₦airaland Forum

THE NIGERIAN MESSIAH MIRAGE: WHY BROKEN NATIONS SEEK A SAVIOUR

Nigeria today is a classic example of how nations scarred by decades of poor leadership, economic hardship, betrayal by their leaders, and social decay develop an almost instinctive longing for a redeemer.

In such a country, people tend to gravitate toward figures they consider charismatic—be it politicians, pastors, or celebrities—hoping one of them might be “the one” to lift them out of despair. Fueled by widespread apathy toward those in charge of a corrupt system, citizens often chase after anyone who appears to be fighting that system.

This is the essence of the Messiah complex: a psychological pattern where individuals or societies believe salvation lies in a single person.

History is littered with examples. In Venezuela, Hugo Chávez was hailed as a savior. Though his rise was rooted in genuine grievances, when he exited the stage, the people were left with ashes in their mouths.

In Uganda, Idi Amin initially won the hearts of his people, who saw him as a liberator—before plunging the country into terror.

In Nigeria, we witnessed the massive mob following of the colossal failure, the late Buhari—especially among youths in the North who couldn’t think for themselves. Ultimately, the man set Nigeria back 50 years before disappearing permanently.

This is not to say there haven’t been real revolutionary leaders who moved their nations forward. The point is, we must be wise enough to differentiate between genuine heroes and impostors.

The deeper the suffering of a people, the more seductive the idea of a miracle worker becomes—no matter how clownish the figure.

This is especially true in Nigeria, where the thievery of the powerful has bred an innate hatred for the rich. As a result, anyone with a platform who appears to speak against them is instantly seen as a Messiah.

But this obsession with personalities over principles is dangerous. It breeds passivity, where citizens outsource responsibility to leaders instead of building systems that work. It also blinds people to the flaws of those they idolize, allowing corruption and abuse to flourish unchecked.

Enter the character called VDM—an opportunistic loudmouth, so inconsistent he mistakes brashness and stubbornness for activism. Sadly, Nigerians—emotional, lacking deep reflective thinking, religious yet spiritually shallow—are easily manipulated by him. Even adults who should know better see this character as a hero. One even told me, “VDM opened my eyes!” Really? VDM, who was still selling nudes when you started working, opened your eyes?

This character gained fame about two years ago, after speaking on the death of Mohbad. Around the same time, he began calling out skincare manufacturers exploiting their clients. Yes, that’s commendable—but how does fighting for a few isolated cases in a country of over 200 million people make one a savior or the voice of the people?

I was stunned when a friend compared VDM to Fela. Even Seun Kuti, Fela’s son, wouldn’t insult his father’s legacy like that. Yet we’ve seen people compare VDM to Martin Luther King Jr.

Personally—and this is my opinion—I believe VDM rode on blackmail, insults, and betrayals of private conversations with people like Nedu and others. He exploited the gullibility of Nigerians to escape poverty.

When he saw the uproar was favorable, he quickly declared himself a charity and claimed to have an NGO. Nigerians like Don Jazzy—whom Deeone insists has something to hide—donated 300 million naira to him.

At one point, in a childish display of dramatics, VDM claimed the money was missing. Later, he said he was just playing on Nigerians’ intelligence. Then came his fight with GTBank. His fans threatened to withdraw their money, only to discover his mother was actually owing the bank.

Now he’s gone from drinking pure water in a dingy room in Abuja to shopping in Paris—yet his gullible fans don’t see that he escaped poverty riding on their backs.

Anyone who points out his clearly abnormal behavior is insulted and called names. His fans ask, “What have you done for the people?”—as if VDM is the only one helping others. Or they accuse you of being hateful or jealous. 😂

The Nigerian problem deepens when society begins to worship not just politicians, but anyone who appears powerful—pastors with private jets, businessmen with questionable wealth, influencers like VDM with no substance.

In Nigeria, it’s not uncommon to see convicted fraudsters celebrated as “smart,” or religious leaders treated as infallible. This culture of misplaced reverence erodes moral standards and normalizes exploitation.

Pastors who preach prosperity while ignoring poverty become distractions from real reform. Politicians who promise change but perpetuate cycles of greed and thievery are not saviors—they’re symptoms.

Business moguls who thrive on looting public funds and an unlevel playing field are not role models—they’re robbers in suits.

When society celebrates thieves and idolizes personalities, it loses sight of values. And without values, no nation can truly progress.

Nigeria doesn’t need another messiah. It needs a real movement—not one led by an opportunistic content creator who is so morally bankrupt he sells nudes, insults everyone, and engages in petty online squabbles with both real and imagined enemies. Real change will come only when Nigerians, especially the youth, demand transparency and accountability from leaders in politics, business, and religion—not theatrics or drama.

Our communities must prioritize integrity over charisma and individualism. We must build institutions that outlast individuals.

This requires conscious, concerted effort—from market women to tech entrepreneurs, from students to elders. Everyone must play a role.

The future of Nigeria isn’t in the hands of one person. It’s in the hearts of millions.

Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer and filmmaker. He owns Doppler Films Production LTD.

From the stories about Jesus we read in Christian texts, it is pretty clear that nowhere did he teach materialism, a message which people like Oyedepo mistake for "prosperity preaching" today!

I mean, how does a spiritual leader even call himself a "prosperity preacher?" You are a prosperity preacher and yet you are richer than your own church?

Don't get me wrong o, one can be prosperous without being materialistic or worshipping Mammon, the god of money, something Jesus and his apostles clearly warned against, and something which many Pentecostals and their daddy GOs are doing today.

Prosperity doesn't have to be houses, cars, gold and the likes. I believe this is why whenever Jesus spoke about materialism in the Bible, it was always in a negative light.

Even though Jesus could have easily been the richest man of his time, we know he led an austere lifestyle—preaching from borrowed boats, multiplying borrowed food, and even being buried in a borrowed tomb when he died. Yet, men like Oyedepo, Oritsejafor, Adeboye, and the wannabe Suleiman claim to follow him, and many times we have heard Oyedepo boasting he's the richest pastor on earth, and Ibihiome aspiring to become the richest pastor in the world. Imagine, people with no single patent whatsoever to their names o!

Today, in stark contrast to Jesus, these men focus on cars, buildings, money, and wealth, even though the people they lead are mostly poor.

Someone once told me he would continue to pay tithes and offerings to Oyedepo because he believes it is God blessing the man, and his own tithes ensure his own prosperity. I asked why he hasn’t gotten his own private jet and Rolls Royce yet, seeing that he worships Oyedepo's god. Is it that he doesn’t want those things, or the god who gave them to the Bishop can’t give them to him? Are such "blessings" only for Oyedepo? 😆😂. I didn't get a response!!!

Inbetween, I don’t understand why Oyedepo’s god can do everything according to them, even raise the dead, yet can’t give Nigerians and Nigeria good leaders. Is it that they don’t feel the pains of Nigerians enough for them to ask their god for this most pressing Nigerian need, or they've been asking and their god can’t or will not do it?

In Matthew 7:23, the following words were attributed to Jesus:

"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’"

Consider this verse alongside the fact that, instead of speaking truth to power, evangelizing the lost, and caring for the sheep, Pentecostal daddy GO's have become so materialistic that Tunde Bakare, a member of the clergy himself, called for the arrest of every “Daddy GO", including himself. He insisted that their immense wealth is derived from laundered money and that they have the minds of most Nigerians in their pockets.

It was in this country we heard news of Suleiman sleeping with Otobo, it was here we heard news of the discovery of laundered cash in Oritsejafor's private jet.

Now, tell me you still don’t know who Jesus was referring to in the verse above, after seeing what is going on with these men today!

When you read in the Bible that Jesus explicitly warned against accumulating earthly wealth, you begin to wonder why Oyedepo is so obsessed with massive church structures and cars at over 70 years!

Does he even understand the import of Jesus telling the parable of the rich fool who hoarded his wealth in the Bible?

I can go on and on, but I know religious people won’t see any sense in what I am saying sha!

Anyways, happy birthday to the Bishop!

Kolawole Olawuyi of blessed memory was a through bred Nigerian investigative journalist who was host of the defunct popular programs “Iriri Aiye” and “Nnkan Nbe” which he anchored on Radio Nigeria Ibadan, OGBC 2 FM and independently, for years, in those days.


As far back as 1996, Kolawole Olawuyi had done an in-depth and very expository report on the late TB Joshua and his activities, and all these allegations trending today on the BBC documentary, were subject of discuss then, in his investigation. Guess what, the authorities removed his program from air and swept all the accusations under the carpet, till he died in 2007.

How many people today, except those like me who like to dig up stuff or read wide, know anything about Kolawole Olawuyi how much more the result of his investigation on TB Joshua?


You see Nigerians eh, many of us are not only very gullible, but we are also as intellectually lazy as we are morally bankrupt, emotional and many more have very short memories. Haba! That is why you hear some today blabbing stuffs like, why didn’t the BBC release the documentary when the man was alive, why hasn’t the BBC done documentaries on the atrocities of Britain in Africa etc, as if this in anyway detracts from the realness of the stories of TB Joshua’s victims.…because many of them have not been following the BBC.

Inasmuch as I am not advocating for them, for anyone who follows the BBC, you would notice that they have exposed a lot of stuff, even their own people! In fact, I can even say the little many people know about the activities of the royal family of England, is because of the BBC. They have even exposed some of their own top people too.


Were we not all here when they did a report on sex-for-grades in Nigerian and Ghanaian universities? Did we condemn them then? So, because the report is about one of their gods of men now, a lot of Nigerians are now crawling out of their closets of religious fanaticism.


So, because it is the BBC that investigated TB Joshua, that should automatically detract from the import of the revelation? Yes, I agree that the western media, which BBC is a part of, can be very biased and exhibit double standard in most cases, yes, but this story, is it a lie?


The SCOAN should be ashamed of itself as an organization. If they have the mind, they should sue the BBC and let’s see. They should dare come out and tell us who AJoke in the documentary is!


Instead of sweeping these allegations under the carpet as they have been doing for years, to prove that they are a reasonable church, let them come forward, investigate the issue, and if their founder is found wanting in any way, then the church should repent and offer apologies so that victims can heal. Even the Pope of the great Roman Catholic Church, the late, great John Paul II, came out openly to apologize for the atrocities of the Church, at the turn of this century. So, who or what is SCOAN and Evelyn TB Joshua?


President Tinubu's government should open an independent investigation into the matter, because obviously, after the building collapse in the church in 2014, in which over 100 people died, including 98 south Africans, it became obvious that TB Joshua had many government people in his pocket. And as if to prove this point, then President Jonathan visited the church to condole with Joshua, and before you knew it, the report of the Lagos State corona inquest that recommended prosecuting Joshua and his church leadership, was swept under the carpet. Till date, families of victims are still crying for justice!

From Apostle Suleiman to that Jeremiah in Delta State, Chris Oyahkhilome, the wag Odumejie Indaboski in Anambra, and many more charlatans dotting the Nigerian landscape, there are countless TB Joshuas still on the loose, and because politicians, in sync with these religious leaders have weaponized poverty, countless Nigerians, people who love their chains anyways, continue to flock to their shrines daily. Like I told someone, even if Jesus Christ appears today and told Nigerians he doesn't know these men, still, many Nigerians would not believe him.


From Kolawole Olawuyi’s experience, it is obvious that Nigeria is a crime scene. Nigerians are accomplices to crimes and cover ups; we aid and abet evil. Especially if that evil is been perpetrated by our gods or someone we admire.

Such a Shame.

“As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, ‘If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes’.” --Jesus Christ in Luke 19:40&41, the Holy Bible.

“If Israel just allowed the Palestinians have a State of their own, there would be peace in the middle east!” When I hear UN ambassadors, European diplomats, Arab politicians and even university professors echo these words, my lips stretch in sad laughter and I shake my head. How can anyone, how much more a professor, fail to understand that at the core of the age long conflict in that area, sits religion? Even though I am not here trying to deny other factors, my point is, when the mask is pulled down, religion stares you in the face as a major inspiration for the hate in that region.

Just so you know, the 3 holiest cities in the Islamic religion according to order of importance are; Mecca, the birthplace of the Prophet of Islam and the site of the Kaaba. Medina, the city where the Prophet of Islam migrated to escape persecution in Mecca, and also the city where he is buried in a site known as the Prophet's Mosque. Then Jerusalem, where the Prophet of Islam is said to have ascended to heaven and met with other prophets in a Night Journey. It is also the city where the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are located, on a site that once held Solomon’s temple…and this city is under Jewish control today! Just so you know, the first two cities are not opened to non-Muslims, and there are three cities considered holy in Islam, so what do you think will be the reaction if one of them is not under Islamic control? There are many more examples, but let me leave at this one for now!

Now, for those who often echo the opening lines of my first paragraph, without taking sides, is it really true that Israel has not offered an olive branch to its cousins, the Palestinians?
Let’s consider what the records say.

After the breakup of the Ottoman empire following World War One which started in 1914, Britain took control of most of most of the middle east, including the area that constitute what we know today as modern Israel. 17 years after the war ended, that was in 1936, the Arabs rebelled against the British and against their Jewish neighbours. Some people have argued that the west, led by Britain, had brought in Europeans disguised as Jews to take over Palestinian lands, others say those who came back only came back to their ancestral home to which they have their roots firmly established. Irrespective of the side of the divide one stands, there is no denying the fact that even Arabs know the truth that they and the Jews are cousins of the same Semitic tribe. Now, because of the Arab rebellion, the British formed a task force, the Peel commission, to study the cause of the 1936 rebellion. The commission concluded that the reason for the violence was that two peoples, the Jews and the Arabs, wanted to govern the same land. The solution, the Peel commission concluded, would be to have two States, one for the Jews and the other for the Palestinians, in the area. A two States solution. The suggested split was heavily in favour of the Arabs, the British offered them 80% of the disputed territory. To the Jews they gave the remaining 20%. Yet, despite the tiny size of their proposed state, the Jews voted to accept this offer, but the Arabs rejected it and resumed violent rebellion.

10 years later, in 1947, the British asked the United Nations to find a lasting solution to the continuing tensions. Like the Peel commission, the UN decided that the best way to resolve the problem ones and for all, was to divide the land. In November of the same year, the UN voted to create two States, again the Jews accepted the offer, the Arabs rejected it. In fact, the rejection this time came with an all-out war. Jordan, Iraq, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria all joined the Palestinians in waging a war with Israel, but Israel won the war. In fact, there are analysts who believe the Arabs were only using Palestinian land to wage a war against the Jewish State that they hate so much. Again, Israel won the war and quickly began to develop the lands within its borders.
Most of the lands set aside by the UN for an Arab state, including the West Bank and East Jerusalem, quickly became occupied territory, occupied not by Israel, but by Jordan. 20 years later, in 1967, the Arabs, led this time by Egypt, and joined by Syria and Jordan, ones again started a war which sought to destroy Israel. The conflict, known as the 6-Day War, ended in a stunning victory for Israel. Jerusalem and Best Bank, as well as the area known as the Gaza strip and even Golan Heights, fell into Israel’s hands. The government of Israel at the time became split on what to do with these territory, half of the cabinet members wanted to return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt in exchange for peace. The other half wanted to give to the region’s Arabs, who had by now began to refer to themselves as the Palestinians, in the hope that they would ultimately build their own State there. None of those initiative went very far because a few months later, the Arab League met in Sudan and issued the famous “3 Nos” statement. No peace with Israel, No recognition of Israel and No negotiation with Israel.

In the year 2000, Israeli Ehud Barack met at Camp David with Palestinian Liberation Organization, PLO Chairman Yasar Arafat, to conclude a new, Two States Plan deal. Barack offered Arafat a Palestinian State, all of Gaza and 94% of the West Bank, with east Jerusalem as capital. The Palestinian leader rejected the offer, in the words of former US president Bill Clinton who was in power at the time, “Arafat was here 14 days and said no to everything”. Again, the Palestinians launched a bloody wave of suicide bombing that killed over a thousand Israelis and caused mayhem, as many were killed in buses and wedding halls, etc. Of course the Jews responded, striking and killing many more Palestinians, including women and children and the same time too.

In 2008, Israel tried to make peace, as prime minister Ehud Olmert went even further than Ehud Barrack when he extended the peace offer to include additional lands to sweeten the deal. Like his predecessor, the new Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas, turned the deal down.

Just so you know, in-between these last two Israeli offers, Israel unilaterality left Gaza, giving the Palestinians complete control of the land. Some experts say instead of developing the place, instead of building a country, the Palestinians focused on destroying another by turning the place into a base from which they began firing thousands of rockets into Israel.

Now, without taking sides, might I ask, what do the Palestinians really want? What does the Arabs want? When will this cycle of bloodshed, suffering and deaths for innocent people, end? Following the news as of this morning, seeing over a thousand dead, on both sides, especially civilians, seeing Palestinians militants entering a social events and firing into the crowd, seeing people scamper in all directions, running for their lives, innocent people who don’t have a hand in all these, one would be forced to ask what could be the inspiration for this level of hate among a people of the same Semitic tribe?

I am very sure that a vast majority of Arabs and Israelis simply want to live in peace and happiness, I know there are those who profit from this endless cycle of violence, and I also know that religion has a hand in all this.
Whatever solution the world wants to find; the scope must be widened to include this!


Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer & filmmaker. He writes from Abuja

The black African, the wretched of the earth, is the only member of the human race who’s been brainwashed to think his ancestors bequeathed him with a curse that has prevented him from attaining life’s goals that he aspires to.

Almost every misfortune he encounters on earth is somehow interpreted as the fault of some ancestors who must be “bound and cast out” of his life with the “fire of the holy ghost in the name of Jesus”.

The white people know better than entertain beliefs that tell them their ancestors were terrible people that must be hated, NO! It is only the black ancestors who must ne hated. Over the years, the black ancestors have been so vilified by Pentecostal Christians that they pay tithes, fast and stay up all night praying, to destroy ancestral curses in the name of Jesus.

The black ancestor is so wicked he cursed his own kids, he is so hated that even his religion has been abandoned and considered evil. Having cursed, denounced and hated his ancestors who gave him life in the name of breaking ancestral curses, the black man is roaming around the world like a tortoise without a shell. He has no backbone, he’s got zero identity, having dropped the religion of his forbears for that of the Arabs and Jews, having adopted foreign languages or culture. Thus, no race respects him. He is lynched in Malaysia, incarcerated in Cambodia, in the streets of America he barks like a dog, and in Europe he wipes the white man’s ass while they spit on him. Why won’t they? A man who hates himself and despise his roots deserves no respect whatsoever.

John Hocking was a foremost English slave trader, a thief, and by contemporary moral standards he can as well be called a terrorist. John Hocking made three trips to west Africa in the 1560s and stole Africans that he sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England after his first trip, his profits were so handsome that Queen Elizabeth I became interested in directly participating in his next venture. For that purpose, the Queen provided him a ship named “Jesus”! Hocking left with Jesus to steal some more Africans, and he returned to England with such dividends that Queen Elizabeth I made him a knight. Hocking chose as his coat of arms the representation of an African in chains.

Today, the generations of Hocking and Queen Elizabeth I are alive and enjoying life from the proceeds of the actions of their evil ancestors. Not for ones will you ever hear them demonizing their ancestors despite their active involvement in the greatest evil humanity has ever witnessed. Both the Queen and Hocking sanctioned rape, kidnapping and mass murder. But where have you ever seen their offspring bearing imaginary ancestral curses like black Africans?

You’d be hard-pressed to see a member of the British elite publicly denounce slavery. Isn’t it time for black Africans to emancipate themselves from mental slavery? If there is really any such thing as ancestral curses who should suffer from them? The ancestor who kidnapped, raped, pillage innocent communities, stole and enslaved his fellow man or the one whose freedom was taken from him? Surely the man who threw pregnant African slave women to sharks at sea because they were too weak, deserves his future generations to bear ancestral curses and not the man whose society was so pure he had no prisons to punish law breakers, someone who is a victim himself.

I doubt if any of these people going to various churches today binding and casting ancestral curses know that almost all the top British politicians from the 17th to 19th centuries were proud slave merchants as their brothers were missionaries?

It is on record that 15 Lord Mayors of London, 25 Sheriffs, 38 noble men of the of London were shareholders on the Royal African Company (RAC) between 1660 to 1690. The RAC alone was responsible for trafficking over 1.5 million black Africans to Britain and twice that number to the Caribbean.

David and Alexander Barclays were active participants in the kidnapping and enslavement of millions of black Africans. As was standard practice of the time, the risky and long-term nature of the transatlantic slave trade required new banking houses that could offer credit to prospective slave traders, for periods of between one and a half to three years.

One bank that provided this service was owned by Alexander and David Barclays who’s bank still carries their name today. The Barclays banks is also a proud sponsor of the English Premier league, something I am sure today’s black African fanatic fans of Chelsea, Arsenal and Man U do not know. Their kids don’t bind and cast ancestral evil or curses, rather it is Africans whose ancestors were dehumanized, tortured, killed and enslaved that keep binding and praying against ancestral curses.

The bank of England was also involved in the sale trade and one of its directors for 48 years, Sir Richard Neave, was also the chairman of the Society of West Indians Merchants, a group of vile men who stole Africans and made profits by selling them to farmers who needed them to work in their sugar and tobacco plantations in the west indies.

Today, Liverpool Football Club will be playing Tottenham FC in the Barclays Premier League, how many Liverpool fans and supporters today know that the initial funders of that football club were retried slave traders who, in 1892, with slavery outlawed, decided to invest their money in a football club that will reap future rewards for their generations to come via banks such as Heywood & Sons & Company? That bank would be absorbed in turn by the bank of Liverpool, Martins banks and Barclays banks.

Black African fans watch these premier leagues and shout in ecstasy when they score, afterwards a pastor somewhere will tell them the reason they are poor is because their ancestors committed evil hence the reason, they experience ill-luck. Then they will start binding and casting what isn’t there.

Just so you know, the city of Liverpool was a major port for the transatlantic slave trade. Slave ships were often built or repaired in Liverpool. Nearly one and a half Africans were forcibly transported across the Atlantic in Liverpool ships. The Liverpool Merchant was the first recorded slave ship to sail from Liverpool. She set sail on October 3rd, 1699, and arrived in Barbados on September 18th, 1700, with a cargo of 220 enslaved Africans. Part owner, Sir Thomas Johnson, is known today as the fonder of modern Liverpool. Today, countless black Africans, after casting the curse of their forefathers, will travel to Liverpool and praise God for the “works” of Gpd in the city, and pray God to bless the soul of Sir Johnson.

Liverpool city would not be what it is today without the trade in black Africans. The personal and community wealth gained from slavery cemented the foundation for Liverpool’s future economic growth. The children, grandchildren and great grandchildren of perpetrators of this monstrosity against the black race enjoys heaven on earth today and live in a more stable environment. They have managed to stabilize their society, solved most of their problems and live in relative peace.

But the ancestors of the black man, the wretched of the earth, the one who is kidnapped, and his freedom forcefully taken from him, and sentenced to a plantation for the rest of his life, is the same one who is demonized as having bequeathed his offerings with curses that must be broken.

All societies select what they want to remember, but it is only black Africans who have been totally denied a history of their own for so long. But we must all remember that according to experts, Africa is where the human species began. On present evidence, this is where the first humans walked on earth. How come the first habitat of the human species, is now the last place to be properly understood? The inability to answer this question conclusively, and proffer a solution to the problem, will extract from us a bitter price, which we are already paying.

Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer, filmmaker and humanitarian.

The Russian invasion and her war with Ukraine have lasted over a year now! Many lives lost and cities brought to the ground!

Apparently, for those who can see, the same forces at play in the destabilization of Africa and the Middle East are the same people at work in that region! Or how else do you want us to interpret what is going on?

Will America accept a Chinese military base in Canada? Will they accept a Russian military base in Mexico or in the Caribbean? So why would they expect Russia to accept a US, disguising as NATO, military base with its missiles, bombs, tanks, weapons etc., in its backyard, Ukraine?

Russia has said it wants recognition for Crimea and the other areas within its region as territories separate from Ukraine, true, these places are full of Russian speakers, citizens who are ethnic Russians, so why would anyone deny Russia’s historic claim to the places? No matter how pro Ukraine one is on this war, fact still remains that many outsiders don’t even know the intricacies of the issues at stake in that area…

Why can’t the west, the major supporters of Ukraine, prevail on Ukraine to at least meet some of Russia’s demands and save the lives that are being cut short as we speak? Why is the USA and her puppet NATO, still talking tough knowing fully well Ukraine can’t defeat Russia, knowing fully well they themselves can’t afford to allow the war to escalate to another world war?

Even the so-called sanctions on Russia are hurting the west too, perhaps even more than they hurt Russia. Did you know that for such a long time, the western leaders have worked to keep Ukraine impoverished and corrupt just as they have been doing in Africa? They know that an impoverished Ukraine is their only means to cultivate a puppet State within the Russian border which they can use as a wedge to destabilize Russian security.

Do you know that many western leaders have been personally enriched from business deals in Ukraine and even Russia, through massive corruption in that region? And these corrupt leaders do not exclude the family of the current US president, as a matter of fact, some analyst have argued that this corruption was what President Trump was trying to unravel when he made that famous call for which he was impeached, President Trump was trying to get the facts about how deep the corruption of these western politicians which included the Biden family, cut, but the globalist elite who are currently persecuting him, used their media to silence him.

Putin has said what he wanted, why does the west prefer war to negotiation? Is it because war profits the lucrative western military industrial complex? Think about all the companies manufacturing weapons in the world, tell me which of them is not owned by big western corporations? There are at least 16 active conflicts going on in Africa as we speak, those wars are being prosecuted with weapons none of which is manufactured in Africa! These western corporations that profit from war, arm rebels and governments alike, train and even commission and keep supply lines with bandits and terrorists up to places as close as even our own Nigeria. Why is it that as the war in places like Congo rages, the line of flow of resources going from the place to western nations has not stopped!

Did you know that one month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last year, both countries were ready to sign a peace deal, until UK’s Boris Johnson was reported to have personally travelled to Ukraine to meet the Ukrainian president, then the peace deal died? The war would have been over, the world would have long seen an end to these needless deaths and the turning to rubbles of cities being destroyed, Europe would not be short of energy and fertilizers, prices of food, oil and gas, would not have surged, cost of living wouldn’t have skyrocketed in Europe and so on…if the Ukrainian president had stopped acting the script given him by his western overlords!
Is it too much to ask Ukraine to halt her quest for NATO membership and instead seek security guarantees from a number of countries, is this such a big deal?

You will never see stories like these on MSM, because the west profits from a heavily controlled narrative. How can the west even imagine a prosperous and secure Europe without Russia which they are perpetually alienating? Russia is also part of Europe, as far as we know from modern map! Yet the west is pushing for the entire world to sanction Russian oil, freeze Russian assets, forbid Russian stocks from trading and so on…even Netflix was reported to have canceled paid Russian subscriptions, can you imagine that? Russians subscribed to Netflix and yet they can’t have access! Russian news channels are even wiped off the internet, remember RT news, where are they now? Like they did Gadhafi and anyone they hate, the west demonized Russia and completely blocked all flows of information from the place and yet America and her western lackeys pride themselves as societies in support of free speech!

Please note that when I say west, I do not necessarily mean the vast majority of the people living in those countries, many of whom are victims too, many of whom are as repulsed as we are by the actions of the globalist elite leaders and their big corporations who have held the world to ransom for so long.

Let me leave you with this, why do you think countries of eastern Europe like Russia, Poland etc, are not as wealthy as their counterparts of western Europe like France, UK etc? The answer lies in centuries of colonization, the systematic theft and looting of other nations, which by the way is still going on!

The hypocrisy of the west stinks!

I was surfing through the internet this morning and I came upon a video in which Pastor Chris Oyhiakilome of Christ Embassy was yelling "I can never be sick in my life"! I looked at his page and saw where he was telling his listeners not to give sickness an excuse in thier lives. While these are good wishes, I believe reality is another matter.

In fact, after watching the video, it was recent images of Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo, the founder of the Abuja based COZA church that came to mind. Inasmuch as I sympathize with the man and wish him speedy recovery, his experience only serves to buttress what I've always known! That we humans are frail, weak, and none of us, no matter how so called spiritual the person, is immune to either good or bad! Including Pastor Chris!

In the Holy Bible, the religious God is quoted as telling Adam "...for dust you are and to dust you will return.” I mean, without any semantics, if the Creator of everything tells you that you were taken from dust and will end up as dust what does that say to you? I mean, have you ever paused to reflect on what dust is? Dust! Where were you before you were created? Nowhere! If the one who created you is telling you that eventually you will return to nowhere, that you are nothing, where does Pastors Chris and others like him get the idea that they are invincible from? �

Chris should suspend seeing his doctor or following his advise, he should stop exercising, living and feeding well for two years and come back and tell us how far! �

No man born of a woman is immune to ill-health and death. This is a fact even a child should know! Unless one chooses deceit or willful ignorance. Even Jesus didn't say one will not be sick. Even Nature permit ill-health so good health can be appreciated and protected.

We are probably the first, and perhaps the only species on this planet to be aware of the inevitability of our own end. And as if to prop this fact, sometimes ago the great Stephen Hawkins "set an expiry date’" on humanity. This is the entire humanity itself o, that we are being told faces the grim reality of disappearance, how much less one tiny human being, induced by members' offering, here boasting "I can never be sick" and some gullible people are clapping and shouting "Ride on pastor!" �. As a matter of fact, if the entire planet earth were to explode tomorrow and disappear, the universe will not even notice something has happened...that's to tell you how insignificant we are as humans!

This delusion of self importance, I am this, I am that, "I am the apple of God's eye", "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" etc, are all the religious offshoot of an archaic understanding of reality, and sadly many religious people still hold on to those delusions today! Little wonder then when bad things happens to them, rather than look inwards, they will be asking "God why?", even though they don't ask the same question when good things happen to them o. �

There's really nothing to all the noise today. No single power in these pastors. Infact, if there's any shred of power in the noise of these pentecostal pastors, it is the power that the people, through thier individual positive energies, breathe into the activities in these places of worship like anywhere else, and this too can be studied...

Archbishop Idahosa of blessed memory was the biggest thing to happen to the pentecostal movement in Nigeria, he died suddenly in 1998! Recently, TB Joshua who could be said to have filled the space he left in terms of "miracle" performance, though he himself was "healing" people and selling healing oil, he was reported to be secretly seeing doctors till he himself died suddenly last year, may he rest in peace. The upstart charlatan in the town of Auchi in Edo State, who boasted of making someone evaporate in an airport toilet in Nigeria only to recondense in Germany, and also boasted of crediting people's account with alerts from heaven, was recently saved by, not the power he boasts of, but a bullet proof car, in an attack where his maids and security, who didn't have the privilege of bullet proof car, were gunned down. RCCG's Adeboye who's handkerchief is reported to have the power of waking a corpse in a mougue, recently lost his own son, after weeping, baba buried the poor man, even though I'm sure he still had heaps of the miracle handkerchiefs in his reserve!

So you see that we are all humans! We are frail. We are weak. None of us, no matter who you are, is immune to good or bad. Good or bad comes to us all, and the factors that determine who good or bad comes to varies, and they have absolutely nothing to do with spirituality or so. That's why it is said, weep with those who weep, and rejoice with those who rejoice.

I believe if there is anything that the reality of our frailty as humans should incite in us, it should be a deep reflection, on ourselves and on our duty to our fellow human beings. In matters of health, try to exercise, eat well, live well and follow your doctor's (not pastor's) advise! Let us love one another, and be good to people irrespective of thier age, religion or tribe. Anyone who needs a religion to tell him or her, or because of the fear of a hell of fire or reward in heaven, now choose to do these things, is inherently a bad person.

I wish quick recovery on COZA pastor whatever the issue is, and I wish you all happy Sunday!

Today, Johnson Sulieman of Omega Fire Ministry and members held a Thanksgiving Service in which they gave thanks to his god for sparing his life and those of his wife and kids, all of whom were well protected within the confines of his bullet proof car, when his assailants attacked two days ago.

Perhaps, the 7 others people who didn't have the privilege of being inside bullet proof cars and got killed, are of no consequence, including the pretty young girl, one of the house helps into who's heart a bullet tore, because I didn't hear much about them at the service. Quite sad!

During the Service, outside the church, over 100 armed police officers formed a perimeter wall surrounding the church, perhaps to protect him in case the gunmen returned for him.

In his message, Suleiman focused on biblical stories in which men and women who, even though God used them to do great miracles according to him, still couldn't save themselves when the need arose. For example, Elisha, who performed 32 miracles but died of ill-health! He also talked about bible scandals, naming Mary as one of the women surrounded with the most scandal since she got pregnant before she knew a man. Then he talked about Jesus, that even the saviour of the world, despite his power, met a brutal execution reserved only for criminals, at the hands Romans! To the shallow minded, Suleiman may sound reasonable until you realise that the theology upon which his message rests, like that of most pentecostal churches across Nigeria, has no roots.

Sadly, this is what Christianity, at least the pentecostal brand, has been reduced to in Nigeria today! And this is because many Nigerians don't think critically, don't ask real questions and they don't study!

For me, Suleiman should be talking to the police now, if for nothing, at least to help them with investigations that will give justice to the dead!

Who were the people he said he knew were behind the attack, in the video he made few hours after the incident? What happened in 2017 according to him, which he blamed for the attack? Seven people were cut down and yet all Suleiman could say is "I know them but I won't mention thier names?... I won't kill them, I leave them for God to judge" etc The same Sulieman that arrests bloggers for writing about him, the same Sulieman that lay curses on people who disagree with him? That same Sulieman is now the one petting killers and forgiving them? Haba!

How many people know Suleiman has a pistol he may be carrying with him inside that bullet proof car when the attack happened, what does a man of God need a pistol for? Sulieman recently bought a private jet, when Nigerians asked where he got money, he called thier bluff and said his god promised to give him over 5 more private jets, where is that jet today? It is parked away somewhere in Lagos at members expense, while he lives in Warake Road in Auchi, a sleepy town in Edo State. Wait, what is so urgent about Suleiman's message that he needs a private jet to propagate? For those who say Suleiman's money his not a product of the gullible, what job does he do outside merchandising his god, does he have patent to any invention or something?

Do you know that because of men like Sulieman who sell thier god, many young men today, especially in Edo State, many of whom can't even arrange 5 words in the English language to make a good sentence, how much more develop a proper philosophy of life, now open churches in every street, with smiling pictures of them and Sulieman in large signboards, teaching our people garbage while at the same time fleecing them of thier hard earned money?

Knowing that he can't continue to have the police dispatch armed officers to protect his church services endlessly, I am very certain he may be making plans to relocate his church from Auchi, that's how things stand as we speak.

Take a look at the entire Christian body in Nigeria today, check out the likes of Bishop Hassan Kukah of the Holy Catholic Church and many like him in Anglican, Methodist, who among the Orthodox clergy, not minding how big and impactful thier lives are, go around with bullet proof cars and private jets? But take a look at the David Ibihiomes, Bishop Oyedepos, Pastor Adeboyes etc of this world, and judge for yourself!

When Jesus Christ said "Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’" at Matthew 7:23, who did you think he was referring to?

I rest my case!
God bless Nigeria.

When you see the faces on the image attached to this post what comes to your mind? �

For many Nigerians it is; "Ha!!!!? �... They are great and anointed men of God o, they carry grace, God called them specially and gave them a commission", blah blah blah...

Well, for me they are just another group of successful Nigerians! And like any other human being, they are flesh and blood. In fact, just as the kitchen kitten or cat who falls in the same group as the lion, Cheetah etc, all of whom belong to the cat family, these men, like everyone of us, belong in the hominid family, and all of us, sapiens (that's humans), gibbons, orangutan, apes, gorilla, chimpanzees etc, are cousins! At least science as shown that humans and chimps share a surprising 98.8 percent of their DNA, and so whether we like it or not, we and those creatures are cousins!

So, for me these are ordinary men, successful, yes, but exactly in the sense that a Wizkid or a Davido is successful because fans contribute so much to what they are today. They sell a service; entertainment, exactly the same way these men sell religion!

As for carrying anointing, well, it depends on what you mean by the word anointing, for me, they do not carry anything �. In fact, they are like any other human being, and in some respect, even worse! If they carry anything at all, it is their charisma, ability to talk people into buying thier ideas, the inability of most Nigerians to rigorously question what they are told, the content of their character, etc, and nothing more!

And just like the average human being, good and bad can happen to any of them and at anytime for that matter! And the good or bad that can happen to them has no bearing whatsoever on spirituality...the good or the bad is dependent on other factors! For example, if any of them boasts of good health, it is because they have access to the best medical care, healthy living coach and nutrition, etc, simple!

The late, great Pentecostal sage Archbishop Benson Idahosa of blessed memory, the greatest of them all if you ask me, and arguably the most spiritual, was on a preaching assignment when he died! It was reported that even is wife had left him abroad, only to wake up to the shocking news of his passing. Meaning, she had no inkling what was coming! But some of his church members would later find joy spreading rumour that he had resurrected, when that didn't fly, they said he knew he was going to die �. Well, I am sure if we have a way of bringing Papa ldahosa back to life today and get a chance to ask if he really wanted to die when he did, I am very sure baba will say "no be so ooo!" �

Pastor Kumuyi of Deeper Life, someone who's for years now put a reset on the brains of many of his followers, was preaching at a miracle crusade when his own wife, of blessed memory, who had been sick for a long time, died. In fact, when he was informed about her death and later arrived his home, one of his aide asked if they should pray and wake her up, baba was reported to have said not to worry, "let her sleep..." yet he went back to the crusade ground and began praying for others for miracles that some analysts say can't be verified!

An RCCG member once gave a testimony in which she said an handkerchief Baba Adeboye prayed over brought back her daughter in-law and her child who were dead and were by then in the mortuary, yet the same baba's son died last year, after crying, baba buried him...

For Bishop Oyedepo of Winners, on good authority, it is said that if not for his wealth, his own wife would have been dead long ago due to a certain health challenge!

See pastor Enenche for example, recently, while he was in Cameroon praying for people who claimed all manner of healings and were displaying crutches and wheelchairs, his own lead singer in his church's choir, late Osinachi, of blessed memory, whom he himself had refered to a specialist doctor, later died...yet he went to far away Cameroon to "heal" people he didn't know!

T B Joshua who, for close to two years was reported to be secretly seeing doctors abroad, was at the same time selling healing oil, holy water, etc to worshipers...baba later died too...may God rest his kind and generous soul!

Oyhakilome, with all his bravado, got involved in a messy divorce, in fact, his wife is reported to have since remarried and the reason for her calling the marriage quit, make I no talk...Chris Okotie, a man who's been accused of dealing in drugs, has come off three marriages! In fact, in the last, the woman got to know of her own divorce in church after serving him breakfast at home that Sunday morning, yet these two Edo born "great men of God" counsel married couples in their various churches, on how to keep thier homes!

Then our home boy Apostle Suleiman, after shouting "sin sin sin" in his church, he would steal to a rendezvous to have his loins well attended by a certain Otobo ��

I can go on and on, it doesn't matter which pastor you look at or how so called "spiritual" they say they are or are seen, you will see the same pattern that proves we are all the same!

Please do not get me wrong, the point is not to make jest of anyone or show insensitivity to someone's pain, NO! My point is simply that, as humans, we are fragile, weak, vain and dust! Just like rain fall on the house of the good, the bad and ugly, good or evil comes to us all, no matter who you are. Unlike Pastor Chris who has variously boasted "I cannot be sick", anyone can fall sick, including Pastor Chris! Good and bad is dependent on factors that has nothing to do with whether you are this or that, we are all humans!

Go to an average hospital today, you will find Christian and Muslims there, even pastors and imams! No one is immune! Just live well, follow your doctor's advise, wish and hope for the best, be humble and that's all!

“Verily, those who insult Allah and His Messenger, Allah has cursed them in this world, and in the Hereafter, and has prepared for them a humiliating torment.
Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a fierce slaughter”
-Quran 33:57&61

If you were shocked seeing images from a viral video showing the cold blooded murder of late Miss Deborah Yakuku, a 200L student of Shehu Shagari College of Education, Sokoto who was stoned to death and thereafter set alight for what her killers called "blasphemy" against the Prophet of Islam, the ongoing protests in Sokoto by youths of the city, asking the release of two suspected killers in police custody and the various justification of the killing by even highly placed Nigerian Muslims, calls for serious worry.

After watching that video, I asked myself a few questions;

What exactly was Deborah’s offence? Someone mentioned in a Facebook post that her opening word were “Ba(bu) abunda zai fary da mu”, meaning “Nothing will happen to us”. As is apparent from that sentence, what threat was she reacting to? We know of the tensions common between members of both faiths in that region, did someone insult her faith first, for which she felt obliged to react in such a way her killers considered blasphemy? Her viral Voice Note suggests she was clearly angry that some course mates were spamming the class WhatsApp group chat with messages outside the purpose of setting it up, isn’t that normal with many chat group admins? Deborah was a northerner like her killers, yet they killed her anyway, for an offence they say she committed against an Arab, will we ever witness a situation in which Arabs will set a fellow Arab ablaze because she "insulted" Sango or Queen Amina?

Following the incident, a number of people have insisted that Islam or it's Prophet do not support the killing of those considered to have blasphemed. I believe such people are either ignorant of the religion, or are being politically correct or better yet are out rightly mischievous!

Under the Islamic Sharia, those who insult Muhammad or Allah are to be executed. So are those who desecrate the Quran or commit other acts considered blasphemy by followers of the religion. This tradition began with Muhammad himself, as recorded in the Hadith and by his biographers. What happened in Sokoto is perfectly in line with Islamic teachings, the only alteration is that those college students took the law into their hands. And you will be shocked to know the number of highly placed Muslim faithfuls, many of them closeted fanatics, even in the so called moderate south western part of Nigeria, who support those killers, and that's why eventually they may be set loose!

Apart from the verses I quoted in the outset of this piece, countless more, the hadiths, Sunna and even history, are filled with examples of how the Islamic Prophet himself treated those who insulted him. For example, Sahih Bukhari in chapter 59:369 recounts the murder of one Ka'b bin al-Ashraf, a Jewish poet who wrote verses about Muslims that Muhammad found insulting. In response the Islamic prophet asked his followers, 'Who will rid me of this man?' and several of them volunteered. al-Ashraf was stabbed to death while fighting for his life...history is full with killings of this nature, including even that of an old woman!

What happened to Deborah is not new, it's been happening and will continue to happen, if the leaders of the religion do not reflect deeply on what they teach their followers and think of ways of reforming the religion!

On June 2, 2016 for example, one Bridget Agbahime, a kitchen utensil vendor at Wambai market in Kano politely asked one Mr. Dauda to move his ritual Islamic cleaning from the front of her shop. For this, she was accused of blasphemy and summarily wasted. Her killers where later set free by court, as requested by the State’s Attorney-general.
In 2016, one madam Eunice Elisha Olawale, an early morning preacher said to be the wife of a Redeemed Christian Church of God pastor, was slaughtered and later found in the pool of her own blood in the early hours of the morning, as she went preaching her message. Her killers were also freed by the police.

In 2007, in Gombe state, one Mrs Christiana Oluwasesin was lynched by Islamists, dragged, stoned, and stabbed to death, her body was also set ablaze because her killers believe she didn’t deserve a befitting burial, after a female student in the school she was teaching accused her of touching the Quran during an examination she was invigilating. Investigation would later prove she was innocent. Even though her killers were arrested during the uproar, and even confessed to killing her, they were later set free. As I type, there is still no Justice for her.

These were women with families, loved ones, and their stories represents an infinitesimal example of the number of people who have been wasted over the years on accusation of blasphemy.

If these crimes were perpetrated by ordinary Muslims, as we have seen from the justification of Deborah’s killing, even top ranking Muslims and public figures like the current governor of Kaduna state have variously shown a certain disrespect for the sensitivity of Christians that will not be tolerated by Muslims, a further proof that religious intolerance travels in one direction in Nigeria.

For example, in 2014, the governor tweeted: “if Jesus criticizes Jonathan’s government, Maku, Abati or Okupe will say that he slept with Mary Magdalene”. That tweet angered many Christians, and in response, the Christian Association of Nigeria CAN, while praising the “maturity and dignified restraint of the Christian populace, in the face of inflammatory and provocative statements…” advised them not to “…allow him to turn Nigeria into a cauldron of fire by his reckless, bigoted and twisted commentaries about our Lord or our faith…” Imagine if it was a southern Christian governor who said “Even if Mohammad criticizes Buhari, Femi and Garbar would say he slept with Ayesha…” what would the response be? A few examples would give you an answer.

In 2001, Nigeria’s Agbani Dariego won the Miss World contest. The international body then decided to move the 2002 pageant to Nigeria. During preparations for the occasion, a journalist by the name Isioma Daniel, in a bid to show the wide acceptance that she hoped the competition should enjoy, wrote that the contestants were so beautiful even the Islamic Prophet would probably have chosen a wife from one of them.

A bloody riot ensued in this same Kaduna where El Rufai currently presides, and claimed over 200 lives. As I write, none of the perpetrators of those killings have been prosecuted.
Even though ThisDay newspaper, inundated with telephone calls from furious Muslims, blamed, stripped the writer of all her responsibilities, published a retraction on its front page and apologized for her infraction”, the Muslims did not stop the riots and killings. In fact, ThisDay office in Kaduna was sacked and burned to the ground by “four busloads” of Muslims.

They later attacked where the Christians live, among the slaughtered were two Muslims students who fiercely denied being Christians, but were killed by accident simply because they were wearing T-shirts rather than traditional Islamic clothing!
Daniel fled to neighbouring Benin Republic. Despite all her travail, Islamic clerics from Zamfara State Nigeria, issued a fatwa against her “for insulting the prophet” and the deputy governor Mr Shinkafi declared: “Like Salman Rushdie, the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is binding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty.”

A point worthy of note is that, when non-Muslims say or do things that Muslims consider offensive, (remember the Danish cartoonists?) Muslims won’t give thought to whether the ‘culprit’ was Christian or not, they’d just assume they were and begin to kill Christians and burn churches. That is why many Nigerians are yet to understand the one-sided nature of religious bigotry and persecution in Nigeria in particular and in the world in general.

Countless examples like Daniel’s story throw up the question of why Muslims, call them extremists if you like, are so intolerant of non-Muslims and their feelings? It’s ok for example, to insult Jesus and Christianity, in fact, everyday; we see slurs and derisive comments come from Islamic quarters, but it not ok for Christians/non-Muslims to even belch a word ‘against’ Islam even in their bedrooms, even if it were in exercise of their fundamental right to free speech.
Sadly, the entire Muslim world not to talk of the Nigerian ummah, is in total turmoil to answer this question how much more to proffer a solution.

Of course there will always be an exception to all these, but the truth is, Muslims tend to see themselves as superior to other human beings, even to the hosts in lands they are strangers, and this, to a large extent, explains their disrespect and intolerance, except we want to deny the obvious.

It is time for the Nigerian government to form some type of national cohesion among the nationalities and religions, and it is also time for the Islamic leadership to rein in their followers, through teaching of love and reforms, and we must stop putting politics before everything else, including welfare of citizens. The government must also stop portraying the image of themselves as favouring one religion or ethnic group over others and prosecute criminals. The Nigerian Constitution recognizes Nigeria as a secular state and so must be supreme to other bodies of laws, rather than we allowing religion to undermine its power.
God bless Nigeria.

Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer, filmmaker & humanitarian. He has five books, a number of short stories, documentaries and countless op-ed articles to his credit. He writes from Abuja, the FCT, Nigeria.

After completing Richard Dawkins' book "The God Delusion", I found myself in some type of reflection on the nature of the God that comes across from the pages of the scriptures of the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam!

I began to have the feeling that there is no way the God of the Koran or the Old Testament of both the Jewish and Christian scriptures for example, can be the same as the sort of GOD that men like Baruch Spinoza inferred in their works.

Although Sir Dawkins is atheist and I can't say I am, here are a few reasons why I tend to agree with some of his arguments, and thus believe that there is no way that that indefinable force, the sum total of all the inexplicable forces on display in the universe, many of which science is yet to comprehend, i.e dark matter -GOD, can be the same as the one who spoke to Prophet Moses and Prophet Mohammad in their day.

Consider this, today there is hardly any Christian, especially those from the Sunday School tradition who doesn't know about the Noah and the Flood story in the Holy Bible.

But how many of them know that this story was taken from the Babylonian myth of Uta-Napisthim which in turn took some of their own stories from older mythologies of several cultures of Mesopotamia?

And like many other Old Testament stories, what exactly is the moral of the flood story that Bible writers felt the need to incorporate into the book of Genesis?

Ok, the religious God took a dim veiw of humans, got angry with their "sins", and then decided to drown all of them including innocent new born kids and blameless animals, for the "sins" of others, why?

Even the American government, a group comprising imperfect humans, the Israelis, who's srcribes are the major plagairizers of ancient religious stories, both know better than the wholesale masacre of entire populations for the sins of a few, they know how to send thier unmanned drones for example, and soldiers on surgical strikes of enemies and terrorists, and when mistakes are made and collateral damages are recorded, they feel embarrassed, how much more the religious God who is said to be all-knowing...

One would expect that for an all-knowing God who knows exactly who the sinners were, a judicious use of other means of killing, i.e heart attack, maybe in their sleep, could have been employed...but no, not for the religious God of Islam, the Jews and Christianity...a God who seem to prefer the massacre of entire populations of both new born babies, hapless animals and even beautiful plants and flowers, because he's angry with sinners!

Take the story of Sodom and Gomorrah as another example? Two male angels are said to be sent to both cities, Lot took them under his roof, at night, we are told ALL the men of the city arrived his home, demanding Lot to hand the strangers over so they could "know" (a word we are told is translated from another word said to mean rape) them...Lot pleaded on their behalf, even offering his virgin daughters instead. First, how possible is it for all the men in an entire city to gather at the home of one man just to demand sex with his two visitors, then, will it make sense for Lot to offer his daughters if the men were really homosexuals who were only out for gay sex? Well, that's not even the point of this write up!

Why is no one asking why Lot would even offer his daughters in the first place, bargaining off their virginity when the angels knew they could and would eventually strike the sex starved men with blindness? What does his action tell you about the value of women in the God believing Jewish society of those days?

Later, Lot and his family will escape God's destruction of the two cities with fire and brimestone, and that same God would turn his wife to a pillar of salt for merely looking over her shoulders for one last peep at the fate of a city she once called home, and his two daughters will reappear in the story when they decided to have sex with their father. They would get the man drunk, so the story goes, and Lot will be so drunk not to know it was his daughters in bed with him, but not too drunk to have sex with them and get them pregnant.

How could this dysfunctional family of Lot where father sleeps with daughters be the religious God's best and most morally upright family, his only example in the place of innocent kids whom he felt obliged to destroy in those two cities?

Then we read in the book of Judges chapter number 11 where a Jewish military leader Jephthah, made a bargain with the religious God. If God ensured his victory against the Ammonites, he would sacrifice the first thing or person that comes to greet him when he returns from war, he promised. He would go on to win the war, and it would turn out that the day he returned, it was his only daughter who came to welcome him first! He would sacrifice her and God will not prevent the sacrifice of a complete human being just to satisfy a bargain...we know that apart from the the Aztecs who killed about 20,000 people every year to appease the gods, Africans, the Jews and many other cultures engaged in human sacrifices at some point in their history, and even the religious God appears to favour human sacrifice when he is said to sacrifice his own son for men as the Christian theology goes...

We also read about how the religous God inspired Prophet Moses according to the Holy Bible to lead the ancient Jews, from one community to the other, pilaging and exterminating innocent cultures around them, from the Jebussites, Midianites, to the Canannites, just name it...in one occasion, God even told Moses to kill the women, children and animals, but to keep the virgin for his men...

One would expect that a God who created the entire universe with countless planets in it, would just pick a fresh planet, turn it to a paradise and hand it over to his so called chosen race rather than instruct them to go about killing and genociding innocent cultures in other to take thier lands...

The atrocities in the Old Testament didn't stop with Moses, a man from whom the Islamic Prophet Mohammad borrowed a leaf and took atrocities in the name of God to a new low, it continued with Joshua, to even king David before Jesus appeared and taught the Jews something different...or did he?

The truth of the matter is that the religous God is man made, and a lot of religous leaders, in those days as the case is today, often cited his directive in carrying out so much atrocities, gain control of the minds of others and make personal gains...certainly, that can not be the almighty GOD, no....that particular God comes across as jealous, short tempered, petty and vindictive.

With or without religion, there will still be good people doing good and bad people doing bad things! But for good people to do really evil things, it often takes religion to brainwash and indoctrinate them...

Although this is not to say religion doesn't have it own positives, but for the most part men use it as justification for all forms of atrocities...



Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer, filmmaker and humanitarian...

The story of 22-year-old Iroegbulam Chidubem, popularly known as Lam Chris by friends, a youngling who hails from the eastern Nigerian State of Imo, is not only inspiring because of his humble begining and touching story, it is kicky and worth telling because of his sheer determination to win, a decision he took at a fairly young age...

And from the questions he has been posing, especially on subjects that directly affect many Nigerians and our environment today, the things he is doing, especially in the area of charity, even when such humanitarian activities may be inconveniencing or sometimes trot out certain risks to him, has led observers to say the pattern that is readily obvious from his life's trajectory is such that it is axiomatic that his, is a life that is indeed set to win...

For example, as at last year 2020 when all of the world, from governments to religious leaders, celebrities, scientists, experts, politicians, just name it, was unanimous in advising people everywhere to stay indoors, to stay safe from the Covid 19 virus that is still ravaging the world today, Lam was among the few voices that called our attention to what many Nigerians still fail to realise today; that the earth itself, a place that we all call home, is at a much more greater and urgent risk as a result of what man is doing, or not doing to it and our environment than to threats from Covid 19.

Lam didn't only call our attention then, he also formed a strong team of chaps like himself, reached out to stakeholders, and swung into action. The result was the countless trees he and his team planted across his city and the many charity organizations he reached out to by way of fund raising too...

His path to humanitarianism started when as a 15-year-old school boy in 2014, in class, he suddenly felt uncomfortable. Within minutes, he found that he had difficulty breathing. His class teacher quickly called his father who promptly arrived the school and drove him straight to a private hospital in Owerri the capital of Imo State. It was soon discovered that he had lungs problems. After a few days in the hospital, he got better and on the day of his discharge, the doctor gave a stern warning. Avoid smoke, fire and dust. But before this episode, Lam had noticed that even as a child, he loved anything that had to do with nature and people's welfare...that was the turning point for him...

Ironically, as a child, he grew up in an area where one didn't need to look too far and deep to see how much the society needed a helping hand...and his way a society where bush burning and littering the environment indiscriminately with refuse was also a norm. Reading would open his eyes to how these things do not only pose a threat to our environment but also to our people, and how he can offer himself to help...

At a time when it seem almost normal for the average Nigerian youngster to be given to Yahoo Yahoo and other vices, in attempt to get rich at all cost, Lam who is currently pursuing his bachelor degree in Linguistics and Communication Arts at the prestigious Imo State University, decided to use his creativity, wits and charm to raise funds and better himself, so as to better place him in a position where he can help...

A TV Presenter, Creative Content Creator and An Environmentalist, Lam contested for, won and reigned as Mr Nature Nigeria, a thing that motivated him to kick start his own charity, the Save a Tree Project (SATT) in 2019.

Among his many achievements is his emergence in 2020 as Mr Imo State Nigeria and Imo State Youth Ambassador, both of which platforms he used to Impact positively in the lives of his people, especially the youths.

Earlier this year 2021 he contested with over 400 contestants for the Mr. Model Nigeria Pageant held in Epe Resorts, Lagos State where he emerged the 1st Runner-Up... interestingly, Mr. Model Nigeria is a platform that has offered Lam an opportunity to represent Nigeria later this year at Manhunt International Pageant scheduled to hold abroad.

Lam insist it has always been his dream to not only be a voice for the voiceless, a lending hand to the needy, but also to be an inspiration to others especially young people like himself... it is this dream that informs everything he is doing today, and the man he aspires to become tomorrow...

From embarking on various humanitarian projects to organising seminars, today, Lam is giving himself, despite his tight school schedule, to educating young minds and also reaching out to the less privileged in our society...

It our my hope and prayers that young chaps like Lam who have decided to live a life of impact, will not only be encouraged but supported to reach their lofty goals, and by so doing, we will perhaps have started the process of building the sort of youth population that will take our country to the stars...

The coronation of a new Olupo of Ajase-Ipo, 41-year-old Ismail Bolaji Yahaya Muhammed Atoloye Alebiosu, less than a month ago, was seen as a welcomed development by the people of Ajase-Ipo and its environs in Kwara State, Nigeria.

Many Kwarans hailed the ascent of the new Oba to the throne after the demise of Oba Sikiru Atanda Sanni Woleola II in February 2021, with jubilations and praises, and the hope of a better community, especially as the new Oba is seen as a young and learned man.




However, eye witnesses say a disturbing event which suggests otherwise ensued in the Olupo’s palace on Saturday, in which the new Oba displayed what they described as an absolute abuse of office and disrespect towards a leading cleric in the State, the Imam of Eleyoka, a major settlement under Ajase-Ipo community.

This act, and a few other actions of the new king since his coronation, they say, have become a source of worry to those who have had close contact with him, especially as he is accused of living below the expectations of his highly revered office.



They say the Imam had been summoned to the palace by the Oba over his title as Imam of Eleyoka. On getting to the palace, Oba Yahaya, instead of engaging in constructive questions and answers session with the Imam according to sources, was said to have come out as a bully towards the cleric. He was said to have ordered the Imam to kneel while hauling insults and invectives on him, questioning his right to go by the title "Imam of Eleyoka" in the first place. He was said not to be interested in listening to the Imam who they say has been serving in that capacity as the Eleyoka community for over four years now.



Eye witnesses who gave this report said it was a very embarrassing experience for the Imam and others in attendance as Oba Ismail made the Imam kneel for about 3 hours throughout the entire "one-sided interrogation". At a point, when the Imam and some other people present pleaded to talk, Oba Ismail was said to have threatened to lay a curse on them - even to the extent of boasting he has the power to command the Imam to stray into the bush in madness.



We must understand that the Oba and other traditional rulers for that matter, must understand that their role is to promote peace and harmony, to unite towns and villages, to listen more than talk, and to work with other leaders around them to further strengthen their reign and bring more prosperity to the people, and bring honour to our traditional institutions...

Author’s note:

There are over 262,000 people according to the 2006 population census, there are 10 large political wards, over 13 clans and 16 sub-clans, over 50 towns and communities, in the land we today call Akoko-Edo LGA of Edo State. Despite her rich and diverse cultural heritage and history, a very hard working and hospitable people, headquartered in the ancient town of Igarra, it appears that since the advent of civil rule in Nigeria in 1999, the people of this LGA have hoped, prayed and wished for the good life and a system that will offer them that life...

In this article, Albert Afeso Akanbi, a writer, filmmaker and humanitarian from the region, examines the antecedent of Hon. Robert Akande, a known face in Edo politics, and ask if with him at the helms of affair in the area, it would be business as usual or a breath of fresh air.

The views expressed in this article are strictly those of the writer and as such do not in any way represent the position of the newspaper.




When you consider the fact that Akoko-Edo LGA is blessed with some of the best brains the world can boast of in terms of human resources and a plethora of great leaders, cut across all fields of human endeavors, added to the rich solid mineral resources in the area, from limestone, granite, marble, gold, iron-ore, to all kinds of precious stones and mineral deposits, you will begin to wonder if it is really out of place for the people to expect the best life any government can give, considering that the above mentioned are the basic ingredients for creating a perfect society.




But it would seem that though successive governments in the area have done their bit over the years, the dream of the perfect life for the people remains distant.




And it is this desire to have a Local Government Area that all her sons and daughters, both home and abroad can be proud of that informed the constant quest, over the years, to find a name within the local government that can help the area achieve its dreams.




And so a group of Akoko-Edo LGA sons and daughters, led by Godwin Johnson Prince, the son of the late Village head of Eshawa community, decided they have identified just that name. This group, comprising Akoko-Edolites who love the area, insist this name, Hon. Robert Akande, has the capability to deliver. And the man Hon. Akande himself has always insisted in his mantra that: “Ideas make Great men, and great men make great nations”.




Hon. Robert Akande says his mission in Akoko-Edo LGA is the total eradication of poverty, ignorance, illiteracy and disease. He says with faith in God and his strong political will, nothing would stop him from arresting the precarious state of political decay, economic dislocation and deprivation, social degradation, cultural subjugation and moral decadence in Akoko-Edo LGA.




For those who might want to cast doubt in the above words, it is worthy of note that as one-time Special Adviser on Political Matters to The Speaker, Edo State House of Assembly, Hon. Akande is not oblivious of the battles ahead.

As someone who hails from Ogugu Community in Akoko-Edo Local Government Area, he knows what it means to maintain belief in the development of his community, constituency, local government and upgrading the lives of his people as a whole.




Hon. Akande holds a first degree in Political Science from the University of Ilorin, a masters in International Law and Diplomacy from the prestigious University of Lagos and other short courses from various institutions across the country. As a one-time Political Assistant to Hon. Paul Kehinde Udofe, the then Hon. Commissioner for Environment and Solid Minerals in Edo State, an Electoral Commissioner in EDSIEC, one-time Senior Legislative Aide to Rt. Hon. Peter Akpatason, MNI, Federal House of Representatives, Campaign Director to Hon. Yekini Oisayemoje Idaiye and many more, the fact that Hon. Akande is a living, walking political experience and knowledge, an astute and experience administrator, is not lost on his supporters.




As a happily married man and father, with his lovely wife Mrs. Lilian Kemi Akande and adorable children at his side, his supporters insist he would bring to bear the fatherly love and role in the discharge of his duty to the people.

They say this is because he is a man that knows the pain of all sons and daughters of Akoko-Edo land as a father would his children, that he would build infrastructure, create jobs for the teeming youths because he himself has experienced what it means to be jobless.

Akoko-Edo LGA is long overdue for qualitative leadership, we need to carry through with projects, both those in the pipeline and those that have begun or been abandoned. From the School of Geology which is still in its proposal state, to the Ava Cement Plant, Aiyegunle Power Station, Lampese Crocodile Lake, Ojirami dam, Ikpeshi and Igarra quarries, Ososo tourism and many other countless opportunities to generate revenue scattered across the LGA, it is time for the people of Akoko-Edo to say YES!

Albert Afeso Akanbi is a writer, filmmaker and humanitarian. He writes from Abuja, FCT, Nigeria.

Today, among countless Nigerians, there still exists a very strong empire nostalgia. And many more fail to see the external dimension to the failure that Nigeria and most African countries have become today.



Few days ago, the US based foreignpolicy.com published a paper in which they insisted Nigeria is now officially a failed State.



We know Nigeria is not in good shape at the moment, perhaps it has never been, not in the last 60 years of independence or 100 years of amalgamation, yet, we have never made serious efforts to dig up the reasons why. To add salt to injury, we have adopted a skewed approach to our own history, so much so that most existing accounts were either written by our colonizers themselves or those who fail to fully appreciate the depth of our crises as a people.



As the most populous nation in Africa, the most populous black nation in the world, Nigeria is supposed to be a torch bearer offering hope to blacks everywhere. Not content with woeful failure in that regard, at a time when serious nations are discussing possibilities of colonizing Mars, Nano medicine and stem cell science, we are here debating how to grant cows special status, banditry and Shar’ia law.



We have persistently failed to see that we were programmed to fail as a country and as such do something about it. We have also refused to acknowledge the reasons why the worst of us continue to be in charge of our affairs, and a vast majority of us, instead of connecting the dots, continue to view the colonial era through rose-tinted glasses, even insisting that that era was our golden age. A serious country would by now be making conscious efforts to break free from all negative external influences.



Granted that slave trade has ended, granted that some of our forefathers share in the blame for all that happened to us in that era, who of us can deny that the overall outcome of slavery was unjust and left in its wake extreme violence?



Like most of their puppets who are in charge today, the colonialists exploited religion and ethnicity, some of our major fault lines, to exploit the people, they forcefully remolded long standing legal and social practices of indigenous people together, they disrupted ancient ways of life, all with a view to extracting and having control of the resource, and by so doing, they altered our lives till this day.



In as much as I am not here advocating secession, I believe the major foundational problem with us is that both southern and northern Nigeria are two different countries, and the British should have thought of this before merging both, but since that is done, as a matter of urgency, we must renegotiate the basis for continued union.



Against popular narrative which suggests that our myriad problems are homegrown, reality is that Britain, in the way it has conducted its affairs here and continue to conduct them, created most of our problems and continue to fuel many of them, directly or indirectly, in active connivances with other western powers, their big corporations and their proxies here, till this day.



And many are yet to see this truth, this is why Nigeria remains perhaps the only country in the world where to this day, majority of her citizens do not have a negative feeling about colonialism or their colonial masters, where many nations, i.e Burkina Faso, have changed their name from what the colonial masters gave them. For us, the colonial masters are treated as heroes till today. The city of Port Harcourt and many streets across Nigeria for example, remain named after some of the most evil colonial masters.



Speak to an average Nigerian today and you would hear lines like, ‘I wish the colonial masters left in the 1990s’, ‘I wish the colonial masters will come back’ etc. Author and Historian Max Siollun describes this contradiction in the following words: “Rather than suffering from Stockholm syndrome, Nigeria is a classic case of a country suffering from a bout of winner’s victory syndrome”.



And the current government is not helping matters as there have been reports that history as a subject has been removed from our schools.



Yes, pre-colonial Nigeria was not a utopia before Britain came and ruined everything, but the fact remains that the British system of repression is still the style of the ruling class holding fort for them today, and the same Britain continues to offer that system its overt or covert support.



The colonial enterprise was largely a reserve on nations like Britain, Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, America, all of them with varying degree of influence, and this is not discounting the involvement of Arabs…however, today, in their modern economic, mental and religious slavery, China as jumped on the bandwagon. And Africa is the price. Yes, we have largely corrupt and inept leaders across Africa, but the whole point of this piece is that our problems did not arise in a vacuum, they are not organic, but they are largely a result of the way we were structured even before independence and the way the West relates with us today.



Our psyche has been so thoroughly impoverished that today, many of us look back on our own ancestors with disdain and see ourselves as incapable of building a world-class nation without outside help.



For example, today it is common to see Nigerians sowing seeds, fasting, and praying all night, all just to destroy ancestral curses. Is it not ironic how it is our fathers who were victims of slavery, whose resources were plundered, who were considered monkeys, many of whom were sold like livestock to the Caribbean and Americas, their pregnant women thrown overboard into the sea for sharks and crocodiles to feast on, all because they were too weak, are the same people who, rather than place a curse on their captors, would do so on their generations unborn?



John Hawkins was a foremost English slave trader, a man who many historians have described as a thief in his day, and by contemporary modern standard, even a terrorist. He made three trips to West Africa which was by then so notorious for slave trade it was call Slave Coast. In those trips, he stole so many Africans who he later sold to the Spanish in America. On returning to England, his profit was so handsome that even Queen Elizabeth I became interested and decided to participate in the venture. The Queen provided him a ship named Jesus, later deals were so handsome on his subsequent trip that the Queen even had him knighted. In fact, Hawkins’s coat of arm was a black African in chains. Today, the generation of Hawkins and the Queen are alive, enjoying the proceeds of those ventures, and you will never see any of them demonizing or looking back with ill will on their ancestors.



Have you ever heard a member of today’s British elite publicly denounce slavery and colonialism? If ancestral curses truly exist, who should suffer from it, the descendants of those who sold their fellow man into slavery or of those who were sold?



Today, among Nigerians, you see fanatical support of football clubs like Liverpool. How many of these supporters know that the initial founders of these football clubs were very heartless slave traders who, when slavery was eventually outlawed, decided to reinvest their money in football clubs that will reap future rewards for their generations unborn? Yet we watch them and shout in ecstasy when they score. Liverpool itself was a major port for the transatlantic slave trade, where thieves and outlaws gather for trips to Africa, where slave ships were built and often repaired. That city, and perhaps the entire British island, wouldn’t be what it is today without the trade in black Africans.



And yet many of us fight among ourselves, close our eyes to the real fight, and the ruling class submit themselves to foreign powers, corruption and greed. When will we WAKE UP?





Albert Afeso Akanbi

(Writer & Filmmaker)

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To an avid follower of events happening in Nigerian, it would by now be pretty obvious that although majority of Nigerians feign deep religiosity, we are in fact an extremely spiritually and morally bankrupt people.

Nothing confirms this fact better than the story of 13-year-old Idongesit Okon Iko, a boy from the town of Unyenge in Mbo Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State.

Recall that Akwa Ibom is not far from Calabar where over 100 years ago, Scottish missionary Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins, whose births were considered by the natives for many years at that time as an evil curse.
Is this why today, cruelty to children can be easily stomached by indigenes of the State?
Akwa Ibom is an oil rich yet poverty stricken State where child abuse has taken on a new dimension. Although, indigenes used to worship various deities through their ancestors, today, Christianity is fused with a traditional local belief system so that there is an upsurge in the number of prophets and pastors, some of them founders, others pastors of churches which are local franchises of big denominations, who believe that proving their spirituality depend on the number of kids below 15, that they are able to denounce as witches.
In conjunction with communities and local militias comprising mainly youths, children are declared witches, rounded up, tortured, abandoned, maimed and even killed. For years, the Child Rights and rehabilitation Network CRARN have been calling attention to this issue, I have personally written a number of articles, did videos and even written a complete book (although yet unpublished) on the subject, yet the situation continues unabated.

The stigmatization of children as witches and resultant child rights abuse is particularly prevalent in southern Nigeria, and has been recognized as a major barrier to the effective implementation of child rights laws across southern States.

Just yesterday, a team of Eket based charity CRARN, was dispatched to rescue an almost lifeless boy in Oron community.

We gathered that Idongesit Okon Iko had been accused of witchcraft, tortured and abandoned. After being left for dead, his only life line was the sign post of the First bank branch in Oron community which he desperately clung to for days.

Eye witnesses told CRARN that he had been lying there at the premises of the First bank branch for two weeks, without food or water, with a dislocated leg and had been defecating and vomiting blood, with injuries and scars from his brutal torture, all of which was visible, even from a distance. He was so traumatized that he was just nodding his head in response to questions from the CRARN team. A man who claimed to know him said the boy was never dumb until his ordeal.

Pleas from the CRARN team for the man to volunteer information that could lead to the where about of the boy’s parent fell on deaf ears. It was a long time CRARN donor and supporter, one Mrs Imoh Essien who found him lying in that near death state about 45 KMs from the CRARN office in Eket that gave the call that led to his rescue. As I type, he is at the Immanuel General Hospital, Eket, where he’s currently receiving treatment under the name “John Doe” for security reasons and the doctor’s insistence. We are told he will be undergoing his first blood transfusion today 30th March, 2021, and CRARN is asking for support to enable us cater to his health.

I think the question we must all answer is, how have we become a society so soulless, despite the countless number of churches and mosques within our shores, so that we can brutalize a 13-year-old and leave him for dead in front of a major bank with no single show of concern?

First Bank of Nigeria Limited is a Nigerian multinational financial services company that prides itself with words like “At First Bank, supporting the communities in which we live and work is our key Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability (CR&S) strategic pillar”. So, how did an organization with such a lofty CR&S statement allow a boy to lie lifeless in its premises for weeks without any of its staff asking a question?

For those who insist on committing crimes like these in the name of Christ, the Holy Bible is replete with examples of how Jesus Christ and his followers treated children and how he said to treat them. But sadly, rather than follow these examples, we have seen entire communities, in a depressing frenzy, in this 21st Century, setting up churches for economic reasons and spreading wickedness and ignorance, in his name.
As sad as this is, it is perhaps unfair to place all the blame for this epidemic of child witchcraft allegations on Pentecostal churches alone.
The revered Mike Bamiloye’s Mount Zion Film Ministry, most of Nollywood and the Lady Apostle Helen Ukpabio’s Liberty Gospel Church film production company and many more, also share blame directly or indirectly, for stoking the fire of superstition in this country. In fact, you only need to watch Nollywood movies today and immediately notice how they have blurred the line between fact and fiction despite their unique advantage as a platform for Nigerians to tell our stories.
The fallout is the gross superstitions that fuel the sorts of abuse we are witnessing today despite the works of a handful Nigerian charity organizations like CRARN.
How do we help Nigerian kids thrive? How can we amplify their voices and call attention to their suffering? And what does the Holy Bible and maybe the Koran have to say about children?
We know that we can never care about children as much as God cares about them and we are told in Sunday schools that Jesus is with children everywhere, in every situation, working to show them his love, so how come kids, not just in Nigeria, all across the world, are put through horrifying wickedness as the case of Idongesit Okon and many more kids like him, by those who claim to be God’s mouthpiece here on earth?
For example, since 1999, over 15,000 kids below the age of 15 have been accused of witchcraft by “pastors” and “prophets” and have thereafter either been abandoned, tortured, maimed or even killed by their own family members, across Southern Nigeria alone. It is all the more saddening that instances of such acute injustice and dehumanization occur with the aid of the said prophets to whom huge sums of money are usually paid as ‘exorcism’ or ‘deliverance’ fees.
In the book of Mark 10:13-16 we read “People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.” And he took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.” How can anyone read this and still have the mind to brand a child a witch, real or imagined?
Yet we continue to see kids driven from home, in fact, CRARN documented a case where over 40 kids were rounded up and summarily wasted in one day. Today, we see lots of skolombo, a term for street children, living in dumpsite like Lemna on the outskirts of Calabar. A 2010 survey found that in one region of Akwa Ibom state alone, 85 percent of the kids are skolombo who have been accused of witchcraft.
Even babies have been branded and chained up, starved, beaten, and even set on fire. Cases of parents attempting to behead their children with saws have also been reported and kids have had nails driven into their heads, forced to drink cement, scarred by acid, poisoned, and even buried alive and so on and accusers typically use witchcraft as a means of scapegoating vulnerable children for acts ranging from unruly behaviour and absenteeism from school to a failed harvest or family misfortunes.



A UNICEF report notes that it is typically vulnerable children with physical disabilities or illnesses such as epilepsy who are targeted. Others are branded for appearing withdrawn, lazy, unruly or even “smarter than their age”.
Nigeria’s criminal code prohibits accusing, or even threatening to accuse, someone of being a witch. And the Child Rights Act of 2003 makes it an offence to subject any child to physical or emotional torture, or submit them to any inhuman or degrading treatment…
Are we going to keep acting as if all is well, like a society that has lost its soul?

“In Covid I bought a jet…the third one, I have three… I was praying for Covid not to end because I was resting…my wife asked me she said; ‘can life be this sweet?’ There is a rumour going round that I have a machine that print money…when you speak in tongues you are printing money!”-Apostle Johnson Suleiman, founder, Omega Fire Ministry.
Apostle Suleiman roused emotions among Nigerians on social media, a few days ago, over a video in which he made the above comment. Most people took his words to mean happiness over the current pandemic and all the ills that come with it.
Although the man is not new to scandals (recall the Otobo episode and the recent adultery accusation by another pastor), I believe the man was trying to make the point that despite a pandemic, like him, his members can make gains too.
But in doing so, he unwittingly passed two messages. He pushed the idea that most Christians would consider heresy by suggesting that ‘when you speak in tongues you are printing money’, and he gave the impression that materialism mattered more to him and his wife, than the gospel.
Here is why I draw this conclusion.
First off, Saint Peter and the other Disciples who knew Jesus first hand, and even Apostle Paul who we are told Jesus himself appeared to, all encouraged believers to practice “speaking with other tongues” in the worship of God and as a means of spiritual edification. There is nowhere in the Holy Bible that speaking in tongues is associated with money.
Then, sometimes around 2019, news broke of how the man acquired his first jet. With words of praise like “God’s Own Oracle…the Lion of Africa” and so on, his members and admirers flooded the internet with pictures and video of the man gracing the inside of the jet.
Understandably, a number of Nigerians at that time, criticized the move. Such criticism is expected especially because the country had just acquired the status of the world’s capital of extreme poverty then.
As usual, some people quickly rose to his defense. Even Reno Omokri, one-time President Jonathan’s Assistant made a Live Facebook video in which he explained how the man had sent two very poor church members to school abroad, how they finished, got very good jobs, made so much money, and then decided to buy him the jet without his knowledge. Some people accused Mr. Omokri then of been inspired by the fact that, according to his own words, Apostle Suleiman “…helped me raise money for the Free Leah Sharibu Movement”
Private jets, private yachts and so on, are luxuries associated mainly with extremely wealthy people, so what does a man who, on many occasions has admonished his members to use their resources in helping the needy need three three for?
Some analysts have argued that he acquired his jets under conditions shrouded in opaqueness and that is why he needed members and allies to offer explanations for him. But he himself came out to tell Nigerians that “…if you are complaining about one jet I don’t know what you are going to do when we get 50…load your gunpowder…because we are just starting.”
In response, analysts say for a man who relies on donations from which he is tax exempt, a man who has no tangible patent to his name, that that was not just a conceited response, but one that smirks of pride, something totally unlike Jesus Christ. Others asks what is so urgent about his message that he needed jets to propagate especially with a church whose members do not exceed 150,000 worldwide, in an age of light speed internet connection. They also say if it was the need for fast travels that necessitated the jets, ho come his trips are often to Europe and America where Christianity came from and is thriving today, rather than Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia where the gospel is urgently needed.
Although the Church is doing great things but can we continue to pretend not to notice the upheaval the message of some of these pastors is doing to the psyche of our people and contributing to the Nigerian situation?
What about the message of Jesus that emphasize contentment as against these wishy-washy teachings that continue to inundate us with the doctrines of prosperity, albeit, at all costs?
The has boasted that God told him he would give him 50 jets. But why would God give one man that much and refuse to fix just one of the myriad economic problems that plague the small Auchi community where his church is domiciled? If a man builds his ministry on financial prosperity, what will he do when the donations dry up?
As a pastor, should not the Apostle, more than anybody else, know that this type of theology, which is so pervasive today in Nigeria anyway, is a distortion of the message of Jesus and doesn’t equip Nigerians to deal with the challenges of life, which are very rampant in our country today, especially man made ones?
If wealth and health is a sign of God’s favor, what will one do when one loses any or both? This is the question we must all ask ourselves because we are frail humans and we are dust, and whether believers or not, good or evil comes to everyone irrespective of religion. Go to any hospital today, you will find believers and non-believers there.
I think the clergy must emulate Jesus who, in keeping with God’s heart expressed through the Prophets of old, carried on the tradition of moderation and defending the poor. He even told the church at Laodicea who boast as some have accused Apostle Suleiman of doing today, “You say, ‘I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing. But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked”
Jesus turned over the tables of moneychangers and drove out those who profited from religion, he called tax collectors to repentance, and said to “store up for yourselves riches in heaven where nothing can steal or destroy it”.
While Jesus isn’t suggesting that we all live destitute, he clearly warned about the great dangers of a desperate quest for wealth, and the power it has to shift the mind to things that are ephemeral.
He explicitly warned that man cannot serve God and mammon -the god of money. That it is easier for a camel to go through The Eye of a Needle than for a rich man to enter God’s kingdom.
He came down to earth according to Christian theology, took on human flesh and dwelt among sinful humans in the filth of this world, thereby setting aside his wealth in heaven.
In his nativity story, we see how he was born in a foreign city presumably without family and friends around, being placed in a manger, literally a feeding trough for animals, and being visited by shepherds, strangers who were considered by most people in those days to be the outcasts of society.
At his circumcision, saint Luke reports that Mary and Joseph offered two pigeons as a temple sacrifice for Mary’s purification as ordered in the Bible book of Leviticus because they were too poor to “afford a lamb...” which was the custom.
Even though Jesus was born into a family that was part of the lower economic class, 30 years after, during his earthly ministry, his material life was not any better. Even he himself commented on his economic status when he said, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”
And the Gospel narratives too bear out this testimony when they reported that he preached from borrowed boats, multiplied borrowed food, rode on a borrowed colt, and was buried in a borrowed tomb.
I can go on and on, but today, it appears we have some sets of clergy men that, rather than protect the sheep, evangelize the lost, and speak truth to power, they are so lost in materialism they obfuscate the message of Christ.
The truth is, behind this materialistic quest is a type of unbridled GREED.
Many may not see this, but some of us do. This is why I would conclude with the prayer of His Holiness, Pope Francis I; “…Lord, please touch the hearts of these people who worship… the god of money …And also touch my heart, so I don’t fall into this too, so that I can see.”
Amen.

I used to take the words of motivational speakers with a pinch of salt, for the simple reason that, in my own opinion, some of them push people to breaking point. For example, a motivational speaker could tell you how, with just a single feather, he built a poultry that multiplied into over a thousand birds in a week or that, with ruptured tyres and no fuel, he drove from Lagos to Abuja in less than 9 hours!

It’s not as if I am saying we can’t use a motivational talk every now and then, no, the point is, when motivating people, we need to be realistic. Or how would one explain a situation where a motivational speaker wrote a book titled “How To Be A Millionaire In Two Weeks” and yet could not afford to print the work for lack of money? Or is it about the one standing in the scorching heat of the afternoon sun in traffick, in Lagos, with tattered cloths and a battered face, hawking books among which is one titled "How To Become Like Dangote In Minutes"?

This is the reason why, when my friend and sister Blessing Otagbo told me about the launching of her motivational book and her desire to have me review it, I reluctantly accepted to and even when I started reading, I did so with some level of disinterest.

However, the first few chapters blew me away. Digesting this debut book, and realizing how moving her personal story is, I began ruminating on the remarkable journey of this thing we call “book”, through the ages, since the invention of the printing press, and how powerful a tool it can be in changing someone’s mindset. The information contained in a book is already in it, what you do with it, is another matter.

There was a time on this planet when there was no single copy of a book as we know it today, anywhere. That was prior to the evolution of the printing press, made famous by the Gutenberg Bible. All that existed before then were cuneiform writing, clay tablets, papyrus and so on.

Then came a time when only a very few people had access to and owned books; kings, scholars, religious people, the wealthy and the likes, and in fact, that was the time when in the entire world, all that existed were just a very few copies of books. To consult a library or access knowledge then, one had to travel, sometimes, for days.

But today, at just a few clicks, right where you are, there and then, at your fingertips, you could have access, relatively speaking, to all the libraries and some of the best book available in the world.

No wonder the late Dr. Carl Sagan, the American astronaut wrote about how one glance at a good book, one could readily be in the mind of another person, maybe someone dead for thousands of years ago, someone one may never meet or have never met, yet across the millennia, across cultures, across great geographical barriers, the author could still speak, clearly and silently, inside one’s head, directly to one and one alone at that moment.

Writing, Sagan insisted, is the greatest of human invention because it binds peoples together, people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. True, there is a lot more to books and its power to restore or destroy, to make or mar, to save or set ablaze.

This is exactly what Blessing Otagbo has proven with her remarkable work. And with this, she has left a message in a bottle, a message of motivation, of consistence, of sheer perseverance, of faith in God and of her secret to success, not only for today’s generation, but for many more unborn. She has shown that for those who are going through all manner of challenges, especially in today’s Nigeria, they are not alone because someone has walked that path before them and they can come out of it.

Going through this eleven chapters’ book, I could not but agree with my uncle and friend Christopher Akinlade who, in his own review, pointed out the fact that three major points can be drawn from Blessing’s book namely; her very challenging childhood memoirs, her business growth advise to youths and her general advice to the reader, on the perfect outlook to life.

In her introduction she talked about her daunting childhood and the sheer determination to get an education despite the discouragements which sometimes included severe beating, from her aunt’s kids, those who should ordinarily be her protectors, explaining how she came by the name Blessing, which was something that came to her at an instant, by accident, without which she may have missed her chance at education since the teacher who was to enroll her into primary school could not pronounce her native name and she could not spell it either.

She also explained how the refusal of her aunty to pay her school fees pushed her into a life of economic independence and entrepreneurial life at a very young age of 9, when she would go into the bushes in those days, pick ripped pawpaw fruits, wash and hawk them by the road side. From Aponmu in Ondo State to Ososo in Edo State, to Lagos, from her aunties even to her own parents, the story was the same; “do not go to school because we can’t afford it”. But sheer perseverance and determination will not allow her take this advice and the same would ultimately see her through.

She based chapter 1 on Nigeria’s business mogul Aliko Dangote’s life philosophy, something that no doubt propelled the man into the colossus that he is in business today. She insists that to succeed, especially in business, one must imbibe the philosophy that; “Enjoyment and money making…don’t work together. You must choose one. And follow that one aggressively. You must reach a point before you start that enjoyment.”

She explains how a conscious decision can propel one to great success, insisting that one may not be blamed for the circumstances of one’s birth, whether one was born rich or poor, but one can certainly be blamed for how one end.

If you want to be successful, suspend sensual gratification and work very hard at it, understand also that failure is very possible, you can fail as many times as possible but never give in to self-defeat. Rise up as many times as you fall.

Life is a matter of choices she writes. Some choices we regret, others we're proud of, some will haunt us forever, other we will relish forever, and even though every choice we make, makes us, one must never let anything take one’s happiness away, this, she insists is true perfection.

Writing about making the right decisions and understanding that life is like a canvas and we are all Picassos, she says what matters in creating the perfect picture is choosing the right and matching colours.

She spoke about apprenticeship and the need to seek experience especially in the face of Nigeria’s 6-3-3-4 educational system, a system she believes trains without adequately preparing one for challenges beyond book knowledge.

About depression she explains that the condition is perfectly treatable, and as a matter of fact it is “a dark night of the soul” following which there would come a “time of rebirth”. She however advised that avoiding societal gratification is the surest way to escape chances of depression. She mentioned a few of Nigeria’s biggest celebrities who suffered depression at one time but got better, insisting that the condition is not invincible.

She also touches on the age long mantra; “readers are leaders” explaining that when we read books, we connect personally with the lessons therein and feel them make an impact in our lives, and that she calls growth.

She emphasizes the destructive effect of social media and how to avoid falling victim, and then went on to write about dreaming big dreams. She insisted that having a dream and working to actualize it… never giving up and making a living out of it should be the focus of the one who wants to “Become A Boss Faster Than You Think”.

Then in drawing the work to a close, she warns that it would be difficult to become a boss if one kept the wrong company. She believes inferiority complex, lack of proper initiative, habitual timidity, covetousness, etc., are all fertile grounds upon which the longings for the wrong associations are deeply rooted, something one much guard against.

Finally, she urged the reader to be desperate for the right things, concluding the book with a prayer to God in the following words;

‘Dear Lord, fill my empty hands with your plenty; remind me constantly that when I abide in you there is always an overflow'.

This work is most definitely a must read for anyone who wants to reach the top in whatever field of choosing.


Albert Afeso Akanbi
(Writer & Film-maker)

Majority of the the inhabitants of this planet just follow the crowd, they follow popular opinion, especially what the powers that be, using the Global Press, churns out!

I don't understand what the excitement is about in Nigeria, over a Biden win!

Was it not Biden and his boss Obama that that were accused of helping install the current Nigerian regime? Was it Biden that called General Buhari lifeless? Was it Biden that General Buhari himself recently accused of telling him to stop killing his people? Yes we saw a tweet from Biden during the #Endsars protests, but the truth is Trump and Biden represents the same interests, maybe in varying degrees of sophistication, the White House foreign policy especially as it concern Africa will not change much just because it has a new landlord!

Yes, progressive critical thinkers, especially in the West who claim they care about the future of humanity, some of whom I admire so much, like the great Richard Dawkins, insist President Trump must go, the truth is that even they are caught in a quandary, namely, getting rid of the "wicked Donald Trump and his corrupt family and cronies" or voting for yet "another corporatist liberal", Joe Biden.

Whether we like it or not, this is all the same of same, only with a little fine tuning so the crowd of simpletons worldwide won't notice!

Four years ago it was President Trump and Hillary Clinton, and we all saw Hillary's record with the deleted emails, with the Haiti controversy, with Libya and so on...

Those who accuse President Trump of fascism, racism, and all the other evil vocabulary in the dictionary, often close thier eyes to Biden's ties to “Wall Street and militarism” too. And there are many, even in the West who knows Biden will betray every single ideal and principle for which they stands, but they are just so disgusted with Trump, maybe rightly so, and so they have decided to jump from one crumbling building to another in hope that it won't crumble.

This is why I do not see any reason for excitement in Africa. Joe Biden has been in power for 47 years, one of his childhood dreams is to be president, he was with President Obama for 8 years, what did they do for Africa, what did they do even for Obama's native Kenya? As we speak, there are extended family members of Obama in Kenya who are disapointed with the man, so what's all the excitement about here?

If you ask me, I'd say politicians, Western or not, are all the same, and for places like Congo, Nigeria's Niger/Delta, Libya, just name it, most of these politicians and thier policies irrespective of thier party affiliation, represents a definition of nightmares for countless Africans ...

Ask many Biden supporters in the USA, some of who insist they are doing so because he is the candidate “who can be most effectively pressured”, why they swiftly kicked out islamists like the BDS-backing Palestinian activist, Linda Sarsour from taking part in his campaign? For those who claim they love the Democrats because they are "liberals" whatever that means, what sort of “pressure” can they hope to exert when even they can't trust themselves?

I know there are those who hate President Trump so much they hope to see a day he is collected from the White House and taken to prison or asylum – whichever is closer, I do not claim to know more than them, especially those who live in the USA, many of whom I know personally, but my humble opinion is, this is all same of same. And I am speaking as an African, as a Nigerian who believes and knows there are some powerful forces working behind the scenes to see the citizens of the world are kept exactly where they want them to be. Call me whatever you like, conspiracy theorist or whatever, only someone sleeping or living in a bubble would deny that for years, Africa has been disadvantaged, and that Nigeria has been in a mess because of the overt or covert support of these powerful interests in the West and thier African collaborators.

I will only be excited the day I see a candidate that will support a truely independent Africa, a truly independent Nigeria where all our resources will be truly ours to control, where corruption will be zero, where manufacturing will thrive, where true leaders will be supported here, not the current clowns that are being foisted on us! And sadly, Africa will not get this from a Biden White House!

What makes Biden different from Trump when he gave his unconditional support to the Iraqi war. If the Democrats were really as liberal as they claim, they should have gone for Bernie Sanders, but twice in a row, the Democratic Party made absolutely sure to kill his chances...

Tell me how is voting for Biden is not a continuation of the very foundation of a political culture that has a whole platoon of Trumps and Bidens waiting to surface if given the opportunity, a culture that will continue to see Africa as a place to be plundered?

Must it be Biden, a 77-year-old who's spent 47 years in politics, who's been accused of dementia by Trump, what's he about to do now that he couldn't do in 47 years? Some say he's a good man, tell me, since when did that become the sole criteria of being a good leader? Even Osama bin Laden was a good man to many!

Yet it is the same people who claim Buhari who was head of state in 1984 and he is still president today that are shouting Trump is this, Trump is that, Biden is who, Biden is what! How is this not hypocrisy?

For me, this is just a vicious cycle that can only "end through a sustained and uncompromising course of critical thinking against the very grain of this political culture that demonises the Black Lives Matter uprising, celebrates neo-Nazis, canonises the Hillary Clintons and Joe Bidens of this world as God-given salvation against this murderous banality" and sees Africa as cash cow for natural resources.

This was how we celebrated Obama as a good man, yet when the man resumed at the Oval Office he didn't halt the sales of arms and amunation to nations that use same to ruin weaker nations, i.e Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates who have not halted the killing of more Yemeni children till date. Tell me, are Yemeni children not children too?

I am sure some of the Nigerians celebrating Biden now think when he takes office, he would stop Shell and Chevron, with thier Nigerian government collaborators from ruining the Niger/Delta!

As former vice president, I am yet to see how will Biden be better than Obama? How is voting for Biden not an excusing or endorsement of years of America helping to arm, train, sell weapons to gurrella fighters across Africa, or selling arms to countries like Saudi Arabia their biggest buyers, or the exploitation of Africa's resources?

Why would any decent human being want to do anything like that? Yes, Trump could be an American monster as many argue, tell me how Biden is going to be different in the next four years?

I believe for Western thinkers and the American public, the ultimate responsibility today should not have been a rush to vote for a lesser evil, but sustaining the course of critical thinking that seeks to overcome both evils. And for we Africans, Nigerians, who often jump on any bandwagon that happens along, it is our duty to pause, take our eyes off America for a moment and ask ourselves why for 60 years we have have not been able to fix just electricity when those in power throughout the time and now, have been and are still being drawn from the same poll of people who have been suffering the effect of same lack of electricity and darkness for years! Can't we all see there is more to bad governance across Africa, in Nigeria than meets the eyes?

Now, God willing, 2023 would soon be here, it will be elections in Nigeria too, my sincere advise before hand would be to save our energy now and when that time comes, and we find that we are trapped in a choice between Coca cola and a Pepsi, to not act like Americans have done today by picking one of the lesser evil, but to seek a healthier choice by breaking free from same viscious cycle entirely...

God bless Nigeria!

*©|Albert Afeso Akanbi|08.11.2020|8:06am|Abuja|Nigeria|*

On this day in 1987, Burkina Faso's President Thomas Sankara was assassinated...

Before I tell you about Sankara, let me ask a few questions that I hope might help put these #Endersars protests in perspective, explain the people's anger, and why I honestly hope it spirals into a full fledge #RevolutionNow protests that could even sack Buhari if possible and give way for the rebirth of a new Nigeria!

Why is the world's arguably richest continent in terms of natural resources have some of the world’s poorest people?

Why is a country so blessed like Nigeria, whose citizens are some of the best in almost every feild of human endeavor across the world, have an intellectually handicapped, anachronistic simpleton like Buhari as president?
Why should we, with all our resources and raw materials be the ones indepeted to the West that buys from us? Think about this, I own the farm, I own the yam, but I can't eat pounded yam, and even if I must, I'll have to pay so much to do so!

Why is it that we don't manufacture any weapons, yet Africa is in turmoil and conflicts, sometimes fighting over mundane issues, with the same weapons manufactured abraod, while the countries in which they are manufactured are at peace?

There is no other way to understand these things today without considering the history of our continent, of our country! And yet history is outlawed in our schools!

Now, we may choose to ignore this, but the sordid story of the enslavement of black Africa gave way to another equally brutal system, one that elicits even less public sympathy, a system of oppression, that is based on greed, divide and rule, kill and share, .Oney bag politics, lack of respect for human rights and dignity, which was handed a tiny clique by the white supremacists system that colonised us, that's the system our police and our politicians still operates, with the tacit or direct support of powerful Westerns interest, till this day...

This system has continued to throw up the worst of us as leaders, shortchanging our people, from unfair intellectual property laws, to trade deals that force our countries to open up their markets to the rich world’s surplus production, destroying local agriculture and manufacturing in the process, to a total erosion of our moral values, the weaponization of poverty so that the political class gives peanut to voters every election cycle and so on...

This system ensures despots and puppets are installed in African countries, that revolutionaries who seek to challenge the status quo and call for a just society, from Kabila, Mugabe, Nyerere, Gaddafi, to Nkruma just name it, are either demonized or killed.

Look at Nigeria for example, the most populous country in Africa, the most populous black nation on Earth, a country that should be a shining example to others especially the black world, being ruled by a Buhari, a man who's not even qualified to be a LGA councillor! See us, we are ravaged by terror, poverty, corruption, and a dangerous religious fanaticism.

Look at everything happening today, I need not mention any, Nigerians, even those with half a brain or children born today, know nothing works here.
Why should the youth not protest? Tell me why? Why should anyone who's not an outpatient of a psychiatric ward not feel anger with the way things are today?
Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (21 December 1949 – 15 October 1987) was a Burkinabé military captain who, by 33 years he had already gotten the military training he needed and rose to be president, and sought to change his country, starting with the name Burkina Faso!

He vaccinated 2.5 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles in a matter of weeks! He initiated a nation-wide literacy campaign, increasing the literacy rate from 13% in 1983 to 73% in 1987. He planted over 10 million trees to prevent desertification, built roads and railways to tie the nation together, without any foreign aid or, please take note of that!

He was the first African leaders to appoint females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave during education. He outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy in support of Women’s rights...

He sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers. He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets. He redistributed land from the feudal landlords and gave it directly to the peasants...and I can go on and on...

But in October 1987, after a very short time in power, soldiers with Western backing, like they do with every other leader who sincerely wants to change thier nations, had him killed...

Buhari does not mean well for Nigeria, he's a puppet, he would end up leaving this country worse than he met it.

This protests should go on, they should transcend the #Endsars protests and make real serious demands that will better our nation.

We must demand that the West support the people...and the youths must continue to lead this charge, then in 2023 by the grace of God, we must all come out enmass, contest for positions, and youths should support youths.

THIS IS THE ONLY WAY!

God bless Nigeria.

JUST SO YOU KNOW.

The Nigerian SARS is a Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit of the Nigerian Police Force under the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department...

The ongoing mass protests by mostly Nigerian youths, in major Nigerian cities, led by leading celebrities and activists across the country is a demand to end police brutality in the country.

The current protests are a culmination of weeks of anger and outcry online by Nigerians over evident claims of kidnapping, harassment and extortion of young Nigerians by men of SARS..

PLEASE TAKE NOTE OF THE FOLLOWING:

That reapeatedly, Buhari's government has failed to end atrocities of SARS, although this is hardly surprising because many of these officers bribe their way to SARS in the first place. That the police chiefs in charge of SARS are themselves entwined in the corruption like top officials of Buhari's APC government.

That lawyers are often not allowed to see their clients in SARS detention centres and that in some cases SARS officers direct family members to specific lawyers who will negotiate a bribe on their behalf.

That detainees in SARS custody are subjected to long periods of detention without trial. Often no one, including their lawyers, get access to them, sometimes families are not aware that their relatives are even in SARS custody.

On December 4, 2019 one Mus’ab was killed by members of the Nigerian police in the street of Kano, as we speak, his killers have not been found...

On February 22 one Tiamiyu Kazeem a 21-year-old footballer was killed by SARS operatives, again, his killers have not been found.

One Chima was arrested by police in Port Harcourt. While in detention his family was extorted by the police. The police thereafter falsely framed him with robbery to extort his family more. He was tortured more and died in police custody, till date, his killers are roaming free!

On May 18, one Sadiq was at home in Gwarimpa, Abuja, Nigeria's capital when SARS operatives stormed the house and shot him. Their bullets damaged his bones. When his family demanded justice, the SARS leadership at Guzape threatened them. Case closed!

SARS detention centre in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) was previously a butcher’s yard and is commonly known as the “abattoir." Many suspects detained in "abbatoir" rarely come out alive. The situation is not very different across the country...

In 2016, a mid-level police officer in Lagos confessed to Amnesty International that being posted to SARS is often regarded as a “juicy” posting and is in some cases preceded by intense lobbying by potential officers.

For many years, countless cases of police brutality, and SARS despicable torture and crimes against innocent Nigerians have been reported with strong evidences and yet, Buhari's government have paid deaf ears or at least, mere lip service to the calls to reform the police.

Apart from a funny tweet this evening, up until this moment, General Buhari has said nothing meaningful about these protests, and he has sadly shown no signs of real comittments to seeing to the wishes of the Nigerian people...

I honestly hope this protests will grow bigger and bigger, and spiral into confligaration that will lead to the entire country being reformed in such a way that there will be dignity of life for all citizens...even members of the police are victims of the failed system that gave rise to SARS, though it's leadership may either be blind to this fact or choose willful ignorance...

Finally, no matter how this turn out, General Buhari will end up and go down in history as one of the the most clueless, inept, failed, evil and despicable rulers to ever occupy Also Rock!

#EndSARS
#EndPoliceBrutality
#EndSarsProtests
#EndSarsNow

Unspoken History, On Doppler Films.

Most people are unaware that just before slave trade, colonization and all its attendant evil, Africa already had great and functional empires like Timbuktu, Ghanian empires, the NOK culture, Benin Kingdom, Ife empire and so on...and that at that same time, Europe was ravaged by poverty, plagues and diseases...

And so, afraid that their population might be wiped out, in desperation, European kings and queens selected the most vicious of thier population, men like Christopher Columbus, Mungo Park, David Livingstone, Richard Francis Bolton, Nicolo de Conti, Amerigo Vespucci and a host of other very mean hearted mecenaries, equiped and paid them, and then charged them to go to other continents like Africa, the Americas and Asia, places with less population at the time and abundant natural resources, with the aim of pillaging and exploiting those places, and bring back the spoils and booty to Europe...

Although these men are celebrated as explorers today in our history books and in the mainstream media, they were nothing but cold hearted mecenaries who committed unspeakable acts of violence and evil against the natives...

Christopher Columbus who is one of the great European heros for example, was welcomed by native Americans when he appeared on the shores of the Americas with his men...to reciprocate thier fantastic hospitality, his solders were said to have snatched babies from the breast of thier mothers and dashed thier heads against the rocks, that he himself fed children to his dogs, cut of the breast of women, sliced off the nose and hands of men who could not pay his ordered tax of gold, re-enacted the crucification of Jesus by having a lot of men hanged the way he assumed Jesus and his disciples met thier end, and with his men, raped and annihilated whole population of the natives, among whom they had already spread "European" diseases and so on...

These are but a few of the evil associated with slavery and colonialism which we shall be looking at in details in an upcoming mini documemtary film...

Civilization did not start in Europe as the rest of the world did not wait for Europeans to bring the light as some argue, please take note of this and try to subscribe to our YouTube channel @DopplerFilms

Thank you.

Albert Afeso Akanbi|9:48pm|05.09.2020|

“To the Saudis...it’s like we’re ants. When we die, it’s as if an ant died, no one cares or pays attention,”
- An African immigrant in Saudi Arabia.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, one of the wealthiest countries on planet Earth, the land of the Prophet of Islam, the birth place of the religion and a nation of people who, for over 1500 years, have imbibed Islamic teachings and principles, should by all means be a theocratic State that's a shining light in matters of morality.

It won't be wrong to expect that, like the Vatican, another theocratic State with no standing army, the phrase Saudi Arabia would not be seen in a sentence where words "racism", "intolerance" "discrimination" and so on, are mentioned...

Sadly, this is not the case...just yesterday, a damning reports about the Gulf nation's treatment of people who are different, either by religion or race, came to light...

Racism in the Arab world covers an array of forms of intolerance against non-Arabs especially black Africans, and Saudi leads the pack...

Not just that, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia proxy conflict is an ongoing struggle for influence in the Middle East which has led to blood, tears and untold suffering for nations around the region, and Saudi is at the centre of it...

Despite being the cradle of a religion who's adhrents insist is a religion of peace, Saudi Arabia, a nation rated the fourth largest military spender on Earth with military bases in places like Djibouti, became the world's largest arms importer from 2014, accounting for 12 percent of the importation of arms according to reports by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)...

While we can excuse this spending as the action of a nation threatened by an enemy, Iran, when we consider it as matters of the heart, we find that the exploitation and abuse of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia has being deeply ingrained in the fabrics of the country's soul, so much so that one would be tempted to ask what the value is, in the Islamic faith that the country exports through its Wahabists and other theologians.

As we speak, according to the Telegraph of UK, Saudi Arabia keeps hundreds of African migrants in deplorable conditions, in detention camps that can pass as concentration camps, "to reportedly prevent the spread of Covid-19" despite the fact that these treatment has been going on long before the pandemic started...

For example, the squalid detention centres in southern Saudi Arabia as it is elsewhere across the country, fall well short of international standards...so much so that when a young boy of sixteen was reported to have managed to hang himself because he couldn't bear the suffering any longer, last month, the guards were said to have just thrown the body out as if it was trash...

So many black African are facing hell across the nation, and reports are that many of them have become mentally ill and have died after being maltreated and brutalised, and many more willingly take thier own lives...

Black Africa is blessed, black Africa is rich, black Africa has sons and daughters who are genius and as a matter of fact, are doing very well in other countries...

Why should our youths continue to face hardship in attempt to escape the ills that have been created here by external powers and thier local collaborators? From Europe to the middle East, African youths are daily on the open seas and dry desert, seeking escape from home. WHY?

Wake up Africa...laqad tafah alkayl, enough is enough!

Yesterday the 23rd of July, the remains of one of Nigeria's young shinning stars, the 23-year-old Flying Officer of the Nigerian Air Force, NAF, Tolulope Arotile, who died under circumstances that many refuse to accept as normal, on the 14th of July 2020, was laid to rest with full military honour worthy of a heroine that she was. She was Nigeria’s first female combat pilot, and flew airborne to destroy many terrorists in Nigeria’s war on terror.
The outpouring of emotion during her funeral demonstrated beyond doubt that her death was a great and painful loss, not just to her family and friends, but to the entire nation...

While people like Dr. Sunday Adelaja, the Ukrainian based founder of the Embassy of the Blessed Kingdom of God for All Nations church insist that rather than mourn Tolulope, we should celebrate her life and achievements at such a young age, sadly, I’d say, though she is dead and gone forever, the hole she left, especially in the hearts of her family members, is huge, and as a people, the only way we can truly immortalize her is to look ourselves in the face and tell ourselves the undeniable truth about our current realities as a nation.

The government can choose to bury her in a 100-billion-US dollar worth of casket, that would be useless if the real cause of her death is not unraveled and justice served, and if the government doesn’t tell itself the truth and make conscious efforts to set this nation on a path that will prevent future avoidable deaths.

We must also know that no matter the unseen hand behind her death, whether there is a particular interest that outweighed her life for which it was forfeit, it is the Nigerian nation that will eventually come out the ultimate looser because we have been deprived her bravery in battle and her contribution to our quest for lasting national security...

We will not only be deceiving ourselves if we do not unravel the real cause of her death, and bring her "killers" to book, we will also be doing a great disservice to our motherland and spitting on the faces of all the innocent people who have died as a result of terrorism in this nation, over the years. Already, her family and the Yoruba nation have called for an investigation, and most Nigerians still doubt the story the government put forth because of the discrepancies inherent in it...

General Buhari didn't attend her funeral, I doubt if he even issued a statement, and as a matter of fact, he is in Mali as I type, where, ironically, he has gone to broker peace when as we speak, aged women in southern Kaduna are just now protesting the ceaseless killings of innocent people in the State, naked, and his own home State of Katsina is recording one of its highest deaths due to senseless terror, which has reached a peak since he came to power...

Since this administration began in 2015, there have been genuine concerns from many quarters that the war on terror has been hijacked, that the military is fraught with corruption, that we are not making any headway, so much so that even recently, the National Assembly called for the sacking of the services chiefs who the whole nation is unanimous is saying have failed...

There are even talks of a conspiracy to exterminate people of a certain religion and tribe in this country, there's been various accusations of human rights abuse and genocide against a certain religion, even from reputable organization like Amnesty International, we have seen soldiers deserted and some who actually came forward to confess that there's an attempt to reduce the members of a certain section of the country in the army, they say that that is the reason they are sent to the thickest part of the conflict, without arms and ammunition. Just last week, we heard a young man introduce himself on a Lagos talk show as an ex-soldier, who told us how he was targeted and shot at because he was very good at killing terrorists. We have heard some people argue that our brave soldiers who surmount all odds and obstacles put in their way by this government and try to make a mark, were deliberately aimed, shot at and killed. And there are whispers in some quarters that that may have been what happened to late Tolulope.

Call it conspiracy theories if you like, blame these concerns on haters of this government if you will, but there are some truths that we all cannot overlook and they are that, the war on terror has needlessly dragged on for too long and billions have been sunk into it with no tangible results to show.

Our approach to this war need to change, the activities of the military, at least its top echelons, need to be looked into and it's leadership even overhauled maybe. Innocent people are dying daily.

This government has displayed gross insensitivity to the families of victims of terror in particular and Nigerians in general, by setting terrorists free and even treating them with kids gloves and giving them first class treatment as if being terrorists is a thing to be rewarded, considering the evil they have perpetrated on innocent people, including pregnant women and children.

We must also know that, despite our religiosity, this land is filled with so much blood and injustice. There have been so many unsolved deaths, unjust deaths, avoidable deaths, and so many deaths that happened as a result of the cluelessness of this government and the insensitivity, and callousness, according to many, of this president.

For example, around last year, we all witnessed how Hamisu Wadume, a suspected kidnap kingpin in Taraba State, implicated Nigerian soldiers in his deadly escape before he was re-arrested. He had first been arrested by a team of anti-crime police officers in Taraba. He was being taken to Jalingo, the state capital, when soldiers manning a checkpoint opened fire on the police team that arrested him, killing three officers and a civilian. The officers killed were the best in their department, and there were even reports that they had just returned from training abroad and were very useful to the police in tracking criminals. And we have countless examples like this, including those of uncountable number of good and faceless victims.

Does anyone still doubt that there in a covert plan to kill the very best of us? Could this be what happened to Tolulope? Did she uncover something that would have exposed some interest groups, in the cause of her duty?

Who will provide answers to these questions? Who will save us from ourselves in this nation? What have we done? For how long will all this wickedness continue?

Well, Tolulope Arotile, ma su’n o, gbesan.

Although I am not a stranger to the fact that Nigeria is in bad shape, I got the rudest confirmation yet of this truth today, after experiencing first hand what it meant to have a patient in one's hands, in an emergency situation, and yet be made to wait in the merciless environment we call hospitals in Nigeria today, endlessly in a queue for hours, just to have a doctor attend to one...

It was like a scene from a war movie inwhich wounded soldiers were being evacuated to make shift hospital tents, patients were not allowed into the hospital (Lasuth, Ikeja), cars and ambulances lined the entrance to the emergency section, and we were sorrounded by poorly trained hospital personnel (one of which even got into a quarrel with the family member of a patient when, in response to the frustration of the man who had a dying patient, he asked the man to Bleep off) who didn't seem to care how critical the illness of most patients might be, so much so that a patient, a woman who only moments before was talking with her children, even died suddenly before our eyes.

In summary, I came to terms with how urgently who ever it is that is in control of Nigeria today, needed to declare a state of emergency on the health sector. Nigerian leaders should see this as an act of service, not just for Nigerians, but for themselves as well.

The day before had been hectic, from huge traffic to a car (though brand new) that suddenly developed a fault. And the patient was in pain and was having laboured breathing...After running all kinds of test costing almost 200k, after visiting about five hospitals, from Saint Ives in Ikeja through Eko Hospital to LASUTH, all of them in Nigeria's commercial capital, we were given all manner of reasons to turn us back, from "we only offer skeletal services" to "we have no bed spaces" and then to confirm that, we were shown some sick patients who were made to sleep on the bare floor...how can anyone, not to talk of doctors for that matter, turn away a sick patients who had difficulty breathing (please take note that it is not Covid 19, from the tests conducted we knew what the issue is) and was in pain? What sort of hospital does that?

Frustrated, I had to engage one of the doctors and some of the things I learnt shocked me.

Do you know that for a country of over 200 million people like Nigeria there are only 72,000 registered doctors in the country today? All the others have emigrated and continue to make plans to emigrate abraod in search of better opportunities because of poor working conditions here...and do you know that the rot in our health sector is due, mainly to massive corruption and sadly too, that it is still business as usual for those in charge of Nigeria today?

Our hospitals remain grossly inadequate, poorly equipped and underfunded. Today, for every 6,000 Nigerian patients, it is one doctor who attends to them in hospitals that are mere glorified First Aid centres. Yet, the World Health Organisation recommends a doctor to, at most 600 patients for every country, and there are even countries with 1 to, say, 20 or 30 patients.

Our primary health care system has collapsed. Even doctors who are patriotic enough to stay are not motivated, just name it, the problems are endless.

Despite a gross lack of basic amenities like potable water and electricity, medical supplies and equipments, we continue to see budgetary allocation by the Federal Government running into billions, where have all the funds gone?

Today, Nigerians who can afford to, escape overseas for medical tourism, including President Muhammadu Buhari, who is the biggest medical tourist from Nigeria until Covid 19 thought him how to stay glued to Aso Rock from where he now precides over the affairs of Nigeria.

As president, his vantage position saddles him with the task of providing a radical solution to this problem, yet, in the last 6 years, he has shown he prefers foreign hospitals and looking the other way as corruption ravages our health sector.

We don't need to go far memory lane too, to remember how, bringing late President Umaru Yar’Adua home nearly dead from a Saudi Arabia hospital in 2010, exposed the sordid and depressing state of our health sector. Covid 19 too has also confirmed what we already know about our health sector, yet our leaders seem helpless or choose inaction.

Nigerian universities have been training doctors for years, where have all the doctors gone? 72,000 doctors for a population of over 200 million people!

And because of this extreme shortage of doctors, nurses and quacks today set up thier own hospitals and yet continue to get massive patronage...it is on record that in this same country, a Chief of Staff to the president and a former governor both died because they could not be flown abraod for treatment. The list of public officials who run off abraod for treatment daily is endless.

And everyday, countless ordninary Nigerians die from avoidable causes, the government set up NHIS, corrupt politicans hijacked the program, and today, do not cease to embezzle monies deducted from Nigerian workers for NHIS, yet, we all carry on as if all is well...instead of declaring a state of emergency on the health sector, our senators are fighting NDDC, and Keyamo over issues that bothers on self interest and money...even the supposed head of our anti corruption agency, EFCC is in the dock for corruption himself...

When will Nigerians wake up and demand a nation that we all can be proud of? Is it when we are all dead?

GOD help US...

I think most religious people, by their actions, some of them without even knowing it, really think this planet or the world, is some type of an experiment...

At least, that’s what most of the religious beliefs, no matter what religion one looks at, come down to...

God or the gods, is, or are always fixing or interfering with the affairs of men, i.e giving stone tablets to some prophets on mountains, “commanding” some believers to mutilate their children and others, in modern Nigeria that is, to denounce innocent kids as "witches", telling people what words they can say and what words they can’t, what actions they can take, or even what thoughts they can allow into their heads or not, making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, i.e having sex or drinking beer, reasonably that is, and all that...

What is God's or the gods' business with human affair? In a cosmos where there are over a 100 trillion galaxies, countless stars(suns) and planets, a countless number of them probably teaming with an infinite number of species and extraterrestrial beings, of what importance then is all the intervention, what is the benefit of human worship to God or the gods? Does this not speak of incompetence on the part of God or the gods?

If God didn’t want Lot’s wife to look back, why didn’t he make her obedient, so she’d do what her husband told her? Why blame Pharaoh for not letting Jews leave when it was God himself who hardened his heart, or blame Judas when God himself destined him (at least someone) to betray Jesus...if he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat the fruit, why didn't he keep it in heaven? I mean, why did the invention of the mobile phone, computer, etc., have to wait for the labour of modern men when God was clothing Adam and Eve with animal skin, does it mean God did not know about technology? If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn’t he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out exactly the way he wanted? Why are we told he is constantly repairing and complaining, according to the holy Bible? At some point he even "regretted" that he made man, and at another, he "rested"

Are we to believe that an almighty God who created everything, both seen and unseen, couldn't think of a better way to save man other than going against his own commandment of "thou shalt not kill" by killing his own son? If Jesus died for human beings, who died for or will die for the other countless other alien lives that fill infinite space? And for those who say we are the only life in the universe, is this line of argument not as naive as saying if one empties a bag of beans in a fertile land, only one seed will germinate?

These are just a few questions that popped up in my head, it’s just me thinking out loud, and I would welcome some type of debate, clarifications that is...


Albert Afeso Akanbi|25.06.2020|32:21am

Chief Nathaniel Momoh is a man who has earned my unconditional respect for a number of reasons, chief of which is that, he says what he means, and means what he says. If he gives you his word, you can go to sleep. And there are few men today in the Nigerian political space that we can say the same about.

The role he played during the launching, in 2019, of my book “Ososo; Our Place, Our People and Our Patrimony”, a book about the scenic town of streams and rocks caught in between the undulating Somorika hills in northern Edo State, registered this fact in my head.
Long before Adams Oshiomole’s suspension, before Godwin Obaseki’s disqualification from participating in the APC gubernatorial primary, and his subsequent defection to the PDP, before all the drama began to play out in the APC, before our very eyes, I had had this soft spot for the governor, for the singular reason that he loves Edo State and her people, a thing we can all verify from the actions he has taken since he took office.
In the same vein, I started having reservation for Adams Oshiomole since the day he took on APC’s major trait, long after he discarded his NLC spirit of activism, and developed a penchant for saying one thing in the morning and another at night. And keen observers of the man and the unraveling events in Edo State these past weeks, can attest to this.
Chief Nathaniel is like a father, and for this reason, not only do I visit often, I also try to support and answer his call anytime, any day. So when I got wind of his plan to set up a movement in support of Obaseki’s re-election bid, I made a mental note to take him up on his reasons, when next I visited. Though the governor has my undiluted support, I decided to play the devil’s advocate. And so, the first question I put to Chief Nathaniel was why he decided to form the Obaseki Mandate Forum, FCT and lend support to a man who some have argued “promised to construct the Ososo/Okpella road and failed”.
The Ososo/Okpella road was the responsibility of Adams Oshiomole who spent eight years in office. The road is barely twenty kilometers to Iyamu, Oshiomole’s home town, why did he not do it? In any case, he insisted, there is still a chance for Obaseki to fulfill his promise to the people of Ososo, that is why we must all support him.
Four years ago, in the build up to the Edo State governorship election that ushered in Governor Obaseki, Adams Oshiomole explained to the people of Edo State and Nigeria why he settled for the man.
“I know my limit”. He said, and “He knows his limit. Godwin Obaseki has worked for seven and half years for the people of Edo state, using his brain, creativity, quietly, not making noise,” he added.
Rapping on, he continued, “He sits in the office of the economic team which he built using his network of friends inside the heart of government house without demanding one naira…
A man like that who will not ask me to give him contracts, but will promise me, ‘comrade, you just do the thinking, we will create the means to actualize your thoughts’. And to his credit today, check the books of Edo state, we did not build new structures in government house with government money. That economic team office was built through Godwin’s network. Today, it remains a permanent asset of the state government.
I want us to be calling that building Godwin Obaseki building…” If you think that was all, hear Adams Oshiomole.
If you have to look at Godwin and his credentials and you look at a man whose only work, by his CV, was a student and rusticated for two years, he read law but he is not a barrister. That is his foundation. I never gave him government job. Lucky Igbinedion’s mother was reported to have slapped Ize-Iyamu for misleading her son. He tried it with me, but we kept him away. Nothing near government circle. No access to public funds.
Look at the road to his house, in our books, was dual carriage way. They took the money, constructed the road to his house and stopped. Although we have liquidated the godfathers politically, the entire political family will be liquidated.” He concluded.
At different forums, to different audiences, on radio, television, newspapers, at campaign rallies, just name it, our man Adams Oshiomole went on telling the entire world who the man Obaseki is, how impeccable his educational qualifications were, how he, as head of his economic team, contributed to his success as governor and even raised his hand up to heaven at a campaign rally on one occasion, and swore in the name of God, that he was bequeathing to the people of Edo a man after God’s heart, and that he had destroyed “godfatherism” in Edo State, that he would allow Obaseki be his own man with no interference. He didn’t stop there, he went on to tell us how much of a thief the current flagbearer of the APC was and how he could not even trust him with a board appointment, pray people, what has changed in four years?
How many of the people who, today, oppose Governor Obaseki’s re-election have accused him of incompetence? Instead, we hear words like, “he’s disloyal to his godfather” in 21st century Nigerian politics, even though these same people know what it means to pander to the will of godfathers in Nigeria! Lagos is not far from Edo State, former governor Ambode is still alive and we are not blind to the recent history of that state.
It is on record that when Governor Obaseki took office, he told the party chieftains and foot soldiers of Oshiomhole that he remained a technocrat who believed that the allocation to the state and its internally-generated revenue were meant for the development of the state, and not for sharing among politicians. Do we still need to look far to see the real reason for the rift between the two men?
For the first time in our history, in Governor Godwin Nogheghase Obaseki, we have a man who loves and cares for his people, who rules from among the people, who listens, who decided the resources of the state are meant strictly for the betterment of the lives of the people.


From welfare and security, through education and healthcare, to infrastructure and industrialization, we have seen a man who is fulfilling campaign promises and bringing hope to the people. A man who is not only committed to fixing roads, rebuilding schools, facilitating the expansion of existing businesses and ensuring a vibrant, boisterous state that all residents will be proud of, but a man who has started a process that will see the State take its rightful place. Are we to talk about Ossiomo Power Plant, Edo Best that is offering employment to our youths, Edo Festival, or the Ogbemudia Stadium that can conveniently host world Olympics games today? The list is endless.

Thousands of Edo youths trapped in the Mediterranean in search of greener pastures abroad are back home and many are engaged, those who were trafficked as sex workers are home and ones again, there is hope for our people, our children, despite Covid 19, are doing well and so on.

Abuja has a large collection of intelligent, hardworking and vibrant Edo indigenes, among them, a group of like-minded friends came together and decided that Edo State must takes it pride of places among other States. When they realized that the very man who boasted of having crashed godfatherism in Edo State, had turned around to try to establish his own dynasty, they decided all such moves must be resisted. That was how the Obaseki Mandate Forum, Abuja, OMF FCT was born. OMF exists to support good governance in Edo State, this is why it has thrown its entire weight behind Obaseki’s re-election bid.

Across the entire Edo State, among ordinary people, the mission is clear, come September 19, 2020, we shall together speak with one voice, through our votes, loud and clear, that Edo People Deserve Obaseki Again.

One fateful Saturday evening in 1996, in Owerri, Imo State, a local television station broadcasted images of a certain man holding the freshly severed head of a child...


Before then, rumours of child kidnappings had been rife in the South Eastern Nigerian State. Although the man would later die in police custody, a search of the hotel premises where the crime was committed would lead to the unearthing of the body of the late child and a host of other victims.


The gruesome sight caused a massive outrage, inspiring citizens to go on riots in which the hotel, supermarkets suspected of catering to the needs of questionable wealthy people, and even the palace of a traditional ruler was burnt to the ground...


Fast forward to today 2020 and place that episode side by side the gruesome murder of a University student, one Miss Favour Daley-Oladele, by a young man in pursuit of “money rituals” who, according to reports, was the victim’s boyfriend, who had allegedly connived with a pastor who promised to make a potion that would magically draw money for him and his mother. When they were busted, the pastor claimed the ritual failed because “the spirit did not bring any money” and yet the victim was dead and gone.


Reported cases of “ritual killings” in Nigeria as well as beliefs in "bood money" has been on an increase since the 90s, and there is virtually no Nigerian today who does not believe in its realness. This belief is so ingrained that almost every fortnight, Nigerians are greeted with stories of one innocent victim or the other, of mutilated or dismembered body parts, because perpetrators believe by so doing they could get an easy pass to wealth of untold proportion. Even family members are not safe as we have read and heard about stories of sons killing mothers, fathers killing sons and so on, all because of the belief that this can facilitate an escape from poverty.


We are even told there is a certain town in Anambra State, Eastern Nigeria, where families could hold a meeting and decide which of the kids should be used for rituals, on the consent of the kid himself!
It is doubtful today if anyone can actually put an exact and accurate figure to the number of victims who have been killed for money rituals in Nigeria over the years, but the figure should be running into thousands.


According to experts, ritual killings in Nigeria are performed to obtain human body parts for use in rituals that are expected to transform the perpetrator from poverty to wealth. Because of this, ritualists, also known as headhunters, go in search of human parts at the request of native doctors, who require them for the preparation of various magical potions.
Despite the proliferation of churches in Nigeria, ritual killings continue to be practiced and have in fact become more prevalent since 1999 according to experts.


Though more common in the South, experts say ritual murder is not limited to any specific part of the country and "every region, tribe and state has its own share of the scourge”.


In the last ten years alone, there’s been the cases of a "hunchbacked" person in four separate incidents reported in the capital of Ondo State, a convicted serial killer and former soldier who killed a 22-year-old female student in Kogi State, intending to dismember her body for ritual purposes, before being arrested by police, the story of two men from Nasawara State who confessed to killing a seven-year-old boy, severing his head for a man who had promised them 250,000 Naira, the story of seven people who were arrested for kidnapping, killing, and dismembering a young girl, reportedly for money-making rituals in Ebonyi State and so on.


Now, if one makes the argument that there is a group of wealthy people with connections to government contracts or other sources of businesses that can yield wealth, and this group requires a poor prospective member to dismember another person as a prove that he is ready and willing to keep a code of silence, or prove he can do anything to make money and as such is admitted into their group and given contracts, thereby transforming him into a wealthy person, I would agree because that sort of story makes more sense.


But why should I believe that after severing the head of the victim, and planting it in a wardrobe, the severed head would start vomiting raw cash? In which currency will the cash come and from where? Every single currency in circulation today has a serial number because the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN printed it, tell me, which serial number does these blood monies carry? Has the CBN ever reported any cash disappearances from its vaults at any time, which is not due to physical stealing? Why are the native doctors who promise riches through money making rituals always so impoverished and dependent on the ‘beneficiaries’ of the scheme to make them rich? Why is Nigeria now the poverty capital of the world? Why are there still poor people even in places where more ritualists have been arrested and why do such superstitions and beliefs in concepts like witchcraft, blood money etc., thrive in places with no awareness or little enlightenment? How many people who claim “money ritual”, “blood money” etc. is real today, can actually substantiate their claims? Why is it hard for an average European or American to believe in money rituals in the same way we Africans or Nigerians do?


Yet the vibrant Nigerian movie industry occasioned by the decline in celluloid film making and the rise in the availability of modern technology and social media, and the entry of the Igbo filmmakers into the industry, conitnue to ignore these questions and have totally changed the configuration of filmmaking in Nigeria.


While the likes of Helen Ukpabio’s Liberty Film Industries and Mount Zion Film Productions are making movies on the one hand and churches like Mountain of Fire Ministries, MFM and Lord’s Chosen on the other hand, are indoctrinating Nigerians into beliefs in witchcraft, the Igbo film industry has made the churning out of materials that are not relevant in the construction of public good, their major focus over the years.


And the dominant refrain in these films is the utilization of rituals to generate contexts in which wealth and riches transport the characters from a normal reality to a world of fantasy…where a pauper today with no skills or education, can become a wealthy man overnight because he severed his daughter’s head or that of his wife.
How can one even want wealth so much and therefore think the only way to get it is by dismembering another person?


Yet, this exactly what those who subscribe to money rituals want; wealth without the legitimate efforts required to acquire it. And we have seen how it often turn, police arrests.


Some may say, well, there are those who don’t get arrested and become wealthy, well, go investigate, there must be an explanation for their wealth, certainly not due to the dismembered body parts of innocent people.


I think we have reached a stage in our national life where we need to begin to vigorously debunk these and many superstitions like it, if for nothing, for the sake of the poor, vulnerable and innocent people who fall prey to these evil.


The author of an article I read recently asked the question: “Is it not curious that with all the claims of efficacy of money rituals in Africa, nobody can identify a single billionaire who made their money from such magic? Should the beneficiaries of such magic not be standing shoulder to shoulder with the billionaires of this world like Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg?” Yet, in my own village, I see men with rumours of money ritual swirling around them still as wretched and struggling like any other person


I understand that there are lot of readers with “vivid” stories who would disagree with me because we live in a society where we are constantly bombarded with such narratives, from popular culture to religious houses, considering our history of poverty, exploitation, and consequent disillusionment, I won’t blame such readers.


What do you expect, when people do not see a rational link between what some wealthy people do for a living and the bullion vans that drive money into their compound, they begin to accept that there must be some truth to the belief that spirits dispense favours and raw cash and such beliefs are further strengthened by our religious leaders?


Then, the media that uncritically reports stories of “money rituals” to a credulous audience. It is precisely because of the role that the media is playing in all this that gave birth to Doppler Effect Films. We want to see a society that is well educated, well informed, we want to share the stories of victims of these negative superstitions, we want to see a Nigeria that rises above superstitions that does nothing but destroy others.


Mind you, it is not as if there are societies in the world that are immune to these sort of superstitions, no! It is just that these civilized societies run in a way that, over time, they have established a logical connection between the factors of production, money, and politics.


Those who claim they can generate money through rituals, and demand human lives for that purpose, do so for various reasons. But the truth of the matter is, if they can actually do it, they would do it first for themselves, after all, who doesn’t want to be as rich as Bill Gates?


Time to begin to challenge these myths of money rituals, witchcraft etc. and save our vulnerable people from the machinations of evil imaginations.


The government must create more awareness and legislations too. Already, our Criminal Code (1990) states that a person who commits a murder will be sentenced to death and a person found in possession of a human head or skull… can be sentenced to five years in prison, it is time to enforce and improve on those laws. We need massive re-orientation in this country, and our religious houses should also join the effort.

As at this morning, it would have been close to three weeks since the government of Nigeria declared a total lockdown in two States and the federal capital territory, and advised all Nigerians to stay at home.
All over the world, governments, religious leaders, celebrities, scientists, experts, politicians, just name it, everyone is unanimous in advising people everywhere to stay indoors, to stay safe because of the Covid 19 pandemic that is currently ravaging the world. The infection of over 2,000,000 and the deaths of over a 165,000 people worldwide, with America becoming the worse hit as of today with over 40,000 deaths, and China, where the virus was first reported, dropping to around 8th position with a little over 4,500 deaths, has brought to the fore in the minds of people, especially Nigerians, how serious the situation is. And this is discounting the deaths of close to 20 Nigerians and recent death of one of Nigeria’s most powerful government official, the late Abba Kyari, may God rest his soul, all of whom died due to complications resulting from Covid 19 infection.
A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease, apart from the fact that pandemics are not new, they are dangerous in the sense that they have the potentials of wiping out whole populations. And so, our fear is in order.
But how many Nigerians know that even the earth which we call home is at a much more dangerous risk as a result of what man is doing, and not doing, to the environment, comparable to what we currently face due to Covid 19? This is the question 21-year-old Iroegbulam Chidubem Chris is calling all Nigerians to consider. We will get out of Covid 19 a stronger people he said, but we must incorporate the fight to protect our environment into the post Covid 19 structural programs we plan for Nigeria.
On the 12 of October 2014, 15-year-old Chris was in class when he suddenly felt uncomfortable. Within minutes, he found that he had difficulty breathing. His class teacher quickly called his father who promptly arrived the school and drove him straight to a private hospital in Owerri the capital of Imo State. It was soon discovered that he had lungs problems. After a few days in the hospital, he got better and on the day of his discharge, the doctor gave a stern warning to him. Avoid smoke, fire and dust. Before this episode, Chris had found that even as a child, he’d love anything that had to do with nature, i.e. trees, flowers, plants and the likes. From the day he left the hospital, young Chris started to read book about his condition, about nature and about the environment. Ironically, he lived in an area where bush burning and littering the environment indiscriminately with refuse was a norm. But reading opened his eyes to a lot about how these things do not only pose a threat to humans but to the environment and the planet at large. So he took a decision to make a difference, to start educating his people, and today, he is a lone voice for the east, for our environment.
Chris insists there are human activities that cause damage, either directly or indirectly, to the environment on a global scale. We are destroying nature at an unprecedented rate, threatening the survival of a million species, and our own future too. If the earth is destroyed beyond repair, we won’t be here to worry about a Covid 19, he said.
For example, the Niger Delta is one of the most endowed floodplains in the country and it makes up to 7.5% of Nigeria total landmass. In addition to a very rich biodiversity on the planet, the area supports abundant flora and fauna, arable terrain that can sustain a wide variety of crops, lumber or agriculture, tress and so on, but look at what oil spill is doing to the region? Year in year out, there is the challenge of the loss of hectares of mangroves, depletion of fish population, natural gas flaring, etc., all due to the activities of man, he lamented.
Nigeria has a total land area of roughly 983,213 km2 occupied by over 200 million people. But every day, we see the activities of people here as is the case elsewhere in the world, leaving indelible marks on the planet by way of unplanned urbanization, deforestation, desertification, over population and all kinds of pollutions and indiscriminate dumping of refuse and all that.
But the good news he announced, is that it is not too late to start a process to save our environment and us.

In his own little way, he has been calling attention to the dangers some of our actions pose to our environment.
Incidentally, in 2018, he emerged Mr. Nature Nigeria and decided he would use that platform to contribute his quota to the betterment of the environment.
An alumnus of Holy Ghost College Owerri, and a student of Linguistics and Communication at the Imo State University, as Mr. Nature Nigeria, Chris runs a yearly programme tagged “SATT, Save A Tree Today” aimed at revolutionizing the minds of teenagers and youths toward tree planting. Through this programme, he organizes symposium to coincide with the World Environment Day where speakers teach youths the dangers of deforestation and all that. His “Pick A Plastic” campaign often see to ridding Imo State University premises and part of Owerri metropolis off tones and tones of plastic waste on a yearly basis. The campaign is aimed at keeping the State clean. He also partners with the Imo State Environment team and a number of pageant companies in seeing to this aim. He has also gone on to lead campaigns to plant countless trees in Imo State.
He maintains that the solution to our environmental challenges must go beyond some of the objectives of the Federal Ministry of Environment FME. Our environmental protection laws must be reviewed, protection techniques should be indigenized, and all our laws must be written and delivered in our local languages and dialects. He advised the government to take cognizance of our different ecological zones in designing our environmental protection laws, going forward. Most importantly, environmental education must be included in our primary and post primary school curricula and a post Covid 19 Nigeria must include a robust plan to tackle our environmental challenges.
The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, the next best time is now, he concluded.

One of the concerns of those who insist that the Chinese virus is connected to 5G and is being used as a tool by some powerful interests is that, eventually, it would be used to further the agenda of a One World Government...

But the question is, what exactly is wrong with a One World Government? I mean, earth is just one of the planets in our solar system. Compared to the sun (which is actually a very small star anyway) earth is so small that 330,000 Earths can actually fit into the sun. In other words, the sun, which is 50 times smaller than an average night star is actually 330,000 times bigger than the earth. And there are over a 100 billion suns in the Milky Way Galaxy, and there are over a 100 billion galaxies in the universe...Albert Einstein once talked about the possibility of an infinite number of parallel universes existing side by side in infinitity...so what's the fuse about a One World Government when the earth is just a speck of dust circling a Sunbeam in an obscure corner of the Milky Way Galaxy?

We have heard the rationales offered by the super powers like China, Russia, America, European nations (with a conspicuous absence of African voices) etc, we know who speaks for the nations, but who speaks for the human species as a family, who, according to the late Dr Sagan, speaks for Earth?

Human loyalties are to people of thier kind, tongue, culture and religion, but should our obligation be owed soley to ourselves and those who are "like" us? We will eventually discover extraterrestrials, we will find that, like villagers in the Amazon forests unaware of the massive radio and television signals traffic overheard them, because they lack the knowledge, there is a massive community of federating higher civilizations existing in the galaxies that we are currently unaware of. When we do, how do we relate with them? As Chinese, Americans, Nigerians, or as the human race?

I repeat, there is only one race, and that's the human race, and national boundaries are not evident when we view the earth from space. Fanatic ethic, religious or national identifications are a little difficult to support when we see our planet as a little fragile crescent, fading to become a little inconspicuous point of light against the bastion and citadel of the stars. All the noise, delusion of self importance, that everything was made for us, even though we are just one among the over 10 million species on Earth, are all just a waste of time...

Our spaceship the planet Earth, which is currently being powered by massive, yet dying, organic machines (trees and the wild) is just a tiny little stone on a journey through the infinite darkness of space, and sadly, it has a lifespan, and the earlier we realise this, and treat it has one big "country" under a One World Government, the better for the human race...

A few days ago, I watched a documentary by William Lane Craig of Reasonable Faith dot org and the short video got me really thinking. Now, no one would deny that the whole world is currently facing an unprecedented challenge in the face of the Covid 19 pandemic. Nations are on lock down and churches, including and especially in Rome, Italy, the seat of the great Roman Catholic Church, are closing parishes. And there are those who have derided the Church “for being powerless in the face of a “common” virus” just as there are Christians who have tried to make sense of it all.

As someone born and baptized into the Catholic faith who today considers himself a liberal Catholic tending towards agnosticism, I have seen people, Christians especially, in the last few weeks, ask God, ask Jesus, to shield and save us, especially in these trying times. Inasmuch as I believe that, as always, man needs a Saviour, what did Jesus really think of himself? Are Christians right in calling on him for help in the time of great “tribulation”?

Now, with the rise of textual criticism and the modern study of history, historians and scholars have developed tools to unlock the first question in the second to the last line in the preceding paragraph. Today, we know that Jesus of Nazareth is no longer just a figure in a stained glass window in a random church but a real person of history whose life can be investigated historically.

Looking at the New Testament, not necessarily as some inspired scriptures or some spiritual text now, but as an ordinary collection of ancient documents, scholars who have applied to them the same standard text they would use with regards to any other ancient sources, have come up with some findings, three of which I would share here, about Jesus Christ.


First, Jesus claimed to be the messiah. The Jews of Jesus’ day were waiting for a promised messiah, a descendant of king David, a warrior king who would bring military victory and spiritual renewal to ancient Israel, and these same Jews were familiar with the Prophet Zechariah’s words:
“Shout aloud,
O daughter of Jerusalem,
Behold, your king is coming
to you; righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey”
-Zechariah 9:9.

Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey in the final week of his life is attested to in many other independent sources, which is one of the most important criteria for the historicity of any ancient recorded event. In doing this, Jesus was deliberately and provocatively claiming that he was the Messiah and the King of Israel. Also, the plaque nailed on his cross (King of the Jews) stated the charge against him in mockery of his Messianic claims. The fact that later Christians did not use this derisive title for Jesus underscores its authenticity and the genuineness of the story.

We must note that for First Century Jews the word messiah was packed full with all kinds of meanings, from Victorious King, to Mighty God, Wonderful Counselor, Anointed One, Everlasting Father, Bringer of Salvation, Prince of Peace and so on, and by assuming this title Jesus was claiming all of these for himself.

Jesus also claimed to be the Son of God. Jesus consciousness of being God’s son in a unique sense comes to expression in his Parable of the Vineyard. Experts say this parable matches Jesus teaching style and employs Jewish motifs typical of his day. For example, in the parable, we see the land of Israel as a vineyard, God as a father, the religious leaders of that time as a tenants, God’s prophets as servants sent to the tenants and Jesus himself as the son of God.

Once there was a man who planted a vineyard the parable says, before leaving the country, he leaves it to tenants. At harvest time he sent a servant to collect his share of the fruits of the vineyard, but the tenants beat him and sent him away empty handed. So the owner sent more servants, these too were beaten or killed. Finally, he sent his one and only son saying; “surely, they will respect my son.” But those tenants said to one another, “this is the heir, let us kill him and the vineyard would become ours”. So they killed the owner’s only son.

What is there in this parable about Jesus self-understanding for us to learn from? Experts agree that Jesus thought of himself as God’s only son, the Final Messenger who is very distinct from all the other prophets and even as the Heir of Israel itself.

Then Jesus claimed to be the Son of Man, his favorite designation of himself which was used some 80 times in the gospels. A term that has convinced countless new testament historians and scholars that Jesus in fact thought of himself as the Son of Man. And please take note that this was not just “A” son of man but THE son of man. And in doing this, experts say Jesus was there directing our attention to a vision that was described by the prophet Daniel:

“I saw in the night visions and behold with the clouds of heaven there came one like the son of man and he came to the ancient of days and was presented before him. And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom that all peoples, nations, languages, should serve him” -Daniel 7:13-14

At Jesus’ trial also, the Jewish high priest accused Jesus saying “are you the messiah, the son of God?” Jesus’ answer left no room for doubt.

“I am and you will see the son of man seated at the right hand of power and coming with the clouds of heaven”- Mark 14:61-62

Don’t you think by applying all three of this titles of Messiah, Son of God and Son of Man to himself Jesus was claiming in no uncertain terms that he was the very God that his accusers worshiped, the same God that all men must and should worship? The God that we must call to in times of need? Is it any surprise then why Jewish religious leadership charged him with blasphemy and condemned him to death?

And that was not all. New Testament historians are all agreed that the historical Jesus also claimed and was reported to have divine powers and authority to perform miracles, cast out demons, even revise Old Testament laws and above all, forgive sins. He even went so far as to claim that everyone’s eternal destiny is determined solely by whether we believe him or not.

Coming face to face with these facts as put forth by scholars cut across different ages and cultures, and not necessarily from Christians or believers, can we honestly say Jesus was a mere Jewish teacher, a charismatic leader, a prophet or whatever? I doubt very much. I think Jesus was much more than all those. That is why, even though I not discount the works of world leaders and scientist around the world who are working around the clock to see an end to this challenge, even though I urge every Christian at this times to adhere strictly to government’s directives regarding the times we are in now, I also urge a stronger faith in Jesus, knowing who he really his, to help us through these times and protect us.

Because by putting himself in God’s place, Jesus was making a far greater claim about himself than anyone else has ever done before or after him.

So, the question Jesus asked his disciples then confronts each of us today, “WHO DO YOU SAY THAT I AM?” Whatever the answer mean to you, especially at these times, let it guide you.

On April 21, 2006, President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government announced that it had paid the last of the nation’s multibillion-dollar debt to the Paris Club of creditor nations.
Revealing Nigeria’s freedom from foreign debt, an elated Obasanjo proclaimed that from then on "Nigeria will not owe anybody in the Paris Club one kobo…". Analyst and every Nigerians and friends of the nation, home and abroad, praised the achievement.
Prior to that time, Nigeria had owed $36 billion to nations that made up the Paris Club like the United States, Germany, France and other wealthy nations, monies which had been racked up during decades of military (including that of General Buhari in 1984) dictatorships.
President Obasanjo understood that debt relief was a central issue in the fight against poverty and an enemy of any nation that wanted to develop and so did everything to get us out of debt. The two governments after his, including that of President Jonathan, understood that too.
But since 2015, it appears we have installed a government that doesn’t understand this fact. To put it in English, we now have a government that is underestimating the dangers of unending borrowing.
The Nigerian Senate has approved another round of loans for the government, that is despite the fact that as at the time of approval, foreign debt, according to Channels TV, stood as follows; December 31, 2014 - $67.7bn, December 31, 2015 – $65.4bn, December 31, 2016 - $57bn, December 31, 2017 -$70bn, December 31, 2018 -$79bn and as at September 30, 2019 -$85.3bn.
Is it ok to borrow without first determining the clarity of information about the revenue basis with which to pay back? If wise individuals won’t make such a misstep, why should a government?
This government knows, as Major General Buhari himself has often lamented, that the gap between what we earn as a nation and what we spend is so wide, and this is the major cause of the deficit we often experience, a deficit they now intend to plug by endless borrowing. Add this to dwindling oil prices, no thanks to the outbreak of Covid 19, and the fact that we are not an export based economy with our poor production capabilities, if government intend to borrow, should they not add borrowing for infrastructure that will somehow yield revenue returns to the list?
Even though am not an expert in such matters, at least I have listened to many experts speak on the subject to know enough to tell that this government’s excuse that the need to develop infrastructure is the major motivation for borrowing, is at best mere talk. Do we need to go far back memory lane to know that throughout the history of Nigeria, most governments have often cited infrastructural development as reason for borrowing, yet, what is the state pf our infrastructure today? What has happened to all the money?
Even a child knows that Nigeria is in a terrible state with of development and that for there to be a massive improvement in infrastructure, the government needs to partner the private sector, simple!
Take Lagos Ibadan expressway for example, over 134 billion, according to experts in Economics like Bayo Rotimi, has gone into that road, what do we make of that?
It is not as if it is bad to borrow, neither is it bad to want to develop, but it is a wrong move when you borrow to solely fund social amenities without a clear plan how to pay back, when servicing such debt, is a problem in the first place. With the way this government is going, we will end up borrowing to service debt.
Imagine if previous governments had not done what it did in telecommunication, broadcasting and banking, imagine what the situation would have been like. Today, apart from these sectors, what other sectors are as efficient as these, although they too are riddled with their issues?
Many countries around the world, even in Africa, concede most of their infrastructural development to the private sector, their governments then provide the level playing field, adequate regulation, and world class supervision, but what do we have here, especially under this government, nepotism, corruption and buying off of government assets by cronies.
When you put people in positions only because they are from your tribe, region or religion, not minding their antecedent or capabilities, what do you expect?
Let us reform and restructure this nation, appoint the best people into positions, concede these things to the private sector and provide real time supervision and then see investment flow into the nation and development thrive in a way that can only be imagined. But sadly, as always, government after government are held captive by an ever evolving cabal made up of people who are not as smart as most people think anyways, who put self-interest above national interest. And till this day, we have never had a government with the political will to fix this nation.
The current occupant of Aso Rock was in power in 1984, what did he do? Those who know him well insist that most things his government did then were negatives. For example, he was reported to have stopped Lagos metro line, stopped feeding of university students etc. And there are rumors that he was not even the one fully in charge then. The same rumors are flying around today, so what do we make of that too?
Defenders of this government would say Japan and even America borrows, but take a look at those countries, their infrastructure is world class, their unemployment rate is on an all-time low, citizens’ rights are respected etc. Take a look at us, we have not stopped borrowing since 2015, there are still indication we will keep borrowing till this government leaves office, creating problems for future governments, and what do we get in return, decayed infrastructure, highest unemployment ratio and recently the tag, poverty capital of the world.
If we keep borrowing, and our debt increases beyond accepted level, and our growing share of GDP now needs to go into debt servicing or repayments, it may start to take the tax revenue that is needed for development. We have seen nations, especially developing ones like ours, suffer severely from such bloated debt burden, which means struggling to meet even the debt interest payments with nothing left to develop.
Does God have to come down to tell Major General Buhari this hard truth?
God bless Nigeria.