Today's Quote
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
Toyin Falola
Sir:
I am totally confused:
Did you mean to say
You are one of the voices of Literature in God?
But I also more confused:
The last time I saw God, we communicated in Latin. Do you speak Latin?
TF
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Adeshina Afolayan
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Sir:
I am totally confused:
Did you mean to say
You are one of the voices of Literature in God?
But I also more confused:
The last time I saw God, we communicated in Latin. Do you speak Latin?
TF
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, May 6, 2023 at 3:44 PM
To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's QuoteI am one of the voices of God in Literature.
-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO).
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Harrow, Kenneth
Sent: Saturday, May 6, 2023 6:43:21 PM
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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
There is a wonderful extract in From Primitives to Zen, of Al-
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
It seems that the tension between divine otherness and the human quest for intimacy with the divine is particularly sensitive in various stages of the histories of Islamic and Christian mysticism, on account of strict orthodoxies.
There is a superb extract, under ''Specialists of the Sacred'', from Massignon and Nicholson texts, in Mircea Eliade's From Primitives to Zen, , quoting Al Hallaj as he asks Allah to remove the ''I'' that stood between the Creator and himself, leading to the mystic's declaration that ''I am he whom I love, two spirits in one body, if you see me, you see Him, and if you see Him, you see us both'', the extract eventually describing how Al Hallaj was executed for that self description, understood as heresy, as he prayed for his executioners to the Creator who ''is revealed in every place and who is not in any place'', who were doing what they did because they had not enjoyed the depth of revelation granted to the mystic.
Falling silent after that, the executioner dealt him a blow smashing his nose, blood staining his white robe, as fellow mystics in the crowd either cried out and rent their clothes or fainted, upon which ''the executioners did their work''.
The theoretical frameworks for different kinds of mysticism, such as mysticism of unity-the dewdrop slipping into the shining sea-Buddhism, and mysticism of perception- ''i saw the leaves dispersed throughout the universe, things, their qualities and interrelations, as one simple light''-Dante, exist in classical African spiritualities but I am yet to read accounts of mystics in these traditions and have encountered very few mystical theories in these systems, such as Mazisi Kunene's marvellous account of Zulu thought in his introduction to Anthem of the Decades.
Accounts of what could become mysticism include Amadou Hampate Ba's Kaidara, a fictional text representing classical Fulani spirituality, climaxing in a meeting with the divine personage of Kaidara.
That meeting, however, does not indicate an expansion of awareness to include the cosmological reality Kaidara embodies, as in Ibn Arabi's account, in Futuhat Al Makkiyya, the Meccan Revelations, of his meeting in Mecca with the Youth ''neither alive nor dead, encompassed and encompassing, who speaks only in symbols and who can be understood only in symbols'', on whose form is engraved a cosmological map which Arabi transcribes into the many volumed and ideationally massive text that is that book.
Germaine Dieterlen presents a magnificent account of a Fulani initiation system in ''Initiation Among the Peul Pastoral Fulani'' in her co-edited African Systems of Thought, an initiatory progression involving progressive entry into various dimensions constituting the cosmos and interaction with entities in these planes, culminating in an invocation of the creator of the universe.
But the English translation of the larger French text does not indicate what the outcome of that invocation is supposed to be.
Would it involve sharing in the knowledge and being of the Creator, such sharing being core to mysticism?
I keep coming across what I understand as these frustrating fragments and wonder if the problem is due to inadequate exploratory work by scholars of these spiritualities or if the mystical or even contemplative strains do not exist in these spiritualities, contemplative in the sense of individual reflection on self or ideas, a culture I also not find in accounts of these spiritualities which are nevertheless rich in ideas that are not likely to have been developed except in deep contemplative states.
Eliade's anthology, first published in the 60s and Katz's large Comparative Mysticism: An Anthology of Original Sources, 2013, both contain nothing on mystical theory, practice or experience in classical African spiritualities.
In trying to build such textual references, however, one could perhaps reference Christopher Okigbo's poet persona's union, in Labyrinths, with ''the water spirit that nurtures all creation'' , reached through invocation of Idoto, the goddess of his village stream, an invocation leading him to the sources of existence and eventually into the goddesses' underwater cavern, where the consummating meeting takes place.
thanks
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Chidi,
Some time ago I came across Meher Baba and read his “God Speaks”. It’s reported that after he took a vow of silence he communicated by writing with chalk on a slate and then by spelling out what he had to say via an alphabet board, and later on he communicated through his own special sign language
Needless to say, because life is precious you’ve got to be careful with whatever poetic statements you make, and of course, where you make your poetic claims. See what happened with Jesus for more or less saying, what Mansur al-Hallaj said: ”anal haq” - “I am the truth” - in person. That got the Mullahs of his day to see red, so he was crucified.
In the case of Jesus, he (Jesus) added some cream to the claim when he said to his disciples, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” , and added “ No one comes to the Father except through me. If you really know me, you will know[b] my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”
Somewhere else in the Gospel according to John, he is reported to have said,
“ I and the Father are one.”
Again his Jewish opponents picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?”
“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”
Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside— what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.”
The Jewish Mullahs/ Pharisees of his day eventually made sure that he got nailed on the cross.
Luckily for you, if you go around in the Owerri Motor Park proclaiming that you are God or the Voice of God or one of God’s poetic voices, the people who may listen to you or hear you will merely think that you are crazy and worst case scenario, they would probably have you locked up in a mental asylum - like Baako as a suffering servant in Ayi Kwei Armah's novel, Fragments ( His people can’t understand that he’s back home to Ghana after bagging a good degree from Harvard and yet doesn’t want to join the echelons of high society with all the paraphernalia that goes with the senior service status, big car, some big booty, and big cigar, etc….
No one has to tell dear Chidi, that he shouldn’t make that kind of poetic statement that you are “ God” or “ the Voice of God” up North in e.g. Zamfara, Sokoto or Kano because they will be likely to make halal kebabs out of you. I’m afraid that Ken Harrow of PEN International and Amnesty International would not be able to save your poetic ass.
A word to the wise should be sufficient ;
“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread”….
Alhaji Waziri Oshomah : Luaka Bop
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Harrow, Kenneth
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2023 2:04:38 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
Cornelius Hamelberg
Dear Chidi,
Just in case you smell an oxymoron
lurking there, well, here’s
a little foot note
on “Jewish Mullahs”...
Here’s another voice
One of many
Voices.
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Harrow, Kenneth
Sent: Sunday, May 7, 2023 4:38:28 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Cornelius Hamelberg
Emeritus Professor Harrow,
Yes, priceless.
These Bible and other stories. Indulge me, a little. The danger/ dangers of quoting the Bible out of context. The dangers of impersonation.
Could you kindly translate the rest of that piece of exalted Hebrew poetry into His Majesty's ( Charles III) English?
As some of us know, “a Little learning is a dangerous thing.“ and if we’re not careful, some little tittle-tattle barbarian from one of the UK’s former colonies, which your former president has referred to as one of the “s-hole countries”, will have the impertinence to be “correcting” His Majesty's grammar, and the grammar of the eloquent rapper doing his Ebonics or what is disdainfully looked down upon as “street poetry”
Better still, what about possibly translating the less glaring Vayikra /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!”
Someone could translate that into Arabic / Hausa/ Fulani, and, moved by whatever spirit, let the Brave & Hon. Brother Chidi Anthony Opara the poet and Matthew Hassan Kukah the Bishop go and proclaim such a first-person message/ testimony of good tidings outside the main mosque in Sokoto, Kano or Zamfara and await to see what happens next, b'ezrat hashem / Inshallah, the results of such first-person testimony
“ Religious War”?
Palaver?
E go get am.
A just reward for all their troubles, as in Peter, Paul and Mary: All My Trials
Opara & Kukah would suffer fools, gladly?
They should only have themselves to blame. Unbeknownst, their scripture-soaked utterance albeit filled by the Holy Ghost would of course be viewed as a deliberate provocation - especially the ecclesiastically learned Kukah who by all means and not lacking in modesty or the instinct of survival/self-preservation, we are to presume would normally not be in such a great hurry to meet his Lord, ought to know better. As Ahmad Deedat once joked during a debate with a Christian gentleman who asked him maliciously, with the intention to ridicule the nation of al-Islam,
“Where was Allah when his Prophet Muhammad’s grandson Husayn was being slaughtered at Karbala.?”
Sheikh Deeday had replied, “ Allah cried!”
Hot in pursuit, smelling victory and going for the kill, the pastor had then repeated in mock incredulity, “Allah cried?” “
Yes “, asserted Sheikh Deedat,
“Allah cried. He said, “ I did not save my only begotten son on the cross and you have the effrontery to be asking me about my servant Prophet Muhammad’s grandson?”
One saying goes, "Justice should not only be done but should manifestly and undoubtedly be seen to be done" - and the other saying goes, justice delayed is justice denied, i.e. justice should be swift - spontaneous, nay, immediate, or poetically speaking abrupt, as defined by the devil’s dictionary. I don’t know the exact provisions that are to be expected according to Sharia Law if the accursed miscreants should be summarily executed - on the spot - or first arraigned/chained/dragged to the Sharia Court to face the music and the judgement, of course, a foregone conclusion: Blasphemy of the highest degree earns the wrath of God: The Full Penalty.
“Ignorance of the law is no excuse !”
Worst case scenario, both gentlemen could meet the same fate as the late Deborah Samuel and soon enough would be entered into the Guinness Book of Records or into these annals of The Religion of Peace
With a little bit of luck, our Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju could fare a little better, maybe still retain the head on his neck and shoulders after reciting some of his philosophical yada-yada and gobbledegook outside the Central Mosque in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the mosque known as The Fullah Town Mosque, but having got away with blasphemy he had better not launch into a Fulani Herdsmen diatribe there…
Collins Leon, an immigrant from St. Lucia once turned up at one of the mosques in Stockholm - the one known as “ The Gambian Mosque “ - at Apelbergsgatan. He arrived there wearing some kind of white Galilean toga and carrying a heavy wooden cross on his shoulder. He was unceremoniously thrown out of the mosque. Serves him right. He tearfully complained to me about the event, years later. I expressed no sympathy/ empathy, call it what you will. I believe that anyone who reads this will agree with me, that he should take himself and his cross elsewhere. Where to? Well, in the Gospels Jesus said, “Take up your cross and follow me.“ Where in the Gospels did Jesus say,
“Take up your cross and follow me to the mosque”?
BTW, why is religion such a powerful force in so many people’s lives, even very sinful people?
About your prime example, al- Hallaj who ( correction) was executed - not crucified - we should still point out the essential difference between his fate and that of Bayazid Bastami who is said to have committed the same offence. Politics aside, al-Hallaj was executed and Bayazid was spared. Al- Hallaj was thought to have been sober, not so Bayazid. We are all subject to correction and supposedly are to be held to account ( by the religious/ thought police. the custodians of the holy law and the holy peace) for what we say in the states of sobriety/ insobriety and whatever we do or say in the intervening the states in between the two extremes ( the extremely sober and the extremely intoxicated states of being )
I fasted during the first 17 days of Ramadan in 1981. Since I lived in a Pakistani community in Port Harcourt, after inviting Farzanah, one of the Pakistani sisters to the cinema, and the judgement that I inadvertently brought upon my poor head - - and that was touching base with the Pakistanis ( their council of Elders angry “Do you think that she is like the women in Sweden?” etc, etc.) I sort of sympathy-fasted with them as a sign of repentance and even accompanied them on a few dawah missions to Imo State. The very last dawah expedition that we made to Imo ( like precursors of these guys) when we arrived at the very spot where we had missionized the last time, this time the villagers had sent a delegation/ reception committee to meet us with the message that they didn’t want to see us there any more. What had happened to the sweet love and understanding that we thought we had established between us and our friendly Igbo village neighbours? Well, no hypocrisy, they told us plainly that they would like to see our backs, that we should leave them alone since there was nothing that we were going to be doing for them apart from promising them paradise - after they die, whereas the Ahmadiyya people had promised to build them a hospital and a school. Our “ amir” Mr Rahman, the leader of our dawah mission, was livid. It was the first and only time I saw him lose his temper. Do you know how Ghulam Ahmad died? he screamed…
I told Mr Harry ( at the Ministry of Education) to give the flat that he had finally got for me in downtown Port Harcourt to please hand it over to my Ghanaian friend Reubn Attiley, a choreographer and dance teacher - because Reuben had a huge family ( about ten kids and at least one wife ) and the flat he (Mr Harry) had got for my family of only three people was even much bigger than our flat in Stockholm.
So, I arrived in Ahoada on Thursday the 16th of July 1981, the 15th day of Ramaḍān/ and stopped fasting two days later. On day 14 of Ramadan, my last day in Port Harcourt, around midday I had opened the door to one of the hotel rooms and there - to my consternation came face-to-face with one of the pious Pakistani brethren, his mouth full of chicken. So, after some sorrow-filled reflection - as in crying more than the bereaved, I stopped fasting three days later, after reading some more Sir Richard F. Burton cover-to-cover. But - please take this to heart: knowledge is king! It was only many years later that I got to know that a traveller can break his fast etc, back then, I had hastily arrived at my own conclusion: pious hypocrisy. I, the neophyte, was fasting - he, the holy Pakistani was not.
On my first night in Ahoada, I read cover to cover - till dawn, “ Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to al-Madinah & Mecca “ Volume One - by Sir Richard F. Burton - On the same day that I decided to break my fast I was invited to a sumptuous dinner by my neighbour Mr Prasad & wife and son Bapu, Mr Prasad himself, a physicist, Telugu, Hindu from Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. That rainy season after dinner at his place, this was before my Better half and my son arrived) as we listened to the choir of frogs croaking their chorus, Mr Prasad smiled and told me that they reminded him of the Brahmin Priests back home, chanting their holy mantras. A year later after another dinner, it was Mr. Praad that told me that he had read in The Hindu and The Times of India about my Baba Muktananda Paramahansa’s mahasamadhi which made retroactive sense to me because I then understood how / why Baba had actually visited me - in his special way, the same week as his mahasamadhi! Mr Prasad’s son Bapu and my son Nathan became good friends. They had interminable discussions. Mrs Prasad and my Better Half also became good friends. I liked Mr. Prasad and his many Indian friends, very much. Once on the way back to Ahoada from Port Harcourt, a policeman, another "Particulars Joe” had stopped our car in the hope of being bribed. Mr Prasad asked him, “ Are you hungry” - the cop said yes, he was hungry, so Mr Prasad continued our drive home and invited him to dinner - to some delicious Indian curry yum yum. Mr Prasad used to walk up and down in our little courtyard for about a quarter of an hour immediately after dinner. I don’t know how the policeman got back to his police station…
It was bad enough that more regular than clockwork, my other neighbour, Mr Ideozu , a big NPN or NPP fanatic who lived opposite us, would wake up the whole neighbourhood loud and clear with the sound of Bob Marley’s “ Lively Up Yourself” blasting from his mega-speakers from Aba, at exactly 7 a.m, every morning. For some strange reason, even after our nth game of drafts ( some of which I won / or he let me win) he thought that I was Jamaican / from Jamaica.
And that’s one difference between Sweden and Nigeria. Technically speaking, in Sweden, you can go and tell your neighbour to please turn the volume of the music DOWN, and it's a no-no rule: No loud music should be played or heard after 2100 hrs. In some neighbourhoods, the rule is extended to after 22 hours. A neighbour could complain to the noise police. In my neighbourhood, it’s usually as quiet as a church or a graveyard. Peace and quiet everywhere, before 2100 hours and after 21 hours. You arrive by air after 21 hours and on the way home, Stockholm is completely deserted, like The Deserted Village by Oliver Goldsmith: Not so New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Alexandria, Marrakesh, Fez, Cairo.
Nigeria: Who has or is going to have the liver or the liber to tell his good neighbour Mr Ideozu to please TURN DOWN the volume? The doctrine that good fences - sound fences make good neighbours, does not apply in Nigeria. The Ministry of Sound says you are free to exercise perfect freedom with the volume control buttons at all times of the day and night. In Sweden, your neighbour kindly informs you as if it’s one of the ten commandments, that he/ she is going to have a party and so it’s going to be a little loud, but no harm meant.
In my first week at Ahoada, I was woken up every morning by someone I thought of as a crazy guy - an invisible crazy guy /possessed by evil spirits, and I imagined that he could have even been a ghost or an evil spirit, an embodied evil spirit. I only heard his voice every morning as he went past my bedroom window exclaiming with the passion of conviction, “ I am the bread of life! “, “I am the resurrection and the life.”
I was determined to put an end to it when I could no longer stand it, the same lunatic disturbing my sweet sleep at Six O’clock in the morning, every morning. So, I lay in wait for him by the front door one morning and was going to confront him, pounce on him, bring him to order: Brother, you can’t be disturbing me like this EVERY MORNING,? HAVE A CONSCIENCE?
But lo - who did I see - the miscreant turned out to be no less than one of Christ’s soldiers, a bedraggled urchin in Christ’s ragtag army/ militia, his Oliver Twist tweed kind of ragtag uniform, trousers patched at the knees and his tweed jacket at the elbows, and he explained to me patiently that he was “justified “, that according to the Great Commission, he was only preaching, proclaiming the word of God that it was not him, he was only quoting from the Bible and as I was to learn just a few weeks later he had only been quoting some of Jesus’ famous I am Statements.
As my dear mother used to tell me, “ Despise not the day of little things”. The fact is the crazy guy doing what he said was his “ Morning Call” did not go to waste. I was baptised in the river in Umuahia about three weeks later. Full Immersion. They ( the Igbos) nearly drowned me - far, far from that Lagos Lagoon
Maestro Dekula : Kuna Mambo j
Cornelius Hamelberg
Re- Sheikh Deeday had replied, “ Allah cried!”
Correction: Sheikh Deedat replied, “ Allah cried !”
An unusual story: to Islam from Judaism
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Toyin Falola
Chidi:
If Seun did what he did to the policeman in Lagos here in Austin, he would be shot dead on the spot. And the police will have a hero’s parade.
TF
From:
usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, May 15, 2023 at 3:47 PM
To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi:
If Seun did what he did to the policeman in Lagos here in Austin, he would be shot dead on the spot. And the police will have a hero’s parade.
TF
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, May 15, 2023 at 3:47 PM
To: USA African Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's QuoteThe Nigeria Police is writing a poem entitled:
"We Own The Society". Seun Kuti is the metaphor.
The opening lines are:
"What the heck
If police threaten to kill you?"
-Chidi Anthony Opara (CAO)
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Toyin Falola
Police cars have hit other vehicles hundreds of times! You don’t get out of your car and slap the police. You will be shot dead.
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com>
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Michael Afolayan
Toyin Falola
And I hope it is not true that it was Seun who hit the police car!
TF
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju
He was never associated with such behaviour, even in rumour.
thanks
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Toyin Falola
Oga Chidi:
You have not lived in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad, Central Africa Republic, Somalia, Sudan (at the moment) during state collapse. Warlords and their agents will shoot you on the spot.
All institutions in Nigeria act unprofessionally, including the ones you belong to. The majority of Nigerians, including the bus driver, act unprofessionally. When you take a taxi from Lagos to Ibadan, the driver does not ask for your permission before stopping and doing whatever he likes.
Do not misread my response as justifying police behavior, but I will not encourage anyone in any part of the world, from unstable and chaotic Sudan to stable USA to slap a police officer. Seun is lucky to be alive. There is a Yoruba proverb:
Never argue with someone holding a deadline weapon!
TF
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi the Poet,
You provoke a reaction. No smoke without fire. Remember, ”Provocation is next to mad-ness”
It’s unfortunate that in the heat of the moment, Seun threw discretion, the better part of valour - to the winds, and that his indignation and anger erupted the way that it did. The psychological causes of that eruption are probably deep-seated, maybe even genetic, a part of his DNA, given his father’s long-standing relations with the authorities known as the Nigerian Military and the Nigerian Police.
The first time I found myself listening to Swedish Radio was sometime in the mid-80s in Stockholm flipping through stations, I arrived at one of the stations that was not blasting classical or pop music and this is exactly what I heard, in Swedish: “Nigeria, where between the airport and my hotel, I was robbed twice; first by the military, and then by the police”
Not so farfetched and not necessarily racism ( although it could have been a case of racism against the Oyibo or tribalism, or both. Man’s inhumanity to man/ woman: Police Brutality : rob him.; “repaying the colonial debt” etc. You can well imagine the details of the story about what happened at the checkpoints.
Is it any wonder that Buhari & Idiagbon had this at the top of their agenda: WAI - War Against Indiscipline ?
Before God and man, one would have thought that as a poetic representative of the Motor Park Mentality with which you are so well acquainted, you would be well aware of all the possible antics of Particulars Joe. I’m talking about the downtrodden and oppressed people of the People’s Motor Park at Owerri which is our political, social and economic constituency, ” our”, being the same as the lumpenproletariat of the PPP ( the Poor People's Party) and in your case, with the Motor Park which is in your heart and is your haunt, I take it as for granted that it’s not only the streetwise Say Tokyo Kid, that is aware of the gravity of the situation and that you too as a habitue at that place, the people’s park, the centre of gravity of our poor people's daily bread, are aware, because the poetic evidence in print points to the impression that you are a people’s poet and everybody in this forum can attest to that and our testimony is true. We are not some fake politicians, sycophants or flatterers, the type who said that “Peter Obi is the conscience of Nigeria” and the pastors who said that he is God’s gift to humanity, that Peter Obi had been sent by their God, to redeem the people of Nigeria. ( I just listened in to the British House of Commons about the investigations that targeted Javad Marandi, as if the UK was now sinking into money laundering & corruption usually associated with turd world / s-hole countries)
Therefore, take this unsolicited piece of advice, to thine heart, Dear Chidi even if I sound a little like Polonius to Prince Hamlet here :
In Sierra Leone and Nigeria: ( less so in Ghana)
In the presence of a police constable, you have to
Suspend your great big chest-beating poetic ego.
Suspend all highfalutin notions of Human Rights,
Justice, and equality before the law. In all circumstances
You’ve got to act/ react with due respect and subservience.
Intili? In your soul, in the heat of that moment, you’ve got to
Descend into answering Jiddu Krishnamurti’s question:
Why are you afraid of being nothing which in fact is exactly what you are ?
I know that it’s a very difficult question, especially for people like Kp ( Per Roguey) a good illustration of “ a little learning is a dangerous thing”, getting too big for their boots, start imagining that they are great ( like Wittgenstein, Mahatma Gandhi, Cicero, Alexander the Great) - or as great as distinguished Ojogbon professors occupying distinguished chairs and royal academic thrones. The worst case scenarios: big brother Nigerians, self-imagined sons of God who go around, trying to impress, bully, browbeat and intimidate those who they see as their inferiors - into submission, with questions such as, “Do you know who I am?”
On Nigerian Airways, London - Port Harcourt, my travel companion Solomon, a former soldier (Captain) in the Biafran Army, what did he do and what did he say? Just when they were announcing “ Fasten your seatbelts”, that’s when he got up to go to the toilet. The air hostess came running over to tell him to please sit down and that’s when he stood up to full attention to his full height with his beer bottle in his hand and asked her, “ Do you know who I am?” - as if he was going to have her arrested when we arrived at the airport. An hour later we had zapped through customs and passport control etc and were on our way to Aba under full military escort. That’s power for you. Real power, when the customs officers salute you at the airport and ask me no questions. They must have thought that I was part of his cabin luggage, or his houseboy or some big business tycoon.
Two things.
1. The slap. In 1998 I met Monty Cole, a Sierra Leonean journalist at a Sierra Leone Social function, somewhere in Camberwell, in London. I was introduced to him by Dr Bernard Fraser. I repeated - verbatim - a conversation that once too pölace between him ( Monty Cole) and the then Prime Minister of Sierra Leone, Sir Albert Margai, and Mr Cole was amazed. The conversation, which I heard on the radio, went as follows - and as the saying goes, “ power corrupts, and absolute power, corrupts, absolutely”:
Mr Cole: Sir Albert, there have been allegations of corruption at the SLPMB…
Sir Albert: The allegations are false!
Mr Cole: Have you investigated the allegations, Sir?
Sir Albert: I say the allegations are FALSE! ( Probably trying to protect a sacred cow)
Mr Cole: Sir, how do you know that the allegations are false without any investigation?
Sir Albert: I have told you: THE ALLEGATIONS ARE FALSE
Mr Cole: But, Sir….
Mr Cole had been pressing the point and pressing his luck and “ But Sir” is as far as he got, because he was cut off in mid-air by the slap which I heard, so loud and clear.
2. The assault ( insult). I well remember what happens when you confront a Nigerian Policeman physically: It was on the first day of Ramadan 1981 I had gone to buy some fruits at Mile One Market and was returning to my abode by danfo - to the flat i was sharing with Mr Rahman ( from Pakistan) and family, A police constable had stopped the danfo at a “go slow” ( traffic jam) he then took hold of the driver’s head and started beating it on the steering wheel, telling him that he was the cause of the go slow. I had been sitting somewhere at the back of the vehicle and when I could no longer stand it, I got out, took the policeman by the scruff of his neck and threw him down to the ground. When he got up - great surprise was written all over his wretched face, he smiled a devilish smile and took off his belt - a thick black belt, and told me that he was going to teach me a lesson.
I had to run for my life THose who should have helped me, were cheering the policeman.
In Seun’s case - if indeed he did slap the police constable, it must have been his “ Do you know who I am?” celebrity status that must have saved him from the “lesson” that the policemen he had assaulted, was going to teach him…
Koffi Olomide: Pi Pi Pi ( Poor Peoples’ Party)
Gloria Emeagwali
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi,
I think that Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth has a point here, about stress.
He also suggests a cathartic release/sublimation of this stress, through sex. ( My Catholic friend from California tells me that the nuns at the Catholic school that he attended used to terrorise them about the punishments in hell and to relieve himself of the stress, he had to masturbate several times, every day. (Sex-starved people can also easily get annoyed...
Mr Eliot said that “ The human soul, in intense emotion, strives to express itself in verse. It is not for me, but for the neurologists, to discover why this is so”
The fact of the matter is that at other times, and this is also equally true of some people, and not only terrorists for example, in intense emotion, usually preceded by frustration, the human soul sometimes explodes by expressing itself/himself/ herself through violence
“Nigga kills other niggas
Just because one didn't receive the correct change”
The Last Poets: Niggas are scared of revolution
Nor should we underestimate the hate factor. For example, the criminals hate the police…
Cheer up: The Best Cuban Music for 2024
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Where do you think the expression “shuffering and shmiling” comes from?
This is an instance when we have the lumpenproletariat seated in that Danfo - many of them - with the certain exception of the driver whose head was being bumped brutally and repeatedly on the steering wheel in front of him as his punishment for allegedly causing the “go slow!”. We have the whole scene caught red-handed on camera as per my narration, identifying with the brutal police constable who represents the lower echelons of the towering, corrupt power structure. If it was a colonial policeman in the good old colonial times in unison we would have called it RACISM: - but I don’t suppose that there was ever that kind of colonial policeman, especially not in Graham Greene, “The Heart of the Matter “ or Joyce Cary’s “Mister Johnson”. Fast forward to an intensification of that kind of brutality, in history, and you arrive at Rodney King and George Floyd in the United States and what’s being perpetrated frequently in the occupied Palestinian territories, being perpetrated by the wanton sinners who claim “God gave us the land” - the same God who issued The Sixth Commandment and all the other commandments?
This incident, indelibly etched as it is, is a good example of “The Stockholm Syndrome”, in this case, a foreign ( strange) Nigerian mentality. You know how it is with what’s known as “crowd psychology”. Every day suffering Nigerians identify with their oppressors - especially if they are of the same tribe and ilk. It’s “Every day is for the thief”, isn’t it.
On a good day it’s “Hosannah!” and on a bad day, they don’t call it “Good Friday “ for nothing, so it was, “Crucify him!”
In this case, it would seem that the crowd identified with the police constable who - shock and awe, stealth and surprise, I had so easily thrown off balance and onto the ground. It’s just that when he got up with that hideous smile on his face, took off his belt and told me that he was going to teach me a lesson, I knew there and then his intention was to flay me alive with the silver buckle of his belt - to avenge his humiliation. So I did the wisest thing. I ran for my life. “He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day” I ran as fast as my legs could carry me along that road, one hand carrying one of my bags laden with fruits and belt in hand the police constable ran after me for a while while the crowd around the danfo cheered and jeered until like Jesus, I disappeared into the crowds at Mile One Market
Didn't the crowds cheer the hungry lions ripping up Christians in the Roman arenas?
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Harrow, Kenneth
Sent: Wednesday, May 17, 2023 4:07:21 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Today's Quote
Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Oluwatoyin Adepoju
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi was probably being Nigeria-specific, but more generally speaking, would Chidi care to express an opinion on “Poetry makes nothing happen” ?
Whilst in his own eyes he may think that it’s kosher for him to say that he “cares” ( deeply?) “about misinformation via dissemination of half truths”,
is he simultaneously aware that some poetry, including his own, not to mention some of the contending scriptures, have sometimes unknowingly or
deliberately set out on the path of unintentionally / “inerrantly” misleading people by disseminating misinformation and peddling “ half truths” or outright lies?
Consider the proposition that “ Jesus never existed”
When seriously investigated what does that make of e.g. “The Holy Trinity” ? The Virgin Birth? All that “New Testament” poetry?
Some food for thought , an opinion attributed to Imam Ali ( alaihi salaam) :
“ Only an ignorant person is proud of his own opinion”
May The Almighty save us all from ignorance…
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi,
“For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despise their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free” ?
I was only trying to tickle your funny toe. In my view too, the people perish where poetry does not flourish.
You do make a very succinct point there that “Poetry, at least generates reactions from many quarters”. I think that on a personal level the main impulse that dominates the self-haters, the haters of themselves, haters of humanity and haters of poetry is that they reach for the delete button, the way that the gunslinger/gunrunner reaches for his gun.They say that they don’t want their peace of mind to be disturbed by whatever, it may even be Shakespeare.
It does reek of calumny, but we don’t have to go too far back in history to find precedents such as “ Muhammad’s Dead Poets Society”
Fast forward : Do you remember the furore over “ The Satanic Verses”?
I suppose that nowadays in some dictatorships the prevailing atmosphere is what you friend Wole Soyinka termed “Climate of Fear '' where the very idea of “ poetic licence” is anathema to the ministry of misinformation and state propaganda, and where freedom of expression can be violently suppressed ; you may not be in love with violent suppression by the miscreants but to some extent you may unwittingly find yourself on the same side , find yourself in bed with them as a consequence of say, “ One can have any affiliations one chooses to have, I don't care, but I care about misinformation via dissemination of half truths.” I’m afraid that sounds like a Nigerian Joseph Goebbels saying no to the freedom given by “ poetic licence” , by using your very words: “One can have any affiliations one chooses to have, I don't care, but I care about misinformation via dissemination of half truths.”, even though here, in the Nigerian context - in Wole Soyinka’s Republic of Liars, you say half truths in the sense that a half truth is equal to a whole lie
Satire can be used as a useful weapon.
I have already pleaded with you that outside of freedom of speech Nigeria, you have to be as circumspect as possible - you cannot use that “ poetic licence “ of yours as a driving licence for all occasions in Saudi Arabia, Thailand, or even Japan where the Monarchy is above criticism. You know as well as anybody that there are certain half-truths and even full truths that can get you into a whole lot of trouble, and that then Ojogbon Falola & Ken Harrow’s pleas via Amnesty International , P:E,N. International, Human Rights Watch etc won’t be able to help you. Or Assange. Or Snowden. Or Evan Gershkovich
I’m not too happy about your ultimatum to Dear President-Elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu. You say, “ The next 100 days would determine my relationship with Bola Tinubu, Nigeria's incoming President”
Which means that you expect him to hit the ground running. What if he doesn't “ hit the ground running”? We’ve got to be patient. Consider all that Chairman Mao said, about “ The First Step”
Consider the tens of thousands of pieces of advice being thrown at him from e.g. Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth and others, from left, right and centre!
Something else that is a cause of concern, your ominously quoting Dada Idi Amin, that "whenever there Is a change of government in Africa, a few heads must roll"
Heads rolling here of course doesn't mean the guillotine in a non-poetic sense ?
People going to face the firing squad for corruption?
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Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi,
We always have to be watchful since the incorrigible spell checker has no feelings, doesn't know what it’s doing - just like AI and is therefore liable to get us into all kinds of trouble, suggesting that Mazi should be transformed to Nazi, today to “toady”…
The saying is that “ To err is human, to forgive is divine” - as in the case of wise man Bode George, who knows from where his bread is being buttered and that it's unwise to declare to a powerful president that you are his personal enemy. Ditto the vacillating Brer Obasanjo first he announces to the whole world, “God will never forgive me if I support Atiku for the Presidency” , then he repents and arrogating to himself the position of the All -Merciful when he tells Alhaji Atiku, “ You are totally forgiven” Does he believe that the God who will never forgive him has now forgiven him for supporting and giving succour to Atiku?
And what about big mouth Kperogi boasting, as usual, this time that if Brother Tinubu wins the Nigerian Presidential Election, he will renounce his Nigerian citizenship. Talk is cheap. Well, the JAGABAN has won, so what’s Kperogi waiting for? When is he going to renounce his citizenship? It’s the kind of big talk that we hear from the kind of person who doesn’t put his money where his mouth is. As if anybody is going to go into some deep mourning or it’s going to be something like a national funeral when he renounces his Nigerian Citizenship. What’s he waiting for? Who cares? Me?
About heads rolling, wasn’t it Machiavelli that said “It is better to be feared than to be loved, if one cannot be both.”?
Love ,the place where we can all meet:
https://www.thetorah.com/article/the-qurans-lesson-from-the-shema-direct-your-heart-to-god
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
CHIDI,
Your every pithy statement, hits the proverbial nail on its head.
‘
Sometimes, less, is more. Of course your statement might sound cryptic to the uninitiated but it is more powerful as it stands because you don’t name any names, you don’t call a spade a spade, and you don’t have to, because everybody here knows who you are referring to
Indeed, there he is and there he goes like a fake prophet, wearing false feathers, strutting around like a peacock on the Naija social media stage, trying to give the impression, that he is / was God’s-anointed when in fact he lost by over two million votes, in spite of which, on this most auspicious day he has chosen to issue this kind of pitiful state-ment
.
Why is it that some of the elections conducted in Africa tend to produce so many bad, sour grapes losers ?
For a surety, if instead of coming third, Mister Obi had managed to win the hearts and minds of most of those who voted by more than a two million vote margin - just as President Bola Ahmed Tinubu did, then, today, right now Obi would have been sending Hearty Congratulations to Turkiye’s JAGABAN President-elect Recep Tayyip Erdoğan
Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
A short note/ takeoff on Pa Google daring to suggest “Nazi” when Chidi absolutely meant “Mazi”
This evening, I found myself checking out the word “Nazir” and “Nazirite” as in “Nazirite vow”. A colleague at work once told me that she had taken a “Nazarite vow” and from that day forward, I started looking at her as if she was from another planet, like Mother Teresa.
(You have of course heard about this miracle?)
For the bookworms, wordsmiths, etymologists, Ifa priests, poets, struggling students, and wannabe presidents who have the time to spare it’s all here in the latest issue at
TheTorah.com - Torah and Academic Biblical Scholarship 👍 :
What Is a Nazir, and Why the Wild Hair?
The Sotah Ritual: Mistrusting Women and Their Torah Study
The items discussed above in connection with the SOTAH ritual should interest e.g. Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, who is interested in comparative mysticism , and should of course, also interest some of the jealous men who suspect their big booty of committing adultery / zinah / fornication outside of holy matrimony…
On my first encounter with the description of the ancient ritual known as “ Sotah”, I was sure that the equivalent of that ritual or very similar practices could be probably found (from a Western Missionary point of view) ín some primitive African religion/s
The Sotah ritual has fallen into desuetude, since very long ago; and the rabbis say that the ritual has lost its efficacy because the people nowadays are not as pure as they used to be
Chidi, consider: Joe Biden fell yesterday -we all wish him a speedy recovery, and today we read this kind of headline:
Don’t be fooled – Trump’s presidential run is gaining more and more momentum
Biden falls and Trump’s run is gaining more momentum.
Early this morning in my dream (I Remember all the details) Pope Francis took both of my hands in his and told me a few things; he also explained to me, matter of factly, why one of his predecessors committed apostasy…
BTW, I believe that Ojogbon is going to write a book about you and the other phenomenon we know as Adepoju and please, don’t say I didn't warn you. If Adepoju hasn’t already done so, I suspect that he’s also writing a book about Ojogbon, and another one about Abiola Irele. The one about Ojogbon will probably be poetically titled “ A Mouth Sweeter Than Honey”
You know how it is: Jesus talked about his Heavenly Father, all the time, and as soon as he was gone (to heaven) the apostles started talking about him (Jesus)
If only Jesus had written a book about himself...
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Mr. E. B. Jaiyeoba
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
Chidi Anthony Opara,
Sometimes the correction machine suggests that “opera” should replace Opara.
I hope ( and pray) that you don’t mind, that I nickname you “St.Anthony'' - in the same way that I chose to baptise Brer Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth as St.Augustine (of Nigeria) because of his numerous - in my view - concrete and saintly suggestions for the material and spiritual development and well-being of Nigerians -and in that sphere I believe that he surpasses Sokoto’s Bishop Hassan Kukah who has a tendency of waxing more ideological and political, one of my main reasons for not baptising him “ St.Hassan” (and of course, the Vatican must agree with me that in his public utterances as part of the on-going, a never-ending national dialogue he does weigh in as more combative and less theological in the Roman Catholic sense of the word, although, perhaps, because of the dominant climate in which the national discourse was being conducted. I followed the main discourse throughout the Buhari years ( 2015 -2023) and at no time did Bishop Kukah find himself wading in the same waters as Brazil’s Bishop Helder Camara who tearfully complained,” When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
Nowhere has Bishop Kukah stated his positions more unmistakably than in
The Toyin Falola Interviews: A Conversation with Bishop Kukah…and I was going to take him for a ride on a few issues, but out of respect, didn’t.
Unfortunately, the same problems that Bishop Kukah was going on about are likely to persist, albeit the Tinubu regime is unlikely to be a continuation and extension of business as usual, in the same lane as in the good old days of Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari:Ihdinas Siratal Mustaqim
St.Anthony ( a continuation of the same Chidi Opara) what distinguishes you is your saintly pronouncement that “All humans can be sick and can fall as a result.” It sounds like a quotation from the Holy Bible about The Fall of man, in the mythological Garden of Eden - resulting in St.Augustine cooking up the doctrine of original sin - a centrepiece of the church of Rome redemption, according to them, the raison d'être for Jesus of Nazareth descending to this sinful planet to redeem all those who are willing to believe in him. They say that’s all it takes to be “ saved”: Some intellectual assent to the proposition that Jesus of the cross is the holy one sent by God, to redeem all of us, “ to the Jew first and also to the Greek”
I’m somewhat surprised and wondering., is Saint Chidi Anthony in denial?
I would have thought that the next question about sotah , is the question that is addressed here; Shaming Women Suspected of Adultery - What About Men?
The bottom line, of this poem by Edith Södergran:
You were looking for a flower
and you found a fruit.
You were looking for a source
and you found a sea.
You were looking for a woman
and you found a soul
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
Cornelius Hamelberg
“Appointments in Nigeria are not made with competence as a yardstick, it is loyalty (the "I am loyal" variant) that counts.” ( Chidi Anthony Opara)
This sounds like a direct challenge to President Tinubu’s best of intentions to depart from what arguably/ inarguably is, was or could have been the longstanding norm in Nigeria by ( so to would seem) emphasising the importance of meritocracy when he announced his forthcoming “government of national competence”
You surely don’t mean that competence is of no consequence and that it’s only sycophancy obsequiousness, obedience ( a close affiliate of the “obidients”) and blind loyalty are the prerequisite qualities that merit appointments in Nigeria.
Consider : “ Obedience is the first law in heaven” You can hardly fault the Almighty for that, or call Him a dictator. Remember that out of arrogance Satan the upstart leader of the opposition was thrown out of heaven - for rebellion - and that he took with him a third of the heavenly hosts who thereby became rebel angels and demons.
Of course, in the political arena the world over, in the larger people’s democracies/ peoples governments where national progress is being recorded , whether it's China, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, the practical wisdom of loyalty being a sine qua non first principle , is self-evident. Even if the fake prophet who declared that if Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected President of Nigeria then he would renounce his Nigerian citizenship or Peter Obi himself were to be judged to be the most competent economist to be found in Nigeria and the Nigerian Diaspora, it would be incompetent and unwise for President Tinubu to appoint Obi as his Finance Minister / Secretary of State for the Treasury or Director-General of The Central Bank of Nigeria and then predictably go on live in eternal dread with sleepless nights and nightmares of his administration being sabotaged from within by such an ambitious trojan horse of the opposition) although, if Obi had been declared the President-Elect, then all smiles and no sour grapes, he ( Obi) would have automatically been the self-appointed commander-in-chief and supreme overseer of all the appointments to be made for the smooth running of his government.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” means that loyalty and team spirit are also desirable & necessary components, a good formula for peace and harmony, and the spirit of collective responsibility in a well functioning Tinubu led cabinet/ government.
Offhand, these appointments come to mind :
Goodluck Jonathan appointed Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ( back then, I wonder what she had to opine about fossil fuels or to advise her boss/ godfather about “ fuel subsidy” and if she was indeed the brain behind Jonathan’s policy of hijacking/ spiking the price of fuel for Nigeria’s impoverished masses
Liz Truss appointed wonder boy Kwasi Kwarteng ( a certified genius) as her Minister of Finance and shortly thereafter the markets couldn’t absorb the shock treatment as therapy or swallow his bitter medicine aimed at a longer term effect and therefore in a state of panic they rapidly lost trust in Liz Truss who was thus replaced by Rishi Sunak who in turn appointed Jeremy Hunt as his trusted lieutenant and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Probably, from a Nigerian point of view, or a “ third world” point of view, generally, a third world where access to quality education is a privilege and not a divine right for the masses, this adage tends to ring true : “in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed King” hence we are regularly regaled about pompous , sometimes ridiculous semi-idiot big grammar extravaganza being touted as “ brilliant” and “genius” - forcing such words to lose their original consensus meaning ( such disdain for own people and country thereby also promoting subtle racism) therefore another reasonable question that could be asked about cabinet appointments to finance in Merry England / the UK is that with some of the top universities in the UK producing so many top-notch professors in economics, political economy, Nobel Prize quality etc , surely, there should be someone more competent than Jeremy Hunt to man that position?
The same question can be asked about Cabinet appointments in the old Nigeria and the Nigeria of the new dispensation.. Where there are many competent Nigerians in and out of the country in various branches of business and finance, entrepreneurship .The fact is from the academe, there are many competent Nigerians in the various spheres - economics, science & technology, IT, medicine, agriculture, international relations etc
Just the other day Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth was busy recommending guidelines to President Tinubu, as to who he should consider appointing as Nigeria's next minister of education. Just imagine how many letters, phone calls a day President Tinubu must be receiving importuning him to appoint this and that very loyal and competent person to the post of Attorney-General/ Minister of Agriculture/ Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Nigeria's Permanent Representative at the United Nations/ Ambassador to Washington/ Beijing/ Paris/ Berlin/The Court of St James's…
Cornelius Hamelberg
“Appointments in Nigeria are not made with competence as a yardstick, it is loyalty (the "I am loyal" variant) that counts.” ( Chidi Anthony Opara)
This sounds like a direct challenge to President tinubu's best of intentions to depart from what arguably/ inarguably is, was, or could have been the longstanding norm in Nigeria by ( so it would seem) emphasising the importance of meritocracy when he announced his forthcoming “government of national competence”
You surely don’t mean that competence is of no consequence and that it’s only sycophancy, obsequiousness, obedience ( a close affiliate of the “obidients”) and blind loyalty that are the prerequisite qualities that merit appointments in Nigeria.
Consider: “ Obedience is the first law in heaven” You can hardly fault the Almighty for that, or call Him a dictator. Remember that out of arrogance Satan the upstart leader of the opposition was thrown out of heaven - for rebellion - and that he took with him a third of the heavenly hosts who thereby became rebel angels and demons.
Of course, in the political arena the world over, in the larger people’s democracies/ peoples governments where national progress is being recorded, whether it's China, India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, the practical wisdom of loyalty being a sine qua non, first principle, is self-evident. Even if the fake prophet who declared that if Bola Ahmed Tinubu was elected President of Nigeria then he would renounce his Nigerian citizenship or Peter Obi himself were to be judged to be the most competent economist to be found in Nigeria and the Nigerian Diaspora, it would be incompetent and unwise for President Tinubu to appoint Obi as his Finance Minister / Secretary of State for the National Treasury or Director-General of The Central Bank of Nigeria and then predictably go on to live in eternal dread with sleepless nights and nightmares of his administration being sabotaged from within by such an ambitious trojan horse of the opposition) although, if Obi had been declared the President-Elect, then all smiles and no sour grapes, he (Obi) would have automatically been the self-appointed commander-in-chief and supreme overseer of all the appointments to be made for the smooth running of his government.
“A house divided against itself cannot stand” means that loyalty and team spirit are also desirable & necessary components, a good formula for peace and harmony, and the spirit of collective responsibility in a well-functioning Tinubu-led cabinet/ government.
Offhand, these appointments come to mind :
Goodluck Jonathan appointed Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala ( back then, I wonder what she had to opine about fossil fuels or to advise her boss/ godfather about “ fuel subsidy” and if she was indeed the brain behind Jonathan’s policy of hijacking/ spiking the price of fuel for Nigeria’s impoverished masses
Liz Truss appointed wonder boy Kwasi Kwarteng ( a certified genius) as her Minister of Finance and shortly thereafter the markets couldn’t absorb the shock treatment as therapy or swallow his bitter medicine aimed at a longer-term effect and therefore in a state of panic they rapidly lost trust in Liz Truss who was thus replaced by Rishi Sunak who in turn appointed Jeremy Hunt as his trusted lieutenant and Chancellor of the Exchequer
Probably, from a Nigerian point of view, or a “third world” point of view, generally, a third world where access to quality education is a privilege and not a divine right for the masses, this adage tends to ring true: “in the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed King” hence we are regularly regaled about pompous, sometimes ridiculous semi-idiot big grammar extravaganza being touted as “ brilliant” and “genius” - forcing such words to lose their original consensus meaning ( such disdain for own people and country thereby also promoting subtle racism) therefore another reasonable question that could be asked about cabinet appointments to finance in Merry England / the UK is that with some of the top universities in the UK producing so many top-notch professors in economics, political economy, Nobel Prize quality etc, surely, there should be someone more competent than Jeremy Hunt to man that position?
The same question can be asked about Cabinet appointments in the old Nigeria and the Nigeria of the new dispensation..Where there are many competent Nigerians in and out of the country in various branches of business and finance, and entrepreneurship. The fact is that from the academies, there are many competent Nigerians in the various spheres - economics, science & technology, IT, medicine, agriculture, international relations, etc
Just the other day Augustine Togonu-Bickersteth was busy recommending guidelines to President Tinubu, as to who he should consider appointing as Nigeria's next minister of education. Just imagine how many letters, and phone calls a day President Tinubu must be receiving importuning him to appoint this and that very loyal and competent person to the post of Attorney-General/ Minister of Agriculture/ Minister of Diaspora Affairs, Nigeria's Permanent Representative at the United Nations/ Ambassador to Washington/ Beijing/ Paris/ Berlin/The Court of St James's…Michael Afolayan
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Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA
On Tuesday, June 6, 2023, 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Would you also protect any time with poetry?Just curious (and trying to be poetic).Thanks, Chidi.MOA
On Saturday, June 3, 2023, 10:12:01 AM GMT+1, Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM, CDOA <chidi...@gmail.com> wrote:
I protest everytime with poetry.-Chidi Anthony Opara(CAO)
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Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet, IIM Professional Fellow, MIT Chief Data Officer Ambassador and Editorial Adviser at News Updates (https://updatesonnews.substack.com)
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