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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 21, 2020, 4:38:04 PM4/21/20
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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.

(c) Chidi Anthony Opara

#2020Quotes


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Chidi Anthony Opara is a "Life Time Achievement" Awardee, Registered Freight Forwarder, Professional Fellow Of Institute Of Information Managerment, Africa, Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects



Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 23, 2020, 7:08:54 AM4/23/20
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Nigerian government officials at all levels, individual members of the elite and elite groups like "Actors Guild Of Nigeria" urging citizens to stay at home(just like that), shows an obscene disconnect. Majority of the Nigerian citizenry live from hand to mouth. "Stay at home" in Nigeria should have a component that minimizes its obvious discomforts.

CAO

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 24, 2020, 5:21:09 PM4/24/20
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It is not only coronavirus that can cause death, hunger can too. Any attempt at "total lockdown" in Nigeria or in any part of Nigeria, would be protecting the people from one cause of death and exposing them to another, because of the way the political and economic systems of the country are structured.
It would be an extremity and the other extremity would be civil disobedience, not because the people are lawless, but because they are left with no other choice.

CAO.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 25, 2020, 5:02:47 AM4/25/20
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In the expected President Buhari's third COVID 19 broadcast, we expect to hear that world class testing and treatment centres in the 774 local government areas are completed or nearing completion, not the harebrained "curfew" and "total lockdown".

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 25, 2020, 5:25:04 PM4/25/20
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Since coronavirus outside the human body can be killed by disinfectants, let the Federal and State governments in Nigeria invest more in the fumigation of public places instead of "total lockdown". Governments can also partner with the Road Transport Workers Union to fumigate buses and taxis.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 25, 2020, 10:01:37 PM4/25/20
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 26, 2020, 8:35:31 AM4/26/20
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Cornelius,
"I strongly urge that we not let mathematicians who know nothing about biology determine when we lift the shutdown”-Dr. Gabi Barbash(former director-general of Israel’s health ministry and former head of Tel Aviv's largest hospital).

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 26, 2020, 8:35:42 AM4/26/20
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If the COVID 19 response in Nigeria is as efficient as it should be, as the number of new cases rise, the number of recoveries should rise in higher proportion, while the number of deaths should be on great decline.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 26, 2020, 4:49:15 PM4/26/20
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If you remove politics from COVID 19, it  would be easy to be eradicated.

Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 26, 2020, 5:06:53 PM4/26/20
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easy? with all the scientists in the world seeking cures??
hmmm

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 26, 2020, 6:18:06 PM4/26/20
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Part of the politics is not considering African herbal alternatives.

CAO.

Toyin Falola

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Apr 26, 2020, 6:23:34 PM4/26/20
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Sir:
Who is "they"? Is anyone stopping Nigeria or Ghana from taking the medication? I have recipes that have circulated that people use.
A friend who survived the virus in New York attributed the reason to herbal medicine. The head of the College of Medicine, University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, attributed his recovery to traditional medicine. The Governor of my state said he was cured by a combination of black seed oil, carrot and some other things.
TF

On 4/26/20, 5:18 PM, "usaafric...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com on behalf of chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:

Part of the politics is not considering African herbal alternatives.

CAO.

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 26, 2020, 7:09:34 PM4/26/20
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if these people had not taken their herbs, their traditional medicine, etc, how would we know that their cure would be due to the medicine. we wouldn't if you don't do proper studies, it's all anecdotal and unconvincing.
my hope is that chloroquine works. the french are taking it serious; a friend in cameroon said the same. if the trials work out, we will all be lucky.
without trials, we can't really know
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
 
Sir:
Who is "they"? Is anyone stopping Nigeria or Ghana from taking the medication? I have recipes that have circulated that people use.
A friend who survived the virus in New York attributed the reason to herbal medicine. The head of the College of Medicine, University Teaching Hospital in Ibadan, Nigeria, attributed his recovery to traditional medicine. The Governor of my state said he was cured by a combination of black seed oil, carrot and some other things.
TF

On 4/26/20, 5:18 PM, "usaafric...@googlegroups.com on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com on behalf of chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:

    Part of the politics is not considering African herbal alternatives.
   
    CAO.
   
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Toyin Falola

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Apr 26, 2020, 7:16:38 PM4/26/20
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Ken:

I am not validating the efficacy, but just saying that no one is stopping countries to pursue their leads. I don’t know whether they work but If I were to be sick, I will use whatever I can to prolong my life.

TF

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Harrow, Kenneth

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Apr 26, 2020, 7:27:34 PM4/26/20
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true


kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

Sent: Sunday, April 26, 2020 7:11 PM

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Apr 26, 2020, 10:55:57 PM4/26/20
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Oga Falola,
The politics of global vaccine patenting would not let the African herbs have a headway in spite of their obvious efficacy.

Ken,
The study methods are Western.

CAO.

Toyin Falola

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Apr 26, 2020, 11:05:38 PM4/26/20
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CAO:
From whom do the medicine man obtains permission before making money rituals? African herbs have been stolen, repackaged and patented. There are books on this. Six African herbs have been converted to tablets. Bitters in Ghana is now Origin that the Guinness company turns into a beer drink.
I am a mediocre herbalist, and we have Professor Goodluck Iweriebor of Hunters College, my good friend of 30 years, who has an extensive knowledge on this. He gives me herbal powder for diabetes.
TF
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O O

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Apr 27, 2020, 7:07:23 AM4/27/20
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Yes, one has to do anything to extend any life worth living; after all, no human KNOWS what happens when one (sooner or later) takes that “FINAL” one-way visa to THAT country which no human has EVER been to and returned.

Sent from my iPhone

On Apr 26, 2020, at 6:40 PM, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:



    CAO.
   
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Ibrahim Abdullah

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Apr 27, 2020, 7:07:40 AM4/27/20
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What are “African herbs”? Plants found only in Africa? Just wondering how they acquire “African” citizenship if they are found in Brazil, The Philippines, and elsewhere in the so-called tropics.

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Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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Apr 27, 2020, 9:32:13 AM4/27/20
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The pharmaceutical industry  often operates by identifying the active principles in plants on the basis of their history, usage and efficacy. 

Some plants may be unique to Africa or individual continents. Others not. Companies often send out periodic  teams of investigators to gather data from local practitioners.

Pharmaceutical companies decipher the molecular structure of identified plants and re-create this in the laboratory,  to produce synthetic drugs. They would like you to believe that there is no connection between one and the other, to maximize sales, magnify their discoveries and pay minimal or no compensation for the intellectual property of their informants.

Aspirin is a great example of a drug with this background  and so, too, Nivocain and chloroquine among a very long list.

Covid organics could well be a game changer and
I hope it is,  especially since Madagascar has now started massive human trials - whether we like it or not.

Ken, we are going beyond chloroquine and will embrace the multiple other possibilities out there.





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 Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
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To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
 

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Apr 27, 2020, 11:32:03 AM4/27/20
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Dear Professor Toyin Falola,

Re- Your words, “I will use whatever I can to prolong my life.”

I just want to say on behalf of us music lovers, many many thanks,  you are doing fine, and as far as I’m concerned with a little help from our friends, you are successfully prolonging all of our lives with the delightful selection  of musical gems that you have been posting, some that I never knew existed, some that I must discover anew;  I’m amazed that there’s that side to you.

 As Duke Orsino said, If music be the food of love, play on...

 Steel Pulse’s  Sound Check begins

“If anything should mash up my head Sah

Play the music me can't dead

Jah in music prolongs gives me life to

Praise Jah!”

Me praise Jah !

We all appreciate the efficacy of African Herbs

 I also want to personally thank you for having me around, me no get bad heart, so me  no want to sing “ Bad Card”.

Me live according to the Gestalt Prayer, but me no propagate for anybody else to do that, to see vision or to join any bombaclat religion.

Looking for some choice Apala and Fuji from you

Signing off with

Jimmy Cliff: Love me, Love me

Sly & the Family Stone: Babies, makin’ Babies

Abdul Tee-Jay :  Fire Dombolo

Culture: Live  ( makes man homesick) Rest in peace and power  Joseph Hill

Bembeya:  Mami  Wata . Rest in peace and power Demba Camara  

 

 

 


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Anthony Akinola

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Apr 27, 2020, 2:08:48 PM4/27/20
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 His love for exotic music prompts me to suspect he must also have had an eye for the beautiful
ones in his younger days.
Regards,
Anthony Akinola

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 1, 2020, 8:50:32 AM5/1/20
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You are great not because of your personal acquisitions, but because of the things you do for humanity, sometimes at the expense of your personal comfort.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 2, 2020, 7:42:58 PM5/2/20
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I write poetry of protest because I came from the streets, unlike colleagues who came from the academia/intelligentsia.

Adeshina Afolayan

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May 3, 2020, 10:17:50 AM5/3/20
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Na wa! Oga Chidi the revolutionary poet! So, writing poetry from the street means your poetry is automatically revolutionary? And those who write from the academia write puerile poems? Which kin tin be this? 

How effective do you think your poetry is? 

Who your poetry epp? 
Big big gramma 
Wey no fit make dawa
For those wey hala for epp.

Poetry is elitist. It doesn't get to the yawning tables of the masses because it is not needed there. Food is what tables are meant for. Hence, your difference between street and academia poetry collapses into elite distanciation from what really.matters on the street.

I wrote this verse
In the comfort of my room
While the roar of the masses
Tells of the pandemonium about.
I diligently noted the turmoil 
And went back to my coffee:
I am a poet of the street
And my verses will carry the noise!


Adeshina 
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Yusuf Adamu

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May 3, 2020, 10:22:10 AM5/3/20
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Hi Chidi,
I will glad to read your poems. I seem to like your views. I am a poet too. You can read some of my poems at www.africanpublicpoet.blogspot.com
Thanks
Yusuf Adamu 

Yusuf Adamu

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May 3, 2020, 10:33:43 AM5/3/20
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For me, I don't write poetry from the street but for the street, making it less elitist and more accessible.
Yusuf Adamu 

Adeshina Afolayan

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May 3, 2020, 11:30:34 AM5/3/20
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Oga Yusuf, once we differentiate verses from poems, I insist that all poetry is elitist...either written from the street (whatever that means) or for the street.


Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 3, 2020, 2:10:31 PM5/3/20
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Yusuf,
Access most of my works here: https://www.google.com/search?sxsrf=ALeKk03Qn1un3G-F2l4vgI15h2BcxB-w3A%3A1588523884604&source=hp&ei=bPOuXsCAI8OSlwTFwpX4Dg&q=chidi+anthony+opara+poems&oq=&gs_lcp=ChFtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXdpei1ocBABGAEyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwguEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECcyBwgjEOoCECdQAFgAYN8daAFwAHgAgAEAiAEAkgEAmAEAsAEP&sclient=mobile-gws-wiz-hp

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 3, 2020, 2:10:49 PM5/3/20
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Adeshina,
All poetry is not elitist or masses oriented. The themes and the platforms mainly make poems elitist or masses oriented.

You very well know that if I were not writing in this era of social media, I would have been composing and rendering my poems at town squares, markets and similar places where the masses are found, not in palaces as royalty would never have tolerated the themes of my poetry.

CAO.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 3, 2020, 3:37:29 PM5/3/20
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Adeshina,
You once eulogized here my "Motor Park Poetry" tendency which you rightly said symbolized affinity to the ordinary people. What has changed?

CAO.

Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 3, 2020, 3:38:10 PM5/3/20
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At Legon in Ghana, shortly after the Soul to Soul event  - at which I met Carlos Santana, backstage, immediately after he had finished playing the Soul Sacrifice set, ( we watched the sunrise together as someone was singing some gospel ) it was a great show, it was on Ghana’s Independence Day  and on my wife’s Names Day – only good memories and  a few days later I was given Rene Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet by George Crowell ( an African American dance student).  I just want to say that poetry is poetry. Just as philosophy is philosophy, a question is a question and there are also good and bad answers, just as there are good and bad manners. As the saying goes, “manners maketh man”. There too, it’s cultural – as the other saying goes, “You can take the monkey out of the jungle but you can’t take the jungle out of the monkey”, no matter how hard you try. So, sometimes you just have to forgive. That too, and all those awkward situations is the stuff of poetry.

My own understanding now is that because post-colonial Nigeria is still very much a semi-literate society in which less than 50% of the population are not comfortable with the Buckingham Palace Language, those who believe themselves to be comfortable with it,  naturally, see themselves as the nation’s “luminaries” and sometimes as my personal luminary too, – ironically to the extent that  they feel more concerned about the English Language than even those  who have it as their mother tongue, who think and sleep and drink and dream in English.  Why English is such a big deal is beyond my comprehension.  Well, they’ve got a lot of work to do, teaching the 1. 3 billion Chinese and so many more corrections to make if they think of Ebonics as “ bad English” not to mention  Sam Selvon in Moses Ascending…

Once upon a time ( when I was about fourteen years old) , I practised singing  this serenade, “Overhead  the moon is beaming”  and some of the other songs from “The Student Prince”) , I thought that the lyrics were sort of poetic and beautiful…

Chidi,

Personally, (what else can I be?)

I love poetry.

I love your poetry

Sometimes your poetry hits me directly –

Clearly, because it is so direct and honest –

Without the sometimes discrete/ indiscreet fluff, bluff & embellishments, the stiff upper lip cum coitus Erectus of the pretentious sons of perdition who don’t understand that it is in poetry ( and some kinds of prose) that the English Language which they worship so much, is reinvented, some will even say invented , certainly created and ALIVE and therein finds some respect. As Don Kenneth Harrow says elsewhere just recently, the hybrid is a continuous process and that is what the poet is, the poet in the present continuum with that long trail behind him, the long trail of all the poets before him, including those who he has never met, heard of or known ( in the spirit).

 The poet is a hybrid continually in process, so there is no pure Italian – pure Latin, yes, so permit me to greet you Chidi, Dominus Vobiscum and please continue to reflect and enjoy the journey ad infinitum and ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem , as the cherub choir boys say when they serve sideways alongside some holy , unctuous, servile, paedophile poet-priests and some of our people from the so called academies and English Departments ( there are so many ) but  what’s the use if you have  no muse but still, want to be  a “poet”?

BTW these are “the wannabe”

 So, what to say about divine poetry. – for example, some of the Hebrew Prophets?

 Is whatever document we have before us not subject to literary criticism and even language analysis? What about X, Y and Z’s blog pieces?

 In “ Axis Bold As Love” Jimi Hendrix  ( also a great poet  sings, “Just ask the axis - he knows everything”

Just one more word about “ embellishments”  - right now I’m thinking of music which also has its own poetic conceits  -  has its own language/languages -  of course, a soloist or composer embellishes, that’s part of the beauty of music…and music is also something that a man should not boast about  - although we have a guy like Jelly Roll Morton  who is reported to have said, “I invented jazz”  - jazz - another hybrid, so how dare Cornelius  “ correct”  someone’s solo? I can’t even “correct” my own – it’s a one-time thing… like the bird that flies out of your moth and doesn’t return, or the arrow that is released from the bow. A man a cool man does not boast about English, poetry Music or Sex.  I dare not even suggest that you could use more of the “language of the street.” The rap and hip-hop lyrics are some of the  great protest poetry  

Boasting and boasting. Thou shalt not boast – In Sweden at least it is a sin. It doesn’t matter how many Nobel Prizes you’ve won, how many panted inventions you have to your name. However, every time I go down Drottninggatan I smile with quiet satisfaction because there ‘s a silver placard slap bang in the middle of the street with a quotation from S Sweden’s greatest Strindberg in which he proclaims, “min eld är den största i Sverige “ ( My fire is the GREATEST in Sweden” from a longer sentence in which he said, "Jag har icke det skarpaste hufvudet, men elden; min eld är den största i Sverige”  ( I don’t have the sharpest mind, but the fire; my fire is the greatest in Sweden.” (Just imagine Chidi, if you said, “My poetic fire is the greatest in Nigeria!”  The fallout would be immense  - but  George Bernard Shaw is credited with having said, I’m quoting our English teacher   Von Bradshaw from memory, that GBS said, “ I can think of no writer in English Literature, not even Sir Walter Scott  who I more despise than Shakespeare, when I  match my intellect against his own. “

May God save us all from conceit.

It’s just occurred to me (thinking of Baba Kadiri just now, true, sometimes we are of one mind and that’s probably why you might think that it was me and not he that said: “Down with corruption!”  -

 Let’s imagine that the OMNISCIENT Who by virtue of being THE ALMIGHTY, is perfect and is thereby by definition the greatest poet  -  I imagine that if Baba Kadiri says, if the Almighty is serious about saving Baba Kadir’s soul then the Almighty should address Baba Kadiri in Baba Kadiri’s  most comprehensible Yoruba dialect.  For you, I suppose it would be  21st century Igbo Language, maybe even the Igbo that they speak ay the Owerri Motor Park , the Street Igbo , not the elitist Igbo  - for me it would be English; I would feel  most comfortable with British English, less so with any other English.  The Almighty knows that even if the Almighty prefers to speak to his servants in the Lashon Hakodesh.  Now imagine some Besserwisser who doesn’t know any better and as we know (and this is not poetic) because “empty buckets make most sound “he might want to correct the Almighty’s vocabulary o, the Almighty’s poetic diction, the Almighty’s conjugation of verbs!  Well, as  the Torah Scholars know, in Hebrew prophecy, sometimes the present tense can be indicative of  what has happened in the past or even what can/ will happen in the future, and of course, no matter  what tense,  God, the “ I am that I am - I will be what I will be” uses, it’s for us to dive deep-ly into the matter with all our heart and  since we are so clever, have such a great IQ, with all our minds. You don’t expect the Almighty to do the diving for you, do you?

As the bard Dylan asked, and that was a deep charge question,

 “You think He's just an errand boy to satisfy your wandering desires? “

Indeed, when it comes to language comprehension,  there’s something  like the relationship between Man Friday and Robinson Crusoe as taken up at the  beginning of  Coetzee’s Nobel Lecture

Some music:  

 Van Morrison: Queen of the Slipstream ( from the Album “ Poetic Champions Compose”)

 Please, keep on doing poetry…..

 


Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 4, 2020, 4:05:54 AM5/4/20
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If anything is to be slashed in Nigeria to raise funds for COVID 19 response, it should be the budgets of the Presidency/offices of the state governors and that of the National Assembly/state Assemblies.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 4, 2020, 9:08:20 AM5/4/20
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Freedom releases the natural creative energy of humanity, their possibilities become limitless, giving impetus to inventions and discoveries. The benefits to humanity are aeroplanes, ships, electricity, internet, etc.

CAO.

Yusuf Adamu

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May 5, 2020, 8:17:16 PM5/5/20
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Noted with thanks Sir. I just write poems. I am not a mechanic of poems.
Yusuf 

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 6, 2020, 2:55:13 AM5/6/20
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407 Best Ramadhan images in 2020 | Ramadan, Ramadan quotes ...

“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.” ( Surah an-Nur ayat 35) Of course, it sounds infinitely more majestic in Arabic)


Yusuf Adamu  - Ramadan Kareem , wishing you a wonderful Laylat al-Qadr and many thanks for these offerings

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Gloria Emeagwali

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May 6, 2020, 12:18:48 PM5/6/20
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Well,  with the exception of the Somalis. I am told that every Somali is a poet.Not sure how this cuts across class in reality. Are they both consumers and producers of poetry?

I know for sure that the great Mohammed Abdile Hassan (Abdullah Hassan) launched his twenty year plus war against British, Italian and French occupation  with poetry  and arms(Samatar), 1899 - 1920.

On Sun, May 3, 2020 at 11:30 AM 'Adeshina Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Oga Yusuf, once we differentiate verses from poems, I insist that all poetry is elitist...either written from the street (whatever that means) or for the street.


On Sunday, May 3, 2020, 3:33 PM, Yusuf Adamu <yusuf...@gmail.com> wrote:

For me, I don't write poetry from the street but for the street, making it less elitist and more accessible.
Yusuf Adamu 

On Sun, 3 May 2020, 15:18 Yusuf Adamu <yusuf...@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Chidi,
I will glad to read your poems. I seem to like your views. I am a poet too. You can read some of my poems at www.africanpublicpoet.blogspot.com
Thanks
Yusuf Adamu 

On Sun, 3 May 2020, 00:42 Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
I write poetry of protest because I came from the streets, unlike colleagues who came from the academia/intelligentsia.

CAO.


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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 6, 2020, 2:34:29 PM5/6/20
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National leaders are in a separate category.  (Zik was a poet.  Are all Igbo producers and consumers of poetry?)

Whatever Abdullah Hassan was I have a few Somali friends and students who do not produce poetry.  In fact some work on building sites.

OAA



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Subject: Re:  USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 6, 2020, 2:34:40 PM5/6/20
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Oga Cornelius.

I take it you speak Arabic and Hebrew fluently.  Am I right?

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
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Date: 06/05/2020 07:58 (GMT+00:00)
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote


407 Best Ramadhan images in 2020 | Ramadan, Ramadan quotes ...

“Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The similitude of His light is as a niche wherein is a lamp. The lamp is in a glass. The glass is as it were a shining star. (This lamp is) kindled from a blessed tree, an olive neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil would almost glow forth (of itself) though no fire touched it. Light upon light. Allah guideth unto His light whom He will. And Allah speaketh to mankind in allegories, for Allah is Knower of all things.” ( Surah an-Nur ayat 35) Of course, it sounds infinitely more majestic in Arabic)


Yusuf Adamu  - Ramadan Kareem , wishing you a wonderful Laylat al-Qadr and many thanks for these offerings



On Wednesday, 6 May 2020 02:17:16 UTC+2, Yusuf Adamu wrote:
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Gloria Emeagwali

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May 6, 2020, 2:44:10 PM5/6/20
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But you can work on a building site and still be a poet.

New York city has lots of doctoral recipients, and former professionals driving taxis,  and with Covid 19,
the numbers may skyrocket.

BTW Lots of academic job losses ahead on this end as Universities try to balance their budgets. Some have initiated pay cuts.

Others without unions may start firing faculty indiscriminately.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 6, 2020, 3:07:50 PM5/6/20
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Agreed!  I personally anticipated the new turn for academics years ago ( again accelerated by digital learning rationalisation) so you will need to be damned good in your field earning money for your institution and not only for yourself to be retained.

But cab drivers are different from block and mortar physical construction site workers. The latter are too tired at the end of the day to spare any thoughts for poetry.  The libidinal excesses have been nearly drained as produced on site; not much left to sublimate into artistic work.

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
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Date: 06/05/2020 19:53 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

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But you can work on a building site and still be a poet.

New York city has lots of doctoral recipients, and former professionals driving taxis,  and with Covid 19,
the numbers may skyrocket.

BTW Lots of academic job losses ahead on this end as Universities try to balance their budgets. Some have initiated pay cuts.

Others without unions may start firing faculty indiscriminately.
On Wed, May 6, 2020 at 2:34 PM OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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Cornelius Hamelberg

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May 6, 2020, 5:12:03 PM5/6/20
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Lord Agbetuyi,

I have learned it the hard way. Cornelius Ignoramus who is more of a reader must also have his secrets you know.

Because I said to Yusuf Adamu  Surah an-Nur sounds more melodic and certainly more majestic in Arabic than in the Pickthall English into which it has been translated? Well, it’s true that there’s no better music. “ Faith comes through hearing”  -  if you don’t believe me just listen to all of the Holy Quran here, or elsewhere by any of the reciters and I promise you that it will enter your heart and stay there.

Fluent Hebrew must be what the Nigerians in Tel Aviv speak and  Fluent Arabic must be for the Nigerian people in Kuwait City, whilst fluent Swedish is the domain of  Baba Kadiri, whilst fluent English must be for the Bariba folk who live in Atlantic City, far away from Martin Luther King Jr.’s hometown , Atlanta. Georgia.

What about Dutch and Farsi?

Here’s some Hindi

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 7, 2020, 4:28:45 AM5/7/20
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"Lockdown" should not be the solution to COVID 19. The solution is the establishment of testing and treatment centres. "Lockdown" should be an initial action to give time to authorities to establish or upgrade facilities.

O O

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May 7, 2020, 10:31:46 AM5/7/20
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A. Apparently, many outside “experimental/theoretical” science have little or no idea about the somewhat subtle and yet “clear and distinct” difference between projections based on certain computer modeling and predictions based on “normal” science — it is in a sense the “difference” between “ideals” (aka “possibilities”) and “realities” (aka the proverbial “real world”); Both are related — but in intriguing and dynamic and complex ways. Yet “lived” experiences and “dreamed” experiences are relevant to each other because experiences “about” the world and experiences “in” the world happen IN and around us IN the world, this world, this ONE world — the only ONE we know (the one world we even barely know and that we try everyday to know scientifically and non-scientifically). Perhaps, lived “ivory-tower“ experiences and “Wall Street” experiences and  “Main Street” experiences are all quasi related.

B. Perhaps, “politics,” inside or outside, the world of education ALSO makes possible (for better or for worse) the ability at disinformation or “malamanipulation” of information or data — clever scholars are a master of this art (where persecution or demonization of an opposing position or idea or point dominates. In general, politics (the art of control of others) is increasingly cybernetic in method and aims.

C. If every human were an “angel” (a “good” angel), then every human would be “happy”? Won’t consistent happiness make boredom possible or very likely??? A thinker ALWAYS asks questions!!!!??? — and always resists being a philosopher, especially an academic philosopher? 

D. A difference (especially in “language“ usages) exists between the “elite” classes (aka “credentialed” classes) and the “other” classes BUT NOT NECESSARILY IN INTELLIGENCE (NO MATTER HOW ONE DEFINE IT). The “uneducated” may be “naive” or ”unsophisticated” but not NECESSARILY stupid. Ignorance of something does NOT necessarily amount to stupidity. 

E. After all, every human being is usually (quasi) ignorant of other things.

F. The idea of “progress” in a teleological sense has a problem and thus the traditional sense of epistemology faces a difficulty — the paradox of knowledge or what I call the prime antimony of life or the prime antimony IN life. Just as Darwin removed or perhaps suspended teleology from biology, Kuhn removed or suspended teleology from philosophy of science. Knowledge tantalizes as its seeker tries to totalize the very same world the seeker is a part of (rather than APART from).


Sent from my iPhone

On May 7, 2020, at 3:28 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:

"Lockdown" should not be the solution to COVID 19. The solution is the establishment of testing and treatment centres. "Lockdown" should be an initial action to give time to authorities to establish or upgrade facilities.

CAO.


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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 1:12:09 AM5/11/20
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The punishment should be proportional to the offence committed and then the process of trial and conviction must take place before punishment. This of course is the civilized route.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 3:46:22 PM5/11/20
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When the Madagascar COVID 19 antidote finally arrives in Nigeria, I will be one of the first persons to buy it and would of course use it if need be.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 5:53:38 PM5/11/20
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Are "almajiris" also children of Nigeria? We either decide to operate a "one Nigeria" system or split!

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 6:04:54 PM5/11/20
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Stop using the phrase "exporting almajiris"! They are moving to other parts of their country. How many of us are staying in our state of origin? Alright we don't beg, so, let us reoriented and transform the "almajiris" from begging to learning and practising skills.

Salimonu Kadiri

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May 11, 2020, 7:03:23 PM5/11/20
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Where are the parents of the children? Should Nigerian adults be making children and throwing them into the streets to beg for alms to live? This freedom of moving around the country to sleep on the overhead bridge and defecating anywhere should stop. If a Nigerian is relocating to another state within the country, he/she should apply to the government of his/her state of departure to get his/her share of federal allocation already received to be transferred to the new state of abode.
S. Kadiri 


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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 7:16:26 PM5/11/20
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Kadiri,
If the parents of the children are irresponsible, should the nation(?) allow the children to waste?

CAO.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 11, 2020, 9:28:46 PM5/11/20
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"Their state of origin"? Why always "their state of origin"? What about their country of origin?

Michael Afolayan

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May 11, 2020, 10:17:25 PM5/11/20
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Come to Osogbo, Chidi, you wouldn't need to be told that the bulk of them came to us from Niger Republic. Of course, I'm not unaware of those coming from various parts of the North.

MOA





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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 13, 2020, 4:05:23 PM5/13/20
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MOA:

I hope you now see why we oppose a super state like the African Union.

You state that the Almajiris in Oşogbo came from Niger but under the African Union mandate if twenty times the current numbers arrive in Oşogbi from Niger, Zimbabwe, Egypt and Somalia they automatically become the responsibility of the Oşogbo local government council wherever in Africa they are from.  This makes planning and budgeting a nightmare and makes provision of social services unattainable.

For whatever its drawbacks the nation- state blueprint is the best political model for political accountability.  I have always argued that if African nations do not like the political map bequeathed by the 1884 Berlin Conference, its back to the drawing board;  they should at least have the political will to arrange their own boundary re-adjustment conference to remodel their own nation states to what it was before or what works for them.

OAA



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Come to Osogbo, Chidi, you wouldn't need to be told that the bulk of them came to us from Niger Republic. Of course, I'm not unaware of those coming from various parts of the North.

MOA





On Monday, May 11, 2020, 3:53:39 PM MDT, Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 5:37:10 AM5/16/20
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Which health organization approved "dongoyaro" as cure for malaria?

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 5:37:10 AM5/16/20
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"Africa has found a medicine against Corona virus but Europe thinks they have a monopoly of intelligence as such they are refusing to acknowledge it"--Andry Rajoelina(President of Madagascar)

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 5:37:10 AM5/16/20
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COVID 19 is real, but not as deadly as being hyped, that aspect is the marketing strategy of potential vaccine licensees.

CAO.

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 5:37:11 AM5/16/20
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Governors in Nigeria can do with less emotions in their COVID 19 responses.

Michael Afolayan

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May 16, 2020, 10:45:54 AM5/16/20
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Are you serious, Chidi? Do you have friends, relatives, colleagues lying still in the morgue right now, some buried, some dying, all victims of COVID-19? I do! Trust me, this is no mere hype. It is an empirical reality. Don't join the conspiracy theorist who don't know what they are talking about, You should know better!

MOA




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Michael Afolayan

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May 16, 2020, 10:45:54 AM5/16/20
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Chidi: Kindly tell where Andry Rajoelina said this, and if possible post the full context. I am just curious. Thanks!
MOA



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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 16, 2020, 1:19:00 PM5/16/20
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MOA:

Its trying times. Even as we write Chidi is in good company of protesters in Hyde Park in London who said the lock down is a scam by government and that there is no pandemic.

OAA



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Are you serious, Chidi? Do you have friends, relatives, colleagues lying still in the morgue right now, some buried, some dying, all victims of COVID-19? I do! Trust me, this is no mere hype. It is an empirical reality. Don't join the conspiracy theorist who don't know what they are talking about, You should know better!

MOA




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segun ogungbemi

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May 16, 2020, 5:40:18 PM5/16/20
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 You don't need western approval because you will never get it. 
We have been using our tradition medicines for the treatment of different diseases without their approval and our people have survived. Those who will die will die but most of them will survive and they have been surviving anyway. If their traditional medicines had not been efficacious most of them would have died. 
Do the western world seek approval for the use of their medicines from Africans? Why must we seek their approval of medicine to cure coronavirus disease exported to Africa? 
We are talking about an urgent remedy for the survival of Africans and those who believe in their ingenuity to produce a cure of COVID-19. We must not seek approval from the west, in my opinion. 
Segun Ogungbemi. 


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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 5:40:18 PM5/16/20
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Olayinka and Michael,
I said that "COVID 19 is real, but not as deadly as being hyped, that aspect is the marketing strategy of potential vaccine licensees".

CAO.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 16, 2020, 7:16:48 PM5/16/20
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Not as deadly for whom?

Irs effects are not uniform globally.

OAA



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Olayinka and Michael,
I said that "COVID 19 is real, but not as deadly as being hyped, that aspect is the marketing strategy of potential vaccine licensees".

CAO.

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Gbemi Tijani

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May 16, 2020, 7:16:48 PM5/16/20
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Thanks you all for this perspective about African medicines efficacy for those who believe in its potency.What they don't know is that herbal medicine tackles the roots before the symptoms whereas most pharmaceuticals tackles the symptoms and appears expedient. Post covid time By His Grace will re-visit eclecticism and nothing wrong in this.I have commented severally on this in other chat rooms with 60 PhDs - MY MODEST HOPE IS THAT Africa should be able to present almost a  dozen remedies from different working teams -professors & their collaborating assistants within this 2020 pandemic entropy & gather courage and throw in expert resilience to research a vaccine  globally effective to defeat  covid19 novel  to its death knell.We need not bother about the West 's approval but what else will a scientifically produced  vaccine called if not a product of  the  sciences & epidemiological tools to test its status?Nigerian & African  scientists are doing well in all walks of life as immigrants and why shouldn't they compete or JOIN the global vaccinologists,epidemiologists as we know that more than 50 different research teams are working on a vaccine in Europe USA & ASIA  for covid including the Oxford ,Montana & Northeastern University Chicago -led by Dr Babafemi Taiwo etc.THERE SHOULD BE NO IMPERIALISM OR ANY iota of discrimination in scientific research how much more on health matters which 'every culture' ,as Prof T.A, Lambo,former W.H.O.Dep.Director General in the 80s confirmed 'has her own method of healing or health care'.Mid 80s he would reply my letters of inquiry as a Unesco Club leader with published papers parceled back to my high school including 'Medicine s Green s Revolution' by UNESCO etc.Despite covid19 s entropy that warranted the world 's tacit compliance to STAY@HOME lock-down implicating in economic losses without palliatives nor stimulus in most states in Nigeria & SOCIAL DISTANCING -the most difficult -to psychologically cope with locally,globally  --orthodox western medicine can't be threatened..Bona fide medical practitioners know this as a fact- because folk-medicines  aren't consistently developed but older than orthodox medicine.Don't you know the origins of the controversial physician s logo ,The Wand of the CADUCEUS-the double snakes & the single snake rod etc? Frankly speaking herbal  scientifically tested medicine isnt Africa s heritage alone -culturally speaking -Africa has more than herbal healing skills other than this modern herbal juicing in proportions that can be tested and made known to the scientific/epidemiological pharmaceutical communities.Our earliest Africans -most of whom have died  can heal with the 'WORD OF MOUTH'.I trust Unesco experts they have researched with anthropologists discovered the power of both the spoken word as well as the written word..In ASSIGNMENT CHILDREN'A JOURNAL OF RESEARCH BY unicef  IN THE 70S,Dr Smith ,Nigerian s 1st Public Health Federal  Minister  contributed to one of those series including those  top-down results where they-as  researchers set out to change behavior - imposed their own perspectives on the natives and failed. .
*usaadialogue -Your contributors made my day!
gbemi tijani mst,paul harris fellow & former unesco club founder & leader in the late 70s
ps.There's a Nigerian naturopath with 2 PhDs in Agric(Unife) & Naturopath(cayton coll.Nat.Med.Alabama) His son too,a PhD holder is also a naturopath & teaching the same at OAU,IFE,Nigeria Daddy is a Methodist presbyter,still drives at 80
pps.In addition to relevant works published largely on social media e.g U.I  & ABU research TEAMS  working separately with results & ready to defend findings -there are a maze of  other non-university based  herbal ,bio-scientists  in Nigeria (other than Madagaskar breakthrough)looking for funding, working at their own pace without glamour on herbal remedies for covid19 cure.A few are ignored despite they re lettered! Imagine.Others have disclosed to electronic media to press for funding.
ppps.NCDC  & STATE COMMITTEES should also have been campaigning for everyone  to build their natural immunity with appropriate fruits and vegetables  of beneficial pH ...THIS IS A big omission in media adverts that are  hitherto doing well SINCE 60 DAY LOCKDOWN! gtjmst17520

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 16, 2020, 7:16:48 PM5/16/20
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chidi, if you lived in michigan you would feel that way. in a short time our hospitals were all fiilled; in a short time 4000 people died; now closer to 5,000. dead. 45,000 cases.
just in michigan alone. every single person in this state knows what's happened. we didn't even dare to go to the emergency room for emergencies, for fear of contracting it.
they announce the deaths in the state, in the county, in the city, daily. we can mostly all tell you the numbers.
the people challenging it in michigan are rightwing crackpots, with semiautomatic guns, big male egos, racist confederate flags, threats against the governor for having closed down businesses. your doubts bring you into their company. they are the least eduated, most naive biased people in the state.
you doubt the morality of vaccine makers. so do they, the anti-vaccers. they threaten all of our health.
ken

kenneth harrow

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michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 5:39 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Olayinka and Michael,
I said that "COVID 19 is real, but not as deadly as being hyped, that aspect is the marketing strategy of potential vaccine licensees".

CAO.

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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 7:16:48 PM5/16/20
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Michael,
That is an abridged version of what the Madagascar President said on the occasion of his country quitting the World Health Organization.

CAO.

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 16, 2020, 7:16:48 PM5/16/20
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it isn't a question of western, of us, of africans.... that's where i strongly disagree with you segun.
we are all people, all in this; researchers, scientists, from anywhere and everywhere.
nobody said the trees in south america are not in the west, so we can't use chloroquine.
nobody is judging efficacy on its race, but if the drug works.
ken

kenneth harrow

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 16, 2020, 11:08:10 PM5/16/20
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Ken,
For the umpteenth and last time, I didn't doubt the pandemic, I doubt the hype.

CAO.

segun ogungbemi

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May 17, 2020, 12:46:13 AM5/17/20
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Ken,
The issue is, if Africans say the medicine has saved victims of COVID-19 in their countries,  does it have to be approved by those who already have a bias mind or doubt of its efficacy? 
You know Ken, our body chemistry differs from one another. You may use common aspirin for pain and get well and another person may use it and get sick. 
If any patient of COVID-19 in the US uses African Coronavirus medicine and gets well like Africans with the disease,  is that not what matters? What other proofs do you need than to see a COVID-19 patient cured completely without side effects?
Generally speaking, most Africans in the rural communities and some mega cosmopolitan cities have no medical health insurance. What they use most often is the traditional medicines. 
Unfortunately, there aren't appreciable concerted efforts on the part of African leaders to invest heavily in traditional medical sciences. 
Segun Ogungbemi

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Michael Afolayan

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May 17, 2020, 8:35:21 AM5/17/20
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I am disappointed that Chidi and his cohorts are among the "no vaccine" propagandists bent on discrediting efforts of WHO and many epidemiologists around the world. Good question, Alagba OAA, "Not as deadly for whom?" One death is one too many but we are reporting thousands already. Just see Ken's report alone, and that is just one state. How could this be "not as deadly" or "hyped"? Come on, Chidi; be real!

MOA





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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 17, 2020, 8:35:21 AM5/17/20
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Eagerly waiting to purchase the Madagascar COVID 19 antidote!

CAO.

Gbemi Tijani

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May 17, 2020, 8:35:21 AM5/17/20
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yes sir that s the problem reechoed here as you said -do you know Prof Tunji Olaopa has also published a philosophical reflection in another online  ezine; how we got it wrong chasing military tech power instead of we choosing to develop our human dimensions before  anything else across 60 years of most African independence...We must give the global world more than one remedy this regrettable pandemic opportunity that ravaged lives.I used the word autolysis -self killing Prof used the word self destruction.
You re right here are your words below  striking the nail on the head -African s leaders INERTNESS IN DEVELOPING AFRICAN HEALTH HEALTH SYSTEM -herbal medicine inclusive.gbemi tj 1034am17520
'Unfortunately, there aren't appreciable concerted efforts on the part of African leaders to invest heavily in traditional medical sciences. 
Segun Ogungbemi

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2020, 9:44:04 AM5/17/20
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hi segun
you ask if africans need outside approval to use a medicine that has already worked in their country.
i'd answer it worded slightly differently.
i'd say every country in the world has its own health authorities, and they should be determining what medicines should be approved for treatments. i hate it when politicians, like trump, or yahya jammeh or any of the other ignoramus presidents; thabo mbeki and aids was another--decide some crackpot cure is for their people, and many wind up dead as a result.
that is a rule for everywhere--let the presidents, let the politicians keep their noses out of it,

now, if a suspected cure is made available, let it be tested. a test in madagascar, if done properly, is just as good as one done anywhere else. only a fool would oppose a possible cure.
sometimes medical fools jump the gun, like the slightly megamaniacal doctor in marseilles who decided that chloroquine was the be all and end all. now they are running a 1000 person test, and maybe it will help. no one can say for sure. if you've been following that case, as i have, it is really premature to advocate for chloroquine, though it has been tried many times with uneven results. and w some bad side effects.

like you i am praying the cure from madagascar works, but just because it comes from africa and a president is selling it, that doesn't mean anything. just because some people took it and got cured, we'll never know if they would have been cured anyway. the death rate goes up after the age of 65 dramatically. younger people fare much better. the median age in italy is around 48 or so; in burkina it is around 18. see what i mean? the test of a drug has to be done with a double blind group where one takes placebos and the other the medicine. if it has been done with enough time and follow up, we should know if it works.
isn't that all that matters, not where it's from or who uses it

last point. in a pandemic every mother's son in the world is going to come up with some crackpot theory, like more vitamins or more of this food or that. if it isn't tested, it's just words.
i don't disagree with your basic argument, except that for me a medicine is just a medicine, not an "african" or "chinese" or "american" medicine. it is made of chemicals or whatever, not of culture or politics. the basis of the one in madagascar comes from a plant that originated in china. does that make it chinese? where do chickens come from? does that matter?
ken

kenneth harrow

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michigan state university

517 803-8839

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Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 12:43 AM

Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2020, 12:59:56 PM5/17/20
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well, chidi, i hate the hype too, in any direction. in my country the great "hyper" is a maniac president whose hype changes day by day, and whose failures to provide adequate protections for us has resulted in now 1.5 million people infected (or truthfully, probably twice that number), and 90,000 dead. 90,000 unnecessary deaths. deaths of all kinds of nice people, older people like cornelius and me! people who deserved a few more years of life, who died without family or farewells! tragedy.
thanks trump.
if we had lived in mauretania we would have been spared this
ken
(the hype i fear is from people like him, or balsonaro. thanks to him, brazil now has 233,000 cases, and 15,600 dead. he's exacerbated the situation dramatically. it's hype to pretend this disease is not deadly. and african countries that have successfully counter ebola, sars, even the fight against malaria, have outperformed most countries in the world.
another exemplary country is vietnam)

kenneth harrow

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dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi...@gmail.com>
Sent: Saturday, May 16, 2020 11:05 PM

To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Ken,
For the umpteenth and last time, I didn't doubt the pandemic, I doubt the hype.

CAO.

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2020, 12:59:56 PM5/17/20
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segun, i want to add a footnote to what i wrote, since we're on the topic of african medical practices. there are exceptionally good results coming from some african countries, and they deserve credit. the practices in mauretania have been exemplary, and they have saved their people from the painful conssequences we see in brazil where the leadership has been awful. lots of other countries are like that. rwanda has been exemplary; burundi a nightmare. and so on. many many african countries outdid european or latin american countries in their practices, and have saved tons of lives. their medical personnel, like in sierra leone, deserve great credit.
ken

kenneth harrow

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dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 9:41 AM

Gloria Emeagwali

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May 17, 2020, 12:59:56 PM5/17/20
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With due respect, prof Harrow, if
every country should determine what
medicine should be approved for itself, as you stated, in your introduction,  then your conclusion is a bit compromised.

But let me go a step further and remind you that the current shift in the West towards individualized medicine, something that traditional practitioners practiced all along, coincidentally, and the use of genetic markers in drug development and treatment,  are tied up with the realization that it is not absolutely true that one size fits all. The shift is to medicine  that makes use of individual and demographic genomic information for diagnostic and therapeutic interventions.

 A medication is “made up of chemicals” but may well react differently on specific population groups. And by the way, It seems to be the case that even microscopic pathogens such as Covid19 react differently on different population groups, complicating interventions and pandemic treatment as we speak.

That brings me to the politics of testing.I will make reference to a drug named
Rosiglitazone, and also marketed as Avandia, by Glaxo Smith Kline. That drug was approved for Type 2 Diabetes in the US in 2013. Its side effects include bladder failure and heart attacks. The FDA
approved it despite these red flags.
The drug is banned in Europe.

 Indeed, a  large percentage of drugs tested and approved by the US FDA are in this category. They have lethal side 
effects - Tested and approved for use because of pharmaceutical corporate lobbying, donation to election campaigns etc. and political considerations. Simply check the list of side effects of approved drugs such as the muscle relaxant carisoprodol that is banned in Norway and Sweden but approved in the US. There is Actos, another dangerous diabetes drug that can cause bladder cancer but also approved in the US. The list is very long and you only have to turn on your tv here in the US to hear of the scary, lethal side effects of the drugs approved.

I do completely agree with you that politicians such as
Jammeh and T are dangerous,  and we have to be on guard,   but Rajoelina is
not in that range. The product in question was identified by a Congolese researcher
with a great deal of credibility. Dr. Jerome Munyangi, approached Rajoelina, who took up the case. Local testing took place.

I am surprised to hear you dismiss the vitamins. So are you saying that the
Scandinavians are wrong to take large
doses of Vitamin D to make up for ultraviolet radiation deficiencies in their harsh cold climate? 

Is vitamin C not an asset
in treatment of upper respiratory 
tract infections?  See for example van Driel et al.(2019).CochraneSystematic Review.
Https.//doi.org/10.1002/14651858.Cdo13292.   I would expect that
Vitamin C does not hurt the immune system in the fight against  viruses such as Covid19. - in conjunction with other medicaments of course



Gloriaemeagwali.com




Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2020, 4:36:36 PM5/17/20
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dear gloria
you are keeping up with this stuff a lot more than i am.
the cases you cite raise a few questions for me. every drug has side-effects. you note a lot, and say, in this country it is banned, in that it is ok.
how do you know when the side effects are worse than the benefits? i do not automatically believe it is all imposed on us by u.s. drug companies, which you imply. i know there are over the counter drugs in one country that have to be prescribed in another. in the end, we live in a country whose authorities determine what is safest. they may be wrong, but maybe they are right. i trust my own personal doctor to have researched these issues and come up with answers.
i didn't say vitamins are all bad. i take 2 myself, following my dr's advice, including vit d, because, as you said, we no longer live out in the sun very much. but they measure my blood, determine what is deficient, and i then take it.
you must see what i see: conspiracy theories and crackpot medicine go viral under pandemics, and things like vitamins get hyped beyond reason. if they were to work, i would need tohear it from someone whose expertise i trusted.
i have not read that that madagascar solution was adequated tested. if you have such an article, why not post it for us all to see?
of course different cures for different people, but it has to be proven, not simply asserted, in each separate case.

a last word on this. lots of drugs are floating to the surface, including one antibiotic recently approved, though thought to have small effect. i saw a program where a local emergency room doctor in detroit reported on her experiences. you know she saw many many cases every daily through this enormous flood of cases in detroit. she reported that, as yet, they have no medicines that help. that was a really sad bottom line. that program was thursday night. i am still hoping that something, anything real, will come along to save us from this newly confined life.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 12:17 PM

Femi Kolapo

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May 17, 2020, 4:36:36 PM5/17/20
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I agree with this and think that it is at the point of the "politics of testing" that divergences expressed in these posts regarding African medicine are the strongest rather than in the need for testing.
What some people are reacting to, to which I am sympathetic, is the way “science” is wielded as a cudgel to beat down African medical innovations or efforts. Any rigid insistence that African or Madagascan medicine must exactly conform to every element of the Western testing method before it can be considered reinforces this cudgel-wielding propensity, it seems to me, and it cannot but draw some resistance. The cudgel-wielding is hegemonic and culturally Euro-American. One does not have to shout culture to inscribe culture into what one says, how one says it, and what the logical implications are, and I do not mean any offense here, Prof. Harrow, and I respect you and respect your support of Africa, and the continuous call for testing of any new drugs. Yet, there is this feeling that if care is not taken, innocent insistence on testing becomes a blunt instrument that does more harm than good.

I am all for modern science, but I too, as shown by some responses on this forum and others, feel that African efforts to contribute to knowledge has often been too easily waved aside and diminished because it is not done “scientifically”. This is innocently done and largely well-meaning. But this insistence, this command that Africans do things “scientifically” before it could be approved has a powerful hegemonic subtext that may be justifiably considered to be ethnocentric. It is ethnocentric because it does not consider the context in which Africans are making these medicines and drugs and producing and using their indigenous knowledge. Many trial drugs and vaccines imposed on the world by Western big pharma, it turns out, are deadly, though they went through the scientific process, saw many tests, and used high-end technologies. They are not risk-free, and in fact, some have to be recalled and many, over a period of several years from their making, are completely refined and totally become different from the deadly toxic drug they were when they were initially “scientifically” tested and approved. Think of the Pill! People do not condemn these drugs outright, but rather stress that they undergo testing and more testing. 

However, African countries do not yet have the technological capacity of the US to do science exactly the way Americans do it, nor do they have to do it the same way, even if they have the technology. It might be possible to skip steps that American scientists today think necessary.  African herbals were and are made based on creativity and innovation; on observation, elimination methods, trials, tests, experimentation, local expert validation, community consensual affirmation etc. I suppose that some of these steps or those analogous to them can be identified in the modern scientific process but, of course, the Euro-Americans have the advantage of using modern tools and they invest their efforts with considerable fund, powerful media support, and the validation of their scientists, etc.
  
But African efforts, in general, one can say, continues to be carried out in low, absent, or pre-technological contexts. They continue to be carried out in contexts of poor, weak, or absent technologies and tools that Euro-American scientists consider to define what doing science means. They are produced in contexts of Euro-American dominated media silence or condemnation and a lack of local government support and are viewed with suspicion even by African elites and scientists trained in European methods. But think of medicine before modern times in China, Europe, and in Ancient Africa. They were not perfect, had risks, etc. But they were not useless, inherently dangerous, and necessarily wrong because they were not “scientific” – they were simply pre-scientific. We know this because we have evidence that some of their drugs and remedies worked and worked well.

Nonetheless, Africans' medical practice needs to make use of available knowledge and modern technology as much as possible. Africans must seek out, adopt, adapt, and incorporate tools and methods that help to fine-tune, rationalize, and popularize the methods and outcomes of their traditional medical knowledge.

But whenever we pooh-pooh “traditional medicine” because they rub against what is currently the accepted methods of the technologically advanced West, Euro-Americans and we Africans trained in the Western method must note that modern scientific method, though compelling and rational, and desirable, but very much like indigenous knowledge, only dispenses partial knowledge at any point in time, has been proved wrong or only partially correct before, and most likely will in the future, and is only an advancement on what pre-scientific knowledge. Societies like ancient Egypt and many current indigenous societies that lack access to and familiarity with new technologies continue to operate in this mode. We all know that current science is not infallible and that current scientifically certified vaccines and drugs, as Professors Emeagwali and Harrow mention, are not risk-free. Similarly, non- and low-tech production of drugs continues to require improvement and needs increased and better verification and rationalization. But they should not be condemned; neither directly nor indirectly. We should encourage Madagascan, ABU, and other African Covid-19 herbals and drugs. It is only when they have been produced that they can be tested, verified, refined, and perfected. If they are shot down at the concept stage, Africa may remain forever at the mercy of European and other non-African pharmas.


_________________________

Femi  J. Kolapo  

History Department *  University of Guelph * Ontario * Canada* N1G  2W1

________________________


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Toyin Falola

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May 17, 2020, 5:03:06 PM5/17/20
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Prof:

I want to repeat my previous questions:

  1. Who is stopping Africans from using herbal medicine? No one can.
  2. Do they need to account to anyone? Do millions of people even go to the hospitals?
  3. Whether it works or not, people continue to use them. The narratives and stories are all over the place, from the herbal tea brought to Kano by the Tuaregs, to the Yoruba herbal dealers all over the place, the mixture of ginger, tumeric, pineapple skin, orange skin, onion, black oil seed, etc. the efficacy of bitter leaves, moringa, etc. Even our colleagues in Brazil have medicinal plants at the back of their houses and I have had the pleasure of drinking them. The previous Oba of Benin gave me a gift of herbal medicine for…..Cornelius’ Sweedish iron!
  4. The food as medicine concept, etc.
  5. The “paraga” on street corners, etc.
  6. Pentecostalism and sufism as healing system?

I doubt most of our people are waiting for test results.

TF

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 17, 2020, 5:52:09 PM5/17/20
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"i trust my own personal doctor to have researched these issues and come up with answers."

Not only will I sell you the Brooklyn Bridge but the whole of New York and Connecticut.




Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department, Central Connecticut State University
www.africahistory.net
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries
2014 Distinguished Research Excellence Award in African Studies
 University of Texas at Austin
2019   Distinguished Africanist Award                   
New York African Studies Association
 


From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 17, 2020, 6:36:02 PM5/17/20
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maybe we have different doctors?

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 5:17 PM

Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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May 18, 2020, 1:10:55 AM5/18/20
to USA African Dialogue Series
Now that you have seen and felt the emergency powers of your governor, when next you're electing, elect those who can handle those emergency powers well!

CAO.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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May 18, 2020, 4:31:28 PM5/18/20
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So we need to face the fact Bill Gates got it wrong when he stated there would be a death explosion catastrophically in Africa, particularly in Nigeria ( millions) for lack of adequate preparation (disguised trade talk really.)

OAA



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Date: 17/05/2020 18:09 (GMT+00:00)
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segun, i want to add a footnote to what i wrote, since we're on the topic of african medical practices. there are exceptionally good results coming from some african countries, and they deserve credit. the practices in mauretania have been exemplary, and they have saved their people from the painful conssequences we see in brazil where the leadership has been awful. lots of other countries are like that. rwanda has been exemplary; burundi a nightmare. and so on. many many african countries outdid european or latin american countries in their practices, and have saved tons of lives. their medical personnel, like in sierra leone, deserve great credit.
ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 9:41 AM

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Harrow, Kenneth

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May 18, 2020, 4:45:35 PM5/18/20
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i hope he will be proven wrong. the latest article on three countries, including nigeria and tanzania, is less sanguine.

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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Sent: Monday, May 18, 2020 3:12 PM

Emeagwali, Gloria (History)

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May 19, 2020, 12:45:27 PM5/19/20
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Segun, thanks for your lucid explanation. It seems that should a medication cure a mouse, a rat or rabbit, it is Ok.  Bravo. Test accomplished. 

If it cured a Madagascan, well that does not count.

 Is the Madagascan less valued than a mouse?

Cornelius what is the fallacy here?




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
Sent: Sunday, May 17, 2020 12:43 AM
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Ken,

Abolaji Adekeye

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May 20, 2020, 6:26:16 AM5/20/20
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Luddites at the trenches...

Vegetarians girding their loins
With snake skin sashes.

Lavish living Amish cruising 
In methane powered buggies.

Professing faith in the Almighty Gun, 
ProLifers won't abort death penalties.


As long as Jèhófà is my witness
I will never take blood.

As long as palmwine is my weakness
I will never break it's gourd.


Abolaji A. Adekeye

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Abolaji Adekeye

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May 20, 2020, 6:26:22 AM5/20/20
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*Its*

Abolaji A. Adekeye
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