For Peace In The Korea, And Peace In Nigeria -By Afeso Albert Akanbi

On the 27th of April 2018, North Korea’s strong man and President Trump’s ‘Rocket Man’ met with South Korea’s President Moon Jae, and both men had a warm hand shake at the man-made Military Demarcation Line that divides their countries at Panmunjom…

Both men sat down to a historic summit after the hand shake, smiles and posing for the cameras, in a gesture laden with so much symbolism…

Ironically, these two men represents a people who are, by all reasonable indications, one people and brothers who have allowed themselves to be divided by external powers and have thus remained enemies since 1953…

“I am happy to meet you,” the smiling North Korean strong man Kim told his Southern counterpart, making this the first meeting ever, between leaders of both countries since the Korean War ended in an armistice 65 years ago…

The two leaders later moved to the Peace House building on the southern side of the truce village of Panmunjom where the talks took place…

North Korea’s leader said “I came here determined to send a starting signal at the threshold of a new history,” before the meeting began, promising a “frank, serious and honest mindset”…

South Korea’s president responded that he hoped they would reach “a bold agreement so that we may give a big gift to the whole Korean people and the people who want peace”…

That meeting has set in motion weeks of negotiations, although it is unclear at present how both sides would be satisfied from the negotiations going forward, in September, both leaders signed a joint agreement on denuclearization in a ‘leap forward’ for peace, which I believe we have lessons to learn from…

Israel and Palestine, Iran and Saudi Arabia, the West and Russia and in fact, everywhere where people who share the same history see themselves as mortal enemies and so on, are just a few examples of nations and people who can all learn from this meeting…

However, we have a man here in our own country Nigeria who I believe needs to learn a few lessons from this meeting too, that is assuming a leopard can change its spot or one can learn the use of the left hand at old age…

Even though he is just 30, North Korea’s leader showed the world that he understands the power of focus and how to ‘use what you have to demand what you want’ from even powerful nations like the USA. He earned international respect through his flagrant and ceaseless display of military ‘might’ and by also calling the bluff of some powerful nations…

South Korea’s leader on his part, proved that he understands the power of commitment and showed his desire to write his name in gold in the pages of history by deciding to be the man who would bring peace to the Korean peninsula…

Above all, both men understand when to seize an opportunity and when history beckons, and that’s the lesson…

But what do we have in our shores…?

many say we have a man who spent over 10 years seeking power and now, three and a half years on, who doesn’t know what to do with it, we have a man who cried in front of the cameras, telling us how he loved Nigeria more than the fishes loved water and more than the birds loved to fly, a man behind whom an entire nation rallied behind in 2015, even though many of us were ‘deceived’ into believing he is a man of ‘integrity‘, a man who should be in retirement but was given a second chance to write his name in gold and yet has made a mess of it. A man who many says have watched on the sidelines as it were, while the blood of his own citizens is continually being spilled on a daily basis even as we speak, by a group of killers so evil, we are beginning to think Satan serves under them. As we speak, just this morning, pictures of the gruesome assassination of a former Chief of Defense Staff surfaced on the internet. Who can tell whether, like countless assassinations before it, this one won’t be swept under the carpet?

Others say we have a man who inherited a country that overtook South Africa as the largest economy in Africa, but in 3 and a half years has reduced the same country to a giant with feet of clay…we have a man who has made it clear, like some analyst have argued, from the recent refusal to sign the electoral bill, that he may not be interested in a free and fair elections next years.

Above all, we have a man who doesn’t understand when history beckons…

More hardline critics of the man say we have a bigot. A jihadist. A religious fanatic. A tribalist. An acronist. A sadist and an extremely dull manager of people and resource…

But a close friend tells me the good news is that 2019 is less than 60 days from now and GOD willing, with our PVCs, we can send this man into permanent retirement from our public life and into oblivion…

God bless Nigeria…

Afeso Albert Akanbi