TODAY IS MARTIN LUTHER KING JR's DAY

Martin Luther King, Jr., (January 15, 1929-April 4, 1968) was born Michael Luther King, Jr., but later had his name changed to Martin. His grandfather began the family's long tenure as pastors of the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, serving from 1914 to 1931; his father has served from then until the present, and from 1960 until his death Martin Luther acted as co-pastor. Martin Luther attended segregated public schools in Georgia, graduating from high school at the age of fifteen; he received the B. A. degree in 1948 from Morehouse College, a distinguished Negro institution of Atlanta from which both his father and grandfather had graduated. After three years of theological study at Crozer Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania where he was elected president of a predominantly white senior class, he was awarded the B.D. in 1951. With a fellowship won at Crozer, he enrolled in graduate studies at Boston University, completing his residence for the doctorate in 1953 and receiving the degree in 1955. In Boston he met and married Coretta Scott, a young woman of uncommon intellectual and artistic attainments. Two sons and two daughters were born into the family.

In 1954, Martin Luther King became pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Always a strong worker for civil rights for members of his race, King was, by this time, a member of the executive committee of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the leading organization of its kind in the nation. He was ready, then, early in December, 1955, to accept the leadership of the first great Negro nonviolent demonstration of contemporary times in the United States, the bus boycott described by Gunnar Jahn in his presentation speech in honor of the laureate. The boycott lasted 382 days. On December 21, 1956, after the Supreme Court of the United States had declared unconstitutional the laws requiring segregation on buses, Negroes and whites rode the buses as equals. During these days of boycott, King was arrested, his home was bombed, he was subjected to personal abuse, but at the same time he emerged as a Negro leader of the first rank.

In 1957 he was elected president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization formed to provide new leadership for the now burgeoning civil rights movement. The ideals for this organization he took from Christianity; its operational techniques from Gandhi. In the eleven-year period between 1957 and 1968, King traveled over six million miles and spoke over twenty-five hundred times, appearing wherever there was injustice, protest, and action; and meanwhile he wrote five books as well as numerous articles. In these years, he led a massive protest in Birmingham, Alabama, that caught the attention of the entire world, providing what he called a coalition of conscience. and inspiring his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail", a manifesto of the Negro revolution; he planned the drives in Alabama for the registration of Negroes as voters; he directed the peaceful march on Washington, D.C., of 250,000 people to whom he delivered his address, "l Have a Dream", he conferred with President John F. Kennedy and campaigned for President Lyndon B. Johnson; he was arrested upwards of twenty times and assaulted at least four times; he was awarded five honorary degrees; was named Man of the Year by Time magazine in 1963; and became not only the symbolic leader of American blacks but also a world figure.

At the age of thirty-five, Martin Luther King, Jr., was the youngest man to have received the Nobel Peace Prize. When notified of his selection, he announced that he would turn over the prize money of $54,123 to the furtherance of the civil rights movement.

On the evening of April 4, 1968, while standing on the balcony of his motel room in Memphis, Tennessee, where he was to lead a protest march in sympathy with striking garbage workers of that city, he was assassinated.

An Open Letter to Nigeria’s President by Hafsat Abiola

Hafsat Abiola is a human rights, civil rights and democracy activist, founder of the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND), and daughter of late business man/politician, MKO Abiola. Her letter below Dear President, As young global leaders we would like to express our deep concern about the recent situations in Nigeria. The massacre in Baga has been Boko Haram’s deadliest so far and what has it met with? Your silence. Most disturbing still is the fact that you would send a message to France condemning the killings there, yet seem unable to address the Nigerian people who look to you for leadership. Unfortunately, it would not be the first time On 10 November 2014 a suicide bomber killed 47 people and injured 79 others. The following day, with barely a mention of this horrific incident targetting children, you launched your re-election campaign. And despite the ease with which you move on, even you will remember the abduction of the schoolgirls in Chibok in April last year. It was 40 days before you addressed the country on that occasion. Nigerians waited, perplexed, as your government debated whether or not the abductions had even taken place. As a result, of all the girls captured, only 52 have secured their freedom – escaping on their own. The rest are still in captivity, still waiting to be rescued, 276 days after being taken from their friends, family and community. Could it be that your government also doubts that the Baga attacks happened? Amnesty International’s satellite images confirm that indeed a massacre took place, and as many as 2000 people are dead. Yet your army wastes time contesting the numbers. Whether 150 or 2000, we’d like to hear from you on your governments plans to secure the region and to bear witness to the loss of lives in Baga. We have seen a clear incompetency in handling matters of national interest. In the context of existing ethnic and religious fault lines, silence only says that Nigeria’s government does not care about the victims and is not dealing with the insurgency. True the global community has also failed to maintain pressure on your government that seems ambivalent about fulfilling its constitutional role to secure the lives and properties of its citizens. As 1.5 million Nigerians flee their homes, swelling camps within Nigeria and overwhelming border communities’ (if not same as before), it seems the only hope to see you act is global outrage. It was this that finally forced you to address the nation and the world 40 days after the Chibok abductions. It was only then that you reached out to other countries and, with their help, agree a plan for a regional security force to secure the porous borders between Nigeria, Niger and Chad where Boko Haram roams undeterred. Perhaps, had international pressure been sustained last year, a multi-regional force would have been based in Baga as planned. Perhaps it would have been strong enough to repel Boko Haram when the militants attacked on 3 January. Perhaps 2000 lives could have been saved. But Isis happened and the world moved on, leaving a small national military unit to stand between thousands of armed militants and a town of ten thousand people. We now know what happened. The world has seen pictures of bodies still strewn around the forest and river where they died. If these deaths do not generate the attention, outcry and action that they ought to, we can only prepare the ground for more bodies because Boko Haram shows no sign of relenting. The insurgents can be defeated but first you must decide if the lives of Nigerians are worth it or not. Break the silence, Mr. President. Call for global attention and support to avert a crisis that begins to echo the early days of the Rwandan genocide. Be the voice for the thousands of innocent people who have died and the millions who yearn for peace. They have the right to rebuild their communities and claim their place in the unfolding rise of the African continent. Hafsat Abiola-Costello Founder/President Kudirat Initiative for democracy Nigeria Co-Signatories Arnaud Ventura, France Bjarte Reve, Norway Binta Niambi Brown, USA Erik Charas, Mozambique Funmi Iyanda, Nigeria Georgie Bernadette, USA Jacqueline Musiitwa, Zambia Loulwa Bakr, Saudi Arabia Leo Shlesinger, Chile Marieme Jamme, Senegal Mark Turrell, Germany Rossana Figuera, USA Salim Amin, Kenya Soulaima Gourani, Denmark Susan Mashibe, Tanzania Tara Fela Durotoye, Nigeria

CYBERSPACE GOES AGOG AS DR. IFEANYI OKOWA FLAGS OFF DELTA STATE GUBER CAMPAIGN TODAY

By Francis Akenami

Democracy is a game of numbers, a popularity contest to say the least. One reliable barometer to measure the popularity of a 21st century political candidate is how well he is received in social media: facebook, twitter, google groups just to mention a few.

Almost everywhere one turns is a solid social media group supporting Senator Ifeanyi Okowa. This social media success is infectious as his popularity goes viral. It’s a presence that wins over the youth and enlightened hands. No Delta State Gubernatorial candidate compares to him in this regard.

Going by this towering presence and support from internet groups, I can confidently posit that Okowa’s campaign is doing very well. If there be funds for campaigns, social media support groups should equally be funded to keep the fire burning.

Senator Okowa is the “Change We Can Believe In.”

Francis Akenami is State Co-ordinator,  Delta Youth Synergy for Prosperity – ‘Change We Can Believe In’

Focus Groups For Senator Ifeanyi Okowa 2015 – Change We Can Believe In

Chairman: Hon. Omimi 

What is a Focus Group?

A focus group is the meeting of a small group of individuals who are guided through a discussion by a trained moderator (or consultant). The goal of the focus group is to get beyond superficial answers and uncover insights on consumer attitudes and behavior.

History of Focus Groups

Focus groups originated in American marketing. By the middle of the twentieth century, advertising companies were hiring marketing firms to survey the public in order to find out what kinds of products and services were most appealing. While providing a great deal of useful information, the surveys did not explain why products held so little appeal for some people. Nor did they suggest how products currently on the market might be altered to elicit greater consumer support. Focus groups gained popularity because they allowed participants to explain the reasons behind their reaction to products. They were then adopted as policy setting instruments by politicians interested in responding to "the voice of the people." It took a while for academic research to catch on to the usefulness of focus groups, and even when academia did begin to realize their potential, there was initially no standard methodology for gathering data.

Purposes of Focus Groups

At first, scholars embraced focus groups half-heartedly. During the 1980s focus groups were used as a supplement to other methods. Information garnered from group interviews was used to construct surveys, or the focus groups would be considered as "pilot" interviews for a larger study with one-on-one interviews. It was not until the late 1980s and early 1990s that the social sciences recognized focus group interviews as important data sources in themselves.

Research Uses for Focus Groups

Traditionally there have been several ways in which focus groups have been used to generate data.

Focus groups can help to generate hypotheses if researchers are exploring new territory. Stories told by focus group participants can be used in questionnaires or turned into hypothetical-type questions on surveys.

1. Focus group findings can help to interpret survey responses if the focus groups are conducted mid-way through a mixed-method research project.
2. Focus groups can offer insight into statistical findings--especially if unexpected outcomes occur.
3. Focus groups are often conducted to assist with program development or evaluation. Focus group interviews can provide valuable insight into whether a program or service has achieved desired goals.

Today focus group data are used independently to generate knowledge. Focus groups are seen as valuable tools for exploring how points of view are constructed as well as how they are expressed. Focus group data can explain how stories, ideas, attitudes, and experiences function within a certain cultural setting, especially within an ethnographic study.

Selecting participants.
Most focus group research relies on purposive sampling (Miles & Huberman, 1984), with researchers selecting participants based on the project and on the potential contributions of participants. Alternatively, participants can be randomly selected from a larger group that should be able to give insight into the topic.

Data Analysis

The analysis process includes summarizing the discussion immediately following the focus group. Because people can forget important details so easily, writing these field notes as soon as possible after the focus group has ended is imperative. Also, because researchers have the research questions in mind during the summing up process, salient themes of the discussion begin to emerge.

Conclusion

Focus groups have the potential to become a central approach in sociological and educational research, whether focused on the pragmatic end of evaluation or the abstract goal of theory building. The aim of this brief overview was to provide an introduction to the method and provide readers with a sense of the benefits and caveats attached to focus groups. Before conducting such groups readers are recommended to read more broadly on focus groups and think carefully about how appropriate focus groups are for their own work. When implemented correctly, however, focus groups can be an efficient and effective way to gain insights into social process.

Epilogue

I have made the above summary to highlight the importance of feedback on our campaign and eventually on good governance. We are all expected to participate actively in the forum with a view to providing feedback for our Principal. I am expecting it to be a two-way feedback such that the campaign can also serve as a contract with the masses.

Your ideas are welcome!

John Conyers wins 26th consecutive term in Congress, becomes first African American Dean of the House of Representatives

DETROIT (AP) - U.S. Rep. John Conyers has won his 26th consecutive term in Congress with a victory in the general election for the 13th District seat.
The 85-year-old Detroit Democrat will become Congress' longest-serving member when Dearborn Democrat John Dingell retires at the end of this year. Conyers has served in Congress since 1965.
He survived a challenge earlier this year that sought to keep his name off the primary ballot. Many of his petition signatures were thrown out because the people who gathered names weren't registered voters or listed a wrong registration address.
In Tuesday's election, Conyers dispatched Republican Jeff Gorman and other candidates in the district that covers parts of Detroit and Wayne County.
Conyers has recently been protesting water shutoffs of Detroit residents who are behind in their bills.
Source: AP