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, August 7, 2015

KACHIKWU'S STORIED APPOINTMENT, THE NEEDLE HAS NOT MOVED?

Icheoku says yes, Igbo Deltans as well as every other Igbo people, anywhere and everywhere, are bona fides Igbo people just like their kits and kins majority of whom are concentrated in Southeastern Nigeria Igbo heartland. Icheoku had once written an article on the imperatives of this fact of consequence, encouraging Ndigbo to start an honest claim to Rivers State and Delta State as full Igbo states. Arguing further that the River Niger supposed demarcation notwithstanding, families are often and could be spread across rivers. As obtains everywhere including the Northern part of Nigeria, Ndigbo Southeast should not because these their brothers and sisters live across the River Niger now disclaim them as fellow Ndigbo. The said published article was prelude to the election of the late Ralph Uwechie as then president of Ohaneze Ndigbo. 

So with the premise laid out, Icheoku emphatically  says that Dr Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu, the new Group Managing Direct of NNPC, is now officially the first Igbo appointee of the President Muhammadu Buhari's presidency. Icheoku says congratulations to both the appointee and the appointer as by this, President Muhammadu Buhari has reluctantly finally acknowledged that there is at least a "qualified" Igbo person to admit into his government? Recall that the president said he appointed only "qualified" individuals as service chiefs to head the various wings of the Nigeria armed forces as well as security agencies, implying the lack of any qualified Igbo person for any of the positions? It is very obvious that this president's lack of truthfulness or rather version of truth is akin to someone starring at a blazing hot summer sun and still deceptively mouthing that it is very dark outside. But lets move on.

Icheoku says the excitement of the appointment ends in the fact of the complete and total Igbo-ness of Dr Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu having been established beyond doubt; being true 'nwaafor-Igbo' and is now officially the first Igbo person to be appointed by President Muhammadu Buhari into his government after over twenty five other top-notch appointments so far made by him. At last, an onye-Igbo has made it through the proverbial eye of the needle that is President Muhammadu Buhari implied bar against Ndigbo making it into his government. Icheoku wonders if the biblical camel walking through the eye of the needle is this tough and if it qualifies as an apposite allegory here.  President Muhammadu Buhari shamelessly claimed that no Igbo person is qualified enough to make any of his appointment thus far? With all known facts about Ndigbo competency and qualifications considered, Icheoku wonders if it is rather being well-versed in reading the Koran and/or reciting other Islamic verses and incantations or being proficiency in other Islamic practices and cause is what having "necessary qualifications" means in the eyes of President Muhammadu Buhari? 

Anyway, but what indeed is the worth of the office of the Group Managing Director of NNPC to Ndigbo and of what use is it particularly for Ndigbo that they should be salivating that one of them is now assigned the task of revamping the moribund corruption-cesspool that is Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation?  Icheoku asks is this appointment just a ploy to tap into Kachikwu's great knowledge about the oil industry and use him to clean the Aegean stable that has become the NNPC; and later have him dumped or shoved aside to make way for a chosen Hausa/Fulani prince? How does such a herculean assignment benefit Ndigbo, especially when the new GMD will later be subsumed under a Minister of Petroleum who as the political head and bureaucrat in chief will have power over him and his actions? The former Petroleum Minister Diezani Allison Madueke went through such four GMDs within a spate of five years, using and dumping them as she willed. So any incoming Petroleum Minister might similarly "use and dump" Dr Ibe Kachikwu or consign him to irrelevance if he or she chooses and even have him summarily dismissed if so pissed off by him or his actions? 

So what indeed actually is the benefit of this appointment to Ndigbo that elicits all the euphoric excitement in Igbo speaking Nigerians one may ask; other than that it creates a sense of belonging for Ndigbo within the greater Nigeria society. Icheoku says appointing an Igbo technocrat as head of the NNPC to be eventually placed under a Hausa/Fulani or Yoruba or even a minority bureaucrat Minister of Petroleum does not necessarily in any way confer any added advantage or benefit to Ndigbo or ordinarily empower them. But regardless, Icheoku says President Muhammadu Buhari by this appointment has finally found a "qualified" onye Igbo to admit into his government and hopefully he will continue to look hard enough to find other "qualified" Ndigbos as he continues to fill available vacant positions in his government. Kudos to him - the man from Daura in finally finding a needle in a haystack?  Icheoku prays that Dr Ibe Emmanuel Kachikwu will bring the can-do spirit and attitude of Ndigbo to his new assignment at the NNPC and get the expected job done, done well and done quickly too. Icheoku says in his onerous task of repositioning the NNPC to be better and do better with managing Nigeria's oil resources, he shall succeed and also triumph IJN. 

1 comment:

  1. Article mentioned is titled "Ohanaeze Ndi Igbo of Nigeria, which way forward." - November 11, 2008. Excerpt:-
    "For any Igbo political pressure group to be effective, it must be an all inclusive outfit - of all Igbo-speakers or Igbo speaking areas of Nigeria. When the North speaks they are cohesive and embraces all the multiple tribes of the north including hausa, fulani, birom, tiv, junku, igbira, gwari, bornu, kataf, zuru, etc. When the West speaks it includes all the Yoruba speakers and speaking areas including Kwara State. It is therefore only in the Igbo area of Nigeria that people of Igbo ancestry are excluded from "mainstream" Igbo simply because they live across a river or are not within "their" warped delineated and identifiable geographical enclave of Igbo section of Nigeria. Icheoku wonders aloud why the Delta Igbo speaking areas of Asaba, Ogwashiukwu, Onitcha-ugbo, Onitcha-Alona, etc should not be included in any associations articulated for the Igbo man? Why also should some Igbo speaking areas of Rivers state such as Isi-okpo, Portharcourt, Ikwerre etc not be given a full status in any organisation representing the Igbo man? Same goes with Akwa-Ibom and Cross-River state and possibly some parts of Benue State. It is called 'Politics 101' and the bigger the merrier and the more powerful. So many rivers criss-cross the north yet it does not present any boundary problems between the various ethnicities in the north from coming together in matters which affect them. In the west we have Ogunpa river as well as many other rivers, yet when political chess-game sets in, no Oduduwa area or speaker is left out. Therefore Ohanaeze Ndi-Igbo must restrucutre itself and expand its tent to incorporate every Igbo speaker and Igbo speaking areas of Nigeria into its fold. There is strength in unity and numbers help too."

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