2015: The Hypocrisy of the Northern "Elders"

It was Hillary Mantel who said that "History offers us vicarious experience. It allows the youngest student to possess the ground equally with his elders;
without a knowledge of history to give him a context for present events, he is at the mercy of every social misdiagnosis handed to him"

Over the years the Nigerian political landscape has been shaped by various characters masquerading as patriots,these class of people were individually and collectively responsible for the decay in our national infrastructure and the total lack of progress in the past, to these set of people any policy or government that does not have input from them must be sabotaged or pulled down at all cost.

In 2011, several factors coalesced to unleash the unprecedented post election tragedy witnessed in several parts of Northern Nigeria , a critical analysis of these factors has shown that the activities of the northern elders prior to the 2011 general elections was largely responsible for the carnage witnessed during the period. Fast forward to 2015 and the same set of people have returned with the same sectional and divisive politics, this time choosing to exploit the misfortune of the grieving Chibok families and the insurgency they have midwived into maturity.

It is important to note that these disgruntled self imposed Northern "elders" have never proffered any reasonable suggestion on how to end the current insurgency, neither have they sat for one day to appraise the impact of the 12 brand new Universities 9 of which were located in Northern Nigeria which should have been a norm if they really cared about the education of the Northern youth.

We expected these "Elders" who have served several governments in the past and are familiar with the problems facing millions of almajiri children to conduct an impact assessment of the effect of the over 200 amajiri schools built by current administration in northern Nigeria but these "elders" don't really care about education.

 Elders who have the interest of their people at heart would have set up a machinery that will expose business men and women within the region on how best to position themselves so as to take advantage of Nigeria's first speed train service which will connect Kaduna the heart of northern Nigeria to Abuja the nations capital city, but these elders will rather do politics than help Northerners reduce haulage cost by helping them take advantage of the new rail links that now transverse the region .

As at today, the economy of northern Nigeria is largely driven by agriculture, it is regrettable to note that no meeting of the Northern elders in the past 4 years had agriculture on its agenda . The Farmers e- wallet which has revolutionalized the distribution of subsidized farming inputs and fertilizers but which the northern farmer has been finding very difficult to key into, is not an important issue to these "elders".

On a visit to one Nigeria's oldest Museums with some colleagues few years ago we came across several photographs that captured the British royal Merchant ships discharging finished products and loading agricultural produce bound for the west from inland ports in Northern Nigeria ,one had expected that with the dredging of the Niger river completed and the Inland dry Ports nearing completion the elders would channel their energies towards ensuring that our people not only take full advantage of the project but also position themselves as key players in the sector.Sadly, that also will never happen because these "elders" are more interested in politics than development .

As Northerners, our greatest mistake will be to think that the ''pretro'' dollars from the Niger delta will last forever, because when the oil finally dries up we will have nothing to fall back on, as such we must look beyond oil ,we must extricate ourselves from the desire to grab power at all cost and channel our energies towards raising strong entrepreneurs and economically sound communities by encouraging young people to start businesses rather than take up arms .

Until we create the enabling environment that will encourage investors to explore mineral deposits and invest in our region our economy will continue to suffer.
To date we have ruled this nation far longer than any other region, with little or nothing to show for it. Its time to stop blaming others for our woes and start taking responsibility for our future


Oche Joseph Otorkpa

Publisher :Tsuntsu (Hausa Newspaper)
Tweets from @ochejoseph

MAN IS THE HEAD OF THE FAMILY (A REJOINDER TO A NAIRALAND THREAD)

When I opened that thread like Many other Nairalander’s I expected to see cogent points that Points to the Fact that despite the Bible say we as Men are still subordinates to our Beautiful wives in many ways, now before you start throwing stones read this carefully

Hitting a woman is the strongest sign of a Man's weakness , forget the Fact that some women can turn the Pope into Mike Tyson , it is completely Unacceptable for any man to hit his wife or vice versa its simply crossing the red line.

There are several reasons why I strongly believe women are technically stronger than men.
Here is a scenario from  typical Nigerian Village:


Scene 1 : Husband and wife wake up and Both head to the Farm ,husband on Bicycle ,wife on Foot

Scene 2 : Wife arrives late Husband starts complaining , wife explains she had to breast feed the child before leaving her with Grand Ma ,quarrel is resolved and  they Both carry out the Farm work together


Scene 3 : Husband Complains he is tired, wife says she Needs time to gather more fire wood , Husband takes some rest under the Mango tree in the Farm while wife gathers more fire wood and picks some fruits for the Kids

Scene 4:
Farm work over, they both get set to head Home , husband mounts his bicycle and Pedal home with little or no Load , wife carrying a heap of farm produce, fruits and fire wood heads Home on foot


Scene 5: Wife on arrival Hope sees husband drinking palm wine under the tree with his friends, greets them and head straight for the fire place to make Brunch

Scene 6: she finishes and serves the family food , Bath the children and wash their clothes but before she could clean up the kids and herself the sun was already setting

Scene : 7 as the sun sets , the Powerful woman already has her dinner on fire , before darkness falls she set the lamp and set dinner before the family, they eat and are all happy

Scene 8. As Night falls they all go to Bed, but while she was about to enjoy her sweet deep and well deserved sleep Oga ( "Head of the Home ") taps her to complain about the ''konjititis'' and the Need to placate the one eyed Snake , again she rises up to the occasion and delivers:

It takes less than 3 minutes for head of the home to fall into slumber after discharging the white paint , but the woman takes more time to sleep because of the earlier interruption to her sleep .

When morning come the whole scenario is repeated


In Urban areas the scenario is not different

Scene 1 : Both wake up and Go to work , return by 5pm all stressed up ,

Scene: 2 on arrival wife moves straight into the kitchen while we the ''head of the home'' start changing channels from BBC to NTA  , from CNN to Aljezeera flipping through newspapers and our phones in the process.

Scene 3: food is served we eat and go to Bed for some rest, she cleans up, and clear out all the rubbish in the house, But immediately she hits the Bed without even allowing her take a breath we pounce on Her, as loving as she is , she looks straight into your eyes and say ''OK but let me change "   

On a lighter Note

1. You work for 30 days you collect your 10,000 Salary you carry 4,000 give woman to buy her cream!

Who is the head = the woman

2. You fought over a woman and you got beaten mercilessly and left unconscious by the road side !
  Who is the head = the women 

3. You feed your family Indomie, while you drink garri. But you buy fried rice and chicken + salad  for that woman !
Who is the head = the woman

4. You Buy Okirika for your children, bend down select for yourself and Gucci for the Babe

Who is the head = the Babe

5. You send =N= 200 credit to your Mum, =N= 100 to your Dad and your own phone only has credit for flashing but you buy =N 3000 credit for the woman !

Who is the Head= the woman

6. Your Fathers Peugeot 504 is grounded, you just bought your babe a Rav 4!

Who is the head= the Babe 

7. Your younger sister Needs 100'K for surgery you deny her, but paid 300''K for that woman  to attend her best friends 30th Birthday in the Dubai !

Who is the head = the woman

Finally
 
God took extra time to make women ,to say they are beautiful is an understatement , he gave them extraordinary grace to cope with situations that could make a man commit suicide ,without women our homes will be in shambles !
However, God can never be wrong, He is just too Intelligent, How can the one who suspended  the ball called earth Without strings be wrong , The Kabiyesi who uses the mouth of Fish as ATM Never fails !

He said Man is the head of the Home

Ephesians 5 Vs 22 -25 AMPLIFIED

5:22 Wives, be subject (be submissive
and adapt yourselves) to your own
husbands as [a service] to the Lord.
5:23 For the husband is head of the wife
as Christ is the Head of the church,
Himself the Savior of [His] body.
5:24 As the church is subject to Christ,
so let wives also be subject in
everything to their husbands.
5:25 Husbands, love your wives, as
Christ loved the church and gave
Himself up for her

Peter 3:1 - Likewise, ye wives, [be] in subjection to
your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word,
they also may without the word be won by the
conversation of the wives;

Lets stop destroying homes by promoting articles that divide the family and destroy society, if we respect our wives, and treat them as Queens , they will make us the Kings we  truly are

ENJOY YOUR HOLIDAYS

 

BREAKING NEWS: Liberian Man, Patrick Sawyer, With First Ebola Case In Nigeria Is Dead

Mr. Patrick Sawyer, a WASH consultant at the Ministry of Finance, who had been quarantined since arriving Lagos, Nigeria on Sunday, July 20, 2014 with symptoms of the Ebola virus has died, according to reports.
A Liberian government official, speaking on condition of anonymity said the news of Sawyer’s death was relayed to Liberia by the Nigerian embassy, in the early hours of Friday, July 25, 2014.
The Lagos government health authorities announced on Thursday, July 24, 2014 that Sawyer was being tested for the deadly Ebola virus.

Reno Omokri: Ignore social media propaganda, let me tell you why GEJ is not clueless

New Media, dominated predominantly by Social Media, may not determine who wins elections but it will determine who influences perceptions.

Ask yourself when was the last time you heard a breaking news on TV that had not already broken on New Media?

The fact is that New Media influences perception but as Ekiti has shown us, perception itself is not reality no matter what spin doctors say.

Now, perception may not be reality but if you do not take care of your perception, it will interfere with your reality.

However, perception is not the same as propaganda.

I got a lesson in the difference between perception and propaganda when I went to school in England.

The brochure of the school had a picture of this amazing hall and when I arrived on campus I asked for the whereabouts of that hall and received a rude shock when I was told I was in the hall.

I looked around and it was indeed the hall, but it did not look as grand as it did in the brochure. They had taken the picture of the hall from an angle that emphasized its grandeur. That was an example of perception influencing reality which influenced choice.

Elsewhere in England, a fellow Nigerian student had gone to his university only to find that the halls in the brochure of his schools existed, only not in that school. The school had used pictures of stately buildings. They did not expressly say those buildings were in their campus, but they knew it would be assumed. That was an act of propaganda influencing choice.

But while I remained at my school, the other Nigerian did not.

The moral here is that perception can be tolerated by reality but propaganda will be rejected by it.

The President, as one having the largest Facebook following of any political leader in Africa (almost 1.6 million followers) could engage in propaganda if he were so inclined, but that is not the Jonathan way.

His way is to deliver results while his detractors deliver activity and then let those results speak for themselves.

And the results are speaking for themselves with his Facebook page being the most visited FB profile in Africa, with one single post commanding over 110,000 likes and over 36,000 comments.

For now though, let us consider the word ‘clueless’. It is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘having no knowledge, understanding, or ability’.

Now, this tag is a major arsenal in the propaganda unit of the opposition. The higher echelon have given their foot soldiers the order to tar the President with this adjective.

Now let us touch on reality for a bit.

In Nigeria, the two states with the highest population density are Kano and Lagos.

Incidentally, these two states are right now being governed by the opposition.

Anybody who knows these two states will attest to the fact that the major issue facing Kano is the sheer number of school age children that are out of the formal education system. It is estimated that there are at least 2 million itinerant scholars known as Almajiri in Kano who do not have access to formal education.

In Lagos, the major issue has been how to deal with the traffic situation that keeps Lagosians trapped in ‘go slow’ thereby depriving the economy off the man hours lost to this unproductive drudgery.

State and local officials have for almost half a decade been ‘clueless’ as to how to resolve these two debilitating municipal issues. The problems have grown in scale each passing year and appeared to be insurmountable.

But there has been a revolution of late which has addressed these two malaise and which is providing a solution in the present while turning adversity to opportunity.

In Kano, multiple schools have been purpose built for almajiris. They are called Almajiri Model Schools. They have Quranic recitation halls, Malams Quarters, libraries, hostels and science laboratories.

These schools are now in operation. They do not follow the traditional curriculum. They have a special curriculum which is built around Islamic education and science. The direction of the schools are determined by the Malam in charge and the only external influence is supervision from the ministry of education.

As a result, they are being utilized and kids are now leaving the streets of Kano to the comfort of the Almajiri Model Schools. Thus, a decades old problem is being solved. Of course it will take many more Almajiri Model Schools to absorb the over 2 million kids outside the formal education system, but now, we have a template that works.
       In Lagos, when Lagosians first heard of the air conditioned trains, they thought it was a rumour, a ruse. Those kinds of things do not happen in Nigeria, they thought.

And then people started boarding the air conditioned trains that take you from one end of Lagos to another. They began taking selfies of themselves in these trains and tweeting or facebooking it.

Soon the news spread like wild fire! You can now escape Lagos traffic by taking the new air conditioned trains. It will stop in Oshodi, it will stop in Agege. It is meant for the masses. It is used by the masses!

And just like that, the number of people who travel by train in Nigeria has increased from 1 million per annum in 2009 to 5 million per annum and growing today.

But the koko of the matter is that these initiatives were the personal initiative of President Goodluck Jonathan in the case of Almajiri Model Schools, and the joint initiative of the President and his minister in the case of the Lagos Air Conditioned Trains or ‘Jonathan trains’ as some call it.

So this man, Jonathan, has in a space of a few years brought about a solution to two of the most pressing and recurring municipal issues facing the most populated areas of Nigeria.

It takes knowledge to come up with these ideas. It takes understanding to implement them. It takes ability to focus on them in the midst of distraction from terrorists and their sponsors. It takes humility to do it in the sphere of influence of the opposition.

The facts above cannot be dismissed.

If these are the acts of a ‘clueless’ person, then we need more cluelessness in Nigeria.

When the Jonathan administration launched the new National Automotive Policy in 2013, the opposition called it a pipe dream. But they were not dreaming when President Goodluck Jonathan became the first Nigerian to publicly drive the new Made in Nigeria Nissan on the 29th of May 2014.

To cover their embarrassment at this feat, they said the cars were not made in Nigeria because not all the components were manufactured in Nigeria. In that case, no country manufactures a car because in this modern age, no single country makes all the parts that make up a car.

Mercedes Benz for instance makes parts in different continents including Africa. The nationality of the car is determined by the location where the final product is put together.

But for the sake of arguments, let us say that these cars are not even made in Nigeria. Is it not a fact that they are in Nigeria, they are inexpensive because of the National Automotive Policy, they are providing jobs for Nigerians and they are designed for our weather and environment?

My people, things are changing in Nigeria and at such breath taking pace that the propaganda of ‘clueless’ cannot sell any more.

Before Jonathan, Nigeria as a nation was importing cement today we are producing enough to meet our domestic demand and have enough left over to export to other African nations.

As the cement is being manufactured, they are put on trains and hauled directly from the factory to Lagos port because the president had the foresight to extend the rail lines to the site of production.

On Monday the 14th of July 2014 the President commissioned the largest rice mill in Nigeria in Nasarawa, the Olam Rice Mill.

 At that event the President said “our commitment is to continue to reduce our food importation bill to the barest minimum. To demonstrate our commitment, I am glad to report to Nigerians that from a total food import bill of One trillion, one hundred billion naira (N1.1tr) ($6.9billion dollars) as at 2009, we have reduced our food import bill to Six hundred and eighty four billion, seven million naira (N684.7billion) ($4.35billion dollars) as at December 2013″.

That Nigeria is changing for the better under Jonathan is a reality. That he is solving decades long problems is a reality. That ordinary Nigerians have seen through the propaganda of the opposition is also a reality.

It is also a reality that they can no longer sell the propaganda of a clueless Jonathan.

In fact, the President’s abilities has begun to shrink the ranks of the opposition as we now read about defections from their ranks to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP on a weekly basis.


They confuse the President’s meekness for weakness, forgetting that meekness is power under control ready to be unleashed if and when the situation demands it.

They confuse the President’s thoughtfulness for foolishness forgetting that it is better to think then act than to act then think.

They confuse his tolerance for timidity forgetting that as the leader of the nation he must think of the good of both those who love him and those who don’t while their only thought is for those who love them.

So, let them continue with their propaganda. The best answer to them is one crafted by MKO Abiola of blessed memory who said ‘if you change the name of honey, it will still be sweet’.


Reno Omokri is Special Assistant to the President on New Media.

TIPS ON HOW TO AVOID CONTRACTING THE EBOLA VIRUS

By Oche Otorkpa  

Here are a few tips to help every Nigerians protect themselves from the Ebola disease:

1.        Avoid bush meat or any meat you are not sure of its source.

2.       Wash your hands frequently with detergent, soap using clean water.

3.      Avoid trips to Ebola endemic countries (DRC ,UGANDA , CONGO, GABON DRC etc)

4.      Get a hand sanitizer for people to use in your office and educate them on the importance of the sanitizers, Get one for your kids to use in school frequently and if possible for their class.

5.      3. Avoid buying food stuffs, clothing or other personal materials from markets/shops that share the same vicinity with live or roasted bush meat dealer’s or sellers

6.      Be careful with hands when using railings on the stairs, door knobs and other utilities used by the public.

7.      Gloves and other appropriate protective clothing should be worn when handling sick animals or their tissues

8.       Watch out for people with flu-like symptoms such as sudden fever

9.       Avoid Pig farms, Pig farms in Africa play a role in the amplification of infection because of the presence of fruit bats on these farms.

10.   Avoid bat meats and bat products

FOR HEALTH WORKERS

WHO states as follows,

Standard precautions are recommended in the care and treatment of all patients regardless of their perceived or confirmed infectious status. They include the basic level of infection control—hand hygiene, use of personal protective equipment to avoid direct contact with blood and body fluids, prevention of needle stick and injuries from other sharp instruments, and a set of environmental controls.

EVD is a severe acute viral illness often characterized by the sudden onset of

1.Fever  
2.Intense weakness
3.Muscle pain,
4.Headache and sore throat.
5.Followed by vomiting, Diarrhea, Rash, Impaired kidney and Liver function, and in some cases, both internal and external bleeding


Oche Otorkpa is a WHO Trained IDSR Specialist