Nkem Owoh: Missing and Kidnapped

[Toyin Falola]

'Scam comic' kidnapped in Nigeria

A prominent Nigerian comic actor who is famous for singing a song about e-mail scams has been kidnapped.

Nkem Owoh was last seen setting off on a highway in the east of the country, the head of the Nigerian actors' guild said.
Local media report that kidnappers have demanded a 15m naira ($98,300, £58,900) ransom for Mr Owoh.
He is the second actor to be kidnapped in the area. In August, Pete Edochie was seized and released a day later.
'Chop your dollar'
Mr Owoh is the star of at least 77 Nollywood films, with titles like Big Man... Big Trouble, and The Master - a film about e-mail fraud.
He also sang the song Oyinbo, I go chop your dollar, pidgin for "white man, I'm going to take your money", from The Master.
The song was banned from being played on the radio.
In the satirical film he plays an e-mail scammer who makes a living duping "greedy white people" with advance fee fraud e-mails.
He also starred in the Nollywood sales record-breaker Osuofia in London, a fish-out-of-water comedy about a man from rural Igboland trying to get by in London.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/africa/8353578.stm

Published: 2009/11/10 19:23:58 GMT

© BBC MMIX

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Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
1 University Station
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222  (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com/
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http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
 

[Tony Agbali]

The kidnapping phenomenon constitutes a dangerous trend and a serious blemish relative to the function of government in providing security of live and property for her citizens. This diffusing trend ascribes an increasing indicator that the Federal Government has failed in it most important duty;usy doing nothing about Nigeria's security. This disinterest in acting promptly and efficiently enhances a perjorative and acrid ambience where lives and properties are in apparent perpetual danger.   The Yar'Adua government must act promptly to stem this tide. It is increasing a danger, more than the frauds perpetuated through our banking system, in scaring away investors.    Recently, a Nigerian minister agreed to what has been known among Nigerians for long, that many foreign companies are leaving Nigeria, with most destined for Ghana.  Corruption and the acrimonious general insecurity and government's antipathy, would be counted as major factors for this trend.   It is simply sickening the kind of money that the kidnappers are demanding before releasing their victims. Recently, it was reported that about N20 million (Naira) was paid to secure the release of the father of the erstwhile Central Bank Governor and foremost gubernatorial candidate representing the ruling PDP in Anambra State.   The security scare this kidnapping has introduced makes it evident that the Nigerian Federal Government is not alive to its responsibility of securing the lives and properties of Nigerians. The recent purchase of about eighteen bullet-proof vehicles for some principals of the Nigerian National Assemby at the cost of about N85 million for each car, seems to indicate how powerless the government is in the face of this kind of criminal onslaughts. In a society, where the government is providing needed security such purchase would have been needless.   The very fact that a branch of government has thrown in the torwel, relative to crime protection, and now turning upon themselves to secure their own security is the greatest indicator of utmost failure of governance in today's Nigeria, at all level of government.  The Yar'Adua government should prove us wrong that it is functional and proactive in living out its commitments by rising to stem this damaging tide, quickly and efficiently. --- On Wed, 11/11/09, Toyin Falola <toyin....@mail.utexas.edu> wrote:

[Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola]

Please what form of government uses suffering as a form of governance and it works. I one of my early morning notes to myself I wrote: [To rule a people with ease, make sure living is complicated and dying; expensive and illegal. Nigerians live in sub-human conditions because it makes governance effortless for the ruling class. The people are busy looking for what to eat, without looking out for what is 'eating' them. Until Nigerians give up FEAR of life, then and only then will liberation come.....] Please does anyone know the label for this system of government? Kole Odutola

[Tony Agbali]

You have aptly described it as you perceive ,so why not label it yourself, when you given its key ideas and crafted the hinges upon which the concept is predicated. It seems to me that your kind of government can be so easily labeled- "eatocracy"- eat-o-cracy (eat-to-crazy) and forget about what is making you hungry. Or we can also call it the Kole Nigerian governance formulae! Or we can also describe it as the Odutola doctrine. That is the heart of the act of nativist analysis, a political formulary that comes off the thinking mind of a son-of-the-soil (abi na shoin!).  We are now doing African politicography and politheory! Now, we know the problem, eatocracy, what is the way to translate it into a more practical form of transforming agenda-from eat-to-quench to quench-the-heat-to-eat!  --- On Sat, 11/14/09, Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola <ko...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Isa Achoba]

Kole, thank you indeed for this excellent description of governance in Nigeria.

A government that decimates its population through irresponsible policies and handling destruction and death to its people in place of development is self destroying.

It is called 'Destrocracy', eventually leading to the dead of such government!

Good morning and congratulations to Nigeria Footballers who give us moments to be proud of being Nigerians!

Isa Achoba

In Nairobi

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  From: Oluwatoyin Ade-Odutola [ko...@yahoo.com]
  Sent: 11/14/2009 08:47 AM PST
  To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
  Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - To Political scientists in the house