The Learner

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 A lot happened last week. Least of all, my one terabyte external hard disk fell down and crushed; Ugh! From Nigeria, two major interviews by President Jonathan and his number one contender, Gen. Buhari, and the fierce fight between Boko Haram and the Nigerian military in Gombe state got the media’s attention. That’s how media works: to report what’s happening and (should) do that irrespective of who is the victor or the vanquished. This is just an example; Nigerian media is far below the description of professional, unbiased or any desired standard. All too often, Muslims are attached to terrorism. This is not news, not any longer since 9/11 attacks. Before the attacks, many Muslim countries were in relative peace: Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan and Libya. Now the story is markedly a contrasting a la scaring one. Daily, hundreds of Muslims are killed in those countries and others like Nigeria, Somalia, Myanmar, etc. And the deaths continue.

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 The much-awaited Valentine Day election, which is fondly called FeBuhari 14 th by the supporters of APC presidential candidate, General Muhammadu Buhari (GMB), was finally postponed yesterday, although the same had been predicted long ago by many observers. President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GEJ) is ever since feared by many to be, directly or indirectly, behind the dreaded Boko Haram (BH) insurgency. This undoubtedly sounds implausible, but no one can refute the allegation hands down. Can you? What’s your verified fact? There’s none. The (In)Dependent National Electorate Commission (INEC) was apparently forced to postpone the elections to March, 28 and April, 11. Two main reasons could be deduced and both are for a pure, however mischievous, political gains by the ruining, nay, ruling party, PDP. First, taking the above hunch that President Jonathan has hands in the spread of the insurgency, this postponement is a clear vindication

Muhammad Muhsin Ibrahim @muhsin234 Stories of Africa being taken for a country or Nigeria for a city in an unknown country, perhaps ‘ Africa ’ do not have anymore newsworthiness. More than many ‘intellectuals’, politicians, organizations, individuals, etc from around the world have had, on several instances, such faux pas or some similar talk that points towards that. Notables and well-known, at least within the circle of my readers, of such include Sarah Palin’s interview , Chimamanda’s chilling speech, The Danger of a Single Story and Farooq Kperogi’s piece, ‘Is Nigeria the name of a City?’ , among others. It has, nonetheless, gone far beyond that as I have recently discovered. I attended the 17 th International Theatre Festival of India, called Bharat Rang Mahotsav for a few days. The festival is still ongoing at the renowned [Indian] National School of Drama, Delhi . The school is disputably the best in the whole of Asia . The festival will be rounded off on the 18