AfricaWorld Newspaper 1-15 November 2014

KALUSHABWALYAMore on page 7

FIGHTING INFIDELITYMore on page 2

EVERYTHING RUNSON OILMore on page 12

AFRICAWORLDOFFICE ATTACKEDMore on page 2

WHY LDI AMIN EXP-ELLED THE ASIANSMore on page 8

TRAVEL & TOURISMSOUTH AFRICAMore on page 23

DR. BOLEREELIZABATH KETEBUMore on page 4

RETURN OFTHE NATIVEMore on page 6

MATHS MADE EASY

More on page 17

AFRICAWORLD OFFICE ATTACKED AND VANDALIZED

On Thursday 23 October, AfricaWorld newspaper staff came to work at 9.30am to see their office torched in most despicable manner. First the entrance door of their Dublin City Centre office was hacked open and damaged to let assailants gain entrance. Secondly, Professional video camera recorders used in the dis-charge of their duties were carted away with equipments for their online Africa-World TV. The vandals did not stop at that as they destroyed an Apple desktop and other materials used in reporting. - Continue on page 2

™Our light has come and the glory of Yahweh is with us..º - editor.

HURRY NOW! FARM PRODUCE FOR SALETo place an order contact Fungai 0861050802

[email protected]

Produced in Ireland, Afri-can farm produce. White and Yellow Maize (NOT SWEET CORN), vegeta-bles leap such as chomo-lia, Spinach, Rape, and Pumpkins leaves freshly harvested just before delivery to you.AfricaWorld Newspaper

SUMMARY

Ukachukwu Okorie - AfricaWorld editor

EditorialEditorial ti-tleddddd

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 News/Column02

AFRICAWORLD OFFICE ATTACKED AND VANDALIZED

Asked if he thinks the attack was racially motivated, the editor Ukachukwu Okorie said “Ever since we moved into this office man-aged by LyonsDer-mody Solicitors, we have been threatened and racially abused in different ways. If not this kind of attack on our equipments, we have grown tick-skin to verbal and other harassment that are not physical. We have risen and shining be-

cause our light has come and the glory is with us. These kind of attacks can only inspire our desire and make us stronger.”

According to the editor, the Garda are closing-in on the van-dal as he was picked by the street CCTV. A letter dated 24 Octo-ber, assuring full in-vestigation and signed by a Superintendent at the Store Street Garda Station was

sent to them. Details of all organisations recognised by the Department of Justice & Equality to support victims of crime, was equally enclosed.

The editor was full of appreciation to their teeming readers and followers across the world for their soli-darity and prayers. AfricaWorld newspaper which was launched at the Irish Writers Centre at the height

of the recession has grown steadily, and expanding to other media related ser-vices, including com-munity functions. “As we await the outcome of Garda investiga-tions, we will continue to thank Yahweh for giving us the grace to serve and inspire. We love doing this job and we love Ireland”, Ukachukwu Okorie said.

Short storyWHY THE VUL-TURE HAS NO

FRIEND by Ukachukwu Okorie

Once upon a time in the land of animals and birds, there was peace and love be-tween all. Birds and animals of all kinds lived together in harmony. Apartments tunneled in caves were shared by all as birds even weaved nests in human caves. The earth was filled with brotherhood as much as green food was plenty. As the population of the earth grew, it was agreed that their must be leadership and authority vested in either an animal or bird. However, it was decided that it must rotate between them. The birds, after much discussion, conceded the first short at lead-ership to the animals. They told animals to decide among them-selves and present the first Emperor of the earth as agreed.

As such, a man was presented by all an-imals and the earth came under his au-thority unanimously. The birds tallied along with the hope of suc-ceeding man after his death. Unfortunately for the birds, there was a conspiracy between humans and other animals. They planned to short-change the birds and rotate it between them instead.

It happened that during the reign of the humans, there was drought on earth as no rain dropped from the sky for a couple of years. This brought tough times on earth as the human leader-ship demanded hard work and commitment from all in communal effort to grow drought friendly crops. As this period demanded serious manual labour from all, it was evi-dent that the vulture was lazy and cun-ning. They would lazy around only to eat more to annoy other birds and animals. The human leadership did not take this kindly as they felt cheated by a little creature without bigger brains.

Continue on page 3

By Abdul Yusuf

Infidelity is a subtle monster that creeps into relationships when guards are down. It is true that in most cases, there might not be any ob-vious signs of cracks or trouble: you only realise the other par-ty has been playing away with some kind of person outside the matrimony. They try to keep tap with usual family tempo or even

step up in response so as not to induce any kind of suspicion but this cannot be covered for too long.

Once one or both partners start look-ing out and finding comfort in people other than their le-gal spouse; even a relationship that was known to be a safe haven starts to depre-ciate.

In most cases, cou-

ples do not plan to be unfaithful to their mate; circumstances, carelessness and ig-norance could cause a slip. A strong desire to be appreciated, loved, respected and getting the assurance of relevance or attrac-tiveness could cushion a fellow’s path to the arms of strangers. It could start from as little as taking a coffee break with a colleague, offering / accepting a lift at the

close of work, sitting out in the pub to un-wind, giving / receiv-ing compliment, being supportive and gener-ally finding a friend to talk to in trying times.

It’s so easy to form an emotional bond with someone you think pays attention to you. This is one of the reasons ex-perienced lovers will advice never to walk up to anyone and first ask to date them-you

AGONY CORNER: Fighting Infidelity, The Subtle Monster That Creeps into Rela-tionships

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 |Column 03


FRIEND From page 2

This trend continued until life came back like it used to be but sooner rather than later, the Emperor died. The death threw the throne open but it was previously agreed that the next occupant shall be one of the birds. Though grudgingly, humans and their counterparts asked the birds to nominate among them. After tough delibera-tions and arguments, the birds came up with the choice of the vulture but it per-turbed all how it came to happen.

The humans were the first to object to the choice, arguing about the vulture’s laziness in the case of tough times. Other animals joined the humans in backing off from recognizing the bird’s choice and soon, there were crises of leadership. The birds agreed to back the vulture due to certain strange qualities it possessed that fright-ened the animals, of which some included patience and cunning-ness. However, their support became shaky as the whole issue threatened earthly harmony, making them begin to withdraw their support for the vulture.Meanwhile, chaos started to set in when other animals sought the backing of humans to reign as they had agreed but the latter backed off, instead manoeuvering to con-tinue leading with the pretence of holding forth until calm was restored. However, the birds regrouped and nominated another to replace the vulture but the victim could not take it. On the other hand, crises of confidence brewed between the animals over the craftiness of humans.

Finally, war seemed imminent and the vul-ture took his offspring off with a parting warning to other birds to watch out the worst of humans and their fellow animals.

Continue on page 4

start gradually. A sto-ry was told of an ugly looking guy who lived in a certain neigh-bourhood but turned out to be the envy of almost all the young men around. To their outmost surprise; this guy dated the best girls anyone could ever desire and he was really in control of the relationship and could also dump them for others at will. When asked how he gets through to the babes, he enthused “I simply make my-self available to them first”. Making yourself available to people will walk you straight into the secret cham-bers of their emo-tion. This could range from doing something as simple as help-ing someone pick up fallen items, noticing and giving compliment about looks, offering a space or giving pref-erence for attention. People naturally love to be treated with respect; it feels good to know that some-one appreciates you. There is no lie in the saying that “you are vulnerable to whoever meets your emotional need”.

Unfortunately, most couples never inten-tionally thought of being unfaithful to their loved ones. Here is what Sandra B. has to say: “I know I love my husband very much; we have been together for a couple of years and raised four gorgeous children together. When his brother died from a sudden heart failure, my husband had no choice than to re-sign from his regular nine to five job to manage his business empire. This brought some changes to our closely knitted fami-

ly life where we (the children and I) were always looking forward to his homecoming at the close of work. We would all sit together and have dinner or choose to eat out, watch telly, read and listen to stories and finally retire by plant-ing warm kisses over each other.

With the new busi-ness; my hubby was travelling a lot more in a short time than he’s ever done all through the period we’ve been married. The trips were some-times between four to ten days and this practically looked like forever to us back home; having to cope with not hearing the door bells at 7.00pm. The older kids helped tremendously but who can fill the vacuum created by a father’s absence? My nights were miserably longer; I would read myself to sleep but bouts of naps were not enough for health.

It hurt even deeper when he got so en-grossed in his work and not remember to call at night. Yes, I was meant to under-stand but that does not solve the prob-lem. I confided in To-nia (my close friend) and she advised I should enrol in some kind of women or fitness club that could help occupy my time and thought for most part of the day. It sounded a good idea and finding one was not a big deal. To be honest, joining the fit-ness club opened me to a brand new world I had no inkling of its existence. Members were so friendly and supportive that it was easy for me to de-cide hanging out with

them for long. I defi-nitely had a few folds to melt and listening to the testimony of members who started out just like me but achieved their goals within a short time was something very soothing to my anx-ious soul.

Two weeks into the club, I found my heart heavily skipping to-wards my personal trainer. The way he talked to me, made me feel really com-fortable in my skin. I would purposely delay his evening calls and enjoy his calmness as he tries to find out how my day went and the things I ate or how I was able to stick to my eating plans. Days I would fail flat were my dread but his never condemning attitude lifted me to take an-other chance.

Our relationship stayed clean for months even though I felt butterflies in my tummy each time we talked or met; I controlled my emo-tion and acted as if nothing happened at all. I cannot say where exactly I lost it but I found myself telling him so much about myself than I should have done. He appeared to be an ever ready shoulder for me to cry on and his words were more soothing than what any balm could possi-bly offer. I savoured every moment we had and intimacy gradually surfaced.

My husband still had his place any time he came home; he was happy about my courage to work on my weight but he had no idea someone else was also work-

ing on his wife- what a tragedy! One day, he found a very ro-mantic note from my trainer in my bag as he was reaching for my screaming phone alarm. He seized the note, read it pri-vately and carefully thought of what to do with me. It was heart breaking for me to see him weep profusely; asking for my forgiveness and offering to make it up to me. I felt so stupid and ashamed of my-self for stooping so low but I confessed to him I did not plan to hurt him or take retri-bution at his absence. It was not an easy time for both of us but we were able to survive it, supporting and caring for each other’s need as much as we could.


AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 News04

AfricaWorld wish Dr. Bolere Elizabeth Ketebu happy 60th Birthday. Congratulation!Nigeria Amabassador to Ireland

From page 3

For all animals, he promised to stage a come-back for revenge at the right time. A war later broke out on earth when the vulture and its lineage were out. As a form of payback, they always hovered and patiently perched mocking a dying animal or bird to give up fast so they could eat it as a way of pay-back. Since that earthly war, they do not mix with other birds or animals be-cause of lack of trust.

www.africaworld.comfollow as on twitter@Africaworldnews

Join thousands who follow us on facebook

Africaworld PhotosAfricaworld TVAfricaworld NewsAfricaworld CartoonAfricaworld folktale &EntertainmentAfricaworld gossipAfricaworld youth


FRIEND

Signed - Ukachukwu Okorie - editor

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 |News 05

AfricaWorld wish Dr. Bolere Elizabeth Ketebu happy 60th Birthday. Congratulation!Nigeria Amabassador to Ireland

Poems

Signed - Ukachukwu Okorie - editor

By Ukachukwu Okorie

- SMILING DUN LOAG-HAIRE

Strewn on the habours of the wharfClean amidst the mas-sage of sea breezeBlowing the unguarded hairthrough the roots to fluff aroundStanding lonely yet buzyMeditating as well as lookingCounting the move-ment of skyon the bay of the sea townI smile for there’s nothingNot even the waters can offer meEven with the Wharf town lookingI smile like a handbags owner.

- THE GPO

Stood the test of timeIn the struggle for freedomYou are a living with-nessBlood and flesh splat-teredTears and anguish chorusedYou saw the courage of menYou’re a harbinger of thoughtsFaiths converge on thy corridorMen walk past in rev-erenceHistory rever youCos you counted the costWhen the city of DublinFought a sprawling empire.

- SATURDAY MARKET

A smile at the odd ones outHope that restores confidenceFrom household to allYou answer the multi purpose callWhen the cock crowsTo the tune of the second grubQuenching the lure of Henry and GraftonGiving hope to the hopelessSoul and gong of CumberlandYou are a true raftTo the place for all nations


AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 Return of the Native06

The recent attack on our office, has thrown up the question - Who is afraid of AfricaWor-ld newspaper? It is unfortunate that we are asking this ques-tion: such question are often headlines in developing countries and democracies.

Although we have confidence in the Garda investigating team after the foren-sic department failed to get finger prints, we are compelled to know why such attack, theft and vandalization should happen. Does anyone have issues with our growth and stature? We all know how AfricaWorld rose from May 7 2011 at the Irish Writers Centre till this day. It was out of sheer de-termination and hard-work by talented folks from all corners of the world.

We appeal to anyone who have issues with our brand to change the motive. Our bi-weekly newspaper is free, independent and rooted in community service. Who does not know that, although we are dogged, yet we struggle to keep our heads high.

As we wait for the outcome of Garda in-vestigation, I am com-pelled to ask once-more - Who is worried about what we are doing in AfricaWorld?

Come in.

Uka

EditorialWHO IS AFRAID OF

AFRICAWORLD?

“African society must be treated as enjoy-ing its own integrity; its history must be a mirror of that soci-ety, and the European contact must find its place in this history only as an African experience, even if as a crucial one.”

Kwame Nkrumah was born on September 21, 1909, in Nkroful, Ghana to Madam Nyaniba and Francis Nwia Kofi Ngonlo-ma. Simply known as the father of modern Africa, the Ghanaian nationalist leader who led the former Gold Coast struggle for self-rule from Britain remain the most im-portant and popular pan - Africanist in the 20th century. He actually set the ball rolling on the fierce agitation for the de-colonisation of Africa through actualising the new nation of Ghana. He led the country from indepen-dence in 1957 until he was overthrown by a coup in 1966.

Kwame, an ex-sem-inarian, graduated from Achimota School in Accra in 1930 and taught at a Roman Catholic education centre in Axim. Nkru-mah left for the Unit-ed States in 1935, receiving a BA from the Lincoln Univer-sity, Pennsylvania in 1939. He also earned a Master of Science in education and MA in philosophy in 1942 and 1943 respective-ly, from University of Pennsylvania. After pledging the Mu Chap-ter of Phi Beta Sigma fraternity in 1942, he received a Bachelor

of Sacred Theology. Nkrumah became a graduate assistant and started teaching in the university. While lecturing in po-litical science at Lin-coln he was elected president of the Afri-can Students Organi-zation of America and Canada. As an under-graduate at Lincoln he wrote about Africa in the student newspa-per,The Lincolnian.

During his stay in the United States, Nkrumah toured and evangelised in black Presbyterian Church-es in Philadelphia and New York City, as well as tutoring fellow students in philosophy and theology.

It was at this period of his sojourn abroad that he mingled with peolple of different background and nur-tured the ideas of pioneering pan-Af-ricanism and black revolution.

Kwame Nkrumah left the US for England in May 1945. Though he had came to study at the London School of Economics, however, he decided to help organize the Fifth Pan-African Congress in Manchester after meeting with George Padmore, another influential Afro-Trini-dadian. Kwame later founded the West African National Sec-retariat to work for the decolonization of Africa. He was also the Vice-President of the West African Stu-dents’ Union.

Nkrumah came back and became the Gen-eral Secretary to the

United Gold Coast Convention in 1947 under Joseph B. Dan-quah after brief stops in Sierra Leone, Li-beria, and the Ivory Coast. This conven-tion (UGCC) took off on exploring paths to independence for the then British Colo-ny of the Gold Coast (now Ghana). He soon emerged as the prima-ry leader of the Gha-naian independence youth movement in 1948 after spending time in colonial gulag due to the protest of Ex-African servicemen protest.

After his release from the British colonial im-prisonment, Nkrumah decided to embark on a nationwide tour to mobilise support. In his speeches, he would proclaim that the Gold Coast need-ed self-government.

Although Kwame Nk-rumah was inspired deeply by the ideas and association in the field of people like Marcus Garvey, W.E.B. DuBois, George Padmore and C.L.R. James, Nkrumah would himself go on to spur and encourage his peers at home in Africa to rise in kick-ing out colonisation of the continent. One of his greatest suc-cess was perhaps, his significant influence in the founding of the Organization of Afri-can Unity which is the predecessor of African Union (AU).

In 1966, February to be precise, while he was away on a state visit to Vietnam, his government was over-thrown in a military

coup engineered by the United States CIA. As a matter of fact, Nkrumah would never again return to Ghana, however, he continued to push for his vision of African unity from elsewhere. He spent much of his exile in Guinea - Cona-kry, where he was the guest of Ahmed Sékou Touré, who made him honorary co-president of Guinea. At 62, in August, 1971, with deteriorating health, Kwame Nkrumah died in Bucharest, Romania. Though Osagyefo is no more, his legacies spurred his genera-tion, it still inspire ours in this trying times to re-assert the vitality of being Afri-can.

Return of the NativeOSAGYEFO KWAME NKRUMAH by

Ukachukwu Okorie

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 |Sport 07

KALUSHA BWALYABy Ukachukwu Okorie

Call him the cat with nine lives, Great Kalu or the Magic left. Kalusha Bwalya is an enigma and talent. Zambia’s greatest sportsman of the cen-tury and FIFA World Cup Ambassador in 2010, was born in Mufurila, a Copperbelt mining town, on 16 August 1963. Foot-ball runs in the family blood as Kalusha’s siblings are not found wanting in tapping the round leather game. A seasoned footballer and sport administra-tor, Kalusha’s elder brother Benjamin Bwa-lya played professional too while his younger brother, Joel Bwalya played for the Zambia national football team. Robert Earnshaw who currently play for Welsh national football team is his cousin.

Although Kalusha de-buted against Uganda in 1983, he started to make great impact in Cercle Brugge from 1985 - 1989, playing 95 games and scoring 30 goals. A member of the Chipolopolo that participated at the 1988 Olympic Games, making a solid mark with a most famous hat-trick in a 4-0 thrashing against Italy. In his first sea-son at Cercle Brugge, he was the club’s top scorer and was twice voted fans player of the year. Due to his exploits there, Dutch giants PSV Eindhoven took him to the Ere-divisie, where he won the championship twice in 1990/91 and 1991/92, under Sir Bobby Robson.

From Holland, Kalusha Bwalya moved to Mex-

ico’s Club America in 1994. The legendary Azteca, is their home ground, and the Zam-bian icon has fondest memories of it. In one of his interviews with FIFA.com, he said “I am privileged to have played in the best stadium in the world, and to have been able to call it my home ground.” Kalush devoted almost eight years of his career to the Mexico and to him, it is truly cher-ished.

One of the greats in African sport, Kalusha Bwalya contributed immensely in inspir-ing a generation of African footballers. Apart from his cham-pionship medals in the Dutch league, he was African Footballer of the year - 1988 from France Football . As a matter of fact, faith was kind to Kalusha that he was not on the disastrous flight in April 1993 that killed most of the Zambian internationals on their way to a World Cup qualifier in Senegal. He would later spear-head and captain the rebuilt Chipolopolo to a berth in the final of the 1994 African Cup of Nations, where

Nigeria’s Super Ea-gles won them to lift the African Cup of Nations. Kalusha Bwa-lya is Zambia’s most capped player, playing 100 games and scor-ing 50. He is all-time top goalscorer second to Godfrey ‘Ucar’ Chi-talu. He was nominat-ed for the FIFA World Player of the Year in 1996.

He was nominated as a playing coach of the Zambian national side in 2004, but failed to qualify for the World Cup. After a first round exit in the

2006 African Cup of Nations, thus resign-ing from this post. He is the President of the Football Association of Zambia (FAZ) since 2008 and under his administrative direc-tion, the Chipolopolo conquered Africa in football by becoming the winners of Afri-ca Cup of Nations in 2012. He also serves on the CAF and FIFA technical and admin-istration committees. Kalusha Bwalya is the founder of the Kalu-sha Bwalya Foundation Trust which partners with the Dutch to promote sports, HIV/AIDS awareness and other positive inter-est.For weeks now, ISIS militants in north-

ern Syria have been attacking the Kurdish city of Ayn al-Arab, also known as Kobani, attempting to seize the city and solidify control of the terri-tory. In the past few days, U.S.-led air-strikes on ISIS have included many tar-gets around Kobani, and appear to have at least slowed their advance for the mo-ment.

Kobani is situated on a hillside right on the Syria-Turkey border, a border crossed by tens of thousands of

Kurds fleeing their besieged city. Now, some of these refugees and fellow Kurds from southern Turkey have gath-ered on the border to watch the battles in Kobani through binoc-ulars and cameras. Some Kurdish forces remain in the city, de-fending against invad-ing militants, support-ed by Western aircraft and missiles, while ISIS continues to attack with artillery, mortars, suicide bombings, and small arms. CNN re-ports that senior U.S. administration officials conceded that Kobani will likely soon fall to ISIS, but downplayed the importance of the loss.

AdvertCheck out

www.africaworld.comfollow as on twitter@Africaworldnews

Join thousands who follow us on facebook

Africaworld PhotosAfricaworld TVAfricaworld NewsAfricaworld CartoonAfricaworld folktale &EntertainmentAfricaworld gossipAfricaworld youth


partly because of the racial segregation in-herited from Uganda’s past.

British apartheid Up till independence in 1962, there was an unwritten but trust-ed social order in the colonial administra-tion where Europeans were regarded as first class, Asians as sec-ond class, and Afri-cans as third class. For example, in trains there was a first class coach for Europeans and a few Asians, and there were coaches for Asians, and coach-es for Africans. Apart-

of stone or concrete. Very few African trad-ers had such build-ings. It was clear that the colonial wanted native Ugandans to remain hewers of wood and drawers of water.

By 1959, when a trade boycott of all foreign-owned stores was pronounced by Augustine Kamya of the Uganda Nation-al Movement, Afri-cans handled less than 10% of national trade. Ambassador Paul Etiang served as Amin’s minister for five years. He was the permanent secre-tary at the ministry of foreign affairs in 1972. In an interview with New African, he explained that the expulsion came about

entrepreneurs on the other hand faced many odds. The Brit-ish colonial govern-ment forbade Africans to gin and market cotton. In 1932 when the Uganda Cotton Society tried to obtain

high prices by ginning and marketing its own cotton and “elimi-nate the Indian mid-dleman,” it was not allowed. The banks – Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, and Standard Bank of South Africa – did not lend to many Africans. As such, the Africans could not participate in wholesale trade because the colonial government issued wholesale licenses only to traders with permanent buildings

Agnes Asiimwe looks back at Uganda’s expulsion of its Asian community 42 years ago, under Idi Amin’s government. Bru-tal as the expulsion was, one beneficiary of the expropriat-ed Asian properties, says: “I don’t think we shall get another Ugandan with Amin’s kind of nationalism.” Idi Amin, the former president of Uganda, had a dream in Au-gust 1972. “I have dreamt,” he told a gathering in Karamoja, northeastern Uganda, “that unless I take action, our economy will be taken over. The people who are not Ugandans should leave.” He left Karamoja by helicopter and stopped at the Toro-ro airstrip in eastern Uganda. He had sent word that he wanted to address the army. There, he announced the dream again to a hurriedly organised parade by the Rubon-gi military unit. Some Asians were thrown into a panic. Others thought Amin was bluffing. P. K. Kuruvilla had just bought a building in Kimathi Avenue in downtown Kampala, the capital. It was a home for his insur-ance company, United Assurance. He says: “We invested all the money into buying the building. We took a loan from the bank, I had a house in Kololo and I mortgaged it to raise money for the building.” Then President Amin announced the ex-

pulsion. “I thought he was not serious,” says Kuruvilla. “I had put all my money plus a loan into the United Assurance property. We had confidence that we were going into a new era.” But Idi Amin meant every word. Ugan-dan-Asians had to leave in 90 days. Kuruvilla first sent off his family and lin-gered around just in case Amin changed his mind. But Amin’s “economic war” was real. The Asians had to make arrangements and hand over their business interests to their nominees. The arrangement among most Asian families was that one would be a Ugandan, another Indian, an-other British. So the non-Ugandans trans-ferred their businesses to the Ugandans. The British High Commis-sion became a camp. Many of those with Indian passports want-ed to go to the UK. The three months’ deadline was fast ap-proaching. Meanwhile many Ugandans cele-brated and lined the streets daily to chant, “Go home Bangla-deshi! Go home Ban-gladeshi!” Colonial Uganda had strongly favoured Asians. Many arrived with the British colo-nialists to do clerical work or semi-skilled manual labour in farm-ing and construction. They had a salary, which became the capital to start busi-nesses. Aspiring Ugandan

Why Idi Amin Expelled The Asians

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | News 09

heid did not start in South Africa or the US; it started with the “mother country”, Great Britain.

The same order pre-vailed with other fa-cilities such as toilets. The segregation was not supported by law but it was observed in practice. Africans were not expected to go to the Imperial Ho-tel (The Grand Imperi-al Hotel in downtown Kampala). There was a sign outside the ho-tel that stayed there until 1952. It read: “Africans and dogs not allowed”. The waiters were Asians. “Come independence

in 1962,” Ambassador Etiang explains, “one significant provision in the independence constitution was an article which stated that those people who were not Ugan-dans as at Uganda’s

independence on 9 October 1962, had two years to make up their minds, whether to become citizens of the new Uganda or adopt the status of British-protected per-sons, in which case the latter would have a British passport.” Many Asians at the time applied for Brit-ish citizenship but because business was good in Uganda with no competition from the locals, many did not leave.

In 1969, Britain tabled a revised ver-sion of its Immigration Act, the Patriot’s Act. Commonwealth pass-port holders would need a visa to enter Britain. Britain was compelled to pass

that Act as a con-dition for its entry into the European Economic Commission (EEC). Now, it was only citizens of mem-ber states of the EEC that had the right to travel to Britain without a visa. “Com-monwealth members reacted to it very strongly,” Ambas-sador Etiang recalls. “This is what brought about the immigration discussion in Uganda.” The Ugandan gov-ernment, then under

President Milton Obo-te, started asking: “How do we deal with all these Asians? If Britain was mak-ing rules barring us from opportunities in Britain, then we also have the right to have our own rules to regulate those who are coming here.” That was when Ugan-da, Kenya, and Tanza-nia realised that they needed their own Immigration Acts, and the first Immigration Acts were subsequent passed that year in reaction to the Brit-ish Patriot’s Act. By 1971, the issue of Asians being Ugan-dans or not, remained unaddressed beyond the provision in the 1962 Constitution. “But this is what I believe triggered the expulsion under Amin,” says Ambas-sador Etiang. The spark The head of the Re-ligious Services at the time, Col Khamis Safi, was from the Nubian tribe and a Muslim like Amin. Safi was the son of a man believed to have walked to Mecca, on pilgrimage, in 1917. It is a popular Nubian story. Because he sur-vived the treacherous journey by land, he was deemed to have been a holy man. And because he was holy even his children must be holy. Khamis Safi was therefore an obvious choice to be head of Religious Services. “By 1972,” Ambas-sador Etiang recalls, “Khamis Safi was usu-ally the last person to visit Amin every day at State House. On 4 July 1972, I happened

to be among the last three to leave. There was Khamis Safi and Mustafa Ramathan, who was the minister for cooperatives. We were having a light chat when Amin came in. “Khamis posed a question to Amin: ‘Afande, have you ever asked yourself why God made you a president?’ Amin replied by asking Khamis: ‘What do you mean?’ “‘God appointed you president,’ Khamis repeated. ‘There are many injustices in this country. Each tribe has a place they call home. Even Etiang here, the Itesots have a place. But have you ever asked yourself, where do the Nubians come from? As far as I know God made you president to rectify the wrongs that have been handed to Nu-bians in this country. We are the ones who brought Captain Baker here, we are the ones who founded Kampa-la. Kampala is Nubian territory.’ “Amin was listening. You should have been there when this sup-posedly holy man was talking to Amin, he would be docile,” said Etiang. Amin said, maybe it is true. But Mustafa Ramathan challenged the argument that Kampala was Nubian territory.But Khamis insist-ed that Nubians too needed a place. “We brought the Muzungu (white man) here on our backs. He set up camp at Old Kampala. This place is ours.”

Continue on page 10


government and sold. Amin agreed to pay the Asians who lost their property, and in-deed set up a fund at the central bank, the Bank of Uganda.The Asians who left for Canada and En-gland were paid through the Uganda High Commission for the value of their properties and 30% as disturbance allow-ance. However, in 1983, under a new president, Milton Obo-te, the Expropriated Properties Act was in-stituted to provide for the transfer of expro-priated properties to their former owners. Then long after Presi-dent Yoweri Museveni had taken power (he came into office in January 1986 after chasing out Obote’s second government), he returned the prop-erties to their original Asian owners. “That’s how some Asians came back and repossessed their properties, for which they had already been compensated,” ex-plains Ssebagala.

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUB-LISHED IN NEW AFRI-CAN MAGAZINE

collapsed in no time. One lucky recipient was the former Kam-pala City mayor, Hajj Nasser Ntege Sse-bagala, who believes that Ugandans failed to run the shops because of lack of experience. Some sold the shirts by collar size where size seven would be sold at sev-en shillings. “The point was to get Africans to start doing business,” says Ssebagala. “Out of the many failures, there were a handful of success stories. That’s how a middle class is created. Amin wanted people to get used to money, to learn to run a busi-ness. The idea was to give a chance to Afri-cans to come up,” Ssebagala says Amin demonstrated that he cared about Ugan-dans. “I don’t think we shall get another Ugandan with the kind of nationalism like Amin’s,” Ssebagala says, without blinking an eyelid.In 1973, Amin’s gov-ernment issued the Properties and Busi-nesses (Acquisition) Decree. Under it, Asian properties were expropriated by the

ers, and most of the imported goods they had imported got stuck in Mombasa, the Kenyan seaport. Nobody claimed the goods and Kenyans got them for peanuts.Uganda was hit by an acute shortage of essential goods. What saved the coun-try was that coffee had the highest value ever at the time. One wagon of coffee was $1.8m. “I remember 22 Au-gust 1977,” recalls Etiang, “that time we were acutely short of paraffin. Iraq gave us paraffin – from one Muslim brother to another – but Ken-yans refused to allow it to transit. ‘This is very bad indeed,’ said Amin. Then he told me: ‘Go to your boss and see if he can allow it to transit through Dar es Salaam [Tanzania]’.” Etiang, now the for-eign minister, went to see President Julius Nyerere of Tanzania who agreed that the paraffin should transit through Mutukula – all two million litres. Amin’s government distributed the Asian businesses to Ugan-dans. Many of them

Amin said, “OK, we’ll think about it.” Three weeks later, Amin left for Kar-amoja by helicopter. There, he revealed that he had had a dream that what Khamis had said was true. That God had revealed to him that unless he obeyed the advice of the holy son, Uganda risked being taken over by the imperialists. “I believe that was the origin of the ex-pulsion,” Ambassador Etiang says. “Once you told Amin some-thing and he liked it, he would keep it to himself and then later put it in his own way like it was his idea.” When Amin told the cabinet about the expulsion, it was greeted with scepti-cism. The civil service received the imple-mentation orders as a cabinet directive. The attorney general was directed to draft an expulsion order. Amin was later told he could not expel all the Asians because some were Ugandans. “I met Khamis at State House again,” Ambassador Etiang remembers. “He told

Amin in Kiswahili that what you have done is very good but if you want to remove this tree from here, you don’t just cut off the branches. The idea of only non-citi-zens leaving is like a branch. Remove the whole tree. An Indian is an Indian. He can have three passports at a time. All of them could be with two or more passports. Amin said okay. “The Asians who suffered a lot are those who professed to be Ugandan be-cause while the oth-er ones had three months’ notice, the Ugandan-Asians had less than a month to leave.”They had to abandon the property given to them by their de-parting relatives and friends. Says Etiang: “This man Khamis Safi is the single individual who brought all this up.” The British foreign secretary at the time, James Callaghan, came to plead for the Asians, but Amin refused to change his mind. The harsh im-pact was felt by the native Africans. The Asians were import-

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | News/Advert 11

PRIME MINISTER TAFAWA BALEWA!!!!!SIMPLICITY AND HUMILITY OF A MAN THAT ONCE LIVED!!!!!

he asked, but was shocked to hear it was to his village. On getting to his village, there was no evidence to show that a BIG MAN was there. Everybody was busy with their chores. He met a farmer with his donkey carrying bales of sugarcane for the PM’s home and he

It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be. Nigerians of today need to borrow a leaf from Late Prime Min-ister….down to earth humble manI rest my case

Akin Awofolaju,PhDNew York

It was reported that Sir Abubakar Tafa-wa Balewa went on his only annual leave as Prime Minister of Nigeria in 1963 and decided to spend the vacation in his vil-lage. A British photo journalist came call-ing and was told the PM was on vacation. “To which country?”

no respect for oth-ers without humility in one’s self. Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real. Late Hon. Prime Minister was a true figure of that. True humility is intelligent, self respect which keeps us from think-ing too highly or too meanly of ourselves.

was shocked when the farmer said “ I just left him a while ago. You will see him sitting on bare floor with his kids drinking the sugarcane I gave them”. Humility is not think-ing less of your-self, it’s thinking of yourself less loud-mouthers. There is

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 Interview12

deal of headache if these things are re-viewed. It is not secu-rity that these things are about; it is about egos. So, we need to dramatically slash the cost of government, we need to focus on productive areas.

But what is even more frightening is that we are talking about drop in oil prices, when we are not even producing enough of the oil. As you and I speak, many

Abeokuta, probably to call on the Alake, and there was at least 12-car-motorcade. The sirens were on, they were not trav-elling fast enough, we couldn’t overtake them and so we trav-elled in a rolling road-block from Lagos to Abeokuta.

I give you these two examples to tell you what has happened to the cost of govern-ing in Nigeria. Nigeria can be saved a great

run government is not fair to the Nigerian people. When most of us were growing up in the Federal Capital of Nigeria, motor-cades were known to be something that went only with gover-nors and the Head of State. Today, every parastatal chief has motorcades, sirens and everything.

I like to give a very specific example, not in a distant past; it was recently: Dr. Joseph Sanusi was Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, and I was sitting with him on a flight from Abuja. We were chat-ting just before we landed, and I said to him, you know, I have done this foolish thing again; I have even forgot to call any-body to meet me at the airport. And he said, No I can take you wherever you are going and drop you. So, the CBN governor and I landed. He was traveling alone and proceeded to a Peu-geot 505, which was his official car. There was one police orderly with him, and I joined him in the back and they drove me to the Hilton. This was the Central Bank Governor of Nigeria!

Less than six years later, as I was trav-elling to Abeokuta, I saw a successor of his who was going to

ing out against this trend?

I don’t know for them.

You would agree that these problems culmi-nate in dwindling rev-enue for the federal government on which the states depend for monthly allocations; what really should the states be doing to confront this chal-

lenge as it were?

You know, back in the 1960s, the states did not wait for the centre to bring them anything; states were the ones that sent to the center, a reverse of the obtuse feder-alism that we have. The rapid expansion in agriculture of the 1950s and 1960s were driven primarily by the sub-national

by MARCEL MBAMALU

What’s your take on the falling oil prices and implications on the 2015 budget and the economy?

What I find strange and awkward is that something that was expected has finally come and we are sur-prised; it was delayed, but it has come. Why should it really sur-prise us? We should have been planning for this a long time ago.

Years ago, there were all kinds of is-sues at play. One was, peak oil, which basically, suggested that, after certain numbers of years, we would reach a stage where oil will become really not as valuable in resource as it is now. There have been all kinds of research indicating that in the future, besides crude oil dwindling in its availability as a source of energy, there will be alternatives that have been devel-oped that will make oil less relevant. All that conversation was going on when India rising and China rising essentially created great needs for crude oil, and so the usual volatility.

If you remember, a few years ago, oil prices were very vol-atile, the cycles led

to booms and bursts in budgeting in Nige-ria, abandoned proj-ects and all of these kinds of things. But with India and China’s surge, the demand was so high that the cycles seemed to have disappeared. But they were not going to disappear: First of all, it is natural to have business cycles. Secondly, the fact that India and China were rising was not going to mean that the patterns of sup-ply and demand would not re-establish them-selves; it is just that the loop of the cycle might be stretched.

So, the bottom line is that that time has arrived; it arrived at the time when shale oil has enabled the United States almost not to need our oil at all. It arrived at a time when, even the growth in places like India is slowing down, and it suddenly seems to have caught us by surprise; whereas, it is something we could have been planning for, expecting in the last 15 years. The bottom line is that it is here now.

Where do we go from here?

I know the first thing that we must do is to dramatically slash the administrative wastes in our country. What it costs us to

NIGERIA: EVERYTHING RUNS ON OIL - PAT UTOMI Professor of Entrepreneurship and Political Economy, Pat Okedinachi Utomi, in this chat with MARCEL MBAMALU at his Victoria Island of-fice, says Nigeria needs to dramatically slash administrative wastes and refocus on non-oil sectors of the economy. Professor of Entrepre-neurship and Political Economy, Pat Okedinachi Utomi, in this chat with MARCEL MBAMALU at his Victoria Island office, says Nigeria needs to dramatically slash administrative wastes and refocus on non-oil sectors of the economy.

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | Interview 13

of the oil companies are cancelling… they are down to zero rig count, they are just mining what they were producing be-fore — no exploration going on, because the Federal Government has not been paying its cash calls.

My understanding is that, we are as far back as $60 billion in arrears of cash calls to oil majors. Now, if we continue to be de-pendent on this, the

so-called goose laying the golden egg, how come we can’t even treat the goose right so that it can contin-ue laying the eggs?

So, we are being hit from two sides; one is the falling oil price, the other has to do with falling reserves. Because no further exploration is taking place, so it’s a double problem.

But why are the oil companies not speak-

units. The states need to be creating con-text for investments and job creation, and therefore reve-nues that will accrue to them from taxes, from these jobs being created from those agricultural, mining and manufacturing activities in those states will be source of the sustenance of the states, rath-er than waiting for a

FAC Account meeting. These are part of the damage oil did to the Nigerian economy. I don’t remember any governor who was waiting around for FAC Account meeting in the 70s, but today nothing happens un-til the FAC account meeting is held.

You talked about Federal Government

opinion that new oil finds and shale gas development in the US and others are some of the factors pushing this trend

Yes, it is about shale gas in the US. The US is now literally a net exporter, not an importer any more. China’s rise is going to stabilise; it’s not going to grow forever. Besides, oil is being found everywhere now; every African country is going to soon be an oil pro-ducing country. Look at Ghana; they have already had their first crisis, because their spending has been ramped up in antic-ipation of revenues and the thing just went wild. Ghana, we thought, will learn from Nigeria; but they got caught very quickly in the same trouble. Your thoughts on job creation in non-oil sectors…

I think my great worry is that we talk about job creation, but we don’t under-stand how critical the game is: what we need is an obsession, an obsession with how to create jobs out of true value, not gov-ernment jobs. I heard one governor-elect say that he got the Federal Government Medical Centre to em-ploy about 12 people, that he has created jobs. I thought, oh my God, did this guy un-derstand the meaning of job creation at all.

Continue on page 14Now we need not government agency

body produces any oil in Nigeria, the coun-try will wake up and will be revived. But, of course, it is not practical, because we have created a po-litical class; we have created an economy that just runs on oil. But it will make sense to do because many of our problems come from this fixation with the fact that easy money will be there from oil, and so the spending is going wild and totally unreason-able.

The spending of government is totally unreasonable but you can’t say to them that it is. All the peo-ple going into politics are there because of this. If politics were a place where think-ing people go to, task their brains on how to create jobs for ordinary people, how to do this, how to do that, many of the people in politics won’t go there. But because there is easy money in politics, all kinds of charlatans are going there. So I think Nigeria needs it; Nigeria needs oil pric-es to crash, you know that there was a two-week period in 1982 that Nigeria did not sell one barrel of oil. I think Nigeria needs to have six months on that.

Do you see the sit-uation abating, or you think oil prices will continue to fall (don’t forget there have been signs of rebound)?

Yes, it is a cyclical thing; it will always go up and come down; but that sky-high oil price for very long…that era is gone.

Do you share the

running into cash calls deficit of $ 60billion; what indices did you consider in arriving at that amount, since such a figure doesn’t just come by happen-stance?

In fact, I have been talking to oil industry people; it is part of our business to be informed. You know one of the things we do at CVL every month is to focus on one sector of the Nigerian economy in looking for somebody to honour, to discuss that sector.

So as part of my own research for this conversation, this colloquium on oil and gas, that’s how the figure came to me and I was actu-ally quite alarmed. I am told that even a corporation as big as Exxon Mobil is down to zero rig count. That’s what I heard yesterday; I hope it’s correct.

For many years, every budget speech has one line that was certain, ‘to diversify the economy away from the dependence on the oil and gas.’ It is a standard line, and, for more than 20 years, I could write that line in advance of the budget speech and yet we didn’t do much about that.

In many ways, it sounds very awk-ward; but I have been praying for this day; I have been praying for oil prices to drop below $10 per barrel. In fact, I have actu-ally suggested, at a point (and nobody listened to me, so it was pointless) that, if we could shut the oil wells and say, for the next 10 years, no-

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 Interview14

employing a few peo-ple as the end. Of course, you can have some stimulation of the economy through government projects. For example, I am a big supporter of hiring unemployed people to clean the streets, plant trees, do those kinds of things, be-cause they are adding value and they are programmes to help people, then bring those people into em-ployment, put some money in their pocket and give them new training to be able to do more productive things.

We need massive programmes of that nature across the country to put young people to work. The demographic dividend, which can come from

the population (you know we have a youth budge), can create for us an economic boost. It is called demographic dividend, if we engage them, train them properly, re-programme them and get them to do many productive things that are being undone right now and to organise that takes a lot of painstaking effort by people who have a clear vision of where they should be going.

I have talked in the past about, taking the NYSC scheme as an example, providing intense, really intense six months training to these young gradu-ates in entrepreneur-ship, agriculture and then make them an army of entrepreneur-

ship extension agents and they go and work with farmers, work with ploughman to get value out of what they are doing. Cre-ate an army of peo-ple who teach people how to create wealth, make the NYSC scheme two years, pay them decent money, and they are going out there and creating jobs all over the country, three years later we won’t recognise our country. I made that proposal at a speech at the University of Lagos 11 years ago.

While it is very im-portant to massively try to create job and government to play an activist role, especially through entrepreneur-ial and agricultural extension services,

it is very dangerous to see government as a solver of these problems; it must be in stimulating private sector activity.

I already have seen a danger in which stim-ulating private sector activity may not be carried out effective-ly but in a way that will regress into the worse parts of the dirigiste dogma, which is what crippled many development plans around the world back in the 70s and 80s. I see that already in our automotive pol-icy —very wrongly headed, very poorly thought through, and unlikely to create a few shell jobs and prevent Nigeria from thinking competive-ness.

I think that we need to look at our factor endowment and look

at global competive-ness and select areas where our endow-ments will enable us become top producers in certain compo-nents of anything at all, whether it’s com-ponent of vehicle or even culture. Let’s take culture, which is something we are celebrating with Nol-lywood and music. A Nigerian who was in Zanzibar last Christ-mas and calls me, say, you are not go-ing to believe this, he said in this place they worship P-square, they worship these guys here in Zanzibar; that’s a major export for Nigeria. If Nigeria concentrates on cre-ating 30 P-squares a year, it will do much more than building assembly plants that cannot be sustained.

“We need massive programmes of that nature across the country to put young people to work.”


ternal turmoil of the past.

During Dr. Dozie Iked-ife’s tenure as the President General, he laid the solid foun-dation, which has propelled Ohaneze to a new height. The immediate past lead-ership under Presi-dent General Ralph Uwechue built on the foundation of his predecessor and brought Ohaneze to the position of calm, credibility, and disci-pline. These attributes are the cornerstone of innovative and pro-gressive governance that will re-position Ndi Igbo to take their rightful place in Ni-geria. The current Ohanaeze leaders led by Chief Igarawey are very focused with it team leadership ap-proach and are des-tined to take us far in the right direction. Ohanaeze leaders performed very well in the just concluded National conference with fantastic results.

OUR PHILOSOPHY/BE-LIEVES

True democracy and freedom is what we want for ourselves as Ndiigbo, Nigeria and Africa as a whole. Our history in Nige-ria clearly shows that NdiIgbo have always stood for democracy and fair play for all. We do not believe or promote religious based politics and ideology. We want a Nigeria where the majority’s right is bal-anced with the minori-ty’s right. We want

always necessary; we must establish and prosper our econo-mies; we must pro-mote our welfare; we must tell our stories; and we must cele-brate our culture and history.

This is IWA’s commit-ment to Igbo leaders and friends of Ndi-igbo who share our vision to attain and perfect that elusive global Igbo Union. It is in that light that IWA wishes to use the event of our con-vention to introduce our platform, to seek program partners, to assemble committed Igbo leaders, and to reflect on how to leverage Igbo’s Dias-pora presence as a new instrument in the struggle against Igbo enemies. IWA is open to cooperating and collaborating with oth-er Igbo groups with the aim of moving the Igbo Nation and agen-da forward.

IWA will commence by expressing our support for and sol-idarity with Ohaneze Ndi Igbo currently led by the indomita-ble Gray Igarawey for continuing the mission of bringing Ndi Igbo together, the mission, which Chief Ojukwu fought for throughout his lifetime. As the representatives of Ndi Igbo in Diaspora, we are resolute at making peace and /or com-bating the adversary syndrome that has plagued Ndi Igbo for a very long time. As you know, Ohanaeze has clearly emerged stronger from its in-

countries of the world such as USA, UK, France, Spain, Finland, Netherland, Ireland, India, Ghana, Mali, UAE (Dubai), Pakistan, Germany, Switzerland, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Denmark, Japan, Italy, Mali, Ghana, Korea, China, Russia, Ukraine, Swe-den and Canada. The Igbo World Assem-bly (IWA) works very closely and recognizes Ohanaeze Ndi-Igbo as the mouthpiece of Ndi-Igbo World Wide.

The Igbo World As-sembly, is the only bona fide, inter-conti-nental, Igbo Advoca-cy group of its kind founded on May 19, 2008, and represents a committed attempt to truly perfect a Global Igbo Union. IWA is founded on the twin principles of Njikoka and Igba Izu (synergy and collab-oration) and we are committed to work-ing with, collaborating with, partnering with all genuine Igbo po-litical, economic and social expression vehi-cles. By presenting a platform to leverage Igbo Diaspora as a strategic partner on Igbo issues, we aim to advance the Igbo agenda as never be-fore done in our post-war history.

Our goal is clear, Ndi-Igbo must speak with one voice and one accord; we must seek to do and be done equitably, by all means expedient or warranted; we must wage struggles as necessary; we must conclude peace as

MURCIA, SPAIN Theme: IGBO UNITY AND ACTUALIZATION OF IGBO AGENDA IN NIGERIA AND DIASPO-RA

Igbo World Assembly (IWA) welcomes the various Igbo, Nigeri-an, African leaders present today. IWA salutes the special guest of honour Her Excellency Mrs Bianca Ojukwu the Nigerian Ambassador in Spain, Guest of Honour Ma-ria Dolores Hernandez Councillor of Immi-gration, Chief (Sir) Chris Ofodili President Igbo General Assem-bly(IGA)Spain, Our Host Emeka Malife, President Ohanaeze Ndiigbo Murcia Prov-ince, Spain, Emeka Onuma Ex- President Ohanaeze Ndiigbo Murcia Province,Spain, Ndi Eze, Ndi nze na Ozo, members of the diplomatic corps, Elected officials and Igbo Union members, representative and leaders of various provinces in Spain.

I am Dr Nwachukwu Anakwenze and have been serving Ndiigbo and Nigerians in var-ious capacities since I finished my medical training as a physician 30 years ago.Below are some my past and current posi-tions in service to our people.

President ASA South-ern CaliforniaPresident ASA-USABoard member Igbo Cultural Association of Southern CaliforniaChairman of Anam-bra State Association

WorldwideEx- Council of Igbo State Americas(CISA) National PresidentChairman of Igbo World Assembly(IWA)Chairman Ohanaeze Diaspora CommitteeBoard of trustee Igbo Village Frontiers Cul-tural MusCurrent Representa-tive of Ndi Anambra in CISAChairman of Council of Igbo State Americas(-CISA) Board of Presi-dentsEx-Chairman Nige-ria-American World Affairs CouncilFounding Vice Chair-man World Igbo Con-gress

Igbo World Assembly (IWA) congratulates Igbo General Assem-bly(IGA) Spain and European Igbo Com-munities(both affili-ates of IWA) leaders from the various di-aspora countries in convention holding in Murcia province, Spain, on October 18, 2014. Igbo World Assembly extends an enthusiastic support to our brethren’s on a worldwide basis and to you all: IWA theme message today is Igbo unity and actualiza-tion of Igbo agenda in Nigeria and Dias-pora. IWA, IGA, EIC and Ohanaeze Ndiigbo are working togeth-er towards improving the lives of our peo-ple through collective efforts with all stake-holders”.

IWA is the Umbrel-la Organization that represents the Apex National Igbo Organi-zations (outside Ni-geria) in the various

IGBO WORLD ASSEMBLY (IWA) MESSAGE TO IGBO GENERAL ASSEMBLY (IGA) SPAIN AND EUROPEAN IGBO COMMUNITIES (EIC)


think together and have a better repre-sentative system that reflects our collective interest on every sin-gle issue everywhere in the world. This has to be African leaders at a very high level, not micro level discus-sion forum representa-tives, which we have plenty; but strategic macro level meetings with all African coun-tries and African Dias-pora representatives, which are rare. We are in dire need of it. We should make it a priority to resolve our problems and reduce our collective vulnera-bilities as a people. Lean more about the Ebola Virus: http://bit.ly/MDG-ERP-EBOLA

las is unlikely to ever collect from his es-tate. I wonder if the 1 million pledged by the African Union Commis-sion to combat Ebola was intercepted to pay this outstanding Bill, would it be harsh or would it be fair. My point here is that the US has pledged over 400 Million, and AU pledges 1 million to-wards its own problem and that bothers me seriously. That bill was just TX and Atlanta rate. Imagine what it’ll cost in NYC. So when we make conspiracy theories, let us do so with conscientiousness otherwise, let us en-joy it as a form of entertainment. Often, if you follow the mon-ey you may find the source. There is a les-son to learned here. We need to stop going public on false information on Afri-can issues, it reflects very badly on our collective effort. It is disreputable. Mr. Short was genuinely worried and could have been acting on his impulse when making the case to substantiate his accusation of the US government, but his argument simple lacks adequate due dili-gence and it is dam-aging to our collective effort. I think we need to have a spokesper-son on every issue at the African Union. If officially including the Diaspora in uniting all African people in African and Diaspora is outside the African Union’s agenda, we need and must cre-ate a united platform where all African peo-ple everywhere can

us imagine what the bill might have looked like for patients treat-ed in the US. Insur-ance companies are not celebrating over the hospital bills of Ebola survivors. Kent Brantly, the first per-son to be transported from Liberia to the U.S. for care, was covered under health insurance provided by his charity, Samari-tan’s Purse. The oth-er aid worker, Nancy Writebol’s bill was covered by North Car-olina-based missionary group SIM’s health and workers’ compen-sation insurance plans, Writebol’s evacuation from Liberia was cov-ered in full by one of SIM’s insurance car-riers, Aetna Inc. SIM also paid her $25,000 deductible. Our broth-er Thomas Eric Dun-can came to the U.S. from Liberia on Sept. 20 on a tourist visa. He had no health in-surance to pay for his care. Reverend Jesse Jackson traveled to Dallas at the request of Duncan’s mother. We discovered that the care provided to Ebola patient may be costing more than $1000 per hour. That is $24000 a day since the treatment requires intensive monitoring. Addition-al treatment included fluids replacement, blood transfusions and drugs to main-tain blood pressure. There’s also the cost of security, disposing of Ebola-contaminated trash and equipment to protect caregivers. Brother DuncanRacked up as much as half a million dollars, a bill Texas Health Pres-byterian Hospital Dal-

I think we should first watch this video to get a good back-ground statement then read the re-sponse:http://at-lantablackstar.com/2014/10/10/what-this-man-is-claim-ing-about-the-us-in-volvement-with-the-ebola-virus-is-quite-thought-provoking/ There is an obvious misunderstanding of the purpose of US patent on Ebola. if the US government is involved, this patent would be classified and not readily avail-able to the general public. The Tuskegee Syphilis study was outed by a whis-tle blower. In fact, all discoveries of US involvement in shady activities were outed by either a whistle blower, investigative journalists, or they become declassified by other regimes. It is unfortunate that we must leave with suspicious minds. I did not like the fact that such an intelligent man like Randy Short was exposed to public criticism in his effort to protect African people. I am howev-er very happy that he was bold enough to stand out there and exercise his 1st amendment right. Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) was first identi-fied in 1976, when it first appeared in 1976 in 2 simultaneous out-breaks, in Nzara, Su-dan, and in Yambuku, Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus is named after the Ebola River, which runs near the Congolese village

where one of the first outbreaks happened. Genus Ebola virus is 1 of 3 members of the Filoviridae family (filovirus), along with genus Marburgvirus and genus Cuevavi-rus. Genus Ebola virus comprises 5 distinct species: BDBV, EBOV, and SUDV have been associated with large EVD outbreaks in Af-rica, whereas RESTV and TAFV have not. The RESTV species, found in Philippines and the People’s Re-public of China, can infect humans, but no illness or death in humans from this spe-cies has been report-ed to date. You can learn more from the CDC or check the link below for more infor-mation. You can even listen to the discus-sion. Meanwhile, American private sector cor-porations have been very notorious in the ways in which they conduct their business abroad. If there is some economic ad-vantage down the line on the EVD outbreak, then we should all be very worried. Because most of the manag-ers are short sighted, greedy and unscru-pulous. We know the Philip Morris story in the Czech repub-lic; the Italian waste dump in Eastern Nige-ria, and several other atrocities that are be-yond our comprehen-sion. This is why the US government must regulate these inter-national corporations with stricter laws and tougher penalties. But when it comes to the cost of Ebola, let

What This Man Is Claiming About the US Involvement with the Ebola Virus Is Quite Thought-Provoking

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | Technology 17

uses Optical Charac-ter Recognition, (OCR) Technology to read the question/equation and calculates the answers within sec-onds. There is a red frame which captures equation in order to streamline or focus adequately the prob-

lem to avoid ambigu-ity.

The link below demon-strates how it works:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlbVB-50mIh4

will reveal the answer, not only that, also furnish the step-by-step guide to arriv-ing at the answer...that comes handy and helps to deliver the explanation to your child.

The PhotoMath app

Mathematics as a core subject in early school has always been dif-ficult for most stu-dents. Teachers have continuously devised different methods to impact students as easy as possible but it still remains the hardest subject in the history of schooling.

As we always empha-sise on Tech_Pilot, technology has a way of unravelling pecu-liar issues around us, making it easier and simple. PhotoMath is an app developed by Microblink, a Lon-don-based company designed to solve math problems by an easy means of scan-ning the question and receiving an answer. Aside from the Pho-toMath app, Microblink also works with nu-merous customers across 30 countries to set up “computer vision technology” for their mobile apps.

The PhotoMath clearly stands out as a step to assist tutors and struggling students approach math’s problems using smart devices. The idea is simply basic in terms of usage, with the

camera of the de-vice, snap the image of the question and wait for the answer immediately and then request for “step by step” guide, showing how the problem was solved. Looking at the app, it might appear to be a way for stu-dents to cheat but it helps to resolve quick-ly what could possibly take longer time to figure out. On the other hand, as every other thing, many stu-dents could result to using it wrongly.

As we know, when new technologies are discovered, it takes different dimensions and expands rapidly. The Pho-toMath is at its young stage with most ba-sic topics incorporat-ed in it. It currently supports basic arith-metic, fractions, dec-imal numbers, linear equations and several functions like loga-rithms.

The positive side of this app is the pro-vision it will give to parents who struggle to assist their wards with Homework in maths related prob-lems. A quick scan

Maths made easy...

There are still some teething issues around the PhotoMath app:

1. Can only read printed text. (for example, mistaking the “X” variable

as the multiplication

symbol

2. The red frame also causes limitations because there may not be

enough spacing between two separate math problems in the textbook

to capture the equation that you want The PhotoMath app is available

for free on iOS and Windows Phone now, but the Android version

will be released sometimes in the coming months or so.

AS earlier mentioned, all these challenges can be resolved

as research continues.

Education is best policy or legacy as the say-ing goes, when we learn we develop and that contributes to global economy, so there is no limit to what we can do when knowledge is acquired.

by Uche Onyenagubo


a Nigeria where the various ethnic groups feel that they have a stake in the future of the country. We envi-sion a Nigeria where leadership is based on the ability to work hard, where fairness reigns with a sense of direction and account-ability to the various groups and for the common good of the country. We envision a Nigeria where peo-ple can vote and be voted for everywhere.

This belief system is deeply rooted in meritocracy; a system that gives opportuni-ties and advantages to people on the ba-sis of their ability and not on the basis of their wealth or seniori-ty. This belief system, my friends, is the basis for our refusal to accept mediocri-

ty. Mediocrity has no place in any progres-sive democracy. Ndi-igbo are egalitarians by nature. We believe that all people are, in principle, equal and should enjoy equal so-cial, political, and eco-nomic rights and op-portunities. We do not believe in murdering or attacking others, visitors, guests, or strangers in our midst. Ndiigbo are among the most welcoming, friendly, hospitable and tolerant and free-dom loving people on earth. Our renowned hospitality, friendship and welcoming nature are highlighted on our use of “Kola nut” to symbolize our warm-ness, friendship, and universal brotherhood to all.

Also “Nwanne di na mba” meaning that

a stranger from a foreign land also suf-fices as a brother or a sister. This Igbo mantra of “Nwanne di na mba” enables us as Ndi Igbo to settle anywhere in the world as our home and en-ables us to welcome anybody in our midst.

Another Igbo cliché, “Oje mba enwe ilo”, meaning a traveler/visitor has no ene-my and means us no harm. This old mantra was drilled on ev-ery Igboman/woman, early in our lives and used to encourage us and those we come in contact with, to be kind to travelers/strangers that we may encounter along our trails in life.

Our Igbo ancestors believed in frontier expansion based of

“Ebe onye bi k’ona awachi.” Igbo settled in West Africa, Africa in the various inde-pendent but linked communities. The Nri maintained an ancient Igbo market system that regulated the commerce of West Africa,

The reach of Igbo whether it is spiritu-ality, mysticism, civ-ilization, philosophy, trading agriculture and iron work etc, extend-ed beyond the shores of Africa. Igbo are (Ndi Mbu na Ndi Gboo) the first people created and an an-cient people is a fact.

We salute and wel-come the large grow-ing Igbo nation and our ancestors. We will fulfil the dreams of Ndiigbo both in Nne

Ala Igbo (Igbo land in Nigeria or the moth-er land) and Ala Igbo (Igbo land) in the new world (US, Brazil, Belize, Jamaica, Haiti, Cuba, Cameron and the entire Caribbe-an’s and West Indies) and position Igbo as a black nation that every black world-wide will point to with pride, it is import-ant that we begin to seriously consider the needs of the Global Igbo.

It is time for Ndi Igbo to implement a “think home philos-ophy” meaning that; we might perish as a people on the long run if we do not be-gin now, to self-actu-alize and make ways to our homeland.

IWA’S BLUE PRINT


al Conference is criti-cally important.We need a Nigerian political structure that is based on equity, fair play, balance and equal access to po-litical power for the good of all Nigerians.IWA states that rea-sonable reform was made at the just concluded National confab. Our Ohanaeze leaders and Igbo dele-gates did a very good job in representing us at the national con-fab. We still did not achieve everything that we wanted. We will continue to fight for a Nigerian feder-ation where power is shared between the centre and component of federating units based on zones/re-gions in a more equi-table manner.IWA feels that what Nigeria needs on the long run is true fed-eralism which is a system of govern-ment based upon democratic rules and institutions in which the power to govern is shared between National and Regional/State Governments. The individual feder-ating units need to have more control over their own affairs and should only be controlled by a central government for issues in the single exclusive list.IWA position is that eventually Nigeria should be redefined as Federating Units based on Zones/ Regions which means that these structures of power and adminis-tration would develop and manage the re-sources in their terri-tory and pay royalty and tax to the federal government. IWA felt that a return to fiscal federalism as contained in the 1963 Constitution is the

part of Igbo culture and it will not help Ndiigbo. It is our na-ture to reach out to others of like mind for the good of Nigerians. Isolationism or seces-sion will not serve our overall best interest.An alliance with other groups/neighbours is the key regardless of the fear of a hidden Igbo agenda for dom-ination. This fear of Igbo domination was keeping them from working with us.There is no homog-enous group in the North because it is made up of more than 250 tribal groupings, Christians, Muslims and non-Christians. We need to reach out to the Northern mod-erates who are willing to work for the good of all Nigeria and at the same time os-tracize the extremist and trouble makers amongst them.Ndiigbo need to utilize collaboration, coopera-tion and alliance build-ing with other ethnic groups in SE/SS/SW/NC particularly the Northern and Southern minorities. This is the best way to count-er Caliphate colonial strategiesNdiigbo need to be prepared to play prominent roles at the Nigerian political cen-tre stage and not at the peripheral of polit-ical powerIWA states that Ndi-igbo should not have permanent friends or enemies. But we should have perma-nent interest such as creating a level play-ing field and fair play for all Nigerians There is a need to restructure Nigeria to ensure true federalism based on regions or zones therefore imple-mentation of the key agreements of the just concluded Nation-

tion of strategies so as to have several options. We should always put our smart-est men and women in the front to rep-resent Igbo interest in Nigerian and world affairs at all times.We need to broadly define Ndi Igbo to in-clude all our brothers and sisters at home, outside Igbo land and in diasporaWe need to work for the interest of Ndi-Ig-bo first and then the interest of Nigeria or any political parties.We always need to remember that we are the largest ethnic group in Nigeria and AfricaWe need to have elected and appointed federal offices com-mensurate with the large size of Ndi-igbo as the largest ethnic group in Nigeria and Africa. NdiIgbo were recently short changed again recently as Nigerian Police gets 2 new AIGs, 37 new com-missioners We have to do something about this?INEC just recently fraudulently awarded more voting booth to Northern Nigeria verses South on the bases on what? This must be rejected by all Nigerians for the attempted injustice. The perpetrators of this fraud such as Jega must resign or be fired from office.Recent history shows that despite past animosities, the var-ious groups in the SE,SS,SW,NC(Middle Belt) have come to realise that the only way the area could be relevant and thereby assert itself in the nations affairs once again is by closing ranks. Common inter-est demands it.Isolationism is not

FOR NDI-IGBO

1. To Reposition Ndi-Igbo politically in seeking POLITICAL EQUITY.2. To Reposition and Regenerate the South East and South South Geo-Political Zones.3. IWA supports the actualization of South Eastern and South South Nigerian Eco-nomic Commissions4. Attract “genuine” foreign investors to SE & SS in the field of Technology, Health-care and Social Ser-vices5. Agriculture and Food Security: Food sufficiency and pro-duction is a neces-sity. We need to be self-sufficient in food production.6. Work assiduously for the creation and implementation new states in South-East and South-South as achieved in the recent Nigerian national con-fab.7. Push for Youth Em-powerment and Skill Acquisition8. Work for securi-ty of South East and South South Geo Po-litical Zones.9. Cultural heri-tage.-To support and propagate our Igbo language and culture. Support CISA move-ment for promotion of our cultural heri-tage ie Igbo village in Staunton, Virginia10 To achieve self-sufficiency in Power/Energy Sectors

11. A credible Nigeri-an census is needed for fairness and equity for all Nigerians. Why is someone afraid of having a reliable cen-sus in Nigeria? It is common knowledge that Nigeria has been operating on falsified and inflated popula-tion figures for some regions from the

colonial times to the present.

12. Caliphate Colonial-ism is the root cause of the problems with NigeriaThe long-suffering victims of Caliphate Colonialism must now go on the counter-of-fensive and restruc-ture Nigeria for the good of all

13 It is time to do away with Boko haram for the good of all Nigerians

14. IWA rejects and condemns selfishness by some of our pol-iticians against the general interest of Ndiigbo. Our people in positions of authority and those who are in the corridors of power in our country must regard themselves as holding those po-sitions in trust for Ndiigbo.

15. IWA calls for a change in investment strategy as Ndiigbo by thinking home first in our future invest-ment decisions. Ndi-igbo needs a think home first investment strategy based on what recently hap-pened in places like Lagos and Kano re-cently.

APPLICATION OF IWA BLUE PRINT FOR NDI-IGBO AS STATED BELOW:

1. The application of the twin principles of Njikoka(synergy) and Igba Izu (Flexibil-ity/Collaboration/Dia-logue/Diplomacy). and not Nzogbu Nzogbu(-force) strategy;Therapy and healing for our “Igbo Enwe Eze Syndrome” (Indi-vidualism vs. consen-sus/collective strategy politically speaking).We need diversifica-


way to go eventual-ly. IWA believes that each region should be responsible for the development and management of resources including minerals from their region. This will foster industrial develop-ment and competition among regions instead of the current docile nature of a majority of states as presently constituted.We need to imple-ment the National confab recommend-ed equity in state creation within the geo-political arrange-ment in our country NigeriaA fully functional Electrical Power sys-tem(including gas and coal powered), fully functional International Airport, Major feder-al Roads and Second Niger bridge should be built in the South East zoneTo fight self-inflicted injuries – corruption, lack of meritocracy at all levels, also within the education estab-lishment.IWA reiterated its position about Ndiig-bo/SE that President Ebele Jonathan and South South zone will be supported by Ndi-igbo in 2015 and al-lowed to complete his second term in office if he so desires.IWA states that it was actually the turn of Ndiigbo to produce the 2015 Nigerian Presidency. However if President Jonathan makes up his mind to run in 2015, Ndiigbo would shelve their am-bition until 2019 to allow him serve out his second term.On that basis after South-South, equity and fairness demands that it will be the turn of the South East to produce the President of the Federal Re-

public of Nigeria after President Jonathan in an unbroken succes-sion.Igbo demands from President Jonathan remains the same and unchanged. We will like him and his ad-ministration to fulfil them as soon as pos-sible.

IGBO AGENDA/DE-MANDS

In the area of infra-structural develop-ment, we continue to advocate the federal government to ful-ly operationalize the Akanu Ibiam Interna-tional Airport, which has been upgraded to the international standard by mak-ing possible for ma-jor world airlines like KLM, Lufthansa, Brit-ish airways, Alitalia, AirFrance,Delta Air-line,United Airline etc to land and take off from the airport,and for upgrading of Sam Mbakwe Internation-al Cargo Airport at Owerri. We thank President Jonathan for a good Job done so far and fulfillment of promise as far as Akanu Ibiam International Airport is concernedWe want President Jonathan to imple-ment the much need-ed repairs on the Enugu to Port Har-court Road, Onitsha to Enugu Road, Ninth Mile to Markudi Road, Umuahia to Arochuk-wu Road, Enugu to Abakiliki Road and the bridge linking Ebonyi and Obubra in Cross River,Onitsha to lagos Highway are paramount to infra-structural growth and development of our people.

Intervention in the 2000 active erosion

sites in the Igboland,

The building of coal-fired plant and the reactivation of coal mines at Enugu. We also need a Gas fired plants in our oil and gas producing areas.

Continues exploration of crude oil and gas deposits in states like Anambra(until recently found) , Ebonyi, and Enugu.The crude oil in these states is being kept as national strategic reserves and that decision has impact-ed negatively on the economy and finan-cial profile of these states.

We need world class sea ports in Warri, Port Harcourt, Cala-bar, Onitsha, Uguta

The dredging of Riv-er Niger up to Lokoja with a Sea Port in Onitsha. These are needed for Nigeria to be fully economically integrated and func-tional power.

IWA want immedi-ate construction of a standard guage East-west Railway line in-corporated in the 2nd Niger Bridge design, to run from Onitsha westwards to Lagos and its seaports and eastwards to Enugu, Onitsha Aba, Owerri, Warri, Port Harcourt and Calabar.

There ought to be at least a Federal government spon-sored 500 barrel per day of crude oil mega refinery sited between Abia and Imo states and then a mega petrochemical industry strategically sited to serve Anambra, Enu-gu and Ebonyi states both aimed at provid-ing jobs to our team-ing young graduates.

IWA demand that South East massive supply of natural gas should be exploited. Both government and private sector indus-trialists should invest heavily in this sector so as to provide pow-er, jobs and wellbeing for our youths and citizens. This will also change the rural-urban migration and brain drain being experi-enced in our landIWA want Ndiigbo to continue the leader-ship in commodity trading but we should now take the lead in manufacturing of the commodities that we sellIWA demands for major Federal Govern-ment presence in Ig-boland with sponsored industries

THE IGBO LEADERSHIP QUESTION

1. Igbo leaders are supposed to be men or women elected by a group to act and speak on their behalf. Igbo leaders are sup-posed to derive their authority and power from the people they are leading or repre-senting and exercises such power and au-thority for the benefit of the people and not for himself or herself.

2. Igbo leader’s words and actions must at all times reflect the fully discussed and agreed views, opin-ions, needs, aspira-tions, fears and in-terests of the people he/she represents. Igbo leaders should protect and defend the interests of the people at all times and should be pre-pared to lay down their lives in defence of Ndiigbo if need be.

NIGERIAN CENSUS ISSUES

IWA have noted that many people includ-ing the former census boss Odimegwu and at Adekunle Ajasin University in 2006, said the same thing, that since 1816, no census has been cred-ible in Nigeria. The reason why the North was against Odimeg-wu is that they know that for the first time, census would be conducted by a credible census board in Nigeria. They are trying to defend their unjust gains through manipulations of pre-vious census exercis-es.”IWA stated that due to the manipulation of census figures in the past, the North had gained undue political advantages over the South. IWA is here stating that on the basis of manipulat-ed census the North, which was one out of three regions we had in the country, now has 19 states, while the Western and East-ern regions have 17 states combined.In the First Repub-lic, Lagos and Kano were divisions. Today, Kano has been di-vided into Kano and Jigawa states, with 77 local government areas shared between the two, Lagos has remained one state, with about 20 local governments.“It is also on the basis of this that the North-West and the North-East have enough representa-tives in the National Assembly to initiate/threaten the impeach-ment of the Presi-dent; they can influ-ence things because of this manipulation of census. There is

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 |News 21

tem they deem prop-er for the relationship between the peoples of Nigeria:

“In this country, all of us need one anoth-er. Hausa need Igbos, Igbos need Yoruba and the Yorubas need the Northerners. Ev-eryone has a gift from God. Northerners are endowed by God with leadership quali-ties. The Yoruba man knows how to earn a living and has diplo-matic qualities. The Igbo man is gifted in commerce, trade and technological innova-tion. God so created us individually for

be an estate of our great grandfather Uthman Dan Fodio. We must ruthlessly prevent a change of power. We use the minorities in the North as willing tools and the South as a con-quered territory and never allow them to rule over us and never allow them to have control over their fu-ture”.

In 1992, Maitama Sule, a senior Caliph-ate politician, shed more light on the Sardauna’s Nigeria Project when he de-tailed the Caliphate view of the caste sys-

ers were given ac-celerated promotions both in the military and civil service to justify their superiority over the south. Ev-erything was to work against the south. We truncated their good plan for their future. “I was very sorry for the A.G;

it was a great party too much for African standard. We planned to destroy Awolowo and Azikwe well, the west and the east and sowed a seed of discord among them”. We tricked Azikwe into accepting to be pres-ident having known that Balewa will be the main man with power. Awolowo has to go to jail to crip-ple his genius plans for a greater Nigeria. However, Harold Smith justified the British agenda of colonialism in Nigeria, which he believed was originally to help build Africa af-ter the ruins of slave trade, but lamented that the British only looked after them-selves and not after Nigerian interest”.

HISTORIC FACTS ABOUT NIGERIA:

The late Alhaji Sir Ahmadu Bello, Stated about the ethnic na-tionalities in Nigeria; .“The new nation called Nigeria should

nothing wrong in what Odimegwu said. He said the truth.

It smacks of a hidden agenda for anyone to be afraid of having a reliable census in Nigeria. It is common knowledge that Nige-ria has been operating on falsified popula-tion figures from the colonial times to the present. We cannot make progress based on faulty data.

Historically speaking, Harold Smith(a British colonial Administrator) stated the following “I am in my 80s now; I have agreed but in the past ‘they’ did not want me to say anything, but now I don’t want to go to my grave without telling the truth about the atrocities perpe-trated in Africa by the colonialists. Broth-ers and sisters; on Ben TV, Harold Smith was on a program to reveal what went behind the scene be-fore independence. The Oxford University graduate had this to say about his role in Nigeria pre and after independence era. ‘Our agenda was to completely exploit Africa.

Nigeria was my duty post. When we assessed Nigeria, this was what we found in the southern region; strength, intelligence,

determination to suc-ceed, well established history, complex but focused life style, great hope and aspi-rations… the East is good in business and technology, the west is good in administra-tion and commerce, law and medicine, but it was a pity we planned our agenda to give power “at all cost” to the north-erner. They seemed to be submissive and silly of a kind. Our mission was accom-plished by destroying the opposition at all fronts. The west led in the fight for the in-dependence, and was punished for asking for freedom. They will not rule Nigeria! Har-old Smith confessed that the Census re-sults were announced before they were counted. Despite see-ing vast land in the north, we still gave the north 55 million instead of 32 Million. This was to be used to maintain their ma-jority votes and future power bid”. The north was seriously encouraged to go into the mil-itary. According to him, they believe that the south may attend western education, but future leaders will always come from military background. Their traditional rul-ers were to be made influential and super human. The northern-


a purpose and with different gifts. Others are created as kings, students and doctors. We all need each other. If there are no followers, a king will not exist, if there are no students a teacher will not be required, etc.”The interpretation, in the Caliphate’s feudal version of Nigeria the peoples have been divided into castes, or hereditary occupa-tional classes: Fulani/Hausa are to be rulers, Yoruba are to be diplomatic messen-gers and Igbo are to be traders and techni-cians.

Despite our contribu-tions to Nigeria, Ndi Igbo have continued to suffer historic injustices in Nigeria. Incessant acts of vio-lence continue to be directed to our people in Northern Nigeria. The mindless pogrom of Ndi Igbo in North-ern Nigeria in 1966, genocidal civil war waged against our people for which star-vation was deemed a legitimate tool of war resulting in untold hardship and mis-ery to Igbo children and non-combatants, and the current act of marginalization to name a few.

allocation, dilapidation of federal inter-state roads in Ala Igbo, degradation of our federal schools and universities, severe unemployment, en-vironmental decay, intentional misappli-cation of the federal character principle that totally ignores Ndi Igbo outside Ala Igbo resulting in dis-proportionate shut out of Ndi Igbo from Federal Civil Service, Military, Police, Cus-toms, and other para-statal.

The social, econom-ic, and political dec-adence of Nigeria, the improbity of our public officers, the enormous ethnic hos-tilities welded into the Nigerian polity, the impious waste of our common wealth, abuse of power, sub-version of authority, corruption in every segment of our soci-ety, and all such ills that have perennially put Nigeria on the brink of disintegration.NdiIgbo are one of the most itinerant people in human his-tory. The totality of Ndi Igbo worldwide exceeds the popu-lation of any other ethnic group in Nige-ria, and by acting in concert and accord,

Since the end of that internecine civil war, successive govern-ments in power have followed a policy of institutionalized po-litical and economic incapacitation of Ndi Igbo. Starting with the Indigenization Decree of 1970 con-ducted in the imme-diate aftermath of the civil war and in a manner deliberately calculated to shut Ndi Igbo out of owner-ship of vital economic assets; an attempt to ensure our descent to perpetual economic underclass in Nigeria.Incapacitation has be-come structurally em-bedded in the politi-cal corpus of Nigeria by inequitable state creations, inequitable resource allocation formulas; intentionally skewed census figures calculated to portray Ndi Igbo as minori-ties and premeditated disenfranchisement of Ndi Igbo resid-ing in ex-Igbo land in Nigeria. The same structural design was applied to relegate Ndi Igbo to perpetual economic and political underclass in Nigeria.

The absence of Fed-erally-sponsored in-dustrial complexes, power plants, refiner-ies, hyperemic energy

Ndi Igbo possesses a voice and political will more powerful and more richly endowed than that of any other ethnic group in Africa.

Ndi Igbo must or-ganize ourselves for political, economic, social, and cultural en-hancements and must have control over de-velopments affecting us and our lands, ter-ritories, and resources and must maintain and strengthen our institutions, cultures and traditions, and promote their devel-opment in accordance with our aspirations and needs and must deal decisively with Igbo proxies and/or anti-Igbo forces.

Ndiigbo are the larg-est single ethnic group in Africa and Nigeria with Igbo towns and villag-es encompassing at least three zones (SE,SS,NC) in Nige-ria. South East zone might be our core zone; however, Igbo communities must in-clude all zones where Ndi Igbo reside. Ndi-igbo are about one third and not one sixth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as some people might want you to believe.

The escalating in-ter-ethnic and reli-gious conflicts have progressively made life insecure in parts of our country and have forced increasing numbers of Nigeri-ans to abandon their residences and enter-prises in places where they have long lived in order to seek ref-uge and security for themselves and their families in their native homelands. Terrorist groups claiming to be on a jihad for religion

are rampaging at will; killing and destroying without restraints in some parts of our country. The Northern States Nigeria have chosen Sharia laws and religious conflicts have become endem-ic. In the Middle Belt territories, intensified immigration from ter-ritories of the farther north has spawned a tradition of vicious inter-ethnic and reli-gious conflicts.

The Niger Delta com-munities form the main bases for oil companies to explore oil in Nigeria, on-shore and offshore. Those Niger Delta communi-ties have being oblit-erated to the level that indigenes cannot fish, farm or make a living. They are not even guaranteed of portable drinking water without pollu-tion from oil drilling. The oil companies and connected mili-tary and non-military business persons within and outside Nigeria get oil block allocations and have made Billions of Dol-lar profits from the environmental burden and neglect borne by the Niger Deltas. The goose that lays the golden egg has no egg. Is this a fair way to treat our fellow Nigerians?

The Chairman of the Northern Governors’ Forum, recently on behalf of his col-leagues, asked for a review of the revenue formula that “reflects current realities which implies that the 19 Northern governors demand for a review of the revenue deri-vation formula to give more funds to them. This means that mon-ey

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | News/Travel 23

lates in another song, ‘Unknown Soldier’, shortly after the end of Festac in Febru-ary 1977, a thousand soldiers attacked Ka-lakuta, burning down his house and beating and raping many of its occupants. Unfor-tunately, during the attack, Fela’s mother, then aged 77, was thrown from a first floor window, causing fracture to a leg and suffering severe trau-ma. She would later die the following year as a direct result of the outrage.

Until his death, on uncounted dozens of occasions, Fela suf-fered the consequenc-es of his scathing denunciations of mili-tary misrule and brig-andage in Africa with arrests, jailings and beatings at the hands of the authorities. At death, his philosophy spread to all parts of the world and per-formances have been staged in his honour and memory. We re-member Fela Anikula-po Kuti.

all over Nigeria and in neighbouring coun-tries. Soon his brand of music spread far as he depicted everyday social situations with which a large part of the African population was able to identify.

Pursuing his dream of an alternative soci-ety which he sang in defiance to the ills of government, in 1974, Fela built a fence around his house and declared it to be an independent state: Kalakuta Republic. This action stunned bourgeoisNigerian society, as this spirit of defiance soon spread through-out the region like wildfire.

In 1977, during the Festival for Black Arts and Culture (FESTAC) held in Lagos, Felasang ‘Zombie’, a sat-ire of the army, which become very popularthroughout Africa, thus attracting the fury of the unpopular Nigerian military re-gime on his followers and abode. As he re-

became aware of the plight of black peoples all over the world. With what he saw in the United States, Fela gained a clearerunderstanding of his mother’s fight for the rights of Africa under colonial rule in Nigeria,together with her support of the Pan Africanist doctrine expounded by Kwame Nkrumah, Ghanaian head of state, who had negotiated in-dependence for his country with Britain

Towards the end of a ten month tour, he changed the name of the band to Fela Ransome Kuti & Nige-ria 70. Afrobeat was a great success in Lagos and Fela was able to open a club in the Empire Hotel, which he called the Afro Shrine. At that time, he was playing trumpet, switching later to saxophones and keyboards. He later started singing in Pidgin English rath-er than Yoruba his native language, so as to be understood

By Ukachukwu Okorie

Fela Kuti was born Olufela Olusegun Oludotun Ransome-Ku-ti on October 15, 1938 in Abeokuta, Nigeria to Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti, a fem-inist in the anti-co-lonial movement and Rev. Israel Oludotun Ransome-Kuti, a Prot-estant minister. Fela is brother to Beko Ransome-Kuti and first cousin to the Nobel laureate Wole Soyin-ka, the first African to win a Nobel Prize for Literature. Until his death on August 2, 1997, Fela was a proponent of Afrobeat music, human rights activist, political and socio-economic cru-sader.Fela studied music in Trinity College of Music against med-icine which he was sent to London in 1958. While in school, he formed Koola Lo-bitos band, playing a fusion of highlife and jazz. He returned to

Nigeria in 1963, re-formed Koola Lobitos and worked as a ra-dio producer for the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).

Back home, Fela con-tinued his musical career, traveling to Ghana in 1967 where his style took a dras-tic change to a new direction. Afrobeat, as he termed it became the soul of his rhyme. His Afrobeat is a fusion of Jazz, Funk, High-life, psychedelic rock, and traditional West African chants and rhythms. During the Nigeria-Bi-afra civil war, Fela took Koola Lobitos to the United States where he was inspired by the Black Power movement through Sandra Smith (now Izsadore), a partisan of the Black Panther Party. She introduced Fela to the thoughts of Malcolm X, EldridgeCleaver and oth-er black activists, through which he

Fela Anikulapo Kuti

Travel & Tourism SPOTLIGHT ON SOUTH AFRICAWith natural beauty, constant sunshine, and a long list of wildlife, South Africa is becoming a boom-ing tourist destination for visitors the world over. What’s more, is that it is an incredibly affordable vacation for everyone looking for a bit of luxury on a budget. Roundtrip flights from Dublin to Johannesburg start at around €600 return. Flights to and from Cape Town tend to be slightly more, starting at €700. South Afri-ca also has a variety

of accommodation options, with many recognizable western chains throughout the country. Guests can choose anything from party hostels and guesthouses, to bed and breakfasts and luxury hotels.Safaris and game viewing in South Af-rica are a must-do for most visitors, and is listed as the num-ber one activity by the country’s official tourism site. There are safari experiences available all over the country, but the most

iconic spot is the famous Kruger Nation-al Park. Safaris range in price and length, starting at one day for about €100 per person, to a week or more for €1600 and up.However, once you’ve seen ‘the Big 5’ on your safari, the op-tions for other activ-ities are seemingly endless. South Africa is home to world-class beaches, complete with a variety of wa-ter sports, and marine life. If you’re feeling brave, you could even

swim with the Great Whites in some shark cage diving!Moreover, there is a great variety of shopping, a fantastic nightlife, and fabulous wine tasting tours. Naturally, where there’s good wine, there’s also great food. Or if you’re looking for something a little less relaxing, why not try skydiving, hiking, surfing or bun-gee jumping to name a few. Although South Af-rica is a large coun-try, getting around is

fairly cheap and easy. Renting a car is al-ways a good option. You could even rent an SUV and partake in a self-guided safari during part of your trip, which is more budget friendly than a guided safari ex-perience. Buses and trains are also effi-cient and connects visitors to all of the country’s prime desti-nations.With something for everyone, it’s the perfect destination for families, friends or a romantic getaway to sunny South Africa.

By Lisa Bank

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 Photo News24

Special Dedication of DEARLORD AYEV-BOSASee more of the event on AfricaWorld Photos & TV Facebook pages.

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | Advert 25

ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING OF AKINA DADA WA AFRICA LIMITED

Date: 15th November 2014 Venue: Killarney Court Community Centre Time: 10.00-3pm

Time Agenda Item Lead by

10.00-11 Registration, tea and coffee

11.00

Welcome & apologies

Amel Yacef- AkiDwA Chair

11.10

Minutes of last year’s AGM

Chair AkiDwA

11. 25

Annual Report for the year 2013

Salome Mbugua-CEO,

AkiDwA

11.45

Financial Report for the year 2013

Jules Buckley- AkiDwA

Treasurer

12.00 Appointment of Auditor

Jules Buckley

12.10 Board Nominations

12.40 Celebrating Achievements

3.00

End meeting

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -15 Photo News26

Kenneth Agbo (Onwa) finally married his girl-friend Marienika Elyse in Ireland. See events in pictures and video clips on Africaworld Photos and Africaworld TV on Facebook.

Onwa & Marienika Are Married

AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 |Photo News 27


AfricaWorldnewspaper 2014 November 1 -15 | IT news 29

AfricaWorldnewspaper| 2014 November 1 -1530

AfricaWorld Newspaper 1-15 November 2014

Documents

editor ukachukwu okorie

office man

newscolumn02africaworld

africaworld newspaper

ukachukwu okorieonce

dublin city centre office

farm produce

glory of yahweh