Omoh Tsatsaku Ojior, a native of Nigeria is married and has children of both the sexes, has 12 grand children. Omoh's mother is alive, but his father passed away at the age of 100. Omoh has brothers, sisters, and the African extended family.
Dr. Ojior is an Associate Professor of Political Science and an international scholar. Ojior began his teaching career in Los Angeles, California USA, taught Public Administration and Political Science at the University of Benin, Nigeria, the Clark Atlanta University, Atlanta Metropolitan College, Morris Brown College and the Morehouse College, all in the Atlanta metro area. Professor Ojior is the founder and the Executive Director and CEO of Onima Institute for Tradition and Development USA, Inc.
Dr. Ojior currently lives in the United States. He holds a Ph.D., Doctor of Philosophy degree in Political Science from the Clark Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. The author's areas of specialization are International Relations, Public Administration, African Politics, and Comparative Government. Dr. Ojior began his university teaching career with an M.A. degree in Public Administration from Pepperdine University at Malibu, California. Ojior did his undergraduate studies in Political Science and Journalism (double major) also from the Pepperdine University. His academic strength is evident by the fact that, with a Master's degree he was appointed as a substantive full-time faculty member at one of Nigeria's federal premier universities, the University of Benin popularly known as "Unibest."
Dr. Ojior was a public officer for six years in the capacity of a government image-maker as a Public Relations Officer, and held other management positions.
It is a truism that Heaven helps those who help themselves. Some of us may start re-examining this statement, but from whatever angle the re-examination may follow, the facts remain that he or she who must be assisted must make the first move. Nigerians must resolve to assist themselves, in other words, Nigerian rulers must come to their bitter realization that it is the helpless Nigerians who will repair the image of Nigeria battered by their (rulers’) inconsiderate and faulty policies.
I want to thank my friend, Dr. Femi Ajayi for his analysis of the Nigeria’s image making problems. We cannot continue to tolerate without resisting while pointing out in good faith some of the ugly policies and decisions being made by many of our Nigerian policy makers on behalf of the people. The decision to give out a contract to the foreign, but famous Cable News Network, CNN was made by some Nigerians who believe that CNN is a better image maker for Nigeria. To many of our rulers particularly, and to some extent, almost every Nigerian is with the false and faulty notion that everything foreign, including thoughts and ideas, is better than made in Nigeria. This is not to be misunderstood as a claim that everything Nigerian and made by Nigerians is better while everything foreign is bad for Nigeria.
All we are trying to say here is that we are living in an over politicized world and in an era in which the love for “Self” and interest, in terms of nation state, is the order of the day. Self-interest, and Self and interest take precedence over other considerations in relations amongst and between nations in our time. Call it what you may, it is the truth and a fact that national interests are the driving force that move nations in recent time in political policies and decisions. The national interests (the Nigerian peoples’ interests in all aspect and matters) should be uppermost in the minds and hearts of the Nigerian rulers and policy makers. This is very important because there lay the survival of the Nigerian state including the image that must not be allowed to be tarnished by others.
We cannot continue to blame others for what they have not done right for us when we have the means and the human resources to do for ourselves that which must be done and done right. The Nigerian media or press has succeeded in making the CNN very popular among the so called elites in Nigeria; it is probably the reason the urge to give out Nigeria’s image making contract to CNN. Most of the people asked as to why the CNN was permitted air space and room space to broadcast in Nigeria have always explained that the Nigerian Press does not correctly inform the people about the goings on in the country and does not perform its functions and roles. To put it in another way, they are claiming that the Nigerian Press has failed in the performance of its duties which are to inform, educate and entertain. Can one blame the people when it is the same foreign ill-motivated and undeserved news and information circulated by foreign missions in Nigeria that the media in Nigeria report to the people; the same news and information which CNN help to amplify?
CNN itself has nothing good to say about the people of Nigeria and the country when reporting to its home country, the US. Most, if not all of CNN reports on Nigeria are when something has gone wrong in Nigeria. But again, should one really completely blame the Nigeria press for not performing its functions in Nigeria when one considers the climate under which they are performing their duty? The fact that Dele Giwa was murdered with a letter bomb during the regime of Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida, Nigeria’s worst military head of state cannot stop to be the harbinger in the way of the press in Nigeria. Dele Giwa, an interpretative journalist who studied in the United States of America, was performing his duties as a true journalist when he was murdered by Babangida and his agents. Dele Giwa had said that the people have the right to know who Gloria Okon was caught with smuggled illegal drugs (cocaine) at Kano Airport in Nigeria during that time. So again, the pendulum still point to the rulers of Nigeria as those who are blocking the reparations of our country’s image including that of our personal individual embarrassment and humiliations in the hands and presence of other non-Nigerians.
There are many patriotic Nigerians abroad who alone on their own have been on the vanguard to preserve the integrity and image of our country. Our policy makers ought to have recognized these illustrious sons and daughters of our country as those who will ensure the correct reparations of our country’s image, and not the CNN, not “Bad-works” international or any other foreign contractor or propagandist. There are many local newspapers operated by Nigerians and other Africans in the United State; could one, two or three of these talented, but striving individual patriots have been given the contract to publicized Nigeria’s Heart of Africa Project? Credit must be given to whom it is due. The President may not be perfect, but he has taken to heart to recognize Nigerians abroad and had called for the tapping of the egregious abundant energies of these Nigerians. President Obasanjo may not be perfect. Some other misfit and misplaced Nigerians see Nigerians abroad as a threat to their greedy urge to acquire undeserved material gains at the expense and regret of the country. Hundreds of millions of the hard foreign dollars has been paid by Nigerian policy makers to foreigners for the reparations of Nigeria’s image abroad without any success. Where is inward-looking for which most conscious nations and individuals do to succeed and for which our General Tunde Idiagbon of blessed memory died?
It is high time Nigerians who have shown reasonable concern for the image of our country to be given half of what has been given out to foreigners for the recreating of our country’s image. This author can say that directly and indirectly, Nigeria’s President has been approached for collaboration in the promotion of Nigeria abroad by Nigerians. The president’s response has been that “we should bring the dollars home, and not the other way round,” meaning that Nigerians abroad should not expect money from our home government in what some Nigerian entities in the US, public and private are doing abroad in the name of Nigeria for Nigeria. Yet, CNN and other foreign contractors in and outside Nigeria are paid in dollars to continue to do what they knows how to do best - damage and smear Nigeria’s image continuously. Onima Institute for Tradition USA, Inc is one of such entities promoting the good of Nigeria in Nigeria and the US. Foreign contractors should not be preferred over the indigenous.
At times one is tempted to say that colonial mentality may be the problem of many Nigerians and Nigeria. If Nigerian policy makers are thinking consciously and conscientiously as it ought to be, the interests to Nigeria and Nigerians will be foremost in their minds in the formulation and execution of any project concerning Nigeria. Our policy makers and our country’s rulers need to be thinking Nigeria or whatever name we come to decide to call our country because balance of power cannot be achieved through such behaviour in which someone or country subjugate itself to others. In where little North Korea is shaking the Might of the world, Nigeria should be able to trust its people, manage them, and make millionaires out of them to its own advantage and that of the world community. The rulers of Nigeria should attempt to circulate the wealth of the nation among the subjects of the state; the country will be better off as the wealth of the people is also the wealth of the nation. Many Nigerians abroad are ready and willing to contribute to the development of Nigeria in the way they are able because one of the main reasons some Nigerians abroad are away from their home country in the first place, has been the mismanagement of the national resources by some misplaced and misfit individuals within the ruling class. And many Nigerians abroad know that home is home which is why they have continued to remit money home to members of their families. The country belongs to all of us and not to some of us.
Our question which other Nigerians may want to ask is: have Nigerians in the Diaspora forfeited their being Nigerian citizens because they live in America? One is asking this question as a result of the interview given by the former Nigerian Ambassador to the US, now Senator Jibril Aminu. The interview was relayed in a broadcast by one of the two Nigerian television stations now being received in the United States. Senator Aminu was reliving his experience in Washington D.C. during the 911 attack on US. The interview was September 11, 2006 marking the fifth year remembrance of the sad event.
While explaining the event as it happened, the then Ambassador took the whole episode as a non-serious matter for Nigerians. The Senator's countenance or body language spoke volume unprintable, of such a serious tragedy. Nigerians will never know how many of their citizens perished in that historical occurrence. It is really sad that some of those with whom we trust our lives in their hand in service as citizens of the same nation continue to fail in their duty.
What is prompting our question, was that the then Ambassador was unable to tell Nigerians and the world who were watching the television interview the number of Nigerians who died at the World Trade Center Building on that fateful sad day, September 11, 2001. When he was asked as to how many Nigerians died, he re-asked the Journalist with an in-describable gesture: were they Nigerians? They were Nigerian naturalized Americans, the Senator answered himself; many of them worked there, he exclaimed. It was sad that a Nigerian ambassador in Washington, D.C. on that shocking day did not care enough for the lives of Nigerians who died in such a tragic incident, and he as the then Nigerian ambassador could not find out how many Nigerians lost their lives at the World Trade Center; just because they were naturalized Nigerian Americans.
Senator Aminu is a highly studied personality considering his background before he was appointed as Nigeria's Ambassador to the United States. Although, Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher had said that "the highest study of all is that which teaches us to develop those principles of purity and perfect virtue which Heaven bestowed upon us at birth, in order that we may acquire the power of influencing for good those amongst whom we are placed, by our precepts and example." Has the former Ambassador actually demonstrated his knowledge and ability, at both the time those Nigerians died at that World Trade Center attack, and during his explanation to the Nigerian people, five years after, in this last interview he gave on the attack?
The inability to tell Nigeria how many Nigerians died in that attack is an indication that the then Ambassador could not find out if there were other Nigerians who were not naturalized Nigerian Americans in that building. What is the implication of this callousness? Was it callousness or dereliction of one's duty or was it ignorance of one's responsibility as an ambassador? At least, for the strategic and magnanimous position of Nigeria on the Africa continent, it wouldn't have been out of place for a Nigerian ambassador in the US during that attack on the US to find out not only how many Nigerians whether naturalized or not, who died in that tragedy, but also find out, how many other citizens of African states died in that World Trade Center Building. One may be incorrect in his assessment of the sad situation of that 911 event and of the interview given by our honourable Senator.
On that day in question and the one following, some of us in the US who were not paid Nigerian government employees in the US, out of human concern, were searching through the news media and listening out to hear that Nigerians were not among the dead, but behold to our ears, the American news media and the US authority announced in passing that Nigerians were among the dead at the World Trade Center. They did not give the figure, but they gave the figures of the other nationals who died at the trade Center Building. So what is the fate of the Nigerians in the Diaspora? Was it because the Americans knew that Nigerian authority does not seems to care about what happens to its citizens anywhere? Poor fellow Nigerians; their host country will not morn them and their land of birth would not either? Yet the Nigerians in the Diaspora are working themselves to death and hard just to see how they can help their country of birth, Nigeria and its image.
Is Senator Aminu aware that the US Dollars these Nigerian Americans are remitting monthly to their families and relations based in Nigeria, has been recognized as giving a lift to the Nigerian economy? These Nigerians have not given up their Fatherland because they have joined the international political, economic and industrial game of dual citizenship. Nigerians are not the first and will not be last to take on dual citizenship. Was Aminu's position on this matter an official one or a personal position based on the ignorance of the politics of dual citizenship the world over today, of which he may not be aware? Can the Senator tell Nigerians that many of the Indians, Lebanese, and Arabs (many who are in the north) who have taken on the Nigerian citizenship have abandoned their home countries because they love Nigeria so much? These foreign Nigerians are usurping the employment opportunities many Nigerians cannot even find in their home land. Is Senator Aminu not aware that some of these foreign Nigerians are leeching Nigeria dry? This is a matter that NIDO should request Senator Aminu to tell Nigerians in the Diaspora what they need to do to regain their Nigerian citizenship IF they have lost it.
Also, Mr. Joe Keshi should be requested to clarify government position on this matter. Mr. Keshi has being the Coordinator of Nigerians Abroad ( a job he has done so well) until recently when information has it that he, Mr. Keshi has now been assigned a Cabinet Portfolio. It is our belief that Honourable Keshi is in a position to throw some light on the subject, whether Nigerians in the Diaspora are Nigerian citizens. It is important to know if naturalized Nigerian Americans are not still Nigerians.
Fellow citizens of the United States, let us call a spade a spade. The current acrimonies, of lies, divisiveness, and all sorts of blackmails, deceptions, and slanders coupled with disrespect to the person holding the highest office in the land, President Barack Obama and the White House is not politics but pure racism. This is done deliberately by those we thought should know better in Washington. If we must preserve and guide our rights and freedom to speak and speak freely, think, associate and hold an opinion, the current cloud of uncertainty hovering over our nation must be made to disappear by our collective behaviors and attitude towards one another in the name of what is not politics. Pure politics is that which fosters progress amongst humans and not man’s inhumanity to man and retrogression. The Republican Party’s attitude and designs towards everything President Barack Obama has done since day one, and is still doing with best intention, are unholy, and it is very unfair to the people of this great country who are suffering from the unwholesome racist attitude.
This is the time for Americans to say, gone are the days when Blacks were lynched publicly with fanfare just because of arrogance of ignorance and a primordial state of the mind of some young species of human kind who thought that Africans were not human beings. President Barack Obama is a free born American by an African father who was on an educational sojourn in the land of the free, the United States of America. He had prepared himself and qualified for the Office of the President of the US. He was duly elected with a solid mandate, but some elements of the Republican Party have refused from day one to allow Mr. President to carry out the progressive plans that he has for the people of this country and the world. Whatever good he had done for the nation has one way or the other been turned upside down and is rejected as good deeds even when the ordinary people know them to be good deeds. Under his command while with his war council, America and the world’s worst enemy, Bin Laden was eliminated as he Obama had earlier promised; yet the Republicans tried to rob him of this great achievement. The Great United States was the only country amongst most of the known industrialized countries of the world that its citizens were without healthcare insurance policy. As a result, some Americans who are desperate to heal themselves would go to Canada where a healthcare policy can accommodate them. Especially that some known medicines that are known to cure certain killer diseases like cancer, are banned from entering America from neighboring countries like Mexico and Canada. Such a policy could only have been brought about by the likes of Romney, the corporations that manufacture medicines in America. There is no doubt that Romney and Ryan would say that such a policy is in the interest of Americans when it is actually not. President Obama brought about a universal healthcare Bill that was passed into law by Congress and validated by the highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, another great achievement for the people of this country, yet Republicans want Obama’s head for this.
Here is a man who inherited from the Republicans, a hopeless and helpless administration that had brought America to shame. There was general insecurity of life and property within and beyond the borders of the United State brought about by the arrogance and uncompromising attitude of the Republican led Administration of George Bush before the international community. Before the very time President Obama was elected, an American and America were scorned outside the boarders of the United States. American travelers could attest to this. We can still also remember that during the 2008 electioneering campaigns the former First Lady Hilary Clinton used to tell her audience that if she was elected, she will appoint her husband as an ambassador to the world to restore America’s image. This was expected as Hilary herself became that ambassador under President Obama. It was because America’s image abroad was in ruin caused by the Republican led administration of this country at the time.
The Republicans are also holding the unemployment problem in the country against President Obama. The Republican allies, the big corporations, created the unemployment in the country by willfully laying off millions of able bodied citizens from their gainful employments and replacing humans with robots. There are no more jobs for receptionists and telephone operators; most of them have been replaced by robots in many large corporations. They have unfairly held the country’s workforce to ransom with unemployment because they thought the economic condition of unemployment rate at 8% would be wrongly blamed on the President, and because they think the common people are too dumb to know Republicans’ mischievousness. Unemployment is the only issue with which Republicans think that the coming election would be won by their flag bearer, Mitt Romney. This is one of the lies too, Barack will be re-elected.
Republicans forgot that well meaning and thoughtful people in the country have been observing events in the political arena of this country. If Republicans have cooperated with President Obama, a bill on employment creation would have solved the problem. Obama looked for bipartisanship with Republicans for two years; he stretched both of his arms to the Republicans which they refused to accept ignominiously. The President meant well in his attempt working with the Republicans to a point that many people in the country were getting upset with the President because they knew that Obama was wasting precious time since the Republicans had stuck to their guns of no compromise with President Barack Obama, an African American. Every proposal brought forward to Republican leaders by Obama was “NO,” to the point that the Republican Party became a party of “NO” at the time in the eyes of most Americans.
It is an African proverb that okpishia o yo Inighu ne erthai puno oni Inighu, meaning that an elder does not allow fire to quench in the kitchen while he or she is there. The elder statesmen and women of this great nation must muster the courage to say the truth out, now. Republicans need to stop playing the so called “Third World” politics whereby politics becomes a do or die affair in which they have to tell incredulous and outright lies. It is only in some developing countries that progressive proposals are rejected by political parties just because such proposals emanated from the other party. It was never like this before in America, therefore, one reason one could adduce is because President Obama is a Black man, and if this is a correct assumption, it is racism that should be abhorred in the 21st century; humanity is moving on forward and not going back.
They need to stop telling “detasteful” and distasteful lies and making them look like truth by repeating the very obvious lies over and over. Republicans are still canvassing for the repeal of the universal affordable Healthcare law that has been upheld by the Supreme Court just because a Blackman has done what was thought to be impossible previously. Telling lies is what Republicans did throughout their recent Convention in Tampa, Florida. This attitude and behavior is not of any good learning benefit to our youth who we were supposed to prepare to take over from us. Are we saying to our children and the youth of the country who are watching us that calling White Black and Black White is politics and the best way? Is this not a bad example and miss-education for the youth to follow wrongly?
Governor Mitt Romney and his running mate do not have the quality and skills necessary for governing a nation of the type of the United States. America is no longer the Old wild west where only the kinds of Romney matters. America now is the melting pot of humanity and ideas. There are many other human kinds or ethnicities that are now living in the United States. This is not by accident for in the Atlantis Rising and the New Atlantis, by Plato and Francis Bacon’s respectively, there exists a bold resolution that was made that this western continent which is now the United States should become the site of the philosophic empire. This resolution was said to have been made in the ancient world thousands of years ago. You may read also, the Secret Destiny of America by Manly P. Hall for more understanding. Therefore, current immigrants of different starters and levels of humans who are now naturalized citizens of this Union are not here by accident; it was destined that they will be here and they are here. Republicans should remember this history. The new immigrants should therefore not be discriminated against by the likes of Romney, whose grandfather or father was an immigrant to the United States from Mexico.
It should be made clear that the Romneies and many Republicans are good human beings, but their policies as they relate to governance of a pluralistic society are enemies of the people and their welfare in a democracy. Consequently, the Republican Party and Romney will not seek for the good of all the people of this country. Their policies and utterances about human ideas are self centered and, are of negroephobism in nature therefore unfit in modern time.
There is another African proverb, “Akhayagboke” pronounced “Aa-kha-ya-gbo-ke.” Exclamatorily, this proverb means “if the people of the world were given the power to share or distribute the benefits of nature.” Interpretatively, the wise question in exclamation is, “who would have allowed a poor person to have a child?” It is the reason for another wise capsule which is, “Ayagboke” pronounced “Aa-ya-gbo-ke” meaning that the people of this world were not given the authority to divide the gifts of Nature, for Nature knows that like the Romneies would not give a chance for a common person to grow to become an employer like the large corporations. It is one of the reasons Romney should not be placed in a position to kill initiatives meant for progressive development as he is thinking that everything should be provided by the wealthy like him. Republicans claim that it is corporations that create jobs therefore they should be exempted from paying tax, but that ordinary Americans should. The question for the Republicans and Romney is, what is the role of government if corporations are to regulate and provide for the people in the name of free enterprise, personal liberty and individual right to do their biddings?
Our opinion therefore, is that Romney does not have what it takes to govern a people since he does not really understand what the actual responsibilities of governance entail. Experiences in business enterprises are not and do not translate to knowledge of the duties of government as is being demonstrated by Romney in what he says. Romney has not explained how he would create jobs when he becomes president. In the mind set of the Republicans, President Obama will not be re-elected if unemployment remains what it is. Republicans simply want Obama out because he does not look like who they want as President of the United States no matter how much and what he had achieved since he became President 3 plus years ago.
All the insult, ignominious disrespect on the Office of the President and the person holding that office which is President Obama, are nothing but a product of negroephobism. It is clear to most people, and the Vice President, Joe Biden alluded to it when he said, and “they want you back in chains.” The VP was right and Americans of high moral character need to speak up so that race relations in this God’s own country will become what it was meant to be – melting pot of humanity and their ideas.
This is why whatever Obama does is not accepted as anything good. Yet, “Obama fostered greater transparency and better government, after the excesses of the Bush years. Obama returned the Executive Branch to fiscal responsibility after the Bush debacle. He improved the economy, preventing a Bush depression. Obama reformed Wall Street and consumer protection; ushered through many changes that enhanced civil rights and anti-discrimination. President Obama made major improvements in foreign relations and American status around the World. Obama took steps to strengthen the middle class and families, and to fight poverty; took a more realistic approach to Defense. President Obama’s administration treated soldiers and veterans with respect that was missing during the Bush era. He pushed through improvements in national safety and security; reoriented government to an adult view on science, technology and health care; and Obama took concrete steps to improve our environment and address our energy needs,” These are major sub-heads of the lots that President Barack Obama had achieved within his first 3 years in office in spite of the Republican divisive obstructions from day one. (See a compilation of “What Has Obama Done? Here are 200 Accomplishments! With Citations!) published by the “Nigerian IDENTITY at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )”.
Republicans should be reminded that within the realm of nature, no condition is permanent as everything is subject to change which is the only permanent thing in the universe. If African Americans were servants yesterday, which is the reason Republicans are looking down on President Obama disrespectfully while they insult the Office of the President, it is wrong because there is nothing stopping an African American, like any other American anymore today from becoming a president of America if it is his or her determination and desire. This rationalization is supported by yet another African proverb, which says that, Omo odo nbo wa do oga” meaning that a servant is coming to become the boss or master; it is a natural law that no condition is permanent. Race relation in America is improving and it should be allowed to continue to move on forward progressively.
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