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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (October 14th 2019) The Guru, looks like you guys are asking for more than you can chew. That $2trillion you're requesting is probably greater than the GDP of the entire African continent. ☝🏾Posted by Mohamed in Progressive Think Tank forum. Mohamed...(I don't have your other names in my archive): How can we ever put a figure to the enormity of the mass murders of Negroid peoples during the Atlantic Slave Trade; the nauseous shipment of an estimated 20 million Negroid Africans across the Atlantic Ocean, many perishing being and dumped into the ocean; the dehumanization of African slaves on the slave plantations of the Americas (North America; Central America; South America; the Carribean) for 400 years; the enormous wealth generated through the labour of Negroid slaves for Europe and America which made the Industrial Revolution easier and gave the "West" an obvious marketing competitive edge? How can we ever measure the value of a single tree in the tropical rainforests of Africa destroyed by the white man as they raped and plundered Africa for about a century of colonization of Africa by Europeans? The independence granted to most African countries in the Independence Era of the 1960s was cosmetic; fake!! The white enslavers of Africans, the European colonialists... merely retreated from direct bludgeoning of the African body and mind, and disguised their predatory actions in institutions like the IMF and World Bank and private finance institutions! How much have Africa received as its earth would be overturned and invaluable genetic materials lost in tropical rainforests with Europeans/Americans exploiting their mineral resources? For example... The 'white gods' have decreed that Sierra Leone should get THREE PERCENT of revenues generated for the exports of its diamond wealth, some of the best jewellry diamonds on planet earth. After almost a hundred years of mining of these diamonds by the white man (symbolically, in the 20th century, white men from South Africa in the DeBeers monopoly company mined Sierra Leone's diamonds - when they had legalised racism in Apartheid laws in South Africa) what does Sierra Leone have to show for it in economic terms? Almost nothing!! Can we ever compute the extremity of environmental degradation that have been caused (being caused) in the quest for Sierra Leone's diamonds? For almost a century in Liberia the United States company, Firestone, leased land for ONE CENT ($0.01 cent) an acre to grow rubber trees. They destroyed vast swathes of one of the most species-rich forests in the world. They made mind-boggling wealth in the auto industry from Liberia's rubber exports. What did Liberia get? Almost nothing!! Can we ever compute any figure after a century of ecological-genocide in the areas in South-South Nigeria as petroleum has been mined, leaving the indigenous peoples of the region severely impoverished? After four centuries of such injustices, credible scientific institutions and scientists around the world started raising the alarm about 50 years ago about global warming... leading to Climate Change. "Climate Change" is an expose of the spiritual, psychological, physical, and ecological wrongness of the economic systems forged by the West and foisted on Africa. The SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP's demand of "$2trillion annually for man-made Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures for Africa from the richest nations of the world" is for Restitution; for Reparations for the Protracted Holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade. It's a very reasonable demand. It should be more.... The first big challenge is for Africans - especially most of Africa's insular, cynical, jaded and jaundiced bureaucratic elite and political elite - to believe that they must fight for Green Justice, or, hundreds of millions of Africans would endure excruciating pain and die prematurely in nasty deaths of starvation and dehydration; floodings and droughts. Over the centuries Africans have not been innocent babies in the injustices meted out to them by the white man. Too many of the African leadership have aided and abetted the white man in the enslavement and subjugation of their own race. This continues today. Too many of Africa's leadership don't see the need to fight centuries of injustice by the white man because they are satisfied with the crumbs of their vast wealth the white throws under their tables to them; because they have largely insulated themselves from the abject poverty in Africa. These African leadership - national leaders; political and religious and business and civil society leaders - would be exposed and neutralized. Children and youth in Africa would rise up against the leadership that have sold them out and bond with children and youth in the West now awakened to what Swedish Climate Change sensation lash out as the "fantasy of money". Do you join the Green Liberation forces or are you going to stay stuck in the cocoon of the slowly-becoming-obsolete earth-destructive forces? I pause, Oswald Hanciles, The Guru (Founder and CEO of the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement) October 14, 2019 05:03 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone.

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (September 25th 2019)

Guru, I have refused to acknowledge and/or make sense of your idea and the several incomprehensible ramblings on climate change . You have repeatedly failed to tell your readers the depth of your knowledge on the concept climate change. How is climate change affecting the African continent? What are the visible hallmarks of climate change? What's the threat level it poses on the African continent? How do we reverse the trend of climate change? Kindly don't tell me about your grossly inordinate $2, 000,000, 000.000 demand from the industrial world. How is your campaign impacting the attitude of Africans with regards their handling of the environment? ☝🏾Llyod Jusu in the Climate Change Campaign forum of the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP

Llyod Jusu:

Still waiting for the information I advised your append to your posting conflicting mine so that I would engage in credible and constructive debate with you.

One of my intellectual bibles is the book published in the early 1980s by United States economist theoretician, George Gilder, titled, "Wealth and Poverty". In the chapter in that book, "Necessity of Faith", Gilder postulates that conflict can really be good thing, and can catalyze progress. With that as one of my ideologically guideposts, I most often would embrace conflict. For example....

Between 2014 and early 2018, one of my fiercest antagonists on social media - especially in the Free Speech forum; and over a dozen APC WhatsApp forums - was a 40ish government bureaucrat who loved bragging about his double Master's degrees acquired in European universities. (I would not mention his name. He died a few months ago). In THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN, I had published a four-part serial titled, "The Tribal Card: Not a Wise Option for Any Governing Party" - warning against tribalism in Sierra Leone's politics; tracing the historicity of Political Tribalism as a failed political strategy in Sierra Leone's political tapestry. This man (who I would call X) argued vehemently and relentlessly that Political Tribalism does not (did not) exist in Sierra Leone, and Political Tribalism "is the concoction of disgruntled senior staff in the APC government... like Oswald Hanciles....". He was unrelenting!! I dubbed him on social media my "2nd Best Friend" - writing again and again that I preferred him to others among the educated elite because he would come out OPENLY to conflict me. One of his favorite line of attack against me was this: "Oswald Hanciles is sitting on the bosoms of 'other tribes' and complaining" incessantly of "Political Tribalism". That, put in another local adage is this: "You can't be sitting on my shoulders as I am carrying you and you are complaining that my head is stinking".

I suspected though that X's words could have helped to my marginalization at State House - in my job as media adviser to former President Ernest Bai Koroma. I was inflexible and belligerent in my thesis warning against Political Tribalism.

After the presidential election had been won by Retired Brigadier Maada Bio as Leader of the SLPP in March, 2018, X (who hailed from one of the major ethnic groups in the Northern Province) was on social media bitterly complaining about "ethnic persecution" by the Bio Administration - that which before March, 2018, he had ferociously argued didn't exist.

My emotions are 98% of the time fully reined and directed to positive emotions. The positions I am taking on Climate Change goes back 36 years. As the brain and co-founder and CEO of the SAVE MY FUTURE CONSERVATION SOCIETY (SAMFU) in Liberia in 1987, and Editor of GREENLOVE magazine which SAMFU published in 1989, I argued for a "Marshall Plan" for Africa to save Africa's tropical rainforests. In the cover story in GREENLOVE magazine, I excoriated the Western nations as the culprits of global warming - not intimidated by the reality that GREENLOVE magazine was financed by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-International; WWF-United Kingdom, the German Forestry Mission to Liberia...

The SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP conceit was hatched by me in Calabar, Cross River State in southeastern Nigeria in 1992 - after a conflict with the white British man, Nick Ashton-Jones. Nick had given my company, "GREENLOVE/Nigeria", a contract to produce and publish PANGOLIN magazine for the Cross River National Park Project (CRNPP). The CRNPP, an agency of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the conservation and preservation of Nigeria's largest remaining tropical rainforest, was being managed by the WWF-United Kingdom. That conflict with Nick got me out of my only source of livelihood in Nigeria, where I was a refugee who had gone to Nigeria in 1990 from war-torn Liberia. That conflict left me moneyless; 'contract-less'; homeless... The result of that conflict is the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP... which is 'sailing' today to be a potent force for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures for Africa; and under whose aegis I demand "$2trillion annually for man-made Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures for Africa from the richest nations of the world". Point: Conflict can be a good thing.

My debate with you could help me finetune my ideological postures; and adjust my strategies, where necessary. I am an ideologue as regards my views on Green Emancipation and pan-Africanism, but I am not opinionated. I can be pragmatic.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru.

September 25, 2019

01:32 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN(September 16 2019 edition) JOKES Teacher : Name the 5 most corrupt countries in Africa... Moses: Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia and Sierra Leone. Shola : What about Nigeria? Moses : When counting sinners, do u include satan? 😂😂😂😂😂😂 Richard Sawyer: The Federal Republic of Nigeria is the greatest Negroid country ever on planet earth - in terms of its economic, technological, scientific, intellectual, musical, movie...output. Nigerians are about the best among Africans, and migrants, when they are in the West. Nigerians are vastly superior to other Africans in terms of their adventurism and entrepreneurial drive. Nigeria and Nigerians do have their peccadilloes, especially their predatory political elite that wallow in ostentatious binges, but, they have succeeded in holding together over 300 ethnic groups comprising about 200 million people as one country - when countries like Sierra Leone and Liberia are struggling to keep cohesive their tiny countries of about 6 million population each. The joke about Nigeria are stereotypes I would help fight against. Nigeria should be the pride of the Negroid race. I pause, Oswald Hanciles, The Guru. September 15, 2019 19:48 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone ☝🏾Culled from SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP-Youth forum Really Oswald, I surely want to beg to differ. When one go through the causes of corruption there is nothing like education corruption but rather political and election corruption. In other word, political and election corruption's are the root cause of all forms of corruption. It is hardly easy to escape the corruption effects because those in offices have developed an opinion that it is the only way to get their work done. Majority will put the work on pending for long or even not be done, if not it. What has making the corruption fight wrost in our country-Sierra Leone is, coppution fighters are focus on just one form of corruption which is embezzlement, leaving out the major form of corruption (political corruption). The forms of corruption vary, but include bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement. Furthermore, misuse of government power for other purposes, such as repression of political opponents and general police brutality, is also corruption. ☝🏾Posted by I.B. Thoronka in SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Youth forum .B. Thoranka. I concede to your superior argument. I pause, Oswald Hanciles, The Guru. September 16, 2019 04:31 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone Attention should start being paid to the need for all teachers to be well trained and prepared to teach. Provision should be made for teachers with college degrees to teach even in elementary school if they want to. I have personal experience in this in East Africa. ☝🏾Posted by Chris Johnson in SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP-Science/Technology/Philosophy forum Chris Johnson: The necessary overhaul of our educational systems can only be effectively done with the radical overhaul of all our public sector and private sector systems. Look at this hypothetical scenario. Bai and Mamie graduated from university in 2010. Mamie had a first class degree in economics; Bai a third class degree in economics. Mamie decides to teach in a secondary school. Bai joins the NRA and is posted to Customs. By 2015, Bai has stolen money at Customs and is building a $400,000 house; owns a private vehicle worth $60,000; his children attend the most expensive private schools in the country. And Mamie? Her salary would not be enough for her to feed herself and her children daily. Her landlord harass her for rent every month. She has great trouble transporting herself to work daily - even walking half way. Her clothes are almost tattered. She resisted taking money from her pupils for two years. But, after she got sick once, and couldn't even afford to buy medicines, she realized that she either would leave the job, or, take bribes from students. Dozens of her applications to get other jobs would not even be responded to. She had to stay in the classroom. And die? The reality in Sierra Leone over the past forty years is that those who are corrupt are REWARDED in society. Then our society demands that those who provide other essential services - teachers, nurses, policemen and police women - should do so earning wages they could barely live on. The war against corruption must be holistic. I pause, Oswald Hanciles, The Guru. September 16, 2019 08:30 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN

Bio’s Suicidal Apology

The President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, has publicly apologized for the ‘revolutionary action’ of the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Barrister Ben Keifala, who this week got several teachers, and school administrators, caught almost red-handed helping pupils to cheat in a public examination… to be publicly paraded, handcuffed, with placards tied around their necks indicating their culpability; at the historic Cotton Tree in the heart of the capital city of Sierra Leone, Freetown; symbolically, almost in front of the central Law Court, and a stone’s throw from State House, the office of the President. Judging from public comments in the about 50 private radio stations serving the 7 million people in Sierra Leone; judging from the comments on social media; and what I could gather from discussions on the streets of Freetown… the action of the ACC Commissioner has been overwhelmingly popular. That should raise the question: who did the President apologize to? The 1% of Sierra Leone’s population who are the corrupt elite? In Ghana, Flight Lieutenant Jerry Rawling, like President Maada Bio, was twice Head of State; but Rawlings adopted a revolutionary approach to fighting corruption in Ghana. Rawlings succeeded. He succeeded as a military leader and democratically-elected president. Bio should ‘fallamakata’ Rawlings. Or, President Bio would be committing political suicide of his administration, and of his political party, the SLPP.

Educational Corruption is Worse than ‘Rebel War’ in Salone

Let me restate positions I have taken on social media since Ben Kaifala’s daring action aroused fierce debate in Sierra Leone. Corruption in the educational sector is much worse than the eleven years civil war the RUF rebels and AFRC ‘sobels’ waged against mainly hapless civilians. That civil war was one in which men, women, and children were brutally murdered; their hands and feet chopped off, and their spectacle used to inject fear into the populace, and to successfully gain political profit by the rebels; civilians would be burned alive inside their houses; child combatants would kill those seeking refuge inside churches and mosques: all over the country. The corruption in our schools and colleges have been worse than those nasty and brutish atrocities by the rebels. Worse than the genocide in Rwanda in 1994, in which largely Hutu extremists would move from house-to-house using cutlasses to hack to dead Tutsis and moderate Hutus who would try to protect or defend the Tutsis. 900,000 people were murdered in less than one year. In just about 15 years, Rwanda rose up again to become one of the most progressive societies in Africa; a model in Africa for rapid development, high educational standards; buoyant economy….. The damage that has been done in Sierra Leone because of corruption in the educational sector could take at best 50 years or so to fully recover from. And don’t forget: it was the institutionalization of corruption in the 1970s and 1980s that resulted in the civil war in Sierra Leone in the 1990s. Playing propaganda game with corruption again would inexorably lead Sierra Leone into another miasmic and gruesome civil war. Surely, nearly all the citizenry should be aware of the vomit-inducing corruption that has taken grip of the educational sector in Sierra Leone.

Cheating in Schools and Colleges Have Become the Norm

With the exception of a few very expensive private schools, and a handful of public schools like Grammar School, Prince of Wales, Annie Walsh, Bo School, CKC… pupils in nearly all the public schools in Sierra Leone don’t apparently bother to study anymore to take public exams. When exam time would come around, they buy question papers. Arrangements are made for them to copy answers in special rooms – with watchful corrupt teachers and school authorities. This racket has been burst several times over the years. It is no secret. This norm of cheating in exams continue into our colleges and universities. One of my school mates who I started Form One with at the Albert Academy in 1967 and who is now a lecturer at Njala University told me about a month ago that when he would stand his ground against having students buy grades, some of his lecturer colleagues would be lobbied to persuade him to be flexible; and they would say, “Let my people go” – which means, a lecturer should not be perturbed about high standards; and should take his or her bribe, and just pass students. Thus, over the past fifteen or so years especially, we have had most of our graduates not just being mediocre, but, shockingly low in educational standards.

Graduates with Abysmally Low Educational Standards

Those who have had to deal with such graduates in the public sector would tell you how alarmingly low most of their standards are. They would claim to have Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees, but, would not be able to write a single sentence of correct English. It is worse for too many of those with science and engineering degrees. That is why you notice that when some of these graduates are made to write press releases for even agencies in the Office of the President, they make many horrible grammatical mistakes. Since these graduates know that they didn’t work to earn their degrees, when they enter the public sector, they don’t believe in work. They are too ready to continue to cheat and lie - and STEAL government money. Not only are they incompetent; but, they are lazy – since laziness, and manipulating the system, rewarded them when they were students. Most often than not, these government workers are among the most intense and acidic critics of government. They are the ones most likely to pour petrol on ethnic fears. What has been happening in many government agencies over the past fifteen or so years is the employment of highly specialized graduates and paying them in dollars – the few who do real work in government. Or, positioning WHITE Europeans and Americans in government ministries and agencies to manage donor aid, or, financing through the IMF, World Bank, and United Nations agencies – paying them in huge United States dollars. In the private sector?

Too many significant private sector companies are NOT employing Sierra Leonean graduates anymore. Shocked?! In 2012, I was told by a white British senior management staff at London Mining that non-Sierra Leoneans are being employed to even drive caterpillars, because Sierra Leoneans lack the experience. If radical action is not taken now to stop the corruption in the educational sector, most Sierra Leoneans would become only hewers of wood and carriers of water - even with their university degrees. The denunciation of Ben Kaifala’s patriotic stance against the teachers and school administrators perverting the educational system has been premised on “The Rule of Law”.

Laws That Are Used to Deny Justice!!

What “law”? In Sierra Leone? These were the same laws in Sierra Leone in the 1970s and 1980s when rampant and flagrant corruption made the economy to implode. There was no war in the 1980s, yet people had to queue for petrol and palm oil; electricity was once in three months affair even in Freetown; teachers would not be paid for six months at a stretch. It is the same laws that has gotten corruption to be seemingly intractable – from the presidency of Tejan Kabbah to Ernest Bai Koroma. No Sierra Leonean would risk his reputation by saying that there is no corruption in the Judiciary in our country. Those government officials who steal millions of dollars know that they can manipulate the judicial system and get away with their loot. It is the travesty of justice in our judicial system that has gotten the ACC to rationalize its out-of-court settlements over the past one year, with this logic: “Why waste time to prosecute a corruption suspect over two years when the suspect can be made to pay back what he/she has stolen from government in two months?”. I have been relentlessly opposed in my published articles to this ACC out-of-court settlements, stating, like a mantra, thus: “The ACC is not a court”. Paradoxically, I strongly support the recent move of the ACC to publicly parade these teachers because they were caught red-handed; their spectacle has engendered the desired result: intense public debate of corruption in our country. What next?

People’s Support for Tougher Anti-Corruption Laws

Those civil society activists, and human rights organizations, and lawyers’ groups invoking the law to criticize Ben Kaifala should know that the CORRUPTION that has festered in Sierra Leone over the past sixty years is a much worse human rights abuse than parading alleged corrupt teachers in public – protracted corruption has been tantamount to GENOCIDE. Children and youth who comprise about 80 percent of the population of Sierra Leone should now be intensely educated on the ramifications of corruption on their lives today and tomorrow, and be induced to give massive support to the fight against corruption. All Sierra Leoneans should now lobby Parliament to enact tougher anti-corruption laws; and to encourage more whistle blowing. Of course, tough anti-corruption measures must be across the board, and not limited to teachers. And all patriotic Sierra Leoneans should laud the spasmodic revolutionary action of Ben Kaifala. And, President Maada Bio should ‘un-apologize’, and tender a new apology to over 90 percent of Sierra Leoneans who have been impoverished by festering corruption. And, another apology by President Bio – publicly or privately – to Barrister Ben Kaifala. Especially as….

Barrister Ben Kaifala in goading greater public debate on corruption, and hopefully the enactment of radical laws and radical action in the War on Corruption has helped to save the Bio presidency, heightening its chances of winning the 2023 presidential election. Ben Kaifala, when his anti-corruption campaign receive massive public support, will help to ensure the sustainability of the SLPP in power for a long time. What should be done is to package the robust stance of Ben Kaifala on corruption to widely do marketing of Sierra Leone to attract significant Foreign Direct Investment, and international aid. And to stimulate the productive energies of the people of Sierra Leone.

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (September 2nd 2019)

The Guru, we utilize plea bargains to among other things alleviate a crowded court docket; it also brings certainty and closure, A plea bargain entered in a court of law in a criminal matter is a guilty conviction but the accused gets a lighter sentence for his cooperation. Now the disparity between the alleged amount and the agreed restitution or fine is purely a matter of compromise between the accused and accusers. I do not care for the ACC being police, CID, judge and jury. I don’t think any ethical lawyer will or should coerce pleas by engaging in pretrial detentions to score headline news. Yes, these guys maybe guilty but prove it in trial by the adversarial process presided over by an impartial judge. Otherwise, we risk convicting an innocent but unpopular person. Yes, no prosecutor worth his salt will compromise a case of clear guilt with a slap on the wrist. We, the US, just had the labor secretary resigned his position because he gave now deceased by suicide Epstein a sweetheart deal when he was a prosecutor in a Florida judicial district. We hound prosecutors out of office for making slap on the wrist deals with folks accused of crimes. It is not the method; it is the people working the system and that’s what really ails your system and country. You have good laws and institutions meant for good but the natives bastardize the whole thing. Sorie S Tarawally, Esq. Oh, excuse errors.

☝🏾Posted by US-educated and US-based Sierra Leonean lawyer, Sorie Tarawally.

September 2, 2019

Sorie, is right in many fronts. Immediately the ACC started entering bargaining pleas with former accused corrupt people in social positions of trust, I understand that there's the clean tendency for the ACC itself to be corrupt either by negotiating wrongly and allow the accused to pay less than the alleged embezzled funds or the ACC over steps it mark by negotiating with an accused to pay more than what the law tolerates. Above all, whatever deal reached, the Bio administration system of combating corruption is tolerating former rogues to walk away freely with their crimes at the expense of tax payers because there are no punitive measures for these alleged rogues. Meaning they stole our monies and use the interest to pay us back after making huge amount of profits with the alleged stolen funds. They are directly strengthening these alleged rogues in former social positions of trusts to regroup with their stolen funds and keep on holding the contraption to captivity with their financial might. Absolutely NO guarantee for tax payers in the negotiations of the ACC in tackling corruption efficiently in the contraption.

Mahmud Tim Kargbo

Monday, 2 September 2019 @ 12:16 pm

☝🏾Support for US-based Sierra Leonean lawyer Sorie Tarawally's opposition to the Anti-Corruption Commission's "plea bargain" or "out-of-court settlement" ... 'sweetheart deal' with alleged corrupt government officials in the APC government of former President Ernest Bai Koroma.

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (August 23rd 2019 edition)

"Our house (world) is one fire...." Macron, French President.

You can't afford to sit in one room of your house drinking champagne or palm wine when your house is on fire... Get up!

The fire will get to you in your room if you don't get up to put it out.

The scientific logic of man-made Climate Change is that the planet earth is one seamless whole - the boundaries that separate Sierra Leone from Liberia... Spain from France.... United States from Saudi Arabia... are artificial. Humanity must act as one.

The destruction of Amazon rainforests and melting of ice in the Arctic circle affects ALL people on planet Earth.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru.

August 23, 2019

02:16 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

Not yet, Neneh:

The planet Earth will not turn into a desert just yet, Neneh.

Green Prophets like Oswald Hanciles have been screaming about global warming and man-made Climate Change for over thirty years. You (plural) did not listen.

You were listening (have been listening) to old - maybe, obsolete - Christian and Islamic prophets; listening to the prophets of the World Bank, IMF, big banks, etc.; listening to fake prophets who are really predatory bureaucrats and insensitive African politicians... The nightmarish scenarios being predicted by credible scientific institutions and scientists around the world have just started peeping. Worst is yet to come....

Stop! We are humanity! We have intelligence. We can avert the worst. For Africa, we can make the Climate Change Emergency into a Golden Age; it presents a wonderful opportunity to build up the case for Reparations for the over four centuries of the Protracted Holocaust of the Atlantic Slave Trade; to redress the skewed international marketplace rigged against Africa.

The 'devil' wants you to give up; to think the problems of Climate Change are insurmountable; to believe that you are powerless to challenge the decadent local status quo. No!! Don't believe the lies of the devil.

The fact is that you got the power to change anything and everything positively to enhance human survival.

Puncture your unbelief; throw it into the trash can.

Stoke the flames of the ever-present divinity within every man - rich or poor; over-educated or illiterate. We will win then.

We must win. That's the only option we have as a human race: winning over those who have bamboozled the human race with their fake ideologies and selfishness and insularity - providing a leadership that is now careening the human family towards the precipice of Climate Change-Armageddon.

We must win! Believe that. PV me for private chat.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru

August 23, 2019

11:42 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

☝🏾Culled from SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Group 1 forum

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN

Climate Change War & the African’s Inferiority Complex

All sane national leaders, religious leaders, business leaders…. now agree that Climate Change is an existential threat to the human race. Is US President Donald Trump not sane then? Trump has pulled the United States out of the 2016 “Paris Agreement” (The Paris Agreement is within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), dealing with greenhouse-gas-emissions mitigation, adaptation, and finance. It was signed by 196 countries in 2016. The Paris Agreement's long-term goal is to keep the increase in global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels: this could substantially reduce the risks and effects of Climate Change). Trump trumpets the need for “America First” (Read: to sustain the American lifestyle of GLUTTONY), while justifying the United States’ continual use environmentally-unfriendly fossil fuels. In the Climate Change War Trump is the enemy. To me, Climate Change’s ramifications for Africa is another intensification of the physical war, psychological war, economic war… that Europeans/Americans have waged on Africans for about 600 years now – starting with four centuries of the Atlantic Slave Trade, almost a century of European colonialization of Africa; and the skewed global economic systems rigged against Africa that African countries have been coerced to be part of. Yoked by chronic inferiority complex, the response of Africa’s leadership to the nightmarish scenarios being predicted for Africa is one of begging the West, hoping that through spasmodic speeches in international fora, the conscience of the West would be touched, and the West would dramatically change centuries-old mindsets and economic systems.

Africa’s “Begging” War Strategy “Most crises usually have a variety of festering causes and effects. It is the failure to address them early and effectively that lead to out-of-control conflicts....”: those were the words of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Retired General Muhammadu Buhari, at the 73rd General Assembly of the United Nations at New York.

Buhari at the UN in 2018 said: “... Climate change remains one of the greatest challenges of our time. Very close to us at home, it is our lot in Nigeria, together with our neighbours around the Chad Basin, to live with the climate change consequences of a drastically shrunk Lake Chad and the parching up of otherwise fertile arable lands…. (Lake Chad’s) shrinking meant loss of livelihoods and they are now rendered poor and vulnerable to the activities of extremists and terrorist groups. The instability thus caused in the sub-region intensified internal displacements leading, among other consequences, to intense economic competition especially between farmers and herdsmen…”

Many credible Nigerian analysts are likely to be derisive of Buhari’s citing of Climate Change as a “root cause” of the festering violence in the Northeast of Nigeria. They could cite as “root cause” the 50 years of Northern Hausa-Fulani domination of Nigeria’s politics; the near-institutionalized predatory lifestyle of the Nigerian political elite which Buhari has futilely tried to tame; and the governing elite’s crude insensitivity to the plight of the majority, that which has resulted in about 60% of Nigeria’s 200 million people living in poverty today, making petroleum-rich Nigeria “the poverty capital of the world”. For Africa to have the moral authority to demand the urgently-needed massive Climate Change funding from the West and China - my ideological demand is “$2 trillion annually for Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures in Africa from the richest nations of the world” - the Big Lies being spouted by too many of Africa’s leadership must be burst: bad governance; Political Tribalism; corruption, etc. must be part of the enemies within Africa to be fought in the Climate Change War.

President Bio on “Renewable Energy” “…(Sierra Leone)… needs public and private investment for commercial and industrial use, powering hotels, agriculture, and small-scale manufacturing. My country is endowed with significant renewable energy resources in solar irradiation, coastal and offshore wind, minihydro, and bioenergy... My government is seeking collaboration between local companies and US engineering companies that have proven experience in working on PowerAfrica funded LNG-Power projects in Africa…”: the words of Sierra Leone’s President, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, at the same United Nations meeting addressed by Retired General Buhari.

Just after the UN Assembly in New York in 2018, an American journalist interviewed President Bio in the US. She asked about commercial logging which is resulting in the rapid loss of Sierra Leone’s tropical rainforests. President Bio responded that the loss of tropical rainforests because of commercial logging would be mitigated by significant reforestation programme. I was shocked by the President’s ignorance on issues that touch on the tropical rainforests. Some 60% of world’s genetic materials are found in tropical rainforests. One tree in, say, Koinadugu District, can be host for twenty to fifty species. When you chop down that one tree, you destroy the home for all the other species that would be dependent on it. You cannot just say in a cavalier manner - like the Chief Minister in the Bio Administration, Prof. David Francis, has been saying - “Cut one tree and plant three trees”: for the genetic materials lost in one tree in the tropical rainforests could take hundreds of years to return, likely, they could be irreversibly lost. Guess what? It is the genetic materials in our rainforests that can be used as ‘bargaining chips’ for the other needs of Sierra Leone that Sierra Leone is asking for assistance for: that has been my thirty-years-long ideological thrust.

The Chronic Inferiority Complex of the African

Africans burdened by centuries of inferiority complex are less likely to believe what I write, or, take action on my writings. Since the early 1980s when I waded into environmentalism while in Liberia; since 1987 when I was the brain/CEO of the Save My Future Conservation Society in Liberia; then in green projects in Nigeria and Sierra Leone in the 1990s, my ideological emphasis has been to use the reality of global warming to seek redress for the four centuries of the Atlantic Slave Trade; to stimulate justice in the global economic systems that have been rigged against Africa.

“... Climate change represents a nightmare scenario for the future of the people of the world's poorest continent (Africa!), according to the official preparing a top-level report… (The Stern Review) states ….Small rises in temperature and reductions in rainfall could 'tip the balance' and lead to severe water shortages and reductions in crop yields… These could fall by as much as 30 per cent by the 2050s…..Sir Nick's remarks comes on top of one by…Christian Aid, which suggested that up to 182 million people in sub-Saharan Africa could die of diseases directly attributable to climate change by the end of the century…”(SOURCE: Climate change will be catastrophe for Africa http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change-will-be-catastrophe-for-africa-478375.html; written by Paul Vallely ; Monday 15 May 2006).

A 2017 Thompson Foundation report warns that “Africa is at highest risk of major economic blow from future climate threats”: “Countries most dependent on agriculture are at risk of experiencing changes over the next 30 years and face the biggest costs with the effects of the extreme weather, according to a global climate index…. Sub-Saharan Africa is home to 17 of the 20 countries most economically reliant on agriculture in the world”. The National Medium-Term Development Plan (NMTDP) of the Bio Administration launched in January, 2019, states that about 60% of the workforce of Sierra Leone is in agriculture; and agriculture constitutes 65% of Sierra Leone’s GDP. These African countries also “lack the resources” to cope with Climate Change caprices. Another thing, while agriculture yields are predicted to nosedive, the figures on those who must be fed would spike. The aforementioned Report states: “Countries which are most exposed to climate change are also those projected to experience the greatest growth in population between 2015 and 2050, Verisk Maplecroft said. (SOURCE: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-agriculture-climatechange-idUSKBN14802K). According to the NMTDP, Sierra Leone’s 3.2% growth rate is one of the highest in the world. Climate Change Apartheid

“ The world is on course for ‘climate apartheid’, where the rich buy their way out of the worst effects of global warming while the poor bear the brunt, a UN human rights report said on Tuesday (June 25, 2019)…. President (Donald) Trump has …presided over an aggressive rollback of environmental regulations, and is actively silencing and obfuscating climate science," Alston wrote. (SOURCE: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/world/in--climate-apartheid---rich-will-save-themselves-while-poor-suffer--un-report-11660530).

In the August 18, 2019 edition of the “GPS” show on CNN by Fareed Zakaria, former Irish President, Mary Robinson, said this: “The rich pollute; the poor pay”. Robinson called for global justice. In GREENLOVE magazine published by SAMFU in 1987, the cover story I wrote as Editor called for a “Marshall Plan” for Africa. ‘Nar thirty year ar done take way are dae tuk en rite di thing way waiteman dae tuk tidae. Una yeri now O!!’

African demands courageous leadership and bold vision. Even if Africa adopts the best of environmentally-friendly ways – like planting trees; by using environmentally-friend energy, etc. – the urgency and magnitude and COMPLEXITY of the Climate Change problems would mean hardly any country in Africa have the financial and intellectual resources to put in place Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures in proportion to the complex challenges. Africa must unite. What the Bio Administration has embarked on – revoking some foreign mining licenses to bring Justice and equity in the mining industry – can ONLY be sustainably successful when the issue is addressed by a UNITED POSITION OF AFRICA.

In a war, there are enemies and friends. In the Climate Change War, the enemy is not as obvious as it was during the Second World War when the Allied nations of Britain, Russia, France, United States… had visible enemies of Germany, Italy, and Japan. The enemies in the Climate Change War are amorphous – they could be US President Donald Trump, or, the presidents of Nigeria and Sierra Leone; or, a predatory elite who think they could escape the worst effects of Climate Change by being lukewarm in providing leadership for environmentally-friendly action. Or, the enemy could be the IDEAS that have gotten humanity to the Climate Change precipice – ideas of racial superiority; ideas of racial inferiority among the black race; ideas of zero-sum-war-game of capitalism.

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN

THE TICKING TIME BOMB: YOUTH POWER CAN PREVENT THE EXPLOSION!

The issue on the ground is: JOBS FOR ESPECIALLY YOUTH. I have been spurred to write another article on "The Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth of employable age who are unemployed" by a debate in the Development Bonthe Island Whatsapp forum.

It has been acknowledged as a "Ticking Time Bomb problem". Over the past ten years, I have written many articles in mainstream media, and on social media, warning about that "Ticking Time Bomb problem" of youth of employable age who are unemployed - for Africa; not just for Sierra Leone. What are the solutions?

The first solution is to reflect deeply on my following words.

YOUTH ARISE!!!

I am the BRAIN of a youth group called "Youth Arise!!!". To better understand that fact, you have to put it into historical context. The other co-founders of Youth Arise were Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai (a famous lawyer today; and now made more famous as the most successful Chairman of the Premier League for football in our country); and Mohamed Sulaiman Massaquoi (now National Coordinator of the Strategic Communications Unit in the Ministry of Information and Communications). They were in their early 20s. Youth Arise was founded on May 21, 2000 - that was just after the May 8, 2000 civil society demonstration against, and routing of, RUF leader, Foday Sankoh, at his residence on the Westend affluent suburb in Freetown.

Foday Sankoh had been ensconced in a relatively posh house in Freetown after the Lome Peace Agreement of 1999 made him "Equivalent to Vice President"; and Chairman of the Strategic Minerals Commission. The Lome Peace Agreement legally gave Foday Sankoh the powers to cancel all existing mineral exploitation licences; and to determine who would get mineral exploitation licenses, and exploitation of other "strategic resources" (which could include fishing and other marine resources).

The Lome Peace Agreement gave Foday Sankoh the powers to determine how revenues from the exploitation of these resources would be used. For example, if the government would be paid $200,000,000 as taxes and royalties for diamond sales, Foday Sankoh would have said, "We must use that money to construct lowcost housing for poor people living in slums in Freetown". It is not clear in the Lome Peace Agreement whether Parliament or the President would have the powers to counter the wish of the Chairman of the Strategic Minerals Commission, Foday Sankoh. It appeared to me as if Foday Sankoh - as a person; and not the RUF he led as an entity - was given more powers in the economic realm than the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone, according to the 1991 Constitution. If Foday Sankoh had been patient to exercise those disproportionate powers, he would easily had won more political capital than President Tejan Kabbah and his SLPP government. That's why I call the Lome Peace Agreement a "Treaty of Capitulation" - capitulation to one of the nastiest and most brutal rebel groups (or, terrorist groups) in modern history. The parallel could be this: after the horrors of Nazi Germany of Adolf Hitler had been discovered in 1945; after Hitler's holocaust on 6 million Jews, the Allied Powers decided to form a European Union government, and make Adolf Hitler "equivalent to Vice President"; and other leading Nazi party members who provided leadership for the unspeakable atrocities, and the horrific five years Second World War made cabinet ministers. That would be unthinkable for the white man. But, what would be unthinkable for the white man was foisted on Sierra Leone by the international community.

I was Secretary General of the All Political Parties Youth Association (APPYA) in 1999 when there was nation-wide consultations at the Bank of Sierra Leone Complex at Kingtom in Freetown on the stance of the people, and government, of Sierra Leone, to the RUF rebels and AFRC sobels - who had successfully waged a scorch earth strategy; twice took over the capital city of Sierra Leone, Freetown; and gained considerable diplomatic recognition. President Tejan Kabbah famously read the mood of the country when he said at the opening of that Bank of Sierra Leone Complex consultative meetings something like this: "If they come and cut off the hand of your babies and brothers; raped your mothers and boys; burn you alive inside your houses, would you want them to be part of your government?" There was a deafening "Nooooo!" to President Tejan Kabbah's question.

The Chairman of the Human Rights Commission then, Dr. Kadie Sesay, who was coordinating the consultative meetings, had asked for groups to send in their written positions to her Commission. APPYA sent theirs. The consensus of views by groups - students; drivers; petty traders; farmers, etc. - that reached the public domain was implacable opposition of the people of Sierra Leone against having the RUF rebels and AFRC sobels in government, what was then known as "power sharing". That was the inflexible position of APPYA.

Dr. Kadie Sesay (who later became a cabinet minister in the Tejan Kabbah government between 2002 and 2007; who was vice presidential candidate to presidential candidate, Retired Brigadier Maada Bio, in the 2012 presidential election) arranged to let some of the civil society groups travel to Lome, Togo, when the negotiations were being done. APPYA tried hard to be part of it. APPYA was rejected. Why?

From the press releases, and press conferences of APPYA, Dr. Kadie Sesay knew that APPYA would not be manipulated - and APPYA would go public with any nonsense they tried.

Dr. Kadie Sesay never published the views of the diverse groups on their stance to the RUF rebels and AFRC sobels in Lome. (I hope that the Access to Information law can now be invoked, and these views can now be made public). I suspect that the Lome Peace Agreement went against 80 percent of what the people of Sierra Leone wanted. In other words, the Lome Peace Agreement was a BETRAYAL of the people of Sierra Leone.

ONLY THE RIGHT LEADERSHIP WILL TACKLE YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT PROBLEM

How does this connect with the Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth of employable age who are unemployed? This problem would never be solved when we have political, religious, social leadership that expressly or implicitly have always betrayed the people of Africa, of Sierra Leone - like they did in the Lome Peace Agreement. The 'youth unemployment bomb' is certain to explode when we have too many in the leadership of Sierra Leone, of Africa, who are mere 'book people' with Bachelor's, Master's and doctorate degrees, but are largely devoid of knowledge and wisdom. This Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth of employable age who are unemployed will detonate in Sierra Leone and unleash a scenario worse than our 'rebel war' between 1991 and 2002 when we have too many of our leadership who believe in Orwellian Big Lies, or, are too cowardly to challenge these Big Lies. This Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth unemployment cannot be solved by too many of a leadership who are 98% more concerned about their own comfort, sending their children to the best schools in Sierra Leone and in Europe and America. And have their foreign passports in their back pockets ready to run away to London or New York at the first sign of serious problem in Freetown. The problem of the Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth of employable age who are unemployed can only be solved when... When?

The youth must search for, and empower, leadership with intellectual depth and scope - those who have read widely, and have spiritual strength to see through Orwellian Big Lies and stand up against them. A leadership with proven track record of patriotism and service to Sierra Leone - those who did not run away from the people during their Darkest Hours; those with a track record of speaking against evils in Sierra Leone. Leadership of people with theoretical and practical knowledge in Religion, History, Sociology, Economics, Psychology, Media Communications, Information Technology... Leadership. LEADERSHIP ABLE TO IDENTIFY THOSE WHO HAVE ALREADY CREATED JOBS IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND TO ENCOURAGE THEM TO GUIDE OTHERS TO CREATE JOBS (Like Engineer Andrew Kelli, a founding partner of CEMMATS engineering consultancy that has developed into about the most successful indigenous company in the history of Sierra Leone!).

The Ticking Time Bomb problem of youth unemployment would worsen when we continue with the toxic politics in Sierra Leone; the disguised CIVIL WAR between the leadership of the Temne-speaking of the Northwest and the leadership of the Mende-speaking of the Southeast - that which masquerades as fierce APC-versus-SLPP competitive democratic politics.

"THE YOUTH GOT THE POWER!!"

The slogan or the chant of Youth Arise goes like this: "Youth Arise!!!!!", and with a clenched fist raised up, the youth should respond, "yaaaa!!!(three times). "Who got the power!?" RESPONSE: "The youth got the power!!!". "Who got the power!?". RESPONSE: "We got the power!!". Yes!! The youth have the power to choose their leadership. The youth have the power to prevent the Ticking Time Bomb of youth unemployment from exploding. If the youth do not act fast to PREVENT this ticking time bomb from exploding, they will be ten times worse off than they are today.

WIPE OUT THE ILLUSION OF GOVERNMENT JOBS

Too many Sierra Leonean youth delude themselves that when they campaign for a political party and their party wins the presidency, and fervently support their party in everything they do, they would get well-paid jobs in government. The youth of the SLPP today who think that way are fooling themselves - just like the youth of the APC when when President Ernest Bai Koroma was in power fooled themselves. Given the way the economy is structured, given the way the public service functions, if for example, there are 1,000,000 unemployed youth, government would only provide employment for 10,000, at best; 990,000 youth would not be employed by government. Given the way government, and Parliament, and the Judiciary ... interacts with the private sector, at the very best, the private sector would only provide another 50,000 jobs. Do you arithmetic. What then is the solution?

WAR ON LAZINESS AND YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT

Of far greater relevance and urgency than the 'War on Rape', or, the Free Quality Education ... is the War on Laziness and Youth Unemployment! The two are fused - inseparable in Sierra Leone. We start in government.

President Maada Bio in his early months in power last year started by making spot checks in government offices in Freetown at 8:00 a.m. - to make sure government officials are behind their desks at the designated time. We have not been told what has happened to those senior government officials who President Maada Bio didn't meet behind their desks at 8:00a.m. Some government offices now have electronic time checks that staff log in the time they go to work. The public has not been told what punitive measures have been taken against late comers. If one judges from the low density of traffic in Freetown between 5a.m. and 7:30a.m, one can conclude that President Maada Bio's Lt.SAJ-Musa-type-tactic-of-the- NPRC-era has been treated as a big joke by government workers. Go to Youyi Building at 9:00a.m. and you are likely to find few senior staff there. Using military-government style to insist that government workers are at work on time could only be 10 percent of the cancerous problem of laziness in the public sector. The real problem is that government have been organized in such a way to encourage laziness, even, to reward laziness (and stealing of public money!).

Most often in government offices when officials are supposed to be 'working', they would actually be playing; or, gossiping; or, nowadays, watching Nigerian of Filipino or Mexican films. Their directors and supervisors would join them. Their mimisters would be likely engrossed in talking endless politics - that is, the rare times they would be in their offices, and not travelling to Asia, Europe, or, the United States to attend international conferences. There is a scandalous low productivity in the public sector in Sierra Leone. The fact is that in government in Sierra Leone, working hard and being honest to serve the country is a bad thing.

Ministers know that they don't stay long on their jobs because they are productive. In previous governments, ministers knew they stay long on their jobs because they steal a lot of government money, cut deals, and share some of it with whoever is President, and give some to senior party officials; and throw some crumbs to youth who would sing and dance behind such minister. President Tejan Kabbah set up a mechanism to monitor PRODUCTIVITY by ministers. President Ernest Bai Koroma expanded on the monitoring mechanism for government Ministries, Departments, and Agencies(MDAs). It was another big joke. Joke against the people of Sierra Leone. I know. I worked at State House between January, 2012 and March, 2018. The units set up to monitor and appraise the MDAs were made up of highly qualified and experienced experts; they did excellent job of researching what the MDAs did. They presented it to the President. He ignored them. The President maintained in office those ministers who he apparently believed would win votes for the APC in elections. For example, if the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources allows Chinese fishing boats to enter our territorial waters and steal hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our fish, as long as the Chinese give him $1,000,000, and he uses this money to mobilize youth to vote for the party, he would be maintained as a cabinet minister forever. This was not peculiar to the APC government of President Ernest Bai Koroma. It was the same with the SLPP government of President Tejan Kabbah. This skewed way of governance at the minister's level is filtered down to the civil service.

The civil servants know they don't get promoted because they work hard; or come up with wonderful ideas. Whether they work hard or sleep most of the time in their offices, they get promoted anyway. The importance of senior civil servants depend on how well they guide their ministers to steal government money; the people's money. Senior civil servants don't bother to press their staff to work hard. They didn't hire them. They can't fire them. In 2016, I had to deal with a Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Health and Sanitation who was pecking on the keyboard of his computer, saying to me sorrowfully: "As you can see, I am trying for you O! I am typing the letter myself. I haven't seen my secretary for three days. As you know, they all have their own lane. There is nothing I can do about it". Having worked at the NRA for eight years, and at State House for six years, I had empathy with him: there would be junior staff more powerful than their heads of departments/units - because of their membership of the party in power, or, their connections with powerful governing party politicians. That is why the way government is structured means they can never be the stimulant to provide jobs for even 20% of unemployed youth. The options?

REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH GIVING MORE POWER TO A REVOLUTIONARY PRESIDENT

The President has to be REVOLUTIONARY enough to revolutionize government! And make government more productive. The President will be incapable of overhauling government if the youth don't give him more Youth Power. The Temne-speaking youth of the Northeast and Mende-speaking youth of the Southeast should stop fighting among themselves. They should stop fooling themselves that if they kill themselves over either of the two major political parties they would get jobs. The youth should UNITE behind the ideas of overhauling the governance systems; unite to support the productive people; unite to fight corruption. If the youth don't do what I prescribe here, they would be committing suicide. If President Maada Bio doesn't heed my advice here, he would be committing political suicide. The choice is his. The choice is yours, O, youth. YOU GOT THE POWER!!

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru

April 19, 2019

06:50 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone (PLEASE WIDELY CIRCULATE IN THE PRINT AND ELECTRONIC MEDIA).

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (August 8th 2019 edition)

That's why the CoI had nothing much to probe into.

It was all propaganda about the virus until God helped us to eradicate it.

Some of my SLPP brothers were misled into believing that it was APC creation until the virus hit Pujehun.

The honest TRUTH and nothing else will allow God to give us the Wisdom to transform our resources into the desired outcomes that would better the lives of the poor people of this country. Not Prayers!!! God does not hear SINNERS:

John, 9:31 - Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

☝🏾Cecil O Macaulay in SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP-Science/Technology/Philosophy forum

Cecil O. Macaulay:

Appealing to God again?

What inanity is this you wrote: "It was all propaganda about the virus until God helped us to eradicate it". It was not God that helped us to neutralize the Ebola virus. It was the science and technology of the West; the leadership at the time that belatedly flexed its muscles;

and massive education and mobilization of the people. And significant support from the international community.

It was human intelligence that got us up solve the Ebola virus problem! Not God! Not prayers!

I remember in late 2013 when the Ebola virus had already struck Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone's Minister of Health and Sanitation, Miatta Kargbo, was going around the country to raise awareness for preventive measures against the virus. I attended one of such meetings she addressed at the Council of Churches of Sierra Leone (CCSL) building on King Harman Road in Freetown. It was to solicit the support of the Inter-religious Council of Sierra Leone (IRCSL).

At that meeting, viral experts of the health ministry explained the virus to the assembled crowd of largely religious leaders. One of the scary things they said was that the Ebola virus could be contracted through bat's poo. (Bat poo!! There are thousands of bats that fly over Freetown every evening to forage for food! They often poo on people's heads! The caveat that it was only a special species of bats that could transmit the Ebola virus didn't register. I stopped being outdoors in the evening as hordes of bats emerge from our historic Cotton Tree in the heart of Freetown!).

I remember the religious leaders praying and thanking God for God having miraculously spared us from the Ebola virus that was already infecting hundreds of people in Liberia and Guinea. The Christian and Islamic leaders prayed that God will continue blessing Sierra Leone by keeping the virus away. Of course, God would not listen to such human foolish prayers on one planet in the Milky Way galaxy with its estimated two hundred billion suns and trillions of planets; in a universe of an estimated TWO TRILLION GALAXIES.

At the CCSL meeting, the health minister was defensive and antagonistic to the print and electronic media that had already started criticizing her handling of the Ebola virus issue.

After that meeting, I wrote an article in THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN chiding the health minister's

daggers-drawn approach to the press. (I was at that time media adviser to President Ernest Bai Koroma at State House). I cautioned her to woo the press; to meet with leaders of the media whose support she

must get to prevent the Ebola virus hitting Sierra Leone. She didn't change. She grew worse in her attitude to not only the press, but health experts in her ministry. I reliably learned that her typical hauteur would escalate to harsh criticisms of her senior staff in public. I tried to meet with her several times, but she couldn't condescend to meeting a columnist who was also media adviser to the President. She was only relieved of her ministerial position by former President Ernest Bai Koroma because of pressure from the international experts who had congregated in Sierra Leone after the virus struck Sierra Leone. They convinced the President that Miatta Kargbo had neither the temperament, nor the leadership capacity, for the complex variables of fighting the Ebola virus attack. By then, enormous damage had been done.

Doctors and nurses had died from the Ebola viral infection - some of them simply because they were not given disposable gloves and masks. The message on how to prevent the Ebola virus infecting people had not gone out early enough, intensely and imaginatively enough.

The window of opportunity we had when the Ebola virus hit Liberia and Guinea was lost. The government initially blundered in its approach to the problem. It had empowered the wrong health minister. It failed to harness the inter-disciplinary human resources to prevent or mitigate the Ebola viral attack, or, initially contain it. When Sierra Leone was faced with another existential threat in the RUF war on the people between 1991 and 2000, it was the same prayers, prayers, blunders, blunders.... with horrific consequences. Sacrifices and resolve of a few intelligent Sierra Leoneans mitigated the effects of the 'rebel war' and the 'Ebola war'. One lesson Sierra Leoneans must learn from those two instances in our history is that failure by the leadership to be proactive, or, decisive, in solving difficult collective societal problems can have dastardly consequences. Hope President Maada Bio learns from this our historical recent past.

The country is today enmeshed in serious economic problems. The President has said his priority is diversification of the economy away from mineral resources exploitation - to tourism; to fisheries... And we thinking on these potentials? Rather: are we thinking out of the box? Or, typically making excuses as the country trudges along, until a problem become a crisis? Then we may hit the panic buttons. And praying with berserk intensity. God will not listen. Of course, ...

Africans, open your minds to understand the Mind of God.

God has given man intelligence to use to survive. When man fails to use his intelligence to survive, no lengthy intense prayers would be listened to by God. Failing to understand this fact is at the root of the festering poverty in Africa.

This Biblical quotation you, used Cecil O Macaulay, is one why reason we are not thinking to solve collective problems in Africa; in Sierra Leone: "John 9:31 - Now we know that God heareth not sinners; but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth His will, him He heareth". From the 1940s, the Chinese banned God - as in the major religious beliefs. China was generally a poor developing country in 1945. Fast forward to 2019. China is the second biggest economy in the world today. China is able to compete with the West in almost all spheres of science and technology. Without God! Africans today who love God so much, who pray daily with such fervor, are now going cap-in- hand to beg the Chinese.

The solution against almost intractable poverty in Africa includes this: national leaders, other leaders of thought, must aggressively establish knowledge-based societies in Africa; in Sierra Leone.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru

August 8, 2019

21:03 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (August 6th 2019 edition)

I may not be able to agree with everything he did, but I will give credit where credit is due. I was also a member of his Faith based team for Michelle Obama's Let's Move program.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/…/obamas-top-50-accomplishme…/

☝🏾Posted by US-based African-American, Charlotte Israel, in SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP-Diaspora forum

"If you have two coats, give one to your neighbour who has none" - Jesus, The Christ.

The citizens of the United States are tops in violating that wisdom of Jesus.

"Love your neighbour as you love yourself" - Jesus, The Christ, in the Bible.

In consuming food...energy... about ten times more than people in Sierra Leone or Bangladesh, etc.; in being 5 percent of the world's population and consuming about 25 percent of the world's population; in being about the greatest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet and accelerating man-made Climate Change, the people of the United States collectively act in antithetical ways to the dictates of Jesus, The Christ. The people of the United States - in the vast majority - claim to be Christians. Are they?

Given the facts of man-made Climate Change, worse-than-slavery global poverty presided over by the United States military and financial might; given the widening chasm between rich and poor within the borders of the United States itself; the frequency of mass shootings in the United States...the citizens of the United States need to be retaught Christianity. To save planet Earth.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru.

(Founder and CEO of the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement)

August 6, 2019

02:52 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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☝🏾Watch the photo above. Ask questions. Think. Another mass shooting in the United States!!

According to Al Jazeera news today at about 03:00 hours GMT, there have been "17 mass shootings" in the United States over the past one week. In just one week‼

What if there were such mass shootings in Sierra Leone? The United States government, and media, would hype them like Apocalypse unfolding in Sierra Leone.

Al Jazeera's "People and Power" Programme has aired at about 02:00 hours GMT, August 4, 2019, the Part 1 of the video documentary on the toxic politics in the United States - with racism at the center of it; with white ethnic supremacists fueling it. Ethnic politics or tribalism is not peculiar to African societies, as apparently too many citizens of the United States would make it appear to be.

In the SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement forums, I have asked US-based African-American, Charlotte Isreal (who has done DNA test that shows that her ancestors were part of the Mende people in the land the British labelled "Sierra Leone") to collaborate with me to educate Africans, Sierra Leoneans... on the historicity and current circumstance of African-Americans in the United States: the history of slavery in the Americas in the era of the Atlantic Slave Trade; rank and murderous racism in the United States even after slavery had been declared illegal in the US by the later part of the 19th century; the combustible civil rights era led by the likes of Rev. Martin Luther king Jr...; AND police brutality on African-Americans even today - within the US justice system rigged against African-Americans, that which makes the African-Americans being about 12 percent of the U.S. population but about 65 percent of the US' prison population! That would help correct the apparently distorted perception most of Africa's youth have of "America"; and also help us to appreciate the essence of America which our youth can learn from - workaholicism of most of the elite; productivity and its sweet rewards; pacesetting science and technology innovations.

It has become voguish in West Africa and Central Africa, after DNA testing, for Africa's governing elites to welcome back home African-Americans who would trace their DNA to a specific political location in Africa from which their ancestors were captured and sold into slavery centuries ago. This is laudable. Necessary. But, it should be given profundity when Africans - after imaginative lessons on African-American history to grasp the festering psychological angst of African-Americans - better appreciate the enormity of their ancestors' action in capturing their fellow Africans and selling them into slavery.

Team up with me, please. In ways which most mature African adults and the governing elite in Africa have not fully appreciated the magnitude of yet, youth in Sierra Leone, in Africa... have been (are being) heavily influenced by American song and dance and fashion as manifested by iconic African-American film, pop, and sports stars.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru.

August 4, 2019

08:27 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (AUGUST 2 2019 2ND edition)

COP TASES 65-YEAR-OLD WOMAN IN TRAFFIC STOP GONE WRONG7/31/2019

Imagine if she were a black woman ?That could have been history.Will be shot with a real gun and not tasedTrump is in possession of all those weapons , especially the psychological and the sociological and they are also losing the spiritual and nothing is left of the “scientific “ unfortunately.All that is left is the “head scratching”Can you please elaborate on that? Thanks☝🏾United States-based Sierra Leone, Jabbie, in SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Group 3 forum Black people should fight back!Anyone can be beaten after quality mind work. Anyone!Fighting is best when the weapons are spiritual, psychological, sociological, scientific. . - these are weapons black people must learn to wield... Jabbie: The greatest of empires in the past have been vanquished by other men - ancient Egypt, ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Rome...Between 1940 and 1944 or so, Adolf Hitler built Germany into a fearfully formidable military machine - that would sliced through the militaries of other countries as if they had 8 year old girls in their militaries. Germans were defeated during the Second World War. Most Africans could not imagine what advanced economy the Europeans, largely Afrikaans, had built in South Africa over a four hundred years period by the 1940s when they institutionalized Apartheid - yet they were beaten by Africans who were largely pathetically-poor slum dwellers, led by a determined leadership. The Big Lie of tyrants, dictators, oligarchs... throughout man's 15,000 years of sedentary living is to convince the majority they lord over that they are weak, powerless, poor, illiterate... and it would be futile to try to challenge the status quo. That's where philosophers like Oswald Hanciles come into play. Philosophers have always punctured the balloon of the Big Lies. Philosophers are that 'little boy' in that famous story who exclaimed in public: "Look, the emperor has no clothes on!!". "$2trillion annually for man-made Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation measures in Africa from the richest nations of the world" - Oswald Hanciles. That is a philosophical pronounced grounded in spiritual and historical realities. Psychologically, as long as "WE" keep on repeating that demand Donald Trump and his ilk will cave in to it. It needs the consciousness of one person, two people... who know the power of thoughts and words.. to kindle the spark of divinity in the minds of the majority in a society, country... the world...The Orwellian Big Lie is that the few richest people in the richest nations of the world; that the few weak-minded slavish political and economic leadership in the developing world.. are so powerful, so invincible, so inviolable.. they can continue destroying planet earth with all the avalanche of scientific data exposing their lunacy. No! They are powerless. The "Big Truth" is that all 7 billion humanity is imbued with the divine spark. They may not know this. This divine spark is largely latent. By role is to spark this divine spark: "Hey, you are created in the image of God. Obey God's primary injunction to ALL of life, including the human species: SURVIVE!!" I pause, Oswald Hanciles, The Guru. (Founder/CEO: SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement) August 2, 201909:36 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

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oswald-hanciles-posts · 6 years ago

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THE OSWALD HANCILES COLUMN (August 2 2019 edition)

Why the US bears the most responsibility for climate change, in one chart

A stunning animation of cumulative greenhouse gas emissions.

By Umair Irfan on April 24, 2019 6:00 am

Humans are pumping more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere at an accelerating rate. But climate change is a cumulative problem, a function of the total amount of greenhouse gases that have accumulated in the sky. Some of the heat-trapping gases in the air right now date back to the Industrial Revolution. And since that time, some countries have pumped out vastly more carbon dioxide than others.

The wonderful folks at Carbon Brief have put together a great visual of how different countries have contributed to climate change since 1750. The animation shows the cumulative carbon dioxide emissions of the top emitters and how they’ve changed over time. Take a look:

What’s abundantly clear is that the United States of America is the all-time biggest, baddest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet.

That’s true, despite recent gains in energy efficiency and cuts in emissions. These relatively small steps now cannot offset more than a century of reckless emissions that have built up in the atmosphere. Much more drastic steps are now needed to slow climate change. And as the top cumulative emitter, the US bears a greater imperative for curbing its carbon dioxide output and a greater moral responsibility for the impacts of global warming.

Yet the United States is now the only country aiming to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. China now emits more than the US, and India’s emissions are rapidly rising. But these countries have a much smaller share of cumulative global emissions. Their populations are also much bigger than the US and other wealthier countries, so the amount that India and China emit per person is vastly smaller than the United States or the United Kingdom.

Here are some takeaways from this animation:

1) Cumulative emissions are the critical factor behind the warming we’re experiencing

It’s not simply the rate of our output of heat-trapping gases that changes the global climate; the total amount of carbon dioxide emitted is a critical factor as well.

While atmospheric carbon is gradually absorbed by the ocean and plants, a large fraction, about 20 percent, lingers for millennia. That means a big chunk of the greenhouse gases emitted at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution is still heating up our planet today. If we were to magically cease emitting all greenhouse gases at once, the planet would likely continue warming for a period of time. This leads to the next point.

2) The United States has an outsized role in global warming, despite recent progress

When it comes to total greenhouse gas emissions, the United States does a behind-the-back, through-the-legs, backboard-breaking dunk over China and the Soviet Union.

In other words, the largest share of global greenhouse gases emitted since the Industrial Revolution comes from the US. And with great emissions comes great responsibility to mitigate climate change.

And yes, the United States has already made some of the largest cuts to its greenhouse gas emissions of any country in the world. Between 2005 and 2015, US emissions fell 11.5 percent, largely due to switching to less carbon-intensive fuels like natural gas. However, US energy consumption hit a record high last year, and emissions are on the rise again after years of decline.

3) Carbon intensity matters more than population for cumulative emissions

The graph also shows us that the worst greenhouse gas emitters of all time aren’t the most populous countries. Instead, most of the chart toppers are the largest economic powers. You can see the United Kingdom drop down the rankings as its empire disintegrated over the years, losing an economic grip on the world, for example.

That should teach us something about the most populated countries in the world today: India and China.

China and India do contribute a large and growing share of global emissions — which absolutely needs to be slowed down

🇺🇸☝🏾"What's abundantly clear is that the United States of America is the all-time biggest, baddest greenhouse gas emitter on the planet...": according to that authoritative report there.

The United States is one of the countries in the West where millions of African slaves worked in to build the greatest wealth for humanity over a three hundred years period.

Man-made Climate Change today is a continuum of the Atlantic Slave Trade thought - the thought by most of the white races that 'other races', especially the Negroid race.... that other species... exist only to be preyed on, to be used and abused or murdered...: It's this thought that must be reversed for mankind to step on his brakes of careening towards the abyss of man-made Climate Change Armageddon.

There is no neutrality for all man. Every man must take sides with the greens; be fortified with human love - a GREENLOVE.

I pause,

Oswald Hanciles, The Guru.

(Founder/CEO of SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP Movement)

August 2, 2019

01:14 hours in Freetown, Sierra Leone

☝🏾Culled from SLAVE SHIP-FREEDOM SHIP-Science/Technology /Philosophy forum

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