Flashback (Proof that politics does indeed make strange bedfellows): An open letter to Jagaban Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

CC™ Opinion Letter - By Femi Fani-Kayode

“Even the obstacles on my way, I predict them before those that will bring them will start to think about them. I plan for betrayal, I plan for backstabbing, I also plan for reunion & forgiveness long before they happen. I expect nothing, I expect anything, I expect everything” — Jagaban Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

My dearest Jagaban,

You know very well that I have always liked and respected you. You will also recall that a few years ago I warned you that everything that is being done to you today would eventually be done to you given the choices you made at the time.

I bear you no malice or ill-will but in view of what is happening in your political party and given the fact that your good friend, co-conspirator and collaborator, President Muhammadu Buhari, has finally thrown you under the bus and dumped you, I am constrained to write the following.

The bitter truth is that you predicted NOTHING and you saw NOTHING. The only thing you saw were your own vain delusions and insatiable greed and the only thing you felt and that moved you was your blind ambition.

You sold your body, spirit and soul to the enemy and betrayed your people even though we warned you over and over again that those you were dining with were far smarter and far more astute than you.

Yet even though all the signs were there you dismissed our concerns, vilified us, treated us with contempt, demonized us and sought to destroy us.

Jagaban Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu

Now the chickens have come home to roost and the writing is on the wall. The signs are there for all to see. You betrayed and sold Lagos. You betrayed and sold the South West. You betrayed and sold the South East. You betrayed and sold the South South. You betrayed and sold the Middle Belt. You betrayed and sold the North East. You betrayed and sold the North West. You betrayed and sold the Muslims and you betrayed and sold the Christians.

Simply put you betrayed and sold EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in Nigeria just to feed and satisfy your psychotic obsession and compulsive ambition.

Like Icarus the Greek, you flew too high and too close to the sun with your wax wings, puffed up and fuelled by your hubris and pride and now you shall meet your nemesis. The spiritual wound that has been inflicted on you is irreversible and terminal and there is no going back.

The dark clouds that lie ahead of you are thick, ugly, frightful, violent and impassable: you cannot make it through them safely or survive them. Your enemies have dug a pit for you and you have already fallen into it.

They have finally stripped you naked, grabbed you by your balls and taken everything from you.

You have lost your mystique, honor, glory, self-respect, following, clout, pride, reputation and so much more.

You have also lost control of the political party that you conceived, formed, nurtured and built. The APC was your baby and now they have taken it from you and are set to kill it.

They fooled you, used you, dumped you and humiliated you and now they are going to expose you, rubbish you, malign you, break you, crucify you, investigate you and utterly crush you.

You dreamed of being Vice President in 2015 and you failed. You are dreaming of being President in 2023 and you will fail.

In all your plans what you failed to appreciate is that God alone rules in the affairs of men. You refused to acknowledge or accept the fact that the Presidency of Nigeria can only be given by God and He gives it to whom He deems fit by prophecy and divine decree.

It is not about money and power and if it were Olusegun Obasanjo, Umaru Yar’adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari, who had neither of the two before being respectively elected as President, would never had made it.

It is about God and God alone. It is for Him alone to give. It is about His purpose, His will, His counsel, His plan and His glory.

He OWNS the Presidency and the minute any man or woman attempts to usurp His role and think that he or she can buy it or manoeuvre his or her way into it by the usage of political intrigues, guile, sagacity, wisdom, power, knowledge, money or anything else, the Lord disqualifies and rejects him.

Such a person will fail woefully and may even end up losing everything he or she values and cherishes in his futile quest.

God will never share His glory with anyone and He will never support a man or woman that is prepared to mislead, betray and sell his own people down the river just to satisfy his vaulting and insatiable ambition of becoming President.

Yet the signs were there but you refused to acknowledge or accept them.

They refused to give you a formal position in the National Executive. They ensured that some of your key loyalists in the South West turned against you and opposed you.

They refused to accept even ONE of your Ministerial nominees both in 2015 and 2019. They humiliated your protegee who you nominated as Vice President and turned him into a pliant and pathetic little errand boy with no testicular fortitude or shame.

They drove your nominee at FIRS out of office unceremoniously and have placed him under criminal investigation.

They have divided the ranks of your loyalists and turned even your hitherto most trusted lieutenants against you.

They insulted, undermined, marginalised you openly and worse of all they made it clear to you privately that they would NEVER give you power.

All this meant nothing to you and you shamelessly continued to support their evil ways and toe their satanic and murderous line.

Yet if you did not care about what they subjected you to you ought to have at least cared about what they did to Nigeria.

For the last five years our nation and people have suffered because of the calamitious choices that you made and the inexplicable and unconscionable alliances that you forged.

You propped up and supported a ruthless, heartless, corrupt, bloodthirsty and cruel regime and tyrant and a President that is clearly beside himself and whose mental and physical faculties reside in another realm and in another world.

Consequently our nation has been utterly and completely destroyed, our economy ruined and our people decimated.

They have been slaughtered, butchered, pauperised, emasculated, humiliated, marginalised, insulted and impoverished.

Hundreds of thousands of them have been murdered in cold blood in their homes, towns, villages and farms and millions have been displaced.

Millions more have been ruined and economically destroyed whilst our country remains weak, divided and the butt of cruel jokes all over the world.

Because of your choices Nigerians are being subjected to persecution, physically attacked, enslaved, humiliated, lynched, scorned, maimed, killed, disgraced, evicted and declared persona non grata both at home and in distant foreign lands whilst our foreign Embassies are being demolished by miscreants and local criminals even in supposedly friendly countries.

I sincerely hope that one day you will reflect on all this and consider the damage you have done to your kinsmen and compatriots.

Whether you do or not is left to you but one thing that is clear: for the choices you have made, for all you have done and for the sheer wickedness and greed that resides in your insensitive and dark heart you will pay a heavy price both in this world and in the world to come and the Lord will hand you over to your political enemies.

Permit me to conclude by quoting the instructive words of a tweet that I posted just yesterday after I heard about the latest developments in your party. I wrote,

“First Oshiomole is kicked out by the Court of Appeal. Then his preferred replacement, Ajimobi, falls into a coma. Then his arch rival, Giadom, is recognised by Buhari as National Chairman.

Conclusion: it is over for Tinubu. He has been thrown under the bus and retired from politics!”

I stand by those words. Happy retirement my dearest Jagaban: may you live long to see the glory of our country restored and the damage that you have done to our people repaired. Shalom.

White settlers in South Africa clamour for US resettlement after Trump order

CC™ PersPective

A deluge of more than 20,000 queries crashed the email server of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the United States after President Donald Trump said he would prioritize white South Africans in a refugee program, the chamber said Monday.

Trump and Pretoria are locked in a diplomatic row over a land expropriation act that Washington says will lead to the takeover of white-owned farms.

Trump, whose tycoon ally Elon Musk was born in South Africa, said on Friday the law signed in January would “enable the government of South Africa to seize ethnic minority Afrikaners’ agricultural property without compensation”.

It allows the government, as a matter of public interest, to decide on expropriations without compensation — but only in exceptional circumstances.

The Afrikaners are descendants of European colonists, mainly of Dutch extraction, and are mainly engaged in farming in South Africa.

English and Afrikaner colonists ruled South Africa until 1994 under a brutal system in which the black majority were deprived of political and economic rights.

“Our email server crashed over the weekend just due to the sheer volume of inquiries we have received,” Neil Diamond, head of the South African Chamber of Commerce in the US (SACCUSA) told AFP in an email.

“Given the scale of interest, SACCUSA estimates that this figure could represent over 50,000 individuals looking to leave South Africa and seek resettlement in the United States,” he said.

– Trump order ‘flawed’ –

Diamond warned that this could lead to a skills shortage in South Africa that would impact agriculture and other sectors of the economy.

“If we look at the EB-5, which is an investor visa, you need roughly about 15 to 20 million South African Rand ($800,000 to $1 million) to be able to immigrate… What is alarming to us is the large volume of people that is interested in taking up this opportunity,” he said.

South Africa’s foreign ministry has said Trump’s order “lacks factual accuracy and fails to recognise South Africa’s profound and painful history of colonialism and apartheid.

“It is ironic that the executive order makes provision for refugee status in the US for a group in South Africa that remains amongst the most economically privileged, while vulnerable people in the US from other parts of the world are being deported and denied asylum despite real hardship,” it added.

Trump has asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “prioritize humanitarian relief, including admission and resettlement through the United States Refugee Admissions Program, for Afrikaners in South Africa who are victims of unjust racial discrimination.”

There were no details of how the plan would be enacted as Trump halted refugee arrivals immediately after taking office.

Land ownership remains a contentious issue in South Africa, with most farmland still owned by white people three decades after the end of apartheid.

However, some Afrikaner farmers say the new land laws could lead to the confiscation of white-owned farms as carried out in neighbouring Zimbabwe.

The second largest party in South Africa’s national unity government, the Democratic Alliance, on Monday launched a court bid to annul the land law.

AFP

The African Origin of Humanity and Civilization

CC™ VideoScope

I’m in hurry to see Nigeria rise, getting close to my departure lounge — Says the droll who essentially killed Nigeria’s ascent in 1979

CC™ Global News

By Staff

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that he was in a hurry to see Nigeria attain its potential for greatness, stressing that he is now “getting close” to his departure lounge.

Obasanjo made the remark while reflecting on his years in public service and his new book, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future,’ where he assessed Nigeria’s leadership trajectory and criticized both past and present administrations.

According to him, his writings and interventions over the years have not been borne out of animosity but out of a desire to see that Nigeria progress.

“All my writings have been aimed at making Nigeria better because I strongly believe that Nigeria can be made better and I also believe in documentation,” he said.

The former president explained that he had written works such as ‘My Command’, ‘Nzeogwu’, ‘Not My Will’, and his three-volume autobiography, ‘My Watch’, to shed light on his experiences in leadership, policy decisions, imprisonment, and the challenges Nigeria has faced.

“I have written Letters to my superiors and my successors in moments of our nation’s troubles and challenges. I have done these not out of malice but to help leaders to learn lessons and to draw the attention of Nigerians to the nature of the various crises,” he noted.

Obasanjo, who ruled Nigeria as both military Head of State (1976–1979) and civilian President (1999–2007), said he was aware of criticisms that he often sounded sanctimonious, but insisted his conscience remained clear. “Some have accused me of being equally guilty of the things I have written about or accused others of. I rely on my conscience and my records and have no need to defend myself,” he stated.

On his years as a military leader, Obasanjo said he and his contemporaries may have been inexperienced but were patriotic. “We were young, maybe somewhat naïve at times but we were patriotic and committed and sincerely so. We sought to feed our people, we sought to provide infrastructure, we sought to prioritize education, we sought to bring Nigeria to modernity and raise our profile in the international arena,” he explained.

In his latest book, Obasanjo described the administration of the late President Muhammadu Buhari (2015–2023) as “the worst civil administration regime so far in Nigeria’s history.”

He recalled how Buhari, in justifying the 1983 coup against the then President Shehu Shagari, condemned corruption, mismanagement, and electoral malpractice, but failed to address those same issues when he later became a democratically elected president. “Good points and good words which Buhari failed to follow when he became the President years later. Words are cheap and what needed to be done was left undone during Buhari’s civil administration,” Obasanjo wrote.

However, Mallam Garba Shehu, spokesman to the late Buhari, said Obasanjo’s criticisms were rooted in personal animosity. “There are many around Buhari who hold that the spectacular falling out between him and his superior in the military…was on account of the demand, reportedly put to him by Obasanjo, that the contract for the Mambilla Power Project be given to a contractor he preferred. On this, Buhari politely told the former president to allow him to handle it his own way,” Shehu alleged in his book According to the President: Lessons from a Presidential Spokesman’s Experience.

Obasanjo also reserved harsh words for the current administration of President Bola Tinubu, accusing it of inefficiency. “Only Bola Tinubu’s administration seems to be competing with Buhari’s (in the area of inefficiency) for now,” he declared.

Efforts to obtain a response from the presidency were unsuccessful as calls and messages to the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Mr. Bayo Onanuga, and the Minister of Information, Alhaji Mohammed Idris, were not responded to as of press time.

Obasanjo reiterated that his legacy would speak for him, noting that he had served Nigeria in different capacities, endured imprisonment, and witnessed both the best and worst of the nation. “Yes, I am both angry and sad because I have seen the best and the worst of our country. With hindsight, we know we made some mistakes, but again we did some great things in our country, for our country and for Africa,” he said.

“I have had the great honour of serving this country as a military Head of State and a President. So, it might be said that I have sat on both sides of the fence. I have gone through the crucible of rural life, meagre resources, military peacekeeping in Africa, war in my own country, humiliation and imprisonment. I have learned a lot from what I have gone through, pleasant and not-so-pleasant,” Obasanjo added.

How translation tech can help you 'speak in unknown tongues'

Waygo App

By Laju Arenyeka

There is no doubt that being multilingual in this global village is an added advantage. 

However, when compared to the thousands of languages in today's tower of Babel, it's next to impossible that one person would be able to speak them all. 

But an advantage of today's world is its smart tech from which translation tech evolves. Here are some ways translation tech apps is empowering users with the right tongues at the right time:

Waygo

If you've ever been to a Chinese or Japanese restaurant you'd wish you had this app sooner. Waygo, available on iPhone and Android, is capable of recognizing and translating Chinese and Japanese menus and signs, simply by pointing a smartphone camera. The company behind it says it's working on more languages for the future. If this is true, it might come in handy at your favorite Indian restaurant very soon.

Google glass

In what might seem like a trick borrowed from Men in Black, you can simply look through your Google glass, hold your head by looking at a sign and say: 'Ok Glass, translate this.' Apps such as UniSpeech and Word Lens make this possible.

Skype Translator

With apps like the Skype Translator, people who do translations for a living might soon have to find another source of income. This Microsoft-designed app lets provides translations as people speak to one another in different languages during voice calls. It will launch for Windows 8 devices later this year.

The different languages of money

Online shopping giant, eBay isn't just making in different currencies, through its machine translation, it automatically translates listing details on its websites and apps. In June it bought a start-up called AppTek, which specializes in this area. eBay has also said it's interested in making more tools using translation such as instant messaging software for sellers and potential buyers to chat about a product even if they don't speak the same language.

'Tweeting in tongues'

Twitter has added Bing Translate, a feature powered by Microsoft's technology, to translate tweets from different languages. Users who have the feature on the iPhone Twitter app can tap on tweets to see a translation.

Apps for sign language

Understanding sign language is not the easiest thing for the average person. Imagine an app that can help you through this with a snap of the finger! Microsoft has worked with Kinect Sign Language Translator, using the Xbox camera and motion-detection accessory to translate sign language into text and spoken language.

FLASHBACK: Tucker Carlson said he lies on TV out of 'weakness' and when he gets 'really cornered'

Linda Spillers/WireImage for Bragman Nyman Cafarelli/Getty

CC™ Politico News 

Fox host Tucker Carlson said he tries not to lie on TV but does it sometimes when he's "really cornered" or "out of weakness." 

Carlson made the comment on September 12 while speaking to conservative show host Dave Rubin on an episode of the "The Rubin Report." In the episode, Rubin questioned how CNN anchors Chris Cuomo and Brian Stelter live with themselves "when they just lie again and again and we have the internet to expose the lies."

In response, Carlson told Rubin what he does to get out of a tight spot.

"I mean, I lie if I'm really cornered or something," Carlson said. "I lie. I really try not to. I try never to lie on TV. I just don't — I don't like lying. I certainly do it, you know, out of weakness or whatever."

But, Carlson went on to claim, there's a difference between what he does and what happens on CNN. Carlson said CNN hosts lie "systematically" to protect powerful people like billionaires Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates.

"How dare you do that? How dare you use your power to protect and guard the powerful, even as you put your boot on the neck of the weakest people?" Carlson added. 

"There have been many times in the 25 years I've been on TV where I think, you know, are we using this very substantial power that we have to put pictures on the screen to hurt weak people? And I have done that inadvertently over the years, because I got carried away. But I really try not to," Carlson said, saying he only hits "upward" at those richer, more powerful, and stronger than himself.

Carlson's comments to Rubin come one year after Fox News won a court case by arguing that no "reasonable viewer" could take Carlson seriously.

Carlson has made a series of controversial and often baseless statements throughout his time as the host of "Tucker Carlson Tonight," which has been on air since 2016, including a slew of comments in recent months. In August, Carlson said Afghan refugees will "invade" the US and claimed without evidence that "millions" of refugees could be resettled in American neighborhoods in the coming months.

In July, Carlson — who has repeatedly refused to reveal if he has gotten a COVID-19 vaccine — contradicted his Fox colleagues who encouraged people to take the COVID-19 vaccine and told his viewers to ignore the medical advice they see on television. Carlson also recently claimed, without providing evidence, that the National Security Agency was illegally spying on him, an allegation the agency is now looking into.

Carlson's representatives and CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.

INSIDER

FLASHBACK: U.S. officials headed to Nigeria to learn how it contained Ebola using 'contact tracing'

The Christian Science Monitor - When Ebola reached Nigeria, health officials were worried about the populous country's ability to control the virus – particularly in Lagos, the nation’s coastal mega-city and transport hub. 
But this week, teams of American health officials are Lagos-bound to learn from Nigeria's experience in defying expectations and stopping the outbreak before it could wreak havoc. 
Since July 20, the day Nigeria’s so-called “Patient Zero” arrived in Lagos, officials have recorded a total of only 19 cases, with no new cases since Aug. 31. Last week, on the same day the US confirmed its first case of Ebola, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) proclaimed that Nigeria had stopped its outbreak. 
Meanwhile, Sierra Leone, one of three West African countries hard hit by Ebola, recorded 81 new cases in the past 24 hours.
"Because of a rapid public health response, effectively tracking nearly 900 contacts, it appears they have] been able to stop the outbreak in Nigeria,” CDC Director Tom Frieden said Sunday. “Though we can't give the all clear yet, it does look like the outbreak is over there. I'm confident that wherever we apply the fundamental principles of infection control in public health, we can stop Ebola."
Nigeria’s success appears to be rooted in "contact tracing" – determining every single person that Patrick Sawyer, or Patient Zero, had contact with, and then monitoring them for signs of the virus.
 “Contact tracing can stop the Ebola outbreak in its tracks,” a chart distributed by the CDC declares. 
Now contact tracers are at work in the US, setting out to track down as many as 100 people who may have been exposed to Thomas Duncan, who traveled from Liberia to Dallas, where he was eventually diagnosed with the virus, The New York Times reports. 
It is an immense task. The Washington Post outlines how it went in Nigeria:

From that single patient came a list of 281 people, [Gavin MacGregor-Skinner, who helped with the Ebola response in Nigeria] said. Every one of those individuals had to provide health authorities twice-a-day updates about their well-being, often through methods like text-messaging. Anyone who didn't feel well or failed to respond was checked on, either through a neighborhood network or health workers. ...In the end, contact tracers — trained professionals and volunteers — conducted 18,500 face-to-face visits to assess potential symptoms, according to the CDC, and the list of contacts throughout the country grew to 894. Two months later, Nigeria ended up with a total of 20 confirmed or probable cases and eight deaths. 

 Ethiopia, one of two countries recognized by the World Health Organization as prepared for a possible Ebola outbreak, also has a vigorous tracing process that applies to every visitor from West Africa.

5 Amazing Nigerian Movies That Showcase Powerful Women Characters

CC™ Entertainment News

By Akindare Okunola

From its roots in TV dramas, produced by the Nigeria Television Authority (NTA) in the 70s and 80s, the Nigerian movie industry has grown into the second largest movie industry in the world (by volume of films made) and Nigeria’s second largest employer outside of agriculture. 

In the past decade, Nollywood (a term used to describe Nigeria’s movie industry, coined by New York Times journalist Norimitsu Onishi in 2002) movies have generated millions of dollars in box office numbers and the popularity of Nigerian movies have reached global levels. 

Unfortunately, as with many things in Nigeria, women have benefited the least from Nollywood’s success. Roles in front of, and behind the camera, are still heavily dominated by men while considerably more male-led productions are greenlit or able to secure funding relative to the female-led options. 

Perhaps most egregious is the fact that Nigerian women are mostly portrayed in Nollywood movies through the lens of harmful and dangerous stereotypes such as subservience, dependence on male figures, and a lack of ambition. 

It is common to see female characters in Nollywood films portayed as homemakers, child bearers, cooks, care givers, sex workers, and other background roles that only serve to reinforce traditional gender roles for women. 

“Considering that women make up 60% of the Nollywood film audience, it is important that women are represented better in films, rather than telling the story from the male gaze: from characterization to story, costumes, and more,” actor and producer Eku Edewor told BusinessDay in April 2021. 

These stereotypical portrayals of women impress on Nigerian society and are harmful to women in that they encourage the audience to continue to promote the same norms that have allowed gender inequality to flourish in Nigeria. 

Fortunately, there are Nigerian movies that have not toed this line but rather the opposite: showcasing powerful, well-rounded, and more representative women-led characters. We’ve put together a summary of five of such movies and we can guarantee you that they are worth a watch!

Lionheart (2018)

Nigerian film legend Genevieve Nnaji’s directorial debut is the first Netflix original film to be produced in Nigeria. Lionheart was also selected as the Nigerian entry for Best International Feature Film at the 92nd Academy Awards in 2020 — the first Nigerian movie to be submitted to the Oscars for award consideration. 

The movie follows Adaeze Obiagu (played by Nnaji) as she steps up to the challenge of running her father’s business and saving it from debt and the threat of takeover after he has to retire due to health issues. 

With support from her uncle Godswill (played by Nkem Owoh), she challenges the status quo in the male-dominated world that is Nigeria’s transportation industry. 

Muna (2019)

Nollywood is not known for action thrillers and in the few movies where there are some action scenes, they are often poorly choreographed. So Muna was a breath of fresh air in that it attempted to do something thousands of Nollywood productions couldn’t. And it did well — taking second place on the Nigerian box office chart in its second week, only behind Disney’s Frozen 2.

Muna, a survivor of sexual abuse and trafficking on a revenge mission, is played by Adesua Etomi-Wellington who also plays the lead character in 2016’s The Wedding Party, which holds the record of Nigeria’s biggest box office opening to date.

The film's main theme centers around child trafficking, sexual violence, and revenge with a cast that also inludes Hollywood actors like Robert Miano.

King of Boys (2018)

Also starring Adesua Etomi-Wellington, alongside veteran actor Sola Sobowale, King of Boys is acclaimed director Kemi Adetiba’s second film and she wrote, co-produced, and directed it. The film is the sixth-highest grossing Nollywood movie of all time in Nigeria.

It tells the story of powerful businesswoman Eniola Salami (played by Sobowale, to critical acclaim), whose political ambitions are threatened by the underworld connections responsible for her wealth and prominence. 

The power struggle that follows will cost her everything. Adetiba recently announced that the King of Boys sequel will be released as a seven-part limited series on Netflix on Aug. 27 — and we have a feeling it'll be a must-watch. 

93 Days (2016)

One doctor’s action was critical to the containment of the Ebola virus outbreak in Nigeria in 2014: Dr. Stella Adadevoh, who unfortunately passed away from complications after being exposed to the virus. 

93 Days is based on the incredible act of commitment and professionalism she gave her country, saving millions of lives in the process. 

Acclaimed actor Bimbo Akintola plays Adadevoh and the film follows the actions and sacrifices made by men and women who risked their lives to ensure that the Ebola virus was contained. 

The film also stars American legend Danny Glover and Alastair McKenzie, as well as Nigerian stars Somkele Iyamah-Idhalama and Keppy Ekpeyong Bassey (who plays Liberian diplomat Patrick Sawyer, the index patient who carried the virus into Nigeria). 

93 Days was shown to sold out audiences at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), Chicago International Film Festival (the only Nigerian film to show there), Johannesburg Film Festival, and LA Film Festival.

Wives on Strike (2016)

Produced and directed by Omoni Oboli, Wives on Strike is a satirical film about a group of four market women who decide to deny their husbands sex (and other things) to push them to stand up for a young girl who was being forced by her father to marry a man against her will.

The cast includes some of Nollywood’s most prolific thespians like Ufuoma McDermott, Chioma Akpotha, and Kehinde Bankole.

Although it’s a comedy, Wives on Strike does a great job of highlighting cultural practices that are harmful to women and girls, and especially child marriage and sexual abuse of minors.

GLOBAL CITIZEN

The British Royal family’s disturbing connection to Jeffrey Epstein

Prince Andrew (L) and Epstein - Jae Donnelly/News of the World

By Madeleine Aggeler

Wealthy financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was arrested at an airport in New Jersey on Saturday for allegedly trafficking dozens of underage girls between 2002 and 2005. Epstein, who received a lenient and widely criticized plea deal for similar charges back in 2007, is extremely well-connected. 

His “little black book” included presidents Bill Clinton and Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Michael Bloomberg, Courtney Love, and … 16 phone numbers for Britain’s Prince Andrew (Queen Elizabeth’s third child, and Prince Charles’s younger brother). Prince Andrew and Epstein have been friends for a while, and, according to court documents, Epstein allegedly forced a teenage girl to have sex with him on three separate occasions, including during what she described as an orgy with other underage girls. 

Buckingham Palace has vehemently denied the allegations, but as Epstein is back under the spotlight, we’re likely to hear more about the prince’s relationship to him. Here’s everything we know so far.

Prince Andrew and Epstein’s relationship goes way back

Though it is not clear exactly when the prince and Epstein’s relationship began (according to the Guardian, probably sometime in the early ’90s), it certainly predates the abuse charges against the financier, and the prince was reportedly happy to join his friend in making light of them.

After Epstein accepted his extremely lenient plea deal negotiated with then-prosecutor and current Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta, and served 13 of his 18-month sentence for soliciting a minor for prostitution, he returned to his $50 million East 71st Street mansion, and “celebrated his release from a Florida jail with his close pal, Britain’s Prince Andrew,” the New York Post reported in 2011.

Epstein also joked to the Post at the time, “I’m not a sexual predator, I’m an ‘offender.’ It’s the difference between a murderer and a person who steals a bagel.”

Epstein once gave Andrew’s ex-wife a big loan

In March 2011, shortly after he feted Epstein’s return, Andrew’s ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, told the Daily Telegraph that Andrew had helped arrange for Epstein to pay over $18,000 to one of the duchess’s former assistants to whom she owed nearly $100,000 in unpaid wages and other bills. Andrew was serving as Britain’s Special Representative for International Trade and Investment at the time, and this connection to Epstein, who had been convicted four years earlier of soliciting prostitution from a minor, drew heavy criticism in the press.

“I personally, on behalf of myself, deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me,” Ferguson told the Telegraph at the time. “I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf.”

Andrew eventually stepped down from his role as trade representative in July 2011.

Epstein allegedly forced a teen girl to have sex with Prince Andrew on three separate occasions.

In a suit filed in 2015, Virginia Roberts Giuffre claimed that in 1999, when she was 15 years old, Epstein’s friend and alleged madam, Ghislaine Maxwell, approached Giuffre at her summer job at Mar-a-Lago, and offered the teen professional training in massages. Giuffre says she was then brought to Epstein’s Palm Beach home, where she was repeatedly sexually abused by him, and that over the next few years, he “loaned her out to rich and influential men around the world,” as the Guardian reported in 2015.

Among these men, Prince Andrew, who Giuffre said she was forced to have sex with on three occasions while she was 17, once in London, at Maxwell’s home, once in New York, and once on Epstein’s private Caribbean island as part of an “orgy with numerous other under-aged girls.”

According to court filings submitted in 2015 as part of a long-running lawsuit challenging Epstein’s plea deal, Giuffre said Epstein ordered her at the time to “give the prince whatever he required” and report back to him with details of the abuse after. Per the filing, obtained by the Guardian:

“Epstein’s purposes in ‘lending’ Jane Doe (along with other young girls) to such powerful people were to ingratiate himself with them for business, personal, political, and financial gain,” the document alleged, “as well as to obtain potential blackmail information”.

Buckingham Palace strenuously denied the allegations after they were published in the Guardian, calling them “categorically untrue,” and denying “any form of sexual contact or relationship” between the prince and Giuffre.

Flight logs, however, appear to confirm that the prince was in the locations Giuffre claimed he was at the relevant times, the Telegraph reported in 2015.

Source: The Cut