GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Friday, June 21, 2013

RIVERS STATE POLICE COMMISSIONER SHOULD RESIGN OR BE FIRED.

Icheoku was very much around during the second republic when the fight for supremacy between then Vice President Alex Ekwueme and also then Anambra State Governor Jim Nwobodo over who controls Anambra State reached a feverish climax. A time it was when Ekwueme's Abuja deployed Commissioner of Police Bishop Eyitenne to Anambra State with specific instruction to muscle Governor Nwobodo and frustrate him and his government. The situation got so bad then that Jim's Vanguard masking under the State's Road Safety marshals were transformed into armed rival vigilante-force in the state and effectively drew the line in the sand. It was so tensed that every person alive and living in Anambra State could feel the coming tornado and waited for its touchdown

Icheoku like any true son and daughter of Igbo-land was in the Zeek's party - the NPP. Partisan politics coming so soon after the end of shooting hostilities of the Biafran war, no right thinking Igbo person was expected to be in any other party but the NPP (Igbo Party), talkless of being a member of the Hausa/Fulani NPN party after what they did to Igbos during the war. A member of the youth wing led by Anike Nwoga and private secretary to local government NPP chapter's chairman and so effectively was in the know and highly partisan. It was the same period that then returned exile Odumegwu Ojukwu's 'IF' (Ikemba Front or whatever that acronym stood for) had a gun-duel at Nkpor junction with security details of Governor Nwobodo, acting from the same play book from Abuja's NPN party in power? Icheoku recalls that Bishop Eyitenne's confrontation and disrespect of democratically elected Governor Nwobodo became so flagrant that even court orders were wantonly disobeyed by him; his police motorcade was bigger and noisier than the chief executive governor's; as well as other sundry irritable and very provoking words he spewed out concerning the state and how nobody in Lions' House can tell him what to do therein. Icheoku recalls too how NPN thugs including the notorious bandit "Santana" ran amok and did as they pleased in the state while the Commissioner looked the other way. Ditto, the impunity with which other NPN high-ups in the state trounced about without recourse to law and order or any decorum. All these, with their Abuja minders, supervised by Ekwueme, providing cover and needed cash to nest their wantonness, all in an attempt to wrest power from the governor and his NPP and turn the state at all cost over to the NPN so that the vice president could "WIN" his own state for the party. 


Quite a showdown then it was, between a duly elected democratic governor of a state and a mere civil servant police commissioner, who ordinarily should have been there in Anambra State to carry out security instructions from the head security official of the state, the executive governor. But with tacit instruction or rather direct orders from Abuja, Eyitenne descended on Anambra State with one purpose - to help NPN take back the state even if it means foisting a total breakdown of law and order through reckless provocations. Icheoku says but for the intervention of Muhammed Buhari's coupists in December 30, 1983, no one knew exactly how it would have turned out and what would have become of such several flash-point states including Anambra State. It was sure headed to a conflagration, a clash of powers and eventual precipice. 

Regrettably, Nigerians are so daft and hardly learn from past experiences and history. Case in point being the current standoff between Governor Rotimi Amaechi and Commissioner of Police Joseph Mbu of Rivers State. With the Nwobodo and Eyitenne feud as a backdrop, Icheoku wonders how security could be ensured now in Rivers State where the chief security officer and the chief security enforcer doesn't see eye to eye. A case where the falcon cannot hear the falconer in Rivers State will lead to a complete breakdown of law and order. Anarchy, being let loose in the state, things are sure likely to completely fall apart, security wise speaking. Icheoku without mincing words or taking sides; but matter of factually speaking, says that Rivers State COP must and should, as is required in every well organised civilized society, submit himself and subsume himself under the authority of the governor who was elected by the people of the state to provide them, among other democratic dividends, SECURITY. The governor is the first person in the state before whom no one else comes, hence reserves the right to speak on matters effecting his state including its security, ditto the security officials therein and that includes the commissioner. It is therefore rebellious for the commissioner to question the motives of such a chief security official of the state and in his state.

Icheoku says where the COP's ego becomes too bloated that it now comes in the way and he cannot find himself working under and with the governor, he should seek a transfer out of the state or resign or be forced out. But a situation where a civil servant is calling an elected political leader of the state names is unbecoming of a supposedly non partisan security enforcer. Icheoku therefore condemns as uncalled for, unwarranted and beyond pale, the recent alleged statement attributed to COP Mbu that Governor Amaechi is a tyrant and a dictator. In the commissioner's own words "“Our governor is very tyrannical, he is a dictator. He wants everybody to say ‘yes sir’ to him and I said I will not say so. I am a professional." Icheoku adds as a professional, don't the commissioner know that he is supposed to carry out instructions without muddling himself into its politics or is his own professionalism different from that word defined? Icheoku queries, by joining issues with the governor and actually disobeying a lawful order to "say yes sir to the governor," is the commissioner still entitled to remain on his job a day longer? Recall that the same hothead commissioner was redeployed out of Oyo State to Rivers State just in February this year for unlawfully invading the Ashipa of Oyo's palace. Now he wants to use the same wantonness tactics in Rivers State and thinks he will succeed?

Irrespective of whatever be the provocation/s, at least the commissioner should have sought and used back room channels to explain how he felt to the governor but not in anyway the frontal press conference approach. His avenue of choice is rather a total show of disrespect for not only to the governor but the people of Rivers State whose mandate he duly possesses, at least until his term expires or is forced out by political vendetta and/or vindictiveness of Abuja. Admitted that protesters should conform to rules of engagement when they march by seeking necessary police permit, except where it is unreasonably denied, but Mbu's outburst is unbecoming of a civil servant. Therefore Abuja and President Jonathan must prove to Nigerians that the commissioner is not acting their script by letting him go or at least deploying him out of Rivers State at minimum. In the US which Nigerians officials frequently make references to whenever it suits their talking point, Army General Stanley McChrystal who was then commanding war operations in Afghanistan, was forced to fall on his sword because of some disparaging remarks he and his troops made about and concerning the persons of President Obama and his vice Biden or rather "Bite Me," according to the alleged.

Rivers State's Commissioner of Police has no right whatsoever to second guess the state's reason for "not being happy with him." He is a civil servant, not an elected official, hence his opinion is irrelevant until sought by his superiors. His honor code should and must remain to salute and take a bow and implement what he is asked to do, provided it is not criminal. He should and must do as told or resign or be forced out of his office if he does not want to obey lawful orders of his superior or in his own words be "subservient to the governor." If the kitchen in Port Harcourt is becoming too hot, let the darn commissioner find the exit and get out; but he must leave politics for politicians or better still take off his uniform and join the fray. Icheoku says if according to the commissioner he agrees that the "office of the governor is a respected office," why then is he disrespecting it with such a disparaging public remarks, calling an elected democratic governor a dictator and a tyrant? Icheoku queries what else would the commissioner "tell the world in his next interview on why the governor is against him" since he had already said it is because he does not want to be "subservient" to him? Be that as it may, Icheoku hereby call on Rivers State Commissioner of Police Mbu to resign or for Abuja to redeploy him out of the state and in any other event, fire his police-arse for antagonizing and bringing the office of an elected democratic governor to disrepute by branding him a dictator and a tyrant. 

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