RE: PROF NAZIFI ABDULLAHI-DARMA, NEW CHAIRMAN OF NORTHERN ELDERS FORUM ON THE 1987(?) ORIGINS OF IMPUNITY IN KILLINGS IN NIGERIA

From January 2018

The new(ly appointed) head of The Northern Elders Forum, Prof Nazifi Abdullahi-Darma recently spoke to Maupe Ogun on ChannelsTv. He disclosed that he was an undergraduate in 1987 when ethno-religious conflict in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, took place. He recalled correctly that many (others say ONLY) non Hausa-Fulani on the other side of the ethnic divide were arrested and tried by the Ibrahim Babangida military administration. He mentioned specifically Gen Zamani Lekwot who was condemned to death but the sentence commuted. Let us follow him more extensively using this transcript that I made from the video:

"Every single citizen of this country that has been lost is a potential contributor to prosperity and development.
A loss is a loss.
And what has happened over the years is a complete failure of our governance structure at the Federal level, at the state level.
People are killed in this country.
Let me take you back memory lane.

When the 1987 ethno-religious conflict happened in Kafanchan, in Kaduna State, I was just an undergraduate student in the university.
Perpetrators were caught, people like Zaman Lekwot.
They were brought to trial.
They were sentenced.
But unfortunately the government of General Ibrahim Babangida released them.

FROM THAT DAY (emphasis mine!), that marks the beginning of people to take other people's lives with impunity and go free.
It is unfortunate.
It is unacceptable.
It is a sad commentary on all of us including myself as elites that . . ."

By 1987, General Zamani Lekwot, arguably a hero of the Nigeria-Biafra War, must have been retired for about a decade from the Nigerian Army. It is possible that the mother of Prof Abdullahi-Darma was perhaps not even married while Lekwot was in the trenches sorting out matters with Gen Odumegwu Ojukwu and his rebel gang. It appears then that the memory lane to which our learned professor referred must have been a badly and hastily constructed one unworthy of even Boys Scouts. It couldn't go back beyond 1987. What then are we to make of it? Of course it doesn't go far back enough and hence automatically disqualifies the professor from the pseudo-intellectual excursion that he attempted. Did he or does he position the Akaluka beheading in this narrative? And many before and after? What does our short-memoried Prof know about impunity? 1945, 1953, etc? I would hope that some who are closer to him, as to be called his contemporaries, will take him on for this wicked abbreviation of our history as a nation where impunity reigns. I hereby call on Profs Moses Ochonu and Farooq Kperogi to deal with this. I am getting too old for this.

Is there anything to be gained by reminding Abdullahi-Darma of the millions of Ndigbo and other southerners killed in 1966 and 1967 as part of a state sponsored hunt and kill revenge mission, NOT even part of the ensuing civil(?) War? No. He is too far gone. This Prof is irredeemable. I pity his students. 

SHOULD INNOSON GO PUBLIC?

An Nnewi born contributor, Anayo M. Nwosu floated this idea recently on Facebook. A mild debate is currently raging prompting me to weigh in. I believe that such a generally desirable step is kind of premature.
We should put our money where our mouth is. If we expect Federal Government patronage to take INNOSON to the next level, then we do not understand the mindset of our adversaries or competition. (Choose one.) The minimal love of the FG for INNOSON can be likened to that of the former Iraqi Prime Minister Abadi for the Kurdish Pershmerger while the later was investing blood, sweat and tears to liberate an Iraq that walked voluntarily into the warm embrace of ISIS. Only to attack Kurdistan Tikrit when victory had been won! This administration has no abiding interest in the survival of INNOSON since it has no interest in the survival of Nigeria as a going concern. It's all a matter of exploitation. .

Enough of the griping though. How many Ndigbo have queued up behind Sen Ben Murray-Bruce to buy an INNOSON automobile? If just ten percent of car and bus sales in the next two years are from the INNOSON stable, (just like for Cutix cables), then whatever vocal support heaped on Chief Innocent Chukwuma for his current achievements would have taken on a concrete form. It would be most interesting observing how his (and Ndigbo) detractors would deal with that. For those who don't know it, (or rather pretend not to know), both warfare and genocide take on so many different forms. Find out what Jimanze Ego-Alowes has to say about this.

Where were we? Oh yes, INNOSON going public. This is a good idea my dear Anayo M. Nwosu but seems premature to me. The kind of unconscionable attack/demarketing to which INNOSON has recently been subjected required a very tight, resilient and agile management team at a time the governments of the former Eastern Region have refused to find common cause with the exertions at INNOSON Motor Vehicle Manufacturing Company Limited. I hope that they can prove me wrong shortly.

First, LET'S BUY INNOSON. It is our own Mahindra and Tata rolled into one. For more check my archives.

Re: Charles Ogbu's latest views on THE HANDSHAKE ACROSS THE NIGER.

Some commentators have referred to this issue merely as an initiative. I hold that it has gone way beyond that. It has come on and gone off the front burner of Igbo-Yoruba discourse several times over the past three to four decades. Profs Bolaji Akinyemi and Niyi Osundare referred to it obliquely at the 50th Anniversary Lecture marking the sacrifice of Lt Col Adekunle Fajuyi in service and defence of his Igbo boss. The major discussions recently have often hinged on the notion that there is some extra step Ndigbo need to take to "consummate" this much talked about, much desired handshake. Pray, do the Yoruba want it? That's the question.

The ball has been in the Yoruba court for as long as anyone cares to remember. Like in love and marriage Ndigbo have rendered themselves vulnerable to Ndi-Yoruba and the South-West. Almost all our investments are there. They have largely resisted any movement towards reciprocity. What more can we do? It is now being generally suggested that Ndigbo reduce the quantum of investment in Yorubaland both as a hedge but also as a necessary shot in the arm for the economy east of the Niger. The move is also expected to reduce resentment to the rampaging success of Ndigbo against all odds, real and contrived.

I repeat. In analyzing the health of current relationship, we should ignore typical altercations between Igbo and Yoruba agbero class at Ojota, Mushin or Balogun. Major decisions are not made there. Check out the boardrooms where say at NBPlc a decision was made to invest in a world-class modern brewery at 9th Mile, Enugu, or how a different decision was arrived at in Guinness to delay a similar investment. Note that it took more than a decade before Guinness, scrambling to play catch-up, snapped up the long abandoned Dubic Brewery at Aba.

When the day comes and the likes of Oba Otudeko will invest say $1b in a string of power plants and flour mills, providing power to his hosts and competitors in and around Enugu, then the second hand required to complete the handshake would have been offered. It is worthwhile recalling that probably the very first factory that I had visited as a secondary school student in prewar Eastern Nigeria, Odutola Tyres, a rethreading facility, belonged to a Yoruba. I would love that a Yoruba journalist or bloggist investigates to find out if indeed the estate of the late industrialist ever lost ownership to the "wicked" Igbos.

Dear Charles Ogbu, if the Om'Odua want to shake the hands of Ndigbo, it's already out there, fully stretched as can be perceived from our economic posture in Yorubaland. This cannot be advanced by the kind of stories out in the open between Yoruba controlled banks and our INNOSON. That nonsense must stop.

Ndigbo have been in Yorubaland for the long haul. Ndi-Yoruba can only strive to match us, but can hardly be expected to meet up. It's a matter of DNA. They hedge to a fault. The only advice that I can offer is that Ndigbo stop judging them. Change may come at a speed that will even surprise Charles Darwin. Hence, patience is my watchword.

THE IGBO GENOCIDE NEVER REALLY ENDED WITH THE WAR -

Jimanze Ego-Alowes. Again I have missed the release of this new book by Ego-Alowes. Hear him in this, interview by Sun News, at his unapologetic best. Others may choose to dub him controversial. He seems to wear it well.
Enjoy!

THE SUN NEWS
Jimanze Ego-Alowes is the author of the new book, Nigeria: The Unreported Genocide Against the Igbo, a book detailing the unreported post-civil war genocide against the Igbo by past Nigerian rulers. The book also traces the paterfamilias of the Igbo as Eshi. In this interview with The Sun Literary Review, the author advances evidences to justify his claim that the military leaders committed further genocide against the Igbo after the civil war ended, especially with the introduction of local government reforms and autonomous communities in Igboland. He, therefore, calls for the abolition of kinship in Igboland for being opposed to the republican nature of the people.

You are a prolific writer, producing at least one book a year. What’s the secret of your fecundity?

I consider myself a lay historian. The job of the historian is to bring out that which is hidden into the open and which is already in the open into perspective. And I believe that history is one of the primary sciences. The primary sciences are those sciences that characterise who man and, therefore, the society is. And if you get this right, you are on the part of personal, group and national development. It’s a place I think I have comparative advantage.

Your latest book is entitled The Unreported Genocide against the Igbo. Why is it coming at this point in time?

Any truth, especially new truth, comes in its own season. Truth is never out of season. Immediately there is a new truth, that truth is its own season. If you say it in the morning or night, it is on season; truth is never offseason. So, the duty of a scholar is to see to it that the truth is being neglected and bring it into the open. The only justification is that truth determines the season, and not the season determining the truth. There is no season for the truth.

What informed this book?

The first is that I feel the fact of it has not been attended either by cowardice or Nigerian experience or development for reasons that are not clear to us. So, part of our duty, as I said, is to bring that which has been glossed over into the open for a very long time, from the time the generals [Murtala Mohammed and Olusegun Obasanjo] came to power to the present. Nobody has spoken about it or given attention to it. I feel it is the proper time, because it is new season.

How pained were you when you were researching on the atrocities committed against the Igbo, because I could see your tone is livid with rage?

As a historian, I have no personal pain. If I have a pain at all, it is with the scholars, not with the perpetrators of the genocide –the silence of the scholars up till now. I don’t feel any pain at all. For me, the two generals have done what they have done. What I quarrel with is the silence of the historians and scholars over such earth-quaking event in the life of a major ethnic group in Nigeria: the Igbo. If I have annoyance at all, it is with my tribe of scholars, both from Igbo and non-Igbo. Why the silence? If you go to Imo State, for instance, you have up to a million autonomous communities if we are to exaggerate. Enugu State had to bring a formal edict stopping the creation of autonomous communities. It is a distraction of the society, and people should speak out.

You faulted the introduction of the Chieftaincy Edict in Igboland. At a time when more communities are still clamouring for more autonomous communities, what problem do you have with this?

It is like an addiction. That’s why a lot of the books go to borrow from biology –evolutionary sciences. It is like an addiction. When you have a craving for cigarette or crack, and the doctor tells you to stop, you are still going to crave for it. There is nothing to recommend. The GMOs set us on the path of self-destruction. That’s why we have to halt it. Some of those doing it want to take benefit over the grave of the many people. So, they want to emerge kings of autonomous communities over the grave and destruction of Igboland.

Don’t you think there are some benefits to derive from the creation of these autonomous communities, or does everything point to a disservice?

That’s what we are saying. It is all part of the larger things we have always said. In the introduction to this book, it is noted that there are so many things that can afflict a society or a human that will be asymptomatic. People are not aware of what damage they are causing to themselves and to their larger society, but it is the duty of the scholar or the physician, who uses diagnostic instrument to see and know that you are not as healthy as you look, that it is better for you to have bed rest and not to have jugging in the morning, because, if you do, you will collapse.

Don’t you think the Igbo also contributed to the genocide themselves?

I don’t think we are primed for it, because the two GMOs didn’t seek for the opinion of the Igbo when they injected that edict. They did not seek our opinion. They sat in their all-conquering military council and decided that there was going to be autonomous communities all over the country whether you were republican or not. The implication of these autonomous communities is that it is an embedded logic in what they did: the sociological destruction of a people.

Don’t you think the generals were trying to bring government closer to the people?

First, they don’t have the wisdom; they only have the gun. And that you have guns is not the equivalent of having wisdom. You can’t because, you possess guns, impose your own idea of development on other people who perhaps do not have the guns. There was no basis for their thinking that they wanted to bring government closer to Igboland without consulting the Igbo people themselves. So, it is absolutely wrong.

So, is that a deliberate ploy to pull down existing socio-cultural infrastructure In Igboland, or you think it was a trial and error kind of thing when they set that edict in motion?

It is no longer a trial and error thing. It was a deliberate policy. There are two edicts imposed in Igboland. The first is that they took away Igbo lands that they thought had oil and gifted to Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State and brought this chieftaincy disaster about the same time. And, if you remember that Murtala Mohammed government does not last a year before he died –you know it was a preplanned thing –so, the idea has been vitiated that they introduced two things, one that was definitely able, which was taking away our oil producing lands and gifting to other people in Rivers and Akwa Ibom. So, it couldn’t have been trial and error. It was a deliberate official policy. Additionally, as Obasanjo confirmed in a recent interview, they were aware of the United Nation’s edicts and protocols on running post-victory government, and it was clearly stated that you don’t oppose an alien culture on the people; you must allow their native structures to run. But they went against these stated laws, which Obasanjo confirmed in the aforesaid interview, they knew of when they were fighting.

In the book, you revisited the concept of Igbo enwe eze (the Igbo don’t have kings). Using the Arrow of God as an example, where Nwaka berated Ezeulu for trying to arrogate to himself the position of chief priest and non-existing ezeship stool, on one hand; and the era of having traditional rulersin Igboland, how tenable is Igbo enwe eze?

First, a lot of saying that Igbo enwe eze today is a mild interpretation of that saying. Igbo enwe eze is actually a proud assertion that the Igbo are free and republican people. So, what this book calls for, and it is proper to state so, is that chieftaincy order should be abolished in Igboland, because we are free and republican people. We don’t want it. We are not saying that the Ogboni system of government or Arewa system of government is bad, but let them keep their goodness to themselves; let them not infest us with their goodness. We want to return to the structures our father left for us: republicanism. We want to free, proud and independent people. The Igwes and Ezes have to go, because Igboland has to develop.

In what way are they contributing to the underdevelopment of the Igboland?

First, there is a guy called Peter Drucker, the father of management. He says culture is its strategy for breakfast. Any time any strategy is against the culture of a people, it won’t work. So, the mere presence of Ndi Eze, which is antithetical to Igbo republicanism, to our sense of human freedom, will vitiate any strategy you bring to Igboland, and that is why the Igbo are crying they are not united. How can you unite under chiefs or structures that are not amenable to such? It is against our own people’s sociology, and the earlier we erase it, the better for us. The Igwes, the Ndi Ezes have to go. We don’t need them and they don’t need themselves as well.

Don’t you think that times have changed and the modern society presents a different reality, and needs this kind of leadership roles at the local level?

As I stated in the book, where you have monarchies in Europe, which a wrong ignorant examples people give here, it is a vestigial. So, the idea of having tiers in government is why economists explain the rise of Germany and the fall of Britain after the 2nd World War. Germany emerged without too many centres of government like kings, barons and dukes, which we didn’t have until the two GMOs imposed kingship on the Igbo, and that came with transaction cost on Igboland. So, to develop as Igbo, we pay more cost than we should; we pay more cost than the Arewa-driven northern attitude or the Ogboni-driven Yoruba attitude or the Egbesu-driven Ijaw attitude. Their systems are different from ours. In place of having monarchies in Igboland, the presidents of town unions should handle the affairs of towns. Monarchies don’t preserve cultures. This idea of monarchies and cultures is a scam. Culture comes from several places. By writing this book, I am contributing to culture. Culture is not celebrating New Yam festival, which they use to deceive the people. These Ezes send their children to America, and they don’t eat new yam in America.

Related to your call for the abolishing of kingship in Igboland is your denunciation of having Eze Ndigbos all over the countries in the book….

I don’t disagree with any man crowning himself Eze Ndigbo as a joke or maybe he is doing 419. Good luck to him, but let it not be that he is representing Igbo through a monarchical system. It is antithetical to the sociology of which we have. Any fool, doctor, professor or businessman can declare himself Eze Ndigbo of Hell or Eze Ndigbo of Heaven. But let it not be a point of aggregating the Igbo. No! We must remain free, republican, independent people, because our republicanism is superior to monarchism.

A vital logic you pursued vigorously is attempting to establish the origin the paterfamilias of the Igbo…

Yes, this book established the progenitor of the Igbo logically as Eshi. So, it will take life from here. Before there was no such life. But, now, there is life upon the fact that we now know the father of the Igbo.

How do you support this?

The Igbo society is structured basically according to Heartland Igbo (Mbaise and Mbano) and Outer Igbo (Umuleri and Aguleri). Oguta is also in that group, though they are in Imo State, because they are riverine people. I purposely chose Aguleri, Umuleri, Oraeri (in Anambra) and I also chose Oguta, Nkwerre and Umueshi (in Imo State). In addition, I also chose Mbaise and Mbano, also in Imo, because they call it (Eshi) Ehi. It is the same thing, but dialectically different. It is like Okoro and Okolo, which means the same thing in Igboland. While Anambra and Enugu have Okolo. Imo and Abia call it Okoro. If you look at the spread from Agulurei and Umuleri to Nkwerrre, Ehime Mbano to Mbaise, which is the largest sub clan in Igboland with the exception of Ngwa; and you have Oguta people who are Igbo mmiri (riverine Igbo), and you have a significant momentum of Igbo population in these areas; it then means that they came from one person or a significant population of these people came from one paterfamilias.

So, where does this leave the Nri narrative about the origin of the Igbo people?

Anybody can circulate any myth and legend –good for them! People have asked me whether the Igbo were related to the Jew, and I told them I wasn’t aware. I only conclude on things my logic and facts can carry. What Nri people are saying about the origin of the Igbo is myth. They have not been able to match it with logic. Somebody from Nkweshi in Imo State told me that the name of the community was originally Nkwo-Eshi. So, you can see that the Eshi origin is broad and tenable.

So, you want us to believe that Eshi is actually the father of the Igbo?

It has to be. That is what the logic and language available says. What we are saying is that Eshi has been metaphorised as Time, that’s why in Igboland, we hear “ka mgbe eshi” (right from the beginning) and “eri (ehi) mgbe n’ile” (from time immemorial). So, the Igbo equivalent of “Before Abraham I was” is “ka mgbe eshi”.

In the book, too, the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Emmanuel Udom, is lionised….

Yes, I have two add-up articles in the book. One is on the BRACE Factor and another on Emmanuel Udom. Part of the book is to bring that which is new. Udom is a banker who has done great, who has brought entrepreneurial sense into the running of the state. Together with Udo, this gives a fresh handle on the kind of advice Confucius gave that a scholar has to report from the reality. We should not be citing Singapore when we have an equivalent of that in Nigeria. It is our duty to point the specific and which is new. That’s what Udom represents. These [Brace Factor and Udom] are new lights in our present shadows, and we have to celebrate them.

THE PANAMA PAPERS REVISITED; WHICH WAY NIGERIA?

Most African elite have been aware of the revelations, in 2016 of the Panama Papers compiled by a network of International Investigative Journalists exposing how corrupt leaders and business moguls in advanced economies and third world nations alike milk their people to the detriment of the common good. The world seems to have taken these revelations in its stride and moved on. Those indicted have hardly shown any sense of remorse starting from the poorest African potentate to powerful friends and point men of Russia's Putin.

And now another trove has been recently released under the name Paradise Papers. Yes, more of the same. Who cares? Should any one care?

It is amazing that with the recent revelations in the Paradise Papers some Nigerians have found it appropriate to circulate once again the following summary from the earlier document, the Panama Papers made from an African perspective. From the report on Zuma's South Africa I have been struck by the following:

"MAKING BABA HAPPY
The story of the Zupta Empire shows how even a country with a professional and independent judiciary and media, parliamentary oversight, political and press freedom; a ruling party that was once headed by Nelson Mandela with a programme of democracy, good governance and justice for all; an industrialised economy, modern urban centres with electricity, water and roads infrastructure, can regress."
We should all be seriously worried by this trend.

Nothing could be more illustrative of Zuma’s view on accountability than this anecdote reported by a former government official concerning his response to questions in parliament:

“He once told me that Putin doesn’t have to account to parliament, so why should he?” Etc! .
If you swap Zuma’s name with Congo's Joseph Kabila or Rwanda's Paul Kagame, the conclusion is the same.

I just wonder why this "African" Report didn't bother to offer any insight into Nigeria's own sorry situation. Perhaps it is such a hopelessly irredeemable case. Is it?

African_Oligarchs

SEXUAL HARASSMENT: HARVEY WEINSTEIN DISPUTES LUPITA NYONG'O'S ACCOUNT. OH YEA?

If we are to believe the deranged Charleston Emmanuel AME Church shooter Dylan Roofe, since the advent of slave trade into the New World four centuries ago, the average black male spends all his waking hours dreaming of a sexual encounter with the wives and daughters of his white "owner." They certainly couldn't have been working and planning how to break free, the subject of the many epic tales of rebellion by black slaves. Yes, their brains must be in their loins. The white version of US history resolutely refuses to acknowledge that black slaves, despite centuries of conditioning, would never want to be slaves, actually did want to be free and given half a chance went for it. Unfortunately such narratives whether in Haiti or the Carolinas are not supportive of white ego.

It is against this background that a powerful white male will be a predator with respect to all females within his span of control. For goodness sake why would a Harvey Weinstein, against the run of play, now choose to display a discrimination in taste when the lady in question in the equally delectable and black Lupita Nyong’o? Nobody is fooled. Louisiana and the entire southern US is filled with evidence of the escapades of whites, powerful or not, who couldn't keep their eyes and hands off hot black women. ## [Harvey Weinstein, accused by dozens, specifically disputes Lupita Nyong’o’s harassment claims - The Washington Post] is good,have a look at it! https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/harvey-weinstein-accused…/…

DONATIONS NOW BEING ACCEPTED!!!

For quite some time, we have been receiving requests on how to support Oduche and his blog.  We are finally pleased to announce that Oduche Azih's Blog is now able to receive donations. Simply click the 'Donate' Button on the top right hand side of the blog.

Signed Oduche Azih's blog administration

ON THE TRUMP ANNIVERSARY:

What we were saying a year ago.
Fingers still crossed.

TRUMP WINS THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
Tragic!
One may ask how does it concern me. The same question could have been posed to the people living far away in Tobruk, Libya (?) in North Africa in the years of the rise to power of Adolph Hitler in Germany before he burst out on ALL his neighbours in 1939. Or indeed the people of the idyllic tropical paradise of Darwin, on the northern shores of far away Australia. The point here is that what you neither know about nor understand can hurt you deeply. For example how does a 25yearold youngman in Ogbunike, farmer, palmwine tapper, who had never been to Asaba, expect to be plucked at the Afor market as a British conscript in the year 1942, only to end up in Burma via Mombassa, Kenya to fight the Japanese, an enemy he had never heard of? This Trump thing is bound to be an illwind for friend and foe alike.

This is 2016 and the world today is much smaller than seven odd decades ago. The impact of modern telecommunications and hypersonic travel and armaments means that no one lives far from anyone else. My fear, which I pray will not come to pass, is that the mistake of the American people today and the many ones that a President Trump, not noted for his good temperament, will make in the days to come will haunt and destabilize the world order. Here I am refering to social, cultural, political and economic relationships.

Without stability on these fronts, we may have only the military option for all global issues. Put Russia and China in the mix and you have a potent brew. India and Pakistan may turn to the worse without a steady American hand to try to maintain a balance. There is so much more at stake than what the typical pu**y-pulling rough-neck thinks or even bothers. It goes far beyond American jobs and welfare.

If we ever needed prayers, it is now.
I fear, no be small!

WHO WILL STAND UP TO BE COUNTED? The standard reaction of Igbo and other Southern Elite:

"I WASN'T THERE!
I chose to keep my head below the parapet."

Definitely it is those who raise their heads above the parapet that get shot at. That's in the nature of any exchange of missiles, stones, arrows, guns or verbal & legal broadsides.

In many circles, lawyers and leaders of thought ruminate over and swear by the exploits of the Prof Yemi Osinbajo led justice ministry of Bola Tinubu's government in Lagos State. How many would boldly follow in those footsteps to test the frontiers of even the limited democratic governance that we pretend to practice? Very few indeed. We are all witnesses. Oh yes, we can mention Olisa Agbakoba, Femi Falana, Mike Ozekhome, etc, but it still doesn't amount to much. Those are individual crusaders. Their intervention is most welcome. However what is needed is for a critical mass of our people, with both financial and intellectual capital, to identify issues that they are passionate about or against and put their money where their mouth is. The Fed Govt Ministry of Justice does not have more money or time than the rest of us. We should be able to brief our own lawyers, tie up contentious issues in the High Court system, and strive to bring up many for determination at the appellate levels all the way to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. As it is the Supreme Court is having an easy ride without a plethora of constitutional determinations being demanded of it. If we are averse to shooting at each other in Boko-Haramland or in the swamps of the Niger Delta, then the judicial system must be stretched to its limits.

Having said the above, I wonder how many lawyers and well endowed lay people alike, will apply as amicus in this suit. We owe it to our grandchildren to be seen to be doing something (positive) to improve their prospects of a better tomorrow. That debt will never go away. ## SUIT AGAINST THE ARABIC INSCRIPTION ON THE ARMY LOGO

RE: SUIT NO :FHC /CS/AWK/115/2017- Nwafili Okwuosa Esq vs. Nigerian Army Council & Attorney General of the Federation.

*The Nigerian Army has its logo which expresses her motto in Arabic.

* This has raised eyebrows in several quarters as to the propriety of that, taking into cognizance that Arabic is neither an indigenous language nor our lingua franca. It is simply the language of the Islamic Religion.

* Nigeria as a country has its grundnorm - the Constitution, written in English Language. It is the same language that is used to transact official businesses within the country by the three arms of government. Same language extends to businesses at International fora to wit- Economic Community of West African States, African Union, United Nations, etc.

Only in moments of expediency, are our three major languages - Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, deployed.

* The vistas of lingua franca and local languages further poignantly questions the rationale in using Arabic, which is peculiar to the Islamic Faith, on the logo, which logo appears in official documents emanating from the Nigerian Army.

* Viewed from strict legal lenses, this scenario raises the fundamental question as to the constitutionality of the modus operandi adopted by the Army in her use of Arabic; which is a language peculiar to the Islamic Faith.

Is this not in terrorem against Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) which forbids the adoption of a state religion?

* Nwafili Mark Okwuosa Esq, a private legal practitioner in Onitsha, Anambra State and Human Rights, Constitutional cum Political Rights crusader, challenges the constitutional consistency of this act of the Nigerian Army.

* The Claimant has approached the Federal High Court, Awka Division, Anambra State, vide an Originating Summons, seeking, amongst others:

A declaration that Arabic is not an official language for the conduct of official businesses in Nigeria;

A declaration that the writing of the motto of the Nigerian Army on her logo in Arabic is illegal and unconstitutional, in the light of provision of Section 10 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended); and

An Order compelling the Army to rewrite, in English, the motto on her logo and effect same in all her official documents.

* The suit is billed for hearing on 6/12/2017.

Pix 1- Nwafili Okwuosa Esq.

Pix 2 - Chief of Army Staff - T. Y. Buratai.

Pix 3- The controversial Army Logo with Arabic language used in designating its motto.RE: SUIT NO :FHC /CS/AWK/115/2017- Nwafili Okwuosa Esq vs. Nigerian Army Council & Attorney General of the Federation.

*The Nigerian Army has its logo which expresses her motto in Arabic.

* This has raised eyebrows in several quarters as to the propriety of that, taking into cognizance that Arabic is neither an indigenous language nor our lingua franca. It is simply the language of the Islamic Religion.

* Nigeria as a country has its grundnorm - the Constitution, written in English Language. It is the same language that is used to transact official businesses within the country by the three arms of government. Same language extends to businesses at International fora to wit- Economic Community of West African States, African Union, United Nations, etc.

Only in moments of expediency, are our three major languages - Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba, deployed.

* The vistas of lingua franca and local languages further poignantly questions the rationale in using Arabic, which is peculiar to the Islamic Faith, on the logo, which logo appears in official documents emanating from the Nigerian Army.

* Viewed from strict legal lenses, this scenario raises the fundamental question as to the constitutionality of the modus operandi adopted by the Army in her use of Arabic; which is a language peculiar to the Islamic Faith.

Is this not in terrorem against Section 10 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) which forbids the adoption of a state religion?

* Nwafili Mark Okwuosa Esq, a private legal practitioner in Onitsha, Anambra State and Human Rights, Constitutional cum Political Rights crusader, challenges the constitutional consistency of this act of the Nigerian Army.

* The Claimant has approached the Federal High Court, Awka Division, Anambra State, vide an Originating Summons, seeking, amongst others:

A declaration that Arabic is not an official language for the conduct of official businesses in Nigeria;

A declaration that the writing of the motto of the Nigerian Army on her logo in Arabic is illegal and unconstitutional, in the light of provision of Section 10 of the Nigerian Constitution 1999 (as amended); and

An Order compelling the Army to rewrite, in English, the motto on her logo and effect same in all her official documents.

* The suit is billed for hearing on 6/12/2017.

Pix 1- Nwafili Okwuosa Esq.

Pix 2 - Chief of Army Staff - T. Y. Buratai.

Pix 3- The controversial Army Logo with Arabic language used in designating its motto.

THE TROUBLE WITH THE BUHARI GOVERNMENT - THE MAINA SAGA

A few days ago the Comptroller General of The Nigerian Customs Service, (the man who made a name for himself by refusing to don his official uniform), weighed in on this matter blaming the ousted party, the PDP.
I had briefly wondered if indeed Colonel(Rtd) Hameed Ali was hallucinating. I just couldn't get it. . Finally writer Yakubu Mohammed has provided a reasoned response that we can all live with.
Thank goodness!

ALI'S WRONG DIAGNOSIS, WRONG PRESCRIPTION
By Yakubu Mohammed
02 November 2017

Tongues have not stopped wagging over the Maina mania. The hoopla it generated across the nation has so far refused to die down. The Mania has consequently, almost inevitably, sent the government into panic mode. As part of the fire-fighting measures, the Buharists, the die-hard apostles of President Muhammadu Buhari, have returned to the drawing board in search of what has gone wrong.

Leading the pack is retired Army Colonel Hameed Ali, Comptroller General of Customs. Last week he seemed to have hit the nail on its head, if you permit the use of this cliché. He confirmed the fears of most Nigerians by admitting publicly that the Buhari regime had derailed because it had lost its vision and its core values.

But mercifully, Ali did not go as far as saying it was a hopeless case, which accounts for the absence of the more terrifying adverb – irretrievably! And he did not confirm my worst fears which I expressed in this column last week, which also accounts for the absence of a more cataclysmic portrayal of the current state of despair – it is, after all, not hope betrayed. I had hoped, and it appears a forlorn hope, that President Buhari would not succumb to the chicanery of some of his faithful aides who appeared, through acts of omission or commission, to be aiding and abetting corruption. If he surrendered, it would, in my view, amount to a betrayal of hope and a terrible damage to his hard-earned reputation.

Ali said: “It is my belief that those of us who have been in the trenches all these years to get good governance will surely be sleeping with belly ache every day especially in the recent past. Every day, when you wake up, there is a story that makes you cringe. We cannot sit back and allow things to happen the way they are happening.”

If Ali and other committed Buharists believe that the derailment he lamented about amounted to a lost cause, they would not be re-launching the Buhari Support Group to support not only a return to good governance, transparent leadership, integrity and probity but also to give a solid support to the war against corruption by speedily dealing with pending corruption cases and stopping those in government from dipping their hands into the till and cause more scandals and more embarrassment.

Those with sticky fingers should have no business enlisting in the Army of Buhari faithful to prosecute the war against corruption because, as a matter of habit, they cannot resist the temptation of soiling their hands and possibly rubbing those miserable hands on Buhari’s stainless, white babaringa. And if President Buhari knows them and realises that they in fact mean no well to the success of his administration, he must demonstrate the Buharism in him to speedily excommunicate them from service and get them to cool their feet in jail. That does not run counter to his new faith – the rule of law and the upholding of human rights.

Colonel Ali has given a lie to the notion, widely held, that you cannot look President Buhari in the face and tell him the truth. He has identified what he believes is wrong with the government. He may be wrong in his diagnosis and in his prescriptions, but he has the courage of his convictions to say what he believes to be the truth.

But Ali is not exactly right in some of his diagnoses. He is not right, for instance, to claim that it is the members of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who, he claims, constitute 50 per cent of the Buhari government that are pulling down the administration. To start with, it is not on record that this is a coalition government of PDP and All Progressives Congress. What Nigerians know and what majority of them did in the 2015 presidential election was that they voted for President Buhari who stood on the platform of APC. He trumped the PDP candidate, the incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan.

So what we have is an APC government headed by President Buhari. There appears, in my view, to be no other way to define this government. There must be a limit to the blame game. Ali must accept the cold fact that this one does not fly. If this government fails the people, the President has nobody to blame but himself, not PDP, not his aides and not members of the kitchen cabinet or the so-called cabal.

When in 1979 this country switched over from the Westminster parliamentary system of government, with a prime minster that was first among equals, to the U.S. model of the presidential system, with a president that wields executive powers, the idea was to have a leader that would carry the whole country along whether or not the citizens uniformly voted for him.

Those who voted for him and those who voted against him have equal entitlements and they make equal demands on him. On inauguration day, he morphed into the symbol of national unity, equal opportunities for the people and even development for the country. As President Buhari stated it eloquently at his inauguration, he belongs to nobody and he belongs to everybody. If he succeeds, he carries the glory of his success. But if he fails, he alone goes down in history as the man who betrays the hopes and the confidence of his people. In this business, he makes no excuses, because there is no room for excuses.

Granted that Ali is right and granted that PDP members are in this administration as fifth columnists, the question is: whose fault? The president has the power to hire and to fire and he cannot blame another party for the burden of his own office. It is the duty of the president to pick the right people who share in his vision and who have the nobility of character suitable for his goals and his objectives in power. If he chooses to load his government with people of doubtful character, he creates a monumental problem of credibility for himself and for his administration. He would have also short-changed the people because he preferred the mediocre to the best and the brightest available.

As Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has had occasion to lament, the greatest problem this government has had to confront was getting good and honest people to work with it. Good and honest people, as it always happens, don’t get the chance to serve because they cannot compete with corrupt people who buy their ways into public office. It may be stranger than fiction, but those given the opportunity to head-hunt for government have turned their offices into a toll gate of sorts. And they hawk positions and opportunities to the highest bidders, many of them veterans of corrupt practices.

It is the height of hypocrisy for leaders to pretend not to be aware of the antics of the small men in the corridors of power. We cannot forget that at the inception of the Buhari administration, the wife of the President, Mrs Aisha Buhari, made a public appeal to those privileged to work with her husband not to collect money from those seeking to have appointment to come see her or the President.

Her public appeal was instructive. If this was the practice in the previous administrations, nobody can say today on oath that this practice has been consigned to the dustbin of history; that the fear of Buhari has brought sanity.
The current Maina mania is proof positive that nothing has changed.

THE LIKES OF NNAMDI KANU COME IN MANY SHAPES, TEMPERAMENTS AND SKILL-SETS. This Tony Nnadi of The Lower Niger Congress is tenacious. A MEMORANDUM TO THE SOUTHERN NIGERIA GOVERNORS MEETING IN LAGOS, 23RD OCTOBER 2017.

(This Memorandum was written May 25th 2017 as my contribution to the Grand Self-mocking Event in Abuja tagged Biafra@50.

I place it, unedited, before the Governors of Southern Nigeria, meeting today in Lagos to examine new ways of persuading the obdurate, arrogant Caliphate North to move dying Nigeria to the Operation Theater for an urgent Restructuring surgery).

THE STRATIFICATION OF ONE-NIGERIA, ACCORDING TO THE 1960 MISSION STATEMENT AND BATTLE-SCRIPT OF AHMADU BELLO

The Devil is most successful amongst people who believe that the Devil does not exist.

That is the situation around this debate of whether or not there are Masters and Slaves in the Nigeria of now.

Those who reduce everything to spurious academic arguments and vacuous postulations are at liberty to amuse themselves but there are some of us who already have the monster enslaving Eastern Nigeria in a pinfall and chokehold and there will be no letting until that monster is fully dead and interred, thereby freeing its many Captives starting with Eastern Nigeria.

That monster is called "One-Nigeria".

HERE ARE THE FACTS:

In the very week of Independence in 1960, as the rest of Nigeria popped champagne, especially in the South, celebrating what they thought freedom from Colonial Suzerainty, the then Premier of the Northern Region, Ahmadu Bello Declared to his lieutenants as follows:

"The new Nation called Nigeria should be the ESTATE of our Great-Grandfather, Uthman Dan Fodio. We must RUTHLESSLY prevent the CHANGE of POWER. We use the Minorities of the North as WILLING-TOOLS and the South as a Conquered Territory and NEVER ALLOW THEM TO RULE OVER US, and never allow them have CONTROL over their future"
(Reported in the Parrot Newspaper of 12th October, 1960),

Those who did not know or understand how both Nigeria and its Eastern Region got to where we are now, should take the quote above as the Oracle, to decipher same.

In reality, Southern Nigeria, on October 1st 1960, merely transited from External British Colonialism to internal Fulani Caliphate Colonialism.

Nigeria, as currently Defined and Configured under the Unitarist 1999 Constitution, is the full implementation of that Ahmadu Bello's 1960 MISSION STATEMENT and BATTLE SCRIPT, thus the Nigeria of today, to all intents and purposes, is the Private Estate of the Political Descendants of Ahmadu Bello.

That Estate was the very one bought by the British Crown from Taubman Goldie's Royal Niger Company in 1900 for the sum of £865,000.

It was the same Estate, that Secretary for the Colonies, Lord Harcourt, through Lugard, bequeated to the well-behaved Northern Youth in the 1914 Annexation of the Southern Lady of Means to the poor North in an exercise tagged Amalgamation. (Harcourt's Cablegram of December 31st, 1913).

It was that 1914 Grand Bequest to the North that Ahmadu Bello was Celebrating with his lieutenants in October 1960.

It is the protection of that Private Estate that has been the central target and theme of ALL the Decrees-turned Constitutions by which Nigeria had been defined and managed from 1966 to date.

Those from the East, especially the Intelligentsia, who claim to be looking for solutions to a problem they do not understand are very much like that doctor who seeks to cure a life-threatening ailment he has not properly diagnosed. The patient will die. It is that simple.

The Master-Servant Nigeria we have in place now, resulted directly from the full execution of that 1960 Mission Statement and Battle Script of Ahmadu Bello and so any reversal of the situation *must* proceed from the correct *diagnosis* flowing from the dissection of the 1960 Battle Script.

The 3.5 Million deaths in the Battlefield called "Biafra" 1967-1970, including the over 2million children who were starved to death, died from the RUTHLESSNESS that was required to PREVENT a change of power.

The WILLING-TOOLS of the Middle-Belt, deployed by the Caliphate, to go and do the bulk of the killings in Biafra included the such yamheads as Yakubu Gowon and Theophylus Danjuma, whose ancestral homes are today occupied and put under the siege of their erstwhile Caliphate Principals and Partners in the crime of Genocide.

The Conquered Territory is the East and West of Southern Nigeria.

From the East, 3 million Barrels of Crude is taken daily and we now know from the Senate who and who, OWN the oil acreages.

From the West, the proceeds from the Lagos Ports which today, sum up in excess of N2Trillion annually, is collected strictly by the Fulani Owners or does anyone here think it is by accident that from Independence to date, not one substantive Comptroller-General of Customs could be found from anywhere else (including Yorubaland) outside the Caliphate-North? The landlord collects his rent and may even dispatch his little Amina of a daughter to do the gate-taking.

The road that runs from the front of Bonny Camp to Eko Hotel is called "Ahmadu Bello Way". Has someone not dipped his Quran into the Atlantic Ocean from the Ilorin where their British Partner-in-Crime met them, back in the day of Jihads?

Let those who wish to learn, find out the when, the how and the who, which together produced the naming of that last piece of tarred firm land abutting the Atlantic after "Ahmadu Bello."

The making between 1966 and 1999, of what we now bandy around as "1999 Constitution" was done by various Decrees issued by the Political Scions of Ahmadu Bello, with every one of them playing exactly within the Role and Status assigned his Territory in the 1960 Battle Script.

The 68-Item Federal Exclusive List that seize and confiscate ALL major Economic Assets and the right to work them, from the actual owners, vesting same in the so-called "Federal Government", are acts of Conquest.

The 36-States/774LGs Structure of Nigeria which effectively reduced the Igbo from the over 70% Control of Nigeria at Independence to the negligible political minority of today, was wrought by the Decrees of the Political Scions of Ahmadu Bello.

Ironsi and Abiola got killed because it was an abomination in the sight of the Caliphate for the Slave to rule over the House of his Master.

Goodluck Jonathan was saved by God after committing the same "sacrilegious" crime and we all saw how he was hounded out by the political descendants of Ahmadu Bello. The Slave must know his place. That seems to be the overall message.

The adamant refusal of the Caliphate hawks of the North to accept the life-or-death prescription of Restructuring for terminally-ill Nigeria, is in keeping with the NEVER ALLOW THEM TO HAVE CONTROL OVER THEIR FUTURE Ahmadu Bello Ordinance of 1960

There are some untrained eyes here who would say "Oh, but was it not Obasanjo that did this and that in the long list of the evils enumerated?.

The answer is that there is the Office of the Head-Slave which takes the scrutiny of the trained eye to distinguish from that of the Master or his Princes.

Obasanjo had been holding that Office and I have had to point this out in public a number times when our confused compatriots who have great book knowledge come pointing towards Otta instead of Sokoto.

They fail to recall that on a certain day in February 1976, shortly after the Butcher of Asaba named Murtala Mohammed, then Head of the Nigerian State, died most deservedly from the hail of hot bullets at the peak of his glory, there was a Lieutenant-Colonel named Shehu Yar'Adua who was promoted Major-General and made Chief of Staff at the Supreme Headquarters and who was, on behalf of the Caliphate, the effective Power behind the Throne in the 1976-1979 interregnum of the Head-Slave, Olusegun Obasanjo.

Today, this moronic jester of a Head-Slave, leads a column of other mockers, including the Husband of a she-Awolowo, (who pretend to hold the rudder of the Nigerian State as Acting President), to go to Shehu Yar'Adua Center in Abuja, to dance on the grave of the 3.5million Biafra Dead, celebrating their unpunished Genocide, 50 years after their crime.

It is atrocious that there are Igbo sons and daughters, promoting this desperate and despicable attempt to publicly bury Biafra, as the resurgent Ghost of Biafra seems to be on a ferocious gyration around Nigeria, tormenting the guilty genocidists (of which Obasanjo is one) and tearing the dying Nigeria at the seams.

I recall that the day this "Abuja" edition of Biafra@50 was first advertised, I raised a red flag where I had suggested that I would not be surprised if Gowon and Danjuma turn up to be the Chief-Celebrants at the Event. Is that alarm not vindicated now?

Regarding the Motives behind this very "Abuja" Biafra@50, I had in support of my red Flag, given the parable of the burning market and the variegated missions of those who rush to the scene, all pretending to be sympathizers and helpers, seeking to put out the fire and salvage goods for the owners. In reality, Some go in to loot vaults and safes; Some go in to Salvage goods for themselves; Some go in to ensure complete raze-down.

From where I stand in the raging Debate over the Nigeria Question, I say without equivocation, that the "Abuja" Biafra@50 Event happening today May 25th 2017, is not a celebration of Biafra as the Organizers dressed it to look.

It is a desperate enemy action, aimed at exorcizing the Ghost of Biafra for final interment.

But I also assure the Abuja Celebrants that the real soul-lifting, forward looking Celebrations are going on amongst the millions of the survivors of that Genocide and that the gathering in Abuja today is also being mocked across the length and breadth of the Lower Niger, as the funeral of the dead Nigeria which they tried to erect on the pool of the blood of 3.5 Million Biafrans.

By the time the dust settles from these two Different Celebrations, Millions of the real Celebrants will join the Great Griot, Chinua Achebe to declare that "THERE WAS A COUNTRY".

Visit www.lnc-usa.org
+234-810-056-9448 (WhatsApp)

Tony Nnadi
LNC
25/05/17

OBASANJO AND BUHARI TAKE OVER 40YEARS TO PAY BIAFRA POLICE PENSIONS. IF THEY ACTUALLY PULL IT OFF.

I am so happy that despite my initial rapid draw instincts towards this development, I had patiently waited to hear out other commentators with a more robust public profile. I hasten to add that I distance myself from the expression of gratitude by the leadership of Ohaneze Ndigbo for this new announcement which proves nothing and does not provide closure for the three year civil war that APPARENTLY DID NOT END in 1970. Those in any doubt should ask Buhari. Justice delayed is justice denied.

After the deadly Operation Python Dance with the yet unacknowledged murders by the Nigerian Army, this administration launched a PR assault first with the denounced immunization of Igbo children. Curiously President Buhari has added yet another front by "approving" the payment of the pensions of Biafran police officers who were "pardoned" by the Nigerian (Military) Government for participating in the civil war.

As at January 1967, these police officers, who had evaded being killed in the ethnic cleansing that started on May 29, 1966, were required by government directive to have returned to the Eastern Region. That requirement came from the many agreements between the surviving members of General Ironsi's Supreme Military Council, as they struggled to disengage ever so gingerly in an effort to douse tensions. We all know with the benefit of hindsight that they failed woefully. Hence the war.

Igbo police officers and other Easterners were in Biafra, where they were supposed to be for crying out loud! That was the arrangement. Muhammadu Buhari was probably too junior to have been involved in the negotiations. Hence I still wonder for what crime these Biafran police officers were being "pardonned." Because of this, I would not be surprised if my agemates are rounded up in the fullness of time so that Buhari and his government can dispense pardon on us. Our crime? I was 19years old when the shooting started. I am offering no prize for guessing what my agemates did to pass the time from that first loneshot anonymous at Gakem onwards. I may even pin that "Pardon" to my coat lapel.

One other thing. I recall that the bloody war ended 48years ago. So, what's the hurry? Why not wait another five to ten years to ensure that no Igbo Biafran Police Officer is still alive to claim the socalled pension? Who is kidding who?

Which enterprising surviving Igboman and his children will wait 48years for the deified princes of the Nigerian firmament to invite them back to the table? Buhari & Co., not to mention Obasanjo and others before him, have been tantalizing Ndigbo with this "pardon" for decades. After obtaining the pardon more than ten years ago, these owners of Nigeria went to stage 2, ie tantalizing the "fools" who are still alive, who refused to die, with the probability of actually being paid.

In a culture and society that spawned the likes of Coscharis, Ekene-Dili-Chukwu, Chrome Group, Anabel, SLOT, INNOSON, CUTIX, Task Systems, Fourth Dimension Publishers, NESTOIL, RainOil, OilServe, etc, could a hundred or so Biafran police officers actually have been waiting for their mockers to develop human decency? Of course not. Hence Ndigbo cannot allow a flailing Buhari presidency to snatch victory out of the jaws of defeat by using our geriatric corps of surviving Biafran police officers against us as pawns. God forbid. Ndigbo have always been able to take care of their own, no matter what.

It is instructive that after engineering the "pardon" in 2001, a political gambit at best, former president Obasanjo remained in office for another six years, during which he forgot to apply his almost limitless executive powers in ensuring that these abused Biafra police officers got justice. Before and after his seccond coming, OBJ has been a member of the National Council of State for as long as anyone can remember. . Now an Igbo-hating President Muhammadu Buhari has taken over the charade and has again thrown in the 2ND NIGER BRIDGE for good measure. Haba! This is against the run of play. Again, what's the hurry? What is the origin of this sudden outbreak of love for Ndigbo? Some people have pointed at the 2019 elections. However, I do not find that to be realistic or even convincing. How does a man who is obviously unsure of successfully completing the current term as president, go gunning for a new term eighteen months into the future. With the kind of overt opposition that Buhari is facing from all of us, one would expect that all efforts should be focused towards salvaging this current time in office. I fail to see how the hide and seek surrounding dismissed/retired Biafran Police officers and the 2nd Niger Bridge contributes towards that rescue mission.

President Buhari must take the generality of Ndigbo to be proper mumu. That is quite telling.

https://www.google.com/…/biafra-ohanaeze-reacts-buhari…/amp/

My people, have you ever pronounced or stumbled over ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI?

Did you send a letter, (texts and emails didn't exist in his heydays) asking him to simplify or change his name? Of course you didn't.

During my days of adult education at Stanford, a younger American, (most of them were, considering that I had spent time in Biafra, attended Unilag, served in the NYSC, worked at Coca-Cola, gotten married with a daughter Ng to boot), met me in an elevator in the Mitchell Building of the Department of Applied Earth Sciences. He struck up a conversation with me and when I had introduced myself as Oduche Azih, he immediately demanded that I should save him from his misery. "Don't you have a simple name like Peter?" he proposed. I had deadpanned, "No."

Of course that was a lie which I have never regretted to this day. . Seven days after I was born, my parents named me Oduche, short for Odinuche.

Most African names have an exact meaning and often translate into a full sentence or a phrase. Mine meant "he who is/has always been on my mind." Years later I was to find particular satisfaction and attachment to the name because of the character Oduche in Chinua Achebe's ARROW OF GOD.

For completeness I add that when I was a month old, a priest showed up at our local church and baptized me Denis. For those who have followed my story so far, it is clear that my first name in is thus Oduche, whereas Denis can only be my second or middle name. Hence it would have been most unfair for a white young man who gave me his (first) name as say Bill to be given my second name in return. He had to deal with Oduche, period.

It is noteworthy that about two decades down the road, one of my daughters, whom I never briefed on the above narrative, did almost the same thing to a fellow student. Among Ndigbo, and perhaps others, it is said that "the offspring of a snake is bound to be long." .
I rest my bag. https://youtu.be/JTPC73SdRkA

FOR THOSE WHO LOVE NDIGBO MORE THAN THEY LOVE THEMSELVES. . BACK OFF!

I AM QUITE DEPRESSED that some of my "friends" on the social media have such a limited scope of the many different possible outcomes of the current political turmoil that Nigeria is experiencing. Some of them, knee-jerk opponents of the #Biafran Project or even ordinary #Restructuring, cannot visualize a peaceful modus vivendi going forward. To them, a tepid handshake cannot be tolerated once the current suffocating embrace is spurned. To such to have raised an outcry about the recent immunization debacle in the South-East is akin to treason. I just don't get it. Love so amazing!

Some of these "friends" and wellwishers cannot for once leave Ndigbo to their stupidity. Their overarching desire to save Ndigbo from themselves is quite commendable but is approaching the point of ridiculousness.

Ndigbo have a thousand and one ways to hedge against the hegemonistic inclinations of the muslim Hausa-Fulani north. The approaches that they choose at any particular point in time is entirely up to them. . Only them. Nobody else. Can any sane person shackle the future of Ndigbo and their grandchildren to bread and butter issues like potatoes, peppers and tomatoes? Or perhaps beef and chicken?
OMG!

LESSON: In the midst of an almost total collapse of US-Russia relationship, a multi-year contract for the supply of advanced Russian single cycle rocket engines still stands. Despite ongoing multi frontal effort by US companies to develop alternatives, some proven, no one seems to be in a hurry to scrap this deal. And this despite the fact that these rockets can be fitted on ICBMs! !

Despite the rhetoric, Russia which makes hardly anything that anyone wants to buy, suddenly finds some product for which both NASA and the private US space industry are ready to pay top dollar, and you want them to walk away from it? Tufiakwa, they could say. Not with the price of oil scrapping the barrel.

Please note that EVEN IF #Biafra comes to be, following these agitations, Ndigbo will continue to trade with their "enemies." People have so much to learn.

Even devil's advocacy has its limits.

As it is some people have wholeheartedly denounced the benefit of the doubt that I have so graciously granted them. (See below.) What more can I say?

http://dailypost.ng/2016/10/20/oduche-azih-yorubas-afraid-biafra/