Today's Quote
Chidi Anthony Opara
"On the issue of inclusion of south-south minority tribes in Biafra without their consents, I would say that the issue of Biafra will eventually be decided by referendum and everybody, no matter how highly placed will have one vote" (Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board chair of Intersociety.)
CAO
Salimonu Kadiri
If Emeka Umeagbalasi is very serious about having an Igbo republic named Biafra, the easiest way to achieve that is to call on all Igbo to return to Igbo land from Nigeria. The Biafran agitators should see to it that no Igbo person should trade or accept official appointments in Nigeria. With that done, the Nigerian government would be helpless and concede the Igbo Republic of Biafra.
S.Kadiri
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2015 19:28:55 +0100
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
From: chidi...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
"On the issue of inclusion of south-south minority tribes in Biafra without their consents, I would say that the issue of Biafra will eventually be decided by referendum and everybody, no matter how highly placed will have one vote" (Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board chair of Intersociety.)
CAO
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Chidi Anthony Opara
Lead singer: “How many Biafrans Buhari go kill?”
Chorus: “How many Biafrans Buhari go kill?”
Lead Singer: “Eeeh im no fit kill us finish”
Chorus: “Eeeh im no fit kill us finish”
Chorus: “How many Biafrans Buhari go kill?”
(Pro-Biafra protesters’ in Port Harcourt solidarity song)
CAO.
--
Chidi Anthony Opara
Separatist agitators do not necessarily have to give reason(s) for their agitation.
Adeshina Afolayan
Department of Philosophy
University of Ibadan
+23480-3928-8429
Emeagwali, Gloria (History)
provided us with eloquent narratives and analyses on the challenges ahead for the new nations and
the reasons why they were agitating.
Many of that first generation of nationalists and freedom fighters recognized that
their challenge was to desegregate residential areas, railway carriages, schools and so on, and lay an economic foundation
for the new nation. Some were handicapped by cold war bipolarity, when they attempted to address the question of
equality, justice and fairness, at the economic level but even so, tried to identify the reasons for their discontent
in speeches and other formats.
Steve Biko made it clear that it was not about chasing white people but about restoring confidence and self esteem to a population that had lost its
sense of self worth. Place him on one side of the spectrum.
On the other side we have activists like Cabral, and Mondlane less preoccupied with the psychological
restorative process than internal economic structural and class considerations.
The anti-colonial agitators were by no means simpleminded, naïve agitators with a fixation on skin color.
They knew that some of the great challenges would outlive them. There was an understanding that the
generations that followed them would continue the emancipation process. Mugabe is a glaring exception
although we know that he waited twenty years before embarking on his controversial land reform program.
Of course some did better than others for a variety of reasons.
Without some kind of manifesto and explanation for their agitation, activists
do a disservice to their supporters and potential allies.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
History Department
CCSU. New Britain. CT 06050
africahistory.net
vimeo.com/user5946750/videos
Gloria Emeagwali's Documentaries on
Africa and the African Diaspora
________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Chidi Anthony Opara [chidi...@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 11, 2015 4:17 PM
To: USA African Dialogue Series
CAO.
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Anunoby, Ogugua
Good question. My answer is not likely.
It is not necessary for all separatist agitators to have the same perception of what their agitation is about. What a majority of agitators need is a fair/general idea of what the agitation is about- enough to believe in it. If followers trust their leaders- articulators of the vision and promise that together drive the agitation, it not less necessary that they do. Let me add if I may, that it is seldom the case that all separatist agitators have the same perception.
What Biafra is about for believers, is a different story in my opinion. The agitators believe/know that the country as it has been, does not working for them. The promise of Biafra was and is still that she will work for them, better than the status quo does. My thinking is that the agitation for Biafra is a response to the agitators’ dissatisfaction and frustration with the status quo. Chang the action, change the reaction.
oa
Chidi Anthony Opara
The only reason necessay for separatist agitation is that the right to associate is followed closely by the right to dissociate.
CAO.
Anunoby, Ogugua
Good question. My answer is not likely.
It is not necessary for all separatist agitators to have the same perception of what their agitation is about. What a majority of agitators need is a fair/general idea of what the agitation is about- enough to believe in it. If followers trust their leaders- articulators of the vision and promise that together drive the agitation, it not necessary that they do. Let me add if I may, that it is seldom the case that all separatist agitators have the same perception.
Bode
Anunoby, Ogugua
What is hereditary grievance? May we have some examples please.
oa
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Bode
Sent: Thursday, November 12, 2015 10:22 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Quote of the day:
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
From: Anun...@lincolnu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 10:56:48 -0600
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Chidi Anthony Opara
Using state powers to stop peaceful protests in a democracy is corruption.
CAO.
Jimoh Oriyomi
On Friday, November 13, 2015, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Using state powers to stop peaceful protests in a democracy is corruption.
>
> CAO.
>
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Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 2015 22:06:48 -0800
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
From: chidi...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Using state powers to stop peaceful protests in a democracy is corruption.
CAO.
Mario Fenyo
Sent: Friday, November 13, 2015 8:37 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
From: MFe...@bowiestate.edu
Bode
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
Anunoby, Ogugua
“The coal-age is gone. The palm-oil age is gone. etc. etc. What would make the Biafran state economically viable?”
Bode
The answer is simple actually. The people and their desire and will to build a great country. Remember Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan? There is China of course. India and Brazil seem to be on their way. Except for Brazil, Nigeria is miles ahead of the other maned countries in natural benefaction. Is it not time for an African replication of similar successes in country transformation?
Coal, cocoa, cotton. groundnut, palm oil, and now crude petroleum have not made Nigeria economically viable if I hear what everyone says. The country refuses to realize her potential. Forty five years after Biafra, the song, is the same song.
Nigeria’s Biafra challenge is a political, not a criminal justice one. Those who think otherwise do need to think again. A brilliant observation was made about Biafra in a recent posting- “ The reasons that led Biafra to succeed remain. You and I have to be part of solving the problems in a way that not a single life is lost before we create the nations that works”. I respectfully add, “works” for all Nigerians. Nigeria as it is today works for a privileged few.
So why is Nigeria- a country of vast natural wealth, not economically functional for the vast majority of her citizens? The people and their desire and will I would argue. As important as leadership is for every country’s advancement, the people apparently, have no genuine desire and will to produce one that will end the country’s circular rigmarole- an enduring sham that is widely mistaken for progress.
oa
oa
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
From: Anun...@lincolnu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com; omi...@gmail.com
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:11:12 -0600
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Chidi Anthony Opara
If, for instance, the South African anti-apartheid protesters had waited for police permit to start, would apartheid had ended when it did?
CAO
Cornelius Hamelberg
Change as slogan or watchword has worked well first for Barack Obama and Charles Margai (PMDC) and Morgan Tsvangirai ( MDC) . In 2012 the APC’s 2nd term president Ernest Bai Koroma scored with his “Agenda for Change” and finally and at last, campaigning with that slogan Brother Muhammadu Buhari bagged the once elusive presidency.
About the matters at hand, in my view Nigeria is greater as a country or a Federation that includes Biafra under its constitutional umbrella.
Omoluabi’s insight is plausible but short-sighted: “the goal of the Biafra movement is not the creation of a Biafra State; it is a political movement to force the Nigerian government to make certain political concessions”, he says, as if the goal of Biafra people is only temporary, not ultimate, not more serious…
At first I thought that the aim of all the post-election clamour, even in this forum - by the sour grapes Goodluck Appreciation Day people & their allies was to wring some political concessions out of President Buhari - the message being “ OK , so we did not vote for you, but if you think that you are going to punish us for that by marginalising us then we are going to cause plenty of trouble for you, in fact we are going to give you four years of hell” – and then in strident tones they started barking and chanting their poetic mantra “ WHERE is the change?”
An untutored outsider might have been led into thinking that “Where is the change?” could mean, “Where is the rest of the money” ( the change) – since in Nigeria in particular, it’s all about naira – as in “Nigger kill other niggers. Just because one didn't receive the correct change”
And change is not just an arrival terminal where you stand still - it’s got to keep moving and the people who identify as Biafrans want to create their own change/s.
If by “the Biafra movement” is meant Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB and his Radio Biafra agenda then at least one immediate political concession, a permit for him to have his comedy hours on Radio Biafra could be easily granted so that he can inspire fellow Biafrans to his heart’s content. He might even get exhausted, a burnout, tired of repeating himself. But I can’t imagine him starting a “comedy hour”. To sing the blues you’ve got to pay the dues. Right now, when like many a political leaders before him, e.g. Nelson Mandela , his leadership status is being enhanced by his arrest and incarceration, while awaiting trial I hope that he is writing what could soon be famous : his own poignant Letter from an Abuja jail in which he spells it out - just as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King did with his “ Letter from a Birmingham jail “ – and in more horrific circumstances Wole Soyinka wrote “ The Man Died”
In a wider sense, in my opinion Brother Buhari has already granted significant political concessions: 20% of his cabinet is significantly of Igbo stock. That must have taken off some of the considerable pressure on him. If only it could have stayed like that instead or some more of “from the frying pan into the fire” – with the eyes of the whole world now fixated on the fate of Nnamdi Kanu in the prison where the leader of Boko Haram and his gangsters and not Nnamdi ought to be – and not just for talking.
In my view the best solution for the Nigerian government would be to let Nnamdi Kanu off the hook. And not to make a political martyr out of him
But the Biafra movement is much bigger than Nnamdi Kanu’s IPOB & Radio Biafra and MASSOB or the sum-total of the many tributaries of tears and prayers for Biafra. To begin with, Biafra already embraces a past, a history of endurance and sacrifices made, on which are grounded hopes for the future of her people.
The ultimate goal of the Biafra movement must be to create “a great country” and Nnamdi Kanu has been well advised as to the future direction that the struggle for Biafra will take: REFERENDUM
In my view, like with the Israelis, with the proven Igbo entrepreneurial spirit and industriousness, the economic viability - indeed prosperity of a future Biafra is beyond question it might even reverse the brain-drain.
Dear well-wishers you don’t have to entertain any nightmares about the Biafra dream.
Sincerely,
Cornelius
On Friday, 13 November 2015 22:57:47 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:
kenneth harrow
it pains me to reads this. repressive states ban public protests, and people take to the street at risk to their lives. tiananmen sq, tahir square. if you hate the people and love the state so much you are condoning the ugly violence of the american south during the entire civil rights movement which was based on speaking truth to a repressive, racist state.
the police can function in the service of a repressive state. protests can be the only viable means to oppose them
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
Ayo Obe
Ayo
Salimonu Kadiri
You averred that 'it is in dictatorships that one ordinarily needs police permission to demonstrate.' I stand to be corrected by you if I say that the most democratic nations in the world are in Western Europe. Premised on that assertion, I will mention, for examples some democratic countries such as Britain, France, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark and Netherlands where citizens, especially in groups, are obliged to obtain police permission for public protests or demonstrations. Even where there are no two opposing demonstrants on the same subject, it is necessary that demonstrations should be carried out in such a manner that it would not disrupt the normal functions of the society as it were in Port Harcourt where marketers were prevented from earning their daily bread and ambulances on emergency call were hindered from getting to the patients in need of urgent transportation to hospitals by obstructive demonstrators. "Those demanding the release of Kanu is no reason for Mr. Kadiri's astonishing proposition which amounts to a reversal of the basic principle regarding the right to demonstrate: once one needs permission to exercise it, it is no longer a right," writes Ayo Obe. Exaggerated liberal democrats can be very confusing a times with their definition of unlimited freedom whereby they claim that freedom of choice to buy and own a car automatically translates to driving it without permit to drive, which is to obtain a driving license. There is no absolute freedom and all freedoms are conditional. I rest my case.
S.Kadiri
From: ayo.m...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 15:04:23 +0100
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ayo Obe
Jimoh Oriyomi
Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 19:12:55 +0000
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri
Date: Sat, 14 Nov 2015 19:54:46 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Ayo Obe
Ayo
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lady Obe,
As you know, my mentor Ogbeni Kadiri is neither a miscreant nor a street urchin. As he informed us earlier on, “Only miscreants and street urchins would test the resolve of the state through public demonstration without obtaining police permit. The very act of demonstrating without police permission in a democracy is criminal.”
So let’s terminate the altercation with regard to the Kingdom of Sweden, which is in Europe. Ogbeni Kadiri is absolutely correct: if e.g. the Neo-Nazis want to demonstrate anywhere (they usually want to do so, come out in full force, especially on Hitler’s birthday) and then, they have a right to demonstrate but they need permission from the Swedish Police and to as you say “liaise with the police for security and planning” There is usually a counter-demonstration - so the Police usually have to protect the Neo-Nazis m, since the anti-racist counter-demonstration is always larger and well prepared for any eventuality.
Chase those crazy baldheads out of town
Cornelius
kenneth harrow
i would add the demonstrations in s africa, including sharpeville as well.
you really need to rethink what you are saying if you think constituted authority is always right and immune to popular protests.
ken
Salimonu Kadiri
As you know, Martin Luther King's civil rights movement was recognised by the white power, because of the opposition of Omowale (the name given to him when he visited Nigeria) Malcolm X who elevated the struggle of the Blacks in the USA to Fundamental Human Rights. With the acceptance of civil rights as the need of the Blacks in the USA, their socio-economic relations to the Whites remain the same today as it was pronounced in 1857 by Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court, who in Dred Scott Case handed down the decision that, "A Negro has no rights which a white man need respect." The Court declared that in the meaning of the words "people of United States," in the Constitution, Negroes were not included in the people of the United States.
The government of the USA is not considered dictatorial or repressive yet it is the norm that the Caucasian policeman can wilfully gun down any Black person in the street and subsequent spontaneous protests by the Blacks are suffocated not by ordinary police but national guards, resulting often with more deaths of the Black protesters. This phenomenon is common in the whole of US and regardless of South or North.
The Sharpeville demonstration was more or less suicidal on the part of the demonstrators and it did not contribute anything to the eventual emergence of 'Black man White mask' regime in South Africa. We should not forget that Mandela and other ANC members were, since 1948, on the list of USA's terrorists because of their opposition against South Africa's apartheid regime. Even though Mandela received Nobel Peace Price in 1993, USA did not remove his name and other ANC members from the list of terrorists until 2nd June 2008.
I doubt if your comparison of Biafran demonstrators with the oppressed Blacks in the US and South Africa is identical. The government of Buhari is neither dictatorial nor repressive against the Biafran Igbo in Nigeria. The socio-economic conditions of all Nigerians are the same and if the Biafran Igbo think that their socio-economic conditions would be better by becoming a sovereign state, they should not agitate through mob demonstrations, and especially, outside the geographical location of Igbo Biafra.
S. Kadiri
M Buba
Prof Malami Buba
kenneth harrow
what a set of distractions in your reply. blacks in the u.s. are the same as 1857? this is nice rhetoric, but in fact ridiculous; but more to the point, it is not on my point at all. you return to the conditions in nigeria, whether there is justification for public demonstrations. i think of it as a democratic right of all people everywhere. like being about to public denounce a govt without being punished; like publishing criticisms of the govt without fear of beingblown up. like being able to vote for your rulers.
a simple thing: people have the right to gather and publicly demonstrate, under all govts, not just democratic or dictatorial. a fundamental human right.
just sign onto that and don't tell me nonsense that blacks today are like slaves of yesterday and therefor the civil rights movements' demonstrations were meaningless. the picture you paint of the u.s. is really not close to reality. but that is not the issue.
ken
Rex Marinus
Malami, I back the sentiments behind your argument. But above all, I think that the greatest culprits in letting this take-over of Nigeria by "greedy politicians" are the Nigerian intellectuals, many of whom are on the side, quibbling about the nature of society; many of whom are complicit with the situation, and I'm actually sorry to say, many of whom are conceptually ignorant of the profound social forces that compel change, or make change necessary. I have read many of these on these forums support the most egregious, and deadly conditions on the excuse that "it is our culture."
I just wish that the younger generation of Biafrans now marching on the streets will find, network, and sit on the same table with heir peers at the various regions of Nigeria and re-negotiate Nigeria on the following Zikist principles: (a) the recognition that Nigeria's diversity could be its greatest strength, and the use of this diversity to greater good, (b) the recognition of the equality of all Nigerians wherever they live in that nation irrespective ethnicity, creed, or gender, (c) the recognition that the compact with nation is between the individual and the nation, and not between ethnic groups, (d) the support of one part of the nation for the growth and prosperity of the other because if one part of Nigeria is poor, backward, ignorant, and disease-ridden, it will tell generally on the whole, and affect the life of even the most prosperous. It is criminal for a child in Owerri to be enrolled in school, where a child in Kano is sent to the streets to beg for her livelilood, dragging a blind father behind her, who should, given his disability the charge of the department of Health & Human Affairs, (e) that while we must preserve the best of our cultural values that respects life, that affirms the liberty of people and their communities, and that protects the most vulnerable, including the aliens among us, we must be willing to change/discard backward practices to accommodate the reality of a new nation, and the rights of every individual as a free member of the sovereignty called Nigeria. Whereas it will not be great country to come into an office and see only Igbo, or Yoruba, or Edo, or Hausa at the highest levels of public life and employment, however, it must never be that in our attempts at creating necessary balance, one persons opportunity comes at the suppression of the right of the other, otherwise we will create the kind of disenchantment that has currently led to this new Biafra movement. I will say, Malami, if you want a great Nigeria, fight for it, and speak out against the oppression of any Nigerian, no matter whose ox is gored, or who for that matter is goring the ox.
Obi Nwakanma
Sent: Sunday, November 15, 2015 6:17 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Chidi Anthony Opara
“I never imagined this (petrol scarcity) In post-change Nigeria” (Citizen Ndaa Isaac on facebook)
--
Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 2015 13:10:47 -0800
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
From: chidi...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
CAO
Anunoby, Ogugua
I agree.
You say Zikist principles which may be incendiary for some folks. I say sound democratic principles if the desire is to build an achieving, inclusive, progressive, and prosperous modern country based on just laws, and sound institutions, systems, and practices. In such a country, rights are equal for all citizens regardless of their disability, educational attainment, ethnicity, gender, and religion among others. Each citizen would be free and able to thrive and have the best life their hard work can earn them. Is history important? Yes but only for the lessons that need to be learned if sustainable progress is to be made.
Nigeria as she has been for many years now, has not worked for the vast majority of her citizens. Criminal ethnocentric politicians routinely blind Nigerians with ethnicity lasers. Malami is right. His aged mother is right too. Nigeria’s home grown oppressors flourish while their people wither. Why does anyone need reminding that Nigeria needs to be fixed, fixed right, and without further delay? That for me is really the message of the Biafra protests. Sadly there are some who seem to see the grass but not the trees in the forest.
Salimonu Kadiri
I love your idea of civil rights to demonstrate or protest in the society without police permit but I have not seen that practised in the US where 'African Americans' are constantly gunned down by European American policemen at pleasure and when aggrieved people resort to spontaneous demonstrations against uniformed murderers, national guards are sent out to pump bullets into the skulls of African Americans. I am yet to observe such a situation in present day Nigeria against Biafra.
S.Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
kenneth harrow
where do you get the idea that afr am people are regularly gunned down by euro-amer police?
there is a lot of work that needs to be done here; a lot of racist issues we need to face.
however, this is out of touch with reality, and i can't understand where you get this from. you take instances where police, sometimes black, often white, stop and harass, beat, or kill black drivers, black young men usually. somehow that has morphed in your imagination into a world that doesn't exist.
do you live here, in the u.s.? what is this based on?
when a trevor martin happens, when a ferguson happens, this becomes an issue of national concern and anguish, protests, demonstrations. if it were the case that afr ams were "constantly gunned down," these instances would cease to be the shocking events they are. they would be part of daily life, and wouldn't be noted as exceptional. you seem to be working on a cinematic overdrive, not the daily reality of life in the u.s.
black people face great issues all the time; it doesn't help anything to turn this into a cinematic spectacle that has nothing to do with daily struggles that are faced by real people in real circumstances.
and further, what possible link is there between the abuse of blacks by the police, and holding peaceful demonstrations, which we have here all the time. this weekend black students on my campus held a march and rally, as has been happening all week around the states. this is a GREAT thing, and so far i haven't read about the national guard shooting them.
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
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Salimonu Kadiri
I have taken note of your lofty idea about civil rights which to me is nothing but a slogan. Slogan, as Shimon Peres once averred, is like parfym, it smells good but tastes bad. Black students (or African American students) as you mentioned could demonstrate as much as they want, provided the Caucasian power holders are assured that the demonstrators are only demanding the right to turn the left cheek when slapped on the right one. As long as it is the Caucasians who are doing the slapping they will never be hostile to African American demonstrators wishing to turn the left cheek when slapped on the right one. That is the core of the philosophy of civil rights: love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. But if your Black students demonstrators should dare say that if you slap me, I will chop off your hand so that you will for ever not be able to slap anyone of us, I am sure the national guard will descend on them with all their arsenal of life extinguishers.
Referring to me you wrote, "You seem to be working on a cinematic overdrive, not the daily reality of life in the U.S." Kenneth, the daily reality of life in the U.S. is that Obama and people who look like him racially (former Negroes) are identified as African Americans while Clinton and other Caucasians who look like him are identified as Americans. If I am working on a cinematic overdrive, according to your bombastic English, you must answer the question I asked you in my previous post. That is, if the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court, in 1857, that the expression, 'People of the United States,' did not include the Black people is no longer the daily reality of life in the U.S., according to you, why is Obama and people who look like him racially in the U.S. classified as African American but Clinton and those who look like him, racially, are classified as Americans and not European Americans? This is a straight question that needs no zigzag answer.
S.Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
kenneth harrow
i imagine something radically different.
as for the term African American being adopted, that was the proud claim of jesse jackson. we all understand its affirmative call, and its success in replaced Afro-American which had been adopted previous to that, and which term itself replaced Negro.
ken
John Mbaku
J.D. (Law), Ph.D. (Economics)
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Nonresident Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution
Attorney & Counselor at Law (Licensed in Utah)
Brady Presidential Distinguished Professor of Economics & John S. Hinckley Fellow
Department of Economics
Weber State University
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kenneth harrow
i am sure cornelius knows considerably more than i on this topic.
and of course when "black is beautiful" became the word de jour, it spawned many an afro or dreds from non-black people (including my son who was the only person wearing dreds on his campus 15 years ago!)
my point in the exchange with salimonu, at first, was to say that we had problems here, but that it made little sense to me to recast us back 150 yrs; as cornelius put it so well, after all, in 1857 they wouldn't have elected a slave, an ex-slave, a descendent of a slave, as president. but more importantly, we can see the world through many eyes, can feel for the other, even feel oneself to be the other, if one chooses not to close oneself off.
the ugly consequence of the atrocities committed in paris is that in anger and grief many wish to shut themselves off from the other, from muslims, from all muslims, from all syrians, god help us. so now the great state of michigan has decided not to accept any refugees from syria.
as some have already pointed out, the refugees are refugees because of the very same people who committed the killings in paris.
i like your conclusion, john: this is a complex issue. we need to be able to hear all sides, and not close our ears and minds. and that's very hard to do, especially when we are angry or fearful.
i recommended Les vergers de l'aude by sory camara to this list--i wish it were available in english. the great virtue that mandinke text espoused, the great accomplishment of those who passed the initiation training, so as to become an adult, is patience and self-control, to control one's anger.
ken
John Mbaku
Anunoby, Ogugua
Sent from my iPhone
kenneth harrow
these are all signifiers of multiple things, these markers, with status so often linked to them. it is those things, those statuses of free or slave or class that attach all the negative qualities you are pointing us to. if we changed the color designation, without the rest of it, nothing would change. another word would come along, so that if it weren't white or black but caucasian and negro, the same values inherent in a dominant and subordinated culture would still be there.
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
“Let us say that Canada or any country for that matter decide that the only people they will allow to immigrate are whites. That would make them racist because they are choosing one race over another. Why is it morally wrong to do so? Is there an argument that supports the right to choose the racial make up of one’s country or must all counties be racially blind. I believe Japan maintains their racial make up. Are they then racists in a pejorative sense? Why is there an imperative to be racially blind? For the record, I am not suggesting that people or countries should discriminate because of the colour of one’s skin. It is value free.”
(Source: What right do countries have to exclude some would be immigrants
CH
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Chidi Anthony Opara
The election campaigns are over, the election have been won, the "change" regime have been instituted. Let us x-ray "change" so far.
CAO.
Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri.
Date: Mon, 16 Nov 2015 13:08:06 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Anunoby, Ogugua
Good questions CH.
Canada, Japan and any other sovereign country may have immigration policies of their choice. Some, like race based policies may only be in their short term interest. I believe welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to. Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot.
It was reported yesterday that the Japanese economy is again in recession. The experts say the recession may have to do with Japan’s declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive today. Home generated demand is more necessary than ever before. Japan is no longer the world’s # 1 exporter nation. Experts recommend that Japan relaxes her immigration policies. Will they? Immigration policies based on race can be bad economics.
Are immigration polices based on race morally objectionable? I would answer yes. Unequal treatment of any people based on race is an injustice to the victims of unequal treatment. No one chooses their race. Race is imposed on everyone. No one therefore should suffer injustice because of their race. The perpetrator of the injustice may deny that it is but they know it is. Slave masters knew slavery was wrong. They carried on with anyway because they could until they could no longer. Ditto the Nazis and the holocaust. No slave master or Nazi would like to be similarly treated.
The world has always been a happier and safer place when people truly cared for one another.
oa
Salimonu Kadiri
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
Anunoby, Ogugua
“Not literal” to who? Who decides that it is and why, especially when the impact is on others? “Person of color” is a derogatory term for many as it seems to be intended to be. Are there any benefits to it users for using it? If so what are they? What is the difficulty in discontinuing its use? Why needlessly divide people when you can usefully unite them? I never use it.
I believe I know what you mean Ken. The point however, is that what is literal to one may not be to another when they are the subject of incidence. I am not making a case for political correctness here. You may have noticed that many of those “person of color” tends to be applied to in this forum at least, do not like to be so referred to. Should that alone not be important any and all who use the term? Do you think anyone who is unhappy to be so described does not have a “thick skin” as some users of the term may argue?
If you ask me, it is the speaker not the listener who may be blamed for the misinterpretation or misunderstanding of their word or term of choice. It is for the speaker to ensure that they are not misunderstood. If language irritates or offends, it should not be used except of course, the intention is to irritate or cause offense.
I salute you.
oa
Chidi Anthony Opara
CAO.
kenneth harrow
i agree that one should not use terms that offend. i hope you appreciate, then, the irony, that the phrase "persons of color" is a euphemism intended to give no offense. i am perfectly happy using other terms, but at least we should be clear about its general usage within the society. i respect your feelings and will try to avoid it
ken
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Anunoby,
Verily, as you so succinctly state it,” welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to. Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot.”
The ger/ stranger occupies a very special position in Jewish ethics; It is one of 613 Mitzvoth /Commandment and one of the positive commandments: “To bear affection for a ger (stranger, convert, and proselyte)” I was amazed when I started attending regular Sabbath services in 1996 what I felt was the extraordinary kindness shown to me – the rationale of the Almighty who created everybody is stated in the Torah : “For you were once strangers in the land of Egypt”
Jesus of Nazareth emphasises this commandment that’s lodged in the Torah and in the hearts of those of study it: Leviticus 19: 18 : “You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”
I once asked a rabbi (arabbi) whether or not the Pals were neighbours. You can imagine his answer.
I asked my Palestinian friend the same question, adding “don’t forget the Jews are your cousins!”
His reply: “The Israelis are our enemies.” That’s the impasse.
I should like to point out that at no time did I feel discriminated in Nigeria , not me, not my Better Half or my son (although my son did not like being called “Oyibo” and my Better Half sometimes got preferential treatment at the Supermarket ( it was assumed that I was her “Chauffeur” or her “ Man Friday” servant - another reason why Sergeant Brown turned up the day after I had invited him to dinner, to request that he take my Better Half out, to the Cinema – something that he believed was a common cultural practice in Sweden, that you can just turn up at your acquaintance’s home the day after your first invitation to dinner , to take the man’s wife to the cinema. The man? Oh I guess that he should do the baby sitting whilst the two of them are having a good time at the cinema. So I called out “Ebba! Sergeant Brown is at the door. He says that he is here to take you to the cinema!” And that was the end of that. You see, whilst I the galley slave was busy in the kitchen preparing the dinner for four, Sergeant Brown had been chatting pleasantly enough with Better Half, and I guess that he must have thought that she was the president and that I was merely the Butler ( a misunderstanding) I should have put him in his place from the very start during the dinner , when he had told me not to interrupt Madam when she was talking - or reported him to my friend the Deputy Commissioner of Rivers State Police , Mr. Effebo. All said and done I came to the conclusion that if charged, at worst Sergeant Brown would only plead guilty of wanting to actualise some “love your neighbour as yourself”, with the emphasis on love for his neighbour’s wife. Like a character from Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson.
(At this point I’m impelled to share some personal good news with you: Oh Happy Day! Thirty years later, I’ve hooked up again with man of God, Titus Akanabu who was my good friend in Nigeria, 1981-1984 and in correspondence before he disappeared from orbit when the Nigerian postal system must have collapsed. The Almighty has done mightily with him and he is now Bishop Titus Akanabu. Significantly, both of us are now in another country! WE may soon be singing together, “By the Rivers of Babylon)
But back to your posting – and then (your profession) you delve into the economic aspects of interdependency. My part of Europe has much in common with what you say about Japan: “declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive” - Many studies have shown that Sweden’s economy would do a lot better with more immigration – but it’s a truth that’s a hard-sell to many Swedish nationalists whose perception is that our beautiful Sweden, Swedish culture and the Swedish way of life is increasing under threat of being swamped / overrun by foreign immigrant cultures. This is one of the causes of xenophobia.
Thinking of Donald Trump just now, thinking about him and the phenomenal Ogbeni Kadiri’s goose that lays the golden eggs and the egg-eaters. As Brother Malcolm said, you can't have capitalism without racism
And bringing it all back home to the possibilities of good governance and good neighbourliness in Nigeria, I should like to ask you or John Mbaku Esq these questions:
Should Biafra come into being what then would be the legal status of properties owned by Igbos in various parts of Nigeria?
The legal status of persons. Would Biafran Citizenship be coterminous with Igbo ethnicity or can a person (e.g. yours truly) opt to be a Biafran or a Nigerian?
Yours sincerely,
CH
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Anunoby,
Verily, as you so succinctly state it,” welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to. Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot.”
The ger/ stranger occupies a very special position in Jewish ethics; It is one of 613 Mitzvoth /Commandment and one of the positive commandments: “To bear affection for a ger (stranger, convert, and proselyte)” I was amazed when I started attending regular Sabbath services in 1996 what I felt was the extraordinary kindness shown to me – the rationale of the Almighty who created everybody is stated in the Torah : “For you were once strangers in the land of Egypt”
Jesus of Nazareth emphasises this commandment that’s lodged in the Torah and in the hearts of those of those who study it: Leviticus 19: 18 : “You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”
I once asked a rabbi (arabbi) whether or not the Pals were neighbours. You can imagine his answer.
I asked my Palestinian friend the same question, adding “don’t forget the Jews are your cousins!”
His reply: “The Israelis are our enemies.” That’s the impasse.
I should like to point out that at no time did I feel discriminated in Nigeria , not me, not my Better Half or my son (although my son did not like being called “Oyibo” and my Better Half sometimes got preferential treatment at the Supermarket ( it was assumed that I was her “Chauffeur” or her “ Man Friday” servant - another reason why Sergeant Brown turned up the day after I had invited him to dinner, to request that he take my Better Half out, to the Cinema – something that he believed was a common cultural practice in Sweden, that you can just turn up at your acquaintance’s home the day after your first invitation to dinner , to take the man’s wife to the cinema. The man? Oh I guess that he should do the baby sitting whilst the two of them are having a good time at the cinema. So I called out “Ebba! Sergeant Brown is at the door. He says that he is here to take you to the cinema!” And that was the end of that. You see, whilst I the galley slave was busy in the kitchen preparing the dinner for four, Sergeant Brown had been chatting pleasantly enough with Better Half, and I guess that he must have thought that she was the president and that I was merely the Butler ( a misunderstanding) I should have put him in his place from the very start during the dinner , when he had told me not to interrupt Madam when she was talking - or reported him to my friend the Deputy Commissioner of Rivers State Police , Mr. Effebo. All said and done I came to the conclusion that if charged, at worst Sergeant Brown would only plead guilty of wanting to actualise some “love your neighbour as yourself”, with the emphasis on love for his neighbour’s wife. Like a character from Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson.
(At this point I’m impelled to share some personal good news with you: Oh Happy Day! Thirty years later, I’ve hooked up again with man of God, Titus Akanabu who was my good friend in Nigeria, 1981-1984 and in correspondence before he disappeared from orbit when the Nigerian postal system must have collapsed. The Almighty has done mightily with him and he is now Bishop Titus Akanabu. Significantly, both of us are now in another country! We may soon be singing together, “By the Rivers of Babylon)
But back to your posting – and then (your profession) you delve into the economic aspects of interdependency. My part of Europe has much in common with what you say about Japan: “declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive” - Many studies have shown that Sweden’s economy would do a lot better with more immigration – but it’s a truth that’s a hard-sell to many Swedish nationalists whose perception is that our beautiful Sweden, Swedish culture and the Swedish way of life is increasingly under threat of being swamped / overrun by foreign immigrant cultures. This is one of the causes of xenophobia.
Thinking of Donald Trump just now, thinking about him and the phenomenal Ogbeni Kadiri’s goose that lays the golden eggs and the hungry egg-eaters. As Brother Malcolm said, you can't have capitalism without racism
And bringing it all back home to the possibilities of good governance and good neighbourliness in Nigeria, I should like to ask you or John Mbaku Esq these questions:
Should Biafra come into being what then would be the legal status of properties owned by Igbos in various parts of Nigeria?
The legal status of persons. Would Biafran Citizenship be coterminous with Igbo ethnicity or can a person (e.g. yours truly) opt to be a Biafran or a Nigerian?
Yours sincerely,
CH
On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 17:03:52 UTC+1, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:
Anunoby, Ogugua
Good questions CH.
I neither intend nor presume to speak for Biafra.
As hypothetical as your questions are, I dare to think aloud. There are models for resolving borders, citizenship, and property and other assets related issues when a country breaks up. People may choose which country to belong to for example. The private property rights of individual would usually be respected. That a country breaks up is not to say that the countries would not get along- live with each other. The U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and Indonesia and East Timor, are recent examples. The parties negotiate with each other at some point on such matters as compensation and restitution among others. Citizenship in modern states is usually bestowed by birth (not blood I must add) or naturalization. I do not see why any new country’s will be different.
Is your first question motivated by the unconstitutional and shameful theft by the Yakubu Gowon dictatorship of the private property of some of his fellow citizens a few decades ago if I may ask?
Thank you CH.
oa
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 5:08 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Amended:
Lord Anunoby,
Verily, as you so succinctly state it,” welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to. Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot.”
The ger/ stranger occupies a very special position in Jewish ethics; It is one of 613 Mitzvoth /Commandment and one of the positive commandments: “To bear affection for a ger (stranger, convert, and proselyte)” I was amazed when I started attending regular Sabbath services in 1996 what I felt was the extraordinary kindness shown to me – the rationale of the Almighty who created everybody is stated in the Torah : “For you were once strangers in the land of Egypt”
Jesus of Nazareth emphasises this commandment that’s lodged in the Torah and in the hearts of those of those who study it: Leviticus 19: 18 : “You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord.”
I once asked a rabbi (arabbi) whether or not the Pals were neighbours. You can imagine his answer.
I asked my Palestinian friend the same question, adding “don’t forget the Jews are your cousins!”
His reply: “The Israelis are our enemies.” That’s the impasse.
I should like to point out that at no time did I feel discriminated in Nigeria , not me, not my Better Half or my son (although my son did not like being called “Oyibo” and my Better Half sometimes got preferential treatment at the Supermarket ( it was assumed that I was her “Chauffeur” or her “ Man Friday” servant - another reason why Sergeant Brown turned up the day after I had invited him to dinner, to request that he take my Better Half out, to the Cinema – something that he believed was a common cultural practice in Sweden, that you can just turn up at your acquaintance’s home the day after your first invitation to dinner , to take the man’s wife to the cinema. The man? Oh I guess that he should do the baby sitting whilst the two of them are having a good time at the cinema. So I called out “Ebba! Sergeant Brown is at the door. He says that he is here to take you to the cinema!” And that was the end of that. You see, whilst I the galley slave was busy in the kitchen preparing the dinner for four, Sergeant Brown had been chatting pleasantly enough with Better Half, and I guess that he must have thought that she was the president and that I was merely the Butler ( a misunderstanding) I should have put him in his place from the very start during the dinner , when he had told me not to interrupt Madam when she was talking - or reported him to my friend the Deputy Commissioner of Rivers State Police , Mr. Effebo. All said and done I came to the conclusion that if charged, at worst Sergeant Brown would only plead guilty of wanting to actualise some “love your neighbour as yourself”, with the emphasis on love for his neighbour’s wife. Like a character from Joyce Cary’s Mister Johnson.
(At this point I’m impelled to share some personal good news with you: Oh Happy Day! Thirty years later, I’ve hooked up again with man of God, Titus Akanabu who was my good friend in Nigeria, 1981-1984 and in correspondence before he disappeared from orbit when the Nigerian postal system must have collapsed. The Almighty has done mightily with him and he is now Bishop Titus Akanabu. Significantly, both of us are now in another country! We may soon be singing together, “By the Rivers of Babylon)
But back to your posting – and then (your profession) you delve into the economic aspects of interdependency. My part of Europe has much in common with what you say about Japan: “declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive” - Many studies have shown that Sweden’s economy would do a lot better with more immigration – but it’s a truth that’s a hard-sell to many Swedish nationalists whose perception is that our beautiful Sweden, Swedish culture and the Swedish way of life is increasingly under threat of being swamped / overrun by foreign immigrant cultures. This is one of the causes of xenophobia.
Thinking of Donald Trump just now, thinking about him and the phenomenal Ogbeni Kadiri’s goose that lays the golden eggs and the hungry egg-eaters. As Brother Malcolm said, you can't have capitalism without racism
And bringing it all back home to the possibilities of good governance and good neighbourliness in Nigeria, I should like to ask you or John Mbaku Esq these questions:
1. Should Biafra come into being what then would be the legal status of properties owned by Igbos in various parts of Nigeria?
2. The legal status of persons. Would Biafran Citizenship be coterminous with Igbo ethnicity or can a person (e.g. yours truly) opt to be a Biafran or a Nigerian?
Chidi Anthony Opara
"Good people will die but their good works will not" (Babalawo Adamson Lawal).
CAO.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Lord Anunoby,
You are on target: Bullseye: my first question is “motivated by the unconstitutional and shameful theft by the Yakubu Gowon dictatorship of the private property of some of his fellow citizens”.
“They” might still be celebrating what they believe was “the spoils of war” or “War Booty” but which, all things fairly considered is tantamount to nothing less than Theft : The confiscation of Igbo assets in Port Harcourt - more precisely the confiscation of Igbo-owned businesses, houses and other properties in Port Harcourt which were said to have been “abandoned”. It’s the first piece of news that I saw first-hand in my first week in Port Harcourt : Igbo owned houses were pointed out to me that had been allegedly “abandoned” and therefore auctioned away at Five Naira a piece to some of the hungry egg eaters. The Nazis committed similar crimes such as the looting of Jewish property
The wicked one says, “What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is also mine”
Have the Igbos been compensated for these losses?
It’s most worrying that we have seen the same arguments being advanced in and out of this forum, as if the looting of Igbo assets is a precedent that should be followed in the eventuality of Biafra being born by referendum and constitutionally – that the spectre of looting Igbo-owned assets and properties located outside of Igboland should act as sufficient deterrent to thwart any such moves by those who would like to see a peaceful Biafra.
CH
...
Salimonu Kadiri
John Mbaku
Cornelius Hamelberg
Parachuter Ogbeni Kadiri,
You are free to wax poetic or negative about my love for the Igbo people. I assure you that it is not based on your words/ sentiments written or otherwise expressed in cyberspace.
I know that “We are all Nigerians” is your favourite mantra
The Quran al Karim says “and let not hatred of a people incite you not to act equitably. Be just; that is nearer to observance of duty.”
Re- About what you find “incongruent to common sense”. I take it that what you have in mind is your common sense and not mine. After all, my “speculation” is built on your projection in your so many words that if Biafra comes into existence then the Igbos will have to move their houses from non-Igbo lands in Nigeria. Did you say that or didn’t you?
Elsewhere: “If the lady is serious about divorcing her husband, the most sensible thing for her to do is to pack her belongings and move from the house of the husband to her own apartment” ( Ogbeni Kadiri)
“If Emeka Umeagbalasi is very serious about having an Igbo republic named Biafra, the easiest way to achieve that is to call on all Igbo to return to Igbo land from Nigeria.” (Ogbeni Kadiri)
Your words: “That no Igbo person came forward to claim the houses could be that their owners had died during the war” Doesn’t it strike you as odd that so many Igbos could have died leaving no heirs?
Yours truly,
Menahem.
...
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Chidi Anthony Opara
"We no go carry gun, if we carry gun, we don become terrorist" (Chuka Okoli, alias Obosi, an IPOB member and panel beater at Rumuadaolu Port Harcourt)
CAO.
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2015 11:53:11 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear IBK,
I’m not playing to any gallery. Which gallery? Certainly not the gallery of USA-Africa series jurors.
Ogbeni Kadiri might be very pleased with himself and and very happy with you praising the usual venom in his hate-filled drivel and all the mucous in his anti-Biafra spittle as nothing less than “cool factual morning dew”
Some Lawyers are liars and some liars are lawyers. Half-truths are said to be complete lies. Do you agree? I am not deceived. I know that it’s your profession, the way you make your daily bread, oftimes defending the wicked.
And what’s this about “Half-Yoruba”? A person is either Yoruba or not. Next, on the Biafra question someone will be telling us about that improbable creature Mr. In-Between, the perfect equilibrium of being “Half-Yoruba & Half-Igbo”, but even that cannot guarantee neutrality when it comes to standing up for the truth (the whole truth and nothing but the truth).
In my world you either are or you are not. No half anything and no Frank Yerby Octroons. I can see that like Ogbeni Kadiri you are also a stickler for definitions, this time the genetic and the cultural in the big world music. But this is not a time for half-truths, and talking about purgatory I notice that your Pape says that even atheists are redeemed by their good works.
You talk about “all the Igbo who genuinely owned properties in Port Harcourt” whilst Ogbeni Kadiri says that “Before the Federal forces captured Port Harcourt in May 1968, Igbo people in the town fled with all their moveable trade-wares called businesses”
Ogbeni Kadiri, Igbos also had shops or did they move their shops, carted them off in wheelbarrows, as part of “their moveable trade-wares called businesses” so that you could add with unchallenged impunity that “and as such, there were no *Igbo businesses* to confiscate.”?
I have not taken "the trouble to research issues in-depth” but I take Sam Mbakwe’s peoples’ word about what I have stated. If I were Ogbeni Kadiri, just like him I would ask you to produce the documentary evidence,” the case file number, name of presiding judge and court” etc. - but even that would not be enough for me to accept your “I rest my case” when so many houses were auctioned off.
As to identity politics, Ogbeni Kadiri exonerates Gowon on the basis of “ he married his Igbo wife”:
My last question goes to Ogbeni Kadiri and he can retain you as his solicitor and advocate if it so pleases him.He stated that “In fact, if any house was illegally declared abandoned, the owner had the option of going to court with a proper documents of ownership to reclaim his/her house. A house cannot be confiscated from a ghost owner but it can be declared abandoned by the authorities and be compulsorily administered under the law.”
My questions: Suppose the papers had been burned (arson) or had otherwise disappeared? Or the whole exercise was being conducted in an atmosphere of fear? You think that it's justice that a man has to re-buy his own house/ houses at an auction?
BTW, I was last in Freetown and only for ten days in 1970. I have often toyed with the idea of travelling to Freetown to reclaim some of my little empire of coconut trees and sand, but I know that I would get into a whole lot of trouble and that someone (maybe some politicians have already erected their mansions on my beach land, so if it’s your money or your life, I will always choose my life and if it’s your money or your wife, I will always choose my wife…
And there you have it - the Igbo man having to choose between his life and claim his looted property in very dangerous circumstances, chooses life
By the way that move you house from my land happened to my grandfather Louis Hamelberg who had built his house at Fort Street, Tower Hill, the highest point in Central Freetown. I believe the lease for the land was up and the landowner told him that he wanted his land back and for Louis to kindly move his house from the land … or? Or? OR Things Fall Apart...
Oh justice!
Cornelius
After the Sabbath, I’m going to make a couple of definitive statements about the terrorism situation and Sweden here:
...
Ibukunolu A Babajide
One Nigeria
--
Chidi Anthony Opara
IBk,
Some comments inflict serious demage on someone's credibility and that is what this comment of yours just did. It did not in any way deminish the Biafra cause.
It is however, your right.
Like Salimonu Kadiri, your posts here are begining to surprise me.
Be well always brother,
CAO.
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Chidi Anthony Opara
CAO.
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Chidi,
1981-1984 I knew the then Rivers State : Port Harcourt, Ahoada, Senator Francis Ellah’s Umoku, the Ogoni man’s land, Bonny, Buguma, Bakana and the rest of the Riverine areas and in the then Imo State, Aba, Owerri and Umuahia, fairly well. My only sources of information about "abadoned properties", hearsay, sometimes from very high levels of direct involvement, but unfortunately I never asked to see any signed documents
IBK may be imbued with the spirit of reconciliation, but given that much has happened since 1970, if his purpose in posting Jean Herskovits’ article dated January 1973 was to give background information then that information does not wholly tally with what he IBK himself has postulated in this thread, (the big bold black letters for emphasis) .
IBK’s words: “Sam Mbakwe came to prominence after the civil war in January 1970 as the lawyer who pleaded the Igbo cause and represented almost all the Igbo who genuinely owned properties in Port Harcourt and he either got compensation for their properties or he got the properties back.
For his exertions he became the first civilian Governor of Imo State.
Let the gullible continue to lap up lies! They shall be confronted by the truth and the truth if they love the truth shall set them free. For those who love lies, they will remain in perpetual damnation and end in purgatory.”
Since it’s credibility that we’re talking about let me say this: Sam Mbakwe ( May the Almighty be pleased with him) was a good man and as far as I know, a good governor of Imo State right up to his last day as governor when Muhammadu Buhari & the Nigerian Military took over the reins of power from the Shehu Shagari government on 31.12.1983.
My main point has been that many of the so called “abandoned houses were never restored to their rightful owners, nor was justice – (compensation rightfully received, by all victims whose houses had been auctioned away at FIVE NAIRA each. Whereas IBK says that Sam Mbakwe “either got compensation for their properties or he got the properties back”, the Foreign Affairs article is less categorical and a little more reserved about this issue (my underlinings for emphasis):
“IV
Precisely because of the prewar practice of investing outside Iboland, Ibo property is no less important an issue than Ibo jobs-and in Port Harcourt, the major southern city of the former Eastern Region, it is more important. After the events of 1966 and during the war itself, most states set up "abandoned property" authorities. The workings of those authorities varied: in the Mid-West, the buildings left by fleeing East-Central State Ibo were inventoried and assessed from November 1967; rents were collected, banked in the owner's name, and given over on demand at the war's end. In Benue- Plateau the Governor, asked continually about the matter during the war, replied: "I have an abandoned property authority-and the Ibo will come back." And, as he relates it, "they said, these outsiders, 'No, never.' But I knew my Ibo classmates [at the University of Ibadan] as intimates; I knew they'd be back, and they are back. Those who thought they would not be do not know Nigeria."
But the situation was far more complex in Port Harcourt, which has produced the most difficult postwar problem-some say the only intractable one. The major port of the former Eastern Region, and the center of the petroleum industry before the war, the city had a predominantly Ibo population, though it was located in the minorities region where feelings against majority domination had for years run higher than anywhere else. An area of enormous ethnic and linguistic intricacy, the Niger Delta, with Port Harcourt its only major city, felt the war with particular bitterness. For in Port Harcourt over 95 percent of the individually owned property belonged to Ibo. Most of the people in what would become the Rivers State were, with those of the South-East, the minorities of the former Eastern Region, which the Ibo had long controlled politically. Further, the vast oil resources of the region were located there, and the Rivers people feared that the resulting revenues would be used in Iboland rather than in the previously neglected delta area.[iv]
For the Rivers people, creation of their own state and control of its capital were overwhelmingly important, but Port Harcourt, to all Ibo an Ibo city, was no less important to those who had been born there, and to Biafrans generally. This issue, unresolvable, provoked bitterness during the war and ill feeling in postwar relations unmatched elsewhere in Nigeria.
At the end of the war the capital of the Rivers State, Port Harcourt, was, as observers described it, a "ghost town." Further, the state government had to be run from a place where most of the property still belonged to people from outside the state. Though in time Port Harcourt showed signs of activity, as businesses reopened and oil companies returned and even some Ibo workers came back, the question of "abandoned properties" remained unsettled. Today, despite the release of a very small percentage of houses to their owners, the problem is far from solved. The Rivers' view is simply stated by one official: "Our government cannot be a tenant, nor can we abdicate; we must control our own land for our own people."
In the East-Central State, however, lack of capital is a major issue. Ibo who own property in Port Harcourt, each desperately needing at least rents to rehabilitate perhaps dozens of people in the extended family system, cannot understand the delay now nearing three years. Ibo are emphatic in telling outsiders that if civil strife ever erupts again in Nigeria, "It will not come from here." But some of the most thoughtful then add a qualifier: if the Port Harcourt issue remains unresolved then some future conflict just might draw in the Ibo.
In the Rivers State the general argument runs that the problem will take time to sort out, but some Rivers people see it differently. One man who suffered at the hands of the Biafran forces during the war says, none the less, that the prolonged impasse on the Ibo problem is not only unfair but will be self-destructive for the Rivers State. As he sees it, Port Harcourt must again become the port for the East-Central State, as it was before the war when produce also came there from western parts of the present South- East State. "But now ECS is turning to the Mid-West ports, and the South- East to Calabar; it's fine to say the Rivers have money, but there's more to a healthy economy than just oil, and before the war P.H. attracted industry from everywhere." Nor do all in the federal government, however understanding of the Rivers' position, appreciate a slowness that undermines the idea of "One Nigeria," the single blatant blemish on a reconciliation whose smoothness has impressed even those who believed in it most.
The Rivers' neighbor, the South-East State, was also originally proclaimed part of Biafra. Sharing with Rivers the problems of Nigerian minorities, its people shared with them also fierce divisions over secession, and severe war damage. Yet the tone of reconciliation is different, and the state's Military Governor says that this is precisely because there was in the area no Ibo city like Port Harcourt; there were fewer Ibo property owners and others in the state. That produced what he calls "very active neglect," but it also created a situation free of the extreme postwar tensions of Port Harcourt, which made reconciliation easier.”
Gowon and what has been described as his magnanimity is not in doubt (not because he married an Igbo woman - a love act of the heart, not necessarily “magnanimity” (nor was she a prisoner of war) although one cannot rule out the possibility that like King Solomon (the champion, over 800 wives!) It could have even been regarded as a “political” marriage and on a personal level a seal to what has been described as his policy of post-war reconciliation.
In these days of Boko Haram and worldwide terrorism, here’s the Torah on the treatment of female prisoners of war
One last little note on a real danger: Given that ostensibly Boko Haram wants to erect their caliphate over the North Eastern parts of Nigeria or indeed the whole of what is still the ( Federal) Republic Nigeria, hopefully any of their terror incursions into Igbo-land will be rigorously resisted by Nigeria’s Federal Military, failing which the miscreants and street urchins and other good citizens of that area of Nigeria will have to defend themselves precisely as the Emir of Kano said not so long ago
I’m still trying to figure out the meaning of the saying “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”
Chidi, just now it’s two degrees below zero outside my kitchen window….
Cornelius
Salimonu Kadiri
I am not anti-Biafra and I do not hate those claiming to be one but I am opposed to the motives being adduced for the demand to excise the Igbo from Nigeria to become Biafra. After the civil war, Igbo people had fully been integrated into Nigeria and they have participated, with other ethnic groups of Nigeria, in the corrupt governments of the country. The only position a person of Igbo ethnic language is yet to hold in Nigeria is the presidency. Therefore, I am against flat-footed populists craving the excise of Igbo from Nigeria on the ground that Igbos are persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated in Nigeria. While the flatfooted populists keep on pressing their venomous snake kisses on the cheeks of the Igbo, they asked of what would be the legal status of properties owned by persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated Igbos in various parts of Nigeria, should Biafra come into being. Question which the liberal populists should answer is, how could persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated Igbos in Nigeria have been able to acquire properties? Are the liberal populists not becoming unreasonable to think that if the Igbos secede because of injustice, they will get justice over acquired properties in Nigeria after secession?
Menahem Hamelberg previously wrote, "It's the first piece of news that I saw first-hand in my first week in Port Harcourt: Igbo owned houses were pointed out to me that had been allegedly abandoned and therefore auctioned away at Five Naira a piece. THE NAZIS COMMITTED SIMILAR CRIMES SUCH AS THE LOOTING OF JEWISH PROPERTY." Here, you have climbed the tree beyond the leaves and consequently have to fall down. Who pointed out Igbo owned houses that had allegedly been abandoned and therefore auctioned at Five Naira a piece? Was your informant an Igbo, Ijaw, or Ogoni? How reliable was your informant? Were you present when the auction took place? You have elongated falsehood to its elastic breaking point!!
The Nigerian civil war was fought to keep the nation one and not to exterminate the Igbo people. The Nigerian situation could not be compared to Nazi Europe. Hence, it is an extreme belittlement of the Jewish sufferings in Nazi Europe and over-exaggeration of Igbo sufferings during the civil war in Nigeria to equate the two un-identical events in history as one. Right from 1925/26, Adolf Hitler had propagated in his Mein Kampf that 'One blood demands one Reich.' His intention to exterminate the Jews was known to other European countries that shared similar ideas about the Jews. Hatred against the Jews in Europe pre-dated Hitler. Nigeria is the only country in the world that has ever fought a war under the supervision of International Observers who testified that the Nigerian forces never perpetrated genocide against the Igbo.
Igbos also had shops, you asserted, and then went on to ask: or did they move their shops, carted them off in wheelbarrows...? War began on July 6, 1967 and by May 1968 Port Harcourt was captured. From May 30, 1967, Gowon had announced land and sea blockade of the then Biafra, an action which made influx of goods and commodities scarce in Port Harcourt. Shops in Port Harcourt by the time it was captured were already empty. You should also understand that shops are parts of buildings which are not moveable, even though articles for sales could be moved. On the assumed abandoned houses which I said the owners could reclaim on presenting valid documents of ownership, Menahem Hamelberg countered me with questions. Hear him, "Suppose the papers had been burned (arson) or had otherwise disappeared? Or the exercise was being conducted in an atmosphere of fear? You think that it's justice that a man has to re-buy his own house/houses at an auction?" A war refugee fleeing from Port Harcourt could not have left documents attributing the ownership of his house(s) behind in as much as he hoped to return after the war. However, it was reported that fleeing Igbo from Port Harcourt deliberately destroyed their houses because they did not hope to return there and they did not want them to fall into the hands of indigenous Port Harcourt's tribe. One cannot lay claim to a house or property without valid documents to attest to ownership. Legal document of ownership is a must requirement, if more than a person are claiming ownership of the same property. As for the hypothetic question of if 'the whole exercise was being conducted in an atmosphere of fear' I think it is unjust to insinuate such a scenario. Why should one be guessing about if there was atmosphere of fear in what happened after the war 45 years ago when there are clear cut evidence that the war ended in the spirit of no victor no vanquish. If there was such fear, Igbos would not have been in such a large numbers throughout Nigeria as they are today. That fear would have restricted them to the Igbo ethnic territory. My answer to the last question of if it is justice for a man to re-buy his own house(s) at an auction depends on the reasons for auctioning. If the house is being auctioned as abandoned by the authorities, partly because the owner has no valid documents of ownership and partly because of preventing environmental dilapidation in the city, it is justice for a man to re-buy his presumed property. The house can be auctioned too as a debt recovering exercise which does not exclude the house owner from bidding.
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 2015 08:42:05 -0800
Chidi Anthony Opara
The abandoned properties cases, as I learned, were done pro bono.
CAO.
Chidi Anthony Opara
Chidi Anthony Opara
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Chidi,
I read all the USA-Africa dialogue mail at the website since it would take too much space in my mailbox and furthermore, I don’t read all posts, only those with headlines that I find interesting. I don’t know why I find that my mail to you was truncated in mid-stream maybe because of what I said about Shlomo Hamelech – but that was only a mild joke (some rabbis I know are much harder and so isthe Torah). Anyway here is my mail to you in full – IN FULL because I believe that is some of what Ogbeni Kadiri is replying to and of course I stand by what I say and I’m going to respond to him shortly but before that, once again and for the record here it is again IN FULL:
Dear Chidi,
1981-1984 I knew the then Rivers State : Port Harcourt, Ahoada, Senator Francis Ellah's Umoku, the Ogoni man's land, Bonny, Buguma, Bakana and the rest of the Riverine areas and in the then Imo State, Aba, Owerri and Umuahia, fairly well. My only sources of information about "abadoned properties", hearsay, sometimes from very high levels of direct involvement, but unfortunately I never asked to see any signed documents
IBK may be imbued with the spirit of reconciliation, but given that much has happened since 1970, if his purpose in posting Jean Herskovits' article dated January 1973 was to give background information then that information does not wholly tally with what he IBK himself has postulated in this thread, (the big bold black letters for emphasis) .
IBK's words: "Sam Mbakwe came to prominence after the civil war in January 1970 as the lawyer who pleaded the Igbo cause and represented almost all the Igbo who genuinely owned properties in Port Harcourt and he either got compensation for their properties or he got the properties back.
For his exertions he became the first civilian Governor of Imo State.
Let the gullible continue to lap up lies! They shall be confronted by the truth and the truth if they love the truth shall set them free. For those who love lies, they will remain in perpetual damnation and end in purgatory."
Since it's credibility that we're talking about let me say this: Sam Mbakwe ( May the Almighty be pleased with him) was a good man and as far as I know, a good governor of Imo State right up to his last day as governor when Muhammadu Buhari & the Nigerian Military took over the reins of power from the Shehu Shagari government on 31.12.1983.
My main point has been that many of the so called "abandoned houses were never restored to their rightful owners, nor was justice – (compensation rightfully received, by all victims whose houses had been auctioned away at FIVE NAIRA each. Whereas IBK says that Sam Mbakwe "either got compensation for their properties or he got the properties back", the Foreign Affairs article is less categorical and a little more reserved about this issue (my underlinings for emphasis):
"IV
Precisely because of the prewar practice of investing outside Iboland, Ibo property is no less important an issue than Ibo jobs-and in Port Harcourt, the major southern city of the former Eastern Region, it is more important. After the events of 1966 and during the war itself, most states set up "abandoned property" authorities. The workings of those authorities varied: in the Mid-West, the buildings left by fleeing East-Central State Ibo were inventoried and assessed from November 1967; rents were collected, banked in the owner's name, and given over on demand at the war's end. In Benue- Plateau the Governor, asked continually about the matter during the war, replied: "I have an abandoned property authority-and the Ibo will come back." And, as he relates it, "they said, these outsiders, 'No, never.' But I knew my Ibo classmates [at the University of Ibadan] as intimates; I knew they'd be back, and they are back. Those who thought they would not be do not know Nigeria."
But the situation was far more complex in Port Harcourt, which has produced the most difficult postwar problem-some say the only intractable one. The major port of the former Eastern Region, and the center of the petroleum industry before the war, the city had a predominantly Ibo population, though it was located in the minorities region where feelings against majority domination had for years run higher than anywhere else. An area of enormous ethnic and linguistic intricacy, the Niger Delta, with Port Harcourt its only major city, felt the war with particular bitterness. For in Port Harcourt over 95 percent of the individually owned property belonged to Ibo. Most of the people in what would become the Rivers State were, with those of the South-East, the minorities of the former Eastern Region, which the Ibo had long controlled politically. Further, the vast oil resources of the region were located there, and the Rivers people feared that the resulting revenues would be used in Iboland rather than in the previously neglected delta area.[iv]
For the Rivers people, creation of their own state and control of its capital were overwhelmingly important, but Port Harcourt, to all Ibo an Ibo city, was no less important to those who had been born there, and to Biafrans generally. This issue, unresolvable, provoked bitterness during the war and ill feeling in postwar relations unmatched elsewhere in Nigeria.
At the end of the war the capital of the Rivers State, Port Harcourt, was, as observers described it, a "ghost town." Further, the state government had to be run from a place where most of the property still belonged to people from outside the state. Though in time Port Harcourt showed signs of activity, as businesses reopened and oil companies returned and even some Ibo workers came back, the question of "abandoned properties" remained unsettled. Today, despite the release of a very small percentage of houses to their owners, the problem is far from solved. The Rivers' view is simply stated by one official: "Our government cannot be a tenant, nor can we abdicate; we must control our own land for our own people."
In the East-Central State, however, lack of capital is a major issue. Ibo who own property in Port Harcourt, each desperately needing at least rents to rehabilitate perhaps dozens of people in the extended family system, cannot understand the delay now nearing three years. Ibo are emphatic in telling outsiders that if civil strife ever erupts again in Nigeria, "It will not come from here." But some of the most thoughtful then add a qualifier: if the Port Harcourt issue remains unresolved then some future conflict just might draw in the Ibo.
In the Rivers State the general argument runs that the problem will take time to sort out, but some Rivers people see it differently. One man who suffered at the hands of the Biafran forces during the war says, none the less, that the prolonged impasse on the Ibo problem is not only unfair but will be self-destructive for the Rivers State. As he sees it, Port Harcourt must again become the port for the East-Central State, as it was before the war when produce also came there from western parts of the present South- East State. "But now ECS is turning to the Mid-West ports, and the South- East to Calabar; it's fine to say the Rivers have money, but there's more to a healthy economy than just oil, and before the war P.H. attracted industry from everywhere." Nor do all in the federal government, however understanding of the Rivers' position, appreciate a slowness that undermines the idea of "One Nigeria," the single blatant blemish on a reconciliation whose smoothness has impressed even those who believed in it most.
The Rivers' neighbor, the South-East State, was also originally proclaimed part of Biafra. Sharing with Rivers the problems of Nigerian minorities, its people shared with them also fierce divisions over secession, and severe war damage. Yet the tone of reconciliation is different, and the state's Military Governor says that this is precisely because there was in the area no Ibo city like Port Harcourt; there were fewer Ibo property owners and others in the state. That produced what he calls "very active neglect," but it also created a situation free of the extreme postwar tensions of Port Harcourt, which made reconciliation easier."
Gowon and what has been described as his magnanimity is not in doubt (not because he married an Igbo woman - a love act of the heart, not necessarily "magnanimity" (nor was she a prisoner of war) although one cannot rule out the possibility that like King Solomon (the champion, over 800 wives!) It could have even been regarded as a "political" marriage and on a personal level a seal to what has been described as his policy of post-war reconciliation.
In these days of Boko Haram and worldwide terrorism, here's the Torah on the treatment of female prisoners of war
One last little note on a real danger: Given that ostensibly Boko Haram wants to erect their caliphate over the North Eastern parts of Nigeria or indeed the whole of what is still the ( Federal) Republic Nigeria, hopefully any of their terror incursions into Igbo-land will be rigorously resisted by Nigeria's Federal Military, failing which the miscreants and street urchins and other good citizens of that area of Nigeria will have to defend themselves precisely as the Emir of Kano said not so long ago
I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of the saying "the road to hell is paved with good intentions"
Chidi, just now it's two degrees below zero outside my kitchen window….
Cornelius
On Saturday, 21 November 2015 07:49:40 UTC+1, Chidi Anthony Opara wrote:
Salimonu Kadiri
S. Kadiri
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 03:31:15 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Ogbeni Kadiri,
Many different people pointed out some of these houses and others of impeccable integrity mentioned the facticity of allegedly abandoned properties. I don’t feel called upon to reveal their names. In my first week in Nigeria, I had dinner with the former Governor of Rivers state Alfred Papapreye Diete-Spiff at his residence, but we did not speak about Biafra and I did not return to visit him because I saw some nice mademoiselles at his residence and as if by precognition did not wanting to get even remotely involved or to get too close to any of them or their ogas, so that later when things go wrong my ass does not becomes grass. . Nor did the Chief Justice of Rivers State who I met the first week and finally two days before I felt Nigeria ever breathe the word Biafra in my ear. In London, Port Harcourt, Owerri, Aba and Umuahia I met and stayed with other Ogas who were much closer to Biafra…
Yes indeed, the Nazis looted Jewish property. Now please stop being pompous and overly self-righteous. Even if you don’t know any better, I know that in saying that in no way was it meant to be “an extreme belittlement of the Jewish sufferings in Nazi Europe and over-exaggeration of Igbo sufferings during the civil war in Nigeria to equate the two un-identical events in history as one.” By the way in 1969 someone looted a painting worth £15,000 Sterling belonging to me and my Better Half ( I wrote to Professor Simon Ottenberg about this a few years ago )
Before any of these most recent forum discussions of Biafra you have told me time without number that you are not against Biafra per se - (We are all Nigerians etc.) and I believe you.
You know that I don’t doubt or have any reason to doubt your absolute honesty, integrity, sincerity, high moral ground or that your points of view are partly informed by your own experience of the Biafra War and that you would not like to see a repeat of either the Biafran death toll, some death by starvation or more Federal military suffering.
To give an extreme example, I could say that your own bitter experience of the Bifara war could be akin to that of Sa'd ibn Mu'adh who had been badly wounded (by his Jewish cousins) at the Battle of Khyber - except that I’m sure that with your Biafran countrymen you would be more magnanimous. And it was this man Sa'd ibn Mu’adh that the Prophet of Islam (s.a.w.) asked – after the Muslim warriors had been victorious, “What shall we do with these Jews? (These Jewish prisoners of war?) and Sa’d, still in pain, recommended the following fate for the defeated Jews of Kyhber, the Banu Qurayza: “Slaughter the males and sell the female into slavery “
I know for a fact that you wouldn’t pass such a judgment on a vanquished Biafra people circa 1970…
I too subscribe to not just the notion of tawhid but the principle of unity generally as in 2000 Blacks got to be free
Yes, I do have my own positions about the Second World War, about various Liberation movements in Africa, South America and other parts of the world and very strong positions about Middle East politics too. And when it comes to Biafra, IBK would probably be the first to say that 1981-1984 I have been soaked and marinated in Biafra propaganda. But I was soaked and marinated long before that in fact at the behest of Professor Eldred Durosimi Jones we were among the first people to sign letters of protest when his friend Wole Soyinka was detained by the Federal authorities …
Both of us must admit that the Nigerian scenario is very different today from what it was such as the pogroms of Igbos in Northern Nigeria before the 30th May, 1967, when the secession of Biafra was declared . Now you keep on saying that the pro-Biafra people’s main motives are based on (your words) claims “that Igbos are persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated in Nigeria.” This should not get too long but I can give you many examples of people who are “persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated “but nevertheless “have been able to acquire properties” e.g. in what was Saddam’s Iraq?
Your problem is that you seem to think that if that is the only motive for Biafrans wanting their Biafra that is enough reason for them not to expect that their hard earned properties bank accounts etc. should be illegally seized by the remnant Federal Republic of Nigeria. I come to this conclusion as the answer to your rhetorical question “Are the liberal populists not becoming unreasonable to think that if the Igbos secede because of injustice, they will get justice over acquired properties in Nigeria after secession?”
What is the motivation of the Scots and the Catalans?
And what pray, would be the motivation for the Oduduwa secessionists wanting their own Yoruba Republic or Kingdom apart from wanting to establish a great country or is the song that begins
” Every man gotta right to decide his own destiny,
And in this judgement there is no partiality…”
Only an idle child’s nursey rhyme?
I haven’t read the Swedish papers for the past two days and must do so now.
By the way my son Ola has written a preface to the Swedish edition of Assata Shakur’s autobiography. Time has passed: he started school at Ahoada, in Nigeria.
Talk to you later.
Menahem.
...
Salimonu Kadiri
In your item 2, you exclaimed, "Yes indeed, the Nazis looted Jewish property," as if I had disputed it. What I have cautioned you not to do is to equate the persecution of the Jews in Europe, up to the end of World War II, with the fate of the Igbo in the Nigerian civil war. Only a Biafran extremist will equate Igbo situation in Nigeria to pre-World War II situation of the Jews in Europe.
In the same item 2 you wrote, "And when it comes to Biafra, IBK would probably be the first to say that 1981-1984, I have been soaked and marinated in Biafra propaganda." The impression I get from reading the foregoing is that you were in Nigeria, Rivers State, between 1981 and 1984. If that is true, it means that your statement in item 1 (Many different people pointed out some of these houses and others of impeccable integrity mentioned the facticity of allegedly abandoned properties) was an Igbo folklore developed from their myths on the civil war. By 1981 when you arrived in Nigeria Igbo had fully been re-integrated into Nigeria after the war that ended on January 15, 1970. The vice President of Nigeria was Dr Alex Ekwueme and the Speaker of the House was Edwin Ume-Ezeoke. Igbo were in all parts of Nigeria in large numbers. Your informants on abandoned properties probably saw you as a semi-arian race and sold the folklore to you with the intention of attracting your sympathy and handouts of money. Your mission in Port Harcourt was not to investigate thirteen years old abandoned Igbo properties and there was no reason for anyone to come and complain to you about his/her abandoned properties unless he/she could get some pecuniary gains from you. It is amusing to read from you that oppressed, persecuted, marginalised and unjustly treated could be allowed by their oppressors and persecutors to acquire properties. Very soon, you will say Palestinians are acquiring properties, not in Sadam's Iraq but, in Netanyahu's Israel.
As if the Igbo must sing the same song as the Scots and Catalans, you asked, "What is the motivation of Scots and Catalans?" If the Scots and Catalans sing, Divided we stand, United we fall to the United Kingdom and Spain respectively, why must Igbo sing the same song to Nigeria? Are you saying everything done by the Caucasians is good and should be copied by Africans? Intoxicated with the wine of every man gotta a right to determine his own destiny, you want every village in Nigeria to be a country because in Sierra Leone, a tree makes a forest!! I disagree with you.
S.Kadiri
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 14:32:19 -0800
Cornelius Hamelberg
Ogbeni Kadiri,
The plot thickens. SO you want me to submit to your views?
As Jesus of Nazareth is reported to have said, “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye!”
We can’t help but notice that such is your obsession with Biafra that you have either entirely forgotten about or are only carefully avoiding the reference I made to our Yoruba brothers and sisters aspirations: the issue of the Oduduwa Republic secessionists. And I guess that if they were to stage a peaceful demonstration (without police permission), in the name of fairness and impartiality you would not hesitate to include them in your outlaw kingdom of “miscreants and street urchins” – as baptised by you. The new baptism, not by water, not by ogogoro and not by fire but by something much stronger, by the law-abiding tongue of the one and only Ogbeni Kadiri.
Since you keep on praise-singing the Cauc-asians why don’t you come right in the open and confess that you are a Lugardist in the spirit of Frederick John Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard GCMG CB DSO PC…
But you have a point here O: Indeed it would not be such a bad idea or in the spirit of the Baron if every village in Nigeria became an independent country just because in Sierra Leone, every tree makes a forest. In 1981, the late Senator Francis Ellah argued that since Rivers State accounted for 56% of Nigeria’s national revenue , a further thirteen States could be created out of Rivers State to add to the already nineteen states and that way every state would get an equal share of the gravy ( the oil money. He tried to but of course he knew that even if he could successfully pilot such a bill through the Rivers State House of Representatives – with each local government area / village on the ready to elect their own governors etc. there was no hope of the bill ever being approved by the National Assembly. And thus Senator Ellah succeeded in making his point about the politics of revenue derivation compared with revenue allocation, , at that time with Rivers State accounting for 56% of Nigeria’s common wealth.
As to my not taking up the matter of Biafra with Oga Diete-Spiff the former military governor, I was taught long ago, not to be too forward with Ogas (of any nationality) and to let him initiate conversation – and then of course one can skilfully ( carefully) guide the conversation to this or that end. Feigning ignorance is one of the best ways – and judiciously asking a stupid or not so stupid question can usually get the other man rolling to the point where you know exactly where he stands. On the said occasion – what promised to be the first of many such occasions, I was doing my best to avoid winking back at one of the mademoiselles that I foresaw was going to be my downfall in Rivers State long before my Better-Half and my son arrived and I was also busy admiring the old colonial structure of his residence and the food on the table. I was much more at ease and with the Chief Justice and with other dignitaries. I am very very good with elderly people, having kept elderly company most of my life. I was taken to my very first party by Joe Ellah - my first Rivers State benefactor and before we arrived at the venue he told me that there was going to be at least thirteen millionaires there and to shut myself up about any socialist bullshit…
I still don’t know why you are so upset. All I said was that, the Nazis committed similar crimes such as the looting of Jewish property. I did not “equate” your side, Gowon and the Federal Military forces with the Nazis, did I? Next you will be telling me that I said that Gowon was Hitler the son of bitch Lucifer, the genocidal mass-murderer and holocaustal plunderer.
But just see who’s talking. Lugardist that you are telling me that my informants on abandoned properties probably saw me as “a semi-arian race” ! Semi maybe even demi-oyigbo ? Am I “saying everything done by the Caucasians is good and should be copied by Africans?”
You can mock me as much as you like. What should I say in response? Should I say like Lakunle the village school teacher, “If now I am misunderstood by you and your race of savages, I rise above taunts, and remain unruffled.”?
About Netanyahu’s Israel, apparently you have no idea about the luxurious life style of some of the Pals.
The Ogbeni Kadiri that I know is usually a truth sayer. True: V-P Alex Ekwueme invited His Holiness the Pope to Nigeria! Maybe V-P Yemi Osinbajo will do ditto with Pope Francis – put Boko Haram to shame by inviting him to visit Africa’s most populous Christian nation?
I’ve still not had time to look at the Swedish papers. It’s time to visit Olugbala here
Yours sincerely,
Cornelius
...
Ibukunolu A Babajide
Thanks dear friend. Posterity will judge. This Biafra agitation was muted when Deziani Okonjo Iweala and other Igbo were at the commanding heights of the Nigerian project. Continue egging innocent and gullible youths into avoidable deaths and injury.
Not only will you lose credibility you will by your incitement have innocent Igbo blood on your hands. The same way the original Biafra brought innocent Igbo blood on the hands of those motivated by greed and inordinate ambition!
Cheers.
IBK
And the someone whose credibility is damaged by this comment IBK, is you.
CAO.
Anunoby, Ogugua
CH,
Yakubu Gowon was never married to Edith Ike Okongwu. He married Victoria who is not Igbo. Gowon denied the paternity of Musa, a son by Edith for many years. This assertion that Edith was ever married to Gowon is a sordid misrepresentation of Gowon’s life story. It is sickeningly uncharitable to Victoria, Gowon’s wife of many years with whom he has children. Worse still, It is shamefully disrespectful of the very accomplished Edith Okongwu who paid a very high personal price for her relationship with Gowon. I am not surprised by the conflation of Edith and Victoria ( two women) into one woman married to Gowon, to make an obnoxious partisan point.
You must know by now as many in this forum do already, that a lot of very blatantly opinionated falsehood is retailed here as facts, in some cases as historical facts. Thank you for siding with right in spite of the allure of the alternative- prejudiced posturing.
--
Cornelius Hamelberg
PS
In anticipation of what you’re going to say, I should like to point out the following, but not in order to pre-empt you:
You keep on harping on the difference between the situation for the Igbos in pre-Biafra Nigeria with the anti-Igbo pogroms in the North etc. and the situation of the Jewish people in Nazi Germany (The Nuremberg Race Laws etc.) and the perennial anti-Semitism in other parts of Europe before WW2.
About the Igbos, you asked, “how could persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated Igbos in Nigeria have been able to acquire properties?”
Dear Salimonu, you could well ask the same question about the Jews of Nazi Germany and the rest of Europe: “how could persecuted, oppressed, marginalised and unjustly treated Jews in Europe have been able to acquire properties?”
One little last thing about abandoned properties. After staying in hotels for three months @ £60 per day (bill footed by the Rivers State Got) Mr. Harry (at the ministry of education Port Harcourt) eventually got me accommodation in Port Harcourt - in the course of scouting for a accommodation some discussion of abandoned properties) - he got me the top floor of an apartment with all modern facilities but (it’s called empathy) I gave the apartment to a Ghanaian friend Reuben Atilley – a choreographer and dance teacher because he had a large family and I was only expecting to be joined by Better Half and son. At the end of the day (I already knew too many people in Port Harcourt, chief of whom best friends George, Ernest, Cromwell, Emma Wopara, Bassey) thought that social life in that city was going to be too hectic and that’s how I arranged with Lady Ngozi (“take it easy Cornelius”) – nice & easy, God bless Nigeria and was content with the little bungalow and work in Ahoada. Btw I much prefer the pastoral African village life (Makeni, Magburaka in the Sierra Leone forests) to the hustle and bustle of city civilisation. But on weekends it was back to city civilisation, Prince David Bull at Romeo Hotel , the Salt& Pepper disco in Port Harcourt, Kofi Sammy in Aba, Dr. Sir Warrior & Oriental Brothers @ the White House in Owerri etc.--- you only live once, and that was a grass bachelor’s life, nothing to regret.
N.B. I am not a Lugardist at heart.
Always Yours Sincerely,
Cornelius
Stockholm,
On Sunday, 22 November 2015 20:20:13 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:
...
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
From: Anun...@lincolnu.edu
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 09:48:19 -0600
Subject: FW: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Anunoby, Ogugua
Last words.
In the same vein:
i) Slave masters slept with their female slaves; they could not be supportive of slavery.
ii) A white supremacist has an African-American friend; he could not be a racist.
iii) A capitalist has a socialist friend; he could not be opposed to socialism.
iv) Remember Brigadier Rotimi’s Biafra rant of a few years ago? He was married to an Igbo woman; he could not be anti-Biafra and anti-Igbo.
Logic has been stood on its head before today. The one below must be one of the most absurd abuse of logic. All because of a humility deficit.
oa
kenneth harrow
how ugly do these politics of genocide appear!
ken
-- kenneth w. harrow faculty excellence advocate professor of english michigan state university department of english 619 red cedar road room C-614 wells hall east lansing, mi 48824 ph. 517 803 8839 har...@msu.edu
John Mbaku
Salimonu Kadiri
S.Kadiri
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 07:40:54 -0800
Salimonu Kadiri
And pastor from the Niger bridge preaches (i) Slave masters slept with their female slaves; they could not be supportive of slavery. The conclusion of this pastor must be totally wrong, if the purpose of enslavement of the females included, among other things, unlimited access to free sexual intercourse. In that wise, slave masters were supportive of slavery because it guaranteed them free access to their female slave's apples. (ii) A white supremacist has an African-American friend he could not be a racist, says pastor from the niger bridge. Again the conclusion of the pastor from the niger bridge is wrong because he has misread the intention of the white supremacist which is to exploit his friendship with the African American to lure the entire African Americans into his racist trapp. The same white supremacists that prevented African American to go to school in the 30s-60s allowed black Africans to study in the US. They even sent so called peace corps to come to Africa to teach in African schools.(iii) A capitalist has a socialist friend; he could not be opposed to socialism, says pastor from niger bridge. What of if the capitalist had chosen a socialist as a friend so as to know how socialists think so that he might adopt a strategy to oppose socialism. With the above explanations, I will like to know from my antagonists, what was the hidden intention of Gowon for marrying (befriending) an Igbo woman if not love across ethnic boundaries in Nigeria?
S.Kadiri
Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2015 14:35:23 -0700
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Ogbeni Kadiri,
It’s 4.30 a.m. in Stockholm. Which “Bread of deceit” are you talking about?
The Siddur note on “good prophets” reads:
“The theme of the Haftarah blessings is the integrity of the prophets and their teachings. Even when it is their mission to criticize and threaten, they are good to the Jewish people. “
I always bear this in mind when I think of the battle of Khaybar
Whilst some of you guys were busy obtaining your highest degrees, I spent some time studying, among other matters, the history of anti-Semitism . It’s a long history. Check the daily news.
What’s the point of ascribing to me words and ideas that are not mine and that I never uttered? Just like you so too Cornelius is fully aware that at no point in time was Nazi Germany in any shape or form a twin partner of Nigeria or that the discrimination of Nigerian citizens that are of Igbo stock is or was exactly the same as the murderous anti-Semitism of the Third Reich which culminated in the Holocaust. So, spare me that kind of bull and stop going out of your way to foist such false ideas on me.
Next you’ll be telling me that I think that the Igbos are the Tutsi or the other guys. Or that the Igbos are the Israelis and that Gowon was Chairman Arafat. I never said any such things or made any such comparisons and if you think that I did, please show me exactly where.
Each tragedy, each genocide has its own particular history. For instance the history of the Jewish Diaspora is - you will agree, not the same as the history of any other Diaspora people. The Jewish citizens of Germany and other European Jewish victims of the Nazis were not Igbos - at least you must agree that I understand that – and that the Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis because they were Jews. So please stop this hue and cry that I am “belittling” the Holocaust and for once and for all please try to get it in your head that likewise far be it from me to belittle the tragedy that befell the Igbo people before, during and after the Biafra War or indeed the tragedy that is befalling innocent Nigerians that are still being murdered by Boko Haram right now, today.
You are now telling this forum that “The persecution of the Jews in Germany came after they have acquired properties and not before.” – by which of course you mean the Nazi persecution of the Jews
What are you suggesting here? Transposing that parallel to the Nigerian context should your sentence read: (a) “The Pogroms against the Igbos in Nigeria came after they had acquired properties and not before” or (b) should it read “The Pogroms against the Igbos in Nigeria came before they had acquired properties and not after they had acquired properties “?
I guess going way back to before the temerity of your good friend and role model – the one you are still fighting for, stiff upper lip Baron Lugard welded everybody so willing together in holy national matrimony in 1914. As Emeka Ojukwu said time and again, we shall have to visit the very foundations.
Now what are you going to say ?
I’m waiting, patiently
Cornelius
...
John Mbaku
--
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