Opinion: Okafor’s Law and the rest of us

inShare

by Collins Uma

There is an invisible thread that runs through these two killings: frustration with the status quo.

I was going to write on something entirely different from this but, as I sat down to write, news filtered in about a massacre that had happened at Mubi, Adamawa State in Nigeria’s North-East. I chose to pause that and see if I could get more details on the massacre and address the issue of the senseless depletion of our productive workforce and the perceived determination of our commander-in-chief and his lieutenants to do nothing about tackling the menace from the roots besides issuing frequent press releases condemning the ‘dastardly acts’ and pledging in front of cameras to bring the ‘perpetrators to book’.
Over forty (40) students from different tertiary institutions in the state had been rounded up gunned down in cold blood one after the other after the gunmen called each person’s name. That there was a list means that this killing was deliberate and planned. It would make no sense here to rehash what other commentators have said about the lack of crime prevention capabilities by our security agencies. The facts are as glaring as they are heartbreaking. I was interested in the Mubi story because the mountainous Adamawa state happens to be one of the least educationally developed states in Nigeria and, according to the 2007 Canback Global Income Distribution Database (C-GIDD), the state is one of the poorest in Nigeria with a GDP of $4,582,045,246 (compared to Lagos state’s $33,679,258,023, for example). So, killing off any number of its bright minds in institutions of higher learning is an act that is bound to set the state and, by extension, the nation, back by many years.
While we were still reeling from the shock, horror and heartlessness of that the social media in Nigeria went agog with news and pictures of young men lynched in Rivers state after they were reportedly arrested by local vigilante following a robbery. The state is not one of the educationally less developed in Nigeria and according to the C-GIDD, oil rich Rivers state has the second highest GDP in the country ($21,073,410,422). Question now is, if Northern Nigeria has become a killing ground because of poverty and illiteracy, what would the lynching of the youths in Rivers state be blamed on?
There is an invisible thread that runs through these two killings: frustration with the status quo. Both the Mubi and the Rivers killers each took on the roles of counsel for prosecution, judge and jury as they summarily passed sentence on their victims who, to them, represented the structures and processes they, the killers, were up against.
The incidents mentioned have exposed how we have become our own worst enemies.
The ruling PDP did not kill these Mubi and University of Port Harcourt students. Nigerians killed them. Nigerians killing Nigerians.
We were not like this. There was an interplay of various factors the end result of which is our present state which is no different from that described by Thomas Hobbes as living in ‘continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’. Chief among the factors that worked to ensure Nigeria’s retrogression into these doldrums was our election of incompetent leaders. The incompetence is so gnawing that most Nigerians have tacitly withdrawn the liberty and individual rights they ceded to the state as part of their obligation in the social contract and have proceeded to become governments of their own, taking laws into their hands. This is the ugly truth. We were fooled in 2011. Shame on us if we are fooled again in 2015.
This is where Okafor’s Law comes in. It is a law that is believed to govern the degree of continued interaction between a man and a woman between whom a relationship had existed. The origin of the law and how it got its name remain unknown. The things we learn from the World Wide Web. Anyway, it states that a man who has been involved with a girl for some time and whose performance in the bedroom was commendable can always go back and sleep with her again whenever he wants no matter what situation arises (break-ups, different lovers, etc). I do not know the veracity of this claim but I think President Goodluck Jonathan seems to believe so much in it. He has done it before, he will do it again. If we let him. Nobody wants a perpetuation of the status quo and, for this reason, 2011 is a mistake we must never repeat. We are the young damsel and Mr. President is the Don Juan that thinks he is the best thing since blue biro. Okafor’s Law must not apply to us come 2015.
There are other entities in Nigeria that also think they have us wrapped around their little finger and can do with us whatever they want. For now I will only mention the South African giants, MTN and DSTV. Nothing else explains the ridiculous ‘Win an Aeroplane’ promo by MTN and the capricious hike in cost of service by DSTV in spite of the poor services rendered by these two. As Fela said, we are suffering and smiling while they use us again and again, like fools. Okafor’s Law in action. Are we going to allow it? I do not put the blame on Nigerians though. We have bodies created to regulate the high-handedness of companies like these. The Nigeria Communications Commission, for MTN and the National Broadcasting Commission, for DSTV. According to the NCC, their mission include the ‘consistent enforcement of clear and fair policies that protect stakeholders, ensure efficient resource management, share industry best practices and deliver affordable, quality telecom services’.  We know they do nothing like that except, maybe, ‘resource management’. We know what that means in Nigerianese.
How about the National Broadcasting Commission? They say their functions include ‘Receiving, considering and investigating complaints from individual and bodies corporate, regarding the contents of a broadcasting station and the conduct of a broadcasting station’. Don’t tell me there have been no complaints about DSTV’s excesses.
We are our own problem. Our redemption, therefore, will begin whenever we choose to look the government and all these other entities in the face and say “enough is enough”. I am not talking about ranting on social media from the comfort of our homes. I am talking about face to face, offline engagement. We are our own solution. Until then, however, we will keep on being pushed to the brink where bestiality and barbarism hold sway. Like Mubi. Like Aluu.
YNaija.com

Opinion: ACN/PDP two sides of same coin

inShare

by Macdonald Nwajagu

 

Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a complete reflection of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (GCFR) in the way they handle party affairs.

The average Nigerian is distraught after 13 years of misrule by the Peoples Democratic Party at the centre of governance. After the initial jubilation of emancipation from military & dictatorial rule a breath of fresh air was welcomed, but at the end of the first term of civilian governance a new reality was setting within the psyche of Nigerians: “We are not better off.” Consequent on this and the PDP’s quest and thirst to hang on to power for personal and primordial gains, the Nigerian people completely rejected the PDP as a party, blaming it for all the woes of the nation.
The Action Congress of Nigeria was assembled on the grounds of political convenience & opportunism and then positioned itself as a credible and viable alternative to the misrule of PDP. Nigerian welcomed the thought of “A vote for any party other party than PDP.” It is on the wings of this sentiment the ACN made daring entrance and captured most of the Western States and Edo State.
In all honesty, can anyone boast of an ideological and institutional differences between PDP & ACN? Their disdain for internal democracy within their parties and respect of the rule of law is evident and well documented. The superficial difference between both parties is their size and ACN’s effective use of spin masters.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a complete reflection of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo (GCFR) in the way they handle party affairs. In fact the ACN as is presently organized is “a one man’s political organization.” I am scared of ACN taking over the federal government because it would be worse than the PDP.
There is a proverb that says, “A man who sells his dog to buy a monkey because he wants an animal that walks on two legs has not made any meaningful bargain.” PDP and ACN are just two sides of the same coin. Tired as Nigerians may be of PDP misrule, the ACN is not a viable & credible alternative. Chronicling their devious activities would make this article endless.
The propaganda machinery of the ACN & financial and political muscle of the PDP would come into play come 2015 and in the end Nigerians should be wise enough to choose credible candidates over party affiliation. Lies would be told, endless and non feasible promises made but in the end we as Nigerians must keep our eyes open and our mind alert to decipher their gimmickry.
YNaija.com

Opinion: Northern Muslims and the Nigerian Civil War: Between Achebe and other Igbo intellectuals

inShare

by Ibraheem A. Waziri

Some including Achebe are still contesting that the kill was not an Igbo carefully planned affair but rather a coup plotted against all Nigerian leaders of then.

It’s just that ignorance reign in Nigeria or our public intellectuals do not have passion for details and deep philosophical enquiry into the nature and realities of our socio-cultural formation and its history for the best of their opinions. These can be the only open and not so stretched explanations to Chinua Achebe’s blatant, below status and insincere depiction of the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 70 in the light of a so called jihadist expansionist goal of Muslims of northern Nigeria.
The opinion summary of his latest book, There Was a Country, as he published in The Guardian of London Tuesday, 2nd 2012, makes bold this meaningless assertion:
“But if the diabolical disregard for human life seen during the war was not due to the northern military elite’s jihadist or genocidal obsession, then why were there more small arms used on Biafran soil than during the entire second world war? Why were there 100,000 casualties on the much larger Nigerian side compared with more than 2 million – mainly children – Biafrans killed?”
Needless to mention that Achebe is not alone in this kind of portrayal that is typical of recent Igbo ‘intellectuals’ when it comes to discussing the civil war. The task of re-educating them and the crop of their students is therefore necessary if the dream of a greater Nigeria in fair neighbourliness is to be realised.
Yes, northern Nigerians are mainly and majorly proud and faithful Muslims with unique culture and a record of close interactions with other world civilisations since time. They have for long known and understood that not everybody must look like them or believe in what they believed in, before peace, social cohesion and fair neighborliness are justifiably established. In fact it can be authoritatively said that northern Nigeria of the 1960s, formed one the most cosmopolitan and accommodating social spaces in the whole world.
When the former Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah wanted to initiate and draft then Nigeria’s Prime Minister Abubakar Tafawa Balewa and the Premier of the Northern Region Ahmadu Bello into his Pan-Africanism, they clearly told him that they were not racists and believed in the universal nature of truth, justice, fairness and equality of humankind regardless of race or ethnicity and that reflected the way they managed northern Nigeria and the country in general.
It was this world-view with its values and norms guiding intra and inter-pinning of human relations that saw a northern Nigeria of the 1960s as a home to many Igbo. In modern history the top one percent of the most literate and influential Igbo personalities once lived in northern Nigeria or spoke Hausa, the dominant language in the North. It was here that Major Chukuma Kaduna Nzeogwu’s parents settled and gave birth to him in 1937. He grew up with all opportunities unhindered and got the award of love, justice and trust of the then Premier of the Northern Region, Sir Ahmadu Bello until he finally, easily and safely got access to him, in the night, in his house, in the privacy of his bedroom and killed him in front of his wife with no struggle, no any suspecting guard to check him or even ask him hard questions.  It is finished. Brutus killed his Caesar in cold blood of treachery, hatred and breach of trust. Describing a similar situation in the same operation kill, where Major Ifeajuna, an Igbo soldier and Major Nzeagwu’s co-kill planner and partner, shot Brigadier Maimalari, Bernard Odogwu, an Igbo Nigerian diplomat at the times of the events, in his book, No Place to Hide – Crises and Conflicts inside Biafra, clearly put it, “I am particularly shocked at the news that Major Ifeajuna personally shot and killed his mentor, Brigadier Maimalari. My God! That must have been Caesar and Brutus come alive…”
What then could have been the fate of other Igbo in many parts of the North who enjoyed the same love, trust and protection of the other northerners who began to see a new streak of arrogance, condescension in the behavior of the Igbo, who were illusioned in the new leadership of General Ironsi to the extent that, as told by our parents, they used to mock the northerners, imitating the cries and squeaks of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa before he died in the hands of Major Ifeajuna. Still Igbo intellectuals engage in this mockery as the Nigerian military historian Max Siollun, recently re-told the story of Nzeogwu’s kill, which clearly portrayed Ahmadu Bello as a coward and a simpleton, who hide behind his wife when he saw that Nzeagwu was certain to get him. These provocations and the details of stories such as captured by David Muffett, a   British colonial officer who wrote the account of the 1966 coup in a book titled, Let Truth Be Told, outlining the Igbo elite’s detailed plan to take control of not only the political structures but even the social structures of the North by killing all the then northern emirs in the final.
Some including Achebe are still contesting that the kill was not an Igbo carefully planned affair but rather a coup plotted against all Nigerian leaders of then. Yet all Igbo in prominent positions were missed in the fire and it was said Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe was missed because he was out of the country for a medical checkup.  The question is could they have missed Sir Ahmadu Bello or Abubakar Tafawa Balewa if any was on a medical trip or they would have postponed the operations for more appropriate date that would guarantee and ensure an all inclusive kill?
Yet, the pogroms that followed the events and the civil war were unfortunate (more objective details of which were written by Elechi Amadi in Sunset at Biafra). But the characterisation of northerners as Muslim jihadists who were already prepared and ready to stage a ‘holy jihad’ against Igbo, as a reason for the war is very untrue and intellectually insincere. Just because Igbo intellectuals have to find reasons then it doesn’t mean every reason must be dashed out. Just because they need someone to blame doesn’t mean the 21st century image of fundamentalist Islam must be projected backward into the story of Nigeria to justify a perspective.
Besides what religion did the major actors of the war on the federal side professed? General Yakubu Gowon, General Theopilus Danjuma and General Joseph Garba, were Christians. Chief Awolowo, the intellectual architect of the war was a Christian. General Olusegun Obasanjo and General Adekunle were all not northerners. The prominent name in the commands that is a core Muslim northerner was only General Murtala Muhammed.  Even if all the others were Muslims, what sense could it have made for the Muslims to have fought the Igbo only to establish the leadership of General Yakubu Gowon who was a Christian, the same and only reason they supposedly could have fought the Igbo? Gowon enjoyed the support of all Muslim northerners as my good friend Alhaji Yakubu Musa, currently a media assistant to President Goodluck Jonathan, who is from a devout Muslim family, once mentioned how he was named Yakubu in celebration of Gowon’s visit to Kano on a day that coincided with his birthday.
No. The truth of the matter is Igbo betrayed the trust given to them in the then northern Nigeria by the singular act of betrayal of Nzeagwu on Ahmadu Bello and the subsequent poor management of their relationship with their hosts that bred suspicion of complicity in the plans of the kill and a thought of greater conspiracy.
The way forward is not to employ a wider and more efficient propaganda machinery to score cheap sympathy and sponsor the production of a sensationalist movie in the Holly Wood, Tears of the Sun, starring Bruce Willis and displaying that northern Nigerian Muslim Hausa will attempt to do the same in the present Nigeria and in the recent future and can be stopped only by the Americans.
The way forward is to always tell the truth, accept faults, take responsibilities for errors and constantly preach the gospel of keeping trust, commitments and fair neighbourliness.  Let’s make the younger generation and the entire world know that we are one in Nigeria and the top one per cent of Igbo most informed political and public intellectuals lived in the North or even spoke Hausa.
This ranging from Chinua Achebe himself, Cyprian Ekwensi, Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeagwu, General Emeka Ojukwu or Dr. Nnamdi Azikwe. Cyprian Ekwensi even copied and translated the literary work of my uncle; John Tafida Umaru titled, Jiki Magayi, from Hausa to English, titled it, African Night Entertainment, and dubbed it his own without acknowledgement, adding to his literary stock, achievement and fame.  The world must know the good contribution their living in the North and speaking its language brought into their skills and perspectives, that, which won them the accolades they so celebrate and rejoice in, today. A fact, which they and their friends always want to hide!
YNaija.com

60-year old woman, 19 others escape death as one-storey building collapses in Abeokuta

Songs of praise and thanksgiving are yet to stop flowing from the lips of a 60-year-old woman and 19 others who narrowly escaped death as a storey-building collapsed yesterday in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital. Although property of the residents worth millions of naira were destroyed, no life was lost.
According to the residents, the 50-year old building which was opposite the secretariat of the Abeokuta South Local Government
Council had long indicated signs of weakness and dilapidation before it finally collapsed.
While expressing mixed feelings on the sudden collapse of the building which was also marked for demolition by the state government to pave way for the expansion of Ake Palace Road, one of the residents, who identified himself as Samuel said, “The sudden crack of the building where some of us have been living for years sent signal of impending dangers to us and we started packing our loads. We had barely started to harken to what we described as a warning when the building caved in with a thunderous sound.”
Yet another occupant, Mrs. Risikatu Madojutimi, a petty trader whose shop was also in the collapsed building, said the signs and sounds the building made before it crashed was their saving grace.
“The crack signal was the saving grace for all of us as we started moving out. But we were surprised that it was not quite long that we started moving our belongings before the building finally collapsed.
It was by the grace of God that all of us escaped from the building as we scampered to safety,” she said.
Amuda Olowonyo, who also narrowly escaped being trapped in the collapsed building as she was inside her make-shift attending to some
of her customers also has her own testimonies to share.
“It was a narrow escape for me and my customers minute delay would have been disastrous for us. Although i lost goods worth about
N30,000, but am still thankful to God for sparing my life’’ she said.
While blaming the incessant heavy downpour as the major cause of the sudden collapse of the building, the chairman of Abeokuta South Local Government, Lanre Edun, told newsmen that the government is always at alert and ready to come to the aid of the people in such situations.
In his words, “ When we heard of the incident, the government quickly responded with the invitation of the men of the fire service and other relevant rescue teams. We have also directed occupants of the house to keep away from the structure until when it is completely pulled
down”.the building, the chairman of Abeokuta South Local Government, Lanre Edun, told newsmen that the government is at always at alert and ready to come to the aid of the people in such situations.
In his words, “ When we heard of the incident, the government quickly responded with the invitation of the men of the fire service and other relevant rescue teams. We have also directed occupants of the house to keep away from the structure until when it is completely pulled down.
DailyPost

Okada rider in Calabar paid N10,000 to kill nurse for rituals

A commercial motorcycle rider, also known as okada rider in Bekwara, Cross River State, southsouth Nigeria, identified as Ifeanyi alias Koboko, played the devil’s role when he kidnapped a nurse, Mrs Helen Ilonge and she was killed for ritual.
P.M.NEWS investigation revealed that Helen, who headed the Public Health Unit in the Bekwara local government council, was taken to ritualists who beheaded her for rituals after her relatives had paid a ransom.
Ifeanyi, whose father is Igbo and mother from Ogoja, in Cross River, was allegedly paid N10,000 by the ritualists to bring the victim for them. Ifeanyi allegedly abducted the 51-year old woman at Okpogrinya Junction along the Ogoja –Calabar highway. He reportedly took the nurse, who was returning from Assemblies of God programme in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital, to Ukpe, a village along the Ogoja–Ikom highway where she was beheaded and later cut into pieces for money making ritual.
The victim’s neighbour, Mrs Theresa Idagwu, told P.M.NEWS yesterday that “she called her daughter, Victoria Agah, at about 9 p.m. on the fateful day and told her that she was at Okpogrinya junction and that she is taking a commercial motorcycle to Ogoja and when she gets to Ogoja she would call again so that she can boil water for her because she was catching cold following the rain which was falling all day. That was the last call.”
According to Mrs Idagwu, the deceased neighbour at Abuochiche estate where the nurse had an apartment, the phone remained silent until the next day when a call came through from the kidnappers demanding for a ransom of N50,000 naira which should be sent through MTN and Glo recharge cards.
“And since she could not raise the money for the recharge cards, she rushed to the Bekwara council headquarters where the Head of Administration, Mr Bisong Bogbo and the chairman of council, Mr Linus Edeh, provided the money and sent it to the kidnappers.
“Initially, they said they were at Ishi Eke near Abakaliki. The voice claimed that he needed the recharge so he could sell and run away from his master who is a ritualist whom he has been serving for a long time and was tired. He said once he gets the cards they will release the woman,” she added.
Tears streamed down Mrs Idagwu’s cheeks while narrating the tragic incident.
According to Mr Bogbo, “the cards were sent to the kidnappers by the daughter to the victim online and he said he will confirm and immediately after that the phone went dead. But later we heard that the woman was cut into pieces.
“It was through a tracking device that the place was located and it was in Abuochiche and some people confirmed that Ifeanyi was selling the MTN and Glo recharge cards there. And when the police swooped on him, they discovered that it was those cards sent to them that he was selling.”
At the council headquarters, the victim’s colleague, Mr Gabriel Emeka Ogar, said she is probably the kindest woman she has worked with.
“I have worked with five coordinators but I know that she is the best so far,” Ogar said.
According to him, the lady had worked to the satisfaction of the governor and now she has been killed, leaving her five children without a helper.
“Her husband died five years ago and since then she has been the one taking care of the children. Only one has graduated. Please let the government do something for those poor children,” he added.
The Cross River State Police Command Public Relations Officer, DSP John Umoh, said the matter is under investigation and four suspects, including Ifeanyi, are in their custody in Calabar. He said the Homicide Unit is handling the investigation and when that is completed they shall be taken to court.
“We have taken confessional statements from them. They claim the dismembered body was buried in a swamp. We shall exhume the body for autopsy,” Umoh said.
Meanwhile, trouble is brewing in Obanlikwu, her local government of origin as youths have for three days running been blocking the road leading to the Obudu Ranch Resort asking that justice must be done.
 DailyPost

Boko Haram has killed over 2,800 people in just 3 years – Report

No fewer than 2,800 persons have been sent to their grave by the radical Boko Haram sect since 2009, Human Rights Watch (HRW), a non-governmental organisation (NGO), has said.
The group, while announcing the figure yesterday blamed the perpetual crisis in the country on prevalent poverty, corruption and police abuse.
The African Director of rights group, Mr Daniel Bekele said this at the launching of a report in Lagos on Thursday, while calling on the government to find solution to the Boko Haram insurgence.
The 98-page report, entitled, ‘Spiralling Violence: Boko Haram attacks and security force abuses in Nigeria,’ accused armed forces, which, it alleged, engaged in numerous abuses, including extra-judicial killings in the country.
Bekele said, “The unlawful killing by both the Boko Haram sect and armed forces only grows worse. Both sides need to halt this downward spiral.”
According to Human Rights Watch, the report was based on a field research conducted between July 2010 and July 2012, and close monitoring of media reports of the Boko Haram attacks and statements for the past three years.
It added that 135 people, including 91 witnesses were victims of the Boko Haram violence or armed forces abuses, as well as lawyers, civil society leaders, government officials, senior military and police personnel.
The group disclosed that in the first nine months of 2012 alone, more than 815 people died in some 275 suspected attacks by the group – and equally more than the aforementioned figure in all of 2010 and 2011 attacks.
While lamenting that five days of clashes between the group and armed forces left more than 800 people dead in July 2009 and precipitated further violence, the group recalled that security personnel, in 2009, arrested and allegedly executed the group’s leader, Mohammed Yusuf, with at least several dozens of his followers in Maiduguri.
The report said, “When the group reemerged in 2010, under the leadership of Abubakar Shekau, Yusuf’s former deputy, it vowed to avenge the killings of its members.”
Quoting media reports in Nigeria, the group further added that at least 211 policemen lost their lives in the attacks orchestrated by the Boko Haram foot soldiers.
The group however called on the government to address the security situation before the entire nation is wiped out.

DailyPost

“God will strike those saying I’ve joined Illuminati, I am a king wherever I am” – D’Banj

In a major interview to the Lagos State based radio station, Cool FM, Mo Hits, DB/Good Music/Mercury/IDJ artiste, Dapo Oyebanjo, popularly called D’banj, sought to lay to rest various allegations and rumours being peddled about him.
The artiste also spoke on chances of reconciling with former partner and friend Don Jazzy. Asked if there were chances that both parties may reconcile, he said: “We can always work together, and Don Jazzy still produced some songs on my forthcoming album. Yes, we can work together in future. Maybe a big company can pay a lot of money for us to perform, and yes, it has to be a lot of money for me.”
Although the separation remains fresh in the minds of the public since the break-up made public in March this year, the singer appeared to be still be nursing the wounds. He appeared overwhelmed with emotions when the interviewer referred to Don Jazzy as his friend. To this he replied, “What do you guys call friends? I mean, I had friends for nine years, and you guys saw what happened after the divorce. I lost custody of my children apart from the one I had out of wedlock.”
D’banj also said he was boss of defunct Mo Hits Record by claiming that it was his record label D’Banj (DB) Records that went into partnership with Kanye West’s G.O.O.D, and not Mo’Hit.
Ever since the singer was officially signed on to West’s G.O.O.D music label in July, he was rumoured to have joined the dreaded Iluminati Cult, which is alleged to be home to a number of American celebrities, including West.
In defence, D’banj said, “I don’t know anything about the Illuminati. When I wanted to travel out of Nigeria for the first time, I collected my international passport from Bishop David Oyedepo. That shows that I owe my success to God. If my success is too fast for people or they cannot understand it, please don’t attribute it to illuminati. I feel very offended when that is being said, because it simply translates to giving God’s glory to another person which He does not share with anyone. God will strike anyone who attributes my success to someone else.”
To the allegations of an existing relationship with Nollywood actress, Genevieve Nnaji, he said, “I am very single, and Genevieve is my friend. I have been saying this for over a year since we shot the Fall in Love video. Can’t you people just see fine boy and fine girl in a video kissing each other and not think anyhow?”
Although the singer, who released his debut album “No Long Thing” in 2005, was recently featured on West’s Cruel Summer CD inlay and a couple of other singles, he has been criticised for ‘leaving his kingship in Nigeria to become a prince in America.’
Amidst laughter, D’banj replied, “Did I change the crown? I only carried my crown to the US. People are just confused but the truth is I am still a king wherever I am. Being in a different country and culture I had to study the environment which is what I am still doing. I actually thought I would release my album in America, but my label thought UK would be better because I have a bigger fan base there. I weighed my options, remember everything did not come from me, so I had to do what I did to move on.”
The singer, who revealed that his mother allowed him to travel to the UK in 2002 with a condition that he would spend just two months there, describes social media network as platform for idle talk.
“I am too busy for social media, please. If you people want to talk to me go to TV or radio, I don’t go to social media except I have something to say. I never give out recharge cards on Twitter (laughs), even when I was with Globacom, I never did that. If you want to do that, why not help a charity instead?”
 DailyPost