Amotekun!!!

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Toyin Falola

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Jan 14, 2020, 4:53:32 PM1/14/20
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BREAKING: FG Scraps Operation Amotekun, Declares Security Outfit ‘Illegal’

https://thewhistler.ng/breaking-fg-scraps-operation-amotekun-declares-security-outfit-illegal/


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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 14, 2020, 4:54:32 PM1/14/20
to usaafricadialogue, Yoruba Affairs
We told you but you would not hear.

How can you expect a person who lives in a very different ideological world from you to share power equitably with you?

A person whose values, whose history, are anathema to what you have historically stood for?

The evil dance has begun at last.

In hunger to reach Aso Rock, wisdom was sacrificed. People bent over backwards until their spines broke. 

They are trying to mend the spines but the person on whose behalf the spines were broken insists  they are better broken.

"Oro buruku pelu erin"

An evil thing said to the accompaniment of laughter.

That is where we are now.










To put this in perspective , the following voices present the deeply moving background








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Moses Ebe Ochonu

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Jan 14, 2020, 5:45:28 PM1/14/20
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My take as published on my Facebook page.


When Hisbah was brewing and waxing strong in the Northwest, the brilliant constitutional lawyers and SANs of the Southwest (and Southeast) watched in indifference. 

At that time, we had a fairly independent Supreme Court that might have weighed in to either affirm the constitutionality of Hisbah and similar security outfits in the subnational units or declare them unconstitutional--all of them. 

Had they sued and gotten Hisbah declared legal, the legal road would have been cleared for Amotekun (and all future subnational security arrangements), and AGF Malami would not have made today's pronouncement.

The brilliant lawyers of the Southwest instead deferred to Tinubu, who for selfish political reasons did not want to offend the politicians and aristocrats of the Northwest. Hisbah became both a de facto and de jure reality.

Today, Hisbah is fully entrenched, and you have a Supreme Court that is an extension of the Cabal and their brazenly pro-Northern, pro-Muslim agenda.

The SANs of the Southwest can belatedly try to sue for a constitutional judgment on both Amotekun and Hisbah, but it will end up with Justice Tanko, who wants our constitution reviewed to accommodate more Sharia law and is a stooge of the cabal.

Lesson: never let the political interest of one powerful man dictate how you, as a region, react to consequential developments in the polity. If you do it will come back to bite you.



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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 14, 2020, 5:48:49 PM1/14/20
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Toyin Adepoju.

What are the cryptic sentences supposed to mean?

We have said that parallel enforcement agencies NOT BACKED BY THE CONSTITUTION cannot be legal whether it is Miyetti Allah or Amotekun or Hisbar

We are waiting on the FG to prescribe Hisbar.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Date: 14/01/2020 22:09 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!! [ SW Nigeria and the AntInfested  Faggot Sold as a Loaf of Bread]

Boxbe This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (toyin....@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
We told you but you would not hear.

How can you expect a person who lives in a very different ideological world from you to share power equitably with you?

A person whose values, whose history, are anathema to what you have historically stood for?

The evil dance has begun at last.

In hunger to reach Aso Rock, wisdom was sacrificed. People bent over backwards until their spines broke. 

They are trying to mend the spines but the person on whose behalf the spines were broken insists  they are better broken.

"Oro buruku pelu erin"

An evil thing said to the accompaniment of laughter.

That is where we are now.










To put this in perspective , the following voices present the deeply moving background








---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 at 20:53
Subject: Yoruba Affairs - Amotekun!!!
To: dialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>, ya <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>


BREAKING: FG Scraps Operation Amotekun, Declares Security Outfit ‘Illegal’

https://thewhistler.ng/breaking-fg-scraps-operation-amotekun-declares-security-outfit-illegal/


Sent from my iPhone

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:19:43 PM1/14/20
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Amotekun May Be Nigeria’s Moment of Truth

By Farooq Kperogi

The federal government's declaration of Amotekun as "illegal" was predictable. But the declaration may well precipitate unpredictable seismic national tremors that could convulse the very foundation of Nigeria.

For one, it will certainly ignite soul-searching conversations, such as why the federal government has no problems with Hisbahs and so-called civilian JTFs in the North, which are no different from Amotekun, and why people who feel unprotected by evidently compromised and inept federal security agencies shouldn't band together to preserve their lives.

Self-preservation is the first law of nature. No sentient humans voluntarily choose to make themselves defenseless victims of armed, murderous criminals, irrespective of what the law says.

A government that has shown itself, time and again, to be either unwilling or unable to protect lives is taking umbrage at people’s decision to safeguard their lives, to refuse to be collective sitting ducks to homicidal marauders. The cheek!

This may well turn out to be the moment Nigeria has been waiting for. It may be the jolt we need to get out of our accustomed national complacence and self-imposed suspended animation. Or not.

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media
Social Science Building 
Room 5092 MD 2207
402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will



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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:19:43 PM1/14/20
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What stopped Moses Ochonu who was aware of the non constitutionality of Hisbah from writing against its entrenchment?.  I was only aware of the outfit the last fortnight?

OAA



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

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:19:43 PM1/14/20
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Toyin Adepoju.

What is all this nonsense of 'hunger to reach Aso Rock' about?

Is Aso Rock meant to be only for citizens of Edo State origins?

To hit the nail on the head what is this jealousy of the Yoruba being in Aso Rock all about?  Are they not competent enough and populous enough to be in Aso Rock?

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Date: 14/01/2020 22:09 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>, Yoruba Affairs <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!! [ SW Nigeria and the AntInfested  Faggot Sold as a Loaf of Bread]

Boxbe This message is eligible for Automatic Cleanup! (toyin....@gmail.com) Add cleanup rule | More info
We told you but you would not hear.

How can you expect a person who lives in a very different ideological world from you to share power equitably with you?

A person whose values, whose history, are anathema to what you have historically stood for?

The evil dance has begun at last.

In hunger to reach Aso Rock, wisdom was sacrificed. People bent over backwards until their spines broke. 

They are trying to mend the spines but the person on whose behalf the spines were broken insists  they are better broken.

"Oro buruku pelu erin"

An evil thing said to the accompaniment of laughter.

That is where we are now.










To put this in perspective , the following voices present the deeply moving background








---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Date: Tue, 14 Jan 2020 at 20:53
Subject: Yoruba Affairs - Amotekun!!!
To: dialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>, ya <yoruba...@googlegroups.com>


BREAKING: FG Scraps Operation Amotekun, Declares Security Outfit ‘Illegal’

https://thewhistler.ng/breaking-fg-scraps-operation-amotekun-declares-security-outfit-illegal/


Sent from my iPhone

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Toyin Falola

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:21:59 PM1/14/20
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And this is Moses’ job?

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

Femi Segun

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:26:19 PM1/14/20
to 'Chika Onyeani' via USA Africa Dialogue Series
Great Insight, Prof. Nevertheless, the Attorney General's statement is annoying and threatening. He did say the law will take its course on anyone who associates with the excesses of the Amotekun-perhaps using that to just test waters like the RUGA. If the court is more or less decimated as you said, the civil society must rise to the occasion. The reaction from the SMBL is apt. If Hisbah is not illegal, Amotekun cannot be illegal. The body language of the AG indicates somebody who parade legal illegality and political  prejudice-that are unbecoming of the office that he occupies. 

Okey Iheduru

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Jan 14, 2020, 6:48:20 PM1/14/20
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Weill, well, well! You all voted for and/or chose/preferred and celebrated this outcome in 2015, despite all the warnings and even against your consciences. You brought home this maggot-infested wood; now you must put up/contend with the man-eating lizards that have come to chase you away from your home (they're no longer visiting, you know!) or simply suck it in. 

You see, some others or sections of the country saw this coming about 53 years ago (cf. Aburi Accords) but some of those doing the mea culpa today--and telling us how vicious the lizards are--happily sabotaged and/or ganged up against their ultimately wiser cousins in anticipation of the same ethno-regional harvest that informed the political and strategic calculations that birthed the tragedy of 2015. It will be interesting to watch what these famed political strategists and their print, electronic and digital vuvuzelas would do next. I've dearly missed those highly informative tables and charts that used to invade this cyber-auditorium. Perhaps, the woodpecker can avail them to send us in this our of need, despite the seemingly big boil that has developed on his beak since July 2015 that may have caused this kind of musing to dry up.

And there you have it ... Oh o! Did I just write that?

Okey Iheduru



--
Okey C. Iheduru

Just publishedThe African Corporation, ‘Africapitalism’ and Regional Integration in Africa (September 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785362538.

Okey Iheduru

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Jan 14, 2020, 7:11:40 PM1/14/20
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... in this hour of need.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 14, 2020, 7:11:59 PM1/14/20
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It is the civic job of EVERY Nigerian who was aware of the illegal set up.  None can blame the other for not calling for it to be scrapped.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu>
Date: 14/01/2020 23:26 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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And this is Moses’ job?

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

 

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of agbetuyi <yagb...@hotmail.com>


Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 14, 2020 at 5:19 PM

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 14, 2020, 7:12:09 PM1/14/20
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What would have been the alternative; an additional illegal term for GEJ so he can continue to siphon the nation's funds through the office of the First Lady?  What other alternative in the sampling frame of presidential aspirants?

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Okey Iheduru <okeyi...@gmail.com>
Date: 14/01/2020 23:56 (GMT+00:00)
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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Weill, well, well! You all voted for and/or chose/preferred and celebrated this outcome in 2015, despite all the warnings and even against your consciences. You brought home this maggot-infested wood; now you must put up/contend with the man-eating lizards that have come to chase you away from your home (they're no longer visiting, you know!) or simply suck it in. 

You see, some others or sections of the country saw this coming about 53 years ago (cf. Aburi Accords) but some of those doing the mea culpa today--and telling us how vicious the lizards are--happily sabotaged and/or ganged up against their ultimately wiser cousins in anticipation of the same ethno-regional harvest that informed the political and strategic calculations that birthed the tragedy of 2015. It will be interesting to watch what these famed political strategists and their print, electronic and digital vuvuzelas would do next. I've dearly missed those highly informative tables and charts that used to invade this cyber-auditorium. Perhaps, the woodpecker can avail them to send us in this our of need, despite the seemingly big boil that has developed on his beak since July 2015 that may have caused this kind of musing to dry up.

And there you have it ... Oh o! Did I just write that?

Okey Iheduru

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 3:45 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Okey C. Iheduru

Just publishedThe African Corporation, ‘Africapitalism’ and Regional Integration in Africa (September 2018). DOI: https://doi.org/10.4337/9781785362538.

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Enyimba Himself

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Jan 14, 2020, 7:21:56 PM1/14/20
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Okey Iheduru:

"May your generation multiply"

Enyimba Himself
You are not successful until your successor succeeds.



-----Original Message-----
From: Okey Iheduru <okeyi...@gmail.com>
To: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tue, Jan 14, 2020 6:11 pm
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jan 14, 2020, 9:22:05 PM1/14/20
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Okey,

Isn't this predictable, hackneyed, knee-jerk reaction exhausting even for you? I have as much contempt for anyone who supported and wanted to reelect Jonathan in 2015 in spite of the proven disaster that he was as I have for anyone who defends Buhari now in spite of his demonstrable incompetence.

Given Jonathan's own ineptitude, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to expect that a 70-something-year-old man who had seen it all and who had been fighting to get back to power would reflect on his past mistakes and try to correct them if given another chance, if only to bequeath a legacy that would outlast him.

Alas, he had other intentions when he sought to get back to power, which we couldn't have known with cocksure certainty because we aren't clairvoyant. There are, after all, examples of past African dictators who truly reformed. Matthew Kerekou in Benin Republic is one. The shame is on the person who deceived, not on the person who genuinely trusted. 

To desire a return to Jonathan because Buhari has turned out to be a worse disaster than Jonathan was is reactionary and boneheaded, in my opinion. It’s like desiring to return to the frying pan after escaping into the fire. It’s the same difference. There’s nothing about Jonathan’s days as president that is worth sentimentalizing.

 I know Nigerians are notoriously amnesic, but Jonathan’s presidency was also sinking Nigeria to the nadir of despair. Jonathan was resented because he was incompetent, the same way normal, straight-thinking, non-partisan people deeply resent Buhari because he is incompetent, insensitive, nepotistic— and more. 

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media
Social Science Building 
Room 5092 MD 2207
402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will


Victor Okafor

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Jan 14, 2020, 10:32:39 PM1/14/20
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As I see it, the creation of a state police system will most likely curb what's been reasonably determined by a cross-section of states as an existential security need to establish outfits such as Amotekun. In my view, the Presidency's insistence on monopolizing the instruments of coercion (and apparently using that monopoly to maintain a hegemonic political order) by refusing to allow for the creation of state police departments--against the backdrop of increasing threats to lives and property at the local level—has engendered and justified impulses and actions such as the creation of Amotekun and related outfits. It should come as no surprise that the announcement of the creation of Amotekun appeared to have been greeted with joy at the grassroots—as reflected in social media reactions. The antagonists appeared to be consisted of mainly interest groups and talking heads that viewed it, but naively so, as posing a threat to the hegemonic political order in the country. How can a loosely and apparently lightly-equipped Amotekun conceivably threaten federal military might with its heavily-armed army, air-force and navy—not to talk of its intelligence apparatus?

Nigeria is simply too big and too socially and geographically complex for a unitary policy system. Yes, the regional policy system of pre-Civil War Nigeria almost got transformed into competing regional armies, due substantially, in my view, to the fact that the country was constituted of only 4 regions—three big regions and one small mid-western region. Even then, those regional policy systems were no march for the Nigerian Army and did not deter the latter from prosecuting its succession of military coup de tats. Times have changed; the country now has 36 states, which taken together, broke or undermined the centrifugal potential of those gigantic regions. In my view, the fact of the existence of 36 states serves as a leverage against the possibility of lightly armed 36 state police state departments evolving into state armies, given other in-built and counter-veiling ethnic, religious, class and party political cleavages. 

It does not require an expert political mind to note that the apparent impotence of the existing federal security apparatus in the face of what’s reported as a wide-spread pattern of threats to lives and property, including kidnapping, has led the states—or, at least, some states—to dabble into the expensive arena of building an infra-structure for the protection of the lives and properties of their state residents. Acting otherwise almost came to be seen as a dereliction of duty on the part of the elected state functionaries. After all, across the globe, protection of lives and property is viewed by modern society as the primary purpose of having a body of institutions, laws and personnel called a government. Since Nigeria is not set up as a unitary system of government and is supposed to be a federal system of governance, it's imperative to truly federalize the country's entire security super-structure.



--
Sincerely,

Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University


Okey Iheduru

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Jan 14, 2020, 11:19:15 PM1/14/20
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Farooq:

The challenge for die-hard Buharideens like you in 2015, who now want the world to sympathize with your buyer's remorse and crocodile tears, was not for you to become clairvoyant. The challenge was for you to jettison your emotions and use your God-given brains to understand and comprehend the crux of the anti-Buhari arguments. First, Buhari had said and done an incredible bunch during his terrible dictatorship and since he was booted out of office ignominiously in 1985 to convince any "boneheaded" credulous supporters that the leopard had not changed its "claws." More importantly, you were warned that Buhari's inner circle during the election were a dangerous bunch with an ethnic minority agenda of never again sharing power with any other ethnic groups in the country. They are the "cabal" that is now a recurrent theme in your column articles. Of course, I'm no match for your ability to divert attention from the issue at stake. 

Dr. Jonathan is no longer president; I seriously doubt he'll ever come back to Aso Villa. The issue now is what you and your world-renowned Southwest strategists would do about the man-eating agama lizards that you brought home, especially given the Amotekun challenge the region's Governors have thrown to your favorite cabal. Talk is cheap; now is the time to show some balls. The *Aburi Accords* gave them much better and enduring option than OPC-in-uniform, but "the Sage", their sage, preferred Dodan Barracks crumbs. My sense is that the train left the station 53 years ago!

Finally, as you know very well, I was "on the ground" in Nigeria and observed from a very close range from July to December 2019. If Jonathan's presidency is the "frying pan" and your now estranged messiah, Buhari's presidency is the "fire," I can bet you with my life that the choice of where to jump in today--if freely given--would be a no-brainer for Nigerians, including those who hold you eternally responsible for misleading them with your fertile imagination and unparalleled gift of the garb. That's why we're now talking about Amotekun, isn't it?

Okey Iheduru 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:11:59 AM1/15/20
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I would like advise about what to do about Olayinka Agbetuyi, a man who has made a point of being rude to me in a group defined by polite discourse among scholars.

The following below is his latest-

'Toyin Adepoju.

What is all this nonsense of 'hunger to reach Aso Rock' about?'

Should   I respond by describing the pus filled hollowness of his style of discourse?

Should I ask if he thinks his problems with his wife are due to Adepoju?

Does he think I am responsible for his frustrations?

In other words, should I insult him  in return and at what level of aggression?

Oga moderator Professor Toyin Falola, I hereby serve notice that if any rudeness  by Olayinka Agbetuyi  directed agst me is posted again in this forum, I will feel free to respond as I see fit.

Such terms as 'nonsense', or other such negativities from him directed at me will receive an appropriate response from me.

I hope this will be posted on the group so the character may read it and others will be able to put any future responses from me in context.

Freedom to relate in mutual respect may at times need to be safeguarded by demonstrating one's capacity to give as is given among bolekaja mentalities, crude  characters at home in the controlled chaos a Nigerian motor park.

thanks 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju








Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:11:59 AM1/15/20
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We are at war. 

The Nigerian government, run by Muhammadu Buhari, is at war with Nigeria.

The very Muslim North, Buhari's political base, particularly the North East, is in deep trouble from  decades of mismanagement and the fallout of the terrorist activities right wing Northern Muslim elite have fomented.

The rest of Nigeria is also heavily underdeveloped from decades of poor management and is now ripe for conquest by the Fulani militia that Buhari, with the help of Miyetti Allah, have been using in conquest of the Middle Belt and incursions into the South.

The only permanent solution  I can see is the IPOB/Nnamdi Kanu option-referendum to decide the terms of the dissolution or unity of Nigeria, with provisions made for those who may wish to leave if others are staying.

Will the political elite will do anything to prevent such a comprehensive solution?

 Niger Delta oil makes possible the obscene monies they are paid and what they are able to siphon. If such a referendum becomes an option, the Niger Delta is likely to leave Nigeria.

Without that oil, in a country beleaguered by  low productivity, what is the attraction of politics, the central  means of economic upliftment for the gladiators in the political arena?

Within that political elite, significantly a 'you chop, i chop' cabal, adapting Fela's term for 'you eat, i eat', an arrangement of mutually assured corruption, there is a particularly virulent core, whose identity is centrally  ideological and spans various ethnicities.

These people are killers and desperate manipulators.

This core is what Soyinka once referred to as 'a nest of killers within the PDP'. These are the people who killed Bola Ige, then Attorney General of the Federation, and as expected by those who understand Nigeria's assassination profile, nothing conclusive has emerged to date from whatever investigations were carried out into the killing.

' We shall deal with your boss the way we dealt with Bola Ige', then PDP strongman Tony Anenih was quoted as declaring to the aide of a governor who then cried out to the public, upon which the PDP declared the issue an 'internal matter'.

This core is also represented by the right wing Muslim North terrorism fomentors and managers across parties- Atiku Abubakar who threatened Nigeria with violent change  bcs a Muslim Northerner, namely himself, was not made PDP Presidential candidate for 2011, thereby creating an ideological platform on which Boko Haram Islamic terrorism built its 2011 resurgence, depicted as a Muslim war agst an infidel govt, a resurgence that continues to grow.

Another is current national ruler, Muhammadu Buhari, Boko Haram ideological suporter-'war agst Boko Haram is war agst the North' and  Fulani terrorist militia patron as demonstrated by his govt's policy of verbal and policy cover for the terrorists and their organizing body Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio-Cultural Organisation, which is free to justify massacres of Nigerians, suffering no repercussions.

How can we be free of the stranglehold of these people unless through a comprehensive solution such as a referendum?

thanks

toyin















Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:11:59 AM1/15/20
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"Okey,

Isn't this predictable, hackneyed, knee-jerk reaction exhausting even for you? I have as much contempt for anyone who supported and wanted to reelect Jonathan in 2015 in spite of the proven disaster that he was as I have for anyone who defends Buhari now in spite of his demonstrable incompetence.

Given Jonathan's own ineptitude, it wasn’t entirely unreasonable to expect that a 70-something-year-old man who had seen it all and who had been fighting to get back to power would reflect on his past mistakes and try to correct them if given another chance, if only to bequeath a legacy that would outlast him.

Alas, he had other intentions when he sought to get back to power, which we couldn't have known with cocksure certainty because we aren't clairvoyant. There are, after all, examples of past African dictators who truly reformed. Matthew Kerekou in Benin Republic is one. The shame is on the person who deceived, not on the person who genuinely trusted.

To desire a return to Jonathan because Buhari has turned out to be a worse disaster than Jonathan was is reactionary and boneheaded, in my opinion. It’s like desiring to return to the frying pan after escaping into the fire. It’s the same difference. There’s nothing about Jonathan’s days as president that is worth sentimentalizing.

I know Nigerians are notoriously amnesic, but Jonathan’s presidency was also sinking Nigeria to the nadir of despair. Jonathan was resented because he was incompetent, the same way normal, straight-thinking, non-partisan people deeply resent Buhari because he is incompetent, insensitive, nepotistic— and more"-Farooq

Buhari's public utterances during the time he was struggling to come back to power did not in anyway suggest that he was repentant.

CAO.

OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:11:59 AM1/15/20
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Victor:

I would not contest your claims at all!

The fact is Amotekun and allied outfits are unconstitutional

Let those who feel the way you feel take their claims to the National Assembly, ask for a referendum on the creation of state police.  If they win it means Nigeria has entered a new phase.  The Nigerian Constitution is not written on a tablet of stone. It can be changed through due process.

Until then outfits such as Amotekun and Hisbah remain unconstitutional, hence illegal.

Meanwhile the presidency can step up recruitment in to the federal police as the President promised.

I have canvassed for a separate unit of the police with an oversight over the rest of the units located in the presidency, reporting directly to the President through the Chief of Defence Staff ( and not the Inspector General of Police ) to root out corruption and inefficiency in the police.  Only those passed by this corps can be promoted to the next rank.  

Promotion will be based on actual performance.  Low performance must mean termination of appointment in view of the critical importance of policing to the various communities.

There are too many unemployed youths for strategic institutions like the police to be enjoying sinecures.

OAA


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Victor Okafor <vok...@emich.edu>
Date: 15/01/2020 03:44 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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As I see it, the creation of a state police system will most likely curb what's been reasonably determined by a cross-section of states as an existential security need to establish outfits such as Amotekun. In my view, the Presidency's insistence on monopolizing the instruments of coercion (and apparently using that monopoly to maintain a hegemonic political order) by refusing to allow for the creation of state police departments--against the backdrop of increasing threats to lives and property at the local level—has engendered and justified impulses and actions such as the creation of Amotekun and related outfits. It should come as no surprise that the announcement of the creation of Amotekun appeared to have been greeted with joy at the grassroots—as reflected in social media reactions. The antagonists appeared to be consisted of mainly interest groups and talking heads that viewed it, but naively so, as posing a threat to the hegemonic political order in the country. How can a loosely and apparently lightly-equipped Amotekun conceivably threaten federal military might with its heavily-armed army, air-force and navy—not to talk of its intelligence apparatus?

Nigeria is simply too big and too socially and geographically complex for a unitary policy system. Yes, the regional policy system of pre-Civil War Nigeria almost got transformed into competing regional armies, due substantially, in my view, to the fact that the country was constituted of only 4 regions—three big regions and one small mid-western region. Even then, those regional policy systems were no march for the Nigerian Army and did not deter the latter from prosecuting its succession of military coup de tats. Times have changed; the country now has 36 states, which taken together, broke or undermined the centrifugal potential of those gigantic regions. In my view, the fact of the existence of 36 states serves as a leverage against the possibility of lightly armed 36 state police state departments evolving into state armies, given other in-built and counter-veiling ethnic, religious, class and party political cleavages. 

It does not require an expert political mind to note that the apparent impotence of the existing federal security apparatus in the face of what’s reported as a wide-spread pattern of threats to lives and property, including kidnapping, has led the states—or, at least, some states—to dabble into the expensive arena of building an infra-structure for the protection of the lives and properties of their state residents. Acting otherwise almost came to be seen as a dereliction of duty on the part of the elected state functionaries. After all, across the globe, protection of lives and property is viewed by modern society as the primary purpose of having a body of institutions, laws and personnel called a government. Since Nigeria is not set up as a unitary system of government and is supposed to be a federal system of governance, it's imperative to truly federalize the country's entire security super-structure.



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Sincerely,

Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University


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Ogedi Ohajekwe

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:12:00 AM1/15/20
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As they say, it is easy to see 20/20 after the deed is done. Nigeria for some time has been running a system of government I liken to trying to drive a broken bus. 

The passengers are lots of different people with different intentions, perspectives in life and have differing understanding of pursuits of happiness-actually normal.

Most of the occupants realize that the bus is broken and are clamoring for the bus to be fixed.

Once a group is elected to guide the affairs of the bus, they will immediately pretend that all is well with the bus and that things will soon be alright. They pretend that all that is needed is a good driver and they divert people’s attention to how to find the next best driver while totally ignoring that the bus is broken.

Even if a driver is good, also a mechanic, and wants to fix the bus first, with deep rooted interest groups and mutual suspicion, the person may not have enough time, their every move will be suspected and good intentions may not be enough. 

Our present system of government is designed to trust that humans (the elected) are fundamentally rational, that extraneous influences are not usually significant and that they will work for the good of the rest of their countrymen. 

This system, naive, wether by intention or not, I believe is the main problem with out government(our people) especially in pursuit of the ‘present day democracy’.

The systems that work best have in-built healthy doses of skepticism of every human who is to wield a lot of power over others.

Hence, the need for decentralizing,  not concentrating power in the hands of any one person or group. 

I also think that in our clime, were the bar is so low at this time, achieving even a single tangible goal by any administration will be commendable. 

This is were I have consistently disagreed with a lot of people about Jonathan’s administration. He identified the most important problem with Nigeria and put in effect the national conference in an attempt to correct it. Though it has been argued by some that he did not really want to implement it, he did not cancel it, and  if he had implemented the recommendations, we will not be back to the 1940s or even earlier arguments as to the best type of system to govern Nigeria. Was he chased out of office because of the fear he would implement it? The sole reason I felt he deserved a second term.

Jonathan’s administrations was characterized as bad, but it beats Buhari’s in every good measure.

The statement that “There’s nothing about Jonathan’s days as president that is worth sentimentalizing” is therefore not true. 

How do we move forward?-hope for a next good driver for our broken bus or fix the bus?

The type of precedence the present administration will leave could never have been imagined, the only good is that it should be clear-to most- that the system is broken. 

I want to believe that some members of the administration are fair minded people who have been given the job of driving a broken bus, worsened by a very bad driver.

Lastly, regarding the system of governing Nigeria, with full benefit of hindsight, I think that Awo and Bello were right in the 40s and 50s and Ojukwu was right at Aburi.

What do you think?


Ogedi 

On Jan 14, 2020, at 6:19 PM, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com> wrote:



OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 15, 2020, 7:44:36 AM1/15/20
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ADDENDUM

The proposed reform needs to be implemented in such a way that if the Inspector General of police is from the South, then necessarily the Chief of Defence Staff must be from the North to pre-empt hegemonic tendencies.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>
Date: 15/01/2020 12:20 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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Victor:

I would not contest your claims at all!

The fact is Amotekun and allied outfits are unconstitutional

Let those who feel the way you feel take their claims to the National Assembly, ask for a referendum on the creation of state police.  If they win it means Nigeria has entered a new phase.  The Nigerian Constitution is not written on a tablet of stone. It can be changed through due process.

Until then outfits such as Amotekun and Hisbah remain unconstitutional, hence illegal.

Meanwhile the presidency can step up recruitment in to the federal police as the President promised.

I have canvassed for a separate unit of the police with an oversight over the rest of the units located in the presidency, reporting directly to the President through the Chief of Defence Staff ( and not the Inspector General of Police ) to root out corruption and inefficiency in the police.  Only those passed by this corps can be promoted to the next rank.  

Promotion will be based on actual performance.  Low performance must mean termination of appointment in view of the critical importance of policing to the various communities.

There are too many unemployed youths for strategic institutions like the police to be enjoying sinecures.

OAA


Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Victor Okafor <vok...@emich.edu>
Date: 15/01/2020 03:44 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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

As I see it, the creation of a state police system will most likely curb what's been reasonably determined by a cross-section of states as an existential security need to establish outfits such as Amotekun. In my view, the Presidency's insistence on monopolizing the instruments of coercion (and apparently using that monopoly to maintain a hegemonic political order) by refusing to allow for the creation of state police departments--against the backdrop of increasing threats to lives and property at the local level—has engendered and justified impulses and actions such as the creation of Amotekun and related outfits. It should come as no surprise that the announcement of the creation of Amotekun appeared to have been greeted with joy at the grassroots—as reflected in social media reactions. The antagonists appeared to be consisted of mainly interest groups and talking heads that viewed it, but naively so, as posing a threat to the hegemonic political order in the country. How can a loosely and apparently lightly-equipped Amotekun conceivably threaten federal military might with its heavily-armed army, air-force and navy—not to talk of its intelligence apparatus?

Nigeria is simply too big and too socially and geographically complex for a unitary policy system. Yes, the regional policy system of pre-Civil War Nigeria almost got transformed into competing regional armies, due substantially, in my view, to the fact that the country was constituted of only 4 regions—three big regions and one small mid-western region. Even then, those regional policy systems were no march for the Nigerian Army and did not deter the latter from prosecuting its succession of military coup de tats. Times have changed; the country now has 36 states, which taken together, broke or undermined the centrifugal potential of those gigantic regions. In my view, the fact of the existence of 36 states serves as a leverage against the possibility of lightly armed 36 state police state departments evolving into state armies, given other in-built and counter-veiling ethnic, religious, class and party political cleavages. 

It does not require an expert political mind to note that the apparent impotence of the existing federal security apparatus in the face of what’s reported as a wide-spread pattern of threats to lives and property, including kidnapping, has led the states—or, at least, some states—to dabble into the expensive arena of building an infra-structure for the protection of the lives and properties of their state residents. Acting otherwise almost came to be seen as a dereliction of duty on the part of the elected state functionaries. After all, across the globe, protection of lives and property is viewed by modern society as the primary purpose of having a body of institutions, laws and personnel called a government. Since Nigeria is not set up as a unitary system of government and is supposed to be a federal system of governance, it's imperative to truly federalize the country's entire security super-structure.

On Tue, Jan 14, 2020 at 5:45 PM Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com> wrote:


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Sincerely,

Victor O. Okafor, Ph.D.
Professor and Head
Department of Africology and African American Studies
Eastern Michigan University


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Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 15, 2020, 9:27:58 AM1/15/20
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C’mon Toyin Adepoju, O most sensitive & noble soul, you’re surely overreacting!

In her majesty’s English, like “silly”,” nonsense” is not even a mild expletive; it is less than innocuous, it is standard fare even in the House of Commons, not to mention where the Honourable Lord Agbetuyi is coming from (The House of Lords).

“Nonsense” is the good word that one smart alec uses to assail, attack, assault the argument of his opponent - to denigrate the argument of his opponent, but not his person. If he said that you were nonsense, then according to the rule of law, he should be tried and found  guilty of an argumentum ad hominem, shouldn’t he?

Check this definition of nonsense

At least he did not refer to you as “an idiot” or “an imbecile”, as one good-for-nothing English colonial bum addressed me because I do not share his sympathies for Hamas, Islamic Jihad, anti-Semites and the so-called “anti-Zionists”.

And Lord Agbetuyi certainly did not refer to you as Dr Cunnilingus , in which case I assume  that if you were not exercising some “the quality of mercy is not strained”,  all you would have had to was to pick up the phone and give some directions to the worse than area boys in whatever city in which he lives, so that he would be transported to the nearest hospital on sick leave  - and if the treatment ( for the damage done to him) is not available nearby, then he would have to be flown to e.g. London Town and pray  there for his recuperation and deliverance and  for his eventual ascension to heaven or his church burial and descent into the other place.

 On the other hand, “imbecile”, “idiot” and “liar” are much stronger words (according to Her Majesty’s Language Culture). We can’t have one member of this august forum, calling out another member of this august forum such names, and this is also true of the House of Commons, where Dr Ian Paisley was suspended from the House of Commons, for accusing another Hon. Member of the House of being “a liar”

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Farooq A. Kperogi

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Jan 15, 2020, 11:43:39 AM1/15/20
to USAAfrica Dialogue


Okey,

You are projecting. You imagine that because you're a Jonathandeen who was "on the ground" in Nigeria during his misrule (doing God knows what), I must be a "Buharideen" as well. I was never a Buhari enthusiast at any point in my life. (Read what I wrote about him in a badly proofread April 2003 opinion article in AllAfrica.com: https://allafrica.com/stories/200304280271.html

Heck, I am no enthusiast of ANY Nigerian politician. I am just a critical democratic citizen who holds ALL wielders of reigning power structures to account.

I NEVER at any time canvassed for votes for Buhari. Go check my columns: they are all available online. I was more against Jonathan's fatal incompetence than I was for Buhari's ascendancy to the presidency--just like I was more against Buhari's stultifying ineptitude than I was for Atiku's rise to the presidency in 2018 and 2019.

In fact, when I was approached to join Buhari's campaign in 2014 I rejected it--just as I rejected Atiku's invitation to join his campaign in 2018. I gave them the same answers. I told them it was unethical to be part of a campaign I publicly commented on as a disinterested commentator and added that I would hold their feet to the fire if they got to power--like I did to the people they were trying to replace--and didn't want them to be blindsided. I am not wealthy, but my conscience isn't purchasable by ANYONE in this world.

Buhari became an option ONLY because Jonathan was such an intolerably unrelieved catastrophe. In 2011 when Buhari ran against Jonathan, Buhari, like in previous elections, won votes only from the Hausaphone Muslim north, which wasn't sufficient to make him president. Jonathan hadn't burned all his goodwill then. 

By the way, Jonathan also had his own "cabal" that was corrupt, insular, destructive, and backward. Perhaps, because you were "on the ground" in Nigeria when Jonathan and his cabal held sway, you benefited, directly or indirectly, from the bazaar they presided over. Maybe you're still smarting from the unanticipated stoppage of the privileges you enjoyed from being "on the ground."

 If that's even remotely true, you and I are gazing at the same issues with different lenses. There is not a single record in my public commentaries where I ever supported any government in power. I am ALWAYS critical of ALL governments in power. So criticizing Buhari isn't actuated by a "buyer's remorse." It's what I've always done, and which I put them on notice I would do during their campaigns and after they won.

 For instance, in my April 4, 2015 column titled “After the Euphoria, what President-elect Buhari Needs to know,” I wrote that Buhari’s “relationship with the media would be crucial. The media will get under his skin. Columnists like me will excoriate him, not because we hate him, but because we care, and because we know that to perform well and be in touch with the masses of people who elected him, we need to help hold his feet to the fire. When Thomas Jefferson famously said, ‘Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,’ he was acknowledging the importance of the media to the sustenance of democracy.

"President Buhari should expect to be scrutinized and criticized and even ‘attacked’ by critical media outfits like the compulsively contrarian Sahara Reporters, which robustly supported him throughout his campaign for the presidency. Recall that the same Sahara Reporters vigorously supported Jonathan against the late Yar’adua’s ‘cabal.’ Before then, it supported Abubakar Atiku against Obasanjo. It will turn against Buhari the moment he officially assumes duties. It’s not personal. Sahara Reporters understands its role as a comforter of the afflicted and an afflicter of the comfortable.

 "Many of us share this ‘adversarial’ philosophy of the press and shouldn’t be made to suffer for it. I want to be able to visit Nigeria without being harassed by security forces because I wrote critical articles against the president and his government.”

You can now see that your assumptions about me are entirely wrong.

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media
Social Science Building 
Room 5092 MD 2207
402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will


OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 16, 2020, 4:09:00 AM1/16/20
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ADDENDUM 

Toyin Adepoju

Full grown adult with a perpetual IQ of a juvenile delinquent always analysing events with the perspective of a teenager with arrested development

Let me add that you should ask your master and mentor Moses Ochonu your co- traveller in Northern Muslim bashing and cowardly supplier of baseless information about others to confront me himself if he is not a spineless cowardly gossip.

Just because a large section of the Yoruba will not join you in your culture of Northern Muslim hate does not mean you will resort to inanities once you lost the argument.

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Date: 15/01/2020 12:20 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!! [ SW Nigeria and theAntInfested  Faggot Sold as a Loaf of Bread]

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I would like advise about what to do about Olayinka Agbetuyi, a man who has made a point of being rude to me in a group defined by polite discourse among scholars.

The following below is his latest-

'Toyin Adepoju.

What is all this nonsense of 'hunger to reach Aso Rock' about?'

Should   I respond by describing the pus filled hollowness of his style of discourse?

Should I ask if he thinks his problems with his wife are due to Adepoju?

Does he think I am responsible for his frustrations?

In other words, should I insult him  in return and at what level of aggression?

Oga moderator Professor Toyin Falola, I hereby serve notice that if any rudeness  by Olayinka Agbetuyi  directed agst me is posted again in this forum, I will feel free to respond as I see fit.

Such terms as 'nonsense', or other such negativities from him directed at me will receive an appropriate response from me.

I hope this will be posted on the group so the character may read it and others will be able to put any future responses from me in context.

Freedom to relate in mutual respect may at times need to be safeguarded by demonstrating one's capacity to give as is given among bolekaja mentalities, crude  characters at home in the controlled chaos a Nigerian motor park.

thanks 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju








On Wed, 15 Jan 2020 at 00:19, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 16, 2020, 2:40:47 PM1/16/20
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is it not possible to construct an argument without degenerating into insults as shown in the post below?

i though such behavior was concentrated in the nigeria centred groups and not in an intellectual forum such as this.

i also wonder why the moderators approve such posts.

toyin

Cornelius Hamelberg

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Jan 16, 2020, 2:41:16 PM1/16/20
to USA Africa Dialogue Series

Sir,

One of the most dynamic features of this forum is its diversity.  How boring it would be if we all agreed about everything.

I hope that I am not talking out of turn, for the times they are a-changin’ . (that was back in 64 of the last century – “ I was so much older then I’m younger than that now” ( My Back Pages)

Prestige is at stake. Somebody’s father, somebody’s brother, somebody’s lover…

In this very public forum, you are now castigating Brer Adepoju Jnr., writing to him from the very authoritative and authoritarian, lofty Olympian moral high ground vantage position of a Yoruba Elder. The watchword is still “spare the rod and spoil the child” but it’s only verbal this time and it’s supposed to be castigation as a way of correction to wayward youth so that wayward youth does not repeat the same horrible mistake or transgression.

Once upon a time In Yoruba Saro, wayward youth would have to lay down on his soft underbelly, flat on the ground and like a lowly serpent, full length, stretch out, extend his hands to the elder’s feet, humbly begging, “Do ya, ai baig pardin Sah!” And promising, never to do so again, Sir!

Gone are the days. I extend my sympathies.

After the RUF War in Sierra Leone, the urchin who would have stopped misbehaving or crying if you threatened that you would call a police constable has now been replaced by  the ten-year-old child soldier mentality that retorts, “ Go ahead and  call your police constable and I will shoot the mother-fkker right here in front of you !”

I suppose that the Biafra War must have had some of the same terrible after-effects, such as the breakdown in authority, in what was formerly a very normal, orderly, social order. Don’t forget that the Mid- West was the first land grab made by Ojukwu - and it is the Mid-West, later Bendel and now Edo state from which Vincent Adepoju hails.

Blame it all on colonialism? The problem is that nowadays, some people ascribe the breakdown of our societal cohesion, the breakdown of structures that were once firmly in place, to the vestiges of colonialism, like the after effects, the shocks that continue after an earthquake,  ascribe this breakdown in the normal social order to certain foreign influences, the so-called modernity giving rise to disrespect for elders, to a new youth-man feeling of emancipation from the tyranny of the elder’s authority, even parental authority and, no respect, the feeling that they can talk to elders any damn way they like.  

Sadly, gone are the days when “joy and happiness did reign and each man knew his worth”. 

Pa Leon Thomas sings on, “And I cry, as time flies

In self-defence, Wayward youth sometimes protest that it must also be respected – for example, there was a time when the hip-hopper’s sign of self-respect consisted in not tying the shoelaces of his hip-hop shoes, you know the full Monty, the baggy trousers, the holes in the jeans the gold chains  on the neck, the earrings, the rings on the fingers, and all that talk about the “ bitches”  - and language,  all that talk is such an essential part of the identity ( In this forum, for example, much of the talk is somewhat  “ academic”.

What you are asking for is reciprocity – that respect begets respect. Why should that be so difficult for way above average IQ academics to understand? I am puzzled too.

 One reason could be that there is the mistaken notion that equates the duck pond with the ocean  - in the sense that the forum itself is a whole world, or whatever niche some self-important members occupy in some little or great  ivory tower somewhere is the centre of the universe, as if completely unaware that life goes on, in Honolulu someone is surfing, in Los Angeles too among the little men dwarfed by the big skyscrapers in New York and in Chicago, skyscraper monuments that will outlast us all. In fact, yesterday was the Rev Dr Martin Luther King’s Birthday.

When you situate Adepoju Jnr in a slave-like relationship with Moses Ochonu (“Let me add that you should ask your master and mentor Moses Ochonu”) we must understand that they probably enjoy a unity of purpose. Ochonu is Idoma, from Benue State – the so-called Middle Belt, and from all we have seen in this forum he’s a good Nigerian (like my dear friend Mr Unah, former first secretary of the Nigerian Embassy in Stockholm in the late 70s and early 1980s). Just being Idoma and from Benue State, he may have a permanent  axe to grind with the Buhari or any other administration  until  and unless things change for the much better, on his turf back home -  and of course, I/ we may be wrong about that – for all we know, he is as egalitarian, neutral and even-handed as Farooq Kperogi claims to be to the extent that no one can but his conscience.


Sina Makosa

 

The ball is in Adepoju's court 

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Jan 16, 2020, 5:56:27 PM1/16/20
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​Okey Iheduru : 
​15 January 2020 was exactly 54 years ago that five Nigerian Military Majors (actually 8) successfully toppled the civilian government in Nigeria but the Majors, unfortunately, were themselves overthrown and speedily supplanted by ethnic supremacists. The rest is history, painful and sorrowful as we later experienced. Nonetheless, I am forced to remind you of that coup because of your remark below on ÀMÒTÉKÙN which is as follows, "The *Aburi Accords* gave them much better and enduring option than OPC-in-uniform, *but the sage,* their sage,* preferred Dodan Barracks crumbs." As a professor of history, you could not have missed Decree No. 8, of 17 March 1967, which contained all the points agreed to between Gowon and all the then four existing Governors at Aburi (4-5 January 1967). The only addition to Decree No.8, was a clause that empowered the Federal government to declare Emergency in any part of Nigeria if needed. Otherwise, the Decree was intended to usher Nigeria into a decentralized administration. Ojukwu, however, rejected Decree No. 8 of 17 March 1967 in its entirety. Reason for his rejection were not farfetched as Lieutenant Colonel Philip Effiong disclosed later that in February 1967, "Meanwhile, clandestine recruiting became intensive in the Igbo speaking areas of the East, even though there was reasonable enthusiasm from the non-Igbo speaking areas as well to join the army at that time. By this discriminatory recruiting policy, Ojukwu implied two things, namely : (i) That the recruitment was illegal at that point in time. (ii) That non-Igbos of the region were not to be trusted and, consequently, this set the tone for wartime intertribal war related clashes in war-torn Biafra (p. 170, Nigeria and Biafra : My Story by Philip Effiong)." Awolowo, which you tacitly referred to as Sage or their (South West) Sage was never involved in the negotiation and non-implementation of your self-appraised Aburi Accords. Awolowo was not in the government and the political game was played mainly by Gowon and Ojukwu. 

​By your reference to *Aburi Accords,* you seemed to suggest that Nigeria was defederated in 1967, which is untrue. Nigeria was defederated on 29 May 1962 when the Federal Coalition Government of the NCNC and NPC of the then Eastern Region and Northern Region, respectively, declared a state of Emergency in  Western Region and appointed an administrator to exercise the powers of the Premier and the Governor. The State of Emergency was sequelled to the disruption of parliamentary business by five supporters of Samuel Ladoke Akintola, to prevent a vote of confidence on Dauda Soroye Adegbenro as the Premier of Western Region, on 25 May 1962. Akintola had been removed as the Premier on 21 May 1962 by the Governor Sir Adesoji Aderemi, after he had received a letter signed by 66 members of the Action Group in the Regional House of Assembly saying that they no longer had confidence in Akintola as the Premier. After the disruption, both Awolowo and Adegbenro contacted the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to provide police so that the business of the House could be conducted without disruption. Balewa replied that if police were present in the House, whatever decision was taken would not be accepted by him, even though, the Federal Constitution then did not subject the decisions of the Regional Legislatures in Nigeria to the approval of the Prime Minister. When the Western House of Assembly tried to meet again in the evening of 25 May 1962, it was disrupted once more and Balewa ordered the Police to clear and lock the House. Thereafter, Balewa called the meeting of Federal Parliament for the purpose of declaring a State of Emergency in Western Region on 29 May 1962, having claimed that what happened in the Western House of Assembly on 25 May 1962 amounted to a Breakdown of Law and Order. Opposing the declaration of State of Emergency in Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said that there was peace all over Western Region including, the capital, Ibadan. He referred to ongoing riots at Okirika, in Eastern Region and Jos, in the Northern Region which did not cause the Federal Government to declare states of emergency in those regions. Pointing to the gross misuse of power by the Federal Government, Awolowo concluded that "the step that is now being taken in this Resolution is a violent assault on democratic institutions in Nigeria. It assumes that Parliament can only meet at the sufferance of a group of people who are hostile to that particular Parliament and who are friendly to the Federal Government." The contribution of the Deputy Leader of the Action Group and a member of the Parliament, Chief Anthony Enahoro, to the debate on the declaration of a state of Emergency in the West was remarkably philosophical as he said that he was in total confusion because no one knew how the decision, about to be taken would end. (Nigerian Hansards, col. 2169- 2200, May 29, 1962). The constitutionality of the declaration of a state of emergency was challenged in court and the Action Group secured the service of a British Lawyer and a member of the Nigerian Bar, Mr. Dingle Foot, to represent it, afterwhich Rotimi Williams was technically prevented from appearing for Adegbenro and the AG. Shortly after arrival in Nigeria, Mr. Dingle Foot was served with expulsion order to leave Nigeria within twenty-four hours by the Nigerian Government without giving any reason. However, the Premier of Eastern Region and the leader of the NCNC, Dr. Michael Iheonukura Okpara, was reported in the NCNC affiliated newspaper, the West African Pilot of 4 June 1962, to have stated thus, "There is emergency in a part of the country and you don't need to fumble in court in such a situation. If there were an emergency in Britain, would any Nigerian lawyer be allowed to challenge the authority of the British Parliament in declaring a state of emergency? …//… I think this democracy of ours is being misinterpreted." In a leading editorial of the official organ of the NCNC, West African Pilot of 8 June 1962, it was stated, "..... Nigeria is most certainly committed to the principle of the rule of law. We regard ourselves as faithful members of the Commonwealth club. But the basis of this membership is that we should be free to mind our business without outside humbug. …. Each time the Government tries to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of this country, doctrinaire constitutionalists will plead liberal democracy. … The Federal Government should be firmer in future in dealing with such vexatious issues as this Foot nonsense." With the declaration of state of emergency in Western Region, the government of the Action Group in the Region was effectively overthrown and a government that was never voted for by the people emerged after the end of the emergency on 31 December 1962. The cumulative political problems arising out of the state of emergency declared by the Federal controlled government of NPC and NCNC political parties from the North and the East on the West finally led to the 15 January 1966 coup. The defederation of Nigeria and centralisation of administrative power was completed by Major General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Military Head of State, through his Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966. Since then, power has been concentrated at the centre in Nigeria. It is important to remember that when Decree No.34 of 24 May 1966 was promulgated *the Sage* was still in prison at Calabar where he had been incarcerated by the Federal coalition government of NPC/NCNC since 1962/1963.
​Professor Moses Ochonu blamed Southwest lawyers and Tinubu for doing nothing against Hisbah at birth but he did not explain what made it the exclusive responsibility of Tinubu and the Southwest's SANs alone to tackle Hisbah in the Northwest. Are Northcentral, South-south, and Southeast not concerned about Hisbah? For all that we know Hisbah is derived from Sharia which was adopted by twelve out of nineteen States in the North at the early stage of Obasanjo's government in 2000s. There were outcries especially in the Southern part of Nigeria that as a nation we should be governed under the same laws. Constitutional suits were filed in the court against the establishment of Sharia laws but I am not aware if any of the suits is concluded as of date. Professor Ochonu averred that, "The SANs of the Southwest can belatedly try to sue for a constitutional judgment on both Amotekun and Hisbah, but it will end up with Justice Tanko, who wants our constitution reviewed to accommodate more Sharia law and is a stooge of the cabal." Amotekun and Hisbah (Sharia) are too parallel lines that can never meet no matter how long one tries to draw them. Section10 of the 1999 constitution says, "The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any Religion as a State Religion." Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed. https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2018/07/18/508-beggars-arrested-in-kano/  
No fewer than 508 beggars were arrested by the Kano State Hisbah Board between January and June for allegedly violating the law banning street begging. Malam Dahiru Nuhu of the board’s Anti-Begging Unit told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Kano that 238 of those arrested were ...
​ Off course, Malami can file a constitutional suit against the Southwest State's governments over the establishment of Amotekun, but I am very confident that the learned SANs from Southwest would request that the case be handled by a panel of non-Muslims and non-Christian judges. Thereby, the fear of partiality by the Sharia minded Chief Justice Tanko would be eliminated. I cannot understand the cause of Abubakar Malami's furore over Amotekun whereas he was silent about the institution of Livestock Guards by the Benue State Government to give effect to no open grazing law enacted by Benue State House of Assembly and signed into law by the Governor, Samuel Ioraer Ortom. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/north-central/344696-benue-grazing-law-81-herdsmen-convicted-3000-cows-arrested-ortom.html

Anti-open Grazing Law: Benue Prosecutes 81, Seizes 3,000 Cows “We have gone a step further. Anywhere we see cattle doing open grazing, we go after them.
​S. Kadiri



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Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!
 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 17, 2020, 6:59:22 AM1/17/20
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I have been waiting for Kadiri's response.

Here is what I am able to appreciate as the core of his submission that is relevant to my interests-

"Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. 

Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed."

What does this stance imply, coming from a die hard defender of the very people Amotekun was formed to combat? A loyalist of the right wing characters in Nigerian govt who empower the very forces that Amotekun is fighting?

Is a seismic shift taking place in Nigeria's SW? Is it all a means of bargaining for the 2023 Presidency, as Anozie Ebirim on Facebook declares or a political and military positioning demonstrating a wall agst thieves of sovereignty?

toyin








OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 17, 2020, 1:14:31 PM1/17/20
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Anozie Ebirim is talking rubbish.

Amotekun cannot be used to combat theft of sovereignty.  Several political parties will institute their own Amotekun and this was why I alerted that this could lead to civil wars unless law enforcement is left in the hands of the sole constitutional provider - the police!

OAA



Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.


-------- Original message --------
From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Date: 17/01/2020 12:09 (GMT+00:00)
To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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I have been waiting for Kadiri's response.

Here is what I am able to appreciate as the core of his submission that is relevant to my interests-

"Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. 

Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed."

What does this stance imply, coming from a die hard defender of the very people Amotekun was formed to combat? A loyalist of the right wing characters in Nigerian govt who empower the very forces that Amotekun is fighting?

Is a seismic shift taking place in Nigeria's SW? Is it all a means of bargaining for the 2023 Presidency, as Anozie Ebirim on Facebook declares or a political and military positioning demonstrating a wall agst thieves of sovereignty?

toyin







On Thu, 16 Jan 2020 at 23:56, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

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OLAYINKA AGBETUYI

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Jan 17, 2020, 1:14:46 PM1/17/20
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Now things are getting even more interesting.

In addition to Hisbah the other outfit Malami needs to make pronouncement on is the constitutionality of the Benue Livestock Guards..

In other words why limit the proscription to Amotekun?

I agree that state governors are the chief security officers of the state.  Does that entail setting up law enforcement agencies or liaising with the police to neutralise security threats?

OAA



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-------- Original message --------
From: Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
Date: 16/01/2020 23:00 (GMT+00:00)
Subject: Sv: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

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​Okey Iheduru : 
​15 January 2020 was exactly 54 years ago that five Nigerian Military Majors (actually 8) successfully toppled the civilian government in Nigeria but the Majors, unfortunately, were themselves overthrown and speedily supplanted by ethnic supremacists. The rest is history, painful and sorrowful as we later experienced. Nonetheless, I am forced to remind you of that coup because of your remark below on ÀMÒTÉKÙN which is as follows, "The *Aburi Accords* gave them much better and enduring option than OPC-in-uniform, *but the sage,* their sage,* preferred Dodan Barracks crumbs." As a professor of history, you could not have missed Decree No. 8, of 17 March 1967, which contained all the points agreed to between Gowon and all the then four existing Governors at Aburi (4-5 January 1967). The only addition to Decree No.8, was a clause that empowered the Federal government to declare Emergency in any part of Nigeria if needed. Otherwise, the Decree was intended to usher Nigeria into a decentralized administration. Ojukwu, however, rejected Decree No. 8 of 17 March 1967 in its entirety. Reason for his rejection were not farfetched as Lieutenant Colonel Philip Effiong disclosed later that in February 1967, "Meanwhile, clandestine recruiting became intensive in the Igbo speaking areas of the East, even though there was reasonable enthusiasm from the non-Igbo speaking areas as well to join the army at that time. By this discriminatory recruiting policy, Ojukwu implied two things, namely : (i) That the recruitment was illegal at that point in time. (ii) That non-Igbos of the region were not to be trusted and, consequently, this set the tone for wartime intertribal war related clashes in war-torn Biafra (p. 170, Nigeria and Biafra : My Story by Philip Effiong)." Awolowo, which you tacitly referred to as Sage or their (South West) Sage was never involved in the negotiation and non-implementation of your self-appraised Aburi Accords. Awolowo was not in the government and the political game was played mainly by Gowon and Ojukwu. 

​By your reference to *Aburi Accords,* you seemed to suggest that Nigeria was defederated in 1967, which is untrue. Nigeria was defederated on 29 May 1962 when the Federal Coalition Government of the NCNC and NPC of the then Eastern Region and Northern Region, respectively, declared a state of Emergency in  Western Region and appointed an administrator to exercise the powers of the Premier and the Governor. The State of Emergency was sequelled to the disruption of parliamentary business by five supporters of Samuel Ladoke Akintola, to prevent a vote of confidence on Dauda Soroye Adegbenro as the Premier of Western Region, on 25 May 1962. Akintola had been removed as the Premier on 21 May 1962 by the Governor Sir Adesoji Aderemi, after he had received a letter signed by 66 members of the Action Group in the Regional House of Assembly saying that they no longer had confidence in Akintola as the Premier. After the disruption, both Awolowo and Adegbenro contacted the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to provide police so that the business of the House could be conducted without disruption. Balewa replied that if police were present in the House, whatever decision was taken would not be accepted by him, even though, the Federal Constitution then did not subject the decisions of the Regional Legislatures in Nigeria to the approval of the Prime Minister. When the Western House of Assembly tried to meet again in the evening of 25 May 1962, it was disrupted once more and Balewa ordered the Police to clear and lock the House. Thereafter, Balewa called the meeting of Federal Parliament for the purpose of declaring a State of Emergency in Western Region on 29 May 1962, having claimed that what happened in the Western House of Assembly on 25 May 1962 amounted to a Breakdown of Law and Order. Opposing the declaration of State of Emergency in Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said that there was peace all over Western Region including, the capital, Ibadan. He referred to ongoing riots at Okirika, in Eastern Region and Jos, in the Northern Region which did not cause the Federal Government to declare states of emergency in those regions. Pointing to the gross misuse of power by the Federal Government, Awolowo concluded that "the step that is now being taken in this Resolution is a violent assault on democratic institutions in Nigeria. It assumes that Parliament can only meet at the sufferance of a group of people who are hostile to that particular Parliament and who are friendly to the Federal Government." The contribution of the Deputy Leader of the Action Group and a member of the Parliament, Chief Anthony Enahoro, to the debate on the declaration of a state of Emergency in the West was remarkably philosophical as he said that he was in total confusion because no one knew how the decision, about to be taken would end. (Nigerian Hansards, col. 2169- 2200, May 29, 1962). The constitutionality of the declaration of a state of emergency was challenged in court and the Action Group secured the service of a British Lawyer and a member of the Nigerian Bar, Mr. Dingle Foot, to represent it, afterwhich Rotimi Williams was technically prevented from appearing for Adegbenro and the AG. Shortly after arrival in Nigeria, Mr. Dingle Foot was served with expulsion order to leave Nigeria within twenty-four hours by the Nigerian Government without giving any reason. However, the Premier of Eastern Region and the leader of the NCNC, Dr. Michael Iheonukura Okpara, was reported in the NCNC affiliated newspaper, the West African Pilot of 4 June 1962, to have stated thus, "There is emergency in a part of the country and you don't need to fumble in court in such a situation. If there were an emergency in Britain, would any Nigerian lawyer be allowed to challenge the authority of the British Parliament in declaring a state of emergency? …//… I think this democracy of ours is being misinterpreted." In a leading editorial of the official organ of the NCNC, West African Pilot of 8 June 1962, it was stated, "..... Nigeria is most certainly committed to the principle of the rule of law. We regard ourselves as faithful members of the Commonwealth club. But the basis of this membership is that we should be free to mind our business without outside humbug. …. Each time the Government tries to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of this country, doctrinaire constitutionalists will plead liberal democracy. … The Federal Government should be firmer in future in dealing with such vexatious issues as this Foot nonsense." With the declaration of state of emergency in Western Region, the government of the Action Group in the Region was effectively overthrown and a government that was never voted for by the people emerged after the end of the emergency on 31 December 1962. The cumulative political problems arising out of the state of emergency declared by the Federal controlled government of NPC and NCNC political parties from the North and the East on the West finally led to the 15 January 1966 coup. The defederation of Nigeria and centralisation of administrative power was completed by Major General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Military Head of State, through his Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966. Since then, power has been concentrated at the centre in Nigeria. It is important to remember that when Decree No.34 of 24 May 1966 was promulgated *the Sage* was still in prison at Calabar where he had been incarcerated by the Federal coalition government of NPC/NCNC since 1962/1963.
​Professor Moses Ochonu blamed Southwest lawyers and Tinubu for doing nothing against Hisbah at birth but he did not explain what made it the exclusive responsibility of Tinubu and the Southwest's SANs alone to tackle Hisbah in the Northwest. Are Northcentral, South-south, and Southeast not concerned about Hisbah? For all that we know Hisbah is derived from Sharia which was adopted by twelve out of nineteen States in the North at the early stage of Obasanjo's government in 2000s. There were outcries especially in the Southern part of Nigeria that as a nation we should be governed under the same laws. Constitutional suits were filed in the court against the establishment of Sharia laws but I am not aware if any of the suits is concluded as of date. Professor Ochonu averred that, "The SANs of the Southwest can belatedly try to sue for a constitutional judgment on both Amotekun and Hisbah, but it will end up with Justice Tanko, who wants our constitution reviewed to accommodate more Sharia law and is a stooge of the cabal." Amotekun and Hisbah (Sharia) are too parallel lines that can never meet no matter how long one tries to draw them. Section10 of the 1999 constitution says, "The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any Religion as a State Religion." Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed. https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2018/07/18/508-beggars-arrested-in-kano/  
No fewer than 508 beggars were arrested by the Kano State Hisbah Board between January and June for allegedly violating the law banning street begging. Malam Dahiru Nuhu of the board’s Anti-Begging Unit told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Kano that 238 of those arrested were ...
​ Off course, Malami can file a constitutional suit against the Southwest State's governments over the establishment of Amotekun, but I am very confident that the learned SANs from Southwest would request that the case be handled by a panel of non-Muslims and non-Christian judges. Thereby, the fear of partiality by the Sharia minded Chief Justice Tanko would be eliminated. I cannot understand the cause of Abubakar Malami's furore over Amotekun whereas he was silent about the institution of Livestock Guards by the Benue State Government to give effect to no open grazing law enacted by Benue State House of Assembly and signed into law by the Governor, Samuel Ioraer Ortom. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/north-central/344696-benue-grazing-law-81-herdsmen-convicted-3000-cows-arrested-ortom.html

Anti-open Grazing Law: Benue Prosecutes 81, Seizes 3,000 Cows “We have gone a step further. Anywhere we see cattle doing open grazing, we go after them.
​S. Kadiri


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Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!
 

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Salimonu Kadiri

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Jan 17, 2020, 7:05:18 PM1/17/20
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​OOA, 
​I don't know what you mean by "Amotekun cannot be used to combat sovereignty." I do not agree, as you contended that *several political parties will institute their own Amotekun.* Constitutionally, the Governor as the head of the Government of a State in Nigeria is the Chief Security Officer of that State. The Commissioner of Police of a State, although appointed by the Federal Government, is compelled by Law to collaborate with the Governor of that State in matters of peace and security in the state. That is why a Governor is allocated with Billions of naira security vote annually. A political party cannot set up a security outfit like Amotekun unless such a party is in control of a state's government, headed by a Governor. 
S. Kadiri 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

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Jan 18, 2020, 6:40:14 AM1/18/20
to usaafricadialogue
When did this group become a motor park group in which one person is consistently allowed to insult other people in the name of debating?

"Anozie Ebirim is talking rubbish.

OAA"

Should the psychological security of group members not be protected by group moderators?

thanks

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju


Toyin Falola

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Jan 18, 2020, 6:50:37 AM1/18/20
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Great one:

The integrity of a site like this resides in the integrity of the contributors.

Many of you assume that it is my full-time job!

I miss many of the silly stuff in the rush to approve. Thus, I have to keep appealing to adults to behave as adults.

Even in private, folks send me insulting messages.

TF

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

104 Inner Campus Drive

Austin, TX 78712-0220, USA

 

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Saturday, January 18, 2020 at 5:40 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

 

When did this group become a motor park group in which one person is consistently allowed to insult other people in the name of debating?

 

"Anozie Ebirim is talking rubbish.

 

OAA"

 

Should the psychological security of group members not be protected by group moderators?

 

thanks

 

Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju

 

 

On Fri, 17 Jan 2020 at 19:14, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Anozie Ebirim is talking rubbish.

 

Amotekun cannot be used to combat theft of sovereignty.  Several political parties will institute their own Amotekun and this was why I alerted that this could lead to civil wars unless law enforcement is left in the hands of the sole constitutional provider - the police!

 

OAA

 

 

 

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

 

 

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

From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>

Date: 17/01/2020 12:09 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Amotekun!!!

 

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I have been waiting for Kadiri's response.

 

Here is what I am able to appreciate as the core of his submission that is relevant to my interests-

 

"Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. 

 

Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed."

 

What does this stance imply, coming from a die hard defender of the very people Amotekun was formed to combat? A loyalist of the right wing characters in Nigerian govt who empower the very forces that Amotekun is fighting?

 

Is a seismic shift taking place in Nigeria's SW? Is it all a means of bargaining for the 2023 Presidency, as Anozie Ebirim on Facebook declares or a political and military positioning demonstrating a wall agst thieves of sovereignty?

 

toyin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Thu, 16 Jan 2020 at 23:56, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

​Okey Iheduru : 

​15 January 2020 was exactly 54 years ago that five Nigerian Military Majors (actually 8) successfully toppled the civilian government in Nigeria but the Majors, unfortunately, were themselves overthrown and speedily supplanted by ethnic supremacists. The rest is history, painful and sorrowful as we later experienced. Nonetheless, I am forced to remind you of that coup because of your remark below on ÀMÒTÉKÙN which is as follows, "The *Aburi Accords* gave them much better and enduring option than OPC-in-uniform, *but the sage,* their sage,* preferred Dodan Barracks crumbs." As a professor of history, you could not have missed Decree No. 8, of 17 March 1967, which contained all the points agreed to between Gowon and all the then four existing Governors at Aburi (4-5 January 1967). The only addition to Decree No.8, was a clause that empowered the Federal government to declare Emergency in any part of Nigeria if needed. Otherwise, the Decree was intended to usher Nigeria into a decentralized administration. Ojukwu, however, rejected Decree No. 8 of 17 March 1967 in its entirety. Reason for his rejection were not farfetched as Lieutenant Colonel Philip Effiong disclosed later that in February 1967, "Meanwhile, clandestine recruiting became intensive in the Igbo speaking areas of the East, even though there was reasonable enthusiasm from the non-Igbo speaking areas as well to join the army at that time. By this discriminatory recruiting policy, Ojukwu implied two things, namely : (i) That the recruitment was illegal at that point in time. (ii) That non-Igbos of the region were not to be trusted and, consequently, this set the tone for wartime intertribal war related clashes in war-torn Biafra (p. 170, Nigeria and Biafra : My Story by Philip Effiong)." Awolowo, which you tacitly referred to as Sage or their (South West) Sage was never involved in the negotiation and non-implementation of your self-appraised Aburi Accords. Awolowo was not in the government and the political game was played mainly by Gowon and Ojukwu. 

 

​By your reference to *Aburi Accords,* you seemed to suggest that Nigeria was defederated in 1967, which is untrue. Nigeria was defederated on 29 May 1962 when the Federal Coalition Government of the NCNC and NPC of the then Eastern Region and Northern Region, respectively, declared a state of Emergency in  Western Region and appointed an administrator to exercise the powers of the Premier and the Governor. The State of Emergency was sequelled to the disruption of parliamentary business by five supporters of Samuel Ladoke Akintola, to prevent a vote of confidence on Dauda Soroye Adegbenro as the Premier of Western Region, on 25 May 1962. Akintola had been removed as the Premier on 21 May 1962 by the Governor Sir Adesoji Aderemi, after he had received a letter signed by 66 members of the Action Group in the Regional House of Assembly saying that they no longer had confidence in Akintola as the Premier. After the disruption, both Awolowo and Adegbenro contacted the Prime Minister, Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, to provide police so that the business of the House could be conducted without disruption. Balewa replied that if police were present in the House, whatever decision was taken would not be accepted by him, even though, the Federal Constitution then did not subject the decisions of the Regional Legislatures in Nigeria to the approval of the Prime Minister. When the Western House of Assembly tried to meet again in the evening of 25 May 1962, it was disrupted once more and Balewa ordered the Police to clear and lock the House. Thereafter, Balewa called the meeting of Federal Parliament for the purpose of declaring a State of Emergency in Western Region on 29 May 1962, having claimed that what happened in the Western House of Assembly on 25 May 1962 amounted to a Breakdown of Law and Order. Opposing the declaration of State of Emergency in Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo said that there was peace all over Western Region including, the capital, Ibadan. He referred to ongoing riots at Okirika, in Eastern Region and Jos, in the Northern Region which did not cause the Federal Government to declare states of emergency in those regions. Pointing to the gross misuse of power by the Federal Government, Awolowo concluded that "the step that is now being taken in this Resolution is a violent assault on democratic institutions in Nigeria. It assumes that Parliament can only meet at the sufferance of a group of people who are hostile to that particular Parliament and who are friendly to the Federal Government." The contribution of the Deputy Leader of the Action Group and a member of the Parliament, Chief Anthony Enahoro, to the debate on the declaration of a state of Emergency in the West was remarkably philosophical as he said that he was in total confusion because no one knew how the decision, about to be taken would end. (Nigerian Hansards, col. 2169- 2200, May 29, 1962). The constitutionality of the declaration of a state of emergency was challenged in court and the Action Group secured the service of a British Lawyer and a member of the Nigerian Bar, Mr. Dingle Foot, to represent it, afterwhich Rotimi Williams was technically prevented from appearing for Adegbenro and the AG. Shortly after arrival in Nigeria, Mr. Dingle Foot was served with expulsion order to leave Nigeria within twenty-four hours by the Nigerian Government without giving any reason. However, the Premier of Eastern Region and the leader of the NCNC, Dr. Michael Iheonukura Okpara, was reported in the NCNC affiliated newspaper, the West African Pilot of 4 June 1962, to have stated thus, "There is emergency in a part of the country and you don't need to fumble in court in such a situation. If there were an emergency in Britain, would any Nigerian lawyer be allowed to challenge the authority of the British Parliament in declaring a state of emergency? …//… I think this democracy of ours is being misinterpreted." In a leading editorial of the official organ of the NCNC, West African Pilot of 8 June 1962, it was stated, "..... Nigeria is most certainly committed to the principle of the rule of law. We regard ourselves as faithful members of the Commonwealth club. But the basis of this membership is that we should be free to mind our business without outside humbug. …. Each time the Government tries to uphold the sovereignty and integrity of this country, doctrinaire constitutionalists will plead liberal democracy. … The Federal Government should be firmer in future in dealing with such vexatious issues as this Foot nonsense." With the declaration of state of emergency in Western Region, the government of the Action Group in the Region was effectively overthrown and a government that was never voted for by the people emerged after the end of the emergency on 31 December 1962. The cumulative political problems arising out of the state of emergency declared by the Federal controlled government of NPC and NCNC political parties from the North and the East on the West finally led to the 15 January 1966 coup. The defederation of Nigeria and centralisation of administrative power was completed by Major General Johnson Thompson Umunnakwe Aguiyi-Ironsi, the Military Head of State, through his Decree No. 34 of 24 May 1966. Since then, power has been concentrated at the centre in Nigeria. It is important to remember that when Decree No.34 of 24 May 1966 was promulgated *the Sage* was still in prison at Calabar where he had been incarcerated by the Federal coalition government of NPC/NCNC since 1962/1963.

​Professor Moses Ochonu blamed Southwest lawyers and Tinubu for doing nothing against Hisbah at birth but he did not explain what made it the exclusive responsibility of Tinubu and the Southwest's SANs alone to tackle Hisbah in the Northwest. Are Northcentral, South-south, and Southeast not concerned about Hisbah? For all that we know Hisbah is derived from Sharia which was adopted by twelve out of nineteen States in the North at the early stage of Obasanjo's government in 2000s. There were outcries especially in the Southern part of Nigeria that as a nation we should be governed under the same laws. Constitutional suits were filed in the court against the establishment of Sharia laws but I am not aware if any of the suits is concluded as of date. Professor Ochonu averred that, "The SANs of the Southwest can belatedly try to sue for a constitutional judgment on both Amotekun and Hisbah, but it will end up with Justice Tanko, who wants our constitution reviewed to accommodate more Sharia law and is a stooge of the cabal." Amotekun and Hisbah (Sharia) are too parallel lines that can never meet no matter how long one tries to draw them. Section10 of the 1999 constitution says, "The Government of the Federation or of a State shall not adopt any Religion as a State Religion." Constitutionally, a  Governor of a State in Nigeria, is the Chief Security Officer of the State with whom the State Commissioner of Police shall work hand-in-hand. There is a huge Security Budget at the disposal of every State Governor which is exempted from auditing. State Governors do not need the approval of the federal government to spend their Security Votes. Each state's government and its legislature determines what constitutes a threat to the well-being of the inhabitants of the state and is empowered by law to do everything possible to repel such threat. Unlike Amotekun which is a security outfit aimed at combating threats to human lives and properties, Hisbah is a Muslim religion moral police. The Constitution of Nigeria obliges local, state and federal governments in Nigeria to provide adequate shelter, good healthcare delivery, gainful employment, and free education up to junior secondary school for all children of school age. Instead of providing basic amenities of life for their citizen, the Sharia ruled states have engaged themselves with performing mass wedding and sponsoring people on pilgrimages to Mecca. One of the Sharia states engaged in this tomfoolery, is Kano state that sends out Hisbah to arrest hungry and jobless people begging for alms to in order to feed. https://www.pmnewsnigeria.com/2018/07/18/508-beggars-arrested-in-kano/  

Image removed by sender.

No fewer than 508 beggars were arrested by the Kano State Hisbah Board between January and June for allegedly violating the law banning street begging. Malam Dahiru Nuhu of the board’s Anti-Begging Unit told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Kano that 238 of those arrested were ...

​ Off course, Malami can file a constitutional suit against the Southwest State's governments over the establishment of Amotekun, but I am very confident that the learned SANs from Southwest would request that the case be handled by a panel of non-Muslims and non-Christian judges. Thereby, the fear of partiality by the Sharia minded Chief Justice Tanko would be eliminated. I cannot understand the cause of Abubakar Malami's furore over Amotekun whereas he was silent about the institution of Livestock Guards by the Benue State Government to give effect to no open grazing law enacted by Benue State House of Assembly and signed into law by the Governor, Samuel Ioraer Ortom. https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/north-central/344696-benue-grazing-law-81-herdsmen-convicted-3000-cows-arrested-ortom.html

Salimonu Kadiri

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Jan 18, 2020, 10:20:44 AM1/18/20
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​Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju,

​My stance all along, which you have have always misunderstood, is that rhetoric of religion and ethnicity should be abandoned for rhetoric of competence and results of stewardship. I don't see Buhari either as a Northerner, a Fulani or a Muslim. I see him as the legitimate President of Nigeria, elected to serve all Nigerians. If he fails to fulfil the obligations assigned to him under the constitution and laws of Nigeria, it is Muhammadu Buhari I will blame and not all Northerners, all Fulani or all Muslims. 

Similarly, the competence of Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, when he declared on behalf of the FG that the establishment of Amotekun's security outfit by the Southwest State's Governments is  illegal and unconstitutional should not be determined by his ethnic origin and religious denomination. To me, Abubakar Malami is just a Nigerian who has demonstrated his incompetence as Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Nigeria since 2015. Where was he when people elected on the platform of APC crossed over to PDP contrary to the provisions of the Constitution prohibiting carpet crossing in the Legislature? Is police under the control of the Federal Government maintaining law and order today in Nigeria? Is Malami so alienated from the living conditions of ordinary Nigerians that he does not know that for decades many households in Nigeria do employ security guards, called *MAI GADI* in local parlance, and who are armed with bow and arrows, daggers, spears and, a times, guns to protect homes from armed robbers? If Malami knows about armed *MAI GADI* that are commonly employed to protect households against armed robbers and thieves, why has he not declared them illegal for usurping the right of the police to provide security? If Nigeria has properly and efficiently been policed by the Federal government, should there have been tsunami of armed robbers, kidnappers, bandits, cattle rustlers, and ritual killers all over Nigeria?  Was Abubakar Malami not present at the Federal Executive Council meeting of 21 March 2018, when the then Finance Minister, Kemi Adeosun, disclosed that a bio-metric identification of the actual number of police in Nigeria revealed that there were eighty thousand, one-hundred and fifteen (80, 115) ghost police officers on the payroll? What Adeosun's revelation implied was that someone or some people were collecting salaries and allowances in the names of non-existing 80,115 police officers. The ghost police officers could have increased the workforce or the capacity of the police in each of the 36 States in Nigeria by approximately 2,226. As Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, it would not have been a problem for Malami to identify and prosecute the employer(s) and collector(s) of salaries of ghost police officers for being enabler(s) of insecurity in the country and precursor(s) of inadequate policing in the country. https://punchng.com/court-orders-igp-to-release-details-of-80115-ghost-police-officers/    
The Federal High Court in Abuja has ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, to release the details of the 80,115 ghost officers said to have been discovered in the police ...

Contrary to your assumption, Amotekun is not established to combat a specific ethnic or religious group but to combat criminals in the area of jurisdictions of its proponents. As it has been pointed out by others, Abubakar Malami or the Federal Government cannot on his or its own proscribe Amotekun. He must test his legal acumen in court by challenging the constitutional power of the Southwest governments to defend citizens under their jurisdictions against criminals.
S. Kadiri 



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