What Ojukwu told me before, during and after the war —Sam Aluko

For those who want to understand Ojukwu and Nigeria, this interview might be of help.
"I will say that I was very close to him till his death. Immediately, he became governor of the former Eastern Region, when I was a senior lecturer in Economics in the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, he called me the third day he became governor. He said he wanted to come and see me in my university. I never met him before. How can the military governor come and see me? I said no. I told him I would come and see him, instead. I told the person he sent that he should tell the governor that I was the one who should come and see him and not him coming to see me. That was on January 20, 1966."

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Irish priest resigns over sexual abuse

This priest has got some conscience among priests working in Nigeria. Poor guy.

"Nigeria is not left out of the wave of child sexual abuse sweeping across the Catholic Church worldwide, as a serving Irish Bishop and Archbishop of Benin City, Richard Burke, yesterday resigned over child sexual abuse he allegedly committed while serving as a priest in the Warri Diocese.

According to the Irish Catholic website, the Pope accepted the resignation of the Tipperary-born Archbishop, on Monday, saying “the reason for his resignation was his failure to observe his vow of celibacy.”"
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Why did the FT pull Amnesty's Shell ad?

Just why did the Financial Times pull our Shell advert so late?

I'd find it hard to believe that Shell lent on them. Did the Financial Times get cold feet about upsetting this British blue-chip company? Who knows, but there are many out there who are suggesting something stinks about this – and it is not just the air that the people of the Niger Delta are forced to breathe. Certainly, by pulling the ad at 4.58pm on Monday, with Shell's AGM taking place at the Barbican in central London on Tuesday, the timing was awkward for Amnesty.
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Ending the Slavery Blame-Game

Henry Louis Gates undertakes a keen analysis of African's moral culpability in the Trans Atlantic slave trade: Here's an example of what could get a morally conscious African thinking:
How did slaves make it to these coastal forts? The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. The sad truth is that without complex business partnerships between African elites and European traders and commercial agents, the slave trade to the New World would have been impossible, at least on the scale it occurred.

ENJOY the rest of the essay.

Should There Be an Inquisition for the Pope?

I love the Catholic church - well I was born into it; it formed me. I'm thinking though that Maureen Dowd has got some important issues in her opinion essay. Here she goes:
"It doesn’t seem right that the Catholic Church is spending Holy Week practicing the unholy art of spin."
It is easier to teach others to engage in a ritual of mea culpa than to do it yourself. If only the church would humbly repeat: mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa, that could bring some sanity to its community.
One of my friends replied to his article. See #106. Interesting.
ENJOY.

Shell apologises

Isn't this funny?

"Today, Royal Dutch Shell is holding back the tears no more. Shell apologises to all inhabitants of Nigeria’s Niger Delta for the many years of human rights violations, for which Shell takes full responsibility.

Confronted with massive evidence of human rights violations that can only be attributed to its operations in the Niger Delta, Royal Dutch Shell is extremely proud to be the first international petrochemical company to publicly say:

We are sorry.