Author: Farouk Martins Aresa

Nigeria has never recovered since the first Coup d’Etat. It turned out as expected that the Army lacked the intelligence and intellectual capacity for governance. A few went as far as saying the best military rule is worse than the worst civilian rule. Well, many of us disagree. Though Jerry Rawlings did a better job in Ghana in his first coming, Ghana has since benefited from clean civilian rule. In Nigeria, we are either recovering from military rule in uniform or in militrician rule when they change their uniforms to agbada or designer suits. One of the former stalwarts of…

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Africans have come to understand that we elected most politicians whose mission is to enrich only themselves and their nuclear families; not to give a decent life to their people or communities. They have been taken by Western Individualism and are overwhelmed by the gratification of exotic tastes and culture that value individual interests over the commonwealth. Making a living in Africa to afford such exotic indulgence requires a great deal of foreign cash.  We have to go back and examine the history of our wealth. Not only how we had developed so much wealth in Africa that attracted many…

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Is it only outside Africa that a police would shoot you while Black? In many African countries, lack of respect for the sanctity of lives are increasing while we protest about the lives of our brothers and sisters wasted for no other reason than the colour of their skin abroad. There is a difference. Regardless of who you are as a Black man, you can be harassed abroad. A sitting USA’s Senator, Tim Scott is not above par. So in America, they Internationally remind you that you are Black. Ask Harvard Professor Louis Gate. When some Africans claim that they…

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African countries are certainly doing more than preventive medicine to ward off the predicted numbers of death from the devastating effects of Covid-19. It is not a fluke, luck or by accident but by herbal and proactive Primary Care. While it is true that Covid-19 could have produced more deaths in Africa than anywhere else, it does not bode well to think those grim predictions came as a result of bad faith. Indeed, most of them wish Africa well hoping the worst scenario would never happen. But plans must be put in place if it happened, not just wishful prayers…

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Acculturation of European ways of life into African communities was intentionally planned to suppress our cultures and create longing demands for Foreign culture and tastes. Until Africans rediscover and refine their own culture, we will always fall for others’ products inadvertently denying us Economic Independence. The British formed a class of Africans that pushed English taste, opinions, morals, and intellect on those they ruled. Acculturation is hidden in plain sight yet insidious and debilitating to African psyche. It is behind our abnormal behaviour of tight affinity to what is outside our reach like foreign money we cannot print. If we…

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Most high school science students are familiar with the functions of red and white blood cells. The white cells help fight off infections and other foreign invaders of our bodies. But sometimes, white cell cells overdo it, killing its own cells before infections spread to other organs. This is the advanced study of Cytokines. Chloroquine is not the super drug against the activities of cytokine storms. Other drugs and steroids cortisone have been administered. At the same time, Cytokine storms can cause organ failure: lung failure, Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), kidney failure and cardiovascular collapse or shock.   In cases…

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Have you heard the latest jokes about Nigeria?  No O, but I know they loot in billions! The Country is a big joke all over the world. From fantastically corrupt labels by the British to disappearing projects by the Kenyans. It’s your choice, pick any country. The latest ones are from Nigerians themselves about the Niger Delta Development Commission. (NDDC) Niger Delta Development Commission: The clearinghouse for a special allocation of funds to develop and clean Environmental disaster in the polluted areas. There are some communities in African countries that share the joy and the disappointment as producers of oil,…

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Why is Covid-19 killing Minorities doctors abroad where they are better equipped than in Africa? Yet more African health workers are ready to jump into aeroplanes arranged by the same unscrupulous Agents that sold naive youths to Arab countries as body parts, prostitutes, slaves and house help. If these youths are greedy half illiterates, what do you call our trained doctors? Let us face it, many of us are looking for greener pastures because capital expenditure that could have created a livable environment at home are used for personal emoluments of our political leaders. Their salaries are so high in…

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How many wealthy Africans do you know that have not spent his first thousands or million abroad? If he hasn’t, he is wise or has not made it big to impress. If he has a land or a house, the prodigal son would sell it to buy a ticket and visas. From cradle to grave: even when the rich die, the obituaries would list foreign hospitals where they were treated. Looking back, at the way wealthy Africans invested their lives and legacies in such areas as education at any level, houses, hospitals and children with laundered money abroad, they are…

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What happened to Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana and how did Nigeria lose its Potential Power as the place to be for all Africans at home and from Diaspora? Seriously, both cease to exist when we need them most! It must not be left to Nigerians and Ghanaians alone to wonder how we lost both. All African countries must learn from that glorious past and use the lessons constructively before we can move forward progressively.  We have had some successes in Africa but we woefully refused to sustain or build on them. Sustainability of progress takes successive generations to redouble their…

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During the time when Mental Hospitals around the world had mental patients admitted, there were violent ones among them, even assaulting their caregivers that had to be restrained on a daily basis by health and mental workers without guns. Can anyone, anywhere imagine these violent mental patients being shot or killed during those restraints? Police must be trained as part of a team deescalating volatile or violent situations, not shooting their way through the homeless or demonstrators in a split second. There is no community where that type of aggressive confrontation can be justified against children, youths or young men…

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The pressing problem most African families are dealing with at home and abroad is how to ameliorate the hidden and open attacks against them by constituted authorities. Families are pondering and mulling on how to de-escalate the confrontations and keep young Africans safe from deadly assaults. While Natural Disaster has taken the disproportional death toll on the elders, Africans and minorities; man inhumanity to man has also converged and affected Africans most, no matter where they are. Some Chinese scapegoated and projected blame on African students for Covid-19 that originated in Wuhan. We also witnessed a string of Police ritual…

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We tend to envy certain qualities and characters that make others successful. As long as we emulate them and strive for the same or better qualities, we are motivated to a higher ground than we were. There is nothing wrong with that form of envy. Envy is an indication that you possess some admirable qualities or character worthy of emulation. It can also get you into trouble with those that are threatened by the fine characters. In those days, elders pray not only for your success but that it should surpass theirs. (E to wa e juwa lo). Early in…

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We must examine the myth of Traditional Medicine as we learn Chemistry, Biology and Physics from Primary schools to the University level. Africans are the only ones that still see Traditional Medicine as Fetish, Voodoo and Mystical. Other continents examine their Traditional or Natural Medicine not only in their countries but explore Africa to discover more. Africa must demystify and expose the mystery for facts and hypothesize about what works in reality. Take aspirin, quinine and chloroquine as few examples of African Traditional Medicine. These were indigenous to Africa but studied, pasteurized with dosages outside Africa! We had very intelligent…

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What do you do when you have no major accomplishment to celebrate, you beat your chests on the achievement of other individuals. There are so many individual celebrations in Nigeria, you would think poverty has been conquered. The further down we dig into abject poverty, the more people you see thanking God for success as millionaires and billionaires. The cognitive dissonance is so obvious, a blind man can feel it. Social Media has created many celebrities including, real and fake attention seekers harping to increase their profiles to sell themselves. This is not particular to Nigeria alone but for a…

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Some Africans have forgotten how to grow their food. There used to be a time most Africans could not starve in the villages unless you are too lazy to farm. Today, families are selling the same farms that have sustained them for generations to buy plastic toys that can hardly last for five years. Think of what will happen this time in many African countries, as reported in some communities already, if this COVID-19 lockdown continues without enough food supplies in any Country. During Ebola Pandemic, some of the people that were quarantined in Liberia and Sierra Leone broke out…

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Most scientists warned against population density, crowding, hygiene, diabetes, hypertension, asthma and emphysema exacerbated by environmental pollution in African countries and African American communities. We are not surprised that COVID-19 deaths are Seventy Percent disproportionally in black and minority communities in the United States. Alarming case study for African leaders if they care. Some Africans also called COVID-19 the disease of the Rich, International travellers, and Foreigners. Well, it will be counterproductive when they realize the same elites will infect their house-helps that will transfer the disease to their crowded and poor communities where it will explode like fire. Just…

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Political and businessmen of timber and calibre are back into African Teaching Hospitals they had ignored until the Coronavirus pandemic. This is what it takes to realize they have been patronizing the wrong hospitals overseas at the risk of their health. Many of the African University Teaching Hospitals are well equipped and staffed by the best talents in the world. If they do not have a speciality or the doctor you want, she could be flown in. Yet, African Heads of State ignored and underfunded them so that they could patronize overseas countries with similar talents or with fewer skills.…

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This Coronavirus health crisis has tasked and overwhelmed our meagre and robust healthcare system throughout the world. There are fears and some panic from the worst-case scenario. Nevertheless, Coronavirus must be taken seriously and all orders from constituted authorities adhere to. Coronavirus (Covid-19) has sucked most of the living attention out of most of us, especially our international travellers. People moving from one country to another have developed cold feet, most would rather die at home in their own country. So, most are flooding back home. Please quarantine them before they infect the poor they ridiculed and left behind. African…

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We cannot doubt people of goodwill. If you ask an average African what is the definition of Civilization, he would tell you they belong to the exclusivity of liberal folks, that insist on freedom and democracy in the Western world of “civilized climes”. The hypocrisy has been exposed as the preachers of idealism and democracy lose to conservatives who would tweak democracy and do anything to remain in or grab power as in theocracy. Immigrants there got hooked on idealism since Hypocrites were preaching due process, the rule of law and order in Africa. The brutalities they display against their…

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It used to be that if you go abroad and failed after four years of the first degree, six years for masters or ten years of Ph.D. you are too embarrassed to return home. Village people would visit your families asking questions after each degree. Today, the same people would beg you to stay away and send money home. The celebration before you leave is to become a cash cow, not to come back and build your countries. This friend of ours had a flourishing medical practice at home and a visa to the United States. It took him a…

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The first case of Coronavirus in Nigeria was brought in by an Italian citizen. The test was confirmed by Lagos University Teaching Hospital Virology Laboratory Dept. on February 27, 2020. The mystery right now about Coronavirus is the admission by the best world medical scientists that they are still struggling with the etiology since countries without a link to China are discovering local Coronavirus within.   Some African students in Wuhan, China are begging their home countries to bring them home while others preferred to stay, saying they are well treated. African Embassies in China must seek the wellbeing of those…

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If you hear the sacrifice ladies made and the penalty paid after turning men down for sex, some may be surprised. Professional ladies have worked in circumstances worse than being underemployed like men. Some never practiced their career and others fired for not giving in to their boss. A high school senior girl came home crying to her mother that she got fired from her first job during vacation for rejecting her boss’s sexual advances. These ladies, though not unknown soldiers, are not notable. Many are too ashamed to come out and tell their stories. Other ladies give in to…

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How hard is it to believe that in this day and age Africans are still looking at foreign visas and Investments to save them from themselves in order to escape the politicians you celebrate and sing their praises? The African prodigal sons you voted as leaders are laundering money abroad in Trillions that should have been used to create local jobs. But they are begging for millions in Investments and aids. This is after our Activists like Herbert Macauley, Kwame Nkrumah and Albert Luthuli fought for Independence.  The billions sent by African children working in Diaspora today are repackaged through…

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African sojourns to western countries are being curtailed for fear of overwhelming their hosts with the “disease” of the explosive population since many countries overstayed their visa and took advantage of birth tourism. We must learn from the hysteria to ostracize Africans with Ebola and how easily Coronavirus from China can be used like AIDS to stigmatize. This existential threat to rich African politicians and their cronies that make up about 10% of their population can be turned to a blessing in disguise and improvise.  Necessity is the mother of invention. No one will allow others to mess up their…

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There are Africans that call for the return of their colonial masters that can be held responsible since African politicians are worse. So irresponsible, these politicians are selling out everything from government corporations, parastatals, natural resources to raiding and laundering Foreign Reserves. It is nothing short of divestment by African politicians indirectly giving major shares back to the same foreign corporations and businesses, without responsibility, that had handed over during the indigenization period. Isabel dos Santos, Africa’s richest woman whose father was the President of Angola got access to lucrative deals involving land, oil, diamonds, and telecoms. Another African country…

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There is no other continent that has contributed so many foreign investments to world development at the time of Peace and Wars than the African Continent. Instead of returns in dividends and economic progress, Africa regresses into penury.  Africans spurred economic development, businesses, riches, nurtured Trans-Atlantic trade and fought World Wars abroad for free; more than any other continent on Earth. Nevertheless, African contributions in Foreign Investments and Peace to the outside world has hardly been appreciated outside academic kinds of literature. If anything, it has been derided for giving so much and keep on giving, not only in blood…

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Dangote became the richest man in Africa by being smart, enterprising, and influencing Any Party In Power. He met money at home as one of those sons of Dantata, one of the richest men in Nigeria. Dangote turned millions into billions by being well educated and exposed to the intricacies of politics and the business world. Though each time he was approached to go into politics, he shied away. Why would he join a party when he could control any of them from a distance? This is a man that spent some of his life abroad, studied and participated in…

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There is no other country in the world where current politicians and their alter ego of crony businessmen steal and sell out the whole House, as they do in Africa. Most African Head of States cannot differentiate personal properties from those of the State. As far as they are concerned all the state income belongs to them while their people wallow deeper into poverty. It creates poverty that dislocates and infects folks’ mentality adversely by victimizing one another in a variety of ways. Those that think we do not earn enough, no matter what, to provide all the infrastructure we…

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Foreign Investment into Africa is the most deceptive and abused phrase ever used purposely to confuse people of goodwill that the International Corporate world is trying to do for Africa what was done for Europe after the War. While it is true that Europe and other continents got richer, the face of poverty shifted from Asia to Africa. This is the reality today that most people, with any form of sincerity or conscience, cannot argue with. What most of us do is blame Africans for their own predicament from slavery to neo-colonialism. Of course, there are enough blames, greed, traitors,…

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