Niger Republic military leaders have stopped electricity and water going to the French Embassy in Niamey.
No food is getting in either, according to Turkish news source Anadolu.
The same actions are happening at French consulates in other cities like Zinder and Dosso.
Elh Issa Hassoumi Boureima, head of a national support committee, has asked partners of French bases in Niger to halt supplies of water, electricity, and food.
He was quoted to have said, “We ask Nigelec and SPEN (SEEN)) to cut off water and electricity in the French Embassy, in the French consulates of Zinder and Niamey.”
In addition, the military coup leaders in Niger have warned that helping France with supplies will make you an “enemy of the sovereign people.”
The decision of the coup leaders comes after a 48-hour deadline for the French ambassador to leave Niger ended on Sunday.
Diplomatic ties have been shaky between Niger, some Western countries, and the West African group, Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) since the July 26 coup.
France on Friday evening refused to follow the order against its ambassador, saying it doesn’t recognize the military’s authority.
The coup on July 26 threw Niger into chaos when Gen. Abdourahamane Tchiani ousted President Mohamed Bazoum.
China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has already surpassed the U.S. in missile development and its number of warships and air defense systems under the Chinese Communist Party’s plan to achieve dominance by 2049, the Defense Department said in a sobering report.
The ultimate goal of the People’s Republic of China, or PRC, is to “develop a military by mid-Century that is equal to — or in some cases superior to — the U.S. military, or that of any other great power that the PRC views as a threat,” the DoD’s annual report to Congress said.
To that end, the PRC has “marshalled the resources, technology, and political will over the past two decades to strengthen and modernize the PLA in nearly every respect,” the report said.
Under the national strategy pressed by Chinese President Xi Jinping, the result has been that “China is already ahead of the United States in certain areas” essential to its overall aim of progressing from homeland and periphery defense to global power projection, the report said.
“The PRC has the largest navy in the world, with an overall battle force of approximately 350 ships and submarines, including over 130 major surface combatants,” the report said.
That’s compared to the U.S. Navy’s current battle force of 295 ships.
In addition, “the PRC has more than 1,250 ground-launched ballistic missiles (GLBMs) and ground-launched cruise missiles (GLCMs) with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers,” while the U.S. currently fields one type of conventional GLBM with a range of 70 to 300 kilometers and no GLCMs, the report said.
In some respects, China is also ahead on integrated air defense systems with a mix of Russian-built and homegrown systems, the report said.
“The PRC has one of the world’s largest forces of advanced long-range surface-to-air systems” — including Russian-built S-400, S-300, and domestically-produced anti-air systems — making up “part of its robust and redundant integrated air defense system,” the report said.
Despite the advances, the PLA “remains in a position of inferiority” to the U.S. in overall military strength, said Chad Sbragia, the deputy assistant secretary of Defense for China.
The 173-page DoD report “does not claim that China’s military is 10 feet tall,” but the Chinese Communist Party wants it to be, and has the plan and resources to reach that goal, Sbragia, a retired Marine officer, said at an American Enterprise Institute forum on China’s military.
At an earlier Pentagon briefing on the report, Sbragia said Beijing’s military strategy was driven by the view that the U.S. has decided upon a long period of confrontation to counter the global spread of China’s influence.
He said that China “increasingly views the United States as more willing to confront Beijing on matters where the U.S. and PRC interests are inimical.”
“The CCP leaders view the United States’ security alliances and partnerships — especially those in the Indo-Pacific region — as destabilizing and irreconcilable with China’s interests,” Sbragia said.
The DoD report, titled “Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China” comes on the heels of China's increasing political and military influence in the world and the South China sea respectively.
The 23rd annual report on China by DoD noted the “staggering” improvements in China’s ability to build, coordinate and project power since the first report was issued.
“DoD’s first annual report to Congress in 2000 assessed the PRC’s armed forces at that time to be a sizable but mostly archaic military that was poorly suited to the CCP’s long-term ambitions,” the report said.
In 2000, “the PLA lacked the capabilities, organization, and readiness for modern warfare,” the report said. But the CCP, it added, recognized the shortcomings and set about with determination to “strengthen and transform its armed forces in a manner commensurate with its aspirations to strengthen and transform China.”
“More striking than the PLA’s staggering amounts of new military hardware are the recent sweeping efforts taken by CCP leaders that include completely restructuring the PLA into a force better suited for joint operations” and for “expanding the PRC’s overseas military footprint.”
The PLA has already established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, about a mile from U.S. Africa Command’s main base on the Horn of Africa.
In its commentary on the DoD assessment, the American Enterprise Institute noted that the report also stressed that “The PRC has likely considered locations for PLA military logistics facilities in Myanmar, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, United Arab Emirates, Kenya, Seychelles, Tanzania, Angola, and Tajikistan.”
Despite the progress made by China’s military over the past two decades, “major gaps and shortcomings remain” in readiness and operational capability, the report said, but China’s leaders are acutely aware of the problems and have detailed plans to overcome them.
“Of course, the CCP does not intend for the PLA to be merely a showpiece of China’s modernity or to keep it focused solely on regional threats,” the report said.
“As this report shows, the CCP desires the PLA to become a practical instrument of its statecraft with an active role in advancing the PRC’s foreign policy, particularly with respect to the PRC’s increasingly global interests and its aims to revise aspects of the international order,” it added.
CC™ Opinionscope - By Amritha Mohan A statement allegedly made by Professor Tasuku Honjo, Japan’s Nobel prize winning Professor of Medicine, that Coronavirus is not natural has gone viral on social media.
But did Honjo say so?
Honjo, co-winner of Nobel Medicine Prize in 2018, was quoted as saying: “If it is natural, it wouldn’t have adversely affected the entire world like this. Because, as per nature, temperature is different in different countries. If it is natural, it would adversely affect only those countries having the same temperature as China.
“Instead, it is spreading in a country like Switzerland, in the same way it is spreading in the desert areas. Whereas if it were natural, it would have spread in cold places, but died in hot places.
“I have done 40 years of research on animals and viruses. It is not natural. It is manufactured and the virus is completely artificial. I have worked for 4 years in the Wuhan laboratory in China.
“I am fully acquainted with all the staff of that laboratory. I have been phoning them all, after the Coronavirus surfaced. But all their phones are dead for the last 3 months. It is now understood that all these lab technicians have died.
“Based on all my knowledge and research till date, I can say this with 100% confidence – That the Coronavirus is not natural. It did not come from bats. China manufactured it.
“If what I am saying today is proved false now or even after my death, the government can withdraw my Nobel Prize. China is lying and this truth will one day be revealed to everyone.” The post was first made on Facebook by Mir Monaz Haque late on Friday.
Haque is a Bangladeshi based in Germany. Facebook has already flagged the post as fake.
However, when NewsMeter reached out to the professor, he refuted all the claims. In an e-mail, a Ph.D student working under the professor, gave out this statement in behalf of the professor:
“Prof. Honjo never gave any such statement. Each and every sentence of this post is completely false and has no connection with truth. Prof. Honjo never worked in Wuhan laboratory. He never called there. He did not work on virus origin and functions and other related issues. All the contents are just concocted and nothing else.”
As claimed in the viral message, Professor Tasuku Honjo, has not worked in any laboratory in Wuhan, China, for the past four years.
His biography, accessed from Kyoto University’s official website, showed that the professor has been teaching full-time in Japan’s Kyoto University, from 1984 to 2005.
Currently, he is a professor at the Department of Immunology and Genomic Medicine, Kyoto University. Secondly, a Google search on media reports after April 22 (the date of the message) regarding the statement ‘coronavirus is not natural’ did not yield any results leading to Professor Tasuku Honjo.
In fact, the professor gave an interview to Nikkei Asian Review, a news portal based in Japan, published on April 10, 2020.
The professor said in the interview that “the illness originated in China, but the country will be the first to recover from it, too. I can’t say whether this will boost Chinese influence or whether the world will shun China, but there’s a possibility that the global order will shift after the outbreak.”
The professor did not mention anything regarding COVID-19 being a man-made virus.
Amrith Mohan first published this piece in newsmeter.in
Growing up, Awele Uwagwu’s view of energy was deeply influenced by the oil and gas industry. He was born and raised in Port Harcourt, a city on the southern coast of Nigeria, and his hometown shaped his initial interest in understanding the role of energy in our lives.
“I basically grew up in a city colored by oil and gas,” says Uwagwu. “Many of the jobs in that area are in the oil sector, and I saw a lot of large companies coming in and creating new buildings and infrastructure. That very much tailored my interest in the energy sector. I kept thinking: What is all of this stuff going on, and what are all these big machines that I see every day? The more sinister side of it was: Why is the water bad? Why is the air bad? And, what can I do about it?”
Uwagwu has shaped much of his educational and professional journey around answering that question: “What can I do about it?” He is now a senior at MIT, majoring in chemical engineering with a minor in energy studies.
After attending high school in Nigeria’s capital city, Abuja, Uwagwu decided to pursue a degree in chemical engineering and briefly attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016. Unfortunately, the impacts of a global crash in oil prices made the situation difficult back in Nigeria, so he returned home and found employment at an oil services company working on a water purification process.
It was during this time that he decided to apply to MIT. “I wanted to go to a really great place,” he says, “and I wanted to take my chances.” After only a few months of working at his new job, he was accepted to MIT.
“At this point in my life I had a much clearer picture of what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be in the energy sector and make some sort of impact. But I didn’t quite know how I was going to do that,” he says.
With this in mind, Uwagwu met with Rachel Shulman, the undergraduate academic coordinator at the MIT Energy Initiative, to learn about the different ways that MIT is engaged in energy. He eventually decided to become an energy studies minor and concentrate in energy engineering studies through the 10-ENG: Energy program in the Department of Chemical Engineering. Additionally, he participated in the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) in the lab of William H. Green, the Hoyt C. Hottel Professor in Chemical Engineering, focusing on understanding the different reaction pathways for the production of soot from the combustion of carbon.
After this engaging experience, he reconnected with Shulman to get involved with another UROP, this time with a strong focus in renewable energy. She pointed him toward Ian Mathews — a postdoc in the Photovoltaic Research Laboratory and founder of Sensai Analytics — to discuss ways he could make a beneficial impact on the energy industry in Nigeria. This conversation led to a second UROP, under the supervision of Mathews. In that project, Uwagwu worked to figure out how cost-effective solar energy would be in Nigeria compared to petrol-powered generators, which are commonly used to supplement the unreliable national grid.
“The idea we had is that these generators are really, really bad for the environment, whereas solar is cheap and better for the environment,” Uwagwu says. “But we needed to know if solar is actually affordable.” After setting up a software model and connecting with Leke Oyefeso, a friend back home, to get data on generators, they concluded that solar was cost-comparable and often cheaper than the generators.
Armed with this information and another completed UROP, Uwagwu thought, “What happens next?” Quickly an idea started forming, so he and Oyefeso went to Venture Mentoring Services at MIT to figure out how to leverage this knowledge to start a company that could deliver a unique and much-needed product to the Nigerian market.
They ran through many different potential business plans and ideas, eventually deciding on creating software to design solar systems that are tailored to Nigeria’s specific needs and context. Having come up with the initial idea, they “chatted with people on the solar scene back home to see if this is even useful or if they even need this.”
Through these discussions and market research, it became increasingly clear to them what sort of novel and pivotal product they could offer to help accelerate Nigeria’s burgeoning solar sector, and their initial idea took on a new shape: solar design software coupled with an online marketplace that connects solar providers to funding sources and energy consumers. In recognition of his unique venture, Uwagwu received a prestigious Legatum Fellowship, a program that offers entrepreneurial MIT students strong mentoring and networking opportunities, educational experiences, and substantial financial support.
Since its founding in the summer of 2020, their startup, Idagba, has been hard at work getting its product ready for market. Starting a company in the midst of Covid-19 has created a set of unique challenges for Uwagwu and his team, especially as they operate on a whole other continent from their target market.
“We wanted to travel to Lagos last summer but were unable to do so,” he says. “We can’t make the software without talking to the people and businesses who are going to use it, so there are a lot of Zoom and phone calls going on.”
In spite of these challenges, Idagba is well on its path to commercialization. “Currently we are developing our minimum viable product,” comments Uwagwu. “The software is going to be very affordable, so there’s very little barrier for entry. We really want to help create this market for solar.”
In some ways, Idagba is drawing lessons from the success of Mo Ibrahim and his mobile phone company, Celtel. In the late 1990s, Celtel was able to quickly and drastically lower the overall price of cell phones across many countries in Africa, allowing for the widespread adoption of mobile communication at a much faster pace than had been anticipated. To Uwagwu, this same idea can be replicated for solar markets. “We want to reduce the financial and technical barriers to entry for solar like he did for telecom.”
This won’t be easy, but Uwagwu is up to the task. He sees his company taking off in three phases. The first is getting the design software online. After that has been accomplished — by mid-2021 — comes the hard part: getting customers and solar businesses connected and using the program. Once they have an existing user base and proven cash flow, the ultimate goal of the company is to create and facilitate an ecosystem of people wanting to push solar energy forward. This will make Idagba, as Uwagwu puts it, “the hub of solar energy in Nigeria.” Idagba has a long way to go before reaching that point, but Uwagwu is confident that the building blocks are in place to ensure its success.
After graduating in June, Uwagwu will be taking up a full-time position at the prestigious consulting firm Bain and Company, where he plans to gain even more experience and connections to help grow his company. This opportunity will provide him with the knowledge and expertise to come back to Idagba and, as he says, “commit my life to this.”
“This idea may seem ambitious and slightly nonsensical right now,” says Uwagwu, “but this venture has the potential to significantly push Nigeria away from unsustainable fossil fuel consumption to a much cleaner path.”
The African Union said Tuesday it had suspended Niger until civilian rule in the country is restored and would assess the implications of any armed intervention in the troubled Sahel nation.
The Peace and Security Council “requests the AU Commission to undertake an assessment of the economic, social and security implications of deploying a standby force in Niger and report back to Council,” the bloc said, following strong differences on the matter.
Army officers toppled President Mohamed Bazoum on July 26, prompting the West African regional bloc ECOWAS to threaten to use force to reinstate him.
ECOWAS — the Economic Community of West African States — agreed to activate a “standby force” as a last resort to restore democracy in Niger.
It has said it is ready to act, even as it continues to pursue hopes for a diplomatic solution.
The AU last week held a meeting on the crisis against a backdrop of divergent views within the bloc over any military intervention.
The coup has heightened international worries over the Sahel, which faces growing jihadist insurgencies linked to Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group.
Niger is the fourth nation in West Africa since 2020 to suffer a coup, following Burkina Faso, Guinea and Mali.
The juntas in Burkina Faso and Mali have said that any military intervention in their neighbour would be considered a “declaration of war” against their countries.
The coup is the fifth in Niger’s history since the impoverished landlocked state gained independence from France in 1960.
Bazoum’s election in 2021 was a landmark, opening the way to the country’s first peaceful transition of power.
He has been held with his family at the president’s official residence since the coup, with growing international concern over his conditions in detention.
Professor Omoh T. Ojior, Ph.D. The news that the former President of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo has enrolled at Nigeria's National Open University is pleasing because there is no end to learning. However, the report, on the other hand is disturbing because of one of the reasons the former Nigeria leader opted to go back to school to study for an MA and a Ph.D. degrees at this time in his life.
The report states that Chief Obasanjo has registered to study Christian Theology in the School of Arts and Social Sciences. Further, the report reveals that Chief Obasanjo at 77, states that his primary reason is "to acquire knowledge, particularly in Christian Theology, not because I want to be a pastor but rather, to know God more and to be able to serve Him better." In other words, Retired General Olusegun Obasanjo is going back to school to study Christian religious theology to allow him to know God more in order to serve "Him/Her" (God) better.
To begin with, most of the Christian Theology is taken from the Bible. One is aware that the Bible, to most Nigerians is the word of God hence our former President want to study Christian Theology to know God more to help him serve God better. From historical records, we are able to state that the Bible is "Apart from its being a book of great historical and biographical interest, the Bible is, from Genesis to Revelation, in its inner or spiritual meaning, a record of the experiences and the development of the human soul and of the whole being of humankind; also it is a treatise on humanity's relation to God, the Creator and Father." (Read Charles Fillmore's Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, 1931, and Joseph Wheless' Is It God's Word?).
So, the historical experiences as contained in the Bible will assist our Chief to know God more. Fine.
The purpose of this article is to show Nigerians that there is a serious need for an educational agenda that focuses on a new orientation of the minds of our people about what was before now. This is with a view to assisting in the development of new African perspectives of life as it relates to the type of Christianity that was brought to our land, Nigeria. Our effort here is not a criticism of any religion, rather the effort should be seen as trying to allow our people to see why our African ideas and ideals including our products and endeavors as a people should be respected.
You see, there is nothing wrong about one's desire to know God more with a view to relating and appreciating Him more. The problem one is having with Chief Obasanjo's choice is where he is channeling his focus to know more about the Divine nature of the Diffused Energies; the I Am that I Am; the Olorun Olodumare, and the Oluwa of the Yorubas; the Osinegba, Oghena, and the Omholua no ma mha kpo, of the Etsako people; the Chineke of the Igbos; the Ghanaians call HimHer, Mau; of course, the Egyptians call Him/Her, Ra; the Chinese have their own name, the Jews call Jehovah or Yahweh, and the Indians have theirs.
I am sure the Russians have their own name for the Phenomenon which only the Europeans and Americans call, God. They popularized their name which now makes it look as if their own name for Him/Her is the only One true God. One is aware that anyone should be able decide on where to find and interact with the One God of humanity, but it is not the high caliber of Chief Obasanjo's personality who should be telling Nigerians, young and old that he was going back to school to understudy the Christian Theology to allow him know God more.
Chief Obasanjo's reason, as he explained is not helpful to the young ones who are at this point in time, trying very hard to escape the harsh hardship and unpleasant conditions of life in the country, partly inflicted on the population through the dogmas taught by the Christian Church. At the level Chief Obasanjo has served Nigeria as its former Head of State and President, and with his maturity and dynamism, he had exhibited, he should have said or done something else to motivate the youths and people generally in the country; at least give a sense of direction.
When our rulers run away from what they are (our culture), what do we expect from the ordinary citizens? It is the same Chief Obasanjo who should have allowed the world to know that it was never a sin to have more than one wife when he was President. But he did not. Nigerians knew that the Chief was a true "Odape" a wealthy family man known in Etsako as Odape.
The Moslems are able to marry four wives because they say that their Holy Book, the Quran decrees it. The Quran and the Holy Book of the Christians, the Bible came from the same source; one is a replica of the other. France is Christendom. The French and their leaders marry one wife but have many mistresses or concubines known to everyone else; and it is not an offence or sin against God and humanity in France.
If this be the case, why should Nigerian rulers, some of who are Christians like Obasanjo continue to shy away from the truth, an apparent deception to destroy the Holistic cultural system of our African sub-region of the World? One man and many wives, as one can maintain is not a crime or sin, and it shouldn't be in Nigeria and Africa.
The Christian Church today in Nigeria could be said to be a curse. How else do we explain away the deceits, frauds, colluding with wrong dowers at the helm of affairs in the country, including the reported adulterous life of many of them? Some of the Church pastors ride about in private jets made of Gold.
The former President Olusegun Obasanjo has earned my praises and confidence over the years; he still earns my praise and confidence because in his time he attempted to bring Nigeria out of the doldrums it has been in; hence one is trying to advise him and those like him in the country through this medium. He is also, in our time, the first to recognize the need and worth of the Nigerians abroad, and the impact they could have on the Nigerian economy.
Another behavior one admires about Obasanjo is the fact that he remains as one of the Nigerian heads of state that have never put on a foreign dress such as English suite apart from when he wears his Military uniforms, in my opinion. He is always on our admirable native dresses outside his home. He deserves our advise like many other Nigerians on this type matters.
However, most of the Christian theological studies at any of our institutions, low and high, will be nothing more than the dogmas with which Africans have been deceived and held down over the years. This is not to say that there is no divinity in the Christianity. The facts are that the elements constituting the Divine nature of our Almighty Father, the I Am that I Am of us all, are omitted in the teachings of most of our Christian Churches who's many members and adherents of the religion, constitute a greater part of the servants of instructions in all of the esoteric or mundane institutions of ours.
Our institutions and Theology are not where to learn to know God more.
The Nigeria Christian Church dogmas are not near the quality and potency of the African cultures, spiritually speaking. If Chief Obasanjo had opted for the studies on African cultures in any of our universities, it would have created some inspirations that bring about some attention to the need to streamline our cultural elements in our lives. Awareness and the importance of our culture would have been assisted thereby. It would have become something to emulate by many Nigerians including many of the youths who are roaming about in the country unable to obtain employment.
Having not been equipped with the psychological tools of self value and confidence which is a case against our social institutions and the foreign religious dogmas fed to their psyche.
Authentic African history informs us that the original Christianity came out of Africa from the traditions, but came back refurbished into Africa, (read "The Destruction of Black Civilization, 1987" by Chancellor Williams). Christianity as was imported back into Africa by the colonial overlords which is largely practiced today is nothing like the original one. The Christianity of today in Africa is a European culture refurbished from Africa's cultural doctrines or traditions.
To acquire a wider knowledge of the world educationally is different from going to study Europeanized Christian doctrines that do not help an African to understand the world around him or her. This is because Christian beliefs and doctrines are opium that tranquilizes the adherents. Nigerian rulers do not need to promote such teachings or evangelism.
A conscious person, who wants to know God more, should be in-tune with the precepts of his or her own culture and traditions. If there are any of the cultural precepts that are no longer in tuned with the time they should be revised within the culture to meet the dictates of the time. It is not to be replaced with foreign culture, traditions, and dogmas. Take for an example, The Christian religious dogmas instruct Africans that the Ten Commandments in Christianity was handed to Moses by God atop Mountain Sinai.
This is definitely not correct as a fact and it is the kind of what exactly Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, our former President will be taught in Christian theological studies in our universities. According to Chancellor Williams, "The great Lawgiver, Moses, was not only born in Africa but he was also married to the daughter of an African priest,"…. and "The religious belief in sacrifice for the remission of sins was an African belief and practice at least 2,000 years before Abraham."
Chancellor Williams concluded further that "Practically all of the Ten Commandments were embedded in the African Constitution ages before Moses went up Mt. Sinai in Africa in 1491 B.C., a rather late date in African history," page 135.
In his own historical account, Gerald Massey states that "the Mosaic commandments were borrowed from the wisdom of Egypt," (see Egypt: The Light of the World, Vol. II) Also, Maulana Karenga asserts that of the Ten Commandments, (9) were strictly African.
This is because in my own opinion, the tenth of the Commandments was the one which says that "Thou shall not have another God before me." Africans could not have authored the injunction of "Thou shall not have another God before me." This cannot be in doubt because early in ancient time, Egypt like in any other African Kingdom or Empire was known as the land of the Gods as it was the practice at the time that every household has their own Shrine, Deity or God which they adored and worshiped.
This being the case, such an injunction could not be made part of the Egyptian Laws.
Also, the condemnation of ancient African many Gods, as devils by the then new Christian Church have been proved to be wrong. We read "Instead of the plurality of Gods of the "pagan" religions it adopted the One God Yahweh as finally evolved from old Hebrew mythology, into Three-One-Christian Godhead.
The other Pagan Gods became, in effect, the 'saints' of the new cult; or as quoted in the Catholic Encyclopedia: 'the saints are the successors to the Gods' (Vol. xv, 710)." (see Joseph Wheless' Is It God's Word? Or Jeremiah VIII, 8 Rev. Ver.) Is it impossible that these historical facts are not known to our educators, therefore will not be taught to Chief Olusegun Obasanjo? The answer will be YES.
Our leaders or rulers must become conscious enough to know that they need to be symbols for our emulation in our societies. They need to know that to know God and serve Him better is to serve man and woman better in our societies. When one serves man or woman, he or she is serving the One Supreme Being of the universe. Man know Thyself is a spiritual mandate. Man is the Microcosm of the Macrocosm.
Our rulers should know this and if not, then they were not preparing to serve the people. The inadequate preparation and the dogmas imbibed by those who should have serve the people better, is the result of some of the inhumanity to man that pervade our environment.
A reorientation to understand who we are as a distinct people is a greater prerequisite to solution sought by those Africans who have the need to expand their educational knowledge and human affairs. There is a need for a new educational agenda in Africa.
By Kevin Love (NBA Champion and five-time All-Star)
Being depressed is exhausting.
That’s one of the cruelest ironies about mental health. When you’re in a dark place, everyone around you — all your friends and family — they just want to see you doing what you love again, being happy, being “the old you.”
Sometimes it feels like the world is looking at you saying things like, “Come on, man, just get over it. Don’t think like that. Just move on.”
But what people on the outside don’t always understand is that it takes all of your strength and willpower just to exist. Just to keep on going. Battling depression, battling anxiety, battling any mental health disorder … it’s all just so unbelievably exhausting.
That’s been on my mind a lot lately, considering the millions and millions of people around the world who have lost their jobs, or lost their loved ones, or who are just dealing with the unprecedented anxieties of being a human in 2020. I know so many people out there are suffering right now. I’m no different. I’m still going through it. Even after all the work I’ve tried to do on myself over the last two-and-a-half years, some days are just brutal.
Even after all the work I’ve tried to do on myself over the last two-and-a-half years, some days are just brutal.
Let’s just call it what it is. Some days are total shit, right?
It feels good just to say it.
Even in the best of times, my default setting was often dread. That’s just the way I’ve been wired since I was a kid. It’s like there’s a constant, low-level threat that I can sense in the pit of my stomach from the moment that I wake up in the morning. It’s like this white noise humming in the background, and it’s saying, Something bad is going to happen, any second now. That sense of dread would often be amplified by something in the news or by social media, and at any point could send me into a spiral.
My way out was always basketball. But I don’t mean that in some cliché way — where I would go to the park, roll the ball out and suddenly everything would be O.K. It was a different kind of thing entirely.
The best way I’ve ever heard it described was in the HBO documentary on Robin Williams after his death. He was talking about the only way he could combat his demons was to wake up in the morning and ride his bike until he had absolutely nothing left in the tank, and then at night he would go up on stage and do a two-hour stand-up set and just pour all of himself into it — every single ounce of himself, until he was just totally wrung out, mentally and physically.
Anything to stop the thoughts. Because the thoughts can be disturbing.
That resonated with me so much. Ever since I was a kid, I’d often put myself through hell in the hopes of numbing my mind. I used to think of it as going into my “pain tank.” If I wore myself out to the point of exhaustion, then I’d be mentally on empty, too. It was like I had to wring myself out completely so that at the end of the day I was just blank.
Everybody who goes through mental health issues has a unique story, but for me (and I think this is probably true for a lot of people), my entire identity was tied to one thing in a really unhealthy way. Way before I was in the NBA or even in college, my self-worth was all about performing. I was what I did, which I think a lot of people can relate to, whether they’re a chef or a lawyer or a nurse or whatever the profession. I just happened to play basketball.
When I wasn’t performing, I didn’t feel like I was succeeding as a person.
I didn’t really know how to be comfortable in my own skin. I could never just be unapologetically Kevin, walking into a room. I was never in the moment, alive. It was always the next thing, the next game, the next, next, next. It was like I was trying to achieve my way out of depression. And so I guess it’s not surprising that some of the darkest moments of my life happened when that crutch of basketball got taken away.
This is still hard to talk about, but I feel like it might resonate with people out there who are going through something right now. People who have lost their jobs (and their sense of purpose) during this crisis. People who … I don’t know … maybe just need to hear this.
It was like I was trying to achieve my way out of depression.
Everybody knows about my anxiety attack during the Atlanta game back in 2018. That’s become, over time, easier to talk about. Especially with the overwhelming support that I’ve gotten. In a way, it’s almost ironic that I’ve become known for this one incident, because that was the first and — thank God — the only time that I’ve experienced a debilitating panic attack in public like that. But that moment, as terrifying as it was, was just the tip of the iceberg, in a lot of ways. It was the culmination of years and years of me suppressing a lot of issues. I’ve never really talked about the other side of my mental health issues, which is a much more complicated and subtle battle with depression.
Five years before the panic attack that everyone knows about, I was probably in the darkest period of my life. I’d only played 18 games with the Timberwolves that season, breaking my right hand twice, and that was when this whole … I guess you’d call it a facade or a character that I had sort of built up …. it all started crumbling. I was in a cast. My identity was gone. My emotional outlet was gone. All I was left with was me and my mind. I was living alone at the time, and my social anxiety was so bad that I never even left my apartment. Actually, I would rarely even leave my bedroom. I would have the shades down most of the day, no lights on, no TV, nothing. It felt like I was on a deserted island by myself, and it was always midnight.
Just … dark. Dark and alone with my thoughts. Every. Single. Day.
And I want to make it clear that I know how fortunate I was, compared to most people. I knew then and I know now. I didn’t have to worry about my bills, or kids, or anything like that. But none of that mattered. My whole sense of purpose was tied to my job, and with that gone, every little thing that went wrong, no matter how small, just started compounding and compounding.
That’s the thing that people on the outside don’t fully understand. Nothing major has to happen to start a spiral. It can happen over the smallest thing in the world. Because when you have depression you can fall apart at any moment disproportionate to the circumstances.
Then it’s just…. Shame.
It got to the point that year where I was simply paralyzed with depression. And of course, I’m not about to show my weakness to anybody, right? I was tucked away in my apartment, and nobody could see me suffering. The only time I would leave my apartment was to work out, because that was the only place where I felt like I added value to the world, period. To those around me, I would put on a brave face.
Fake facades are hard to keep up.
The future started to feel meaningless. And when it gets to the point where you lose hope, that’s when the only thing you can think about is, “How can I make this pain go away?”
I don’t think I have to say much more than that.
If it hadn’t been for a couple of my closest friends, I don’t know if I would be here today telling my story. And 99.9% of the people in my life probably don’t know how bad it got for me. But as hard as that might be for them to hear, I feel like I need to get that off my chest for the people out there who might be in a similar situation right now.
If it hadn’t been for a couple of my closest friends, I don’t know if I would be here today telling my story.
When I was sitting in that dark room, I just couldn’t see how things were ever going to get better. And if there’s somebody out there right now who is reading this — even just one person — who is sitting in that same dark room, having those same thoughts….
All I can say to you is this:
Talk to somebody.
You would be amazed at how freeing it is just to talk to somebody, and tell them the truth about what you’re going through.
And listen, I’m not trying to sell you some fairy-tale version of mental health. It took me years and years — hell, it genuinely took 29 years for me to realize what I needed.
I needed medication. I needed therapy.
I still need those things now, and I probably always will.
There are still days where I look at social media, or I see the news, and my anxiety gets triggered. But sometimes I get triggered by almost nothing at all. Just simple negativity is enough to start a spiral of overgeneralization.
Oh, my coffee was shit this morning? I must be shit. I’m a horrible human being.
There are days when I don’t want to get out of bed. That’s just the truth. And that’s why I wrote this.
I think that sometimes — because of all the incredible support I’ve been given, and because of my platform as an NBA player — people see me as some kind of Finished Product. Or some kind of Success Story for Mental Health or something. They see the curated version of me, and not the real person.
The fact is, the real person is still dealing with his deep-seated shit every single day. The real person is still trying to learn how to control his anger and anxiety. And the real person, by the way, never would have been able to tell his story in the first place without the courage of DeMar DeRozan, who blazed that path for everybody in the league today.
The real person’s story didn’t end when the Cavs won an NBA title, and suddenly it was all good, and then the credits rolled, the end.
No. The truth is, the deepest sense of joy and peace that I’ve gained in my life doesn’t have anything to do with basketball. It definitely doesn’t have anything to do with money or fame or achievement.
You don’t achieve your way out of depression.
No, as sweet as it was to win an NBA title for the city of Cleveland, that wasn’t the happy ending. That was my job, which is now a different thing from my identity and my self-worth. One of the best days of my life happened after I started working through my issues with a therapist, and I walked into a room for the first time and I was just 100% my authentic self. I was comfortable in my own skin. I was alright with just being Kevin. I wasn’t thinking about the next thing. I was just in the moment, fully alive. And I can tell you from experience that you can live for years, but not be really alive and fully present for 30 seconds at a time.
If you would’ve told me back in 2012, when I was at my lowest, that I would ever feel at peace like that, walking into a room, I just wouldn’t have believed it. I was coming off a season where I was an All-Star, All-NBA, and won a Gold medal at the London Olympics. But I was completely unaware of the darkness that was about to consume me.
Look, I’m not trying to sell you some happy ending. All I can do is just be as honest as possible about a really dark period in my life.
So here it is.
When I was lying on the floor of the trainer’s room during my anxiety attack back in 2018, it was probably the single scariest moment of my life. I was gasping for air, and my heart was pounding out of my chest, and I really thought that death was a possibility. And I’ll never forget how our trainer, Steve Spiro, he just kept asking, “Kevin, what do you need? What do you need? What do you need?”
What do you need?
That’s the question, isn’t it?
That’s everything.
I spent 29 years trying to figure it out.
What do you need?
For me, I guess what I needed was to talk to somebody.
For me, what I needed was to know that I wasn’t alone.
If you’re struggling right now, I can’t tell you that this is going to be easy.
But I can tell you that it does get better.
And I can tell you that you are definitely not alone.
The Abia State Police Command, Thursday, confirmed the death of a female evangelist in an Aba hotel during a sex session with the General Overseer of her church, Timothy Otu last Saturday night.
According to the Police Public Relations Officer, Chinaka Maureen, “On the 13th of August, 2023, at approximately 09:30 AM, Mr. Godwin Akpan (male), residing at Jubilee Guest House in Ovom village, Obingwa LGA, reported to the Isiala Ngwa Police Division that an incident had occurred.
“It was revealed that on the evening of the 12th of August, 2023, around 09:25 PM, a clergyman named Timothy Otu (male), associated with Agape Evangelical Ministry at Obikabia Junction in Obingwa LGA, had checked into the guest house along with a woman named Happiness Echieze (female) from Isialangwa LGA, Abia State. Happiness Echieze was 43 years of age.
“ Further details provided by Mr. Akpan indicated that on the same date, around 12:00 AM, he entered the hotel room of the aforementioned clergyman and discovered the lifeless body of Happiness Echieze. She was found unclothed, and a white substance was emanating from her mouth and nose. Regrettably, the clergyman was absent from the scene.
“We hereby inform the public that immediate preliminary investigations have been launched into this matter. The deceased’s body has been transported from the location and is currently at the SDA Mortuary in Aba, awaiting an autopsy examination.
“ Additionally, we wish to convey that the suspected individual, in this case, has been apprehended and the case has been transferred to the State CID for discreet investigations.”
The married church evangelist and mother of five was found dead in a hotel room, allegedly during a marathon sex session with her church overseer in the guest house.
Naira inched close to a 15 per cent gain against dollar in the parallel market within a week, trading around N820/$ in Lagos and Abuja yesterday evening.
Reliable sources informed The Guardian that traders at major market clusters were hurriedly dumping dollars yesterday as fear of a further slide in the value of the greenback gripped the market.
A trader, who confided that he was desperate and looking for an opportunity to offload his hoardings said the naira could appreciate to around N700/$ this weekend. It sustained the rising momentum seen since the beginning of the week.
Another dealer, who revealed that he was still hoarding a substantial part of what he bought at an average of N920/$ last week, noted: “as we speak, there is no fixed rate. People sell at the slightest opportunity as they are not sure what the rate would be tomorrow. And the speed at which the hard currencies are falling against naira is too high. This is the cause of panic, and it is real.”
But even amid panic selling, The Guardian understands that trading volume is still very low, underpinning the level of illiquidity.
Hence, many observers have dismissed the uptrend of the value of the local currency as emotion-driven as opposed to strong market fundamentals.
The Guardian had reported that about 48 hours after President Bola Tinubu and Acting Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Folashodun Shonubi, held a crucial meeting on the state of the foreign exchange (FX) market, there appeared to be a breather for the troubled currency as it recorded a moderate gain, trading at about N880/$ at the black-market mid-week.
Dollar had spiked last week hitting an all-time high of N950/$ at peer-to-peer (P2P) and parallel market amid fresh concern over scarcity.
If the current momentum is sustained, official and unofficial markets could achieve parity, converging around the same value, in the coming days. At the current rates, the arbitrage has narrowed to below N100/$.
Last week, the premium on the black market hit N200 per dollar for the first time since the June market liberalisation that was aimed at harmonising the multiple exchange rates.
At the height of the crisis last year, the premium rose to 100 per cent, the highest ever recorded since the country’s return to democracy in 1999. During the military era, the margin widened to over 100 per cent, triggering wholesale widespread manipulation, with banking licences procured for foreign exchange deals.
In the popular Zone 4, Abuja, yesterday, there was lamentation, as dealers groaned over losses of over N100 per dollar in some cases.
Adamu Alhassan, who is a bureau du change operator, said: “I am not happy about what has been happening since morning because most of us have lost some money. The rate was N950 just last week. But now, we are buying at N820 and selling at N850. We are not sure what to expect next.”
When reminded that the bureau de change operators enjoyed the boom while it lasted, he said: “Of course, what do you expect?”
Samuel Itodo, who came to buy dollars, was ecstatic about the gain recorded by naira in a few days and hoped it continued.
“I am very happy with what is happening with the dollar. Who will believe that the rate can crash to the level within days? I was apprehensive about the effect the falling exchange rate will have on the costs of living.
“As an import-dependent country, any rise in the dollar will automatically mean higher prices and higher cost of living. But can this be sustained on a longer term?” he said.
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