7 years ago, my emotion laden brother Ike Anya wrote this piece after the Sosoliso crash. Today I read it again and share it with you.... true today as it was on the day it was written on Friday December 16 2005.
I am sitting at my computer, transfixed by the images on the internet of the grieving parents and relatives of the over one hundred people that died in Port Harcourt at the weekend in an aeroplane crash. I am still reeling from the news that one of my younger brother's closest friends, someone we had all grown up with also died in the crash. Each time I shut my eyes, I can still see his bashful smile as I opened our front door to him and he asked whether my younger brother was home. Occasionally he would ask how my medical studies were going; occasionally I would ask how he was doing. He was like a younger brother, his sister was my classmate, his parents we called Uncle and Auntie and they were there at all our celebrations just as we were at theirs. And yet, today he lies lifeless, murdered, like so many other thousands- by you and me- his fellow Nigerians. I do not choose my words lightly. We murdered that young man, just as surely as we murdered all the young school children on board that flight, children going home on their Christmas holidays. The fate of these children holds particular poignancy for me, for I too, remember flying home at the end of school term for Christmas. I remember the harmattan haze that often meant that flights were cancelled, which on more than one occasion meant that we had to sleep at the airport. I remember particularly the apprehension in December 1983, just after a Nigerian Airways plane had crashed, killing many; but despite our fear we eagerly looked forward to going home, to circling the dirt brown, harmattan dried fields around Enugu and to touch down into the warm embrace of our families. These children and these families will not know that joy. And we are all responsible.We are all responsible- starting from the owners of these aeroplanes who cut corners, wanting to make a quick buck, regardless of how many lives they put at risk, ignoring the myriad other opportunities to make money in Nigeria. And before you leap to exclude yourself, saying, "I don't own an airline", I will point out to you, that each time, you doctor, owner of a private hospital, provide drugs of doubtful quality and efficacy at an extortionate price, you are equally responsible. Each time you delay referring a patient when you are well aware that the illness is beyond your capability, you are responsible.Each time we turned aside and paid a bribe, or jumped the queue because we knew some big man; from the market woman who slips in rotten tomatoes into the bottom of the heap cheating her less eagle-eyed customers, to the airline regulators who are supposed to inspect and maintain safety standards but either through incompetence or sheer corruption shun their duties, to the journalists who collects brown envelopes and turn the other way when evil is committed, to the civil servant who signs in at 8 and disappears thereafter, to the legislators and politicians who prefer ferrying Ghana must Go to providing true leadership, we are all every one of us guilty of murder. And I do not excuse any sector of society- the teachers and lecturers who abandon their classrooms, the pastors and imams who abandon their callings and have become sucked into the quagmire that our Nigeria has become all carry their share of blame. Because we all went to the thanksgiving services and celebrations of these people who had acquired their money trading in human lives, we drank their beer, or Five Alive, danced to their music and hailed them. And so they thought it was acceptable.The person in charge of running a National Immunization Programme thinks that it is acceptable to misappropriate funds that mean that young children die; administrators at schools and universities mismanage their resources, blighting the future of the young. Pilots and airline stewards fly planes that they know have not passed safety checks, because the alternative is hunger for them and their families. At motor parks, we freely tolerate the sale of strong alcoholic beverages and then climb aboard cars crammed full, driven by half-drunk drivers, saying our prayers as we board. Politicians are more interested in their internecine petty squabbles and how to make money than in building up the country and showing leadership. And we all celebrate mediocrity and materialism and flamboyance and in doing so, played our part in bringing this tragedy to pass.And if perhaps you are thinking- I am abroad, I am not involved- I say to you "It is a lie, you too are culpable" For each time we condoned the kleptomania and corruption of our leaders and our society, for each time we turned our backs on Nigeria, justifying our decisions to ourselves- my children are still young, I need to finish my degree, my family needs the money I'm sending back- we too are responsible. For each time you saved up all year, maxing your credit cards to the limit to go back home and live lavishly for a little while, boosting the asinine materialistic culture that thrives there, ignoring the poverty around, you are culpable.I am not suggesting that any of these decisions or life choices are easy, far from it. All I want us to do is to acknowledge that even as we make these decisions - to emigrate, to take ten per cent, to bend the rules, to glorify ill-gotten wealth- that there are negative consequences to balance all the positive reasons we have for making our decisions and culpability in murder is a part of it.Thousands of Nigerian children die each year because they are not immunized. We demand debt forgiveness, improved aid, and when we get it- are the children immunized? No, some people are busy squabbling about which company will supply the vaccines. You can apply the same analogy to the water sector, energy sector, the banks, and virtually every sector of the economy. At election time, it is all about money, we do not care who is elected, and we continue to say "Wetin we go do? Na only God fit save Nigeria", abdicating our God given responsibilities.Tragedy after tragedy happens as a result of our sins of omission and our sins of commission and we move on, forgetting. Who killed Bola Ige? Nobody has ever been held to account but we moved on. Who killed Dikibo? No one knows, but still we moved on. The list is endless- disaster after disaster occurs, often manmade, often preventable, but no one is held to account and we move on. Instead of tackling these issues, we are caught up in political scheming and one-upmanship, seeking power not because we want to make things better but because we want to improve our individual lot. The roads are bad, so we plunder and scheme and steal to buy 4 wheel drives, there is no electricity, so we buy generators, the Police is a farce, so we build high walls and hire security or travel with armed security escorts. Our schools are bad, so we open new expensive private universities or send our children abroad; the country teeters and so we go to have our children abroad to gain foreign citizenship as insurance. Our hospitals do not function and then we go abroad for check-ups. And so we continue to ignore the rot, trying to slap a plaster on what we know is a huge gaping sore. We are appointed to jobs where we are not given the equipment we need to function and we stay there, pretending that all is well. And in doing so, we acquiesce to murder.What emergency plans are in existence for searching for and rescuing victims of a major disaster? What medical expertise exists and is ready, and how are they primed for mobilization? There is a National Emergency Management Agency and there are people employed there, where were they in the thirty minutes it was alleged it took for any form of rescue to begin? What contingency plans do they have in place to deal with incidents like these? How much money has been allocated to this agency since its inception? Is it adequate? How can we still be asking Julius Berger, a private company for any sort of basic assistance when we encounter disasters like these?When are we going to say enough is enough? Today, tomorrow or never? Are we going to continue in complacency, wringing our hands and saying what can we do? When are we going to say "a decisive no" to evil and begin to build a real society?While we ponder the answers to these questions, let us remember that it may be our kin or us next time. And let us not forget the millions of Nigerians who do not fly in aeroplanes but who everyday suffer from what we have done and what we have failed to do. How are we going to atone for the lives of these children, men and women, extinguished through our own omission?It is time we stopped crying and pointing fingers at the aviation industry, or at individuals for in the end we are all guilty of murder. We can choose to continue as before, and simply move on, or we can decide that there is value in the life of every single Nigerian and that we will do all that we can to protect it. But regardless of our choices, let it be clear that by our actions and inaction, we are accomplices to murder.To my brother's friend and the hundred that died with him, please rest in peace and forgive us for failing you. For in tolerating the evil that pervades our society, we all had a hand in your deaths.
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- Egypt's Saga Continues --- What "Denocracy"? [1 Update]
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- Another Machination To Butcher Our People With Drones [2 Updates]
- Dana Air Flight 992 (CORRECTION) [1 Update]
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Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Jun 14 12:50PM -0400
Published: June 14, 2012
World Egypt court orders parliament dissolved
CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's highest court on Thursday ordered the country's Islamist-dominated parliament dissolved and ruled that the last prime minister to serve under Hosni Mubarak could stay in the presidential race, twin blows to the Muslim Brotherhood that could sweep away its political gains since Mubarak's ouster 16 months ago.
The rulings by the Supreme Constitutional Court, whose judges are Mubarak appointees, escalated the power struggle between the Brotherhood and the military, which stepped in to rule after Mubarak's fall. The decisions tip the contest dramatically in favor of the ruling generals, robbing the Brotherhood of its power base in parliament and boosting Ahmad Shafiq, the former Mubarak prime minister who many see as the military's favorite in the presidential contest against the Brotherhood's candidate.
Senior Muslim Brotherhood leader and lawmaker Mohammed el-Beltagy said the rulings amounted to a "full-fledged coup." "This is the Egypt that Shafiq and the military council want and which I will not accept no matter how dear the price is," he wrote on his Facebook page.
The Brotherhood and liberal and leftist activists who backed last year's revolution against Mubarak accused the military of using the constitutional court as a proxy to preserve the hold of the ousted leader's authoritarian regime and the generals over the country. Many of them were vowing new street protests.
The ruling means that new elections will have to be held to form a new parliament. In the last election, held over three months starting in November, the Brotherhood came out the big winners, grabbing nearly half the seats. Ultraconservative Islamists known as Salafis won another 20 percent. In the months that followed, the Brotherhood tried to translate those gains into governing power but was repeatedly stymied by the military's grip.
On Saturday and Sunday, Shafiq goes head-to-head against the Brotherhood's candidate, Mohammed Morsi, in the presidential run-off. The race has already deeply polarized the country. The anti-Shafiq camp views him as an extension of Mubarak's authoritarian regime. The anti-Morsi camp fears he and the Brotherhood will turn Egypt into an Islamic state and curtail freedoms if he wins.
In its decisions Thursday, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that a third of the legislature was elected illegally. As a result, it says in its explanation of the ruling, "the makeup of the entire chamber is illegal and, consequently, it does not legally stand."
The explanation was carried by Egypt's official news agency and confirmed to The Associated Press by one of the court's judges, Maher Sami Youssef. The law governing the parliamentary elections was ruled unconstitutional by a lower court because it breached the principle of equality when it allowed party members to contest a third of seats set aside for independents. The remaining two thirds were contested by party slates.
In a separate ruling, the court said Shafiq could stay in the presidential race, rejecting a law passed by parliament last month that barred prominent figures from the old regime from running for office.
Defenders of the law argued that after a revolution aimed at removing Mubarak's rule, parliament had a right to prevent regime members from returning to power. Opponents of the law called it political revenge targeting Shafiq. The court said the law was not based on "objective grounds" and was discriminatory, violating "the principle of equality."
"This historic ruling sends the message that the era of score-settling and tailor-made law is over," a vigorous Shafiq told supporters gathered in a rally. The rulings throw Egypt deeper into uncertainty and threaten more instability after more than a year of tumultuous transition under the military's rule. Throughout, opponents of the military have accused it of seeking to preserve its influence over politics even after its promised handover of power to the elected president by July 1. They also believe it wants to largely keep the bases of Mubarak's rule in place, including many figures from his now dissolved ruling party.
At the same time, there has been widespread public dissatisfaction with the Islamist-led parliament, which many criticized as ineffective. The Brotherhood's popularity had declined since the legislative elections because of moves that critics saw as attempts to monopolize the political scene and advance its own power. It angered liberals, leftists and secular Egyptians when it and other Islamists tried to dominate a parliament-created panel tasked with writing the next constitution. The panel was dissolved by court order, and a new one had yet to be appointed.
The dissolution of parliament now raises the possibility the military council could appoint the panel, a step that would fuel accusations that it is hijacking the process. The legal adviser of the Freedom and Justice Party, the Brotherhood's political arm, said the court rulings were "political," lamenting the outgoing legislature as the country's "only legitimate and elected body."
"They are hoping to hand it over to Ahmed Shafiq and make him the only legal authority in the absence of parliament. The people will not accept this and we will isolate the toppled regime," Mukhtar el-Ashry said in a posting on the party's website.
A moderate Islamist and a former presidential candidate, Abdel-Moneim Abolfotoh, said the rulings amounted to a "coup" and warned that the youth, pro-democracy groups that engineered the uprising that toppled Mubarak last year would protest the court's rulings.
"Those who believe that the millions of young people will let this pass are fooling themselves," he wrote on his Twitter account.
Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com> Jun 14 07:12AM -0700
Link: http://chidioparareports.blogspot.com/2012/06/news-report-seek-remedy-beyond-court.html
Publisher At PublicInformationProjects
"Abdul Bangura" <theai@earthlink.net> Jun 14 09:04AM -0400
U.S. expands secret intelligence operations in Africa
By Craig Whitlock, Published: June 13The Washington Post
OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso ? The U.S. military is expanding its secret intelligence operations across Africa, establishing a network of small air bases to spy on terrorist hideouts from the fringes of the Sahara to jungle terrain along the equator, according to documents and people involved in the project.
At the heart of the surveillance operations are small, unarmed turboprop aircraft disguised as private planes. Equipped with hidden sensors that can record full-motion video, track infrared heat patterns, and vacuum up radio and cellphone signals, the planes refuel on isolated airstrips favored by African bush pilots, extending their effective flight range by thousands of miles.
About a dozen air bases have been established in Africa since 2007, according to a former senior U.S. commander involved in setting up the network. Most are small operations run out of secluded hangars at African military bases or civilian airports.
The nature and extent of the missions, as well as many of the bases being used, have not been previously reported but are partially documented in public Defense Department contracts. The operations have intensified in recent months, part of a growing shadow war against al-Qaeda affiliates and other militant groups. The surveillance is overseen by U.S. Special Operations forces but relies heavily on private military contractors and support from African troops.
The surveillance underscores how Special Operations forces, which have played an outsize role in the Obama administration?s national security strategy, are working clandestinely all over the globe, not just in war zones. The lightly equipped commando units train foreign security forces and perform aid missions, but they also include teams dedicated to tracking and killing terrorism suspects.
The establishment of the Africa missions also highlights the ways in which Special Operations forces are blurring the lines that govern the secret world of intelligence, moving aggressively into spheres once reserved for the CIA. The CIA has expanded its counterterrorism and intelligence-gathering operations in Africa, but its manpower and resources pale in comparison with those of the military.
U.S. officials said the African surveillance operations are necessary to track terrorist groups that have taken root in failed states on the continent and threaten to destabilize neighboring countries.
A hub for secret network
A key hub of the U.S. spying network can be found in Ouagadougou (WAH-gah-DOO-goo), the flat, sunbaked capital of Burkina Faso, one of the most impoverished countries in Africa.
Under a classified surveillance program code-named Creek Sand, dozens of U.S. personnel and contractors have come to Ouagadougou in recent years to establish a small air base on the military side of the international airport.
The unarmed U.S. spy planes fly hundreds of miles north to Mali, Mauritania and the Sahara, where they search for fighters from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, a regional network that kidnaps Westerners for ransom.
ayandiji daniel <dijiaina@yahoo.com> Jun 14 07:05AM -0700
2012 DISTINGUISHED PERSONALITY ANNUAL LECTURE OF ADELEKE UNIVERSITY, EDE, OSUN STATE, NIGERIA
Adeleke University, Ede, near Osun State Government Secretariat Osogbo is announcing its 2012 Distinguished Personality Annual Lecture to be delivered by Professor Toyin Falola, the Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor in History and Vice President International Scientific Committee, UNESCO Slave Route Project.
Topic: The African Impact on Global Cultures
Date: Monday July 9, 2012
Time: 10am prompt
Venue: Adeleke University Multipurpose Auditorium
RSVP: Professor Ayandiji Daniel Aina
President/Vice Chancellor, Adeleke University, Ede, Nigeria
Email: vc@adelekeuniversity.edu.ng
dijiaina@yahoo.com
"Kolawole Adegbola" <okebadan@peoplepc.com> Jun 14 07:48AM -0400
Correction!!!
The sentence "When Alaska Airlines sold this aircraft, it was for age reason " should read " When Alaska Airlines sold this aircraft, it was not for age reason". This correction has been inserted into the main body of the write-up hi-lited in red.
----- Original Message -----
From: Kolawole Adegbola
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com ; NIDOA
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2012 10:42 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Dana Air Flight 992
We are often too quick to blame air disasters on aging of the aircraft. The true age of an aircraft is measured more by the number of take-offs and landings which is translated into life cycles rather than the number of years in operation. The Airframe primary structure suffers its greatest wear and tear during takeoff and landing. Two similar aircraft - one of which is used for regional or domestic flights will age faster than the other which is used exclusively for international flights because the latter makes fewer takeoffs and landings. The environment in which an aircraft is operated is also a factor. For instance, an aircraft that flies over sea water frequently will be subjected to corrosion fatigue from the effect of salt in the sea. Thus, operators of such aircraft are advised to have more frequent inspection of the airframe, and to take necessary corrective and/or preventive action when a scratch or corrosion is observed. Fatigue cracks start as small scratch or flaw which we sometimes have the tendency to ignore. Every time a plane lands it is thoroughly inspected for any suspect scratch. If any is observed, it is quickly taken care of to prevent it from further developing into a fatigue crack. In the late eighties or early nineties, a Hawaiian airlines plane flying between islands had its top unexpectedly blown open in mid flight. Fortunately, the experienced Pilot was able to get the plane down safely suffering only one fatality. Investigation later showed that this was due to corrosion fatigue from frequent flights over sea water. Clearly, this was a case of human error as some little cracks or corrosion signs should have been discovered when they were small if required walk around inspections had been carried out properly. During the assembly of aircraft, assembly line workers are not allowed to wear any jewelry on their fingers or around their neck or anywhere around their body to prevent, among other things, accidentally or otherwise scratching any of the structural parts used for the assembly.
The Dana Airlines Aircraft MD83 (a stretched version of the old DC 8) involved in the latest accident, first sold in 1990, about the same time the current Air Force One went into operation is not considered old by industry standard. Early reports on the Dana accident suggest an engine problem when the Pilot made a distress call to the tower about 11 miles to the destination runway, and finally crashed about two miles to the runway. Unless both engines fail at the same time, or one of the engines falls off, (which is highly unlikely, but not impossible), aircraft are designed, (as required by FAA), to be able to carry on with one surviving engine and land at nearest airport. During the civil war in Angola, a DeHavillan Hawker 800 Aircraft had one of its two engines blown up. The pilot, unaware he had been shot but noticed the engine had quit simply turned the disabled engine off and continued on to his destination, landing without a hitch. He later found out he had been shot after he got off and looked at the engine. In the summer of 1979, a DC 10, upon taking off at the Chicago O'Hair airport had its left engine detached from the wing, ricocheted across and hit the right engine knocking that one off too, resulting in one of the most disastrous accidents in US history. DC 10 is a three engine wide body aircraft with the third engine embedded in the vertical tail. If the LHS engine had merely quit, and didn't fall off or knock the other engine off, the pilot would have had a chance to return to the airport. Investigation later revealed that the left engine had been taken down for some minor repairs. The mechanic on reattaching it neglected to tighten the attachment screws properly. Among other changes, this incident forced McDonald Douglas Aircraft to reconsider the way it names its planes - from "DC" to "MD", a tactic to erase the negative image from the minds of travelers, as travelers became reluctant to fly anything associated with the initials "DC". I say all this to demonstrate that an aircraft doesn't fall off the sky because of one thing going wrong, it has to be a series of things. The Aircraft Airframe primary structural design has a lot of redundancy built into it such that if one system fails, there is another one ready to pick up the load. Perhaps one system that does not have a back up is the landing gear system, but pilots have been given adequate training in "Belly Landing" in the unfortunate event that the gears fail to deploy. Recently, one such landing was successfully carried out by a Pilot some where in Eastern Europe, I believe Romania. .
Rather than focus on the age of the aircraft, attention should be focused on the maintenance record of this particular aircraft and the responsibility or the lack there of, of the regulatory bodies that govern the airline industry in Nigeria. Statistics have shown that close to 98% of aircraft accidents occur due to human error. This includes pilot error, poor maintenance, or the lack of it. Looking through Yomi's list, I was shocked to notice that some airlines have 1 aircraft fleet - Air Taraba and Axiom. There is a type of service recommended by manufacturers called "Tear Down Inspection" (or D check as it is sometimes called) whereby the aircraft is opened up from the inside and all the structural components - frames, stringers, spars, ribs, etc- are closely inspected. This check occurs every 7 or 8 years depending on the manufacturer or the Aircraft type. If any structural damage is observed, that part is repaired or replaced. This procedure takes from 45 to 60 days, after which the aircraft is almost as good as new. Will Axiom or Air Taraba part with its only aircraft for 60 days without any income? My guess is the answer is "NO". That means they will continue to operate the only aircraft without the recommended maintenance. How did NCAA give these airlines operation permit? The MD83 first sold to Alaska Airlines in 1990 was probably D-checked at least twice before selling to Dana in 2005. It is just about due for another one. Do we know if Dana did this before the accident?. When Alaska Airlines sold this aircraft, it was not for age reason. Alaska made a business decision to replace all its MD83 with the more fuel efficient and technically more advanced Boeing 737-800. This is a common practice in the industry. Another common practice is that after about 3 or 4 D-checks, an airline may not consider it economically viable to keep it because of the high cost of D check. A D check can cost in the millions depending on type of aircraft.
While we await the results of the investigation of this accident, I'll like to suggest NCAA consider doing the following to keep the airspace safe, most of which are currently in force here in the US:
1. Establish a minimum number of aircraft requirement for a new Airline and set a limit to the number of flights until the Airline establishes a good track record as to on time departure, up to date maintenance/service record, and others.
2. Require that each Airline keep a maintenance/service log on each Aircraft to be duly signed by a certified A & P (Airframe and Power Plant) mechanic from a reputable service/maintenance centre.
3. Require that each Airline have a minimum number of certified A & P mechanics on its staff
4. NCAA should make un announced visits to Airline headquarters and demand to see the maintenance log on each of the Aircraft. Ground any aircraft that lacks the proper service maintenance, and publish the results of your visit for the public to see.
5. Establish a satellite NCAA office at every Airport where NCAA staff can monitor and record on time departure/arrival for each airline, and publish the results on a monthly basis.
6. NCAA should be given power to levy a heavy fine on any Airline that cancels a scheduled flight for reasons other than safety related ones beyond its control and/or make the airline compensate stranded passengers over and above the cost of the tickets.
I had a rather bad experience this last Christmas period when I went to Nigeria for a visit. I had a reservation on a scheduled 12:00 noon Ibadan – Abuja flight on January 2nd 2012 on Arik air that didn't take off until a little after 3:00PM. One would think that was bad, but it could have been worse. The flight from Abuja to Ibadan had been cancelled for lack of enough passengers, and though Arik had a full flight bound for Abuja, Arik was going to cancel my flight because it was going to use the same plane for my Abuja flight. With the Airport lobby overflowing with passengers, the Ibadan Arik officials convinced Abuja to send down an empty plane. This is why I am including the item 6 above. Arik in the end wasted fuel in an empty plane rather than bring the Abuja passengers no matter how few, and have that extra income. An Aircraft, when operated and serviced properly is a very safe form of transportation. With today's technology, the Aircraft industry has the tool to design against any failure mode known to man. The only failure mode we cannot design against is Act of God. I bet the results of the investigation of this accident will show that "It is not age. It is IRRESPONSIBILITY. It is GREED.
Kolawole Adegbola
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africa today <africatoday80@gmail.com> Jun 13 11:29PM -0700
(17) VERIFIABLE FACTS: ANAMBRA STATE *VERSUS* ENTIRE NORTHERN NIGERIA-
COMPARE AND CONTRAST
===========================================================================================
SOURCES:
VERIFIABLE DATA, FACTS, RECORDS AND INFORMATION FROM THE FOLLOWING SOURCES:
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT OF NIGERIA RECORDS, STATE RECORDS, WORLD BANK, UNITED
NATIONS, UNDP, MINISTERS, PRESIDENT YARADUA, PRESIDENT JONATHAN, NORTHERN
LEADERS, SCHOLARS, NGOS, AREWA YOUTHS, AREWA SUMMITS, NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN
LEADERS, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER, UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT, EUROPEAN
UNION, UNIVERSITIES, JAMB, Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination,
UTME AND Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, UN Human
Development Index, WORLD BANK Global Hunger Index, *2002 Universities
Matriculation Examination (U.M.E.)., NEWSPAPERS, MAGAZINES, WEBSITES,* Paul
Anber's essay "Modernization and Political Disintegration: Nigeria and the
Ibos" published in the journal of Modern African Studies vol. 5, No 2 (Sep,
1967) 163-179. To be more specific see pp 171-172, and let me quote the
relevant portion of Dr. Anber's essay:"A system of Universal primary
education was introduced in Eastern Nigeria in 1953, WIKIPEDIA AND
FINALLY FROM *P*rofessor Ibrahim Gambari, Under Secretary-General, Special
Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations in his address
lamented the poverty level of the North using grim statistics.
* *
DATAS, STATISTICS AND VERIFIABLE INFORMATION ON POVERTY, EDUCATION AND
HEALTHCARE
IN SOUTH EASTERN STATES OF NIGERIA (ANAMBRA STATE IN PARTICULAR) VERSUS THE
ENIRE 19 NORTHERN STATES OF NIGERIA.
(1)
=================================================================================
North has World's highest illiterate children —World Bank
Written by Emma Ujah & Luka Binniyat of Vanguard newspaper
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
* Poverty in the North, embarrassing – Yar'Adua
* North, by far, the poorest, says Gambari
ABUJA—The Northern Nigeria Economic and Investment Summit, kicked off in
Abuja yesterday with the World Bank, saying that Northern Nigeria has the
highest number of children not going to School in the world.
Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Under Secretary-General, Special Adviser to the
Secretary General of the United Nations in his address lamented the poverty
level of the North using grim statistics.
"On Health and Education", he said, "the level of immunization of Children
against dangerous childhood diseases, in the South-East is 44.6%
immunization coverage, but the North-West has 3.7% and the North-East
3.6%.", he said
"If you take the education of the girl-child as indicator, you see similar
pattern of inequality with the South-East having an enrolment rate of 85%,
South-Wes having an enrolment rate of 85%, South-South 75%, while the
North-East 20% and North West 25%."
The Minister of Finance, Dr Usman Shamsudeen, while addressing the
gathering of eminent Northerners at the Summit alluded the aforementioned
to a recent World Bank statistics.
According to him, the level of education of a people has direct correlation
with their living standards.
He then lamented that based on that correlation, Northern Nigeria was far
behind all of humanity when it comes to Child Education.
His words: "About two months ago", he said, "the Ministry of Finance
organised a review session with our Development Partner like the World
Bank. The World Bank representative gave a list of statistics that should
shock all of us into action", he said.
He said that "Northern Nigeria remains, and represents the only place in
the world that has the highest number of Children that are not going to
school. The Highest number of children that are not going to school in the
world are in Northern Nigeria", he emphasized.
He blamed the problem on lack of commitment and efforts on the part of
Northern leaders. He then called on responsible, experienced and educated
retired Northerners to take up political leadership of their various
states, as politics has been hijacked by hoodlums who have turned it to
total warfare
President Umaru Yar'Adua whose speech was read by the Minister of Commerce,
Mr. Charles Ugwu, noted that there still remained a worrisome and
embarrassing poverty situation in most part of Northern Nigeria.
This, the President said, is in spite of a sustained Gross Domestic Product
Growth Rate of 6%; relatively stabilised Naira, controlled inflation and an
enviable Foreign Reserve presently put at over $63 billion in a stable
polity.
"In fact, in most of the Northern States the poverty level is very high",
Yar A'dua observed.
"In some of these States, there is equally high unemployment rate, near
total collapse of infrastructure, virtual absence of new investments, while
practically all the States depend essentially on revenues accruing from the
Federation Account", he said.
He then called on Northern States to take the advantage they have in
Agriculture and Solid Mineral and harness them for the well being of their
people.
Professor Ibrahim Gambari, Under Secretary-General, Special Adviser to the
Secretary General of the United Nations in his address lamented the poverty
level of the North using grim statistics.
"On Health and Education", he said, "the level of immunization of Children
against dangerous childhood diseases, in the South-East is 44.6%
immunization coverage, but the North-West has 3.7% and the North-East
3.6%.", he said
"If you take the education of the girl-child as indicator, you see similar
pattern of inequality with the South-East having an enrolment rate of 85%,
South-Wes having an enrolment rate of 85%, South-South 75%, while the
North-East 20% and North West 25%."
==========================================================================================
*(2) ON EDUCATION: SCHOOL ENROLLMENT AVERAGE 2008-2010** *
*EXPOSES FALLS CENSUS AND POPULATION DATA FROM JAMB, INEC AND OFFICE OF
STATISTICS*
*ZONE *
* POPULATION *
* COLLEGE ENROLLMENT *
*PER CENT*
*% OF TOTAL*
*% of Population*
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
*SS*
*21,014,655 *
*140,000 *
*0.7%*
*24.9%*
*15%*
*SE*
*16,381,729 *
*190,000 *
*1.2%*
*33.8%*
*12%*
*SW*
*27,581,992 *
*116,000 *
*0.4%*
*20.6%*
*20%*
*ZN TOT*
*64,978,376 *
*446,000 *
*0.7%*
*79.4%*
*46%*
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
* *
*NW*
* 29,460,613 *
*30,000 *
*0.1%*
*5.3%*
*21%*
*NE*
*22,999,885 *
*21,000 *
*0.1%*
*3.7%*
*16%*
*NC*
*22,564,668 *
*65,000 *
*0.3%*
*11.6%*
*16%*
*ZN TOT*
*75,025,166 *
*116,000 *
*0.2%*
*20.6%*
*54%*
*36 STATES*
*140,003,542 *
*562,000 *
*0.4%*
*100.0%*
*100%*
================================================================================
(3)
POVERTY IN NIGERIA LOWEST IN IGBO SOUTH EAST
Monday, February 13, 2012 PUNCH NEWSPAPERS
*Poverty, education and Boko Haram *
by Olufemi Adebiyi
'From available information at our disposal, pieced together from
publications by the World Bank and United Nations, there is a very strong
correlation between some demographic factors and poverty in Nigeria.
Firstly, there are more poor people in the rural areas relative to the
urban centres; and poverty is disproportionately concentrated in families
whose primary livelihood is agriculture. Secondly, and within these
agricultural households, 75 per cent in the North are poor compared with
59.3 per cent in the South. This underlines the preponderance of poverty in
the North relative to the South. Thirdly, and in terms of geographical
distribution, the highest concentration of poverty, at close to 70 per cent
of the population, is in the North-East, followed by the North-West and
North-Central in approximately the same proportion of more than 60 per cent
of the population. The zone with the least proportion of poverty incidence
is the South-East at about 33 per cent, closely followed by the South-West
at about 42 per cent, and South-South at about 50 per cent."
There is no single, universally accepted, definition of poverty. This is
because poverty is multidimensional. However, it is not uncommon to
describe poverty as a general state of deprivation or as Baker says, "A
state of being deficient in money or means of subsistence."
**
advertisement
[image: AdChoices]<http://media.fastclick.net/w/adinfo?mid=696088&cid=363442&sid=12386>
In recent times, poverty has been frequently defined relative to the
standards of living in a society. Thus, it is recognised when all available
income is spent on food and the results still fall below a certain minimum
level of calories. Recently available information places Nigeria at number
154 out of 179 countries on the Human Development Index, but Nigeria is a
frontrunner on the Global Hunger Index, coasting in at number 20!
=======================================================
(4)
Northern Transformation Impact Summit Sponsored by the Arewa Transformation
and Empowerment Initiative
Arewa House Kaduna
May 10th to 12th, 2012
QUOTE - General O.A. Azazi, CFR National Security Adviser The Presidency
Federal Republic of Nigeria.
"The Arewa Transformation & Empowerment Initiative (ATEI) has sensitized us
to the need for change through statistics I trust that they will share with
you. For example, while there is massive unemployment all over Nigeria, our
Northern states are particularly hard hit. The 2011 national unemployment
rate is 23.9%, but the rates are 60.6% in Yobe, 42.6% in Zamfara and 39.4%
in Niger. Likewise, the North, in general, features lower per capita
income, vis-a-vis other parts of the country. The North-West has the
highest poverty rate in the nation, with 71% of its people living below $1
per day. According to a CBN report, the literacy rate in the North is cause
for concern, especially amongst women. For example, the female literacy
rates in Sokoto, Kebbi, Zamfara, Jigawa, Katsina, Bauchi and Niger States
average one-quarter of the average for Ekiti, Imo, Anambra, Ogun and Lagos
States. If the numbers do not tell us that we must embrace change, what
else will? Whatever we have tried in the past have obviously not worked
well. We must, however, also take responsibility for our past actions,
recognizing that we have had leaders that have not been able to deal with
these same problems since independence. State Governments clearly have a
lead role to play in addressing these issues." UNQUOTE General O.A. Azazi,
CFR National Security Adviser The Presidency Federal Republic of Nigeria
=================================================================================
(5)
Polio in 5 states worries FG
It is inconceivable that polio is still raging in the northern part of
Nigeria in Borno, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto and Yobe states due
to ignorance and not accepting polio vaccination.
This non acceptance of the vaccine stems from disinformation and brain
washing from local religious leaders.
Can I appeal to Nigerian Doctors especially those from the affected states
to initiate a campaign to dispel these negative rumours about polio vaccine
and protect the lives and health of these innocent children. SEO
News
By Daniel Idonor & Victoria Ojeme
The Federal Government, yesterday, condemned the polio status in the
country, noting that Nigeria, in August 2011, recorded 26 cases of polio in
six states in contrast to six during the corresponding period in 2010.
The affected states are Borno, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano, Zamfara, Sokoto and
Yobe. The cases mainly are due to the high number of unimmunized children
as a result of refusal of the vaccine by some parents and caregivers as
well as children being absent.
President Goodluck Jonathan, who disclosed this in Abuja during the
national flag-off ceremony of the September 2011 sub-National Immunisation
Plus Days (SIPDs) and launch of the Polio- free Torch Campaign, said, "I
understand that in August this year, 26 children in six states across the
nation were confirmed to have been paralysed by the virus. This is
unacceptable".
=========================================================================================
(6)
ANAMBRA AND INFACT IGBO STATE HAVE BEEN LEADING IN EDUCATION ENROLLMENT AND
GRADUATION IN THE LAST 20 YEARS
March 31, 2012 | 2:09 am VANGUARD - EDUCATION AND SCHOOL ENROLLMENT
http://www.vanguardngr.com/2012/03/only-3-score-over-300-as-jamb-releases-results/
By Favour Nnabugwu
About 1,048,314 out of the 1,503,931 candidates who participated in this
year's Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME, by the Joint
Admissions and Matriculation Board, JAMB, passed the examination. Out of
this number, three candidates scored the highest with over 300 marks.
JAMB Registrar, Prof Dibu Ojerinde, who made this known at a news
conference in Abuja yesterday said that 181 candidates from Kaduna and
Ikoyi Prisons were among those who wrote the examination, adding that
malpractices were recorded in 52 centres across eight states in the country
over which the results of 27,266 candidates in those centres were being
withheld.
The JAMB Registrar noted that six southern states registered the highest
number of candidates for this year's examination. Imo led with 123, 865,
followed by Delta- 88,876; Anambra- 84,204; Osun- 73, 935; Oyo- 71, 272 and
Ogun with 71, 173.
Also, six northern states, including Jigawa- 11, 529, Kebbi- 7, 364; Yobe-
6, 389; Zamfara- 5, 713; Sokoto, 5,664 and FCT with 3, 380 recorded the
lowest number of candidates just as other states fell within the average.
============================================================================
(7)
==*Sept 2002*
*
http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/narticles/ndigbo_and_school_enrollment.htm
*<http://www.nigerdeltacongress.com/narticles/ndigbo_and_school_enrollment.htm>
*
**In the 10th of July, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB)
released the results of the 2002 Universities Matriculation Examination
(U.M.E.). According to JAMB Registrar, Prof. Bello Salim, 1,007,326 had
completed and returned their admission forms to the Board out of which
975,060 candidates sat for the examination.
*
*Giving a breakdown of the entries, Prof. Salim said Imo State presented
the highest number of 95,984 or 9.84 per cent of the total entry. Delta
State is the runner-up with 80,448 or 8.25 per cent while Anambra State
came third with 64,296 or 6.59 per cent. Edo, Ogun and Ondo had 61,897
(6.37 per cent), 54,272(5.6 per cent) and 46,592 (4.7 per cent) applicants
respectively, to occupy the third to sixth positions. States with the
lowest number of applicants for UME included Borno with 4,358 , Taraba with
2,934 , Katsina 2,530 , Kebbi 2,438 (0.24 per cent), Zamfara 2,169 (0.22
per cent) and Yobe having 1,178 (0.12 per cent). The entries of Imo and
Anambra States alone
amounted to a total of 160,280 or 16.43 per cent of the total entry, with
the remaining 34 states and the F.C.T. making do with the remaining 83.27
per cent. *
*It should be noted, for the sake of emphasis, that Imo and Anambra States
are in South-East Nigeria while Igbos make up about a quarter of the
population of Delta State and Rivers State. Igbos in Delta State can be
found in Agbor, Anioma, Asaba, Ibuzo, Ndokwa, Ogwashi Uku,Okpanam,
Oshimili, etc.
*
=======================================================================================
(8)
To: nigerianworldforum@yahoogroups.com; oduaaforum@yahoogroups.com
From: JAdemisoye20012@aol.com
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2011 18:24:43 -0500
Ayo Obe <ayo.m.o.obe@gmail.com> Jun 14 08:52AM +0100
Is all this because el-Rufai critiqued the budget of Anambra State? And what is it meant to prove? That Anambra State is being run perfectly, with a perfect budget and therefore cannot accommodate any improvement?
Or that if el-Rufai comes from a poor state with low education figures, he is not entitled to point out deficiencies - as he sees it - in the budget priorities of Anambra State? Or that being, or having been part of the ruling class, he is no longer entitled to comment on public affairs in Nigeria?
I am afraid that that would be a rather immature reaction. We all have 'beams in our own eyes' yet we can still benefit from the perspective of other miserable winners. Of course, there are some who think, for example, that the United States government ought not to comment on events in our own country or Africa, since it has a high murder rate or divorce rate, or large numbers of people living in poverty, or formerly engaged in the African slave trade, or supported Mobutu Sese Seko etc. etc. etc. But does that make the ills or deficiencies about which comment or criticism is made vanish?
Ayo
I invite you to follow me on Twitter @naijama
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Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com> Jun 14 02:20AM -0700
Having
grown up in Southern California during the Reagan years nothing would have led
me to challenge the assumption that all Americans believed in God. We had
strong Evangelical leaders and it was evident that God had manifestly blessed
America and allowed us to thrive and flourish. To be sure, there were two kinds
of Americans: those with vibrant belief and those with apathetic belief. But
Americans with no belief? Those existed in the same way ogres, evil wizards,
and traitors existed—in a mythical ghetto where we were free to abhor them
without actually encountering them. Born into a Christian family during the
growth spurt of the religious right, I was unaware of the existence of secular
Americans.
"Growing up" for me therefore meant (among many other
things) encountering the reality of free thought in America and the humanity
that lies behind it. As I asked more questions and my faith failed, I was
amazed to find a sizable and thriving secular community beyond my believer
bubble.
David Niose, President of the American
Humanist Association and Vice President of the Secular
Coalition for America presents a new book full of information on secular
Americans. Nonbeliever
Nation provides a framework for understanding the role of secular
Americans, the obstacles they face, and their vision for the future. Niose's
treatment, while not exhaustive, ably maps the American secular experience
sociologically and demographically. He begins with demographic data revealing a
population in transition. Secularity in America is growing through a change in
both belief and identity. It is still an unfortunate reality that disbelief is
marginalized in the United States. Open secularity is still not as common as it
should be based on the numbers. Tellingly, 81% of Americans report a belief in
a divinity, but only 1.6% identify as atheist or agnostic. This means
approximately 1 in 6 Americans don't believe in a divinity, but are unwilling
to identify as a non-believer.
The social stigma attached to atheism causes many to remain
unidentified regardless of actual belief. This is particularly interesting if
one looks at the results of increased religiosity. It would appear that we are
not any better off for all of our high rates of fundamentalist beliefs. We have
one of the highest homicide rates of all industrialized countries, and Niose
provides quotes and statistics to show that "higher rates of belief in and
worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and
early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy and abortion." It
turns out that belief in God does not necessarily help us to be more moral, and
in fact may result in just the opposite. Despite this information, surveys show
that atheists remain the most distrusted minority in America, surpassing even
rapists and pedophiles.
Niose uses his opening chapters to establish the fact that
secular Americans were not always so closeted. In fact, it came as a surprise
to many that the Religious Right gained such a strong foothold in American
politics. Many simply believed that religious fundamentalism would decline as
scientific advances and critical thinking skills increased. This prediction has
proven false as the Religious Right has maintained its political clout through
heavy marketing strategies, use of emerging technology to reach new markets,
and the marginalization of secular culture. Religious conservatives also made
extensive use of revisionist historians in order to promote the idea of a
conservative Christian tradition in the founding and history of America. Though
there are more complete treatments of the secular tradition in America to be
found, Nonbeliever Nation provides an excellent overview without getting
dragged away from its main focus.
On the matter of secularity and morality, for example, after
addressing the evidence that increasing religiosity has not made America a more
moral nation than its less religious peers, Niose provides a succinct,
accessible overview of the concepts of evolved morality and the benefits of
adherence to social norms. For those unfamiliar with the concepts, this
presentation is extremely easy to understand, and for those who have already
explored these concepts, Niose communicates a sizable amount of complex
information without overloading readers.
After laying this sturdy framework, attention is turned to
the current problems facing secular Americans. The most pressing problem is not
that religion exists or that people believe in God, but that so many of these
religious beliefs are being made a matter of public policy. Niose is quick to
point out that individual belief is not nearly as problematic as the policies
that come out of these beliefs. Unfortunately, the Religious Right views even
attempts at religious neutrality as hostile attacks, and are willing to throw
large quantities of resources at those who will create more Christian policies.
This becomes a problem for secular Americans when the goals of the Religious
Right involve anti-intellectualism, revision of textbooks, promotion of public
prayer, and discrimination against those without a belief in god.
Now the good news: secular Americans are emerging. Activism
is on the rise, people are identifying and organizing in order to influence
sound policy, and student activism especially is growing by leaps and bounds.
Thanks in large part to the Internet, communities of secular Americans are
uniting and working together to make themselves known and heard. College
students across the nation are working together to form student alliances, and
even high schools are beginning to see the formation of secular student groups.
Despite opposition, these groups can legally meet thanks to rights that were
originally won by religious groups attempting to gain access to students, so
there is a bit of quid pro quo there!
Niose observes that the secular movement is learning a lot
from the work of other minority groups, most noticeably, the LGBT movement, which has made great strides in recent years by advocating an
identity campaign. Encouraging their members to openly identify and make
themselves known has allowed them a public presence, the ability to organize,
and a common ground for influence. Niose believes that secular Americans need
to adopt this strategy as well in order to move forward and enable change.
Unless secular Americans make their presence known, they have little hope of
influencing public policy or changing public perceptions. But as Niose
emphasizes, this is happening, especially among young people. There is hope that
change is imminent. With solid education and awareness, more non-believers will
be accepted within the political sphere.
The largest remaining need is that of a solid secular
community. Niose states that "religious institutions offer tradition, cultural
continuity, and a place to find peace of mind through ritual, meditation, and
contemplation. As long as this is not infringing on anyone else's rights, this
can be all good."
To that end, Alain de Botton offers Religion for
Atheists, an interesting read that is sure to stir up conversation and
controversy. His thesis is simple: Religion does some things well, and the
secular community should unapologetically steal those things. It is de Botton's
goal to create a secular culture with religious (though not supernatural)
influences. Though the number of atheists attending Unitarian Universalist
churches bears testimony to the validity of some of his claims, de Botton fails
to recognize that adding ritual and organization to secular communities does
little to avoid the structural problems inherent in religious groups and is
unlikely to provide enough positives to outweigh the negatives of dogmatism,
propaganda, and various other issues.
De Botton asserts that the creation of community is the
easiest and most obvious of the areas in which religions excel. Houses of
worship are gathering places for people of varying ages and social classes.
Once a week, the faithful are encouraged to set aside their personal
differences in order to affirm common beliefs as members of a group. While many
will argue that the reinforcement of beliefs is unnecessary, it is hard to
argue with the way religions provide an instant social network for their
members.
The reinforcement of beliefs is also something that de
Botton believes non-believers could adopt. Religion for Atheists points
to the methods that churches use to both transmit and affirm beliefs as
valuable tools for educators. He argues that while higher education teaches us
how to make a living, it doesn't provide a framework for living well. Churches
teach application of values found in its music, writings, and art. They excel
at teaching through ritual and repetition. And the best churches employ strong
orators who know how to command an audience and draw people in to their topic.
Art and architecture also receive extensive time, though
there are many who would criticize the extremes of de Botton's examples.
Religions have historically been very good at using art as propaganda. Not only
do they create and commission art, they provide a ready-made framework for
interpreting it. The church tells its members exactly how to think and feel
about the art they provide. The non-religious do this as well, only it's called
"advertising." De Botton goes on to say that we should attempt to provide
similar interpretive frameworks within our museums, organizing art by topic,
emotion or general feeling instead of chronologically or by genre. While it's
an interesting idea, I think it would effectively cut off many observers from
their own interpretations.
And this is the problem with many of the suggestions offered
in Religion for Atheists. Establishing community is a pretty good idea.
Establishing restaurants where patrons are seated with random strangers and
instructed to discuss their deepest fears is not a very good idea. Encouraging
kindness, creating more beautiful spaces, and finding meaning in life are all
great. The idea that we need to establish secular organizations to do these
things in ritualistic ways is probably not necessary.
There are other topics where de
Botton may find even greater opposition. One chapter claims that the
non-religious don't have enough reminders of the transcendent and that they
lack big picture perspective. That has simply not been my experience, nor do I
find it to be the experience of the nonbelievers I know. In fact, if anything
it seems that most skeptics are more aware of their own insignificance
and the fragility and brevity of life, along with the transcendent feelings one
gleans from a cosmological and evolutionary perspective.
Both of these books provide valuable food for thought.
Niose's examination of the secular situation in America, its history, and
suggestions for the future give hope that secularity will continue to grow and
suggest practical ideas for participation in the movement. Due to my recent
deconversion, De Botton should have a devoted fan in me. I feel the same pangs
toward ritual and the things that the religious community did well as far as
establishing community. I even feel the occasional desire to listen to a
rousing sermon, though I find debates and lectures to be far more interesting
and educational. Unfortunately, I found myself rejecting most of his
suggestions. The good news: de Botton's ideas are just crazy enough to get
people talking. While discussing some of the more ridiculous options, we can
evaluate whether secular America truly is missing anything, determine what it
is, and perhaps come up with ways to fill that need. While it is true that the
secular community often throws out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to
avoiding similarities to religion, I'm not sure we need to start holding
secular baptisms just yet.
Publisher At PublicInformationProjects
Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@yahoo.com> Jun 14 02:19AM -0700
Link: http://chidioparareports.blogspot.com/2012/06/news-report-icc-prosecutor-seeks-30.html
Publisher At PublicInformationProjects
Funmi Tofowomo Okelola <cafeafricana1@aol.com> Jun 13 11:14PM -0700
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/18/120618fa_fact_lizza#ixzz1xkGi0c3b
THE SECOND TERM
What would Obama do if reelected?
by Ryan Lizza
JUNE 18, 2012
President Obama awaiting G8 leaders at Camp David last month. He has
an ambitious agenda, which, at least in broad ways, his campaign is
beginning to highlight. Photograph by Luke Sharrett.
In November, 1984, President Ronald Reagan was reëlected in a
landslide victory over Walter Mondale, taking forty-nine states and
fifty-nine per cent of the popular vote. The Reagan revolution was
powerfully reaffirmed. Soon after, Donald Regan, the new chief of
staff, sent word to a small group of trusted friends and
Administration officials seeking advice on how Reagan should approach
his last four years in office. It was an unusual moment in the history
of the Presidency, and the experience of recent incumbents offered no
guidance. No President since Dwight D. Eisenhower had served two full
terms. John F. Kennedy was assassinated. Lyndon Johnson, overwhelmed
by the war in Vietnam, had declined to run for reëlection in 1968.
Richard Nixon resigned less than seventeen months into his second
term. Gerald Ford (who was never elected) and Jimmy Carter were
defeated. By the nineteen-eighties, it had become popular to talk
about the crisis of the Presidency; a bipartisan group of Washington
leaders, with Carter's support, launched the National Committee for a
Single Six-Year Presidential Term.
Regan's effort to foresee a successful second term is documented in a
series of memos at the Reagan Library. President Obama, who in
November could face one of the tightest bids for reëlection in
history, has periodically spoken of his admiration for Reagan.
"Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory for America," he told a Reno,
Nevada, newspaper in early 2008. "He just tapped into what people
were already feeling, which was we want clarity, we want optimism."
From the inception of his Presidential bid, Obama has sought to
present himself as a leader with far-reaching ideas, and has prided
himself on his ability to look past the politics of the moment. To the
degree that he is able to ponder his strategy for the next four years,
it's natural to think he might steal a glance at the Reagan playbook.
Responding to Regan's confidential memo, Tom Korologos, an adviser to
every Republican President from Nixon to George W. Bush, told the
Reagan White House that the second term should be viewed from the
standpoint of the President's intended legacy.
"It seems to me that the President needs to decide what his legacy is
going to be," Korologos wrote on January 24, 1985, a few days after
Reagan's second inaugural. "What is he going to be the most proud
of when he's sitting at the ranch with Nancy four and five years
after his Presidency? Is it going to be an arms control agreement? Is
it going to be a balanced budget? Is it going to be world-wide
economic recovery? Is it going to be a combination of all of this:
peace and prosperity? . . . Every speech; every appearance; every
foreign trip; every congressional phone call and every act involving
the President should be made with the long-range goal in mind."
Every President running for reëlection begins to think about his
second term well before victory is assured. In early 2009, Rahm
Emanuel, Obama's first chief of staff, told me that the White House
was already contemplating the Presidency in terms of eight years. He
said that it was folly to try to accomplish everything in the first
term. "I don't buy into everybody's theory about the final years
of a Presidency," Emanuel said. "There's an accepted wisdom that
in the final years you're kind of done. Ronald Reagan, in the final
years, got arms control, immigration reform, and created a separate
new department," that of Veterans Affairs.
FROM THE ISSUECARTOON BANKE-MAIL THIS
Obama's campaign is well aware that he may end up like Jimmy Carter
or George H. W. Bush, the two most recent one-term Presidents, who
were both defeated despite some notable—even historic—
accomplishments, including the Camp David Accords, under Carter, and
the Gulf War, under Bush. The country remains closely divided, and the
economy is teetering again. After several months of relatively
positive news, the employment report released in June was gloomy.
Barring a disastrous revelation or blunder, Mitt Romney will be a more
formidable opponent than many assumed during his rightward lurch to
secure the Republican nomination.
Many White House officials were reluctant to discuss a second term;
they are focussed more on the campaign than on what comes after. But
the ostensible purpose of a political campaign is to articulate for
the public what a candidate will do if he prevails. "It's a
tension," David Axelrod, Obama's longtime political adviser, said.
"On the one hand, you don't want to be presumptuous in assuming a
second term. But campaigns are about the future, and there is an
imperative to spell out where we're going."
Obama has an ambitious second-term agenda, which, at least in broad
ways, his campaign is beginning to highlight. The President has said
that the most important policy he could address in his second term is
climate change, one of the few issues that he thinks could
fundamentally improve the world decades from now. He also is concerned
with containing nuclear proliferation. In April, 2009, in one of the
most notable speeches of his Presidency, he said, in Prague, "I state
clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace
and security of a world without nuclear weapons." He conceded that
the goal might not be achieved in his lifetime but promised to take
"concrete steps," including a new treaty with Russia to reduce
nuclear weapons and ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear
Test-Ban Treaty.
In 2010, Obama negotiated a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with
the Russians and won its passage in the Senate. But, despite his
promise to "immediately and aggressively" ratify the C.N.T.B.T., he
never submitted it for ratification. As James Mann writes in "The
Obamians," his forthcoming book on Obama's foreign policy, "The
Obama administration crouched, unwilling to risk controversy and a
Senate fight for a cause that the President, in his Prague speech, had
endorsed and had promised to push quickly and vigorously." As with
climate change, Obama's early rhetoric and idealism met the reality
of Washington politics and his reluctance to confront Congress.
Obama's advisers say it is more likely that the President would
champion an issue with greater bipartisan support, such as immigration
reform. Obama has also said that he hopes to have the time and the
attention to address a more robust aid agenda for developing countries
than he was able to muster in his first term. These issues will loom
over his potential second term, awaiting a push from the President.
So, too, will the lingering question of who Obama "really" is: an
aspiring compromiser, a lawyerly strategist, or a bold visionary
willing to gamble to secure his legacy.
Whatever goal Obama decides on, his opportunities for effecting change
are slight. Term limits are cruel to Presidents. If he wins, Obama
will have less than eighteen months to pass a second wave of his
domestic agenda, which has been stalled since late 2010 and has no
chance of moving this year. His best opportunity for a breakthrough on
energy policy, immigration, or tax reform would come in 2013. By the
middle of 2014, congressional elections will force another hiatus in
Washington policymaking. Since Franklin Roosevelt, Presidents have
lost an average of thirty House seats and seven Senate seats in their
second midterm election. By early 2015, the press will begin to focus
on the next Presidential campaign, which will eclipse a great deal of
coverage of the White House. The last two years of Obama's Presidency
will likely be spent attending more assiduously to foreign policy and
shoring up the major reforms of his early years, such as health care
and financial regulation.
As William Daley, who served for a year as Obama's chief of staff,
put it, "After 2014, nobody cares what he does."
II
Sooner or later, every reëlected President confronts the frustration
lurking in a second term: reëlection to power does not necessarily
grant more of it. Richard Nixon and his aides were obsessed with using
a second term to take command of a federal government that they
believed was hostile to the President and his agenda. "Faced with a
bureaucracy we did not control, was not staffed with our people, and
with which we did not know how to communicate, we created our own
bureaucracy," White House aides wrote in a 1972 memo found in the
files of H. R. Haldeman, who later went to prison for covering up
Watergate crimes.
Nixon gave his aides detailed directions about how to flush
unsympathetic bureaucrats from the government after he won reëlection.
Early in the 1972 campaign, he wrote his aides with instructions for a
"housecleaning" at the C.I.A.:
I want a study made immediately as to how many people in CIA could be
removed by presidential action. . . . Of course, the reduction in
force should be accomplished solely on the ground of its being
necessary for budget reasons, but you will both know the real
reason. . . . I want you to quit recruiting from any of the Ivy League
schools or any other universities where either the university
president or the university faculties have taken action condemning our
efforts to bring the war in Vietnam to an end.
Nixon's paranoid theory was that none of his second-term priorities—
from his China policy to his health-care plan—could be addressed
until the White House controlled the rest of his government. The
housecleaning efforts were not technically a part of Watergate, but
they were a harbinger of his second-term self-immolation.
The Reagan Administration quickly grasped that whatever power it had
gained through reëlection had to be spent judiciously. As part of
Regan's brainstorming exercise about the President's second term,
Alfred Kingon, then the Assistant Treasury Secretary, urged the
President to choose his top priorities with care. The best that Reagan
could hope for was victory on a few big initiatives. "Please remember
that there are about 50 or 60 issues going at once," Kingon wrote.
"We can only keep track of 20 or 25, concentrate on a mere handful
and hope to have legislative success in a fraction of that."
James Baker, Reagan's chief of staff preceding Regan, wrote to the
President after the election and made a similar point. "Unlike the
campaign in 1980, you have campaigned with little specificity," he
told the President. (Reagan's "Morning in America" theme had not
been burdened with detailed policy proposals.) "There are very many
items that any right-thinking president would want to achieve," Baker
wrote. "But frankly, there are too many. You must set priorities."
A key challenge for a second-term President lies in managing the
delicate balance between what he wants (his priorities) and what he
thinks the public wants (his perceived mandate)—and taking care not
to confuse the two. George W. Bush was less adept at this than Reagan.
Bush approached his second term with two broad goals. In foreign
policy, he attempted to steer his White House away from the radicalism
of the first four years. During the 2004 campaign, Bush came close to
jettisoning the two people—Vice-President Dick Cheney and Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld—most associated with extreme views of how
to handle post-9/11 foreign affairs. After the election, Cheney saw
the influence of his principal ideological opponents—Stephen Hadley,
the new national-security adviser, and Condoleezza Rice, the new
Secretary of State—rise, especially on issues such as Syria, North
Korea, and the Administration's policy on torture. Cheney's recent
memoir boils with his indignation at being sidelined. At a National
Security Council meeting in 2007, Cheney made the case for bombing a
Syrian nuclear reactor. "After I finished," he writes, "the
President asked, 'Does anyone here agree with the Vice President?'
Not a single hand went up around the room."
Domestically, however, Bush miscalculated his position. Early in his
second term, he made a strong play for Social Security reform; it
failed miserably, for lack of Democratic backing. "If I had it to do
over again, I would have pushed for immigration reform, rather than
Social Security, as the first major initiative of my second term,"
Bush lamented in his memoir. "Unlike Social Security, immigration
reform had bipartisan support."
In 2005, Bush won approval of an energy bill, a trade agreement, and a
bankruptcy-reform bill. But the remainder of his Presidency was
consumed by scandal (the Valerie Plame case, the N.S.A.'s warrantless
wiretapping program, the firing of eight U.S. Attorneys for political
reasons) and by badly managed catastrophes (Katrina, deterioration in
Iraq, the crash of financial markets). The Democrats took over
Congress in 2006, and on Election Day in 2008 Bush's Gallup approval
rating stood at twenty-five per cent.
There is an argument, common on the right, that if Obama is reëlected
he will pursue a more ideological, even radical, agenda because he
will be unbound by the moderating influence of another election. As
Dick Morris, of Fox News, put it in March, "A second term for Obama
would bring on a socialist nightmare hellscape as he moves further to
the left." This argument is often bolstered by noting that Obama
recently told the Russian Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, that he
would have "more flexibility" to pursue negotiations on missile
defense "after my election." Ed Morrissey, of the conservative blog
Hot Air, warned that the comment should cause voters "to fear an
Obama second term."
But a President who has won reëlection can also feel less tied to his
political base and more free to shift toward the political center. At
the start of Reagan's second term, Kingon advised the White House
that the victory had allowed him to pursue policies that would advance
only with bipartisan support—a precondition for success, given that
Democrats controlled the House. Kingon noted that only twenty per cent
of Americans agreed with Reagan's anti-abortion policy and that many
Americans voted for Reagan "knowing that he believes in these things
but understanding that he would not push for them." He argued that
this was the implicit promise of the Reagan reëlection campaign.
Aggressively pursuing social issues, Kingon wrote, would substantially
diminish the President's political support, and would risk failure in
other key areas. "I think it is important to remember that there is a
point beyond which popular Presidential support erodes, and he can do
nothing, e.g., Jimmy Carter," Kingon warned.
Reagan largely heeded this advice, and he had one of the most
successful second terms in American history. He passed immigration
reform, a major reform of the tax code, and an arms-control
"Emeagwali, Gloria (History)" <emeagwali@mail.ccsu.edu> Jun 13 11:59PM -0400
As Pablo points out, the 26th President of the US, Theodore Roosevelt,
was by no means a pacifist. He was sworn in 1901 and had invaded
five countries by the time his term ended in 1909. In fact, this could well be
six countries if, as I suspect, there was an encounter in Haiti before the
occupation between 1915-34.
He was known for his 'Big Stick' policy. This sums it all up.
Gloria Emeagwali
....................................................................
.Marc Becker's History of U.S. Interventions in Latin America
Honduras, 1903. Troops & Marines intervene in revolution
Dominican Republic, 1903-04. Troops U.S. interests protected in Revolution
Cuba, 1906-09. Troops Marines land in democratic election
Nicaragua, 1907. Troops "Dollar Diplomacy" protectorate set up
Honduras, 1907. Troops Marines land during war with Nicaragua
Panama, 1908. Troops Marines intervene in election contest
Nicaragua 1910 Troops Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto
Honduras 1911 Troops U.S. interests protected in civil war
Cuba 1912 Troops U.S. interests protected in Havana
Panama 1912 Troops Marines land during heated election
Honduras 1912 Troops Marines protect U.S. economic interests
Nicaragua 1912-33 Troops, bombing 20-year occupation, fought guerrillas
Mexico 1913 Naval Americans evacuated during revolution
Dominican Republic 1914 Naval Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo
Mexico 1914-18 Naval, troops Series of interventions against nationalists
Haiti 1914-34 Troops, bombing 19-year occupation after revolts
Dominican Republic 1916-24 Troops 8-year Marine occupation
Cuba 1917-33 Troops Military occupation, economic protectorate
Panama 1918-20 Troops "Police duty" during unrest after elections
Honduras 1919 Troops Marines land during election campaign
Guatemala 1920 Troops 2-week intervention against unionists
Costa Rica 1921 Troops
Panama 1921 Troops
Honduras 1924-25 Troops Landed twice during election strife
Panama 1925 Troops Marines suppress general strike
El Salvador 1932 Naval Warships sent during Faribundo Marti revolt
Uruguay 1947 Nuclear threat Bombers deployed as show of strength
Puerto Rico 1950 Command operation Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce
Guatemala 1954-? Command operation, bombing, nuclear threat CIA directs exile invasion
and coup d'Etat after newly elected government nationalizes unused U.S.'s United Fruit Company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua; long-term result: 200,000 murdered
Panama 1958 Troops Flag protests erupt into confrontation
Cuba 1961 Command operation CIA-directed exile invasion fails
Cuba 1962 Nuclear threat, naval Blockade during missile crisis; near-war with Soviet Union
Panama 1964 Troops Panamanians shot for urging canal's return
Dominican Republic 1965-66 Troops, bombing Marines land during election campaign
Guatemala 1966-67 Command operation Green Berets intervene against rebels
Chile 1973 Command operation CIA-backed coup ousts democratically elected Marxist president
El Salvador 1981-92 Command operation, troops Advisors, overflights aid anti-rebel war, soldiers briefly involved in hostage clash; long-term result: 75,000 murdered and destruction of popular movement
Nicaragua 1981-90 Command operation, naval CIA directs exile (Contra) invasions, plants harbor mines against revolution; result: 50,000 murdered
Honduras 1982-90 Troops Maneuvers help build bases near borders
Grenada 1983-84 Troops, bombing Invasion four years after revolution
Bolivia 1987 Troops Army assists raids on cocaine region
Panama 1989 Troops, bombing Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed
Haiti 1994-95 Troops, naval Blockade against military government; troops restore President Aristide to office three years after coup
Venezuela 2002 Command operation Failed coup attempt to remove left-populist president Hugo Chavez
Haiti 2004- Troops Removal of democratically elected President Aristide; troops occupy country
Honduras 2009 Command operation Support for coup that removed president Manuel Zelaya
Sources:
Blum, William. Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventionism Since World War II. Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1995.
Ege & Makhijani. "180 Landings by the U.S. Marine Corps" (History Division), Counterspy (July-Aug. 1982). Foreign Affairs Division, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress.
Richard Grimmet, Instances of Use of Armed Forces Abroad, 1798-2001. CRS Report for Congress, 2002.
Grossman, Zoltan. Over a Century of U.S. Military Interventions. Self-published, revised Jan. 1, 1995.
Sklar, Holly. "Who's Who: Invading 'Our' Hemisphere 1831-," Z Magazine (Feb. 1990).
U.S. Congress, Committee on Foreign Affairs' Report. Background Information on the Use of United States Armed Forces in Foreign Countries. Washington, D.C.: 91st Congress, 2nd Session, 1970.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States. New York: Perennial Library, Harper & Row, 1980.
Also see Zoltan Grossman, From Wounded Knee to Iraq (A Chronology of U.S. Imperialism)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please send any suggestions, comments, corrections, additions, etc. to Marc Becker at marc@truman.edu.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of John Edward Philips [philips@cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 12:02 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: NigerianID | Nobel Prize Amounts Reduced
Not in the case of Theodore Roosevelt, the first American to win any Nobel Prize in anything, who got the peace prize for negotiating an end to the Russo-Japanese War.
Seriously, when they give it to some of the people they've given it to, and forget to give it to Gandhi and several other notable peace activists, there's something wrong.
On Jun 13, 2012, at 8:46 AM, Emeagwali, Gloria (History) wrote:
> They should scrap the prize completely. Is there a difference between a Nobel prize winner
> and a war monger?
John Edward Philips <http://human.cc.hirosaki-u.ac.jp/philips/>
International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University
"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer
<http://www.boydell.co.uk/www.urpress.com/80462561.HTM>
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Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> Jun 14 03:37AM
Yes! The battle was won in the end. "Solicitations" is part of the collection Aare npeo and Other Poems
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:55:55 -0400
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On June 12 We Stand
From: akinloye.ojo@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
JUNE
12
They never warned us
That Esè Ògbè* will never
Get to
cross-over
The road at
Ìminì.**
They never said it
That
the Ìrókò tree
Will
never bend to kiss
The
earth at dawn.
They never cautioned
That
the rising sun
Will
set but never drown
In
the inhabitancy of Olókun***
They never taught us
That
the radiant Yemoja****
Will
never watch
The
sea go dry of fishes.
But they showed us
That
our collective will
Gathered
under the blistering sun
On
the day we stood up together
(From
the North to the South)
Will
never prevail.
And they showed us
That
our will as a people
Will
never be more than
Our
glittering sweat of labor.
* A hill outside the town of Ilora, Oyo State, Nigeria** One of the villages or settlements around Ilora and the closest to the Ese Ogbe hill
*** Yoruba ocean deity**** A Yoruba water/sea goddess and mother of all fish
Akinloye Ojo
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Olayinka Agbetuyi <yagbetuyi@hotmail.com> Jun 14 03:46AM
"Solicitations II" is part of the collection of poems titled Aare Npeo and Other Poems
Olayinka Agbetuyi
Olayinka has 1 file to share with you on SkyDrive. To view it, click the link below.Solicitation II.docxDate: Tue, 12 Jun 2012 07:55:55 -0400
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - On June 12 We Stand
From: akinloye.ojo@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
JUNE
12
They never warned us
That Esè Ògbè* will never
Get to
cross-over
The road at
Ìminì.**
They never said it
That
the Ìrókò tree
Will
never bend to kiss
The
earth at dawn.
They never cautioned
That
the rising sun
Will
set but never drown
In
the inhabitancy of Olókun***
They never taught us
That
the radiant Yemoja****
Will
never watch
The
sea go dry of fishes.
But they showed us
That
our collective will
Gathered
under the blistering sun
On
the day we stood up together
(From
the North to the South)
Will
never prevail.
And they showed us
That
our will as a people
Will
never be more than
Our
glittering sweat of labor.
* A hill outside the town of Ilora, Oyo State, Nigeria** One of the villages or settlements around Ilora and the closest to the Ese Ogbe hill
*** Yoruba ocean deity**** A Yoruba water/sea goddess and mother of all fish
Akinloye Ojo
--
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Abdul Karim Bangura <theai@earthlink.net> Jun 13 11:47PM -0400
Dems: Obama could lose, donors better get moving
JIM KUHNHENN
From Associated Press
June 13, 2012 9:22 PM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) — A growing chorus of once-confident Democrats now say President Barack Obama could lose the November election.
The hand-wringing reflects real worries among Democrats about Obama's ability to beat Republican rival Mitt Romney, who has proven to be a stronger candidate than many expected. But it's also a political strategy aimed at rallying major donors who may have become complacent.
Interviews with a dozen Democratic strategists and fundraisers across the country show an increased sense of urgency among Obama backers. It follows a difficult two weeks for the president, including a dismal report on the nation's unemployment picture, a Democratic defeat in the Wisconsin governor recall election and an impressive fundraising month for Romney and Republicans.
"We've all got to get in the same boat and start paddling in the same direction, or we're going to have some problems," said Debbie Dingell, a Democratic National Committee member and the wife of Michigan Rep. John Dingell.
"We can't take this for granted," said Peter Burling, a DNC member from New Hampshire. "I intend to be running scared from now until November."
These worries have also prompted some second-guessing of an Obama campaign operation once perceived as run by disciplined message specialists. Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and former Clinton adviser James Carville this week wrote that Obama's efforts to convince voters that economic conditions are moving in the right direction aren't swaying people.
"We will face an impossible head wind in November if we do not move to a new narrative," the strategists wrote.
Former Democratic Party chairman Don Fowler faulted the Obama camp for not laying more blame on Republicans for the slow economic recovery.
"The Obama campaign should make it clear whose fundamental fault the economic problems are, and they've chosen not to do that," he said, echoing an argument made by other Democrats. "Not doing that, they forfeit an argument, a strategy, a technique toward making the Republicans bear responsibility for these problems."
Some Democrats hope the deepening concern among some party faithful could lead to an increase in fundraising.
The mighty Obama and DNC fundraising operation fell behind Romney and Republicans in May, with the GOP team raising $76 million compared to the $60 million haul for the president and Democrats. And the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA Action has lagged far behind Republican-leaning outside groups, in part because of what senior strategist Bill Burton said was a sense of complacency among Democratic donors.
"Democrats have to know that the president is up against a well-financed opponent in a tough political environment," said Burton, a former White House aide. "If everyone doesn't join the fight, he could be defeated."
The Obama campaign itself has also been sounding the alarm.
"If there's anyone still out there acting like we have this thing in the bag, do me a favor and tell them they're dead wrong," Ann Marie Habershaw, the campaign's chief operating officer, wrote in a blog post last week.
And campaign manager Jim Messina warned that GOP success in the Wisconsin recall, aided by independent group spending, confirmed that "all the outside money that's poured into elections this cycle can and will change their outcome."
"And it's exactly what could happen on the national stage unless we can close the gap between special interests and ordinary people," he said.
In 2004, it was the Democrats who had the big money operation on their side. Groups like America Coming Together and the Media Fund raised about $200 million to help John Kerry's presidential campaign with grass-roots organizing and advertising. But the donors who helped that effort — financier George Soros, film producer and donor to liberal causes Steve Bing and billionaire Peter Lewis -- have vastly reduced their political participation or stayed away all together this time.
Democratic operatives say the long and combative Republican primary left some in their own party overconfident. Obama supporters expected Romney to emerge from the GOP contest bruised by attacks from his party and pigeonholed by his attempts to placate conservatives by shifting to the right on everything from immigration to foreign policy.
But five months from Election Day, several national polls show Obama and Romney locked in a tight race, as voters vent their frustrations over the nation's economic woes. May figures showed that employers created a meager 69,000 jobs and the jobless rate ticked up to 8.2 percent. And this week, the Federal Reserve released data showing that median family net worth shrank in 2010 to levels not seen since 1992 after adjusting for inflation.
Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said the president's team "always anticipated this would be a close and competitive election."
But some strategists worry that time is running short. While many Democrats believe party loyalists will get more engaged as the election draws closer, other operatives say the terms of the election will be set over the next two months.
"This can't wait until September," said Steve Rosenthal, president of the Organizing Group, a Democratic-leaning consulting firm
Rosenthal issued his own warning on Obama's re-election prospects in an online column headlined "President Obama Can Lose: Now is the Time for Democratic Donors to Step Up in a Big Way."
In an interview Wednesday, Rosenthal said Obama's populist State of the Union address and Romney's initial troubles securing the Republican nomination created a false sense of euphoria among Democrats. But he said that sentiment ignored the fact that the country is still evenly divided, that the president does not hold a lead in all battleground states and that Obama this time does not have the 2-1 edge in money that he had over John McCain in 2008.
"They have such a huge financial advantage and with the economy teetering, it's frightening," Rosenthal said of Republicans. "I hate to say it comes down to money, but it does."
Don Peebles, a New York-based real estate developer and Obama fundraiser, said that while Democratic complacency has been hard to shake this cycle, he expects more urgency this summer.
"There's definitely a sense among the financial supporters of the president that we need to get more engaged and redouble our efforts to make sure that he has the resources he needs," Peebles said.
___
Associated Press writer Ken Thomas contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Jim Kuhnhenn at http://twitter.com/jkuhnhenn .
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Nkolika Ebele <nkolikae@yahoo.com> Jun 13 05:19PM -0700
Prof Bangura,
I respect you a lot and also most of your ideas but I do not understand why you think that by posting only negative news about Obama, it will sway the feelings of many people on this list serve against him. Be more rational by also posting the ones that are positive. You now strike me as one who harbor a lot of resentment or hatred against Obama, and such is not good for you as a human being. I hope the feeling is not deep otherwise you may be needing more prayers than Obama needs for his reelection. I agree with you that the Libyan case was somehow mishandled, but I also believe in Karma. Qaddafi wasted a lot of innocent lives during his reign, so the natural laws just took effect. His own people spearheaded his death. Will you because of that wish all living Libyans that protested against him ill? I guess not.
Nkolika
________________________________
From: Abdul Bangura <theai@earthlink.net>
To: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: leonenet <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 1:07 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - World Opinion Of Obama Hits Bottom: Pew Research
AfricanConstitution.Org
13 June 2012
World opinion of Obama hits bottom: survey
>However, American "soft power" gets higher marks, especially among young respondents.
>The American way of doing business is popular in the Middle East, with more than 50% in Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt saying they like this part of US image.
>Majorities or pluralities in 18 of 20 countries admire US science and technology, according to the survey. American ideas about democracy are more popular among respondents under 30 in several countries, including Tunisia and China.
AfricanConstitution.Org © 2012
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"Anunoby, Ogugua" <AnunobyO@lincolnu.edu> Jun 13 10:06PM -0500
It is one thing to be a critic. It is another to be a detractor.
A critic takes their position based on their perception of right and truth. A detractor takes their position based on their insipid prejudice or dislike. It is no surprise therefore that a critic tries to be fair and do good. A detractor tries to be unfair, and destroy, or do damage at the least.
One would expect that those who condemned and continue to condemn the Obama presicency's position on Khadafy's Libya for example, should have commended it on its position so far, on Assad's Syria. That may not happen however because detractos are blinded by their dislike. They are less likely to commend or praise as due. A critic would usually give praise when praise is due.
Everyone must decide for themselves whether or not to evaluate the Obama presidency fairly which by the way is the proper thing to do. Politics as they say is the art of the possible and interest. It should not be about dislike and unreason. Those who see the Obama presidency as not having done any good or worse still, incapable of doing any good may need reminding of the possible (some say looming) alternative to the Obama presidency. They may also need reminding that optimal choice (and preference) by the knowledgeable or wise, is usually informed by the net value addition of available alternatives.
oa
________________________________
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Nkolika Ebele [nkolikae@yahoo.com]
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 7:19 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - World Opinion Of Obama Hits Bottom: Pew Research
Prof Bangura,
I respect you a lot and also most of your ideas but I do not understand why you think that by posting only negative news about Obama, it will sway the feelings of many people on this list serve against him. Be more rational by also posting the ones that are positive. You now strike me as one who harbor a lot of resentment or hatred against Obama, and such is not good for you as a human being. I hope the feeling is not deep otherwise you may be needing more prayers than Obama needs for his reelection. I agree with you that the Libyan case was somehow mishandled, but I also believe in Karma. Qaddafi wasted a lot of innocent lives during his reign, so the natural laws just took effect. His own people spearheaded his death. Will you because of that wish all living Libyans that protested against him ill? I guess not.
Nkolika
________________________________
From: Abdul Bangura <theai@earthlink.net>
To: "USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com" <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Cc: leonenet <leonenet@lists.umbc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2012 1:07 PM
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - World Opinion Of Obama Hits Bottom: Pew Research
AfricanConstitution.Org
13 June 2012
World opinion of Obama hits bottom: survey
[cid:1.3969322301@web120006.mail.ne1.yahoo.com]
Continue reading the main story<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18417967#story_continues_1>
BBC, 13 June 2012 -- International approval of US President Barack Obama's foreign policy has dropped sharply during his term in office, a Pew Research survey suggests.
Among the 21 countries surveyed, the largest drop in approval - from 57% to 27% - was seen in China, the Global Attitudes Project reveals.
Most respondents in almost all countries opposed US drone strikes.
Despite these numbers, confidence in Mr Obama remains high among US allies, especially in Europe.
"I think where you see the real disappointment is when you deal with specific policies," said Richard Wike, associate director of the Pew Global Attitudes Project.
He added that the survey showed big gaps between expectation levels and action over Mr Obama's policies on climate change and treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
According to Mr Wike, confidence in Mr Obama and approval of his international policies has trended downward during the course of his presidency, but has not dropped sharply in a single year.
Besides China, the largest declines in foreign policy approval by 2012 included long-term ally Japan and neighbour Mexico.
Among five European countries surveyed both in 2009 and 2012, approval of Mr Obama's international policies dropped from 78% to 63%. In five Muslim countries surveyed in both years, the approval rate dropped from 34% to 15%. Russia also joined the countries with double-digit declines, from 40% of respondents approving US international policies to 22%, an 18% decrease.
While Mr Obama generally has higher approval ratings than President George W Bush did at the end of his second term, their approval ratings are now matched in Pakistan and Mr Obama's remain only slightly better in Lebanon.
Among the countries surveyed there was widespread opposition to US drone strikes. At least 50% of respondents in 17 countries disapproved of such strikes, with the largest percentages in the Middle East, Mexico and Greece.
In recent weeks, Mr Obama has become more closely associated with the US drone programme, with a New York Times report noting he personally approves each strike, and that the US keeps a "kill list" of potential strikes against militants.
In addition to changes in sentiment towards Mr Obama and his policies, the survey records a shift in the way economic power is perceived.
Majorities in Germany, Britain, France and Spain now regard China as the world's leading economic power, not the US. In the UK, this percentage has doubled since 2008.
Mr Wike told the BBC the US had seen a downward trend in its perceived economic power since the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, despite Mr Obama receiving "reasonably good marks on global economic issues".
However, American "soft power" gets higher marks, especially among young respondents.
The American way of doing business is popular in the Middle East, with more than 50% in Lebanon, Tunisia, Jordan and Egypt saying they like this part of US image.
Majorities or pluralities in 18 of 20 countries admire US science and technology, according to the survey. American ideas about democracy are more popular among respondents under 30 in several countries, including Tunisia and China.
AfricanConstitution.Org © 2012
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Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> Jun 14 01:06AM
Begin forwarded message:
From: JIBRIN IBRAHIM <jibo72@gmail.com<mailto:jibo72@gmail.com>>
Date: June 13, 2012 7:59:45 PM CDT
To: Toyin Falola <toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu<mailto:toyin.falola@mail.utexas.edu>>
Subject: The farouk Lawan Saga
N-Katalyst
Mega-Corruption and the Farouk Lawan Saga
Abuja, 14th June 2012
Introduction
Following the release of the report of the House of Committee on the Fuel Subsidy, N-Katalyst, a non partisan network of individuals with a deep commitment to the promotion of Nigerian unity and progressive change organized a National Symposium in Abuja on 30 April 2012 to address the issues. We subsequently published a Charter of Demands drawing attention to significant findings on mega corruption in the fuel subsidy regime.
N-Katalyst believes that the recent revelations on the Farouk Lawan Saga must not push us into throwing away the baby with the bath water. Nigeria has a responsibility to ensure that the core recommendations emanating from the report are implemented. If there are suspicions that the Chair and some members of the Committee have been compromised into deleting some of the guilty companies, the same principles of investigating and punishing the guilty should be followed. As we understand the chronology, on 18th April when the report was presented, Otedola's companies, Zenon and Synopsis were indicted. Subsequently, the following bribes were alleged to have been paid to Mr Lawan - April 21st $250,000, April 23rd $250,000 and early morning of April 24th $100,000. Later on the morning of April 24th during the House Plenary Discussion on Subsidy Report, Zenon and Synopsis were delisted. Subsequently, Lawan had communications with the Chairman of the House Committee on Financial Crimes and the Inspector General of Police claiming Otedola is persisting in trying to offer him offer him bribes to influence the outcome of the investigation. Given the allegations, the Farouk Lawan saga should be investigated immediately and if evidence is found, those implicated should be prosecuted.
N-Katalyst believes that there is no democracy without a legitimate legislature that has integrity. Our Parliaments need to develop their capacity to carry out their legitimate functions. The military were always suspicious of the legitimacy of Parliament. In nearly fifty-two years of independence, we've had just over twenty-four years of Parliament. So, our Parliament still has some growth to do, it is therefore important to start a campaign on the ethics required of a legislator and we shall shortly publish our views on it. Meanwhile, we should remain focused on implementation of the report recommendations.
The Committee had reported that contrary to earlier figures from various official sources, subsidy payment of N2.59 trillion had been made as at 31st December, 2011, an amount more than 900 percent over the appropriated sum of N245 billion." In addition, there are "outstanding claims by NNPC and the marketers in excess of N270 billion as subsidy payments for 2011." The Committee, in its Report, established that "NNPC was found not to be accountable to anybody or authority". Based on these findings, we made the following demands:
1) Ending Impunity for the Fuel Subsidy Cabal
Mega corruption is destroying Nigeria and we must act to stop the rot:
i. All persons and institutions proven to have been indicted in the fuel subsidy scam should be punished. These include, but are not limited to, the Ministers of Petroleum Resources and Finance, the Board Members, MD and Management of NNPC, the Board Members and Executive Secretary of PPPRA, the Director of DPR and all public officials indicted in the Report by the House of Reps Ad hoc Committee.
ii. The freezing of the accounts and recovery of all illegal payments made to the Petroleum marketing firms, the NNPC, PPPRA and others which, according to the House Committee, amount to N1.2 trn or $6.8bn
iii. The immediate dismissal of the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke to allow for effective investigation into the affairs of the Ministry.
2) Getting the Judiciary to do its Work
All levels of the judiciary are in crisis due to the appointment of successive Attorney Generals who see themselves as the President's representative rather than an independent and impartial officer of the State determined to advance the cause of justice. We demand:
i. The immediate termination of the appointment of the Attorney General, Mohammed Adoke, SAN and appointing a credible Attorney General who has the skills and the will to combat and prosecute corruption.
ii. Announcing a time frame, not exceeding six months, for implementing the recommendations of the Farouk Lawan Committee report and commencing the prosecution of all indicted officials and all persons who benefitted, colluded or participated in the corruption scandal.
3) Restructuring of the Petroleum Sector
The structural conditions which allowed for the monumental fraud is that NNPC remains as the regulator, main producer and marketer of petroleum and its products, both upstream and downstream. It is a clear conflict of interest that allowed the organization to become a behemoth with no respect for laws and processes. We demand:
I. A Judicial Commission of Inquiry should be established into the operations of the Petroleum Ministry and NNPC.
ii. The management and the board of NNPC should be overhauled and those involved in any infractions should be investigated and prosecuted. The company should be unbundled to make it more transparent and efficient.
iii. NNPC through local refining, swap arrangements and offshore processing should be able to provide enough fuel for Nigeria. Therefore the government has no reason to grant subsidy import licenses to other companies.
4) Providing Fuel at Reasonable Prices
N-Katalyst accepts the Committee's estimate that the probable daily consumption of Petrol from the record of marketers and NNPC comes to an average of 31.5 million litres. It, therefore, proposes the continuation of subsidy for Petrol and Kerosene and suggests a budget of N806.766 Billion for the 2012 fiscal year. The Committee asserted that the 445,000 bpd allocation to NNPC is sufficient to provide the Nation with its needs in petrol and kerosene, with proper management and efficiency.
i. Kerosene subsidy should resume as a means of helping the poor and aiding the struggle against deforestation in the search for fuel wood.
ii. Private investors who were issued licenses for the construction of new refineries must be made to use these licenses or the licenses be withdrawn and issued to serious investors who are ready to build new refineries over the next three years to guarantee sufficient local supply of petroleum products.
5) Citizen Engagement
N-Katalyst is aware that Government will not act if citizens do not mount sufficient pressure. We Nigerians must act more as citizens and not subjects. The country belongs to us all and we can no longer leave the political space to politicians, bureaucrats, common thieves and crooks. Nigerians must stand up and fight until we bring this monster under control.
i. Pressure should be mounted on Government to engage the participation of citizens in the formulation of a plan of action towards ending impunity and corruption in our national life, including the possibility of making corruption a capital offense.
ii. N-Katalyst commits to working with other civil society groups to ensure that these demands are met.
Dr Jibrin Ibrahim Dr Otive Igbuzor
Saudatu Mahdi Bilkisu Yusuf
Ayisha Osori Prof Ebere Onwudiwe
Yemi Candide-Johnson Ayo Obe
Saka Azimazi Maryam Uwais
Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim Innocent Chukwuma
Chris Kwaja Hassan Hussaini
Dr A. S. Mohammed Nsongurua Udombana
Asma'u Joda Nsirimovu Anyakwee
Dr Kabir az Zubair Martin Obono
Dr Hussaini Abdu Aisha Oyebode
Hubert Shaiyen Dr Arabo Ibrahim Bayo
Dr Ayesha Imam Dr Charmaine Pereira
Yusufu Pam John St. Claret Ezeani
Toyin Falola
Department of History
The University of Texas at Austin
104 Inner Campus Drive
Austin, TX 78712-0220
USA
512 475 7224
512 475 7222 (fax)
http://www.toyinfalola.com<http://www.toyinfalola.com/>
www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa<http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa>
http://groups.google.com/group/yorubaaffairs
http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Chido Onumah <conumah@hotmail.com> Jun 13 03:18PM -0700
The Acting IGP and his Futile Order
By
Godwin Onyeacholem
As
they often do as soon as they are appointed to that seemingly ill-fated
position, spewing fresh no-nonsense commandments and generally displaying the
image of hard-headed, uncompromising cops, Inspectors General of Nigeria's
intensely reviled post-colonial police would find it hard to convince the
average Nigerian that they do not enjoy playing to the crowd. Most Nigerians
know that these officers, despite their advertised confidence, hardly believe
in their own long list of promises to revamp the force, talk less of getting
fellow compatriots to believe them.
And
so when they begin to talk tough, echoing that typical verbiage about firmness,
impartiality, restoring professionalism and giving the police a new respectable
image that would compare, if not better, with what obtains in the developed
world, Nigerians, rather than respond in categorical approbation, merely shrug
in absolute indifference. That cold gesture of apathy, invariably, is quickly
followed by hisses and a deafening chorus of Na Today? – a very common, contemptuous phrase often used by
cynical pidgin English speakers to
dismiss perceived boastful statements of intention. Statements which, to
paraphrase Shakespeare, are full of sound and fury but amount to nothing
ultimately.
It
was the same reaction that met one of several apparently laudable declarations
by the current Acting Inspector General of Police, Mohammaed Abubakar, in which
he barred police details from operating as if they are domestic servants, carrying
briefcases and handbags of their civilian masters and mistresses in public and
generally cutting a pathetic figure of institutional indignity and chaos to the
utter shock of onlookers. He warned that any policeman or woman caught flouting
the order would be instantly dismissed. Again, Na today? It's an ugly practise that predates Mr. Abubakar, an
unmistakable pointer to the infinite drift and eternal turmoil buffeting
contemporary policing in Nigeria.
To
begin to recount in this piece the extent of rot in that system would seem like
a lavish exercise in needless platitudes. But it is relevant to state that not
even the Ag. IGP himself believed the order would be heeded when he announced
it. He merely issued it for effect, to create an impression of genuineness like
virtually all his predecessors, but essentially as one of those statements made
to complete one of the rites of initiation into the ruling class' guild of high
priests in the synagogue of duplicitous statecraft. And lest anyone is
deceived, the dire influence of that infernal temple as an unyielding sustainer
of bad governance in this country cannot be discounted. It is in that dreadful
shrine that the police boss now solemnly worships.
This
is the reason his directive that the police rank and file should shed the
demeaning public image of "houseboys" and "housegirls" has turned out to be
what it truly is: empty talk. Indeed it appears as if this is the time the
unsightly culture is relishing its irrevocable consummation. This era of
liberal impunity, open-ended corruption and permissive extravagance of rogue
political and corporate elite has ensured the permanence of this tradition. It
therefore would not be a miscue to contend that many members of this so-called
privileged class who use police details for unintended jobs are known to Mr.
Abubakar, and could probably be his good friends.
Without
prejudice to his directive, the police boss should be informed that a country
as unspeakably anomic as Nigeria is liable to all sorts of abuses, including an
informal conscription of a vital segment of a security outfit entrusted with
the maintenance of law and order by a band of pleasure-seeking retrogrades with
connections in government. With police men and women hovering around, these
self-styled VIPs barely suppress the air of superiority that goes with the
aberration.
Evidence
that Mr. Abubakar was only grandstanding with his directive soon came to light
right under his nose one torrid evening in one of the posh hotels in the heart
of Abuja. In a resounding vindication of cynics, a heavily-built, light-skinned
woman in a Senegalese robe holding a cell phone to her ears with one hand and a
handbag slinging from the other sauntered into the lobby. Slouching behind her
was a dark-skinned beautiful lady smartly dressed in police uniform carrying
another handbag belonging to Madam. As Madam flung her massive body onto a seat
in a far corner, the police detail moved closer and stood beside her like a
statue. All eyes were now riveted in their direction.
With
Madam still rapping on the phone, the constable quietly put the bag down beside
her and walked out of the lobby, only to hobble in again with a luggage which
she set at Madam's side. Then she walked out again and emerged with a heavier
luggage. Rather than being amused, everyone in that lobby was filled with
revulsion. Meanwhile, at the car park was a battery of armed policemen lazing
around a Toyota Hilux with which the VIP was apparently escorted to the hotel.
All this happened around the vicinity of police headquarters.
It
will take a rare political will from a disinterested police boss to drag the
Nigeria Police from its present state of muddle to one of core professionalism.
How on earth can a 21st century policeman or woman be seen all over the place
dragging luggage and handbags for people whose activities in most cases are
much more harmful to the progress of the society? In a profession whose driving
force is intelligence, and in a country where the populace remains confounded
by a shocking rise in crime, to reduce young, promising officers only to the
level of messengers for the big man is an indicator of a society gone astray.
Those
who disbelieved him are right after all. To prove them wrong Mr. Abubakar
should tell the world how many policemen or women have been arrested and
dismissed from the police since he gave the order. If not, he should forever
keep quiet, enjoy his tenure while the decay continues.
Godwin
Onyeacholem is an Abuja based journalist.
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