It was with considerable glee that John Cleese and Sacha Baron Cohen announced the scoop of the century by Resilience Television. With bated breath, they announced that they had in their possession a video tape of the President of the United States of America, Donald Trump declaring that he had set up a Task Force to accomplish the following tasks:
(i)
Postpone
the forthcoming U.S. presidential election until further notice.
(ii)
Postpone
the United Nations 2020 General Assembly until further notice
and (iii) Ensure that the COVID-19 pandemic is over
before Christmas Day
(25th December, 2020).
Not only did the President refuse to emphatically deny the existence of the video tape, at a press briefing at the White House where the only item on the agenda was COVID-19 virus, Trump went completely off target. He totally abandoned the carefully choreographed presidential steps as he made his entrance. Instead, he diverted to the area reserved for the press and threatened to physically eject any pressman/woman who dared ask any awkward questions or demand retraction of the lies he has been spewing for the last three and the half years. The president was clearly in a belligerent mood, perhaps due to an overdose of hydroxychloroquine !!
Once he reached the microphone, he went completely off
message and abandoned his carefully prepared script. Instead, he launched a tirade:
“I have nothing against the United
Nations. But I tell you, we are ready to
do what we did with the WHO (World Health Organisation) which should be rightly
called the Wuhan Health Organisation. I
pause for applause. Anyway, we can’t have
all these foreigners bringing germs and virus into America. It has been far too costly for America. Now is the time to take care of America
First.”
Then he dropped a bombshell.
“Just look at this video of the President of
Somalia, Mohamed Abdullahi Farmaajo and
his Vice-President, Hussein Kulmiye Afrah exchanging blows at a press
conference. Disgusting.”
Next, he swerved to Nigeria.
“I have just been briefed by my National
Security Adviser, that in Kano, Nigeria, the death sentence has just been
passed on 22-year-old Yahaya Aminu Sheriff who is alleged to have committed
blasphemy.
“An intense
argument recorded and posted in a WhatsApp group has led to a death penalty
sentence and a family torn apart over allegations of insulting Prophet
Mohammed, according to lawyers for the defendant.
Music studio assistant Yahaya
Sharif-Aminu was sentenced to death by hanging on August 10 after being
convicted of blasphemy by an Islamic court in northern Nigeria.
The judgment document states that
Sharif-Aminu, 22, was convicted for making "a blasphemous statement
against Prophet Mohammed in a WhatsApp Group," which is contrary to the
Kano State Sharia Penal Code and is an offence which carries the death
sentence.
The recording was shared widely,
causing mass outrage in the highly conservative, majority Muslim, state,
according to various reports.
"Whoever insults, defames or
utters words or acts which are capable of bringing into disrespect Prophet
Mohammed such a person has committed a serious crime which is punishable by
death," according to a translation of court documents provided to CNN by
his lawyers.
Sharif-Aminu, described by his friend
Kabiru Ibrahim, as "kind, religious and dutiful," admitted charges of
blasphemy during his trial, but said he had made a mistake.
Under Sharia law, a voluntary
confession is binding, according to court papers.
Sharif-Aminu's lawyers, who became
involved in the case only after his conviction, say he was not allowed legal
representation before or during his trial -- in contravention of Nigerian
citizens' constitutional right to legal representation.
According to the lawyers, the Sharia
court adjourned his case four times because no lawyer came forth from the Legal
Aid Council to represent him, likely because of the sensitivity of the case.
The Sharia court is, however, statute-bound to provide legal representation.
Advocates from the Foundation for Religious Freedom (FRF), a not-for-profit organisation
aimed at protecting religious freedom in Nigeria, which is representing
Sharif-Aminu, told CNN he has also not been permitted access to legal advice to
prepare an appeal against his conviction.
The FRF says it has lodged an appeal
on his behalf in Kano's High Court, a common-law court with constitutional
powers.
"The state laws he is accused of
breaking are in gross conflict with the Nigerian constitution," said his
counsel, Kola Alapinni.
Kano's State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje told
clerics in Kano that he would sign Sharif-Aminu's death warrant as soon as the
singer had exhausted the appeals process, local media reports say.
"I assure you that immediately
the Supreme Court affirms the judgment, I will sign it without any
hesitation," Ganduje said, according to Nigeria's Daily Post newspaper. CNN contacted a spokesman for
Governor Ganduje several times for comment but did not receive a response.
Islamic scholar and cleric Bashir
Aliyu Umar, who is not connected to the case, but said he had read the
transcript of the court proceedings, told CNN, "No Muslim will condone it.
People hold Prophet Mohammed higher than their parents, and when things like
this happen, it will lead to a breakdown of peace because of mob action and
attacks against the accused."
When news of Sharif-Aminu's alleged
crime broke earlier this year, protesters marched to his family home and
destroyed it, prompting his father to flee to a neighboring town, his lawyers
told CNN. Sharif-Aminu went into hiding, according to Amnesty and his lawyers,
but in March he was arrested by the Hisbah Corps, the religious police force
that enforces Sharia law in Kano state.
Human rights organization Amnesty
International has described Sharif-Aminu's trial as a "travesty of
justice," and called on Kano State authorities to quash his conviction and
death sentence.
"There are serious concerns
about the fairness of his trial and the framing of the charges against him
based on his Whatsapp messages," said Amnesty's Nigeria director Osai
Ojigho. "Furthermore, the imposition of the death penalty following an
unfair trial violates the right to life," she added.
The United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has also condemned Sharif-Aminu's
death sentence. It said Nigeria's blasphemy laws were inconsistent with
universal human rights standards.
"It is unconscionable that
Sharif-Aminu is facing a death sentence merely for expressing his beliefs
artistically through music," said the organization's commissioner,
Frederick A. Davie, in a statement.
The organization released a follow-up statement saying it had adopted
Aminu-Sharif as "a religious prisoner of conscience."
Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation
and religion permeates every facet of life here, with prayers routinely said in
schools and public offices. In addition to blasphemy, atheism is frowned upon
by many in the majority Muslim north as well as in parts of the mostly
Christian south.
Human rights groups have expressed
concern over a crackdown on freedom of speech and expression, particularly when
it comes to religion.
On April 28 this year, Mubarak Bala,
president of the Nigerian humanist association, was arrested in Kaduna, another northern state, after
allegedly posting a message on his Facebook page claiming that a Nigerian
evangelical preacher was better than the Prophet Mohammed.
His family and lawyers told Human
Rights Watch they have not seen or heard from him since. Bala remains detained
without charge and has not been allowed to communicate with his lawyers or his
family, according to USCIRF.
Nigerian playwright and Nobel
laureate Wole Soyinka is among those who recently sent a message of solidarity
to Bala, following his 100th day in confinement on August 6.
"As a child, I remember living
in a state of harmonious coexistence all but forgotten in the Nigeria of today,
as the plague of religious extremism has encroached," Soyinka, a former
political prisoner, wrote, "I write today to tell you
that you are not alone, there is a whole community across the globe that stands
beside you and will fight for you."
Sharia law has been practised
alongside secular law in many northern Nigerian states since they were
reintroduced in 1999. Nigeria's Sharia courts can also sentence those convicted
of offenses to stoning, amputations, and flogging; while the former two are no
longer carried out, "flogging is a quite common punishment for many
crimes, particularly theft," according to the USCIRF.
Only one death sentence passed by
Sharia courts has been carried out, according to Human Rights Watch. Sani Yakubu Rodi was hanged in 2002
for the murder of a woman, her four-year-old son, and baby daughter.
In 2015 and 2016 nine men and one
woman were sentenced to death by hanging for insulting the Prophet Mohammed in
Kano state, according to a 2019 research paper by the USCIRF. The sentences were not carried out.
In 2000, a Muslim man in the northern
state of Zamfara had his hand amputated for stealing a cow. A year later,
another man had his hand cut off after he was convicted of stealing bicycles,
according to the same USCIRF research paper.
In the eyes of many Nigerians, the
adoption of Sharia law is a violation of the country's constitution, because Article 10 guarantees
religious freedom when it states that "the Government of the Federation or
of a State shall not adopt any religion as State Religion."
"This issue of blasphemy is
incompatible with the Nigerian constitution," Leo Igwe, chair of the board
of trustees for the Humanist Association of Nigeria, told CNN.
"We hope this case will help
Nigeria confront the biggest constitutional challenge since independence. What
should take precedence, Sharia law, or the Nigerian constitution?"
Governors of the northern states,
where Sharia law is practiced, argue that it applies only to Muslims, and not
to citizens of other faiths. The FRF says it is working on six other
constitutional cases which will challenge what it sees as government
interference in Nigerian citizens' right to religious freedom.
One of these, on behalf of the
Atheist Society of Nigeria (ASN), is against the state government of Akwa Ibom,
in the country's southeast, for its involvement in the construction of an
8,500-seat worship center at its High Court.
The ASN says millions of dollars in
state funding have been spent on the centre, which it says amounts to
government interference in freedom of religion.
"The government has no business
legislating on religions. End of story," Ebenezer Odubule, a founding
member of the FRF told CNN.
The FRF says it has had to put some
of its other cases on hold, to focus on Sharif-Aminu's case. It is also
hampered by a lack of funding to fight new cases.”
In typical Trump fashion, the
President of the United States of America proceeded to distribute to the press
free copies of “The Tanzanian Times” with the following report on its front
page:
“The President of
Tanzania, John Magufuli, has cancelled a U.S.$10 billion Chinese loan. He referred to the Terms and Conditions of
the loan as one that can only be accepted by a drunkard (person).”
Donald Trump refused to take any
questions. He brought the press
conference to an abrupt end when a top security officer whispered into his ear.
Instead of a dignified presidential exit, he was whisked off into a more secure
part of the White House where his security and safety would be guaranteed. The press were amazed, amused, and dumb
founded. They concluded it was all
showmanship just to catch the headlines and divert attention from the crucial
problems facing the United States of America – “Black Lives Matter”/Racial
inequality; poverty and unemployment; COVID-19 virus etc.
Just when the pressmen/women were
about to call it a day and disperse, word came through that Donald Trump was on
his way from the missile/bomb-proof underground shelter back to the podium.
To the astonishment of the press,
Donald Trump proceeded to quote Howard Zinn (1922 – 2010).
“Our problem is that people all
over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders. Millions have been killed because of this
obedience. Our problem is that people
are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty, starvation, stupidity,
war and cruelty. Our problem is that
people are obediently filling our jails full of petty thieves while the grand
thieves are running the country. That’s
our problem.”
It was all so bizarre. The press were simply dumbfounded. They were zapped!!
However, the President of the
United States of America was not yet done.
White House protocol demands that it is only after “PROTOS” (President
of the United States) has departed that members of the press can leave. He carpeted the guy from CNN.
“How come only Fox News
and Resilience Television have aired: “STRUCK OUT” ?
Donald Trump was clearly agitated
as no sooner had the members of the press reached the exit of the White House,
ready to swarm into the sublime embrace of the adjoining Park, Lafayette Park,
than they were summoned back to resume the press conference.
It turned out that what was bugging
the President of the United States of America was the front page report of “The Punch” newspaper of August 17, 2020.
Headline: “BLASPHEMY: US AGENCY KICKS AS KANO COURT JAILS 13- YEAR-OLD BOY FOR TEN YEARS’.
“The United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom has faulted the judgment of an Upper Sharia
Court in Kano State sentencing a 13-year-old boy, Umar Farouq, to 10 years in
prison for making derogatory statements toward Allah in an argument with a friend.
Farouq was convicted on August 10, 2020, by
Aliyu Kanu, the same judge who sentenced a Musician, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, to
death for blaspheming Prophet Mohammed.
Spokesman for Kano Region Justice Ministry,
Baba-Jibo Ibrahim, said the court handed down the death sentence as enshrined
in Islamic laws based on irrefutable evidence and the convict’s admission of
guilt.
The Punch reports that although Farouq is a
minor by Nigerian law and should not have been tried as an adult, Islamic
canons regard anyone who has begun puberty as an adult.
Kano, a predominantly Muslim northern
Nigerian state, has Islamic Sharia courts that function alongside civil courts
and introduced Sharia law in 2000.
But the United States Commission on
International Religious Freedom has condemned the blasphemy laws in Nigeria.
The USCIRF is an independent, bipartisan
Federal Government entity established by the US Congress to monitor, analyse,
and report threats to religious freedom abroad.
In a statement in reaction to the judgment,
the US commission condemned the death sentence handed to Sharif-Aminu for
allegedly insulting the Prophet Mohammed.
USCIRF Commissioner, Frederick Davie,
stated, “It is unconscionable that Sharif-Aminu is facing a death sentence
merely for expressing his beliefs artistically through music. The US Senate
should work swiftly to pass Resolution 458, which calls for the global repeal
of heresy, blasphemy, and apostasy laws.”
Also, President of the African Bar
Association, Mr Hannibal Uwaifo, described the verdict on Farouq as
unconstitutional, calling on the Attorney General of the Federation to stop the
Sharia court from making a mockery of Nigerian on the international scene.
Uwaifo said, “I call on the Attorney
General of the Federation to step in and to stop this kind of sectional court
from making mockery of Nigeria. This is a country where people are
stealing billions of naira and being given a pat on the back; then you say
someone committed blasphemy, according to your own religion, and then you
sentence him to death or sentence a teenager to 10 years’ imprisonment. I think
we should stop making Nigeria a laughing stock.”
In the same vein, two civil society groups
have condemned the Shari’a court verdict.
The Convener, Coalition in Defence of
Democracy and Constitution, Ariyo-Dare Atoye, said, “What is coming out of Kano
is a challenge to section 10 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended. We know that
the current Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, is more or
less not interested in the secularity of this country.
What is going on in Kano is an attempt to
restructure Nigeria through the back door to create a two-nation in one because
the message they are sending to the international community is that there is a
part of the country operating a different legal system.”
Speaking in the same vein, the National
Coordinator, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, Emmanuel Onwubiko,
said the judjement did not conform with human rights conventions and treaties
to which Nigeria was a signatory.
He stated, “Section 10 of the constitution
prohibits the elevation of any religion as a state religion, so the Kano State
government does not have the constitutional rights to legislate Islam as a
state religion.”
What was strange was that it was Donald Trump himself
who gave the order to the press: CALM DOWN.
He then proceeded to show a video of:
“THE YORUBA SLAVE GIRL –
SARAH FORBES BONETTA (1843 – 1880)
“Sarah Forbes Bonetta, a princess of the Egbado clan
of the Yoruba people, is best known as the goddaughter of Queen Victoria
of Great
Britain. Bonetta was born in 1843 in what is now southwest Nigeria. Her parents’ names
are unknown as are the names of her siblings who were all killed in the 1847
slave raid that made Bonetta a captive.
Bonetta’s village of Okeadan was attacked by King Gezo
of Dahomey,
the most notorious slave trading monarch in West Africa in the early 19th
century. Intent on capturing slaves and killing those not taken, Gezo’s
men seized the four year old girl. For reasons that are unclear, the girl
was not killed and remained at Gezo’s Court until 1849 when British Commander
Frederick Forbes landed the HMS Bonetta in Dahomey to persuade Gezo to give up
slave raiding and trading. Forbes noticed the young girl and bargained
for her life. He persuaded King Gezo to “give” her to Queen Victoria,
saying “She would be a present from the King of the Blacks to the Queen of the
Whites.” The girl remained with Forbes in West Africa for the next year during
which she was baptized and given the name Sarah Forbes Bonetta. Forbes
wrote that “She is a perfect genius; she now speaks English well, and [has]
great talent for music… She is far in advance of any white child of her age in
aptness of learning, and strength of mind and affection…”
Sarah Forbes Bonetta was taken to Great Britain and
met Queen Victoria on November 9th, 1850 at Windsor Castle. The Queen was
impressed by her intellect and entrusted her care to the Schoen family in Palm
Cottage, Gillingham when Forbes died early in 1851. The Queen declared Sarah
her goddaughter and paid her tutorial expenses. Young Sarah became a
regular visitor to Windsor Castle.
Less than a year after she arrived, however, young
Bonetta developed a cough believed to be caused by the climate of Great
Britain. Queen Victoria arranged for her to be sent to what she believed
was a better climate for Bonetta in Sierra Leone.
There she was educated at the Female Institution, a Church Missionary Society
school in Freetown. Bonetta excelled
in music and academic studies but was unhappy prompting the Queen to bring her
back to England in 1855.
In January 1862, 19-year-old Bonetta was a guest at
the wedding of the Princess Royal Victoria, the eldest child of the
Queen. In August of that year Bonetta herself was given permission by
Queen Victoria to marry Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a 31-year-old
wealthy Yoruba businessman from Sierra Leone. The couple married in an
elaborate wedding at St. Nicholas Church in Brighton, England. Sarah
arrived at the ceremony in an entourage that included ten carriages. The
couple lived in Bristol, England briefly before returning to Sierra Leone.
While Davies continued his work, Bonetta began
teaching in a Freetown school. Shortly after the marriage, she gave birth
to a girl and was given permission by the Queen to name her Victoria. The
Queen also became young Victoria’s godmother. In 1867 Sarah and her
daughter visited the Queen again. For Sarah this would be her last visit.
Her cough continued and she was diagnosed with tuberculosis. Bonetta had
two more children but died in 1880 at the age of 37. Queen Victoria
continued to provide for Sarah’s daughter. She supported young Victoria’s
education and gave her an annuity. Young Victoria continued to visit the
royal household for the rest of her life. Many of the Bonetta-Davis descendants
live in and around Lagos, Nigeria.”
What ruined what was developing into a peaceful
evening was the insistence of the CNN representative that their host should
respond to CNN’s
“BREAKING NEWS”
“President Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen predicts Trump will not return to the White House
after spending Christmas at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Cohen spoke with MSNBC host Ari Melber about the president's
possible endgame plans as President-elect Joe Biden prepares to enter the White House on Jan. 20.
"After Christmas, he usually comes back January 5th,
January 6th. He likes to go to Mar-a-Lago," said Cohen. "I suspect he
won’t even come back to Washington. I don't believe he's going to go to the
inauguration because he himself fundamentally cannot sit in a chair knowing
that the cameras are on him and that the world is looking at him as a loser. He
cannot do that."
Trump has contested the results of the election since the
evening of Nov. 3, raising unproven allegations of fraud in the 2020
election.
Cohen, who touted his knowledge of the president's behavior,
referenced Trump's baseless claims regarding the validity of former President
Obama's birth certificate.
"Everyone needs to take a chill pill," Cohen warned.
"Donald Trump talks a lot of nonsense. The Birtherism. 'I have my
investigators there in Hawaii. Look what we found out.' It's all a lie, 99.9
percent of everything that comes out of his mouth is a lie. He's not going to
stay in the White House past January 20th. They will remove him. He knows
that."
Cohen called on Trump to concede the election but voiced doubt
that he actually would.
"He does not have enough inner strength in him to be
gracious," Cohen concluded. "He needs to keep his base rallied around
him. He's going to say for the next 30 years that they stole the election from
me. I'm the rightful president. He's going to keep his MAGA army active and engaged
and going to constantly blow this dog whistle and be a menace."
Tim Murtaugh, a spokesman for the Trump campaign, wrote in a
statement on Tuesday that the Trump campaign plans to roll out a leadership
PAC in the president's name.
Though Murtaugh said the plans for the PAC
had been laid out before the projected loss for President Trump, the move is
likely an effort for Trump policy to retain influence over the GOP as the
administration appears to be on its way out.”
To Trump, life was a game and all that
mattered was winning.”
Donald Trump was in rage, full blast. All he could mutter was:
“You all know that Michael Cohen is a
pathological liar.”
While frantic efforts were being made to restore peace
between “POTUS” (President of the United
States) and his journalist guests, Resilience Television switched to the front
page report of “BusinessDay” newspaper
of August 18, 2020.
Headline: “WE ARE IN THE PROCESS OF RESCUING
NIGERIA” – Na’Abba.
“A former
Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’Abba has revealed that there
were ongoing consultations among some elite politicians toward setting up a new
political movement to rescue the country. In a television broadcast, Na’Abba,
who is a co-chairman of the newly formed National Consultative Front, claimed
that Nigeria was now a failed state, while describing the current
administration as being incompetent and irresponsible. He listed unemployment,
insecurity, economic hardship as some of the areas where the President
Muhammadu Buhari administration has failed and proven its incompetence, adding
that Nigerians were now poorer and more disillusioned with the state of affairs
in the country than at any other period in the history of the country.
“We have had to watch in dismay, shock and
disappointment our dear country slide into anarchy. The country is drifting,
virtually no sector is working; the rulers seem irresponsible and incompetent,”
Na’Abba said. According to him, “Unemployment is at unprecedented level and the
loss of lives is at a dismal level with scores of Nigerians being killed on a
daily basis. Our indebtedness has reached an alarming rate with poor state of
social infrastructures.
The feeling is
that of disillusion, and the feeling among Nigerians is that the days are
numbered.” Speaking further, the former lawmaker said the current state of the
country was unacceptable to Nigerians, stressing that it had necessitated the
current move by political like-minds to come together to form a new political
movement to rescue the country from impending collapse and give succour to
Nigerians.
“Our political
structure has not been able to rise up to the challenge; it is unacceptable. We
would initiate a national political action where the citizens would get their
basic needs and fulfil their potentials. We as Nigerians of conscience have
decided to take urgent action to challenge our unfortunate situation. We the
National Consultative Front would commonly pursue the task of rescuing the
country from collapse. This would be achieved through nationwide consultation
and mobilisation,” he added.
On the back page of the same paper was the distressful
report from Ghana.
Headline: “U.S.$1 MILLION REGISTRATION, OTHER CONDITIONALITIES TOO MUCH FOR NIGERIAN TRADERS
IN GHANA”
……….We
are ready to come back home, says traders’ association leader.
President of
the Association of Nigerian Traders in Ghana, Chukwuemeka Nnaji, says majority
of Nigerian traders in Ghana cannot afford the $1 million and other
conditionalities that small businesses are being asked to fulfil to continue
doing business in the West African country.
As a result,
the Nigerian traders have asked the Federal Government of Nigeria to engage the
Ghanaian authorities by leveraging on the
ECOWAS protocol. Nnaji, who spoke on a radio programme, Political Platform, on
RayPower FM (100.5) on Tuesday morning, said if this diplomatic engagement
fails to yield the desired result, the traders would be willing and ready to
return to Nigeria. He insisted that the conditionalities put forward by the
Ghanaian government were above the capacity of most Nigerian small businesses
operating in that country.
According to
Nnaji, the conditionalities include payment of $1 million or its equivalent in
share equity, employment of at least 25 Ghanaians, and not operating in areas
where Ghanaians have their businesses. “These are too much for us to fulfil.
Majority of Nigerian traders in Ghana cannot afford $1 million,” he said on the
programme monitored by “BusinessDay” in Lagos. He lamented that the
registration charge was raised from $300,000 to $1 million, adding:
“We have raised
the ECOWAS protocol with the Ghanaian authorities, telling them that we’re West
African citizens and should not be treated like other foreigners, but they have
insisted that in spite of the ECOWAS protocol, their law is king.” Nnaji, who
painted a pathetic picture of Nigerian traders in Ghana, said their shops and
business premises are being locked up despite having business permits.
On what he
thinks the government back home can do, he said, “We want the Nigerian government
to engage the Ghanaian authorities on the basis of the ECOWAS protocol. But if
this fails, we plead with the Ghanaian government to give us some time to pack
our loads and go back home.”
The ECOWAS
protocol agreed to by the member states in 1979, which are in phases,
stipulates the right of ECOWAS citizens to enter, reside and establish economic
activities in the territory of other member states. The first phase deals with
the right of visa-free entry; phase two deals with the right of residency, and
phase three concerns the right of establishment in another member state.
The first phase
has been fully implemented. The second phase, the right of residency, has also
been implemented, given that citizens had obtained an ECOWAS residence card or
permit in fellow member states. The third phase, the right of establishment, is
still under implementation in most member states.”
To cap it all the television station aired what it
described as “Lessons Being Learnt.”
“Miami police outclassed every police
organisation in the world. When
protesters came with gun blazing, they all went on their knee. The crowd began to cry and joined them. Asking for forgiveness melted many hearts –
especially those who carried placards along with guns to protest –
(i)
Justice
For George Floyd
(ii)
Stop
Killing Blacks in USA
(iii)
Black
Lives Matter.
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