Opinion

The Israel of Shaitan – Femi Fani-Kayode

Published

9 months ago

February 18, 2024

The Israel of Shaitan – Femi Fani-Kayode

Whilst much of the world and most of America watched the superbowl the other night, the State of Israel was busy bombing and slaughtering the Christian and Muslim women and children of Rafah and its sprawling refugee camp in far away Gaza.

100 innocent and defenceless people were killed, most of whom were women and children, in the space of a few hours of relentless bombing.

Israel has expressed her intention to continue to bomb and unleash horror on Rafah despite the stern warnings and desperate pleas from the rest of the world not to do so including her two greatest allies and closest friends, the United States of America and the United Kingdom.

The Jewish state has murdered no less and probably far more than 35,000 Palestinian civilians in the last four months, 17,000 of whom are children, and injured over 100,000.

I am compelled and constrained by my faith and love for humanity to oppose and resist such a monstrous entity that is given to commiting such inhumane and genocidal crimes against my fellow human beings for WHATEVER reason and neither can I be expected to confer on it some far-fetched and illusionary notion of “the right to exist”.

Surely no country, particularly one which was artificially-created and which was built on the blood, sweat, suffering, toil, tears and bones of the Palestinian people like the Zionist state, has the right to exist.

The oppressor has no right to exist if that “right” entails cheating, pillaging, plundering, enslaving, murdering at will and occupying the land of the oppressed.

The usurper, the conqueror, the pillager, the rapist, the mass- murderer, the thief, the land-grabber, the ethnic cleanser, the butcher of the elderly and the murderer of women and children may have the weapons, wealth, international support, power, wherewithal and homicidal disposition to commit and get away with his horrendous crimes against humanity but he has no “right to exist” other than the one that he forcefully and erroneously appropriated and conferred upon himself.

He exists and commits such unspeakable atrocities only because he has the power to do so and to get away with them and not because he has any right to exist.

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Great nations and powerful empires come and great nations and powerful empires go.

That is the way of the world, it is inevitable and it is well reflected in history.

The Babylonian, Persian, Mongol, Ottoman, Roman, British, Spanish, Russian, Han and Greek empires collectively and respectively once ruled the civilised world and their power was deemed to be never-ending and irresistible but where are they today?

They had their time, sometimes stretching into hundreds of years, but eventually they crumbled and were compelled by the force of circumstances which were beyond their control to relinquish power, to leave the scene, to crumble and to eventually vanish into the night.

And in that crumbling their so-called “right to exist” solely for the purpose of destroying, enslaving, subjugating and tormenting others disappeared into the night with them.

So it shall be for the Zionist state if she does not repent, go back to God and change her wicked ways.

Like Juilus Caesar she came, she saw and she conquered.

From the time that she was re-established 75 long years ago she boastfully flaunted her awesome power, magnificent glory, unprecedented excellence and stupendous wealth over much of the world and particularly over the Palestinian people.

Like the Virgin Daughter of Babylon who was graphically displayed and meticulously described in Isaiah 47 of the Holy Bible she loudly and boastfully proclaimed to the world and all that cared to listen that “I AM and there is none besides me!”

Yet despite her hubristic pride and vainglorious proclamations of invincibility it is self-evident to the discerning that with her blind, vengeful and savage rage, her unconciable lack of restraint and self-discipline, her inexplicable descent into madness and the abominable atrocities that she is committing in Gaza on a daily basis her cup is full and the Most High God has set His heart and the people of the world against her just as He did 2000 years ago after they murdered our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

He shall surely break her yoke, bring her to her knees, revoke her “right to exist”, scatter her to the four corners of the earth, compel her to vanish into the night and ensure that her insidious and perfidious intention to establish a “Greater Israel” whose borders stretch from Egypt to Iran crumbles and is blown away with the wind.

The Zionist state’s sole purpose of existence is to crush, conquer, enslave and exterminate the Palestinian people in their nefarious and sinister expansionist quest and to deny them what is rightfully theirs including their identity, their history, their heritage, their land, their dignity and their lives.

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Worse still they seek to achieve this with the full backing and blind support of a Biden-led United States of America that is simply incapable of any rational thinking or being impartial when it comes to this matter and that has wilfully shunned world opinion, given a thumbs up to genocide, supplied aid, arms, money, and material support to the ethnic cleansers, abandoned the cause of the Palestinian people and given their oppressors the right, the weaponry and the means to wipe them off the face of the earth.

Yet consider this.

No matter how powerful she deems herself to be the Jewish state has an Achilles heel and a soft and vulnerable underbelly and she will NEVER achieve these objectives.

More importantly in the fullness of time and in the process of trying she may well be totally crushed and removed from the map of the world.

This is because God alone rules in the affairs of men and He is just and true.

The Bible says He is slow to anger but irresistible in battle. His power is awesome, His majesty is irresistible and His justice is swift.

He is a man of war and as the Bible asks, “who can stand against Him?”

He contends against those who contend against us, He fights for the rights of the less privileged and the underdog and He rises in defence of the enslaved and the oppressed.

He removes mighty Kings from their thrones in the blink of an eye and He causes paupers, the rejected, the hated and the deprived to rise up in power and excel.

He is the father of the orphan and the husband of the widow.

He is the champion of the poor, the needy, the elderly and the defenceless infant and He is the avenger of our blood.

His name is the I Am That I Am, the Ancient of Days, the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Valley, the Lamb of God, the Ressurected Messiah, the Coming King and the Lord God of Hosts and at the appropriate time He will honor His word and rise up for the occupied, the cheated, the subjugated, the humiliated, the denied, the oppressed and the enslaved and strike down their strong tormentor.

Simply put there is no place or space in todays world for the worst, most brazen, most primitive and most insidious form of racism, colonialism and fascism that today’s Zionist State of Israel embodies, manifests and represents.

And neither does a vicious, relentless, barbaric, cruel, heartless and blood-lusting apartheid Jewish state which is led by evil men who have lost their sense of reason, their minds and their humanity and who behave in a worse manner than the wildest of beasts have a right to exist.

They LOST that right when they embarked on violating all international norms, laws and protocols and chose to target and kill Palestinian women and children for their sport and pleasure.

And the sordid and reckless friends and company that they keep do not help matters.

For example, egged in their insanity and to the brink of catastrophy by delusional clowns like the newly-elected Argentinian President who went to Israel a few days ago, wept at the praying wall in Jerusalem and proclaimed that the Jewish state should proceed to build the second Jewish Temple on the Al Aqsa mosque as soon as possible ignoring the fact that this would undoubtedly and instantly provoke millions of Muslims all over the world to violence, likely result in WW111 and probably end with the total and complete obliteration and annihilation of Israel, the Jewish state continues to wallow in her pitiful delusion of invincibility and infalliblity.

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I guess one cannot expect any better counsel from a man who leads a Latin American country in which every single black person was wiped out, exterminated and eliminated at the outset on the grounds of not wanting their “beautiful” white bloodlines and unsullied Spanish heritage to be infiltrated, soiled, sulllied and diminished by the blood of the black African and which acted as a secure and valued safe haven for Hitler’s Nazis after World War 11.

With friends like President Javier Milei of Argentina the Jews do not need any enemies!

Surely this is not the Israel of King David, the greatest of all the Jewish Kings and a man who was described in the Holy Bible as being “a man after God’s heart”.

This is not the Israel of Prime Minister Golda Meir, who described herself as being first and foremost “a Palestinian”.

This is not the Israel of Prime Minister Yizthak Rabin who fought for peace with the Arabs and who was murdered by one of his own for doing so.

This is the Israel of Binyamin Bibi Netanyahu, a bloodthirsty, deluded and demonic meglomaniac and tyrant who is not a Jew in the true sense of the word but rather a bloodlusting and fascitic Nazi and flaming Zionist.

His is not the Ancient Israel of the Holy Bible which prided itself on decency, righteousness, the love and fear of God and justice but rather the Israel of the Rothchild family, the Israel of the Zionists and the Israel of shaitan.

His is not the Israel that is the beloved of the Lord and the apple of God’s eye but an Israel that does not know or recognise God and one that has no sense of decency, goodness, mercy and compassion.

His is not the Israel that is guarded jealousy by the Archangel Michael but rather an Israel that is led, guided, motivated and propelled by Beelzbub, Asmodeus and the principalities and demons of hell which seek to lead her to enmity with God and utter destruction.

Yet as insane and extreme as Netanyahu appears to be his bellicose disposition is nothing compared to the utter psychotic and sociopathic depravity of some of his cabinet Ministers such as the far-right National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said that the Palestinian people should be driven into the Sinai desert or into the sea and who suggested that the 2.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza Strip should be displaced and scattered into 100 different countries at 25,000 Gazans per country or the Minister of National Heritage, Amihai Ben Eliyahu, who said that a nuclear bomb should be dropped on Gaza and that everyone in it, including the women and children, should be sent to an early grave!

If you think these outrageous submissions and nauseating contributions are, to say the least, shameful and unacceptable, I challenge you to listen to those that were made by some of Netanyahu’s other right wing Cabinet members such as the Minister of Intelligence, Gila Gamliel and the Minister of Finance, Bezalel Smotrich.

Their views are truly beyond the pale and would make even Dr. Faustus’ demon, Mephistopheles, tremble.

Yet it doesn’t stop there. Worse of them all is a modern-day Jezebel by the name of Tally Gotliv who is an Israeli MP and who, just a few days ago on the floor of the Israeli Knesset, said that the war must continue in Gaza, there must be no ceasefire, the occupation must be sustained, the siege must not be lifted and the people of Gaza should not be allowed one drop of water or one morsel of food and instead must be “starved to death!”

This modern day harpy should have not been named Tally at all but rather Medusa the Gorgon or Cruella De Ville!

Does anyone still believe that these bestial creatures are God’s chosen people or some kind of star-studded master race?

They may be a chosen people but judging by their rhetoric, speech and actions they were not chosen by God but rather by the devil.

To talk about wiping out a whole race of people with nuclear weapons is, to say the least, cold-blooded and barbaric and it is the kind of rhetoric that Hitler’s Nazis indulged in.

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It has no place whatsoever in todays world and whether it comes from the Jews or anyone else we must condemn it in the strongest terms.

The State of Israel that I know, that I love, that I pray for everyday and that is eulogised, celebrated and enunciated in the Holy Bible is not one and the same as the vile, callous, murderous, beastly, accursed and blood-drunk Zionist entity that is presided over by the creature called Bibi Netanyahu, that falsely and erroneously describes itself as Israel and that feeds and drinks on the blood, flesh, tears, misery and suffering of the Palestinian people.

The Israel of old that I knew and loved was a shining beacon of light, love, joy, hope and goodness to the world and to humanity and was truly a blessing to all but Netanyahu’s Israel is a curse to the world and is shrouded in perfidy, deceit, evil and darkness.

To those that still claim to love the Zionist state and who believe that they are above the law and can get away with anything I say this: search your conscience, find your humanity and always remember that God is fair and just.

He will never support or encourage the barbaric things that Israel is doing in Gaza and neither can there be any blessing in supporting it.

Be guided, be wise and never forget that every form of evil and oppression has an expiry date.

For the Palestinian people and indeed all those from all over the world that stand by them and that are weeping for them, the night may be dark but joy comes in the morning!

Permit me to end this contribution by sharing a little more about the nature, history, character and experiences of these beautiful Palestinian people that Israel wishes to remove from the records of history.

Ever since the people of Gaza voted for Hamas in a free and fair election in 2006 Israel turned their entire territory into the worlds largest and most horrifying concentration camp and open prison.

Right from the outset everything and everyone, including food, water, medical provisions, electricity and other essentials of life that went in and out of Gaza was controlled by the State of Israel.

All her borders were closed and no-one could go into or come out of the Strip without the permission of the Jewish authorities.

In addition to that no nation, corporation or individual from the international community was allowed to provide them with succour, aid or provisions without the permission of the Israelis which was almost impossible to get.

They were treated like caged rats and they were subjected to what can best be described as a military siege and blockade from the land, the sea and the air right from the outset whilst their people, including women and children, were systematically targeted for humiliation, slaughtered, butchered, tortured, maimed, abducted, raped and murdered by members of the Israeli Defence Force whose greatest claim to fame for the last 20 years is the ability not to fight and win wars against other standing armies successfully but to rape, pillage and slaughter innocent and defenceless Palestinian civilians including women and children.

Permit me to add the following which in my view serves as the ultimate indignity and humiliation.

As a matter of policy the Israelis do not return the bodies of any Palestinian, whether man, woman or child, that dies in their prisons.

If you are a Palestinian and you go to jail or are put in detention in Israel, if you die there you are NEVER going home to be buried and your loved ones will never see you or your body again.

You will be denied the normal burial writes which are accorded to every himan being and your body will be dropped in some filthy hole in the corner of some rat and cockroach infested Israeli jail like that of a stray dog!

This is utterly heartless but what is even worse is the fact that when Palestinians die or are killed by the Jews either on the battlefield, in their homes, in their hospitals, on their streets or indeed anywhere else and the Israeli Defence Force has access to their bodies they cut them open, remove their vital organs, take them back to Israel and sell them on the international black market!

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One is constrained to ask whether those that insist on doing such abominable things are really human beings?

The Palestinians of Gaza are a people that have been living under the most grotesque, repressive, repressed and insidious form of bondage and occupation for the last few decades yet they remain strong, focused, fearless, resilient, gallant, heroic, confident, courageous and irrepressible.

What makes the wickedness and cruelty that they have been subjected to all the more difficult for them to bear is the fact that contrary to Israeli and Western propaganda and their inexcusable and deplorable revision and outright perversion of history the Palestinians are a proud, noble, enlightened, refined, cosmopolitan, technologically-advanced, peace-loving people whose sacred values and noble heritage are second to none and whose rich history of peace, tolerance, civilisation, accommodation, religious diversity, charity, kindness and peaceful coexistence with their guests and neigbours goes back thousands of years.

Again they are by far the best educated people in the Middle East and possibly amongst the best educated in the world with 30% of them being PhD holders whilst 99% of their over 14 million population are literate.

There are seven million Palestinians living in Gaza, the occupied West Bank and Israel put together whilst another seven million live in the diaspora and are spread all over the world doing skilled jobs, running businesses and attending universities and other institutions of higher learning.

Abandoned by much of the Arab world in their struggle for emancipation due to American and Jewish influence and pressure, they have soldiered on regardless making huge contributions in science, the arts, commerce, sports and virtually every other field of human endeavour.

They are not only industrious and hard working but they have remarkable foresight and have resolved never to bow, submit, capitulate or bend the knee to their Zionist oppressors and colonial masters but rather to stand firm, stand tall, maintain their self respect and dignity, thrive, survive and resist them till the very end even if it means that they all die trying.

This courageous thirst and quest for freedom, emancipation and liberation despite the horrific circumstances they have been subjected to can only but be admired and applauded by all right thinking people.

They are indeed a testimony to courage and a great source of inspiration to the downtrodden and those that the famous Afro-American author Franz Fanon described in his famous book titled ‘The Wretched of the Earth’.

Like the black majority population of the old apartheid South Africa who stood firm against all odds, fought hard, held on to their dream of freedom and were martyred in their thousands for hundreds of years till it eventually came they have refused to bend the knee and become slaves to the Zionists and instead, like Patrick Henry the famous American revolutionary courageously proclaimed to King George 111 of England in 1775 they have defiantly shouted “give me liberty or give me death” and they have courageously screamed “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

Literally every single Gazan and Palestinian is committed to this noble cause of liberation and is prepared to sacrifice their lives for it and nothing provides a more eloquent testimony to this than their willingness to protect themselves militarily and wage war against their oppressors.

Consequently they manufacture virtually all of their own weapons and their ably-trained and well- equipped armed wing, known as the Al Qasam Brigade, has proved to be a formidable fighting force in battle and one which has given the Israeli Defence Force a bloody nose.

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I watched the Minister of Social Services of Gaza, Dr. Ghazi Hamad, who is a leading member and an influential and powerful figure in the Hamas Government speak on Seun Okinbaloye’s Channels Television ‘Politics Today’ show last tuesday evening and I was very impressed by the way he marshalled his points and stated his case.

He spoke in a concise, eloquent, refined and effective manner and his arguments and submissions were irrefutable, incontrovertible and compelling.

Millions of Nigerians were spell-bound and star-struck when they heard him as he calmly enunciated the truth about the events of October 7th (for which he refused to apologise) and the history of the Palestinian struggle.

He made four notable points.

Firstly that a person whose home or country has been forcefully occupied by a foreign power and aggressor and whose family members and compatriots are being killed on a daily basis cannot be legitimately described as a terrorist as a consequence of his quest to throw the occupier out and free his people by any means, including violent ones.

This appears to me to be sound logic.

You cannot beg a famished wolf to leave the sheep pen and you cannot appeal to a hungry tiger to leave the chicken coop. You can only drive them out by force.

You either tread the path of violent resistance to evil or you shamefully submit, close your eyes, prepare for the worse and die a shameful and cowardly death.

For those who have bought the lies of the West and Israel and that continue to dismiss Hamas as nothing but a terrorist organisation I ask the following.

How can an occupier of someone elses land and a violent conqueror describe those whose land and people they have suppressed, conquered, subjugated, humiliated, enslaved and violently and forcefully appropriated describe their victims and those whose lives, homes and land they have taken and captured as terrorists simply because they have opted to undergo an armed struggle in an attempt to defend themselves, fight back, deliver their people and take back what is rightfully theirs?

Surely those that resist such oppression cannot fairly be described as terrorists but rather as freedom fighters.

This is precisely what happened in apartheid South Africa and after decades of suffering, degradation, oppression, subjugation, humiliation, murder, persecution and destruction the black South Africans took their nation back through a gallant and courageous armed struggle which was waged by the armed wing of the ANC known as Umkontho We Sizwe (The Spear of the Nation).

History is replete with such examples.

The courageous and fiery black American preacher and slave Nat Turner did the same in the southern American state of Virginia when he led his fellow black slaves in a violent and murderous rebellion, known as the Southampton Insurrection, against their white slave owners in 1831.

The Americans themselves waged a violent and bloody revolution and war of independence against the oppression and subjugation of their erstwhile British colonial masters in 1775.

The French broke their own shackles of bondage and oppression in 1789 with a violent and extremely bloody revolution against the subjugation of the monarchy and the ruling class durng which they killed or drove into exile most of the French upper classes and ruling elite and sent the King, his Queen and other members of his family to the guillotine.

The English waged their own war of emancipation in 1642 when Oliver Cromwell unleashed a violent revolution and civil war against King Charles 1st and not only removed him from power and established the Parliamentary system of Government but also beheaded him!

The Russians embarked on their own revolution in 1917 when Vladimir Lenin and his Bolsheviks fought a civil war against Tsar Nicholas 11, removed him from the throne, ended 300 years of the brutal oppression of the Romanov dynasty, took power for the people and established a Communist nation known as the USSR.

Toussant Louverture did the same in Haiti in 1801 when he led his army of black slaves in a war of emancipation against the French, defeated them in battle and established the western worlds first free black nation.

Closer to home Fl. Lt. John Jerry Rawlings freed the people of Ghana from oppression, corruption, subjugation and suppressive military rule in 1979 when he organised a coup detat and effected what he himself described as a revolution after which many members of the erstwhile ruling class were executed.

I could go on and on.

If armed struggle against the unjust, vicious, relentless usurper and wicked oppressor is a legitimate form of resistance in all these countries and cases and if it worked successfully for them why should the Palestinians not do the same?

Are they not human beings too or are they less human than the rest of us? Do they not also have a duty to their people and indeed an obligation to God to resist every form of oppression, injustice and evil?

Do the great faiths of Islam and Christianity not insist on this in their Holy books?

They most surely do.

The second point the Minister made when asked about whether or not Hamas would release the remaining over 100 Israeli hostages that they abducted on October 7th, was that they would only do so once the Israelis released at least 5000 of the 7000 prisoners, most of whom were women and children, that they had arrested and kept in illegal detention and held without trial from both Gaza and the occupied West Bank for the last few months and years.

When asked about the targetting and killing of women and children by Hamas and particularly the ugly events of October 7th he made the point that it was not and had never been the practice and intention of Hamas’ Al Qassam Brigade to target women and children and that the Israeli Defence Force has targetted and killed thousands of Palestinian women and children over the months and years BEFORE October 7th and yet the world turned a blind eye to it, sat back and said nothing.

Though in my view two wrongs do not make a right again this appears to me to be a fair point.

Are Palestinian women and children not human beings as well? Does red blood not flow through their veins too? Do they not also have a right to life?

Israel has indeed been slaughtering them at will over many decades without a word from the world but the barbarity and brutality of their post October 7th butchery on Palestinian babies, infants, children and youths beggars belief. Such wickedness has never been seen in modern history.

The Zionists have murdered no less than 17000 Palestinian children in Gaza and maimed and wounded thousands of others in the last four months alone and yet they are still claiming to be the victims?

Surely this makes no sense. As bad as October 7th was, Israel’s response is disproportionate, barbaric, unacceptable and can best be described as a Nazi-like World War 11 second holocaust.

What Hitler and the Germans did to the Jews between 1936 and 1945 is precisely what the Zionists are doing to the Palestinians today.

The Germans called it the “Final Solution” then and I call it the “Final Solution” today.

The only difference is that the race of the victims are different and the hunted has now become the hunter.

Finally he made the point that whilst the whole world appeared to have abandoned the Palestinians and were indifferent to their suffering and struggle over the last 70 years and given the fact that the path of peaceful negotiation that Fatah, the PLO and the President Mahmoud Abbas-led occupied West Bank Government had chosen to tread had not produced any positive results over the last 30 years, Hamas had no intention whatsoever of abandoning their people, renouncing their armed struggle or submitting to Israel and her allies.

Can anyone legitimately fault the logic of his position? Yours truly certainly cannot.

This is especially so given the fact that Netanyahu has proclaimed that there will and cannot be a two-state solution as long as he is in power and given the fact that he has thrown the American-brokered Oslo Accord agreement into the dustbin.

To him and those that share his views the Palestinian people must either be totally subjugated, enslaved, colonised, occupied and beaten into cowardly submission or they must be totally and completely eliminated, exterminated and removed from the face of the earth.

Given this, would any right thinking person that has even a modicum of self-respect and honor not fight back?

Should one not rather be prepared to die on their feet than live in chains and on their knees?

That is the position of Hamas and frankly it is unassailable in its rationale and logic.

It is no wonder that Juilus Malema, the fiery young South African MP and politician, recently said “anyone that condemns or does not support Hamas in their armed struggle against the Israelis is a coward!”

I commend Channels Television and Seun Okinbaloye for providing Dr. Hamad with their powerful platform and for cultivating the courage to enable us to hear the other side of the story.

The Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, one Michael Freeman, who appeared on the same show the following evening in a futile attempt to do some damage control by responding to and countering Dr. Hamad was not only completely out of his depth but was also inexplicably agitated, overly emotional, unnecessarily abusive, deeply insulting, overtly and manifestly offensive and worse of all he was disingenuous, deceitful, dishonest, vulgar, out of control,deranged, enraged, condescending and wholly and completely ineffective.

Simply put he spoke nothing but specious lies and rubbish and he did so in the most simplistic and condescending manner.

His appearance was merely a pitiful regurgitation of the puerile propaganda and infantile lies that the Jews have peddled and churned out over the years and he painted the picture of a drowning man who was representing a dying, discredited, old and mortally wounded flogged horse.

He was not only unconvincing and irritating but also malevolent and bellicose in his approach and choice of words and thoroughly nauseating.

I could literally see two little devil horns sticking out of his balding head and smell the sulphur of hell seeping through my television screen as he bellowed whilst the words “mendacious”, “deceitful”, “liar”, “propagandist”, “artful dodger”, “lover of carnage”, “drinker of blood”, “eater of flesh”, “poisonous viper”, “child-killing terrorist”, “dark oppressor”, “dung-eating coprophiliac” and “accuser of the brethren” were spiritually inscribed on his ugly Zionist head.

I guess one can expect no less from a creature who represents satan’s kingdom on earth, who speaks for a

a vile race of quislings that fawn before their masters and genuflect at their every word and whose nation thrives, flourishes and excels on lies, falsehood and the premeditated and systemic mass murder, ethnic-cleansing, genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and wilful slaughter of innocent and defenceless men, women and children.

Whether Freeman likes it or not Ghazi Hamad’s appearance on Channels proved to yours truly and millions of other Nigerians that the leadership of Hamas are not the primitive, barbaric and ignorant stone age cavemen and blood-lusting terrorists that Israel and the West portrays them to be.

They are not a bunch of ignorant and illiterate savages, village idiots, genocidal maniacs, cruel beasts, unrefined field hands, war mongering and blood lusting meglomaniacs and primitive barbarians that they have been portrayed to the world to be but rather a cerebal, intellectual and highly knowledgeable group of civilised men and women who have leaders that are quite capable of holding their own with any others in the world.

It is no wonder that the Zionists have not been able to defeat them or break their spirit despite the fact that no less than 70% of Gazans have at one time or the other been detained in Israeli prisons.

It is no wonder that if there is an election in Gaza today Hamas would win hands down just as they did in previous elections.

This is the bitter truth and unpalatable reality that the world does not wish to hear.

We pray for peace and justice for the Palestinian people and we cry to the Living God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to bring the State of Israel back to her senses before it is too late. Shalom.

The Israel of Shaitan – Femi Fani-Kayode

Opinion

Farooq Kperogi: What Trump’s comeback may mean for Africa

Published

4 days ago

November 10, 2024

Trends Admin

Farooq Kperogi

Farooq Kperogi: What Trump’s comeback may mean for Africa

A few weeks ago, I spoke at a symposium in my university here in Georgia on the implications of the U.S. presidential election for the African diaspora. To the bemusement of my audience (who were a mix of Donald Trump and Kamala Harris supporters), I explained the curious phenomenon of African support for Donald Trump, particularly among Nigerian and Kenyan evangelicals.

I described how a surprising number of African Christians (and, in fact, some Muslims) consider Trump “God’s chosen one,” a valiant defender of conservative religious values whom they imagine will take on global LGBTQ rights with righteous vengeance.

The audience was incredulous and struggled to reconcile Trump’s infamous moral transgressions with his appeal to African conservatives. When I explained that these supporters see Trump as a warrior against the “cultural liberalism” they believe threatens their faith, eyebrows raised.

The eyebrows raised even further when I pointed out that there are Muslims who are so disillusioned with the Biden/Harris administration’s support for Israel that they prayed for a Trump win even when Trump is more manifestly hawkish than Biden/Harris and so disdains Muslims that he enacted a “Muslim ban” (which actually included non-Muslims) within the first few months of his first presidency.

But here’s the crux: Donald Trump is no more interested in religious morality than he is in the theological reveries of his African fan base. He is, in truth, a transactional man, a walking paradox of deals and calculations, utterly bereft of the very spiritual or moral foundation his African supporters so naively project onto him.

Trump’s “faith,” such as it is, is at best a performance, an asset to be deployed for strategic gains among America’s own conservative Christians, whom he has calculatedly courted for votes. To imagine Trump as the champion of conservative religious values is to mistake calculation for conviction and propaganda for principle.

His record speaks louder than his rhetoric. In 2015, for example, at a gathering of conservative Christians in Iowa, he openly admitted he never asks God for forgiveness, a theological anathema for any believer.

Later, on the campaign trail, he betrayed his biblical unfamiliarity, when he clumsily referred to “Two Corinthians” rather than the more common “Second Corinthians.” A slip of the tongue, perhaps, but in a subsequent interview, he tried to salvage his Christian credibility but ended up quoting a verse that doesn’t even exist: “Never bend to envy,” he offered, an adage Christians say is found nowhere in the Bible.

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Even when cornered about his favorite Bible verse, he misfired by citing “an eye for an eye,” a command Jesus explicitly repudiated. These are not the errors of a deeply religious man but the floundering of someone who considers faith a tool, not a calling.

Two Trump biographers sum up his attitude to Christianity and God nicely. Timothy O’Brien, in a 2007 book titled TrumpNation: The Art of Being Donald, wrote: “Donald has never been a spiritually or religiously serious person.”

And in 2001 book titled The Trumps: Three Generations That Built an Empire (which was revised and reissued as The Trumps: Three Generations of Builders and a President), Gwenda Blair wrote: “He’s a transactional guy with humans, and it’s no different with God — it’s all about whatever is to his advantage with regard to his supporters, and referencing God is exactly and only that.”

Yet for all his transparent artifice, Trump has nonetheless cast a beguiling spell on certain parts of Africa and the African diaspora, who see in him a savior of conservative values. They seem unfazed by the fact that his administration’s policies, his rhetoric, and his track record show little regard for Black humanity.

This disdain was palpable during his last tenure, and his recent rallies have done nothing to dispel it. Take, for instance, his unfounded claim during the first and only presidential debate that Black Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating cats and dogs, a baseless assertion that isn’t just false but revelatory: it reveals a mind committed to degrading Blackness wherever he sees it.

There’s a dark and disheartening history here. Trump’s disdain for Black people isn’t new, nor has it emerged from thin air. His bigotry is old news, woven through an embroidery of disparaging comments, discriminatory practices, and racially motivated policies dating back decades.

In 1973, the Department of Justice sued Trump for refusing to rent apartments to Black families, citing his blatant violation of the Fair Housing Act. He fought the case before reluctantly signing an agreement to stop his racist practices.

His remarks afterward? He railed that the government was forcing him to rent to “welfare recipients,” the vile code by which he aligned poverty with Blackness. The sentiment was clear: in his mind, Black people didn’t belong, and it was his duty to keep them out.

Such is Trump’s enduring perspective, made all the more alarming by his political ascendance. The implications of his return for Africa are both direct and symbolic. During his previous presidency, Trump cut aid programs that many African countries rely on and dismissed African immigrants as a detriment to American society.

His rhetoric went beyond mere words; his policies made a statement, a policy posture that informed his supporters, shaped the broader narrative around Black immigration, and foreshadowed his now-infamous “shithole countries” comment in 2018.

When Trump disparaged Haiti, Nigeria, and other Black-majority nations in favor of immigration from Norway, it wasn’t just a one-off gaffe; it was a worldview rooted in negrophobic disdain.
In truth, Trump has never reckoned with the humanity of Black people. Even before his “shithole countries” remark, he lambasted a Black accountant in 1991, citing “laziness as a trait in Blacks.”

Years later, during his 2016 campaign, he praised Ann Coulter’s venomously xenophobic book, which decried the arrival of Nigerians in the United States as a criminal invasion.

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His decision to block the appointment of Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a Nigerian-American, to lead the World Trade Organization in 2020, was yet another evidence of his disregard for Black excellence—American citizenship or no.

This is not a man whose opinions have been shaped by reasoned disagreement but by ingrained prejudice and an unwavering belief that Black lives, both within and outside of America, are lesser. Such a man at the helm of one of the world’s most powerful nations isn’t just a potential diplomatic nightmare; it’s a moral catastrophe for those who value the dignity of human life.

For Africa, the implications of a Trump resurgence are manifold. His approach to immigration alone could lead to increased restrictions on Africans seeking opportunity or refuge in the United States.

His contempt for Africans doesn’t only taint those who seek to immigrate but extends to those who remain. His willingness to denigrate entire nations with his vile language reinforces a global view of Africa as “the other,” a place he deemed too backward to deserve respect or dignify.

But Trump’s leadership affects more than just immigration. His previous administration gutted health programs that African nations relied on to tackle AIDS, malaria, and other epidemics. His withdrawal from multilateral agreements and climate initiatives destabilized African countries that disproportionately suffer from the effects of global warming and benefit the least from its economic causes.

Africa is neither immune to nor shielded from Trump’s reign. From economic pressures to ideological disrespect, his contempt manifests as policies that undermine progress and sow the seeds of isolationism.

For Africans, Trump’s victory isn’t just a foreign policy issue; it’s a personal affront. It’s a slap in the face to the millions of Africans who know America as a country that historically symbolized freedom, opportunity, and hope.

Africa’s bond with the United States transcends politics; it is the memory of independence movements supported by the promise of democracy, the aspiration for economic opportunity, and the reverence for cultural exchange. Trump’s worldview, with its utter disregard for Black humanity, threatens to erode this bond, leaving in its wake a continent left to question its ties with the West.

The challenge before Africa is to use this moment as an opportunity for unity and self-determination.

Trump’s contempt is an ugly mirror, a stark reminder that Africa cannot rely on foreign validation. Leaders and citizens alike must demand dignity, both in their interactions with the United States and in their own national narratives.

The message should be clear: Africa is neither a pawn nor a supplicant. It is a continent rich in resources, diversity, and human potential, undeserving of the scorn Trump so freely dispenses.

Trump’s victory may symbolize a return to darkness, but it is also an opportunity to galvanize resilience. Africa need not waste energy on a man who cannot see beyond his prejudice; instead, it should look to the future with resolve.

Africa’s destiny lies not in the hands of a foreign leader, and certainly not in one so blind to its humanity. Let his disdain be a rallying cry, not for despair, but for Africa to rise on its own terms.

Farooq Kperogi: What Trump’s comeback may mean for Africa

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

Opinion

Of Kings, King Kong and honour

Published

5 days ago

November 9, 2024

Trends Admin

Of Kings, King Kong and honour

By Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, November 8, 2024)

Since 1933, when it hit the cinemas in the United States, the classic movie, King Kong, has undergone no fewer than 13 remakes. King Kong is a giant prehistoric ape ruling the mysterious Skull Island, where he is worshipped by dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, pterosaurs and numerous other monster creatures.

In the 1933 version, the story begins when an ambitious filmmaker, Carl Denham, takes his cast to Skull Island in the Indian Ocean territory for a jungle shoot, and the First Mate (assistant captain) of the ship, John ‘Jack’ Driscoll, falls in love with the deuteragonist, Ann Darrow. A deuteragonist is the second lead character while the protagonist is the lead character in a drama or movie.

The blond and beautiful Ann is captured by Skull Island natives who offer her to their king as a befitting sacrifice, setting humans and animals on a collision course which encapsulates the themes of man’s perpetual violation of nature, racism, exploitation, fear and love.

More powerful than any monster ever, the 25-foot tall King Kong falls in love with Ann, and gingerly holding her in his palm, remains determined to protect Ann from love-struck Jack and other crew members trying to rescue her. Though he’s a beast, King Kong navigates the intersection between primal instinct and civility by exuding love for blondie Ann, a human being, smoothening the jagged edges of animal-human borders.

In violation of nature, the crew captures King Kong, the protagonist, ships him to New York, and presents him to Broadway theatre audience in an exhibition dubbed “Kong, the 8th Wonder of the World,” with Jack and Ann posing beside Kong, rendered unconscious by a gas bomb since he was captured on Skull Island.

The blinding light from photographers’ cameras irritates the dazed Kong, who breaks loose, wrecking buildings, trains, vehicles, public utility poles and cables etc, as he picks Ann up like a piece of fried plantain and makes a dash for the 102-storey Empire Building which he climbs to the zenith.

Four planes face King Kong with fire, trying to shoot him off the building. He places Ann, his beloved, in a safe place and faces his adversaries, swatting and destroying one of the planes. In destroying the plane, Kong is injured while the gunfire intensifies. Momentarily, Kong takes his eyes off the planes and looks towards Ann, a fatal error that enables the three other planes to have good shots at him. He falls off to the ground, where a bewildered crowd quickly gathers in the final moments.

Fittingly, Jack reunites with his love, Ann. Denham, who makes his way to the scene of the fallen beast, overhears a policeman saying the planes got Kong, but he responds, “Oh, no, it wasn’t the planes. It was Beauty that killed the Beast.”

There are kings and there are kings. King Kong ruled his Skull Island. The eagle rules the air. The elephant rules the jungle. The blue whale rules the sea. I know an oba in Osun who rules with dignity and honour on the àpèrè of his forefathers.

Genealogically, the road to the palace is not paved with gold alone. It is also caked in the blood of revolution and hate. Faced with dwindling economic fortunes, the high cost of monarchy, political upheavals and the appeal democracy offers, many countries have consigned their kings and queens to the dustbin of history.

On January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI lost both his crown and head to the guillotine – in the aftermath of the 1792 French Revolution, making him the last monarch to live in the Palace of Versailles, taking to his grave the fitting nickname of ‘Louis the Last’.

The ruler of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II, bit the dust during the Russian Revolution of 1917, drawing the curtain on monarchy in the Soviet country. And in 1918, after World War I, Germany kicked out its king, Kaiser Wilhelm I, and locked the palace forever. After Mussolini fell and a republic was established in 1946, a referendum nailed the coffin of monarchy in Italy just as China transited to a republic in 1912 during the Xinhai Revolution which abolished the Qing Dynasty.

Brazil sacked its king in 1889 after a republican military coup while Greece showed King Constantine II the exit door of the palace in 1973, following a referendum by military coupists. But Spain, which abolished monarchy between 1931 and 1939, restored it in 1947. Indeed, red and gold are the road to the palace.

In the 20th Century, monarchies were abolished in Afghanistan (1973), the Ethiopian monarchy that lasted for almost 3,000 years ended with Haile Selassie in 1974, Vietnam (1945), and Iraq (1958). Recently, Nepal and Barbados kicked out the monarchy in 2008 and 2021 respectively.

Unlike Africa and Europe, monarchy remains strong and vibrant in the Middle East though social reforms are gradually tempering the sword of absolutism with change.

In Nigeria, the desirability or otherwise of monarchy is like the waves of the sea, rising and falling, peaking and ebbing, a mixed bag of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Among the Ugly is the Canada-returnee jailbird king who oversmokes Indian hemp, beats his wife and royal colleague, and fights culture and tradition; a madcap desecrator of the throne who will never heed the caution of the odíderé until he perishes.

Among the Bad are the kings who run errands for politicians and support bad government policies – like that Abacha-dark-goggled king who advised the Igbo to go and perish in the lagoon so that the son of the owner of the brass mortar may reign. As a lover of culture, I won’t call for the abolition of monarchy in Nigeria though the temptation is high.

There are many good kings in Yorubaland, though the eyes cannot miss some black sheep among the flock. But lest I be accused of nepotism, I’ll name one oba in Osun, my state of origin, though Lagos is my state of birth; I’ll name one oba in Ondo, one in Ogun and one in Oyo as exemplars of nobility. This is not to say there are no good kings in Lagos and Ekiti states. There are many, but I’m probably not close enough to them – to talk about them.

At times, I wonder how lucky the Ekimogun people of the Ondo kingdom are by having as the Osemawe, Oba Adesimbo Kiladejo. Another worthy king I know is the late Towulade of Akinale kingdom in Ogun State, Oba Olufemi Iyanda Okesooto Ogunleye, journalist and lawyer, who died on June 19, 2024, after bagging a PhD at 80.

On October 22, 2024, I was strolling on Facebook Street when I saw a post by Diran Odeyemi, a popular Peoples Democratic Party chieftain in the South-West. The post says, “Do you know this school? Abolarin College, Oke-Ila, Osun State. No school fees. Free hostel. Free food. Free internet. Free uniform. Free laptop for every child. 24/7 power supply. All paid by the town’s king. The king teaches too in the school. We should celebrate such a Nigerian. What makes this school remarkable is that one major criterion for getting admitted is being poor. If your parents are rich, you cannot get admission.

Unlike other schools, Abolarin College wants poor kids who are very brilliant. From what I gathered, the king has only one wife. He’s not using the money of the kingdom to accumulate wives or properties.

Every Osun journalist worth their salt knows Oba Abolarin, whose nickname is Doxy. I got to know the 66-year-old king when I worked in Osun. I know his school, too.

I know students from the North, East and West of Nigeria are in his school. I also know he has two first degrees – one in Political Science, the other in Law – both from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.

As an honourable king and ègbón, I know Doxy up-close; he’s highly cerebral and doesn’t brook conflict or crave attention. Like the almighty sun in heaven that dries up wet clothes on earth, you will see the actions of Doxy without seeing his person.

Two other Nigerians whose actions pleasantly shocked me in recent times are the Asiwaju of Igbajoland, Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, and a former House of Reps member from Ogun State, Hon. Lanre Laoshe, both of whom refunded a Federal Government student loan they received in the 1970s.

Asiwaju means leader and Awomolo leads on many fronts. He is Osun’s first Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice as well as Osun’s first Senior Advocate.

He told me in an interview that he had been contacting the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation since 2012 to pay his student loan indebtedness but no official told him what account to pay into, adding that each time he saw his loan affidavit, he became weighed down.

“The idea behind student loans is good. I commend President Tinubu for resuscitating the scheme. I spoke with four different Accountant Generals of the Federation since 2012 when I wanted to pay N50k.

“In 2018, I wanted to pay N1m, but I just followed God’s direction and I’ve now paid N2m for a loan of N1,000 I took in 1975 If NEFUND wants me to pay more, I will.”

Laoshe, who took a student loan of N1,200 in 1976, repaid N3.1m, reportedly using a table of average annual exchange rates from 1972 to 1985 from the Central Bank of Nigeria to calculate what he owed the government.

My father and mother didn’t owe student loans. Please, ask your parents to pay up if they are owing. As we, the masses, hold government accountable, we should look at ourselves, too. Surely, Nigeria needs more men and women with conscience.

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

X: @ Tunde_Odesola

Opinion

(Opinion) Oyo Assembly trespasses over illegal suspension of Oyo East LG Chairman

Published

2 weeks ago

November 2, 2024

Trends Admin

(Opinion) Oyo Assembly trespasses over illegal suspension of Oyo East LG Chairman

Like executive, like legislature in Oyo State, rascality is now the order of the day as Oyo State is now synonymous with illegality and power exuberance. The only Governor which condemned Supreme Court landmark judgment on local government autonomy is the Oyo State fanatical emperor; Governor Seyi Makinde as the Oyo State House of Assembly was reported on Thursday October 31, 2024 to have also suspended the Chairman of Oyo East Local Government, Olusola Oluokun, over a viral video that was purportedly obnoxious and unbecoming of a Chairman of a local government. While the Governor deliberately attacked the Supreme Court judgment to discredit the then Chief Justice of Nigeria who hailed from Oyo State, did the Assembly also want to discredit Alaafin of Oyo Empire symbolizing Yorubaland which Oyo represents?

To be sincere, apart from Ladoja/Akala regime which witnessed thugs’ incursion into Oyo politics, the current administration is the most ruthless that even elevated hooliganism in the State and made thugs of undisciplined people disciplinary committee Chairman of Transport Arms of the terror network. An absurdity of highest order to the Pace Setter State!!!

Actually, the atmosphere in Oyo State House of Assembly since 2019 has shown that the house is either full of political puppets or novice in legislative duties, No wonder, the house members do not even know their limit in law making nor know the laws they are supposed to superintend. There was a day I even asked my own Assembly member from Orelope State Constituency copy of a Law passed when he joined the House but I was surprised that he said he did not have a copy of the bill apart from political brag by telling me he did not know the person he was responding to despite introducing myself formally as usual before making my request. As activist, I did not know more than 65% of people I have attended to their cases. They only got my contact and when they explained their situations, I proffer the solutions where there was no need of seeing me. And once they got result, that is the end. If an honourable has no copy of the law he was part of the makers, do we need to ask them what oversight functions they perform when they do not even know what to do?

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If the House of Assembly is constitutionally informed and literarily exposed, it would have known it is not only illegal for house of Assembly to suspend or sack a local Government Chairman the Same way the National Assembly cannot suspend a Governor or impeach him but that it smears ill of the constituents of that Assembly. The legislative functions of the councilors at the local government include screening and approval of local government budget, nominees of local government chairman such as Supervisors, special assistants and advisers, suspension or removal of local government chairman among others and to conduct oversight functions on the entire local government departments and Units where allocation of resources was made during the financial year. Ohhhh, let me ask Oyo Assembly o, is it the National Assembly that helps you perform your roles? If not, why hijacking the local government administration just because they were selected by you boss?

So, if at all, there is any kangaroo law at the State level which empowers the State Assembly to suspend or sack a local government, that law exposed the mediocrity of those who made it and or implement it as not being sound intelligently in the task of legislative functions. This is because if the National Assembly doesn’t have power to suspend a Governor, the State House of Assembly should know it trespasses and subverts local government administration independence which the Supreme Court has affirmed. Is Oyo Assembly now reversing Supreme Court judgment as a result of power abuse or display of sheer ignorance of the laws?

According to 1999 Constitution of the FRN (as amended), it provides in Section 4 (5) “If any Law enacted by the House of Assembly of a State is inconsistent with any law validly made by the National Assembly, the law made by the National Assembly shall prevail, and that other Law shall to the extent of the inconsistency be void” and section (7) provides “The House of Assembly of a State shall have power to make laws for the peace, order and good government of the State or any part thereof with respect to the following matters, that is to say- (a) any matter not included in the Exclusive Legislative List set out in Part I of the Second Schedule to this Constitution; (b) any matter included in the Concurrent Legislative List set out in the first column of Part II of the Second Schedule to this Constitution to the extent prescribed in the second column opposite thereto” In all of these provisions, the State House of Assembly only has power on revenue allocated to a local government or budget made in respect thereof of any thing having to do with education among similar objects. At no point was any administrative power over local government administration vested in the State House of Assembly. Therefore, the suspension of the Oyo East local government by the Oyo State House of Assembly is ultra vires by the application of Doctrine of covering the veil. Without requiring litigation, the House should reverse itself as quick as possible except it wants to make mockery of itself and the occupants of that House

Luqman Soliu

Abeokuta, Ogun State