Much Ado About Corruption

Nneoma Obiageli Igwegbe

Nigerians are obsessed with the word corruption, and they believe that it is only when corruption is defeated that the country will develop.
I believe them to an extent, because for me when I define corruption, I like to use the analogy of a computer.
When a foreign virus enters a computer, it is said to be corrupt. The foreign virus makes the computer to malfunction, or perform very slowly. You have to completely format that computer to remove the virus, or it will continue to malfunction and frustrate the user.
That is exactly how corruption in Nigeria works. We love foreign products and pursue foreignness to the detriment of development in our country.
The leader who siphons money merely used it to buy foreign furniture, cars and private jets. The girl who has ten boyfriends merely uses them to fund her Brazilian hair, and smart phones. The policeman who collects twenty naira on the street merely uses it to buy himself a foreign motorcycle or car, and everyone wants to be a big boy or big girl. No one cares how this obsession with foreignness by all of us bleeds the country dry, yet we blame an elusive corruption for our problems.
You search high and low for this corruption, yet you never find it. Some blame whomever just left Aso Rock as being corruption itself, but this has become something of a macabre dance that defies solutions.
The present government in Nigeria is obsessed with the word corruption to that it is looking like a masquerade dance, but many Nigerians are skeptical, and wonder how this corruption chorus will transform into economic solutions for Nigeria’s failing economy.

I once had an argument with an ardent PMB supporter who strongly believes that when PMB comes into power, and wipes out corruption, everything will magically become alright in Nigeria.


Now, as a writer and researcher, while researching for my book titled Corruption’s burial which is at Okadabooks, I have studied the history of Nigeria from the 1940s to the 2000s, and I have on my fingertips exactly what each government did when they were in power.

The first government which comprised of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe as President,
Abubakar Tafawa Balewa as Prime Minister,
Nwafor Orizu as Senate President,
Jaja Wachukwu as Speaker, and Later Foreign Affairs Minister, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations in New York, and Federal Minister for Economic Development.
Muhammadu Ribadu  as Minister for Defence,
Inuwa Wada as Minister for Works and Survey,
Shehu Shagari as Minister for Internal Affairs,
 Festus Okotie-Eboh as Minister of Finance,
H.O.Davies as Minister  for Industries.
Kola Balogun as Information Minister.
Ayo Rosiji as Health Minister,
Aja Nwachukwu as Minister for Education,
Raymond Njoku  as Minister for Commerce & Industry, and Transport.
K. O. Mbadiwe as Minister for Trade and Communications, and Minister of Aviation.

Just like PMB who had been trying to be the President of Nigeria for 16 years, they had been at the forefront for development and self-rule in Nigeria for at least 15 years. Their struggles for Nigeria’s independence started in the 1930s, but became very strong and effective in the 1940s. Just like PMB, they had up to twenty years of struggle, to plan and know exactly what they wanted in governance.
Most of these freedom fighters were now in power, especially the Zikists which had members from all ethnic groups of Nigeria.
But for these nationalists, their 15 years struggle was not merely a political struggle, but an economic one as well, because economic power is more important than political power. It is he who has the money that runs the economy. That is why you see that the Nigerian economy is still run by the whites. The whites are still running our country till date. It is the policies they seek to pass that will be passed whether it favours the masses or not, but that is a matter for another day.

 
Back to corruption and an efficient economy. These freedom fighters came into power in the 1960s, and they hit the seat running. People like Nwafor Orizu who was the Senate President, Jaja Wachukwu, who was the Speaker, Okotie Eboh who was the finance minister, and Ozumba Madiwe who was the minister for trade, commerce and industry.
They had the economy in their hands, and the economy thrived greatly because, before political power arrived, they had prepared the minds of Nigerians for economic warfare. They sensitized Nigerians on the need to patronize made in Nigeria products, and Nigerians were obliging. Now the implication of this is that when Nigerians patronize made in Nigeria products, there will be money trapped within the country which will be used for capital projects and infrastructure.
Between 1960 and 1966 was when almost everything we boast of today as a country were built.
The skyscrapers in marina, you show in every movie to show that Lagos is a mega city was built in the 1960s, although some were halted when the war started and were completed in the 1970s.
The kainji Dam was built then, when our population was just 16 million, and for some reasons successive governments have not improved on the legacies of the nationalists, and yet they expect uninterrupted power supply.
The Eko Bridge was commissioned in 1965, although it was completed during the war.
Most of the first generation universities were built and standardized at that time. The University of Lagos, the University of Ibadan, The University of Nigeria, and the UCH. The make-shift arrangements of these institutions were exchanged for quality structures that are still the pride of Nigeria today.
Lots of railways were built, lots of roads to interlink the whole country was built. The Nigerian Airways was established and it proudly flew Nigeria’s colours.

The biggest resource of a country is not crude oil or any other natural resource, the biggest resource of a country is its citizens. The citizens were what the early politicians capitalized on to build all the infrastructure we enjoy even till today.
Let me even talk about the hundred days in office issue. Do you know that the first skyscraper in Nigeria, which if the 32 story independence building was completed within 3 months. Princess Alexandria was present for the foundation laying on September 29, but it was ready for use by the end of the year.
That shows someone who came into office with a plan. How can you say that a hundred days is too short to know what you want to do for a country, for an office you have been campaigning for 15 years? The same amount of time that the nationalists campaigned for.  That is sufficient time to shape all your policies, and bring about the change you claim that the country needs.

 












Most of the solid structures we enjoy in Nigeria even till today were built in the 1960s by the government of the early nationalists, even though the ousted colonialists accused them of corruption, and set up a Nigeria corruption choir to discredit them.
Fastforward to 1983, Buhari comes into power, the economy is a total mess, and he thinks that corruption is the problem, and eradicating corruption is the solution. He starts an anti-corruption war, and a War against indiscipline taskforce, who whips people on the streets, and ensures orderly behavior of Nigerian citizens. Some people were locked in jail, some people were executed.
Back to my conversation with my friend, my question to him was this. “Yes, Buhari locked people up for corruption, and it made people happy. Citizens will look and say yes, he locked that man up, yes, very good. But what impact did Buhari’s corruption campaign have on the Nigerian economy?”
What can you point out, and say this and that is what was built when Buhari was in power as an anti-corrupt president. How did his anti-corruption campaign translate to a better economy?
Now I have pointed out few of what the first administration achieved, even though it was not preoccupied with locking people in jail. And it is incomparable to what Buhari achieved by a lifelong regime of locking people in Jail.
If Nigerians can listen and learn, I need them to understand that locking people in jail does not necessarily lead to a better economy.
The only benefit, it will give to you is the temporary joy of seeing someone punished, but it will not improve the economy.
It is capital that runs an economy, and when I say capital, I do not mean 10 billion naira. I mean 100billion dollars.
Capital flight is the reason for our under development, not the peanuts they share in Abuja. The amount they share in Aso Rock which they also spend on foreign things as we the citizens do is peanuts compared to what 170 million of us ship out of this country everyday from something as inconsequential as soap. Ordinary soap alone can make you a billionaire. Multiply the price of the soap you use by Nigeria’s populations and begin to imagine the billions of dollars that leave this country every month, of which we have gladly helped to ship out. The reason there is no structures is because of capital flight. They pay you salary, you give everything to foreigners who own companies that make these things, they take it to their country, and build all those things there, and you visit and say wow, I want my country to be like this. Well it will never be like this until we start making these things and retaining the capital here. That is the simple truth. Capital is King.
Imagine if it’s a black person who owns such companies, that’s billions of dollars that we can use for the light, water, roads, and other infrastructure. But Nigerians starve themselves and live in poverty to give all their money to oyibo, so we Nigerians are wicked to ourselves. We enjoy shipping out Nigeria’s employment and cash flow. It’s not just the corrupt leaders wickedness, but all the citizen’s wickedness collectively that accounts for the capital flight that makes our country and continent poor.

 










Our problems are not political, they are economic. Who you vote for everyday that you go to the market is more important than who you vote for at the ballot box. That’s why it’s called purchasing power. Your money is your power. Each time you get your salary or make some profits, understand that you can use that money to vote for or against development in your country.
 We must accept our role and responsibilities in making our country undeveloped rather than shifting the blames to corrupt leaders. Because this ‘blame the leaders’ game, we have played it for decades, and it’s never brought solutions, so we must find new solutions.
We need to start focusing on how we can be part of capital generators for our country, by manufacturing and consuming Made in Nigeria Goods in order to trap capital within the country, instead of siphoning our country’s wealth on imports, and looking for a scape-goat to blame.
This corruption game will not lead us anywhere. It is very entertaining, but it will lead to nowhere if we do not start making patriotic sacrifices for the growth of our economy. We need to focus on the real issues, and stop allowing this corruption dance distract us from obtaining the real campaign promises that can improve our very own lives, and our future.

Nneoma Igwegbe is a Prolific writer, a Philosopher, Psychologist, Lawyer, Social Entrepreneur, and an Ambassador of Heaven. You can contact me via:
noigwegbe.blogspot.com
nneigwegbe@gmail.com

Buhari Has Committed Impeachable Offence

BY OMONIYI SALAUDEEN
The loud disquiet generated in the polity by the perceived lopsidedness in the appointments of President Muhammadu Buhari administration remains unabated, despite the assurance of possible redress in the subsequent selection of other key government functionaries. In this interview, a former governor of the old Anambra State and a respected leader of thought in the Southeast, Dr Chukwuemeka Ezeife, categorically declares that there is nothing Buhari can do to remedy the denial of the Igbo position of Secretary to the Government of the Federation. “What motivated Buhari ‘s attitude to the Southeast, I don’t know. What did we do to deserve comprehensive hatred of the Southeast people”, he asks rhetorically.
Excerpts:
The Buhari government is already 100 days old in office. What is your
assessment of the performance of the administration so far?
First of all, there is no government in place. Where are the ministers? If there is a government, there will be ministers. The Federal Executive Council is composed of people from various parts of the country according to the constitution.
And from what they said, the president derives his authority to announce decisions, policies and budget et cetera from the council. But now, there are no ministers. So far, so bad! The president is bent on scattering a nation that has been built over so many years. We cannot clap for him. What am I saying? The constitution provides for what we call federal character. The convention has always been respect for federal character. In one of the interviews conducted before the election, an Aljazeera woman who was the interviewer pointed out to Buhari that there is a suspicion that he does not fully understand or respect the diversity of Nigeria he is intending to rule. Of course, he denied it. But right now, we see. His government is not even Northern government, it is Northwest government. We have six geo-­political zones.
Appointments;; announced and unannounced, are dominated by the Northwest. South east has no appointments at all. If SGF position has been denied the people of Southeast, then there can be no remedy at all. What is our President telling people from Southeast? What is our President telling the South as a whole? Sometimes ago, he was accused of having Northern agenda, he denied it.
Today, no soul can have sympathy for Buhari’s denial of Northern agenda because it is all over the place. He promised to fight corruption and we support him for saying so. Meanwhile, we are not fighting it yet, we are just talking about it, and randomly picking up people. Already a committee has been set up for that, we are yet to see the war being fought.
Power is the main thing in this country. I don’t see what is going on in the power sector. Nigeria has a problem of high cost of production. We cannot compete in the global economy with
China. What we need to do is to use what we have petroleum-­ to increase our competitive position in the world economy. We as a people need to look at economic development as the grund norm;; the real objective of governance in Nigeria. To wipe off the shame of slavery from the faces of every black, we must focus on economic development. We cannot see it. Instead, we are focusing on ethnicity, we are focusing on religion. To focus on the economy, in addition to using petroleum products to encourage development, we also have to look away from one trade centre organization and look at how we can protect our economy from unreasonable competition. There should be a protection duty on anything imported.
For various sectors, we must develop sectoral and product protection duties. Fly over Nigeria, you Will find massive land lying fallow, while millions of youths are lying unemployed. Agriculture can partly transform our problem. Brazilian people are looking for land in Enugu to produce pineapple which they intend to fly to Europe because when them six hours to get to Europe. I am told they already got land. Why can’t we copy from them?
We have potentials in agricultural development and we have processing agricultural inputs. We need a vocal point;; we need somebody who will be deciding on economic activities of national development. Buhari said some nice things at the beginning, but we haven’t seen them in action. He said: “I belong to everybody, I belong to nobody.”
He belongs to Northwest.
You spoke about the renewed anticorruption war of the administration. Are you saying that the war is selective war or that it is against a particular ethnic group?
No, I am not implying any ethnicity in the war against corruption. I am saying that we are hearing of war but we are not seeing it being fought.
We hear of the war on the pages of newspapers, we have not seen it being fought. Some people say government should get stolen money from anybody found wanting and throw him to prison.
For me, we only need to get the money back and use it for welfare. And we can sustain welfare for ever. We can also use part of it for power. Some people who deserve state support will be given state support. This is a humane country. So, I am not saying the war is against any particular individual but the war is not being fought. We hear of the war on the pages of newspapers, we have not seen it being fought.
Then, what do you expect the government to do to strengthen the anticorruption war?
First of all, I think there is a need for structural change. EFCC is there, ICPC is there. There are also others. Some personnel of these bodies are accused of corruption even worse than the ones
they accuse the people they are policing. There is a need for a new beginning in the anti-corruption war, first from the president. In doing so, he will say to everybody he is employing, ‘do as you see me do. How much money did I collect from you in employing you? If I did not collect money from you, don’t collect from anybody or else I deal with you ruthlessly. Then, he must clean himself up. It is not just enough to say that Buhari is not corrupt; he must ensure that people around him are also not corrupt. That way, he can easily get support of people. When I was governor, I asked people who became commissioners: If you know how much money I collected from you to make you commissioner, go ahead and collect money from people. But if you know I didn’t collect any money from you, and you are collecting from people, if I catch you, I deal with you ruthlessly. And that helped me a lot. I don’t know how much I can say about the personality of Buhari because if you delegate and you don’t supervise, whatever is wrong will be attributed to you. We all support him on the corruption issue. But we are saying, corruption has no time limit. Stolen money has no time limit. Anybody who has abused his office, we should approach him, leave five percent of the loot for his survival and take the rest. And he doesn’t have to go to prison. Anything happening from this warning will then be treated differently.
Anybody caught from now on can be imprisoned. He can even pass a law saying that corruption is anti-developmental and all anti-developmental issues will be treated by death penalty. He can do that for future activities. But for the past, get the money back to the nation and leave the person. He needs people who can do it. How many people can do it? When you ask some people to go and fight corruption and they see somebody who stole N5 billion, they will take N1 billion from him and give him a clean bill of health. This is the tough assignment he has, but he hasn’t started it.
The most damnable thing is that there is no government in place. A dictatorship is being run and it is an impeachable offence. How can an elected president be a dictator running government for three months and decide things alone. That is a military dictator. There is even no minister of finance.
He said he is buying time to study individuals who are going to make his cabinet so that nobody will be found wanting in any way at the end of the day. Is anything wrong in that?
It is a lie fabricated by the government. You can sit here and look for whom to engage in Sokoto. It is not difficult to get competent people from any part of Nigeria. But if you want to decide everything alone, and in the way you like, you can go ahead and do it.
You said not constituting cabinet is an impeachable offence. Is there any timeline in the constitution for the composition of cabinet?
There may be no timeline to anything in the constitution but there are conventions. The day you become president, you name your ministers within one month, not within two months even. Is there any government which did not form cabinet within three months in the past? Are you saying that one man alone can do it? If one man is doing it and we are not seeing the result, don’t we have right to complain?
 
What is the fate of the South-east in this government?
Junaid Muhammed, the topmost irredentist Northern politician, said to the Southeast: You may secede again, if you like and face the consequence. Buhari told him nothing. This man is one of the top politicians in the Northern hierarchy. He is leading the group that says Buhari is totally correct. They see nothing wrong in his appointments. These are the people whom Iblis is using to spoil Nigeria.
Then, what is the action plan of the Southeast to checkmate this trend?
We are a people of destiny. We do not believe everything is in human hand. God is in heaven looking at affairs of men. We believe in God. We develop every part of Nigeria. Let anybody deny it. The Hausa man said: If you look am place and you no find an Ibo, go away, it is not good for human habitation. Where else have we not developed? We have a saying: You make where you live. That is why you see us developing every part of Nigeria as homes.
By doing so, the local people who see us begin to get jealous. From jealousy, they begin their hatred, and even get to shedding of blood. Some of them say, ‘Let these people go and leave their property for us.’ There are lots and lots more from where we got what we did. It is from God and no man born of a woman can stop us. It is not possible for a man born of a woman to stop us.
We are a people of destiny and nobody; whether that person is called Buhari or Junaid Muhammed can stop us. And we don’t want to stop anybody.
We have started the idea of making our host communities happy with us. This is something we have been promoting for more than two years. We even accused ourselves of not doing well enough with regards to Almajiri. We said; our people when they were sending their children to school should have taken the Almajiris along.
What I am saying is that this country is destined by God and we have the best of everything. You can go out every morning or afternoon. Go and try that in another place; you will die in 30 minutes. We have every resource in Nigeria both human and material to make this country great. God blessed us so much, but short sightedness and lack of proper education is making us think negatively towards each other instead of thinking positively towards each other and positively grow Nigeria. I love Nigerians where ever they come from. Somebody came to me from Katsina State looking for money to pay his school fees at the Ahmadu Bello University. Nobody knows me with money. I made some calls to some of my friends to make contributions to make him go back to school. He has nothing to do with the Southeast. This is what Nigeria should be like.
Every Nigerian gains more from proper development of Nigeria, after all, the amalgamation of North and South protectorates was meant to use resources of the South to cover the deficit of the North. Today, the deficits of the North compared with deficits of the south are wider than in 1914.
Those who know should know that complementality of the people of Nigeria will make for a greater country. The largest concentration of blacks in the world is in Nigeria, and it is God’s purpose that it should be so in order that Nigeria provides the black man with a rallying point. The original sons and daughters of God are blacks. They have nothing inferior to any human race in this world. Most of sciences and technologies came from here. Because we are favourably treated by God, we didn’t have to fight for continuous improvement of the environment we live, that is why we are lagging behind.
We are the original sons and daughters of God, and very soon you will see it happen. Nigeria is beautiful, Nigeria is great. It is ordained of God to be so. Let no man, let not Buhari, let not Junaid Muhammed, let not Northern irredentists kill the design of God. And they can’t, because God is Almighty.
What would you suggest as a way to reunite the already discontented people of this country as a result of the lopsidedness in the appointments of Buhari?
You cannot deny the Southeast Secretary to the Government and you think you can propose a remedy. It is not possible. He’s already crossed the line and going back is impossible.
As it is, no amendment, no remedy is feasible. Of course, human beings can rethink what they are doing. What motivated Buhari ‘s attitude to the Southeast I don’t know. What did we do to deserve comprehensive hatred of the Southeast people? We all must know the importance of Nigeria. Time is of consequence in the comity of nations. Let nobody think of the Islamisation or Christianization of Nigeria because it will not work. We, the Southeast people, have our direction and nobody can change it. They will come to us and say sorry for what we did to you. Let’s be together again. And, of course, we will be together.

Culled from: http://sunnewsonline.com/new/ex-governor-ezeife-hits-buhari/

Nnamdi Azikiwe University (UNIZIK) Students Build a Car

  To start with, the CAR cost the students an approximate amount of 4MILLION Naira to assemble, The Dean Faculty of Engineering Prof. C. Ihueze, the HOD of Mechanical Engineering Dr. C.H Achebe, Dr. Nwigbo Solomon, and all supporting lecturers that made the project a reality are all happy because the Faculty of Engineering and most especially the Department of Mechanical Engineering has brought glory to Unizik and VC is happy.The project was initiated by Okoyenta Augustus, and he said the materials for the car were locally sourced and it took them two years to put in place.

The cost of the project still according to him was about N.4 million, but the department gave them support.The car was then driven by the students as test run, to the administrative block of the school where the vice chancellor, Prof. Joseph Ahaneku and the university community at large inspected and admired their courage. The name they gave it before Prof Ahaneku announced it ‘Auto Zik’ was ‘Standard formula 2 car’.

Other members of the production team are: Okeke Chukwuebuka , Ofoegbu kenechukwu, Ibekwe Ebenezer and Ezeani Chikeluba.

Culled from: http://www.gosippme.com/2015/08/unizik-students-build-drive-nig1st-100.html

The African Woman and The Nature of Self-Hate

African women are loosing sense of self-worth.  Their idea of feminine elegance is to wear white female hair styles.  Flip through any issue of our week-end newspapers and picture magazines to see how far this disturbing trend of self-hate by our females has gone. 

No class of black women is exempt: film and sports stars, musicians, students, models, literary gurus, politicians, academics, business executives, civil servants, religious leaders and followers, unemployed or working class spinsters and housewives, are trying desperately to pass for white.
They are all pampered as teenage daughters, with charming African hair styles, which they promptly abandon for white female hair styles as soon as they become of age to choose hair styles for themselves.
 
 Advertisers of cosmetic products are the architects of the assault on our sense of self-worth, telling our women that light skin and long, shinny, bodiless, straight, white female hair styles, are the ideal for our women.  The advertisers hide the truth that light skin colour age faster than dark skin, and that every race has natural hair styles that suit and compliment her.  Africans have the greatest variety of elegant, feminine, beautiful, sexy, creative, ennobling, envied, open to further innovations, female hair styles, than all the other tribes of the world put together.  Our women have hundreds of matchless teasers from the ancient Nubian, Kanuri, Calabar, Edo queenly varieties, to the modern exquisite resourceful African tribal traffic stoppers.

The proper African female hair styles fall in the range of  low/full cut, to thick, rich, woolly, curly, alluring, lively, dramatic, healthy, luscious, moist, sheer, knotted, kinky, plaited, jumbled, tangled, crown of part-collected, massed or cascading hair, confirming (like the peacock’s crown for  the birds’ kingdom, or the lion’s for the animals’ dominion), our females’ ordained status as the human queens: brave, proud, confident, real,  important, dignified, feminine, irresistible.

African women, wearing hot combed, straight, stretched, compacted or other white female hair styles, look inferior, like cheap substitutes and slaves, standing besides their true to nature white female peers; and like grandmas besides their proudly African peers with African female hair styles.  They invariably look like white headed black dolls, doubly empty inside, or like cats emerging from a forced bath of hot oil: ugly, slimy and abnormal.  So, one is tempted to ask, do our women wear white female hair styles out of a feeling of self-hate or because they are angry and want to shock and terrorize with their, I don’t care how I look pose, blacks they are ashamed of and whites that reject them?
Most modern African and Black women from around the world are ashamed to be African because African continental women are copying their African American peers.  There was this actress looking like a precious jewel in her African hair style at the Pan-African Night of Tributes in Los Angeles and a few hours later, was looking like grandma in her white female hair style, at a Pre-Oscar Gala.  Every April, Ebony magazine features black College Queens.  All of them wear white female hair styles that make them look like jokers and pretenders to the throne of beauty queens of any tribe, black or white.  Obviously, a great deal of confusion is going on in our women’s heads at the moment.  A kind of a split personality crisis.  If they cannot change their ‘black skin blemish’ fast enough, they can at least, jump start this with white female hair styles.
 Of course, 400 years of slavery dealt a devastating blow to our feeling of self-worth. While Hiroshima bombing happened over a few days and the Jewish holocaust lasted a couple of years, without causing either of them the loss of cultural focus and identity, our dehumanization went on for 400 years and it was brutal and total.  It obliterated our languages, culture, traditional mores, religions, history, individual names and identity.  It was 400 years of no industry, learning, or progress, because we were running and hiding, not knowing who they would kidnap or murder next.
Over two hundred million of our relatives died on the run or during the Middle Passage.  It was 400 years of unbridled rape of our women and the inhuman and ungodly castration of our men; 400 years of slaving like beasts of burden without pay on the plantations of Bible totting slavers; 400 years of not knowing what we did wrong to be visited with so much hate, violence and destruction; 400 years of not knowing if and when it would end, and it has not ended 600 years after.
 The Jews and the Japanese received compensation for the terrible wrong done to them but our tormentors do not consider us human enough to deserve their apology and reparations.  We do not count in their records of human history, not even as a footnote and we are powerless to exert restitution because we are not united.  When men are powerless, their female folks tend to ride with the winners as booties, or in the hope of some of the master’s spoils robbing off on them.
In a recent Ebony magazine feature on black female senior executives, directors, and vice presidents of some leading US corporations, all of them wore white female hair styles that did severe damage to their look and age.  They obviously believed they reached their merited heights by being dowdy and loyal servants.  White leaders and bosses are not likely to be telling themselves, “I trust her absolutely because she is not true to her nature?”  There is courage and strength in not living a lie, which all sane leaders and bosses, whites inclusive, recognize and quietly respect.  Our girls cannot hide their basic nature under alien and unbecoming hair styles and assume that all is well.
Senior black female holders of political offices in the US and African governments, including Michelle Obama, our first, first lady, think, passing for white with white female hair styles, encouraged their ascendance or appointment, and that foreign white leaders would resent them if they looked their natural African selves from head to toe.  For a start, it makes them look older than their real age, unattractive and undignified. It definitely offends the trust implied in the truism that: “real is more likely to be honest and reliable to deal with.” That is a conflict we all face right now, we are not real but we think we are, or do not care.
 The current US Ambassador to Nigeria, Robin Rene Sanders, is an exception.    She proudly wears dreadlocks and proud Africans love her madly for her courage.  We trust her; see her as our own; as a sister and a friend who wants the best for us.  It is an instinctive feeling because she identifies famously with us.  Another great Diaspora African mommy and beauty is Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick of the US Congress.  I wish all our women, at what ever age, would emulate her and Robin Rene Sanders.  They look ageless, regal, strong, trustworthy, dependable and beautiful.  They inspire our confidence by being proudly African. That is what African women not contaminated by Western decadence look like.  It confirms that the Queen of Sheba’s extended family has not been completely wiped out by European’s plastic culture.
We have great female poets who, despite their age, could still win the Miss World title if they would be true to their African nature.  We have others in public eye, people others look up to, such as artistes, authors, film stars, who ought to know better, in terms of the correct public image to project, who do not feel there is anything wrong with their unnatural hair styles.
 We have daughters with long straight hair, of course, who look becoming because they are natural, but we also have black female TV hosts who wear pathetic, short or long, weightless, graceless, revolting, fake styles, thinking they look cute.  Such hosts would not get me out of bed in the morning to watch a ‘Good Morning’ TV show?
 When African American men were wearing pressed or hot combed hair styles not too long ago, many of us pined and prayed for the phase to pass.   Our urgent critical worry now is that we may not find proudly African sisters to marry by the morning.  May be we should buy our African American females, mirrors to look at themselves with the African eye every morning, before stepping out into the world?  Better still, we could send them the mirrors left behind in Africa in payment for slaves by slavers?   That way we might find some value for the mirrors, by using them to see what the slavers are still doing to our daughters’ mentality because, Diaspora Africans are continental Africans’ mirrors in modernity.
 Female newscasters and talk show hosts on African television stations such as TVC, Mitv, Ltv, Galaxy, Silverbird, Channels, AIT partially at dusk and not day light, habitually wear white female hair styles. NTA is the only exception and I influenced them when a listening patriotic African, Segun Olusola, was in charge of programmes there. Typical cultural African programmes, such as Gbedu, Mo, Oge, on our TV stations, are routinely hosted by females unsure of their correct racial image.  The confused message they pass on with their unsightly non-African look, as against what they say on the programmes, apart from irritating their proudly African captive audience, discomforts the non-African viewer, eager to be treated to genuine and honest African scenes and entertainment.
 
 There was this presenter the other day on Ltv, with long, straight, artificial hair, drooping all over her face to below her shoulders.  She was shaking her head every few seconds to re-arrange the hair, and using her hands to transfer hair falling over her eyes to the back of her ears in typical white female manner.  It was a lot of trouble for her, but that is not the issue here.  On the programme, she was admonishing her listeners for not being true to their nature.  “We should be proud of our culture, stick with it, and show it off to the world,” she said, stoned face.  I had to touch my television set to assure myself, I was not dreaming.  
When a Nigerian won the Miss World title in 2001, she was looking a delectable African queen.  A year later, after her European sponsors had taken her around the world as their queen, she visited Nigeria looking like a masquerade.  No one could recognize her.  She had added 30 years to her age in twelve months, with her European hair style.
 
 If you ask our females why they take so much trouble to disfigure themselves, they say it makes them look beautiful.  It is all so very sad for our race because they (as our mothers) pass their feelings on to the average African child who prefers a white baby doll to a black one because the white one is more beautiful.   Then when you ask the child to point to the doll that looks more like him or her, he or she helplessly and slowly points to the black one.
The typical African right now, would tell you he or she is proudly African, wearing a suit in our noon day heat, and answering names like John, Jane, Stella or Stephen.  The young men are wearing hair styles the females should be wearing, with earrings and all to boot; the women are looking like scarecrows or extraterrestrial beings, repulsive, masculine and strange to our environment, in compacted, stretched, alien, unbecoming hair styles.  They look neither black nor white from bleaching to sore point, with accentuated stretch marks all over the covered body.
 
Non-African tribes that would not try to change their nature as a race, by switching wholesale to African hair styles, religion, fashion, or answering African names, or burning black (in counterpoise to us bleaching), with injurious health consequences, that include kidney ruin, aggravated or heightened diabetes and hypertension, are difficult to fault for thinking that black IQ might be lower than that of the Chimpanzee.   

 NAIWU OSAHON Hon. Khu Mkuu (Leader) World Pan-African Movement); Ameer Spiritual (Spiritual Prince) of the African race; MSc. (Salford); Dip.M.S; G.I.P.M; Dip.I.A (Liv.); D. Inst. M; G. Inst. M; G.I.W.M; A.M.N.I.M. Poet, Author of the magnum opus: ‘The end of knowledge’.  One of the world’s leading authors of children’s books; Awarded; key to the city of Memphis, Tennessee, USA; Honourary Councilmanship, Memphis City Council; Honourary Citizenship, County of Shelby; Honourary Commissionership, County of Shelby, Tennessee; and a silver shield trophy by Morehouse College, USA, for activities to unite and uplift the  African race.
   Naiwu Osahon renowned author, philosopher of science, mystique, leader of the world Pan-African Movement.

Culled from: http://saharareporters.com/2009/11/06/nature-self-hate

Political Quote of the Year by a Nigerian Political Party

Lai Mohammed

All Progressives Congress National Publicity secretary said that, if Jonathan had not looted funds, it would have been able to do more than basically fulfilling its campaign promise.

''They say we are yet to fulfil our campaign promises to Nigeria, but they have forgotten that if only the PDP/Jonathan Administration had not stolen Nigeria blind, there would have been more than enough money to give school children in Nigeria not just one but three meals a day and even pay 5,000 Naira to 50 million most vulnerable Nigerians, not just the 25 million we promised in our manifesto''
APC said.

 I need not convince you again that Nigerians have been scammed.

NUC releases list of illegal Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria

The National Universities Commission has released a list of illegal degree awarding institutions operating in Nigeria.
The schools were published in the NUC’s weekly bulletin dated August 24.
According to the bulletin, the NUC Executive secretary, Julius Okojie, warned that those who patronise the schools, do so at their own risk.
“Certificates obtained from these sources will not be recognized for the purpose of NYSC, employment and further studies,” the NUC said.

Full list:
1. University of Accountancy and Management Studies, operating anywhere in Nigeria.
2. Christians of Charity American University of Science and Technology Nkpor, Anambra State or any of its campuses.
3. University of Industry, Yaba, Lagos or any of its other campuses.
4. University of applied Sciences and Management Port Novo, Republic of Benin or any of its other campuses in Nigeria.
5. Blacksmith University, Awka or any of its campuses.
6. Volta University College, Ho, Volta Region, Ghana or any of its other campuses in Nigeria.
7. Royal University Izhia, P.O. Box 800, Abakaliki, Ebonyi State or any of its other campuses.
8. Atlanta University, Anyigba, Kogi State or any of its other campuses.
9. Sunday Adokpela University, Otada Adoka, Otukpo, Benue State or any of its other campuses.
10. United Christian University, Macotis Campus, Imo State or any of its other campuses.
11. United Nigeria University College, Okija, Anambra State or any of its other campuses.
12. Samuel Ahmadu University, Makurdi, Benue State or any of its other campuses.
13. UNESCO University, Ndoni, Rivers State or any of its other campuses.
14. Saint Augustine’s University of Technology, Jos Plateau State or any of its other campuses.
15. The International University, Missouri, USA, Kano and Lagos Study Centres, or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
16. Columbus University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria.
17. Tiu International University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria.
18. Pebbles University, UK operating anywhere in Nigeria.
19. London External Studies UK operating anywhere in Nigeria.
20. Pilgrims University operating anywhere in Nigeria.
21. Lobi Business School Makurdi, Benue State or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
22. West African Christian University operating anywhere in Nigeria.
23. Bolta University College Aba or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
24. JBC Seminary Inc. (Wukari Jubilee University) Kaduna Illegal Campus.
25. Westlan University, Esie, Kwara State or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
26. St. Andrews University College, Abuja or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
27. EC- Council University, USA, Ikeja Lagos Study Centre.
28. Atlas University, Ikot Udoso Uko, Uyo Akwa Ibom State or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
29. Concept College/University (London) Ilorin or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
30. Halifax Gateway University, Ikeja or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
31. Kingdom of Christ University, Abuja or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
32. Acada University, Akinlalu, Oyo State or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
33. Fifom University, Mbaise, Imo State or any of its campuses in Nigeria.
34. Houdegbe North American University Campuses In Nigeria.
35. Atlantic International University, Okija, Anambra State.
36. Open International University, Akure.
37. Middle Belt University (North Central University), Otukpo.
38. Leadway University, Ugheli, Delta State.
39. Metro University, Dutse/Bwari, Abuja.
40. Southend University, Ngwuro Egeru (Afam) Ndoki, Rivers State.
41. Olympic University, Nsukka, Enugu State.
42. Federal College of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, Abuja.
43. Temple University.
44. Irish University Business School London, operating anywhere in Nigeria.
45. National University of Technology, Lafia, Nasarawa State.
46. University of Accountability and Management Studies, Mowe, Lagos Ibadan Expressway and its Annex at 41, Ikorodu Road Lagos.
47. University of Education, Winneba Ghana, operating anywhere in Nigeria.
48. Cape Cost University, Ghana, operating anywhere inNigeria.
49. African University Cooperative Development (AUCD), Cotonou, Benin Republic, operating anywhere in Nigeria.
50. Pacific Western University, Denver, Colorado, Owerri Study Centre.
51. Evangel University of America and Chudick Management Academic, Lagos.
52. Enugu State University of Science and Technology (Gboko Campus).
53. Career Light Resources Centre, Jos.
54. University of West Africa, kwali-Abuja, FCT.
55. Coastal University, Iba-Oku, Akwa-Ibom State.
56. Kaduna Business School, Kaduna.
57. Royal University of Theology, Minna, Niger Delta.

The NUC listed another eight illegal institutions as currently undergoing investigations and court actions. The commission said the action will lead to the prosecution of the proprietors and recovery of illegal fees and charges on subscribers.

The Universities are:
1. National University of Nigeria, Keffi, Nasarawa state.
2. North Central University, Otukpo, Benue State.
3. Christ Alive Christian Seminary and University, Enugu.
4. Richmond Open University, Arochukwu, Abia State.
5. West Coast University, Umuahia.
6. Saint Clements University, Iyin Ekiti, Ekiti State.
7. Volta University College, Aba, Abia State.
8. Illegal Satellite Campuses of Ambrose Ali University.

Reference: http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/189073-nuc-releases-list-of-illegal-tertiary-institutions-see-full-list.html