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B N W: Biafra Nigeria World News |
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Again, Ibos in Lagos
SIR May I refer to Sylvanus Nwosu's letter published in The Guardian of July 21, 2004 with the caption: "The Igbo in Lagos." It is supposed to be a rejoinder to my letter earlier published by The Guardian on July 19, 2004 titled: "The story of Lagos."
I am amazed and greatly disappointed that Nwosu chose to liken my write-up to Nazi propaganda instead of addressing the core issues which I raised about the daily massive invasion of Lagos and its environs by Ibos under a dubious apprenticeship scheme in furtherance of their ill-motivated dream of turning Lagos into an extension of Ibo states. Nwosu will do well to honestly advise his Ibo brethren to return home to help develop their native states as the wise saying enjoins, "charity begins at home."
Nwosu has also sarcastically referred to efforts by Ibos in Lagos working in collaboration with the Oba of Lagos to curb and eventually stop the menace of Area Boys. Perhaps, unknown to Nwosu, there are more dangerous underworld men in Ibo states than the Area Boys. Ibos going home for Christmas, New Year and Easter festivities are victims of the horrendous terror the Ibo underworld men unleash at the head bridge and waterside areas of Onitsha as well as other strategic locations where they operate. Incessant raids and attacks on luxury buses plying the eastern routes also attest to the fact that there are more dangerous elements in the areas.
Unwittingly, Nwosu referred to the establishment of the International Trade Fair on the Lagos-Badagry Expressway as a landmark event to cement relations between Lagos and Ibo states. But have any of the Ibo states' governments reciprocated this kind gesture? It has, therefore, become imperative for the Lagos State Government, as a matter of utmost urgency, to introduce measures to halt the daily massive invasion of Lagos and environs by Ibos.
The call is made out of best intentions, to assure the future of the state's unborn generation; and save them from the landgrabbing propensities of the Ibos. The governor should stop consenting to the sale of landed properties in the state to the Ibos.
G.K Dosunmu,
Lagos
Adichie's Purple Hibiscus
SIR: Miss Chiamanda Ngozi Adichie's book, Purple Hibiscus narrowly escaped the Orange Prize for women literature but has been short-listed for the man Booker prize. I congratulate her. The book's creative strength shares the same soluble lyricism with Helon Habila's Waiting for An Angel. But the degree...? Like Habila, Adichie tucks her imagination tangentially into the ever fertile darker days of Nigerian fascist history.
But things began to fall apart towards the end which makes the book read like a blouse that the author ironed splendidly well with finesse but left the bottoms still rumpled since she knows she is going to tuck in. Or perhaps may be Kambili, the narrator in the book is growing up, so her childlike insight and creative edge progressively wear away.
But as regards the atmosphere of religious intolerance many Western critics identified, I have not found such. Maybe it is because many of us grew up in sundry environments where for a higher good, freedom is not freedom. Myths like if you urinate close to the river you will give birth to an albino was created to maintain social hygiene not that it was true itself.
Damola Awoyokun,
Ibadan, Oyo State.
Getting results with tears at UNICAL
SIR: I am about to start my final semester in the Economics Department of the University of Calabar (UNICAL) and cannot claim to know what my Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) is. This is because the department is in the habit of not pasting its students semester results. What is done is that the department publishes 'results' which is only a list either P, F or I; which stand for Pass, Fail or Incomplete. There have been, and are cases of a student seeing a P on the published list only to find out at the point of clearance of graduation that he or she failed some courses or didn't have any result in them.
I am an example. Many of my colleagues and I have had to pay persons to check and copy our results so we can have an idea of what our CGPA is only to find out that courses whose results we had earlier seen either with the course lecturer or in the list of Ps were omitted. I have just learnt that I have two such omitted results in my first semester third year.
What pains me the most is that last semester, when they pasted a list of students with problems in their first semester third year result twice, my number was not on the lists. How am I now expected to reconcile same when I missed the chance to re-write the courses as 'carry-over'? Now unless something is done, I am faced with the prospects of an extra year in the institution! The so-called Exam-Officers are not helping issues. When you try to get them to listen to your complaint, they are quick to give one excuse or the other and ask you to "come back later".
I ask that for the sake of peace, the department had better start making plans to make up for its lapses or be prepared to bear the vented frustrations of its students.
Raphael Edom,
University of Calabar,
Calabar
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