Tweet

More from @RealOlaudah

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

10 Jan

The Amazons of Dahomey.

It is noon on a humid Saturday in the fall of 1861, and a missionary by the name of Francesco Borghero has been summoned to a parade ground in Abomey, the capital of the small West African state of Dahomey.

He is seated on one side of a huge, open square right in the center of the town–Dahomey is renowned as a “Black Sparta,” a fiercely militaristic society bent on conquest, whose soldiers strike fear into their enemies all along what is still known as the Slave Coast.

The maneuvers begin in the face of a looming downpour, but King Glele is eager to show off the finest unit in his army to his European guest.
As Father Borghero fans himself, 3,000 heavily armed soldiers march into the square and begin a mock assault on a series of defenses...

Read 61 tweets

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

8 Jan

Biafra’s forgotten children.

The claim that Gabon’s president Ali Bongo is actually Nigerian has shone a spotlight on a subject not many were aware of, that of the children airlifted out of Biafra, and Nigeria, some never to be reunited with their families. Now they are adults.

In his latest book titled Nouvelle Affaires Africaine (New African Affairs), French writer Pierre Péan claims that Gabonese president, Ali Bongo is not actually from Gabon and that he is of Nigerian heritage. He claims that Ali Bongo was adopted from the secessionist state...

of Biafra during the bloody Nigerian Civil War by Omar Bongo, the now deceased previous Gabonese president and father of Ali Bongo.
Pierre Péan’s charge led Ali Bongo’s opposition to demand a DNA test from the president. Péan also claims that Bongo presented a forged birth...

Read 25 tweets

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

7 Jan

... and I was watching NTA Kaduna interview session with Gen. Hassan Usman Katsina in July,1987. The interviewer asked Gen. Hassan how he compares the Governors of nowadays and his time (1966). This was his reply...

'... I am going to give you an example and you can figure out the answer yourself. When I was the Gov of Northern Nigeria, Dr. Abubakar imam was the General Manager of Kaduna Capital Territory. In that year, we decided to allocate plots for the present GRA in Kaduna. I applied.

KAT conducted the exercise, all the plots were allocated but I was not given. I did not care to find out why. After the exercise, Dr. Abubakar Imam came to my office and he came with my application. He told me that they had finished the exercise.

Read 5 tweets

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

26 Dec 20

In Nigeria, state governors are all powerful. They're invincible. They literally own the entire resources of their state, and spend same as they wish. They hold the power of riches and poverty of their subjects. They approbate and reprobate. Infact they practically do and undo.

If a governor chooses to make you rich, you can become very wealthy. If you're in business, and he chooses to pauperize you, he can do a good job at it. They control their legislature and judiciary, and pass any bill they desire with ease. They're authoritarian in their domains.

These governors control their party structures by elevating puppets to the executive council. They hold a monopoly of the press, security and civil service, completely emasculating opposition in their trail. They're simply untouchable.

Read 5 tweets

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

5 Dec 20

Terrible things happen in Nigeria. We've lost the present and we want to lose the future.
I just left Transcorp Hotel Abuja, after my news analysis at Arise News TV. As I stepped to the lobby of the hotel, I saw a bevy of pretty young girls in their early 20s crowded in a corner.

There were all skimpily dressed as if there were commercial sex workers. The time was 10.30pm.
One of them rushed to greet me. “Good evening sir”. She was one of my students. I recognized her clearly because she had a slight disability and I paid attention to make sure she...

followed the coursework. I was shocked. I recognized three of those hotly dressed pretty young girls as fresh graduates of my department.
What are they all coming to do at this kind of Hotel at this hour and dressed in this manner? Of course, I think I know what it is.

Read 10 tweets

Olaudah Equiano®

@RealOlaudah

4 Dec 20

Now this!!!👇🏾
Some of the world’s greatest people faced the world’s greatest challenges, but they overcame them. Cripple a man, and you have Sir Walter Scott. Lock him in prison, and you have John Bunyan. Raise him in abject poverty, and you have Abraham Lincoln.

Subject him to bitter religious prejudice, and you have Benjamin Disraeli. Strike him down with paralysis, and you have Franklin Roosevelt. Have them born black in the society filled with racial discrimination, and you have Booker T. Washington, Harriet Tubman, Marian Anderson...

and George Washington Carver. Make a man the first child to survive in a poor Italian family of eighteen, and you have Enrico Caruso. Have him born to parents who survived a Nazi concentration camp, paralyze him from the waist down when he’s aged four, and you have the...

Read 7 tweets

Share this page!

Olaudah Equiano®

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

More from @RealOlaudah

Olaudah Equiano®

Olaudah Equiano®

Olaudah Equiano®

Olaudah Equiano®

Olaudah Equiano®

Olaudah Equiano®

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Like this author's thread?