THE BALTIMORE SIX KILLER-COPS, CHARGED.

 

Icheoku says behold the six police officers now indicted for the killing of Freddie Gray. Pictured are Officer Caesar R. Goodson Jr., Officer Edward M. Nero, Officer Garrett E Miller (top L-R), Officer William G. Porter, Lt. Brian W. Rice, Sgt. Alicia D. White (bottom L-R). Icheoku says hopefully, they might, if convicted, be made an example of and serve as the beginning of the end of police brutality in America. A matter made worse because some of them are even black Americans and have no scruples victimizing one of their own. What two Uncle Toms and one Auntie Sarah of the Baltimore police department these African American cops are that helped dispatch one of their kind to the great beyond. What a shame!

CHARLOTTE ELIZABETH DIANA, WHAT IS IN A NAME?

Icheoku says not when it saved the day and prevented the proverbial cat fight that would have seen three opposing interests clawing themselves bloody in their attempt to keep their names in the fore. There is Princess Kate Middleton who wanted a name to reflect her family through a sister named Charlotte; there is Prince William who wanted a name to reflect his own late mother Princess Di and of course the matriarch of the family and Queen of England, Elizabeth, the queen who must be obeyed and who wanted her great grand daughter to carry the torch of her name. Brilliantly, a clever way of accommodating these disparate interests was devised, hence a three names bearing princess and the future Queen of England, the fourth in the line of succession. Icheoku wonders if Camille made a fuss about adding her own name to her step grand daughter' many names too? Anyway, all hail to Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, the latest addition to the family of Prince William and Duchess Kate. May the princess and future possible queen of England live long and thrive, now you know why names matter. 

TERROR STRIKES TEXAS, WHEN THE TWO SEAS ARE NOT ENOUGH?

Icheoku says the sea to the shinning sea did not once again provide buffer to America as two terrorists struck in Texas, although unsuccessfully. But unfortunately for both terrorists, they messed with a wrong state and only if they had heard the phrase 'don't mess with Texan.' Both munchkins were dispatched on a speedy express to go meet with their seventy virgins by a watchful marksman and for this bravery, the untold terror they had planned was nipped in the bud, with them being the only casualty of the attack. It appears that both seas protects only against terror from overseas but never home-grown domestic terrorism or one carried out internally such as Osama Bin Laden's World Trades Center's 9/11 attack, Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing as well as this Garland's free speech event attack. However, Icheoku says thank you officer for saving the day and again for denying these animals another recruiting propaganda tool. Imagine what would have happened had they succeeded in muzzling free speech right inside here in America, the bastion of free speech? Luckily they were no match to the skills of the highly trained traffic officer who put a stop to their maniacal escapade. 

Terrorists Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi (first and second respectively pictured below) tried storming a free speech event organized by Pam Geller, featuring Islamic Prophet Mohammed cartoons, inside Curtis Culwell Center in Garland Texas, a suburb of Dallas. They were dressed in armored, armed with assault rifles and explosives but were stopped cold from reaching their target by an eagle-eyed off duty officer moonlighting as a guard. There is no authoritative information however whether their main target was the wider audience or a Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, already on Al Queida most wanted list of infidels who was billed to speak at the event. But thankfully, it ended well as the two anarchists became the only victims of their own device. Icheoku says how does anyone protect against an enemy within their midst but through prayers and eternal vigilance. 

With the terror in Texas, vigilance now becomes more heightened since many of these terrorists are already here, simply laying low and waiting for the appropriate time to crawl out of their terror-planning holes to cause mayhem. Icheoku says to these fanatics, why not let your prophet Mohammed fight his own battles, if he cares; afterall Jesus Christ as well as Buddha and other gods and goddesses of African traditional religions are always written about all the time without such incendiary reaction from their faithfuls. So why must it be only Muslims that must kill and maim people just because their prophet was talked about? Icheoku says these people need to wake up and realize that this is now twenty first century and not the last millennium or those ancient times when fables are told to timid souls, who believing same, go about fighting stupid wars based on faith. Icheoku borrowing Rodney King's words, says, please can we all just get along, religion or no religion!

BOXING BATTLE OF SUPREMACY, MAYWEATHER WINS.

Icheoku says the fight billed as the baddest and most expensive is now decided and the winner is Floyd Mayweather with unanimous decision after twelve rounds, dueling with Manny Pacquiao. Icheoku says congratulations.

AMERICAN PHAROAH WINS DERBY.

Icheoku says while mummified Egyptian Pharaohs were dozing off inside their pyramids from which they will never wake up to do anything meaningful, their American namesake just won the Kentucky derby. American Pharaoh wearing tag number 18 and jockeyed by Victor Espinoza finished first in the 141st edition of the Kentucky derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville Kentucky. Amidst pomp and pageantry of over-sized hat wearing ladies and cigar-chomping men in bow ties, the horse which came from the stable of Bob Baffert, galloped to victory and into history book. Icheoku says congratulations. 

WHAT MEN WANT FROM WOMEN - E.C. SAMUEL

“AND they called Rebekah, and said unto her, wilt thou go with this man? And she said, I will go” (Genesis 24 verse 58).

Men and women are more alike than different. They share an almost identical brain structure, similar needs for achievement and connection and generally want the same things out of life. The differences are in nuances and although important, should not be used to regulate men to some far removed distance space in the universe. What our culture values, as masculinity, is trapping. This includes being in control of one’s emotions, winning at all costs and not showing vulnerability. Men who are not the way society thinks they should be are often stigmatise and may be viewed by others as ‘feminine’ in some vague way.

We have noticed that men who feel they must rigidly conform to masculine gender norms are more likely to suppress emotions that make them feel vulnerable. But what we term ‘vulnerable’ are the very emotions required for a romantic intimacy with a partner or spouse. Most women will say, “You are a man,” trying to reinforce the very gender conditioning that pushes men away. Some of these women even dictate roles for men or assume they know how a man should be. Mostly, these straitjacket principles make men seek comfort and reality elsewhere. What really do our men want from their women? May I can speak for a few men.

(1) He wants you to like him and love him for himself and not just what he does for you. Men like it when they are loved. The way men are socialized at all times makes them feel that their value is in their agency- that is, in their ability to act, take charge, control, win and achieve. If he doesn’t do that, he would be termed a ‘sissy’ and scorned. Do not let this superficial part of him mislead you. Underneath this conditioning is a child who he is. He really wants someone who can be okay with him when he is not winning, producing or ‘on top.’ Keep that in mind when you relate with your man.

(2) He wants you to like yourself. If you are using him to feel okay about yourself, it will never be enough, and you will constantly be in charge of the next boost. More so, men like it when a woman feels emotionally strong and capable. It is okay to be jealous, but never act insecure.

(3) Believe his ability to communicate, and try to understand his language There is a way a man uses word… Just know where he is coming from. Don’t force him.

(4) He wants you to be playful. Let go of control. Be spontaneous, joyous, and fun to be with. Don’t be too serious about everything. Engage him without agendas. Let him feel like a high school lover. Men like to feel that.

(5) Men like to be respected. It is not true that all men are control freaks or domineering. On the contrary, most men listen to their wives. But you earn your husband’s respect when you respect him, especially when you are self-sufficient, but still let him feel as the anchor. He may say he doesn’t want you to bother him, but something inside feels secure when you tell him things before you do them or report events to him.

(6) Men like it when you understand them. Men flirt. Men make many decisions sometimes. They are not like women with special instincts. Yet, don’t let the man feel you are controlling him. When he makes a blunder, get angry, but understand. Men cannot stand nagging. Find other ways of expressing your dissatisfaction without a plan for revenge or violence. Let him feel the guilt, without you pressing it.

(7) He wants you to know that boys do cry. Men are given much shame in our culture for being vulnerable that they are often left with one choice to vent negative feelings-anger. Offer him that one place in the world where he can unconditionally bring his full self to the table and where you don’t judge. Don’t talk him out of his fears or upsets; just offer compassion and understanding. Love his shame away.

THE BIG FIGHT IS FINALLY HERE - MAYWEATHER V. PACQUIAO

Icheoku says may the better fighter win provided they give fans a worth for their money and long time waiting for this fight to eventually materialize.

CALLING BALTIMORE PROTESTERS THUGS, DISRESPECTFULLY VERY WRONG?

Icheoku says Terrence Howard once told his ex-wife, Michelle Ghent, "divorce me and do what you wish with me but please do not crush my families' already threatened livelihood. I can’t promise how I will respond if you do." In order words, please don't go there with my family's very survival because if you do, I don't know how I am going to react? It therefore goes without saying that every human-being  has a threshold of endurance and limits as to what is acceptable or tolerable, beyond which there is no guarantee of still remaining sanely cool faced with a continuing situation or circumstance. 

So why does America continuously push the buttons of these despondent black America youths, expecting them to always react with level-headiness and their minds still intact or as a monk would docilely react? If America does not want the nature of the reaction coming from these irate youths, is it not a better policy going forward, not to promote the circumstances that elicits or triggers this reaction?  Why set a ball in motion only to later complain that the ball is rolling too fast? Why start the act that begets or elicits such loathsome reaction and then turn around to complain that the effected is overreacting; because if there was no action in the first place there will be no reaction, talkless of it being over or too much. How can anyone blame a provoked people for some unintended consequences of what was forced upon them and at the same time excluding the police that started it from any blame? A police who acted under the color of their uniform in fermenting all manner of unwanted and unwarranted killings of unarmed young American males? Why expect these young African Americans not to react but to just turn the other chic, sit down and take it? 

Why would President Obama open his mouth and use it in this way and against a people, whose fate he once shared and whose challenges he once faced while running the streets of South-side Chicago just a few short decades ago? Why would President Obama not appreciate the sensitivity implicated in the Baltimore protest, not to have used such derogatory remarks in describing a people who were pushed to the wall and who are merely intending for their voices to be heard by a seeming deaf white society America that acts as if black life don't matter? Why throw the protesters under the bus while sparing the police brutality that caused the harm, the reason de'tre for the protest? Icheoku asks why, President Obama, why?

Icheoku asks if people who were merely drawing attention to the continuing plight of young African Americans, whose lives are being continuously cut down in this drastic manner and without consequence, are 'thugs and criminals', what then are those who caused the problem which these people are protesting against? Icheoku asks if people who merely destroyed some replaceable properties are 'thugs and criminals', what then are those police officers who destroyed an irreplaceable innocent human life? Should they be called murderers and would the president be courageous enough to mouth same accordingly? Except that Icheoku forgot that the same President Obama was once forced to make a mea culpa and organize a beer fest of appeasement of a Boston police officer, whom he called "stupid" for exactly doing a very stupid thing, arresting Professor Gates in his home just because he mistook him for a burglar, being a black-man in the particular neighborhood?  

But now, because there is no group to pile pressure on the president over the foul word he used in describing those Baltimore protesters, whom he thoughtlessly branded 'thugs and criminals', there may never be an apology or a beer party in the White House gardens to smoothen these ruffled feathers? Icheoku says calling people who were merely trying to draw attention to some existential threat and predicament to them in America, being young black men in America, thugs and criminals, is to say the least very demeaning? To President Barack Hussein Obama, Icheoku says not in our name. Please find a place and time to similarly organize this time, a barbecue summit of appeasement, to atone for your sin of derogating these young men and women of Baltimore. These protesters are not 'thugs and criminals' but courageous young Americans who are merely fed up and frustrated at the continuum that is police raging brutality against them and were trying to merely vent their anger.  Therefore, an apology will be in order and the appropriate thing to do; at least you owe them that, so make it.

INDONESIA EXECUTES DRUG PEDDLERS, A LAW ENFORCEMENT ACTION?

Icheoku says it is not an extraordinarily cruel and unusual punishment; and provided such offenders were aware of existing laws prohibiting the conduct prior to the commission of the offense, if convicted, such criminals should be made to face prescribed penalty. The execution of those convicted drug offenders by Indonesia therefore did not breach any known laws and should be seen as purely a law enforcement action that should be respected by any law abiding society as well as their political leaders. Icheoku says the threat by Australian Prime Minister to recall his country's ambassador to Indonesia is therefore uncalled for and a rash action without any merit whatsoever. If the Prime Minister is so incensed because of the carrying out of a lawful judicial process, which was fully litigated or rather prosecuted, with various tiers of appeals duly observed and completed, what message is he sending to the underworld drug dealers, that it is okay to deal in illegal drugs and destroy another country's society just for profit motive? 

Icheoku says this is not a case where a holier than thou higher moral grounds will suffice as the  irate Prime Minister should have preached to his country men not to peddle their nefarious illegal drug trade in Indonesia, fully aware of the existing prescribed death penalty against such offense. Icheoku says what went down in Indonesia today is not comparable to the Nigeria case under then Muhammadu Buhari in 1984 when he  murdered three innocent Nigerians using a retroactive decree. Then, there was no death penalty for drug peddling on the books in Nigeria so the three Nigerians killed were not possessed with the necessarily mens rea that their action would lead to their death.  They could have stayed away as one of them confessed that if only he knew it would result to his death, he would not have engaged in the illicit trade. 

Icheoku  agrees that if anyone knowingly breaks the law,  he should face prescribed penalties including death if already preexisting the offense and vividly on the books. Icheoku also supports law enforcement of any country, especially one geared towards protecting its society from such a purely economic and financial gains crimes as drug dealing; which destroys the fabric of societies rendering many citizens hopelessly dependent addicts which in turn drastically impacts the society overall. Provided due process was strictly followed and such laws applied across the board and not selectively applied, depending on who infractured the law, it is okay and should serve as a deterrent. So what if two Australians were among those nine executed drug peddlers as they are not better or of more value than the others including those four Nigerians.  They committed a death penalty offense, they were convicted, they exhausted their rights of appeal and clemency petition and therefore should face the consequence of their action. 

But the funny thing is that the same Australia that is now throwing tantrums over its two drug dealing citizens, looks the other way without an outcry when countries like Saudi Arabia chops off peoples heads on any given Friday or China puts their own death penalty offenders to death or even America's States especially Texas, sends its own convicts to the death chambers. So what is different now or is it because it is Indonesia and they felt like they can intimidate and bully them around? Colombian Pablo Escobar was executed for drug offences, admitted his was even without trial or due process; and similarly have so many other drug dealers perished in the war against drugs particularly in Mexico. So what is the Australian Prime Minister suggesting or that Australians are too special a people to be put to death for violating another country's death penalty law.  Good enough the government in Jarkata was not easily intimidate nor caved in to the likes of Australian and the rest is now but history, having put to death those drug peddlers including two Australians, one French, four Nigerians, one Indonesian and one Brazilian. Icheoku says with four Nigerians among the executed, pundits are seriously now wondering whether Nigeria has effectively become a narco state? This conjures Bola Tinubu and Buruji Kashamu's alleged drug dealing as Icheoku wonders whether they would have lived to become a leading political player and an elected senator of the federal Republic respectively had they pried their trade in Indonesia. 

BALTIMORE MOTHER TOYA GRAHAM, NOT A CARING MOTHER?

Icheoku says if married to this Baltimore woman, would divorce her on grounds of her classless public display of child abuse, assault and battery; and will also urge her immediate arrest and prosecution. Query, if she doesn't want her son to be a Freddie Gray, did Freddie Gray's mother desire the fate suffered by her son due to no apparent fault of his but a result of brutish police who broke his spinal cord leading to his slow painful death. What indeed is this woman telling the world that Freddie Gray in any way caused his own death in the hands of the Baltimore police? Would this woman, similarly situated and grieving for the loss of her son like Freddie Gray's mother, not desire other people to stand up for her deceased son? If yes, why prevent her own son from standing up for another woman's cop-killed Freddie Gray? 

Icheoku bemoans this is not how to protect a child from harm as charity begins and should begin from home. If only she did her homework, instructing her son in the best behavioral manners, may be her son would have known how best to protest and without the need of allegedly hauling anything at a panicky police. But no, here is a failed woman, who failed in her job as a good mother and who did not raise her son well enough to know better, publicly displaying the stuff she is made of? An abusive mother pummeling her defenseless son who respectfully did not respond in like manner. Icheoku is emphatic that Toya Graham's show of shame is condemnable as unbecoming of any mother, taking the laws into her hand and publicly assaulting and battering her son in this manner. A son who was merely participating in a peoples mass action, protesting the killing of a fellow human being and an African American young male, the new endangered species of America. 

It was not an ordinary smacking but a prosecutable battery offense and the Baltimore DA should look into hauling this woman in for prosecution. It is not her place to strike her son and repeatedly, regardless; and any decent mother would have rather cajoled her son out of the protest without the need to lawlessly punch him around in the head and against laws of battery and assault. Imagine the effant-terrible this woman is probably behind closed doors if she could put up this amount of shameful display publicly and without regards to the millions of eyes trained on her. Icheoku wonders whether such behavior possibly drove away the men in her life, including the baby daddy of the very unfortunate victim of her abuse, assault and battery. 

So what if he is her only son? So what if she does not want anything to happen to him and so what if he becomes another Freddie Gray or does she think her son is better than Freddie Gray? Did Freddie Gray's mother want what happened to him happen? Icheoku asks if not her son Michael, who else does this bitchy woman want to be "out there doing that?" If every woman and mother of a child in Baltimore had smacked down their son out of the protest, how else would the killing of Freddie Gray be put in the conscience of the world or America, admitted we are gradually going numb of such killings leading to their repeat occurrences and almost on a regular basis now. Who the heck does this Baltimore woman think she is or that her son's life is more valuable than all those young black Americans marching for all their brothers killed by police thus far including the latest victim Freddie Gray? A single mother of six children and you wonder how many baby-daddies she had and what happened to all of them and where they are possibly now? 

Toya Graham conveniently denounced the violence and vandalism, but cleverly forgot it was a reaction to an action? She also choose to forget denouncing the police for killing yet another innocent unarmed African American young man in her Baltimore? Did she not understand that her son Michael sees himself as another Freddie Gray waiting to happen and was merely proactively calling attention to that fact of consequence of every black young male in America; and also the continuing police brutality and killing of young African Americans in American cities? Icheoku says instead of 'shielding a sixteen year old young man in the house so that he wont go outside,' why did she not first consider not bringing him forth into an American society that its police needlessly and randomly kills African Americans young males? Since Toya Graham admittedly 'will not do that shielding for the rest of her life,' why is Toya Graham even trying now and not allow the boy to learn how to be a survivor in the street creed of atypical black American life? Why mess him up now shielding him, only for him to later turn into a sissy-man who cannot fend for himself in the absence of a very controlling mother who publicly smacked him around? 

Icheoku asks if this woman is this 'intolerant and everybody knows her as such,' is she therefore not a proper and fit candidate for an anger management class or even an outright institutionalized confinement for psychotic disorder, possible evaluation and treatment? If her son's first instinct upon sighting her was to take to the hills for his dear life, shouldn't this be enough grounds for the traumatized son to be removed from such abusive mother? Why should the city of Baltimore acting through their child protective services allow this intolerable degree of child abuse to continue and continuously allow this boy to remain in such an abusive home without a protective shelter somewhere, especially without a father at home to protect him from his mother's choleric behavior? Icheoku disagrees that this is how to 'take care of a child' as an abusive mother cannot and should never be allowed to hide under the canopy of caring for a child to subject such a child to this degree of physical abuse, assault and battery. 

Icheoku maintains that this woman of Baltimore deserves to be prosecuted for assault and battery instead of the unmerited praise some apologists are giving to her for her unlawful act. Worst still she did not give her son the option to come away from the protest before flying off in her fist of fury and pummeling him on the head. If not her son, who? What if it was her son Michael that was murdered by the police, would she not want other Michaels of Baltimore standing up for him? What if it was her son that had his spinal cord severed by the police and died a painful death as a result, would she rather his death is abandoned as inconsequential and/or a none issue  event? But as far as she is concerned, it will not be her son standing up for another woman's cop-killed son? Icheoku says publicly putting up such a show of shame is despicable and condemnable and should be so treated by all without making excuses as this woman deserves to be locked away for a vagrant abuse of her son. 

Icheoku says if Martin Luther King's mother had been in the way or Malcolm X mother had slapped him around in this fashion, possibly African Americans would still have remained one fifth human beings in America? But here is Toya Graham, enjoying achieved civil rights gains by other women's sons, but who would not stand seeing her own son contribute in some way to enshrining it? Toya Graham is enjoying the fruits of other women's sons activism but would want none of that of her own son? What a shame indeed it is when some people would not want to put their skin in the game but desires the benefits of a game, which brave and courageous African Americans played and which those Baltimore young men are fighting to consolidate today. As far as Icheoku is concerned, there is nothing wrong with Toya Graham's son Michael coming of age as a young man, participating in a protest march against a police that arbitrarily and continuously kills young African American as if their lives don't matter and without consequences whatsoever. To the bitchy woman of Baltimore, Toya Graham, that publicly put out this level of show of shame, abuse, assault and battery on her son and prevented him from participating in a worthy cause of protesting police brutality including hurt and death, Icheoku says SHAME ON YOU!

APC REBUKES BUHARI OVER AIT, SAYS 1984 IS SO YESTERDAY?

Icheoku congratulates the All Peoples Congress for rising up to the occasion  and overruling its president-elect Muhammadu Buhari in his unilateral decision to reintroduce his infamous Decree 4 through the backdoor. By repudiating the ban Muhammadu Buhari placed on AIT coverage of his affairs, the APC has once again reassured Nigerians that they are prepared to put their efferent-terrible president-elect Muhammadu Buhari on a leach and prevent him from reliving his draconian 1983 to 1985 rule over Nigerians. 

Many Nigerians had feared this would be the case with the elected Muhammadu Buhari, the self-acclaimed converted democrat but who suddenly had a memory lapse that democracy comes with unabridged freedoms including freedom of speech when he banned AIT from all its affairs. But luckily enough some men with balls are still enjoying the membership of the APC and had risen up to say, not in our name and not under our watch, would the much fought for freedom Nigerians are enjoying now for the past sixteen years be allowed to be stifled by a draconian tyrant masquerading as a converted democrat. Icheoku says such action by the APC gives Nigerians reason to believe that despite their fears of Muhammad Buhari, there will be some sheriff in town to checkmate his excesses. What a light of relief at the end of the dark tunnel this development is and every Nigerian should therefore commend the APC for this bold audacity to call their president-elect to order. Icheoku stands with AIT and also for freedom for Nigerians as well as their media! Long live freedom and long live freedom watchdogs.

BOLA TINUBU IS A DRUG LORD - THE DAILY BEAST?

Icheoku says why now and why did The Daily Beast wait for the conclusion of the Nigeria presidential election to run with the story? The answer is short - America's objective to get President Jonathan out of Aso Rock and they succeeded; so the dirty laundry can now begin to be laundered? In an article by one Michael Weiss titled "Nigeria Pres' Svengali tied to Heroine" of April 27, 2015 published in 'The Daily Beast', the author pointed his searchlight on the man who made Muhammadu Buhari president, Ashiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, painting him as a drug lord at best. So Icheoku queries will the corruption crusader President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, now distance himself from the outed drug lord or at least probe Bola Tinubu's source of wealth in his acclaimed anti-corruption effort? With this expose, Icheoku asks who between Buruji Kasamu and Bola Tinubu, who is now Nigeria's world acclaimed drug baron? Your answer is as good as Icheoku; but Nigerians will keep their fingers crossed and watch what becomes of such continued association of President elect Muhammadu Buhari with a world renowned drug baron while still claiming to be an anti-corruption president.  Here now below find the said article as published in The Daily Beast:- 

'Nigerian Pres' Svengali Tied to Heroine" - article by Michael Weis, The Daily Beast April 27,2015.

"Nigeria’s election last month was celebrated as an unlikely victory for democracy in an African country with a tenuous record of free and fair representation. But the man most responsible for midwifing General Muhammed Buhari’s ballot triumph over current President Goodluck Jonathan has a spotty CV. Former Lagos provincial governor Bola Tinubu, affectionately nicknamed the Jagaban, is today seen as a shrewd if not “deeply Machiavellian” Svengali in Nigeria’s politics as well as the architect of a hugely successful anti-corruption platform. But 20 years ago he had to forfeit nearly half a million dollars to the U.S. Treasury Department after being named as an accomplice in a white heroin-trafficking and money-laundering ring that stretched from West Africa to the U.S. Midwest. 

Although his case has been bandied about the Nigerian press for years, Tinubu’s involvement in a federal drug and racketeering investigation waged jointly by the DEA, FBI, and IRS has gone unreported elsewhere, even after his ascendance to Karl Rove-like status last month. A recent gauzy Financial Times profile of him, for instance, neglected to mention that two decades ago Tinubu was identified as a bagman for two Nigerian heroin movers who operated out of Chicago and Hammond, Indiana. They were Adegboyega Mueez Akande and Abiodun Agbele, Akande’s nephew, who was exposed to law enforcement after selling white heroin first to Lee Andrew Edwards, another dealer later jailed for trying to murder a federal agent, and then to an undercover cop. 

In a 1993 court docket from the U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Illinois, which The Daily Beast obtained from Sahara Reporters, a Nigeria-focused news outlet, IRS Special Agent Kevin Moss said that Akande had run the white heroin ring in the late 1980s until 1990, when he handed off the U.S arm of the business to his nephew, who had arrived in 1988. Akande then returned to Nigeria but continued to oversee the operation from abroad with the help of others at home and in the United States, including his relatives. One of the individuals identified in his cartel by Moss was Tinubu, then a Chicago State University-educated accountant working as a treasurer for Mobil Oil Nigeria Ltd, a subsidiary of energy giant Mobil Oil, which was still a few years shy of its famous merger with Exxon in 1999. 

In the biography section of his official website, Tinubu is described as having emigrated to the United States in 1975 “in search of the proverbial Golden Fleece with a heart brimming with unrelenting determination to achieve his visions.” This is certainly one way to describe his tenure stateside. 

In 1989, Moss said in an affidavit, Tinubu established an individual money market account, into which he deposited $1,000 in traveler’s checks, and a negotiable order of withdrawal account (NOW) at First Heritage Bank in Country Club Hills, Illinois. The address Tinubu gave the bank was the same as the listed headquarters of Globe-Link International, the front company owned by Akande and his relatives.

“There’s a trend of various Nigerian politicians at the highest levels involved in dodgy business deals around the world, in property and cash.”

Bank employees told Moss that Akande had personally introduced them to Tinubu in December 1989 when who also opened a joint checking account with his wife, Oluremi Tinubu, who already kept a joint account with Akande’s wife at First Heritage. Five days after the NOW account was opened, $80,000 was wired into it from a bank in Houston maintained by one of Akande’s relatives. Tinubu would later use the NOW account to buy a $10,000 Certificate of Deposit for an $8,000 car loan, listing Akande as his cousin on the application. 

At the time, Tinubu’s take home as a Mobil Oil Nigeria executive was a mere $2,400 a month and he claimed not to have any other revenue streams. Yet he still managed to deposit $661,000 into his individual money market account in 1990 and then another $1,216,500 a year later. He also opened more accounts with Citibank in its worldwide personal banking unit, transferring over half a million dollars from his First Heritage money market account into one of them in early 1991. 

Mobil Oil Nigeria told Moss that Tinubu’s role at the company never involved transferring large sums of money between banks and that it didn’t keep deposits in any institutions in the south suburbs of Chicago, where First Heritage was based. Moreover, although Tinubu moved back to Nigeria in 1983, he neglected to file U.S. income tax returns after 1984 despite having sizable, interest-generating deposits in American banks. All of this was enough to persuade a magistrate judge of the Northern District to issue seizure warrants for Tinubu’s First Heritage and Citibank accounts. Collectively, more than $1.4 million belonging to the Nigerian was confiscated. 

Tinubu gave differing accounts for his wealth to Moss. In one phone call from Nigeria, shortly after the U.S. Treasury seized his money, he admitted to wiring $100,000 to Akande’s Houston bank account and to receiving the $80,000 from Akande into his First Heritage account. Tinubu also said that apart from one other account in Fairfax, Virginia, he had no other money stashed in U.S. banks. 

Except that there were other accounts. Citibank has a worldwide banking division known as Citibank International where Tinubu stashed an additional $550,000. He also controlled an entity called Compass Finance and Investments Company Ltd., of which Akande and Agbele were directors. Still another nexus of money transfers was uncovered by federal investigators, with cash moving from First Heritage to Citibank to Citibank International, where it wound up in Tinubu’s personal accounts and in those belonging to Compass Finance and Investments. In a follow-up exchange with law enforcement officers, Tinubu changed his story. Just days after conceding that he’d sent and received money to and from Akande, he insisted that he had no financial or business dealings with Akande or Agbele.

There’s no evidence that Tinubu was ever indicted for any crime. He eventually settled with the district court, turning over $460,000 of the seized $1.4 million, with the remainder released back to him. The Beast tried repeatedly to contact Marsha McClellan, the U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case, but was unsuccessful. 

“I’m not surprised at all,” said Virginia Comolli, a specialist on Nigeria and author of Boko Haram: Nigeria’s Islamist Insurgency. “There’s a trend of various Nigerian politicians at the highest levels involved in dodgy business deals around the world, in property and cash. Even ones who seem fairly clean turn out to have some dark histories.” The perfect case in point is Tinubu’s political project and new president-elect of Nigeria, General Muhammed Buhari, who in 1983 helped overthrow a democratically elected government in a military coup d’etat on the grounds that the government was undisciplined and corrupt. “He resorted to brutal methods, beating up people for not queuing properly and imposing limitations on the media,” Comolli said. “I think a lot of the votes Buhari got were anti-Jonathan rather than pro-Buhari.” 

But no doubt, many also came from a savvy fusion of political factions. In February 2013, Tinubu successfully merged his own influential Action Congress party with Buhari’s Congress for Progressive Change, resulting in the All Progressives Congress. The marriage united Nigeria’s most populous northwest and southwest regions and the ensuing campaign was billed by Tinubu as a “commonsense revolution” against a corrupt and venal incumbency which, in its five years in power, had seen the terrorist group and newly-minted ISIS affiliate Boko Haram thrive. Buhari swept the election with 2.7 million more votes than Jonathan. 

Even before that trouncing, however, Tinubu had a relatively positive reputation in Nigeria, according to former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria John Campbell. “He is widely regarded as having been a highly successful governor of Lagos state,” he said. “Together with Tinubu’s handpicked successor, Babatunde Fashola, Lagos has seen dramatic improvements in everything from practical stuff like garbage collection to the collection of taxes and the provision of public services,” Campbell told The Beast. Though even here, the ex-diplomat admits, Tinubu’s good governance has been clouded by controversy. “He established a company to do the tax collecting in return for a cut and, at one point, Tinubu and Fashola appeared to be splitting over the percentage of Tinubu’s cut.” 

Drug charges do indeed appear to be the sine qua non for Nigerian high office. The year 1993, when Tinubu’s assets were seized, was a turbulent period for Nigeria following the cancellation of a national election and the establishment of a military dictatorship. Moshood Abiola, the rightful winner of that election, was accused of narcotics trafficking according to Campbell. So too is “Prince” Buruji Kashamu from the People’s Democratic Party, who has faced extradition back to the United States since 1998. Kashamu was indicted by a federal grand jury in Chicago for being the elusive “Alaji,” a globetrotting drug kingpin who smuggled heroin into O’Hare International Airport from Europe and Asia. Piper Kerman, the memoirist who inspired the Netflix series Orange is the New Black, famously worked for Alaji. Kashamu denies the charges and insists that he was purportedly a counterterrorism informant to the U.S. government before and after 9/11, and that the real trafficker was his now-deceased brother. 

Despite his party’s general loss to the All Progressives Congress, Kashumu was elected in March as senator of the southwest Ogun state. In what appeared to be a magnanimous gesture to the winner, he took out an advertisement praising Tinubu as a role model. The Jagaban was distinctly unimpressed. He trashed the comparison in a statement signed by his media adviser, claimingthat for Kashamu “to liken himself to Bola Tinubu is for a small rut to call itself a mountain.” Tinubu instructed the “false praise singer” to go face the music in the Windy City before deigning to talk to him.

AIT BAN, DEJA VU DECREE 4 AND A SNARLING MUHAMMADU BUHARI?

Icheoku says except for those pin-head Nigerians who drank the cool-aid and bought into the snake oil that there is something like a converted democrat and that a leopard can change its spots, the news coming out of the President-elect Muhammadu Buhari's camp is not surprising to the intuitively well informed. Icheoku warned and several other people warned Nigerians but regardless, they still voted for him anyways; and now low and behold and before even being sworn in, the man known as the tyrannical despot extraordinaire of Nigeria is already beginning to show his true colors. Is Icheoku shocked, nope; because Icheoku knows that no old dog learns a new trick at such an advanced old age. 

Icheoku saw it coming, extensively warned against it but Nigerians were tone-deaf and now the unfolding drama of "I didn't say that" or "I didn't promise that" is flooding the media about campaign promises already retracted, as either never was said or cannot be magically wrought overnight? The latest of this 180 degree somersault is the pulling back on the promised freedom of the speech including freedom  of the media to thrive under his government unencumbered. Reports reaching Icheoku has it that the minders of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari has banned African International Television (AIT) from covering all functions of the president-elect going forward. Icheoku asks is this the pledge not to tamper with the media as was the case under the infamous Decree 4 or is this part of the signs of things down the pike? 

Icheoku asks what did AIT do which is not done in advanced societies or has President Barack Obama of the United States of America banned Fox News from covering the White House after the lynch-mob job they tried to do on him while running for office? Ditto the other Robert Murdock owned media empire in the United Kingdom and the hatchet job they did against Prime Minister David Cameron? But the Muhammadu Buhari Icheoku knows is not capable of taking criticism and like he did as a military junta, will similarly find a way of keeping in the cold any media house that he deems unfriendly or not capturing the news through his own eyeglasses. Muhammadu Buhari is yet to be sworn in as president and he is already unleashing his fangs, then imagine the fate which awaits Nigerians' freedom post May 29th, 2015. 

Icheoku says so what if AIT aired paid documentaries, which Muhammadu Buhari considers unfriendly, as any media would do once the price is right? So what use therefore is the acidity of the documentary if after the said documentary, Muhammadu Buhari still won the election?  So does it not show that this president-elect is merely being vindictive under the circumstances, which shows he has a heart of sulphur and never forgives? Icheoku says a more benevolent leader would have laughed off AIT as being "ineffectively useless" because despite all their best effort, he was still elected president; instead of being this petty, descending into the sewer by seeking revenge and a pound of flesh? So if Muhammadu Buhari were the outgoing President Jonathan who the kitchen sink of criticism was thrown at by the media, may be Nigeria would have since once again become one huge gulag where every voice of decent and opposition is locked away to rot. But here you have someone who claimed to be a converted democrat yet lacks the tenets of a democrat, including tolerance for criticism and opposing viewpoints. President-elect Muhammadu Buhari, Icheoku says shame on you and greater shame for your intolerance. 

It is also instructive to mention that the same president-elect have so far already recanted many of his campaign promises including his pledge to equalize the Naira to the Dollar; to stabilize world's oil market; not to probe past government as seen with the threatened probe of President Jonathan and the alleged missing $20billion NNPC oil money and now is snarling his teeth at AIT media house over some  considered anti-Buhari aired documentary during a campaign that is since over and which he won? Icheoku bemoans that at the rate he is going with "I didn't say that", may be by time he is sworn in, he would have completely and totally absolved himself of any promise he made to Nigerians during his campaign, the basis of which he was elected president?

Icheoku says one thing with taking people's freedom is that it starts in increment of one, two, three and before you know it, everyone's freedom is completely muzzled and gobbled up. If it is AIT today, tomorrow it might be Icheoku and next day Nations, the day after Sahara Reporters and the day after next NTA. So Nigerians must start now to put pressure on Muhammadu Buhari that 2015 is not 1983 and Nigerians have come way too far to succumb to his blackmail of terror and intimidation. Nigerians have enjoyed relative freedom this past sixteen years of their fledgling democracy and will not now retreat to their shells just because a freedom-denying Muhammadu Buhari is elected president of Nigeria. There can be no true democracy without freedom of the media which translates to freedom of the citizens to air their views unmolested and unmuzzled and AIT is so included. Icheoku reaffirms that freedom denied to one is freedom lost to all and therefore unequivocally condemn the ban and says that the ban on AIT from covering President-elect Muhammadu Buhari must be lifted immediately and NOW. Long live freedom in Nigeria! 

BUHARI, THE REBIRTH OF A TYRANT DICTATOR?

Icheoku says if Muhammadu Buhari could change then it means that change is indeed possible. The former mean spirited, never laughing nor smiling melancholic tyrant is now totally and completely rebranded into an amiable, laughing, funny and joke-cracking personable persona. This is good for his new image and provided the man from Daura will keep that up, it is a good change. Icheoku prays that his government succeeds in fulfilling the great expectations of Nigerians that swept him into office. Way to go Buha and as a converted democrat, may your newly transformed personality remain with you and never you ever default again back to your old self. Congratulations.  

NEPAL EARTHQUAKE DISASTER, LESSON IN NOTHINGNESS?

Icheoku says once again we are reminded what the preacher said in Ecclesiastes that vanity of vanities all is vanity and you then wonder why is mankind still killing itself trying to acquire all this and all that stuff when he does not have control over them neither of his own life. If all mankind acquire could vanish in one bleating second, what use are they anyways? Shortly are we here and shortly are we gone, gone with the wind; although in this case gone with earthquake. Icheoku asks are we here for any particular reason or are we just mere passersby, enroute to a destination but merely temporarily here as a rest-stop? 

When one reads the scripture Apocalypse and its teachings on rapture, do we see this rapture in this sudden death of people - those we know and those we don't know? People who are here now and gone the next second; people like those killed in the earthquake in Nepal, over four thousand of them? How suddenly someone would be so gone unannounced, in fleeting seconds, is but a piece of the puzzle called life. If only humanity could pause to ponder our real essence in this world, may be our endless quest for vanities would be somewhat moderated and to the point of us appreciating what is more important before they are gone forever, taken before our eyes. Icheoku says may the souls of the Nepalese dead find some solace in the Lord and may the survivors find the means to rebuild. What a lesson in fleeting nature of life.

MEDITERRANEAN BOAT PEOPLE, A NEW CRISIS FOR EUROPE?

Icheoku says on a hindsight those Europeans will be regretting now why they removed Libyan strongman Moummar Gaddafi, the hitherto bulwark of their defense from being overcrowded and crowded-out of their Europe by migrant Africans and Middle Easterners.  But for their conspiracy that killed Gaddafi, they would still be enjoying their Europe free from these maddening surge in flow of human-beings, the new boat people from Africa and the Middle-east. Daily are the ports of Italian Lampedusa and Malta crowded by rescued migrants from the Mediterranean Sea, the many  who were lucky to make it as opposed to the not so lucky ones that did not make it to the ports but who perished in the sea while trying. 

Records have it that for the over two hundred and twenty thousand migrants who have survived that treacherous journey within the last year alone and made it to Europe, about three thousand five hundred migrants did not make it but perished in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea.  Eight hundred and fifty migrants even died in just one weekend alone this year,  all drowned in the choppy waters of the Mediterranean, lost forever and without trace or family to mourn them. As they rest in their watery graves, Icheoku asks what is the world doing to mitigate this disaster of the new boat people from Africa and the Middle east? Except o course if their lives don't matter much like with every minority of this world to elicit immediate solution. 

Icheoku asks what is the watching world waiting for and/or doing, especially Europe, to mitigate this world's deadliest boarder crossing in the Mediterranean? At the rate these unfortunate hapless migrants, making that leap of faith journey across the Mediterranean Sea, are meeting their deaths,  even the Wildebeest of Serengeti seem to stand a better chance at survival from the African crocodiles at Moro River crossing. Even the United States of America with their southern border crisis does not seem to have it this bad; at the least the migrants coming across from America's southern border do not have this much treachery to contend with, admitted many of them similarly perish in the desert. So what can Europe honestly do to stem this tide of humans flowing in from the Mediterranean Sea? Unlike the Americans who are building a 'Great Wall of China' along their border to protect the inflow of migrants from Latin America, what indeed can these Europeans really do to keep these migrants out of the Mediterranean and their Europe. 

Could mining the waters be a solution except that Europe is not at war with these migrants who are merely escaping hardship, civil wars and persecution from their motherlands. A situation which would have been avoided had these European countries meaningfully helped them have a life in their own countries through development projects instead of of allowing their condition to deteriorate so much to looking for succor elsewhere. Icheoku agrees that Europe should look towards addressing the root causes of these desperation instead of the symptomatic reaction currently being canvassed such as destroying smugglers boats and interdicting migrants on the sea. As is always the case with such measures,  these smugglers will find a way to skit around it and desperation will always force human-beings into untoward thinking and creativity to still find another sea route into Europe. The solution is a Marshall Plan for these deprived countries and nations whose citizens constitute the bulk of these migrants, in order to help solve the underlying problems driving these migrants off the cliff of death in the Mediterranean. Icheoku adds  where repressive home governments are forcing these migrants to flee, the world especially Europe should do something to free such countries from these despots by taking military action against them where diplomacy fails. 

Icheoku is not advocating for a 'total recall' prohibition on migration or that any solution will be the 'it all that ends it all', but at least some measures could be put in place that would help ameliorate the situation and to a large  extent prevent these migrants from escaping from the frying pan of their hellish home countries into the fire that is perishing in the Mediterranean Sea. Icheoku disagrees with British Foreign Office Minister Joyce Anelay that 'search and rescue' will constitute a pull factor that encourages this perilous journey through the Mediterranean Sea. Rather it should be seen as life-saving operation and any rescued migrant should be summarily deported back to his or her home country instead of being allowed to drown in the waters. Europe should follow it up with embarking on dissemination of information campaign in these migrant countries to  discourage such migration as too dangerous, emphasizing that any caught migrant will be deported back. This way intending migrant will understand that such venture is not as rosy as is painted and will think twice before trying to take off next time. 

Icheoku believes with adequate cooperation with the governments of those migrant countries, especially Syria and Eritrea will be a more meaningful approach to starving and stemming off this migration. This will save these migrants lives as well as Europe from being over-ran by these Africans and Middle Easterners. So to German Interior Minister Thomas Maiziere, Icheoku says 'search and rescue' is not necessarily to keep those migrants in Europe, but to save them from a certain death and then they could be just shipped back to their countries of origin and let them be the voice of 'just say no to illegal migration'. They will share their sordid experience with their people and what a better way of letting the would be migrants know that it is not a rosy bed of travel than through one of their own. If not, these migrants who are already in hell in their home countries would rather risk making that leap of faith journey through the deep blue sea to see if they can peradventure make it to their proverbial heaven in Europe, in the hope for a better life. 

That many of them too often never make it, as they die in capsized boats and dinghies, shipwrecked and plunged into the waters of the Mediterranean is not a deterrent and never will be; as many of them believe they will be the lucky ones to make it or be rescued to Europe. Icheoku however finds some logic in Amnesty's Iverna McGowan position that the horrors of the Mediterranean Sea is a result of the 'push-factor' rather than the 'pull-factor' as canvassed by United Kingdom. Those migrants are desperate already, pushed by hellish conditions they are fleeing from in their own countries leading to the risky perilous journey through the Mediterranean. According to her deduction, irrespective of the fears and risks imposed by this migration, abandoning these boat-people to their certain fate of death by drowning should not be an option; and these migrants should not be allowed to die on their way to Europe, trying to escape from certain death in their home countries. 

Icheoku agrees and urges a world action to help this helpless of the world including by repatriating them back to their countries safely; but the search and rescue should go on as a humanitarian operation, regardless of some unintended consequences of possibly increasing the human trafficking because not to do so will only increase the number of victims that are interred in the watery graves of the Mediterranean Seas. What an unthinking and short-sighted Europe that traded Mummer Gaddafi for these deluge of illegal migrants. Now who is crying louder, a dead Gaddafi or an increasingly overwhelmed Europe? You guess is as good as Icheoku's but that removal of Libya's strongman was one heck of a miscalculation, similar to the removal of Saddam Hussein leading to the explosion of anarchists in the Middle East. But hey, life happens and when it does, humans can only seek to finding solutions where possible, otherwise to their faith, oh victims and same applies to the new boat people of the Mediterranean Sea. 

TINUBU KNOCKS KASHAMU OUT AND COLD, WAY TO GO !

“The days of false adulation are gone in Nigerian politics. Fake praise singers like Kashamu will find that their particular craft is no longer in vogue. During this election cycle, their practice has dramatically turned from the way things are to how things used to be. Politicians will no longer be able to change direction and loyalties as if they were changing clothes. Those in politics must know that responsibility and accountability shall now follow them. 

One can no longer walk both sides of the street at the same time. In case Kashamu has not noticed, the politics of principle defeated the politics of posturing. Kashamu may be prodigal but he is no political son of Tinubu. Kashamu’s political lineage tracks to people like Bode George and President Jonathan. He should direct his encomiums to these men who are his true role models. They need his contrived affections more than Tinubu does. 

This same Kashamu rained insults on former President Olusegun Obasanjo in a vicious campaign of calumny. Kashamu’s party, the PDP, sponsored defamatory documentaries full of lies and innuendos against me, General Muhammadu Buhari and other leaders of the APC. Please keep your peace until you make your trip to the USA as a senator-elect. Upon your return we can then have a conversation. We can then proceed with your repudiation of the PDP with a promise that you will stop corrupting and fouling the political system. I am a patriotic, law abiding Nigerian and my achievements make me world-renowned. I am a global citizen that travels freely to the USA, the United Kingdom and other nations. I associate with individuals who seek democracy and good governance for all. I do not spend time with characters whose values are at variance with societal expectations and laws governing a decent society.” - Ashiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu.