I believe that Nigeria really and desperately need Leadership Training School[s]. Leadership requires a certain abilities; abilities that can be discover, unlock and nourish in an environment dedicated solely to such. It may be as the editorial stated, "serve as a useful platform where state chief executives may compare notes on the challenges of governance, share experiences and generate broad-minded solutions that build their states and strengthen the nation, as an institutional part of our democracy". I think it will be more than that. I think a laudable move that will positively impact our future.

Setting up a school[s] to these function will not only ensure continuous crop of prepared leaders but will also weed out if handle properly those that do not possess in any measure qualities, mental or intellectual capabilities and abilities characteristics of a leader; a recurring factor that have darkened our political landscape since independence. If lecturers of different political leaning/philosophies, drawn from all part of the world, will expose the future potential leaders to such thinkers as Confucianism, Plato, Mencius, Laws of Manu and Chanakya in India to Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, John Locke, John Adams, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and even Karl Marx; it will not only bring to their attention the different political ideas but will also correct their present archaic and primitive notions of what it means to be a leader.

Given the comatose state of our educational system which have progressively gone from bad to worst with each successive government, this concept wouldn't have come at any other better time. Developed nations like Japan and the US [apart from their healthy and vibrant tertiary institutions] have schools designed purely to train would-be leaders. In Japan, it is often a cause taken up by corporate giants [and that include hours of meditation] and in the US, every political shade and character, be it liberal, conservative, libertarian, green or evangelical have institutions that inculcate those ideals that they will want to see in their national identity.

Desperate times demands desperate move and ideas. It demands new ways to deal with issues. Nigeria is sitting on a lit gun-powder keg flirting with its own destruction and impending doom. While the present crop of leaders [by their evidently increasing flagrant disregard to morality, virtues and pains of those they claim they lead] are bent in pushing us towards the precipice, we must as the young ones with so much at stake see it fit to think differently, more broadly and more decisively. Have we not lost enough? When can we learn to direct our anger at the right places?

If by training these men in the arts of leadership can help in finding capable hands to direct the affairs of that country, then by all means lets start with Harvard. Talking about the risk to national security is just laughable. Anyone with an intelligence of a crow knows that most of our military and civilian elite are on the pay-roll of the British, American and even Chinese. And by Josh, what do we have left to conceal when all the intelligence needed about Nigeria can be gleamed so easily from different sources?

The truth is that we are in dire need for intelligent, articulate young ones in the leadership of that country. Individuals with vision, groomed and prepared for excellence in their calling. Individuals who can take that country to where it belong. For God's sake, leadership might not be rocket science but it sure is more than that. An ability to manage, control and direct the energy of a 150 million people is certainly above the mere calling of a rocket scientist. It is the destiny of a nation!

I believe that Nigeria really and desperately need Leadership Training School[s]. Leadership requires a certain abilities; abilities that can be discover, unlock and nourish in an environment dedicated solely to such. It may be as the editorial stated, "serve as a useful platform where state chief executives may compare notes on the challenges of governance, share experiences and generate broad-minded solutions that build their states and strengthen the nation, as an institutional part of our democracy". I think it will be more than that. I think a laudable move that will positively impact our future.

Setting up a school[s] to these function will not only ensure continuous crop of prepared leaders but will also weed out if handle properly those that do not possess in any measure qualities, mental or intellectual capabilities and abilities characteristics of a leader; a recurring factor that have darkened our political landscape since independence. If lecturers of different political leaning/philosophies, drawn from all part of the world, will expose the future potential leaders to such thinkers as Confucianism, Plato, Mencius, Laws of Manu and Chanakya in India to Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, Thomas Paine, John Locke, John Adams, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and even Karl Marx; it will not only bring to their attention the different political ideas but will also correct their present archaic and primitive notions of what it means to be a leader.

Given the comatose state of our educational system which have progressively gone from bad to worst with each successive government, this concept wouldn't have come at any other better time. Developed nations like Japan and the US [apart from their healthy and vibrant tertiary institutions] have schools designed purely to train would-be leaders. In Japan, it is often a cause taken up by corporate giants [and that include hours of meditation] and in the US, every political shade and character, be it liberal, conservative, libertarian, green or evangelical have institutions that inculcate those ideals that they will want to see in their national identity.

Desperate times demands desperate move and ideas. It demands new ways to deal with issues. Nigeria is sitting on a lit gun-powder keg flirting with its own destruction and impending doom. While the present crop of leaders [by their evidently increasing flagrant disregard to morality, virtues and pains of those they claim they lead] are bent in pushing us towards the precipice, we must as the young ones with so much at stake see it fit to think differently, more broadly and more decisively. Have we not lost enough? When can we learn to direct our anger at the right places?

If by training these men in the arts of leadership can help in finding capable hands to direct the affairs of that country, then by all means lets start with Harvard. Talking about the risk to national security is just laughable. Anyone with an intelligence of a crow knows that most of our military and civilian elite are on the pay-roll of the British, American and even Chinese. And by Josh, what do we have left to conceal when all the intelligence needed about Nigeria can be gleamed so easily from different sources?

The truth is that we are in dire need for intelligent, articulate young ones in the leadership of that country. Individuals with vision, groomed and prepared for excellence in their calling. Individuals who can take that country to where it belong. For God's sake, leadership might not be rocket science but it sure is more than that. An ability to manage, control and direct the energy of a 150 million people is certainly above the mere calling of a rocket scientist. It is the destiny of a nation!

THE Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) reportedly signed with Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government recently by four state governors - Bukola Saraki of Kwara, Isa Yuguda of Bauchi, Godswill Akpabio of Akwa Ibom and Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State - on behalf of the ad hoc body called Governors' Forum, to train Nigeria's state chief executives on governance is offensive, self-demeaning, wasteful and most unacceptable. The MOU should be thrown into the dustbin where it rightly belongs.

It may be observed that rather than serve as a useful platform where state chief executives may compare notes on the challenges of governance, share experiences and generate broad-minded solutions that build their states and strengthen the nation, the Governors' Forum is now being promoted surreptitiously, not only as a lobby group of sorts, but as an institutional part of our democracy. But it is not.

A multi-billion naira secretariat of the Forum is in the works, and a director-general has been named. Where is the money for this coming from? We urge the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), the NGOs, professional groups and citizens who seek probity in the conduct of state affairs to take an interest in this. What is even the legal basis of the Governors' Forum? Is it registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and if so, when was this done, by whom, when was it advertised, who are its trustees and officers and what are the details of its Articles of Association? Now that the forum has taken it upon itself to enter into agreements with foreign institutions, Nigerians would want answers to these questions.

Governor Akpabio while briefing the press in Calabar on the trip, regretted that 'in Nigeria, once you are elected a governor and sworn in, you are on your own, ' Of course, you are on your own in a job you willingly sought - powers and responsibilities, benefits and risks inclusive, actively campaigned for and swore to perform to the best of your ability and in accordance with a constitution you are assumed to have read and understood perfectly. So what is the whining about?

The details of the governor's press briefing is a sad comment on the process by which leaders emerge in Nigeria, it smacks of contempt for the judgment of the electorate. We should think that a man who wants to be governor, and who deserves to be one, must not only be willing but able and ready for the job and the tasks it entails. If capacity building is required, this should not be in the form of a lengthy foreign trip and the waste of public resources.

Besides, to seek to learn the art of governance after becoming a governor is akin to registering in a medical school after one has begun to practise as a doctor. It is fraudulent; the admission of lack of preparedness by state governors also explains the crisis of governance in the country.

But what really is governance, or to be more specific, good governance in the Nigerian context, that necessitates that state governors should register with a foreign college? The 1999 Constitution certainly gives adequate guide on this. Commonsense will guide any man to recognise the ethics of governance when he sees it - a clear show of moral leadership, a firm grasp of the urgent issues of the day, and a sense of direction. These will translate into jobs for the people, good roads, potable water, well-run schools and health care facilities, transparency and accountability in the polity, and the meting of condign punishment for a breach of the law, etc.

Good governance is not rocket science so, if at all the governors need teaching, we maintain that whatever knowledge they seek abroad is in fact here in abundance within the precincts of our universities. But, perhaps, there is some knowledge - whatever it is - that the governors cannot find in this clime. If so, it would be wiser and cheaper then to upgrade colleges of higher learning in their states so they can offer training locally not only to governors, but other high level personnel in the public and private sectors. Such thoughtfulness would be a mark of good governance.

In any case, how well would the teachers at Harvard understand the peculiar needs of the different states in Nigeria to design appropriate courses for and teach governance to their heads? Indeed, we would have thought that the teaching should be the other way round. Part of the proposal is that Nigerian state governors would travel to Harvard in batches with effect from October to attend workshops on leadership, good governance, education, and economic management. The authorities at Harvard describe the programme as the first of its type for African leaders. The money that will be spent on the training, including the huge estacodes that the governors and their aides will collect for travelling abroad would be better applied to the provision of facilities for the people's benefit.

There is even a national security risk implicit in this proposal. Thirty-six state governors - and possibly the FCT minister too - would attend courses designed by a foreign institution, write research papers and submit dissertations laden with the latest and most authentic facts and figures about their respective areas of jurisdiction. We cannot conceive of a more legal and cheaper way to gather intelligence than this, and to compromise the Nigerian State. There is a time for everything: a time to study and a time to govern. To our governors we say this is a time to govern, please get on with the job.

Guardian Nigeria

There is a certain tendency among Nigerians to dwell in the past, to be afraid of the present and unsure of the future. This is self-evident if one can only take a hard look on our history especially since the “creation” of this strange misshapen entity called Nigeria. While we may feign interest amidst our distrust of the new, it is still something endemic in all the strata of the society to view every new idea with trepidation and suspicion

There is no right time for any idea[s]. It is the call of necessity that brings to fore an idea which is present either consciously or subconsciously] in our individual or collective mind. It is only the idea which its time has come that can present itself to us.

The call for State Police in Nigeria is both wise and also a little too late. It is what we should have done for a very long time ago. The present form of policing in Nigeria is both antiqued and outmoded. The structural, organizational, administrative, training aspects and even mission statement of what constitutes the present Nigerian Police leaves so much to be desired. In fact one can say and prove conclusively that we do not yet possess in anyway a civilian police service.

Nigeria needs a functional, accessible and fluid Police service for the 21st century. An organization that can deploy in considerable strength its manpower in gathering, acquiring and utilizing intelligence assets instead of using brute force to cover its apparent deficiencies. In an era of information technology, real time virtual interaction in social and economic world, singularity and total convergence, any organization, state or people that fail to evolve beyond the archaic world of physical representation are surely courting extinction.

The need for State Police is even more important if one takes into consideration the tribal, religious differences that are present in that society and which persistently have been exploited and wrongly used to advance the cause of those that seeks bring it down to its knees. This has been the bane of that society especially a society like us where illiteracy is rampant and folks are susceptible to various forms of manipulation. The Northerners have increasingly been canvassing for an Islamic form of government. Sending officers trained in the civil laws of the country to the North does not take into consideration these cultural differences. An officer of the law ought to be conversant with his community in order to be able to do his job well.

The funding of the Police will come directly from the communities and the state government. That way, the people will rightly claim the ownership of the institution and the Police themselves will have to adapt to the reality that they are serving the civilian populace, thus accountable to them. Funding can be drawn from the State account with a Federal oversight.

We need to develop a system where Police officers are drawn from and serve within/around their immediate environment. We need to have a Police Box with minimum of 2 officers in every hamlet, village in that country. A society without an effective, easily accessible justice system cannot work properly. An officer drawn, trained, and stationed among his kind will readily identify those that are engage in activities inimical to the society. He will also have the ability to diffuse dangerous situation before they get out of hand.

Much has been said about the misuse of the system by those in power especially within the states. There is no nation completely immune to the usurpation and misuse of power by those who are in the position. Yet, checks and balances have been and can be created to minimize this flaw in man’s nature.

The creation of a complimentary force under the Justice Ministry with complete jurisdiction from the Federal level to the Ward level [if well funded and manages] will greatly not only enhance the efforts at the state level but will also guarantee that the excesses of those in power will be keep in check. In a population of over 150 million people, Nigeria needs at least 375000 officers on its streets. A Federal Agency with a work-force of 50000, dedicated solely to the task of taking over when the State Police have cross the line, or been use as a political tool or even have over-reach itself will do more in our battle against corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. It will offer the common man the chance to participate in issues affecting his life and also give him a fair chance in getting justice.

This will not I anyway encourage secession. The militarization of the Nigerian Police which have made them increasingly dependent on raw power and brute force to accomplish their objective is something that needs reining in. The Police in my mind should be view strictly as a civilian institution and thus must be treated as such. The defense of a country from both internal and external threats is exclusively a job for the military. And in truth, if a nation is well governed, no part of it will seek to break away. It is only when a centralized bloated inept government such as the ones that have ruled [not lead] the people so far, insensitive to the plights and sufferings of the those in the street neglects to address pressing issues that any marginalized part of it raise, that we invite anarchy and violence to our land.

Nigeria needs a new direction; a new crop of leaders capable of envisioning a new path for that country. Nigeria needs valiant courageous individuals who are unafraid to try new ways of doing things. Indeed, Nigeria needs a new vision in all its aspects. Re-tooling our Police Service will be a step in the right direction.

I know there is much to be added, re-consider and re-evaluate in this article. This is my opinion and is subject to discussion. Different ideas either to add or criticize is welcome as long as it will open a discussion on this subject and perhaps influence policy makers to act in whatever form to redeem the time.

There is a certain tendency among Nigerians to dwell in the past, to be afraid of the present and unsure of the future. This is self-evident if one can only take a hard look on our history especially since the “creation” of this strange misshapen entity called Nigeria. While we may feign interest amidst our distrust of the new, it is still something endemic in all the strata of the society to view every new idea with trepidation and suspicion

There is no right time for any idea[s]. It is the call of necessity that brings to fore an idea which is present either consciously or subconsciously] in our individual or collective mind. It is only the idea which its time has come that can present itself to us.

The call for State Police in Nigeria is both wise and also a little too late. It is what we should have done for a very long time ago. The present form of policing in Nigeria is both antiqued and outmoded. The structural, organizational, administrative, training aspects and even mission statement of what constitutes the present Nigerian Police leaves so much to be desired. In fact one can say and prove conclusively that we do not yet possess in anyway a civilian police service.

Nigeria needs a functional, accessible and fluid Police service for the 21st century. An organization that can deploy in considerable strength its manpower in gathering, acquiring and utilizing intelligence assets instead of using brute force to cover its apparent deficiencies. In an era of information technology, real time virtual interaction in social and economic world, singularity and total convergence, any organization, state or people that fail to evolve beyond the archaic world of physical representation are surely courting extinction.

The need for State Police is even more important if one takes into consideration the tribal, religious differences that are present in that society and which persistently have been exploited and wrongly used to advance the cause of those that seeks bring it down to its knees. This has been the bane of that society especially a society like us where illiteracy is rampant and folks are susceptible to various forms of manipulation. The Northerners have increasingly been canvassing for an Islamic form of government. Sending officers trained in the civil laws of the country to the North does not take into consideration these cultural differences. An officer of the law ought to be conversant with his community in order to be able to do his job well.

The funding of the Police will come directly from the communities and the state government. That way, the people will rightly claim the ownership of the institution and the Police themselves will have to adapt to the reality that they are serving the civilian populace, thus accountable to them. Funding can be drawn from the State account with a Federal oversight.

We need to develop a system where Police officers are drawn from and serve within/around their immediate environment. We need to have a Police Box with minimum of 2 officers in every hamlet, village in that country. A society without an effective, easily accessible justice system cannot work properly. An officer drawn, trained, and stationed among his kind will readily identify those that are engage in activities inimical to the society. He will also have the ability to diffuse dangerous situation before they get out of hand.

Much has been said about the misuse of the system by those in power especially within the states. There is no nation completely immune to the usurpation and misuse of power by those who are in the position. Yet, checks and balances have been and can be created to minimize this flaw in man’s nature.

The creation of a complimentary force under the Justice Ministry with complete jurisdiction from the Federal level to the Ward level [if well funded and manages] will greatly not only enhance the efforts at the state level but will also guarantee that the excesses of those in power will be keep in check. In a population of over 150 million people, Nigeria needs at least 375000 officers on its streets. A Federal Agency with a work-force of 50000, dedicated solely to the task of taking over when the State Police have cross the line, or been use as a political tool or even have over-reach itself will do more in our battle against corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. It will offer the common man the chance to participate in issues affecting his life and also give him a fair chance in getting justice.

This will not I anyway encourage secession. The militarization of the Nigerian Police which have made them increasingly dependent on raw power and brute force to accomplish their objective is something that needs reining in. The Police in my mind should be view strictly as a civilian institution and thus must be treated as such. The defense of a country from both internal and external threats is exclusively a job for the military. And in truth, if a nation is well governed, no part of it will seek to break away. It is only when a centralized bloated inept government such as the ones that have ruled [not lead] the people so far, insensitive to the plights and sufferings of the those in the street neglects to address pressing issues that any marginalized part of it raise, that we invite anarchy and violence to our land.

Nigeria needs a new direction; a new crop of leaders capable of envisioning a new path for that country. Nigeria needs valiant courageous individuals who are unafraid to try new ways of doing things. Indeed, Nigeria needs a new vision in all its aspects. Re-tooling our Police Service will be a step in the right direction.

I know there is much to be added, re-consider and re-evaluate in this article. This is my opinion and is subject to discussion. Different ideas either to add or criticize is welcome as long as it will open a discussion on this subject and perhaps influence policy makers to act in whatever form to redeem the time.

There is a certain tendency among Nigerians to dwell in the past, to be afraid of the present and unsure of the future. This is self-evident if one can only take a hard look on our history especially since the “creation” of this strange misshapen entity called Nigeria. While we may feign interest amidst our distrust of the new, it is still something endemic in all the strata of the society to view every new idea with trepidation and suspicion

There is no right time for any idea[s]. It is the call of necessity that brings to fore an idea which is present either consciously or subconsciously] in our individual or collective mind. It is only the idea which its time has come that can present itself to us.

The call for State Police in Nigeria is both wise and also a little too late. It is what we should have done for a very long time ago. The present form of policing in Nigeria is both antiqued and outmoded. The structural, organizational, administrative, training aspects and even mission statement of what constitutes the present Nigerian Police leaves so much to be desired. In fact one can say and prove conclusively that we do not yet possess in anyway a civilian police service.

Nigeria needs a functional, accessible and fluid Police service for the 21st century. An organization that can deploy in considerable strength its manpower in gathering, acquiring and utilizing intelligence assets instead of using brute force to cover its apparent deficiencies. In an era of information technology, real time virtual interaction in social and economic world, singularity and total convergence, any organization, state or people that fail to evolve beyond the archaic world of physical representation are surely courting extinction.

The need for State Police is even more important if one takes into consideration the tribal, religious differences that are present in that society and which persistently have been exploited and wrongly used to advance the cause of those that seeks bring it down to its knees. This has been the bane of that society especially a society like us where illiteracy is rampant and folks are susceptible to various forms of manipulation. The Northerners have increasingly been canvassing for an Islamic form of government. Sending officers trained in the civil laws of the country to the North does not take into consideration these cultural differences. An officer of the law ought to be conversant with his community in order to be able to do his job well.

The funding of the Police will come directly from the communities and the state government. That way, the people will rightly claim the ownership of the institution and the Police themselves will have to adapt to the reality that they are serving the civilian populace, thus accountable to them. Funding can be drawn from the State account with a Federal oversight.

We need to develop a system where Police officers are drawn from and serve within/around their immediate environment. We need to have a Police Box with minimum of 2 officers in every hamlet, village in that country. A society without an effective, easily accessible justice system cannot work properly. An officer drawn, trained, and stationed among his kind will readily identify those that are engage in activities inimical to the society. He will also have the ability to diffuse dangerous situation before they get out of hand.

Much has been said about the misuse of the system by those in power especially within the states. There is no nation completely immune to the usurpation and misuse of power by those who are in the position. Yet, checks and balances have been and can be  created to minimize this flaw in man’s nature.

The creation of a complimentary force under the Justice Ministry with complete jurisdiction from the Federal level to the Ward level [if well funded and manages]  will greatly not only enhance the efforts at the state level but will also guarantee that the excesses of those in power will be keep in check. In a population of over 150 million people, Nigeria needs at least 375000 officers on its streets. A Federal Agency with a work-force of 50000, dedicated solely to the task of taking over when the State Police have cross the line, or been use as a political tool or even have over-reach itself  will do more in our battle against corruption, nepotism and abuse of power. It will offer the common man the chance to participate in issues affecting his life and also give him a fair chance in getting justice.

This will not I anyway encourage secession. The militarization of the Nigerian Police which have made them increasingly dependent on raw power and brute force to accomplish their objective is something that needs reining in. The Police in my mind should be view strictly as a civilian institution and thus must be treated as such. The defense of a country from both internal and external threats is exclusively a job for the military. And in truth, if a nation is well governed, no part of it will seek to break away. It is only when a centralized bloated inept government such as the ones that have ruled [not lead] the people so far, insensitive to the plights and sufferings of the those in the street  neglects to address pressing issues that any marginalized part of it raise, that we invite anarchy and violence to our land.

Nigeria needs a new direction; a new crop of leaders capable of envisioning a new path for that country. Nigeria needs valiant courageous individuals who are unafraid to try new ways of doing things. Indeed, Nigeria needs a new vision in all its aspects. Re-tooling our Police Service will be a step in the right direction.

I know there is much to be added, re-consider and re-evaluate in this article. This is my opinion and is subject to discussion. Different ideas either to add or criticize is welcome  as long as it will open a discussion on this subject and perhaps influence policy makers to act in whatever form to redeem the time.

I have been watching the unfolding drama regarding the demotion of former EFCC Chairman to his previous rank before he became AIG. And to me it portends a very serious omen for what this present administration has been known and will be remembered for.

Mr. Yar’Adua, the current President of the Republic has always struck me as too deliberately slow and inept. One can understand that he wishes to steer away from the confrontational and hands-on approach of his predecessor but Nigeria as a country does not need a leader who stays away from the helm. Nigeria do not need a leader who leaves the main bulk of the job to his underlings, Nigeria as a country is still very far from such concept and thus must be guided by a firm hand. He must be seen to be in control always.

His approach to this problem of leaving the merits of Mr. Ribadu’s promotion for the courts to decide seems to me a disturbing sign of weakness when decisiveness is needed. It is wonderful if we have become a land that observes the sacredness of our laws yet we cannot pretend that this is the case. Anybody acquainted with the history of the EFCC will agree that despite its inherent short-comings that it was when Mr. Ribadu was in office, that a part of our Justice system gave us at least in some measure the worth of our money. It brought to our consciousness the destructive effect that the cancer of corruption has had on our country and still does.

It brought us face to face with the sad realities and hypocritical nature of our leaders, both religious and secular. It made us aware of the immense burden that we bear for the sake of our young ones when we fulfill our obligation as citizens during the elections; a burden that we should in all earnest take more seriously when selecting our future leaders.

It performed admirably well given the circumstances and odds that confronted it from onset. In a nation where apathy, uncaring attitude emboldens the corrupt establishment and where corruption have become a Statecraft leaving the citizenry so jaded that they have forgotten what morality and decency look like, it did what it could no matter how minimal.  It was in such atmosphere that they existed and function thereby creating many animosity and ill-feeling towards them. In a land where injuries are nursed and hardly forgotten, sometimes for centuries, it is expected that some kind of pay-back time will be allotted to the organization and whoever personifies it.

I as an individual and a Nigerian expected the President to step in [given that the promotion was effected by the special order of the presidency] and re-enforce that privilege. Now, I am not a huge fan of the Obasanjo’s administration given the fact that he lost many chances to introduce meaningful changes that would have impacted the current and future existence of the Nigerian people [and actually blocked introduced laws that took us back almost a century back and blocked some that would have transformed the way that country is governed] by fighting too many small battles despite his obvious Big Uncle figure but I think that it was a wise decision to reward Mr. Ribadu for a job well done. Whether he used him as a political tool for witch-hunting remains an issue for next day. He performed and did his job with utmost conviction and zeal and that was evident.

In every developed and civilized part of the world, one thing that one observes is that they owe their current pre-eminence in many aspects of human history to this: the ability to allow those that possess the mind and vision that is needed at any time to lead them. This does not have anything to do with patronage or “connection” but because those individuals have demonstrated considerably well that they have what it takes to lead.  This is simply called “Meritocracy”.

Many of the officers by-passed by the promotion that made him an AIG must have in their line of duty been faced with such dilemma between doing what is morally and constitutionally required of them by the law but must have demonstrated their lack of Will and compensated that with mere lip-service. Yes, being a law enforcement officer in a lawless country as ours come with an enormous price and that includes a complete deadening of your conscience. Their lives are wretched and often have to go by with out-dated crime fighting tools and techniques yet is it not in such condition that heroes are made? One can only seek for perfection from an imperfect condition or situation.  Mr. Ribadu was given a task and he found a way to do that without re-coursing to the old well-rehashed pattern of “this-is-not-my-father’s-business’.

Due process may not have been followed but it was legitimate. Any actions taken to diminish his contribution to the society must be seen as a very great act of disservice to the country. In every land, heroes are made not because they are perfect but because their contribution was recognized, amplified and duly rewarded while their human failings were relegated to the background. That’s why the young ones will want to look up to them as source of inspiration. In present Nigeria, where true heroes are either vilified, killed or non-existing, it will be act of great importance if we can be seen to say ‘thank you’ for a job well done.

In a land where there is too much desperation, frustration, tears and death, that won’t be too much for those that try to let us stand even for a day. If those at the top choses to go on with their insensitivity to the plight of those they govern, we can at least gently remind them that they cannot govern us without our consent. Oh, when can we grasp the immense power in our hands and use it?

A mind dismembered:
In search of the magical penis thieves
By Frank Bures

Frank Bures writes frequently about Africa. He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.No one is entirely sure when magical penis loss first came to Africa. One early incident was recounted by Dr. Sunday Ilechukwu, a psychiatrist, in a letter some years ago to the Transcultural Psychiatric Review. In 1975, while posted in Kaduna, in the north of Nigeria, Dr. Ilechukwu was sitting in his office when a policeman escorted in two men and asked for a medical assessment. One of the men had accused the other of making his penis disappear. This had caused a major disturbance in the street. As Ilechukwu tells it, the victim stared straight ahead during the examination, after which the doctor pronounced him normal. “Exclaiming,” Ilechukwu wrote, “the patient looked down at his groin for the first time, suggesting that the genitals had just reappeared.”

According to Ilechukwu, an epidemic of penis theft swept Nigeria between 1975 and 1977. Then there seemed to be a lull until 1990, when the stealing resurged. “Men could be seen in the streets of Lagos holding on to their Instruments either openly or discreetly with their hand in their pockets,” Ilechukwu wrote. “Women were also seen holding on to their breasts directly or discreetly, by crossing the hands across the chest. . . . Vigilance and anticipatory aggression were thought to be good prophylaxes. This led to further breakdown of law and order.” In a typical incident, someone would suddenly yell: Thief! My genitals are gone! Then a culprit would be identified, apprehended, and, often, killed.

During the past decade and a half, the thievery seems not to have abated. In April 2001, mobs in Nigeria lynched at least twelve suspected penis thieves. In November of that same year, there were at least five similar deaths in neighboring Benin. One survey counted fifty-six “separate cases of genital shrinking, disappearance, and snatching” in West Africa between 1997 and 2003, with at least thirty-six suspected penis thieves killed at the hands of angry mobs during that period. These incidents have been reported in local newspapers but are little known outside the region.

For years I followed this trend from afar. I had lived in East Africa, in Italy, in Thailand, and other places too, absorbing their languages, their histories, their minutiae. I had tried to piece together what it might be like not just to live in those places but really to be in them, to jump in and sink all the way to the bottom of the pool. But through these sporadic news stories, I was forced to contemplate a land more foreign than any I had ever seen, a place where one’s penis could be magically blinked away. I wanted to see for myself, but no magazine would send me. It was too much money, too far, and too strange. Finally, when my wife became pregnant, I realized that it might be my one last reckless chance to go, and so I shouldered the expenses myself and went.


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On my first morning in the Mainland Hotel, a run-down place with falling ceiling tiles and broken locks, I awoke to a din, and I realized it was simply the city: the clatter of the 17 million people of Lagos. It was louder than any metropolis I had ever heard. My windows were closed, but it sounded as if they were wide open. For the next few days, I wandered around the city not quite sure where to begin. I went to bookstores and took motorcycle taxis and asked people I met, friends of friends, but without much insight or luck.

Eventually I found my way to Jankara Market, a collection of cramped stands under a patchwork of corrugated-tin sheets that protect the proffered branches, leaves, seeds, shells, skins, bones, skulls, and dead lizards and toads from the elements. All these items are held to contain properties that heal, help, or harm, depending on what one needs them to do. The market is better known for the even darker things one can buy. At Jankara, one can buy juju: magic. On my first trip to Jankara, to look around, I met a woman who loved me, she said, and wanted to marry me. When I told her I was already married, she threatened to bind me to her magically with two wooden figures so that I would not sleep at night until I saw her. But she said it with a glint in her eye, so I didn’t worry.

A few days later, I returned to Jankara to ask her some questions. As soon as I walked into the dark, covered grounds of the market, she saw me.

“Ah,” she said. “You have come back!”

“Yes,” I said.

“Sit here,” she said, and pointed to a bench. She sat down across from me. “What did you bring me?”

I showed her some fruit I had brought.

“Ah, very nice,” she said and started to eat, even though it was daytime in the middle of Ramadan and she was Muslim. “How is your wife?”

“She is good.”

“And what about your other wife?”

“Who is that?”

“‘Who is that?’” she said in mock surprise. “I think you know who that is. That is me.”

“That is nice,” I said. “But in America it’s not possible.”

A man came up to her and handed her a crumpled piece of paper with a list of ingredients on it. She peered at the list, then got up and went around collecting sticks and leaves and seeds and plants. She chopped them all up and put them in a bag. While she was doing this, the man sat next to me on a bench.

“Is that for you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “It makes you very strong.”

Then another man came up and put in his order. It was something for the appendix, he said. When he was gone, the woman sat down next to me.

“I have a question,” I said.

“Yes.”

“In my country, we don’t have juju.”

“Yes.”

“But I was reading in the paper about penis snatchers—”

“Ah,” she interrupted me. “Don’t listen to them. That is not true. If I touch your thing like this”—and here she touched my leg—“is your penis gone?”

“No,” I said, uneasily. “But what if I come to you and ask you for protection? Can you do it?”

“Yes, I can.”

“How much?”

“One thousand naira. Two thousand. Even up from there.” This was a large sum by Nigerian standards—more than $15.

“Do you have many people come and ask for this?”

“Yes,” she said in a low voice.

She looked around.

“Many.”


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Nigeria was not the first site of mysterious genital disappearance. As with so many other things, its invention can be claimed by the Chinese. The first known reports of “genital retraction” date to around 300 B.C., when the mortal dangers of suo-yang, or “shrinking penis,” were briefly sketched in the Nei Ching, the Yellow Emperor’s Classic Text of Internal Medicine. Also in China, the first full description of the condition was recorded in 1835, in Pao Siaw-Ow’s collection of medical remedies, which describes suo-yang as a “ying type of fever” (meaning it arises from too much cold) and recommends that the patient get a little “heaty” yang for balance.

Fears of magical penis loss were not limited to the Orient. The Malleus Maleficarum, medieval Europeans’ primary guidebook to witches and their ways, warned that witches could cause one’s membrum virile to vanish, and indeed several chapters were dedicated to this topic. Likewise the Compendium Maleficarum warned that witches had many ways to affect one’s potency, the seventh of which included “a retraction, hiding or actual removal of the male genitals.” (This could be either a temporary or a permanent condition.) Even in the 1960s, there were reports of Italian migrant workers in Switzerland panicking over a loss of virility caused by witchcraft.

These fears, however, seem to have been largely isolated; mass panics over genital retraction were not recorded until 1874. This was the year that, on the island of Sulawesi, a certain Benjamin Matthes was compiling a dictionary of Buginese when he came across a strange term, lasa koro, which meant “shrinking of the penis,” a disease that Matthes said was not uncommon among the locals and “must be very dangerous.” Sporadic reports of koro, as it came to be known, recurred over the years, and during the late twentieth century the panics proliferated. In 1967, an epidemic of koro raced through Singapore, affecting some five hundred men. In 1976, in northern Thailand, at least two thousand people were afflicted with rokjoo, in which men and women complained that their genitals were being sucked into their bodies. In 1982, there were major koro epidemics in India and again in Thailand, while in 1984 and 1985, some five thousand Chinese villagers in Guangdong province tried desperately to keep their joysticks outside their bodies using whatever they had handy: string, chopsticks, relatives’ assistance, jewelers’ clamps, and safety pins. But the phenomenon was given little notice by Western scientists, who considered such strange mental conditions to be “ethnic hysterias” or “exotic psychoses.”

This way of thinking has changed, thanks largely to the work of a Hong Kong–based psychiatrist named Pow Meng Yap. In the early 1950s, Yap noticed a strange thing: a trickle of young men coming into his office, complaining that their joysticks were disappearing into their bodies and that when this happened they would die. After seeing nineteen such cases, Yap published a paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry entitled: “Koro—A Culture-Bound Depersonalization Syndrome.” For years, Yap had been interested in the interplay among culture, mind, and disease. In an earlier paper, “Mental Diseases Peculiar to Certain Cultures,” Yap had discussed other similar conditions: latah, a trance/fright neurosis in which the victim obeys commands from anyone nearby; amok, unrestrained outbursts of violence (as in “running amok”); and thanatomania, or self-induced “magical” death. Koro fit quite well among these other exotic maladies. In fact, it was perhaps the best example of a phenomenon that can arise only in a specific culture, a condition that occurs in a sense because of that culture. Yap saw that these ailments had this one feature in common, grouped them together, and gave them a name that, in spite of all the controversy to follow, would stick. They were “culture-bound syndromes.”

Under this rubric, koro and the other culture-bound syndromes are now treated with more respect, if not total acceptance. Science is, after all, the quest for universality. In psychiatry, this means all minds are treated the same and all conditions should exist equally across the world. Some thought that calling koro “culture-bound” was an end-run around the need for universality, a relativistic cop-out. Were these syndromes really caused by different cultures? Or were they just alternate names for afflictions that plagued, or could plague, every culture? This was precisely what I had come to Nigeria to find out, though so far with little success.


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A few days after I arrived in Lagos, an article appeared in the newspaper. The headline read: court remands man over false alarm on genital organ disappearance. According to the paper, a young man named Wasiu Karimu was on a bus when he “was said to have let out a strident cry, claiming that his genital organ had disappeared. He immediately grabbed [Funmi] Bello, who was seated next to him, and shouted that the woman should restore his ‘stolen’ organ.” They got off the bus, and a crowd of “miscreants” swarmed around the woman, ready to kill her. But a passing police patrol intervened, stopped her from being lynched, and escorted them both to the police station, where Karimu told the commissioner “his organ was returning gradually.” The paper gave the exact address where Wasiu Karimu lived, so I decided to try and find out what exactly had transpired in his pants.

The day was already hot when a friend of a friend named Akeem and I rolled into Alagbado, the dusty, run-down town on the far edge of Lagos where Wasiu Karimu lived. We drove past clapboard shacks and little restaurants, through huge muddy pools, past people watching us from doorways, until we came to the address given in the paper. Chickens and goats scattered in front of our car, which we had borrowed from a journalist and which said press on the windshield. The house was an ample two-story affair with a little shop next to it. We got out and asked a girl if Wasiu lived there.

“Yes,” she said, “but he is not around.”

Akeem went into the yard in front of Wasiu Karimu’s house, and a woman jumped in front of him. She said she was Wasiu’s mother and began yelling at him to get out of the yard. Akeem retreated to the car, and we stood there in the middle of the road, in the sun. Wasiu Karimu was nowhere to be found, so we decided to wait for him to show up. But after about twenty minutes, several men came around the corner and took up posts around Wasiu’s house. A couple of them were holding long sticks.

Akeem turned to me and said, “Local Area Boys.”

In Lagos, the Area Boys are thugs—a law unto themselves. They have multiplied since the military dictatorship fell in 1998, seeding a new kind of terror throughout the city. These young men had an ugly swagger, and they looked as if they had run to get there. I could see sweat start to drip down Akeem’s head.

“Let us go,” he said.

“Wait a minute,” I said. We had come a long way—in fact, I had come all the way from America for this and did not know how many chances I would get to speak to someone whose penis had actually been stolen. So I made us wait. I don’t know why. I suppose I figured we weren’t doing any harm. I only wanted to ask a few questions. I walked to the shop next to Wasiu Karimu’s house and bought something to drink.

The young girl at the shop said, “Sir, are you looking for someone?”

“Yes,” I said. “Wasiu Karimu.”

“Sir,” she said, “maybe you should just go now, before there are problems. It will be easier for everyone.”

I walked back to the car. “Okay,” I said to Akeem. Now I had a sick feeling. My own back was drenched with sweat. “Let’s go.”

Akeem shook his head and looked down the road. It had been cut off with two large wooden blocks and a car. There was no way out.

One of the local Area Boys looked particularly eager to deliver some punishment. He ran into the street with his cane and whacked it on the ground. “We will beat the press,” he yelled. “We will beat the press.”

The young men huddled together in front of Wasiu Karimu’s house. After a long delay, they called Akeem over. He talked to them for a little bit. Then they called me over. They wanted to see the article about Wasiu. I pulled the wrinkled photocopy out of my pocket and handed it over.

A quiet man in a 50 Cent T-shirt was clearly the leader. He took the article, unfolded it, and read through it.

“Let us see your I.D.,” he said. I hadn’t brought my passport, for exactly this reason, and my driver’s license had disappeared from my hotel room. All I had with me was an expired YMCA membership card, which I handed over.

The leader, whose name was Ade, took it and turned it over. He handed it to a lanky man with crooked teeth, who looked at it briefly, then handed it back.

“Do you know who we are?” asked Ade.

I did not.

“We are O.P.C. You know O.P.C.?”

The O.P.C. was the O’odua People’s Congress, a quasi-political organization that was halfway between the Area Boys and a militia. They were violent and arbitrary. Recently, they had killed several policemen in Lagos, and in some parts of the city they were being hunted by the government.

“We have to make sure,” Ade said, “you are not coming here to do some harm. Maybe you were sent here by that woman.” The woman, he meant, who stole Wasiu Karimu’s penis.

There was a crash, as a glass bottle exploded against one of the tires on our car. Both Akeem and I jumped.

“No,” I said trying to be calm. “I just want to ask some questions. Is he around?”

“He is not around.”

They talked among themselves in Yoruba, then Ade’s henchman with the bad teeth told the story. Unbeknownst to me at the time, Wasiu Karimu himself was apparently there, listening from a distance. Akeem told me later he was sure he had seen him—a little guy standing at the back, young and nervous.

Wasiu, Bad Teeth told me, had gotten on the bus and sat down next to this woman. He didn’t have a watch, so he asked her what time it was. She didn’t know. Then the conductor came around and asked her for her fare. She didn’t have that either. As she stood up to get out of the bus, she bumped into Wasiu.

“Then,” he said, “Wasiu Karimu felt something happen in his body. Something not right. And he checked and his thing was gone.”

“Was it gone,” I asked, “or was it shrinking?”

“Shrinking! Shrinking! It was getting smaller.”

And as he felt his penis shrink, Wasiu Karimu screamed and demanded the woman put his penis back. The conductor told them both to get off the bus, and a crowd closed in on the accused, not doubting for an instant that the woman could do such a thing. But as soon as she saw trouble coming, Bad Teeth said, she replaced Wasiu’s manhood, so when the police took him down to the station, they thought he was lying and arrested him instead.

“What did she want the penis for?” I asked Bad Teeth.

“For juju,” he said, “or maybe to make some money.”

Behind us, from the corner of my eye, I could see that the roadblocks had been removed.

“Do you have anything else you want to ask?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t think so.”

“Okay,” he said. “You are free to go.”

“Thank you.”

I nodded to Akeem. We got in the car and drove away.


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The debate over the term “culture-bound syndrome” seems to have simmered down as our understanding of “culture” has evolved. These days the terms “culture-bound” and, more often, “culture-related” have been grudgingly accepted; after all, how is Western medicine supposed to categorize such ailments as hikikomori, in which Japanese children refuse to leave their rooms for years on end, or dhat, in which Indians and Sri Lankans become ill with anxiety over semen loss, or zar, in which some Middle Easterners and North Africans are possessed by a spirit, or hwa-byung, the “fire illness” of Korean women in which anger is said to be manifesting itself in physical symptoms including “palpitations” and “a feeling of mass in the epigastrium”? How can we fit these, and a dozen other ailments, neatly into the pages of the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the Western bible of maladies of the mind? The fact is that there was no good place until Pow Meng Yap created one—ill-fitting as it may be—for these unruly members of the family of mental conditions whose causes cannot be found just in one mind but instead must be sought in the social. These conditions are not purely psychogenic, as psychiatry’s universalists once held all things must be. They are also sociogenic, or emerging from the social fabric.

This debate has mirrored a larger debate that took place in the twentieth century over whether culture was something pure, something existing independently of the people who lived in it—something with an almost supernatural ability to shape those people into fundamentally different beings—or merely accumulated wisdom, the chance collection of the behavior of a group of individuals. Was culture a quasi-independent superorganism that shaped people? Or was it just a collection of human organisms? Did it produce us, or did we produce it?

Lately, a more nuanced conception of culture has emerged, as evolutionary psychology begins to shed some light on what exactly culture is. It is neither nature nor nurture. It is both at the same time, a positive feedback loop of tendencies and behaviors and knowledge and beliefs. It is, as the science writer Matt Ridley has called it, nature via nurture, or as primatologist Frans de Waal put it in his book The Ape and the Sushi Master, “an extremely powerful modifier—affecting everything we do and are, penetrating to the core of human existence.”

In 1998, Charles Hughes, co-editor of Culture-Bound Syndromes: Folk Illnesses of Psychiatric and Anthropological Interest, one of the few books on the phenomenon, wrote a scathing critique of the DSM-IV’s treatment of culture-bound syndromes, which had been gathered together in the back of the book in an appendix as if they were still under glass, a museum of exotica where nothing had changed since these ills were considered “ethnic psychoses” that affected primitive people but not us. Hughes argued that the borders around culture-bound syndromes are inherently fuzzy and that to rope them off at the back of the DSM-IV is a farce. He lamented the lack of a “short course in sophisticated cultural awareness” for psychiatrists and said that “[t]o use the class-designated term ‘culture-bound [psychiatric] syndromes’ is comparable to using the terms ‘culture-bound religion,’ ‘culture-bound language,’ or ‘culture-bound technology,’ for each of these institutional areas is shaped by, and in its specific details is unique to, its cultural setting.”

In other words, everything else in the DSM-IV, and in life, is culture-bound, too. While koro and its culture-bound kin languish at the back, other conditions such as multiple personality disorder, bulimia nervosa, type A personality, muscle dysmorphia, belief in government-implanted computer chips, and pet hoarding are given universal status because Western psychiatrists cannot see beyond their own cultural horizons.


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Starrys Obazi sat across the table from me at Mr. Bigg’s, a cheap fast-food place on the north side of Lagos where we had agreed to meet. Around us, other Nigerians walked past with their trays and sat down to eat their burgers and watch rap videos on the television behind us. Starrys dug into his chicken. A wiry little man with a nasal voice, he had been an editor for fourteen years at FAME, a Nigerian celebrity tabloid, until the publisher mysteriously stopped paying him. Jobs, even low-paying editorial jobs, were tough to come by in Lagos, and it had been several years since Starrys had held one.

Here, in the flesh, finally, was a man whose penis had been stolen. It happened one day in 1990, when Starrys was a reporter at the Evening Times. While he was waiting for a bus to take him to work, a man approached him and held out a piece of paper with a street name on it.

“Do you know where this is?” the man asked, without saying the name. Starrys did not know the street, and he thought this was strange. He didn’t believe the street existed. Then another man behind Starrys, without seeing the paper, said where the street was. This was even stranger.

The two men walked away, and Starrys started to feel something he had never felt before.

“At that moment,” Starrys told me, leaning forward, “I felt something depart my body. I began to feel empty inside. I put my hand into my pants, and touched my thing. It was unusually small—smaller than the normal size. And the scrotum was flat. I put my fingers into the sockets, and they were not there. The testes were gone. And I was just feeling empty!” His voice strained as he recalled the panic of that day.

Starrys ran after the men and confronted them. “Something happened to my penis!” he told the man who had asked for directions. The man said he had no idea what Starrys was talking about.

“Something told me inside not to shout,” he said. “Because as soon as I shouted, he would have been lynched. And if he was lynched, how could I get my penis back?”

I watched as Starrys finished his chicken and wiped his hands. “It was one quarter of its normal size,” he said emphatically, as if, even now, even he could not believe it had happened. But Starrys, a journalist and a worldly man, did believe it. And as I listened to him tell his story, I almost believed it, too. I could feel the intensity, the fear. It made a kind of sense, even if it didn’t make sense at all. I could start to see the world that his fear came from. I could see what it was built on, and for a few minutes I could imagine standing there with Starrys on a street corner, alone in the world, helpless and missing my most cherished possession. I let go of my doubts and gave in to the panic in Starrys’s voice, and it was real, utterly. And I was afraid. This was how koro could be caught.

Starrys continued with his story. Despite the men’s denials, one of them agreed to accompany Starrys to a nearby hospital to document the theft. But just as they arrived at the hospital, the man grabbed Starrys and bellowed, “LET’S GO IIIIN!” And at that moment something happened.

“When he grabbed me,” Starrys said, “I felt calm again. I felt an inner calm. I checked my testes, and they were there.” He checked his penis as well, and the missing three quarters had returned. The doctor examined Starrys and pronounced him fine. On hearing Starrys’s story, though, the doctor admonished the penis thief to quit causing trouble on the street.


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I thought about Starrys. He had been a skeptic before his encounter; but on that day, his inner world shifted, and he became afraid. He stopped giving directions. He stopped trusting strangers. He knew that magical penis loss was a real and terrifying possibility. He had, in a sense, been drawn into the culture, into its beliefs, so far that he had caught this culture-bound syndrome.

We all go through a similar process of being formed by the culture around us. It is something described well in Bruce Wexler’s book Brain and Culture: Neuroscience, Ideology and Social Change, in which Wexler argues that much of human conflict arises from our efforts to reconcile the world as we believe it to exist (our internal structures) with the world we live in. According to Wexler, we develop an inner world, a neuropsychological framework of values, cause and effect, expectations, and a general understanding of how things work. This inner world, which underpins our culture, forms through early adulthood, after which we strive to ensure it exists, or continues to exist, in the world outside. Those inner structures can change in adulthood, but it is more difficult given our decreased brain plasticity.

That different internal structures exert different pressures on the mind (and body) should not be surprising. Every culture has its own logic, its own beliefs, its own stresses. Once one buys into its assumptions, one becomes a prisoner to the logic. For some people, that means a march toward its more tragic conclusions.

Not long ago, medical researchers noticed a strange phenomenon: Turks in Germany, Vietnamese in England, and Mexicans in America all registered better health than native residents. This phenomenon has come to be called the “healthy migrant effect.” Although most of the research has focused on physical indicators (cancer, heart disease, diabetes, etc.), recent studies have started to look at the mental health of immigrants, which seems to show a similar pattern. In 2000, one study concluded that first-generation Mexican immigrants have better mental health than their children born in the United States, despite the latter group’s significant socioeconomic advantages—a finding, it noted, that was “inconsistent with traditional tenets on the relationship among immigration, acculturation, and psychopathology.” The stress of immigration is assumed to have major mental-health costs, but here the opposite seemed to be true: the longer immigrants remained in a developed country, the worse their mental health became.

For this reason, the healthy-migrant effect is also called the “acculturation paradox”: the more acculturated one is, the less healthy one becomes. One study of Turkish immigrants to Germany showed the effect to last for at least a generation. A subsequent 2004 study of Mexican immigrants to the United States showed that “[w]ith few exceptions, foreign-born Mexican Americans and foreign-born non-Hispanic whites were at significantly lower risk of DSM-IV substance-use and mood-anxiety disorders compared with their US-born counterparts.” These included alcohol and drug abuse, major depression, dysthymia, mania, hypomania, panic disorder, social and specific phobia, and generalized anxiety disorder. The longer they lived in the United States, the more they showed the particular damage to the mind that our particular culture wreaks. People who come to America eventually find themselves subject to our own culture-related syndromes, which the DSM-IV can easily recognize and categorize, as acculturation forces their internal worlds to conform to the external world, i.e., the American culture that the DSM-IV knows best.

I could feel something similar happening to me in Nigeria. I could feel plates shifting. I did not try to hold them back. As I listened to the tales of friends of friends, as I read the horror stories in newspapers, as I watched the angry crowds on television, as I saw the fear and hatred in the eyes of the young O.P.C. men, and as I sat across from Starrys Obazi and heard the panic in his voice, I could feel my own mind opening to this world where such things were possible. I could see the logic. I could feel the edge of belief. Something was starting to make sense. Now and then I would catch myself feeling strangely vulnerable between my legs.

I was almost there, and it was time to see if I could get in just a little further.


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The winding streets of Lagos were packed with people. Tens of thousands, coming and going, moving along sidewalks, jamming the streets so thickly that cars had to push through them at a crawl, blaring their horns and parting crowds like a snowplow.

I was far from Jankara Market when I started out and headed southwest toward Idumota, to walk through some of the most crowded streets in the world, where I hoped to brush up against the boundary of this culture. I wanted to look back and see someone checking if his manhood was still in place.

I climbed some stairs near a bank and stopped to watch the city flow by. I walked back down the stairs and jumped into the onrush. I moved with it. Together we were packed tightly, but we rarely touched. The winding streams of people ran easily along next to one another. I moved farther into the city, and as I did, I watched the people pass within inches of me, then feint, slip by, barely brushing me. At first I tried to nudge a few people with my shoulder, but most were too fast, too alert, too leery.

Walking along, I caught one man on the shoulder with mine. But when I looked back, it seemed like he hadn’t even noticed. Then I clipped another man a little harder, but when I looked back, it was like I wasn’t even there. I bumped a few more people lightly, until finally I caught one man enough that I’m sure he knew it was purposeful.

But the magic failed. He didn’t reach down and grab himself, didn’t point to me, didn’t accuse. He didn’t even give me a dirty look. I was swimming in the water, but I could not get all the way in, no matter how deep I dove. And so I let go, walked on, and allowed the current to carry me wherever it would.

No matter how we try, there are things that we cannot escape until we face ourselves. No matter how much we chose to ignore them, there are things that we must address before we can proceed further. No matter how much we want to deceive ourselves, the price will be our ultimate destruction. Let us sit down and face ourselves for once.

Please go to this site, listen to this analysis and think.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ radio4/history/document/document_20070730.shtml

It is only a fool that a pre-announced rain catches unaware- Ibo proverb

There are not many countries you can bicycle around before breakfast. One of the very few is Nauru, a Pacific island nation halfway between Australia and Hawaii.


Dubbed Pleasant Island in the 18th Century by the captain of a passing British ship - it is the world's smallest independent republic, a coral speck dwarfed by the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
Nauru may be little, but it once enjoyed enormous wealth. In fact Nauruans were among the richest people, per capita, in the world.


A quirk of nature means that their island consists of some of the world's purest phosphate - the legacy of millions of years of sea bird droppings reacting with an uplifted coral.


From independence from Britain and Australia in 1968, until the 1990s, Nauru earned a fortune exporting its phosphate for fertilizer.
The decades of mining left the once-lush interior a bleak moonscape of strange, grey coral spikes - all that is left once the phosphate-rich top soil is scooped out of the ground - but Nauruans did not care.


They gave up their jobs, brought in migrants from other Pacific islands to do the hot, dirty work of digging and sat back waiting for the royalty checks to drop into their hands. They were just 10,000 Nauruans.
They then went on an extraordinary spending spree. Families who had never left the island would charter aircraft to take them on shopping expeditions in Hawaii, Fiji and Singapore.


Sports cars were imported, despite the fact that Nauru has only one paved road and the speed limit is 25mph.
A procession of conmen and carpetbaggers persuaded successive governments to invest in a string of bizarre schemes, including a West End musical about the life of Leonardo da Vinci.


Nauru amassed a property portfolio of hotels and office blocks around the world. But corruption and downright incompetence took their toll and by the early part of this century, most of the assets had to be sold off to pay for the country's mounting debts.
Now all the money is gone. On its heel are strings of catastrophes.


But now the phosphate have ran out, Nauru's finances have also collapsed - and it has emerged that much of the money salted away in investments has been either lost or stolen.
Infrastructure has collapsed, and payment problems have frequently led to the island being cut off from supplies, including fresh food.


And unpaid bills mean that Nauruans are among the unhealthiest people in the world after decades of prosperous idleness, since they no longer can fly to Australia for subsidized medical care.


The above story shows what stupidity and an uncaring governance can do a people.


Nigeria was recently classified not as a “failed state but critically ill”. That is just been politically correct. Nigeria has all the hallmarks of a failed state. The completely collapsed infrastructure, ever growing mounting desperation, the insignificance worth of human live, hopelessness of future prospects, the selective justice often cued to the benefit of the rich and hundred of other things that even a blind person will understand as a country in a quick-sand and sinking in deeply every hour. To cap it all, the much revered life line crude oil [for most Nigerians nothing more than a fairy tale gone awfully wrong] will run out in 45 years, the shortest oil reserve in the world. Does anybody need a clairvoyant to tell him or her that we are going to share same fate with the Nauru people?



Till date, Nigeria has accrued from oil revenues almost over $600 billion. Half of it has been stolen by its leaders who now constitute its political elites who in their perverse thinking are still trying determining the destiny and future path of the country. Individuals who have robbed the country blind, destroy the psyche and moral sense of its people and still walks free corrupting everything that have life in it.


For me, it is not creating such society obtainable in the developed world. Such societies will not last neither do I consider them morally right. Secondly, these are societies that have raped Mother Nature and destroyed the environment. In their insatiable greed, they have trampled on everything sacred even the human covenant with the Earth and among themselves. They have reduced their citizenry into slaves, earning slaves wages, living pitiful existence that they regards as first-class existence while been entertained by countless meaningless amusements to keep them in tow, “happy” and distracted. They may be materially rich but are definitely unhappy, depressed and spiritually bankrupt. That is not what a human existence should be. No! Yada!


We have not yet grasped the immensity of the challenges we are in or ahead of us. We haven’t even started thinking about them. Despite the developed world misguided idea of what constitute true existence, there still remain noble things inherent in their system that we need to take a good look at, Africanize them and make them ours. One of these things is finding a sustainable form of governance that suits our mentality and beliefs. They have found what works for them even though it is still evolutionary.


The reason for our collective failure as a people is that we have a deformed concept of governance. This have stunted our growth in all level be it intellectually, materially and spiritually. Our leaders are irresponsible, lazy and incapable of understanding the basic of what is required of them. We in turn encourage them by allowing people like these to come to position of authority. We encourage them by not demanding what we need. We encourages them by the mentality “if you can’t beat them, you join them “.


Our resources have been misused, underused and in a greater percentage been made to work for those that seeks our extinction. These are same kind of people who helped the Nauruans to effectively run themselves to the ground. We have abused and reduced our human intellectual and natural resources into something with a little resemblance to what we have just 4 years ago. We have successfully reduced what Nature granted us into caricatures.


Intellectual prowess, feat and achievements are not the exclusive domain and right of the other races. We too are capable as evident and proven by some of us to match and even surpass the finest examples that they can produce. They succeeded where we have so far failed because of the collective Will of the people and individuals who against all odds stood out to forge new paths for others to follow. Who dare think outside the box most often against the prevailing wind of their day. These are the sort of individuals that Nigeria desperately needs to come up with creative and innovative solutions for that country before we settle completely into the fate of Nauru people.


We need to start investing in our schools, the only treasure trove that a country possesses not banking on the mineral resources we have. If the need be we can take over the houses of worship and convert them into schools which are only in sessions during the weekdays. This is because these mosques and churches are built to last often without caring about the cost. There is no institution more important than our schools and it must come first. We can network all schools together and link them up to the Net so that teachers and school kids can have access to the biggest library in the world. To start building schools from scratch may be out of question for now, not that it can’t be done, but it will be another way to make some greedy and thoughtless people rich again.


We need to cultivate the sense of appreciation of who we are and our environment. We need to explore creatively what we have and how to use them constructively in our pursuit for self-mastery. We need to re-examine who we think we are, what we believe in and how on earth we get to this point. We need to ask soul-searching questions and demand answers from ourselves and those that have led and leads us.


We need to drop those things we have out-grown and take on with earnest zeal ideas that will take us to the future. We need to master ourselves so our mind, passions and emotions can be subdued under our Will.
Time is running out. We may have not reach to the point where the government of Australia will have to give us $2million as our national budget but it is not far-fetch to think it will happen to us. Less than 20 years ago, a minister from Babangida’s regime proclaimed with all conviction that Nigerians are not poor since they are not eating from a dust-bin. It have become evidently so that at least 30% of our population eats from the trash.


There comes a time in a people’s life that there must choose either to answer the call of time or get lost, wandering aimlessly in the forest of unknowingness. The time has indeed come for us to re-discover who we are. The time is now!

You are young, my son, and, as the years go by, time will change and even reverse many of your present opinions. Refrain therefore awhile from setting yourself up as a judge of the highest matters.
Plato,  (427 BC - 347 BC)
Last Christmas, I lost a very special childhood friend. He is 3 yrs older but I looked up to him in many ways while we are kids. He has a wonderful way of interacting with the world. His smile can melt even the hardest of heart. He was full of life and zest and knows exactly what he want out of life. And that is to get rich and become very successful. Having come from a poor background and being the first-born, he believed that he must survive at all cost. It was also the decision that failed him in the end. Others have done same and survive but each of us has something different. And sometimes, it is the awareness and implementation of it that ensures our continued existence on the physical earth.

Without a formal education to bank on, his parents having not much to spend on his education , he came to Ladipo Used Spare Parts Market from Nnewi having nothing in his pocket but dreams and eyes full of hope. He started a laborer, off-loading engine-laden containers, helping store-owners in return for feeding money by carting the engines bought to the waiting vehicles of the customers. He swept the market and did all odd things. After saving up, he bought his own shop and started his own engine business in partnership with another person.

He did amazingly well! He was a born hustler, able to wade through the often flooded market to get to his customer in the rainy season. This business took him to all nook and crannies of the Western Nigeria and beyond in search of the engines. With time, the business blossomed into 3 different shops. He got married to a lovely Lady who bore him 2 children. He was happy until a crisis within the market union forced him to give up much and he lost faith in the business.

When the Chinese route became the norms, he also joined in. But at the second and third attempts, he lost almost all the money he invested. He couldn’t pay for his apartment. He sold his car. He withdrew his kids from school. He was completely bankrupt and subsequently became very depressed that nothing can comfort him. Just as most folks, it is at this stage spur on by desperation that we grasp at anything to remain afloat. With a connection to act as a drug courier and nothing else to lose than his freedom as he sees it, he embarked on a journey to an early grave.

Having made 3 successful trips to Turkey, he was on his way again for the Christmas haul when the Sisters Fate decided to cut the silver cord. He has just bought a Montero Jeep which the registration number ought to be out and affixed to the vehicles pending his return. According the a  nephew who was with him during the last hours of his life, just after Oshodi he started complaining of feeling intense heat inside his abdomen. It became so unbearable that the cab driver stopped on the road and he jumped out of the taxi and headed straight to a woman selling palm oil.

He emptied 3 bottles of palm oil into his mouth to the surprise of the dumb-struck onlookers. But this wasn’t of much help! He was rushed to 3 different hospitals along the Airport road but none have the facility to treat such emergency and was been driven to Lagos State Teaching Hospital but the traffic prolonged a journey of perhaps 20 minutes to one of almost an hour. He died a very agonizing death on the stretcher en-route to the operating room. There was nothing the doctors could do. 400 grams of cocaine that he swallowed just 30 minutes before burst inside his stomach. It was not the kind of passing on that I would have envisaged for such a great guy. He was just 37,6ft 2”, a father of 2, husband, son, friend and brother.

I have been hoping that we will grow to be grand-parents and watch our kids do the many things that we did together. I was hoping that we will one day talk about our growing up and the lessons learnt thereof. My hopes towards him died on that stretcher that day. Indeed, life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.


I have not been able to come in terms with his death. I have seen him in my dreams many times, looking so happy and most times offering me advices. I couldn’t attend his funeral but I am still wondering what to say at his grave when I get to Nigeria. Will I say “Scanty, you took a wrong decision” or “Scanty, you should have gone to a factory and work instead of leaving this kids fatherless”. Will I say to him “Well, you did your best, you fought like a man. Whatever happens is Fate”. I don’t know what I will say to him.

But no matter what I will say when I kneel or sit on the grave, it won’t bring such a great back. Neither will these in anyway discourage other young ones from taking to this path. Our society has become one of utter desperation where nothing is sacred anymore and everything is put at stake for the prize of “making it”. Nothing is spare! Everybody wants to make it come hell or high water. To be seen as lagging behind your peers is an unforgivable sin. Hard-work and patience are for the losers. We seem to have forgotten that work saves us from three great evils: boredom, vice and need[b][/b]. Jails across the world have had their fair share of young Nigerians serving all kinds of prison terms and death sentences. The sight of the green passport makes you an instant criminal in the eyes of the Customs and Immigration .A recurring decimal and pattern that have become a routine, accepted and almost expected.

Is it the society or the individual that should be blame for this?  Is it the uncaring, lazy and corrupt-ridden governments that have brought a country with so much to give to the world to its knees? A state brought about by our apathy towards the politics. Who are we to blame for these waste of human lives? Should it be ourselves who prefer to live on our knees instead of doing all we can to effect the much needed change? Who do we blame for the death of a pregnant mother who with her child died because there is no oxygen in the labor room? Or is it the factories that can’t work because the government has failed to generate electricity to last an hour? Who do we blame for the countless number of Nigerians who their roads have become sure-one-way-ticket to the after-life? Who do we blame that our educational system has collapsed so completely that our tertiary institutions are churning half-baked graduates unable to find a place in our world or beyond?

Yes, Scanty might have done chosen another path than the one he did. Yes, for the sake of his kids, he would have started afresh from somewhere no matter how humble. But the sad truth is that, there are millions out there who will no hesitate to take on the same road if they have the chance. We have lost all sense of morality.  We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach in the churches and mosques but do not practice, and another which we practice against the one we preach.  No matter what we may think, history is a voice forever sounding across the centuries the laws of right and wrong. Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity.

Will anybody profit from his experience? To be honest, I don’t know! Experience is that marvelous thing that enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again. In his case, there won’t be any repletion. It’s all over! But for those that are still breathing, I will say like Cato the Elder said “Wise men profit more from fools than fools from wise men; for the wise men shun the mistakes of fools, but fools do not imitate the successes of the wise. Yet, one should not continually fear that he will make mistake. The daring and victories of all heroes are full of mistakes. Mistakes are portals of discovery. They are part of the dues one pays for a full life. But one must first weigh the considerations, and then take the risks.

I sure do not know what my honest view about his death is for now. But if there is anything that it has achieved, it is to propel me further in my search for the solutions of that country.  For me Scanty, I will be silent and speak no more of you. Maybe beyond the veil, you have found happiness and contentment.  Those you left behind will try to understand what led to your untimely death. Your kids will grow up and will be taken care of. I cannot judge you because I know you won’t if it is me. Even then, I do not know how to judge you and not find myself partly to be blame too. Should I have warn you, I don’t know. Maybe one day I will understand. Goodnight, dear Friend, the rest is silence!

In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.
                                       -Confucius
The above is a statement of fact as was uttered by one of the wisest men of the Far East. 

I read recently in a daily about a statement ascribed to the musician “KSA” which he told the Central Bank governor that he cannot stop “spraying” Now for those who are familiar with Nigerian terminology [some of them twisted caricatures], “Spraying” is an adopted word used to describe the moment that guests will get up from their chairs to dance with a celebrant and will proceed to “spray” money currencies on the celebrant.

First, they “sprayer” who is decked with the finest finery he might possibly get, who the strolling minstrel will hail with all manner of names and titles as he enters the location of the event not only want to show his wealth and clot by dazzling the lesser beings with his state of the art luxury cars and glittering gold, but will shower the musician and afterwards the celebrant with money of higher denominations be it foreign or local currencies. The more he can shower, the more the eulogy climbs a frenzy height. This money is left to litter the  dancing space grows in volume as individuals competes to be the highest sprayer while the dancer will walk, gyrate, dance, step on all this cash on the floor.



This is an attitude that started during the late 90’s. I still remember as a kid of probably 10-11 years old the time of Gen. Buhari and Idiagbon. I still remember the sense of orderliness, sense of purpose that became part of the Nigerian society. I remember that for the first time, the country seems to have a collective wholeness and direction to it. Well, that dream was cut short by one of the most successful M-16 agents in Nigeria[i],[ most of the elites in Nigeria  are just moles and agents working for the foreign powers who have sold and mortgage the future of the country and its citizens for a price of silvers ], [/i] Gen. Babangida { who like Gen. Pinochet of Chile, will never be hold responsible for his crimes} who in a well panned coup aided by the British Foreign Office took over the reins of the country and everything went down-hills from there. Corruption became a bye-word synonymous with Nigeria. Laziness and quick-rich mentality became the order and ways of life in Nigeria. Morals were completely lost, money became the enthroned God that can do anything. Settlement became the Nigeria’s state-craft. Parents lost all reasons and prod their kids to become rich at whatever cost.

I am not really a fan of that Buhari/Idiagbon regime. I mean, there were excesses but who are we kidding? If there is anything that Nigeria needs, it is a strong, thinking and capable leadership for sometime that will force people to have re-think about themselves. Japan, one of the few law-abiding countries of the world lived for hundreds of years under “cultured obedience’. Even failure to bow to a passing samurai may bring end up with your head on the road-side ditch The unyielding and unsuccessful  charted course towards a more democratic and open state is noble and worthwhile but as it seems, there is a huge disciplinary problem with the cargo [ the populace, rulers and ruled alike].

Any Nigerian will attest to the fact that if that country was able to proceed in that direction for 10 years, the current history of that nation will be different. But yet again, who says that these individuals who came with a mission to “save” the country would have been able to sustain the momentum? Who says that with time they wouldn’t have become corrupt like others as Nigeria have a way of infecting everything it comes in contact with rapid ease? That, we never know because of the short-life of their enterprise and the subsequent “settlement” one that followed.


In all books sacred to the religions presently incumbent in Nigeria, the need for moderation can be read or gleamed from their pages. Balance is that thin veil that separates madness from sanity. Once you tore that veil, there will be no distinction between you and that guy that thinks he is an aero plane.

In Nigeria, the evidence of good living is that of a man with a protruding stomach that makes him look as if he is 4-6 months pregnant, with a swollen face, waddles instead of walking and can get anything on skirt no matter her age and lacks any self-control. He eats, drinks, and accumulates beyond reason. What you see is an individual that looks like a caricature. But to him, it is evidence that he is living well. When the rest of world is striving for trans-humanism, we are in many ways trying to regress backwards. Not even our fathers looked like us today. Our fore-bearers have dignity and control. They farmed the lands, hold their words in sacred honor and bear them with courage. We have lost every concept of that within couples of decades. And it has dragged us down to the level of animals. Nigeria today represent evidently the lowest human beings can crawl to.

We feed our ego, stomach, greed to bloating point while we neglect the mind. Our churches and mosques are some of the best architectural marvels in our land and yet our schools are without roofs, toilet and sport facilities and, laboratories. A greater percentage of our youths and my generation too have been raised to accept all these are part of who we are. Each time, I met people of my age group in their early and middle 30’s, I’m bewildered and struck with the total ignorance which have left most of us at the mercies and consequences of uncultivated attitude.

The Central Bank governor has a very good reason in trying to stop this madness called “spraying”. The Congress must find it appropriate and worthy to pass an Act to stop this folly and empower the Law Enforcements to arrest and prosecute anybody acting in such manner.  Not only that it goes against all human decency, it is totally against the very grain the words of the spiritual injunction that ask us to give without the right hand knowing what the left hand have done.  If an individual have much to display as an evidence of his superior wealth, then the government should try to understand more of the source of such wealth and if possible, relieve him of some for a worthy cause since he have too much to be able to restrain himself.

These people with their actions have portrayed excessiveness and lack of moral balance and thus have torn the veil. They have transgress and broken the both human and divine laws which they profess that they observes willingly. It is this that they stand condemned already.

If indeed they must embark in their fool’s undertakings, let them use fake paper monies. This they can buy and do whatever their foolish minds can conceive. In Hong-Kong and elsewhere in Asia, people often do that in funerals. They buy paper money and burn them as a present to the dead. This might serve as an alternative to satisfy their stupidity.  Confucius said those words some hundreds of years back but it demands that we heed to it in our land now. The day is also coming when those that have sold that continent and their souls at the expense of their brother will account for their deeds. That day will soon dawn!

Thanks! But I didn't know of an existing topic relating to him. Thought it have to be under politics. Thanks again, anyway!

``The power to control information is a major lever in the control of society. Giving citizens a choice in ideas and information is as important as giving them a choice in politics. If a nation has narrowly controlled information it will soon have narrowly controlled politics.''
-Ben H. Bagdikian, The Media Monopoly

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.''
-President James Madison, "Notes on Virginia”

The above statements are as true as the existence of the sun. In an era that few people bother to read anything worth reading and spend most time watching TV, those that controls information directs the destinies of both individuals and nations.

Obama have been portraited as part of the conspiracy to take over the US. That didn’t do the trick. He is now a member of a racist church its Pastor have been his spiritual guide for the past 20 years. For the last 2 weeks, they have succeeded in putting him on defensive for the first time. He has been called all sorts of name, yet he maintained a dignified silence that exposes their lack of compassion. For the past 2 weeks, there has been an increase in the coverage of the crimes of black people. It is the classical rip-out from the page of psychological warfare. Demonize them to reduce their humanity. And, it is working! It calls to this question: when are we going to start to tell our won story?

Rev. Jerry Wright has retired from the church and also has been removed from the campaign. But let’s take a minute to re-visit what he said that is causing all this uproar. “America used atomic bomb in Nagasaki and Hiroshima, they fire-bombed Tokyo and Dresden. Al Qaeda is a creature of the CIA and Blacks have had a raw deal in the US”.

All of these are historical facts, accessible to anyone. The Allies killed hundred of thousands when they used the atomic bomb for the simple reason to limit the causality rate of the Americans. That is to say, to save American lives. It echoes the description that was used during the My Lai massacre. The Lieutenant, the only officer found guilty of the atrocity was guilty for killing “Oriental human beings”. They firebombed cities that left hundred of thousands dead and maim for life and after the war, delivered “victor’s justice”. While they hanged those of the Axis power, they spared their own men. The US after spending $33 trillion dollars dismantling Soviet Union abandoned Afghanistan to its peril and then years later; the chicken came home to roost.  And lastly, there is no other nation apart from Britain that is accountable for the un-ameliorated blood, tears and pain of the Black race than America. This again is historical facts!

But the truth is that in politics, realities and facts don’t count. What is important is political correctness. My question is, does Senator Obama know about these remarks from his Pastor? If yes, why does he allow his continued participation in the process of seeking to be the President of the United State of America? Why didn’t he cut him loose since he know that Clinton’s campaign said some few weeks back that they have a dirt on him?

If he knew all along about the sermon and didn’t remove him or ask for his resignation, it shows complete political naivety. And that raise a troubling question for me. If he truly sees the world from that point of view, will it not affect his performance as a President? A leader may speak the language of the idealist but he MUST be a realist to the core. A leader cannot afford to see the world through a rose-tinted glass. He must see it as it is yet be able to give hope to those that he leads. This is not the 60’s neither is the hippie generation. There are realities that must be faced no matter how idealistic one is. And if he really wants to snag this kitten, he must find a way to convince the people that even though he is a dove, he is a tiger too. And that leads me to another point.

Why it is that Obama have not visited Iraq or Afghanistan? To an individual seen to be weak on national security, for an individual his critics is calling a wimp, he need to flex some muscle. He needs to show that despite his contempt for the defense-industrial complex and establishment, he will not hesitate to use such power. He have said before that he can bomb a target inside Pakistan if there is a “high value target or a terrorist” if the nation do not want to engage. He has also said that nuclear option remains on the table. The question is, why not visit these combat or re-construction zones for a photo-op and also to convince the security Moms who are apt to worry about the capability of the person taking the 3am phone call?

For a race as tight as this, every vote counts. Hilary went to a concert by Elton John and George Michael. Her target: Gay voters. You cannot afford to lose any demography. Obama need to find creative and novel approach to this quest. Not to engage in a mud-fight [which can be fun and highly tempting, though] which they have been trying to drag him into but to find ways to convince those still on the side-line that he can do the job.

For me, honestly I don’t care. The people that will be very disappointed when he assumes office will be the African- Americans. And it will also be a litmus test and validation either for the exoneration of the black man or the confirmation that we are in capable of great feats. Though individuals like Colin Powell and Condi Rice have proven the brilliance of our race on that level, there remain a greater majority that has not come to understand that this is a Black Century.

I will also love to see what a woman can do with such tremendous power as a President of the US. If Senator Obama cannot find his niche again after this unfortunate episode, maybe he ought to re-consider the role of a Vice- President. The truth is that these 2 individuals though belong to same political party are ideologically opposite. And if the nomination ends up passing Obama to Clinton, it may alienate the black voting block. A demographic that Bill Clinton have done more this time to ridicule. And that will give the Republicans a chance to keep the Whit House. The capture of any wanted “terrorist” including Osama the First with either Condi or Colin running as a Republican V.P will turn the tide against the Democrats. The 90% support for Obama is not because of ideology[i] [which frankly, the African- American community have none collectively][/i] but because of kindred spirit. A spirit that the Democrats should do everything to keep together.

But if at the end he cannot, let him as I said to the wind that took my umbrella while riding back home from work this evening “ You might as hell bloody keep it” Maybe it is yet far in the future for a black ass to sit in the White House.

Once upon a starless midnight, there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by unnoticed. " You"! said the owl, "Who?" they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in the thick darkness. "You two!" said the owl.

The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and the forest that the owl is the greatest and wiset of all animals because he can see in the dark and because he can answer any question." I'll see about that"  said a secretary bird, and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark. " How many claws am I holding up" said the secretary bird. "Two" said the owl, and that was right. " Can you give me another expression for ` that is to say` or namely'? asked the secretary bird. "To wit" said the owl " why does a lover call on his love? asked the secretary bird. " To woo" said the owl. The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl is indeed the greatest and the wisest in the world because he could see in the dark and because he can answer any question. " Can he see in the daytime too"? asked a red fox. " Yes" echoed a door mouse and a french poodle. All other creatures laughed at this silly question and they  upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region.

Then they sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader. When the owl appeared among the animals  it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly which gave him the appearance of great dignity and he peered about him with large ,staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. " He is God" screamed a Plymouth hen. And the others took up the cry "He's God"!

So they followed him when ever he goes and when he bumps into things, they also began to bump into things, too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the creatures  followed him. Presently a hawk, who acting as an outsider, observed a truck coming towards them at fifty miles an hour and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird  reported to the owl. " There is danger ahead" said the secretary bird. "To wit'? said the owl. The secretary bird told him. "Aren't you afraid? He asked. "Who"? said the owl calmly. for he could not see the truck. " He's God"! cried all the creatures again and they were still crying when the truck hit them them.

The Thurber Carnival
James Thurber 1894-1961

Until the lion tells its own tale, the tale of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. A society that does not have those that documents its existence is as good as non-existing. A society that does chronicle its dealings, experiences will be unable to survive. Because there won’t be the past for the future generation to learn from. They will be unable to understand themselves. And the lion will never get to tell its own tale.



Examples abound for such great empires and civilization that didn’t go to elaborate length to tell their own story through their eyes. The civilizations of Saharan/ Sub-Saharan Africa and the Latin Americans, most pre-dating those of the West did not fare well at all because of this. Though evidence abound on the ones of Incas, Aztecs and others within the Latin American belt, much of it guess-work.



Compared to the ones of Egypt, India, China, roman, Greece, they are non-existing. These later ones have been so successful that its impact on its people can be seen. They know their history, can see clearly in the past no matter how opaque and can steer correctly away from blunders that may wipe them out. The present pre-occupation of successive American Presidents to build libraries after them is an attempt for history to judge them fairly in the years to come. It is also more importantly laying groundwork for future generations.



What we know of ourselves, our past and our environment is from the eyes of the West and Middle East. We have assimilated their various religions often abusing it to our detriment because we no affinity or subjective synthesis with them. These are foreign and we unconsciously treat it as such. They have taken over our mind, spirit and body. The ultimate slavery. Roman Empire has fallen apart and another “spiritual” empire has taken its place. A religion that did not in anyway within its holy Book condemned the atrocity that was visited on us. Slavery! Same applies to The Great Religion though the Arabs treated our brothers more humanely than the West.



We have accepted their faith, their ways without thought. Let’s look back and remember what they have done to us. Maybe we can come together once to thwart their purpose. It is loophole they have successfully exploited, let’s fill that hole. We must go back to our gods. We must respect and bring back the spirits of our ancestors. We must empower them with our presence and courage so they too can be free in the land of the dead. We must honor them so they can bless us. The spirits that inhabits the sacred grooves, streams and forest must be brought back. Our religions must be made to attune with modern concepts and times but we must observe them. Religion is beyond belief; it is your social philosophy too. The cultures that have successfully develop apart from the ones in the West,are the ones that have maintained their spiritual heritage. The Chinese, Japanese, Indians.



In schools, there is no curriculum that teaches the students what slavery did to us. Children do not know the contributions of the Black sportsmen and women, artists, leaders, intellectual thinkers, mathematicians, geniuses in different fields. There is no single theory that one can call our philosophy. We do not name streets after these giants to remind and inspire us. Instead we named them after criminals, traitors that have done much harm to the collective black psyche and condition that their name need to be wipe out completely from the annals of our history. Our mass media have been taken over by mindless preachers who have no idea of what they are talking about instead of educating the populace of the realities of our times and the past.



We do not teach about the uprising and the heroic courage/deeds of men who have dared to rise up and break the chains. Men like Nat Turner, and many others that paid the ultimate price. We do not punish those that have contributed to the raping of our mothers, daughters and sisters. We do not punish those that have pillage our land and sold us to the White Man either now or then. We have not been able to brink out the evidences of the fate of our brothers who lies sealed in their pain within the abyss of the rivers and oceans. The Jews have Auschwitz, we have nothing. We need to excavate at any cost those ships that sink and show the world what happened to us. We need to identify and punish our brothers that helped the Arabs, Portuguese, British, Americans, and Dutch to kidnaps and sold our forbearers. You know, when Captain Perry first came to Japan, the first thing he did was to present them with a black male as a slave to them. Of course, they refused, just as the Chinese did,  Think about what would have happen to Africa if the Asians too joined the trade. There would have been nobody left in Africa.


We need to come together. We need to understand who we are, where we are and what we want. We need to identify our enemies and name them. We need to make our children aware of what happen else it happens again.


The slavery has started again. This time it is taking the best out of Africa as it has done before. It is draining it of its life force. The young and capable. They have weakened us internally successfully with bad leadership and now they are taking us away as if we are the ones taking the decision. No, it is the same old game in new guise.  Recently, the Libyan Leader Kaddafi talked about his impatience with the African integration and his would-be subsequent move closer to the West if no hope is forthcoming. It is same frustration that I feel. You often hears about now much Africans in diaspora is sending back home, they hardly make any mention of how much the immigrants are generating for the economies of their host countries. Neither the devastation caused by exodus of the able and young. The broken homes, the children without their parents, the communities left without directions or hope.


If he eventually gave up on Africa, it will difficult to see who again will stand up and champion its cause. Let us remember who we are. We are the most beautiful people on Earth, if we eventually get to know that.

There is no reason why Africa cannot have one integrated defence force, one trade policy, one foreign policy,one embassy in any country outside the shores of Africa. This will call for toned-down version of what we call "sovereignty" of each nation but it is better that this leaders act as Regional Governors or Secretaries.

Society and culture are based on limits- this kind of behavior is acceptable, that is not. The limits are fluid and changes with time, but there are always limits. The alternative is anarchy, the lawlessness of nature, which we dread. But we are strange animals: the moment any kind of limit is imposed, physically or psychologically, we are instantly curious. A part of us wants to go beyond that limit, to taste and explore that which is forbidden.

This is not a trait of a certain race. Human beings all over the Earth share this tendency. They are all given to excesses if a clear limitation is not imposed; abuse anything that is entrusted into their hands if not monitored properly. They will be mentally and physically lazy and incapable of great feats if there is no direction and leadership to guide and inspire them. They will display uncontrollable emotions if no effort has been made to sublimate that energy into something constructive.

Any strong societies that have achieved any measure of success have one thing in common. Strong and inspiring leadership, strict observance and application of stipulated laws and a competent judiciary. Nigeria as a nation of practical outlandish possibilities has consistently being unable to create such a society.

The greatest bane on the African continent is the caliber and quality of leaders that have crept out from caves over the past 50 years to dominate through sheer brutality and with the help and blessing of the West to impose and spread like leprosy their stupidity. Been a leader in Africa does not require any kind of high IQ: you need to be cruel, mean,  drunk, lazy, incapable of change, with an insatiable appetite to acquire and enrich yourself beyond anybody’s imagination. That and the ability to crush those that dare ask why will certainly guarantee you a place in the pantheon of these self-made “gods”.

It is only in Africa that an individual weighing 75kgs will assume a position of authority either as a Ward Councilors or a President of a nation and within 6 months will be probably 95kgs. In other part of the world, you shed almost intolerable weight with your first 100 days in office. Why? Because you have to think. You have to deliver. To them, politics is not a do or die affair like in Africa. They have other means of support, mainly a professional useful educational qualification. In Africa, politics often called “amara politics is all you have. Once you have come to that level, you, your kinsmen and tribe will do everything to stay in power no matter how corrupt, inefficient you are.

I have worked with most competent Japanese, Westerners and also the lazy type which actually constitute a majority. The difference is that the most efficient and able is allowed to float to the top in order to inspire and lead the lazy ones. It is as if a natural process is at play. Your ability to work harder and out-think anyone qualifies you to be a leader. Period! It does not base on where you come from, the religion you are in or any other measuring yard-stick we usually use in Nigeria. We must find ways to allow those capable of inspiring leadership no matter how humble their state may be to take charge.

Successful leadership models abound all around the world. We do not need to search for it. All that is needed is to pick one, Africanize it to suit who we are and our environment and find ways to implement it. Our current concept of leadership dates back to pre-historic times when a leader is answerable to none. He is seem as a dispenser, arbiter and unquestionably above the law. Winner- takes-all-attitude. There is no place for those that oppose him. He is expected to amass wealth and to dole out favors to those that are in good terms with him or his clan.

If we are to make any headway to in our quest to improve our lives and get out of this servitude, we need to define and understand what leadership is. We need urgently to train through special schools, travels and quality distinctive education new set of leaders for tomorrow. From the traditional elder and Chief a village to the Presidency, there is an urgent need to train these fellows on what leadership is or acceptably is. But it also firstly important that there innumerable roles which often contradicts and conflicts with each other’s be examine thoroughly and explain intelligently.

In the time past before I was born, there exists in all hamlets, towns and villages, story-tellers as still can seen in Aboriginal societies of Australia. These individuals are the bearers of the tales that define that society. This is not only their role but they also through this art train future leaders. Because one gleams from the past to define and shape the future. Leaders in a special way are liable for the future rather than what is happening day to day. And this he does with the experiences of the past and the vision of the future.

A leader is also responsible for future leadership. It is his responsibility to identify, develop and nurture future leader. No matter how successful a leader is, if he fails this last test, he has achieved absolutely nothing. The truth is that if we continue to fail in this regard, nothing will dream will ever become a reality. There will only exist in the realm of mere fantasies and will never see the light of the day. And we will continue to act as the experimental subject that we have become for others devilishly more incline to survival than us.

It was Napoleon that said that a leader is a dealer in hope. It is the only thing that he can give to nation especially in a crisis. It is the only thing that can ensure their readiness to sacrifice and to for a better tomorrow. America is at a crossroad. Trying to figure out its place in a changed world of 21st century. And the only individual among others running for the White House that have proven his capability to inspired the American people is Senator Barack Obama. It is not my intention to question his ability to deliver. He can! It is not my intention to point out that history is been made no matter who wins among the 2 Democratic candidate. It is! What I am concern about is what happens if he or Senator Clinton eventually wins.You see, it is not important who crosses the finish line first, the most important thing is what happens thereafter.

It will be childish to believe that America will dump its naive view of the world. An attitude which at best have enable them to achieve things beyond mere dreams. An attitude which enables them to push things beyond its prescribed and acceptable boundaries and achieves miraculous results. It is also an attitude that more often than not have drag them into unwholesome situations. America is an experiment and will continue to be. The question is, for how long and to what consequence? Will they alone suffer the consequence of this experimentation or will the whole mankind too?

Albert Einstein said that he do not know what the Third World War will be fought with but he certainly knows what the Fourth one will be fought with. With Clubs and Sticks.The world population is getting out of hand. Resources have started drying up.The scramble for it is getting more intense and serious. Mahatma [ Great Soul } Gandhi said that there is enough for everyone's need but not for everyone greed. Our insatiable greed is pushing us to the brink. This paradigm have failed.All you need is to take into consideration what is going on around the world now to know that our time and domination on earth is rapidly coming to a close. Unless mankind find ways to resolve this predicament that he have gotten himself into, we are courting extinction. Norway have started gathering seeds from all over the world so that the people left can have something to start with. I wonder if it will work if the ground is so radioactive. Japanese scientists have started experiments designed to grow food underground. Most nations have seen the signs over the horizon, we Africans continues to live as if these events are somebody's else problem. This election is an American event but it have a profound and serious consequence for Africa and the world.

China, since the time the Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat and Fleet Admiral Zheng He came to Africa have remain the only nation that have treated the Black race with any dignity, equity and respect. He came, he traded with the natives and left. He didn't exploit, neither did he kill, rape,pillage the land and take the sons and daughters of Africa as slaves. China have gradually asserting itself in Africa. This they have done subtly and without much fanfare. They have grown to be a force to be reckon with economically and soon if they wish , dominate the world politically. Though I seriously doubt that. China have never been a nation that want to rule over anybody. Their history can attest to that. If they wanted, they would have done that before even the Europeans crawled out of their primitiveness,anarchy and barbarism. But the real test to this strategy will soon emerge. In their quest for resources to sustain their economic growth, they will and have stepped on the toes of the West. This will draw them into confrontation whether they want it or not. The staging place will be Africa and the Arctic region. The only remaining source of such. Russia, China's ally will take the burden of the North Pole, China must deal with Africa.

Obasanjo's failure to run for third term can be attributed to his closeness to the Chinese. A relationship that the West frown deeply on. After all, the Royal Family of the Sauds in Saudi Arabia, Hosni Mobrak of Egypt,Musveni of Uganda, Musharaf of Pakistan, Teodoro Mbasago of Equatorial Guinea, Idris Derby of Chad and many others have done that successfully. The only thing that enables them to move unopposed is the blessing of the West. it doesn't matter how corrupt and ineffectual you are, as long as you can protect the interest of the West, your seat is assured. This policy have proven to be a complete recipe for unrest, political instability, poverty and all societal ills. Yet, it continues to be a policy of both French, America and diabolical Britain.

My fear for Obama [if he wins], is that the invisible and real rulers of America who dictates who controls the financial world, who picks who wins the election and who fashions the policies, who have taken away the power from the electorate will use him as they have used poor George. [Rest assured, his legacy will be burnish]. He represents the face of a foreign policy gone awry but the huge gamble on Iraq paid off. The West have secured a source of oil that will last for a very long time. Do not expect such prize to be thrown away no matter who wins the Presidential race. Now their attention will be directed to Africa, a continent still with a huge untapped mineral deposits of all kinds even after centuries of uninteruppted looting. An African Command have already been setup. Liberia [ who will blame the poor Lady ]and some other nations have even ask the US to use their soil as a base. Americans though prefer a floating one. There is nobody apart from Barack Obama who can deliver when it comes to the question of Africa. He is half-Kenyan , have a good grasp of the tragicomedy playing there and have the eloquence that can raise the dead. I doubt whether any African leader can effectively refuse him. The truth is that if the West want to still enjoy its undisputed hegemony in Africa that they have enjoyed for 500 years or more, their better bet is Obama.

He believed in talking. America have seen that you-are-wrong-I-am-right-let's-slug-it-out attitude that they brought the beginning of the 21st century is anything but wise. Will they learn? Honestly,I don't know! The Republican debate on YouTube filled me with so much revulsion and horror. I was dumbstruck! Here are these individuals running for the highest office in the land, with huge implications for the world, glorifying violence and guns as if if it the only alternative and panacea to all their problems. This is why I have a huge reservation about Senator Clinton. While American die daily from gun-related incidents, these dumb guys are calling for more guns and violence. People are cracking up! They are losing it! There will be blame games and enemies will be sought out. Whether real or imaginary. More will die. More will perish because of the stupidity and callousness of such individuals.

I wonder what will happen if Clinton becomes the Vice-President or viceversa. The real truth is that these 2 individuals are miles apart even though they belong to same party. Clinton as VP will not be patient enough to be a President in 8 years time. She may actually move to impeach Obama. She typifies the establishment and the old order that have brought America to this stage; Obama represent something new and fresh. Obama as a VP will find it impossible to function under Hilary. Ask Al Gore! And I cannot shake from my mind that it was when the Clintons were in office that the atrocities in Rwanda and Burundi happened.

Whatever happen after the finish line, all I am praying is that the winner should listen to what John Lennon said. Give peace a chance! Sometimes it may mean talking, talking to those that seeks your destruction. It may be taking time to drop those things that creates such acrimonious feeling. It may be to really look at the world with from another angle. Whatever happen, let Wisdom and Self-Restraint prevail!

The world is still full of monsters with delusion of grandeur and domination. China have the policy of non-interference, Russsia is still graspling to define itself. The only nation with the resources to meet these challenges but lack the moral authority is the US. The world to some extent still needs its leadership if it can done with a noble and less selfish reasons. They really need to learn how to talk things over. John F Kennedy said that we should not negotiate out of fear but we should not fear to negotiate. A child will be forgiven for being afraid of the darkness; the tragedy is when adults are afraid of the light.

No! I am not!

I am one of those that really appreciate the great stride that Nigerian movie { or can you call it soap opera } scene is making. It is indeed a welcome development which must in everyway be nurture carefully in order to use it for the celebration of who we truly are. One of the most potent force in the world is the power of the media especially the ones that finds their way into our living rooms . Be it television programmes, home movies, talk shows and what have you. And it is to this effect that we must be careful of what we allow into our consciousness for whether we are aware of it or not, these things molds, shapes how we think, act ,talk and reason.

Talking to some of people that  i know when I went home last, it dawned on me that what have been repeating itself more than anyother theme in Nigerian home movies actually is same thing that have held us back for so long and continue to hold an almost unimaginable power on  anybody who watches those movies. And that was the power of Juju or black magic or voodoo.
When I ask about some folks that I used to know,I was promptly informed that they are dead and that they were killed by people who don`t like the progress they are making in life. I was stunned. In the 21st century, I asked myself. I then asked if any autopsy was conducted to determine the cause of death, I was told no. Do anybody figure out what exactly killed these folks? Again, the answer was Nay. So how do you know what exactly killed them? I was summarily told that the witch-doctor said so. And that the Pastor confirmed it.

Another friend of mine who I stayed with surprised me  when I wanted to visit my parents in our hometown. I was, for 1 hour educated on what to do and what not to do,on what to eat and what not to eat, on who to visit and who not. When I asked why all these are being said to me ,I was told that a prophetess have inform them that some people want to kill me by giving me poison through the traditional method. I was also told not give money to anybody because they will use it to make some charms so that my business will collapse. I could only look in amazement and utter disbelief. Examples were cited for me on some of our relatives, friends who didn't heed to these warnings and who eventually fall victims of these witch doctors. And my folks are born-again fanatics.

As a normal occurrence , there is no running water in 90% of Lagos state. So people relies on the northern Mallams to fetch water for them if they can afford it. One night { without electricity as usual } on a hot humid night, I needed a second  shower.  While they were trying to organize a bath for me , I overhead the next door neighbor telling my friend`s wife not to buy water from the Mallams because the voodoo in it will ensure that  the water will not last and this will make you to look for them again thereby buying more from them. And she was only 16.

Many such cases abound. One thread that ran through them is the power that such belief holds over them in Nigeria. This is seen in every area of their life in that country. Churches who I sees as the modern day witch doctors encourages this fear because that is the only way  they can continue to have control over them. It is the main theme on 95 percent of Nigerian home movies. It is indeed a portent force , been fed by the countless millions who their lives are being run by these fears. To me , I am yet to see a creative script from the screen writers in Nigeria. They may exist but the ones I have come across really turned me off that I stopped my friends from showing them to me. In as much as I am proud of the steps they are taking, anything worth doing is what doing well.

Why do all these still happen ? Simple , ignorance ,total lack of information and inability of the inhabitants of that corner of the world to figure out what their problem really is. What is frightening in this situation is that these individuals are all below 35. What do the future hold for that country if the future leaders of that yet-to-exist nation are still to overcome the first step of knowing who they are.? What kind of society and what kind of life lesson will they impact on the unborn generation and their kids that are witnessing all these now? Is there any hope for the African continent at all?

The Nigerian movie industry will have to pause and take a hard look on what they have been feeding the people. If they do not understand the power they have, then they are not worthy to be given the opportunity to exercise such control on the life of their audience. I think it time for them to ask themselves some hard questions. I think it is time for some creativity, hope, ideals such as love, honesty,triumph over greediness and pettiness, valor  , values ,compassion and all that makes us human.

Story, real life stories happenes everyday in every corner of Nigeria. We are not bunch of drug-pushers, 419ers and what else. There are heroes in every home, street, farm, shops and any other place. The market woman who sustains her family through tears na dpains, through rain or sunshine. That lady that have not seen her husband for 6 years because he is in a foreign toiling away for the future of his young family. And she have manage to keep herself and children going. That peasant that toils the alnd and feed the people. That school teacher that have not been paid for 7 months yet manages to come to work everyday. That little kid that have lost both parents to AIDS and yet still look with hope to the future. There are millions of stories that paints true picture of our resilience and sacrifices.

These are stories worth telling. These are what we are. To portray us in any other light is treachery of an unimaginable magnitude. The pitiful few that destroys our reputation with their greed and stupidity ought not to represent our heritage. Let's take another hard look , perhaps we can comprehend our true identity.

No Siree! I am not in anyway down-playing the role of formal education in the making of a complete individual. But I know that you will agree with me that what eventually becomes the totality of that person, the behavioural pattern, taste, manner of speech, action and thought, his relationship with the world and beyond is mold by his immediate environment,empirical or intutive. It is also a known scientific fact that a kid imbibes all that will define him subsequently before the age of 6.
What I am pointing it is that for you to have an individual who can make a difference in the world, those that plays the most critical part in his lifelong education should also be aware of who they are, their role in the individual's life and the effect of what they will impart into him. Thus it is imporatnt that they should be enlightened at least in the basics of what constitute a "true human being". Though the definition of that varies, there is at least a broad consensus that it means a spiritual, physical,mental and emotional productive ,well-balanced individual.

We live in interesting times. With the shortage and high cost of domestic labor, the Japanese government has brought over record numbers of cheap foreign workers. Even though whole industrial sectors now depend on foreign labor, few publicly accept the symbiosis as permanent. Instead, foreigners are being blamed for Japan's problems.

 
A poster released by Ibaraki Prefectural Police implores citizens to cooperate with efforts to prevent foreigners from illegally entering and staying in Japan.

Scapegoating the alien happens worldwide, but Japan's version is particularly amusing. It's not just the garden-variety focus on crime anymore: Non-Japanese are being blamed for problems in sports, education — even shipping. Less amusing is how authorities are tackling these "problems" — by thwarting any chances of assimilation.

Labor and crime
Japan has brought over a million foreigners for "training." However, these government-sponsored programs have been so badly managed, creating harsh conditions exempt from Japan's labor laws, that Kyodo reported that nearly 10,000 non-Japanese "disappeared" from workplaces between 2002 and 2006.

You'd think we'd get more stories in the media about why non-Japanese would want to escape this system. The broken promises of training in useful skills? The labor for less than the minimum wage and no social safety net? Instead, we get the biannual media geyser on criminality.

Look at how the police keep fudging statistics to exaggerate foreign crime, and how the media offers little analysis, mitigation, or comparison with the more significant rise in Japanese crime. A classic example of absurd doublespeak appeared in a Mainichi article, headlining a "decrease" in foreign crime in English, yet an "increase" in Japanese. But now the blame game has spread to other sectors.

Military security
I had heard rumors that the Self-Defense Forces frown upon their soldiers having relations with non-Japanese. The Sankei Shimbun verified them by reporting that Marine SDF officers with foreign spouses would be "removed from sensitive posts." This came after a security breach allegedly by an officer with a Chinese wife. Oddly enough, Japan Today said, "the leak may have occurred by accident when the officer was swapping pornography over the Internet."

Regardless, the crackdown falls on all who consort with the alien by marrying them. Imagine the uproar in other international relations organs (such as the United Nations, the US. State Department — even the US. military, where international marriage is not uncommon) if official policy treated all international spouses as potential spies.

Bad sports
The Asahi Shimbun reported that the All Japan High School Athletic Federation banned non-Japanese from the first leg of the ekiden running championships. This would "make races more interesting for fans." Having too many Africans on a team, their argument ran, was too much of a competitive advantage.

According to Keisuke Sawaki, a director of the Japan Association of Athletics Federations, "The differences in physical capabilities between Japanese and foreign students are far beyond imagination."

Discrimination, however, is within these limited imaginations. Hark back to the same "foreign blood advantage" excluding international kids from the Takamado English Speech Contests (name-sponsored by the Imperial family) and the Kokutai National Sports Festival (funded by our taxes). In a followup, Asahi described how ekiden restrictions then spread to relay marathons, basketball and table tennis. Limiting foreign students would keep the events from becoming "dull."

Dull? I would think open competition would give athletes the incentive to try harder in the spirit of fair play. But I don't think these organizers really understand what "being sporting" is all about. To them sports are great, as long as Japanese win.

Take a look at sumo, with their more open rules: The June "banzuke" listing shows that a full third of top-ranked wrestlers are not Japanese. Then again, perhaps the organizers have.

Anyway, blame foreigners for being born stronger than us Japanese — self-deprecation justifying exclusion.

Educational woes
Zeit Gist discussed the accusation that secondary school "hair police" tamp down on non-Japanese kids born with the wrong hair color or texture. Now, according to the Sunday Mainichi (July , foreigners are disrupting the natural odor as well. Citing an "education insider" depicting international marriages as moneymaking unions, foreign mothers allegedly scrimp so much to send money back home that children lack basic hygiene. Japan's classrooms are apparently infested with stinky international children.

On that note, I'm surprised somebody hasn't, say, blamed non-Japanese for Japan's low level of English ability. Oh wait, somebody has: Kitakyushu University's Shinichiro Noriguchi wrote in the Asahi (Sept. 15, 2006): "In particular, native speakers who have lived in Japan for more than 10 years tend to have adapted to the system and have become ineffective as teachers — this is also partly because their English has become Japanized and is spoken to suit the ears of their Japanese students."

Familiarity is "usan-kusai" (bizarre to the point of being suspicious), or just plain "kusai" (smelly), I guess.

Foreign crew cuts
The Asahi reported that in ocean-going vessels operated by Japanese firms, non-Japanese account for more than 90 percent of crews. However, to secure "stable maritime transportation," the Ministry of Transport announced tax breaks for companies who increase Japanese crews on their ships. For what if there were natural disasters, political turmoil, or other emergencies in the foreign crew's home countries?

"There would be too few people to operate (Japan's) ships."

Now there's a novel angle. Usually it's the presence of the alien that stokes fears. This time it's their potential absence. Seems non-Japanese are damned if they do, damned if they don't. Just bring up issues of self-sufficiency and security, and watch the political pork barrel sail through.

The 'solutions'
Let's see how the government intends to fix these "problems." At least four major policymaking entities are currently debating Japan's de facto guest worker program. The heaviest actor, the Ministry of Justice, wants an entire revamp; Justice Minister Jinen Nagase advocates a system where non-Japanese workers stay up to three years, after which they are out for good, regardless of skills or language proficiency acquired. So forget any "brain drain" into Japan. Make the revolving-door system clear and keep unskilled foreigners pounding sheet metal and cleaning pig sties. And pray the quality of worker we underpay and overwork doesn't stick around or commit any crimes.

How does this system offer any incentive to factories to actually train their workers? And can policymakers seriously assume that quality foreign workers will come to Japan just to be a factory cog?

Along with this head-in-the-sand approach comes a renewed manning of the defenses. Applied, of course, only to "illegals" and "terrorists."

Unfortunately, in practical application, virtually all non-Japanese ultimately fall into that category. Last June, the Osaka Ikuno Police released new flyers (complete with crescent-moon-faced blond "gaijin" erroneously claiming rises in crime and overstaying. They asked employers to be on the lookout not only for illegals, but also for forged passports and fake marriages. How bosses would become crime watchdogs and marriage counselors remained unclear.

The Ibaraki Prefectural Police were even more reactive, issuing a flyer showing seven riot police subduing one foreigner. Headline: "Stop them at the shores!" Nothing rallies the public like the threat of invasion.

As for non-Japanese in higher value-added jobs, you'll get yours come November. According to Immigration, "foreign visitors" re-entering Japan will have fingerprints and other biometric data taken every time. Exempt is anyone under 16, the Japan-born "Zainichi" foreigners, diplomats and people on "official government business." This means even you "foreign visitors" who happen to be long-termers or Permanent Residents will be separated from your Japanese families to go through the "alien line." Refusal to comply means rejection at the border without right of appeal.

Why override the decades of protest that succeeded in getting fingerprinting abolished in 1999? According to Immigration's hilariously hammy video, this antiterrorist measure is for the "safety of foreign visitors," even though all terrorist activities here (from the Aum cult gas attacks on down) have been committed by Japanese. Associating non-Japanese with terrorism is presumptuous and historically inaccurate. What about fingerprinting Japanese too in the name of safety? No can do. The government tried the Juki Net ID system years ago to widespread protest, with the Japanese judiciary ruling it unconstitutional in 2006.

What is the end result of this blame game? Even the most earnest assimilator gets knocked on the head. Asahi reported  that in Fukuroi, Shizuoka Prefecture, a Brazilian of Japanese descent tried to buy land for his house. Locals then panicked, said his presence "would invite crime to their neighborhood," and successfully blocked his bid.

Lovely. Blame foreigners for their alleged crime, then bar them from ever assimilating their way out of it.

We are not amused. Thank you,Debito!

He have been in Japan for the past 4 and half years now. He works and lives inside a leather factory. Every day he works from 0040 to 1800 on his job while avoiding the police and immigration services that can come looking for foreigners  even inside the factories to deport. Godwin's Dad died , he couldn't leave the country because he have not even save enough money to account for the borrowed money he used for his flight ticket. Months later his Mom died too and same events played themselves out. Weeks later,while working he sighted the Police raiding the next factory, he wanted to escape by scaling a fence and in the process broke his hip and today he have deported after spending some time in the hospital,without any money, parents, friend or hope. He was just 29 years old.

Paul used to be the most brilliant student in his class. He quit school because his parents couldn't pay his school fees again. He got a job as bus conductor and when he had an opportunity to travel to Japan and makes some money to support his immediate young family and the extended one, he took it. He left behind his wife of 10 months who is pregnant with their first kid in her first trimester. He have to travel because the embassy will not give him another visa if that one expires. So he did. Because he couldn't do much nor achieve any kind of stability without a resident visa, he got married again to a Japanese. He believed that he can be able keep his true feeling to himself  in order to protect the woman he truly loves that he left at home.

Six months later, he realized that his Japanese wife is expecting a baby and that his wife in Nigeria is going to deliver through a Caesarean section . For the first time since this started, he felt that he cannot live in this double life with its complications, lies and deception. Today he cannot afford to give himself fully to the one in Japan neither can he hold the only woman he ever truly love.He have not seen his first son and have missed his first tottering steps. He is depressed and on drugs.

Uche was a handsome young man. He came to Japan to look for a way to fend for his future and that of his younger ones.  He needed a paper to stay, as a Nigerian there is no other alternative than to get married to a Japanese. He started visiting clubs every night, making overtures to many women. some he slept with in order to strengthen the relationship, others on knowing that he is a Nigerian never wanted to see him again, while others used him as a intimacy gadget.

Eleven months later, Uche was married and was expecting his papers when he realized that he have been feeling odd with constant diarrhea,tuberculosis and running fever. He went to a hospital for a free HIV test and it came back positive.  The doctor gave him 2 months to live. Uche died on 3rd week. He remains were cremated and send back to Nigeria.

Peter came to Japan. In his quest for papers, he impregnated a 19 years old student. They got married after running a gauntlet from the girl parents who rejected a gaijin, a black one for that to marry their only daughter. When the kid was born , the family dropped their objection and embraced their new additions to their family. They tried to help the new family by injecting money into Peter's business, $100,000 to be exact and in his naivety the money got blown away. Since he cannot get any new fund to move on, he decided to work. Taking care of a family in Japan is not a child's play as he soon find out. Every yen that he made got swallowed by the numerous unavoidable expenses that accost him every place that he turns to.

Resentment grew, he started dating other women . He keep borrowing money from different ladies. He grew distance from his family. The girl cannot go back to her family because of their earlier objection. She was got between the river and the mountain. She too grew more restless and started dating other foreigners too. On realizing that Peter cannot keep his promise of marrying her one of the girls demanded her money back. She also published his name all over the Internet making it virtually impossible for him to get another girl in the dating scene. One thing led to another and as they were fighting, Peter in a drug fueled anger sliced her neck with a flick knife he always carry's with him. Today he awaiting his trial in a prison which might be death penalty.

All these have same root cause; the almost maniac drive to get married so they can get a permit to live in the society that they found themselves. They marry without the fundamental element for the success of the marriage:Love. The girls gets into it without realizing that what theie are Visa-brides. She wanted security and love, he wants to succeed , a drive for self -preservation even though so primitive yet in all of us.  Marriages like this do not work and have never work. At the end, the parties gets bruised, heart-broken and in some cases end up tragically. Yet who will you blame? And our name keeps its place in the dis-honor list.

I think it is time for the authorities in these countries that these Nigerians and other less privileged are living in to find a way to document its immigrants and to encourage them into the open  so they can work legally thereby fulfilling their obligations to their host communities and the family they left behind. It is very important to  encourage assimilation but when it becomes tied to a marriage to their daughters, it becomes a lightening rod for discontentment and leaves room for abuse.

If an individual is found to be worthy to be trusted after some period of observation, it is just to accord him those privileges that he need to contribute to his host community.

I am at odds with myself .As much as I want to accept and conform to the way things are, I carry a huge burden that I just can’t shake off. There is something so precious at stake here that must be restored in order to unveil the perfection in us. I am not an alarmist but we are facing a growing threat that can complicate and eradicate more of our true identity if care is not taken.

I do not want to change the world, it is simply not realistic. But I know that you can change an individual one at a time. I know that by doing that you can change the world because it will have a ripple effect that can spread to the whole. So it has been my resolve to see if I can change myself, those and things around for the better. And there is no tool that will be more effective than self awareness. For those that forgets their history is good as the forgotten. To build and survive the future we must understand who we are and our relationship with all that is around us.

For the past 500 years, we as a race have failed to achieve cohesion and collective surviving strategy; a weakness that has been continually exploited by those that are bent in keeping us subjected to their will. And at this 21st century I am still unable to identify any collective will or effort to change this. I cannot pretend that it is OK. It is definitely not! Sometimes I do wonder why races that live in harsh demanding environments where snows, typhoons, earthquakes and other natural hazards are frequent occurrence are more successful than those that live in forgiving lands. It seems to me that these factors have created a bond among them because each person sometimes will rely on another to survive. It is this I think that is lacking among my race. We don’t care about the next brother…

I have tried to believe that the dominant race on the face of Earth today being the Caucasians have the best interest of the other races in their heart. I have tried to genuinely believe that they want an equal world where everyone is treated with justice, equity and fairness, I have tried to convince myself that they really want a world where there is a fair and equal distribution of wealth, where there is justice for everyone but the more I look and observe their ways, action, words and thought pattern, the more I am incline to believe that even though they profess these noble ideals, it is actually not in anyway in their hearts. Whether this is the product of evolutionary human nature or the unintended result of fear, it being the most potent weapon, I don’t know but the fact remain that some and I mean a larger percentage within this group will rather see a future where a few dominates the rest in a master and servant relationship than see a world where everyone is equal.
It will be really naïve to believe that there are no conspiracies. In the political world, nothing happen by accident. Anything that happens is designed for a reason. It is the oldest trick in the book. That the way the elitist sustains and keeps their power. Those that have mastered this trick continue to use it to create, shape and invent history according to their needs. Each time there is a reason for me to believe that they have the best intentions towards us; there arises 20 strong reasons arguing for the contrary. When I think about the huge subsidies, the pittance they pay for what they takes away from Africa, the wars and hostilities they encourages, the seed of hatred and distrust they plant everywhere, the willingness to sell weapons of wars to anybody who have something they want, mines that blows apart innocent lives, their unwillingness to stop banks accepting funds from corrupt officials, their unwillingness to prosecute or sanction banks that encourages such, the impact on the climate of their lifestyle on the less developed countries, I am pretty convinced that their intentions towards us is everything else but benevolent.The truth is, do we need even their helping hand to become what we ought to be?

There is no excuse for failure. That is a fact! You fail because you want to. One thing inherent and profoundly great in humans is their ability to transform themselves and their environment to achieve a complete mastery that will enable them to function beyond mere existence. I am not in anyway making excuses for my race for our present state but I am consciously aware that there have been designs to keep us in “our place” as they call it. If history is any guide, this is apparent and I know also that nothing have been done to stop this. I believe that we on our own part have failed to tap an unseen latent force within us and I know that as soon as we can, we need to start doing something about it. That time is upon us to judge us; whether we can stand its test and continue to exist is up to us.

There is no other race blessed with the capabilities that we possess. There is just too much boundless energy within us; something that we have not been able to channel into the right path to accomplish our destiny. Instead this energy has been misdirected into negative and unfruitful venture which have sapping our strength. The truth is that the day our race will wake up from this deep slumber, the day we become aware of who we are, the day we form an unbreakable front against all that have arrayed themselves against us, that day will have an everlasting impact on the rest of humanity. It will lift mankind to a height unimaginable. It will be a dawn of the new man.

I am tired of the way that we are portrayed. I am sick of this pathetic picture of the black race that is constantly on the media and the consciousness of people. And I know that it can change if only we can work on it. I really don’t know if this is a part of grand scheme of things to influence the minds of people against us. But the tragic truth is that those images and stories are evidently true and that we seem to be striving hard to keep this image and confirm the stereotype.
I am not proud of being an instant suspect wherever I go or appear. I am not proud that a greater percentage of jailed inmates of many prisons are of my race. I am not proud of the anarchy in Somalia, the raping and plundering in Congo, the raging fire of HIV that have and continue to decimate the young and growing population of our race, I am not proud that our youths that continue to drop out of schools and chooses most times the life of crime, I am not proud of my generation calling themselves “niggers” “whores” “bitch”. And our continue disenchanment and apathy towards politics.

Little they do realize that “nigger” is the same word that our brothers who were hanged or lynched by the KKK [most of the them innocent men or when guilty because they whistle at a white lady] heard before they died with their genitals hanging by their mouths. It bleeds my heart that what we have given to humanity in the form of rap music have a huge toil on our young ones. These are lyrics with so much hate, so much anger that you need to go to our ‘hoods to see the impact to believe it. Yes! It has given to some of our brother’s huge unimaginable wealth but at what cost to us? I use to come across music from the earlier years where black music was so much beautiful that it plays in your mind over and over again and gives you the reason to believe. I don’t know what happened since then. It has gotten ugly.

I am not proud of what I saw in New Orleans when Katrina came calling last time. I am not proud that 20 years after the world started feeding Ethiopia the situation is worst than before and they continue to invest in the weapons of war and carnage. I am not proud what is going on in Darfur Sudan, in Niger, in Chad, in Lesotho, In Zimbabwe, in Niger Delta of Nigeria, in Haiti, the rising brutal crime rate in South Africa, the only country that has the potentials not to become like others but seems to be slipping into anarchy of some sort. I am not proud that we have not been able to make Africa a home where our kinsmen that we sold to the Arabs, British and Portuguese can kindle a small fire in their hearts and know that one day their ordeals will be over. Instead we have preserve same institutions that send head-hunters to kidnap and sell their fellow blacks to be raped, murdered, use like an animals of burden with death a welcome relief. I am not proud that our brothers continue to exploit and sell their fellow brothers down the river for a few dollars within and outside the shores of our continent. I am sick and tired of seeing young Africans fleeing our continent, seeking to offer their strength and capabilities to those that have no desire to treat them as equals. The tragedy is that this time we are willingly offering ourselves to be enslaved.

I know that there exists within us a strong capability to change the current image that we have come to be identify with. I know that we can achieve glory and respect far beyond expectations if only each one of us can just do a little bit more. I know that our kinsmen scattered all over the face of Earth can one day look at Africa and say “ Yes, that’s my home” and give them a reason to persevere. I know that if we can discuss and self-evaluate ourselves critically, we can. We can rise out of this ashes like a phoenix and become what the Cosmos destined for us. If we continue to fail, it is that we chose to fail. It will be unforgivable that my generation in their late 20s and early 30s should fail like our fathers. History will judge us harshly. As an individual it is within your power to save our race by changing the way you speak, think and act. If it has been destructive, now is the time to rebuild your respect for yourself and humanity at large. If we don’t, then our extinction as a race is not a matter of if, it is a matter of when.

Hello Mr Ozioma,

This forum is not all that user-friendly. I mean I wanted to chat with you but can find the module for that. You also did not display your email address. Hence my inability to connect with you real time. If you still want to, please do send me a mail or your email address. I will contact you immediately. Forgiveme for using  this forum for this.Wish there is a link for private messaging. Have a beautiful evening!

Education in Latin means “to nourish”. It means “to cultivate”: “to draw out” that which already exist latently in a living being.

The benefit, importance and gains of an educated group functioning as a unit can never be in anyway understated. Without education, it is even difficult if not impossible to get individuals to organize them selves {something that we desperately need} in order to achieve a particular goal or objective. Whether the aim is for social, intellectual, economic or political purpose, the only way to attain it is by careful methodical selective preparation from the early childhood to maturity. It is the ability of a society to groom thoughtful, resourceful, responsible and enterprising individuals that guarantee its survival both immediate and for the future. Education has for its object the formation of character. The ability to discern, to understand, to comprehend is essential to the building of that. And nothing does that better than education because it produces an individual with an open mind able to entertain different opinions and thoughts As long as those that have already been trained can pass the knowledge they have acquired through access to previous accumulated knowledge and one that they have gain through experimentation.

The greatest part of the on-going and un-folding tragic-comedy in the Nigerian society today is the failure of its educational system. A failure engineered, encouraged by the successive governments and the people in general. The governments, because they sees an educated class as a threat and thus will be difficult for herding. The people, because they have failed to understand that the only thing that will ensure their survival, growth and triumph against often despotic and corrupt rulers that have been the bane of the continent is education and not religious piety or observances.

One need to visit the communities, hamlets, towns and states that made up the present non-existing entity called “Nigeria” to figure out for him/herself which of these two have taken precedence in our lives over the past 40 years. Religion often paired with ignorance and formal school education. Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind says one of the greatest minds of the last century.
We spend millions {without any reservations} building cathedrals ,churches, mosques in order to please an invisible god that we are not even sure exist nor give a damn about us while at same time paying lip-service to our educational system. We spend less than $10000 on school’s construction and takes huge pride in spending most times over $300,000 to $1,000,000,000 on religious building. Public servants from councilors to the Presidents vie for the title of who will give the biggest donation to the churches and mosque, often from the public treasury. State governors and the Federal government sponsors pilgrims to Mecca and Jerusalem, all of these from same public purse entrusted into their care to preserve the future of the people. It is exactly what you will expect from a land of unbelievable foolishness.

Every year, millions of dollars, both from donors and government budget is allocated for education, an empty exercise that has never produced the magical result envisaged by those that doles out the cake. Why? Because this money often is diverted and end up in private pockets. Corruption, mismanagement, misplaced priorities has become synonymous with our lives. Teachers many of them unfit to teach even a dog goes unpaid, school children, equipments and buildings are left to the mercy of the elements The laboratories, libraries completely bare and in utterly neglect, sanitary and medical conditions either non-existing or in shambles. Our school and educational system is treated as an after-thought by all and sundry. Yet we bemoan our present living conditions and wallows in self-pity brought about by own stupidity and greed.

Needless to say, our educational system is 80 years behind. We have not even start to grasp the rudimentary meaning of what education means. In the present world of genetic engineering, cybernetics, solar system exploration, and artificial life and intelligent, we are indeed lost. And it is this that will determine our continuous existence in this planet. We often forget that this is a predatory universe, that those ill-prepared for the next evolutionary cycle becomes prey to the strong. We keep living as we are not aware that the survival of our race and specie depends on the preparations each generations suppose to make in order adjust to an ever-changing world.

The truth is that all the generations that have preceded ours to the present day have failed in their most sacred duty. And we are doing exactly same thing. To prepare the next generation for what they will face, we need to start now to finds creative ways to bridge the huge gap that exist in all the aspects of our lives. Schools or educational institutes are not the only instrument for educational. Actually most of what we learn comes from non-formal sources especially from our families. But how can one teach what he doesn’t know?

We no longer have any excuse for failing. I keep telling most people that I met this unpleasant truth. With the availability of the Internet and the unfettered access to its huge archive of all kind of knowledge, we have no excuse whatever. There is nothing stopping the Nigerian government having spent $300m sending a satellite into orbit to harness same to educate its citizenry of all ages. Since almost everything we know about ourselves was from the eye of the Western world, we can use that as a building block until we can tell our own story.

Take a look at the recipient list of the most reputable award called Nobel Prize. There are only perhaps 2 or 3 black recipients and even these individuals received either Literature or Peace prize. Though these does not in anyway pale in comparison to other ones , it however cannot be compare to ones of physics, chemistry, biology or other disciplines that calls for the most brilliant minds that prevailed at the face of odds that will discourage men of lesser Will. I don’t know what we have actually contributed to the growth of the human race. Funny enough, one the 1962 recipients made a very controversial remark couple of months back when he said that blacks are less intelligent than our white cousins. Now, we can jump up and scream racism. We can call him all sorts of name and declare him a senile old man. But is there anything that we can produce as a proof of that he is way out of the line and time? I really don’t think so.

The earlier priority is given to education above everything else, the better it is for all of us. Not only for “Nigerian” but for all the black people in the world no matter where they are. And this challenge lies squarely on the 10 million of us living in the Diaspora.

Present in every age and land is the concept of God, Universal Being, The Supreme Value or Reality, Cosmic Mind or whatever designation you may prefer to call that which is transcendent and immanent. A sense of awe, wonder, admiration and worship, accompanied by the urge to unite with this Reality is innate in man. It has given birth to the many forms of worship and beliefs that its practitioners can identify with according to the prevailing and psychological conditions / make-up of such people.

The religious person or the believer is accustomed to the thought of not being the sole master of his house. He believes that God; and not he himself decides in the end. He stands directly under the influence of the reaction. Especially when there are individuals around him who claims to have had an unquestionable authority from God to stand as a go-between between him and the Divine.

The question is: What happens when religion instead of being an instrument of Self-Realization or Actualization becomes a tool for ignorance and control? What do you do when it no longer have any meaningful or constructive impact in your life and only seeks to dominate and enslave both your individuality and renders you incapable of liberating thoughts, actions or will? What happens when it becomes just another tool for corrupt and perverse elite who continues to destroy the collective interest of the people in all forms and respect?

Man is inherently good. He does not actually need religion to express this goodness. If there is anything, religion makes a good person really bad. Simply because it takes away the sense of responsibility that induces an individual to seek to better himself and others around him and thrust this sacred burden on a Deity far remove from him. In order words, as long as there is a god somewhere who will ultimately forgive him, he rather do and profit from  that which he knows will impact negatively on those around him and wait for confession, donation and other religious duties to free him from the guilt of his action. With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.

Man believes only that which he wishes. And ultimately he becomes that which he believes. In present day Nigeria, one is astounded by the uncontrolled proliferation of all kinds of churches. Often without any inclination to offer to their flock any resemblance of spiritual fulfillment. In-fact the true and sad reality is that the clergy or the pastors, who takes all kinds of designation and titles are illiterates and at worst criminals without any understanding of what spirituality is. There do not know themselves, or the world within and around them. They prey on the ignorance, fears, superstitions of the un-learned and traumatized populace to feed their bloating ego and insatiable greed.

I was born into a Pentecostal family, Dad being a Pastor/ Reverend. But I know that it is only in the Catholic church [despite the continual emergence of its child sex abuse cover-up, an incident that will later also rear up in Nigeria later when people have thrown off the dark cloud that is covering the bright horizon of man’s divinity] that have bothered to train its clergy to have some understanding of what it is to be human and its frailties. With luck, within them, you will find a priest who has bothered to study the paradigm that he claims to follow and to be able to communicate that to the people he seeks to improve their conditions.


There are a great many people who associate spirituality with a great show of emotionalism, this idea has absolutely no foundation in fact; on the contrary, the kind of spirituality which is developed by and associated with the emotional nature of the desire body is unreliable in the extreme; this is the variety that is generated in revival meetings where emotionalism is brought up to a high pitch, causing a person to make a great splurge of religious fervor which soon spends itself and leaves him exactly as he was before, much to the chagrin of the revivalists and other people who are engaged in evangelical work. But what else can they expect? They set out to save souls with drums and constant hallelujahs, with rhythmic revival songs, with appeals made in a voice which is raised and lowered in harmonic waives, all of which are as powerfully effective on the desire body as storms which stir the sea to fury and then subside. The vital body is much more set, and it is only when conversion affects this vehicle that it sticks and stays with a man or woman for life. Those who have the true spirituality do not feel saved one day, in the seventh heaven of ecstasy, and the next feel themselves down in the dumps and miserable sinners that can never be forgiven; for their religion is not based upon the emotional nature which feels these things, but is rooted in the vital body which is the vehicle of reason, set and persistent in the path it has once chose.

I think the time have come for us to question all that presents itself as a remedy to ascertain its claim. It is time for us to analyze, understand and figure out for ourselves what we really are. Enough of accepting every shred of lies that often comes in place of truth and swallowing them without chewing. It is time for us to become aware, to realize the great Truth that every man or woman is a star. It will change our awareness and perception, our attitude toward the world at large. We must perceive  that we are “ living subject” capable of logical and analytical thoughts, endowed with the power to choose, to relate, to bring about changes in our personalities and environment for the uplift-ment of mankind.

Nigeria is where it is today because of our inability to truly to grasp the fundamentals that makes up the totality of our Being-ness.  We wander aimlessly without any conscious idea of where we are going neither do we seek to understand in proportion of the challenges we face what need to be done. There is dearth of both empirical and theoretical knowledge and we go on as if this is normal. What then distinguishes us from the animals that are only conscious but not self-conscious? We must go beyond that, we must become self-aware.

However, religion has its place. Humans have a habit of ritualizing every aspect of their life. It can only co-exist harmoniously with reality when it takes into recognition that as an organized creed, codified to suit a particular era and time that it have a shelf-life. Man, being a social being cannot exist without a tie to the community and sometimes it may take the form of an organized religious entity. This is to most people priceless especially in a country like Nigeria where the successive governments have failed in their responsibilities to the people. But he must try to find real justification for his own existence, his own spiritual and moral autonomy. He needs evidence of an inner and transcendent experience which alone can protect him from the inevitable submersion into mass hysteria and madness. His environment cannot, neither his most fervent religious observance gives him as a gift that which he must win for himself only with an effort and self-denial.

There is no other time more imperative for us to take charge of the present, secure the future and create order out of the this chaos on our lives both outer and inner. It might start from you.