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.

Monday, March 23, 2015

BUHARI FOR PRESIDENT, ONLY IN A STRANGELY STUNTED NIGERIAN SOCIETY?

Icheoku says so many of us were still bed-wetting way back in the seventies when Olusegun Obasanjo first stepped unto power and forty long years later, the same Olusegun Obasanjo is still a factor in Nigeria's power equation? Bamangar Tukur was governor of now defunct Gongola State in the seventies and forty years later, the same grandpa is still holding forte in Nigeria as chairman of Nigeria Railway Corporation? Edwin Clark was a minister way back in the sixties and almost fifty years later, the same man is still having a say on how Nigeria is governed? Ditto Alex Ekwueme, Samuel Ogbomudia, Jim Nwobodo, Ebenezar Babatope, Balarabe Musa and so many other dinosaurs of Nigerian political landscape, who have refused to yield the space and move away to make way for the new generation to try their luck?  Now Nigerians are once again being burdened with another one of this very old breed personality named Muhammadu Buhari. 


Icheoku says it is one heck of an eyesore and a testament of a stunted growth of a society that this bred of tired but not retired odd fellows and archival politicians, are still holding sway and wielding so much power in Nigeria, so many several decades after their first debut on the Nigerian political firmament.  It therefore should be a cause for serious great concern to every Nigerian, who is positively vested in the future of the country, that these people still dictate what goes on, up and down in the country after five decades of independence. Admitted that as bona fide citizens of the country that they reserve the right like any other Nigerian to participate in the politics of the country; but a thriving polity would have since told them thank you, enough, not anymore; as we need to try new hands while continually training other future leaders of the country. 
But unfortunately, a society under the spell of perpetual dependency; a captive society with deranged psyche which has been additional traumatized by repeated military dictatorships and very uncaring leaderships, found itself always genuflecting and trembling before these "council of elders" and at the pain of being branded "disrespectful" to elders? Icheoku queries when shall our people ever be finally freed of some of these apparent hold-backs, some of which have seen nineteen century solution being applied to twenty first century problems? Therefore, given that these old breeds have refused to yield the floor or even die off, the question then becomes, when would the opportunity ever finally present itself for those Nigerians who were young when these guys first came to power, but who are gradually getting old themselves, to take over the mantle of leadership and infuse some new ideas into the staled way of doing things by these political Methuselahs? How then can the young ever grow in Nigeria when the old has refused to yield space? 
So anyone still wondering why Nigeria has remained the ever all motion and no movement, revolving door to nowhere, it has been since independence, should wonder no further but take a look at the man the APC is trying to force upon Nigeria as president in this new millennium 2015. A man who first ruled Nigeria in the eighties when Ronald Reagan held forte in the United States; Margret Thatcher ruled Britain; Soviet Union was still in existence; Nelson Mandela was still locked away to rot in Robben Island prison; Czechoslovakia was still one country; Yugoslavia was still intact and under the firm grip of Father Tito and of course President Obama was still hustling on the streets of Hawaii? This is the man now being pushed by some Nigerians with the help of their foreign sponsors to again mount the saddle of leadership in Nigeria;  a matter made worse because some Nigerians are even seriously considering that proposition? Icheoku says any Nigerian who does not see anything wrong with this picture is possibly part of the problem afflicting Nigeria. It suggests that the school of political pupillage in Nigeria has never graduated any person all these past three decades plus since 1983; and then query, what future awaits a country so patently deprived of grooming its future leaders? 
Icheoku asks, are these entrenched political dinosaurs never ashamed that President Barack Obama of the United States of America not too long ago just turned fifty years old? Are these people not ashamed that in the United Kingdom,  a man who they know when he was in diapers, David Cameron, is leading that country? Are these elders not ashamed that in Mexico, President Enrique Pena Nieto was born in 1966 when Edwin Clark was already a serving minister in Nigeria? When these people travel to meet these youthful leaders of other more progressive countries, how do they feel about their own deprived youths at home and generally being protocoled? Icheoku says these people are bleeding Nigeria and very heavily too and it is about time they retire or are retired for good. Their stale ideas and archaic way of doing things no longer works nor has any value-added place in this new millennium. It is about time the app-generation is allowed access to power so that they can introduce virtual knowledge to problem solving in order to keep moving the country forward. These stone-aged politicians' stale understanding of micro-economics and other basic intricacies of governance is no longer what drives the modern world and they all need to be retired and NOW. 
These people are bereft of fresh ideas that effortlessly turn the wheel of international camaraderie and cooperation between nations. Internally, the result is nearly the same as they expect everyone to bow and genuflect to their grandpa and should respectfully not air an opinion or become a contrarian just because 'grandpa' has already ruled on it and so should it be? Query, when was the last time 'grandpa'  googled or researched what is the latest new trend in Singapore or Malaysia or any other countries; and what are other countries of the world doing to reposition themselves and then emulate their template. When was the last time 'grandpa' secured a golf-playing retreat with a United States president or Japanese Prime Minister so that he can smooch them into looking the way of Nigeria with their foreign assistance programs? Does grandpa understand the language of modern foreign relations well enough that what he needs for Nigeria from these foreign leaders, he knows how to speak it and get result? Unfortunately, their processors are not such that a reboot or patch could easily fix, rather it needs a complete and total replacement. This is the fork in the road with the current madness driving the clamor by some Nigerians for a Buhari presidency and you ask yourself which planet did these Nigerians inhabit? 
But a culture that still defers to this sort of controlling anomaly is yet to deem it fit to tell these council of elders that their rightful place is their retirement country homes but not the seat of power. These elders should be minded to move away from seat of power or forced to do so; to make way for the young and restless, who are more energetic, to competitively take on their global colleagues from other countries and make Nigeria sizzle.  So, as you go into the voting booth on March 28, ask yourself are you going to remain part of the problem or would you rather become part of the solution. Would you vote to sustain this riveting control or would you vote to permanently sever it and retire these band of elders willy-nilly? Your hatred for Jonathan or unsatisfactoriness with his performance so far should not be your only deciding factor as you make your decision to vote. Think about the statement you would be making by voting for a 72 years old Muhammadu Buhari, that Nigeria is a stunted society populated by very strange people, who prefer gulag to freedom; and who rewards unrepentant murderers with positions of authority including their country's presidency?  So vote wisely and circumspectly not to help sustain this aberration; vote to permanently retire these disused permanent fixtures from the Nigerian power scene; vote for the more youthful man, VOTE GEJ.

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