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.

Sunday, December 27, 2009

A TERRORIST STATE, ANOTHER STIGMA NIGERIA CANNOT READILY AFFORD?

Now that the identity of the Delta plane leg-bomber has been conclusively determined, Icheoku says, Nigeria by necessary implication has now 'officially' become a terrorist state, courtesy of Malam Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab? In confirming the identity of the leg-bomber as his son, Dr. Umaru Mutallab senior said, “I have been receiving telephone calls from all over the world about my child who has been arrested for an alleged attempt to bomb a plane.” Like father like son, a northern Nigerian local economic terrorist who gave birth to an international bombing terrorist? This latest 'terrorist-state' identity for a country, Nigeria can ill afford in addition to a myriad of other inclement and unflattering things which it has been associated with and known for over the years. From 419 to pandemic corruption to being a transit camp for international narcotic and other illicit drugs; this other whammy of being a terrorist state is simply just one too much for a distressed Nigeria to stomach without tipping over? Therefore, Nigerian security agencies as well as whatever is left of the executive, since the president is still lying in coma in a foreign hospital in Saudi Arabia, must rally round to get to the root of this matter; and if it means sacrificing the senior Mutallab in the process, so be it; but this stigma must not be allowed to stick!
Icheoku says, northern Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab represents what is wrong with northern Nigeria and which they have arrogantly failed to address over the many years they have held Nigeria hostage and bilking it dry as much and as fast as they could possibly do? Nigeria is today a ghost of the many hopes at independence, frustrated, deprived, stagnated and left so anemic that its continuous survival as a country is being questioned by all that have some grey-matter in their brain and who should otherwise know. Now they have taken their nefarious activities overseas as one of them attempted to blow up an American Delta airplane inside American air-space and within American soil; but for their usual incompetence in anything and everything they handle, he ironically speaking, 'botched' it too? What a nitwit, hate-filled, nasty terrorist scumbag who have now succeeded in putting Nigeria on the hot seat of international odium and ridicule as a pariah state?
But how did northern Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab manage undetected to get flammable powder and a syringe of chemicals aboard two international flights and across three continents of Africa, Europe and America? Icheoku can attempt an explanation with the Lagos Nigeria side, since being who he is, he could have probably be driven right inside the tarmac without going through all the 'inconveniences' of airport security checks and screening? But in Amsterdam, who knows what his joker was to get through the security, except his last name also meant something overthere at Schiphol; or he had accomplices facilitating his nefarious and clandestine passages? This in view of the known practice of re-screening transferring passengers from foreign flights at the Schiphol, before they are allowed to take off in subsequent connecting flights? So at least the security agencies have a working platform for their already well cut out job. Northern Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab left Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos aboard a Boeing 777 KLM flight 588, at 11pm on Christmas Eve, arriving Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam at 5:37 a.m. on Christmas Day. After a 3hour lay-over he boarded an Airbus 330 Northwest/Delta Flight 253 to Detroit Metropolitan Airport alongside other 278 passengers and 11 crew members. The rest is now history as alert and vigilant passengers thwarted his idiocy and murderous plot before he could cause us more harm and grief? Another demonstration of the harm the crassly incompetent Nigeria's Hausa-Fulani north is willing and able to do to a Nigeria in distress!
Like the terrorist incarnate Osama bin Laden, this northern Nigerian Fulani terrorist, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab comes from enormous wealth. His father, the senior Mutallab is a multi-billionaire erstwhile chairman of Nigeria's First Bank Plc and many other sundry Islamic banks and establishments. He is from Funtua, Katsina State and by necessary implication, a distant cousin of the Nigerian President in coma, Umaru Yar'Adua. He is also a mechanical engineering student or graduate at a London University College and enjoyed a life of very pampered upbringing? So what could have driven this northern Nigerian Fulani malam into becoming a murderous terrorist, who tried albeit unsuccessfully to cause Americans so much harm. Icheoku asks, what drove such a Fulani scion of Katsina State northern Nigeria into terrorism, despite the well-heeled silver-spoon of his birth and upbringing? The answer could be found in the teachings of an intolerant religion which preaches that all infidels deserve no place here on earth and that it is a merciful act of compassion to just kill them off in order to save them from eternal damnation? What a logic on its head, one may say; but not when you are one of these God-forsaken uncircumcised zealots who have visited Nigerians with so much internal economic and physical terrorism over the many years that Nigerians have been independent; making majority of them an internally colonized and subjugated people?
One derivative out of this nightmare on Christmas day is that all the security in the world could not stop this animal from boarding two airplanes, traveling undetected for 19 hours, crossing several international datelines and time zones; and through three continents? Technically speaking he had succeeded and completed his act of terrorism, having brought the bomb-making materials aboard two international planes including a third one that brought him back from Yemen to Nigeria. He had also finished mixing the chemicals and put the gadget containing it on operational mode and was in the process of exploding it when the good Lord used some vigilant and watchful passengers to stop him cold. The fire and smoke were a result of a process in motion? Once again, a case where common-sense vigilance trumped over all the billion dollar security gadgets and equipments; and proved a more effective policing tool? Of all the gifts of the season, all Nigeria got was another stain on its ever stinking image, becoming now also a terrorist state? Regrettably, another horrible case of the north giving the whole Nigeria a bad name?
Is it ok to suggests that it is about time cameras are installed in airplanes lavatories with some blurring privacy application so that whenever a passenger spends so much time inside or engages in activities outside the normal number one or number two, it will be spotted immediately? Thhis Fulani terrorist spent over twenty minutes inside the loo practising his other trade as a terrorist chemist? These homicidal terrorists are incapable of reasoning as their motivation is something out of the ordinary and above our earthly existence. Just ask yourself, how a mechanical engineer with such a pedigree could engage in such bloody venture; except that we have precedents in Osama bin Laden, Al-Zawahiri and their fellow death merchants. Icheoku asks, what else was this guy looking for in life except that his mind is so messed up by the corrupted version of teachings of his religion that ration flew out of the window of his head? Such is atypical of most northern Nigerian Hausa-Fulanis who lack adequate reason or rationality in their actions; - hijacking everything in Nigeria without regard or let to the needs of southerners, a major stakeholder in Nigeria Plc? Our recommended panacea, saturate northern Nigeria with psychologists and psychiatrists to help resolve their conflicted selves; their brains are wrongly and negatively wired, which sometimes make them so frustrated that they often act out in this insidious way? It is our firm belief that they could use some shrinks up there in northern Nigeria, definitely!
Icheoku also asserts that contrary to the claims of the Nigeria Federal government, it does not "abhor all forms of terrorism!" Southerners and Christians alike in Nigeria, have had to put up and endure series acts of northern Nigeria induced terrorism, over the many years since Nigeria's independence without the federal government actively and proactivey doing anything serious enough to permanently stem the tide and/or punish the main pillars and sponsors of these terrorisms? Boko Haram was terrorism? Kano riots was another one? Maitasine riots another one? So was Bauchi riots was a terrorist act? And Jos; Zaria, Zaky-zaky etc. The killing of Ken Saro Wiwa was an act of terrorism perpetrated by northerner Sani Abacha. Odi and Zaki-Ibaim massacre were terrorism? The Biafran genocide was terrorism of the highest order and leading to it was systematic and continuing visiting of terror on the Igbo people before Ojukwu provided ladership to say enough is enough! Therefore, tell Icheoku, Madam Re-branding Dora Akunyili how the Nigeria Federal government "abhors all forms of terrorism;" being preached now that those northerners have exposed Nigeria's dirty little open-secret darkside by exporting their domsetic terrorism overseas?
But assuming that Mutallab senior actually warned American embassy about his terrorist son prior to his exhibition of stupidity, why was his terrorist son even granted a visa, and assuming it was an existing visa, why was it not cancelled based on the expressed concerns of his father? Is it possible that it was just a pandering embassy official who was trying to please the terrorist's all powerful northern Nigerian Fulani father and upon recognising his name, did not bother to take any necessary steps further to thoroughly screen the applicant now turned terrorist? Is it also because of his father's enormous wealth that terrorist Umar Farouk ABdul Mutallab was granted multiple entry visas to the United States for two years from June 2008 and valid through June 2010? It would seem that there is a possible culpability here too on the American embassy staff at Abuja Nigeria, and hopefully already begun investigation will uncover it.
A resident of a posh West London flat near Oxford circus and a mechanical engineering student at University College London, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had everything going for him in this world; but a good heart and properly informed mind. Even his father's decade long chairmanship of one of the biggest banks in Nigeria and its attendant pool of wealth could not buy this crazed-out terrorist love and a peace of mind? Icheoku asks, if according to this terrorist confessions, he acquired his bomb-making materials from Yemen, how come he was not detected all through the three continents he flew through until Detroit, Michigan United States of America? What a fatal inexpicable breach of security? But thankfully though, like his main tackler Mr. Schuringa said, “when you hear a pop on the plane, you’re awake, trust me;” many passengers heard the pop and awoke to their responsibility not to allow a dirty-cheap little terrorist spoil their Christmas! We agree completely with the philodophy and hereby say big kudos to all those who helped to foil this terrorist's evil plot.
The United States Federal authorities have charged the 23-year-old northern Nigerian Fulani terrorist, Abdul Farouk Abdul Mutallab, before U.S. District Judge Paul Borman, with attempting to destroy Northwest flight 253 with a "destructive device" as it descended into Detroit on Christmas Day. Icheoku hopes his eventual life imprisonment will find him inside a super maximum security prison burrowed several hundreds of feet below the ground somewhere in Colorado; where he will have a long time to properly think through his madness! It now behoves the Nigerian authorities to prove that they are real partners in the global struggle against the evil of terrorism. That no man who fathered and possibly supported a terrorist son of his, no matter how highly placed within the Fulani Oligarchy will go unpunished if investigations found him culpable. Now we wait to see whether heads would roll within Nigeria security apparatiques especially tose charged to maintain security at the Murtala Mohammed Airport in Lagos? Those who either directly or indirectly brought this international odium, shame and embarrassment to motherland should be punished for their action or inaction in allowing this terrorist take with him bomb-making materials out of Nigeria. It is also our candid opinion that even the senior Mutallab should be 'indicted and prosecuted for raising an imbecile who turned out to be an incompetent international terrorist; and for also technically sponsoring his terrorist trips both to Yemen and Detroit? His terrorist son is merely 23 and jobless, and spends his father's money; and used some of it to sponsor and carry out the terrorism under advisement. These are issues which Icheoku cannot wait to see how they eventually pan out and fall into their respective places. Until then, acursed be this animal, Umaru Farouk Abdul Mutallab that added extra woes to Nigerians' already overburdened and nightmarish international image, with his wicked act of terror!

2 comments:

  1. Bomb suspect came from elite family, best schools

    As a member of an uppercrust Nigerian family, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received the best schooling, from the elite British International School in West Africa to the vaunted University College London.

    But the education he wanted was of a different sort: Nigerian officials say his interest in extremist Islam prompted his father to warn U.S. authorities. As Abdulmutallab was being escorted in handcuffs off the Detroit-bound airliner he attempted to blow up on Christmas Day, he told U.S. officials that he had sought an extremist education at an Islamist hotbed in Yemen.

    A portrait emerged Sunday of a serious young man who led a privileged life as the son of a prominent banker, but became estranged from his family as an adult. Devoutly religious, he was nicknamed "The Pope" for his saintly aura and gave few clues in his youth that he would turn radical, friends and family said.

    "In all the time I taught him we never had cross words," said Michael Rimmer, a Briton who taught history at the British International School in Lome, Togo. "Somewhere along the line he must have met some sort of fanatics, and they must have turned his mind."

    Abdulmutallab has been charged with trying to destroy a Northwest flight on Christmas Day with 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board. The detonator on his explosive apparently malfunctioned and he was subdued by other passengers.

    Through an official, Abdulmutallab's father "expressed deep shock and regret over his son's actions."

    His family home sits in the city of Funtua, in the heart of Nigeria's Islamic culture. Religion figured into the family's life: His father, Alhaji Umar Mutallab, who had a successful career in commercial banking, also joined the board of an Islamic bank — one that avoids the kind of interest payments banned by the Quran.

    The large house, surrounded by a wall and a metal fence just off the main road running through the city, stood empty, a common occurrence for a jet-set family that sought an education abroad for Abdulmutallab. Family members told The Associated Press they could not comment but expected the family to issue a statement.

    Mutallab was working with the FBI and not expected to grant media interviews, Information Minister Dora Akunyili said.

    The elder Mutallab was "a responsible and respected Nigerian, with a true Nigerian spirit," she said. He had been estranged from his son for several months and alerted U.S. officials last month about the youth's growing hard-line Islamic religious beliefs.

    A close neighbor told the AP he believed Abdulmutallab did not get his extremist ideas from his family or from within Nigeria.

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  2. Basiru Sani Hamza, 35, said Abdulmutallab was a "very religious" and a "very obedient" to his parents as a boy in the well-to-do banking family.

    "I believe he must have been lured where he is schooling to carry out this attack," Hamza said. "Really, the boy has betrayed his father because he has been taking care of all their needs."

    Rimmer, a teacher at his high school in West Africa, said Abdulmutallab had been well-respected.

    "At one stage, his nickname was 'The Pope,'" Rimmer said from London in a telephone interview. "In one way it's totally unsuitable because he's Muslim, but he did have this saintly aura."

    But Abdulmutallab also showed signs of inflexibility, Rimmer said.

    In a discussion in 2001, Abdulmutallab was the only one to defend the actions of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Rimmer said. At the time, Rimmer thought the boy was just playing the devil's advocate.

    He also noted that during a school trip to London, Abdulmutallab became upset when the teacher took students to a pub and said it wasn't right to be in a place where alcohol was served.

    Rimmer also remembered the youngster choosing to give 50 pounds to an orphanage rather than spend it on souvenirs in London.

    Rimmer described the institution — an elite college preparatory school, attended by children of diplomats and wealthy Africans — as "lovely, lovely environment" where Christians often joined in Islamic feasts and where some of the best Christmas carolers were Muslims.

    Abdulmutallab showed no signs of intolerance toward other students, Rimmer said, explaining that "lots of his mates were Christians."

    The Briton noted that he has not seen or heard from his former pupil since 2003 when he was still a teenager.

    Abdulmutallab went on to study engineering and business finance at the University College London, where he graduated last year, the college confirmed.

    Students at his prestigious university in London, where Abdulmutallab lived in a smart white stone apartment block in an exclusive area of central London, said Abdulmutallab showed no signs of radicalization and painted him as a lax student with deep religious views.

    "We worked on projects together," Fabrizio Cavallo Marincola, a 22-year-old mechanical engineering student at University College, told The Independent newspaper. "He always did the bare minimum of work and would just show up to classes. When we were studying, he always would go off to pray.

    "He was pretty quiet and didn't socialize much or have a girlfriend that I knew of. I didn't get to talk to him much on a personal level. I was really shocked when I saw the reports. You would never imagine him pulling off something like this."

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