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On 24 Dec 2019, at 10:19 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
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On Dec 24, 2019, at 6:56 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
“Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
Ibrahim, Awo never claimed to be a saint. "O ko owo je like all others and used sonibare to play the game" that is your conclusion not from the court of law.
O ko owo je like all the others and used Sonibare to play the game. Awo chopped cocoa profit well well. You cannot cover your beloved Papa. Only blind AGroupers will want to whitewash Coker Commission and deify the proclaimed Sage!
So funny---covering up for Awo.Sent from my iPhoneOn 24 Dec 2019, at 10:19 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ibrahim Abdullah:What do you know about the Coker Commission report? If that was what makes you declare Awo a non-saint, then he was indeed a saint. The Coker Commision was a cooked-up concordance..no pun intended.No - Awo was not a saint simply because he was human. But he stands almost paradigmatically alone in the pantheon of Nigeria's original leaders.Season's greetings!Bolaji Aluko
On Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 14:46 Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com> wrote:
Awo was no saint. Coker Commission report is there for all to see.
Sent from my iPad
> On Dec 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
>
> RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
>
> In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
>
> “Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
>
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On 25 Dec 2019, at 10:30 AM, Jimoh Oriyomi <oriyom...@gmail.com> wrote:
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For me, it’s not clear whether His Holiness Pope Francis’ kind words of consolation on Christmas Day was meant exclusively for the Roman Catholic Faithful or if his words of encouragement and assurance are also addressed to the other wanton sinners in the family of mankind, when he said, “God still loves us all, even the worst of us”.
God still loves, “even the worst of us”, like Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, Pol Pot, Saddam, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar's military, all the rich people, all the unrepentant looters whose entry into paradise will be less easy than a camel passing through the eye of a needle?
Well, even before Pope Francis Christmas Day homilies, Boko Haram had already celebrated their Christmas eve with another trademark attack , apparently without remorse, they struck at dawn.
This is my preamble to the horrible on-going discussion about our late great, most venerable & beloved AWOLOWO, Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo.
May the Almighty be pleased with him.
This is really the crux of the matter: According to the King James version, we have Jesus of Nazareth speaking here: “ Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country” – and there is a ring of truth to this, depending on what we mean by “prophet” and what is meant by his “own country”.
If you are an honourable Yoruba man, then assuredly it’s probably much easier to be a prophet in your own country, if by your “own country” you mean Yorubaland.
There is a statistical probability that it should be easier for you to be a prophet in Yorubaland than for you to be welcome as a prophet in e.g., Igboland, unless of course, and this is a paradox - unless of course, your name is Jesus, and you happen to have been born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a cowshed in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago and happen to have been baptised by John the Baptiser in the holy Jordan River, which is in Israel.
Which also explains why Chinua Achebe the author of “A Man of the People” (1966) and “The trouble with Nigeria” (1983) denied AWO a national funeral, Achebe’s words, on the grounds that AWO “was not an Igbo God!”
Fy fan!
As for the Jews not accepting either Jesus or Muhammad (s.a.w.) as one of their prophets, there’s the Blessing before the Haftarah and the Siddur note on “good prophets” reads:
“The theme of the Haftarah blessings is the integrity of the prophets and their teachings. Even when it is their mission to criticize and threaten, they are good to the Jewish people. Also, they are chosen because they are good people: learned, righteous, impressive, etc. Our tradition does not accept prophets who are lacking in any of the attributes of Jewish greatness.”
There are other types of prophets too, such as Karl Marx ( for some) Mao Tse Tung ( China) Kwame Nkrumah ( Ghana) Fidel Castro ( Cuba) Sherwin Wine (USA)
The Christian message (New International Version translation) is “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Sometimes, it’s the bitter truth.
In the letter to Babangida, we hear ( read) Chief AWO in the tradition of his namesake the prophet Jeremiah , speaking truth to power and without fear. We recognise the truthfulness at the heart of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s words at that juncture of the life of the political entity that’s still welded together as Nigeria under one constitutional umbrella. Before we commit any biographical heresies, we ought to further situate that letter in its proper context considering all that had transpired in Nigeria from a few years before Independence in 1960, through the Biafra Civil War, through the coup that deposed Shagari – and imprisoned Chief Obafemi Awolowo ( for no just cause whatsoever) - I was in Nigeria and that time - and the Babangida coup that deposed Buhari and that it was the military man Babangida that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was addressing in that terse letter written about fourteen months before his own departure from the shuffering and shmiling vale of tears that was then Nigeria…
“unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better.”February 28, 1986 minus some twenty years.Jan 1966?🤭🤭🤭Yikes.On Dec 24, 2019, at 6:56 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
“Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
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On 26 Dec 2019, at 5:29 AM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 26 Dec 2019, at 5:29 AM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 26 Dec 2019, at 12:35 PM, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
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On 27 Dec 2019, at 11:39 AM, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
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You could repent and apologise.
This is not about hagiography or sacred dust or claims about other mortal/immortal words, including The Coker Commission or indeed The Beoku-Betts Commission as “the word of God”.
You are a historian and a professor of history, you have probably written a few biographies and political post-mortems worth reading, but whether or not you have published them to make them accessible to those who could be interested is not the main matter here. The main matter here is that you have made a public error in judgment (which you are entitled to do since you are not masoom or one of the infallible) and as a historian, you know that judgment is based on some value system/s, facts ( variously defined) and that interpretation too is based on context, circumstances, motivation/ niyat…
In the Book of Job// Judaism’s The Book of Job - “how bad things happen to good people”) and elsewhere, making false accusations, testifying against the righteous is one of the functions of Satan, the accuser and his agents. Likewise, in your case, it’s not good enough (it’s repugnant) that you publish or publicize some poisonous, malicious, malignant, hideous rumour/ last judgement, such as that “Awo chopped cocoa profit well well “, aimed at desecrating the sacred memory of Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo…
You cannot make such heinous accusations - without proof. You cannot bear false witness against thy neighbour and hope that you will get away with it (adding insult to injury) on the grounds that it’s all in some controversial Coker Commission Report – which it isn’t and so in the final analysis, the onus of proof should be on you, the Satanic accuser. You must furnish us with the evidence in black and white and you must do so by taking your own medicine:
“Learn to check sources---don't wait for those making claims to substantiate their claims---they may not have the tools or the wherewithal.”
You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Your very first remark was that “Awo was no saint. Coker Commission report is there for all to see.” Baba Kadiri was quick to challenge you: “Agreed, Awo was not a saint, but did Coker Commission report prove that he was not a saint? If yes, please share with us how Coker Commission proved it.”
Yet, up to now, you (Ibrahim Abdullah) have been reluctant to support any of your vilifications by quoting the aforementioned document which itself, as explained earlier was calculated (in the then prevailing circumstances, politically motivated) to tarnish AWO’s good name. All you do is that you go on and on beating the same drum, ad nauseum, unnecessarily dragging the Chief’s good name in the mud, attributing evil to him and relegating his good name and good works to the category of the corrupt as if he is like other men of your ilk.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum – and to that end even for those resting in the eternal perfect peace, you are aware of the law about defamation and the law about libel and slander.
May history continue to judge AWO favourably. The letter under our purview, is bitter, pessimistic, not cynical and in the end hopefully hoping in GOD, he says it all so eloquently, about that polity and he was very far from being non-committal when he said so unequivocally that he did not want to be a part of it. It was not a last will and testament - such as Moses’ farewell address or the Prophet of Islam’s last sermon.
The trouble with Nigeria and the trouble with a lot of places elsewhere is succinctly expressed in that letter and the message is clear, we could take it to heart and up till today it is up to us to do the right thing about the sorry mess for which we are responsible:
“as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos”
Awo was no saint. Coker Commission report is there for all to see.
Sent from my iPad
> On Dec 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
>
> RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
>
> In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
>
> “Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
>
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1. Wikipedia on 'G.BA.Coker', vital as a beginning-
'...., in the final report of the enquiry, it found Awolowo culpable in the diversion of regional funds to finance the Action Group but exonerated Akintola, which made it easier for the latter to be reinstated as Premier of the region' referencing Falola, T., & Genova, A. (2009). Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press. P.8
"The Coker Commission found Awolowo guilty of gross financial misappropriation and of diverting funds totaling N4.4 million in cash and N1.3 million in overdraft from government-owned corporations to finance political activities. This report, published on 31 December 1962, also absolved Akintola, the premier of the region and former lieutenant of Awolowo who had now become an ideological opponent. The Coker Commission is widely believed to be motivated by an enduring desire to discredit the Action Group administration in the West, which stood opposed to the federal government."
'In the year 1962, Premier of the defunct Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo was investigated and found guilty of corruption by the Coker Commission of Inquiry.
In 1954, the Western Region Marketing Board could boast of 6.2 million pounds sterling, however by May, 1962, the corporation had to exist on overdrafts amounting to over 2.5 million pounds sterling.
The Commission found Chief Awolowo culpable to the ills of the regional marketing board for failure to adhere to standards of conduct required of persons holding public office, (Coker Commission, 1962).'
5. AN ANALYSIS OF THE MARKETING BOARDS OF NIGERIA 1939-1966 by Celestine Osuala
'A major innovation in the post-1954 period was the increasing use of Marketing Board funds for the purposes of loans to and purchases of equities in Nigerian private companies. It is this area in which the greatest possibilities for misuse of funds was located.
Of the three Boards, the Western Regional Marketing Board channeled the largest absolute amounts into private enterprise, exclusive of those grants to the Development and Finance Corporations(Federation of Nigeria, Report of Coker Commission of Inguiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporation in Western Nigeria, Vol. 1 ,1962, P. 65.)
The bulk of these funds went to a bank and a real estate concern, the affairs of which were closely bound up with those of the political party then in power in the Western Region and its leading members. '
'Like the report by Foster-Sutton, that by Nicholson left deep N.C.N.C. resentment against the Action Group. But the N.C.N.C. had to wait for retaliatory action until after independence - when it was finally in a position of power in the Federation- to sanction an inquiry into the A.G. administration in the West.
...
It highlighted the misuse of public funds for private and political gain, and asserted that investments made in the Region were 'important and but for political considerations which were certainly uppermost constituted a most flagrant breach of trust... by which the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board'. ( Referencing 'Nigeria, Report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporations in Western Nigeria, Lagos, 1962, p.36.)
Like previous inquiries, the report of the Coker Commission was deeply rooted in Nigerian political infighting, and the conclusions bore a striking and eerie similarity to those in the Foster-Sutton report.
The Commissioners took the view that the National Investment and Properties Company 'was formed for the main purpose of providing funds for the Action Group', and held Obafemi Awolowo responsible for much of what had been illicitly distributed. They claimed that 'his scheme was to build around him with money an empire financially formidable both in Nigeria and abroad - an empire in dominance would be maintained by him by the power of the money which he had given out' ( Ibid. pp. 27 and 39).
8. 'PRODUCE BUYING AND MARKETING BOARDS IN NIGERIA: INTERROGATING THE FISCAL ROLE OFWESTERN NIGERIA MARKETING BOARD 1942-1962' by Adeyinka Theresa Ajayi, ,Ajibade Idowu Samuel and Oladiti Abiodun Akeem
WRMB ( Western Region Marketing Board ) soon became insolvent due to excesses from the leadership. Most of the funds were diverted to finance the regional party, Action Group and personal use. In 1954, the Western Region Marketing Board could boast of £6.2 million. However, by May 1962, the Development Corporation had to exist on overdrafts amounting to over £2.5 million. A loan of £6.7 million was made to the Western Region government-owned National Investment and Properties Co., Ltd. for building projects out of which only £500,000 was repaid. The Western Region Finance Corporation and the Western Nigeria Development Corporation also received loans of millions of pounds. None of these loans were ever repaid. The Western Nigeria Development Corporation was too weakened financially to repay the millions it owed the Board. The Coker Commission of Inquiry found Chief Awolowo, the regional and party leader culpable for the ills of the Western Region Marketing Board, due to his failure to adhere to the standards of conduct, which were required of persons holding public office.'
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 3:09 AM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
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On Dec 25, 2019, at 3:22 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
Corrected :
For me, it’s not clear whether His Holiness Pope Francis’ kind words of consolation on Christmas Day was meant exclusively for the Roman Catholic Faithful or if his words of encouragement and assurance are also addressed to the other wanton sinners in the family of mankind, when he said, “God still loves us all, even the worst of us”.
God still loves, “even the worst of us”, like Adolf Hitler and his henchmen, Pol Pot, Saddam, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar's military, all the rich people, all the unrepentant looters whose entry into paradise will be less easy than a camel passing through the eye of a needle?
Well, even before Pope Francis Christmas Day homilies, Boko Haram had already celebrated their Christmas eve with another trademark attack , apparently without remorse, they struck at dawn.
This is my preamble to the horrible on-going discussion about our late great, most venerable & beloved AWOLOWO, Chief Obafemi Jeremiah Oyeniyi Awolowo.
May the Almighty be pleased with him.
This is really the crux of the matter: According to the King James version, we have Jesus of Nazareth speaking here: “ Verily I say unto you, No prophet is accepted in his own country” – and there is a ring of truth to this, depending on what we mean by “prophet” and what is meant by his “own country”.
If you are an honourable Yoruba man, then assuredly it’s probably much easier to be a prophet in your own country, if by your “own country” you mean Yorubaland.
There is a statistical probability that it should be easier for you to be a prophet in Yorubaland than for you to be welcome as a prophet in e.g., Igboland, unless of course, and this is a paradox - unless of course, your name is Jesus, and you happen to have been born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a cowshed in Bethlehem over two thousand years ago and happen to have been baptised by John the Baptiser in the holy Jordan River, which is in Israel.
Which also explains why Chinua Achebe the author of “A Man of the People” (1966) and “The trouble with Nigeria” (1983) denied AWO a national funeral, Achebe’s words, on the grounds that AWO “was not an Igbo God!”
Fy fan!
As for the Jews not accepting either Jesus or Muhammad (s.a.w.) as one of their prophets, there’s the Blessing before the Haftarah and the Siddur note on “good prophets” reads:
“The theme of the Haftarah blessings is the integrity of the prophets and their teachings. Even when it is their mission to criticize and threaten, they are good to the Jewish people. Also, they are chosen because they are good people: learned, righteous, impressive, etc. Our tradition does not accept prophets who are lacking in any of the attributes of Jewish greatness.”
There are other types of prophets too, such as Karl Marx ( for some) Mao Tse Tung ( China) Kwame Nkrumah ( Ghana) Fidel Castro ( Cuba) Sherwin Wine (USA)
The Christian message (New International Version translation) is “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
Sometimes, it’s the bitter truth.
In the letter to Babangida, we hear ( read) Chief AWO in the tradition of his namesake the prophet Jeremiah , speaking truth to power and without fear. We recognise the truthfulness at the heart of Chief Obafemi Awolowo’s words at that juncture of the life of the political entity that’s still welded together as Nigeria under one constitutional umbrella. Before we commit any biographical heresies, we ought to further situate that letter in its proper context considering all that had transpired in Nigeria from a few years before Independence in 1960, through the Biafra Civil War, through the coup that deposed Shagari – and imprisoned Chief Obafemi Awolowo ( for no just cause whatsoever) - I was in Nigeria and that time - and the Babangida coup that deposed Buhari and that it was the military man Babangida that Chief Obafemi Awolowo was addressing in that terse letter written about fourteen months before his own departure from the shuffering and shmiling vale of tears that was then Nigeria…
On Wednesday, 25 December 2019 11:30:42 UTC+1, Ogedi Ohajekwe wrote:
“unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better.”February 28, 1986 minus some twenty years.Jan 1966?🤭🤭🤭Yikes.
On Dec 24, 2019, at 6:56 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
“Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
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Concerning Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the Political Moses and the forces that were allied against him, I enquired from Professor Google if he had any data on what Chief Obafemi Awolowo had to say on The Coker Commission and got 62 200 results . You can take your pick. I say you can take your pick because there is and was a lot of stuff and nonsense out there; for instance in reading through the data that Hon. Toyin Adepoju provided just now when I came across the name Samson Nzeribe (“Baze University Abuja”) – the name seemed to ring a bell ( Arthur Nzeribe) and so I came to the hasty but profound conclusion that this is not and cannot be it – it must be nothing less than some enemy “testimony”. The lyrics of Bob Marley’s “Them got so much things to say right now”, ringing in my ear:
“Eh! But I'll never forget no way
They crucified Jesus Christ
I'll never forget no way
They sold Marcus Garvey for rice
I'll never forget no way
They turned their back on Paul Bogle
So, don't you forget (no way) your youth
Who you are and where you stand in the struggle”
As he knows, I do not bear any personal animosity towards him. On the contrary. My ire with Ibrahim Abdullah is based on what, once upon a time, he himself understood about the reprehensible, in a very personal capacity, and probably remembers the pain he suffered being the victim of his political enemies’ malicious calumnies against him, at his workplace in Sierra Leone, and, of course, thank God, the triumph and satisfaction he and I also felt when he was finally vindicated, exonerated.
The lesson is clear - it’s known as the Golden Rule as explained by Hillel the Elder to someone who demanded that Hillel teach him the entire Torah whilst he was standing on one leg : “What is hateful to you, do not to your neighbour: that is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary; go and learn it.”
In equal measure, the Quran exhorts the Muslim Faithful, “Produce your proof if you are truthful
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 3:09 AM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
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Dear Ogedi Ohajekwe,
You sound like my pastor at Umuahia, the fanatic and his crew who nearly drowned me in the Umuahia River ( “full immersion”) they carried me bodily to the river, nothing as dignified as this, of course not.
You begin by begging the question: “Only Christ Himself” – and capitalizing his himself too. Thank God there are no capital letters, at least in Biblical Hebrew. The question is, who made him “Christ”?
But you are right, as you say, “Human nature”. This portrait of Pope Francis and his redeemer made me smile on Jesus birthday.
As a rabbi or a Torah scholar, Jesus had the right to teach Torah and to do his healing, not only in Galilee ( If you are really interested in the issue you could read at least the first chapter of Jacob Neusner ‘s seminal and immensely readable “ a Rabbi talks with Jesus”
I agree with the rest of what you say.
After my experiences in Umuahia in particular and in the rest of what was then Imo State and Rivers State, as a result of all the effusive praise by Alagba Falola, I’m curious about Niml Wariboko’s book on “Nigerian Pentecostalism” , to see how the “ Assemblies of God” folks are developing.
Just the other day, right here in Stockholm, a Brother from Mozambique whipped out a little bottle of “holy water” from T.B. Joshua. When I raised my eyebrows, he said it was “working” for him. As you know, Wonders never cease.
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Professor Ibrahim Abdullah,
OK, so, you’re not a” Sheikh”. Please forgive me. I thought that in this discussion the title Sheikh Ibrahim Abdullah, would sound pleasing to both your ears, would boost your ego and bolster your certainties over your uncertainties. When you’re invited to deliver a lecture in Riyadh, about corruption in the ummah – or indeed corruption in Nigeria and you are introduced as Sheikh Ibrahim Abdullah I’m sure that even before you begin to speak you’ll already get a standing ovation, because it is to be expected that truth and only truth would be spouting out of your mouth, whereas a mere Western-educated Professor Ibrahim Abdullah that’s disconnected from the Jami'ah Islamiyya might not quote the Quran that says to the faithful, "Produce your proof if you are truthful
As you know, we Saro people and some of the Naija people too like awarding titles, even to some of the undeserving. What about “Mallam”? Baba Kadiri addressed you as” Mallam”. Any objection to that? What’s in a name?
I heard some Pakistani-looking fellows in the supermarket, speaking some kind of Punjabi so I approached them and after a short conversation I asked their leader, “Are you a Muslim?” He answered, emphatically, “No. I’m a human being. Thank God!” Turns out they were a bunch of Hindus. Like Modi & the BJP. Universal Hindu principle: No beef. No “Halal”. Cow holy. Holy cow. Leaves room for the conjecture that there must have been a bunch of Hindu mushrikun in the mixed multitude that followed Moses out of Egypt, and that it must have been those guys that were later on responsible for the sin of the golden calf.
My dear friend Adl Hamza (an Egyptian from Mansura) defines a Muslim as one who does not lie. He says, and I quote him, “A Muslim does not lie!” – and so far in this thread, you have not lied - you have merely shifted all the blame on that contaminated Coker Report. And that is the apotheosis of this discussion. We are not going to get any further with you, without completely disembowelling the accursed Coker Report. That it has already been vastly discredited is not going to get anywhere with you, you are adamant and as far as you are concerned, never mind the circumstances in which it was conducted, you believe that The Coker Report was written in indelible, uncorrupted ink, maybe, second only to the Holy Quran, for veracity.
No doubt, Jesus, son of Mary was also a supporter of Zionism, he was human after all, just like Ibrahim Abdullah, Moses ( Ochonu) you can even say that “he was no saint” even if in Peter’s dream he ( Jesus ) was seen walking on water and till today there are people who misunderstand -as Dr Ben Carson put it – and this applies to perceptions of AWO too :
“Haters will see you walking on water and say it’s because you can't swim. Even if you dance on water, your enemies will accuse you of raising dust.”
My last word to you on this matter: an explanation (e.g. of the trinity) is not a proof, nor is an accusation, suspicion, falsification, a prejudiced report, a trial in a kangaroo court , the trial of Jesus, Socrates, Mandela, Kenyatta, Biko - and you know the flaws in the Beoku-Betts, the Percy Davies Inquiry and the host of other inquiries in our various countries , since Coker’s politically motivated and the questions that Baba Kadiri asked and which neither Professor, Sheikh or Mallam is able to answer adequately :
“If Coker Commission had discovered that Awolowo stole or misappropriated Western Region funds when he was premier there up till 1959 when he handed over to Akintola, he would have been tried in court and sentenced to imprisonment. When theft crime could not be fixed on Awolowo, that was why the Federal Government resorted to treasonable felony against him.”
Bottom line: You are deliberately being both unreasonable and unfair:
I/ we should “Get the report and read it” because it’s too much trouble for you to dig up the relevant sections and post them – not that we have to believe a single letter in the confounded Report. Here it is: Report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporations in Western Nigeria, 1962
It’s the same as my last word to my Tanzanian friend ( a Jesus fan/fanatic ) who wants me to waste my time reading some useless hocus-pocus science fiction material known as The Book of Urantia . I guess he’s been reading all his life and still hasn’t come across what I would recommend that he read The Tanya ! That would be reading something worthwhile
Cornelius:
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Bolaji:
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 2:52 PM, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 4:22 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Bolaji:
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Skickat: den 25 december 2019 00:06
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Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awo's reply declining membership of the 1986 Political Bureau
O ko owo je like all the others and used Sonibare to play the game. Awo chopped cocoa profit well well. You cannot cover your beloved Papa. Only blind AGroupers will want to whitewash Coker Commission and deify the proclaimed Sage!
So funny---covering up for Awo.
Sent from my iPhone
On 24 Dec 2019, at 10:19 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
Ibrahim Abdullah:
What do you know about the Coker Commission report? If that was what makes you declare Awo a non-saint, then he was indeed a saint. The Coker Commision was a cooked-up concordance..no pun intended.
No - Awo was not a saint simply because he was human. But he stands almost paradigmatically alone in the pantheon of Nigeria's original leaders.
Season's greetings!
Bolaji Aluko
On Tue, Dec 24, 2019, 14:46 Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdu...@gmail.com> wrote:
Awo was no saint. Coker Commission report is there for all to see.
Sent from my iPad
> On Dec 24, 2019, at 10:35 AM, Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
>
> RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
>
> In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
>
> “Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
>
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 9:03 PM, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com> wrote:
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On 28 Dec 2019, at 10:03 PM, Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com> wrote:
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On Dec 28, 2019, at 11:22 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
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BTW, in my experience so far, although all of them are fundamentalists, Nigerian Christians - even lay Christians are the most impressive explicators of the Christian scriptures. Apart from the obvious problem about the divinity of Jesus (as an incarnation of God, his virgin birth, resurrection and ascension etc) for those of “ little faith”, I (a fellow ordinary mortal) agree with the rest of what you say. At this stage I’m still a beginner student, humbly carrying on from where I began in Umuahia. I still haven’t read Mark and Luke, or the “Acts of the Apostles” or most of the Letters of Paul etc. For background enlightenment, there’s the Jerusalem Perspective and for guidance in understanding there’s The Jewish Annotated New Testament 2nd edition ( available in a pdf format) and the spiritually interesting texts in the Philakolia .
There’s hope yet since Nigeria is reputed to be one of the most religious countries on God’s planet. What’s mostly missing is the essential unity
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Cornelius:
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Cornelius:
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On Dec 28, 2019, at 10:48 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:
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Long time. Here comes the Biafran Chauvinist Nwakanma ! The glorious Igbophiliac rides into town ( the USA – Africa Dialogue Series) once again, waving his flag, bristling with his usual disdain and arrogance, talking about “at best, an above average intelligence” – as if he has just designed a new intelligence quotient test for his super-Biafrans and his intellectually malnourished fellow Nigerians, with he himself sitting at the apex of Mt. Olympus as the Naira’s new gold standard, himself ( with a modest small h) just freshly minted from some citadel of learning or other and about to start awarding/ handing out IQ certificates to the like-minded starting with his demi-god Azikiwe, destined in Nwakanma’s mind, to sit atop of the Great Pyramid as the one and only Zik of Africa, forever.
Within his single paragraph response to Dear Tunji Olaopa he has managed to sprinkle his key words, “intellectual history”: he would like to confine the “ terrifyingly mediocre” and relegate all those that he so humbly disdains, to “the height of intellectual infamy” and then consign them to the dustbin/garbage heap of history, leaving the rest of us himself gasping for some fresh air and wondering, when did the best of us become the worst of us?
He would like us to believe and have faith in his wayward conceit that unlike him the great AWO was “ no visionary” although the foresight in Chief Obafemi Awolowo's free primary education programme in Western Nigeria 1952-1966 is still reaping its dividends, for all to see and this continues to be an inspiration - so that in the oil-boom years, Bendel’s Governor Ambrose Ali invested as much as 50% of his state budget in education.
Nwakanma’s latest little tittle-tattle culminates in the expected anti-climax to this long thread that there is no “high intelligence” in the tone and texture of AWO’s tersely written letter to Babangida.
Let’s hope that Nwakanma will spare Babangida and not downgrade or degrade his intellectual capacity to some imaginary lower level, because in my opinion, Ibrahim Babangida too is still very intelligent and very much, still an astute politician.
But not to worry; I leave Nwakanma to the tender mercies of Baba Kadiri
Dear Tunji Olaopa:Awolowo did not see any further than the political realities and conditions in Nigeria of which he was a key architect from 1947. He was no visionary, and did not possess a god-like capacity to see a future. He was no futurologist, nor did he possess any more than at best, an above average intelligence! At this stage in our intellectual history, it is important to stop all the pointless, really mediocre, low-level kinds of myth-making we call 'history.' Nigerian history is properly documented in the places where archives are properly preserved and not manipulated. We do not have "three founding fathers" for instance in Nigeria. If there were any founders and movers for modern Nigeria, they were those who with Azikiwe belonged to the Nationalist party and the nationalist movement. Neither Awolowo nor Bello supported the Nationalist movement or the very basis of a Nigerian nationalist anti-colonialism. We can tell who did what from 1937-1947. From 1947-1957. From 1957-1967. From 1967-1977. From 1977-1987, and so on. We can already harvest from the End of Empire documents already publicly available to us the work, state, and place of each of these historical figures in the formation and deformation of Nigeria. The constant attempts to apotheosize Awolowo beyond his weight is a very laughable, repetitive, but by now exhausted ploy. And to ascribe some kind of immanent insight in this terrifyingly mediocre letter he wrote to Babangida is the height of intellectual infamy. Any elementary rhetorical analysis of this letter will basically show exactly what Awo was saying to Babangida: "Sorry, sir, but Fuck Nigeria and Nigerians! I'm not interested." That's basically the sum of Awo's letter. Now, you want to ascribe some high intelligence to it? Get real sir!Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 10:35 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awo's reply declining membership of the 1986 Political Bureau
Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
“Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
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"Of the three Boards, the Western Regional Marketing Board channeled the largest absolute amounts into private enterprise, exclusive of those grants to the Development and Finance Corporations(Federation of Nigeria, Report of Coker Commission of Inguiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporation in Western Nigeria, Vol. 1 ,1962, P. 65.)
The bulk of these funds went to a bank and a real estate concern, the affairs of which were closely bound up with those of the political party then in power in the Western Region and its leading members. "
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Long time. Here comes the Biafran Chauvinist Nwakanma ! The glorious Igbophiliac rides into town ( the USA – Africa Dialogue Series) once again, waving his flag, bristling with his usual disdain and arrogance, talking about “at best, an above average intelligence” – as if he has just designed a new intelligence quotient test for his super-Biafrans and his intellectually malnourished fellow Nigerians, with he himself sitting at the apex of Mt. Olympus as the Naira’s new gold standard, himself ( with a modest small h) just freshly minted from some citadel of learning or other and about to start awarding/ handing out IQ certificates to the like-minded starting with his demi-god Azikiwe, destined in Nwakanma’s mind, to sit atop of the Great Pyramid as the one and only Zik of Africa, forever.
Within his single paragraph response to Dear Tunji Olaopa he has managed to sprinkle his key words, “intellectual history”: he would like to confine the “ terrifyingly mediocre” and relegate all those that he so humbly disdains, to “the height of intellectual infamy” and then consign them to the dustbin/garbage heap of history, leaving the rest of us himself gasping for some fresh air and wondering, when did the best of us become the worst of us?
He would like us to believe and have faith in his wayward conceit that unlike him the great AWO was “ no visionary” although the foresight in Chief Obafemi Awolowo's free primary education programme in Western Nigeria 1952-1966 is still reaping its dividends, for all to see and this continues to be an inspiration - so that in the oil-boom years, Bendel’s Governor Ambrose Ali invested as much as 50% of his state budget in education.
Nwakanma’s latest little tittle-tattle culminates in the expected anti-climax to this long thread that there is no “high intelligence” in the tone and texture of AWO’s tersely written letter to Babangida.
Let’s hope that Nwakanma will spare Babangida and not downgrade or degrade his intellectual capacity to some imaginary lower level, because in my opinion, Ibrahim Babangida too is still very intelligent and very much, still an astute politician.
But not to worry; I leave Nwakanma to the tender mercies of Baba Kadiri
Dear Tunji Olaopa:Awolowo did not see any further than the political realities and conditions in Nigeria of which he was a key architect from 1947. He was no visionary, and did not possess a god-like capacity to see a future. He was no futurologist, nor did he possess any more than at best, an above average intelligence! At this stage in our intellectual history, it is important to stop all the pointless, really mediocre, low-level kinds of myth-making we call 'history.' Nigerian history is properly documented in the places where archives are properly preserved and not manipulated. We do not have "three founding fathers" for instance in Nigeria. If there were any founders and movers for modern Nigeria, they were those who with Azikiwe belonged to the Nationalist party and the nationalist movement. Neither Awolowo nor Bello supported the Nationalist movement or the very basis of a Nigerian nationalist anti-colonialism. We can tell who did what from 1937-1947. From 1947-1957. From 1957-1967. From 1967-1977. From 1977-1987, and so on. We can already harvest from the End of Empire documents already publicly available to us the work, state, and place of each of these historical figures in the formation and deformation of Nigeria. The constant attempts to apotheosize Awolowo beyond his weight is a very laughable, repetitive, but by now exhausted ploy. And to ascribe some kind of immanent insight in this terrifyingly mediocre letter he wrote to Babangida is the height of intellectual infamy. Any elementary rhetorical analysis of this letter will basically show exactly what Awo was saying to Babangida: "Sorry, sir, but Fuck Nigeria and Nigerians! I'm not interested." That's basically the sum of Awo's letter. Now, you want to ascribe some high intelligence to it? Get real sir!Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tunji Olaopa <tolao...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 10:35 AM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awo's reply declining membership of the 1986 Political Bureau
Reading Papa Awo's letter declining to serve on IBB's Political Bureau in 1986 again, and with the clear declining fortune of the Nigeria Project, I woke up this morning wondering, did the sage saw something about the future that we are in that we were perhaps too blinded to see?
RESTORING GOVERNMENTAL AND SOCIAL ORDER - CHIEF OBAFEMI AWOLOWO
In 1986, former President Ibrahim Babangida had asked Pa Awolowo to provide input into charting a New Social Order for Nigeria via a National Debate. A couple of my bosom friends have over the last few days reminded me of the force and depth of Pa Awolowo reply:
“Dear Sir, I received your letter of February 28, 1986, and sincerely thank you for doing me the honour of inviting me to contribute to the National Political Debate. The purpose of the debate is to clarify our thoughts in our search for a new social order. It is, therefore, meet and proper that all those who have something to contribute should do so. I do fervently and will continue fervently to pray that I may be proved wrong. For something within me tells me, loud and clear, that we have embarked on a fruitless search. At the end of the day, when we imagine that the new order is here, we would be terribly disappointed. In other words, at the threshold of our New Social Order, we would see for ourselves that, as long as Nigerians remain what they are, nothing clean, principled, ethical, and idealistic can work with them. And Nigerians will remain what they are, unless the evils which now dominate their hearts, at all levels and in all sectors of our political, business and governmental activities are exorcised. But I venture to assert that they will not be exorcised, and indeed they will be firmly entrenched, unless God Himself imbues a vast majority of us with a revolutionary change of attitude to life and politics or, unless the dialectic processes which have been at work for some twenty years now, perforce, make us perceive the abominable filth that abounds in our society, to the end that an inexorable abhorrence of it will be quickened in our hearts and impel us to make drastic changes for the better. There is, of course, an alternative option open to us. To succumb to permanent social instability and chaos. On the premises, I beg to decline your invitation. I am yours truly, Obafemi Awolowo.”
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"Of the three Boards, the Western Regional Marketing Board channeled the largest absolute amounts into private enterprise, exclusive of those grants to the Development and Finance Corporations(Federation of Nigeria, Report of Coker Commission of Inguiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporation in Western Nigeria, Vol. 1 ,1962, P. 65.)
The bulk of these funds went to a bank and a real estate concern, the affairs of which were closely bound up with those of the political party then in power in the Western Region and its leading members. "
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On 29 Dec 2019, at 5:00 PM, Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com> wrote:
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” Ångest” which translates as angst and which I still understand as anguish, is the very first word that I learned in the Swedish Language, back there in Ghana in 1970, from Nobel Laureate Pär Lagerkvist’s poem Ångest är min arvedel . Here it is, in approximate English translations: Anguish.
At this exact point ( 20.45 Stockholm time) I just got a phone call with the solemn news that Dr. Noor Ali Tabandeh, the Beloved Pir of the Nematollahi Gonabadi Sufi Order has passed away. May the Almighty be pleased with him…
I have been a member of the Javad Nurbakhsh branch since 1987 and of the Gonadbadi Branch since 1989 when I made bay’ah, when Hazrat Hajj Sultan Hussein Tabandeh Reza Ali Shah took me by the hand …
Anguish? Not at all. Breath after breath, life goes on.
It’s some forms of ethnic chauvinism that gives me the creeps. Celebrating ethnic cultures, boasting about the great African music is alright – during the circa four decades during which I met our late friend Idries Ibrahim ( Hausa guy, Baba Kadiri’s friend and my friend too ) without fail ( the first ten years, from the library to the cafeteria at Stockholm University – he was a lifelong student ) he would always tell me that when it comes to culture, the performing arts, language, music, poetry, drama, theatre, proverbs, etc. the Yoruba of Nigeria were head and shoulders above every other, in Nigeria. He said it so many times that I began to suspect that he was trying to reinforce his own beliefs by telling me this. The only thing that I didn’t know was that he was a Christian – I had taken it as for granted that he was a Muslim of the Malik Tradition because almost every time we met; we would discuss Islam in Nigeria. Unfortunately, I missed attending his funeral because I was supposed to attend the funeral of a South African Brother Rafique, on the same day and at the same time – at a different venue. Unfortunately, again, due to the wrong directions I had been given, I missed attending both funerals. Idries Ibrahim was a most perfect gentleman, and generous too, invited me to uncountable number of cups of tea -very English in that respect and perhaps, simultaneously the most Swedish African that I have ever met. Rafique too, a perfect Muslim gentleman, kind, gentle, helpful, patient equipped with the quality of forbearance. May the Almighty be kind to both of them…
After all that has been said in situating the politically motivated Inquiry and its purpose, in cutting AWO and the Action Group down to size, merely quoting this snippet of a several hundred-page report just doesn’t cut the ice, not even when the £ sterling currency of the time is translated into the quotes in yesterday’s’ Naira.
The snippet: “a most flagrant breach of trust” ... by which the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board”.
Here is how the charge that “the peoples of the Western
Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled
from the Western Regional Marketing Board” is met headlong:
As previously submitted by Baba Kadiri : Coker Commission discovered that Awolowo spent cocoa money on free primary education for all. Initially, it was intended to be compulsory but when his any campaigned that he wanted to deprive parents helping hands of their children in the farm, he changed it to voluntary. The first Television Station in Africa, WNTV, was established by Awolowo's government, the flood-light Liberty Stadium was built with Cocoa money, major towns in Western Region had access to pipe-borne water, farm settlements producing dairy products were established throughout Western Region, Cocoa House (a Skyscraper) was built in Ibadan and a large area of Land was turned into industrial estate in Ikeja which belonged to Western Region then. “
Reading and re-reading the contents of AWO’s letter to Babangida, and keeping an eye on how things have turned out since then, one cannot help but agree that to all intents and purposes AWO’s letter was prophetic. It reminds me of Moses last address to the children of Israel in which – on instructions from the Almighty, he presented them with a clear choice: the blessings and the curses as presented in Devarim 28 / / Deuteronomy Chapter 28
In should be in place to qualify the aura around General Babangida , just a little the investigators / investigative journalists, their kith and kin are well advised to take a closer look at the Pius Okigbo Report and the missing $ 12.4 Billion - so help me God, and enquire from Brer Babangida himself whilst he is still alive and kicking - and then report back to base (the USA-Africa Dialogue Series)about the unanswered questions still swirling around it ( the missing $ 12.4 Billion) and him ( General Ibrahim Babangida )
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Obi Nwakanma,
“Cunnilingus Ham-bag”?
How crude!
Is that the extent of your wit?
Language savvy?
Culture?
Civilisation?
How dare you! You wanna make an impression that would make your momma proud?
May the Lord have mercy on your soul!
I double dare you to continue in this vein and I assure you that even standing as a prodigal, naked in your mother Idoto’s watery presence will not accomplish anything without your repentance.
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Obi,
For the sake of Umuahia, the brethren at Aba, Brother Titus Akanabu, the good folks at the White House at Owerri, such as the late great Dr Sir Warrior and more lately dear Chidi Anthony Opara, I’ll let you off the hook this time, little worm.
“Cunnilingus Ham-bag ? I should have my "loin clothes worn tight this time" - that's a little funny.
Not bad, coming from the s-hole of a professed Zikologist; it could have been worse, just slightly over the pale and I already know that Algaba Falola would take just one look and not be kind enough to allow my reply to be posted in this forum.
First of all, I’m not and have never been a “cunnilingus “man. God forbid! Ziki-ziki and jiggy-jiggy, yes, but that? No. I know that your lurid imagination is always running riot, this time you probably believe that that’s what all the Igbo brothers in Sweden are up to. Well, please count me out.
Secondly, ham is treif – and 100% I follow a kosher diet, so when it comes to your traditional English breakfast of “ bacon and eggs” you can also count me out. (And by the way, I don’t know how Miyetti Allah and the Fulani Herdsmen relate to this, that “The Prophet Muhammad never ate beef”
For your information, the name is Hamelberg , not “ Ham-bag”.
Ziky-Ziky, I could play around with those letters and make a really funny acrostic out of Obi Nwakanma, but out of respect for ZIk, I refuse to stoop any lower.
( I say “out of respect” because after three months of research in the Colonial Archives lodged at the British Museum, my wife was a little authority on ZIk, Kwame Nkrumah and I.T.A. Wallace Johnson ‘s roles in The West African Youth League )
Here’s some food for thought for you and the other unrepentant revisionists:
Robert Frost:
“They say the truth will set you free,
My truth will bind you slave to me.”
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§ The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd)With your permission, Mr. Speaker, and that of the House, I should like to make a statement, which is rather long.
A dispute has arisen in the Eastern Region of Nigeria about the relationship between the Premier, Dr. Azikiwe, and the African Continental Bank Limited.
This Bank was founded by Dr. Azikiwe. On assuming office the Premier informed the Governor that he had resigned his directorship of the bank. He had enterprises with which he has been associated are still shown as large shareholders in it. I have been informed that during 1955 £877,000 of public money was invested in the Bank—and other large sums deposited with it—out of funds made available from Marketing Board reserves to the Finance Corporation, which the Eastern Region Government had established.
I have also been informed that, following this investment, the bank was a party to certain documents contemplating that the Premier should be life Chairman of the bank and purporting to give him the right to nominate certain other directors.
As long ago as last November I took the matter up with the Premier in London and we have been in correspondence since. In April of this year Mr. Eyo, a member of the Regional House of Assembly, who had until then been the Government's Chief Whip in that House and Deputy-Speaker and Chairman of the Regional Development Corporation, tabled a Motion in the House relating to the association of the Premier with the Bank. He subsequently called for the appointment of an independent commission of inquiry. Dr. Azikiwe has now instituted libel actions against Mr. Eyo and certain newspapers.
On 14th July, after receiving a report from the Governor, I sent a personal message through him inviting the Premier to agree to my appointing a commission of inquiry. I considered it essential that these matters should be fully cleared up before the next Nigerian Constitutional Conference. This Conference will consider further constitutional advance for 216 Nigeria, and, in particular, the grant of regional self-government to those regions that desire it, in accordance with the undertaking given by Her Majesty's Government in 1953 as recorded in the London Conference Report.
I pointed out that such a commission was appointed in the United Kingdom when last the conduct of a Minister was called in question. I suggested that I should appoint the commission as at least one of the matters to be inquired into is reserved to the Federal Government and the Governor of the Region is not competent to appoint a commission to inquire into federal matters.
On 16th July I received from the Premier a message couched in terms which, I must confess, disappointed me. His message, which has been quoted extensively in the Press, implied a rejection of my invitation. Shortly afterwards, I was informed that the Premier and his colleagues, after considering my message, advised the Governor of the Region to appoint a commission with a sole commissioner of their own choosing. Such a commissioner could not inquire into matters reserved to the Federal Government, of which banking is one.
On 18th July I made a further approach to the Premier, explaining this again. I also said that, although it would not be proper for the Premier to suggest the full membership of the commission since he would be personally involved in its proceedings, I would nevertheless be prepared to invite the person whom he had proposed as sole commissioner to be a member of it. I said this as I was satisfied that the person proposed was suitable for appointment.
I regret to say that the Premier rejected this second approach, also. Instead, he and his colleagues now advised the Governor to appoint a committee of inquiry and nominated three persons to serve on it. Such a committee could not compel the attendance of witnesses or heat evidence on oath, and its investigations of matters reserved to the Federal Government would be of doubtful propriety. The Governor did not consider that to proceed in this way was, in the words of his Royal Instructions "in the interests of public faith" and informed the Ministers that he felt unable to act on their advice. This decision of the Governor, who has a most difficult and 217 invidious task, has my unqualified support.
In these circumstances, I have decided that in order to secure a speedy, impartial and full investigation as to the investments made in the bank, and the grave allegations that have been made—matters closely affecting the conduct of Government—it is necessary that I should now appoint a Commission of Inquiry. I have invited Sir Stafford Foster-Sutton, the Chief Justice of the Federation of Nigeria, to be Chairman, and he has accepted my invitation. The names of the other members and the terms of reference will be announced as soon as possible.
I earnestly hope that the Premier and his colleagues will accept the decision I have reached as in their own best interests and in the best interests of public life in Nigeria as a whole. I need hardly say that there is no question of any attempt on Her Majesty's Government's part to impose a British banking monopoly in Nigeria, or to dictate financial policy.
The Commission will, I am sure, complete its work and report with all possible speed, but I am afraid that its appointment must almost inevitably mean some delay in convening the Constitutional Conference, which was to have met on 19th September. I hope that this will not be long, and I have asked the other Nigerian Governments to accept this delay, regrettable though it is to all of us, because in the interests of the Territory as a whole these serious allegations must first be fully investigated.
At the same time, I have made it clear to them that Her Majesty's Government stand by the undertaking given in 1953 about the grant of regional self-government to those regions that desire it. I trust that after the Commission has reported we shall be able to resume our work together.
§ Mr. BevanI am sure the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate that this is a very serious statement and may have serious consequences in Nigeria. First, I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any idea how long the September Conference will be postponed, because I am certain that that will have a bearing on the response to his statement in Nigeria?
Secondly, may I ask whether it was not possible for him to have set up this 218 Commission a little earlier, so as not to interfere with the September Conference?
Thirdly, is it not a fact—as has not been made in the statement—that the Speaker in the Eastern Nigerian Parliament stated that an inquiry could not be held, because proceedings were taking place in court and that such a committee, or rather, the Resolution of the Assembly, would be sub judice; and that the Commission which the right hon. Gentleman has set up is the only sort of judicial tribunal which can, in fact, withdraw proceedings from the court in the meantime? If the right hon. Gentleman made that statement, it would be clear to people in Nigeria.
Fourthly, would the right hon. Gentleman also recognise, with some degree of humility on behalf of himself and his hon. Friends, that the association of politicians with banks is quite notorious in Great Britain as well as Nigeria?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydSave for the ending thrust of the right hon. Gentleman, I am grateful for the helpful questions he has asked. I do realise that this is a serious matter, but I could not reconcile it with my responsibility to take any action other than that which I have taken. I very much hope that the restrained way in which he and other hon. Members have taken the statement will also be echoed in the Eastern Region and in Nigeria as a whole.
About the postponement which this will almost certainly mean for the September Conference, I should not like to bind myself to any particular period, save to say that I hope it will be a short postponement. I very much hope that the facts will justify this expectation.
I have taken action in this matter as soon as it was possible for me to do so and I shall do all I can to see that the necessary preparatory work is carried out as quickly as possible. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Speaker in the Eastern Region Assembly did say that, in a sense, the matter was sub judice, because of the forthcoming libel action, and that was the reason why this was not ventilated in the Eastern Region Assembly, where, indeed, the Premier had asked that it should be so ventilated. I share with him the view that the action I have taken is the best possible way in which this matter can be brought to a speedy decision.
§ Sir R. RobinsonCan my right hon. Friend say why he was not content with the suggestion that Dr. Azikiwe's libel action might well settle this matter?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThis is a public matter, requiring public inquiry, and cannot, I think, be left to private litigation. Apart from that, private litigation might well prove very protracted, and even longer delay the convening of the Conference. The issues in the libel action might not cover the full field which should be investigated by the Commission.
§ Mr. Fenner BrockwayIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that all of us are concerned that Nigeria and the rest of West Africa shall progress in an orderly way towards self-government, and that it is in that spirit that we are asking our questions?
Is it not the case that Dr. Azikiwe and the other Ministers of Eastern Nigeria have to go even beyond the point of Ministers in this country? Have they not only to resign their directorships in any limited liability companies but actually to reveal to the Governor all their financial interests? Was that not done by Dr. Azikiwe? Is it not the case that Dr. Azikiwe was appointed as permanent chairman of this bank without his own knowledge and that he repudiated that appointment and resigned it when he became Prime Minister?
Did not the Governor himself recommend that the Eastern Nigerian Government should invest these large sums in this bank? Will the terms of reference to the Commission not only refer to Dr. Azikiwe and his colleagues, but to those who are responsible for British administration in Eastern Nigeria?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe. first three questions which the hon. Gentleman asked are matters to which, clearly, the Commission will pay attention. It would be wrong for me to make any comment on them in advance of the sitting of the Commission. As for the action that the Governor took, undoubtedly he is anxious—as I am—to encourage indigenous banks in Nigeria and elsewhere, and the advice the Governor gave and the action taken as part of his advice will also be a matter which the Commission will inquire into.
§ Mr. TilneyWould my right hon. Friend consider the appointment as members of the Commission of those from other Commonwealth Territories?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydI certainly would not rule that out.
§ Mr. J. JohnsonIs it not a fact that alleged corruption like this has been talked about as long ago as 1953, when there was a crisis in the Legislative Council in Enugu associated with the Natal Council of Nigeria and Cameroons Party?
Is it not a fact that there is nothing new in all this? Why is it that the Governor, Sir Clement Pleass, is so insistent on pressing this matter with the support of the Colonial Secretary, on the eve of the September Conference? Is it not the case that a similar charge of alleged corruption was made on the Gold Coast? Why cannot we have the whole thing settled by an inquiry inside Nigeria, by their own people on the spot, as the Governor, Sir Charles Arden Clarke, did in regard to Kwame on the Gold Coast? Is that not much better than having a Commission sent out from the United Kingdom to look into their affairs?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydAs the hon. Member knows well, the Gold Coast is not a Federation. It is precisely because banking is outside the sphere of the Regional Government that a regional inquiry would not be appropriate. As to the length of time certain stories have been floating around, I had a prolonged discussion with the Premier last December, and it was only in April of this year that certain charges, going far beyond anything that had been suggested, were made. In the name of good faith in Nigeria, those charges should be ventilated.
§ Mr. BevanSo that there may be no confusion left about this matter, may I ask whether it is not only that these are Federal matters in Nigeria and that, therefore, a Federal inquiry must be held, but, as I understand the constitutional position, that it would not be proper for a committee of inquiry, which alone the East Nigerian Parliament could create, to remove the matter from the court at the moment? Only the action and the authority of this House could establish a commission of inquiry of sufficient status.
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThe right hon. Gentleman is quite right in saying that and, to put it beyond doubt, he has said it again.
§ Mr. J. GriffithsDo we understand that the setting up of the Commission will prevent the libel case going on? Otherwise, we shall have two inquiries going on at the same time?
§ Mr. Lennox-BoydThat is not a matter for me, but I understand that it would not prevent it continuing.
§ Mr. BrockwayIn view of the unsatisfactory statement made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and the unsatisfactory position in which the matter has been left by the curtailing of Question Time—I am not referring to you, Mr. Speaker—I wish to give notice that I will raise this matter at the earliest opportunity
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Baba Kadiri,
We’ve been here before, haven’t we? We all remember ( it’s all in the archives ) his earlier, steady, & oh so heady determination and failure to prove that at the end of the Biafra Civil War , Ojukwu / Biafra “did not surrender “ – as if the terms of the surrender - Ojukwu’s flight to voluntary/ involuntary exile to the Ivory Coast and the very documented articles of surrender was not worth the ink that it was written with.
Loincloth? The urchin (little worm) was still in his nappies (if indeed the pickaninny had any) - he was barely twenty-eight (28) days old and crying either in joy or most probably still starving when the Biafra war came to an end.
My second week at Legon (January 1970) that was all we were talking about, everywhere on that campus…
The maniacal Igbophile is not fighting for truth, equality and justice, all he still wants is victory even at this very late date, the victory that was denied him and that’s the reason for these endless, unsuccessful post-mortems in which he tries to resurrect the usual falsehoods.
You are waiting in vain for the toto-sucker caught on camera there, digging himself dancing kaka-debul and masquerading as a petty edition reincarnation of Ziki his demi-god….
As Malcolm Little once put it to such miscreants: “They taught you little”
BTW, I have set Cassandra’s Answer to song (Amponsah guitar)
I’m in a bad mood and jiveass, I’m ready
don’t run away to Abidjan
and don’t be sorry ….
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Forty Texts on Watchfulness by Philotheos of Sinai ( sixteen pages) starts with “There is within us, on the noetic plane, a warfare tougher than that on the plane of the senses.” The residual reader was left feeling both remorseful and humbled as you would probably be too, if you took his advice seriously, after all, the Desert Fathers are said to have influenced some of the Sufis, tremendously.
I next took some pains to edit what I had written previously so that our dear moderator of this forum, Professor Falola doesn’t think that Mr Somebody has the right to continue addressing me in this forum in this insulting manner as “Rabbi Cunnilingus”, ostensibly on presumptions that the word is “ free”, or to deny me the right of reply to the obscene titles that Mr Somebody has been awarding me. Not that I’m about to sink so low as to address Mr Somebody in a like manner. Rudeness is not my religion.
So, the most important thing that I want to tell Mr. Somebody is that this Happy New Year he could desist (forthwith) from addressing his Brother Cornelius as “Rabbi Cunnilingus” – I don’t want to have to do something about that kind of anti-Semitism. And believe you me, these are not idle words, I can do something about it beyond what Jazzman Don Cherry said, “There’s nothing I can’t do, I’ll talk to God for you”
About the subject matter under discussion, I should like to refer some of those concerned to pages 188 – 278 and the “Postscript 1970 – 1976” on pages 278- 283 of Michael Crowder’s “The Story of Nigeria” - a book that I have read, closely.
For peace of mind, happiness and future well-being, we are well advised to take Professor Toyin Falola’s Happy New Year Message and other words of encouragement, to heart.
However, just for the record and to disabuse Somebody of further illusions I’m compelled to reply to what was said to me. I was at a very peaceful and harmonious New Year’s Eve Party, beautiful, wonderful people, good food, good wine, some dazzling fireworks displays to usher in 2020, talked for some time with a Swedish writer and war historian ( he has written a couple of books) and in keeping with my New Year Resolution, I’m taking my time to edit this beyond any reproach by Oga Falola.
To begin with - respect begets respect. I respect everybody. But, (of course) I don’t respect anyone who does not respect me. I was taught to respect my elders, and over the years, religious scholars etc. I felt honoured when tying the shoelaces of the Great Master, the Most Gracious Hazrat Agha when he visited me at home in Stockholm, in the summer of 1989...
It must be cultural and that’s why there’s the saying, “you can take the monkey out of the jungle, but you can’t take the jungle out of the monkey.” All that I said from the very beginning, was that Mr Somebody is an unrepentant, great Igbo nationalist, which title I assumed he would proudly wear as a badge of honour - but no - I guess his background coupled with the motor park/ jungle/ Say Tokio Kid mentality is far too strong and always gets the better of him, binds him and blinds him, and in true monkey-spirit, so to speak, the reaction is always about his own passionate obsession “cunnilingus” this and “cunnilingus” that, the street vocabulary of cock-sucking poetry and some cock and bull stories. I guess that’s how some people talk to their fathers and maybe to their brothers and their sister’s husbands. But what’s the point of talking like that? I think that when we talk like that, we are judged adversely by people who follow these threads. I know one such person.
There is no Rabbi so and so of “Swedenborg” although I understand the mindset and pattern of thinking of the Somebody who thinks that he is addressing the rabbi that is the figment of his lurid imagination.
Emanuel Swedenborg is more famous and more popular outside of Sweden than in his native Sweden. I checked him out a long time ago. In my opinion, he was a spiritualist. In his spiritual autobiography “Heaven and Hell” he describes some typical psychic phenomena, meetings with disembodied spirits, “angels” etc., that e.g. kundalini yogis experience/ have experienced in the so-called “ lower spheres”. I was at NK two years ago to listen to Ernst Brunner present his newly written book “Darra” // Tremble) a very demythologised factual biography (not hagiography) of the ultimately tragic figure that was Swedenborg. At the end of his life and in hospital he was convinced that he was “the Messiah” - as many deluded others have believed about themselves before him and after him and known as false messiahs. They all have their delusions of grandeur, don’t they? Thanks to Baba Kadiri I learned this new term: the Dunning–Kruger effect, which can be applied appropriately, as and when the cap fits. Olga Tokarczuk´s 850-page The Books of Jacob is about one such false messiah by the name of Jacob Frank
I must say (and this is also the truth) that I enjoyed Obi’s last paragraph and to see him waxing visionary, for a change:
“You keep talking about age, and making statements about starving me as a child. Be wary, sir, those kids you wanted to starve to death still have gunpowder in their souls and ingots in their eyes, and they may come hunting you, now that your old arthritic legs can no longer lift or run from where you hide in Sweden. “
Surely, just because I say that somebody was still in nappies on January 15, 1970 does not mean that I’m “always talking about age”?
I’m still laughing. My “old arthritic legs can no longer lift or run from where (I am) hide in Sweden. “?
Who told him that I have “old arthritic legs”?
“can no longer lift or run”? Really? You are no Usain Bolt yourself, are you Ogbeni Obi?
I’m glad that at least it’s only the feet and not also the head that’s being accused of being “arthritic” …
And who told him that I am “hiding” in Sweden? (As soon as Nigeria starts offering citizenship to Diaspora Africans, I’ll apply. The person I wanted to visit in Kinshasa is currently in Nairobi)
Age? I keep talking about it?
Where?
Makes me think of Sammy Davis Jr asking the same question (He was having dinner with his gang, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Joey Bishop, etc the so-called Rat Pack when some Ku Klux Klan folks came into the restaurant, and said loudly, “There’s a nigger in here”, causing Sammy Davis Jr to jump up ( as only he can) throw his hands up in the air and enquire,
“Where?”
I “keep talking about age, and making statements about starving (you) as a child”?
Where?
Where have I kept on talking about age and about starving you as a child?
Age? For some it’s a fixation (Early on news Years Day on the way from the fireworks, the Swedish historian asked me, “How old are you?” I told him, “I’m 100 years old,” He said, “No you’re not.” I told him, “Africans don’t lie”. He replied that he was 76 years old. I told him, “So, you’re my little brother”
There’s the biological, the mental, the emotional, some say the psychological and far above the intellectual, there’s the spiritual. They say that some souls are older than others. I may be biologically a few years older than Mr A and professor Y; I may have even known Jesus when he was a little boy, and still be in a physically normal condition, look younger than Mr A and Professor Y perhaps due to a mostly stress-free life, Bitachon , a lot of confidence in the future, a singular lack of “ambition“, a wonderful wife, children and grandchildren, a feeling of contentment with all that I have, and (due to many other factors such as genetic ancestry - not so much inbreeding in my past, etc) plus because - and this is the big secret, I learned how to breathe, a long time ago, breathe right, like an elephant and you slow down “ageing” - you don’t want to go around huffing and puffing and breathing like a marathon runner! Just the other day there was this bad news: Man dies during sex competition after finishing the seventh round . (Poor guy. May his soul rest in peace. It’s better to conserve than to emit (Baba Muktananda used to say, “the seminal fluid is more precious than dollars”, become an avadhut – the fluid should - by capillary attraction flow up along the spinal column and nourish the brain
For those who fear death most, there’s Joseph Campbell’s reflections on death, mourning, and meaning
If some children have “gunpowder” in their souls” what do you think others have? Saliva?
That use of the word “gunpowder” reminds me of this line of Kabir as translated by Robert Bly:
“but when deep inside you there is a loaded gun,
how can you have God?”
I was born sometime after the Second World War was over and yet I know a great deal about WW2, about the Holocaust, other disasters, tragedies, histories, mostly acquired by study and meeting people who know. During the Biafra War (while some people were still in Heaven or wherever it is that you came from) there were many nights when I listened to Ojukwu’s live broadcasts, huddled together with Igbos of my generation - and Oh what colonialism has done to us: some of them were marvelling at Ojukwu’s so-called ” Oxford accent”, to my ears, if anything it was a Nigerian Oxford accent - it was at a time when I was dating the best friend of Kenneth Ofodile’s girlfriend, later to be his wife Mrs Ofodile. Further along the road, she passed away in Sokoto…
In this thread, so far, the funniest sentence has been, “The facts they deploy agree specifically with mine.” Another way of looking at it is that Obi agrees with them, with Messrs James S. Coleman and Martin Lynn. I don’t suppose that we generally agree with all the lieutenants of the Western Intelligence Agencies, and their agendas. I know and have known quite a few of them ( In Ghana where I auditioned some of his political science seminars ( with Canadian friend Tony Asrilen) Victor Le Vine for example used to boast openly about the kind of work that he had done in the Far East. About half an hour ago I had dinner with my wife another friend, and the wife of a former CIA agent (Kenyan) here at home. I just saw her through the door.
I’m sorry to say that sometimes, the stance of some African scholars and intellectuals who speak good English is not radically different from that of Man Friday, as quoted by John M. Coetzee in his Nobel Lecture:
“He and His Man
“But to return to my new companion. I was greatly delighted with him, and made it my business to teach him everything that was proper to make him useful, handy, and helpful; but especially to make him speak, and understand me when I spoke; and he was the aptest scholar there ever was.”
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe
2020 is finally here!
Wishing all of us A Happy New Year
(Gregorian calendar)
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