Arrests for corruption?

AlJ:

 Zimbabwe's former minister of finance and economic development has been denied bail in his corruption trial....Ignatius Chombo, an ally of ousted Zimbabwean leader Robert Mugabe, is being held "in the interests of his safety" and to prevent any interference with state witnesses, a magistrate's court said on Monday evening.

then there is this:

Shortly before his arrest on the weekend, Chipanga, a close associate of former First Lady Grace Mugabe, was confronted by protesters who shouted threats at him for his pro-Mugabe stance.
He faces charges of fraud and slander for his criticism of the head of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, General Constantino Chiwenga.
The charges carry a potential 20-year prison sentence.
Chiwenga had cautioned the then president against carrying out a series of purges within his ruling ZANU-PF regime, shortly before the military action that led to Mugabe's resignation.

Yes, Africans, they actually mean you

The New Yorker (magazine) has an article on an "anti natalist".

David Benatar may be the world’s most pessimistic philosopher. An “anti-natalist,” he believes that life is so bad, so painful, that human beings should stop having children for reasons of compassion. “While good people go to great lengths to spare their children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only) guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring those children into existence in the first place,” he writes, in a 2006 book called “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.” In Benatar’s view, reproducing is intrinsically cruel and irresponsible—not just because a horrible fate can befall anyone, but because life itself is “permeated by badness.” In part for this reason, he thinks that the world would be a better place if sentient life disappeared altogether....

and he lists a lot of the frustrations of first world, affluent materialistic yuppies as the reason behind his screed:

He provides an escalating list of woes, designed to prove that even the lives of happy people are worse than they think. We’re almost always hungry or thirsty, he writes; when we’re not, we must go to the bathroom. We often experience “thermal discomfort”—we are too hot or too cold—or are tired and unable to nap. We suffer from itches, allergies, and colds, menstrual pains or hot flashes. Life is a procession of “frustrations and irritations”—waiting in traffic, standing in line, filling out forms. Forced to work, we often find our jobs exhausting; even “those who enjoy their work may have professional aspirations that remain unfulfilled.” Many lonely people remain single, while those who marry fight and divorce. “People want to be, look, and feel younger, and yet they age relentlessly”: They have high hopes for their children and these are often thwarted when, for example, the children prove to be a disappointment in some way or other. When those close to us suffer, we suffer at the sight of it. When they die, we are bereft.

so why put this in my Africa blog?

Because Benatar was born in South Africa in 1966. He is the head of the philosophy department at the University of Cape Town, where he also directs the university’s Bioethics Centre, which was founded by his father, Solomon Benatar, a global-health expert.

and his father was indeed a big shot at that school in the good old days, and involved in global public health policy.

according to the magazine, the guy is an atheist.

yes, without God you are an isolated individual.

The only reason I don't call the guy a Nazi for pushing nazi ideas is because Solomon and David are ethnically Jewish names.

But are they "Jewish/jewish" or part of the anti religion Jewish types who became rabid socialists/communists and gave conspiracy types ammunition for their own anti semitism?

With God, you are part of a family, and everything that happens works for the good.

and the NewYorker writer, who also has a Jewish name, made sure they passed the monument to the Irish who died in the potato famine... they read a few of the quotes from there, but that didn't get much of a rise from the good professor.

Why no: The professor probably would see the monument as proof why his philosophy (don't have kids: they'll only be miserable) is true, whereas most Irish Americans (and Jews and American Blacks) would see the monument and say: No, it is a warning to philosophers that ideas have consequences.

Because the reason the Irish died is because too many Brits believed in Malthus: that the poor overbred and helping them stay alive only meant more poor people, so don't help them.

so they died: Of starvation, of disease, in "coffin ships" fleeing that land, etc.

and like a lot of Yanks, we remember our heritage.

I checked the author of the magazine article, and he has a Jewish name. They also suffered from bad ideas (the holocaust was based on social Darwinism and Eugenics ideas of the early 20th century):

the population bomb hysteria is not new: if you read Eugenics  history, the breeders they disliked back then tended to be the Irish in England, and the Jewish/Irish/Italian and Eastern European immigrants and blacks in the USA). And of course Jews and Gypsies and Slavs in Germany. Especially Jews.

but now, of course, the population control freaks are aiming at Africa.

In other words, not a new idea, but repackaged for affluent types.

Nothing new of course: When I worked in Zimbabwe, every village had a "pill lady" but no safe water or WHO Rehydration fluid until we supplied the money for these things.

And China's one child policy was from Ehrlich's population bomb ideas.

And here in the Philippines, the US pressured us to supply free contraceptives to all women (but one third of our women deliver with untrained birth attendents, one reason for the high mortality.. and even when midwives are "free" they ask for gifts: pre eclampsia is dangerous here, but few get prenatal care. Sigh).

and even the Vatican let a lot of these death promoting population types into their latest conferences.

But the, the joke "is the Pope Catholic?" is, alas, no longer  joke.

headsup AnneAlthouse

Mugabe: asylum? Money?

South Africa will face a lot of opposition if they allow him asylum.

Maimane said allowing Mugabe into South Africa on political asylum would be in contravention of the Refugees Act.
 Maimane pointed out that the act excludes individuals from asylum if they had committed a crime against peace, a war crime or a crime against humanity, among others. "Mugabe has, like many other leaders on the continent, turned from liberator to dictator, with human rights abuses and crimes against peace being committed under his watch," said Maimane. "As such, he ought to be denied refugee status as per the law," Maimane said. "As long as Mugabe would not face torture or death penalty in Zimbabwe, the South African government must exclude him from asylum."

Ghana is thinking about it though.

the big question no one is asking: who gets the money?

UKGuardian lists his wealth.

According to some estimates, Robert Mugabe has about £1bn-worth of assets, much of it invested outside Zimbabwe.

 2001 US diplomatic cable, later released by the whistle-blowing organisation WikiLeaks, quoted this figure, and said that while reliable information was difficult to find, there were rumours that his assets “include everything from secret accounts in Switzerland, the Channel Islands and the Bahamas to castles in Scotland”.

Grace Mugabe is said to have bought a number of properties in the affluent Sandton suburb of Johannesburg and there are reported to have been property purchases in Malaysia, Singapore and possibly Dubai.

and move over Imelda Marcos:

The first lady is reported to have the sort of designer shoe collection that might be expected of a dictator’s wife and, notoriously, is said to have spent $75,000 (£56,000) on luxury goods on a single shopping spree in Paris.

Mugabe resigns!

BBC reports Mugabe, under threat of impeachment, has resigned.

The ruling Zanu-PF party says former vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa will succeed Mr Mugabe, in power since 1980.
Mr Mnangagwa's sacking earlier this month triggered a political crisis.
It had been seen by many as an attempt to clear the way for Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband as leader and riled the military leadership, who stepped in and put Mr Mugabe under house arrest.
After the resignation announcement, lawmakers roared in jubilation.

Mugabe still won't resign

in other news from Zimbabwe: No, Mugabe still refuses to step down despite Sunday's protests.

the locals worry tlat "Gucci Grace" will grab power... instead of the main opposition leader, Vice President Mnangagwa, aka the Crocodile who was fired so Grace could step in and steal his job.

Culling elephants

Zimbabwe Herald points out that elephant conservation actually benefits both the elephants and locals. It means culling the population to prevent overpopulation, stop elephants from roaming and destroying local crops, and of course, is a source of income for the country. Without this income, locals will just look the other way when poachers kill the beasts.

Zimbabwe boasts the world’s second largest elephant herd after Botswana, much of it crowded beyond capacity at the Hwange National Park in the country’s south-west.
A CITES study notes that elephants in Zimbabwe have climbed sharply in the past 40 years due to prudent conservation.
Aerial surveys show there was an estimated 46 000 elephants in the country in 1980; at least 58 600 in 1989; and some 64 000 in 1995. These figures are, however, disputed by other conservationists.
But the Great Elephant Census says the number of elephants in the country dropped 6 000 to 82 000 in the three years to 2014 due to poaching.
The animals have become difficult to manage, often destroying homes and food crops. Deaths from conflict with humans living near conservancies and parks have been reported, as habitat gives way to urban development and agriculture.

more HERE.

  But the rich white American animal lovers are pressuring Trump to stop the cull.

no, I don't hunt: But our area of Pennsylvania closed down on the first day of hunting season... better to hunt the deer carefully than let them die as road kill or from starvation...

what is going on in Zimbabwe

UKTelegraph article is confusing:

Neither Mr Mugabe nor the presumed mastermind of the coup, former vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa, have issued statements or been seen in public since. The military has not commented since Major General Sibusiso Moyo, Chief of Staff Logistics, denied a coup was underway and appealed for calm in an address on national television in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

One of my friends there, a Mugabe supporter, posted this:

Much Respect to the Zimbabwe Defense Forces for stepping in & giving direction to our country. We where headed into the abyss.

Someone had to STOP Amai Dr. Stop It!!

presumably the problem is that Mugabe is  old, and his younger wife is trying to grab power.

Here is an article about her plans in the Herald, a pro Mugabe paper.

mai Mugabe said President Mugabe was an anointed leader by God and only the Almighty could decide his fate and not some ambitious people who wanted to take leadership positions through unorthodox means. “You are anointed, President. Hakuna anokubvisai. Kana nguva yaMwari yakwana, zvichangotika according to God’s plan,” said Amai Mugabe as she quoted biblical scriptures. She implored people to pray to God and accept that which they could not change in life.

Speaking at the same occasion, Zanu-PF Secretary for Youth Cde Kudzanai Chipanga said events in Bulawayo, where people booed the First Lady, were a result of infiltration by unruly elements.

but the UK Papers are wondering if China had a part in the military's plans.

UKGuardian report.

Those ambiguous comments will do little to dispel suspicions that Chiwenga may have travelled to Beijing to warn China’s leadership of the impending move against Mugabe, or perhaps even to seek its blessing or help. Li Zuocheng, a rising star in China’s 2.3 million-member military, reportedly enjoys close ties to the Chinese leader, Xi Jinping...

“It seems to me that they just realised – like everyone has realised – that the situation in Zimbabwe was increasingly untenable, that a direct succession from Robert Mugabe to Grace Mugabe was a recipe for disaster,” he said. “China doesn’t have necessarily an ideological attachment to democratic government or to non-democratic government. The only thing China is generally really, really focused on is stability.

Zimbabwe miltary coup?

AlJ:

"To both our people and the world beyond our borders, we wish to make it abundantly clear that this is not a military takeover of government. What the Zimbabwe Defence Forces is actually doing is to pacify a degenerating political, social and economic situation in our country, which if not addressed may result in a violent conflict.
"We call upon all the war veterans to play positive in ensuring peace, stability and unity in the country.
"To members of the defense forces, all leave is canceled and you all to return to your barracks with immediate effect.
"To our respected traditional leaders, you are our custodians of our culture, customs, traditions and heritage and we request you to provide leadership and direction to your communities for the sake of unity and development in our country.

moreHERE

There is growing uncertainty in Zimbabwe.
Soldiers on Wednesday took over the headquarters of the state broadcaster ZBC and blocked access to government offices, but the army says this is not a military take over.
President Robert Mugabe, who leads the ruling Zanu-PF party, is safe, an army spokesman has said.
There was no official word, however, from the Mugabe family as to their whereabouts.

Marburg and Pestis (links only)

Sigh.

Not only Black death/PPestis epidemic spreading from Madagascar to mainland Africa, but now thepress has noticed the Marburg epidemic.

LINK

since Drudge linked to the UK site, it will be noticed.

Ironically, we had to keep an eye out for plague when I worked in New Mexico (a couple cases a year on Indian reservations, usualy from prarie dogs)but this outbreak appears to be pulmonary, which can kill quickly.

Central Africa update

StrategyPage has a long essay on Central Africa.

The good news: Rwanda is at peace and flourishing.



The bad news: The rest of the area still has a lot of problems.

. The key in Africa and throughout the world, is a population where enough people are willing to avoid corruption and violence and basically get on with your life. So simple yet so rare. Kagame may yet wreck the country by refusing to leave office when he can no longer win fair elections. That is common, especially in Africa. But the exceptions to the centuries old chaos and misery that led Central Africa to be dubbed “the heart of darkness” in the 18th century are signs that it does not always have to be that way.

War in the Sahel

The US MSM just notice it, because they want to use it to remove Trump from office (and any story they can twist will do).

But this story is not new.



AustinBay has a long report on Niger.

West African nations are willing to fight the terrorists, but need help. Given France's military assets in the region and American commitments in Syria and Iraq, the Obama Administration concluded that a small, focused military effort providing training assistance and logistics and intelligence support was an appropriate response.
General Dunford's press conference tells me that he thinks that conclusion was correct. It also says the Trump Administration agreed with the Obama Administration's goals in the region. However, that isn't a point domestic hysterics want to hear.

Italics mine.

That's because the "domestic hysterics" don't care about Africans killed by terrorists, because they want to remove Trump, and any story will do.

As for ignorance of the war there: This is because they don't bother to read the BBC or AlJ where they could find good summaries about what is going on.

BBC notes 4000 French and 12 thousand UN troops are involved. (plus locals).

the US was sent there to help Nigeria and nearby countries to fight the BokuHarem:

  Full report of that conflict here.
2 million refugees, 2000 teachers killed and schools destroyed, 5 million of locals in that area facing starvation, and the "good guys" are corrupt.

notice that part about France's military assets? They have been working with the Sahel governments for quite awhile: ALJ reports on that HERE. 

think tribal civil wars.

part of the backstory is the tribal civil war in Libya.

-------------------------

WHO Removes Mugabe

NYTimes article says the WHO and the UN said "Whoops" and removed their appointment of Mr Mugabe.

Twenty-eight health organizations, including the NCD Alliance — which works with the W.H.O. and other global groups to battle noncommunicable diseases — released a statement expressing “shock” at the appointment.
 Obert Gutu, a spokesman for Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, Movement for Democratic Change, said, “It is an insult.”
 He added: “Mugabe trashed our health delivery system. He and his family go outside of the country for treatment in Singapore after he allowed our public hospitals to collapse.”
 Under Mr. Mugabe’s authoritarian rule, critics say, the country’s health care system, like many of its public services, has suffered badly, with hospitals frequently lacking essential supplies and nurses and doctors regularly left without pay.

yup. The UN is honoring Mugabe.

From the BBC.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has appointed President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe as a "goodwill ambassador" to help tackle non-communicable diseases.

the BBC then adds this in case you thought the appointment made sense:

Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, GenevaThe appointment of 93-year-old Robert Mugabe will cause astonishment among many WHO member states and donors.
A goodwill ambassador may be a largely symbolic role, but the symbolism of giving it to a man whose leadership of Zimbabwe has, critics say, coincided with a collapse of its health service, and major human rights abuses, will be very unpopular. 

Mugabe, after "winning" an election, decided to tear down a lot of middle class areas to punish them for voting against him. He called it "operation take out the trash" and insisted it was slum clearance, but it was not.

UKGuardian article on this from 2005:

The UN's 98-page report concluded that 2.4 million people had been affected, of whom 700,000 had lost their homes or livelihoods or both, in a humanitarian crisis of "immense proportions"....

The language was harsh by UN standards. It said the clearances were a "disastrous venture". It added that the operation, "while purporting to target illegal dwellings and structures and to clamp down on alleged illicit activities, was carried out in an indiscriminate and unjustified manner, with indifference to human suffering, and, in repeated cases, with disregard to several provisions on national and international legal frameworks".

one of the buildings town down was an HIV clinic near Harare, run by Sister Patricia, the public health nurse who worked with me.

Another building torn down was a convent in QueQue, again that housed some of the African sisters who I worked with.

file AFP

And I won't even go into the threats and massacres by his "green bombers"  in the past, or that he has decided to reorganize the group for the 2018 election.

Of course, all sins forgiven because he is an open communist.

--------------------

Niger (take two)

The Green Berets killed in Niger were fighting the Boko Harum, but the press headlines are the Trumpieboy are that he insulted someone when he called the families.

Because everything must be politicized, you know, to foment Trump hatred.

But why were they there in the first place? Because President Obama sent them there in 2014...

Backstory from before their deaths from Reuters in 2015 HERE.

A Reuters reporter was the first to visit the detachment, which is among about 1,000 U.S. Special Operations Forces deployed across Africa. In Chad, Nigeria, Niger and elsewhere, they are executing Obama’s relatively low-risk strategy of countering Islamic extremists by finding local partners willing to fight rather than deploying combat troops by the thousands. The new approach, which Obama announced in May 2014, is far from being a silver bullet for the United States in its global battle against Islamic militancy. \

the backstory is not just the Boko Harum but the ongoing war in the Sahel, which gets little or no press coverage, partly because most of the special forces types there are French.

StrategyPage discussed this little covered war HERE. and has this note about the ambush:

October 4, 2017: In the northeast, just across the border in Niger four American Special Forces soldiers were killed when the training exercise (a large patrol) they were supervising was ambushed. Four of the Niger troops were killed as well and even more American and Niger troops were wounded...

The attackers were believed to be Islamic terrorists from Mali. In less than an hour French helicopters were in the area to evacuate the wounded and in the next 24 hours French troops and more aircraft from Mali moved to the Niger border to search for the attackers.

Italics mine, because another story had a father of another of the troops wondering why they had no air cover.

The press picked this up and started saying this was "Trump's Benghazi", i.e. implying that he refused to send help for those who were ambushed. Uh, in Benghazi the help was told to stand down for political reasons. Here, the French air support arrived within an hour.

And SP has the backstory:

 The area where the attack took place had never experienced an Islamic terrorist activity before but the border is long and the Islamic terrorists have been known to move around the area without attracting attention because the locals tend to avoid groups of men with guns.

Apparently Islamic terror groups had established a new smuggling route that ran through this areas. The U.S. has 800 troops in Niger, mainly to train Niger troops but some also maintain a number of Reaper UAVs used for surveillance. The smuggling operations often appear (especially from the air) like commercial or aid group traffic.

read the whole thing.

--------------------
AlJ notes that the SJW are not protesting the many killed in a truck bomb in Somalia. Why Not? Racism?

Well, no: because they were killed by Islamic terrorists, and the left loves Islamic terrorists, and most SJW are leftists. Pointing this out is a big no-no.

This is the same reason the SJW ignore the deaths in Yemen: They can't blame the US or the west for what is essentially a fight between the Saudis and the Iranians.

But the failure to notice the many killed or fleeing the war in the Congo is indeed racist. UKGuardian story from January 2017.

Congo’s Catholic church said in a recent report that more than 3,300 people had been killed in Kasai since October. The church blamed government forces, their proxies and the insurgents. More than a million people may have been displaced and were threatened with malnutrition and disease – historically the two biggest killers of civilians during conflicts in the country – it added.

more recent report about nearby Burundi at Crux. (which reports Catholic news).

Later stories are about the murder of wildlife activists, because of course SJW care more about wildlife than black children.

-----------------------

The US is helping Niger ?

In Niger, not Nigeria.

I was under the impression that France was doing a lot of the training in this area.

But not my area of expertise.

The Congo war starts again

Sigh. A long discussion on StrategyPage, 

local warlords behind the violence.

the good news: UN peacekeepers are trying to keep things from going into another full time civil war.

The bad news: They are corrupt.

UN peacekeepers have been in Congo for 18 years and have cost the UN about a billion dollars a year. It is the largest peacekeeping operation the UN has and this year the Congo force had to deal with an eight percent budget cut with more to come. One reason is the growing corruption and other criminal activity among the more hat 20,000 UN personnel in Congo. Corruption and other criminal activity is not unusual in the UN, especially in situations where the UN has been in an area for a long time and had opportunities to develop more relationships with local criminals (often government officials).

African music

In Africa, singing and drumming has a long history.

Our German sisters who ran our hospital, brought up on classical music, only heard banging and noise, but I could detect the rhythms, because American popular music tends to be a combination of celtic ballads and African rhythms, and I was amazed to find how complicated the rhythmic patterns are: Often different drummers played different rhythm in complementary forms to each other.

The nurses tried to give me a lesson in using one of the smaller drums, but alas I didn't have the time to actually get into the complicated rhythms of traditional songs.

Here is a lecture on African music at the Library of Congress about it: Downloaded for later watching.



The Mbira is another instrument. Usually you see these in craft shops as a single line, but professionals use a larger and more complicated one.

Alex Weeks at English Wikipedia

No, you don't play the melody on it: The melody is sung,  and the mbira is played counterpoint to the song, as can be heard in this film:



People will carry small versions with them and play them in leisure time, but professional musicians have larger versions.

usually the larger version is played inside a gourd or as in this film, with a sounding board.




You can often "buy" one at a craft shop or make your own, but like any instrument, it is part of the musical heritage, so you need to learn not only how to "play" it but the musical forms of Africa.

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cross posted from my other blog

Pushing back the Sahara

from the BBC:

Eleven countries are planting a wall of trees from east to west across Africa, just under the southern edge of the Sahara desert.
The goal is to fight the effects of climate change by reversing desertification.

wikipedia page here

Since 2005, the Great Green Wall concept has developed considerably. Lessons learned from the Algerian Green Dam[4] or the Green Wall of China led to understand the need of an integrated multi-sectorial approach for sustainable results.[5] From a tree planting initiative, the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel has evolved to a development programming tool. In 2007, during the eight ordinary session of the Conference of Heads of State and Governments held on January 29 and 30, 2007 in Addis-Ababa (Ethiopia), African Heads of State and Government endorsed the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and the Sahel Initiative with the objective of tackling the detrimental social, economic and environmental impacts of land degradation and desertification in the region.[3]

UKGuardian article (2012).

AlJ video:

more violence in the Congo coming?

AustinBay has another article on the unrest in the Congo due to the President there deciding not to obey the constitution and trying to stay in power.

Some observers argue the Kasai insurgency illustrates what could happen throughout the country if Kabila continues to illegally remain in office. Yes, another brutal civil war. Kabila maintains power because he controls the security forces and the government's patronage system. His presidential guard unit is the most powerful military unit in the country — with the major exception of the UN's MONUSCO peacekeeping force.

The Angolan government was once a staunch Kabila ally. Kasai's refugees and Kabila's failure to end the conflict have ended the alliance. Angola, Congo's largest and most populous neighbor, now calls Kabila an illegal president. Angola also possesses central Africa's most powerful national army.

Pope Francis: Obey me Minions

there are a lot of fault lines in church history, including if the bishops are devised from below or from above.

If you let the 'people' chose the bishops, it allows a coterie to push their own guy into power (as in the early church) but if you let the Pope/Vatican do it, you can get a person who the locals ( or the locals in charge) don't like. In places where bishops are powerful or governments are tyrannical, that can cause problems. Think of the power struggles of the Anglo Saxon vs the norman bishops who wanted to reform the locals. Hence the Philippines has it's own breakaway church from the Catholics, and of course in history a lot of the reason for Lutheran and Anglican churches had to do more with politics and nationalism than with dogma.

Since an isolated church can easily slide into heresy or nepotism, you can see the problem.

The church is not just spiritual, but has intitutions such as schools and hospitals, and in some places the priest/ minister is the most educated person around. This has changed in a lot of areas today, thanks to universal education and cheap books (and not the internet) but you still see how politics can rear it's ugly head in church matters.

Nor is it a Catholic problem, as we see as churches that are formed around a charismatic leader degenerates as the leader dies and his sons are not as holy as he was. Think Pastor Shuller in the USA or the InaCristo here in the Philippines.

To outsiders, it looks like trivia, but often it is a subtle thing that means a lot to those involved.

Pope Francis' tendency to push people around is not good: The pope is a pastor/shepherd, not a dictator, no matter what the Fundie protestants think.

And his love of power, not sensitivity to culture, is seen in this Vatican power play against a Nigerian diocese that doesn't want an outsider as their leader (even an outsider from the same tribe)...

according to the comments, he is from a different subtribe who speak a different dialect,

The Tribes have their own dialects and see themselves as unique entities from within. However we all see them as Igbo from outside.
The tribes include
-Onitsha
-Ika
-Nsukka
-Ezza
-Mbaise
-Abriba
-Ikwerre
-Oguta
Etc etc etc.
Their (Igbo) ethnology is one of the most interesting in Nigeria.
Sadly, they are misunderstood.

and the writer clarifies the problem in a second comment...
The diocese is rural and largely away from the city but it is dense in terms of the strength of numbers, both parishioners and priests. They’ve literally taken it upon themselves to train and build this diocese. They’ve also supported and trained many priests from around the country of different tribes. These priests number in the thousands. More than any rural diocese in Nigeria.
With this, there are about 1000 possible persons who qualify from the local diocese and probably up to 2000+ priests that qualify from the state.
This is based on their knowledge of the diocese, its peculiarities and difficulties.
Interestingly, out of these numbers from the diocese, not one has ever been made a Bishop anywhere. So the question is why??
Shockingly, it’s nepotism. The church Ij the east was first domiciled in the Anambra axis and even through others in the east have grown. The Anambra axis doesn’t recognize this fact and tends to through their influence dictate to others who may have slightly different views than they have. This to the local priest is unfair and a sort of denial on the part of the church of both the progress they’ve made and the sacrifices they continue to make.

Therefore, the nepotism claim or tribalism is reversed. Let me explain.
In Nigeria today, this Anambra archdiocese accounts for up to 15 Bishops. Many sent to other smaller dioceses. The argument here was that the Ahiara diocese isn’t a small diocese but has successfully run itself with its own priests and schools and hospitals for about 30years.
They therefore see this as a set back and the people I’ve spoken to see it as if the over 1000 priests they have trained and or sponsored are not good enough or are just plain evil people. This is not fair.
Like I said none of them has ever been sent to oversee their fellow priests anywhere in the universal Catholic Church.
Well, I think they should accept the decision since they’ve made their points for those who care to seek the facts. The question is wil their rural people understand why they or their leaders are not worthy of this honor??

I don’t know!!

 this is a local paper and the comment section is quite interesting.

essentially most of the bishops are all from the same diocese, and locals see this as a power play by this outside diocese to make their local church be seen as inferior to the big shot outsiders who want to run all the local churches.

Yup. Local politics is involved, but also a question if the church is universal or local: should the people have input into who leads them?

. More here.

Crux summary here.

Francis lays out his demands, accusing the recalcitrant priests of wanting “to destroy the church,” and saying he’d even considered suppressing the diocese. Instead, he’s demanding they all write to “clearly manifest total obedience to the pope,” including their willingness to accept the bishop he appoints. No matter how you slice it, it’s a dramatic show of papal muscle. Even Francis conceded, “this seems pretty harsh,” but said he was doing it “because the People of God is scandalized, and Jesus reminds us that whoever causes scandal has to face the consequences.

No, I didn't work in Nigeria so am not knowledgible about the ins and outs.

And does the holyman caste have anything to do with this?I don't know.

my work in Africa was in rural Zimbabwe with the Mashona, and in Monrovia Liberia. Yes I worked with Nigerians there but didn't get to know the culture. So I post this as an FYI.