Preparing for the long haul.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Our troubled world:
Chinese planes are alleged to be acting aggressively in the South China Sea.
In the South China Sea - not in the Bay of Mexico, Uncle Sam’s backyard.
So why is Uncle Sam fishing in the South China Sea, so far away from home?
Ditto, the Persian Gulf. Does Uncle Sam think that it's a US duck pond?
Does Russia have the capacity to use overwhelming force? Of course, and nobody in the Pentagon or any of the NATO capitals doubts that. So what's the point of a long, drawn-out war?
Sudan: WAR.
Uganda: Death penalty…
Serbia - Kosovo: War clouds on the horizon
Nigeria: Alhamdulillah!
No more fuel subsidies.
At this stage, Old Major's Speech in Animal Farm should sound like anathema to Chidi’s Billionaire Boy and a far cry from the real Peter Obi or his alleged roots in any so-called “Labour Party". At best he would sound like John Major to me, albeit a little less refined and less retired. John Major, after all, lost an election, in his case after spending some time in real power and after that did not then become a humbug or start making a nuisance of himself as Obi is doing, by disputing the integrity of Nigeria’s judiciary and INEC. Furthermore, as far as comparisons go, the real Peter Obi has not yet tasted that kind of power, not at all, and that hunger for power could be one of the reasons why he is so sour grapes and bitter about his failure to win the Nigerian Presidential Elections. As we say in Krio, he should “take courage” from e.g.Big Brother Buhari who was finally lucky the fourth time around, and from Alhaji Atiku who could, God willing ( Inshallah) be lucky with his sixth attempt at bagging the Nigerian Presidency. After all, a man is never too old to try. As Cardinal Rex Lawson sings, in Mekine Wa Bo Te, “Once you try and don’t succeed, try, try again!'' There's no point in insisting paopa that you won the election and should be installed as Nigeria’s next President when you know damn well that you didn’t win and can’t even prove that you won. So what do you want? That INEC and the Nigerian Judiciary should bow down and worship you? Do you want everybody to take your word as the inspired word of God? Listen up to Hon.Chidi’s poignant poetic question :
“ You are strutting about on social media proclaiming that a candidate announced as the winner by the election umpire is not the choice of Nigerians, are you the spokesperson of Nigerians?”
It has been worthwhile getting regular updates from Salihu Moh. Lukman, not least of all about party discipline. It is to be hoped that the ruling APC will maintain majority control of the Senate and that the cross-carpeting that occurred during President Buhari’s presidency, thereby sabotaging his ability to implement some of his reform agendas is now really, one of those unfortunate obstacles of the past,
No one needs to be reminded of what we all anticipate, during the mandate period of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu the controversies, discussions, and mischievous misinformation, volatile & vile disparagements, treasonous malice, libel, slander, and disagreements on and off Naija’s social media, are going to be tremendously many...
That’s why in the UK’s House of Commons, there is, in a very literal sense there's an official who functions as the whip, a gentleman’s and gentlewoman's agreement about submission to duly constituted authority, some kind of low-level war against indiscipline…
Lest we forget that in this free speech zone in Soyinka’s Republic of Liars, situated as we are in cyberspace, and in our various earthly locations and moorings, all of us are still free citizens, and no one among us earthlings, be he president or pauper, prince, princess, most erudite genius professor or imbecile, is sacrosanct. We are not, none of us is excreta or the offspring of vermin, nor are our children; we are all free to question/ interrogate/criticize within decent self-imposed limits of course, as citizens of Tom Wolfe’s “The Kingdom of Speech”
And in Nigeria, here we go again: Corruption, writ large.
Kabir lamented, “I laugh when I hear that the fish in the water is thirsty.".Equally ridiculous, we now have Nigeria, where Oil dey flow underground like-e river, Nigeria, Africa's greatest oil producer and exporter, with a large domestic market for fuel, complaining about an awkward but avoidable reality, a price hike in the cost of fuel due to hoarding and other factors highlighted on BBC Hardtalk by Rotimi Amaechi, the then Governor of Rivers State, the biggest oil-producing state in Nigeria during President Goodluck Jonathan’s dispensation. It hurt to hear from him that the national treasury was losing $ 1 billion a month in revenues, to oil thieves - so, that’s a well-known area where corruption has to be brought under law and order.
Once upon a time, there was an oil boom in Nigeria, and things were not at all, as they are now. 1984 - 1985 we had Professor Tam David -West as Minister of Petroleum during Muhammadu Buhari’s First Coming. A little later we had an eminent power broker within OPEC by the name of Dr Rilwanu Lukman, Secretary General of OPEC 1995-2000)
We are now looking forward to the appointments that will constitute President Tinubu’s Government of National Competence…
If Chidi Anthony Opara is offered the post of Minister of Poetry, will he accept the position, I wonder, and if he does, would that influence his position on what he proclaimed the other day, to wit, “ The next 100 days would determine my relationship with Bola Tinubu, Nigeria's incoming President.” Of course, if he snubs the offer, he should only have himself to blame. Ditto, we are to suppose that in normal circumstances a bloke like Kperogi wouldn’t mind being offered the position of Minister of Misinformation and Propaganda, in a Peter Gregory Obi administration. Sadly for him, the chances of Kperogi being made such an offer in President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Government of National Competence is quite remote, since Kperogi shot himself in the leg by prematurely announcing that he would renounce his Nigerian citizenship if Brother Tinubu won the Presidential Elections. Now, all Kperogi has to do, as a man of his word, or a trustworthy man who is as good as his word, is to keep his promise, or in the words of singer-composer Bob Dylan in “ The Gates of Eden” :
“ To those condemned to act accordingly
And wait for succeeding kings”
Uncommon sense dictates that an uncontrollable hike in the price of fuel, due to a shortage/ shortfall in the supply of that essential commodity should be intolerable. Layman Ignoramus would appreciate a simple answer to this simple question: Can’t the Government Authority regulate the price of this basic commodity known as FUEL?
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi,
I like your style, just as I like Victor Jara, and Segun Adewale’s “ Play for me, I Like your music!”
But can we be sure that if you are not elected President of PEN International, you won’t take to the streets or the Supreme Court like that upstart Peter Obi, chanting “ It was I,who won the election ! I was cheated! “?
On the lighter side, imagine ( that’s all we can do) on the day of judgement when we are in the dock at the heavenly court, being asked,
“ And who are you?”
Standing naked, slightly bent and afraid, and looking down at the ground, I doubt that I would burst into psalm of glory, but I should hope that I would still have the presence of mind to do my share of praise and pious flattery much in the same way some people, e.g. Obi’s fans the “obidients” are disposed to do with presidents and other people who aspire to power, in this case, Glory be to God Most High, aspiring to eternal life in heaven by replying, something like, “Dear Almighty, you know me better than I know myself. I have always hoped to be Thine humble servant, Lord! “
On that day , who is going to say, “ I am professor so and so “? At the very least, appearing for judgement before His Divine Majesty, not even in a moment of jest before the Omniscient is even the most arrogant among mankind going to say, “ I am your humble servant Professor Chicken Wings” or “I am the Supreme Leader & President of the Islamic Republic of Nigeria!”
The likes of Elon Musk,is merely going to say “ Elon Musk, just as someone, who knows who he is, is going to say,” I am Mohamed A El-Erian “...Mohamed A.El-Erian (he was on BBC this morning about the debt ceiling
Joe Biden is probably going to say ,”I used to be a Catholic, and took the oath as President of the UnIted States of America, on Lincoln’s Bible; I was the Chief weapons supplier to Zelenskyy and I was not opposed to abortions as a good Catholic should have been”
However, when it comes to national karma the United States ofAmerica has this great plus which I heard directly from the lips of Baba Muktananda, in New York, on 4th of July 1976 ( he was speaking in Marathi) : “AMERICA feeds a lot of people”
Suffer,suffer for world, enjoy for heaven,na my life be dis?
I Know that he's not going to like this, but If I were to be taking off to Nigeria tomorrow, I’d be heading directly to you Chidi Anthony Opara in Owerri and not to my dear friend Bishop Titus Akanabu because unlike me,” Brother Cornelius”, Holy Man Titus was not the type to be hanging out with the likes of Dr Sir Warrior at The White House in Owerri, imbibing some mmanya ocha/ palmy/ palmwine or ogogoro with Okukuseku //Kofi Sammy at Aba during the good old days of Sam Mbakwe , or a night out at the Romeo Hotel In Port Harcourt with the house band Prince David Bull & Seagulls International Dance Band….
Street poet, as my mother used to tell me,” despise not the day of small beginnings”.
BTW, on the way to being elected President of PEN International, Fela-like you could establish yourself as President of your own beloved Republic, just as Fela was the His Excellency, Mr. President of the Kalakuta Empire ( we - Fela and I) had two friends in common - John M Chernoff and Chris Dele Okonkwo (saxophonist).Chris left me in Stockholm with a phone number to hook up with him at the Surulere Night Club in Lagos; sadly, I had other work that was to be done) but to the point : You could establish yourself as Chief Poet and President of The Owerri Motor Park, and as president of that liberated zone, a mini Biafra if you will, a state -your own -within a state, the Bigger Nigeria, your own little state no longer under the jurisdiction of Tinubu and his pretensions, with a free hand you could then calibrate, appoint your own cabinet, your personal minister of finance, attorney- general, chief of police, your own local chapter of Amotekun and your own chief justice of the people’s sharia court.to settle disputes, with the proviso, that of course, you remain the Supreme boss; if you choose to remain as a part of Abia State you could declare The Owerri Motor Park a prominent landmark in our neck of the jungle, the new free speech zone - like Speaker’s Corner at Hyde Park where you are free to blast anybody or everybody. but not - in the old days, Her Majesty, and nowadays free to blast anybody except His Majesty, Charles III ( if only Meghan & Harry could get that into their thick skulls). I daresay it's much the same here where we are free to blast anybody except our own local Majesty, His Imperial Highness, TF , not even under the guise of a “poetic licence” that he himself did not issue or sanction - and please keep it in your mind and don’t forget that even if he were to issue you a poetic licence, you'd be free to criticise/ lambast him but only within limits - or else
Even speaking as a confirmed Buhari-ite, I must confess that the quoted extract below is from the best post-mortem that I have yet read on President Buhari without having to react - et tu brute? There are lessons to be learned from that opinion piece and there is nothing there that’s” below the belt, but a Buhariite like is of the opinion that in the annals of Nigerian history Muhammadu Buhari will forever have his place as a great man, and a great president who presided over Nigeria during very difficult time especially with those who were hellbent on making Nigeria ungovernable and of course a recalcitrant Senate that was opposed to passing any reforms that would expose they themselves to unwelcome scrutiny and investigation with respect to financial fraud. A faithful and appreciative Buhari-ite like me could drum up a long list of Brother Muhammadu Buhari’s merits and achievements, during his eight years as Nigeria’s First Citizen
“This same complacency came into action in Buhari’s self-appointment as the Minister for Petroleum, a move that spelled little good for Nigeria’s petroleum affairs, as ridiculous expenditure continued in the oil sector right under the president’s nostrils.” (Ojogbon Falola on “Buhari’s Four Unforgivable Sins”)
Which goes to show that freedom of speech is alive and well in Nigeria.
Would the Ojogbon have dared to make such a disrespectful reference to Saddam or Saddam’s olfactory functions, during the heyday of the man that Iran’s Republican Islamists contemptuously referenced as “The Butcher of Baghdad”?
The closest I have come to superseding that iconoclastic reference to nostrils was my initial reaction to this sentence from the Torah about burnt sacrifices : Genesis 8 : 20 -21
I read that passage and thought to myself, “ So the smell of burnt flesh was a pleasing aroma to His nostrils, eh?”
And then I felt awful and guilty for days afterwards ( God can actually hear your thoughts, you know.)
And by the way Chidi, as far as Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala is concerned the only unforgivable sin is Shirk
The Ojogbon must have had Pastor Obasanjo in mind, and Pastor Obasanjo saying “ God will never forgive me if support Atiku for President”
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