Nineteen Forty-Five: the Year that Changed the World.

Nineteen Forty-Five-the Year that

Changed the World.

Nineteen Forty-Five

let no one forget you in a hurry,
rather may this generation
remember day-by-day,
month-by-month events
that drew tears from our
grand-parents, parents, uncles,

aunts, and their contemporaries;

let this generation weep for
the pains, sorrows, and
emotional scars nineteen forty-five
brought upon humankind.

Nineteen Forty-Five
the sixth year of maelstrom,
peak of bedlam and darkness
that overshadowed light;
year of unlimited rage,
the year carnage, massacre,
pogrom, and genocide became
international norms;
hysteria and frenzy adopted
as public behavior.

Nineteen Forty-Five

the year voice of reasoning and
words of wisdom were lost on human,
civility turned barbaric,
cloud of uncertainty enveloped
world of humankind.

Nineteen Forty-Five
Allied and Axis powers engaged
in fierce battle for control,
Allied delivered world from
savagery;
Europe saved from self-destruction,
Africa rescued from leeches,
Asia liberated from tyrants,
Australia and the Oceania
saved from predators.

Nineteen Forty-Five
first time atomic bomb
used in warfare,
which changed warfare from
“total war to belligerent”;
a new warfare without soul,
mind, and human heart,
ultimate desire is to destroy and
to annihilate civilization by using
“conventional weapons,”
weapons of mass destruction.

Since 1945 floodgate of wars
opened,
wars caused by politicians
without conscience and principles,
supported by business and
economic class that lack
morals and ethics,
sustained by religions
deficient in good works
for lack of sacrifice.

Nineteen Forty-Five

world known-psychopath-
toothbrush moustache carrier,
Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun,
his frau and one-day wife
committed suicide
ending a 12-year rocky relationship
that involved several suicide attempts.

Nineteen Forty-Five
Italian Fascist leader,
Benito Amilcare Mussolini,
with childhood reputation
for violence killed at Lake Como; 
Emperor Hirohito abjured his
divinity, announced Japanese’s
unconditional surrender.

Nineteen Forty-Five
Germany surrendered,
divided among Allied powers,
Yalta Agreement signed by
victors-US, UK, France and
USSR;
Soviet reached Berlin on
the last military campaign.

Nineteen Forty-Five

World War 11 ended,
German War Crimes trial
began at Nuremburg;
scores of war criminals
executed by hanging and
many sentenced to life term.

Nineteen Forty-Five

Joseph Goebbels-
worst propagandist in
history and wife committed
suicide,
after killing their six children.

Nineteen Forty Five

hostilities between Chinese
Nationalists and Chinese
Communists became open,
as new hostilities between
United States and Soviet Union
soon created cold war that
divided world into two opposing
ideologies for decades.

Nineteen Forty-Five

American war hero,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt
died,
succeeded by Harry Truman;
across Atlantic, British War
Prime Minister, Winston Churchill
lost to Clement Attlee,
without knowledge or design
Trans-Atlantic relations managed
by new actors.

French’s Charles De Gaulle

became the head,
provisional government of the
French Republic,
until fourth Republic came
on board in 1946.

Nineteen Forty Five

fifty-one nations gave
life to the newly created-
world body-United Nations
replacing ineffective-
League of Nations.

Nineteen Forty-Five
historic year that shaped and
changed the world;
seventy years after
mankind is yet to recover
from lunacy Nineteen Forty-Five
follies placed upon mankind.

All traps set decades ago

have created today's
dreaded octopus that
no one can tame.

Who heals humankind?

Who saves humankind?
Who delivers humanity
from ominous dangling
catastrophe that the foundation
was laid in 1945?

If man had seen Nineteen
Forty-Five in advance with
baggage it carried,
man might have fast forwarded
or skipped the obstreperous year;
inasmuch as man has no
control over time and season,
but only over conducts and
behaviors,
Nineteen Forty-Five is a lesson,
a lesson FOR LIFE.

 

The History of Regions' and States' Creation In Nigeria.

Before 1914.

Nigeria was a creation of British imperial system, before 1914, nationalities that formed the modern Nigeria were either kingdoms or empires with little or no cultural and political affirnity. However, events in mid 19th century Europe, and Africa changed the dynamics that ultimately affected Africa-the second largest- geo-political confine on Earth.

Trans-Atlantic slave trade was abolished in 1806 by British Parliament, on March 3, 1807, United States Congress took a similar step to "prohibit the importation of slaves into any part or place within the jurisdiction of the United States."

With the actions of the two western hemisphere nations-both the merchants and end users of slaves received a fatal blow, which they never recovered; regardless, the criminal activities of African middle men and powerful economic interests in Europe and America continued.

Shortly, thereafter, the Royal Navy established British West Africa Squadron to prevent, suppress, and to arrest slaves ship and their merchants; following the Webster-Ashburton treaty that resolved border issues between United States and British North American Colonies, United States contributed to the Squadron; by 1860,  1,600 slaves ships had been arrested, over 150,000 slaves set free.

This development created stronger British footing in West Africa, gradually, occupation and annexation of West African lands became chief mission of British; more so, since Europe was going through economic and political crises-new territories were needed to support home governments.

By 1861, British annexed Lagos, using the power tussle between Oba Akintoye and Prince Kosoko as a pretext.

Twenty-three years after in 1884, a Southern Protectorate and Lagos Colony was created; a charter was issued granting this vast land to the British Commercial interest- the Royal Niger Company for unlimited trading activities.

After several wars and humiliating defeats between British and different nationalities-two protectorates and a colony were in place by 1904, Northern and Southern Protectorates and the Colony of Lagos.

On January 1, 1914, these Protectorates (North and South) and the Colony of Lagos gave birth to Nigeria.

Nigeria After  1914

From 1914 to 1946,  Nigeria was a federation of two divisions, Northern and Southern Divisions

From 1946 Onward:

With the introduction of Richard Constitution in 1946, Nigeria became a federation of three regions: North, East, and West; this political structure or arrangement continued for another seventeen years, till 1963, three years after independence, when Mid-Western Region was carved out of defunct Western Region.

Between 1963 and 1967- Nigeria had four regions, later renamed  states: North, East, West, and the Mid-West with capitals in Kaduna, Enugu, Ibadan, and Benin City.

The twelve state structural arrangement was created by the Military Government during the civil war to limit the power of the break-away region-the East; tpolitical arrangement continued till February 11, 1976,  when seven new states were created, bring Nigeria to a federation of 19 states.

The political and constitutional dilemma the 19-state-structure created during  the 1979 12 2/3 presidential elections resulted in demanding for boundary adjustment; even though, another eight years passed before a structural adjustment was effected.  In 1987, two new states, Delta and Zamfara were created, Nigeria became a 21-state-federal system.

By 1991, four new states emerged,  making Nigeria a 24-state federal structure; and five years later in 1996, six new states created,  which resulted in a 30-state-federal-system in  Nigeria.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Seventy Years After Atomic Bomb in Modern Warfare

Hiroshima Nagasaki: Seventy Years after Atomic Bomb in Modern  Warfare.

Mushroom smoke enveloped the cities
within minutes of detonations
several thousand died from
burns, radiation, and heat
Little Boy-brought upon Hiroshima;
two days after, some thousands perished
from Fat Man’s plutonium radioactive
gift to Nagasaki;
seventy years after,
Japanese are still wailing.

Oh! Little Boy, how little were you?
Hiroshima, you reduced to ashes,
her population you cut in halve,
her buildings, structures, and
personality it stood for centuries,
you reduced to rubbles.

Fat Man-your wide round shape
was your strength,
your weight, length, height and 
object in you-Plutonium
made Nagasaki feared you.

Little Boy and Fat Man-
you left behind people-
with severe burns, radiation-
diseases, injuries, malnutrition,
ruptured eardrum, and
genetically deficient cells.

Little Boy and Fat Man,
even in retirement and
now that you are both
sleeping in death;
Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and
Japanese are still mourning.

Seven decades after,
memories of August 6th and 8th, 1945
still haunt and torment
the land of  reigning emperors with
a history of three thousand years
of continuous rulership.

The land of Meiji is yet to recover
from political, social, and
cultural hemorrhage placed
upon it by Little Boy and Fat Man
when they visited.

As Japanese, remember first
atomic bomb use in warfare
walked through dark road to
the rebuilt cities of
Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
even as they have become cities of
“culture and prosperity”
Japanese and humankind want to
“re-emphasize the necessity of
world peace.”

With confirmed ten-nuclear-power-nation,
over ten thousand nuclear warheads-
decommissioned and partially dismantled,
which can be assembled in a jiffy
put humans and the earth on
a pathway of extinction.

As more nations now pursue
nuclear ambition with ferocity-
will it guarantee world peace or
make the world more unsecured?

With or without mutual assured
destruction (MAD) doctrine-
will it guarantee world peace?

The lessons from Hiroshima and
Nagasaki are eternal pains and cries,
generation after generation;
more so, ethical dilemmas and
moral questions nuclear weapons
will pose from generation to generation.