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By Tony Eluemunor
One terrible aspect of the Asaba massacre is not only that it actually occurred, but that 53 years after that grim and despicable flaunting of the worst of the human spirit anywhere, Nigeria does not recognise it as a national tragedy.
Thus, every 7th of October, only the people of Asaba commemorate that gruesome mass murder, which meets all definitions of GENOCIDE. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.
The term was coined in 1943 by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who combined the Greek word “genos” (race or tribe) with the Latin word “cide” (to kill).
That such an unprovoked gruesome mass murder of hundreds of people took place at Asaba, is not in question anymore. What really happened that October 1967? As Emmanuel Andrew Chukwuedo Nwanze, BSc. MSc. Ph.D. DIS, Professor of Neurobiochemistry and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Benin said in a lecture: “Asaba people came out from their homes and places of other engagements in response to a call to come out and welcome and receive the conquering Federal troops. When the troops requested them to separate into groups of males and females, they naively complied, never having ever witnessed such an event before. The men were marched away to the more secluded axis of Ogbe Osowe- Ilo-Umuaji-Ogbe Ilo. When the guns started blazing it was too late to escape. The staccato over, only the groans of those on the throes of death could be heard with blood flowing freely: indeed ‘blood on the Niger’. The few alive or not completely dead who had been clobbered to the ground by the falling dead could be heard calling on the soldiers to come on and finish the job. Hence the weak cries of “See me, I never die o”
Mr. Chiedu “Cassy” Juwah was about ten years old then. He recalled that “People were dancing in a welcome party at OgbeIlo field. Then soldiers stopped the music and a grim business began. That was how Asaba became a town of landladies. My cousin who had survived the pogrom at Kano, his dad and two elder brothers, were shot. I hid and returned home. The following day, 7th, we were rounded up and shepherded to Oma, opposite today’s Grand Hotel, That’s where we were separated. At Ogbe Osowe, the men were separated from the boys and the women, and I, a boy, joined the women in going to the Convent, now St. John Bosco’s Church at Nnebisi Rd, and Ogbe Osowe became a killing field. My brother, Augustine Juwah, who passed out of St. Anthony’s College in 1964, pretended to be dead and hid among dead bodies there as a machine gun belched fire and death. By 8.pm he made his way home and we started our flight; first to Achala, and from there to Ubulu-Uku. Some people returned home days later and were still killed in the house-to-house combing by the military.”
The Federal troops thundered into Asaba on the 5th. The Biafrans had melted away as the immediate commander, the late Col. Joe Achizia (a son of Asaba), opted to retreat to Onitsha as a lorry load of cutlass was all he was given to defend Asaba with. He blew up the Niger Bridge. Then, the indiscriminate killing started. It turned horrendous on the 6th and became hellish on the 7th.
About 1, 000 persons died in Asaba in those gruesome three days. Yet, more died later as the town’s folks fled into the bush, trying to escape to the nearby towns and villages. Many were caught outside the town while escaping and were decimated, others died from hunger and unhealed wounds inside the bush.
In fact, the killing spilled into Ogwashi-Uku, and several other towns in the Anioma Delta North Senatorial District. In Ishiagwu, a coastal village to which Biafrans would travel to from around Oguta to buy food stuff, having crossed the lordly River Niger by canoe, the Federal troops visited one night and simply killed 400 people who failed to escape and burnt down the village – even as a General Cyril Iweze, a son of Ishiagwu, was fighting on the Federal side. Ibusa suffered genocide and the entire surviving population fled into the bush.
READ ALSO: Boko Haram sacks two communities in Borno
As late into the war as 1969, the killings were still on. A Benin-City based medical Doctor, Patrick Anyafulu said: In 1969, a company of Federal troops was ambushed and decimated by Biafran troops on the road leading to Asaba from Oko. That incident brought the horrors of war to my sleepy, rustic village. The whole village was razed to the ground. We escaped death through Providence…a heavy rainstorm the previous night delayed their advance from Asaba, and fishermen who had gone to check their nets saw them and alerted the whole village. Shells were already landing in the village and the air was filled with the whine of bullets. We escaped into the forest and lived there until 1970!”
So, why has the Federal Government, which has recently acknowledged the evil inherent in denying the late MKO Abiola his June 1993 electoral victory, refused to even recognise the atrocity committed against Asaba and other Anioma towns? As hard as that insult upon injury is difficult to swallow, it is pertinent to remember that for years the Asaba massacre was a totally hushed up topic.
A London Times correspondent, Bill Norris, who passed through Asaba in mid-October 1967, sent back photos of hellish destruction there and noted that the town appeared to be largely abandoned. But he said nothing about the genocide. He explained in a 2012 interview that he did not know about the massacre. The first mention of mass killing in Asaba appeared in the London Observer, almost four months later, when Africa correspondent Colin Legum conûrmed that Federal troops took part in the killing. However, his (second-hand) account claimed that a group of ‘implacably hostile’ Igbo attacked troops by surprise as they watched the welcome dance, leading to retaliation.
Even both pro-Biafra and pro-Nigeria writers of book on the Civil War left the Asaba massacre well alone. The Nigerian Army made no attempt during or after the Civil War, to investigate the Asaba Massacre. Yet, The London Observer commented on it on 21 January 1968, Le Monde, the French evening newspaper, wrote about it on April 5, 1968, LOOK, the British magazine, did same and even a Canadian Member of Parliament, who served as the UN Observer, Stephen Lewis, was mentioned in the London Observer on October 11, 1968. Yet, the then Nigerian High Commissioner to Britain, Brig. B. O. Ogundipe called the reports “wild rumours”. The Times of London reported in 1968 that Biafran propaganda had instilled fear of federal soldiers in Igbo people, but these fears were unfounded. A year later, the Times reported that an international observer team had “been unable to ûnd one single trace of mass killings of Ibos”.
An Asaba indigene, Sylvester Okocha, then senior civil servant in Benin, wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross describing what had just happened. His letter was intercepted by the military, he was arrested, tortured and incarcerated in Lagos.
Now, the truth is out…and it is horrendous. There are only two choices left for Nigeria: to keep ignoring this sordid fact and allow the sore to fester and become food for agents of national disunity or address it so that healing can begin. Yet, the silence has really ended, what continues is national self-deception. An Asaba indigene, and journalist, Emma Okocha published the book Blood on the Niger in 1994 (his father was a victim of that massacre). It lifted the lid off that story and has remained a condemnation on the government’s official silence on the Asaba massacre – that terrible blot on Nigeria’s history.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/asaba-massacre-terrible-blot-on-nigerias-history/ | 1,905 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999903 |
THE 1967-70 Nigeria Civil War, for the Igbo was a battle of historic survival against the forces of national darkness that roamed in the form of periodic unrestrained anti-Igbo riots and massacres, and subsequently the chilling pogrom of 1969.
It was not only a battle for survival but for the upholding of the Igbo man’s dignity, which, as previously feared got swallowed up by the events of the civil war. Those who supported Biafra did so not because of the capability of the Igbo to win the war against the World Powers-supported Federal might but for the case of conscience.
The likes of Presidents Houphouet-Boigny of Cote d’Voire, Julius Nyerere of Tanzania, Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, Omar Bongo of Gabon, Papa Doc of Haiti and to some extent Siaka Stevens of Sierra Leone, Jomo Kenyata of Kenya, William Tolbert of Liberia, and the French Government of the time did so out of conscience against the forces of darkness that ruled Nigeria at that time. This explains why, even at the final defeat of the Igbo they never abandoned their vanquished friends-turned brothers. Today there are sprawling Igbo populations in these countries with many of them not only becoming full citizens of their host countries, but even playing very important Government roles.
As the Igbo would often say, “no land exists without the presence of the lizard”. So it has become customary to say that no battle takes place without the active roles of saboteurs. The Nigeria civil war, like any such war of its kind no doubt witnessed a number of Igbo citizens playing the Vidkun Quisling role against their own people, sabotaging the survivalist sacrificial efforts of their down-trodden people by supporting the Federal troops, prophesying the doomsday for their people’s struggle for survival.
These people not only celebrated the defeat of their own people but shamelessly rushed to seek Federal Government appointments and contracts while those who sacrificed, endured and survived remained in perpetual penury for decades and for life.
Today, Reverend Ejike Mbaka in the event of General Muhammadu Buhari’s victory presents himself as a champion of God’s prophecy, just because he vaingloriously assumed that his words are the words of God verbatim. But there remain certain clear indices to determine if an event is truly the act of God in the manner a visioner or soothsayer presented it. We know that Ejike Mbaka is from Awgu district in Enugu State and it is not disputable that his people of Enugu State overwhelmingly voted for President Goodluck Jonathan. Secondly, Mbaka should let us know if the massive failure of the Jega’s rigging machine miscalled Card-readers was the act of God. Thirdly, let Father Mbaka tell Nigerians how the God he worships approved the fraudulent permission of under-aged children to vote in the northern part of the country.
For we all know that the God of the Roman Catholic Church of which Reverend Father Mbaka belongs is a just God who hates cheating in whatever form it is presented. Unless Reverend Mbaka is telling us that he has another God other than the one Almighty God we all know and acknowledged.Yes, if the victors said the defeat of Biafra was the act of God, the Igbo could not have denied such a statement, just as the on-going victory of the blood-sucking Islamic State in Syria and the Levante (ISIS/ISIL) and their budding children in Nigeria called Boko Haram could also be attributed to the act of God. Those who truly worship God in truth and spirit through any form or medium truly know that God’s ways are hard to fully predict by mortal man.
For whatever it was worth, the massive Igbo support for President Jonathan was a patriotic call to duty. Yes, President Jonathan might not have met the greater part of our expectations from him as the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. But for the Igbo, he wiped out the ignominious tears of second-fiddlers in Federal Government affairs. For the first time since the end of the Nigeria civil war, the Igbo occupied in one stroke the positions of Secretary of the Government of the Federation, two Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces at the same time – the Army and Navy.
At least the second Niger Bridge is presently under construction. Beyond these, the massive Igbo support for the President was a cementing force that eventually obliterated the political cancer of rivalry and mutual mistrust between the Igbo and their South-South ethnic brothers that began with Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe and Professor Eyo Ita in the 1950s. Today, the contentious State creation agitation by these neighbours of the Igbo from the defunct Igbo-dominated Eastern Region has been resolved with the existing multiplicity of States.
The civil war has come and gone. But could we say that the reason for which the Igbo took up the arms of defence against the Federal Government no longer exists? The Niger Delta militants took up arms against the Federal Government in defence of their rights and have through that experience chiefly identified who their friends and foes are. Have the Igbo actually identified who their friends and foes are in the matrix of present politics?
The historical experience of any people so oppressed like the Igbo, no matter how checkered it might be, fundamentally calls for reflection and in essence a lesson. The emergence of General Muhammadu Buhari as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria most importantly calls for reflection primarily for the Igbo. It is a matter that evidently put the Igbo on the balance of sustained political principle via-a-vis a taciturn principle of progressive opposition or wobbling edifice of political harlotry.
The present balance of political equation beckons on true Igbo patriots to stand firm and hold the bull of politics by its horn of emerging political challenges. The greatest political disaster the Igbo will attract on themselves is for the crop of her political leaders to aimlessly drift to the soon to emerge ruling APC in the name of being afraid to be in opposition. What is most important for the present political terrain is for both the South East and South-South to further cement the political gains of common solidarity for Jonathan by building a strong force of opposition.
What has become customary in the acquisition of political power in Nigeria today, except for the Igbo, is that ethnic generated conflicts often end in Presidential compensation.
President Olusegun Obasanjo reaped from the blood-watering conflict of June 12 presidential election annulment. President Umar Yar’Adua benefited from the dastard incarceration and eventual death of his senior brother in the hands of General Sani Abacha.
President Goodluck Jonathan invariably reaped from the Niger Delta struggles for economic emancipation. And now, can one deny the fact that General Muhammadu Buhari evidently reaped from the on-going Boko Haram insurgency? What did the Igbo reap from the 30-month long civil war? The Igbo had since the end of the civil war engaged in competitive licking of the political ass of most past Federal Governments except in fact that of President Jonathan. Will this be the case with President Muhammadu Buhari?
Dr. Tony Nwaezeigwe is an acting director , Centre for Igbo Studies, University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/04/igbo-and-the-fallacy-of-mbakas-gods-vindication/#sthash.zJeDQ5l1.dpufJust | 1,571 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999458 |
Quietness can be an amazing asset, frequently more significant than words. Knowing when to stay quiet can save connections, forestall clashes, and lead to better independent direction. The following are a few circumstances where keeping quiet can be gainful, joined by the justifications for why quiet is the most ideal decision in these situations.
1. During Warmed Contentions
Significance: Feelings run high during contentions, and expressing something seemingly out of the blue can prompt lament and further acceleration.
Staying quiet can forestall expressing terrible or irreversible things.
It considers chilling off and moving toward the discussion later with a more clear psyche and more valuable disposition.
2. At the point when You Need Total Data
Significance: Talking without the real factors can prompt falsehood, misconceptions, and humiliation.
Quietness permits you to accumulate all important data prior to framing an assessment or saying something.
It exhibits astuteness and reasonability, showing that you esteem exact
data over speedy reactions.
3. Even with Incitement
Significance: Answering incitement can frequently heighten what is happening, prompting superfluous clash.
Quietness assists with keeping calm and pride.
It forestalls providing the provocateur with the fulfillment of a response and holds what is happening back from raising.
4. While Listening is More Significant
Significance: Successful correspondence frequently includes more tuning in than talking.
Being quiet permits others to put themselves out there completely, which can prompt better comprehension and more grounded connections.
It recognizes the speaker and can give you significant bits of knowledge and viewpoints.
5. During Snapshots of Misery or Agony
Significance: in the midst of despondency, words can now and again feel lacking or even nosy.
Quiet can give a soothing presence and show that you are there for help without compelling discussion.
It permits the lamenting individual to deal with their feelings time permitting and way.
6. At the point when You Have nothing Helpful to Add
Significance: In some cases, adding to a discussion without valuable info can weaken the message or shift concentrate superfluously.
Quietness guarantees that main significant commitments are made, keeping up with the quality and pertinence of the conversation.
It shows that you esteem substance over amount in correspondence.
7. At the point when Others are Attempting to Control You
Significance: Answering control can wander right into whatever the controller might have had planned.
Quiet can act as a guarded procedure, keeping the controller from utilizing your words against you.
It gives you an opportunity to painstakingly perceive the control and thoroughly consider your reaction.
8. While Noticing and Learning
Significance: Observational learning requires consideration and quietness to completely retain new data.
Quiet takes into consideration better perception and comprehension of circumstances and ways of behaving.
It helps in gaining from the climate and others without obstruction.
9. While Reflecting or Thinking
Significance: Reflection and contemplation require a peaceful psyche to be successful.
Quiet works with more profound reasoning, reflection, and self-improvement.
It advances mental clearness and close to home security, assisting with settling inward
clashes and settle on better choices.
10. During Talks
Significance: Quiet can be a strong arranging strategy.
It can make the other party self-conscious, frequently driving them to reveal more data or make concessions.
It permits you to listen cautiously to the next party's offers and requests, assisting you with figuring out a superior reaction.
Quiet isn't only the shortfall of discourse however an essential instrument that can be employed to improve correspondence, forestall clashes, and encourage understanding. Whether in warmed contentions, snapshots of despondency, or exchanges, realizing that when will generally be quiet is an indication of shrewdness and the capacity to understand people on a deeper level. By picking quiet at the perfect opportunities, we can explore life's intricacies all the more really, keeping up with our honesty and advancing amicable cooperations.
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Yes, Jesus rose from the dead in the same body in which He died. In John 2:19-21, Jesus said, “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”1 The Jews, therefore, said, ‘It took forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of his body.” Jesus prophesied that He would rise from the dead in the very body in which He died. Right now, in heaven, Jesus has a physical body. He has scars on his wrists, ankles, brow, and side. He has retained the wounds of His crucifixion.
After His resurrection, He appeared to Thomas. “Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing,'” (John 10:27). Notice that Jesus still retained the hole in His side where he was pierced. “But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and immediately there came out blood and water,” (John 19:34).
Some scholars think that when Jesus appeared to the disciples on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35 and that the reason they did not recognize Him was that Jesus had been beaten about the face, and His beard had been ripped from His face and was simply not recognizable. It wasn’t until after He broke bread and exposed His wrists that they then saw who He was; but, this is just a theory.
Though He was raised physically, His body was a glorified body. It was the same body, but it was different. 1 Cor. 15:42-44 says, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.”
We do not know exactly what a resurrected body is capable of doing; but, Jesus did appear in rooms unannounced. Perhaps we might have the same ability at our resurrection.
The physical resurrection of Jesus is a very important doctrine. 1 Cor. 15:14 says, “and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” The reason it is so important is that Jesus’ physical resurrection is the proof that death has been conquered and that we too will be physically resurrected. To say that Jesus did not rise from the dead is to say that death had victory over Him. If that were so, we would be without hope; and sin would still have its power.
1 Cor. 15:53-57, “For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; 57 but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” | http://ow.ly/21Gt50N92n5 | 744 | Religion | 2 | en | 0.999994 |
As many as 25 percent of people with the coronavirus may never show symptoms, says Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield.
In a Monday interview with NPR, Redfield said that COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, spreads “far easier” than the flu, in part because it appears people can spread the virus up to 48 hours before they feel sick, if they even show symptoms at all.
“This helps explain how rapidly this virus continues to spread across the country because we have asymptomatic transmitters and we have individuals who are transmitting 48 hours before they become symptomatic,” he said.
The virus is spreading quickly in the U.S., with 165,870 cases confirmed as of Tuesday morning.
Because there is still not widespread testing for COVID-19 in the U.S., it’s not known how many people actually have it.
The federal government is urging people to practice social distancing measures, such as working from home and staying at least six feet away from others, to slow the spread of the virus and prevent an influx of patients from overwhelming the health care system.
It is especially important for people who appear healthy to follow those measures since they could carry the virus to more vulnerable populations.
“So this social distancing that we’re pushing … is a powerful weapon, and that will shut this outbreak down sooner than it otherwise would have been shut down,” Redfield said.
Redfield said he expects transmission of the disease to decrease in the U.S. in the late spring and early summer, but the CDC is preparing for a second wave to hit in the fall or early winter.
“Hopefully, we’ll aggressively re-embrace some of the mitigation strategies that we have determined had impact, particularly social distancing,” he said.
Copyright 2024 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. | https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/490391-cdc-head-up-to-25-percent-of-those-with-coronavirus-never-show | 420 | Health | 3 | en | 0.999949 |
Between a general and a president
Dwight Eisenhower was the four-star general of the United States army who went on to become the 34th president of the country after a blazing military career that saw him take charge of the Allied Forces during World War 2. His time as the supreme commander of the expeditionary forces in Western Europe oversaw the successful allied attack on the shore of Normandy a year before the end of the global conflict. Under Eisenhower, Western Europe was freed from the grip of the Nazis. Later, this American soldier fondly called Ike, took his place in history as he accepted Germany’s surrender and moved on to command the US occupation zone in Germany.
But, according to a BBC profile, Ike wasn’t done with mere military triumphs. BBC writes: “In 1952, the popularity which Eisenhower had gained during the war helped him win the Republican nomination for presidency and then the presidency itself. His time in office was dominated by the Cold War. In July 1953, he agreed to an armistice to end the fighting in Korea… Eisenhower was re-elected in November 1956.’’
The historian H. A. Davies in his book, An Outline History of the World, adds more of the outstanding feats of the Eisenhower presidency: it expanded the American nation by admitting Alaska and Hawaii into the Union to bring the number of America’s states to 50. At a critical point when race relations got to a boiling stage, Ike sent fully kitted paratroopers to enforce a Supreme Court ruling on desegregation in a school in one of the states.
But although Eisenhower’s flight to fame found its cradle in the military, Americans and observers of contemporary history have shrouded him in ‘presidential’ robes, hardly in military drill. For, they believe, as Ike himself did when, after a victorious military campaign, he chose to go into politics; that you serve your people best on the platform of their summons through the ballot box.
So all through his two-term presidency that ended in 1961 and paved the way for JF Kennedy, Ike was never referred to as General Eisenhower. It was President Eisenhower. To be sure, he struck great feats as a soldier. But his martial accomplishments couldn’t take him where the presidency took him. The presidency took him to the abode of the gods on Mount Olympus, whereas his generalship held him to the ground. Eisenhower himself never sought a look into that past. For it would remind him of a discarded past, a yesterday that reminded him of a period he thirsted for fulfillment. Who would wish for a baneful past in a pleasant present? If then, the media or citizenry should take it upon themselves to dress Eisenhower in his old military garment, it would amount to driving him from the present to yesterday. It would be penalty for perceived breach of a sacred duty.
That is the bold point The PUNCH newspaper group was making when it announced that its titles were no longer obligated to address Muhammadu Buhari as president in view of his government’s ‘’assaults on the courts, disobedience of court orders and arbitrary detention of citizens .’’ The newspaper declared in its famous editorial with the title, Buhari’s lawlessness: Our stand:’’ As a symbolic demonstration of our protest against autocracy and military-style repression, PUNCH (all our print newspapers, The PUNCH, Saturday PUNCH, Sunday PUNCH, PUNCH Sports Extra, digital platforms, most especially Punchng.com) will henceforth prefix Buhari’s name with his rank as a military dictator in the 80s, Major General, and refer to his administration as a regime, until they purge themselves of their insufferable contempt for the rule of law.’’
Buhari’s media gaffers and all the others rising to lambast the newspaper understand what it translates into to disconnect an old soldier from his new-found presidential love and return him to his ancient habits.
It’s real term demotion. It does greatly matter, contrary to what one of the media aides says. There’s something in a name in this case. A name announces who you are. It also announces who you are not, which is more important, if you ask me. If you are an elected president, donning presidential apparel but your gait, outlook, vision and conversation are incongruent with presidential appurtenances, you are a pretender. I should be worried that I am not dealing with the real man. The hood doesn’t make the monk. The hood and monk must come together to make the monk. The hood without the monk is a pretense, a profanity, a pariah. A man and his presidency must abide in the same boat. They can’t be Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Those hitting The PUNCH hard understand what is at play. The newspaper understands too. It is the reason it has decided to take such a strong position. It is a fulfillment of the media’s solemn pledge to protect the people when the other bulwarks of preservation of the land crumble or are cowed into acquiescence. There must be voices to stand up in defence of society.
One of such voices has been Wole Soyinka, who himself has lately been recuperating from a blistering shock at Buhari’s ‘lackluster performance’. The Nobel Laureate was among the main characters that created Buhari. That’s where it pains, that what you labour to bring into being turns at you to destroy you and your community. So days before PUNCH, Soyinka began the psychological war that employs titles and prefixes to challenge leaders. Knowing how madly we adore titles, Soyinka, exasperated with the way the Omoyele Sowore has been handled by the Buhari regime, addressed the Nigerian leader thus: President-General Buhari.
Did we notice what Soyinka was up to? He refused the president his full regalia to protest his ‘desecration’ of the judiciary when operatives of the executive were running rings around court rulings. So he, Wole Soyinka, master of literary language, also drew a circle of words around our beloved president: President-General Buhari.
Pray, what does it mean? Splitting one man into two: a general and a president! I wonder why those at The Presidency didn’t notice it to summon Soyinka to the Villa for questioning. Or did they? | https://thenationonlineng.net/between-a-general-and-a-president/ | 1,370 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999985 |
Biafra: The war rages on by other means
“Sincerely speaking, the South-East has not had a fair-share/ since the civil war. Their marginalization is quite obvious/ But if the policy of reconciliation of Gen. Gowon and late/ Gen. Murtala's administration had continued, the agitation by few/ Igbo for Biafra would have been a thing of the past” –– Balarabe Musa
IT is fiftieth anniversary of the Nigerian civil war, the war that the people of the defunct Eastern region of the country fought for the survival and sustenance of one of the world's shortest lived states –– the Republic of Biafra.
While it is not surprising that the federal government is mute about the significance of the event, in that many conditions –– as Balarabe Musa pointed above –– that made the war inevitable still haunt us today, it is regrettable lugubrious(apologies to Patrick Obahiabon) that no commemoration is planned or organised by any state in the South-East or South-South. The war was declared by Gen. Yakubu Gowon's led military government on 6th July 1967 to bring the defunct Eastern region back to the Nigerian federation. The unity of the country which one of the federal war cry said “is a task that must be done!” was compromised by then Col. Ojukwu who on 30th May 1967 declared the Republic of Biafra. He did that as survivalist mechanism against what could be called state sponsored pogrom against the Igbo people.
Igbo people living outside the Eastern Region had since the “Return March of 29th July 1966” made victims of mass slaughter. These for Northerners were in retaliation of their leaders killed in the failed 15th January 1966 coup––the coup they believed, tenaciously, to be “Igbo coup.” So, it was against this backdrop that Ojukwu's declaration of Biafra was greeted with pomp and pageantry. To an average Igbo man then, it was an epiphany of the Igbo race. But that was not to be as what started as a police action in the wee hours of 6th July 1967 turned out to be a full blown war that lasted for thirty months.
The events of the war were economically rendered in my poem titled “In the Shadow of Biafra”:
Agreement suffered disagreement
And canons were let loose
Raining in the sky of Biafra,
The scavengers called for feast Life and death brawled in a free-for-all
But the scavengers had their ways
With their cups overflowing in the presence of their enemy,
Psalm 23 was in their lips.
Were these Biafrans that “heroes fight like”?
Ah! Hunger was the weapon of the enemy. Kwashiorkor came knocking at the door, And the death dominoes began to fall.
The grim-reaper was the zeitgeist, In the genocidal engagement
The rising sun hurriedly departed,
And cessation was the secession.
With defeat in sight, on 11th January, 1970, Gens. Ojukwu and Alexander Madiebo, the commander of Biafran army, fled for exile. It was the man that the white reporters called F-young (Gen. Philip Effiong) that did the needful by handing over to then Col. Obasanjo the instrument of surrender. So on 15th January 1970, Gen. Gowon received the Biafran delegation and thus announced the end of the war on the terms of “no victor no vanquished.” The argument whether there were victors and vanquished in war was perfectly put to rest by Ojukwu himself who in the BBC documentary on the 40th anniversary of the Biafran war anchored by Prof. Wole Soyinka asked: what did he (Gen. Gowon) do to stop the victor from being the victor and the vanquished from being the vanquished?
One glaring indication that Nigeria has failed as a country is that fifty years after the civil war, Biafra is still on the air. This therefore buttressed the incompatibility logic always put forward by many Biafran nationalists. But if after fifty years, the people of the defunct Biafra have not been fully integrated into the mainstream of Nigerian politics, can we say they can ever be integrated? The question that successive Nigerian leadership has failed to answer is: why is Igbo people a threat to the rest of Nigerians? Achebe made us understand in his short masterpiece The trouble with Nigeria that “Nigerians of all other ethnic groups will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo. They would all describe them as aggressive, arrogant and clannish.”
A cursory foray into the Nigerian history will show that no ethnic group has contributed and sacrificed so much to the development of “one Nigeria” that our Northern brothers are now singing today than the Igbo people. Even when Zik's emergence in the Western Assembly was foiled by chief Awolowo through the infamous cross-carpeting he orchestrated, Prince Umoro Altine of Sokoto successfully emerged as the mayor of Enugu.
Zik scarified the post of prime-minister because of “one Nigeria.” Igbo people do not just live in all the nooks and crannies of this country but are also developing them as their homes because of the one Nigeria philosophy ––so where have they wrong their other Nigerian brothers? Any objective analysis of the post-civil war public policies of Nigerian State must come to the views that Balarabe Musa expressed above. This is so because we are still at war.
From the 20pounds bank and indigenization policies of Gowon's administration to the present day removal of South-East from the proposed rail project of the federal government, Ndigbo are shortchanged. The problem with Nigeria and the Biafran question can be seen in the Igbo adage that says: Oji onye n'ani ji onwe ya–– 'He who will hold another down in the mud must stay in the mud to keep him down.'
Nothing will work in Nigeria so long as the notion that NdIgbo are 'defeated people' still holds water in the process of authoritative allocation of resource. To wake up the sleeping giant that Nigeria is, we must look to the direction of restructuring and fiscal federalism. That said, the governors of states that made up the defunct Eastern Region should bury their faces in shame for not recognizing the sacrifices made by all that were either killed or died in the war especially those that fought on the Biafran side. My greatest epitaph for them is to be found in the words of Robert Laurence Binyon who in his poem –For the Fallen– wrote:
“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Asikason Jonathan, a public affairs analyst, wrote in from Enugwu-Ukwu, Anambra state. *Mr. Jonathan, a public affair analyst, wrote from Enugu-Ukwu, Anambra state.
Disclaimer: "The views expressed on this site are those of the contributors or columnists, and do not necessarily reflect TheNigerianVoice’s position. TheNigerianVoice will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements in the contributions or columns here." | https://m.thenigerianvoice.com/amp/news/254723/biafra-the-war-rages-on-by-other-means.html | 1,624 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999989 |
Coronavirus: Research reveals where it lingers, how to kill it
New research from Singapore published shows that patients with the novel coronavirus extensively contaminate their bedrooms and bathrooms, underscoring the need to routinely clean high-touch surfaces, basins and toilet bowls.
The virus was, however, killed by twice-a-day cleaning of surfaces and daily cleaning of floors with a commonly used disinfectant — suggesting that current decontamination measures are sufficient as long as people adhere to them.
The research letter was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and comes after Chinese cases in which the pathogen spread extensively through hospitals, infecting dozens of health care workers and other patients.
This led scientists to believe that, beyond catching the infection through coughing, environmental contamination was an important factor in the disease’s transmission, but its extent was unclear.
Researchers at Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Diseases and DSO National Laboratories looked at the cases of three patients who were held in isolation rooms between late January and early February. They collected samples from the rooms on five days over a two-week period.
The room of one patient was sampled before routine cleaning, while the rooms of the other two patients were sampled after disinfection measures.
The patient whose room was sampled before cleaning had the mildest symptoms of the three, only experiencing a cough. The other two had moderate symptoms: Both had coughing and fever, one experienced shortness of breath and the other was coughing up mucus.
Despite this disparity, the patient whose room was sampled before cleaning contaminated 13 of 15 room sites tested, including a chair, the bed rail, a glass window, the floor and light switches. Three of the five toilet sites were also contaminated, including the sink, door handle and toilet bowl — more evidence that stool can be a route of transmission.
Air samples tested negative, but swabs taken from air exhaust outlets were positive — which suggests that virus-laden droplets may be carried by air flows and deposited on vents.
The two rooms that were tested after cleaning had no positive results.
“Significant environmental contamination by patients with SARS-CoV-2 through respiratory droplets and fecal shedding suggests the environment as a potential medium of transmission and supports the need for strict adherence to environmental and hand hygiene,” the authors wrote. SARS-CoV-R is the official name of the pathogen. | https://thenationonlineng.net/coronavirus-research-reveals-where-it-lingers-how-to-kill-it/ | 499 | Health | 3 | en | 0.999979 |
PHOTO: Getty Images
As COVID-19 tests become more widely available across the US, scientists have warned about a growing concern: Many people with negative results might actually have the virus.
That could have devastating implications as a global recession looms and governments wrangle with the question of when to reopen economies shuttered as billions of people were ordered to stay home in an effort to break transmission of the deadly disease.
The majority of tests around the world use a technology called PCR, which detects pieces of the coronavirus in mucus samples.
But “there are a lot of things that impact whether or not the test actually picks up the virus,” Priya Sampathkumar, an infectious diseases specialist at Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, told AFP.
“It depends on how much virus the person is shedding (through sneezing, coughing and other bodily functions), how the test was collected and whether it was done appropriately by someone used to collecting these swabs, and then how long it sat in transport,” she said.
The virus has only been spreading among humans for four months and therefore studies about test reliability are still considered preliminary.
Early reports from China suggest its sensitivity, meaning how well it is able to return positive results when the virus is present, is somewhere around 60 to 70 percent.
Different companies around the world are now producing slightly different tests, so it’s hard to have a precise overall figure.
But even if it were possible to increase the sensitivity to 90 percent, the magnitude of risk remains substantial as the number of people tested grows, Sampathkumar argued in a paper published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.
“In California, estimates say the rate of COVID-19 infection may exceed 50 percent by mid-May 2020,” she said.
With 40 million people, “even if only one percent of the population was tested, 20,000 false-negative results would be expected.”
This makes it critical for clinicians to base their diagnosis on more than just the test: they must also examine a patient’s symptoms, their potential exposure history, imaging and other lab work.
– Timing is everything –
Part of the problem lies in locating the virus as its area of highest concentration shifts within the body.
The main nasal swab tests examine the nasopharynx, where the back of the nose meets the top of the throat. This requires a trained hand to perform and some portion of the false negatives arises from improper procedure.
But even if done correctly, the swab may produce a false negative. That’s because as the disease progresses, the virus passes from the upper to the lower respiratory system.
In these cases, the patient may be asked to try to cough up sputum — mucus from the lower lungs — or doctors may need to take a sample more invasively, when a patient is under sedation.
Daniel Brenner, an emergency physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, described to AFP taking a test after performing a procedure called a bronchoalveolar lavage.
This was done on a patient whose nasal swab returned negative three times, but who showed all the signs of COVID-19.
Eventually, the patient’s medical team placed a camera down his windpipe to examine the lungs, then sprayed fluid in and sucked out the secretions, which were then tested, resulting in a positive.
– No perfect test –
Uncertainty in clinical diagnoses is not new, and clinicians are well aware that no type of test for any condition can be considered perfect.
What makes COVID-19 different is its newness, said Sampathkumar.
“Most of the time when you have tests, you have test characteristics outlined carefully and warnings about tests interpretation,” she said.
“We had no test for so long, and when we got the test, we started using it widely and sort of forgot the basics.”
After being slow to start mass testing, the US has ramped up production and has tested almost 2.5 million people, with pharmacists now authorized to carry out the procedure.
But “the real fear of that is people who are given a false negative test and then decide that they’re safe to go around their daily life and go out and expose people,” said Brenner.
Much hope is placed on newly available serological tests which look for antibodies produced by a person’s body in response to the virus and can tell whether a person was infected, long after they recovered.
They could also be used to help diagnose a person who is currently infected but whose PCR test results showed a false negative, by waiting a week or so for the body to produce its immune response.
“We are excited about the serologic test, but we don’t know how well it will work and we are starting to study it,” said Sampathkumar.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/04/how-false-negatives-are-complicating-covid-19-testing/ | 1,045 | Health | 3 | en | 0.999964 |
‘It’s not science’
Is evolution ‘science’ and creation ‘religion’?
Anti-creationists, such as atheists by definition, commonly object that creation is religion and evolution is science. To defend this claim they will cite a list of criteria that define a ‘good scientific theory’. A common criterion is that the bulk of modern day practising scientists must accept it as valid science. Another criterion defining science is the ability of a theory to make predictions that can be tested. Evolutionists commonly claim that evolution makes many predictions that have been found to be correct. They will cite something like antibiotic resistance in bacteria as some sort of ‘prediction’ of evolution, whereas they question the value of the creationist model in making predictions. Since, they say, creation fails their definition of ‘science’, it is therefore ‘religion’, and (by implication) it can simply be ignored.
What is science?
Many attempts to define ‘science’ are circular. The point that a theory must be acceptable to contemporary scientists to be acceptable, basically defines science as ‘what scientists do’! In fact, under this definition, economic theories would be acceptable scientific theories, if ‘contemporary scientists’ accepted them as such.
In many cases, these so-called definitions of science are blatantly self-serving and contradictory. A number of evolutionary propagandists have claimed that creation is not scientific because it is supposedly untestable. But in the same paragraph they will claim, ‘scientists have carefully examined the claims of creation science, and found that ideas such as the young Earth and global Flood are incompatible with the evidence’. But obviously creation cannot have been examined (tested) and found to be false if it’s ‘untestable’!
The definition of ‘science’ has haunted philosophers of science in the 20th century. The approach of Bacon, who is considered the founder of the scientific method, was pretty straightforward:
observation → induction → hypothesis → test hypothesis by experiment → proof/disproof → knowledge.
Of course this, and the whole approach to modern science, depends on two major assumptions: causality1 and induction.2 The philosopher Hume made it clear that these are believed by ‘blind faith’ (Bertrand Russell’s words). Kant and Whitehead claimed to have solved the problem, but Russell recognized that Hume was right. Actually, these assumptions arose from faith in the Creator-God of the Bible, as historians of science like Loren Eiseley have recognized. Many scientists are so philosophically and theologically ignorant that they don’t even realize that they have these (and other) metaphysical assumptions. Being like a frog in the warming water, many do not even notice that there are philosophical assumptions at the root of much that passes as ‘science’. It’s part of their own worldview, so they don’t even notice. We at CMI are ‘up front’ about our acceptance of revelation (the Bible). Unlike many atheists, we recognize that a philosophy of life does not come from the data, but rather the philosophy is brought to the data and used in interpreting it.
Perceptions and bias
The important question is not, ‘Is it science?’ One can just define ‘science’ to exclude everything that one doesn’t like, as many evolutionists do today. Today, science is equated with naturalism: only materialistic notions can be entertained, no matter what the evidence. The prominent evolutionist Professor Richard Lewontin said (emphases in original):
“We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfil many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.”3
Now that’s open-minded isn’t it? Isn’t ‘science’ about following the evidence wherever it may lead? This is where the religion (in the broadest sense) of the scientist puts the blinkers on. Our individual worldviews bias our perceptions. The atheist paleontologist, Stephen Jay Gould, made the following candid observation:
“Our ways of learning about the world are strongly influenced by the social preconceptions and biased modes of thinking that each scientist must apply to any problem. The stereotype of a fully rational and objective ‘scientific method’, with individual scientists as logical (and interchangeable) robots is self-serving mythology.”4
So the fundamentally important question is, ‘which worldview (bias) is correct?’, because this will likely determine what conclusions are permitted to be drawn from the data. For example, if looking at the origin of life, a materialist will tend to do everything possible to avoid the conclusion that life must have been supernaturally created.
Science a creationist invention
Of course the founders of modern science were not materialists (Sir Isaac Newton, widely considered the greatest scientist ever, is a prime example) and they did not see their science as somehow excluding a creator, or even making the Creator redundant (see The biblical roots of modern science: A Christian world view, and in particular a plain understanding of Scripture and Adam’s Fall, was essential for the rise of modern science.). This recent notion, that science = philosophical materialism, has been smuggled into science by atheists.
Michael Ruse, the Canadian philosopher of science also made the strong point that the issue is not whether evolution is science and creation is religion, because such a distinction is not really valid. The issue is one of ‘coherency of truth’. See The religious nature of evolution.
In other words, there is no logically valid way that the materialist can define evolution as ‘science’ and creation as ‘religion’, so that he/she can ignore the issue of creation.
A valid distinction
However, we can make a valid distinction between different types of science: the distinction between origins science and operational science. Operational science involves discovering how things operate in today’s world—repeatable and observable phenomena in the present. This is the science of Newton, Einstein and Planck, for example. However, origins science deals with the origin of things in the past—unique, unrepeatable, unobservable events. This is why it could also be called ‘historical science’. There is a fundamental difference between how the two work, even though both are called ‘science’, and operational science does have implications for origins (or historical) science. Operational science involves repeatable experimentation in the here and now. Origins science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation (unless someone invents a ‘time machine’ to travel back into the past to observe).5
Of course it suits many materialists to confuse operational and origins science, although I’m sure with most the confusion arises out of ignorance. Tertiary (college / university) courses in science mostly don’t teach the philosophy of science and rarely make any distinction between experimental / operational and historical / origins sciences.
Both evolution and creation fall into the category of origins science. Both are driven by philosophical considerations. The same data (observations in the present) are available to everyone, but different interpretations (stories) are devised to explain what happened in the past.
Note that this distinction between operational science and evolution is not an invention of creationists. High-profile evolutionists such as Ernst Mayr and E.O. Wilson both acknowledged the distinction.
The inclusion of historical science, without distinction, as ‘science’, has undoubtedly contributed to the modern confusion over defining science. This also explains the statement by Gould (above), who, as a paleontologist, would have liked there to have been no distinction between his own historical science and experimental science. Gould rightly saw the paramount importance of presuppositions in his own science and assumed that it applied equally to all science. This is not so. Although some presuppositions play an important role in operational science, historical science depends much more strongly on philosophical assumptions.6
Do you believe in hot water?
Creationists have absolutely no problem with operational science, because the evidence drives operational science. It does not matter if you are a Christian, a Moslem, a Hindu, or an Atheist, pure water still boils at 100 °C at sea level. However, the true Hindu might still think it is all an illusion, and some atheists embracing postmodernism espouse that ‘truth’ is an illusion. However, origins science is driven by philosophy. One’s belief system is fundamental to what stories one accepts as plausible. Now if the majority of practitioners of origins / historical science have the wrong belief system (materialism), then the stories they find acceptable will also be wrong. So a majority vote of ‘contemporary scientists’ is hardly a good way to determine the validity of the respective stories. And origins science, or historical science, is essentially an exercise in story-telling—Lewontin alluded to this story-telling in the quote above. James Conant, past President of Harvard University, made the point quite forcibly, with a scathing assessment of the inventive scenarios that often characterise historical science. See also Naturalism.
The evidence matters
Now in pointing out that presuppositions drive what stories are acceptable in historical science, I am not saying that it is merely or solely a matter of those philosophical/religious assumptions. The stories still have to account for the evidence in a coherent manner. That is, the stories provided can often be tested according to the evidence. For example, the claim that coal-bearing geological strata were laid down over many millions of years is flatly contradicted by the evidence of polystrate tree fossils, with their roots broken off, traversing those strata (how did they stand there for millions of years while the layers of deposits built up around them, and all without rotting away?). There are many facts that contradict the evolutionary story: here are 101 evidences that speak against the billions of years of age claimed for the earth: Age of the earth. There are also many counts against the story of biological evolution; see 15 Questions for evolutionists.
If the same data could be consistently interpreted in two entirely different ways, then Romans 1 would have no basis for saying that people have no excuse for denying that things were created by God because it is clear from the physical evidence.
We can speak of a ‘coherency of truth’ as a test; that a truthful account of history will give a coherent (logically consistent) account of the evidence.
Define terms consistently!
It also suits materialists to shift the definition of evolution to suit the argument. Let’s be clear that we are discussing the ‘General Theory of Evolution’ (GTE), which was defined by the evolutionist Kerkut as ‘the theory that all the living forms in the world have arisen from a single source which itself came from an inorganic form’.7 Many, perhaps inadvertently, perform this switching definitions trick in alluding to mutations in bacteria as corroborating ‘evolution’. This has nothing to do with demonstrating the validity of the belief that hydrogen changed into humans over billions of years. The key difference is that the GTE requires not just change, but change that substantially increases the information content of the biosphere. See also this discussion of definitions.
Predictions or ‘postdictions’?
Many evolutionists claim mutations and antibiotic resistance in bacteria (operational science) as being some sort of prediction of evolution (origins science). In fact, genetics (operational science) was an embarrassment to evolution, which could have been a factor in Mendel’s pioneering genetics research going unrecognized for so many years (Mendel’s discovery of discrete genes did not fit Darwin’s idea of continuous unlimited variation). When mutations were discovered, these were seen as a way of reconciling Darwinism with the observations of operational science—hence the ‘neo-Darwinian’ synthesis of Mayr, Haldane, Fisher, etc.
What about the predictions of evolution vs creation? The track record of evolution is pretty dismal. See How evolution harms science. On the other hand, modern science rides on the achievements of past creationists—see How important to science is evolution? and Contributions of creationist scientists. For just one clear example of modern-day predictions based on a creationist model, see Beyond Neptune: Voyager II Supports Creation.
Many ‘predictions’ of evolutionary theory have been found to be incompatible with observations; and yet evolution reigns. For example, there is the profound absence of the many millions of transitional fossils that should exist if evolution were true (see Are there any Transitional Fossils?). The very pattern in the fossil record flatly contradicts evolutionary notions of what it should be like—see, for example, The links are missing. The evolutionist Gould wrote at length on this conundrum.
Contrary to evolutionists’ expectations, none of the cases of antibiotic resistance, insecticide resistance, etc. that have been studied at a biochemical level (i.e. operational science) have involved de novo origin of new complex genetic information. In fact, evolutionists never predicted antibiotic resistance, because historically it took the medical field by surprise—see Anthrax and antibiotics: Is evolution relevant?
Contrary to evolutionists’ expectations, breeding experiments reach limits; change is not unlimited. See the article by the creationist geneticist, Lane Lester. This matches what we would expect from Genesis 1, where it says that God created organisms to reproduce true to their different kinds.
Another failed evolutionary ‘prediction’ is that of ‘junk DNA’. Evolutionists long claimed that 98% of the human DNA is junk, mere leftovers of our supposed evolutionary ancestry. This has hindered the discovery of the function of this DNA, now known to be at least 80% functional, and probably 100% is functional. See Dazzling DNA.
Evolutionists expected that, given the right conditions, a living cell could make itself (abiogenesis); creationists said this was impossible. Operational science has destroyed this evolutionary notion; so much so that many evolutionists now want to leave the origin of life out of the debate. Many propagandists claim that evolution does not include this, although the theories of abiogenesis are usually called ‘chemical evolution’ and normally included within undergraduate courses on evolution.. See Origin of Life for an explanation of the many profound problems for any conceivable evolutionary scenario.
Note: Claiming fulfilled predictions as proof of a hypothesis is known as the fallacy of affirming the consequent. However, if a prediction is falsified, it amounts to formal disproof of the proposition, so evolution has been formally disproved with multiple failed predictions.
Falsified but not abandoned
So, why do evolutionists persist with their spurious theory? For many it’s because they have never heard anything else. For avowed materialists it’s the ‘only game in town’—the only materialistic story available to explain how everything came to be; the materialist’s creation myth. It’s a bit like the proverbial ostrich putting its head in the sand, thinking that all that exists is what it can see under the sand. The ostrich’s worldview excludes everything that it does not find convenient. In the darkness of the sand, all unacceptable facts cease to exist.
The persistence of evolutionary thinking in the face of so much contradictory evidence indicates that the philosophical presupposition of materialism (atheism) trumps the facts. The paradigm has priority, no matter what the evidence, because the secularist ‘cannot allow a divine foot in the door’. For a summary of the failed arguments for evolution, see Arguments evolutionists should not use.
Light in the darkness!
Jesus Christ came as ‘the light of the world’ (John 8:12), when the Second Person of the Trinity took on human nature (see The Incarnation: Why did God become Man?). He came to shed the light of God in dark places. The greatest darkness is to live without God; to live as if you are a cosmic accident, just ‘rearranged pond scum’, as one evolutionist put it. Sadly, many are being duped into thinking that way, and we are seeing the horrendous consequences in escalating youth suicide, drug problems, family break-up, violence, etc. How much we need the light of Jesus to shine! God will hold each one of us accountable—all of us deserve His condemnation. But the Bible says that He has provided a way of escape through Jesus Christ for all that turn to God, humbly admitting our need of forgiveness. See Here’s the Good News.
For more information about the above issues, and more, check out the Q&A section, or use the search window to search for articles on subjects of interest.
Updated: 20th March 2023
Re-featured on homepage: 25 March 2023
- Causality: the principle that all effects or events are caused by something preceding it that is sufficient to explain the effect or event. This is a basic principle of rationality. Return to text.
- Induction: that conclusions drawn from limited observations are applicable to the universe at large. Return to text.
- Lewontin, R., Billions and billions of demons, The New York Review, January 9, 1997, p. 31. Return to text.
- Gould, S.J., Natural History 103(2):14, 1994. Return to text.
- One might object that looking through a telescope to view a star that is a thousand light-years away involves observing the past, because you are observing the star as it was a thousand years ago. However, the observations are of the light rays entering the telescope at that moment. What those observations might tell you about that star 1,000 years ago are inferences, however reasonable. And it is not possible to do an experiment, which requires repeated observations of causes and their effects. As an example of how astronomical observations are subject to interpretation driven by presuppositions, see Clear picture—blurry story? Return to text.
- See Sarfati, J., Why does science work at all? Creation 31(3):12–14, 2009. These presuppositions are not controversial because everyone involved in experimental science tacitly accepts them as true. Return to text.
- Kerkut, G., Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, Oxford, UK, p. 157, 1960. Return to text.
Comments are automatically closed 14 days after publication. | https://creation.com/its-not-science | 4,061 | Religion | 2 | en | 0.99999 |
Africans have been fighting slavery since early ADs. Lourenço da Silva Mendouça, the First world Abolitionist, was a Prince from the royal family of Ndongo Kingdom in Angola. He had successfully convinced authorities to end slavery in Europe. What Nafafé discovered is that in 1684, Mendonça went to the Vatican, where he accused the nations involved in the trans Atlantic slave trade of crimes against humanity. It was not just a petition, it became court cases, undertaken by Black Africans and supported through highly organized international solidarity.
Why the Vatican? It was Pope VI who had issued Papal Bull that authorized Spain and Portugal to colonize and enslave Africa, America and the Natives in 1493 AD. Muhammed Ali was on Mike Douglas Show with Sly of The Family Stone as co-host when he complained about Slavery. One of the guests, Rep. Wayne L. Hays, claimed the African Chiefs were paid. What he did not say is that the slave raiders went back, captured the Chiefs and sold them into the plantations as the other slaves.
Nafafé explained that “It has never been previously established by historians that Mendonça was an African, which is really incredible – that in the 1600s you had this African man who traveled all over Europe to mobilize an activist movement for the liberation not only of Black Africans, but also of Indigenous people in the Americas ... People always think that the legal abolitionist movement started in Britain, in the late 18th century, but Mendonça really forces us to review our positions on this.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/3/10/how-portugal-sil enced-centuries-of-violence-and-trauma Well before 300 AD, Africans had been fighting the Muslim Caliphate from Ghana to Songhai Empires. The Zanj fought and conquered the Abbāsid caliphal empire. Their fight for Freedom and Rebellions led to the Zanj superior power in Mesopotamia that ruled Basra in Iraq into Iran from 869 to 883 AD. It took all combined forces of Arab states before Arabs were later able to overcome them.
Bookman, another captured African leader of Maroon and Vodou Houngan, fought for Freedom in Haiti for Independence from France. The wrong notion that freedom for people only exists within the Western Activists is astounding. It is well known in the Diaspora that the Chiefs that sold African slaves were later captured by the same raiders and sold in countries other slaves were. Researchers and genes tracers confirmed many of the slaves in the Americas came from the lines of Kings and Chiefs that sold slaves and were sold into slavery themselves.
Many African Americans like the Zanj conqueror of Basra, are aware and proud of their royal blood from Africa. Yet some blame new African immigrants not the raided Chiefs, for selling them out; knowing pretty well that their sellers were also captured about the same time after they were. The African Chiefs that sold Africans into the Diaspora suffered the same fate when the slave raiders brought them into the Diaspora. Stop blaming all Africans at home, many rebeled against slave trade sacrificing their lives like Bookman, at home and abroad.
When the African sellers arrived at the plantations, their subjects and fellow African slaves that got there earlier recognized them. Some ridiculed the new arrivals and others welcomed them with hostility. The hostility remained today within African American communities, disrespecting one another and hostile to recent African immigrants. Some African Americans still blame the captured and free Africans that escaped slavery, rebelled and fought against slavery.
Muhamed Ali was right, when Sly Stone tried to distract him while answering Rep. Wayne Hays questions, he said: Black people spend so much time attacking one another, some of us become a distraction from the real goal of keeping our energy on the Prize. As the inhumanity of man to man became more vicious, free Africans at home rebelled and ran away as those on the slave ships and in the Diaspora. Indeed, France got reverse reparation from Haiti.
Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka was at Cambridge Library Colloquium with Prof. Louis Gate of Harvard University talking about Black on Blacks angers from Nigeria/Ghana to South Africa/other Africans. Prof. Gates raised the issue of recent Africans immigrants. More than forty years after Mohamed Ali and Wayne Hays tangled on the Mike Douglas Show. Prof. Gates, like some African Americans, still thinks the African immigrants that sold them, follow them to America to share their quota. It was embarrassing for all Africans at home and in the Diaspora that the issue is still alive at Harvard of all places.
Quota is dead in America. It was threatened by American white students in courts, not recent African immigrants. Indeed, the United States Supreme Court finally nailed it. Though replaced by Affirmative Action, that was also replaced by Diversity for all ethnic groups. The diversity is being threatened by Asians in Court suing that they were cheated in Admission to Harvard; not by the African students. No other ethnic group in America attacks their own from old countries. The Irish created special admission for their recent Irish immigrants just as the Italians, Polish, Ukrainians Americans welcome their recent immigrants.
Africans must find better ways to reconcile their differences at home and in the Diaspora. Black on Black crimes must decrease below the level of White on White, Asians on Asians or Natives on Native crimes. People victimize their own at a greater proportion than they victimize others. But Africans have suffered in the hands of others more than any other continent. It is true that the Chiefs sold their own for guns and mirrors to capture more slaves, it does not justify liberty of worst mean spirited habits by individuals to lynch, slash and burn slaves for any or no reason.
Indeed, Yoruba tradition cautions that the way a child was born, so was a slave. Bi a se bi Omo ni a se bi Eru. The cry for reparations must be understood as making amends for past injustices, not to displace or favor anyone. Those that have gained from past injustices against Africans and continue to exploit the people and the Continent must look for humane ways to make their profit and pay Africans reparations appropriately to those that are due. Unlike France that demanded and got reparations from its colonies from Haiti to Africa.
Despite all the wars Africans fought against the Muslims and Christians coming as explorers and missionaries, sent into the Dark Continent for 500 years, the only miracle is that Africans have not been eliminated from the surface of the Earth. They are strong and resilient. We do not need anymore enemies within. Today we are lured, not forced into slave ships anymore. Most of the new Africans use life savings to buy tickets on Boeing 707 like the looters and their families.
The most anguishing part is that Africa, Haiti, and other historically hugely humanly explored parts of the world remain so devoid of prosperity, of tolerance towards minorities, of Justice. | https://www.modernghana.com/news/1183912/slaves-their-seller-chiefs-were-raided-by-arabs.html?_gl=1 | 1,458 | Culture | 3 | en | 0.999975 |
The Nigerian economy is in deep trouble. When the Government laid out its current five-year development plan, the forecast for 1983 was that production of high-priced oil, at two million barrels a day, would earn the nation $30 billion.
As world oil markets faltered last year, the forecast was trimmed in November in an austerity budget based on production of a million barrels a day. At the time, industry analysts reckoned that, for the first quarter of 1983 at least, black Africa's largest oil producer would be able to pump 1.3 million barrels a day, about the December level.
The forecasts were wrong: In January, oil industry sources and Nigerian officials said, daily production was no more than 880,000 barrels, despite the expectation of high sales to wintry America and Europe. Early February was worse: 550,000 barrels a day.
The implications are serious. Nigeria, which faces elections in August, is spending far more than it is earning. Some prestige projects, like a $2 billion standard gauge railway, have already been shelved. Commercial Payments Slow
Moreover, the nation's foreign exchange reserves have fallen to just over $1 billion, enough to finance one month of imports, and that figure, the ecoomist said, is only ''notional'' because outstanding commercial payments are much higher. One Western banker put Nigeria's commercial debts at ''$6 billion minimum.'' Other estimates vary between $5 billion and $7 billion, compared with a relatively low long-term debt of $12 billion.
(Banking sources in London said that Nigeria had begun talks aimed at getting a $1 billion credit to repay some of its commercial debts, Reuters reported Tuesday.) | https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/17/business/economic-strains-on-nigeria.html | 345 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999887 |
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday it has become aware of products being sold online that fraudulently claim to prevent or treat Ebola.
The FDA’s warning comes on the heels of comments by Nigeria’s top health official, Onyebuchi Chukwu, who reportedly said earlier Thursday that eight Ebola patients in Lagos will receive an experimental treatment called nano-silver.
Erica Jefferson, a spokeswoman for the FDA, said she could not provide any information about the product referenced by the Nigerians.
The FDA did not specify any products in its warning.
Silver has been used as an antibacterial for centuries. Tiny silver particles known as nano-silver have controversially been incorporated into a variety of consumer products such as socks and bedding to help block odors caused by bacteria and mold.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers nano-silver a pesticide. Manufacturers of products that contain it must register them with the agency.
Nano-silver is also sometimes sold online as a dietary supplement even though Danish researchers found in a recent study that nano-silver can penetrate and damage cells.
The FDA regulates dietary supplements and said in its statement that “by law, dietary supplements cannot claim to prevent or cure disease.”
The agency said it had received consumer complaints about the Ebola claims.
“Individuals promoting these unapproved and fraudulent products must take immediate action to correct or remove these claims or face potential FDA action,” the agency said.
The Ebola outbreak ravaging West Africa has claimed 1,069 lives so far. Most have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Nigeria has confirmed 10 cases of the disease and four deaths.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/ebola-nano-silve-pesticide-says-us-fda | 369 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999928 |
ABUJA—South Africa’s economy has regained the position of Africa’s largest in dollar terms more than two years after losing it to Nigeria as the value of the nations’ currencies moved in opposite directions. Based on gross domestic product at the end of 2015 published by the International Monetary Fund, the size of South Africa’s economy is $301 billion at the rand’s current exchange rate, while Nigeria’s GDP is $296 billion.
That’s after the rand gained more than 16 percent against the dollar since the start of 2016, and Nigeria’s naira lost more than a third of its value after the central bank removed a currency peg in June.
Both nations face the risk of a recession after contracting in the first quarter of the year.
The Nigerian economy shrank by 0.4 percent in the three months through March from a year earlier amid low oil prices and output and shortage of foreign currency.
That curbed imports, including fuel. In South Africa, GDP contracted by 0.2 percent from a year earlier as farming and mining output declined.
“More than the growth outlook, in the short term the ranking of these economies is likely to be determined by exchange rate movements,” Alan Cameron, an economist at Exotix Partners LLP, said. Although Nigeria is unlikely to be unseated as Africa’s largest economy in the long run, “the momentum that took it there in the first place is now long gone.”
The South African rand rallied as investors turned to emerging markets with liquid capital markets to seek returns after Britain voted to leave the European Union on June 23, even as the central bank forecast the economy won’t expand this year and the nation risks losing its investment-grade credit rating.
The ruling African National Congress’s lowest support since 1994 in the August 3 local government vote led to further gains on speculation that it will pressure the party to introduce economic reforms that will boost growth and cut unemployment.
In Nigeria, investors did not flock to buy naira-based assets after authorities removed the peg of 197-199 naira per dollar. The Central Bank of Nigeria raised its benchmark interest rate to a record in July to lure foreign money, even as the IMF forecast the economy will contract 1.8 percent this year.
Nigeria was assessed as the continent’s largest economy in April 2014 when authorities overhauled its GDP data for the first time in two decades. The recalculation saw the Nigerian economy in 2013 expand by three-quarters to an estimated N80 trillion. The rand gained 1 percent to 13.2805 per dollar at 4:03 p.m. in Johannesburg on Wednesday. The naira weakened 2.7 percent to N320 per dollar.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/08/nigeria-loses-top-position-gdp-south-africa/ | 592 | Business | 2 | en | 0.999989 |
Years before he became the most expensive player in the world; before his Olympic gold medal; before the Eiffel Tower lit up with his name to greet his professional move from Barcelona to Paris, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior, the Brazilian forward known to the world simply as Neymar, faced his first public relations controversy.
The year was 2010, and Neymar, then 18, had shot to fame in Brazil after a sensational breakout season. During an interview for the newspaper O Estado de S. Paulo, in between a conversation about Disneyland and sports cars, he was asked if he had ever experienced racism. “Never. Not in the field, nor outside of it,” he replied.
“It’s not like I’m black, you know?”
His answer was heard like a record-scratch across the country. Was this young man in denial about his racial identity? Particularly when in the same interview he outlined his meticulous hair care regime, which involved getting his locks chemically straightened every few weeks, then bleached blonde.
Or was there a less alarming explanation behind his comment? Could Neymar merely be pointing out that, as the son of a black father and a white mother, his lighter skin tone shielded him from the racist abuse directed at other players? Had he, at least in his context, reached whiteness? Whatever the interpretation, Neymar’s words revealed the tricky, often contradictory ways that many Brazilians talk, and fail to talk, about race in a country with the largest population of black descendants outside of Africa.
When audiences tune in to watch Brazil play, they are treated to a rich spectrum of skin tones flashing vibrantly across the screen. The racial makeup of the Brazilian squad, in fact, generally reflects the demographics of the country. According to 2017 data released by the census department, 47 percent of Brazilians identify as mixed-race, while another 8 percent identify as black. One third of marriages happen across racial boundaries. Such numbers confirm the common belief held by Brazilians, and the millions of international travelers who visited last year, that the country is a racially fluid society.
Unlike the national team, however, the upper echelons of most professions in Brazil — be it medicine, media, business, entertainment or government — are occupied by whites. The nation’s raw demographic data paints an accurate portrait of a diverse people; yet it also adds patina to the old myth, promoted for generations by the government and first intellectualized by sociologists nearly a century ago, that Brazil is a democracia racial, or “racial democracy.” | https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/30/opinion/is-neymar-black-brazil-and-the-painful-relativity-of-race.html | 542 | Sports | 2 | en | 0.99996 |
Our sexuality and gender can form a big part of our identity and those who don’t fit society’s heteronormative ideal can come up against more challenges. Those who identify as LGBTQ+ can be seen as ‘different’ by some, facing discrimination, bullying and a lack of understanding which can lead to mental health concerns.
While things in society are slowly moving forward in terms of acceptance, we still have a long way to go. Incredibly, the World Health Organisation only removed ‘homosexuality’ as a formal psychiatric diagnosis in 1992.
The fact is, being LGBTQ+ does not lead to mental health problems - dealing with other people’s adverse reactions does. Because of this, those who don’t identify as heterosexual are more likely to experience mental health problems. Here we’ll explore sexuality and mental health in more detail, where to find support and coming out concerns.
Sex and relationship therapist Beck Harrison explains how an LGBTQ+ therapist can help with a range of issues, and what to look for when searching for an LGBTQ+ therapist.
Sexuality and mental health
LGBTQ+ people can be at a greater risk of developing a mental health condition than those in the wider population. According to the Mental Health Foundation, a survey carried out by Stonewall found that half of LGBTQ+ people experience depression and three in five experience anxiety.
The reasons for this are complex and not entirely understood, however, most mental health problems experienced can be linked to discrimination, bullying, homophobia, biphobia or transphobia.
If you identify as LGBTQ+ and you’re struggling with your mental health, know that you’re not alone. You may be particularly prone to:
- Depression - when you experience a low mood for a long period of time.
- Anxiety - when you feel especially anxious or worried for long periods of time or at a high intensity.
- Self-harm - when you hurt yourself on purpose to cope with difficult emotions.
- Suicidal thoughts - when you feel very low and as if there is no way out.
You may experience rejection from those around you, including friends, family and work colleagues. Other factors may also complicate things, for example where you live, your ethnicity and religious background. Understandably, this can all have a big impact on your sense of self-worth and your confidence. You may feel the need to hide this part of yourself from others, and this can be damaging in itself.
Some people may find they turn to alcohol and drugs to help them cope with difficult emotions. If you’re worried about the way you’re using alcohol or drugs, your doctor, a counsellor or an addiction helpline can offer support.
There are hidden covert messages in the media about what it means to be 'normal' which in some way reinforces the message that being different is not acceptable. The notion of 'fitting in' not just in the wider community but within LGBT communities can and does come with its own pressures.
- Read more on LGBT mental health.
Speaking to a counsellor can help with some of the difficulties you’re facing, such as:
- finding it hard to accept your sexuality
- coping with other people’s reactions
- low self-esteem and low self-confidence
- fear of violence or abuse in public places
- effects of bullying and discrimination
- feeling as if your body does not reflect your true gender (gender dysphoria)
If you develop a mental health condition, talking therapies can help you find new ways of coping and either overcome or manage your condition. What’s important is for you to find a counsellor who you trust and feel able to talk to openly about your experiences. For this reason, it can be helpful to check your counsellor has experience working with LGBTQ+ people and/or has had appropriate training.
If at any point you feel uncomfortable with your counsellor, remember you have every right to stop your sessions and find a more suitable counsellor for you.
I find that people come to me either because they want to discuss their sexuality or gender identity, or because they want that to be understood as something that is a part of them, but it’s not what they’re seeking therapy for. A cisgender, heterosexual therapist will often be able to offer that, but not always.
- Jennifer Tomkinson, MBACP (Accred), PGDip, shares tips for finding a therapist if you identify as LGBTQ+
Other forms of support
Aside from talking therapy and counselling, many LGBTQ+ people find it helpful to connect with others in the community. You may want to join a support group online or connect with campaigners. There are a number of organisations and charities that support and campaign for LGBTQ+ people, Mind has an excellent list of resources.
Discrimination - what’s the law?
Attitudes in the UK towards the LGBTQ+ community do slowly seem to be improving, however, there are still some people who discriminate against others based on their gender and/or sexuality. There is a law against this at work and in wider society - The Equality Act 2010.
This protects gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people and anyone who experiences discrimination because they associate with LGBTQ+ people. You can find out more about what the Equality Act 2010 covers and includes on the gov.uk website.
The term ‘coming out’ is often used to describe when you tell people about your sexual orientation and/or your gender identity. For some, it can take a long time to feel comfortable to do this. It’s important to know that you don’t need to come out at a certain time, you simply need to do what feels good and right for you.
Having these conversations can be difficult. You may experience unpleasant reactions and even rejection in some cases. This can make coming out an emotionally trying time. And sadly, for many, coming out isn’t a one-time thing. Every time you meet someone new or start a new job, for example, you may need to consider when or how much of your identity as an LGBTQ+ person you want to share.
Despite what may sound like negative repercussions of coming out, this doesn’t happen to everyone. Many people are supported and understood by those they’re coming out to.
Hiding who you are, however, can be an incredibly difficult thing to do and can be damaging to your mental health and well-being.
I had a realisation that I was gay and that it wasn’t a good thing to be. I began a nine-year battle with hiding the deepest part of who I was. This was one of the heaviest masks I wore.
- Read Chris Dudley's experience of OCD and depression.
Everyone will ‘come out’ in different ways. For many, it’s a series of conversations that take place between the LGBTQ+ person and the people in their life they want to tell. It’s important for you to come out in a way that feels right for you and your circumstances.
Telling someone you trust and believe will be supportive first can be a good idea. They can then provide you with some support as you tell others in your life. Picking a time when you can talk through any concerns and worries is also recommended.
Try to keep in mind that although this is likely something you have known about yourself for a long time, for others, it may be a surprise. Initial reactions may be laced with shock, and they may change over time.
Creating a support network, whether that includes friends, family members, online communities or professional support (or all of these!) can be incredibly helpful when taking this step.
Above all, please remember you are not alone. With greater understanding, kindness and representation hopefully making its way through society - we can only push for progress.
- London Lesbian and Gay Switchboard: 020 7837 7324
- Online safety guide for LGBTQ+ community
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All content was accurate when published. | http://www.counselling-directory.org.uk/sexuality.html | 1,725 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999998 |
By Emeka Anaeto, Business Editor
THE World Bank has effected a massive cut in its projections for Nigeria’s economic growth rate for 2018 to 2.1 percent, down from 2.5 percent and 1.9 percent for 2019, down from 2.8 percent.
This was contained in its latest World Economic Outlook just released at the on-going spring meeting of the World Bank Group in Washington DC, United States of America.
The World Bank’s January 2018 Global Economic Prospect report launched on Tuesday, January 09, 2018 in Washington DC, had said Nigeria’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is expected to grow by 2.5 percent in 2018 and 2.8 per cent in 2019 and 2020.
Though the new projection still shows a huge leap against the actual of 0.8 percent achieved in 2017 and 0.2 percent higher than its projection in October last year, it indicated, not only a reversal of position but also a widening gap between the positions of the Federal Government and the World Bank on the recovery prospects post-recession while sign-posting the Bank’s concerns over possible stalling of growth momentum as the country prepares for a general election scheduled for first quarter 2019.
The Federal government had projected GDP growth rate at about 3.5 percent in its 2018 budget.
The Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, ERGP, the government’s medium term economic blue print, had stated: “Real GDP is projected to grow by 4.62 per cent on average over the plan period of 2017 – 2020, from an estimated contraction of 1.54 per cent in 2016. Real GDP growth is projected to improve significantly to 2.19 per cent in 2017, reaching 7 per cent at the end of the plan period.”
In its latest report, the World Bank stated: “In Nigeria, the economy is projected to grow 2.1 percent in 2018 and 1.9 percent in 2019 (up from 0.8 percent in 2017), reflecting improved oil prices, revenue, and production and recently introduced foreign exchange measures that contribute to better foreign exchange availability.”
The report also indicated that Nigeria would be under-performing the sub-Sahara Africa group of economies which the World Bank projected would rise to 3.4 percent in 2018, up from 2.8 percent actual recorded in 2017, and improve slightly thereafter through the medium term to about 4.0 percent.
Though the report did not state reasons for the Nigeria down-grade, it is likely tied to its earlier observations in previous reports that noted the adverse effects of political developments on the economies of sub-Sahara Africa.
It also corresponds to the position of the ERGP document which stated: “The slight dip in growth in 2019 is projected to result from the general election in that year with a quick recovery the following year.”
The current World Bank report has, however, aligned with inflationary trend in Nigeria while indicating that a possible policy adjustment by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, sometime down this year would sustain the inflation rate at double digit through 2018.
Inflation rate in Nigeria measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has been on steady downward trend in the past 15 consecutive months dropping to 13.34 per cent in March year-on-year, from 14.33 percent in February according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report for March 2018.
The latest World Bank report stated: “Inflation in sub-Sahara Africa is projected to moderate slightly in 2018 and 2019 but is expected to remain in double digits in key large economies, reflecting the pass-through effects of currency depreciation and their impact on inflation expectations (Angola), supply factors, and assumed monetary policy accommodation to support fiscal policy (Nigeria).”
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2018/04/world-bank-reviews-nigerias-economic-growth-downwards/ | 795 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.99999 |
Turkey’s Islamic-rooted government has authorised the building of the first church in the country in nearly a century, officials said Saturday.
The church is for the tiny Syriac community in Turkey and will be built in the Istanbul suburb of Yesilkoy on the shores of the Sea of Marmara, which already has Greek Orthodox, Armenian and Catholic churches.
The announcement came after Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met Turkey’s religious leaders in Istanbul on Friday and said no faith that has lived in the country could be regarded as foreign.
“It is the first (new church) since the creation of the republic (in 1923),” a government source told AFP.
“Churches have been restored and reopened to the public, but no new church has been built until now,” he added.
Turkey, which once had large Christian minorities, is now 99 percent Muslim and critics of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have accused it of trying to Islamicise its officially secular society.
However, as part of its bid to join the European Union, Ankara has made efforts to widen minority rights and return some seized property as well as restore churches, monasteries and synagogues.
Christians now make up less than 100,000 of Turkey’s population of 76 million and are sometimes the target of attacks.
But the prime minister insisted that the ruling AK Party “does not discriminate between our citizens… the principle of equal citizenship continues to be our characteristic trait,” he added.
He condemned recent attacks on mosques in Europe and urged the religious leaders he met with Friday to “speak up together against Islamophobia”.
The country’s ancient Syriac minority, which now numbers less than 20,000, live mostly in the southeast and tend to be either affiliated to the Orthodox or Catholic churches.
But their numbers have swollen in recent years by thousands of Syriac refugees first forced out of Iraq by war and sectarian violence and later by others fleeing the fighting in Syria.
During his visit to Turkey in November, Pope Francis denounced what he termed the current wave of “Christianophobia” in the Middle East, accusing Islamist radicals of “hunting” Christians.
The various Syriac churches are among the oldest surviving Christian denominations, and use Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ, in their services.
The new Istanbul church will be built on land given by the local council and paid for by a Syriac group, the government spokesman said.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/01/turkey-gives-go-ahead-first-new-church-century/ | 539 | Religion | 2 | en | 0.999958 |
Reading this on your mobile? Chances are that you'll soon be swapping your mini screen for an artificial electronic assistant, according to new research carried out by researchers working for Stockholm-based tech conglomerate Ericsson.
The company's ConsumerLab quizzed more than 100,000 customers in tech-savvy Sweden as well as 39 other countries about their opinions and technological desires for the future and says its research statistically represents the views of 1.1 billion people worldwide.
It found that half of smartphone users think that mobile technology will be a thing of the past within the next five years, as the growth of artificial intelligence starts enabling interaction with objects without the need for a phone or tablet.
"A smartphone in the hand, it's really not that practical. For example, not when one is driving a car or cooking. And there are many situations where display screens are not so good. Therefore, one on two think that smartphones will belong to the past within five years," said Rebecka Cedering Ångström from Ericsson ConsumerLab.
Swedes are among the world's most tech-savvy citizens. Photo: Helena Wahlman/Image Bank Sweden
According to Ångström, artificial assistants could instead help consumers to multitask, as well as working as teachers, financial advisors and even doctors.
"Things just go so fast now from the idea to the mass market. We have not studied the technology, this is just what consumers think," she added.
Meanwhile she predicts that evolving technologies could also allow customers to enhance their leisure time.
"Just imagine watching football and being able to choose from where you want to see the game from different places in the stands, or perhaps even from the pitch. Shopping is also an area where you could [virtually] try on shoes and see how they fit on your own feet," said Ångström.
The research also suggests that customers are becoming less likely to ditch companies if they are disappointed with the service they receive, and more likely to use social networks to seek change.
"Previously it has been the case that when consumers are not happy they vote with their feet. But now 32 percent think that the best way to get a company to transform itself is by posting on the company's social media channels," said Ångström.
In a separate statement, Michael Björn, Head of Research, Ericsson ConsumerLab, added: "Some of these trends may seem futuristic. But consumer interest in new interaction paradigms such as AI and virtual reality (VR), as well as in embedding the internet in the walls of homes or even in our bodies, is quite strong. This means we could soon see new consumer product categories appearing – and whole industries transforming – to accommodate this development."
Ericsson is a Swedish multinational company providing technology and communication services. It has its headquarters in Stockholm and employs more than 110,000 staff worldwide.
Ericsson's Stockholm office. Photo: Jessica Gow/TT
Here are the firm's 10 hot consumer trends for 2016 and beyond:
The Lifestyle Network Effect
Four out of five people now experience an effect where the benefits gained from online services increases as more people use them. Globally, one in three consumers already participates in various forms of the sharing economy.
Teenagers watch more YouTube video content daily than other age groups. Forty-six percent of 16-19 year-olds spend an hour or more on YouTube every day.
AI Ends The Screen Age
Artificial intelligence will enable interaction with objects without the need for a smartphone screen. One in two smartphone users think smartphones will be a thing of the past within the next five years.
Virtual Gets Real
Consumers want virtual technology for everyday activities such as watching sports and making video calls. Forty-four percent even want to print their own food.
Fifty-five percent of smartphone owners believe bricks used to build homes could include sensors that monitor mold, leakage and electricity issues within the next five years. As a result, the concept of smart homes may need to be rethought from the ground up.
Commuters want to use their time meaningfully and not feel like passive objects in transit. Eighty-six percent would use personalized commuting services if they were available.
Social networks may become the preferred way to contact emergency services. Six out of 10 consumers are also interested in a disaster information app.
Internal sensors that measure well-being in our bodies may become the new wearables. Eight out of 10 consumers would like to use technology to enhance sensory perceptions and cognitive abilities such as vision, memory and hearing.
Everything Gets Hacked
Most smartphone users believe hacking and viruses will continue to be an issue. As a positive side-effect, one in five say they have greater trust in an organization that was hacked but then solved the problem.
Consumers share more information than ever and believe it increases their influence on society. More than a third believe blowing the whistle on a corrupt company online has greater impact than going to the police.
Join the conversation in our comments section below. Share your own views and experience and if you have a question or suggestion for our journalists then email us at [email protected].
Please log in here to leave a comment. | http://www.thelocal.se/20151208/death-of-smartphone-tops-swedish-research | 1,076 | Phones | 2 | en | 0.999943 |
Dark web definition.
The dark web has become a place of mystery and a lot of horrible things are happening. However, the dark web is not far-fetched from accessing it with just a click of your fingertip. The dark web is the secret part of the internet not accessible by search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing, and other popular search engines, it, however, requires specialized browsers to access it, normal browsers such as chrome and firefox are unable to access the dark because every website on the internet that is known ends with a '.com','.net' and various other types of extensions. The dark web website ends with '.onion' domain name, this makes it impossible to be accessed on a normal browser or for a search engine to index websites on the dark web. That is the simple reason why the dark web is hidden. You've heard people saying the dark web provides anonymity for its users, as opposed to the open internet. Yes, it does, everyone on the dark web is an unknown person hiding behind a face mask. Researchers have found out that the dark web is full of 57% percent illegal content. If you are looking for information about the dark web, then this article is for you. Keep reading to find out what the internet hides from us,
What is the difference between the deep web and the dark web?
For you to completely understand the dark web you need to understand some technical definitions of terms, think of these terms as what will sail you through the Atlantic ocean for a better understanding of what the dark web is. The Internet is vast, with millions of web pages, and servers operating around the clock. However, the "visible" Internet can only be accessed using search engines such as Google, and others — is just a small fraction of the internet.
The Deep Web: The deep web is a layer of the internet accessible by everyone, but definitely through other tools such as the command line on the various operating systems and also specifically our browsers. The deep web could be considered the bottom of the ocean. when divers dive into the ocean they get to the bottom. The deep web in simple terms is the part of the internet not indexed by the search engine just like the dark web, however, the reason for it not being indexed is not because it could not be accessed by the browser as said earlier at the beginning of this article, but due to set of rules forbidden search engine from indexing it. Have you ever thought of how the cashiers in the bank work, or how the atm machine runs, that is the deep web? They involve internal services like the database admin login page( where the admin blocks users of social forums) and various other things the owner of a particular website might want to hide from you accessing. There are various tools for scrapping those deep web links, however, those are beyond the scope of this article. It would be an encouragement for you to subscribe to my authors' page and register on Vocal Media for me to create more deep knowledge articles on how to actually scrape the deep web. The deep web is not hidden like the dark web, they also include the internet of things, like you, when connecting your internal computer to your home router, the connection is kept between your computer and the router, the router is the only part exposed to the internet. That secret connection between your router, and your computer is the deep web.
The Dark Web: Unlike the deep web which is included in our day-to-day life the dark web is a segregated piece of the internet, not compared to the button ocean analogy but compared to something like outer space just like does famous Elon Musk StarShips. The dark web is a layer of interconnected IP addresses that is not accessible to the internet, here rules are not being made to keep admin pages secret, but they are literally not just accessible to us on the internet. It is however worthy to note that the dark web is also part of the deep web, it is like the core of the earth being exposed to space. If this look daunting a bit don't be scared about the explanation just keep reading on, you would understand at the end. Unlike the deep web which means anything behind a paywall, the dark web is a standalone internet created by open source foundations. Here are the basic rules of the dark web:
1. No web browser such as Google Chrome can access it. except specialized dark web browsers made to access the dark web networks.
2.“Internet proxy traffic” via a random methodology of routing traffic.
3. Not accessible to browsers due to the encryption of its network node. A simple access to the dark web website would return an error on a normal browser.
This has cleared the difference on both webs. You probably want to check my video on the do's and don't of the dark web, right before you proceed way up above.
The surface is the internet accessible to me and you. Our daily lives revolve around it. It is also popularly known as the internet. This is the part of the internet that is indexed by big giant search engines and is also about 5% of the total internet. An example is our popular social media sites, Facebook.com, and various others. It is also worthy to note that the domain name of these our so-called-day-to-day internet always ends with ".com"
How does the dark web work Using Tor as the dark web browser?
Tor is an anonymizing program that may be accessed using our conventional internet, known as the surface web. It is a tool used to access the dark web that may be downloaded from our regular internet. Tor is like an onion if you've ever seen one. It is like an onion that surrounds the sender's message with encryption. Internet entries or messages are not routed directly through the Tor network. They are instead routed through "nodes," which are various computers set up by Tor users. There is a series connection at each node, where each node knows the address of the previous and next node but not the other nodes on the network. This is the ideal method to hide one's identity.
Why do people use the dark web and how to access it.
The dark web is a layer of the internet that requires some special skills to access. Firstly you need to keep yourself safe, by blocking out the camera on the computer system, so as not to get hackers from being creepy. Also, you need to connect to a VPN. The dark web uses a .onion domain name. For example "facebookwkhpilnemxj7asaniu7vnjjbiltxjqhye3mhbshg7kx5tfyd.onion " is the Facebook dark web version instead of "facebook.com". If you try to access the onion domain on your browser you would be faced with a glaring error, that you cannot access Facebook over the dark web using your normal browser. Try it, by inputting the dot onion domain name into your browser.
However, you would need a browser called Tor for either your mobile device or your computer from https://www.torproject.org/download. Then you would need to access WikiLeaks (https://thehiddenwiki.org) to find a list of onion websites for different purposes. Do not go to illegal websites on the dark web as you may be arrested. You can search on 'the hidden wiki' on Google and then access the website. It shows you a list of services available on the dark web. However, that is not all of the dark webs. You or your friend may set up a charity or a good course website over the dark web only accessible by you both and hidden on the dark web.
You can also check an interesting video I made on youtube on how to access the dark web here:
The legality of the dark web / endquote
The reputation of the dark web has often been linked with the so-called "illegal trading" However, the dark web has also been used for the good course too for allowing journalists to share information without getting scared, and leaked secret papers for public safety. Even the first computer in the world does come with a disadvantage more or less of recent internet nowadays. You should however protect the computer from malware and spyware, they are personal to you, and you do not want your information littered over the internet. Hosting is done on the dark web just like any normal internet but only with specialized settings, you can however build your own simple website over the dark web. Keep Safe folks. You've made it to the end. Hurray. Kindly check on my next article
About the Creator
I am a Web Developer and a UX designer, a Content Writer and Social Media Manager, and a bug bounty hunter.
You can also find me on Medium for more mind blowing stories,
Click here: https://medium.com/@eyiteminurain
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Be the first to respond and start the conversation. | https://vocal.media/01/the-dark-web-what-is-it-and-easy-way-to-access-it | 1,846 | Programming | 3 | en | 0.999996 |
By Perez Brisibe
KOKORI—SUCH were the authority and fame of the late Ubiecha Etarakpo, the founder of the historic African religion, Igbe, that the reigning Oba of Benin at the time had to travel incognito as a leper to Kokori, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Delta State, to validate his power.
Etarakpo, who died in 1926, reportedly cured people of madness and healed men of various diseases even on his sick bed. He detected the undercover Benin monarch as he came in while an Igbe service was on and stood on his altar-like seat in acknowledgment.
Worshipers in mortal realm could not fathom the forces at play, but Etarakpo ushered the “strange visitor” to his seat. Marvelling at his act, his members wondered if a tormenting spirit had possessed the sect’s founder, but after the Oba departed, Etarakpo told his bewildered congregation that the person, who just left was no less a person than the Benin monarch.
“Three weeks after, the Oba visited Kokori again, this time, he came in his full regalia as an Oba and presented gifts and honoured Etarakpo for his spiritual prowess,” an unabashed Igbe worshiper told Niger Delta Voice at Kokori.
His words: “That was when people feared and respected the Igbe religion founded in the 19th century. More so, there was no division in the worship rites, as approved by the founder, Etarakpo, an indigene of Kokori.”
Etarakpo allegedly received the call of “God” in 1893 and sat on the throne in 1920 with a female called Oniruesi, also known as Erukainure. According to myth, he went to the farm and fell into a trance after he ate a native chalk given to him during an encounter with a divine spirit. When he woke up from his trance, he became unconventional and acted strangely.
Back at the community, a woman known as Oniruesi noticed something mysteriously divine about him, unlike others, who thought he had gone round the bend. Though he later got married to her, he resided in her apartment and continued dancing each passing day, eating nothing but Orhen (native chalk), healing people miraculously by praying for them and giving them the same native chalk to consume.
A school of thought said Etarakpo, purportedly mentally imbalanced, was roaming the streets of Kokori when he got a divine call, knelt down along the road, closed his hand and eyes in prayer, went into a trance and when he woke up, he saw a native chalk in his hand.
As he marveled at how it came about, a divine spirit ministered to him on the efficacy and how to go about using the native chalk to heal people. This manifestation reportedly led to the beginning of Igbe. “Armed with the power of clairvoyance, Ubiecha’s deeds quickly spread far and wide with persons trooping to Kokori to consult him on their medical and spiritual problems,” the chief priest of Igbe, Chief Oberiko Omonemu, told Niger Delta Voice.
Because of the increase of Etarakpo’s followers, who were trooping to Kokori for consultation and healing, he later built a worship house known as Ogwa, where he ministered to his devotees and made prophesies with stunning accuracy.
However, following his death in 1926, Igbe, described as Africa’s first monotheistic religion by the Urhobo Historic Society, UHS, had since split into over 50 denominations with some worshipping animals, mermaids and other divinities. The leadership crisis over who would step into his shoes started with three of his children: Igbe-Ibodje, Igbe-Akpokovo and Igbe-Emegalise.
Welcoming Niger Delta Voice into his barely lit apartment at Kokori, Mr. Micheal Ejemedefe, who described himself as the life-bearer and final authority of Igbe, being the last link and descendant of the founder of Igbe, whose mother is the eldest daughter of Etarakpo’s second son, Akpokovo, took our team down memory lane on the intricacies that befell the religion.
Worship of animals
According to him, following the demise of Etarakpo and the birth of the three circuits of Igbe, various offshoots like Igbe-Ubiecha, Igbe-Oghene-Uku, Igbe-Agege and Osanuge-Igbe emerged.
He said the offsprings gave birth to the proliferation of Igbe with most of them involved in the culture of mermaids and other divinities, while others even indulge in the worship of animals, which they describe as the custodian of the spirit of “God.”
We believe in Jesus
Ejemedefe bellowed the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth while making a point prompting the reporter to ask what darkness has to do with light. He explained: “The main Igbe worshipers believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God and also believe in his Father as the Almighty God.
“Though Jews call him Yahweh, Islam call him Allah and Christians call him Jehovah, we (Igbe) call him Owheya. “We are also conscious of the fact that religion is not defined as belief in God but the kind of life you live while on earth, hence giving room for our belief in reincarnation and a life of purity while on earth.
“Just like the liturgy of the Catholic Church, Igbe also has its liturgy, which involves Eucharistic rites and confessions before an Uku (Priest),” 58-year-old Ejemedefe, said to have amassed several degrees in London, asserted.
Clay as prescribed
A scholar in Urhobo culture, Mathias Orhero, who confirmed that Etarakpo’s sudden death in his prime, caused a big challenge to the group, shed light on the Igbe religion. He said as evident in the creation of man by God, Igbe adherents believe strongly in the efficacy of native chalk gotten from the earth’s crust.
He said: “Do not forget that according to the Bible, Jesus Christ performed series of miracles using clay and even asked some persons to go dip themselves inside a particular river seven times.
“With devotees spread across Africa, Europe, North and South America and other parts of the world, the once unified Igbe, as founded by Etarakpo, now has over 50 sects with some of these sub-divisions no longer toeing the line of their founder having introduced the worship of mermaids, divinities and animals in the worship of God.”
The chief priest (Igbe Uku), Chief Omonemu, who believes in the worship of mermaids, said mermaid worship and belief in divinities do not affect his belief in Jesus Christ as the Messenger and Son of God. According to him, “Jesus Christ was sent to the earth by God for a purpose and He had since completed the task. But do not forget that there are other spiritual messengers of God.
“One of such is what you refer to as mermaid, but we call them divinities and we commune with God through and with these divinities.”
“On the contrary, where we differ with those you refer to as Christians is that while they await the second coming of Christ, they failed to realize that He had since come and gone when He presented Himself to Etarakpo, an apparition that gave birth to Igbe,” he said.
Praise and worship session
Speaking on the spiritual implication of being an Igbe devotee, both Orhero and Omonemu said, “Igbe is a religion of purity and spiritual cleanliness. It believes that your stay here on earth is a reflection of your past life and your present life would determine your future life here on earth hence Igbe believe in reincarnation.”
Igbe operates an unwritten liturgy. The Uku (chief priest) initiates and oversees the liturgy of the Oghwa (shrine of divinity) and administers the Orhen on worshipers for their protection and fortification as well as presiding on all rituals performed in the Oghwa.
In the traditional African society, virtually everybody believes that witches are extremely powerful and possess the powers to maim and kill people. The Igbe worshiper sees the religion as a counter force against the power of withes and that is where the protection presumably offered by the sect gained acceptance.
This reporter attended an Igbe worship session at an Uku in Agbarha-Otor, Ughelli, to comprehend the liturgy better. Akin to the Christian worship in churches, the Igbe liturgy is dramatic. Reminiscent of majority of Christians, who worship on Sundays, the holy (sacred) day of worship for Igbe is once every eight days, known as Edi-Igbe or Edi-Iruo, meaning day of dance or day of work.
Like a practiced session, it was observed that all members of the Ogwa seems to adhere to an unwritten program of event, which is reflected in the way and manner they kneel during worship, enter into the Ogwa through a particular entrance and exit via a different direction and same applies to how you kneel.
The service includes dancing, praying, spiritual cleansing, confessions, intake of new members and other social/ritualistic functions.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/10/igbe-religion-torn-apart-by-worship-of-mermaids-animals-conflicting-doctrines/ | 2,069 | Religion | 2 | en | 0.999905 |
A prominent member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP has described ‘October 1st’ under President Muhammadu Buhari’s led government as the worst ever in the history of independence day celebrations in the country.
Adeyanju’s statement reads: The is typically a day of celebration for Nigeria and Nigerians. It signifies the day Nigeria achieved independence from colonial rule and began the journey towards nationhood.
In the past, October 1st was a day celebrated with pomp and pageantry as Nigerians savoured the taste of liberty. In the past, October 1st was a day Nigerians put aside whatever challenges faced us as a nation and, together, shared the very essence of being Nigerian.
However, October 1st 2016 is not a day of celebration. It is not a day of pomp nor is it a day to bask in the euphoria of a fulfilled nation. It is a day to spend in deep reflection about the worrying socio-political and economic state of our nation.
At the inception of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration on May 29th, 2016 many expected that he would move quickly to heal a nation sharply divided by the election season, and take urgent steps to maintain the Nigerian economy on a path of economic growth.
Indeed, the statement in his inaugural speech about belonging to everybody and belonging to nobody gave credence to this hope.
Alas, President Buhari has furthered those divides by his words and conduct. It is common knowledge that Nigeria is at its most fractured state, along ethnic and religious lines, perhaps since the Civil War. President Buhari has by his words, actions and inactions constantly stoked the fires of sectarian tensions creating an atmosphere of distrust and strife.
This administration has failed Nigerians on so many other fronts in 2016 such that millions of Nigerians simply do not feel Independence Day is worth celebrating.
For instance, its human rights record is appalling. Despite an international outcry, the government has failed to prosecute a single person for the mass murder of over 1,000 Shiite Muslims by the military in December 2015.
Their leader has been detained since December 2015 along with his wife without charge despite both of them suffering severe injuries during the attack.
The military has gone on to summarily execute 100s of members of IPOB without recourse to the rule of law. Opponents of the ruling party, including journalists and online bloggers/social commentators, have been arrested and detained for varying periods without charge or in violation of valid court orders.
The greatest freedoms we achieved as a nation by being free is the freedom of association, worship, speech and even freedom after speech which had become more visible from 1999-2016 under the PDP years are freedoms that is now threatened by the tyrannic nature of this regime. At 56, Nigerians now live in fear of expression.
On the economic front, the incoherent policies of the Buhari administration have led us into the worst economic crises in 29 years. Consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth confirm that the country is officially in a recession yet no one can point to a coherent, cogent plan to overcome this situation.
An unprecedented 4.58million people have lost their jobs since the inception of this administration, the prices of food have risen astronomically to the point where people can no longer afford food and resort to stealing pots of food from the fire, inflation has hit 17.5% which has in the process caused prices of other goods & services to go through the roof and so on.
The absolutely shambolic monetary policies of this administration have ensured that the Naira is thus far the worst performing currency globally after the Vietnamese Bolivar and the Suriname Dollar.
As the time of writing this, the exchange rate is $1 – N490, £1 – N600 and €1 – N520.
While we can appreciate sustained progress in the fight against boko haram, that war is not yet over. Only 3 days ago, BBC reported the capture of several towns by the terrorist group and the hoisting of their flags in those areas.
In the North Central region of Nigeria, and parts of Kaduna, the menace of herdsmen has gone on unchecked. It is on record that herdsmen have killed more than 1000 people in 2016 alone, making them the fourth most deadly terrorist group in the world. This administration has barely even acknowledged this ongoing genocide against the peoples of North Central Nigeria.
Kidnappings have become brazen and frequent, cultism is rising unchecked in parts of the country and so on. At the time of writing this, reports had just broken out about the kidnap of the wife of the CBN governor.
All these indices, paint a picture of the grim reality into which the Buhari administration has forced on Nigeria. These facts paint a picture of the reasons why Nigerians find it difficult to celebrate on Independence Day.
Perhaps most painful part of the current socio-political and economic reality that has Nigeria suffers on her 56 birthday is that in the midst of all this – 17% inflation, -2% GDP growth, more than 4millions jobs lost; President Buhari yesterday launched his own photo-book at the State House, Aso Rock.
One is hard pressed to escape the conclusion that President Buhari is more concerned about his image than the severe havoc his policies are wrecking on the nation.
Another thing that threatens our progress as a nation is the reversing of all electoral gains we have made from 1999-2015. Elections are now either inconclusive or outrightly rigged as it was in the case of #EdoDecides where fake results was announced by INEC and the APC candidate Godwin Obaseki declared as winner.
But in all this, we must celebrate the indomitable Nigerian spirit. We must celebrate our ability to preserve in spite of damning odds. We must celebrate our ability to thrive in spite of the government’s determination to be a stumbling block in our path. We must celebrate because as Nigerians, we share a collective ability to bend but not break in the face of horrible circumstances.
So even while we take time to reflect on the horrible circumstances in which we are being forced to live, we must take time to celebrate the knowledge that because we are Nigerians – WE SHALL OVERCOME.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/10/oct-1st-2016-worst-independence-day-since-1960-adeyanju/ | 1,313 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.99999 |
Pope Francis has outlawed the sale of cigarettes at the Vatican in a bid to lead by example on healthy living.
“The Holy Father has decided that the Vatican will cease to sell cigarettes to employees as of 2018,” the Vatican said in a statement on Thursday.
“The reason is very simple: the Holy See cannot contribute to an activity that clearly damages the health of people,” it said, adding that smoking claims more than seven million lives every year, according to the World Health Organization.
“Although the cigarettes sold to employees and pensioners in the Vatican at a reduced price are a source of revenue for the Holy See, no profit can be legitimate if it puts lives at risk,” it added.
Francis, who has only one lung, does not smoke. He has let the locals keep their other guilty pleasure, tax-free alcohol.
The cigarettes and booze are sold in a luxury duty-free shop, opened in 2003 in what was once the Vatican’s magnificent railway station but is now home to everything from designer handbags and shoes to flat-screen televisions.
Only those with a pass — Vatican employees or pensioners — can shop there, and many pick up goods, food and even fuel inside the city for Italian friends on the other side of the tiny state’s imposing walls.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/11/breaking-pope-bans-cigarettes-sales-vatican/ | 293 | Religion | 2 | en | 0.999992 |
BODO, Nigeria Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land. The Niger Delta, where the wealth underground is out of all proportion with the poverty on the surface, has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates. The oil pours out nearly every week, and some swamps are long since lifeless.
Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, experts say, leaving residents here astonished at the nonstop attention paid to the gusher half a world away in the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a few weeks ago, they say, that a burst pipe belonging to Royal Dutch Shell in the mangroves was finally shut after flowing for two months: now nothing living moves in a black-and-brown world once teeming with shrimp and crab.
Not far away, there is still black crude on Gio Creek from an April spill, and just across the state line in Akwa Ibom the fishermen curse their oil-blackened nets, doubly useless in a barren sea buffeted by a spill from an offshore Exxon Mobil pipe in May that lasted for weeks.
The oil spews from rusted and aging pipes, unchecked by what analysts say is ineffectual or collusive regulation, and abetted by deficient maintenance and sabotage. In the face of this black tide is an infrequent protest soldiers guarding an Exxon Mobil site beat women who were demonstrating last month, according to witnesses but mostly resentful resignation.
Small children swim in the polluted estuary here, fishermen take their skiffs out ever farther “There’s nothing we can catch here,” said Pius Doron, perched anxiously over his boat and market women trudge through oily streams. “There is Shell oil on my body,” said Hannah Baage, emerging from Gio Creek with a machete to cut the cassava stalks balanced on her head. | http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/17/world/africa/17nigeria.html?hp | 399 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999985 |
Seven ‘moments’ Nigerian women hit the ‘front-line’
By Alao Abiodun
At different points in Nigeria’s rich history, women have taken so many important positions in yearning for change.
It should come as no surprise that Nigerian women are sometimes on the front lines of political change. In many ways, history has always repeated itself.
Nigerian women have a long history of mobilising for protests and demonstrations, they have been frontliners, driving change where needed.
Sometimes, Nigerian women have historically employed ‘naked protests’ to seek change.
On July 23, 2020, hundreds of women – mostly naked – staged a protest in the northwestern state of Kaduna, Nigeria. They protested at the killing of people in their community.
From the Women’s war protest of the 1910s to the Calabar Women Protest of 1924, the Aba Women’s Riot of 1929, the Abeokuta Women’s Revolt of the 1940s, the “Bring Back our Girls” movement of 2014, and the March against Rape of June 2020, #EndSARS movement, in many ways, women have determined the shape of how Nigerians protest.
In celebration of International Women’s Day 2021 themed as ‘Choose to Challenge’, here are seven moments in the history of Nigeria where Nigerian women were at the front-line.
1. Women’s war protest of the 1910s
In the 1910s, women in Agbaja stayed away from their homes for a month in protest due to suspicions among them that some men had been secretly killing pregnant women.
Their collective absence pushed village elders to take action to address their concerns.
2. Aba Women’s Riots of 1929
This was a period of unrest in colonial Nigeria.
The “riots” or the war was led by women in the provinces of Calabar and Owerri in southeastern Nigeria in November and December of 1929.
The protests broke out when thousands of Igbo women from the Bende District, Umuahia and other places in eastern Nigeria traveled to the town of Oloko to protest against the Warrant Chiefs, whom they accused of restricting the role of women in the government.
The Aba Women’s Riots of 1929, as it was named in British records, is more aptly considered a strategically executed revolt organised by women to redress social, political and economic grievances.
The protest encompassed women from six ethnic groups – Ibibio, Andoni, Orgoni, Bonny, Opobo, and Igbo.
It was reported that the war resulted in the death of 51 women.
3. Calabar women protest of 1924
3,000 women in Calabar went out to protest a market toll that was required by the government.
When the Colonial officials announced the toll, the women disregarded it and went about their usual market activities but alas they were driven away by colonial police. This however led to a massive revolt by the women
Back then, the presence of women associations and market women networks helped the protest movement.
4. Abeokuta women’s revolt of the 1940s
These women spent several years protesting the tax increase and the lack of women representation in government.
They believed that until they were granted representation in local government, they shouldn’t pay taxes differently from men.
This revolt led to the creation of Abeokuta Women’s Union (AWU) under the leadership of Fumilayo Ransome-Kuti.
This political organisaton, united market women and middle-class women and also challenged the colonial rule and patriarchal structure.
5. Bring Back Our Girls movement of 2014
After over 200 girls were abducted from the school in Borno by Boko Haram insurgents, all eyes were on the Nigerian government to act swiftly.
When the response of the government was not yielding positive results, women mobilised in Kaduna, Abuja, Lagos and across the country to protest for the rescue of these girls.
The #BringBackOurGIrls and #SaveOurGirls went viral and piqued the interest of the international community.
Women from all over the world joined the protest and over a million people signed the petition to mobilise world leaders to help rescue the girls.
6. Protest against rape and sexual violence in June 2020
In June 2020, Nigerian women took to the streets after a series of high-profile rape cases caught the interest of the people.
Following the story of 22-year-old Uwa Vera who was raped and murdered in a Church, more stories of women getting raped and killed surfaced online and this led to a protest organised by women.
Women mobilised and held a protest in Abuja and Lagos.
The hashtag #NOmeansNo trended online as more victims of rape shared their story. There was a movement to stop victim-blaming and to discourage people from enabling rape with their silence.
7. #EndSARS movement – Feminist Coalition
At the forefront of the revolutionary youth-led movement against police brutality in Nigeria is the Feminist Coalition – a group of young Nigerian feminists collectively mobilizing all facets of the global #EndSARS protests.
During the protests the non-governmental organisation raised $385,000 (£290,000) through crowdfunding and spent part of the money on legal services for those protesters who were arrested, to pay medical bills for those wounded, to provide private security at protest points and daily refreshments.
The coalition is the brainchild of Dami Odufuwa and Odun Eweniyi.
Formed in July, the #EndSars protest was the organisation’s first major project.
Although women’s safety and financial equality are at the core of the organisation’s aims, equality for all people is their vision, and so they decided to fight the injustice perpetuated by the squad by joining in the protests.
These women, named and unnamed, are the backbone of a series of resistance. By marching, volunteering, mobilizing, tweeting, speaking, donating, and flagrantly trampling on sexist, they are, without a doubt, the amplifiers of this historical Nigerian revolution. | https://thenationonlineng.net/seven-moments-nigerian-women-hit-the-front-line/ | 1,300 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999804 |
Other forms: terrorists
Someone who uses violence, mayhem, and destruction — or the threat of those things — to coerce people or countries into taking a certain action is a terrorist. A terrorist may be motivated by religious fervor, politics, or just plain old-fashioned greed.
Terrorist has at its root the word "terror," which comes from the Latin word terrorem, meaning great fear. Great fear is exactly what terrorists hope to create so they can manipulate the situation to their benefit. The label terrorist is a subjective one. To the British, the American colonists who destroyed shiploads of tea in Boston Harbor in 1773 were terrorists. To colonists, they were patriots and heroes. | https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/terrorist | 144 | Politics | 3 | en | 0.999878 |
WHO welcomes malaria vaccine for children in sub-Saharan Africa
The World Health Organisation (WHO) says 29 million to 44 million Africans may get infected with COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic if containment measures fail, according to a study.
The WHO Regional Office for Africa in Brazzaville, Congo, disclosed this in a statement posted on its website.
The UN health agency also said the study revealed that 83,000 to 190,000 people in Africa could die of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic.
“The research, which is based on prediction modelling, looks at 47 countries in the WHO African Region with a total population of one billion.
“The new estimates are based on modifying the risk of transmission and disease severity by variables specific to each country in order to adjust for the unique nature of the region.
“The model predicts the observed slower rate of transmission, lower age of people with severe disease and lower mortality rates compared to what is seen in most affected countries in the rest of the world.
“This is largely driven by social and environmental factors slowing the transmission, and a younger population that has benefitted from the control of communicable diseases such as HIV and tuberculosis to reduce possible vulnerabilities,’’ it said.
The lower rate of transmission, however, suggested a more prolonged outbreak over a few years, according to the study.
It also revealed that smaller African countries alongside Algeria, South Africa and Cameroon were at a high risk if containment measures were not prioritised.
“Containment measures, which include contact tracing, isolation, improved personal hygiene practices and physical distancing aim to slow down the transmission of the virus so its effects happen at a rate manageable by the health system.
“Physical distancing is not about the confinement of people but rather avoiding unnecessary contacts as people live, work and socialise as a means to interrupt transmission,’ it said.
The statement quoted Dr Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO Regional Director for Africa, as saying:“ While COVID-19 likely won’t spread as exponentially in Africa as it has elsewhere in the world, it likely will smoulder in transmission hotspots.
“COVID-19 can become a fixture in our lives for the next several years unless a proactive approach is taken by many governments in the region. We need to test, trace, isolate and treat,” it further stated.
It further said that the predicted number of cases that would require hospitalisation would overwhelm the available medical capacity in much of Africa.
“There will be an estimated 3.6 million–5.5 million COVID-19 hospitalisations, of which 82,000 – 167, 000 will be severe cases requiring oxygen, and 52, 000 –107, 000 will be critical cases requiring breathing support.
“Such a huge number of patients in hospitals will severely strain the health capacities of countries,’’ it stated.
It said a survey of health services in the African region undertaken in March 2020 based on self-reports by 47 countries to WHO, revealed that there were on average, nine intensive care unit beds per one million people.
“These will be woefully inadequate. Additionally, the physical access to these services to the general population is very low, suggesting many people will not even have the chance to get to the needed care.
“Diseases that can be managed can easily become more complicated as a result.
“The study recommends that countries across Africa need to expand the capacity, particularly of primary hospitals and ensure that basic emergency care is included in primary health systems,” it said.
The statement further quoted Moeti as saying, “The importance of promoting effective containment measures is ever more crucial, as sustained and widespread transmission of the virus can severely overwhelm our health systems.
“Curbing a large scale outbreak is far costlier than the ongoing preventive measures governments are undertaking to contain the spread of the virus,” it said.
All countries in the WHO African Region were using these results through the WHO country offices to inform their containment actions.
The detailed methods and results were currently in press at the British Medical Journal-Global Health after extensive peer review and validation.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/05/covid-19-may-infect-44m-africans-who/ | 898 | Health | 3 | en | 0.999996 |
Several parts of the country, including the capital Stockholm, have not seen a single hour of sunlight in December according to official measurements.
As well as Stockholm, the instruments in Karlstad, the Tarfala Valley in Kiruna and the northern cape of Öland failed to measure any sunlight this month, meteorologist Ulrika Elvgren said on Twitter.
Typically, December in Sweden replaces the grey, cloudy weather of November with crisp coolness and clearer skies. But in many places that hasn't happened this year.
According to Aftonbladet, the last time sunlight was measured in Stockholm was November 28th, almost two weeks ago, while in Karlstad it was November 27th.
And these two cities are in the southern half of Sweden.
In the north, it will soon be polar night – the time of the year when the sun does not rise at all.
Kiruna, the northernmost city, doesn't see sunrise between December 10th and New Year's Day. And at the northernmost point in the country, Treriksröset, the sun has already set for the last time this year, back in November, while the furthest inhabited village, Keinovuopio, ushered in the polar night on December 2nd.
It's not unprecedented for cities further south to experience the entire month of December with no hours of sunlight at all. This happened in Stockholm in 1934, but the good news is that would be very unusual.
dark – mörk
cloudy – molnig
to measure – att mäta
polar night – (en) polarnatt
sunlight – (ett) solljus
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Please log in here to leave a comment. | https://www.thelocal.se/20201209/stockholm-and-karlstad-havent-had-a-single-hour-of-sunlight-all-month/?ampHmmm | 392 | Travel | 3 | en | 0.999764 |
A man died after ignoring advice given to people with new tattoos to wait two weeks before going swimming. tattoos
The unnamed 31-year-old suffered septic shock and cellulitis – an infection of the deeper layers of skin and the underlying tissue – after swimming in the sea in the Gulf of Mexico.
Expert advice normally given to people with new inkings says they should wait at least a fortnight before submerging them in pools or seawater.
But the man reportedly swam in the sea just five days after getting a cross tattooed on his right calf, resulting in infection and septic shock which led to his death.
His fresh wound became infected with flesh-eating bacteria and he developed a fever and serious rash surrounding his tattoo, the Daily Mail reports.
When his condition deteriorated two days later, he was sent to hospital where doctors saw patches on his leg had turned a bruised purple colour.
Medics immediately suspected the Vibrio vulnificus infection – which he was at a higher risk of due to suffering from a chronic liver disease.
His drinking habits are believed to have weakened his liver, causing him to be more vulnerable to infections due to a decreased number of white blood cells that help fight bugs.
Reports say the man’s organs began to fail within 24 hours and he was placed on a life support machine.
He then remained stable for a couple of weeks before suffering septic shock, and his kidneys failed completely.
Sadly the man died two months after his admission into hospital.
The BMJ report which documented the tragic case said: “Despite aggressive initial treatment, the patient developed septic shock and died.
“This case highlights the association of chronic liver disease and high mortality associated with infections of V. vulnificus .
“Health providers should remain vigilant for V. vulnificus infections in patients with chronic liver disease and raw oyster ingestion or seawater exposure.”
According to the NHS, Septic shock is a life-threatening condition that happens when blood pressure drops to a dangerously low level after an infection.
This reduces the amount of blood and oxygen that reaches the body’s organs, stopping them working properly.
Septic shock can occur as a complication of sepsis , a serious condition that happens when the body’s reaction to an infection damages its own tissues and organs.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/man-dies-ignoring-new-tattoos-warnings/ | 504 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999977 |
By Elizabeth Uwandu
A Nigerian, Job Oyebisi virtual 3D lab for science learning has won the British Council first global “IdeasChangeLives innovation challenge. The competition sought for hyper-innovative ideas that can help find a solution to one of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
“IdeasChangeLives,” a part of a series of initiatives led by the British Council was a competition that ran from 15 October to 23 November 2018. It invited solutions for six of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 4 – Quality education; SDG 5 – Gender equality; Decent work and economic growth; Reduced inequalities; Sustainable cities and communities and Peace, justice and strong institutions.
The competition will see also see two winners get support to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). If the MVP is successful the British Council will work with the winner to seek partnerships to help scale the MVP across its network in more than 100 countries.
It was, therefore, a thing of pride that three Africans proposals came tops from entries from over 2000 people and organisations.
Oyebisi alongside Malawi’s mHub, each is set to receive NGN 9,412,100.00 (20,000 GBP) and mentoring to take their products to live. While a proposal from Ghana, DigiCop, highly commended, will receive LOCAL NGN 4,706,550.00 (10,000 GBP) to develop a business plan to use AI technology to improve access to police assistance for Ghana’s 19 million mobile phone users. Ghana’s police to citizen ratio is 1:848 compared to the UN’s recommendation of 1:500.
For Oyebisi StanLab in Nigeria, an innovation that use 3D technology hope to address poor performance in STEM subjects across Nigeria and the rest of Africa through. The innovation allows students to do experiments in a 3D virtual laboratory that teaches practical science through a computer or mobile device. This addresses the low quality of hands-on science education and facilities at many schools across Nigeria and aims to improve results and career prospects. The goal is to reach more than half of Nigeria’s 12 million students, contributing towards SDG 4: Quality Education;
While Malawi’s MHub application seek to report for sexual assault, reproductive health rights, early marriage, and human trafficking, adding to its function as Malawi’s first community-based human rights platform.
Sir Ciarán Devane, Chief Executive, British Council in his congratulatory message said, “Technology, and the rapid increase in connected devices worldwide, offers new opportunities to tackle world problems. This competition has highlighted both the resourcefulness of digitally-capable people around the globe and their desire to solve the issues in their regions. The British Council is proud to enable the development of these winning ideas, and their potential to improve lives.”
on his part, Vikas Shah, Judge, and Chief Executive, Swiscot Group said added that “Science education is essential but often costly. StanLab bring a unique, powerfully intuitive and highly engaging deployment of VR, allowing those in even the most remote and underfunded to get the benefits of high-class science education.”
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2019/02/nigerian-wins-british-council-first-global-innovation-challenge/ | 692 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999762 |
LAGOS, Nigeria — The collapsed price of oil is putting pressure on oil exporters around the world, from Canada to Kuwait. But perhaps no country is less prepared to survive prices at about $30 a barrel than Nigeria, which until a few years ago relied heavily on petroleum exports for its revenue. While countries like Saudi Arabia and Russia have saved past oil profits for rainy days, Nigeria has no such insulation. What’s worse is that Nigeria is especially dependent on imports of basic goods.
The cracks are starting to show: While the official rate doesn’t reflect it, Nigeria’s currency, the naira, is the world’s worst performing this year.
The economic troubles could hardly have come at a worse time. Last year, Nigerians elected Muhammadu Buhari as president after he ran on a zealous anti-corruption platform. Unfortunately, Mr. Buhari’s insistence on maintaining the peg at the current official exchange rate is not only crippling production, it is also encouraging corruption. He should abandon it as soon as possible and allow the naira to devalue.
Nigeria has pegged the naira to the dollar for decades, adjusting the exchange rate according to international supply and demand. But even as Nigeria’s economy has faltered, since last spring the peg has remained fixed at around 198.5 naira to the dollar. This rate is being maintained at the president’s insistence, undermining any notion of central bank independence.
To keep the rate fixed, the central bank has to preserve its foreign currency reserves, a difficult task as oil export revenue has fallen. How does it do that? By making it more difficult for Nigerians to obtain hard currency at the official rate. Primarily, the central bank has restricted access to foreign currency to importers who can demonstrate that the goods they’re bringing into Nigeria are necessary.
But Nigerians are innovative. A large parallel currency exchange has taken shape, in which importers trade naira for dollars at up to twice the official rate. The trade is too blatant to be called a black market. Last month, for example, I saw several currency exchange businesses at the Lagos airport that offered 380 naira to the dollar. Nigerian newspapers even include reports of the unofficial exchange rate. | http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/12/opinion/how-to-save-nigerias-economy-and-stop-corruption.html?_r=0&referer= | 476 | Business | 2 | en | 0.999753 |
By Rotimi Akinyemi
The holiday season is upon us and as always, we all are scrambling to get the best deals online and in stores. However, a few wrong clicks this season could land cybercriminals topping your list of people who will be receiving presents this year.
This year has witnessed lots of significant breaches ranging from a $40m cyber-heist by a Nigerian bank IT worker to the huge data leakage at Sony, just about a week ago.
Information Security expert, Rotimi Akinyele of PhynxLabs said online users can easily put themselves and their devices at risk, unless they take precautions and avoid the common mistakes highlighted below that could compromise their security.
Beware of the Bank Verification Number (BVN) Scam
The ongoing Bank Verification Number (BVN) introduced by the CBN as a means of uniquely identifying bank customers across the Nigerian Banking industry has provided a fertile ground for cyber criminals to defraud unsuspecting bank customers.
Scam emails purportedly sent from Banks/CBN are in circulation urging bank customers to visit a website to activate their BVN online as failure to do so would result in their account(s) and debit cards being deactivated.
Please note that BVN registration can only be done physically at a bank’s branch. There is no technology now to replace the physical capture of your biometric data which the BVN seeks to achieve.
Do NOT access your accounts from Public WIFi
Just because a WiFi is free doesn’t mean you should connect to it any time it’s available. When you’re banking or making other online payments, it’s better to connect with EDGE or 3G, even if it’s slower. It might only be 45seconds of doing an online bank transaction, but if the wireless network has been compromised, that is more than enough time needed for a cyber-criminal to collect your data.
Use a secure password
It’s crucial to always use strong passwords as passwords are the first line of defense against cyber crooks. Try not to use names of your family, pets, first car, mother’s maiden name, etc. as all these can be easily guessed, brute forced or even available on social media sites like facebook, twitter or instagram. Make sure to use a mixture of characters, numbers, and letters of at least 8 characters when choosing your password; as only this will add a high level of difficulty for any attempted password theft.
Also, do not reuse your passwords as a compromise on one would translate to a compromise on all.
Stay safe on social networking sites
Social media sites are increasingly becoming targets for spams, scams and other online attacks. Asides mining data from tons of “status updates” for targeted attacks, cyber criminals have mastered the act of baiting unsuspecting users with well-crafted short but compelling posts offering free entry to a Christmas competition with a fantastic prize. The general rule is “there is no free lunch or freebies on the internet – if you’re not buying a product then you are the product”. Users who click the links then inadvertently act as accomplices to the cyber-criminals because the malicious scripts would automatically re-post the links, images or videos on their contacts’ walls or timelines. If an offer looks too good to be true, it probably is. Do NOT click.
Protect yourself from fraudulent emails
If you receive an email urging you to download an unknown tax payment attachment or an email informing you of an urgent pending transaction and you need to login with your details to verify, DELETE that email. Such emails usually trick users into visiting the site, and once you do, viruses and spywares get downloaded on your device which automatically joins you to a network of enslaved computers that have been programmed to carry out malicious deeds. No reputable organization would send emails to collect user names, passwords, token keys or Debit/Credit card details.
The threats to your online accounts increase daily, however, the tips above can help you stay protected online while still providing the convenience online access offers you this holiday.
Stay safe online and happy holiday!
Rotimi Akinyele is the Chief Security Evangelist at PhynxLabs.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/12/get-embarrassed-politicians-make-provocative-statements-jonathan/? | 902 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999992 |
By Bashir Bello
KANO — The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF on Wednesday disclosed that Nigeria accounts for 15 percent of out-of-school children in the world.
This was also it stated that about 7.6 million girls in Nigeria many from the northern regions remain deprived of the opportunities to go to school.
The UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Ms Cristian Munduate disclosed this during an event organized to commemorate this years International Day of the Girl in Kano.
Ms Munduate who raised alarm over the worrisome figures however maintained that it is not just a statistics but a wake up call on the authorities to take steps to reverse the menace.
In her words: “Nigeria, alarmingly, accounts for 15% of out-of-school children worldwide. Yet only a mere 9% of the poorest girls have the chance to attend secondary school.
This is not just a statistic….it’s a wake-up call.”
“The truth is that 7.6 million girls in Nigeria, many from the northern regions, remain deprived of these very opportunities. Their seats in classrooms remain vacant, their dreams momentarily deferred. This leaves them vulnerable to early childbearing, with a soaring adolescent fertility rate.
“Kano ranks second in the number of out-of-school girls in Nigeria, revealing a harsh disparity in the access to education.
“Since its inception by the United Nations in 2012, the International Day of the Girl Child has aimed to spotlight and address the challenges girls globally confront. Today, more than ever, we need to emphasize the transformative power of education, a tool that not only creates opportunities but actively breaks cycles of poverty.
“However, amidst these challenges, we find glimmers of hope. Proven models like the Girls’ Education Project 3, supported generously by the people of UK and UNICEF, have assisted states including Kano in sending 1.5 million girls back to school in just two years. This is the path forward….a path where every girl child in Nigeria receives an education.
“As we observe the International Day of the Girl 2023, my plea is straightforward. To our government, communities, traditional institutions, parents, stakeholders, and every concerned Nigerian – let us pledge to build a Nigeria where every girl’s dreams are within her grasp.
“While education is the foundation, our girls need more. By investing in healthcare, skills training, and diverse opportunities, we can catalyze their growth into pillars of our society.
“Together, let us champion the rights and empowerment of our girls. Let’s dismantle barriers, extend mentorship, and curate an environment where they are poised to thrive.
“UNICEF remains committed in its mission. We will continue our engagement with leaders, partners, and stakeholders to amplify our investment in the welfare of our girls, particularly as they face the brunt of conflicts, natural disasters, and the ever-looming threat of climate change,” the UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Ms Cristian Munduate however maintained.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/10/nigeria-accounts-for-15-out-of-school-children-worldwide-unicef/ | 660 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999985 |
By Chioma Obinna
A new study released by the Lancet has shown that in 2022, more than 1 billion people in the world are now living with obesity.
It showed that worldwide, obesity among adults has more than doubled since 1990, and has quadrupled among children and adolescents (5 to 19 years of age).
The data also showed that 43 per cent of adults were overweight in 2022. The study further showed that even though the rates of under-nutrition have dropped, it is still a public health challenge in many places, particularly in Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.
Among countries with the highest combined rates of underweight and obesity in 2022 were island nations in the Pacific and the Caribbean and those in the Middle East and North Africa.
Malnutrition, in all its forms, includes under-nutrition (wasting, stunting, and underweight), inadequate vitamins or minerals, overweight and obesity. Under-nutrition is responsible for half of the deaths of children under 5 and obesity can cause noncommunicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and some cancers.
WHO has contributed to the data collection and analysis of this study. Speaking on the study, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said the new study highlights the importance of preventing and managing obesity from early life to adulthood, through diet, physical activity, and adequate care, as needed.
Ghebreyesus said: “Getting back on track to meet the global targets for curbing obesity will take the work of governments and communities, supported by evidence-based policies from the WHO and national public health agencies. Importantly, it requires the cooperation of the private sector, which must be accountable for the health impacts of their products.”
READ ALSO: Obasanjo, Peter Obi hail Chief Imam of Egbaland at 90
He explained that obesity is a complex chronic disease and that the causes are well understood, as are the interventions needed to contain the crisis, which are backed by strong evidence.
“However, they are not implemented. At the World Health Assembly in 2022 Member States adopted the WHO Acceleration Plan to Stop Obesity, which supports country-level action through 2030. To date, 31 governments are now leading the way to curb the obesity epidemic by implementing the plan.
He listed the actions to support healthy practices from day 1, including breastfeeding promotion, protection and support; regulations on the harmful marketing of food and beverages to children;
school food and nutrition policies, including initiatives to regulate the sales of products high in fats, sugars and salt in the proximity of schools; fiscal and pricing policies to promote healthy diets; nutrition labelling policies; public education and awareness campaigns for healthy diets and exercise; standards for physical activity in schools; and integration of obesity prevention and management services into primary health care.
Speaking, Director of WHO’s Nutrition and Food Safety Department and one of the co-authors of the study, Dr Francesco Branca, said: “There are significant challenges in implementing policies aimed at ensuring affordable access to healthy diets for all and creating environments that promote physical activity and overall healthy lifestyles for everyone. Countries should also ensure that health systems integrate the prevention and management of obesity into the basic package of services.”
Branca said addressing under-nutrition requires multisectoral action in agriculture, social protection and health, to reduce food insecurity, improve access to clean water and sanitation and ensure universal access to essential nutrition interventions.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | https://www.vanguardngr.com/2024/03/over-1-billion-people-worldwide-suffer-from-obesity-study | 729 | Health | 3 | en | 0.999971 |
Dr Isuwa Adamu, Director-General, Nigerian Institute of Leather Science and Technology (NILEST), Zaria, on Tuesday warned against the consumption of animal hides and skin known locally as “ponmo”.
Adamu told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja that the consumption of the product as meat substitute was dangerous to health.
According to him, scientifically, ponmo does not have any nutritional value to human health.
“In fact, it is not advisable for you to consume ponmo in the sense that some of the animals killed and used for ponmo actually have skin diseases.
“Some of these skin diseases are such that boiling them ordinarily, may not kill the bacteria,’’ Adamu said.
He added that some of the animals killed had been ill and undergoing injections but the rearers went ahead to kill them, leaving the buyers vulnerable to chemicals in the animal skin.
“Some of the animals because of the ailments that they have gone through, are sometimes treated by way of injection with chemicals.
“People don’t allow these chemicals to complete its cycle and be removed from the body; they sometimes go ahead to kill these animals.
“So, if you consume the ponmo, the tendency is that you are consuming the chemicals directly because the skin part of the animal retains most of the harmful substances.
“Remember your skin is the major protective organ of your body and your skin harbours so many of the harmful things that are supposed to penetrate into your body,’’ he explained.
He added that the skin of animals harbour so many of the harmful waste materials that the body secretes and boiling only could not remove some of those wastes.
The NILEST boss said the institute was putting up efforts to sensitise the public and advise governments on policies that will help to reduce the consumption of animal skin to the barest minimum.
According to him, ponmo consumption is a national and traditional issue that just putting up laws may not really help to stop it.
Adamu advised the government to come up with policies that could be enforced to reduce the consumption of hides and skin as meat substitute.
He added that this would enhance the quality and quantity of raw hides and skin that are available to meet the demands of the tanneries.
Comments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof. | http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/10/ponmo-consumption-dangerous-health/ | 508 | Food | 2 | en | 0.999975 |
There is good news from the health world where researchers say the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) can be flushed out of its hiding places in the body using a cancer drug.
Already, the anti-retroviral therapy, kills the virus in the bloodstream, but leaves “HIV reservoirs” untouched.
This latest study shows that the cancer drug is “highly potent” at reactivating hidden HIV.
Experts say the findings are interesting, but it is important to know if the drug is safe in patients.
A strategy known as “kick and kill” is thought to be key to curing HIV. The kick would wake up the dormant HIV, allowing the drugs to kill it. | http://www.channelstv.com/2015/07/31/hiv-can-be-flushed-out-by-cancer-drug-researchers-say/ | 148 | Health | 2 | en | 0.999968 |
Foreign Investment into Africa is the most deceptive and abused phrase ever used purposely to confuse people of goodwill that International Corporate world is trying to do for Africa what was done for Europe after the War. While it is true that Europe and other continents got richer, the face of poverty shifted from Asia to Africa. This is reality today that most people, with any form of sincerity or conscience, cannot argue with.
What most of us do is blame Africans for their own predicament from slavery to neo-colonialism. Of course, there are enough blames, greed, traitors and accomplices to go around. It still takes two tangles. European countries have benefited right from the days of slavery to money laundering today; not by passive accidents but by active designs.
While it is true that money laundering incurs consequences for Africans caught in the process, it does not negate the amount of stolen money into European and American banks or economy; into the hands of legal and financial accomplices that are charging about a third of the loot as fees. Helped hide poor countries' foreign reserves abroad.
Foreign companies are still at it just as when economic opportunities dried up in 1800 Europe and the Americas, they turned too faraway continents looking for natural and human resources. Even the Moroccans, decided on further South into West Africa to capture the gold after fighting wars that depleted their resources and left them poorer. All these have become ancient history today. But if we do not learn from our past, we are bound to repeat the same mistake in the future. Africa’s future started yesterday.
According to OXFAM, it is indisputable that about one trillion American dollars have been lost from Africa to enrich other countries in Europe and Asia. If that is not Foreign Investment (or drain) from Africa, how difficult is it to understand the reverse psychology practices of how Europe (under) developed Africa. It has never been a secret since France, a small country with a tiny “tribal” population still feeds on French Speaking developing countries. African foreign reserves in France Treasury cannot be spent without the approval of France. Indeed, one of their Presidents so admitted publicly.
Middle Class Africans, especially the ones trained at the London School of Economics, Wharton Business School, Harvard or University of Toronto have preached to us since Independence that only Foreign Investment can save Africa. Voila, realities have taught us different lessons. Sixty years is a long time, enough to understand the Dynamics of Economics. Somehow African markets have adopted Western and Eastern European Economics, be it capitalist or communist theory like old wine in a new bottle.
Obviously, the only missing theory has been African Economics. We must hastily add that it is not out of commission or omission but out of favor to old colonialists to be like them. Those African professors that dared criticize the cramming of Communist or capitalist economic theory as unsuitable or unworkable without adaptation to African market realities, were run out of town as teachers of Voodoo Economics. The reason is not farfetched. Africans longed to be part of the world communities so bad, we were willing to relinquish anything with African appellation or culture.
Those that are still preaching African Salvation by the way of foreign investment have not given up. Indeed, their staunch advocates come are Africans. While those old enough to remember the relative economic reprieve Africa had after Independence, they came to realize that it was only political but did not include actual economic independence. The ploughing of African wealth continued as foreign investment.
Moreover, Africa's economic fortune declined further with the introduction of Structural Adjustment. Even when the International Monetary Fund and World Bank expressed misgivings at a conference in Ghana that they did not take the sociopolitical factor into consideration, we had some African economists insisting that African countries implemented Structural Adjustment wrongly, as the cause of the problem.
Then came Devaluations that paralyzed most African countries in the guise that once our human and natural resources become cheaper for foreign currencies, they would be able to buy more and that would spur economic growth by creating more jobs. Those propagating what we all knew as blatantly false then and now realized that we had no commodity that would enter their market.
Even under Obama Administration’s AGOA, most of our commodities were rejected as substandard. Most African businesses do not realize what it takes to get our products into their markets, in their store shelves, even at the risk of a temporary loss in profit.
It all boils down to promises into the future prospects or fooled as promising emerging markets that has never been realized. They choose the best countries open for business based on what they can scoop out as fast as they can on demand not on what Africa can gain. We are the fastest growing economies after they have had their lion share with promises of crumbs in the future.
They sell us rosy prospects as they did with religious deliverance that we will reap our reward in heaven, as long as we obey and abide by their rules on earth. So, there has never been any reasonable chance that foreign investment from their countries would liberate us in 60 years after Independence or ever as their internal traitors support their chicanery. An attractive charade for a toddler's intelligence.
There has always been one-way flow of capital either by money laundering with their corporate firms that source raw materials in Africa before and after Independence. Most, if not all, have never been foreign currency earners into Africa but they dip into meagre reserves to launder money back into their countries under the guise that they have to buy and import foreign materials for our factories; otherwise they layoff local workers.
African businessmen have learned well from their foreign masters and partners. Most of them have never earned foreign currency for their countries but dug deep into local reserves as international companies and launder foreign reserves into shell companies.
How much longer is this going to take until Africans realized that if they were crawling for over 60 years since Independence, they could have been better off than the abject poverty, disillusionment and obsession the foreign investments have left them. When all along, Africa was the source of foreign investments into Europe, America and Asia. | https://www.modernghana.com/news/976879/foreign-investment-came-out-of-africa-never-into.html | 1,259 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999994 |
We must ask ourselves repeatedly why our African Youths with all their talents and our politicians as useful fools, would rather squander and launder the wealth or talents that freed Asians from abject poverty? The next generation and history will take us to task about how the richest Continent God created abandoned its children like absentee deadbeat parents to the whims and Salvation of those that only see them as instruments of cheap labor. These children of Africa are no longer sold by Chiefs into Slave Ships.
African Youths use their first million, all their savings or borrowed money to board expensive planes or cross deserts and seas to reach their "promised land" outside Africa. https://time.com/longform/african-slave-trade/ Despite the numbers of thinkers and historians laborious efforts to inform and educate them constantly. No matter our efforts and information about what awaits them outside, they are blinded and overwhelmed with token few that tell them they saw the "Promised Land".
We just have to ask why a reasonable parent would be willing to give up children for adoption by dropping babies by the gutter, in a dustbin, in charge of Asma boys, tonton macoute, pollero/chayote, janjaweed slave traders in Sudan and Chard or drug traffickers as by seashore wishing that the daughter of Pharaoh would pass by and rescue Moses. https://time.com/5042560/libya-slave-trade/ Instead of putting all energy on prayer, we must understand that heaven helps those who help themselves.
So who are the Youths traveling out? Believe It or not, most are not the poorest, hungry and the destitute. Many of them are highly educated engineers, physicians, accountants, teachers etc that go out and start their own businesses abroad under strenuous situations worse than at home when they realized there was no other way to survive. Less effort could have rescued their own country. Some look at salaries for their professions overseas compared to local salaries, regardless of standard of living, gross domestic product or growth.
Most do not take into consideration the school loans professionals acquire abroad in the course of their study. We have to face the crises of African Youths escaping from their own countries by any means just to make a living. Most of them have training that has not got them their expected reward in the marketplace at home. It is too embarrassing or depressing for them. They would rather go hungry, homeless and underemployed with their skills and certificates outside home.
Therefore, we are not talking about the untalented, most wretched Africans fleeing their homes. Actually, most of those fleeing saved or borrowed from relatives, good money that could be used to start a business, rather than pay traveling agents marketing overseas opportunities and paying for tickets with everything they saved in order to escape. There are also slave traders willing to pay their expenses to Europe and America on contracts. They demand guarantee pay back with usury interest abroad.
Unfortunately, the girls end up as prostitutes and others used as body parts if their sponsors cannot pay back. Yet, the majority of those escaping “hell” in their countries are not the poorest in the community that cannot have three meals in a day. They are not the ones that either go hungry to bed, do without breakfast or lunch. They are the ones buying tickets or paying travel agents to escape. Most of these agents want some money down which the poor do not have except the use of their bodies. They pay dearly for what they had seen on their expensive Iphones at home.
Another lure abroad is their friends that have escaped, telling them they are making tons of money and living big. Even when this is true, they never mention the pains, indignity and the stress of surviving against all odds, no matter how highly qualified they are. How “temporary" are the top positions they hold before being replaced for any or no reason. Those frustrated out of jobs even as the head of dog catchers never relate their frustrations to those at home.
The greatest reason most Africans give is that they are ready to go through subjugation, discrimination and rejection overseas as price they have to pay so that their children can have a good education and future. If and only if Africans work half as hard in their countries as they do when they leave Africa, most of our countries would be a better place. The resentment between African Americans and Africans points to this fact that Africans do not have African American experience of the generational subjugation they suffered.
Recently, it is filtering through that some of their highly educated colleagues are not only underemployed but forced to take menial jobs to put food on the table for their families. The shame and embarrassment of relating disappointments back home are too great to expose. As most of these so-called highly successful workers abroad grow tired of the daily insults; they take to nefarious activities like drugs. Those too old to return home for lack of investment, become miserable and disappointed.
How can parents absorb these without affecting the same children, mentally and physically? It is the beginning of an inferiority complex as their children watch them being relegated to the bottom of their new communities. While it is true that first generation children of immigrants do not tolerate as much abuse as their parents, some of the abuse rub off on them right from kindergarten making it difficult to get into colleges unless they work against the odds inherent in communities abroad.
Most of the successful Africans overseas not only work twice as hard, but are also squeaky clean. Put the same persons in charge of funds in Africa, they would loot the allocation dry without a blink of an eye. They know every eye is on them waiting for them to make a mistake, fail or trip. But in Africa, they feel they can steal and go scott free since they know their way around the judicial process. Most of the Nigerian looters convicted for money laundering or facing charges abandoned the loots overseas to enjoy freedom at home.
There is no better place to fight for economic justice than in Africa where we still have ownership Rights against those encouraging us to sell ourselves for pittance or instant gratification. Everybody likes readymade and hunger is a very strong motivating force. We have seen homeless folks begging to work for food around the world. One of the most resentful sayings by Umaru Dikko was that he had not seen anybody picking food from garbage cans in Nigeria as he saw in America.
Well, that was years ago. Youths now eke out a living on environmental dumps. African politicians, even those old enough to expire, wish to be buried with their loots into the afterlife. They are taking actions against our children that slide us deeper into poverty because they cannot see beyond the immediate wants of their individual families. This is not different from a parent leaving a newborn on the street hoping against hope for a miracle.
However difficult it is to reverse this trend, the day we throw up our hands and give up is the day we all perish. | https://www.modernghana.com/news/1072527/live-free-in-africa-or-die-as-useful-fools-slave.html | 1,428 | Politics | 2 | en | 0.999987 |
“A foremost” and”penultimate week” – which is the more disturbing catachresis?
As it appropriate for me to state confidently or even categorically that most of those reading this piece today do not know that it is a misuse of words and language to say that a person is aforemost writer, surgeon, engineer, sportswoman or socialite? I think so. The reason for this is the fact that I have encountered this misuse of the word foremost not only among averagely literate Nigerians but also within the ranks of the highest levels of the nation’s intelligentsia. When you see a word or a phrase constantly in use by virtually everybody including some of the nation’s most highly educated men and women, you tend to think it is correct and standard usage, even if and when this is not the case. Now, the standard or correct form is the word “foremost” used in conjunction with the definite article as in “the foremost”. Using the word with the indefinite article “a” – as in “a foremost lawyer” – is non-standard and incorrect. In all my professional and non-professional travels throughout the English-speaking world, Nigeria is the only country in which I have encountered this misuse, this catachresis: a foremost historian; a foremost artist; a foremost musician; a foremost actress.
It is of course as a social critic and a cultural theorist and not as a grammarian that I am approaching this issue in this piece. Nonetheless, it might be useful to briefly reflect on why the construction “a foremost journalist” is wrong, non-standard and catachrestic. Briefly here’s the reason: foremost is a word, an appellation that is comparative with regard to place, order or rank. Indeed, in its most standard and correct usages, foremost encodes not one but several layers or levels of comparison, what one might call a comparison within a comparison. This can be quite easily seen in one of the most frequent uses of the word, which is in the phrase, “first and foremost”. Every time that the phrase is used, the reader knows that a series of things or events, not a single entity, is involved.
This is also why, quite often, what we see in uses of the word that are correct and standard is something along the lines of, for an example, “the foremost among the brightest of the younger generation of the nation’s lawyers”. As can be easily seen in this sentence, the particular lawyer referred to is “foremost”, not among all lawyers without any specifications but among two closely linked subsets, these being the younger generation of lawyers and the brightest among that collectivity. But with the usage that has now become so widespread, so universal in its occurrence in Nigeria as to be a new linguistic normal, this comparative dimension has more or less been completely, though unintendedly obliterated. A person is now “foremost” only and exclusively, it seems, with regards to him or herself. This is what interests me in this topic, this unintended erasure of comparison and distinction in the phrase “a foremost” in our public discourse, together with the related issue of the general decline in language use in Nigeria as a symptom of a deep social and cultural malaise that urgently requires our attention.
In order to demonstrate that I am not approaching these issues as a strict or censorious grammarian, let me assure the reader that for me, “aforemost critic” instead of “the foremost among art or literary or music critics” is a very mild and rather innocuous misuse of language. Indeed, it belongs to the order of language misuse that goes by the name of catachresis. As all cultural theorists know, catachresis is very pervasive in the use of language. This is true of all languages, but is even truer of languages that have historically, geographically and culturally strayed far from their autochthonous homelands, as is the case with the English language in our part of the world. Indeed, so common is catachresis in languages that it is often used by poets, novelists, dramatists and comedians to creatively harness its unintendedly quaint or bizarre effects. This is why catachresis is at the root of the appeal and the fame of the colorful and absurd English language use of Chief Zebrudaya Okoroigwe Nwogbo, alias “4:30” of the famous New Masquerade comedy series on Nigerian television in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Catachresis is also the source of the brilliant inventiveness of the “rotten English” deployed in Ken Saro Wiwa’s Sozaboy and Uzodinma Iweala’s Beasts of No Nation.In both novels, the narrator-protagonists are barely literate and hence are very bad speakers of English. But their “mistakes” are so colorful, so original that they effectively and totally transform the language used in each novel into a new and original creation, especially in conjunction with the tragic, harrowing plot of each respective novel.
But having gladly yielded so much room and leeway for catachresis in its self-ironizing and creative expressions, we must also recognize that not every instance of its occurrence is beneficent for a culture, a nation. For instance, when I encounter the use of “luxuriant” when “luxurious” is the clearly intended word, I know that linguistically speaking, something wrong and untoward has taken place. Same thing with the word “being” when the word the writer had in mind is quite clearly “been”. This is a misuse of language that, by the way, I have encountered innumerably in our country – and from the most unexpected of persons or places. In this respect, perhaps the single most egregious catachresis in Nigerian English of the genus of journalese at the present time is – penultimate, as in the phrase “penultimate week”. As nearly everyone reading this piece apparently knows, the supposed meaning is, unambiguously, last week.
But this is absurd because “penultimate”does not stand alone in and by itself; it is what comes before the “ultimate” in a temporal or logical sequence. In a book, the penultimate page is the page before the very last page of the book. In an epoch,”penultimate” is the century, decade or year that comes before the very last century, decade or year in the epoch. In other words, you should not use”penultimate” when and if what comes after it will not be the very last in a sequence. Thus, as this week is not going to be the last week in the month of March or the year 2017, to write of last week as “penultimate week” is both a linguistic and logical howler. But this has been so completely normalized in Nigerian journalism that I had to accept the (rotten) state of things and stop railing against it, much to the amusement of my friends, Professors Niyi Osundare and G. G. Darah.Both were very surprised by my temerity in thinking I could make journalists stop using the phrase simply be railing tirelessly against it. Indeed, Osundare and Darah used to tease me about the outrage I felt about this conceptually barbarous thing called – “penultimate week”!But then, listen to what Osundare himself once wrote in a lamentation about the quality of language use in literary reviews in Nigerian newspapers:
“Not infrequently, review columns confront the reader with howlers such as”thesecond paragraph” of the poem; “this is X’s second anthology of short stories” (for anthology read collection). And the work is praised as “simplistic” when what the writer means is “simple”. There is a constant mention of “renown” authors, and reviews are hardly balanced in their handling of “strengths and floors”. Too monotonously, our critics “opine that…”. Almost invariably, what passes for a review is bungled content summary without a single word on form and style. Quite often, the reviewer confuses biography with autobiography; “criticism” with “critique”; metaphor with simile; “summarily” with “summary”. Achebe sometimes gets credit as the author of The Concubine. And the pages drip with cheap, whorish clichés!
These are, without question, very strong words, justified by both the scope of the problem and the seeming unawareness that the problem exists at all. I mean, don’t we all know that the editors of Nigerian newspapers more or less stopped editing content for errors of grammar, spelling, punctuation, language, and conceptual appropriateness a long, long time ago? In this connection, the constancy and pervasiveness in the use of “penultimate week” is the surest sign of this abdication. But then think of this point, dear compatriot: the editors of our newspapers are not the sole perpetrators or guilty parties in this abdication; the enumeration should include teachers and mentors at the highest levels of our tertiary educational system, the national professoriate itself. This observation is at the root of the title of this piece in its counterpoising of the catachresis of “a foremost” to that of “penultimate week”. What do I mean by this?
Well, in both degree and kind of linguistic, logical and conceptual errors, “a foremost” is much milder and perhaps even somewhat benign in comparison with “penultimate week”. This is not merely due to the fact that for the most part, it is only journalists that use the term, “penultimate week” while senior and distinguished professors use the other catachrestic term, “a foremost”. More significantly, “a foremost” seems more excusable and therefore more acceptable than “penultimate week” because its perpetrators constitute the court of last appeal in matters of the cultural and linguistic health of the nation. In making this observation, I feel it necessary to make a confession here: no errors, no instances of the misuse of language and words have been more shocking and perplexing for me than “a foremost” –even as mild and “benign” as it is – precisely because I have encountered it in the circles of the most distinguished individuals and institutions of academia in our country. This leads directly to my concluding thoughts in this piece.
If the underlying argument in this piece has led to the question, “so the most learned and distinguished academics and professors can commit errors of language use”, the unequivocal answer is – yes and yes again. For that is not the point since nobody or group is beyond making mistakes. Beyond this, the real point is whether or not it can and will be admitted that an error or errors galore is/are being made. So far, the brotherhood and sisterhood of journalists have refused to perceive or acknowledge that a crisis of language misuse of enormous proportions exists in their profession. Will the eggheads in academia also resort to the same ostrich response? That is the question, compatriots. For behind the catachresis of “a foremost” is the deeper malaise of the collapse of the vocation of true, relevant and humanistic intellectualism in our country and our era. But that is a crisis that I have not even begun to address in this piece. If everybody is and can be “a foremost”, then nobody is really and substantively “the foremost” in a segment, a branch of a discipline or a field of knowledge. This seems “democratic” and egalitarian, but only falsely so. Where, as in our country and our continent, real quality and distinctiveness are being remorselessly wiped out, we are at a great distance, a great remove from real democracy in the institutions and practices of valuable, fulfilling intellectualism. | https://thenationonlineng.net/breaking-falana-takes-over-resident-doctors-legal-battles-with-fg/Foremost | 2,585 | Health | 2 | en | 0.99999 |
Naijaweb Edu2 Dataset 🇳🇬
Naijaweb Edu 2 is a subset of the naijaweb dataset with an educational score aboove 2 using the fineweb classifier. The initial fineweb dataset was web scraped from web pages popular among Nigerians, providing a rich resource for modeling Nigerian linguistic and cultural contexts.
Dataset Summary
Features | Data Types |
---|---|
text | string |
link | string |
token_count | int64 |
section | string |
int_score | int64 |
language | string |
language_probability | float64 |
Data Collection
The initial fineweb dataset was collected from Nairaland.com, extracting about 30 million unique posts from 19 different sections of the site. Additionally, 1,289,195 outbound links were extracted from these posts. The content of these web pages was extracted using Trafilatura, a popular library for web scraping and content extraction. The full data collection can be found in this repo, kindly give a star ⭐.
Data Cleaning
The cleaning process was conducted using Datatrove, the same library employed in cleaning the FineWeb dataset, which is known for its high quality. The data cleaning process involved multiple stages of deduplication, filtering, and normalization to ensure the dataset's quality matches that of other high-performing datasets.
Data Cleaning Procedure:
- URL Filtering
- Repitition and quality filtering:
- Personal Identifiable Information (PII) Removal
Example Entry
Each data point contains the following fields:
text
: the main body of the post or web pagelink
: the original URL of the source contenttoken_count
: the number of GPT2 tokens in thetext
fieldsection
: the Nairaland section where the post was foundint_score
: an integer representation of the 'educational quality' of the data based on fineweb's webpage educational classifierlanguage
: detected language of the text (e.g.,en
,yo
,ha
,ig
)language_probability
: the confidence score of the language detection algorithm
An example looks as follows:
{
'text': 'By Tony Eluemunor\nOne terrible aspect of the Asaba massacre is not only that it actually occurred, but that 53 years after that grim and despicable flaunting of the worst of the human spirit anywhere, Nigeria does not recognise it as a national tragedy.\nThus, every 7th of October, only the people of Asaba commemorate that gruesome mass murder, which meets all definitions of GENOCIDE. The Encyclopaedia Britannica defines genocide as “the deliberate and systematic destruction of a group of people because of their ethnicity, nationality, religion, or race. The term, derived from the Greek genos (“race,” “tribe,” or “nation”) and the Latin cide (“killing”), was coined by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish-born jurist who served as an adviser to the U.S. Department of War during World War II.\nThe term was coined in 1943 by the Jewish-Polish lawyer Raphael Lemkin who combined the Greek word “genos” (race or tribe) with the Latin word “cide” (to kill).\nThat such an unprovoked gruesome mass murder of hundreds of people took place at Asaba, is not in question anymore. What really happened that October 1967? As Emmanuel Andrew Chukwuedo Nwanze, BSc. MSc. Ph.D. DIS, Professor of Neurobiochemistry and former Vice-Chancellor, University of Benin said in a lecture: “Asaba people came out from their homes and places of other engagements in response to a call to come out and welcome and receive the conquering Federal troops. When the troops requested them to separate into groups of males and females, they naively complied, never having ever witnessed such an event before. The men were marched away to the more secluded axis of Ogbe Osowe- Ilo-Umuaji-Ogbe Ilo. When the guns started blazing it was too late to escape. The staccato over, only the groans of those on the throes of death could be heard with blood flowing freely: indeed ‘blood on the Niger’. The few alive or not completely dead who had been clobbered to the ground by the falling dead could be heard calling on the soldiers to come on and finish the job. Hence the weak cries of “See me, I never die o”\nMr. Chiedu “Cassy” Juwah was about ten years old then. He recalled that “People were dancing in a welcome party at OgbeIlo field. Then soldiers stopped the music and a grim business began. That was how Asaba became a town of landladies. My cousin who had survived the pogrom at Kano, his dad and two elder brothers, were shot. I hid and returned home. The following day, 7th, we were rounded up and shepherded to Oma, opposite today’s Grand Hotel, That’s where we were separated. At Ogbe Osowe, the men were separated from the boys and the women, and I, a boy, joined the women in going to the Convent, now St. John Bosco’s Church at Nnebisi Rd, and Ogbe Osowe became a killing field. My brother, Augustine Juwah, who passed out of St. Anthony’s College in 1964, pretended to be dead and hid among dead bodies there as a machine gun belched fire and death. By 8.pm he made his way home and we started our flight; first to Achala, and from there to Ubulu-Uku. Some people returned home days later and were still killed in the house-to-house combing by the military.”\nThe Federal troops thundered into Asaba on the 5th. The Biafrans had melted away as the immediate commander, the late Col. Joe Achizia (a son of Asaba), opted to retreat to Onitsha as a lorry load of cutlass was all he was given to defend Asaba with. He blew up the Niger Bridge. Then, the indiscriminate killing started. It turned horrendous on the 6th and became hellish on the 7th.\nAbout 1, 000 persons died in Asaba in those gruesome three days. Yet, more died later as the town’s folks fled into the bush, trying to escape to the nearby towns and villages. Many were caught outside the town while escaping and were decimated, others died from hunger and unhealed wounds inside the bush.\nIn fact, the killing spilled into Ogwashi-Uku, and several other towns in the Anioma Delta North Senatorial District. In Ishiagwu, a coastal village to which Biafrans would travel to from around Oguta to buy food stuff, having crossed the lordly River Niger by canoe, the Federal troops visited one night and simply killed 400 people who failed to escape and burnt down the village – even as a General Cyril Iweze, a son of Ishiagwu, was fighting on the Federal side. Ibusa suffered genocide and the entire surviving population fled into the bush.\nREAD ALSO: Boko Haram sacks two communities in Borno\nAs late into the war as 1969, the killings were still on. A Benin-City based medical Doctor, Patrick Anyafulu said: In 1969, a company of Federal troops was ambushed and decimated by Biafran troops on the road leading to Asaba from Oko. That incident brought the horrors of war to my sleepy, rustic village. The whole village was razed to the ground. We escaped death through Providence…a heavy rainstorm the previous night delayed their advance from Asaba, and fishermen who had gone to check their nets saw them and alerted the whole village. Shells were already landing in the village and the air was filled with the whine of bullets. We escaped into the forest and lived there until 1970!”\nSo, why has the Federal Government, which has recently acknowledged the evil inherent in denying the late MKO Abiola his June 1993 electoral victory, refused to even recognise the atrocity committed against Asaba and other Anioma towns? As hard as that insult upon injury is difficult to swallow, it is pertinent to remember that for years the Asaba massacre was a totally hushed up topic.\nA London Times correspondent, Bill Norris, who passed through Asaba in mid-October 1967, sent back photos of hellish destruction there and noted that the town appeared to be largely abandoned. But he said nothing about the genocide. He explained in a 2012 interview that he did not know about the massacre. The first mention of mass killing in Asaba appeared in the London Observer, almost four months later, when Africa correspondent Colin Legum conûrmed that Federal troops took part in the killing. However, his (second-hand) account claimed that a group of ‘implacably hostile’ Igbo attacked troops by surprise as they watched the welcome dance, leading to retaliation.\nEven both pro-Biafra and pro-Nigeria writers of book on the Civil War left the Asaba massacre well alone. The Nigerian Army made no attempt during or after the Civil War, to investigate the Asaba Massacre. Yet, The London Observer commented on it on 21 January 1968, Le Monde, the French evening newspaper, wrote about it on April 5, 1968, LOOK, the British magazine, did same and even a Canadian Member of Parliament, who served as the UN Observer, Stephen Lewis, was mentioned in the London Observer on October 11, 1968. Yet, the then Nigerian High Commissioner to Britain, Brig. B. O. Ogundipe called the reports “wild rumours”. The Times of London reported in 1968 that Biafran propaganda had instilled fear of federal soldiers in Igbo people, but these fears were unfounded. A year later, the Times reported that an international observer team had “been unable to ûnd one single trace of mass killings of Ibos”.\nAn Asaba indigene, Sylvester Okocha, then senior civil servant in Benin, wrote to the International Committee of the Red Cross describing what had just happened. His letter was intercepted by the military, he was arrested, tortured and incarcerated in Lagos.\nNow, the truth is out…and it is horrendous. There are only two choices left for Nigeria: to keep ignoring this sordid fact and allow the sore to fester and become food for agents of national disunity or address it so that healing can begin. Yet, the silence has really ended, what continues is national self-deception. An Asaba indigene, and journalist, Emma Okocha published the book Blood on the Niger in 1994 (his father was a victim of that massacre). It lifted the lid off that story and has remained a condemnation on the government’s official silence on the Asaba massacre – that terrible blot on Nigeria’s history.\nComments expressed here do not reflect the opinions of Vanguard newspapers or any employee thereof.',
'link': 'https://www.vanguardngr.com/2020/10/asaba-massacre-terrible-blot-on-nigerias-history/',
'token_count': 1905,
'section': 'Politics',
'int_score': 3,
'language': 'en',
'language_probability': 0.9999027252197266
}
How to Load the Dataset
To load the dataset using Hugging Face's datasets
library:
from datasets import load_dataset
dataset = load_dataset("saheedniyi/naijaweb-edu2")
Social Impact
Naijaweb was created to make Nigerian web data more accessible, providing researchers and developers with a dataset rich in Nigerian contexts across various domains such as Politics, Education, Business, and Health.
Bias and Ethical Considerations
Since the data is collected from publicly available web pages, inherent biases present in the sources may be reflected in the dataset. These biases can manifest in areas such as language, ideology, or topic representation. Users should be mindful of these potential biases when developing models, especially for sensitive areas like legal or medical information.
Sections of the Dataset
The dataset comprises content from 19 different sections of Nairaland.com, covering topics such as Politics, Education, Business, and Health.
Citation If you use the Naijaweb-edu dataset in your research, please cite it as follows:
Citation If you use the Naijaweb dataset in your research, please cite it as follows:
@dataset{naijawebedu2_2024,
author = {Saheed Azeez},
title = {Naijaweb-Edu2: A Web Scraped Nigerian Context Dataset},
year = {2024},
publisher = {Hugging Face Datasets},
version = {1.0.0},
url = {https://huggingface.co/datasets/saheedniyi/naijaweb-edu2},
}
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