Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Toyin Falola

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Apr 19, 2020, 6:57:22 AM4/19/20
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This has come up a lot in the last 24 hours, but it is being misapplied and misinterpreted:

  1. Kings, chiefs, politicians, and powerful figures are generally exempt from this. You can, and you can do street rejoicing after the fall of a bad king or leader. Examples are too many to invoke. Remember regicide?
  2. It was invented for community cohesion, and not for state engineering. There is a difference, a big difference.
  3. And in some cases, not when funeral and mourning are still on.

 

The analysis, for or against Abba Kyari, is not covered by this long-held adage.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

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The University of Texas at Austin

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Malami Buba

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Apr 19, 2020, 10:25:00 AM4/19/20
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Maigida,
There are also traditions of the Prophet regarding this exhortation in Islam, and they seem to be all-encompassing in their application.  May Allah have mercy upon his soul, amin.

Malami







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Toyin Falola

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Apr 19, 2020, 10:44:43 AM4/19/20
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Great friend:

This is not the time to enjoy a good debate. This season shall pass.

 

Yes, there was a Umma, a community, when the Prophet  Muahmmad (peace and blessings upon him) spoke. A community will not work well without this injunction and you can see that by the time of the 4th Caliph this was not holding.

 

Once you occupy a political office—which is the crucial distinction--, the “public” is not a Umma, unfortunately. It is like saying the Igbo who lived during the Civil War should not rejoice at the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It won’t work, unfortunately. That “public” has been divided in a dhimi contract:

 

أهل الذمة ahl ul-ḏimmah/dhimmah

 

Thus, while I never abuse or insult people, I can understand why the Igbo speak ill of Awolowo the very moment he died!

 

If Trump were to die today, even with the Coronavirus, not only will millions of people speak ill of the dead, many will open bottles of wine and do pleasant funeral ceremonies!

 

Stay well, and be assured that the injunction applies to all my friends.

TF

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Apr 19, 2020, 11:52:17 AM4/19/20
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Thanks chief.  I had posted before suddenly realizing Obododinma could cite the case of Abacha whose demise was celebrated to contradict me.

Prima facie my response would have been that, thats why I concentrated my arsenals on his boss Ibrahim Babangida who is still alive and whose agents could contradict whatever I said about him if they felt it was unfair or false. 

 In the case of a tyrannical military dictator like Abacha  with proven misrule, for example whose loot has been categorical traced, who converted his residence to an extension of the Central Bank, who set up his own refinery while rendering Nigerian official golden geese refineries comatose and who murdered in cold blood at will of course his demise can be celebrated and judgemental comments can be made about him.

OAA 



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: 'Malami Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 19/04/2020 15:37 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Maigida,
There are also traditions of the Prophet regarding this exhortation in Islam, and they seem to be all-encompassing in their application.  May Allah have mercy upon his soul, amin.

Malami

On 19 Apr 2020, at 11:56, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

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Biko Agozino

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Apr 19, 2020, 1:30:09 PM4/19/20
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The hammer falls on the moderator. 

Why single out the Igbo as a group that celebrated the death of Awo and where is the evidence of the owambe? There may have been individuals, even among Yoruba supporters of Akintola and Omoboriowo, who jubilated but it is on record that Igbo leaders who lived through Biafra were full of praise for Awo. Zik called him his good friend. Ojukwu called him the best president that Nigeria never had. S.G. Ikoku was always an Awoist in opposition to Zik. And Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe. So, by the Igbo speaking evil of Awo, do you mean those, including the Yoruba, who are critical of the indefensible and unrepentant assertions of Awo and Enahoro that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and that all if fair in warfare?

The moderator has goofed on this blanket assertion of Igbophobia. I suggest that he should withdraw the statement or we we will vote him out as a moderator.

Biko

Okechukwu Ukaga

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Apr 19, 2020, 3:12:08 PM4/19/20
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Dear Biko,

The moderator did not say Igbos as a group celebrated the death of Owo. That is your misinterpratation of what he wrote:
 
"It is like saying the Igbo who lived during the Civil War should not rejoice at the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It won’t work." 

And your agreement that there may have been individuals (including but not limited to Igbos) who jubiliated in response to Awo's death illustrates the moderator's point. Notably, he did not imply that Igbos as a group or their leaders rejoiced at Awo's death. Rather he implied that, if asked not to rejoice over Awo's death, is unlikely to get full compliance from those suffered from what you have described here as indefensible policy of starvation as a weapon of war. A fraction might rejoice; others won't for a variety of reasons. 

This reminds me of the frustration - aggression theory that frustration inevitable results in aggression or Newton's third law of motion that for every action there us equal and opposite reaction. So it is unrealistic to spank a child and also ask the the child not cry. 

Regards,
Okey


On Apr 19, 2020 12:30 PM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
The hammer falls on the moderator. 

Why single out the Igbo as a group that celebrated the death of Awo and where is the evidence of the owambe? There may have been individuals, even among Yoruba supporters of Akintola and Omoboriowo, who jubilated but it is on record that Igbo leaders who lived through Biafra were full of praise for Awo. Zik called him his good friend. Ojukwu called him the best president that Nigeria never had. S.G. Ikoku was always an Awoist in opposition to Zik. And Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe. So, by the Igbo speaking evil of Awo, do you mean those, including the Yoruba, who are critical of the indefensible and unrepentant assertions of Awo and Enahoro that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and that all if fair in warfare?

The moderator has goofed on this blanket assertion of Igbophobia. I suggest that he should withdraw the statement or we we will vote him out as a moderator.

Biko

On Sunday, 19 April 2020, 11:52:17 GMT-4, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:


Thanks chief.  I had posted before suddenly realizing Obododinma could cite the case of Abacha whose demise was celebrated to contradict me.

Prima facie my response would have been that, thats why I concentrated my arsenals on his boss Ibrahim Babangida who is still alive and whose agents could contradict whatever I said about him if they felt it was unfair or false. 

 In the case of a tyrannical military dictator like Abacha  with proven misrule, for example whose loot has been categorical traced, who converted his residence to an extension of the Central Bank, who set up his own refinery while rendering Nigerian official golden geese refineries comatose and who murdered in cold blood at will of course his demise can be celebrated and judgemental comments can be made about him.

OAA 



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: 'Malami Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Date: 19/04/2020 15:37 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Toyin Falola

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Apr 19, 2020, 3:33:27 PM4/19/20
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Okey:

Biko is angry at me because I used Trump as one example, and he prefers Igbophobia to Afrophobia.

TF

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 2:12 PM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

Dear Biko,

 

The moderator did not say Igbos as a group celebrated the death of Owo. That is your misinterpratation of what he wrote:

 

"It is like saying the Igbo who lived during the Civil War should not rejoice at the death of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. It won’t work." 

 

And your agreement that there may have been individuals (including but not limited to Igbos) who jubiliated in response to Awo's death illustrates the moderator's point. Notably, he did not imply that Igbos as a group or their leaders rejoiced at Awo's death. Rather he implied that, if asked not to rejoice over Awo's death, is unlikely to get full compliance from those suffered from what you have described here as indefensible policy of starvation as a weapon of war. A fraction might rejoice; others won't for a variety of reasons. 

 

This reminds me of the frustration - aggression theory that frustration inevitable results in aggression or Newton's third law of motion that for every action there us equal and opposite reaction. So it is unrealistic to spank a child and also ask the the child not cry. 

 

Regards,

Okey

 

 

On Apr 19, 2020 12:30 PM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

The hammer falls on the moderator. 

 

Why single out the Igbo as a group that celebrated the death of Awo and where is the evidence of the owambe? There may have been individuals, even among Yoruba supporters of Akintola and Omoboriowo, who jubilated but it is on record that Igbo leaders who lived through Biafra were full of praise for Awo. Zik called him his good friend. Ojukwu called him the best president that Nigeria never had. S.G. Ikoku was always an Awoist in opposition to Zik. And Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe. So, by the Igbo speaking evil of Awo, do you mean those, including the Yoruba, who are critical of the indefensible and unrepentant assertions of Awo and Enahoro that starvation is a legitimate weapon of war and that all if fair in warfare?

 

The moderator has goofed on this blanket assertion of Igbophobia. I suggest that he should withdraw the statement or we we will vote him out as a moderator.

 

Biko

 

On Sunday, 19 April 2020, 11:52:17 GMT-4, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

 

 

Thanks chief.  I had posted before suddenly realizing Obododinma could cite the case of Abacha whose demise was celebrated to contradict me.

 

Prima facie my response would have been that, thats why I concentrated my arsenals on his boss Ibrahim Babangida who is still alive and whose agents could contradict whatever I said about him if they felt it was unfair or false. 

 

 In the case of a tyrannical military dictator like Abacha  with proven misrule, for example whose loot has been categorical traced, who converted his residence to an extension of the Central Bank, who set up his own refinery while rendering Nigerian official golden geese refineries comatose and who murdered in cold blood at will of course his demise can be celebrated and judgemental comments can be made about him.

 

OAA 

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Malami Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 19/04/2020 15:37 (GMT+00:00)

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Apr 19, 2020, 4:03:21 PM4/19/20
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Comrade Biko is an ethnic pan-Africanist? Hmmmm! 

Sent from my iPhone

On 19 Apr 2020, at 7:33 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 19, 2020, 6:05:32 PM4/19/20
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Re:  more ethics: about the permissibility of celebrating the death of someone perceived to be an enemy.

Since Nigeria is a predominantly Muslim country, there are norms to be followed in Islamic circles. Which doesn’t mean that each and every Muslim has taken Rasulullah – Sallallahu  alaihi wa salaam’s Last Sermon to heart. The last sermon in which he said, ““Learn that every Muslim is a brother to every Muslim and that the Muslims constitute one brotherhood.”  Which of course doesn’t mean that Muslims are not fighting fellow Muslims in Yemen, Syria, Libya, and Iraq…

On the afternoon of 17 August 1988, I was walking peacefully along Edgware Road when some Pakistani women in hijab rushed out of their shop and started handing out candy to passers-by. They were very happy and dancing, creating quite an unusual public spectacle. I was accosted by one of them.  The news had just come in, they explained, and the good news was that the plane carrying their enemy Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq had just crashed, killing everybody on board, so they were very happy indeed, please here’s some free candy, share our joy, they sang and danced around…

 I don’t know how the Halabja Kurds and the Shia worldwide felt on that festive Eid al-Adha day that Saddam was hanged, since he it was that invaded Iran, destroyed their oil facilities in Abadan, until Iran kicked them out after some heavy fighting – and even after that, the war continued for another seven years, assisted and bankrolled by the Sunni powers that be along with their best friends in the West, with the exception of Colonel Ghaddafi’s Libya – and during which time ( so I’m told) Saddam would get some of the Iraqi Shia to drink gasoline and then light them up.  Needless to say, he is accused of killing Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr …

You can well imagine the feeling when Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Jerusalem

I assume that Biko the genius is only being as sarcastic as he possibly can when he suggests that “Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe.” Really?

 Biko has to be careful; posterity could read and understand what he says here, differently.  He should know that there could be some among us who don’t read critically and take words at their face value. On such people some figures of speech, innuendo, puns, understatements, even lowly sarcasm and irony is lost on them. How could Achebe have been “full of praise for Awo”, if Awo is widely seen as the architect of a genocidal war policy of starvation as a weapon of war that crippled the Biafra war efforts, by causing the mass starvation of Biafra’s Civilian population?

Achebe, after all, was one of the most vociferous voices against Awo being honoured with a national funeral on the grounds that, “Awolowo was not an Igbo God!”

I’m still thinking of those Pakistani women in hijab, singing and dancing and making merry in London.

One of Pakistan’s greatest popular vocalists ( also immensely popular in India) : Rahat Fateh Ali Khan here singing Afreen Afreen


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Biko Agozino

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Apr 19, 2020, 9:25:38 PM4/19/20
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Cornel you wrote:
"I assume that Biko the genius is only being as sarcastic as he possibly can when he suggests that “Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe.” Really?
 "Biko has to be careful; posterity could read and understand what he says here, differently.  He should know that there could be some among us who don’t read critically and take words at their face value. On such people some figures of speech, innuendo, puns, understatements, even lowly sarcasm and irony is lost on them. How could Achebe have been “full of praise for Awo”, if Awo is widely seen as the architect of a genocidal war policy of starvation as a weapon of war that crippled the Biafra war efforts, by causing the mass starvation of Biafra’s Civilian population?"
Rabbi, since you can read and understand innuendos, why don't you go and read what Achebe wrote before you start lumping him together with a Pakistani woman distributing candies in London in celebration of the death of Zia? If you no sabi read, make I teacher you now. Achebe said that Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo. But no, Awo was no God of the Igbo.
Zik actually addressed the critique of Achebe by laying out the records of his 'stewardship'. He quoted Awo himself as saying that the reason why he launched the free education program was to catch up with the Eastern region which had built more schools and registered more students than the Western region. That legacy still stands with the East still leading the country in academic achievements. Perhaps, without Awo's intervention, the West may be struggling like the North today the way Oyo and Osun states continue to struggle in the bottom 10 states in the league of WAEC results while all the five Eastern states are in the top 10. Falola should be addressing this unexpected trend in his home state rather than attempt to demonize the Igbo as haters that they are not.
Under Zik, there was no politics of bitterness of the sort that led to operation wetie and operation Owoboriomo in the West under Awo even when Zik's party lost some elections such as when he lost the Mayorship of Enugu City to a Fulani man from Kano and when he lost Anambra governorship to the NPN. Okpara sent the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation to announce correct election results in the West when Akintola was announcing the rigged results on radio Nigeria, according to Soyinka in the Ibadan: The Penkelmese Years (Soyinka reported that he sat in Awo's ransacked library and begged the radio journalists from the East to go back before the thugs looking for them found them while he alone wanted to wait for the thugs to return and face his wrath). 
Zik wrote poems mourning the assassination of his political friends during the first coup. Among Igbo writers and artists, there is no genre of triumphalism of the sort that Ali Mazrui displayed in condemning Chris Okigbo, his fellow intellectual, in the court of the land of ancestors, for the alleged crime of abandoning poetry to defend his people against genocide, without knowing that Okigbo also saw his participation in the resistance as a participant observation research methodology in search of new materials for his poetry, according to Obumselu. When Murtala Muhamad was assassinated, the Oriental Brothers released a popular song mourning him for creating two new states in the South East that was lumped together into one state until then and condemning the Dimka bloody coup despite the fact that Murtala was known to have committed massacres against Igbo men in Asaba during the war. 
So, where did Falola get this incendiary idea that the Igbo talked ill of Awo the moment he died when the Igbo and those with conscience around the world disapproved of the cruel claim that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war while Awo was alive and had all the opportunity to withdraw the claim but chose to double down. Why was Falola making such a false claim while sharing the testimony of an Igbo diplomat in defense of a Kanuri bureaucrat whose death was allegedly celebrated by a Hausa commissioner in Kano state government who got sacked for such indiscretion? 
Why single out the collectively hated Igbo as celebrators of the death of enemies when there is no evidence of that among the Igbo who are known more for traveling outside their region to make legitimate living and make friends more than any other group and despite persistent hostility to their presence in other parts of Nigeria even though they have never retaliated with hostility to other Nigerians who have settled in the South East? The traveller has no enemies, say the Igbo.
Help me tell the moderator to take am easy o. Diye diye o. Withdraw that statement quick quick.
Biko

R



Anthony Akinola

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Apr 20, 2020, 6:23:42 AM4/20/20
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Actually, Chinua Achebe mocked the celebration of the death of Awolowo by the Yoruba describing
it as HOCUS POCUS. He also described Awolowo as a mere TRIBAL LEADER.. Much as I am an
admirer of Chinua Achebe, I was compelled to counter some of his assumptions.in a published
comment.
Anthony Akinola 


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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 20, 2020, 6:24:21 AM4/20/20
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Biko,

Ai beg.

So, you now want to teach me how to read? That ain’t so very funny, honey. I don’t have either the time of the money, but you could start your new pedagogy of the oppressed with Professor Griff or Humpty Hump or even the blues brother known as Sleepy Joe Biden. I would advise that when you start your remedial course for slow readers you kick off with hieroglyphics, Hebrew and Arabic on how to review/deconstruct/decode the rap that’s being recycled in your neck of the jungle. OK?  

I  haven’t  had time to “ read what Achebe wrote”  or to read everything that he has written, but I do know what he said as was reported in  that premier magazine, West Africa : Chinua Achebe  was totally against AWO being honoured with a State Funeral  on the grounds that – and I quote him exactly, on the grounds that, according to him  and I suppose, according to you too,  “Chief Obafemi Awolowo was not an Igbo God!”  

Don’t forget that I spent four years in Nigeria, living with Igbos. Where did I “start lumping him (Achebe ) together with a Pakistani woman distributing candies in London in celebration of the death of Zia”? Ai beg. Next you’ll say that I started lumping Musa al Sadr together with the missing Chibok Girls…

Anyway, many sincere thanks for your subsequent elucidations. I have just got an education about these matters. Perhaps, so has The Mighty Falola. I am looking forward with some curiosity which choice piece of Dr Sir Warrior he is going to serve us.

I  have based my deductive reasoning on the facticity of that statement made by Chinua Achebe  and also because of the passion with which Obi Nwakanma has adumbrated the starvation of Biafra in this forum especially in his altercations with  Baba Kadiri who has consistently given plausible explanations to  the other side of the story and what actually happened  - how the Biafran elite was feasting fat and carousing whilst the Osu class of Igbos was starving, although that does not explain  the mass starvation, and suffering and destruction of a whole generation of Biafran children. These discussions are lodged in the archives so many written words to wade through , so many words to eat with palm-oil and digest or suffer from the consequences of indigestion.

 If as you who have read the relevant books inform us that “ Achebe said that Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo” it figures that that must have been some added reason why the bitter old Negro must have been extra pissed  with AWO, to the point of saying that from the Igbo / Biafran point of view, AWO was clearly not God Almighty of the Igbo nation. But you too must admit the fire in that statement which I would restate thus: that Achebe was actually saying that AWO - as the genocidal leader of the Yoruba against the Igbo, was certainly a better leader of the Yoruba. The post war Igbo are still sage in everywhere in Yoruba-land, although  five years ago there was some funny talk about the Oba of Lagos threatening to drown Igbos in the Lagos Lagoon , if they did not support his favoured candidate.

Of course, the Igbos do not have happy memories about that war.

My best friend now late (an elderly Lithuanian – Israeli Jewish guy) brought this kind of reality to my attention.  We  ( he and me and two Swedish Ladies) were at a Klezmer festival at Kungsträdgården when it started raining so we moved  to the Victoria Restaurant  which was close by ; as soon as we were seated he made the announcement: “ All Germans are Nazis” he said.

 Thank God that Igbos are not Nazis and neither are The Yoruba people., so we have King Sunny Ade happily married to an Igbo lady.

And as Bolaji Aluko usually signs off,

 And there you have it.

 


To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/682052845.1342747.1587343809707%40mail.yahoo.com.

Toyin Falola

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Apr 20, 2020, 6:31:02 AM4/20/20
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Dear sir:

Let us suspend this conversation to be part of the global network on sympathy and empathy regarding Coronavirus.

I don’t know that Biko can call someone X-phobia because he disagrees with a small matter. How is Biko now different from Trump?

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

Dear Biko,

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Apr 20, 2020, 9:41:52 AM4/20/20
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Biko.

I have read your initial response to the moderator.  You said Achebe portrayed Awo as a better leader than Zik. So you are now qualifying that with 'to the Yoruba'

You have now inserted your usual Awo 'starvation policy' quotation out of context again like a lion waiting to pounce and went out full throttle. Wetin?

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 20/04/2020 02:36 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Cornel you wrote:
"I assume that Biko the genius is only being as sarcastic as he possibly can when he suggests that “Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe.” Really?
 "Biko has to be careful; posterity could read and understand what he says here, differently.  He should know that there could be some among us who don’t read critically and take words at their face value. On such people some figures of speech, innuendo, puns, understatements, even lowly sarcasm and irony is lost on them. How could Achebe have been “full of praise for Awo”, if Awo is widely seen as the architect of a genocidal war policy of starvation as a weapon of war that crippled the Biafra war efforts, by causing the mass starvation of Biafra’s Civilian population?"
Rabbi, since you can read and understand innuendos, why don't you go and read what Achebe wrote before you start lumping him together with a Pakistani woman distributing candies in London in celebration of the death of Zia? If you no sabi read, make I teacher you now. Achebe said that Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo. But no, Awo was no God of the Igbo.
Zik actually addressed the critique of Achebe by laying out the records of his 'stewardship'. He quoted Awo himself as saying that the reason why he launched the free education program was to catch up with the Eastern region which had built more schools and registered more students than the Western region. That legacy still stands with the East still leading the country in academic achievements. Perhaps, without Awo's intervention, the West may be struggling like the North today the way Oyo and Osun states continue to struggle in the bottom 10 states in the league of WAEC results while all the five Eastern states are in the top 10. Falola should be addressing this unexpected trend in his home state rather than attempt to demonize the Igbo as haters that they are not.
Under Zik, there was no politics of bitterness of the sort that led to operation wetie and operation Owoboriomo in the West under Awo even when Zik's party lost some elections such as when he lost the Mayorship of Enugu City to a Fulani man from Kano and when he lost Anambra governorship to the NPN. Okpara sent the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation to announce correct election results in the West when Akintola was announcing the rigged results on radio Nigeria, according to Soyinka in the Ibadan: The Penkelmese Years (Soyinka reported that he sat in Awo's ransacked library and begged the radio journalists from the East to go back before the thugs looking for them found them while he alone wanted to wait for the thugs to return and face his wrath). 
Zik wrote poems mourning the assassination of his political friends during the first coup. Among Igbo writers and artists, there is no genre of triumphalism of the sort that Ali Mazrui displayed in condemning Chris Okigbo, his fellow intellectual, in the court of the land of ancestors, for the alleged crime of abandoning poetry to defend his people against genocide, without knowing that Okigbo also saw his participation in the resistance as a participant observation research methodology in search of new materials for his poetry, according to Obumselu. When Murtala Muhamad was assassinated, the Oriental Brothers released a popular song mourning him for creating two new states in the South East that was lumped together into one state until then and condemning the Dimka bloody coup despite the fact that Murtala was known to have committed massacres against Igbo men in Asaba during the war. 
So, where did Falola get this incendiary idea that the Igbo talked ill of Awo the moment he died when the Igbo and those with conscience around the world disapproved of the cruel claim that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war while Awo was alive and had all the opportunity to withdraw the claim but chose to double down. Why was Falola making such a false claim while sharing the testimony of an Igbo diplomat in defense of a Kanuri bureaucrat whose death was allegedly celebrated by a Hausa commissioner in Kano state government who got sacked for such indiscretion? 
Why single out the collectively hated Igbo as celebrators of the death of enemies when there is no evidence of that among the Igbo who are known more for traveling outside their region to make legitimate living and make friends more than any other group and despite persistent hostility to their presence in other parts of Nigeria even though they have never retaliated with hostility to other Nigerians who have settled in the South East? The traveller has no enemies, say the Igbo.
Help me tell the moderator to take am easy o. Diye diye o. Withdraw that statement quick quick.
Biko

R

On Sunday, 19 April 2020, 18:05:33 GMT-4, Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Toyin Falola

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Apr 20, 2020, 9:45:54 AM4/20/20
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Dear sir:

Do please suspend this debate. It can wait.

I know a member on this list who lost his wife to Coronavirus on Saturday.

Let us pursue subjects that show empathy and sympathy.

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7222 (fax)

http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue   

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of agbetuyi <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, April 20, 2020 at 8:41 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

Biko.

 

I have read your initial response to the moderator.  You said Achebe portrayed Awo as a better leader than Zik. So you are now qualifying that with 'to the Yoruba'

 

You have now inserted your usual Awo 'starvation policy' quotation out of context again like a lion waiting to pounce and went out full throttle. Wetin?

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 20/04/2020 02:36 (GMT+00:00)

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

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Cornel you wrote:

"I assume that Biko the genius is only being as sarcastic as he possibly can when he suggests that “Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe.” Really?

 "Biko has to be careful; posterity could read and understand what he says here, differently.  He should know that there could be some among us who don’t read critically and take words at their face value. On such people some figures of speech, innuendo, puns, understatements, even lowly sarcasm and irony is lost on them. How could Achebe have been “full of praise for Awo”, if Awo is widely seen as the architect of a genocidal war policy of starvation as a weapon of war that crippled the Biafra war efforts, by causing the mass starvation of Biafra’s Civilian population?"

Rabbi, since you can read and understand innuendos, why don't you go and read what Achebe wrote before you start lumping him together with a Pakistani woman distributing candies in London in celebration of the death of Zia? If you no sabi read, make I teacher you now. Achebe said that Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo. But no, Awo was no God of the Igbo.

Zik actually addressed the critique of Achebe by laying out the records of his 'stewardship'. He quoted Awo himself as saying that the reason why he launched the free education program was to catch up with the Eastern region which had built more schools and registered more students than the Western region. That legacy still stands with the East still leading the country in academic achievements. Perhaps, without Awo's intervention, the West may be struggling like the North today the way Oyo and Osun states continue to struggle in the bottom 10 states in the league of WAEC results while all the five Eastern states are in the top 10. Falola should be addressing this unexpected trend in his home state rather than attempt to demonize the Igbo as haters that they are not.

Under Zik, there was no politics of bitterness of the sort that led to operation wetie and operation Owoboriomo in the West under Awo even when Zik's party lost some elections such as when he lost the Mayorship of Enugu City to a Fulani man from Kano and when he lost Anambra governorship to the NPN. Okpara sent the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation to announce correct election results in the West when Akintola was announcing the rigged results on radio Nigeria, according to Soyinka in the Ibadan: The Penkelmese Years (Soyinka reported that he sat in Awo's ransacked library and begged the radio journalists from the East to go back before the thugs looking for them found them while he alone wanted to wait for the thugs to return and face his wrath). 

Zik wrote poems mourning the assassination of his political friends during the first coup. Among Igbo writers and artists, there is no genre of triumphalism of the sort that Ali Mazrui displayed in condemning Chris Okigbo, his fellow intellectual, in the court of the land of ancestors, for the alleged crime of abandoning poetry to defend his people against genocide, without knowing that Okigbo also saw his participation in the resistance as a participant observation research methodology in search of new materials for his poetry, according to Obumselu. When Murtala Muhamad was assassinated, the Oriental Brothers released a popular song mourning him for creating two new states in the South East that was lumped together into one state until then and condemning the Dimka bloody coup despite the fact that Murtala was known to have committed massacres against Igbo men in Asaba during the war. 

So, where did Falola get this incendiary idea that the Igbo talked ill of Awo the moment he died when the Igbo and those with conscience around the world disapproved of the cruel claim that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war while Awo was alive and had all the opportunity to withdraw the claim but chose to double down. Why was Falola making such a false claim while sharing the testimony of an Igbo diplomat in defense of a Kanuri bureaucrat whose death was allegedly celebrated by a Hausa commissioner in Kano state government who got sacked for such indiscretion? 

Why single out the collectively hated Igbo as celebrators of the death of enemies when there is no evidence of that among the Igbo who are known more for traveling outside their region to make legitimate living and make friends more than any other group and despite persistent hostility to their presence in other parts of Nigeria even though they have never retaliated with hostility to other Nigerians who have settled in the South East? The traveller has no enemies, say the Igbo.

Help me tell the moderator to take am easy o. Diye diye o. Withdraw that statement quick quick.

Biko

 

Image removed by sender.

R

 

 

 

Dear Biko,

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 20, 2020, 10:56:22 AM4/20/20
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Sir Anthony,

I admire you for admiring Chinua Achebe the so-called “father of African Literature” ( which leaves this question open:  So, who is the mother? )

 The fact is that Achebe cannot have his cake and eat it too, not even posthumously. His most ardent disciples cannot deny that he denied AWO a state funeral, according to him, on the grounds that AWO “was not an Igbo god” by which statement he probably meant to imply that  all men being mortal, only an Igbo god merits a state funeral and that Igbo gods don’t die.

What Achebe could have written later - that which Biko quotes does not obfuscate Achebe’s original reaction.  Biko’s attempt to sanitise Achebe’s reaction by quoting what he could have written at a later date, belongs to the category known as revisionism. True too, even an Igbo saint and fellow mortal like Achebe, had cause/ reasons and certainly the freedom to not love AWO and not just because according to Biko’s Achebe, “Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo.”

“And the soldiers who are dead and gone

If only we could bring back one.” ( We got to have Peace)

Even if there are some people among us who don’t want to examine the can of worms that has just been opened up again, there are others who believe in the free word and the right of reply  and therefore, whilst it may be diplomatic, admirable, perhaps decent and  elegant, at the same time, it’s unfair and some would even say anti-intellectual of the moderator who by his executive power (privileged)  and some would say despotic that by decree he should  want to impose his own lockdown on any further discussion of this matter in his kingdom, on the grounds ( a strong case of argumentum ad misericordiam) on the grounds that we had all better “be part of the global network on sympathy and empathy regarding Coronavirus.”

 When I discussed adjacent matters with Baba Kadiri earlier in the day he pointed out this truism , that clearing the air is in the interests of the living – and I concurred with him saying that “ Dead men can’t pray” – we have to pray for them and give in charity on their behalf  - and  indeed in the gospel according to S.E, Rogers, “ Dead Men don’t smoke Marijuana”. I’m sure that Biko would agree with a such a genial understatement

 Sweet Mother


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Anthony Akinola

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Apr 20, 2020, 12:35:41 PM4/20/20
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Thanks, the great Cornelius
The truth is that the bitterness of the Civil War, understandably, has yet 
to subside. This is one reason why some take antagonistic positions on
issues that touch on ethnicity and religion.For them,there can never be
anything like objectivity.
I hope you are coping well with the situation we are all enveloped in. May
God save his world.
Warm regards,
Anthony.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAC50OP8vtF%2B-KLNeuB7ET-reeUM2V6imGVEGZLV-QY7QtypqMg%40mail.gmail.com.

Biko Agozino

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Apr 20, 2020, 4:19:55 PM4/20/20
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Hammer pon the moderator. He no fit tell us to shut up on any topic especially not one where he is being critiqued for heating up the polity. We all sympathize with the dead and not only with the CORVID-19 dead. For anyone to insinuate that the Igbo celebrated the death of Awo or any other death is a careless attempt to ignite violence against the nationally hated Igbo. The moderator should take responsibility for this grievous error and correct it pronto. Instead, he seeks to divert attention from his blunder by asking what makes me different from Trump. Emi ke? A whole me? Mu na onwe m? To start with, I no be POTUS, the man no be Professor, he get money pass me, I get sense pass am well well, he is white and I am black. Make I continue?

Professor Anthony Akinola is now claiming that it was the Yoruba who celebrated the death of Awo and Achebe refused to join in the celebration because, as the Rabbi reports, Awo no be God to the Igbo. The cultural context of what Achebe said at that time may help to clarify the meaning with no need for revisionism. To the Igbo, nobody is God. If people were God, their wicked hearts would condemn whole groups of people to hell because people are not as merciful as the All Merciful. The Igbo name their children, Maduabuchi or a human is not God. Such names come up when people look at a poor wo/man or their enemy and wonder how he/she produced a child that went on to become a leader when richer wo/men could not. Why do good things happen to bad people and bad things happen to good people? 

Yoruba culture is different. It is expected that children would lie flat on the ground to greet their elders as the moderator continues to do at international conferences when he meets his elders. Soyinka refused to do so as a child because he reasoned in The Interpreters and later in Ake that if he did not lie down to God why should he lie down to mere mortals? He may have got that defiance from an Igbo man. The Igbo do not even expect that you should kneel down when you pray to the Great God, Chukwu. Instead, the Igbo believe that all heads are equal and that there is Godness, Chi, within everyone. The Yoruba are different because they have a tradition of deifying their heroes and worshipping them as gods such as Ogun. The Igbo would find that abominable. Achebe was alluding to this even while Awo was alive in that classic seminar that he presented at the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1984 on 'The Truth of Fiction'. He was asking Nigerian intellectuals how they could worship uncritically any leader that supported genocide?

My classmate, Rueben Abatti, wrote in his column in The Guardian that everyone was encouraged to see the face of Awo on the moon as a sign that he was a God. He too pretended to have seen it or else the elders would accuse him of being unworthy to grow up to be worshipped as a leader. The surprise for me was that Odia Ofeimun came to present a seminar at the Center for African Studies in Cambridge University in 1990 and stated that he believed that it was true that Awo appeared on the face of the moon as a God. That was embarrassing because, as sista Glo stated here, an academic seminar may analyze such folk beliefs without necessarily asserting that they are verifiable objective truths. No wonder Odia never completed that doctoral manuscript on his stewardship to Awo.

Achebe wrote that what made Awo and the Sarduana better or more successful leaders compared to Zik was that they were able to build cohesive power blocs from disparate cultures in their regions while Azikiwe never attempted to build a monolithic cultural bloc out of the old South East region. Zikists would say that they prefer the Azikiwe model because he did not seek to build ethnic Igbo hegemony over a multiethnic region. Zik aspired to be a leader of Africa and of Nigeria or of the South East and not just of the Igbo. His bank was called the African Continental Bank, his newspaper was The West African Pilot, and his political party went beyond Nigeria to include the Cameroon. 

Many would say that Azikiwe was more successful as a Pan African leader compared to his Nigerian peers, hence he was known as Zik of Africa, though he was later honored by his hometown as an elderly Owelle of Onitsha for which Chuba Okadigbo taunted him with the quip, how are the mighty fallen, from Zik of Africa to the Owelle of Onitsha? You are welcome to disagree with Achebe or with the Zikists but you will never find an Igbo man who worships Azikiwe as God. Even Ojukwu who could have been deified by the Yoruba if he was Yoruba, suffered the 
indignity of losing his deposit when he ran for a Senate seat in Nnewi against a little known medical doctor, Onwudiwe, a commissioner for health under the governorship of Jim Nwobodo who also lost his reelection to CC Onoh under Azikiwe as party leader but without any bloodshed. The Igbo maintain that Maduabuchi.

Biko


OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Apr 20, 2020, 4:20:40 PM4/20/20
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Commiserations to the bereaved.  May the almighty strengthen him to bear the loss and grant him succour.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Date: 20/04/2020 14:46 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

Boxbe This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (toyin...@austin.utexas.edu) Add cleanup rule | More info

Dear sir:

Do please suspend this debate. It can wait.

I know a member on this list who lost his wife to Coronavirus on Saturday.

Let us pursue subjects that show empathy and sympathy.

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220

USA

512 475 7222 (fax)


Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Monday, April 20, 2020 at 8:41 AM

To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

Biko.

 

I have read your initial response to the moderator.  You said Achebe portrayed Awo as a better leader than Zik. So you are now qualifying that with 'to the Yoruba'

 

You have now inserted your usual Awo 'starvation policy' quotation out of context again like a lion waiting to pounce and went out full throttle. Wetin?

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

-------- Original message --------

From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 20/04/2020 02:36 (GMT+00:00)

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

 

Image removed by sender. BoxbeImage removed by sender.This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (usaafric...@googlegroups.com) Add cleanup rule | More info

Cornel you wrote:

"I assume that Biko the genius is only being as sarcastic as he possibly can when he suggests that “Achebe was full of praise for Awo in the Troubles with Nigeria and in There Was A Country where he portrayed him as a better leader than Azikiwe.” Really?

 "Biko has to be careful; posterity could read and understand what he says here, differently.  He should know that there could be some among us who don’t read critically and take words at their face value. On such people some figures of speech, innuendo, puns, understatements, even lowly sarcasm and irony is lost on them. How could Achebe have been “full of praise for Awo”, if Awo is widely seen as the architect of a genocidal war policy of starvation as a weapon of war that crippled the Biafra war efforts, by causing the mass starvation of Biafra’s Civilian population?"

Rabbi, since you can read and understand innuendos, why don't you go and read what Achebe wrote before you start lumping him together with a Pakistani woman distributing candies in London in celebration of the death of Zia? If you no sabi read, make I teacher you now. Achebe said that Awo was a better leader for the Yoruba than Zik was for the Igbo. But no, Awo was no God of the Igbo.

Zik actually addressed the critique of Achebe by laying out the records of his 'stewardship'. He quoted Awo himself as saying that the reason why he launched the free education program was to catch up with the Eastern region which had built more schools and registered more students than the Western region. That legacy still stands with the East still leading the country in academic achievements. Perhaps, without Awo's intervention, the West may be struggling like the North today the way Oyo and Osun states continue to struggle in the bottom 10 states in the league of WAEC results while all the five Eastern states are in the top 10. Falola should be addressing this unexpected trend in his home state rather than attempt to demonize the Igbo as haters that they are not.

Under Zik, there was no politics of bitterness of the sort that led to operation wetie and operation Owoboriomo in the West under Awo even when Zik's party lost some elections such as when he lost the Mayorship of Enugu City to a Fulani man from Kano and when he lost Anambra governorship to the NPN. Okpara sent the Eastern Nigeria Broadcasting Corporation to announce correct election results in the West when Akintola was announcing the rigged results on radio Nigeria, according to Soyinka in the Ibadan: The Penkelmese Years (Soyinka reported that he sat in Awo's ransacked library and begged the radio journalists from the East to go back before the thugs looking for them found them while he alone wanted to wait for the thugs to return and face his wrath). 

Zik wrote poems mourning the assassination of his political friends during the first coup. Among Igbo writers and artists, there is no genre of triumphalism of the sort that Ali Mazrui displayed in condemning Chris Okigbo, his fellow intellectual, in the court of the land of ancestors, for the alleged crime of abandoning poetry to defend his people against genocide, without knowing that Okigbo also saw his participation in the resistance as a participant observation research methodology in search of new materials for his poetry, according to Obumselu. When Murtala Muhamad was assassinated, the Oriental Brothers released a popular song mourning him for creating two new states in the South East that was lumped together into one state until then and condemning the Dimka bloody coup despite the fact that Murtala was known to have committed massacres against Igbo men in Asaba during the war. 

So, where did Falola get this incendiary idea that the Igbo talked ill of Awo the moment he died when the Igbo and those with conscience around the world disapproved of the cruel claim that starvation was a legitimate weapon of war while Awo was alive and had all the opportunity to withdraw the claim but chose to double down. Why was Falola making such a false claim while sharing the testimony of an Igbo diplomat in defense of a Kanuri bureaucrat whose death was allegedly celebrated by a Hausa commissioner in Kano state government who got sacked for such indiscretion? 

Why single out the collectively hated Igbo as celebrators of the death of enemies when there is no evidence of that among the Igbo who are known more for traveling outside their region to make legitimate living and make friends more than any other group and despite persistent hostility to their presence in other parts of Nigeria even though they have never retaliated with hostility to other Nigerians who have settled in the South East? The traveller has no enemies, say the Igbo.

Help me tell the moderator to take am easy o. Diye diye o. Withdraw that statement quick quick.

Biko

 

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R

 

 

 

Dear Biko,

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 21, 2020, 8:52:56 PM4/21/20
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Preliminaries.

I’m thinking of Israel’s Post Mortem Award to the Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo for which he deserves a big Mazel Tov!

Israel:  Post Mortem Award to Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo

 Is there anyone who can vouch for the accuracy of the noteworthy distinctions that Biko has made between Yoruba and the Igbo attitudes to respect, religion, the status of Elders, and God?

For instance, if, as Biko says the Igbo or the traditional Igbo do not believe that a man can be “God” or “a god” – that, (his words), “To the Igbo, nobody is God”. If that is true then how were Christian missionaries able to succeed so easily when it came to selling Igbos the idea  that God ( Chukwu?) incarnated in the person of Jesus, that he was born of the virgin Mary, that he  was crucified, resurrected, ascended to heaven and currently, sits at the right-hand side of his Father Almighty?

 The litmus test of the Aboriginal Australians was very simple, albeit nauseous and disrespectful.  They asked the missionary, “Does he (your god) shit? Does he  or did he go to the toilet?” The missionaries answered “Yes”. The tribesmen retorted, “Then he can't be GOD!” Their definition of God is “the One without an anus - the One without any flaw” i.e.  Atnatu, the Unique God of Aboriginal Australians.

Years ago, I read the Rev Canon Harry Sawyer’s: God, ancestor or creator? – which raises exactly that question, in the light of what Biko says here in this thread.  Are we to assume that had AWO been raised three days later, etc, he could have thereby qualified to at least be canonised as a Christian Saint? (Oddly enough, one is ironically reminded of the dilemma of Bishop Dom Helder Camara of Brazil who said, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”

We have the ( albeit annoying)  instance of Jacob bowing down to Esau

About not bowing down to anybody, my Ashkenazi friend used to boast about that, however, there is an instance during the Yom Kippur Service when the name of the Almighty requires prostration.

In Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto’s seminal  Mesilat Yesharim  ( The Path of the Just) in  which the  26 chapters outline the steps to attaining holiness, ” The trait of humility”  occurs as late as chapter 22 which begins with these words. “We already spoke earlier on the disgrace of arrogance, and by inference, we learned on the praiseworthiness of Humility. Let us now explain Humility in a more fundamental manner and arrogance will become clarified by itself. The general matter of Humility is for a person not to attribute importance to himself for any reason whatsoever. This is the exact opposite of arrogance and the effects that result from this are the opposite of those that result from arrogance.”

“The means of acquiring humility” is reserved at chapter 23….

Later, I should like to take up this thing about somebody being” merely” a “tribal leader”, I have heard that being said about the Prophet Moses, and “tribal religion “that’s how some people characterise Judaism.

 


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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 22, 2020, 2:35:45 AM4/22/20
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 Biko,

Big deal: - re- “The surprise for me was that Odia Ofeimun came to present a seminar at the Center for African Studies in Cambridge University in 1990 and stated that he believed that it was true that Awo appeared on the face of the moon as a God.” Didn’t you cross-examine him about his vision? 

As Chidi Anthony Opara just told us, “The beauty of poetry lies in the fact that 95% of humanity have no idea of what the poet is talking about, so the mystique rubs off on the poet.” 

Now be honest, it’s possible that the hyperbolic Chidi is not being statistically accurate here, but considering the long poetic traditions about the moon, love and the moon, faces of the moon, faces on the moon, phases of the moon ( Rosh Chodesh / Exodus 12: 2  is the first law given to the Jewish nation) and all you ( Biko & Co) have to do is to give poets the necessary poetic license and concessions to fantasy and imagination and then tell us what percentage of humanity  you think that you belong to if you can’t even imagine what Odia Ofeimun the poet meant if he did indeed say that he saw AWO’s face on the moon?

From poetry and the sublime to the mundane: When Eldridge Cleaver said that he saw the face of Jesus on the full moon, what do you want to accuse him of? Idolatry? Heresy? Hallucination?  People do have visions you know. He became a born-again Christian shortly thereafter. Fact is that a few weeks earlier some CIA agents had picked him up in Paris, several times, and shown him the sharp edge of a knife, near his throat, so the story goes.  As the Chinese say, those were interesting days, I have heard some first-hand witness testimonies from those heady days. 


To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/597537329.2326846.1587405833271%40mail.yahoo.com.

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Apr 22, 2020, 9:57:05 AM4/22/20
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A  philosophy that “there  is godness, chi in everyone” sounds more impressive, liberating and humane to me than  one which thrives on the opposite assumption, namely, that there is evil in everyone.  Of course the latter assumption justifies the need for a paraphernalia of “stern faced ministers on pulpits” - in some cases accompanied by a bunch of young male acolytes whose main purpose in life is to “cleanse “you from that sinful evil. The other Biko summarizes it in the following:

“They further went on to preach a theology of the existence of hell, scaring our fathers and mothers with stories about burning in eternal flames and gnashing of teeth and grinding of bone.This cold cruel religion was strange to us but our forefathers were sufficiently scared of the unknown impending anger to believe that it was worth a try.” 

Biko, I Write What I Like. p. 45

But  Onwubiko, you still have to answer Cornelius’ query.  How come you have such a high rate of conversion to this other view of humanity in the East, where super heroes, personality cults and deification have become so normalized that you risk political and social suicide if you ever dared to challenge the new normal.

On a slightly different note, I know of one guy who decided to taste all the beer around him. He visited dozens of breweries, big and small, sampling what they had to offer. His ultimate aim was to come up with “the best” as determined by his taste buds. Well in the end, after his mind blowing experiences,  he  decided to become a confirmed teetotaler,  and lived happily ever after.

 Cornelius the Wise, is that you?







Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Cornelius Hamelberg <hamelberg...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2020 10:15 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 22, 2020, 1:15:30 PM4/22/20
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Gloria In Excelsis Omega-wali (that’s Greek + Arabic (wali) friend of the eternal (the alpha & omega),

It’s Irie (touch wood) Johnny Walker is still going strong! You too, stay safe.

N.B. It is forbidden to humiliate anyone.

 In the 1976 final debate/ duel between Olof Palme (the incumbent Prime Minister) and Thorbjörn Fälldin, Mr. Palme beat Mr Fälldin the farmer so badly, gave him such an intellectual thrashing that he (Palme) lost that election. The Swedish electorate felt a swell of sympathy for Mr. Fälldin, the underdog and punished Mr. Palme at the polls.

So, reserve your strength, fool around, even hide it, but if push comes to shove, then and only then – well you would have no choice but to…

 Can you imagine an all-out war between Trump (USA) and Biko (the Nigerian military aided by Boko Haram)?

 The Quran throws down the same gauntlet and a very similar challenge that Biko will never take up  no matter how long he sits in consultations with his buddies, he can even sit with them until the cows come home  or  “till the conversion of the Jews”, but he can never do it – and  strangely enough, to date, no one has yet taken up the challenge:

23. “And if ye are in doubt concerning that which We reveal unto Our slave (Muhammad), then produce a surah of the like thereof, and call your witness beside Allah if ye are truthful.

24. And if ye do it not - and ye can never do it - then guard yourselves against the Fire prepared for disbelievers, whose fuel is of men and stones.” (al-Baqarah 23-24)

The Igbo teaching, understanding and practice of  the chi  - is very similar to the basic instruction  accompanying the Om Namah Shivaya mantra  which is a heart mantra of Siddha Yoga, namely, see God in each other,  God lives inside of you, as you…

That way, of course, you don’t go around insulting other people and looking down on them because you come from this or that tribe that rules the universe controls the movements of the stars, changes the directions the wind and is going to be the first to discover the cure for all the mutations and permutations of the coronavirus.

 Jeru The Damaja crows and Baba Kadiri readily agrees

“Melodies, that flow like the breeze

Through the trees, like my forefathers, command the wind and seas

With my jungle music”

 


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Biko Agozino

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Apr 22, 2020, 2:01:04 PM4/22/20
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Sister Glo,

No mind Cornel. He is just trying to be provocative. The simple answer to his question is that Jesus considered himself to be the son of God and the Igbo name their sons, NwaChukwu, or Son of God. To the Igbo, the gospel of Jesus makes sense because the Igbo regard everyone as a child of Mr and Mrs God. Moreover, the Igbo believe that it is the same God that everyone worships in their own ways and so, no matter your religious denomination or spirituality, what matters is how you treat other children of God. This is also true of many African cultures where you can find different religious faiths or forms of spirituality in peaceful co-existence within the same family as Soyinka pointed out in Of Africa - spirituality is one area where Africa may set the best practice for the rest of the world because Africans have never gone to war to defend their religious faiths.

As a matter of fact, it was in Africa that Jesus was taught the belief in One God or monotheism. For more than 5000 years before the birth of the Son of God, ancient Africans worshipped the Sun God and deduced that the same sun that shines for us also shines for our enemies, for men and for women, for the rich and the poor, for Africans and for Europeans. Before the Virgin Birth to Son of Man, ancient Africans also believed that the Sun God was born by a virgin mother, Isis, that Europeans continue to worship today as the Black Madonna and Child. 

That was the culture in which Jesus was raised from infancy to the age of 12 before he returned to Palestine and started preaching a strange gospel that Jehovah was for Jews and Gentiles and not just the God of the Jews alone as they thought. It was Africans like St Augustine who took this new gospel to Europe to convert them to Christianity peacefully but the Europeans weaponized it and used it to conquer Africans and the rest of the world for capitalist gain. It is strange that some now claim that Christianity is a European religion that they introduced to Africa. It is actually the other way around.

In Africa, we believe that religion is a free country where you choose what to worship or worship what you choose so long as you do not try to impose your beliefs on others. If the Yoruba choose to worship their heroes, that is their choice under the freedom of religion. Rastafari also choose to worship Selassie and Asians revere Budha. There is no equivalent in Igbo culture where the only true God is the Creator, Chukwu Okike. There are lesser altars for Arusi or what the Yoruba call Orisha but no human being is Arusi and the Igbo proclaim that Chukwu ka Dibia, God is greater than doctors or Igwe ka Ala, the sky is greater than the earth.

The Igbo belief that all heads are equal and that everyone has divinity within them is a democratic belief system that is worthy of emulation because that is what the secular national constitution expects in a republican system of government. The Igbo are not opposed to the deification of Awo or anyone else by the Yoruba, our only objection is the expectation that the Igbo, or Achebe, should join in the worship of their deeply flawed hero, all human beings being flawed. We do not do hero worship. Even after the National Church of Nigeria announced, following the Enugu Colliery Massacre in 1949, that they would no longer identify with the Church of England and that they would now revere African living saints like Azikiwe, no Igbo person ever saw Zik as a God.

Biko


Julius Eto

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Apr 22, 2020, 4:55:03 PM4/22/20
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Buhari asks Nigeria's chief judge to free prisoners because of coronavirus
Reuters•April 21, 2020

ABUJA (Reuters) - Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari has asked the chief judge to free prison inmates who have been awaiting trial for six years or more to ease overcrowding as the novel coronavirus spreads, a spokesman said on Tuesday.

A statement quoted Buhari as saying 42% of Nigeria's 74,000 or so prisoners were awaiting trial. He urged Chief Judge Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad to reduce that number "since physical distancing and self-isolation in such conditions are practically impossible".

Buhari said inmates with no confirmed criminal cases against them, elderly prisoners and those who were terminally ill could be discharged.

"Most of these custodial centres are presently housing inmates beyond their capacities and the overcrowded facilities pose a potent threat to the health of the inmates and the public in general in view of the present circumstances, hence the need for urgent steps to bring the situation under control," he said.

Two weeks ago, Buhari pardoned 2,600 prisoners who were either 60 or older, terminally ill, or had less than six months left to serve of sentences of three years or more.

Nigeria is Africa's most populous country, with some 200 million people. On Monday it said it had registered 665 cases of the coronavirus and 22 deaths.

Its measures to stop the spread of the virus include closing its borders and locking down the capital Abuja, the commercial hub, Lagos, and the adjacent state, Ogun.



(Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Kevin Liffey)









Ayotunde Bewaji

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Apr 22, 2020, 5:49:13 PM4/22/20
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Ojogbon Biko, often discretion is the better part of valor. If you read over what you just wrote, I would be hard pressed if you wouldn't take most of what you wrote back, especially if you expect those who look up to you to take your words seriously. Ire ni o.


Dr. John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola BEWAJI, FJIM, MNAL
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BA, MA, PhD Philosophy, PGDE, MA Distance Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy for Children
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Tel:       1-876-927-1661-9 Ext: 3993
             1-876-935-8993 (o)
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Email:   john....@uwimona.edu.jm      johnayotu...@gmail.com       tunde...@yahoo.com (alternate) 
             tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)

http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611630879/Narratives-of-Struggle (2012)
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Aesthetics (2012)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739185032/Ontologized-Ethics (2013)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498518383/The-Rule-of-Law-and-Governance-in-Indigenous-Yoruba-Society-A-Study-in-African-Philosophy-of-Law (2016)

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-humanities-and-the-dynamics-of-african-culture-in-the-21st-century (2017)


Biko Agozino

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Apr 22, 2020, 8:52:23 PM4/22/20
to 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
John the Baptized, I have read my post over and over again but iro ni, I could not find anything to take back. If you do have specific things or if you can specify the most things or most of the things that you think that I should take back in the interest of those who look up to me and even those whop look down on me, please say exactly what you mean. 

However, you are most welcome to disagree with everything that I have written without attacking the straw man.

Biko

tunde jaiyeoba

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Apr 23, 2020, 7:08:25 AM4/23/20
to 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Dear Profs,

I just need a clarification. What do they call what exists in all the shrines portrayed in Igbo Nollywood films and the ones politicians take themselves to in Igbo land? Are they deities, gods or some other name? A good example is the Okija shrine we have heard of and we know is real at least with certain/precise events associated with it. Please can we examine what exist in shrines that people go for oaths, clarifications-mystical and otherwise- and agreements in Igbo land.

I am not learned in these matters.



Thank you.





Babatunde JAIYEOBA















Prof. Emmanuel Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD
Head, Department of Architecture
Faculty of Environmental Design and Management
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Apr 23, 2020, 7:09:12 AM4/23/20
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If Awo is deified after he died what is wrong in that since he is no longer mortal and it is NOT the mortal Awo that is worshipped?


OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: 'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 22/04/2020 19:08 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Sister Glo,

No mind Cornel. He is just trying to be provocative. The simple answer to his question is that Jesus considered himself to be the son of God and the Igbo name their sons, NwaChukwu, or Son of God. To the Igbo, the gospel of Jesus makes sense because the Igbo regard everyone as a child of Mr and Mrs God. Moreover, the Igbo believe that it is the same God that everyone worships in their own ways and so, no matter your religious denomination or spirituality, what matters is how you treat other children of God. This is also true of many African cultures where you can find different religious faiths or forms of spirituality in peaceful co-existence within the same family as Soyinka pointed out in Of Africa - spirituality is one area where Africa may set the best practice for the rest of the world because Africans have never gone to war to defend their religious faiths.

As a matter of fact, it was in Africa that Jesus was taught the belief in One God or monotheism. For more than 5000 years before the birth of the Son of God, ancient Africans worshipped the Sun God and deduced that the same sun that shines for us also shines for our enemies, for men and for women, for the rich and the poor, for Africans and for Europeans. Before the Virgin Birth to Son of Man, ancient Africans also believed that the Sun God was born by a virgin mother, Isis, that Europeans continue to worship today as the Black Madonna and Child. 

That was the culture in which Jesus was raised from infancy to the age of 12 before he returned to Palestine and started preaching a strange gospel that Jehovah was for Jews and Gentiles and not just the God of the Jews alone as they thought. It was Africans like St Augustine who took this new gospel to Europe to convert them to Christianity peacefully but the Europeans weaponized it and used it to conquer Africans and the rest of the world for capitalist gain. It is strange that some now claim that Christianity is a European religion that they introduced to Africa. It is actually the other way around.

In Africa, we believe that religion is a free country where you choose what to worship or worship what you choose so long as you do not try to impose your beliefs on others. If the Yoruba choose to worship their heroes, that is their choice under the freedom of religion. Rastafari also choose to worship Selassie and Asians revere Budha. There is no equivalent in Igbo culture where the only true God is the Creator, Chukwu Okike. There are lesser altars for Arusi or what the Yoruba call Orisha but no human being is Arusi and the Igbo proclaim that Chukwu ka Dibia, God is greater than doctors or Igwe ka Ala, the sky is greater than the earth.

The Igbo belief that all heads are equal and that everyone has divinity within them is a democratic belief system that is worthy of emulation because that is what the secular national constitution expects in a republican system of government. The Igbo are not opposed to the deification of Awo or anyone else by the Yoruba, our only objection is the expectation that the Igbo, or Achebe, should join in the worship of their deeply flawed hero, all human beings being flawed. We do not do hero worship. Even after the National Church of Nigeria announced, following the Enugu Colliery Massacre in 1949, that they would no longer identify with the Church of England and that they would now revere African living saints like Azikiwe, no Igbo person ever saw Zik as a God.

Biko


On Wednesday, 22 April 2020, 10:05:10 GMT-4, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu> wrote:


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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Apr 23, 2020, 8:19:00 AM4/23/20
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Thank you Prof Jaiyeoba.

Some people seem to exist for the sole purpose of demonising any activities associated with the Yoruba.  They go to all extent into all kinds of contorted and convoluted narratives to provide a Yoruba exceptionalism that is not supported by any evidence and manufacture  specius non existent evidence to prove their own exceptionalism in non involvement in any trait identified with the Yoruba.

In a different formulation of the same engagement this group within a group is perennially looking for and citing evidence that may suggest they are out performing the Yoruba in any material particular.  What is all of these called?  Disguised hate.  Sometimes they allege everyone hate their group and the culprit that should carry the can for that all encompassing hate is none other than the Yoruba.

For the avoidance of doubt there are more than two hundred ethnicities in Nigeria.  The Yoruba do not see themselves selectively picking any single ethnicity for hatred or undeclared competition.  The Yoruba believe as a group in fair play; the Yoruba believe as a group in live and let live;  the Yoruba as a group believe in the higher ideal of team playing.  We know the larger group to which this inner group belong does not share any of their unjustifiable sentiments.  It is to this larger group that the Yoruba look up  while ignoring the disdain and frustrations of this vociferous minority within the larger group.

As I pointed out before certain level of reasoning can be accepted from lesser minds: professors should think, communicate and act like professors.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------
From: 'tunde jaiyeoba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: 23/04/2020 12:17 (GMT+00:00)
To: 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Don't Speak Ill of the Dead!

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Dear Profs,

I just need a clarification. What do they call what exists in all the shrines portrayed in Igbo Nollywood films and the ones politicians take themselves to in Igbo land? Are they deities, gods or some other name? A good example is the Okija shrine we have heard of and we know is real at least with certain/precise events associated with it. Please can we examine what exist in shrines that people go for oaths, clarifications-mystical and otherwise- and agreements in Igbo land.

I am not learned in these matters.



Thank you.





Babatunde JAIYEOBA















Prof. Emmanuel Babatunde JAIYEOBA PhD
Head, Department of Architecture
Faculty of Environmental Design and Management
Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Apr 25, 2020, 12:53:18 PM4/25/20
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​Excuse me for coming late into this debate. Time is my enemy nowadays when it comes to participating in discussions. Part of Biko Agozino's submission below that attracts my attention is the following : Zik actually addressed the critique of Achebe by laying out the records of his 'stewardship'. He quoted Awo himself that the reason why he (Awolowo) launched the free education program *(in Western region) was to catch up with Eastern Region which had built more schools and register more students than the Western region. That legacy still stands with the East still leading the country in academic achievements. Perhaps without Awo's intervention, the West may be struggling like the North today ….. in the bottom 10 states in the league of WAEC results, while all the five Eastern States are in the top ten. *My emphasises are in brackets. 

​Records of history show that the government of Eastern Region of Nigeria led by Nnamdi Azikiwe decided in 1956 to introduce free primary education from Infant I to Standard VI as from January 1957. Awolowo's free primary education throughout Western Nigeria had actually begun in 1955 and Azikiwe's desire to introduce free primary education in Eastern region was copied from Awo's West. However, in the Eastern Region Government fiscal year (budget year), March 1956-March 1957, £2,886,000 was appropriated for education but the actual cost for education turned out to be £5,446,000. That made the expenditure of the Eastern Region Government on education to be 43 per cent of its total budget in 1957 and the estimated £6 million on education that was required in 1958 was beyond the ability of the regional government to provide. Therefore, the Premier of Eastern Region, Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, in his speech in the Eastern House of Assembly, on 13 February 1958, announced the abolition of free primary education and re-introduction of en-rollment and tuition fees. When Zik must go rebellion led by  Kingsley Ozuomba Mbadiwe broke out in June 1958, one of the seven accusations levelled against Azikiwe for which he asked to resign was abolition of free primary education in the East. Ironically, not only the Igbo children that lived with their parents in Western Nigeria at that time enjoyed free primary education but many Igbo that crossed the Niger bridge, with their children to Agbor and Asaba, which were then part of Western Region, enrolled in Awolowo's free primary education scheme.

​In view of the historical facts above Biko Agozino is indebted to tell us where Awolowo said he launched free education in Western Region in order to catch up with the Eastern Region as well as to tell us when and where Azikiwe quoted Awolowo on the alleged statement. I suspect that Biko Agozino is putting words  into Awolowo's mouth through Azikiwe. We should not forget that in 1958 the cost of en-rollment and school fees per term (two terms), excluding books and uniform in the East, was £10 and the average annual per capita income in Eastern Region at that time was £21. How many Igbo could afford to pay for education of their children in 1958? About education, Achebe wrote in 'There Was a country, "The coastal branches of the Yoruba nation had some of the earliest contact with the European missionaries and explorers as a consequence of their proximity to the shoreline and their own dedication of learning. They (the Yoruba) led the nation in educational attainment from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries." Achebe elaborated further, "Although the Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head start (in education), the Igbo wiped out their handicap (in education) in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950 (p. 74-75)" The British colonialists did not come to Nigeria purposely to educate Nigerians but they were compelled to communicate with Nigerians in order to rule over them. In the West there were Oba (Kings) governing in their respective territory but in the East there was no organized system of government because Igbo people of that time lived in small enclaves from one another. While the British could rule through the Oba in Yorubaland, they had to create Warrant Chiefs in Igboland to enhance their colonial administration. Eze and Igwe subsequently evolved from Warrant Chiefs and none of them had a crown but a red cap as it is till date. That explains why Western education started lately in Igboland than in Yorubaland.

​Nnamdi Azikiwe was born in Zungeru, Northern Nigeria and spent most part of his educational life in Nigeria, in Yorubaland. He spoke Hausa and Yoruba fluently even more than Igbo, according to other sources. He used to dress in Yoruba attire and, unlike majority of the Igbo who are Catholics, he was an Anglican (a Methodist). That aside, I think it is trite to be debating if the Igbo are more educated than the Yoruba or any other tribe in Nigeria, in the 21st century. I am not questioning whether there are more educated Igbo than all the other ethnic groups in Nigeria rather I wonder about the usefulness of education in general to the welfare of Nigerians in relation to socio-economic and industrial development and when the natural resources available in the country is taken into consideration. Biko Agozino says the five Igbo states,  Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo are the most educated in Nigeria but none of the states has been turned to New York, Paris, London, Hamburg or Dubai despite receiving together the total sum of 5 billion, 668 million, 895 thousand and 452 dollars ($5,688,895,452) as federal allocations between 2011 and 2015 (p. 145, Fighting Corruption Is Dangerous by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala). What more, we have had two Igbo professors as Minister of power between 2007 and 2015 but they produced darkness as much as their Yoruba and Hausa successors in the same position.  No, Professor Biko Agozino, Nigeria is now at the age of application of knowledge and Nigerians won't care about the ethnic origin of any person who can impact positively on their standard of living and quality of life.
​S. Kadiri


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Anthony Akinola

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Apr 25, 2020, 4:13:54 PM4/25/20
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Your penchant for accuracy and detail is appreciated. This is a highly-educative
intervention.
Regards,
Anthony Akinola

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/BN7PR06MB40684FED4A958F2DFF9621A3AED00%40BN7PR06MB4068.namprd06.prod.outlook.com.

Biko Agozino

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Apr 25, 2020, 4:45:43 PM4/25/20
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You were given two sources to check out and you want me to tell you exactly where Awo wrote that? You will have to do your own research and find things out for yourself. For your information, Zik was not the only one who quoted Awo on this. You will find similar quotations in books on the subject by other authors. If you need a research assistant to help you read all the books that Awo wrote in order to find this information, I am sure that you can afford to hire one. Good luck with your research.

Do not be surprised that children whose parents were not Yoruba also registered their children for the commendable policy of free education in the Western Region while living there. Their parents also paid taxes and levies for that.

Biko

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