Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Toyin Adepoju: on toning down the vitriol, please

Cornelius,

Since you are unable to respond to the questions I asked you abut the specific facts of this situation and your assessment of those facts, facts stretching from when the current administration came to power in 2015 to the present, preferring instead to respond in this imprecise manner - 

There's no denying that it's a very tragic state of affairs in Nigeria just six months to the next presidential election and that all the tensions that are currently gathering along the various axes of evil gestating in the Naija crucible all set for exacerbation : the rich vs the poor, the North-South divide, the massacres of Christians, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, the mushrikeen, the kuffar...

you will be careful about  accusing me in connection with the factual information I have presented, information known to everybody,  about the terrorist control and propaganda group, Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio-Cultural Organisation, headed by the Sultan of Sokoto and the Emir of Kano.

If you think Miyetti Allah should not be understood as a terrorist organisation in spite of their acting as spokesmen for the Fulani herdsmen terrorists, you should be able to explain why you think so.

I also dont appreciate efforts to dilute my argument on what I describe as Fulani terrorism, an ethnically centred terrorist movement coordinated between Miyetti Allah, their public spokespeople, the shadowy but merciless ground troops of this terrorist  movement  and the various forms of tacit and overt enablement given to this movement by the Fulani led federal government and the Fulani or Hausa-Fulani controlled security forces of Nigeria, from the police to to the army to the state security services, and the Ministry of Defense, the leadership of which have either explicitly, as with the IGP and the Minister of Defense  or indirectly as with he SSS leadership given their support to the terrorist movement while the army is being drafted into use as a cattle herding organisation[ you can check that out], these being Buhari's first appointments, after which he made no more for six months, even of ministers, thus signalling his priorities, priorities evident in the terrorist military campaign that has become the defining character of his Presidency.

That argument is not the same as the efforts to  dismiss an understanding of this cunning but increasingly obvious military/political strategy by claiming I am describing all Fulani as terrorists or all Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and therefore, by such fatuous inference, branding Buhari a terrorist.

I also dont need  to repeatedly detail  the various steps in the unfolding of this horror from even before 2015 when Soyinka reported the dropping of arms along cattle herding routes, the later encounter between Fulani herdsmen militia in the Middle Belt when they almost overpowered an army unit until the army was saved by the timely appearance of a helicopter gunship, the first public display of the new militarily enhanced Fulani herdsmen army, to the various massacres by this army, from Agatu to Benue and the justification of these massacres by Miyetti Allah, in the context of Buhari's preferred response of silence to these horrors until goaded to speak by fearless Nigerians such as FFK and Fayose of Ekiti, his tardy responses to the latest urging of the massacred Benue people to accommodate the massacering Fulani 'neighbours' to claiming the terrorists are from Libya while struggling to gift them with Nigeria's land , money and military protection, bcs the facts from 2015 onward are known to anyone who has a significant interest in the subject or can be easily found out and have been endlessly discussed.

Is the question now not how these facts are best interpreted?

When we factor in the arguments about Fulani suffering persecution, which you bring up from time to time, how do they weigh agst the facts of a Fulani powered terrorism? 

toyin

On Sat, 28 Jul 2018 at 00:48, Cornelius Hamelberg <corneliushamelberg@gmail.com> wrote:

Toyin,

From "Spiritual wickedness in high and low places" (Bob Marley)

to Nobel Laureate Bob Dylan's

"Now there's spiritual warfare and flesh and blood breaking down
Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief and there ain't neutral ground "(Precious Angel)

to Brer Soyinka's latest, eloquent deliberations on the sorry state of his motherland his seminal indictment of "Islamic" extremism/ terrorism in the name of al-Islam 

Next Phase Of Boko Haram Terrorism – what to expect next could be something like the Devil's Dictionary definition of abrupt . So Toyin , I pray that neither of us turns up at the wrong place at the wrong time. Tonight this holy Sabbath night when it's particularly propitious to do justice to your wife) there also tonight's eclipse and the doomsday prophets according to whom tonight might very well be our last night, so homie, here and now, better grab some while you can : No Diggity

Other concerns : Over here, in our more advanced civilisation ( "unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness") the Stockholm Pride Festival kicked off this evening.

There's no denying that it's a very tragic state of affairs in Nigeria just six months to the next presidential election and that all the tensions that are currently gathering along the various axes of evil gestating in the Naija crucible all set for exacerbation : the rich vs the poor, the North-South divide, the massacres of Christians, Shia Muslims, Sunni Muslims, the mushrikeen, the kuffar...

So, what are you going to do about it? Maybe, give Uncle Sam a shout?

Real Clear Politics

On Saturday, 28 July 2018 00:19:55 UTC+2, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:

Cornelius,

Are the Sultan of Sokoto and the Emir of Kano not the apex heads of Miyetti Allah Fulani Socio-Cultural Organisation?

Is Miyetti Allah not justifying massacres by Fulani herdsmen terrorists?

Are there  no Fulani herdsmen acting as terrorists across Nigeria and particularly in the Middle Belt?

If not, who is Miyetti Allah defending and who is  the fed govt trying to accommodate by providing cattle colonies for and the IGP and the Minister of Defense are defending their last massacre in the Middle Belt claiming it was caused by the Benue anti-open  grazing law?

What has Buhari's stance been to this crisis that blossomed since he came to power in 2015? What is the probable,  likely or certain rationale for that stance?

Please address the issues frontally. 

Having done so, what conclusions do you arrive at?

We dont have to agree on conclusions but we need to be seen to be honestly examining the facts.

Did I manufacture any so called facts? Are my conclusions improbable? If so, why?

toyin

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 at 20:17, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Toyin Adepoju,

Normally, I would certainly try to respect your stated wish, but in this case I don't quite understand what you could possibly mean by requesting that I do not use you as a "crutch".

I certainly hope that I can walk the walk and talk the talk without recourse to using Mr. Adepoju as my "crutch".

I should also hope that I should never have to do that when any public intellectual on a public forum continues to represent, promote or reflect the ideas and attitudes that you reflect in this or any other public space, that I should need permission from the Almighty or from you or from anyone else to use your name and or to call you out if need be when you talk about President Buhari , "Fulani Herdsmen" , the Sultan of Sokoto or the Emir of Kano. I shall not do that ( seek your permission to use your name( even in vain)  at least, not unnecessarily...

It's less difficult to separate the singer from the song than it is to differentiate or separate the dancer from the dance or in this case to separate you from your arguments or the various noises that you make...

In giving this reference the other day, I spelled the word incorrectly, here it is again : brit mila

On Friday, 27 July 2018 20:03:36 UTC+2, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju wrote:

Cornelius, please dont use my name like that anymore.

If you have an argument to make present it without invoking Adepoju as a crutch.

toyin

On Fri, 27 Jul 2018 at 16:24, Cornelius Hamelberg <cornelius...@gmail.com> wrote:

Toyin Adepoju,

Just in case you think that toning down the vitriol would be an infringement on your freedom of speech, I understand that this probably caused the assassination of Umar Ibn Khatab, by his Persian man servant who it is said was complaining bitterly to the Caliph , who did not pay him the requisite attention. On the other hand it is said of Rasulullah - sallallahu alayhi wa salaam,  that he never interrupted someone who was talking to him, and even more than that, would kindly enquire, " Have you finished what you are saying ?" before he himself would speak. There is the instance ( just before the ayat forbidding alcohol was revealed to him) when  - according to Sahih Muslim  ( I know the passage well)  he was summoned  to the drinking parlour where some terrible things were happening, and when he was accosted by one of his relatives who was drunk at the time and asked, " Are you not one of my father's slaves?"  the prophet of Islam did not start to exchange any words with him , but hurried back home....

Seriously: your background in the hermeneutics of the esoteric should not stand in the way as an encumberment or to cloud your vision when dealing with practical politics in any country or any part of Nigerian territory in which

"Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity." (The Second Coming)

As "second comings"go, this is indeed Brer Buhari's second coming , all said and done, the first one was through the mighty barrel of a gun ( just a few days after Jesus' birthday celebrations in Nigeria, in A.D. 1983 ) and the second coming was more gracefully through the ballot box, albeit after some blood-curdling threat that if he was cheated again in 2015 , the way that he was cheated in 2011, then " the dog and the baboon will be soaked in blood" by which it was to be understood that if he would be cheated once more , unlike Obadiah Mailafia's "gentle Jesus , meek and mild" of Umuahia, it looked like in Brer Buhari's case he would not take a second yuki-yuki defeat ( another rigged election) lying down, therefore ominously sounding that in his pipeline or gun barrel was already stored another round of "mere anarchy" , another " blood-dimmed tide" that would be " loosed" upon ye all.

In Pakistan the losers are crying " foul" , If Brother Buhari were to loses next year, say in an election rigged against him (and I pray that that does not happen) even as I wonder what would possibly be loosed upon Nigerians back in Naijaland /Nairaland...

Usually being short of answers, I like to wonder. JJ Rawlings also earned the title "Junior Jesus" ( from his initials) because he also came twice ( the first time , unlike Jesus, through the barrel of his father's gun...)

For all we know, even assuming that " Nigerians sleep too much" or " youths everywhere are lazy", you could be that prophet or warner waking up from from a sphinx-like inertia of more than "twenty centuries of stony sleep"now trying to restore the eyesight of the blind who cannot or do not see or want to what's going on , by your giving them and us all the eyes with which to see, what the hell is going on!

But just this one word of caution to us all, from Islam's Holy Quran : "and let not hatred of any people seduce you that ye deal not justly."

Secondly, you could as our Professor Falola has raptly advised, tone down the extremism in your language. To me your vitriol sounds like that of the most extreme of Islamophobic Israeli settlers, they quote the Talmud that " Hashem ( God) regrets that He made the Ishmaelites ( Arabs) " - except of course we are talking about Nigeria and Lord Lugard , not about the Almighty or Lord Balfour , and we know that Toyin Adepoju would be the first to claim equal rights even in a resurrected Sheikh Usman Dan Fodio, Sokoto Caliphate or a later day "The Caliphate of Nigeria"

According to a certain predetermined mind set on wishful thinking, "All Fulani are terrorists, Generalissimo is Fulani, therefore Generalissimo is a terrorist" could only be OK in Copi's classroom introduction to General Logic, but in reality you can only get away with " all men are mortal..." and then go on to dispute whether or not those who resurrect or resurrected can still be considered as being mere mortal or not . ( By the way my late friend Teju Dedoye (of Ondo) wrote a paper on a resurrection or resurrections that took place or have taken place in Yoruba-land ( perhaps with an emphasis on metempsychosis or reincarnation ( so many Babatundes even in my family( Baba has come back...) I first met Teju ( here in Stockholm) carrying a big James Bond type attaché case and when I asked him Bob-Marley like "what's there in the bag?" , Teju answered, " My qualifications!" ( He had just come from a job interview.) I asked him let's have a look at them, and he showed me: He had been specially trained by the FBI ( knew a lot about computer fraud ( this was n´more than 20 years ago) he had accumulated enough University points to earn him a couple of PhDs – and I know only one other person ( an Indian guy , Martin Kemal ) who had enough points from Moscow, and courses from Harvard Yale, etc. to add up to about seven PhDs ( as in

"Teachers teach that knowledge waits

Can lead to hundred-dollar plates"

( I told my Better Half who at that time was sitting on certain interview boards for recruiting top civil servants, and she told me that Teju would never get one of those jobs, the reason being that he was too "overqualified"

But from terrorism, death and destruction , reincarnations and resurrections back to the main point: We want to live in a democratic system known for law and order, crime and punishment, not one in which, everyday, someone or thousands, get away with first-degree murder; therefore your Human Rights arguments could be made more unassailable if you moved from the abstract generalisations to the more specific and concrete by giving verifiable examples. Take this instance for example, if you could verify the accuracy of this report this could be a feather in your hat: Plateau Killings: Gen. Atolagbe victimized for choosing justice against Fulani terrorists

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