OPINION: UNIOSUN – How the frog broke its thigh, by Tunde Odesola – Newstrends
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OPINION: UNIOSUN – How the frog broke its thigh, by Tunde Odesola

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(Published in The PUNCH on Monday, August 16, 2021)

Over the weekend, I gave thoughts to the snowflake nature of Man. I arrived at the conclusion that the mind of Man is a tragic theatre with a cast, whose hero commits an error which turns into a horror that smashes him down below zero in terror.

I also gave thoughts to how the proverbial Monkey attempted to change its hirsute destiny but painfully missed being transformed into Man.

Furthemore, I spared a thought for the Frog’s zig-zag thighs and a life condemned to ceaseless leaping about – on land and in water, like Sisyphus and his untiring rock.

Surely, the reality of the above-mentioned animalism themes affirms Man’s ever evolving quest for change – either for good or for bad or for both.

Immersed in my stream of thoughts, I put a call through to the Araba of Osogbo, Chief Ifayemi Elebuibon, and I asked, “Baba, do you know the Yoruba worldviews of how the Frog fractured his thigh and how the Monkey missed a lifetime chance to belong in humanity?

“Yes, I know. Part of it is in my book, Oyeku Palaba: The Adventures of Obatala, Part II, published in Los Angeles in 2004,” Elebuibon said.

But I won’t bother the reader with the popular fable of how the Monkey, aka Obo Idere (not Obo Idanre), failed to exercise patience for seven days, and broke the magical potion he was given to rub off the hair on his body, thereby missing the opportunity to become human.

I’ll dwell on the less popular but more appropriate parable of how the Frog broke his thigh as a result of indiscretion and overexuberance.

Recalling that the Ifa corpus on Mr Frog springs from the theme of conspiracy, Elebuibon said in Yoruba, “The person who runs away from conspiracy is only being cautious, (a d’Ifa fun Akere omo oni Ture), a divination for the Frog, the son of Ture..”

In a bid to secure his future, Elebuibon said the Frog went to the house of the Diviner and requested to know what lies ahead in the belly of time. Ever accurate, ever truthful, the Diviner told the Frog three joyous incidents would happen in his life in rapid succession, warning, however, that the Frog must be cautious in success.

On his way home, the Frog branched off to his farm, to complete a chore he had started the day before. As he tilled the land, he uprooted a twig which made a big hole in the ground. Curious, he looked into the little hole and saw a pot of money.

Gingerly, he dug out the pot and hit a jackpot. In a dazed dance on the farm, news came that his wife had been delivered of a baby, the Frog became drunk on joy. Right on the farm, he ordered various food and palm wine to be taken to his house preparatory to a feast never witnessed in the land.

Mr Frog called on dancers, drummers, relatives and friends to come and share in his joy, pomp and pageantry. In the middle of the electrifying jubilation, word came from the kingmakers that Frog had been chosen as the next king of the land.

Frog climbed the peak of gladness, leaving the realm of dance for the realm of acrobatics, leaping and stomping in a frenzy until he tripped and crash-landed, breaking his thigh bones and ultimately losing the crown because the palace forbids a paraplegic as king.

Like the Frog, who was foretold three transformative incidents would happen in his life, UNIOSUN has had the opportune luck of being headed by three amazing vice chancellors, who were successively chosen through the laws establishing the 15-year-old university.

The pioneer V-C of UNIOSUN, Sola Akinrinade, a distinguished Professor of History at the Obafemi Awolowo University, is a first-class intellect, whose tenure witnessed groundbreaking achievements in the areas of quality faculties, sustainable academic calendar, quality of governance and massive infrastructural development.

A medical doctor and Professor of Chemical Pathology, University of Ilorin, Bashiru Okesina, succeeded Akinrinade, recording giant strides that firmly planted the institution on the national education map.

The incumbent V-C, Labode Popoola, a sterling Professor of Forest Economics from the University of Ibadan, has improved the fortunes of the university in the areas of increased academic programmes, including the re-establishment of medical studies.

But barely 10 weeks before the curtain falls on the tenure of Popoola on November 4, 2021, UNIOSUN is on the boil. Professorial eggheads in academic gowns, hoods and tams are set to abandon classroom teaching for courtroom fighting in the bid to clinch the heavyweight title of the Office of the Vice-Chancellor.

Like the vulture, unease has shown up on the UNIOSUN horizon, gradually encircling the citadel and threatening to exchange UNIOSUN’s peace for war. Like Nigeria’s self-determinism battle, many UNIOSUN professors are poised to defend their space.

This is what a newspaper advertorial calling for applications from interested candidates for the post of V-C has caused UNIOSUN. The ominous clouds are threatening acid rain in UNIOSUN.

The content of the controversial advertorial is a drastic departure from the academic requirements and the UNIOSUN extant laws that produced Akinrinade, Okesina and Popoola, fuelling the suspicion that there’s more to the advert than meets the eye.

Specifically, a simple search on Google reveals that neither the two past V-Cs nor the incumbent V-C and the two past acting V-Cs, exceptional Prof Gani Olatunde and illustrious Prof Oguntola Alamu, meet all the requirements announced by the Popoola-led institution.

The advert demands a ResearchGate Score of 15.0 and 800 citations from each applicant, which neither the incumbent nor the past V-Cs meet.

Indeed, the incumbent V-C has an H-Index of 11 on Google Scholar instead of the advertised 15. In ResearchGate Citations, Popoola has 284, instead of the advertised 800, and has 15.29 in ResearchGate Score.

The questions on the lips of stakeholders are: What is the sense in setting requirements unattainable by even the vice-chancellors of Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Yale, Princeton, and Columbia universities? Does the UNIOSUN frog want to break its thigh bones like the proverbial frog? Does the Popoola-led administration, like the proverbial monkey, want to smash UNIOSUN’s pot of success on the eve of mantle passover?

Pointedly, Harvard University V-C, Prof Lawrence Basco, has a ResearchGate Score of 14.5 and 582 citations; Cambridge V-C, Prof Stephen Toope, has a ResearchGate Score of 14.5 and 701 citations; Oxford V-C, Prof Loiuse Richardson, has NO ResearchGate Score, laughably rendering her ineligible for UNIOSUN V-C post.

The Presidents of Yale and Princeton, Prof Peter Salovey, and Prof Christopher Eisgruberi, respectively, don’t have ResearchGate Accounts nor Scores just as their counterpart in Columbia University, Prof Lee Bollinger, has neither, also.

Back home in Nigeria, the acting V-C, University of Ibadan, erudite Prof Adebola Ekanola’s ResearchGate Score is 7.5 with 64 citations while the ResearchGate Score and citations of ABU V-C, the distinguished Prof Kabir Bala, are 3.58 and 108 respectively.

In the contentious advert, prospective candidates, who MUST meet all the requirements, were directed to send their applications to the vice-chancellor, in a clear usurpation of the Office of the Registrar, UNIOSUN, and a travesty of the laws setting up the university.

Similarly, the requirements which stipulate that candidates must possess 10 local and international research grants, and to also have attended 20 international conferences are ridiculous given the fact that UNIOSUN cannot boast of full sponsorships of her professors to international conferences nor fully sponsoring their researches in the last five years.

The Visitor to UNIOSUN, Governor Gboyega Oyetola; should quickly wade into the travesty before the head of baby UNIOSUN is twisted backward.

By the provisions of UNIOSUN Law 2006 and UNIOSUN Condition of Service 2019/2021, the advert is clearly skewed in favour of candidates in Pure/Applied Sciences against those in Law, Education, Arts, Social/Management Sciences and Humanities – with the non-acceptance of book publications, monographs, plays and visual arts from candidates.

I wonder what the thoughts of the founder of the university, Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola, and his predecessor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, are right now.

Oyetola, now is the time to act.

 

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @tunde odesola

Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Opinion

Zenith Bank’s new MD and the burden on successful women – Farooq Kperogi

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Adaora Umeoji Nwokoye

Zenith Bank’s new MD and the burden on successful women – Farooq Kperogi

It so often happens that whenever a Nigerian woman makes the news as having been appointed to a high position that is, has been or, in the minds of male chauvinists “should be,” the exclusive preserve of men, she becomes the object of (social) media slander, unconscionable belittlement, vile gossip, slut-shaming, and malicious smears.

That is the fate Zenith Bank’s Mrs. Adaora Umeoji Nwokoye has been suffering since her announcement as the first woman Group Managing Director and CEO of the bank. In what is supposed to be her moment of joy, she’s contending with an avalanche of mean, nasty remarks and misogynistic bullying from insecure men with fragile egos who, instead of being happy for her, choose to question her qualifications, obsess over her looks, and ascribe her rise to a reward for sexual favors.

The most egregious of this came from a widely shared Facebook post by one Azalike Nonso who wrote that Mrs. Umeoji-Nwokoye looked “like a hook up [sic] girl” and that he would “NEVER take [Zenith Bank] seriously again” for appointing her its boss.

When he was challenged, he doubled down on his evidence-free moral stigmatization of the woman by insisting that she “knack her way to the top,” a Nigerian Pidgin English expression for she slept her way to the top, a sentiment one  Okoye re-echoed in another widely shared Facebook post.

As the father of three girls, these dreadful patriarchal putdowns and vilifications of a successful, high-flying woman by some idle worthless scum of men hurt me on a personal level. Mrs. Nwokoye embodies what every responsible parent should want their daughter to grow up to be. She got the job because she was more qualified than anybody for the position.

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She has multiple degrees, including advanced ones, in sociology, accounting, business administration, and law—in addition to three decades of experience in banking. She was, in fact, the Deputy Managing Director of Zenith Bank in the last eight years that preceded her elevation to the status of GMD/CEO of the bank. In other words, she had functioned as the second in command of the bank.

What more does it take to merit her position? Plus, she achieved her career success while married to her husband, Emmanuel Nwokoye, said to be a medical doctor, with whom she has children. And that’s the more reason why the unprovoked besmirching of her moral integrity is in such bad taste. Nigeria is supposed to be a traditional society where the institution of marriage is supposed to shield women from these sorts of calumnies.

I honestly wanted to ignore the social media skunks who cast aspersions on her honor without a shred of evidence because, truth be told, the overwhelming majority of people, both male and female, exulted in Mrs. Nwokoye’s norm-bending, glass-ceiling-breaking elevation as the boss of Zenith Bank.

Nonetheless, when I read Chido Nwakanma’s article titled “Zenith Bank and Managing Dr Umeoji’s PR” on Thursday and sensed suppressed, even benign, but nonetheless significant signs of misogyny in the garb of professional public relations analysis, I felt compelled to intervene.

Nwakanma is a well-regarded journalist and public relations expert for whom I have a great deal of respect. But his article on Mrs. Nwokoye’s promotion to the top of the ladder was a letdown.

He deployed what we call “blame-the-other-technique” to channel and validate patriarchal and misogynistic views of successful women, which basically consists in fixation on women’s dress and appearance, using discriminatory standards to assess women’s performance, and paternalistic condescension.

He said, “An observer noted that Zenith probably needed to prepare for the communication and PR challenge of showcasing an overly beautiful and over-educated female as MD.” “Overly beautiful and over-educated female as MD”! That’s classic patriarchal phraseology.

No serious analyst would ever talk of the handsomeness of a male bank CEO or describe a man with three bachelor’s degrees (in sociology, accounting, and law), two master’s degrees (in business administration and law), and a doctorate in business administration from a for-profit online American university as “over-educated.”

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He would be described as “well-educated” instead. There is a tone of mild disapproval in the term “over-educated.” Over-education means having more education than is useful or needed. It’s as if she earned degrees above her gender station.

But it gets worse. He talked about concerns over her red dress, why she uses her maiden name as her middle name, and then had this gem: “She is beautiful, no doubt, and parades an exciting Figure 8. Unfortunately, Figure 8 is not corporate. She must sacrifice the vanity of Figure 8 for the corporate essence.”

That’s someone’s wife and some people’s mother, not to mention the CEO of one of Nigeria’s top banks, we are talking about. She’s being scrutinized for the shape of her body, not the content of her character (as Martin Luther King, Jr would say) or the quality of her ideas. Would any expert deserving of that name write about the sturdy, six-pack build of a newly appointed male CEO of a bank and then go ahead to dismiss it as “not corporate”?

Nwakanma mentioned “Figure 8” three times in three sentences. That’s extreme, unwarranted, and frankly, disappointing sexualization of a successful woman (not to mention someone’s wife!) who owes her rise in the corporate ladder to her brain, not her so-called Figure 8.

Nwakanma’s piece is merely a more intellectually sophisticated version of the crude misogynistic digs at Mrs. Nwokoye by bitter, no-good social media lowlifes.

Look, I have zero personal or professional familiarity with the woman, but I have a personal investment in how men handle the success of women because I am also raising three potentially successful women. My first daughter is studying engineering at a top-three engineering university in the United States.

I would be concerned if insecure men attribute her success in life to factors other than her brilliance, grit, and her hard work. I would lose it if middle-aged men were to fixate on her figure and choice of dress for analysis—things that are never done for men.

A similar scenario played out in 2017 when Mrs. Aisha Ahmad was appointed as one the deputy governors of the Central Bank of Nigeria. As I wrote in my October 14, 2017, column titled, “CBN’s Aisha Ahmad, Misogynistic Bullying, and Religious Hypocrisy,” two categories of (male) Nigerian social media users were disconcerted by her appointment.

“The first group,” I wrote, “said she is unqualified because her promotion as Executive Director by her bank was suspiciously co-extensive with her appointment as CBN’s deputy governor, suggesting that her promotion was done in anticipation— or as a direct consequence— of her appointment.”

I added: “The second group, made up of mostly northern Muslim men, said she was unworthy of her position—wait for it— because her formal western attire doesn’t conform to the Islamic dress code for Muslim women! One widely shared Facebook status update, in fact, defamed her as a ‘sex worker” on account of her dressing. That’s a prima facie case of libel.”

As is by now apparent, successful women—be they southerners or northerners, Muslims or Christians—can’t catch a break. They are always judged more harshly than men. This culture has to stop!

Zenith Bank’s new MD and the burden on successful women – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is popular Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of Journalism. 

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Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi

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Farooq Kperogi

Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi

In the spirit of Ramadan, I am republishing a revised version of an article I wrote in June 2017 in my defunct “Politics of Grammar” column about pig-based meats and foods that Muslims are forbidden from eating but which many of them who visit the West unwittingly eat on occasion because of their poly-appellativeness (my coinage for multiple names.)

The column was inspired by an encounter I had in 2015. A Muslim high court judge from Osun State nearly ate pepperoni pizza (pepperoni is a mixture of beef and pork) at a workshop for Nigerian judges that I facilitated here in the United States. I knew he was an observant Muslim because we’d prayed together, and he’d shared concerns about the ubiquity of pork in Western culinary choices.

During lunch break, I saw him with slices of pepperoni pizza amid several people. I beckoned to him to come immediately, but he was really hungry, so he said I should give him a few minutes to finish his food.

I know enough Yoruba to know that pig is called “alede” and eat is “je.” I combined the words to make a sentence that I didn’t think made much sense. He jumped out of his seat instinctively and asked me in English if what he was about to eat contained pork. I answered in the affirmative.

He went straight to the bathroom and vomited, even though he hadn’t eaten anything. I felt sorry for him. He refused to eat or drink anything thereafter.

Another inspiration for this column derives from the tales of distress and guilt I’ve heard from many Muslim visitors to the West who consumed pig meat or who were awfully close to doing so out of ignorance of the deceptive appellative trappings of many pork-based gastronomic products.

For instance, at least five Muslims have told me that they either ate or almost ate a pig-based meat product called “salami” because they were deceived by the lexical similarities between “salami” and “salam” (Arabic for “peace”) and were misled into thinking they were eating halal meat.

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What could be more halal, they thought, than a meat that shares lexical and phonological similarities with “salam,” the short form of the Muslim, Arabic-derived greeting, As-salamu alaykum, and the root word of Islam itself?

In fact, many African Muslims bear the name Salami as the short form of Abdulsalam or “Abdus Salam (which stands for servant of the Peaceful, “salam” being one of the 99 names of Allah.) (Africans typically add a terminal vowel to every word or name. Thus, “Salam” becomes “Salami.”)

So how did pig meat come to share lexical similarities with the name of Allah and/or the short form of the most common greeting among Muslims, especially given that pork is prohibited in Islam?

A northern Nigerian Muslim who ate salami in London in ignorance told me he was sure that the choice of the name was a deliberate “Zionist plot to make Muslims eat pork.” That’s not true. First, Jews, like Muslims, are forbidden from eating pork. Second, the phonemic similarity between “salami” to “salaam” is actually accidental.

Salami is salted Italian pork sausage (more about this later.) “Salami” is derived from the Latin name for salt, which is “sal.” The Italian suffix “ame” is used to form collective nouns. For example, foglia, which means “leaf,” ‎becomes ‎fogliame when used as a collective noun. So salame actually literally means “salts,” but specifically salted meats. (“Salami” is the plural form of salame). The association of salami with salted pork came later.

Interestingly, this pork-based meat is called “salam” in Romanian, Bulgarian, and Turkish!
Well, there are few animals in the English language that trump “pig” in abundance of alternative names for it.

This includes names that indicate gender (such as “boar” for male pig and “sow” and “gilt” for female pig) and names that indicate age (such as “piglet,” “farrow,” or “shoat/shote” for young pigs).

A pig is also called a “hog,” a “swine,” a “grunter,” a “squealer,” a “sus scrofa,” a “porker,” and a “cobb roller.”

Most people know “pork” as the culinary noun for meat from pig, but there are way more pig-based foods and meats than “pork” that several people, especially Muslims who are prohibited from eating pork, are not familiar with. I list 14 more below as a public service.

1. “Bacon”: This is usually served during breakfast at homes and in hotels—along with eggs and sausage. It’s thin, sliced, salted, fried and brownish pork. It’s one of the most traditional culinary treats in the West. It’s so central to the gastronomy of the West that it appears in idioms such as “bring home the bacon,” which means to be the breadwinner, to be responsible for one’s family’s material wellbeing.

Most people know that bacon is derived from pig, but I have met many Muslim visitors to America, especially from Nigeria, who don’t know this. It’s also less commonly called “flitch.”

2. “Banger”: This is chiefly British English. Banger is pork cut into tiny pieces, seasoned, and stuffed in casings. The usual name for this elsewhere is “sausage” (see 3 below). It appears in collocations such as “banger and beans,” “bangers and mash,” etc.

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3. “Bratwurst (or just brat)”: Just like “banger” is chiefly British, “bratwurst” is mostly German. It’s a popular German pork sausage, although it’s often mixed with beef. In America bratwursts are called “brats.” (Sausage is any type of minced meat, mostly pork, that is seasoned and stuffed in casings).

4. “Chitlings” or “chitlins” or “chitterlings”: It is the intestines of a pig, which American blacks ate as food during slavery because it was one of the few sources of protein available to them.

Several decades after slavery, chitlins (also spelled chitlings and chitterlings) are still an African-American delicacy. If you are a Muslim who wants to experience African-American culinary delights, often called “soul food,” be sure to avoid “chitlings.” It’s just a cute word for the intestines of pigs.

5. “Chops” or “pork chops”: I know “chop” means “eat” in West African Pidgin English. But in Standard English it can mean a small cut of meat. It usually, though, is a small cut of meat from cooked pig. That’s why the usual phrase is pork chops, but it is also frequently rendered as “chops,” and that’s where people unfamiliar with the culinary vocabularies of the West might be misled into thinking they are eating a small cut of beef or mutton, etc.

6. “Frank” or “Frankfurter”: This is a type of smooth, minced, smoked pork often served in a bread roll. It is sometimes made of beef or a mixture of beef and pork. It’s generally called “hot dog,” especially in American English, and it’s so named because some people suspected, without any proof, that in Germany, where it was invented in the city of Frankfurt, dog meat was surreptitiously inserted into the meat since Germans ate dogs up until the 20th century.

Other names for franks or Frankfurters are “dog,” “weenie,” “wiener,” “wienie,” and “wienerwurst.” Although hot dogs or Franks started in Germany, they have become a staple of American street cuisine.

Thankfully, there are now turkey hot dogs, beef hot dogs, and chicken hot dogs, but the most popular ones are the pork-based ones. It’s always good to ask before you buy.
7. “Gammon”: This is pork taken from the thighs of a pig. It’s derived from the Latin word “gamba,” which means leg. It’s also called jambon or, more commonly, ham.

8. “Kielbasa”: This is the Polish word for pork-based sausage, which has achieved widespread acceptance in American English, especially in northeastern United States. It’s also called “Polish sausage” because it’s originally from Poland.

9. “Liverwurst”: Sometimes people in the West grind the liver of pigs and stuff them in casings. Germans call it leberwurst, which has been Anglicized to liverwurst. It’s also called “liver pudding” or “liver sausage.” Wurst, as you’ve probably guessed, is German for sausage.

10. “Rasher”: This is another name for bacon. Note that because of increasing pressure from Muslims and Jews, there’s now bacon or rasher made entirely from beef, turkey, chicken, or goat. If in doubt, ask.

11. “Ribs (or baby back ribs)”: This is meat from the ribs of a pig. But the term can seem like a generic reference to the ribs of any animal. It is also called back ribs or loin ribs.

12. “Pancetta”: It is Italian pork, derived from the belly of the pig. It is dried, salted, and chemically processed.

13. “Prosciutto”: As you’ve probably guessed, it’s also an Italian word. It is ham (see number 7 above) that has been dried and salted.

14. “Sowbelly”: It is salted pork cut from the belly. Other obvious names are “pork bellies” and “pork slab.”

Names for pig and pig meat in English Muslims should know – Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi is a renowned Nigerian newspaper columnist and United States-based Professor of Media Studies.

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Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode

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Femi Fani-Kayode

Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode

Worst still, many of them, particularly in the younger generation, find it difficult to read more than three lines even though it is to their own shame and detriment.

For those that have the gravitas, insight, foresight, profundity and intellectual virility to read and comprehend the counsel I have offered in this write-up, I urge you to bookmark it and wait and see what unfolds unless and until we quickly identify and recognise the problem and address the issues raised.

There are two reasons for the mass abductions and kidnappings that we are witnessing in our country today.

Firstly to garner cash which is then sent abroad to buy more arms and fund terror and secondly to destabilise our country and to discredit and undermine the credibility of our President and the Federal Government.

I hope and pray that someone is listening because this is precisely what we witnessed when the Chibok girls and other children were abducted over the years and the motives are the same.

Those that think it is only about the acquisition of money are naive and ignorant.

There is far more to it than that and there are numerous shady and sinister characters, international criminal cartels, foreign Governments and intelligence agencies and local accomplices and facilitators that are involved in this great evil.

Targeted
Nigeria has been targeted for destruction, division and disintegration by those that see us as a threat to their regional hegemony, strategic national interests and imperialist aspirations but most of us still don’t get it and perhaps never will.

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They do not want a strong, united, prosperous and regionally dominant Nigeria but would rather turn us into a pathetic and pitiful shadow of our former selves, a cowardly and quivering caricature of what we once were and a weak, divided, incredulous and headless pawn and set us up for self-destructive economic and military annihilation.

They know that a strong Nigeria, like a strong South Africa, would stand up to them in the arena of world politics and international affairs and ensure that our collective interests as Nigerians and Africans would be protected and they do not want this.

As a matter of fact for us to achieve that enviable status is not just their greatest fear but their worse nightmare.

They ask themselves in their corporate boardrooms, presidential palaces, cabinet meetings and legislative chambers, who can stand up to a strong Nigeria?

They wonder where else they would get their free mineral resources and be in a position to manipulate and dictate to servile leaders if not Nigeria?

And if Nigeria were to fail, fall and go the way they want us to who would stand and speak for Africa and the black man in the comity of nations?

If the truth be told without a strong, flourishing and virile Nigeria Africa is nothing and the black man is nowhere and this is precisely why the powers that be, when it comes to world politics and the international community, do not want us to succeed.

As far as they are concerned we are too weak, corrupt, ignorant, primitive, backward, servile, self-hating and dumb to achieve anything meaningful and we are more than happy to spend the next 100 years as a nation and a people that seek nothing but validation, leadership and guidance from them.

Yet how wrong they are. They have no idea who and what we are and deep down they fear us and recognise the fact that an unbound and unfettered Nigeria with strong, bold, articulate, confident and fearless leaders that do not seek their approval or validation and that have no interest in remaining as their slaves would be their worse nightmare. Such leaders would be dangerous to their evil cause and their attempt to sow the seeds of civil war, hardship and economic paralysis in our country.

Fight back
It is time that we confront the matter with an iron hand and fight back to save Nigeria.

It is time for us to get off our knees, to throw away the begging bowl, to stop constantly seeking validation from those that do not wish us well, to stop blindly implementing their disastrous economic models which seek to impoverish and destroy our people, to uproot and reject their well-planted seeds of division and to stop tolerating their subversive activities.

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Ask yourself, who funds the terrorists and bandits and where do they get their weapons from?

They did it in Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad, Niger, Algeria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Syria and so many other countries over the years and decades and now they are doing it here.

Ask yourself who was behind the attack on a mosque in which worshippers were killed on Friday in Kaduna and what was the purpose of this abominable and condemnable act of terror if not to destabilise us and create panic and chaos in our nation?

Again how is it that just a few days after the mass abduction of women in Gamburu Ngala, Borno state and just one day after the kidnapping of 280 female students in Kuriga, Kaduna state yet another 15 students were abducted in Gidan Bakuso, Sokoto state just yesterday.

All this nonsense must stop and we must desist from refusing to acknowledge that we now have and indeed have always had a major problem which needs to be acknowledged and be solved.

None of these things happen by chance and what we are witnessing is a deep seated and long term conspiracy to literally end our nation as we know it and throw us into a state of fear, poverty, anomie, anarchy, fratricidal butchery and carnage.

Worst of all is the fact that our so called “best friends” and “allies” in the west and the international community are the ones behind it.

We need help and if we can get it from the Russians, the Chinese and even the Iranians in order to restore our peace, self respect, freedom, dignity and prosperity we should do so.

Asking the West for help either in intelligence gathering, advice or covert Military operations when it comes to the fight against the terrorists and insurgents in Nigeria is like asking the big bad wolf to save little Red Riding Hood.

It cannot work because ultimately they are the hidden hand behind our numerous travails and they are the enemy.

May God open our eyes and deliver our nation and may we cultivate the fortitude and courage to come together as a people, eschew our differences, resist the evil and save our nation.

•Fani-Kayode, the Sadaukin of Shinkafi and the Wakilin Doka Potiskum, is a lawyer, a former Minister of Aviation and a former Minister of Culture and Tourism.

Mass kidnappings : The truth Nigerians do not want to hear – Femi Fani-Kayode

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