African Plume

By Akin Ojumu Forbes Magazine is famous for its eponymous lists, the Forbes Lists. Each year, the business periodical publishes various world rankings in categories such as sport, entertainment, political power, and wealth. The Forbes Lists chronicle, among other things, the World’s Highest-Paid Athletes, the World’s Highest-Paid Entertainers, and the World’s Most Powerful People. Each list is a Mount Rushmore of vainglory and the catalogs are a golden statue of vanity. The most reputable of these compendia of bloated egos is the List of the World’s Billionaires. To appear on the List of World’s Billionaires, you must be mega wealthy. For anyone to get on this exclusive list of the ultrarich, such an individual must have a net worth that runs in the billions, determined by real time estimate of the wealth and assets of the individual, and a nest egg that is sky high. Because of the prestige this directory of hubris confers, many go to great lengths to get themselves on the list by infl...

The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected the clownish request by Pennsylvania Republicans to overturn President-elect Joe Biden Jr's election victory in the state. In a stinging one sentence slap in the face, the justices unanimously kicked the frivolous lawsuit back into the ethereal land of fairy tales from where it came, dealing a fatal blow to Donald Trump's hope of riding on the back of SCOTUS into a second term.  The 9 Justices of the SCOTUS, including the 3 he appointed to the court, reminded Donald Trump that justice is blind and facts do matter. In no uncertain terms they, in one voice, sent a loud message to #DiaperDon, "We owe you nothing. You don't own us and you won't use us to rig your way into the White House. When the people say you are fired, it means you are fired."

The following is an extract from the briefing document released by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) ahead of the December 10, 2020 meeting of the Vaccine and Related Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) to review the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine. This meeting of the VRBPAC is being convened to discuss and provide recommendations on whether: based on the totality of scientific evidence available, it is reasonable to believe that the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine may be effective in preventing COVID-19 in individuals 16 years of age and older, and the known and potential benefits of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine outweigh its known and potential risks for use in individuals 16 years of age and older. The committee will also discuss what additional studies should be conducted by the vaccine manufacturer following issuance of the EUA to gather further data on the safety and effectiveness of this vaccine. SUMMARY OF THE EFFICACY  The data submitted in this EUA reque...

By Akin Ojumu In any election, somebody’s candidate is certainly going to lose. For the zealots in the cult of Donald Trump, accepting the loss of their deity has been particularly unbearable; the landslide loss to a slow witted, almost senile, Sleepy Joe stings like hell. Many of these people are slow walking their way through the 5 stages of grief. It has been five weeks since the election was called for Joe Biden, a significant number remain stuck in the first stage of grief. And the way it’s going, a large percentage of the true believers will never get over the loss and, like mad king George, they’ll forever mutter, as though in a trance, “Trump won! Trump won! Trump won! This is what the Trumpians are going through: 1. DENIAL The first reaction is denial. In this stage, these individuals believe that Trump actually won the election – and by a lot. They cling to a false hope and alternative reality e.g., that the election results will not be certified. If the results get certified...

 

Asking Churches to stop in person services is not an attack on God or the devil's scheme to end Christianity. It is a common sense public health measure to stop the spread of the virus, end the pandemic, and save people's lives. In person Church services were also banned in 1918 during the Spanish Flu, and we still have Christianity today.

By Akin Ojumu Cruelty is a defining feature of these times. An epidemic of resentment has overtaken this age and a tsunami of bitterness floods our lands. Our public life is festooned in cruelty, and vengeance, like an impassable moat, circumscribes all of our social intercourse. Much of our lives is trapped in a web of acrimony and our discourse is tainted with malice. Male and female, rich or poor, from the oldest to the youngest, there is an affliction of loathing deep within our soul. More than any other time in the history of mankind, the whole world seems to be drowning in the ocean of rancor. Metric tons of toxic fumes of animosity are pumped out into the airwaves, seeping into and polluting all facets of everyday life. Bad blood courses through the veins of our interconnectedness and a thick plaque of malevolence builds up in the walls of the arteries of our social interactions, causing an obstruction to the flow of harmony and tranquility that once existed among us. Many husba...

President-elect Biden has picked Adewale “Wally” Adeyemo as his Deputy Treasury Secretary. This appointment makes Wally one of the highest-ranking Nigerians, if not the highest-ranking Nigerian ever, in the US Government. This is a freaking big deal, that should make all Nigerians proud. It is a worthy "quid pro quo" for all the votes Joe Biden received from Nigerian-Americans in the election. So, now that Joe Biden has picked Adewale Adeyemo as his Deputy Treasury Secretary, I hope those Nigerians still on the 24-hr prayer chain, bombarding the heavens and asking God to send down His angels – i.e. the African Battalion – to overturn the results of the election in favor of Donald Trump – an election that Trump lost by more than 6 million votes, will now get off the crazy train, quit the spiritual jingoism, repurpose and redirect their spiritual gymnastics, and start praying for the success of Joe Biden's presidency, so that we all, I mean ALL and not just white supremacis...

By Akin Ojumu Ten million deaths in 5 years. Yep! That’s the number of lives global immunization programs stopped from being prematurely cut shut by infectious diseases, between 2005 and 2010; it is the number of needless deaths that didn’t happen because of the effectiveness of vaccination. In a 5-year period, vaccines saved 10 million lives and prevented many more millions from developing debilitating illnesses from diseases such as polio, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, adenovirus, rabies and hepatitis A. Between 1990 and 2016, global cases of measles fell by 93 percent, diphtheria by 89 percent, and tetanus by 89 percent. Pain, misery, sufferings, and disabilities are checkmated because people get vaccinated. To date, eradication of smallpox has spared the global community of some 350 million new smallpox victims and some 40 million deaths from the disease. The annual savings as a result of vaccination being stopped and hospitals being able to be converted to other uses is esti...

Another day in court, another mortal blow to a frivolous lawsuit filed by Donald Trump and his henchman, Rudy "Borat-2 Film Star" Giuliani, to disenfranchise 80 million Americans who voted against him in an election he lost by more than 6 million votes. In throwing out the election lawsuit, US District Court Judge Matthew W. Brann said, "Plaintiffs ask this Court to disenfranchise almost seven million voters. This Court has been unable to find any case in which a plaintiff has sought such a drastic remedy in the contest of an election, in terms of the sheer volume of votes asked to be invalidated." "One might expect that when seeking such a startling outcome, a plaintiff would come formidably armed with compelling legal arguments and factual proof of rampant corruption, such that this Court would have no option but to regrettably grant the proposed injunctive relief despite the impact it would have on such a large group of citizens. That has not happened."...