POLICIES OF REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES, OLD WINE IN OLD BOTTLES - DAVID AXELROD.

 Political operative and master tactician, the Democratic Party's answer to Republican's Karl Rove and the man whose political ingenuity put a blackman in "their" White House, David Axelrod, said that the field of Republican Party's presidential candidate wanna-be is greatly flawed. It is his position that all the candidates position on issues represent the tried and test but failed policies that put the straight-jacket on the US economy in the first place and would not change anything now. 

According to his analysis, although it is going to be a steep climb of a reelection for President Obama, but he shall emerge victorious admitted he may be a little scathed and that deregulation and tax cuts will not cut it. Analogizing further, Mr Axelrod said, "This isn't new wine and old bottles. This is old wine and old bottles." Icheoku agrees with this assessment completely, coming from a man whose mastery of the political terrain is enough to award him a double PhD therein. Now America, take your pick since those named presidential candidate wanna-bes are not offering anything new as a fix for the ailing economy.

DARK CLOUDS OF WAR, GATHERING OVER PAKISTAN?

Icheoku says it does not take a rock science of political analysis of international relations for any honed observer to know that a United States of America's military action or even invasion of Pakistan is a very imminent likelihood. If the government in Islamabad knows what they are doing, they should as a matter of great urgency start placating Washington DC immediately before they have a destroyed country left in their hands. 

Icheoku had previously called for the dropping of some bombs on Pakistan as a lesson on how not to sabotage our anti-terrorism efforts in that God-forsaken region of the world. Now the case is gradually but steadily being made to sensitize Americans and the world on why America boots should be marching into Pakistan and it is gathering some wind. Their lack of good fate with helping the cause in Afghanistan is an open secret; they proactively support the ongoing terrorism ravaging Afghanistan; they are home to so many wanted terrorists; they harbored Osama Bin Laden until he was dispatched to meet with his ten virgins deep inside the dark Arabian sea; they have supported or carried out known terrorist act against America's interests in Afghanistan and last but not the least, they have been fingered in the 2007 murder of an American military officer, Major Larry J. Bauguess! Icheoku says if this litany of Pakistani's atrocious, bellicose and belligerent behavior towards America and against America's interest in that region is not enough provocation as would warrant some military action against a hostile country, which Pakistan has become, then nothing else so qualifies. And with the 2012 election around the corner, may be kicking of some balls in Islamabad might be a good way for a shot in the arm of the White House; or is Icheoku reading these ominous signs wrongly?

"I SEE GOLIATHS EVERYWHERE" - PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN.

 Akin to the child prodigy Osmet in the movie "Sixth Sense" who "sees dead people everywhere," Nigerian President Goodluck Ebelesimi Jonathan now sees Goliaths everywhere in Nigeria. Icheoku wonders whether the president is collapsing mentally to all those occultic powers constantly bombarding him in the spiritual realm or he is suddenly realizing that being a president is a "real hard-work?" 

According to the president, "there are very, very terrible Goliaths everywhere. There are Goliaths that can easily kill their mothers and fathers and even some of their children. And to stop government, they are willing to to do it. These terrible Goliaths would want to frustrate us. But, surely, with God, we will conquer them. Every Goliath has an exposed forehead. All the Goliaths that are stumbling blocks to the development and growth of this country, God will expose their heads for the stone of David." 

Icheoku says there could only be two known Goliaths in Nigeria at worst - Olusegun Obasanjo and Ibrahim Babangida, two men who can really become a stumbling block for the president if they so choose. So Mr President instead of seeing imaginary Goliaths everywhere, start devising a game-plan to cage them or shoot them down with your David's stone. It is about time you start real governing and stop seeing shadows or hallucinating about non-existent Goliaths that are supposedly hounding your government and making it impossible for you to deliver on your campaign promises. 

Please name those Goliaths who are stopping you from doing the work for which you were elected so that Nigerians could put them to shame them or help you slay them. Better still, If you cannot stand the heat, just get out of the kitchen or did anyone ever tell you it was going to be an easy job being Nigeria's president. Take a cue from the former US President George Bush who publicly admitted that the presidency is a hard work. So is Icheoku hearing the same from you, President Jonathan since the rest of Nigerians are not seeing those larger-than-life Goliaths stopping you from doing your work? The really problem here is an ill-prepared president who appears clueless on how to really shake things up for Nigeria to trudge on, now making excuses for his shortcomings? Mister President, icheoku says to you, just put aside the fear of whatever apparition you may be seeing as it is all in your head and start governing - no bogey man is out there to get you!

NIGERIA IS ON GOD'S AUTO-PILOT, SAYS PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONATHAN?

Icheoku says little wonder Mr President is gradually metamorphosing into another President Go-Slow like his late boss and predecessor President Umaru Yar'Adua. The President believes that Nigeria is now a theocracy with God at the helm of affairs and so he must wait for God to decide when things get done in Nigeria? 

Wonders shall never end that an "elected" leader of a people should possess of such stagnant pious mindset, waiting for a "God" to come and do his job for him? Icheoku says and hereby call on the President Goodluck Ebelesimi Jonathan to quit the office if he does not have the fire in the belly to understand that heaven helps those who help themselves. Nigeria is a democracy and not a theocracy whose citizens are eager to reap their democracy-dividends here on earth and from his good governance. God did not run for Nigeria's president nor was God voted for president by Nigerian electorates, so it will be a misplacement of responsibility to expect God to now do the job for which President Jonathan ran and was elected president. What a hilarious comedian Nigerians have for a president and you wonder why nothing is moving forward since since he assumed office as Nigeria's president, waiting for God to provide the much needed leadership that has  eluded Nigeria for too long? 

Icheoku thought that the president's legion of ministers and advisers are more than enough to do the job for him; but now he also wants God to completely take over as president and commander in chief of Nigeria? Continuing his thoughtless guffaw, President Goodluck Jonathan added that 'although he neither possesses the command of a military general nor the mean-streak of a despotic ruler, but he will change the country?" To which Icheoku asks President Jonathan, how and when since you are not in charge but God; and also a wimp cannot bring about desired change? What a day that Nigerians are forced by the man they entrusted with their leadership to nostalgically wish the do or die area father was still running things and not someone waiting for God to descend and take over the mantle of leadership from his unprepared and incapable hands.  

PUTIN'S SECOND COMING, NOT GOOD FOR RUSSIA.

Icheoku does not care a hoot whether or not Vladimir Putin is the best thing to ever happen to Russia after the invention of vodka; but for the former president and current prime minister to stage a comeback to the Kremlin as president is not one such aah moment for any impartial observer. It is rather a political revolving door from which nothing progressive ever emerges as an old leader is recycled yet again and in Russia. 


Such recycling of leaders is a common happenstance in third world countries but not in a country that supposedly prides itself as a top tier country in the world. A Russia that wants to be taken seriously and accorded its rightful place among the comity of nations should not so micro-manage its leadership that a single man should dictate its policies for twenty odd years, the expected future two term of Putin considered in addition to the previous eight. Evolution is good for virtually everything including the running of any government, otherwise ideas and polices become stale and stagnated and so does the polity itself leading to dictatorship. Simply put in another way, what is developing in Russia with the reported second coming of Vladimir Putin is a dictatorship glorified, pure and simple. So Icheoku asks, where is NATO on this development or are they waiting first for a Tsarist Spring to ensue before they do something to discourage or dissuade Putin with his planned return to Kremlin?


Why Putin and what does he wants to prove this time around with his second coming to Kremlin, assuming he ever left. Is Putin trying to say to the rest of the world that no one else in Russia can preside over mother Russia absent his petite self and you ask yourself was there no Russia before he was born and would Russia screech to a halt when he takes his final bow out from this earth. Icheoku does not get it nor does it want to get it that a country of more than 140 million should be so hypnotized by just one man as to willingly permit his playing ping-pong with their presidency and in a democracy; except that former President Mikhail Gorbachev had warned previously that what obtains in Russia is not a democracy strictly called but a form of power ping-pong between Vladimir Putin and whoever he picks as a sparring partner. How can a country so big and potential so untapped be taken hostage by just one man as to do with it whatever he pleases and the days of the Tczars was supposed to be since over? Why are those governments which accused former President Mubarak of Egypt of metamorphosing into a Pharaoh not by the same token raise some curiosity of a Czar Putin in the making or is it a case of some animals being more equal than the others? It is stupendously complicated and incapable of any meaning or rational understanding. 


When the world thought that Russia was turning the corner with the election of a lawyer president and that it would be a progressive onward march hence, here comes marching  back to the center-stage of Kremlin policy making, a security operative, steeped in the old cold war mentality and you wonder for what purpose? The world had gone through a lot of transition since the last time Putin was president including reduced tension in most of the world's hot spots; China has also become a strong emerging power fiercely nudging the United States of America and is content to occupy the number two spot and would not play any second place to either Russia or incoming Putin. So what is gained by a Vladimir Putin heralded return and second coming into Russia presidency, which he never really vacated but bidded his time as his boy Medvedev completed his assigned mandate or should Icheoku say held the fort while the boss waited on the sidelines. All those projection of power argument is nonsense and so also are those bare-chest display of a macho man on a horse-back as the world has since moved on from the era of Putin and it is not ready to slow down now for Putin to play a catch up. 


But it is not just Icheoku, how would Putin himself even feel coming back this time to meet with an entirely different generation of world leaders who have happened on the stage since the last time Putin was there? How would he feel to be seen as a "grandfather world leader" since all those other world leaders he earlier played the scene with have all retired now and enjoying their retirement from the world stage; and here he comes marching back to start learning all over how to schmooze and play with these new generation world leaders. Icheoku says it is akin to a student who refuses or never graduates from college and goes through matriculation each time with freshmen, while his colleagues whom he initially enrolled with have all graduated and moved on to some other ventures in life.


Icheoku says to Russians, your understandable love for Putin notwithstanding, his reemergence in the Kremlin is retrogressive and not what a forward-looking Russia needs at this time. Icheoku have nothing personally against Putin and admires his records; but says that since his reemergence brings nothing new to the table and is rather a distraction from a pure democratic march forward, it could and should have been avoided. At best he could have remained the man behind the scene calling the shots as a prime minister or the acknowledged boss of Russian politics and security. 


In making his intention known, Putin said, "I want to say directly: Medvedev and I reached an agreement between ourselves long ago, several years ago, on what to do in the future, on who should do what. But both I and Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev believe that this is far from being the most important thing -- who will do what, who will sit in what place. What is far more important is something else: how we will all work, what results we achieve, and what the citizens of our country think of this." Icheoku says what an arrogant and arrant nonsense of a statement for Putin to make as if himself and Medvedev owns Russia or are the only competent and capable Russians in a country of more than 140 million people to decide for Russians who shall occupy what position in their governance. The last time Icheoku checked Russia does not have a "Plc" or "Llc" or "Inc" as a suffix after its name and you wonder how a country which is not a public company could be run as one and by a man who sees himself as both a director and shareholder of "Russia Plc" with unlimited powers to decide who becomes its president and/or prime minister? 


The two Russian wise-men are trading places, with each taking over from one another just like a swap-meet; and you wonder what kind of democracy Russia really practices. It is a democracy-disgrace that such an arbitrary trade of offices between this two men of little stature and especially the return of a recycled Putin could be tolerated in 2011 Russia; yet Russia is not a third world country? Icheoku says every Russian should be ashamed of what their republic has become - a little polity that could be easily hijacked by a Putin, whose ego is such that you would think he is ten feet taller than all Russians and that makes him the only thing mother Russia ever desires and deserves. A time like this surely calls for an Arab-styled Tczarist Spring in Russia to usher in a much needed and long overdue rebirth of the polity or did Bolshevik revolution not take place in the old Soviet Union including the present Russian for crying out loud.

FOLSOM STREET FAIR, GOING BUTT NAKED IN SAN FRANCISCO!

Still wondering why San Francisco California has the reputation as one of the most friendly cities in the world; where it is okay to be whatever you want to be and do whatever it is that keeps your body and soul together? Where nobody judges you for who you are - whether straight or crooked, gay or lesbian, transgender as well as other 'born-that-ways' or even totally celibate? 

Such is the degree of freedom one gets therein that it is even legally okay to light up a joint in front of a police officer provided you are having some pain somewhere, hence using it as medicinal recreation. The city by the bay has so infused free in freedom that so many would-be suicides are no longer suicidal and have deferred or completely changed their plans to jump off the majestic Golden-Gate bridge to eternal freedom? Icheoku says, desperate for freedom to live and enjoy yourself, take the next plane or Amtrak or Greyhound on a one-way ticket to SF and join the party. This prevalent freedom in San Francisco includes the freedom to take it all off and stride the streets butt-naked in your Adam-suit? If this feels like your environment or you want to attend a really grown-up adult party once in your life, may be next year, during the month of September, last Sunday of the month precisely, visit Folsom Street in the city, blocks 7 through 12 and they will make you a believer. That single visit will open your eyes on why so many people call the city by the bay home. For the city, it is come all ye that seek freedom and I will give you shelter to freely express yourself. 

A couple is seen above as they strolled through this year 2011 Folsom Street Fair that held Sunday September 25, 2011 in the city. Folsom Street Fair is an annual 'bare-cheeked celebration of bondage, discipline and sexual expression that plays out in San Francisco every year on the last Sunday of September.' Icheoku says why not check it out next year, afterall we were all born naked and what those clothes hide is already an open secret; so what the heck - just take it all off if you dare, provided there is something to make the eye go wow and the heart wander. It is simply a yearning for a return back to the old days or the biblical Garden of Eden when humans were truly free expressively. In case you couldn't make it during the window mentioned, a visit to the Castro any day you are in San Francisco would probably throw up some naked butts sideshow for your entertainment - they are called the NAKED GUYS naturalists or nudists of San Francisco who prefer to wear exhibitionist natural clothes called human-skins instead of animal-skins, man-made cottons and other synthetic coverings!

STEVEN ACUNA OF NEW JERSEY, KILLS WIFE AND ENTOMBS HER IN CONCRETE.

Icheoku says the simple solution is not to do it in the first place as every tested means of hiding or disposing bodies have most always proved abortive. Scott Patterson of Modesto California killed and weighted down his dead pregnant wife in the San Francisco bay but it magically floated back to shore. 

Now another crazed out New Jersey man, Steven Acuna, has killed his wife and entombed her remains in a 55 gallon oil-drum filled with concrete-cement, thinking that he had devised a fool-proof means of disposing his wife's dead body?  But no; not when the police are up to their game as they discovered the grisly concrete housing the slain wife, Randy Lehrer, in the basement of their 42 Charles Street, Jersey City apartment building where they lived with their 11 month old infant daughter, whose mother was killed by her father and who is now technically an orphan since the father would most likely get the death penalty. Icheoku must point out that his method of disposal of a killed wife's remains or attempt thereof was not novel as a Las Vegas dancer-showgirl was not too long ago murdered, dismembered and similarly entombed in concrete cement by her ex-boyfriend. 

The couple had recurring arguments, fights and other ancillary domestic quarrels and on August 17, 2011 Steven decided enough is enough and to do something final about it. Icheoku says killing another is never the answer or solution to domestic disputations - instead of taking another person's life, just file for divorce or simply walk away from the relationship. Steven, five days after encasing his dead wife and mother of his child in concrete cement, reported her missing to the police. However the mother of the slain woman and Steven's mother inlaw said that when she had earlier called her daughter's phone with no response from her, Steven answered to tell her that his wife was sleeping, tired from her new job's new shift? Icheoku says in as much as Steven could technically argue that his dead wife was sleeping, but he was guilty of non full disclosure as he did not add the qualifier that she was mummified and sleeping inside a concrete cement-filled oil barrel? What a shame that an otherwise preventable domestic violence have claimed yet another life. 

DEION SANDERS DIVORCING HIS FAME-SEEKING WIFE.

 

Who says marriage still works, especially when you are married to a woman long tired of walking under your shadow of fame and fortune and now wants her own shine? Pilar Sanders, wife of Hall of Fame footballer, Deion Sanders, got fed up with just being the dutiful wife of Deion and wants some of the headlines for herself too. She dove into the also wanna-be famous reality television to pursue a career in trashing her business on public television and contrary to the wishes of Deion who wanted a wife and not a television star. As a consequence thereof, Barry has filed for divorce after eleven long years of coupling together as he does not want his wife to become an object of "ridicule, scorn and/or laughter" on a television tube. 


Explaining his decision, Deion said, "Enough is enough. I never signed up for all this. Enough is enough. If I wanted a model or a television star for a wife, I would have married one a long time ago. All I wanted was a housewife." Icheoku says was this too much for a husband to ask of a wife, especially when such a husband can take care of business effectively, financially and otherwise, being the superstar millionaire sportsman that he is? Icheoku does not think so, except that no one really knows or understands what it is that women wants; and what moves them or how they prioritize or rationalize their decisions. 


However, Mr Deion Sanders never told anybody whether the housewife he referenced that he wanted excluded the type found in "Desperate Housewives of Atlanta, Los Angeles or Orange county; afterall they too are housewives and like he recently found out, his soon to be ex-wife herself was one of them, admitted she remained in the closet until now. Furthermore women's right to choose is not exclusive of abortion or family planning rights only, it also includes choosing between having a husband or being famous; and Pilar Sanders has chosen like many shallow minded women would, forgetting that life on television has a very limited lifespan. But hey, Icheoku does not believe in marriage or that any marriage really works; so welcome to the club Mr Sanders.

'RUSSEL BREWER HAD CHOICES, HE MADE THE WRONG ONE' - SISTER.

Icheoku says as the blood-thirsty Texas State "equal-opportunity" death row guillotine keeps on churning, another person has had his life terminated - this time a victim of a State's killing machine that is on pure steroids! Admitted that bigoted white racist and supremacist gang member, Lawrence Russel Brewer's crime deserved no less a punishment, but there is need to observe sanctity of life as no life is worth taking by any human be it the society, government or individual.  

Russel, 44, convicted for the savage slaying of a blackman, James Byrd Jr., 49, was put to death in Texas today, bringing to double-digit the number of inmates that have been put to death in Texas just this year alone. His three-man gang chained the victim by the legs to the back of their pickup truck as they dragged his towed body through a bumpy asphalt country road until his body completely disintegrated piecemeal in a grisly forced execution. The victim's remains were so mangled that the investigating officers first thought it was a roadkill - wild animal that had been severally ran over by vehicles on the road? Icheoku says give it up for Texas when it comes to outdoing any other state in the Union both in hate crimes and punishment; otherwise how could any human-being drag another living human-being in such beastly fashion until his cranium yielded its content and decapitated from the torso, as the entire body pulled apart one section after another into chunks of several balls of human flesh? What a painful and tortuous way to die and the victim's only crime was being black in 2008 American Texas?

However unlike the other recently executed killer in the State of Georgia, Lawrence Russell Brewer took his fate like a man - he did not cower or plead for extended leniency and was strung out in his hatred for other people who do not look like him until his final breath. He made no final statement nor apologized to his victim's family and said nothing either to his aged parents and sisters who attended the macabre show to watch as their son and brother was forcibly put down like an animal. According to one of the sisters who witnessed the killing of her brother, it is imperative that the family watch him put to death. However, Icheoku does not understand whether such professed desire was out of necessity for a closure or to express their family's disdain for such a heinous crime that was committed by a family member and for which he was put to death? Concluding, she said that 'her brother had choices but made the wrong choice.' 

CATHERINE KIEU BECKER, A CRAZY BITCH PENIS-CUTTER.

Icheoku says some women are not called bitches for nothing as so many of them are damn crazy and for real. Otherwise what in the world would make a woman cut off her husband's manhood with a kitchen knife and have it shredded in a garbage disposal machine and then goes on to mouth-off that "he deserved it?" Icheoku says it cannot be anything short of some affliction of a psychopathic, dysfunctional, disequilibrium of the mind which put her actions beyond and above her cognitive control? Put in another word, such a woman deserves a specially ward in a Cuckoo's nest, period!

Catherine Kieu Becker of Garden Grove Orange County Southern California, USA is that woman as she laced her 60-year-old husband's tofu dinner with some mind and body altering and arresting substance, then bound his hands and feet to the bed post as she went on to sever off his wee-wee. Not done yet, she proceeded to shred the severed piece of penile appendage in a garbage disposal machine as she waited for the called police to arrive; upon which she shouted that her husband deserved it. 

Icheoku is really at a loss how a once loving spouse could be this crazed-out to inflict such aggravated bodily injury on her spouse except that William Shakespeare had admonished the world that hell knows no fury like a woman scorned. According to the developing story, the husband had filed for divorce and Mrs Kieu would have none of that or entertain the thoughts of having another woman enjoy what she has been used to and decided to just destroy it? What a selfish form of mutilation or should Icheoku say maiming. If only she had the presence of the mind to just cut the penis without shredding it, may be the husband could have some scintilla of hope of still remaining a man as surgical procedure would have done their magic; but a shredded penile, except some Plastic surgeons who specialize in transgender operations comes to the rescue with construction of a new phallus? 

What a terrible loss for any man to bear and Icheoku agrees with Dr. Joel Gelman, head of the UC Irvine's Center for Reconstructive Urology, that severed penis is indeed "a terrible loss" for any man as even a complete castration would have been a preferred choice were the man given an option to elect his form of mutilation by his loony wife. Icheoku says what a piece of savage daughter of Eve this woman from hell is, another God forsaken copycat Lorena Bobbitt from Garden Grove California who deserves to have her genitalia stitched up tightly together since she possesses nothing down there to cut off with such a devastating consequence. But why do women not know how to quietly take what they frequently dish out to men - just the other day, the woman President Obama party crasher ran off with a musician while the husband was frantic searching for his kidnapped and missing wife?

"FOR THOSE ABOUT TO TAKE MY LIFE, GOD HAVE MERCY OF YOUR SOULS" - TROY DAVIS.

Icheoku knows that Georgia would execute Troy Davis irrespective of the many protesters proclaiming his innocence on the streets of Atlanta and not withstanding the several witnesses that later recanted their incriminating testimony that led to his conviction in the first place. The fact of the matter is that the executed convict was tried and convicted for the 1989 murder of off-duty Savannah Georgia police officer Mark MacPhail by a jury of his peers and the state can only apply the sentence as prescribed by law. However it would appear that the beyond reasonable doubt threshold of any criminal conviction was not "met" based on subsequent developments post conviction. But like the saying goes, it is all now history as the convict was put to death by lethal injection today notwithstanding several last minute effort to starve it off. 

Throwing on the lawyer's hat for a moment, it appears that Troy's conviction was based on his role as an accomplice and not necessarily as the principal who pulled the trigger that dropped police officer MacPhail. Legally both parties are equally responsible for their conduct in the commission of a crime and in this case the guilty verdict on Troy appears to be in order irrespective of the probability that he may not have been the one that actually pulled the trigger. It suffices that he participated in the crime or process that led to the killing of the victim and failed to do something to stop it. Even Troy himself admitted this much when in his final words, he said "I'm not the one who personally killed your son, your father, your brother. The incident that happened that night is not my fault. I did not have a gun." A careful read of this his statement puts him squarely at the scene of the crime and his saying it was "not my fault" or that he "did not have a gun" does not make him any less responsible for the resulted crime which in the state of Georgia is punishable by death. So legally speaking, there was neither a miscarriage of justice nor the execution of the wrong person as accomplice liability, assuming he was not the trigger man, still made him culpable for the resulting crime of murder.

Icheoku says his protestation of innocence stemmed from a layman's understanding or lack of it of criminal liability as his position of not being the shooter does not in anyway excuse his criminality in this case. So sentiments and emotions aside, Icheoku states that those who in Troy's understanding "took his life" only did their job which was to carry out a valid subsisting sentence handed down by a jury of Troy's peers and legally their hands are washed clean just like Pilate did with Jesus. So instead of Troy saying "For those about to take my life, may God have mercy on your souls;" he should have been humble enough to pray for his own soul to find mercy before God and for closure for the victim's family. Admitted evidence "abound" that he did not personally kill MacPhil, at least his legal obligation to prevent the commission of a crime was not met since a person can be either guilty of commission or omission in criminal matters - he was present and possibly cheered on as whoever it was pumped some hot led into the police officer. 

Icheoku asks, but when would all these southern states that like to prove their macho by putting people to death become more urbane to understand that just like their protected fetal lives, lives of criminals are also worthy of protection. That it is not only when it involves a woman's right to choose that live matters but that any live is worthy of protection since they did not create it and therefore not in a good position to be selective as to the lives to save and those to destroy. Just be fair across the board on the issue of live - if you must take, take all and if you must protect, protect all. Today, Texas which parades itself as God's bible belt state have executed more people than all the states in the union combined and now Georgia is racing to join it in that gory blood-letting pedestal. Needless to suggest that the drought ravaging parts of the Lone Star state might be a divine way of telling Texans enough of these blood-shedding. 

Icheoku says the best way out of this dilemma of what to do with heinous criminals may be just to lock them up and throw away the keys, instead of the current barbarians-behavior of love for the macabre, watching as we put people down like disused animals. To the family of the victim, Troy's death will not bring back your lost loved one nor would any real closure result therefrom sincerely speaking and at best it is a mere vengeance. To the executed convicts family, take solace that Troy feels no pain anymore thinking about such day as today when he would be strapped down like an animal and forced to breathe no more. There is certainly a fork on the road as to the best way to punish heinous crimes in our society since these death sentences and executions of criminals have not deterred criminals from committing heinous crimes as anticipated. It has so far proved to be rather a useless way of punishing criminals but since society says it has to stay, so it stays until a more effective and less uncivilized manner is devised.

RABBANI ASSASSINATION, AFGHAN TALIBAN DESTRUCTIVELY VERY CREATIVE?

 Icheoku says admitted those Taliban terrorists are despicable but the world must give it up for them in their creativity with murdering their foes. Betcha ya that James Bond 007 must be green with envy at those mullahs ever inventing minds on how to successfully reach their targets with deadly consequences. 

First they murdered Lion of Panjshir, Ahmad Shah Massoud, with a television camera rigged explosive posing as journalist interviewing him? Now they devised a turban-explosive as a weapon of choice in taking out an ex-president; yet the French are being singled out for banning Islamic burka in public places? Icheoku asks where does this mullahs get this their fancy ideas of carrying out high-profile murders and is anyone still safe in Afghanistan including President Karzai?  Who knows what next their wicked but very creative minds would come up with as they ensnare their next victim. Any solution to the war-cursed country is very far fetched if not non existent, judging from the age long feuding nature of the tribal Afghan society. Icheoku opines that NATO should consider abandoning that desolate country to its fate and as buffer just deploy drones to knock them out as they rear their turbaned heads. To the bereaved family of the murdered former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, Icheoku says take solace that your patriarch was murdered for his peace effort.

DONT ASK, DONT TELL IS OVER - OBAMA

"You don't have to hide who you love to serve the country you love - military's don't ask, don't tell, is over. That is what the promised change is all about and we delivered." Icheoku says, just the truth Mr President and four more years to "That One" who really gets it.

DOLORES HOPE JOINS HUBBY AT 102.

 One lady of song asked "what's love got to do with it" and Icheoku here responds the Hope couple is what love got to do with it. Married for sixty-nine years, husband, legendary entertainer Bob Hope (left) died in 2003 at age 100 and now eight years after, his dutiful and lovely wife, Dolores Hope (right) has joined him aged 102. Icheoku says it takes a lot ton of love to achieve such a milestone of life together for 69 years and living up to one century in this world. As graceful lady Dolores Hope makes her exit from this world, Icheoku says what a wonderful ride it has been for the couple and now she can rejoin her husband as they continue to do what they do best - entertaining the angels up there. Both died of old age related natural causes. Adieu Dolores!

KARA KENNEDY, ANOTHER KENNEDY BITES THE DUST.

 Icheoku says call it the curse of the Kennedy still swinging its hammer, but another Kennedy within so soon after their Patriarch Edward Kennedy died is rather a death too many for just one family to mourn. Kara Kennedy, the only daughter of Late Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, died while working out in a Washington DC area gym on Friday, September 15, 2011 of possibly heart-attack; she was 51 years old. 

According to her, 'What mattered in life was not the scale of an accomplishment, but that each person did his/her share to make the world a better place. Also that we learn we are part of something larger than ourselves.' Icheoku agrees completely and adds that it does not matter the possessions one amasses or the amount of money one has in a safe deposit or bank, when the time is up, one can only be remembered by the good deed he/she did wile alive. So advise your actions while there is still some air in your lungs with this perspective in mind. Icheoku says may the soul of Kara Kennedy rest in peace.

PALESTINIAN STATEHOOD QUESTION, GOOD FOR THE GOOSE, GOOD FOR THE GANDER.

 Icheoku says whatever may be the "harsh and grave consequences" threatened, the Palestine should damn it and try their luck for a statehood with the United Nations general assembly. Over 20 years of negotiations to no where has not yielded any meaningful result nor the statehood which they crave and desire as a people. Enough of all these make-belief negotiations which has proved to be a simple photo-up. 

Icheoku says It is called Options - if Option 1 is not working and has no likelihood of working or has simply put, failed, let the Palestine people try Option 2. Just do it Palestine and face whatever consequences that may follow; and with the Arab Spring still much in the air, the Palestine people could not have asked for a better time and golden opportunity. Unequivocally put, Palestine deserve their day at the United Nations, period; and if they fail it would not be for lack of trying. At least their people would see that their leadership did not chicken out but tried and failed due to Israeli superior lobby. Since they are guaranteed to fail, not trying at all would be a worst case scenario for the Palestine leadership before the Arab world; so they have more to gain by being seen as brave enough to venture where eagles feared to tread. 

It is pertinent to note that the present Jewish State of Israel traveled practically the same United Nation's route, now being sought by the Palestine people, to a statehood in 1948. So the question remains, why the objection, why not Palestine? Icheoku believes that what is good for the goose should equally be good for the gander and it is irrational for any party with sincere motive of bringing about a peaceful Mideast to find fault with this Palestine planned UN recourse to a stalled negotiation. The world wants to see two states of Israel and Palestine living side by side in peace and with a clearly delineated defensible borders such that these two little boys, pictured, could have an environment to practice what they preached by this picture - ONE LOVE.

$50 MILLION MEDICAL CARE COST, IS ANY LIFE WORTH THAT TO SAVE?

Icheoku says we do not know about you but sincerely speaking, no life is worth fifty million dollars to save; moreso since the victim is not Bill Gates or Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet whose presence in this world is tremendously very effective and productive as to worth every dime spent to prolong it. Call Icheoku callous, uncaring and/or unfeeling, but reality check speaking, this man's life is not that important to warrant such outrageous amount to save or try to save. 

Icheoku says were the victim a blackman or any other minority classed American, the plugs of life would have since been pulled; but at last, he has the right skin pigmentation and there is a deep pocket to be mined. Even Israeli Ariel Sharon, the longest artificial life sustained hospital patient in the world did a lot for the state of Israel to deserve his continuous artificial sustenance while in coma; but not an EMT staffer. If he is not brain-dead yet and all his motors are functioning, what are the prognosis of a long term full recovery to warrant this amount of hospital care? Icheoku simply does not get it; moreso under this very dire economic climate in the country. If he cannot recover, the family should seriously consider allowing him some dignified exit and discourage this outrageous medical care cost being prospected by his lawyers. 

Further, no one knows if the victim has a medical insurance or is part of the group of millions of uninsured Americans who were advised never to get sick and if, to die quickly? Anyway, Icheoku has no dog in this fight and the medical cost care might as well be one hundred million dollars for all we care; but we state for the record that no life including Bryan Stow's life is worth wasting $50 million on to save or trying to save. As you would recall, Bryan is a San Francisco Giants fan who travelled to Los Angeles to see a game between his team and the LA Dodgers, only to be beaten into coma by some out of control Dodger's fans. However, the pathetic nature of this unfortunate incident notwithstanding, Icheoku reiterates that $50 million medical care cost is not economically a smart decision sure to make just to save a life and it is sure to go into the Guinness Book of Records as the most expensive ever spent on just one person's life.

OUT OF THE DEVASTATION OF 9/11, A RISING PHOENIX !

Icheoku says as we marked the tenth anniversary of the horrendous assault on American soil by the now sleeping with the fishes Osama Bin Laden, thankfully one of the most haunting void at midtown Manhattan is finally being filled. With the sprouting World Trade One, hope now exists that the void left in our hearts with 9/11 will also begin to heal just as the terrorist wasteland in Manhattan, which was a constant reminder of the evil that men could do has begun to come alive. 

With that said, let us remember all those that were killed on 9/11 as well as those who have since lost their lives too with the counter-offensive against terrorism. A push-back counter-offensive started by those brave Flight 93 passengers, who in former President George Walker Bush's words, were the “first counteroffensive effort in the war on terror.” Icheoku says may those putting back the WTC never tire nor falter as they build a place of pride for our nation and all other peace loving peoples of the world. Finally at last, the Ground Zero is now fast transforming into "Ground Something" and so would lives after 9/11.

SEPTEMBER ELEVEN (9/11) MEMORIAL, BEAUTIFUL AND RIVETING.

Icheoku says the National September Eleven (9/11) Memorial in midtown Manhattan is indeed splendidly beautiful. Architect Michael Arad (right in the picture above) did a great job in capturing the essence of the loss as well as bringing to live the memories of those who perished in the tragedy. The dark reflecting pool as well as the cascading individual waterfalls indeed makes it for Icheoku as water is life and their individual essence marks the individuality of what was lost on that day. Luckily from the tragedy has sprung forth a national memorial which like those in Washington DC will now serve as another anchor to millions of visitors and tourists that visit New York City. The size is also quite awesome and complimentary to the Big Apple's otherwise grandeur and opulence. Icheoku heretofore congratulates the architect Michael Arad, all the planning and approving committees and those construction workers who brought to reality the conceived, for a job well done. Thankfully World trade One is chasing the skies at an awesome speed and before too long, it alongside other adjoining super structures that will replace the destroyed twin towers would be completed to give the entire acreage its full comeback. Icheoku will visit NYC soon to personally capture the work being rendered at the new Ground Something - the new moniker for the former Ground Zero, site of the World Trade Center. Until then let all Americans rejoice that from the ashes of 9/11 has risen and is rising, a new, reinvented and vibrant WTC. 

9/11 MEMORIAL LIGHTS, SIMPLY MAGNIFICENT.

Icheoku does not know about you, but this twin lights representing those twin towers that used to be is indeed captivating. The brains that thought it our as well as those who brought the concept to life should be commended. Icheoku therefore says thank you to those minds behind the twin lights. What an awesome piece of beauty this landscape picture is - reflecting East River and Brooklyn bridge as well as some Manhattan skyline. This is atypical of unparalleled American's ingenuity and very fertile creative mind. 

EGYPTIAN PROTESTERS LEAVE ISRAEL ALONE, BUILD YOUR DEMOCRACY FIRST.

Icheoku calls on those Egyptian protesters to stop antagonizing countries or peoples, but to first consolidate and build their democracy and let other things follow or fall in place. The unsightly vandalism at the Israeli embassy building in Cairo is uncalled for and unnecessary as it will now portray the Egyptians as a riotous anti-Israel mob out to settle old scores instead of those admired patriots who got their country back from former President Hosni Mubarak's vice-hold. 

Please sons and daughters of the land of the Pharaohs, sheath your anger at the Jewish State or any other country for that matter and concentrate on getting your democracy off the ground and out of the incubator where it has been for the last six months. Please carry out less of this religious-themed vandalism which attracts only negative publicity for Egypt and Egyptians at large. If there are things to iron out between Israel and Egypt, it is one of the reasons why government exists as it is the duty of the governments in Cairo and Tel Aviv to sought them out but not riotous mob taking matters into their hands. Please do not imitate those Ayatollahs in Tehran who took hostages at an American embassy in 1979 and are still being called out for that intransigent several decades later. Also remember that the West does not forget easily and if in doubt, ask Moummar Gaddafi of Libya who has now been punished for his government's role in the Lockerbie PA AM plane bombing and his government's deceitful securing of the release of the imprisoned Libyan State security operative who was convicted over Lockerbie. 

If only Gaddafi knew better not to mess with the West or remembered that the West neither forgets nor forgives, may be he could still be in power in Tripoli as President and also as a self-styled King of Africa. So Egyptians, you better watch it as there can be no messing with the Israelis without provoking the wrath of America led West; so you are warned to desist from such thoughtless vandalism of a foreign state's sovereignty within your territorial geography. Icheoku further observes that the Egyptian security forces were rather too slow in acting to prevent and/or stop the vandalism at the Israeli embassy in Cairo; except they just played coy because Israel was the target as a way to continuing their pandering to those protesters who are yet to see the light of true democracy lit in Egypt six months after they deposed Hosni Mubarak. But who knows?

RIBADU'S BACKSTABBING AS HIGH ART - an article by Levi Obijiofor

If the information contained in the leaked United States’ embassy cables released last week by Internet whistle-blower Wikileaks is accurate, the former chairperson of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nuhu Ribadu, must be seriously troubled. Reports published in this week’s editions of two national newspapers — the Punch and Vanguard (5 September 2011) — which was obtained from Wikileaks alleged that Ribadu told former United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Ms Robin Sanders, that corruption under Olusegun Obasanjo’s government was far worse than it was under the regime of Sani Abacha.

According to Vanguard and the Punch, Wikileaks reported that Ribadu’s comments were made during a four-hour private meeting he had with Ms Sanders in late December 2007. A major item on the agenda of the meeting was Ribadu’s transfer from the EFCC to the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS) for further studies. There were other issues that touched on national security.

This revelation by Wikileaks will worry not only Ribadu but also Obasanjo. It is odd that Ribadu, a man appointed by Obasanjo as the chief anti-corruption crusader of the government, would harbour such negative impressions about the administration that he served. This is classical backstabbing of the kind never before experienced by the Nigerian public. Why would Ribadu tell the US diplomat what he was unable to tell Nigerians for years about the level of corruption in Obasanjo’s government? And why would Ribadu portray Obasanjo’s government, the same government that he served, as an administration infested with corrupt officials? What this implies is that Ribadu’s capacity to judge human character is at best inconsistent.

Ribadu will not emerge from this latest scandal more honourable than he was prior to the disclosure. For years, he entertained national and international audiences with exaggerated accounts of the EFCC’s achievements during his tenure. At the peak of his power, he was seen as a superstar, an emblem of anti-corruption for which he was invited to international conferences and workshops. During Obasanjo’s tenure which coincided with the period that Ribadu reigned as EFCC chairperson, Obasanjo repeatedly challenged all those who accused him of corruption to produce evidence to substantiate their allegation. Ribadu did not rise to that challenge. He kept mum and fooled the nation into believing that Obasanjo’s government was most righteous.

Ribadu’s silence about his knowledge of corruption in Obasanjo’s government was probably driven by an overriding interest in his own ego. His persona was sustained by the folk hero status which showed a dashing senior police officer without blemishes in pursuit of corrupt men and women across the country. Unbeknown to foreign officials and some Nigerians, Ribadu was not really the quintessential 21st century anti-corruption law enforcement officer despatched by natural forces to clean up the corrupt and filthy nation known as Nigeria. He was not deeply committed to the war on corruption because now we know he believed the government he served was stinkingly corrupt. And yet Ribadu’s EFCC took pride in harassing corrupt rodents – small men and women who constitute a blot in the corruption map – as well as critics of Obasanjo’s government.

The Wikileaks revelations have shredded the mystique surrounding Ribadu. Everyone now knows, through his own confidential discussion with the former US diplomat, that Ribadu the prophet did not truly believe in his anti-corruption sermon because he understood his boss to be a shepherd who managed a government of corrupt men and women. Evidence from the leaked diplomatic cables suggests unambiguously that Ribadu was not truly dedicated to the government’s campaign against corruption. If he was steadfast, he would not have remained loyal to a government he believed to be soaked in endemic corruption.

I would argue that the late disclosure by Ribadu of what he knew about Obasanjo’s government may have also harmed his (Ribadu’s) integrity. Whatever drove the man to make such spiteful, if not vicious, comparison between Obasanjo’s government and Sani Abacha’s regime needs to be unpacked carefully. All through the years that Ribadu served Obasanjo, he told the nation in public and private fora that Obasanjo was spotless and that the EFCC had no evidence of corruption against Obasanjo’s government. However, the leaked cables suggest that Ribadu had a different idea about the level of corruption in the government that Obasanjo led. If corruption was so widespread in Obasanjo’s administration, as Ribadu reportedly confided in the US diplomat, why didn’t he take a dignified exit from that government, by resigning as the boss of the EFCC?

The entire revelation has cast Ribadu in the image of a double agent, a man who must never be believed or trusted. While he pretended to be a loyal servant of Obasanjo during the time he served as the EFCC chairperson, he also found time to sneak out to convey to a diplomat allegations which a genuine law enforcement officer would have used effectively to prosecute all those believed to be corrupt. This sneaky kind of behaviour qualifies Ribadu to be conferred with the unenviable title of the man with a double face.

On the basis of the Wikileaks’ disclosures, there are many questions that Ribadu alone must answer. The longer he delays his response, the more the leaks will damage his previous image as a well respected senior police officer. He has no reason whatsoever to act like a mole for the US diplomat in Nigeria. That conduct raises a more serious question that touches on our national security. Has anyone considered what would have happened to our national security interests if Ribadu had won this year’s presidential election? No one would guarantee that Nigeria’s national interests would be secure in the man’s hands, given that he finds it fashionable (as shown in the Wikileaks’ report) to relay matters of national interests to agents of foreign governments.

After reading the accounts of the Wikileaks’ revelations published in the Vanguard and the Punch newspapers this week, I wondered what might be going through Ribadu’s mind. His reputation as the no-nonsense incorruptible anti-corruption watchdog who was dreaded at the time he headed the EFCC has now been blemished by revelations about what he knew and how he failed to do anything to stop corruption at the highest levels of government. Ribadu bottled up his knowledge of corruption in Obasanjo’s government while he portrayed himself as the unstoppable anti-corruption chief.

What could have motivated Ribadu to say all those nasty things he said about Obasanjo while he presented to the nation an exaggerated image of the man he served? Did Ribadu intend to establish himself as the pillar of wisdom on which American diplomats would draw secret information about the weaknesses of our national leaders? All the statements Ribadu made in the past to absolve Obasanjo’s government of corrupt practices could now be regarded as one man’s untruthful accounts of the government’s fight against corruption.

While I will not defend Obasanjo and his government (I have never really been an admirer of the man and his eccentric ways), I would argue that Ribadu’s confidential comments about Obasanjo were driven chiefly by self-serving objectives. Unfortunately, those confidential assertions have been transformed into public knowledge, thanks to Wikileaks. Ribadu would have realised by now that in the complex world of diplomatic exchanges, nothing really qualifies as confidential conversation anymore. What is classified as secret information today will eventually become unclassified or unrestricted information tomorrow.

It is unimaginable that one man could talk so single-mindedly and clandestinely about the high level of corruption in the government that he served and yet ignore the fact that he was the head of that government’s anti-corruption agency and also the model of morality for the nation. Although we are all better informed about Obasanjo’s government owing to Ribadu’s unrestrained conversations with an American diplomat, Ribadu must now feel he has committed a major blunder.

In and out of office, Ribadu radiates the image of a man who is specially equipped with an over-abundance of wisdom. But public perceptions of his good judgment have been undermined by his prattle about Obasanjo’s government. Let me be sharp here: Ribadu’s secret statements about Obasanjo’s government have typecast him (Ribadu) as a cold-hearted and manipulative man who has immeasurable political ambition. Ribadu’s allegiance to Obasanjo must now be regarded as fragile as a piece of chinaware.

Obasanjo is arrogant, insufferable and lacks decorum in public places but why did it take Ribadu so long to reveal that Obasanjo’s government was far more corrupt than the government that Sani Abacha led in the mid to late 1990s? Ribadu and Obasanjo are locked in a game of wits.

PDP RAISES THE BAR, SAYS PARTY WILL RULE NIGERIA FOREVER?

 Icheoku says when one thinks that the former Peoples Democratic Party chairman Vincent Ogbulafor was a crazy basket mouth for saying that his PDP shall rule Nigeria for sixty years, here comes the crazier mother of all blabber-mouths, the current acting chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje. According to this mallam, Vincent Ogbulafor's sixty years was too modest and not ambitious enough; and so in his own power-drunk estimation, the PDP dominance of politics in Nigeria shall be FOREVER! 

Nigerians, you have heard it, so it is now for opposition parties to unite and team up and tell PDP, not under our watch. But such camaraderie among the opposition is not possible because of the selfishness of Nigerian political leaders who are in it for their own personal gains only. Moreso Wiki Leaks just disclosed that Nigeria Supreme Court Justices were purchased by late President Umaru Yar'Adua for $57million to return a favorable verdict for him. Icheoku therefore says even it means that in a case where the PDP were to even lose an election, they would buy a favorable verdict since they are already in power and control the power of the purse. So is there any solution to the PDP declared monopoly of power in Nigeria?