THE TRAGEDY OF THE CAPTURED AFRICAN MIND

For us to know how colonized and miseducated we are as Africans, when you speak with a Lawyer, a Senior Advocate for that matter and you ask him or her, what is the name of the woman holding a scale and a balance which symbolizes Justice, Equity and Truth for the Judiciary? He or she simply tells you, “she’s the Lady of justice”. Many don’t know her name is Ma’at, the black goddess of Egypt who introduced the 42 laws or principles of Maat, over 2000 years before Moses and his 10 commandments were born.

 The 42 laws were what African Kings and Queens used to govern the world including Europe for 700 years. But today that same Black goddess is whitewash to be a white woman without reference to her as the Mother of Justice, just because she’s a back woman.

Ask any African Medical Doctor, who is the father of medicine? He will tell you is Hippocrates; the Greek physician but they have refused to research further to know that Imhotep, an African is the founder and father of medicine. He was the first in human history to cure over 200 diseases. Hippocrates came to Egypt to be tutored by Imhotep but today no medical student is taught about this great African who was so venerated during his time that he was worshipped like a god. 

If you ask an African Bishop or Pastor who originated the worship of one god? He will tell you is the Europeans that’s why their Jesus and Mary is white but the truth is that the first person that introduced monotheism or worship of one god which was then called the sun god or Aten, was an Egyptian Pharaoh named Akhenaten, a black man who brought about religious and political revolution in the world. Go and read about Akhenaten. It’s because of the introduction of sun god that Africans were called the Children of the Sun. It was after Akhenaten had introduced the sun god that the Germans introduced the word Gott and the English Oxford translated Gott to God in the 6th Century. So what this means is that the word God was man’s creation and everything about the so called Holy Book of the Enslavers religion whether Christain or Islam, were written by men for the purpose of control.

Unfortunately, Africans are so sick that they kill in defense of something that is man’s creation, I mean a religion created by their erstwhile Enslavers; a religion alien to their Ancestors.

Africans must wake up.

They said Christopher Columbus discovered America but went silence on the African king of Mali Empire in the person of Abu Bakr Mansa II who left his throne for his younger brother Mansa Musa and went voyaging with 200 ships with his men and discovered America, 180 years before Christopher Columbus set his foot on American soil. (the book “They Came Before Columbus by Van Sertima) and other accounts gave credence to this report about King Abubakar Mansa II. His successor King Mansa Musa later became the richest man that ever lived on Earth and his riches today is estimated to be 400 billion dollars.

May I remind us that the European tribe plagiarized everything introduced and done by the Black man, they lied about everything yet my African brothers and sisters continue to kowtow to their dictates.

How many of us know that it was Africans that taught Europeans how to take their baths? 

How many of us know that Africans built the first 600 toilets ever witnessed by Europeans in Europe. 

When Africans where giants in Architecture, Agriculture, Mathematics and Medicine, Europeans were living in caves.

Africans led the world before, Africans will lead the world again.

It's high time young Africans knows about their history. African Youths Leadership and Culture Summit (AYLCUS 2024) is beckoning! Be part of it...

Nigeria: Generational change in leadership inevitable (Video)

 

#Nigeria@61: Unity of Nigeria is negotiable in the faces of disarray, confusion, cannibalistic, reeking incompetence of highest order - AAC

 BEING THE PRESS TEXT OF THE AFRICAN ACTION CONGRESS, IN COMMEMORATION OF THE 61ST INDEPENDENCE ANNIVERSARY, ON OCTOBER 4, 2021 AT 13A, ISAAC JOHN STREET, IKEJA LAGOS

Good day ladies and gentlemen of the Press. 

It is our pleasure at the African Action Congress (AAC) to welcome you to this auspicious Press conference that is being organized to espouse some of the issues bedevilling our country, Nigeria, to assess the state of the country, the socio-political conditions of the mass of our people, to criticize as necessary and to proffer solutions as a fore-sighted political party armed with revolutionary ideas.

We are gathered here today, not as accidents of history but as conscious elements positioned by past and current realities that are due to the ubiquitous failure of government, which has led the Nigerian state to a total collapse. 

But as nature abhors vacuum, the burden to right the wrongs in our socio-political and economic sphere have rested on us. This burden, we have carried with pride for the last 3 years as a political party.

There are no milder words to put the state of the nation, other than disarray, confusion, cannibalistic, reeking incompetence of the highest order and backwardness. Since flag independence in 1960, the everyday Nigerian whose interests we protect and aspirations we push, at the African Action Congress have been shut out of governance. Despite the 22 years of uninterrupted civil rule, the average Nigerian cannot boast of any dividends of the much-touted democracy. He has been left to cater for himself in all forms of human survival. Recent of all the darts thrown at him, is the sermon that he should find a way to defend himself against violent attacks by different types of terrorists the government has found comfortable names for- ‘’bandits’’, ‘’killer herdsmen’’ and ‘’unknown gunmen’’.

To score the Buhari regime on its failure to fulfil any of its promises to the mass of our people would be a waste of productive time. We shall require another measurement scale for it. In 2015 and again in 2019, the APC campaigned on three pillars – security, anti-corruption, and economy; the Buhari regime has failed woefully on all three.

SECURITY

Insecurity has been “democratized” and become so pervasive that there is no greater testimony of the large-scale insecurity in the land than the robbery of the Chief of Staff to the President within the Aso Villa presidential precincts and the recent invasion, killing of two officers and abduction of another officer inside the nation’s premier military training institution, the Nigerian Defence Academy. The Buhari regime is a god with clay feet which is incapable of protecting itself and its officials from the insecurity it has wrought on the nation. If it is so incompetent in protecting its high-ranking officials, how can it protect the ordinary citizens? Can one give what he doesn’t have!

It is so unfortunate that there has not been any progressive realization of the safe and conducive space for all. Rather, Nigeria has retrogressed under the Buhari regime and it is now the 3rd most terrorized country in the world.

Placing the Nigerian space on a map today, the Buhari regime cannot boast of 10 percent where it has total control of and can assert sovereignty. We now have a horrible situation whereby terrorists now do humanitarian works like international NGOs, impose taxes on citizens and even declare a Governor for the people.  

ANTI-CORRUPTION

The Buhari regime came in 2015 huffing and puffing about fighting corruption and mouthing slogans such as “if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria”. Rather than kill corruption, it has pampered the corrupt. The regime continues to deodorize its officials engaged in corruption and abuse of office. The APC membership card is now effectively a “get-out-of-jail-card” for corrupt officials. People standing trial for corruption, simply move into the party and their sins are forgiven as stated by its former chairman, Adams Oshiomhole. There is no better example of this than the current Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva who had all his property earlier seized via court order, some of which he deposed in an affidavit were not his, returned to him by the EFCC when he became the arrowhead of the party’s rigging machine in Bayelsa state. The regime has bungled every corruption case instituted and has failed to achieve a conviction in the rash of corruption trials it instituted on coming to power in 2015.

ECONOMY

There is no sector where the regime’s abysmal failure and incompetence is most glaring than the economy. To pose the question which the current Minister of Works posed to the other pair of the two left legs we call “major” political parties in Nigeria, the PDP during the 2015 elections “are your lives better today than they were 5 year ago?” the resounding answer is a loud NO!

Unlike Midas, everything Buhari and his regime touches simply turns to dust. The first economic recession Nigeria witnessed was in 1984 during his short-lived brutal regime. In his second coming to power, Nigeria has suffered two other economic recessions, one in 2016 and another in 2020. He has the uncanny ability to turn success to failure and prosperity to poverty.

The economy under Buhari has been characterized by widespread poverty, galloping inflation and unsustainable debt overhang.

In 2020, an additional seven million Nigerians were plunged into what the World Bank described as multi-dimensional poverty by the Buhari regime bringing the number of Nigerians who wallow in multidimensional poverty to 98 million people or almost 50% of our total population. The multidimensional poverty index measures not just poverty by income, but also by access to health, education and living conditions such as sanitation, portable water, electricity, and housing.

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its figures show that 40% or 83 million Nigerians live in poverty in 2020. Even if we take the NBS figures, the number of Nigerians living in poverty exceed the total populations of South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho, Mauritius and Eswatini (Swaziland) put together.

The Buhari regime has made a song and dance about cash transfers to tackle poverty but what Nigerians need is not hand out to party cronies. What is required is an enabling environment and sound policy directives which allow Nigerians to unleash their creative abilities to create wealth. As the bible teaches, what we need are fishers not handing over fishes to us.

The extreme poverty in the country has been exacerbated by galloping inflation and chronic unemployment.

Inflation in Nigeria continues to rise at an alarming rate. As at Q2 2021, it stands at over 17% fueled by rising food prices and considering that about 50% of Nigerians’ disposable income is spent on food (compared to less than 10% in UK, US and Canada), this is a double whammy for Nigerians.  Insecurity has ensured that farmers in both the north and south cannot go to their farms due to threat of banditry, kidnapping or clashes with itinerant herders. The hare-brained policy of shutting land borders for over a year ostensibly to curb small arms trafficking only succeeded in pushing up prices of goods and encouraging smuggling and corruption at the borders. To make matters worse, the president came out to admit that the policy had not succeeded in curbing the inflow of arms as more arms had come in during the border closure than previously. All these coupled with the free fall of the naira due to a monetary policy based on cronyism and patronage has brought untold hardship on Nigerians. How does one define incompetence if not this!

In Q2, 2015 when the Buhari regime came into power, unemployment was less than 10%, by the end of 2020, Buhari had worsened it to over 33% and rising. Youth unemployment is about 50% thus providing a ready army for terrorists and other criminal enterprises.

In our 2019 campaign policy document, we proposed an ambitious programme to boost disposable income, engage the youths in productive activities and embark on massive public works to ameliorate our infrastructure deficit as well as provide employment. Some said our plan to raise the minimum wage to N100,000.00 will cause inflation; now with a paltry N30,000.00 minimum wage we still have rising inflation occasioned by Buhari’s incompetence.

Nowhere is Buhari’s mismanagement of the economy more obvious and disturbing than in the unsustainable debt into which he continues to plunge the country. The regime met a debt profile of $10.72 billion in 2015 and has ballooned this $33.35 billion! Today, 97% of our revenue is used to service debt (that is, pay interest), no nation develops this way.

DEMOCRATIC SPACE and HUMAN RIGHTS

It is the position of the African Action Congress that the democratic space in the last 22 years and most especially under the Buhari Regime has suffered major setbacks and the civic platforms that should breathe life to people’s participation in governance have continue to shrink. To mention a few is the deregistration of political parties that, according the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), failed to meet the conditions to remain registered. Despite a previous court order to the contrary, the INEC continue in its undemocratic defiance to people’s participation.

We maintain that this is inimical to what the likes of the Late Gani Fawehinmi fought for, i.e- the multi-party system. Nigerians will not succumb to the binary choice pressure from the two sides of an evil coin- APC and PDP. Political parties and the participation in them must be based on ideology and they must not be reduced to ‘’special purpose vehicles’’ for ‘’winning’’ elections.

Furthermore, as glaring as an albino in daylight are the abuse of power, gross attacks on human rights, viz a viz, rights to freedom of expression, of association, to hold thoughts, beliefs and conscience, flagrant disobedience to court orders, laced with irritating impunity.

The human rights record of the Buhari regime is such that should worry any rational human being. If anything, the regime has always topped rankings when it concerns poor performance of institutions that should protect rights of citizens. The Police is atop in this aspect.

There is no gainsaying that the unpopular regime is afraid of any gathering of the people. From trying to attack social media, to the ban of Twitter, the draconian broadcasting codes, asking Civil Society organizations and NGOs to pay tax, the regime keeps sinking the country and it is preventing any engagement whatsoever and wherever that is geared towards saving what’s left of the country. But for the conscious efforts, laced with sweat and blood of the young people of this country sometime in October 2020, during the global protests tagged #EndSARS, we may by now be queuing at Aso Villa to receive permits to sneeze. 

NATIONAL QUESTION

One of the biggest debates today in the country is the question of nationhood, whether to break into bits, maintain the status quo, however unfortunate or to restructure.

We maintain that these agitations, especially from the rank and file have more economic inclinations than political. We are clear on the fact that asides the nepotistic stature of President Buhari, what have continued to fuel the agitation for secession from different quarters are crippling poverty, economic backwardness, perennial social turmoil in the midst of vast human and material resources. Anyone who is not analyzing this issue within these contexts would be doing a half work.

The common man would not mind the height, stature, religion, body language or mother tongue of the occupier (intended meaning) of Aso Villa, if there was fair access to the dividends of our commonwealth- quality and affordable education, proper healthcare, good infrastructure, a thriving business environment and adequate security in all forms. If the Yoruba farmer could go to farm and be assured of the safety of himself and the works of his hands, the Igbo trader to his business with the assurance of prosperity and the Hausa with other ethnic nationalities within the space could be afforded a thriving and safe environment that welcomes development, no one would admire the call for the break-up of such union. What is unfortunate is that the reverse is the case as of today. And rather than address the underlying issues, the unpopular Buhari regime has resorted to violent harassment of the protesters who are exercising, of all rights, their rights to freedom of expression.  

Our position in the African Action Congress is that self-determination is a right. Even the Christian Bible posits that ‘’Can two walk together except they agree?’’, let alone 200 tribes. The people in the Nigerian space must come together to discuss how they want to live and be governed. The AAC believes that the unity of Nigeria is negotiable and must be negotiated within the ambits of the law that affords equity, fairness and social justice. We are of the belief that you do not command peace into the air by some declaration in Abuja. Where there is no justice, peace is definitely going to be missing.

THE WAY FORWARD AS A PEOPLE

The AAC posits that its manifesto forms the instrument with which it shall mobilize all Nigerians in the struggle for political power towards peace and prosperity. The Manifesto code-named SPICERHEAT is detailed on the way out of this quagmire we have found ourselves as a people.

However, we are making the following immediate demands. 

- Immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners- Omoyele Sowore, Nnamdi Kanu, Sunday Adeyemo (Sunday Igboho), and all #EndSARS protesters who are still unjustly languishing in detention centres across the country. We hope the regime will toe the path of civility, reason and logic to release these persons before the 20th of October, 2021 which marks the anniversary of the killing of peaceful protesters which is now known as the Lekki Massacre.

- An immediate stop to the executive harassment of striking doctors. Their demands should rather be met.

- Immediate halt to borrowing, until a serious and independent audit of the earlier received loans is done.

- The trashing of the accidented Electoral Act 2021 (amended) that gives allowance for fraud and hijack of the electoral space by money-bags. For an Act that allows full electronic transmission of results. 

- That President Muhammadu Buhari should resign with immediate effect as he has shown gross incompetence and cluelessness as it concerns piloting the affairs of the country. For the creation of an interim national government to midwife a brand new constitution that will usher in credible elections. 

Also, a call for a national conference of Nigerians drawn from all ethnic nationalities, religious and cultural orientations, gender classifications and age differentiation, towards establishing a progressive, socially just, economically equitable, and ecologically sustainable society, is imminent at this time. We shall continue to be part of such discussions and shall provide leadership at all times.

We call on members of the public, home and abroad to join the African Action Congressonly ideologically clear formidable opposition party in the country.

Thank you.

Solidarity.

Signed:

Femi Adeyeye

National Publicity Secretary

RE - "HOW NIGERIANS ARE BEING TACTICALLY DENIGERIANISED" BY AZUKA ONWUKA OF THE PUNCH - THE POINT HE MISSED, THE POINT WE MISS

By Kola Ayeye

In the 10th Aug edition of The Punch, Azuka Onwuka lamented the tragedy that has befallen Nigeria and Nigerians in such elegant prose. Nigeria he pointed out perhaps had the largest contingent of nationals representing and winning medals for other countries. Nigerians, deNigerianised as economic refugees from decades of wanton mismanagement, donned the colours of other countries winning medals which Nigeria didn't. He gave several examples.

It was a well-researched elegant piece of journalism. I would have been celebrating this piece but for an undertone, more than a passing emphasis, on the fact that all these athletes were Southerners. He wrote "Curiously, all the Nigerians competing for other countries are from South of Nigeria. This also plays out in other spheres of life: medicine, nursing, teaching, soldiering, policing etc.... What has become clear is that Nigerians, especially from the South, are desperately eager to flee from Nigeria to other continents. Even the fear of death is not a deterrent. They seem to feel that it is better to die trying to leave Nigeria than die living in Nigeria".

This is my point of departure with Azuka. We should be careful not to paint a picture that the Northern masses either enjoy this status quo or are indifferent to it. Not true. They are not. The large majority do not. Limited by poorer education, poorer economics and much more limited socialisation, emigration to other continents is not an option, it is not in their world view. Their USA and Canada and Europe and Asia is in Lagos, Port-Harcourt, Enugu and other cities of the South as Maiguards, cobblers, hewers of wood and drawers of water, Mairuwa. They are as much victims of Nigeria as their Southern compatriots. Perhaps worse. Nigeria's per capita income is a meagre $2,300. More than 100m Nigerians live below the poverty line. If we do a regional disaggregation of these numbers, the three Southern Regions and the Middle Belt will be far better than the North West and North East.

The political elite of both the South and the North, in cahoot with a thin business elite who feed off patronage masquerading as entrepreneurs, have worsted the Northern and Southern masses, "deNigerianising" us. The Southern masses flee abroad. The Northern masses flee to the South, or are radicalised out of ignorance to join Boko Haram, or to join banditry.

The greatest failure is that of the professionals, the graduates, the fairly educated, that cadre struggling to survive in the South, Middle Belt and Far North. It is on us the duty has fallen to organise, finance, and create an alternative grassroots political movement to oust this thin political cum business elite that has savaged our commonwealth and deNigerianised our Nigerianness. We have a duty to do it along with the struggle for survival. And here we have failed miserably since 1999 and continue to fail. We have focused solely on personal survival and completely ignored individual and collective action for change.

The Northern masses are victims as well, maybe even worse.

I'm praying and working for the emergence of the famed but elusive 3rd Force, a people's alternative to APC and PDP. We all need to participate. The Fourth Estate of the Realm led by exemplars like Azuka should fully deploy their media to stir this failed inert class from its slumber to do its duty of providing a path that can oust the ravaging locusts in Abuja and every State capital, and provide the people an option to follow.



Kola Ayeye

(Kola Ayeye is the pastor in charge of Friends of God fellowship, the publishers of this page)

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Attacks on Igangan, others: These incendiary video clips!

By Femi Mimiko, mni

It is indeed scary the speed with which our country is cascading into cataclysm! Some of the video clips making the Internet rounds - of deadly attacks on the sleepy Igangan community in Oyo State; of burning of individuals and animals in the Southeast; assassinations and killings in Imo; kidnappings in Ondo; and massacres in Benue, Plateau, Zamfara, Borno and elsewhere - are unspeakable! 

I have argued consistently, standing on the observatory of history, that when things are moving in this direction and with this speed, the onus is on GOVERNMENT to re-strategise, climb down from its Olympian heights, make concessions, and actively engage - to bring angry and hurting citizens and groups back into the loop. This is because, ultimately, if things get out of hand and the country collapses, it is the President and his government, not sundry movements or groups - many with incohate ideas, befuddled ideologies, questionable personal ambitions, and suspect platforms - that would be blamed. Today, nobody remembers the anti-Bashir Assad forces in the DESTRUCTION of Syria; or the multiple non-state actors that, in resistance to Siad Barre, helped to CRUSH Somalia. It is the President of these countries and their government that are and will forever be blamed. What is more, contemporary history has demonstrated that virtually ALL countries that sought the path of civil war this century ended up virtually completely destroyed! 

I, therefore, appeal to our colleagues on this platform, who may have the requisite access, to advise in this manner. Rather than trafficking in incendiary video clips - many of which are truly a disgrace to the fatherland, by the nature of the bestiality they evoke - we should seek the ears of government with enduring pieces of advice that are needful at times like these. Government here, as elsewhere, is the dominant force in society; the one with the right to legitimate use of violence. This exceptionalism is not in doubt. Thus, whatever concessions it chooses to make cannot be cited as evidence of weakness. This is what, elsewhere, I referred to as the leadership agency, which alone can move us away from this impending implosion and save our country, not just for Nigerians, but indeed for all of Africa and the black race. 

The starting point is an all-stakeholders, and I mean, ALL-stakeholders, meeting, to be held at the instance of government, to discuss these concerns. You'll be surprised how impactful such a little step as this can be in bringing our country back from the brink. There should be no sacrifice considered too much at this stage of our national life. As I have often said, if Nigeria crashes, it will be due to our irresponsibility and eternal shame as elites - governing and non-governing alike - of the country. 

Dear colleagues, I plead you bear with me. I have, by this missive, no intention to drag us into the arena of extant social contestation. But I consider it inappropriate for us to just keep on socializing, celebrating birthdays, and pretending everything is fine, when indeed our nation faces a present danger of existential proportions! We shouldn't be like that great emperor of Rome who fiddled while his empire burned. Nero, he was called, a name that has continued ever since to swim in the cesspool of infamy. 

Merci beaucoup!

@FemiMimiko, mni

June 6, 2021.

SIX LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES TO LEARN FROM AN EAGLE

1. *Eagles fly Alone and at High Altitudes.*

They don't fly with sparrows, ravens, and other small birds.

*MEANING*; Stay away from narrow-minded people, those that bring you down. Eagle flies with Eagles. Keep good company.

2. *Eagles have an Accurate Vision.* They have the ability to focus on something as far as 5km away. No matter the obstacles, the eagle will not move his focus from the prey until he grabs it.

*MEANING*; Have a vision and remain focused no matter what the obstacles and you will succeed.

3. *Eagles do not Eat Dead things. They Feed only on Fresh Prey.*

*MEANING*; Do not rely on your past success, keep looking for new frontiers to conquer. Leave your past where it belongs, in the past.

4. *Eagles Love the Storm.* 

When clouds gather, the eagle gets excited, the eagle uses the storms wind to lift itself higher. Once it finds the wind of the storm, the eagle uses the raging storm to lift itself above the clouds. This gives the eagle an opportunity to glide and rest its wings. In the meantime, all the other birds hide in the branches and leaves of the tree.

*MEANING*; Face your challenges head on knowing that these will make you emerge stronger and better than you were. We can use the storms of life to rise to greater heights. Achievers are not afraid to rise to greater heights. Achievers are not afraid of challenges, rather they relish them and use them profitably.

5. *Eagles Prepare for Training;* 

They remove the feathers and soft grass in the nest so that the young ones get uncomfortable in preparation for flying and eventually flies/ when it becomes unbearable to stay in the nest./

*MEANING*; Leave your Comfort Zone, there is No Growth there.

6. *When the Eagle Grows Old,* 

His feathers becomes weak and cannot take him as fast and as high as it should. This makes him weak and could make him die. So he retires to a place far away in the mountains. While there, he plucks out the weak feathers on his body and breaks its beaks and claws against the rocks until he is completely bare; a very bloody and painful process. Then he stays in this hiding place until he has grown new feathers, new beaks and claws and then he comes out flying higher than before.

*MEANING*; We occasionally need to shed off old habit no matter how difficult, things that burden us or add no value to our lives should be let go of.

*NEVER GIVE UP,*.