Thankfully, we are not astronauts

The American Criminal mind

The episode of the respected and excellent NASA astronaut who is now facing an attempted murder charge is interesting from many perspectives.

However, I see one particular American perspective to this matter, this is broadly a generalisation of sorts; every time there has been a serious criminal situation, the police and news people do a background analysis and most cases do not expect their suspect to be holders of college degrees, have decent jobs or be high achievers.

Generally, criminals should be genetically predisposed to vices that separate achievement from non-achievement.

An astronaut is supposed to be in the rank of the highest achievers having passed every kind of psychometric and demographic profiling to become one of America’s best.

The cult of achievement

Unfortunately, this case has besmirched the Graven Image and humongous Golden Idol of the Cult of Achievement and they who worship at the Altar of Perfect People have just realised that the astronaut is flesh and blood, human and fallible just like you and I.

However, it would appear NASA finds that unacceptable – the concept of being human, mortal and emotionally affected – that they would be reviewing from two perspectives the physical and mental assessment criteria for becoming an astronaut, as if, any tests can pinpoint with accuracy such unpredictable behaviour.

Thankfully, we are not astronauts

Something we non-astronauts would know without having to achieve these high grades of becoming cult demigods is this; none of us would drive 900 miles in diapers to achieve anything – it takes the innate quality of an astronaut’s mental prowess and genius to come up with such meticulous attention to detail.

For that realisation we are grateful but probably scared rotten that astronauts might be such a seriously calculating bunch that some unsolved issues in our communities might as well have been perfectly perpetrated by people perfectly and conveniently out of the radar range of mere mortal detectives.

I must however commend how NASA has closed ranks about its own and they way they have tried the manage the situation around the affected parties.

Listing to the insignificance of the EFCC

The presumption of innocence

In a democracy one would expect the preponderance of the rule of law and in view of that due process that allows for the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.

Where legal issues are concerned, one would expect that mere accusations are quite below the threshold of any professional standard, especially, if those accusations are not converted to proper indictments and the accused is given the opportunity to defend themselves in the properly appointed forum.

This might be before a jury of their peers where appropriate, else the case prepared against the accused would just be argued before a panel of judges who with their expertise in the relevant jurisprudence would review the evidence and presentations adjudicating thereafter.

The expectation of due process

It is in the light of this that I have issue with the release of a list of 135 names of politicians by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in a letter to political parties about persons they deem unsuitable for office or rather should be ineligible to participate in elections through party representation.

This is completely wrong-headed, the appropriate agency to decide the suitability of any candidate for elections should be the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or some appointed organ to screen, vet and approve candidates.

In September 2006, we were informed that 31 of 36 state governors in Nigeria were under investigation, that was probably newsworthy, but what stage has been reached with the investigations and who has been charged with a crime or misdemeanour?

A case of utter incompetence?

Prominently, a case was prepared against the Vice President who has had a protracted falling-out with the President, none of which has passed muster. It makes one wonder if the EFCC is completely incompetent in preparing cases that are presentable and acceptable to the courts considering the number of cases that have not progressed beyond indictments before high courts have quashed the applications.

Alternatively, there is a growing inclination to the idea that the EFCC has become an instrument of vindictiveness – a puppet of the President – to besmirch and smear anyone who has deigned to challenge the Presidency especially in that failed bid to gain a third term last year.

Generally, I have been of the view that Chairmanship of EFCC and the lines of reporting responsibility should be outside the Presidency and Executive arm of government and high up within the Judiciary, probably at the level of the Minister of Justice but appointed by the legislature on the advice of the judiciary rather than the executive.

The people

This is not to say that people on the list and many more surreptitiously and blatantly left out are not guilty of graft, corruption and probably murderous crimes, but they cannot be adjudged guilty until duly proven to be so, short-circuiting the process through letters of presumptive guilt is beneath contempt.

The way times have shifted in Nigeria has allowed for the mendicants, robbers, brigands and thugs of yesterday to present themselves as benevolent and compassionate persons desirous of leading Nigeria out of the doldrums that were the results of their acts years before.

It is seriously gratifying to see that the ex-President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida had to pull out of the primaries for the presidency knowing momentum and wealth were not on his side to lead Nigeria into a greater nightmare than one he started in the 80s which culminated in the Presidency of the sociopath Sani Abacha.

Reforming the EFCC

Whilst the ideas and policies that lead to the formation of the EFCC are laudable and should be continued, I am not sure that the headship and direction of the organisation has been properly served by a junior functionary being elevated into the spotlight of gung-ho personality vandalism or character assassination, though some of the work of the organisation has been commendable.

The people who have plundered Nigeria’s means and resources need to be fearlessly brought to book through transparent and internationally acceptable legal processes that are beyond reproach and exude commendable legal professionalism.

We cannot have cases been ridiculed in high courts found wanting in necessary preparation to pass the scrutiny of aggressive legal examination and thrown out at the first hurdle – these matters are in need of better heads and hands.

As for the list, Nigerians would just have to decide – if allowed a free and fair election based on their ability to have registered properly – who is worthy of office, when evidently the detail of the cases against the listed cannot have been judiciously addressed in court giving them the opportunity to defend themselves or seek redress for possible defamation or libel before the elections in a few months time. This activity has been pre-emptively disingenuous and has done no one any good.

AIDS cure or homosexual lure in Iran

Between herbs and chemicals

Any development in alternative or herbal medicine that offers to give palliative comfort, therapeutic cures or prophylactic remedy for the diseases that rage amongst mankind today is very welcome.

I have many a time refused synthetic medicaments that pump the body full of chemicals providing temporary respite to a point that the body can handle no more and the person expires not so much from the illness but from the treatment – but who would own up to that?

Cures for serious pain that then lead to heart attacks, treatments for cancer that leave the person hanging on to a thread of life, in fact, I am convinced that many have not died for the reason that they have a stronger will to live rather than them reacting to the effect of the toxins they have to ingest with side effects, if recounted, would make a Stephen King horror novel look like a kindergarten colouring book.

Herbal clams making me puke

Even so, the big healing, cure or remission people are looking for is one for HIV/AIDS, this has been hitting the headlines faster than I could raise commentary, only last week the President of Gambia suggested he had been curing AIDS with herbs, in people who have been invited to his harem, my views on this were not half derisive, I was enraged.

Now, I read that Iran has also laid claims that it also has a cure for AIDS, a claim that has been out since September 2006 and reported by the Science Daily – this has been further developed to a herbal cure for AIDS or in some cases used in some combination therapy with existing chemical compounds that make up current HIV/AIDS treatments.

Of nuclear herbalists

Iran being a closed country and one with which countries like America has not had any diplomatic relations for 37 years, it is unlikely that we might really get essential corroborative detail of this development just as we cannot ascertain if Iran’s nuclear programme is purely peaceful or has militaristic tendencies.

Now, I would hope that the quest to find a cure is altruistic and compassionate to a larger degree than commercially driven for the benefit of blockbuster inventions and profits that Big Pharma is too indulged in to offer benefit to mankind.

Institutions like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are also spearheading research sponsorship to develop drugs that impoverished countries and their people need and this is laudable.

A cure or a lure

Concerning Iran, my concern is whether this cure for AIDS is really one that its people should flock to for treatment or it is a lure to encounter the wrath of Sharia Law in the administration of punishment to the extreme.

At least, up till last year a number of teenagers were executed for being homosexual and that raised hackles in the Netherlands when our matronly Minister of Integration had to be forcefully dissuaded from deporting homosexual asylum seekers back to Iran on the whim that she had been assured they would come to no harm.

Thankfully, the young men were saved from the ideology of rule-keeping to the exclusion of commonsense and compassion, we all did breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Numbers to numb some

However, Iranian statistics suggest that most HIV/AIDS sufferers 62.3% are drug addicts who inject drugs and would have been infected through needle sharing, 27.9% have acquired the disease through unknown causes and 7.4% by possible sexual contact.

It would be interesting if checks are first made for needle marks to determine the druggies, background checks to determine the heterosexuals and possibly what is left over might be fit for the mob and the gallows – it does not bear thinking about.

Believing the best

Again, I want to believe the best of this situation, if indeed the Iranians have had a breakthrough on something that has foxed the whole of Western civilization over the last 30 or so years, they have a gift for mankind that far outweighs a prissy little nuclear tiff that is getting America too hot under the collar.

My only other concern about these herbal remedies is after the Gambian President’s announcement, maybe one of the reasons President George W. Bush is against stem cell research funding is because the Crawford Shrub or the Prairie Chapel Flower is being tested as an efficacy against Alzheimer’s disease – you never know.

A turkey flight between England and Nigeria

Between England and Nigeria

One does not recall finding any note or cause for concern during blog crawls in my regular blog haunt much about the avian flu human death in Lagos, Nigeria.

More so, I can contrast this situation with one currently developing in England where discovery of just one infected turkey in a large poultry in Suffolk has lead to the destruction of about 160 thousand turkeys and quarantine zones ranging from 3 kilometres as a protected zone wherein poultry must be confined indoors and 10 kilometres cordoned off as a surveillance zone and an additional 2,000 square kilometers as a restricted zone.

Despite this rapid response to a situation that would definitely hit the commercial bottom line of Bernard Matthews and possibly affect the livelihoods of workers, Russia and Japan have moved to ban all imports of poultry from the United Kingdom.

This is a well coordinated systemic approach to containing a possible epidemic that could first wipe out poultry and birds, this is made more dangerous if the virus leaps the species barrier and starts to infect humans.

The fact that there have only been 160 deaths worldwide and the commensurate action to contain the virus is almost extreme, it belies the fact that not much is known about the virus and how it could evolve into something even more lethal and contagious leading to an uncontrollable pandemic.

This H5N1 virus has a 60% mortality rate amongst humans, especially from the small sample of humans that have ever been infected.

We deserve better administrators

Back in Nigeria, there is an unbearably easy calm about the issue considering the Minister of Health is Professor Eyitayo Lambo, an absolutely uncompassionate intellectual oaf who could not be moved by the fact that licensed hospitals were administering substandard and sometimes poisonous drugs because he had not been personally informed of the issue.

I am sure, many bloggers would have stories of near death encounters in Nigerian hospitals that people would rather die in pain at home than visit the certainty of a killing field.

Something personal

It must be said that the General Hospital in Lagos shields from justice persons who having taken the Hippocratic Oath are wife batterers most foul [I am coming after you], it does not bear scrutiny; however, I must not digress onto the unprofitably emotional.

As I was saying …

This minister has for his deputy an architect, a major in a discipline of no medical significance who probably helps build and design the health infrastructure that allowed ignorant religious leaders in the North to scare their women off receiving the Polio vaccine a few years ago.

Thereby holding back the eradication of Polio in sub-Saharan Africa – we cannot begin to address the kind of attention that has been paid to HIV/AIDS, basically, Nigeria is in demand of and deserves better than has been afforded their people, we need technocrat who would revolutionise and change our health services for the better not federal character political appointees.

A possible fatal touch of Christmas

As it transpired, two women died over Christmas having been infected with the avian flu virus, what is alarming is that this is a time when humans and poultry would be in close proximity shopping for poultry to cook for their Christmas celebrations. Another young woman of 22 died on the 17^th of January of the disease in the “under-populated” state of Lagos.

Whilst the government has set in motion facilities for the surveillance and monitoring of poultry and human contact as well as ordered and dispatched large quantities of Tamiflu the drug that is supposed to be therapeutic though with expressed doubts about its effectiveness. Developed countries have stockpiled this drug but do not have enough to cover entire populations, I would not prognosticate about covering 140 million people.

I have seen information about a Professor of Virology, H5N1 is a virus, however, I have not seen any reference to epidemiologists, and I would suppose we would rely on the WHO for additional expertise.

Where did it start?

What really bothers me is that I have not heard of any culling or isolation of poultry, many have their livelihoods from rearing poultry in open areas and even if these are culled there might be no express compensation scheme.

This would prevent people from reporting outbreaks when they should, for the fear of loss and those who might get infected might just concoct twigs and herbs that they have used from malarial infections hoping and praying for a recovery.

As many causes of death in Nigeria are attributed to the more pathological brief illness, we may never know the true extent of infection and transmission if it does indeed affect humans. Many would not visit hospitals because the entrance fee before a doctor conducts a passing glance to those racked with illness is prohibitive to the extreme and there is definitely no guarantee of a useful diagnosis leading to effective treatment with drugs that work.

I can only hope that this issue is not being blown out of proportion by my take on the matter and hopefully providence is on our side to ensure that what the government lacks in managing this situation is made up for by the care and attention of the citizenry and whoever they call upon for protection.

References

Q&A on avian flu

No Safe Haven – An Annual Report on Attacks on Women in Nigeria

A Gambian Cure for AIDS or An Epidemic of Stupidity

Touch the screen and be healed

When one first saw the music video of Jesus He Knows Me (Video attached) by Genesis, one was not amused in the least, but now, I see the truth and humour in the whole thing, that is what this business of religion has become.

If, at the same time some televangelist made some statement about healing generally incurable diseases whilst many might flock to those tents for a touch of the miraculous, there are some who would view such claims with utter skepticism, I do not blame them, many a time, we’ve all been conned with snake oil remedies.

Beetroot healing

Then Manto Tshabalala-Msimang, the Health Minister for South Africa came up with the therapeutic amelioration for HIV/AIDS using garlic and beetroot. It just highlighted how seemingly educated and knowledgeable Africans make a laughing stock of themselves, the Health Minister being a medical doctor by training is supposed to know better.

As if we have not been subject to enough ridicule when it comes to Africa’s handling of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the president of a country that through the unfortunate juxtaposition of geography and biology looks like a phallic symbol in a condom is offering healing remedies for AIDS.

Then he unashamedly declared this delusional fantasy to a group of foreign diplomats. They must have thought the president is aping a stand-up comic, and now his Health Minister corroborates this nonsense by saying the patients are gaining weight and improving physically – they are probably being fed shit – it is unconscionable that leaders can take advantage of their people’s gullibility and ignorance.

Any announcement of this sort would normally have followed the due process of analysis by scientists in a medical, pharmaceutical or epidemiological forum, definitely not a tea-party for diplomats, it does Gambia down.

Secret medicinal lies

President “Quack Doctor” Yahya Jammeh of Gambia also claims he can cure asthma, maybe he really can do all of these things since his technique he is using a secret medicinal herbs which we probably can say do not require the swirl or flick of Harry Potter wand.

I would however only give this man – who in my rush to judgment leaves him no less a charlatan – the benefit of the doubt if an independent panel of scientific minds in HIV/AIDS research and pharmacology peer review these concoctions and certify their efficacy.

Such knowledge and expertise cannot be confined to just one man and his aides when millions are dying around the world, besides, there are ways and means for getting rewarded for offering this lifeline to humanity, if this indeed is the real deal.

Between you and me, this is not the way to get Gambia into the international limelight.

Turkey still unsuitable for Europe

Consulting Turkey

There is no doubt that Turkey does have an uphill task in becoming acceptable and amenable to Europe. I could very well sympathise with the many who believe that the way Turkey straddles Europe and Asia makes it better a neutral ally than an assimilated partner in the great Europe project.

Turkey still struggles with its identity in terms of its history, its nationhood, the influence of the army and its protection of pressure-cooker secularist ideology.

In many cases, what binds the people is so artificial in the context of real-politik and nowhere is that best exemplified than in the Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code which pared down simply makes a crime of insulting Turkishness.

This article, controversial as it is, surreptitiously stands to revolt against any objective scrutiny of Turkish history; this mainly points to the case of the alleged genocide of Armenians by the failing Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1917, it also refuses to the recognise the need to protect the human rights of ethnic minorities like the Kurds.

Insulting Turkishness

The laudable goals of this article are listed thus:

1. A person who publicly denigrates Turkishness, the Republic or the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and three years.

2. A person who publicly denigrates the Government of the Republic of Turkey, the judicial institutions of the State, the military or security organizations shall be punishable by imprisonment of between six months and two years.

3. In cases where denigration of Turkishness is committed by a Turkish citizen in another country the punishment shall be increased by one third.

4. Expressions of thought intended to criticize shall not constitute a crime.

You will note that the critical word of import in this article is “denigration”, which in common parlance means to blacken; somehow, one must not attack the reputation of all entities Turkish even if they have been caught in situations that make their reputation questionable or one must not deny the importance or validity of a stance even if it is an unfair revision of history to suit nationalistic purposes.

Resulting Turkey mess

The last part of this article could as well be a muzzled dog in that it cannot allow for objective analysis of a view which criticizes but is view by some as denigration.

On the basis of this poorly constructed piece of legislation, many have been charged with insulting Turkishness prominent amongst whom are the Nobel Laureate for Literature 2006 – Orhan Pamuk – charges were eventually dropped.

Hrant Dink, a writer and journalist, was convicted under this article in 2005 for writing about the Armenian Genocide and on the 19^th of January was gunned down in front of his newspaper office by a teenager who took exception to his writings or so it seems.

The outpouring of rage and grief at the procession to the funeral of Mr. Dink did give the impression that the Turks would rather dispense of a piece of legislation that makes their brand of democracy questionable if not a fallacy of a pseudo-totalitarian state propped up by the army and licensed to punish any view that does not subserviently defer to that of the government and its organs.

The Economist suggested that this article be repealed as a sign of a new democratic dawn in Turkey and a lasting legacy to Mr. Dink.

Exulting extremist Turkey

It would now appear that we have been thinking ahead of ourselves, a leaked video – something that now seems the laudable purveyor of truths people in authority would rather we did not know – showing the suspect killer of Mr. Dink (Ogun Samast) posing with the national flag and some police personnel in a “Boy, you have done us proud” situation is now public property.

This would feed into the conspiracy that the suspect was probably part of a greater plot of perpetrators out to kill Mr. Dink, though being 17 years old, is a convenient fall-guy for an offence that might Turkishly be swept under the carpet for the want of another turn of phrase.

Obviously, an inquiry has been instituted to nab the police involved in what might have let the cat out of bag – the indoctrination of people into fundamental Turkey-tude that they cannot separate the wrongness of a heinous crime of murder from the absurdity of insulting Turkishness.

Insulting our intelligence

Beyond that, they are also after whoever leaked the video, now, that really gets to me, the video is a truthful recording of events that really took place, a truth that must not be conceal from a public that might feel justice is being served only to find out that murderous crimes are being glorified.

Once again, like all those before, the man who revealed the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the people who revealed the pictures of Abu Ghraib and yesterday, the lady who revealed the pictures of orphaned babies being gagged from crying out in a hospital in Russia, these are the upholders of our civility, the real democrats, the people who make us feel our bosoms for a conscience – they need to be commended and protected from the tyranny of powers that would not prevent injustice and when that injustice is revealed, they are hounded for seeking justice that should have been there in the first place.

It is self-evident that a Turkey in this form that allowed this ideology of Turkishness to prevail to the point that people can get killed does not belong in Europe. Imagine an offence like “Insulting Englishness” or “Insulting America-ness”, it is absurd.

Though, France does not help by creating a new offence of denying the Armenian Genocide, both Turkey and France are perpetrating wrongs that require a genuine historical consensus on what really happened and accepting that as the truth regardless of citizenship.

Do Africans still live on trees?

After dinner mouth not mint

I stepped out of the restaurant with a good friend after a beautiful Japanese meal last night, though I must say the Chinese have found better ways of packaging their cuisine for international tastes except for sushi and sashimi which is more about being trendy than having tasty food - my opinion.

However, before I could be distracted from the cool restaurant atmosphere I was overwhelmed with a barrage of abuse, bitter in content and caustic in utter disdain for Africans, supposedly, this almost haggard looking man thought I was African, which in fact I am.

He railed with contempt and almost choked on his hatred, but I ignored him as what came to my hearing was overt, nasty and unspeakable racial abuse; that was from a fellow black man.

Covert or overt

Indeed, I must confess that in Europe, I have had more overt racial abuse or show of racial disdain from people of my colour than I have had from other races; it is instructively eye-opening.

One must also say, that the kind of racial disapproval I have received from the “so-called”, indigenes of Europe has been covert, usually made in jest to the extent that one is supposed to grin and bear it no matter how hurtful they have been.

I have learnt that the best way to deal with this sort of stuff is to have a quick wit, it is educational and effective, I give real life examples of conversations I have had when some smart chap has tried to be too funny for my liking.

Cannibals cannot be shot

[In the midst of a disagreement coming to a point of parting]

Stranger: 100 years ago, I would have shot you.

Moi: 200 years ago, I would have eaten you.

{Conversation ends as stranger realises he has been trumped}

Taking him to the cleaners

[Cocky Englishman tries to be politely rude]

Englishman: Hey Akin, the guy you borrowed your suit from is asking for it.

{I see he has envelopes on him, so pointing to the envelopes, I say}

Moi: I see you’ve got a delivery service, would you take it back?

{Never again heard that kind of silliness from him after that encounter}

I pay your welfare

[Someone down on his luck tries to take it out on me]

Stranger: You black people come to our country for welfare.

Moi: I will tell you this much, I probably pay more taxes than you earn in a year (Compared to the national average where I live, I do); and that goes into your government to have idiots like you talk to me like that.

{Stranger is quite scolded beyond belief, walks away without mouthing another word}

An arboreal feeling of monarchies

[Smart Swedish man trying to make conversation]

Swede: Do Africans still live on trees?

Moi: Yes indeed we still do, in fact, when King Carl XVI Gustaf visited Nigeria; we put him on the highest tree and fed him bananas.

{Smart Swede does not look so smart anymore as his face drops in astonishment, he apologises for being so nasty.}

Postscript: Basically, he had insulted Africans and in the process made me call his revered king a monkey – cuts both ways. More so, he did not know that King Carl had really never visited Nigeria.

Mouse and snake chase

Like one of our legendary Nigerian musicians would say, if someone chases a mouse after you and you in turn chase a snake after them; fair cop.

In my own way, education in such terms is direct, effective and frank, those people would always think twice before they go shooting off such unforgivable hatreds masquerading as making decent and polite conversation.