LETTER TO THE VULTURES

Dear vultures,
Eat not our corpses
Our broken, rotten corpses
All their lives, are corpses
Helping humanity’s corpse
Eat not our corpses
Our weak and now lonely corpses.

SOMALIA

Somalia, oh! Somalia.
Is this Elah’s anger,
Or mother nature’s pamper?
A drop, now your ocean,
And a grain, barns nation.
Babies yours on suckle die
And your children with bodies ignorant of bath,
In souls thirsty and bellies hungry wail
As to heaven with no love and affection they sail.

Segun Oyeniyi in “THE BARD”, SATURDAY SUN, August 13, 2011. Pg 40.

PATRICE EMERY LUMUMBA.

Patrice Émery Lumumba (2 July 1925 – 17 January 1961) was a Congolese independence leader and the first legally elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo after he helped win its independence from Belgium in June 1960. Only ten weeks later, Lumumba's government was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis. He was subsequently imprisoned and murdered in circumstances suggesting the support and complicity of the governments of Belgium and the United States.


EARLY LIFE AND CAREER
Lumumba was born in Onalua in the Katakokombe region of the Kasai province of the Belgian Congo, a member of the Tetela ethnic group. Raised in a Catholic family as one of four sons, he was educated at a Protestant primary school, a Catholic missionary school, and finally the government post office training school, passing the one-year course with distinction. He subsequently worked in Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) and Stanley Ville (now Kisangani) as a postal clerk and as a travelling beer salesperson. In 1951, he married Pauline Opangu. In 1955, Lumumba became regional head of the Cercles of Stanley Ville and joined the Liberal Party of Belgium, where he worked on editing and distributing party literature. After travelling on a three-week study tour in Belgium, he was arrested in 1955 on charges of embezzlement of post office funds. His two-year sentence was commuted to twelve months after it was confirmed by Belgian lawyer Jules Chrome that Lumumba had returned the funds, and he was released in July 1956. After his release, he helped found the broad-based Mouvement National Congolais (MNC) in 1958, later becoming the organization's president. Lumumba and his team represented the MNC at the All-African Peoples' Conference in Accra, Ghana, in December 1958. At this international conference, hosted by influential Pan-African President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Lumumba further solidified his Pan-Africanist beliefs.


LEADER OF MNC
In late October 1959, Lumumba as leader of the MNC was again arrested for allegedly inciting an anti-colonial riot in Stanley Ville where thirty people were killed, for which he was sentenced to six months in prison. The trial's start date of 18 January 1960, was also the first day of a round-table conference in Brussels to finalize the future of the Congo. Despite Lumumba's imprisonment at the time, the MNC won a convincing majority in the December local elections in the Congo. As a result of pressure from delegates who were enraged at Lumumba's imprisonment, he was released and allowed to attend the Brussels conference. The conference culminated on January 27 with a declaration of Congolese independence setting June 30, 1960, as the independence date with national elections from 11–25 May 1960. Lumumba and the MNC won this election and the right to form a government, with the announcement on 23 June 1960 of 34-year-old Lumumba as Congo's first prime minister and Joseph Kasa-Vubu as its president. In accordance with the constitution, on 24 June the new government passed a vote of confidence and was ratified by the Congolese Chamber and Senate.

Independence Day was celebrated on June 30 in a ceremony attended by many dignitaries including King Baudouin and the foreign press. Lumumba delivered his famous independence speech after being officially excluded from the event programme, despite being the new prime minister. The speech of Belgian King Baudouin praised developments under colonialism, his reference to the "genius" of his great-granduncle Leopold II of Belgium glossing over atrocities committed during the Congo Free State. The King continued, "Don't compromise the future with hasty reforms, and don't replace the structures that Belgium hands over to you until you are sure you can do better... Don't be afraid to come to us. We will remain by your side, give you advice." Lumumba responded by reminding the audience that the independence of the Congo was not granted magnanimously by Belgium:

For this independence of the Congo, even as it is celebrated today with Belgium, a friendly country with whom we deal as equal to equal, no Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it was by fighting that it has been won, a day-to-day fight, an ardent and idealistic fight, a fight in which we were spared neither privation nor suffering, and for which we gave our strength and our blood. We are proud of this struggle, of tears, of fire, and of blood, to the depths of our being, for it was a noble and just struggle, and indispensable to put an end to the humiliating slavery which was imposed upon us by force.

In contrast to the relatively harmless speech of President Kasa-Vubu, Lumumba's reference to the suffering of the Congolese under Belgian colonialism stirred the crowd while simultaneously humiliating and alienating the King and his entourage. Some media claimed at the time that he ended his speech by ad-libbing, Nous ne sommes plus vos macaques! (We are no longer your monkeys!) --referring to a common slur used against Africans by Belgians, however, these words are neither in his written text nor in radio tapes of his speech. Lumumba was later harshly criticised for what many in the Western world—but virtually none in Africa—described as the inappropriate nature of his speech.


AS PRIME MINISTER
A few days after Congo gained its independence, Lumumba made the fateful decision to raise the pay of all government employees except for the army. Many units of the army also had strong objections toward the uniformly Belgian officers; General Janssens, the army head, told them their lot would not change after independence, and they rebelled in protest. The rebellions quickly spread throughout the country, leading to a general breakdown in law and order. Although the trouble was highly localized, the country seemed to be overrun by gangs of soldiers and looters, causing a media sensation, particularly over Europeans fleeing the country.

The province of Katanga declared independence under regional premier Moïse Tshombe on 11 July 1960 with support from the Belgian government and mining companies such as Union Minière. Despite the arrival of UN troops, unrest continued. Since the United Nations refused to help suppress the rebellion in Katanga, Lumumba sought Soviet aid in the form of arms, food, medical supplies, trucks, and planes to help move troops to Katanga. Lumumba's decisive actions alarmed his colleagues and President Kasa-Vubu, who preferred a more moderate political approach.


HIS ASSASINATION
“Dead, living, free, or in prison on the orders of the colonialists, it is not I who counts. It is the Congo, it is our people for whom independence has been transformed into a cage where we are regarded from the outside… History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipated from colonialism and its puppets... a history of glory and dignity.”
— Patrice Lumumba, October 1960
—

DEPOSITION AND ARREST
In September, the President dismissed Lumumba from government. Lumumba immediately protested the legality of the President's actions. In retaliation, Lumumba declared Kasa-Vubu deposed and won a vote of confidence in the Senate, while the newly appointed prime minister failed to gain parliament's confidence. The country was torn by two political groups claiming legal power over the country. On 14 September, a coup d’état organised by Colonel Joseph Mobutu and endorsed by the Central Intelligence Agency incapacitated both Lumumba and Kasa-Vubu. Lumumba was placed under house arrest at the prime minister's residence, although UN troops were positioned around the house to protect him. Nevertheless, Lumumba decided to rouse his supporters in Haut-Congo. Smuggled out of his residence at night, he escaped to Stanley Ville, where he attempted to set up his own government and army. Pursued by troops loyal to Mobutu he was finally captured in Port Francqui on 1 December 1960 and flown to Leopoldville (now Kinshasa) in ropes not handcuffs. He desperately appealed to local UN troops to save him, but he was no longer their responsibilitycitation needed. Mobutu said Lumumba would be tried for inciting the army to rebellion and other crimes. United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld made an appeal to Kasa-Vubu asking that Lumumba be treated according to due process of law. The USSR denounced Hammarskjöld and the Western powers as responsible for Lumumba's arrest and demanded his release.


UN RESPONSE
The UN Security Council was called into session on 7 December 1960 to consider Soviet demands that the UN seek Lumumba's immediate release, the immediate restoration of Lumumba as head of the Congo government, the disarming of the forces of Mobutu, and the immediate evacuation of Belgians from the Congo. Hammarskjöld, answering Soviet attacks against his Congo operations, said that if the UN forces were withdrawn from the Congo "I fear everything will crumble."

The threat to the UN cause was intensified by the announcement of the withdrawal of their contingents by Yugoslavia, the United Arab Republic, Ceylon, Indonesia, Morocco, and Guinea. The Soviet pro-Lumumba resolution was defeated on 14 December 1960 by a vote of 8-2. On the same day, a Western resolution that would have given Hammarskjöld increased powers to deal with the Congo situation was vetoed by the Soviet Union.


FINAL DAYS.
Lumumba was sent first on 3 December, to Thysville military barracks Camp Hardy, 150 km (about 100 miles) from Leopoldville. However, when security and disciplinary breaches threatened his safety, it was decided that he should be transferred to the Katanga Province.

Lumumba was forcibly restrained on the flight to Elizabethville (now Lubumbashi) on 17 January 1961.On arrival, he was conducted under arrest to Brouwez House and held there bound and gagged while President Tshombe and his cabinet decided what to do with him.


DEATH BY FIRING SQUAD.
Later that night, Lumumba was driven to an isolated spot where three firing squads had been assembled. According to David Akerman, Ludo de Witte and Kris Hollington, the firing squads were commanded by a Belgian, Captain Julien Gat, and another Belgian, Police Commissioner Verscheure, had overall command of the execution site. The Belgian Commission has found that the execution was carried out by Katanga's authorities, but de Witte found written orders from the Belgian government requesting Lumumba's murder and documents on various arrangements, such as death squads. It reported that President Tshombe and two other ministers were present with four Belgian officers under the command of Katangan authorities. Lumumba and two other comrades from the government, Maurice Mpolo and Joseph Okito, were lined up against a tree and shot one at a time. The execution probably took place on 17 January 1961 between 21:40 and 21:43 according to the Belgian report. Lumumba's corpse was buried nearby.

No statement was released until three weeks later despite rumours that Lumumba was dead.


ANNOUNCEMENT OF DEATH.
His death was formally announced on Katangese radio when it was alleged that he escaped and was killed by enraged villagers. On January 18, panicked by reports that the burial of the three bodies had been observed, members of the execution team went to dig up the bodies and move them to a place near the border with Rhodesia for reburial. Belgian Police Commissioner Gerard Soete later admitted in several accounts that he and his brother led the first and a second exhumation. Police Commissioner Frans Verscheure also took part. On the afternoon and evening of January 21, Commissioner Soete and his brother dug up Lumumba's corpse for the second time, cut it up with a hacksaw, and dissolved it in concentrated sulfuric acid (de Witte 2002:140-143). Only some teeth and a fragment of skull and bullets survived the process, kept as souvenirs. In an interview on Belgian television in a program on the assassination of Lumumba in 1999, Soete displayed a bullet and two teeth that he boasted he had saved from Lumumba's body. De Witte also mentions that Verscheure kept souvenirs from the exhumation: bullets from the skull of Lumumba.

After the announcement of Lumumba's death, street protests were organised in several European countries; in Belgrade, capital of Yugoslavia, protesters sacked the Belgian embassy and confronted the police, and in London a crowd marched from Trafalgar Square to the Belgian embassy, where a letter of protest was delivered and where protesters clashed with police.


AMERICAN AND BELGIAN INVOLVEMENT.
"Lumumba’s pan-Africanism and his vision of a united Congo gained him many enemies. Both Belgium and the United States actively sought to have him killed. The CIA ordered his assassination but could not complete the job. Instead, the United States and Belgium covertly funneled cash and aid to rival politicians who seized power and arrested Lumumba." U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower had said " something to [CIA chief Allen Dulles] to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated". This was revealed by a declassified interview with then-US National Security Council minutekeeper Robert Johnson released in August 2000 from Senate intelligence committee's inquiry on covert action. The committee later found that while the CIA had conspired to kill Lumumba, it was not directly involved in the actual murder.


CHURCH COMMITTEE
In 1975, the Church Committee went on record with the finding that Allen Dulles had ordered Lumumba's assassination as "an urgent and prime objective" (Dulles' own words). Furthermore, declassified CIA cables quoted or mentioned in the Church report and in Kalb (1972) mention two specific CIA plots to murder Lumumba: the poison plot and a shooting plot. Although some sources claim that CIA plots ended when Lumumba was captured, that is not stated or shown in the CIA records. Rather, those records show two still-partly-censored CIA cables from Elizabethville on days significant in the murder: January 17, the day Lumumba died, and January 18, the day of the first exhumation. The former, after a long censored section, talks about where they need to go from there. The latter expresses thanks for Lumumba being sent to them and then says that, had Elizabethville base known he was coming, they would have "baked a snake". Significantly, a CIA officer told another CIA officer later that he had had Lumumba's body in the trunk of his car to try to find a way to dispose of it. This cable goes on to state that the writer's sources (not yet declassified) said that after being taken from the airport Lumumba was imprisoned by "all white guards".


BELGIAN INVESTIGATION
The Belgian Commission investigating Lumumba's assassination concluded that (1) Belgium wanted Lumumba arrested, (2) Belgium was not particularly concerned with Lumumba's physical well being, and (3) although informed of the danger to Lumumba's life, Belgium did not take any action to avert his death, but the report also specifically denied that Belgium ordered Lumumba's assassination.

Under its own 'Good Samaritan' laws, Belgium was legally culpable for failing to prevent the assassination from taking place and was also in breach of its obligation (under U.N. Resolution 290 of 1949) to refrain from acts or threats "aimed at impairing the freedom, independence or integrity of another state."

The report of 2001 by the Belgian Commission mentions that there had been previous U.S. and Belgian plots to kill Lumumba. Among them was a Central Intelligence Agency-sponsored attempt to poison him, which may have come on orders from U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. CIA chemist Sidney Gottlieb was a key person in this by devising a poison resembling toothpaste. However, the plan is said to have been scrapped because the local CIA Station Chief, Larry Devlin, refused permission. However, as Kalb points out in her book, Congo Cables, the record shows that many communications by Devlin at the time urged elimination of Lumumba (p. 53, 101, 129-133, 149-152, 158-159, 184-185, 195). Also, the CIA station chief helped to direct the search to capture Lumumba for his transfer to his enemies in Katanga, was involved in arranging his transfer to Katanga (p. 158, Hoyt, Michael P. 2009, "Captive in the Congo: A Consul's Return to the Heart of Darkness"), and the CIA base chief in Elizabethville was in direct touch with the killers the night Lumumba was killed. Furthermore, a CIA agent had the body in the trunk of his car in order to try to get rid of it (p. 105, Stockwell, John 1978 In Search of Enemies: A CIA Story. Stockwell, who knew Devlin well, felt Devlin knew more than anyone else about the murder (71-72, 136-137).


BELGIAN APOLOGY
In February 2002, the Belgian government apologised to the Congolese people, and admitted to a "moral responsibility" and "an irrefutable portion of responsibility in the events that led to the death of Lumumba."


U.S. DOCUMENTS
In July 2006, documents released by the United States government revealed that the CIA had plotted to assassinate Lumumba. In September 1960, Sidney Gottlieb brought a vial of poison to the Congo with plans to place it on Lumumba's toothbrush. The plot was later abandoned. It is currently unknown the extent to which the CIA was involved in his eventual death.

This same disclosure showed that U.S. perception at the time was that Lumumba was a communist. Eisenhower's reported call, at a meeting of his national security advisers, for Lumumba's elimination must have been brought on by this perception. Both Belgium and the US were clearly influenced in their unfavourable stance towards Lumumba by the Cold War. He seemed to gravitate around the Soviet Union, although this was not because he was a communist but the only place he could find support in his country's effort to rid itself of colonial rule. The US was the first country from which Lumumba requested help. Lumumba, for his part, not only denied being a Communist, but said he found colonialism and Communism to be equally deplorable, and professed his personal preference for neutrality between the East and West.

To his supporters, Lumumba was an altruistic man of strong character who pursued his policies regardless of opposing viewpoints. He favoured a unitary Congo and opposed division of the country along ethnic or regional lines. Like many other African leaders, he supported pan-Africanism and liberation for colonial territories. He proclaimed his regime one of "positive neutralism," defined as a return to African values and rejection of any imported ideology, including that of the Soviet Union: "We are not Communists, Catholics, Socialists. We are African nationalists."




TRIBUTES
• In 1966 Patrice Lumumba's image was rehabilitated by the Mobutu regime and he was proclaimed a national hero and martyr in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. By a presidential decree, the Brouwez House, site of Lumumba's brutal torture on the night of his murder, became a place of pilgrimage in the Congo.
• A major transportation artery in Kinshasa, the Lumumba Boulevard, is named in his honour. The boulevard goes past an interchange with a giant tower, the Tour de l'Echangeur (the main landmark of Kinshasa) commemorating him. On the tower's plaza, the first Kabila regime erected a tall statue of Lumumba with a raised hand, greeting people coming from Kinshasa International Airport.
• In Bamako, Mali, Lumumba Square is a large central plaza with a life-size statue of Lumumba, a park with fountains, and a flag display. Around Lumumba Square are various businesses, embassies and Bamako's largest bank.
• Streets were also named after him in Budapest, Hungary (between 1961 and 1990); Jakarta (between 1945 to 1967); Belgrade, Serbia; Sofia, Bulgaria (until 1991-2) Skopje, Republic of Macedonia; Bata and Malabo, Equatorial Guinea; Tehran, Iran; Algiers, Algeria (Rue Patrice Lumumba);4Santiago de Cuba, Cuba (since 1960, formerly Avenida de Bélgica); Łódź, Warsaw, Poland; Kiev, Ukraine; Perm, Russia; Rabat, Morocco; Maputo, Mozambique; Leipzig, Germany; Lusaka, Zambia ("Lumumba Street"); Tunis, Tunisia; Fort-de-France, Martinique; Montpellier, France and Antananarivo, Madagascar and Alexandria, Egypt.
• The Peoples' Friendship University of the USSR was renamed "Patrice Lumumba Peoples' Friendship University" in 1961, but it was later renamed "The Peoples' Friendship University of Russia" in the post-Soviet landscape in 1992.
• In Belgrade, Serbia, "The Patris Lumumba Hall of Residence" at Belgrade University was built in 1961 and continues to carry Lumumba's name.
• In Kampala, Uganda, "Lumumba Hall" of Residence at Makerere University continues to carry his name.
• "Lumumba" is a popular choice for children's names throughout Africa.
• In 1964 Malcolm X declared Patrice Lumumba "the greatest black man who ever walked the African continent".

OGONI

On that naked and cruel day
You, the smoky pipe
A slice of abacha fed
But under their basket, your smoke could not be contained.
And that song, our song-sarowiwa
We will sing
Until the time dumb could tell.

CUTLASS.

As the cloud grew darker
In the Africa of my birth
A dashing, energetic young cutlass arrived
On his shoulder ligating his tender danshiki
His Russian that to death has knocked many, dangles
And my tears his understanding seeked
To know by this trade he’s familiar
Will his edge be blunted.

SAFE WATER ASSESSMENT OF ANGWA FULANI (HERDS FULANI SETTLEMENT) IN NIGERIA.

Safe water assessment of Angwa Fulani, a herdsmen settlement of 5 huts in the western bound of Nasarawa State, Nigeria was carried out by Comrade Akinloye Segun Oyeniyi - an Advocate of safe and healthy humanity on the 21st of July, 2011.

GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION

Angwa Fulani is of woodland savannah vegetation type lying on latitude 8 54N and longitude 7 43E. No motor-able access from about 10,000 metres away.

THE PEOPLE

The people of Angwa Fulani are the herds Fulani, they live in extreme poverty; the majority of them are women. Poverty is particularly acute among women and girls in this rural settlement. The women have no economic opportunities and less autonomy, hence they are poorer.

CULTURE

The rigidity of socially prescribed roles for women has increased the burden of Angwa Fulani women and girls. This made them the most-hit victims of unsafe water.
Entering the settlement by strangers, especially males is totally forbidden, hence the inability of the visiting volunteers to speak and take pictures with women and little girls that we met on getting there.
It was a risky trip because of the culture of the settlers. The men normally wont be at home by the time we arrived there, only the wives and the children farming around the huts. The men are gone with the grazing of their herds. Approaching the settlement to take shots and videos was not safe much more of interrogating the wives and the children but we did a nice job of getting their only source of water. The little milky stream serve both the human, animals and birds inhabitants of the settlement. The milky stream is not safe for drinking for the inhabitants except for irrigation. No access road to the settlement from about 10,000 metres away except footpath.

RELIGION

The Fulanis practice Islam and this has a direct influence on how the households are controlled. Their women and girl children are permanently at home attending to the farms around the huts, cook, wash and give birth to offspring.

POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC ISSUES AFFECTING ACCESSIBILITY TO CLEAN WATER

Women’s health as we know involves their emotional, social and physical wellness. This is determined by the political, economic and social context of their lives, as well as by sexuality and reproduction (biology). Angwa Fulani has no access to economic resources; education and training, and support services that will make them have unhindered access to safe drinking water and other amenities. This has greatly increased the burden of poverty on the women and the girls and achievement of universal education in all countries before the year 2015.

ACCESS TO EDUCATIONAL AND HEALTH FACILITY

With the high tendency of contacting water-borne diseases by the inhabitants of this settlement, Angwa Fulani women and girls still have no access to affordable and quality health care. They are prone to diseases associated with unhygienic water and unhealthy environment, for they are about 200,000 metres away from the nearest government health centre and public school. People of Angwa Fulani are in desperate need of clean and safe drinking water because of their vulnerability to water-borne diseases and high maternal and infant mortality rates.

DIFFICULTIES FACED BY WOMEN AND GIRLS IN ACCESSING SAFE WATER

It is difficult for the women (some heavily pregnant) and girl children of Angwa Fulani to access safe drinking water. they usually trek down to the only available stream of about 1000 metres away which has permanently turned milky by incessant traffic of herds crossing it. They drink, wash, and bath with this milky water together with their cows and other traveling herds.

TANI?

Who will with hungry bellies cry,
If my eyes decline tears?
Who will with disease-overtaken bodies in pain be,
If my body in pains not crack?
Who will the tide breast to save minds drowning,
If caressing my world, I refused
As my life on this battle field volley
To that morrow that without me start?

THE GREAT MISSION.

My soul darkness feels,
My teeth kernels cracks,
But with sprinkling,
With the sprinkling will I continue
Dotting the world all with peace
Until the circle I cover
And era mine not spurned
But a faithful remembrancer of me
When the cock behind me crow.

SONGS OF HOPE.

The belly, empty and ruptured,
With heart aching,
With bravery mature wailed,
In her tears, agony bounded,
Mixed strange of beautiful sorrow and smiles
For the cries are songs of hope.

STAND FOR HUMANITY.

The oldies, the refugees, the ones hungry and the wandering children. Whose care are all these in? God brought you here to be a special keeper of at least one of these, will you return back to Him unfulfilled? Man know thyself, re-align your ways and stand for humanity today.

I SAW THE WAR.

I SAW THE WAR.

I saw the rat-tat-tat of the shots

Pictures that albummed scenes bold

The noes on their dying faces I saw

Saw their ugly wails’ ohs

I saw the blood

With which they rode

And never return

But not with the echoes

I saw the war.

SUDAN

SUDAN.

Tortured, terrorized and raped

From her rotund breasts, her babies jacked.

With disease called al-bashir

To her funeral she drags

To be dead, body and soul.

Oh! Sudan

Land with a passion to perform.

KILL NOT YOUR CHANCE.

Up you wake, you, you

Your world awaits you

Wake up and take charge

The land’s on her kneels dying

Towards her grave she’s coasting

Wake up! Kill not your chance.

All hands must be on deck as regards world population.

Comrade Akinloye Segun Oyeniyi Abuja, Nigeria. +234 802 886 5258.

EDITED LETTER TO PRESIDENT ALSSANE QUATARRA

T:o Mr. Alassane Ouattara, President of Ivory Coast
(copies to the Ambassadors of Ivory Coast in Belgium/France)

Dear President Ouattara,

On April 26, Basil Mahan Gahé, general secretary of the national trade union center Dignité, was arrested at his Abidjan home and taken into detention. The union office was sacked, and many union officers have gone into hiding.

According to our information, he is being held by police in the Williamsville quarter of Abidjan

We are deeply concerned for his safety and physical integrity, and by the government's failure to date to respond to numerous interventions on his behalf, including from the Director General of the ILO. Basil Mahan Gahé's detention is a violation of international law and of your own commitment to national reconciliation, and I accordingly demand his immediate and unconditional release as well as firm guarantees for his physical safety. I will closely follow your government's actions in this regard.


Yours sincerely,
Comrade Akinloye S. Oyeniyi.

CALL TO SERVICE; A PETITION FOR.

Dear All,
Whereas I am reluctant to pressume upon your gracious attention, I, the undersigned is sending this petition.
And whereas there is no gainsaying the benefits which your service is bound to bestow upon humanity;
And whereas I am infinitely thankful for the roles you have been playing for the upliftment of our world and privilege to vouchsafed to me heretofore;
And whereas, our world have of late being victim of destructive selfishness;
I therefore, humbly request your good selves to please intervene to cause to take upon yourselves to rise above the narrow confines of your individualistic concerns to the broader concerns of all humanity so as to cause your immediate and remote publics to walk in the light of creative altruism, thereby answering life's most persistent and urgent question-what are you doing for others?
I here remain, your hopeful comrade.
(Signed)
Comrade Akinloye Olusegun Oyeniyi,
Abuja, Nigeria.

ILE AYE.

ILE AYE.

Wars, to bed great murders put

Anger’s loud voice all ‘round crawls

He descended as she’s climbing

Ile aye, phenomenon incomprehensive.

POSITION PAPER TO NATIONAL POLITICAL REFORM CONFERENCE, ABUJA 2005.

MALARIA: WE MUST NOT SIGN AWAY THE FUTURE.

The Executive Secretary

National Political Reform Conference

Abuja, Nigeria.

Dear Sir,

The African Regional Youth Initiative is a collaboration of hundreds of youth and community-based projects and organisations in Africa, working to fight HIV/AIDS. ARYI addresses HIV/AIDS in a comprehensive manner by engaging in activities that mobilize and empower communities, increase participation of women, youths; facilitate dialogue between organisation in different countries and other activities that build capacity such as training in policy and advocacy. As such, ARYI works with individuals and partner organisations that focus on poverty, leadership and governance, youth employment, women’s rights, illness and diseases like malaria and tuberculosis, education, information technology and reproductive health.

Delegates to this conference have been raising concrete issues on agriculture, resource control, gender sensitivity, and federalism and so on. I will like to perch my concern on the issue of rolling back malaria and meeting the 2005 deadline. Representing ARYI Nigeria and articulating the youths’ and other ROLL BACK MALARIA VOLUNTEERS’ position on the matter of reforming our political setting, I hereby draw this position paper to be debated upon and be in the final report of the conference.

Malaria is the most significant of the tropical diseases; it is a major public health problem in Africa. The disease exists in hundreds of nations of the world, but more than 90% of malaria case and the greater majority of malaria death, occur in Africa.

Malaria is a significant impediment to human and economic development. Each year around 350 million episodes of acute malaria illness reported worldwide, with over 1 million deaths. Most of the casualties are pregnant women and children under the age of 5 years. Its epidemiological and socio-economic burden is now heightened because of malaria deadly alliance with HIV/AIDS and poverty.

In Nigeria, malaria is one of the four leading causes of deaths and causes of economical disruptions. There is no way we can discuss political reform without touching the economical aspect of it and when economy is disrupted, , politics also which is the way and manner a particular setting is governed, must be disrupted. Over 50% of Nigeria’s 120 million experience at least one episode of the disease in a year. Malaria thus contributes to the vicious spiral of poverty, unemployment and waste of human capital in Nigeria.

The Federal Government demonstrated her political commitment to the ROLL BACK MALARIA (RBM) INITIATIVE, (an initiative jointly founded by WHO, UNICEF, WORLD BANK and UNDP aiming to halve the malaria burden globally by the year 2010 through a multi-sector and multi-sector approach) by hosting the African Summit on Roll Back Malaria in April 2000, this resulted in the signing of the Abuja Declaration and Plan of Action by the Presidents and Head of Governments in Africa. They resolved to initiate sustainable actions to strengthen their health care system to ensure that by year 2005:

1. At least 60% of those suffering from malaria have prompt access to and are able to use correct and affordable treatment within 24 hours of the onset of symptoms;
2. At least 60% of those at risk of malaria particularly pregnant women and children under 5 years of age, benefit from the use of Insecticide Treated mosquito Nets (ITN) and other suitable materials; and
3. At least 60% of women in their first pregnancies have access to recommended preventive measures.

So, driven by the imperative of the declaration on rolling back malaria by the African Presidents, and the far reaching decision and targeting, this position paper is therefore a lift in the platform of malaria eradication to show what needed to be done to combat malaria, increase strategies for community-base promotion, enhance awareness of problems facing access to ICT as an preventive measure against malaria, and show the participation of poverty and other social ills in its prevalence in Nigeria. So, for Nigeria to have independent, consistent, uninfluenced and accurate weaponry to roll back malaria in terms of quantitative statistical parameters.

I made visit to about 23 villages in Nigeria after attending the first National Malaria Summit in Lagos, to take practical field survey and personal experience of how the ways of lives of people at the foot of grassroots, their environment, governance, health system and others can hinder rolling back malaria in Nigeria.

I visited Kaura Namoda, Zurmi, Moriki, Iri, Anka, Shagari, Illela, Mokwa, Eesade, Obe Rewoye, Ugbo, Mahin, Mbiama, Ogunu, Atoyo, Oleh, Oyede, Bethel and Tegina and the question that kept attending my mind was:

Can these Nigerians, if suffering from malaria have access to safe and effective treatment within 24 hours of onset of symptom in 2005, having these kinds of roads, dilapidated school and public health centres buildings, and at the way they live their lives?

Will these Nigerians in areas not viable economically at risk of malaria and other concomitants sleep under ITN at affordable cost?

Can somebody living in Obe Rewoye in Ilaje Local Government Area of Ondo state have access to ITN at normal price when the cost of crossing the waterway is #800?

Will women in Oyede, Zurmi, Moriki, and other villages in the most interior part of Nigeria in their first pregnancies have access to recommended preventive treatment in2005 when they understand not what ITN means?

Can children under 5 years in these villages with rotten environment be sheltered away from mosquitoes when the nets are not available under 3 days?

How will people in these areas ever know that there is unprecedented growing resistance of plasmodium falciparum to conventional monotherapies like chloroquine, sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine and amodiaquine?

I can assure Nigerians that with these enemies in place, rolling back malaria will just be a mere say as it continues to kill and weaken our economy with a significant effect on the future governance.

RECOMMENDATIONS.

Therefore on behalf of ARYI, I tender these recommendations, as an investment towards solving a problem that is responsible for 30% mortality rate for children under the age of 5 years, to this conference to note and make meaningful debate on the informed as part of the templates for Nigeria towards her final barring of malaria.

1. That government should increase the road networks in Nigeria, for rural-urban linkage, easier access to information and economic viability.
2. That there should be an increase in the level of village/hamlets participation in rolling malaria back through focus on infrastructure.
3. Increase in community-based promotion of ITN.
4. Enhance strategies that may assist in the achievement of higher level of governance.
5. Increase awareness about manifestation and economic consequences of malaria.
6. That government should make laws negation physical and chemical hazards.
7. The protection of our natural habitat threatened by human activities for reduction in the incidence of malaria related morbidity and mortality in Nigeria.
8. That government should build roll back malaria centres in all the 8000 wards in Nigeria.
9. That government should diversify into agriculture to enhance food production.
10. That government should supply drinkable water to all over 24,000 villages in Nigeria.
11. That government should mandate oil firms to attend to the needs of their host communities.

CONCLUSION.

Economic growth is important for rolling back malaria and absence of malaria enhances economic growth.

The above-mentioned ways are the vital in which economic growth filters through to the poorer sections of the population. To achieve this however, policies and projects must involve the grassroots people. Government should strive to implement things necessary to create the condition for economic growth. Good planning and policies can make infrastructure available to them.

Thank you.

I, for and on behalf of AFRICA REGIONAL YOUTH INITIATIVE.

(Signed)

Akinloye Olusegun Oyeniyi

Conference Representative.

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA.

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT GOODLUCK EBELE JONATHAN               SECURITY IMPLICATION OF ARABIC INSCRIPTIONS ON NAIRA NOTES.

Dr Goodluck E. Jonathan

President and Commander-In-Chief of Armed Forces

Federal Republic of Nigeria

State House

Presidential Villa

Aso Rock, Abuja.

Your Excellency,

Immediate necessity and ultimate concern for our national unity alerted me to write this letter. The prime goal of this is the restoration of equity, fairness and justice in our dear nation Nigeria- a nation of diverse nationalities, to preclude her from future chaos that may emanate from the nearest future. It will also serve as a quest for sustainable way of resolving our unending problems of co-existence.

In my letter SH7/02 dated 16^th of May, 2005 to the then President Olusegun Obasanjo, I pointed out why compulsory national step should be taken as regard the stark reality that our currencies are carrying Arabic inscriptions which is neither our national nor official language. National consciousness was drawn to this and these inscriptions were removed from 5, 10, 20 and 50 naira notes and replaced by the three national languages- Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba alongside the English language which is the official language respectively but 100, 200, 500 and 1000 naira notes are still carrying this inscriptions till date.

Mr President Sir, as a trained Linguist and Translator, I stand to say this imposition of an alien language on one of Nigerian symbols of sovereignty is putting entire Nigerians into “language slavery” which undoubtedly is general insecurity socio-economically, socio-culturally and socio-politically and denial of cultural rights via language as citizens of the nation. I do not want to question here how and why the Arabic letters came to be inscribed on one of our symbols of sovereignty, but to compellingly put Nigeria on the path of sustainable peace and prosperity which all our diverse people desperately yearn for.

We have every right as a citizen of the country, to be able to read, translate, decode, infer and know all letters, subjects, objects, icons, images, colours, emblems, symbols, animations, pictorials, insignias, seals etc on all symbols of our sovereignty. In this case of existing imbalance, something must be done, before the more than 150 million Nigerians can feel save, and secured in this federation to be able to answer whole-heartedly to the name Nigerians.

Your Excellency, from the living unit of my experience in the relevance of languages and national integration, cohesion and national security, I hereby declare that retention of these inscriptions will viewed by some sections of the country as being favouritism toward Hausa/Fulani untrained native speakers of the northern part of the country and Arab world. It will be as if giving northerners unfair advantage over other untrained native speakers from other component parts of the Federation. It will performatively be inequality of access to our symbols of sovereignty and dislodgement of constitutional framework of ‘the whole Nigeria being equal to the sum of all her component parts and greater than any of the so-called component parts’.

Your Excellency should as a matter of national security concern, urgently use your good offices to effect the replacement of these Arabic inscriptions by our three national languages- Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba. The Central Bank, Director of Currency Operations, National Assembly, National Planning Commission and National Orientation Agency should be notified respectively of this lopsidedness. These agencies need be drawn into this pursuit and enthronement of national unity, through equity, fairness, security, justice, love and freedom in our society and orientation to preclude Nigeria from this catalyst for national crisis.

Every nation I believe re-invent itself as and when due. So, not to be misled from the imperative of making the kind of Nigeria we need, Nigeria should make her re-invention that of the pillars of peaceful co-existence- justice, equity, fairness and a level playing field for all, because the neglect of this timely repair will in the nearest future make rebuilding inevitable. Your Excellency should try as much as possible to build within the minds of Nigerians the spirit of agreeable companion in them. It is in this light that I am sending this letter.

Lastly, I will advise that thinking about Akinloye Segun Oyeniyi should be avoided; rather about the cause, I try to effect to make Nigeria a better place for all. Posterity will surely remember us.

Yours faithfully,

(Signed)

Comrade Akinloye Segun Oyeniyi

Abuja.

FITILA

To heaven without riches I may go
But lowsoever how my trumpet
 Forth will Its voice go.
Colours of peace, blind eyes will I tell
Sweetness of peace, deaf ears will I show
And to all where war, poverty, racism themselves parade
The night stars I will light.