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.

Saturday, April 2, 2016

THE CASE FOR BIAFRA, STRONGER THAN SOUTH SUDAN AND KOSOVO - BRUCE FEIN

Biafra, dominated by the great Igbo race, enjoyed sovereignty before Great Britain commenced exploitive colonial rule over Nigeria under the racist banner of Rudyard Kipling’s “the White Man’ burden.” Britain asserted authority over Biafra based on the tyrannical doctrine that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.
​The Berlin West Africa Conference, 1884-85, and the Berlin General Act symbolized colonial lawlessness by treating Africa as a carcass to be divided up among European vultures.
​Restoration of Biafra’s sovereignty is justified under international law and practice—especially with the ongoing ethnic-inspired killings and persecutions of Biafans by Nigeria’s elected military dictator from the North touting sharia law, President Muhammdu Buhari.
Biafra’s sovereignty journey will require deft international diplomacy and the marshalling of widespread popular support from Biafrans and their resources. Power is never voluntarily surrendered. Rights ultimately are what you are willing to fight and die for.
​Prior to British colonization in 1906, the great Igbo people to the East of Niger, numbering some 3 million, and their cognate tribes enjoyed decentralized self-government. They were not living in a state of nature. Their self-rule came by force of arms—not voluntarily.
In 1900, the British government assumed responsibility for the Royal Niger Company’s territories, and formed the Protectorate of Northern Nigeria, the Niger Coast Protectorate and the Lagos Colony Protectorate territories. 1913 witnessed the amalgamation of Nigeria into three administrative areas: the crown colony of Lagos and the Protectorates of Northern and Southern Nigeria.
​In 1960, Britain ended its colonization of Nigeria without reference to the Igbo or any other peoples of Nigeria entitled to self-determination. The Nigeria Independence Act established Nigerian territorial boundaries not by popular referendum or other reliable manifestations of self-determination of peoples, but according to the Nigeria’s Orders in Council, 1954 to 1960. They reflected British selfish maneuvers to dominate Nigeria economically.
Britain’s failure to offer Biafrans the right to self-determination violated the United Nations General Assembly Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples adopted on 14 December 1960. Paragraph 5 of the Declaration required that immediate steps be taken by the colonial power “to transfer all powers to the peoples of those [colonized] territories…in accordance with their freely expressed will and desire…in order to enable them to enjoy complete independence and freedom.” The 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations emphasized that, “By virtue of the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, all peoples have the right freely to determine without external interference their political status….”
The people of Biafra—recognized as distinct by British colonial authorities—were never provided an opportunity to vote for complete independence and freedom from the rest of Nigeria according to their freely expressed will and desire. They were never consulted on the subject when Nigeria became independent in 1960. Further, the 1960 Constitution of Nigeria was never approved by the people of Biafra in a referendum or otherwise. And neither has any subsequent Nigerian Constitution, including the current version decreed by a military dictator in 1999.
​In sum, the British decolonized Nigeria in violation of international law by failing to transfer power to the peoples of Biafra in accordance with their freely expressed will.
​That violation was not a technicality, but an affront to a fundamental human right. All governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. Consent is required to legitimate authority and to forestall external subjugation, oppression, persecution, or even genocide fueled by tribal, sectarian, ethnic, or megalomaniacal ambitions or hatreds.
​After independence from Britain, Nigeria soon became a charnel house for Biafrans. Deprived of their right to self-determination, they were left to the tender mercies of the Hausa-Fulani of the North and the Yoruba of the South in a unitary state unsuited for its diverse tribal, ethnic, and religious landscape. The gruesome 1967-1970 Biafran War was emblematic. Ethnic-based massacres of Biafrans and countless starving children who died as little more than skeletons was its grim face. The horrors suffered by Biafrans gave birth to the first modern international relief effort to lessen unspeakable misery.
​At the war’s conclusion, Nigeria’s General Yakuba Gowon’s sloganeered, “No victor, no vanquished.” The words proved a cruel hoax. The Igbo were marginalized, persecuted as traitors, and subjected to a Northern political yolk. Under incumbent Nigerian elected military dictator Buhari, the repression of the Igbo have reached new heights featuring indiscriminate killings, torture, and detentions without trial.
​Last March, for instance, 13 Biafrans were murdered and their corpses burnt to ashes and dumped in a burrow pit located in the area of Aba-Port Harcourt Road in Abia State by suspected Buhari agents. Last February, a team of Buhari’s Army, Navy, and Police and gunned down 22 Biafrans protesting Buhari’s detention of Biafran leader Prince Nnamdi Kanu.
​A complete chronicle of Buhari’s horrors only would numb by repetition.
​The point is that there is no political remedy for Biafra’s suffering—like an abused wife in a forced marriage—short of self-determination to regain its sovereignty that was illegally extinguished by the British and never surrendered after decolonization.
​States born from longstanding repression of peoples by ruling authorities are part of the woof and warp of international law or custom. Think of Bangladesh, Namibia, South Sudan, Zimbabwe, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo.
​The case for Biafran sovereignty is as strong or stronger as these precedents.
​But to succeed, Biafrans will need to organize, unify, and make their case to the United Nations Security Council, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the African Union, the European Union, and the United States.
​If they do not all hang together, they might all come to hang separately.

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