Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com - 21 updates in 10 topics
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Ogbuagu Anikwe
Feb 18, 2016, 9:14:03 PM2/18/16
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Permit me to chip in something that has bothered me a bit about the name "Ezebuiro/Ezebuilo." I believe the transliteration of this name has done a great deal of harm to its true meaning. If I'm it not mistaken, it was Prof. Onwumechiri that first inaugurated this misdirection at his Ahajioku lecture and it had been gaining currency ever since. The way it is used in my Enugu State (which I believe is where it started), Ezebuilo does not mean "a king is enemy." It means "a king invites enmity." Or in transliteration: "a king carries enmity." A king in this context represents any variant of achievement that marks out an individual and raises him to "eat with elders." When considered from its true interpretation, Ezebuiro is really one of the justifications for rejecting absolute monarchy in Igboland. If we take it to mean that "the king is enemy" the implication would be that the Igbos had had in the past tasted and found absolute monarchy obnoxious before elevating republicanism as a way of life.
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On 19 Feb 2016 00:00, <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
...
- Invitation to a CECTRRA Public Lecture at UNIABUJA - 1 Update
- Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE - 4 Updates
- Uganda's government tried to shut down social media during its elections... - 1 Update
- Themes in Ese Ifa, Ifa Literature: Biological Genesis : Obatala and the Dark Room - 1 Update
- I CRY FOR TONKOLILI - 1 Update
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- Spirituality is Available to Everyone - 4 Updates
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- EFCC has recoaijvered Billions, says Magu - 1 Update
ugwuanyi Lawrence <ugwuany...@yahoo.com>: Feb 18 09:37PM
What is CECTRRA-CECTRRA is Centre for Critical Thinking and Resourceful Research in Africa.
What is the Vision and Mission...www.cectrra.org has it all!
Dear Esteemed Members of this List Server,
You are hereby notified and very cordially invited to the public lecture co-organised by
The Centre for Critical Thinking and Resourceful Research in Africa (CECTRRA) and Development Office, University of Abuja.
Your invitation card is hereby attached.
Topic : “The Language of Illusory Wisdom: Plato and Self-Understanding in an African context”(see Abstract attached)
Date: February 23,2016
Proposed Venue: New Lecture Theatre, Faculty of Management Sciences, UNIABUJA Main Campus
Time :2.00p.m
Guest Lecture: Dr.Olof Pettersson- Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Uppsala.Sweden/ Postdoctoral Fellow and as Associate Researcher, University of Bergen,Norway.
You are welcome!
Lawrence Ogbo Ugwuanyi,Ph.D
Associate Professor of Philosophy
Formerly: Visiting Scholar, University of South Africa
: Visiting Associate Professor of Philosophy, Great Zimbabwe University,Zimbabwe.
Founder-Centre for Critical Thinking and Resourceful Research in Africa (CECTRRA)
www.cectrra.org
Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>: Feb 18 01:53PM +0100
Uyilawa,
The institution of Oba or traditional rulers in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is dirty and sacrilegious in our culture and should have been weeded out long time ago. Before the advent of Slave trade, an Oba carried the responsibility of leading his community, in defending and repulsing external aggressors, humans or wild animals; and in agricultural labour. When those Oba began to ravage neighbouring communities to capture and sell fellow black man as slaves to Europeans, they lost their dignities and rights to be Oba of their communities. After the end of classical slavery, the colonialists came knocking and the Obas surrendered to become subordinate to foreign power. Consequently, the institution of Oba became useless to Nigerians where ever Oba, as traditional rulers, existed. Whether we like it or not, the truth is that we were colonized by Britain who initially ruled through the Emirs in the North and Obas in the West. In the East there were no traditional rulers as in the North and West, therefore, the colonialist created Warrant Chiefs as substitutes for Oba and Emirs. Premised on this historical fact it would not have made any sense for Akenzua II to suggest Enugu as meeting place for the Obas in the South under the supervision of the Colonial masters, when there was no Oba in Enugu (Remember the saying Igbo enwe Eze or Ezebuilo Igbos have no Kings or The-King-Is-An-Enemy). You averred that but for colonialism, Benin would not have been part of Western Region. True as this may be, it is more intelligent to say that without Colonialism, Nigeria would not have existed at all. Whatever aversion Akenzua II might have had against the Yoruba, his suggestion and protests against the meetings of the Obas presided over by the Colonial Residents and Lieutenant General were in vain. He succumbed to superior powers and in fact participated in those meetings. As for your claim that it was Awolowo's self government regime that ranked the Obas in favour of Yoruba majority and that Akenzua never accepted it, you need to tell us what he did to demonstrate his rejection of the ranking. Historically, it is indisputable that Akenzua was a member of Western House of Chiefs from the 50s to 1964 when the Midwest Region was created and he received salaries and allowances as number 3 in the ranking of Obas from the government of Western Region. I am not a Royalist or Monarchist and as such I don't need to choose between any of the Obas whether Yoruba or Benin. To me , their era finished with the conquest of the colonialist over Nigeria. However, it would amount to distortion of history and sterile intellectual masturbation to attribute Akenzua II with the power he never possessed when Benin was part of Western Region. Even the historical aloof knows that since the arrival of the colonialists in Nigeria the Obas existed only at the grace of the government and that was why some Obas that overstepped the limit of power granted them were dethroned and banished by the government. The power to depose, banish and recognise an Oba/Emir/Sultan/Eze, till date, is invested in each of the State's government in Nigeria. Akenzua II never did any of those things you attributted to him in your invented history because it is on record that he sat as number three among the Obas in the Western House of Chiefs and he received salaries and allowances as such. As for the creation of the Midwest out of the Western Region, you may wish to remember that it was the Western House of Assembly that passed a resolution in early 1961 calling for simultaneous creation of Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers, Midwest, and Middle-belt regions out of the then Eastern, Western and Northern Region respectively. But when the Federal coalition government of NPC/NCNC moved a motion in the Federal Parliament in 1961 for the creation of minority regions, the North and East were excluded. Contributing to the debate, the Prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, tacitly refer to the previous resolution in the Western House of Assembly thus, "I will not subscribe to the idea of breaking the federation into pieces, but if any region is so stupid as to ask us to break them into pieces we shall help them to do so." The government of Western Region challenged the Constitutional right of the Federal government to create a minority region out of the West alone but before the case could come up for hearing at the Supreme Court, the NPC/NCNC coalition government had overthrown the Action Group controlled government of the Western Region and thereafter created Midwest region. Obviously, Akenzua played no role in the creation of the Midwest Region.S. Kadiri
From: big...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:43:08 -0500
Kadiri, What is obvious (without your characteristic vitriol) is that the so-called ranking of Obas has no basis in pre-colonial history and tradition, and it is a colonial innovation. But for colonialism, Benin would not have been part of Western Region and Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo would not have been ranked along with Yoruba Obas. When the Colonial government instituted the Meeting of Chiefs of Western Provinces in the late 1930s, there was no ranking of chiefs. The meetings were rotated among the provincial headquarters and was presided over by the Residents and Lieutenant General. Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo Akẹnzua II protested against attending these meetings and even suggested that they are held at Enugu (headquarters of Southern Nigeria) as it was done in Northern Nigeria, but his request fell on deaf ears. It was the self-government regime of Yoruba dominated Egbe Omo Oduduwa and Action Group's Machiavellian politics that ranked the Obas in favor of fellow Egbe Omo Oduduwa Obas. Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo Akẹnzua II never accepted and was never a member of Egbe Omo Oduduwa and warned his Ẹdo people against taking their scholarship and membership. In 1948, he resumed the agitation for the creation of Benin-Delta Region (started by Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo Ẹwẹka II-N'Ologbẹ in 1926) to avoid the feared Yoruba majority domination and derogation. When Awolowo assumed premiership of self-governing Western Region, he met with Omo n'Oba n'Edo Akenzua II and threateningly "advised" him to steer clear of politics, and Omo n'Oba n'Edo Akenzua II retorted that he should do same with Ooni Aderemi Adesoji of Ile-Ife. Egbe Omo Oduduwa politics was the genesis of the ranking which was foisted on Western House of Chief and had nothing to do with any traditional or precolonial relationships. This derogation of Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo Akenzua II in the House of Chiefs further confirmed the fear of Yoruba majority domination and the need to struggle for creation of Benin Delta Region. Uyilawa
From: ogunl...@hotmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 00:47:51 +0100
The world is upside-down in Nigeria where dogs can claim to be progenitors of lions. Benin or Edo of today used to be part of Western Region of Nigeria until 1964 when Midwest Region was carved out of the Western Region. Benin became capital of Midwest Region. Apart from the Western House of Assembly, there was also Western House of Chiefs populated by Oba from the whole of Western Region. Since Õni of Ife was ranked number 1 among the Oba, he presided over the affairs of the House of Chiefs and in his absence Álãfin of Oyo presided. When Adesoji Aderemi became the Governor of Western Region, it was Álãfin of Oyo who presided over the affairs of Western House of Chiefs and in his absence Akenzua the Oba of Benin deputised for him. So, the ranking of Oba in Yorubaland as asserted by the current Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, is in tandem with what obtained in the Western House of Chiefs before the creation of the Midwest region that expunged the Oba of Benin from the Western Region's House of Chiefs. If the Midwest Region had had House of Chiefs, the then Oba Akenzua of Benin would probably have been number 1 Oba presiding over the affairs of the House of Chiefs there.
The word OBA is a typical Yoruba word from which Bãlé (OBA ILE) = the head of the family or husband and Bãlè (OBA ILÈ) = district head are derived. Benins have neither BÃLÉ nor BÃLÈ therefore the word OBA as applied to their king is borrowed from Yoruba. Before the current Oba of Benin ascended the throne, his real name was Solomon Aisiokhuobo Igbinoghodua Akenzua. But when he ascended the throne he acquired the name, Omo N'Oba N'Edo Uku Akpolokplolo Erediauwa. In Yorubaland the jurisdiction of the Oba is permanent and is always stated before his title and name. Thus, we have Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, Awujale of Ijebu-Ode, Oba Sikiru Adetona etc. The Yoruba word for King is Oba and the Yoruba word for Crown is Adé. The two words have nothing to do with Benin as historical revisionists will like us to believe.
S. Kadiri
From: ibdu...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 15:22:29 +0000
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Tunde:Odia cannot pass as a historian: he was never trained as one nor does he practice as one! His ourevres reference him as a 'literary' guy; whatever that means.---
Sent from my iPhone
On Feb 16, 2016, at 1:53 PM, "'Ayotunde Bewaji' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
Good Morning,I wish historians were also logicians, to see the gaps in the webs they weave. This is why historians need Philosophy of History. A little circumspection would have demonstrated to Dr. Odia Ofeimun some of the palpable fallacies, chronological incongruities and ethnic impositions ingrained in the "certainties" he has paraded here. The fact of the matter is that the greatest civilizations of the world fashion historio-genesis from obscure memories and myths. The great part of it is that while God cannot make what has happened not to happen, historians can and often do! It is the nature of our humanity to construct - change - narratives for purposes that suit our needs.Ire o.Tunde.
Tunde Bewaji Professor of Philosophy
Department of Language, Linguistics and Philosophy
Faculty of Humanities and Education
University of the West Indiess
Mona Campus
Kingston 7
Jamaica
Email: john....@uwimona.edu.jm (alternate)
tunde....@gmail.com (alternate)
tunde...@yahoo.comhttp://www.cap-press.com/books/isbn/9781611630879/Narratives-of-Strugglehttps://rowman.com/ISBN/9780739185032/Ontologized-Ethicshttp://www.amazon.com/Black-Aesthetics
On Monday, 15 February 2016, 20:54, Toyin Falola <toyin...@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
BY
Odia Ofeimun
I am a Republican, not a Royalist. But, in a country in which we have all conceded the coexistence of Republican and Royalist values, it should
be considered quite unseemly to watch one set of the interacting values being rough-handled, muddied or treated with improper decorum without feeling a need to intervene on behalf of rectitude. I have been so challenged since the eruption of the controversy
ignited by the Alake of Egbaland, Oba Adedotun Gbadebo, who allowed himself to do a ranking of Yoruba Obas that placed the Oba of Benin as third in the hierarchy. In one sense, as Chief David Edebiri, the Esogban of Benin, immediately retorted, it is wrong
to rank the Oba of Benin among Yoruba Obas because the Oba of Benin is not a Yoruba and therefore cannot be placed on a list of Yoruba Obas. I call it 'in a sense' because the Esogban's position may be disputed on the grounds, as will soon be clear, that there
is too much siblinghood between Yoruba and Benin traditional rulers for the ethnic difference between them to be rendered in cast-iron terms.
The special relationship between Yoruba and Benin obas, not unlike the relationship between Benin and Onitsha kings, or between Lagos and
Edo kings, makes it all the more impolitic to do a ranking of the Benin monarchy in Yoruba royal affairs without abiding by certain inter-subjective and shared norms. And let me note, very quickly, that it is the presence of such norms that makes it quite
normal for Chief Edebiri to put the Oba of Benin as Number One without appearing to contradict himself. In his response to the Alake, Chief Edebiri has argued, quite simply, that the term
oba was not used to describe Yoruba kings until the Oba of Benin got there. This may well be disputed. Except that it has the merit of being close to verisimilitude when he argues that the king of Ibadan was called Olu, the king of Abeokuta was
called Alake, the king of Oyo was called Alafin; only the Benin monarch was Oba. With the backing of glotto-cultural studies, however, we should be able to impute that the term, oba, is a root word shared by both the Yoruba and the Edo languages and that
among the sixteen kings that reigned in Ile-Ife before the arrival of Oduduwa's party, many had oba as prefix to their names. To say this amounts to jumping ahead of the argument a little. But let me add, for those who are not familiar with this piece of
anthropology, that Oduduwa, the acknowledged founder-ancestor, the progenitor of the Yoruba nationality, was a
stranger who met a historical line of obas in Ile Ife, the last of whom was Obatala, the leader of the Igbo, the autochthons , later deified as god of creativity or creation, sometimes synced with Orunmila, for wisdom. Make your pick.
Let me also add that, from the studies of the Ifa divination system made by several scholars, as imbibed from traditional Ifa devotees, it
is those sixteen elders whom Oduduwa met in Ife that provided the sub-structure of Ifa as a formal system of wisdom into which people could be initiated in the way that we all go to tertiary institutions to learn philosophy, jurisprudence and mathematics.
Or mathemagics, if you like. It is of very grave significance in this narrative that we should acknowledge that the Ifa Divination system, before the intervention of Islam, Christianity, and Lord Frederick Lugard's balkanization and regionalization of traditional
gnosis, was based on the existential patterns or prowess of the sixteen elders, or kings, who formed the planks upon which the wisdom of the people, by ritual accretions, was organized. Every good student of Ifa should know that in the Edo Divination system
of Igwega, two of the sixteen elders have been displaced by Edo personages who are not to be found in the Ife version as designed by Agbonmiregun, the Master, who went from Ekiti to Ile Ife and established the rounded system of Ifa Divination as passed by
other masters between the Edo, Nupe, Igala and Yoruba devotees. It can be imagined that, as a matter of ritual, they gathered at Ife, which was quite the centre of their world, for a divination that transcended ethnicities but was based on a common worship
of the earth mother, Efa. All the forest peoples, from Dahomey to the Cameroon mountains, across the Nri of Igboland and past Ogoja, were devotees of one form or other of Ifa Divination. The historian, Ade Obayemi, has imputed that so many concepts in Yoruba
Ifa, which some devotees may regard as mumbo jumbo, are actually Nupe terms that proper glotto-cultural analysis and translation could redeem. This partly explains why Benin Kings could induct or abduct and adopt Igbo medicinemen who became part of the common
national culture, as Egharevba, the Benin historian vouchsafes. What a linguistic, glotto-cultural analysis tells us is that, inOkechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>: Feb 18 12:09PM -0600
"Remember the saying Igbo enwe Eze or Ezebuilo Igbos" - Salimonu Kadiri
Dear Salimoni:
What about "eze dim mma (King/ship is good), eze amaka (King/ship is very
good), eze ahuru kwe (the king that is self evident), Eze nwanne (brother
king)? These are all Igbo names/tittles and sayings, as is eze-udo
(peaceful king, or king of peace; incidentally the preferred tittle of
kings of my native kingdom, including my dad the current Eze Udo of Obibi
Uratta). If there muc
You and your ilk like to cherry pick one or two (minority) Igbo
names/titles/sayings and spin that to support your opinion that the Igbos
had no experience with kingship before Nigeria was colonized. And it did
not occur to you that you may be wrong..that there are other perspectives.
Hence, you latch onto your opinion without humility and at every
opportunity try to re/present it as fact. Each time I read you repeat this
fallacy, I feel like correcting you, but usually ignore you due partly to
lack of time/interest and also because I am not sure you are open to being
corrected with better data or information, once you have made up your mind.
But I am now afraid that many on this list would accept your opinion as
fact if you keep at it and no one attempts to contradict that. So it is
pertinent to note that the myth that Igbos had no kings or kingdoms before
the white man came and introduced warrant chief in the then Eastern Nigeria
is nothing but that -myth.
Notably, that Igbos tend to be republican does not mean that they have no
ezes (kings). Otherwise we would not have had a name (eze) for what we do
not have. I learned from my grand father (who was personally aware of
how things worked in our traditional society before
any encounter with Europeans) that we had a very complex
and sophisticated system of government that involved age
groups, organization of women, men, chief priest, and the oha and the eze.
Hence the saying "oha na eze". And governance in/of various Igbo
communities were not exactly of one and the same type. I do not have
time and ability to fully discuss this here and now. But suffice it to say
again that this fallacy about the Igbos not having any thing like king or
kingdoms before the white man came and introduced warrant chief in the then
Eastern Nigeria is nothing but that -fallacy.
Do you know, that before there was the first Ooni of Ife, there was Obata
(an Igbo King) in that part of Yoruba land? By the way, Obata is Igbo name
meaning "s/he entered/arrived.
Do you know about King Jaja of Opobo? Was he established as a warrant chief
by the British or was he already a king of the Opobo Kingdom
who opposed the British effort to colonize his kingdom?
To avoid repeatedly using using partial information, half truths
and non-truths to craft and propagate opinions as facts in ways that fit
existing bias, a little bit of humility is advisable, especially for one
who seems to be very good at dabbling into what one does not know enough
about.
Regards,
Okey Ukaga
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 6:53 AM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com>
wrote:
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Okechukwu Ukaga, MBA, PhD
Executive Director, Northeast Minnesota Sustainable Development Partnership
Extension Professor, University of Minnesota Extension
Adjunct Professor, Geography Department, University of Minnesota - Duluth
114 Chester Park, 31 W. College Street, Duluth, MN 55812
Website: www.rsdp.umn.edu Phone: 218-341-6029
Book Review Editor, Environment, Development and Sustainability (
www.springer.com/10668),
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change
something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." -
Richard Buckminster Fuller
Rex Marinus <rexma...@hotmail.com>: Feb 18 08:23PM
Okey, the word "Eze" does not mean "king" in Igbo land. It is a specific title, like 'Igwe" which also has been appropriated by contemporary monarchists in Igbo land. Igbo authority system is clear: the man is king of his home, and "Oha" is king of the Igbo under the Umunna system. Simply, the "king" of the Igbo is the people themselves gathered at the public square to deliberate and decide on their affairs. There is no history of any kingdom in Igbo land. EzeNri is a high priest, whose power is spiritual rather than political authority. Even the Obi institution in Onitsha is a modern creation of the 19th century. The Obi was more like the rotating head of the Agbalanze, historically, the council of the oldest titled men from all the clans of Onitsha. Its formalization into a monarchical institution is much like the early twentieth century formalization of the Olu 'badan as a monarch. Historically, the Ibadan were as much hardy republicans like the Igbo, each subscribing only to the head of the individual compounds of that old city, made up of migrants who came to settle long after that Igbo man, Lagoelu, had settled up in the hills.
In any case, Obatala was no "king." He was leader of a land of an autochtonous people who fought in defence of a republican ethos over the intrusive monarchist movement in Igbomoku, now known as Ife, according to certain authorities of the Ifa. The records of the Ifa give us but a good glimpse of the nature of that conflict. But to return to the assumption of the Igbo and "kings": you have, I'm sorry to say, just reproduced a fallacy of contemporary Igbo monarchists, who think that the absence of the monarchy reduces Igbo history and culture somehow. But to see the Igbo in its clear light, you need to read, say, Achebe's Arrow of God. It does reveal something of traditional Igbo authority system. The Chief priest, Eze Ulu, was no king, even though he bore the high Ozo title of "Eze." The word "Ezedinma" does not quite translate into "the king is good." It simply suggests that aspiration towards a great and noble life is of great value. In traditional Igbo community gathering, there was no high table. People sat in a circle, according to their peers, guilds, kinships, and so on. There was no head of a table or head of the land. "Onye Ji Isi Ala" or "Onye Isi Ala" was keeper of the chief shrine or temple of the land, whose authority is as good as the fidelity of the god. For as long as the god serves the land with fidelity, the people will honor it, but if the god becomes too burdensome, the Igbo will abandone it and make a new God for themselves. A peope who say, of even gods, "if a deity begins to over assume its importance, we, the people will just show it the tree from which it is carved," do not make kings. If it came time for the Chief priest to talk, he would talk. If it came time for Olelewe to talk, he would talk. If it came time for Jadum to talk, even he, whose inspired madness might just be the voice of the gods too, will be allowed to talk. If it came time to summarize the general talk, the elders of the land will summon such and such known for a great oratorical capacity to speak on behalf of the people, who himself at the end of his speech, will ask the people if he spoke the peoples mind. If he did, people will say, "kponkwem!" If he missed something, someone might say, "let me add just one or two things to your voice," and so it is with the Igbo.
A man may be "Eze oti" or "Di Oti" - Master Vintner, or "Di Ogu" or "Eze Ogu" - great warrior or "Eze Umara" - captain of the boat, or even, "Eze Ndi Ara" - leader of the mad people. Eze does not mean king. Eze Ala, actually means, PRIEST of the Earth deity. Not king of the land. To prove this point of the individual domain of kingship: every man in Igbo land assumes the authority of his home in presenting kolanut, that sacred and bitter fruit of friendship and kinship with which the Igbo ritualize (a) their belief in the kinship of all men, and (b) the sacred communion with the divine and the uniqueness of the individual's "Chi" which when brought together through the communion, invokes the great union of the Godhead called, "Chukwu." Once the journey of affirmation of the Kola is complete in the circle, the last recipient would say, "Oji Eze laara Eze," - simply put, "let the king's kolanut return to him." The king at that moment is the owner of the home. When the Igbo gather in public, each eldest surviving first born son (Di Opara/Okpala/ Okpara/ Di Okpa/ Opara Nna) of the various clans of the town comes to the public forum bearing the "Ofo Ndi Iche" or "Nne Ofo" ( The "Mother-ofo" as it is sometimes called)of his clan, and if a decision has been made, these elders one after the other will bring out their Ofo and lie it on the ground according to the hierarchy of the clans, from the oldest to the youngest. Each Ofo however is Equal, irrespective of agnatic hierarchy. As the Igbo say, "Ofo Ha Otu" - there is no bigger Ofo than the other. If it comes time to affirming the law as it is collectively agreed, "Isu Ofo" - each head of the clan picks up the Ofo of his family, and follows the ritual to beat it four times on the earth as is required in concert with the rest. This is the basis of Igbo lawgiving. The shadow power of the Igbo are those eldest first born sons (Ndi Okpara), and because they are required to take the highest tirtoles of the land, they are also "Ndi Nze"n (the collective name of those who take the 'Eze' or 'Obi' or 'Igwe' or 'Di(m)") titles - Ndi Riri Nzere/ Ndi Oli Nze (those who are inductees into the highest sacred rites). There is no law of the kings. The word, "Iwu Nze" or "Iwu Eze" simply means, the laws guiding and sanctioning the society/rites of titled men. It does not mean the "law of the king." I think it is important to understand the nuances of these words and their semantic authority in Igbo before transposing and (mis) interpreting them. "Igbo Enwegh Eze," means exactly what it says: the Igbo have no kings - in spite of what contemporary revisionists say. It does not mean that Igbo have no leaders. They have LEADERS but they do not do well under A LEADER. Every Igbo male or woman is a potential leader of his/her society, based on the principle of "Iga Ozi" - community service. The only time the sovereign will is collapsed under a single leader is in war: A war leader, "Di Ogu" or "Di Ike" emerges and is invested with the authority of the elders and the divinities of the land. Once the war is over, he returns to this place as another citizen, "Di Ala," after he goes through the ritual of cleansing, "Isa Aka." But beyond that, truly, Igbo enweze.
Obi Nwakanma
________________________________
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Okechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2016 6:09 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
"Remember the saying Igbo enwe Eze or Ezebuilo Igbos" - Salimonu Kadiri
Dear Salimoni:
What about "eze dim mma (King/ship is good), eze amaka (King/ship is very good), eze ahuru kwe (the king that is self evident), Eze nwanne (brother king)? These are all Igbo names/tittles and sayings, as is eze-udo (peaceful king, or king of peace; incidentally the preferred tittle of kings of my native kingdom, including my dad the current Eze Udo of Obibi Uratta). If there muc
You and your ilk like to cherry pick one or two (minority) Igbo names/titles/sayings and spin that to support your opinion that the Igbos had no experience with kingship before Nigeria was colonized. And it did not occur to you that you may be wrong..that there are other perspectives. Hence, you latch onto your opinion without humility and at every opportunity try to re/present it as fact. Each time I read you repeat this fallacy, I feel like correcting you, but usually ignore you due partly to lack of time/interest and also because I am not sure you are open to being corrected with better data or information, once you have made up your mind. But I am now afraid that many on this list would accept your opinion as fact if you keep at it and no one attempts to contradict that. So it is pertinent to note that the myth that Igbos had no kings or kingdoms before the white man came and introduced warrant chief in the then Eastern Nigeria is nothing but that -myth.
Notably, that Igbos tend to be republican does not mean that they have no ezes (kings). Otherwise we would not have had a name (eze) for what we do not have. I learned from my grand father (who was personally aware of how things worked in our traditional society before any encounter with Europeans) that we had a very complex and sophisticated system of government that involved age groups, organization of women, men, chief priest, and the oha and the eze. Hence the saying "oha na eze". And governance in/of various Igbo communities were not exactly of one and the same type. I do not have time and ability to fully discuss this here and now. But suffice it to say again that this fallacy about the Igbos not having any thing like king or kingdoms before the white man came and introduced warrant chief in the then Eastern Nigeria is nothing but that -fallacy.
Do you know, that before there was the first Ooni of Ife, there was Obata (an Igbo King) in that part of Yoruba land? By the way, Obata is Igbo name meaning "s/he entered/arrived.
Do you know about King Jaja of Opobo? Was he established as a warrant chief by the British or was he already a king of the Opobo Kingdom who opposed the British effort to colonize his kingdom?
To avoid repeatedly using using partial information, half truths and non-truths to craft and propagate opinions as facts in ways that fit existing bias, a little bit of humility is advisable, especially for one who seems to be very good at dabbling into what one does not know enough about.
Regards,
Okey Ukaga
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 6:53 AM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com<mailto:ogunl...@hotmail.com>> wrote:
Uyilawa,
The institution of Oba or traditional rulers in the Federal Republic of Nigeria is dirty and sacrilegious in our culture and should have been weeded out long time ago. Before the advent of Slave trade, an Oba carried the responsibility of leading his community, in defending and repulsing external aggressors, humans or wild animals; and in agricultural labour. When those Oba began to ravage neighbouring communities to capture and sell fellow black man as slaves to Europeans, they lost their dignities and rights to be Oba of their communities. After the end of classical slavery, the colonialists came knocking and the Obas surrendered to become subordinate to foreign power. Consequently, the institution of Oba became useless to Nigerians where ever Oba, as traditional rulers, existed. Whether we like it or not, the truth is that we were colonized by Britain who initially ruled through the Emirs in the North and Obas in the West. In the East there were no traditional rulers as in the North and West, therefore, the colonialist created Warrant Chiefs as substitutes for Oba and Emirs. Premised on this historical fact it would not have made any sense for Akenzua II to suggest Enugu as meeting place for the Obas in the South under the supervision of the Colonial masters, when there was no Oba in Enugu (Remember the saying Igbo enwe Eze or Ezebuilo Igbos have no Kings or The-King-Is-An-Enemy).
You averred that but for colonialism, Benin would not have been part of Western Region. True as this may be, it is more intelligent to say that without Colonialism, Nigeria would not have existed at all. Whatever aversion Akenzua II might have had against the Yoruba, his suggestion and protests against the meetings of the Obas presided over by the Colonial Residents and Lieutenant General were in vain. He succumbed to superior powers and in fact participated in those meetings. As for your claim that it was Awolowo's self government regime that ranked the Obas in favour of Yoruba majority and that Akenzua never accepted it, you need to tell us what he did to demonstrate his rejection of the ranking. Historically, it is indisputable that Akenzua was a member of Western House of Chiefs from the 50s to 1964 when the Midwest Region was created and he received salaries and allowances as number 3 in the ranking of Obas from the government of Western Region. I am not a Royalist or Monarchist and as such I don't need to choose between any of the Obas whether Yoruba or Benin. To me , their era finished with the conquest of the colonialist over Nigeria. However, it would amount to distortion of history and sterile intellectual masturbation to attribute Akenzua II with the power he never possessed when Benin was part of Western Region. Even the historical aloof knows that since the arrival of the colonialists in Nigeria the Obas existed only at the grace of the government and that was why some Obas that overstepped the limit of power granted them were dethroned and banished by the government. The power to depose, banish and recognise an Oba/Emir/Sultan/Eze, till date, is invested in each of the State's government in Nigeria. Akenzua II never did any of those things you attributted to him in your invented history because it is on record that he sat as number three among the Obas in the Western House of Chiefs and he received salaries and allowances as such.
As for the creation of the Midwest out of the Western Region, you may wish to remember that it was the Western House of Assembly that passed a resolution in early 1961 calling for simultaneous creation of Calabar-Ogoja-Rivers, Midwest, and Middle-belt regions out of the then Eastern, Western and Northern Region respectively. But when the Federal coalition government of NPC/NCNC moved a motion in the Federal Parliament in 1961 for the creation of minority regions, the North and East were excluded. Contributing to the debate, the Prime minister, Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, tacitly refer to the previous resolution in the Western House of Assembly thus, "I will not subscribe to the idea of breaking the federation into pieces, but if any region is so stupid as to ask us to break them into pieces we shall help them to do so." The government of Western Region challenged the Constitutional right of the Federal government to create a minority region out of the West alone but before the case could come up for hearing at the Supreme Court, the NPC/NCNC coalition government had overthrown the Action Group controlled government of the Western Region and thereafter created Midwest region. Obviously, Akenzua played no role in the creation of the Midwest Region.
S. Kadiri
________________________________
From: big...@hotmail.com<mailto:big...@hotmail.com>
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com<mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Yoruba Affairs - WHY OBA OF BENIN IS NUMBER ONE
Date: Wed, 17 Feb 2016 11:43:08 -0500
Kadiri,
What is obvious (without your characteristic vitriol) is that the so-called ranking of Obas has no basis in pre-colonial history and tradition, and it is a colonial innovation. But for colonialism, Benin would not have been part of Western Region and Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo would not have been ranked along with Yoruba Obas. When the Colonial government instituted the Meeting of Chiefs of Western Provinces in the late 1930s, there was no ranking of chiefs. The meetings were rotated among the provincial headquarters and was presided over by the Residents and Lieutenant General. Ọmọ n'Ọba n'Ẹdo Akẹnzua II protested against attending these meetings and even suggested that they are held at Enugu (headquarters of Southern Nigeria) as it was done inOkechukwu Ukaga <ukag...@umn.edu>: Feb 18 03:13PM -0600
Obi,
Yours is one perspective. Mine is another. Obviously I disagree with you on
this one. Perhaps it is s matter of interpretation, including what is a
king. Take care.
Okey
Oluwatoyin Adepoju <oluwas...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 07:50PM
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Date: 18 February 2016 at 16:05
Subject: Uganda's government tried to shut down social media during its
elections...
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running for his fifth term (he has been president before I was born) would
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Yeah, right.
Anyhow, resourceful Ugandans bypassed the network restrictions
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I don't think this will be the last time we'll see ham-handed attempts by
out-of-touch governments to censor public expression. All I hope is that
the citizens that are the target of such censorship have the tools and the
will to deal with them, when they happen.
So what else happened today?
*We spotted a new service that wants to help Nigerians save money, even
when they aren't looking*
Piggybank says they will automate the process of saving tiny amounts,
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question and #AskME", he tweeted just over two hours ago. You ask him a
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interesting video answers. You can also read an AMA he did
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on TechCabal's Radar last year.
*This Kenyan lady ended a 9-year relationship with DSTv with an
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80 percent of DSTv content is available on Hulu, she says. Before you say
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like you to consider is that despite all the challenges that watchers like
to cite about internet constraints being the bane of the likes of Irokotv
and Netflix in Africa, can traditional Pay TV operators like DSTv afford to
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Oluwatoyin Adepoju <oluwas...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 06:20PM
Apologies if this has been posted earlier, contrary to the message I got
from Google mail.
*Themes in Ese Ifa, Ifa Literature*
*Biological Genesis *
*Obatala and the Dark Room*
Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju
Compcros <http://danteadinkra.wix.com/compcros>
Comparative
Cognitive Processes and Systems
"Exploring Every Corner of the Cosmos in
Search of Knowledge"
What person is wise enough to tie water into a knot in their pocket?
What sage knows the number of grains of sand on the earth?
Archimedes
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FArchimedes&h=aAQHhVuxf&s=1>
( 287 BC – c. 212 BC) “Ancient Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer,
inventor, and astronomer...generally considered the greatest mathematician
of antiquity and one of the greatest of all time” :
“I will try to show you by means of geometrical proofs, which you will be
able to follow, that, of the numbers named by me and given in The Sand
Reckoner (Greek
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGreek_language&h=RAQGcyHSp&s=1>:
Ψαμμίτης, Psammites), some exceed not only the number of the mass of sand
equal in magnitude to the earth, but also that of a mass equal in magnitude
to the universe”.
The Sand-Reckoner of Archimedes
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sacred-texts.com%2Fcla%2Farchim%2Fsand%2Fsandreck.htm&h=TAQErrbdg&s=1>.
Translated by Thomas L. Heath. Cambridge University Press, 1897.
“Archimedes...concluded that the diameter of the Universe was no more than
1014 stadia (in modern units, about 2 light years
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FLight_year&h=RAQGcyHSp&s=1>
[9 trillion kilometres or about 6 trillion miles, the distance that light
travels in a vacuum
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpeed_of_light&h=vAQGfFrpK&s=1>
in one Julian year
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FJulian_year_%2528astronomy%2529&h=rAQGVZioi&s=1>,
365.25 days of 86400 SI seconds each, according to special relativity
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial_relativity&h=4AQF5CQMY&s=1>,
the maximum speed at which all matter and information
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FPhysical_information&h=8AQE2wj2Z&s=1>
in the universe
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FUniverse&h=tAQH0p_yR&s=1>
can travel], and that it would require no more than 10 to the power 63
grains of sand to fill it”.
“The total number of nucleons
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNucleon&h=5AQE4UcWa&s=1>
[one of the particles that makes up the atomic nucleus
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAtomic_nucleus&h=8AQE2wj2Z&s=1>,
the centre of the smallest constituent unit
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAtom&h=XAQFf8VF_&s=1>
of ordinary matter
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FMatter&h=oAQHWno3B&s=1>
that has the properties of a chemical element
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FChemical_element&h=AAQG18BEf&s=1>]
in the observable universe of roughly the Hubble radius
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FHubble_volume&h=zAQEUbGm-&s=1>is
the Eddington number
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FEddington_number&h=iAQFiwLnO&s=1>,
currently estimated at 10 to the power 80. Archimedes' 10 to the power 63
grains of sand contain roughly 10 to the power 80 nucleons, making the two
numbers equal.”
Wikipedia on The Sand Reckoner
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Sand_Reckoner&h=UAQHR2G21&s=1>
by Archimedes and on Speed of
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpeed_of_light&h=QAQFv_GGT&s=1>
Light
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpeed_of_light&h=wAQFIrAui&s=1>
.
The Babalawo, Adept in the Esoteric Core of Ifa, the Luminous Darkness
Issuing from the Heart of the Forest of Being, Sojourner to the Fathomless
Depth of Mystery, was the one who cast Ifa for Obatala when he wanted
desperately to understand the nature of life.
“At the meeting of egg and sperm, at the dividing of the zygote
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FZygote&h=MAQG-Q5tv&s=1>
into the trillions of cells that form the stupendous complexity that is the
human being, there I am.
As the power, the motive force that drives the moulding of the child in the
womb, unseen to all but experienced in the completion.
Yet I am shut out of the final mystery, the emergence of what
differentiates living and non-living being”, Obatala lamented.
He of many names, Aiku Pari Iwa, Deathlessness Consummating Existence,
messenger of Ifa, responded :
“To be dissatisfied with even the most wondrous accomplishments is the
force that drives consciousness onward.
But is this quest not too much for you?”
Obatala had long prepared for this day.
“I am less myself if I don't pierce this problem. It consumes me”, he
replied.
The messenger of Ifa countered:
“But the generative processes of the human being begin at the very moment
of conception. So, should you not be aware of whatever it is that enables
that process?”
“ You have a point” Obatala responded.
“The dynamism that is myself even empowers the convergence of the
predispositions coming from before birth-whether understood as genetic
inheritance or as something even more primordial, a constellation of
potential embodied in the self from its source in the World of Origins-and
the nexus of possibilities represented by action and reaction within the
shaping factors on the terrestrial plane”, Obatala said, seemingly
reinforcing the view of the messenger of the Many Eyed One.
What is the spark, the flame that makes what becomes the self possible, is
the ultimate question, the query that tortures me, a darkness I feel
acutely”, he concluded.
“You tread on profound ground”, was the response.
“Do you not quiver as you ponder these questions?”
“I am too far gone.
It has tortured me for too long.
I am ready to do anything to arrive at the root of this.
The point of conjunction between the transformative possibility that
animates the human being and the human form operates outside space and time.
Biological genesis, which is the insight I am limited to, is a space-time
development, hence my problem” he concluded.
“ The ultimate door can be opened if you can summon the will”, stated the
messenger of Ifa.
“When you shape the human body, you place it in a dark room and depart, do
you not?” he asked.
“Exactly”, Obatala responded, realizing that the messenger had shifted into
the language of the ancients, who encapsulated depths of possibility in
terms of images.
“ After the next such shaping, conceal yourself in a place in that room”,
the adviser suggested.
“When the One Without a Second, Oyiyigigi, the Immovable Rock that Never
Dies, the Fecundator, the Embodiment of Past, Present, Future and Infinity,
achieves the process of transmutation, you will be there to witness it”, he
concluded.
Obatala thanked the messenger of Ifa.
After the next crafting of the human form, Obatala hid himself in a corner
of the dark room and waited.
Even if he was going to be degenerated into a pile of ashes like the woman
who, consumed by curiosity, opened the window to catch sight of her divine
lover who had always insisted on meeting her in the dark, he would die
knowing he had been finished following a noble vision.
One can take only so much for so long.
He was tired of being an ignorant servant, even one with such awesome
responsibilities as he had.
What happened?
The wait lasted a whole twenty-four hours.
Towards the point of the turning of the day, the day reaching its
consummation as the earth completed its revolution on its axis, continuing
its 365 day day orbit around the centre of the solar system, the solar
system itself revolving around the galactic core at 500 thousand miles an
hour, completing one revolution in a in a cosmic year of 225-250 million
years , he slept off.
A child may have more clothes than his father, but not as many rags.
It is not for nothing that the beard of the Unknown One is covered in white
chalk.
The ragged old man one meets at random might be the answer one has sought
for so long.
When a fragment of the Unknown becomes known, it is no more an aspect of
the Unknown, yet the Unknown never diminishes.
Obatala rose from sleep to find the transformation already completed.
But the quest continues, through various forms of exploration.
While thinkers probe the nature of life through reflection and meditation,
scientists investigate it through hypothesis and experiment, even reaching
into efforts to create life or enable the creation of life.
In enabling fertilization, a conducive environment is created to facilitate
the process.
A magnificent achievement that has taken centuries to reach.
In cloning a creature from living cells, the generative process is
facilitated using parent cells.
An awesome accomplishment it has taken the entire time since humanity
emerged on the earth to arrive at.
*
Iroke ifa, vertical sculpture, and opon ifa, horizontal, circular
carving.
Central functional forms and cosmological symbols of Ifa, the Yoruba origin
system of knowledge. The
structure of both forms suggests relationships between the possibility of
phallic symbolism attributable to the iroke ifa and of vagina and womb
symbolism ascribable to the opon ifa. The iroke is used in
tapping the opon before consultation of the divine wisdom attributed to
Ifa, a consultation carried out by casting the opele, on the left,
organised in binary units of four sets, and reading the patterns it assumes
when cast. The odu ifa symbols that emerge
from this consulation may be interpreted as the "children" emerging from
the conjunction of iroke and opon, Orunmila and Odu, the masculine and
feminine enablers, respectively, of Ifa's wisdom.
These biological associations
are reinforced by the binary structure of central Ifa symbols and
functional forms and their evocation by the recurrence of a balance between
feminine and masculine imagery,
as in the
kneeling woman with prominently pointing breasts on whose head rests a form
the tip of which may be seen in terms of phallic connotations in the iroke
ifa in this image.
Adebayo Kayode : " Every tap of the Iroke is a knock on the door to
Infinity, hence the mantra,“Oye la!" [uttered before consulting Ifa]
meaning
"Spiritual intuition, break forth...like the dawn of a new day!”
Image from @yeyesbotanicaatl at Online Instagram.
<http://www.online-instagram.com/media/1097240106440220871_1817447967>
Accessed 11th Feb.2016.*
“Iba oko t'o d'ori kodo ti o ro!
Iba obo t'o dori kodo ti o s'eje!
I pay homage to the penis that is hung without bringing sperm.
I pay homage to the vagina that has stopped menstruating.
I pay homage to our elders who have used these organs to bring life and are
now old or gone but whose contributions can never be forgotten”- Asiwaju
Adeyinka Olarinmoye <https://www.facebook.com/adeyinka.olarinmoye>
Biophysicist Professor Cees Dekker
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fceesdekker.net%2F&h=AAQG18BEf&s=1>
:
“What is life and how do you piece it together from components?
Half a century of molecular biology has left us highly impressed by the
huge complexity of cells.
Biology is all about the interaction of molecules that together form life.
A single molecule is not alive, it is the interaction with the proteins
surrounding it that make that it a living system.
A cell is a collection of huge numbers of molecules that together make up a
functional, living system.The DNA serves as a library in which all the
information is stored. It encodes information for protein-making factories.
The proteins are like robots that combine to enable the whole thing to
function.The next challenge will be to explore how the components work
together to achieve the cell’s major functions, such as division and
metabolism: absorbing nutrients, gaining energy and excreting waste.
If you look at the minimum characteristics [of life], they are
compartmentalisation, a sealed entity, metabolism, cell division and
information used by the cell to define itself. That information needs to be
sufficiently stable but also be able to adapt to enable evolution. If you
take that as your working definition, I estimate that it will take around
ten years to build a minimal living system. On the horizon shimmers the
idea of using a soap bubble to create a living cell filled with the
components it needs for minimal functionality, as a way of gaining a better
understanding of what life actually is. [I] believe that a consortium of
scientists can produce a living synthetic cell within a decade.
Culled from “Life is Something You Create Together”
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fdelftoutlook.tudelft.nl%2Farticle%2Flife-something-create-together%2F&h=_AQFccgr5&s=1>
By Jos Wassink. October 2015.Delft Outlook.
Perspectives emerging from Prof. Cees Dekker’s talk “My Meandering Path
Within the Lands of Science and Faith
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftalks.cam.ac.uk%2Ftalk%2Findex%2F62845&h=jAQEdZMYI&s=1>
“,
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Ftalks.cam.ac.uk%2Ftalk%2Findex%2F62845&h=HAQHlqYiF&s=1>
The Faraday Institute for Science and Religion lecture, Tuesday 9th
February 2016.
In possibilities already available for accomplishment, such as extracting
the core of the embryo to harvest completely p
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCell_potency%23Pluripotency&h=sAQFBfW4o&s=1>luripotent
cells that can grow into the full range of human organs and biological
forms, possibly in order to regenerate dying or diseased cells in adults,
scientists work with the living matter already given by nature, a wonder of
vast knowledge consummated in a march that began at the dawn of humanity.
When does the growing life in the womb become a human being?
Is it a crime to extract the core of the embryo to harvest pluripotent
cells but destroying the embryo in the process, though these embryos left
over from in vitro fertilization treatments would be destroyed after five
years as demanded by UK law if not taken advantage of through insemination
to enable them grow into a human being?
When do we move from trying to assist with regeneration in the case of
failing health to trying to design human beings in the limitations of our
wisdom?
Questions presented at Prof. Paul Fairchild’s talk on “Ethical Challenges
of Stem Cell Research: A Christian Perspective” a
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wesleycam.org.uk%2Fsciencemeetsfaith.htm&h=hAQEV53bx&s=1>t
Wesley Methodist Church, Cambridge on Monday
William Bangura <william....@gmail.com>: Feb 18 01:28PM -0500
Kooshe O Creole Chief Corneilius,
Ow de bodi?
If Tejan Kabbah (TK) was appointed as the Permanent Secretary of the
Minister of Trade and Industry he believed in AM’s ideology.
On TK’s initial trip as President to the North in Makeni, he said--and I am
paraphrasing here--that the Northerners, which were a code word for Temnes
and especially Tonkolili, must apologize to the Southerners and
South-Easterners for the carnage that their (Northerners) son, Foday Sankoh
had brought to the region. Such impudence.
Some supporters of the SLPP informed me that the only reason they did not
govern Sierra Leone as the APC did for 24 years--April 29, 1968 through
April 29, 1992--was that they did not execute their opponents a lá Siaka
Stevens (Lieutenant Kolugbondah, Major S.E. Momoh, Major Fara Jawara,
Brigadier John Amadu Bangura; Bai Mkari N’Silk, Brigadier David Lansana,
Lieutenant Habib Lansana Kamara, Ibrahim Taqi, Dr. Mohamed Sorie Forna; and
the murder of Sam L. Bangura, Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone) and
Joseph Momoh (Francis M. Minah, G.M.T. Kaikai and others).
Please expand on my ”terminological inexactitude
<https://www.google.co.uk/search?sourceid=navclient&aq=hts&oq=&hl=en-GB&ie=UTF-8&rlz=1T4GUEA_svSE668SE668&q=terminological+inexactitude>”
meaning lies.
How does referencing Israel affect my opinion?
Let me employ some analogy between EK and President Barack Obama (BO) of
the United States of America. In his first term BO nominated *Sonia
Sotomayor <http://www.biography.com/people/sonia-sotomayor-453906> *to the
Supreme Court to placate the Latinos. He appointed *Robert Gibbs
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gibbs> *as his initial Press
Secretary to appease the South (Virginia). He replaced Gibbs with Jay Carney
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Carney> to mollify his Irish relatives.
This “…and another thing that I so love about the Temne people is that just
like the Arabs , if you speak their language they embrace you” is the
nonsense that had been sold to those Sierra Leoneans who speak Temne and
“pass” (whose paternal great grandfathers were not Temnes) as members of
the tribe. The grandfathers and great grandfathers of most “Temnes” were
either Susus or Mandingos who had migrated to Temne country, spoke the
language but never accepted the culture.
Sierra Leoneans should STOP using the adjective “Northerner”, because it
was a Creole concept when they (Creoles) ‘controlled’ theories in the
country. S.I. Koroma was not a Northerner. He was a Madingo whose mother
was a Temne. Momoh and C.A. Kamara-Taylor were Limbas. William Bangura, Dr.
M.S. Forna, and the Taqi’s (M.O. though he was a traitor, Ibrahim and
Hamid) are Konkays.
Yes there is the University of Makeni and a university in Tonkolili, but
what are their purpose when the poor and most of the inhabitants of Bomabli
(Makeni) and Tonkolili can ill afford to send their children and relatives
to these institutions? Your EK should have maintained the hospital in
Tonkolili <http://allafrica.com/stories/200902240934.html> instead of
constructing a white elephant. PLEASE Corneilius.
Nar im dat.
William Bangura (Konkay)
On Sat, Feb 13, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Cornelius Hamelberg <
Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>: Feb 17 09:25PM -0600
*HOW NOT TO DEFEND BUHARI*
*By Moses E. Ochonu*
There is a roving, seemingly ubiquitous army of Nigerians who have
appointed themselves defenders of President Buhari. Unfortunately, by
employing offensive and ineffective logics and tactics, these fanatical
supporters of the president are doing more reputational harm than good to
their hero, and turning away compatriots who would otherwise be willing to
give the president a fair hearing on the mounting disappointments with his
administration.
Yesterday, I saw an update on my Facebook timeline with the following
words: "if Jonathan had won, the dollar would be exchanging for N1000."
This was apparently advanced to counter the criticism of the Naira's
current free fall under the confused monetary policy of this administration.
Where does one begin on this fanatically blind, impulsive defense of
Buhari? First of all, that statement begins from a premise of absence,
which is a no-no in logic. Jonathan did not win, so we do not and cannot
know what would have happened to the Naira had he won. That belongs in the
realm of known unknowns, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld.
Historians call this counterfactual logic or argument. And, by the way,
since when did Jonathan become the baseline of comparison for the author(s)
of this Facebook update?
Second, it is a defense that slyly attempts to divert our attention away
from the current Forex reality, which is that under Buhari the Naira has
lost about 40 percent of its value against the dollar in the parallel
market. We can debate the extent to which this is the fault of the fiscal
and monetary policies of the president, but that is a separate conversation.
Third, the defense is premised on a negative — that is, the fact that the
dollar does NOT (yet) exchange for N1000, instead of on the fact that it
DOES exchange for N360, which is about N150 more than it exchanged under
Jonathan. In this warped reasoning, we should only start complaining about
Buhari's monetary policies when the dollar begins to exchange for more than
N1000!
Finally, when people resort to what could have been had Jonathan won and
start making illogical exculpatory arguments based on speculative
counterfactuals and a denial of the present state of things, then you know
that they are only interested in one thing: protecting Buhari against
criticism.
They are not interested in the important matter of whether things are
getting better or worse in the country, whether inflation is rising or
falling. More critically, it tells you their location in the spectrum of
the Buhari-APC universe. They are clearly located in the fanatical,
irrational wing of the Buhari supporters camp.
This kind of "defense" only confirms and validates criticisms of the
government's primitive, unrealistic, and unsustainable monetary policies
because it inadvertently accepts that things are really bad, only
suggesting that things could have been worse had Jonathan won. It's not a
good defense.
The bag of rationales and excuses that Buharists have been dipping into is
emptying rapidly. Alibis that appeared reasonable several months ago now
sound silly, contrived, and bogus. Blaming and scapegoating, which seemed
plausible and convincing earlier, now look hollow. Citizens who were once
receptive to arguments about the many obstacles in Buhari’s way have now
been rendered skeptical by the escapist and denialist attitude of some of
Buhari’s supporters. These overzealous supporters are now the reason why
many are reluctant to extent the benefit of the doubt earlier given to the
president.
In the interest of productive public debate and robust engagement with the
president and his agenda, here is a list of how not to defend Buhari
because they have clearly become counterproductive and do the president
more harm than good.
1. Do not instinctively deny the president’s mistakes. He is human,
fallible, and thus capable or errors like all of us.
2. Do not assume that good intentions always produce good outcomes.
They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Intentions are
only meaningful for citizens when they are translated into policies and
actions that benefit the majority of citizens.
3. Do not defend the president by arguing a negative — that is, that
that without Buhari’s ascendancy to the presidency, things would be a lot
worse. We don’t know this for sure. Besides, it is a terrible thing that
the only positive thing you have to say about your political hero is that
he is merely a preserver of the status quo, someone who is merely
preventing the country from regressing. He came to power fancifully on the
promise of changing the country, not on that of simply keeping things from
getting worse. It is an impossible task to argue a negative. Ask Obama, who
will never get credit for saving the US economy from total collapse because
we don’t know for sure what would have happened had McCain won and we don’t
know for sure that the US economy, bad as it was, was heading for total
collapse. There is no way to say definitely what would have happened had
Obama not won, so he continues to struggle to get the credit for
engineering a remarkable recovery.
4. Do not defend the president by repeatedly invoking Jonathan’s
record. It is getting tiresome. Besides, it contradicts the foundation of
Buhari’s political persona — that he is the ultimate anti-Jonathan. If we
take him at his word, it would be insulting to compare him at every turn to
Jonathan, and to celebrate him merely because “Jonathan did or would do
worse.”
5. Do not question the patriotism of those who criticize Buhari. You
are not more patriotic than them. Supporting Buhari is not the same as
supporting Nigeria, and vice versa.
6. As a Buhari supporter, do not begin every attempt to complain about
Buhari’s administration or to criticize his action or inaction by prefacing
such a critique with hackneyed and increasingly boring attacks on
Jonathanians or those who voted for Jonathan. That they voted for Jonathan
does not take away their stakes in the nation, nor does it abrogate their
right to hold the president of their country accountable. It is their duty
to criticize their president, whether they are doing so sincerely or
mischievously. Even if they opposed Buhari’s candidacy, they may have
transitioned to responsible, critical citizens under his presidency. He is
after all their president too.
7. Do not defend the president by blaming civil servants or political
appointees for missteps by the government. The buck stops at the
president’s desk. If a document goes out in the name of his administration
or is presented to the national assembly by him, it is his document. He
owns it. He should have read it or caused a thorough reading to be done by
his aides. If the said document proves to be a harvest of scandalous
provisions and allocations, his ineptitude and naivety in that particular
circumstance are indefensible and cannot be fobbed off to aides or civil
servants.
8. Do not defend the president by always assuming that people are out
to get him. It is a paranoid mindset that will produce irrational,
unconvincing, and in some cases deceptive defenses of the president’s
actions.
9. Do not dismiss the groaning of those who complain that Buhari’s
change has not reached them or is too slow to manifest. It is their
suffering that is talking, and it is callous and mean-spirited to dismiss
their anguish in order to protect Buhari.
10. Do not attribute the president’s failures to a systemic rot. This is a
cop out. This is his second stint as the leader of the country. He knew
what he was getting into and was intimately familiar with the system he was
campaigning to superintend. It is not for you to cover him with the blanket
of sympathy when he willfully and loudly proclaimed himself capable of
wading through the systemic rot to implement a change agenda.
In conclusion, the best way to defend the president is to begin from a
premise that the failures and disappointments for which he is being blamed
and criticized are real. The next step is to help the president make amends
and correct his course. Being too defensive will only increase the pressure
on the president.
Obadiah Mailafia <obmai...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 07:23AM +0100
Dear Moses,
This is brilliant! I hope it has been circulated as much as possible.
Nigerians of all partisan shades need to read it. Very sensible and
logical. We need to move the public discourse to a higher than what the
Buharists and Jonathanians have been up to these days. Anya cho!
OM
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:25 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Jibrin Ibrahim <jib...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 10:10AM +0100
Very good advice Moses, I completely agree with you.
Jibo
Jibrin Ibrahim PhD
Senior Fellow
Centre for Democracy and Development
16 A7 Street,
CITEC Mbora Estate,
Jabi/Airport Road By-pass,
P.O.Box14345, Wuse
Abuja, Nigeria
Tel - +234 8053913837
Twitter- @jibrinibrahim17
Facebook- jibrin.ibrahim
On Thu, Feb 18, 2016 at 4:25 AM, Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
wrote:
Ayo Obe <ayo.m...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 01:02PM +0100
It is indeed good advice, but the problem is that once you follow it, you may end up not defending Buhari. At least, in the eyes of some.
What would or might have happened under Jonathan may be a useful comfort blanket for some. Again, the immediate cause of a particular misstep may indeed be the actions of ministers, civil servants, or saboteurs but we didn't accept that excuse from Jonathan because he ought to have gone on to deal with them rather than suggest that we would just have to learn to live with them. So the issue is not - don't defend Buhari by blaming ministers, civil servants etc. - but: since Buhari put or left in place Minister/Civil Servant X who messed up/sabotaged what is he actually doing about it?
There are Buharists and there are Jonathonians. And then there are the rest of us. While, in the immediate aftermath of the election, it was natural to dismiss the army of "wailers" who instantly sprang up complaining about lack of change or sneering "So this is the 'change' you voted for!", most Nigerians have moved on from there. The problem of wailers is that having started off by shouting, they can only continue shouting, and if the national ear has already learned to tune them out, shouting louder may not affect that. In such cases it is, unfortunately, the singer, not the song.
If one really is a Buharist, Moses' advice will be difficult to follow. But for most of us, a vote for Buhari is not a blood oath. So nobody needs to feel, or be treated as though having made an electoral choice, their right to comment or criticise has been surrendered. To criticise Buhari is neither treachery nor buyer's remorse. It's merely holding government accountable.
Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama
Mobolaji Aluko <alu...@gmail.com>: Feb 18 06:44PM +0100
Ayo;
Let us face it: pre- and post-election, there are three groups of people
about PMB
Ogbuagu Anikwe
Feb 18, 2016, 9:14:03 PM2/18/16
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Rex Marinus
Feb 19, 2016, 4:48:38 AM2/19/16
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Ogbuagu! In Achebe's Things Fall Apart, there is the story of the great feast, in which a great mound of pounded yam was presented. It was such a great mound that a friend saw his friend only at the end, after it had been eaten down, and each said
to the other, "so you too came to the feast!" So, you too came to the feast here at USAfrica?
Well, this forum is turning to be a great feast
where you see long, lost friends after eating down the great mound of food in this moving feast. Good to know that you're here. And no, it was Chinua Achebe who first made the allusion to Ezebuilo in his book of essays,
Home & Exile. Professor Cyril Agodi Onwumechili's Ahiajioku lectures was titled "Igbo Enwe Eze." This statement "Igbo Enwe Eze" is so antique that every Igbo child has come to the world hearing it, and it means exactly what it says. The revisionist claim
about "Igbo nwere Eze" is precisely what it is: revisionism, because Igbo thought systems contradict this, and Igbo authority structure until quite recently was based on the governance of the public, under the oversight of a Town council, historically made
up of what we always knew as a "council of elders" - the "Ndi Iche." There was never a central authority. A central feature of the monarchy is that all land is invested in the monarch. The Igbo on the other hand established an ancient land trust system, in
which land tenure is held as a communal trust.
And yes, there is a story among the Igbo of an ancient destruction of the monarchy, and the institution of the title system in its place, and the last of the title is symbolically unattainable, and its called "Oha." Achebe did write about this in part also. Impossible requirements are demand that no man yet in the Igbo world has been able to complete it, and one of those conditions is to defy gravity by fetching water in a wicker basket from the river and bringing it to the town square. There are many stories that have alluded to the possibly bronze age destruction of the monarchy in Igbo culture, the result of catastrophe, and the overreach of the monarch always described in the tales as "Eze Onye Agwanam." There is also the folklore of Anukili of Umugama who wanted to be king, and who was tricked into carrying the rafters tied on his shoulder, and was set ablaze half-way between the market square and the river by the people, for his ambition. There are many oral sources that have made quite clear Igbo position on the making of kings. Igbo do not make kings, since all men are endowed from birth by their "Chi" as free agents. To bow to another by saying - "Chi wam" - is the height of spiritual death. It is to cede your "Chi" to another, according to Igbo thought systems. Imagine therefore what it means, in a society in which traditionally, a young man or woman, on coming to age, to establish his/her household plants two trees - the Ogirisi and the "uha" - to mark a shrine to himself/herself called, "Ihu Chi" (for men) and "Ihu eke" (for women), in the belief on one's divinity. A culture that believes that the individual is a god descended directly from the great God, and returned to earthly incarnation, cannot make kings. At the end of the man's life, that tree is cut and allowed to decay in a "going and coming that goes on forever." It is that principle of impermanence central to Igbo life and ideas that undercuts any argument about any Igbo monarchy.
Obi Nwakanma
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ogbuagu Anikwe <oan...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2016 11:35 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafric...@googlegroups.com - 21 updates in 10 topics
Sent: Thursday, February 18, 2016 11:35 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafric...@googlegroups.com - 21 updates in 10 topics
Permit me to chip in something that has bothered me a bit about the name "Ezebuiro/Ezebuilo." I believe the transliteration of this name has done a great deal of harm to its true meaning. If I'm it not mistaken, it was Prof. Onwumechiri that first inaugurated this misdirection at his Ahajioku lecture and it had been gaining currency ever since. The way it is used in my Enugu State (which I believe is where it started), Ezebuilo does not mean "a king is enemy." It means "a king invites enmity." Or in transliteration: "a king carries enmity." A king in this context represents any variant of achievement that marks out an individual and raises him to "eat with elders." When considered from its true interpretation, Ezebuiro is really one of the justifications for rejecting absolute monarchy in Igboland. If we take it to mean that "the king is enemy" the implication would be that the Igbos had had in the past tasted and found absolute monarchy obnoxious before elevating republicanism as a way of life.
oanikwe consulting
writing . editing . media . events
p.o. box 5644 garki .
abuja fct 900001
+234 808 800 9799
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Salimonu Kadiri
Feb 19, 2016, 2:56:27 PM2/19/16
to usaafric...@googlegroups.com
In the absence of evidence from written history and anthropologic diggings from which we can construct the history of our ancient ancestors we should avoid peddling historical fallacy. According to your own interpretation, Ezebuilo does not mean 'a king is (an) enemy' but 'a king invites enemy' or 'a king carries enmity.' To begin with, we have to ask, from where does the king invites enemy?; Is it from his subjects or neighbouring communities? It would make sense if you have interpreted Ezebuilo to mean 'a king attracts enemies' which could have arisen from his subjects or neighbouring communities. Furthermore, how does 'a king carry enmity?' As the saying goes, uneasy lies the head that wears the crown which is not the same thing as saying, to be a king is to be in enmity with others.
Hypothetically, you concluded that if Ezebuilo means 'a king is (an) enemy,' it would mean that Igbos in the past had had a taste of monarchy and found it obnoxious before embracing republicanism. That is historically incorrect. The expression, Ezebuilo was coined when British colonialist elevated their created Warrant Chiefs in Igboland to Eze in order to facilitate their indirect rule through traditional rulers as it were in the North and West. Can you name any king in Igboland before the Igbos embraced republicanism?
S.Kadiri
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:35:32 +0100
Hypothetically, you concluded that if Ezebuilo means 'a king is (an) enemy,' it would mean that Igbos in the past had had a taste of monarchy and found it obnoxious before embracing republicanism. That is historically incorrect. The expression, Ezebuilo was coined when British colonialist elevated their created Warrant Chiefs in Igboland to Eze in order to facilitate their indirect rule through traditional rulers as it were in the North and West. Can you name any king in Igboland before the Igbos embraced republicanism?
S.Kadiri
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 2016 00:35:32 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafric...@googlegroups.com - 21 updates in 10 topics
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