DO THE NEEDFUL, ODUAH-GATE POWERFUL DEFENSE SUBMISSION?

"There was nothing in the approved documents reflecting my name, when the budget was being made. At no time did I ever request for any vehicle from the NCAA. It was the agency that had the need and made the request to the Federal Ministry of Aviation. After the purchase on a 3 year Lease Financing arrangement, the vehicles were never delivered to me. The vehicles were also not registered in my name but that of the agency. All I did was to approve the request of the Agency subject to the Agency doing the needful as evidenced by my minutes on the letter dated 15th April, 2013." - Madam Aviation Minister Stella Oduah,debunking claims that two armored vehicles were hers. Icheoku says it is ordinarily a powerful defense argument except that the minister failed in or rather overlooked her duty of supervision of her underlings - vicarious responsibility(liability).

APC SAYS NO TO NATIONAL CONFERENCE, WHAT ARE THEY THINKING?

Icheoku says a united, more functional Nigeria would always be a much preferred option than a balkanized Nigeria. Therefore, any effort geared at strengthening the country, by ironing out all those identifiable kinks afflicting it and which in turn, turns Nigeria into a more working country that works for every Nigerian, such as the proposed National Conference, should be welcomed excitedly by every Nigerian. Admitted that internally generated pent-up pressure, which has been threatening to consume the country over the many years of its existence, has made the option of balkanizing Nigeria seem an attractive proposition. But the tempting allure notwithstanding, a nation is stronger when it is big, both in human and natural resources; and fortunately enough, Nigeria commands both this two assets and would be much better off remaining glued together. Therefore, provided the purpose and mandate of the National Conference is to explore and address Nigeria's numerous problems, with a view to finding acceptable solutions and resolutions, to that extent does Icheoku endorse and support it. 

It is with this background in mind and the fact that millions of other Nigerians are joyous at this great opportunity to finally meet and have a conversation about their wellness, that Icheoku was taken aback when the APC's bank-roller, owner and paymaster, Bola Tinubu, came out screaming "Holy macro and NO to the CONFAB." Icheoku was primarily surprised that a self-professed democrat would have any beef to grind with a very democratic process which would allow people to meet and discuss their problems. Icheoku asks, would Bola Tinubu and his APC prefer that Nigeria rather boils over because of suspicions and fears than for the people to first seek possible solutions in a dialogue to their itching problems? Would APC and Bola Tinubu prefer war war instead of jaw jaw? Icheoku asks Bola Tinubu, what is wrong in having a conversation and thrashing out matters injurious to a one united Nigeria such as areas of perceived conflicts? Icheoku says the world of Nigerians were expecting a more articulate Bola Tinubu to be a cheer leader of such epochal step at harmonizing Nigeria but definitely not the highly over-partisan APC Bola Tinubu that is trying to throw spanner in the works of the National Conference. Nigerians, disappointed that they couldn't see the more rational Bola Tinubu they had expected, turned and looked to see if there is any more level-headed APC membership to redirect Bola Tinubu on the merits of the conference and the futility of his one-man opposition mission. But unfortunately all they could see were a party membership that bowed and trembled before Bola Tinubu and who were forced to fall in line with the NO-TO-THE-CONFAB position of their master. Icheoku says it is indeed regrettable that the cowering APC membership, in unison, chorused alongside their mentor to reject the confab. 

It is also noteworthy that Chris Ngige, who is running for the governorship of Anambra State is part of this REJECT-THE-CONFAB motley crew operating under APC moniker. Icheoku says, if you are still looking for a reason to reject Ngige as governor of Anambra State, you just found one. Please Anambra people, do not vote for APC's Ngige as his party's rejection of the Confab is another anti-Igbo action by them. The Igbo people are looking forward to the Confab's platform as a God sent opportunity to finally address so many injustices meted to them, many of which are still continuing till date, by both the Nigerian state and other Nigerians. Chris Ngige and his APC said NO TO the CONFAB and he still wants to be governor of an Igboland heartland first state? It does not make sense nor is it reconcilable that APC which does not like the Igbos nor care for traditional institution they hold high, will now want to be handed over an Igbo main state, Anambra? Anambra State Igbos, Icheoku urges you to speak up and speak loudly on November 16, 2013 and with your votes exclaim ANYBODY BUT NGIGE.

Icheoku asks what is Bola Tinubu, the man who owns, runs and micro-manages APC with iron fist, smoking this time around that he rejected what majority of Nigerians have been clamoring for and for so many years, and which they are happy that their prayers were finally answered? Apparently Bola Tinubu must be out of his mind or high on some mind-altering barbiturates not to appreciate the mistake of his current very minority position on the merit of the National Conference. It is obvious that the Prince of Isale-Eko has overreached himself with his anti-Confab position and thereby challenged a very high majority of Nigerians into doing a battle over their much awaited and very welcomed conference. Icheoku says by castigating and rejecting a process that would x-ray and resolve areas of conflict among Nigerians, Bola Tinubu shot himself on the foot and is now limping in clutches in Nigeria political estate? How dare him? Icheoku says Bola Tinubu is certainly out of sync with the yearnings and aspirations of high majority of Nigerians with his position on the conference and therefore he must have a rethink if he still wants to retain some relevancy among those Nigerians still enjoying their freedom from his clutches and who are not under his slave-master's vice grip command and control, atypical of APC controlled Yoruba Southwest states.

Icheoku says other than mischief, the civilian draconian-dictator and self-effusing infallible owner of APC, by saying NO to a thing which its time had since come and which majority of rational Nigerians, without any other ulterior agenda, are rooting for, has nothing else to anchor this rejection on. Icheoku says Bola Tinubu is simply a rabble rouser, who like the spoilt brat he is and who continually feels so much entitled and disturbs the peace of everybody whenever he is not getting and having his way, is now against something he was previously for. In America, they term his type flip floppers; and you would recall John Kerry who voted for a bill before he voted against it or Mitt Romney who was for RomneyCare before he became against ObamaCare? Bola Tinubu's disorder is that he is not dictating to everyone in Nigeria like he does with his APC controlled Yoruba Southwestern Nigeria. Atypical of maniacs, his conquering of Yoruba Southwest is no longer enough and now he wants the entire Nigerian territory as his private fiefdom to dictate his will to? And if he cannot have his way, he would rather undermine the country by rejecting a process that would make Nigeria stronger?

There is strength in numbers both economically and politically. Number of mouths needing nutrition and bodies that need to be clothed is important as world businesses look at such data with a prospect of profitability before making their investment moves. If in doubt look at how China or India are courted by the world just for a piece of their markets. Enemies will also think twice before taking on a big country and then the always present opportunity that from the many, it is easier for one to rise as that person whom the country has been waiting for to take the country to lofty heights. Icheoku says the only reason anyone in any kind of relationship sometimes wants out is usually for lack of comfort continuing in or going forward with that relationship. So now that Nigerians have agreed to sit down and discuss their misgivings against each other and among themselves, why would any well-meaning Nigerian patriot not give it a chance of succeeding and thereafter act on the outcome however he may deem or see fit. But for anyone including APC's owner Bola Tinubu, at the present infancy stage of the Confab process, to start sabotaging the process either with comments or action, Icheoku finds it regrettable. 

Icheoku says it is not only presumptuous but irrational and unpatriotic for Bola Tinubu and his APC to reject the National Conference, an honest attempt at objectively discussing and resolving amicably areas of conflicts and disputations affecting Nigeria's survival as an entity. Talking is always better and cheaper than warring. On this final note, Icheoku reiterates support for the National Conference and hereby calls on Bola Tinubu and his APC to have a rethink of their ill-thought out position rejecting the prospect. They should instead accept and participate in a process that is geared towards making Nigeria a much stronger and more functional place for all Nigerians to continue to live peacefully together and in harmony. Therefore Nigerians must in unison reject Bola Tinubu's APC latest antic to just stay headlined with their narrow minded, pigeonholed and shallow political dart thrown across the political bow of the other party through their rejection of a conference which more than 75% of Nigerians are for. The conference is not about the president nor his party but a forum for Nigerians to vent their misgivings against one another with a view to finding lasting super-glue to apply to the cracks that is widening on the country's structural integrity to keep it going and going until God knows when. 

UMARU DIKKO RECYCLED, SO MUCH FOR THE BREATH OF FRESH AIR?

Icheoku says when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, during his presidential election campaign, promised Nigerians a breath of fresh air, no Nigerian understood the president to mean his own version of fresh air which to a functioning olfactory is nothing short of a stinking breath of stale air? Nigerians thought that President Jonathan's installed chairman of the PDP Bamanga Tukur at 78 years old, was his last old peoples' team joker and certainly enough of these old breeds resurrected; but the president thought differently? The president has slapped Nigerians on the face yet again with another one of his idea of "breath of fresh air" with his appointment of 79 year former Transport Minister in the second republic government of President Shehu Shagari, Umaru Dikko. President Jonathan appointed Umaru Dikko to a plum job of Provost Marshall of the PDP with primary assignment being to whip those errant seven PDP governors and their acolytes to order. 

Remember him - the man who in response to hunger in the land under his NPN government, told the world that no Nigerian was picking food from the garbage dump so all is honky dory with affairs in Nigeria? If that is not enough to jug your memory, which must have faded after such a long time and for those alive then who are still alive, it was the same Umaru Dikko that was found invalid in a cargo crate at Gatwick London airport in a botched attempt to smuggle him back to Nigeria to face charges of gross abuse of office. With Umaru Dikko's latest appointment, Nigerians have once again been saddled with yet another dinosaur with twentieth century ideas and way of doing things and in this twenty-first century; and you wonder if President Jonathan deliberately want to fail Nigerians in the delivery of his promised breath of fresh air or he is just playing a cruel joke with them? Icheoku says why Umaru Dikko and where is his energy and gravitas? 

Icheoku says with Umaru Dikko's appointment, as the man to deal with those rascal seven governors and their followers as the new chief disciplinarian of the PDP, another job opportunity has been denied a much younger and more energetic Nigerian and the unemployment quagmire continues to exacerbate. Icheoku asks what use is actually a man that age, who in more civilized societies should be restfully awaiting his maker in an old peoples home, in being resuscitated and tasked with turning things around in a wobbly party? How much longer does an 79 year Umaru Dikko has to live to seriously have the interest and presence of mind to do the heavy lifting required to put back the humpty-dumpty that is falling apart? Why would an 79 year old Umaru Dikko put whatever is left of his brain and brawn to right things in the PDP and the greater estate Nigeria from which he will soon leave anyway? Surprising? No, it is Nigeria and it is a place where things are stood on their heads - a land where the old brigade has obstinately refused to yield the territory for the youthful with workable twenty first ideas and ways and means of doing things, needed to shake things up and in order to earnestly begin the rebuilding process. 

A lone voice in the wilderness, Icheoku can but hope that President Jonathan remembers his campaign promise to Nigerians, and realizes on time that there is nothing fresh about the air of Umaru Dikko and his ilks. Icheoku says the president has to change this his peculiar understanding of "breath of fresh air" or Nigerians will be forced to remind him in 2015 that he is a man long on promises but short on their delivery.  Whatever may be the rationale for this latest appointment, Icheoku says this very Umaru Dikko, at 79 and his past records considered, is certainly not anything fresh, whether breath or otherwise and as a spent force, has nothing new to offer or add to the administration or the PDP. Sometimes Icheoku wonders who the president has as a counselor and who advises and recommends these octogenarians for his government; except of course the other co ancient-travelers like Tony Anenih at 80 years and Bamanga Tukur 78 years simply needed a companion, since the young party members are not versed in the things of the old and how things are done old fashioned and goaded the president? What an appointment!

MALALA, THE MUSLIM GIRL WHO WON OUR HEARTS.

Out of the death, horror, terror and near total lack of anything and everything that aids civilized modern living that literally sums up life in the Swat Valley area of Northwestern Pakistan, yields a very ebullient and charming girl whose courage and will to live and do better for others have held the world captive and spellbound for quite some time now. The girl is also very articulate and listening to her interviews and comments as well as gauging her body gestures, Icheoku sees a girl destined for leadership somewhere down the road of her life. It is also apparent that the girl also received good education and that is equally commendable of Pakistani educational system. Malala Yousafzai is her name and she is only a teenager. 

Icheoku says her story is atypical of a life-saving spring sprouting out of the hopelessness and despondency that has come to represent anything Islam and everything Muslim fundamentalism. The girl Malala has forced peoples of the world to now have a rethink of their opinion about Muslims and to stop lumping Muslims together as all TERRORISTS; at least Malala is not one. Malala is simply the best good news out of the Muslim world in recent times and Pakistan should mine her new celebrity status and designate her their country's Goodwill ambassador and a mirror into the world of Pakistan and Muslims in general. Malala Yousafzai, Icheoku says what a gift you are to your people and Icheoku sees a Benaizir Bhutto's replacement in your future, provided you elude and survive your worst threat - the TALIBANS. Goodluck.

CHRIS NGIGE, WHY HE MUST NOT BE ELECTED GOVERNOR.

Icheoku says Lagos State's Governor Babatunde Fashola had a great opportunity with the flagging off of Anambra State APC gubernatorial candidate's Chris Ngigi's campaign at Onitsha, to formally apologise to Igbo people in their heartland over the fiasco of his deportation of their kits and kin from Lagos, but was MIA (missing in action). The governor was a no-show at the said APC's "historical" event in Igboland. Icheoku says if indeed Governor Fashola truly wanted an end to the debacle he created with that hateful deportation as he claimed, and sincerely meant the tendered "apology" for what he wrongfully did to fellow Nigerians, why did he not soldier on into Igboland to truly look them in the eye and say to them 'am sorry if my action rubbed you wrongly?' 

But instead he settled for that forsworn no-apology apology he tendered at the tiny Aka Ikenga forum in "HIS" Lagos as being entirely sufficient for what he did and requiring no further or additional effort at soothing frayed Igbo nerve and stayed off Igboland's headquarters? Icheoku says if indeed Governor Fashola felt forgiven by the Igbos and/or that his mea culpa before Aka Ikenga was all encompassing and that all is now honky-dory with the Igbos, why did he not follow his master Ahmed Bola Tinubu into Onitsha to prove that after the apology, that he once again finds himself at home in Igboland; and that the hurt he caused the Igbos by deporting them from Lagos is no longer hurting and he has been forgiven? But no, rather like a fowl which let foul air, the land of Igboland is in his pursuit and he would not dare be found near or around it; hence the wisdom to stay out of such "historic" event across the Niger, right? 

Icheoku says Igbo people of Anambra State must join other Igbos to register their displeasure over our peoples' deportation from Lagos by APC's Governor Fashola. They must in unison say to APC's Governor Fashola that his so called apology was neither sufficient nor was it properly tendered and channeled, and therefore not accepted. Igbo people of Anambra State must let APC's Governor Fashola know that Aka Ikenga is not Igbo people's recognized representative, hence not the proper medium to communicate to Igbo people whatsoever. Anambra State Igbos must drive it into Governor Fashola's ears that Oha-na-Eze Ndigbo and the Southeastern Governors Forum are the only true representatives of the Igbo people, hence any communication meant for the entire Igbo people, including an "apology", must be routed through either of this two agencies. 

Further, that the Igbo people do not and cannot expect a cloister of select few Igbo businessmen and professionals based in Lagos, who hardly visit home, who were neither appointed nor elected by them as their representatives, to be their middlemen for communicating apologies to them and will not listen to any such routed apology. Icheoku says Igbo people of Anambra State has only one way of strongly and most effectively communicating this message to APC's Governor Fashola and in unequivocal terms. By resoundingly rejecting Governor Fashola's APC from taking roots in Anambra State by proxy of the APC-tainted governorship candidate Chris Ngige, in the forthcoming governorship election in November, the message would have been sent to all Igbo-haters, who demean and denigrate Igbo people in Nigeria at every given opportunity, that enough is enough - NO MORE, NEVER AGAIN and NOT THIS TIME. 

It would be a symbolic gesture, made not out of hatred of Chris Ngige but to send a clear message to APC's Governor Fashola and the other Yoruba apologist Femi Fani Kayode that spiting Igbo people will not be rewarded or tolerated, nor would any of such their frontal assault on Igbo's general psyche ever be forgotten. To ignore this plea and otherwise in any event elect APC's Chris Ngige as governor of Anambra State this November, no matter under what color, subterfuge or disguise of his past proven record of performance, would be selling out to Yoruba's APC's Bola Tinubu and Governor Fashola. Such a salutary gesture would once again reinforce and reiterate the cliched opinion of other Nigerians that Igbos have no cored value; that Igbo people lack a political will to go the extra mile; that Igbo people lack the cohesion to fight and pursue a common purpose; that the Igbos are merely a motley of disorganize and dysfunctional people, with no collective agenda or plan to get anywhere politically in Nigeria; that all their handicaps are because they are confused and untutored in the act of real politics of numbers, guided by one united common front and voice and this is the sole reason they are always easily manipulated out of any serious contention in Nigeria's politics every time. 

A vote for Chris Ngige is a vote for APC; and a vote for APC is an automatic authorization of Bola Tinubu to do whatever and however pleases him, with the purse of Anambra State, Igboland's headquarters. Icheoku says after all the horrid experiences Igbo people have suffered in the hands of Yoruba people starting with Awolowo and Zik through Obasanjo's shutting down of Igbo businesses (Ibeto cement, Slok airlines, Hallmark Bank, Savannah Bank etc) to the most recent deportation of Igbos by Governor Fashola, it would be a great defeatism for Igbo people to just turn around and hand over to Yorubas our key State, Anambra. Igbo and Yoruba people are competitors in Nigeria and for one competitor to win the other must lose and igbos must not lose by such a wide margin of turning over our key state to the Yorubas. Igbo and Yoruba are arch rivals in Nigeria and this rivalry must and should continue in order for the Igbos to still remain competitive in Nigeria. So please Anambra Igbos do not play the possum or allow the Yorubas run a roughshod on you by surrendering your state to Bola Tinubu. By so doing, you would equally be ratifying APC's Governor Fashola's deportation of Igbos from Lagos and this should be a NO, NO.

Furthermore, APC's bank-roller and controller-general in chief, Bola Tinubu, a scion of royalty, well versed in the things of culture and tradition being a prince of Isale Eko, found it very convenient and tolerable to literally invade another royalty's domain on a sacred day the king was marking his reign, just to hold a campaign rally? Why that particular day for the political rally if not a deliberate attempt to challenge the monarch's institutional authority? Icheoku queries were it the Oba of Lagos who was celebrating a royal event of same magnitude as the Ofala festival, would a similar political campaign rally or any other event been tolerated in Lagos or allowed to clash with a traditional festivities which was scheduled over one year ago thus giving sufficient notice to the world? Why that particular day to hold a political rally if not a deliberate attempt to sabotage the Obi's festivities? Icheoku asks would Bola Tinubu or any Igbo man for that matter dare assault a highly revered monarch of Lagos or any other Yoruba kingdom by holding a conflicting and somewhat confrontational event on a day festivities marking their reign were taking place? 

Icheoku asks why would Bola Tinubu's APC's political train so flagrantly invade Onitsha for a political rally while the Obi of Onitsha was celebrating his Ofala festival? Why couldn't the rally wait for another time or weekend following the completion of the Ofala festival? To add insult to injury, Bola Tinubu did not even have the cultural decency or a visitor's courtesy to visit the Ime-Obi to pay homage to the Obi for coming into his domain or indeed commiserate with him on  the occasion of marking his reign? Icheoku wonders what founded the effrontery of Bola Tinubu to so vagrantly disrespect a very high Igbo Majesty, the Obi of Onitsha Igwe Patrick Achebe and inside his domain if the APC was not seeking further confrontation and now inside Igboland? Icheoku queries would Bola Tinubu dare do this in Kano with the Emir of Kano or in Ife with the Ooni of Ife or in Oyo with the Alaafin of Oyo or in Benin with the Oba of Bini or in Sokoto with the Sarduana of Sokoto? Only in Igboland and you ask why? The simple answer seems to be because Bola Ige does not care a hoot about the sensibilities of the Igbo people and is indeed very scornful of the Igbos and their traditional institutions? As the sole financier and promoter in chief of the APC, Bola Tinubu bears sole responsibility for anything done wrong by the party sucklings including Ngige and for disrespecting the Obi of Onitsha.

Icheoku says this is a perversion of the highest order of an Igbo revered institution that must not be tolerated by Igbo people. The fact that Chris Ngige was a party to this show of shameful disrespect to the institution of the Obi-ship of Onitsha and by extension the entire Igboland, being Igboland's highest ranking first class monarchy, is a call for a serious reprimand of all the transgressors including Chris Ngige. This will let Chris Ngige and his APC Yoruba sponsors know that they cannot come into Igboland and further denigrate the Igbo people including what they hold so dear to them - their first class traditional institution, and in such very arrogant and disrespectful manner. The APC should pay a price for their infra-dig; the APC should suffer a consequence for their spiteful treatment of the Obi of Onitsha  and the institution he represents in Igboland. Icheoku says the denial of APC an access to the purse of Anambra State would be a good measure. Therefore Icheoku calls on Anambra State Igbos to register their great displeasure over Bola Tinubu's disrespectful treatment of Igbo's first class monarch, the Obi of Onitsha, by saying no to APC and their front-man Chris Ngige this November 2013. In addition, Anambra Igbos MUST not sell-out politically to the Yorubas as that will be uprooting the very foundation of the only Igbo legacy party in Nigeria. As a matter of honor and pride, Anambra Igbos should endeavor to sustain the anchor of the only truly Igbo party in Nigeria and in memory of our war lord Ikemba Nnewi. At least do it for him; but in any other event, please do not settle for a sectional tribal party as represented by Bola Tinubu's APC and it does not and should not matter that Ngige is beloved as that will be politically suicidal for Anambra State and Igboland in general.  

Icheoku is emphatic that APC Bola Tinubu violated the sanctity of Obi of Onitsha's solemn Ofala ceremony by staging a campaign event on the same day the Obi was marking his reign to countermand the festivities in an unneeded rivalry. APC Bola Tinubu also spitefully failed, refused and/or neglected to pay the Obi of Onitsha a courtesy call and homage while in the Obi's domain, carrying out a campaign visit to Onitsha. It also did not matter to APC Bola Tinubu that the Obi in whose domain he was trying to stir trouble was celebrating his coronation as to warrant him going to felicitate with him on such an occasion and to wish him many more happy returns? A man as schooled in culture and tradition as APC Bola Tinubu should not have in the first place agreed to flag off any political campaign rally in Onitsha on the same day the Obi of Onitsha was celebrating his Ofala festival; but he chose to affront an institution which means so much to Igbos. The very act of holding a rival event in Onitsha, on the same day the Obi was celebrating his Ofala, by itself, without more, was indeed so confrontational in nature that were it in so many other traditional domains in Nigeria, may be the APC marauders led by Bola Tinubu would not have made it out alive from Onitsha; but thankfully the Obi was both a gentleman and a scholar, a very peaceful person and he restrained his subjects. 

In Bola Tinubu's Lagos, even the celebration of Eyoo masquerade leads to a near total and complete shut down of everything and who knows the fate which usually befalls any unlucky wanderer caught after dawn when their curfew is already in place; but the Obi of Onitsh's Ofala and in Onitsha was no big deal to this band of vagrants led by Bola Tinubu who invaded Onitsha for a political event while the Obi was marking his coronation? Any man or woman who is indeed respectful of a people would by the same token respect things endear to them including their traditional institutions; hence would not hold a confrontational event on the occasion as the Ofala festival. Assuming for the sake of advocacy that no Ofala festival was even taking place, a rather respectful Bola Tinubu, while visiting Onitsha, would have first paid homage to the custodian of Onitsha, the Obi of Onitsha. At least protocol demands that and respect for what the Obi represents and the institution's very high place in Igboland also make it imperative that any dignitary visiting Onitsha should stop by the Ime-Obi to extend felicitations to the Obi. But APC's Bola Tinubu did not any of that nor did he show any respect to His Majesty. A matter made worse because the Obi was celebrating his Ofala when APC Bola Tinubu and his APC vagrants invaded Onitsha and this did not weigh enough to move Bola Tinubu to do what is right by the Obi, by the people of Onitsha, by Anambra State and indeed the entire Igbo people and you ask yourself WHY? Icheoku's guess is because APC Bola Tinubu does not GIVE A DAMN about what the Igbo people or how they feel or think about their traditional institutions?

Icheoku says Chris Ngige is in a wrong party. APC is for all intent and purpose a Southwest regional Yoruba party, in a vice stranglehold of Ahmed Bola Tinubu with some little North West Hausa/Fulani Buhari flavor. The broom symbol was Yoruba ACN's as well as one of its colors. Moreso all the prime officers of APC are Yoruba and Hausa/Fulani people without any Igbo South Easterner in any position of real strength, power or authority within the party; a matter made worse by the Islamic party symbolism of APC with Bola Tinubu and Muhammadu Buhari, both Muslims, calling all the shots. Icheoku queries why would the Igbo people sell out to this arrangement when Buhari has never condemned the incessant massacres of Igbo people in the North by his Islamic brothers Boko Haram terrorists? Bola Tinubu has also not spoken forcefully against the Islamic Boko Haram terrorist scourge whenever their victims were Igbo people unlike he did when those students were beheaded in Yobe recently? So who will protect Igbo people in an APC controlled government under this two men's leadership of the party, their antecedent considered? Therefore why give them front-row accommodation in the heartland of Igboland by handing them over Anambra State through Chris Ngige?

Also knowing how ACN controlled South Western Yoruba States governors are beholden to Bola Tinubu, lavishing their States money on his birthdays and parceling out billions in over-inflated contracts to Bola Tinubu owned companies from Lagos to Oyo to Ogun to Edo and Oshun states, why should Bola Tinubu also be allowed to take over Onitsha and Nnewi markets revenues? Igbo money should be left for the Igbos and not used to further feather the nest of Bola Tinubu or any of his Yoruba controlled business interests or concerns, period. Admitted this may sound like a tribal goading in action but Icheoku says since the handshake across the Niger has not been consummated - not during Awo and Zik era, not during Ojukwu's repeated efforts; not during Obasanjo's government when he pleasured himself greatly with the number of Igbo businesses he closed down from Slok airlines to Ibeto cement to Hallmark bank to Savannah bank etc; and not as recently evidenced with the Governor Fashola's deportation of Igbos from Lagos saga and the repeated calls by demented Femi Fani Kayode for Igbo people to go home, what then is the point pretending that everything is honky-dory in Nigeria among the tribes and that it does not matter what party's platform Ngige runs on and who controls it? 

Just like election matters, political party's platform also equally do matter as somebody somewhere outside Igboland would automatically control the policy and agenda of the incoming APC government of Anambra State in the unfortunate event APC's Ngige is elected? In democracy, numbers matter and there will not be enough Ngiges in APC to stop Bola Tinubu and his boys from wresting the control of Anambra State purse from Igbo people and doing some wealth transfers across the Niger. If in doubt take a look at ACN controlled states of Western Nigeria and be the judge of Bola Tinubu's imperial control. Currently available evidence shows that Bola Tinubu controls his ACN governors lock and step, so an elected APC's Ngige would also be forced to subjugate himself to APC's godfather Bola Tinubu and will not have a say or strength to raise any objection on how Bola Tinubu wants Onitsha and Nnewi revenues to be shared? Icheoku says Igbo people of Anambra State must not allow themselves to wake up to discover that this nightmarish possibility becomes a reality and MUST endeavor to drain the swamp now before those crocodiles infest it. Bola Tinubu controlling Anambra State resources must not be allowed to happen, not NOW, not at any future time.

Lastly Bola Tinubu was coy at Onitsha in not raising the APC Governor Fashola's deportation question or personally apologizing for it, afterall it was the act of his political son, his appointed governor of Lagos State. Conversely, is there anybody out there willing to challenge Icheoku that Bola Tinubu was not aware of the brouhaha caused by Fashola's deportation of his fellow Nigerians from a section of Nigeria despite not having the power or authority to so do? So why did Bola Tinubu not at least reiterate the apology and sought a confirmation that the apology was accepted and further express how deeply sorry he was that his political son acted in such utra vires divisive manner. But instead, he choose to be smart by half about it and remained taciturn on the matter, thinking that Igbo people are too shallow to remember that ugly incident as they cast their ballots to elect their next governor of Anambra State in November. Icheoku says this failure by Bola Tinubu to apologize for Fashola's deportation of Igbo people from Lagos is a gross wilful neglect and utter indifference to a big Igbo people's hurt in their believe in one Nigerian. It is a neglect by Bola Tinubu of a matter which so violently violated the heart and soul of every Igbo person that they still shudders in shock of disbelief that a Yoruba APC governor do not see them as Nigerians? It also shows that Bola Tinubu did not appreciate or refused to see the injustice complained of by the igbos - that Nigerian Igbos were forcibly deported from a section of their country, Lagos-Nigeria and it impacted their psyche. 

APC Bola Tinubu should be held vicariously liable for that depraved act of his appointed political son, APC Governor of Lagos State Fashola. By the same extension, APC's Chris Ngige of Anambra State SHOULD and MUST also be made to feel the heat of Igbo displeasure of what his APC Yoruba friend Fashola did to the Igbo people he wrongly deported from Lagos. Icheoku says since you can tell who a man is by knowing who his friends are, Chris Ngige's palling around with Igbo haters from across the Niger is not a good sign for Anambra State Igbos wellbeing. His being elected into government house Awka forebodes danger to our pride and dignity in Nigeria; therefore he must be stopped cold in his tracks - PLEASE DO NOT ELECT CHRIS NGIGE, GOVERNOR OF ANAMBRA STATE. 

A time like this calls for collective action. Icheoku does not dislike or hate Chris Ngige as a person; admitted Icheoku called him out when he went prostrate before Alusi Okija deity to swear oath of loyalty to his erstwhile political godfather Chris Uba who smuggled him into government house Awka during his first governorship journey; before they fell apart leading to the same Chris Ubah kidnapping him and later forcing him out of the same government house Awka through the courts. So Icheoku still questions whether a devil worshiper and a man who swears by deity like Chris Ngige is a fit and proper person to govern a predominantly Christian State like Anambra; and it does not matter that he bears the name CHRIS. A man who wheels and deals in such manner and who swears by deities for power, probably have also sworn by Oshun Goddess for Bola Tinubu to hand him over Onitsha and Nnewi money pots as a trade for being elected? Icheoku does not know for a fact, neither does any one else except the two parties; but suffice it to say that if he did it once then he probably could have done it again now. Icheoku says Anambra State should be governed by a Christian in faith and in practice; and someone who both publicly and privately hold the Christian tenets with honor. 

So you decide for yourself BUT personally Icheoku have decided to take some proactive action to campaign against Chris Ngige's election as governor of Anambra State. In the unfortunate event Anambra Igbos sellout to Yoruba Bola Tinubu and elects Ngige come November 2013, Icheoku would embark on some serious protest action. First Icheoku would boycott Anambra State for the duration of his governorship like Icheoku did of Nigeria when Baba Iyabo was president. Secondly all Icheoku's friends from and of Anambra State origin would be chewed out for allowing a goat to deliver while in tethers. Further and since Anambra State is now the designated heartland of Igboland, Icheoku would feel so guilty by ancestral roots that he will be forced to 'de-Igbonize' himself to a great degree. The dimension is not fully known but it will be enough that people would ask 'is this man of Igbo stork,' and Igbo people will ask, 'is he really one of us? '

Chris Ngige is guilty by association. His friends deported Igbo people from Lagos and they also in concert, disrespected our premier traditional institution. Chris Ngige is in a wrong, anti-Igbo, Islamic party. APC is controlled supremely by one Yoruba Muslim man, Bola Tinubu, assisted by one Hausa/Fulani Islamic fundamentalist, Muhammadu Buhari. Muhammadu Buhari hates the Igbos - his war records and brief presence as head of state spoke volume and it is on record that one of the reasons he staged his 1983 coup was to prevent Vice President Alex Ekwueme from eventually becoming president. It is also instructive that Buhari boycotted the Onitsha Chris Ngige's gubernatorial flag off campaign because he is not comfortable visiting igboland. Buhari also murdered Bartholomew Owo based on a retroactive decree. Buhari also imprisoned Vice President Alex Ekwueme while he put President Shagari under executive house arrest and you wonder why a deputy should be persecuted more than the man in charge? Buhari also once wondered on one his rare visit to Onitsha in 1984 how the Igbos managed the miracle of rebuilding their region after the destruction and deprivation of the civil war. 

Icheoku wonders why all these signs are not already flashing DANGER-RED to Igbo people of Anambra State. Igbo people must not allow themselves to be conquered by the Yorubas, beginning with Anambra State. We are rivals and for one to win the other has to lose; we must therefore not capitulate otherwise they will secure a victory over us. Bola Tinubu is not an Igbo lover either. So brethrens of Anambra State, Icheoku says do this for true blood of Igbo flowing inside of you. Do it to save Onitsha and Nnewi markets' pots of gold from being snatched and siphoned by greedy Bola Tinubu. Do it for all those Igbo people deported by APC Governor Fashola from Lagos. Do it for your motherland - JUST SAY NO TO Bola Tinubu's greedy expedition to conquer Igboland. Say no to Bola Tinubu and his band of very disrespectful brigands who invaded Onitsha while the Obi was celebrating his Ofala without even paying a courtesy visit to the Obi. 

Anambra Igbos, please SAY NO to Chris Ngige's governorship ambition to rule Anambra State as he is going to be a conduit for Bola Tinubu to get his filthy greedy hands on Igbo money. APC is not an Igbo party and they do not care about Igbos nor their traditional institutions. Admitted that Anambra Igbos may love Ngige BUT Ngige cannot stand against Bola Tinubu's greedy appetite that is coveting Onitsha and Nnewi markets' purses. Enough of all these Igbos are "nice" people, courted only when they want something out or from us, only to dumb us and say so long until next time? Ngige may be a saint and a performer past governor BUT he is in an anti-Igbo political party and thus literally in bed with the enemy. The devil's train in which Ngige is hitching a ride to Awka governor's mansion will not bring any good tidings to Igbo people other than influenza. The operators of the train have no love for the Igbo people as exhibited by the recent deportation of Igbo people from Lagos by one of them. Then factor in the continued haranguing of an Igbo daughter Bianca by a prominent member of that party, APC Femi Fani Kayode; admitted the loud mouth is on CRACK which must have cracked his brains alongside his perpetually gaping mouth that oozes with putrid offal? It is also pertinent to note that APC Bola Tinubu did not mention either the APC's Fashola's deportation or APC's Femi Fani Kayode tirades against the Igbos while flagging off APC's Ngige's gubernatorial campaign in Igbo heartland Onitsha and you ask yourself, why? 

The solution and the only nuclear option to stop this evil plans of mortgaging Igbo prosperity to the Yoruba Southwest's control via Bola Tinubu, after their Obafemi Awolowo tried in vain to stifle it with his inhumane twenty pounds and indigenisation decree fiscal and monetary policies, is to not bite the bait that is Chris Ngige. The Ngige carrot, being dangled before the Igbos in Anambra State, is a poison pill that will cause untoward hardship and irreparable damage to the standing of the Igbo people in Nigeria and Igbos MUST reject it and thereby refuse to play second fiddle to our arch rivals, the Yoruba people. Anambra Igbos must tell APC thanks but NO to the Ngige offer; and to Ngige, although we love you BUT you are in a wrong party. Igbo people of Anambra State must not and should never surrender or mortgage their hard-earned prosperity to Bola Tinubu's greed or to the Yorubas' overreaching control. Icheoku says if surrendering Anambra State to the Yorubas is the only way the elusive handshake across the Niger can ever take place, may the two hands hang up in the air in perpetuity, never to clasp one another. It was not done in the past by our previous generation and it must not be done NOW by the present generation. Icheoku says NO to APC and hereby calls on Igbos of Anambra State to also say NO to a Yoruba intended domination of the Igbos. Please say NO to Bola Tinubu's greedy coveting of Onitsha and Nnewi markets treasuries which he plans to execute by proxy of Chris Ngige. The silver bullet - REJECT NGIGE come November.

"WE ARE MURDERERS" - JEREMIAH USENI.

Icheoku says when you think you've heard the last vile thing from all these animals who had held Nigeria down for too long, here comes the worst vomit from one of the vermin, owning up to a cold blooded murder of a Head of State alongside his host governor. This becomes more worrisome because the bastard son of Tarok who made this self-incriminating confession that he is a murderer, found it very edifying and glorifying to rekindle that painful chapter of Nigeria's sordid history that won't go away. According to this vampire, himself, TY Danjuma, Garba Dada and their ignoble co-conspirators betrayed their sworn oath as soldiers and their allegiance to their commander in chief and head of state and killed him in cold-blood and are shamelessly proud of their infamy. 

Icheoku bemoans this as the worst and lowest denominator any decent human can descend into except that there is nothing decent about a man who in addition to killing his head of state and commander in chief, also poisoned his "best" friend Sani Abacha to death; leading Icheoku to wonder with a friend like Jerry-Monster Useni who needs an enemy? Icheoku without mincing words, hereby categorically and unequivocally, brand this army man for what he is - a putrid sack of manure that should be avoided like leprosy and loathed as unwholesome by every God or Allah-fearing Nigerian who believes in the sanctity and sacredness of human life. Jeremiah Useni, it shall not be well with you here and the hereafter as the blood of those you wasted shall continue to hound you and will line up in witness against you on judgment day. Except that Abacha will not be allowed to testify from Hell, otherwise he too would have to confront you that day in addition.

When Icheoku thinks that the otherwise avoidable tragedy that was Biafran civil war was gradually melting away, a man or rather a murderer who helped trigger that tragic event in Nigeria's history, several decades later, now boasts to the whole shell-shocked world that his group of despicable bandits acted in July 1966 not in the interest of Nigeria but for vengeance. That they acted out of a malicious indignation and their spite of the Igbo people to REVENGE what they saw as a killing of their Northern leaders? Icheoku asks was Finance Minister Okotie Eboh a Northerner? Was S L Akintola a Northerner? Anyway a man this lowly in thinking and who could so easily plunge a country into a civil war because of tribal bigotry, deserves nothing but a total and complete ostracizing from the society, short of full weight of the law prosecution. But unfortunately, raving lunatics like Jeremiah Useni and there are many of them, are still roaming the Nigeria landscape as VIPs and you wonder why Fela categorized them as Vagabonds(in power). 

Now Icheoku will try to analyse murderer Jeremiah Useni's vomit in the interview he granted an inconsequential Hausa tabloid wherein he made his murder confessional; admitted in some of his answers he sounded very distorted like a demented hyena suffering from advanced degrees of Alzheimer's. Just look at the numerous irrelevant responses and non-answer answers he gave to questions of the interviewer such as how he felt joining the army at a very young age? He started narrating how he broke his leg and ended up in a hospital; how he ate omelet and a host of other sundry off the point bullshit of remarks. 

Listen to this animal spit on your face with his account of his exploits as a Northern Nigerian tribal army man who never truly served Nigeria as a patriotic Nigerian but a bigoted Tarok ideologue whose allegiance was to primarily to the regional Northern Nigeria instead of the country Nigeria. - "When we did our own, it was revenge against the Igbos. We realised that Igbos were behind all the killings, and were angered the more because they were not even arrested. Although, they were later arrested and taken to jail, but information came to us that they were just enjoying themselves there. Even their ranks were returned to them and they were wearing their uniforms inside the jail. We continued to meet in secret and strategizing on how to take revenge." 

Icheoku says imagine the double speak by Jeremiah Useni that 'they were not arrested, although they were later arrested;' and you wonder whether he is in the threshold of dementia? Jeremiah Useni, Icheoku asks why did you proceed with your REVENGE attack despite the fact that the law was taking its course regarding those coup plotters and does Icheoku need to add that Ojukwu who was the highest ranking Igbo military officer then did not partake in the coup yet Jeremiah Useni branded it an "Igbo coup" just to provide his ilks the subterfuge to decimate a fast-rising Igbo people within the Nigerian army? It was apparent from his confession that this despicable Tarok individual was just hell-bent on taking a REVENGE on the Igbos, regardless of some other nations' officers participation in that attempted cleansing of the Nigerian society, in order to stop their rise and "revenge the killing of his Northern people?" 

According to this donkey's account and recollection of what transpired, "a meeting of all emirs was called in Ibadan, all our emirs gathered in Ibadan, the head of state, Ironsi, would address them. So we said, are we going to let him come, address them and leave? Or should we just kill him or what? Our fear was that he was in the company of our emirs, and you know bullets do not select whom to hit. What do we do? We don’t want even a single emir to die." Icheoku says this skunk Jeremiah Useni did not want "even a single Northern emir to die," yet he did not bat an eyelid riddling the head of state Aguyi Ironsi, an Igbo, with bullets alongside his host Southwest Governor Adekunle Fajuyi, a Yoruba? Continuing, the bloodsucker said "So we decided the best thing to do was to open fire there even if Governor Fajuyi was also caught, so that they would just be buried together, and that was what happened." So as far as this murderer Jeremiah Useni was concerned, Yoruba Fajuyi was an expendable (even if) but not any of his Northern emirs and you wonder who has kept Nigeria divided along tribal and ethnic lines and for so long? 

Continuing his acerbic diatribe, child-killer Jeremiah Useni said, "When Obasanjo became the Head of State, TY Danjuma was supposed to be the second in command, but Danjuma said no, there was no need for Murtala to be killed and an Obasanjo was made the head of State, with a T.Y. Danjuma second in command. Then Shehu Yar’adua was brought in when he was a Lieutenant Colonel but he was doubly promoted to a Brigadier General and made the second in command to Obasanjo. That decision was taken to promote peace in the land." 

Icheoku queries why was the same ethos not observed when Aguyi Ironsi was murdered by Jeremiah Useni and TY Danjuma  by appointing an Igbo man as second in command and by the same logic, 'promote peace in the land?' At least following Gowon's elevation to head of state, why was an Igbo man not "doubly promoted" to serve as Gowon's second in command then, if the subsequent objective with Yar'Adua's double promotion to serve as Obasanjo's second in command was to "promote peace in the land?" Icheoku is forced to conclude that the 'land where peace was sort to be promoted' and which this dog was talking about or referring to must be their perverted ideal Nigeria without Southerners including the Igbos or where the later remains perpetual servants and slaves, and Jeremiah Useni's North owning every land in Nigeria down to the Atlantic? 

To a question as to how he felt when he was not chosen to succeed Abacha, the Tarok beast said "as a Christian, I believe in destiny." Icheoku retorts where was this christian faith/value of Jeremiah Useni when he and his co-conspirators took a revenge attack on their perceived enemies - Igbo military officers, over two hundred of whom including head of state Aguyi Ironsi were slaughtered by Useni and his boys; or was it because he was put in his place by the real Northerners during the installation of Abdulsalm Abubakar, his junior officer, in place of him that he suddenly realized and remembered that he was a Christian? Where was this Christianity in Jeremiah Useni when he set out to take "REVENGE" against a people when the Lord says revenge is mine? How Christ-like was the slaughter of innocent women and children during Biafra including the starvation to death of millions, which dastardly act of terror was orchestrated by Jeremiah Useni and his cohorts? Icheoku's only wish is that heaven and earth is real and that after life, there will be judgment; so that an opportunity will actually arise for a person like this scumbag Jeremiah Useni, a supposed Christian, to be faced in judgment by millions of Biafran Christians whom he wasted their lives during the Biafran war acting in concert with his Northern Muslims collaborators. 

To another question on the present dysfunctional  Northern Nigeria politics, the man who poisoned Sani Abacha answered, "We found ourselves in this mess because we have turned our backs on God and we are mostly selfish in our affairs. We have hardened our hearts and are cheating each other, which will not take us anywhere. Everything now is based on religious or ethnic affiliations." In retort, Icheoku asks Jeremiah Useni, was it not the same "religious and/or ethnic affiliation" that led him and his Northern gangsters army boys to murder a sitting head of state and his host governor just because they are none Northerners and non Muslims? Was it not the same religious/ethnic affiliation of Jeremiah-Monster Useni and his band of Northern rascals that led to the pogrom that eventually plunged Nigeria into a civil war? 

Icheoku says emphatically that religious-ethnicity bigotry is Jeremiah Useni's middle name, and that the germinated seedling of discordant tunes in Northern Nigeria today was planted by Jeremiah Useni way back in 1966 when he killed a head of state because he was Igbo. So why is the same madman Jeremiah-Monster Useni now pointing accusing finger at himself by stating that "everything now is based on religious and ethnic affiliations;" when this was his primary stated reason for his group of bandits' revenge counter-coup of 1966? As far as Icheoku is concerned the chicken have merely come home to roost in Northern Nigeria and Useni is only seeing the beginning of the avalanche of disunity that will hit Northern Nigeria. Army man Useni should wait until the real Hausa/Fulani core North finish off with their agenda against Jeremiah Useni's Middle Belt North and then Nigerians will take time to listen to the gibberish oozing out of this ape's mouth on the issue of religion and ethnicity. 

On Abacha, Useni said "Abacha was very honest and well mannered. Abacha knew how to run the economy of a nation despite the fact that he did not train as an economist. Abacha was a man who believed in rule of law and order. Abacha is also a problem solver." Icheoku says fortunately enough Abacha was not a so distant past historical experience in Nigeria. Every Nigerian who was alive during the infamous reign of that midget of Kano, knows that anyone who described the dark goggle-wearing army man in those flowering words, as did the Tarok jackal, did not know jack about Sani Abacha; otherwise how could any sane Nigerian describe a man who stole over $2 billion of Nigeria's money as "very honest? How could any mentally balanced Nigerian describe a man who hounded NADECO people out of Nigeria, killed Kudirat Abiola, Pa Rewane and a host of other Nigerians as "well mannered?" How could any educated or even a semi-illiterate Nigerian like Jeremiah Useni describe a man who does not even get to his office until sundown as an "expert economic manager?" 

Icheoku asks how could anyone who lived in Nigeria during the heydays of Al-Mustapha's gestapo killer-squad describe what was experienced then under the rule of despot Sani Abacha as a prevailing "rule of law and order?" It is indeed mind-boggling that that any sane person could  describe a man who did not know any other way out of a problem other than to hound potential opposition into disappearing and saw every voice of descent as a threat that must be eliminated at all cost as a problem solver?" It is increasingly becoming more evident that Baba Iyabo might be right afterall when he asserted not too long ago that "Nigeria was cursed;" otherwise how could this human excrement continue to walk the soils of Nigeria a free man? Icheoku heretofore identifies this Jeremiah Useni as one of the curse plaguing Nigeria and prays God to please take him away immediately and send him to HELL where he rightly belongs. What an imbecile he is that would so openly and so delightfully own up to the murder of a head of state, some woman's husband and father of some children and he is gloating about it? Icheoku is pissed and much so at Jeremiah Useni and his claim to perfidy.

FASHOLA'S DEPORTATION APOLOGY, UNAPOLOGETIC?

Icheoku says reading the so called mea culpa of the Alaayee Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos State concerning his illegal and unlawful act of deporting citizens of a country from their country, any discerning mind would surmise that either he was compelled by his boss Bola Tinubu to clean up his mess or he reluctantly tried to placate a wounded people to avoid a political retribution across the Niger with APC's Ngige's possible rejection in Anambra State because of association with Igbo haters. Hear him - "If those people have misunderstood me or the actions taken by my government, I offer an unqualified and unreserved apology."  

Icheoku says it seems that this man does not get it that he denigrated the entire Igbo people by deeming some of their own as unfit and improper persons to inhabit that part of their fatherland called Lagos. A Lagos State Nigeria, which by virtue of their being part of Nigerian territory, entitles any other Nigerian to live there and call it home as would any other one hundred Fasholas. Governor Fashola does not have any superior or preeminent right to lay claim to Lagos State nor is he or any of his ilks more entitled to Lagos or the right to reside therein more than any of those destitutes so called, whom he deported therefrom. This flagrant infraction of the citizenship rights of those deportees is why Icheoku took umbrage at the governor and nothing more, nothing personal. 

Lagos State is a Nigerian territory and no one, Icheoku repeats no one, including Governor Fashola, has any exclusive right therein to be deemed more Lagosian than any other Nigerian citizens who decides to live in Lagos State and see him or herself as a Lagosian("Omo or Sisi Eko.") The constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes this equality of citizenship of every Nigerian imperative; hence the action of July 24, 2013 whereby Governor Fashola took the laws into his hands by kidnapping Nigerians citizens and deporting them out of Lagos in the dead of the night is illegal, unlawful and a breach of the peace. Moreover immigration matters in Nigeria is still within the exclusive purview of the Federal government, thus making the Lagos State government of Fashola's act ultra vires the constitution. In any other law-abiding and civilized society, what Governor Fashola did was enough to trigger his recall; lead to his arrest and prosecution for violating fellow citizens' right to freely live, unmolested and undisturbed, anywhere in their country.  But in Nigeria, the jury is still out on how far civilized behavior has developed therein and whether the law perches on the tip of their pyramid as obtains in many other functional places? 

Now lets examine the merits of Fashola's belated "unreserved and unqualified apology to those people who misunderstood him and his actions?" Icheoku says by delineating the sphere of the Igbo-offended, the governor failed to acknowledge that the entire broad Igbo spectrum was offended by his action. The governor tried to use the legendary divide and conquer tactic to divide the Igbo people by classifying them into those who "understood and clapped for him and his actions" and those who didn't. This is totally a wrong approach and the attempt woefully failed as no true son or daughter of Igboland except for the sellout Joe Igbokwe, who found Governor Fashola's illegal action funny or a laughing matter. It is both reprehensible and deplorable. It is not a joke for anyone when another tries to alienate him or her from his fatherland just like with Shugaba in the then Shagari's NPN, hence the entire Igbo nation frowned at Fashola's action. Icheoku says Igbo people condemn the deportation of their people from Lagos by Governor Fashola as a classless attack on their general right to be full Nigerian citizens with inalienable right to reside anywhere and wherever they may deem fit within Nigeria.

Icheoku also has issue with the forum wherein the alleged apology was tendered as Aka Ikenga does not represent nor do they speak for the Igbo nation. Aka Ikenga is a cloister of some Igbo professionals in Lagos who hardly visit Igboland; they congregate to propagate their personal/private business and professional interest but definitely they do not act for the Igbos as a whole. They also do not speak for nor are they mandated to act on behalf of the Igbo people, hence cannot hold brief for the Igbos or mediate any Igbo cause or disputation like the current face-off the Igbo people have with Governor Fashola over his illegal deportation of their people from Lagos. If indeed Governor Fashola sincerely wants to reach out to Igbo people to placate them for his provocative action, the preferred and rightful forum and as is also indeed well known to Fashola, is and still remains either the Igbo Governors Forum or the Igbo umbrella representative organisation, Oha na eze Ndigbo. What Governor Fashola did by using the platform of Aka Ikenga to try and reach out to the Igbos is akin to trying to enter a house through the backdoor and this is unacceptable. Icheoku queries why would a "deeply sorry and sincere Fashola," desirous of atoning for his sins of perfidy, not use the proper Igbo channel to communicate his apology to the Igbos? Instead the governor resorted to a very confined group who are not broadly representative of the Igbo people nor do they command any followership in Igboland. A group made up of chiefly Lagos and Abuja dwellers, who hardly visit their ancestral homes in the East and who do not for every intent and purpose speak for the Igbos nor represent them or their interest can hardly be said to be a medium of and for the Igbo people. 

Governor Fashola went to Aka Ikenga to literally 'thank them for helping out with his father's funeral with their largest "herd of cattle?" Therefore, it is safe to assume that Fashola was just palling around with his Aka Ikenga friends when he decided to try and play a fast one with his so called apology, but he definitely was not honestly trying to reach out to Igbo people whose interest he violated by that deportation. For an action which took place on July 24, 2013, he waited until September 27, 2013 before he found it meritorious and convenient to apologise for it; and after repeatedly previously denying that it took place as well as its illegality and/or his culpability in it. Icheoku asks was the governor forced by to change his course by his boss Bola Tinubu or prompted by the floundering Ngige campaign in Anambra State or did he merely used the opportunity provided by Aka Ikenga event to seek rapprochement with the Igbos? Where was his contrition and at what stage of the controversy did he realize that what he did was both wrong and illegal and that an earlier, much timely apology, would have gone farther than this belated attempt to explain an unexplainable action. Hear the governor in his own words "I came here to say thank you for the honor done to my family and the memory of my late father. People who clearly do not understand the actions taken and words spoken are the people I owe an explanation." Icheoku asks, is the governor now telling the rest of majority Igbo people that the Aka Ikenga understood and approved his actions? 

Icheoku asks if the governor as he claimed "cannot take the Igbos for granted", why did he not seek a more humane approach to solving the problem those unfortunate Igbo people had in Lagos instead of the Nazi-gestapo styled manner of rounding them up, literally kidnapping them, and shipping them to a "concentration camp" in Onitsha and in the dead of the night without even intimating the would be receiving governor or their next of kins? If as the governor claimed, "a relationship of tolerance, mutual respect, love and trust with the Igbos has been built over the years," why was all of these in short supply when he executed his clandestine act of deporting Igbo citizens of Nigeria from within their own country? Where was his tolerance when he could not tolerate less fortunate members of the Nigerian society who happen to call Lagos home? 

Where was the governor's mutual respect for humanity, knowing fully well that all persons are not equally well endowed with resources and that those unfortunate Nigerians did not choose to be so impoverished? Icheoku asks where was Fashola's love for God's children or is he now questioning God on why those deportees were not as rich and as affluent as those who in his eyes merit to live in Lagos? If Governor Fashola believes in trust, why did he not trust the Governor of the would-be recipient Anambra State to intimate him of his planned kidnapping, asporting and dumping of Nigerian citizens in Anambra State? Icheoku says if indeed Governor Fashola valued the relationship which existed across the Niger, why did he not treat those deportees as he would treat those area boys (alayees) of Lagos and not un-needfully distinguishing between this two types of indigent Nigerians - those from Lagos and those from the other country, Igboland? 

To add insult to an already festering deep gash, the governor qualified his apology with the word "IF", yet it is an "unqualified apology" in his jaundiced view; which goes to show that he still does not get it - the gravity of what he did. So by necessary implication, the governor did not show remorse as he stated that it was the form and not the substance of his action that was the fall guy here? According to the governor, "I offer an unreserved apology IF the actions had been misunderstood." icheoku says there is nothing to either understand or be misunderstood here as the blatancy of the action is very clear and speaks volume for itself. To reiterate icheoku admonishes that there is nothing else needing or requiring additional understanding or misunderstanding in the fact that some citizens of Nigeria were kidnapped and deported from their own country. 

The governor further made allusion to a Ben Akabueze, an Igbo, serving in his government to further show that he has no beef with the Igbos and that he couldn't have 'looked Ben in the eyes after deporting his people,' right? Icheoku says if indeed Fashola's love for the Igbo people is Romeo and Juliet like, how many other Igbo persons did he employ in his administration aside of that Bola Tinubu's mole and financial gatekeeper, who was put there by Tinubu and forcibly imposed on and inherited by Fashola? Icheoku says if Governor Fashola thinks he has power as governor of Lagos State, in addition to being in power therein, let him fire Ben or redeploy him to another ministry and watch himself consumed by the wrath of Bola Tinubu through impeachment from office. 

Icheoku is indeed stupefied at the gullibility of Igbo people who like children are easily pacified with a simple candy despite possessing a potential clout that they could easily harness to get whatever they want in Nigeria but fail to do so due to motley of disorganized, dysfunctional, wildebeest-like incoherent divergent pursuits to issues affecting them as a people. The Igbo people have become pawn in everybody's chess board game in Nigeria, including Fashola's; and they are being individually easily manipulated simply because they lack a collective common purpose as a united people. Practically, every Igbo person wants to make it and be the it in their enclave as the man who must be feared and respected by all at the pain of using corrupt contacts to inflict untoward hardship on anyone who is not singing the chorus of their infallibility and God-like quality? In this rambling atmosphere, other Nigerians are cashing in to rubbish the Igbo people further and so easily that Icheoku cries out WHY can't there be an Igbo people that spoke with one voice -a collective voice force. Icheoku questions what this Fashola was talking about when he used the word "misunderstanding" to describe what he did or state that the number of those he deported was over exaggerated? According to the governor, those people were just seventeen and not seventy; to which Icheoku says one deportation of a people from their own country is simply one deportation too many or is the governor waiting until he deports about one million Igbos from Lagos to accept or acknowledge that what he did was both wrong, illegal and highly deplorable?

Further, Icheoku says there is nothing wrong with people moving from one part of their country to another provided it is to an area still within their country's geographical entity. It is called demographic mobility and people do it throughout the world. The United States Clinton family for example saw Hillary from Illinois marry Bill from Arkansas and relocated to Little Rock where he became a governor's wife and thereafter, moved to New York and later became a State's Senator. Ditto the Bush family that migrated from Connecticut where their grandfather was a Congressman to Texas from where two Bushes won elections to and served as presidents of the United States; after one served as governor and another son Jeb moved to Florida where he also became governor and where he still calls home till date. Personally, Icheoku has also personally moved through so many states too; so for the governor of Lagos State to see this imitable trait among the Igbos as a bad omen is indeed truly very disturbing. The worst of it being the governor's questioning of whether the Igbos are being more Nigerians than Igbos? Is the governor expecting the Igbos to be tribal bigots like his ilks and was he indeed asking where Igbo peoples' loyalty lies? Icheoku says if Governor Fashola thinks that he does not have problems with the Igbo people as a result of this deportation, then he has another thing coming. Imagine his arrogance not appreciating the magnitude of his caused injury to a people irrespective that some carpet-beggars, favor-seekers and contract seekers of the Igbo stork flooded his father's funeral with the largest "herd of cattle".  

Finally, Icheoku says this governor must be delusional in thinking that kidnapping and shipping some less fortunate members of the Nigerian society out of Lagos is going to make Lagos better. The solution to making Lagos better by this people would have been to upgrade their lives to a state where they could meaningfully contribute to Lagos State's economy and upkeep with their taxes and by performing other good citizens' duties and obligations. Any governor or government, not primarily driven by tribal bigotry would have seen these deportees as his fellow citizens with unreserved rights to inhabit any part of the geography called Nigeria, hence not deportable. Thereafter, the governor or government would seek ways to rehabilitate and reintegrate them back into the society as gainfully employable part of it. By empowering them with some skill acquisition or trade and backed up with some soft loans to jump-start their sputtering lives once again, these deportees would have eventually realized their Lagos dream or at least headed in that direction. But what did the alaaye governor of Lagos State do? Like a thief in the middle of the night, he kidnapped these unfortunate Nigerians and shipped them away to their own land so far-away from the "foreign" land where they hitherto lived? Icheoku says there is no policy exhibited or implemented here that tasks human fallibility as claimed by the governor whatsoever. 

What the governor did is reprehensibly wrong and absolutely illegal, period. The governor would have said "I am sorry" but he did not. It is irrelevant whether an explanation or defense was intended with his Aka Ikenga visit; the basic thing is that an illegality should not have happened under a supposed Senior Advocate of Nigeria's watch, period. It is also noteworthy that the governor during his apology Aka Ikenga's visit, did not call the rascal Femi Fani Kayode to order or at least denounce him as not speaking for Lagos State or on behalf of him in this matter. So what does the governor's silence on the diatribe drug-addict Femi Fani Kayode is piling on the Igbos, says or tells the Igbos? Icheoku says if only Governor Fashola had put on his SAN's thinking hat pre-deportation and appreciate the illegality of his then planned action. may be all these would have become mute? This would have been the right thing to do and this is what would have saved a more sober Governor Babatunde Raji Fashola from the agonies of the moment and by extension take care of his belated non apologetic apology. 

But in a country given to unnecessarily braggadocio and where people think that the act of showing humility is a sign of weakness, Governor Fashola is now being hailed as magnanimous enough to tender an apology to the Igbos and that his sins have been forgiven? Icheoku says not too fast as those people he dumped in Onitsha have not been compensated or recalled back to Lagos or at least given some stipends for their inconvenience. Until Fashola remorsefully atones for his sins against the Igbos and their unfortunate-deported, Icheoku maintains that the forced apology was a little too late and should be ignored as not genuine and germane enough. The deportation was wrong , illegal and uncalled for and those victims of Governor Fashola's high-handedness should be brought back to Lagos and adequately compensated. Icheoku states that Aka Ikenga does not represent or speak for the Igbos, hence whatever they are doing or "understanding" with Governor Fashola is their private business. Governor Fashola offended the collective sensibilities of the Igbo people and if he wants to apologise for that he must go through the recognized igbo representatives channel - either the Igbo governors or the Oha na eze. Until then, Governor Fashola in the eye of icheoku, remains an avid Igbo hater who must be shunned by every true blooded Igbo person. 

AMERICA WINS AMERICA'S CUP, WHAT A COMEBACK LOOKS LIKE.

Icheoku says unlike other countries like Nigeria that usually looks to God to do their heavy lifting including qualifying and doing well in the upcoming World Cup tournament in Brazil 2014, America does it the old fashioned way - dogged determination and a will to triumph. This can-do, can-win attitude saw their Oracle Team USA come back from an assured defeat to snarl victory in the just concluded America's Cup sailing competition in San Francisco California. A Team USA trailing 8-1 came back from a near certain defeat to overrun the Kiwis in the finals to clinch the championship at 9-8 thereby retaining the cup for the second year back to back. Icheoku commends the sheer bravado of the Team USA sailors who despite the odds against their winning the tournament came from behind to roar to victory. 

One derivative from the Team USA victory is to never give up no matter how herculean the tasks looks like or how rugged the road ahead seems or even how steep the climb might otherwise be or look like. Icheoku congratulates the Larry Ellison sponsored Oracle Team USA for snatching victory from the New Zealand Team Emirate under a circumstance that could easily pass for a miracle of the Bay. Admitted the defending champion, Oracle Team USA, had two points deducted from them as penalty for cheating at the beginning of the tournament, which could have impacted their morals to so easily and quickly fall 1-8 to the Kiwis; but their eventual comeback and final victory shows they are possibly a better side who dutifully defended their championship. 

Icheoku does not know if Larry Ellison would re-stage the championship again in San Francisco, but whatever he decides, the tournament did well to create awareness to a sports considered by many as the pastime of the rich and wealthy, explaining the near lack of interest of ordinary San Franciscans who almost did not even know about a tournament holding in their city. Icheoku was lucky to have watched some of the races and is marvelled at the catamarans' near levitating maneuvers on the waters of San Francisco bay; and those sailors, boy were they all buffed - fitness defined. Icheoku says that what Oracle Team USA pulled off over the much fancied and favored Team Emirate of New Zealand - the Kiwis, is indeed what a typical come back really looks like, what a feat.

MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD BAN, A WELCOME DEVELOPMENT.

Icheoku says the ban of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorist group in Egypt is a welcomed step in the right direction. We hereby congratulate the Egyptian military for doing what is best for their country regardless of what any outsider may think or otherwise feel since no one can be more Egyptian than the Egyptian security forces themselves who have devoted their lives to protecting the structural integrity of their country. 

Following the ban, Icheoku says the next step is to fire or sack any Egyptian who identifies him/herself with the now outlawed organisation from their jobs and lets see how they would continue to forcibly indoctrinate any Egyptian or cause any further upheaval with their brand of Islamic fundamentalism. Icheoku does not really care about democracy in some of these God forsaken countries where some elements of the society usually hijacks democracy and skewers it to suit their own ideological fundamentalism as witnessed recently in Egypt where then President Morsi looked the other way while foot soldiers of his Muslim Brotherhood literally ran every non Muslim Egyptian out of Egypt? 

Democracy must mean what it preaches - government of the people, by the people and for the people and not just for a few ideological class or elites. It must bear broad spectrum application to all regardless of their understanding of who God is and whether they choose to stand or knock their heads on the grounds or at a wall in prayers. If those lunatics in Egypt, who parade themselves as Muslim Brotherhood, wants to enjoy their so called democracy, it must not be at the backs of other non Muslim Brotherhood Egyptians. This is where the rubber meets the road in Icheoku's vehement disagreement with them and our support for the coup that toppled President Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood's fundamentalist government. Now this blanket ban of the terrorist group throughout Egypt becomes the icing on the cake towards Egypt's recovery from the siege that was laid on them by this Islamist fundamentalists through the Morsi government. Once again, Icheoku congratulates the Egyptian military for standing up to be counted when it mattered most for millions of Egyptians. Bravo Egyptian armed forces; long live Egyptian moderates!