CHARLES

Phil 4:13. Believer. Hustler.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

A diver's air hose snapped about 300 feet under the North Sea. By his own math, the backup tank on his back had five or six minutes in it. His crew got to him more than 30 minutes later, he came back with no brain damage, and doctors still aren't totally sure how.

And he couldn't just swim up, because racing to the surface would have killed him too.

Chris Lemons was a saturation diver. That deep, the water squeezes you with about 10 times the pressure at the surface. Stay down there long enough and helium from your breathing gas soaks into every tissue in your body until it can't hold any more. Come up too fast and that gas fizzes out of your blood like a shaken soda. Even after the rescue, he needed about 78 hours in a decompression chamber before his body could handle normal air again.

So he was 300 feet from the surface and more than three days away from being allowed to reach it.

On a normal job, these divers live inside a pressurized steel chamber on the ship, about the size of a Volkswagen bus, for up to 28 days straight. A smaller pressurized bell lowers them to the seabed for each shift and brings them back without ever letting the pressure off. Once your body's fully soaked with gas, staying three weeks doesn't cost any more decompression time than staying three hours, and that's the whole reason the job is set up this way.

They breathe helium and oxygen, because nitrogen gets you drunk at that depth. Helium also turns everybody's voice into a cartoon, so the crew up top runs the audio through a descrambler just to understand them. And it pulls heat out of your body about six times faster than air, so the chamber stays at 86 to 93 degrees, and hot water gets pumped down to the diver's suit through the same hose that carries his gas. When Lemons's hose snapped, he lost his air, his heat, his light and his voice line to the surface all at once.

If the ship catches fire or starts to sink, these guys can't hop in a regular lifeboat, because stepping out of the chamber would kill them. Dive ships carry hyperbaric lifeboats instead, sealed pressure tanks with an engine that can carry the divers away still compressed.

The post says he wouldn't do this job for $50,000 a month. Sat divers usually make somewhere between $1,000 and $2,500 a day, so a full 28-day run at the top of the trade pays right around that number. Most commercial divers never get close, and the median for the whole profession in the US is about $73,000 a year.

Lemons went back to diving.

[Ike @ValerieUTD]

If you did not love Nigeria and have a genuine reason to do a coup, you do not do a coup in a country where 60 percent of the military officers are from your own region, only to hand power over to the same region.

Silently, we were already the owners of Nigeria. We had the richest man in Africa. Our brothers were doing business and thriving in every other region. With Nnamdi Azikiwe as President, there was no possibility of a coup for an Igbo agenda. What would we be plotting to take that we did not already have?

Without the war, no other region in Nigeria could compete with the Eastern region in anything that demands competency and accountability.

The coup was not about tribal domination. It was about trying to save Nigeria.

Look at Nigeria today. Most of those condemning Nigeria are from these other regions, and they have succeeded in promoting the worst Igbo politicians to the highest armchair of power and have succeeded in making it worse.

Unless the other regions start thinking Nigeria first, like Kaduna Nzeogwu and his colleagues did, nothing good will ever come out of this country.

[Ike @ValerieUTD]

In 1966, out of all officers in the Nigerian Army, over 60% were from the East. Not because they were favored. Because they qualified. They could read the map. They could speak the English. They could pass the maths.

Then came the conspiracy. And it broke their heart.

The Coup was tagged an Igbo Coup. Then the counter-coup of July 1966, where Aguiyi-Ironsi was murdered, and over 200 Eastern officers and men were systematically hunted and killed in the barracks. Not in battle. In their beds. In their offices. Their brothers in arms killed them.

The pogrom and the war. 3 million dead. The boys who survived the war were told: you can never rise again. Dismissed. Retired. Their properties seized as "abandoned property". Their rank taken. Their right to join the army turned into suspicion.

After the war, Nigeria changed the rule. Merit was killed. Quota was born. Federal Character was introduced. So the son of the man who built the army was now told to bring a letter from a chief to join the same army. The people who built the army on brains were now told to join on numbers.

The uniform changed in their eyes. From 1970 till today, every time there is unrest in the South-East, the army is sent. Orlu. Aba. Afia. The same uniform their fathers wore with pride now comes to their village in an armored tank.

That is why Abia can only produce 100 boys today.

[Ike @ValerieUTD]

Lol the last time Nigeria was actually defeating Boko Haram was when an Igbo man was Chief of Army Staff. Lt Gen Azubuike Ihejirika, 2010 to 2014. He created the 7th Division, armed the soldiers and took territory back. For once Boko Haram was losing.

Then the conspiracy started from the North.

Northern politicians, notably Muhammadu Buhari in his 2013 BBC Hausa interview, said the Federal Government was killing Northern youth and that Boko Haram fighters should get amnesty like Niger Delta militants. At the same time a whisper campaign spread. That this Igbo General was not fighting terror but using the war as a pretext to avenge the Civil War. An Igbo man who went to save Borno was accused of going to punish the North.

To finish him an Australian negotiator Stephen Davis claimed Ihejirika himself was sponsoring Boko Haram. It made no sense. How can the hunter be accused of feeding the beast. Ihejirika denied it and went to court but the damage was done.

In January 2014 he was removed. What happened after. The army collapsed. Boko Haram took 14 local governments, declared a caliphate in Gwoza, took Bama and Chibok. The man who was winning was removed because his victory did not serve politics.

You politicized the army, turned promotion to patronage and justice to tribe. Now you call on Igbo youths who value their lives to bring those lives to your altar of bloodlust. To die for an army that sits on a mat with terrorists in the North and parades Igbo boys half naked on the road in the South East.

An Igbo man is not built for hypocrisy. Our culture celebrates only integrity and accountability.

This is why they stay away.

[akwa_okuku_tiwaraki @akwa_okuku_tiwa]

Oba youths commanders paid
Ambassador Dr Akwa Tiwara Aki na oba a visit today in his mansion in oba
October 15th

[Nke omere jụọ oyị na Mbaise @Owenchief_]

Ndi igbo ndi oso afia😂🤣

[MRR ADDY  @vibewithmraddy]

Obasanjo na president that year😭😩

[Gilmore🇳🇬 🇬🇧 @Gilmoorre]

They never do anything right 🤦🏿‍♂️😂😂😂😂😂😂

[Enrichedclothings &Fashion accessories @EnrichedCouture]

This guy no dey ever let brotherhood down 😂

[Somto Okonkwo @General_Somto]

“This Is What Nigerians Call Luxury? 👀 No Privacy At All! The Craftsmanship Is Extremely Poor, And The Finishing Is Beyond Terrible. 😩” ~ An American Real Estate Expert Inspects a $1.2 Million Luxury Home In Lagos, And His Brutally Honest Assessment Is Something Many Lagos Property Developers May Not Want To Hear!

[Fr John Corrigan @illativefaith]

POPE LEO HAS PASSED the night peacefully.

THE HOLY FATHER BREATHED HIS LAST dose of aerosolised saline via the nebuliser and is now resting comfortably.

HIS HOLINESS IS NO LONGER WITH US in intensive care, having been transferred to the medical unit.

🇮🇹 ➡️ 🔀 ➡️ 🔄➡️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[CHARLES @CharloMarlo1]

@waggydey4you body odour wey go dey circulate here…

[🦉 🧘🏽‍♂️spiRituaL🧘🏽‍♂️ @spiRiituaL]

We have NBM.
We have The Buccaneers.
We have the Norsemen/SVC.
We have the SEC.
We have the Maph, KK, 22, etc.

The motto of -

NBM: Social Justice and Equality (Fight against oppression).

SVC: Service to Humanity.

SEC: Correction from wrong to right (NF/NF).

MAPH: Justice and Protection.

Etc.......

These associations have ground men who are ready to open the gate of hell at any time of day.

If you visit NAIJA CONFRA’S PAGE, you will see that they open that gate of hell every day...

But not to our evil politicians and their children.

Not to terrorists and bandits.

They open it for each other and to each other.

Now, go back and read the mottos again.

History has shown that organised brotherhoods do not have to exist only for themselves.

In Italy, the Carbonari fraternity challenged absolute rule and pushed for constitutional government.

In Germany, the Burschenschaften, which were actual student fraternities, became associated with demands for liberty, national reform and constitutional government, to the point that the political establishment tried to suppress them.

There have been fraternities and brotherhoods whose members looked beyond internal rivalry and directed their organisation towards confronting the political conditions affecting ordinary people.

So what exactly prevents the Nigerian versions from using their networks, numbers, influence, and discipline for building each other rather than fighting one another?

With the sophisticated network these associations have, if they focus even 5% of their energy, organisation and ruggedness on helping the country regain sanity and putting serious civic pressure on the corridors of political power, they would actually be practising what their mottos preach.

But instead, some of them have become tools in the hands of the same political class they should be questioning.

Some of the politicians, governors, ministers and senators we complain about are themselves not strangers to these systems. Some are old metals, old ships, old birds in the game.

Social Justice and Equality.
Yet injustice surrounds us.

Service to Humanity.
Yet Nigerians are being killed and tormented by their politicians.

Correction from Wrong to Right.
Yet the wrong people continue to rule without serious resistance from these supposedly powerful networks.

Justice and Protection.
Yet ordinary people keep asking: justice for who, and protection from what?

You all need to go back to the drawing board if you have any... Because if your brotherhood claims to stand for justice, humanity, equality, and correction of wrong, then the biggest test of that creed should not be another confraternity.

It should be the condition of the society you live in.

I remember one confraternity clash I witnessed back then in DELSU.

It started over something almost ridiculous.

Mr A looked at Mr B in a way Mr B didn’t like. Mr B confronted him and told him that if he wasn’t careful, he would “die like a chicken.”

That one statement became the spark.

Before long, it turned into a full-blown bloody clash that spread from DELSU down to Asaba.

I was at Naira & Kobo that night, having pepper soup with my lodge mates, and Mr B was also at Naira & Kobo.

Mr A arrived with his squad.

And just like that, the gate of hell opened.

You know why I referenced that experience? Because it showed me that men who can mobilise that quickly, & organise that fiercely with that level of intensity clearly have enormous collective power.

The tragedy is where that power is often directed.

Imagine if a fraction of that same coordination, courage and brotherhood were redirected toward resisting injustice and demanding accountability from leaders.

That is the contradiction I am talking about.

Your motto says justice.
Your motto says humanity.
Your motto says correction.
Your motto says protection.

So why is so much of the fire reserved for one another?

100% of NIGERIA’s problem? It is a people problem. OUR IDEOLOGY.

[Snow🥷 @itsyomany]

@paisylynn Sometimes it’s not the condom itself, but the sudden shift from intimacy to anxiety. The mind can interrupt what the body was ready for.

[LAZYBOI @wondakhid]

Had to compile pure sabinus core moments Part 1 🤣
@Sabinus1_

[Yoruba Demon💙👑 @JUXT_DEMON]

Tuff king & Big Jiggy Vibing to Waka Waka🔥😤

[CHARLES @CharloMarlo1]

@bigdupejay the policewoman 😏

[muze @my__muze]

'the worst she can do is to say no'

[The English Ledger @EnglishLedger]

@betsage24 “The eyes chico, they never lie”

[CHARLES @CharloMarlo1]

İlkay Gündoğan

[AyanfeSTAR @elijah_ayanfe1]

Pronounce it slowly and guess the football player

Level: IMPOSSIBLE