Yoruba rascals and Igbo idiots (1) - Tunde Odesola – Newstrends
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Yoruba rascals and Igbo idiots (1) – Tunde Odesola

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Tunde Odesola

Yoruba rascals and Igbo idiots (1) – Tunde Odesola

(Published in The PUNCH, on Friday, March 31, 2023)

Was. Is. Will. The spellbinding sight of the throne would blush King Solomon green with envy. With a grin, the elephant walked majestically towards the throne, swishing his tail as its tree-trunk legs embossed map-like footprints in the brown earth.

He clambered up to the throne, turned around, made a throaty sound of satisfaction with his skyward trunk, and lowered his bulk into the baited throne, tumbling down the covered pit underneath.

Many traps don’t bear warnings. You’ve just walked into my trappy headline, “Yoruba rascals and Igbo idiots.” My trap has caught you, a big game. Upon reading the headline, your mind probably wandered along ethnic paths, “What’s this man up to this time?” “Uhmm, he must’ve blasted the Igbo, and their stupid leader, Iwuanyanwu,” “This stupid Yoruba boy has come again?”

Because I’m Yoruba, you expect to see me shooting at the Igbo, but I come in peace. You expect to see fire, but I bear water; you expect hate speech, but I bear the good news; instead of carrying a bag of bullets, I bear a branch of olive.

Now that you know I got you trapped, dear esteemed reader, why not sit back and enjoy this ride into Nigeria’s distant past when we sang, “…though tribes and tongues may differ, in brotherhood we stand,” and chorused, “Nigerians all, are proud to serve our sovereign Motherland?” Or, did we mean, “Our suffering Motherland?”

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Now, let’s start on an easy peasy, piece of chips note by going down memory lane to see how potato chips came into being. Potato chips, like the geographical expression called Nigeria, came into being by misadventure. Both weren’t meant to be but they came into being when Man violated nature in Africa, and gasped in exasperation and revenge in New York.

Here goes the legend of potato chips: Potato chips hopped on global menu in the 1850s after it was first made in a New York restaurant called Moon’s Lake House where an African-American chef, George Crum, performed the first potato miracle.

A customer, Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, repeatedly sent back an order of French fries, complaining they were too thick and soggy. Annoyed by the picky customer’s demand, and bent on retaliating, Crum sliced some potatoes paper-thin, fried them till they curled up in crisps, and seasoned them with a ‘kongo’ of salt.

When the commodore ate the chips, his face lit up; he munched and munched, and munched and munched, asking for more. Thus, potato chips birthed in Saratoga and became a household name in New York, attaining fame even to the end of the world.

By ‘mistake’, I got admitted in the 1980s to read Chemistry at the University of Lagos. Oh, how I hated science subjects! But my father, Pa Bisi Odesola, would do anything to see his firstborn become a graduate. So, he urged me on, saying the sky was the limit if I could weld passion to commitment. But I had neither commitment nor passion for sciences; I was already taken by the arts.

Without his knowledge, I bought textbooks for art subjects and studied for the General Certificate of Education conducted by the West African Examination Council. I also bought the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Examination Board form, and I chose Imo State University, Okigwe, because it offered English Language and English Literature as combined honours. In my GCE and JAMB exams, I came out with flying colours.

I couldn’t break the news of my coup to my father, so I went in search of my uncle, Deacon Tunji Fayese, who lived on Lagos Island, to confess my sin. After listening to my story, he dressed up, and followed me home to the mainland.

My father was happy to see his younger brother. They had a sumptuous meal prepared by my mother. After eating, they retired to the living room, where uncle Fayese unmasked the masquerader. His closing remarks at the end of his intervention, “Booda mi, e je ki Tunde follow dream e,” meaning, “My brother, let Tunde follow his dream.”

“Tunde!” my father called out. “Sir!” I responded as though I was faraway in my room, but I was actually behind the door, eavesdropping. “When did you have time to study for all these subjects?” “I used my spare time in the university.” “Are you sure this is what you want to do? “Yes, it’s what I want to do, sir.” “How did you come about Imo State University?” “I don’t know, sir; that’s what I saw in my admission letter, sir,” I lied.

Then, he prayed for me.

It wasn’t the age of mobile phones. Phones then were big and immobile, running on tangling black wires. There was no information about IMSU anywhere. So, my father decided to go with me to Okigwe, which was not new to him, but which was an entirely new experience to me, who had never stepped foot out of the South-West since I was born.

The journey to Okigwe took forever. The fare was around N16. I enjoyed the roominess of the ‘The Young Shall Grow’ luxury bus, the stops at big roadside restaurants while my mind wandered about what lay ahead.

By the time we got to Okigwe, the sun had pulled down the curtain on the day and gone home into the clouds. We got accommodation in a hotel. The following morning, we headed to the campus, where we met an empty school, but got information about resumption, anyway. Lagos, here we come!

Upon the school’s resumption, I returned to Okigwe alone, via Owerri. At Owerri, it took a long time for the bus to Okigwe to fill up. By the time I arrived in Okigwe, it was dark again. I headed up to Okigwe police station, where I met an Igbo officer at the counter. I told him I wish to put up at the station till daybreak. He obliged me, pointing to a concrete slab, saying ‘if you fit manage am’. I was choiceless.

After a while, a man in mufti came to visit the officer on duty. They got talking. As he was about to leave, he asked his friend about me. The officer on duty told him in Igbo that I was a stranded Yoruba student. He told the policeman on duty to ask me if I wouldn’t mind to go and sleep in his house.

The officer on duty relayed the message to me. I said I wouldn’t mind. So, together, we left for his house. On the way to his house, I asked him where we could get cold repellent. He took me to a beer parlour and he knocked on the door but they had closed for the day. We went to his one-roomed house, a ramshackled stall made of rusty corrugated iron sheets.

“You’re from Lagos, I don’t know if you can sleep here.” I said it was fine. He vacated his spring bed that was without a mattress for me. Though I had been initiated into sleeping on spring bed at the University of Lagos by my uncle, egbon Laolu Adegbite, I would’ve preferred to sleep on bare floor than on iron spring. But I couldn’t tell my Good Samaritan so.

So, I slept on the spring while he slept on the bare floor. I couldn’t believe it. I slept with one eye open, wondering if this was the same Igbo land which a couple of friends had warned me to beware of its people.

The following day, I ate my first Igbo staple, okpa, with bread. My host ate his okpa with akamu (pap). I paid the food vendor. I thanked my host and left for the campus in a public bus.

At the Admin Block, where I had to pay some fees and do some paperwork, something instructive happened. I came before a registration officer, who was in high spirits. He greeted me in Igbo but I answered in English. He looked at me from head to toe, and asked in Igbo what my name was. “I don’t understand Igbo.” “You don’t understand Igbo!?” he thundered. “You jus dey enter school, yanga don already start!?”

To be continued

Email: tundeodes2003@yahoo.com

Facebook: @Tunde Odesola

Twitter: @tunde_odesola

Yoruba rascals and Igbo idiots (1) – 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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