₦airaland Forum

Obafemi Martins’ blinding pace and predatory instincts took him, at a young age, from rough streets of Lagos, Nigeria to the biggest stages of world football. Now approaching 30, he’s embarked on a new challenge in America with Seattle Sounders.

The livewire Nigerian ace talks to FIFA.com about being discovered in a street game with friends, the fast road to stardom and his position in the Super Eagles pecking order. He also touches on the origins of his famous somersault goal celebrations, and how he’s had to change his game to remain relevant and productive.

FIFA.com: Your second season in Major League Soccer is going a lot better than your first, with your goals and assists having led the Sounders to the top of the table. What’s been the difference?
Obafemi Martins: Last year I joined the team after playing more than half a season in the Spanish top-flight with Levante. I had no rest. I was too tight. I went from one season to another without a break. So I wasn’t able show what I could do. But this year I had a proper pre-season camp. I got settled and healthy, and it’s showing.

You’ve also carved out quite a partnership with USA icon Clint Dempsey. You have 21 goals and 14 assists between you this term.
Dempsey’s a serious player. We connect on the pitch. If I get the ball, he knows I’ll give him the right pass. I know the same, too, when he gets it. It’s not an easy thing to create a strong understanding in attack so quickly, but we are on the same page. The man knows the game and I respect that.

How would you say the still-young MLS measures up to some of the big leagues you’ve played in, like the Premier League, the German Bundesliga and Serie A?
When you talk about those leagues in Europe, you’re talking about deep, long history. They have all the tradition that comes with years and years. So you can’t just compare a league like MLS to those leagues. It’s not fair.

What would you say about the American league’s status then?
It’s growing fast, maybe faster than any other league in the world. More teams are coming in all the time and players, friends of mine from Europe, want to come here now. You can see it getting better every year. And the fans in Seattle, they are some of the best I’ve ever seen.

You scored the winner in a League Cup final for Birmingham City, played at a World Cup, won Serie A with Inter Milan. Can you single out a highlight of your career?
It’s a tough question to answer. I’m always hunting for trophies and trying to get better. I have had so many sweet moments. I have a sweet moment, a sweet memory, with all of the teams I’ve played for. Newcastle was a great time for me and in Spain and Germany with Wolfsburg was also special, but my career is a story that’s still going on. When I finish playing and sit down with my grandkids, I can tell them a story that will have a lot of high-points, not just one.

You’ve been called to play for Nigeria only twice in the last three years. Do you think, considering your current form, a recall might be in order, maybe for next year’s African Cup of Nations?
I’m here and I’m Nigerian, so we’ll see if I get picked. I have no control over it. Every coach has his favourites. All I can say is that I’m playing good football in Seattle and I’m happy doing it. If I’m in the Nigeria team, great, and if I’m not, I wish them all the best. I always want Nigeria to do well.

When you look around the world you always find Nigerians playing. I don’t think I can name a league where there aren’t at least a few Nigerians. Why is this?
We don’t have the best domestic league system in Nigeria, but we do have some of the best players - too many talented players [laughs]. Go to Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, wherever, and you’ll find Nigerians playing there. They might not be the big stars, but they’re out there showing what Nigerian football is all about. Nigerians love to play football and it’s not like here in the States where there’s American football, baseball, basketball. All we have is football in Nigeria. And we love it.

You started out on the streets of Lagos, playing for the love of the game. How did you get all the way to Europe’s biggest stages?
I started out just playing for fun, with my friends. I was spotted by a man named Churchill Oliseh, the older brother of Nigeria captain Sunday Oliseh. I played in his team and he was a good man. He helped me out with food and support, because it wasn’t a professional situation at that time. And before I could blink, he told me I could go to Italy for trials. It seemed unreal.  

Were you nervous?
I was nervous. But my parents said, ‘Why not give it a go?' Churchill looked at me and asked, ‘Do you want to play football or do you want to go to school?’ I wanted to play football, so off we went. I passed the trials and signed with a third division side, AC Reggiana. I did well with the youth team, made the first team and then was signed by Inter Milan – all in my first season! It happened so quickly I was dizzy, but I felt blessed.

Everyone knows about Obafemi Martins’ pace. Your speed on the pitch is legendary. But you’re approaching 30 now, a normal age for a player to slow down. Have you had to change your game?
I’ve slowed down some and so I have to adapt the way I play. It’s fine, though, because I like to play with the ball, to have it at my feet. When it’s time to run and get up the pitch fast, I can still do that too, though [laughs].

We all know about your achievements as a footballer, but you’re quite the acrobat too. Tell us about the famous springing flips you do after scoring. When did you start that?
Ah, since I was really young, back when I was 11 or 12 in Lagos. There was a sawdust pitch in the neighbourhood and we saw guys practicing tumbling, flipping like gymnasts. My friends and I thought it was cool so we started practicing it too. Our acrobatics were getting good at the same time we were getting better at football too. One of my friends said, ‘You should put the two together and do some flips when you score; it would be awesome.’ So that’s just what I did.

Did you ever think about a more conventional goal celebration?
When I started to flip as a professional in Europe, people couldn’t believe it. They never saw anything like it. When I started in Italy, I scored my first goal and flipped like crazy. The fans couldn’t get enough of it. They loved it so much they started talking more about my flips than the goals! Source: http://m.fifa.com/world-match-centre/news/newsid/242/872/8/index.html?cid=newsletter_en_20140904_interview

Damn! What is wrong with people?

This year’s upcoming Big Brother Africa season 9 has been hit with several scandals but this would be the worst news to hit the pan-African reality TV show.

Reliable information reaching Us from South Africa indicates that the Big Brother Africa (Hotshot) Houses have been burnt to the ground.

According to sources houses, which were supposed to house 28 contestants for the 91-day reality show, went up in flames this afternoon Tuesday September 2, 2014 around 3pm (CAT).

This unfortunate incident has forced organizers of the reality show, Endemol to consequently postpone the show indefinitely, the launch of this year’s event scheduled for coming Sunday, September 7.

The cause of the fire is not immediately known. M-Net and Endemol SA advise that due to a devastating fire at the Big Brother house on 2 September 2014, Big Brother Hotshots will not launch this Sunday (7 September) as scheduled.

The cause of the fire, at this stage, is unknown and investigations will commence as soon as it is safe to do so.

At this stage M-Net and Endemol are urgently looking for an alternative Big Brother house in which to film the production, however as this production has highly technical infrastructure, camera and edit requirements an alternative is not immediately available. Every effort will be made to find a solution as quickly as possible to ensure that Africa’s biggest reality show will continue. Source: http://bayyou11.com/breaking-news-big-brother-africa-houses-on-fire/ Source: m.news24.com/channel24/TV/Reality/Big-Brother-Africa-house-burning-show-delayed-20140902

Where is our own Sergeant Rogers on that list? Heard he was a badas* soldier known for being a very good sharp shooter to being very intelligent during his days.

As a tall, strangely familiar figure leaves his one-room shack in a notorious African slum this week, a few people jokingly call out to him:‘Mister President! Mister President!’ Heading for breakfast through his junk-strewn yard, stepping over streams of sewage, the appearance of this slim, angular man prompts giggles
and pointing from children in rags playing in the muck. The man’s name is George Hussein Obama and his half-brother is President Barack Hussein Obama, Kenya’s most famous son, the first black President of the U.S. and the most powerful man in the world. The two men may share the same father, but while Barack Obama was born in Hawaii to his father’s American second wife, George — born in Kenya was the product of Obama Senior’s fourth marriage. Today, while Barack entertains at the White House, flies aboard Air Force One and is a friend of film stars and royalty, George, 30, is to be found slumped in his corrugated iron shack which even fellow slum-dwellers regard as a hovel. Details of his unorthodox lifestyle emerged with news that he has agreed to appear in a documentary film being made by one of Barack Obama’s most trenchant critics.Called '2016', and directed by the production team behind Schindler’s List, the film sets out the supposed horrors of another four years of Obama in office though George does not criticise the President on screen. It is the idea of U.S. author Dinesh D’Souza,whose book The Roots Of Obama’s Rage paints a deeply unflattering portrait of the ‘narcissistic’ President. George has also written a memoir, called 'Homeland'. Published in 2012, it details how he turned his back on a middle-class Kenyan upbringing to live among the desperately poor in Nairobi’s infamous slums. The book’s precis tell us:‘George chooses to live in the Nairobi ghetto, where he works to help the ghetto-dwellers, and especially the slum kids, overcome the challenges surrounding their lives. And the book quotes George thus:‘My brother has risen to be the leader of the most powerful country in the world. Here in Kenya, my aim is to be a leader among the poorest people on Earth: those who live in the slums.’ In what sounds like the script for a Hollywood film, he claims to have been the driving force behind the transformation of a slum football team into one of the top sides in Kenya, known as ‘Obama’s champs’. Such, apparently, is his devotion to good works that many Kenyans want George to stand for President, believing anyone sharing the name and blood of the most powerful politician on the planet can transform their lives. As for the President, he mentions George in his autobiography Dreams From My Father, saying he is a ‘beautiful boy’, but admits that when they met as adults in Kenya‘it was like meeting a complete stranger’.
George says, apparently without a shred of self-awareness, that he is under pressure to follow his older brother’s footsteps into politics.‘I have got a lot of people telling me to stand as a member of parliament. But I’m not interested in politics.’ Then he pauses, and adds:‘But if Barack was President, and I was president of Kenya it would be easier to meet.’ He says it is only his poverty that prevents the two of them having a closer relationship.
‘He’s got responsibilities. He’s not supposed to take care of me,’he says.‘I’m an adult. Everyone thinks he sends me cash. But I’m not a beggar.’But asked if he’d take cash if Obama offered it, George smiled and said:‘Seriously! Yes! Who wouldn’t?’
Though he is consumed with self-pity about his plight, he is, officially, the co-ordinator ofHuruma Football Club, a township team made up of orphans, former prisoners and reformed drug addicts.
Source:DailyMail Online

davidif: British Dictionary definitions for pun
pun1
/pʌn/
noun

the use of words or phrases to exploit ambiguities and innuendoes in their meaning, usually for humorous effect; a play on words. An example is: "Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war's alarms: But a cannonball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms."

Now show me the pun in your so called statement below.

Get an education dumbass, when I said Adam never performed any of the stunts to win Eve's approval I meant it as a joke. "no pun intended" does mean "Ha ha, did you just hear that joke I made accidentally (or at least I'm pretending I made it accidentally)." If you couldn't see the pun in it then am sorry you didn't see the funny side of it and please this will be last I'll be replying you I can't fit shout.

davidif: What pun are you talking about
Chai! if you don't know how to use this term, please don't. Na wa o haha
Please my guy don't ever use that phrase again hahaha

If you couldn't find the pun from my statement you should have simply asked, I doubt if you even know what it means my friend, my pun there is clear to see if you really have a sense of humor maybe you would have noticed it but I'm guessing you're humorless and please never quote me again.

Please I'll advice all ladies to try watch this movie: Temptation Confessions of a Marriage Counselor. You wouldn't care too much about finding that perfect gentleman. No man has it all.

inositol88: is it de guy who;
1 opens the car door for u?
2 stands up and gives his seat to u?
3 keeps quite and allow u to abuse him?
4 allows you to slap him without raising a finger on you?
5 washes your cloths, including your undies?
6 pets u?
7 cooks for you?
8 buys everything u need for you?
9 gives u mind blowing sex?
10 obeys all your instructions without questions?
or what

Ladies pls tell us your own description of gentleman

. All the above is a description of the BIGGESt Mugu. Ladies never appreciate nice guys or gentlemen whatever name you call it. Guys should just be who they are naturally, never try too hard to find love it should come easy afterall Adam never did any of these stunts to win Eve's approval. No pun intended Op

This has to be 7675th terrorist suspect arrested by the police but still we can't fathom who their sponsors are. No pun intended.

Oscar-winning actor and comedian Robin Williams apparently took his own life at his Northern California home Monday, law enforcement officials said. Williams was 63.

"He has been battling severe depression of late," his media representative Mara Buxbaum told CNN. "This is a tragic and sudden loss. The family respectfully asks for their privacy as they grieve during this very difficult time."

Coroner investigators suspect "the death to be a suicide due to asphyxia," according to a statement from the Marin County, California, Sheriff's office. Williams married graphic designer Susan Schneider in Napa Valley, California, ceremony in October 2011. Schneider sent a written statement to CNN through the representative.

"This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one of its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken.

"On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope the focus will not be on Robin's death, but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions."

Word of Williams' death stunned the entertainment community Monday.

Comedian Steve Martin tweeted, "I could not be more stunned by the loss of Robin Williams, mensch, great talent, acting partner, genuine soul."

Former CNN host Larry King said he would he remember Williams as "a genuine caring guy.  Not just a funny man, but a guy who cared about people."

Marin County deputies responded to an emergency call from Williams' home in unincorporated Tiburon, California, at 11:55 a.m., reporting "a male adult had been located unconscious and not breathing," the release from the sheriff said.

Oh Lawd! Not again. Epic fail.

Mr. Conteh said Liberians living in Lagos had been “targeted’’ after the death of Patrick Sawyer
The Liberian Government has appealed to Nigerian authorities to protect Liberian citizens in the country from “stereotyping and harassment” in the wake of the Ebola outbreak in West African.
Liberia’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Al-Hassan Conteh, made the appeal on Thursday in Abuja at a briefing organised by the Nigerian government for the diplomatic corps on Ebola outbreak in the country.
Mr. Conteh said Liberians living in Lagos had been “targeted’’ after the death of Patrick Sawyer, a Liberian and American citizen in Lagos from the Ebola virus.
Mr. Sawyer flew into Lagos from Monrovia for an ECOWAS meeting in Calabar in July. He took ill before and in the flight and was taken to a hospital in Lagos where he later died after testing positive to the Ebola virus.
It was revealed later that Sawyer had a sister in Liberia who died of the disease and he had direct contact with the victim.
Since his death, Nigeria has recorded six confirmed cases of the virus, all people who had direct contact with Mr. Sawyer.
One of them, a nurse, who attended to Sawyer, died on Tuesday in Lagos.
“The attention of our embassy has been brought to several cases of harassment of Liberians especially in Lagos and other places.
“As we combat this disease, this is not only health issue but social too. It is important that we frame our public campaign to indicate that association is not causation.
“For example, not because the index case came from Liberia then all Liberians have Ebola,” Mr. Conteh said.
He also condemned a cartoon in a national newspaper which he said denigrated his country.
Mr. Conteh thanked Nigeria for assisting Liberia with funds to fight the outbreak.
He said Liberia had declared state of emergency, effective August 6, for 90 days to institute extraordinary measures in combating the disease.
“The measures are indeed extraordinary even to the extent under our Constitution of curbing certain rights for individuals to put this disease to an end’’, he said.
Alfred Nelson-Williams, Deputy High Commissioner of Sierra Leone to Nigeria, said his country had also declared a state of emergency to tackle the disease.
“People with suspected Ebola have been put under surveillance.
“The parliaments have been recalled and the President even cancelled a trip to U.S for the US-Africa Summit.
“Apart from this, our country feel this thing has some spiritual input, so the President has called on the nation to be at home, reflect and pray’’, he said.
Mr. Nelson-Williams, a Major General, said the country had 130 survivors from the Ebola virus, a feat attributed to the power of prayer and healthcare.
He also thanked Nigeria for its support to Sierra Leone Government and donating funds to help combat the disease. /p2LdGt-Hfb

Mr Danjuma Ibrahim, the General Manager, Satellite Control and Operations, Nigeria Communications Satellite (NIGCOMSAT), on Wednesday in Abuja said the organisation has the capacity to telecast programmes.
Ibrahim told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that NIGCOMSAT’s mandate was to build a facility where individuals or organisations with programmes could come and buy space segment to air.
What we have in our facility is like what obtains in DSTV. DSTV has a facility where it rents space segment from EUTELSAT and from INTELSAT. EUTELSAT and INTELSAT are satellite operators like NIGCOMSAT.
So, what they do is to build a facility where if you have a programme, like anyone from Nollywood, you will then have a channel like Africa Magic or Kingdom Africa. These are channels owned by Nigerians.
Those channels have programmes that run throughout the day, the people that own the channels are not the people that have those particular programmes.
You can go and buy a whole channel and you have other people that will be bringing in programmes.
They have given to them their time slots. If your own will be around nine in the morning, you will make sure that your programmes are there for them to be aired at that time.
“So, what we have here is the HN (Home Network) facility. People can go and bring their programmes, content aggregators, buy channels and uplink them to the satellite and broadcast,’’ Ibrahim said.
He therefore urged individuals and organisations to bring programmes to NIGCOMSAT because it has the wherewithal to telecast them.
The general manager said NIGCOMSAT has four-band facilities which enable it to uplift programmes into the satellite.
Luckily for us, for NIGCOMSAT 1R (the replaced satellite) we have four bands. These are the C-band, KU-band, KA-band and an L-band.
In the KA-band, we have coverage over Nigeria, South Africa and Europe.
Nigeria is a spot beam, South Africa is a spot beam and Europe is a spot beam. You can use this particular one to broadcast over Nigeria.
“So, if you get a programme, maybe from Europe, you can bring it here and from here you can uplift and broadcast. So, the DTH is a facility we can use on KA, KU, or the C-band to broadcast,’’ he said.
Ibrahim said the issue of tele-education and tele-medicine was that they were pilot projects which were used to testrun the workability of the first satellite launch.
Those particular programmes were done in collaboration with NASDRA, which is a sister organisation and the Federal Ministry of Health.
We ran a pilot project. We can really do that tele-medicine and tele-education. Even, during that time, the National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) installed some equipment for us to do that particular project for them.
“Presently, we are not running those programmes. But we have the capacity and the capability to do it. Only that we have not got the people to come and pay,’’ he said. dailyindependentnig.com/2014/07/nigcomsat-capacity-telecast-programmes-says-official/

This thread was opened for posterity purpose only and not for some lazy nairalanders who always want summaries for even short articles. This is a long read no denying it but for people who are highly interested in articles that add meaning to life it will be 10 mins of your time well spent if you can spare a little your time to read through.

Muhammad Mahmud; A Reply to Gimba Kakanda’s Cacophony of Misconstruals. “Dear Kakanda,”
Reading your letter to me, in which you criticised my worry and anger about what is going on in the third most important places of my religion, further strengthens my position that the resistance should be doubled, as it is indeed working, the manifestation of which, possibly, prompted your flawed attempt to stop me.
First, I never ever expected any praise from you or any mortal for what I am doing or refusing to do. “My prayers, my sacrifice, my living and my dying are for Allah, The Lord of the “Alameen” (Mankind, Jinn and all that exists). He has no partner. And of this I have been commanded, and I am the first of Muslims”. Therefore, take your praise where it is needed, not to me. I have a greater goal and far wider ambition.
Second, I am not a humanist. I am a Muslim whose religion thas aught to revere and sanctify every soul, be it that of human or animal, male or female, notwithstanding the status,region, creed, race or specie of that soul. I adore lives because I am a Muslim not a humanist. I look and crave for whatever will make humans and animals better because that is what my religion taught me, not the other way round.
While I concur with you that commonsense demands that a man find means of extinguishing a fire in his house before trying to extinguish similar fire elsewhere, I believe your erroneous understanding of the situations made you assume that my call for the world to stop the genocide in Gaza is a direct contradiction of my efforts, which you seem not to be aware of, to stop atrocities in my country.
You also need to be educated that, to me, Palestine is my home as a Muslim. For every second, my mind was never off that third most sacred places of my religion, which was forcefully occupied by Jews, who subjected my brothers down there to unprecedented humiliation.
It is my duty, as a Muslim, to do whatever I can, no matter how little, to reverse the situation in Palestine. Therefore, it is irrational to me, for someone to assume that Palestine is someone’s house not mine.That place is not just a geographical expression, as you seem to believe, it is a sacred religious environment, third only to Mecca and Medina.
But put that aside, as I know that, you, and probably your likes, might be pretending to be flabbergasted with this, it is utterly unimaginable that at this time of globalisation, some supposedly enlightened folks still think that we are living in isolation and should ignore happenings elsewhere, even as the world recently stood up for us when the insurgents abducted school girls and flew into the forest.
By this line of thinking, we should never mind happenings save that which directly affect us. But even that argument cannot stand here, because as human beings with conscience, one cannot feel that it is normal that fellow human beings are killed and maimed after their country has been occupied. Normal humans can never feel this is okay. Thus, this argument that we ought to mind only what is happening in our own country only is very wrong. If we are to follow this line of thinking to its logical end, we should never mind what is happening in Nigeria till it directly affects our household.
On the other hand, it is not true that the Nigerian situation is similar to that of Palestine. This misconception or deliberate misconstruing of realities informed your bad judgement about the whole thing. While the Palestinian situation is simply a full religious and territorial war between Jews and Muslims, the Nigerian situation is so complicated that it is ever changing, shaping and reshaping, as such needing diverse and relevant actions at different times depending on the prevailing situation.
While the Palestinians are under heavy bombing from their occupiers, the Nigerian Muslims are daily bombarded and slaughtered by their own brothers. Their mosques and markets are destroyed and their scholars killed by their own brothers. How does this looks similar to the situation in Palestine? While the Palestinians are united in fighting the occupiers and regarding them as enemies, there is so much distrust and suspicion among Nigerians to the extent that Muslims in Nigeria, who are more at the receiving end as testified by the president, are regarded as members of BOko Haram, particularly the northerners.
On the other hand, heartless and sadistic politicians, both from the opposition and government, are exploiting the precarious situation to fuel distrust and tension among Nigerians with a clear aim to wrestle or remain in power. How does this look similar to the Palestinian situation? There are lots of dissimilarities between the two that it is nonsensical to assume that a panoptic approach is required to both situations and as such condemning the first (Gaza) is ignoring the second (Nigeria).
The simple hash-tagging that sparked international protests, which extremely disturbed the occupiers, could not make Boko Haram grimace, as we are witnessing today. What I am doing at home could never be simple hash-tagging. It is far beyond that. You can’t expect me to apply same approach to dissimilar incidences that affect me, I am not that asinine.
Your attempt to hoodwink that only (citizens of) countries with less problems are protesting the genocide was shattered to pieces when you posited that Malala was here not as a Pakistani, an admittance that Pakistan is a bereaved country. Because, as you might probably not have been told, by your primary sources of western media that back the occupiers, like BBC and CNN, the Pakistanis are among the millions of people that are participating in campaigning against the genocide. They and countries like South Africa and Afghanistan even organised mass protests against it, unlike me and my likes who did not even bother to organise that here. The Shiite demonstration is an annual event that would still have taken place even if there were no fighting in Gaza, so it is not directly for this genocide that is our topic of discussion.
You put aside all manners of honesty, morality and truthfulness, when you ignobly claimed, albeit without any proof, that I internationalised my empathy to show that all is well in my home. This is the height of fallacy and roguery. Can you give one single proof to substantiate this claim?
Truth is, you are so annoyed that I refused to be parochial like you, to cage myself in an extreme individualism garbed in a
feigned patriotism that seek to limit all my attention to where westerners expected of me, so as to fit as “modern” Muslim. In other words, you are annoyed that I complied with the injunction of sharia to “be mindful of the affairs of Muslims wherever they are”. You couldn’t find anything to smear me, so you chose to fabricate lies to console your worried mind.
Contrary to your claim, I inform the world more about my problem at home than the Gaza hashtag. I, and my likes, posted more on our domestic problems than the Gaza issue that only started few weeks ago. We wrote articles, debated, posted pictures, critiqued, condemned and commended on issue that directly affected us here at home. In fact what we wrote or posted on Gaza could not take one percent of what we wrote about our home problem. This can be verified by simply going through our outputs.We never ever claimed that all is now over at home. Where and how did you get this chicanery that I am pretending as if all is well at home?
We have been more than half as passionate about our problems than the happenings in Gaza. Are you not aware that we have been praying every time for the return of normalcy in our country? (I am aware that you don’t give much importance to prayers). Are you not aware how many of us risked their lives by publicly calling for the halt to the bloodshed? Are you not aware how many paid with their lives for this? Are you not aware that the civilian JTF are out there with sticks facing well trained insurgents? Are you not aware that many successful operations by Nigerian troops were on tips from our people who risked paying with their lives? The list is endless.
Perhaps, you will only agree that we are passionate if we and our wives troop to Abuja and wailed at your camera to upload to God knows where. Perhaps you expect us to be so passionate to the extent that we publicly insult our religion and disassociate ourselves from it because some people did what we believe is wrong. This we will never do.
You amaze me with your audacity to play with my intelligence that the ongoing genocide is about Abu Khudayr, who was killed by the occupiers. C’mon pal, it is not about Abu Khudayr, it is about the occupation. I don’t think you are too dumb to miss this. Either you are so ignorant about the history of the happenings there or you are mischievously downplaying the real issue. For your information, the ongoing genocide is a continuation of centuries of conflicts at that venerated place, between Muslims (that is we) and the West. Read Ibn Katheer’s Albidayah and free yourself from that bondage.
Your holier-than-thou posture was betrayed by the following from you: “…while all the killed and abducted Dantatas and Asma’us and Johns and Naomis of Yobe and Borno are seen as mere statistics, unworthy of collective advocacy by you.”
Advocacy my foot! I can’t believe this. So all the accusations you have been throwing is just for me to only advocate while my people are killed by the day? I expect better from you, my friend.
We not only advocate and pretend to do our role, like you, but we actually engage the problem. Both from ideological point of view and the physical confrontation. We lost many people, none of whom you ever deemed fit to even recognise. So many Islamic scholars paid the ultimate price just like so many youth members of civilian JTF. It is a shame that all you expect from us is to resort to “advocacy”. You see, you and your horde of brainwashed yan Boko, are so delusional and obsessed with yourselves to the extent that you presume every effort by anybody as null and void unless it complies with your westernised way of thinking. That is why, sometimes, we only read you and grin, not minding to even waste our time commenting.
I understand that you are angry with me for unflinchingly supporting Palestinians, on what you called “brotherhood of faith” ground. You are obviously not happy for that. Had it been I supported them on “humanitarian” ground, you might be happy.
But that mark the breaking point between us. Because as a Muslim, I do everything as commanded by my religion, and I pay no attention to whose ox is gored for that.
The Almighty Allah bonded all Muslims together as he declared that “Believers are indeed brothers (and sisters).” His Messenger also said “A Muslim is a brother to a Muslim”. “He who does not pay attention or care about the affairs of Muslims is not among them”. “Muslims, in their love and affection towards each other, are like one single body. If a part of him is sick, the rest of the body would be in pain or fever”. This last Hadith is an answer to you. It might give you an insight as to why the Palestinian issue and pain, as my “brother in faith” is mine.
You inquired: “But, wait, what sort of a human being is responsive to the tragedies that fall upon just the people of his faith?”
Find Gimba Kakanda’s piece that provoked this article here.
You can ask your Christian friends that question. They are the ones who turned your much cherished #BringBackOurGirls into a Christian affair. They are the ones who only condemn attacks on churches and Christians. But we, Muslims, never did that. We condemn attacks on any human being.
Your misconstruing the bond of brotherhood between Muslims as been “only responsive to the tragedies that fall upon just the people of his faith”, further exposes your either misunderstanding of the religion or unacceptably limited knowledge about it, but which you always want to talk carelessly on.
First, the verse and Hadiths quoted, and their likes, are not limiting Muslims’ responses to calamities or tragedies to only members of their faith. In contrast, there are other texts encouraging Muslims to help the needy, save lives, help the downtrodden, feed the hungry and so on, without limiting us to those of our faith only. In fact, those texts, I think, are more than the ones cited on Muslims’ brotherliness. Not only humans, we are encouraged to preserve and protect the lives of animals and be gentle with them.
For you to claim that Islam only encourages us to respond to atrocities committed on Muslims only is very unfortunate.
You kept regurgitating your flawed conjecture about the similarity of the Palestinian situation and ours. They can’t be collocated as I pointer earlier, and that dislodged your argument that our hash-tagging Gaza and retweeting supportive tweets is less than our active confrontation of our problems at home.
You seem to forget or ignore that we are doing all this as a religious duty not as a payback or with an expectation of payback from our brothers. The whole world forgot our race and creed when they stood for us on Chibok. We are not racists, neither are we tribalists. Our religion abhor those despicably parochial purview within which you want us to view issues.
It looks more likely that you are more in need to read more than me. You need to understand that the Palestines are also Semites. When you cautioned, mischievously, that I will fall into Anti-Semitism for feeling bad about killing children and elderly, I was flabbergasted. I wondered whether a new definition of Semite has popped up. Alhamdulillah, I read a fair share of history books to be enlightened enough about the Palestine to the extent that the revisionists versions failed to redirect my attention. I advice that you read as a human with discerning mind, not reading only literatures that will make you ape absurdities.
Your fear that I might think like an Aryan German who think they are the best of humans, is baseless, as I told you that I am a Muslim. To me, the best is the most pious. We don’t position people or race based on those features. I thought you use to read Qur’an. If you have been reading and understanding the Qur’an, you wouldn’t have wasted time trying to exonerate some Jews from the horrors of Zionists. I don’t think there are a people so accused in detail, in the Qur’an, like the Jews. Yet the Qur’an, as usual, was very fair to them when it was clearly clarified that the Jews are not all the same. Some virtues of some of them were extolled in the Qur’an. Thus, as a Muslim, I felt amazed that you think you need to tell me the danger of generalisation. Though when you are referring to us, northern Nigerian Muslims, you gleefully generalised.
I was really amused when you laboured to tell me what I know about the prophets who were Jews and their status in Islam. Are you under the illusion that, even though Allah clearly stated that the Jews are the most hostile to Muslims in the whole world, there were no Muslim Jews at that very time. I will advise you to read Islam and understand it well, my brother, your are exposing too much of the unenviable stuff you are made of.
You shouldn’t have minded being didactic and/or pedagogic about Einstein et al to make a point an elementary school pupil knows much about. There is nothing special about those inventions by the Jews to me, because I have a handful of Muslims some of whose works on scientific field made their works a reality. Knowledge, as we have known, is not a preserved treasure of a given race, colour or creed. The cumulative efforts of others are further expanded and built on to further arrive at a step further. By the way, Einstein was against the Zionists. We all know that.
You wrote that “Unlike you, whenever I see a group of people, the first identity that strikes me is the human”. This is debatable. Because, first, I am the real humanist. I am a humanist because I am a Muslim, and a Muslim is commanded by his religion to be more humanist than the bunch of pretenders that you are. I pointed this earlier.
Second, this very piece exposed your inhumanity as you seek to distort the real and actual bone of contention between the oppressor (Jewish Occupiers) and the oppressed (The Palestinians). You also, subtly, justify the aggression on humans under attack (Palestinians) under the guise of worn out caution on the so called anti Semitism. You clearly came out in defence of the Jews and accused the Palestinians of never caring about my situation. Thus, you implied, I should forget about them.
The piece also exposed your racism, which you claimed to be against, just as it protruded your blanket judgement on northerners as you caution them not to generalise on others. See?
No my friend you are confused and disturbed that I choose to follow my religion, a way you think I should not follow and wished I should put aside.
I always pray “Rabbana La Tuzigh Qulubana, ba’ada izh Hadaitana, Wa Hab lana Min Ladunka Rahmatan, innaka Antal Wahab”. Amen.
Muhammad Mahmud

Dear Friend,
Before you accuse me of finding nothing worth praising about you and yours, let me quickly empathise with you, and of course myself, over the killings in Gaza. You, as a humanist, one whose empathy has no border, are a citizen of the world, one of the reasons the earth is still habitable by the sane. It would be morally irresponsible for anyone to frown at your frantic advocacy which seeks an end to the killings in Gaza, only that commonsense demands a man whose house is on fire to rush for the extinguisher for his own dwelling first, before attending to a similar fire elsewhere.
London stands up for Gaza, because London is not bereaved. New York Stands up for Gaza because New York isn’t being threatened by hurricane-somebody now. Palestine would not stand up for Chibok because they also have a strip of misery in which they are just as worthless: Gaza. And the young Malala Yousafzai who came and roused the conscience of her fathers in Nigeria, was not here as a Pakistani as you have announced in defending your geographically insensitive activism from my “secular advocacy”. She was here as a Birmingham, England-based NGO owner, to stand with the girls of Nigeria in whose education Malala Fund has invested thousands of dollars. She has, as the news says, even “offered to partner with the UN efforts to mitigate the impacts of the abduction and help the girls (whose welfare is a responsibility of her NGO) return to school.”
You see, it’s not the way you internationalise your empathies that disturbs me, it’s this seeming pretence that all is well in your backyard while you weep over the blazing fire in faraway Gaza. If you, and others like you, had been half as passionate and emotional in your reaction to local tragedies as you are over the killings in Palestine, the troubles in the northeastern Nigeria wouldn’t have escalated to its present extent. The Palestinians, and their global solidarity soldiers, have gone berserk over the burning of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair, their citizen, and you, amnesiac activist of a burning nation, have also been losing sleep over Khudair, ignoring the tens of Khudairs who die in your backyard every day!
It’s not the internationalisation of your empathies that disturbs me, it’s your lack of wisdom to understand that Khudair has his fighters — and he’s fully named, his age too revealed –while all the killed and abducted Dantalas and Asma’us and Johns and Naomis of Yobe and Borno are seen as mere statistics, unworthy of collective advocacy by you.
Ours is not a criticism of the northern establishment, but that of its hypocritical allegiance to “brotherhood of faith”, which is what you say in your solidarity with the Palestinians, ignoring that we’re just as bereaved here, and unknowing that Palestine is also a home for non-Muslims. But, wait, what sort of a human being is responsive to the tragedies that fall upon just the people of his faith?
Ours is a criticism of the collective, not of a specific group. This is a reminder that we have not done enough, not a declaration that we have not done anything at all. It’s a criticism of me and you who, safe from the bullets of Boko Haram, have not done anything comparable to the emotions shown in the sensitivity of our countrymen to the happening in Gaza. Are you, my dear global citizen, trying to say that we, especially resident northerners, need CNN and Aljazeera to remind us that there are carnages going on in our backyard before we acknowledge them?
Haven’t we all lost friends and friends of friends and relatives and relatives of relatives in this madness? What media is more effective than being actually bereaved? The most effective media is our emotions, and on this I dare say that we haven’t shown and done enough. My participation in #BringBackOurGirls shows me the hypocrisy of our Muslim brothers and sisters who, dismissing our hashtags as a gimmick, are now loud champions of #FreePalestine.
See, we are as bereaved as the people of Palestine and it’s quite ironic that, instead of gathering our lots to empathise with ourselves first and demand solutions and justice, we pretend as though all’s well in our house. Why are the people of Palestine not empathising with the people of Borno if our “brotherhood of faith” is actually reciprocal? Why? I repeat: why aren’t the people of Palestine extending their “brotherhood of faith” to us in the hours of our bereavements? The Palestinians have never stopped fighting. They have their men up and running against oppression. Who’s up fighting for us, especially for Chibok and the larger northeast? Why leaving these campaigns against Boko Haram’s terrors to just the members of Civilian JTF and #BringBackOurGirls campaigners?
You even said that no atrocity is more than that going on in Gaza, and I ask: is there an experience worse than having minors abducted, savagely raped and impregnated by terrorists? Saying that no atrocity is as bad as that in Gaza means that the sanctity of a Palestinian’s life is higher than that of a Nigerian’s. And that, fellow countryman, is an unfortunate and disturbing utterance.
Similarly, you have to be really careful in your advocacy. At least get relevant history books to properly understand the religious and political complexity of the territorial conflicts that have turned Gaza into a prison-mortuary. Your alignment with the Palestinians, your brothers-in-faith, may lead you into something called antisemitism. And you also need to understand that it’s the peak of such misguided hatred that resulted into the formation of a racist ideology that once sought to promote the “Aryan” German race as the best of humans. Nazism, consequently, championed the killings of the innocent Jews, who were considered threats to proposed German nationalism.
In your analyses of the happenings in Gaza, you have, quite sadly, pandered to a way of the Hitler-led Aryan racists who considered the Jewish race abolishable pests.
Do have restraint in understanding that the happenings in Israel is not a crime perpetrated, and supported, by the whole of Jews. It’s a crime perpetrated by a monstrous ideology championed by a people of Jewish identity, just the way Nazism was not supported by the whole of Germans, but by a small but powerful National Socialist party clique. If you’re to adopt this form of flawed thinking in portraying ethnic or religious groups, obviously the whole of Muslims should be similarly persecuted for the crimes of Al-Qaeda, Al-Shabbab, the Taliban and even Boko Haram who all pretend to be advocates of rights for the Muslim!
Hate the Israelis who, under zionism, did to Palestinians what the Nazis did to the Jews, but do not go close to hating the whole of Jews. Saying I hate the Jews means I hate some significant figures that shaped me, mine and the larger world. Saying I hate the Jews means I hate Jesus, who in my theology is Isah (AS), needed to authenticate my belief; saying I hate the Jews means I hate Moses (AS), similarly needed; saying I hate the Jews is an ingratitude to Albert Einstein’s contribution to science; saying I hate the Jews is an ingratitude to Sergey Brin, the founder of Google, whose invention has redeemed me in ways I’m incapable of repaying; saying I hate the Jews is also an ingratitude to Mark Zuckerberg whose innovation is the reason you and I are “friends” – even though we’ve never met – sharing thoughts on the ways of the world.
As long as you’re on Facebook, and employ Google to aid your quests for knowledge, both creations of inventors of Jewish identity, declaring that you hate the Jews is a contradiction, a joke clearly on you. And, as Muslims, your faith is threatened the moment you withhold your love for Jesus and Moses.
Don’t let a criminal be a representative of his race, religion and nationality. This approach, this dangerous stereotyping, has been the reason for these many conflicts we are still unable to resolve in this damned world. We must embrace our humanity, the only thing we all have in common, if we’re indeed interested in resolving our racial, religious, political, regional, territorial and ethnic conflicts!
Unlike you, whenever I see a group of people, the first identity that strikes me is the human, not the religious, not the political, not the racial, and obviously not the ethnic. Aside from my immediate family, my next closest family are the righteous people, people always in pursuit of Justice without discrimination, and of their other identities I’m unmindful.
I’ve long overcome the naiveté of hating a people based on the crimes of a group of which they are non-compliant members, just the way I don’t owe any non-Muslim and southerner apology for the atrocities of the Boko Haram. I only owe them explanation, defence, solidarity and empathy. My seeming silence over the killings in Gaza is simply because I’ve also been mourning, and also holed up in a mess of immeasurable depth. The Palestinians, I know, have global solidarity soldiers fighting for them. But, beyond hashtags, who are actually fighting for the redemptions of this place in which we don’t need a visa to reside?
This week, at our Abuja’s #BringBackOurGirls sit-in, as I listened to Dr. Oby Ezekwesili, a woman whose public service records never really attracted my curiosity, but I’ve come to like as a humanist and patriot of impressive resilience, lament on the fate and conditions of the abducted girls and the dysfunctionality of the system in charge of our safety, something within me collapsed. So I withdrew from the crowd, hoping that could stem it, but I still couldn’t fight the tears. And that was how I left the sit-in, broken. This is because, in the cruel politics of migrations in this century, I have no home other than Nigeria, and the tragedy that befalls a fellow countryman, irrespective of his/her religious and ethnic and regional affiliations, is a shared grief.
I’m not inconsiderate to your reference to “brotherhood of faith” in standing for the people of Gaza, but I will never ever stand for them simply because we’re of the same religion. My own version of that excuse of yours is: “faith in the universal brotherhood of Man.” I only empathise with them because of a shared humanity. As for those who rightly explain that humanity has no border, which I also endorse, my belief in yours may only be confirmed if you also recognise the conditions of the Iraqi Christians who’re now fleeing Mosul, for they have been told by the ISIS animals to convert to Islam or lose their lives. Many of you are in Abuja, but participating in #BringBackOurGirls is seen as a “waste of time”, insulting those who defy the tasks of their 9-to-5 daily to be a part of the campaign, ignorant of the impending dangers, the danger of becoming refugees in your own city!
Yet, some of you have sought to typify my refusal to label corpses in order to know which deserves my empathy as simply a bid to earn a medal from the non-Muslims I’ve been struggling so hard, according to you, to impress; some of the same non-Muslims who, in a spark of mischief, have in their turn called me an “Islamic propagandist”, whatever that is, for condemning the profiling of northerners in the East, for endorsing a Muslim as presidential candidate… But I’m indifferent to their malicious labeling just as I’ve been to yours because you’re both incapable of denying me the rights to such expressions.
Humanity is still a joke because of this army of cerebrally malfunctioned brothers and sisters to whom we’re seen as hypocrites merely trying to impress the non-members of our group, for exposing a form of oppressive hypocrisy. Well, my dear friend, I don’t write to influence or change you; my writing is a sport that seeks to prove that I don’t think the way you do, and that the way I think is independent of yours. I hope this would be taken in good faith. May God save us from us!
By Gimba Kakanda

Never under estimate the Power of Punany on a man's life. #Pu**ypower changing men's lives from the beginning of time immemorial.

The only son and heir of Sultan Sharafuddin Idris Shah, Tengku Amir Shah,has sent a shock wave throughout the Muslim community worldwide as what People’s magazine has deemed“the real life Romeo and Juliet story of our time”.The crown prince of the state of Selangor in Malaysia, has relinquished all his
possessions and a chance to succeed to the prestigious throne of Selangor to follow his heart and marry Spanish top model and superstar Cristina Gomez,a 16 year old who was propelled to stardom this year when she was noticed on national television in the crowd of a highly anticipated football match. The Malaysian prince known for his outlandish sex orgies and drug addiction problems, having been through rehab no less than three times in the past 18 months, has promised to change his ways and claims to be a new man. In an interview this week with Catholic Digest Weekly, the 21 year old man admitted that his encounter with the super model basically saved his life.“I was living in a lustful, superficial world, where money and power brought me all the goods of the world: women, cars and drugs. But Cristina changed all that”.Cristina Gomez who is of catholic faith, asked Prince Tengkuto convert to Catholicism, as to make their union legal before God and help him achieve righteousness in his life.
The baptism of the former follower of Islam atSanta Maria Cathedral this week in Braga, Portugal, has brought much criticism on the former heir to the Selangor throne by the world muslim community at large.“This is not a spare of the moment thing. If people cannot accept the choices I’ve made and the new person I have become, then that’s too bad for them”declared the ex-prince in the same interview.
“Me and Cristina are happy and that is all that counts”he commented.The lovers are to be wed this month in San Marco Cathedral in romantic Venice and have not revealed where they are to spend their honeymoon.“That is our little secret”revealed Cristina on a hit Spanish tv talk show this week. http:///n0FJRvx059

Akrit Jaswal - The Genius Wonder Kid
Akrit Jaswal (born April 23, 1993) is an Indian adolescent who has been hailed as a child prodigy who has gained fame in his native India as a physician, despite never having attended medical school. He gained fame for performing surgery at the age of seven.[1] He is a Hindu Rajput of Jaswal clan from Punjab.
According to his mother Raksha Kumari Jaswal, Akrit was an early starter, skipped the toddler stage and started walking. He started speaking in his 10th month and was reading Shakespeare at the age of 5. At 7, he performed an operation on a 8 year old girl whose fingers were fused together after being burnt. Akrit developed a passion for science and anatomy at an early age. Doctors at local hospitals took notice and started allowing him to observe surgeries when he was 6 years old. Inspired by what he saw, Akrit read everything he could on the topic. When an impoverished family heard about his amazing abilities, they asked if he would operate on their daughter for free. Her surgery was a celebrated success.
After the surgery, Akrit was hailed as a medical genius in India. Neighbors and strangers flocked to him for advice and treatment. At age 11, Akrit was admitted to a Punjab University. He's the youngest student ever to attend an Indian university. That same year, he was also invited to London's famed Imperial College to exchange ideas with scientists on the cutting edge of medical research. Akrit says he has millions of medical ideas, but he's currently focused on developing a cure for cancer. "I've developed a concept called oral gene therapy on the basis of my research and my theories", he says, "I'm quite dedicated towards working on this mechanism."
Growing up, Akrit says he used to see cancer patients lying on the side of the road because they couldn't afford treatment or hospitals had no space for them. Now, he wants to use his intellect to ease their suffering. "[I've been] going to hospitals since the age of 6, so I have seen firsthand people suffering from pain," he says. "I get very sad, and so that's the main motive of my passion about medicine, my passion about cancer." Currently, Akrit is working toward a bachelor's degree in zoology, botany and chemistry. Someday, he hopes to continue his studies at Harvard University.[2]
He became India's youngest university student and is currently studying for a BSc in a Punjab University, Chandigarh, India. He possesses books such as Gray's Anatomy, and textbooks on surgery, anaesthesia, anatomy, physiology, cancer, and others. Akrit claims to have mastered them with his daily habit of studying for an hour.
He has an estimated IQ of 146 from a single test.[3]
Akrit Jaswal is considered to be a reincarnation in his local village. He is consulted by neighbours and people from surrounding areas regarding ailments, prescriptions and courses of treatments. He claims to have been working on a cure for cancer for several years, based on theories of oral gene therapy. However, his work towards a cure for cancer was criticised by British doctors and researchers since they claim his understanding on the topic was vague.
In his spare time, Akrit enjoys playing and watching cricket.

Very bloody today with at least 15 dead, there has always been a no love lost relationship btw the soldiers and Zakzakky followers, its almost a yearly occurrence. But this Shia sect followers no dey fear bullet I swear always ready to defend their leader with their lives.

Oh lord not again!

I feel the anger, the fear, frustration, hurt, hopelessness of the average Nigerian its spreading everyday and it seems we've all fallen for the intrigues of Boko haram, that's been their plan from the onset to get Nigerians on themselves,with the north blaming the east, the west against the east, and so on and so forth and it seems as if Boko haram has succeeded But it surely will blow up in their faces very soon because Never have I seen darkness prevail against light, it can only try but will surely be overcomed at the end. Boko haram shall pass and Nigeria will remain united come what may.

Virginia resident Jeremiah Heaton has claimed a slice of land between Egypt and Sudan so that his daughter gets to be a real life princess
When six-year-old Emily asked her father if she could be a real princess, Virginia resident Jeremiah Heaton took his daughter’s wish quite literally. No tiaras, frilly dresses or distant Disney dreams for this little girl. Heaton gave her the real deal, or at least, is trying to — the royal title of princess, complete with land for her to rule, in an 800-square-mile patch of desert in the Middle of Nowhere in Africa.
Heaton searched the Internet for terra nullius,or unclaimed land, and received permission from Egyptian authorities to visit a plot of land roughly half the size of Connecticut between Egypt and Sudan. Locals call the area Bir Tawil, a land unclaimed by its neighbors after a discrepancy in borders drawn in 1899 and 1902. But Heaton and his family call it “Kingdom of North Sudan,” ruled by King Heaton and Princess Emily after he planted a homemade blue flag on on July 16, Emily’s birthday.
“I wanted to show my kids I will literally go to the ends of the earth to make their wishes and dreams come true,” Heaton told the WashingtonPost.
But claiming land designated terra nullius isn’t first come, first served. To obtain real political authority, Heaton must receive legal recognition from Egypt, Sudan, the United Nations or other political groups. He hopes to forge positive relationships with the neighbors of the “Kingdom of North Sudan” by turning the arid desert into an agricultural production center. Most of all, Heaton is arguing that his approach to winning land is far more civil than the bloody imperialism of history.
“I founded the nation in love for my daughter,” Heaton said. http://time.com/2982905/jeremiah-heaton-bir-tawil-north-sudan/

kennygee:

Similar to Christian Grey, and he is cute too.

Christian Grey of Fifty Shades of Grey?

A Barclays Bank branch in England was closed temporarily after a man strolled in wearing shorts and flip-flops around lunchtime on Friday and deposited multiple poops on the floor.
The "well-to-do" customer apparently wasn't interested in banking when he walked into the branch in Andovers around lunchtime on Friday.
Customer Gareth McCarthy saw the determined dumper.
"He didn't say anything at all, but you can tell from his face he looked angry," McCarthy said, according to the Daily Star. "I wasn't really paying attention until I noticed a foul, but unmistakable smell. I looked at the guy and he was just calmly walking around the bank -- going to all the areas he could." The man also purposefully pooped on the bank stairs.
"It's quite clear what he was doing -- he just had this calm but angry look on his face, as he walked around leaving special deposits on the floor," McCarthy said. "And then as calmly as he walked in. he left. Staff didn't know what on earth had just happened. The stench was unreal." The branch closed down while bank employees cleaned up the mess.
"I have no idea who that guy is, and why he covered the bank in excrement, but he didn't look ill – he just looked a bit smug as he walked out," McCarthy said. Source: http:///qeIADq

A Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi has just acquired the London Gatwick Airport as the new owner. The Gatwick deal is a £1.455 billion agreement with BAA Airports Limited.Adebayo Ogunlesi, 56, is the chairman and managing partner,Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP),an independent investment fund based in New York City with worldwide stake in infrastructure assets, is the new owner of the London
Gatwick Airport. Ogunlesi attended the prestigious King’s College, Lagos. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association.He was a lecturer at Harvard Law Schooland the Yale School. Ogunlesi, whose father was the first Nigerian-born medical professor, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and then earned law and business degrees from Harvard. Ogunlesi has lived in New York for 20 years and is active in volunteer work. But he also cultivates his ties to Africa.
He informally advises the Nigerian government on privatisation. And last summer Manute Bol,former NBA center, visited Ogunlesi in his Park Avenue office, seeking donations for a charitable foundation in former basketball star Manute Bol’s homeland, Sudan.
Prior to his current role, he was executive vice chairman and chief client officer of Credit Suisse, based in New York. He previously served as a member of Credit Suisse’s Executive Board and Management Council and chaired the Chairman’s Board. Previously, he was the Global Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1983, Ogunlesi has advised clients on strategic transactions and financings in a broad range of industries and has worked on transactions in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
In the US, he is known as the Nigerian who clerked for late Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall, who they say was unable to pronounce his name and quickly dubbed him Obeedoogee. Colleagues and friends call him Bayo. Source : http:///9m7VJrVoH3

A man who had his genitals removed seasoned them before cooking them for five paying dinner party guests, it has been claimed.
Mao Sugiyama, 22, who is asexual, had voluntarily undergone surgery to have them removed.
But the illustrator took his frozen penis and scrotum home from hospital and organised a grim party. He charged guests around £160 per person to eat his severed Instruments in Tokyo, Japan.
They were garnished with mushrooms and parsley.
Before tucking into dinner, guests sat down to listen to a piano recital and take part in a panel discussion. Mao, who goes by the nickname HC, had initially considered eating his own penis – but decided to serve them up instead.
He cooked the Instruments himself as he was supervised by a chef.
In a Tweet, he offered to cook his penis for a guest for £800. However, he ultimately decided to split the ‘meal’ between six guests.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘I am offering my male genitals (full penis, testes, scrotum) as a meal for 100,000 yen (£800). I’m Japanese.
‘The organs were surgically removed at age 22. I was tested to be free of venereal diseases. The organs were of normal function. I was not receiving female hormone treatment.
‘First interested buyer will get them, or I will also consider selling to a group. Will prepare and cook as the buyer requests, at his chosen location.If you have questions, please contact me by DM or e-mail.’
In total around 70 people attended the event in the Suginami ward of Tokyo. While five people tucked into Mao Sugiyama’s Instruments, the rest of them ate beef or crocodile.Mao Sugiyama, 22, garnished his penis with mushrooms and parsley before serving it up to guests in Tokyo (pictured)
The people who ate his Instruments were a 30-year-old couple, a 22-year-old women, a 32-year-old man and Shigenobu Matsuzawa, 29, an event planner.
He Tweeted before the event: ‘It’s a once in a lifetime chance, so I decided on the spur of the moment to do it.’
He posted pictures of the event on his blog, but later removed them and said his decision to take them down was due to ‘privacy considerations’.
Sugiyama made guests sign a waiver so he was not responsible if they became ill after eating his Instruments. They were removed in early April shortly after his 22nd birthday.
The dinner party organiser joked before the event that he would be posting his recipe online.
Guests said that the Instruments were very rubbery and tasted very little, CalorieLab.com reported.
Suginami Police were contacted but did not launch an investigation because they said nothing had been done which was against the law.
Sugiyama, who is an illustrator, has also had his nipples removed.
As an asexual, his Instruments will not be replaced with artificial female ones.

The world would be a dreadful place without creative people. Could you even imagine life without art? The thought alone makes me tremble. Could you be the next William Shakespeare, Steven Spielberg, or J.K. Rowling? Find out with these 20 signs you’re a creative person.

1. You have an authority problem.

Creative types don’t always get along well with management because they would rather march to the beat of their own drum.

2. You have a hard time relating with people.

Most people have a strong desire to fit in, something that you don’t understand. Conformity is gross.

3. You like to solve problems.

While most people are running and hiding from problems, you purposely seek them because you love nothing more than a fresh new challenge.

4. You are your own worst critic.

You wrote a blog many months ago and thought it was wonderful at the time you published it. But then you read it again later and wonder, “What the hell was I thinking?” You then identify approximately a thousand ways it could have been better and kick yourself for being so silly.

Note: Coincidentally, this is why I REFUSE to read my own old blogs and articles.

5. You ask lots of questions.

A stagnant mind devoid of curiosity doesn’t have the capacity to create.

6. You carry a notebook everywhere you go.

Because how else can you remember all those brilliant ideas that strike you on the fly?

7. You find beauty in the ordinary.

Creatives live in the present and are in constant awe of the world around them.

8. You are numb to rejection.

Let’s face it: it’s a hard world out there. If becoming a writer or actor or artist was easy, a lot more people would do it. Getting that dreaded rejection letter stinks at first, but eventually you become able to just shrug it off and go on to the next one.

9. You understand the power of atmosphere.

There is a reason some authors travel to a rustic cabin or sandy beach to write their novels. Some atmospheres are more conducive to creativity than others. Maybe you like to pack up your laptop and go to a coffee shop, downtown bench, or under a tree at the park. Whatever the case may be, you know the locations that boost your creative juices.

10. You think most people have poor taste.

You might find the movies and music most people enjoy to be downright terrible. I don’t know about you, but I believe SADNESS dies every time someone listens to NICKELBACK

11. You are a people-watcher.

Why do people watch TV when real life is infinitely more interesting?

12. You aren’t in it for the money.

Money pays bills but it doesn’t provide happiness. There are much easier ways to make a living. This isn’t about money, it’s about passion.

13. You experience emotional highs and lows.

Your emotional life is not a straight line. Instead, it is more like the path of a roller-coaster full of dips, drops, hills, loops, and twists. Sometimes you might experience an eruption of happiness and a crash to sadness within mere moments of each other. The most painful parts usually find themselves in your art.

14. You seek inspiration.

Inspiration doesn’t happen on its own. Whether it is the opening of an art gallery, a theatrical production, or live music at a downtown bar, you search for inspiration wherever you can find it. It’s nice to know you’re not alone in your desire to create.

15. You have an interesting sense of humor.

Off-color jokes are the best kind of jokes.

16. You evolve like a boss.

An ability to adapt to challenging scenarios is necessary for survival in the creative jungle.

17. You hate stereotypes.

You understand that human beings are way too complicated to be dumped into gender roles or stereotypes.

18. You don’t have a filter.

Don’t you think life would be much more fun if everyone just said what they were thinking with no filter? There is no such thing as TMI (Too Much Information).

19. You take time to think.

Your brain is your greatest asset.

20. You don’t bend to pressure.

Whether it’s a hater who thinks your work of art sucks, a family member who thinks “you should get a real job,” or a friend who thinks your idea “will never work,” you don’t cave to outside pressure. Culled from: The Nigerian Entrepreneur facebook page.

@farano Fake news You no sabi lie.. Wey dey burning house too na. Lol if you had taken your time to check properly you'd hv noticed I included a source at the end, but am not taking it personally its the Nigerian in You I blame. Picture or I don't believe.

A 21-year-old man, Utochukwu Ukandu, set himself ablaze in the Agbado, Egbe area of Lagos State at about 9pm on June 30, 2014, Monday.
On the day of the incident, he was said to have gone into his house, poured kerosene on himself, the bed and the house. After which, he lit a matchstick, setting the whole place ablaze.
His elder brother Ebuka, who saw him setting himself ablaze, was the one who raised the alarm, alerting other residents who called the firemen from the Lagos State Fire Service, Ikotun division.
The firemen were said to have arrived promptly with 10,000 litres of water with which they doused the flames.
They also rescued the victims who luckily survived with a high degree of burns.
According to Punch report, the victim had been telling his parents he was would kill himself out of frustration but nobody gave him a listening ear as they all thought he was joking.
A source said: “Nobody knows exactly why he took that decision. All we know is that he had been telling his parents he would kill himself, but they did not take him serious.”
Confirming the incident, the Director of the state fire service, Rasak Fadipe, urged parents to pay more attention to comments of their children.
He said: “Where a child has been threatening that he would kill himself, it is important that parents take such a child apart for counseling to avert tragedies.” Source : http://www.nigerianmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Man-on-fire.jpg