CC™ VideoSpective
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FULANI POLITICIAN - ‘NO YORUBA WILL EVER BE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA AGAIN’
CC™ VideoSpective
CREDITS: NEWSPOST TV
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British Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch triggers Kashim Shettima and the leadership of Nigeria’s kleptocracy
CC™ VideoSpective
At the recent International Democracy Union (IDU) Forum dinner, firebrand leader of the British Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch touched on several issues (video below) including that of her connection to Nigeria (she was born in the United Kingdom to Nigerian aristocrats).
In response to her speech, Nigeria’s Vice-President Kashim Shettima, took exception to his perceived slight or denigration of Nigeria and proceeded to essentially declare her persona non grata, as far as Nigeria was concerned.
In her response to Shettima’s vile and rather uncouth remarks toward her, Badenoch made it clear to Shettima (a known sponsor of Islamic terrorists including Boko Haram, like majority of the Northern Nigeria political class) that she was Yoruba and held no allegiance to the geographical contraption called Nigeria, or the terror ridden and Islamist North Shettima and his ilk originate from.
In listening to Badenoch’s speech, her vision for the United Kingdom is clear. While I may disagree with most of her salient points (and categorically if I might add), she should be left alone and allowed to pursue her goals and aspirations without the unnecessary distractions and hissicuffs from a rudderless kleptocracy, steeped in debilitating corruption.
In a sane society with true human values and the rule of law, Kashim Shettima would be throwing stones behind bars rather than from the podium.
Kemi Badenoch is British and her future lies in the United Kingdom, regardless of whether or not she becomes the Prime Minister.
Nigeria’s loss is Britain’s gain and what Shettima and his band of marauders should be more concerned about is creating a conducive climate that allows for the nurturing, development and retention of our most prized asset, our people.
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Howard on Track for R1 Distinction
By Insight Staff
Howard University is on the verge of achieving Research-1 (R1) status, a prestigious classification awarded to universities demonstrating the highest levels of research activity. Expected to be formalized in the spring, this distinction would make Howard the only historically Black college or university (HBCU) with R1 status, signaling a significant milestone for the institution and potentially opening doors for increased funding, expanded research capabilities, and the attraction of esteemed faculty.
R1 status is awarded by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Higher Education, which categorizes U.S. universities based on their research activity, doctoral degree production, and investment in research infrastructure. Recently, Carnegie has revised its criteria to ease requirements, now mandating an institution produce at least 70 doctoral degrees and spend $50 million on research annually. Howard has already exceeded these benchmarks through significant investments, such as leading an HBCU consortium through a $90 million University Affiliated Research Center focused on tactical autonomy research for the Air Force, positioning it for the upcoming R1 recognition.
The potential achievement is especially meaningful given the history of systemic challenges that have hindered HBCUs from reaching this status. Under Jim Crow-era “separate but equal” policies, government funding disproportionately favored predominantly white institutions, limiting opportunities for HBCUs to build robust graduate programs and research facilities.
With this classification Howard aims to set a precedent that encourages other HBCUs to advance their own research capabilities. Howard’s journey to R1 status signifies not only academic excellence but a step toward greater equity in higher education, challenging systemic barriers that have historically limited the reach of HBCUs in the research landscape.
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African-Americans Who Served in WWII Faced Segregation Abroad and at Home
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| Photograph by David E. Scherman / The LIFE Picture Collection / Getty |
CC™ Histofact
Some 1.2 million African-American men served in the U.S. military during the war, but they were often treated as second-class citizens.
When the Selective Training and Service Act became the nation’s first peacetime draft law in September 1940, civil rights leaders pressured President Franklin D. Roosevelt to allow Black men the opportunity to register and serve in integrated regiments.
Although African-Americans had participated in every conflict since the Revolutionary War, they had done so segregated, and FDR appointee Henry Stimson, the Secretary of War, was not interested in changing the status quo. With a need to shore up the U.S. Armed Forces as war intensified in Europe, FDR decided that Black men could register for the draft, but they would remain segregated and the military would determine the proportion of Blacks inducted into the service.
The compromise represented the paradoxical experience that befell the 1.2 million African- American men who served in World War II: They fought for democracy overseas while being treated like second-class citizens by their own country.
Despite African-American soldiers' eagerness to fight in World War II, the same Jim Crow discrimination in society was practiced in every branch of the armed forces. Many of the bases and training facilities were located in the South, in addition to the largest military installation for Black soldiers, Fort Huachuca, located in Arizona. Regardless of the region, at all the bases there were separate blood banks, hospitals or wards, medical staff, barracks and recreational facilities for Black soldiers. And white soldiers and local white residents routinely slurred and harassed them.
“The experience was very dispiriting for a lot of Black soldiers,” says Matthew Delmont, a history professor at Dartmouth College and author of Black Quotidian: Everyday History in African-American Newspapers. “The kind of treatment they received by white officers in army bases in the United States was horrendous. They described being in slave-like conditions and being treated like animals. They were called racial epithets quite regularly and just not afforded respect either as soldiers or human beings.”
Because the military didn’t think African-Americans were fit for combat or leadership positions, they were mostly relegated to labor and service units. Working as cooks and mechanics, building roads and ditches, and unloading supplies from trucks and airplanes were common tasks for Black soldiers. And for the few who did make officer rank, they could only lead other Black men.
As Christopher Paul Moore wrote in his book, Fighting for America: Black Soldiers—The Unsung Heroes of World War II, “Black Americans carrying weapons, either as infantry, tank corps, or as pilots, was simply an unthinkable notion…More acceptable to southern politicians and much of the military command was the use of black soldiers in support positions, as noncombatants or laborers.”
African-American soldiers regularly reported their mistreatment to the Black press and to the NAACP, pleading for the right to fight on the front lines alongside white soldiers.
“The Black press was quite successful in terms of advocating for Blacks soldiers in World War II,” says Delmont. “They point out the hypocrisy of fighting a war that was theoretically about democracy, at the same time having a racially segregated army.”
In 1942, the Black newspaper, the Pittsburgh Courier—in response to a letter to the editor by James G. Thompson, a 26-year-old Black soldier, in which he wrote, “Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?"—launched the Double V Campaign. The slogan, which stood for a victory for democracy overseas and a victory against racism in America, was touted by Black journalists and activists to rally support for equality for African-Americans. The campaign highlighted the contributions the soldiers made in the war effort and exposed the discrimination that Black soldiers endured while fighting for liberties that African Americans themselves didn’t have.
As casualties mounted among white soldiers toward the final year of the war, the military had to utilize African-Americans as infantrymen, officers, tankers and pilots, in addition to remaining invaluable in supply divisions.
From August 1944 to November 1944, the Red Ball Express, a unit of mostly Black drivers delivered gasoline, ammunition, food, mechanical parts and medical supplies to General George Patton’s Third Army in France, driving up to 400 miles on narrow roads in the dead of night without headlights to avoid detection by the Germans.
The 761 Tank Battalion, became the first Black division to see ground combat in Europe, joining Patton’s Third Army in France in November 1944. The men helped liberate 30 towns under Nazi control and spent 183 days in combat, including in the Battle of the Bulge. The Tuskegee Airmen, the all-Black fighter pilot group trained at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, escorted bombers over Italy and Sicily, flying 1600 combat missions and destroying 237 German aircraft on ground and 37 in air.
“Without these crucial roles that Blacks soldiers were playing, the American military wouldn’t have been the same fighting force it was,” says Delmont. “That was a perspective you didn’t see much in the white press.”
After World War II officially ended on September 2, 1945, Black soldiers returned home to the United States facing violent white mobs of those who resented African Americans in uniform and perceived them as a threat to the social order of Jim Crow.
In addition to racial violence, Black soldiers were often denied benefits guaranteed under the G.I. Bill, the sweeping legislation that provided tuition assistance, job placement, and home and business loans to veterans.
As civil rights activists continued to emphasize America’s hypocrisy as a democratic nation with a Jim Crow army, and Southern politicians stood firmly against full racial equality for Blacks, President Harry Truman signed Executive Order 9981 that desegregated the U.S. Armed Forces in July 1948. Full integration, however, would not occur until the Korean War.
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Quota system: Why is Nigeria still breastfeeding the North?
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| Ex-President Buhari was accused of ethnic bias |
CC™ Viewpoint
By Dr. Ugoji Egbujo
Nigeria: Imagine two students in the same secondary school in Kaduna. They are 18. They are filled with youthful patriotism. They sit for admission exams into the NDA. They both want to read Mechanical Engineering. Efosa scores 280. Musa scores 180. Efosa's celebrations are cut short. He is not invited for an interview. Musa who scored 180 is hopping around. He has been invited for an interview. Musa is admitted. Efosa and Musa are Nigerians but from different states. Efosa with his 280 repeats the NDA exams the following year. He takes another 2 years to achieve a score of 300 and is finally admitted. Musa and Efosa become military officers. Musa who scored 180 when Efosa scored 280 is Efosa's boss. Musa remains Efosa's boss for the entire military career.
Musa would be happy. Efosa would carry a grudge against the country in his heart. Musa would be celebrated someday. He would be called Nigeria's finest. Efosa might get his chance. But with the grudge in his heart, he might not reach the top. Someday it would seep out and it could be Musa that would retire him.
Nigeria: Imagine two students in the same secondary school in Kaduna. They are 18. They are filled with youthful patriotism. They sit for admission exams into the NDA. They both want to read Mechanical Engineering. Efosa scores 280. Musa scores 180. Efosa's celebrations are cut short. He is not invited for an interview. Musa who scored 180 is hopping around. He has been invited for an interview. Musa is admitted. Efosa and Musa are Nigerians but from different states. Efosa with his 280 repeats the NDA exams the following year. He takes another 2 years to achieve a score of 300 and is finally admitted. Musa and Efosa become military officers. Musa who scored 180 when Efosa scored 280 is Efosa's boss. Musa remains Efosa's boss for the entire military career.
Musa would be happy. Efosa would carry a grudge against the country in his heart. Musa would be celebrated someday. He would be called Nigeria's finest. Efosa might get his chance. But with the grudge in his heart, he might not reach the top. Someday it would seep out and it could be Musa that would retire him.
Emir Sanusi is right, quota system should have an expiry date. But I think our quota system has already expired.
The North is full of smart people. It only needs to treat education with the same seriousness with which it attends to elections. If the North had come to education with the same keenness with which it approached population and census over the years, it would have been more educationally advanced than the South.
Quota system doesn't do the image of the North any good. Quota system creates the impression that the north is mentally handicapped. The North must understand that quota system ridicules it. The sort of mockery fit for a young adult who has refused to let go of feeding bottles.
Quota system distorts the system. It confers on its beneficiaries advantages meant for the handicapped. When persons who have two legs take advantages meant for wheelchair users they ought to feel some shame. 60 years after independence, the quota system we practice today is disgraceful.
The sections that benefit from it must feel the weight of its shame. It's possible they have never really addressed their minds to its ugly implications. The quota is simply an admission of inferiority. It simply says some groups lack the capacity to compete with others. That should be a humiliating position to adopt. So why are the beneficiaries marching around oblivious of its shame?
Quota system like other affirmative actions is righteous if they serve moral purposes. Whites in the United States denied blacks education and denied them participation in society. When slavery and racism were abolished, those chronic injustices meant blacks had been left far behind others. Since blacks couldn't compete but had to be included, blacks were allowed to get into Ivy League universities with lower scores. That was an adjustment made to accommodate their handicap. It was done to correct a gap created by injustice.
Quota system in Nigeria of today would be pardonable if it served to uplift women. Women and girls have been subjugated for ages. Girls in the far North have been excluded from education by retrogressive cultures. Quota system for northern girls only could be excusable to some extent. But a quota system used to service the ambitions of able-bodied but indolent men must be properly characterized as corruption-a reward for laziness.
Our statesmen who instituted the quota system must have intended a short-term measure to improve the participation of certain groups in national education and perhaps policymaking. They couldn't have anticipated a situation where political leaders in the North would abandon education and not be confronted with the consequences of their waywardness. Laziness should not be rewarded. The abysmal school enrollment figures in the North must reflect on the bigger stage.
Imagine a situation where admissions into the Nigerian Defense Academy were carried out only by merit. No one would be expected to disclose his state of origin. The best students would be chosen the way we choose players for the Super Eagles. We would have an officer corps chosen solely on merit. It could become lopsided. There could be grumblings about its lopsidedness. But no one would complain he had been cheated. States who abandon education would face the consequences of allowing rent-seeking manipulative politicians lead them.
When the nation was at infancy, sections like children had to be appeased with candies. Those who showed retardation had to be propped. But 60 years after independence, 60 years after all sections have had a chance to improve their educational system, 60 years after those who were thought weak have held the steering wheel, no section deserves this national babysitting.
When a system is used to improve political inclusion, it is good. When a system is used to perpetuate mediocrity and reward indolence it is evil. The quota system cannot continue to be used to help the very group that has dominated political leadership in the country.
Katsina has had two presidents. Katsina had a deputy military head of state. Niger state has had two heads of state. Katsina and Niger have been in the thick of things of national politics for ages. Yet, Katsina and Niger, are still deemed so educationally backwards that their indigenes cannot be allowed to compete with indigenes of Edo state.
Take a state like Borno. The National Security Adviser, the Chief of Army Staff, the president's Chief of Staff, the EFCC chairman were all from Borno State during the Buhari administration. Borno occupies more positions than any other State in the security architecture of this third world country. Why should Borno State indigenes be allowed to get into the military and security services with lower scores than people from Delta State?
I looked at the list of students for the National Common Entrance Examinations from a few years ago; Zamfara literally didn't participate. If that list is reliable then almost everyone who applied from Zamfara would gain admission because the number that applied from Zamfara is less than the number that applied from every small school in Lagos.
Yet, tomorrow, from amongst that small number of largely unqualified Zamfara students that would be admitted, the federal character would step in and catapult them to the highest positions in the land. If we practiced such a decadent system in our football or athletics we would be about the worst sporting nation in the world. So why do we practice it in politics, 60 years after trying to weave a nation?
I have read the arguments that say politics is not football. They mean exclusion would cause discontent and instability. But nothing causes discontent and instability more than injustice. When we shout 'One Nigeria,' we must mean it. True 'One Nigeria" is a Nigeria where all citizens are equal; where neither state of origin, religion nor ethnicity confers any advantages or disadvantages.
The North is full of smart people. Polices that cast it in negative light must stop. The abolition of the quota system is long overdue.
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Libya’s Terrorist Government Hold Nigeria’s Super Eagles Hostage With Threats To The Players’ Safety
CC™ Monday Review
Super Eagles media team on Sunday night confirmed that players and officials of Nigeria’s senior men’s national team were held hostage by Libyan authorities upon their arrival at Al Abaq Airport in Al Abaq, Libya.
In a video posted by the Eagles media team, the players and officials, along with their luggage, were left stranded at the airport, with the Libyan airport officials indifferent to their plight and conversing in Arabic.
The Eagles departed for Libya on Sunday morning, ahead of their 2025 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying matchday 4 clash against the Mediterranean Knights. Initially scheduled to fly into Tripoli and travel by road to Benghazi, the team altered their plans to avoid unnecessary strain. Instead, they chartered a flight with a brief stopover in Kano before continuing to Benghazi. Libya will host the three-time African champions at the 10,000-capacity Martyrs of Benina Stadium in Benina, located just 10 kilometres from Benghazi, but reports emerged that they were diverted to another city.
“About an hour to landing, the Nigerian aircraft approaching its destination, Benghazi, was diverted to another city more than a two-hour drive from the original destination,” the Eagles media team said.
SOURCE: PUNCH ONLINE
Sunday
CEO of Nigeria's Air Peace charged in US with obstructing investigation into $20 million fraud probe
By Rebecca Rommen, Business Insider
Allen Onyema, the CEO and founder of Nigeria's Air Peace airline, has been charged with obstruction of justice in the US, adding to previous charges of bank fraud and money laundering.
A press release from the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgiasays that Onyema, 61, was charged with "submitting false documents to the government in an effort to end an investigation of him" that led to those earlier charges, which were brought in 2019.
Ejiroghene Eghagha, 42, Air Peace's chief of administration and finance, was also charged with obstruction, the press release says.
The pair were indicted in 2019 over allegations that they had moved more than $20 million from Nigeria through US bank accounts by using false documents based on the purchase of five Boeing 737 planes.
The indictment, seen by Business Insider, says they submitted export letters of credit to fund the purchases, along with supporting purchase agreements, bills of sale, and appraisals.
But prosecutors argue that these documents were fake and that the company supposedly selling the planes, the Georgia-registered firm Springfield Aviation, was owned by Onyema and managed by someone with no connection to the aviation industry.
"The aircraft that was referenced in each of the export letters of credit was never owned or sold by Springfield Aviation," the indictment says.
Once the money was in the US, prosecutors say Onyema laundered over $16 million by moving it to other accounts.
In 2019, investigators then say Onyema, aware he was under investigation, told the Springfield Aviation manager to sign but not date a business contract.
His attorneys are later said to have presented this document — which was now dated before the alleged fraud began — to the government "in an effort to stop the investigation and unfreeze his bank accounts."Following the latest charges, Ryan Buchanan, the US Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia, said: "Onyema allegedly leveraged his status as a prominent business leader and airline executive while using falsified documents to commit fraud."
Earlier this year, Onyema made headlines after he welcomed Prince Harry and Meghan Markle to Nigeria. Harry and Markle flew from Nigeria's capital Abuja to Lagos on Air Peace in May, the MailOnline reported at the time.
An unnamed source close to the pair told the Daily Beast that the couple's travel within Nigeria had been arranged by the Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff.
Business Insider has contacted Air Peace for comment.
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The Creation of the (Hebrew) Bible
CC™ Perspective
“The Bible was written and revised in specific historical and cultural circumstances and contexts….”
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Bloomberg makes $600 million contribution to Howard University and 3 other top Black medical schools
Michael Bloomberg's organization Bloomberg Philanthropies announced a $600 million gift to the endowments of four historically Black medical schools.
Bloomberg, the former New York City mayor and the billionaire founder of Bloomberg LP, made the announcement Tuesday in New York at the annual convention of the National Medical Association, an organization that advocates for African American physicians.
"This gift will empower new generations of Black doctors to create a healthier and more equitable future for our country," Bloomberg said in a statement.
Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared with white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing the representation among doctors is one solution that could disrupt these long-standing inequities. In 2022, only 6% of U.S. physicians were Black, even though Black Americans represent 13% of the population.
The gifts are among the largest private donations to any historically Black college or university, with $175 million each going to Howard University College of Medicine, Meharry Medical College and Morehouse School of Medicine. Charles Drew University of Medicine & Science will receive $75 million. Xavier University of Louisiana, which is opening a new medical school, will also receive a $5 million grant.
The donations will more than double the size of three of the medical schools' endowments, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.
The commitment follows a $1 billion pledge Bloomberg made in July to Johns Hopkins University that will mean most medical students there will no longer pay tuition. The four historically Black medical schools are still deciding with Bloomberg Philanthropies how the latest gifts to their endowments will be used, said Garnesha Ezediaro, who leads Bloomberg Philanthropies' Greenwood Initiative.
The initiative, named after the community that was destroyed during the race massacre in Tulsa, Oklahoma more than 100 years ago, was initially part of Bloomberg's campaign as a Democratic candidate for president in 2020. After he withdrew from the race, he asked his philanthropy to pursue efforts to reduce the racial wealth gap and so far, it has committed $896 million, including this latest gift to the medical schools, Ezediaro said.
In 2020, Bloomberg granted the same medicals schools a total of $100 million that mostly went to reducing the debt load of enrolled students, who schools said were in serious danger of not continuing because of the financial burdens compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic.
"When we talked about helping to secure and support the next generation of Black doctors, we meant that literally," Ezediaro said.
Valerie Montgomery Rice, president of Morehouse School of Medicine, said that gift relieved $100,000 on average in debt for enrolled medical students. She said the gift has helped her school significantly increase its fundraising.
"But our endowment and the size of our endowment has continued to be a challenge, and we've been very vocal about that. And he heard us," she said of Bloomberg and the latest donation.
Previous largest single donation to an HBCU
In January, the Lilly Endowment gave $100 million to The United Negro College Fund toward a pooled endowment fund for 37 HBCUs. That same month, Spelman College, a historically Black women's college in Atlanta, received a $100 million donation from Ronda Stryker and her husband, William Johnston, chairman of Greenleaf Trust.
Denise Smith, deputy director of higher education policy and a senior fellow at The Century Foundation, said the gift to Spelman was the largest single donation to an HBCU that she was aware of, speaking before Bloomberg Philanthropies announcement Tuesday.
Smith authored a 2021 report on the financial disparities between HBCUs and other higher education institutions, including the failure of many states to fulfill their promises to fund historically Black land grant schools. As a result, she said philanthropic gifts have played an important role in sustaining HBCUs, and pointed to the billionaire philanthropist and author MacKenzie Scott's gifts to HBCUs in 2020 and 2021 as setting off a new chain reaction of support from other large donors.
"Donations that have followed are the type of momentum and support that institutions need in this moment," Smith said.
Dr. Yolanda Lawson, president of the National Medical Association, said she felt "relief," when she heard about the gifts to the four medical schools. With the Supreme Court's decision striking down affirmative action last year and attacks on programs meant to support inclusion and equity at schools, she anticipates that the four schools will play an even larger role in training and increasing the number of Black physicians.
"This opportunity and this investment affects not only just those four institutions, but that affects our country. It affects the nation's health," she said.
Utibe Essien, a physician and assistant professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, who researches racial disparities in treatment, said more investment and investment in earlier educational support before high school and college would make a difference in the number of Black students who decide to pursue medicine.
He said he also believes the Supreme Court decision on affirmative action and the backlash against efforts to rectify historic discrimination and racial inequities does have an impact on student choices.
"It's hard for some of the trainees who are thinking about going into this space to see some of that backlash and pursue it," he said. "Again, I think we get into this spiral where in five to 10 years we're going to see a concerning drop in the numbers of diverse people in our field."
Source: The Associated Press - AP
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