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.

Thursday, October 20, 2011

GADDAFI SUFFERS THE FATE OF DICTATORS, DIES LIKE A DOG.

In what President Barack Obama described as a stark warning to other authoritarian leaders across the globe particularly the Middle East, iron-fisted rule as always "inevitably comes to an end" and such was the fate suffered by the former Libyan "strongman" and self-declared "King of Africa", Moummar Gaddafi. Not only did Gaddafi loss his grip over Libyans but the people of Libya, who suffered so much atrocities under his maximum power, went further to take their pound of flesh but this time with lots of blood. Gaddafi died in the hands of his people - the Libyan people; killed on the streets of Sirte like a common criminal or should Icheoku say, a DOG? 

What an irony of life that men think power is theirs to forever keep and to misuse same to the detriment of their people for whose primary benefit such power vested on the ruler in the first place. Gaddafi had every opportunity to be better and to change the course which eventually led to his undignified demise, but he did not positively engineer it. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely such that Gaddafi upon consolidating his vice-hold on the people of Libya became tone-deaf to their plight; and instead listened to a few select sycophantic inner circle members of his, who only told him what is melodious to his ears as long as they were left aboard the gravy-train. Today, October 20, 2011, as he was felled by volley of bullets of his Libyan people on the street of Sirte, none of those yes-men and yes-women fell with him nor were even around to share their leaders final moments on this earth enroute to rendezvousing with his seventy virgins. 

Moummar Gaddafi's fall from power, culminating to his shameful death on the street like a dog, shows the futility of many African leaders policy of "arming to the teeth." Instead of spending their country's resources wisely on building uplifting projects and institutions that could take their countries to the next level, they maniacally buy all sorts of weaponry from death-merchants all over the world with which they kill and maim their people just to put enough fear in them in order to or attempt to perpetuate themselves in power. Imagine all the Russian as well as possibly American and European tanks, fighter planes, missiles, rockets, other heavy weapons as well as all sorts of guns and ammunition which Gaddafi bought and paid for with Libyan's resources over the forty-two years he forcibly maintained himself in power? Yet these were not enough to deter a willing people, tired of his despotism, from moving against his hold on power which resulted to his cheap-death today. Those weapons could not protect him or save him nor keep him in power; they proved a no match for a people made nearly insane by his iron-fist inhuman rule of several decades. It is even possible that the bullet that dispatched him to the great beyond was bought by him or fired from a gun that was part of his amassed arsenal weapon of destruction of the Libyan people?  Such irrational drunken-sailor like purchase of weapons by African and third world leaders only succeeds in keeping those merchants of death and their home governments' citizens in their jobs, making more weapons including futuristic weapons to still be sold to those who will eventually succeed Gaddafi. Icheoku wonders the need for these weapons and to defend what, if these leaders could only provide a fair peoples-orientated governments? 

Moummar Gaddafi meant so many things to so many people - to Icheoku, he was an African patriot wanna-be, who did not know how to truly be patriotic and in a good way. He wanted a place for Africa on the world stage but went about it in the wrong way. He assumed unto himself the exalted leadership of the entire African continent as "King of Africa" without first consulting other African leaders or seeking and obtaining the consent of the supposedly governed peoples of Africa or should Icheoku yet say his "subjects?" In short he was a megalomaniac bi-polar personality who wished he had a bigger territory to preside over as he once championed a United States of Africa with Tripoli as its capital and Moummar Gaddafi its leader? He also wished he had a stronger army to bring about his desired political changes both in the continent of Africa and the entire world in general. During his UN visit, he reportedly called for President Barack Obama to remain a life-long president of America, exhibiting the delusion with which some people identifies him with. He was a character in study and he reportedly still had nightmares over the President Reagan's missile delivery right inside his bedroom in the eighties.  

Gaddafi's foray into other African countries politics led to his legendary destabilizing role, as a sponsor of military coups de tats and forceful take over of governments in countries whose governments were not ready to play his game or dance to his dictates. From Thomas Sankara to Charles Taylor and to some extent, Nigeria's Sani Abacha, all African unelected leaders, who Gaddafi had and maintained some relationship with; and was reputed to have brought them to power in some way. Some sources even claimed that during the dictatorship of Sani Abacha of Nigeria, when Nigeria was embargoed by the international community, that Gaddafi flew into Abuja the sum of seven hundred million dollars in cash to help Abacha continue to run the country?  Icheoku learnt this gesture was not out of his love for Nigerians but as an investment on Islamism as he and his other North African and Middle East zealotry cohorts tried to spread Islamic sharia throughout Nigeria. His last foray into Nigerian politics came just few months before the Arab Spring uprising, when he called for the division of Nigeria into two - the Muslim north and Christian south with Abuja and Lagos as their respective capitals.  

Anyway love him or hate him, Moummar Gaddafi was a character that captured world attention, albeit negatively. The West hated his guts and his obtuse sense of pride in Africa, then there was Lockerbie, the German nightclub, other strings of terrorism that bore his signature, his support for the Arafat's PLO  and then the springing out of prison of the only convicted and ailing PAN AM bomber and the West just had enough. They planned and schemed for a way to get Gaddafi to finally pay his debt to the world and then came the Arab Spring, which became the icing on the cake to get Gaddafi. The rest as they say is better left for historians to do their chronicling. What a faith accompli and mission accomplished, the death of Moummar Gaddafi is; as the West will no longer have such a mercurial character to be wary of in that part of the world with a huge salivating deposit of fossil fuel to die for. May the eccentric soul of Moummar Gaddafi now find rest somewhere in their version of paradise.

Icheoku will however pause to say congratulations to all those who made the change in Libya possible including the Europeans, Libyan revolutionaries and particularly President Hussein Obama, who, despite his biological affinity to Africa took on headlong, these Arab dictators in North Africa and Middle East, who were previously courted, wined and dined by past US governments in order not to upset the world oil cart. President Obama is a doer and has done creditably well fighting our enemies such that were the coming 2012 election to be solely based on keeping America safe, boy would he have won a landslide victory. But the economy still sucks and Americans often vote their stomach, so it will be somewhat an uphill climb. Just like one acquaintance told Icheoku, "you gotta blame somebody for your situation in life irrespective of the fact that that other might not be the source of your problems." Further that safety with an empty stomach still kills by starvation and likewise does a full stomach without safety kill by insecurity; so it is not a question of "either/or" but a question of "and/both" security and good economy.  

But the good news however, is that the Republicans are running on empty candidates and have yet to offer Americans a real alternative t President Obama. Their current line of presidential wanna-bes are people laden with various baggage that make them toxic-candidates and therefore highly unsellable to Americans as president. Put in the words of David Axelrod, these jostling Republican candidates are merely same old same old wines in old skins and who wants to drink of such stuff when there is a better and fresher wine at the wedding in Cannan in the current president? As it stands today, challenged by any of the nine Republican Presidential candidate wanna-bes, President Obama will win his reelection in 2012, admitted it will be fight to the finish line, but he shall first embrace the tape. A photo-finish is also possible but the slow motion will show a President Barack Hussein Obama putting his feet first across the line even if within micro-seconds. 

The conclusive change of guard in Tripoli with the killing of Moummar Gaddafi has yet added another feather to the hat of President Obama's effort to keep America safe and pay back old debts owed to America by some of the world's worst persons. As one commentator put it, "For Obama, the outcome allowed him to stand victorious in the Rose Garden, taking note also of the death this year of prominent al-Qaida leaders at the hands of the United States. And he did it without a single US soldier dying in the battle field. In a span of few months, the country has seen the demise of infamous men who either had killed Americans or haunted the United States by targeting it for terror attacks. Obama ordered a daring special forces raid in Pakistan in May that led to the killing of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the architect of the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001. Last month, a U.S. drone strike in the mountains of Yemen killed Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and prominent al-Qaida figure who was deemed as having an operational role in plots against the U.S. The plots included two nearly catastrophic attacks on U.S.-bound planes an airliner in 2009 as it tried to land in the United States and cargo planes last year. Then came the confirmed reports Thursday that Gaddafi was dead." Icheoku says any past or aspiring US president with a better national security records than this President Obama, especially as it appertains to America's subsisting security needs should please stand up; but albeit no one is standing. 

Gaddafi is no more and his blood was spilled in the streets of Sirte, his lifeless body dragged through the streets of Sirte and tossed unto the back of a pickup like a roadkill or hunted-down scoundrel. Compared to Saddam Hussein, he did not die a better or more edifying death - although both of them were literally speaking, "smoked out of a burrow" whether a drainage pipe or dug up rat-hole; at least Sadam Hussein had some moments to enjoy this world before he was dispatched. He was tried, convicted and hung without his blood spilling on the streets of Baghdad or Tikrit. He also enjoyed doing his own laundry while his trial lasted and even had the opportunity of shouting at the trial judge? But Moummar Gaddafi lasted a few fleeting moment between his being spotted by his hunters and his own demise. May be only Romania's former dictator Nickolai Ceausescu's fate came closer to Gaddafis, as his people executed him alongside his wife in Bucharest moments after his fall. Icheoku asks, would such fate as befell Gaddafi serve as a lesson to other dictators around the world, your guess is as good as mine. May the spilled blood of Gaddafi prove to be the glue that will bind and hold Libyans together as they stumble through their journey forward towards building a functional democratic society where men, women and other minorities of all sorts shall freely cohabit and thrive. What a way to end!

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