World Reminiscences

Did you know?  "In March, 1915, the J.P Morgan interests got together 12 men high up in the newspaper world and employed them to select a sufficient number of the most influential newspapers in America, to control generally the policy of the daily press of the United States." The United States Congressional Record February 9, 1917. "Ten business and financial coporations control the 3 major television and radio networks (NBC, CBS and ABC), 34 subsidiary television stations, 201 cable TV systems, 62 radio stations, 20 record companies, 59 magazines, 58 newspapers (including the New York Times, The Washimgton Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times) 41 book publishers and numerous motion picture companies like Columbia, MGM, Universal, Warner Brothers and Twentieth Century Fox. Three quaters of the major stockholders of ABC, CBS and NBC are banks, such as Chase Manhattan, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Citibank and Bank of America....

What is this thing called marriage? “Beliefs are chains used to enslave free minds. No chains of steel ever bound a mind tighter than chains made of beliefs. While a man may willfully struggle against chains of steel which he can see and feel, few can see or realize the need to struggle against chains made of their beliefs, and many a slave was kept a slave by the belief they were somehow free.” By Michael O. Dibiaezue It was Victoria Revay’s post that set up these reflections. I should say provoked because in marriage, the male partner has become severely diminished. He is diminished by the Church, the State and that very community to which he proclaims himself king. Women and those laws that secure them in marriage have been known to bring down kings and presidents. The very basis for a man/woman relationship disables him; a thing called ‘love’ that is ever elusive and so completely partial to womanhood. Even the expression ‘she’s the weaker ...

By Tom Eley Patrice Lumumba, the leader of the anti-colonial struggle in the Congo and its first democratically-elected prime minister, was removed from prison and murdered in the dark of night by a firing squad acting with the approval of the United States and Belgium. He was 35. Lumumba and two of his associates, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, were tied to trees and gunned down one by one. Weeks later, when questions surfaced over the official version of Lumumba’s death―that he had been killed by enraged villagers after attempting to escape―the Belgians returned, exhumed the bodies, hacked them up, dissolved them in acid, keeping as souvenirs Lumumba’s teeth and bullets removed from his body. Belgium, which ruled the Congo until 1960, and the US have never been able to wash away the blood from this grisly crime. There was little doubt at the time, and even less now, that Washington was the primary force behind Lumumba’s execution. The killing exposed not only the savagery and ...

by Vincent Alicho The controversies that trailed Prof. Achebe’s last book—There Was a Country: A Personal History Of Biafra—came from different perspectives. While some people saw the book as one that came to shed more light on the events of the Nigerian/Biafran war, others saw it as a book that should not have been published in the first place. The proponents of the second group came up with so many reasons—from the book being an attack on some personalities and a particular ethnic group, to Achebe being anti-Nigeria, one whose book, they claim, fanned the embers of disunity. But one of the reasons given by this group that caught my attention was the one that said that Achebe was bitter with a particular ethnic group because he failed to win the Nobel Prize in Literature which a kinsman of this ethnic group won in 1986. Even now that he has died, some articles have been written on this issue of Nobel Prize; while some are regretting that Achebe did not win the prize, others...

Nelson Mandela "He will be sorely missed by all who cherish love, peace and freedom the world over and will be eternally honoured for his immense contribution to the dismantling of the apartheid policy, one of the world’s most obnoxious systems whose under-pining philosophy was the degradation of man by man. Dr. Mandela served as a source of inspiration to oppressed peoples all over the world. In the course of his life-long epic struggle for freedom, fairness, justice, equity and the human rights of his oppressed people, Dr. Mandela made unparalleled personal sacrifices. The indefatigable spirit which he demonstrated throughout his life will continue to inspire present and future generations."~~ Dr. Goodluck Azikiwe Jonathan, President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. "Mandela, having gone through the most difficult ordeals, was committed to the end of his days to the ideals of humanism and justice," "A whole era of modern African history is connect...

Libya's Ghaddafi The following are ten things Africans and the world need to remember about Libya's Ghaddafi: 1.  In Libya a home is considered a natural human right In Gaddafi’s Green Book it states: ”The house is a basic need of both the individual and the family, therefore it should not be owned by others”. Gaddafi’s Green Book is the formal leader’s political philosophy, it was first published in 1975 and was intended reading for all Libyans even being included in the national curriculum. 2.  Education and medical treatment were all free Under Gaddafi, Libya could boast one of the best healthcare services in the Middle East and Africa. Also if a Libyan citizen could not access the desired educational course or correct medical treatment in Libya they were funded to go abroad. 3.  Gaddafi carried out the world’s largest irrigation project The largest irrigation system in the world also known as the great man-made river was designed to make water readily available t...

According to the Abrahamic faiths, yes all of them, when God created the heavens and the earth and the creatures of the field, He then created man and put him in the garden of Eden with one sole caveat which I shan’t bother to repeat. Adam, as we all (with the possible exception of Richard Dawkins) know, just couldn’t do as he was told and ate the fruit of the forbidden tree, thereby tainting all of us, forever. Some say that the tasty, irresistible fruit lumbered us with self-awareness, shame, excuses and rationalisations. In Nigeria, we call this “speaking grammar”. More correctly, “speaking too much grammar”. Grammar may alternatively be referred to as “speaking English” or “speaking too much English”. Monkeys, on the other hand, didn’t have this problem. I dare say it wasn’t because they were better behaved, or more disciplined than Adam, more likely it was just because God hadn’t imposed the forbidden-fruit constraint on them. Therefore monkeys don’t suffer from “speaking...

. Monu wasn't your typical gardener, he didn't tend to flowers and flora, what he sought and tended to, were roots; human roots. This beautiful soul passed last year and it took me this long to catch up with the news of his passing. My heart aches for the beautiful family he left behind and his wisdom of the ages that we'll so sorely miss. He was my friend and my brother. He died gilding and even so, l know he made the beautiful skies of Southern France his launching pad to God's place. I stumbled on Monu’s blog (www.ogbe.com) in my search for more information about his death. Monu and l, attended preschool together and l remember, quite vividly, the last time l saw him was when he breezed into town on a Yamaha 1000 Z to visit with his cousins. This was way back in 1979, and Monu was a sight to behold on that bike! Monu had ridden his bike all the way from Germany, across the Sahara unaccompanied. I remember how crazy everyone thought he was to have embarked on...