MR "CAN WE ALL GET ALONG" RODNEY KING, DEAD.

Icheoku says he is finally dead, the black-man the then racist Los Angeles police men beat to a pulp and left for the dead in 1991. Rodney King, Mr "Can we all get along" victim of police brutality was found dead drowned in a swimming pool. Icheoku asks was he killed and then faked it as if he drowned? 

Was he a male version of the over-dozed Whitney Houston, rendered incapacitated by drugs in a swimming pool; admitted Whitney's was in a bath-tub. But who goes swimming by 5.30am in the morning? Anyway no answer has become available just yet; but Icheoku hopes he did not fall to the numerous bulls-eyes that were trained at him ever since that near destruction of Los Angeles as a result of his brutalization in the hands of four racist police officers. Rodney King was 47 years old. 

Rodney King was stopped for speeding in March 1991 by four racist police officers who hit him more than 50 times, kicked him and shot him severally with stun guns. His inhuman beating was captured on video but those four officers Theodore Briseno, Laurence Powell, Timothy Wind and Sgt. Stacey Koo were still acquitted despite the glaring evidence; which sparked a riot that would leave in its trail 55 people dead and more than 2,000 injured with a billion dollar worth of properties destroyed. According to Rodeny King, while the being pulled over by the police, he said "I saw all those apartments over there, so I said, 'I'm gonna stop right there, If it goes down, somebody will see it.' And true to his prophesy an amateur cameraman caught the pummeling scene as it unfolded yet they were found not guilty by an all-white Simi Valley Los Angeles jury? 

JUSTICE FOR THE AMERICAN BLACKMAN, THE WAY IT WORKS.

"A jury would see 'a big black teenager, and you’re automatically going to be assumed guilty." - In the case of Brian Bates who was wrongly accused and convicted for the rape of and by denigrate Wanetta Gibson; being advised by his attorney to take guilty plea in order to avoid a tsunami of a long prison sentence. 

It would be recalled that it was the same script all over and in the same manner Robert Shapiro earlier ill-advised OJ Simpson to plea bargain before Johnny Cochran took over and secured his acquittal. Anyway, Icheoku asks, who says American underbelly, especially its application of justice to people of color and the poor is squeaky clean? For these class of humanity, they are not as privileged and are often presumed guilty until proven innocent; and there goes the much mouthed justice for all to the mincer?

BUHARI'S BLOOD BATH 2015 WARNING, PATRIOTIC OR RAVING LUNACY?

Icheoku says blood does not need to flow in order to sanitize and/or rectify the anomaly that is Nigeria. A country dizzyingly gyrating on its head and possibly on its last throes, doing a pulsating macabre dance of death prelude to finally giving up the ghost? No, blood need not flow for an off course ship that is Nigeria to be righted and put back on the correct navigational path to real working statehood. So without holding brief for Buhari, Icheoku says Buhari could not have meant his words to be understood in such pedestrian manner as it is by the PDP and some pandering apologists who literally give weight to what he said as a call for anarchy? 


Buhari was simply being aggressively expressive, greatly  frustrated by the rot that has become Nigeria and the ineptitude of its supposed leaders who are tasked with fixing what is broken but has woefully failed in that assignment. Admitted Buhari may have unwittingly handed his detractors a noose with his neck inside it by his superficially wrong choice of words, but any unbiased observer without a dog in the fight fully understood and clearly what Buhari was alluding to with his 2015 blood bath threat or rather promise. Buhari spoke figuratively for all intent and purpose and it should be understood in that light; afterall he who is without guilt should not be afraid as clear conscience fears no accusation. But the PDP being who they are are crying foul instead of assuring Nigerians that rigging circumstances would not arise to lead to a possible security breakdown come 2015. However, with a fanatical Islamist like Buhari, no one including Icheoku is assured of the correct read of his mind as he might as well have literally intended what he voiced out. But we have to give him the benefit of doubt that he did not mean for the country to go to hell in hands basket and that he did not intend nor did he express his desire to plunge the country into a pogrom. 

But if Buhari actually literally meant the face value of what he said that blood must flow in 2015,  regardless of the circumstances, then his blood alongside that of his family must be the first ones to flow. It is called practicing what you preach and such would be a good way to give credence to a leadership by example. Muhammadu Buhari's entire household must occupy the front line of any anticipated revolutionary march or protest and must be the first in the line of fire in defence of what he believes in and professes that should be a better approach to realizing the Nigeria project. The Buharis must provide the cannon fodder for other protesting Nigerians as a way to assure of their unequivocal commitment to the dream. But where Buhari is prepared to scamper to Saudi Arabia or Egypt or any other Islamic enclave at the start of hostilities or the vaunted blood letting to wait out the mayhem and come back thereafter to take over the spoils of war, then that blood letting route is not agreeable or acceptable to Icheoku and in that scenario, no blood need to flow; not even an almajiri's own pedestrian blood. 

But the point being made by Buhari is well noted that the Jonathan government has failed Nigerians into-to and in every sphere and department of their promised democracy dividend as enshrined in their manifesto. Instead of the promised breath of fresh air, it is now a completely polluted putrid air that Nigerians are being forced to inhale. Nothing is working or have any serious plans of working in the country at crossroads. So Icheoku would rather Jonathan did not join issues with Buhari by responding to what Buhari said or resort to calling him names including being a blood-thirsty mongrel for speaking up and speaking out. Jonathan should rather focus his attention in tackling those issues that elicited or forced such comment from Buhari in the first place - it is called being proactive Mr President. The PDP government practically speaking has nothing really tangible to show for being the party in power all these 13 years, otherwise let them point to Nigerians what it is that is working in Nigeria or what they have accomplished since taking over power since 1999 to alleviate the sufferings of Nigerians?  Roads, power, food, jobs, commerce, security etc are all in comatose?

But the obvious abject and catastrophic failure of Jonathan's government notwithstanding, Icheoku says nothing rises to the magnitude of calling for blood shed of Nigerians. The PDP led government's failure to impress Nigerians of their viability as a peoples orientated government does not and should not necessitate the call by Buhari or any other person with his faculty still intact that blood of Nigerians should turn River Niger and River Benue red in 2015. Except that Buhari is a man with a penchant for frivolity of loose-talks and who many times speaks unguarded and in a bomb-throwing fashion like America's Newt Gingrich. Buhari could mean well with his urge for the government to do something to placate the suffering of Nigerians and putting them on notice that rigging would not be tolerated in 2015, except that when he had a stint at office as a military coupist head of state in 1983, he didn't deliver. So Icheoku says that Buhari lacks the credibility to question any other government following after his. 


As a military coupist head of state, all he did was kill Nigerians and muscled the press; Buhari passed very stupid decrees including Decree 4 that made criticizing his military junta-government a punishable crime. Buhari's disposition to intolerance is well known to Nigerians hence his sudden about turn of now complaining about the government in Aso Rock not listening seem a bit hypocritical. Buhari, whether as a military man in khaki uniform or civilian in agabada, is the same person as his character was long ago completely formed, entire and in full and not amenable to changes. It therefore does not make any difference which Buhari is now leading this crusade for a working government in Nigeria as Buhari is Buhari and will always remain Buhari, whether the Buhari that murdered Bartholomeo Owo, Ogedengbe and Lawal Ojulope or the present Buhari who is seemingly championing the cause for a good government in Nigeria. Peoples character do not necessarily change after certain formative age and Buhari could not be an exception and his military trait of being stubbornly intolerant is well known to Nigerians.

Admitted Buhari had long ago traded his army uniform for a politician agabada, nothing has changed about this man. He has yet to apologize for those three innocent Nigerians he murdered without any justifiable legal cause whatsoever based on his promulgated retroactive decree. It would be recalled that even the Pope interceded then for him to spare the lives of those innocent Nigerian three, but the donkey-stubborn Buhari would not bulge and did not and  went ahead to shed those blood which still haunts him till today. So Nigerians be wary of Buhari and always remain wary of Buhari. Please Nigerians do not trust the gaunt-looking army man who has killed Nigerians before and would again do so if their fate is ever entrusted to him again. If Buhari wants to wage a war against Nigeria, let Nigeria meet him force with force. Really Icheoku does not know why Jonathan has not considered it necessary or deemed it fit enough to arrest this guy and put him away for good or even kill him following a conviction for treason or treasonable felony in the fashion Abacha killed Ken Saro Wiwa.  Icheoku says the heavens will not come tumbling down if Buhari is put down like a sick dog which he constantly sounds like these days and neither would meaningful Nigerians miss him. How could anyone , sane enough, ever find anything good in the Boko Haram terrorists to compare them to the federal government? His would not be the first time a former head of state was put down for past intrasingence - Gerry Rawlings did it in Ghana and today Ghana has become better for it, fertilized by those blood that Rawlings was forced to shed to cleanse the land.

IGBO PROBLEM IDENTIFIED AS LACK OF FOLLOWERSHIP - OZOBU

"Listen when the song of the frog resounds from the marshes. Listen to what they have to say. It is good to come together. It is good to reach agreement. It is good to make the voices of many the single voice of all." - HRH Justice Eze Ozobu, citing the Battle of Herero as reference point to finding solution to Igbo peoples' problem of intractable dysfunctionalism. 

His Royal Highness was analogizing the problems of Ndigbo as rudderless adriftness, lack of a collective pursuit and single purposefulness as well as the absence of one identifiable leadership and/or spokesperson which are afflicting the Igbo people of Nigeria. According to this retired jurist and now traditional ruler of Owa Imezi community, Ezeagu, Enugu State, Nigeria, for the Igbo nation to make any meaningful and serious political headway in Nigeria, they MUST first learn to become and fight their cause as an indivisible army of one. 

They must also end being a motley of disorganized, noisy and often ignored mob-like people, each with his or her divergent, incoherent idea and agenda on how to move the process forward. Icheoku says with this pointy truth, this jurist has identified the single cause of Igbo peoples' problem as follower-ship and not necessarily leadership and thus earned a place in the annals of Igbo history for pointing the light on the way forward for the Igbo nation. It is now left for the Igbo people to imbibe this message, a gospel truth; and learn to articulate and marshal their viewpoints as one indivisible and fully harmonized entity!

VULTURE CAPITALISM, MAYOR BOOKER SELLS HIS SOUL TO THE DEVIL.

"Surely Booker is aware of the costs as well as the benefits of private equity — and its mixed record as an engine of job creation? He is far too smart and experienced to misunderstand private equity’s true purpose, which is to create wealth, not employment. And Booker certainly knows that when Romney presents himself as a business man who can revive America’s fragile economy, it is fair to mention how Bain profited from loading up companies with debt and ripping off the proceeds while laying off thousands of workers.But whatever he says about capital, the Newark mayor also knows that it takes a lot of money to win public office, like the U.S. Senate seat that may be in his future. What everyone else should know is that he expects to raise that campaign money from the same people and firms that have backed him from the beginning." -Henry Decker. 

Icheoku says this is why it is always good to follow the money and here you find a "Democratic" Mayor of Newark New Jersey Cory Booker trying to give humanity to the inhumane Mitt Romney manner of buccaneering companies and making out like a bandit. How can anyone, whether Democrat or Republican, ever justify such a predatory business practice as engaged in by Mitt Romney that thrives on the carcasses of workers to feed off the gluttony appetites of the bourgeoisie-owners, which elicited its description by Governor Perry of Texas as "VULTURE CAPITALISM" in any good light whatsoever talk-less of describing attempt at shinning light on it as nauseating? But when one is Mayor Cory Booker of Newark New Jersey, this Judas Iscariot stance makes some crazy sense. This is a democratic Mayor going against a democratic president attempt to educate Americans on the anti-people business practices of Mitt Romney simply because the same people pouring money into Mitt Romney's campaign equally poured money to elect him mayor of Newark and Icheoku asks Mayor Cory Booker which side are you on or have your price been paid and now you stand bought by those vulture capitalists? What a human specimen this guy is that would rather throw President Obama under the bus than stand up against his vulture capitalist benefactors.

ALAMIEYESIGHA TO IGBO PEOPLE, FIGHT FOR POWER!

"We know that nobody will give you power on a platter of gold; if you want it, you demand for it and then you fight for it.” - Diepreye Alamieyesigha, former governor of Bayelsa State.

Icheoku says what a telegraphic message being sent by necessary implication to the Igbo people of South Eastern Nigeria in their quest to "smell" Aso Rock come 2015 or any time soon after, assuming there will be a Jonathan's vacancy. But would they ever listen to the cry of the swamp frogs and take this home-truth seriously since no one in Nigeria power equation really believes that the Ezeife & Co power-shift agitators has any fire in their belly to do what it takes?

Icheoku therefore cringes whenever such imperative word such as "must" is used to qualify the Igbo's stand on power shift come 2015; knowing fully well that they cannot march their air with necessary force and or will power to go the whole hog. Fortune smiles on those who dare:- Niger Delta militant terrorists or freedom fighters to some, held Nigeria hostage for so long and now one of their own is the president, so go figure.

PAN AM BOMBER MEGRAHI, FINALLY DEAD.

Released from a Scotland prison in 2009 in a quid pro quo very lucrative oil deal between the British (Scottish) government and the then Libyan Moummar Gaddafi's government, Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, the former Libyan intelligence official, sentenced to life in prison in 2001 for the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 which killed 270 people including 189 Americans over Lockerbie S cotland, has finally died. Megrahi died from his afflicted terminal prostrate cancer; he was 60 years old.

 "This man was a horrible man. It would have been better had he not died in freedom, but died in prison. That's what he deserved, and I still believe that the Scottish government, perhaps with the participation of the British government, created a major injustice when they let him out."  - Chuck Schumer of New York. 

Icheoku says in as much as the crime for which this now deceased terrorist was convicted was most egregious, we should learn to accept what we could not change and move on. No one has brought any sanctions on the Scottish.British government for betraying America with their ill-advised release of the now dead Megrahi when they did just because of OIL - a case of the biblical pot of porridge may be? However Al-Megrahi is now dead; whether he died in "freedom" shackled down by cancer and not in prison shackled down by chains, is irrelevant. What is important is that he is dead and gone forever and can never bring harm or cause hurt to anyone any longer. May those whose lives he wasted in that 1988 bombing now confront him accordingly. (Picture courtesy of AFP/Getty Images)

SECURITY VAULT FOR THE HEART, DEPOSITORS ABOUND?

Afraid of falling in love again only to have your heart broken in pieces as before, Icheoku says have you lately considered putting your heart away in a high security safe deposit box somewhere? Except that the heart is not an object that could be independently put away in like manner; otherwise many human-beings would have resorted to that measure as the last true assurance that their life pump would not suffer more catastrophic shocks any longer. Miss Havisham was so convulsed by the rude and sudden death of her lover and groom in the waiting on the eve of their wedding day that she went into total exclusionary hibernation, declining to ever love again until her beloved soul mate came back in a life after? 


The rest of the tragic story of "SHE" for those literature buffs is well known but suffice it to say that forlorn wait sometimes do not have a happily ever-after ending. So as you pine away, waiting for that fantastical dream prince or princess to magically appear or for that person who left you for another person to divorce who he or she is currently with and come back running on all fours to your longing outstretched arms, ask yourself is it worth it? What is the point caring for someone who could care less whether or not any oxygen is left in your air-sac? If he or she cared a hoot about you, may be he or she wouldn't have walked away in the first place. Icheoku asks you why wish you had married or marry someone who you love instead of marrying that person who loves you and in the process, you will be adored forever? Why mortgage your precious heart to some undeserving human specimen when you could have given it to someone that will protectively treasure the opportunity to be its custodian in perpetuity?

If the heart were a detachable object capable of being stowed away in some undisclosed location outside the body while still performing its life's sustaining function, many people would have since severed their hearts and deposited them accordingly. They would have since locked their hearts away in such high impregnable security vaults where no heart-breaker would ever reach or find them to smash. But unfortunately, the heart is alive and living; and this is the reason it beats. It beats because it is alive and it is alive because it is nurtured endlessly both with nutrition and love. The heart is very resilient and capable of withstanding high magnitude shocks, having developed strong shock absorbing capabilities over the many years of being exposed to rude spasmodic shocks frequently meted it by people who do not know how to handle such piece of fragility with the deserving measure of TLC required. Sometimes hearts are broken and even shattered; but the good news is that they heal. 


Except for the Miss and Mr Havishams of this world, who irrationally find themselves trapped in a perpetual dreamland of euphoric proportion, wishing and hoping endlessly for that missed "ideal" suitor to come back, and who refuses to wake up from their hallucination until it practically becomes too late to distinguish the phantom from the reality, broken hearts do survive and even thrive after suffering some love trauma. Should the rest of the heart-broken of this world become Miss Havisham and fell on a sword of no more love just because one John Doe or Jane Doe toyed with their hearts and literally snuffed out their flame of passion? Icheoku says to do so would be overtly empowering the nemesis who plunged the dagger of Brutus disappointment into your loving chest cavity. Like the saying goes, the safest place for the ship is the harbor but the ship is not built for the harbor but the open seas; so venturing out in an adventurous journey of love is and should be the fastest panacea of mending a broken heart. Always see any disappointment as an opportunity to explore what other possibilities are out there since the ill-fated former love may have turned out to be your worst nightmare and God literally pushed him or her out of your way because He knows what is best for his children? Tell yourself that life happens, empower yourself, do not let any man or woman run or ruin your life; always assure yourself it was not worth it and then soldier on bravely to find what God had laid in store for you.

If you are a potential candidate for safe-depositing your heart in the vault, Icheoku says not too fast as a better alternative do exist - it is called living to love again and loving to live again. Just dust yourself up, press the reset button and tell your nemesis to hell with you. Learn how to love to truly live again; the past is gone forever and so should their wishful thoughts and longing be swept away with it. Learn to appreciate the present as that is all we got since tomorrow is not guaranteed while the past is gone forever. Hearts are meant to be broken but whether we are able to gather the pieces and soldier on is what counts. This transition is life's watershed which any thinking adult should and must try to share in the experience during his or her lifetime otherwise how does anyone know what true love actually means? 


That your heart was once or twice or thrice or countless number of times broken and ripped out should not stop you from loving again or peter to a stop your adventure in the land of Cupid. See those heart breakers of the past as those proverbial frogs that must be necessarily kissed before the emergence of the prince or princess. Whatever you do, do not allow your nemesis to win a permanent victory over your faith in loving humanity or force you into such a corner where you begin to see any other prospective and potential suitor in the light of the proverbial sighting of housefly after being stung by a bee. Pick up the ripped heart, pick their pieces where shattered and become a love novitiate, enroll yourself as a freshman student today of school of loving. There is no shame in having one's heart broken as millions have gone through the experience before you and millions more will follow suit. Icheoku affirms that you will become stronger and even better versed in the art of LOVE after several heart breaks. Just understand that love is the oxygen that drives humanity and a heart or soul without a parking space for love is forever ruined, sad and gloomy; irrespective of the masks of Zorro being put up as alone and happy. Unfortunately too there is no market where love is traded or sold and bought; admitted sex does not cost much any longer.

A heart that is saturated with love really manifests in its possessor as a glowing face and body always Like the saying when it rains it pours, a heart filled with love knows no bounds in giving out joy and happiness. Life must go on and people do not stop loving just because hearts are accassionally broken. Road accidents happen yet people take to the roads. Airplanes crashes occur yet people take to the air; needless to talk about wars since the chances of being killed or death has never stopped or deterred people from going to wars. Icheoku says it is indeed self-pity to recoil into one's shell and become forlorn for love just because some undeserving person once whacked your heart. You cannot allow such a person a double victory - one of breaking your heart and two of stopping you from loving again. Be a winner for love today, make Cupid proud; get out and get adventurous or for lack of a better excuse, treat the last motherfucker as one of those several toads that needed to be kissed before you meet your Prince Charming or Princess Pretty, the Knight in shinning armor or the Lady in fine delicate and intricate outfit. Just put a tag of DEAD to the past and bury it; then engage your drive shaft in an over-drive for what could possibly be the best ride of your life with the lurking suitor. Good luck.

OYERINDE'S ASSASSINATION IS NORMAL - PA OYERINDE SR

Icheoku says it is finished for any society when the assassination of her citizen is dismissively treated so cavalierly as being the new normal. The murder of Olaitan Kabir Oyerinde, Edo State Governor Oshimole's principal secretary, is yet another one of these assassinations in Nigeria too many; and which frequency has become such that Nigerians now seem conditioned to accept it as a new way of their hellish life? Imagine the bereaved and supposedly grieving aged father of the murder victim, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Oyerinde  sarcastically calling the assassination of his son, normal? Icheoku is deeply worried and rightly so for this lack of urgency of time in trying to prevent these murders and solve same in order to assure the citizenry of Nigeria that there is still hope and some reason to live for and peradventure prevent them from descending into total despondency. Imagine the hopelessness of the situation to force a father to call the murder of his son NORMAL?

The violent murder of Oyeride and the near certainty that it will not be solved is sure to become part of the statics in the many violent unsolved murders in Nigeria. Oyerinde's assassination, like so many other previous high profile assassinations in Nigeria, dating back to the inglorious days of Ibrahim Babangida's Dele Giwa parcel bomb killing, Sani Abacha's Pa Rewane and Kudirat Abiola's killings to Obasanjo's Attorney General Bola Ige's murder will most likely go the way of the old. No one in Nigeria is confident that the ordered investigation into this latest Jonathan's Oyeride assassination,would yield any meaningful or conclusive result. Icheoku says it would go cold like so many previous murders and as soon as the impatient Nigeria media forgets about it. It seems to be a rite of passage for all these leaders to have high profile murders committed under their watch with impunity and lack of investigation and punishment of the perpetrators. 


In the words of the chief mourner and father of the murdered Olaitan Kabir Oyerinde, Alhaji AbdulAzeez Oyerinde, “his death is normal, he is not the first person to be killed like that neither would he be the last. The intrigue and "what is special there and all the past assassinations  of that nature, is that their killers are yet to be fished out up till this moment". Icheoku says what a sad commentary for a country standing or sitting on its head and pretending to be normal. A country once described by late Fela Anikulapo Kuti as always going back wards and when reminded it is moving backward, would turn around backward and continues moving in backward direction. Icheoku says it will take a real patriot with the heart of a lion and tenacity of a purpose  driven life to right the current path of the careened-off course ship of the Nigerian state. All these anointed leaders Nigeria is encumbered with will not cut it as they owe so much to their selectors and mentors to be really meaningful and useful to Nigerians, while simultaneously catering to the selfish needs of their benefactors and taking marching orders from them. 


Unfortunately and without mincing words or being guilty of equivocation, Icheoku says this latest murder of Olatian Kabir Oyerinde, despite all the huffing and puffing of President Jonathan Goodluck in ordering its immediate solving, would not be solved, as very high-up Nigerian untouchables are most likely behind it or signed off on it. A country that slaughtered her sitting Attorney General Bola Ige and swept it under the rugs would not bat an eyelid for the squashing of the proverbial "house-fly" Oyeride? A country's Attorney General was definitely a bigger fish to fry, yet his gruesome murder was not solved so who really cares about solving the killing of a State Governor's aide; especially when the governor is a torn in the flesh of the ruling party as an opposition? 


In as much as Icheoku is not in any way or manner or language intent on demeaning the life of murdered Olaitan Kabir Oyeride, but let the truth be told that a serving chief law enforcement officer of a country is far higher in ranking than a state governor's private secretary to cause any of the high up sleepless night worrying about the likelihood of security agents coming to their door to execute a warrant of arrest or putting them in handcuffs. So like the father of the victim stoically accepted the fate which befell his son and acknowledged it as the new normal, Icheoku asks  Nigerians to guide their loins as the future is very bleak and President Jonathan is not the Messiah and lacks the balls to do what is needed to clean the Augean stable that is Nigeria in comatose. Nigerians, cry for thy beloved country. Nigeria is traumatized by lawlessness, fueled by intrinsic corruption which is so foundational it touches everything having permeated the strata of the entire society. Icheoku says it is even possible that those assassins that pulled the trigger that snuffed the life out of this governor's aide are security agents, possibly working in complicit or tacit approval of the high-ups of the society and their security commanders. That is the reality of now in a country where  the bastardization of everything held and is of value is the new normal. Adieu Olaitan Kabir Oyerinde.

BIN LADEN TAKE-OUT ORDER NOT A BIG DEAL, SAYS GRUMPY RUMSFELD

“To not make that decision, it seems to me, would just be dumbfounding. I can’t imagine any President not making that decision.” Donald Rumsfeld, president George Bush Defence Secretary on the Obama ordered raid that killed Bin Laden. Icheoku says in some cultures this septuagenarian would have been banished from his community for defying the laws against elders' deliberate lying. Shameless, indeed shameless not giving due props to who it is due, having rightfully earned it.

Here is a man who as defence secretary misled President George Bush into committing America into two avoidable and costly wars and who had opportunity to order Bin Laden's killing in Tora Bora but chickened out, now dismissing the Abotabad Pakistan Obama ordered raid that netted Bin Laden as no big deal. According to his explanation on why he developed cold feet, "the Tora Bora operation would put too many American lives at risk and could have worsened relations with Pakistan." Icheoku says except of course this old angry man is merely jealous that it was not him who earned the credit for tagging Bin Laden instead of the dishonor of preserving him as American's bogey man for electioneering politics, this sudden expressed meekness for American lives flies in the face of his blood-thirsty antecedents of love for wars?

However Icheoku cannot but marvel at the bare-faced shamelessness of these President George Bush's Team Failure, now trying to weave their voodoo twister of tales around history. How many American lives were lost in Iraq? How many were subsequently lost in Afghanistan; both under Rumsfeld's watch yet sending that fraction of soldiers to go "smoke Bin Laden out" of the mountains of Tora Bora suddenly became a big deal? Look who suddenly became cognizant of American lives being lost in battle or was it a case of his "unknown knowns and known unknowns" being revisited. Icheoku says please Donald Rumsfeld and co; your stretching the truth can only backfire as Americans are ready and willing to forgive honest mistake but not when you want to delberately take them for a ride with boldfaced lies masqueraded as truths. Fortunately all these dregs of American politics now work and speak for Mitt Romney and Icheoku can't wait to see how The Mitt distances himself from all these outrageous comments.

"FUCK YOU, MITT ROMNEY", SCREAM IT LOUDER?

Icheoku says possibly the heckler screamed on behalf of millions of irate Americans who are furious that this one percent-man Mitt Romney is deliberately thumbing his nose at them by pretending to be everything to everybody depending on which audience were gathered before him. 

May be going forward, The Mitt's mantra should become "ME TOO" since whatever turned out right, he also would have ordered or implemented? Osama Bin Laden was killed in a daring raid ordered by a thoughtful and brave president who staked all or nothing of his presidency on the outcome of the mission sticking to his pledge in 2008 to get Bin Laden wherever he may be holed up. Mitt Romney who had also in 2008 called such boldness impetuous now says he too would have similarly ordered the raid? The auto industry bailout of General Motors and co which Mitt Romney wanted bankrupted is now a success story and before too long the Mitt would scream "ME TOO" supported it and that he would have similarly bailed out the three? During the early stages of the current concluding Republican primaries when he was accused of not being a conservative or conservative enough, The Mitt frog-leaped to the far right shouting "ME TOO", am an "acute conservative" regardless of whether anyone understood what he otherwise meant by being an acute partisan other than an extremist.

Icheoku says to this flip-flopping Mormon bishop from liberal Massachusetts that presidential decisions is not a hindsight or Monday quarterbacking type of when the situation is right positioning especially on issues that many atimes requires on your feet life changing decision making ability. Who knows what else The Mitt would now seek to share and partake in the credit or take pleasure in screaming his new mantra of "ME TOO"? Icheoku strongly believes that Americans are not as dumb and stupid as this Mitt and his Republican hatchet-men would like to believe and would gladly remind this Mormon Bishop of all his prevarications and equivocations on so many issues and matters of great importance come November. 

Now that the Mitt has been called a racist to his face, soon and very soon he would deny he never in the past took positions inimical to a responsible immigration reform policy in the country and would then gladly declare "ME TOO" supports a sensible immigration reform. Icheoku says may be it is about time The Mitt suffixed his name with "Flip-flopping" Mitt Romney and get over with that his particular attribute once and for all. However in as much as Icheoku is tempted to add it's voice to the heckler's in using deserving profanities on the Mitt, we shall pass but urge other would be incensed Americans to say that with their votes in November instead. Americans need to send a clear message to The Mitt and his Republicans that not this time, never again. That they are not as dumb and unthinking as they would want to believe and that their brains still have recollection of the not too distant past George Bush's maladministration and that they are not willing to relive the nightmarish disaster so soon after the memory began to fade. 

So, whether the heckler's "Racist! Racist! Mitt Romney is a racist. Fuck you, Mitt Romney!" makes any difference, Icheoku does not know but suffice it to say the former George Bush vice president Dick Cheney similarly used such profanity in the hallowed chambers of congress when he told Patrick Lehey to "Go fuck himself." A congressman also shouted "You Lie" at the president while he was addressing Congress, so what the fuck does it matter if The Mitt is told F.U.

PORTRAIT OF LABOR, A NIGERIAN LABOR DAY PRESENT TO THE WORLD.

In a land of plentiful resources, so many are left holding the plate while the stealing elite greedily pillage and so much so that on this labor day, the pictured is what is left of the average Joe working man of Nigeria - practically a dead man walking. What a shame and a total indictment of the leaders or rather marauders of Nigeria who should hide their faces in shame that such a deprived piece of humanity still calls Nigeria home in the 21st century. It is callous as it is inhumane that a country that nets nearly $200,000,000.00 daily from just oil sales could heartlessly leave her citizen so behind that he literally emaciated to merely skull and bones, no pun intended as the picture speaks for itself. 

Icheoku says this acutely starved Nigerian is possibly from the oil producing Niger Delta region and you wonder the morality of gratuitously giving only Theophilus Danjuma from Northern Nigeria a one billion dollars worth of oil well while a son of the soil where the oil is located is dying from acute malnutrition. How these Nigerian leaders go to sleep daily under this circumstance with so many Nigerians looking like this pictured Nigerian worker above baffles Icheoku to a point of disbelief. What a portrait of labor on a Labor Day, presented to the world by Nigeria, courtesy of gross negligent man's inhumanity to fellow man. Icheoku's heart bleeds for this man as well as several other millions wearing the same fatigue of deprivation all over the world especially in Niger Delta region of Nigeria, the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs in Nigeria which is never good enough to profit from its God's given natural resources. Icheoku says it is abominable as it is condemnable. 

"THE BITCH HAD EMPTIED MY MOUTH" - MAREK OLSZEWSKI

Icheoku says this unthinking man should even count himself lucky that she did not dispatch him to the world beyond with excessive dose of anesthetics. Unfortunately too, the now toothless man was not privileged of having read William Shakespeare to know that hell has no fury like a woman scorned and should have made a better judgment call not to go to a dumped ex-girlfriend for a teeth-job. Now all he could blabber out is "The bitch had emptied my mouth." 

Marek Olszewski is now left with only gums as all his enamels are gone courtesy of his ex-girlfriend dentist who was so incensed of being dumped that she took the pincers to his teeth, taking them out one by one until the ex-boyfriend became completely toothless. According to the dentist "bitch" who emptied the mouth of her ex-boyfriend of all his choppers, Ann Mackowiak, "I tried to be professional about it and detach myself from my emotions; but when I saw him lying there I just thought 'what a bastard' and decided to take all his teeth out." Icheoku says once again, emotions could run riotous if unchecked and times and times again, it has proven to be a very big challenge to people especially some daughters of Eve. This dentist from Hell, Ann Mackowiak of Poland, has shown the damage scorned women are capable of wrecking - a disproportionate wrong to an ex-boyfriend who simply moved or tried to move on. But she would take none of that and ensnared the unsuspecting and unthinking joy-riding ex-boyfriend into her dental office of horror, where she wrought an excessive damage to his mandibles. 

Icheoku says what a life's lesson to you all out there to always be wary of an ex sudden appearance of warmth and affection towards you as this could be only to bait you close enough for a vengeance? So always protect yourself from your ex as you would from a viper especially when the break-up was not amicably reached. This now toothless ex-boyfriend must albeit thank his stars that it was only his dentition that was taken from him by the ex, as so many were no that fortunate as they have had their manhood cut off and shredded and minced in a blender or even fed to the family dog; and in some cases were sent to meet with their makers. But wait, before you tag Icheoku a biased male, we shall preempt you by stating that such unhinged rage goes both ways. 

JOHN EDWARDS TRIAL, THE MAFIA WAS RIGHT.

Icheoku says once again it would appear that the time-tested code of life, perfected by the Mafia, never to trust anyone as secrets can only be kept between two people when one of them is dead is a sure truism. The criminal trial of the baby-faced former Democratic vice presidential candidate and once wanna-be presidential candidate, former Senator John Edwards, has brought this saying back to the fore. His once trusted aide and former confidant, Andrew Young, has turned the proverbial "snitch" against his former boss and friend and has now crossed the aisle over to the side prosecuting the fallen from grace Edwards. Andrew Young, literally the best weapon in the prosecution's case against Edwards, has become John Edwards worst feared nightmare in his uphill task to avoid the slammer. 

Young in his testimony detailed the innermost and intricate secrets of his former friend Edwards, as he tried to cover up an affair and a resulting child with what the prosecution called campaign funds and lying about it, a criminal offence. Being John Edwards former consigliari, Icheoku says no one knew better what went down with the Rielle Hunter affair cover-up than Andrew Young who was baited with an immunity in exchange of helping the Federal prosecutors nail his former boss. According to Andrew Young, John Edwards solicited and secretly spent about $925,000 in a failed effort to cover up his affair with "the crazy slut," Rielle Hunter; with whom he had an affair resulting in a child outside wedlock. 

To save his own skin, Young readily turned into prosecution's best weapon against his former friend Edwards, who is facing the possibility of spending 30 years behind bars and a whopping 1.5million dollars in fines. Icheoku wonders what such supposed friendships are really worth if a person can so readily morph into a Judas Iscariot; especially when the going gets really tough as with John Edwards now. At the end of the day, it would appear that what anyone really has and what should matter most in our lives are our families as they will always be there for you, no matter what. Today all the hangers-on of John Edwards are gone, leaving only his parents and daughter to console and comfort him as he goes through what appears to be the end of the road trial for him in his mercurial rise to fame and now impending perdition. As succinctly encapsulated by lawyer Glenn Begernfield of New Jersey and friend of John Edwards, "Fame and infamy always shadow one another."

SHUTTLE DISCOVERY RETIRED, SYMBOL OF GREATNESS JUNKED.

 

What once proved the can-do attitude and spirit of America, NASA's Shuttle Discovery was mated into retirement to its Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum final resting place. Icheoku says what a day, April 17, 2012 that an iconic American symbol of great ingenuity was decommissioned permanently and you wonder why? But like every good thing in life, there is always time for an end and so was now the Discovery Shuttle. So long DS. Now many of us will head to the Smithsonian to have a chance of a closer proximity to the machine with millions of moving parts that we have come to admire from far distance as it rocketed into space with both its astronaut human passengers and tons of cargo that aided the building of the space station. What a day.

HYPERSONIC TECHNOLOGY VEHICLE, THE FUTURE IS HERE.

A time-travel into the future from science fiction to a near reality. That is what the latest aircraft, the Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2), currently being tested by the United States promises to deliver. Imagine a commute from New York to Los Angeles which presently takes plus minus 6hours in just within 12minutes, go figure. If and when perfected, the aircraft will literally speaking, cancel out distances between places as we know it. Icheoku asks, is this the best time to be humans or what; and like Backman-Turner Overdrive (BTO) rock band sang, we ain't seen nothing yet.

TUKUR'S CONSENSUS ARGUMENT, BABANGIDA SUFFERS CREDIBILITY?

Icheoku says this is certainly an exception to the age-long trite aphorism that truth can sometimes come from an imbecile as a politically, foundationally damaged Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida cannot and should not be heard to preach the gospel of fair play in democratic party politics. This is a man who have participated in virtually every military coups in Nigeria since her independence from then Great Britain in 1960, playing major roles in about three of them, one of which he personally hugely benefited and enormously profited from as the junta's military head of state. Needless to add that many of these coups were against democratically elected governments and hear who is now reading the riot act to PDP for imposing Bamagar Tukur on the party as its chairman. This is a man who also annulled a duly conducted free and fair election of MKO Abiola just to satiate his personal ego and suddenly is now preaching the gospel of democracy against the consensus by fiat of Jonathan's imposition of Bamagar Tukur on the PDP as its party chairman? Icheoku queries when has this anti-democracy Saul turned into a pro-democracy-Paul or is Babangida merely sully because he has been effectively checkmated out of power in the PDP hierarchy through the deft machination of the Otta deity, Baba Iyabo and his protege Anthony Anenih? 

Anyway what Babangida said concerning the consensus manner by which Bamagar Tukur was imposed on the PDP as party chairman is truthful except that Babangida lacks the democracy-credentials to teach or preach any democratic process whatsoever or did he suddenly have an epiphany or amnesia of his own not too distant past and records of seeing red whenever the word democracy rears its wholesome head? Were Ibrahim Babangida any other more credible source, may be Nigerians will pay attention to his genuine observation that the consensus which threw up Bamagar Tukur is a travesty and totally undemocratic; but this evil genius of Minna Hills is not the right and proper person to mouth off such concerns. Simply put, Babangida is now crying foul because he is no longer welding much influence in the party echelons of the Peoples Democratic Party and is just striving for relevance; so Nigerians please don't mind the Evil genius jaare! 

Icheoku while agreeing with the toothy fairy prince of Minna that “a situation where some people would sit and select someone by consensus is undemocratic;" says that Babangida of all persons should not be the one sanctimoniously preaching this gospel, his anti-democracy tendencies considered. By the same breathe, Bamagar Tukur should not in any way try to justify his imposition on the PDP as its chairman because he “believes the worst consensus in any democratic arrangement is far better and more honourable than a military coup." Admitted that Babangida was "an architect of several military coups and a topmost beneficiary of one of them as military head of state; the rule that truth sometimes can come from imbeciles would have ordinarily exonerated him and confer on him the right to complain when none democratic process is used to select a party's chairman, but he is simply too damaged politically as an anti-democracy mean spirited military man to offer Nigerians his useless two cents thoughts on the consensus that imposed Bamanga Tukur on the PDP. Icheoku reiterates that Babangida's opinions are indeed worthless these days; more so when it has anything to do with the democratic process. 

However, the most damaged from the Bamagar Tukur anti-democracy consensus charade is the uninspiring president of Nigeria, Good(BAD)luck Jonathan; who is now synonymous with preaching one thing and doing an entirely different thing. Call him a Pharisee for crying out loud; but Icheoku concludes that the Nigerian president while preaching the merits of democracy goes about un-democratically imposing candidates of his choice, whether it is on his home state of Bayelsa as his preferred governor or now on the PDP as his preferred party chairman. It also did not matter to President Jonathan that Bamagar Tukur lost the primaries in his own Northeastern Nigeria. But with an Obasanjo precedent, where he lost in his local government presidential primaries in 1979 but was imposed on the party as the presidential candidate and served two terms respectively; history repeating itself with Bamagar Tukur's lackluster imposition was a no brainier for President Jonathan. The president himself being a beneficiary of the PDP's lack of internal democracy, it is a little surprise that people are even expressing surprise that he is towing the steps of his own benefactor - Olusegun Obasanjo. But hey, what does Icheoku know anyway on the workings of the "biggest and largest party in Africa" that will be in power until thy kingdom come? What a joke the PDP brand of democracy in Nigeria really is