Re: Interesting stuff from Anonymous.

[Ayotunde Bewaji]

Dear Moderator,

I had my teeth cut in the Great Ife (now OAU) tradition, where critical and even caustic appraisal of papers was not a personal thing. For that reason, you could witness colleagues tearing into each others Seminar papers as if they are sworn enemies, only for them to be sharing guguru and booli minutes after the end of the Seminar. There is nothing personal about the exchanges there, even if it may have seemed so - at least from my perspective and for most of us of that generation. You develop an appreciation for positive and negative criticism, using both to grow intellectually and otherwise. Actually, if Professor Farooq Kperogi were to find himself in Jamaica, I would be the first to buy him a Red Stripe beer, or, if he wants a spliff, I will ensure he gets the best dada spliff - ganja has been decriminalized in Jamaica.

So, my Oga Oloye Kofeso Agba, cutting out the thread may deprive us the benefit of knowing the thoughts of interlocutors, re their vision of Nigeria. Could it be that some of us misunderstand/stood Professor Kperogi, or fail to read him properly? Could it be that his seeming "arrogance" is not really intentional degrading of the collective intellect of his readers, but an accident of too much learning - bukuru yansu yansu?

While am with you in enforcing civility, there is always need for some caustic reactions to jolt people out of complacency once in a while. That enables me to grow - once it does not descend into cass-cass, as Jamaicans will say. I remember my teacher at Lower Six who said I will not pass Economics to get promotion to Upper Six, because he thinks I was not paying enough attention and was not reading the book he wrote or that he had recommended. Tough love, but it woke me up and I was one of the few who not only passed to Upper Six, but passed all the subjects at A/Levels. We became friends thereafter, and when his daughter gained admission to Great Ife, I was one of those who took him around to ensure things were fit and proper for the registration of the daughter.

All this is not to rouse any form of innuendo about anyone, but just to say that, Sir Moderator, please allow the discussion to continue. There is no way of discerning the thoughts of people except through what they say or write. That is what will show if they are for or against the masses of our compatriots going through various trials and tribulations, simply because we have persons in positions of power - political, academic, economic, religions, etc - who suffer rank epistemic deficit.

This too shall pass.

Ire o.

Tunde.

Please, read the material below, which I received via WhatsApp from an Anonymous source, but think worthy of sharing:

Election 2019: The Devil Or Deep Blue Sea

A couple of years ago, I was in Dubai, UAE for medical reasons, no thanks to our decrepit Medicare system. The flight, medical, hotel and associated costs, being personally borne, burnt a very deep hole in my modest resources. I settled into a low budget but clean, well kept hotel. 

Lunch time, I sat at the hotel restaurant awaiting my order, when this well spoken, aristocratic looking Emerati in white robes and headgear walked to me smiling. He asked if he could join me. Of course I was curious, my reporter instincts whirring. He sat. First statement: You are a Nigerian.

I scanned his face to get a clue of what he was driving at and said to him: That was a statement not a question. He nodded. I admitted he was right. But why? He smiled again and said “Nigerians were different from other Africans. They are confident people.”

Okay, that was a compliment. But it was the velvet glove covering the iron fist in a roundhouse punch heading for your midriff. For he went on to say, in spite of the obvious confidence and intelligence of Nigerians he has met, he is shocked by some of what they come to do in Dubai. 

He said he was drawn to speak with me because he was surprised to see me in the low budget hotel which only trader type Nigerians usually use. He thought I was scrimping which in his view was sensible and modest. It was not the usual “elite” looking Nigerian behaviour, he added.

So what is the usual elite Nigerian behaviour in Dubai? To answer the question, my new friend asked me if there are hotels, event centers and hospitals in Nigeria. Puzzled, I nodded a yes and said: “Lots of them”. The conversation was getting really interesting. 

He asked more questions: “Why then do Nigerians fly planeloads of people all the way from their country to throw parties, do marriages and hold corporate meetings in Dubai? 

“Why are Nigerians buying up real estate and hotel rooms in Dubai? Why are they flooding the hospitals here? 

“Check the top flight hospitals VIP patient lists and the majority of the names are leading politicians, senators, governors, bank CEOs, top government officials even doctors from Nigeria. 

“What is happening in your country, my friend?”

I was silent. What was I to say? Perhaps he thought I was upset because he put his hand on my shoulders and said he was sorry if he said something wrong. “Don’t get me wrong, I mean no harm. The money from Nigeria is good for my business and country but I am intrigued and curious. If so many of our leaders in the UAE were to take out our resources to spend in another country, it will be absolutely unacceptable and be forcefully condemned as unpatriotic acts.” 

What should I say? Defend my country, my people and leaders? I asked him: “What do you know of Nigeria apart from the folks who throng into your country?” He said there were three key things he reads from the media about Nigeria: oil wealth, massive corruption and extreme poverty. 

I did not want the conversation to go on. I almost went on the defensive with usual Nigerian gra-gra posturing while words to counter him welled up to my lips. But I couldn’t speak. I was silent. Shame enveloped me. I could only say to him: “Now you know the reason for the corruption and poverty you read about.”

He looked at me awhile: “You are sad.”

I said yes. 

He stood up and said he hoped he did not spoil my lunch. 

We shook hands and he left. 

Of course, my lunch was ruined. I kept thinking about the conversation and the huge joke my country has become in the comity of nations. Our brazen foolishness. Our capacity for evil. Our villages lack basic water and roads but we burn billions on parties in foreign lands. Our hospitals and Medicare is shambolic but our leaders burn millions of pounds in foreign hospitals across the world. 

Our education system is disgraceful but children of elites are pouring billions in dollars attending schools abroad. Our banks have no long term funds and do transactions on hot, costly, short term, money mostly from the public sector, yet our elites lead foreigners in moving billions of dollars in illicit financial flows from the country into private bank accounts, real estate, stocks and high profile living in foreign countries. 

How can a people so hate their country to rape it with such rapacious venom. What did Nigeria do wrong to its public officials, its politicians, its army generals, its judges, its policemen, its governors, its local government chairmen, its heads of state, its people generally. Why are the people and its leaders so intent on ruining the country?

It was thus with heavy disquiet that I read the report that Atiku Abubakar, former Vice President and now the Presidential candidate of the PDP, took planeloads of his political stalwarts, mostly crooked men to Dubai for strategy sessions on how to win the 2019 elections. 

Some report put the number of people that flew from Nigeria for the sessions at a rowdy 400. I do not believe that number. Still, it is beyond my ken, why Atiku had to hold his strategy session in Dubai. As my Emerati friend asked me: Are there no events centers and hotels in Nigeria? 

Imagine what the flight tickets, luxury hotel rooms, food, man-no-be-wood-allowance, and other spendthrift frivolities would cost for the crowds of “eminent” men invited. It must have been an invasion, a frivolous money spending invasion to the people of Dubai. My Emerati friend would probably smile to the bank but would also wonder why black men and indeed Nigerians are so dumb.

Imagine if the millions of dollars burnt in that Atiku’s strategy session jamboree in Dubai is spent in Obudu Ranch. Think of the salutary effects on local businesses, hotels, food suppliers and the multiplier impact on households and families. But we are not patriotic. Yet we seek to lead the nation we rape. Politicking, leadership are nothing but a game of greed. One that guarantees that their proboscis is stuck undisturbed in the national nectar.

But it is not just Atiku. Our President Muhammadu Buhari spent months and millions in public funds on his treatment in a London hospital. Is there any cottage hospital built by his administration anywhere in Nigeria in the past three plus years? No. Are the teaching hospitals the horrible coterie of death management upgraded? No. Why are we like this? 

Atiku and Buhari belong to a milieu that splurged in sudden, new found, unearned flow of petrodollars. It was the miliki milieu  when leadership was impunity driven by soldiers with little or no pedigree. It was the milieu when guns, violence, corruption and moral decadence was standard fare. To steal was smart. To ignore court orders was power. 

It was the My-Mercedes Benz-Is-Bigger-Than-Yours era. Today it is private luxury jet is bigger than yours. General Yakubu Gowon defined the milieu back in the 1970s when he reportedly said: “Money is not our problem, but how to spend it.” He even paid the salaries of the public service of another country. The saving habit became old school. Productivity in agriculture and industry died. Morality crashed. For over 50 years until today, the nation’s resources is shared to thieves who haul it into foreign vaults. 

The rot began long ago. It was the milieu when citizens cooked huge amounts of local foods, loaded them in large carriers here in Nigeria and flew the food with large numbers of people by Nigeria Airways planes for parties in London. It was a milieu defined by the statement: Enjoyment of Life Continues. 

The men of that milieu, loaded with and corrupted by free oil money, corrupted the nation as well. Reason committed suicide. With buckets of money they hold on, until today, to the sinews of power. With a defective constitution they consign national prosperity to the dust bin. With a decadent centralized system they talk deceptively about national unity when they mean national treasury in personal pockets. They are blind to patriotism, deaf to cries of the poor and ignorant of the coming social tsunami they are creating.

The generations after them have been cowed or co-opted into the malaise of the Atiku and Buhari milieu. Today, our nouveau riche young men and women  take their marriages and parties to Dubai. They join cults to enjoy the power of impunity and shoot themselves dead over stupid disagreements. Student unions, market women unions, labour unions, professional unions,  non governmental organizations etc the usual bulwarks of social and communal morality are infiltrated and turned into corruption dens. No more core values. The nation is sick.

I pity this country. Like in 2015 when Nigerians had to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea, so it will be again for the presidential elections of 2019. To choose between Atiku and Buhari is a no-win situation for the nation. The other contenders lack the political and financial muscles to make a dent in the elections. 

So Nigerians are left with either Atiku or Buhari. The men of a corrupt milieu who taught and still teach Nigerians to be corrupt. The men who have no scruples wasting money in foreign lands when they could easily have turned their country into Dubai, London, New York for foreigners to come spend money. The men who hold on tenaciously to a unitary constitution and a federation account sharing of national revenues that have killed productivity, vision, progress and prosperity.

I weep for Nigeria. Again, the hard choice between the devil and the deep blue sea. 

Still I am sad.

Dr. John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola BEWAJI, FJIM, MNAL
Professor of Philosophy
BA, MA, PhD Philosophy, PGDE, MA Distance Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy for Children
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus Kingston 7 Jamaica
Tel:       1-876-927-1661-9 Ext: 3993
             1-876-935-8993 (o)
Fax:      1-876-970-2949
Email:   john....@uwimona.edu.jm      johnayotu...@gmail.com       tunde...@yahoo.com (alternate) 
             tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)

http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611630879/Narratives-of-Struggle (2012)
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Aesthetics (2012)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739185032/Ontologized-Ethics (2013)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498518383/The-Rule-of-Law-and-Governance-in-Indigenous-Yoruba-Society-A-Study-in-African-Philosophy-of-Law (2016)

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-humanities-and-the-dynamics-of-african-culture-in-the-21st-century (2017)

On Tuesday, 27 November 2018, 11:30:59 GMT-5, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:

I now have to stop this thread. It has become an intellectual Boko Haramizing, in which words on all sides replace bullets.

Moderator.

 

From: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com>
Reply-To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 9:06 AM
To: dialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Atiku and the Meaning of an “Orphan” in English

 

Dear Farooq Kperogi,

 

You are the self appointed gatekeeper of the English language.  I can see that you also now double as the Gatekeeper of Latin!  Enjoy your gatekeeping duties.  I am absolutely certain that you do enjoy the thankless and worthless gatekeeping that is of no value.

 

Cheers.

 

IBK

 

 

_________________________

Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)

(+2348061276622) / ibk...@gmail.com

 

AN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

But leaves the greater villain loose

Who steals the common from off the goose

 

The law demands that we atone

When we take things that we do not own

But leaves the lords and ladies fine

Who take things that are yours and mine

 

The poor and wretched don’t escape

If they conspire the law to break

This must be so but they endure

Those who conspire to make the law

 

The law locks up the man or woman

Who steals the goose from off the common

And geese will still a common lack

Till they go and steal it back

 -        Anonymous (circa 1764)

 

 

On Tue, 27 Nov 2018 at 17:07, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com> wrote:

IBK,

 

You obviously don't know the meaning of the expression "ad hominem," which is not surprising, given your notoriety for double-dyed idiocy. Next time, when an article is beyond your ken, stay way from it--or ask questions-- and not make a fool of yourself.

 

Farooq

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperog

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

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

 

 

On Tue, Nov 27, 2018 at 3:14 AM Ibukunolu. A. Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com> wrote:

Adeshina Afolayan,

 

You miss the point. I did no ad hominem on Farooq Kperogi. He is too inconsequential to deserve such attention from me. 

 

I simply wrote about a trend. I gave his useless veiled Atiku praise and worship piece as an example of the pseudo-intellectualism that is afoot in Nigeria and is destroying Nigeria. Worse than this, there is also anti-intellectualism where the buffoons (like Donald Trump) gain the upper hand based on racism over people like Barack Obama.  That is also gaining ground in Nigeria. 

 

Without any proof a man weaves a cacophony of baseless lies and thinks he can push it when all he wants to do is promote a thief who is his preferred candidate?  The definition of an orphan has no cultural dimension. You either know it as loss of one parent or you know it as loss of both. The definition admits both meanings. 

 

So if that is the case what is the need for this hypocrisy of clothing a pitch for Atiku in the garb of senseless academic writing. In 1979 Walter Ofonagoro invaded our television screens and did the same justifying the NPN rape of our democracy with the veneer of legitimacy. Barefaced lies. He coined the “Son of the Soil” syndrome and so many similar cliches to cover naked NPN rigging. 

 

Omoruyi was the brain behind Ibrahim Babangida’s never ending transition to nowhere. Option A4 and all that wasteful a little to the right and a little to the left nonsense.  Today we all can see the evil effects of that period in our polity.

 

My point is why are Nigerians unable to speak truth to power. Why do we pretend and behave like hypocrites?  If Farooq Kperogi wants to support the Devil that is his choice. He will not be the first or the last to do so. His elaborate contrived write up that is a mere Atiku campaign sloganeering is not required. He will not succeed in passing off a dog as a monkey!

 

In conclusion, the real politik in Nigeria today is a contest between Buhari and Atiku. No other candidate can upstage these two come 2019.  You are free to support anyone else but these are the two front runners. Votes cast in any way will simply result in the emergence of one of these two. 

 

Cheers. 

 

 

IBK

Sent from my iPhone

On 27 Nov 2018, at 03:40, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Everyone is waiting: Baba Kadiri has still not weighed in on the matter in his own inimitable fashion and when he does, it should bring it all to a boil and hopefully, after the catharses it should all simmer down

Whilst the ogas may passionately dis-agree with Don Kperogi , few would entertain any rudimentary disagreement with “ I have no name” / “Joy is my name” or much else when it comes to Blake's view of children and two sides of the coin illustrated in songs of innocence / songs of experience .

Nor should there be any fundamental disagreement about tackling what is and should be of much greater concern: the problem of orphans and widows created by all kinds of circumstances, such as the current insecurity in the country, the rising death toll from Boko Haram and those fighting them.

I daresay that if there was an unconditional amnesty given whereby all Boko Haram prisoners of war were to be freed, that would bring the endless round of retaliatory violence , bloodshed , carnage to a stop.

Unfortunately, and this may sound cynical, the opposition is banking on a deterioration on the security posed by Boko Haram thus giving them the opportunity of laying all the blame squarely on President Buhari and promising the electorate that they would do better...

 

On Monday, 26 November 2018 20:28:52 UTC+1, julius eto wrote:

Thanks Professor Falola for this great forum. May God continue to bless, guide and protect you for your selfless service (s) to black people worldwide, that is Africans on the continent and in the diaspora.
 Sir, while i regard our brothers Kperogi, IBK and others in this argument highly, i am surprised and disappointed that they are rooting for APC and PDP/Buhari and Atiku which/who have been rejected by a majority of Nigerians that have figured out their hypocrisy, opportunism, greed/looting and nepotism. The millenial voters will deal both incompetent and barely literate duo (a) big blow (s) to the bewilderment of their paid agents by embracing other presidential candidates since there is no difference between the APC and PDP both of which have failed the people..
--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 11/26/18, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Atiku and the Meaning of an “Orphan” in English
 To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
 Date: Monday, November 26, 2018, 5:47 PM
 
 Oga
 Adesina,
 You have a way of
 nicely guilt-tripping people😁. I responded to IBK and
 Bewaji the way I did because they probably imagined that I
 would ignore their ignorant vitriol. I want to show them
 that two can play that game. We all embody a multiplicity of
 personalities. I can be calm, subdued, and respectful when
 the occasion calls for it, and I can be brusque, coarse, and
 rhetorically violent when someone says something to me that
 invites that. I make no pretenses to being a
 uni-dimensional, sober, imperturbable scholar. As Fela
 sings, "I no be gentleman at all o!" I am an
 imperfect human who doesn't suffer fools gladly. When
 people ignore the substance of my contribution and advertise
 their malicious illiteracy in their bid to attack me over
 things they don't understand, I'll come for them--if
 I have time, like I do now.
 Thanks,Farooq
 Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging
 Media
 School of Communication &
 MediaSocial Science
 Building Room 5092 MD
 2207402 Bartow Avenue
 Kennesaw
 State University
 Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
 30144
 Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
 Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms
 of Nigerian English in a Global World
 
 "The nice thing about pessimism is that
 you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly
 surprised." G. F. Will
 
 
 On Mon, Nov
 26, 2018 at 11:16 AM 'Adeshina Afolayan' via USA
 Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
 wrote:
 As far as i am concerned,
 any response that stoops to the level of insults and abuse,
 for those who claim to be intellectuals, reduces our worth.
 For those who responds to any posts with insults and those
 who retort with further insults, what is the essence of your
 education, and of scholarship? Is it impossible to tolerate
 opposing and alternative and alternate viewpoints? If i find
 a viewpoint execrable and indigestible, why not just spew it
 out and remain silent? If my viewpoint is lampooned, why not
 just keep silent or, at best, respond with the utmost
 respect. That is maturity. Do we know how many people
 read what we write? Do we know what we have become in the
 eyes of some others, silent and not silent, on this forum?
 Haba! So, Kperogi writes something and then you are almost
 certain what will follow will be insults and abuses. No
 wonder we have read about transforming this listserv into a
 purely Nigerian arena. So what if Kperogi decides to do a
 linguistic and etymological analysis of "orphan"
 and "orphanages"? Some of us learn from all these.
 And if we are put off, we simply shake our heads and delete
 (thank god for the delete button!). So what if Kperogi is a
 paid hack working for a particular political personage? He
 can do all these and we have no right to impugn his person,
 only his arguments. There is no ad hominem that that
 dignifies a scholar. Indeed, no scholar who feels so angry
 as to respond in kind to a perceived or real insult is also
 dignified. So, how does Kperogi feels after writing all the
 terrible things in response to an insult? How do you feel
 after sending it? Satisfied? Fulfilled? Smug?
 I suspect that a true scholar would
 not be so riled as to insult or respond with insults. Mba! A
 true scholar learns from all sorts of posts, odious and
 pleasurable.  
 We
 all just keep damaging our intellectual worth when we fight
 naked and bloodied in the marketplace. 
  This is just from a
 small boy who knows nothing, and who keeps hoping to learn
 from the big masquerades on this platform.
 
 Adeshina
 Afolayan, PhD
 Department of
 Philosophy
 University of Ibadan
 
 +23480-3928-8429
         
 
 
         
         
             
                 
                 
                     On Monday, November 26, 2018, 3:48:37 PM
 GMT+1, Farooq A. Kperogi <farooq...@gmail.com>
 wrote:
                 
                 
 
                 
 
                 Ibukola,
 First go
 learn basic English grammar. Maybe, just maybe, you will
 then earn a place to join this sort of conversation, which
 is clearly above your mental paygrade. If my 8-year-old son
 were to grade this farrago of irremediable nonsense you
 wrote, you would score an F. I couldn't even read past
 the first three paragraphs before I gave up. Ask your
 intellectual superiors to help you decipher my essay. You
 clearly have no clue what it's about. This knee-jerk
 twaddle you wrote is embarrassing.  Nigeria's
 investment in your education is a total waste. You should be
 ashamed of yourself. If I remembers correctly, you say
 you're a lawyer. Hahaha! Na wa o.
 Farooq
 Farooq A. Kperogi,
 Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging
 Media
 School of Communication &
 MediaSocial Science
 Building Room 5092 MD
 2207402 Bartow Avenue
 Kennesaw
 State University
 Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
 30144
 Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
 Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms
 of Nigerian English in a Global World
 
 "The nice thing about pessimism is that
 you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly
 surprised." G. F. Will
 
 
 On Mon, Nov 26, 2018 at 5:02 AM Ibukunolu A
 Babajide <ibk...@gmail.com>
 wrote:
 The many Farooq
 Kperogis of Nigeria destroyed Nigeria with their worthless
 pseudo-intellectualism.  
 
 America made it clear to the European Allied forces as a
 precondition for helping destroy Germany and the Axis forces
 that European powers will release their claim on their
 colonies and the attendant vice-like grip of Europe on the
 world.  From 1945 when the second world war ended, the new
 world order architecture designed by many and Mrs. Eleanor
 Roosevelt added the Trusteeship Council to the United
 Nations system to take over colonies of defeated German and
 Axis forces in trust for the United Nations.  In addition
 ALL European countries agreed to give up their colonies and
 grant them independence.
 The
 African Germany colonies of Tangayika (held in trust by
 Great Britain), Burundi and Rwanda by Belgium, South West
 Africa (now Namibia) by South Africa, Kameroons shared
 between France and Great Britain (this is the root of the
 Ambazonian crisis there) and Togo went to France.  In
 addition to the agitation for independence generally, these
 African trusteeship entities also had to be
 decolonised.
 Before I
 digress too far, the colonial powers seeing that the
 decolonisation was imminent began a systematic programme of
 brain-washing of local independence agitators by
 dis-organizing them at home and offering them
 scholarships.  They brought them to Europe, gave them
 dysfunctional education and brain-washed them thoroughly
 (have you ever wondered why most of African leaders collude
 with Europeans to loot African treasuries?  This is the
 reason.)  The Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor,
 Ivorien Félix
 Houphouët-Boigny Kenyan
 Jomo Kenyatta and the Old Guard were good
 examples.  Many from Nigeria who went to study in UK 
 belong to this class of early western educated but
 brain-washed people.  They were programed to continue
 colonialism.  They became the safe hands who built
 neo-colonialism.  Some European countries managed this
 transition process of colonialism to neocolonialism very
 well while others botched the process leading to very long
 wars in North Africa against France, Guinea Bissau, Angola,
 Mozambique and a few other places against the erstwhile
 colonial overlords.
 Farooq Kperogi continues in the
 tradition of these brainwashed neo-colonial intellectuals. 
 Their sole purpose is to knowingly or unknowingly promote
 the interest of colonial masters.  They wax lyrical with
 empty and worthless intellectual masturbation and
 calisthenics.   Can you imagine that we have a Nigerian
 election coming in a few months that will determine the
 course of the future of 200 million Nigerians.  On one
 side, we have a nationalistic and patriotic Muhammadu
 Buhari.  In the last few years he blocked the neo-colonials
 from looting the Nigerian treasury and stashing the loot in
 Western Banks.  On the other side we have Abubakar Atiku
 the agent of neo-colonialism and the arrow-head of previous
 neocolonialists who wants to take over power with the sole
 object of returning to continue looting the Nigerian
 treasury after 8 years with Olusegun Obasanjo and stashing
 the loot in Western banks.
 The stark electoral choice we must
 make in a few months will determine whether Nigeria will
 survive as a country for Nigerians or will continue as a
 mere source of looted funds for Western countries.  In the
 heat of this life and death choice for Nigeria, Farooq
 Kperogi fiddles while Rome burns and delights in self
 pleasure by writing a worthless self-praising piece on the
 connotations and denotations of the word
 "Orphan."  As usual, he thinks he is smart in his
 silly attempt to promote a looter, neo-colonialist and
 tested incompetent who as Vice President under Olusegun
 Obasanjo looted Nigeria to the bone marrow for 8 years. 
 Please tell me of what value is a primary 6, School
 certificate first second or third degrees if all they will
 be used for is to loot on a grander scale,
 Farooq Kperogi's waste of time
 is this.  The meaning of Orphan.  A simple answer is set
 out below:
 "orphan[awr-fuh n]nouna child who has lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one parent.a young animal that has been deserted by
 or has lost its mother.a person or thing that is without protective affiliation, sponsorship, etc.:The committee is
 an orphan of the previous administration."All in his bid to support Abubakar
 Atiku and his merry band of PDP Looters, he imports culture,
 imports his daughter who is schooling in America, and writes
 as Shakespeare was wont to say, "A tale told by an
 idiot; full of sound and fury; signifying nothing..." 
 Pray tell me of what value is this foolish piece when any
 decent dictionary will clarify the position.  So how can
 the definition of the word "Orphan" with one or
 two dead parents (both depending on context are correct)
 affect the fact that Abubakar Atiku who describes himself
 as an "Orphan" who became a mere poorly Customs
 Officer who stole Nigeria dry progressively till he became
 the Vice President and now wants to use the stolen money to
 buy the Presidency become relevant?
 So you see that Farooq Kperogi and his ilk have too
 much colonial colonial-brainwashed sense but too little
 gumption!  The choice is stark and it will not be made by
 those who have access to Internet and social media.  It
 will be determined by the youths whose future was destroyed
 by the wanton looting of the Abubakar Atikus of Nigeria. 
 These are the persons without protective affiliation,
 sponsorship, etc because the Abubakar Atikus of Nigeria
 supported by pseudo intellectuals like Farooq Kperogi have
 stolen money that could have secured a better world and a
 better Nigeria for us all.  The have stolen enough and NO
 matter what, they will NOT be allowed to return and steal
 some more!
 Sai Buhari!  Sai
 Baba!!
 Cheers.
 IBK 
 _________________________Ibukunolu
 Alao Babajide (IBK)(+2348061276622) / ibk...@gmail.comAN ENGLISH NURSERY RHYME
 
 The law locks up the man or
 woman
 
 Who steals the goose from off the
 common
 
 But leaves the greater villain
 loose
 
 Who steals the common from off the
 goose
 
  
 
 The law demands that we
 atone
 
 When we take things that we do not
 own
 
 But leaves the lords and ladies
 fine
 
 Who take things that are yours and
 mine
 
  
 
 The poor and wretched don’t
 escape
 
 If they conspire the law to
 break
 
 This must be so but they
 endure
 
 Those who conspire to make the
 law
 
  
 
 The law locks up the man or
 woman
 
 Who steals the goose from off the
 common
 
 And geese will still a common
 lack
 
 Till they go and steal it
 back
 
  -       
 Anonymous (circa
 1764)
 On Mon, 26 Nov 2018 at 00:20, Farooq A. Kperogi
 <farooq...@gmail.com>
 wrote:
 Sunday,
 November 25, 2018Atiku
 and the Meaning of an “Orphan” in EnglishBy Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
 Twitter: @farooqkperogi
 In
 his pre-recorded initiatory presidential campaign speech on
 November 19, 2018, former Vice President and PDP
 presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar described himself as
 having grown up an “orphan.” “I started out as an
 orphan selling firewood on the streets of Jada in Adamawa,
 but God, through the Nigerian state, invested in me and here
 I am today,” he said.
 President
 Buhari’s social media aide by the name of Lauretta Onochie
 led a chorus of Buhari supporters on Twitter to pooh-pooh
 Atiku’s claim to orphanhood. She said Atiku wasn’t an
 orphan because he didn’t lose both parents. This ignited a
 frenzied social media conversation about the meaning of an
 orphan. Below is Onochie’s tweet that set off the
 debate:
 “Atiku
 cannot be trusted; I started life as an Orphan in
 Jada”-Abubakar Atiku (BIG FAT LIE)“ORPHAN-a
 child whose parents (Father and mother) are dead. In his
 book, MY LIFE (2013 pg 30) refers [sic]: Atiku said his
 mother died in 1984. This was when he was 38 years. He was
 old enough to buy mum a house.
 “What’s
 the point of this lie? To deceive Nigerians and get their
 sympathy? It’s disrespectful and insulting to Nigerians
 for a candidate or anyone to lie to them.
 “He
 is saying we are too gullible to find out the truth. No, we
 are not. President Buhari nor [sic] Vice President Osinbajo
 will never lie to Nigerians.”
 What
 this semantic contestation captures is a clash of
 socio-linguistic cultures. As I pointed out in my May 4,
 2014 column titled “Q
 and A on Popular Nigerian English Expressions, Word Usage
 and Grammar,” my first daughter had a similar
 argument with her teacher nearly seven years ago. I lost my
 wife to a car crash in June 2010 in Nigeria and brought my
 then 6-year-old first daughter to live with me here in the
 United States the same year.
 One
 day in class, she told her teacher that she was an
 “orphan.” Her teacher, who knew me, said my daughter
 couldn’t possibly be an orphan since her father was alive.
 My daughter, who had become linguistically American but
 still culturally Nigerian, insisted that the death of her
 mother was sufficient to qualify her as an orphan. Their
 argument wasn’t resolved, so she came home to ask me if
 she was wrong to call herself an orphan.
 I
 told her she was right from the perspective of African
 cultures and UNICEF’s classification of orphans, but that
 her teacher was right from the perspective of conventional
 English.
 Different
 Cultural Significations of “Orphan”In
 many African—and other non-Western cultures— an orphan
 is understood as a child who has lost one or both parents
 before the age of maturity. In Islam, an orphan is a child
 who has lost only a father before the age of maturity. The
 usual Arabic word for an orphan is “yateem”
 (or al-yateem), which literally denotes “something
 that is singular and alone.” But the word’s canonical
 and connotative meaning in contemporary Arabic and in
 Islamic jurisprudence is, “a minor who has lost his or her
 father.”
 Nevertheless,
 other rarely used words exist in Arabic to denote an
 orphan: al-Lateem is a child who has lost both
 parents while al-'iji is a child who has lost
 only a mother. Note, however, that yateem is the
 word used in the Qur’an to refer to an orphan, which is
 why people who are socialized in Muslim cultures define and
 understand an orphan as someone whose father died before the
 age of puberty. Atiku is a Muslim who grew up in a Muslim
 cultural environment. There is no reason why he should use
 Western cultural lenses to describe himself.
  Until
 I relocated to America, I too had no idea that in
 conventional English, an orphan is generally understood as a
 child who lost both parents. Curiously, the meaning of the
 word changes when it is applied to an animal: An animal is
 regarded as an orphan only if loses its mother, perhaps
 because animals have fathers only in a reproductive, but not
 in a biosocial, sense.
 Note,
 though, that in English, an orphan can also be a child who
 has been abandoned by its living biological parents. That
 means almajirai (plural form
 of almajiri in Hausa) are invariably orphans since
 they don't get to enjoy the care of both parents who are
 usually alive.
 It's
 also noteworthy that UNICEF, being an international
 organization that represents the interests of people from
 different cultures, recognizes the cultural clashes in the
 conception of orphanhood and seeks a fair sociolinguistic
 compromise. That is why it has three different types of
 orphans. UNICEF has a class of orphans its calls “maternal
 orphans.” This category encapsulates children who lost
 only their mothers. It also classifies certain orphans as
 “paternal orphans,” which refers to children who lost
 only their fathers. Then there are “double orphans,”
 which refers to children who lost both parents. I think
 that’s a good cultural compromise. By UNICEF's
 classification, Atiku was a paternal orphan.
 Many
 contemporary English dictionaries are taking note of and
 reflecting this shift in the meaning of orphan. For
 instance, the Merriam Webster Dictionary now
 defines an orphan as “a child deprived by death of one or
 usually both parents.” The Random House Unabridged
 Dictionary also defines an orphan as “a child who has
 lost both parents through death, or, less commonly, one
 parent.” And Collins English Dictionary - Complete
 & Unabridged, a British English dictionary, defines
 it as, “a child, one or (more commonly) both of whose
 parents are dead.”
  So
 Atiku’s use of “orphan” can be justified in
 contemporary, evolving English, but even more so in
 historical English, as I will show below.
 Etymology
 of “Orphan”Orphan
 is derived from the Latin orphanus where it meant a
 "parentless child." But Latin also borrowed it
 from the Greek orphanos where it means, according
 to the Online
 Etymology Dictionary, "without parents,
 fatherless." Orphan, ultimately, is derived from the
 Proto-Indo-European root orbho, which means,
 according to etymologists, "bereft of
 father."
 This
 clearly shows that loss of a father, not both parents, is at
 the core of the signification of the word from its very
 beginning. In fact, a survey of the earliest examples of the
 usage of the word in historical writings in English shows
 that it was used to mean only a child who lost a father. For
 instance, in Scian Dubh’s 1868 book titled Ridgeway:An
 Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada,
 we encounter this sentence: “At his birth, he was an
 orphan, his father having died a few weeks previously.”
 This shows that in the 1800s, a child was regarded as an
 orphan only if it lost its father.
 It
 must have been changes in social and cultural attitudes in
 the West that expanded and limited the meaning of
 “orphan” to a child who lost “both
 parents.”
 Motherless
 Babies’ Home or Orphanage?A
 place where orphans are housed and cared for is called an
 orphanage in contemporary Standard English. It used to be
 called an “orphan house” until 1711. (Orphanage used to
 mean orphanhood, that is, the condition of being an orphan;
 the current meaning of the word started from about
 1865).
 Interestingly,
 orphanages are called “motherless babies’ homes” in
 Nigerian—and perhaps West African—English. Does this
 suggest that our conception of orphanhood is changing from
 deprivation of a father through death to solely deprivation
 of a mother through death? Why are there not “parentless
 babies’ homes”? Or, for that matter, “fatherless
 babies’ homes”?
 Related
 Articles:Politics
 of Grammar
 ColumnFarooq A. Kperogi,
 Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging
 Media
 School of Communication &
 MediaSocial Science
 Building Room 5092 MD
 2207402 Bartow Avenue
 Kennesaw
 State University
 Kennesaw, Georgia, USA
 30144
 Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
 Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms
 of Nigerian English in a Global World
 
 "The nice thing about pessimism is that
 you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly
 surprised." G. F. Will
 
 
 
 
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[Ololade Bamidele]

Dear Sirs/Madams on this platform, it is a sad commentary on the uses to which the social media have been put to in this Age and times that make intellectual content and property become eviscerated of their origins and passed around as "anonymous" on the Internet...

The piece shared in the second part of the email below was not generated anonymously but was written by Mr. Ken Tadaferua, a seasoned communications practitioner with decades of experience and also an illustrious public intellectual... 

In PREMIUM TIMES, we also had the good fortune of being considered deserving of being allowed to give wings to his thought, which was why we published this piece on Sunday November 25th, which some motivated by mischief have now copied and are passing around as "anonymous."

This annotation seeks to correct the earlier mistake claim about this article: It is interesting stuff BUT NOT "anonymous".

The link to the original essay on PREMIUM TIMES is attached below.

Thank you.

Election 2019: The Devil Or Deep Blue Sea, By Ken Tadaferua   

Election 2019: The Devil Or Deep Blue Sea, By Ken Tadaferua I weep for Nigeria.

[Ayotunde Bewaji]

Dear Ololade Bamidele,

Thanks a million for connecting the dots of source of the material I shared/posted. Am very sorry if any unintended offense was done or perceived to have been done to Mr. Ken Tadaferua. There was no intention to deprive Mr. Ken Tadaferua of the credits, rights and privileges due to his beautiful, incisive and truthful piece, and if I received such information regarding the original author/source, I would have gladly passed it on with gratitude.

Ire o.

Tunde.

Dr. John Ayotunde (Tunde) Isola BEWAJI, FJIM, MNAL
Professor of Philosophy
BA, MA, PhD Philosophy, PGDE, MA Distance Education
Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy for Children
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indies
Mona Campus Kingston 7 Jamaica
Tel:       1-876-927-1661-9 Ext: 3993
             1-876-935-8993 (o)
Fax:      1-876-970-2949
Email:   john....@uwimona.edu.jm      johnayotu...@gmail.com       tunde...@yahoo.com (alternate) 
             tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)

http://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611630879/Narratives-of-Struggle (2012)
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Aesthetics (2012)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739185032/Ontologized-Ethics (2013)

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781498518383/The-Rule-of-Law-and-Governance-in-Indigenous-Yoruba-Society-A-Study-in-African-Philosophy-of-Law (2016)

http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-humanities-and-the-dynamics-of-african-culture-in-the-21st-century (2017)

[Farooq A. Kperogi]

Professor Bewaji,

I am planning a family vacation in Jamaica next year and would take you up on your offer, except the ganja part😁. I also don't drink alcoholic beverages, but I am up for everything else, especially what wifey approves of😀. I am also extending the same offer to you whenever you find yourself in the Atlanta area. As people who know me in person would tell you, I am not nearly as cantankerous and venomous-tongued as some contentious debates here make me out to be😁. I am actually a mild-mannered and even-tempered person, even if I say so myself.

What ticked me off was that my person was being attacked and untoward motives imputed to me for simply expressing a viewpoint that caused discomfort to your settled certainties. There was no engagement whatsoever with the substance of my article.  Atiku's father died when Atiku was a child. There is no argument about that. So Atiku said he "GREW UP AN ORPHAN"--he didn't say he was an orphan as an adult--  but overcame the difficulties his orphanhood imposed on him through divine help and the intervention of the Nigerian state. A Buhari media aide said since Atiku's mother was alive until his late 30's, he wasn't qualified to be called an orphan as a child; she said he had to have lost both parents to be an orphan child. The conversation, again, was about Atiku's CHILDHOOD.

The whole point of my column was to point out that by Islamic and UNICEF standards, Atiku was orphaned as a child on the basis of losing his father before the age of maturity. Your intervention entirely missed this background. You went on a rant about Nigerian politicians and Dubai, and about "bastards." IBK went on a tortuous tirade about world wars and "pseudo-intellectuals." There was absolutely no connection between what you guys wrote and my article. It's impossible to be polite and respectful with people who launch unprovoked personal attacks on you either because they don't understand what you wrote or because they have refused to familiarize themselves with the issues you wrote about. 

I hope we can do better next time. There is absolutely no joy in seeing debates degenerate to thoughtless bickering and coarse personal attacks.

Farooq

 

Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Journalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & Media

Social Science Building 

Room 5092 MD 2207

402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University

Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.com

Twitter: @farooqkperog

Author of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World

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

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

EDITED FOR HOMOPHONIC ERROR (hayday)

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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

From: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Date: 28/11/2018 20:11 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Cc: OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Interesting stuff from Anonymous.

Oga Bewaji.

I also had my teeth cut at the same location and about the same time.  It was the hayday of Marxism on Nigerian campuses. The attacks were nuanced and non-Marxists like Soyinka were constantly pilloried we students owed them the respect they never went so naked and so crude as is becoming fashionable on the listserve.   Of course Soyinka knew how to handle the situation very well ( many have uncharitably parodied his stance as a gadfly on the listserve).  The man was very self respecting and respectful of his peers even in indignation.  I remember very well on many occasions when he was invited to present papers he would arrive as very near the appointed time as possible bring out his piece from his breast pocket deliver his piece and leave for another appointment before the question and answer time.  I suspected he was trying to avoid the debased confrontations from those who wanted him to join their tdeological ranks.  

He would NEVER stoop so low to " demonstrate his mastery of English'  to attack colleagues the crude way forumites do here.  His temperament and finesse buoyed him well above that level.  He might reflect on the implications of atracks on him and his position to journalists who sought his views later. He might lampoon state functionaries who misbehaved but not fellow intellectuals. This is the standard they left us as future professors we MUST mainrain such standards.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

[OLAYINKA AGBETUYI]

Oga Bewaji.

I also had my teeth cut at the same location and about the same time.  It was the heyday of Marxism on Nigerian campuses. The attacks were nuanced and non-Marxists like Soyinka were constantly pilloried we students owed them the respect they never went so naked and so crude as is becoming fashionable on the listserve.   Of course Soyinka knew how to handle the situation very well ( many have uncharitably parodied his stance as a gadfly on the listserve).  The man was very self respecting and respectful of his peers even in indignation.  I remember very well on many occasions when he was invited to present papers he would arrive as very near the appointed time as possible bring out his piece from his breast pocket deliver his piece and leave for another appointment before the question and answer time.  I suspected he was trying to avoid the debased confrontations from those who wanted him to join their tdeological ranks.  

He would NEVER stoop so low to " demonstrate his mastery of English'  to attack colleagues the crude way forumites do here.  His temperament and finesse buoyed him well above that level.  He might reflect on the implications of atracks on him and his position to journalists who sought his views later. He might lampoon state functionaries who misbehaved but not fellow intellectuals. This is the standard they left us as future professors we MUST mainrain such standards.

OAA

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.

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

From: 'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>

Date: 27/11/2018 23:40 (GMT+00:00)

To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com