Jan 31, 2012
Pilots are cool. They know something that most of us do not: that the first rule for a good life is to not be afraid of death. Because if you are afraid of death, you are afraid of life, and then you will never step into an airplane and fly above the clouds and be kissed by the angels.
Today, on MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness, click here, host Omenihu Amachi will be talking with the #1 pilot from Biafra, the pilot who commanded the Biafran airforce, who flew the first plane in and the last flight out of Biafra. You can listen to his interview on his page on this site, Captain Auguste Okpe, click here.
What do I know about pilots?
Pilot story 1. My father was a pilot. Not a career pilot, more of a reactive pilot.
Dr MCH Dodgson did a lot of things after his midlife crisis made him leave his wife and 4 children, move 1500 miles south to South Australia, get a job as a psychiatrist, become Jewish and start a household with a young woman who killed herself a year later.
Dad followed his erratic path and joined a nudist colony and started writing, but after a while, he got bored with that too, and moved 1000 miles north of Sydney to work in Townsville as a pathologist once a week. He was writing books that were never published, and managed to get himself appointed medical officer to Native Australian populations. Queensland, like most of the other 7 states in Australia, is vast, and driving around is not efficient.
Dad discovered that he could not get his pilot's license after the age of 55, which spurred him on to train. He managed to put in the required flying hours and squeaked in under the wire: Dr MCH Dodgson became a licensed pilot at 54.
I never flew with him. My brothers all had stories about him never wearing clothes around his house; I was his only daughter and simply, that freaked me out.
In 1988, he died calling out for my mother. He was cremated after an Anglican service around the corner from the hospital that gave him the job that made him move his family from our New Zealand paradise, and bring us to Australia. We should have sat Shiva for him. That was disrespectful.
Pilot story 2. And this is a story closer to the story that you will be able to hear Captain Okpe tell. My mother worked in St Mary's Hospital in London as a young physician, moving to London in 1944 after working in Sheffield immediately after graduation. The war had started towards the end of 1939, and by 1944, a lot of pilots had been killed and injured. British and allied pilots were the superstars of the second world war, the superheroes.
Here is an excerpt from an August 1940: speech by Sir Winston Churchill, who was Prime Minister of Great Britain: "....The gratitude of every home in our island, in our Empire, and indeed throughout the world except in the abodes of the guilty goes out to the British airmen who, undaunted by odds, unweakened by their constant challenge and mortal danger, are turning the tide of world war by their prowess and their devotion. Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few...."
Penicillin had been discovered at St Mary's Hospital, and it was very expensive to make, and it was given sparingly. And it was given to pilots. My mother was part of the effort of administering penicillin to the pilots, and collecting their urine afterwards so the penicillin could be recrystallized and used again.
And in the end, the very end, my mother died the widow of a pilot.
For the story of my mother, Dr Patience Uprichard Dodgson, click here.
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Jan 30, 2012
New Jersey. In the MJoTAtalks studio last night were MJoTAtalks: Music host. Irv Jean-Baptiste (click here) and MJoTAtalks: Youth host, Carlos Ginsburg (click here). They hung out and, yes, ate my soup (I like feeding young people) and recorded a show.
The show, MJoTAtalks: Music & Youth 2, started with Irv playing bongos, and moved along rapidly with discussions of pregnancies in young women resulting from condoms breaking (Irv thinks this is widespread) and why crime in Philadelphia is so much worse than in New York. Listen by following the link to the page for MJoTAtalks: Music, click here.
Philadelphia. I went to St Cyprian's Roman Catholic Church for mass, and reported to Igbo congregants and Father Kieran about the New York Igbo Community Center memorial for General Ojukwu.
I showed a businessman the program, he told me I should have bought 20 for $10 each, I could have resold them in Philadelphia for $20 each! Ah. The business mind.
I also showed them the book I bought on the timelines of Nigeria-Biafra War. I have discovered that the Biafran War has a comprehensive bibliography: compilation of the bibliography and putting together a physical library of these books is a task for a student.
We clearly need a Biafra reading room in a library of Nigerian literature. We need to bear witness. I am thinking about a trip to Washington to the Jewish Holocaust Museum in the next few weeks would be a good start, see how they do it and start planning.
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Jan 29, 2012
The organizers in New York promised that the memorial to General Odumegwu-Ojukwu would go on until dawn. It may have. I left at 1am, I had been at the Igbo Cultural Center in Queens, New York, since 2pm.
Amazing how many people I knew in New York who were at the Memorial. I don't know why I didn't know they were Igbo, and intimately part of the struggle for nationhood of Biafra.
I still do not know why Britain and the US actively worked against Biafran independence, and why the Roman Catholic Church supported it. I know why Cuba and Haiti supported independence. Of course they did.
I met the pilot who flew the first plane of the war, and the last plane of the war. I met the leader of the Commandos who got his PhD and had an academic career for decades afterwards. I met Ivorian troops, who had a place of honor yesterday, who fought with Biafrans.
I have prepared a page on the memorial. It will have a lot more content, please keep checking back this evening and tomorrow, click here.
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Jan 28, 2012
Queens, New York. Today Nigerians are gathering to remember those who fell during the Nigerian Civil War and te years leading up to it. We invite you to call in and talk to us about your memories, lessons learned, and how Nigerians need to do everything they can to prevent a second civil war.
The host is Omenihu Amachi and he will have in the studio MJoTAtalks Executive Producer High Chief MC Orji.
Call (323) 443-7440 between 7pm and 9pm EST tonight.
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Brooklyn, New York. In the early evening, in honor of a daughter of the Caribbean, New York State Health Commissioner Yvonne J Graham RN, MPH, colleagues and admirers gathered together in the gorgeous 19th century high-windowed, red brick and iron building that houses the Brooklyn Historical Society.
Commissioner Graham is tiny and beautiful, no question, and these 2 facts were repeated several times by speakers as they gushed about her achievements.
She came to the US from Jamaica in 1979, the year after I arrived from Australia. Her path has been steady, and faithful: she trained as a nurse, and helped start the Caribbean Womens Health Association, which is a nonprofit and is going strong, now 30 years later. She ran that for 20 years, and for 10 years has been deputy borough president of Brooklyn, under the perpetually cheerful, completely approachable Marty Moskowitz.
I am finding out more about her and what she is doing in New York. I will keep you posted. Look for a page on her in a new section that will be rolled out next week, African Caribbean Professionals in New York.
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Nigeria. From Sahara Reporters: "A 3-story property has just collapsed in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria trapping construction workers. It occurred within Naval Quarters in Gwarinpa with construction workers trapped beneath."
Collapses of new construction, or of completed construction filled with desks and computers and young women and old women and men of all ages: these collapses are not unusual in Lagos. I sat through the professor lecture of a professor of material science, trained in Nigeria and Russia, who started and ended his lecture with praises to Allah (being Muslim in Lagos is like being Presbyterian in America).
The professor explained that the reason for at least 25 multi-story buildings collapsing each year was that sand might look like cement, but it is not cement, and it costs less and does not hold up buildings.
With the January 1st Niigerian-fereal government mandated tripling of oil prices (since rolled back to nearly double) , costs for every small and large business have increased and the continuing quest for ways to cut costs can only accelerate.
Expect more buildings to collapse in Abuja. Many more.
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Jan 27, 2012
Here is something I learned the hard way, the expensive way:
If you want to hire someone to do a job, and they cannot afford the transport fare of under $10 (in the US) to get to where they can do the job, do not hire them.
They cannot handle money. And they are so desperately in need of the money that they will take your money and not do the job properly. Simple as that.
I hear you argue, "I want to give him a break."
Who are you, someone trying to run a business or Jesus Christ?
You will collapse your business, and the man you gave a break to will hate you, because he thinks you have exploited hm because he is poor.
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Jan 26, 2012
CNN. Reporting from Davos, Switzerland. Bill Gates, the mega-CEO who led Microsoft and now leads the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation was reported as saying: "The way it had been written about was "pretty disappointing," he said.
"If you are going to do health programs in Africa, you are going to have
some percentage that is misused."
He said this after he announced the promissory note of $750million to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Humbug. Not a dollar needs to be misused. I have discovered that if accountability systems are in place, every dollar can be used wisely.
Personally, if I was Bill Gates, I would spend my money prosecuting Switzerland. They permit crooks to be crooks.
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USA. Corruption. From the Office of the Inspector General:
- "CINCINNATI-David T. Mersch, 57, the former operations manager for the
Cincinnati offices of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention (CDC) was sentenced to 48 months' imprisonment followed by
three years of supervised release for accepting bribes from a
construction company executive in exchange for awarding construction
contracts to the company, California-based Entek Mechanical Corp."
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Nigeria. A group is convening today in Nigeria, here is a statement from the group, "Between Aburi and Araba, NADECO believes that a Sovereign National
Conference is the inevitable first step and irreducible minimum
condition that can set us on the path to salvaging the country from the
unfolding grave dangers,”.
This statement is echoed in the words of political scientists and Lincoln University academic Dr Chieke Ihejirika, who spoke to MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness host, Omenihu Amachi. Click here to listen to the interview and read more about Dr Ihejirika.
To read the entire article in Sahara Reporters,click here.
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Australia. On this day in 1788, a Captain Arthur Phillip grabbed a British flag, and in an act of war, plonked down the flag on the soil of the island country known as Australia. As someone who grew up in Australia, my story is typical of British immigrants.
The British Empire was in the last gasps of life, Britain was filled with rapidly expanding young families that had been started after the war ended in 1945, and so some genius came up with the idea of subsiding the cost of passage by boat to Australia or New Zealand.
I have read it cost 10 pounds, but that was for a mother and a father. My mother told me she was charged 5 pounds, because she made the trip alone with 3 small children in 1957. My father had been in too much of a hurry to get to his job in New Zealand, he was the single pathologist in Cook Hospital, Gisborne, and the single neuropathologist in New Zealand during our 3 years there before we hopped on a boat to Australia.
New Zealand was inhabited by different people than Australia. The Maoris in New Zealand put up a fight, and I remember when my oldest brother was 10 he was taught in school about the Maori Wars. The Aborigines in Australia were not even named, to this day they are known by the generic name aborigine, but they call themselves Kuris. At least that was the name they called themselves during an Aboriginal Anglican church service I went to in Canberra in December 2010. The British invaders staged a vicious genocidal war on the Kuris.
Australia Day is a day of shame. The Australian Government needs to stop celebrating it with a day off and knighthoods and honors flung around.
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Jan 25, 2012
Nigeria. President Jonathan is playing politics with the security of Nigeria. He kicked out the Inspector General and all the deputies, who were mostly named Mr Abubukar, and replaced them with a new Inspector General named Abubukar.
What really sucks is he kicked out DIG Madame Ivy, who is way cool, and was the highest ranked woman in the Nigerian police force.
Madame Ivy saved my life in September 2010. I had arranged to return to the United States from Sierra Leone via Nigeria at the end of August, but shipping schedules delayed my return by 2 weeks. Consequently my arrangements in Lagos fell apart, something to do with some woman who paid Lookman Sulaimon $25,000 to marry him and get a visa to the US. Not sure how that collapsed my arrangements, but it did, and I was going to be stranded in Lagos without my telephone book.
Madame Ivy was contacted by my power-buddies in New York, and she decided to billet me with "one of her commissioners" who turned out to be the police commissioner of Lagos State, a brilliant, well-educated gentleman. I have written about this in my report about my trip, click on picture at right to access the story.
What I learned from my 2 days being driven around under police guard was that the police force in Nigeria is functional, and tries hard. The constant reports of police shaking down drivers is true, I have had this happen to me in Lagos during previous trips, but results from the creation of a national police force that the federal government has no plans to fund properly. My police escorts told me the police barracks are filthy and unlivable in, and they cannot support themselves alone, and certainly not their families, on the little they earn.
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Nothing reminds me as much that my years are zipping by as much as January 25. In 1945, on that day, a young English physician married a young Irish physician in Belfast, Northern Ireland. In the 67 years that have passed, they both died in what is now the City of Randwick, in the hospitals that the Englishman, my father, had served as pathologist when the married couple brought their 4 surviving children to Australia by boat.
Today is the day I remember my parents, because on that day, the world was sick of the second world war, and would end it in Europe when the spring flowers were in full bloom, and in Asia when the summer flowers were at their height.
Two days after the wedding, on a snowy day, Dad was shipped out to Asia, where he landed in Burma and was medical officer to a West African regiment. I have a photograph somewhere, when I prepare a page on my father, I will post it. Dad was away 2 years, because when war ended in August 1945, Britain did not have enough boats to bring all the troops home immediately. Dad had to wait his turn. He never told me much about the war in Asia, but did say that he was disappointed the war ended when it did because he never got to China. He wrote letters to his bride; these letters turned up recently in their house in Sydney. I can't wait to see them, hold them as my mother did, smell them, photograph them.
My parents were beautiful, and young, and so believed in the future. But they were cursed, what should have been an easy life, a respected life, soon turned to despair and tragedy.. I have hinted at some of the tragedy in my page on my mother, but today, please look at the wedding photograph of Dr Patience Uprichard and Dr Michael CH Dodgson
Click here for pictures of Dr Patience Uprichard Dodgson. Or click on picture of my mother with my grandmother and uncles, at right.
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Jan 24, 2012
On MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness, host Omenihu Amachi interviewed political scientists Dr Chieke Iherijirika. Dr Ihejirika said that what Nigeria needs is a constitutional congress, where a framework can be built for a prosperous, united Nigeria. Read more about Dr Ihejirika and listen to the interview, click here.
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Jan 23, 2012
We have a program tomorrow at 8pm EST. MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness, click here.
Host is Mr Omenihu Amachi, and he is talking to a political scientist who is an associate professor at Lincoln University. They will be talking about the crisis in Nigeria and why the Biafran War taught them that war must be avoided now.
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Jan 22, 2012
I spent the morning in a religious institution in Moorestown belonging to the Society of Friends (colloquially called Quakers) listening to arguments about why this institution should continue to give all Quarterly Meeting resources to someone who has received these resources for 26 years. Gosh, the argument seems to be she needs to take everything because she always had. How about that. Just like African "presidents for life".
And the afternoon at a Nigerian Catholic Church in Philadelphia, where we talked about accountability and decency and how to bring law and order back on the streets. MJoTAtalks is a collaborative venture with my Nigerian Igbo friends, you can read about the 2 prime movers on these pages, artist Omenihu Amachi, click here, and High Chief MC Orji, click here.
And I spent the evening chatting to my favorite person from Rivers State. Telling him that on his upcoming long trip, when he will be sitting up 2 consecutive nights, he needs to bring 2 bottles of aspirins and swallow 2 tablets every 3 hours, and wriggle his legs and get up and walk around frequently during the night.
Why? Deep vein thrombosis. When your legs are below your heart, the blood has to find a way to get back. Blood pools in the legs, and clots, if it isn't moving.
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Jan 21, 2012
MJoTAtalks today introduces its newest host: Irv. Irv, aka Irving Jean-Baptiste, is the son of a Haitian nurse and a Haitian translator. He was born in Philadelphia, and he is a communications major at Temple University, where he is a junior.
Read about Irv, click here.
Listen to his first episode of MJoTAtalks Music, in which he chats with Quill Williams and features his music, click here.
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Jan 20, 2012
Banner day for the Delaware Valley and African ambassadors. Dr Azuka arranged for his group, the African and Caribbean Business Council, to meet 4 ambassadors at the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, at 200 South Broad St, Philadelphia (yes, that building was where Legionnaire's Disease killed old veterans in 1976, and where I met Lookman Sulaimon Arounfale in 2009). The ambassadors were all cool, and good sports: Ghana, Botswana, Trinidad & Tobago and Burkina Faso.
After listening to the ambassadors, and dignitaries (Councilmember Jannie Blackwell is always present at African events for encouragement) and the Chairman of the Mayor's Commission on African and Caribbean Affaiirs, Hon Mr Stanley L Straughter (click herefor story on him at the Wharton School of Business)
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Jan 19, 2012
Last night a new episode of MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness was recorded. Click here for the home page of the program series; click here to listen to Omenihu Amqchi chat with Dr Ngozi Achebe.
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Headline in New York Times "Reick Perry to Drop Out of Presidential Campaign: Report". It was the "Brokeback Mountain" jacket in the video that did him in. Now even the New York Times can't spell his name.
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Nigeria. Wow. Where were the accountants all these years?
From Sahara Reporters: By Ini Ekott.
"The Nigerian government wasted a whopping N667 billion annually to
subsidize millions of litres of petrol Nigerians never needed, with much
of that amount enriching corrupt NNPC officials and marketers, it
emerged Wednesday.
For years, the federal government was subsidizing as much as 24
million liters of petrol that Nigerians did not use daily, with much of
that smuggled into other countries through a mesh of high-wired sleaze
that surround the importation and subsidy of refined petrol, a top
official said Wednesday.
The Executive Secretary of the Petroleum Product Pricing Regulatory
Agency, Reginald Stanley, said on Wednesday that before the removal of
subsidy on January 1, the country was importing up to 59 million litres
of petrol daily when the country actually needs 35 million litres, with
government subsidy covering all of the imports.
With the government paying N76 in subsidy, to lower the cost of fuel
imported into the country, that translated to N1.9billion daily, and
N667 billion annually.
Mr. Stanley spoke at the ongoing House of Representative
investigations of the management of fuel subsidies, adding a new page to
a harvest of shocking revelations from the hearing since Monday."
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Jan 18, 2012
Today American artist Mr Omenihu Amachi chats with American writer and physician Dr Ngozie Achebe on the weekly broadcast of MJoTAtalks: Art Bearing Witness. Click here to listen live (8pm EST) or later. Click here to read about Dr Achebe. Click here to read about the host, Mr Omenihu Amachi.
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Jan 17, 2012
"I oppose SOPA and PIPA and urge you to vote against legislation
supporting them." Click on Wikipedia and it will direct you to your
congresspeople. Send them that statement, or something equivalent. I
also texted my 2 senators and rep. These bills cannot go into law, it is
a huge attack on freedom of speech. Listen to Wikipedia. They have a
24h blackout and a rally in NYC against SOPA and PIPA. Help them help
us!
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Jan 16, 2012
Diabetes. Chronic disease. Ancient disease: the name for sugar diabetes is diabetes mellitus: diabetes is from Ancient Greek words, and describes frequent urination; mellitus is from the Latin word for honey, and describes the sweetness of the urine that attracts ants.
Ancient disease, but such a modern problem. In MJoTAtalks Health, I talk about how diet and exercise can actually reverse the symptoms of diabetes, can actually make diabetes go away. Click here to listen to the audio.
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Nigeria. Good God. 16 days into the New Year, shops in Lagos have no
food because their owners cannot afford to buy at wholesale prices,
soldiers in the streets, blockades of oil production, no planes flying
from Lagos airport. And President Goodluck and Finance Minister Dr Ngozi
fiddling while Nigeria burns....
Let the burn be non-violent. Let the
burn rout non-Nigerian criminals who have been benefiting from the blood
and sweat and tears of Nigerians. I stand with Nigerians. I know Dr
King would have.
Last night I went to bed with the news that President Goodluck had sent troops into the streets of Lagos. Today the Governor of Lagos, Mr Fashola, has condemned the deployment of soldiers. So has literature Nobel Laureate, Nigerian Wole Soyinka. So do I.
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Jan 15, 2012
Protests against Nigerian federal government-mandated starvation and joblessness continue in Nigeria and all around the world. Protests in New York at the United Nations and at Nigeria House have been joined by Occupy Wall Street.
The leaders of the New York protest are the founders and leaders of the Nigerian Democratic Liberty Forum, who started the non-violent protests after they convened a memorial service for Gani Fanewehinmi JD in Queens, NY, in September 2009.
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Today is the 5th anniversary of publication of the first issue of Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa. It has evolved a lot over the years, now mjota.org is a multi-media African health news website, with the informal www.drsusanna.org, the biggest private website devoted to African health in the world.
Our new initiative is MJoTAtalks, which is really looking good. Congratulations to all you wonderful medical writers who contributed to the first issue of MJoTA, and to subsequent issues until the Dean of Mayes College in May 2008 told me I was suspended from University of the Sciences in Philadelphia because "it is unethical hiring Africans." That was enough to make me bolt and make MJoTA independent.
Thank you so much everyone who has contributed to MJoTA over the 5 years since publication started (and the 6 months preparing for publication before that), and to everyone who has read anything we published. Thank you so much for listening MJoTAtalks, and I can promise you, we are only just starting! God bless you all. God raise up Africa so that Africa is a continent filled with countries that are as good as the wonderful people who live in these countries.
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Jan 13, 2012
American artist Mr Omenihu Amachi continues his series on Art Bearing Witness for MJoTAtalks, tonight, 8pm EST, Omenihu will chat with Councilmember Mr Sunday Nwegbo (Colwyn, Pennsylvania) about his life before and during the Nigerian civil war, and his life devoted to public service and peace.
Click here for details about how to listen live, and how to listen later.
MJoTAtalks is an arm of MJoTA (Medical Journal of Therapeutics Africa)
which is an African health information site loaded with articles,
videos, photographs, press releases with focus on health concerns of
Africans in African communities in Africa and outside Africa.
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I am remembering Nigeria. "We have woken from our slumber", said an American, who is leads a large Nigerian community in Philadelphia.
I am remembering Haiti. "We invented freedom. We invented equality." Ocean County Democrat, patriotic American whose little sister died in the Haiti earthquake, Mayor Joseph M Champagne JD, Jan 11, 2012.
I am remembering being sent a snapshot of a young man hanging from a tree in Missisippi, in 1981, and immediately whipping out my checkbook and sending the first of several checks to the Southern Poverty Law Center. They bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan over that murder, of a random young man, targeted because of African ancestry.
This weekend, we remember the 300,000 sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, nieces and nephews who died in an instant in Haiti. We pray for the survival of Nigerians stuck between the thievery of the west and the entitlement of their governments. We sob for the millions of Africans bought and sold as slaves whose descendants remember horrors. This weekend, we must all be African. We must all be Black. Because of what people who look like me have done, I am a woman of color. Look at my soul, not at my skin.
God bless my friends all through Africa, the Caribbean, and in African communities in the United States and wherever you are.
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Jan 10, 2012
Occupy Nigeria rally in front of Nigeria House in NYC was well attended
by Nigerian writers and intellectuals.
One young man, Sola, came with
his wheelchair by bus from Syracuse. He told he had been vaccinated
against polio with expired vaccine.
Passing truck drivers honked
support.
The first speaker was MJoTA author and MJoTAtalks guest, Dr Okey Ndibe, who was a journalist in Nigeria before coming to the United States where he works in Connecticut as an academic.
Sahara Reporters had a strong presence, Africa Abroad showed
up and I gave Alex Kabba 3 photographs I took.
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Jan 09, 2012
USA. So what am I reading from Georgia? Georgia Republicans want to kick President Obama off the election ballot in November. Their argument is that President Obama was not born in the United States, and is hence ineligible.
In May, while President Obama was sitting with his inner circle and watching in real time US SEALS going into Pakistan, storming into Osama Bin Laden's compound and burying him at sea, this nonsense was put to rest in Hawaii.
President Obama was the first president in US history to be asked to produce his birth certificate, and more was produced: hospital records, newspaper records, eye witness accounts. Barack Hussein Obama was born in Hawaii in 1961. No question.
No question except if you are of the brand of human that says "Don't believe your eyes, believe me." The brand of human that would look at the risen Christ, see the holes in his palms, and say, ok, I see you, I feel you, I was there when you were crucified, but I don't believe you rose again because when I was drinking last night, my mates said it was impossible.
No question unless you cannot read or write and do not understand that the US runs on law.
Who are these doubters? I know. What happened
was that the incompetent sugar farmers couldn't run their farms without
free labor when slaves were freed in Antigua in 1836. The good sugar
farmers stayed and did well paying
workers. A lot of them married Portuguese immigrants, and they laid the foundation for the country today that is Antigua. (They got rid of all the sugar farms a few decades ago.)
The incompetent ones moved to Virginia and Georgia and became ancestors of
the Republicans. Purebred line of incompetency, illiteracy and bigotry.
But even apart from all that, the Georgia Republicans are idiots. Didn't
they push the Newt on us?
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Jan 08, 2012
Nigeria. Wow. The House of Reps is standing up to the President of
Nigeria. So thrilled! This is wonderful.
I am waiting to hear if the
rallies are still going on. The demands in NYC were more than just
reinstating the subsidies. There are also demands for accountability,
transparency, which can be read by scrolling down this page.
The House of Reps resolution is on the right, if you click on it you will be taken to the Sahara Reporters site, which broke the news.
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Haiti. Two years ago, on January 10, a devastating earthquake in Port au Prince, the capital city of Haiti, struck in the afternoon, killing within a few seconds 10% of the population. This week, New York will be having memorial services, and many of us will be focusing on Haiti.
Haiti was the world's first country to throw off its colonizers and declare independence. They did that in 1804.
I traveled with the Bed Stuy Vollies in the first month after the Earthquake. Bed Stuy Vollies were first on the ground in Haiti, they kicked open the chains of the General Hospital and delivered care, in shifts, each shift 5 to 10 days. We were all changed by the earthquake, by the unbearable suffering we saw, by the open-handed generosity of international healthcare workers, by the extraordinary optimism of injured. God bless Haiti.
Read about the Bed Stuy Vollies on these pages, click here.
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January 8! The birthday of Elvis! Which is significant to me because of the day he died I rode my beautiful red Peugeot bike through the north of France to Calais and onto a ferry to England. And because Dr John Allen Ferry was born on that day. He died from colon cancer in 2004. He wrote about history, and when I was a teenager he walked home from church with me and we talked about history and politics.
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Nigeria. President Goodluck Jonathan released the speech today that he will be giving to the Nigerian people.
When the leaders believe that the nation's resources belong to them, and believe they are above financial accountability, and take 50% of the country's resources to pay themselves, you better believe they can pay the best speech writers on this planet to write a speech declaring that dooming 99% of Nigerians to a life of hunger and lost education is in the best interests of all Nigerians. Jan 1st, 2012, the price of gasoline tripled. I haven't seen anything about any of Nigeria's leaders reducing their salaries or expense accounts.
I stand with Nigerians in peaceful protest. I will be at the Manhattan rally on Tuesday. Please talk to me and if you stand with Nigerians in Nigeria, let me take your picture.
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Jan 07, 2012
Everyone in Nigeria is kind-hearted and loves children and wants Nigeria to thrive. I am starting from that assumption.
I am also starting from the assumption that the rule of law is paramount, that the rule of law exists so that children have the ability to thrive without being shot at or abused.
I am most impressed by the reports from the police and the civil rights boards in Nigeria, government organizations. They have affirmed the rights of Nigerians to protest peacefully. I stand with Nigerians who protest peacefully.
I do not have an opinion about who should govern Nigeria, I do not have the right to have an opinion. But I do know that the leadership in the Nigerian police will do everything they can to make sure that Nigerians do not kill each other. And that whatever happens with these protests that are being called an African Revolution, that whatever happens, the infrastructure of the police is in place so that damage to life and property is minimized.
Nigerians, I stand with you while the protests are nonviolent. I will not stand with Nigerians who protest violently.
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Jan 06, 2012
Tonight I read 3 stories I wrote around a decade ago on MJoTAtalks: Fiction. You can listen to them by clicking onto the Eagles, Lightning, Lavender page, click here.
The War is the first in a series of about 12 stories I wrote about my experiences with war, and why war is so horrible, it must be avoided at all costs. The second story, Roses for Ruth, is a short essay followed by haiku describing Ruth's life, born the second daughter of a wealthy industrialist in Germany. Her father was also a Jew. The third story describes my Uncle Tony's war, in France, after D-Day.
War is hell. Talk to each other. The situation in Nigeria is serious, but it must not be allowed to degenerate into war. Peaceful protest is good, and is permitted in Nigeria.
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I am so proud of Nigeria and Nigerians in Nigeria and outside. Read how Nigerians have come together all over the world on this page, scroll down.
If you want to see what is happening as it is happening, click here. I am getting information from Nigeria from inside Nigeria through Facebook, from Nigerian usergroups, Nigerian newspapers, and from Sahara Reporters.
I knew I was in the right place at the right time when NDLF convened a memorial service for Gani Fanwehinmi in New York City in September 2009.
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Jan 06, 2012
Nigeria Democratic Liberty Forum (NDLF)
Press Release:
New York, New York; January 5th 2012:
Nigerians
under the auspices of the Nigerian Democratic Liberty Forum (NDLF)
would be rallying in solidarity with the suffering masses of Nigeria
over the government's cruel increase in prices of petroleum products.
This
ill advised, inhuman and sadistic 117% increase in price of fuel
exposes the determination of the government to annihilate the poor
Nigerian masses who are groaning under very deplorable conditions of
living. A government that is incapable of rescuing its people from the
abyss of economic ruins should not exacerbate the hapless situation of
the suffering masses.
To this end, Nigerians in the US would express solidarity with the Nigerian people:
Date: Tuesday January 10th 2012
Venue: The Nigerian Consulate, New York
Address: 828 2nd Avenue New York, NY 10017-4300
Corner of 44th street and 2nd Avenue
Time: 12noon
Speakers would include: Okey Ndibe, Laolu Akande, Sowore Omoyele, Adegboyega Dada, Bunmi Aborishade, Willie Nwiido and others.
Our demands include the following:
1. That the Nigerian government revert to the old prices.
2.
That the government institute a panel of inquiry that includes
representatives of Labour, Civil society, professional bodies etc to
investigate the practices of petroleum products importation,
distribution and payments over the past 13 years.
3. That the
report of this inquiry should form a basis for the prosecution of those
individuals, companies and their collaborators who have defrauded the
country through sharp practices associated with importation of petroleum
products.
4. That the government ensures the four Nigerian refineries operate at installed capacities within the next 12months.
5.
That the government unveil a Petrol Production and Distribution (PPD)
policy that is aimed at 100% local production of petroleum products
within the next 12-36months.
6. That the government audit and
make public the Nigerian daily crude oil production, royalties paid by
foreign oil companies, accurate local consumption inventory rather than
the conflicting numbers released by various government agencies.
7.
That corruption in the oil sector and other areas should be confronted
and perpetrators brought to book. The poor masses should not be made to
pay for the incompetence and corruption of government officials.
8.
That the government should not underestimate the people's ability and
resolve to protest the continuous rape of the country by friends and
cronies of government.
Join us as we express solidarity with our people at home.
Signed
Bukola Oreofe
Executive Director
NDLF
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Jan 05, 2012
The abrupt New Year's Day
increase in the cost of fuel in Nigeria, fuel now costs triple, probably has many
roots.
One is the stop-global-warming lobby. My academic scientific career was
entirely focused on the gasses CO2 and O2, I know global warming, I know
it is real, and scares me to death.
However, this is not a global
warming issue. This is a matter of survival in a country that tied its
money to oil, and has decided against providing its citizens with constant
electricity and running water. The Federal and State governments (36 state governments) have put too many barriers in place for
even the wealthiest to consider solar panels And the only way to pull
water into a house, pull electricity into a house, is to own a
gasoline-burning generator.
And because the water is bad, and because boiling water is so expensive, Nigerians drink water out of plastic bottles and plastic sacks. Which have to be produced, and transported and are discarded everywhere. You want to decrease Nigeria's contribution to global warming, you stand with Nigerians at protesting the deregulation of fuel costs.
Every person in Nigeria needs to be out on the streets protesting.
But before that, they need to talk to everyone of their
relatives who is a policeman and in the military and tell them they
need to stand together.
That picture Sahara Reporters displayed
yesterday of 3 Fed Ministers laughing tells it all: the Feds are
completely out of touch with Nigerians (click here) and they believe everything
inside Nigeria and coming to Nigeria belongs to them. No! Nigeria
belongs to Nigerians.
People who look like me invaded the lands
centuries ago, and after careful deliberation, poured money on their
chosen elites to maintain colonial interests and keep stealing. Military
governments, civil war: this has not dislodged the elite simply because
they were the first educated class, the first to know that the most
evil country in the world is Switzerland with their banking, and so
whenever a ripple has happened, they are ready to go back, and they have
brought with them into power former academics who have lived their
lives in bubbles.
(I know, I was an academic for 27 years, but God opened
my eyes, and many times, I wish He hadn't, but once my eyes were opened,
they cannot be shut).
Meanwhile, 51 years later, Nigerians have scraped
themselves up by fingernails and teeth to become the most highly
educated, brilliant Diaspora in the world.
Now is the time for the
Diaspora to come together and put things in place in solidarity with our
brothers and sisters in Nigeria.
Now is the time for careful planning
for the brothers and sisters in Nigeria.
Now is the time to forget you
are Hausa, Igbo, Yoruba, male, female, pale, dark, Muslim, Christian and
come together peacefully.
I want to see the women join hands and work
together to stop this war on the peoples of Nigeria.
I want to see
international support for the peoples of Nigeria.
Mostly, what I want is
peace and the fulfillment of the mission of MJoTA.org: every child has
the right to grow up healthy and educated.
What did I hear in 2009, a
wonderful, off-the-cuff, 1 hour speech by the governor of Edo State
explaining how they only had resources to help primary schools, and
could not help universities. In 2007 I was the guest of the Dean of
Natural Sciences in Ambrose Alli University in Edo State: she didnt even have a
functioning toilet in her office, and the students have to jump over
holes and ditches to get to class. For story about Ambrose Alli University and Deputy Provost Professor Dr Mrs Afe Ekundayo, click here.
Not a surprise that in 2011, the
British Government has declared that anyone with a medical degree from Edo State's
Ambrose Alli University is not qualified in medicine enough to say she or he
has foreign qualifications, and cannot take the exams to practice
medicine in the UK. The governor of Edo State was quite happy to publicly say that he is often in the United States because his children were studying in American universities, and yes! one graduated medical school and was awarded an American MD!!
Why do Nigerians not see that the ruling elites have continued the undeclared colonial war on the peoples of Nigeria? Go back, go back and understand where the inequities came from. I would like to see a British Government inquiry into Nigeria policy, I would like to see a Wikileaks of British Government documents from the 1950s to now.
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Jan 04, 2012
Ah. When I see so many workers toiling day and night and not making enough to keep body and soul together while their leaders have free access to foreign banks and all that is good in foreign countries, I want a peaceful revolution so that all children have access to a good education. I don't want governments overthrown or violence, I want a revolution in the hearts and minds of leaders who say: what we have been doing is wrong.
When slavery was abolished in Antigua in 1836, the sugar planters who were not terribly efficient couldn't make a living without free labor, so they moved to Virginia and became the ancestors of 21st century Republicans. Which may explain why the US has plunged into financial crisis.
Slavery has never ended in Nigeria: the belief that some people are better than others and they are entitled to have others work for them for sub-poverty wages.
Sometimes this is so overwhelming to me that I sit for a few hours, talking to God, and string beads for a necklace, or paint my house.
Today I am painting my ceilings. Painting them white, the gleaming white of the white teeth of my African brothers and sisters.
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Jan 03, 2012
Nigeria. Reading posts from Nigeria, I am seeing the outrage expressed by Sahara Reporters ("Nigeria Government Declares War on People") and Africa Abroad (see previous post) is considered too little, too late. Nigerians have been taxed on the roads for some time, and other costs have spiraled up.
Nigerians in Nigeria want more pressure by the Diaspora on the Federal Government.
I have read a report saying that the Naija Feds had to remove the fuel subsidy because it took 25% of the GDP. I believe they need to increase the fuel subsidy so it takes 50% of the GDP, to get businesses going.
What Americans and those who do not know Nigeria do not understand is that fuel does not just go in cars. Fuel goes in generators and is often the only way to get electricity and running water. If you are lucky, you can get power and water every other day from town supplies; I know that once when I was 10 days in a studio in Surulere, the town supply came on not more than 4 times, for a maximum of 3 hours, click here for story. The film-maker spent most of his time fixing the generators, and then repairing the video and audio equipment and computers which were always broken because only generator electricity was constant.
Trying to run
businesses without constant power and water is Herculean, some manage
it, but many do not, and Nigeria has massive unemployment. And the only
way for many to get electricity is by fuel-driven generator. Are the massive savings by the Feds going to install solar panels for constant electricity? I haven't heard that.
Mr Alex Kabba
publishes a newspaper every 2 weeks called African Abroad. And has for
11? years. He came to Philadelphia for our CAC anniversary, he tries
hard to report Nigerian communities and does well. His pain at the more
than doubling of gasoline prices is shared widely.
From Alex Kabba: "I
am here in exile in New York because we fought the military regime of
the brutal dictator, Sani Abacha who drove us into exile. Now that
Abacha is dead and democracy is back in Nigeria and I am planning to
relocate to Nigeria, the clueless President Goodluck Jonathan is writing
the script for coupists with his careless and shameless callousness by
dislocating Nigeria's economic balance with his removal of the so
called fuel subsidy.Even though Boko Haram looms over his head! How
stupid can you get! Is Nigeria cursed?"
Jan 02, 2012
Nigeria. Certainly we have been hearing about removal of the fuel
subsidy for months, but the announcement on New Year's Day that it that
it ended, effective immedaitely, has caused chaos and protest all over
Nigeria. All I see coming out of Nigeria today are stories about the
price of fuel more than doubling overnight.
When the Nigerian government was discussing eliminating fuel
subsidies for months, I hope hybrid car and solar panel importers have
been paying attention. Which will only help the 1%, not the 99%.
Nigeria could wobble under this unrest and go back to acceptance of
grinding poverty, no power and no light for the 99% (many of them
university graduates) and exceedingly comfortable lifestyle for the 1%.
Or this could spark a revolution. I am praying that whatever happens,
everyone stays alive and mothers are rejoicing with their sons, not
mourning them.
----------------------------------------------------
Shaken, but not stirred. This evening, a man who gave me verbal support
and resources turned violent against me, sending me an ugly threat. Not
the first time this has happened. The first step in this process is
always "I don't talk to white people" or "go back to your own people".
Tonight was the second time in a month that a known sexual predator and
abusive bully has contacted me and told me that even though he a) got me
arrested and sued for $20million or b) made a violent threat against
me, even still, he believes that my main goal in life is to be with him.
I am wondering if I know more than the usual amount of men who are
stark raving mad. Hey! I am 60! I am a publisher! I tell stories, which
is why I listen to you, so back off chaps!!
My brothers, my sisters, I love you, even as you throw stones because
of the rage that has welled up from centuries of
indignities by people who look like me. I rejected being white 5 years
ago, but those who cannot see my ancient Nigerian DNA and my heart don't
understand what I have done and who I am. And stop preying on my
sisters, my brothers, everyone, everywhere. I won't tolerate that in
anyone, I don't care whose genes you express internally or externally.
Jan 01, 2012
Happy New Year! I danced in my local town as the Mayor, Tish, counted us
down to midnight and the band played Mummers' music. Magical, and I
walked to the post office, and there was a check in my post office box!
Yeah! 2012, you are a keeper! I wish everyone lots of dancing, and
reasons to dance; and if reasons to dance are absent, dance anyway,
dancing makes you closer to God.
Nigeria. The government overnight more than doubled the cost of fuel. Very dangerous situation.
At the Nigerian Igbo Catholic Mass in St Cyprian's Church, one by one the congregation of about 300 people went forward to pray at the altar and then was anointed with oil on hands and forehead by the charismatic Igbo priest, Father Kieran. I realized when I was standing in line, behind my friend who works with autistic children and has a cheerful autistic son, he grinned the whole service, that only one prayer made sense to me. That I never lose my faith.
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MJoTAtalks, click here
-MJoTAtalks:
Art Bearing Witness with Omenihu Amachi, click here
-MJoTAtalks: Health with MJoTA publisher, click here
-MJoTAtalks: Fiction with MJoTA publisher, click here
-MJoTAtalks: Music with Irving Jean-Baptiste, click here
-MJoTAtalks: Youth with Carlos Ginsburg, click here
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Biafra audio. Listen to speeches by General Ojukwu and the Biafran national anthem. Click here.
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Haddonfield New Jersey mayor is Tish Colombi. Lovely picture of Tish in article on Olympic runner who grew up in Haddonfield, click here.
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