FOR RECORD: ANIKE AGBAJE-WILLIAMS 1ST PERSON TO APPEAR ON TELEVISION IN THE WHOLE AFRICA

Anike Agbaje-Williams, 78, Broadcaster: The first person, male or female to appear on Television in the whole of Africa. This was at WNTV-WNBS Ibadan on 31 October 1959.

She is one of the few female Nigerian broadcasters born with the royal blood, joined the former Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos in 1955 and became known as Africa's First Lady of the tube.

 She was young, beautiful and talented. She was an outstanding authority in television presentation. She had a distinguished career as a newscaster, producer, presenter and administrator. Her voice ruled airwaves for more than three decades. When she stepped into the studio she ruled by divine right. The cubicle became a throne and the microphone a loyal subject from 1950s down to the mid 1980s before she retired

DEMOCRACY DAY: NIGERIA @52 OUR LEADERS ARE STILL FOOLING US

Democracy according to ‘the penguin all English dictionary’; is a (noun)’government by the people; government by majority vote; community so governed, equality of rights, opportunities etc; absence of class feeling; the working classes’.

Going by the above definition of democracy, it shows clearly that we are practising the opposite of democracy in Nigeria; which Fela referred to as ‘Demonstration of Craze’. The paddy –paddy government where stealing and corruption are the order of the day.

‘After over 52 years of independence we have no light, no good roads, no houses, no drinkable water and behemoth graft has bedraggled and befuddled the totality of our leadership. Educationally, economically and technologically Nigeria remains one of the most backward Nations on earth. We remain anthropoid apes as Hitler once called Africans. Our leaders and their surrogates have cunningly and forcibly expropriated the larger and richer portions of our lands and relegated the people to the status of permanent subordination and unmitigated drudgery of the political and economic affairs of their own fatherland’

Chief Bode-Thomas was a political colossus of his time, a gifted debater, a colourful orator, and a diligent prosecutor of causes he believed in.

At the prime age of 30s, Bode Thomas was already the Balogun of Oyo, a frontline lawyer, nationalist politician, former chairman of the Oyo Divisional Council, former Federal Transport Minister; he had accomplished all this before he died in the early morning of November 23, 1953 at the tender age of 34.While majority of people born after independent who will be 52-year old now could not achieve anything by now. What an irony of life.

How can our President have an audacity to address  the people of Nigeria  that: ‘On my watch, we have witnessed high national economic growth rates, steady improvements and expansion of national infrastructure including airports and roads, the restoration of rail transportation, the efficient implementation of a roadmap for improved power supply, a revolutionary approach to agricultural production, as well as advances in education, sports, youth development, healthcare delivery, housing, water supply and other social services.’

To me nothing works in Nigeria, but insecurity, stealing, lies, deceits, and corruption thrives. Government officials steal in billions, lawmakers promulgate the law that sooths themselves while the judiciary set all the corrupt officials free.

 Our political leaders and their surrogates have cunningly and forcibly cornered the larger and richer portions of our lands in-term of economics and natural resources to themselves, thereby relegated the masses to the status of permanent subordination and unmitigated drudgery of the political and economic affairs of their own fatherland.

All the choicest parcels of lands in Abuja, Lagos and Port-Harcourt have been commandeered by them and all the oil fields and yields from the Niger Delta have been shared among themselves thereby creating a cult of billionaires club

Happy democracy day. May God help us and protect us and our dear country. May God give us peace in Nigeria.

BA TURANCI (I DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH): PROMOTE YOUR LANGUAGE

I remembered when i was in secondary school at Ijebu -Ife Community Grammar School, our school Principal then Mr. Segun Sosanya of blessed memory made English language a compulsory means of communication, speaking Yoruba among the pupils was an offence! Our mother-tongue language, Yoruba was referred to ‘vernacular’.

Later in life, i am surprise to know that majority of the most advanced countries in the world use their native language as a mode of communication both in their schools and offices. Countries such as Belgium uses Nederland and French ,Germany use their German, Netherlands use Dutch, France use their French, China use Mandarin, Japan also use their own native language with pride! The question that i wish to ask is, why did we relegate our own language to the back-ground?

 The write-up below is an observation by my friend, Dabi Debo Kayinsola, when he wrote thus:  ‘I am very ashamed that some Nigerians do not understand their own language, or are not very fluent as they should be, because they think learning to speak good English makes them a better or civilized person.

The English man has done a really great job spreading his language across the entire world, through whatever means, and it is now a global standard for communication. Don't you think you should try and promote your own language, instead of forgetting it and acting all "English"?

English speaking countries speak well because it’s their language... Get them to speak Dutch or French and you'd see how poor they are in languages too.

We all know it is a good and respectful thing to be able to speak other languages, other than yours, fluently. But do you think Nigerians and other people have to take it upon themselves to master a language (English) that is not theirs, before you can think less of them?

I know for a fact that any typical English man or woman with the exception of some of their frivolous teenagers, will understand and will never laugh or think less of anybody who tries but speaks English incorrectly, knowing full well that English is not the person's native language.

You not being able to speak English fluently don’t make you an illiterate; it means you just haven't learnt how to be fluent.

 My Chinese teacher cannot speak English fluently but he is a brilliant lecturer in a respectable university, and he has a Doctorate degree. So does someone of his status seem or sound like an illiterate to you?

I think we should rather try to always be ourselves and never be ashamed of who we are regardless of what other people may think of us. And for as long as we know that there is something wrong amongst us, then we have the tendency to be better people with time. am proud to be a Yoruba man, having fluency in several other languages doesn't make me relegate  my mother tongue.

We Africans,(Especially Nigerians) need to wake up and start appreciating our own things because "what you don’t have, you can't give" Japanese, Chinese, Indians, Taiwanese, Koreans put their languages, cultures above others' maybe that’s why they are forging ahead economically, technologically, politically while we Africans are still sleeping.

 " Ni temi, ipanu lasan  ni gúgúrú kii s'ounje ”Egbẹ̀tàlá ìròhìn ò tó afojuba.Kosi ohun ti a le fi ede abinibi we."-Who will classify popcorn as food? We can only testify to what we see and not  what we hear..PROMOTE YOUR OWN LANGUAGE.

TRIBUTE: ADIEU MAYA ANGELOU

photo credit:Jane Bown

"History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again." This was a quotation written Maya Angelou, quoted by President Barack Obama while awarding her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011.
 Born Marguerite Annie, Johnson, in St Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Bailey Johnson, a doorman and naval dietician, and Vivian (nee Baxter), a nurse, professional gambler, bar owner and entertainer. Maya was the name given to her by her brother, also Bailey.

Maya’s early life was not so that rosy, according to her; she was raped by her mother's boyfriend at tender age of seven. ‘This traumatic incident, recorded in her autobiography, and the man's subsequent murder, for which she felt responsible, led her to stop speaking for five years’

At the age of 14 she ran away in search of her father, and lived rough in Los Angeles and Mexico for a time. She completed her high school education n San Francisco took lessons in dance and drama and, at the age of 17, gave birth to a son.

In her early 20s, she was married briefly to an aspiring musician, Anastasios (Tosh) Angelopulos, a former sailor, of Greek descent. Hence, professional name Maya Angelou, borrowing a form of her husband's surname.  (Maya name given to her by her brother and Angelou borrowing from her husband’s name

Maya Angelou, was a dancer, singer, poet, author and activist. While in Ghana, she met Malcolm X, Angelou returned to the US in 1965 intending to help Malcolm X build his new Organisation of African-American Unity .That organisation collapsed with the assassination of Malcolm X that year, and Angelou then began to work more closely with Martin Luther King. When King was assassinated on 4 April,1968, on Angelou’s 40th birthday.

In 1969 she completed ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings’. Narrating her changing awareness and struggle for self-fulfilment between the ages of three and 17, it portrayed vividly the characters of her glamorous mother, her proud and dignified grandmother, her beloved brother and her disabled Uncle Willie, as well as the troubled relationships between the races in the south during the depression.

 She later wrote the followings: ‘Gather Together in My Name (1974), Singin' and Swingin' and Gettin' Merry Like Christmas (1976), The Heart of a Woman (1981), All God's Children Need Travelling Shoes (1986), A Song Flung Up to Heaven (2002) and Mom & Me & Mom (2013)’

Maya Angelou was a woman that believed in her sense of judgments and loved her friends’ ether they are black or white. She was a long-time Clnton friend and supporter According to her, “I made up my mind 15 years ago that if she ever ran for office I’d be on her wagon. My only difficulty with Senator Obama is that I believe in going out with who I went in with,”

However, she later supported Barack Obama after Clinton's campaign ended in 2008. Delighted when Obama was elected president, she declared: "We are growing up beyond the idiocies of racism and sexism." In a 2012 interview she rebuked those who expressed disappointment with his performance as president, insisting that he had "done a remarkable job".

" Maya Angelou, 86, according to her son Guy B Johnson  "passed quietly in her home" sometime before 8am on Wednesday. She lived a life as a teacher, activist, artist and human being  She was a warrior for equality, tolerance and peace. The family is appreciative of the time we had with her and we know that she is looking down upon us with love."

Adieu Maya.

TEACHER DONT TEACH ME NONSENSE: TEACHER RAPED 3-UNDER PUPILS N A TIOLET

Teacher don’t teach me nonsense, Olayinka Oluwadare Folarin, 38, a nursery school teacher, who allegedly defiled three under aged pupils in a toilet, yesterday, said it was one of the girls that made advances at him. “One of them made advances at me. You know how children play with  you in a funny way. This thing is beyond me.”

Folarin, aged 38, who claimed his illicit romance with the minors was a demonic attack which had been affecting him for a long time, said: “I have been doing this for a long time. I feel terribly bad each time I did it but I could not stop it. Why don’t you find a way of helping me. Is this meant to expose me?

“Some people should just think and reason with me. The person who has not sinned before should cast the first stone. If God did not forsake some people, I know he would not forsake me. I am a changed person now.”
He narrated his method of operation thus ‘’ I will invite the girls into the toilet and put them in the wash hand basin in the toilet and then fondled their private parts.’’

In as much as i will not like to go into details of this ‘evil teacher from hell’ illicit, my candid advice to the parents especially in Nigeria where mere mentioning of  ‘sex’ is a taboo ,must try as much as possible to educate their children about sex education, this will make them to report unnecessary abuse.

Olabisi Okuwobi Ilobanafor , Oyo state Police Public Relations said: “The suspect had engaged in multiple defilement and all the victims said the same thing that he always abused them twice a week since last year. The third girl was lured by the suspect to cover his illicit affairs.

“The third girl he abused saw a note he wrote to one of the two girls when she was sweeping the floor and asked what was happening. The teacher then collected the paper; for fear of being exposed, he recruited her into the group.
She said the case would be transferred to the state Police headquarters because of its seriousness

USA MISSION TO NIGERIA ANNOUNCED A NEW VISA RENEWAL PROCESS

United States of America Mission to Nigeria yesterday announced a new visa renewal process for applicants tagged Expanded DHL Drop Box Visa programme.
The mission in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos said that the new visa renewal system would commence on June 2.

“The U.S. Mission to Nigeria is pleased to announce the expanded DHL Drop Box Visa Renewal Programme on June 2, 2014.

“This programme allows certain visa applicants who have previously been issued U.S. visas to renew their visas without attending an interview.

“The programme now covers B1/B2 visas that have expired not more than two years prior to re-issuance and F, L and H visas that have expired not more than one year prior to re-issuance,’’ it said.

The statement advised applicants to visit the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria’s Website for information on the needed criteria for renewals.

It, however, said that applicants’ participation in the programme was not a guarantee for visa issuance.

The statement said that the consulate might request the applicants to attend visa interviews in some cases.

TELL BADEH: WE WANT OUR GIRLS NOT 'GOOD NEWS'

 “My brother, Chibok is a shadow of itself as most parents stay indoors to mourn their abducted children. Government is not helping matters. We keep getting assurance our abducted would be girls.“It is the farming season, but nobody is going to the farm. The trauma is too much for us.” That is that lamentation of Mallam Chiroma Usman Chibok, who claimed that seven of his relations were abducted by Boko Haram.

This abduction issues is now taking a different turn, we do not know whom to belief now. My questions are that was it true that these girls were actually abducted? How come that 53 girls did escaped from the enclave of Boko Haram unhurt while are soldiers could not rescue a single girl?

According to the governor of Borno state, his government had approved N150 million for the rehabilitation of the 53 girls who escaped, and for assistance to the traumatised parents whose daughters were still held, and said that: “Unfortunately, we had to hold what we should have done for Chibok because of the politics brought in. If we had released some material support earlier, some bad elements would have said we tried to buy the people of Chibok

Chief of Defence Staff, Air Marshal Alex Badeh , who claimed on Monday that the Military knows where the schoolgirls abducted on April 14, 2014 are but will make no attempt to rescue them. "the good news for the parents of the girls is that we know where they are." "But where they are held, can we go there with force? We can't kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back."

To me personally, i do not see any good in this statement, in as much as our military are still scared about Boko Haram, with the claims and counter-claims that some girls were escaped from the Boko haram camp, couples with the statements credited to Major General Abdullahi Muriana, Chief of Accounts of the Nigerian Army , who said that the Nigerian Army it lacks the financial capacity to cope with the challenges posed by Boko Haram and others in the country “It is our humble appeal that government should evolve other means of funding and support for military operations other than the normal budgetary allocations. Such means include but are not limited to strategic cooperation and liaison with other civil industries for the production of uniforms and other equipment,” he stated. Then the two statements made by these two Generals shows that we have an untrained and unequipped military that aren’t their when we need them most.

 Alhaji Kashim Shettima, Borno state Governor, while responding to the Presidential Fact Finding Committee on the abduction, in Maiduguri, that doubts over the abduction of the Chibok school girls and the theory that the kidnap was staged-managed by his government was as painful as the actual abduction.

 “Borno has seen evil times. Our people have suffered. The Chibok incident, for me, has grossly exposed our weighty weakness as leaders in terms of assuming our shared responsibilities.

“Doubts over that abduction pained me far more than the childish theory that as Government, we staged that abduction in order to create basis to stop the extension of emergency rule in Borno.

“Then, there was the issue of saying Chibok was not safe and we went ahead to open the school. Majority of these students are from Chibok axis, if the school was considered unsafe, I don’t think any right thinking parent would allow his or her child to study in an atmosphere of high risk.
“To every other Muslim, worldwide, these men that kill, destroy and abduct, insult Islam by calling themselves Muslims. They have contradicted every single tenet of the Islamic religion. They have in some cases, tried to change the ordained translation of verses in the Holy Quran.

“To every Muslim, a verse of the Holy Quran has clearly said that there is no compulsion in religion. But to these men of violence, there is compulsion not only in religion but even in Islamic ideology. To these men, any human who doesn’t share their ideology deserves to be brutally killed. A Muslim that is of not of the sect is condemned to death and so is Christian. To them, the human race should go into extinction for their doctrine to thrive.”
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“The Borno State Government is committed to sincere and active collaboration with the Federal Government and all other support groups in our collective fight against insurgency.
“I see misconception about those behind the insurgency as one major hindrance to fighting it. So long we continue to look the wrong way, there would be lack of focus on the part of most stakeholders and in which case, the victims would remain the accused.”

“It will interest you to note that on Sunday, officials of the National Emergency Management Agency, NEMA came to Chibok to distribute relief materials to the victims, but none of the parents collected even soap. They protested to NEMA officials that they want their abducted daughters back. Those who benefited from the relief materials were people whose daughters were not among the abducted,” “We are suffering in silence, if we had seen the corpses of our girls, we would have forgotten about them. We do not know what is happening, it is unfortunate” Mr. Yama said.