WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Swiss right-wing leader calls Ukraine summit an 'embarrassment'

A leading Swiss right-wing nationalist panned a summit his country was hosting in a bid to pressure Russia to end its war on Ukraine as an "embarrassment", reflecting the view that the talks are damaging for Switzerland's traditional neutrality.

The right-wing Swiss Peoples' Party (SVP), the biggest group in the lower house of parliament, says neutrality is an integral part of Switzerland's prosperity, and it has initiated a referendum to embed the principle in the constitution.

Leading figures in the party have argued Switzerland should not have hosted this weekend's summit without Russia, and Nils Fiechter, chief of the SVP's youth wing, delivered a damning verdict on the talks to Russian broadcaster RT.

"The conference will achieve nothing," Fiechter told RT on the eve of the talks, in comments picked up by Swiss media on Sunday. "The whole thing is an absolute farce and an embarrassment for our country."

The summit being held at the Buergenstock luxury resort has sparked heated debate over whether Switzerland should abandon its neutrality, a position deeply rooted in the Swiss psyche.

Western powers and other nations at the conference were on Sunday seeking consensus on condemning Russia's invasion and underscoring the war's human cost.

Fiechter said the Swiss government had "blindly" bowed to international pressure by not inviting Russia.

"Switzerland is ... allowing Ukraine to dictate who may or may not be invited to this conference and it is allowing it to turn into a Zelenskiy show," he told RT.

"Now we are in danger, and it's a great danger, of Switzerland allowing itself to be drawn into a world war."

Switzerland agreed to host the conference at the behest of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Bern says Russia must be involved in the process but justified not inviting it on the grounds that Moscow had repeatedly said it had no interest in taking part.

The Kremlin has described Switzerland as "openly hostile" and unfit to mediate in peace-building efforts, in particular because of its adoption of EU sanctions against Moscow.

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, two of Europe's other historically neutral states, Sweden and Finland, have both joined NATO.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

No more ‘endless’ payments to Zelensky – Trump

Former US President Donald Trump has said that he would stop handing over tens of billions of dollars to Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky, promising to have the situation in Ukraine “settled” if he is re-elected this year.

“I think Zelensky is maybe the greatest salesman of any politician that’s ever lived,”Trump told supporters at ‘The People’s Convention’, a conservative conference held by Turning Point Action in Michigan on Saturday.

“Every time he comes to our country, he walks away with $60 billion,” Trump said of the Ukrainian leader. “So now here’s the beauty. He just left four days ago with $60 billion, and he gets home and he announces that he needs another $60 billion or else it never ends, it never ends.”

The US and other G7 nations on Thursday announced a $50 billion loan for Ukraine, which would be backed by revenue generated by roughly $300 billion in frozen Russian assets. While Zelensky did not ask for “another $60 billion” after leaving the G7 gathering in Italy, he has repeatedly chided his Western backers for not handing over sufficient quantities of cash and weapons, and intensely lobbied Republican lawmakers in Washington to approve a $61 billion military aid package in April.

“I will have that settled prior to taking the White House,” Trump told the crowd in Michigan. “As president-elect, I will have that settled.”Trump then reiterated, as he has on numerous occasions since 2022, that the Ukraine conflict “never would have happened” had he been president.

Trump has repeatedly argued that US President Joe Biden’s policy of open-ended military support for Ukraine is leading the US toward a “third world war,” and has promised that he would end the conflict “in 24 hours” if he defeats Biden in this November’s presidential election.

Trump has never fully elaborated on how he would do this, save for forcing Zelensky to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, but recent reports by Bloomberg and the Washington Post suggest that he would leverage the US’ massive military assistance to Kiev to pressure Zelensky into accepting the loss of some of Ukraine’s pre-conflict territory.

However, Trump did not lobby his Congressional allies to block the $61 billion aid package in April, and said at the time that he would support lending, rather than gifting, money to Zelensky in future.

Reuters/RT

Less than a decade ago, the detention centre of the International Criminal Court, ICC, in Scheveningen on the outskirts of The Hague could easily have been mistaken for a committee meeting of leaders of the African Union. One of its long-term guests was Laurent Gbagbo, a former president of Côte d’Ivoire. From neighbouring Liberia, Gbagbo’s contemporary, Charles Taylor, kept up a punishing schedule on the tennis courts of the facility. With them there also was former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, Jean-Pierre Bemba. 

At about the same time, Kenya’s President, Uhuru Kenyatta; and his Deputy and future successor, William Ruto, were suspects on trial before the ICC. For over five years before that, since 2009, the Court had an arrest warrant still outstanding for Sudan’s President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir. 

Even as the ICC advanced towards an arrest warrant for Sudan’s then dictator, the African Union, AU, complained somewhat vainly that “abuse and misuse of indictments against African leaders have a destabilizing effect that will negatively impact on the political, social and economic development of States and their ability to conduct international relations.” 

The month before the ICC authorized the arrest warrant against Omar Al-Bashir, in February 2009, the summit of the African Union’s Heads of State and Government requested the Commission of the African Union “in consultation with the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to examine the implications of the Court being empowered to try international crimes such as genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, and report thereon to the Assembly in 2010.” In the wake of the onset of the crisis in Libya, the African Union decided that the ICC’s focus on the African continent was “discriminatory.” In Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, in June 2014, the AU adopted a treaty to confer on the court jurisdiction over international crimes. This treaty is known as “the Malabo Protocol”, after the city where it was adopted. 

It was the assessment of the AU then that the Bashir arrest warrant would “seriously undermine the ongoing efforts aimed at facilitating the early resolution of the conflict in Darfur.” More than five years after Omar Al-Bashir’s ouster and one and a half decades after the ICC’s arrest warrant for him, the current metastasis of atrocities in Darfur provides reason to reassess the African Union’s fears. 

At the time when the AU first voiced its fears and suspicions about the ICC in the first decade of this millennium, they were largely greeted with derision. This attitude was foundational to the existence of the ICC. At the adoption of the statute establishing the court in 1998, then UK Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, infamously sniffed that “this is not a court set up to bring to book Prime Ministers of the United Kingdom or Presidents of the United States.” 

This colonial superciliousness did not preclude African countries from recognizing the opportunities in the ICC. The continent was the single largest source of resilient support to the project and process that culminated in the creation of the Court. With 33 of the 124 member states of the ICC, Africa provides over 26.6% of the signatories to the Statute establishing the Court, the largest single bloc of any continent. In January 2004, when few trusted the Court to exercise its functions with skill or responsibility, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni voluntarily referred the situation in the country to the court, yielding up the first case received by it. By the end of the first decade of its operations, the prosecutorial docket of the ICC read like a political geography of Africa: Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, DRC, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Sudan, Uganda. 

A senior lawyer practising at the ICC accused it of being “a vehicle for its primarily European funders, of which the UK is one of the largest, to exert their influence and, particularly, in Africa.” For a long time, fundamentalists of the ICC dismissed this view as lacking in credibility.

As the current prosecutor of the Court, Karim Khan, prepared to turn his attentions to the atrocities in the ongoing crisis in Gaza earlier this year, however, all the suspicions about the targeting of Africa by the court were confirmed. In a high profile interview with the Cable News Network, CNN, last month, Khan disclosed that an un-named senior Western official seeking to dissuade him from seeking an arrest warrant against Israel’s Prime Minister, had told him that the ICC was “built for Africa and for thugs like Putin.” 

At about the same time, it emerged that the head of Israel’s much feared foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, had “allegedly threatened a chief prosecutor of the international criminal court in a series of secret meetings in which he tried to pressure her into abandoning a war crimes investigation.” According to The Guardian in London, this was part of “an almost decade-long campaign by the country (Israel) to undermine the court (ICC).” In the wake of these disclosures, those who issue gratuitous lectures to Africa about the impunity and accountability have seen nothing and said even less.

The Prosecutor whom they threatened was Fatou Bensouda, Gambia’s current High Commissioner to the United Kingdom whose courage in defending the independence of her office as the second Prosecutor of the ICC made her the subject of punitive sanctions by the United States.

In the Malabo Protocol, the African Union, tired of protesting the pigmented project of the ICC, decided to endow an African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights with jurisdiction over 14 crimes of an international or transboundary nature on the continent. These include aggression; war crimes; crimes against humanity; genocide; trafficking in persons, in hazardous wastes or in drugs; terrorism, corruption; money laundering; mercenarism; piracy; illicit exploitation of natural resources; and unconstitutional changes in government. 

Despite the truly capacious scope contemplated by this treaty, a sustained international campaign frightened most African states into losing their sovereign nerves about the establishment of the court. The current scandal around the skullduggery and double standards in relation to the ICC’s efforts to address Afghanistan and Palestine have finally persuaded African countries to return attention to the project of an African competence on international crimes. 

On 31 May, Angola became the first country to ratify the Malabo Protocol. That leaves 14 more to do so before the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights can be established. That cannot happen too soon. When it does, the new court will have 15 judges who will sit in three sections. The General Affairs section will handle cases on mostly trade, regional integration and continental institutions. The section on Human and Peoples’ Rights will focus on human rights cases. There will also be a section on International Criminal Law which will have a pre-trial, trial and appellate chamber. The new Court will house one prosecutor and also one registrar. 

Fundamentalists of the ICC mock the idea of an international crimes instance for Africa. In truth, in the period of just over two decades of its operations, the record of the ICC has been largely underwhelming. It can do with all the help that it can get. The continental criminal instance proposed by the AU should be seen as a paydown by Africa on precisely that kind of assistance. Ten years after its adoption, there is no longer time to wait; Angola’s leadership in the push to bring the Malabo Protocol into force deserves to be quickly complemented by other African countries.

A Professor of law, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Just the mention of budgeting can conjure up thoughts of scarcity and cutting out fun, enough to have even the most seasoned entrepreneurs shaking in their boots. But it's time to reframe how you think about budgeting for your business.

Your financial numbers represent the reality of your company's performance, regardless of whether you know them or monitor them. Can you confidently answer if you have sufficient funds to expand into a new office space, hire additional staff or launch a new product line? How can you make informed decisions if you don't know your numbers? Without a clear understanding, decision-making becomes guesswork.

And what if you have a lot more money going out than coming in? There's a real danger in not knowing. As you run the daily operations, it's easy to take your eye off the proverbial financial ball. As I experienced firsthand, things like a runaway train can quickly get out of control. Overspending, missed opportunities and potential financial distress can quickly derail even the most promising ventures.

One of the first things I do with my clients is review their finances. By reviewing their financial situation in detail, we can identify problem areas, set realistic goals, and create a budget that aligns with their business priorities.

Budgeting doesn't mean cutting everything out or sacrificing growth. Rather than focusing on limitations, consider it a roadmap to financial freedom, enabling you to align expenses with your business priorities. Yes, sometimes you may need to run lean, but it's not permanent; it's "just for now." View it as a temporary strategic phase that allows you to gain control over your finances and allocate resources intentionally for future opportunities and growth.

It is not just about controlling spending but also figuring out how to increase sales and revenue. How can you make more money? Start by identifying new market opportunities or untapped customer segments. Innovate your product or service offerings to meet market demands. Improve your sales strategies through targeted marketing campaigns and leveraging social media/digital platforms to reach a broader audience. Consider partnerships or collaborations that can open new revenue streams. By focusing on these aspects, you can create a proactive plan that manages expenses and drives growth and profitability.

A crucial aspect of effective budgeting is comparing your budget to your actual spending. Regularly reviewing this comparison helps ensure that your spending aligns with your budget and highlights areas you might need to adjust. For example, if certain expenses are consistently higher than anticipated, you may need to revise your budget or find ways to reduce those costs.

Additionally, income and expenses can fluctuate, so it's important to tweak and adjust your budget monthly. This flexibility allows you to respond to changes in your business environment and ensures that your budget remains a useful tool for financial planning.

I personally experienced how important it is to have a budget. Even with my background as a CPA, I didn't take my own advice, and as I rapidly expanded my restaurants, opening one a year, I became heavily involved in the openings and didn't pay close attention to the financial details. When I finally took a moment to slow down and look, it became apparent that we were spending more money than we were making, despite being busy and having high sales.

By implementing a detailed budget and reviewing it month to month, I was able to identify discrepancies and areas where we were overspending. This regular review allowed me to make necessary adjustments and turn around most of the locations, getting them in line and operating successfully. This experience brought forward the importance of diligent budgeting and financial monitoring.

Practical tips for effective budgeting

1. Set Clear Goals: Define what you want to achieve with your budget. Whether it's saving for expansion, reducing debt, or increasing profits, having clear goals will guide your budgeting decisions.
2. Track Expenses Diligently: Monitor every expense using accounting software or budgeting apps. If you prefer, use a spreadsheet. Whatever the choice, make sure you are tracking.
3. Regularly Review Your Spending:Ensure it aligns with your budget.
4. Adjust as Needed: Budgets are not set in stone. If you notice certain strategies aren't working, don't hesitate to make adjustments.
5. Involve Your Team: Ensure that key team members understand the budget and their role in adhering to it.

Entrepreneur

Nigeria's inflation rate increased to 33.95% in May, driven primarily by surging prices of food and non-alcoholic beverages, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its latest Consumer Price Index (CPI) report released on Saturday. This marks a slight rise from April's inflation rate of 33.69%.

"Comparing month-over-month data, the headline inflation rate in May 2024 increased by 0.26 percentage points from April 2024," stated the NBS. "Year-over-year, the headline inflation rate was 11.54 percentage points higher than the 22.41% recorded in May 2023."

The report further highlighted that on a month-to-month basis, May's headline inflation rate was 2.14%, a slight decrease from April's 2.29%. This indicates that while prices are still rising, the pace of increase slowed compared to the previous month.

Food and non-alcoholic beverages were the top contributors to headline inflation, accounting for 17.59%. Housing, water, electricity, gas, and other fuels followed with 5.68%, while clothing and footwear (2.60%), transport (2.21%), and furnishings, household equipment, and maintenance (1.71%) rounded out the top five contributors.

The NBS reported that urban inflation rose to 36.34% in May, up 12.61 percentage points from 23.74% in May 2023. Month-to-month, urban inflation was 2.35% in May, down 0.32 percentage points from April’s 2.67%.

Rural inflation was reported at 31.82% year-over-year in May, an increase of 10.63 percentage points from the 21.19% recorded in May 2023.

Food inflation specifically soared to 40.66% in May, up from 24.82% in the same month last year—a rise of 15.84 percentage points. The NBS attributed this increase to higher prices of staple foods such as semovita, oatflake, yam flour, garri, beans, Irish potatoes, yam, water yam, palm oil, vegetable oil, stockfish, mudfish, crayfish, beef head, live chicken, pork head, and bush meat.

On a month-to-month basis, food inflation was 2.28% in May, down from 2.50% in April.

Three people travelling on boat have been abducted by gunmen in Lagos.

The trio were reportedly whisked away while travelling by boat around Falomo Bridge from Apapa in Lagos.

While names of the abducted victims have not been ascertained, the Lagos State Police Public Relations Officer, Benjamin Hundeyin, said that the marine unit of the command got a report of three persons being kidnapped on water.

“We also got the report and we have started looking into it. Our marine department got that report.

“It was reported to them that three people were kidnapped. Their boat was found somewhere in Ikorodu and we have started looking into that,” Hundeyin said when contacted by Channels Television.

According to him, the police got the report just like every other person but have already swung into action to ascertain what happened, where it happened and how.

CTV

In the latest thrilling episode of Nigeria’s burgeoning kidnapping drama, we have witnessed yet another remarkable innovation: abductions on water. Yes, indeed, three unsuspecting boat passengers found themselves unwilling participants in this aquatic adventure, whisked away by gunmen near Falomo Bridge, Lagos on Saturday, June 15. The Lagos State Police, always a beacon of swift action and effectiveness, have of course “started looking into it.” Bravo!

One can only admire the creativity of Nigeria's criminal masterminds. With thousands already abducted by land, it was high time our intrepid kidnappers took to the seas. President Bola Tinubu must be proud. After all, when he promised to tackle insecurity, who could have guessed he meant giving kidnappers the confidence to diversify their portfolios?

But why stop at the sea? With over 7,000 abductions in Tinubu’s first year, and the daring recent boat heist, it’s only a matter of time before the skies become the next frontier. Imagine the headlines: "Passengers Abducted Mid-Flight in Nigerian Airspace!" It’s the logical next step, isn't it? Given the current trend, passengers may soon need to choose their airlines based not just on comfort and price, but on the likelihood of being hijacked.

Let’s not forget President Tinubu’s stirring inaugural promises. “Security shall be the top priority of our administration,” he declared with conviction. And yet, the numbers tell a different story. With over 4,500 fatalities and 7,000 kidnappings in his first year alone, perhaps the President is redefining what “security” means. Maybe, just maybe, he’s aiming for a record-breaking performance, ensuring Nigeria tops global abduction statistics.

In all seriousness, the tragic reality behind this lighthearted lamentation is a nation gripped by fear, where safety is a luxury few can afford. The government's response has been tepid at best, with grand promises and little to show for them. The recent marine abduction is not just a bizarre twist; it's a damning indictment of an administration that has failed to protect its citizens, whether on land, sea, or potentially soon, in the air.

So here’s to the brave Nigerian travelers, who might soon need parachutes as part of their standard travel gear. Fly safe, if you dare!

Eight Israeli soldiers killed as fighting continues in Rafah

Eight Israeli soldiers were killed in the southern Gaza Strip on Saturday, the military said, as forces continued to push in and around the southern city of Rafah and strikes hit several areas of Gaza, killing at least 19 Palestinians.

The soldiers, all members of a combat engineering unit, were in an armoured carrier that was hit by an explosion that detonated engineering materials being carried on the vehicle, apparently in contravention of standard practice, the military said. It said the early morning incident, in the Tel al-Sultan area in the west of Rafah, was being investigated.

The armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Hamas said the vehicle had been trapped in a prepared minefield that set off the explosion.

Israeli tanks advanced in Tel al-Sultan and shells landed in the coastal area, where thousands of Palestinians, many of them displaced several times already, have sought refuge.

Despite growing international pressure for a ceasefire, an agreement to halt the fighting still appears distant, more than eight months since the start of the war in October, with the near-daily cross-border exchanges of fire with Hezbollah militia fighters in southern Lebanon intensifying.

In Israeli airstrikes on two houses in Gaza City suburbs, residents said at least 15 people were killed. Four others were killed in separate attacks in the south, medics said.

The Israeli military on Saturday said its forces in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza, close to the border with Egypt, had captured large quantities of weapons, both above ground and concealed in the extensive tunnel network built by Hamas.

It said militants had on Friday fired five rockets from the humanitarian area in central Gaza, two of which fell in open areas in Israel and three fell short in Gaza.

"This is a further example of the cynical exploitation of humanitarian infrastructure and the civilian population as human shields by terror organizations in the Gaza Strip for their terrorist attacks," the military said.

PROTESTS

The deaths of the soldiers may complicate the political situation facing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a week after centrist former general Benny Gantz quit the government, accusing Netanyahu of having no proper strategy for Gaza.

Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv on Saturday in the latest of the now weekly protests by families and supporters of hostages still held by Hamas, demanding an agreement to bring them home.

In a video statement issued late on Saturday, Netanyahu said there was no alternative but to stick to the goals of the war to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages back.

Although surveys show solid support among the Israeli public for continuing the war against Hamas, the protests underscore the divisions in Israeli society that have reopened following a period of unity at the start of the war.

The Islamic Jihad armed wing, Al-Quds Brigades, said on Saturday Israel could only regain its hostages in Gaza if it ended the war and pulled out forces from the enclave.

Islamic Jihad is a smaller ally of Hamas, which led a rampage in southern Israel on Oct. 7 in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies. More than 100 hostages are believed to remain captive in Gaza, although at least 40 have been declared dead in absentia by Israeli authorities.

Since a week-long truce in November, repeated attempts to arrange a ceasefire have failed, with Hamas insisting on a permanent end to the war and full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu refuses to end the war before Hamas is eradicated.

At least 37,296 Palestinians, at least 30 of them in the past 24 hours, have been killed in Israel's military campaign to eliminate Hamas, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

US VP Harris announces $1.5 billion in Ukraine aid at Switzerland peace summit

U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris pledged America's unwavering support for Ukraine and announced more than $1.5 billion in aid for the country's energy sector and its humanitarian situation as a result of Russia's 27-month invasion.

Harris made the announcement at the Ukraine peace summit in Lucerne, Switzerland, where she met with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. She is expected to address the summit's plenary session at 5.30 pm CEST/11.30 am EST.

"This war remains an utter failure for (Russian President Vladimir) Putin," Harris said during a bilateral meeting with Zelenskiy. "It is in our interest to uphold international norms," she added, pledging U.S. support for the country.

The $1.5 billion includes $500 million in new funding for energy assistance and the redirecting of $324 million in previously announced funds toward emergency energy infrastructure repair and other needs in Ukraine, the vice president's office said.

"These efforts will help Ukraine respond to Russia's latest attacks on Ukraine energy infrastructure by supporting repair and recovery, improving Ukraine's resilience to energy supply disruptions, and laying the groundwork to repair and expand Ukraine’s energy system," Harris' office said.

She also announced more than $379 million in humanitarian assistance from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to help refugees and other people impacted by the war.

The money is to cover food assistance, health services, shelter, and water, sanitation and hygiene services for millions of Ukrainians.

Harris, who will spend less than 24 hours at the gathering will be standing in for President Joe Biden at the event. The president will be just ending his participation at the G7 summit in Italy and returning to the United States to attend a fundraiser for his reelection campaign in Los Angeles.

Biden met with Zelenskiy both at the G7 summit, where they signed a U.S.-Ukraine bilateral security agreement, and in France for events surrounding the 80th anniversary of the World War Two D-Day invasion.

White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan will represent the United States at the summit on Sunday and help establish working groups on returning Ukrainian children from Russia and on energy security.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Zelensky conference not about peace – Kremlin

Russia has ‘nothing to say’ to the participants of the ongoing Swiss-hosted Ukraine ‘peace conference’, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Saturday.

The Kiev-sponsored event is taking place at the Burgenstock Resort in Switzerland, and is reported to involve over 160 delegations, including those from the G7, G20, and BRICS countries. Despite being a party to the conflict, Russia has not been invited to the event, prompting Peskov to state that Moscow has no message for the participants.

“We have nothing to tell them, we want to get together next time at a more substantive and promising event,” Peskov said, reiterating earlier statements that the talks cannot yield a peaceful solution to the conflict without Russia.

“The issue of peace in Ukraine is not being discussed in Switzerland. Humanitarian and quasi-humanitarian issues are being discussed...” he stated, noting that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s most recent proposal for a truce has been openly shunned by the participants of the summit.

Speaking at a Foreign Ministry meeting on Friday, Putin signaled that Russia would order a ceasefire and start negotiations if Kiev fulfilled several conditions: ceding all five former Ukrainian regions that voted in referendums to join Russia, including Crimea; removing troops currently present in these regions; giving up its bid to join NATO; pledging not to seek to acquire nuclear weapons, as well as “demilitarization,” “denazification,” and respect for the rights of the Russian-speaking population.

To achieve a lasting peace, all of these points should be recognized at international level and be followed by the removal of Western sanctions on Russia, the president said.

Putin’s offer was immediately rejected by Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky, who called it an “ultimatum.” Western officials were also quick to criticize the proposal. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said the conditions are a ploy to distract the public from the Swiss talks, while US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin claimed that Putin is “not in any position to dictate” the terms of a peace deal.

Commenting on the Western reactions to Putin’s offer, Peskov dismissed them as “not constructive.”

Russia has stated that it would not take part in the Swiss conference even if invited. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in March that the event would likely only focus on Ukraine’s positions and promote Zelensky’s so-called ‘peace formula’, which goes against Russian interests.

The number of countries and organizations taking part in the summit has been steadily dropping in recent days, with many invitees opting out due to the absence of a Russian delegation. The final list of attendees includes representatives from 92 countries, nearly half of the originally expected number, and eight international bodies.

Reuters/RT

President Bola Tinubu’s Democracy Day broadcast of June 12, 2024 did Ibadan incalculable dishonour. The speech celebrated heroes of Nigeria’s 25 years of civil rule with very scant mention of Ibadan’s fight against the tyranny of military rule. Was it institutional slight on the city of Ogunmola, the great warrior? The angry spirits of Ibadan dead must be seeking vengeance. Why does Aso Rock suffer austerity of official remembrancers?

Nelson Mandela did not allow the comforting breeze of freedom to numb his sense of remembrance. Walking out of the Victor Verster Prison after 27 years in jail, his first post-prison address at the Cape Town City Hall on February 11, 1990 showed that Mandela never forgot Cape Town, the city where the battle against the tyranny of Apartheid was fought and won. “I send special greetings to the people of Cape Town, this city which has been my home for three decades. Your mass marches and other forms of struggle have served as a constant source of strength to all political prisoners,” he said. 

In that speech, Mandela recognized the contours of personal and city/town heroism. To him, when you add these to the pathos of elite heroism, it forms an ensemble of struggles of men and women who constitute the corpus of unforgettable people of yesterday. In recognizing that an average person possesses the innate power to act heroically, Mandela cleft his hand firm together, lifted it up as symbolism of anti-Apartheid struggle, and shouted “Amandla! Amandla! I-Africa Mayibuye!” translated to mean, “Power! Power! Africa, it is ours!” He then began an acknowledgment of “Friends, Comrades and fellow South Africans” who “I stand before… not as a prophet, but a humble servant of you, the people.” He then reeled into the names of “millions of my compatriots and those in every corner of the globe who campaigned tirelessly for my release.” While acknowledging the big fishes of the liberation struggle, Mandela remembered Joe Slovo, a South African Marxist-Leninist Luthanian emigree who died of cancer in 1995. Slovo passed on a few months after the expiration of the white rule he spent a significant portion of his adult life fighting. Mandela also memorialized ordinary men, “great communists like Moses Kotane, Yusuf Dadoo, Bram Fischer and Moses Mabhida” who he said “will be cherished for generations to come.” 

Were inputs of remembrancers sought and got in the drafting of that Tinubu’s 25th Democracy Celebration speech, the submission of two American social psychologists, Zeno Franco and Philip Zimbardo, could have struck the drafters. In their The Banality of Heroism, these two authors concluded that heroism isn’t strictly the preserve of the elite who perform extraordinary actions. They said that heroism can be found in everyday actions of ordinary individuals faced with challenging situations or moral dilemmas. So, when Tinubu reeled into the extraordinary actions of his elite colleagues in the trenches fighting military rule, he forgot a long list of towns and ordinary Nigerians who suffered and died so that he could be in Aso Rock.

Though Abacha was part of Ibadan city, having been GOC of the Second Mechanized Division, Ibadan rose against him. In his infernal autocratic anger, Abacha responded by mowing down Ibadan, leaving weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth in its trails.

The eyes of the world had riveted towards Ibadan immediately Abacha began to make subterranean plots to transmute into a civilian dictator. To underscore his anger at Ibadan turning itself into the political capital of dissent against the military, Abacha reportedly got his goons to kill Ibadan sons and daughters who were against him. One of them was a retired nurse, Suliat Adedeji. Adedeji’s cruel and inhuman mode of assassination reflected the anger of the mastermind of her killing. He established five political parties, superintended over by his politician lackeys, as springboard to achieving this aim, then attempted to get them adopt him as presidential candidate. The five parties received the flagellating tongue of Bola Ige right from his Ibadan home, where he penned his Uncle Bola’s Column in the Sunday Tribune. In a cryptic analogy, Ige likened Abacha’s five political parties to five fingers of a leprous hand, a description that riled the dictator.

Being the traditional capital of the Western region, it was obvious that any resistance elegy chanted in Ibadan approximated a dirge from the Yoruba people. While Lagos was a mirror of inchoate voices, resistance in Ibadan, where Obafemi Awolowo incubated those developmental projects, was a signifier of dissent of the sons and daughters of Oduduwa. With resistance to military rule effectively curtailed in Lagos, Abacha looked Oluyole-wards. He then planned a Two Million Man rally slated for a sprawling 130,000 sq km multipurpose centre, hitherto named Race Course, now the Lekan Salami Stadium, Adamasingba. On that day, I saw a young man lying in the pool of his blood. He was dead to all the cares of this world. Blood oozed out of him like a broken cistern. Nobody knew his identity. He was one of the about three persons who had just been martyred for democracy to rebirth in Nigeria. They were felled by the irreverent rifles of Abacha’s death squad of policemen and soldiers. The rally was one of those scheduled to etch Abacha’s name in the pantheon of life rulers in the hue of Hastings Kamuzu Banda. A success of the rally would have spelt Yoruba’s approval stamp on Abacha’s transmutation bid.

It must however be known that as resilient and valiant as Ibadan was, it had its own stones (kànda) in the rice in Lamidi Adedibu and AbdulAzeez Arisekola-Alao. While the latter was a major contractor for the military, the former was his anvil, the Man Friday. So, Abacha got the above leading sons of Ibadanland, renowned for being lickspittles of the infernal dictator, to handle the rally. They then got an Islamic musical group called Alasalatu to sing to pep up the event. Renowned Ibadan masquerade, Jalaruru was also recruited for a traditional icing on the cake of the infamy.

The Lekan Salami Stadium quaked on Tuesday April 14, 1998. The pro-democracy movement, coordinated by Ola Oni, elder brother of another military apologist, Niyi Oniororo, firmed out plans to scuttle Arisekola-Alao and Adedibu’s Abacha rally. A coalition of groups arrived at strategies to ward off an impending sacrilege of planting autocracy on Ibadan soil.

On D-Day, I was there to report for my medium, Omega Weekly. I had, a few months earlier, resigned from the Tribune to join forces with Segun Olatunji, Wale Adebanwi, Adeolu Akande and Bode Opeseitan who had also left the Tribune. Journalists like Dapo Ogunwusi, Tinu Ayanniyi, Lasisi Olagunju of the Tribune were also there. It was a day of war. We could not enter the stadium as it was filled to the brim. The pro-democracy group protesters soon took over the outward of the stadium. They were estimated to be above 5,000 people and were singing acidic songs which demanded that Abacha should relinquish power. They also sang demanding that Generals Oladipo Diya, Olanrewaju, Abdulkareem Adisa and three other south-western region soldiers who had been sentenced to death a month earlier for plotting a coup called phantom, should have their sentences commuted. What still astounds me is that, immediately after his release from prison upon Abacha’s death, and current editor of the Tribune, Debo Abdulai and I interviewed him in his Oja-Iya Road office in Ilorin, Adisa told us, “I don’t know what Boda Diya was saying o. We planned coup o. May the spirit of Gen Abasa (sic) forgive me.”

On the rostrum, Arisekola-Alao and Adedibu were elated that Abacha must be popping champagne on the impending success of their Satanic endeavour. However, outside the stadium, expletives were being shelled on the maximum ruler.  People trekked from all the four corners of the metropolis to identify with Ibadan’s anger against Abacha. Abacha’s Military Administrator, the very loquacious Colonel Ahmed Usman, was also in high spirit, literal or metaphoric. As he addressed the rally, sure his cringing voice would be amplified to Aso Rock, Usman decked his principal in superlatives. All of a sudden, stones and other dangerous objects began to fly into the stadium. This got the people within scampering in a death race out of the stadium. Then, the huge crowd stormed the mainbowl of the stadium in maximum anger. A stampede ensued. Jalaruru the masquerade, the Alasalatu crew and other hired crew fled. They all abandoned the instruments of their panegyric craft. Members of the Alasalatu group were so thoroughly beaten by the pro-democracy group militants that their songs changed immediately to that of ululation. They sang: “Sèb’Álásàlátù la bá dé bí, a d’óríi fíìdì ló bá d’Àbáchà, sèb’Álásàlátù la bá dé bí  – We came here as prayer group, only to become hirelings of Abacha.

As Adedibu fled out of the stadium, he ran into the furious anti-Abacha campaigners and was reportedly hidden inside the OB Van of a private television station at the event. The van got damaged in the process of saving Adedibu from being killed. The victory of the anti-Abacha elements was short-lived as 82 Div sent a detachment to the stadium. Thugs were also unleashed on the activists with soldiers firing into the crowd. Many died and some sustained injuries.

On May I, 1998, mayhem was again unleashed on Ibadan. Military and police killed protesters at random. The protesters had pounced on the property of Arisekola-Alao and set them alight. The Monitor Newspapers, which had Arisekola-Alao as publisher, was set on fire. Eleven exotic cars were burnt in the process, as well as premises of his newspaper. Adedibu’s three houses were also incinerated in the process. Arisekola’s multi-million flour mill however escaped being razed. The Abacha forces, in riposte, shelled the protesters with live bullets, leading to the death of at least ten protesters, with many others suffering varying degrees of injuries.

Words soon got to Arisekola-Alao that some of those who escaped from the burning of Monitor ran into the opposite building which housed a hospital called Lifecare. It was owned by then South-Africa-based elder brother of one of the pro-democracy activists, Niyi Owolade. Gunmen were immediately ordered to storm the hospital. They ransacked the hospital, shooting sporadically at the infirm who were killed in cold blood in their scores. In other areas in Ibadan, some journalists got shot. Current News Editor of the Tribune, Akin Durodola, escaped death by the whiskers on his way to the office. A gunshot grazed his skin and missed his spine by a hair's breadth.

Three days after, masterminds of the pro-democracy activism were rounded up. Forty people, which include leaders of the group like Ola Oni, Bola Ige, Moshood Erubami, Niyi Owolade, Lam Adesina, and others, were slammed into Agodi Prison. The list also included Femi Adeoti, Editor of the Sunday Tribune, who had to carry the can for Paul Ogundipe whose story on the riot irked Abacha. Ogundipe never recovered. He died a few years after. They were subsequently charged to court. Flippant Usman, who himself was a marked man by the Abacha regime, having been a protégé of General Olanrewaju, one of the arrested officers of the Abacha phantom coup, seeking to cry more than the bereaved, immediately sprung into action and declared the activists “Prisoners of War” who could be summarily tried and imprisoned. The trial of the POW however could not hold as Abacha died on June 8, 1998 and the country breathed an air of freedom.

On November 17, 1998, while anger against his role in the Abacha debacle still subsisted, Arisekola-Alao was spotted coming into the University of Ibadan gate by irate students. It was the university’s convocation. Nobody claimed responsibility for inviting him to the occasion. He was thoroughly man-handled, leaving him visibly shaken. He had attended the ceremony in a convoy of cars. Six of the cars in his entourage, including a Limousine, were burnt by the irate mob. He was spirited away by security operatives.  

While Tinubu did well in generically affixing heroism on the press, he did incalculable damage to the memories of the dead in the media by not singling them out for mention. He did Ibadan worse injustice. Those media heroes were the ordinary individuals in everyday situations who Franco and Zimbardo spoke glowingly of in their The Banality of Heroism. The Nigerian media paid dearly for being in bed with civil society activists. Men of Tell, The News and 

Tempo deserve to have their names carved out in the pantheon of unsung heroes. Till date, the body of The News’ Bagauda Kaltho is yet to be found. Journalists lost their means of livelihood as The Guardian, Punch and others were shut down peremptorily by the duo of Generals Ibrahim Babangida and Abacha. Alex Ibru, owner and publisher of The Guardian escaped assassination attempt perpetrated by the regime of Abacha on February 2, 1996. State assassins fired at his car, hitting Ibru in the eye, with one of his eyes dangling from its socket. He was partially blind by the time he transited. Former editor of Thisday, Yusuph Olaniyonu, once told me that a week after his wedding, he encountered Abacha’s executioner-in-chief, Colonel Frank Omenka at his Apapa office which traumatized him for years.

Ibadan, a formidable axis of the much-talked about Lagos-Ibadan press, received chunks of the military and Abacha’s scalding anger. As said earlier, Omega became Ibadan’s avenue to express unbridled anger against military autocracy. We were young men with luxuriating idealism. Funded by pro-democracy activists, in Abacha’s dying years, Omega shelled his government. From the first print to the last, Omega 

concentrated on deconstructing the Abacha regime. Indeed, the last cover of the newspaper had the banner headline “Anti-Abacha forces emerge in Aso Rock”. About two weeks later, Diya and others were rounded up in alleged military coup. None of us returned to our Olusanya, Ring Road office after that edition. We moved our computer equipment from one point to the other. One day, we moved them to the inner room of a cloth seller’s shop in Ibadan’s Gbagi market to produce the paper’s edition. At a point, the computers were moved at night to my house in Oke-Ayo area of Odo Ona, Ibadan. There, two great heroes of this press struggle against military autocracy – Mr. Ayo Isikaye and Mr. Tunde Solomon Adesina, (Adshine) our computer operators, unsung heroes – demonstrated their love for fatherland. Whenever I saw my Iwo, Osun state-born landlady, now late, Madam Folashade Ashake, I used to pity her. If only she knew that by harbouring journalist-dissidents in her house, among whom I was one, she was whiskers away from being whisked away as accessory to anti-government publication!

So you can imagine how anyone who went through that Abacha experience would feel at being under any other government that figuratively brings back Abacha’s memories. It will amount to figuratively running from sickness, only to encounter death. It will then mean that, in the bid to escape death, we ran to Okuku, only to be told, upon getting to Okuku, that the king of Okuku had just died; what Yoruba express as, “ a t’oríi ká má baà kú a sá lo s’Ókukù,  a d’Ókukù, wón l’Ólókukù sèsè kú.” 

Great that the Tinubus did the struggle a lot of good by counterpoising the struggle in exile, if we had all run away like them, Abacha would likely still be in the saddle today. Similarly, if the struggle were strictly a Lagos battle as Tinubu seemed to have approximated it in his Democracy Day speech, the war would have been lost and the military would still be here today. It was the moment Ibadan joined the struggle, as it did in 1840, that the war against military rule became won.

Tell the above epistle to those children of perdition who ignorantly accuse the Tribune and Ibadan axis of the Nigerian press of misguided antagonism against today’s presidency. We risked our all to give them what they proudly call their “bragging day” of today. For us, as Thomas Jefferson once said, eternal vigilance remains the price of freedom. We will not relent in fighting autocracy shawled in the cloak of democracy. Let them know that no one can remove the resilience, glory and liberation fervor of Ibadan. I leave them with this evergreen aphorism of musician Ayinla Omowura. He sang that, though strikes of thunder and lightning assail trees in the forest, they only strengthen the Baobab tree, called Igi Osè by the Yoruba. This unique tree does not suffer what ordinary trees suffer. When its bark is even peeled, it does not wither. Ose shocks and shames its attackers by blossoming into awesomeness. Adversity gives it greater energy to live for a thousand years. Singing in Yoruba, Omowura said, “Mélò mélò l’àrá tó ti sán lo… ìpa tí wón ńp’Osè l’óko, ńse l’ó fi ńsanra…” 

Are they listening?

I wish our Muslim sisters and brothers happy Sallah celebrations.

In the spirit of appreciating great media men, I also wish my brother and namesake, Ibadan-born Festus Akanbi a happy 60th birthday today. Akanbi began his journalism career with Onyema Ugochukwu, then editor of Daily Times. Since then, he has been with the Business Times, Punch and became the Sunday Business Editor, as well as Deputy Editor of Thisday in 2015. He worked as Special Adviser to Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun and Assistant Director at the FIRS. He is today Deputy Editor of the Thisday.

Congratulations, brother. 

Erratum: Last week, I mistakenly referred to the June 8 anniversary of Abacha’s death as marking 28 years of his departure. The error is regretted. Abacha died 26 years ago.

I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live ~ Deuteronomy 30:19.

Introduction:

Excellence in life is all about trade secrets. The more you trade with them, the more excellent you become. All who hope, therefore, to enjoy secure access to a lifeline of breakthrough and fulfillment on earth must enthusiastically search out noble Biblical secrets, and especially engage them in their day-to-day living (Deuteronomy 29:29).

God’s kingdom principles constitute the major keys in the music of our lives, even when they appear minor or old and well-worn. A very crucial one among these is the principle of man’s personal choices.

Life is full of choices, and these choices make the man. Your destiny is still very colorful, but you steer it by the choices  you make. Choices are daily options, and options are daily phenomena. To be or not to be is by choice.

The power of choice is one of the divine distinctiveness, which God bequeathed on man at creation (1 Chronicles 21:11). God Himself makes choices, and He gave man the same honor so to do (Deuteronomy 30:15-20; 31:11).

Today, man occupies a peculiar position that sets him apart from all other entities on our planet earth. He enjoys a certain amount of freedom, controls his way of living, speaks his own language, perceives and learns great amount of knowledge, manages his emotions, and deals properly with problems he faces as he chooses.

In fact, within the infinite expanse of the universe, man's conscious conducts can change the course of events. Even then, all these are subject to our choices and the mindsets we allow (Philippians 2:5). Hence, man is often referred to as a free moral agent.

This fact above can simply make you or break you, depending on the choices you make. Right choices make right men, but wrong ones can mar even great destinies. Until you choose right, you cannot act right; unless you act right, you readily lose your rights, and therein lie both the bliss and the dilemma of choices!

A long time ago, I read the story of two brothers who were twins. One grew up to become an extremely successful businessman, but the other was a chronic alcoholic. When the alcoholic was asked why he became a drunk, he replied, ‘My father was a drunk.’ And, when his twin brother was asked why he became successful, surprisingly he also said, ‘My father was a drunk.’ Same background, same upbringing, but different choices.

The brothers chose different thoughts regarding their identical experiences, and those thoughts shaped their divergent outcomes. In the same way, whatever thoughts you choose to allow in your mind can, with time, be fully and precisely reflected through your actions.

Images control feelings, feelings cause actions, and actions create results. Hence, it is commonly said that “you are what you think!”

Opportunities, Choices and Consequences

Choices come when opportunities present themselves. But, your choices, either good or evil, have consequences and they determine your future (Joshua 1:8).

Adam was carefully, fearfully and painstakingly created by God. He was blessed with a dominating influence upon the earth, but he chose to obey his wife rather than God, and he immediately fell out of the grace of God and was driven out of the Garden of Eden. Heavy consequences! But thank God for His program of redemption through Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:13-16).

Even then, the redemption program in Christ is also rested on man’s choices. Hence, God’s Word never fails to remind us that it is our responsibilities to deliberately make judicial separation between the good and bad, and to stick to the right choices (Matthew 13:47-48).

The Incredible Power of Your Choices

Choice is the strongest principle of growth, and the biggest business of life. Life is actually made of our choices. Regardless of circumstances, each man lives in a world of his own making. Decisions, choices and perseverance are the noblest qualities of man.

In every success story, you find someone who made a courageous decision. We make decisions, and then our decisions turn around to make us. Choices define human destiny, and nothing ranks a man so quickly as his skill in selecting things that are really worthwhile (Job 34:4; Isaiah 56:4).

If you would achieve your goals and be a successful, dynamic person, then your very first step must be to make up your mind to firmly choose the right courses in life, or else ceaseless drifts of events may present you with unpalatable results.

You are the one who is responsible for the decisions you make. And, you are free to make wrong decisions if you are ready for the consequences. Whichever road you choose, be sure you know that you may be in it for a very long while.

Happily, making right decisions is simple after all. Get the facts. Deeply reflect on your ways, styles and attitudes that are due for review (Psalms 90:12). Crosscheck your past notes to detect those abandoned visions and vows. Rearrange the cabinets of your mind, and get rid of the trash.

Go to the Lord to receive a right focus. Seek God until you obtain His guidance. He is the Way-Maker! Be calm in His Presence, having a clear vision for His glory all the way through.

Moreover, you must choose your friends responsibly. Certainty, there is a nexus between the quality of life we live, and the type of friends we choose (Proverbs 9:6; 12:26). Don't fool yourself, bad friends will destroy you. And, don't let anyone deceive you about it: associating with bad people will ruin your godly decency, and wicked friends will lead you to evil ends (1Corinthians 15:33). The old idiom says, "birds of a feather flock together."

Set higher goals for a new level of divine relevance. Form judgement, act on it and worry no more. Then, going forward, create room for new things bothering on supernatural expansion.

Now is the best time for you to make needful adjustments, especially in your belief system. The good old song says, “Oh happy day, that fixed my choice, On Thee, my Saviour, and my God!” The most beautiful things in life happen to you when your choices tally with the choices of God. Choose wisely. Choose to win. Choose Jesus Christ above all else in the world. He loves you most of all.

No devil can hinder or oppress you if you are on the right track with God. Joshua said, ‘as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord’ (Joshua 24:15). Nullify every contradiction, and make Jesus Christ your everlasting choice today. Those who stand for Him fall for nothing else. You will never fail again, your glory will burst forth and many generations shall glorify God through you. Amen. Happy Sunday!

____________________

Bishop Taiwo Akinola,

Rhema Christian Church,

Otta, Ogun State, Nigeria.

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