Whenever my article is published on this or other fora, I receive several responses from readers, sent directly to my E-mail inbox. Regardless of the number of responses, I make an effort to send an acknowledgement back to the sender, either to engage him or her in further debates of the issues, or just to thank them for taking the time to read the usually long articles. Most of the time, the responses I receive are polite and positive, and are affirmations or expatiations of the points of views that I have expressed. Sometimes though, I receive virulent, rude and tempestuous remarks. Either way, I send a response to the author paying all due respect to his/her divergent views.

My last article – "Lawlessness Unlimited" – elicited quite an avalanche of responses, well over 300, most of which demonstrated an understanding - a simple understanding - of the fact that I did not share the condescending view of Negroes as espoused by the fictional character, Dr. Goodenough, quoted in the work of fiction - "By Sheer Pluck" - written in 1884 by George Alfred Henty.

Because of my limited writing prowess, I have to write for the many, not the few. And I do so by employing a very simple style devoid of any bombastic language, flowery diction or complex syntax. Yet, out of the hundreds of readers that responded to that article, two of them - Messrs Tajin Olusegun Taire and Yomi Akintobi were conspicuous in their total misunderstanding of the entire point of the Henty quotation. Without graphically sharing the manifestation of their ignorance with the World Wide Web, let me just say that they assumed that I adopted Henty's views of the Negro! How could any reasonable mind miss the mark by so much? I have gone back to read the piece again and again and I am convinced that a 5^th grader would know, by the fourth paragraph, that I share in the outrage against Henty, not support his views. In fact, I made my disappointment very unambiguous in the article with phrases like "…I felt the same outrage…my blood pressure rises…" etc.

The crux of Taire and Akintobi's criticism is that I neglected to mention the ills that abound in the Western world and only dwelt on those in Africa. One of them wondered if there were no criminals in the US; if the Germans did not commit genocide against the Jews; if Europeans did not engage in slavery; if Americans did not drop the atomic bomb on Japan and if the Arabs were not committing horrendous acts with their suicide bombs in Iraq and Israel. He wondered why I neglected to highlight those "savage" acts, but chose to expose and wash the Nigerian dirty linen in public, further contributing to the humiliation of Nigerians in the eyes of the Westerner.

In the blind, ultra- nationalistic fervor displayed in his E-mail, Tajin Taire asked me to purchase and read "Guns, Germs and Steel", a book written in 1997 by Jared Diamond. Incidentally, the Pulitzer prize-winning book was on my bookshelf collecting dust. I dusted it up and refreshed my memory about its subject-matter. The book does nothing other than shift the blame for our various inadequacies onto other factors. If it is not geography, it is agriculture. If it is not ecology, it is the environment. If you believe Diamond, you would believe that "savagery" is an innate and ingrained characteristic of Africans, foisted upon us by the "Latitudinal," not "longitudinal" location of our continent (!). And because we are stuck on the African continent with its attendant geo-economic disadvantages, we should accept our "Third World" stigma.

But just as Tajin Taire completely misunderstood my "Lawlessness Unlimited" article, he also misunderstood and misused Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel." Diamond's book is basically a research work. Researches, by their very nature, are subjective. In them, theories are skewed and tilted to support predetermined assumptions. And if you are gullible enough to swallow hook, line and sinker "facts", (presented in a thesis) that are subject to queries by future researchers, you do so at your own peril. And that is exactly what Tajin Taire has done with "Guns, Germs and Steel."

Scientists, before and after Diamond, have posited convincingly that humans are victims more of their "nurture," than of their "nature." The overwhelming consensus is that humans of diverse culture, race, creed gender and geographical locations share unique characteristics (nature) that make them recognizable as humans. They understand the need for reproduction and the need to nurse and protect their new babies. They understand the need for self-development, be it through formal education or the learning of trade skills in order to fend for their families. They live in familial arrangements, whether it is nuclear or extended types. They react to the loss of loved ones, especially young ones almost the same way. They react to good news the same way and strive for new heights everyday. This is not to say that there are no exceptions to these general rules. But normal human beings do share all of the above characteristics. The sequence of the 3.1 billion letters of the human DNA has been determined to be generally the same in all humans. Of course, there are sometimes variations found in some gene sites, these variations account for the different kinds of people we have – gay, lesbians etc. But the fact that some humans go to church, go to jail or go to the moon, while others do not, is a function of their different upbringing – their nurturing.

In an. interview with the National Geographic News, Diamond continued his justification for why Africans are the way they are: "Africa today, paradoxically, is the poorest continent. I say paradoxically because this is where humans evolved, so [humans] had a huge head start in Africa. Tropical diseases kept the Europeans out at first, but those tropical diseases nonetheless pose a big public health and economic burden on Africa today. That is linked with colonialism. Europeans could not settle in large numbers. But what they still could do was to extract wealth from Africans, initially slaves, then rubber, diamonds, and copper. Basically that means robbing Africans and setting up legalized institutions for corruption. Colonialism also changed the Africans' traditional way of life. They moved to cities next to the mines where their immunities no longer provided protection against tropical diseases."

But as if he knew that the Tajin Taires of Africa would latch onto this assertion and demand "affirmative actions" for the injustice meted out to them by Europeans, Diamond, in the same interview cautioned: "If you make a complex argument, there will be people out there who will simplify and misuse it. I recognize that there are people who will say geography deals out these immutable cards and there's nothing we can do about it. But one can show the evidence and say there is something we can do about it. Look at Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. They recognized that their biggest disadvantage was public health. They didn't say, we got these tropical diseases—it's inevitable. Instead they said, we have these tropical diseases and they are curable and all it takes is money so let's invest in curing the diseases. Today they are rich, virtually First World countries. That shows that poverty is something you can do something about."

He then contradicted his own book: "People have a misunderstanding that geography means environmental determinism, and that poor countries are doomed to be poor and they should just shut up and lie down and play dead. But in fact, knowledge is power. Once you know what it is that's making you poor, you can use that knowledge to make you rich."

But Taire who seems to have read "Guns, Germs and Steel" does not believe that you can "use what you've got, to get what you want." For him, I should accept the deplorable condition in which my people live and work in Nigeria. I should cross my hands (and legs) and blame it all on the "Latitudinal" or "Longitudinal" positioning of Nigeria. And if I do not, I have been "brainwashed" by the White man who wants to continue the mortification of my people.

Let us consider a few of our "savage" acts that were the results, according to Tajin Taire's warped logic, of the Nigerian weather and topography:

Tajin Taire is offended that I seem to gleefully dwell on the "savage" acts in the Nigerian society while neglecting those of the Western world. Let me oblige him here:

Just this week, the state of Michigan recorded one of the most "savage" of acts in recent memory. A woman, Tara Grant, was strangled to death by her husband, Stephen Grant, after what appeared to be a domestic argument. Mr. Grant then proceeded to cut Mrs. Grant into little pieces, throwing those little body parts around the neighborhood. As that story unfolded, the state of Texas announced that it arrested a 17 year-old "uncle" serving marijuana to a 2 year-old and a 5 year-old. The announcement was made with a video footage of the little ones taking puffs of the pot. And as I type this, 47 year-old Eric Johnson of Indiana loaded his 8 year-old daughter onto a small plane that he piloted, and angrily crashed the plane into the home of his ex-mother-in-law, killing him and his daughter.

Those are some of the most recent "savage" acts in the US. We can go back in time for more if it will satisfy the duo of Taire and Akintobi:

Timothy McVeigh was a former member of the US military. He had served in the first gulf war. One day, he rented a van, loaded it with explosives, drove to a government building in Oklahoma and detonated the bomb, killing scores of people including young children in a daycare center. Few years ago, an American living in Germany visited his wife in the hospital. In the plastic bag that he presented to his wife was the severed head of the man with whom she was cheating on him. Ted Kaczynski was a disgruntled former mathematics professor. Between 1978 and 1996, Kaczynski hid in a Montana shed from where he built and mailed letter bombs to people in the academia with whom he disagreed, maiming some and striking terror in the lives of many. In 1994, Susan Smith told police she had been carjacked in South Carolina by a black man and that her two children were still in their car seats in the vehicle. For nine days, she made tearful pleas on television for the return of her children, before finally confessing to having rolled the car herself into a nearby pond with her children inside.Another woman, Andrea Yates called authorities to her Texas home and told them, "I killed my children." Each child – aged six months to seven years - was drowned in a bathtub. In 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, were "savagely" butchered to death in front of Simpson's home. The scene resembled a busy abattoir when camera crews arrived. Nicole's ex-husband, O.J. Simpson was suspected of the murders and accordingly (but unsuccessfully) tried in the criminal case.

Need I go on about "savage" acts in the US? Maybe my two friends –Taire and Akintobi - want some more. Aside from murders and violent "savagery," America has had its share of political ones.In 2006, former Illinois governor, George Ryan, who drew international praise when he commuted the sentences of everyone on Illinois' death row, was convicted of racketeering and fraud in a corruption scandal that ended his political career in 2003. Before him, formerly powerful member of the U.S House of Representatives, Dan Rowstenkowski was also found guilty of corruption, kicked out of office and sent to jail. Also in 2006, formerly powerful member of the U.S House of Representatives, Tom Delay, from Texas, was accused of corruption. He too was sent packing from the House. He is still fighting to stay out of prison.

And finally, former president Bill Clinton was investigated and impeached, (while in office!) for having "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinski, a White House intern.

Now that I have written at length about some "savage" acts committed by mostly white Americans, I hope Tajin Taire and Yomi Akintobi, (and others like them) are satisfied. In fact, they better savor this moment, for it could be the last time I concern myself about a world in which I have the littlest chance of influencing. Both of these gentlemen ought to know that in the case of the US, we have proof; we have the data; we have hard evidence, in most cases, that the "savage" acts were relentlessly pursued by law enforcement agents, and duly prosecuted. Even as numbing as these acts could be in their goriness and the frequency of their occurrences, there is usually enough outrage, (as was the case over the Abu Ghraib and GITMO prisons abuses) that compels culprits to check their behaviors.

Human beings, by our very nature, are susceptible to barbaric and animalistic tendencies. When allowed to blossom, the demon in every person could take him/her to the bottomless abyss of vile and revolting behaviors, regardless of the "Longitudinal" or "Latitudinal" location of their communities.

Tajin Taire expects me to waste my time blaming others for the ills that have become the trade mark of my people. The Yoruba people, again, are fond of warning us that "if others are fooling you, do not fool yourself."

When I write, I try as much as possible to avoid abstract theories. I dig deep to find real examples, names, incidents and dates – events to which readers can easily relate – and I bring those issues to the fore in a didactic form. My writings are deliberately less esoteric. And as I have told Taire in our private E-mails, I did not intend to offend anyone by quoting from Henty's book. In fact, for the avoidance of any doubt, I am as angry as anybody, that Negroes were so denigrated in the book. I cede no ground to any ultra-nationalist who concerns himself with the mote in other people's eyes at the expense of the huge Iroko tree in his. I am as Nigerian as you can get - born in Lagos; speak Yoruba and Hausa fluently; attended primary schools in Zaria, Ilorin and Jos; attended secondary schools in Ikirun (Osun State) and Babanloma (Kwara State); completed my tertiary education at Ile-Ife and Ibadan; worked in Ilorin and Lagos; traveled extensively as a newspaper reporter before re-locating to the United States. And since living abroad (about 20 years now), I have not spent a single day out of my leave or vacation time outside Nigeria. Tajin Taire and Yomi Akintobi therefore do not have a monopoly of Nigerian nationalistic fervor.

When I write about the deplorable state of Nigerian roads, it is because I drive there regularly and have a first-hand experience of the roads. When I write about the poor medical facilities in Nigeria, it is because my mother lives there and uses those medical facilities. When I write about the poor schools, it is because I have children in the school system there and know some school officials. When I write about the lack of water and electricity, it is because I own a home there and I know what I am talking about.

When I write, like many patriotic Nigerians, it is to beam some light on some of the darkness in our polity, hoping that those in whom the power to effect changes reside might wake up to their responsibilities. Our society is the way it is because most of us do not ask questions of our leaders. We do not force them to account for their derelictions of duties. Our leaders travel abroad to enjoy the better standards of living there. They send their children to schools in Europe and America. They fly to Germany, Italy and Spain for "medical check ups." Yet, they consign our people back home to the most squalid of living conditions, in spite of the huge human and natural resources that abound in our country. I don't need arcane theories from the Jared Diamonds of this world, along with blind followers like Taire and Akintobi, to convince me that Sani Abacha, for example, turned out to be a despot because Nigeria was a "latitudinal" country, not a "longitudinal" one. What balderdash!I refuse to accept Jared Diamond's excuses. And so, I refuse to recommend "Guns, Germs and Steel" to my friends. It will be a waste of their time like it was of mine.