AFRICAN PLUME

By Akin Ojumu The song, “TOGETHER,” by the Christian music band, For King & Country, was released in May 2020. It was produced at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. In the accompanying music video, the band, comprised of 2 brothers Joel and Luke Smallbone, was joined by Kirk Franklin, Tori Kelly, and more than 2000 people. Everyone participated virtually and socially distant from their various homes. The song became an instant hit; a COVID-19 sensation that has gone to give hope, encouragement and inspiration to many people during the lockdown. The music video has recorded 6.2 million YouTube views at the time of this writing. The song ranked number 1 and 2 in the US Christian Music Airplay and US Christian Music Songs respectively. “TOGETHER” is what a job well done looks like. It is an example of diligence at work and excellence on display. A beautiful song and the accompanying awesome music video all produced virtually and involving more than 2000 socially dist

By Akin Ojumu For the life of me, I don’t know what to make of Nigerians. I have never understood our people and their tolerance of the thoughtlessness of those who govern them. The willingness of Nigerians to surrender their ability to think, and their eagerness to jettison their capacity to reason, boggles the mind. I cannot fathom how a people can be this dumb. The dull-wittedness of Nigerians is hard to explain. When you look at it, Nigerians must be suffering from an extreme form of Stockholm Syndrome; as a people, they seem to derive some type of enjoyment from being conned by cynical politicians. There’s no way more than 200 million people can continue to endure their untenable life situation without them gleaning some weird pleasure from being taken for a ride by purposeless politicians and clueless leaders. Nigerians must love being suckers. Such a wasted generation!!! What a shame!!!

Jerry Falwell Jr, leader of the American Christian Conservatives, spiritual godfather and booster of Donald Trump, is certainly living large (ie “chopping the life of his head” - as we say in Nigeria). Here is the man himself on a yacht belonging to his playboy billionaire’s friend, drunk as a sailor, a cup of what he described as “black water”...aka tequila...in his hand, with his pants zipper down showing his underwear and grabbing on to an almost naked woman half his age and who’s not his wife. How’s that for the face of the white evangelical movement and enabler of king Cyrus, the chosen one? How does that look for the president of a Christian University where students are required to abide by very stringent dress codes and sexual relationships outside marriage is forbidden. How’s that for an example of christian living? This man who goes about representing himself as the paragon of morality, champion of Christian virtue, and a defender of godliness needs to take a h

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has initiated a phase 2 that will evaluate the safety and efficacy of potential new therapeutics for COVID-19, including an investigational therapeutic based on synthetic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to treat the disease. Researchers sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), are working with clinical sites to identify potential patient volunteers currently infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, who have mild to moderate disease not requiring hospitalization. They will be invited to take an experimental therapy or a placebo as part of a rigorously designed randomized clinical trial. The trial, which is known as ACTIV-2, also may investigate other experimental therapeutics later under the same trial protocol. If the investigational mAbs show promise, the study would expand from a Phase 2 to a Phase 3 trial to gather additional critic