" Ångest" which translates as angst and which I still understand as anguish, is the very first word that I learned in the Swedish Language, back there in Ghana in 1970, from Nobel Laureate Pär Lagerkvist's poem Ångest är min arvedel . Here it is, in approximate English translations: Anguish.
At this exact point ( 20.45 Stockholm time) I just got a phone call with the solemn news that Dr. Noor Ali Tabandeh, the Beloved Pir of the Nematollahi Gonabadi Sufi Order has passed away. May the Almighty be pleased with him…
I have been a member of the Javad Nurbakhsh branch since 1987 and of the Gonadbadi Branch since 1989 when I made bay'ah, when Hazrat Hajj Sultan Hussein Tabandeh Reza Ali Shah took me by the hand …
Anguish? Not at all. Breath after breath, life goes on.
It's some forms of ethnic chauvinism that gives me the creeps. Celebrating ethnic cultures, boasting about the great African music is alright – during the circa four decades during which I met our late friend Idries Ibrahim ( Hausa guy, Baba Kadiri's friend and my friend too ) without fail ( the first ten years, from the library to the cafeteria at Stockholm University – he was a lifelong student ) he would always tell me that when it comes to culture, the performing arts, language, music, poetry, drama, theatre, proverbs, etc. the Yoruba of Nigeria were head and shoulders above every other, in Nigeria. He said it so many times that I began to suspect that he was trying to reinforce his own beliefs by telling me this. The only thing that I didn't know was that he was a Christian – I had taken it as for granted that he was a Muslim of the Malik Tradition because almost every time we met; we would discuss Islam in Nigeria. Unfortunately, I missed attending his funeral because I was supposed to attend the funeral of a South African Brother Rafique, on the same day and at the same time – at a different venue. Unfortunately, again, due to the wrong directions I had been given, I missed attending both funerals. Idries Ibrahim was a most perfect gentleman, and generous too, invited me to uncountable number of cups of tea -very English in that respect and perhaps, simultaneously the most Swedish African that I have ever met. Rafique too, a perfect Muslim gentleman, kind, gentle, helpful, patient equipped with the quality of forbearance. May the Almighty be kind to both of them…
After all that has been said in situating the politically motivated Inquiry and its purpose, in cutting AWO and the Action Group down to size, merely quoting this snippet of a several hundred-page report just doesn't cut the ice, not even when the £ sterling currency of the time is translated into the quotes in yesterday's' Naira.
The snippet: "a most flagrant breach of trust" ... by which the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board".
Here is how the charge that "the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board" is met headlong:
As previously submitted by Baba Kadiri : Coker Commission discovered that Awolowo spent cocoa money on free primary education for all. Initially, it was intended to be compulsory but when his any campaigned that he wanted to deprive parents helping hands of their children in the farm, he changed it to voluntary. The first Television Station in Africa, WNTV, was established by Awolowo's government, the flood-light Liberty Stadium was built with Cocoa money, major towns in Western Region had access to pipe-borne water, farm settlements producing dairy products were established throughout Western Region, Cocoa House (a Skyscraper) was built in Ibadan and a large area of Land was turned into industrial estate in Ikeja which belonged to Western Region then. "
Reading and re-reading the contents of AWO's letter to Babangida, and keeping an eye on how things have turned out since then, one cannot help but agree that to all intents and purposes AWO's letter was prophetic. It reminds me of Moses last address to the children of Israel in which – on instructions from the Almighty, he presented them with a clear choice: the blessings and the curses as presented in Devarim 28 / / Deuteronomy Chapter 28
In should be in place to qualify the aura around General Babangida , just a little the investigators / investigative journalists, their kith and kin are well advised to take a closer look at the Pius Okigbo Report and the missing $ 12.4 Billion - so help me God, and enquire from Brer Babangida himself whilst he is still alive and kicking - and then report back to base (the USA-Africa Dialogue Series)about the unanswered questions still swirling around it ( the missing $ 12.4 Billion) and him ( General Ibrahim Babangida )
On Sunday, 29 December 2019 18:31:03 UTC+1, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI wrote:
Your own bias in word such as t'hieves' is clear. If you think the Action Group and Govt were guilty as indicted why were they not charged whether or not the case against them would have been won?
You Toyin Adepoju tell me that. Why is EFCC today able to charge those accused of official crimes but Awo, AG and Western Regional government could not be charged?
I could only judge by what is available to me. I can not pronounce
a person guilty without evidence of guilt. Anyone who has any clear evidence of that guilt among those who have fully read the report on this forum has been challenged to bring them forward. Nine did.
All you seem to be concerned about is let us unravel that undeserved Awo image.
I say upon what evidence?
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>Date: 29/12/2019 17:07 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awo's reply decliningmembershipofthe1986 Political Bureau
OAA,
Thanks, but, really?
I stated that accounts of WHAT happened, HOW it happened, WHY it happened and the SIGNIFICANCE of its happening may differ from person to person.
Techniques of adjudicating between these possibilities is core to the study of history.
First, no one here has provided access to the full 4 vols of the Coker Report to buttress whatever claims they are making, so its premature to make a sweeping description of the report as biased on what you call the evidence provided, which is vols 2 and 3 of the Coker report, which, even in its inadequacy, you are not quoting substantive sections of to support your position.
Secondly, the single example I gave of the report's indictment of Awo, single bcs I am not motivated to search further, states that a piece of real estate was accorded an inflated and unjustifiable value by a team of chartered surveyors and sold to the benefit of the Action Group, a transaction described by the commission as a criminal effort to divert govt funds to party coffers, a transaction they describe as overseen by Awolowo.
Have you investigated the Commission's description of the status of that piece of land and why they describe its sale and the channeling of the proceeds as a criminal act, linking these developments to Awolowo as the central figure in this transaction?
One might not have the time or the desire for such forensics but is it fair to justice to make assertions based on non-investigation of the claims at stake?
Bros, how can you, as a scholar, at this point in our history, make this claim-
'The commission tried to separate the interests of the ruling party from that of the ruling government in a silly non- pragmatic way. The ruling government represented interests of the generality of the people of the region ( which may not be ALL the people in the region.) This is consistent with democratic practice all over the world.'So, all the institutionalized as well as hidden theft of our commonwealth and the various assassinations by ruling parties in Nigeria can be sanitized and whitewashed as 'representing the interests of the generality of the people' as you are trying to do now all bcs you want to exonerate Awo and his Action Group?
So, you are not aware that the underdevelopment of most countries is bcs the ruling parties do not represent the interests of the generality of the people?
Where did you get such a non-factual and imaginary postulate of history and govt which you are presenting as a given fact?
Bos, i fear you ooo. Such brazen imaginary history and clique serving philosophizing is frightening in its boldness.
We should be afraid of using our intellect as props for thieves, particularly political thieves. Is that not how dictatorships thrive with the help of the intelligentsia?
I dont know if Awo and the Action Group are guilty as the Commission claims and I dont see myself taking the trouble to examine the issue in detail. I am simply supplying my services here as a person willing to do some research into what the Commission said.
Your veering from examining the facts of the case into asserting an ideological position meant to exonerate Awo looks to me like an extremist effort that plays into the hands of dangerous govts by automatically assuming that their actions represent the interests of the generality of the people just bcs they were democratically elected.
Is it not more realistic to examine these actions to see if they really represent the interests of the generality of the people they were elected to serve?
The Coker Commission states the Action Group, the party in govt at the time and the govt itself conspired to divert funds meant for the region's development to the running of the party.
Anyone who is sufficiently motivated should examine how the Commission cames to this conclusion, its description of its investigative methods, which even vols 2 and 3 contrbute significantly to making clear in painstaking detail.
In these days of humongous sums for party nomination forms, leading to cultures of poisonous god-fatherism and of politics of appropriation of the commonwealth, do these political economics serve the interests of the people who elect these party members?
thanks
toyin
On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 at 17:00, OLAYINKA AGBETUYI <yagb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Toyin:
I like your summation that two people may give different accounts of the same history. It follows that two people may come to different JUDGMENTS following the different accounts. You have just buttressed our position.
Cokers account is flawed because it is biased.
Words such as misappropriation which he used in the course of investigation are not value free. The conclusion that misappropriated funds were diverted into party funds has not been demonstrated. We need to see the money and follow its disbursement into the coffers of the party's bank account. This did not happen in the evidence provided.
The commission tried to separate the interests of the ruling party from that of the ruling government in a silly non- pragmatic way. The ruling government represented interests of the generality of the people of the region ( which may not be ALL the people in the region.) This is consistent with democratic practice all over the world.
CokerCommission's verdict is flawed because it is biased.
OAA
Sent from my Samsung Galaxy smartphone.
-------- Original message --------From: Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju <toyin....@gmail.com>Date: 29/12/2019 12:18 (GMT+00:00)To: usaafricadialogue <usaafric...@googlegroups.com >Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Awo's reply decliningmembershipofthe 1986 Political Bureau
Thanks Kadiri, for these efforts at telling and interpreting a history we are trying to understand.
Who Was Obafemi Awolowo?
Obafemi Awolowo was a great leader, a fine economic and development thinker and effective though controversial executor of economic and development ideas, a remarkable and controversial war strategist, as demonstrated by the role of his economic maneuvers in the Nigerian side in the Nigerian Civil War, a rich writer and political thinker, a study in the oscillation between ethnic empowerment and nationalistic vision and leadership, a mirror within the complexities of whose career is refracted the ongoing journey of SW intelligentsia in relation to the Nigerian project.
He will always inspire debate.
How sustainable is this argument of yours?
On Accuracy of Information Presented so Far
I understand you as dismissing the scholarly accounts of the content and effects of the Coker Report on the basis of your conviction that the report could not have contributed to Akintola taking over the premiership of Western region from Awo and because an encyclopedia account of the sums described as misappropriated rendered them in a currency that Nigeria was not using at the time.
You also argue that the report rendered a verdict of 'questionable legality' and not illegality in relation to the financial transactions it unearthed, this being different from a verdict of outright corruption, leading to the Commission being unable to recommend anyone for a corruption prosecution.
An online encyclopedia may be forgiven for converting the sums referenced by the Commission to current currency but you can see that the scholarly articles quoted, from academic journals and academic fora, were careful to indicate the pound sterling sums described as stated by the report.
As for your account of why Akintola was reinstalled as premier, could you provide your sources for this information, in the context of an examination of the views on the various factors that contributed to this outcome?
You might have documents you can scan and upload or you could do some research to find such documents in order to substantiate your account as well as analyzing them in relation to the conclusions you are drawing from them.
That is vital bcs this debate is about moving beyond statements of opinion to the reasoned justification of opinion based on verifiable facts.
Accounts of the Commission's Enquiries and its Conclusions
How true is this-
'National Bank was the main target of the Coker Commission of Inquiry...Certainly, the transactions were legal but not corrupt and that was why the Commission could not recommend anyone to be prosecuted for corruption. However, those afflicted with Nigeria's type of AIDS, Acquired Intelligence Deficient Syndrome, would say Awolowo chopped Cocoa money well, well, even though nothing like that was reported in Coker report. '
The available evidence indicates that the indictments of the Commission emerged significantly, among other sources, from investigations of the state owned Western Region Marketing Board " the major financier of development projects in the region through the region's development corporations" as stated by Adeyinka Theresa Ajayi, ,Ajibade Idowu Samuel and Oladiti Abiodun Akeem in 'Produce Buying and Marketing Boards in Nigeria: Interrogating the Fiscal Role of Western Nigeria Marketing Board 1942-1962', concluding "that the process of development was circumscribed due to misappropriation and diversion of funds derived from the Western Region Marketing Board" .
Robert L. Tignor's "Political Corruption in Nigeria before Independence" quotes at least three pages of the Coker Report reinforcing this summation, depicting the Report as describing the mode of acquisition as well as the use of those monies in question as enrichment of a group, Awo's party, thereby developing his personal power base, against the interests of the larger community, the Western Region, and therefore a serous breach of public trust, leading to the reports' indictment of Awo and his party as featuring in several accounts of corruption in Nigerian history:
"..a most flagrant breach of trust... by which the peoples of the Western Region have been robbed of the financial benefits to which they are entitled from the Western Regional Marketing Board'. ( 'Nigeria, Report of the Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporations in Western Nigeria, Lagos, 1962, p.36.)
Celestine Osuala's "An Analysis of the Marketing Boards of Nigeria 1939-1966" is more specific on the methods through which these monies were channeled:
"Of the three Boards, the Western Regional Marketing Board channeled the largest absolute amounts into private enterprise, exclusive of those grants to the Development and Finance Corporations(Federation of Nigeria, Report of Coker Commission of Inguiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporation in Western Nigeria, Vol. 1 ,1962, P. 65.)
The bulk of these funds went to a bank and a real estate concern, the affairs of which were closely bound up with those of the political party then in power in the Western Region and its leading members. "
An Indictment of Obafemi Awolowo by the Commission in its Own Words
On the specific character of the indictments by the Commission, in their own words, a basic search for references to "Obafemi Awolowo" in volume 2 of the Report of Coker Commission of Inquiry into the Affairs of Certain Statutory Corporations in Western Nigeria, 1962 provides the following information on page 33, para 3::
"It seems clear to us on the evidence that the sale of Moba [ real estate] to the Western Nigeria government at the price of 850, 000 pounds is a most elaborate and criminal conspiracy to obtain that amount of money from the Government for the benefit of the Action Group.
To start with we observe that Chief Obafemi Awolowo who was and is at at all material times the Federal President and Leader of the party knew all about the scheme and in fact, in our view, actually engineered it."
The report then describes how the Commission came to this conclusion by reconstructing the chain of decision from and to Awolowo on the subject and how they were able to reconstruct this decision chain.
They sum up in paras 7 and 8-
" We are satisfied that the value placed on Moba by Messrs Gleave and Fox [ Chartered Surveyors ] is entirely unrealistic and cannot be sustained by any logical arguments whatsoever.
...we have no doubt that they themselves were involved in this vicious conspiracy of getting money by such sinister means off the Western Region government.
We refer in particular to the monstrous document placed in the hands of the Government of Western Nigeria by Messrs Gleave and Fox, exhibit MOO.26."
Searches in vol. 3 linked at the University of Florida source of the report and vols 1 and 4 not available at that source should provide more information.
Need to Clarify One's Position and Provide SubstantiatingEvidence
In relation to this evidence demonstrating that the report indicted Awo of diverting public funds to his political party, and one of the sources, Tignor, quoting the report as declaring that Awo did that in the name of building a political empire in which he played a central role, solidifying his power base, are you trying to suggest that the Coker Report did not indict Awolowo for misappropriation of funds meant for the Western region?
A writer who wishes to overturn such an established scholarly consensus as well as evidence from the copy of the report linked here will need to not only cite the relevant sections of the report that support their view, but also make those sections available in order to prove their case beyond doubt.
This is particularly vital because this debate hinges on the demand to provide evidence that anyone can verify, namely, the text of the 1962 Coker Commission report.
As we have observed repeatedly on this forum, and is obvious from observing historical accounts, claims of what happened, and how and why they happened, cant be taken for granted but need to be substantiated in a verifiable manner bcs two people may give different accounts of the same history.
Having established beyond doubt what the Coker Report actually states, one may then proceed to examining the justice of the report's position.
thanks
toyin
On Sun, 29 Dec 2019 at 00:28, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunl...@hotmail.com> wrote:
Thank you, Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, for your attempt to resuscitate the 1962 Coker Commission of enquiry into the financial dealings of the Western Region in 1962. A Yoruba adage says that he who sights an elephant and draws a machete is only making a futile attempt because elephant is not an animal to be hunted with a machete. What are being presented as the Coker Commission Report cannot be logically true. Citing p. 82, 2nd edition, 2018, Historical Dictionary of Nigeria, By Toyin Falola and Ann Genova, readers are informed thus, "Set up …. in 1962, the commission's purpose was to investigate the financial dealings of the Western Region to expose corruption. The Coker Report found Chief Obafemi Awolowo guilty of using the Western Region's money to finance the promotion and activities of the Action Group political party through an investment corporation. The Coker Commission created an opportunity for Samuel Akintola to be installed as the region's premier." Awolowo handed over the premiership of Western Region to Samuel Ladoke Akintola in 1959 to become the leader of opposition in the Federal Parliament instead of the Prime Minister he had hoped for. Although Abubakar Tafawa Balewa invited Awolowo to join him in a national government, Awolowo declined to be part of a government led by a feudalist. In 1961, the federal coalition government of the NPC/NCNC decided to conduct enquiry into the National Bank of Nigeria in which the Western Region Marketing Board had substantial investment. The Bank had provided loans to business men who supported Action Group and to the Party itself. Western Region's government led by S. L. Akintola challenged the legitimacy of the federal government's action in Court and it was declared unconstitutional by Justice Charles Daddy Onyeama in 1961.
National Bank was the main target of the Coker Commission of Inquiry appointed by the Federal government in 1962 and which sat between July and November 1962. Coker reported that National Bank had granted unsecured loans to the Action Group. The National Investment and Properties Limited (NIPC), owned entirely by four Action Group members and who were also its Directors, was created in 1958 to develop the properties then owned by the National Bank. The Commission found out that in the company's articles of association one of its assignments was to subscribe or guarantee money for charitable political objects. Therefore money donated by the NIPC to the Action Group was termed by Coker Commission as questionable legality. The Coker Commission's Report said that the Deputy leader of the Action Group since 1954 and Premier of Western Region from 1959 to May 29, 1962, S.L. Akintola, knew nothing about the National Bank, NIPC, Western Nigeria Marketing Board in the internal questionable legality between them vis- à-vis the Action Group and the Western Region Government. Certainly, the transactions were legal but not corrupt and that was why the Commission could not recommend anyone to be prosecuted for corruption. However, those afflicted with Nigeria's type of AIDS, Acquired Intelligence Deficient Syndrome, would say Awolowo chopped Cocoa money well, well, even though nothing like that was reported in Coker report.
The Coker Commission's report had nothing to do with the re-instatement of Samuel Akintola as Premier of Western Region at the end of a six-month emergency rule by the Federal government, 31 December 1962. The Action Group had, on May 21, 1962, recommended his removal as Premier to the Governor of Western Region through a paper signed by 66 members of the Region's House of Assembly, and on which the Governor, Sir Adesoji Aderemi, acted. However, the Supreme Court of Nigeria declared the Governor's action unconstitutional, causing the Action Group claimant to the premiership, Dauda Adegbenro, to appeal to the Privy Council in Britain. By the time the Privy Council decision arrived, Nigeria had become a Republic and the Federal government declared that the Privy Council decision had been overtaken by events. So it was the decision of the Supreme Court of Nigeria that declared the removal of Akintola as premier without formal vote of no confidence in the Regional House of Assembly that paved way for the re-instatement of Akintola as Premier after he had formed a new political party, UPP, which formed a coalition government with the NCNC members of the House. According to the Privy Council, the clause that empowered the Governor to remove the Premier from office in the constitution only said, "if the governor was satisfied that the Premier no longer commanded the majority in the House," and the sixty-six signatures received by the governor fulfilled that condition. Thus, the interpretation of the word 'if' by the Supreme Court of Nigeria was a stranger to the intention of the framers of the constitution.
When Coker Commission of Enquiry took place in 1962, Nigerian Currency was pound sterling. Naira currency came after the civil war. Therefore, Lit Calf Encyclopedia assertion that ''the Coker Commission found Awolowo guilty of gross financial misappropriation and of diverting funds totalling N4.4 million in cash and N1.3 million ove
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