The Zizaplex, 3333 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA (2026)

12/26/2025

In light of the reported U.S. strike on alleged ISIS targets in Sokoto on Christmas Day, rather than in more established conflict theatres such as Borno, Plateau, or Benue, understandable questions have emerged. Chief among them are concerns about the quality and accuracy of the intelligence that informed the strike, and whether the Nigerian government actively collaborated with the United States in the operation.

At present, no one can answer these questions with certainty.

What I am doing is this: I am currently conducting a computer-aided probabilistic analysis to assess both the likelihood of meaningful U.S.–Nigeria operational cooperation and, more importantly, the probability that the intelligence behind the strike was accurate. However, I will share that deeper analysis on a paid platform elsewhere.

For now, however, I think, the Nigerian audience—especially those on Facebook, might appreciate one key context: Nigeria is widely regarded as possessing the most sophisticated intelligence architecture in Africa, based on comparative institutional strengths and operational reach. We can leave questions of Nigeria's political will to tackle terrorists for another day.

As we continue to process the implications of U.S. strikes occurring outside traditional front lines of terrorism, here is how Africa’s Top Five Intelligence Agencies broadly stack up:

Nigeria (Department of State Services — DSS)

Role: Domestic intelligence, counterterrorism, internal security

Strengths:

Deep nationwide presence and local intelligence pe*******on.
Central role in counterterrorism and counter-subversion.
Strong presidential and state security mandate.

Reputation: One of the most influential internal security services in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Egypt (General Directorate of State Security)

Role: Internal security, counterterrorism, political intelligence

Strengths:

Long institutional history and professional bureaucracy.
Strong counter-insurgency and urban intelligence experience.
Tight integration with military and regional intelligence networks.

South Africa (State Security Agency)

Role: Domestic and foreign intelligence, counterintelligence.

Strengths:

Advanced analytical and legal-institutional framework
Strong counterintelligence and strategic assessment capacity
Experience in cyber, economic, and political intelligence

Ethiopia (National Intelligence and Security Service).

Role: National security, counterinsurgency, regional surveillance.

Strengths:

Extensive counterinsurgency experience
Strong regional reach in the Horn of Africa
Effective integration with military and federal forces

Algeria (Directorate General for Documentation and Security).

Role: Internal security, counterterrorism, defence intelligence.

Strengths:

Deep counterterrorism expertise built over decades
Strong military–intelligence fusion
Effective border, desert, and transnational threat monitoring

As debate continues, one point remains clear: precision strikes presume precision intelligence. Understanding the intelligence ecosystems involved is essential before drawing firm conclusions about intent, error, or collaboration.

12/04/2025

Did you foresee architecture, engineering, nursing, and education losing ‘professional’ status?

Wow—this was really unexpected. The U.S. government has announced that it will no longer classify a wide range of graduate programs as “professional degrees” for federal financial aid purposes. The list of affected fields is far broader than many anticipated.

Degrees no longer considered “professional”:

These programs—many of which require licensure, advanced study, or years of specialized training—will lose access to higher federal financial aids limits:

Nursing (MSN, DNP, DNSc, PhD).
Architecture, Engineering & Technology (MArch, DArch, MLA, MTech, MEng, DEng, DTech, DSc, PhD, etc.)
Education (MEd, DEd, PhD).
Social Work (MSW, DSW, PhD).
Allied-health, including physical therapy, audiology, physician assistant, and more (DPT, DAud, MSPA, DHSc)
Public Health (MPH, DrPH, PhD).
Business, counseling/therapy degrees (MBA, MAcct, MS, DBA, PhD, etc.).

Degrees still recognized as “professional”:

A much smaller group of programs will continue to qualify for the higher financial aids caps:

Theology (MDiv, DTh, MDiv, MTh, PhD)
Medicine (MD, DO, MBBS)
Dentistry (DDS, DDM)
Pharmacy (PharmD)
Optometry (OD)
Veterinary Medicine (DVM)
Podiatry (DP)
Chiropractic (DC)
Law (JD, LLB)
Clinical Psychology (PsychD, PhD)

What does this change actually mean?

Beginning July 1, 2026, federal financial aid limits will shift dramatically.

Students in the fields newly reclassified as non-professional will see their annual financial aid capped at $20,000 per year. Meanwhile, students in the remaining “professional” programs—such as medicine, law, or theology—will still be eligible for up to $50,000 per year, though total aid is capped at $200,000 overall.

That lifetime limit is still well below what many medical students typically need for four years of basic training, which makes the changes all the more surprising.

Reaction so far

The announcement has caught many professional communities off guard. Organizations such as the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) have voiced strong concern about the implications for students entering their fields.

https://qr.ae/pC5Duh

11/18/2025

"A Pakistani Imam in Italy gave a sermon saying that every Muslim should fight the infidels or face ‘catastrophic consequences’. The next day, Italian PM Giorgia Meloni personally requested that he be deported. He had lived in Italy for 30 years and was a permanent resident!" That's what's in circulation.

Here's what's true:

It's true that Imam Zulfiqar Khan, a Pakistani who had lived in Italy since 1995, had his residence permit (“green card”) revoked and was expelled on 8 October 2024. However, the expulsion decree was issued by Italy's Interior Ministry, not by the Prime Minister. In true democracies, Prime Ministers or Presidents don't issue such orders.

The decree cited “increasing ideological fanaticism, anti-Western, antisemitic, homophobic, and anti-feminist rhetoric; links to extremist networks like Hamas; and sermons advocating resistance against the Italian state’s tax laws.”

Italian news outlet 9 Colonne further reported that Khan “claimed that every Muslim has an obligation to fight for faith and participate in the war against infidels, including Italians.” He believed that every Italian should surrender to the "ways of Allah."

This leads to a blunt, unavoidable question:

If a person harbors such hostility toward a country’s values, laws, and civic foundations, why leave your own country, which is probably more conducive to your beliefs, and live in that foreign "infidel" country for nearly thirty years?

The usual excuse—“I oppose the system, not the people”—collapses instantly. A country’s “system” is the cumulative creation of its people: their laws, culture, civic institutions, and democratic choices. Even seemingly "off" regimes in those Western countries were voted in by a majority of the people. To claim love for the people while openly denouncing the entire structure they built is not nuance—it is contradiction.

What we see here is textbook cognitive dissonance: condemning a nation while simultaneously benefiting from its stability, rights, economic security, and public institutions.

It is also special pleading: demanding to be treated as an exception while undermining the very society providing that exception.
Yes, to condemn a nation while accepting its advantages is to violate the principle of consistency (Aristotle’s non-contradiction), the social contract (Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau), and integrity of action (Kant’s universalizability).

Permit me to put plainly:

You cannot declare war on a house while continuing to sleep in its bed. In other words, you cannot have your cake and eat it too. Trying to do so is the very definition of hypocrisy.

Consider my dilemma in 1989/1990.

There is a country I genuinely reject because of how its values and machinations have affected me to date. While seeking post-graduate educational opportunities abroad, I declined an invitation for a prestigious, fully funded academic scholarship in that country—almost guaranteed. Instead, I chose a less attractive one in another country I could live in and wake up without a guilty conscience in the morning.

At another time, it was so painful even having to pass through that country’s airport on a connecting flight. That is ideological integrity—beliefs matched by behavior.

By contrast, choosing to live for decades inside a country one publicly denounces is not moral consistency—it's ideological posturing cushioned by the comforts of the very system being condemned.

And this is where the deeper contradiction lies:

While anyone may disagree with many policies of their host country, permanent residents and naturalized citizens are welcomed and, in fact, encouraged to engage in constructive participation—not subversion.

There is a vast moral difference between:

Critically engaging with a society (your host country) to improve it—addressing injustice, supporting reforms, and strengthening institutions, is one thing. But openly advocating for the destruction of its systems in the name of "faith", ideology, or dogma, is another thing.

One is civic responsibility. The other is hostility disguised as resistance.

If someone genuinely believes a nation is fundamentally illegitimate or must be torn down, the intellectually honest response is to live elsewhere—not to attack the society from inside while continuing to rely on its protections and benefits.

https://qr.ae/pCPkSi

11/02/2025

A lot has been said about Trump’s “Why are you killing Christians?” question to Nigeria, and his threat last week to send U.S. troops to Nigeria — and, as usual, people are split into extremes. I wrote this piece to slow things down a bit, look at the facts, and listen to every side of this painful, complicated issue, and hopefully find solutions. Here is the link https://zizaplex.quora.com/Why-are-you-killing-Christians-Understanding-Trump-s-Nigeria-declaration-and-the-debate-over-the-targeting-of-Christ

11/02/2025

President Donald Trump says Nigeria must end the slaughter of Christians or face some very tough consequences.

10/17/2025

What a miracle!

09/28/2025

Separation Without Suppression: Why Both Religious and Secular Powers Must Fear Merging with the State.

I recently engaged with participants in a fiercely anti-religion thread where people, mainly atheists, argued that so-called Christian powers in the past tortured and murdered many in the name of their religion. They shared several memes (three of which I have shared here, and this would not be the first time most of us are seeing these gory images) with which they mocked Christians.

Their argument centered on the need for the separation of Church and State.

It often sounds as if only those against religion are the ones advocating for this separation. Yet, I’ve often noted that some of their arguments rest on logical fallacies or philosophically loaded assumptions.

For example, some in this camp conflate separation (of Church and State) with suppression (of the Church) as though keeping religion out of government requires silencing religion altogether.

Some will quickly object: “No atheist wants to silence religion altogether.” Yet in practice, many betray that very intent. They argue, for example, that churches should be directly taxed by the government, which not only undermines the principle of separation, but also hands the State undue leverage over religion. Others insist it is society’s responsibility, in reality, through government agencies to “put religion in check.”

This position is riddled with contradictions. On one hand, they claim to want freedom from religious interference in government; on the other, they invite government to police religious life. Ironically, when taken to that extreme, such thinking mirrors the very error they condemn in religious powers of the past: using ideology as a weapon to suppress others.

Who Really Wants the Separation More?

In reality, it has often been Christians themselves, and indeed the majority of us, who most strongly fear the merging of Church and State. History taught us why: whenever faith and political power fused, the result was typically corruption, coercion, and violence.

But, I'll show just a glimpse of history here: While religious tyranny has scarred history, atheist regimes have also produced enormous suffering when they bound absolute state power to ideology:

Stalin (Soviet Union): Enforced state atheism, persecuted clergy, and starved millions through collectivization and gulags. Death toll: 20–30 million.

Mao Zedong (China): Declared religion “poison,” destroyed temples, and unleashed policies that killed 40–70 million.

Pol Pot (Cambodia): Brutally suppressed all faiths, executing monks, priests, and ordinary believers. Around 1.7–2 million died.

Enver Hoxha (Albania): Made Albania the first officially atheist state, outlawing religion entirely. Thousands executed or tortured.

The real danger, then, is not religion itself, nor atheism itself, but any ideology— religious or secular—when it merges with unchecked political power and demands absolute conformity. This is precisely why the separation of Church and State matters, and why people of faith, especially Christians who remember history, have so often insisted on it.

Cheers and God's blessings and protection to all: It was a very blessed Sabbath experience today.

09/24/2025

Pascal’s Triangle: Better if European than Chinese or Muslim?

While debating with some physics and math enthusiasts in a forum yesterday, I raised an old irritation that has haunted me since my student days.

Please bear with me, even if you are not a maths person. I will not bore you with numbers; you’ll get the whole gist, I promise.

Our discussion was about Pascal’s Triangle—a subject my professor once brushed aside in a History of Science & Technology class—an elective I took during a master’s degree program. He dismissed it without a thought, as if the question of its origin were discourteous. I swallowed my doubts then, not because I was convinced, but because I didn’t want to risk failing the course. As the only black in the class, I already stood out, and I already had some issues with the teacher.

Well, most of us remember Pascal’s Triangle from high school (add maths) or university: that tidy pyramid of numbers shaping probability, combinations, and patterns. But I have been asking: why Pascal? Why not Yang Hui’s Triangle or Omar Khayyam’s Triangle? After all, Chinese and Persian scholars studied this arrangement 400 years before Blaise Pascal was even born in France. As China has become a more powerful and assertive nation today, they are insisting on the Yang Hui’s name. Yet, outside China, it’s Pascal.

And this is no accident. It is a pattern.

Take Pythagoras’ theorem — the famous geometric rule that helps us resolve so many triangle problems. We all grew up thinking Pythagoras of Greece discovered it. Yet Babylonian tablets and Indian sutras recorded the formula centuries earlier.

Or consider Newton’s laws. We exalt Sir Isaac Newton of England as the genius who explained inertia and motion. However, long before him, Islamic scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham and Indian thinkers had already described many of these principles.

Or the word algorithm. Today, this mathematical principle is a sterile term in maths and computer science. But it has been stripped of its history. Yes, it comes directly from Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the brilliant Persian mathematician whose name was turned into a word but whose story was erased.

Even zero — a number so basic we forget it had to be invented. Zero, as a number, was crafted by Indian mathematician and astronomer Brahmagupta, refined by Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, and only later carried to Europe. It was after the problem of zero was resolved that higher levels of maths and physics could progress. Yet Europe wears the crown for the “birth of modern mathematics.”

There are countless more examples. But the point is the same.

Let me mention just one more thing.

Do you know that prefabrication of building components (“prefab”) is not entirely a Western engineering concept? I once worked on a structural engineering project that demonstrated that the way our forefathers built their houses in Igboland was essentially what we would call prefab today (I’m not saying that our forefathers invented prefabrication; it’s a construction method that evolved everywhere).

Now, here is the question I seriously want to ask: why do ideas only seem to become “universal” or “standard” once Europeans name them? And equally important: why did Asia, the Islamic world, and Africa allow their own intellectual treasures to be renamed, repackaged, and now remembered as someone else’s?

When you have time to kill, think about who built the pyramids of Egypt, but read on; that’s a topic for another day.

Yes, colonialism, translation, and Eurocentric education systems play their part. But let’s be blunt: if you do not control the story of your knowledge, someone else will. Europe didn’t just borrow ideas — it branded them, taught them, and institutionalized them. Meanwhile, the civilizations that first birthed these insights often failed to guard, promote, or globalize their legacy.

The challenge today is clear. Will Asian, Muslim, and African scholars continue to let their ancestors’ brilliance wear European labels? Or will they reclaim the narrative — by teaching, publishing, and insisting the world remember the Yang Hui Triangle, the Khayyam Triangle, the Shulba Theorem, the Indian sequence of prosody, the al-Khwarizmi algorithms?

History is not only about who discovers first. It is about who makes the world remember.

09/23/2025

The State of Biafra!

As the Nigeria–Biafra hostilities raged, the question of recognition hovered like a shadow over the fledgling state. A handful of nations (Tanzania, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Zambia, and Haiti) extended full recognition. Others, such as France, Spain, Portugal, Norway, Rhodesia, South Africa, and Israel, stopped short of doing so before the war’s end. The United States, restrained by the United Kingdom’s strategic interests, chose ambiguity. Many argue that Washington, troubled by the human toll of the war and pressing its concerns to London, might eventually have granted recognition had the conflict dragged on.

For Biafra, recognition was real, yet incomplete.

Today, the challenge would be even steeper. Admission as a full member of the United Nations requires the approval of the Security Council. Of its 15 members, at least nine must vote in favor. Yet the decisive hurdle lies with the five permanent powers—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. A single "No" vote is enough to collapse the entire pursuit of nationhood.

The current Security Council underscores this imbalance. Alongside the permanent five sit Algeria, Denmark, Greece, Guyana, Pakistan, Panama, the Republic of Korea, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, and Somalia. Some might extend sympathy, others caution—but ultimately, the gatekeepers remain the same five powers—China, France, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S.

The path to nationhood is a long and challenging one.

First, a territory must declare independence.
Second, it must secure recognition from a critical mass of states.
Third, it must win a Security Council recommendation.
Fourth, the UN General Assembly will then cast its largely ceremonial vote of approval.

In truth, the decisive trial always lies before the Security Council, where unanimity among the permanent members—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—is non-negotiable.

The last nation to navigate this labyrinth was South Sudan. On July 9, 2011, it declared independence after decades of struggle. Within five days, it was admitted as the UN’s 193rd member state. Sadly, South Sudan has not known peace even after that. That precedent offers both inspiration and caution: the machinery of nationhood is neither swift nor impartial.

For Biafra of the 1960s, the struggle was not simply one of arms but of recognition—of convincing the world that a people’s declaration of selfhood merited equal standing in the community of nations. That struggle, though unfinished in its own time, mirrors dilemmas that persist today: recognition without unanimous consensus (of the five superpowers—China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States), statehood without statehood, sovereignty perpetually deferred.
“The struggle for recognition didn’t end with Biafra. It echoes in today’s world.

09/12/2025

List of Political Assassinations in the USA: from Charlie Kirk to Abraham Lincoln
https://qr.ae/pCI4dA

09/05/2025

Was Trump’s Name Removed from the Nobel Peace Prize Nominees?

I saw this information about Trump's name being secretly withdrawn from the list of Nobel Peace Prize nominees.

It made me wonder quite a bit how this could be.

This is because the Nobel Committee does not publish nominee lists, so there’s possibly nothing to “remove.” What I remember really happened was that one Ukrainian lawmaker withdrew his own nomination of Trump in June 2025 — but others, such as Pakistan and Israel’s Netanyahu, still nominated him and have not withdrawn their nominations.

Image source: "The Only Truth About Russia"

08/29/2025

The Lie Behind Africa’s Low IQ Ranking
(Posted elsewhere, copied here)

Over 20 years ago, I took a required IQ test for an opportunity I desperately wanted in Washington, D.C. My score report said it was “in the top 2% worldwide.” I also excelled in every other measure. I should have been excited. Instead, I left humiliated.

An official glanced at my results, smiled, and told his colleague: “See? You can’t judge by the shell—you have to look at what’s inside.”

He meant it as praise. But the message was clear: my achievement was a surprise, maybe because of my skin colour, maybe because of where I came from—Africa. And despite my scores, I didn’t get the opportunity.

That memory resurfaced when I read CEOWorld’s ranking, which claimed Africa’s average IQ is just 60.16—the lowest in the world. Numbers like that don’t sit quietly on a spreadsheet. They shape how others see us, and worse, how we see ourselves.

The Numbers Don’t Add Up

On paper, Africa—with an IQ of 60.16—is a global outlier—trailing the West (around 100) and East Asia (above 105) by a staggering margin. But these figures aren’t just improbable. They are wrong!

IQ tests, such as the Wechsler and Stanford-Binet, were developed in Western classrooms. They reward abstract reasoning, maths logic, and vocabulary rooted in formal schooling. They don’t capture the knowledge valued in African contexts—such as ecological expertise, oral memory, and practical problem-solving.

As cognitive scientist Robert Sternberg has argued, what counts as “smart” in New York City may not be the same as what counts in rural Uganda. Measuring Africa with Western IQ tests is like using a Swiss snow thermometer to gauge the Sahara Desert’s heat.

The Data Problem

Worse than the tools is the data itself. CEOWorld’s numbers rely heavily on Richard Lynn, a psychologist notorious for small, unrepresentative samples and dubious extrapolations. His work has been widely condemned as “biased” and “scientifically unsound.” Yet, these numbers are being used to insult Africans.

Serious research tells a different story. A 2010 review by Jelte Wicherts and colleagues found Africa’s average IQ closer to 82—not 60. And they were clear: differences were explained by malnutrition, disease burden, and unequal access to schooling, not genetics. When health and education improve, so do scores.

Intelligence Beyond IQ

Here’s the bigger problem: IQ itself is narrow.

Imagine a child who can identify dozens of plants by scent, track cattle at night, and perform hours-long oral storytelling with perfect recall. That’s intelligence too—just not the kind Western tests measure.

IQ captures one slice of human ability. It says little about resilience, social wisdom, ecological knowledge, or cultural fluency. Treating it as the sole definition of intelligence erases other forms of brilliance.

Why It Matters

Labeling the African continent “less intelligent” is not just misleading. It fuels stereotypes and shifts blame away from structural barriers—poor nutrition, underfunded schools, inadequate healthcare—that depress test results in some regions.

A fairer estimate of Africa’s IQ would be around 80–85, still below the global mean of 90–100, but more heavily influenced by environmental factors than by biology. And even then, the question remains: why are we so obsessed with ranking intelligence in the first place?

The Bottom Line

CEOWorld’s report doesn’t reveal Africa’s intelligence. It reveals how flawed—and Eurocentric—our metrics still are.

Until we design assessments that respect cultural context and human diversity, global IQ rankings will continue to mislead. They won’t measure intelligence. They’ll measure bias.

The Zizaplex

12/26/2025

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