This was exactly how Peter Obi leased heavy tractors out to my local community in Anambra state to supposedly modernize farming and improve our agricultural outputs.
The entire project rapidly turned into an absolute disaster, and this is not a baseless political rumor because I personally worked on the project, I sweated in those fields, and I physically followed the tractors to the farmlands to till the wet rice fields in my village. There were grueling days we even spent 2- full days stranded deep in the bush because the tractor completely broke down. It's either the hydraulic systems failed, or the engine stalled, and we always have to desperately source for replacement parts at the Onitsha market, while simultaneously hunting for the rare skilled mechanics required to get the massive machine to work again. Both of which were technically impossible to handle even in a single day.
The tractors broke down not because they were of low quality or that the engines were weak, but simply because the rural roads are completely terrible, the regional infrastructure is practically nonexistent, and the state abandoned the fundamental engineering required to sustain heavy machinery.
The farmlands are not planned, the topography is completely chaotic, and some of the unpaved roads leading directly to the rice fields are absolute death traps that can violently chain your tractor to the thick mud, paralyze your tires, and you will eventually need another heavy tractor just to come and drag you out.
I personally remember aggressively using a crude cutlass to hack down soft dwarf trees, to manually clear thick bushes out of sight, and to physically clear the blocked path just for our so-called modern tractor to pass through.
The absolute worst thing in all of this is not even the brutal suffering and shege we saw in the bush. It was the horrific reality that after all of these backbreaking efforts, after burning our physical energy to support a state project, nobody paid us one single penny. The state government was owing me about 15,000 naira in 2014, which was exactly the final year of Peter Obi's term as governor. Factoring in our severe inflation, that stolen amount is equivalent to about 90,000 naira today. Back then, there were exhausted tractor drivers that were owed more than 70,000 naira. Mind you, I was not even a driver, I was very young, my daily job was strict monitoring and running endless field errands, and I worked brutally from 6:00 AM to sometimes late into the dark night.
The primary reason for this wicked lack of payments to us poor workers is not because Peter Obi did not legally release the project funds. We actually wrote a formal letter of complaint directly to his executive office in Awka, they officially reviewed our claims, and they confirmed that the funds were indeed fully disbursed. But the corrupt higher officials, the greedy local politicians, and the ruthless bureaucratic middlemen that the tractors were officially entrusted to completely ate all the money, they pocketed the labor wages, and they looted the treasury dry simply because they saw the governor was just leaving office and they knew absolutely no one would hold them accountable.
Willie Obiano eventually came into power, he immediately found out that maintaining and subsidizing those abandoned tractors was a financial nightmare, he looked at the sheer logistical rot, and he officially scrapped the entire project altogether, and that was the pathetic end of the heavily advertised sweet agricultural revolution.
Peter Obi also built the massive Coscharis rice mill in my local government area. It was a very massive modern rice mill that expertly refines raw rice, automatically removes the crude husks, thoroughly polishes the local grains, aggressively bags them for commercial mass distribution. It was supposed to ultimately scales our local production to compete on the global market. When I drove home just last year, that highly praised facility was absolutely no longer functional, and even as far back as five years ago, it was completely dead.
The reason for failure is lack of institutional infrastructure to support the project, no reliable electricity from the national grid, the commercial diesel desperately needed to run the massive generators is astronomically expensive, the total lack of skilled industrial mechanics meant that sometimes the factory would be completely grounded for weeks over minor faults, and the frustrated local farmers simply moved on and abandon the rotting mega-facility, and went back to using their own small-scale private rice mills to survive.
I am not even going to talk about the heavily publicized laptops he distributed to public schools, the cosmetic classroom renovations, or the other temporary projects he undertook to subsidize chemicals for local farmers, because they all met the exact same tragic fate, they lacked structural sustainability, and they pretty much completely collapsed the moment he stepped out of office.
This is exactly why I laugh mockingly when incredibly naive people blindly attack me for criticizing Peter Obi on this platform. They have absolutely no idea that I have intimately witnessed his governance firsthand, I have felt the painful sting of his administrative blind spots, and I know exactly how his policies crumble under the weight of reality. This is exactly why I aggressively fight for absolute institutional change, for the total dismantling of the corrupt bureaucratic machinery, and for the radical restructuring of the state itself, rather than merely begging for a cosmetic change in the face of the elite man occupying Aso Rock. We are absolutely never going to simply vote our way out of this catastrophic, systemic state failure.
First, this is a fundamentally flawed analogy. You cannot logically compare Ethiopia, a landlocked country that bleeds billions of dollars annually on exorbitant port fees just to engage in basic international trade, to Vietnam, a country that possesses a massive coastline directly on the South China Sea and sits right in the strategic manufacturing backyard of China.
Yes, it is a historical fact that Ethiopia was not formally colonized, but this does not mean they were living in peace and harmony.
Mussolini and his fascist Italian army brutally occupied Ethiopia, deploying chemical weapons and mustard gas against civilians. Even though the brave people of Ethiopia were able to regain their sovereignty, they suffered devastating human and infrastructural losses in the process. But the economic strangulation did not end there. All of Ethiopia's neighboring countries were under brutal European colonial occupation. These colonial powers intentionally blockaded Ethiopia, forcing the country into absolute geopolitical isolation and completely cutting it off from global trade routes. And even when direct colonialism supposedly ended in the region, Ethiopia did not see peace. Foreign powers, including Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations, heavily funded and armed Eritrea to wage a brutal, draining civil war against Ethiopia that lasted for thirty years, systematically bleeding their economy dry.
And yes, Vietnam suffered horrifically from a brutal American war, but they had the massive, undeniable support of the Eastern bloc to bounce back. After the Vietnam War, China and the Soviet Union aggressively transferred heavy technology to Vietnam. They helped modernize their seaports, integrated their manufacturing grids into Asian supply chains, built vital rail networks, and shared critical industrial blueprints. This does not take away the credit due to the highly disciplined leadership structure of the Vietnamese state and their incredibly industrious population, but they absolutely received massive geopolitical help.
Even China did not build its empire from scratch. In the 1950s, the Soviets transferred entire industrial bases, heavy metallurgical technology, aerospace engineering, and foundational manufacturing plants directly to Beijing. And even after Mao Zedong passed away,Deng Xiaoping basically opened the Chinese market to the West, US tech giants poured their equipment, patents, and capital into the country. They set up massive semiconductor supply chains, built state of the art mega factories, transferred highly guarded intellectual property, and injected hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign direct investment to exploit cheap labor. But when it comes to Africa, Western commentators heap the blame entirely upon us, acting as if they brought this high level technology and capital to our shores and we simply refused to integrate it into our development.
Let us be very clear. Nobody is blaming 19th century colonialism alone for the current poverty level in Africa. I have never seen any serious Pan African scholar who claims Africa is poor today solely due to historical colonialism. I am also not here on this platform to fight against the ghost of the past, as that would be a silly and unproductive distraction.
What we are fiercely fighting against today is active, ruthless neo colonialism.
The predatory terms and conditions buried in the World Trade Organisation manuals for global trade make it legally and economically impossible for any African nation to build wealth from processing its own raw materials. We are forced, through a rigged system of tariff escalation, to export our resources raw and untouched to sustain European industries. If an African country exports raw cocoa or crude oil, the tariffs are zero, but the exact moment they try to export processed chocolate or refined petroleum, they are hit with crushing import taxes. Furthermore, imperial financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank constantly stampede African growth by forcing deadly Structural Adjustment Programs, mandating the suicidal privatization of state owned power grids, forcing the endless devaluation of national currencies, and strictly banning African governments from subsidizing their own local farmers while Western farmers receive billions in state welfare.
There is absolutely no genuine technology transfer to African nations. There is no room for us to trade as equals in the global market. There is no bilateral loan or foreign aid available to Africans that does not demand total economic capitulation, the absolute surrender of our national sovereignty, and the complete deregulation of our banking sectors. And in spite of all these crushing economic blockades, we still have to spend our limited national budgets and sacrifice the blood of our military personnel fighting off foreign backed rebels. These proxy militias stage relentless guerrilla warfare on our soil for one singular purpose, which is to violently clear our resource rich fields so that foreign conglomerates can feast on our gold, lithium, cobalt, and uranium undisturbed.
Now Magatte, I know that you are deeply invested in a self hating narrative, trying incredibly hard to please your white corporate masters overseas by blaming the victims of imperialism. But the next time you decide to compare two nations operating on completely different continents and under vastly different geopolitical realities, do not use just one stupid variable as your entire metric.
BATUK: BRITAIN'S COLONIAL GRIP IN KENYA
BATUK: The White Man’s Burden in Kenya is not just a documentary about a British military base where soldiers roll around in the dirt for six months before returning home to the UK. It is a documentary about abuse of power, occupation of indigenous land and the unfinished business of colonialism.
For decades, ordinary Kenyans living around BATUK have raised allegations of abuse, sexual violence, ecological destruction and impunity, while one of the world’s most powerful former colonial powers continues to operate freely on Kenyan soil, handing out small amounts of compensation whenever evidence of alleged crimes reaches the media.
At the centre of the documentary is the story of Agnes Wanjiru, a 21-year-old Kenyan woman who was tortured, killed and dumped in a septic tank, while British soldiers mocked and ridiculed her death on social media. One soldier posed in front of the septic tank and posted, “If you know, you know.” Others joked about the five-month-old daughter she left behind, posting imagery of a baby beside a gravesite.
But the story goes beyond Agnes and her tragic killing and the shocking behaviour of British troops thereafter. The documentary asks deeper questions:
How did Britain maintain a military presence in Kenya, the very same year the country supposedly gained independence?
Why are foreign troops still training on stolen land while local communities continue to suffer?
And above all, why does the Kenyan government allow all of this?
Laikipia County, currently in the spotlight because of plans for an Ebola quarantine facility for US citizens, is the very same county where the BATUK military base is headquartered. This documentary helps connect the dots about why Kenya’s political elite remain so willing to cede sovereignty to foreign powers like Britain, and why they may be willing to do the same again with the United States.
This is Sovereign Media’s first-ever documentary. We are a small, independent team with a brand-new YouTube channel and no corporate backing. We need your support now more than ever.
Watch. Share. Comment. Spread it everywhere.
@AhmedKaballo@NaamMedia@VoxUmmah@venanalysis@qiaocollective@ProgIntl@KawsachunNews@OrinocoTribune@blkagendareport@SoberaniaPod
Anybody still believing the US is a fool. You take isreal's word for not having nuclear weapons although everybody knows that they do have, but you come out every market day to declare that Iran is 3 weeks away from possessing a nuclear weapon
🇺🇸🇮🇱 Rep. Castro: "Will you tell us, the Congress and the American people, whether Israel possesses nuclear weapons?"
Rubio: "Most of the world assesses that they do, but they never acknowledge that publicly. And as a feature of our foreign policy, for a variety of reasons, we don't discuss it in that way"
Try and watch @realJudebela's Power and Plunder YouTube series, especially the Murtala and Babangida episodes.
If you're completely illiterate about your country's historical context and place in the geopolitical world, you won't be afterwards.
I won't elaborate.
@DavidHundeyin This part is scary "Now all your mobile banking apps are hosted on AWS and the US government can basically turn off most of Nigeria's electronic financial system if it ever decides to"
“I want to see Donald Trump hung by the neck till death according to the Constitution of the United States.” — Kenneth O’Keefe, former U.S. Marine and Gulf War veteran.
After visiting the graves of 168 children killed in Minab, O’Keefe says he broke down crying “like a baby” for the first time since his mother died.
What follows is one of the most furious anti-war condemnations you will hear from an American veteran.
Stay tuned for the full interview on The Sanchez Effect.
In my 3 years of experience in journalism, I recently came across this crucial testimony from Mr @shehu_mahdi, particularly on how the US regime under @BillClinton carried out a bomb campaign against Sani Abacha (all for a regime change operation). I can't help but crash out on how this kind of information is lost in a black hole. I wasn't taught in history class. Watch👇🏾
The images of an Israeli regime's minister at Ashdod Port personally humiliating handcuffed humanitarian activists from the “Aid to Gaza” #flotilla (many of them European citizens) are profoundly shocking. They evoke the darkest echoes of history— moments when a regime, long protected from accountability, comes to see itself as exceptional, untouchable, and above the law.
In the 1930s, Europe comforted itself with the illusion that it could remain silent — and immune — in the face of systematic degradation of human dignity, international law, and the most basic moral principles, without ever paying a price. History delivered a brutal lesson; the normalization of lawlessness and atrocity never remains confined to its original target.
Today, the real danger extends far beyond certain conduct of an Israeli regime's official. The deeper issue lies in the complicit silence, passive acceptance, and institutionalised inaction vis-a-vis occupation, apartheid and genocide that have granted such policies & behaviour an appearance of normalcy, continuity, and growing audacity.
If the West continues to widen the gap between its proclaimed core values and its actual conduct, it will once again hsve to learn history’s harsh lesson: endless impunity does not moderate lawlessness — it normalizes atrocity and emboldens its perpetrators.
I’ve spent the past couple of weeks building Looters: a public archive of Nigerian political corruption since the 1990s.
Governors, ministers, shell companies, Swiss accounts, the Jersey trusts, — one searchable graph.
You too can connect the dots: https://t.co/faIfzWfAIp
(1) Cheap technology in Africa.
China
(2) Cheap and affordable electrical appliances in Africa.
China
(3) Interest Free Loans/Loans with 3 to 5% Interest as against predatory loans from western countries and institutions.
China.
(5) Africa's partners in industrialization and in infrastructure development.
China.
(6) Cheap and affordable cars that have flooded the African market. Making car ownership a reality for a lot of Africans.
China.
(7) Cheap and affordable STEM Toys/Baby Tec
China.
(8) Affordable digital Economy & ICT.
China.
(9) Affordable Public Health & Pharmaceuticals
China.
(10) Agricultural Export Support by removing all tariffs for African nations.
China.
(11) Africa's solar belt program via which tens of thousands of homes in Africa now have electricity?
China.
(12) Africa's partner in building super industries like the $20 billion Dangote Refinery?
China.
Lastly, guess the country, so called geopolitical analysts and social influencers castigates the most in Africa?
Yeah, you guessed right.
China.
Let me add this:
The reason we have what looks like a middle class in several African countries today is China.
China didn't just lift itself out of poverty, it took the entire Global South with it and we in Africa are direct beneficiaries of China's massive industrialization.
Instead of spreading propaganda against the Chinese, we should be grateful to China and learn from them to better our systems.
Some of you won't be able to afford smart phones or home appliances and basic civilian technology if China had no cards in global politics and power.
Some of your parents couldn't even afford TV when the West controlled everything.
Stop being stup*d, know who your true partners are.