GUN VIOLENCE IN AMERICA: FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS NEXT.

Just five people shy of Sandy Hook elementary school mass shooting incident that claimed 26 lives, the Uvalde Texas Robb elementary school mass shooting at 21 victims, now ranks among the highest grossing gun carnage in America. It is sad that such frequent blood spilling has tragically become part of our culture as a society. May the souls of the killed now rest.

25th AMENDMENT: ITS NOW ALL CRICKET.

Madam Speaker Nancy Pelosi once questioned former President Donald John Trump's fitness to remain in office due to what she claimed was his declining mental capacity. Does anyone know what Madam Speaker presently thinks about the incontrovertible case which America is now saddled with? Just curious!

WHO WILL REBUILD UKRAINE?

The West should convert frozen Russian assets, both state's and oligarchs' owned, into a full seizure and set them aside for the future rebuilding of Ukraine. Like the Marshal Plan, call it the Putin Plan.

A HERO IS BORN.

I am staying put. I will not run away and abandon my people. The fight is here in Ukraine. What I need are weapons and ammunitions, not a ride out of town like former Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani - President Volodymyr Zelensky.

IT IS WHAT IT IS.

"There is too much hate in America because there is too much anger in America." - Trevor Noah.

WORD!

A life without challenges is not a life lived at all. A life lived is a life that has problems, confronts problems, solves problems and then learns from problems. - Tunde Fashola.

NOW, YOU KNOW.

When fishing for love, bait with your heart and not your brain, because you cannot rationalize love. - Mark Twain.

JUST THE FACT.

In our country, you can shoot and kill a nigger, but you better not hurt a gay person’s feelings - Dave Chappelle

DO YOU?.

“What you believe in can only be defined by what you’re willing to risk for it." - Stuart Scheller.

HEDGE YOUR CRISIS.

Never get in bed with a woman whose problems are worse than yours. - Chicago PD.

PROBLEM SOLVED.

'The best way to keep peace is to be ready to destroy evil. If you Pearl Harbor me, I Nagasaki you.' - Ted Nugent.

OUR SHARED HUMANITY.

Empathy is at the heart of who we are as human beings. - Cardinal Matthew Kukah.

WORDS ON MARBLE.

"Birth is agony. Life is hard. Death is cruel." - Japanese pithy.

REPENT OR PERISH - POPE.

Homosexuality is a sin. It is not ordained by God, therefore same sex marriage cannot be blessed by the church - Pope Francis.

CANCEL CULTURE IS CORROSIVE.


FOR SAKE OF COUNTRY.


MAGA LIVES ON: NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER!

TWITTER IS BORING WITHOUT HIS TWEETS. #RestorePresidentTrump'sTwitterHandle.


WORD.

"If you cannot speak the truth when it matters, then nothing else you says matters.” - Tucker Carlson.

#MeToo MOVEMENT: A BAD NEWS GONE CRAZY.

"To all the women who testified, we may have different truth, but I have a great remorse for all of you. I have great remorse for all of the men and women going through this crisis right now in our country. You know, the movement started basically with me, and I think what happened, you know, I was the first example, and now there are thousands of men who are being accused and a regeneration of things that I think none of us understood. I’m not going to say these aren’t great people. I had wonderful times with these people. I’m just genuinely confused. Men are confused about this issue. We are going through this #MeToo movement crisis right now in this country." - Harvey Weinstein.


RON DELLUMS: UNAPOLOGETICALLY RADICAL.

"If it’s radical to oppose the insanity and cruelty of the Vietnam War, if it’s radical to oppose racism and sexism and all other forms of oppression, if it’s radical to want to alleviate poverty, hunger, disease, homelessness, and other forms of human misery, then I’m proud to be called a radical.” - Ron Vernie Dellums.


WHAT REALLY MATTERS IN LIFE - STEVE JOBS

“I reached the pinnacle of success in the business world. In others’ eyes, my life is an epitome of success. However, aside from work, I have little joy. Non-stop pursuing of wealth will only turn a person into a twisted being, just like me. God gave us the senses to let us feel the love in everyone’s heart, not the illusions brought about by wealth. Memories precipitated by love is the only true riches which will follow you, accompany you, giving you strength and light to go on. The most expensive bed in the world is the sick bed. You can employ someone to drive the car for you, make money for you but you cannot have someone to bear sickness for you. Material things lost can be found. But there is one thing that can never be found when it is lost – Life. Treasure Love for your family, love for your spouse, love for your friends. Treat yourself well. Cherish others.” - SJ

EVIL CANNOT BE TRULY DESTROYED.

"The threat of evil is ever present. We can contain it as long as we stay vigilant, but it can never truly be destroyed. - Lorraine Warren (Annabelle, the movie)


ONLY THE POOR WISH THEY HAD STUFF?

“I’m not that interested in material things. As long as I find a good bed that I can sleep in, that’s enough.” - Nicolas Berggruem, the homeless billionaire.

Tuesday, September 15, 2015

10000 REFUGES SIMPLY TOO FEW, AMERICA CAN AND SHOULD DO BETTER.

Icheoku says if only America had listened and heeded the wise counsel of General Colin Powell that "if you break it you own it'; possibly all these immigrant crisis enveloping Europe and which is threatening to spread to America would have been a none issue. Prelude to the Iraqi invasion by President George Walker Bush led 'coalition of the willing', General Colin Powel warned against the move, saying that removing Saddam Hussein from power will unravel so many age long ugly things in the Middle East. He was ignored as Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney railroaded President Bush into toppling and killing Saddam Hussein. Today, in the absence of a strong leader, Iraq is imploding; making condition favorable for ISIS to step in and occupy some of its territories. That some of these immigrants are coming from these ISIS controlled areas of Iraq is without doubt. 

Ditto the leader of Syria who is teetering on the brinks of being removed from office too by the same Europeans and they choirmaster America, always calling the tune while there Europeans simply chorus the refrain. So weakened, Bashir Assad could no longer maintain authority over the whole of his country's territory, leaving ISIS to step in and occupy some of them as well; and then constituting it into the Islamic State (Caliphate) of Syria and Iraq. Many of those immigrants invading Europe are coming through these ISIS controlled Syrian territories too. The late Libyan former leader Mummer Gaddafi once warned but no one listened nor heard that if he were ever removed from office, Europe will be swarmed by immigrants. A man under whose vice hold of Libya, immigrants were too afraid to venture close to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea talkless of boarding a dingy for onward sail to Europe. Europeans did not care about this warned premonition but instead went ahead with America's support to murder him anyways. 

Today majority of those immigrants invading Europe depart from the shores of Libya and Icheoku wonders whether King of Africa Moummar Gaddafi was also a prophet? Afghanistan is no different, admitted it is entirely of different implication because its invasion was prompted by the then country's leader, the Taliban, refusal to surrender fugitive Osama Bin Laden. Anyway the bottom line is that the West, Europe and America included, are partly to blame for the immigrant crisis in Europe because if they never disturbed the beehives, may be all these bees buzzing and stunning Europe would still be gathered together in their Mideast beehives. 

But now instead of wallowing in a Monday night quarterbacking, Icheoku says the world including America must move fast with finding solution to the immigrant crisis in Europe. As partly a responsible party thereto, they must make restitution by helping those stranded immigrants find meaning to life and reason to live again. Icheoku says these hapless and helpless immigrants had no hand in the shock dealt them. Their  first choice was to have been left alone and undisturbed in their various countries. Trekking to Europe in search of safety and security is but a second choice which circumstances and providence unleashed on them. Therefore Europe and America must see the need to absorb these refugees as duty not a favor they are doing to these immigrants. If Muommar Ghaddafi and Saddam Hussein were left alone, there would have been no immigrant crisis to worry about. Needless to add that Saddam Hussein's removal handed Iran victory over their expansionist tendencies towards and over their Western neighbors, including a no distant future bragging right as a nuclear power nation. 

These are facts, they happened and now these agent provocateurs in Europe and America must be prepared to deal with the warned fallout and then stoically see their absorbing and resettlement as a duty which they owe to those displaced persons. Good enough the skins of those Syrian, Iraqi and Afghanistan refugees is white-enough and will not constitute much problem for the Donald Trumps of the West, who would rather have a pure Caucasian only Western world. Although these immigrants' white is off-white, the Mediterranean white, but at least they are whiter than those "criminal" Mexicans crossing our Southern boarder as well as those charcoal African descendants who are summarily deported back to their Caribbean Island homes upon reaching land in Florida, while their Cuban counterparts are allowed to stay because their skin is lighter and as dark? 

Icheoku says may be the solution to all such future problems is for the West to butt out of the peoples problems and political issues and rather to mind its own business. The West will do itself great service if it ends its imperialistic policies that bequeath them the arrogant right to tell others how to live their lives. If diplomacy fails, apply sanctions and thereafter try to mitigate such bad situational leaders; but  the West must stop meddling and interfering in other countries purely internal affairs matters. But where the West continues with their quest to maintain a thumb on other peoples lives, disrupting and dislodging any government that says no to them, then that long would they expect such disastrous consequences as the overwhelming refugees seeking shelter and safety in their respective countries. 

In the final analysis therefore, the recent White House announcement that America will take in 10,000 refugees did not meet the expectation of Icheoku as well as so many people throughout the world. America as leader of the free world should be able to lead in everything including resettling these refugees. Ten thousands refugees is but a paltry drop in the bucket in a four and half million refugees situation, needing a place of safety and security. So the least the United States of America could and is expected to do is to absorb at least about ten percent of those refugees. By absorbing 400,000 refugees, America will somewhat make some impact in a very terrible and horrible human refugees crisis which was never before witnessed in recent history. 

Icheoku maintains that the 10,000 agreed to be resettled number is but a drop in the ocean and should be drastically increased in order to actually help alleviate the growing number of refugees who are needlessly suffering as a result of the actions of the West but who were never consulted when the disruptions of their countries and livelihood were planned in these Western capitals and subsequently executed. At least let America do it not only because it can but also because of our joint humanity with the suffering refugees. America can bump up its population to 500 million and still do very well; as there are large expanse of unoccupied land to support and feed these extra population. Better still, settle them somewhere in the middle of America where minimum wage will not be too high; and instead of shipping all our jobs to China and India and Mexico for cheap labor, just use these refugees' labor to help pay for their stay and upkeep in America.

Monday, September 14, 2015

HILLARY CLINTON'S EVAPORATING DREAM OF BEING FIRST FEMALE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA?

Icheoku says does not think that Hillary Clinton has thus far proved and demonstrated within reasonable assessment that she has what it takes to lead a very complex society and leader of the free world that is the United States of America. Icheoku admonishes that Hillary Clinton's political and historical antecedents, her summer performance on her campaign trail, as well as her other performances in many previously held assignments and positions do not give anyone any storied confidence that she has what it takes to get the job done as the first Madam President of the United States of America. America's female president,  an idea which many Americans have been toying with for such a very long that they will be prepared to accommodate Hillary Clinton, but first, she must convince them that they have a trustworthy partner in her by passing the smell test. 

Hillary Clinton is not a just happened personality on the American political stage as majority of Americans watched her from her days as Arkansas First Lady to America's First Lady to United States of America junior Senator from New York and then to her last assignment as Secretary of States of the United States of America before teeing off to campaign for her present effort at securing the nomination of the Democratic Party as its presidential candidate. Icheoku says this very particular candidate is a person with provable and traceable record and they are not very flattering record indeed to say the least. 

Peradventure, America knows what Hillary Rodham Clinton is and she cannot repackage herself into what she is not. Like the time worn aphorism, reinventing the wheel in the matter of redefining Hillary Clinton is an absolute impossibility defined. Candidate Hillary Clinton and her minders have the very difficult task of convincing Americans that the Hillary Clinton who they know inside out and who they watched implode before their eyes is any different. They want America to believe that Hillary Clinton can now do things differently which she never did all these years of many opportunities and given assignments to prove her can-do abilities but all of which petered to nothing accomplished. Icheoku is not needlessly piling up on this woman, but channeling her husband, Bill Clinton's 'just the facts' retort, Icheoku avers that her records are her greatest nemesis; just the fact ma'am. 

So ask yourselves Americans what actually does Hillary Clinton plan to do differently, which she never did through her husband President Bill Clinton, when everyone knew how close she was to that government, an insider of all insiders? As a first lady, her effort at health-care reform was not a good resume to occupy her record of achievements?  The Hillary Clinton attempt at healthcare reform was botched and Americans knew who they still hold responsible for that seemingly daunting task which Obamacare shows was doable; but which could not be mission accomplished by Hillary Clinton. Yet she wants us to elect her president and you wonder if she could not pull off a health-care reform, is it Wall Street reform for example, that will be an easy cake walk yield? Then there were the White Water's Susan MacDougal scandal as well as the Vincent Foster mysterious death, both which partially implicated her political resume and which she might be minded to throw more lights on. Then came her tenure at the State Department and Libya's Benghazi mismanaged crisis that claimed the life of our ambassador comes rushing to mind. 

That this has since snowballed into the private Server-gate scandal which is thus far proving to be the worst migraine of her campaign life is a media favorite story  It is equally a fact of consequence that her misjudge of the gravity of the threat of Nigeria's Boko Haram crisis, dismissing it then as a mere protestation by the deprived and marginalized against their  oppressive haves. Yet she wants us to elect her president and you wonder with this type of judgment and perceptive acuity? Finally the quick sand threatening to swallow her campaign effort is her earlier stonewalling and defensiveness in the private server-gate scandal. From the 'I did not do anything wrong' or channeling former vice president Al Gore, 'there is no controlling legal authority for using private server,' to her latest attempt at mea culpa saying that she made a mistake and that she is sorry for that, all are a little too late as no one is convinced on her sincerity and true contrition. Many Americans are questioning whether it is not just a ploy to deflect the issue of the server gate, a gamble that would infer judgment probably see her campaign train back on tracks again. 

Icheoku recalls that in one of these her attempts at a do-over or rather make-over interviews, that she will 'try to be as transparent as possible' going forward. To this Icheoku says that she implied by that statement that she has not been transparent nor forthcoming and that she has been hiding things from the American people and could still be and therefore simply up to no good afterall. Icheoku says to Hillary Clinton, instead of trying to be transparent, why not just be transparent; and let American people be convinced by what they see as a newly transformed and transparent Hillary Clinton and not just one they are waiting to see morph into a more transparent person. May be Hillary Clinton under-appreciated the damage this statement did to her candidacy as no American trust someone who is hiding something to be their president and commander in chief of their armed forces,

Anyway, as Icheoku previously opined in one of our articles, Hillary is merely riding the surf board of her husband Bill Clinton  But for her husband Bill Clinton's goodwill and the love American people have for him, which they inadvertently are channeling to his wife,  Hillary Clinton would have remained just a nondescript Midwestern woman, just another woman like any other in America. She is drab, very mechanical to the point of being robotic, not exciting, not charming nor have the charm offensive, her smile appears plastic, she is not spontaneous and does not know how to work the crowd or even tell her story convincingly. Simply put, in her does the meaning that opposite attracts come to light, when compared to her husband Bill Clinton. This perception is rife, leading to many people wondering whether this is the reason she has not divorced and walked away from Bill Clinton; as she is trying to ride his popularity into the White House as the first woman president of America. 

Anyway, Icheoku has not finally foreclosed on Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy just yet; but says she and her team need to do more to reinvent both her candidacy and her campaign. No one is excited nor giddy in their support for her 2016 run for president. Icheoku alerts that barring a complete and total, very far-reaching make-over, America might not see the ever anticipated first female occupying their White House as president and commander in chief in someone named Hillary Clinton; at least not in 2016. Probably, Hillary Clinton might not be the one to be so honored as the first female president that America desires and deserves; nor can she be that leader America trusts to deliver the goods as their president. 2016 presidency is fast slipping through the wet hands of Hillary Clinton and may be it is about time she surrenders and submits to her husband and beg him to please help make her the next president; otherwise she might as well forget it as a dream which has almost completely evaporated. 

Sunday, September 13, 2015

CAREY GABAY HEADSHOT, ANOTHER ONE SHOOTING JUST TOO MANY.

Icheoku says should all future parades   and festivities in Brooklyn New York be banned as result of recurring gun violence which has inflicted such a life threatening injury on Carey Gabay? San Francisco did it with Halloween parade in the Castro following a gun violence some few years ago. Now instead of the organized mayhem that use to be Castro Street Halloween festival, the event is marked in several parts of the city making it much easier for the police to have the celebration under control and not let it get out of their hand. 

Icheoku says like San Francisco, may be New York should consider banning the Caribbean Festival, the shooting of Gaby considered. That a "trouble-prone" parade is still allowed to hold in New York is simply mind befuddling and this latest shooting, one among the several recorded in this year's parade alone, should serve as a wake-up call for New Yorkers to do something about it and take their city back from these hooligans who bring tear and sorrow to an otherwise joyful occasion. Today it is Gabay, who knows who it shall be tomorrow; so lets do it in honor of Gabay by getting his frigging parade consigned to the cold doldrums instead of spreading the red carpet for murderers and thugs to use it to commit heinous crimes. 

Imagine this Harvard-trained lawyer and a staffer of Governor Andrew Cuomo, now fighting for his life because some thug shot him in the head as he was partaking of an otherwise celebratory event, the West Indian American Day Parade festivities. Icheoku says it appears that it is an offense now to be seen strolling with one's brother and friends through a parade's pre-party, J'Ouvert, in Crown Heights Brooklyn? Gabay took evasive action to protect himself from erupted gun fight, diving for cover between two vehicles, yet some blind bullets found his head as resting place? Today, he is in a battle for his life, intubated and unconscious in a hospital's intensive care unit. Icheoku says this is not how to live a life; and it is another sad occasion that calls for a reexamination of conscience by the NRA. The National Rifles Association should ask themselves must this mayhem and insecurity continue in our society as a result of too many guns floating freely around and in the hands of people who do not have to have them. Anyway, Icheoku wishes Cary Gabay victory in the biggest fight of his life. What a shot too many and may these violence please end.

Saturday, September 12, 2015

BRAZIL'S CREDIT RATING JUNKED, A WARNING SHOT AT NIGERIA?

Icheoku says the junking of Brazilian economy or rather its credit rating by Standard and Poor's, which stripped Brazil of its premier investment-grade status, is indeed very telling. It is quite  significant and very far-reaching too, especially to the supposedly largest African economy, Nigeria. The credit downsize means that Brazil no longer has credit or rather now has a very poor credit which lenders will find too unattractive and too risky to deal with.  Investors will shy away from such a high risk credit country and at best, deal at their own risk. As is often the case  with such situations, only high risk investors and creditors will  be able to operate at cutthroat  premiums of take it or leave it no choice left for the country. The result, cost of doing business will escalate, the country will get into deeper recession, amassing more debts and the people find it extremely difficult to afford their usual daily necessities; particularly where their availability depends on imports financed with scarce foreign exchange and now no much credit. The effect is usually of a cascading nature as everything becomes unaffordable with majority of consumers priced out of the market and traders cannot replenish their stock as they deplete. Austerity measures are introduced and its domino effect affects every strata of the country.

The credit rating of Brazil became of interest to Icheoku because of the similarities of its economy to that of Nigeria. Brazil is South America's largest economy and so is Nigeria's boasted Africa's largest economy. Brazil's Petrobras was massively corrupt and so was Nigeria's NNPC before the current effort to rejig the Nigeria's oil resources management corporation and hopefully plug the leaky blackhole in the economy. Like Brazil the ongoing war on corruption involving highly placed individuals might increase political uncertainty in Nigeria and the investing world does not appreciate having their money placed in an unstable and shaky financial market. Thankfully the intervention in NNPC, if successful, will somewhat help cushion the jittery world that at least something is being done to contain the corruption plaguing the country. Like Brazil, Nigeria's oil is no longer a prized commodity so much sought after by the world, so to survive and thrive, Nigeria must start sourcing alternative new revenue earners before they are forced to go under. Hopefully Nigeria will not hit rock bottom and become an investment pariah country from which investors will take flight, thereby forcing it on its knees. What happened to Brazil should be an eye opener for Nigeria which must now strive not to taste the same potion currently being served Brazil by the investment world. 

However, the the news from JP Morgan that it will eject "Africa's biggest economy" from its emerging markets bond index due to its tough control of the Naira is not a very welcoming news. Further the news coming out of Nigeria's economic and financial markets is not good enough to continue to sustain bankable investments. The fluctuating Naira which has been on a free fall against major currencies for sometime now, oil the main stay of the economy and the major foreign exchange earner has seen its value plummet to some incredible new lows. The expected infusion of Iranian oil into an already glut world oil market is not a good reprieve either for those in charge of navigating the Nigeria economy. Unfortunately, no one is in charge yet as the president of the country, President Muhammadu Buhari, has been rather too low in appreciating the magnitude of the tsunami headed the way of the Nigeria economy. Otherwise he would have since appointed seasoned technocrats in charge of the economy to help chart and guide the Nigeria economy. Icheoku says a ready-to-hit the road running government would have since appointed economic and finance ministers to reassure the investing world that Nigeria has its acts together and that their investment capital is appreciated and will be safe. 

But where a president has been flying solo as a sole administrator of the country, micro-managing everything including the Nigeria's economy and for four long months now, it leaves much to be desired and telegraphs the wrong message of gross instability. Icheoku says such primitive economic management thinking has no place in today's highly speculative economy where trust is everything. Today's economic engine is driven by activities; people making money regardless of the amount. It eventually adds up. But where activities are nearly frozen with people not knowing what direction the government plans to drive the economy, it always have a chilling effect on the economy and everything tend to tumble therefrom. This is what President Muhammadu Buhari must avoid at all cost because once an economy goes through a seismic shock it is usually difficult to pull it back from the cliff. Icheoku says money in the bank is no money as it loses its essence as a tool that works the economy. Therefore instead of the government focus on saving money, they should rather pump more money into the economy to ramp up activities and thereby get the economy going. Icheoku says all the savings will come to naught if they don't create jobs and economic activities that propels money making. So instead of trying to mop all the money in circulation or save for whatever rainy day, the government should pump tons of money into the economy to help ignite and sustain a continued economic activities and with it eventually will come growth and income boost, indicators of a vibrant economy. 

Nigerians were warned about the mindset of President Muhammadu Buhari which is of the old school thinking of saving money instead of the new school thinking of making more money; but they played possum and he is now president. All every well-meaning Nigerian can do now is to pray that he allows whoever he eventually appoints minister of economy and finance the free hand to midwife an economy that works for all and that is activities driven. But stashing money in bank vaults belongs to the past, it is so yesterday. It is no longer a germane way for economic growth because money is simply a tool and tools are used to get stuff done. Whatever be the cost or price, Nigeria must endeavor to avoid a downgrading of its economy or credit rating because either of them would accelerate Nigeria's economic downfall. It is a given that any country without credible borrowing power or great credit rating cannot operate a robust economy that creates jobs as well as wealth both for her citizens and their foreign investors/partners. So unable to pay its bills, what use then is a country to investors, many of who would be too nervous to further commit assets thereinto. Icheoku prays that unlike Brazil, Nigeria will not go into deep recession, deficit budgeting and economic/political paralysis which might  force the hands of these credit rating agencies to pull the plug, thus turning Nigeria into a wasteland for investments. But the clock is ticking and very loudly; the delayed ministerial appointment is not helping matters either. So President Muhammadu Buhari, please read the handwriting on the wall before the Nigerian economy goes the way of the Titanic. 

Friday, September 11, 2015

DONALD TRUMP MUST DISTANT SELF FROM SARAH PALIN,

Icheoku says Donald Trump must distant his campaign from the erstwhile John McCain's vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin as she has nothing to bring nor any utility to add to his now prosperous campaign. Like with Hillary Clinton, Americans know Sarah Palin and they have their minds made up about her. She is a lightweight political nitwit who brought no value added to the John McCain's presidential campaign and will not either to the Donald Trump's. 

Therefore Icheoku asks what then does Donald Trump hope to derive or benefit from associating with Sarah Palin; except if her being a potential "Energy Secretary" in the Trump's administration is somewhat beneficial to his campaign?  Icheoku says anyone calling or mistaking Sarah Palin as a political genius literally takes away the meaning of that word and does great disservice and injustice to real political operators  who rightly merited and deserved to be so called and identified. So Donald Trump, Icheoku says tear down any association or links to Sarah Palin and NOW; but if still in doubt, ask Senator John McCain, if in a do-over, whether he will again choose her as a running mate.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

HILLARY CLINTON'S APOLOGY, TOO LITTLE TOO LATE?

Icheoku says it is a fact of consequence that the Server-gate scandal has taken a drastic toll on the candidacy of Hillary Clinton and to the extent of somewhat irreparably damaging it. It is also an irrefutable fact that it was self inflicted, by a woman who is too cunning that she has outfoxed herself and is presently trapped inside the private server-gate that is likely to take her down the political  sinkhole forever. A matter she could have abated had she come out clean initially and leveled with the American people, admitted her mistake or rather oversight and then apologize for it. But no, she stonewalled and parried off questions until she became suspect before the American people as one hiding something and who is not clean enough for the office which she seeks. Her campaign took a heavy toll through the summer and now belatedly she went to a talk-show to say she made a mistake and that she is sorry. 

Icheoku says what took her so long and whether anyone is moved to change their perception of her as a lying presidential candidate wanna be is very doubtful. What a woman who self crashed and burnt an otherwise storied candidacy. Icheoku says except Hillary Clinton is the cat with nine lives and might eventually pull out her Hail-Mary redemption, her campaign is as good as dead on water. It is going to literally take the scrubbing of the minds and brains of analytical Americans for her campaign to rise again. Icheoku says lying sucks and people being lied to don't take it lightly because the lying party looks down upon them as being too dumb to know that they are being taken for a sucker. This is the present fork on the road to the White House for Hillary Clinton and only her can determine the road traveled going forward. She must retool and rejig her campaign and reform her contract with the American people to always tell the truth and always be truthful with them.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

MIKE HUCKABEE, AN AMERICAN TALIBAN WHO CAN NEVER BE ELECTED PRESIDENT.

Icheoku says now you know why this fanatic right wing Christian fundamentalist cannot and will never be elected president of a free United States of America where everyone including those who love and worship differently call home. Simply put, a Taliban American cannot be put in charge of our lives or seen to be representing our secular country by occupying our White House. Icheoku says a president of America, a country of laws, must not only respectfully uphold all valid laws of the land but must also be seen to encourage their general uphold. But when a habitual presidential candidate mounts the soapbox to support a violation of valid law of the land, then something apparently is wrong with the candidate which should automatically, permanently, disqualify him from ever seeking the highest office in the land and if he seeks it, must be rejected as too extreme for America. 

Mike Huckabee is just one candidate that has since lost a national appeal and have retracted to the confines of his fellow bigoted supposed "Christians of America", where he finds some solace and maintains his very subjective religious views which he considers supreme and superior to every laws of the country. Icheoku berates that if Mike Huckabee must be president of somewhere or anywhere, may be he should look forward to running in heaven and be prepared to be shown the way out just like Lucifer. Unfortunately, there is no more theology enclave left in the world where he can relocate to go preach whatever he wants including his support for flagrant violation of existing valid law of the land. Anyway, he is but a local champion who lacks national appeal nor broad traction and Icheoku is glad that his train derailed earlier in time as Americans understands fully the type of wild-eyed zealot this Huckabee is before it was too late, following his election into office. 

But thankfully America dodged the bullet and now even Sarah Palin stands a better and much more superior chance at getting elected United States of American president than this fat man of Arkansas. Just hear him supporting a woman whose fundamentalist views drove her into disobeying a valid law of the land and being contemptuous of a substantive court order. According to the fat man of Arkansas, "If you have to put someone in jail, I volunteer to go. Let me go. Lock me up if you think that's how freedom is best served. Because folks, I am willing to spend the next eight years in the White House leading in this country. But I want you to know I'm willing to spend the next eight years in jail, but I'm not willing to spend the next years in tyranny under people who think they can take our freedom and conscience away." 

Icheoku says he called a valid court order, issued by a duly appointed Federal Judge David Bunning, tyranny; yet he wants to become America's president? Anyway if only wishes were horses, beggars would catch a ride. So long Mike Huckabee and may your presidential aspiration now permanently rest and without any hope at a do over or of ever rebounding again.

Tuesday, September 8, 2015

MATTHEW STARVER, WHEN A LAWYER GOES OFF TANGENT?

Icheoku says sometimes some lawyers just confuse people by complicating an otherwise simple straight matter. Just hear Kim Davis lawyer Matthew Starver speak about his client following her release from jail:- "She loves God, she loves people, she loves her work and she will not betray any of those three. She'll do her job good. She'll serve the people and she'll also be loyal to God; and she's not going to violate her conscience." 

Icheoku retorts as follows:- are gay people not people in the eyes and judgment of Kim Davis that she wants to deny them their human-right by barring them from getting married? If indeed she loves her work, then why not she do it? She just betrayed gay people by denying them their right to get married or didn't she? If she will do her job good, she better start issuing marriage certificate to everyone. If she will serve the people, why not also the people who are gay and loves differently? Icheoku says her conscience was already x-rayed and it stinks of bigotry and she has since proved too that she cannot love everybody equally as the good Lord Jesus did and still does. 

Icheoku asks how can these three apparent irreconcilable  be simultaneously achieved without one superseding the others and vice versa. Anyway, just another paid lawyer trying to earn his retainer and billed hours; and to do this, he has to play on semantics, the usual trademark splitting of hairs, meant to bamboozle the gullible. Icheoku says Kim Davis must not be allowed to use her very subjective conscience to negate a valid law of the land.

Monday, September 7, 2015

KIM DAVIS IS GEORGE WALLACE OF OUR TIME, SHOULD DO HER JOB OR RESIGN.

Icheoku says the fanatical far right wing christian woman of Kentucky, who, contrary to our Lord and Master Jesus injunction "thou shall not judge", have actively inserted herself into the gay marriage fray, as an arbiter and purveyor of what God wants, has no right nor business using her office to propagate hatred against God's people who happened to love differently. As a County clerk, she was elected to discharge the duties of the office including issuing marriage licenses to everyone who applies for it. She has no right, regardless of whatever subterfuge, to refuse a license to anyone who duly applies for one. Her job as an elected county clerk is to diligently discharge stipulated duties of her office; but not to subjectively and selectively choose what aspects of her official duties to perform. Therefore she violated her oath of office when she decided on her own, to cherry-pick her official duties by refusing to comply with an existing law of the land which provides for the issuance of marriage certificate to everyone. 

Icheoku says Kim Davis must not and should never be allowed to get away with her flagrant violation of an existing law of the land, which the highest court in the land, the United States Supreme Court, has since upheld as valid. Icheoku says had George Wallace been allowed to get away with his anti-civil rights disposition, black people in America would have still remained one third human beings with no right whatsoever. But his bigotry was forcibly shot down and the same George Wallace treatment should be applied to Kim Davis. United States of America must not stand for this clear case of discrimination against a minority group by an elected official who is refusing to discharge the duties of her office.  To do otherwise will be encouraging lawlessness and by extension an invitation to anarchy in the land. Imagine the Pandora box that will be opened if every official in America is allowed to only enforce or carry out those aspects of statutory duties that he or she agrees with? 

Imagine what will become the faith of millions of Americans were people with different biases allowed to discriminate against those people they see differently; because requiring them to do what they were elected to do will somehow cause them hurt-feeling or contravene their very subjective religious beliefs? How far is America prepared to go to accommodate the likes of Kim Davis of the land whose subjectivity is rather too petty and very irrational. Imagine the far-reaching consequences of such an accommodation , which have seen an air-hostess refusing to do her duties of serving passengers alcoholic beverage claiming her Islamic religion is against that? Query, if your Islamic religion is against that, what use are you therefore working in such an environment since your employer cannot be required to pay you for not doing the work you were hired to do? Not being a perfect fit for the employment, this air hostess should look for a job elsewhere that does not involve serving alcoholic beverages to paying customers?

By the same token, Kim Davis cannot be allowed to pick and choose who gets a government issued marriage license, whose agency she is in charge by reason of her designated office. If she cannot do her job for which reason she was elected and paid with taxpayers money, including those she is discriminating against, she should resign her office. No one is asking Kim Davis to do anything or become gay or be married to one, other than to do her job as a country clerk. She as a self-confessed person who has done so many vile things, possibly has done more bad things and caused more harm to people than loving gay people who simply want to get married. Icheoku is emphatic that her likes possibly constitute more than 75% of Ashley Madison clientele and they could care less that God particularly frowned against adultery. Even as a professed Christian, giving her the benefit of doubt, she should have been appraised of Jesus Christ admonishing to give Caesar, Caesar's. 

If we are to buy into this vile fanatic's warped mindset and accept her very anti-gay behavior, can we also standby as a KKK racist emergency room doctor similarly decline to treat a black accident victim claiming a racial bias against niggers as an excuse? Can a county clerk who is a Muslim be allowed to deny issuing building permit for a church because to do so will hurt his religious belief against infidels? Can a Jehovah Witness county clerk refuse the issuance of liquor license because alcoholic beverages is against his religious beliefs? Kim Davis has to be immediately stopped cold in her tracks because to do otherwise will open cans of worms from which an uncontrollable monster might crawl out. If she is allowed to have her way and use her official capacity as a weapon of mass destruction against a disparate group,  simply because of their sexual preferences, who knows what other belief, someone somewhere, might invoke to cause a denial of rights to other people. 

Icheoku maintains that Kim Davis has no constitutional or statutory guaranteed right not to do her duties that should be protected through an accommodation of her present misbehavior. Rather, the people whose right is being infringed upon and violated here, are those same-sex potential spouses who are being denied their right to marriage with the refusal of issuance of marriage certificate by this woman. Kim Davis freely ran, was elected  and sworn in to discharge and uphold the duties of the county clerk and without bias to anyone. So what changed, one may ask? Could she be allowed to similarly decline issuance of marriage certificates to a Jew, a Muslim or a Buddhist couple citing her hatred for their religion or that they are not worshipping her true God or in disagreement with  their mode of worship? Icheoku says one thing with precedent is that they have a long reach, hence setting a bad one must be avoided at all cost. 

Gay Americans have earned their right to marry in America as the Supreme Court recently affirmed; hence all the Kim Davis of America far-right wing fanatical Christians must not be allowed to impinge or deny them this recognized rights to marry whoever they love. It is the law of the land and the law must be enforced black lettered; and it must not be allowed to be distorted or disregarded by reason of biased and peculiar lens of one individual. Icheoku says Kim Davis cannot be allowed to take away another person's right in protestation or protection of her own very subjective religious belief. As an elected official, Kim Davis does is not at liberty to choose and pick what aspects of her official duties to carry out and which to deny. These duties are obligatory and not personal to her but are annexed to the office which she occupies and they preceded her arrival thereto. It is also instructive that she freely campaigned to be elected to the office, with her implied consent to accordingly discharge the duties of the office without any reservation and she swore an oath to uphold the office too. This wild-eyed fanatic must not be allowed to hold people in Kentucky, including those who believe differently, the unbelievers as well as the faithless of the society, hostage to her peculiar religious belief

Icheoku says whatever this thrice married and twice divorced woman beliefs are, they are her private affairs and she must keep it to herself. She must not be allowed to compel everyone into sharing it or buying into it or even using it as a weapon of blackmail against certain people. Rowan County Kentucky does not belong to her, neither should laws of the country in force in Kentucky as well as in Rowan County be subject to her biases. She is merely an official, elected to carry out the duties of her office without bias or discrimination and she should comply or surrender her fiat. Icheoku says Kim Davis committed impeachable offense and should therefore be impeached. She violated her oath of office to discharge her duties without bias against anyone and to uphold the office of County Clerk of Rowan County kentucky. She veered off her authorized powers by hijacking the office of the county clerk by refusing to authorize others to discharge given statutory duties. She defied the Supreme Court of United States of America affirmation that gay couples have constitutional right to marry. She should therefore resign or be impeached from office. She should also stand criminal prosecution for committing act capable of precipitating lawlessness, anarchy and mayhem. 

Kim Davis is an embodiment of all the things that is wrong with America, where some fixated individuals have refused to let the country move beyond its past. Fringed people  who are constantly subjecting everyone to their warped thinking and crazed-out, stale and unshifting ideologies. Icheoku says to help understand how weird some of these Christian fanatics are, imagine one Gary Potter of South Shore Church of God in Greenup County Kentucky, saying that "God loves everybody except homosexuals and murderers who are going to hell." Unfortunately he choose to forget that our Lord and Master Jesus said that he came for those who are sick and not those who are well.  He also developed selective amnesia as to the teaching of the prodigal son parable. But hey, those that fall victim to this warped teaching are the gullible of the society who are not privileged to have traversed the bible with some scholarly comprehension. Otherwise they would have known that these fanatics are judging others in utter disobedience of the Lord's injunction "thou shall not judge." 

Icheoku however agrees with Judge Bunning that 'personal opinions and biases are not relevant to today's developments in America.' Kim Davis therefore must  shove her infamous opinion in her you know where and do her duty for which she was elected and paid with taxpayers money, including those of people being discriminated against, professionally. It is also pertinent that Kim Davis never asked that same-sex people's tax money should never make it into her paycheck? An admitted sinner who has done "a lot of vile and wicked things"; who only recently converted to her now fanatical religion, just a few short years ago in 2011; but she would not give or extend to others their own free election as to when to "convert?"  This was an option she freely exercised and admittedly lived in sin throughout her years until 2011 when she decided to turn a new leaf? The same Jezebel now wants to forcibly "convert" those same-sex "sinners" through a blackmail of  withholding and denying them marriage licenses. Icheoku laments that Talibans live in Afghanistan and this is America for crying out loud. 

Icheoku says Kim Davis does not live in heaven nor in a theocracy either to apply her "divine" laws. This is the United States of America, a country of laws and as an elected official she is duty bound to comply with laws of the land as it appertains to her office. She has no discretionary choice in the matter and should either comply or resign her office forthwith. If she cannot carry out her duties or find its execution too cumbersome or against whatever subjective beliefs she might have, she should move away to make way for those who can to effectively occupy the office. Kim Davis should relinquish her hold unto the office of Rowan Country clerk and her seat, let another take, so decreed the same bible. She cannot be allowed to adversely lay claim to the office whilst refusing to perform the duties of the office. Every rational American is in agreement that she should do her job or do the needful through resignation. There is no room for triangulation or splitting of hairs in the matter.  It is either she is all in or she is all out the office; and if she cannot stand the heat in the kitchen, she should get the hell out. Icheoku says no serious law abiding citizen of any society would accommodate such travesty as Kim Davis' current disposition towards a law of the land. Therefore Icheoku hereby calls on Kim Davis to either do the job for which she was elected Rowan county clerk and paid to do; or resign the office immediately.

Friday, September 4, 2015

KANYE 'YEEZUS' WEST FOR PRESIDENT, RUN KANYE RUN 2020.

Icheoku says run Kanye run and lets take back America and remake it into our own image; and truly transform it into a more welcoming place for all, regardless of their skin color. Kanye please run and lets remake America into what it should and ought to be, a land flowing with milk and honey and for the benefit of all. Kanye, Icheoku says run so that we can take over America and give it a real breathing soul as opposed to the staleness which power-cringing white people have turned it to. We did it with sports, we took over and transformed it into multi-billion dollars, fun and adorable pastime for everyone. We did it with music which we took from the drab monotone classical music to lively percussion and rhythm with multi billion dollars in revenue. Yes we can and we have done it with style and fashion too.  We did it with lifestyle that practically the world over and America in particular are influenced by black people's fashion sense,  both mainstream and off stream. We equally made Nike the multi billion dollar multinational it is. So why not remake the White House and the presidency by infusing in them some lively chocolate soul for it to actually pop.

Such that instead of having a staid presidency, lets make bling bling fashionable in the White House. With Kanye West in the White House, Americans will know real freedom and what it is indeed like to be truly living in a free country as free men and women. Medical marijuana advocates as well as other recreational users will indeed have a friend they can trust in the White House and will use their herbs freely without fear of prosecution under a President Kanye West. Furthermore, American prison population will see a drastic cut down as many prisoners will walk free once Kanye West is sworn in as president. Icheoku says unlike President Bush who does not like black people, Yeezus likes everyone including white people which made him marry one of their bimbos; hence a color-blind President Kanye West will be good for everyone in America. Lastly, America can use a first lady with an awesome behind as she can always be sent to Moscow whenever President for life Vladimir Putin starts his saber rattling to calm him down. 

So America, how how about President Kanye and First Lady Kim West for America 2020. Icheoku says regardless of what any hater might want to think, provided Kanye West is serious with his said plan to run for the presidency in 2020, the possibility of him winning the White House is there. All he has to do is to pick Taylor Swift for vice president and Justin Bieber for Secretary of State and America will have a White House controlled by Hollywood stars. The three have the fan base and they will come out fully mobilized in their millions to vote them into office. As an icing on the cake, Team Kanye 2020 could co-opt Beyonce and Jay-z as potential appointees in his cabinet and it will be a landslide routing victory. America will thereafter have the opportunity to truly witness the first bling-bling real black president of America who is down with the struggle and how things are done, how wrongs of many years are righted including payment of long overdue reparation. Icheoku, despite some sarcasm, maintains that if Kanye West runs for president, he stands a real chance at  securing the White House and should indeed give it a shot. Why not? So run Kanye run. 

Monday, August 31, 2015

EUROPEAN INVASION BY MEDITERRANEAN SEA BOAT PEOPLE, WELL DESERVED?

Icheoku says but for the exploitation-driven colonial interest of those Europeans, whose only focus in their then colonial states, were derivatives rather than nation-building of self-sustaining states, the current ongoing migration madness through the Mediterranean sea would never have inhered or at best, been just a mere unthinkable imagination. But nope, they went into these territories to pillage their resources, using same to build up their own respective European states, while leaving the owners of these resources holding the plate. Today a new generation of those economically left-behinds, have become emboldened enough to seek a somewhat 'redress or reprieve" in these European countries, which were primarily developed using their countries resources? What an argument in support that is somewhat very plausible one would make, except that those Europeans think differently as they see these migrants as a counting nuisance which must be abated. 

These European colonialists, instead of developing the manpower and resources needed in these states that are feeding the current migration, busily took everything to make themselves rich and wealthy and left these people desolate and in abject destitution. Now they are at the receiving end of their myopic policy and should not be heard to complain that migration through the Mediterranean Sea is getting out of hand. If only they did right by these people and helped develop their respective economies, they would not need to migrate to Europe for survival. Needless to add that these Europeans are privy and participants in all the unrests and instabilities and wars and distortion of governments of these migrants' countries? Therefore they must accept every immigrant that makes it to Europe, fully aware that they owe them big time by reason of their colonial and slavery past policies that left these people economically, hopelessly destitute. It is possible that all these Africans, especially, now taking grave risk, making the dangerous crossing through the Mediterranean Sea to Europe, would have been rich and wealthy in their own respective countries and thus not needing to infest Europe with their struggle at survival. But the then unthinking European colonial masters were short-sighted, short-term themed and not focused to look into the horizon to see the bigger picture. Now their descendants have their work fully cut out for them, fending off these Mediterranean invaders who are so determined to make it into Europe or like hip-hop artist 50 Cents sang, die trying. 

Icheoku says it could only be utter hopelessness that drives people to go to this great length just for an opportunity at survival? They trek through dangerous parched desert for several months before embarking on their sea voyage  through the treacherous Mediterranean Sea, in rickety rafts and boats. Then some of them stow away inside trucks with some perching precariously on truck tops and sides; some trekking through the English Chunnel from Calaise France to get to Britain while thousands perish enroute. Icheoku says it can only be a one-way, all or nothing, shot at survival that drives this wildebeest-like migration by these people. Since the alternative is an assured certain death at their respective home countries, it becomes imperative for them to embark on this migration up North, in a desperate life saving effort, since they have nothing to lose anyway. To them, nothing can be worse than what they have already experienced, hence anything out there beyond the horizon will surely be an improvement to what they have. Like one refugee rightly pointed out, he is already a living-dead and in prison living in his own country, so what difference does it make if he leaves the free prison in his country to try his luck in an unfree prison in Europe? 

But regrettably, these Europeans are mounting effort to stop these dying and desperate immigrants from reaching their shores and are threatening in any other event, to deport them back to wherever they came from? Icheoku queries why force a man who is fleeing from a certain death back to the nemesis he was running away from if not for meanness and uncaring attitude? Whatever be the inconvenience, these Europeans should see their culpability in this migration and then make some mea culpa by admitting whoever successfully makes the treacherous sea-crossing and allow them a shot at survival. The irony of the whole planned 'intercept and send them back' strategy is that the same white Europeans who brought their religion and introduced their God to Africans as God of a heaven of bliss and abundance, are the same people now denying these refugees the comparable 'heaven of bliss and abundance' in their continent. If these Europeans would not permit these hungry and starving immigrants a taste of their heaven on earth, what then is the use preaching to Africans about a heaven utopia upon death? Are they by their action forcing these migrants into immediate death so that they can hurry off to heaven, instead of wasting their time here on earth in penury and lack thereof. 

Icheoku says if indeed their preached-about heaven do in fact exist, would these white people allow Africans and the poor and wretched of this world access thereinto or will they forcibly appropriate it also just for themselves only? If they cannot share their own heaven on earth here, what is the guarantee that they will share the blissful heaven later in the other life? It is equally disturbing that these white people are wasting so much food and throwing away a lot too, yet their bible-clutching preachers and missionaries come to Africa with loads of bibles but no morsel of food to feed the hungry and the starving poor. Icheoku admonishes these preachers to always include some sacs of wheat, millet, rice, corn and some dairies and meat products whenever they embark on their evangelical missions to Africa, as there are so many yawning mouths of children and pregnant women that needs nutrition. It is a well known logic that nothing goes well on an empty stomach; so the soul will be more amenable to their preaching when the stomach is no longer churning and rumbling. Icheoku says what would Jesus say to these white people if and when they eventually meet and see him; except that no one knows for sure the veracity of the bible stories.

Friday, August 28, 2015

PRESIDENT BUHARI KILLS DEMOCRACY, IMPOSES BUHARIOCRACY ON NIGERIA?

Icheoku says many discerning Nigerians saw it coming and therefore are not fazed with the current Northern regionalization of Nigeria by the incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. Icheoku bemoans that President Muhammadu Buhari successfully mislead many Nigerians into believing that he has changed his old ways of being an unrepentant Northern Hausa/Fulani zealot when they voted for him on March 29, 2015.  These brainless Nigerians are now finding out the rude-shock hard-way that the Muhammadu Buhari of 1983 to 1985 is not any different from the Muhammadu Buhari of 2015; as a full grown person does not easily learn to be left-handed at an adult age. 

Instead of practicing the all inclusive democracy that brought him to power as well as implementing its ideals of equality of all and a collective governance, President Muhammadu Buhari has now reverted to his autocratic dictatorship mode and style of governance; and because he is no longer in military uniform, has now branded the type of government he is running, a "Buhariocracy." Icheoku says Buhariocracy as defined, is a government of Northerners by Northerners and for Northerners? Which leaves Icheoku wondering out aloud whatever happened to the promise to by President Muhammadu Buhari to be a president of all and who belongs to nobody. Icheoku asks is any part of Nigeria excluded or excludable from the Nigeria known to President Muhammadu Buhari that a solid part of it has not got any appointment so far? Imagine 36 appointments so far made, 29 went to the North, 4 to the Southwest, 2 to the Southsouth and 0 (none) to the Southeast. Yet President Goodluck Jonathan is not from the Southeast, admitted the people of Southeast adopted him, leaving Icheoku wondering if President Muhammad Buhari is on a mission to finally finish some unfinished business of 1967. 

Shockingly, Nigerians are beginning to find out that this "converted democrat" is afterall in name and title only; as the leopard never changes its color. Icheoku has grave concern that this lean and mean man of Daura is governing  as if Nigeria does not matter to him and could care less if his action pushes Nigeria over the precipice.  Unfortunately,  because he is doing just one single term in office and will not run again to canvas the people for their votes, he does not care either what the people thinks of his actions. Now Nigerians have finally met their match as this cattleman president from Daura simply does not give a damn. If only former President Jonathan of Otuoke did follow through his mouthing-off of that sentence with some action, may be he will still be in Aso Rock? Icheoku does not know whether Baba Iyabo, Olusegun Obasanjo, will similarly write President Muhammadu Buhari  his own satanic verses to remind him what he is doing wrong in a democracy.  Icheoku says someone needs to coral President Muhammadu Buhari into understanding that he did not win the election alone but through collective effort of millions of people from every divergent part of Nigeria many of who deserve to be somewhat represented in government.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

BIDEN HAS NO FUEL, WILL NOT RUN ON EMPTY?

BIDEN HAS NO FUEL, WILL NOT RUN ON EMPTY?

"If I were to announce to run, I have to be able to commit to all of you that I would be able to give it my whole heart and my whole soul, and right now, both are pretty well banged up." - Vice President Joe Biden on his 2016 chances of running for the presidency. 

Icheoku says that clears a possible serious obstacle to Hillary Clinton which means she is still the presumptive presidential nominee of the Democratic Party. What a lifeline from On High for Hillary 2016; except that Joey is still very much around with us here on earth.

Wednesday, August 26, 2015

VESTER FLANAGAN, ANOTHER AMERICAN GONE (GUN) CRAZY?

Icheoku says regardless of his grievances or provocations that finally pushed him over the ledge, no killing of any human being is ever justified or justifiable. Therefore the latest statistic in Americans gone crazily wild and killing another is but a lunatic who is looking for excuses to carry out his murderous evil intentions and succeeded in dispatching two innocent journalists to the great beyond. He was not the first person to be ever fired from a job as almost everyone has been fired from a job at one time or the other and they all did not decide to kill people as a result. Icheoku says he is just simply a wacko-doddle human gunpowder waiting to go BOOM and he went BOOM and two people went down from the blast. 

Icheoku says, simply a pathetic fellow who is neither here nor there. He was neither a racist nor someone seeking to defend the black race or stand up against racism; as he was equally mad at black male folks for discriminating against him for being a gay black-man in America. He also dislikes white women for no identifiable reason other than that one of them took his job and also used racial epithet against him. He then went on to talk about a racial war, challenging those white people to bring it on and Icheoku wonders with whom would he have been marching into battle, the same black-men whom he disparaged? Anyway, Vester Lee Flanagan II was simply looking for ways to explain out his inexplicable heinous act and he did a very poor job at it; as no sane person expects a fired worker to go about killing people in this way as a result. He killed reporter Alison Parker because she took his job and killed cameraman Adam Ward because he engineered his exit from the television station through false witnessing and backstabbing. There is also the third wounded victim, Vicki Gardner, who happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but with whom he had no beef otherwise he had opportunity to finish her off but chose not to. 

What a faggot of the worse kind this guy is as no true gay person is ever this disgustingly violent; but he failed in his attempt to give gay people a bad name. Icheoku says although many of his complaints were plausible as a continuing pattern of occurrence in American workplaces, including racial discrimination and sexual harassment being a gay person, name calling him a monkey by a high-up producer, but still it does not justify what went down. People get fired from their jobs all the time and sometimes for no apparent reason as an employer is not required to have a reason for 'separating an employee from the company'. It could be for anything or nothing at all and sometimes from the very mundane to the inexplicable absurdity. No one cares and in America, the nastier you are the more chances you are to make it through the ladder to the top. Many people in various supervisory positions know of this unspoken canon of rising to the top and so like cream, they will summarily axe anyone without blinking or batting an eyelid. 

Vester Flanagan should have known that it comes with the territory and therefore dusted himself up and moved on following his firing. But no, he allowed another person's action to get the better part of him and today it boiled over into an unthinkable violent act that left three people dead and the fourth hospitalized. Icheoku says many Americans have thought about whacking people who fired them. Many Americans too have similarly thought about committing suicide just to get it over with. But only the weak and the faint-hearted follow through with these thoughts. The strong and never yielding ones, always  soldiers on to the next big thing which might eventually prove their previous nasty experience to be a blessing in disguise. Icheoku believes that Flanagan encountered 'nasty racist things' at work, every American especially people of color do, but it still does not justify what he did. Icheoku only hopes that America can start evaluating more why Americans lose their cool and burn their top gaskets, leading to all these mass killings; instead of always branding such lost soul as a "disgruntled employee" or "an angry, stressed and aggressive blackman or person. 

Icheoku says that all the killer's expressed issues of anger and annoyance are common place occurrences in American work places. Fucking with peoples life and causing awful chain of events is also part of the society. Demons which  would not leave him alone until they drove him over the cliff and the rest is now history. Icheoku vouches that such 'feeling of being completely overwhelmed, confused and even having some real fear about someone's worth, value and future' is true. Icheoku had been boxed into such dark corner in the past where all thoughts came flooding in including feeling suicidal. Yes it is true and anyone denying their existence is either economical with the truth or has not traveled through America's job places or simply in denial. It is equally possible that those his producers did not believe he knows what he was doing. They always doubt your abilities if a colored person, regardless of one's high degrees and work ability; and they always find collaborating fellow employees to give false witnesses to seal any one's fate whenever they want to. 

Therefore it is possible that the photos were out to get him otherwise what could a reporter have reported so badly that a photog would rush off to the HR to report him just after only working with him once? Icheoku knows first hand how this works, having been a victim myself; so his fears were real but it does not excuse the heinous murders. Imagine his former employer reaching out to his new would be employer to persuade them not to follow through with a job offer they had earlier made to him? Then ask yourself how they planned for this guy to survive and finally succeeded in pushing him into his despondency. Yes he admittedly was angry as everyone else in America is; the reason why drug and alcohol use is very prevalent in a futile attempt to numb and deaden the anguish. Yes, he reserves right to be mad and angry just like everyone American. Yes like Tupac Shakur, he could not find peace on earth in America and believed it could be found elsewhere outside this world. 

Yes he also tried but unsuccessfully to 'pull himself up by the bootstraps but according to him "the damage was already done and when someone gets to this point, there is nothing that can be said or done to change their sadness to happiness. It does not work that way and not even medications can do anything to help the situation. Continuing he admitted it is too much to bear as they fucked up his head. Icheoku gets it and confirms them to be real challenging situation in America but which does not explain nor excuse what he did. There is something called counseling or just trying your luck elsewhere including going abroad to see if the pasture could be greener over there. But to vent his anger in this manner is benefit any and every sense of decency and therefore condemnable.

Icheoku says name calling never kills anyone admitted it might cause hurt-feelings. He sued and the case was settled, an admission of responsibility of some sort; but most of these employers when they want you out would rather pay to have you go away. So what if he threw a huge tantrums at his last firing or was he expected to happily  throw a huge thank you hugging party for being fired? But all these odd, strange and threatening behavior is a code word for some ulterior motives for firing people who do not fit into a "working culture and environment", another code for you don't belong here or your type is not a good fit here. 

The fact of the matter is that so many people are angry and miserable in America and are walking time bombs waiting to go off at the slightest provocation or any given reason. Luckily however, Vester Flanagan is not a Mexican who came across the border illegally to 'come here and kill Americans' and could not have been earlier deported in order to preempt this. He was not a deportable illegal Mexican and deporting him would not have been an option under Donald Trump's themed solution to all America's immigration problems, including stopping gun violence in America? So deportation of illegals would not have saved the lives of the two television crew members who were killed in the line of duty. Now words like 'You are fired; 'We decided to separate you from the company; and 'We decided to let you go" are ingrained as too well known in our job places lexicons. But what these employers who randomly 'let employees go' expect such former employees to do, they will not tell pr say. 

Lastly while Icheoku believes that all the grievances of Vester Flanagan are plausible including the conspiracy by cameraman Adam Ward to have him replaced by Alison Parker, who called him name or made racist remarks at him; his complaints which went unanswered by the employer; racial discrimination and sexual harassment etc; but none of these either in individually or in entire and in a whole is enough reason to take another human being's life, talkless of two of them. Thankfully while the gunman was running his mouth over the phone trying to justify what he did, unbeknownst to him, security agents were on his trail using the phone embedded GPS as their guiding beacon to get to him. The murderer is no more as he took his own life in order not to give credit to others for being the hands that brought him to justice. Whether such shooting of self is an act of bravery or cowardice is debatable; but most courageous people following such an act would rather end it immediately and at their own choosing, rather than be processed through the justice system only to eventually end up being killed anyways. Crime committed, crime solved and everyone is mourning at the same time. But when would NRA be moved into doing something about sensible gun control in America? Rest in peace Alison, Adam ande of course Flanagan, Adieu.

Monday, August 24, 2015

WAR ON CORRUPTION AND OBASANJO'S 'CATCH ME IF YOU CAN' NAUSEATING ANTICS.

Icheoku says the current war on corruption propaganda by President Muhammadu Buhari will amount to nothing and convince no one as anything serious and foundational, if he does not also prosecute Olusegun Obasanjo, Ibrahim Babangida and Abdulsalam Abubakar as well as Theophilus Danjuma, the four corruption incarnates of Nigeria PLC. These men are good(bad)will ambassadors of corruption; eminently very corrupt persons who are the bad influence spreading corruption in Nigeria. These are the men who give Nigerians reason to get rich at any cost and regardless of the means. These are the men who gave impetus to the end justifying the means and who are fueling corruption madness in Nigeria. These are the men who have stupendously enriched themselves in Nigeria without any obvious means of livelihood or the business they do or the scientific discovery they made that landed them into their sudden wealth. 

Icheoku says in any civilized society, these four despicable men would not be walking the soil as free men, their questionable stupendous wealth considered. Yet they are operating with impunity, deciding who becomes what in Nigeria including the who occupies the office of the presidency; railroading out of office anyone who falls out of their favor while bankrolling anyone who agrees to know-tow to their dictations into office. Therefore a President Muhammadu Buhari putting a lip to and circus show of fighting corruption must first disclose to Nigerians how much of these four men's money was deployed to purchase him the presidency. What secret undertaking was he forced to sign and how weighty is his undertaken obligations to them. Icheoku says these clarifications became important in order to reasonable evaluate the chances which his latest war on corruption has at succeeding. But unfortunately, Icheoku is not a believer that this war on corruption stands a chance in hell at succeeding with such burdened yoke of a noose tightly wound on President Muhammadu Buhari's neck.

Icheoku says it therefore does not lie in the mouth of Olusegun Obasanjo to declare himself not corrupt or for Babangida or Abdulsalam or Danjuma to beat their hands on their chest to exclaim they did not steal Nigeria's public money. They should simply establish to Nigerians the sources of their wealth; how they stumbled across their pots of gold at the end of the rainbow. Failing which, the state can and should force their forfeiture as proceeds of corruption, money laundering and other criminal vices such as drug dealing and/or loan sharking. 

Icheoku is always miffed when at every of his interview bothering on Nigeria corruption, how Baba Iyabo and Ota Deity, Olusegun Obasanjo, always emphasizes that he is not corrupt; but that every other Nigerian including his then vice president Abubakar Atiku is corrupt? Query, if Oulsegun Obasanjo is not corrupt, did he win the Mega lottery to have suddenly transformed himself from a near-penniless pauper fresh out of the prison a few short years ago to the now one of Africa's richest person? Icheoku says that every income has to have a source from which it inheres,  otherwise it becomes illegitimate and subject to government's seizure invoking financial crimes law. There exists or should exists in the statute, ombudsman's provisions that empowers the government to always act to safeguard and protect its financial health. 

As a correlation therefore, the government could step in and force a disclosure of questionable finances or simply seize them where dubious and doubtful. Icheoku says this should ordinarily be the fate of Olusegun Obasanjo except that the lean and mean Cassius of Daura, President Muhammadu Buhari is in bed with Obasanjo and the other corrupt retired generals. Therefore, being so much eternally indebted to these men, cannot afford to sheepishly tow the path of the unthinking Jonathan of Otuoke by taking them on frontally. First Obasanjo appointed then Muhammadu Buhari his Petroleum Minister and then there was the questionable $2.5 billion missing oil money under his watch that took wings from London's Midland Banks - a joker in the hands of Obasanjo that he could pull anytime to douse any fire or heat of war on corruption investigation. 

President Muhammad Buhari's tenure as PTF chairman could also yield some skeletons if push comes to shove. Then lastly, President Muhammadu Buhari's current presidency was purchased or at least facilitated to a great part by these men, both in money and contacts/influence. So a thinking President Muhammad Buhari will not want his 99 problems to include these ruthless men and would rather play it safe. Icheoku says if the none investigation of these men is the war on corruption which President Muhammad Buhari is bandying about, then there is indeed no war on corruption really taking place nor one which Nigerians can believe in. If as Nigerians and the world agree that there is terrorism of corruption in Nigeria and according to President Muhammadu Buhari, this four men in particular will not be investigated, who then is corrupt in Nigeria?

Sunday, August 23, 2015

HILLARY CLINTON SERVER-GATE SCANDAL, WILL SHE SURVIVE?

Icheoku says no one knows and only time will tell whether Hillary Clinton has irreparably damaged herself in the eyes of the American people, thereby foreclosing whatever chances she might have had of ever being handed over the key to the White House. But it surely does not look good that a person who is asking the American people to trust her with the highest office in their land, the American presidency; has in addition to her indiscretion of using a private server for her emails while Secretary of State, also went ahead wiping the said server clean, and thus shown that she herself cannot be trusted or at best, trust but verify. 

Query, why would a clear-conscience Hillary Clinton wipe clean a server which she knows or should have known contained all the information she sent and received through the unsecured portal; and which will be and is now subject of an investigation if she has nothing to hide? Why would Hillary Clinton so effusively treat this issue as if it is a joke that could be so easily 'wiped out with her cloth;' and this is the same person who wants to be trusted with the American presidency? Icheoku asks what happened to her trusting the American peoples' FBI, having faith that they will do justice with their investigation and not encumber their work by wiping out the slate clean that would have otherwise helped make their job easier? What happened to her leveling with the American people about what she sent and received through her unsecured channels by not stonewalling on their release and also not tampering with evidence by wiping the server with her cloth; and this is the same person who wants to be handed over the American presidency? 

Icheoku has no opinion either way - whether she continues with her quest to become the first female American president or withdraws and recuses herself therefrom the effort by reason of the unraveling and never ebbing away server-gate scandal. But whatever she decides to do should be done fast and soon enough in order to afford the Democratic Party reasonable time to find a shoe-in and in order not to pawn away the presidency to the other guys. A matter made more terrifying a proposition because that other guys might have a bigoted white pig named Donald Trump leading their charge. Therefore Hillary Clinton must act and act fast to either get out or begin to convince the American people that she has plausible explanation for the obvious criminal behavior or at best, her acts that have very limited trustworthiness.

Icheoku maintains that practically all the goodwill Hillary Clinton has been enjoying, is enjoying and continues to enjoy to this day, is courtesy of her husband William Jefferson Clinton. Most people who like or love or admire Hillary Clinton are simply transferring their love for Bill Clinton to her by reason of being married to him. This is the reason why many people have theorized that but for Hillary Clinton's ambition to become president, she would have since walked away from Bill and out of their marriage. Some people also share the view that Bill Clinton, subconsciously does not honestly wish Hillary Clinton well in her ambition to become president. According to this school of thought, he wants her to remain a wanna-be president only; hoping that as long as it simply remains an ambition, a sort of work in progress, his marriage to her will safely remain anchored. But who knows what the sly Billy is actually up to; as all these have not been conclusively substantiated; admitted reasonable grounds do exist to believe and continue to propagate them. 

Anyway, whatever the result of the current FBI investigation of the person of Hillary Clinton, as according to former AG Michael Mukasey, 'the FBI does not investigate machines' but people, Icheoku hopes and prays that she will beat all the rap and come out tops, smoking hot as ever and go on to eventually making record as the first female president of the United States of America. It is also good too that the said AG dismissed the rumor of the current FBI investigation being a political witch-hunt by President Obama against the Clintons? A rumor, almost taking a life of its own, that it is President Barack Obama that is the one engineering the possible forced Hillary Clinton's take-down and take-out of the 2016 presidential contention. Lastly, as the nation and the world await the outcome of the FBI investigation into whether or not Hillary Clinton, as a sitting United States of America Secretary of State, received and sent classified emails using private unsecured network; Icheoku prays and hopes that the former AG was not right that "it is inconceivable that a great deal of the information was unclassified;" thereby pinning Hillary Clinton with knowledge thereto and then its violation, moppets likely of a criminal nature, which might see her doing serious term barring a pardon. Icheoku says hopefully Hillary Clinton will not in her combustible ambition to move into the White House end up being moved into the Big House. Only time will tell.