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, January 1, 2011

PRESIDENT JONATHAN 2011 AMBITION, TOO DANGEROUS FOR NIGERIA'S UNITY!


Icheoku is convinced that but for  the goading and prodding of his wife, Lady Macbeth Patience Jonathan that President Goodluck Ebelesimi Azikwe Jonathan would not be running in the forthcoming Nigeria's  2011 presidential election. But when a company-man who knows how to tag along just to get along is married to an obtuse woman, a Lady-Thatcher, an iron-lady, an alpha-female, he just turns himself into a 'yes-man, how high do you want me to jump ma'am', sissy/girlie-man type of husband. The world and Nigerians know who wears the pants in the Jonathan's household; but when that domesticity impacts on Nigeria by way of governance, then it is time definite, men with conscience spoke up. 

This is the fate of Nigeria's President Jonathan and this man is now breaching every decency, decorum, trust, honor and honesty of purpose in going against the grains and principles of his party's agreement on zoning to run for the presidency when it is not yet the turn of the south-south to so do. The president's party's hierarchy admitted that much when in a nuanced statement they acknowledged the existence of zoning but to save the President's face, went further to split hair that any other person can also run. Icheoku asks, what then is the purpose of the zoning arrangement if other person/s from other zones are eligible to also run? It is a self-defeatist statement of equivocation and should have operated to send a strong message to shock Jonathan out of his power-induced state of oblivion, that the PDP was trying to send across a message with a basket over its face. But should Icheoku believe that it is not his willful voluntary act, since he is under the influence and spell of so many competing forces including his wife Patience, Edwin Clark, Olusegun Obasanjo, Anthony Anenih, Dahltu Tafida, Governor's Forum,  as well as PDP members of the National Assembly, just to name a few. Any man marooned in such an island of confusion, conflicted by his internals which are urging him to do the honorable and right thing and not run; and other exteriors and more dangerous and sinister forces of evil, who want to use him to get at certain preconceived destinations and derivatives, then such man is really in a deep doodle. President Jonathan of Nigeria is such a man and Icheoku does not envy him of such a caustic position.

For purposes of full disclosure, Icheoku must confess that we are not a fan, never been and do not have any immediate future plans of becoming one. We are averse to greedy opportunism and the crass pretensions of a savior-status for Nigeria, of President Jonathan and we make bold to say this. President Jonathan has confirmed once again that he cannot be trusted with power and if anyone is in doubt, trace his antecedental power-grab in Bayelsa.  Ask DSP Alamesigha, his former boss and former governor of Bayelsa State how he was forced out of office by the highhanded Olusegun Obasanjo, working in concert with then deputy governor Goodluck Jonathan, who later took over as governor. It is inferable that President Jonathan took some secret oath of allegiance to Olusegun Obasanjo, before he brought him in as a president in waiting and vice president to the ailing Umaru Yar'Adua. Icheoku makes bold to also say that Jonathan knew all along that he will eventually be made president upon the assured death of Umaru Yar'Adua; so all his pretended aloofness during the succession debacle was a stalker's well calculated and disquieting disinterestedness in his victim, while he bids his time  waiting for the right opportunity to strike. Jonathan is a snake and Icheoku hopes Nigerians will discover the real man behind the mask of President Goodluck Jonathan before it is too late as he takes Nigeria on a jolly ride to nowhere near progress-land. Twice has he disrupted other peoples' political gathering and in a democratic dispensation, and no one smells the emergence of a petty dictator in his action? A man not tolerant of any discerning opinion that he muzzled the Igbo Elders out of their Owerri meeting and also instigated chaos in Buhari's Bayelsa campaign meet should be held with suspect.

President Jonathan is like a shark which has tested blood in the water and will find the wounded source, usually a hapless victim and finish it off. He has tested power and its allure, and is almost desperate not to let go; so only Nigerians can and shall wrestle it away from his vice death grip. Icheoku does not condone such people, connivers and conspirators, who would rather hear with their throats instead of their ears and President Jonathan apparently falls in this category. If only he could hear and use his head appropriately, instead of supinely beholding and deferring to his Lady-Macbeth, may be he would have since submitted to the wishes of Nigerians by acknowledging that it is not yet his zone's turn at the presidency. President Jonathan is not the right person for the office at this particular time, when  the northwest zone has not served out its agreed upon, by implication, eight years term.

Moreso, Icheoku does not trust the ever-calculating son of the Niger Delta; and his most recent, unthoughtful utterances, geared at emasculating freedom of speech in Nigeria, did not help matters at all.  Now Wiki Leaks seem to have thrown another spanner at Mister President's attempt to hijack what does not belong to him or his South-South zone by revealing the incompetence and lack of preparation of President Jonathan for the challenges of nation-building in Nigeria. According to the leaks from Wiki-Leak, President Jonathan once admitted to an American official that he was not qualified for the office which he holds as he did not have requisite  political experience to steer the ship of state around and well. In President Jonathan's own words, "I was not chosen to be vice president because I had good political experience; I did not" and this is the man running affairs in Nigeria and planning to continue post 2011. Icheoku says not too fast Mr. providential president of Nigeria, as Nigerians will smarten up and do the right thing in the interest of peace and one Nigeria. 

The single most militating factor hindering Nigeria's development is the cavalier manner in which her leadership always emerges or is selected and foist on the people; when not by a rogue military man like Babangida staging a coup and usurping power. People are put in leadership positions who are not prepared - did not prepare adequately for the challenges of the office. Without necessary and adequate preparation, they look like a deer in front of the headlights  from the time they start until the end of their term, gambling with the fate of 150 million Nigerians; trying unsuccessfully to figure out the office. No past president of Nigeria has displayed this lack of preparation for office like the current President Goodluck Jonathan, who appears not to comprehend even the duties of a president, talkless of discharging them. Icheoku says someone fleetingly having been a Deputy Governor, an Acting Governor, a Governor, a Vice President, Acting President and President, does not make one an administrative expert or sufficiently equipped with the needed experience to be a wonderful president. So Ima Niboro was fortuitous in enumerating for Nigerians, President Jonathan's Ph.D, ten year lecturer-ship and the fact that he has been an assistant director of OMPADEC as his selling points.

In other more civilized countries, a president climbs series of ladders of longevity in office before getting to the presidency, in order to enable him properly and fully learn the tricks of the trade. But in Nigeria where coup plotting military men have successfully messed up affairs so much, anything goes; from making a freed prisoner Olusegun Obasanjo president, to now a zoologist academia, political greenhorn and a man who have never stood for any election in his short unprepared political life president. In the words of Tsav, "I must say that President Jonathan has no focus and he has not shown us any blueprint on how he would move this country forward. I do not think that is the kind of President that this Nigeria need now for it to move forward," and Icheoku concurs .  These Wiki Leaks revelations confirms that the Nigeria now suffers from intolerable and clumsy presence of accidental powers – power got suddenly, power got by chance, power got anyhow, power being exercised by an untrained and unworthy power holder, who never prepared for this special destiny-thrust. 

Icheoku says the north has expressed its intent to maintain Nigeria's unity by reasonably considering the concerns of majority of Nigerians especially the people of South-West regarding June 12th, by not nominating Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, the architect of that infamous decision, as their consensus candidate. In his place they gave Nigerians another not so good candidate, a sort of the lesser of two evils, Abubakar Atiku. So the South must consider this overture of the North and someway reciprocate this amiable extension of their hands of fellowship, by now allowing the north to serve out its implicitly agreed term of eight years in office with the remaining four years. President Jonathan therefore should in good faith, quit the race, having accomplished a noble objective of forcing the north to take out Babangida by themselves. Jonathan is not a northerner nor could he be said to represent the north in anyway to enable him serve out their mandated term of office. Our initial contention was that Babangida should not be the northern candidate to serve out the northern turn; hence our campaign 'anybody but Babangida. But now that Babangida has been taken care of and is out the door, Jonathan must now step aside and allow the north to complete their turn and must not and should not be allowed to usurp the northern turn. Convinced that he is a puppet of his wife Patience, who like Lady Macbeth is goading him on to an impending disaster that is his intended run in 2011, Nigerians must then step in and resist him like they did Obasanjo and his third term craziness.

Finally, Icheoku opines that what President Jonathan is embarking on in 2011 is a complete affront on Nigerians and also represents a pure crass opportunism on his part to usurp what is not rightfully his. But assuming Atiku will be serving out the North-West's remaining term, where does his presidency then leave the previously agreed zonal rotation through the six geographical zones? Is it not possible that the North-West might later insist on serving out its zone's remainder or term or ask to be allowed to complete their turn? But the overall implication of the current consensus candidacy of a northeastern Atiku is that the hitherto zonal rotation agreement has now devolved into a regional rotation arrangement. The north has by presenting Atiku from the northeast unilaterally nullified the existing six-zonal arrangement and Atiku will now serve out the remaining one northern term before the baton goes back to the South.  But whatever the case, President Jonathan is not the right candidate at this time or the Messiah-candidate Nigerians have been waiting for and he should therefore not run; if he runs should not be voted for. Jonathan should wait for his turn, the South-South turn; but must allow the north to complete their turn!

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