Tag: #Agba Jalingo

Is Feminism just about advocacy for the assimilation of western female taste or advocacy for women’s rights per culture?

Whether it is “genderized” or not, as far as the issues of rampant abuse and lack of equal opportunity for women and the girl child is concerned, it is clearly a human right issue. No human being, whether male or female, should be abused or denied any opportunity based on gender or culture. That is encompassing enough for me and should be in the front pew.

But the flagrant disregard for cultural variations and even personal taste of a section of women, in the pursuit of the broad feminism agenda is plaguing the movement. It appears that the Western feminist band, who also bank roll the advocacy, are more bent on assimilating their own feminist ethos on their playing field, to the isolation of the culturalist women who also desire feminist rights without losing their culture.

The persistence with which the western feminists present the taste of the western women as the preferred standard for every woman or what should be the ideal standard for every woman, is menacing. This particular hoard of feminists I am addressing are not mindful of the fact that, there are Yoruba women in Nigeria for instance, who want and fight for all the women’s rights but want to preserve their cultural value of women taking a knee to greet elders and men. That there are Igbo women in Nigeria who want and fight for all the women’s rights but still want to teach their female children that it is a wife that should cook for her husband. That there are Hausa women who want and fight all the women’s right but still want to be inside “Kule” and be pampered by their husbands.

That there are Banyankole women in Uganda who want and fight for all the women’s rights but still want to respect their age long cultural rights to have their aunties taste the sexual agility of their husbands on their marriage eve. That there are Zulu women in Southern Africa, who want and fight for all the women’s rights, but will want to preserve their cultural pride of chasity to flaunt their breasts bare and carry a rid. That there are Muslim women who want and fight for all the women’s rights but still admire and welcome their husbands into marrying four wives as their religion allows. That there are matrilineal Meghalaya women in India, who are in control of their communities and they love and want that system to remain the way it is. That there are tribal feminists around the world who still find it romantic to get their aging husbands a new maiden as their customs allow.

The insensitivity of the Western feminists to these cultural nuances and their straight line prescription of Western standards as an across-the-counter pill for global women’s rights is something that must be challenged. Why should these hoard try to make it look like, if western styled models are not embraced, it is not feminism? Are they fighting only for women who want to become like women from the Western world or they are fighting for women who want their rights within their cultural freedom? Are they perpetrating foreign culture on other people or they are suffering to liberate women from forces limiting their progress?

Everyone who believes in humanity and love will not tolerate abuse or injustice, whether it is perpetrated against a male, female, stranger, acquaintance, family member or even a pet. The abuse and denial of women’s right is a crime and all people of goodwill must seek redress wherever it is happening. But the substitute is certainly not an imposition and assimilation of western feminist taste. That is the lie that is now shoved down our throats and methinks it is pertinent to raise these concerns openly to safeguard the mental health of many young women who are being misguided into this venture in ignorance by bitter renegades who are on vengeance missions.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

The Eleven-Eleven roundabout in Calabar, Cross River State was named after the Armistice Day when World War I (1914-1918) ended at the 11th hour on the morning of the 11th day in the 11th month of 1918.

The Eleven Eleven Roundabout which was built by the Mr. Donald Duke administration and had on its sides, features which resemble Egyptian burials vaults, (mummies) was reworked in 2009 to remove those images which church leaders and most residents complained gave the impression that the State worships idols and replaced with a water fountain. But in November of 2012, it was torn apart again and reworked without much change to the previous one. Now Governor Otu has again, brought the roundabout down and replaced it with a statue carrying the Holy Bible with quotations from Psalms 27 and Psalms 127 with embedded fingers.

This is worrying for me and I will express my worries. I have never lived in Calabar since I was born, but I know Calabar well enough to understand that the continued remodeling of this roundabout isn’t born out of a desire to give the State capital any enduring aesthetic value but to draw attention to the parochial convictions of the remodellers.

The current statue now standing there, only depicts the religious persuasions and views of the current occupant of Peregrino House. No more, no less. But our people must be weary of governments that want to railroad religion as a State policy and there are historical reasons and empirical data to support this warning.

A century ago, Durkheim proposed that technological and socioeconomic advances come to displace the functions of religion: (É Durkheim, (The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, K.E. Fields, Transl. (The Free Press, 1995). Whereas Weber contended the opposite, that monotheistic religion or the so-called ‘Protestant Ethic’, made the development of capitalism possible. (Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, T. Parsons, Transl. (Routledge Classics, 2001).

But data generated from recent and continuing research is interestingly revealing that, the growth in irreligiousity in any country is linked to economic progress. There are several studies that espouse this conclusion. One such study comes from the University of Bristol, (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aar8680), where researchers studied the trends in secularization for 100 years and determined that growth in secularism came before economic development. The researchers sought to answer the question of whether a boost in a nation’s economic development leads to lesser religiosity or if it’s the other way around. They discovered that, secularization did account for 40% of global economic development in the 1990s. Additionally, they also disproved the commonly held belief that education also leads to secularism.

Another research from Mississippi State University and West Virginia University, (https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-institutional-economics/article/abs/religion-productive-or-unproductive/4E84A5F30B499BE751E478DFC1305B12), also looks at the link between irreligion and productive entrepreneurship. Stunningly, the researchers found that all metrics of religion that they had tracked ended up negatively correlating with productive entrepreneurship, while irreligious variables positively correlated with it.

Further expanding on this, and taking a look at the correlation of daily prayers with a nation’s gross domestic product per capita (GDP per capita), the data reveals that, in nearly every country (except Middle Eastern states that were not part of the sample), with a GDP per capita higher than $30,000, adults pray less. For instance, the People’s Republic of China’s religiously unaffiliated population is 51.8% but China is the world’s largest economy in purchasing power parity terms.

This brings us back to my warning. Let us all be mindful of the fact that, the use of religion as a political tool to hoodwink Nigerians is legendary amongst our leaders. In the absence of meaningful economic development, our leaders have successfully waved religion as a succor to numb our collective thinking faculties and this has worked for them in the past decades. The duty of the State is to give us security and economic empowerment. Religion can be left for those who are meant to handle it. And I will tell you for free that the next Governor of Cross River State after Governor Otu, will still dismantle Eleven Eleven roundabout and waste more money to espouse his/her own belief.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

The Guardian Newspaper reported recently that more than 56,000 projects worth 12 trillion Naira have been abandoned in Nigeria since 1999, citing the Institute of Quantity Surveyors. These projects include the N18bn National Library, NIPOST headquarters construction, N39bn FIRS headquarters construction, N69bn Millennium Tower and Cultural Center construction, N7bn Ministry of Agric headquarters construction, World Trade Centre, N700bn Abuja City Centre, N4.3bn 220-Bed Utako General Hospital, $18billion Centenary City in Abuja, amongst many others scattered across the country.

It is nerve wracking to imagine that, year in year out, these huge sums are appropriated and in many cases, disbursed either in part or in full, and the projects are jilted without consequences. How this sort of financial rascality has seemingly become a matter of numb indifference to the population is even more appalling. We just keep moving on as if nothing happened.

But in this same country, when Third Mainland Bridge was built, it was the longest bridge in Africa until 1996 when the 6th October Bridge in Cairo was completed. The National Theatre, NITEL, NEPA, Nigerian Ports Authority, Military and Police barracks, East West Road, Kano-Maiduguri road, functional airports, Federal Secretariat, National Assembly Complex, Aso Rock Villa, Eagle Square, Courts, Stadia, were all built by jack boot regimes that we agree are unconstitutional and corrupt.

At the regional levels, Premiers of the various regions also left some iconic infrastructure that are still surviving till date and we talk about them with relish and nostalgia. And I have been asking myself what memorable functional projects have these set of democratic leaders started and completed since 1999 when democracy returned to Nigeria?

I really wish those who do these things will realize that our economic development is tied to these abandoned infrastructure. They should realize also that if we don’t develop, none of us, no matter how much you have amassed, will be safe from those who don’t have. The rich will continue to axle themselves within the city centers or ride perpetually in armoured automobiles with a bevy of armed security guards.

Our contemporary nations that have attained this realization are tying their future to infrastructure development and taking deliberate steps. The Indian ministry of road transport and highways (MoRTH) for instance, has internally set a goal to construct at least 45km of highways a day in 2023 totalling 16,000km of roads. The ministry achieved a record 13,298km in the COVID pandemic-stricken year of 2020-21, at a rate of 36.4km per day. The road building target has helped to reduce travel time, connected new areas, stimulated commercial activities, and accelerated India’s growth story.

Someone should deliberately take the gauntlet and vow to leave us some legacy projects. It is not luxury. It is what we just have to do so we don’t perish. The stealing just has to be reduced at least. Massive infrastructure development will create a chance for young people to dust their pans and their shovels, and reduce crime. It will give our population the clefts of succour and sustained hope and provide us all some roads out of this national malaise.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

In Old English, “Wicce” means “witch.” The word, “Wicce” further has its roots in the old German word, “Wicken.” While the word, cræft, is equally an Old English word originally meaning “power or physical strength.” Cræft could also be interpreted to signify possession of inexplicable knowledge, wisdom, and resourcefulness. The term is as well derived from the Old High German word, “kraft.”

So “Wicce-Cræft”, or witchcraft is not Africanized. It is not an African word. It did not originate from Africa. Rather, it has generic meaning not just to the Anglo-Germans, but the entire Europe and in fact, all civilizations. It is a cultural phenomena with evidential history cutting across all civilizations and epochs. All civilizations have their pre-religous ethos and practices. Europe has a pre-Christian era. The Arabs have a pre-Islam era. China has a pre-Bhuddist era. India has a pre-Hindu era. Every culture on Earth contains some aspect of symbolic gestures or ritualized behavior performed either by an entire group or by a select few individuals, before adopting their current religions.

In Europe for instance, the practice of witchcraft was the dominant culture until it was overtaken by global consensus on the belief in One God, as well as the burgeoning influence of the Catholic Church, which led to a craze fuelled wave of witch hunting and trials across the continent during the middle ages. For two millennia, European folklore and ritual have been imbued with the belief in witchcraft and till date, witchcraft continues to play a role in European societies and imaginations.

It was the Malleus Maleficarum, (Hammer of Witches), a 1486 treatise written by Austrian priest, Heinrich Kramer and German priest Jakob Sprenger, at the request of Pope Innocent VIII, which reigned as the second-best-selling book in Europe for more than two centuries, that united the Church and the State, in providing a framework for identifying, capturing, prosecuting, and punishing witches.

But since the 1940s, new witchcraft movements have emerged in Europe, seeking to revive and reinterpret the continents’ pre-Christian practices in a search for spiritual authenticity in a rapidly changing world. Wicca, an English neo witchcraft group, pioneered by Gerald Gardner, stands out as one of the most influential of those movements. Stregheria is an Italian sect that celebrates early Italian witchcraft. Its adherents say that their tradition has pre-Christian roots, and refer to it as La Vecchia Religione, the Old Religion.

Religio Romana, is a modern reconstructionist religion based upon the ancient faith of pre-Christian Rome. The Asatru tradition is also a reconstructionist path that focuses on pre-Christian Norse spirituality. The movement began in the 1970s as part of a revival of Germanic witchcraft culture. Many Asatruar say their practices are very similar in its modern form to those that existed hundreds of years before the Christianization of the Norse cultures. Hellenic Polytheism, rooted in the traditions and philosophies of the ancient Greeks, is another path that has begun a resurgence following the Greek pantheon, and often adopting the religious practices of their ancestors.

It is in the light of this global resurgence in the search for cultural authenticity, and its imminence in Africa, that I will like to end by quoting, theologian, Dr. Mary Nyangweso Wangila, a J. Woolard and Helen Peel Distinguished Professor in Religious Studies at East Carolina University, from her book: “Witches” of the Twenty-First Century: Invoking the Relevance and Resilient Character of African Spirituality in Changing Times”, where she argues that, “the resurgence of practitioners of African spirituality in Africa and the African diaspora, commonly known to some as “witches” in the twenty-first century, as demonstrated in practices and lyrics of the millennials such as Beyonce, Banks and Nokia is not only illustrative of the ability of African spirituality to evolve and adapt, it speaks to the centrality of African identity in the African experience.

“Drawing from experiences of Africans in the sub-Saharan region and those in the African diaspora, I argue that the general assumption that relegating African religious beliefs and practices as “savage,” “primitive” and “uncivilized” and therefore destined to decline is disproven by resilient manifestations of African spirituality in modern society.”

She further concludes by acknowledging the, “disadvantage that these religions experience due to their lack of the proselytizing instinct that their monotheistic peer religions like Christianity and Islam possess, their persistence not only speaks to an Afrocentric character that is central to Africans everywhere, it is also an illustration of the basic fact that all social phenomena is bound to evolve and adapt. Resilient vestiges of African spirituality are indicative of how irreplaceable and un-erasable core African values are and how they speak to an identity that cannot be traded for another.”

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

Five miles from the South Dakota border in the remote northern reaches of the US state of Nebraska, there is a small town called, Monowi, with only one resident and an abandoned church, whose empty pews are now filled with tractor tyres.

84 years old, Elsie Eiler, became the only resident of Monowi, after her husband Rudy, passed away in 2004. Today, according to the US Census, Monowi is the only incorporated place in the US with just one resident, and Eiler is the mayor, clerk, treasurer, librarian, bartender and only person left in the US’ tiniest town.

She pays taxes to herself, grants her own alcohol licence and runs a tavern where people come from neighbouring towns to patronize. As mayor, each year, she hangs up a notice in Monowi’s only business (her bar) advertising mayoral elections, and then votes for herself.

She’s required to produce a municipal road plan every year to secure state funding, and then raises about $500 worth of taxes from herself annually to keep the town’s three lampposts flickering and its water flowing.

Eiler explained to the BBC in 2020 that: “When I apply to the state for my liquor and tobacco licenses each year, they send them to the secretary of the village, which is me. So, I get them as the secretary, sign them as the clerk and give them to myself as the bar owner.”

She walks a few feet from her home to the tavern each morning at 9am to open the bar, except Mondays, when she gives herself a day off. She sells alcohol and also cooks hamburgers ($3.50), hot dogs ($1.25) and gizzards ($4). Most of her regular customers live within 20 to 30 miles but others drive 200 miles from Lincoln and Omaha to patronize her and Eiler doesn’t usually close up until after 21:30 when things quieten down.

Monowi is one of three incorporated towns in Boyd County, Nebraska, that has fewer than 10 residents. Monowi surpassed nearby Gross, Nebraska, with a population of 2 residents to become the only incorporated town in the US with just one resident.

Do you have the resilience of Mummy Eiler Rudy? Can you live in a ghost town and make sense of it and derive all the happiness you wish for? Can you run even your street residents association and maintain the legendary orderliness of Mummy Eiler? Ponder!!!

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

When Angels Descend, They Shall Build Us A Country…

Amongst all the 13 member States of the, Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries OPEC, Nigeria remains the only member that imports more than 90 to 95 percent of refined petroleum products to meet its domestic consumption. No other OPEC member, including other African members like Gabon and war torn Libya, are in the same mess.

But workers at the three government-owned refineries were paid a total of N127bn in year 2021 and 2022 in salaries and wages, even as the plants generated zero revenue as they did not process a single barrel of crude oil.

The plants, which are located in Port Harcourt, Kaduna and Warri, have a combined installed capacity of 445,000 barrels per day but have been in a state of disrepair for many years. Yet, they talk very little about how to fix the refineries. Even when they budget money for turn around maintenance, they still share it amongst themselves without retribution.

The national oil company NNPC, in its monthly presentation to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) meeting on Wednesday, January 17, 2023, said they made zero contribution to the federation revenue account in the month under review. But the audited accounts of the company shows that they spent N788.7 billion in 2021 and N648.6bn the previous year on salaries, entertainment and other costs.

And for so long as our refineries remain comatose and we continue to import petrol, nurse no hope that the pump price of fuel will ever come down. As the Dollar exchange rate continues to escalate, so shall the cost of petrol continue to rise and I predict N1000 per liter before year end.

And as the cost of petrol continues to rise to the relish of the intrepid exploiters, rents, food prices, school fees, medicals, clothing, transport cost and all others will also sky rocket. So learn how to manage your finances.

Nothing is about to change. Those who run our country have no interest whatsoever in building this country. If any one of them say they do, then they have lied to you. This set of politicians cannot even maintain the infrastructure that the military that we vilify so much, managed to build, not to talk of building new ones. They can’t even build their party headquarters in decades. Their interest is not nation building. They are rogues. Very mean rogues without any iota of goodness.

So manage your meagre finances with frugality. Nothing is about to change. Since Nigerians have decided to only pray instead of fighting those who are making their lives miserable everyday, let us all keep praying for that elusive country that angels will come and build for us someday.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.

What If The Mirror Is Lying To You?

The mirror has numerous uses but the most common use of a mirror is looking at it to view a reflection of our image while we are at personal grooming. So most human beings in the world including the remotest hamlets, possess mirrors. There are even other mammals that consciously enjoy and relish a reflection of their images in a mirror.

Looking at our image in a mirror swells our confidence more than a perfect description of our look by someone looking at us. We trust the image in the mirror more than the one in another’s eye. That’s because we are erroneously used to thinking we are seeing ourselves in the mirror as others see us in real life.

Human images are not exactly symmetrical and the mirror only serves the purpose of a surface for throwing back our image, being incapable of absorbing it. So our reflection from that surface has its left and right backwards. Our reflection from the mirror is inverted. Let me explain, if you stand in front of a mirror and carry up your right hand, it will appear on the left side in the mirror.

Similarly, if you open a book now, you can read the prints just perfectly? Go stand in front of a mirror while holding that same book and let the pages reflect in the mirror; then it will become difficult to read the reflection of the prints fluently. That is how your reflection looks different from you.

Technology has further empowered the will and means to tamper with reflection. With modern cameras, lenses and even AI, our reflection can be tampered with, to suit desire. These days, we hear statements like, “he or she does not look in real life like what I saw in the picture or video.”

It is congenitally desirable for most humans to see ourselves through other eyes, be it a mirror, a camera lens or a human retina. We seek perpetually to know how we look and how we are perceived by others. Our panting about external opinion of us, is compulsive. Yet, not one person who ever lived was able to behold a true reflection of his or her image. At best, we have only approximated in order to satiate an innate desire. Seeing our true reflection will remain illusory and out of grasp, not because it is not attainable but because truly truly, we all are a reflection of one God, whose image none has ever or will ever see.

In a nutshell, it is the mirrors, the lenses, the human eyes and all such surfaces that reflect us, that show us the differences, the divisions and the clefts in mankind. It is them that divide us. It is them that give us the “we and them” mentality. Yet we cannot abandon them. We cannot live without them. We cannot afford to be blind to the reflection in the mirror. No we can’t! But if only we look more keenly, we may see that the mirror has been lying to us. It has never shown us the full picture.

Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo.