Religion Against Humanity By Wole Soyinka

Wole Soyinka

Intervention by Wole Soyinka, Member of UNESCO’s International High Panel, at the 2012 Conference on the Culture of Peace and Non-Violence, United Nations Hdqrs, New York, Sept. 21 2012
To such a degree has Religion fueled conflict, complicated politics, retarded social development and impaired human relations across the world, that one is often tempted to propose that Religion is innately an enemy of Humanity, if not indeed of itself a crime against Humanity.  Certainly it cannot be denied that Religion has proved again and again a spur, a motivator, and a justification for the commission of some of the most horrifying crimes against humanity, despite its fervent affirmations of peace. Let us however steer away from hyperbolic propositions and simply settle for this moderating  moral imperative: that it is time that the world adopt a position that refuses to countenance Religion as an acceptable justification for, excuse or extenuation of - crimes against humanity.
While it should be mandatory that states justify their place as members of a world community by educating their citizens on the entitlement of religion to a place within society, and the obligations of mutual acceptance and respect, it should be deemed unacceptable that the world is held to ransom for the uneducated conduct of a few, and placed in a condition of fear, apprehension, leading to a culture of appeasement.  There are critical issues of human well-being and survival that deserve the undivided attention of leaders all over the world. Let us recall that it is not anti-islamists who have lately desecrated and destroyed - and with such fiendish self-righteousness - the tombs of Moslem saints in Timbuktoo, most notoriously the mausoleum of the Imam Moussa al-Khadin, declared a world heritage under the protection of UNESCO and accorded pride of place in African patrimony . The orientation – backed by declarations - of these violators leaves us with a foreboding that the invaluable library treasures of Timbuktoo may be next.
The truth, alas, is that the science fiction archetype of the mad scientist who craves to dominate the world has been replaced by the mad cleric who can only conceive of the world in his own image, proudly flaunting Bond’s Double-0-7 credentials – Licensed to Kill. The sooner national leaders and genuine religious leaders understand this, and admit that no nation has any lack of its own dangerous loonies, be they known as Ansar-Dine of Mali, or Terry Jones of Florida, the earlier they will turn their attention to real issues truly deserving human priority. These cited clerics and their ilk are descendants of the ancient line of iconoclasts of Islamic, christian and other religious moulds who have destroyed the antecedent spirituality and divine emblems of the African peoples over centuries. Adherents of those African religions, who remain passionately attached to their beliefs, all the way across the Atlantic – in Brazil and across other parts of Latin America – have not taken to wreaking vengeance on their presumed violators in far off lands.
These emulators are still at work on the continent, most devastatingly in Somalia, with my own nation Nigeria catching up with mind-boggling rapidity and intensity. Places of worship are primary targets, followed by institutes of education. Innocent humanity, eking out their miserable livelihood, are being blown to pieces, presumably to relieve them of their misery.  Schools and school pupils are assailed in religion fueled orgies, measured, deliberate and deadly. The hands of the clock of progress and social development have been arrested, then reversed in widening swathes of the Nigerian landscape. As if the resources of the nation were not already stretched to breaking point, they must now also be diverted to anticipating the consequences – as in numerous nations around the world – that would predictably follow the cinematic obscenities of a new entrant into the ranks of religious denigrators, who turns out – irony of ironies - to have originated from the African continent.
In sensible families, while every possible effort is made to smooth the passage of children through life, children are taught to understand that life is not a seamless robe of many splendours, but prone to the possibility of being besmirched by the unexpected, and unpredictable. A solid core of confidence in one’s moral and spiritual choices is thus sufficient to withstand external assaults from sudden and hostile forces. That principle of personality development is every bit as essential as the education that inculcates respect for the belief systems and practices of others. The most intense ethical education, including severe social sanctions, has not eradicated material corruption, exploitation, child defilement and murders in society, not even deterrents such as capital punishment. How then can anyone presume that there shall be no violations of the ideal state of religious tolerance to which we all aspire, or demand that the world stand still, cover its head in sackcloth and ashes, grovel in self-abasement or else prepare itself for earthly pestilence for failure to anticipate the occasional penetration of their self ascribed carapace of inviolability.
It is time to demand a sense of proportion, and realism. Communication advance has made it possible for both good and evil to transcend boundaries virtually at the speed of light, and for the spores of hatred to travel just as fast, and as widely as the seeds of harmony. The world should not continue to acquiesce in the brutal culture of extremism that demands the impossible - control of the conduct of millions in their individual spheres, under different laws, usages, cultures and indeed – degrees of sanity.
What gives hope is the very special capacity of man for dialogue, and that arbiter is foreclosed, or endures interminable postponements as long as one side arrogates to itself the right to respond to a pebble thrown by an infantile hand in Papua New Guinea with attempts to demolish the Rock of Gibraltar. I use the word ‘infantile’ deliberately, because these alleged insults to religion are no different from the infantile scribble we encounter in public toilets, the product of infantilism and retarded development. We have learnt to ignore, and walk away from them. They should not be answered by equally infantile responses that are however incendiary and homicidal in dimension, and largely directed against the innocent, since the originating hand is usually, in any case, beyond reach. With the remorseless march of technology, we shall all be caught in a spiral of reprisals, tailored to wound, to draw virtual blood. The other side responds with real blood and gore, also clotting up the path to rational discourse.   What we are witnesses to in recent times is that such proceeding is being accorded legitimacy on the grounds of religious sensibility. It is pathetic to demand what cannot be guaranteed.  It is futile to attempt to rein in technology: the solution is to use that very technology to correct noxious conceptions in the minds of the perpetrators of abuse, and educate the ignorant.
 
I speak as one from a nation whose normal diet of economic disparity, corruption, marginalization, ethnic and political cleavages has been further compounded by the ascendancy of religious jingoism.  It is a lamentable retrogression from the nearly forgotten state of harmonious coexistence that I lived and enjoyed as a child. One takes consolation in the fact that some of us did not wait to sound warnings until the plague of religious extremism entered our borders. Our concerns began and were articulated as a concern for others, still at remote distances. Now that the largest black habitation on the globe has joined the club of religious terror under the portentous name, Boko Haram – which means ‘The Book is Taboo’ -  we can morally demand help from others, but we only find them drowning in the rhetoric and rites of anger and/or contrition. Today it is the heritage and humanity of Timbuktoo. And tomorrow? The African continent must take back Mali – not later but - right now.  The cost of further delay will be incalculable, and devastating.

The spiral of reprisals now appears to have been launched, what with the recent news that a French editor has also entered the lists with a fresh album of offensive cartoons. To break that spiral, there must be dialogue of frank, mature minds. Instant, comprehensive solutions do not exist, only the arduous, painstaking path of dialogue, whose multi-textured demands are not beyond the innovative, as opposed to the emotive capacity, of cultured societies.  So let that moving feast of regional dialogues – which was inaugurated by former President Khatami of Iran in these very chambers – be reinforced, emboldened, and even-handed. The destination should be a moratorium, but for this to be strong and enduring, it must be voluntary, based on a will to understanding and mental re-orientation, not on menace, self-righteous indictments and destructive emotionalism. Perhaps we may yet rescue Religion from its ultimate indictment: conscription into the ranks of provable enemies of Humanity.
Wole Soyinka
Sept. 21, 2012, United Nations Hdqrs,  New York.

WHY AFRICANS SELDOM FEEL DEPRESSED AND COMMIT SUICIDE

 Otedo News

 

Ozodi Thomas Osuji

 

        It is really amazing how one idea leads to another.  In the morning I wrote a review of Carter Woodson’s book, the miseducation of the Negro. I grappled with his tendency to locate most of the problems confronting the Negro in white men.  He has what psychologists call external locus of control as opposed to internal locus of control.  That is, he felt that the external world was in charge of his (black folks) life as opposed to him being in charge of his life.  I typed the essay, as is generally my wont, straight without stopping (it took about four hours to type the twelve pages two part essay).

        Thereafter, I began reading Yosef Ben-Jochannan’s book, Africa, the Mother of Western Civilization. It is a huge book, 700 pages.  I read a few chapters and decided to go do some exercise.

       I jogged for two hours.  I was so pooped that I wished that I had taken my wallet and called a cab to take me home.  I simply did not have the energy to even walk.  I sat down and rested for a while.

      

         Woodson’ tendency to blame it all on white folks reentered my mind and I deliberately allowed my mind to do word association, just let that thought provoke other thoughts and go with them. Here we go.

         Every year many young Americans kill themselves in suicide. The teenager who is likely to kill himself is generally a white or Japanese teenager.  He is likely to be the top student of his class.   I used to wonder how come African American teenagers seldom killed themselves (but instead killed other black folk).

       A Japanese man who has lost social face, feels humiliated easily kills himself. If a Japanese Chief executive officer does something that embarrasses his people, such as miss manage his company, tries his best to fix the problem and could not fix it he feels that he is a failure and feels shamed. He could leave his house and go into a bush and plunge a sword into his heart and die.

        (Nigerians who run down businesses merely laugh and blame their failure on other people; killing themselves is out of the question; they say that they love life too much to kill themselves.)

       If a white man experiences failure, such as lose his money in bad investments he feels so bad that he might put a gun at his head and pull the trigger and blow out his brains.  White women often take over dose of sleeping pills and die painlessly in their sleep. 

       (Mental health professionals know many things that they keep to themselves and not bother the public with such facts; for example, if you go to a high school graduation, you pretty much know that in a few years two percent of those smiling kids would become schizophrenic and or manic and many others would suffer depression, some of whom would kill themselves.  Yes, two out of every one hundred kids in a school will become insane in a few years.)

 

        The Chinese say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with one-step at a time (the Igbos say: Nwayo, nwayo ka eji na racha ofe di oku, you eat a hot soup slowly and before you know it you have eaten all the soup...meaning that all you have to do is start somewhere and before you know it a difficult task is accomplished). 

        So, there is no point sitting there daunted by the prospect of walking almost ten miles to my house. I took the first step and began walking home. I did not get home until 8PM. 

        As I walked, naturally I thought. I had a Eureka moment, a flash of insight as to why black folk do not commit suicide.  It suddenly dawned on me that there is correlation between their tendency to blame external others for their fate and their tendency not to kill themselves and tendency to kill other people.

 

        When black folks experience problems they quickly locate the cause of their problems outside them.  It goes like this: First, they blame white men for all their problems.

 

         (As an aside it is interesting to observe that generally the white man does not see himself as responsible for black folks problems; to the contrary, he sees himself as their benefactor. African scholars blame the West for their problems but the West sees itself as the one that civilized Africa.  How? Until the twentieth century no African country by itself had formal elementary and secondary schools and universities; it was the Europeans who built those for them. So, if they were as civilized as they claim to be, how come they did not even have their own schools? They usually talk of the university at Timbuktu, Sankore, which existed before the white man came to their world but all the books there were written in Arabic meaning that it was stimulated by Arabs. The point is that by themselves they did not have schools; white men gave formal schools to them and since schools are the primary means of civilizing children thus feel like they civilized them.)

    When Africans are not blaming Europeans for their problems they blame other tribes; each tribe blames other tribes for its problems.  In Nigeria Igbos blame Yorubas or Hausas and those blame them for the rotten state of their country; no tribe takes responsibility for the fallen house that is Nigeria; it is always others fault that something is not working right in the country.

        Within the tribe each clan blames others for their issues (for example, within Igbo tribe the various clans: Owerri, Onitsha, Ikwerri, Ika, Wawa etc. blame each other for their problems). 

       Within clans kindred’s blame other kindred’s. Finally, individuals blame other individuals for their problems.

        If you go to Igbo villages folks are always fighting each other. One would accuse the other of causing his problems and they fight. They would have a dispute over their lands and go home and take up their machetes and go attack each other.

       The point is that Africans and black folks in general tend to blame other people for their problems and attack those they believe are responsible for their problems.

       They generally do not attack white folks for they know that the white man has preponderance of fire power and would not hesitate in wiping them out if they attack him...white America has an overkill of weapons, including nuclear weapons and can wipe out all black Americans and Africans within thirty minutes if they want to do so.  Black men aware of the military power of the white man do not attack them but sit on the side lines blaming him for all that is wrong with their lives.

       White conservatives say that they are not responsible for black folk’s problems; they say that it is Negroes lack of intelligence that caused their poverty.

        White liberals feel guilty at black folk’s poverty and want to help them but do so from the position of superiority not equality. You see, even white liberals feel superior to Negroes; they may talk about racial equality but would not want their children to go to the same schools with Negro children for they think that Negro children are dummies and would dumb down their own children. When Negro families move into white neighborhoods white families run away, they move to as far away from Negroes as they could for they do not want their children socializing with black children which leads to intermarriage, a situation they dread for they think that it would result in offspring that are not intelligent. On the other hand, they know that in measured intelligence Asians are smarter than white folks so they do not mind if their children married Asians for the offspring would become as smart as Asians (no one wants to be close to perceived dumb people).

 

HEURISTIC HYPOTHESIS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH

 

          My hypothesis is that Africans seldom commit suicide because they locate the source of their problems externally. Europeans and Japanese locate the source of their problems internally and take responsibility for their problems, feel depressed and kill themselves.

         Africans think that other people are the cause of their problems hence merely feel angry at other people and if they could attack and kill them. 

      

          Let me illustrate how this works. The other day I was downtown. I was walking and, as usual, was unaware of my surroundings. I am usually preoccupied by some thought and often do not see where I am going.  Apparently, I must have bumped into this man and he began yelling at the top of his voice at me.  In a minute he must have called me every put down name within his limited vocabulary.  As my training disposes me to do, when another person raises his voice at me, or is appearing to want to attack me, I keep quiet. I am trained in anger management and know that if the other guy is angry that you do not want to exacerbate his anger by talking back to him or defending yourself. You do not want to make it seem like he is the cause, not you of whatever makes him angry; so, you just allow him ventilate, talk his heart out and say nothing. Thus, I stood there as this angry black man cursed me out.  “Can’t you watch out for where you are going, you son of a black bitch? Why did you bump into me, you mother fucker, you cock sucking nigger”. In a few seconds what came out of that man’s mouth was incredible. When he finally calmed down, I said I am sorry and walked away.

       I then reflected on what happened. The man was probably already angry; something else already made him angry and he was displacing his anger at me. Perhaps, he was made angry by white folks and he could not talk back to them and when he found a black man that seemed to have wronged him he attacked him verbally.

        Black America is aware that white America is screwing it royally but knows that it can do nothing about it and live in smoldering anger. When another black man offends them they vent their rage at that black man. These way black teenagers kill other black teenagers. Those who only an hour ago were calling each other my hommie, my home boy, my hood buddy blow each other’s head off upon the slightest provocation. 

        Black on black crime is very high (and so is black on Mexicans crime...they always attack the weak but not the powerful, white folks, for they know what the man is capable of doing to them...bring his army into the hood and raise it down; the man after all is heartless; they didn’t call him psychopathic for nothing!).

        Black folks are each other’s worst nightmares.  All the white man needs to do is sit back, kick back, grab a can of beer, relax and “watch them niggers wipe each other off”.

 

        Let me reiterate: black folks locate the cause of their problems outside them and attack the source not themselves. They feel angry at external others not at themselves.

        Black folk seldom feel depressed because they do not see themselves as the cause of their problems. Instead of depression, they feel paranoid.

       A paranoid person is a dangerous person for he believes that other people caused his problems, made him seem imperfect, and attacks them. Paranoid persons are always murdering those they think caused their problems.

        Depressed persons, on other hand, think that they caused their own problems and attack themselves (depression is anger redirected at one’s self; suicide is self-attack).

        The Black man seldom becomes clinically depressed (feel that life is not worth living, and give up on life) and self annihilates; instead, he sees other people as the cause of his problems and kills them.  Black husbands think that their wives caused their problems and verbally attack them.

       On the other hand, white folks are likely to feel that they are responsible for their problems, feel depressed and blow their heads off with a shot gum.

       The cumulative effect is that black folks live despite their awful situation. One would think that given their horrible poverty and poor living circumstances that they would be killing themselves at a higher rate.  

       Now I get it. They tolerate their shitty situation because they see the cause of their problems as outside them and feel angry at it, not themselves.  They live (if they did not kill each other) because they do not accept responsibility for the cause of their problems.  

       Nigerians live in amazing squalor and do not commit suicide.  This is largely because Nigerians blame other persons for their problems. Some even say that they are the happiest people on earth. They are probably happy for how else do you account for their rapid breeding? They have gone from a small population to 160 million and are projected to hit 200 million soon!

        (A cynic friend of mine asks: what are they happy for; what are they really living for?  They do not contribute to science and technology so what are they living for? Is it enough to just be alive?  Well, they have oil money to keep them alive and when oil runs out starvation dawns and they die off. I bet that when they no longer have oil money more than half of Nigeria’s population would die off within a few years; nature would return the country to what its land could support which is no more than fifty million people. Thomas Malthus where are you!).

      Black folk blame other folk and as a result do not easily feel depressed and kill themselves. This is the secret of their survival in the face of abuse and sorrow.

    

        I blame myself for everything wrong in my life. I have internal locus of authority and take charge of my life. I do not blame others for my problems. Like my mother I have a tendency to depression (dysthymia, not clinical, major depression).

      Unlike us, Africans do not feel depressed; they tend to paranoia and blame other folks for their problems.

        I tried to get Africans to blame themselves for their problems but did not realize that if they followed my advice they would become like me and my mother and develop the capacity for depression. But they do not want to be depressed so they must blame other people for their problems.

        I had better leave them to be where they are at, for depression is not a positive feeling. However, I also know that those who blame other folks for their problems cannot develop themselves.

       As long as black folks blame other persons for their problem they would always be last in everything human beings do.  They have to learn to take responsibility for their lives if their lives are to improve.  

       Any way, it is not my function to make them take responsibility for their problems.

      

       From a therapeutic point of view, it is pointless blaming one’s self or blaming other people for our problems. It does not matter who caused our problems; what we need to do is solve them without blaming ourselves or other selves.  Who cares who caused our problems, just tackle them.  Study human problems and solve them regardless of who caused them. I don’t care whether white men caused my problems or not I just want to solve them.

 

DISCUSSION

 

       I bet you that one of the reasons that African leaders are unable to do the right things by their people is because they deep down do not see themselves as responsible for their people’s welfare; they probably do not believe that they should care for other people. This probably accounts for why you do not see pain on their faces.

         Nigeria has over 50% youth unemployment and amazing poverty but you do not see pain from identification with their peoples suffering on their leaders faces.  Indeed, you do not see them age (in offices Western politicians quickly age apparently from the weight of the offices, which includes worrying about the peoples welfare; a year in the white house generally makes American presidents hair turn grey).

      Clinically we know that those prone to depression tend to be more mature than those prone to paranoia. Those prone to paranoia tend to remain more or less immature (if you blame other people for your issues as paranoid persons do you are immature; if you take responsibility for your issues as those prone to depression do, you tend to be mature).

         Because black folk tend to blame other people for their issues and tend to be more paranoid many observers say that that is one reason they tend to be immature and flippant in their understanding of phenomena (consider seeing the whole race’s issues from a sociological perspective only, as black studies folks do, and ignore the role played by biology and existential matters).

         My God, what am I doing? I am beginning to do what I have always refused to do, stereotype the races. Many white psychologists see black people more different from white folks (for example, that black folk have lower IQ than white folks); I am beginning to fall into that trap.

       I just hope that my observations in this essay are wrong for if it is correct that there are differences in the races, then there is no hope for the black race (for example, if black folk can only blame others for their issues and do not take responsibility for their peoples issues obviously they cannot govern Africa properly and the continent is bound to remain a place of sorrows in the midst of plenty...there is so much resources in that land that if responsible people ruled it  the continent would be the richest in the world but instead it remains the poorest in the world).

 

CONCLUSION

     

        The hypothesis advanced in this essay is heuristic; it needs to be studied, verified as true and accepted and if not true discarded.

        I wish that there are academic black psychologists here who could study this intuition reached view; I mean do empirical research and come up with supportive evidence for it and if none refute it.

       I can see a graduate student in clinical and or cognitive psychology do his PhD dissertation on this topic.

     

 

Nasarawa Governor’s convoy involved in auto crash, three aides die

Three male security aides of Nasarawa State Governor, Tanko al-Makura, have died in an autocrash involving his convoy.
It was learnt that the crash occurred on Sunday evening at Kurudu-Dogon Dutse at Kilometre 10 on Nasarawa-Toto Road around 4.30p.m Nigerian time as the governor’s convoy was heading to Abuja.
An unmarked Toyota Hilux van in the convoy collided with a MAN Diesel truck XE384NSR.
Three people died in the Hilux van while a fourth person was seriously injured.
Two others also sustained slight injuries.
The dead and injured were taken to Keffi Medical Centre while the convoy continued to Abuja.
The Federal Road Safety Commission confirmed the crash in an SMS to PUNCH. It blamed the incident on speed violation.
DailyPost

Governor Yuguda's In Law In Bauchi Kidnapped by Gunmen

Governor Isah Yuguda

By SaharaReporters, New York

Less than twenty four hours after a suicide bomber killed and injured several churchgoers in Bauchi, a group of unidentified armed men abducted Mohammed Sade, the in-law to the governor of Bauchi State, Isah Yuguda, early this morning as he left a nearby Mosque in the troubled township.
Mr. Sade who is popularly known as "Usama" is married to the governor's niece. The unidentified gunmen killed one of his guards before taking Mr. Sade to an unknown destination.

Usama was formerly the governor's driver but now occupies the powerful position of chairman of the body in charge of fertilizer distribution for farmers in the state.

In the last election, Usama was said to be part of the political organization used by the governor to rig elections in the state.

Since the kidnapping of Sade, no ransom request or other contact has been made with the family. The region has been victim to a number of bold attacks in recent days including a bombing of a Catholic church yesterday in an attack that killed at least six people. Security agencies put the number of dead at 4 persons.

 Governor Yuguda is currently in New York as part of President Jonathan's delegation to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly.

Saudi Arabia detains 400 Nigerian female Hajj pilgrims, threatens to deport them

Four hundred female pilgrims from Nigeria, who arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia yesterday for this year’s hajj, have been separated from their male counterparts and detained by Saudi authorities, the Daily Trust newspaper is reporting this morning.
According to the report, the Saudis requested each female pilgrim to provide her muharram, that is, the approved male companion accompanying her on her trip, usually a husband, father or brother.
Those who could not produce any, the report said, were detained, with the authorities threatening to deport them back to Nigeria.
Daily Trust reports that the pilgrims arrived Jeddah in two separate Max Air flights Sunday afternoon.
One of the planes, it said, conveyed pilgrims from Jigawa State while the second had pilgrims from Sokoto State.
“The nearly 400 women were only allowed to be supplied with water and food by the Saudis after strenuous efforts by the Nigerian Consul in Jeddah and the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Alhaji Nurudeen,” the paper said.
When Daily Trust contacted Sultan Muhammadu Sa’ad, who is the Amirul Hajj , he condemned the action of the Saudi authorities, describing it as “an insult to Nigeria and to this country’s millions of Muslims.”
The Sultan reportedly said, “They never raised this issue and never demanded that the female pilgrims must have a muharram. They did not make this a requirement for issuing visas.
They issued visas to all these pilgrims, only to embarrass, detain and threaten to deport them when they arrived in the holy land. How can they do this to us?
“The chairman of the National Hajj Commission assured me that the Saudis never asked for this during all the meetings they held. This is very unfortunate. We have done a lot over the years to improve on our hajj operation and we do not deserve this humiliation.”
The Sultan also told the paper that he had ordered the Nigerian pilgrims to resist any attempt to deport them.
“Let the Saudis physically carry them into the planes and deport them,” he said. “They issued them with valid visas, only to shift the goal posts at the very last minute, when they had already arrived in Jeddah.”
DailyPost

Missing baby…….

by mizsunshinegist

Oluwatoniloba David Obafemi was kidnapped by Comfort Amos on Sunday, September 23, 2012 at RCCG, Central Parish, Aminu Kano Crescent, Wuse II, Abuja.
Comfort Amos is a member of the church choir where Timothy Taiwo Obafemi (Toni’s Father) is the Deputy HOD of the choir.
Comfort Amos unusually sat where the nursing mothers sat in church on Sunday and particularly sat beside Mariah Toyin Obafemi (Toni’s mother), who is also a Sunday School teacher.
Please continue…
Comfort carried and played with Toniloba and after some minutes requested that she wanted to go give her house-help money for ‘offering’ in the children’s church. She left with Toniloba.
After some minutes, Toyin got unsettled and decided to go look for Comfort. All efforts to track Comfort has since proven abortive.
Wole Shonibare, a church member called Comfort and she confirmed she was in Jabi Park and when she was advised to return the baby, she snapped back at him that she will return the baby. All efforts to speak with Comfort after that has been fruitless. Toni is 9months old while Comfort is 40/41 years old.
She was last tracked to Shendam, Plateau State.
In case of any useful info, contact should be made to the child’s parents 08075672060 and 08064966277 or the nearest police station. Please do assist in the search

Collins Uma: Like That Of France, Here Comes Nigerian Revolution!

It has often been said that if you fail to learn from history then history is bound to repeat itself. I have looked at some recent occurrences within the polity in Nigeria and have attempted to draw parallel with other occurrences in history. And it shocks me to infer that we are heading down a really dangerous slope at the moment. Dangerous because this is de ja vu. History has seen this trend before. All the elements that led to the famous French Revolution are present in today’s Nigeria. Are we then going to have a revolution in Nigeria reminiscent of that?
It was a bloody revolution.
Though they had their fair share of economic challenges, 18th Century France was one of the richest and most powerful nations in Europe. The monarchy, aristocracy and the rest of the nobility lived really large but they had however depended on the peasant population for far too long to sustain their expensive lifestyles. Added to this, the citizenry had started getting some thoughts, ideas, and education from the American Revolution which had also happened towards the end of the 18th Century and in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire and become the United States of America after having rejected the prevalent oligarchies and aristocracies in Europe at the time. Scholars and philosophers such as Voltaire and Denis Diderot who had studied the causes and effects of the American Revolution contributed in no small measure to educate the people on such concepts as ‘Equality’ and ‘Freedom of the individual’.
It will suffice here to list some of the factors scholars have identified as precursors and harbingers of the revolution and allow you to be the judge and say if these factors are at play at the moment in Nigeria.
Enlightenment Ideas
As stated above, the people had become better exposed to other ideas especially after the American Revolution, in the same way as Nigerians witnessed the Arab Spring. They now knew they could demand for more from the monarchy, like better accountability and an adjustment of their gluttonous lifestyles.
Debts
The monarchy had racked up so much debt to the extent that France had become effectively bankrupt due to the international loans taken out with very high interest rates and budgeted on extravagant expenditures on luxuries by Louis XVI in spite of the huge debts he had inherited from his predecessor, Louis XV.  Even though the nation has been groaning under the enormous weight of international loans, President Goodluck Jonathan has not seen as expedient the need to cut down on the mind –boggling amounts appropriated for frivolous expenditures in the Presidential villa and the size of his entourage when he travels. These contribute to drain the nation’s meagre resources in ways we cannot even begin to describe here, especially coming from a man who said Nigeria will go under unless there is a total removal of subsidy on petroleum products. Subsidy paid to his friends, cronies and acolytes, none of whom has been convicted yet.
Failure of reforms
Several reforms were put in place by Louis XVI to cut down the lavish expenditures but, because there was little or no moral or political will to back these up, they all failed. Most of the ministers were non-nobles and the policies they recommended were going to work against the pecuniary desires of the nobles and the monarchy. These ministers were soon succeeded by others who favoured lavish spending. You can ask President Jonathan what has happened to the reports of the several committees we have seen inaugurated since the government came into power. Enough said.
Hunger
In 1788, there was a series of crop failures which caused a shortage of grains leading to a rise in the price of bread, which was a staple for poor peasants. In 1789 alone, the price of bread rose by 67%. A family of four needed about two loaves a day to survive. Many who came to rely on charity to survive became increasingly motivated by their hunger. This led to the first riots. It is on record that Dr Jonathan said the January Occupy Nigeria demonstrations were stage-managed and the protesters paid to protest. He, obviously, has no idea the level of disaffection in the land today. God help us.
The Clergy
While all these were going on, the clergy did not speak out and take a stand against the King. They were comfortable with the status quo which guaranteed tenth of the peasants’ income or produce (the tithe). It is a pitiable situation when the members of the clergy who are always supposed to stand in the gap on behalf of the people who they minister to begin to lose their voices in the face of adversity occasioned by misrule. Silence at such perilous times can only mean acquiescence.
The cloud is gathering. The PDP umbrella is in tatters at the moment. Anyone depending on that for shelter will only have himself to blame at the end of the day. Jonathan has said Nigerians will praise him as from 2013. This tacitly implies an acceptance of the fact that should the present trend continue, 2015 might just be a mirage. We may not get there.
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