Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Digest for usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com - 22 updates in 9 topics

RE: PROFESSOR JULIUS O. ADEKUNLE: A HUMANISTIC PERSONOLOGY--- A YULETIDE CELEBRATION

Thank you for this yuletide gift my amiable Professor. Although I missed
your Samuel Adegboyega University's lecture on the 9th or so of this month
because I was away in Australia, this knowledgepreneur concept that you
have so comprehensively espoused in celebrating a living legend is so dense
to the extent that I believe that I will eternally draw strength and
inspiration from it as a growing knowledgepreneur  and sojourner in a world
fraught with "ups" and "downs." Permit me to re-post it in my blog. Shalom.
Thank you so much. Osakue S. Omoera

On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 11:52 PM, <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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PROFESSOR JULIUS O. ADEKUNLE: A HUMANISTIC PERSONOLOGY--- A YULETIDE CELEBRATION

Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>: Dec 23 08:39PM PROFESSOR JULIUS O. ADEKUNLE: A HUMANISTIC PERSONOLOGY   A YULETIDE CELEBRATION   By Toyin Falola   December 23, 2016       My celebration for the closing year is for a tertiary hero with a bold sanctity marker, whose constant push towards perfection in mind and body is so extraordinarily unique that the fragrance of his daily practices travels across great distances. I have no other person in mind than Professor Julius Adekunle, the great historian of pre-colonial Nigeria with additonal forays to other lands, such as Rwanda, and also to multiple topics on our human condition, our never-changing conditionalities.   One should hesitate to promote the résumé of a career over that of character. A character résumé is far more significant, as this is the introduction we offer to family and friends who are not part of our fields and, in the end, that is what constitutes the bulk of this statement. In today's celebration, eulogy is not my core rendition as this is more of a reflection on personhood, as Professor Adekunle is still in our midst. However, thinking of him, I am fascinated by the notion of selfhood and personhood, and how, in this season of closing one year and opening another, we seek guidance from higher spiritual forces and models of beings like us. Therefore, the persona of the beings we see and the prosopon of beings we cannot see can certainly be combined to elevate us. In the 1970s, as I was drawn to all sorts of philosophies, perhaps suffering from the traumas of the late 1960s, I went far deeper into the knowledge of the 4th and 5th centuries AD, bypassing the immediate successors of Christ, and encountered such contentious debates as how to separate humans from God; how to unite God and humans; how to unite God and Christ; and how God Himself was fragmented into human form, like the Yoruba Orisa gods of Sango, Esu, Ogun, Obatala, Oya and many more, with each playing a different aspect of God, but always manifesting frailties that weaken them individually and collectively. And so, distinctions have continued to emerge and have marked the bodies of humans, along with angels, spirits, and the Holy Ghost. But irrespective of how you deploy the fragments, and the debates that are unleashed in one's own mind, Adekunle, as a person, contains the attributes of a human and of a spirit. And here, I am not speaking of his rights and privileges as a citizen of our beleaguered but still vibrant nation, but to what the Yoruba call omoluwabi, or that very brief sketch offered by Harry Frankfurt who speaks about us as a set of attributes that define not only our human concerns, including our desires, yet, also painfully, if I understood Frankfurt well enough, those of the problems we are unable to solve in our own lives, and what some will call the vices that destroy us will be handled after life.   In an Adekunle's personal identity, the secularism of his career merges with the spirituality and religiosity of his being. I am not sure if he, as an individual, does separate them, although what the students see in class may be different from what the congregants see in church and what observers see on the streets, a triple heritage of sorts. As much as we attempt to synchronize them, we may also not always be successful in our self presentations. Or, as we present each aspect with its different angle, we may either be affirmed, or even be misread, if not totally de-legitimized.   However, do bear in mind that one can only see Adekunle's body, but not always his mind; even if one sees his words as well! And supposing that he claims to have a soul, how do we understand this both in its materiality and immateriality, as both cannot be decoupled. I understand his being, which is why this is written in his honor, but not his consciousness which explains why this piece will, forever, remains limited and perhaps limiting. If his character résumé is embedded in religion, then within what methodological framework is a disconnection ever possible?   Adekunle's moral fortitude is grounded in a rich history of connections to Yoruba organic values, a modernist work ethic incubated by Dr. Tai Solarin at Molusi College, and his own choices of religiosity and frugality. His cogent and fervent impulses are towards the good, and his community agenda, fanning across multitudes in multiple spaces, is to transform lives; first as a parent; second as a missionary; and third as a teacher. His devotionals are drawn from constant readings, and his ideas and life, portrayed in observations, murals of morals, prints and sermons, decorum and demeanor, are forever present and abiding, communicating spirited spiritual equality that gets spread to those with the full senses to decipher.   His journeys are familiar to me because I know them so well, from Ijebu Igbo in the early 1970s; then to Ilorin, the city of Islam; to Ile-Ife and its 401 gods of which Adekunle chose none; to Ibadan, the heartland of politics; to Canada to receive more knowledge; then to the US for his daily bread; with detours in Liberia to reconnect with diaspora relations. His loyalty has always been consistent, which explains his enduring location at Monmouth University, where he has served with distinction since 1996. And I forgot Oyo, his adopted homeland, the city of diplomacy. This loyalty is not just to one location, but total fidelity to teaching, his primary labor since 1979; and to the best of my knowledge, he will remain in the classroom, permanently a teacher. His rewards are already stored in Heaven!   In a twist of irony, totally unexpected, I chose two years ago to revisit Igboho to look at the Igbo Oba (the "forest of the kings"), the final resting place of some Alaafin of the great Oyo Empire. Wandering around a meandering road, wondering about the historic past of this great people, I saw a man who looked very much like Julius—tall, lean, shining black, broad smiles. Lo and behold, it was his brother, in their family house, on a peaceful street, in a peaceful city defined by its greenness, rich food and people, and ancient history. Charmingly, they are a lovely people! The excitement led to photos, those images forever planted in my memory.   Yet, this memory came much later, after the man had been known, not discovered. He was part of that massive educational expansion of the late 1960s, tied to a definitive commitment to the linkages between education and mobility, the attempt, begun in the 1940s, to create a new discourse of progress in the wake of a receding colonial state. Presenting Adekunle is to offer the evolution of Nigeria after the Second World War, with a foundational discourse on the notions of welfarism, couched in the language of community empowerment, universal access to basic human rights, and the rise and use of Western education.   As Adekunle's initial groundings in modern education unfolded, they did so in tandem with devotional practices located in the church, but opening to larger ideas of communalities. I met him not long after the Nigerian Civil War had ended, and I detected in our early conversations the tumors and tremors of a rapidly changing political space. The reflections of the time before that war, now often presented in nostalgic idealized terms, were further transcended by Adekunle in the 1980s, as he rode the waves of the local to the national, and then to the global, as his immersion into new systems and surfaces consolidated earlier beliefs while explicitly recognizing the new ideas of color and race in the far-flung cold climate of Halifax.   The intellectual foray by Adekunle began by tackling the history of Borgu, the people and state that interacted greatly with Oyo, where he derived his initial research interest in the African empire. Unlike now, whereby you can have historians who conduct no interviews, and visit the archives in three months to write shallow history books, his field was a difficult one. For, we should be reminded, the study of the peripheries is difficult. The narratives of empire, by their nature, submerge those of the incorporated and the outliers. Alas! Those outside of the empire have alternative histories, grounded in their own pride and resistance, their own autonomy. It is this very autonomy that Adekunle clearly recognized and discovered, highlighted and exposed. His understanding of difference—of Borguness—enriches our understanding of identity. First reading the manuscript when I was invited by Dalhousie in 1993 as his PhD external examiner, it was clear to me then how he tackled the iterations of state formation, in its physical expansion, connected to a spiritual context. And from Borgu, Adekunle has moved on to considerations of the larger Nigerian project, developing themes on leadership, democracy, and ethnicity.   . . . I need to pause for a moment!   II   The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, For the ears of the wise seek it out (Prov 18.15)   It took me a while (actually an understatement as I mean many years) to realize that Adekunle has been writing another set of literature: prayer books. When I received the first one, I was stunned. I knew nothing of this side of his talent. I read it a long time ago, and as the one who has called me the most on telephone, I began to understand him more and more. He thinks in terms of freewill, that is, there is no need to impose any religious or spiritual order on anyone, as transgressions would bring punishment in due course. Even if God, so goes the belief, created each of us in His own image, He seems to have backed off to let each being manifest him/herself according to self-determined paradigms. He once counseled a rebellious young man as to his folly, a man who confused knowledge with wisdom, who saw the narrow and the wide roads and immediately chose the wide one that would, in the end, lead to perdition.   While I have been to Adekunle's house, I only stayed long enough to partake in his favorite food, amala, as we both come from the amala zone, but not long enough to see whether he collects white garments and red candles. I don't even know the denomination he belongs to, although he has told me of his church on numerous occasions. Guided by peace, seeking grace, he seems to me to be permanently conscious of avoiding sin. His religious books are not connected to pastorpreneurship, as he does not connect Jesus with wealth-seeking, the Siamese Twins that have damaged Pentecostalism in his home country.   Adekunle's notion of success is inner peace, the balance of mind and body. His house is unnoticeable on the street, as well as his car; and his words are not dreams of a fleet of cars, objects, and more objects. In his own guidance on the daily bread, predicated on his ritual sanctification, salvation is the end product of spirituality. I see no rush on his part to run to the book of Revelations, as there is no need for the trauma of end times. I have joked many times that he, as an elect of God, can make it to Heaven since, as I read from the Gospel of John, he has been born not just of the spirit, but of water, the living water, to be sure.     III   Adekunle has remained serene. He is strong and unbroken. Just passing the twilight of his parenting years, the serenity magnifies in greater affection for his family. You cannot see the Imam's mumbar if your eyesight is not good enough to see the Ka'aba for long. His ethics open the eyes to see much longer and wider, and, in seeing, he reaches a level of sophistication that is unscalable. His non-academic side may be harder to decode, but they seem connected with a prana anchored to a geist. In this, his Yorubaness in the world of ghosts and witches becomes aligned with his faith in a world of body and mind. His akasha, to borrow from my rudimentary encounter with Sanskrit, allows me to actually fully grasp his essence where soul and spirit combine, although not as spelled out by the famous Al Ghazali on mysticism.   Here, let me annoy Julius, our man of the moment, by saying that his ardent spirits, to use the alcoholic term that he will surely detest, are too high, and one shot can produce a devastating intoxication! In the letters and spirit of his own combinations, the realm of the mind and that of the spirit cannot always be separated, so there may even be no beginning nor an end to his consciousness. As I re-read his religious book that he sent to me, just at the time I was re-reading the Gospel of John, not to enhance my religiosity just to be clear, I now fully understand Adekunle's permutation along a spiritual theology that borrows from Matthew 28:19. And it also seems he follows Paul's admonition in Romans 14: 22, that whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. He did not tell me this or state so in his writings, but here is where a pneumatology is well laid out, where God Himself is the uniter of mind and soul, truth and love, purpose and principle. I have to ask him in the New Year, 2017, how he breaks things down, or how, at the minimum, he can create a holarchy that may accommodate my own panentheistic metaphysics.   That Adekunle is not dogmatic is too ordinary of a statement to come out of my mouth. For, he has never tried to convert me, not even once, only joking that God will take the excessive bottles of beer away from my never-closing mouth and forever expanding stomach, as the self-appointed President of the Nigerian Association of Pregnant Men. When he and his wife once stayed with us in Austin, they did their prayers separately, far away from the madding crowd. I have, in fact, seen his well-worn Bible, but I regret that I did not pay attention to the version that he carries about or its contents. I have become so wrong-headed to believe that there is no common Bible, as I am not sure that all the Nigerian evangelists and pastorpreneurs are reading the same Bible that I do. Alas! I read the Bible far more than my secularist commune will appreciate, but I don't see where it insists that the more I give the pastor, the greater my reward on earth or the stocks that I purchase for Heaven, instead of relying on God's amazing grace to enter His Kingdom. I guess that Adekunle and I may be reading the same Bible, and we may be united more as knowledgepreneurs than as biblepreneurs, for our understanding of sins and their consequences, I suspect, is not so totally different. His private doctrines and his theology are more to my right than to my left, which may be why he gets along with me, and I get along with him. Or perhaps, he is more rigorous with his own Ten Commandments, and his own God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, while in my own eclecticism, I run to other holy books with differential and deferential assumptions. And so, in my own infidelity, I invoke the Urdu couplet as introduced to me by Dr. Vivek Bahl, my Hindu guru:   Mein kasrat-e gunah se khush huN Ke roz-e hashar kuchh to kat-e ga vaqt sawaalo javaab me.   I am happy with the abundance of my sins So that on the day of reckoning at least some time will be spent in question and answer.   Adekunle does the opposite: the brutally-rigorous elimination of his own sins so that on the day of reckoning his wait time will be within seconds. I wont know his result! He takes seriously the advice in Hebrews 12:14 to follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see God. Motives may be pure, work may be pure, but other impurities are determined and measured by means that are totally hidden from me.   Yet, it is in hiding those measures from me that my imagination gets grafted onto my speculations while being shafted by my musings. What I don't know must be admitted, the candidemia that grows from the academia of each of us, a fungemia that need not produce insecurity but an admission of

Adeshina Afolayan <shina73_1999@yahoo.com>: Dec 23 09:09PM The title of this piece compels you to read, and so I dropped everything I was doing and commenced reading. And after reading, I just sat and stared into space for a long time, my mind in a sublime limbo of serenity. How can words compel such awe? Then I smiled broadly and let out a huge breath. Wow! Wow!!  Adeshina Afolayan, PhD Department of Philosophy University of Ibadan   +23480-3928-8429   On Friday, December 23, 2016 9:41 PM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:   <!--#yiv0936801026 _filtered #yiv0936801026 {} _filtered #yiv0936801026 {font-family:"Cambria Math";panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;} _filtered #yiv0936801026 {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv0936801026 #yiv0936801026 p.yiv0936801026MsoNormal, #yiv0936801026 li.yiv0936801026MsoNormal, #yiv0936801026 div.yiv0936801026MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";}#yiv0936801026 p.yiv0936801026MsoFooter, #yiv0936801026 li.yiv0936801026MsoFooter, #yiv0936801026 div.yiv0936801026MsoFooter {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";}#yiv0936801026 span.yiv0936801026FooterChar {}#yiv0936801026 .yiv0936801026MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;} _filtered #yiv0936801026 {margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}#yiv0936801026 div.yiv0936801026WordSection1 {}-->PROFESSOR JULIUS O. ADEKUNLE: A HUMANISTIC PERSONOLOGY  A YULETIDE CELEBRATION  By Toyin Falola December 23, 2016    My celebration for the closing year is for a tertiary hero with a bold sanctity marker, whose constant push towards perfection in mind and body is so extraordinarily unique that the fragrance of his daily practices travels across great distances. I have no other person in mind than Professor Julius Adekunle, the great historian of pre-colonial Nigeria with additonal forays to other lands, such as Rwanda, and also to multiple topics on our human condition, our never-changing conditionalities.  One should hesitate to promote the résumé of a career over that of character. A character résumé is far more significant, as this is the introduction we offer to family and friends who are not part of our fields and, in the end, that is what constitutes the bulk of this statement. In today's celebration, eulogy is not my core rendition as this is more of a reflection on personhood, as Professor Adekunle is still in our midst. However, thinking of him, I am fascinated by the notion of selfhood and personhood, and how, in this season of closing one year and opening another, we seek guidance from higher spiritual forces and models of beings like us. Therefore, the persona of the beings we see and the prosopon of beings we cannot see can certainly be combined to elevate us. In the 1970s, as I was drawn to all sorts of philosophies, perhaps suffering from the traumas of the late 1960s, I went far deeper into the knowledge of the 4th and 5th centuries AD, bypassing the immediate successors of Christ, and encountered such contentious debates as how to separate humans from God; how to unite God and humans; how to unite God and Christ; and how God Himself was fragmented into human form, like the Yoruba Orisa gods of Sango, Esu, Ogun, Obatala, Oya and many more, with each playing a different aspect of God, but always manifesting frailties that weaken them individually and collectively. And so, distinctions have continued to emerge and have marked the bodies of humans, along with angels, spirits, and the Holy Ghost. But irrespective of how you deploy the fragments, and the debates that are unleashed in one's own mind, Adekunle, as a person, contains the attributes of a human and of a spirit. And here, I am not speaking of his rights and privileges as a citizen of our beleaguered but still vibrant nation, but to what the Yoruba callomoluwabi, or that very brief sketch offered by Harry Frankfurt who speaks about us as a set of attributes that define not only our human concerns, including our desires, yet, also painfully, if I understood Frankfurt well enough, those of the problems we are unable to solve in our own lives, and what some will call the vices that destroy us will be handled after life.  In an Adekunle's personal identity, the secularism of his career merges with the spirituality and religiosity of his being. I am not sure if he, as an individual, does separate them, although what the students see in class may be different from what the congregants see in church and what observers see on the streets, a triple heritage of sorts. As much as we attempt to synchronize them, we may also not always be successful in our self presentations. Or, as we present each aspect with its different angle, we may either be affirmed, or even be misread, if not totally de-legitimized.  However, do bear in mind that one can only see Adekunle's body, but not always his mind; even if one sees his words as well! And supposing that he claims to have a soul, how do we understand this both in its materiality and immateriality, as both cannot be decoupled. I understand his being, which is why this is written in his honor, but not his consciousness which explains why this piece will, forever, remains limited and perhaps limiting. If his character résumé is embedded in religion, then within what methodological framework is a disconnection ever possible?  Adekunle's moral fortitude is grounded in a rich history of connections to Yoruba organic values, a modernist work ethic incubated by Dr. Tai Solarin at Molusi College, and his own choices of religiosity and frugality. His cogent and fervent impulses are towards the good, and his community agenda, fanning across multitudes in multiple spaces, is to transform lives; first as a parent; second as a missionary; and third as a teacher. His devotionals are drawn from constant readings, and his ideas and life, portrayed in observations, murals of morals, prints and sermons, decorum and demeanor, are forever present and abiding, communicating spirited spiritual equality that gets spread to those with the full senses to decipher.  His journeys are familiar to me because I know them so well, from Ijebu Igbo in the early 1970s; then to Ilorin, the city of Islam; to Ile-Ife and its 401 gods of which Adekunle chose none; to Ibadan, the heartland of politics; to Canada to receive more knowledge; then to the US for his daily bread; with detours in Liberia to reconnect with diaspora relations. His loyalty has always been consistent, which explains his enduring location at Monmouth University, where he has served with distinction since 1996. And I forgot Oyo, his adopted homeland, the city of diplomacy. This loyalty is not just to one location, but total fidelity to teaching, his primary labor since 1979; and to the best of my knowledge, he will remain in the classroom, permanently a teacher. His rewards are already stored in Heaven!  In a twist of irony, totally unexpected, I chose two years ago to revisit Igboho to look at the Igbo Oba (the  "forest of the kings"), the final resting place of some Alaafin of the great Oyo Empire. Wandering around a meandering road, wondering about the historic past of this great people, I saw a man who looked very much like Julius—tall, lean, shining black, broad smiles. Lo and behold, it was his brother, in their family house, on a peaceful street, in a peaceful city defined by its greenness, rich food and people, and ancient history. Charmingly, they are a lovely people! The excitement led to photos, those images forever planted in my memory.  Yet, this memory came much later, after the man had been known, not discovered. He was part of that massive educational expansion of the late 1960s, tied to a definitive commitment to the linkages between education and mobility, the attempt, begun in the 1940s, to create a new discourse of progress in the wake of a receding colonial state. Presenting Adekunle is to offer the evolution of Nigeria after the Second World War, with a foundational discourse on the notions of welfarism, couched in the language of community empowerment, universal access to basic human rights, and the rise and use of Western education.  As Adekunle's initial groundings in modern education unfolded, they did so in tandem with devotional practices located in the church, but opening to larger ideas of communalities. I met him not long after the Nigerian Civil War had ended, and I detected in our early conversations the tumors and tremors of a rapidly changing political space. The reflections of the time before that war, now often presented in nostalgic idealized terms, were further transcended by Adekunle in the 1980s, as he rode the waves of the local to the national, and then to the global, as his immersion into new systems and surfaces consolidated earlier beliefs while explicitly recognizing the new ideas of color and race in the far-flung cold climate of Halifax.           The intellectual foray by Adekunle began by tackling the history of Borgu, the people and state that interacted greatly with Oyo, where he derived his initial research interest in the African empire. Unlike now, whereby you can have historians who conduct no interviews, and visit the archives in three months to write shallow history books, his field was a difficult one. For, we should be reminded, the study of the peripheries is difficult. The narratives of empire, by their nature, submerge those of the incorporated and the outliers. Alas! Those outside of the empire have alternative histories, grounded in their own pride and resistance, their own autonomy. It is this very autonomy that Adekunle clearly recognized and discovered, highlighted and exposed. His understanding of difference—of Borguness—enriches our understanding of identity. First reading the manuscript when I was invited by Dalhousie in 1993 as his PhD external examiner, it was clear to me then how he tackled the iterations of state formation, in its physical expansion, connected to a spiritual context. And from Borgu, Adekunle has moved on to considerations of the larger Nigerian project, developing themes on leadership, democracy, and ethnicity.  . .  . I need to pause for a moment!  II  The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, For the ears of the wise seek it out(Prov 18.15)           It took me a while (actually an understatement as I mean many years) to realize that Adekunle has been writing another set of literature: prayer books. When I received the first one, I was stunned. I knew nothing of this side of his talent. I read it a long time ago, and as the one who has called me the most on telephone, I began to understand him more and more. He thinks in terms of freewill, that is, there is no need to impose any religious or spiritual order on anyone, as transgressions would bring punishment in due course. Even if God, so goes the belief, created each of us in His own image, He seems to have backed off to let each being manifest him/herself according to self-determined paradigms. He once counseled a rebellious young man as to his folly, a man who confused knowledge with wisdom, who saw the narrow and the wide roads and immediately chose the wide one that would, in the end, lead to perdition.  While I have been to Adekunle's house, I only stayed long enough to partake in his favorite food,amala, as we both come from the amala zone, but not long enough to see whether he collects white garments and red candles. I don't even know the denomination he belongs to, although he has told me of his church on numerous occasions. Guided by peace, seeking grace, he seems to me to be permanently conscious of avoiding sin. His religious books are not connected to pastorpreneurship, as he does not connect Jesus with wealth-seeking, the Siamese Twins that have damaged Pentecostalism in his home country.  Adekunle's notion of success is inner peace, the balance of mind and body. His house is unnoticeable on the street, as well as his car; and his words are not dreams of a fleet of cars, objects, and more objects. In his own guidance on the daily bread, predicated on his ritual sanctification, salvation is the end product of spirituality. I see no rush on his part to run to the book of Revelations, as there is no need for the trauma of end times. I have joked many times that he, as an elect of God, can make it to Heaven since, as I read from the Gospel of John, he has been born not just of the spirit, but of water, the living water, to be sure.   III           Adekunle has remained serene. He is strong and unbroken. Just passing the twilight of his parenting years, the serenity magnifies in greater affection for his family. You cannot see the Imam's mumbar if your eyesight is not good enough to see the Ka'aba for long. His ethics open the eyes to see much longer and wider, and, in seeing, he reaches a level of sophistication that is unscalable. His non-academic side may be harder to decode, but they seem connected with a prana anchored to a geist. In this, his Yorubaness in the world of ghosts and witches becomes aligned with his faith in a world of body and mind. Hisakasha, to borrow from my rudimentary encounter with Sanskrit, allows me to actually fully grasp his essence where soul and spirit combine, although not as spelled out by the famous Al Ghazali on mysticism.  Here, let me annoy Julius, our man of the moment, by saying that his ardent spirits, to use the alcoholic term that he will surely detest, are too high, and one shot can produce a devastating intoxication! In the letters and spirit of his own combinations, the realm of the mind and that of the spirit cannot always be separated, so there may even be no beginning nor an end to his consciousness. As I re-read his religious book that he sent to me, just at the time I was re-reading the Gospel of John, not to enhance my religiosity just to be clear, I now fully understand Adekunle's permutation along a spiritual theology that borrows from Matthew 28:19. And it also seems he follows Paul's admonition in Romans 14: 22, that whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. He did not tell me this or state so in his writings, but here is where a pneumatology is well laid out, where God Himself is the uniter of mind and soul, truth and love, purpose and principle. I have to ask him in the New Year, 2017, how he breaks things down, or how, at the minimum, he can create aholarchy that may accommodate my own panentheistic metaphysics.           That Adekunle is not dogmatic is too ordinary of a statement to come out of my mouth. For, he has never tried to convert me, not even once, only joking that God will take the excessive bottles of beer away from my never-closing mouth and forever expanding stomach, as the self-appointed President of the Nigerian Association of Pregnant Men. When he and his wife once stayed with us in Austin, they did their prayers separately, far away from the madding crowd. I have, in fact, seen his well-worn Bible, but I regret that I did not pay attention to the version that he carries about or its contents. I have become so wrong-headed to believe that there is no common Bible, as I am not sure that all the Nigerian evangelists and pastorpreneurs are reading the same Bible that I do. Alas! I read the Bible far more than my secularist commune will appreciate, but I don't see where it insists that the more I give the pastor, the greater my reward on earth or the stocks that I purchase for Heaven, instead of relying on God's amazing grace to enter His Kingdom. I guess that Adekunle and I may be reading the same Bible, and we may be united more as knowledgepreneurs than as biblepreneurs, for our understanding of sins and their consequences, I suspect, is not so totally different. His private doctrines and his theology are more to my right than to my left, which may

Michael Afolayan <mafolayan@yahoo.com>: Dec 23 10:12PM Yep, Ojogbon Falola, thank you for putting the right peg in the righthole, the right hole indeed - not round, not square - just right! You blew thevuvuleza of the right man, a man of virtue. If one's daughter is beautiful, our elders say, we should not be afraid to say so; after all, it's not to woo her into marrying one, right? I know Professor Adekunle. We weretogether less than two months ago. We talk every so often. We are members ofthe same alumni group, the BHS Shaki group and in fact, the only missing mega-source of the good professor's niceity, and spirituality (in fact, with your permission, Iwill post this eulogy on the alumni's Facebook). Dr. Adekunle deserves this eulogy. He isa man of integrity and intellectual finesse. I join you to doff my hat to this man, one of the remaining custodians of those things that are true,honest, just, pure, lovely, and of good report, those virtues about which Paulthe apostle admonishes that we should all think about.     Michael O. AfolayanFrom the Land of Lincoln           On Friday, December 23, 2016 3:20 PM, 'Adeshina Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:   The title of this piece compels you to read, and so I dropped everything I was doing and commenced reading. And after reading, I just sat and stared into space for a long time, my mind in a sublime limbo of serenity. How can words compel such awe? Then I smiled broadly and let out a huge breath. Wow! Wow!!  Adeshina Afolayan, PhD Department of Philosophy University of Ibadan   +23480-3928-8429   On Friday, December 23, 2016 9:41 PM, Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:   #yiv2069798463 #yiv2069798463 -- filtered {}#yiv2069798463 filtered {panose-1:2 4 5 3 5 4 6 3 2 4;}#yiv2069798463 filtered {font-family:Calibri;panose-1:2 15 5 2 2 2 4 3 2 4;}#yiv2069798463 p.yiv2069798463MsoNormal, #yiv2069798463 li.yiv2069798463MsoNormal, #yiv2069798463 div.yiv2069798463MsoNormal {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv2069798463 p.yiv2069798463MsoFooter, #yiv2069798463 li.yiv2069798463MsoFooter, #yiv2069798463 div.yiv2069798463MsoFooter {margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;font-size:12.0pt;}#yiv2069798463 span.yiv2069798463FooterChar {}#yiv2069798463 .yiv2069798463MsoChpDefault {font-size:10.0pt;}#yiv2069798463 filtered {margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in;}#yiv2069798463 div.yiv2069798463WordSection1 {}#yiv2069798463 PROFESSOR JULIUS O. ADEKUNLE: A HUMANISTIC PERSONOLOGY  A YULETIDE CELEBRATION  By Toyin Falola December 23, 2016    My celebration for the closing year is for a tertiary hero with a bold sanctity marker, whose constant push towards perfection in mind and body is so extraordinarily unique that the fragrance of his daily practices travels across great distances. I have no other person in mind than Professor Julius Adekunle, the great historian of pre-colonial Nigeria with additonal forays to other lands, such as Rwanda, and also to multiple topics on our human condition, our never-changing conditionalities.  One should hesitate to promote the résumé of a career over that of character. A character résumé is far more significant, as this is the introduction we offer to family and friends who are not part of our fields and, in the end, that is what constitutes the bulk of this statement. In today's celebration, eulogy is not my core rendition as this is more of a reflection on personhood, as Professor Adekunle is still in our midst. However, thinking of him, I am fascinated by the notion of selfhood and personhood, and how, in this season of closing one year and opening another, we seek guidance from higher spiritual forces and models of beings like us. Therefore, the persona of the beings we see and the prosopon of beings we cannot see can certainly be combined to elevate us. In the 1970s, as I was drawn to all sorts of philosophies, perhaps suffering from the traumas of the late 1960s, I went far deeper into the knowledge of the 4th and 5th centuries AD, bypassing the immediate successors of Christ, and encountered such contentious debates as how to separate humans from God; how to unite God and humans; how to unite God and Christ; and how God Himself was fragmented into human form, like the Yoruba Orisa gods of Sango, Esu, Ogun, Obatala, Oya and many more, with each playing a different aspect of God, but always manifesting frailties that weaken them individually and collectively. And so, distinctions have continued to emerge and have marked the bodies of humans, along with angels, spirits, and the Holy Ghost. But irrespective of how you deploy the fragments, and the debates that are unleashed in one's own mind, Adekunle, as a person, contains the attributes of a human and of a spirit. And here, I am not speaking of his rights and privileges as a citizen of our beleaguered but still vibrant nation, but to what the Yoruba callomoluwabi, or that very brief sketch offered by Harry Frankfurt who speaks about us as a set of attributes that define not only our human concerns, including our desires, yet, also painfully, if I understood Frankfurt well enough, those of the problems we are unable to solve in our own lives, and what some will call the vices that destroy us will be handled after life.  In an Adekunle's personal identity, the secularism of his career merges with the spirituality and religiosity of his being. I am not sure if he, as an individual, does separate them, although what the students see in class may be different from what the congregants see in church and what observers see on the streets, a triple heritage of sorts. As much as we attempt to synchronize them, we may also not always be successful in our self presentations. Or, as we present each aspect with its different angle, we may either be affirmed, or even be misread, if not totally de-legitimized.  However, do bear in mind that one can only see Adekunle's body, but not always his mind; even if one sees his words as well! And supposing that he claims to have a soul, how do we understand this both in its materiality and immateriality, as both cannot be decoupled. I understand his being, which is why this is written in his honor, but not his consciousness which explains why this piece will, forever, remains limited and perhaps limiting. If his character résumé is embedded in religion, then within what methodological framework is a disconnection ever possible?  Adekunle's moral fortitude is grounded in a rich history of connections to Yoruba organic values, a modernist work ethic incubated by Dr. Tai Solarin at Molusi College, and his own choices of religiosity and frugality. His cogent and fervent impulses are towards the good, and his community agenda, fanning across multitudes in multiple spaces, is to transform lives; first as a parent; second as a missionary; and third as a teacher. His devotionals are drawn from constant readings, and his ideas and life, portrayed in observations, murals of morals, prints and sermons, decorum and demeanor, are forever present and abiding, communicating spirited spiritual equality that gets spread to those with the full senses to decipher.  His journeys are familiar to me because I know them so well, from Ijebu Igbo in the early 1970s; then to Ilorin, the city of Islam; to Ile-Ife and its 401 gods of which Adekunle chose none; to Ibadan, the heartland of politics; to Canada to receive more knowledge; then to the US for his daily bread; with detours in Liberia to reconnect with diaspora relations. His loyalty has always been consistent, which explains his enduring location at Monmouth University, where he has served with distinction since 1996. And I forgot Oyo, his adopted homeland, the city of diplomacy. This loyalty is not just to one location, but total fidelity to teaching, his primary labor since 1979; and to the best of my knowledge, he will remain in the classroom, permanently a teacher. His rewards are already stored in Heaven!  In a twist of irony, totally unexpected, I chose two years ago to revisit Igboho to look at the Igbo Oba (the  "forest of the kings"), the final resting place of some Alaafin of the great Oyo Empire. Wandering around a meandering road, wondering about the historic past of this great people, I saw a man who looked very much like Julius—tall, lean, shining black, broad smiles. Lo and behold, it was his brother, in their family house, on a peaceful street, in a peaceful city defined by its greenness, rich food and people, and ancient history. Charmingly, they are a lovely people! The excitement led to photos, those images forever planted in my memory.  Yet, this memory came much later, after the man had been known, not discovered. He was part of that massive educational expansion of the late 1960s, tied to a definitive commitment to the linkages between education and mobility, the attempt, begun in the 1940s, to create a new discourse of progress in the wake of a receding colonial state. Presenting Adekunle is to offer the evolution of Nigeria after the Second World War, with a foundational discourse on the notions of welfarism, couched in the language of community empowerment, universal access to basic human rights, and the rise and use of Western education.  As Adekunle's initial groundings in modern education unfolded, they did so in tandem with devotional practices located in the church, but opening to larger ideas of communalities. I met him not long after the Nigerian Civil War had ended, and I detected in our early conversations the tumors and tremors of a rapidly changing political space. The reflections of the time before that war, now often presented in nostalgic idealized terms, were further transcended by Adekunle in the 1980s, as he rode the waves of the local to the national, and then to the global, as his immersion into new systems and surfaces consolidated earlier beliefs while explicitly recognizing the new ideas of color and race in the far-flung cold climate of Halifax.           The intellectual foray by Adekunle began by tackling the history of Borgu, the people and state that interacted greatly with Oyo, where he derived his initial research interest in the African empire. Unlike now, whereby you can have historians who conduct no interviews, and visit the archives in three months to write shallow history books, his field was a difficult one. For, we should be reminded, the study of the peripheries is difficult. The narratives of empire, by their nature, submerge those of the incorporated and the outliers. Alas! Those outside of the empire have alternative histories, grounded in their own pride and resistance, their own autonomy. It is this very autonomy that Adekunle clearly recognized and discovered, highlighted and exposed. His understanding of difference—of Borguness—enriches our understanding of identity. First reading the manuscript when I was invited by Dalhousie in 1993 as his PhD external examiner, it was clear to me then how he tackled the iterations of state formation, in its physical expansion, connected to a spiritual context. And from Borgu, Adekunle has moved on to considerations of the larger Nigerian project, developing themes on leadership, democracy, and ethnicity.  . .  . I need to pause for a moment!  II  The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, For the ears of the wise seek it out(Prov 18.15)           It took me a while (actually an understatement as I mean many years) to realize that Adekunle has been writing another set of literature: prayer books. When I received the first one, I was stunned. I knew nothing of this side of his talent. I read it a long time ago, and as the one who has called me the most on telephone, I began to understand him more and more. He thinks in terms of freewill, that is, there is no need to impose any religious or spiritual order on anyone, as transgressions would bring punishment in due course. Even if God, so goes the belief, created each of us in His own image, He seems to have backed off to let each being manifest him/herself according to self-determined paradigms. He once counseled a rebellious young man as to his folly, a man who confused knowledge with wisdom, who saw the narrow and the wide roads and immediately chose the wide one that would, in the end, lead to perdition.  While I have been to Adekunle's house, I only stayed long enough to partake in his favorite food,amala, as we both come from the amala zone, but not long enough to see whether he collects white garments and red candles. I don't even know the denomination he belongs to, although he has told me of his church on numerous occasions. Guided by peace, seeking grace, he seems to me to be permanently conscious of avoiding sin. His religious books are not connected to pastorpreneurship, as he does not connect Jesus with wealth-seeking, the Siamese Twins that have damaged Pentecostalism in his home country.  Adekunle's notion of success is inner peace, the balance of mind and body. His house is unnoticeable on the street, as well as his car; and his words are not dreams of a fleet of cars, objects, and more objects. In his own guidance on the daily bread, predicated on his ritual sanctification, salvation is the end product of spirituality. I see no rush on his part to run to the book of Revelations, as there is no need for the trauma of end times. I have joked many times that he, as an elect of God, can make it to Heaven since, as I read from the Gospel of John, he has been born not just of the spirit, but of water, the living water, to be sure.   III           Adekunle has remained serene. He is strong and unbroken. Just passing the twilight of his parenting years, the serenity magnifies in greater affection for his family. You cannot see the Imam's mumbar if your eyesight is not good enough to see the Ka'aba for long. His ethics open the eyes to see much longer and wider, and, in seeing, he reaches a level of sophistication that is unscalable. His non-academic side may be harder to decode, but they seem connected with a prana anchored to a geist. In this, his Yorubaness in the world of ghosts and witches becomes aligned with his faith in a world of body and mind. Hisakasha, to borrow from my rudimentary encounter with Sanskrit, allows me to actually fully grasp his essence where soul and spirit combine, although not as spelled out by the famous Al Ghazali on mysticism.  Here, let me annoy Julius, our man of the moment, by saying that his ardent spirits, to use the alcoholic term that he will surely detest, are too high, and one shot can produce a devastating intoxication! In the letters and spirit of his own combinations, the realm of the mind and that of the spirit cannot always be separated, so there may even be no beginning nor an end to his consciousness. As I re-read his religious book that he sent to me, just at the time I was re-reading the Gospel of John, not to enhance my religiosity just to be clear, I now fully understand Adekunle's permutation along a spiritual theology that borrows from Matthew 28:19. And it also seems he follows Paul's admonition in Romans 14: 22, that whatever you believe about these things, keep between yourself and God. He did not tell me this or state so in his writings, but here is where a pneumatology is well laid out, where God Himself is the uniter of mind and soul, truth and love, purpose and principle. I have to ask him in the New Year, 2017, how he breaks things down, or how, at the minimum, he can create aholarchy that may accommodate my own panentheistic metaphysics.           That Adekunle is not dogmatic is too ordinary of a statement to come out of my mouth. For, he has never tried to convert me, not even once, only joking that God will take the excessive bottles of beer away from my never-closing mouth and forever expanding stomach, as the self-appointed

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Today's Quote

Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>: Dec 23 09:14AM +0100 I read a fellow from Lagos who claims to be a civil rights activist, condemning those celebrating Ibori, but for a long time, this fellow have been celebrating a politician of the Ibori Ilk from Lagos.   CAO.       -- *Chidi Anthony Opara <http://www.chidianthonyopara.blogspot.com> is a Poet <https://www.google.com.ng/?gws_rd=cr&ei=PwmjUpuuFObw0gWMiIHgCQ#q=chidi+anthony+opara+poems> and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects <http://www.publicinformationprojects.blogspot.com>*

Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>: Dec 23 05:23AM +0100 The people celebrating James Ibori are his people and they are doing so because other thieves in Nigeria are being celebrated by their own people. Although Ibori was convicted in Britain, he was however, convicted because of the political differences between him and the people in government in Nigeria then, but this should not be taken to mean that he was innocent.   CAO.     -- *Chidi Anthony Opara <http://www.chidianthonyopara.blogspot.com> is a Poet <https://www.google.com.ng/?gws_rd=cr&ei=PwmjUpuuFObw0gWMiIHgCQ#q=chidi+anthony+opara+poems> and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects <http://www.publicinformationprojects.blogspot.com>*

Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com>: Dec 23 11:16AM +0200 So what is your argument? A rationalisation? A justification of this shameless act, whether is Lagos or Delta? Methink self acclaimed civil rights activists like you should be clear on where they stand on issues that bothers on decency and integrity   On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:

Ibukunolu A Babajide <ibk2005@gmail.com>: Dec 23 11:57AM +0300 Chidi,   So should two wrongs make a right?   Cheers.   IBK   On 23 Dec 2016 9:53 a.m., "Chidi Anthony Opara" <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:

Adeshina Afolayan <shina73_1999@yahoo.com>: Dec 23 10:01AM Thank you, Oga Femi.  Sometimes, Oga Chidi surprises me. Is the main issue that others are also celebrating their thieves or that all thieves should be roundly excoriated everywhere we find them? Saying "this should not be taken to mean he was innocent" is an afterthought. What matters here is not the spurious justification that clans matter supposedly give such acts, as your quote suggests. What really matter is that stealing is morally bad, whether committed by an Igbo or a Yoruba. C'est fini! And human right activists ought to know better, except those unfortunately sold to the ethnic agenda that justifies all things terrible and bad.  And Ibori was convicted because of political differences and not because he stole? Oga Chidi, your thought direction is betrayed already! Na wa o!  Adeshina Afolayan, PhD Department of Philosophy University of Ibadan   +23480-3928-8429   On Friday, December 23, 2016 10:44 AM, Femi Segun <soloruntoba@gmail.com> wrote:   So what is your argument? A rationalisation? A justification of this shameless act, whether is Lagos or Delta? Methink self acclaimed civil rights activists like you should be clear on where they stand on issues that bothers on decency and integrity On Fri, Dec 23, 2016 at 6:23 AM, Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com> wrote:   The people celebrating James Ibori are his people and they are doing so because other thieves in Nigeria are being celebrated by their own people. Although Ibori was convicted in Britain, he was however, convicted because of the political differences between him and the people in government in Nigeria then, but this should not be taken to mean that he was innocent. CAO.    -- Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects       -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/ optout.     -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Sulaiman Adebowale <s_adebowale@hotmail.com>: Dec 23 11:06AM Special 40% Discount Offer on ALL titles from Amalion<https://www.facebook.com/AmalionPublishing/> thru Dec 31, 2016. Orders through http://conta.cc/2h6WyAs     Sulaiman Adebowale   BP 5637 Dakar-Fann Dakar Senegal

"profoyekanmi@yahoo.com" <profoyekanmi@yahoo.com>: Dec 23 11:34AM +0100 Bode George who was declared guilty by a court of law in Nigeria went to prison with great fanfare. At the expiration of the prison term he was received by his friends with even greater fanfare and a thanksgiving service was held at a church to welcome him into society. So I would not be surprised if James IborI is given a national honour when he returns to Nigeria. In Yoruba language Ibori is elewon+ tokunbo= special status now. Weep not for my beloved nation.   Sent from my HTC   ----- Reply message ----- From: "Chidi Anthony Opara" <chidi.opara@gmail.com> To: "USA African Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote Date: Fri, Dec 23, 2016 5:23 AM   The people celebrating James Ibori are his people and they are doing so because other thieves in Nigeria are being celebrated by their own people. Although Ibori was convicted in Britain, he was however, convicted because of the political differences between him and the people in government in Nigeria then, but this should not be taken to mean that he was innocent. CAO.      -- Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects               -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Kasim Alli <klalli@aol.com>: Dec 23 07:27AM -0500 By the way, the conviction of Bode George was overturned by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2013.   Sent from my iPad

"Dr. Oohay" <oohay2x@yahoo.com>: Dec 23 12:48PM I re-post my earlier post: [In much of Africa, especially Naija, we (as Ali M. once noted), we produce what we don't eat and eat what we don't produce -- (and I add) -- we are not against corruption, we just pray that the wheel of corruption pass our way.  Corruption more or less exists in every culture, but for our Naijirians, corruption is a way of everyday life. Let's start (everyday) to clean house (our OWN individual houses or households) and then clean or clear our conscience as we work or play in nonprofit or for-profit professional or educational or religious or secular organizations].     From: 'Kasim Alli' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 6:27 AM Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote By the way, the conviction of Bode George was overturned by the Supreme Court of Nigeria in 2013.   Sent from my iPad On Dec 23, 2016, at 5:34 AM, 'profoyekanmi@yahoo.com' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:     Bode George who was declared guilty by a court of law in Nigeria went to prison with great fanfare. At the expiration of the prison term he was received by his friends with even greater fanfare and a thanksgiving service was held at a church to welcome him into society. So I would not be surprised if James IborI is given a national honour when he returns to Nigeria. In Yoruba language Ibori is elewon+ tokunbo= special status now. Weep not for my beloved nation. Sent from my HTC ----- Reply message ----- From: "Chidi Anthony Opara" <chidi.opara@gmail.com> To: "USA African Dialogue Series" <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Today's Quote Date: Fri, Dec 23, 2016 5:23 AM The people celebrating James Ibori are his people and they are doing so because other thieves in Nigeria are being celebrated by their own people. Although Ibori was convicted in Britain, he was however, convicted because of the political differences between him and the people in government in Nigeria then, but this should not be taken to mean that he was innocent. CAO.    -- Chidi Anthony Opara is a Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects       -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.   -- 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. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>: Dec 23 09:54AM -0800 Can't you all see that these posts point to the fact that the celebration of thieves in Nigeria is becoming systemic and that the problem should be tackled from that angle?   CAO.   On Friday, 23 December 2016 10:44:04 UTC+1, Samuel Oloruntoba wrote:

Chidi Anthony Opara <chidi.opara@gmail.com>: Dec 23 01:37PM -0800 A certain Tony Ita Etim wrote on facebook:   "URHOBO VAX POETICALLY VALLIANT. AS EYES BEGIN TO OPEN UP TO. MOSES WAS A MURDERER ONLY BECAUSE HE WAS HEBREW. I DID NOT SAY JEWISH, I SAID HEBREW. BUT EGYPT WAS MURDERING HEBREWS EVERYDAY AND OFFICERS OF PHAROAH WHERE NOT MURDERERS THEY WHERE SAINTS.   Ibori: Minority groups should still have a voice...   I join million others to 'unashamedly' celebrate Chief James Ibori's freedom from incarceration yesterday, December 21, 2016. I owe none apology for my choice or that of millions celebrating Chief Ibori's freedom across the world today.   Until you tell me how/why known thieves serving in Buhari's government are holier than chief Ibori, spare your futile attempt at demonising a minority voice in Nigerian politics.   Ogheneochukome Lolodi's position slightly edited below profoundly capture all there is to the unnecessary controversy trailing the Ibori freedom celebration by millions across the world. Hear him...   "If we have not chosen to be hypocrites, we will have no issue giving Ibori the same treatment that his peers, Tinubu et al, have been enjoying. We will not throw a minority under the bus while you (majority) elevate their own thieves to positions of authority.   If you cannot bring Tinubu, Atiku, Adamu Muazo, Babagida Aliyu, Uzor Kalu, Maina, Obasanjo and others to the village square for all Nigerians to exorcise the thieving demons in them, then may Thunder dance Azonto on your head if you expect us to surrender our dearly beloved brother, James Ibori."   My take: Except those ignorant of all that happened to Chief Ibori, he didnt go to jail simply because he allegedly stole, virtually all politically exposed Nigerians steal! He did because of the 'high-wired' political intrigue he engaged in with GEJ! I believe time and events have taught the Urhobo political voice a lesson or two, we have a moral duty as his kinsmen to support one of our own who has been through period of reformation in British prison.   My charge: Chief James Ibori may have offended many because he is human. I hereby call on the Urhobo nation, Delta, South-South & Nigeria to forgive Chief Ibori. I urge all to desist from calling for his head after his travails in London. Like Ena Ofugara said, "we cannot have all your moneyed politicians like Saraki, Malaye, Ngige, Amaechi, Buhari, El Rufai, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi calling the shots nationally and have us (Urhobo, Delta, SS) castrate our only National figure.   Welcome home Chief James Ibori".

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I won't run for president in 2019 – Jonathan

Mobolaji Aluko <alukome@gmail.com>: Dec 23 10:11PM +0100 My People:   This is part of the fake news that pollutes our environment - that President Jonathan was being "pressured" to run in 2019...   Not only is the news fake, but knowing what I know about 2015, GEJ won't succumb to pressure twice....left to him, he would just have left in 2015 jejely without contesting at all....   And there you have it.   Season's greetings everyone!       Bolaji Aluko Shaking his head     -------------------------------------------   Premium Times   I won't run for president in 2019 – Jonathan December 23, 2016 <http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/218744-i-wont-run-president-2019-jonathan.html>Premium Times <http://www.premiumtimesng.com/author/webmaster>   Former president, Goodluck Jonathan, has denied reports that he would contest the 2019 presidential election.   There were reports that Mr. Jonathan who left office last year following his defeat by President Muhammadu Buhari in the March 28, 2015 presidential election, was under pressure to return to power.   Vanguard newspaper quoted Ikechukwu Eze, media aide to Mr. Jonathan as saying in a statement that his principal had no plan to contest the 2019 presidential poll.   Mr. Eze said the former president did not at anytime declare an intention to contest, describing it as mere "fabrication."   The statement said "Our attention has just been drawn to a fabricated online publication alleging that the former President Goodluck Jonathan made comments on the 2019 elections, while hosting his kinsmen in Otuoke last Tuesday.   "Those reports are false and bear no truth whatsoever. The former President was not in Otuoke on Tuesday, neither did he make the comments attributed to him. In fact, he has only just returned to his community to spend Christmas having been away for two weeks, so he could not have been hosting anyone there last Tuesday.   "Of what good is it to our national development efforts if some people spend so much energy spreading falsehood about fellow citizens and our nation?   The statement also said the former president wished "his fellow compatriots a merry Christmas and prosperous New Year in advance, and advises all to always channel their efforts towards working to attain the nation of our collective dreams."   Mr. Jonathan, who was a candidate of the People Democratic Party lost to Mr. Buhari, the flag bearer of the All Progressives Congress.   Mr. Buhari won 15.4 million votes against Mr. Jonathan's 13.3 million.   The former president had called Mr. Buhari to concede defeat ending the 16 years of the PDP rule.     __________________________________________________       *Goodluck Jonathan: I'm Under Pressure To Contest For Presidency In 2019 *   Dec 22, 2016     Immediate former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, has revealed he is under enormous pressure, to contest for president in 2019.   According to NewsDay, Jonathan has been receiving calls, messages and mails from home and abroad, urging him to contest in the next presidential elections.   He revealed this while addressing his kinsmen, who paid him an end-of-the-year visit in his hometown in Otueke, Bayelsa State.   It is also understood that some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftains, want Jonathan to consider contesting. They believe it was the party who failed in the 2015 general elections and not the former president.   The 59-year-old ruled from 2011 to 2015 and lost his bid for re-election last year, to President Muhammadu Buhari.   Jonathan, however, said he was not thinking of running for office now, as he believes he has done his best for Nigeria.

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PRESS RELEASE Magu's Non-Confirmation: Civil Society Raises Concerns

Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>: Dec 23 10:51AM -0800 What's in a name? It's always good to know who one is addressing. Through experience in various fora, I've always been wary of people who don't want to write under their own legal name. Some people adopt a pen-name for anonymity to avoid the social repercussions of what they say. Sometimes one person adopts multiple pseudonyms by which to both attack his opponents and to praise himself – in a given discussion ( "That was nice, Harry"). Have previously been bewildered by the question that I asked myself : "What sort of Nigerian adopts the pen-name Rafsanjani ?" Maybe a fanatical Shia Muslim. For years I've come across "Rafsanjani" and possibly even interacted with him in various Nigerian fora or social media and thought, since I know his Iranian counterpart <https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Akbar+Hashemi+Rafsanjani>so well through years (1987-1995) of very strong connections with the Islamic Republic of Iran (during which time I consumed pistachio nuts from his farm and wrote a supportive letter or two to Kayhan and the Tehran Times) and thought - on the positive side, that at least he ( the Nigerian Rafsanjani) must be reform-oriented. And that he certainly is:   *Auwal Ibrahim Musa (Rafsanjani)* *Executive Director Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Centre (CISLAC), Acting General Secretary West Africa Civil Society Forum (WACSOF),Head of Transparency International (Nigeria), Amnesty International (Nigeria)Board Chairman* and probably, with a string of academic degrees and professional accolades behind his name too.   So, of course it's three cheers to Rafsanjani for this and other inputs in this vein. He and what he   represents underscores the importance of Civil Society <https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Civil+Society> – it must be strengthened, empowered, more informed - the information must be disseminated to the masses - at all levels, and acted upon, in order to safeguard and enhance DEMOCRACY <https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Democracy> . Especially for smaller countries, I have always set great store by IDEA , Sweden <https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=IDEA+(+Sweden>   With regard to the matter at hand - truth is here plausible, can be explained, but the reality is so tragic - politics the fastest way from rags to riches and a senate that's partially a den of thieves, here too, "betrayed by a mad *Senate* which *no longer sleeps* with *its wife* <https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=Allen+GInsberg+:+betrayed+by+a+mad+Senate+which+no+longer+sleeps+with+its+wife.>*", * a judiciary that's being controlled by the political Mafia – ostensibly a corrupt senate that ( self-interest) refuses to confirm Magu for fear that Magu is going to investigate them for corruption and bring their ass to Justice - refuse to confirm Magu, thus obstructing President Buhari's pursuit of Justice for the corrupt ones. so tragic that when such a reality is presented to a democratic western audience as documented reality it passes as fantasy fiction or satire. (Yesterday I read a large chunk of Oga Okey Ndibe's "Never Look an American in the Eye <https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=LkpmCwAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=never+look+an+american+in+the+eye&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjyo8Gw8IrRAhWE1RoKHWM6Co8QuwUIHTAA#v=onepage&q=never%20look%20an%20american%20in%20the%20eye&f=false>", thus far, nice, domesticated, unctuous, punctilious, straightforward enough, at home in his social and cultural realities/ habitats, no painful science fiction or satire there ) Thinking of many events and this different breed of cat…   If only it could be a short era of military tribunals, line em all up - water-boarding to vomit the money , vomit or be hanged, upside down… at the public square. They would think twice before daring to loot the patrimony of long suffering Nigerians. Nigerians should no longer be Shuffering and Shmiling.   Zombie <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj5x6pbJMyU>   Reality : Muslims (real ones) pray seventeen times a day "ihdinas siraatal mustaqeem" - *Guide us **along ** the straight path **( "**The path of those whom Thou hast favoured; Not the path of those who earn Thine anger nor of those who go astray."*   *A**nother reality : " A thief, while breaking into a home in order to steal, calls upon God to help him ( Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, Founder of the Chabad Movement) *   *Christians pray, " Give us this day our daily bread" - **I guess the thieves **receive their daily bread, **escape justice,** give thanks and praises….*   Do the thieves also pray for Nigeria?   Pray for us.   Cornelius   We Sweden <http://www.thelocal.se/blogs/corneliushamelberg/>   On Friday, 16 December 2016 17:50:35 UTC+1, Rafsanjani wrote:

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News Release: Anambra State CLO Elects New Leaders

chidi opara reports <chidioparareports@rocketmail.com>: Dec 23 05:25PM Nigeria's foremost human rightsorganization, the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Anambra State Branch haselected a new set of executive members to pilot the affairs of the branch forthe next two years.................. Click here to continue reading   | | | | | |   |   | | | | News Release: Anambra State CLO Elects New Leaders Nigeria's foremost human rights organization, the Civil Liberties Organisation (CLO), Anambra State Branch has e... | |   |   |    From chidi opara reports   chidi opara reports is published as a social service by PublicInformationProjects

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Special Report: On Amina Mohammed And Modern Biotechnology We Stand

chidi opara reports <chidioparareports@rocketmail.com>: Dec 23 05:39PM (Being Text Of News Conference By The Alliance Of CSOs ForEffective Biosafety For The Development Of Modern Biotechnology In Nigeria HeldIn Abuja On Thursday, December 22, 2016, Read By Edel-Quinn Agbaegbu, Member OfThe Coordinating Committee For This Conference).................... Click here to continue reading   | | | | | |   |   | | | | Special Report: On Amina Mohammed And Modern Biotechnology We Stand Amina Mohammed (Being Text Of News Conference By The Alliance Of CSOs For Effective Biosafety For The Dev... | |   |   |    From chidi opara reports   chidi opara reports is published as a social service by PublicInformationProjects

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A portrait of Michelle Obama the first African-American First Lady of the United States

Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>: Dec 23 03:28PM +0100 http://www.thelist.com/34154/stunning-transformation-michelle-obama/s/she-could-be-the-president/

Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com>: Dec 23 08:28AM -0800 The stunning transformation of Michelle Obama <http://www.thelist.com/34154/stunning-transformation-michelle-obama/s/image-5092/> ( Pages 1- 22)     On Friday, 23 December 2016 15:29:55 UTC+1, Cornelius Hamelberg wrote:

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Criterion Collection: Under the Influence: Mike Mills on Ermanno Olmi

Funmi Tofowomo Okelola <cafeafricana1@aol.com>: Dec 22 07:46PM -0800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1O78lJcG38     Criterion Collection: Under the Influence: Mike Mills on Ermanno Olmi   "In the second installment of our new Under the Influence series, director Mike Mills explains why he considers Ermanno Olmi's beautiful humanist dramas IL POSTO and I FIDANZATI his personal Xanax."     Funmi Tofowomo Okelola   -In the absence of greatness, mediocrity thrives.   http://www.cafeafricana.com   On Twitter: @Bookwormlit https://twitter.com/bookwormlit Instagram: Aramada_Obirin   Culture, Art History, Film/Cinema, Photography, World Literature, Criminal Justice, Sociology, Child Welfare, Lifestyle & Community.

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Corruption is Deep

Jibrin Ibrahim <jibrinibrahim891@gmail.com>: Dec 23 09:37AM +0100 *Corruption is Deep But It Can be Defeated *       Jibrin Ibrahim, Deepening Democracy Column, Daily Trust, 23rd December 2016       Section 15(5) of our Constitution is clear: "*the State shall abolish all corrupt practices and abuse of power.*" The prosecutorial agencies and the judiciary of course, have the responsibility to investigate, prosecute and punish those involved in corrupt practices so that the Nigerian State remains faithful to the injunctions provided by our Grand Norm. We know however that the State has lacked the capacity to abolish corrupt practices. In other words, the State has been unable to play its role as the guarantor of the rule of law. As we all know, the rule of law requires the equality of all citizens but on issues of corruption, Nigerians are very unequal. In Nigerian prisons today, there are thousands of people who are in jail because they have stolen a chicken or a goat. They are in jail because they have committed a crime against the State. Although their theft was petty and most likely due to extreme poverty, they must suffer the punishment because they have committed a crime against the State. The paradox however is that those who steal in billions are usually protected by the same state. Nigeria has developed a system in which punishment for corrupt acts applies only to those citizens who are unable to pay for the right calibre of lawyers or who are unable to pay judges for immunity. This is a crisis that indicates the absence of justice in our society.       In a convocation lecture he delivered at the University of Maiduguri on the 31st of January 1985, Justice Akinola Aguda drew the attention of his audience to the earliest discovered written Secular Code, King Hammurabi (1728-1686 BC). The said Code was established: "To make justice appear in the land, to destroy the evil and the wicked, in order that the strong might not oppress the weak". In Nigeria, our "justice system" appears to be designed to make the strong above the law. The most serious problem begins with the strongest.   The story by Dapo Oloronyomi and Mojeed Musiliku on the Halliburton Bribe Takers (Next, 29th March, 2009) demonstrated that our leaders in the past have been common criminals who violate our laws and Constitution. The known and fingered personalities include three former presidents; Olusegun Obasanjo, Sani Abacha and Abubakar Abdulsalam; as well as a who's who of Nigeria's political and business elite. Our three former successive presidents received millions of dollars in bribes from American and European contractors retained to build Africa's first liquefied natural gas plant in Bonny, Rivers State. Also enmeshed in the vast and formalized bribery scheme is a long line of ministers, bureaucrats, top politicians, state and local officials and former oil minister Dan Etete, according to American investigators. They all received millions of dollars in bribes from the oil services company in exchange for billions of dollars in contracts to build our liquefied natural gas plant. Halliburton paid $579 million in fines and many of its agents went to jail for bribing our former presidents. Our law enforcement authorities, notably the Attorney General at that time, Michael Aandoaka, promised a thorough investigation but nothing happened. The National Assembly, the EFCC and the Office of the Attorney General simply refused to act when the story broke. Worse still, former Attorney General, Michael Aondoakaa sought to investigate Halliburton for tarnishing the image of the country by bribing its officials. Those who performed the corrupt acts by receiving bribes were of no interest to him; he was more worried about protecting the image of the bribe takers.   I have pointed out many times in this column that the Buhari Administration has many faults but it has an important strength, the will to fight corruption, even if its practice lacks elegance. On November 18, 2015 Nigeria's president ordered the arrest of a former national security adviser who was accused of anchoring the mega looting of the millions of dollars meant to buy weapons for the fight against Boko Haram militants. Police surrounded the house of Sambo Dasuki in Abuja and eventually arrested him. He was alleged to have organised the systematic looting of over $2 billion. Specifically, between 2012 and 2015, Dasuki awarded fake contracts worth more than $2 billion for fighter jets, helicopters, bombs and ammunition that were never supplied to the armed forces. In 2014, Nigeria spent $5.8bn on security, a quarter of the country's total budget. It is fairly clear now that much of that money was stolen. There is a clear relationship that has developed between the increase of budgets on security and the deteriorating security situation in the country. As senior officers of the armed forces became multi billionaires, the state of security in the country deteriorated.   One of the key principles of democracy is that those who govern are regularly held accountable to the citizens on whose behalf they exercise power. Accountability is the processes and procedures through which citizens and those who exercise responsibility on their behalf engage the process of assessing and enforcing governance. The processes and procedures include elections, recall of candidates who perform badly, referendum and fiscal accounting. In constitutional democracies, the accountability of those who hold office to the citizenry is based on the mandate given by the electors to those they elect to parliament or to the executive branch of government. Accountability implies that public officials are answerable for their actions and that there is redress when duties and commitments are not met. Accountability requires that standards for expected behaviour be set for those exercising authority so that they can be assessed and judged. When they engage in criminal behaviour, the administration of justice must prosecute them.       One of the successes of the Buhari Administration is bringing the issue of senior lawyers and judges in relation to corruption on the national agenda. I agreed with the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, when earlier this year he told the Nigerian Bar Association that: "Society is not served when prominent members of the bar not only take clearly tainted briefs, but even facilitate the commission of crimes by knowingly supplying the technical know-how and later, helping in the dispersal of the proceeds of crime." He concluded on the colourful note that there are silks who: "are vandals of the temple of justice." The arrest and trial of judges for acts of corruption is a brave move that could take us along the path leading to the same justice for all citizens.   Nigerians look forward to a future in which public resources would be used for the public good. It was precisely for this reason that Nigerians rallied round to support President Buhari and get him to power largely on account of his anti-corruption credentials. In 1984-1985, the Buhari regime locked up the entire political class in jail for their corrupt past. They suffered for some time but eventually, his regime was overthrown and the jailbirds came back to power and expanded their corrupt acts with renewed vigour. The problem with Buhari's first regime was that the approach to fighting corruption was ad hoc, using military tribunals rather than the normal instruments of the administration of justice. This time round, the institutions of justice are being used. There is widespread concern however that sometimes procedures are ignored and even court orders are sometimes disregarded. If such lapses are addressed, the war against corruption could be institutionalised.   One thing that has been scientifically proved about corruption is that when the system is able to punish those involved in corrupt practices the quantum decreases steadily. When there is immunity for engaging in corrupt practices however the quantum and scale of corrupt acts grows astronomically. Following the successes of Nuhu Ribadu in the EFCC and the way he was bundled out of the institution for doing his work well, confidence returned fully to the practitioners of grand corruption in Nigeria. Nigeria became the only country in the civilised world where corrupt persons could get court injunctions stopping the prosecutorial agencies and the courts from investigating and prosecuting their corrupt acts. The tide is changing. The wheels of justice are turning and our only prayer is that all those guilty of corruption must be prosecuted and go to jail if found to be guilty. Let us resist the attempt by corruption to fight back.           Professor Jibrin Ibrahim Senior Fellow Centre for Democracy and Development, Abuja Follow me on twitter @jibrinibrahim17

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Osakue S. Omoera, Ph.D, CIMIM, M.Sonta
Department of Theatre and Media Arts
Faculty of Arts, Ambrose Alli University
Ekpoma, Edo State, Nigeria
Editor, EJOTMAS: Ekpoma Journal of Theatre and Media Arts
Email:omoera@yahoo.com
Alternative emails: osakueomoera@gmail.com

osakue.omoera@aauekpoma.edu.ng
Mobile:+2348035714679, +2348059997573

The secret to having everything you want out of life is the realization that you really don't want most of the things you think you want. (Bo Bennett)

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