Femi Segun, you failed to observe that there is no evidential connection between the birthday party organised and paid for by the children, grandchildren and close family of Mamman Daura and the Nigerian government. Although I consider the celebration of Mamman Daura's birthday in London with his children, grandchildren, in-laws and well wishers, numbering 30, as a defective socio-economic consumption, nevertheless, there are more serious and distasteful socio-economic consumptions requiring immediate condemnation and actions. Just look at the expensive motor cars being imported into the country and the quality of the roads on which they are being driven; how much money is being spent on bleaching creams, when malaria pills are scarce in the country and etc. We are all against corruption but we must always be factual while reporting or commenting on it.
When an academic, like the author of *Mamman Daura's Shameful Birthday Bash in London,* has mythologised self as epitome of brilliance and courage, he should always hold to the truth and nothing but the truth. Now, Femi Segun, consider the following written by professor Farooq Kperogi, "Mamman Daura, the guileful, influence-peddling son of Buhari's oldest half-brother who rules Nigeria from the background of the *Glass House* in the Presidential Villa, turned 80 on November 9." But only a peddler of malicious propaganda would claim ignorance that Mamman Daura and his family were given a quit order from *Glass House* by Buhari in August 2018 so that his son could recuperate there after an accident. Was Mamman Daura ruling Nigeria from the Glass House in the Presidential Villa when he turned 80? The answer is capital NO. Farooq Kperogi informed his readers that one Dr. Bello Inua Anka, a Facebook friend of his, who happens to be married with one of the daughters of Mamman Daura, contacted him with a request to taken down the birthday video from his, Kperogi's Facebook and Twitter timelines. Dr Anka's request is understandable, as a father, if at least one of his children is in the video. We have no evidence that Dr. Anka's request to professor Kperogi was made on behalf Mamman Daura, Buhari or the federal government. Why then should Kperogi link Mamman Daura, Buhari and the federal government to Dr. Anka's objection to the video containing at least one of his children on Kperogi's Facebook wall? Having declared that Dr. Anka could not do anything to him in the US, he told his readers that he decided to make what he termed his threats public because the man has a place in Buhari/Mamman Daura family that can be held accountable if anything happens to any member of his (Kperogi's) family in Nigeria. What has Kperogi's family in Nigeria got to do with the Facebook and Twitter handles operated and solely administered by Farooq in the US? When Farooq Kperogi on Saturday, 16 November 2019, made the supposed threat from Dr. Anka known to us on this forum, the video had already been taken down from Farooq's Facebook and Twitter on Thursday, 14 November 2019. Therefore, Dr. Anka's threat to professor Kperogi saying, "I promise, you won't get away with this … as long as that video remains on your wall," has been obliterated. However, Farooq Kperogi's sense of victimisation and his extreme need to make a hero of himself forced him to maintain that he was still threatened and by extension his family in Nigeria. People like you, Femi Segun, can wail and pity Farooq Kperogi but count me out of that. With that said, I leave the frog pretending to swell self to the size of an elephant.
S. Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 23 november 2019 15:11
Till: 'Chika Onyeani' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mamman Daura's Shameful Birthday Bash in London
Skickat: den 23 november 2019 15:11
Till: 'Chika Onyeani' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Ämne: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mamman Daura's Shameful Birthday Bash in London
Ogbeni Salimonu Kadiri,
I am sure Shehu Garba will be relaxing while you spend precious time defending the perfidy of this government at all costs and at all times. So if children organised birthday party for supposedly spartan and frugal individuals who sold us the dummy of incorruptibility, they should still go ahead even when the ostentatious nature of such parties are discovered? Well. I have stopped worrying about PMB and his hordes of deceivers. My concern is with people like you who claim to know better, who accused intellectuals of failure to transform the country, but find it easy to defend, justify and protect this regime of scammers, plunderers and bared faced hypocrites. They went back on their words without any ounce of shame, yet you keep rationalizing and abetting them: Uninterrupted power supply in six months-darkness everywhere, restructuring and so called true federalism in four years, unitary federalism-a sort of paradox, remains, constitutionalism and respect for rule of law, but flagrant disobedience to court order is the order of the day. Melo ni a fe ka ni eyin Adepele? So so sad that our political consciousness is still at this rudimentary level, a situation that has led to normalization of abnormality in governance and society. Let's wake up and speak up against the unfolding tyranny, waste, selective justice and crass incompetence. As the inscription on our Aluta train at Unilorin read in those days, in the words of Frantz Fanon, the verdict of history will be hash on the people who posses enough knowledge to speak out against oppression but chose to keep mute in passivity and sheer indifference.. Let's be mindful of the verdict of history.
Femi
On Fri, Nov 22, 2019 at 7:32 PM Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:
--In Nigeria, it is unusual that an octogenarian will arrange and finance his or her own birthday. Children, grandchildren, family members and friends always organise and finance such without the consent of the celebrant who, in most cases, is often conscripted by surprise to participate in his /her own birthday celebration. In fact, the surprised celebrant out of courtesy will accept with joy the arranged celebration organised for him or her. Mamman Daura's 80th birthday celebration in London could have been organised and financed by his children, grandchildren, friends and well-wishers without his prior consent or approval. Since I am not a fool, I cannot, and I will never, believe that Mamman Daura planned, arranged and financed his 80th birthday in London. Of course, one may question the choice of place, London, by the financiers of the celebration of Mamman Daura's 80th birthday in view of the socio-economic situation in Nigeria but there are many things we, Nigerians, do privately and officially that are not reasonable. Let me explain.
English is the official language in Nigeria but almost 80% of Nigerians cannot read, write and understand it. That means, majority of Nigerians do not understand the language in which they are governed. For instance, the home state of Professor Farooq Kperogi, Kwara has a population of 2 million, 365 thousand 353 people according to 2006 population census. The Bariba people of Kwara state, to which Frooq Kperogi belongs, are not up to a million but over 80% of them are stark illiterates. Between 2011 and 2014, Kwara State government collected Revenue Allocation from the Federation Account for the total sum of $981, 338,749 (981 million,338 thousand and 749 US dollars). Constituency Fund received by Kwara State legislators for projects in Kwara for the same period was almost a hundred billion naira. Since majority of the people in Kwara, illiterates, like their counterparts in other parts of Nigeria, they do not know or understand what revenue allocations and constituency projects fund are. Therefore, they cannot hold their political leaders and public officials accountable. If it is absurd for some people to organise and finance a birthday party in London for Mamman Daura in the UK, instead of in Nigeria, it must also be absurd for any Nigerian to be an English teacher in America while our people are being impoverished because they are illiterates in English language. Whenever political leaders and public officials steal or appropriate to themselves revenue allocations from the federation account as well as funds for constituency projects, they tell the people that it is Allah or God who gives money to who ever he wants and illiterate Nigerians will them. Calculated selfishness leads to the choice of socially defective consumptions throughout Nigeria.
Interestingly, Farooq noted, "His (Mamman Daura's) children recorded the ….London birthday celebration and shared it with their friends.'' This particular observation indicates that Mamman Daura's children were responsible for the choice of place and cost of celebrating the 80th birthday of their father. By one way or the other, the video got to professor Farooq Kperogi's hand and he decided to post it on his Facebook and Twitter timelines with his negative opinion, not only about Mamman Daura but, about Buhari and his government. It was at that instance that Dr. Bello Inua Anka, who is married to one of Mamman Daura's daughters, approached professor Kperogi and asked him to take down the video from his Facebook and Twitter timelines. It is not unlikely that the children of Dr. Anka featured in the video in question and the unpalatable texts which professor Kperogi attached to it can subject his children along with others in the video to public hatred of a sort or the other. Professor Kperogi claimed that when Dr. Anka failed to persuade him to take down the video, he threatened him as follows, "By all means don't take it down please. I wasn't actually begging you just we are clear. I was being civil by asking you privately. I also said, edit if you can and continue with your lunacy. I am indifferent to your grievances against the Nigerian government ….. I promise, you won't get away with this …. as long as that video remains on your wall. You clearly have no idea what you are dealing with. You believe too much in your hype." What professor Farooq considered as threats, as far as I can see it are the two underlined sentences. It could be libellous if a private video is fixed with texts that are not approved by the owner. Dr. Anka's threat to professor Kperogi could not have been anything else but legal action. Farooq Kperogi claimed that Dr. Bello Inua Anka knows that he can't do anything to him in the US, yet he decided to make the threat public because, according to professor Kperogi, Dr. Anka 'has a place in the Buhari/Mamman Daura family that can be held accountable if anything happens to any member of my family in Nigeria. If Dr. Anka was of the opinion that Farooqs Facebook and Twitter timelines in which the video of his children and others were posted with the intention to bring them to public ridicule and contempt were co-owned by Kperogi's family in Nigeria, he would have asked them to see to it that the video was taken down. Dr. Anka knew that professor Kperogi is, singularly and wholesomely, responsible for all publications on his Facebook wall and Twitter. That was why he contacted him and not his family (Farooq Kperogi's) to take it down. It was a deliberate and marketing ploy to make himself more important than he is by bringing his family into the Facebook and Twitter palaver with Dr. Anka.
By Saturday, 16 November 2019, when professor Farooq Kperogi made public on this forum the supposed threats to him from Dr. Bello Inua Anka, professor Kperogi wrote at the same time, "Mamman Daura family persuaded Facebook and Twitter to take the video down on November 14." Thus, the threats which Dr. Anka was supposed to have issued to professor Kperogi had been invalidated since it was based on the condition that the video remained on the Facebook and Twitter timelines owned by Kperogi. Instead of Farooq Kperogi being happy that the source of what he termed as the cause of threats to himself and his family in Nigeria has been removed, he roared to lecture. "Why are they embarrassed by the video," he asked? "They haven't realized that by getting Twitter and Facebook to take down the video from my social media timelines, and the online buzz this has created, they've made the video even more popular than it deserves to be.These Buhari/Mamman Daura folks obviously have the IQ of their shoe sizes." Let us recall, according to Farooq's narration, that it was only his Facebook friend, Dr. Bello Inua Anka, married to one of Mamman Daura's daughters, who had asked him to take down the video from his Facebook and Twitter timelines and nobody else. When did a single person, Dr. Bello Inua Anka, become they for professor Farooq Kperogi? What IQ rate is behind professor Farooq Kperogi's conversion of a request from a single person to a request from multiple persons?S. Kadiri
Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Farooq A. Kperogi <farooqkperogi@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 16 november 2019 06:04
Till: USAAfrica Dialogue <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Mamman Daura's Shameful Birthday Bash in LondonSaturday, November 16, 2019
Mamman Daura's Shameful Birthday Bash in London
By Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.
Twitter: @farooqkperogi
Mamman Daura, the guileful, influence-peddling son of Buhari's oldest half-brother who rules Nigeria from the background of the "Glass House" in the Presidential Villa, turned 80 on November 9. After sponsoring a cornucopia of hagiographic birthday tributes in newspapers, Daura jetted forth to London—along with more than 30 family members—to celebrate at a high-priced London hotel.
His children recorded the glitz, vanity, and epicurean indulgence of the London birthday celebration and shared it with their friends. Somehow, it seeped out to the public and became the trigger for the ventilation of pent-up angst over the Buhari regime's enduring hypocrisy.
In the cloying tributes written about him on the occasion of his birthday, Mamman Daura was variously—and falsely— described as modest, patriotic, self-effacing, unassuming, and contemptuous of conspicuous consumption. Yet he chose to celebrate his birthday, along with scores of nuclear and extended family members—and government officials—in London. Would it diminish the significance of his milestone if he celebrated his birthday in Abuja—or, in fact, Daura, his place of birth?
Where is the patriotism in celebrating birthdays on foreign soil? Where is the modesty in putting more than 30 family members in first-class flights to London to celebrate a mere birthday while millions of Nigerians, particularly in his hometown of Daura, writhe in unutterable pauperism?
The London birthday bash, incidentally, is co-extensive with Muhammadu Buhari's presence in London on a "private visit" with public funds. People were understandably crossed that Buhari and Mamman Daura, Buhari's chief puppeteer, were luxuriating in sybaritic pleasures abroad at a time they selectively closed the borders at home, insisted poor people must eat only local rice, and deepened the misery of everyday Nigerians like never before.
In the aftermath of the online backlash that the video of Mamman Daura's London birthday touched off, family members of Daura attempted to withdraw the video from circulation. For instance, a Facebook friend of mine by the name of Dr. Bello Inua Anka, who is married to one of Mamman Daura's daughters, said I should take down the video from my Facebook and Twitter timelines.
The pretext he used to justify his take-down request was that two of his children were in the video and were being exposed to "hatred." He said there were "security issues involved" in sharing the video publicly.
I told him I didn't see anyone say anything about any child in the video. Everyone's focus was on the hypocrisy of closing the borders at home, insisting that traumatized, poverty-stricken people live within their means, using security agencies to physically humiliate and harass poor people for eating foreign rice, etc. while Buhari's family members, and a few favored ones, live off the fat of the land at home and abroad, even going so far as to celebrate the birthday of Buhari's nephew in London— with ministers and senators in tow. Not even Jonathan was this audaciously insensitive and duplicitous.
I didn't shoot or edit the video, I reminded him. The video was shot, edited, and shared by his in-laws before it slipped away from their grip. Why should I edit or take it down? His response was baffling. "Your page has more exposure than most, there are security issues involved here. A lot of people with a grudge or another will always pay a visit to your page to feed off what you write," he said.
How does the appearance of indulgent, well-clad, and well-fed children in a video pose "security issues" when they live privileged, sheltered lives, which ensures that they won't be in harm's way? In Bello Anka's village in Zamfara State, hundreds of thousands of poor kids, through no fault of theirs, are in real danger because they can't feed, because bandits terrorize them and their parents, and because they can't go to school, ensuring that their unfortunate condition will be perpetuated inter-generationally. That's where the real "security issues" are. But he doesn't care. The poor don't matter.
When he didn't succeed in persuading me to take down the video, he started to threaten me. "By all means don't take it down please. I wasnt [sic] actually begging you just so we are clear. I was being civil by asking you privately. I also said edit if you can and continue with your lunacy. I am indifferent to your grievances against the Nigerian government...I promise you won't get away with this… as long as that video remains on your wall. You clearly have no idea what you are dealing with. You believe too much in your own hype," he wrote.
Because I've received several anonymous death threats from supporters of the Buhari regime, including a recent one where someone publicly called for my execution—alongwith Chidi Odinkalu and Ahmed Salkida— on Twitter, I decided to make the man's threats public because he has a name, a face, and a place in the Buhari/Mamman Daura family that can be held accountable if anything happens to any member of my family in Nigeria because he knows he can't do anything to me in the US.
Interestingly, this same witless, power-intoxicated buffoon used to fawn over me when I held Goodluck Jonathan's feet to the fire before 2015. Because he and his parasitic, no-good in-laws are now milking the national cow, he wants me to look the other way as they perpetrate their corruption, nepotism, cronyism, and impunity.
When threats did nothing to get me to take down the video, the Mamman Daura family persuaded Facebook and Twitter that the video I shared of the children, grandchildren, in-laws, and Nigerian government officials (including a senator and a minister) celebrating Mamman Daura's 80th birthday at a pricey London hotel was "private media." So they both took it down on November 14.
Scores of people have also shared the video on Facebook and Twitter. Why am I the only one they're worried about? Bello Inua Anka said I believed "too much" in my own "hype." But it's actually the other way round: it is he and his corrupt, profligate in-laws who believe in their hype about me. There are thousands of Nigerians with way more social media following and influence than I, but it's my social media commentaries they are disproportionately obsessed with.
Well, although the video no longer appears on my social media timelines, it has already gone viral and is, in fact, archived on this blog. It has also been shared on many other Internet platforms. Will the Mamman Daura family persuade, for example, YouTube and WhatsApp to take down the video? Will they ask Microsoft, Apple, Samsung, LG, etc. to take down the video from millions of computers and phones?
Why are they embarrassed by the video? Of course, it's because it calls attention to their extortionate profligacy, to their hypocritical licentiousness, to their objectionable immorality, to their ice-cold disdain for the poor, and to their reprehensible double standard.
They haven't realized that by getting Twitter and Facebook to take down the video from my social media timelines, and the online buzz this has created, they've made the video even more popular than it deserves to be. Now if you type "Mamman Daura birth…" on Google, Google's autocompletion automatically suggests "Mamman Daura birthday video."
That means a lot of people are searching for it. According to Google, "The search queries that you see as part of Autocomplete reflect what other people are searching for and the content of web pages." The forbidden fruit, they say, tastes the sweetest.
These Buhari/Mamman Daura folks obviously have the IQ of their shoe sizes. Hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of people have already seen, shared, and downloaded the video. Only imbeciles lock the barn door after the horse has bolted.
Related Articles:Farooq A. Kperogi, Ph.D.Associate ProfessorJournalism & Emerging Media
School of Communication & MediaSocial Science BuildingRoom 5092 MD 2207402 Bartow Avenue
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, Georgia, USA 30144
Cell: (+1) 404-573-9697
Personal website: www.farooqkperogi.comTwitter: @farooqkperogiAuthor of Glocal English: The Changing Face and Forms of Nigerian English in a Global World
"The nice thing about pessimism is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised." G. F. Will
--
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAPq-FWstAp6vaLs%2B8xf7-3rR2WNNRaCqf4SQY7J4FECVCdYiNw%40mail.gmail.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/DM6PR07MB7163BF5FA031DDFA5BFDCD3AAE4F0%40DM6PR07MB7163.namprd07.prod.outlook.com.
Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To subscribe to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue+subscribe@googlegroups.com
Current archives at http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
Early archives at http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "USA Africa Dialogue Series" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to usaafricadialogue+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/usaafricadialogue/CAN_y-4reNX31%3DzMF%3DTcOXq%3DT%2BmFYOpppvKYTyjzY%3Dn%3DWO8i9NA%40mail.gmail.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment