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.

Friday, March 24, 2017

OUR SENATORS MUST WEAR UNIFORMS - an article by ABIMBOLA LAGUNJU.

The members of Nigerian parliament have developed a penchant for wasting public funds on irrelevant things that do not add any quality to our lives. They waste our money, they waste our time and they play with our collective intelligence. We do not get any value for the money we spend on them. They have a short attention span on any matter. Different mundane things easily catch their attention while matters of national importance are quietly and deliberately kept off their radar. 

They have now taken a fancy to uniforms. They like uniforms. They like Police, Army, Customs, immigration, Civil Defense uniforms. Uniforms! Our honourables and senators have turned uniforms to an issue of national importance. They want to see as many as possible in uniforms. They are not interested in the person, just the uniform he wears. The servile retinue of police aides in uniforms who waste our taxes guarding them from us, their employers has conditioned them to look down on service uniforms. They feel that they are superior to the wearer of any kind of uniform; after all, their police guards clean their shoes, carry their bags, escort their wives to the market and play the servants to their children. Appearing in anything but a uniform is considered an affront by these members of parliament. They send you out of their presence. They disgrace and humiliate you. Ask Hameed Ali. They were irked to see him in their parliament without his uniform. They wanted him to deck up like one of those police officers that carries their bags. He refused to oblige them. They walked him out. They hammered Hameed. They were not interested in hearing him on the performance of his charge or the reason why he dreamt up payment of  import duties on old and tired vehicles which his own men allowed into the country. They were not interested in Nigeria. They were interested in their ego. They invoked a redundant law to prove their point. Where on this God’s earth do parliamentarians waste taxpayers’ money on discussing in which clothes an employee of the State must appear before them? Hameed Ali did not come in his skin. He came in a decent and non-flamboyant outfit. But these senators wanted to see him in uniform by all means.
Their obsession with uniforms has limits however. They want others to wear uniforms, but not them. They dread the idea of changing their babarigas and agbadas for any kind of uniform. Just a couple of days ago, a tailor who sews uniforms for greedy politicians passed by their senate to ask them for confirmation of his appointment. He wanted them to confirm him as the official tailor for their future uniforms. They were horrified. They mugged Magu the Tailor. They did not hear him. They could not. They were deep in mental imagination of themselves in badly sewn short uniforms. They all know that Magu the Tailor already has their sizes. They also know that he has already purchased the cloth to sew their uniforms. They knew that if they confirmed his appointment, they would sooner or later be obliged to wear their short Made by Magu uniforms.  Individually, under their breaths, they muttered, “I reject it”…”this is not my portion”. Collectively they chased Magu, the EFCC chief tailor out of their presence like a demon. They exorcised him from their collective system.
And just down the road, in the House of Representatives (of themselves), the honourables are considering a bill to nominate their own tailor. They do not want to hear of Magu or any other tailor chosen by Mr. Buhari. They want one of their own to be their tailor. They want well-made agbadas and babarigas, not the kind of ill-fitting shirts and shorts built by Magu who learnt the trade from Ribadu. They believe they can pull it off. They know from history that Ibori built his own High Court in Asaba where Justice Marcel Awokulehin gave him favorable verdict for an unprecedented list of economic crimes. The honourables know that it is possible in Nigeria to eat your cake and have it. And they know that Nigerians will just take this intended coup against decency in their stride. After all we had Waziri and Adoke and nothing happened. We have had all sorts of nightmarish people in important places and nothing happened. We just wring our hands in the face of unimaginable crimes against us and our country.
But what is Mr Buhari going to do now about Magu the Tailor? Is he going to oblige the senators and find a more merciful and compliant tailor? Is he going to tell Magu to burn the block note of the sizes of the senators that he has diligently compiled? Will Mr. Buhari ask that the clothes that Magu bought to sew the uniforms be burnt? Mr Buhari should understand that none of these options is open to him. Magu does not know any other trade than to sew clothes for politicians with sticky fingers. See what happened to tailor Ribadu when he was sent out of his shop by Jonathan & Co. Ribadu lost his bearing. He is still reeling from the shock.  Ribadu, like Magu is a dedicated specialist tailor. Both cannot practice any other trade. Therefore, Mr. President Buhari, Mr. Magu cannot be sacked by those to whose wardrobes he wants to add more clothes. Magu has exposed more thieves of our commonwealth than the combined total number exposed since our independence. He has shamed them even if the courts are dragging their feet to send them to jail. Mr. Magu deserves a national honour and not a disgrace.
In the case of Hameed Ali, Mr. Buhari should let these senators understand that it is not the uniform that makes the brain. They should look elsewhere to massage their egos. Mr. Buhari needs to make it clear to the clients of Magu that if Hameed must wear a uniform to appear before them, they also will have to wear their own uniforms to appear before the people, Magu or not, and sooner than later.

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