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, September 15, 2017

NIGERIA: WE ARE KILLING OUR ARMY BY SENDING IT AFTER KANU - ABIODUN LADIPO

If we talk now, dem go brand us “Enemy of the State” and start chasing us upandan with police, DSS, Customs, Immigrations and even vigilantes. But how do you criticize the deployment of soldiers to the private residence of a man without incurring the wrath of the presidency? 

I have an idea: blame it on the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen Tukur Buratai; blame it on Chief of Defense Staff, Gen. Gabriel Olonisakin – for those two must be in the know before troops are deployed within and outside Nigeria. We can take the blame for this aberration a little higher. How about laying it at the doorstep of President Buhari’s Chief of Staff, Abba Kyari? Wouldn’t he have been the last person to know before the president himself knew? Buratai would have communicated his plans to Olonisakin, who would, in turn, have asked Abba Kyari for a meeting with the President so he could brief him. Abba Kyari would likely have just given the go-ahead in the name of the president because Mr. President was indisposed, or just didn’t have the time to see everybody and every file all of the time. Right? 

Wrong. In this day and age, nations don’t send soldiers chasing after their own civilian citizens. Responsible nations spend too much money on the training and welfare of their soldiers for them to be deployed on such trifle mission as “show of force” on the street of a rabble-rouser. That is so Hitlerian; so tyrannical and so out-of-date. The blame lies squarely at the doorstep of President Buhari. And as the saying goes, the buck stops at his desk. 

I understand that section 217(2) of our Constitution authorizes the president to deploy troops to any part of the country to support the efforts of other law enforcement agencies in order to help suppress “insurrection.”  This is akin to what the U.S. National Guard, which is under the command of individual state governors, does in the U.S. But where is the insurrection in Abia State? 

One definition of insurrection is: “an act or an instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil or an established government.”  Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), who, obviously, was the target of the military deployment, had threatened all of the key elements that define insurrection; “threatened”… but not yet carried them out. He has promised to burn down Nigeria more than once. He has promised to prevent elections from taking place in Anambra more than once. He has promised to carve out Biafra from Nigeria more than once. But he has yet to actualize any of those threats. 

What he has done is flagrantly violate some of the conditions for his bail. In April of this year, when virtually all the elders from the east pleaded for his release from detention, ostensibly because his health was failing and he was at the point of death, Justice Binta Nyako offered Kanu 12 conditions for his release, and the continued enjoyment of the temporary freedom. Those conditions included, but were not limited to, the following: he must not be in a crowd of more than 10; he must not hold rallies; and he must not grant interviews. But what did he do as soon as he was released? He not only got in a crowd of more than 10, he held rallies. Apparently, his health got better as soon as he exited the court premises in Abuja. He not only granted interviews; he threatened to burn down Nigeria.  For those alone, all that government needed was a court order to re-arrest him. And because of his notoriety - the touts and the hoodlums with whom he has surrounded himself and the nature of his threats against Nigeria, the government probably needed a hefty dose of a combined police/DSS operation. No reasonable person would have argued against that because it would have been lawful. That would have been an appropriate show of force. 

So, why send a platoon, company or battalion of soldiers to intimidate him? The answer is simple. The Buhari government, like all the ones before it, and like most African governments, is afraid of empowering the police like it is done in the western world. The ideal thing would have been to allow the states to have their own police. Those who argue against that cite the potential for abuse by some of our vindictive and petulant governors, and the general “immaturity of our democracy.” If we are leaving the police as it is under the federal government, it needs to be numerically strengthened to accurately cover the whole country (stop assigning police officers to all manners of political office holders); improve their general welfare – salary, training, weapons – and truly empower them to carry out law enforcement duties across the whole country. 

It is an onerous, almost revolutionary task that requires laser-focus attention from the president. But it is wishful thinking on my behalf. Knowing the bushman, brute force mentality of our military, I can’t imagine a police officer enforcing the law on a military officer. A good example of the subordination of the military to civil rule is the U.S. military, which boasts of some of the most lethal men and women in its forces. Yet, those highly trained members of the military are some of the most humble, most deferential and most respectful individuals when you see them about town. Other than members of the National Guard whom you’d see in town with arms during natural disasters, I have never, in 30 years, seen armed American regular soldiers in town. Even when going from their bases to training grounds, they move about in such a way as to not draw attention to themselves, using civilian license plates on their plain-colored vehicles. Even wearing the camouflage uniforms in town is often discouraged. The idea is to protect the crown jewel of the American power –  the soldier. Would you be surprised to see an American police officer arrest an American soldier? It happens all the time. Such a thing can happen in a society where the military is completely subordinated to the civilian leadership. Can that happen in Nigeria? No. Our military is still tethered to its inglorious past of dehumanizing jungle-justice treatment of the so-called bloody civilians. 

In its characteristic lethargic attitude to important matters, this government dilly-dallied on this Kanu matter until the fellow became a martyr for the Biafra cause. Kanu was charged to court for some of the most egregious offenses you could commit against your country; one of which was treason. The man was seen and heard all over the world on video and radio openly soliciting contributions for the acquisition of arms to wage war against Nigeria. With two passports at his disposal – Nigerian and British – the man entered Nigeria illegally without a British visa on his British passport and without an entry stamp on his Nigerian passport. Now, why did someone like that get put in detention for over a year without his trial moving an inch? Where is Attorney General Abubakar Malami on this issue? Isn’t the APC government the government of “Change” the one that promised an overhaul of the judiciary? 

So, why send the army to harass Nnamdi Kanu? Could it be that our soldiers don’t have much to do anymore? Is Boko Haram now completely crushed? Have we traversed the entire Sambisa forest and mapped out every inch of it? If not, shouldn’t those soldiers riding around in Umuahia be deployed to Maiduguri? 

Who does not know that the Nigerian Army is by far the superior bet in a showdown with IPOB and Biafra? It has to be the suicidal goons following Kanu around. And I think there is something in the water or food they are consuming over there that makes them think they can stand toe-to-toe with the Nigerian Army. I saw some of them on video armed with cutlasses, machetes and bottles, throwing stones at the military convoy. I heard warning shots being fired by the soldiers and saw the idiots still moving in the direction of fire. If you look in the dictionary for the definition of stupidity, it would be illustrated with the picture of a mob armed with sticks, cutlasses and bottles attacking a military element protected with body armor and armed with semi-automatic weapons, fully-automatic weapons and grenade launchers. Don’t come crying to me when you are blown to smithereens. 

I have never been a fan of armed soldiers dressed in combat uniforms dealing with civilians in town. I have so much respect for the military that any misuse of them, any scorn and derision thrown their way makes my blood boil. Even the “ineffectual buffoon” and “bloody civilian” had enough sense to declare a state of emergency in the northeast before sending soldiers there. I expect our sage and former general to know better…unless his sentience is in question.

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