BOKO HARAM INSURGENCY, SO MANY UNANSWERED QUESTIONS?

"The defeated terrorists, who arrived in a large convoy of 30 vehicles, motorcycles and equipment, were on a mission to take control of Ashaka." - Nigerian military. 

Icheoku queries where are these Boko Haram terrorists getting their funding from? Through which financial institutions are they moving their money? Where are they buying all these military trucks, vehicles and equipments from? Where are they parking these their vehicles at and where are they fueling them from? Where are they getting trained in the art of war and who is providing the training? Through which ports are they bringing their equipments  into Nigeria from and on what roads are they driving them from the port of entry to their Sambisa evil Forest? Who is providing them with logistics and intelligence? Which communication network are they using to coordinate their activities? How are they moving money around to both pay their foot soldiers, provide for their families and pay for weapons and ordinances? Why is it that a national military always allow these murderous miscreants an escape route instead of flanking them off and using sickle and anvil  tactic completely obliterate them? 

Icheoku says there is simply too many unanswered questions about the continuing Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria;   and until Nigerians, seriously and honestly, without all these partisan accusatory finger-pointing, begin an intrusive inquisition about what is sustaining the insurgency, the Boko Haram annoyance might as well become one heck of a continuing nuisance that Nigerians would come to accept as having become part of their daily life and for some time to come if not forever. It does not add up that Boko Haram insurgency has lasted this far, a fact made more disturbing because America, as well as some other nations allegedly helping Nigeria fight the insurgency, has body-heat detecting equipment that can zero down on humans even in the thickest jungle including Sambisa Forest; and also a convoy of thirty vehicles should not be too difficult to be easily spotted by a helpful friendly country's satellite. Anyway, it is President Jonathan's problem to try and figure those things out and provide answers to Nigerians on the continuing nuisance that is Boko Haram; but Icheoku's, to encourage Nigerians to demand more from their leadership. 

DEFINITION OF CLASSY, WHAT SAY YOU?

It is not what you do but how you do it. It is not  what you wear but how you fittingly wear it. It is not who you are but how you carry yourself. It is not what you drive but how you drive it. It is not who you know but whether that knowledge makes you a better person. It is not who you are with but what that person thinks of you. It is not where you have been but whether that experience enriched you. It is not in where you live but how you live in it.

So, now you know that it does not behove on you to profess your classiness as it does not lie in the mouth to say you are classy. Let witnesses bear the testimony and judge you accordingly. Your actions and reactions to issues and matters, as well as what comes out of your mouth should also be able to back up their assessment either way. As a checklist always ask yourself:- when you talk, do you communicate? When you listen, do you hear? When you look, do you see? When you complain, do you nag?  When you walk, are you aware? When you get mad, do you blow off the gasket? Above all do you have compassion for the little guys and gals you meet along your way? 

Also remember that the high decibel of shouting or screaming out your lungs usually turns people off and tunes them out from whatever you may be trying to get across. Be civil in your conduct and civilized in your manners. I am Icheoku and I approve this message that being classy is a way of life but not an act or show; it is often imitated but never duplicated!

A NIGERIAN RESIGNS AN APPOINTMENT, A NOVELTY?

"I am compelled to take a hard decision of tendering this letter of resignation of appointment. Even though during the past eighteen months to be precise, I was caged in this office, virtually redundant, doing nothing and without any defined schedule of responsibility, yet I remain grateful to you and your government." - Abdullahi Muhammed Lamba, former Chief of Staff, Kebbi State Government, Nigeria. 

Icheoku says it is a highly commendable development that a Nigerian and a politician for that matter, could so easily resign from an appointed office and walk way  regardless; instead of continuing wallowing in the deceit that was keeping his lack of job-description job? Icheoku says kudos, Alhaji Lamba! Way to go; and if only others have the moral fortitude and pride which often guides such honorable decision. Icheoku says best of luck in your future endeavors. 

ERIC GARNER MURDER, WHITE PEOPLE ARE CRAZILY WICKED?

Icheoku says if indeed there is heaven, according to their bible, even Judas Iscariot would first make it therein before any white person would sneak past the security thereat, if ever. These people are crazy, inherently wicked, very mean and worse of all, they don't give a damn nor care a hoot about what their victims have to say, feel or think? The latest murder of Eric Garner and the blatancy of the nearly all white grand jury to let his killer, Daniel Pantaleo, walk, a free man, once again brings to the fore the lopsided-nature of dispensing justice in America? It is a continuum of what black people as well as other minorities of America are forced to live with, have been subjugated to, meant to deal with daily and in all facets of life, all these years since their so called abolition of slavery, which to all intent and purpose, was merely rather symbolic than actually transformational. 

In every department and sphere of life in America, racism   squarely stares one on the face? So why would anybody think it is only their police officers that are racists, when these officers are just but part of a group whose middle names could as well pass as racists? You get a job when they let you have one but you will not be paid equally as your white colleague, same qualification and experience? Your white colleague gets all the liberties and opportunities to rise while any slightest infraction sends you packing, including scheduling you on holidays especially Christmas just to have you quit? Their neighborhoods is equally off the limits for people who do not share their color pigmentation? You turn on television and majority of the anchor persons are Caucasians? You are charged for a crime and you don't get a break from the justice system while similarly charged white people get probation, slight reprimands and/or little confinement? Your children cannot go to their children's schools, they have their own churches and the list goes on and on; and someone said America has moved on from its racist past?

When a white person commits a crime, they try to explain it away as an aberration and an exception; but when a black person commits a crime it becomes a pattern of behavior, their way of life and thus painting a whole population with one brush as criminals? Meanwhile almost all the heinous crimes in America such as mass murders, school shootings, movie theater shootings, shopping mall shootings, cannibalism, incests as well as other sexual deviant behaviors and crimes against women and children are majority white committed? But instead of acknowledging the proliferation of crime among white people, they would dismissively treat such offenders as a mental health case issue that needs help instead of punishment. Sandy Hook Elementary School shooter Adam Lanza; Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh; Florida neighborhood watch killer George Zimmerman; fifty billion dollars Ponzi schemer Bernard Madoff; John Kennedy killer Oswald Lee; Florida loud-music shooter Michael Dunn; cannibalism serial murderer Jeffrey Dahmer, etc, are all white people? When you add white people CEOs who rob Wall street, companies and banks of millions of dollars, taking down those institutions in the process, they will still explain it as an errant case? But when a black person robs a corner store of an ordinary five dollar gallon of milk, it becomes those bandits, out with them, away with them, lock them away and throw the keys away? 

Black people in America are regarded as and often times treated worse than animals that must be caged or killed and/or effectively controlled by any means necessary? They must be put down and kept down and they expect you to take it as dished out and not say a thing in form of complain or protest? Icheoku says admitted that black people have become psychologically so traumatized over the years by the cruelty of white people, that some of them sometimes behave awful and in a reactionary manner, but their outbursts and somewhat misfit behaviors are just symptomatic of the continuing injustice they have suffered and are still suffering in America till date. They are branded angry black people but none of these white people ever ponder to ask why these black people are angry nor do they care to really know and understand the root cause of this anger anyway. Icheoku says the disparity in justice dispensation as heavily skewed against black Americans is such that a people who constitute less than twenty three percent of the population are today more than seventy five percent of the United States prison population; a prison population which is the highest in the world with over three million people locked away and up behind bars?  

Now back to what Eric Garner, who was publicly strangled to death, did, to warrant his public execution? Eric Garner was a father of six children and a husband of twenty seven long years to his beautiful wife, a record in black communities byway.  He was semi-retired from his job as a gardener and was hustling to support his family, in addition to the meagre check he receives monthly from his former employer. He was buying packets of cigarette and singly retailing them on the street corner to those poor indigent smokers who could not afford the exorbitant twelve dollars a pack, cigarette sells in New York. That was all he did to warrant his being choked to death; and someone says America is a free enterprise country where everyone is trying to make a buck? Icheoku asks  what is then wrong in Eric Garner trying to earn some money selling those loose cigarettes; at least he was not robbing a liquor store nor holding up a bank? As far as Icheoku is concerned, the only offense he might have committed is his not paying additional taxes on the profit he possibly realized retailing those single cigarettes; after however previously paying taxes on them when he purchased them in packets; and he had six children and a wife and a mother to support? 

Anyway, what is done is done and nothing would bring back this man to his now grieving family; but the injustice done in not at least indicting this killer-cop screams to high heaven. Icheoku is not saying that the killer cop SHOULD and MUST be convicted, but at least, he should have been publicly indicted for the apparent crime which was caught on camera and let the courts determine his culpability or lack thereof. But when a bunch of retired angry white people, who want to take their country back, through a grand jury, decided to let him walk, that's where the beef was raised. Justice was not done, neither was it seen to be done and this is where the rubber met the road in the anger being expressed by a cross section of Americans who still have some humanity in them and could relate to what Eric Garner's bereaved family is going through at this moment.

Icheoku says it is very unfortunate it happened again and so soon following the Ferguson Missouri Michael Brown's murder that also went unpunished. But every black man and woman in America understand the precarious nature of living a black man's life in America. A life of little or no value, in the eyes of these white people, which can be so easily snuffed out in a strangle-hold by a white police officer and there is no consequence whatsoever? Icheoku laments that nobody asked these white people to invade Africa and poach black people as free-labor slaves for their plantations? Now that they have invented machinery to do the jobs and no longer needed their slave services, in their cotton fields and sugar plantations; and with their lawns and agricultural lands now being tended to with Mexicans' cheap labor, they want these descendants of the slaves to beat it and leave their America? Icheoku asks where do they want them to go? Adieu Eric and may God, using your passing, touch these white people's hearts to make them change their ways and start treating others who do not look like them fairly IJN.

ERIC GARNER CHOKE-HOLD DEATH VERDICT, BLACKS DON'T MATTER?

Icheoku says at least with Ferguson, there was no video evidence of what happened; but when a video did indeed exist that recorded the broad daylight murder of a black-man in New York by white racist police officers and the grand jury still returned a not-to-be-indicted verdict, then something is terribly wrong in America and its justice or rather injustice system. Icheoku laments that the New York verdict is just another example of the numerous free passes constantly given to White police officers, who needlessly kill or mercilessly bludgeon black people and for no justifiable cause. Rodney King was brutally savaged by six Los Angeles white police officers without any consequence; ditto Amaduo Diallo who was toilet-plunger(ed) in the rectum by the same New York police department officers; Oscar Grant was not so lucky as he was shot to death while laying face down handcuffed and surrounded by several police officers at a train station in Oakland; Kelly Thomas was so brutally damaged too, as well as a host of many other such cases. 

Icheoku says it is increasingly becoming an imperative that something more than the usual peaceful marches and demonstration protests is needed to put senses back into such people that return such inexplicable verdicts and those police officers that triggered them in the first place. What a travesty and you wonder if this caught-on-tape killer-cop, Daniel Pantaleo, is not guilty, who else could ever be guilty? Icheoku asks has the life of a black-man in America become so trivial or are these white Americans waiting for a major earthquaking incident to happen involving a very top-heavy black person before an indictment could be secured of a white police killer? The latest New York victim, Eric Garner,  has no job and could not find a job either, and was merely retailing single cigarettes to enable him make some money to afford milk for his little girl and the white police man choked him to death and no indictment? It is also pertinent to note that using choke-hold on suspects is a prohibited act of the New York police department, yet the offending white police officer is neither indictable nor guilty? Icheoku says please give me a break America with this arrant racism. Rip Eric Garner and may Charles Barkley now feast on his dung with his rants over Ferguson.

BUHARI, NOT GOOD FOR NIGERIA

WARNING: - BEFORE YOU BUY INTO THE BUHARI SNAKE OIL, WATCH THIS (THE BUHARI) VIDEO!!!

MARRIAGE, AN IMPEDIMENT?

"If Jesus Christ had married, he probably would not have succeeded in his mission to save mankind, considering the powerful and overbearing influence wives have on their husbands." - Oluwasegun S.O. 

Icheoku says in as much this somewhat states the obvious, but what about the saying that behind every successful man there is always a woman? Conversely, the downfall of every man is often woman-caused? Anyway with things Divine, who are we mortals to add or subtract; and in as much as some Christians believe that Mary Magdelene was married to Jesus, Icheoku says it does not really matter either way, as what was destined, as usual, would always come to pass.

ANYIAM-OSIGWE, ASSASSINATED?

Icheoku says the narrative does not add up, of how this man died; allegedly shot dead by armed robbers? Any critically thinking mind,  piecing together the account of events leading up to the killing of Nze Michael Anyiam-Osigwe, would definitely come to the same conclusion that there is a lot the public is not being told about how this man met his death? 

Icheoku on his part is emphatic that based on the circumstances surrounding his death, as narrated, that MAO was not a victim of a random attack by a band of marauding bandits. Rather he fell into the snare of a well planned, carefully choreographed and clinically finished assassination, by some evil people, possibly including his family members, who specifically wanted him out. Hopefully security agencies would, upon forensic investigation, also arrive at this conclusion, make necessary arrest and prosecute his murderers for the crime. But the story, culminating to his demise as is being told, is more of a fable, better reserved for the less endowed upstairs. 

Now patiently travel together with Icheoku as we journey back through the road of what allegedly transpired that eventually led to his death:- The family were en-route Owerri (Nkwerre-Orlu) Imo State from Lagos, for a funeral or an event and in a convoy of about four vehicles. Suddenly on approaching Okada town junction on Benin-Ore road, they ran into a band of armed robbers conducting an operation? They abandoned their vehicles and ran into the bush while their three-man police security detail engaged the armed robbers in a fierce fire-fight? The armed robbers overwhelmed the police detail, who then managed to summon for the help of additional police officers to the scene.  Eventually and still while Michael and co were still hunkered down in the bush, the combined team of police officers forced the armed robbers to flee? 

Please specifically note that these "well trained and fully armed" police officers did not and could not kill nor even successfully arrested any of one of these armed robbers? Following their "victory" over the armed robbers, the lead-police officer, using a bullhorn, called out to everyone who ran into the bush to come out as everything is now all-clear? MAO alongside others, honored the police assured announcement and reemerged from their hiding places inside the bush. Everyone drove off, except for  MAO, whose car suddenly became immobilized and so could not drive off while every other person except him did? According to the story, a bullet had perforated MAO's vehicle's engine and rendered it un-drivable? Icheoku queries a bullet perforating a car's engine, when each day we watch police television shows where police officers hide behind their vehicles engine section while exchanging fire with hoodlums? 

Continuing, suddenly as stranded MAO was still fiddling with his vehicle and wondering what the next line of action would be, one of the supposedly vanquished armed robbers, emerged from nowhere to put two hot leads into MAO's chest and thigh? There was no air-ambulance to MEdiVac MAO to the hospital and he was bleeding profusely from the exit chest-wound? There was also no ambulance either, with trained medical personnel to render good first aid and at least properly secure his bleeding fountains? 

According to their explanation, the nearest helicopter service available was over five hundred miles away in Port Harcourt from the shooting incident and the pilot "does not fly after 6pm and so cannot come to the rescue either?" The result was that a man already mortally wounded and clinging to his dear life, was driven by road back to Lagos, another distance of about four hundred and fifty miles before first proper medical attention could be rendered? He subsequently died in the hospital while preparations were afoot to evacuate him to a foreign country where adequate professional medical assistance is available?  Then the curtain of the narrative falls and with it a life that was productively lived but wickedly cut short. 

Now asks yourself where were those reinforced police team that "overpowered" those armed robbers when that lone straggling armed robber came back? Why was it MAO that the armed robber directed his shot at and at his heart; and there was no evidence of any particular act of provocation from MAO that could have so incensed the bandit to warrant such an aggravated aggression on him? Further, after point-blankly firing the deadly buck-shot at MAO, why did the armed robber not also shoot the other remaining people who were with MAO including two of his brothers? Also, nothing was stolen by the armed robber from either MAO or from any of the other persons as he quietly walked away and disappeared after 'mission accomplishing' his job? Why was it only MAO's car, among the many that were similarly abandoned by the fleeing victims at the scene, that developed a problem that immobilized it? 

Icheoku is asking these pertinent questions because a car engine is not so easily susceptible to nor is it readily compromised by ordinary bullets such as was fired in a cross fire shoot-outs? 

So is it possible that while Michael was hiding in the bush that his car was specifically sabotaged to render him a sitting duck for the assassin to find and execute? Further, why was a  deathly wounded MAO not taken to University of Benin Teaching Hospital or even Okada Teaching Hospital, both of which are very close to the scene, to be first fully stabilized before further seeking medical treatment for him? Why was a man bleeding from the heart driven by road so tortuously to Lagos with all the traffic jams and bad driving conditions factored in? 

That a member of the very powerful,  influential, wealthy and well-connected Anyiam Osigwe family of Nigeria, was mortally so wounded and the surviving brothers could not summon help or a helicopter to rush him to a hospital is beyond Icheoku's comprehension? Icheoku is aware that they have access and could have easily put a call through to Aso Rock or the Edo State Government House in Benin for an immediate SOS rescue; but instead decided to make a journey back to Lagos by road and for several hours carrying a man with life-threatening gunshot wounds on his chest and upper thigh?  Finally why were they traveling by road instead of undertaking the less than one hour flight time it takes from Lagos to Owerri or Enugu or even Asaba? 

Icheoku says there are just too many questions not being answered, which if answered would help clear the fog of this case. Icheoku is emphatic that this case smells of an assassination, but certainly not a random act of armed banditry which is plaguing the country. It also does not matter what those brothers of his with him are saying as their own version of the account of event, a thorough investigation is necessary to uproot the very root cause of MAO killing and let parties thereto present explain or answer some of these burning questions. Until then,Nigerians should see it as a lawless execution of a fellow citizen and seriously demand answers from those in the know. 

Icheoku says while the country is so deeply plagued and being suffocated by wanton insecurity,  politicians in that "largest economy in Africa" so called,  who could not do right by the citizens and at least provide some MEdiVac helicopters for emergency occasions like this, and who have also refused to adequately fund the police to help them produce crack crime-fighting police force that could have averted this needless and avoidable death, are once again busily perambulating all over the place and asking Nigerians to reelect them? Icheoku asks reelect them for what? What have they shown for their election of these past years? If only the APC would provide Nigerians with a real choice they can live with? Icheoku laments what a loss! So long Michael Anyiam Osigwe, Adieu!

THE SERVANT-LEADERSHIP, ANY NIGERIAN EXAMPLE?

The type of leadership any politician would provide, whether a servant-leadership or a looter-in-chief leadership, is evident in the "do or die' attitude and near desperation of that politician in his or her quest for power. Having a selfless as opposed to a selfish, self-centered disposition, is the hallmark of a servant leader, which unfortunately is in a very short supply in Nigeria. Icheoku says apathy and political in-activism on the part of the voting electorates is helping institutionalize this loot-o-cracy by these greedy thieving politicians. Icheoku says it was the late Dee Sam Onunaka Mbakwe, governor emeritus of Imo State as it then was, who once said that the rat does not eat something which belongs to a person who is wide awake. Icheoku hence advises Nigerians to become very wide awake in order to stop these band of thieving politicians before they get access to the treasury by means of the ballot. 

Nigerians should just ask themselves, when has serving a people become by force; otherwise why  the desperation to secure power by any means necessary and thus giving credence to the end justifying the means? Icheoku says  these people cannot be so insanely possessed in their quest, if indeed they are merely motivated by their desire to render service to the electorates? But we all know that politics in Nigeria is the surest route to steal and steal, and amass stupendous wealth, none of which these politician actually needs; but which in the words of Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha, helps guarantee that "our generations yet unborn shall never lack?" Icheoku condemns this attitude as crass gluttony exemplified and thievery of the worst kind, the taking of more than one actually needs by these politicians while starving millions of the people, of the little they need to in order to just stay alive.

Icheoku says who in his or her right mind, being so sincere  to serve the people, would borrow millions and sometimes billions of Naira, maim and kill people, as well as wrought all manners of other kinds of violence, just to secure the authority to "serve" the people?  Their cunning approach is usually a subterfuge they use to masquerade their ulterior intention to visit untold wreck on the peoples sovereign wealth once elected; which was aptly captured in the words of Professor Tam David West. According to TDW, "Aspirants who throw money around are public thieves, looters. The bribe money they offer is public money, our money, recycled to corrupt the public for their selfish ends. Why would anyone take the trouble to spend all his millions to buy votes to enable him serve the public? They have hidden agenda to mega-loot if elected. It’s because he knows that when you elect him, he would make it up in no time. Nigerians, lets say No, No, No, this time, to these band of politicians." Icheoku agrees with the learned professor of urology and says but are Nigerians listening to such wise counsel.

Please Nigerians, when next any of these rabble-rousers  come knocking at your door, tell him or her to take a hike as you are tired of listening to the "messianic" hogwash oozing from their mouth. Icheoku also will like you to demand a break from all these politician-desperadoes and pontificators, who are busily extolling how they would solve all Nigeria's problems once elected, by magically wanding every problem known to Nigerians away. Icheoku says these brand of politicians are deceiving Nigerians and they do not mean well for the country and would loot it into bankruptcy.  So when next any of them comes to you, asking for your vote or your understanding on why they are the best of the pack, and would like to serve you, please tell them thanks, but no, thanks. Alternatively, demand that they  pay you your own portion of the democratic dividend upfront; and/or that they should help you mow your lawn and see what type of a servant-leader they truly indeed are or intend to be if they comply. Please as 2015 comes into view, be vigilant, be active and do the needful not to let these rats into the treasury. Icheoku says this is the time to stop complaining about bad leadership by electing a good leadership. Salute!

RELIGIONISATION OF POLITICS - TAM DAVID WEST

"I have always held that for a lasting and stable polity, we should bring religion into politics but take politics out of  religion. If the codes (Dos and Don’ts) of religion are injected into politics, politics will be necessarily sanitized of all filth. No election rigging, No cheating. No corruption. No looting. No killing. No violence. No intimidation. Love will take over from hate. Real democracy will be realized. There will be justice, peace and progress for all. Remember that things about religion go deep into one's bone marrows, those of politics only end on the epidermis"" - Professor Tam David-West

OBASANJO IS A SPOILER - OZEHKOME MIKE.

“I think that Obasanjo is a spoiler who does not want to sit in podium of great and revered political leaders across the world. Such action as he has taken do not behold well of a man who is suppose to be an elder statesman. The statement (he made) may be true and self evident in terms of executive corruption in Nigeria at all levels particularly at the Federal and State government levels, and in terms of increasing legislative rascality that we have been witnessing from the National Assembly particularly the House of Representatives. All these allegations may be true but there are certain question that need be asked. Firstly, how did Obasanjo perform as President of Nigeria?

Was it not in his time that corruption was elevated to a doctrine and a fundamental objective and directive principle of state policy? Was it not during his time that Ghana Must Go bags where seen being physically carried from House of one legislator to another either to remove an existing Senate President or to perpetuate his third-term agenda. Was it not during his time that the greatest economic and financial scandal in Nigeria’s history, the Siemens and Halliburton scandals were re-enacted? Was it not during his reign that the Petroleum Trust Fund and Petroleum Equalisation fund became a nest of indelible corruption? 

Was it not during his time that two major towns in Nigeria- Odi in Bayelsa and Zaki Ibiam in Benue State where mindlessly destroyed and leveled to the ground by rampaging military men in a manner that portended genocide, where many people, animals and properties where wiped out from the fave of the earth? Was it not during his time that Nigeria won the Gold, Silver and Bronze trophies in corruption under the Transparency International Corruption index? There are more decent ways and manner in which a former president can channel his grievances to a sitting president and the National Assembly, all of which are open to him without question (but he choose otherwise)." - Mike Ozehkome, lawyer and activist, taking on Ota deity Olusegun Obasanjo for his continued meddlesomeness in Nigeria. Icheoku says Mike Ozehkome spoke for Icheoku as well as millions of Nigerians who hereby admonishes Olusegun Obasanjo to just go away and disappear out of sight. Enough of this Obasanjo's Pharisees complex.

THE MEN BUHARI MURDERED IN COLD BLOOD?

Icheoku says pursuant to his intentions to Islamize Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari introduced Sharia zero-tolerance for drug-dealings and retroactively murdered three Nigerians, who committed the offense alleged prior to the promulgation of the decree making it a death penalty offense. Like other Islamic countries, his Nigeria then had to display that it was ready for full Sharia law in Nigeria; and as result killed this three innocent Nigerians just to bare his fangs. According to one of the condemned before hot lead perorated his body and turned him into a cadaver, he said "If i knew this was going to result in my death, God knows i would never have had anything to do with it. That is why i am going to God with all courage and faith, that I don’t have to regret because he knows much better than I do." But Buhari killed him and three others anyway and the same blood-thirsty mongrel wants power again in Nigeria? Icheoku says any Nigerian that encourages his ambition is a partaker in murder. On MARCH 28, reject the murderer, VOTE GEJ

SCARY, HIV/AIDS RAVAGES LAGOS?

One in every twenty people living in Lagos Nigeria is HIV/AIDS positive, that is about 5% of the population. This is according to information provided by the agency in charge of tracking infection and controlling  the scourge, Lagos State AIDS Control Agency.  Its CEO, Dr Tokunbo Dabiri, made the information available while addressing participants at the World's AIDS day in Lagos. 

Icheoku says the only seemingly good news is that HIV/AIDS, unlike the Ebola Virus Disease, is not an instant killer; but gives its victims sometime to live and with proper medication, could be controlled if not cured. But in any event, it is still a scary thought to know that this many people are infected in Lagos Nigeria and the number increases everyday due to promiscuous behavior and lack of safe sexual practices. May God continue to protect his people IJN. 

GOODLUCK AS EMBLEM OF PDP, A TRAGEDY - OYEYEMI

“It is better not to ascend power than to have power and whine about inability to appropriately use it.” GEJ should have gone out to take on the condescending and deleterious “inheritors” of the Nigerian “estate” who made the country “ungovernable” for him. He had the means and the power to put them in their place and help them to understand that all are equal partakers in the stake called Nigeria. He had the opportunity to remind the “Born to rule” goons that Nigeria belongs to all.

GEJ had the opportunity, to reinforce the Republican nature of the Nigerian State and insist that though, “tongue and tribe may differ,” we are all one and the same with equal rights and access to whatever appurtenances Nigeria has got to offer. He should have focused on righting a lot of historical wrongs for the disenfranchised nationalities in the country and carve a niche for himself in history. He had the opportunity to save Nigeria from itself by charting a different path for it. But as his detractors often say, he is “clueless.” His actions have worsen the situation and he has continued to wallow in delusion as he allows his enemies free reign to ruin him and whatever reputation he might have had. Goodluck Jonathan is the emblem of PDP as a tragedy." 

APC IS NEITHER A GOOD OPTION - OYEYEMI?

From the look of things, it is evident that there is fire on the Nigerian Mountain. This fire is all consuming and there is no obvious way of checkmating this fire. The fire, it seems, is going to lead to the end of Nigeria. But for someone like me, who has lost faith in the Nigerian Project for a long time, it is just a matter of course. This is because Nigeria is gradually approaching her DESTINY - the eventual freeing up of the ethnic nationalities within its confines. Like Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, popularly known in history as Lenin, was always saying about the situation in mother Russia in his exile days in Switzerland when the Bolshevik revolution was fermenting, “The worse, the better.” - Remi Oyeyemi

While the dynamics of the Nigerian centrifugal forces are presently cocooned in the façade of politics, giving the wrong impression that we have a country in which we all believe, Nigeria is gradually ebbing away into its natural habitat of independent ethnic nationalities committed to determining their own destinies and being the captains of their own souls. The political class may still be able to postpone the doomsday, if Nigeria survives 2015, but it is a doomsday that would still come, nevertheless. The façade of politics is the present opium of the fake nationalists that believe in Nigeria at all costs, to them Nigeria is a subsisting country when indeed, it is a mirage.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been in power for the last 15years plus. The Hausa Fulani oligarchy, after frustrating the mandate of Chief M.K.O. Abiola in 1993 made efforts to assuage the anger of the Yoruba Nation by imposing another Egba man from Owu Kingdom in Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who has always been their “willing tool” (apology to Sir Ahmadu Bello, the late Sardauna of Sokoto and former Premier of Northern Region) to subjugating other nationalities in Nigeria. This oligarchy made sure that the Yoruba never got what they wanted and that the Yoruba aspiration could only be as determined by this Hausa –Fulani neo-colonialists. This oligarchy and its satellites across the country  - Southwest, South-south, Southeast, Northeast and Middlebelt (or Northcentral) – in conjunction with their “militocrats” ensured that Obasanjo was shoved down the throat of Yoruba in particular and Nigerians in general in 1999.

Since the inept days of Tafawa Balewa to the tyrannical aeon of Mohammadu Buhari, through the anomic era of Ibrahim Babangida to the inane epoch of Musa Yar’Adua, the PDP, euphemised in different taxonomies, has been “failing.” I put the word “failing” in quote because as far as Nigerians are concerned, their fate has grown progressively worse in geometrical terms. But as far as the Fulani descendants of Uthman Dan Fodio are concerned, Nigeria could not have been better for them as an “inherited estate” – largely feudalistic and underdeveloped- peopled by hewers with subjugated will and failed dreams.

This brings us to the present spell of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ), also on the platform of the same PDP. He is reported to have earned a Doctorate in Zoology. GEJ, as he is popularly called, is an extraction from the minority Ijaw nationality whose homelands have provided Nigeria with its petro-dollars for decades while its landmass had been wasted recklessly and mercilessly by the Hausa-Fulani inspired Nigerian government. His people along with other minority nationalities in South-south have been fighting for preservation of their land while the land was being exploited. The renowned author and dramaturgist, Kenule Saro-Wiwa and seven others were murdered in the course of this struggle in what has come to be known as the Ogoni Eight Murders.  The indifference of the Nigerian Government to the plight of the South-south people led to the calls for Resource Control and Fiscal Federalism.

Thus, when GEJ, who could not afford shoes while he was growing up as a young lad in Otuoke, ascended the Presidency of Nigeria, the descendants of Uthman Dan Fodio, who considered themselves as the “inheritors” of Nigeria, which to them is “an extension of the estate” of their ancestor vowed to make Nigeria “ungovernable” for him. They have made good their promise and have gotten away with it. And I don’t blame them. It is GEJ’s fault, all through and through. This is because as the Yoruba often say, “Aguntan ti ri Jinadu bee, ki o to gba isu owo e.” (The sheep has discerned Jinadu to be insensate before dispossessing him of his yam).

When GEJ assumed power, he was expected to be guided by history. He was expected to remember the struggles of his people to benefit from the resources gushing from beneath their homelands; to remember how over 80% of those who have oil wells are from the Hausa-Fulani stock to the detriment of other Nigerians in general and his people in particular; to remember that his people have suffered endlessly in the hands of the Nigerian political and economic carpetbaggers; to remember how the homelands have become desolate from ruthless exploitation and his people could hardly farm or fish any longer; to remember the tears and the wailings of his people who have been forgotten and thrown to the curbs of poverty and want.

But alas! He suffered pathological amnesia as soon as he got to the comfort of Aso Rock. He not only failed his Ijaw people and other Nigerians who looked up to him as a liberator, he failed himself and all those who fought for him to get to the exalted position of power. GEJ’s case is emblematic of the sayings of my wise forefathers in Yoruba-land “Ai kuku j’oye, osan ju enu mi o ka ilu” literally meaning “It is better not to ascend power than to have power and whine about inability to appropriately use it.” GEJ should have gone out to take on the condescending and deleterious “inheritors” of the Nigerian “estate” who made the country “ungovernable” for him. He had the means and the power to put them in their place and help them to understand that all are equal partakers in the stake called Nigeria. He had the opportunity to remind the “Born to rule” goons that Nigeria belongs to all.

GEJ had the opportunity, to reinforce the Republican nature of the Nigerian State and insist that though, “tongue and tribe may differ,” we are all one and the same with equal rights and access to whatever appurtenances Nigeria has got to offer. He should have focused on righting a lot of historical wrongs for the disenfranchised nationalities in the country and carve a niche for himself in history. He had the opportunity to save Nigeria from itself by charting a different path for it. But as his detractors often say, he is “clueless.” His actions have worsen the situation and he has continued to wallow in delusion as he allows his enemies free reign to ruin him and whatever reputation he might have had. Goodluck Jonathan is the emblem of PDP as a tragedy.  

Jonathan failed his Ijaw people. He also antagonized the Yoruba people through the length and breadth of his administration. The Yoruba were not just relegated from his administration, they were excommunicated. After being excommunicated from the Jonathan administration, the Yoruba became the butt of witch hunting, blackmailing, ridicule and undeserved humiliation. It was Jonathan administration that engineered the idea of the Yoruba State of Lagos as being “no man’s land.” He called Yoruba politicians “rascals.” If not for a Yoruba man, used by Providence, Jonathan would not be President today.  Jonathan has been odiously ungrateful to the Yoruba Nation. He is a tragedy to the aspirations of the Yoruba Nation.   

But as 2015 approaches, another serious threat to the survival of Yoruba Nation is in the horizon for which Jonathan would be indirectly culpable if it comes to fruition. Jonathan would be indirectly culpable because he has given “cover” to some compulsively traitorous Yoruba politicians to be able to actively collaborate with the enemies of Yoruba Nation in the bid to unseat him (Jonathan) because of his “cluelessness” and the tragedy that his administration represents for and to the Yoruba Nation. And that threat is represented by the leadership of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and their sentries. The APC has foreclosed its presidential ticket to the “Born to Rule” Hausa-Fulani ethnic stock. This is the ethnic nationality that has held Nigeria to ransom for the last five decades.

Both through the history of Nigerian civilian and military administrations, several ethnic nationalities have been seeking ways to extricate themselves from the bondage of the “Born to Rule” Fulani “inheritors” of the Nigerian State. Obafemi Awolowo was denied the leadership of this country by this clique because he insisted in defeudalising Nigeria. Gideon Orkar and company laid their lives down for this freedom. Tai Solarin was consumed by this struggle. Emeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s life’s trajectory was changed because of this struggle. Yohanna Madaki suffered unfairly and had his career taken from him in his bid to ensure this freedom. Alhaji Abdulrahman Shugaba was humiliated and deported from his motherland because he resisted this feudalism. Colonel Adekunle Fajuyi sacrificed his life to attain this freedom.

Ebitu Ukiwe’s career was cut short by this Hausa Fulani oligarchy while insisting on this freedom. Fela Anikulapo Kuti dedicated his talent for this struggle. His nationalist mother, Mrs. Funmilayo Ransome Kuti was murdered in this fight. Ken Saro-Wiwa died in this struggle. Gani Fawehinmi died engaged in this fight. Isaac Adaka Borro gave up the ghost seeking this freedom.  Wole Soyinka foreclosed his youth and mortgaged his adulthood in order for us to have this freedom. Beeko Ransome Kuti gave all he had for this struggle until he died. Even, Major Abubakar Umar Kankiwa, a Fulani himself, got a raw deal because he dared to dislike feudalism as espoused by the oligarchy of his ethnic nationalism.

And this precisely, is what the APC is trying to bring back and send the Yoruba Nation and other disenfranchised ethnic nationalities to another round of slavery in the name of politics! If the APC is a serious political party, intent on bringing true change to Nigeria, why must it dexterously preclude other ethnic nationalities from its presidential ticket without having to say so? To make matters worse, the APC could only showcase the worst of the Hausa-Fulani in its contenders! From a born-again cunning tyrant, incompetent and incorrigible religious fundamentalist in Mohammadu Buhari through a baptized international fraudster in Abubakar Atiku to the loudmouth political neophyte named Rabiu Kwankwanso, the APC is projecting itself as a NEW THREAT to the dreams of the constituent units of ethnic nationalities in Nigeria - to be free and be able to self determine their destinies.

For the Yoruba Nation and other ethnic nationalities in Nigeria, this indeed, is a serious dilemma!

But 2015 would not present a dilemma if we could all find the courage to do the right thing. Before the advent of further bloodshed, the killing and maiming of innocent children and women, we could muster the courage to do the right thing. Enough people have died already. If Option One – PDP and GEJ is unattractive; and Option Two – APC and the trio of Buhari, Atiku and Tinubu is also detestable, then it is time to consider Option Three – break up this façade called  Nigeria and let my people go. Yes, to your tents O Israel!! 

OBAMA GIRLS ATTACK, ELIZABETH LAUTEN IS A RACIST BIGOTED WHITE WHORE?

"Dear Sasha and Malia, I get you’re both in those awful teen years, but you’re a part of the First Family, try showing a little class. At least respect the part you play. Then again your mother and father don’t respect their positions very much, or the nation for that matter, so I’m guessing you’re coming up a little short in the ‘good role model’ department. Nevertheless, stretch yourself. Rise to the occasion. Act like being in the White House matters to you. Dress like you deserve respect, not a spot at a bar. And certainly don’t make faces during televised public events." - Elizabeth Lauten, a Republican from Tennessee. 

Icheoku says imagine what a fully grown adult white woman wrote about two little black girls, whose only 'sin' is that their father is presently occupying "their" White House and she is not finding their black-color adulteration of "their" White House funny? Icheoku says it appears that all these white people keep hating, as if hatred for people who  do not look like them is ingrained in their  DNA, all of them and without any exception. The only thing is that until they are caught, they keep on putting a pretentious face of being holier than thou in the racism department. Imagine this bimbo being highly critical of two little girls just for "making faces" at a White House annual Thanksgiving day turkey pardon event. 

But Icheoku knows the true underlying reason is not that the two little black girls made faces, which little girl doesn't? It is simply because of the the very fact that they are two little black girls, running around in "their" White House. Imagine asking two little girls to show some class? Then further piling up on them by bringing their parents as an issue? And condemning the two little black girls for falling short in the "role model department?" And of course telling them that they are ONLY privileged to be in "their" White House and ought to respect that circumstantial fact? And lastly equating them to girls of easy virtue (whores) ready to be picked-up at a bar? 

Anyway, Icheoku says it is only those people who are in denial of the increased racism among racist white Americans since the "ADVERSE" occupation of "their" White House by the BLACK Obama family, that still get surprised at some of these racial outbursts. As for Icheoku we fully understand the ramification of race in everything America as we live, feel and see it, everyday, everywhere; and denying its existence is being in self-denial and is unhealthy for the mental health. But unfortunately for these racist pigs, no one is living America for anybody; it is rather too late to contemplate that outcome, a desire which many of them nurse and hopelessly wish for as an eventual inevitable. Also if they may, the bad news for them is that black people will and shall survive!

OPEN APPEAL TO SAHARA REPORTERS' OMOYELE SOWORE.

Dear Mr Sowore Omoyele, 

CURRENT DIRECTION OF SR TROUBLING?

It is with the utmost reluctance and hesitation that Icheoku writes to plead with you to please tone down your current rabid fixation on President Jonathan because it is somewhat now hovering on the lunatic fringes. You have become what psychologists call borderline dysfunctional in your attacks on the president and his government while cleverly looking the other way as it concerns the other side. As a media outfit, you should report stories as they unfold but not necessarily mislead the public by skewing stories to derive a particular agenda. At the end of the day, the president might win or lose the election but SR will never be the same again, especially not in the eyes of Nigerians, many of who now regard your outfit as another yellow pages, that is not only not dispassionate but totally inbed with everything anti-Jonathan and out to do the president in.  

Your SR never reports anything positive or productive of the government including the little gains they periodically make against Boko Haram as well as other areas of noted progress, admitted more, as always, could have been done. Except if you have unknowingly fully morphed into an aparatichik of those not wishing Nigeria well, it is about time you take some introspection and rejig both your approach and needless subjective criticisms. Facts are universally sacred and objective but never subjective, except you have become another Fox News whose "just the facts" mantra excludes to mention that it is the "facts" according to their own jaundiced perception ONLY. 

Politics and politicians are like the barracks, soldier come soldier go, but barracks still stay open; so why so recklessly wage a war that is otherwise avoidable. No one ever quarrels with objective reporting or writing, but not when it crosses the line and becomes a hatchet job out to destroy and/or humiliate a president and his government?  However, Icheoku is not in a position to tell you how to live your newly chosen life of an attack dog for the APC or in any way wants to direct the trajectory of your outlet, but suffice it to say that SR has lost the lustre and great anticipation that heralded its introduction to the world and the Nigerian reading public in particular. If you must be that asinine and bias against a person of the president or his party, at least come out openly and declare for the APC like NdaNusa of Leadership Newspapers, so that people would know where you are really coming from. But please stop masquerading yourself as an investigative social media person "reporting it as you see it", admitted you may be making a killing, smiling to the banks, because of the turn you have taken. 

Your crass frenzied support for Muhammadu Buhari's presidency also unnerves millions of Nigeria who have been wondering lately whether you were born just yesterday and before Buhari's first coming that you so naively crave his second time around? What type of a democrat would so frontally be canvassing for a Muhammadu Buhari encore, fully aware of the type of despotic regime he ran between 1983 to 1985? But that is your privilege to support whoever you want, but please try to separate your personal interest from the "public" interest which SR supposedly represents. Anyway, a word should be enough for the wise and hopefully you still retained some reason to reason along this personal outreach, but you decide how you want to be remembered. 

Thanks.

Still the same as ever,

Icheoku.