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.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

ALEX BADEH: NIGERIA'S FORMER CHIEF OF DEFENSE STAFF ASSASSINATED..

ICHEOKU says it was with mixed feelings but definitely not shocked, that ICHEOKU received the news of the assassination of a former Defense Chief of Nigeria, AVM Alex Badeh. It is unfortunate that he was murdered and now has become part of the statistics of victims of the general insecurity in the land. 

This was a guy who diverted billions of Naira meant to arm and equip the Nigerian Air-Force into his personal use accounts; and was being prosecuted for the grand larceny and theft of the Nation's commonwealth. Ironically, his billions could not save him from the assassins hot leads and he cannot take any dime with him as he flies away into eternity. 

The story of such unmitigated corruption is replete throughout the society, including in other branches of the military as well as other security agencies, including the police; and somebody is still wondering why the intolerable high level of insecurity in the land which has literary defied solution. Yet despite all these, some people still wants to vote for the face of this wanton corruption in Nigeria,  Abubakar Atiku, into office as their president. ICHEOKU says may God forbid bad thing, IJN. 

However, the only good thing out of this tragedy is that it shows that nobody is immune from the insecurity in the land; and that even the high-up also falls victim to the incessant blood letting in Nigeria. A situation which they often don't pay much attention to and at best, a lip service attention, because of the security cordon usually thrown around them, including battery of government paid guards who protect them. But none of it paid off today, as he assumed room temperature and instead of returning home to his palatial mansion which corruption purchased for him, he is in a frozen drawer inside a morgue, awaiting the pathologist's scalpel. 

As a high up military honcho, Badeh possibly too, knew and/or had an inkling about what happened to Bola Ige, but kept quiet about it; thinking that he was just a bloody civilian Attorney General and Minister of Justice and that a non bloody and nor civilian military honcho is totally shielded from such a dastardly assassination. Imagine the possibility that Bade could still be alive today had Bola Ige's assassins been caught, prosecuted and convicted and are either serving life prison sentences or received death penalty sentences that have already been carried out. It would have surely served as a deterrent to those assassins, who today, took Bade's life. But no, it was Bola Ige's turn yesterday and today, it was is Alexander Badeh and who knows for whom the bell will toll tomorrow. 

So, it is somewhat comforting to see that every life can succumb to insecurity and therefore every life should matter and should be protected, by solving the insecurity problem in the country. Therefore, if Alex Badeh's assassination will jolt every leader or everyone in authority in Nigeria, to work harder, going forward; to ensure that there is security for everybody, so be it. An insecurity for one should as a matter of course be an insecurity for all. The life of an Agatu farmer in remote Benue State should not be of any lesser value than a former military honcho Bade's life in Abuja, simply because Bade is a proverbial Nigerian "big man." Former IGP Ogbonna Onovo once issued a report which showed that more than half of Nigerian Police Force are deployed to protecting about only 10% of the population's high up, with the other half protecting the rest of other 90% of the lower caste Nigerians, whose lives are less important and of lower value. Speaking of a country or rather a country, that once was. 

Therefore ICHEOKU welcomes the periodic felling of some of these Nigerian leaders, because we are all in it together and are all equally exposed to the life altering vagaries, which their ineptitude and cross corruption festooned on the country, admitted the disparate proportion. The Orwellian Animal Farm situation in Nigeria cannot go on forever and should not continue to be tolerated, because no life should be more equal than the other, simply because they are the proverbial "big men" and "big women" of Nigeria and other Nigerians are not. A Nibo Nise man's life taken by a killer Fulani herdsman is as precious as a Bade''s life, also, probably taken by some Fulani hired assassins. But who knows who wanted him out of the way or ordered him killed; whether he was another victim of the continuing Fulani onslaught on the people from that region of the country, or he was simply a victim of just a random attack. 

Hopefully the police will help Nigerians solve the crime quickly because of who he was, admitted Bola Ige's murder is still a cold case over 15 years after he was brutally hacked down while having dinner, his last supper, with his family inside his family home. It is very SAD that Bola Ige was killed and it is even sadder that no lessons were learnt from his killing to guard against such,  leading to the now killing of a former Chief of Defense Staff, Air Vice Marshal Alexander Badeh. When will all these wanton wastage and spillage of human lives ever end in Nigeria? May his soul now rest. Adieu Alex.

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