RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Wole Soyinka and the Rivers State Dinner Controversy: Soyinka and Amaechi's Response and Rejoinders to Those [Facebook Debates]

What a distraction!!! I cannot see any connection between the alleged N82 million dinner for Wole Soyinka hosted by Rivers State government in Nigeria under Amaechi and Zionism woven into the right of Igbo people to their homeland. Has Igbo people ever been denied the right to their homeland in Nigeria?
S. Kadiri
 

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Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2016 07:35:22 -0800
From: corneliushamelberg@gmail.com
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Wole Soyinka and the Rivers State Dinner Controversy: Soyinka and Amaechi's Response and Rejoinders to Those [Facebook Debates]

Dear Ib,
I'm sure that what we want is a just solution to the problems facing all of us in post-Apartheid South Africa and not least of all in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, the growing sectarian divisions in the Shia dominated oil rich East in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, not to mention the Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the Arab world and beyond.
If you want to be religious about it, as you know, today,  among the great grandchildren of Aba Abraham through his son Ishmael there are twenty two Arab States but not the one Israel of his son Isaac and his grandson Jacob and the tribes…
As I understand it, Zionism means the right of the Jewish people to their homeland
As clear as daylight too, I would add the right of the Igbo people to their homeland.
Do we have to labour through another discussion that wants to delegitimize Israel?
The Oslo accord is dead and it looks like the prospect of a two-state solution is rapidly fading.
We are about to discuss the al-Ghaib so I am listening to you, very attentively
Yours sincerely,
Cornelius
We Sweden
 
 
 
 
 
 


On Tuesday, 12 January 2016 14:40:51 UTC+1, Ibrahim Abdullah wrote:

Cornelius:

Wonder why you support and justify Zionist claims but opposed Apartheid.

Ib

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Sent from my iPhone

On Jan 12, 2016, at 12:46 AM, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

PS. Erratum.

I erroneously wrote "uncontactable possession"
Correction:  Should read: "this is one of the three places where Scripture attests to the Jews' incontestable possession of the Holy Land."


On Tuesday, 12 January 2016 00:56:16 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

When certain discussions get a little too intense, comic relief and a little laughter is often the best medicine with which to calm things down a little…
Well, I did mention this to Ogbeni Kadiri, on the phone to him this afternoon, when we discussed this matter a little further – but this is just another slight aside:
Always at hand for some of the Big Grammar People,  from Old Bill's/ Mark Antony's funeral oration is the option that "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interrèd with their bones. So let it be with Caesar".  And then there's the usual argument (the ethic of language propriety) often invoked by the morally pure, when any cherished interest of theirs is about to be challenged… more big grammar: De mortuis nil nisi bonum : "You should not speak evil of the dead" -  in fulfilment of which maxim I once read the following sequence of cold facts followed by an opinion – it was  an Israeli hard-line, right-winger :"Arafat is dead. Good!"
 Coming to the point, as was reported in the Nigerian media, Melford Okilo, the then Governor of Rivers State spent eighty million Naira as funeral expenses, for the burial of his mother. This was in the good old days when the official rate of exchange was £1 Sterling to the Nigerian Naira - and what I most remember was Chief Okilo remonstrating and railing at those who looked askance at such exorbitant expenditures on behalf of he himself and his mother, at which his exact words were:
"So, you don't want me to honour my mother?"
And who – which of them had the liver ( or as the Krio people say in Sierra Leone, " the liber") to put it to him straight, that honouring mother can be as expensive as he likes but such expenses do not have to be at the expense of or  footed by  the peoples' revenue  lodged at the Rivers State oil treasury.
An aside within an aside:  There's much to learn from Bereshit 23 // Genesis 23 (  with reference to Genesis 23: 16 : "As the Talmud ( Bava Metzia 87a) explains each shekel that Abraham used to pay for the plot was worth 2,500 ordinary shekels( Rashi). Thus Abraham paid a total of one million ordinary shekels for the cave). This illustrates Abraham's love for Sarah. He chose the finest burial site for her and did not haggle over the price. As the Midrash states, this is one of the three places where Scripture attests to the Jews' uncontactable possession of the Holy Land. For the Cave of Machpelah, the site of the Temple and the Tomb of Joseph were all purchased without bargaining and paid for with unquestionable legal tender." (The Stone edition Chumash, note on Page 109)
(So the story goes, the rumour circulating was that Muammar Gaddafi's mother was a Jew. To put all speculation to rest he assembled his most honourable citizens to a face-to-face meeting at which he said "I hear that some people have been saying that my mother is a Jew.  This is the opportunity for anyone who thinks that this is true to put his hand up and be counted!" Apparently it was not long after that meeting that he insisted that the Jews should have no rest and saw to it that the main highway that he was going to build, should cut right through the middle of the Jewish cemetery in Tripoli…
About funeral expenses, it was not so long ago, whilst we were discussing a funeral expense that my younger brother Ola told me, "Corn, if you want, I'll give you a million dollar funeral!" – which got me feeling a little depressed –and of what use is a million dollars to me in heaven?  Of course I would much prefer the million dollars here-now and not post-mortem.
 The moral of this story is that we should celebrate the living.
So, what is a little $400,000 dinner for our Nobel Laureate and peace activist Baba Wole Soyinka?
Only asking Ogbeni Kadiri
Cornelius
We Sweden
 


On Monday, 11 January 2016 19:46:44 UTC+1, ogunlakaiye wrote:

Had Wole Soyinka been a foreign dignitary, according to Moses Ochonu, Amaechi would have been justified if he used Rivers State funds to throw a lavish birthday party for him. Since, according to Moses Ochonu, Wole Soyinka is a private citizen of Nigeria, it is corruption "if Amaechi used Rivers State funds to throw a lavish birthday party for him." The man (Wole Soyinka) is not even from Rivers, nor did he ever play a role in the public life of the state - writes Moses Ochonu. Thus, had paternal and genealogical origin of Wole Soyinka been Rivers State and had he played a role in the public life of the state, Moses Ochonu would not have had any objection against the alleged N82 million birthday party for Soyinka by Amaechi. Like all human beings, Wole Soyinka did not choose his parents and as such which part of the world or of Nigeria he should have been born in order to be entitled to the alleged N82 million naira birthday party from Rivers State Government as desired by Moses Ochonu.

 

In the expression, "If Amaechi used Rivers State funds to throw a lavish birthday party for him (Soyinka), it is wrong - as simple as that. It is corruption;" Moses Ochonu confessed his uncertainty about Amaechi making use of Rivers State funds for the alleged N 82 million birthday dinner. And in his last sentence Moses Ochonu declared, "That's not even to talk of the obvious profligacy of spending a whopping 82 million on a birthday party, if true."  Again Moses Ochonu does know IF IT IS TRUE that N82 million had been expended on a birthday party, yet he is lamenting over the absence of a verbal acrobat in this discussion as if his presence would have converted the manufactured figure to be true. Can't we learn to differentiate between brain and brawl? The burden of proof is on the accuser who should show us how he arrived at the total expenditure of N82 million for Soyinka's birth day dinner and until that is done I refuse to buy their hawked malicious propaganda.

S. Kadiri
 

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Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2016 08:35:38 -0600
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Wole Soyinka and the Rivers State Dinner Controversy: Soyinka and Amaechi's Response and Rejoinders to Those [Facebook Debates]
From: meoc...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

These are the kinds of discussions for which Ikhide's voice is needed. He would not stand for all the prevarication and specious justifications. Soyinka is not a foreign dignitary. He is a private citizen of Nigeria. If Amaechi used Rivers State funds to throw a lavish birthday party for him, it is wrong--as simple as that. It is corruption. The man is not even from Rivers, nor did he ever play a role in the public life of the state, so the argument cannot be made that "we are honoring or celebrating a former this or that of the state" or we are celebrating "one of our own." That's not even to talk of the obvious profligacy of spending a whopping 82 million on a birthday party, if true.

On Mon, Jan 11, 2016 at 8:15 AM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Has any evidence been produced that the birthday dinner was financed by the government of the Rivers State or Chibuike Amaechi as a private person, even though he was the governor of the State? Should we rely on rumour that the birthday dinner was funded with state money?
 

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Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Wole Soyinka and the Rivers State Dinner Controversy: Soyinka and Amaechi's Response and Rejoinders to Those [Facebook Debates]
From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 15:57:59 -0500
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

A more basic question is: Should any state funds (even one Naira) be used to fund a birthday party for anybody?

Kasim Alli.

Sent from my iPad

On Jan 10, 2016, at 1:54 PM, Segun Ogungbemi <segun...@gmail.com> wrote:

A drowning man will always want to hold on to something whether it can save him or not. Wike and his cohorts will like to blackmail a man of substance before they are shown the way out. There is no hiding place for them. 

I am not a spokesman of Wole Soyinka, but the very little I know about him is that he would not have asked Rotimi Amechi to honor him with a dinner. 

On getting to the arena of the dinner, does anyone expect the celebrant to ask his host the cost of the dinner? 

If the accuser has evidence let him go to court to present it and stop the cheap blackmail. 
Segun Ogungbemi. 
Sent from my iPhone 

On Jan 10, 2016, at 6:02 PM, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:

Bolaji Aluko,
 
I associate myself with your interest in accountability. The accuser should be able to furnish the public with the 17-point implementation program contained in your table below. So far the accused, Chibuike Amechi has told the public that he did not spend N82 million for Wole Soyinka's dinner but not how much he actually spent. Pressure should be brought on the accuser to substantiate his accusation of N82 million cost of dinner for Wole Soyinka, if he/she is not just throwing out figure to discredit Amechi and Soyinka.
S. Kadiri 
 

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Date: Sun, 10 Jan 2016 12:03:02 +0100
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Fwd: Wole Soyinka and the Rivers State Dinner Controversy: Soyinka and Amaechi's Response and Rejoinders to Those [Facebook Debates]
From: alu...@gmail.com
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com

Salimonu Kadiri:

I am interested in accountability.  The accuser - and the accused - should be able to reconcile the following straw table:

STRAW DRAFT:

PLANNING COMMITTEE WORK PROGRAM

RIVERS STATE DINNER FOR SOYINKA

Implementation	Naira Value
1.       Venue
2.       Transportation
3.       Security
4.      Food
5.      Brochure & printing
6.      Advertisements and Publicity
7.      Awards
8.      Accommodations for special guests
9.      Music
10. Reception
11. Registration
12. Ushers
13. Special Guests Honorarium

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