Guns and Churches for Security

Another attempt at the 2nd

I think it is time to forget the debate about ownership of guns in America. The contentious Second Amendment of their Constitution needs clearer interpretation and hopefully the Supreme Court would rise to the occasion and be true to English as a mode of communication than Political English as a mode for confusion by June 2008.

I covered this matter in October 2004, I have read the Second Amendment a good few times and the text needs no further clarification than what it states.

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of the free state, then the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”.

The plurality of this statement is evident in that one person cannot constitute a militia, that it is to be regulated would mean that the militia would be under the control of some organised organ of the free state.

The right of the people to keep and bear arms, - not everyman - then derives from membership of the well regulated militia that acts to secure the free state.

It would by inference mean that everyone who then keeps and bears arms must be available to be called up to the service of maintaining the security of the free state; that does not read personal property or any other endeavour.

So, how this can be read to mean everyone has the right to bear arms escapes me, but lobbies and political subterfuge have allowed for a very basic law to become a standard for the bastardisation of English as we know it.

This issue has visited the Supreme Court five times but never resulted in clearing the supposed ambiguity in the statement – these learned judges of the United States of America Supreme Court have an opportunity to make history and their courage must not fail them.

Cold dead innocents

Americans would not part with their guns easily, as in the words of Charlton Heston when his great machismo had not deserted him, he declared that his musket gun would have to snatched “from my cold, dead hands”.

One wonders how many more innocent off the streets of America without guns to protect themselves but running the gauntlet of deranged people who shoot up everything that moves, should have their lives snuffed out by cold murderous hands before someone begins to reconsider this affinity for Wild West braggadocio, the swagger and the quick-draw at noon.

Church offers no refuge

What bothers one even more is the recent incident of mass killing in religious meeting places. Anyone would think a church or a church establishment offers a kind of sanctuary not only as shelter from the elements but also from disturbed and deranged gun-totting death-mongers who having concluded on the worthlessness of their lives need to make their deaths significant by taking innocent people along.

Not only that, one is also concerned about a development that my fellow blogger friend Roosevelt has noticed, a trend towards armed security at churches. Surely, not to keep church-goers in order, but who knows?

The security guard said this, “I took cover, and I waited for him to get closer, and I came out of cover and identified myself, and engaged him, and took him down. And that's pretty much it.” She took him down! Hallelujah!

My Jesus Boys

No, it is not funny at all, but that is not the only place where a type of protection has been employed by the church to maintain order. A few weeks ago in Nigeria at a major gospel concert called The Experience , the organisers engaged the services of the usually menacing hoodlums and anti-social vermin of “Area Boys ” to police the premises and handle the matters of order and some ushering under some supervision – hence their Damascene conversion to Jesus Boys – it almost reads like comedy.

However, when you read the story of an influential madam ordering her driver to drive up against the traffic only to be arrested by the state governor, it suddenly seems having armed security and hoodlum ushers in the church is all too necessary as the custom registration on her car read “My Jesus”.

The crime of being raped by justice

Justice should be compassionate

In 21^st Century one would expect that when one seeks justice through legal channels for crimes that seriously violate the person the letter of the law would be uncompromising and the meting out of justice would be sympathetic, humane, fair and just.

Rape and murder are two crimes that we must do all diligence to first prove that the suspect is the offender and then visit a punishment that considers the plight of the victim and satisfies the needs of community and society - local and global.

The girl from Qatif

For weeks our hearts have bled and we have been sickened by the case of the girl from Qatif, Saudi Arabia who was gang-raped by seven men after she met up with her ex-boyfriend to retrieve her picture, since she was now betrothed to someone else. They both got abducted and she was seriously violated, traumatised and violently raped - the story fills one with revulsion.

These inhuman beasts took pictures of the dastardly event and threatened the family of the victim with menace and more.

When the wheels of justice rolled onto this case, the learned men of religion who as judges devoid of compassion, sentenced the men to terms of imprisonment and the girl to 90 lashes for being alone with a man who was not her relation.

This sentence duly attracted opprobrium and rightly so; but on appeal, the judges increased the punishment of the girl, the rape victim to 200 lashes and six months in jail "for her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media".

That kind of judgement had to see the light of day, not only was inhumane, unjust and completely apathetic to the circumstances, it was another case of where people are sacrificed to religion, customs and traditions that belong in the deep dark ages.

Justice for religion and not for the rape

Indeed, the rape victim by the law of the land should not have been with the man, but that does not however, give anyone the right to violate her for their pleasure, entertain themselves with pictures of the ordeal and then threaten her family with menace when seeking justice.

The judges could not accept that they had been in error of judgment and laid into her defence counsel stripping him of his license to practise. I would hope that this issue does not die down till the judges not only acknowledge the errors of their ways; and a judge in a rape case where the needs for a conviction has been satisfied should and must do well to help restore the honour and dignity of the violated - in this case, an apology, a resignation, the restoration of counsel and some compensation should be the bear minimum of redress.

Witnesses to their own crimes

The men who committed the heinous crime could have been sentenced to death but for the lack of witnesses and confessions, said one commentator - one wonders how many people really witness a rape, but in a gang-rape there should have been ways to get them to testify against each other, only that Saudi Arabia might not be apt to use torture to restore the dignity of a woman even though they are experts at it for other purposes.

If they had taken pictures of their committing the crime, it should not take more that two brain-cells to acquire those pictures and build a strong case against the men for the most punitive sanctions - whilst I am no supporter of the death penalty, when it comes to rape - death is too good for a rapist.

In this case, the victim was raped by seven men and then twice raped by justice, this is despicable to the extreme, I am ashamed to live in these times when adherents of religion have lost their ability to be human, humane and serve humanity.

Her worship has lost her altar

Seven time zones to the East in Northern Queensland in Australia and a 10-year old girl seeks justice for being gang-raped by 9 men, the suspects are found guilty, but none receive a custodial sentence for their acts.

It might well be that their being minors meant they could not be sent to adult prisons but they should have at least been confined to some establishment and proper rehabilitated to recognise that the crime of rape was unacceptable if not abominable and the one of gang-rape when human-beings behave like pack animals borders on irredeemable sacrilege.

In Australia of all places, where the Judge was also a female, even if the prosecution had demanded lenient sentences, one would think the judge could exercise discretion in the matter and mete out a fair and just sentence whilst in sympathy and compassion she attempts to restore the person, honour and dignity of the girl.

This is also with the knowledge that in Northern Queensland child sex abuse is both rife and committed with impunity. This no doubt requires the very strong arm of the law to indict criminals, arrest this unseemly state of affairs and offer terms of sentencing that would serve as a deterrent to others who might be inclined to be less than animals.

Consent at 10 cannot be acceptable mitigation

The Age of Consent in Queensland is 16, this rape victim was 10 and the judge had the temerity to suggest that the girl probably agreed to have sex with all the men. If a girl of 10 is so sexually aware to consent to sexual intercourse with 9 men, there is a serious problem in the Aboriginal society a situation that is in dire need of radical action and all the goodwill that can be mustered in the world to solve it now.

The judge was in her little mind really of the opinion that the girl was not forced into sex by the men, 9 of them, I need to pause to be seriously sick because this is reading like a horror film can only be produced on CGI.

Politicians have waded into this case because it is not only an embarrassment to Australia, there is the likelihood that this judgement is not the first of its kind where the victim is twice raped by men and then by justice with almost no recourse.

Dehumanised by separation

There is a deeper, terrible and horrifying thought to this matter which might be informing the psyche of those who hold the scales of justice. Half a century ago, in fact from 1915 to 1969; Aboriginal children were removed from their families by the Aboriginal Protection Board that thought the parents were not good enough for their kids in what could be only be a eugenics-driven assimilation policy.

That story is almost too harrowing to tell, to be deprived of parental love and your heritage for the sake of giving the child a "white" upbringing - one such of the "stolen generation" recently won a payout for the rape of his identity and heritage - not that the payment would fully assuage the pain of the crime of the State, but it was a start.

It would be horrifying to think that this mindset might have played a part in the justice the rape victim received; the Premier of Queensland has opined and is seeking to satisfy herself that "the people of Cape York, and the people who live in remote indigenous communities, are receiving the same level of justice as we can expect in any other community in Queensland." I can only concur there, not just Queensland but Australia at large.

There is also a suspicion of the corruption of justice as the suspects are from some of the most powerful Aboriginal families, justice for the rape victim means little compared to the freedom of the suspects whose forebears are influential.

Activism Against Gender Violence

This ties into the fact that the female gender suffers terribly at the hands of others in the pursuit of religious adherence, inordinate pleasure which is rape or just indifferent insignificance.

If in the 21^st Century women cannot seek safety, comfort, succour, justice and the restoration of dignity from society and our representatives that manage the dispensing of punishment for the violation of their persons; the whole human race is the poorer for it.

The judges; religious or academic have no business remaining on the bench if they cannot be awaken to see that fact that their service to humanity has sunk into a dehumanising farce that heaps disgrace on our humanity.

It is unconscionable that anyone can be raped and then raped by the judicial system, we must not stand for this and it must not stand at all.

The Nigerian Lighthouse Anti-Corruption initiative

Another laudable initiative

The Nigerian Lighthouse organised a write-in campaign for Nigerians to suggest how the scourge of corruption can dealt with for the improvement and advancement of Nigeria.

The Nigerian Lighthouse Anti Corruption Day initiative.

I went through the whole list of ideas, suggestions, comments and postulations and decided maybe an analysis of these ideas might be an interesting exercise - I have been quite indulgent in commenting on this material and I would be addressing every kind of issue about campaigns, entries, publications and conclusions.

Organising a campaign

I was invited to participate in this campaign and I immediately crafted a note about my ideas which were duly emailed to the address provided, however, I did not pass the email on as a chain-letter to other friends, I did not think that was proper.

The instructions for contribution were quite clear and easy to understand, I do not think anyone would have missed the very basic instruction which appeared twice - the contribution was supposed to be 50 words or less - I expected the moderators and contributors to follow that guidance but at least 15 out of 37 entries failed that basic test including mine.

I thought the email submission system was a bit cumbersome, why have we adopted a blogging forum for the dissemination of information and then resorted to an asynchronous communication system to gather the inputs?

Because of that, I wrote a long email introducing myself and then quoted my contribution (48 words) within a - Text Begin/End caption - all that finesse was ignored and a lot more information than I intended was published.

Thot against corruption: Facilitate easy access to the means of expression that people can use to air their views.

Following instructions

Beyond that, the first fight against corruption should really be about finding out what is right to do and sticking to that rule, some took more than their fair share and the moderators did not cut them down to size.

I know that in forums like BBC Have your Say and CCN Viewer Comments, the contributions are moderated to get straight to the ideas - I know we Nigerians like to ramble on, we have something to say and like to be heard above everyone else.

If most of the contributions were sets of ideas and instructions, over 40% have already fallen short of the standard required - if a campaign demands being precise, that is what it requires, all others that do not follow that guideline should have been edited or left off.

More so, there are others who would have liked to say a lot more but followed those guidelines only to find that fellow contributors were allowed more space, the rules were then relaxed probably unconsciously which might have caused resentment from others. No sacred cows said one contributor.

I had a lot to say on this topic and I wrote a separate blog to air those views.

Thot against corruption: If rules have to be followed they need to be enforced impartially and those who flout those rules should be advised, corrected or even sanctioned.

We are all against corruption

All contributors were clearly in support of a war or crusade against corruption but the means to that end differed. I think I read that a majority want our anti-corruption agencies to be strengthened to tackle corrupt elements.

People however also need to be able to access that justice or redress system there should also be check and balances to prevent these institutions from being used as tools of menace.

I do not think granting a corruption amnesty for stolen sums of money and peddling unwarranted influence would begin address the matters of corruption the system is so ingrained, if people think the corrupt elements would get away with it, whilst a temporary feeling of satisfaction would be earned for the returns, the criminals would think the amnesty equates absolution.

Thot against corruption: Let the full course of the law and justice be followed and executed before considerations for clemency are entertained.

Adequate punishment

Indeed, these corrupt elements in society have given our country a bad name, there probably should be a crime for bringing the name of Nigeria into shame, disgrace and derision - I do not think we need a law along the lines of insulting Nigeria-ness as we have with Turkey. Maybe this is a kind of patriotism.

Some have suggested the forfeiture of assets; I think that should go alongside punitive fines and possible incarceration - the premise of innocent until proven guilty should be upheld but it should not be an occasion to run legal rings round the system.

Some have suggested the death penalty, grave as the matter might be where sub-standard drugs appear in our teaching hospitals, buildings are built with attention to quality and other corrupt activities that might lead to loss of life. I do not think returning to the barbarity of putting people to death in whatever humane means we garner is the best way to entrench democracy.

In fact, the punishment might even make the offenders more hardened, violent and unscrupulous in getting their way.

Thot against corruption: Allow a certain balance of crime and punishment that should be punitive but not terminal or so severe that the quality of justice gets questioned.

Virtues and principles

Many including myself raised the issue of values and virtues as honesty, contentment, fairness and so on.

Whilst there might be a religious basis for being principled, I do not think our religious organisations and leaders have really been the moral beacons of society that we hope they would be.

Rather, they have adapted their message to the way the society thinks, I once wrote about a church where the priest asked some of his congregation to stand up for a blessing equal to a certain amount.

The religious message has also be hijacked by an inordinate quest for wealth - the love of money being the root of all evil.

We should in and of ourselves to principled, honest and fair, our religious affiliation should not be the defining quality for virtues, rather, that should be complementary to what we already are.

In fact, we should immediately be suspect of people who call God as their witness to deeds they have not been able to truthfully and convincingly explain - we should rubbish the claims and refuse to be cajoled by an affiliation to God - too many people try to drag God's name down into the mud to save their skins.

Thot against corruption: People who need God to confirm their honesty need to be probed the more to ascertain exactly what their core values are regardless of religious affiliation. Do not "Church-going" and "God-fearing" us into submission when we need clear answers.

Slow, determined and realisable

Many appreciate that the war against corruption would require a change in the mindset of the people, probably one person at a time.

Education is important, meritocracy has to gain ascendancy, the culture of sycophancy, nepotism and gaining pecuniary advantage needs to become a thing of the past.

There is a string leadership element to this issue, I just wonder if the implementation of these initiatives do not begin to look like the War Against Indiscipline campaign of over 2 decades ago that made the country look like it was going down the slippery slope to socialism.

This education should also start with the children highlighting civic duties, social responsibility and desire to always do what is right, the children also have to see their parents do the right thing or all that education and schooling is lost.

Maybe it is time to really make the Nigerian Pledge means exactly what it says - to be faithful, loyal and honest being the key phrase.

Thot against corruption: Education and understanding social responsibility are key.

Thanks to the Nigerian Lighthouse

There is much more that can be gleaned out of the suggestions proffered, I leave that to others to give a perspective of their reading.

I also want to thank the trustees of the Nigerian Lighthouse for spearheading another community initiative for the betterment of Nigeria - Keep up the really good work.

John Sentamu - A true African Leader

Dramatic gesture

When the news came on air that the Archbishop of York – John Sentamu – had cut up his dog-collar, what went through my mind was the break away of the San Joaquin diocese from the US Episcopal Church yesterday because of the consecration of one homosexual bishop – Gene Robinson – in 2003.

Homosexuals split the church

Whilst I have my views about churches engaging in social activism there are worthwhile causes where the church should be at the forefront – a split over homosexuality where a majority of selfsame homosexuals have been alienated from the church and find no spiritual succour or guidance from where the expression the love of Christ could have made the church a sanctuary for healing broken people is sad indeed.

Beyond this, there are more problems that should have gained greater priority in the vision and mission of the church like reaching the unreached (with might include homosexuals), poverty alleviation, community regeneration in areas of combating disease, rural development and education – there is almost too much work to be done and never enough hands, minds, people and funds to tackle these “Great Commission” issues.

But these are too difficult as energy is being expended in their obsession with homosexuality – Archbishop Desmond Tutu – and it would appear amongst all the critical issues facing the Church and Christianity today that finds the most activity.

Clergy activism for the good

This morning Archbishop John Sentamu’s actions are better placed as what the church should be involved in, born in Uganda, first appointed a High Court judge by Idi Amin and the persecuted by the despot for being judicially independent – the Archbishop was well acquainted with the tyranny of rotten African leadership and is well aware of his history and roots even though he has settled into the comfort of the English establishment his preaches a gospel that has meaning and relevance to our times.

Zimbabwe once had an Archbishop in Pius Ncube who was one of the few who were untouchable by the grubby hands and machinations of Robert Mugabe’s henchmen; the learned clergyman however lost his vision and vocation by engaging in activities that diminished his integrity, authority and credibility – the state security apparatus produced evidence of the Archbishop engaging in adultery.

This meant the voice in support of the people from the body of the clergy had to come from elsewhere, so this morning on the Andrew Marr Show (the transcript) in answering questions about Robert Mugabe, the Archbishop demonstrated that he wears a dog-collar to identify himself; taking it off, he cut it to bits saying these words.

“You know ... you see as an Anglican, this is what I wear to identify myself that I'm a clergyman. Do you know what Mugabe has done? He's taken people's identity and literally if you don't mind, cut it to pieces. This is what he's actually done, to a lot of - and in the end there's nothing. So as far as I'm concerned from now on I'm not going to wear a dog collar until Mugabe's gone.”

The new image of Africa

The sooner Mugabe is gone either by geriatric expiration or by a putsch that would allow us bring him to The Hague to face human rights abuse charges, the better.

He was hosted at the Africa-EU Summit in Lisbon, Portugal that Gordon Brown has boycotted and other African leaders had threatened not to attend if Robert Mugabe was not invited – It was nice to hear that Angela Merkel laid into him and stated “The situation of Zimbabwe is damaging the image of the new Africa”.

Dishonest African Leadership

Some African leaders would have us believe that Zimbabwe is not near collapse and Mugabe is not on his way out, they seek to patch a completely broken situation where even the country’s chief statistician cannot determine that rate of inflation in the country anymore because there aren’t enough goods on the shelves to create a viable dataset.

If the reality of the situation in Zimbabwe is being distorted by the media, according to the aspiring mediator in the person of the Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade as he visited Zimbabwe recently; I would suspect part of that is because of the lack of the freedom of the press in Zimbabwe, but more truthfully it is because we are not being seriously honest with each other; the destroyed townships are no mirage; the illegal immigrants and refugees flocking to South Africa are not animals in seasonal migration; the inflation figures that read 4,000% at one time are not plucked out of the air; the battered faces of the opposition leaders were not make-up – see the Q&A. Those, if I may be allowed the use of the word "coincidences" add up to a country with serious, serious problems.

However, this stance represents the great problem with Africa; the fear of seeing true democracy unseat unpopular leaders, the excitement or perverse black-man thing about seeing countries wrestle with their old colonial masters without any particular gain but notoriety leading to ruin and the inability to decisively tackle the matter of transparency, corruption and poor governance because it would mean everyone has to straighten up. It is no wonder that Africa that was well ahead of Asia in the 60s is now a basket-case in the 21^st Century.

In the end, the Africa-EU Summit, the first in 7 years was just another reactionary move by Europe very much like the Scramble for Africa, only this time, it is not for the partition of land but access to Africa’s resources. A meeting of equals in word for the economic colonisation of Africa – a success.

So far, it has been the clergymen who have gauged the situation well and not the disgraceful and shameful politicians; we have Archbishop Pius Ncube, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and now Archbishop John Sentamu to thank for being true, truthful and honest about Mugabe and the problems in Zimbabwe and Africa at large.

UN International Anti-Corruption Day - My take

Joining the clamour

I was invited by Omodudu to contribute to the United Nations International Anti-Corruption Day initiative run by the Nigerian Lighthouse for the 9^th of December 2007.

We all have grand ideas of how we can fight corruption but I wonder if we are really addressing the issue as clearly as we can.

My contribution was simple and appears below and it was posted to NigerianLighthouse@gmail.com, this might be a bit altruistic but I do think that is where we have to deal with the matter, a return to the core traditional virtues of principled stances and that would be difficult.

Corruption – Your NO Counts.

Did we have a time when people were principled, honest, content, fair, just and true lovers of humanity? That is where we have to return to, then stop respecting people of dubious means and strengthen our anti-corruption agencies to take them on and win.

When I watched Sorious Samura’s Living with Corruption earlier today and I have viewed it twice and it still makes compelling viewing – the showing times for Europe, Middle East and Africa appear below:

Central European Time (GMT/UTC +1)

Saturday 08/12/2007 20:00

Sunday 09/12/2007 07:00 20:00

Expediency forces compliance

The problem with corruption and how it permeates the fabric of society is almost intractable, it is easy to see high-level corruption involves people in power and international firms or organisations in cahoots in terms of contracts, money laundering, developmental aid, health and education, but there is another level that was so well reported by Sorious Samura.

It is expediency, people are coerced into submitting to the machinations of corruption because their needs trump the hurdles they have to cross to meet that need.

What is my passport doing in her pocket?

For example, when I was leaving Nigeria almost 2 decades ago, the immigration official – a pregnant lady – at the exit point took my passport and as she leafed through the pages asked what I had brought for her – I told her I was completely skint and she pocketed my passport.

What is my passport doing in her pocket? I was going to make that a topic of blogging against corruption and it might well become one soon.

There is no reason or procedure that allows for my passport to go into anyone’s pocket but mine, I also had a situation to hand, I had a flight to catch and was being confronted with a serious abuse of power and a corrupt official.

It took the quiet words of my travelling partner to placate the woman and there probably was an exchange of money before my passport was released. I was incensed but helpless because I could not control that situation, it is doubtful there was anyone in authority I could relate that matter to without having more problems.

It would have been nice to walk away from that situation but this is the problem, we have a need that trumps the hurdles, that expediency means we have to yield to the corrupt elements in our society to get on or suffer loss of time, more money and possibly liberty too.

Low-level corruption

In the programme, Living with corruption we saw where the man needed a job to feed his family that he had to part with two-thirds of his pay to the gateman and the foreman before he could be assured of a job.

The baby in the family was ill, that placed great pressure on the means within the family, and money that should have gone to providing for food was taken by the receptionist and janitor of the clinic before they could gain access to see the doctor for treatment.

The boy was sent back from school because he could not pay the tip required by the teacher – this was not the school fees – it was to meet some need of the teacher who also must have had problems getting paid because officials down the line have misappropriated the salaries and require bribes to release the funds.

Pupils being threatened with failure not because of poor academic ability but because they have not paid a bribe; mediocre pupils who in cases of teens pay up buying leaked examination papers placing a greater pressure on those who are naturally gifted but cannot compete with corrupt kids who already know the answers before the examination.

If education is as important as many now see it is, rather than upset the applecart the parents pay up for their children not to be left on the wayside of a future that we all hope is promising.

Public transport drivers have to ply a certain route that is infested with policeman leeches who even after having their pay doubled had settled into the impunity of charging a flat fee bribe; the driver had to pay or will get imprisoned and end up paying double that.

Some drivers work the whole day but no one cares that some days they end up with nothing to take home to feed their families – impunity breeds impunity and there is no recourse for fairness and justice because this corrupt chain flows up the line to the top.

Corruption fighting back

A friend narrated a tale where he had to invigilate his fellow students during which time one of them tried to reach for his books to check the answers. When my friend refused, he was accused of being wicked, unreasonable and probably a few other unprintable names.

That is one of the problems we have with fighting corruption, a snippet of Nuhu Ribadu shown as a trailer to fighting corruption contained an enlightening statement – “When you fight corruption, corruption fights back”.

May I say it fights back like a wounded lion – like when Sorious challenged a Kenyan minister for taking away the people’s land; the minister accused Sorious of having an agenda.

In Nigeria, the situation is sometimes quite benign, everyone finds a refuge in religion and God – once people call upon the name of God and swear by any revered religious tome they can find many accusers backing off. Interestingly, not many can stand on their honesty, principles or integrity, they need backing because, they, in and of themselves have no such virtue.

Others would use their ill-gotten means to menace their accusers with unscrupulous lawyers and slanted judicial systems – it explains why anti-corruption agencies get bogged down in Kenya, Sierra-Leone and Nigeria.

Starting the fight

The issue here is – where does the little man go to report the unjust, the unfair, the corrupt and the tyrant?

If there is no power that can indict, arrest, sanction and punish the corrupt there is no way the war on corruption can begin to gain traction.

Where there is such a power, the little man also has to be able to gain access to that authority and be able to seek redress that does not get caught up in red-tape.

Dealing with expediency issues are a bit difficult when looking at the examples above, if a child is to be fed or treated in hospital one cannot risk a principled stance and forfeit the life of the child.

We need some social scientists to address these matters and hopefully intimate us with the psychology needed to help the little man whose only hope of escaping poverty is having all that rightfully belongs to him given to him and not pilfered off by every vested-interest-corrupt petty tyrant that lines the way to his home such that he ends up with nothing.

Can we win against corruption? We probably can, but it would not be easy at all.

4 years of blogging - Thanks!

Write away

Four years ago, I found an outlet, a place to vent my spleen, a place to turn over the issues, events, ideas that affect me in all sorts of ways – I found blogging.

I have always liked political conversation, from a child I had an engaging interest in current affairs, as I travel a lot, I have been amazed at how I meet other travellers and no matter where they are from, I seem to know some current event about their homelands.

Yet, my day job has nothing to journalism, politics in a broad sense if you leave out office politics or public relations – I am an everyday geek working with computers and providing solutions in that field.

I must confess, I am a bit of a news junkie – I need to know what is going on and something comes up that sounds incredible, sometimes unbelievable, usually farcical, at times profound, occasionally downright stupid or amazingly ground-breaking – these sometimes reflect my emotional reactions to those things.

I have heard myself say – “Who writes these lines?” “No Kidding” “That is unbelievable” and more – all these reactions find a way of becoming my experience penned out in a blog.

Numbers and thanks

In four years, I have written close to 800 blogs and sometimes I go over something I have written before and wonder what facet of my personality was being exposed, it sometimes reads like an entirely different person and makes me realise that we are repositories of great potential and almost never exploit that resource to the full.

In all, I must express thanks and gratitude to people who have visited my blog, left interesting comments, become part of my community and become friends – I know I do not write to everyone’s liking, but that is the reason it is my blog and nobody else’s, the fact that it is public is coincidental – well, maybe not.

In closing, I would like to revisit some of the blogs I have posted over the years, some of the content still holds true and others are just as trivial as they are.

Highlights

One topic that affected me most was an event in January 2007, as bloggers have gotten used to tagging each other to learn more about their quarry, there was this post about sexual experiences, many were talking about their first copulation in their mid to late teens mine did not read like the first urges of consensually stolen moments of ecstasy, rather someone was doing me at 7 – it exposed the underbelly of child-sex abuse that never gets properly resolved in Nigerian society, I hope my contribution to the topic was useful. – My Sex Post (17^th January 2007).

I have never married but I have always been intrigued by the man-wife dynamic, sometimes communication breaks down, the relationship gets physical then customs, culture and traditions militate against finding the best solution to an untenable situation – Batter yourself, not your wife (21^st February 2006).

What PowerPoint presentations have become in corporate organisations can be likened to what karaoke is in a night club. Sometimes so much energy is expended on presentation to the detriment of the job itself – my polemic - Alexis' PowerPoints were her shoulder pads ... (11^th December 2003).

Three Moroccans fuelled on alcohol and drugs found release in kicking me to the ground and sending me to hospital – I only wished the police had the initiative to take my report at the station outside the hospital rather than try and fulfil bureaucratic idiocy of asking me to lodge that report somewhere else – I walked away – Couscous from a bicycle (5^th December 2004).

Some would have wondered if I had a fascination with cows, I had to ask how beef from one cow ends up in 9 states – Cult of the Mad Cow (29^th December 2003), how supermarkets keep your beef steak looking fresh and red – The Beauty of the dead cow (22^nd February 2006) and a cow could not have been holier than Shambo – Vigil for the cow eternal (24^th July 2007).

I was writing about football and I have written a lot about the sad state of English football. This time I was writing about the 2006 World Cup, some teams I expected to perform were doing poorly and I was explaining how Holland was really 2 provinces of the Netherlands with a map. It has become my most popular post because everyone who searches for a map of the Netherlands almost always ends up on my blog – maybe I should rename that post to creating blog traffic – Looking for football miracles (18^th June 2006).

I have bashed religionists, lamented about Nigeria excoriated a lot of policies around the war on terror and commented on all sorts of socio-political issues - sexuality, liberty, African leadership and many other things.

Finally, we must not forget the children; the memory of Yanire Izaga who died so young at the hands of those she loved and Madeleine McCann who till today is missing, abducted from the comfort of a holiday bed in Portugal.

As for blogging, it is my catharsis and has such beneficial therapeutic quality for me, I hope it does for you.

Thank you, everyone.

Sorious Samura - Living with Corruption

Living with exposing the truth

Sorious Samura makes compelling viewing, he takes reality television to the extreme – rather than being the observer-reporter he becomes participant-reporter, his report then becomes an experience that draws the viewer into the heart of the matter.

Sorious has become a crusader of sorts shining the bright light of scrutiny on all sorts of questionable activities around the world, looking at the underbelly of society and bringing information we never get to hear or see through establish channels of information dissemination. He tells the African story as an African in Africa with an African perspective - sometimes, it is the Africa you do not want to see, but it is an Africa that is real an out there.

His style is not “Michael Moore”, it goes deeper and further but what should result is that we be filled with indignant rage to find ways to correct the injustices we see around us.

Living with stark realities

Sometime ago, I watch Living With Hunger and saw how people scraped and scrapped to exist, they ate plants that gave them a rash you began to see how the body almost needs anything to keep alive – the pictures endured, it was disturbing.

The Living with Collection also includes Living with Refugees and Living with Illegals both of which I saw on CNN, I never saw Living with AIDS my imagination had gone ahead of me to save my sensibilities from that depiction.

This morning I woke up to the much advertised Living with Corruption on CNN International, it had already been shown on Channel 4 in the UK as a Dispatches: Society programme under the title How to get ahead in Africa in October.

Living with corruption

In Kenya and Sierra Leone which one might say are microcosms of the greater Africa he shown how people in the “under-class” are squeezed to the pips by petty officials who line up to extort from those who have literally nothing to even get by.

Looking for day labour, he found work but two-thirds of his pay had already been taken by bribes to the gateman who lets the workers in and the supervisor who dishes out work.

Building a shack in the slums, “chancers” took their cut under threats of reporting to the authorities who were themselves corrupt, by the time he got his empty shack up, he had parted with literally a month’s salary.

You don’t know Kenya

The impunity of it all was exemplified in senior officials that got away with presidential pardons or a minister who when confronted with accusations that he had appropriated land that does not belong to him first fought back with accusing Sorious of having an agenda then said Sorious did not know Kenya.

An AIDS orphanage in dire need of aid was unable to access funds because the angelic proprietor of the organisation could not fork out the 10,000 Schillings required by corrupt officials to register her community based initiative – Sorious, parting with the same sum was able to register his bogus initiative and complete the process in two days in what should take two months. – It was heart-rending.

It was saddening to see how we hear of all the aid going into Africa but none seems to get to the people who are the symbols of what makes organisations and people give aid. Anti-corruption drives simply get bogged down in the political process and get hijacked by special interests as tools of oppressing others.

Usually, it is the middleman without any godfathers that gets caught and they are never the ones who have siphoned moneys off to foreign accounts. The heads of government and ministers who have done too well with the resources of their countries also need the collusion of Western financial institutions to launder their ill-gotten gains.

Scented soap for teacher

His return to Sierra-Leone also showed how children are already schooled in corruption, teachers demanding scented soap, toilet-roll and money to mark the papers of their pupils – the headmaster had to go through hurdles to get paid, these hurdles were tips, here and there to people who are paid to ensure these jobs of administration are done.

I remember times in polytechnic when I had to pay for tutorials and handouts we were told the questions appearing in the examinations would be derived only from the paid-for material rather than the proper curriculum – you could be assured of failure if you did not subscribe to that corrupt enterprise.

There were times as a consultant in Nigeria, there were grabbing hands all around the place, those who felt each time a payment was made they must have a cut – I was able to use my slight detachment from the society because of my accent to state that they had to make those arrangements in their internal systems and it must never appear in my direct transactions, the bank teller even thought he deserved part of my pay when I cashed my cheques at the bank.

The big message of Living with Corruption was simple – To make poverty history, you have to make corruption history – if there is a political will to do that and a society responsive to the abolition of graft is another matter altogether.

You can find all these films and documentaries at the Insight TV Store.

A snippet from Ethiopia - Living with Hunger - YouTube link

Sorious Samura on the Living with series (YouTube Link) a 24-minute frank talk