Global COVID-19 infections surpassed 40 million on Sunday morning, according to the tracking agency worldometers.info.

According to data published today, the number of confirmed infections is now 40,000,081.

Overnight, United States reported 54,232, while India also reported 62,092.

The two worst affected countries also contributed the highest number of deaths.

Worldometers reported 638 deaths in the US on Saturday.

The death toll in India was given as 1,032, taking the global deaths from COVID-19 to 1,115,154 as at Sunday 0900GMT.

On Saturday, the World Health Organisation said 392,471 new COVID-19 infections were reported globally, a record high since the onset of the pandemic.

WHO gave its tally of confirmed cases worldwide as 39,196,259 and deaths as 1,101,298.

WHO said the United States had the most daily infections on Saturday, with 63,044 new cases reported.

As of Saturday, the country had registered 7,896,895 total confirmed cases, the highest worldwide.

Worldometers estimated US confirmed infections at 8,343,140 and deaths at 224,283.

India also reported 62,212 new cases on Saturday, the second largest daily increase globally, which has taken the country’s total caseload to 7,432,680 as of Saturday, the WHO tally showed.

Once upon a time, a village in Uganda never had peace due to the presence of the world’s most prolific man-eater. ‘Osama the crocodile’, lived in Lake Victoria and never spared any human it comes across.

Measuring 16ft from snout to tail, and weighing one ton, Osama allegedly devoured humans and maimed several others.

The crocodile, believed to be over 75 years back then, reportedly ate a father-of-two Bosco Nyansi, a local fisherman whose tattered clothing was discovered floating on the water. Osama is reported to have feasted on over 80 victims from Luganga village in Uganda.

Since 1991, Osama attacked both the young and old, eating his way through a tenth of the village population. The people of Luganga Village once called the crocodile ‘John Major’ because of his size and his namesake’s global prominence at that time.

But following his reign of terror and the al-Qa’eda attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, he was re-christened Osama. He would carry children away from the shore as they filled buckets with water. He would often swim beneath fishing boats and capsize them.

According to reports, Osama began to exhibit a highly unusual behaviour for a crocodile. He would jump into the wooden vessels before carrying off victims. Paul Kyewalyanga was rowing in the back of his boat while his brother Peter fished from the prow when Osama came aboard.

“He just emerged from the water vertically and flopped into the boat,” Kyewalyanga told The Telegraph. “The back of the boat where I was sitting was submerged.” As Paul called frantically for help, the crocodile latched on to Peter’s leg and began to pull.

“Peter was clutching the side screaming,” he said. “They fought for about five minutes until I heard a tearing sound. Peter shouted, ‘He’s broken my leg.’ Then he let go and was dragged into the lake. A few days later we found his head and his arm.”

Osama’s terror gripped the village. Children were forbidden from the shore. However, the livelihood of the community depended largely on fishing. While some avoided the lake, others were unperturbed. “All we could do was pray,” 64-year-old villager, John Mangene said. “We did a lot of that. I would wake up in the middle of the night and get down on my knees.”

Only 15 people have felt Osama’s teeth and lived to tell the tale. Many families who have lost dear ones in the hands of Osama longed for the day this terror would be captured.

Finally, Osama’s days of hunting humans in Africa’s largest lake came to an end in 2005 when it was trapped by officials using meat on a hook and transported out of the village on a truck. It was a huge sigh of relief for the villagers.

Osama was captured by 50 local men and wildlife officials after a stakeout in southern Uganda lasting seven days and seven nights. Osama is now the property of Uganda Crocs Ltd, purveyors of fine crocodile-skin handbags destined for the followers of fashion in Italy and South Korea.

Authorities say Osama will be used for breeding stock and will now spend his remaining days giving birth to handbags.

Alex Mutamba, the proprietor of Uganda Crocs, with nearly 5,000 animals in his care, who accepted the country’s wildlife authority’s request to a home for Osama said: “All Nile crocodiles like Osama will eat a human being if they perceive their territory is being encroached on.”

Uganda is famous for its man-eating reptiles. In the 1970s, Idi Amin, the former dictator, reportedly threw 4,000 disabled people into the crocodile-infested headwaters of the Nile of which Osama is believed to have been a benefactor of that cruel act.

So, despite its inability to defeat Israel, it also lost its international credibility; it was ostracized as a “terrorist” organization by the governments of the most important countries of the world.

The word “strategy”, has a military origin. For simplicity, it can be defined as a planned or mapped out technique or approach for achieving a given objective or goal. In its struggle against Israeli continued occupation of Palestine, the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has a strategy. In its resistance against Apartheid South Africa, the African National Council (ANC) had a strategy. The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)’s neo-Biafranism is a colorful, melodramatic and media-savvy, but purposeless, movement. Not surprisingly, it has no articulated objectives, and consequently, no strategy.

Earlier, in its fight against Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in defiance of United Nations Resolution 242, the PLO adopted a strategy of unrestrained guerrilla warfare against Israel, including indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. The strategy proved ineffective because, although it unsettled Israel, it could not defeat Israel, even if it is sustained and intensified for decades. Essentially, it backfired because it portrayed the PLO as a terrorist organization.

So, despite its inability to defeat Israel, it also lost its international credibility; it was ostracized as a “terrorist” organization by the governments of the most important countries of the world. Consequently, the PLO changed its strategy. It backpedaled on its guerrilla warfare. It embraced diplomacy, and burnished its international image; it became diplomatically relevance. This was the precursor to the botched President Bill Clinton brokered peace agreement between the PLO leader, Yasser Arafat, and the Israeli Prime, Minister Yitzhak Rabin in year, 2000.

In its fight against Apartheid South Africa, the ANC had a strategy. Having learnt from the mistakes of the PLO, it focused on building a global diplomatic and economic alliance against Apartheid South Africa. Although it periodically launched guerrilla attacks within South Africa to impress the restive masses of Black South Africans, its fixation remained on shocking the conscience of the world with the evils of Apartheid. After nearly two decades of painstaking labor, the ANC anti-Apartheid campaign had successfully troubled the conscience of the world with the horrors of Apartheid.

Appalled by the atrociousness of Apartheid, the global community rallied against Apartheid South Africa. Anti-Apartheid movements sprouted across the world amongst students unions, labor unions, corporations, human right organizations, governments, etc. Many countries broke diplomatic ties with South Africa, and corporations, universities, governments, etc. disinvested from South Africa. Finally, the Apartheid government buckled under the weight of this encircling international economic and diplomatic pressure; it consigned Apartheid to the heaps of history.

Unlike the PLO and ANC, the IPOB has no legitimate grievance. Consequently, it cannot genuinely rouse the world conscience against the Nigerian government. Therefore, it found psychological refuge in falsehood and cheap propaganda. Its trumped up allegations against the Nigerian government, like the enslavement of the Igbo and ongoing extermination of the Igbo in Nigeria, are resounding nonsense; they ring hollow in international circles. The global community realizes that, like most Third World countries, Nigeria is muddling its way through the 21st Century; and by Third World standards and within the limits of human frailties; Nigeria works for every Nigerian. There are tribalism and ethnic injustices in Nigeria, and no particular ethnic group is totally innocent of these vices.

As such, the IPOB agitation for an independent Biafra is strictly a Nigerian internal affair; it does not elicit the concern and attention of the international community. Ostensibly, IPOB’s goal is the creation of an independent Biafra through a referendum. It is the prerogative of the Nigerian government to hold such a referendum. Similar referendums were held by the governments of Canada and Britain for separatist regions of Quebec and Scotland respectively.

The earlier attempt to create Biafra between 1967 and 1970 was made impossible by a number of factors: the reluctance of the ethnic minorities of Eastern Region to be part of an Igbo dominated country; the commitment of the federal government and the generality of Nigerians to Nigerian unity; the opposition of African countries, as represented by the Organization of Africa (OAU), to secession in general, and Biafra, in particular; and the opposition of the British and American governments to the dismemberment of Nigeria. The political and geo-political dynamics that made the earlier attempt at Biafra impossible have not only remained in place, but have been reinforced over the decades. Therefore, Biafranism remains a senseless and fruitless enterprise that can only bring the Igbo death, pains and sorrow.The Nigerian constitution has no provision for such a referendum. Therefore, the first step towards a referendum on Biafran independence is making a constitutional provision for a referendum. Ordinarily, IPOB should have focused on making the federal government amenable to holding a referendum on Biafran independence, and nudging the National Assembly towards a constitutional amendment that will allow for a referendum. Paradoxically, IPOB is working against these two objectives. It incites violence, breaks the laws, and antagonizes the Nigerian government. As such, IPOB has been proscribed as a terrorist organization by the Nigerian government. How then can the referendum hold?

Nnamdi Kanu and his senior lieutenants know there cannot be a country, Biafra. However, Biafran activism makes them relevant and makes them very rich. So, the object of Kanu’s continued agitation for Biafra is not to achieve Biafran independence but to retain his mesmeric sway on his followers, which, in turn, builds his financial empire. Not surprisingly, his speeches are not strategic. They are tendentious rubbish – gossips and trivialities – that resonate with his credulous and deluded followers. He gossips about Babangida and his late wife, Miriam, and Jubril from Sudan; and prattles about other trifling issues about Aso Rock. His speeches are a truculent blend of falsehood, incitements and insults. They nauseate discerning minds but enthrall his ignorant and confused followers.

To his followers, he postures as a statesman promoting the Biafra cause among European and American presidents and prime ministers and international bureaucrats at the United Nations and European Union. One salient element of diplomatic protocol is reciprocity. Governments negotiate with governments, presidents meet with presidents, foreign minister, with foreign ministers, etc. There is neither a country, Biafra, nor a government, government of Biafra, anywhere in the world. The UN is an association of sovereign nations. Kanu represents no sovereign nation. He is a fugitive, running away from the law of his country. In addition, his speeches are vulgar, virulent and provocative. Invariably, they outrage the civilized and genteel sensibilities that populate the United Nations, European Union and the corridors of power in Western countries. So, on his “diplomatic” trips, who do you think this Nigerian fugitive meets with?

Although his propagandists attempt to cast him as hobnobbing with the powers that be on his “diplomatic trips”, he cannot meet with any worthy member of any government or international organization. The central question remains how does IPOB’s posturing, lies and propagandistic distortions advance the prospects of a referendum on Biafran independence?

Tochukwu Ezukanma writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

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