Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

Obi,

I have already apologized to the adorable baboons out there for comparing them to a blood-thirsty tyrant. But I am not in agreement with the 'anti-racist racism' of Sarte which was a misreading of Fanon's Wretched of the Earth. Fanon, who married a white woman, did not advocate the hatred of the white people but, as a psychiatrist, diagnosed why a minority of people become violent under a systematic violent oppression. His solution was a non-violent mobilization and education of the countryside and the poor through revolutionary literature. My inspiration for the baboon of the lagoon is closer to home, it is Baba Fela Kuti  who identified the tendency that he called Beasts of No Nation - animals in human skin - whose morality is so inhumane that they cannot be seriously classified with the human species. In that case, Fela was directly quoting the apartheid terrorist, Botha, who bragged that the mass uprising of the people in demand for non-racial democracy 'would bring out the beast in us'. No be me talk am, said Fela.

Obioma, focusing on the words alone is not an effective way of understanding any communication. We must read between the lines too to inter-subjectively understand the meanings of human actions and intentions. A man who boasts that he must be a bastard or that his father did not give birth to him unless he launches a mass killing of innocent law-abiding citizens, was being paid compliments by being called a saintly baboon. Surely, he is much worse than that.

Bolaji may be right that there are people who share the genocidal hatred of Akiolu. Perhaps Bolaji is one such individual for wishing that the 'children and subjects' of the lunatic will fulfill the nightmare of their 'royal father'. Luckily for Nigerian, the youth of Lagos and Nigeria today are not easily incited to go on genocidal rampages. Education and cosmopolitanism have increasingly resulted in a multicultural nation with friendship, marriage and partnership across ethnic divides on a mass scale unknown before. There are Yoruba people who are equally outraged that a power-drunk fool could threaten millions of their fellow citizens for doing their civic duty. Bolaji, are you also outraged by Akiolu's threat?

Bolaji should condemn the royal pretender and demand for his dismissal from office because his outrage is not shared by all Yoruba people, many of whom are friends, associates, in-laws or off-springs of the unjustly hated Igbo. The candidate scandalized by the brazen threat should repudiate the poisoned chalice; the governor of Lagos should arrest the terrorist or the president of Nigeria should order the arrest. The president-elect should use this opportunity to apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs and promise to pay reparations to the survivors We all should join hands to demand justice for the Igbo to address past young and thereby make reruns more unimaginable.

When democracy matures in Nigeria, we will come to a stage where all despotic 'traditional rule' institutions will be abolished and the people will be allowed to elect the mayors of their towns and town council members for limited terms in office as Azikiwe insisted in the South East during self-rule when the people of Enugu chose to elect a Hausa man as the mayor of Enugu and no one threatened anyone with genocide.

Biko

On Wednesday, 8 April 2015, 11:40, Rex Marinus <rexmarinus@hotmail.com> wrote:

I actually disagree with Dr. Obioma Nnaemeka on this. The comments directed at Akiolu is necessarily harsh. It is the equivalent of Sartre's "racist anti-racism" - a necessary deployment of extreme speech in other to free people of the consequences of even more extreme conducts or speech or beliefs. Rather than detract from the situation, it amplifies the exact nature of Akiolu's  "reprehensible" conduct. I think we must be unwilling to mealy-mouth on this matter by this attempt to separate the meaning and intentions of the man, from the significance of the office to which he is purportedly endowed. Ogugua's statement earlier is quite apt: respect is not an inheritance; it is the value of conduct.
 
I also think Dr. Aluko insults and undermines Nigerians citizens of Lagos by calling them "subject" people. We must be very careful about the words we use. The Nigerian constitution endows everyone in Lagos, including Akiolu with the fundamental right of citizenship. Nigerians are only subject to the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, whose charter of fundamental rights is unambiguous in endowing the rights of EQUAL CITIZENSHIP to every Nigerian irrespective of religion, gender, ethnicity or status. The continuous ascription of limited rights and values to the citizens of Nigeria, whom Dr. Aluko describes as the "Lagos subjects" of the Oba of Lagos carries no less a reprehensible meaning, and it ought to be clear and really challenged.
 
I myself felt that it is the Baboon that we insult by comparing Akiolu to him. Anyone who has seen the video or heard the audio of this guy's foolish utterances, should rather challenge Dr. Biko Agozino for insulting the Baboon, who in my view has greater civic manners than Mr. Akiolu. And just so it be clear, Agozino did not bring anybody into this matter - not Ambode; not Akiolu's neighbours in Lagos; not Yoruba people; not even the laughable cluster of comedians called "Eze Ndi Igbo" in Lagos, towards whom Akiolu directs his choler. So, please, do not bring his children into this matter, unless his children echo Akiolu's statements.
Obi Nwakanma
 

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Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2015 15:25:44 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon
From: alukome@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com

May your tribe increase, Dr. Nnamaeka, Obioma!

Some of those criticizing and abusing the Oba for his reprehensible outburst seem to be as hateful as he himself, especially those who have called him a baboon, or support those who have.  What do you expect his children, his Lagos subjects or his supporters to do ....jump up with glee for calling him a baboon?  Yet, if you describe his speech for what it is, you will win people to you to condemn him.

Do baboons talk?  Are they over-supportive of Ambode, or hateful of Igbo?  Or is it how the Oba looks...and can he change his looks?   Or is it just poetic exuberance....baboon...lagoon?

So let us watch it:  the Oba is not the only hateful interlocutor on this issue.  Yes, let us focus on the issue, and stop quoting Obasanjo's This animal Called Man.

And there you have I.

Bolaji Alukome

On Wednesday, April 8, 2015, Nnaemeka, Obioma G <nnaemeka@iupui.edu> wrote:

 

The problem with the name-calling is that it takes us away from a serious discussion of what the Oba said. Calling him a baboon does not advance the discussion; it diminishes it. What the Oba said was reprehensible and condemnable. Let's focus on that and leave the animal kingdom alone.

 

Obioma Nnaemeka, Ph.D.

Chancellor's Distinguished Professor

Department of World Languages and Cultures

Women's Studies Program

 

Indiana University School of Liberal Arts

Indiana University – Purdue University Indianapolis

425 University Blvd, CA 543A

Indianapolis, IN 46202

Phone: 317-278-2038/317-274-0062; Fax: 317-278-7375

nnameka@iupui.edu; www.iupui.edu

 

 

From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com [mailto:usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 07, 2015 8:47 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - The Baboon of the Lagoon

 

I apologize to our closest relatives in the animal kingdom, baboons, for suggesting that the clown who wears the crown as the descendant of slave trading chiefs is like them; it was my poetic license. Although Baboon rhymes with the Lagoon in which he threatened to drown innocent citizens for performing their civic duties of voting, baboons are completely innocent of threatening genocide against human beings and they have never committed such a barbaric crime against humanity. The Igbo, having suffered such a painful history in recent memory, deserve to alert all those with conscience worldwide when genocidists start making hateful threats. No matter how highly respected anyone pretends to be, no one is above the law and the chief law enforcement officers should be urged by all peace-loving Africans to promptly arrest the thug and prosecute him to set an example to others in order to prevent his self-fulfilling prophecy of hate from being fulfilled. Moreover, rather than worry about the prestige of your traditional ruler when he misbehaves gravely, you should add your voice to demand that justice should be done to your Igbo brothers and sisters for the past wrongs visited on them.

 

Biko

 

 

On Tuesday, 7 April 2015, 16:39, Segun Ogungbemi <seguno2013@gmail.com> wrote:

 

There is need for caution here. It is an aberration of the highest order to call or address an Oba a baboon. Whatever the merit of the argument, insulting one of the most highly respected Royal Fathers in Yorubaland and in Nigeria by anyone is despicable. 'Biko Agozino should first of all withdraw the description of His Royal Majesty the Oba of Lagos a baboon. 

This inflammatory description can cause mayhem if care is not taken. It is therefore demanded that Biko Agozino withdraws it with an apology. 

Prof. Segun Ogungbemi

On Apr 7, 2015, at 10:42 AM, "'Biko Agozino' via USA Africa Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

A baboon has threatened to drown masses of Igbo citizens of Nigeria in the lagoon if they do not vote for his preferred candidate for the governor of Lagos State. This is a leadership moment for President Jonathan and the President-elect, Buhari, to show leadership by repudiating such a brazen terroristic threat against model citizens who have ventured immensely to help build a modern nation and who have suffered unprovoked genocidal violence repeatedly in the history of Nigeria. Leaders should call for the arrest, dethronement and prosecution of the Oba of Lagos for this hate speech; apologize to the Igbo for past wrongs especially during the civil war when 3.1 million were estimated to have died with their young women abducted, their properties destroyed or seized, and their life-savings withheld. Propose a law against any denial of the Igbo genocide and against genocidal threats and establish the Igbo Reparations Fund along with the creation of the sixth state in the South East for the sake of geopolitical equity. Other Nigerian groups have been offered reparations for lesser wrongs and the continued denial of fair reparations to the Igbo who have suffered most may be contributing to the entrenchment of the culture of terrorism in Nigeria. Show some leadership now!

 

Biko

 

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