Home Truth

Ojukwu: Where is Hammersfield Hospital?

2011-12-04T02:23:00.001-08:00

I must confess that I have always been and will forever remain a big fan of General Emeka Ojukwu, The Great! I have thus, been naturally distraught by his demise ever since I got the sad news. I have been like ( I guess every other Ojukwu fan) been too preoccupied with reading more about him, what people say and thing/talking about our future than any other issue surrounding why or where he died.Although, I did ponder a bit on the name Hammersfield Hospital while reading first news reports, I naturally omitted to question anything to focus on the main issue which was the demise of our hero. However, I have now recovered enough to ask the question “Where is Hammersfield Hospital located in London?” I have googled Hammersfield Hospital and found no such thing either in London or elsewhere in the United Kingdom or anywhere else.Could it be that Nigerian Newspapers got it all wrong ( misspelling of Hammersmith as Hammersfield) or that the said Hammersfield Hospital is so “backwater” not to be found on google. I even googled “Hammersfield” itself and found no such place in London or in the United Kingdom.Where exactly was General Ojukwu taken to and where did he die? Could there be any truth in the suggestions that our General was not properly looked after by Igbo Leaders?

London Riots: Talking Posh and Evasiveness Cannot Save Britain from a More Serious Race Relations Crisis!

2011-08-09T06:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, Britain is undoubtedly a Broken Society, but Evasiveness will not mend Britain!!
The misdiagnosis has already begun with people playing politics by linking the unrests with cut in public sector. If we can be honest for once, the so-called cuts which some out-of-touch Liberal politicians would blame for every crisis has not significantly reduced the amount of income each person on dole receives. This is not difficult to find out as you can simply go to direct.gov.uk and check the welfare benefit entitlement the most worst off British resident.

The real underlying problem in Britain is Race Inequality which the government chooses to tackle by denial and false propaganda!
The government and the media of Britain are either populated by deeply ignorant people or have been dubiously perpetuating false race equality practices. The crisis that has engulfed London and other cities of Britain mainly led by clearly misguided “deprived” ethnic minorities in my view is a natural consequence of false democracy and false race equality in Britain.

The truth is that we live in a country that specialises in preaching (to its citizenry and the world), the kind of equality and openness it clearly does not practice and probably has no genuine intention of ever practicing.

If educated and or competent Black men cannot obtain befitting jobs due to fake race equality, they naturally would be far less likely to make stable homes. Tell me how many gainfully employed parents would have their children roaming the streets by 10pm?

If young Black males are not given equal access and opportunities to engage in apprenticeship/ work experience when they should, how do we expect that they gain entry into the labour market and become responsible members of the society?

Sorry, Simon Hughes, My MP, I Voted No to AV!

2011-05-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

I almost came close to pledging a Yes Vote the day you hurriedly passed me at my slave labour at Bermondsey Underground Station ( where I am confined to an unskilled job not because I am unskilled, but because of all the wrong reasons). Many misguided ordinary people including ethnic minority naturally assume the Liberal Democrats (Lib Dems) and the Labour Party are pro-ordinary people and pro-fairness hence; the masses often get easily swayed by any cry for fairness by the Lib Dems or Labour.
I must confess that I was until the last minute slightly swayed by the Yes campaign’s argument for a fairer voting system which they claim is found in the AV system, but the cloud of sentiment cleared off my sight once I sat down to compel my mind to a proper dissection of the arguments of both sides. I was probably swayed by the Yes campaign's argument that the current First Pass the Post system encourages job for life for MPs, but on a clearer look,
I find no force in this argument. Although, I share the sentiment against your likes that are life MPs and the culture of hereditary MPs which your political party equally represent, I do not see any correlation between the current system and jobs-for-life-MPs.
The fact that some people must be MPs not because they are popular or competent or even appreciably intelligent (e.g. the Nadine Dorrises of Westminster), but simply because they are connected or anointed by the party leadership or need to be handpicked to creat some outlook of equality of opportunities is a very British undemocratic practice which cannot be remedied by AV. The only remedy lies in practicing democracy to the letter by way of allowing the members of the party and the masses to choose party candidates. Of course, you should know that due to our kind of parliamentary democracy and the role of our manipulative media that people are always going to vote for the party rather than the individuals. Hence, the reason why MPs like yourself and your boss Nick Clegg have jobs for life must be because favoured candidates are imposed rather than elected by member of the political parties.

It is therefore clear that your argument for Yes is as poor,unintelligent and ppintless as a typical Lib Dem's idea or policy( for example, Nick Clegg’s foolish idea and argument for paternity leave period to be extended to the level of maternity leave).
I must assure you that I was also attracted to the Yes vote because I wanted to vote against the band of nasty privileged one-eyed men in government, but at the last minute I decided against making the most hopeless and incompetent nepotism produced politicians in Britain (Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband) appear great by voting yes.

My general stand is simply that all the major parties are in it together when it comes to cheating or deceiving the people and as well as celebrating inequality . Nepotism and all the public service vices are found in all major political parties with none having the moral ground to accuse another of any unfairness.

I am not fooled to accept that any political party that practices nepotism and inequality can ever stand tall enough to preach fairness! In any case, there is no issue of fairness here. It is simply a case of choosing between commonsense and idiocy and I have rightly chosen commonsense!!

My Comments and Attacks on Law Society gazette article - You Must Speak Proper to Work in the City

2011-01-11T03:29:00.000-08:00

You must speak proper to work in the City
Wednesday 22 December 2010 by James Dean

Clever, white, working-class men and women are being overlooked for top jobs in City law firms because they don’t quite ‘fit in’, according to research released yesterday.
‘Focusing on ethnicity enables law firms to boast excellent or, at the very least, improved diversity outcomes, despite the fact that they have continued to recruit using precisely the same types of class privilege that have always been in operation,’ says the author of the report, Dr Louise Ashley, in her most compelling soundbite.
It seems to be a uniquely British conundrum that, while ethnicity (and age, sex, religion, disability, and sexual orientation) should have no bearing on a law graduate’s ability to get a job, class should. Law firms, meanwhile, say that they recruit as they do to preserve their brands.
But this is class discrimination, and it begs the question: how many working-class law graduates have lost out on jobs to less talented middle- and upper-class law graduates?
I’m not a great watcher of TV show The Apprentice, but I did watch the last three episodes of the latest series. The winner? Stella English, a white working-class woman who left school with no qualifications. She was hired over second-placed Chris Bates, whose first-class undergraduate degree from Nottingham University and received pronunciation were not enough to land him the top job with Lord Sugar.
For those of you unfamiliar with the show’s format: 16 contestants take part in a series of business challenges over 14 episodes, amid an orgy of bitching, moaning, backstabbing, and sucking up to their prospective employer. One or two are eliminated every week, until the final episode, when Sugar (also white, also from a working-class background) picks his apprentice and hands them a fat six-figure salary.
If the firms surveyed by Dr Ashley had Apprentice-style recruitment processes, then, had she chosen to do a law degree in another life, English might have fared very well. But they don’t, and the research suggests that, sat opposite two senior partners in a dimly lit meeting room at a first interview, she’d be shown the door – despite her talent.
Visit the Gazette's blogs page for more news blogs
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Firms reject candidates on the basis of their accents, research suggests
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Comments
Why Did You Remove My Comment?
Submitted by John Iteshi on Thu, 23/12/2010 - 19:41.
I cannot believe that my comment would be pulled out just because I tried to offer a different view!
I thought this should be the least place to gag free speech.
I did not insult anyone or use any vulgar language. I raised very serious issues about my experiences of judicial fraud without any disguise of my identity because I am certain that I am right.
I find no good reason for removing my comments.
I think it is really disgraceful that a lawyers’ website should be afraid of the truth or at least probing an allegation that impugns the integrity of our legal system.
This action to me is a really very third-world.
Please, send me a copy of that comment as soon as possible to enable me retain a copy of the comment which apparently was somehow inappropriate.
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What Happened to Our Free and Fair Britain?
Submitted by John Iteshi on Fri, 24/12/2010 - 11:19.
I wrote a comment on this article yesterday to indicate that this so-called research may be part of some dubious schemes by some influential people to create a the public impression that Race discrimination problems have been overtaken by discrimination on the basis of social class or even discrimination on the ground of sex.
I provided an example of how Employment Tribunals and perhaps government officials or under the instructions of the government are consciously frustrating race discrimination claims. I provided a brief example of how Employment Judge Juliana Wade dubiously listed a Pre-hearing Review (PHR) in a plainly inappropriate case. I further explained how Employment Judge Snelson shamelessly swept aside both the facts and higher judicial authorities which were strongly against striking out my claim.
To buttress my point I highlighted the fact that in one of my complaint in that case, the Respondent- Venn Group ( one of the Recruitment Agencies that Public Authorities and government departments use to circumvent race discrimination laws) put forward a White candidate who had only “A” Level with neither legal qualification nor any legal experience whatsoever to its client which I think was Brent Council over a qualified lawyer with various legal experience for a job described as “Legal Researcher”.
I expected people to wonder how and why any honest adult could have held that a White person with “A” level and without any legal qualification or experience was in anyway more suitable for a Legal Researcher post that a qualified lawyer.
I expected that people should be enraged by my story as something really serious that should not be swept aside.
I challenged anyone including Employment Judges Wade and Snelson to challenge my assertions in this public forum.
I expected my comment to elicit curiosity and some activism towards cleansing our world class legal system of corruption, but what I got was a very third-world reaction. My comment was removed after few hours. However within the period it was on a response from a faceless person called me a loser to which I responded by accusing her/him of cowardice. I do not know why my comment was removed.
I am still waiting for answers.
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Wrong example, but good point
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 24/12/2010 - 16:21.
John, I understand the point you are making, the only issue is that the example Is you use is a bit weak. Maybe Brent thought that the lawyer was over qualified for that role, and not really interested in it. You can't really blame them for wondering whether it was just a stop gap role for the lawyer, and whether if they gave the job to the A level graduate, the candidate might work up the ranks and then transition to ILEX. Government legal departments have great opportunties for people who wish to qualify that way.
I agree that the article does seem to suggest that somehow discrimination based on class has taken over, and of course that is just wrong. It's not news that some lawyers in the majic circle are operating a closed shop, but if White working class candidates are having a hard time, imagine how tough it must be for black working class candidates! Notwithstanding that fact, it's important that people work together towards removing discrimation/racism in all it's forms, and not bickering amongst it each other, because if we do it will enable those people who wish to exclude people from law to divide, conquer and rule!
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@Anonymous - Thanks, but Your Reason is a bit Weak
Submitted by John Iteshi on Fri, 24/12/2010 - 18:40.
The reason you gave is worryingly weak for a person that seems to believe in equal opportunities.
Suggesting that an employer is entitled to choose whom to offer the job especially in the public sector is plainly anti-equality of opportunities.
Suggesting that an example of a recruitment agency that forwarded the CV of a White male with A level and no known legal experience whatsoever for a post designated as Legal Researcher is a weak example is to me quite unreasonable.
I believe the example which is just a tip of the iceberg should enrage even lay people let alone those who are experienced in Employment Law litigation.
My advice is that you read the following cases: Anyanwu and Another v. South Bank Student Union and Another and Commission for Racial Equality [2001] UKHL 14; [2001] 2 All ER 353 and Ezsias v North Glamorgan NHS Trust [2007] EWCA Civ 330 and explain to me how possible that my case should have been struck out.
I wish to also add that what I believe is the problem is not Racism but Race Discrimination. People often moan about racism which cannot be eradicated by any legislation and should not even be worried about (because it is a private belief) rather the real issue which is race discrimination. Perhaps, this point would be clearer if we appreciate the fact that a racist may not necessarily discriminate on the grounds of race just as an anti-racism champion may still discriminate on the grounds of race especially in employment.
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merry crimbo one and all!
Submitted by Anonymous on Sat, 25/12/2010 - 20:53.
merry crimbo one and all!
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You must speak proper to work in the City
Submitted by Peter Ryder on Thu, 30/12/2010 - 15:17.
Back to the subject of the article, is there any evidence that class is the root of the problem. No one (as far as I am aware) has suggested that we are class ridden because we insist on wearing smart clothes in our offices so why are we class ridden when we insist on people using the language properly
I have certainly spoken to lawyers working in the city who have strong regional accents but I accept that I have never spoken to one who's accent results in the incorrect use of English, not surprising in a profession the very purpose of which is the understanding and interpretation of that language. Inherent in many accents is an idiosyncratic use of English but is there any evidence that the correct use of English is the preserve of the middle and upper classes? I was born in Longsight, Manchester and went to state schools in Stockport, accumulating a colourful local accent on the way. Even after 29 years in Cornwall I remain recognisably northern in my voice and proud of it. I have never encountered any prejudice as a result of my accent.
I have been a solicitor since 1973 and I have employed a lot of people, lawyers and others. One of the qualities I looked for in an employee was the ability to speak English correctly. Accent is of no importance but grammar is. Clients come to us because they do not have our supposed understanding of the law, all of which is written. We are in the business of winning the confidence of those clients. Secretaries who spell 'rough' as 'ruff' or 'would have' as 'would of' send out a signal of sloppiness and incompetence which damages the reputation of the letter writer and undermines the confidence of the client. It is common sense, not class conciousness which dictates the appointment of the secretary who does not make those mistakes.
Lawyers who say 'you was the victim here' or who litter their spoken language with 'like' or 'innit' or some such may similarly damage their own image and undermine the confidence of the client. Thus a firm is entitled to and indeed should where possible select the correctly spoken candidate.
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Deleted posting
Submitted by Anonymous on Thu, 06/01/2011 - 12:31.
Hopefully the original posting was deleted as it would appear to have sought not to comment on the article written above but on a personal case and vendetta, which is not appropriate in this particular circumstance.
However I was mildly curious as to how Mr Hitachi had managed to obtain confidential information about another candidate without breaching the law.
However I would not employ a researcher who made so many simple spelling and grammatical errors - sorry!
ps: who wrote "only a fool has hinmself for a client"?
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Are You Dreaming or Just Dubious?
Submitted by John Iteshi on Tue, 11/01/2011 - 11:27.
I must admit that I may not have had enough time to take a very detailed look at all the comments above, but I am certain that there is no comment here from anyone with the name “Hitachi” and certainly no grammatical error (against such a name or any similar sounding name) that bears any resemblance to what you copied - "only a fool has hinmself for a client".
It appears that you are the one who manufactured this grammatical error with the view to diverting the attention of readers from the issue. I am very familiar with your type in the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal. They would leave out the substance of your complain to dubiously pursue the weakest aspects. If you dare make a simple mistake, they would capitalise on that as an excuse to evade the substance of your complaints.
I am definitely not perfect in English and certainly make mistakes especially when I am commenting quickly in the middle of something else.
However, it is irresponsible of you to manufacture a grammatical error accusation all in your twisted bid to divert attention from a serious issue.
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Not the only one!
Submitted by Anonymous on Fri, 07/01/2011 - 19:24.
It is not only solicitors who are being overlooked -
Try to apply for a job on the BBC Radio. You have to write a 2 page dissertation of the 'Diverse community' in the radio's catchment area. And the job always always goes to the 'little girly' - very young, no experience, straight out of university and wants to 'go on the radio'.
Oh yes, and it helps if you are not white

God Bless Southern Sudan

2011-01-11T02:42:00.001-08:00

Every right thinking enlightened Black African ( and those of Black African ancestry) in this world should support the Southern Sudanese quest for independence. It is a really pity that a great country like Sudan could not work out due to primitive racial divides, but it is a great thing to know that some Black Africans have bravely risen to the level of redefining themselves.

The ongoing referendum in South Sudan should inspire a more civilised approach to resolving crisis in Black Africa.
The United States of America must be congratulated for its leadership in resolving the Sudanese crisis. Presidents George W Bush and our Barack Obama deserve commendation.
God Bless Southern Sudanese for their bravery!

God Save the Black Race!!

Is This Vince Cable Really a Best of Britain?

2010-12-21T23:22:00.001-08:00

I may not have been in Britain long enough to have known the antecedents Mr Vince Cable, but I am certain that his disgraceful comment to an undercover reporter that he has declared a war on Rupert Murdoch empire is as foolish and disgracefully incompetent as it is politically embarrassing. Since last night, I have been wondering how a man at the peak of wisdom age and yet so devoid of wisdom could have risen so highly in British political leadership. If indeed it is not some early signs of mental deterioration, one wonders what level of role merit really plays in ascending to political power positions in Britain. How do people get to the parliament of Great Britain, by merit or by birth or privilege or by connection?
It may sound crazy to most people, but I am not aware that any man or woman that speaks the level of wisdom Mr Cable spoke on Rupert Murdoch (a man who has committed no known crime) will hardly ever rise to be a Senior member of the Federal Executive Council of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Nigeria certainly is by all standards a backward and retarding country with open and unpretentious ethnic bigots in power positions, but we have never heard a Minister say ( even if he is actually doing it) something like, “I am going to use my power to frustrate the economy of Igbos”.

Mr Cable’s comment about resigning to bring down the coalition if pushed too far may be explained as a political tactic, but there can be no acceptable basis for his outburst on Rupert Murdoch. All that can be said on the basis that he is an adult of sound mind is that it was probably an overflow of long suppressed bigotry or just a calculated unintelligent outburst miscalculated as a popularity enhancing point. In the characteristically unintelligent Liberal Democrats worldview, he may have thought that people would like him more if he stops "that Murdoch business monster", but like his equally incompetent and desperate boss Nick Clegg (who foolishly thought that declaring he does not believe in God would make him the next Prime Minister, he got it very, very wrong.
In any case, it was most unwise for a person of his calibre to have made such comment to anyone not a cabinet colleague or closely associated and trusted person.
I am sure that even in Nigeria that it is very rare to find a minster that would make such a foolish comment to a person that was foreseeably a journalist or at least a kiss and tell even though in Nigeria what the media say does not really matter.

This Italy is Very Much Like Ali-Igbo!

2010-12-20T02:58:00.001-08:00

This is my third visit to Gemona Del Friuli, the Northern Italian village of our in-laws and I can nolonger suppress my thoughts about how similar we are as a people yet so backward in comparison with the progress of our in-laws.

I see in Gemona civilised version of Ali-Izhi (Izhiland or Izzi Land)imagininging how my homeland could be only if we could pursue the goal of societal development beyond individual survival!

Who Brought This Woman Here?

2010-12-02T15:23:00.000-08:00

I am watching Question Time now and have seen something that is really worth noting here. A female MP panellist called Nadine Dorries is the worst I have so far seen in Britain.
Unless, I have caught her on her worst day, I find it shocking that a woman so hollow, so shallow in reasoning and so representative of mediocrity is representing a community of highly intelligent people in England of all places.
This Woman’s contribution in the debate on the issue of University Tuition fees was most cringe-worthy and absolutely disgraceful!
She simply could not answer questions asked and went on rambling like an incompetent woman that got her position through an unholy means. She was transfixed with trying to invent a new defence for tuition fees that she simply scored zero in listening test.
I will be surprised if the mainstream media does not pick up MP Dorries’ shambolic performance tonight on the Question Time.

Perhaps, the climax of MP Dorries’ demonstration of mediocrity was when she claimed that most (or did she say all) people in her constituency are complaining about their taxes being used to subsidise university tuition fees when actually they have never benefited from University education. She was basically arguing that one reason for the hike was because those who have not ( and may never) benefit from University education are paying taxes to sustain universities. She foolishly could not notice the conspicuous mass cringing around her, from the floor and of course from across the country and continued to hammer that disgraceful point.
It would be a big shame if no media picks up this woman’s show of shame and ultimate embarrassment of the Conservative Party.
Lest I be accused of sexism, Ms Dorries was not the only personification of British mediocrity on the panel. Mr Danny Alexander was not much better. He was another shameful show of nastiness. John Sargent was spot on when he described him as pathetic!
I must confess that my views about these two have not been shaped by their nasty stand on the tuition fees debate, but purely on their performance. If they had been able to debate to the standard expected of their level, I would not have found anything noteworthy. My views have absolutely nothing to do with their support for the hike in tuition fees.

China 'urges Britain to boycott Nobel ceremony' - Yahoo! News UK

2010-11-05T04:48:00.000-07:00

China 'urges Britain to boycott Nobel ceremony' - Yahoo! News UK

My View

The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!
How would British leaders and all of us as a people like to see China attend a Bin Laden’s Islamic defenders award ceremony in Afghanistan or Iran?
I fear that the contemporary Western leaders’ incompetence and idiocy would lead the world to another major global conflict.
Continually trying to deride China even now that show has proven to be unstoppable; to me is a show of tactlessness and incompetence probably based on a primitive notion of White superiority!
Western media and governments have no moral or legal rights whatsoever to teach China how to govern its own people. If there is any basis for the West or the White World to dictate the principles and practices of human rights for the rest of the world, the question then is what exactly has the West done in practical terms to protect the human rights of the most oppressed?
Africa has at least since around 1885 Berlin conference been largely under firm control or strong influence of the Western powers. How far has the West protected the human rights of the most vulnerable Africans since the past 50 years? How much did Britain and America protect Biafrans between 1967 and 1970; Black Africans of Sudan, people of DRC and generally the impoverished and abused people of all countries in Black Africa(excluding Zimbabwe which has always respected human rights more than Nigeria) where human rights are seen as luxury . It is on record that the West especially Britain, unfortunately, through our self destructive media organisations have always only seen human rights abuses in Black Africa only where a British person feels injured.
I do not agree that Black Africans and the Caribbeans should be blaming our White masters for our own failures as it contradicts any belief in equality of all humans to do so. However, if our White masters in the Western powers must arrogate themselves the divine responsibility for all humans on the planet, then they should be much quicker at protecting the rights those under their noses (e.g. Black Africans and the Caribbeans) than those very far away from their control (e.g. China and North Korea).
In any case, for those who are blinded by some fake human rights noise (especially some fanatical White Supremacists who hide under liberalism e.g. people in Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and dubious White Journalists who habitually fight selective fights), Western media publicity /criticisms of suspected human rights abuses in Countries like China, Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Iran etc) have always rather than ameliorate, worsened the state of human rights in those societies. It is therefore very hard to see how Western fake obsession with human rights for others has ever really helped the supposed victims of human rights abuses. How has Western noise about human rights really helped Aung San Suu Kyi? If she had not been seen by the majority of Burmese elites as a Western puppet, would she not have been a free woman leading her country today? What benefit either to the people of Burma or Suu Kyi herself has western interference in the internal affairs of Burma been?
As an enlightened Black African, I make these comments with grave concern because I know the importance (to my vulnerable people) of the West remaining in good control and able to moderate the affairs of the world. I know that the rise of China, India and others would naturally leave Black Africa vulnerable to further slavery and colonialism, but I will never advocate for the fall of China for every nation is entitled to pursue development. In fact, pursuing development is pursuing own survival and as such impeding or interfering with Chinese development in any way (by unreasonably criticising her or by honouring her traitor) should be seen as an act of provocation by all sensible Chinese. Yes, I have never lost grip of the fact that when China and India reach their destinations, my people would suffer, but I will never ask others remain as backward and exploitable as Black Africa as it does not make the world a better place. All I ask for is that the West should be wiser by appreciating the fact that times have changed and is continually changing fast.
The West should be working towards maintaining its position as the conscience of the world rather than foolishly (through its media especially British media) trying to give other peoples of the world ideas or strong reasons to question Western divinity and or moral grounds or suitability as a Judge or master or police over others. The brazen practice of disparate measures for assessing human rights violation (according to Western economic interests rather than any objective parameters) as was all seen in the case of Zimbabwe against other Black Africa countries where no White man’s interest or right was infringed and remains in the case of North Korea and Burma etc will only lead to the demystification of West and possibly fall of Western leadership of the world.
The key to continued Western leadership of the world lies in genuine belief and practice of democracy and human rights principles within as well as equitable treatment and assessment of world affairs or internal affairs of others.

On the Education Secretary, Michael Gove's plan to let top schools expand

2010-11-01T13:15:00.000-07:00

What really do English people understand as equality?
I voted the Conservatives hoping that the so-called nasty Party is now dominated by sensible young men determined to repair the country after 13 years of Labour disaster.
I hoped that in the “New Conservatives”, I would see more competent young men and Women determined to do things differently.
Disappointedly, what I have seen so far is the same bunch of "out of touch" privileged adolescents jumping around in service of the media instead of the people.
What does Britain stand to gain by entrenching segregation among schools and the culture of desperate scrambles for so-called best or better schools? Why does it seem harder for Britain to maintain the same high standard in all school rather continually encouraging discrimination and unhealthy competition for so-called best schools?

The duty of the government should be to set the same standard for all schools and pay special attention to those schools not performing as they should (not the other way) with the view of bringing them up to the acceptable standards!
Is it correct to say that Britain is a fundamentally unequal society and that our leaders are determined to maintain the class divides?
Would it not have been more intelligent for a government of "reformers" populated by supposedly intelligent privileged kids from the same select schools to be striving to promote equal opportunities in the sense of encouraging (even pretentiously) a new Britain where any person that works hard irrespective of socio-economic background should be able to achieve her/his ambition?

See public approval of my comment on the following link: http://uk.buzz.yahoo.com/article/1:yahoo_uk_irel306:1c166215a0e81b2fe5bcbf453727d538/Gove-plan-to-let-top-schools-expand

My Children will One day ask your Children about what you are doing to me today!

2010-10-18T15:27:00.000-07:00

Who knows whether Employment Judge Pearl would twist my statement to him today against me in the most sinister way – for example alleging that I threatened him after all it would sound plausible to accuse a Black man of acting aggressively or otherwise threatening. Anyway, I can no longer be too shocked by anything in Britain because I have already experienced dozens of things that no sane minded person even in Osama Bin laden neighbourhood would believe could happen in Britain. I have experienced dozens of atrocities (in the hands of Judges in Britain), which I find difficult to tell people in Nigeria because nobody would believe me.
Today in particular Employment Judge Pearl once again made me feel ashamed of being a lawyer.
I had predicted what happened today in my letter to the Attorney General on 27 September 2010 which I also copied Employment Tribunals (ET) and Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT). I thought that crying out about an impending abominable act would forestall it, but I was very wrong. The aspect of my letter to the Attorney General for England & Wales that dealt with what happened today is copied below. Please read to understand the issues:
“Impending Judicial farce in my second claim against Badenoch & Clark (a recruitment agency) and Others: This is a case that gives further credence to a suspicion of something really mysterious happening in the Employment Tribunal system.
B&C’s lawyers, Sheridans, incompetently and or negligently failed to respond within 28 days which elapsed at 23:59hrs on 30 December 2009. Instead of filing its response immediately it realised its failure, Sheridans wrote the Tribunal asking for my claim to be struck out for being an abuse of process. This was a laughable application because B&C had no grounds, to make any such application, even if the application had any merit whatsoever.
Helpfully, Employment Judge Pearl reminded the respondent’s Sheridans, as I had done that it had no basis for making any such application when it had not even responded. B&C then forwarded its response on 12 March 2010, more than 2 months out of time and Employment Judge Pearl rightly in line with the rules, rejected the response and ruled that B&C will not take active proceedings in the proceedings – meaning that I had effectively won my case against B&C.
B&C had 14 days to apply for a review if it did not like the decision and 42 days from 26 March when the decision was sent to the parties, to appeal in the EAT.
The time for appealing to the EAT elapsed on 7 May 2010 at 4.00pm, but B&C had done neither review application nor filed a Notice of Appeal.
On or around 27 May, 2010 during the part-hearing in my first claim against B&C and Others, EJ Wolffenden suggested that a CMD which had been scheduled for my claim against the Second Respondent in this claim was meant for discussing “…the First Respondent’s failure to respond”. This was never stated in the Notice of CMD that I received. In any case, B&C had indicated it was not opposing the decision of the ET and it is impossible to discuss such a matter in a CMD as failure to respond within the time limit could only be addressed by way of a review hearing if the Respondent applies for a review (B&C had not applied for any review). It was further baffling, how or where EJ Wolffenden got what she said from?
I promptly reminded the EJ that B& C had neither applied for review nor filed a Notice of Appeal.
However, on 1 July 2010, B&C applied for a review claiming that it had changed its mind against not challenging the ET’s decision to debar it from taking active part in the proceedings.
My concern here is that the ET is probably scheming to find a way of accepting B&C’s Response even though it would plainly constitute an abuse of process. Besides, even the response of B&C and disclosures it made lately show that it has no valid defence to my claim, in any case ( e.g. the CVs it purports to have forwarded do not meet the very criteria it claim that I did not meet to be forwarded). There are clear indications here that some Employment Judges are determined to ensure that I must never be successful in any claim”
For the avoidance of any doubt, the Employment had no legal or moral basis at all for allowing B&C’s late response today, not just because there is no judicial precedence , but most importantly because it is an unmitigated abuse of process. B&C’s Counsel apparently searched all law libraries in England and Wales and could not find a case where a Defendant or Respondent who was debarred from taking active part in a proceeding or had the alternative, a Default judgment against it because it was out of time, indicated it was not going to challenge the Court’s decision (missed the deadline for applying for review by 2 Months and missed deadline for appealing by more than a Month), but after 2 Months changed its mind, asked the Court to allow it to defend the claim and the Court agreed.
Some experienced may rightly imagine that the Respondent may have had a highly meritorious defence. Interestingly, there is nothing of that sort. In fact, the response of B&C to my claim is purely scandalous if not simply idiotic because it appears obvious that while desperately scouting for CVs that would dwarf mine and present its defence as strong; it foolishly forgot what it had stated in the past in respect of some of the jobs. For example, in the case of Freedom of Information (FOI) Lawyer it claimed in its response to my claim that I was not put forward for that job because I did not possess any experience. It produced an old version of my CV which did not show that I had any FOI experience. When I showed Counsel for B7C some correspondence back in September 2009 which showed that B&C confirmed to me in writing that it was going to put my CV forward for that role, the story, he changed the story to say that I was actually put forward for that role but that its clients did not accept my CV.
In the case of Part Time Employment Lawyer, I had received an email on October 8 2009 from one Paul Gledhill of B&C who stated that the reason he was not putting my CV forward to its client was because there were many high quality applications for the role and that they were only allowed to submit just 3 candidates. He equally indicated that all the candidates submitted were practicing Barristers and Solicitors.
Interestingly, in its response to my claim B&C maintained that it was highly competitive but forgetting what Mr Gledhill had initially represented claimed that it forwarded the two best CVs. Even more interesting is the fact that none of the two CVs showed any evidence of any practicing Barrister or solicitor. In fact one of the candidates actually possessed no legal qualifications at all.
Perhaps, the most incontestable evidence in my favour was the series of emails where the former lawyer of B&C named Ms Rabi who incompetently and or ignorantly, repeatedly wrote me very harsh emails stating that B&C would no longer act for me, falsely accusing me of being rude, and aggressive towards B&C’s staff. This was a prima facie evidence of Victimisation handed to me on the platter of gold as the false accusation only came about after I had brought a claim against B&C and most importantly, there is no single evidence that any staff of B&C that handled any of the jobs I applied for ever complained about me.
Despite my past experiences of judicial farce from Employment Judge Pearl and others I mounted my best advocacy against determination to allow B&C ‘s response by drawing his attention to apparent weakness in B&C’s response and equally highlighting several act of fraudulent conducts and misrepresentation by B&C including the fraudulent application it made on 4 January 2010.
I believed that Employment Judge would not be so conscience ridden to allow B&C’s application, but he proved me very wrong again. I even reminded him that in March 2009, he refused to exercise discretion in a discrimination claim which was only a few minutes out of time, but he feigned ignorance of it. I then reminded him of a sound judgment he passed in the case of Ahmed v Amnesty International which he excitedly recalled, but refused to be as astute in my own case.
I only hope Mr Pearl would seriously think of my last words to him since he apparently wrote them down. I told him what came to my mind “If you have children, please note that one day my children will ask your children about what you are doing to me today” I reminded him that my children are British and would almost certainly grow up one day and ask his children about what he is doing to me.
For my readers, I am not really desperate for your sympathy or didactic sayings and advice. I am only desperate for community leaders, religious leaders and the general public of Britain to hear my story and to rise and stop what is happening to me from happening again to any other person in Britain. I am not going to stop fighting because I have a stake in this country as my children are born here and could suffer the same ugly fate tomorrow if not challenged today. I am desperate to tell my story because I want to ensure that the accurate account of my life in Britain is maintained and that those who are hiding under the global acclaim of the English legal system to fraudulently destroy the life of an innocent man have the opportunity of proving to the world that I am actually a mad man. I am writing my story and will continue doing so as I fight on because if anything happens to me tomorrow, the same mainstream English media that “blacked me out” in my claim against the Bar Council and would not follow my story because I am not a celebrity or for some other unknown reasons, would concoct a false story about me. Further, my experiences so far confirm to me that it may be possible to hang a crime on me in order to jail me or even for a corrupt police man to be used to shoot me and brand me a terrorist caught in the act. I have therefore decided that my only choice while I am still alive is to fight the fight that has befallen me at all cost.
The only possible explanation I can deduce, why every judge in the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal seem to have sworn an oat to defeat any claim I may bring is because I had the guts to challenge the Bar Council of England and Wales’s obnoxious policy which makes it impossible for about 70 % of those who pass their bar exams and called to bar each year to be able to practice as barristers. In fact, since the policy came into place in 2003, it has been far more difficult than it was in the 1980s for Blacks and some other minority groups to be able to obtain practicing certificates as barristers. I believed (perhaps, foolishly) that I was in a free and democratic country where you can complain or challenge something you believe to be wrong. I am now paying a heavy price. Perhaps, I should have been wiser not to have challenged them, but I spent over £15,000 pounds to train as a Barrister and I come from the part of the world where it is an abomination to stop a man from legitimately earning a living. I cannot get a befitting legal job in any public sector organisation and or through the recruitment agencies which they often use as conduits for discrimination and if I complain of discrimination the Employment Tribunal and Employment Appeal Tribunal judges would fight my claim even more ferociously than those I complain against. I am being put in a situation where I am bound to bring complaints in the Employment Tribunal and the Employment Appeal Tribunals where Judges are waiting happily to frustrate my complaints at all cost.
My promise is that I will never give up as I know that my children and other people's children would suffer similar fate. I promise to fight on even at the risk of losing my life or at least inconveniencing my family. I have committed no offence and cannot accept to be treated like a subhuman in a country that holds itself out to the world as a beacon of freedom, fairness and equality.
I will keep readers updated with my story as it unfolds.
John Iteshi
Barrister (Non-Practicing)
18 October 2010

Ed Miliband

2010-09-29T05:55:00.000-07:00

I must say that I have been since the inception of the Labour Leadership campaigns, disgusted with the manner the media (acting in the interest of the political establishment) brainwashed and imposed either Ed or David Milliband on the public.
The people never stood any chance of electing a labour leader whose name is not a Miliband. Diane Abott despite being far more recognisable and far more experienced was never given any publicity and was in fact only propped up by one of the Milibands.
My disgust actually turned to more fascination than anger (about British politics) after it took one of the Milibands to get Diane on the ballot. I became fascinated about how British politics works ( in gangs just like Nigeria or indeed based on individual convictions).
How did the Miliband brothers become heavyweights in the Parliament over Diane (an old soldier) and numerous others?
Now that a Miliband has won, but not the Miliband favoured by the media and the strongest gang in the parliament, I have no choice but to watch like everyone else. I am however happy not just that the better looking Miliband won, but that the main favourite did not win. It is interesting when both the media and political establishments are unable to have their way exactly. Much more interesting is what could happen before or in the next election.
I predict that Ed will either not last till next elections or will lose because he is not fully accepted!
It is up to the Unions to rally round their man and refuse to be pushed, but it is also up to the new leader and the unions to appeal to Middle England as it is called, in order to have any chance of smelling 10 Downing Street!

This Justice Minister Cannot Argue His Case!

2010-07-08T05:23:00.000-07:00

I am watching a House of Commons debate on Defendant Anonymity being proposed by the Justice Minister Hon Crispin Blunt.

I find Mr Blunt's advocacy excruciating because he is simply unable to produce a sound commonsensical argument why Defendant anonymity is necessary.

I am wondering whether a square peg has been put in a round hole here.

He claimed that there is no significant number of false accusation in rape while accepting that about 10 percent of rape accusations have been false. He said it is not different from any other crime.

He further maintained desperately that the reason for the new law has nothing to do with the issue of false accusations.

He repeatedly failed to justify why rape defendants should be treated differently from other defendants despite virtually all the speakers asking this question.

I thought painfully that this man ought to have said one simple commonsensical point that rape is a unique kind of offence which normally attracts a special kind of stigma. It is without doubt more likely that a man of unblemished character would be falsely accused of rape than being falsely accused of theft or fraud. Moreover, due to the nature of rape (often involving just the victim and the accused), it is far easier to charge and prosecute an innocent person based on lies than in other crimes. In other crimes, it would be easier for the police to judge the credibility of the accusation before charges are brought!

I do not know why it did not seem a good argument to him or those who advised him to say that rape is a different kind of crime and that individuals falsely accused of rape are in a different league from those falsely accused of theft for instance.As stated above it is far more easier to accuse a decent man of rape than of other crimes. All it would take for a clean man to be falsely charged of rape is a conscience ridden female friend.

In my general view, the media and their over zealousness are the greatest obstacles to administration of criminal justice in the UK. I believe this Minister was scared of how his view may be interpreted. I would support defendant anonymity of defendants in rape cases because of the unique nature of the crime of rape!

In the case of rape, there seems to be political pressures here and there for more convictions. My fear is that undue hysteria about convicting people for rape could cause injustice!

All that is needed is a reliable legal system that does not allow itself to be swayed by media induced sentiments!

British Genuinely Blacks, Politically Blacks and Race Mongering

2010-07-07T16:44:00.000-07:00

I should never have found time to write anything not particularly pressing now due to the many challenges I am currently facing , but I just felt I cannot go to bed without commenting on what I have just read on today’s London Evening Standard (07 July 2010).
At page 24 is a story with a title: “£100,000 appeal to stop portrait of freed slave going abroad”. Of course, this title caught my attention right away, but I soon noticed that the portrait which is pictured bedside the story appeared too civilised and too Arabic to have been a genuinely freed African slave as both the title and the first line of the story suggest.
Without reading further than the first few lines, my stomach was already turning as I found it hard to bear the pain of the falsehood. I took a closer look at the picture and wondered how an African slave (assuming the man was pure Black African (Negro)) could have been able to practice Islam to the extent that he wore a Koran on his neck. However, I encouraged myself to read on.
Before reading beyond the first few lines, I pondered in agony how gullible supposedly enlightened Black opinion leaders have become in Britain as Kwame Kwei-Armah, a prominent Black British man is pictured as one of the supporters of the portrait alongside one Arab African, Zeinab Badawi. The fact that the erudite Kwame who ought to know more than most others about the history of Trans-Atlantic slave Trade can be so easily swayed to dance at the image of an Arab African as the first portrait of a freed African slave worried me to revulsion.
I felt frustrated about how to immediately educate Kwame that the image he is worshiping could have been more of a slave master than a slave.
After calming down a bit, I continued reading the story and unsurprisingly it confirmed that the so-called freed African Slave was in fact a Slave dealer who incidentally was somehow paid back in his own coins. Probably he offended his European slave trading partners and they thought him a lesson or his fellow slave hunters/traders for some reasons conspired and sold him.
How could a person of Kwame’s intellectual standing be so naïve to celebrate a portrait of an Arab slave dealer as a portrait of a freed African slave? I can understand the case of some politically black British men and women queuing to moan black this black that as usual, for selfish ends( when it suits them), but cannot understand why a supposedly enlightened Black man like Kwame who ought to know his history, could be so gullible!
For the avoidance of any doubt, I do not have any grudge against Arab Africans and certainly do not say that the alleged freed slave, Suleiman Diallo of The Gambia was not a Black African. All I say is that he was not a pure Ne-gro Black African susceptible to trans-Atlantic slavery because he was a civilised Arab African who was naturally a slave trader (or middleman to European slave masters) rather than a victim. He never fell within the population of potential or actual slave subjects and as such could not have qualified as an African slave in the sense we know.
All I say is that Black people should be informed that our more civilized Arab brothers (including Arab Africans like this man) were principal actors in the transatlantic slave trade. It must also be noted some Black Africans also sold their flesh and blood into slavery and that the wickedness /primitiveness which caused Arab Africans and Black Africans to sell their own people into slavery are still with us!

BBC 3's Peckham Finishing School for Girls: The Worst TV Programme

2010-07-01T16:18:00.000-07:00

The short programme info says: Four privileged girls taste life on the other side of the tracks...
This 3 part documentary featured the so-called privileged girls acting like White messiahs visiting a previously unknown primitive village in an Amazonian forest.

There are a few interesting things in the programme, fascinating Peckham individuals, but the so-called posh girls acted in the most depressing manners like people falling from another planet to find strange creatures in Peckham.

My beef about some girls falling from the countryside to posh up to some Peckham girls in a civilised man discovers a previously uncontacted primitive people in a jungle manner is that it is plainly fake.

If you are so posh that you are unfamiliar with rap music or Jamaican dance hall and most of what you would see in Peckham urban life, you may have excommunicated your self from the society.
Even members of the royal family, the poshest of the posh would not be as fake and what the hell is that towards Pekham as these frustrated, self obsessed so-called posh girls.
It is a shame that the BBC uses licence payers' money to sponsor pointless programmes like this.

BBC News - Diane Abbott enters Labour leadership contest

2010-05-20T04:31:00.000-07:00

The BBC reports that Diane Abbott has joined the Leadership Race. Good luck to her.Lets see how far the media supports her bid!
She is certainly one the most (if not the only ) useful Black MP in Britain as she makes some efforts to address issues that affect her ethnic community. Even though, I am a Nigerian, I will rate her high as a Black leader!
However, the English media opinion leaders as the de facto rulers of Britain would determine who becomes the next Labour Leader.
In a genuinely free democracy, Ms Abbott should be among the top runners, but this is Britain were anyone could be promoted to any height any minute!
May be, if she was younger Black woman or man, the section of the media rooting for a British Obama would have gone for her! May be, if she was younger, White and attractive, she would have been an instant hit!!
I will not be surprised if David Lammy jumps in soon as I suspect he is definitely involved in the primitive scramble to be British Obama or London Obama.

BBC News - Diane Abbott enters Labour leadership contest

Labour Party is Desperate!

2010-05-07T02:28:00.000-07:00

Seeing Harriet Harman argue that the Labour Party and the Lib Dem should be allowed to form an alliance despite still falling short of the over all majority was excruciating!

I have never imagined that people could be this desperate for power in the first world!
She is unable to answer clear questions - just rambling about stability. What stability in rejected parties being allowed to lead over the winning party?
What a twisted mind!

I Voted the Conservatives and Will Do it Again!

2010-05-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

Of course, I know that Black people in Britain generally believe they should vote the Labour, but I chose to vote for Change!

My beef with the Labour Party is simply that they are full of hypocrites and not good for Britain.

The notion that the Conservative Party is racist and anti-immigrants was not persuasive enough to sway me because I do not find any real difference between the main parties as they are all made up of mainly privileged few!

However, I wanted to change from a hopeless bunch of hypocrites to the Conservatives because I am hoping for a better crop of leaders!!

I also believe that a Conservative government would try to win people for future mandates.

It is also not sensible for Black people to cluster themselves in the Labour Party...

I voted for Hope over Fear and wish David Cameron a no hung parliament!

I want to see David Cameron as the new PM tomorrow!

Nick Clegg Campaigning to Labour Supporters

2010-04-30T02:07:00.000-07:00

Nick Clegg is addressing a large number of Students at Leicester University.
The Nick Clegg feted by the media and praised as the New Obama rarely gets any applause in his speech. In fact the students are plainly laughing at him with some boldly displaying banners reading Vote Labour right before him. You would think he is for the Labour Party as the Vote Labour banners were the main Party banners visible. Only one banner reading I agree with Nick.
Why is the BBC not telling the world that Nick is been jeered at here?

BBC News - Foreign Office apologises for Pope 'condom' memo

2010-04-25T00:22:00.000-07:00

BBC News - Foreign Office apologises for Pope 'condom' memo

Here Comes the Biggest band of Idiots of Britain!

2010-04-11T15:41:00.001-07:00

I have just read that some idiots who call themselves Atheists plan to arrest His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI when he visits the UK and that their solicitor has advised them that they would be able to do so because in their small world, His Holiness is not a Head of State.
I have always known that there are professional attention seekers in Britain, but I have never imagined this kind of foolery among people who are supposed to be educated!
Even if it is correct (which is clearly not so) that the Pope is not a Head of State, no idiot would ever think it is possible to attempt to arrest him in Britain let alone any other country of this world for whatever reason, without grave consequences!!
This must be one of the most stupid dreams ever dreamt. The so-called Solicitor, who claims that the Pope is not a head of state, surely is incompetent because a few seconds research would have informed him that the Pope is the Head of State of The Vatican City as well as the head of the Holy Sea.

Any individual or group whether or not backed up by some fame-seeking solicitors, thinking about arresting the Pope must be suffering from a very bad malaria!!

Where is the Evidence that Nigerians have had Enough?

2010-04-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

I have consistently criticised Nigeria’s so-called civil society groups for ineffectiveness and have similarly faulted the “Enough is Enough” campaign which is being praised in most Nigerian internet forums as a dawn of a new era. Hence, this morning when I found the website of the Enough is Enough, I immediately left the following comment to further express my views:

I support and praise anyone devoting his or her time to demonstrate against the failure of Nigeria. I generally like the concept of Enough is Enough, but my deep concern is that a demonstration organised by a coalition of more than 10 organisations could not produce more than a small bunch of men and women hanging around and posing for the cameras.
I am very sorry, that I have not seen any evidence that "Enough is indeed Enough" among supposedly enlightened Nigerians.
What I see is an attempt to apply a kind of Abacha/YEAA era style insincere rallying and demonstrations towards a good cause!
Of course, we all desperately need to see Nigerians wake up from our slumber and ask the right questions about our affairs, but we must be brutally honest about addressing the diseases of our unfortunate country. Seeing and celebrating progress where there is none is delusional and because a crowd of less than 2,000 cannot represent any indication that Nigerians are tired of their hopeless system.
My advice for this group is to apply a little bit of sincerity and dedication to their chosen project which is a noble one. Before seeking media and internet attention, go to the Universities, secondary schools, markets and churches to mobilise Nigerians through good arguments.
The first and most important impact you can make is waking up Nigerians. Once, you wake up Nigerians to understand the need to have a successful Nigeria, things will naturally work out as we want it for the most serious disease of Nigeria is the ignorance of the masses especially the educated ones.

After posting my comment, I was tempted to take a closer look at the website where I saw the video of the much talked about Enough is Enough demonstration in Abuja.

I must say that I was moved by the video of the Abuja demonstration, but my concerns were not allayed by it. Yes, I saw really “daring” (by Nigerian standard) young men and women; I saw a well organised and well controlled demonstration, but I did not see anything worthy to be called a historic march by any standard.

Of course, I would be rightly criticised by those who see a march of just about a thousand or even less Nigerians (mainly middle-aged men and women addressing themselves as youths) as a serious mass action by “Nigerian youths”, as being an armchair critic. Of course, I know that some hungry and ignorant Nigerians abroad who brand themselves “Diaspora” (a title that is now claimed by virtually any Nigerian that ventures to visit any European country even for a few months) have unreasonably segregated Nigerians abroad to the point that Nigerians at home, both genuine and dubious ones ( like most of our leaders) are often quick to greet any criticism from a Nigerian abroad with something like “why don’t you come home and do it?”. Of course, I also ought to be restrained in my criticisms bearing in mind my people’s saying about a hypothetical crippled man who said “I know what to say but I will not say it because I if I do, I would be challenged to get up and walk”, but I believe we are in an emergency and should put our collective survival ahead of personal survival.

Carefully, studying the videos and the media campaigns of the Enough is Enough group, I saw more issues of concern than issues of hope. I repeat my concern that a campaign organised by a coalition of well over 10 organisations could not organise a meaningful march in Abuja, the political capital of Nigeria. This may not have been noticed as a serious sign of failure of Nigeria to most watchers, but from my field experience and deep understanding of the Nigerian society, I think it is a sign that the campaign may be insincere or simply led by ignorant and desperate to be famous individuals who were not dedicated enough to mobilise for participants.

But then, what is wrong with an insincere campaign if it achieves something good – for example fundamental changes in the way things are done in Nigeria? Of course, we would all welcome any change for the better in Nigeria. I will personally support the Enough is Enough campaign in any way I can, if I see it as capable of making any real impact.

However, the fact is that the Enough is Enough campaign has not made any worthy impact to deserve the praises it has so far won from Nigerian media. A supposedly national march that is not comparable in size with an average village demonstration in the smallest countries of Europe and Asia cannot possibly be regarded as a success in a country of about 150 million people. The success of a demonstration is measured according to the level of attendance and not the level of media campaign/ empty praises.

I maintain my advice to the organisers of this worthy cause to focus on the grassroots first before media campaigns in the big cities. A genuine campaign should not start with fighting for media spotlight as this group seems to be scrambling for, but should first descend on our schools and colleges as well as churches, mosques and markets to convert ordinary Nigerians to their noble cause. I am sure that any serious attempt at mobilising people in Abuja would have resulted in a massive turn out as there are always millions of unemployed graduates loitering around Abuja.

The main disease of Nigeria is ignorance and it is not necessarily the ignorance of the uneducated that is the issue, but ignorance of the educated. Hence, focusing on Nigerian secondary schools and Universities at least, to campaign for the necessary awareness would be a good starting point.

I wish to add that the groups focus and strategy would need to be refined once the requisite mobilisation has been done. Demonstrations are not only organised by marching to the National Assembly. At least about 50,000 unemployed Nigerian graduates, descending on Abuja Eagle Square and refusing to go until one or more demands are met, would draw the attention of the whole world to Nigeria. A coalition of well over 10 organisations genuinely pursuing change should be able to attract more than a million unemployed Nigerians around Abuja or Lagos to a peaceful rally!

For the avoidance of any doubt, I did organise a one-man campaign against Exam malpractices in Abuja schools in 1999/2000, during my National Youth Service and I definitely got more crowd in the various schools I visited than this so-called National campaign. I also organised an essay competition and debate for schools on the same subject and got more attendance from across the FCT than this rally. I got no media attention, but the attention of a large number of real people who understood the issues I campaigned against.

I sincerely plead that my criticisms be taken not as an attempt to discredit the organisers of this noble cause. I have only voiced my concern that some individuals might be using the Enough is Enough to fight for self recognition, but I do not say that it is a crime to do so. What I say is simply that the organisers are free to float this campaign even for selfish aims, but that they could still be real heroes if they genuinely work hard enough to enable their achievements overshadow their underlying selfish interests.

We should have had enough of proliferation of fake and self-seeking NGOs begging for local and international recognitions; enough of insincerity, complacency and ignorance among educated Nigerians and enough of get rich quick syndrome whether as public servants or as “have nots” desperately seeking to get own chance to steal.

Incompetent and wicked people will continue to reign in Nigeria despite being in the minority, as long as the good people (the overwhelming majority of Nigerians) remain unable to organise themselves properly!

John Iteshi

London, 02 April 2010

White Supremacy Gone Mad!

2009-12-29T14:57:00.000-08:00

The award for the most idiotic behaviour of the year must be shared by Prime Minister Gordon Brown, his childish Foreign Secretary/Foreign Office Minister and the cream of the British media who believed that the best way to appeal for clemency for Briton Akma Shaikh who was unfortunately executed by the Chinese authorities today, was by criticising the Chinese legal system and even seeking to impose British laws in China!
I find it appalling that the leadership of Great Britain and our supposedly intelligent journalists thought they were doing Mr Shaikh any favours by openly criticising Chinese laws and human right records.
The British media and our supposedly competent leaders have always given British citizens the false impression that British laws and culture apply to them even in foreign lands. The fact remains that being a Briton may grant you some reprieve if you commit an offence in Laos or Lagos or Accra, but not in any part of China simply because Chinese people unlike Africans for instance do not recognise Britain or the west as superior to them!
It does not require one to be a foreign affairs expert to figure out that open criticism of the Chinese legal system and death penalty was not going to yield any positive results.
This very sad incident must teach prospective British foreign offenders a hard lesson that British human right laws will not apply on them when they commit offences in foreign lands especially those places not mentally colonised by Britain or Europeans.
This is also a strong message to Britain and other westerners that China is not to be toyed with!!
British media and our laughable foreign affairs leaders must also learn to stop meddling or teaching others how to run their countries.
It is deeply worrying how our media and politicians cause deaths in Iran,Tibet and others among misguided opposition members who lose their lives in order to entertain western media and their governments on democracy and human rights actions.
For the avoidance of doubt, I do not support death penalty. I also do not support oppressive regimes, but I do know that if western media and their leaders stop meddling openly into the internal affairs of Iran, Tibet/China, Myanmar etc, there would be less loss of lives and probably more likelihood of human right and democracy progress in those countries. In any case, meddling only increases security suspicions amongst the ruling class which in turn would lead to violence towards opposition members. Meddling also causes irritation which is often responded to with harsher punishments to spite the toothless western bulldogs.
It is a matter of wisdom to know that a country like china cannot be intimidated by any country in the world today and that criticising their laws or even trying no matter how politely to teach them how to govern themselves would never be welcomed.
Britain did more harm than good for Mr Akma Shaikh
May his soul rest in peace!!!

BBC News - White House gatecrashers met President Barack Obama

2009-11-28T04:06:00.000-08:00

BBC News - White House gatecrashers met President Barack Obama

What a Questionable Question Time

2009-10-22T15:37:00.000-07:00

Of course, I tuned in to BBC for today’s Question Time mainly because of the controversial inclusion of the Leader of the British National Party(BNP), Nick Griffin.
I had expected a normal Question Time made up of a balanced panel and audience, but what I saw was a carefully selected panel meant to show that the Whole of Britain is anti- BNP. Hypocrisy Britannia!
This is the fakest and most hopeless Question Time I have ever watched!
It was a childish show of White hypocrites and ethnic minorities idiots!
This Question Time is about British hypocrisy on show!!
The BNP does not control any means of production in the UK and has no prospect at all of getting into government. Even if their views and policies become popular, the quality of the individuals involved mean that it will not win power in the next foreseeable future.
If racists or fascists would rule Britain in the future, it will not be the BNP, but would be refined gentlemen in the mainstream parties.
Demonising the BNP as every White hypocrite and cowardly ethnic minority tries to do at every given opportunity will not stop a serious race relations crisis in Britain in the not very distant future.
Making the Question Time all about BNP and Nick Griffin does will not end racism.
The fact is that Racism has almost died in Britain, but Race Discrimination remains entrenched, albeit disguised by official hypocrisy.
What matters is equal opportunities for all in employment and in all aspects of life including politics. This essential ingredient of a free and democratic Britain does not exist in real terms and the BNP is not to blame, but the hypocrites in the Labour and other mainstream parties.
The BNP does not control the Bar Council which actively discriminates and frustrates Black Africans and other ethnic minorities from becoming Barristers. The BNP does not control the Ministry of Justice which practices nepotism and race discrimination in employment. This rubbish show will not stop race discrimination.
Racism is no longer the issue, because it is now often hidden and in any case cannot be eradicated. What should be in issue is race discrimination!
What I support remains an open and frank discussion about race and all issues that concern ordinary natural British people.
We cannot continue to deceive ourselves that all is well with race relations in Britain.
Hypocrisy would probably do more harm to Britain than the BNP!
The show did show how hopelessly low calibre and probably low intelligence Mr Nick Griffin and the leadership of the BNP are, but carefully selecting some White hypocrites and cowardly ethnic minorities to fill up a Question Time Hall and should like children will do nothing to make Britain a racially harmonious society.
Making the weekly Question Time a BNP moaning Time has not changed the endemic race discrimination and nepotism culture in British public sector!

Sorry Chimamanda, We Need The Single Story Of Our Failures!

2009-10-09T15:59:00.001-07:00

I have painstakingly watched the beautifully delivered speech by Ms Chimamanda Adichie on “the Dangers of a Single Story”. The main point of her speech is that Europeans have mainly propagated a single story of Africa which is always about our poverty, wars and in short, all about negative things. She basically wants the rest of the world to also acknowledge good things about Africa, especially the fact that not everybody in Africa is starving.
I greatly admire Ms Adichie’s beauty and achievement, but I do not agree with her views in this speech! I find it hard to agree that just for the "feel good desires" of a very few fortunate Africans like her that the world should not be constantly reminded of our inexcusable failures!
I think from the speech that Ms Adichie unfortunately belongs to the group of Nigerians and Black Africans who like to feel good always despite the fact that the realities suggest that we should not!
I believe that supposedly enlightened Black Africans who moan too much about too many negative stories about Africa are doing us no good because we really need more negative news about us to force us all to face our failures and possibly act to change our situations.
I believe there is not even enough negative news about Black Africa and Nigeria in particular and that we need more and more negative news that highlight every senseless deaths in Nigeria, every act of shamelessness, every Aondoaka scandal, every incident of police brutality, human rights abuses and man inhumanity against man in Nigeria, leaving the so-called middleclass or upper-class Nigerians with no place to hide from the shame of being Nigerians.
I believe in telling the truth about Nigeria and the Black race rather than in trying to re-write history like Ms Adichie probably advocates.
I know it is particularly difficult for successful Nigerian individuals and in particular “fortunate” children of both genuinely and dubiously affluent Nigerians in the Europe and America to bear negative news about Nigeria and Africa, but the truth still remains that Black Africa is the most backward continent. We are so backward that the best parts of the best cities in Nigeria do not enjoy a quality and standard of life comparable to the poorest neighbourhood in Western Europe. We all know that some Black individuals who see themselves as very successful want to feel good about themselves by telling good stories about Black Africa, but the truth is that Black Africa (not individuals) is an absolute failure and our failure cannot be remedied by falsehood.
I have met a number of European individuals who apparently had Nigerian friends of affluent backgrounds and thus were given the impression that the average Nigerian lives in the kind of houses you find in posh areas of Victoria Island and Maitama Abuja. I remember telling an English girl in early 2007 that her Nigerian friend might be a daughter of a big thief. I told her the truth that 99% of those that live in the kind of big house she described to me were more likely to be thieves than hard working people. I specifically informed her that there are only two groups of Nigerians who would paint good pictures of life in Nigeria to the outside world – the rogues and the idiots!
My determination in presenting the true picture of Nigeria is not out of hatred for my country, but purely out of passion for genuine development. I passionately want my country to become the economic and technological giant it should be for the upliftment of the physical and mental wellbeing of the Black race!
I do not fail to appreciate that Nigerian individuals are very highly talented and intelligent individuals, but I will never ever suggest that any progress is being made in Nigeria in terms of development. I will never like Ms Adichie say that what they call Nollywood, an epitome of modern Nigerian imperfection, low standard and laziness is a great success simply because Black Africa’s illiterate and semi-illiterate populations patronise their poorly cooked films. I refuse to see anything impressive about Nollywood not because I do not like to appreciate and support a Nigerian industry, but because I desire a Nollywood or any wood from Nigeria that aspires to equate with Hollywood in all respect! I passionately want the best and not half measure out of Nigerian art. Glorifying incompetence and mediocrity simply because you have to support your own or because you want to feel good is to me most ignorant and or insincere!
I believe enlightened Nigerians and Black individuals should be taking the lead in telling more and more negative stories about us to the world because the world really needs to know the full details of our failures in order to understand us better! I believe the world needs to know that Nigeria has no healthy hospital that can be compared with the poorest hospital in Western Europe. I believe the world should know that the worst prison in England is far more habitable than the best university halls of residence in Nigeria. I believe the world should know that Nigerian railway remains at the level Britain left it in 1960. I believe the world needs to know that our failure is such that if we should experience any major natural disaster that our people would die like animals because there are no hospitals and no emergency services and nothing works well in Nigeria.
We cannot continue to hide our failures because we are facing a real danger of another slavery and colonialism!
If you are a Black person and you call yourself enlightened, but are unaware that Black people (Ne gros) are the only major racial group that has failed to prove itself, I doubt your enlightenment!
If you are an educated Black person and you are unaware and or unconcerned about the fact that there is no successful and or organised society of Black people like us anywhere on this planet and none in the pipeline, you probably lack proper education!
Escapism by educated or supposedly enlightened Nigerians and Africans will not bring about the change we desire to take us out of our shameful situation.
We must learn how to wash our dirty linens in public especially when everyone is aware that all our linens are dirty anyway.
Perhaps, one of the greatest lessons we can learn from the White world is the culture of open self criticism or if you like, washing of their dirty linens in public. Perhaps, slavery could have lasted longer than it did if European societies had not permitted internal criticism and enlightened White individuals had not spoken out forcefully against the evils of slave trade. That to me was an example of how the White race washed their dirty linens in public by globally condemning their own, instead of pretending that all was well.
Today, we still delight in western activists exposing every negative they can possibly gather about their countries in a bid to ensure transparency and further development.
We have seen that western governments are constantly striving to be clean because people are not afraid to expose the most negative stories about their countries.
Nigerians and Black Africans in Europe and America bear natural responsibilities for taking the good life we enjoy in our respective locations to Nigeria. The way to do this is not going to show off and or oppress people at home but by advocating for genuine development and we can only achieve genuine development if we stop shying away from our failures. Crying out against too many negative stories about Nigeria and Africa is a great disservice to the ever suffering people of Sudan, Nigeria, Haiti and the entire Black race!
It is an insult to the great majority of Black Africans languishing in poverty, diseases and human rights abuses to propagate good stories out of Nigeria and Black Africa. We must focus more and more on the negative stories as it is probably the only way we can survive!!

John Iteshi
London October 2009

Gani The Great!

2009-09-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

The most prominent, most consistent and most persistent advocate of equity, justice and good governance in Nigeria has departed to rest with his creator!
If the voice of the people is truly the voice of God, he is surely Saint Gani.
Chief Gani Fawehinmi was probably the only Nigerian that commanded respect from most Nigerians irrespective of ethnic origins, political or religious leanings. He was respected not because of his money or political power, but because of his integrity.

As a Christian from the East, I saw him as one great example of the many Nigerian Moslems that appear to me tp live more Christ like than our Christian Bishops.
When I realised a few years ago that Gani was actually a Moslem, the sermon of one of our Reverend Fathers at University of Nigeria Catholic Chaplaincy, in or around 1997, that only God could decide those to make his heaven ( admonishing us against judging those of other religions), began to make real sense to me. This point is crucial to me because I believe Nigerian Christian leaders have a lot to learn from Nigerian Moslems like Gani, Buhari and Idiagbon.

May His clean and gentle soul rest in perfect peace!

I feel most sad that despite his matchless efforts, nothing good is forthcoming in Nigeria. His immediate constituency, the legal profession and the judicial system remain the main fountains of corruption and official wickedness in Nigeria.
The best way to honour him, in my view is for all those that claim to be progressives, civil society etc, including the writer to re-strategise and consider leaving Ya' Adua and other supposedly elected officials, but focus on our corrupt judiciary, corrupt legal profession and corrupt journalism.
I am talking about a commonsense strategy of fighting focused and winnable battles! It easier for lawyers like Femi Falana to make the Nigerian Bar Association a more useful body that can help shape up Nigeria, than to get any Nigerian President or governor loose a sleep over what is written on Sahara reporters.
It is far easier to expose and shame corrupt judges and corrupt journalist than for all the civil societies and so-called progressives to successfully bring down one corrupt federal government appointee!
Nigerian civil right or democracy activists or whatever they call themselves have failed and Gani’s very sad departure must be used as clarion call for self review and redirection!

The Reason Obama is Visiting Ghana is Tourism For Wife and Children

2009-07-10T15:16:00.001-07:00

For President Obama so love the Black race that he has chosen to stop over in Ghana on a Saturday after his second European official tour!
Is this still the Black president the world clamoured for?
Has President Obama duped the Black race by using his Blackness to win the presidency?
I know some sentiment blinded Black commentators would quickly challenge any questioning of Obama's Black and or African honesty with such excuses like "he was not elected for Africa or for Black people".
Yea! We all know he was elected for America, but we also know that his Blackness/Africanness made him President and as such he is a historic opportunity for the Black race to take control of our destiny! We equally know that beside the fact that America is the chief of the world that Black African people and governments, perhaps, out of our "inferiority" have always depended on the white world and America in particular for approvals and directions.
We of course know that President George Bush, President Clinton and most previous White Presidents all professed special interests in saving our backward lands and people of Black Africa.
If White Presidents of America showed so much care about us, what excuse can anyone possibly proffer to explain why President Obama, the so-called first Black president of the most powerful country and the De facto President of the world, must not bear the highest responsibility as a Black man for the development of Black Africa and the Black race? We must not accept the stereotype that once a Black man takes charge like becomes harder for Black people!

I repeatedly told my friends that the main reason President Obama is visiting Ghana is because of Slave Trade sites which his wife and children would like to tour and nothing to do with any thing really official!
It was really not hard to think out this fact because I know that some African Americans and Caribbeans flood Ghana because of its developed slave trade tourist attraction. Now, I have read a brief of his itinerary and it says exactly the same thing.
Obama's spin doctors as an afterthought are now pretending that he chose Ghana because of good governance. We all know that Ghana has no better democratic credentials than any of Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi and Botswana.
I fear that our Black president would become yet another fake Black victory!!
I cannot have anything personal against President Obama. I am only deeply concerned about the Black race and I wholeheartedly pray that enlightened prominent Black men and women who have access to President Obama could let him know that it will be a curse on the Black race, if after his presidency, there is no sign of a Singapore or Malaysia emerging out of Black Africa!

What Black Africa needs is not part of the US budget as some genuinely concerned but misguided White celebrities and others always think. Money is actually more of our curse than a solution to our problem.
What we need from President Obama is leadership. If Prime Minister Tony Blair, a White man was thoughtful enough to set up an African Commission which expectedly failed to achieve any thing because outsiders could not see much of the problems, President Obama, a Black man surely has no excuse not to set up a think thank or any forum to lead discussions for the development of Black Africa and the Black race.
There is no way history will forgive President Obama if he fails to pay the highest dues as a Black man towards the devlopment of African Americans and the Black race. It will not cost one American cent for a visionary President Obama to leave a legacy that would see the emergence of successful societies out of Black Africa.It will only require his genuine interest and right people around him. It is even a project he could delegate to his wife.
President Obama needs to understand that the Black race is at a real risk of being enslaved again in no distant future. Obama need to understand that the future of the Black race lies in a successful Black Africa!

Why Must Nigerians Abroad Vote?

2009-05-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

This is a response to an email from a group of fellow Nigerians celebrating a recent Nigerian Guardian news publication, “National Assembly Raises Hope of Voting by Nigerians Abroad”, on 18 April 2009.

Dear All,

I feel quite disappointed that supposedly better enlightened and informed Nigerians abroad see the issue of making provisions for Nigerians abroad to vote as a key issue they should be clamouring for or celebrating about our Nigeria.

In my view the questions we ought to first ask ourselves are:

1. How crucial to the development of genuine democracy in Nigeria, is it that provisions must be made for Nigerians abroad to vote?

2. Knowing, that one of the cardinal problems with our democracy is that genuine elections hardly ever hold especially since recent times (since 1998 in particular), why should the interest of a tiny minority of Nigerians abroad supersede the interest of the overwhelming majority of our suffering compatriots at home. To put it more succinctly, why must Nigerians abroad vote when Nigerians in Nigeria have never really been given free and inalienable right to vote in elections?

3. How much of a priority is it to the general development of Nigeria that provisions for Nigerians abroad to vote must be made soon?

4. What is the wisdom of creating for our largely dubious and wasteful “public servants” another avenue for diverting and wasting our resources in the name of voting for Nigerians abroad?

5. What have Nigerians abroad contributed to the enthronement of democracy and good governance in Nigeria?

My fellow Nigerians in civilised societies of Europe and America, we bear a natural responsibility, to help save Nigeria and the Black race from inferiority and backwardness. Having escaped real poverty and deprivation of fundamental freedoms in Nigeria, we are in the best position to fight for the rights of ordinary Nigerians at the highest levels in the world. By virtue of our very significant presence and influence as immigrants in Europe and America, we have the opportunity to influence positive changes in Nigeria by influencing some local and foreign policies of governments of our host countries.

It is our greatest failure that we have not done any significant thing towards genuine development in Nigeria. We have not shown any proper or adequate concern for suffering Nigerians beyond sending monies to our relatives to celebrate their betterments. Rather than engage ourselves with honest efforts towards helping to develop our motherland, we have generally channelled our energies towards cosmetic projects such as voting for Nigerians abroad and idiotic programmes like “Miss Nigeria UK” which I painfully watched NIDOE discuss on or around 15 July 2006 or worst of all, going to queue along with sycophants for the attention of elected officials in Nigeria.

We must begin to do our part by first of all properly organising ourselves and genuinely giving ourselves the opportunity to understand the problems underpinning Nigeria’s development. It is a big shame that there has never been any genuine effort by enlightened and distinguished Nigerians either in Europe or in America, to sit down and deliberate on what we can do about our motherland. One does not intend to ignore the significant efforts of hundreds of pockets of organisations springing up everyday among Nigerians abroad including the great jobs organisations like Sahara Reporters are doing, but the fact remains that without solid umbrella organisations or forums of Nigerian elders and leaders of thought in Europe and America no significant impact will ever be made on the ground in Nigeria.

I do not advocate that Nigerians abroad should be militant or should be at war with Nigerian leadership, but simply that Nigerians abroad are capable of influencing the policies of our “White masters” in the EU and US on Nigeria and Black Africa as well as influencing real changes in Nigeria.

We can influence western policies on foreign aid, trade, legitimacy of African government etc by organising ourselves under reputable bodies and forums that study situations on the grounds in Black Africa as affected people and advocate our own people oriented ideas. Enlightened Black Africans (led by Nigerians) abroad can do much better than the likes of Bob Geldoff or some sentimental White journalists in representing Black Africa’s interest before western governments and global bodies.

We can also influence policies in our host countries that can directly check the culture of embezzlement of public funds by our state and federal government officials by influencing the enactment of certain laws where necessary to punish and repatriate our stolen funds without fear or favour. This is probably the easiest work that Nigerians abroad can do with little resources and efforts other than just sincerity.

We can directly influence real developments in Nigeria and by extension the entire Black Africa and even the Carribbean, by being genuinely committed to taking our wonderful Great Britain, Ireland, US, Canada etc to Nigeria. It is probably evil on our part that in our respective locations in Europe and America, we enjoy fundamental freedoms and at the slighted provocation seek redress in courts and tribunals with little or no mago mago or obstruction to justice, but have never made any significant effort at ensuring that such good things of life reach our people back home.

I know that some of us do believe that it must take us hundreds of years to become like our civilised host countries, but I do believe that we owe our compatriots at home the natural duty of care to make our own contributions towards alleviating their sufferings. Alleviating the sufferings of our people at how cannot be achieved by sending some textbooks and even hospital equipments to some privileged schools and hospitals as some of us do, but by helping to impact fundamental changes in the way our people perceive and run modern governments and leadership.

Since we are overtly more excited about voting in elections, one immediate job for enlightened Nigerians whether home or abroad before ever contemplating about making provisions for Nigerian abroad to vote is to device and advocate for the best ways to conduct free and civilised elections in Nigeria where there would be no need to employ gunmen or some dubious security men to annihilate oppositions.

I have since 2001, out of field experience of elections in Nigeria been proposing for audio-visual voting method (see for e.g. http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/john-iteshi/audio-visual-voting-method.html ) as a foolproof and inexpensive solution to election violence and malpractices, but unsurprisingly, being an undistinguished individual, that idea has never been considered by more than just a few enlightened individuals.

Genuine and or well organised Nigerian forums in Europe and America are therefore invited to deliberate on my idea or better ideas toward campaigning both internationally and locally for the best election methods that will usher in genuine democracy and development in Nigeria and Black Africa.

Until we have paid our dues by genuinely doing something for the development of our country and not just for our personal development, our Nigeria and Black Africa will remain backward and exploitable by people of other racial groups. The journey towards building successful societies (not individuals) out of Black Africa and Black Carribbean must start with enlightened Black individuals especially those with all the opportunities to influence the views of the masters of the world at the highest level. Nigerians abroad must start working responsibly towards taking genuine development to Nigeria not by going to lobby for some ludicrous projects called “Diaspora Village, but by genuinely contributing ideas and projects aimed at building a civilised society out of Nigeria.

Count me in for any project aimed at genuine development in Nigeria including discussions on how we can expose Nigerians who have stolen public funds to acquire properties in Europe and America and their collaborators. Count me out in programmes and projects geared towards self aggrandizements on the back of our suffering compatriots in Nigeria. Count me out of ridiculous and primitive ideas like Miss Nigeria UK or Diaspora Village!!

Yours,

John Iteshi

Will President Obama Save the Black Race?

2008-10-29T15:20:00.000-07:00

Perhaps, Barrack Obama is the greatest thing that has happened to the Black race since the independence era. The joy and unity Obama has brought among Black people irrespective of their colonial backgrounds can only be compared to the kind of unity of purpose and belief in shared destiny said to have existed in the Black world during the 1950s through to 1970s before the White colonizers driven from most of our lands regrouped and conquered our brains. The hope for President Obama has ecstatically gripped not only African Americans, in the Black world, but apparently all people of Black African ancestry all over the world. President Obama commands the kind of acceptance and adulation no other Black person has ever attracted in modern history.

President Obama appears to be Gods timely answer to our prayers for unity and leadership. It appears the prophecy of the great Bob Marley and the aspirations of our great leaders like Kwame Nkrumah are finally coming to pass. Knowing that lack of unity of purpose and lack of leadership have blighted the Black race, having a person generally respected and accepted as our leader by all Black people may signal the beginning of our salvation from backwardness. President Obama appears to have provided the much needed unity and leadership needed to propel the Black race towards development and the improvement of the lives of our people.

Of course, President Obama is not coming to be the President of the Black race more than the President of the United States of America, but it is a matter of fact that President Obama will equally be the president of all the presidents of the Black race. He is being elected to lead America first and foremost, but the primary purpose of the White liberals who groomed and marketed the “project Black president” to the world has always been to give African Americans and the Black race this extraordinary opportunity. The making of President Obama by White liberals has always been more about making history by installing a Black president than any other interest. To the cream of White liberals, the issue of President Obama’s policies for America has always been far less important than the interest in ensuring the emergence of a Black president.

The almighty western media shares the dream for a Black president and all over the white world; racism has almost disappeared for the sake of President Obama. Far beyond America, from London to Berlin, Rome and all over the White world all you are allowed to say aloud is support for President Obama, if you are not and do not wish to be branded a racist. Call it bullying or hypocrisy if you like, but it is official! A BBC weekend programme, Reporters last Saturday night featured a White reporter touring the American State of Virginia to interview people about the election. He went to a café and asked a White lady, who she would vote for and when she replied McCain he asked her whether she was not voting Obama because he is Black. Meanwhile, he did not ask the Black woman he later interviewed whether she was voting Obama because he is black.

BBC news and documentary coverage of the US election appear more like campaigns for Obama than information to the public. There is little doubt that the cream of British media and the society have officially adopted Barrack Obama.

Prime Minster Gordon Brown and his ministers have voiced aloud their support for President Obama. Across Europe, we hear that Germany and possibly some other European countries are declaring that they are either Obamaland or Obama-friendly. There is no doubt that a powerful group of White men supported firmly by the cream of the western media are committed to hand African Americans and the Black race our greatest opportunity ever, to change our world. It appears the Black world has no choice but to embrace Barrack Obama.

However, the intolerant and crude manner with which the cream of the American and British media are manipulating African Americans and bullying White Americans to vote Obama, besides being very annoying, appear to undermine the quality and potency of President Obama. It is deeply worrying to think that President Obama may be yet another fake or half or useless victory for the Black race. It is very sad that Obama is actually not a Black victory, but a victory for some self righteous White men who made him. President Obama has been made with little or no Black contribution except as followers.

One would not advocate a segregated America where Blacks isolate themselves and do their own thing, but it worries one deeply that African Americans and indeed the whole Black race have remained so disunited and conquerable, that the White media can drive, push and shovel us as they please. We have been proven so weak and vulnerable by the way and manner some self-righteous white men and their media now determine what is good for the Black race, when and how they get it.

Today only leaders of Black Africa endorsed by white men in New York and London become good leaders no matter how corrupt and ho horribly they treat their people. We have become much weaker and useless as a people that our independences now seem like massive mistakes. Hence, the grooming and global marketing of brand Obama actually demonstrate more of our weakness and failure as a people than our resurgence. It has and will always continue to undermine our existence and survival as a people to allow ourselves to remain swayable as we are today.

It is gladdening to see an unprecedented level of unity of purpose and commitment among African Americans today for President Obama, but one cannot suppress the urge to wonder where this highly motivated and united African America had been that we never heard of it since the time of Martin Luther King Junior. If African Americans can be so well mobilised to the extent that we saw in a recent BBC panorama, even children as young as under 10 year olds begging money on the roadside (an act the western media of the old would have termed child abuse) to support the emergence of a Black president. We now seem to have an African America that is almost 90 per cent united for one good cause, but it is baffling why African Americans have never since the 1960s civil rights movement, mobilised themselves in a similar way towards greater participation and embracing of the great American ideals. The shameful fact that Obama is currently the only Black senator out of 100 elected Senators despite Blacks constituting about 13% of the population further highlights the seriousness of the failure of Black people in America and that having a Black president should not have been the priority of African Americans. Integrating themselves properly and taking full part in the socio-political development of America as natural Americans should have been the main priority of African Americans. Starting the renaissance of African America with President Obama appears like building from the top!

Of course, President Obama could still fulfil our dream of building a better integrated and successful African America and Black Africa and the Carribbean, despite the way and manner of his emergence. Of course, if he possesses the right vision, he could still be the messiah we are waiting for irrespective of how or who made him what he is. There are many signs, that Barrack Obama is a really nice bloke. His continued link with his people in Black Africa is particularly commendable, but there are signs that suggest that President Obama could be another wasted opportunity for the Black race.
The fact that nobody has really heard him express serious concern about the situation of Black Africa is deeply worrying. All that can be inferred is that he shares the White liberal view that African America and Black Africa should not take responsibilities for their inexcusable failures, but must continue complaining about slavery and colonialism.

Even if President Obama has the best intentions for African Americans and the Black race the lack of any consensus and or any ideological framework for our development would mean that his best intentions would not yield any progress on the ground. We must not fail to realise that the Black race has already enjoyed great opportunities although not as great as what we are about to, courtesy of President George W. Bush whom some dubious journalists have so wickedly demonised as racist. The rare opportunity of having Colin Powel and Condoleezza Rice in the most high profile political positions ever to be occupied by any Black person along with Koffi Annan as Secretary General of the UN provided the Black race the chance to chart a new course, but we blew it. The principal reason why we wasted the opportunity of using Powel/Condi and Koffi Annan to organise the Black race must be the lack of structures (in terms of organised people, forums and or ideological frameworks) on the ground and not lack of good intentions on the part of those leaders. Those who follow the zombie view that great Black leaders like Condoleezza Rice do not care about Black people fail to understand that having our own up there without an organised people on the ground would result in a wasted opportunity. No where in this world do people build from the top!

Modern governments are based on well reasoned policies. Positive impacts are made though sound policies. A President Obama will only help African Americans and the Black race through policies and programmes and not through waving of some magic wands. The only way president Obama can save African Americans and the Black race from inferiority and backwardness would be through well thought out policies. The fact that we do not have any consensus and any Black led ideological framework for our development may mean President Obama’s African policy would be more financial aid and more IMF loans in line with contemporary white liberal beliefs.

Enlightened Black leaders across the world must get organised now to ensure that President Obama delivers the good leadership he is expected to deliver. He will not succeed in changing the status of the Black race without some useful structures on the ground. Hence enlightened Black individuals must start organising themselves now, not for selfish gains, but for the harnessing, debating and building of ideas and understanding for the development of the Black race. The most likely consequence of Black people not organising themselves now is that Rock Star policies like Band Aid and make Poverty History will define Obama’s African policy.

We must understand that having President Obama is not just for feeling good that we have our own person there, but seriously about our greatest opportunity to organise ourselves and pursue development like other racial groups. Every enlightened Black person whether as African American or Caribbean or Black African, must be worried that there is no civilised or properly organised society of Black people anywhere on this planet and that being able to organise ourselves is our greatest collective challenge. The White people giving us this great opportunity are very well aware of our shameful situation and probably want us to take our destinies in our own hands. We must therefore not waste this great opportunity to prove that we are not inferior by utilising it towards building civilised and successful African American communities and successful societies out of Black Africa and the Caribbean. Even if in the end Americans decide otherwise, we must not abandon President Obama as the rallying point for our renaissance! We must not fail again!!

John Iteshi

London
29 October 2008

White Supremacists will Lose Again!

2008-03-28T23:59:00.000-07:00

I feel sad I am unable to make it to Zimbabwe to help provide alternative views and information to the world, but here in Johannesburg, I can feel the determination of the majority of Zimbabweans to once again show the world they reject colonialism in all its ramifications!
I have severally maintained that the only reason why the white world is obsessed about Zimbabwe is because white farmers were sacked from the land they stole from the people. I have had more reasons to affirm my belief since arrival in Johannesburg two days ago. I have so far observed white dominated media organizations in South Africa are working tirelessly in favour of Zimbabwean opposition candidates. If you are in South Africa and read only white newspapers or watch white television channels like the one they call e channel, you probably would believe that 99% of Zimbabweans are anti-Mugabe as only anti-Mugabe news and views are aired by them. I have read Black controlled newspapers like the Sowetan and found that Mugabe is still the hero of Zimbabwe.
God Bless the majority of Zimbabweans for refusing to be recolonized

Kenya: Why is Britain not doing Zimbabwe?

2008-01-04T15:03:00.000-08:00

It is a shame that Britain and her media cannot afford not to be biased especially on Black African issues. It was Britain who colonised Kenya as well as Zimbabwe, Uganda, Nigeria and many other failed Black African states. Britain ought to be acting like a father nation to Anglophone Africa as a whole, but unfortunately it acts like a biased and dubious father. Britain applies different rules to its former colonies as it suits her selfish interests.

After one of the most civilised general elections in Black African history was held in Zimbabwe in 2002, the British government could not accept the will of the people because Robert Mugabe whom it loathed for sacking white British farmers was re-elected. The British government and its overbearing media have been campaigning for the total collapse of Zimbabwe to the extent of severally encouraging civil uprising. Britain and her media have also tried to persuade South Africa to stop allowing Zimbabwean immigrants in their bid to ensure the total collapse of Zimbabwe.
It was particularly significant that the same British government and British media that turned democracy defenders over Zimbabwe in 2000, after the sacking of white farmers, did not react against Nigeria after far worse general elections were held in Nigeria in 2003 by the worst president in Nigeria's history, General Obasanjo who killed and maimed to ensure a re-election. A number of top opposition leaders and perceived opponents of the president even within his own party were assassinated to ensure a smooth re-election yet; the same British government which condemned Zimbabwe did not even issue any strong statement in condemnation of the Nigerian government. We all know that nobody was killed by Mugabe in 2002 in order to get re-elected.
Again in 2007, the same evil president conducted the most fraudulent elections imaginable. International observers unanimously condemned it entirely because there were no elections at all. Father Britain and her media declined to condemn what even openly racists would agree was far worse than anything that ever happened in Zimbabwe.
Right now, it is happening again in Kenya. Another case of massive electoral fraud has occurred in one of Britain's ex-colonies, and rather than greet it with the same measure applied to Zimbabwe, Britain and her media are dancing about to thwart the very kind of revolution they have been sponsoring and campaigning to happen in Zimbabwe since 2000.
The entire British media is now focused on Kenya, tactically demonising the opposition leader for no justifiable reason. Times online called Odinga ruthless, stubborn and desperate and made him look like the cause of the violence. Odinga is being blamed for the civil unrest in reaction to the massive election fraud perpetrated by the incumbent president. Odinga is being demonised for refusing to compromise over an indisputable case of electoral fraud. He is in fact being condemned by British media for allegedly doing that which the entire white world has been urging Morgan Tsvangirai to do in Zimbabwe which has failed because the majority of the people continued to support Mugabe. One wonders what kind of father nation Britain is when it cannot apply the same rules and standard to its former colonies.

It may be right to argue that Britain is entitled to be selfish and protective of her economic interests as she does by way of supporting the worst governments in Black Africa. Mohammed Buhari, the main opposition leader in Nigeria in both the 2003 and 2007 general elections, despite having an impeccable record as an incorruptible Nigerian leader (having been tested and trusted) did not attract the kind of support Mr Tsvangirai of Zimbabwe have always enjoyed because having a reformist president in Nigeria would not favour western economic interests. Odinga is being demonised because he sounds too radical and Britain is not comfortable with having people like him in power to wake up the sleeping giants in Black Africa. Today we get all sorts of patronising British media reports about Kenya as being the most successful African country all in the bid to demoralise ordinary Kenyans determined to make the kind of history Britain supported the Ukrainians to make in 2004. British media reporters and analysts have been drumming “tribal” war songs in their perverted desire to scuttle the general ill-feelings among ordinary Kenyans irrespective of ethnic background by consistently insinuating ethnic crisis rather than political crisis which is the case.
For those that care to think, the question is how the anti-Kibaki disturbances can be said to be entirely about the Luos against the Kikuyus when the Luos are only the third largest ethnic group (not tribe as White supremacists choose to regard Black African ethnic groups). How did the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM) of Mr. Odinga enjoy so much support if it is just a party of 13% of Kenyans which translate to just about 4.8million of the population of Kenya which is about 37 million?

Clearly, western governments might be entitled to play dodgy tactics because it does not seem reasonable on the face of it, for Britain or any other successful western economic giant to genuinely support the emergence of successful Black African states because it does not make sense for any merchant to close his sources of cheap goods large profits. It is even right to say that neither Britain nor any other former colonial master owes a dime of support or sincerity to failed Black Africa because each sovereign state ought to fend for itself as we all claim to be equal human beings.

However, considering the real fact that Black Africa desperately needs to build successful societies for the survival of its people and the fact that Britain seeks to be a father nation with conscience, based on its history of fighting injustices both internally and externally, it may be right to expect a more genuine leadership from her. Britain can rightly lay claim to being a beacon of justice and political morality based on its leading roles in ending slavery and ending colonialism and apartheid regimes. The British media is respected across the world and is arguably, the most powerful opinion leader in the world. With a little bit more of genuineness, Britain and her media can truly change this world. Britain and her media do not owe Black Africa anything, but they are highly welcome as genuine helpers. If the Britain truly cares about the Black race, she must change her style in Black Africa. Britain must change from being purely mercantile and often dubious to a more respectable role that befits her leadership status in the world. Britain and other colonial masters might be entitled to manipulate us as it suits their economic interests, but it seems more sensible to play good masters than continuing to play hypocrisy especially now that China is becoming a real threat to their supremacy!
It is plainly obvious that turning good masters and genuine father nations would benefit both the White world and the failed Black world. It is not difficult to be fair-minded as leading nations in international affairs. Simply setting the same standard for everyone and applying the same rules would do. It is unacceptable to set a very high standard of democracy for Zimbabwe and sing a different tune when it comes to Nigeria or Kenya. Democracy and good governance must mean the same in all situations and in all societies. What is good for the Zimbabweans must also be good for Kenyans, Nigerians, Ugandans and other failed Black African states!!

John Iteshi

London, 4th January 2007

Baroness Amos, I thought you were better than this!

2007-12-08T16:04:00.001-08:00

Baroness Amos, I thought you were better than this!

I have always looked at you as one of the proper role models we should be showcasing to our young ones both because of your exalted position and the fact that you admirably wear your natural hairdo without attachments. Yes, I have always celebrated people like you and Condoleezza Rice as the Black women that should be celebrated rather than the Beyonces who are destroying the Black race with the notion that Black women cannot be beautiful enough in their own skin, but must wear some dead White women’s hairs.

I honestly believed that people like you are the future of the Black race because you are in positions where you can influence European policies on Black Africa and the Black race in general. I was in fact, about to write letters to you and other prominent Black British leaders to suggest the need for a forum of Black leaders in Britain as an umbrella for forging a strategy for the development of the Black race. This thought was inspired by my realization that Black British leaders are too individualised and not working in unison for the development of Black Africa and Black societies in the Caribbean. I thought there was a great need for leaders like you to get together as a step towards articulating our problems and possible ways out. I passionately believed that people like you are the future of the Black race( despite your unfortunate remark to BBC earlier this year that Toyin, the ignorant Black man who disrupted the celebration of the 200 years of end of slavery, “…reflected the anger and the pain that still exists” ), until some minutes ago when the BBC News 24 showed you in Lisbon doing the most dishonourable job of promoting the misguided British notion that Zimbabweans are starving because they sacked white farmers.

I find it very sad that you agreed to be used to show that the White world’s irrational obsession about Zimbabwe is not founded on racism. I think it is very disgraceful for the Black race that people like you in the year 2007 are being used in this way. It is plainly obvious that the only reason you were sent to Lisbon was because the British government wanted to use a Black person against Robert Mugabe.
I definitely do not have anything against Britain as I am most grateful for the fact that this great country has accepted me and treated me better any Black country in this world (not even my miserable country Nigeria) would have treated me. I am also very much conscious of the shameful fact that the most racist white country would treat even Black criminals better than the best Black country treats its best citizens. I am most importantly well informed about the fact that but for the White race, Black Africa would have been under slavery today. However, I believe very strongly that we must make some concerted efforts to change our status today before it becomes too late as it would indeed be in no distant time with the rise of China and India!

The way to change our status in this world is not by accepting the White supremacist notion that we cannot develop modern farming techniques either in Zimbabwe or anywhere else and must rely on White farmers to feed us. I think it is a grave disaster that in the year 2007, there is no successful society of people like us and you are aligning with the view that we should not even attempt to make efforts to be successful. I believe, irrespective of whether it was right or wrong to taken over White farms that the step towards self determination which Mugabe is taking Zimbabwe is the right way to attempt to build our own Singapore Thailand and Malaysia and that enlightened Black people ought to support him. I believe that this is not the moment to talk about how bad Mugabe as a person is, but to face the challenge which White supremacist have thrown to us, to build a successful Zimbabwe without White farmers.

You are of course entitled to have a different understanding of the issue in Zimbabwe, but I do not believe you are entitled to deny the real fact that the main challenge facing the Black race is to build our own successful societies. As I commented earlier today at the Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre during the MP Dianne Abbott‘s conference on the underachievement of Black boys, our children’s self esteem would improve greatly is we could have Singapore and Malaysia emerging out of Black Africa tomorrow. People like you should be most concerned that the Black race is failing and that there is nowhere to run to tomorrow if White people ask us to leave their land. People like you should be organizing Black people towards surmounting the great challenge of proving we are not inferior by building our own successful societies. People like you should have used their positions to influence more favourable British of EU foreign policies on Black Africa and Black societies in the Caribbean. You have disgraced the Black race by allowing yourself to be used in the racial war against Robert Mugabe.

John Iteshi

London 8th December 2007

Stop Wasting Public Funds on Useless Black Programmes and Events.

2007-10-26T04:02:00.000-07:00

Stop Wasting Public Funds on Useless Black Programmes and Events

Dear Mayor Ken,

What prompted me to write this letter was the brochure titled “Guide to African London” which was earlier this year displayed on some London Underground Stations and still being displayed in the City Hall as part of your celebration of Black History month and the abolition of slavery in Britain. I am not strictly condemning the fact that the Mayor of London is trying to promote Black cultural activities and businesses in London (even though it may not really be his job to do so), but deeply concerned about the message of inferiority which “the brochure” (Guide to African London) sends across as well as the ridiculousness of events like the Black History Month and other similar events.

The brochure bears on its front, a photograph of a beautiful Black girl wearing a ridiculous hair attachment. The problem with this is simply that it appears the Mayor of London is indirectly promoting inferior hairdos among Black women. It appears to be promoting the ugly trend of Black women rejecting their own skins by preferring to wear wigs and hair attachments that simulate White or Asian or even Somalian hair styles to maintaining their own hair.

I have shown the image on the brochure to over twenty ordinary people (including Blacks, Whites and Asians) and virtually everyone agrees with me that it is a disgusting image to be promoted by the office of the Mayor of London. Of course, it must have been chosen by Black individuals working for the Mayor, but the fact remains that such hairdos ridicule rather than promote Black beauties as the Mayor of London must have intended. I have no doubt that most enlightened Black people (and indeed people of other races) would share my view that it is disastrous for the majority of Black women to believe that they cannot be accepted in the society without inferior hairdos such as the one shown in your brochure and the types often worn by people like Naomi Campbell, Beyonce Knowles, Serena Williams and many other so-called celebrities.

Condemning hairstyles worn by the most famous Black women (excepting of course, well educated and enlightened ones like Condoleezza Rice), may seem odd and ultraconservative, but I belive that any honest observer who has taken a good look at the way most Black British school girls and boys dress to school would also agree that there is a disaster at hand. It is a well known fact that most Black British school girls and boys appear to be more concerned about their hairdos than their studies. The culture of Political correctness has not helped things at all as Black children are allowed to dress like pop stars in hair attachments(for the girls) and “corn rows” (for the boys). Promoting a shameful hairdo such as the one on your brochure would only worsen the already bad situation. It is unacceptable for Black British school children who are fortunate to be part of the most advanced parts of this world to dress less decent and clean than ordinary school children in an average Nigerian school because they feel inadequate to appear natural or unaware of how decent Black people should tidy their hairs. The efforts of the Mayor of London to promote multiculturalism would be sabotaged if Black children are encouraged to emulate inferiority!

I decided to write you this letter out of my deep concern for the enlightenment and improvement of the Black race. I sincerely believe that you are broadminded and genuinely committed to promoting Black history and cultures as can be seen from your sponsorship of most Black events. However, I humbly suggest that expending public resources annually on events like Black History month, the ‘Guide to African London Brochure mentioned above and other unjustifiable celebrations only helps some Black people in Britain to continue to escape the realities of the failure of the Black race. It does not help to enlighten and cause us to think about ways to sort ourselves out. Black people in Britain, having escaped poverty and deprivations in Black Africa and the Caribbean Islands ought to be in the forefront of discourses and attempts to change the shameful situation of things in Black Africa and the Caribbean rather than organising self celebrations and hopeless award ceremonies.

I believe it would be good for Britain and for the Black race for enlightened Black people in Britain to be engaging in efforts to take Britain to Black Africa and other failed Black societies. The fact that there is no organised or successful Black society anywhere on earth ought to concern Black people in Britain more than any other issue! We ought to be sending to Black Africa and the Caribbean, messages of good governance, equality and social justice from Great Britain. Having fortunately escaped from our failed societies to Britain, we are morally bound to be constantly addressing our minds to the situation of our people rather than engaging in purely cosmetic and “feel good” activities.

It may not be the responsibility of the Mayor of London to address the issue of the failure of the Black race, but I believe that stopping the sponsorship of useless self-seeking Black programmes and events and encouraging our people to think home would be appreciated by the majority of right thinking people. It would seem an impossible task to ask a White man in this era of political correctness to tell Black people the truth, but it probably would take highly respectable individuals like Mayor Ken Livingstone to help wake up Black British leaders to their responsibilities.

It is most irresponsible and hypocritical for Black individuals who have principally succeeded because they have benefited from the opportunities abounding in Britain and other civilised and successful societies, to be celebrating themselves and ignoring the majority of their people living in despicable conditions in Black Africa and some Caribbean Islands. Helping us to take responsibility for our failures would not only help the Black race in general, but would also benefit race relations in Britain in the long run. It is well known that the kind of racism experienced by Black people is particularly based on our historical inferiority and failures as a people. If Black people could build successful societies out of Black Africa like the Asians have done, the kind of racism we experience today would immediately disappear. Our children would also gain better sense of belonging and higher self esteem if we are able to prove that we are not inferior.

In my view, the global failure of the Black race (particularly the lack of civilised and successful Black societies) is the real cause of the low self-esteem and failure of the majority of young Black British people to reap the benefit of being in Britain. No amount of showcasing of successful Black super models, rap artists and sport stars would uplift the spirit of young Black British people like the rising of a Singapore or Thailand out of Black Africa or the Caribbean. What hunts and demoralises our children is the real fact that their people have no real story of success compared to Whites and Asians. The way out is not to fake such stories or find some ludicrous excuses as events like Black history month tend to do, but to face facts and seek ways to address the problems. The mayor of London can assist us in achieving this by refusing to support purposeless Black events in the future.

I am highly optimistic that you would think seriously about the issues raised in this letter and consider better ways of promoting Black peoples and cultures in the future.

Thank you for finding out time to read this letter.

John Iteshi

Rotherhithe, London.

How Genuine is Rotimi Adebari?

2007-07-02T13:30:00.000-07:00

The story has been carried by virtually all notable news sources since Friday about one Rotimi Adebari becoming the first Black mayor in Ireland. One is supposed to be wowed about such a great achievement, but there seems to be something wrong somewhere. I do not know Rotimi Adebari from any where (except that his name places him as a Yoruba man from Nigeria) and have nothing against him, but the report that he arrived Ireland from Nigeria as an asylum seeker escaping from religious persecution in Nigeria cannot be true. If indeed he claimed asylum on the basis that he was escaping religious persecution in Nigeria, he must have lied because no form of religious persecution is known to exist in Yoruba land where he obviously hails from. Nigeria was under “democratic rule” so to say, in 2000 with the full co-operation of the western world and the president was a Yoruba Christian, Olusegun Obasanjo. Any prevalence of religious persecution that happened singularly in 2000 to drive Mr Rotimi or anyone out of Nigeria ought to have attracted the attention of the pesident and of course the Nigerian press (as Yorubaland is the most covered part of Nigeria by the media).

It is a bizarre claim because Yoruba land has a unique culture of religious tolerance in Nigeria. Compared to other parts of Nigeria, Yoruba societies are more civilised and liberal to the extent that inter-religious marriage is very common between Christians and moslems. It is perhaps right to say that the average Yoruba person has at last one relative (distant or close) from another religious group.
One's worry here is not that Ireland’s immigration system has been abused (as it is probably not one's business), but that dubiousness is being celebrated as a landmark achievement! This does not help Nigeria and the Black race as it promotes fraud as a way of life. One is not saying that people should not do anything possible to escape from a miserable society like Nigeria, but that rogues should never be celebrated as heroes! It may be acceptable to sneak into organised and successful societies to better one's life, but fabricating ugly lies in the bid to attract sympathy should be condemnable. Even if one must tell terrible lies like Rotimi obviously did from the look of things,to gain residence in a successful society, one should avoid public life.
I am a Nigerian immigrant myself, but I never had to and pray never to be so desperate as to fabricate blatant lies like Rotimi did in order to stay in Britain! The chief reason why Nigerians migrate abroad is “money” either to get it genuinely through hard work or to get it through fraud (or on the other hand, stash or waste stolen public funds in the case of public office holders and their relatives). Even if there are Nigerians that can genuinely claim political asylum, there can hardly be any genuine case of religious persecution for anyone from western Nigeria.
John Iteshi

We Have No Valid Excuse!

2007-07-02T12:13:00.000-07:00

I recently read an article titled “Discontent voiced over slavery events” by Amanda Kirton in the BBC website and could not resist the temptation to express my disappointment in Black British leaders. The article which is based on the behaviour of Mr Toyin Agbetu who staged a lone protest by disrupting the recent service in commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery by Britain, shouting abuses on the British establishment suggested that most Black people share the sentiments of the protester. In fact it quoted the leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Amos who is herself Black as saying that "Toyin's protest reflected the anger and the pain that still exists,". This comment is most unfortunate and disturbing because it appears to lend support to the lazy notion among some misinformed Black British people, that the activities of British slave traders about 200 years ago coupled with some imaginary acts of racism are responsible for the failure of the Black race. This comment and all similar insinuations including a BBC documentary by a Black journalist which suggested that Britain built much of its wealth on the slavery of Black people must be condemned as grossly misleading. It is most dangerous to provide tacit support in anyway for the already misguided Black louts on the streets of Hackney and Brixton. Even if it is necessary or even reasonable for Britain to be showing remorse for a historical disaster which (even if they were culpable), they had long atoned for in many ways, it cannot be reasonable at all for any educated Black person to tell Britain how to organise it or even worse to complain against anything. It is shameful enough that Black people especially those of us in Britain, with all the opportunities and supports have remained the most backward human group both here and the world over.

Black British leaders like Baroness Amos should be ashamed of themselves for letting the Black race down by not using their positions to organise their people. The fact that with only a handful of educated people, the Black race jointly fought for independences about 50 years ago, but today with millions of educated people the Black race is yet to build any organised and successful society of its own is an indictment of all enlightened Black leaders. We had neither Black Members of Parliament (MPs) in any European or American nation nor did we have any Black university anywhere when we fought as one people and won independences and civil rights/freedoms, but today with many Black individuals in positions of power in Europe and America as well as hundreds of universities across Black Africa, we have still to prove that we (as a people not as individuals) are not inferior. We have not proven that we are not an inferior race because we are the only major race that have not been able to organise themselves at any level. The fact that there is no organised or successful society of Black people anywhere on this planet ought to disturb every educated Black person particularly those at the highest level of decision making like our MPs in UK and USA. Rather than use their privileged or top positions to organise the Black community and possibly the entire Black race, they are busy either trying to re-write history or even change nature.

We cannot reasonably continue to claim we are not inferior when at this stage of human development; the whole Black race still relies on white journalists and glory seekers like Bob Geldoff to tell us our problems, when to cry or even cry for us. The fact that one can hardly find any Black icon or hero today that was not determined by western media means that we have yet to be civilised. One seriously reckons in private that if the majority of the white world had not decide to criticise apartheid in South Africa, that it would have continued and Mandela could have been a terrorist rather than a hero. This may sound strange none thinkers, but the general state of ignorance among Black people about the situation in Sudan today where a minority group rules the Black race like slaves under far worse situation than Black South Africans were ever ruled, should suggest to us the depth of our primitiveness as a people. It took the so-called white racist to enlightening Black states about what is happening to their people. If we cannot understand ourselves in this modern age with all the education and enlightenments available to us, one wonders how we could have fared if Britain and other western nation had not decided on their own volition when it began to prick their consciences, to end slavery ! Our greatest tragedy today appears to be our inability to organise ourselves and determine what we actually want.

There is of course, no gainsaying, that not many Black people would have been moaning about what Britain did and did not do about slave trade if some overzealous white men had not embarked on the anniversary project as well as the unwarranted debate about apologising for slavery. The fact that slavery ended completely about 150years ago and most Black states got their independences 40-50 years ago and we have never really until now moaned about how Britain enslaved our people clearly means that only idiots are moaning and fooling themselves that slavery is responsible for our failure as a people. The fact that the Black race in the 21st century still depend on solely Western and Arab sources for both the history of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the history of the Black race in general, is a shameful indication of our seeming less than equal status with other human races. It is most disturbing to me that there is no successful society of Black people anywhere on this planet today and enlightened Black people especially those who have escaped poverty in Europe and America are not bothered about it. All that prominent Black British individuals including those who have been given parliamentary positions on the platter of gold to represent Black people do is seek for media attention for their selfish interests. They only talk about Black people whenever some white journalists raise any issue about Africa or as now, slavery. Apparently, these successful Black individuals appear to think that being successful and being privileged to be accepted by Britain means they are no longer as Black as the people of Darfur or Northern Uganda or Haiti. They are more interested in aligning with Asians (as can be seen in a stupid organisation called National Association of Black Police Officers or something like that where an Iranian claimed to be Black) in their primitive aims to carve themselves out as a distinct group separate from the failed Black race. One of them who actually hails from Uganda where a barbaric civil war has been ravaging its northern territory, once engaged in a televised fasting and prayers for Lebanese children(simply for attention seeking purposes) when the whole world knows that the average Lebanese or even Iraqi or Palestinian fares much better than the average Black person. Shame unto educated Black people especially those successfully established in Europe and America for they have the best opportunities to change the fate of the Black race, but have failed to even organise themselves. They do not face the problems of poverty and intimidation by wicked and oppressive governments faced by men of goodwill in Black Africa and as such can easily organise themselves towards forming a global forum for Black enlightenment and civilisation.

We do not need to physically go back to Africa to show direction to the Black race. We can either seek to articulate a sort of global vision for the development of the Black race or even prove we are not inferior by simply organising ourselves well over here. We can point accusing fingers to the western economic interests for our inability to organise our countries back home, but the fact remains that mini-Black societies in places like Britain and USA have not proven to be different from our failed states in Africa and the Caribbean. The fact that Black people are most backward and over represented in the prisons in both UK and USA for instance, despite all the opportunities available for individual development, is not because of racism at all as some race mongers like to think, but simply because of the failure of leadership among Black leaders. Even if racism exists to the extent of dissuading our people from proper education and responsible living, there cannot be any excuse for our failure to organise ourselves in any meaningful way. The fact that Asians dominate the trades of African and Caribbean foodstuffs and even the ridiculous hair attachments worn by our women is a clear indication that the trouble with the Black race is from within and not from what others are doing or have done to us over a hundred years ago. A visit to places like Dalston market and Peckham area in London would convince any reasonable thinker that something is seriously wrong with Black people as slavery or colonialism or the white race cannot be blamed for the domination of predominantly Black communities’ markets in London by Asians. British and African-American leaders can help prove that we are not an inferior race by seeking to build successful Black communities from their respective locations. Purposeful leadership from British and African-American leaders are very crucial to the survival of the Black race because they have the capability of influencing not just the whole Black race, but the entire world on Black issues. We need to have our own BBC or CNN and be able to determine and control global views and opinions on our own affairs. Black leaders in Europe and America ought to be at the forefront of development in Black African and Caribbean states. Bearing in mind the quality of Black individuals in UK and USA for instance, it is disgraceful that there is no genuine move by any group towards influent positive change back home.

Even if we cannot organise at the Black race level, why not on country basis. Why not respectable Nigerians or Zimbabweans or Kenyans for instance in UK or in USA organise themselves (form strong umbrella groups not the fiefdom-like groups exiting among Nigerians for instance) and begin to deliberate on how to take Britain or USA home. Such groups would command respect both from host governments and home governments and could help to fight corruption and bad governance at home. We cannot be serious about change when everyone knows that the greatest aspect of corruption destroying Black African states is the trend to loot public treasury and either buy properties in Europe and America or maintain fat bank accounts. Most of the wars and political instabilities in Black Africa are directly linked to individuals fighting for their own opportunities to loot and stash abroad. The Black communities in Europe and America hold the key to eradicating this trend either by exposing those within the community who help corrupt leaders or by lobbying host governments for legislations that would help check it. Our failure so far to do this is most inexcusable! The Black Race has no valid excuse for failure!!

John Iteshi
Izhiogoagbo@yahoo.com
http://johntina1.spaces.live.com/
London, 4th April, 2007