Deal or No Deal?

Last week, the President of the United States met with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin.
The meeting in Alaska was anything but a summit. As is his habit, Trump had made so much noise about the meeting and what he hoped to achieve. Expectations were high, and then, empty words—-“there’s no deal until there’s a deal.”
Well, “if there’s nothing in it, it’s nothing!”

How about that?

The war continues in Ukraine. Over 7,000 lives will be lost every single day for as long as the war lasts, or for as long as it takes for Ukraine to build a nuclear bomb.

They can.
They will.

The President came up short.

There was no deal.

In the days running up to the Alaska ‘sightseeing,’ President Trump had stirred up trouble in Texas by urging Governor Abbot to redraw maps that will favor Republicans in the Midterms in 2026.

Ordinarily, redrawing a map is not illegal. It’s something that’s done or could be done once every ten years after the National Census. This one happening in Texas is a mid-decade redrawing and it is blatant in its audaciousness. Literally, it constitutes bare-faced cheating and stealing of election.

This action called gerrymandering is named after Elbridge Gerry, a one time Democratic-Republican Governor of Massachusetts, (1810-1812). He began the practice of redrawing maps for electoral advantage, hence the term, gerrymandering.

It is a polite word for rigging as it seeks to manipulate the electoral map in a deliberate manner in a bid to dilute block votes from a particular constituency.

What it does is to split a strong electoral map into several small sections and add them to other areas with opposing views where they will then become minority groups. It whittles down their power and the strange thing about it is that it can be done legally.

The Democrats in the Texas State House had to exercise their nuclear option of running away from the State in order to deny the House a quorum.

Unwittingly, what the major actors of this problem seem to forget is that they are gradually gnawing away at the foundations of fairness, of Justice and of ethics. They are teaching a whole new generation essentially that cheating is okay if you can get a legal blanket for justification.

In other words, where ethics meets the law, ethics be damned.

The Governor of California. Gavin Newsom has threatened to retaliate if Texas goes through with their redistricting. The question will then be, what State next? American politicians need only look elsewhere at what other people have done to destroy their countries to learn that “when you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind, and not potatoes.”

Elsewhere in the Middle East, bare-faced evil continues to spew vermin as Netanyahu has made a bold gamble to occupy Gaza, and even build settlements there.

Gaza starves.

The world watches.

From 1940 to 1945, the world watched and stood idly by as Hitler eliminated 6 million Jews. In 2025, 80 years after the Second World War, yet again, the world watches as Israel annihilates Gaza. This kind of madness continues to reinforce the timeless line by Jean Baptiste Alphonse Kerr—-“plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chosé,”
which translates—-“the more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Humanity by any hue, in any time of history, by whatever geography or religious persuasion remains what it is—-humanity.

It is pure, undiluted evil. It is so evil that the Bible states that, “It repented the Lord God that he made man” (Genesis 6:6).

In our beautiful Nigeria, some good news seemed to have filled the air last week as Okonjo Iweala, the African face of the IMF, World Bank, Chatham House, etc, spoke glowing words about President Tinubu’s bold reforms. She gave approval and said, “now, we need to move to the second stage—to begin to grow the economy, having stabilized it.”

Positive ratings.

Renewed Hope is Alive.

More good news came from the office of the National Security Adviser, Nuhu Ribadu. He said that a handful of the most wanted Nigerian terrorists had been arrested or neutralized.

Is the country now safe?

Is the government gonna declare “Mission Accomplished?”

Maybe not in a hurry.

Finally, in Edo State, after several years of dry, rusty water pipes across the State, water is finally flowing again in parts of Esan Land.

A commentator in assessing this huge accomplishment by Governor Monday Okpebholo under 10 months in office said—-“This achievement is a testimonial not only to the single-minded approach to project execution by the Governor, but also a salute to power rotation among all three Senatorial Zones. In other words, when in power, take care of the entire state, but be sure to pay particular attention to your zone.”

It is hard to argue with
this assessment.

Until we meet again, goodbye, and good luck.

Michael Ovienmhada