₦airaland Forum

Fisayo Soyombo: What Does a Country Do with all these Investigations?

By: Deji Yesufu

Fisayo Soyombo is a household name in Nigerian journalism. It however appears to me that we are all wasting this young man’s efforts; perhaps some other country that appreciates investigative journalism could poach him and use him to better the lot of their nation. Fisayo will be the first person to jettison such an idea – it remains a suggestion that he may still implement whenever the opportunity comes to him and if Nigeria continues to waste his efforts.

Soyombo came to my notice after his dare-devil investigation of the Nigerian police that nearly cost him his life. Soyombo had instigated his own arrest and was shut up in detention with the sole aim of reporting the fraud, extortion and bribery inherent in the Nigerian Police system. He went into detention with his camera on him – unfortunately this was what gave him away. Even with the camera in their hand, some of the policemen there could not figure out what he was doing – they were that plain stupid. Fisayo’s cover was blown in prison a few days into his detention but this had followed his being savagely beaten by an officer on duty. It does not matter the undercover work, the sheer thoughts of enduring such beating would have made many (including this writer) own up quickly as to what brought them there; but not Fisayo. Soyombo’s cover was blown open and everyone knew he had come to investigate happenings in the Nigerian Police. He would eventually be released but not after efforts had been made to neutralize him in detention for daring to do such a thing. Unfortunately nothing came out of that investigation.

Fisayo seem to have a liking for the Nigerian Police. I don’t blame him. The truth is that if one wants to document real life corruption, a trip to an average police station in this country will be more than helpful. One day, Soyombo sought to find out how much it would cost to smuggle a stolen vehicle across Nigerian. He drove a car without plate number or any registration paper from Abuja to Lagos; and also went from Lagos back to Abuja. For the two trips, it cost him N46,000. That investigation revealed so much: faces of corrupt policemen were taken; videos of police officers taking bribes; etc. Yet there appears to be no effort by the Nigerian police to curb extortion of motorist on our roads; nor has there been any move to reform the police system in general. This is the reason why sometimes I think that Fisayo is simply wasting his time with Nigeria.

There were some investigations he did into the Nigerian medical systems too. Fisayo invaded Nigeria’s mortuary and revealed the sorry state Nigerians find themselves when they die. That report was terrible and it broke my heart because everyone of us will die and the thought of what fellow Nigerians will do with our corpse is not what one wants to imagine. Someone may say that when living Nigerians are not being taken care of, why do we begin to bother ourselves with those who die. I cannot agree more but we must do something with these investigations. In another occasion, Fisayo admits himself at “Yaba Left” – a famous psychiatry center in Lagos, Nigeria. His findings were horrendous. I am not sure whether things have improved in that institution and I would not be surprised if things have simply continued as usual.

The latest investigation by Soyombo, published just yesterday, is concerning the corruption and rot in the rail system that the Nigerian government has managed to restore back to the country. Only recently, President Buhari and the minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, commissioned the new rail system between Abuja and Kaduna. Pictures flooded the internet of Buhari and Amaechi riding the train in first class coaches. The train stations themselves were built to taste and everyone felt that this was a new beginning in the transportation system in the country. In fact, we had all been looking forward to a similar commissioning of the Ibadan/Lagos rail system – before Fisayo unveiled his can of worms. The rail system that was only recently commissioned has been taken over by corruption. Because the express way between Kaduna and Abuja has become largely unsafe, most travelers prefer to use the train. In the process the volume of users of the train had gone. Then came in corruption also. Tickets that should sell for N1,500 end up being sold for N4,000. Even at that price tickets are still not available. Fisayo reports on how police and military men connive with workers at the station to hoard tickets and sell them at black market rates to people. Yet, we have a government in the country and nothing is being done. I would be heartbroken if this report simply goes the same route that the other investigations by this great Nigerian man go: government does nothing with it. I think there are reasons why Soyombo’s investigations are not hitting the mark and I would use the rest of this essay to discuss them.

Soyombo’s investigations reveal that the architects of Nigeria’s problem are Nigerians themselves. The next time you gather with your fellow Nigerians and they begin to blame government for the woes of this country, pull out a report by Soyombo and show them. Nigerians are their own enemies. In all the investigations that Soyombo carried out, you can see Nigerians taking advantage of the lull in the system. It is true things are not the way they are supposed to be but Nigerians need to know that nothing will get better until everyone of us begin to make the effort to fix things in our own little corner.

Soyombo, in a Facebook post, which was actually not an investigative effort, declared that he had removed himself from the national grid. Why? PHCN had continued to bring estimated bills to his house and every effort to get a meter has failed. It appears that some electricity workers would rather have Nigerians without pre-paid meters, so that they could take advantage of the system. This means that PHCN workers will still have the opportunity of collecting bribe monies from people in different localities who use power without paying. I know this for a fact because in recent weeks, government increased electricity tariff. In my neighborhood, the cost of electricity went as high as 110% . This has led to me shouting myself hoarse in the house, calling on my children to switch off light bulbs they are not using. My deep freezer is almost on total lockdown now and the pumping machine is used very sparingly. Yet, my neighbors use power as if it is about to go into extinction. While we have changed all our bulbs to energy savers, people use 100 watt bulbs freely in their shops and they leave these lighting points on all day. It is obvious that folks like these are not paying electricity bill; they are the ones that bribe PHCN officials when they come to cut-off their power lines. Obviously, all these persons and the PHCN people are not government; they are fellow Nigerian bent on milking the country dry. When government cannot recoup its investment in power, it increases tariff electricity. But this only causes for the circle to begin again: Nigerians would cut corners; they will bribe PHCN workers; and folks like us, good Nigerians, will be the ones paying for the electricity everyone is using. Nigerians are there number enemies.

Another reason why Fisayo’s report has failed to hit the mark is because of government ineptitude. Here again, what I have in mind is not Muhammadu Buhari or the ministers working under him; but the ineptitude of government agencies that should handle these reports and work on them. I am talking about civil servants. One thing we must understand as a people is that there is nowhere in the world where a President or even his ministers do everything as far governance is concerned. The best that they can do is to put policies in place that would allow for the smoot functioning of society. Government would still have to rely on agencies, mostly manned by civil servants, to do their jobs. No matter the investigation Soyombo carries out on the police, the inspector general of police will still have to take the initiative and set up machineries within the police to curb extortion and bribery in police stations. I do not know how many times road blocks have been abolished in the country; yet they still keep coming back. The truth of the matter is that road blocks have their place in a society like ours. I have seen the stolen vehicle of a friend recovered by the Nigerian police at a road block here in Ibadan. It is rare but these things happen. The road blocks are not the problem; the average Nigerian police need to understand that it is simply morally wrong to collect money from people on the road. If a policeman is gifted with cash, that is another thing entirely. But to cock your gun and aim at a motorist, forcing him to part with money is armed robbery. Buhari will not do this for us; neithe will the inspector general of police. Each police station in the country must have a head that would say to his officers that cases of extortion will not happen under his/her watch. When this happen, these evil report will dwindle. I am again going back to the whole issue of Nigerian owning their problem and seeking to fix it in their own little corner.

Then there is the matter of our moral compass as a people. I would never understand how Nigerians are so incredibly religious, yet we are known around the world for all kinds of ills and evil. When people despise religion because of the way religious people behave, one cannot blame them. Some of us who have investigated the kind of religion we practice in this country, particularly the Christian religion, have discovered that the base morality that Nigerians manifest in public starts actually among the clergy. There is the need for a total overhaul of religion in this clime and there is the need for religion to begin to manifest in the way our people behave.

Finally, one other reason Fisayo investigations may not be making a difference is that it has not brought sufficient embarrassment to Nigeria. And here I blame our leaders. Sometimes one want to believe the testimony of Prof. Wole Soyinka who says that it appears Nigeria has no leadership. Apparently until something brings this country a great deal of embarrassment, no one sees the need to attend to it. If Soyombo’s report had been published in an international newspapers, maybegovernment would have done something about it. Soyomobo’s investigations are sponsored by online news portals. The recent was done by BuisnessDay. If the Punch, Vanguard, The Nation, and other leading print Medias take this report and serialize them, things will change in the country. But probably because of competition between media houses, and forgetting the advantage of a united front, they ignore each other’s works and we all continue to suffer for it.

A few days ago, Soyombo joined the reporting team of the BBC in unveiling what really happened at a blast that occurred in Lagos last year and that led to the death of a number of people. The report indicted the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) but, as usual, the matter will die a natural death. No one will talk about it until the next explosion occurs and more people die.

Why does Fisayo Soyombo continue with his investigation despite the fact that government and Nigerian behave as if they do not exist? I don’t know. But I have the feeling that this good Nigerian possess an optimism that some of us have and that has made us to continue in the shores of this country despite opportunities to flee. “Everything good will come…”, my good friend and another journalist, Edmund Obilo, will always say on his radio station. The blessing of life is that death comes. There is an old guard that is gradually being eroded from the scene by the arm of death and they are being replaced by “a new breed without greed”, like Tunde Bakare will say. These men and women, a few of them, will take position in this country and they fix will this country. Soyombo’s reports are written and they will outlast all of us. A new generation will take them and use them to bring about a better Nigerian. While this generation may do nothing with Soyombo reports, another will. Optimism is what keeps Soyombo in business; it is what keeps a few of us in this country doing what we do.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/fisayo-soyombo-what-does-a-country-do-with-all-these-investigations/

(Note: There are links to the original investigations refereed to in this article in the source link above)

Fisayo Soyombo: What Does a Country Do with all these Investigations?

By: Deji Yesufu

Fisayo Soyombo is a household name in Nigerian journalism. It however appears to me that we are all wasting this young man’s efforts; perhaps some other country that appreciates investigative journalism could poach him and use him to better the lot of their nation. Fisayo will be the first person to jettison such an idea – it remains a suggestion that he may still implement whenever the opportunity comes to him and if Nigeria continues to waste his efforts.

Soyombo came to my notice after his dare-devil investigation of the Nigerian police that nearly cost him his life. Soyombo had instigated his own arrest and was shut up in detention with the sole aim of reporting the fraud, extortion and bribery inherent in the Nigerian Police system. He went into detention with his camera on him – unfortunately this was what gave him away. Even with the camera in their hand, some of the policemen there could not figure out what he was doing – they were that plain stupid. Fisayo’s cover was blown in prison a few days into his detention but this had followed his being savagely beaten by an officer on duty. It does not matter the undercover work, the sheer thoughts of enduring such beating would have made many (including this writer) own up quickly as to what brought them there; but not Fisayo. Soyombo’s cover was blown open and everyone knew he had come to investigate happenings in the Nigerian Police. He would eventually be released but not after efforts had been made to neutralize him in detention for daring to do such a thing. Unfortunately nothing came out of that investigation.



Fisayo seem to have a liking for the Nigerian Police. I don’t blame him. The truth is that if one wants to document real life corruption, a trip to an average police station in this country will be more than helpful. One day, Soyombo sought to find out how much it would cost to smuggle a stolen vehicle across Nigerian. He drove a car without plate number or any registration paper from Abuja to Lagos; and also went from Lagos back to Abuja. For the two trips, it cost him N46,000. That investigation revealed so much: faces of corrupt policemen were taken; videos of police officers taking bribes; etc. Yet there appears to be no effort by the Nigerian police to curb extortion of motorist on our roads; nor has there been any move to reform the police system in general. This is the reason why sometimes I think that Fisayo is simply wasting his time with Nigeria.



There were some investigations he did into the Nigerian medical systems too. Fisayo invaded Nigeria’s mortuary and revealed the sorry state Nigerians find themselves when they die. That report was terrible and it broke my heart because everyone of us will die and the thought of what fellow Nigerians will do with our corpse is not what one wants to imagine. Someone may say that when living Nigerians are not being taken care of, why do we begin to bother ourselves with those who die. I cannot agree more but we must do something with these investigations. In another occasion, Fisayo admits himself at “Yaba Left” – a famous psychiatry center in Lagos, Nigeria. His findings were horrendous. I am not sure whether things have improved in that institution and I would not be surprised if things have simply continued as usual.



The latest investigation by Soyombo, published just yesterday, is concerning the corruption and rot in the rail system that the Nigerian government has managed to restore back to the country. Only recently, President Buhari and the minister of Transport, Rotimi Amaechi, commissioned the new rail system between Abuja and Kaduna. Pictures flooded the internet of Buhari and Amaechi riding the train in first class coaches. The train stations themselves were built to taste and everyone felt that this was a new beginning in the transportation system in the country. In fact, we had all been looking forward to a similar commissioning of the Ibadan/Lagos rail system – before Fisayo unveiled his can of worms. The rail system that was only recently commissioned has been taken over by corruption. Because the express way between Kaduna and Abuja has become largely unsafe, most travelers prefer to use the train. In the process the volume of users of the train had gone. Then came in corruption also. Tickets that should sell for N1,500 end up being sold for N4,000. Even at that price tickets are still not available. Fisayo reports on how police and military men connive with workers at the station to hoard tickets and sell them at black market rates to people. Yet, we have a government in the country and nothing is being done. I would be heartbroken if this report simply goes the same route that the other investigations by this great Nigerian man go: government does nothing with it. I think there are reasons why Soyombo’s investigations are not hitting the mark and I would use the rest of this essay to discuss them.



Soyombo’s investigations reveal that the architects of Nigeria’s problem are Nigerians themselves. The next time you gather with your fellow Nigerians and they begin to blame government for the woes of this country, pull out a report by Soyombo and show them. Nigerians are their own enemies. In all the investigations that Soyombo carried out, you can see Nigerians taking advantage of the lull in the system. It is true things are not the way they are supposed to be but Nigerians need to know that nothing will get better until everyone of us begin to make the effort to fix things in our own little corner.

Soyombo, in a Facebook post, which was actually not an investigative effort, declared that he had removed himself from the national grid. Why? PHCN had continued to bring estimated bills to his house and every effort to get a meter has failed. It appears that some electricity workers would rather have Nigerians without pre-paid meters, so that they could take advantage of the system. This means that PHCN workers will still have the opportunity of collecting bribe monies from people in different localities who use power without paying. I know this for a fact because in recent weeks, government increased electricity tariff. In my neighborhood, the cost of electricity went as high as 110% . This has led to me shouting myself hoarse in the house, calling on my children to switch off light bulbs they are not using. My deep freezer is almost on total lockdown now and the pumping machine is used very sparingly. Yet, my neighbors use power as if it is about to go into extinction. While we have changed all our bulbs to energy savers, people use 100 watt bulbs freely in their shops and they leave these lighting points on all day. It is obvious that folks like these are not paying electricity bill; they are the ones that bribe PHCN officials when they come to cut-off their power lines. Obviously, all these persons and the PHCN people are not government; they are fellow Nigerian bent on milking the country dry. When government cannot recoup its investment in power, it increases tariff electricity. But this only causes for the circle to begin again: Nigerians would cut corners; they will bribe PHCN workers; and folks like us, good Nigerians, will be the ones paying for the electricity everyone is using. Nigerians are there number enemies.



Another reason why Fisayo’s report has failed to hit the mark is because of government ineptitude. Here again, what I have in mind is not Muhammadu Buhari or the ministers working under him; but the ineptitude of government agencies that should handle these reports and work on them. I am talking about civil servants. One thing we must understand as a people is that there is nowhere in the world where a President or even his ministers do everything as far governance is concerned. The best that they can do is to put policies in place that would allow for the smoot functioning of society. Government would still have to rely on agencies, mostly manned by civil servants, to do their jobs. No matter the investigation Soyombo carries out on the police, the inspector general of police will still have to take the initiative and set up machineries within the police to curb extortion and bribery in police stations. I do not know how many times road blocks have been abolished in the country; yet they still keep coming back. The truth of the matter is that road blocks have their place in a society like ours. I have seen the stolen vehicle of a friend recovered by the Nigerian police at a road block here in Ibadan. It is rare but these things happen. The road blocks are not the problem; the average Nigerian police need to understand that it is simply morally wrong to collect money from people on the road. If a policeman is gifted with cash, that is another thing entirely. But to cock your gun and aim at a motorist, forcing him to part with money is armed robbery. Buhari will not do this for us; neithe will the inspector general of police. Each police station in the country must have a head that would say to his officers that cases of extortion will not happen under his/her watch. When this happen, these evil report will dwindle. I am again going back to the whole issue of Nigerian owning their problem and seeking to fix it in their own little corner.



Then there is the matter of our moral compass as a people. I would never understand how Nigerians are so incredibly religious, yet we are known around the world for all kinds of ills and evil. When people despise religion because of the way religious people behave, one cannot blame them. Some of us who have investigated the kind of religion we practice in this country, particularly the Christian religion, have discovered that the base morality that Nigerians manifest in public starts actually among the clergy. There is the need for a total overhaul of religion in this clime and there is the need for religion to begin to manifest in the way our people behave.

Finally, one other reason Fisayo investigations may not be making a difference is that it has not brought sufficient embarrassment to Nigeria. And here I blame our leaders. Sometimes one want to believe the testimony of Prof. Wole Soyinka who says that it appears Nigeria has no leadership. Apparently until something brings this country a great deal of embarrassment, no one sees the need to attend to it. If Soyombo’s report had been published in an international newspapers, maybegovernment would have done something about it. Soyomobo’s investigations are sponsored by online news portals. The recent was done by BuisnessDay. If the Punch, Vanguard, The Nation, and other leading print Medias take this report and serialize them, things will change in the country. But probably because of competition between media houses, and forgetting the advantage of a united front, they ignore each other’s works and we all continue to suffer for it.

A few days ago, Soyombo joined the reporting team of the BBC in unveiling what really happened at a blast that occurred in Lagos last year and that led to the death of a number of people. The report indicted the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation (NNPC) but, as usual, the matter will die a natural death. No one will talk about it until the next explosion occurs and more people die.

Why does Fisayo Soyombo continue with his investigation despite the fact that government and Nigerian behave as if they do not exist? I don’t know. But I have the feeling that this good Nigerian possess an optimism that some of us have and that has made us to continue in the shores of this country despite opportunities to flee. “Everything good will come…”, my good friend and another journalist, Edmund Obilo, will always say on his radio station. The blessing of life is that death comes. There is an old guard that is gradually being eroded from the scene by the arm of death and they are being replaced by “a new breed without greed”, like Tunde Bakare will say. These men and women, a few of them, will take position in this country and they fix will this country. Soyombo’s reports are written and they will outlast all of us. A new generation will take them and use them to bring about a better Nigerian. While this generation may do nothing with Soyombo reports, another will. Optimism is what keeps Soyombo in business; it is what keeps a few of us in this country doing what we do.

.

Publishing information on the scandal around Ravi was very heart breaking. But I realize that Christians possessing these information will only help us guard ourselves against the evil of the times.

Another thing is that Christianity is not like other religions. If others cover up their malfeasance, we don't. Why? Because Christianity cannot be destroyed by the failure of one man, a few men or even all Christians. The Church is sustained by Christ!

If all Christians apostatize today, God will raise up stones to worship him.

We give the true state if things in the Church. We bear our shame. We use it as a means to get better.

That's the difference between mere religion as Image123 will have Christianity look like today and gospel truth/life as we advocate.

MuttleyLaff:
I am sure Image123 my dear good and beloved brother knows that VBCampaign and I aren't gloating over or high fiving each other over "Dr" Ravi's misfortune stroke of mishap(s) and doctorate credentials with question mark(s) at the the end of his name instead of letters. Here is the thing, nobody gives a damn about his alleged moment of succumbing to a weakness, what we are trying to achieve from sharing this information about the scandal involving salacious pics and Cambridge University embarrassingly saying they dont know about him, is for the body of Christ readership, learn that there are hyenas out there, who will not hesitate to have you for breakfast/lunch/dinner, the very moment you let your guard down.

If atheists want to take pleasure in that episode of his life, so be it, he brought it upon himself, besides if he knew he has no skeletons to hide or nothing to be ashamed of, why not let it go the full course of the law, have him exonerated and vindicated that way, instead of dashing for an out of court settlement with a None Disclosure Agreement; NDA clause, hmm?

I am sure you know Ted Haggard, he too, is a well known personality, known by the highest and the lowest. Little wonder what he was getting up to

The crime about VBCampaign's posts and mine, is that we dare to point out that the king was naked, as in that the emperor apparently had no clothes on. In case of a husband having an affair outside the marriage, the wife is the last one usually to know. It is well.

I endorse this 100%. I no longer have energies for publishing long debates on Nairaland. This position has stated my thoughts clearly... I'll like to add though:

PastorAIO:
The hypocrisy of ‘Christians’ is second to none. Ever ready to overlook the crimes and repulsiveness of some while super eager to condemn others. That’s how some are ready to die for trump calling him god’s Cyrus etc. While in their eyes Obama was the Antichrist.

Everything they do just tallies with whatever prejudices they were already harbouring. Nasty prejudices. They thereby use Christianity as a tool to facilitate their nastiest inclinations instead of a tool to help them rise and become better people.

"...the hypocrisy of some Christians..." I hope you meant to say

MuttleyLaff:
How convenient.



[img]https://s8/images/ObamaMuttley.gif[/img]

So a man cant anymore, legitimately accuse a pastor, if he thinks the pastor has abused his position of influence in a counseling relationship to further his own business interests and those of his family by obtaining loans and investments from the plaintiff, hmm?

God bless you Muttley... Image123 cannot change

Image123:
Lol, complete coc.k and bull from a known extortionist and blackmailer.

Really? What about this??


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vTB15azb0A

PastorAIO:
Nope. But I acknowledge that different theists have different beliefs different from mine. Hence YOUR kingdom.

.

Noted

PastorAIO:
So you admit that there is bad news in your kingdom. Well done.

Are you an atheist now? Referencing "your kingdom". I knew this handle from way back Nairaland

Further thoughts on the scandal...

https://textandpublishing.com/the-ravi-zacharias-sex-scandal-my-thoughts/

The Ravi Zacharias Sex Scandal

By: Deji Yesufu

Ravi Zacharias died of Cancer on 19th May, 2020. He was 74 years old. Until his death, Zacharias was the president of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministry (RZIM). It is a $40 million ministry that has a number of brilliant Christian apologists in its employment who transverse the world, preaching the gospel and helping people of differing religious perspectives understand the gospel and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. Ravi Zacharias is still regarded as one of the greatest Christian apologists that ever lived. His ability to brilliantly express the gospel in almost philosophical but relevant terms has endeared him to millions of people around the world. In his teens, Ravi had initially regarded himself as an atheist. But following a failed suicide attempt and while reading the Bible in the hospital, Ravi came to an understanding of the gospel and never looked back. He continued to preach the gospel of Christ all around the world; ministering in no less than 70 countries and authoring 30 books in a space of 48 years. Around January 2020, doctors discovered a malignant tumor in Zacharias while he had undergoing back surgery. He began to receive treatment but it was discovered that the cancer was a rapidly spreading type. He would eventually be released from hospital to die peacefully at home a few months later.
In the summer of 2017, Ravi Zacharias filed a federal suit claiming that one Brad and Lori Ann Thompson were seeking to extort him of millions of dollars, after a friendly correspondence via email that he (Ravi) had begun with Lori Ann (the wife) had evolved to Mrs. Thompson sending him “unwanted, offensive, sexually explicit languages and pictures”. Ravi stated that he had implored the woman to stop sending these lewd messages his way and had to finally cut off communications from her. Only for him to receive a letter from the couple’s lawyer demanding that Zacharias pay them a sum of $5 million so as to effect a non-disclosure agreement between them and him. Zacharias said he immediately informed the board of RZIM and they counseled him to seek legal redress on the matter.

The RZIM is a Christian ministry that is run largely on believers’ donations to the organizations. These donations come in various ways. One way is through luncheons, where individuals are invited to hear Ravi Zacharias speak and are encouraged to give towards certain ministry endeavors. Brad and Lorie Ann Thompson, a Canadian couple based in the USA, met Ravi Zacharias in one of such luncheons in 2014. The RZIM had invited the couple and Brad had sponsored a table in the meeting and had gone ahead to support the RZIM financially too. Brad Thompson is a Christian business man who uses much of his funds to support Christian ministries around the world. After the luncheon that night, Zacharias gave the couple his personal email address and requested that they keep in touch. At first, correspondence between them was mostly between the three but Brad is very poor with responding to emails, so eventually communications was reduced to between Zacharias and Lori Ann alone.

When the matter blew into public knowledge, Ravi Zacharias published a statement in December 2017, stating his mistakes in the whole matter: “I have learned a difficult and painful lesson through this ordeal. I have failed to exercise caution and protect myself from even the appearance of impropriety, and for that I am profoundly sorry. I have acknowledged this to my Lord, my wife, my children, and our ministry board, and my colleagues. After Zacharias filed the lawsuit, the two parties decided to settle out of court and sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) in November 2017. The couple, however, has since been protesting Ravi Zacharias’ December 2017 statement as a violation of the NDA that was signed by the two parties. They say that though they intend to keep their own side of the agreement, Zacharias had reneged on his agreement and had opened them up to ridicule by the public; as his statement had painted Lori Ann as the aggressor. They insist that the true picture of things was hidden by Zacharias in the statement.

After Ravi Zacharias died in May 2020, the couple reached out to RZIM and requested a release from the NDA they had signed in 2017. RZIM did not respond to their request. Unable to speak on the matter, other parties involved with the family have since taken up the matter. First there was Lori Ann’s sister, Tamara Battiste, who had suffered sexual molestation herself in life but who was in the know of the whole story. In mid-2016, Lori Ann had shared her “love story” with Ravi Zacharias with Tamara. Tamara immediately felt that this did not sound like a love relationship but a situation where an older man (Zacharias was no less than 30 years older than Lori Ann) was taking advantage of a vulnerable woman – the age of his own children. Tamara helped her sister to see the destructive nature of the relationship and encouraged Lori Ann to seek counseling with some Christian counsellors – Jerry and Denise Basel.

Lori Ann went to see the Basels in October 2016. By this time, she was already becoming disillusioned; not very sure what the nature of her relationship with Ravi Zacharias was. While at the Basels, Lori explained to them everything that had happened between her and Zacharias. According to a written statement by Lori Ann, which was made available to a blogger, Julie Roys, by Tamara Battiste – Lory’s sister, Zacharias had requested that Lori and himself begin to have private communications between themselves alone via email – cutting off Brad entirely. As the correspondence between the two proceeded, Zacharias requested that Lori Anne obtain a blackberry messenger app on her phone, with which he would be able to communicate with her with little or no records of their communications. All of these began in the first quarter of 2016. One day, Zacharias expressed his love for Lori Ann and said that his marriage to his wife was some kind of contractual relationship. He was however finding a lot of joy in his new found relationship with Lori. At this point, he began to request that she sends pictures of herself to him. Gradually, he began to prod her to send seminude pictures to him; until one day he told her to him full nude pictures. This Lori Ann gradually did, having been swept away by the promise of love from Zacharias and having been tempered by his awesome speaking abilities and vast experience. The two would usually engage in “phone intimacy” but they never met physically, nor were there any sexual relations between them. When Zacharias was 70 years old in 2016, Lori Ann sent special nude pictures of herself to him as a gift. Zacharias responded in kind by sending her gifts of necklaces and scarfs from his trip to India. They were in the middle of this virtual sex relationship when Lori’s sister encouraged her to seek counseling.

The Basels helped Lori to realize that she had been taken advantage of by Ravi Zacharias and that their relationship was sinful. They encouraged her to tell her husband everything that happened between her and Ravi Zacharias. But before doing that, they told her to send Zacharias an email to bring an end to the whole relationship. Records of emails state the following:

While with her counsellors on 29th October, 2016, Lori Ann sent this email to Ravi Zacharias:

Lorie: “…(I) no longer (wish to) continue (with) what I know to be sin against God and each of our spouses… I would be informing my husband of our illicit affair later this evening… I have no control over how Brad will respond to or handle the information but I can no longer hold this secret and its soul searing shame… if one of my daughters was approached by a man thirty years her senior in a position of power and thrust, and this type of thing had occurred, I would be furious with him. I suspect so would you if it were one of your precious girls… Your sir, are that man. You took advantage of a devastated daughter, and left her devoured again. I am so appalled I allowed myself to enter into this level of deception. You took and I gave a part of my soul and later my body that was not yours. The investment in relationship from taking my email to taking off my clothes makes me weep with the despair; feeling desolate, devastated and disgusted… I request you do not reply this email as I simply cannot hear from you or see you ever again…”

Zacharias (3 hours later): “Are you going to tell him it’s me?”

No response from Lori Ann.

Zacharias: “You promised you wouldn’t Lori Anne. If. You betray me here I will have no option but to bid this world goodbye I promise.”

No response.

Zacharias: “Can we meet at lest(sic) once before you do this? Please please.”

No response.

Zacharias: “Little did I know that was the most dark and accursed day of my life. You will not hear from me again.”

No response from Lori Ann.

But her counsellors now respond.

Basels: We are lori Anne’s counsellors and she is currently receiving intensive counseling with us to find healing and restoration for her marriage. It is not her intent to share what has happened to anyone except her husband – which is necessary for any hope of marital restoration. And we are bound by confidentiality. We need some assurance from you that you will not harm yourself. Otherwise, we will find it necessary to contact 911 in your location. We await your prompt response. Thank you.

Three minutes later, Zacharias responds: I am fine Thank you. I am just concerned about her. Thank you please tell her I am praying for her. She is very much in my prayers.

Lori confessed to her husband that night.

(I have tried to retain most of the spelling mistakes in the original written emails between the two parties here.)

Brad Thompson was devastated. But he was also committed to saving his marriage and helping his wife through those difficult times. He immediately entered into counseling with the Basels. During counseling Brad was willing to forgive Ravi Zacharias and let the matter die down. In fact he had sent Zacharias a message stating that he and his wife had moved on despite the pain that the situation had caused them. Zacharias responded by thanking him and promising to be a better person. But in the first quarter of 2016, the Thompsons felt that if a 70 year old man could do this to a woman about the age of his own daughter, it is likely he had been doing this to other women also. They felt duty bound to instigate a process that would discourage Zacharias from doing this to other women. At first they thought of going to report Zacharias to the board of RZIM but they learnt that the board consisted essentially of Zacharias, his wife and daughter. They did not think that such a board, that had mostly family members, would be able to take a non-bias decision on Zacharias. Then they thought of contacting reputable magazines but they realized that if they did that, the story could blow out of proportion and further exacerbate the suicidal state the two of them were in. Their lawyer would eventually suggest bringing Zacharias to a non-disclosure agreement after Zacharias had paid a sum of $5 million. They felt the money attached to it will make Zacharias take the matter seriously. And he did. Ravi Zacharias would immediately institute a legal process that led ultimately to a signed NDA in November 2017 but which the couple allege Zacharias broke in December of the same year with his statement on the allegation that he released to the press that painted the couple as the aggressors.

Even with the death of Zacharias this year, the Thompsons are still legally bound not to talk about the whole matter to the press. The information that we have on this allegation are from written documents by Brad and Lorie Ann from November 2016, written about a year before the couple entered into an NDA with Ravi Zacharias in 2017. The couple had sought to be released from the oath of silence but the RZIM has not responded to them. Letters of enquiries, written to RZIM by the blogger that made this story public, were not responded to. It is likely that the RZIM, which is headed by one of Zacharias daughters, will still respond to these latest allegations. But as at the time this article was written, they have not given a public statement on the matter.

In my next blog post, I would be stating my personal opinion on this matter.

Ravi Zacharias statement on this issue here
The Roys Report Part One
The Roys Report Part Two
The Roys Report Part Three

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/the-ravi-zacharias-sex-scandal/

She has deleted the post on Facebook

The Story of Giannis Adetokunbo

By: Deji Yesufu

In April 1999, Nigeria had elected Chief Olusegun Obasanjo as its first civilian President after some 13 years of uninterrupted military rule (1983-1999). Pastor Tunde Bakare however casted an ominous cloud on the whole event, that had seen a Yoruba elected as President of Nigeria. Bakare said, in a prophecy, that God’s judgement was going to fall on Obasanjo and that he would not be installed President that year. Despite having rejected Obasanjo at the polls, the Yoruba nation had quickly owned Obasanjo and was a little uncomfortable with Tunde Bakare’s prophecy. One night, riot broke out in the Ogba area of Lagos, where Bakare’s church used to be located, as people began to hunt for the pastor’s head. Tunde Bakare told us some years later, while I visited his church that he escaped from that scene by the whiskers – hidden in a get-away-vehicle. I remember that night very well because it was the night I was returning to Zaria, after my botched interview at the United States’ Embassy in Victoria Island, Lagos. I was travelling back to Northern Nigeria in one of those large buses that travel late in the night. The person seated next to me on that trip was a young man in his mid-twenties. We talked a little. He told me he was going to North Africa to play football. His hope was that he would also be able to cross-over to Europe with time. When I disembarked in Zaria, he proceeded unto Kano and then to his preferred destination. I never forgot the experience with that guy because our bus was delayed for hours at the Ojota area of Lagos because the Tunde Bakare generated riot had caused traffic all over Lagos mainland.

Stephen Keshi is said to be the person who opened up oversea trips for Nigerian footballers in Europe. Keshi had plied his trade in various clubs in Europe including RSC Anderlecht in Belgium, where he won the Belgian League Championship in 1991. Keshi’s career spanned a period of 12 years in Europe (1986 – 1998) and he used his position in the national team to secure clubs for promising Nigerian footballers in Europe. By the early 1990s, the quest to go to Europe and “play professional” football became the dream of any gifted footballer in Nigeria.

In 1991, a young couple arrived the nation of Greece in Europe. Their names were: Charles and Veronic Adetokunbo. Charles was hoping to secure trials with a football club in Greece. It is not likely that that opportunity fell through and it was obvious to the couple that returning to Nigeria was not a practical thing either. They decided to slug it out in the nation of Greece. The couple had had a son called Francis while they were in Nigeria but they left that child with their parent in Lagos and headed to Europe. Francis would eventually join his parent in Greece. Charles is from south west Nigeria, while Veronica is Igbo. The couple would go on to have five children between them – all of them boys. In 1994, their third son was born and they named him Giannis Sina Ugo Adetokunbo. Giannis is obviously his Greek name.


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

The Adetokunbo family did not find it easy in Greece. Unlike the United States, where children of other nationals born in the country are immediately given American citizenship, the Adetokunbo children were not given this privilege. In fact they did not acquire Greek citizenship until 2013. The father of the house, Charles, was a heavily built athlete of a man, but he could only get jobs as a handyman on the streets of Anthens. Veronica worked as a baby sitter for Greek families that needed their help. They did not have work permits and thus worked only menial jobs to provide for their five children. But the Adetokunbo boys were exceptional. From an early age, and when they had free time from school, they would go to the streets and hawk watches, handbags, sunglasses and other wares. They lived in a poor neighborhood in Sepolia in the ancient city of Athens.

Like their father, the Adetokunbo boys loved to play football. So, when they had opportunity, they would play the round leather game around their neighborhood. When Giannis was seven years old, someone suggested to him and his brothers that rather than play football, they could take advantage of their gangling frame and height to play basketball. Giannis and his brothers soon began to play basketball in their neighborhood and their gifts were quickly recognized by their coaches. In fact, so that the boys could have more time to train and play the game for their respective teams, the team management ensured that Charles and Veronica were given work permit and thus could get better jobs and then earn more to provide for their families. The boys were taken off the streets of Athens and committed their times to their education and basketball. The most promising of the brothers was, of course, Giannis Adetokunbo.

In 2011, at age 17, Giannis began to play for a 3rd division team in the Greek basketball league. His gifts were quickly noticed and thus he was approached by a first division Spanish basketball club and signed a 4 year deal with them. That contract had a potential NBA buy-out clause in it. He had barely concluded two seasons with this club when the NBA approached him. In the 2013/14 season of the NBA, at age 19, Giannis was selected as a relatively unknown 15th draft for the Milwaukee Bucks. Interestingly it was this year that his family was granted full citizenship by the government of Greece. Greece obviously recognized the potential of the young man and quickly latched onto him. Another thing that happened in 2013, as Giannis was moving to the NBA, was that his name on his Greek passport was changed from “Adetokunbo” – which reflects clearly his Nigerian roots – to “Antetokounmpo”. This is the name he brought to the United States and unfortunately it is the name that his family bears today. In protest, however, I would not be using this imposed nomenclature on this true son of Nigeria; I would however be calling him his true name: Giannis Sina Ugo Adetokunbo, in this essay.

Giannis’ entry into the NBA was not a particularly smooth one. He would not come into recognition until 2017 when he won the NBA most improved player, although he had played in the second team of the rookie games of 2014. From 2017 on Giannis career sky-rocketed. He started to play in the all-stars games of the NBA from 2017 and has been voted into the Eastern Conference side every year ever since. In 2019, Giannis was voted into the All-NBA first team. In the same year, he was crowned the most valuable player (MVP) in the NBA. This title is about the most coveted title in the NBA and Giannis would be the third youngest player to win it at the age of 24. Other players who have been MVP are Stephen Curry (2014,15); Lebron James (2011,12), Michael Jordan (1998,1995,1992,1991,1988) and our own Hakeem Olajuwon (1994). Giannis Adetokunbo will lead the Milwaukee Bucks to the Eastern Conference finals in 2019 but lost to eventual winners - Toronto Raptors. In spite of this let down, Giannis’ contribution to his team was clearly recognized and he was awarded the MVP for that year. Giannis has been nicknamed “The Greek Freak” by commentators in the NBA because of his exceptional manner of playing and defensive work.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0USzJs9agOk&t=10s

My three brothers and I played a lot of basketball ourselves when we were growing in ABU Zaria quarters and we were very familiar with the games of Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon and Shaquil O’Neal. In recent times, however, I had lost touch with the NBA. I however posted an article to Nairaland a month ago and someone left a comment there saying that I should check out the story of Giannis Adetokunbo. I followed the link and I found this exceptional Nigerian, who in my thinking has been stolen by the nation of Greece. Because I have played basketball before, I appreciated Giannis moves as I watched numerous video clips of him on YouTube. Here are my thoughts on Giannis Adetokunbo’s manner of playing basketball: at six foot, eleven inches, Giannis is the most skillful basketballer that I know that stands at that height. In basketball, the shorter you, the better you are at dribbling the ball. So, most individuals who will wish to play basketball but are not very tall, usually take up the “guard” position. The guard is that person who runs the ball from his team side to the opponent’s side. If he is very good, he call dribble pass all the opponent and score; or pass the ball to a team mate to score, while he might have derailed the opponent. Most commentators say that Giannis has no position, as he has been known to play all the five position on the basket court exceptional well. He can be guard, small and big forward, point guard, and center. At 6’11”, Giannis will take the ball from his own side, run the court through with his long strides, dribble, and then dunk the ball. In fact it appears to me that 80% of his points come through dunks. Rather than lay up the ball, Giannis will attack the rim with a dunk – both with left or right hands. I have never seen a basketballer play with such menacing ferocity. While Shaq O’ Neal was equally menacing with dunks, Shaq did not shoot the ball as well as Giannis does – nor did Shaq dribble at all. Also, besides scoring, Giannis is also known as a defensive player. His blocks are phenomenal and are dreaded by his opponents. I began to closely follow Giannis Adetokunbo’s game when he and his team mates met with the Miami Heat this year, September 2020, in the Easter Conference semi-finals. They were beaten 4-1. Giannis had injured his ankle in game 4 and he did not play at all in game 5. It is possible that if he was okay, he would have led his team to another Eastern Conference final this year and might have won the championship.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxvA3ZEsrU8

Giannis Adetokunbo is very proud of his Nigerian roots, although he has not visited Nigeria yet. In fact, in 2015 he obtained his Nigerian passport with the hope of visiting the country soon. When he was asked about how he feels when people call him “the Greek Freak”, Giannis made the point that his roots are Nigerian, although he does not mind being identified with Greece. He said: “… It does not matter what people may think of me because of my nickname ‘Greek Freak’. There were a lot of times when I was in Greece when people said ‘you are not Greek. You are Nigerian because you are black’. But then there has been a lot more times when it has been the opposite, where people say ‘You are not African. You are Greek. You are the Greek Freak’. But I don’t care about that. Deep down, I know who I am and where I am from. That is all that matters to me.”

Giannis Adetokubo wears the number 34. I suspect that he wears this number in honor of the greatest Nigerian basketballer in the history of the NBA: Hakeem Olajuwon. Olajuwon wore the number 34 throughout his playing career with the Houston Rockets. Hakeem himself made it clear that Giannis’ surname was not “Antetokounmpo” but rather “Adetokunbo”. He said that the name is a typical South Western Nigerian name that means “… the crown has returned from overseas…” It is clear that whenever Giannis will visit Nigeria, he would be returning as a king that has made his mark in society via a dint of hard work and skill. Giannis says he does not speak any Nigerian language but since his mother spoke Igbo to his brothers and him, they all can speak a little Igbo. At the least, he can count the numbers in Igbo but does not speak the language fluently. Charles, Giannis father, died of a heart attack in 2017. He was only 54. While delivering his acceptance speech at the NBA awards last year, after being crowned MVP, Giannis spoke glowingly about his father and credits his success his parents. He was weeping profusely while speaking. Giannis is said to be a devout Christian, having been raised in the Greek Orthodox Church. Giannis four brother’s all play professional basket-ball. In fact Francis, their oldest brother, has played for the Nigerian national team in 2015.

A few days ago, after his team the Milwaukee Bucks crashed out of the NBA championship, Giannis unfollowed all his team mates on Instagram; he also unfollowed the team. Rumors are making the rounds that he has plans to leave the Milwaukee Bucks and join another team with greater prospect of winning the NBA –which is the dream of every basketballer in the world. Giannis signed a $100 million contract with the bucks in 2017 and still has one year in contract with them but there are all likelihood he would leave. Giannis has been the sole powerhouse in the bucks team and the over reliance on him might be at the root of his recent injuries. He would be hoping to join a team that can compete for the title in the future. Whatever his decisions are, the whole Nigerian nation are behind him and are hoping that he succeeds in his endeavors.

There are hundreds of Nigerians outside the shores of this country doing great things. Ladies and gentlemen, I introduce one of them to you: Giannis Sina Ugo ADETOKUNBO.

I dedicate this story to my brothers: Adetoro, Adebowale, and Adeoye. I pray God to bless our hustle in this country and grant the desires of our late mother to make it in this life – within or without Nigeria. By the way, my brothers were the greatest basketball players in their time. God bless you guys.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/the-story-of-giannis-adetokunbo/

MuttleyLaff:
Is Islam really or at all, coming of age? That will be the day! Well, maybe when pigs fly sha. When you hear MURIC speaks or make comments, you know, Islam coming of age, has a wait, a long time for this, to happen and/or come to pass.

9/11, took the fun out of, at a drop of the hat, readily wanting to go flying, sha. Now, its remove/take off your shoes, your belt, your keys, your laptop, your mobile phone, your wallet/purse/hand bag, other personal metal items, put all these items from your person, into trays provided by the airport security check team to pass through a x-ray machine. Then stand at the entrance of the metal detector, and go through when beckoned, by a member of the airport security check team. God help you, if the metal detector beeps, signifying that you will need to be patted down. What a drag and kill-joy. 9/11, seriously, just took out the ease and pleasure of flying, but hey anything to have safe flight sha.

OP, should have at least, made a mention of the infamous Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, aka "Underwear Bomber" or "Christmas Bomber",

Muttalab is worthy mention and oversight. Thanks Muttley for the comment as always

sagenaija:
"To be a good muslim, you must learn how to ignore facts and evidence" - true2god

What Moslems do is to CREATE the picture of Islam they want and run with it.

Islam speaks from both sides of the mouth. Take ANY thing or position on any issue and you will find Islam giving opposing positions on them.

Sometimes the explanation is hinged on the so-called ABROGATION of earlier verses by Allah. At other times critics are accused of not UNDERSTANDING what the Koran really meant. Either way what we find is that a book that lays claim to being CLEAR turns out to confuse readers and adherents even more.

What we then find is that Moslems end up living what they believe is their picture of Islam  as long as they still subscribe to the regular rituals.

Were they to attempt to live by Islam's books we would find a world where they want to subjugate others, behead both apostates and verbal critics of the religion, relegate women to mere tools for the men and all kinds of negative policies one can think of.

What islam has done is to subject anyone under it to the 7th century Arabian lifestyle. Because history has grown beyond that only a REFORMATION of the religion can save it from being in constant conflict with both itself and other cultures and religion it interfaces with.

Recently I posted how some Saudis are calling for such a rethink into the books and possibly the way the religion run. Maybe when such a move gains sufficient momentum we can begin to see some positive side to Islam. Otherwise it will always be both a contradictory religion  and one in antagonism against the rest of the world.

Well said

9/11 and Islam Coming Of Age

By: Deji Yesufu

The story of the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City in the year 2001 is an event that has redefined the history of the world. We speak today of the pre and post 9/11 days; just as we had pre and post World War I and II days. Interestingly a child that was born in 2001 will be 19 years old now. Just as such a child may be said to be coming of age, I believe that 9/11 redefined Islam as we know it today and brought it to maturity. In other words, you may say that Islam came of age after 9/11. As the title of my essay indicates, this piece would be identifying factors that have brought Islam into a new light and why the world cannot easily push Islam to the backburners any more. Just as we once had the Communist/Capitalist tussle for relevance in the world in the 20th century, the new normal in our world today is how the world deals with the Islamic ideology. For those who were too young to remember September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, USA, I would do a quick recap of those events – especially as I experienced them myself.

I was in my father’s house in Zaria, Kaduna State, Nigeria, on September 11, 2001. I was finishing up at Ahmadu Bello University. I knew that I could not avoid an extra semester at the department of Electrical Engineering, so I reserved three courses along with the Math course, whose pre-requisite I had failed in 100 level and which put me a class behind my own class, as far Math courses was concerned. Since there was very little academic work to do, I went to the campus from home – which was quite some distance off campus. I had had a long nap that afternoon and having very little to do that evening, I switched on the television. Our local television was reporting breaking news. It was strange because NTA Kaduna of those days nearly almost never carried breaking news. But they did this one and it was obvious something serious was happening in the United States of America. The second plane had rammed into the second of the twin towers by the time I got into the news. After watching the news for about an hour, I stood up and took a long stroll around our neighborhood. Throughout the walk, I had that strange feeling that our world was not going to be the same again after that event. I had read a little on how the first and second World Wars began and I was almost certain that if these events do not leads to wide scale wars around the world, some countries will certainly feel the after effect of these terrorist attacks. Suffice to say here that I was serving in Yola, Adamawa State, in October 2002, when George W. Bush led American troops into Iraq. This was quickly followed by the invasion of Afghanistan. Those events have also led to the rise of other insurgencies in the world, including ISIS and Boko Haram.

Muslims Reaction to 9/11

The reaction of the Muslim world to the 9/11 attacks was varied. To be fair to them, most Muslim around the world condemned those attacks on the World Trade Center. The phrase “Islam is a religion of peace” came into greater emphasis and those making those emphasis were Muslims who were making every effort to distance themselves from the insurgents who carried out those terrorist attacks. Other reactions to the September 11 attacks were a little different. Some Muslims began to pay attention to the criticisms that have been levied against Muslim, mostly by Christian apologists, that Islam was a violent religion. Other Muslims saw the point in these emphases and it led their renouncing the Islamic faith entirely. In fact in recent times the violence of ISIS and other terrorist groups has led many more Muslims to renounce their faith. One Somali woman said that she accidentally stumbled on the video of Islamic State agents beheading an American Christian man and I right there and there she renounced Islam. This lady went on to become a Christian. I should mention here though that majority of those who leave Islam, having witnessed violence in the religion, go on to become atheists. In spite of these reactions to the violence unleashed by terrorist groups in the name of Islam, most moderate Muslims maintain that Islam is a religion of peace and that both ISIS and Christian apologists are wrong in painting Islam as a violent religion.

Nabeel Qureshi, a Christian apologist, who was once a Muslim but who died of stomach cancer in 2017, said in an interview that Islam is susceptible to a wide range of sects or denominations within its fold because of the wide range of interpretation that Muslims around the world give to various verses of the Qur’an. There are verses in the Qur’an that teach peaceful co-existence between Muslims and other religions. There are also verses that teach the violent subjugation of other religions. Nabeel says that with the help of a large number of Hadiths, many of whom are trusted ones, any Muslim group can come to whatever conclusion they wish on how to practice their religion. So, ISIS and Boko Haram will take suras like Sura 9:5 and 9:29 as their central tenet and say that western civilization is haram and must be resisted with force of arms. While moderate Muslims will interpret those scriptures to teach the concept of a just war. These situations have however not left Islam vulnerable to various reactions to it around the world. To protect Muslim from attacks by those who may wish to react violently at Muslims due to the violence of terrorist groups, the word “Islamophobe” was coined. The word is used to protect moderate Muslims from harsh criticism; but it is also being used by some Muslim apologist to silence any criticism against Islam.

Christianity Coming of Age

It would interest Muslims to know that one of the blessings of civilization is the fact that everything in our world is being brought under scrutiny. There is no hiding for any ideology anymore; as many people are becoming specialists in digging into the hearts of different religion and bringing on them stringent criticism that is leaving these religion without a base. In the West, Christianity came under a similar situation and the result was bringing Christianity to maturity. In other words, Christianity came of age. Before the 18th century, there was almost no one that referred to himself as an atheist. However, with increase in learning, the Bible came under what is now known as higher criticism. The stories of creation, the flood, the exodus of the Jews and various other biblical anecdotes came under heavy criticism by scholars in European universities – the Germans leading the way in most of this study. The result was Christianity without cloths and many scholars and their students, who originally would have called themselves Christians, began to renounce the Christian faith. Thinkers and writers like Voltaire made anyone who called himself a Christian look stupid. The 19th century did not improve matters. In the middle of that great century, the book “Origin of Species” was written by Charles Darwin. Whatever was left of Christianity, after its attack by higher critics in German Universities, was stripped bare. Christians began to leave the faith in droves and those who remained, adopted the findings of Darwin and came up with what was called Liberal Theology. Christianity continued to suffer in the hands of Western Thinkers until Christian groups, like the fundamentalist, brought out statements of faith stating that in spite of recent developments in science, Christians still held to the inspiration, sufficiency, and veracity of the Bible. They were saying in essence that the Bible was true. These statements by the fundamentalists did not ease the mass exodus of individuals away from the Christian religion both in America and Europe. This is the reason why the West, rather than regarding itself as Christian nations today, would rather see themselves as secularists. When Christianity came of age in the West, most people renounced the faith and only those who had a true commitment to their religion remained. I believe that Islam is undergoing a similar thing – theirs however coming 300 hundred years after Christianity had encountered her first higher critics.

Holes in the Narrative

When Muslims and Christians debate, one of their points of debate remain the veracity of their individual revelations. It is an important point because religion stands and falls on the veracity of its revelation. Christians regard the Bible as God’s words and they follow God’s ways as stated in it. Muslims on their part hold the revelations of the Bible as true. They however teach that these revelations have been corrupted by the Jews and some early followers of Jesus. For this reason, God sent a new revelation through Muhammed and this revelation is written in the Qur’an. So, the point in Muslim and Christian debate centers on tracing the historical events through which each group gets their revelations. Christians agree that the original writings of the New Testament are non-existent today. This is because the early gospel writers wrote on papyri and other materials that could not withstand corrosion and time, and have since been destroyed. Fortunately, copies of copies have passed down through the centuries until we have the Bible as we do today. The problem, however, with copying manuscripts of scriptures is the matter of errors in the copies – as is expected in the transmission of any ancient manuscript. The result is the problem of textual variants in the copies of the Bible. Theologians hold that despite the presence of these variants, the central message of the Bible has remained unchanged.

The position that most Muslim apologists have held through the centuries, however, has been that the Qur’an, despite being an ancient manuscript, has been miraculously preserved by God from these errors and thus there are no variants of the Qur’an as far as the Qur’an is concerned. Muslims everywhere in the world, they teach, have only one Qur’an they read. This has been the narrative through the centuries and this has been a point that Muslim scholars have used to prove the veracity of the Qur’an over the Bible.

All of this changed when two months ago, a respected Muslim scholar who had studied in Cambridge, Imam Yasir Qadhi, was on the YouTube channel of a Muslim apologist called Mohammed Hijab. Their discussion had covered various topics in the Islamic religion and then Hijab put a question to Imam Qadhi regarding the issues of textual variants in the Qur’an. At first, Qadhi made it clear that he does not discuss those sensitive matters in public; instead he asked Hijab to join a lecture he was having on it soon. But Mohammed Hijab was not going to let the matter lie low. He continued to press Qadhi on the question and then finally Imam Qadhi made the now famous “holes in the narrative” comment. He said in essence that the usual narrative that there are no errors in the Qur’an was not true. He said that his studies at Cambridge had revealed to him that there were indeed mistakes in the various Qua’ranic manuscripts around the world – just like any other ancient manuscript in the world. He also held the position that these variants do not change the message of the Qur’an but it was not true that there were no textual variants of the Qur’an. “There are holes in the narrative” that were passed down to Muslim today, Qadhi said. While Qadhi’s statement is consistent with the position of most modern scholars on all ancient manuscripts, it questions the veracity of the statement that the Qur’an had been miraculously preserved through the centuries.

This revelation, made on YouTube, plunged the Muslim world into dis-array. Many of Mohammed Hijab’s fans began to send him private messages saying that they were losing faith in Islam, as the narrative passed to them by their teachers were not entirely correct. The backlash was so hard that Hijab removed the video from his YouTube channel but the harm had been done. Christian apologists around the world had copied the video and many of them were coming to whatever conclusions they wanted on the matter.

It is important to note here though that most Christian apologists knew of the various textual variants of the Qur’an. In fact a lady, Hatun Tash, who is Turkish by birth, but now a Christian, has been able to collate no less than 32 different Qur’ans that are used by Muslims around the world. The differences in these Qur’ans are not mere differences in words like we may have between the KJV and the NIV; but whole differences in statements that could even affect the Islamic theology as a whole. All of these events are bringing Islam to maturity and helping Muslims to decide on whether or not their religion is worth adhering to. As I have written earlier, Christianity has undergone its own scrutiny and the result is secular western nations. Islam is just about beginning its own.

Islam versus Christianity

As Muslims continue to grapple with modern thinkers, they also are coming to terms with Christians who have, since Mohammed’ days, been pointing at the veracity of the Islamic religion. As far as I am concerned the debate over the veracity of the Muslim and Christian revelations has reached a stalemate. Both religions are coming to terms with the fact that there are variants in their manuscripts; and along with these variants come possible errors that can alter the core messages of their faith. One thing that however distinguishes the two faiths, for me, is a recent discovery that I stumbled on while watching David Wood – a Christian apologist that teaches on Islam a lot. This distinction has something to do with the central persons in the two faiths. Christianity has Jesus Christ and Islam has Mohammed. The Bible and the Qur’an teach that Jesus lived as an upright man. He lived perfectly and righteously, such that even his enemies could not fault him.

Understandably, the Bible has no record of Mohammed since Mohammed as born about AD570. The Qur’an however does. Muslims hold to various Hadiths – some of which are trusted and others are not. Investigating the life of Mohammed even in the trusted Hadiths brings up a revelation on the central figure of the Qur’an that is actually not very wholesome. In fact some of the things that these Hadiths record Mohammed doing are actually unprintable. I need to say that when Christian apologists bring these actions of Mohammed before Muslims, there are usually two reactions: the first is that some Moslems leave the Islamic religion, while others just ignore the information. This was the turning point for Nabeel Qureshi too. Nabeel had spent two and a half years studying the Christian sources on Jesus and he came to the conclusion that Jesus indeed died and resurrected, obtaining eternal salvation for sinners. When he used the same criteria for Mohammed and the Qur’an, his faith fell apart.

While moderate Muslims will not carry guns and kill critics of their religion, they still manifest an aspect of violence: they shut off the dissemination of these information; some of them label those of us doing these investigations Islamophobes; other even go to the extent of calling us fundamentalists who are not any different from ISIS and Boko Haram. These actions, they fail to see, are simply suppressed violence; all aimed at keeping Islam under wraps and ensuring that the age-old narratives are kept going. Imam Yasir Qadhi has told us already that there are holes in these narratives and with Islam coming face to face with modern scholarship, more and more of these holes will be discovered.

Christianity came of age and survived the onslaught. Islam is coming of age; will it survive in the hearts of its adherents? Only time will tell.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/1219-2/

Oyedepo’s Statement, Daddy Freeze’s Errors and Ibiyeomie’s Threat

By: Deji Yesufu

David Ibiyeomie, a Pentecostal pastor in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, is the man in the eye of the storm. Ibiyeomie, in a two minute video, publicized by Sahara TV, is seen pouring venom on Daddy Freeze, an On-Air-Personality, who in recent years has gained reputation for criticizing Pastors. Ibiyeomie is quoted by Punch online as saying:

“I will never be alive and see anyone insult my father, you are not born, I will kill you, I will tear you into pieces. Insult me, I wouldn’t talk but insulting Oyedepo, I can’t be alive and you insult my father. The day Freeze insults Oyedepo, I will deal with him and arrest him. Who gave birth to you? Do you have a father? Show us his picture…”

It is obvious that Sahara TV intentionally quoted the pastor to drive home a simple point: a minister of the gospel should not be speaking like this; and they have succeeded in getting negative press to the pastor – if one were to consider the backlash that has been coming to the revered gentleman on social media since the video was published. While Ibiyeomie can come out to say that he was quoted out of context, the fact still remains that there is no context where a pastor should be found calling another man “a bastard” or condemning journalism; or exhibiting racial discrimination by calling some people “half caste”. He even went further to belittle the people of Somalia; as if they were not human beings. Ibiyeomie goofed badly and I would be returning to him before concluding this essay.

It was only when Daddy Freeze offered a response to David Ibiyeomie that the whole drama begin to take up some meaning and thus we begun to understand the context that Sahara TV denied everyone watching the video they published. A few days ago, David Oyedepo had published a tweet on his verified twitter handle that read:

“The only way to a fruitful marriage is total submission on the part of the wife. Until it is in place, every other thing she tries to do will be out of place. A woman who refuses to submit to her husband is disobeying God. As a woman, you might even be a minister of the gospel, and your husband is not; the Word of God still says to submit yourself to him. A submissive woman is precious in the sight of her husband – Ephesians 5:22.”

In short, the overall bishop of Otta was saying that if a marriage was to be fruitful, a woman must totally submit to her husband. Oyedepo referenced Ephesians 5:22 that reads: “…Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord…” Freeze said that while Oyedepo was right in his admonition to women to submit to their husband, this injunction is given without consideration to the whole picture that Ephesians 5 was teaching on the subject of submission. Freeze said, and he is right, that there was a verse 21 before you could read verse 22. Verse 21 of that passage reads: “… submitting to one another out of reverence to Christ…” He then made the point that it is after couples have learnt to submit to each other, that a man can now begin to demand submission from his wife. Freeze said that the clamor by church people for wives to submit to their husbands, without regard to the responsibility of men in their homes, as demanded by Ephesians 5, has produced many a home where men have become tyrants in their houses. Freeze was saying in essence: no man can demand for a woman to submit to him who is not living uprightly before God. Freeze is right but at the same time Freeze is wrong, and I want to spend sometimes to shed some light on his errors.

First, Daddy Freeze would need to appreciate the fact that David Oyedepo was right in his statement: a Christian woman that would allow for Christ to reign in her home and enjoy his blessing must be totally submitted to her husband. This is the teaching of the scripture. Oyedepo, in spite of his heresies on the Prosperity Gospel, knows these truths because he has some orthodoxy in him that can be traced back to some old school Christianity that our nation had once known. There is however a generation today that are trying to redefine the place of women in the home and Daddy Freeze is one of their teachers. It is true that verse 21 comes before verse 22. But any careful Bible teacher will realize that the context of verse 15 to 21 of Ephesians 5 is totally different from verse 22 to 33. Modern Bibles even help readers to realize this division. The whole of Ephesians is a letter to a group of Christians in Ephesus. Therefore, rather than Paul writing to just one person, he is writing to a collective; he is writing to the church in Ephesus. In verse 15 to 21, Paul is admoniting Christians on how they ought to relate to each other. It is in this context he then ends his admonition with “submitting one to another”. Verse 22 is the beginning of an admonition to married persons in the church. And it is here we see the woman is to submit to her husband. It is also instructive that it is the woman that he admonished first; as if to say the success of your home is dependent on your submission to your husband.

Now Freeze explains that Oyedepo overlooked the context before 22. Incidentally, Freeze does the same thing. He overlooks the context after verse 22, which states unequivocally: “…so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands” (verse 24). The command to the wife is to submit in EVERYTHING. I believe everything is the same as “total” and Oyedepo is right in saying that the Christian woman should submit to her husband in totality.

Daddy Freeze also brings up the issue of women not submitting to men because the men are adulterous, not providing for their homes and rebellious. Freeze however overlooks a certain assumption in the writer’s mind: which is that the couples he was writing to were not unbelievers but Christian men and women. This presupposes the fact that when women will choose the men they wish to marry, they ought not to make choices in the flesh. They should not marry a man because he has a job, or a car, or he is wealthy. Christian women should marry Christian men, if they are going to have peace in their homes. A man who is committing adultery is not a Christian and most of the people who manifest these traits in marriage have been doing it long before they were married. Our sisters should first ascertain the fact that they themselves are believers and they must possess discernment to marry Christian men. In cases where the mistake has been made, the woman must bear her cross; while she trusts God in prayers.

Freeze brought up a last point. He said that there was one lady on Instagram who had a large following and was very wealthy. He said when this woman’s husband realized she had potential to make money, he resigned his job and became her camera man. The two of them are today enjoying the benefit of the woman’s success and wealth. Freeze said that most Nigerian men cannot do this; that they will be standing on “submit to me” and miss such opportunities.

My response to Freeze is simply this: the Bible commands Christians to obey it and to leave consequences to God. Financial prosperity is not proof that God is in something; if not, the very errors that we are condemning in David Oyedepo, where he gives the impressions that gain is godliness, is the very error Freeze is propagating too. God commands women to submit to their husbands. God commands men to love their wives. Every one of us will face God at judgement as regarding how well we kept his commandments. Women were not asked to submit to their husbands only when the husband loves them; neither are men asked to love their wives only when they submit to them. Everyone is expected to obey God and everyone will reap the fruit of their obedience in this life and in the life to come. The chief error I locate both in Daddy Freeze and even David Oyedepo is the tendency to just call down scriptures and their commandments on people, without paying attention to whether or not the people you are speaking to are Christians. Ephesians 5 was written to Christians. If the people reading it or preaching from it are not converted people, they will wrest the scripture for their own selfish ends.

Having made the point about Daddy Freeze’s errors, it is important we examine David Ibiyeomie’s words one more time. The man has received sufficient condemnation from Nigerians and I would not want to add to his woes. Suffice to say this: less than two years ago, a freelance journalist in Ibadan, Kemi Olunloyo, published some damaging stories on Ibiyeomie. Those stories concerned something around some alleged illicit relationships he had with some female Nigerian actress. Olunloyo had been given the story by an insider in Ibiyeomie church and she foolishly published them. One day, policemen stormed Ibadan all the way from Portharcourt and arrested Madam Kemi. She was driven all night to Rivers’ State; where she was slammed in detention. She would eventually endure an almost year long legal battle with her accusers. By the time she emerged from that ordeal, she had been thoroughly dealt with. The judge acquitted her but made it clear that she was not to talk about the matter to the press. This is the threat that Ibiyeomie issued to Daddy Freeze and ladies and gentlemen, this man has the financial powers to carry it out. Some Nigerian policemen are so compromised that chicken change can be thrown at them and they will gleefully persecute anyone that their sponsors send them to.

The other veiled threat was the threat to the life of Daddy Freeze. While Ibiyeomie’s words can be regarded as grandiloquent and bombastic grandstanding, they should not also be overlooked. Words take up a life of their own and a threat can very easily be carried out. I hope that beyond crying out on social media, Daddy Freeze will report this matter to law enforcement and the police will invite the pastor for talks.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/oyedepos-statement-daddy-freezes-errors-and-ibiyeomies-threat/

I have been refunded my money by zety.com

Acehart:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/sport/amp/basketball/48832050

Thank you

Acehart:
Nigeria is a harsh place for a lot of us. Many of us try to do a lot of things just to get “daily bread”. In the twinkle of an eye, the cost of the biggest ‘Agege’ bread rose from 40 naira to 150 naira; transport fares rose to as high as 500 percent; hospitals are not hospitals anymore yet they are unaffordable; A few days ago, a colleague of mine spent thirty two thousand naira to get his seven years old son treated for a deep cut on his forehead (His HMO hospital was too far for the amount of blood the boy was losing. He was already unconscious by the time he got to the nearby hospital). Life for many a Nigerian seems like one going to fetch water from a stream with a leaking bucket.

I read the story of how Giannis Antetotunpo got to the NBA; please, do read about his story when you can. You would see clearly the mentality of many Nigerians who travel abroad. It’s not all about the money, I’d say. We think about our children and hope greatly that they don’t face what Nigeria throws to its citizens. Many will face the indignity of hell just to ensure their children have a bright tomorrow.

The future is not bright for many Nigerian children; school fees are becoming increasingly unaffordable; many neighborhoods are not safe any longer. Many parents have ‘measured‘ themselves and have seen that the only way to ‘salvation’ is to leave this place called Nigeria.

Thank you for the comment. Pls kindly find that story of the Nigerian NBA player and attach it here. I'll like to read it.

A Tale of Two Visas

By: Deji Yesufu

On my trip to Germany in March, since I flew with Turkey Airlines, we had the usual stop-over at Instanbul, capital of Turkey. It was very early in the morning and my colleague and I were about to begin navigating the huge airport, when I did a quick visit to the convenience. My colleague also needed to freshen up. We were concluding the whole process, when this guy came into the massive toilet facility in the airport we were using. At my first glance, I knew he was Nigerian. My colleague and I were conversing in Yoruba and in a jocular manner, this guy came into the conversation. We had a good laugh.

“So, what are you doing in Istanbul?” I asked him.

“Brother, I dey hustle ni yi o…” He replied.

“Is that so? But how is life here in Turkey?”

“Things are not easy here. I used to live in the UAE but I did a quick cross-over to Turkey to do some work, earn some money and return.”

We wished him well and parted. But that brief encounter with a Yoruba man in an almost obscure part of the world proved to me the often made remark that Nigerians are everywhere on the face of this planet. One of the biggest endeavors that Nigerians embark on is to flee the shores of this country because of the harsh economic realities that many people have to deal with here. With a little education, some money and any opportunity at all, Nigerians are out of this country. For this reason, Nigerians are frequent visitors to embassies of various countries in Lagos and Abuja. In fact, many countries have turned Nigerians seeking visas from them as an extra means of revenue. And they are making lots of money in the process because Nigerians go to these embassies en-masse with the flimsiest excuse people can conceive of and they are promptly denied visas. But their visa application fees are never returned; the embassies are only a little richer in the process. I have two tales of visits to embassies and I wish to share them here for anyone who may wish to learn from them.

My first visit to an embassy was in 1999 when I went to the United States Embassy on Walter Carrington Street in Victoria Island, Lagos. My mother was living in the USA at the time and she felt that I could come to the US to do my six months industrial training there. So, I sent in my application and was promptly invited to the Embassy for an interview. I was overjoyed; thinking that I was only one step to getting to the US. With a benefit of insight now, I realize that the American Embassy grants every application anyone makes for a visa interview with them. It is simply an opportunity for them to make money. I do not know how much they charge for visa application now, but then it was a cool $100 and I remember that the dollar was changing at N100 for a dollar at that time. In their reply to me, the Embassy had requested that I come with certain documents. On D-Day, there was I brimming from ear to ear, with my pristine passport in one hand, I moved into the visa application area. I was called upon to meet with a white lady and one of the first shockers that I received was that I was not even offered a seat for the interview. I was required to stand and shout through holes on a transparent glass. The lady at the other side seemed to be in a hurry and you could read contempt written over her face.

“Your documents…”

I passed them to her. After a brief look through the papers, she asked:

“Why are you going to the US?”

I explained that I was going there for my six months industrial training.

“You could do your industrial training in Nigeria, or Ghana, or South Africa. Why do you have to travel to the US for IT?”

At this point, I could not answer.

The next thing I saw was that she circled something on my application form and stamped my passport. We were done in a little less than ten minutes. I looked at my passport: “application denied”. I left the embassy deflated. But my visa denial in 1999 was the greatest thing that happened to me that year. I understood with time that you do not go to embassies of countries seeking visa to their countries on flimsy reasons. If I cannot convince myself of why I am travelling and cannot make an equal argument to another person, I am likely to be denied visa at an embassy. In 2006 when my mother died in the USA, aunties offered me opportunities to visit the USA and attend her burial. I told one of them that they should not bother. The American Embassy will not give me visa to attend my mother’s burial – I did not even bother applying to them. From that point on, I waved every opportunity to visit embassies aside. In fact I developed such a nationalist thinking that I would live and die in this country and leave behind a nation that my children would be respected enough at embassies to at the least be given chairs to sit on when they visit them for their visas.

___________________________

Towards the end of 2019, the opportunity came for me to visit Germany for an official training. This was a clear 20 years since my last visit to Walter Carrington, Lagos. A lot had changed about me. I now worked with a respectable organization in Nigeria and I was being sent for training with a well-known company in Berlin, Germany. One other clear difference between 1999 and 2019 was that I was not desperate to leave Nigeria. Whether I was given the visa or not, it was not a do-or-die affair.

I was driven to the embassy by Peter Uka and was dropped right in front of the German embassy. I walked towards the security man in charge and I could see contempt written all over his face also.

“Where is your visa application money?”

I brought out an envelope and showed it to him. He stood looking at me for a moment and told me to remove the money and count it in front of him. Well, I am the one looking for visa; so I obeyed. He ushered me inside the visa application hall. I met up with some other security guards (By the way all the security people there are Nigerians). They frisked me from head to toe. I had all items on me placed in a tray and was only given my visa application document. My phones and other items on me were collected and locked up in a safe. For the first time in a long time, I was away from my phone for about three hours and it felt like a little bereavement.

As I waited my turn to see the visa application personal, I could hear a young Nigerian boy explaining to the person interviewing him that he was going to Germany for industrial training. “Ha! That is an old trick… don’t Nigerians learn new ways of fleeing this country?!” I said to myself. This boy was with this lady for quite a while and I was sure he was finding it hard to convince her on his trip abroad. I do not know whether he was given the visa but my guess is as good as yours.

When it was my turn, I walked to the visa application point for my interview. I was expected to stand also. I did not like the idea but I endured it. There was the transparent material shielding the interviewer from me. When I began to talk, she told me she could not hear me; that I needed to speak up because their intercom was faulty. So, while standing, I was bending down to respond to her so that my voice could pass through the little opening beneath the glass. When the interview started, again I could see contempt on her face and voice. But for some reason, since my life was not dependent on a trip to Germany, I decided to return contempt for contempt. Wise Nigerian lady, she got the message and her demeanor changed. Probably also noting the organization sending me abroad, she began to accord me some respect in the manner she spoke to me. She asked about my trip and explained to her; even going as far as to explain the workings of the machine I was going to be trained on. She appeared impressed. We were done in about 30 minutes. My confidence had grown so much that I explained to her that my colleague had some challenge with his own application a day before and I requested that she help look it up on her system. She did and explained to me that it was a little problem; it would be sorted out. I thanked her and left.

Back to the security post: The same security men that had treated me with contempt a while earlier became gleefully respectful now.

“Oga, anything for the boys; It is Friday. Weekend has come…”

I explained to them that I had no change with me. I was sorry I could not give them anything. I said to myself: “you can go and meet your bosses inside to deny me visa because I did not give you anything for the weekend.” I left the place a little upset. Needless to say that my visa arrived my office in Ibadan a little less than a week after that visit to the German Embassy at Lagos.

_____________________________

As I said before, a lot had changed between 1999 and 2019. I was a lot more matured but more importantly I was a lot less desperate. This is what I think: the people, who conduct visa interviews in all countries embassies in Nigeria, know Nigerians through and through. They know our tricks; they know our lies; they know our mien; and they know it when someone is going to their country to add to it and not to become a burden to them. It is true that Nigeria is becoming increasingly difficult to live in but we owe ourselves the self-respect of not being easily denigrated at these embassies. A lot of people say that after their trips to countries, where they had gone in desperation; life in Nigerian is a lot easier.

Here is what I think: in spite of the situation, all of us can make the best of whatever circumstance we are in here in this country. It is possible that we can do whatever we do so well, that people abroad will come to us seeking our knowledge and be ready to pay anything to have us in their country. At such a time, the embassies might actually bring your visa to you right in your home without you applying for it. I do not think that self-respect is a thing of pride; I think it is something we owe ourselves to develop, so that foreign countries do not continue to treat our nationals like thrash.

I am hoping, seriously, that the next time I have to visit an embassy that I would be given a chair to sit on – at the least – for my interview. That is my tale of two visas and I hope you got something from it.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/a-tale-of-two-visas/

Mali: Endangering Africa’s Democracies

By: Deji Yesufu

Some days ago news filtered in that the government of the nation of Mali had been ousted by renegade soldiers. As we scrambled around for information to authenticate the situation on ground in that country, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita (IBK, like our own IBB) came on national television to announce his resignation. This brought an end to his seven year rule as President of Mali; having also served as Prime Minister from 1994 to 2000. Mali, as a nation, has known years of instability. It has the evils of economic challenges, further worsened by botched parliamentary elections in April, and the activities of terrorists groups that have been threatening to overrun the country for decades now. Despite the support of German and French troops, most of northern Mali has been taken over by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), who are seeking an independent homeland for the Tuareg people. All of these is worsened by an economy crippled by corruption and a government rendered impotent by a mass of people protesting it. The soldiers simply felt that it was time to take over.

After writing my book Victor Banjo, I began to have an understanding into the way the minds of soldiers work. The military in a country are a group of person trained and equipped to protect the territorial integrity of that country. These men are equipped with weapons by the nation that employs them to service. Therefore it is morally wrong for the same set of people to take up the gun against the very people they are supposed to protect. It is these moral standards that prevent coups from ever taking place in Western democracies – where we got our example of government from. However, when a polity is being governed by irresponsible men; who spend most of the time that they ought to use to lead their people, to rather carouse in ostentatious living; fueled by unbriddle corruption, something snaps and soldiers feel that they also have the moral duty of stepping into government and helping to fix the political dilemma that the nation has plunged itself into. Someone may argue that they ought not to do this; others will urge them on. Coups are usually not carried by the results from plebiscites; soldiers, who are bold enough, simply pick their guns up and arrest leading politicians and senior military officers (in the case where the coups are carried by younger officers). My point in this essay is that every time a nation is being misgoverned, politicians in that country are endangering the democracy of that country.

While we grapple over the unfortunate incident in Mali, African nations need to remind themselves of the need for good governance. There are countries on the continent that still have sit-tight rulers. Cameroon’s Paul Biya has been in power for 45 years. President Teodoro Mbasogo of Equitorial Guinea has been leading that country for 41 years. Dennis Sassou Nguesso of the Republic of Congo has led the country for 36 years. Museveni has led Uganda for 34 years. Idris Deby of Chad has been in power for 29 years. Paul Kigame has led Rwanda for 26 years. The list goes on. These African leaders have turned themselves into emperors, while at the same time beating down opposition and ruling recklessly. They will usually employ senior army officers in the army to protect their government. They do not realize, however, that every day they spend in power leaves them more susceptible to a violent overthrow of their government.

Nigeria has also had her own history with sit-tight rulers. The government of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, that led the country from 1986 to 1993, held unto power at all cost until it was ousted by sheer pressure from the people. Babangida was succeeded by an evil machination in dark googles: Gen. Sani Abacha. If not for the merciful hands of Providence that routed Abacha through death in 1998, it can be argued that this country would still have been under his evil leadership. After Abacha’s death, Nigeria returned to civil rule. Following Olusegun Obasanjo’s two terms in office, rumors began to fly around that the farmer from Otta, Ogun State, was seeking to perpetuate himself in office through a third term. The rumor was so strong that even those who worked with him in his cabinet, like Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, admitted in his book “Accidental Public Servant”, that there were plans by Obasanjo to stay for another term in office. But his plans were defeated and Nigeria was rid of the sit-tight-ruler demon. Despite defeating this evil, our nation still finds itself bedeviled by factors that threaten her democracy. While the matter of a poor economy remains a challenge that most African countries have to deal with; and the matter of insecurity has gone on unabated, there remains one issue that many are not looking at but which might eventually endanger our 21 year old unbroken democratic rule. This matter is the issue of discontent among junior army officers in the Nigerian army and recent events in Mali is an apt reminder of this.

In the past year, two or three renegade soldiers have taken to social media to record videos concerning different issues in the Nigerian army. These men were protesting the fact that many of their colleagues are losing their lives in the fight against insurgency in the land, due to the army’s inability to adequately equip them for these conflicts. One of these soldiers was actually not on the front line but chose to put himself in harm’s way by speaking for the rest of his colleagues. This gentleman was promptly arrested by army authorities and is presently facing court martial with the possibility of being sentenced to death. Other soldiers have seen the treatment meted out to their colleagues and are no longer taking to social media for fear but we all know that there is deep discontent among these men. What usually would happen is that discontent will rise to a point of mutiny in the army. What many of us do not realize is that coups are simply extended mutinies in the military. The inability of the Nigerian government to rein in the army leadership and get them to do what they are employed to do, is further frustrating these boys who are the ones being killed on the battle field. No one knows why the President has not replaced the whole leadership of the Nigerian army up till this point – despite their dismal performance with the matter of security in the country. The Nigerian government should be reminded that they put our fledgling democracy at risk when they turn deaf ears to the plight of these young soldiers.

As Africa comes to grasp with yet another coup in the twenty-first century, every African leader should be reminded that they are sitting on a keg of gun-powder and the only thing that can secure their office is good governance. Certainly, not every person in a country will be satisfied with the way things are going on in that country. But you do not want the majority of the people in a country to be against your government. You also do not want young men in the army, whom you have armed with guns, to continue in their frustration. Everyone has a breaking point and everyone reacts in different ways when they have their backs against the wall. A word, like they say, is enough for the wise.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/mali-endangering-africas-democracies/

Richard Gbadebo’s Death and a Look at Casualization of Workers in Oyo State

By: Deji Yesufu

On the 27th of July, 2020, Richard Gbadebo left his home in Ibadan, where he resides with his parents and headed to work, on an evening shift, at the Henkel Nigerian Limited, makers of WAW detergent. Richard was operating one of the heavy duty industrial machines used for manufacturing the product, when he slipped and fell into the machine. It was reported that no one was around to rescue him and it was not until fellow workers began to see blood coming out of the machine, where normally water should come out, did they suspect that someone may have fallen into the machine. By the time they got Richard out, he was dead. Richard Gbadebo was twenty one years old. He was a 300 level student at the University of Ibadan where he was studying European Languages. He was specializing in German. He was the only son of his parent. Richard had taken up the job as a casual worker at the company to earn some money and keep himself busy pending resumption at school, following the forced shut-down of educational institutions in the country in view of the COVID-19 pandemic.

A report on Richard’s death by Vanguard news online, quoting an anonymous person, stated as follows:

“Over the years, operators and owners of industries, within Oluyole Industrial Estate axis, had gained infamy and considerable notoriety as terrible employers. Its industries tagged as unsafe places to work, even as some Ibadan residents (have) labelled Oluyole industries simply as spectacles of companies who operate reckless, tyrannical and repressive labor laws by its inhumane foreign owners. The public perception of Oluyole Industries in Ibadan is summarized as a slave camp with repressive labor laws, supervised by evil taskmasters…”

As I read those words by this anonymous person, I realized that I may also have inadvertently partaken in the death of Richard Gbadebo by keeping quiet on a matter that I knew about but chose to keep quiet on. I hope that I can find some redemption by making what I know about this evil axis of Oluyole employers to the public. And I pray that this information will forestall future death in our great city of Ibadan.

A few months ago a young man by the name of Peter Shotola got in touch with me and told me that he works in one of the biggest companies at Oluyole as a casual worker. He had been working there for close to two years. Lately, he stated, he had begun to have serious health issues. He said that he believes that this was not unconnected with the many hours of work that he and his colleagues had to endure at his place of work. Before the COVID-19 matter began, the company where he worked had operated three shifts of 8 hours each for workers. But with the coming of COVID, this had been reduced to two shifts of 12 hours each. Peter explained that he and his colleagues will stand on their feet for 12 hours packing and packaging biscuits – they were allowed only 30 minutes break. After a while, the 28 year old strong young man began to experience serious health challenges. He said when he got home, his whole body will be aching and swollen over. He told me that it was not unusual to have people drop and faint in the middle of work at this company. He said such persons would be taken to the company’s clinic and given paracetamol and possibly given an off for that day. But if the fainting spell continues, such a person would be summarily sacked – since casual staffs had no entitlement. They were not even legal workers at the company because they were not given letters of employment. They did all these under the close oversight of their supervisors who often operated as evil taskmasters and ensured that no one sat down while working.

When I got hold of this story, I felt it was news worthy but I decided to carry out a little more investigation on this company. My findings were not pretty. I compiled the report and I shared them with three lawyer friends. All of them said that while the story was very catchy, it also contained statements in them that were libelous. They explained that except I had the funds and strength for a long legal battle with one of the biggest companies in Oyo State, it was better I let the matter die off.

During my investigations, I met with a man called Abbey Trotsky. He is the Oyo State coordinator for Campaign for Democratic and Workers’ Rights (CDWR) – a socialist group that advocates for good welfare among workers in Oyo State. This group focuses more on getting good working regimen for workers in the private sector in Oyo State. When I met up with Comrade Abbey at his office, I came face to face with the reality of what private sector workers are enduring in Oyo State. Since most private companies do not permit unions on their campus, CDWR is the body that fights for these workers’ rights. It was CDWR that originally won better working conditions for workers at that company Peter worked for in Oluyole. Prior to their intervention, workers worked for 12 hours straight without break. After CDWR had engaged the management, they reduced their working hours to 8 hours and allowed the workers have half an hour break. CDWR also got improved wages for these workers.

Comrade Abbey however explained to me that all of these did not come on a platter of gold. He said that CDWR began the struggle by carrying out sustained demonstrations in front of the offices of this company in Oluyole. He said he was arrested and slammed in detention. But he and his fellow comrade were not deterred. Eventually the management of the company gave in and reached a middle line with them. Unfortunately, with the coming of COVID, some of the improved working conditions had been removed by the company – leading to Peter’s health challenge and my involvement in this matter.

Today, 8th August, 2020, Richard Gbadebo’s sister was on Edmund Obilo’s radio program where she relayed some of the things that happened that might have occasioned her brother’s death. First, she explained that Richard was employed as a “packer” of the products. Subsequently, she said, he was introduced to working the heavy machinery for producing the product. On the day Richard had the accident, it was reported that at least four persons should have been working with that machine. This is besides a supervisor that was supposed to be on site. That day, only Richard was there. It is possible that due to long hours of work, and being in the dead of the night, the young man may have succumb to weariness and drop into the machine and perished. If other workers were on ground at the time, he could have been quickly rescued. But alas, someone employed as a casual worker to pack products ended up working as an engineer on the machine. Edmund Obilo’s guests explained that Richard’s fellow workers, that were supposed to be with him that day, have been arrested by the police. The company, Henkel Nigerian Limited, owned by foreigners, had been shut down by the Oyo State government.

Richard Gbadebo was buried this past Wednesday and we are all left to rue the fact that we could have done something to perhaps prevent his death. There is the writer, yours truly, who had some facts on the evil casualization of workers in a company in Oluyole but who would not publish the story for fear of legal battles. There is a State government, who is aware of this evil casualization of Oyo State residents but who would not do anything about it until some Richard perish – then they will begin to run around shutting down companies. Because I knew I did not have the legal powers to challenge this company, I sent my report to one of Seyi Makinde’s senior special assistant. The young man explained that he would do his best to get the report to his boss. Whether he did or not, I do not know. There is also a Nigerian government that has allowed corruption to ravage the whole fabric of our national life such that the monies that are meant to circulate within the Nigerian State are exported to foreign countries, while Nigerian youths walk the streets doing nothing and then succumbing to situations where they are used as casual workers.

The question we should all ask is this: how do we prevent another Richard Gbadebo death in Nigeria? The answer will begin with what every one of us do with the information we have at hand on this matter. When I shared my report with a friend, he explained that what people in more developed climes do is to arm string multinationals and companies to obey the wishes of the masses by simply not buying their products. For now, I cannot reveal the name of the company that I investigated but the truth is that many other companies like these one, owned by foreigners, continue to use Nigerians like slaves and this must stop. Casualization of Nigerian youths must stop! Government must lead by example by outlawing all the casual staffs that they have on their payroll and only employ the number they can adequately cater for. Then government must compel all companies in the country to ensure that every person working for them has legal working status with them and enjoy the benefits of work there.

As we pay attention to these details, we are likely to have less of these sorts of death on our hands.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/richard-gbadebos-death-and-a-look-at-casualization-of-workers-in-oyo-state/

You're welcome

Surviving Nigeria as a Graduate Today

By: Deji Yesufu

Kunle Ojeleye told the story of how he left the shores of Nigeria as a young graduate back in 1989. He had sought the help of a number of people; people he felt would ordinarily help him. These people were friends to his parent but he was horribly disappointed. None of them came to his rescue. He eventually took the offer an uncle was providing him to leave the shores of Nigeria. Ojeleye’s story, which he relayed on his timeline on Facebook, is similar to what most Nigerian graduates experience from the mid-1980s, when Nigeria began to experience a downturn in her economic situation, to this moment.

When I left school in 2003 and had completed my NYSC, I spoke with one of my father’s friends on the matter of getting a job. He said: “Jobs are scarce in Nigeria… but if you will be patient, it will come. These things take time. The only thing is that no one knows how long…” I learnt of one man who graduated from the University of Ibadan and until his death, sometime in his early 50s, he was never gainfully employed. Those are the kinds of stories we hear about graduates and job hunt in Nigeria. In this article, I want to suggest a few ways Nigerian graduates can survive the harsh economic reality all around us today in this country.

The first admonition I want to give is that young Nigerians should have, develop and increase in their sense of responsibility – generally. A retired civil servant, who lives close to my house and sells provision, asked me to help his son get a job where I work. The first thing I asked him was this: “Baba, your son is looking for job but I have never seen him in this provision store selling for you.” If I had opportunity to recommend that boy for a job, I would not because he has clearly failed in my observation of him.

Our young people need to realize that the work that anyone will pay for must be a job that will add value to a system. Gone are the days in this country when free money roamed the streets of Lagos. Today, if you will earn a Naira, not steal, you would have to work for it. And since there are no jobs, the people who will earn these monies are people who have enough sense of responsibility to recognize needs in people’s lives and offer themselves to fill that need. But they must also realize that people grow in their sense of responsibility. A child that does not know how to offer a hand of help to his or her parent, under whose roof he lives, is not likely to know what to do when he or she is in the outside world.

The first thing our young people must do is to quit social media, abandon the television and develop an attitude for work that is etched in a sense of responsibility. Today, first class or second class upper will not save anyone from unemployment. It is what you can do that will give you a job and you will not be able to do anything except you have built a work ethic etched in a thorough sense of responsibility.

The second thing that our young graduates must realize is that they are almost too late to the Nigerian labor market if the first time they ever worked was when they left the university. This is what happened to some of us and we paid dearly for it. I have promised myself that it will not happen to my children. I look back now and wonder what I did with those few months between primary and secondary school; what did I do with my long vacations in secondary school; what did I do with the almost 18 months strike between 1994/1995 in the university. I remember what I did with the latter of these situations: I learnt how to play chess and spent long hours playing the game. A game that add nothing to me today except recreation.

There is no reason why children, leaving primary school, and with a few months on their hands before proceeding to secondary school, cannot use such a period to learn a trade, or skill, or follow Daddy or Mummy to the office and learn the work of a personal assistant. The long vacations during secondary school can be used to learn some skill. The mechanic, Tunde Onokanya, here in Ibadan, offers to train secondary school children in auto-mechanic during their long vacations. I am thankful to my Dad who took my brothers and I to learn typing sometimes after my secondary school. All my essays today come from that skill. Our young people do not have to spend all their time with season movies or on the phone; those things are sure ways to poverty.

They must begin to work with their hands the moment they are out of primary school and are old enough to do some responsibilities. All of these things will key into a curriculum vitae and make them stand out from others in the future. Some others may never even write a CV because in the process of working, they would have discovered their niche and must have begun to produce something for the community they live in that will earn them a lot of money such that they might have even begun to make money long before they leave the university. Again, if the first time you are working is when you left the campus, you are already too late to the Nigerian labor market. Others would have gained a head-start that could take you years to catch up on.

Third: VOLUNTEER! I cannot say this enough and thus the reason why I must bold it at this point. Our young people must learn to volunteer; they must learn to work for free and while doing this, opportunities for jobs will open up to them. A heart for volunteer jobs exhumes from a mind that has a sense of responsibility. A lot of people are too suspicious of others and they think that everybody is out to use them. The truth of the matter is that in the early days of our work life, we would be used.

In fact I think the way the world works is that you do most of the hard labor of life in your younger days and earn little; and then you do less work in your older days and earn more. If a person despises work and does not have a sense of responsibility, that shows forth in volunteer jobs, that person will suffer for it in his older days – when he would need to work more and earn money to cater for the large responsibilities that adult life shores up.

Most things about this life are anchored on volunteering. Most of those who are earning big on a certain job today, first of all volunteered their time and effort to do those things for free once. Also, our parents must encourage our young people to volunteer themselves for work. During my National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) in Yola, Adamawa State, I worked briefly for the Deeper Life Headquarters Church in that town. Then I moved on to work for a construction company, while at the same time I lived in the Deeper Life Church apartment given to me.

The State Overseer, Pastor James Akpofure, and the person who was my first boss, has a son who had learnt computer hardware repairs as of the time he was just in his early secondary school. His father told him that he could repair people’s computers for them but he forbade him from collecting money for those services. The time will come for him to collect money but for not now, he was to volunteer his skills.

Everything that I am today came about by volunteering to serve other people. I remember working for a Church and publishing their quarterly magazine. I suffered doing that job; I could write a book about my experience there. It was a thankless work and I was often criticized for it. But I left that church with a reward; a reward that no man could give but only God. Even the whole blogging thing that I do today is volunteering to give people information – free of charge – and not getting anything in return. Most times what I get are insults; but we press on, knowing that one’s reward remains ahead. So, young man and woman, volunteer to work. Don’t complain. Just work and trust God for his own time to pay back.

Lastly, on this note of volunteering: I would implore parents to support their young people as they volunteer. Volunteering to work may not earn them a living wage but it would give the young person a lot of experience that could prove rewarding for another job. Parents would have to do what parents do while your child or ward does the volunteer work: you would have to support them and hopefully you would not have to do that for too long before they get a proper job.

Fourth: While waiting for that dream job, you could spend your time doing what you love doing. Now, loving to eat or watch TV or talk or keeping a girlfriend is not the kind of thing I have in mind here. There are hundreds of things people love doing that can prove rewarding in the days to come. I used to love writing and when there was no Facebook, I would write into notebooks and just store them away. What you love doing may be cooking or singing or writing or driving or helping others. God created every human being with something they can do and do without stress.

You must discover yours and learn to do that thing and do it well. It is something you will ordinarily do without pay; so hone that skill and someday it may become the means with which you can earn some extra cash for yourself. Again, this is premised on a sound sense of responsibility. With time you can take what you love doing very well, hone it into a workable skill and use it to produce something that people are ready to pay a lot of money for. Thus, I enjoin our young graduates to have useful hobbies and look out for making them into something that can bring money their way.

Fifth: I want to implore our young people to learn to do the right thing, always. This might sound moralistic in a way but the truth of the matter is that our worlds is not so depraved that people cannot recognize good and reward it. At each junction life, we would be tempted to cut corners and follow a short cut; our young people must desist from engaging in such acts. I finished with NYSC when I was 26. My name still appeared in the NYSC call-up system twice every year until I was 30. Throughout this period I had no job but I chose not to go for another NYSC because it was not the right thing to do. There are hundreds of other examples.

Somebody told me that his company received 6 Sure-P enrolments from the Federal Government recently. All of them called in and said they do not wish to work for him and are ready to part with ten thousand naira each, every month, if he would accept them and just sign their documents and pretend to government that they are working on his company. My friend wondered at the kind of youths our country was producing.

One would think that the rising religious fervor in our universities should instill some fear of God in our young people but this is not the case. Recently, I shared a two-apartment building with a young man for three years and I just wondered at how his mind worked. He did not work but was living in a three bedroom house. After a while, he could not pay for basic amenities like power. He was eventually evicted. One could never tell what he was doing to survive. Some people alleged it was yahoo-yahoo but since I never saw him in the act, I could not say so for sure. The earth is based on some laws and I think that those laws are premised on what we do in life. If we do good, we will reap good; if we do evil, we will reap that equally. Our young people should commit to doing what is right, no matter what and trust God for rewards.

As you do this, it is not wrong to apply to companies for jobs. You can also seek the favor of family members and friends. You should do everything and anything your friends and colleagues are doing, within the law, to get a job. But I am positive that the job that would come to you and be yours without your having to know anyone, or beg anyone for it, are the ones that come as a result of practicing and perfecting the five aforementioned qualities in this essay. I believe there are many other such qualities. While you endeavor to work and live responsibly, those qualities will come forth and you should increase more and more in them. It is possible that one can so develop oneself in these qualities that you end up not working for anybody at all and you would be earning good money at the same time.

One last thing: having done all and even as you do these things, our young people must learn to wait for their own rewards. They must eschew greed and the temptation for quick riches. While you volunteer, you must be patient for the job to come. While you serve a master, you must be content with a little pay. You should wait, wait and wait. Let me chip in a little religious admonition here: the Bible talks about God being the Father of all creation and as parents provide for their children, God provides for all his creation. There is a provision for every man. You would however come into it as you endeavor to do the right things. These will lead ultimately to your own good in life; such good that will bring fulfilment, joy and peace. There is no short cut to success; but there is a sure way to it. I believe this is the way Providence apportions good to all creation. And this is the way I believe that young graduates in Nigeria can survive the harsh economic climate that Nigeria has found itself in.

Source: https://textandpublishing.com/surviving-nigeria-as-a-graduate-today/

Agba2020:
I've only told this to one person and I've been carrying this one for 9 years now.
This might turn out to be a little long, so bear with me. When I was 17, a few days to my first WAEC, I was reading in the living room when my mom walked in and falsely accused me of sleeping with my own Dad... Oh, I'm a guy btw. I'm not gay, neither am I effeminate ...

I noticed that the only two topics on your profile has to do with this subject. You had tried to raise the matter in the first topic but fortunately this one made the front page.

If this thing has been eating you up inside for ten years, I think it is time you either spill the matter to your family and find healing. Or, you see a professional psychologists who can advise you appropriately. I do not see the comments on Nairaland helping you here. And the earlier you deal with this the better before it leads to suicide thoughts.

But if it will help you, let me tell you a few things I know about women having been married to one for over ten years now.

1. Most women say things they do not mean. And being your mother, and not having brought this up since she said it, might mean that she has realized that she is wrong and will not apologise to you out of pride. You could meet her privately and tell her your hurt and ask her to apologize. It may help her.

2. Most women are rabidly jelous. I cannot count the number of times my own wife has accused me of different things. She just cannot fanthom the idea of sharing me with anyone. I have never been unfaithful to her and yet she is never ending with her accusations. I just take solace in the fact that my hands are clean.

3. I am a Christian minister and counselor and I trace every challenge in our lives to one subject: sin. It is actually not the sin of your mother's; she has hers to bear. I am talking about your own sin. If you would be sincere with yourself, you would realize that an over preoccupation with yourself has festered this wound in your heart. It is also the root of unforgiveness; which you have refused to lend your mum. The solution is a living relation with God through Christ.

When you realize that you are a sinner and you find forgiveness with God, you would not find it difficult to forgive your mother - who has obviously sinned against you. It all begins from there: forgiveness. And the real challenge is this: your parent's lives are ending, while yours is just beginning. You don't want to begin your life with this baggage.

If you need more counsel, please reach me on newdejix@gmail.com. I would be willing to share God's word with you more deeply; even as a pray for you that God will heal your heart.

Amen.

MuttleyLaff:
My brother and Sir, it'll have to be in Religion first, since the shameless scammer defrauder wears a white dog collar, before it'll get to make fp nah. Business forum is dry land, not much traffic there like with Religion, Politics et cetera forums

I Gerrit

MuttleyLaff:
VBCampaign, please why isn't this posted in the Religion forum as a fyi?

It's actually supposed to be on the front page. I hope Seun, Lalasticlala and Mynd44 will consider putting it there. This man is still defrauding people.