RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

It has been touted that what led to the civil is still prominent in toady's Nigeria, hence the current clamour for the secession of Igbo Republic called Biafra. Can you, Chidi Anthony Opara, narrate to us those things that led to the civil war, 1967-1970, that are still present with us in Nigeria today?
S. Kadiri
 

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Date: Sat, 21 Nov 2015 03:31:15 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
From: chidi.opara@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

IBk,
Some comments inflict serious demage on someone's credibility and that is what this comment of yours just did. It did not in any way deminish the Biafra cause.
It is however, your right.
Like Salimonu Kadiri, your posts here are begining to surprise me.
Be well always brother,
CAO.

On Nov 20, 2015 2:45 PM, "Ibukunolu A Babajide" <ibk2005@gmail.com> wrote:

My dear half Yoruba and quarter Jewish Menahem Hammelberg of Freetown,

You are playing to the gallery with a great deal of ignorance and propaganda that you package as facts.  Please take the trouble to research issues in-depth before you jump with both legs into hungry crocodile infested shallow river of Biafra.  Half of what you hear the Biafrans say is propaganda, a quarter are outright lies, and the last quarter hover between the lies and the propaganda.

Salimonu Kadiri,

Thank you for factually destroying the house of lies built with Biafran spit with your cool factual morning dew.  Sam Mbakwe came to prominence after the civil war in January 1970 as the lawyer who pleaded the Igbo cause and represented almost all the Igbo who genuinely owned properties in Port Harcourt and he either got compensation for their properties or he got the properties back.

For his exertions he became the first civilian Governor of Imo State.

Let the gullible continue to lap up lies!  They shall be confronted by the truth and the truth if they love the truth shall set them free.  For those who love lies, they will remain in perpetual damnation and end in purgatory.

Cheers.

IBK

_________________________

Ibukunolu Alao Babajide (IBK)

(+2348061276622)
ibk2005@gmail.com

On 19 November 2015 at 21:00, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:

Menahem Hamelberg, wearing snakes as necklaces to hugg Igbo with lies is not a demonstration of love. Mildly stated, it is hypocrisy and worst, it is wicked. That is my understanding of the following written by you, "The confiscation of Igbo assets in Port Harcourt - more precisely the confiscation of Igbo-owned businesses, houses and other properties in Port Harcourt which were said to have been 'abandoned' and therefore auctioned away at FIVE NAIRA a piece..." The dangerous kiss of Igbo with lies contains three unrelated key words - confiscation, abandoned and auctioned. Before the Federal forces captured Port Harcourt in May 1968, Igbo people in the town fled with all their moveable trade-wares called businesses and as such, there were no *Igbo businesses* to confiscate. Were houses belonging to Igbo confiscated in Port Harcourt after the war? The answer is capital NO. In Port Harcourt, houses were not owned collectively by Igbo but individually. Therefore, individual Igbo house owner in Port Harcourt who did not return to claim his/her house after the war had such house declared, abandoned. The then Rivers State government which included present day Bayelsa State, did not want abandoned houses to dilapidate and therefore decided to sell them on auctions at affordable price of, as you put it, FIVE NAIRA to the inhabitants of Port Harcourt. Igbo were not excluded from partaking in the biddings for the houses. That no Igbo person came forward to claim the houses could be that their owners had died during the war. In fact, if any house was illegally declared abandoned, the owner had the option of going to court with a proper documents of ownership to reclaim his/her house. A house cannot be confiscated from a ghost owner but it can  be declared abandoned by the authorities and be compulsorily administered under the law.

 

As for your speculation about *the spectre of looting Igbo-owned assets and properties located outside of Igboland* after Biafra might have been born, I find this incongruent to commonsense because the reasons given by the Igbo for seeking a sovereign state of Biafra out of Nigeria are that they, the Igbo, are discriminated, persecuted, oppressed and marginalised in Nigeria. Under these political and economic conditions that the Igbo say they are fleeing from in Nigeria, they should not and could not have acquired any assets or properties in Nigeria to be looted after their departures. It is just obvious that if the Igbo have Biafra as their motherland, they should suck the breasts of mother Biafra and not the breasts of mother Nigeria. So the question to your pal about what becomes of Igbo properties in Nigeria after the birth of Biafra is extravagant and unnecessary. Since you claimed that your question was "motivated by the unconstitutional and shameful theft by the Yakubu Gowon dictatorship of the private property of some of his fellow citizens," I will be very grateful, if you can inform me about the unconstitutional and shameful theft of private properties of Nigerians perpetrated by Yakubu Gowon. Truly, Gowon might have been a military dictator but he was the most humble military ruler Nigeria has ever had. During the war, he married his Igbo wife, Victoria Edith Ike Okongwu, with whom he had a son, Musa Jack Ngonadi Gowon. When Gowon was overthrown in 1975, the wife relocated to USA with the son, where she was reported to have died

later, while Gowon was granted asylum in the UK. Probably, you are not an extremist but your views below, to me, are immoderate.

S.Kadiri      
 

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Date: Wed, 18 Nov 2015 10:00:40 -0800
From: corneliushamelberg@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote

Lord Anunoby,
You are on target: Bullseye: my first question is "motivated by the unconstitutional and shameful theft by the Yakubu Gowon dictatorship of the private property of some of his fellow citizens".
"They" might still be celebrating what they believe was "the spoils of war" or "War Booty" but which,  all things fairly considered is tantamount to nothing less than Theft : The confiscation of Igbo assets in Port Harcourt   - more precisely the confiscation of Igbo-owned businesses, houses and other properties in Port Harcourt which were said to have been  "abandoned". It's the first piece of news that I saw first-hand in my first week in Port Harcourt : Igbo owned houses were pointed out to me that had been allegedly "abandoned"  and therefore  auctioned away  at Five Naira a piece to some of the hungry egg eaters. The Nazis committed similar crimes such as the looting of Jewish property
The wicked one says, "What's mine is mine and what's yours is also mine"
Have the Igbos been compensated for these losses?
It's most worrying that we have seen the same arguments being advanced in and out of this forum, as if the looting of Igbo assets is a precedent that should be followed in the eventuality of Biafra being born by referendum and constitutionally – that the spectre of looting Igbo-owned assets and properties located outside of Igboland should act as sufficient deterrent to thwart any such moves by those who would like to see a peaceful Biafra.
CH
We Sweden


On Wednesday, 18 November 2015 16:02:38 UTC+1, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:

Good questions CH.
I neither intend nor presume to speak for Biafra.
As hypothetical as your questions are, I dare to think aloud. There are models for resolving borders, citizenship, and property and other assets related issues when a country breaks up. People may choose which country to belong to for example. The private property rights of individual would usually be respected. That a country breaks up is not to say that the countries would not get along- live with each other. The U.S.S.R., Yugoslavia, and Indonesia and East Timor,  are recent examples. The parties negotiate with each other at some point on such matters as compensation and restitution among others. Citizenship in modern states is usually bestowed by birth (not blood I must add) or naturalization. I do not see why any new country's will be different.
Is your first question motivated by the unconstitutional and shameful theft by the Yakubu Gowon dictatorship of the private property of some of his fellow citizens  a few decades ago if I may ask?  
Thank you CH.
 
oa
 
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Tuesday, November 17, 2015 5:08 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
 

Amended:

 

Lord Anunoby,
Verily, as you so succinctly state it," welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to.  Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot."
The ger/ stranger  occupies a very special position in Jewish ethics; It is one of 613 Mitzvoth /Commandment and one of the positive commandments: "To bear affection for a ger (stranger, convert, and proselyte)" I was amazed when I started attending regular Sabbath services in 1996 what I felt was  the extraordinary kindness shown to  me – the rationale of the Almighty who created everybody  is stated in the Torah : "For you were once strangers in the land of Egypt"
Jesus of Nazareth emphasises this commandment that's lodged in the Torah and in the hearts of those of those who study it: Leviticus 19: 18 : "You shall neither take revenge from nor bear a grudge against the members of your people; you shall love your neighbour as yourself. I am the Lord."
I once asked a rabbi (arabbi) whether or not the Pals were neighbours. You can imagine his answer.
I asked my Palestinian friend the same question, adding "don't forget the Jews are your cousins!"
His reply: "The Israelis are our enemies."  That's the impasse.
I should like to point out that at no time did I feel discriminated in Nigeria , not me, not my Better Half or my son  (although my son did not like being called "Oyibo" and my Better Half sometimes got preferential treatment at the Supermarket ( it was assumed that I was her "Chauffeur"  or her  " Man Friday" servant  - another reason why Sergeant Brown turned up the day after I had invited him to dinner,  to request that he take my Better Half out, to the Cinema – something that he believed was a common cultural practice in Sweden, that you can just turn up at your acquaintance's home  the day after your first invitation to dinner , to take the man's wife to the cinema. The man? Oh I guess that he should do the baby sitting whilst the two of them are having a good time at the cinema. So I called out "Ebba!  Sergeant Brown is at the door. He says that he is here to take you to the cinema!" And that was the end of that. You see, whilst I the galley slave was busy in the kitchen preparing the dinner for four, Sergeant Brown had been chatting pleasantly enough with Better Half, and I guess that he must have thought that she was the president and that I was merely the Butler ( a misunderstanding) I should have put him in his place from the very start during the dinner , when he had told me not to interrupt Madam when she was talking  - or reported him to my friend  the Deputy Commissioner of  Rivers State Police , Mr. Effebo. All said and done I came to the conclusion that if charged, at worst Sergeant Brown  would only plead guilty of wanting  to actualise some "love your neighbour as yourself",  with the emphasis on love  for his neighbour's wife. Like a character from Joyce Cary's Mister Johnson.
(At this point I'm impelled to share some personal good news with you: Oh Happy Day! Thirty years later, I've hooked up again with man of God, Titus Akanabu who was my good friend in Nigeria, 1981-1984 and in correspondence before he disappeared from orbit when the Nigerian postal system must have collapsed. The Almighty has done mightily with him and he is now Bishop Titus Akanabu. Significantly, both of us are now in another country! We may soon be singing together, "By the Rivers of Babylon)
But back to your posting – and then (your profession) you delve into the economic aspects of interdependency. My part of Europe has much in common with what you say about Japan: "declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive" - Many studies have shown that Sweden's economy would do a lot better with more immigration – but it's a truth that's a hard-sell to many Swedish nationalists whose perception is that our beautiful Sweden, Swedish culture and the Swedish way of life is increasingly under threat of being swamped / overrun by  foreign immigrant cultures. This is one of the causes of xenophobia.
Thinking of Donald Trump just now, thinking about him and the phenomenal Ogbeni Kadiri's goose that lays the golden eggs and the hungry egg-eaters. As Brother Malcolm said, you can't have capitalism without racism
And bringing it all back home to the possibilities of good governance and good neighbourliness in Nigeria, I should like to ask you or John Mbaku Esq these questions:
1.      Should Biafra come into being what then would be the legal status of properties owned by Igbos in various parts of Nigeria?
2.       The legal status of persons. Would Biafran Citizenship be coterminous with Igbo ethnicity or can a person (e.g. yours truly) opt to be a Biafran or a Nigerian?
 
Yours sincerely,
CH
We Sweden
 


On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 17:03:52 UTC+1, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:

Good questions CH.
Canada, Japan and any other sovereign country may have immigration policies of their choice. Some, like race based policies may only be in their short term interest. I believe welcoming strangers is one of a few truly universal values. It has been for millennia. I do not know of a culture that at its core, does not believe in welcoming strangers even when it is reluctant to practice it. All religions as far as I know advocate it.
There are at least two good reasons for this shared value. People always moved around. In some cases they do not return to where they moved from because they cannot or choose not to.  Everyone can imagine the pain of rejection because the one is different. People who move expected therefore to be welcome in their new home. They know therefore to reciprocate when the shoe is in the other foot.
Competitive economics and politics, and misguided nationalism cause some people/countries to depart from the millennia old accepted practice of welcoming strangers. They cause them to seek temporary advantages they assume would be maintained if they excluding especially those they believe, they do not share kinship with or disagree with. Unenlightened politicians exacerbate the exclusion by fanning embers of hatred of those who "do not look like us" to win elections. Margaret Thatcher played the xenophobia card shamelessly. It helped to win her two general elections in Britain in my opinion.  Some on the right in U.S.A. politics are merchants of this hatred too. Many countries have politicians who ply the same trade.
It was reported yesterday that the Japanese economy is again in recession. The experts say the recession may have to do with Japan's declining birthrate- her population is aging, the labor force is shrinking, and demand at home is shrinking too. International trade is more competitive today. Home generated demand is more necessary than ever before. Japan is no longer the world's # 1 exporter nation. Experts recommend that Japan relaxes her immigration policies. Will they?  Immigration policies based on race can be bad economics.
Are immigration polices based on race morally objectionable? I would answer yes. Unequal treatment of any people based on race is an injustice to the victims of unequal treatment. No one chooses their race. Race is imposed on everyone. No one therefore should suffer injustice because of their race. The perpetrator of the injustice may deny that it is but they know it is. Slave masters knew slavery was wrong. They carried on with anyway because they could until they could no longer. Ditto the Nazis and the holocaust. No slave master or Nazi would like to be similarly treated.
The world has always been a happier and safer place when people truly cared for one another.
 
oa
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafric...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Cornelius Hamelberg
Sent: Monday, November 16, 2015 8:57 PM
To: USA Africa Dialogue Series
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
 

Lord Anunoby,

 

As you so poignantly point out, "Color of the skin has been the excuse for a lot of most grievous injustices that some races have visited on others"

 

Your views would be appreciated. Here are a few outrageous questions that expand the discussion somewhat:

 

"Let us say that Canada or any country for that matter decide that the only people they will allow to immigrate are whites. That would make them racist because they are choosing one race over another. Why is it morally wrong to do so? Is there an argument that supports the right to choose the racial make up of one's country or must all counties be racially blind. I believe Japan maintains their racial make up. Are they then racists in a pejorative sense? Why is there an imperative to be racially blind? For the record, I am not suggesting that people or countries should discriminate because of the colour of one's skin. It is value free."
(Source: What right do countries have to exclude some would be immigrants
CH

On Tuesday, 17 November 2015 02:08:44 UTC+1, Anunoby, Ogugua wrote:

If I may revisit the "people of color" conversation of a few months ago, my point then was that no one should define another or others by color of their skin. Color of the skin has been the excuse for a lot of most grievous injustices that some races have visited on others. Every one has one color of skin or another. Every one if the truth be told is a person of color. For any group to use color of the skin to set themselves apart from others is dishonest more than it is a manner of speaking. A race 

that does so set its race "off from other races" does it not? 

 

oa

Sent from my iPhone

On Nov 16, 2015, at 7:43 AM, kenneth harrow <har...@msu.edu> wrote:

you imagine a divided world, and i don't. you imagine that you can define me or people like me, and set us off from people like you; you imagine that being positioned where you are gives you access to a truth which i, positioned where i am, cannot access. you imagine i cannot imagine your world, but that you can imagine mine.

i imagine something radically different.
as for the term African American being adopted, that was the proud claim of jesse jackson. we all understand its affirmative call, and its success in replaced Afro-American which had been adopted previous to that, and which term itself replaced Negro.
ken

On 11/16/15 8:07 AM, Salimonu Kadiri wrote:

Kenneth, we the Black race are the hens laying the eggs and you the Caucasians are egg eaters. When we the egg layers now talk about how painful it is for us to lay eggs, you the egg eaters then wonder from where we get the idea that it pains to lay eggs!! Hens do not need to imagine that it pains to lay eggs, it is physiologically experienced.
 
I have taken note of your lofty idea about civil rights which to me is nothing but a slogan. Slogan, as Shimon Peres once averred, is like parfym, it smells good but tastes bad. Black students (or African American students) as you mentioned could demonstrate as much as they want, provided the Caucasian power holders are assured that the demonstrators are only demanding the right to turn the left cheek when slapped on the right one. As long as it is the Caucasians who are doing the slapping they will never be hostile to African American demonstrators wishing to turn the left cheek when slapped on the right one. That is the core of the philosophy of civil rights: love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. But if your Black students demonstrators should dare say that if you slap me, I will chop off your hand so that you will for ever not be able to slap anyone of us, I am sure the national guard will descend on them with all their arsenal of life extinguishers.
 
Referring to me you wrote, "You seem to be working on a cinematic overdrive, not the daily reality of life in the U.S." Kenneth, the daily reality of life in the U.S. is that Obama and people who look like him racially (former Negroes) are identified as African Americans while Clinton and other Caucasians who look like him are identified as Americans. If I am working on a cinematic overdrive, according to your bombastic English, you must answer the question I asked you in my previous post. That is, if the interpretation of the U.S. Constitution by Chief Justice Taney of the Supreme Court, in 1857, that the expression, 'People of the United States,' did not include the Black people is no longer the daily reality of life in the U.S., according to you, why is Obama and people who look like him racially in the U.S. classified as African American but Clinton and those who look like him, racially, are classified as Americans and not European Americans? This is a straight question that needs no zigzag answer.
S.Kadiri 

 

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 18:01:37 -0500

salimonu,
where do you get the idea that afr am people are regularly gunned down by euro-amer police?
there is a lot of work that needs to be done here; a lot of racist issues we need to face.
however, this is out of touch with reality, and i can't understand where you get this from. you take instances where police, sometimes black, often white, stop and harass, beat, or kill black drivers, black young men usually. somehow that has morphed in your imagination into a world that doesn't exist.
do you live here, in the u.s.? what is this based on?
when a trevor martin happens, when a ferguson happens, this becomes an issue of national concern and anguish, protests, demonstrations. if it were the case that afr ams were "constantly gunned down," these instances would cease to be the shocking events they are. they would be part of daily life, and wouldn't be noted as exceptional. you seem to be working on a cinematic overdrive, not the daily reality of life in the u.s.
black people face great issues all the time; it doesn't help anything to turn this into a cinematic spectacle that has nothing to do with daily struggles that are faced by real people in real circumstances.

and further, what possible link is there between the abuse of blacks by the police, and holding peaceful demonstrations, which we have here all the time. this weekend black students on my campus held a march and rally, as has been happening all week around the states. this is a GREAT thing, and so far i haven't read about the national guard shooting them.
ken

On 11/15/15 5:28 PM, Salimonu Kadiri wrote:

If the Supreme court's interpretation of the US constitution in 1857 which excluded the Blacks from the expression *people of United States* is no longer valid, why is Obama African American but Clinton, Bush, Trump and others are Americans and not European Americans?
 
I love your idea of civil rights to demonstrate or protest in the society without police permit but I have not seen that practised in the US where 'African Americans' are constantly gunned down by European American policemen at pleasure and when aggrieved people resort to spontaneous demonstrations against uniformed murderers, national guards are sent out to pump bullets into the skulls of African Americans. I am yet to observe such a situation in present day Nigeria against Biafra.
S.Kadiri  
 

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
From: har...@msu.edu
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 2015 14:18:45 -0500

hi salimonu
what a set of distractions in your reply. blacks in the u.s. are the same as 1857? this is nice rhetoric, but in fact ridiculous; but more to the point, it is not on my point at all. you return to the conditions in nigeria, whether there is justification for public demonstrations. i think of it as a democratic right of all people everywhere. like being about to public denounce a govt without being punished; like publishing criticisms of the govt without fear of beingblown up. like being able to vote for your rulers.
a simple thing: people have the right to gather and publicly demonstrate, under all govts, not just democratic or dictatorial. a fundamental human right.

just sign onto that and don't tell me nonsense that blacks today are like slaves of yesterday and therefor the civil rights movements' demonstrations were meaningless. the picture you paint of the u.s. is really not close to reality. but that is not the issue.
ken

On 11/15/15 1:17 PM, 'M Buba' via USA Africa Dialogue Series wrote:

Dear all (Biafrans and Federalists),

At the risk of sounding non-committal, middlish and mediocre, I'll say that 'Biafra' is too emotive a campaign slogan at this period in our history. Couldn't we all focus on the 'vultures' pecking at our flesh and soul at the centre? 

 

There's no doubt that all ethnic nationalities are feeling crushed by their inability to change the game plan of our greedy politicians and selfish government officials. We all need redress, but inciting any group within the nation to f

...

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