NIGERIA SHOULD LEGALIZE GAY MARRIAGE NOW?

Icheoku lends support to the call and current arm-twisting by Western countries of United States of America and the United Kingdom to force Nigeria and other African countries to legitimize sodomy but with a proviso. Icheoku says a thinking diplomatic corp would have agreed on this demand provided there is a cultural reciprocity wherein Nigeria and other African countries will agree to trade a culture for a culture with this foreign countries - their alien culture for an indigenous one. Like with every diplomatic or ambassadorial exchanges, the Africans would agree to give one of their own culture to these white people and make it a condition concurrent to accepting theirs. 

For example, on their current demand that Nigeria become a member of the 'Union of Sodom and Gomorrah Countries', by legalizing gay marriage, the officials in Abuja would have demanded or at least asked United States and United Kingdom to legalize polygamy and polyandry in both their countries in exchange. This done, all the King Solomons of this world living in America and Britain, instead of their incessant divorces and keeping illegitimate mistresses all over the place, would have taken these extra women into concubinage. This way, they would help millions of unlucky women who could not find spouses due to acute scarcity of eligible suitors (since many of them are now GAY anyway), get somebody to snuggle with from time to time whenever scheduling conflict permits; and this will greatly bring peace on their earth? Once this happens, Icheoku will immediately take seven, one for each day of the week and thereby help with solving one of Western world's greatest problem of finding homes for stranded and straggled daughters of Eve roaming around and desperately searching for homes to wreck. 

Unfortunately, while these countries are strong-arming Nigeria and other African countries to legitimize a culturally abhorrent behavior, they are not interested in helping end the Boko Haram menace or feed the millions hungry and deprived or even establishing Trade Pacts with African countries to help grow their respective economies. 

Now talking about legitimizing gaydom in Africa, the United States has looked the other way while many of its own states including Oklahoma passed draconic laws completely outlawing gay marriage. But instead of championing this supposed human rights and ensuring its enforcement within its own territorial and geographical entity, they are busy insisting that Africans accept this their weird export to Africa, which is not only strange and abominable to Africans, but which behavior is even anti their bible teachings? And speaking of human rights, America is yet to address the imbalance of human rights in their country wherein women are still to date being paid less than men; black men are paid lesser than white men for the same job and with equal and same qualification; and where the proverbial justice that is allegedly blind sees colors of the skin and how rich one is?

Anyway, the problem with many African governments is that they are most times headed and their policies marshalled by people with very limited knowledge about events elsewhere to periodically give tactical responses to some of these international issues and armstronging. Also many of them are often very timid to look into the eyes of these holier than thou white people and tell them to shove it. Otherwise they could, in the words of Robert Mugabe, Icheoku paraphrasing, tell them, "white people and your gay culture, we do not hate you BUT we love our own culture!"

APC HIRES A CAMPAIGN TEAM, BUT NOT THE CANDIDATE.

Icheoku says the PDP and Nigerians should stop fretting over the announced hiring or retaining of services of United States of America's Davids Axelrod and Plough's owned AKPD Message and Media by the APC as Nigeria is a different political environment than the United States. First the people are different and their expectations from their governments are different and varied. Nigeria is vastly a primordial society where aside of lacking in practically every basic infrastructures, is peopled by a parochially diverse and divided population with clear fault lines of tribes, religion and regions. In the United States, infrastructures are optimally developed, hence politicians no longer campaign on providing such basic human necessities to the populace. Such are more of American citizens right than the privilege it is to the few well heeled and connected of the Nigerian society. In America, good access roads, uninterrupted electricity supply, clean water, health care and to an extent right to have a JOB is a given; hence no political candidate goes on reeling off how he would make those available  if voted into power; admitted that promise of improvements thereon still makes a few headlines. 

Also America is a highly diluted secular society where even Archbishops and governors are sent to prison if they break the law. President Clinton almost suffered the same fate following his impeachment for lying under oath over the Monica Lewinsky blue dress scandal-gate. So in America no Axelrod will be seen telling people to vote for somebody just because he goes to mosque or church; neither will a Plough be seen telling an American to vote for another person just because they are from the same tribe or region. It is also instructive that unlike the geo-political fault lines of Nigeria, there is no North, West or South or Southsouth, Southwest or Southeast regions to balance in determining where the presidential candidate MUST come from. Remember Bill Clinton and Al Gore are both from the South - two neighboring states of Arkansas and Tennessee. George Bush Jr and Dick Cheney are practically from the same regional Mountain date lines of Texas and Wyoming; while the present Barack Obama and Joe Biden are from literally the same Northeast coast. In America too, the youthful age of a president does not matter and as with Obama and Bush, their vice presidents are as old as their fathers yet they served and are serving with humility and honor. Tell that to Obasanjo and all those other old men of Nigeria who has refused to ether die or simply go away and they will tell you to go sit down, you this small boy. With this paradigm, now tell Icheoku how the two Davids will tailor their APC messaging in Nigeria to succeed in their current assignment or should Icheoku say engagement or rather a gun for hire mercenary job? All politics are local and Icheoku strongly believes this latest APC move is more of a show than result orientated. 

Secondly, Americans are much more educated and politically more attuned than Nigerians. This influence is a big deal because in America, the people are very much aware and can easily lift the veils of political office seekers to see who is trying to hoodwink them; unlike in Nigeria, where someone like Bola Tinubu can single-handily impose candidates including his family members on the people and call it election and use them as conduits to siphon states resources. In America there is a process and political campaigns/elections are usually transparent and open and not subject to manipulation in the face of an alert people and a vibrant attack-dog like media watchdog, ready and always willing to torpedo any candidate who goes off the grid. In America, no thugs hijack ballot boxes too. Icheoku queries how many Nigerians own or watch television or even have time to follow politics as it should be or meant to be? How many Nigerians are interested in the bogus lies and promises their politicians make to them when they are busy trying to find food, water and a generator or gas for it to power their lives? Understanding politics and issue-based political campaign is quite different from the rice and vegetable-oil distribution bribery, called campaign, in Nigeria. Please let someone tell Icheoku that Bola Tinubu will listen when David Axelrod tells him not to so bribe voters in order to make his messaging contract koser and meaningful? 

Thirdly, Americans have a media reach and network which is second to none known in the world. The people are also savvy enough to follow the politicking and can independently verify information about candidates for their votes without being coerced by party thugs and touts or prompted by their village heads or forced to vote in a particular way by the head of their market association at the threat of losing allotted stall. Information is power and were Bola Tinubu to be an American, duty of full disclosure would have made it mandatory for him to show his real birth certificate as well as the schools and colleges he attended before becoming eligible for any office. A dutiful press and media would also have sat on his head until he discloses in full details all these pertinent missing information about his pedigree or he will be forced to quit politics in shame as a fraud. 

Also someone like Doyin Okupe cannot continue to be a presidential spokesman with allegations of the Benue State's contractual fraud running in billions still shadowing him. Nigeria media is practically non existent in the investigative journalism department and where sometimes they make attempt to follow up certain stories, their paymasters will force them to back down because they do not want to lose advertisement Naira. So what is the two Davids coming to tell Nigerians about APC and election when their message might only end up in Lagos, Abuja and in few other media connected municipalities and towns when majority of the people who will vote live and irk their living in near primitive and God forsaken places? In America, in addition to four network televisions and three cable networks that are nation wide, almost every city in every of the fifty states has several competing television stations, radios and newspapers disseminating information to the populace. All these media houses are independently owned and so there is no Bola Tinubu or any other politician forcing a publishing house or media house not to carry opposing viewpoints to an agenda-driven politicking. 

Lastly Marketing 101 teaches us that to sell or market a product, there has to be first a product. MBA class also teaches that in order to hire a salesman, there has to be a product for him or her to sell to earn his/her commission. So in the United States, while the two Davids had a product and a good one for that matter in Barack Obama to sell, the Nigerian APC has not named or assigned a product to the Davids to sell in Nigeria. The APC seem to be putting the cart before the horse by hiring a marketer without first naming their candidate - the product to market to Nigerians. Recall that David Axelrod and David Plough were not hired to and did not market the entire Democratic Party but only and solely candidate Barack Obama. So who is the APC candidate that AKPD Messaging and Media are going to try to sell to the Nigerian electorates?  Presently none exist and the politics of selecting one will definitely get messy, which alone is sufficient to sink the moribund ship of the party even before the 2015 proverbial date with history. 

David Axelrod had a sell-able candidate in Barack Obama as Icheoku believes he could not have successfully so sold any other lesser mortal to the Americans. Barack Obama is a genius unto himself and needed only to be introduced and pushed minimally, which David Axelrod and company did well; resulting in the two term presidential election victories. Also almost all the minorities of America and few from the majority white poor and lowly, were united in their desire for a change and in seeing someone other than the typical rich white man they are used to in the White-house. So query:- what is the uniting force for Nigerians to vote for APC when the party has already been tagged a MUSLIM enclave of angry bigots and a front for Saudi Arabia and OIC? Icheoku asks what is the rallying point for Nigerians to vote for APC when the greedy Bola Tinubu and the despotic Muhammadu Buhari have both assumed the alter ego and faces of APC and any candidate would just be wearing the masks of these two despicable fellows? Icheoku maintains that not only will APC be pitched in a battle with all Nigerian non Muslims, they will also be fighting in war for survival with all ethnic minorities as well as the Igbos who are totally marginalized from the party. 

So in the final analysis, David Axelrod will not perform magic or miracle of waking a dead Lazarus; neither will the duo raise a dead-on-arrival APC with whatever abracadabra political tactics they might bring with them from America. When all is said and done, 2015 is going to be a battle with core Hausa/Fulani Northwest and Northeast, three or four Yoruba Southwestern states voting APC pitched against Southeast Igbos, Southsouth, North-central (MiddleBelt) states of Benue, Kogi, Taraba, Plateau, Adamawa and Nassarawa) and one or two Yoruba states including Edo voting for PDP. 2015 is not going to be against President Jonathan and whoever the APC anoints; no, it is going to be a battle against religions, age, regions and sections of the country. It is going to be a battle against the ideology of moving back to the statusquo of Hausa/Fulani domination or moving forward to a better and more inclusive Nigeria for all. Icheoku predicts the result - David Axelrod will not be able to deliver on his assignment for the APC which will lose big time. Like Mitt Romney, APC has been named, tagged and identified as anti-peoples Islamic party of bigots and it will be very difficult if not impossible for them to shed this stinky skunky cloak before the elections of 2015.  

However, Icheoku is not by any means trying to diminish the political ingenuity of the two Davids - Axelrod and Plough, no; all we are saying is that the two countries, Nigeria and America,  as well as their respective politics are different. Icheoku is also of the opinion that what worked successfully in the United States might not be able to replicate itself in Nigeria irrespective of the architects hatching the plans. The best surgeon still requires a good theatre to operate and for a seed to germinate necessary condition of moist, light etc must be present. David Axelrod and David Plough might be the best in their field, but the Nigeria political climate is not yet well developed nor conducive for their brand of political branding and salesmanship to successfully be effective. A good wine needs no bush. Barack Obama was a good product and was marketable to Americans; BUT would the APC provide the two Davids an Obama-like candidate to market to Nigerians? The jury is still out and will remain out till later part of the year. Finally, whereas in the United States, AKPD Messaging and Media had somebody they could and successfully marketed to Americans, APC is yet to tell Nigeria who the AKPD will be marketing on their behalf and until then, Icheoku like Baba Iyabo and millions of other Nigerians just "sidon dey laugh". NO SHAKING!

(Disclaimer:- Icheoku is not a member of the PDP nor does Icheoku support President Jonathan but Icheoku DOES NOT like the option being presented in the APC; hence the enemy of my enemy is my friend and any party BUT the APC is and should be a preferred option.)

SEYMOUR HOFFMAN KILLS SELF, OVER-DOZED ON DRUGS?

Icheoku says once again another American famous person has taken his own life, aided by illicit drugs which he over-dozed on. His name, Philip Seymour Hoffman, a well known Hollywood superstar was found crunched in a fetal position in his Manhattan, New York City apartment, dead from heroine over-doze. Police investigators also found about fifty still unused sachets of the controlled substance around his dead body leaving Icheoku to wonder what a crack or rather heroine head this actor was. 

Icheoku queries, if fifty heroine sachets were found around him still sealed and ready to be used, who knows how many of such sachets he already injected that resulted in his over-dozing death? Also at about thirty dollars a sachet, that is almost fifteen hundred dollars worth of the illicit drugs that were unused and probably constituted part of his ration for the week? Then multiply it by four weeks and by twelve and a clear picture begins to emerge as to the amount of money being spent just to numb oneself from the pains of this world. 

While some people are in a rush to think that once you have money that your problems are completely solved, they forgot that is probably the beginning of your pains as money is never the end but a means of and the beginning of the end. The other thing that bemuses Icheoku is how people always empathize about such over-dozed persons as being victim or that they accidentally over-dozed on drugs; but fail to try to get into the minds of such suicides to determine whether they actually wanted to kill themselves and chose the lesser messier type of over-doze. Studies suggests that such person, desiring to die but is too scared to pull the metal trigger or tie a knot or jump off and just settled for over-dozing. Icheoku says these people are not victims. They are enablers and facilitators themselves of the fate which befell them. As fully grown and responsible adults, they owe it to themselves to keep themselves safe; but when they chose to indulge in acts whose ultimate consequence they are fully aware of and gets killed in the process, no one should look elsewhere for possible offenders. 

This is a matter made worse when people, who merely sold merchandise to one who is not a minor and who knowingly and voluntarily solicited and paid for same, are arrested in connection with investigation into such death. Icheoku queries, in the same vein, why not also arrest all American gun sellers and manufacturers for all the mass murders in our schools and society; assuming this selective arrest is proper? It really does not make sense to arrest a merchant for merely selling a product to an adult, especially on who freely and proactively sought to purchase same and engaged in its use. It is capitalism 101 and Seymour Hoffman should be wholly and solely responsible for his actions in over-dozing on some substance which death is likely an outcome and to his knowledge. Finally, Icheoku makes bold to say that all these victim-hoods in America is not solving our gun and drug epidemic problems at all or when would any person ever take responsibility for his act and not look elsewhere for a fall guy who put a .45 on his head and forced him to so inject heroine into his vein that he collapsed and died with still a syringe of heroine stuck in his vein. America, we all need to man up and squarely face offenders by telling them without political correctness or unhelpful sentiments that they are wrong and that their actions are wrong.

It should also be noted that millions of Americans, especially those high and mighty, are very lonely and unhappy, the seeming packaged and produced paparazzi-aided glitz not withstanding. They have no true friend and/or family as they suspect everyone as coming after what they can fleece from them, hence have no one to truly confess their heart's innermost quest for peace and tranquility. At such juncture when life losses its meaning and living becomes rather a chore than pleasure, the question remains why continue to wallow in such emptiness? Icheoku asks is it possible that actor Seymour Hoffman was tired of living and decided to quietly put an end to it; and would rather prefer that all these pontificating about his death did not take place or should cease forthwith? Icheoku does not know the answer, but suffice it to say that like Michael Jackson, Whitney Hudson, Heath Ledger, as well as so many other Hollywood greats over-dozed departed, got to a point in their life's journey and concluded that life has no meaning and deliberately decided to end it. Anyway our sympathies to the bereaved family and friends; and as for the suicide-deceased, lets hope he has found the elusive peace and happiness that drove him over the cliff. Icheoku says this is yet another case of a cry for help that got unanswered, resulting in yet another needless loss of life and at a very prime age of only 46. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, RIP.