And Four Other Things…
On Thursday, I had the rare privilege of anchoring the female achievers’ awards segment at the 17th Annual Conference of Women in Business (WIMBIZ), where pioneer female generals in the Nigerian military were honoured. Major-General Aderonke Kale (rtd), the first two-star general in the army, Rear Admiral Itunu Hotonu (rtd), the first two-star in the navy and Air Commodore Habiba Garba (rtd), the first one-star in the air force, were all celebrated. The women narrated how they defied the odds in our very chauvinistic environment. It was a touching moment for me. A time is coming, and now is, when we shall start giving women their dues in this peculiar society. Salute!
AAs if we do not already have enough bloodshed in the land, soldiers opened fire on protesting members of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN) in Abuja, on Tuesday. The Shi’ites were demanding the release of their leader, Sheikh Ebraheem El ZakZaky, who was arrested three years ago. While IMN members are known for their lawlessness (officially, they do not even recognise the authority of the Federal Republic of Nigeria), nothing justifies the killings. The allegation that they wanted to seize weapons from the soldiers is weighty but how true? We urgently need a lasting solution to the IMN menace before another Boko Haram war starts. Wisdom.
Watching President Muhammadu Buhari’s opponents take maximum political advantage of his WEAC certificate issue, as well as the attempts of his supporters to defend him, I am easily reminded of the troubles of President Goodluck Jonathan before the 2015 elections. His opponents used every trick in the book against him, including pointing out grammatical slips, to full political advantage. That is the way life goes. I honestly cannot wait for the 2019 elections to be over so that we can get to focus on Nigeria’s problems and challenges again. Crude oil price is falling and our reserves are under threat, meaning harder times ahead if we don’t act now. Priorities.now. Priorities.
US President Donald Trump, still playing his political card that feeds on xenophobia, made a startling claim during the week by threatening to sign an executive order to stop children born to immigrants from automatically becoming American citizens. It is a constitutional matter which he cannot decree out of existence, but he knew what he was doing. With midterm elections just days away, he was merely touching base. And to think that his father’s ancestors originated from Germany and his mother’s from Scotland! All of his grandparents and his mother were born in Europe. His paternal grandfather, Frederick Trump, immigrated to the US at the age of 16 in 1885. Irony.