The Tragedy of Victory
David Finley
The Power of Geography
Ten Maps That Reveal the Future of Our World
Geography is not fate – humans get a vote in what happens- but it matters.
Tim Marshall
Bimbo’s Take:
Tim makes this important statement on page Page xv to remind us that we don’t get a seat at mother nature’s table when she decides on where to place us and what resources to bequeath to us. However, mother is not that wicked as she does allow us to determine what we want to do with where and what we have gotten. It is at this point that our creativity, resilience and diligence are to be brought to make the best use of what we have. After all, we have been told that if we have been given lemons, we should hurry up and make lemonades. It is no good, sitting and wailing that all we have are lemons while others have oranges, is it?
“The British are coming, the British are coming.”
Paul Revere (attrib)
Bimbo’s Take:
It was said that the sun never goes down on the British Empire. It had not always been like that.
It started gradually, when the British arrived at the shores of different nations and, through diplomacy, often enforced with guns, took over. On page 115, Tim Marshall quoted the outcry by Paul Revere to announce that, once again, the British are coming. This time, having exited the EU, the UK is looking to forge new alliances.
Since history like to taunt us, we should have learnt one or two things from it. Given that the earlier arrival of the British led to colonization across the spectrum, shouldn’t we all be wary? Tim, ends the chapter, on page 152, by saying “….the British are coming again – to as many places as they can. Post-empire and post-Brexit, they will try to come as friends and equals. It won’t always be friendly, or equal.“
I do agree with this conclusion and we cannot sleep with our eyes closed trusting in the good nature of the British, as our fore-fathers did and regretted.
… our geopolitical struggles are now breaking free of our earthly restraints and being projected into space. Who owns space? How do you decide? … if I want to place my laser-armed satellite directly over your country, by what law do you say I can’t?
Tim Marshall
Bimbo’s Take:
The issue of ownership of space has continued to be of concern to me. It reminds me of the position that I had expressed on May 6th 2020 on my Facebook page on a related issue – the moon:
While our ancestors slept, the Berlin Conference of 1884 was held to “balkanize” Africa amongst the Europeans to legalize the pillage of Africa’s abundant valuable resources.
Today, the United States is developing a blueprint (The Artemis Accord) on ownership and mining of the resources on the Moon and we are sleeping.
By the time we or our kids wake up, it would be time to share in the collective burden of the pillage of the Moon while the US would have harnessed all the benefits.
For those with doable ideas of what we can do individually to be part of the discussion on the management of a collective this space resource , while our government remains docile, please inbox me with such.
Remember, the Amazon is in South America but Europe and the US have never gotten off the back of Brazil on how that resource is being managed because of the contentious believe that it accounts for 20% of our Oxygen. Now, think about the Moon in this light.
In the characteristic nature of Americans, one American friend of mine felt this is a non-issue by commenting “Pretty hard to oppress or pillage a rock in space. I am not sure this is worthy even of this comment.” the problem with the response is that he doesn’t see the moon (space, in the context of this book) as a collective resource for which accountability to all humanity is needed. I tried to clarify and educate him on this by responding :
“It is not about oppression or pillaging of the rocks on the moon. It is about the probable after-effect of the mining on the wellbeing of the moon and the social cost that all nations will end up bearing, if things go wrong.
The point is, a collective resource like the moon, needs to have all involved in managing its development. The world (and funny, the US backed out of the Kyoto Accord) is struggling to manage emissions of greenhouse gasses and its effect on global warming. From where I sit, the Industrialized nations actions brought about global warming and asking developing countries to curtail the use of technologies and resources (same as has been used by the Industrialized nations) in their development is injustice.
Back to the moon, we simply don’t know what the fall out of the planned mining activities will be on tides and other patterns on Earth. So the right time to cry out is now. We don’t want to end up sharing in the clean up cost.“
Thank goodness, I was not alone. My sentiments were shared by another friend, who wrote:
“Between the US, China and Russia, they will pillage the moon and anywhere else they can get to, and our own children and grandchildren who knew nothing about it will be asked to pay the collective price in the future. It’s the way of the world. We will need to beat them or join them.
Unfortunately, as you lamented, our own leaders in Africa and the developing world are sleeping. Even when we don’t have the technological ability to join them now, our leaders should be shouting themselves hoarse, and throwing as much tantrums as possible, to register our concerns and position about what’s being planned for the moon and our other collective patrimony, including the arctic here on earth.”
It is a sorry tale of one side seeing the other as having no rights; indeed, many colonists regarded the Aboriginals as barely human. Page 12
Thanks to the ‘gold generation ‘ , Australia’s population….gradually started to become ethnically and culturally diverse. Page 15
the Immigration Restriction Act, which became known as the ‘White Australia ‘ policy. ….Any person who when asked to do so by an officer fails to write out at dictation and sign in the presence of the officer a passage of fifty words in length in an European language directed by the officer ‘ Page 17
Tim Marshall
Bimbo’s Take:
Australia is, arguably, the most ethnically diverse country in the world. I have lived here and in my state nearly 62% of the residents have one or both parents born outside Australia. Yet, this has not eliminated racial labelling and discrimination. It exists, it is subtle and it hurts!
In my trips across the nation, I have seen this first hand. I saw it in Alice Springs, where the team of fellow travelers I was with had some not so printable comments for the Aborigine folks there. It was also there as we cross the Great Central Road and met an Aborigine couple in need. I witnessed this first hand when a ‘tradie’ that I had invited to work in my house called me names telling me to “go back to your country” little realizing that we own the country together and that he too is an immigrant! Surprisingly, I also have a British friend who felt being maligned and discriminated against. His main grouse was being called a ‘pom’ .
Overall, all said and done, no nation is entirely free of racial prejudice. While Australia has gone to great lengths to curtail and correct these, it will be a disservice to feign that discrimination does not exist in Australia! It is there and glaring. I guess opportunities exists and the nation will keep working on managing it.
Understanding the history and demographics of the Fulani is a key to understanding the current issue, especially as large numbers of Fulani are involved in the insurgencies. Their history, geographical distribution and cultural practices have had a major impact on the crisis. The Fulani are a nation without a state. There are at least 23 million of them spread across the Sahel, the West African coast and as far south as Central African Republic. ……
There have been Fulani empires even though the people are mostly nomadic herders who have always seen the region as an entity in which they roam and not divided into nation states requiring pieces of paper to move from one place to another. That they once ruled the area is a fact deeply embedded in their collective memory; the Macina Empire (1818-62) is considered a golden age……..
Prior to Macina the Fulani had been vassals of other empires, a fact they have not forgotten. Conversely, the collective memory of many of the non-Fulani sedentary communities is that the Fulani are a bellicose people who, when they had power, enslaved huge numbers of them. This was the case, especially among the non-Muslim population. The current tensions across the Sahel can partly be traced to this history: people equate the rise of jihadism among the Fulani with them seeking to re-establish their empire and convert Christians…….
The weakness of the state and perceptions of injustice act as recruitment officers among the Fulani populations……..
…..Similar themes emerge in each outbreak of violence as drought makes the land increasingly arid and unfit for grazing cattle and sheep, these nomadic people move into new urban and rural areas, where they’re seen as outsiders and their interests clash with others such as farmers, leading to violence on all sides. In this one of the major driving factors is climate change, and, just like terrorism, it has no regard for borders.
….the nomads, whose herds die without fodder, cannot always wait for grassland and trees to mature, and in places the cycle begins anew in terms of both desertification and violence……..
Education would help to reduce the rate but it is expensive,……many women have little or no access to contraception……Pages 242 to 247
Tim Marshall
Bimbo’s Take:
I think this is an interesting piece for understanding the crisis in Nigeria. It shows the call for a strict control of the borders will be a wasteful effort in the face of an opponent that doesn’t understand borders. More so, as a nation, without a state, it also become necessary that vigilance is exercised in the various sporadic clashes, especially in the middle-belt of Nigeria, where many are being reported killed and their lands being grabbed. This might be an indication of a coordinated attempt at forming a nation state.
Tim threw attention to three things, that we should keep in front of us –
1. The Fulani’s DNA is hard-wired with the born-to-rule syndrome;
2. The Fulani remember visibly their past experience as vassals of other empire and
3. Non-Fulani’s that have lived through Fulani colonization never found it funny and neither have they forgotten
These three points are a potent elixir for crises and it will take concerted efforts based on understanding of each to find a solution that keeps the Fulani at peace with their neighbours across the vast Sahel Savannah.
The Nile is the very life blood of the country and its people; no Nile – no Egypt. Eighty-five percent of the Nile’s flow into Egypt originates from the Blue Nile, and now the Ethiopians have their hands on the tap. It’s not that Ethiopia intends to cut the flow completely, it’s just that it will have the power to do so
Tim Marshall
P284
Bimbo’s Take:
Just thinking about this, my mind goes to those who are calling for a split of the Nigerian state. The Northerners have severally made the arguments that they are justly entitled to the oil wealth from the Niger Delta. In their words, the fossilized deposits were from teh River Niger which flows through their domain.
The question needs be asked, what happens to the southern Nigeria states if the Northerners switch off the tap of River Niger? Some food for thought there and maybe a good reason for us all to come to the round-table to discuss rather than think that each is better off without Nigeria.
A Promised Land
There were a few years when I lived with my grandparents in Hawaii while
my mother continued her work in Indonesia and raised my younger sister, Maya.
Without my mother around to nag me, I didn’t learn as much, as my grades
readily attested. Then, around tenth grade, that changed. I still remember going
with my grandparents to a rummage sale at the Central Union Church, across the
street from our apartment, and finding myself in front of a bin of old hardcover
books. For some reason, I started pulling out titles that appealed to me, or
sounded vaguely familiar—books by Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes, Robert
Penn Warren and Dostoyevsky, D. H. Lawrence and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
Gramps, who was eyeing a set of used golf clubs, gave me a confused look when
I walked up with my box of books.
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
I ended up reading all those books, sometimes late, after I got home from
A Promised Land by Barack Obama
basketball practice and a six-pack with my friends, sometimes after bodysurfing
on a Saturday afternoon, sitting alone in Gramps’s rickety old Ford Granada with
a towel around my waist to avoid getting the upholstery wet. When I finished
with the first set of books, I went to other rummage sales, looking for more.
Much of what I read I only dimly understood; I took to circling unfamiliar words
to look up in the dictionary, although I was less scrupulous about decoding
pronunciations—deep into my twenties I would know the meaning of words I
couldn’t pronounce. There was no system to this, no rhyme or pattern. I was like
a young tinkerer in my parents’ garage, gathering up old cathode-ray tubes and
bolts and loose wires, not sure what I’d do with any of it, but convinced it would
prove handy once I figured out the nature of my calling.
For those who want to know why Obama was so good, almost a genius, in speaking to the public, one who can sell poison to a rat and the rat will willingly buy it, here in his own words, are what made Obama, Obama.
Daughter of Destiny
Tony Blair’s A Journey
The last 100 days of abacha
Walter Rodney Wrote A Book
Seyi and I, go way back. As far back as 1986 when we both became undergraduate students at the University of Lagos. So, a call from Seyi is one that would always generate some excitements about our common past. Today, it wasn’t a call but a chat. He was asking whether I have read Walter Rodney’s “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa”. Well, as it happened, it was the book that has recently caught my attention, my bedside book of a sort. I mussed, thinking how great minds think alike!
Somehow, I knew that I did not buy the book by chance, something must have urged me to buy it. I was at the departing lounge of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport when I bought the book in 2003, that was almost 2 decades ago. Within that period, I can recollect that I had tried reading it twice or more and had to put it down. It was a tough read, same conclusion I had with Wole Soyinka’s “The Man Died”. First, it was devoid of pictures to attract some interests. Second, it was replete with names, events and times that I was not fully familiar with. Of course, and probably the most important reason was that it wasn’t going to put food on my table as time was a precious commodity to me. Then, I was focused on making a living and my productive hours could not accommodate any divergence to the pleasure of reading such a book that was not contributing to my professional development.
Fast forward to now, the year 2020. This time, was different. I had matured a lot within the space of two decades that all the challenges that I previously had were of no concerns in my picking the book up to read. It was the chat from Seyi that finally provided the innate reason on why I most likely had purchased the book. As Seyi was to remind me, it was a recommended text by our Political Science Lecturer, Derin Ologbenla. How could I have forgotten that, his lectures were those that I enjoyed most and always looked forward to as an undergraduate. Finance being a challenge, I couldn’t afford the books. So, any recommended text that was not freely available on the shelves of the University Library went unread. This, obviously must have been one of them, so it was no wonder that I didn’t get to read it then. It must have then been retained in my sub-conscious to be read. The human mind is a wonderful creation.
Seyi had just finished listening to the audio version of the entire book, I was probably mid-way into the printed version and we had a conversation on our different take from the book. I had talked about how impressed I was by the enormity of accomplishments that Walter garnered in his 38 years of existence on this planet, before he was assassinated by one of those left by the colonialists to rule Guyana. I had also mentioned to Seyi what a great opportunity Walter’s students must have had in listening to his lectures. For us, we are also very lucky that he refused to die with the enormous knowledge he was able to put together on the motherland – Africa. Imagine if Walter had not written this book, Seyi & I, Ologbenla and thousands of others would have been denied the opportunity to see Africa in a different light, one that is completely opposite to what the Western World has kept drumming into our sub-conscious about Africa. Through the media and historical and education texts written by Western scholars, we have been left with an under-appreciation of the development in Africa before the rude supplantation of colonization over the continent. We have been left to blame ourselves for the post-colonial development challenges of the continent with arguments that suggests that Africans are devoid of the capacity to lead themselves, arguments that fail to take account of the roughly seventy years of the cankerworm of colonization and how this has destroyed the very nature of the development trajectory of most African states.
To understand the evil unleashed upon Africans by the Europeans (and I am not talking about slavery yet, the worst of them all), permit me to use an allegory. In your mind, think of Africa as a wooden mainframe and the Europeans as ants. The pre-colonial, colonial and neo-colonial actions of the Europeans should be considered as the period of ant infestation and attack on the mainframe. Now, with the appropriate treatment, the ants have been chased away from the mainframe but that doesn’t mean that all will now be well with the mainframe. Blaming the mainframe entirely for its current weakness (indeed some are justified, as one can argue it should have resisted the ants) will be injustice.
The challenge with leadership in today’s Africa, and for years to come, will always be how to restore the lost strength to the mainframe. There are a couple of brilliant ideas available in the public space on how to achieve this. However, we should continually challenge three things:
- Any discussion of Africa’s development that fails to acknowledge the retrogressive impact of Europeans arrival on our shores;
- Thoughts and expressions that argue that the Europeans have left and Africa is now in the hands of Africans and they have not achieved development for Africans. Have they really left?
- Complacency – Dropping our guard and allowing the physical, cyber and other means of colonization from other fronts. The Chinese are currently making in-roads into Africa, this will leave us worse-off than the Europeans did.
Now, to Professor Ologbenla, the little acorn you sowed in 1986 has now become a full blown Oak. You should be satisfied in ticking off on your notes that I have now fully read your recommended text and am fully persuaded that colonization was evil. So are its aftermath.
Seyi, just like you I do not agree with Walter on all his conclusions but many of them are difficult to refute and argue against. As Larry Davids (“Curb Your Enthusiasm”), will say they are “pretty, pretty, pretty good”. I hope in the coming few articles to address this. By the way, thank you for your friendship over the years, I don’t get to say this often!
Gibbous Moon over Lagos
The Audacity of Hope
The fall and fall of the United States, the rise of China, India and the lot
In fact,……just finding American-bom engineers, whatever their race, was getting harder — which was why every company in Silicon Valley had come to rely heavily on foreign students. Lately, high-tech employers had a new set of worries: Since 9/11 a lot of foreign students were having second thoughts about studying in the States due to the difficulties in obtaining visas. Top-notch engineers or software designers didn’t need to come to Silicon Valley anymore to find work or get financing for a start-
up. High-tech firms were setting up operations in India and China at a rapid pace, and venture funds were now global; they would just as readily invest in Mumbai or Shanghai as in California. And over the long term, David explained, that could spell trouble for the U.S. economy.
…..I just hope somebody in Washington understands how competitive things have become. Our dominance isn’t inevitable.” p141 – 142
Barack OBAMA
Obama, B. (2006) “ The Audacity of Hope:” Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York. New York: Three Rivers Press.(pp 141 – 142)
How would that make you feel?
…..a sense of empathy – is one that I find myself appreciating more and more as I get older. It is at the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule – not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.
Like most of my values, I learned about empathy from my mother. She disdained any kind of cruelty or thoughtlessness or abuse of power, whether it expressed itself in the form of racial prejudice or bullying in the schoolyard or workers being underpaid. Whenever she saw even a hint of such behaviour in me she would look me square in the eyes and ask, “How do you think that would make you feel?”
But it was in my relationship with my grandfather that I think I first internalized the full meaning of empathy. ….By the time I was sixteen we were arguing all the time, usually about me failing to abide by what I considered to be an endless series of petty and arbitrary rules…..
With a certain talent for the rhetoric, as well as an absolute certainty about the merits of my own views, I found that I could generally win these arguments, in the narrow sense of leaving my grandfather flustered, angry, and sounding unreasonable. But at some point, perhaps in my senior year, such victories started to feel less satisfying. I started thinking about the struggles and disappointments he had seen in his life. I started to appreciate his need to feel respected in his own home. I realized that abiding by his rules would cost me little, but to him it would mean a lot. I recognized that sometimes he really did have a point, and that in insisting on getting my own way all the time, without regard to his feelings or needs, I was in some way diminishing myself.
There’s nothing extraordinary about such awakening, of course; in one form or another it is what we all must go through if we are to grow up. And yet I find myself returning again and again to my mother’s simple principle – “How would that make you feel?” – as a guidepost for my politics.
……I believe a stronger sense of empathy would tilt the balance of our current politics in favour of those people who are struggling in this society. After all, if they are like us, then their struggles are our own. If we fail to help, we diminish ourselves.
Barack OBAMA
Obama, B. (2006) “ The Audacity of Hope:” Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York. New York: Three Rivers Press.(pp 66 – 68)
In the world’s greatest deliberative body, no one is listening
If anything, what struck me was just how modest people’s hopes were, and how much of what they believed seemed to hold constant across race, region, religion, and class. Most of them thought that anybody willing to work should be able to find a job that paid a living wage. They figured that people shouldn’t have to file for bankruptcy because they got sick. They believed that every child should have a genuinely good education – that it shouldn’t just be a bunch of talk – and that those same children should be able to go to college even if their parents weren’t rich. They wanted to be safe, from criminals and from terrorists; they wanted clean air, clean water, and time with their kids. And when they got old, they wanted to be able to retire with some form of dignity and respect.
I understand politics as a full-contact sport, and minded neither the sharp elbows not the occasional blind-side hit.
…politics could be different, and … the voters wanted something different; that they were tired of distortion, name-calling, and sound-bite solutions to complicated problems; that if I could reach those voters directly, frame the issues as I felt them, explain the choices in as truthful a fashion as I knew how, then the people’s instincts for fair play and common sense would bring them around. If enough of us took that risk, I thought, not only the country’s politics but the country’s policies would change for the better.
Barack OBAMA
Obama, B. (2006) “ The Audacity of Hope:” Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream. New York. New York: Three Rivers Press.(pp 15, 7, 17-18)
Medea was wrong
It got us worried but Spring is finally here, wiping away the dullness that the cold winter brought with it.
I had taken a long walk within Kings Park and came to the Botanic Garden, perched high on the Mt. Eliza scarp. As I walked through the garden, I could see the flowers blossom, arrayed in their radiant colours and the bees, those hard workers, busy pollinating them. One flower at a time. The scent from the flowers are amazing and surprisingly therapeutic. Nature, majestic in its simplicity filled my eyes with all the primary colours and more.
I thought of the differences in the forms, shapes and colours of the different plants curated in the garden, the importance of each plant and the fact that each thrives and prospers within the same space inhabited by others. Oh boy, how nature abounds in diversity! As I walked, I came across people of different creed, nationalities, sizes and shapes. The garden was bustling with activities, all of us present people were engaged in things that excite of senses. Kings Park is always welcoming, it has been this way for generations and will likely be till eternity.
I exited the garden and within a matter of steps turned into the Kokodas Way, a tree lined short walk. Here, the radiance of the garden gave way to sobriety. I paused for a sober reflection as many before me might have done and many after me would do too. There, at the foot of each tree is a black plaque wrought of molten metal stating a name, the place of death and year. These are memorials to the thousands of Australians lost in combat through the ages.
What caught my attention was the plaque to a soldier said to have mistakenly been killed. I thought of his last seconds on earth, shocked probably but definitely angry. How could this have been? Being hit by an enemy’s bullet is one thing, being felled by the bullets of your “mates” is another! The grief and agony of the shooter and his mates would definitely have followed. It must have been brutal, one that might have taken years of therapy and counseling to heal, if it ever healed at all. For good reason, I suppose. The name of the shooter was kept secret by the military. No parent would like to know the person whose error resulted in the death of their own child.
I also thought of something else, wars. The previous night, I finished reading Medea, an ancient Greek tragedy written by Euripides. The words said by Medea readily came to my mind. Standing there in Athens, having been betrayed by the love of her life, to whom she had given all, even betrayed her father to steal the golden fleece, she said:
“I’d three times go to war
Than suffer childbirth once”
I wondered if she, being afforded the opportunity to stand here at the Kokodas Way, would have uttered these lines? All around me is silent but in this silence, the plaques are shouting. Loudly, to all to hear that there are heavy prices to pay in wars. The agony of mothers being delivered the bad news of the death of their kids? Of wives and kids being told of the death of their husbands, their fathers. Birth pangs are in no way comparable to these, no not at all. The pains of childbirth will come and go but that of wars linger on for a lifetime.
If Medea truly knew what war entails, she would be horrified by her statement. Shouldn’t we be as well? As the drums of war gets beaten around us, may we be solemn for a moment and visit a war memorial? I guess if we all do this, many will sooner come to the table to jaw-jaw rather than war-war.
Our Playwriters are speaking to US
Why are we folding our arms saying “There is little a man can do”? 
Praise-Singer: Elesin, we placed the reins of the world in your hands yet you watched it plunge over
the edge of the bitter precipice. You sat with folded arms while evil strangers tilted the world from its course and crashed it beyond the edge of emptiness – you muttered, there is little that one man can do, you left us floundering in a blind future. Your heir has taken the burden on himself. What the end will be, we are not gods to tell. But this young shoot has poured its sap into the parent stalk, and we know this is not the way of life. Our world is tumbling in the void of strangers, Elesin.
Iyaloja: Why do you strain yourself? Why do you labour at tasks for which no one, not even the man lying there would give you thanks? He is gone at last into the passage but oh, how late it all is. His son will feast on the meat and throw him bones. The passage is clogged with droppings from the King’s stallion; he will arrive all stained in dung.
Pilkings: (in a tired voice): Was this what you wanted?
Iyaloja: No child, it is what you brought to be, you who play with strangers’ lives, who even usurp the vestments of our dead, yet believe that the strain of death will not cling to you. The gods demanded only the old expired plantain but you cut down the sap-laden shoot to feed your pride. There is your board, filled to overflowing. Feast on it. (She screams at him suddenly, seeing Pilkings is about to close Elesin’s staring eyes.) Let him alone! However sunk he was in debt he is no pauper’s carrion abandoned on the road. Since when have strangers donned clothes of indigo before the bereaved cries out his loss?
Death and the King’s Horseman. Wole Soyinka. Spectrum Books, Lagos p 75 – 76
The History of the Yorubas
Yoruba Diplomacy in the light of affront by the British Governor of Lagos
Citizen: Ah yes, but see what treatment the Governor has offered our Master [Alafin]!
SJ: What treatment?
Citizen: Suppose the Queen of the Gehesi (the English) is at war with the King of the Aguda (Portuguese) and the King of Franse (the French) offered to mediate between them, and suppose he sent his messenger to the Queen, and to the Bales (Mayors) of those great English towns we have heard of such as the shipbuilding town (Liverpool), the cloth-weaving town (Manchester) and the town where iron goods come from (Birmingham), asking them to send their own messengers with that of the Queen, how would she like it? Although a woman i believe she would resent it. Yet that is precisely what the Governor has done, sending to the Bale of Ogbomoso, and the Oluwo to send their messengers along with that of the Alafin with you to meet the Commissioner for a conference!
SJ: Did not the Alafin himself suggest the Aseyin, how could it have displease him when he himself suggested a messenger from the Aseyin?
Citizen (laughing he said): But can’t you see that that is ironical? Did you not come with a letter from the Governor to the Aseyin? And yet in the matter of delegates you left him out. The Alafin simply meant to point out to you your inconsistency in leaving him out, for he is higher in rank than either the Bale of Ogbomoso or the Oluiwo. But don’t you see that no messenger from any of them joined you after all?
SJ: Well, if we made a mistake we are quite willing to be corrected but why did he not tell us so? Why adopt measures which will serve to wreck the whole scheme?
Citizen: That is not Oyo etiquette. You know it is never considered polite with Yorubas to tell one to whom respect is due that he is wrong in his methods, but when he meets with failure then he will reconsider his methods. it is not for the Alafin bluntly to correct the Governor, but when he fails in his movements then he must know that his measures were wrong.
SJ: But the Governor cannot be expected to know these tortuous Yoruba methods, the Englishman prefers straight dealing.
Citizen: But he ought at any rate to know what is due to a Sovereign or he would not have been selected to represent one. You are just looking at the matter from the standpoint of the Governor’s messenger that you are, but the Alafin must consider how your message affects him with his chiefs.
The Rev Samuel Johnson, Bishop of OYO
in his 1897 book “The History of the Yorubas” page 592 – 593
Plead your case before the King, be like Bioran” 
….During the year 1866, one Samuel Peeler, alias Bioran, a Sierra Leone emigrant, who had distinguished himself in many a battlefield was summoned before him [Basorun Ogunmola] by certain hunters and charged with appropriating a deer they had shot, the blood and footprints of which they traced to his farm; he did not give it up to hem, on the contrary when it was demanded he offered them a share! According to the customary laws of the country that was a serious offence (hunters are a privileged class of men, they are the national foresters, scouts, and bush detectives) and heavy fines were usually imposed on such offenders.
When Bioran was asked what he had to say, he replied, “Kabiyesi” …when the Ibadan army was before Ijaye between the years 1860 and 1862 on several occasions when such and such (naming them) important personages fell in the thick of the fight and a deadly struggle ensued with the enemy for the appropriation of the body, when none could do it, it was I Bioran, who went forward, lifted the body on my shoulders, and brought it to the camp. Again before Iperu when certain important chiefs fell it was I Bioran with bullets flying about my ears who went to the midline of battle and rescued the body from the enemy. Now, in walking over my farm 2 days ago, I saw a dead deer in the border of my farm, so I said to myself. If Bioran can shoulder a dead man between two fires why should he be unable to shoulder a dead animal between two farms that was why I shouldered it. Kabiyesi.”
The Balogun who remembered the occasions very well laughed outright and exclaimed “Behe na ni wayi Bioran, behe ni tire ri” (and exactly so it was Bioran, and that is just like you). ….and there before the assembly the Basorun praised and honored him for his valour….I see no reason why a valiant man should not enjoy a bit of venison. Turning round to the hunters he said “That is not the sort of man to be fined, he is a valiant man.” He then satisfied the hunters with some presents to console them and dismissed the case.
The Rev Samuel Johnson, Bishop of OYO
in his 1897 book “The History of the Yorubas” page 375 -376.
“Even if I perish in this war I know that you will take care of my children” Yesufu to Prince Atiba, his nephew.
Atiba had nearly lost his life in the Gbodo expedition; his horse was shot dead under him and the Baribas were pressing hard behind him in pursuit. His life-long friend Onipede galloped past him paying no heed to the despairing cry of his friend and master: “Onipede here am I, will you leave me behind to perish?” Onipede notwithstanding this rushed on into the river Ogun and swam across safe to the other side. But when Atiba’s uncle, Yesufu came up and saw him in such straits he dismounted and offered him his horse. Atiba declined to take it, but Yesufu forced him to accept it saying “Even if I perish in this war I know that you will take care of my children.” Yesufu was a powerful swimmer and he assisted both the horse and the rider safe to the other side. Akindero the Lemomu also offered his own horse to be used alternatively with Yesufu’s until they reached home.
Onipede did not wait for him although he was riding on a horse bought for him by the very Prince he now deserted. It was even reported of him that after he had reached the other side of the river, he halted to watch with amusement the distress and danger of his friend battling with the swift current until Yesufu came to his assistance, and that on the Prince’s reaching the other side Onipede came up with a smile and an untimely joke saying “The intrepid warrior that you are, I did not know that a river current would conquer you.” The Prince said nothing, and showed no sign of resentment, but Onipede from that day became a marked man, because it was evident to Atiba that his death would have excited no feelings of sympathy and regret in Onipede.
Rev Samuel Johnson (1921). The History of the Yorubas. Reprint Lagos. CSS Press 2001. Page 277
What we say doesn’t often matter as much as what we do. Does the story below ring a bell?
A Lesson in Diplomacy:
….the result was a congress held at Ikoyi in which all the principal chiefs were present, and to which the King sent an Ilari.
After a prolonged deliberation they came to an agreement to return to their former loyalty and allegiance. The Onikoyi then asked that the Ilari be called in to bear the good tidings to his master; but when called aloud by his official (Ilari) name “Kafilegboin,”the chiefs all gave a start and were much surprised to hear the name of the Ilari sent to them. “What! Kafilegboin! (i.e let’s have it on stiff). Is that then the King’s intention? A name which implies implacability, resolute determination and inexorableness! Very well then, let the rebellion continue. No one among us can consider himself safe at the hands of the King should we return to our allegiance, since he can send us such an Ilari at a time as this when he wants to win us back!” The congress was then dissolved.
Whether the King did this intentionally or not, we cannot say; but Yorubas being very diplomatic, and very suspicious of one another, he should have sent one whose name implies conciliation or harmony if he wished to win back the chiefs.
The Rev Samuel Johnson, Bishop of OYO
in his 1897 book “The History of the Yorubas” page 211.
Guess which people were described below?
“Their more generous treatment of fallen foes and artful method of conciliating a power they could not openly crush, marked them out as a superior people in the art of government.”
The Rev Samuel Johnson, Bishop of OYO
in his 1897 book “The History of the Yorubas” page 200.
Gandhi, An autobiography. The story of my experiments with truth.
Gandhi, An autobiography. The story of my experiments with truth.
A reflection on the book – Gandhi An Autobiography, The story of my experiments with truth written by M.K. Gandhi published in 1957 by Beacon Press.
I have had a few books read to me, a few more narrated to me by others who have read them but the large majority I have read myself. It was in Benin City, Nigeria, while waiting for my bus to Lagos that I scanned through the books displayed at the bus station and came across Gandhi’s book. Suffice it to say that for many years I have been attracted to the man Gandhi of whom I knew little but just enough to conclude that he really deserve his title Mahatma.
I had been a Student Activist, a Union Leader and generally have held positions where I have been the voice for the voiceless and the face for those who found it difficult to speak to power. But I am no Gandhi, though I wish I am one. I came to meet Gandhi, for the very first time in London. Though he died in 1948, we did not get to meet till 2002. Our chance meeting in London, in Madame Tussauds, was unplanned and speechless. As I stood next to the man, I was awe struck about his frail stature and his not so impressing height. I wondered how such a simple man, without much of an earthly possession, became the snare of the British in India and ended up creating a movement that has come to be a standard for all freedom fighters all over the world.
As I read through the last page of the autobiography and placed the book on my bedside desk, I was lost in thought trying to put together all that I had read again. No doubt, this was a difficult book. The difficulty was not in the fluency of the English language into which it has been interpreted from the original version in Gujarati by Mahadev Desai, who was until his death in 1942 Mahatma Gandhi’s personal secretary. The difficulty was not even in understanding the political situation in South Africa and India during the Satyagrahas that Mohandas lead. It was not in understanding the Hindu words that dot the book here and there which. As a Yoruba man who is well versed with the Yoruba language, I have come to understand that the English Language is deficient in many respect with providing an exact meaning of words stated in the originating language.
The major difficulty with the book is in accepting that Gandhi actually lived. Extending it a bit more, in acknowledging that he was a man of similar composition of Spirit, Soul and Body like
the rest of us. This was perplexing and difficult to comprehend. Here was a man who graduated from the prestigious
University College London and got called to the bar in June 1891. With this, he had all the needed pieces to become extremely wealthy practising law. Yet he chose, not by compulsion or any accident of fate, the simple life of a peasant, travelling 3rd class on Indian rails to get from one notable event to another. He was international in outlook, studied in the United Kingdom, practised law in South Africa and eventually took domicile in India, his native country. In each of these countries, he left giant footsteps. At great personal risk to himself and his family, he never for once give up his belief in the good of the human being. He was beaten, kicked into a gutter and been thrown a train, yet there is no record that he took to violence to get his views through. A civil right activist, per excellence, he fought to protect the rights of Indians in South Africa and then in India itself.
Being a Gandhi comes with a cost and it takes him that has a pure conscience to bear this price. On the whole, the book left me with an understanding that there is no force yet known to man that can be an impediment to anyone who has purposed in his mind to seek the greater good of mankind in general. Gandhi was the closest that a mere mortal has gotten close to the truth and he preached that love transcends all. While we may have opposing views, this doesn’t make us enemies but rather should promote mutual respect, tolerance and love. In fact, he encourages that we should “love the meanest of creation as oneself.”
Gandhi had said “I have nothing new to teach the world. Truth and non-violence are as old as the hills.” In this I find the sage very wrong. Our lives today are filled with violence of the strangest kind. It’s on the news, nearly every night. The killings on the street of Melbourne, the shootings in Virginia, Orlando and New York. The mass murder in Manchester, in Jerusalem, in Berlin, need I go on? How I wish the world will learn from Gandhi and subject itself to be taught about truth and non-violence.
Some remarkable excerpts from the book:
It has always been a mystery to me how men can feel themselves honoured by the humiliation of their fellow beings.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.155
About the same time I came in contact with another Christian family. At their suggestion I attended the Wesleyan church every Sunday….The church did not make a favourable impression on me. The sermon seemed to be uninspiring. The congregation did not strike me to be particularly religious. They were not an assembly of devout souls; they appeared to be worldly-minded people going to church for recreation and in conformity to custom. Here at times, I would involuntarily doze.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.160
How was one, accustomed to measure things in gold sovereigns, all at once to make calculations in tiny bits of copper? As the elephant is powerless to think in the terms of the ant, in spite of the best intentions in the world, even so is the Englishman powerless to think in terms of, or legislate for, the Indian.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.245
To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself. And a man who aspires after that cannot afford to keep out of any field of life…..I can say without the slightest hesitation, and yet in all humility, that those who say that religion has nothing to do with politics do not know what religion means.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.504
I have disregarded the order served upon me not for want of respect for lawful authority, but in obedience to the higher law of our being, the voice of conscience.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.414
There was strict untouchability in Bihar. I might not draw water at the well whilst the servants were using it, lest drops of water from my bucket might pollute them, the servants not knowing to what caste I belonged. Rajkumar directed me to the indoor latrine, the servant promptly directed me to the outdoor one. All this was far from surprising or irritating to me, for I was inured to such things. The servants were doing the duty, which they thought Rajendra Babu would wish them to do
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.406
The brute by nature knows no self-restraint. Man is man, because he is capable of, and only in so far he exercises, self-restraint……..For perfection or freedom from error comes only from grace
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.317
To save or not to save you is in His hands. As to me you know my way. I can but try to save you by means of confession.
– Gandhi, An Autobiography p.367
In God’s Name by David Yallop
Luciani then expressed his wish that the words of Sandhu Singh would perhaps one day no longer be true:
“One day I was sitting on the banks of a river. I took from the water a round stone and I broke it. Inside it was perfectly dry. That stone had been lying in the water for a long time but the water had not penetrated it. Then I thought that the same thing happened to men in Europe. For centuries they have been surrounded by Christianity but Christianity has not penetrated, does not live within them.”
In God’s Name by David Yallop. 2007.Page 48
“The possible mistake of the superior [the Pope] does not authorize the disobedience of subjects.” Cardinal Felici, Page 22
Ghandi “I admire Christ but not Christians.”. – Page 47
If you come across error, rather than uprooting it or knocking it down, see if you can trim it patiently, allowing the light to shine upon the nucleus of goodness and truth that usually is not missing even in erroneous opinions. – Page 13
“….Some time later Marcinkus got me an audience with Paul VI (the Pope), who thanked me because in the meantime I had sorted out some problems of the Ambrosiano Library. In reality, I ynderstood he was thanking me for buying Banca Cattolica del Veneto” recorded statement of Roberto Calvi in Vatican Incorporated. In God’s Name by David Yallop page 131
“…Then Pope Paul VI died….When he heard the name of the new Pope, Albino Luciani, Calvi was shocked. Virtually any of the other 110 Cardinals would have been preferable….Then Calvi heard the news he had been dreading. Bishop Paul Marcinkus’s days were numbered. If Marcinkus went, total exposure of the entire fraud was inevitable. He recalled what Marcinkus had said to him by telephone within days of Luciani’s election: ‘Things are going to be very different from now on. This Pope is quite a different man.’ ” Vatican Incorporated in In God’s Name by David Yallop Pages 140 to 141.
“…When the Cardinals elected Albino Luciani to the Papacy on that hot August day in 1978 they set an honest, holy, totally incorruptible Pope on a collision course with Vatican Incorporated. The irresistible market forces of the Vatican Bank, APSA and the other money-making elements were about to be met by the immovable integrity of Albino Luciani.” Vatican Incorporated in In God’s Name by David Yallop Pages 143 to 144.
“Earlier, on September 6th, during a General Audience, members of the Papal entourage, fussing around the Holy Father in a manner reminiscent of irritating flies around a horse, publicly displayed embarrassment as Luciani held over 15,000 people spellbound. Entering almost at a trot into Nervi Hall, which was filled to overflowing, he talked about the soul. There was nothing remarkable in that. What was unusual was the manner and the style.
Once a man went to buy a new motor car from an agent. The salesman gave him some advice. ‘Look, it’s an excellent car, make sure you treat it correctly. Premium petrol in the tank, the best oil in the engine.’ The customer replied, ‘Oh no, I can’t stand the smell of petrol or oil. Fll the tank with champagne, which I like very much and I’ll oil the joints with jam.’ The salesman shrugged, ‘Do what you like: but don’t come and complain if you end up in a ditch with your car.’
The Lord did something similar with us: he gave us this body, animated by an intelligent soul, a good will. He said, ‘This machine is a good one, but treat it well.'” The Thirty-three Days in In God’s Name by David Yallop Pages 147 to 148.
and Daniel wrote a book – A Chase in the Shadows…
Excerpt From: Daniel Abimibola. “A Chase in the Shadows.” Scotch College, 2013. iBooks.
“Startled, stunned,
You begin to run,
‘Til you hear the gun,
Then the baffling is done.
Frightened, stricken,
Your footsteps quicken.
Another gunshot then,
You hear the sounds of dogs and men.
One thing echoes through your mind,
Run! Run! RUN!
One thing is on their mind,
Gun! Gun! GUN!
You finally escape,
But then shouts the man in the cape,
‘Don’t stop until he is done!’,
The chase has begun.”
Dreams from My Father by Barrack Obama
The marker that I placed on this book shows that I purchased it in Abuja on 19th Oct 2011. Thinking back, I faintly recollect attending ICAN’s Annual Accountants Conference and must have purchased this book, along with others, at the foyer of the conference. I love books but if the truth must be told, it is not easy finding time within my busy schedule to read and do justice to each of the books in my collection.
Going by the purchase date, I must have started reading this Obama book the very next day it was purchased. I do remember that as I read the first few chapters, I could not put the book down. Having watched Obama deliver different speeches in his current role as the President of America, I have come to admire his oratory skills. He is enchanting and probably more gifted in his ability to use words to move mountains. We saw him do this and getting Obama Care through the house. He recently repeated this in getting the Republican lawmakers to back down on the budget stand-off that would have shut the government and plunge the United States into default. Whichever way you look at him, apart from being the President, he is an interesting orator. In reading his memoir, I was interested in understanding how he came to acquire this skill. Additionally, being the very first black president of the United States, I believe he not only understand what racism is but has coped very well in managing this in a way that equipped and got him into the White House. I wanted to know what he knew and understand how he was able to rise above all odds.
Then, I had to relocate and move my house. I must have struggled between what I needed to take along and what needed to be stored – in the face of restriction on the weight of things that I can ship. Sadly, I could not take the book with me, as with some other very important items also. A recent trip to the storage and high on my list of things to retrieve were the books. Suffice to say that finally, I have finished reading the book. A book that tells of how an ordinary boy of mixed parentage traversed Hawaii, Indonesia, Chicago and in the midst of this was constantly battling with identifying himself – who am I? To me, this is reflective of the battle that goes on daily in the life of many African Americans, Latinos and people of different races growing up in Western Culture. Unfortunately for these people, they are mostly not accepted by their race and not least by America or the Western Country (be it Germany, Australia or UK) that they now called home. So the battle rages on.
For Obama, the trip to Kenya, in search of an answer to the question Who am I did not help to fully resolve this. One thing, however, was that he was able to establish his root, understand the cultures to which he is remotely linked by blood and probably for the very first time, found acceptance in a people that can identify that his name “Obama” doesn’t sound strange! He knew Kenya was home.
One great lesson that one should not miss in the book is that our life journey, the experiences are all important in aiding us to achieve our full potential. Obama the President was Obama the activist, he was Obama the rebellious little Hawaiian boy, who rarely met kids whose families had less than his. The same Obama that all respect and hold dear today was that little boy who was flying kites in Djakarta. He was the same Obama that was moving from one house to another, spending winter in Chicago, to canvasing for better amenities in Altgeld, a dump – and a place to house poor blacks. We should also learn that good parenting is powerful! Where would Obama be today if not for Toot and if not for Gamps? Obama learnt values from his mother and we all should teach our kids values – these outlast everything. He learnt that if he wanted to grow into a human being, he needed some values, values such as Honesty, Fairness, Straight Talk and Independent Judgement.
“All too rarely do I hear people asking just what it is that we’ve done to make so many children’s hearts so hard, or what collectively we might do to right heir moral compass – what values we must live by. Instead I see us doing what we’ve always done – pretending that these children are somehow not our own.” Barack Obama
“There may not be any bad kids,…, but there sure are a lot of bad parents”
“The white man alone is like an ant,
He can be easily crushed.
But like an ant, the white man works together.
His nation, his business –
these things are more important to him than himself
………
Black men are not like this.
Even the most foolish black man
thinks he knows better than the wise man.
That is why the black man will always lose”
– Onyango
BONHOEFFER – Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy by Eric Metaxas.
Over the years, I have read a couple of biographies and when this book was sent to me by a friend, my reaction was – this is another one of them. My approach to reading biography is always one of caution, I am cautious because I know that everyone likes to look good and as such any biographical work ends up in being an advertisement of how “holier than thou” the subject was. Of course, I do not believe that any human being is a saint, perfect and without blemish!
Thank God that Eric Metaxas did not potray Dietrich as one of these saints, that job was left to the Westminster Abbey who has classified him as one of the 20th Century Martyrs. Eric Metaxas simply led us through the live and times of Dietrich and allows us to end up with the conclusions that we want to make of this life – a gift from God for his generation and our generation.
Before the German’s murdered democracy with the tools of democracy and the German state became Hitler’s stronghold, the Bonhoeffer family was already an accomplished one with an envious lineage. It was to this family that Dietrich was born, who in 1920 decided to become a theologian! This, to me was his first act of rebellion, At 14, he was already a rebel. A rebel against becoming an accomplished scientist like his dad or a high profile lawyer like his brother Klaus became with Lufthansa. He was a theologian from a family that wasn’t churchgoing. It was to the credit of Paula and Karl Bonhoeffer, Dietrich’s parents that they treated Dietrich’s choice with respect and cordiality.
The entire book, to me highlights the struggle of a man – Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who appeared to be a captive of God and it raises the question of how impossible it is to reconcile God’s calling with the popular belief system in the world without being looked at as someone with a nut missing upstairs, just like Jeremiah in the Bible? Obedience to God is simply enmity with the world and enmity with the world will almost always certainly lead to one having to lay down his life. As Henning von Tresckow, one of Dietrich’s co-conspirators in the plan to assassinate Hitler puts it, a human being’s moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions. This was an issue that confronted Dietrich, it is the same issue that confronts us all on a daily basis. The bible makes us to understand that though we live in the world, we are not of the world – John 15:19. So like Dietrich, are we willing to lay down our lives in defence of our faith?
Again, in 1933, before many within the German state became conscious that they were far from shore, alone in a boat with a madman (Hitler), Dietrich’s rebellion came to the surface. This time, the church was dilly dallying and a stance need be taken – to be with Hitler, which was the most obvious choice to many and popular, or to support the Jews against the Nazi and the state. The church could not take a stand but Dietrich did. He took a stand. Though he was not a Jew, he would stand with the Jews and hence incur the wrath of the state. It was one that was unpopular but one he took with God. He declared that it was the duty of the church to stand up for the Jews. As if that was not enough, he also put three responsibilities before the church then –
1. It must question the state;
2. It must help the state’s victim and
3. Work against the state, if necessary.
There you have it, the seed of rebellion was germinating and would grow up to be a tree of conspiracy. Let’s contrast this with the stance Martin Niemoller took, a stance that haunted him all his life, and led him to putting together these infamous words:
First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade unionists, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out –
because I was not a Jew.
And then they came for me –
and there was no one left to speak for me.
Dietrich’s had a calling, one that was quite clear to him. What was not clear to Dietrich, was what the end would be. He wasn’t bothered by it and he needed not to – as he was entirely submissive to the one who had called. Even in the face of imminent death, such was his submission that a co-prisoner testified that he
“saw Pastor Bonhoeffer kneeling on the floor, praying fervently to God…so devout and so certain that God heard his prayer….I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God.”
Isn’t this descriptive of exactly what Jesus did on at Gethsemene? There he cried out to the father and asked
O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. Matt 26:39
Dietrich and Jesus, were entirely submissive. Though they would rather not want to die but were ready to lay down their lives in total obedience to God – if that was what God willed, which happened to be the case for them. Just like Dietrich, we all have our callings and I will argue that it is clear to us. In one place, Jesus spelt it out that we should go into the world and make disciples of all nations. Again, like Dietrich what is unclear to us all is what the end would be to us and we remain bothered by this which we ought not to be, if we believe on him that has called.
On April 9th 1945, Dietrich, this prisoner of the living God was hanged – he had been imprisoned for two years and it was just two (2) weeks before the Allied Forces marched into the same Flossenburg concentration camp and freed all the other prisoners. Listening to Dietrich’s sermon, years back in London in November 1933, one is tempted to conclude that his death finally was freedom to the beginning of a new life. In that sermon he had stated:
“No one has yet believed in God and the kingdom of God, no one has yet heard about the realm of the resurrected, and not been homesick from that hour, waiting and looking forward joyfully to being released from bodily existence.”
I asked myself the question – why did the living God allow Dietrich to die so close to when he could have been liberated and end up doing so much more work for God amongst the living? This question is made more troubling in that this same living God, our God, in his permissive will also allowed Hitler, the evil incarnate, to escape his assassination.
Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, regarding Hitler, said he had searched his conscience
“before God and before myself. This man is evil incarnate….It’s time now for something to be done. He who has courage to act must know that he will probably go down in German history as a traitor. But if he fails to act, he will be a traitor before his own conscience”.
With that in mind, he took the courageous step and planted a bomb – six feet from the Fuhrer’s legs. This was the plan, to which Dietrich and others were co-conspirators. It was to remove Hitler and spare the world the agony and the pain that was being unleashed on it. Yet Hitler would be saved and get more hardened declaring that
“It was Providence that spared me….This proves that I’m on the right track. I feel this is the confirmation of all my work”.
Well, some will argue that maybe Dietrich in this instance did not hear from God. Did God tell him to be part of the conspiracy to remove Hitler? Was it not the same God that prevented David from laying his hands on Saul in a cave in the wilderness of Engedi? Despite the Spirit of God having departed from Saul, David will not put forth his hand against the LORD’s anointed but cut off a piece of Saul’s skirt to evidence that he could have killed Saul? Could God himself not have slaughtered Pharaoh and let the children of Israel go but rather requested Moses to carry out ten signs through which he gradually hardened Pharaoh’s hearts and then laid his hands on Egypt so that they came to know that “He is the LORD”?
It will be difficult to fault such a logic but again God works in mysterious ways. With God allowing Hitler to live, through his permissive will, the world would witness more agony, despair and the death of uncountable numbers of Jews and that of Dietrich in concentration camps. The world will come to know that HE is the LORD and rules in the affairs of man! So why will God permit Dietrich to die and Hitler to live? Would my creator not have demonstrated his mighty powers to the world more by allowing the bomb to blow up Hitler and spare the world the agonies and sufferings to come? So if God had required Dietrich to act on his conviction and be a part of the conspiracy to remove Hitler, should God not have shown up with signs and wonders?
Just stretching my imagination, could it be that God wants him to die as a martyr and not from cancer, after all he was a cigarette smoker? I don’t know the answer but it was God’s will and Dietrich died. The answer to these questions are at the heart of why we have atheist in the world. In the biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, the reporting on the sufferings of the Biafran children was what led Steve Jobs out of the church. He never came back and death took him as an atheist or if you like, a Buddist. He just could not fathom why a just God will allow the unjust to flourish in the world and cause much pain and sufferings. The only consolation I have, that we all have, as Christians, is that God’s works are perfect and his ways are just. As Moses puts it in Deuteronomy 32: 3 -4 :
For I proclaim the name of the Lord;
Ascribe greatness to our God!
The Rock! His work is perfect,
For all His ways are just;
A God of faithfulness and without injustice,
Righteous and upright is He.
Through the mouth of Isaiah (Isaiah 55:8-9) God himself said:
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways,
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
So why do we think we are different and that our calling is not to die in obedience to God? In this was a challenge to me, and maybe to all of us who claim to be a Christian – there are simply no guarantees with the faith we profess. But isn’t there one? Did God not assure us, again through the mouth of Isaiah in Isaiah 43:2 that:
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you.
For I am the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.
Yes, there is a guarantee that we will pass through the waters and surely through the fires as well but we will not be consumed. How then does one interpret what the word “consume” mean, seeing that Dietrich died? For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were spared death yet they went through the fire. Their faith was of such that they were prepared and defied the King even if God whom they serve will not deliver them out of the Kings hands. In their case, God showed up for them and delivered them while they were in the fiery furnace. God did not show up for Dietrich, neither did he show up for Jesus – they both died. And then, God showed up. In Dietrich’s case, the world came to know and receive him as a martyr, one of the very few in the 20th century. We all know of Jesus.
So we all do pray and want God in our lives but are we willing to be like Dietrich or be obedient as Christ disipes and live out our calling as Christ-ians – Christ like? Just before we answer and get on our knees for our next prayer, let’s consider Jeremiah. He was just as much flesh and blood as we are, a human being like ourselves? He was entirely submissive to God and yet he went through pains, was mocked, brutalized and generally upbraided as a disturber of the peace, an enemy of the people. He was a prisoner and he had to follow. His path was prescribed and it was the path of the man whom God will not let go, who will never be rid of God. At God’s instructions, he did things that caused him pain and sufferings, was taken captive, held in chain.
Now let us pray, knowing that our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. This is the way Paul puts it in 2 Cor 4:17. this is the only way to look at our trials and temptations while we are still part of this world. Let us pray to be of use to God and that his will, not ours be done. Isn’t that what Jesus commands in the LORD’s prayer?
If all the message of Dietrich’s life is lost to us, one message that should not be lost is that anything short of complete obedience to God is “cheap grace”. Action must follow what one believed, else one could not claim to believe it.
Are we acting out our believe and leaving God to take care of the ending? So Steve G, thank you for sending this book my way and making me another like you – thought provoked and challenged.
Federal Character in Nigeria….Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Meritocracy was further undermined in 1979 by the introduction of the Federal Character Principle, which sets a quota for the number of public servants to be appointed from each state. It applies both to recruitment into the public service and to appointments to the top echelons of the service, such as permanent secretaries, directors generals, and heads of extra-ministerial departments and agencies………Although the underlying principle is sound in a diverse country such as Nigeria, its application is said by civil servants themselves to be grossly abused, with merit often sacrificed to mediocrity as patently less qualified people get appointed to posts in the name of fulfilling the principle.”
Reforming the Unrefornable – Lessons from Nigeria by Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala page 5.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson…
What are you reading? I am currently reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
“In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church’s pastor.
“If I raise my finger, will God know which one I’m going to raise even before I do it?”
The pastor answered, “Yes, God knows everything.”
Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, “Well, does God know about this and what’s going to happen to those children?”
“Steve, I know you don’t understand, but yes, God knows about that.”
Jobs announced that he didn’t want to have anything to do with worshipping such a God and he never went back to church”
According to Jobs, “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw it.”
extracted from pages 14 to 15 of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Published by Simon & Schuster 2011.
Some questions to ask –
1. If this Pastor were to know his answers would cause Steve to renounce everything about Christianity, would he have handled this differently?
2. Could any answer have caused Steve not to renounce Christianity. In essence, was he using this Biafran issue as an escape opportunity?
3. What is the appropriate role of faith in Christianity, remembering that the Bible says that without faith, it is impossible to please God and even jesus rebuke his disciples for being of little faith? Should everything be based on faith with no provision for common sense?
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
“He was not a model boss or human being, tidy packaged for emulation. Driven by demons, he could drive those around him to fury and despair. But his personality and passions and products were all inter-related, just as Apple’s hardware and software tended to be, as if part of an integrated system. His tale is thus both instructive and cautionary, filled with lessons about innovation, character, leadership, and values.”
extract from page xxi of “Steve Jobs” by Walter Isaacson
There was a country by Chinua Achebe
Chinua, our own Chinua, widely respected all over the world and the author of the best selling book ever to be written by an African(Things Fall Apart) recently put his personal experiences as a Nigerian and then a Biafran together and named the book There Was a Country.
To start with, he stated clearly that the content of the book are his personal experience and one should commend him for his views. At the very least, Chinua is entitled to write his opinions, experiences and views of the events that happened in making him the man that he is today. That is no sacrilege. Also, at no time did he make any attempt at claiming that his views represent those of the larger society. Additionally, he went to great extents to provide written references to support various assertions that he made in the book. To me, anyone that is interested in understanding the Nigerian dilemma, why a country blessed with so much has only strive and poverty to show for it, needs to read Chinua’s accounts as well as those other books that he referenced.
History, many says, is bound to repeat itself. If we as Nigerians do not get a grasp of our past, then our future remains bleak as we would have denied ourselves that very important piece of knowledge informing us of where we have been. As an elder and a constant voice over the decades in the build up of the Nigerian project, when Chinua speaks, people are bound to listen. Much more. Many are bound to hold his words as the words coming from the gods, especially our kinsmen from the East. As a result, Chinua owes us to speak the truth without coloration. He owes the present, the needs for objectivity in his discussions regarding the past. He owes the nation, and those other friends of Nigeria, to be without guile and rise above ordinary men by being conciliatory.
Did Chinua deliver on his debts as summarized above? My personal views are that he came not a little short from fulfilling these expectations. I will quickly accede that after all, he is also a mortal man with his weaknesses and colorations, no matter the efforts at disguising them.
The Nigerian Civil War shaped the destiny of the then budding nation. Unfortunately, the wounds left by the war are yet to heal almost fifty years thereafter. Yes, the Igbos were hounded out of the North and many lost their lives as a result of the senseless killings, especially following the July 1966 coup. Of course, the action of bringing all Igbos home by Ojukwu was the wisest thing to do and he was courageous in doing this. To an extent, one could also support the secession by Biafra. However, knowing when to advance and when to retreat is very important. I think the majority of the losses in human lives and social standing by my fellow countrymen of the Igbo stock was the inability of the leadership to exercise this wisdom. The war should have ended much earlier and the doggheaded refusal of the secessionists to accept the establishment of a land based food and relief corridor largely account for the majority of the war dead.
Chinua is requesting for the leaders of the Nigerian war efforts to be brought to book as their aim was to completely eliminate the Igbo people. I doubt whether many do agree with his views on this, especially beyond the boundaries of the east. While he Igbos should and must complain about the unnecessary killings by the Nigerian Army, this case is not much helped by the fact that the Biafran strategy in countering the Nigerian invasion was to make it a gorilla warfare. In a gorilla warfare, there is nothing much to distinguish an opponent’s soldier from the civilian. Anyone could harbor death for the Nigerian Soldier. Since the Biafran had chosen the war tactic, the response by the Nigerian forces was predictable – each and all men they come across we’re predictably a part of the Biafran Army. Chinua mentioned the choice of his family house, by the Biafran Army, as a good site to position artillery to fight the invading Nigerian Army. In doing this, the Biafrans have indirectly made a civilian structure to become a target for military action. How many more houses, schools, hospitals were used as Biafran Military bases, I do not know. However, eact time the Biafran chose to do this, they have inadvertently turned such into targets for elimination by the Nigerians, hence endangering more Igbo lives. This, to me, was a clear demonstration of leadership apathy to the decimation and suffering of its people.
We are all parts of history, shaping and molding it. Never should we try to re-write it. We should carefully consider how we are affecting current and future generations when we decide to color our stories to make it look good. When Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed by Abacha, I happened to be in the city of Port Harcourt carrying out a work assignment for the bank I was working for. I was led on that trip by Ugo (surname withheld) a senior colleague. Days after the execution, the military decided it was good enough time to announce Ken’s death. When this was broadcast on the radio, Ugo was jubilant, ecstatic and full of rejoicing. He came to my room in the hotel where I was staying to share his hat redness of Ken for being responsible for the take over of the Igbo’s properties in Port Harcourt and then for the penury suffered by Ugo’s family immediately after the war. I saw the hatred in him shown and I was disappointed that Ugo, a man of education and of whom I had tremendous respect could be that base. It is a fact that many Igbos left Port Harcourt and moved to the hinterland, to pursue the Biafran Republic. It is also a fact that many old their properties in doing this and of course lost good fortune as such. Should we hold this against Ken and if we should, should Ken’s execution for a totally different issue be a cause for joy?
This sordid tale, in it’s many varieties, still abound in Nigeria today and is eating deep into the fabrics that bind us together as a people. I believe it is time to let go of the animosity and hatredness. This might have been justifiable during and immediately after the war but four decades later is enough time to let go of the hurts of the war. We should not forget what caused the war and what injustices were suffered by people on both sides of the battle ground and work on building what remains of us as a people.
Chinua, it is time you become a Nigerian again and let go of Biafra – this was good while it lasted.
House of War by Dare Babarinsa
Shehu Shagari’s tenure is a classic instance of the encounter of the unprepared with the unforeseen…….
…..He was a man with neither charisma nor definable identity. His was a face that would get lost in the crowd. But Shagari’s was a product of the peculiar dynamics of Nigerian politics. He rose so high not only because of his natural ability as a politician of means, but also because he was born in the ‘right’ corner of Nigeria. At the time he was elected president in 1979 there were many members of the Nigerian elite who believed that the leadership of the country should reside with the Hausa-Fulani oligarchy. But Shagari’s needed more than the mere accident of birth to win the number one spot. He was a seasoned political strategist who oversees his opponents by guided simplicity and measured eloquence of silence. He was a clever fox who survived in the gathering of impatient lions….
Quoted from House of War by Dare Babarinsa pages 166-167. Spectrum books 2003.
Say you’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan – Luxurious Hearses
Nduese stood over the two corpses and barked repeatedly into the heavens. The dog mistook the still-twitching, protesting stump as sign of life – Concluding paragraph of Luxurious Hearses, one of the five stories contained in Uwem Akpan’s Say you’re One of Them (An Oprah Winfrey Bookclub endorsed reading). Bookcraft 2008 page 234.
This house has fallen by Karl Meir
Because the Nigerian State is so fragile we will be faced with these bush fires for some time to come. Father Mathew Kuka talking about the frequent Ervin and religious crises in Nigeria. Quoted from Karl Meir’s This house has fallen.
Freakonomics by S.D. Levitate & S.J. Dubner
“Information is a beacon, a cudgel, an olive branch, a deterrent – all depending on who wields it and how. Information is so powerful that the assumption of information, even if the information does not actually exist, can have a sobering effect.” p63 of Freakonomics by S.D. Levitate & S.J. Dubner
Tale of the Cow Tail
Finally finished reading this first written work by Lanre Ogundimu. Not a bad entry for a first work.
The writer’s attempt to appeal to a wide range of audience made the stories rather too short and most times I was gasping to understand the key message inherent in each of the short stories. I still struggle with how to classify the book – is this a story book, a biography or a work of fiction?
I enjoyed the opening chapter most and would have suggested to the writer to represent his American experiences differently in a form that vividly shows the differencies between that society and ours.
Lest I forget, the cover page is beautiful.
Fattening for Gabon
’No wahala…repetez après moi:
“We were rescued from the water by a caring crew…’
‘We were rescued from the water by a caring crew,’ we said.
‘ “We were more than these, but some are dead” ‘
‘We were more than these, but some are dead.’
‘ “We were tossed into the sea, and many of us died.” ‘
‘We were tossed into the sea, and many of us died.’
‘ “We had been at sea for three days before the sailors told us we were at risk.” ‘
‘We had been at sea for three days before the sailors told us we were at risk.’
‘ “We were heading for Cote d’Ivoire before the mishap.” ‘
‘We were heading for Cote d’Ivoire before the mishap.’
Excerpt from “Fattening for Gabon” from Say You’re One of Them by Uwem Akpan. Book craft 2010 page 112
Child trafficking is sickening and going on around us.
It is a lucrative trade that capitalizes on the extreme poverty, greed and ignorance of many and deprives many kids of third childhood and innocence.
My Parent’s Bedroom by Uwem Akpan
’My people,’ he mumbles, ‘let another do it. Please.’
‘No, you do it, traitor!’………….
‘If we kill your wife for you,’ the wizard says, ‘we must kill you. And your children too.’…………
‘My husband, be a man,’ Mamman interupts, looking down.
‘Shenge, answer!’ someone yells. The crowd of Hutus murmur and become impatient. ‘Wowe, subiza.’
‘My husband, you promised me.’
Papa lands the machete on Maman’s head. Her voice chokes and she falls off the bed and onto her back on the wooden floor. It’s like a dream. The knife tumbles out of Papa’s hand. His eyes are closed, his face calm, though he’s shaking.
Extracted from “My Parent’s Bedroom” a story in “Say You’re One of Them” by Uwem Akpan. Bookcraft 2008 page 254.
If you are a husband, faced with killing your wife and saving your life and those of your children OR not killing her and the entire family is killed by your kins men, What choice will you make?
This reflect the Rwanda genocide and choices people are forced to make. If you can kill your wife, the blood of any other person on the face of the earth will mean virtually nothing to you.