British Imperialism: Argentina ends deal but the UK still insists the Falklands are British

CC™ Global News

The UK has insisted the Falkland Islands are British after Argentina broke a co-operation deal and pushed for talks on the islands' sovereignty.

In 2016, both sides agreed to disagree on the sovereignty of the Falklands in favor of improved relations. 

Argentina pulled out of the pact this week and informed UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly.

The Falkland Islands were subject to a bloody war in 1982 when Argentina tried to stake a territorial claim.

In response, Mr Cleverly tweeted: "The Falkland Islands are British.

“Islanders have the right to decide their own future - they have chosen to remain a self-governing UK Overseas Territory."

The 2016 agreement between Argentina and the UK pledged to "improve co-operation on South Atlantic issues of mutual interests".

Mr Cleverly was informed about the decision by his Argentinean counterpart Santiago Cafiero when the pair met at the G20 summit in India earlier this week.

Mr Cafiero called for talks on the sovereignty of the Falkland Islands, known in Argentina as the Malvinas.

The UK's minister for the Americas, David Rutley, said it was a "disappointing decision" after he had had a "constructive visit" to Buenos Aires. 

"Argentina has chosen to step away from an agreement that has brought comfort to the families of those who died in the 1982 conflict," he said.

The Falkland Islands are a British overseas territory in the south-west Atlantic Ocean. Argentina has long claimed sovereignty over the islands.

Argentina invaded in 1982 in a bid to reclaim sovereignty and said it had inherited the Falkland Islands from Spain in the 1800s. 

A brief but bitter war lasting 74 days followed - with 655 Argentinian, 255 British and three Falkland casualties - before British forces regained control on 14 June 1982.

Former Abacha Chief Security Officer and head of notorious Strike Force Unit seeks promotion to Major-General....

Hamza al-Mustapha

CC Breaking News

Major Hamza al-Mustapha, former Chief Security Officer (CSO) to late dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha, has written the Army High Command, requesting for concessions on his position in the Army.

Sources in the Army told CC that al-Mustapha is seeking his
accelerated promotion to the rank of a Major-General and his consequent retirement with his full benefits paid.

The argument had been that due to his “age on rank”, he should be retired as a Major from the Army but the former CSO is seeking a waiver on the grounds that he was unjustly incarcerated.

For the over 14 years that al-Mustapha spent in prison, the Army high command had paid half of his monthly salary to his family.

While al-Mustapha’s case has been presented to the Army council, the Legal Department is said to be studying the issue with a view to coming up with mutually acceptable recommendations.

CC has been informed that al-Mustapha’s lawyers were waiting the Army’s resolution of the issue with a view to either accepting it or approaching the law courts to get a fair deal for their client.

The Army Council is composed of the Minister of Defense, Permanent Secretary, Chief of Defense Staff, Chief of Army Staff and some other administrative staff.

Director, Army Public Relations, Brig- Gen. Ibrahim Attahiru, said that as a professional force, the Army had already looked into al-Mustapha’s case and had forwarded his petition to the Army Council.

He also confirmed that the Legal Department was already handling the issue.

The former CSO wrote the Army requesting that his case be treated fairly and that he should be granted certain concessions.

Gen. Attahiru was, however, silent on the concessions being sought by al-Mustapha.

“The Army, as an organisation looked into this matter and it has been presented to the Army Council – the highest body.

“But the specific departments handling the issue now are the Legal Department and another, which are looking into it and will come up with their submissions soon.

“Al-Mustapha wrote to the Army requesting for certain concessions but the Army is still looking at it and very soon, we shall take a position on the matter and it would be made public,” he said.

Attahiru said the Army has nothing to hide on the issue and that it will never deviate into partisan politics.

The Army had in July debunked speculations that al-Mustapha had been promoted and decorated with a new rank of Brigadier-General, explaining that all administrative procedures are guided by extant rules and regulations such as the Armed Forces of Nigeria Harmonised Terms and Conditions among others.

The Court of Appeal, sitting in Lagos, had on July 12 discharged and acquitted al-Mustapha over an alleged conspiracy and the murder of Alhaja Kudirat Abiola, the wife of late M.K.O. Abiola, on June 4, 1996.

Abiola won the 1993 presidential election, annulled by the military government of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida.

The court had overturned a death sentence handed down on him on January 30, 2013, by a Lagos High Court.

Three days after his release, the Army had confirmed that al-Mustapha was still in its fold and that his case would be handled administratively in line with the harmonized terms and conditions of service.

Already, the Lagos State Government has challenged the ruling before the Supreme Court.

Al-Mustapha joined the Nigerian Army and was trained as an intelligence operative. He was involved in at least two investigations of coup attempts. His conduct of interrogations brought him to the attention of Sani Abacha. When Abacha was Chief of Army (August 1985 – August 1990) al-Mustapha was his Aide-de-Camp.

Hamza al-Mustapha was appointed Chief Security Officer to the Head of State (CSOHS) with a Special Strike Force Unit during Abacha's blood-thirsty tyrannical reign (17 November 1993 – 8 June 1998). Other security outfits at the time were the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Directorate of Military Intelligence, the State Security Service and the National Intelligence Agency. All of these units engaged in extrajudicial killings of people seen as threats to the regime. Both Ibrahim Babangida and Sani Abacha gave Captain (later Major) Hamza al-Mustapha exceptional power, considerably greater than other officers who were nominally his superior.

After being appointed Chief Security Officer, al-Mustapha established a number of small security outfits recruited from the military and other security organizations, and trained in Israel and Communist North Korea. Abacha's National Security Adviser Ismaila Gwarzo and al-Mustapha were said to be responsible for much of the "torture, killing and wanton looting" during Abacha's rule.

As head of the State Security Service (SSS) al-Mustapha was also said to be involved in drug trafficking, using diplomatic pouches to transport the drugs. His wife, an Arab in origin, coordinated a ring of traffickers in the Gulf states.

That a convicted murderer (later effectively "politically pardoned" through a questionable acquittal) would now seek full remuneration from the same tax payers he essentially terrorized and violated their human rights, is quite befuddling.

If there is one thing al-Mustapha deserves, it is not a promotion, but rather a seat in the docket at the Hague, the offices of the International Criminal Court, for Crimes Against Humanity.

More to follow.

Gaddafi Assassination - Former US Lawmaker’s Explosive Interview With Tucker Carlson

CC™ VideoSpective

The Africa News Network (TANN)

Islam As A Mask For Arab Imperialism, Neo-Colonialism And Racism In Africa

CC™ VideoSpective

How did the pro-pedophile group PIE exist openly for 10 years?

Two members of the Pedophile Information Exchange (PIE)

By Tom de Castella & Tom HeydenBBC News Magazine
The Pedophile Information Exchange was affiliated to the National Council for Civil Liberties - now Liberty - in the late 1970s and early 1980s. But how did pro-pedophile campaigners operate so openly? 
A gay rights conference backs a motion in favor of pedophilia. The story is written up by a national newspaper as "Child-lovers win fight for role in Gay Lib". 
It sounds like a nightmarish plot-line from dystopian fiction. But this happened in the UK. The conference took place in Sheffield and the newspaper was the Guardian. The year was 1975. 
It's part of the story of how pedophiles tried to go mainstream in the 1970s. The group behind the attempt - the Pedophile Information Exchange - is back in the news because of a series of stories run by the Daily Mail about Labor deputy leader Harriet Harman. 
The Daily Mail has revisited the story of PIE to ask how much Harman and her husband the MP Jack Dromey knew about the group during their time working at the National Council for Civil Liberties, now Liberty, in the late 1970s. PIE was affiliated to the NCCL from the late 1970s to early 1980s. 
Many of the revelations are not in fact new. The story's return to the front pages demonstrates the shock people feel about how a group with "pedophile" in its name could operate so openly for so long. 
PIE was formed in 1974. It campaigned for "children's sexuality". It wanted the government to axe or lower the age of consent. It offered support to adults "in legal difficulties concerning sexual acts with consenting 'under age' partners". The real aim was to normalize sex with children. 
Journalist Christian Wolmar remembers their tactics. "They didn't emphasize that this was 50-year-old men wanting to have sex with five-year-olds. They presented it as the sexual liberation of children, that children should have the right to sex," he says. 
It's an ideology that seems chilling now. But PIE managed to gain support from some professional bodies and progressive groups. It received invitations from student unions, won sympathetic media coverage and found academics willing to push its message. 
It's wrong to say that PIE was tolerated during the 1970s, says Times columnist Matthew Parris. "I remember a lot of indignation about it [PIE]. It was considered outrageous." 
The group's visits to universities were often opposed. In 1977 PIE's chairman Tom O'Carroll was ejected from a conference on "love and attraction" at University College, Swansea after lecturers "threatened not to deliver their papers if Mr O'Carroll stayed", the Times reported. 
The May 1978 issue of Magpie, PIE's in-house newspaper, records how O'Carroll had been invited to address students at Liverpool and Oxford University but that the visits were cancelled after local opposition. 
One of PIE's key tactics was to try to conflate its cause with gay rights. On at least two occasions the Campaign for Homosexual Equality conference passed motions in PIE's favor. 
Most gay people were horrified by any conflation of homosexuality and a sexual interest in children, says Parris. But PIE used the idea of sexual liberation to win over more radical elements. "If there was anything with the word 'liberation' in the name you were automatically in favor of it if you were young and cool in the 1970s. It seemed like PIE had slipped through the net." 
Some have suggested that nature of debate then was different. "In this free-for-all anything and everything was open for discussion," said Canon Angela Tilby on Radio 4's Thought for the Day. "There were those who claimed that sexual relationships between adults and children could be harmless." Homosexuality had only been decriminalized in 1967. There was still prejudice and inequality. The age of consent was 16 for heterosexuals but 21 for homosexual men. 
Wolmar had first-hand contact with PIE. In 1976 he began working for Release, an agency helping people with drug and legal problems. Its office at 1 Elgin Avenue in London was a mailing address for PIE. Nobody knew much about them, Wolmar says. "They used to drop in once a week to pick up their mail. They were greasy men," he recalls, people who fitted the stereotype of the "dirty mac" brigade. After Wolmar raised questions about PIE it was decided to bring them in for a meeting. 
Wolmar's colleagues pressed the man from PIE on the age of consent. Wolmar says that the man said there should be no age of consent. Shocked at the idea of a group advocating sex with babies, he and his colleagues unanimously decided to "boot them out". 
It was easy to join PIE. According to a Times legal report from February 1977, there was no need for subterfuge, just an application and a cheque for £4. In the report, the prosecutor in the case stated: "He said on the form that he was a pedophile, male, married, 29 years old and attracted to girls between the ages of seven and 13 years." The judge proclaimed himself "horrified" at the existence of PIE. 
It was a blackmail case. Unsettlingly for a modern audience, the PIE member received anonymity and there is no mention of any penalty. Meanwhile, the blackmailer was jailed for three years. 
The brazenness could be shocking. Keith Hose, one of PIE's leaders during the 1970s, was quoted by a newspaper saying: "I am a pedophile. I am attracted to boys from about 10, 11, and 12 years of age. I may have had sexual relations with children, but it would be unwise to say." 
When Polly Toynbee interviewed O'Carroll and Hose in the Guardian in September 1977 she heard men incredulous at the lack of support from the press. They seemed genuinely aggrieved at what they called a "Fleet Street conspiracy". One of them told her: "We would expect the Guardian, a decent liberal newspaper to support us." 
In a Guardian piece from 1975 it's clear "pedophile" was still not a widely used term and the opening line explains it - "one who is sexually attracted to children". In the piece, Hose is treated as a reliable source throughout. 
There were divisions within progressive circles. In 1977 the Campaign for Homosexual Equality passed by a large majority a resolution condemning "the harassment of the Pedophile Information Exchange by the press". 
When Peter Hain, then president of the Young Liberals, described pedophilia as "a wholly undesirable abnormality", a fellow activist hit back. "It is sad that Peter has joined the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade. His views are not the views of most Young Liberals." 
And when a columnist supported Hain in the Guardian he was inundated with mail from people - many willing to give their name - who defended sex with children. 
Reading the newspapers of the time there is a palpable anxiety that PIE was succeeding. 
A Guardian article in 1977 noted with dismay how the group was growing. By its second birthday in October 1976, it had 200 members. There was a London group, a Middlesex group being planned, and with regional branches to follow. The article speaks of PIE's hopes to widen the membership to include women and heterosexual men. 
Toynbee talked of her "disgust, aversion and anger" at the group but added that she had "a sinking feeling that in another five years or so, their aims would eventually be incorporated into the general liberal credo, and we would all find them acceptable". 
There was a battle raging over free speech. 
Some, such as philosopher Roger Scruton, felt that freedom of speech had to be sacrificed when it came to groups like PIE. In a Times piece in September 1983 he wrote: "Pedophiles must be prevented from 'coming out'. Every attempt to display their vice as a legitimate 'alternative' to conventional morality must be, not refuted, but silenced." 
A Times letter writer, Peter Cadogan, took a different line, defending PIE from the National Front despite loathing them. "Yet again, they assaulted me with stink bombs and sundry soft fruit when I was defending the freedom of speech of another group I abhorred, viz, the Pedophile Information Exchange." He continues that the way to cover "nasty people with nasty ideas" is to "give them all the rope they want and then hang them with it every time they practice what they preach". 
But during the 1980s, PIE came a cropper. Its notoriety grew in 1982 with the trial of Geoffrey Prime, who was both a KGB spy and a member of PIE. He was jailed for 32 years for passing on secrets from his job at GCHQ to the Soviet Union, and for a series of sex attacks on young girls. 
A short article from the Daily Mail in June 1983 records how a scoutmaster in Castle Bromwich, Birmingham, resigned after being exposed as a member of PIE. 
In August 1983 a Scottish headmaster, Charles Oxley, handed over a dossier about PIE to Scotland Yard after infiltrating the group, the Glasgow Herald wrote. He said the group had about 1,000 members. 
But the NCCL continued to defend having PIE as a member. As late as September 1983, an NCCL officer was quoted in the Daily Mail saying the group was campaigning to lower the age of consent to 14. "An affiliate [sic] group like the Pedophile Information Exchange would agree with our policy. That does not mean it's a mutual thing and we have to agree with theirs." 
The authorities debated ways of shutting PIE down. O'Carroll was sentenced to two years in jail for "conspiracy to corrupt public morals" and PIE was disbanded in 1984. 
It's hard now to believe the group existed for more than a decade. "Even then the word pedophile was pretty taboo," says Wolmar. "I do find it slightly astounding that they were able to use that name." 
Credits: BBC News Magazine 

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.