. The more they meet the bigger the damages done to the Nation. Greeks and Romans were part time lawmakers and so are the American large states like Texas and Michigan with California to follow soon.

We need part-time legislators that will be paid only seating allowances. This system is unsustainable and will inevitably lead the military to come back.

2011: US investigations threaten Atiku’s chances
Written by Taiwo Adisa and Yejide Gbenga-Ogundare
Monday, 29 November 2010

ALLEGATIONS linking former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar to money laundering and unwholesome financial practices that could be the albatross that would deny the former number two man the ambition of becoming Nigeria’s president in 2011 have been revealed by Lagos-based The NEWS magazine.

The magazine, in its current edition which hit the market on Sunday, quoted the details of the report of the US Committee on Homeland Security which indicted Abubakar as being responsible for the laundering of over $40 million (about N6 billion) into the United States illegally.

The magazine indicated that the investigations carried out on Abubakar and other African leaders by the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security in a report entitled “Keeping Foreign Corruption Out of the United States” could serve as a hinderance to Abubakar’s ambition in 2011.

According to the magazine in the edition with the headline: “Atiku’s Chances: His problems with America,” dated December 6, 2010, the former vice-president was listed among the four case studies of persons who allegedly laundered “illicit” funds to the US.

The report which Executive Summary was initially made public after a public hearing by the US Senate Committee headed by Senator Carl Levin on February 4, 2010, listed Abubakar among the four persons tagged ‘Politically Exposed Persons’(PEP), who were used as case studies.

Others in the PEP category, including Atiku, are Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mange, sonof the president of Equitorial Guinea; president of Gabon, Omar Bongo and three PEPs from Angola.

The PEPs, according to the report, used US-based lawyers, lobbyists, escrow agents, real estate, bankers, as well as university workers to circumvent the US anti-corruption safe guards and launder funds into the country.

This act, the reprt claimed, had a corrosive effect on its rule of law, economic development and democratic principles.

On his part, Alhaji Abubakar was alleged to have, through his fourth wife, Ms Jennifer Douglas, a citizen of the US, moved $40 million  in suspect funds to the United States between 2000 and 2008 through wire transfers sent by off shore corporations to US bank accounts.

In addition, the US Securities and Exchange Commission had received civil complaints in 2008, alleging that Douglas  received “over $2.8 million in bribe payments in 2001 and 2002 from Siemens AG, a German firm, to bribe Nigerian officials.”

According to the report, another $2.1 million was transferred by wire through Edward Weirdenfeld, a US lawyer, who represented Douglas, Abubakar and the American University of Nigeria owned by the former vice-president.

Though, the lawyer claimed that the transaction was for the Abubakar family legal expenses for setting up the university and he assumed that the funds came from the former vice-president.

The list of money laundering allegations against the presidential aspirant included funds allegedly laundered through some American banks, including Citibank, Eagle bank, Chevy Chase, Suntrust Bank, and Wachovia Bank.

At Citibank in Maryland, Jennifer Atiku was alleged to have opened 18 different accounts, which included personal checking accounts, a home equity account, three accounts in the name of her organi-sation, Gede Foundation and two extra personal checking accounts that were later expanded for the AUN and Jennifer herself.

These accounts were said to be used to bring in $20 million suspect funds through the bank into the US.

In addition, she was said to have maintained three Citibank credit card accounts, three for herself and Abubakar and one for Gede Foundation.

The report alleged that Jennifer lived like a king, paying credit card bills and household expenses in the range of $10, 000 to $90,000 monthly, including hefty legal and financial fees.

The magazine further reported that when she was questioned, she claimed the wires she received were from her husband and were proceeds from his personal business in Nigeria, adding that she received income from Gede, in addition to an agreed yearly bonus of $50,000.

When allegations of a US inquiry on his person was recently published by the Saturday Tribune, his media manager, Mallam Garba Shehu, said such allegations were aimed at stopping the presidential ambition of Atiku.

http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/14037-2011-us-investigations-threaten-atikus-chances

By SaharaReporters, New York
A United States Senate report has accused Atiku Abubakar, Nigeria’s former Vice-President, of laundering over $40 million in suspicious funds into the United States between 2000 and 2008. And his partner in the lucrative effort was Jennifer Douglas, his fourth wife.  Ms. Douglas is sometimes known as Lady Jamilah Jennifer, or Douglas E, or Jennifer Iwenjora, the name by which she was known in the 1980s when she was a reporter with the Nigeria Television Authority in Lagos.

According to the report, which was written by the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations, most of the funds were through wire transfers sent by offshore corporations to U.S. bank accounts.

Of the $40 million identified in the US investigation, $25 million was reportedly wire-transferred by offshore corporations into more than 30 U.S. bank accounts opened by Ms. Douglas, primarily by Guernsey Trust Company Nigeria Ltd., LetsGo Ltd. Inc., and Sima Holding Ltd.

“In a 2008 civil complaint, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission alleged that Ms. Douglas received over $2 million in bribe payments in 2001 and 2002, from Siemens AG, a major German corporation,” the report says.  “While Ms. Douglas denies wrongdoing, Siemens has already pled (pleaded) guilty to U.S. criminal charges and settled civil charges related to bribery and told the Subcommittee that it sent the payments to one of her U.S. accounts.

  The report also recalls the 2006/2007 corruption brouhaha in Nigeria between Abubakar and then President Olusegun Obasanjo over the Petroleum Technology Development Fund.  At that time, both a government panel and an Economic and Financial Crimes Commission panel found Atiku guilty of diverting funds meant for the Fund's operations nationwide to various banks to promote his private interests.  Obasanjo dismissed his own extensive gains from the account as pointed out by Abubakar as mere "gifts" over which he had no control.

The report goes on: “The U.S. banks maintaining those accounts were, at times, unaware of her PEP (Politically Exposed Person) status, and they allowed multiple, large offshore wire transfers into her accounts. As each bank began to question the offshore wire transfers, Ms. Douglas indicated that all of the funds came from her husband and professed little familiarity with the offshore corporations actually sending her money. When one bank closed her account due to the offshore wire transfers, her lawyer helped convince other banks to provide a new account.

”In addition, two of the offshore corporations wire transferred about $14 million over five years to American University in Washington, D.C., to pay for consulting services related to the development of a Nigerian university founded by Mr. Abubakar. American University accepted the wire transfers without asking about the identity of the offshore corporations or the source of their funds, because under current law, the University had no legal obligation to inquire.”
The Full On Jennifer Atiku's Money Laundering By The US Permanent Committee on Investigations here
http://www.saharareporters.com/sites/default/files/uploads/JEAtiku.pdf

http://www.saharareporters.com/news-page/us-atiku-abubakar-40-million-money-laundering-accusation-wife-jennifer

Legislators should be a part time job. They should be seated no more than 90 days a year. The more they meet the bigger the damages done to the Nation. Greeks and Romans were part time lawmakers and so are the American large states like Texas and Michigan with California to follow soon.

http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae/Pressreleases/casedocuments/us_v_jefferson/20090123_opinion_letterofrogatory.pdf

President Atiku's US visit should be interesting

mbulela:
which kind e-threat be dat?

No threat. I'm no Jonathan fan. It is easy to see how groups already on the margin will want to capitalise if Jonathan is denied.

Philip Emeagwali: In validation of Farooq Kperogi

Sonala Olumhense
November 12, 2010
Someone once asked Sammy Davis Junior, the late American performer and actor, what fame had meant to him.

“Being famous,” he replied, “has meant going to get insulted where the average black man could never hope to go and get insulted.”

Reading the responses to Farooq Kperogi’s “Intellectual 419: Philip Emeagwali and Gabriel Oyibo Compared,” reminds me that the Internet may well prove, for the Nigerian commentator, the racist America of Sammy Davis’ time.I have never met Mr. Kperogi.  But he is a younger man I read partly to improve my English.  As an Esan man [which is in Edo State, for those who accuse me of hailing from the South-East, or the deep West or the Chad Basin North], I recognize that when you have lived in the wilderness for as long as I have, you must be careful your writing has not transited into Ebonics—or Edonics.  Mr. Kperogi’s excellent English language skills provide guidance.  And he charges nothing and makes no outrageous claims.

In last Sunday’s article, Mr. Kperogi chose one of the biggest lightening rods in all of Nigeria: Mr. Emeagwali, the Nigerian who single-handedly pulled Nigeria into the information age in 1989.  I hope Mr. Kperogi was wearing his flak jacket, as most of the debris has been aimed at his person rather than his testimony.

The temptation to lash out on the Internet is becoming a lifestyle.  Everyone owns a keyboard now, and it seems when people observe that blinking cursor in front of them—especially when they are wearing a mask—few can resist filling it with it with acid.

But a keyboard is not the same as argumentation.  Writing is not the same as reasoning.  The object of writing, unless you are a reporter, is to persuade.  Anger may sometimes be useful in the writing process, but it is a unhelpful emotion: difficult to channel into persuasiveness or even coherence.  Insult and abuse speak louder about the insulter than the insulted.

I do not know much about computers, but in 1986, three years before Mr. Emeagwali’s giant leap, I had bought my first computer, an Amstrad system.  It was so rudimentary it lacked a hard drive.  But although I often needed the permission of the National Electric Power Authority to use it, it opened my eyes to the wonders ahead in information technology.

And then Mr. Emeagwali came cruising.

When I first heard about the technological exploits of this gentleman, my heart almost burst through my chest.  To learn about a Nigerian so accomplished he had been able to programme over 65,000 computers harmoniously was not only a vindication of the brilliance buried deep in the earth of Africa, I thought, it was a warning to the world we were coming.

That sparkling moment, unfortunately, has yielded little more than controversy since then in terms of the significance of the event and the ways Mr. Emeagwali subsequently tried to maximize it.  There is no doubting Mr. Emeagwali’s brilliance: the final question is: Was he a moment or a phenomenon?  Is he a shooting star or a wax statue?

Nobody can take away Mr. Emeagwali’s 1989 achievement away from him.  Indeed, I do not think anyone has tried to take it away from him, and he has made sure that that is impossible by recounting the feat again and again.

The problem is that Mr. Emeagwali appears never to have left that milestone or risen from it.  In retrospect, he seems to have remained transfixed at that road intersection admiring it—or crushed by it.  His critics say:

•He did not take a Ph.D, although he claims or encourages people to call him “Doctor” or “Professor;”
•On the basis of that 1989 event, he cast himself as the “father of the Internet,” and then, under pressure, as “a father of the Internet,” meaning that he overinflated his place in, and the value of, his contribution to that giant stride in technology;
•His claims of 41 patents are false;
•The good things the world says about Mr. Emeagwali loop back to Mr. Emeagwali’s carefully-manipulated public relations machinery, using the Internet.
This argument has returned with renewed ferocity in the past month.  For purposes of clarity, I take sides with Mr. Emeagwali’s critics, for two reasons.

The first is that although we seem to be throwing names around, the issue is really about principle.  In my world, you do not permit people to insult your father’s name, as Mr. Emeagwali has, without reacting.  This has nothing to do with race or nationality or epoch: you hit back with ferocious abandon so as to assert you are whom you say you are.

You do not own your father’s name; you borrow it from him in order to pass it on to the next generation.  But history is replete with evidence that before handing it to their children, some people change the spelling of the name; others choose to repaint it.  Some people shine it to a glitter while some others gamble with it.  Some people spit on it and leave it in a house of disrepute while others engage in mud-wrestling with it.

In my assessment, in 1989, Mr. Emeagwali took his father’s name to the roof of the world and burnished it in gold.  The question is what he did with it after that, particularly when nobody was looking.  Those who say Mr. Emeagwali should not defend himself are asking him to go on a drunken jaywalk on a highway and leave the job of preserving his life to strangers that are driving through at high speed.

The second reason I have taken sides against my former hero is that the Internet, of which everyone is now a citizen, used to be a distant country.  Originally, that distant land was visited only by a few—“been-tos,” as we call them in Nigeria—one of whom was Mr. Emeagwali.  To be fair, it is difficult to be humble about a place only you or a few have been.  That is why a “been-to” would usually bring back amazing stories that got embellished as he “recalled” more.

But the Internet did not remain the ultimate distant country: before our very eyes, it became possible for everyone to visit.  Worse still, it proved impossible for early visitors to erase their exploits in that land or edit their exaggerated stories.   Mr. Emeagwali, it is clear, did exaggerate a few impressions he not only benefitted from, but which he then found difficult to eliminate.  He therefore owes a debt of humility, not to me or anyone else, but to posterity.  You may be a scientist or a banker or a lawyer, but it does not pay to provide anyone with reason to question your credibility—unless you know that the answer is more dangerous than the question.

The danger is that when you leave your public relations machinery to the wisdom of the mob, their wisdom is your destiny.  That is why many of the people who are defending Mr. Emeagwali on the web inflict more harm on him than he is accused of.  Nigerians have a habit, when they lack an argument or see an idle cursor, of ignoring the substance in pursuit of the motive.  They seek hidden agendas and comfortable clichés, or try to rephrase the question so that it becomes one they are more comfortable with.  They discredit the writer without doing credit to the facts.

Sometimes, they may not even read the material.  Recently, a man who disliked one of my articles wrote to insult my family, calling me “Nama.”  I wrote back, patiently explaining why he was wrong.  He then apologized, confessing that he had only read a few lines of my article when he melted down!

One of the most powerful “arguments” in popular discourse in Nigeria today is the Ph.D [Pull Him Down].  Thus a man never falls: he is “pulled down.” You are accused of pulling down a crook that has been ethically prostrate his entire life.  You are accused of writing not because your subject is a forger or an impostor or a despoiler or an election-rigger, but because you are “jealous.”

What I am saying is that the possession of a keyboard or the ability to hit the “Send” button does not an argument make, although it may sound that way.  In the marketplace of ideas, you persuade a man through the information you present and the originality or sophistication of your argument.   To look at some of the personal attacks on Mr. Kperogi and all who have called Mr. Emeagwali fraudulent is to observe a lynching, like the KKK baying for the blood of a man whose crime is not the inferiority of his intellect but the colour of his blood.  Insult only wins an argument for those who lack the smarts for intellectual combat.

I do not think anyone hates Mr. Emeagwali, but there is reason to hate his pretensions, and only he can define his defence—or offence.  It is unlikely he has one stronger than what his wife, herself operating behind a mask, has offered so far.  If he truly wants to be fair to the battered image of Nigeria, he ought to be humble enough to clear his throat and start at the beginning.  It is an awful image under which every Nigerian, especially those abroad, labour, and his silence is a contribution to the bloody toll.

Mr. Emeagwali has lived abroad for a long time, and he knows better than most that where the distant country was once a great hiding place, there really is no hiding place anymore.  For as long as Nigerians are identified with Advance Fee Fraud, a man’s name is all he can really defend, if he cares.

His fatherland will defend itself.

•sonala.olumhense@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/sonala-olumhense/philip-emeagwali-in-validation-of-farooq-kperogi.html

Government to investigate Emeagwali
By Musikilu Mojeed


November 8, 2010 12:19AM





The Nigerian government will investigate allegations of fraudulent claims levelled against Nigerian United States-based scientist, Philip Emeagwali, the Minister of Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, has said.

NEXT had in a report on Sunday quoted some leading American scientists as describing Mr. Emeagwali’s claim that he was a father of the Internet as misleading.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Mrs. Akunyili said the allegations against Mr Emeagwali were weighty and disturbing and would have to be thoroughly investigated.

Mr. Emeagwali is among Nigerians that Mrs. Akunyili showcased to the world in the government’s effort to improve the country’s image.

The Nigeria Postal Service, which is directly under the minister’s supervision, has also put the embattled scientist on the Nigerian stamp.

“The allegations are unbelievable, but we cannot jump to conclusion,” the minister said. “Our government is a responsible one and so, we cannot disregard what has been published. We will pierce information together and if necessary, we will invite him to say his own side of the story. He is our son. When they tell you your child is a thief, you can’t just jump up and start celebrating. You will have to find out and establish the truth.”

Mrs. Akunyili said the government cannot afford to make mistakes on such a sensitive issue and would therefore take its time to do a thorough investigation.

She said once the investigation is completed, the government will issue a final statement, and then decide whether to remove him from the Nigerian stamp.

She did not say how long the investigation would last, saying it was not a decision she could unilaterally take.

Erroneous celebration

Meanwhile, a graduate student of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Adekunle Yusuf, on Sunday apologized for erroneously celebrating Mr. Emeagwali at an event in his university four days ago.

In a telephone interview with NEXT, Mr. Yusuf said at a “Taste of Nigeria” event, organized by the university to celebrate the culture and people of Nigeria, Nigerian students showcased Mr. Emeagwali alongside the likes of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe as their country’s great human exports dazzling the world.

He said he became sad after reading the report of Mr. Emeagwali’s fraudulent claims in NEXT.

“We didn’t know he was just deceiving the world. I’m really depressed that he was among those we celebrated,” said Mr. Yusuf, a Senior Writer with TELL and Ford Foundation scholar at Wisconsin.

In 1989, Mr. Emeagwali won the $1,000 Gordon Bell Prize, which is awarded each year to recognise outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.

His award was for an application of the CM-2 massively parallel computer for oil reservoir modelling. Following the feat, Mr. Emeagwali proceeded to claim, for several years, that he was a father of the Internet; that he improved upon Isaac Newton’s laws of motion; that he owned the world’s first personal website; that American computer giant, Apple, uses the microprocessor technology he pioneered in its Power Mac G4 model, among many other claims.

But leading American and Nigerian scientists have faulted the claim, saying Mr. Emeagwali made no contribution to the evolution of the Internet as he had over the years made the world to believe.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/Politics/5639794-146/government_to_investigate_emeagwali__.csp

Government to investigate Emeagwali
By Musikilu Mojeed


November 8, 2010 12:19AM
   




The Nigerian government will investigate allegations of fraudulent claims levelled against Nigerian United States-based scientist, Philip Emeagwali, the Minister of Information and Communication, Dora Akunyili, has said.

NEXT had in a report on Sunday quoted some leading American scientists as describing Mr. Emeagwali’s claim that he was a father of the Internet as misleading.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Mrs. Akunyili said the allegations against Mr Emeagwali were weighty and disturbing and would have to be thoroughly investigated.

Mr. Emeagwali is among Nigerians that Mrs. Akunyili showcased to the world in the government’s effort to improve the country’s image.

The Nigeria Postal Service, which is directly under the minister’s supervision, has also put the embattled scientist on the Nigerian stamp.

“The allegations are unbelievable, but we cannot jump to conclusion,” the minister said. “Our government is a responsible one and so, we cannot disregard what has been published. We will pierce information together and if necessary, we will invite him to say his own side of the story. He is our son. When they tell you your child is a thief, you can’t just jump up and start celebrating. You will have to find out and establish the truth.”

Mrs. Akunyili said the government cannot afford to make mistakes on such a sensitive issue and would therefore take its time to do a thorough investigation.

She said once the investigation is completed, the government will issue a final statement, and then decide whether to remove him from the Nigerian stamp.

She did not say how long the investigation would last, saying it was not a decision she could unilaterally take.

Erroneous celebration

Meanwhile, a graduate student of journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Adekunle Yusuf, on Sunday apologized for erroneously celebrating Mr. Emeagwali at an event in his university four days ago.

In a telephone interview with NEXT, Mr. Yusuf said at a “Taste of Nigeria” event, organized by the university to celebrate the culture and people of Nigeria, Nigerian students showcased Mr. Emeagwali alongside the likes of Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe as their country’s great human exports dazzling the world.

He said he became sad after reading the report of Mr. Emeagwali’s fraudulent claims in NEXT.

“We didn’t know he was just deceiving the world. I’m really depressed that he was among those we celebrated,” said Mr. Yusuf, a Senior Writer with TELL and Ford Foundation scholar at Wisconsin.

In 1989, Mr. Emeagwali won the $1,000 Gordon Bell Prize, which is awarded each year to recognise outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.

His award was for an application of the CM-2 massively parallel computer for oil reservoir modelling. Following the feat, Mr. Emeagwali proceeded to claim, for several years, that he was a father of the Internet; that he improved upon Isaac Newton’s laws of motion; that he owned the world’s first personal website; that American computer giant, Apple, uses the microprocessor technology he pioneered in its Power Mac G4 model, among many other claims.

But leading American and Nigerian scientists have faulted the claim, saying Mr. Emeagwali made no contribution to the evolution of the Internet as he had over the years made the world to believe.



http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/Politics/5639794-146/government_to_investigate_emeagwali__.csp

The lies of Philip Emeagwali
By Musikilu Mojeed


November 7, 2010 06:38AM






Leading American computer experts, including the man after whom the prize he won in 1989 was named, have lately pooh-poohed claims by Nigerian American-based scientist, Philip Emeagwali, that he was one of the fathers of the Internet.

In 1989, Mr. Emeagwali won the $1,000 Gordon Bell Prize, which is awarded each year to recognise outstanding achievement in high-performance computing.

His award was for an application of the CM-2 massively parallel computer for oil reservoir modeling. Following the feat, Mr. Emeagwali proceeded to claim, for several years, that he was a father of the Internet; that he improved upon Isaac Newton's laws of motion; that he owned the world's first personal website; that American computer giant, Apple, uses the microprocessor technology he pioneered in its Power Mac G4 model, among many other claims.

But responding to separate enquiries by NEXT, some of the world's leading computer experts said there was no truth in most of the claims that Mr. Emeagwali had propagated about himself over the years.

Gordon Bell, 76, a pioneer in high-performance and parallel computing for whom the prize won by Mr. Emeagwali is named, said the entry that earned the Nigerian scientist the award had nothing to do with the Internet.

"He was able to get time on the Connection Machine at the right time and run a large program of oil reservoir modeling," Mr. Bell, a principal researcher with Microsoft Silicon Valley Research Group in San Francisco, said in an email to NEXT.

"The Internet is another thing. No evidence that he had anything to do with the Internet," he said.

Mr. Bell, who provided the financial support for the annual Gordon Prize, is an influential fellow of the world's two largest professional associations of computer experts - the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers, and the Association for Computing Machinery.

But when asked whether he was aware of Mr. Emeagwali's contribution to the evolution of the Internet, Mr. Bell said, "Not that any of my friends who worked on the Internet recall. His bio on Wikipedia is most interesting and in itself seems to be controversial," he said, in reference to the Wikipedia article on the Nigerian scientist, which only stopped short of calling Mr. Emeagwali a liar.

"Apart from the prize itself, there is no evidence that Emeagwali's work was ever accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed scientific literature, nor that it had any other lasting impact on the field of high-performance-computing or the development of the Internet. Neither does he hold any recognized patents for his results," the article said.

Asked whether Mr. Emeagwali is qualified to be regarded as one of the great minds of the Information Age, Mr. Bell said,

"Like many of us, in each of our minds, we may all think of ourselves as "one of the great minds of the information age. The real question is ‘does anyone else, besides our mothers, fathers, spouses, children, relatives, and friends think of us in this way?'"

Mr. Emeagwali is often celebrated in his native Nigeria and Africa as a computer genius who invented the Internet and is often listed among leading and globally respected icons such as Nobel Laureate, Wole Soyinka, and novelist, Chinua Achebe. He was so well respected that he once got on the Nigerian stamp.

Although he is not known to have made any other contribution to science or invented anything since he won the Gordon Prize 20 years ago, Mr. Emeagwali travels around the world, giving speeches and portraying himself as one of the greatest scientists in the world.

Speaking during a visit to Switzerland in April 2009, Mr. Emeagwali said he was the first to program an hypercube "to solve a grand challenge defined as the 20 gold-ring problems in computing. That discovery, in part, inspired the reinvention of supercomputers as an Internet."

He claimed that by his effort, he was able to set three world records and improve on Newton's Second Law of Motion.

But of late, Americans and Nigerians alike have raised questions about the claims. Alan Karp, a principal scientist with Hewlett - Packard Laboratories, and one of the judges who selected the Nigerian scientist for the Gordon Bell prize in 1989, said Mr. Emeagwali's claims were false and exaggerated.

In response to NEXT's inquiries, Mr. Karp wrote, "To the best of my knowledge, the work he submitted for the Gordon Bell Prize had no influence on the Internet. The material he submitted for the Gordon Bell Prize did not address adjustments to Newton's Laws.

"Many people programmed the Connection Machines, both the CM-1 and the CM-2 that Mr. Emeagwali programmed. To claim that sending emails programmed is misleading. The work Mr. Emeagwali submitted for the Gordon Bell Prize did not set a world record. In fact, another team produced better performance and better price performance that same year and was awarded the Gordon Bell Prize for performance.

"There were other hypercube machines in use before the CM-2, and others had programmed them to solve important problems. Today, a supercomputer is not a union of supercomputers communicating as an Internet. Individual supercomputers with proprietary internal networks do sometimes coordinate over the Internet, but the work Mr. Emeagwali submitted for the Gordon Bell Prize did not do this," Mr. Karp said.

Many disputed claims

Mr. Karp also debunked another oft-repeated claim by Mr. Emeagwali that the prize he won was the Nobel Prize of computing.

We also sent a list of Mr. Emeagwali's numerous claims, gleaned from his speeches, interviews, and articles, to Jack Dongarra, another widely respected American computer scientist, and a judge on the panel that awarded the Gordon Bell Prize in 1990.

But Mr. Dongarra, a professor at the Innovative Computing Laboratory at the University of Tennessee, simply carpeted the claims in a two-sentence response.

"This was over 22 years ago and I really don't remember," he said. "I would disagree with much of what you have written."

Because his claims had bounced around for long without any major challenge, many people around the world believe them as true, and Mr. Emeagwali enjoyed celebrity status. And from time to time, he adds new layers to what many scientists now believe to be a pack of lies.

On his poorly designed website, Mr. Emeagwali claims he has been ranked number one in computing in the past five years. He looks forward to being named again in December this year, although he is not known to have done or be doing any work on the subject since the 1989 prize.

He also claimed, in a June 2007 interview with BusinessDay, that the Nigerian government was owing him for the investigation he conducted into the country's diminishing resources. Yet, the last time he visited Nigeria was over 20 years ago.

He said his technology is being used to forecast the weather and to predict the likelihood and effects of global warming. At a point, he claimed he was working on a fibre optic cable for Africa that will make calls to the continent not to be routed through Europe.

NEXT sent Mr. Emeagwali a 14-question inquiry on his claims. But his response did not address any of the questions.

"The most important questions, such as his twelve years of postgraduate education, Newton's 2nd Law of Motion, discoveries and inventions, 41 patents [that he never claimed, he claimed 41 "patent claims"] and father of the Internet," said Donita Brown, who responded on his behalf.

"For example, he will explain that "the internet" is to "an internet" what the supercomputer is to a computer. That is, both are equivalent technologies," Ms. Brown added.

Mr. Emeagwali said he would provide details in two weeks.

Ms. Brown, who is Mr. Emeagwali's wife, has double identities as well. She is widely known as Dale Emeagwali. But in correspondences and on her husband's website, she is identified as Donita Brown.

For two weeks, NEXT had consistently made efforts to talk to Mr. Emeagwali on the telephone. But each time, a telephone operator would say he was not available. The four telephone lines on his website are usually diverted to the same operator.

On his Facebook page, Mr. Emeagwali listed +4402070787400 as his mobile line. But our checks indicated that it was a landline in the United Kingdom, which was again diverted to the same operator in Washington.

Mr. Emeagwali was of recent a subject of debate on Nigerian Internet discussion groups and the preponderance of opinion was that his claims were fraudulent.

"The ‘debate' on Emeagwali's intellectual fraud has long been settled in the Nigerian cyberspace," said one Moses Ochonu.

"Only the most fanatical Nigerian and African American sentimental (as opposed to a rational) investors in black scientific heroism still take the fool seriously," Mr. Ochonu said.

In his own contribution to the debate, Ola Kassim, a former leader of Nigerians in Diaspora Organisation, said, "I have always stayed away from the Emeagwali controversy simply because I do not enjoy watching Nigerians/Africans pull each other down.

"However, there are some instances when we must speak up, or else the work of our true heroes - the genuine achievers become rubbished by association when the falsehoods perpetrated by some of us are finally discovered," he said.

Self promotion

Mr. Emeagwali's Internet self-promotion has earned him a lot of attention. He branded himself so well that he became subjects of CNN, BBC, and TIME magazine articles and was able to get on United Nation's list of former refugees who have achieved special status within a community due to their achievements. He is also widely celebrated in Nigeria and America, where he is a consistent feature of the Black History Month.

In February 2005, Ebony magazine ran a Toyota advertisement describing Mr. Emeagwali as one of the founders of the Internet and as having a PhD; whereas, he never earned a doctorate because the University of Michigan did not find his dissertation good enough.

Responding to a NEXT inquiry regarding why it misrepresented Mr. Emeagwali to the world, Toyota simply dissociated itself from the Nigerian scientist.

"Toyota has no connection to Mr. Emeagwali and is not responsible for his credentials. In addition, Toyota had no involvement with a ‘Gordon Bell Prize.'" said Mike Michels, the company's vice president, communications.

Mr. Emeagwali was also once described by former President Bill Clinton as one of the great minds of the information age.

The U.S State Department would not comment on why Mr. Clinton described the Nigerian scientist in that way. It simply directed inquiries to the former president himself. Mr. Clinton's office is yet to respond to NEXT's questions as at the time of this report.
http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/Home/5639069-146/the_lies_of_philip_emeagwali_.csp

Intellectual 419: Philip Emeagwali And Gabriel Oyibo Compared Farooq A. Kperogi
November 07, 2010

Ask an average Nigerian to name the country’s most famous scientists. In all likelihood, they would mention “Dr.” (or “Professor”) Philip Emeagwali and Dr. Gabriel Oyibo. This, in a way, is excusable ignorance. After all, the great President Bill Clinton has been scammed into undeservedly calling Emeagwali “one of the great minds of the information age” and the “Bill Gates of Africa.” And such prestigious Western news organizations as TIME, CNN and BBC fell for Emeagwali’s smartly orchestrated intellectual fraud.


As for Dr. Gabriel Oyibo, he was for many years touted in the Nigerian media as the great successor to Albert Einstein, as a four-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Physics, and as the inventor of the "almighty" GAGUT (God Almighty Grand Unified Theorem), which he farcically calls “the theory of everything.” On the basis of his comically delusional intellectual fraud, Oyibo has been celebrated in Nigeria as one of the greatest scientists that ever lived.

However, the elaborate intellectual fraud of Emeagwali and Oyibo are now unraveling rapidly. SaharaReporters, the enormously popular, muckraking diasporan citizen media site, has done a series of exposés on the intellectual fraud of Philip Emeagwali. At least two mainstream Nigerian newspaper columnists have done the same in the last few weeks. I'd had cause to call attention to the intellectual chicanery of these characters in my July 15, 2006 Weekly Trust column, then called “Notes from Louisiana,” which can be found on my blog.




Oyibo and Emeagwali are certainly different in many respects. But they are also similar in more ways than one. First, Oyibo started out as a productive scholar who actually published a number of peer-reviewed, scientific articles before he degenerated into his current patently psychoneurotic state (I will give evidence for my conclusion shortly); Emeagwali, on the other hand, never had a Ph.D., is/was never a professor by any understanding of the term, has never published in any peer-reviewed journal, nor owned any patent—all contrary to his claims. However, Emeagwali did win an actual award—the Gordon Bell Prize— whose significance he has exaggerated beyond the bounds of reason and decency.

Note, though, that Oyibo also claims to be a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Physics. This is pretty much like Emeagwali's fraudulent claims to being "a" or "the" father of the Internet. The Guardian's U.S. correspondent, a certain Laolu Akande, is the biggest accomplice in Oyibo's fraud. Until the last few years, the Guardian often reported that Oyibo was among the top three candidates being considered for the Nobel Prize in Physics. This intentionally deceitful newspaper speculation was/is the basis for his unearned popularity in Nigerian elite circles. I don't know if this has changed, but when I was in Nigeria it was customary to identify Oyibo in Nigerian newspaper narratives as a "three-time Nobel Prize nominee in Physics." In the Afro-romantic digital black diaspora, in fact, it is usual to identify him as a four-time Nobel Prize nominee!

Now, the Nobel Committee does NOT disclose the identities of the nominees for any of its prizes until at least 50 years after the prize has been announced. How in the world did Oyibo and the Guardian's Laolu Akande know that Oyibo was a nominee for the Physics Prize? In fact, Omoyele Sowore, publisher of SaharaReporters.com and former citizen reporter for the now tame and compromised ElenduReports.com, unmasked this fraud years ago.

He sent emails to the Nobel Committee asking to know if Oyibo had ever been a nominee for their Physics Prize. Of course, they flatly disclaimed it. They said it was impossible for anybody to know if he was a nominee for any Prize until several decades after the fact.

So, in more ways than one, Oyibo is guilty of the same intentionally fraudulent self-promotion that Emeagwali has a dubious honor for. Like Emeagwali, he currently feeds on this fraud since he, like Emeagwali, is effectively jobless now. Plus, Oyibo stakes his claims to unparalleled scientific genius on the basis of his ludicrously incoherent and insane GAGUT theory, which hasn't been published in any peer-reviewed scientific journal or book, although he has a vanity, self-published book that he flaunts every time—much like Emeagwali's claims to having 41 patents, which have turned out to be patents in sophisticated, intricately multi-layered intellectual frauds.

But any one who has followed Oyibo's life closely will agree that the man needs help—seriously. The brother has lost it. He has no job as I write now. He left the university system as an untenured associate professor years ago. (Hmm,  Can you imagine a four-time Nobel Prize nominee in Physics who no U.S. university or research institution wants to touch with a barge pole?) If you need evidence of Oyibo’s undisguised psychic imbalance, read his deleted profile on Wikipedia, which he wrote of himself.






Here is a sample from the profile for your amusement: “Honors and Awards: Professor G. Oyibo has been recognized as being closer to GOD (intellectually and in other ways), than any other human being because of the GAGUT discovery. He has also been recognized by the Nigerian Federal Government as Mathematical Genius which was inscribed on a Nigerian Postage Stamp that was issued in 2005. Professor G. Oyibo has also been recognized as the Greatest Genius and the Most Intelligent Human Being ever created by GOD. He has also been recognized as the Greatest Mathematical Genius of all time. Professor G. Oyibo has been recognized by the Nigerian Senate, representing the entire population of Nigeria of over 200 million people, through a Senate Motion No. 151 page 320 presented in the Federal Republic of Nigeria Order Paper on Tuesday, 15th March, 2005."

If the above is not proof of a man who is truly in need of psychiatric help, I don't know what is.

But the greater concern for me, however, is that our hunger for heroes has predisposed us to be easily susceptible to all kinds of cheap intellectual frauds. By officially celebrating Emeagwali and Oyibo, the Nigerian state has inadvertently become an accomplice in intellectual 419. And by engraving their images on our postage stamps, the Nigerian state has unwittingly and permanently stamped deceit and false pretenses (otherwise known as 419) on our national consciousness—and on our international image. That’s a shame.

Author can be reached at farooqkperogi@gmail.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . He blogs at www.farooqkperogi..com
http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/farooq-a-kperogi/intellectual-419-philip-emeagwali-and-gabriel-oyibo-compared.html

The “419” Nigerian Consulate (in New York) And The Indian Job Chukwuma Odinkemelu,

“Corruption” and “419” come in different ways and sometimes with such high sophistication that an ordinary eye cannot see it.

The Nigerian consulate in New York is in total mess. I was opportune to visit the Nigerian Consulate with my little cousin to renew his Nigerian Passport.

Prior to this, I helped my cousin fill the application forms for new passport online at Nigerian Immigration website and was asked to pay the sum of $65USD for the new passport of which we paid. Me and my cousin waited for two weeks to go for his interview at the Nigerian consulate in New York. Having checked in and having been searched we proceeded for him to be interviewed.

419 and Corruption:

First question the thick Igbo lady and Yoruba man asked my cousin was if he had paid for the passport renewal and of which he answered them in affirmative, Yes.

I peeped through the Laptop computer on the lady’s desk and the internet browser showed she was on the Nigerian consulate website whereas the Yoruba man was on yahoo website. Both of them asked us to provide proof that we have paid the said amount. My cousin brought out a printed copy of the email receipt from the time we did the application and payments. They looked at it and said it is insufficient. So, I retorted by asking them, since you guys are on the internet with  Nigerian government Laptops, why can’t you type my cousin’s name in it and check if he has paid or not? These corrupt officials responded that their computer is for official purposes. I asked them that the interview for my cousin is an official business and that is why our government gave  them the computers with internet to verify these hitches like whether my cousin actually paid for the passport or not?

Both of them threatened to deny my little cousin the opportunity to be interviewed for his new passport unless we do things properly. I asked the lady, how can we do things properly?

She smiled, and told us that there is a store across the Nigerian Consulate with the name Variety Store. She told us to hurry and get the Variety store verify that we paid the money for the passport. Me and my little cousin proceeded to the Variety store.

Corruption : The Indian Connection

On reaching the store, we met some Indians (2 males and a female) with numerous other Nigerians and would be Nigerian visitors in the store. We were about fifteen people excluding those leaving and coming in the store. After waiting for 15 minutes, the Indian man asked me what brought us. We told him that the Nigerian consulate sent us here to verify that we paid for our passport. The Indian man told us that it will cost us three dollars to print each page of all the document. So we gave the Indian man my cousin’s name and he just went to the Nigerian Immigration website and printed the verifications. My little cousin asked me why the lady in Nigerian consulate did not do that for us? And he continued, beside the document we gave her was same thing that this Indian man printed for us? He went further and told me how can we pay $3USD dollars for a page of  black and white page of a paper when it costs $0.10cents elsewhere? My little cousin was too innocent and young to understand these things. He reminded me that the highest amount of money people pay to print out a page in the whole of USA is $0.10c or at worst $0.25c for colored documents per page?

I told him that there are few explanations to these things, it is either that the Indians are giving a kick back to the employees of Nigerian Embassy , or that the members of the consulate eat free inside the store, or that the store is owned by some clique within the consulate. While we were still talking an official of the consulate came in with Nigerian attire and the Indian lady gave him something wrapped in some papers and was put in a bag. He left without saying a word back to the consulate. My cousin asked me what was that and I told him that am not sure what it is.

The Indian woman heard me and she became furious and she told me that she must report me to the man in charge of the consulate. I asked her if she knew the man in charge of the consulate? At this point, the two other Indian men walked up to me and told me just to pay the three dollars a page and leave the variety store. Some Yoruba and Igbo ladies told us that we are not the only people that know these high level of corruption going on but that we should just drop three dollars for those fools. An  Igbo lady joked that at least Nigerian police take bribe but the Nigerian consulate in New York takes kickbacks and we all laughed about it.

I pulled my wallet and brought out my credit card to pay the Indian, the three dollars a page. To my surprise, the Indians say it must be cash, this is the only way they can cover the evidence that somebody paid them  and that they are collecting three dollars/a page from each Nigerian (For a page of every document printed). I said ok and went to use an ATM machine within their shop, As I was about to withdraw a twenty dollar bill, I found out that I have to pay like another 4 dollars for using the ATM. At this point,  my little cousin was freaking out. I laughed and paid $4.00 to withdraw $20 dollars. Most ATM in USA charge a dollar or at worst $2.00 to withdraw money. I went back to the Nigerian consulate having paid $3 dollars/a page to the Indians. The Nigerian consulate sent us back to the Indian store, this time to get $20USD money order, this is in addition to the $65USD we paid online. We enquired, why another $20USD and no response on the purpose of the money. We had to withdraw another 20USD from the machine and got charged another $4.00USD. The fee for the money order itself was $2.50 cents for $20USD money order. It is worthy of note to mention that I usually pay about $0.50 at walmart to obtain money order and most places charge less than a dollar for money orders. Me and my cousin printed three pages @$3 each per page, used ATM twice @$4 each time, we paid $2.50 for money order. So in essence we spent $19.50 cents at the Variety  store for service charge which was not necessary. Very ridiculous and times that by about 50 people that visit the consulate each day and you get about $975.00USD. My cousin asked me why Nigerian consulate refused to collect a check, a credit card nor cash? I told him, if the Consulate collects checks, credit card or cash then the store will not make money for kickbacks to the consulate officials.

Finally we went back to the consulate and we were sent to the 12th floor . We saw a computer at that floor with printer. I told my cousin that am going to make the Nigerian consulate workers angry. He asked me how? I told him to watch me.

So I went on that computer, typed in the Nigerian immigration website on the browser, at this point a lady walked up to me and asked me what I was doing with the computer? I told her, I needed to print out proof that I paid the embassy. Her facial expression changed, she said” will you go to the Variety store and do these things. I asked her, “why do I need to go over to the Variety store when our government provided these computers for us?”  She turned off the computer. I told her, “I was kidding with her because I noticed something sinister was going on between them and the Variety store.”  She told me, “ she does not have time for me and that I can say whatever that I want to say.” She said ,”they do not engage in any corruption,” I asked her, “ if I did accuse her of corruption?” 

I reminded my little cousin on our way home that when Kennedy was shot in Dallas, the Secret service knocked at the door of the man that shot the president. As soon as the man saw the Secret Service, he told them that he did not kill the president. So the Secret Service asked him, “who told you that the president was shot?” That was how they arrested the killer. So,  for the Lady to have told me that they do not do corruption means that they are in fact engaging in corruption , since nobody accused her with or of corruption.  This leads me to Jean Paul Sartre who claims that nobody can deny what “is”  because you only denies what “is not” since you do not know of what “is not”.

Jean Paul Sartre, an existentialist French Philosopher (who had the honor to reject a Noble Prize awarded  him) argued , “nobody argues in a vacuum or vacuo” .

“The basis of Sartre's existentialism can be found in The Transcendence of the Ego in which he says that the thing-in-itself is infinite and overflowing. Sartre refers to any direct consciousness of the thing-in-itself as a "pre-reflective consciousness." Any attempt to describe, understand, historicize etc. the thing-in-itself, Sartre calls "reflective consciousness." There is no way for the reflective consciousness to subsume the pre-reflective, and so reflection is fated to a form of anxiety, i.e. the human condition. The reflective consciousness in all its forms, (scientific, artistic or otherwise) can only limit the thing-in-itself by virtue of its attempt to understand or describe it. It follows, therefore, that any attempt at self-knowledge (self-consciousness - a reflective consciousness of an overflowing infinite) is a construct that fails no matter how often it is attempted. Consciousness is consciousness of itself insofar as it is consciousness of a transcendent object.”

The above explains the consciousness of the word corruption which the lady at the embassy brought up and then tries to deny it.



Conclusion:

President Goodluck Jonathan should sack everybody working at the Nigerian consulate in New York immediately.

The reason is that they are highly corrupt and even if they say they are not corrupt, they are enriching Indians at the expense of Nigerians. Can Indian consulate do same for and with Nigerians?

Also, the people working there are not computer savvy and are not educated. Any person that went to the likes of Gboko college of education in Nigeria or yeye school like Katherine Gibbs college in New York has nothing to do at that consulate.  They embassy officials lacked professionalism. The workers lack training in etiquette and have the big man mentality of a typical Nigerian governor. The workers have no names and when you ask them their names they get angry. They keep leaving the embassy anytime without being on launch time.

We need young, vibrant, educated youths with sound etiquette at that consulate. The noble work of ambassadors/diplomats cannot be left in the hands of nincompoops and ignoramuses who are after petty business and kick backs from Indians.

My people, please pray for Nigeria. It seems  that Nigerians that are not in power are more corrupt than the ones in power. I hope this my assertion is not true, so help me God!
http://www.ukpakareports.com/news.php?type_id=3&news_id=1586

Nigeria's Life Expectancy one of the Lowest in Africa - THE World Economic Forum (WEF)

The GDP per head in Nigeria is a mere 1,224 dollars, compared to 9,812 dollars in South Africa, 1,628 dollars in Kenya and 2,197 dollars in Cameroon.

In 2010, Nigeria’s life expectancy was 48.4 years on average, below that of Ghana (57.1.), Cameroon (51.7), Benin Republic (62.3), Uganda (54.1) and Lesotho, at 46 years, has sub-Saharan Africa lowest life expectancy, while the Comoros Islands leads the region at 66 years.

World Economic Forum slams Nigeria over poor governance
http://tribune.com.ng/index.php/news/13145-world-economic-forum-slams-nigeria-over-poor-governance

Another Bombshell on PE
Submitted by Aloy (not verified) on November 4, 2010 - 16:54.
This is another Bombshell dropped on Bro. Emeagwali today by another Gordon Bell Prize judge. This man should have 419 named after him.

1. from Jack Dongarra
to toyin adepoju
date 4 November 2010 11:13
subject Re: ENQUIRY ON PHILIP EMEAGWALI,WINNER OF THE 1989 GORDON BELL PRIZE
mailed-by eecs.utk.edu

This was over 22 years ago and I really don't remember. I would disagree with much of what you have written.
He had nothing to do with the development of the CM-2.
He had nothing to do with the development of the internet.
I know of no contribution that Emeagali has made in computational science.
His work on the Bell Prize has had no impact.
Hope this is clear.
Jack Dongarra

**********************************************************
Prof. Jack Dongarra; Innovative Computing Laboratory; EECS Department;
1122 Volunteer Blvd; University of Tennessee; Knoxville TN 37996-3450;
+1-865-974-8295; dongarra@, ; http://www.cs.utk.edu/~dongarra/

I believe Bill Clinton's speech writer, like the Nigerian government and New African Magazine were all fooled by the fraudulent information on Mr. Emeagwali's website. The video is however authentic. I wrote to New African Magazine a while ago, requesting for the source of their information on Philip Emeagwali. They are yet to reply. I made an attempt to contact Mr. Emeagwali himself, putting questions about the authenticity of information on his website before him, but was turned down.

Why don't you try tracking down Bill Clinton's speech writer and sending him/her an email requesting for the source of his/her information on Mr. Emeagwali? This could help clear a lot of your doubts.

As for the CNN links you quoted above, they appear to have relied on information presented by Mr. Emeagwali himself. Why don't you send emails to their authors and request where they got information on Emeagwali?

All information about Emeagwali as a great scientist or an inventor originate from his website. And I believe that in the article above as well as this, I have clearly shown that I have been unable to verify the claims he makes. And I am yet to come across ANYONE who has been able to verify them.

A few months back, I was contacted by the Wikipedia author on supercomputing (a researcher in Australia). He was surprised about Emeagwali being called the "father of the internet" and a significant contributor to the field of "supercomputing." In his opinion, Emeagwali was virtually unknown in these fields. He was trying to verify from independent sources what Emeagwali's contributions have been. In the long run, he too was unable to verify any of the so-called claims on Emeagwali's website.
Posted by Chippla Vandu at September 16, 2006 1:23 AM

Philip Emeagwali: Final Thoughts
2005

http://chippla..com/2005/12/philip-emeagwali-final-thoughts.html

Ileke-IdI:
Did Fela have no taste?

I knew this girl in her pre-teen years. She was truly a beauty. Believe me truly truly beautiful bright and intelligent and from a good home too. Hard to believe looking at her now. I observed her over the years visiting the Shrine and you could literally see the steady deterioration. There came a time I would walk by her and not recognise her. Her life has been hard and brutal. I am not sure she is balanced mentally. This is a truly sad story.

90 days to trek from Mecca to Ife? God sent down from heaven? Only the Edo version of Oduduwa is plausible. Oduduwa was a Benin prince.

Nimshi:
Everyone who's informed knows Emeagwali is a fraud.

He's a disgrace to hardworking Nigerians in scientific and other academic fields all over the world.

.

MandingoII:
this is a done deal.

let it go people.

FRAUD IS FRAUD.

True words.

http://www.elendureports.com/index.php?Itemid=1&id=46&option=com_content&task=view
2005
http://magazine.biafranigeriaworld.com/cezeilo/2003nov09.html
2003

MrPrsdent:
so this thread is still ON

bad belle people,pls give it up

You're too funny.
lol lol

guddsid:
lol so these links are more reliable than the words of CNN ? so these links are more reliable than the words of Ebony magazine , so these links are more reliable than the words of Bill Clinton ? so these links are more reliable than the gordon bell awards panel ? so these links are more reliable than the words of Phillip Emeagwali himself in a personal interview with mary bellis of about.com Lol , you are funny

In case you missed the article itself I will reproduce the section that answers your questions. Better still read the whole article again with an open mind.

[b]Intellectual Fraud And Its Unwitting Validators

Even former president Bill Clinton was suckered by the fraud, famously referring to Emeagwali as “one of the great minds of the information age” in his speech to the Nigerian National Assembly in 2000. The Clinton reference has provided cover and alibi for Emeagwali to perfect and spread his false claims. Predictably, Emeagwali’s defenders point to the Clinton reference and to CNN’s and TIME Magazine’s references to him as “a father of the internet” and “the unsung hero” of the internet age respectively. These references are boldly displayed on Emeagali.com for the obvious purpose of convincing the uninformed that his claims have been vetted and endorsed by these entities. The problem is that these media organizations sadly endorsed the claims without vetting them. Part of it is sloppiness, but much of it is the result of what black intellectuals who live in the West understand and experience as white liberal pandering, which is itself borne out of white liberal guilt and the fear of the “r” word (racism).

Obviously Clinton was pandering to his Nigerian hosts who believed Emeagwali to be a scientific genius and national hero. Clinton, the savvy politician that he is, and a man who perfected white liberal outreach and pandering to black/African peoples, was relying on the image and descriptions of Emeagwali that was already in the black and mainstream press —descriptions that are traceable to Emeagwali's own misrepresentations on his websites. What Emeagwali does is so clever as to ensnare even a skeptical and vigilant observer, especially one that is already inclined to believe or seek out claims of black scientific achievement for whatever reason. As indicated earlier, Emeagwali plants these autobiographical write-ups that are ridden with falsehoods and misrepresentations in unsuspecting black publications. He does this by aggressively pitching these claims to their editors as he tried to do unsuccessfully with Ms. Okelola. Then, fired by liberal guilt and a desire to seem welcoming to black achievement and excellence, the mainstream media like TIME and CNN, lazily pick up these references and descriptions. Emeagwali then links to, disseminates, and publicizes these mainstream press references and descriptions (which are actually based on his own descriptions of himself and his "achievements”), thus perfecting and furthering the fraud. This way, he creates deniability for himself. The deception comes full circle but the cycle continues to repeat itself, populating and repopulating the Internet with Emeagwali’s falsehoods.

The sophistication and complexity of the fraud notwithstanding, there is no excuse for reputable organizations like CNN and TIME not to have done a simple due diligence on the false claims of Emeagwali. It is true that at the time that TIME and CNN made the glowing references to Emeagwali, the now widely available refutations of his claims were probably not yet available on the internet. Even so, a basic inquiry from the appropriate quarters would have revealed the truth about the claims on which the references to Emeagwali were based. The two reputable organizations failed to carry out this basic fact checking, an elemental reportorial and investigative duty of journalists. Instead, they relied on Emeagwali’s widely disseminated falsehoods for their stories. The case of TIME is particularly scandalous. The story in which it extols Emeagwali is clearly directly based on Emeagwali’s own autobiographical claims on Emeagwali.com. In fact it is a faithful, almost verbatim reproduction of Emeagwali’s self-written profile. It is lazy, sloppy journalism at its worst.

There is similarly no excuse for President Clinton’s speech writers not to have done basic checks or asked some of the president’s own appointees and advisers who are engineers and scientists about the true value of Emeagwali’s work. Had they done this relatively simply investigation, they would have realized that being a default winner in one category of a minor supercomputing competition for work that has a specific, limited application in the narrow field of oil reservoir modeling does not qualify one to be called “one of the greatest minds of the information age.”

A Self-Replicating Fraud

When challenged, Emeagwali and his supporters can say he is merely repeating and linking to what others call him and say about him and that he does not call himself a father of the internet or a doctor or a professor. But the fraud is a self-replicating one, perpetuating and proliferating itself across both the print and virtual media worlds. Other publications that are searching for black scientific achievers do an internet search and then rely on the previous press descriptions of Emeagwali, which ultimately lead back to the man’s fraudulent biographical claims on his own website. The lazy journalists and Pan-African activists lift these published claims and references (which emanated from the man himself), concluding that they must be established facts if other media outlets had already published them. And on and on it goes. It is a very sophisticated fraud that is aided by the virility of the Internet. This is precisely how even the prestigious Law School Admission Test (LSAT) ended up including a passage about Emeagwali in their test, a passage that is exactly the same as what Emeagwali published on Emeagwali.com about himself!! The examiners at the LSAT did not even bother to rewrite the passage. Nor did they bother to check the veracity of the claims therein.  It is clear that they were simply interested including a passage about a "black achiever" to fulfill the need for diversity of content and to deflect or avoid accusations from black test takers and other minority groups that the test does not represent or reflect the experiences of black people and is thus biased against them.

White liberal patronage of black people can be that shallow and sloppy — and insulting to the very people it purports to promote. It is political correctness and pandering marinated in a political agenda--that of ingratiating white liberal politicians and figures to blacks for political support and multicultural validation. The peak of this phenomenon is Black History Month in February when white liberal organizations and black institutions alike pull out all the stops to have self-promoting “black achievers” like Emeagwali speak to them. That's when they get invited by white liberal and African American organizations to showcase black achievement and innovation! White liberal patronage is a big industry in America. It takes many forms; one of them is what Pius Adesanmi calls the Mercy Industrial Complex (MIC). But the MIC is not as offensive as the false flattery and the silly excuses and defenses that white liberals advance for cuddling black failures and frauds. Hero-seeking black organizations have not helped matters with their patronage of people like Emeagwali. Emeagwali’s deception succeeds so well because of a multiracial coalition of consumers and enablers.

Emeagwali is a very clever, self-conscious scam artist. That is however no excuse for the black community to allow itself to be used to actively promote a fraud.[/b]

Links # 2, 3 and 7 to to the best of my knowledge are not Nigerian.

Ileke-IdI:

EzeUche0 link=topic=534775.msg6988743#msg6988743 date=1287694446:
spearman,

And they were all written by Nigerians. Shame!

.