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]]>If so, I missed the morph.
But then again, maybe not. What’s playing out here could be a simple matter of LeBron James being in utter denial.
Soon after Lakers’ Coach Frank Vogel was fired —- you know, the usual scapegoating of a coach with a dismal record or one who posted a losing season —– James wasted no time weighing in, opining that Lakers’ season was “not a failure.”
What?
Wait. Why then was Coach Vogel fired?
Puhlease.
“It’s not a failure at all,” James said. “We came to work every single day, put our hard hats on and tried to get better every day. And the results just didn’t happen for us. But it’s not a failure.”
Ooooh yes, it was, a catastrophic one, at that. Let’s call a spade a spade, dude.
True, a coach could be ousted for a medley of reasons. I get that. But it is hard not to deem the Lakers’ 2022 season of 33 wins and 49 losses a failure, never mind James’ dodgy assertion. Heck — the Lakers’ didn’t even make the Western Conference playoff, for crying out loud.
Spin it any kind of way, I believe Vogel’s ouster was incontrovertibly linked to those stunning woes.
But LeBron himself, as always, performed spectacularly, posting 30.3 points per game on 52.4 field goal shooting, and was narrowly edged out of the scoring title, all while grabbing 8.2 rebounds and dishing out 6.2 assists. That’s dope, but it was all for nil being unable to carry his team into the playoff.
Yeah —– some would argue that it was not his fault, and I kind of get that, but get this: had the Lakers won the championship, James, without a question, would have corralled the lion share of the paean —— regardless of his performance.
It all really boils down to this. The super-hyped convergence of a trifecta of superstars in James, Anthony Davis and Russell Westbrook, believed by many was sure to churn out wins, turned out to be a colossal flop. The move, though boffo on paper, went south quicker than you can ask ‘Who is gonna shoot the ball — James or Westbrook?.’ No contest there, it had to be James. And with that, Westbrook, who is organically more effective with the ball in his hands, floundered as a poor fit on a talent studded but confused ball club.
It certainly didn’t help at all that the former Oklahoma Thunder star and coach Vogel never really got along almost from the day he donned the Purple and Gold.
Then there was the matter of James and Davis missing a lot of games, all of which converged into Lakers being a bumbling, moribund team that terribly limped on throughout the season and eventually out of it.
Boy, it was a total mess.
Lakers’ fans grumbled in frustration all season.
Owner Jeanie Buss grumbled along with them, especially given the lorry load of dough she doled out to sign these superstars.
Eh ehmm, does she agree with James that the Lakers’ season was not a failure?
Of course not.
“When you spend that kind of money on the luxury tax, you expect to go deep into the playoffs,” she recently told The Los Angeles Times.
The team did not make the playoff, let alone going deep into it.
Far from being Muddy Waters, but Ms. Buss was singing the blues.
“I’m growing impatient just because we had the fourth-highest payroll in the league. … “So, yeah, it was gut-wrenching for me to go out on a limb like that and not get the results that we were looking for. … I’m not happy, I’m not satisfied.”
Lakers’ legend Magic Johnson was blunt. “We failed,” he recently told David Aldridge of The Athletic.
Former Lakers’ coach Phil Jackson and provocative ESPN sports pundit Stephen A Smith are calling for James to be traded. Will the king be unloaded? Your guess is as good as mine.
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]]>Denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is also a mental block that plagued the Republican party for years not appreciating their own magnum opus in a beauty like Trump.
In the beginning, it was all smiles, guffaw and fraternal hobnobbing; it was all warm and fuzzy in the Trump MAGA universe. But the fun is all over. These Republicans now find themselves in a quagmire toiling to fend off the deep sea Piranha they masterfully nurtured to size. There’s a fitting parlance for it: If you ride a tiger long enough, eventually you will be eaten by that tiger.
It goes without saying, exasperated members of the GOP are increasingly keeping opprobrious Trump at bay.
But while a growing phalanx of GOP members are grumbling, mumbling and stewing that cantankerous Trump is ravaging their party, eviscerating their political careers and shoving some into abrupt and early retirement, they are still wallowing in never-ending namby-pambyism lacking the kind of spine needed to straight up call out the former president. Some progress has been made, though. Not only are Republicans increasingly singing from the same hymn of frustration having realized Trump has no plans to disengage from active politics anytime soon, but they are also clandestinely taking baby steps to gnaw at his entrenched influence, and ultimately torpedo his repudiated zeitgeist being the future of the party.
A trifecta of Republican mugwumps led by Liz Chaney, Adam Kinzinger and Mitt Romney still shepherd a tiny bevy of brazen conservatives pointing finger straight at Trump for his medley of shenanigans. On the other side of that coin resides a shameless squad of diehard sycophants led by Senators Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Ambassador Nikki Haley. They form a trio of GOP bootlicking milquetoasts —– cowards with no moral core swooning after cheap political chits from master Trump.
Easily, very easily, Liz Chaney packs more guts in her little pinky than sorry-ass, pathetic Rubio, Haley and Cruz have in their combined torso.
Trump’s petulant, lunatic, and bumbling temperament was abundantly clear from the beginning. He never really camouflaged his harsh persona in glib and genteel cloak. If anything, he embellished in his uncouth and bellicose character, like the time of his open cockalorum about standing “in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody” and not “lose any voters.”
So, it was crystal clear that Trump was a one-man wrecking ball who wasted no time unleashing staggering tyranny on his party, firing off crushing broadsides aimed at anyone who disagreed with him; sweepingly recontouring the GOP into a servile party in his querulous and mean-spirited image; it was clear he was veering the party away from mainstay traditional GOP postures while sowing the seeds of Trumpian toxicity; and it was clear that as president, he behaved frighteningly unpresidential and cacophonously unhinged. Oh, let’s not forget the mind-blowing volume of lies Trump told as his scandalous presidency teetered along the boulevard of fecklessness and ineptitude.
All Republicans bore witness to all of that, but only a handful (and that’s not a hyperbole) showed enough courage to check his sprawling excesses. Rather, they molly-cuddled him, looked the other way in the face of a symphony of nonsense and a cascade of presidential blunders, childishness and foolishness. They uncomplainingly, at least not publicly, enabled him to indulge in his draconian ways. They funneled oxygen to his toddler temper tantrums and stroked his gossamer ego ——- pretty much condoned and normalized his bizarre and jaw-dropping indulgences, largely for fear of being targeted by his scorching vitriols. The apoplectic former president is fitted with a short fuse, and would publicly unload his wrath on detractors.
Recently, Trump landed on a roster of the worst twenty nine presidents in U.S. history. No surprises there. Having presided over a turbulent, discombobulated administration wrought with a smorgasbord of drama, scandals and fiddledeedees—— an administration as ubiquitously chaotic, bodacious, and cantankerous as his, a cool spot on that ignoble roster was a shoo-in, for several reasons. The shellacking in the 2020 elections against Biden placed him on a roster of presidential one-termers. Trump’s political foes in both parties celebrated and high-fived at his defeat, even touted the kibosh of Trump and MAGA.
Well —— not so fast.
After refusing to concede defeat with grace and humility, two traits totally alien to him, Trump embarked on a crazy crusade of lies and deceit to convince the American people that the election was “stolen” from him. It wasn’t. Dude was simply a spectacular sore loser who stoked a violent and deadly insurrection on Jan. 6 to thwart a peaceful transfer of presidential powers.
No U.S. president has been impeached twice, a stunning feat Trump pulled off in just four years. That alone punts him into a lonesome stratum of his own.
As president, assiduity was never Trump’s strong suit. The real-estate mogul-turned politician was stunningly and dangerously purblind. Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter who is author of The Art of the Deal had an intimate knowledge of that, noting that Trump had the attention span of a “kindergartner,” with “a staggering level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” His Attorney-General William Barr piled on his former boss’ barrenness, saying that Trump “never really had a good idea of, you know, the role of the Department of Justice [and] to some extent, you know, the president’s role.” Let all that sink in.
In short, the former president was an intellectual dilettante and a political greenhorn who displayed a depth of material emptiness that left critics and allies alike aghast and scratching their head. Trump hurled childish insults almost on a daily basis in skirmishes against just about everyone. That, plus his narcissistic nature and lack of presidential decorum raised serious questions over his fitness for the job.
All of that and more has now converged into an epic conundrum for Republicans, now wondering aloud: Why continue to hinge the future of the GOP on an aging rapscallion with a debauched past, weakening clout and still politically radioactive?
Well, it appears more and more GOP leaders are beginning to pour ice water on Trumpian excesses by increasingly saying ‘no’ to his bs. Still, all their mumbling and grumbling are taking place behind closed doors, not public ——– not yet. Yeah, taking Trump on is a herculean, perhaps, even a sisyphean task. For now, these knackered and frustrated Republicans are still tiptoeing in trepidation not to anger the former president, who not only still enjoys vast fealty among the GOP hoipolloi, but also wields a potent weapon in his ability to groom primary opponents against lawmakers and others who are not allies.
Nonetheless, it appears Pence has had enough. The former Vice President recently swung at Trump, a rarity of nostalgic proportion about a Twisted Sister croon, “We’re not gonna take it,” anymore. It probably took a boatload of courage, but Pence pulled it off, finally taking it to Trump —– straight up, without twisting himself into a pretzel as has become the norm for trembling Republicans. That was refreshing, to say the least. Pence flexed his backbone after Trump recently said that he (Pence) could have overturned the results of the 2020 election. The former VP struck back in a speech before the Federalist Society in Florida, saying, “President Trump is wrong.”
“I had no right to overturn the election.”
Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell has had it up to his eyeballs with Trump too. Although the senator from Kentucky is not all the way public with his deepening disgust with Trump, he is operating behind the scene to deflate the former president’s clout en-route to weakening his blustering swagger. Recently, McConnell huddled up with Senator Susan Collins from Maine to discuss plan to encourage anti-Trump candidates to run for offices against the former president’s handpicked minions.
“No one should be afraid of President Trump, period,” Collins told The New York Times.
The former president, as is customary, clapped back, calling Collins “absolutely atrocious.”
To sum up, Pence, McConnell and Collins are emerging as the vanguard of a recalcitrant push to wrestle the Grand Old Party out of the stiffened claws of a disgraced former president who is being investigated on a miscellany of fronts.
Will they succeed? That remains to be seen.
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]]>Well — not so fast. True, coups are for the most part an anachronism in Africa. But that does not mean African leaders should start feeling warm and fuzzy, believing the path is now clear for them to rapaciously monopolize, aggrandize and abuse political power. No —– it is not that kind of shindig. Bear in mind that while the soldiers are in the barracks, they are neither comatose nor dead. Something else to bear in mind is that democracy in Africa is work in progress, often requiring scattershot remedies and other non democratic moves to bring home the bacon for the masses.
Democracy in Africa is simply not yielding expected economic pomes and social dividends for the masses. And when the shortcomings result in a smorgasbord of pain and ululation among the masses, change of government becomes necessary. Of course, change through elections is what we all would like to see. But when you have slick and pig-headed buffoons such as Alpha Conde standing in the way, electoral change becomes frustratingly elusive, potentially paving the way for change by any means necessary.
It is profoundly depressing that much of the problems in Africa is man made. The slow progress of achieving boffo, transparent and fruitful democracy in the continent is largely rooted in the reckless and willful conducts of atrocious leaders who are brazen charlatans, political dilettantes and empty-headed throttle-bottoms —— in short, leaders who openly flout the constitution, pretty much say to hell with everyone and then somehow expect to face no consequence. It is that kind of arrogant, narcissistic and tyrannical impunity, that kind of nauseating nonsense that easily strengthens the case in favor of military coups being a fitting patriotic move to flush these unfit leaders out, even if the soldiers themselves are flawed and fallible and their intervention arguably constituting a setback to the tedious trek to civil rule. At the end of the day, presidents are not kings, but even then, kings are not immune from purge from royal throne either.
The fantastic news is that in Guinea, Col. Mamady Doumbouya has proved that military coups backed by the people can be a smashing success ——- never mind the torrent of codswallop from the hyperactive and apoplectic AU and ECOWAS headquarters.
Former President of Ghana, the late Flight Lt. Jerry Rawlings was right when he said, “If the people are crushed by their elites, it is up to the army to give the people freedom.”
Towering history scholar and African affairs juggernaut Professor Patrick Loch Otieno (PLO) Lumumba agreed.
“If you want soldiers to remain in the barracks, the civilians must conduct themselves.” About African leaders, he said: “We have a crop of leaders who think they are demigods.”
Well said.
One of those ‘demigods’ was 83-year old Alpha Conde who certainly did not “conduct” himself when he ignored critics and tinkered with his country’s constitution to retain power.
Well, it all caught up with him. (Obu ife dia mma) Col. Doumbouya squalled out of the barracks to lead a military putsch on September 5, ousting the government, becoming the interim president and recently naming 68-year old Mohamed Beavogui, an international development gadfly, as Prime Minister.
“It was our duty as patriots,” to yank the corrupt and feckless Conde government, he said.
But wait a minute. Is Col Doumbouya now irrevocably at the helm of affairs in Guinea? You betcha. (Ofuma, ofuma) A coup is triumphant, most scholars agree, when the putsch leaders are able to fend off domestic critics, pushback outside detractors and then hold power for at least seven days. Doumbouya, 41, has surpassed that trifecta of thresholds. He is hastily moving ahead with governance of Guinea, a former French colony, now an impoverished country of 13 million people.
But the newly minted leader has vowed to hand over power to civilians, though he is buttoned up about timeline.
ECOWAS continues to insist that elections be held within six months, which is a retreat from the group’s initial demand on Doumbouya. In the days following the coup, ECOWAS had issued a plethora of ultimatums, including call for grandpa Conde to be reinstalled back to power. But a stoic and unflappable Doumbouya shot that down faster than you can say ‘no way,’ expressing the view that “the people needs to be protected by ECOWAS.” He successfully warded off the AU and ECOWAS onslaught of brickbat, eventually turning the tide of the push and pull in his favor where now the standoff is over when to hold elections and no longer about restoring grandpa Conde back to office.
Put him back in office, for what? (Maka gini). Please. Grandpa Conde should go and enjoy his sprawling loot and grand kids.
Meanwhile, the new prime minister opened up a tad about election timeline, telling reporters outside his home in Conakry the “conditions” that would determine when the new government is going to hold elections and bring the civilians back.
“We want to ensure the country works properly,” Beavogui said.
“We are here, as the president said, to serve, to create these conditions, and to leave,” Beavogui said.
“We want to put in place reforms that will be irreversible.”
Most of those reforms are spelled out in the “transition charter” recently unveiled by the new Junta addressing matters involving the constitution and electoral rules, aimed particularly at ensuring the country is able to hold “free, democratic and transparent elections.”
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]]>Conde wanted to become Xi Jinping of Guinea. He didn’t respect the constitution. Col. Doumbouya didn’t, either.
A message for Col. Doumbouya: Please do not cave in to the pressure by AU, ECOWAS. You are doing all of us a seismic favor.
It is about time AU, ECOWAS start to pay attention to the pain and suffering of African men, women, children and the unborn. Enough of this Bull S…
The third President of the United States Thomas Jefferson said, “An insult unpunished is the parent of many others.” Apply that here, and it fittingly becomes: ‘An assault on the constitution of Guinea unpunished is the parent of many others.’
Onumba.com — Tossing out a country from the African Union (AU) and Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is expected after a coup.
So when Guinea was suspended in response to the recent military putsch by Col. Mamady Doumbouya which ousted the government of Alpha Conde, no one was surprised.
But what is surprising is the irony of it all. They kicked Guinea out of AU and ECOWAS and then had the gall to call for “an immediate return to constitutional order” in that country. Interestingly, either they forgot or could care less that it was the same damn constitution Conde totally trashed to prolong his stay in power.
Conde was swooning to become Xi Jinping of Guinea. He didn’t respect the constitution. Well, Col. Doumbouya didn’t, either. So there you have it.
It is easy to kick Guinea out, it is even easier to applaud the decision to do so, some probably guffawed all over while at it. Sadly, in Africa, most of us are innately primed to roll with the flow, but realistically, suspending Guinea is a staggering copout. It makes absolutely no sense. No one condones coups in Africa, I certainly don’t, but at the same time, always condemning coups while foolishly and cowardly ignoring the deepening plight and deafening ululation of the people, overlooking the smorgasbord of constitutional atrocities, out of control corruption, knaveries of all ilks and other pile of codswallop stoking up coups in African countries is profoundly disingenuous.
Col. Doumbouya couldn’t have said it any better when he told a cabal of West African leaders who visited Conakry to pressure him about holding elections in six months and letting Conde out: “It was important for ECOWAS to listen to the legitimate aspirations of the people of Guinea.”
The junta leader was right. As a general practice concerning response to coups in West Africa, AU and ECOWAS do not consider the pain and suffering of the African people. Their rote posture is always one of cowardice detachment from the apocalyptic despair of our people. That has to stop. In short, my beef is primarily the refusal of these groups “to listen to the legitimate aspirations” of the African people. There is always the mindless and maddening proclivity to offer support to these bumbling duffers and evil charlatans shepherding floundering and feckless governments.
Why exactly should Conde be restored to power? Why? I see no reason to bring him back as president. None. Heck — it is not as though he was accomplishing diddly-squat.
Col. Dombouya: Please do not cave in to intense pressure by AU and ECOWAS to restore Conde to office. Put him back in charge, for what? Please DON’T. You are doing all of us a huge favor.
It brings me to one simple, relevant question.
Guinea was booted out. Cool. That is a given after coups. Col. Doumbouya probably expected that. But the questing is, why wasn’t the country suspended by AU and ECOWAS after ‘King’ Conde altered the constitution for the self-seeking agenda of entrenching himself in power?
Yeah — to hell with the deafening choir of Guineans crying foul. To hell with the downpour of criticism. And to hell with everyone.
Well —— to hell with Conde. He absolutely deserves the pickle he is in.
Perhaps, going forward, leaders who meddle with the constitution to keep themselves in office ought be tossed from AU and other applicable regional bodies. Put these clowns on notice ——– If you illegally tinker with the constitution to elongate your time in office, you risk being thrown out and punitively ostracized.
It is way past time to put a kibosh to this flagrant BS now playing out in a number of African countries.
We have seen burgeoning maturity of African countries concerning the bygone proclivity for military coups. Undoubtedly, vast progress has been achieved, and seemingly Africans appear resolved never to glide back to the depressing era of military hegemony. Military coups are extremely rare, actually almost nonexistent now in Africa. We have come a long way. And that’s profoundly remarkable.
On the other side of the coin however is something not so great and remarkable. And that is the emerging trend of a growing number of African countries swapping military dictatorship with democratic totalitarianism. Africans must fiercely reject both forms of despotism. And hopefully, AU, ECOWAS and similar groups will lend a much needed helping hand in that effort.
Tyranny nicely veiled and dangled as democracy amounts to perpetuating fraud and skulduggery on African people. It is that simple.
As African people increasingly favor democratic system of government over military coups, it appears glib and power glutinous African political leaders are swooping in to become the gleeful beneficiaries of these laudable efforts. While Africans see the deepening embrace of democracy through the lens of effective governance for their own benefit, these leaders on the other hand only see the trend in terms of its value as a subterfuge with mischievous aims. These leaders operate under the protective veil of a coup-less continent, believing they now have free rein to behave as they please. Phrased differently, with coups vanishing into anachronism, they now feel emboldened to behave recklessly, to cling on to power beyond their lawful duration, super confident the military, which is supposedly politically mature as well, would stay taciturn in the barracks where they belong.
Unfortunately, AU, ECOWAS and other regional groups are often passionate and willing enablers in this burgeoning scheme. They offer themselves as perfect tools for these foolish leaders to achieve their selfish aims. They become perfect refuge for rogue African leaders, clowns, who ignore the wishes and laws of their nations in pursuit of selfish political agenda.
African countries with feeble political institutions, fragile judicial bodies and wobbly guardrails to ensure effective checks and balances have very little in terms of just how to tame brutal, buffoonish democratic dictators, just like ‘King’ Conde.
So while we all should reject coups, equally worthy of total rejection are these idiotic and pathetic African leaders who, for some bizarre reason, believe they ought to be allowed to behave as they please.
For now, military coup is one way to accomplish that. Hey, suggest a better way if you come up with one.
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]]>The post Commentary: The coup in Guinea — Perhaps, the junta leaders had no choice appeared first on Onumba.com.
]]>That sentiment came from a frustrated Guinean man Mamadou Saliou Diallo who lives in Senegal. He expressed that view following the ouster of 83-year old President Alpha Conde by a cabal of rebellious soldiers led by 41-year old Col. Mamady Doumbouya.
Diallo, like most Africans, is opposed to military coups, but he’s had enough of his feckless president. He echoed the feeling of a vast majority of people on the continent who are profoundly sick and tired of their useless leaders.
“We know that a coup d’état is not good,” noted Diallo, who strongly believes in democracy as the favored path to political office.
“A president must be elected by democratic vote,” he said. “But we have no choice. We have a president who is too old, who no longer makes Guineans dream and who does not want to leave power.”
Not included in that depressing chronicle of grievances is the Holy Grail of all the problems bedeviling Africa: corruption, in all of its ugly and ubiquitous mutations and manifestations. Conde and his son are being accused of massive pilfering from the government till.
Who knows how much of the people’s dough the president has stolen?
Corruption, mismanagement, squandering public money on foolish oversea trips and government leaders not being serious about solving the people’s problems explain why Saliou is angry and frustrated.
Those reasons and more also explain why a coup took place to remove President Conde from office. Shortly after Doumbouya announced he had overthrown the government, folks from the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS wasted no time reacting, and as usual, yakking up their old hackneyed denunciation.
Please don’t get me wrong. Coups are awful. We all get that. Africans intensely loathe military coups. That said, it is also disappointing and loathsome for these holier than thou groups (United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS) often condemn military coups, which is perfectly fine, but then would do nothing to help stem the tide of the gathering cloud of issues often justifying coups in these countries. That folks, is the thorny conundrum. Political observers, nation building analysts and third world talking heads love to tiptoe around this massive elephant in the parlor. Of course, it is the job of these watchdog organizations to voice opposition to coups. And they do that pretty well.
But it is worth repeating that it makes absolutely no sense for these influential cabals to habitually look the other way as corruption and mismanagement fester out of control in these politically fragile nations often dangling aimlessly. True, these are sovereign nations and should be left alone to manage their own affairs. I completely get that. Well, in that case, live them the eff alone to sort out their own palaver (Nsogbu fa) the way they see fit. All things considered, the core point I am trying to convey is this: Suffering Africans are profoundly sick, tired and frustrated, and their political leaders are often the problem.
While the trifecta of United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS does a fabulous job offering enabling environment, effective template, global rampart and cozy shelter for corrupt African leaders, protecting them from the credible wrath and rage of the suffering hoi polloi, which often manifest as protests, riots, revolutions and yes military coups, who, I ask, is going to step up to protect these hapless African people from the buffoonery and wickedness of their pitiful leaders. Who is going to represent them against these shameless charlatans, against these avarice, power-driven, idiotic kleptomaniacs?
Who? Who is going to offer them a modicum of soothing succor in the face of blatant idiocy and corruption of these African politicians?
The following poignant example will help locate all of this in a compelling context. The whole world watched as Machiavellian Conde illegally and brazenly hornswoggled, maneuvered his way to a third term in office. He changed the constitution allowing him to remain in power. It is common in Africa. Obviously, Conde didn’t think so, but it was unconstitutional. Yet, and sadly, the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS did absolutely nothing. Why didn’t representatives from these organizations scold this unscrupulous, power glutinous lout to dissuade him from such undemocratic indulgence?
Why didn’t someone, anyone say to him, Sir, you really can’t do that?
It was all cricket.
So, what does it all tell us, my people? It tells us that as the continent more and more embraces democratic dogma manifesting by way of not supporting military coups, it appears African leaders are becoming emboldened to cling on to power by any means necessary, the most popular means being tinkering with the constitution, obviously, not fearing the possibility of the military being pissed off and stepping in as in the past.
“It is hugely important to note that a politician who willfully trashes the constitution to stay in office is just as wrong and reckless as a soldier who brazenly ignores the law of the land to gain power.” Ike Mgbatogu
Even now, a simmering stew of political and jingoistic issues could boil over anytime in Cameroon where 88 year-old octogenarian Paul Biya is doggedly clinging on to power after 38 years at the helm. Think about it for a moment, folks: 38 long years in power. Does Biya own Cameroon? Of course not. Yet, he openly behaves as though he is King Biya, in a squalid, underdeveloped country where now his looming departure from power is stoking real fear of a potential political and social tinderbox.
If, heaven forbid, Cameroon ultimately collapses into a post Biya mess, compounded by the brutal and worsening conflict over agitation for an independent nation of Ambazonia in Cameroon’s Anglophone region, you can count on a cavalcade of spokesmen from the United Nations, African Union and maybe ECOWAS too, to converge on the scene in a chorus condemning the fallout —— they would come to unleash an avalanche of criticism aimed at a convenient target, even though representatives of all the three organizations watched with arms folded as the country droned on in crippling crisis and ululation over the years, with the sprawling mess crystallizing unabated.
You would think folks from the United Nations, African Union and ECOWAS would strongly condemn Biya now for refusing to disengage from power. But no, they choose a cowardly posture of standoffish laconism and mindless taciturn about it. Expect them to show up in full force after something goes awry, yapping to restore both order, and if it was a bloodless coup, the ousted leader, as well. Then a flurry of threats to impose economic sanction would follow.
As for those who see this rebellion as a setback for Guinea and argue that these undesirable African leaders be tossed from office at the ballot box rather than through military coups, I wholeheartedly agree. Honestly, I do. But I also believe that confining this matter to the contours of a simplistic take rather a panoramic assessment of the thorny issues therein reduces a very serious question of a people’s survival to a thing of jejune wrapped up in a flawed approach for solving the problem. In short, not embracing a broad posture in confronting this matter amounts to a fatal vandalism of commonsense, for, it is unhinged, delusional, a pipe dream, at best, for anyone to believe Biya and his thick-headed buddy in Uganda Yoweri Musevini, are suddenly going to start losing elections. Please be serious.
Leaders who linger on and on and on in power, and it is not as though they are productive, are in a essence holding their countries hostage. It is a political standoff, and often it does not end quietly for these power hoarding leaders. That tragic prognosis played out vividly in Libya with Muammar Gaddafi, in Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe, in Gambia with Yahya Jammeh, in Burkina Faso with Blaise Compaore and most recently in Chad with Idris Derby.
All these leaders had one thing in common: They all outstayed their welcome, and were either killed or disgracefully removed from office. Ghadafi, shortly before he was killed, found himself crying for leniency in a road side drainage ditch, miles removed from the sprawling, gold laced palatial pad he once called home.
Taken together, I agree, coups are “bad,” as Diallo aptly noted. But sometimes, it is easy to see why soldiers lose their cool as more and more African countries drift from an era of military dictators to now grappling with democratic dictators.
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]]>Onumba.com (Culled from Fawol Media Group Archive 2009) — A gallimaufry of factors such as family history, unhealthy lifestyle, late diagnosis, and poor diet easily converge to help account for the high rate of cancer disease wreaking havoc in the Black community.
But according to a recent Yale University School of Medicine study, the foremost reason for the high rate of cancer among Blacks is none of the above. The culprit, the study unveiled, is poor treatment and unequal access to appropriate and recommended care for Blacks.
Simply put, Blacks do not receive the care they need and deserve.
Columbus-based health care professional and software developer Dr. Miebi Akah agreed.
“This is precisely where the issue of health care disparity comes into play,” said Dr. Akah, who is the founder, software programmer and chief executive officer at EKEBA International, LLC, a developer of health and educational software focusing on addressing the disease of cancer and other chronic illnesses. Dr. Akah decried the menace of racism in patient care and called for the elimination of health disparity in the American health care system.
The Nigerian immigrant expressed the view that “Unequal access to quality health care will almost always lead to negative health outcomes.”
It does.
Dr. Akah’s observations echoed the conclusions of the Yale study which appeared recently in the journal ‘Cancer’ of the American Cancer Society. More specifically, the study established that racial disparities involving cancer treatment in the U.S. health care system is why Black patients older than 65 are “consistently less likely” to receive recommended treatment for their condition than White patients in the same age cohort.
Yale researchers reached that conclusion after an analysis of the treatment received by more than 143,000 of its Medicare patients suffering from lung, breast, colon, rectal or prostate cancer from 1992 to 2002, and then comparing the quality and continuity of care received using race as a unit of analysis.
The widest level of disparity was found among patients suffering from lung, colon and rectal cancer, but the quality of care for all patients who participated in the study reflected a alarming racial divide.
Black patients with lung cancer were 19 percent less likely to undergo surgical operation to have the tumor removed than White patients. Similarly, for rectal and colon cancer, Blacks were 27 and 24 percent less likely to receive additional chemotherapy after surgery than their White counterparts, respectively.
Even when Black women with breast cancer were lucky enough to undergo their recommended lumpectomy, the study still found disparity there, noting that they were 7 percent less likely to receive the crucial follow up radiation therapy they need than White women.
There was also a disparity for Black men suffering from prostate cancer. There, 11 percent of Blacks were less likely to receive additional radiation treatment after undergoing surgery compared to their White counterparts.
All of which begs the question: Will racial disparity in health care ever be eliminated?
It doesn’t appear so, and here’s why.
Despite several years of government and private efforts aimed at addressing existing disparity in cancer treatment, the problem still persists in a healthy fashion, and as these findings reveal, there is a pittance in terms of progress to show for these efforts and initiatives, both at the state and federal level, spanning the period from 1992 when the study was initiated to 2002 after it was completed.
Lead researcher Cary Gross shed more light on these findings.
“What we found was that the racial disparities did not change during that 10-year time interval,” said Gross. Several factors, he noted, are behind the racial inequality in cancer treatment, including poverty, low income, and lack of access to care for Blacks, all of which is exacerbated by elevated rates of chronic conditions that are often left to linger into lethal crises in impoverished Black communities.
Along with everything stoking all of this is also the lingering and deep-seated distrust for the medical community among Blacks, which some might argue, even in subtle ways, impedes the delivery of adequate care to achieve optimum result.
But while the above factors may reflect most of the reasons for this problem, the chief medical officer for the American Cancer Society Otis Brawly noted the common thread weaving all of this together is “racism.”
“This sort of thing has been a problem in the United States for a long, long time,” he stated, perhaps going way back to several decades ago when W.E.B Dubois raised the alarm about the high rates of diseases and mortality within the Black community in one of his famous writings entitled, “The Health and Physique of the Negro.”
Although Brawly believes that substandard care reserved for Blacks is often tied to racism, he doesn’t really fault “individual” racism for that. Rather, he believes “institutional” racism is the culprit.
“I think individual racism likely accounts for a small amount of it, but not a large amount. What I would refer to as institutional or societal racism accounts for a much larger component of it.”
The executive director of the Ohio State University Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity John Powell feels the same way.
“Our institutions are not changing to reflect our stated values.”
In all of those institutions, for all ages, tragically, deaths from cancer are 40 percent higher among Blacks than Whites.
Last week, CBS evening news reported a dollop of a drop in chronic diseases, including heart disease and stroke. Good, that eased the pain a bit, but it is not exactly clear how much of this slim decline is actually occurring in the Black community, moreover the small toboggan did not include cancer, which is the primary focus of the Yale study.
Either way, it is hugely evident from what was being reported that due to ubiquitous and stubborn racial disparities existing in the American health care system, the risk for all chronic conditions is still “three to four times greater for Blacks than Whites.”
Yet, whenever Blacks arrive at the hospital for medical care, they believe, as they should, that they are being offered the same quality of care as everyone else. Sadly, that is not the case.
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]]>But while Haiti’s torments and tribulations are well chronicled, it is absolutely important to understand this Caribbean country’s troubled past alongside its historical contributions to the Black race.
It goes way back to the shellacking of France by the colony of Saint Domingue during slavery. In short, this is something, sadly, a lot of Black people do not know, but should, and be thankful for. It was Haiti, yes this poor, little Haiti, that offered a tested blueprint for how to lift the foot of the White man off our collective Black neck.
Riding the spectacular gallantry of the great Toussaint Louverture and his revolutionary comrades, Saint Domingue, part of which later became Haiti (Aiyiti), emerged as the first Black colony in the world to rout a western power en route to gaining national sovereignty in 1804. It was an awe-inspiring accomplishment after an amazing display of military valor on the battlefield. That defeat, not only sent a humiliated France packing, but also became an inspiration for Blacks in gyve across the globe, including American Blacks, fighting for freedom and dignity.
That defeat weakened French influence in the Western hemisphere.
Soon after Haiti’s independence, however, everything went south, and has been that way ever since.
For Haiti, irrational political conflicts and drunken megalomania over power sit at the core of its conundrum going all the way back to the era of the conquering revolutionary icons. After the revolution maestro emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the first leader of independent Haiti, was viciously killed, his body mutilated, dismembered and dragged through the street, all hell broke loose. The ensuing power vacuum caused the two most senior veterans of the revolution, Henri Christophe and Alexandre Petion, to fall out, resulting in Haiti being splintered into two, Christophe controlling the North under the title of Emperor while Petion ruled the South after declaring himself President for Life.
That draconian power grab set the perfect stage for perpetual madness.
After Petion’s death in 1818, Jean-Pierre Boyer took over as President of South Haiti. Shortly after, Christophe in the North died, allowing Boyer to amalgamate both the North and South as Haiti once again.
Boyer, now president of a united Haiti, continued and successfully wrapped up a negotiation Petion had started with France concerning the status of the new nation. But those talks resulted in a god-awful deal. It required Haiti to compensate France a total of 150 million Francs ($21 billion in today’s value) for lost revenues suffered as a result of colonists no longer profiting from their human commodities —– the Haitian slaves. Yep, you read that right. In other words, enslaved Africans signed a deal which forced them to compensate their French slave masters for being enslaved. The reverse would have made a lot of sense, wouldn’t it? Truth be told, it wasn’t the deal Boyer had hoped to achieve. He was wedged between the rock and a hard place which left him with lousy options. The president was essentially forced into agreeing to the deal in exchange for securing the elusive French recognition of Haiti’s independence or risk renewed war with France and possible reintroduction of slavery.
That atrocious deal, that inter-generational economic albatross, that White supremacist, that cold-blooded heist, became the absolute linchpin of Haiti’s multilayered woes till today. Haiti spent eons paying an unjust debt it could not afford. It was paid off in 1947.
But then rapacious quest for power by Haitian elites hasn’t helped matters either, and that along with everything else, has been behind Haiti being in a perpetual state of social and political tinderbox. In short, Haiti’s past is littered with social tumult and political instability, a depressing cascade of coups and counter coups, many of them bitter, brutal, bloody and brazen.
The recent coup was no different.
The ghastly assassination of the 53-year old President Jovenel Moise on July 7 is yet another depressing saga for Haiti, a country branded the poorest in the western hemisphere and was recently dangling on the edge of political cacophony over elections, including growing challenge to Moise’s duration in office.
Haitian police are on it. They have nabbed 19 suspects, 17 of them described as mercenaries recruited out of Colombia by the alleged mastermind of the attack —- Christian Emmanuel Sanon —- a Haitian American doctor and evangelical pastor from Florida.
It appears Sanon reportedly orchestrated the coup to become president himself.
Well, that is not going to happen.
The 63 year old Sanon has been arrested and now in more hot water than a Chinese tea bag. Back in Florida though, those close to him, including his brother, Charles, emphatically deny his involvement in the attack, believing instead he was “duped” and “setup.”
Sanon himself maintains his innocence. He is yet to be charged with any crime.
Of course, everyone is innocent until proven guilty, that goes without saying, but can anyone convincingly explain just what in the world Sanon was up to when he visited Haiti weeks ahead of the attack?
True, like everyone else, he had the right to visit Haiti. But not the way he did.
According to Haiti’s National Police Chief Leon Charles, the alleged would-be president for some reason popped up in Haiti just weeks before the assassination, arriving in a private jet accompanied by a coffle of bodyguards, many of whom reportedly took part in killing Moise.
Two of the suspects are reportedly American citizens who now claim their role in the assassination was limited to language interpretation.
Moise’s wife, Martine, was with her husband when the attackers stormed their home. She sustained injuries to the hand and thigh and rushed to a local hospital before being flown to a Florida hospital where she received treatment and expected to fully recover. She is now back in Haiti.
“In the blink of an eye, the mercenaries entered my home and riddled my husband with bullets,” she said in her first public reaction to the assassination of her husband.
“I am alive but I have lost my husband Jovenel.”
The assassination has plunged Haiti into political imbroglio, unleashing a simmering stew of economic morose, insecurity and COVID-19 crises which could boil over, even as a bruising brawl for power looms.
Meanwhile, the interim Prime minister Claude Joseph, citing need to stem the country’s tumble into “chaos,” assumed leadership of the country and declared a “state of siege.”
Joseph has also sought “investigative and security” assistance from the United States, including troops deployment.
But the Biden administration has said the United States will not send troops to Haiti, though government officials are working with the Haitian authorities involving the assassination.
Investigation into the assassination is ongoing. How long Joseph serves as president remains unclear as the future of this Black country of over 11 million hangs in the balance.
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]]>The post Opinion: Impact of reggae in Africa, who is the king of reggae? My take will shock you appeared first on Onumba.com.
]]>After Marley’s death in 1981, Peter Tosh, another towering reggae titan, was broadly viewed as next in queue for coronation. However, Tosh repeatedly expressed no interest in assuming the mantle of the reggae throne. Perhaps, being Marley’s arch rival, the Bush Doctor never really bowed to the Tough Gong and as a result wanted no part of any effort to crown him king. Me no wan Bob Marley’s crown, he once said, paraphrasing.
Regardless, Tosh was still touted in the community of reggae enthusiasts and writers as the best reggae artist in the post Marley era.
But since Tosh’s assassination in 1987, the reggae throne has remained unoccupied gathering dust and cobwebs. It is not particularly clear why. Perhaps, no one artist demonstrated clear-cut proof, as Marley and Tosh did, of being worthy to be crowned the undisputed reggae royalty. The late Bunny Wailer, who with Marley and Tosh established the iconic The Wailers, offered a fleeting possibility with flashes of brilliance here and there, and was a full-throated member of the Rastafarian faith, but he neither rose to an enduring international prominence nor achieved the same apex of success as his former band mates. In short, Bunny Wailer was not able to break out of the crowd of great artists that included Burning Spear, Culture led by the late Joseph Hill, Black Uhuru and others.
Perhaps, now is the time to crown a reggae king. Isn’t it?
No doubt, opinions on this will run the gamut, but first, let us all get on the same page about what is considered reggae —- that way we are comparing apples and apples.
So —— what exactly is reggae?
This too will stoke up a fierce kerfuffle. For me, and more importantly, for the purposes of this exercise, I don’t really believe most dancehall songs, particularly the type they call ragga, fusion (reggae and rap) and the other excessively overhauled offshoots should be classified as reggae. Some dancehalls are OK, but most of them are flat-out atrocious. These god-awful sub-genres of reggae are not only annoyingly noisy and depressingly disorganized, they are also feckless and boring conduit through which conscious messages and words of wisdom are to be conveyed. They lack smooth groove and clarity of words.
Before revealing the new reggae king, first the impact of reggae in Africa
Being a fierce and uncompromising aficionado of old school reggae, it has always been my position to quit the whole reggae thing if roots rock reggae (traditional reggae) were to fizzle out. The truth is, I just don’t get anything out of these other crappy offshoots of reggae. Nothing.
As an A-student of reggae music and a ferocious consumer of its nourishing servings since secondary school in Anambra and Imo States, Nigeria. I completely credit reggae for planting and nourishing the seed of my Black consciousness, for molding the contours of my radical thoughts, for paving the path to knowledge of self, all of which helped tie my reality as a Black African to those of my African brothers and sisters abroad in places such as the Caribbean, the United States and Europe. Yep, it all started with reggae.
The impact of reggae, particularly that of Bob Marley, was both seismic and infectious. It was huge. For many us growing up in Nigeria, and other places in Africa for that matter, reggae was our library, our teacher and our newspaper. Back then, we lacked the conventional resources to obtain knowledge about the menacing global Black struggle. We had no libraries and very few books to read. Many of the secondary school teachers at that time, at the university level too, were not even interested in that kind of stuff, for crying out loud.
The sickening paucity of relevant knowledge about African history and not being sufficiently informed about true global Black history left many of us dangling empty-headed about ourselves and Africans abroad. Reggae played a monumental role in changing that. Given our lack of knowledge about these things, or the right kind of knowledge, the fundamental mindset of the average Nigerian, then and now, is hand tossed and baked in colonial indoctrination. That is precisely why many Africans foolishly believe Jesus Christ was a White man and why our women (increasingly men too) are hopelessly hooked on the juvenile, foolish and unhinged practice of skin bleaching, believing their black skin is unattractive. It is shameful. “Be proud of your Africanness,” advised former President of Ghana John Kufuor.
So while the colonial curriculum taught us everything about Christopher Columbus, Vasco Dagama, Maco Polo and the other touted and glorified pirates, it left out Black folks like Paul Bogul, Leonard Howell, W.E.B DuBois and others. Many of us knew next to nothing about African-Americans, not much about Marcus Garvey and never even heard of Malcolm X. Many Africans, both those in Africa and those residing now in the United States, still have never heard of Malcolm X. They don’t read. In short, we were hopelessly ignorant. Depressingly, many still are. One African woman from Cameroon once told me she was here only to make money and that all she cared about was being able to “eat and sleep.”
And if you you don’t believe me, perhaps popular Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie’s thoughts on this topic will convince you: “I went to America very ignorant. I thought Black Americans lived like the Cosby Show.”
Last year, African development gadfly Ghanaian native Wode Maya, organized a forum on Youtube addressing the “Gap between Africans and African-Africans.” Mr. EB Baffour, a Ghanaian-born resident of the United States, was one of the participants. He spoke eloquently about these issues, admitting, “I had no idea about African-Americans. I had no idea what our brothers and sisters went through during slavery. I was totally ignorant.”
Wode Maya himself owned up to his own ignorance. “I didn’t even know there was someone out there called African-American,” he said. “I didn’t know until I went to China, because we were not taught in school.”
Maya continued: “So many of us don’t even know that we have brothers and sisters living in the diaspora.”
Mr. Baffour, Mr. Maya and Ms. Adichie were all right. So many Africans suffer from the same entrenched ignorance. For many of us, being exposed to reggae music helped change much of that.
The brilliant and thought-provoking lyrics of reggae behemoths such as Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, Burning Spear, toast master U-Roy, Max Romeo and others opened my eyes to the global nature of Black struggle and where Africans fit in it. The work and legacy of pan-African luminaries such as Nnamdi Azikiwe, Kwame Nhrumah, Patrice Lumumba, Jomo Kenyatta, Amilcar Cabral and others were widely taught in schools, and that too helped a lot. But while the work of these luminaries were common knowledge, a complimentary effort via reggae offered the giant megaphone through which these boffo reggae teachers spoke to us, bringing the world to closer and exposing the inter-connectedness of the global black fight for equality, justice and respect with Africa as the rallying cry.
All of that was to get to this: When I say reggae, I mean roots, rock, conscious reggae. No more, no less.
So, who is the king of reggae today?
After winnowing through the impressive roster of active reggae artists, Nasio Fontaine and Morgan Heritage stood out as the best. Neither record sales nor revenue of any kind was a factor in determining the king. Only the quality of their work was considered. In the end, Nasio slightly came out on top largely because his work output and vibe are notably more impressive than that of any other artist in the game today. PERIOD.
Morgan Heritage is a splendorous reggae Tour de Force as well, having racked up accolades for its Magnus Opus over the years. I love them too. One of my favorite songs by Morgan Heritage is ‘A man is still a man.’ That’s a bad ass reggae tune.
Nasio Fontaine, though, is truly the real deal. Taken together, dude does not make bad songs, assessed from the standpoint of beat, lyrics, harmony and overall reggae groove. Donning the looks of a dreadlock rastaman, Nasio is an amazing conscious reggae colossus loaded with talent. The 51 year old Nasio is the closest thing to Bob Marley, that is not to say however, that singing like Bob Marley is a factor that helps determine greatness in this game.
Why Nasio is not yet a household name across the globe beats the crap out of me.
The great Nasio Fontaine from the Commonwealth of Dominica is the reigning king of reggae. Yeah —– let me be the first to say it emphatically.
Well, I am not really the first. This guy on Youtube beat me to it, writing approvingly of Nasio way before I did —– “Nasio is Number One…Numero un…Numero Uno.”
“You are the best living reggae musician,” another admirer noted.
While I have your attention: The idiots who killed Lucky Dube, and the morons who assassinated Peter Tosh, should rot in the deepest, darkest corner of hell.
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]]>The post Mouthy Martha: How a southern White woman humiliated herself discussing slavery appeared first on Onumba.com.
]]>Martha Huckaby, head of the Women’s Republican Club of Louisiana, thought she was being smart.
Turns out, she is nothing but a bombastic, empty-headed numskull.
The subject was slavery. Huckaby questioned why anyone would outright conclude slavery was cruel when none of us was there to witness it.
On her face book page, Huckaby responded to someone decrying slavery as evil, asking “How does she 100% know there is ‘no good to slavery’ if none of us were around during slavery?”
That alone is despicably mind-bending, but there’s more.
“Weren’t some slaves treated really well?” Huckaby asked. There, she was circuitously expressing the view that some slaves were in good hands.
She is now on a slippery slope to the valley of humiliation.
“I know in the Bible they were,” she said, meaning slaves were treated “good.”
Well —– she effectively hung herself with that last take, essentially debunking and obliterating the very argument she was making about “none of us” not being “around during slavery.”
That was why, some good Samaritan, speaking of Biblical days, quickly reminded poor Martha Huckaby that “we weren’t around to see what happened during slavery in the Bible, either.”
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