Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Re: Why Obasanjo May Be Heading to Hell

In this long sentence (but not from the Chief Justice of Nigeria):

That was impeccable Biko Agozino and although you concur with Alagba Soyinka's advice to the then president, el-Generalissimo Olusegun Obasanjo to "go – just go" and you feature Obi Igwe a gospel light disciple of Jesus of Nazareth and Biafra singing in Igbo, why do you not have it in your heart to pray for Mr. Obasanjo or say Pa, say it ain't so? We know that after catching so much hell here on earth, the suffering masses don't want to catch some more fire in hell after they die and Obasanjo knows even better than most of us about the resurrection, and obviously hopes, since he has hopefully repented of all his sins and entered graduate school in theology to turn a new leaf  - his phase two here on earth  - phase three is the cemetery  - but  just before that to prepare for eternal life in the hereafter after his stint at the steering wheel as president of the complex federation of Nigeria!

Don't forget that Brer Obasanjo saying that we (including the penitent himself) are all deserving of the hell fire was conditional – at least according to how it is reported in Nairaland, he said that "if Nigerians were yet to commend a leader after 53 years of independence, "Then we are jinxed and cursed; we should all go to hell" – and there is much virtue in that "if" - if not, then we're all going to go...

Obasanjo himself did a lot of good things, so did Sir Abubakar Tafawa Balewa, Sir Ahmadu Bello, Muhammad Murtala, Muhammadu Buhari & Tunde Idiagbon, in fact so did Tai Solarin and so did Chief Obafemi Awolowo and so did Fela, Dr Sir Warrior, these are contemporary Nigerian leaders among many others in Nigeria that I pray will never go anywhere near what Muslims call "the fire"

I am terribly excited that you mention Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe's  "Beatitude to the Youth"  - terribly excited because I had never heard of such a poem before,  and  my Better Half Ebba, was staying with my parents, in London in 1971 and was specialising in African history, was in her third month of research in the colonial archives at the British Museum in London,  gathering material for her thesis on " Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe , Kwame Nkrumah, I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson  and the West African Youth League" when she had to undergo a brain operation and a miscarriage...and since then I have avoided mentioning any of the three. But, please how do I get hold of Dr. Azikiwe's "Beatitude of Youth"? (By 1973 I myself had become a youth leader in Sweden and was working at the  Swedish Basketball Association, with people like the national coach Ali Strunke (Yugoslavian) and his assistant, Egon Håkansson...) around that time an African -American brother  Glenn Berry was the best basketball player in all Sweden and  he used to tell me that I looked like Arthur Ashe – looked like, not played like...the first time he told me that, Arthur Ashe had just beaten Bjorn Borg, here in Sweden ...)

The role of the youth,  in the future of Nigeria, Africa cannot be overemphasised...

Will get back to you and your essay a little later, am being a little overwhelmed by this report about Egypt , thinking about it about you about Obi Igwe and that sort of Boko Haram scenario in Nigeria right now.  Later.

Peace and love,

We Sweden

 

 

 

On Wednesday, 21 August 2013 00:45:15 UTC+2, Biko Agozino wrote:

http://massliteracy.blogspot.com/2013/08/why-obasanjo-may-be-heading-to-hell.html

Personally, I do not agree that Nigeria is cursed, for as Femi Osofisan would put it, The Gods Are Not to Blame. There are historical and structural reasons why people of African descent are suffering the incompetent leadership that we are burdened with today.  As Obi Igwe put it in one ofhis gospel songs, what we need are leaders (Ndi ndu, also literally, forces oflife) and not rulers (Ndi ochichi, ;also literally, forces of darkness). There are some concrete steps we can take to reverse the ineptitude at the leadership level and uplift our people from avoidable penury in the midst of plenty...

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