posted
Sometime during the year 2000, the Lagos state governor, Bola Tinubu, signed a $400 million contract with Enron for the installation of up to date and state of the art power in Lagos state. I know it was too good to be true ans as such, another 419 chop-chop deal for Tinubu and Enron executives. Expectedly, I was proven right. Now Enron has been declared bankrupt, duped sharholders and customers, while the CEO and his henchmen rewarded themselves with hefty million dollar sums.
A $400 million Biafra oil money used to line the pockets of Tinubu and his fellow 419 thieves. What an outrage!
Enron Gets Zapped by Its Own Greed
When the stock of energy giant Enron fell to 36 cents per share this week from a high of $84 this year, the market finally accepted the reality that the company--a middleman whose main business was not producing or delivering power but trading it--was never really needed. Investors, who unlike Enron executives, didn't sell until too late lost their retirement savings and children's college tuition to the illusion.
Enron workers sacrificed their retirement plans, which were locked up in Enron stock that was frozen by Enron executives after they sold off their own shares.
California ratepayers will pay billions too much for power over the next decades to foot the bill for price gouging by Enron and its proteges. The task for both society and the market now is to prevent such mirages in the future.
The illusion that Enron had value was created through both politics and philosophy.
The company's chairman, Kenneth Lay, was one of President Bush's biggest donors and was an energy advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney. Lay was even rumored to be on the president's short list for Treasury secretary.
Lay's power over the Bush administration was so great that he has been credited with forcing the nation's chief energy regulator out of his job because the regulator disagreed with him.
Enron created itself through a growing corporate vision: If you want market share, create a market, even if there is no need for it. Lay turned a stodgy gas pipeline company into a tech-savvy energy trader.
The "make a market" mantra, in conjunction with his long-standing ties to political leaders, shifted the nation's energy system from regulated monopolies to a deregulated, wholesale market-based system with few rules and even fewer entities with the technical capacity to make sense of it.
For Enron and Lay, a market was a tool for profitability, not productivity. Rather than add efficiency to the energy delivery system, Enron simply added layers of expense.
The new energy market, with Enron at its vanguard, became a free-for-all of energy companies selling electricity back and forth like pork bellies while siphoning off the excess with each trade.
Its apparent success made Enron a shining star on Wall Street. Chairman Lay took in $141.6 million in salary, bonuses and stock in 2000. He cashed out another $20 million earlier this year. Former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling took home $70 million in 2000.
Meanwhile, what did Enron accomplish?
If a competitive market was supposed to drive prices lower, why were Californians paying so much more for their power?
Why were there blackouts?
Indeed, Enron's stock was so high due to investors' belief that the company would continue to price gouge in California and, as their deregulation model took hold, throughout the country.
Greed, cloaked in the promise of a competitive market, created and drove the deregulated energy system. So it should come as no surprise that Enron would try turning the free money skimmed from ratepayers into more free money by creating new markets.
But through foolish investments and poor management decisions, their money began to evaporate.
Without oversight, Enron managed to conceal massive mistakes. It played accounting games to hide problems and shifted money from book to book to maintain the illusion of success.
Why would Enron come clean about partnerships that were unprofitable, if no regulators were there to make it do so?
Like Icarus, the company flew too high and came crashing down. Only the small investors and pension fund mangers who bet on the company were burned, while insiders parachuted out into the sunset with all the proceeds.
The moral for society should not only be that markets need rules and limits, but also that some things don't need markets at all.
Enron took over a system that reliably moved a public good--electricity--from power plant to home. It used deregulation to make money out of nothing, simply by adding cost to the product en route.
Federal regulators should ensure that if Lay or other Enron executives deceived the public, they pay a price.
Courts should return to workers and shareholders as much of their losses as possible.
The energy system must reinstate rules.
Most important, society must recognize that when such great value is pinned on illusions, itwill also have a great cost.
posted
I know the story below is not related to Tinubu/Enron but I cannot help my impulse to share. I must admit I came close to tears.
The Guardian Monday, December 3, 2001
The girl died
By Bolaji Ogunseye
LET us start with a small quiz. An innocent girl going her way around Ikeja Bus Stop in Lagos is accidentally shot by an 'unknown' person on an otherwise uneventful Sunday evening. A Rapid Response Squad police van is nearby; so are many passers-by, including a motorcyclist and his passenger. The victim is writhing in pain, bathed in blood from her shattered femur (thigh) bone. Please tick the right answer: (a) The police, funded by your tax and also living off your daily 20 naira contributions (especially if you are a public transporter) will rush to the scene, apprehend and arrest the source of the gunshot, take the victim to the hospital, and then make efforts to contact the family; (b) the public, including the motorcyclist, will do nothing, since it is really not their official duty; perhaps, if the police draw the public's attention to the incident, the passers-by may choose to just say to the victim ñ 'Oh, so sorry, what a pity; it's one of those things', and, having shown 'sympathy', then disappear.
Being a normal person with normal expectations, and aware of all the great police reforms being claimed by government, I should definitely choose option (a) as my quiz answer. So would you too, I guess. And we would all be wrong. Swap the characters and roles played in the two options, and you will be confronted with the full horror of what happened on Sunday October 14, 2001. The train of events leading to the eventual death of Miss Kumbi Adewale on Thursday October 18, 2001 is truly blood-chilling. It should remind you and me that "Things Are Getting Better" mainly for those in government and power, who are well protected by security details, and enjoy the shallow luxury of a string of government cars screaming behind and ahead of them whenever they are out on the street. I love calling them the 'Do-Little-Enjoy-A-Lot' set. As our politicians continue in their self-praise and self-reward, government at all levels in this country must really dig their teeth more deeply and fanatically into many of the problems that blight peoples' lives and livelihood on a daily basis.
Even in the relatively reassuring governance atmosphere under President Obasanjo (and, sadly, this better feeling only comes when things are compared with IBB's and Abacha's regimes!), it is still possible to invoke that famous French clich: the more things change, the more they remain fundamentally the same. This civilian administration must really struggle to change Nigeria in at least some of the most fundamentally baneful aspects of daily life. Our police service is one of these fundamental banes, and the painful waste of Kumbi is a dismal reminder.
A 29-year-old B. Sc. Accounting graduate of one the universities in Lagos, and nearly at the very end of her ICAN qualification studies, Kumbi was really no longer a 'girl' as such. She was to be married by January 2002. For years, she had attended ICAN lessons/discussion sessions every Sunday, and had been taking her professional exams, nearing a conclusion when she met this totally avoidable death through wicked, uncaring, irresponsible and inhumane policing. She decided, against usual practice, to briefly see a friend somewhere in Ikeja before heading home after that Sunday's ICAN preparation session. While walking past the Ikeja Bus Stop, what the police later admitted was an 'accidental discharge' set off and hit her thigh (femur), shattering the bones instantly. While the public was fussing around trying to help, the police (despite the sound of a gun) simply carried on with their conversation by the parked Rapid Response van. It was twilight approximately 7 p.m.
Accosted by the public, the police later went over to see Kumbi, and had to be challenged into admitting it was indeed their gun that had gone off and hit her. Please hold your breath. The police then 'apologised' to Kumbi (who was on the floor writhing with pain) and, yes, immediately left the scene. When Nigerian politicians and high government officials seek a psychological escape from the guilt of their mis-governance, there is no better music to their ears than the observation that the Nigerian public constitutes a very bad and corrupt 'follower-ship,' and this is one reason, so the self-deceiving argument goes, it is so hard for our leaders to achieve anything. On this day, the Nigerian civil society showed once again that, compared to those who have formal public responsibility for governance, many ordinary citizens are made of superior humanistic stuff. As Kumbi continued to bleed dangerously, a motorcyclist (much vilified by all of us) moved into action, later joined by another Good Samaritan visiting Lagos from Abuja. Kumbi was picked up from the pool of her blood and taken to the Ikeja General Hospital.
Unlike the Nigeria in which I grew up, where Kumbi would first have been treated as an emergency case before any pecuniary issues were raised (and the whole treatment would almost probably have been free), no one at the hospital was prepared to touch Kumbi. As we all know, medical attention these days is subject to the policy cruelties of debt-repayment and SAP, in addition to the largely unpatriotic character of much of our public leadership. So she bled and bled uncared for, until 11 am of Monday, when her cousin, a medical doctor in the clinic of a major Nigerian bank, arrived, having been informed that morning by the motorcyclist and the man from Abuja. These civil society types are the ones who should collect the national awards that our politicians share out undeservedly among themselves every year.
Things were now getting fatally late for Kumbi. She was rushed by her doctor cousin to a hospital in Ikoyi, which is run by another doctor friend. Her condition stabilised after two days. But she was told that it might be best to amputate the leg, gangrene and other afflictions having set in. Very pretty and soon-to-marry Kumbi pleaded against it, apparently unaware how near she was to death if the now rotting member of her anatomy wasn't quickly severed from the rest of the body. Five days after a policeman accidentally discharged a dose of un-professionalism inside her leg, and then compounded it with criminal inhumanity, Kumbi died in one of the best hospitals in Ikoyi, Lagos. With her also died the planned marriage and ICAN prospects, the university degree, the efforts, studies, parental hopes, and all the determination so far invested towards these goals. But something else died with Kumbi. Tell her story to any of the Nigerian professionals abroad who are being persuaded by government to return home, and then repeat the appeal about coming home to help salvage the country. Many of them are eager, no doubt. But Kumbi's case cannot be an encouraging signal.
Meanwhile, through other connections, her family had managed to contact the Inspector General of Police on the Monday Kumbi was moved to a hospital in Ikoyi. The IG promptly mobilised the Lagos State Police Commissioner on the case. Before she died, Kumbi was visited at hospital on October 16 by Area 'F' Commander, and by one Assistant Commissioner of Police from Panti. The visits were once only. The Medical Director at the Ikoyi hospital insisted that autopsy be conducted by a government pathologist, in the presence of a policeman, in a neutral hospital. This was done. Since then, nothing serious has been heard from the Police, and no contact with Kumbi's parents either. The hospital in Ikoyi was contacted for mundane information and pictures of Kumbi's corpse only a few days ago. Queries to the police to try and apprehend the officer(s) responsible have been met with all manner of evasions and claims of difficulty in identifying the culprits. The hospital and everyone else, except the police itself, are being asked to help the police apprehend the police offenders! Yet, there is already enough leading information from the public, the motorcyclist, and the other helper from Abuja. The police van involved had Rapid Response Squad written on it; some letters in the name of the policeman whose gun went off are known and have been given to the Police. Location and time are well known. Does the Nigeria Police really claim to be unable to piece together information to determine which of its officers are where and when?
Can Nigeria, facing a serious quality-manpower crisis as it does, afford to so casually waste a professional (and graduate) in one of the areas critical to the nation's economic development, without any effort to seek out the offenders, apply the law, teach some useful lessons for future policing, and to show remorse for the loss to a family and the nation? Should the police go on killing Nigerians so casually? Why don't we hear of this 'accidental discharge' by police so often in other countries? What is the quality of training our policemen receive on safe gun-handling? Those who claim to be reforming the police really do have a challenge on Kumbi Adewale's matter. Besides, tomorrow, it could be you!
Kumbi's case came to my knowledge while returning to the country almost a month and half ago. I did not know her, nor do I know any of the personae involved in this sad human drama. Upon arrival however, I promptly sought out the hospital and the doctors involved. This was after a week of her death. With great reluctance, the Medical Director of the hospital that struggled to save her life, talked to me, sobbing uncontrollably ñ which was strange for a doctor. I asked if he was emotionally involved because Kumbi was his fellow doctor's niece. No. He didn't even know Kumbi before the incident. But there was something so fundamentally painful from a human point of view that bothered him, but he could not, and would not tell me. But it made him cry whenever he was forced to revisit the incident. I now confess my strident curiosity and hereby publicly apologise to the doctor for an indiscretion I later committed after I left his office. He thought I had left the premises. No, Sir, I sniffed around until I got a piece of unusual information about the autopsy, and my source shall remain forever nameless. After collecting all the information I needed, I chose not to write for at least a month, to see whether the police would act more humanely and make some gesture of justice and empathy. I have now chosen to write because up till now, they have not. The girl had died, and so has the matter, it seems. Not only did Nigeria waste this beautiful woman, destroy her marriage and professional dreams, and shatter her parents' joy; that accidental discharge also wasted perhaps a future great scientist, or a President, a Police IG, or even (hopefully a sincere) political leader. Autopsy found Kumbi to be six-week pregnant! Nigeria can and msut surely be better than this. Arise O Compatriots...
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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Nigeria cannot be better than that which is why the Biafran train is homeward bound. Would this Lagos-Ibadan sector media carry the same story if she were some Biafran?
This lady's death is no big deal. More continue to be wasted by the complicity of the Hausa-Fulani cum Yoruba hegemony. In the face of the apathy shown by the bufoon Obasanjo to the Sharia extremism, haven't bestial fanatics from Nigeria south of the Sahara been emboldened to continually celebrate their orgy of blood letting against Biafrans? What has Nigeria done to staunch the flow of Biafran bood?
I hear you. The greatest immediate but overcoe-able obstacle the Biafrans have within Nigeria is the Yorubas. They used treachery and sabotage to usurp Biafra's rights in the entity of Nigeria. However, at the actualization of Biafra, Yoruba will be brought to their knees thru their own treachery (as usual). Someone started a thread about Al Gore's attendance of a memorial of an Igbo-Nigerian in Victoria Island. Remarkably, the host and Obasanjo representative turned out to be none other than the Enron thief thief Tinubu. Notice that far back, the Ngbati Guardian reported that Tinubu was warring with Obasanjo regarding the power generation, state police for Lagos, and the legitimacy of OPC in Lagos payroll. Meanwhile Tinubu went ahead, in mock defiance, used the high taxes extorted from Biafran business people and the Biafran oil money treasury for a shady deal with enron and pay-offs in guise of state payroll for OPC touts.
It is only when the Igbo/Biafran business people withdraw their support of Lagos/Yoruba/Nigerian (corrupt) economy and re-establishing their businesses in Biafra, would the Obasanjo/Tinubu et al sit up and blink. As for making them accountable for blatant corruption and lootocracy, nobody should hold their breath.
Welcome to this forum. Your story is a sad one indeed, but was directed to a wrong forum. There are many Yoruba sites for your story. By your name, I suspect you are from the North and there is nothing wrong with that(the Igbo loves everyone). But hear me. This forum has a purpose. And part of that purpose is to inform, educate the mind, and the Actualization of the State of Biafra. I regret and condemn the killing of anyone, be it Yoruba or Hausa. But I am mostly appalled by the continued slaughter of the Igbos by your Nigeria. You are either a sympathizer to this genocide or a mocker. And if you elect the later, trust me, you are not going to enjoy your membership here. The choice is really yours!
Welcome to BiafraNigeriaWorld. As our revered Senior Advocate, Ohafia, would say, "the ride does get bumpy" around here. We are known not to pull punches. You have every right to write in this forum. Even the likes of Adamu, Bamidele, and bababoyz write here. But, after reading your post, I am still wondering why you put it under this topic. Was it the Lagos in it?
Thank God I own no ENRON stocks. The collapse of ENRON is a fitting metaphor for Alhaji Tinubu. Unlike Lagos, ENRON does not have unlimited access to Biafran oil with which to prop itelf up.
posted
As it happens, I am pure Igbo on both sides of my lineage.I have selected the nom de plume, Sundiatta after the founding emperor of Mali due to my pan-African beliefs which are not necessarily irreconciable with my counciousness as an Igbo man. I admire Sundiatta immensely and his life story as the rejected prince who founded a mighty empire inspires me - BTW, pleae note that he was not a Muslim. I need to clarify that before the Muslim-haters on this forum crucify me. But my being Igbo does not prevent me from empathy with a fellow human being whose young life was needlessly destroyed. Yes, the young lady victim was Yoruba and yes, the Lagos-Ibadan media would not have given it much play had it occurred in the East but I have no apologies to offer for emphatizing with a fellow human being irrespective of her ethnic origins.
As to the question of the dominance of the Lagos/Ibadan media axis, I have a very personal experience to share.We Igbo often like to complain of how we are done down by other Nigerians but often fail to look inwards on how our kith and kin have also failed us. I happen to have a lot of Igbo friends in the Nigerian media. I can name two seasoned and highly professional Igbo journalists who are my personal friends and who attempted to establish news media in Nigeria but could not find Igbo sponsors to finance the projects. These Igbo sons are: 1. Eziuche Ubani, former political editor of 'ThisDay' newspaper 2. Obinna Nwakanma, former deputy editor of 'Sunday Vanguard'
I was closely involved with their endeavours and I took part in the efforts to approach several prominent Igbo businessman and politicians to sensitize them on the need to establish formidable news media to present alternative viewpoints to the dominant perspective in the Nigerian media. We tried to explain to these so-called Igbo leaders that control of the media is crucial to any attempt to empower the Igbo people to realize their destiny. That is why Zik established the famed 'West African Pilot' and several other newspapers. We also tried to explain to them that media business is a long term investment. You put in several millions and watch them go down the drain for a few years until the newspaper establishes its credibility through high quality journalism. As the readership base inexorably widens, advertisers [and we know the advertising industry is conrolled by Yorubas] are forced to come to you whether they like it or not because their commercial clientele are primarily interested in getting their products exposed to your readership and will not allow the ad-man to prioritize his political affiliations which may drive him to patronize papers which favour his ethnic worldview. Unfortunately, because of nepotism and incompetent management, neither Iwuanyawu's Champion or Odogwu's Post-Express have successfully attracted the high quality readership base nor successfully projected the Igbo interest in any systematic or intellectually cogent way. Other than the occassional hysterical outburst about Igbo marginalization, neither paper has succeeded in presenting the Igbo case in a systematic manner such as the Yoruba media did to the extent that by 1999, most Nigerians had tacitly agreed to aYoruba man in Aso Rock.Neither paper has a high circulation volume or is seriously regarded. It is no secret that even the Igbo intelligentsia in Nigeria prefer to write for the Guardian or ThisDay than for either paper.Whose fault is that?
Would you also believe that all the Igbo businessmen and political leaders that we approached played us around until we got tired? We came to realize that these guys were basically contractors and traders who depended on federal government patronage. Also with the typical Igbo mercantilist mentality, they were not interested in a business that would not bring quick returns e.g. within 3 months as in an export-import transaction. Of course, it did not help our case that so many young Igbo who would have been potential readers now prefer to trade rather than go to school. So even the initial readership base is problematic. Ubani is now media adviser to Ghali Na'Abba while Nwakanma is now in the US.So two brilliant Igbo sons with a vision for our people were forced to abandon their dreams of a quality paper to serve the Igbo interest by the short-sightedness of so-called Igbo leaders.
Why then do we complain of Lagos-Ibadan media axis when our people refuse to take the long term view and invest in establishing media outlets to challenge the dominant paradigm? Within the last two years, a small group of Hausa journalists have taken the 'Weekly Trust' to the 'Daily Trust'. Are they magicians? Obviously, the Yoruba ad-men are not going to place adverts in a paper which is anti-thetical to their interests so the Trust group is probably funded by northern politicians and businessmen. If the northerners whom we deride as cattle rearers and illiterate child molesters, how do we explain the inability of the Igbo with our crop of talented and seasoned media professionals to establish our own media outlets? Go to any of the major Lagos-Ibadan media houses and you will discover that at least half of the reporters and sub-editors are Igbo. They are screened out when it comes to being appointed editors[gatekeepers]. So why can't Ndi'Igbo support our sons in the media to establish voices for us?
We seem to forget that a key factor in the Yoruba success in getting the presidency conceded to them after June 12 and Abiola's death was their control of the media. So Ndi'Igbo need media power. We can sit here in Europe and America and post all the vitriol on the internet that we like but if we can't do nothing in concrete terms on the ground, its all pointless to my mind. One thing that I would really like to see some of the hyper-vocal advocates of the new Biafra who contantly moan about the Lagos-Ibadan media do, is to follow Zik's example and set up our own media to counter theirs just like the Hausa have done. We should put up or shut up!
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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Welcome. For your sake, I hope you are not Rudolph Okonkwo in yet another guise.
The two postings you've made thus far have no correlation to the thread at hand. I suggest you open a thread that specifically deals with your grouse about your sympathy for a Yoruba female and the lack of ready employment for your journalist friends.
You seem to have a hindsight about the brains behind the condition of Igbo masses and the kind of degenerates being passed off as Igbo leaders from 1970 till date.
Now that some young Igbo progressives here have finally had the gumption to provide a fearless voice for the Igbos (the first since 1970) you have been enabled to waltz in here demanding sympathy for Yoruba and denouncing the Igbos. I think your postings would generate the applause you seek at egbeomo.com.
I believe you need to do serious self education regarding the cause of the plight of Igbos in Nigeria, the break down of Igbo culture, the crop of Igbo rich men being passed off as Igbo leaders, the means they have been using to make their money, and their motivation(s). Remember to research on the reasons that gave birth to MASSOB, including this forum.
It is always a mistake to waltz in here spitting anti-Igbo, Pro Yoruba/Awusa shallow rhetorics. You are old enough to lead a revolution for the re-education of "for-sale" Igbo rich men. If not you, who?
posted
If this was not happening, I'd think I was dreaming. OK folks, since you are offended by my posting this story on this thread, I am sorry. I accept that the post was more appropriate to another thread of its own.
Can we move on now? I really don't see understand how anything I have said thus far can be interpreted as anti-Igbo. Look, I did not come here to pick a fight with anyone and I am not a mask for Rudolf Okonkwo or anyone else. I just want to contribute my honest two cents to the progress of the Igbo people but I am getting the impression that this is a website for group-think in which difference in opinion is not tolerated. Is this the new Biafra that is to be built? A land to be governed by intolerant cyber-mullahs? What next - my honest intellectual dissent will be met with digital amputation? Or you guys gonna RAM a wall over me now?
If anyone was offended by my posting a story which shocked me personally and moved me to want to share it with others on a thread concerning Tinubu and Enron, then I am sorry for stepping on sore toes. I am not sorry though for emphatizing with a fellow human being despite her being Yoruba. I sincerely hope I never develop so much hatred for another people,however much they have victimized my own people that I cannot emphatize with an individual victim who happens to be a member of that ethnic group.I personally witnessed similar events while I lived in Nigeria until a year ago and I can imagine it happening to me while I commuted to work; it could have happened to anyone and a similar accidental discharge by Operation Sweep in 1998 blinded for life, a young Igbo boy near the very same Ikeja bus-stop. The Lagos high court [presided over by a Yoruba judge, by the way] awarded about N6 million damages to the boy's family against the police.
Amanda, I have read many of your brilliant postings on this site and am a little perturbed that you prefer not to controvert the veracity of what I have said concerning the failure of the Igbo leaders to establish a media base within Nigeria to support their political agenda but chose to cast personal aspersions on my friends who were and remain accomplished media professionals and were certainly not desperate for employment at the time we embarked on the alternative media project. Obinna is completing the first literary biography of Christopher Okigbo and his own poetry, for which he won ANA awards in 1998, has been translated and published in Germany; Obinna also won an award at a literary festival in the Netherlands in 1995. Eziuche cut his teeth on the political desk at "The Guardian' from where he was headhunted to start the political desk at "ThisDay". [I am assuming that many of those who are on this website lived in Nigeria fairly recently and so can appreciate the significance of these accomplishments. Eziuche and Obinna were at the peak of their journalistic careers - they were in the editorial cadre - when they became disgusted with the media bias against the Igbo in Nigeria after June 12 and sought to rectify the situation in a very practical and direct way by setting up an alternative media for the Igbo people located within Igboland and controlled by Igbo people. Naturally, I accept that setting up a website to propagate alternative views on the present political configuration of Nigeria provides a critical platform for deliberation and strategic thought on the political options for the Igbo people and mobilization in realization of the ascertained goals. I guess it must remain an open question, as to whether a website is an effective substitute for a well run media institution with high national credibility but physically located in ala-Igbo, be it a radio or TV station or a newspaper or should be best appreciated as a complement to efforts in that direction. Remember that access to the web is difficult and expensive in Nigeria generally and in ala-Igbo especially, which appears to be the abode of cut-throat cyber-cafe operators. If you have been home recently, you will swiftly notice that its far more expensive to send and receive email or browse the web at cyber-cafes in Enugu and Onitsha than it is in Jos or even Abuja. Trust me, I have compared the prices personally when I was home last in spring 2001.However we may like so sugar the pill, it is to my mind, no less than absolutely scandalous that the Hausa can establish a viable daily newspaper within two years to project their political viewpoint and Ndi'Igbo cannot.
I am a proud Igbo man, but my pride does not blind me to the concrete realities [including failings] of our people. Yes, we must build up the self-confidence of our people by waxing lyrical on the positive attributes of the Igbo people but then, deluding ourselves in uncritical panegyrics to the superiority of Igbo civilization and technology will not get us very far beyond the museum and academia. I lived in Nigeria until a year ago and I am sorry to say that, in my opinion, the so-called Igbo leaders are the worst enemies of progressive Igbo youth in more ways than one. We need to sort them out first before we take on outsiders. Take my home village for example. We had a cabinet minister and a permanent secretary in the Eastern Nigeria government in the 1960s as well as a senior physician in the State House clinic under IBB but to date, we have no tarred road or potable water. The electrification project was a self-help communal endeavour. A contract was awarded by the PTF in 1997 to an indigene who is a senior ozo title holder and a community leader. This chief stole the money and did not do the job. He then had the brazen effrontery to ignore repeated summons by the town union to explain his failure to construct the road despite collecting money from the federal government. Instead, he hired thugs to terrorise the young men who were insisting on accountability. If a senior titled chief can swindle his own townspeople so mercilessly and then suppress the youths with impunity, what hope is there in the so-called leaders? If I am to go to battle for the cause of Ndi'Igbo, why should I risk my neck for skunks like this chief? Can you assure me that in the new Biafra, the skunks will not reign supreme? Do you recall Chinua Achebe's account of the "ngwo-ngwo" and champagne lifestyle of some members of the Biafran elite during the civil war in his "Girls at War"? At a time when young Igbo men were living on a fistful of garri and three bullets per day for their rifles at the warfront! Please go and ask any of your relatives who served at the warfront if you think I am lying. Or the equally appalling accounts in Chukwuemeka Ike's "Sunset at Dawn". How do we prevent all that jazz from re-occuring if you guys are effectively saying to me that that because I am an Igbo man, therefore I must adopt an uncritical attitude to the conduct of the Igbo people and/or their leaders?
Yes, the Igbo have genuine grievances against other ethnic groups in Nigeria but we must also look within for the fifth column in our midst. The people whom we should be directing our anger at are the short-sighted so-called Igbo leaders who shout themselves hoarse under the toga of Ohaneze by day and then crawl to Aso Rock at night to betray our people. Just as we relish in castigating the African-Americans for not taking advantage of the bountiful educational and economic opportunities in their very own land in which they are ama'ala, we Igbo must also be honest enough to identify the logs in our eyes.Please don't even let me start on the Osu syndrome whereby we complain of marginalization yet viciously marginalize our kith and kin, on the basis of ome'n'ani. Puh...leeeze!
I got nuthin but love f' y'all, my peeps!
sundiatta
quote:Originally posted by Amanda Wekson: Sundiata,
Welcome. For your sake, I hope you are not Rudolph Okonkwo in yet another guise.
The two postings you've made thus far have no correlation to the thread at hand. I suggest you open a thread that specifically deals with your grouse about your sympathy for a Yoruba female and the lack of ready employment for your journalist friends.
You seem to have a hindsight about the brains behind the condition of Igbo masses and the kind of degenerates being passed off as Igbo leaders from 1970 till date.
Now that some young Igbo progressives here have finally had the gumption to provide a fearless voice for the Igbos (the first since 1970) you have been enabled to waltz in here demanding sympathy for Yoruba and denouncing the Igbos. I think your postings would generate the applause you seek at egbeomo.com.
I believe you need to do serious self education regarding the cause of the plight of Igbos in Nigeria, the break down of Igbo culture, the crop of Igbo rich men being passed off as Igbo leaders, the means they have been using to make their money, and their motivation(s). Remember to research on the reasons that gave birth to MASSOB, including this forum.
It is always a mistake to waltz in here spitting anti-Igbo, Pro Yoruba/Awusa shallow rhetorics. You are old enough to lead a revolution for the re-education of "for-sale" Igbo rich men. If not you, who?
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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posted
...one more thing. I joined this forum hoping that this would be THE Igbo cyber-community where I'd finally see some serious and constructive thought on practical ideas to achieve the redemption of the Igbo people;I was really hoping that it would not prove to be just another Igbo Diaspora moan-and-groan gripe-site. I have just gone over a few more old threads. So far,it looks like an anti-Hausa/Yoruba hate-in! I can see where all that hate comes from [been there myself sometimes in the past] but as Mahatma Ghandi said "an eye for an eye soon leaves the whole world blind". I am all for a political re-configuration of Nigeria but I am not down with ethnic cleansing.Not that I am suggesting that anyone on this thread has advocated that sort of thing - just delineating my political space out here.
But y'all seem like high bandwith types so I guess there will definitely be substantial improvement in the quality of debate on this forum as time passes on.
PS Has there been a happy ending yet to the OU/Lady B cyber-romance? Ah, the sight of young love in full bloom does bring a tear or two to the old wrinkled eye and a flutter to my weak old heart...I think I am gonna go lie down.
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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Enron has collapsed and Tinubu is left hanging. The Nigeria energy requirements and projects will follow the same route as the rest e.g Iron and Steel industry with over $15 bn spent and a mere "steel spoon" has not being produced yet).
"Chop-Chop" (i.e corrupt) deals are the bane of business and life in Nigeria. Recently, it was reported that Babangida was involved in a $4.5 bn buy-back scam. And what beats my imagination is that the very same people will attempt to lecture me on "patriotism".
I am sure if the Enron/Tinubu energy project is subjected to scrutiny you will find much more than a can of worms.
Prayer: Please God, free us all from the scourge of Nigeria.
Sundiatta
Allow me the honour of welcoming you to this wonderful forum.
Advice: The kitchen does get very hot sometimes, but if you can take the heat you will find a place here. Enjoy!
Now turning to your posting. I'm afraid Amanda is correct, more justice will be done to your posting if you open a new thread based on the same story. Its nothing personal, lets call it, protocol!
Please be rest assured (I believe I speak for my fellow forumite too) that those of us at this forum are not keeping our arms folded. CyberBiafra is but one way of educating ourselves. And, yes, the ground work for change has commenced.
However, I will like to make one or two observations, Kumbi Adewale's story is very tragic and I'm sure everyone in this forum will empathise and sympathise with her family. Unfortunately, what we cannot promise her family is adequate redress by the Nigerian authorities. In conclusion as I believe you pointed out, Kumbi is painful.
Once again, kindly re-post your piece as a new thread and let us all contribute.
I don't know who sundiatta is. But, I am willing to bet my annual salary that he is NOT Rudolf Okonkwo. sundiatta thinks and writes like an Igbo. Best of all, he can think on his feet. When was the last time you saw Rudolf do that? If this were Rudolf Okonkwo, he would not be debating you. He will run. He would just tell you that he "WILL BE BACK." Then, he will go and consult Okenwa Nwosu, Mr. Elekwachi, Ohaneze, and every other efulefu out there, and return to tell us what those fools think.
sundiatta: Welcome to BiafraNigeriaWorld. Your apology for putting the Yoruba girls story in the wrong thread is accepted. I don't expect you to agree with everything or even anything I write. But, if you turn efulefu on us, you will hear from me. I have more of a stomach for Yoruba/Hausa-Fulani treachery than the treachery of an Igbo. I have come to expect the Youba and Hausa-Fulani to be treacherous. Welcome to BiafraNigeriaWorld - the Freedom Train.
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My two manillas on Enron - and thanks for the kind words, folks.
With the benefit of hindsight, Enron's demise was a chronicle well foretold. Last year, I read a report published on the web in 1999 by Human Rights Watch on the Dhopal power project in Maharashtra state in India, a joint venture between the state government and Enron. According to the HRW report and hyper-linked Indian media reports which I also read on the web: 1. the Indian government was induced into guaranteeing World Bank loans on behalf of the Maharashtra state government by dodgy financial and macro-economic models produced by consultants hired by Enron as well as inflated projections of the knock-on benefits of the project for the Indian economy 2.senior officials of the central and state governments received valuable non-pecuniary and in-kind benefits from Enron and its satellite companies 3. there was no effective environmental impact assessment prior to the commencement of construction work 4. serious human rights violations were commited by Indian security forces when the poor and powerless people of the communities living near the plant refused to be relocated because Enron had paid bribes to their community leaders to accept token amounts of compensation for loss of homes and livelihoods [does this remind anyone of the Niger Delta?] 5. World Bank analysts discovered that the unit price for electricity to be supplied by the plant to the Indian national grid was over-valued by global standards and that even state-owned power generators in India could offer more competitive prices in an open market [does this remind anyone of the World Bank's initial concerns about the Enron project in Lagos?]
According to off-record accounts by friends of mine in the DC Beltway, Enron used its contacts in the US Treasury department to suppress the internal World Bank analysis and to ram through the WB's reluctance to finance a project which they perceived as likely to fail spectacularly as have so many other 'Big Dam' projects in developing countries over the past 5 decades of 'developmentalism'.
Although the proximate causes of the collapse of Enron are said to lie in its derivatives speculation and management fraud, I'd say that the Dhopal project exposed the shady side of Western transnational 'investment' in developing countries. The warning bells should have gone off after Enron's adventure in India.
Posts: 58 | From: Boston | Registered: Dec 2001
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Your observation is right on track. The shady deal Tinubu/Obasanjo struck with Enron is but one of many counless scams wrought upon the peoples of Biafra and to a lesser extent, Nigerians. As it is, this scourge of treachery will go on indefinitely, should we fold our hands and keep mum in that entity called Nigeria.
Because Nigeria was designed for exploitation, rampant corruption becomes a perpetual way of life there. This sinking ship called Nigeria has been purposely steared toward collision with an iceberg. The demise will belong to those Biafrans who in oblivion, paid deaf ears to the cold facts in front of them.
One thing is for certain, Biafra Republic masses will not accept this kind of rip off from any govt or multinational scam company. We aim to make our masses enlightened in the governance and affairs of the government employees they sponsor.
Your analysis of Sundiatta in relation to Rudolph Okonkwo was compelling. Our Rudolph would have uttered a few retarded jibberish, turned tail and ran. Being a starving two bit journalistic plagiarizer, he hangs on the mercy of his crumb-seeking masters, Okenwa (Rat-child) Nwosu/Elekwachi, for his daily bread.
See why I'm sceptical of Sundiatta's "brilliant" and highly accomplished journalist friends who sought out Awusa for employment? Usually these kinds of people do not fight for the actualization of Biafra Republic. They'd rather whine about what Biafra can do for them instead of what they can do for Biafra.
"...but I am getting the impression that this is a website for group-think in which difference in opinion is not tolerated. Is this the new Biafra that is to be built? A land to be governed by intolerant cyber-mullahs?..."
Listen carefully, you are not being forced to abandon your Hausa/Fulani?Yoruba grovelling and worshipping in one Nigeria. You have been conditioned to a "herds mentality" in your one Nigeria and it is alright with you. You even have the audacity to peddle Yoruba pity for all to fall in line with you. Take a trip to Biafraland. Visit each village and family. I guarantee you that their tales of woes, treachery, and apathy will compell your tears to run dry with blood in it's stead. If you must show pity, start from ground zero, that is, Biafra. Charity begins at home. I have no regard for Yoruba apologists.
Cyber-mullahs, you say? Mister, your agenda for coming to this forum will be exposed in a matter of time (soonest). We are Biafrans outraged about Biafra's slavery in the experiment called Nigeria. We aim to reclaim Biafra's freedom from Nigeria. Those of you who want to be bribed, cajoled, and sweetened up, to join in the fight for Biafra's liberation do not deserve freedom or sympathy. You belong in "one Nigeria". Just stay there.
If as you claim, you read the postings here, I'm sure you would have come across several threads where we staunchly denounced Igbo efulefus of all kinds. Considering this, why would you heckle us about the deeds of Igbo rich men? Are we the so called Igbo rich men you have a personal grouse against or are we their supporters?
I challenge you to think deeper and tell us, form your own perception, (1) why " the Hausa can establish a viable daily newspaper within two years to project their political viewpoint and Ndi'Igbo cannot" (2) Why did ala Igbo "appear to be the abode of cut-throat cyber-cafe operators"? (3) why is condition of things harsher and unbearable in ala Igbo than the Hausa/Fulani/Yoruba Nigeria? (4) Why did you and your village masses not mobilize to take actions against "the cabinet minister and permanent secretary as well as a senior physician in the state house clinic under IBB" from your area who failed to provide tarred road and portable water? (5) Your chief stole money and failed to do the job he was contracted to do. What action could you have taken against this chief that would have served as a deterrent action to future embezzlers?
Taking delight in being perpetual victims is unacceptable. Our exposure to "education" demand that we investigate why an incident occured, pinpoint the culprits and proceed to make sure that such incident doesn't happen again. That is how to take liberty back. Keeping the masses in cowering ignorance will not guarantee this freedom. If you pay great attention to the actions we have taken and continue to take on this board...even behind the scene, you'd realize that we aim to put our actions and money where our mouths are.
What about the Osu syndrome? Are you now coming to tell us news about it? What are you going to do about it? Your sensationalistic projection of "the Osu syndrome" verified that you did not take time to read the thread about the Osu issue on this forum. I suggest you make time and read it. You will find it enlightening.
After all your rhetorics so far, I'm hard pressed to be convinced that you will fight for Biafra Actualization. But that is okay. Just do not attempt to muzzle anyone into believing otherwise. Action speaks louder than words. Our eyes on you.
I cannot stress it enough for you, if you want an applause for your Yoruba/Hausa/Fulani worship, take it to egbeomo.com. Here, the Biafrans are concerned with Biafran interests...not Yoruba interests, and not certainly Nigerian interests, okay?
I suspect from your last few posts that it has been quite a long while since you were in Nigeria last - else you would know that 'ThisDay' is owned by Nduka Obaigbena from Aniomaland and 'The Guardian' is owned by Alex Ibru from Urhoboland. 'The Vanguard' is owned by Sam Amuka-Pemu from Itsekiriland. Does any of these names sound 'awusa' to you? Where are the Igbo owned papers to provide employment for reputable Igbo journalists? Are you suggesting that any serious Igbo journalist should jeopardize his or her career and ruin their credibility by working for those scurrilous, self-aggrandizing,rag sheets cum "photo albums" that go by the names "The Post-Express" and "The Champion"?
How many times do I have to repeat that Eziuche and Obinna were very comfortable as political editor of 'ThisDay' and deputy editor of 'Sunday Vanguard' respectively and did not NEED to strike out on their own in order to set up a credible voice for the Igbo people. They were trying to create a nationally reputable and credible medium to serve the Igbo people like Zik's 'West African Pilot' and 'Eastern Guardian' did in the 1960s. Yes, a few Igbo sons are trying right now to do the same but they are handicapped by finance. If you go to Onitsha today, in the traffic hold up between Head Bridge and Upper Iweka or on Oguta Road, young hawkers will approach your car with cyclostyled bulletins which look like Nigerian university handouts but they are actually Igbo political journals. They have names like 'Razor', 'Matchet, 'Rising Sun' etc and they are brave attempts by gallant Igbo sons to raise the conciousness of our people and to provide a media platform for Ndi'Igbo. Unfortunately because of poor presentation [quality of newsprint and limited command of written English], they do not circulate very far beyond Onitsha and environs.What we need are nationally credible media which can SUBTLY project the Igbo worldview across Nigeria and to the world.I emphasize SUBTLY because that is what the Yoruba media do. They projected the Yoruba national ambition to capture power in Nigeria as a struggle for democracy and the realization of the sovereignty of the Nigerian people. By so doing, they successfully hoodwinked many Nigerians and the international community into believing that they were supporting a worthy cause being fought by pro democracy and human rights activists viz. democracy and human rights in Nigeria and not merely fighting for Yoruba ascendancy. Look how they smartly hijacked the Ogoni struggle. Since when have the Yoruba ever cared about the Niger Delta other than to monopolize jobs and contracts in the oil sector? But they successfully used the Ogoni travails to smear the Abacha regime internationally by linking their struggle to the Ogoni struggle. The Yoruba media do not constantly engage in crude ethnic stereotyping or cheap ethnic insults - which seem to be a staple of this forum- as that would lose them the synpathy of the international community. They leave that sort of thing to the local politicians and community activists whose statements they then report but from the safety of an 'objective' editorial distance. They present logical, reasoned arguments against military dictatorships until you are convinced that their cause is right. You believe that the struggle is about democracy until they safely instal their man in pwer and then..Gbam, they drop the velvet gloves and you swiftly taste the iron fist of the Yoruba media. Media power is absolutely crucial to successful political mobilization. Ndi'Igbo should adopt a similar stealth strategy. The present strategy of crude ethnic insults and sterotyping in public will only serve to reinforce the impression among the eastern minorities that life under Igbo rule in Biafra will be pure hell and convince the
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