GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

HONORING ABACHA, A SHAMELESS ASSAULT ON GOOD BEHAVIOR.

Icheoku says the reason given by the inept President Jonathan's government for bestowing honor, during the Nigerian Centenary celebration, on a decrepitude sub-human specimen called Sani Abacha, the midget of Kano State, is indeed very laughable. It is also as watery as it is without merit and defies every attempt at rationalization to say that simply because Abacha did "some good" and led Nigerians qualifies him as an eminent award recipient? Mussolini was a leader and he did some good for fascist Italy? Saddam Hussein was a leader and he did some good for the people of Iraq? Ghana's three former heads of state Acheampong, Afrifa and Akuffo, were once leaders and they also did some good for Ghana? Ditto Augusto Pinochet, Adolf Hitler as well as so many other world's ignoble persons who once led their nations and did some good for their people. These men shared one thing in common - they all met a very tragic end in the hands of their people, who they once led and did some good for, because of the greater infra-dignities they perpetrated on the same people. Icheoku says Sani Abacha belongs to this swine of humanity and deserves no less a fate instead of being elevated on a pedestal he did not deserve or merit. 

Icheoku therefore posits that were Nigeria a country that frowns at perfidy, a sadistic megalomania like Abacha, instead of being honored for "some good" he did while forcibly leading Nigerians against their will, should have elicited curses and condemnations for the hell he unleashed on Nigerians while his terror-infused regime lasted. But regrettably, President Goodluck Jonathan who has sold his soul to the devil and is now beholding to the Hausa/Fulani Northerners and carrying out their every wish, found it not too risky to honor one of North's most destitute gift to Nigeria. By this act of betrayal of bequeathing honor to an animal deserving of no such honor, President Jonathan has joined ranks with Muhammadu Buhari and Ibrahim Babangida, who while visiting the grave of Sani Abacha in Kano few years ago, described Abacaha as the best thing that ever happened to Nigeria and you wonder which planet these guys inhabit? Jonathan has sold out on Nigerians and is now one of them.

Icheoku says a man who wantonly shed so many Nigerians' blood deserves no honor by Nigeria, regardless of what he did or did not do. A man who stole to his heart's delight to the tune of several billions of dollars in addition to the latest over $400 million seized by the United States of America government cannot be said to be patriotic and loving of Nigeria and therefore is not deserving of any honor by Nigeria. How can any sane assessor consider a man with as heinous violations of human rights as Sani Abacha an appropriate candidate for any national honor including a Centenary award, especially when in addition to killing so many Nigerians, the bespectacled dictator also over-stole from Nigerians' national treasury. Further the same Sani Abacha was part of the Muhammadu Buhari 1983 military coup that toppled the first republic's democratically elected government of Shehu Shagari thereby truncating democracy. Yet a man who put such spanner in the works of a country trying to take off was honored for which "unity effort" one may ask? The same Sani Abacha muscled his way into Aso Rock, overthrowing Interim President Ernest Shonekan, thereby imposed himself on Nigerians regardless of Nigerians wishes, and unleashed the worst reign of terror ever witnessed in the history of the country short of the Biafran war; yet he is being honored for loving the country? 

Icheoku says this act of President Jonathan, honoring Sani Abacha, defies every logic and common sense justifying it and not even the extra-judicial murder of his kinsman Ken Saro-Wiwa was not enough to dissuade the president from this misdeed. Icheoku further says that any country which frowns at nasty or which has zero tolerance for bad behavior cannot and should have no business honoring a demented person like Sani Abacha and should have instead lampooned him on how not to be a leader. To this effect therefore, Icheoku joins Wole Soyinka and other few morality-driven Nigerians, who protested the charade that was Nigerian Centenary celebration of nothingness, to condemn the honor bestowed on Sani Abacha as well as on other coup plotters who truncated democracy in Nigeria, Ibrahim Babangida and Muhammadu Buharim; as undeserving, misplaced and a self-serving gesture geared at the 2015 presidential election, specifically targeting Kano State. Icheoku categorically states that such pandering is the reason why corruption and bad governance still persist in Nigeria because there is no consequence or shame for past misdeeds nor odium for former leaders who behaved badly or who gravely abused their office. So what deterrence exist for future prospective wanna-be Abachas, Babangidas or Buharis when these past humanoids are being bestowed with honors and you asks yourself whether the word "honor" has lost its meaning? What a shame!

FYI:- Icheoku hereunder reproduces Wole Soyinka's statement of rejection of what he described as "his share of this national insult" as follows:- 

“The sheer weight of indignation and revulsion of most of Nigerian humanity at the recent Boko Harma atrocity in Yobe is most likely to have overwhelmed a tiny footnote to that outrage, small indeed, but of an inversely proportionate significance. This was the name of the hospital to which the survivors of the massacre were taken. The name of that hospital, it is reported, is none other than that of General Sanni Abacha, a vicious usurper under whose authority many Nigerian lives were snuffed out.  Assassinations – including through bombs cynically ascribed to the opposition – became routine. Under that ruler, torture and other forms of barbarism were enthroned as the norm of governance; nine Nigerian citizens were hanged including writer and environmentalist Ken Saro-wiwa. By honoring the late soldier, Jonathan had scooped up a century’s accumulated degeneracy in one preeminent symbol, and placed it on a podium for the nation to admire, emulate and even – worship. Such abandonment of moral rigor comes full circle sooner or later. The survivors of a plague known as Boko Haram, students in a place of enlightenment and moral instruction, are taken to a place of healing dedicated to an individual contagion – a murderer and thief of no redeeming quality known as Sanni Abacha, one whose plunder is still being pursued all over the world and recovered piecemeal by international consortiums – at the behest of this same government which sees fit to place him on the nation’s Roll of Honour! I therefore refuse to partake and hereby reject my share of this national insult.” Icheoku says what a beautiful poetry from one of Nigeria's finest minds. Highly commendable.

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