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Sunday, November 6, 2011

Okei-Eboh Ajaji's grand-daughter finds sweet-heart.


 Okei-Eboh Ajaji, Ogbueshi Mike Onuorah Nwaosisi (Middle) presiding over (Amaka Nwaosisi) his grand daughters traditional marriage ceremony, flanked both sides by other community leaders.
 Amaka Nwaosisi (bride), Bar. Raphel Onaibre (groom) standing before the Eze-Afadi community elders and leaders, ready for the event of the day.
 My Fathers this is my husband.........Amaka
 The traditional marriage rites are over now and the couple switched seating positions
 STRONG FAMILY TIES: Comrade S.A.N Nwaosisi(bride's father); the handsome groom; the beautiful bride; the most happiest mother in the world, Mrs. Beatrice Onaibre (groom's mother)
 Great community leadership attracts top royalties, the Odogwu Ahaba, Chief P.I. Nwamu (middle) came too to celebrate with Okei-Eboh Ajaji
 Guest artiste band performing at the event, the voice of heavenly christian band, from Ofagbe, Isoko North LGA, led by Evangelist Sunday Ofagbe entertained the guests, relatives and well wishers.
 The couple enjoying the post marital musical entertainment, dance bo, body no be fire wood.
 Some well wishers and friends who will not have the entertainment record any dull moment.
 The couple with the Umuada Eze-Afadia, we say thank you Umu-Ada for celebrating with us.
 The Couple, Handsome and Beautiful Bar. and Mrs Onaibre.
 Eze-Afadia Youth praying for the couple and sharing some words of advise with their sister.


The community maidens performing the Agha-Ugba rites for the bride, they are seeing one of their of off to her husband, no more moon-light play, sister God don promote you, on her part (Amaka) one can see the emotions as they mount, Ani Ahaba Amaka. Ahaba amuka Nwa di Nma.

INFORMATION COMMISSIONER SAYS GOVT PROJECT WILL TRANSFORM DELTA

The Delta State Commissioner for Information, Chike Ogeah Eaq, has said that the projects embarked upon by the Governor Uduaghan Administration were measures aimed at ensuring even development of all parts of the state as well as transform the commercial landscape of the state towards a better economy.

The commissioner stated this yesterday in Warri while meeting with journalists.

Accordingly to him, “ these are the legacy years” of Uduaghan administration, adding that the  administration had achieved a lot and still delivering on its three point agenda, even as he said that the governor played a major role in the success of the Amnesty Programme.

He particularly mentioned that the Asaba International Airport, the Petro-Chemical and Fertilizer Plants in Warri as well as the leisure park which is to be sited in Udu would surely have multiply effects when  fully in operation and enjoined Deltans to be patient with the administration as some of these generational projects would have long period of gestation.

Ogeah said the government had achieved a lot in the area of peace and security and further urged all to continue to pray for those in authority, adding that no meaniful development could take place in an atmosphere of rancor.

The commissioner was accompanied on the visit by the Acting Director of Information, Mr. Paul Osahor and other senior director in the ministry.

Automatic job for state varsity medical graduating students

Delta state governor Dr.  Emmanuel Uduaghan has offered automatic  housemanship job to the first set of 25 Medical Doctors who graduated from Delta State University, Abraka.

Announcing this at the first graduation ceremony of medical students from the university in Oghara, Dr. Uduaghan said the offer was done to encourage the doctors after years of toiling.

He promised to put the best equipment in the hospital and make it a centre of excellence in the country.

The governor also promised to employ more specialist so that the image of the hospital would loom large and attract students and patients from far and near.

Dr. Uduaghan therefore forecasted that in the near future people would nolonger travel to India for medical treatment but would patronize Oghara teaching hospital because of the feat recorded.

His words “Delta State Teaching Hospital, Oghara will have the best facilities and a time will come when it will take over market from India. From far and near, students and patients will come to this hospital”

He enjoined the new medical doctors to be dedicated to their esteemed profession and not allowed the quest for material wealth dent their image.

Explaining that a life lost can never be brought back the governor said the profession made saving of life a priority over all other considerations.

Dr. Uduaghan charged them to shun all forms of strike stressing that abandoning work meant abandoning their patients which carries grave consequences.

Emphasizing further he said “Don’t deny your patient treatment because of flimsy excuses. Take very serious care of your patient. Do not allow strike to affect you but be ready to make sacrifice and save life”.

The governor expressed appreciation to Oghara community for being a good host and appealed to the people to live with students and workers peacefully at the hospital.
Speaking before admitting the doctors into the Medical and Dental Council, the Registrar of the Council,  Dr. Abdullmumini Ibrahim enjoined the doctors to be good ambassadors of their Institution and should not allow people to ask derisively which institution they graduated from.

Dr. Abdullmumini said that if they allowed such question to be asked about their competence especially their professional expertise, it would bring shame and disgrace to their institution, the profession and themselves.

He therefore charge them to be diligent and embrace the ethics of the medical profession through indept practical exposure.

The Vice Chancellor of the University Professor Eric Arubayi commended the state governor Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan for intervening the college of medical science of the institution was at a cross road over the accreditation of the medical course.

Prof. Eric Arubayi said the college of health science was given its first clinical accreditation in June 2009 while the second by MDCN and final one came February 2011.

He commended the medical doctors for their patience even as he said that their perseverance and determination paid off and made them to succeed.

Highlight of the graduation ceremony was the swearing to the Oath of the Medical and Dental Profession by the 25 medical doctors.

At least 67 dead in north Nigeria sect attacks

JON GAMBRELL
   
The radical sect Boko Haram, which in August 2011 bombed the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria, is the gravest security threat to Africa's most populous nation and is gaining prominence. A security agency crackdown, which human rights activists say has left innocent civilians dead, could be winning the insurgency even more supporters.

Residents fearfully left their homes Saturday to bury their dead in northeast Nigeria following a series of coordinated attacks that killed at least 67 people and left a new police headquarters in ruins, government offices burned and symbols of state power destroyed.

A radical Muslim sect known locally as Boko Haram claimed responsibility for the attacks in Borno and Yobe states, with the worst damage done in and around the city of Damaturu. The group also promised to continue its bloody sectarian fight against Nigeria's weak central government, with residents nervously moving through empty streets, waiting for the next attack.

"There's that fear that something might possibly happen again," Nigerian Red Cross official Ibrahim Bulama said.

In Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, a car bomb exploded Friday afternoon outside a three-story building used as a military office and barracks, killing many uniformed security agents, Bulama said.

Gunmen then went through the town, blowing up a bank and attacking at least three police stations and some churches, leaving them in rubble, he said. Gunfire continued through the night and gunmen raided the village of Potiskum near the capital as well, witnesses said, leaving at least two people dead there.

Two suicide bombers detonated explosives inside vehicles in the nearby city of Maiduguri on Saturday night, but no casualties were reported in the surrounding areas, police said.

On Saturday morning, people began hesitantly leaving their homes, seeing the destruction left behind which included military and police vehicles burned by the gunmen with the burned corpses of the drivers who died still in their seats.

Bulama spoke to The Associated Press by telephone Saturday morning from a common Muslim burial ground in the city as his family buried a relative and friend, a police officer who died after suffering a gunshot wound to the head in the fighting.

Officials anticipated a dusk-till-dawn curfew to fall over the town, though state officials repeatedly declined to comment on the violence. The violence destroyed federal offices, public buildings and an immigration office, said Aliyu Baffale Sambo, an official with Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency.

Bulama said Nigerian Red Cross statistics showed at least 63 people died in and around Damaturu. Sambo said government estimates suggested as many as 70 people could be dead there.

The attacks around Damaturu came after four separate bombings struck Maiduguri, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) east. One blast detonated around noon outside an Islamic college. Another bombing alongside a road in Maiduguri killed four people, local police commissioner Simeon Midenda said.

A short time later, suicide bombers driving a black SUV detonated their explosives outside the base for the military unit charged with protecting the city from Boko Haram fighters, military spokesman Lt. Col. Hassan Ifijeh Mohammed said. That blast injured several soldiers.

A Boko Haram spokesman claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview Saturday with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. A Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa promised that "more attacks are on the way."

"We will continue attacking federal government formations until security forces stop their excesses on our members and vulnerable civilians," the spokesman said.

His comments come as human rights activists say soldiers have beaten and killed civilians while trying to search for the sect in Maiduguri.

Boko Haram wants to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, an oil-rich nation of more than 160 million which has a predominantly Christian south and a Muslim north. Its name means "Western education is sacrilege" in the local Hausa language, but instead of schooling, it rejects Western ideals like Nigeria's U.S.-styled democracy that followers believe have destroyed the country with corrupt politicians.

Boko Haram's attacks occurred ahead of Eid al-Adha, or the feast of sacrifice, when Muslims around the world slaughter sheep and cattle in remembrance of Abraham's near-sacrifice of his son. Police elsewhere in the country had warned of violence ahead of the celebration in Nigeria, a country largely split between a Christian south and a Muslim north. On Wednesday, police in Maiduguri had said they broke up a plot to bomb the city over the holiday.

President Goodluck Jonathan, a Christian who took office amid religious and political rioting that saw at least 800 die in April, canceled a trip to Bayelsa state for his younger brother's wedding Saturday, spokesman Reuben Abati said.

 He said the presidency did not consider those who launched the attacks "true Muslims," as the assault came during a holy period.

Abati also promised that "every step will be taken" to arrest those responsible รข€” the same pledge made again and again as Jonathan has visited other sites bombed by Boko Haram.

"The security agencies will tell you that what happens on this scale is even a fraction of what could have happened considering the scope of the threat," Abati said. "The security agencies are busy at work trying to make sure the will of the majority of the Nigerian people is not subverted by a minority (group) with a suicidal streak."

However, the Nigerian government faces an increasingly dangerous threat from Boko Haram. The group apparently has split into three factions, the AP has learned. One faction remains moderate and welcomes an end to the violence, another wants a peace agreement with rewards similar to those offered to a different militant group in 2009.

The third faction, though, refuses to negotiate and remains the most radical. This faction is in contact with al-Qaida's North Africa branch and likely the Somalia-based terror group al-Shabab, a diplomat said on condition of anonymity according to embassy orders.

That sect likely is responsible for the increasingly violent and sophisticated attacks carried out in the sect's name. In August, Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a suicide car bombing at the United Nations headquarters in Nigeria's capital, which killed 24 people and left another 116 wounded.

An AP count shows the group has killed at least 327 people this year alone.

AZUNWGU PEOPLE URGED TO BE UNITED

The people of Azungwu quarter of Ogwahi – Uku have been advised to continue to live in peace and unity.

The patron of Azungwu youths, Chief James Onwudiachi Ezejiofor gave the advice during the celebration of the Ine festival at Ogwashi – Uku.

Chief Onwudiachi, who described youths as the bedrock of every nation, called on the youths to channel their energy towards meaningful ventures, rather that roaming the street, without proper plans for future.

He said Azungwu is a peaceful area, hence anyone who lives in the quarter is always happy, adding that there was the need to porve critic wrong about their perception of the peaceful existence of the people of the area.

Comrade Nwani Emmanuel, the president of Azungwu Solidarity Movement, used the occasion to appeal to youths to shun cultism and other social vices that could cut their lives short.

He urged the youths of Azungwu not to allow themselves to be used as thugs but rather should think of programmes that would enable them to be successful in life.

Also in a brief speech, comrade Jude Nkwo, the vice president of Azungwu solidarity movement, expressed shocked over the situation where cultism had moved to primary and secondary school opining that cultism was only popular in the higher institution in the days gone by.

Nkwo appealed to parents all over the country to be watchful of the life styles of their children to enable them have a peaceful home.

He said Ine festival in those days was seen as evil celebration, saying that the youths of today have modernized the festival for the enjoyment of everybody, irrespective of religion.

He appealed to youths to always remember that they are the future leaders of the nation.

Bombs, Bridges and Jobs

PAUL KRUGMAN

A few years back Representative Barney Frank coined an apt phrase for many of his colleagues: weaponized Keynesians, defined as those who believe that the government does not create jobs when it funds the building of bridges or important research or retrains workers, but when it builds airplanes that are never going to be used in combat, that is of course economic salvation.

Right now the weaponized Keynesians are out in full force ” which makes this a good time to see whats really going on in debates over economic policy.

Whats bringing out the military big spenders is the approaching deadline for the so-called supercommittee to agree on a plan for deficit reduction. If no agreement is reached, this failure is supposed to trigger cuts in the defense budget.

Faced with this prospect, Republicans ” who normally insist that the government cant create jobs, and who have argued that lower, not higher, federal spending is the key to recovery  have rushed to oppose any cuts in military spending. Why? Because, they say, such cuts would destroy jobs.

Thus Representative Buck McKeon, Republican of California, once attacked the Obama stimulus plan because more spending is not what California or this country needs. But two weeks ago, writing in The Wall Street Journal, Mr. McKeon now the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee warned that the defense cuts that are scheduled to take place if the supercommittee fails to agree would eliminate jobs and raise the unemployment rate.

Oh, the hypocrisy! But what makes this particular form of hypocrisy so enduring?

First things first: Military spending does create jobs when the economy is depressed. Indeed, much of the evidence that Keynesian economics works comes from tracking the effects of past military buildups. Some liberals dislike this conclusion, but economics isnt a morality play: spending on things you dont like is still spending, and more spending would create more jobs.

But why would anyone prefer spending on destruction to spending on construction, prefer building weapons to building bridges?
John Maynard Keynes himself offered a partial answer 75 years ago, when he noted a curious preference for wholly wasteful forms of loan expenditure rather than for partly wasteful forms, which, because they are not wholly wasteful, tend to be judged on strict ˜business principles.

Indeed. Spend money on some useful goal, like the promotion of new energy sources, and people start screaming, Solyndra! Waste Spend money on a weapons system we dont need, and those voices are silent, because nobody expects F-22s to be a good business proposition.

To deal with this preference, Keynes whimsically suggested burying bottles full of cash in disused mines and letting the private sector dig them back up. In the same vein, I recently suggested that a fake threat of alien invasion, requiring vast anti-alien spending, might be just the thing to get the economy moving again.

But there are also darker motives behind weaponized Keynesianism.

For one thing, to admit that public spending on useful projects can create jobs is to admit that such spending can in fact do good, that sometimes government is the solution, not the problem. Fear that voters might reach the same conclusion is, d argue, the main reason the right has always seen Keynesian economics as a leftist doctrine, when its actually nothing of the sort. However, spending on useless or, even better, destructive projects doesnt present conservatives with the same problem.

Beyond that, theres a point made long ago by the Polish economist Michael Kalecki: to admit that the government can create jobs is to reduce the perceived importance of business confidence.

Appeals to confidence have always been a key debating point for opponents of taxes and regulation; Wall Streets whining about President Obama is part of a long tradition in which wealthy businessmen and their flacks argue that any hint of populism on the part of politicians will upset people like them, and that this is bad for the economy.

Once you concede that the government can act directly to create jobs, however, that whining loses much of its persuasive power so Keynesian economics must be rejected, except in those cases where its being used to defend lucrative contracts.

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they dont want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

UDUAGHAN’S FREE MEDICARE FOR PREGNANT WOMEN, CHILDREN GETS MORE COMMENDATIONS

Delta State Governor, Dr. Emmanuel Uduaghan has been commended for ameliorating the plight of women and children through the free medical care programme for pregnant women and children under zero to five years of age in the state.

The President, Medical Women Association of Nigeria, Delta State Chapter, Dr. Mrs. E. Umuerri, who is also a Consultant Physician at Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, gave the commendation while delivering a lecture on the theme: “Dangers associated with women during pregnancy’’.

Dr. Umuerri said that the free medical care programme of the state government had reduced the risk women go through during pregnancy, adding that government had demonstrated its desire to secure the lives of Deltans.

She stated that good feeding during pregnancy would reduce complications during delivery and child mortality as well as other sickness associated with pregnancy, saying that women should always eat food that contain nutritional components.

Dr. Umuerri commended the Seplat Development Company Limited for partnership in ensuring that the programme was successful.

She identified early anti-natal for all pregnant women as a major remedy to the dangers inherent in pregnancy, stressing that it would help discover complications during the early stage of pregnancy.

Service Chiefs: Sequestration Damage Could be Irreversible

Cheryl Pellerin


Damage to the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps could be irreversible if the Budget Control Act’s “sequestration” provision takes another $600 billion from the defense budget, the military service chiefs said today.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan W. Greenert, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Norton A. Schwartz and Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos testified before the House Armed Services Committee here on the future of the military services.

A bipartisan congressional committee is working to identify $1.5 trillion in federal budget savings and to make a recommendation to Congress by Nov. 23. If Congress fails to act on the committee’s recommendation by Dec. 23, the sequestration mechanism would kick in.

Odierno said he shares concerns expressed by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta and other military officials about the harmful effects of sequestration, which would mean a total Defense Department budget reduction of more than $1 trillion over 10 years.

“Cuts of this magnitude would be catastrophic to the military,” Odierno told the House members. “In the case of the Army, it would significantly reduce our capability and capacity to assure our partners abroad, respond to crisis and deter our adversaries while threatening the readiness and potentially the all-volunteer force.”

Sequestration would significantly reduce active and reserve component strength, impact the industrial base and nearly eliminate Army modernization programs, Odierno said.

“It would require us to completely revamp our national security strategy and reassess our ability to shape the global environment in order to protect the United States,” the general said.

“With sequestration,” he added, “my assessment is that the nation would incur an unacceptable level of strategic and operational risk.”

In the Navy’s view, sequestration would cause “irreversible damage,” Greenert said.

“It will hollow the military, and we will be out of balance in manpower, both military and civilian, procurement and modernization, he said, adding that the subsequent effect on the industrial base “might be irrecoverable.”

Likening the Marine Corps to an affordable insurance policy, Amos said that at less than 7.8 percent of the total DOD budget, the Marine Corps and its Navy-counterpart amphibious forces “represent a very efficient and effective hedge against the nation’s most likely risks.”

While the nation works to reset its military forces with the last U.S. forces scheduled to leave Iraq shortly and a drawdown under way in Afghanistan, “it does so in increasingly complex times, as we explore ways across the department to adjust to a new period of fiscal austerity,” he said.

The clear imperative, Amos added, is that the United States “retains a credible means of mitigating risk while we draw down the capacity and the capabilities of our nation.”

For the Air Force, Schwartz said sweeping defense cuts mandated by the sequestration provision would gravely undermine the nation’s ability to protect itself.

“At a minimum, [such cuts] would slash all our investment accounts, including our top-priority modernization programs such as the KC-46 tanker, the F-35 joint strike fighter, the MQ-9 remotely piloted aircraft and the future long-range strike bomber,” he added.

“It would raid our operations and maintenance accounts, forcing the curtailment of important daily operations and sustainment efforts,” Schwartz said, adding that second- and third-order effects, some now unforeseen, “will surely diminish the effectiveness and well-being of our airmen and their families.”

The ongoing DOD budget review shows that further spending reductions “cannot be done without substantially altering our core military capabilities, and therefore, our national security,” the general said.

Another Air Force capability that would succumb to sequestration cuts is that of executing concurrent missions across the spectrum of operations around the globe, he added.

“For example, the Air Force’s simultaneous response to crisis situations in Japan and Libya, all the while sustaining our efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, will be substantially less likely to happen in the future, … from humanitarian relief in East Asia to combat and related support in North Africa,” Schwartz said.

“In short, … your Air Force will be superbly capable and unrivaled, bar none, in its ability to provide wide-ranging game-changing air power for the nation,” the general said, “but as a matter of simple physical limitations, it will be able to accomplish fewer tasks in fewer places in any given period of time.”

At the Pentagon today, Press Secretary George Little characterized for reporters what sequestration-prompted defense cuts could mean for the services.

“The reality is that we’ve done the analysis, and we would face the smallest Army and Marine Corps in decades, … the smallest Air Force in the history of the service, … [and] the smallest Navy since the Woodrow Wilson administration if sequestration were to happen,” he said.

Such cuts would have a severe impact on jobs inside the Defense Department and for the defense industrial base, he said, adding that skills and expertise in the defense industrial base create new capabilities for the U.S. military going forward.

“The threats aren’t going away, and we need to be prepared,” he added.

Hollowing out the force and the defense industrial base “would create significant problems for our national security,” Little said.

Israel Test-Fires Missile That Could Hit Iran

Israel has test-fired a missile said to be capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and striking Iran.

The Defense Ministry announced the test, but declined to elaborate on the system tested.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak hailed the missile test as a breakthrough, saying it was "an important step in Israel's rocket and space progress."

Israel Radio's military affairs correspondent said a "ballistic missile" had been launched -- a term that generally applies to long-range missiles for delivering warheads.

The test-firing comes two days after Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu warned of a "direct and heavy threat" posed to Israel by Iran's nuclear program.

Lamentation - Nigeria, My Home Land!

Emakoji Ayikoye

Recently, I began to glean for Nigerian news online and interestingly, I had the privilege of reading about the current social, economic, political and religious situations in Nigeria. I read about aspects of the Nigerian political, social, economic and religious dilemma; at the same time, I was able to read some intellectual discourse on the Nigerian situation by Nigerians abroad. In most of these discourses that I read from Nigeriaworld.com, it was so apparent that a lot of Nigerians abroad are angry, complaining and even blatantly insulting the religious and political leadership of the country.

As fascinating as these discourses may be, and as intrinsically expository as these discourses may be, something so crucial has rarely been reflected - pragmatic solution. I would hope that the millions of Nigerians abroad like myself, who is currently studying in New York, would move beyond mere criticism, complaining, and slighting the Nigerian political and religious leadership and her good people. Nigeria does not just need brave intellectual critics, who for the most part are several thousands kilometers far away spectators, rather than actors in proffering concrete solution to the Nigerian quandary.

It is so incongruous that many of us out here in some of the richest countries of the world, who are well educated and financially blessed, are not realistically contributing to better our great nation; yet, the best we seem to offer to Nigeria is nauseating criticism. I am strongly convinced, and I know that Nigeria has had an incessant deteriorating social, economic, political and religious crisis, and some of the discourses that I was able to read from Nigerianworld.com made them even crystal clear. Nonetheless, it takes a people who are revolutionary thinkers, and who have attained a horizon, and a platform of unselfish drive, and who beyond their individual gains are ready to sacrifice all they can to break the cataclysmic shackles wherein our brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, grandparents, friends and relatives are held hostages by a few unscrupulous individuals.

Hostages! Yes, Nigerians are held in two of the worst hostages that there are today in the world. First, over 70% of Nigerians are held hostage under an awfully excruciating poverty baseline. Second, they are denied the right to smooth higher education - the most fundamental right of the 21st century human being due to the unending, yearly turmoil between the Government and the Nigerian Universities' Faculties. Why? Doesn't higher education matter to our development as a nation? Aren't the numerous social, political, religious, and economic ignominies we suffer as a nation due to our collective neglect of higher education? Which of these rich countries got to where they are today by neglecting national education?

If we as privileged Nigerians care, I insist that complaining, repellent criticism, and insulting our people, our political and our religious leaders is unfortunately not what we need as a nation; what we need are not far-away spectacles; what we need are courageous minds who are willing in their capacities to pragmatically make personal contribution to advance the course of Nigerian at home. Thus, to alleviate the shame of our homeland, we must as individuals approach and proffer sensible solution to our poverty and educational crisis.

My next paper would offer feasible suggestions that all privileged Nigerians abroad and at home can undertake without waiting on a government that has hitherto failed us; the paper would mainly focus on how we can change the lives of underprivileged Nigerians, who in turn would change the future of Nigeria.

The urgent need of Nigeria is not to have intellectual critics who, from far-away countries, are mere spectators rather than active participants in transforming the decadence of our mother land. Nigerians certainly don't need intellectuals who, instead of personally contributing to transforming the lives of the populace would criticize, insult our people, our political and religious leaders. We need intellectuals who are personally refined, who would offer more than just words, and who would go beyond writing discourses to personally and pragmatically proffer solution to the people of Nigeria in whatever way possible.

Nigeria as a geographic entity is not the problem; instead, it is us - Nigerians who are the problem of our enormously blessed country. Therefore, Nigeria as a geographic entity will never solve our numerous problems; rather, we as Nigerians must now uphold the urgent need to change. Only a changed Nigerian people would ensue a changed Nigeria. Thus, we must contribute to alleviate the state of our poverty, and we must proffer solution to our dilapidating educational sector. Except we salvage the future of our great home- land, our children - future generations, may look to our graves in misery and curse us.

On education, I know as well as many of you out there that the government and the Universities' faculties must come to a consensus. How that would happen, once and for all, remains what our intellectuals should advocate for. I believe that if we change the way we view education, things would change for the better. It is a shame that more than a decade now, the Nigerian educational system has remained unstable due to the continuing disagreement between the Universities' officials and the government. While, I am quite unsure of the reasons why this mess should persist, it is a shame on us that in this 21st century, we are denying our children the fundamental rights to education. Unfortunately, without a quality education, we may never attain a sustainable growth level in all aspects of our national lives.

If peradventure, our universities are able to permanently solve the problems that have destabilized the system for over a decade, I still foresee another problem with our educational system - the problem of poverty that may hinder millions from ever getting higher education. Therefore, I would like to unravel some fundamental ways that privileged Nigerians abroad and at home, can offer solutions for many underprivileged Nigerians who may encounter financial stumbling block in their pursuit of higher education.

Rather than lament over our political, social, and economic troubles, we should begin to seek for the solution to these problems in such a way that we can realistically tackled them. In other to practically approach these problems, our government, religious leaders, our intellectuals and citizenry must play important parts in dealing with these problems. My other article - "The Exigency of Educating Nigerians - Our only hope to Radically Transform the Destiny of Our Children Part I & II" has some suggestion as to how we can begin to deal with these problems; so look out for it.

The Christian Hand And Muslim Leg In Nigeria

Prince Charles Dickson

One does not get angry with one's head and therefore use one's cap to cover one's buttocks.

It beats my imagination how despite all the travails our nation Nigeria has and continues to go through, we remain not just the happiest but almost the most religious, with each passing moment the picture is even clear.

In the next few paragraphs I would want to touch some grey areas, issues many would rather not touch or discuss...my reason is not to court controversy, but I am sure some folks would be upset and no matter the side of the divide, my intent is to open up a conversation and broaden our learning experience positively.

Ever been to Aba the commercial nerve centre of Abia or visited a local crude oil pipeline village in Bayelsa on Sunday, everyone is in church, all well dressed, venerating to the clergy's vituperations at the devil and worship of God.

You could almost hear a pin drop on the streets of most South-eastern states, as every kidnapper is seeking forgiveness for the past week's adventure while seeking aid for the forthcoming week.


If you are privileged, you want to be in Kano or Katsina, on a Friday, and see how thousands of faithful are running to meet Jumat service, you will not be able discern how a population all running about with ablution rites will not hesitate to perpetuate abominable acts without any sense of remorse.

From the cities of Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, Kaduna, Sokoto, you are greeted with billboards of revivals, conventions, conferences, seminars, workshops of various faiths and advertising superstar men/women of God.

Every major celebration comes with either a multi or a non-denominational church service on Sunday, preceded by a Friday mosque service.

We are not short of Catholics, Anglicans, and Pentecostals, on one divide and then Izalas, Nasfat, Ansar-ud-Deen, Anwar- ul Islam, Jamatu Nasiru Islam (JNI), The Jama't Izalat al Bid'a Wa Iqamat as Sunna (JIBWIS)...on the other. I have on purpose left out the traditionalists and pagans.

A nation that prides itself with a politically active Witchcraft Association, I have been to many a funeral where different cult groups are fighting for the corpse.

For all sorts of reasons we are compelled to fill forms, stating whether we are Christians or Muslims, in some cases it is narrowed down to us spelling out which sect or group we belong to.

It is a Nigerian society where two-love bird cannot marry because they are from different religion or sects. However the heads of the families involved will not hesitate to steal public funds without recourse to their faith.

So much sentiments to our faith, after all it is supposed to be the essence of our existence, but the fact is that in practice, do we preach what we practice, or practice differently what we preach. A Christian steals and is conveniently defended by a Muslim lawyer, and we call it the profession, the practice...

Yet we are grey with anger when a list is released as we try to fragment the list between how many Muslims and Christians and if the Chairman is a Christian, or if the Secretary is an Ogboni member. Just reflect for a minute my dear reader and answer, is Nigeria as a nation, a Christian or Muslim?

Ever attended a function, and then watch the comic of a Muslim having to pray and then a Christian too having to pray, and its amazing as we try to play God.

The new wave of the moment which is private universities are mostly run by Churches and Mosques but the tuition charged are almost impregnable for the masses despite the fact that the widow's mite in many cases make these schools possible.

I know its a sore area, no one wants to talk, I dare ask, how has the Christian presidency of Jonathan helped Christians or Muslims, are we better as a people because the Senate President, SSS, NSA, COAS are Christians...

Was it not a Muslim Abacha that brought the Pope, did the Yar'adua presidency benefit Muslims or Christians?

We have become a nation that prays more and works less, forgetting that miracles are no magic, that faith and fate are different concepts.

Both leadership and the led simply forget that the basics of life bare no religious colouration. Good roads are not for Muslims alone; quality hospitals are not the reserve of Christians.

HIV/AIDS does not discriminate between religions, we are sensitive about the Arabic inscription on our notes, yet no Christian ever went to the bank and refused to collect the money because the cashier was Muslim.

One only needs to listen to all the conspiracy theories of Islamic Banking to appreciate that as a nation we are mostly religious bigots, as the noise has faded into the weather.

A falling educational system is not because Muslims did or Christians did not...

The simple preserve of live and let live, love your neighbours as yourself, do unto others as you would have them do to you is lost on us.

We forget that there is a simple reason why God chose us to still co-exist together and it is fate, as long as we are one and remains one, there is need to look at ourselves.

The things that trouble Nigeria are neither Christian or Muslim, corruption, greed, nepotism and ethnic jingoism and parapoism, mismanagement perpetuated by Christians, Muslims, Witches, Wizards and all sorts.

If only we practice the injunctions laid out by our various holy books, our society would be a reflection of our lives. Sadly we are with our various faiths trying to cut our nose to spite the face.

Boko-haram wraps bombs as sallah gifts

James Bwala

A major disaster in Maiduguri, Borno State capital, was on Wednesday foiled by the police, as the dreaded Islamic sect, Boko Haram, had planned to present cleverly wrapped bombs as Sallah gifts to some individuals in the state.

The state Commissioner of Police, Mr Simeon Midenda, said on Wednesday that the command had arrested a 23-year-old member of the sect, Sheriff Shettima, who was the arrowhead of the plans.

Shettima, the police boss said, was trained in bomb making and had led some major operations of the sect in the past.

Addressing newsmen, Mr Midenda said that Shettima was arrested in his house in Maiduguri metropolis, where explosives, guns and ammunition, which he confessed were initially prepared to bomb the headquarters of Borno State police command, were recovered.

The police boss said that the suspect confessed that the bombing of the police headquarters could not be done because of an emergency journey he made to Kano to transact some business.

The suspect, according to the police, revealed that some of the explosives were meant to be wrapped as gifts for people during sallah, adding that the receivers of the gifts might not suspect that these are IEDs.

The police boss said, these people would have succeeded but for God's intervention, adding, with the arrest of Sheriff Shettima and by extension, the recovery of arms and ammunition, the command has averted a major disaster that was to befall Maiduguri and mar peaceful celebration of the forthcoming Eid-el-Kabir.

Mr Midenda said that the police also recovered one SMG rifle (French made) with 104 rounds of live ammunition, empty ammunition chains, two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), two pairs of military uniform, three empty ammunition boxes and three gallons of highly inflammable liquid.

The police commissioner also said that Shettima confessed that his team was responsible for some robbery operations in the state to raise funds for the sect, adding that the team robbed FirstBank Nigeria Plc, Damboa branch, where they killed one Corporal Yohanna Ishaya, a policeman on guard duty, and stole N21,992,890.00 on October 12, 2011, while the gang was also responsible for the attack on the same bank in May 2011 as well as the Kala Balge Local Government salary robbery incident, in which an inspector of police and a police constable as well as the local government cashier were killed.

The police boss said the suspect also led the police investigating team to 25 different houses of his accomplices in Maiduguri metropolis, with a view to arresting them, but lamented that all the houses were found to have been abandoned by their occupants.

Also speaking on the recent snatching of vehicles at gunpoint in Maiduguri, the commissioner said the police had arrested one Idi Umar, a notorious robbery suspect, following the confession by one of his gang members, Idi Musa.

He said one AK47 rifle with 57 rounds of live ammunition were recovered from him, while three vehicles, number plates and vehicle documents were found in his possession.

Africans Must Give Up African Cultures And Embrace The Scientific Culture

Ozodi Osuji Ph.D


Preamble:

Dr. Ojo and his type are, as John Maynard Keynes, observed, nationalist scoundrels who take refuge in their so-called culture and in so doing inflict enormous damage on mankind. Nationalist demagogues talk about their culture and use that emotional talk to get their people to follow them and in the process attack and kill other people or revert to a more primitive state of being (as the Mullahs of Iran did to Iran and Adolf Hitler and Nazis did to Germany). These people are dangerous men; they are capable of retarding human civilization. Civilization, in its wake, brings pain and we do not like pain hence want to revert to our past cultural wombs where we feel safe. Alas, we must allow ourselves to be given birth to pain and from it learn and grow and move forward. Dr. Ojo experiences pain from exposure to Western civilization and want to reduce that pain by crawling back into his mother’s womb, his so-called African culture. That African culture made it possible for the white man to conquer Africans. The rational thing to do is discard that culture and embrace a universalistic culture with which Africans can at last be able to compete with the rest of the world instead of being the laughing stock of the world. I, therefore, feel motivated to clubber Dr. Ojo and intellectually destroy him for his atavistic philosophy is dangerous to all Africans (although he fancies himself the savior of Africans). He needs to be relegated to the dustbin for that is where he belongs. Thank God, certain Africans, Igbos, for example, know that they have to move forward, not backward as the primitive Ojo wants to take Africans to. This essay makes the point that Africans need to move forward and not look back on their African cultures. This forward march entails accepting the psychological pain of losing one’s culture and for a while feeling rudderless and confused but later finding new anchor in scientific culture, the savior of mankind. Dr. Ojo and his type, African irredentist are my sworn eternal enemy and I must destroy them, lay them to rest in their well-deserved grave of past cultures so that from that grave a new Africa rises to be able to compete with the rest of the world. These ethnocentric jingoists imbibe the shallowest of Western education and use that poor education to wage psychological warfare on other Africans. If you try to tell them the truth they say that you admire all things western and, as such, hate all things African, hate yourself and feel inferior to the white man. In their primitive minds these superficial Western psychoanalytic categories seem to make sense. But like the psychoanalysis their psychobabble is based on they are not convincing.  These people live in the past and must be attacked and killed so that the new African man, the universal human being may resurrect from their death and live in the new world as the new man the world deserves.



Africans Must Give Up African Cultures And Embrace The Scientific Culture

(A Discourse on the merits of Universalistic versus Particularistic Culture)

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

In the nineteenth century Europe and Africa came into persistent and permanent contact. In the past there were, of course, contacts between the two groups but they were, more or less, not constant. We know that there were some black persons in Rome during the Roman Empire (especially those fighting as gladiators).

In the mid-1400s the Portuguese began sailing along the coast of West Africa and eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope and reached India, their goal.  Between 1500 and 1860 slave trading took place between Europeans and coastal African peoples but Europeans did not really enter into the interior of Africa to make much of an impact on African peoples and their cultures.

It was in the late nineteenth century, during the scramble for Africa, that Europeans finally penetrated interior Africa and laid claims to African territories as their colonies.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century Europe and Africa have been in constant contact.

The sustained contact between Europeans and Africans led Europeans to compare their people’s material development and Africans material development and came to the conclusion that Africans were, at least, two thousand years behind them. There is no other way of putting it than to state the truth: Europeans saw Africans as primitive. They saw African cultures as so backward that they embarked on a mission to civilize Africans via their missionaries and the establishment of schools in Africa.

No one likes to be seen as primitive. Thus, by the 1950s when Africans had what we might call a literate class (mostly secondary school graduates; university education did not become common place in Africa until the late twentieth century) Africans took umbrage at being considered primitive. They attempted to remedy the situation. The way they wanted to go about doing it is to take pride in their traditional cultures.

The 1960s United States was the era of “I am black and proud” and “black is beautiful” among African Americans. This pride in their black selves filtered down to Africans who then started saying that they are proud of their African cultures.  We are still in that phase of “I am black and proud and African culture is good”.

Obviously, those put down must do something to put themselves up (exalt themselves…it should be remembered that both inferiority and superiority feeling is neurotic; healthy persons do not feel better than other persons, they feel other persons equals). Those desecrated must try to rehabilitate their social and self-esteems. It was therefore understandably necessary for African Americans and Africans in Africa to try to tell themselves and the world that they are not as primitive as white folks said that there are.

That been said, the question is this: what culture are Africans proud of? What exactly is in their cultures that are good that they need to be proud of?  Is it the culture that over a thousand years sold Africans to Arabs and Europeans as slaves that they are proud of?  Is it the culture that did not evolve to inventing the wheel or developing writing that they are proud of?  Are they proud of a culture in which people were mostly naked (before either Arabs and or Europeans introduced clothing to them)?

Are they proud of a culture that did not say anything that can be considered remotely relevant to science and technology?

Are they proud of the Africans that had primitive military technology so that a handful of white men with maxim guns walked from one end of the continent to the other subjugating Africans to their rule; a people that were so easily defeated by other people ought to try to acquire the technology of those who defeated them rather than talk about being proud of their past.

Are Nigerian Africans proud of their culture that has produced massive thievery and corruption in Nigeria? Generally speaking, in every society most people are pro-social; that is to say that most people do the right thing; we normally expect a few persons to deviate from the norm, that is, expect a few anti-social personalities, criminals. In the USA it is safe to say that perhaps five percent of the adult population have a  proclivity to criminal behavior and some of them are in and out of jails and prisons whereas the other ninety-five percent are pro-social and do not steal. Now, what can we say about Nigerians? How about ninety-five percent of them given to corruption and criminality? The level of criminal behavior in Nigeria is so high that I know folks who now believe that Nigerians are born with criminal genes in their bodies; and these people would not trust any Nigerian not to steal or take bribes.  A culture that produces such high level of criminality is not exactly a culture one is to be proud of, or is it? (Or, should we accept the infantile analysis that blames everything wrong with Africa on Europe and blame Europeans for the massive corruption that characterizes Nigeria? That attempt at denial and shifting of blame to others so as to feel good about their selves is no longer convincing; fifty years of self-rule has only exacerbated the problem of Nigerians inability to do the right thing and not corrected it one bit.)

Are Africans proud of African religions that were in the main superstitious and had nothing remotely resembling reason in them; some of these religions actually used to sacrifice people to nonexistent gods, buried life slaves with dead so-called rich and powerful men, threw twin babies into the bush and did other incredible things that one is even ashamed to mention them.

Christianity teaches respect for human life and has given humanity dignity.  Christianity taught Africans how to read and write and like the ungrateful persons Africans have turned around and use that same writing Christianity taught them to desecrate it.

Christianity gave mankind passport to a more decent life; however, science will ultimately displace Christianity. In the meantime those societies that are not yet at the scientific level are best served if they embraced Christianity and use its teachings of love for all people to love themselves.

In this paper I argue that instead of the defensive and reactive claim that their cultures are good that Africans ought to embrace the scientific culture, a culture that is based on pure reason and the scientific method.

The scientific culture is not European or Asian in its categories; it is universalistic and not particularistic to any group although its root is mostly in Europe.

All cultures of the past, including European cultures, were, at some point, primitive. It is only since the advent of science (beginning with Nicolas Copernicus in 1543) that human cultures have embarked on true civilization. True, there were sparks of civilization in ancient Egypt, Sumer, India, China, Greece; Rome and so on but real civilization began with the adoption of the scientific method as a methodological approach to phenomena.

It is science that civilizes people, not their past cultures. What is good in past cultures are so to the extent that they approximate the parameters of science.

Instead of being proud of their primitive past cultures Africans must jettison those cultures and embrace approaches to phenomena embedded in science.

What is scientific culture? Scientific culture is a culture based on the methodology of science. The methodology of science is a (materialistic) philosophy that says that an idea is to be accepted as true only if we all can observe it, verify it, perhaps replicate it and generally attest to its truth.

A scientific idea is true not because of the authority of the person who articulated it or the credibility of its source but because all of us, following the scientific method, can verify it, and if it cannot be verified throw it away, discard it as rubbish.  As Karl Popper added, an idea must also be falsifiable for it to be scientific.

In science people do not just argue about the truth or lack of it of an idea, they either verify it or they do not. If an idea is verified it is accepted as temporarily true until it is no longer verified.

Consider the following scientific ideas.

An atom is made of three parts: an electron circling a nucleus; a nucleus that is made of protons and neutrons (we now know that neutrons and protons are made of quarks, which, in turn, are made of other things especially photons).

The various elements (there are 92 naturally occurring elements and about 14 that have been created in the laboratory and disappear within a few seconds of existence) are atoms differentiated from each other by the number of protons and neutrons in their nucleus and the number of electrons circling the nucleus.

Hydrogen, the lightest element, is made of one proton in its nucleus and one electron circling the nucleus.

Helium is made of two protons and two neutrons (in its nucleus) and two electrons circling the nucleus. We can go down the periodic table ascertaining the composition of each element on it.

Consider the idea that molecules are a combination (compound) of elements held together by chemical bonds.

Water is a molecule. It is composed of two atoms of hydrogen and one atom of oxygen held together by chemical bonds (the manner in which electrons are covalently intertwined in it).

These two ideas, the nature of the atom and the nature of a specific molecule, can be verified. All we need to do is go to a Chemistry laboratory and test the ideas. Heat water and it becomes two gasses, hydrogen and oxygen (which we can ascertain).  Heat hydrogen and its inner composition can be ascertained.  That is to say that the ideas can be verified and we do not need to argue about them.

These ideas are provable anywhere on planet earth if not everywhere in the universe.  The ideas are objective and not culture based; they are self-evident natural facts. One does not have to say that one’s culture posited the ideas for the ideas to be true; they are true by nature.

Any idea that is true regardless of the cultural environment in which it is found is universal hence scientific.

Scientific culture is universalistic and not particularistic to any place on planet earth.  Therefore, only scientific culture is the form of organization that is in accord with natural processes; the rest are deviations from nature largely due to ignorance of the operation of nature.

Of course, no extant society is completely organized around science. Even the West is mostly nonscientific in its social organization. Perhaps, the West is five percent scientific in its culture whereas Africa is perhaps ninety- five percent nonscientific in its culture.

Scientific culture is that human culture that organizes its society around the workings of nature, a society that tries to mimic the workings of nature in an objective manner. That culture is not a closed culture; it is always changing, changing to reflect what we currently know about the nature of nature. It is an open society that allows new and different ideas to diffuse into it and change it.

The only thing that is permanent on earth is change; any attempt to prevent change is self-defeating; those who refuse to change and adapt to changed environments die out like the dodo bird of Madagascar.

Our understanding of the workings of nature is still in its infancy; we are only beginning to understand nature. Science is a young enterprise; it is less than five hundred years old; its ideas are evolving to new and more accurate ideas on how nature works.

In 5143 Nicolas Copernicus, a Polish clergy man, posited that the sun is the center of the universe (he was wrong; the sun is the center of our local solar system, not even the center of our Milky Way galaxy, talk more the entire universe).

In 1609 Galileo used his telescope to show that in fact the sun is the center of the local solar system and showed that five planets (those known during his time…Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter…Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were discovered after Galileo) orbited around the sun.

In 1687 Isaac Newton posited his three laws of motion and the laws of gravitation.  Newtonian physics dominated Western science for two hundred years.

In the late 1700s Lavoisier discovered oxygen and Boyle talked about the law of conservation of gases. In 1803 Robert Dalton resurrected the Greek idea that the atom is the smallest indivisible part of nature; thereafter, Thomas Young performed his double slit experiments showing that light is wave.

In the mid-1800s Michael Friday discovered electricity. Later on in that century James Clark Maxwell showed that electricity and magnetism are correlated. In 1897 J. J. Thompson discovered the electron.

In 1900 Max Planck established that light is made of quanta (particles) and began quantum mechanics. In 1903 Marie and Pierre Curie showed how the nuclei of elements decay. In 1905 Albert Einstein showed that light is composed of photons (in his paper on the photoelectric effect on light…in a different paper
he speculated on special relativity and in 1915 speculated on general relativity).

In 1911 Ernest Rutherford showed that the atom has a nucleus (made of protons). In 1913 Neil’s Bohr talked about electrons circling nucleus. In 1932 James Chadwick showed that the nucleus also contained neutrons.

In the 1920s Schrodinger, Pauli, Dirac, Heisenberg and others provided the mathematics of quantum mechanics (in the same 1920s Louis Broglie showed experimentally that light and electrons have both wave and particle function).

In the late 1930s Lise Meitner and Otto Hahn wrote that the nucleus of atoms could be split if it is bombarded with neutrons (to produce chain reaction and release of radiation).

Enrico Fermi experimentally showed that it is possible to actually split the nucleus and release radiation (energy). The Manhattan Project led by Robert Oppenheim actually bombarded the nucleus of an isotope of uranium (each element has isotopes; in an isotope situation the number of protons remains the same while the number of neutrons is different; for example, regular hydrogen has one proton, some hydrogen additionally has one neutron (deuterium) and others have two neutrons, (tritium) and split it and released energy, energy which was unleashed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Later, we learned how to contain the energy released in nuclear fission and use it in nuclear power plants to provide electricity to people.

The salient point is that scientists learn how nature works at the smallest level (micro level, such as quantum mechanics) and macro level (large level, such as gravitation) we now use that knowledge to organize our society (nuclear energy, nuclear weapons, the world of electrons that we all live in…TV, transistor radios, computers, Internet, cell phone etc.). We use our knowledge of nature to improve our society. This is how scientific culture works.

A society based on the findings of science organizes its self around the parameters of science, not on some belief of what their past cultures was like. The past culture is irrelevant; it is only relevant if it approximates the findings of today’s science.

Moreover, as they say, the past is gone forever; one cannot enter the same river twice; only the present is real; the future is a hope not reality.

Africa’s past is only useful to the extent that its findings are congruent with what the sciences, especially physics, chemistry, biology and earth science tell us about how nature works. The fact that some African ancestors said that Olumgbete created the Universe is irrelevant.

What is relevant in any story of creation is what astrophysics tells us; it tells us that 13.7 billion years ago, out of nothing and nowhere something the size of a particle came out. (Georges Lemaitre was the first to posit the idea of a cosmic egg that shattered and produced the universe; Gamow agreed with him that the universe began at a point and expanded from that point. Friedmann building on Einstein’s General Relativity suggested that the universe is expanding rapidly. Edwin Hubble with his telescope provided observational evidence, red shifting and Doppler Effect, that the universe is actually expanding. Fred Hoyle disagreed that the universe had a point of origin and instead posited a steady state hypothesis, the idea that the universe has always existed.)

It is now generally agreed that the universe began at a point in time and that everything was contained in a particle (singularity) that shattered and began the universe. What was in that particle we do not know but whatever it was it grew incredibly hot and exploded and the explosion produced particles of light (photons) and those photons combined to form quarks, which combined to form protons and neutrons (photons formed electrons directly). The Big Bang produced energy (heat and light) which transformed itself to matter (particles, atoms).

The explosion that produced matter also produced anti-matter. For every proton there was anti proton, for every neutron there was anti neutrons and for every electron there was anti electron (positron). If the laws of physics are constant the number of matter and anti-matter should have been the same; both matter and anti-matter should have attacked each other, and annihilated each other and reduced each other back to pure energy (photons) hence ended the universe as we now know it.

Apparently, for every billion units of anti-matter produced a billion and one units of matter were produced thus when both attacked each other they did not annihilate each other; some matter survived to continue the evolution of the physical universe.

(The happenstances that led to the survival of the physical universe and eventual evolution of human beings give some persons the impression that the universe seems teleological; that is, the universe appears to have a goal, the goal of producing human beings; this is called the anthropoid principle.)

The incipient universe expanded at an incredible speed, greater than the speed of light, 186, 000 miles per second (Alan Gut called it Inflationary period). This rapid expansion, apparently, prevented the collapse of the emergent universe unto itself hence averting the existence of the nascent universe.

For 400, 000 years the universe was composed of plasma; that is, unattached protons, neutrons and electrons (and photons). Later, somehow, protons and neutrons combined to form nuclei of the lightest elements (hydrogen, helium, lithium etc.). A million years later elections were captured by nuclei to form the lightest elements (hydrogen and helium).

Thereafter, the universe was a cloud of hydrogen gas. Somehow, space occurred in the cloud of hydrogen and clumps of hydrogen were pulled by gravity inwards to themselves and inside their cores nuclear fusion took place and stars were born.

Stars are nuclear factories where hydrogen fuse to helium (called nucleosynthesis) and in the process produce heat and light; heat and light that work their way from the center of the stars until they reach the outside of it and thereafter escape into space as the star lights we see in the night sky (light and heat from the sun reaches planet earth in eight minus upon leaving the sun).

Stars burn hydrogen and when they exhaust their hydrogen fuel begin to fuse other element, such as carbon, then oxygen until they reach iron. Apparently, the heat inside stars is not enough to fuse elements heavier than iron. At that point stars begin to expand and eventually explode in supernovae.

During the supernovae explosion incredible heat is attained and heavier elements are fused. Uranium, gold, diamond etc. are said to be fused during supernovae.

From exploded massive stars gas and star dust float in space (as nebulae). These are eventually pulled by gravity to form new stars, planetismals, asteroids and comets (rocks with dust and frozen water on them).

Our star, the sun, and its nine planets are said to have formed four and half billion years ago from star dust and gas from exploded massive stars.

Our star and planets are said to have the potential to last five more billion years. Thereafter, the sun, a medium sized star, will burn out its hydrogen fuel, expand and throw off its outer layers and shrink into a white dwarf and eventually die.

(Upon death in supernovae, the cores of larger stars cores collapse into themselves to form either neutron stars or black-holes; in neutron stars the remaining electrons and protons are all compressed into neutrons that spin at incredible speed; in black holes the remaining cores are so dense that not even light can escape from their event horizons.)

Two billion years from now the earth will be too hot from the heat generated by the expanding sun and all biological life on earth would die.  In time the earth would die and become a cold rock in space (before it shatters into its constituent parts).

The two hundred billion stars in our galaxy and the two hundred billion galaxies in the universe are rapidly expanding away from each other (due to dark energy). In trillions of years they would lose heat and die (and their husks would eventually shatter into their constituent elements and eventually particles).

The universe would in time be composed of free floating neutrons, protons and electrons (and neutrinos). In time those particles would decay into photons.  In more time those photons would die and the universe would be composed of no matter.

Since one of the laws of thermodynamics says that matter does not die but changes form, and Einstein tells us that matter changes to energy, and energy to matter we can surmise that some form of energy would still exist in the anticipated cold universe.

Today, we know that there are such things as dark matter and dark energy. Dark matter composes 23% of the universe and dark energy composes 73% of the universe. What dark energy and dark matter are made of we do not know; that is to say that we understand only 4% of the visible universe! (So, much for our alleged great knowledge!)

For our present purposes, what is salient is that the universe came into being about fifteen billion years ago and will in time die a cold death (the alternative hypothesized manner of death of the universe, big crunch, where all matter re-collapse back to themselves is now ruled out).

It is now generally agreed that the universe is made of matter and energy (which, according to Einstein, is mutually convertible).

We now know that the universe has four forces operating in it: gravity, electro-magnetism, strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force.  Einstein died trying to unify the four forces into one force but did not succeed; a Nigerian, Mr. Oyibo, claims to have unified the four forces into one force to his satisfaction but not to other persons’ conviction.

In terms of criticism, the Big Bang hypothesis of the origin of the universe is not entirely satisfactory. Thus, some observers now posit the possibility that the universe may have branched off from another existing universe (superstrings hypothesis and M/brane speculates thus) or that the universe expands, and collapses and rebounds to another universe (Rebound hypothesis). Indeed, there are those who claim that infinite universes, multiverses, exist in the same space.

Regardless of what turns out to be the actual origin of the universe, what we know is that on our planet, a planet orbiting a medium sized star, somewhere in the outer reaches of a spiritual galaxy, Milky Way, biological life forms evolved.

Charles Darwin made a cogent argument as to how life evolved from single celled organisms to multi celled organisms and how over billions of years evolved to the great ape called human beings. Human beings are said to be just another animal that evolved as other animals evolved. People live a meaningless and purposeless existence, an absurd existence in that they appear to be intelligent yet like other animals they live and die and disappear into oblivion.

Like the universe they live in people came from nothing and return to nothing. Religion tries to suit people’s existential angst by telling them that a caring God created them and made them special and that when they die they go to an imaginary place called heaven and live eternally.

There is no shred of empirical evidence that people survive their physical death; all talk of God and how human beings live in haven appears to be delusional, Richard Dawkins said in his new book The God Delusion (in the early twentieth century Sigmund Freud said that religion is an illusion, he said so in his book, The Future of an Illusion).

One accepts the scientific story of the origin of the universe, even if it is not yet entirely satisfactory.  Non-scientific stories of creation, especially religions variety, appear unsubstantiated by facts.

The Yoruba myth of origin of the world, for example, says that Olodumare (God) created Oduduwa (first human being) and Oduduwa spurned Yorubas. This story of creation has no empirical evidence backing it; it therefore is unacceptable in scientific discussion.

What is acceptable in scientific discourse is what is observable and verifiable (Wilson and Penzias’ discovery of the Cosmic Micro-Wave Background Radiation proves that the Big Bang probably did take place fifteen billion years ago); scientists do not take refuge in fairy tales spurned by their primitive ancestors.

In the here and now world, science shows us behaviors that are more functional than others. For example, if you want to work in a chemistry laboratory or work in a factory you will be more functional if you wore certain attire than others. Clearly, if you wear agbada and babariga attire you would probably drag test tubes down and set the damn lab on fire; similar clothes impede productivity in assembly lines in factories. What is functional in a factory and lab is trousers, shirts and jackets; in short, what is currently called Western type attire is more adaptive to the exigencies of the industrial age; wearing clothes evolved in feudal eras, as agbadas are, is plainly stupid.

You do not want to wear agbada just because it is your cultural uniform (which, by the way, is not true for those were imported from Arabia; they were invented by Arab; Arabs discarded them and mind dead Africans embraced them; Africans always take what other people threw away and take pride in them as if they invented them).

If Africans want to be as productive as Westerners they simply have to dress like Westerners. See, Asians who want to be as productive as Westerners have given up their traditional uniforms and embraced Western uniforms. The Chinese have given up their traditional clothes and are now attired in Western clothes and are now very productive.

Africans must discard the clownish clothes they call their traditional clothes, stuff that makes them the least productive of people in the world and wear western clothes.

Most African languages were not written until about a hundred years ago (when white men taught Africans to read and write). Their vocabularies consist of only a few thousand words (English has almost a million words in it). Therefore, African languages cannot articulate all that is known in science and technology. The realistic African must stop taking pride in his so-called language and accept English language as his medium of expression and communication. English has become the universal language, anyway, so why fight it?

If you must speak your African language make it a secondary language. To compete in this world of science and technology one must read books and journals written in English; to say that one wants to write and talk in an African language, a language that only a few people can read or write, and those not trained in science and technology, is to deceive one’s self; in fact, it is to be deluded, to be insane.

An insane person is a person who does the same thing, over and over again and gets the same bad results and thinks that he can get good results by doing the same thing!

Africans are kept backward by their archaic and anachronistic cultures. African cultures do not adapt to the exigencies of industrial civilization and therefore must be changed rather than reified and deified.

If Africans want progress in science and technology they have to discard their cultures and embrace the scientific culture. There is no other way to go about becoming industrialized and modern than to read in the language of contemporary science and technology, English (with an admixture of German and French).

CONCLUSION

A Nigerian chap that calls himself Dr. Ojo (he likes to be called Doctor, a Western thing, while he derides the West) talks claptrap about the need to return to African cultures and religions. I tried to reason with him that Africans past cultures and religions are part of their problem, part of the reason why they are the most backward race on planet earth. He would not listen to logic and common sense. He simply sings the same annoying jingoistic tune.

Semi-educated Africans listen to the rubbish this man dishes out because it appeals to their pride but not to their rational minds. It is like saying that African-Americans should not have to strive to attend the best universities in America just because those are white universities. Well, until black folks have world class universities black folks must strive to attend the best universities in the white world. To attend these universities one must have the same preparation as white students: education in the sciences.

This Ojo guy keeps harping on the need to return to African cultures. This paper is an attempt to see if logic can penetrate his thick skull.

The man’s ego defensiveness masquerades as knowledge. Knowledge accepts the challenge of being part of the world and does not seek refuge in one’s so-called ethnic culture.

I am a universal man; I do not even pay attention to my color. Color means nothing to me; race means nothing to me. What matters to me is ability to participate in the world of science and technology.

A culture that stresses science and technology best prepares people to participate in the world of science and technology. Thus, I submit that a scientific culture is what we need to replace our various ethnic based cultures.

Of course, this is a wish list, a goal; in the real world ethnic cultures would remain; people would always find succor and security in their ethnic world, in their mothers’ womb; but the thing to do is to allow one’s self to be reborn, to go through what Otto Rank called the trauma of birth, feel the pain of what Carl Jung called individuation and finally live as what Erich Fromm (Escape from Freedom) called a free man, man that does not squelch his individuality in the social (cultural) womb.

Finally, nothing said here implies admiration of white people or hatred of Africans, as the spurious and superficial Dr. Ojo says; the man flings his half-baked western psychological categories at anyone who tries to say that Africans need to accept scientific culture. I do not admire white color or hate black color; what I admire is impersonal knowledge; I could care less where that knowledge originated: Africa, America, Asia or Europe.

The Ojo fellow, apparently, is so dense that he seems incapable of abstract thinking, and understanding that one can differentiate between a people and their behaviors. In so far that white folks engage in scientific behaviors I admire them but this does not mean admiring their color or hating black color, as the brain dead Ojo calls folks like me.

DTSG APPROVES REHABILITATION, UPGRADING OF MAJOR ROADS IN DELTA.

As part of its efforts to maintain roads in major towns and cities in the state, the Delta State Government has approved the rehabilitation, reconstruction and upgrading of major roads in the state.

The Commissioner for Works, Rt. Hon. Funkekeme Solomon disclosed this when he received in audience the Chairman and members of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Asaba Branch, in his office.

Rt. Hon Funkekeme said that the road maintenance projects would be carried out in major towns and cities throughout the state as necessary technical details are ready. He said that when completed, the projects would not only ameliorate the problem of failed roads but would also curb the incessant flood menace in the state.

He charged the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Asaba Branch, to key into the state government in ensuring that all infrastructural projects meet set standards and specifications.

Rt. Hon. Funkekeme also disclosed that henceforth the state government would only work with pre-qualified construction firms that have proven capacity, capability and competence to deliver road infrastructure projects on schedule and according to specifications.

 He also said that the ministry had put in place stringent measures to strengthen the certification and revalidation of work executed at project sites so that the state government would get value for its money.

He charged the society to take the issue of adherence to set standards by its members seriously and ensure that they keep to the norms and ethos of the profession in all they do, adding that any flaws in their jobs could tarnish the integrity of the profession.

While emphasizing the importance of the engineering profession to the overall infrastructural development in the state, Rt. Hon. Funkekeme promised to partner with them towards the delivery of projects that would meet set standards.

 He assured that the ministry would continue to carry out training and retraining of engineers and promised that more engineering staff would benefit from the human capital development programmes of the state in the next fiscal year.

Earlier, the Chairman, Nigerian Society of Engineers, Asaba Branch, Engr. Anthony Onyokoko congratulated Rt. Hon. Funkekeme on his appointment and pledged the society’s readiness to partner with the state government in its infrastructural development vision, just as he appealed for the continuous professional development of its members. He intimated the commissioner of the society’s forthcoming Annual General Meeting and appealed for sponsorship of some of the events.

EGBOMA OIL FIELD COMMUNITY ENJOINED TO EMBRACE PEACE

The Eye Care Delivery Programme of Platform Petroleum Company, operation of the Egboma Marginal Oil Field, in Ukwuani Local Government Area of Delta State has ended with a call on the host community to embrace peace and security programme of the state government.

The call was made at Akoko Uno by Bar.Anioye Ekalloma, legal and public affairs officer of platform Petroleum Limited Umutu, at the close of activities by the medical team which visited four host communities in its areas of operation, aimed at providing health care service to the people.

          Barrister Ekalloma who was impressed with the turn out, advised the people to always patronize qualified medical practitioner rather that quack the people who may at the end worsen their health situations.

          He appealed to the host community, to be peaceful, stressing that it was the only way to attract further assistance from the company, just as he maintained that there was alternative to conducive working environment.

          The eye care programme which was flagged off at Umutu on the 12th of September, 2011 got to, llogoli Ogbe Uzu and Akoku Uno Communities with each of them having three days of medical attention.

          During the exercise, seven hundred and three (703) persons were screened and administered with drugs, one hundred and forty seven (147) persons had eye surgery, while a total of three hundred and fifty six (356) persons were issued lenses.

          Expressing their appreciations on behalf of the community and patient, Hon. Humphrey Uzuak pundu thanked platform Petroleum for their kind gesture, noting that the exercise was not part of the memorandum of understanding entered into by the community and the company.

Arab League Says Syria Agrees To Withdraw Military From Cities

The Arab League says Syria has agreed to withdraw its military from cities, along with other steps, as part of an Arab initiative to end the turmoil and bloodshed in the country.

Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani made the announcement after an Arab League ministerial meeting in Cairo.

"The Syrian government has agreed to the following: one, a complete halt to violence, to protect Syrian citizens; two, the release of prisoners detained during the current events; three, removing the military presence from cities and residential areas; four, allowing the Arab League and Arab and international media access to report on the situation across Syria," Thani said.

Thani added, "We are happy to have reached this agreement and we will be even happier when it is implemented immediately."

The Qatari leader said the Arab League would continue contacts between Syria's government and the opposition "in preparation for a national dialogue within two weeks."

The United States, meanwhile, reiterated its call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, despite the Arab League announcement.

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters, "Assad has lost his legitimacy to rule and should step down."

Smiles as Chinwe Monu Vanguard honours Mr. Eugene Chukwura

 Hon. Chinwe Monu presenting the vanguards souvenir to the recipient Mr. Eugene Chukwurah for his meritorious service to the vanguard as the secretary, and for his recent appointment as the private secretary to the honorable member representing Oshimili South constituency in the Delta State House of Assembly, Hon. Peter Onwusanya.    
 Mrs Rose Obi-Nwandu, the vanguards woman leader extolling the good days Mr. Chukwurah shared with the Vanguard
A cross section of the leaders in attendance
 Mr. Chukwurah responding, promise to remember and carry the vanguard's ideals with him. 
 Ogbueshi Nnabuchi-onye Emmanuel thanked the recipient for honoring the invitation, though under brief notice, reminding the house that Mr. Chukwurah's leadership prowess is a familiar in-house knowledge.
Mr. Emma Ojinma in his vote of thanks appreciated the personality and leadership qualities that set Mr. Eugene Chukwurah apart from his mates and prayed that God will see him positively through his political career.