On..................Everything

On......the militarisation of Lagos state

2012-01-16T12:12:00.004Z

A full excerpt of the speech as delivered by Babatunde Raji Fashola on military occupation of Lagos state:

Dear Lagosians,

For the past few days, I have monitored the developments related to the public protest against the increase in the pump price of petrol.

During that period, I have at the invitation of my colleagues in the Governor’s Forum responded to an invitation from the Presidency.

My role since last Monday till date has been to find a ground of compromise that stabilizes the polity, protects our democracy and prevent any loss of lives.

Inspite of these efforts, we were not wholly successful in preventing the loss of the life of a young Nigerian, AdemolaAderinto who was sadly shot.

I am truly saddened by that ugly development. While I condole with his family, I pledge the commitment of our Government to bring the alleged perpetrator to justice.

I have decided to address you today in view of the very disquieting developments that occurred overnight especially the deployment of soldiers across Lagos.

I have the highest respect for members of our military, especially because they have made a contract with all of us that they will willingly lay down their lives whenever it becomes necessary to do so, in order to protect us.

This covenant is instructive, because soldiers did not sign up to stop us from expressing our grievance about things that we are displeased about.

It is not disputable that the citizens who have gathered in several parts of Lagos like Falomo, Ikorodu and Ojota to mention a few have largely conducted themselves peacefully, singing and dancing while they expressed their displeasure at the way that we have taken decisions that affect them.

That in my view should not offend those of us in Government. The majority of these people who represent diverse interests have not broken any law. If they have, it is my opinion that in a constitutional democracy, it is the police that hasthe responsibility for restoring law and order if civil protests threatens the breach of the peace.

This is not justification for sending out soldiers to a gathering of unarmed citizens. Every one of us, or at least majority of us who hold public office danced and sang before these same people when we were seeking their votes.

Why should we feel irritated when they sing and dance in protest against what we have done?

For me this is not a matter for the military. The sooner we rethink and rescind this decision the better and stronger our democracy will be.

If anything, this is a most welcome transformation of our democracy in the sense that it provokes a discussion of economic policies and this inevitably may result in political debate.

I therefore urge the reconsideration of the decision to deploy soldiers and implore the President and Commander-in-Chief to direct their withdrawal from our streets, I must also emphasize that the rights of free speech and protest is not absolute. They impose the duty not to break the law, breach the peace, endanger human life or destroy property whether public or private.

They also impose the duty to respect the rights of others not to support our protest and indeed to support what we oppose. At the end of the day, it is a contest of ideas in which the most persuasive will get the endorsement of the majority of the people we serve.

I am convinced that our democracy is mature enough to accommodate this. We must do our best to ensure that it does.

God bless you all.

BabatundeRajiFashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State

Monday, January 16, 2012

Goodluck Jonathan: The most unpopular Nigerian President ever?

2012-01-08T07:59:00.000Z

It is a good thing that President Goodluck Jonathan does not personally check his Facebook page. If he did, the level of opprobrium heaped on his comments page alone would surely cause him to immediately overturn his unpopular decision to remove the fuel subsidy. As of the time I wrote this piece, there were 12,391 comments posted on his wall. I didn’t have time to do a poll but I can safely report that the vast majority of them were not goodwill messages. I had intended to reproduce some of them but I just felt the amount of abuse and profanity might embarrass even the most liberal of readers.

Approval ratings and polls are sadly not used as a barometer of public opinion in Nigeria. If they did, it would be instructive to compare President Jonathan’s approval rating as at April 2011 (post election) with January 2nd 2011 (post subsidy removal). That there would be a significant dip is a no-brainer but the margin would be quite stark and possibly historic. This then got me thinking how popular Jonathan was when compared to other Nigerian Presidents and Heads of State. If a general election was to be called tomorrow, would the President amass even a riggable amount of votes?

Umaru yar’Adua was not around long enough to form a lasting impression, one way or the other. Olusegun Obasanjo, was a polarizing figure but managed to get Nigerians to re-elect him so couldn’t have been that disliked. Abacha was of course in a league of his own. Babangida’s worst known atrocity was to annul the Presidential elections, a sin he has never been forgiven for. Buhari’s brief regime was draconian but generally respected in retrospect. Shagari’s rule was characterized by public excesses but he too got himself re-elected. Obasanjo 1.0 stuck to the game plan and handed over when he said he would. Murtala Muhammed managed to create an endearing legacy in six months. Yakubu Gowon endured various undulations; from war criminal to war hero to alleged coup plotter. Ironsi was always uneasy in his role as Head of State. Azikiwe and Tafawa Balewa were both regarded as statesmen even if with ethnic slants.

Compared to some of his predecessors, President Jonathan seems to be a decent guy. Unlike an Abacha or even an Obasanjo, Jonathan actually seems to care about his public image. Yet he repeatedly seems unable to gauge the mood of a nation. He has an almost unerring knack of saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. PDP stalwarts are secretly yet to forgive him for violating their constitution and shifting the zoning arrangement. Even as he received wider support for that move, he proceeded to raise eyebrows by reacting slowly and inappropriately to the Independence Day bombing of 2010. His statement, following the attack, perplexed Nigerians when he seemingly absolved MEND of the atrocities before an investigation had even taken place. Prior to the elections, he shut down schools for a registration drive even as his own children continued to attend.

Many of these moves were dismissed as those of an inexperienced head and by the time the April 2011 elections rolled round, Jonathan remained a clear favourite. However 22 million Nigerians were soon questioning their choice when the President started putting out feelers about introducing an extended single term for government executives. Nigerians ransacked their minds to remember if this had been part of the ‘fresh air’ regime he had promised during his campaign. Even as that particular idea encountered turbulence, the perennial talk of fuel subsidy removal began doing the rounds. Things would be done differently this time though, Nigerians were promised. There were to be a series of consultations, town hall meetings, etc. Everybody would get a say, the Presidency assured. As it turns out, nobody did get a say. Not even the National Assembly which remain split on the issue.

As I stop writing, the Facebook abusers have already increased in number. There are now 12,469 comments. By the time you read this, there will be more. Those pleading for restraint are thoroughly outnumbered by those heaping curses and calling for Jonathan’s head. Finally here is one that is printable: “GEJ you have already failed,” it reads. Succint and perhaps premature but no one can ignore the anti-Jonathan sentiment at the moment. He may be currently lagging behind the likes of Abacha and Babangida in the unpopularity stakes for now but the Otueke honeymoon is certainly over.

On......the winner of next year's Booker

2009-04-27T20:11:00.005+01:00

Yes it is a shameless plug and yes I ought to have drafted a more appropiate post to explain my absence but I really had to shout about this particular book.

I do not come to you by chance is about to take the literary world by storm. The author, our very own Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani, also happens to be a hottie apart from being a gifted writer. Grab a copy immediately.

You can buy it here:

And here:

And here:

And here:

Read a bit about Ada here

On......death and the Nigerian policeman

2008-11-28T11:40:00.002Z

The average Nigerian is terrified of death. Well, who isn’t right? But Nigerians are especially scared about the prospect of packing their bags and jetting off to the land of their demise. Take the police for example.

I was covering a bank robbery in Lekki a few days ago and the Mobile police force atypically made it to the crime scene before the robbers had completely scarpered with the loot. However, when they did arrive, they were so reticent in exchanging gunfire that all but one of them took cover in a nearby uncompleted building. Only one aged, dedicated cop had the balls to engage in a shootout with three of the armed robbers. His pleas to his cowardly colleagues, audible in spite of the staccato pummelling of the gunshots, were the saddest footnote in on overall distasteful affair. “Assist me,” he cried. “We fit take them, we plenty pass them”. The valiant enforcers of the law, protectors of the civil populace, cowered in their hiding place until the gunshots had died down and the armed gang had comfortably escaped.

I waited and waited but no ambulance came to treat the injured and pronounce the dead dead. The latter was obvious enough though; the lack of movement in a lifeless body, horrible in its stillness, is a dead giveaway. I saw no ballistics experts recovering bullets that had embedded themselves in the road, the cars and the perimeter fence that had surrounded the gunfight. There were no CCTV cameras to capture the faces of the brazen crooks who thought it impractical to bother wearing any sort of mask. The police interviewed no witnesses and dusted for no fingerprints. Blood was allowed to congeal and no samples were rushed to a forensics lab. There were no helicopters combing the area. I saw a few guys trying hard to look inquisitive and serious. They were either detectives or constipation sufferers. The only thing the police did of any note was to look exceptionally befuddled by the whole thing.

You should see the vigour with which our policemen hound commercial vehicles. If one tenth of that enthusiasm was reserved for confronting criminals then our society would be virtually crime free. Instead of nurturing their talents, they nurture their potbellies. They fear death like zombies fear life. Look to the west and think of the countless law enforcers that sacrifice their lives each day in the name of the fundamental ethos of their profession: to protect and to serve. In Nigeria, they have an ethos too - to pickpocket and to steal. A motto which they are quite prepared to die for.

On...... Lagosisms, LASTMA and laid back sloths

2008-11-12T15:00:00.002Z

Life is nature’s hangover; the splitting headache that it can never quite shake off after a drunken binge. Life is a long hiccup; one that I do not particularly want to cure because death awaits at its end. Lagos life is inconveniently simple and orderly. You kinda know where you stand.

You know that people will not wait for you. You know that they will attempt to fleece you at every turn. You know that bus drivers are worshippers of Beelzebub and are in a hurry to donate their souls to him. You know that the rains will bring with them chaos and excess flooding. You know that you will find excruciating hardships and acute comfort, quite often as intimate strangers. On any given day, there will be at least one unloved, unclaimed and very dead body on the Apapa-Oshodi expressway. Bomb craters will occasionally masquerade themselves as state roads. The unending thrust and momentum of Okada drivers will make the Energiser bunny look like a cannabis smoking sloth. The water hyacinth will be a perennial eyesore and you will wonder where it all comes from and where it all goes. LASTMA will harass the law abiding drivers and turn a blind eye to the reckless ones. You will be the daily recipient of verbal and possibly even physical abuse. Ten minute journeys become one hour excursions. You will begin to suffer from dirt blindness: an affliction that prevents the sufferer from seeing trash and garbage, no matter how vast the quantity. You will hear the words Balende, CMS and Anthony at least fifty times a day.

There is a certain inconvenient order and simplicity to all of that. And I kinda like that.

On......a light hearted matter

2008-09-05T16:10:00.004+01:00

There is never light. The ribcage of my laptop is now visible. The poor thing has been starved of electrical current for so long. My shaver has such little strength that it can barely walk (abi na work?). The small generator at the back mocks them with a horrible vibrating laugh. It has become stocky and robust through overuse and cruelly sneers at the skeletal frames of the other domestic appliances.

Electricity in Nigeria comes in splutters like the dying gasps of a cancerous old man. You begin to grow suspicious on the few occasions that NEPA actually do their jobs and provide sustainable electricity. The other week, we had an almost uninterrupted power supply for 48 hours. I felt a bit like a call girl who had been given one million naira by a punter. On the surface you are happy, but deep down you are deeply mistrustful of what you will have to do for this ostentatious good fortune. Following the recent awoof of light, I am beginning to fear that they are planning a three month power blackout. Nationwide. This is how wary they have made me.

I was trying to open a bank account the other day and the customer service assistant asked me for a NEPA bill as proof of my address. I was immediately gripped by overwhelming hysteria and had to be escorted out of the bank premises before I managed to stop laughing. NEPA bill ke? Do these things actually exist? What exactly is one billed for? I investigated further and I actually came across one of these so called NEPA bills. They even measure electricity in real units of measure; kilowatts. I suggest that they start billing people in kilonoughts of nonentricity used. It would save them a lot of paper work if nothing else.

Dear Mr Adekunle,
You have consumed 1 million kilonoughts of nonentricity this month. Please pay your balance of zilch before 9/9/9999 and you will be assured of continued lack of electricity.
Regards
Mr Pana-Pana
Management

Nobody seems sure of when this sustainable power supply is to be achieved. Is it 2011or is it 2020? What are people’s thoughts? Can we really have sustainable power in this country? I fear that there are too many personal agendas for this to be a foreseeable reality. What happens to the generator sellers and distributors if there is regular electricity? What happens to the diesel sellers? What happens to big oil? What happens to Femi Otedola and co? Are we to reasonably expect all these people to quietly sail off into the night and never be heard of again? The fact is that it is still in the interest of far too many people – powerful people at that – for there to be an irregular and unreliable power supply. These people are so powerful that they helped your local government chairman win his election. And your Senator. And your Governor. And yes, even your President.

I cannot imagine that there are many more countries in the world that consume more diesel per year than we do in Nigeria. In most other countries, diesel pumps have become desolate figures on the forecourts of filling stations. In Nigeria, the stuff is at such a premium that it costs us twice the price of unleaded petrol. This diesel lust is fed by the need to power our generators because NEPA (now rejigged to PHCN) apparently generates less than 3000MW of electricity a day. The goal of the present government is to quintiple this meagre total by 2010. In the increasingly unlikely event that this is achieved, it would still not be in line with most other developing nations.

Darkness has enveloped our land at night and also the thinking and ambitions of those that rule our country. Provision of sustainable electricity should be the most pressing issue on the agenda of all our rulers. It appears that it is not. NEPA, and all its incarnations, has become a byword for ineptitude and poor performance. It is a national joke. It is hard to accept the current standards when indigenes of smaller, weaker economies are basking in the dull glow of their evening light bulbs whilst millions of Nigerians continue to eat enforced candle-lit dinners. It is a sham and I can confidently proclaim that steady electrical supply would eradicate one third of Nigeria’s problems today (a half decent road network would solve another third). Let us bring sustainable electrical power back to the forefront of the national consciousness. It is no longer enough to merely fold our arms when they deprive us of electricity only to yell “UP NEPA” when it is returned to us.

On a slightly different note, we had any number of witty acronyms for NEPA - my favourite being Never Expect Power Always. Can anyone suggest an equally apt one for PHCN?

On......a return to the organized bedlam of Lagos

2008-08-07T13:35:00.002+01:00

The first thing is always the humidity. Dense and sultry. Lagos-by-the-sea. Where no breeze dare ride freely for fear of being hit by an okada driver. Baggage collection is much improved with two separate halls divided by a Pyrex screen. Another flight has just landed but at no point do we have to go and check the conveyor belt in the other hall for misplaced baggage.

The long journey home. I am bracing myself to confront the traffic. The smallest things provide the greatest details. There is a small goat tottering across the motorway that leads from the airport. I wonder what it aims to do when it reaches the other side. If its entrails have not mingled with the motorway by then. The biggest road problem remains the bikers and okadas. Mechanical bees. They swarm around your car, coming from all directions, threatening to sting at the slightest provocation. There appears to be no law about what an okada can and cannot carry. I intend to set up a photo log displaying the varied passengers I have seen on the back of an okada. Today there is one carrying two passengers. Hardly noteworthy, aside from the fact that the second passenger is one half of a dead cow.

Businesses continue to thrive. Everywhere one looks there is the ubiquitous florescent green banner that proudly advertises some business or the other. Whoever creates those banners must be making a killing. One such sign for a charity bemuses me. Motherless babies. I wonder if there isn’t a good chance that the babies are not also fatherless babies. And if not why don’t they just call the thing an orphanage. It is only a euphemism of course but motherless babies always sounded a bit too cruel somehow. A bit too Dickensian.

Governor Fashola is doing a good job. Ask any one on the street and he will tell you. For the first time as far as I can remember, there are discernible changes in the way Lagosians are living. Actually, strike that. For the first time, there is a discernible positive change in the way Lagosians are living. The Molues are gone. There are proper bus stops. People are queuing. I am amazed. Many overhead bridges and walkways are now protected against the elements. I hope this will mean fewer deaths from breakneck pedestrians trying to cross a motorway when an overhead bridge is one foot away.

The mechanised tentacles of construction and redevelopment are spread right across the city but still too concentrated on Lagos Island. The mainland is still far and away it’s poorer cousin. Urban improvement is less visible in Yaba and Surulere than it is in Victoria Island and Ikoyi. It is still a tale of two cities. I know Islanders who do not venture into the Mainland unless they are going into the airport. If one thinks this is a class thing then consider that there are just as many Mainlanders who would rather prostrate naked on a bed of scorpions than live on the Island.

As we enter the island I notice the traffic in the other lane. It is the same traffic that I have been noticing since the Third Mainland Bridge. I wonder what time those at the tail end of the traffic will reach their loved ones. And what time they will need to set off again in the morning. I fear the effects of the partial closure of the Third Mainland Bridge. It will be two months of great difficulty.

Asda and Walmart killed the trader. We stop at the Palms and Shoprite is fantastic. You can find anything and everything at reasonable prices. There is a suya man there buying huge quantities of meat. I ask him in Hausa why he does not buy his meat in the market. He says that whilst the meat is still slightly cheaper in market, the cost of transportation there and back removes any actual savings. How long before there is a Shoprite in every corner of town? How long before they start squeezing prices and forcing small traders and middle men out of the equation? The cost of a carton of juice is twenty naira cheaper in the market than in Shoprite.

I am so happy to be back. It has been fourteen years now since I have lived here, disregarding holidays in between. Fourteen years. More than enough time to spend in any one place I reckon. These days you get less than that for murder. I will give myself ten years here then let us see what happens. America perhaps would be the next great adventure. Gosh, I will be 40 then. Where does the time go? I aim to have fun. I left Jand because I stopped having fun. There will be disappointments strewn across the road in front of me. Tragedy even. But I will hurdle each one and continue running. Let us meet at the end.

On......the story of Ashewos Anonymous

2008-07-02T01:31:00.004+01:00

With varying degrees of disharmony, the six women sat down in a semi-circle in a small conference room at the Eko Le Meridien Hotel. They were assembled for the fourth meeting of Ashewos Anonymous, a support group designed to ‘cure’ nymphomaniacs and other women who were addicted to sex. Since its inaugural meeting, numbers had dropped significantly, with the deserters finding the AA’s twelve step program either too demanding or not demanding enough. For their needs.

Alhaja Silikat, for example, had to stop coming after her husband and erstwhile pimp, Alhaji Mushin, had discovered the existence of these meetings. Alhaji had gone into semi retirement many years ago after becoming partially deaf. He still sold gas cylinders for a living but this was not enough to support a growing family of seven children. It was unfortunate also that his wife’s full time job of selling boli contributed very little to the overall family income. He decided one day that it would be more beneficial for him to become his wife’s agent and began to advertise her sexual services. He charged roughly about 2000 Naira per hour per person. In a good week, Alhaja’s big yansh would bring in about 60000 Naira for the family. It was hardly the kind of income that Alhaji was going to jeopardise and he was livid on hearing of her visits to Ashewos Anonymous. He warned her that she was never to socialise with those harlots, those midnight walkers, those damsels of the night. Alhaja, meek and always subservient, had listened to her husband and put a halt to her AA meetings.

Of the six women that remained, each had a different motive for their continued attendance:

Hepritta Okolie, was the worst kind of ashewo, the unrepentant kind. In truth she only attended these meetings because of the free poff poff and minerals. If there was anything that Hepritta liked more than a big strong John Thomas, it was poff poff. She had recently secured a very lucrative patch on Sanusi Fafunwa and clients were steady. However, even after taking care of rent and tuition fees, buying food was a problem. Yes, she thought, when all these stupid ashewos finished talking opata she was just going to stuff as many poff poffs as she could into her bag before hitting the street. Tchhhhhw. Idiots.

Godwina Iriambong was not really an ashewo at all. She only came for these meetings in a secret bid to learn more about the art of being a successful ashewo in the hope that she too could improve her sex appeal. Sadly for Godwina, God was not in a winning mood on the day that he moulded her. Her teeth were small and sharp like that of a grasscutter and to compound matters she suffered from an inability to close her mouth for longer than one second which meant that her gnashers were always in full view. Her weight had always been a source of great distress. She had recently tried the award winning Akin’s diet which prescribed eating nothing but Banga soup day and night. Poor Godwina was usually so ravenous at night that she had once devoured about 3 kilos of Banga in one sitting. This was not quite what Dr. Akin had in mind. Her facial features may have been acceptable if she had a basic understanding of make-up arrangement. As it was, she had skin the colour of night yet insisted on a lipstick shade that was as red as uncontaminated blood. In addition to her unnecessary rouge and purple eye shadow, this gave her a rather freakish look which was responsible for at least two accidents and one small riot on the Lagos-Ikorodu expressway. Godwina would sit at the meeting nodding furiously at all that was being said, making copious notes along the way. For Godwina, therefore, ashewoism was not a malaise but an aspiration.

Funke Okunrinoletemilorun, founder of this society, was a young lady with genuine sexual neuroses. At the last count she had slept with no less than 127 men, not including the okada driver that would drop her later that evening. She came from a solid background and her parents were of considerable reputation. By the time she was 18 she had slept with all the male members of her household including the washaman that came once a week. At 21 she no longer felt any sensation during sex yet felt the compulsion to continuously seek new partners. At 25, she acknowledged that she had a problem and needed to proactively deal with it. She formed this organisation with the belief that there were other women who shared her predicament and that together they could help each other.

The fourth lady needed little introduction. I am referring of course to Chief (Mrs) Oladunjoye Akinpelu nee Harrison-Thomas, the socialite, the bon vivant, the collector of men, the lover of all things fiscal, and without much doubt the greatest fornicator of all time. She was now on her sixth husband and had amassed a personal wealth of some 1.2 billion Naira through various enterprises and divorce settlements. Her primary source of income remained her very successful brothel franchise which had started out as a modest concern in her boys-quarters in Ilupeju. Over the years it had grown into a national franchise and now boasted no less than 49 depots across the country. There were only four states in Nigeria that she did not have at least one brothel and development plans were already at an advanced stage. She had once bragged that if Mr.Biggs was the biggest franchise in Nigeria, then her brothels were a close second. Chief (Mrs) Akinpelu nee Harrison-Thomas was attending the meeting to make sure that none of her girls were attending. She had personally interviewed each of the 448 ashewos that were under her direct employ and she ran a tight ship. She was nothing if not thorough and did not want any of them to start getting ideas above their station by attending new fangled concepts like Ashewos Anonymous.

Mama Ikpamosa, septuagenarian, wrinkled, toothless and recently widowed was a peculiar attendee. Since Papa Ikpamosa’s death her life was of very little meaning and she had attempted suicide several times. At the fifth attempt she had doused herself in diesel but forgot that she had bought no matches that week and therefore had to curtail that particular effort. As she slept that night, smelling like a Mobil filling station, she had something of an epiphany in which some celestial voice advised her to seek comfort in the company of other women. She decided the next day that she would stop trying to kill herself and try and make some friends instead. Ashewos Anonymous was one of ten groups that encouraged female solidarity in which Mama Ikpamosa had become a card carrying member. Her darling husband, in his infinite wisdom, had always discouraged her from keeping female company, believing women to be the product of Satan and only good for their superior culinary ability and reproductive organs. For the first time in her life she was interacting regularly with other women and loving every second.

The last woman in this motley crew was Doorshima Mbanengen, the poor unfortunate who was the victim of a generational curse that compelled her to have sex with any man who asked her. Her grandmother had once angered the Mammy water by boasting that she was of the very strong conviction that she was the most beautiful woman in all of Tiv land. The Mammy water had overheard her and placed a curse on Doorshima’s grandmother and all her future offspring. The curse was, for a woman, the worst of all curses - constant consent. She and her future generation were unable to say no to any advances made by a male. Doorshima’s own mother had died in childbirth and was not able to advise her daughter of the terrible hex that was to walk with her for all her living days. Doorshima had grown up unaware of this curse until she began secondary school and word got around that she was a “girl of loose morals and even looser pant”. Her compulsion disgusted her and she tried everything to rid herself of it, including joining The Sacred Church of Indigo and Lavender in the belief that hers was a spiritual problem. She left the church after the priest discovered her little problem and used it to his advantage, repeatedly. She sought out this group as a means to purge herself and try and understand more about her inabilities to turn men down.

The six women would talk of their exploits, real and imagined, with a candour and openness that would embarrass a market woman. Over time, they all started to look forward to these meetings and although numbers fluctuated, the six remained constant attendees. They did not really socialise outside of the sessions but a great affinity developed between the six of them, and it was truly remarkable to see them helping and encouraging one another, reclaiming the word ashewo in the process to become a term of endearment.

In a country where instances of female solidarity are as rare as blue gold, it was Ashewos Anonymous that brought these women together with a (dis)united purpose. It makes it incredibly sad that Funke, the founder and chairwoman, died less than a year after the inaugural meeting from an AIDS related illness. The women still met once a year in her honour and today, in Onikan, there is even a small memorial stone with the inscription – Remembering Funke, the greatest ashewo that ever lived.

On......the fable of the gap-toothed snake, the benevolent boar and the troglodyte

2008-06-19T14:52:00.005+01:00

There is a popular misconception, one that seems to have been universally upheld, that the Lion is the King of the Jungle. This view is, in fact, inaccurate. Whilst it is true that across the various animal kingdoms, lions form a majority of the ruling class, there are small pockets of sovereignties, scattered here and there, in which other animals enjoy governance.

Take the Jungle Republic of Lacunia, for example, where Gadon Machiji, a gap-toothed snake, once ruled for some 8 years. The fact that a snake ruled was not in itself the surprising thing -other snakes had been in the hot seat before- it was that ruling alongside this sect of serpents there sat a reptilian-like, cave dwelling creature known as a troglodyte. Now, no one liked or trusted these troglodytes with their humanoid shapes and long serpentine tails. They rarely came out during the day and even when they did, they would wear dark protective eyewear so that one never saw their eyes. They were highly disruptive creatures and the only attribute they possessed in great abundance was evil. Even more surprising was the gap-toothed snake’s very public friendship with a benevolent boar called Waitandsee. Some animals even believe, to this day, that it was the resources of the very wealthy Waitandsee that sponsored the coup that allowed Machiji to seize power from his draconian but dithering predecessor.

After Machiji took power, things started to go wrong almost immediately. Firstly, decrees 23 and 42 were scrapped. These decrees had been introduced by the outgoing regime and had forbidden all animals from defecating or urinating in places that were not clearly designated shitholes.

Further, there had been murmurings amongst the animals that Machiji was the secret head of a cabal that imported the coca plant from his cousins in the Amazon rainforest. Everyone knows of the euphoric but dilapidating effect of the coca plant on animals. Under the old regime all convicted coca smugglers were brutally murdered as punishment. None of the animals dared accuse Machiji of being a smuggler for fear of the repercussions. A highly respected goat, and head of the Jungle Journal, had been bold enough to compile a series of missives suggesting that the gap-toothed snake was behind much of the coca influx. One day the goat received a package containing compressed porcupine quills which exploded when opened, killing the goat instantly. The murder remains unsolved but whispers permeated through the Republic that it was Machiji’s handiwork.

Economic policy also suffered greatly under Machiji particularly with the introduction of the Seasonal Appropriation Program. The program made little sense to anyone other than the Republic’s creditors and whilst foreign investment increased, there followed a period of great famine and austerity. During this period Machiji and his cohorts got fatter whilst the good citizens of the Jungle Republic, from the marauding elephant to the industrious soldier ant, got leaner and leaner. Machiji’s government implemented a myriad of other failed programs, which only helped to divert attention and fritter scarce national resources. Some of the programs include the Animal’sBank, Directorate of Food, Streams and Jungle Infrastructure (DFSJI) and Better Life for Reptilian Women. All these programs are dead today.

The Republic was very good at producing palm oil but unfortunately did not really know what to do with it. You see, palm oil on its own is pretty worthless and has to be refined in order to be of any benefit. So whilst the good citizens were slavishly producing record amounts of palm oil, they had to export it and buy it back at extortionate rates. Also the Lacunian animals were not very good at hunting for themselves. Almost everything they ate they had to import from other lands. This was not helped by Machiji’s failure to provide them with the tools needed to sharpen their claws, grind their teeth and improve their ability to hunt.

It was not long, therefore, that the animals began to grow restless and started to rebel against Machiji’s poor leadership. Machiji responded with force and hundreds of animals lost their lives as they protested about the poor conditions. Even some of Machiji’s brothers in green were unhappy and staged yet another coup to dethrone the increasingly unpopular king. Unfortunately, over the years, Machiji had become extremely deft at the skills of evasion and managed to escape to a place called Gongo Rock which he christened as the new seat of power. All 27 of his brothers in green were caught and assassinated after a trial in a kangaroo court. Nobody was quite sure where the kangaroos had come from.

All the while, Waitandsee, the benevolent boar, was secretly harbouring fantasies of succeeding Machiji. After all, had Machiji not promised to relinquish power to the other animals after five years of rule? And who better to pick up the baton than his dear friend, Waitandsee, who had assisted in putting him into power in the first place? So the stage was set for an election. Unease had been growing and this would surely keep the animals happy. The election itself was a success but what happened subsequently was a disgrace. All the animals, including Waitandsee himself, had underestimated Machiji’s lust for power and desire to prolong his own rule.

He set up an ‘interim’ committee of his own choosing to replace him which consisted of various ostriches, giraffes and other animals of no consequence. This set the scene perfectly for yet another takeover, this time by the troglodyte which was to have very dire consequences on the whole Jungle Republic of Lacunia. One of the troglodyte’s first acts was to imprison Waitandsee and thereafter followed a series of animal rights catastrophes which are too terrifying to mention in great detail. Suffice to say that those were very dark days for the Republic with assassinations and kidnappings the order of the day. Hyenas and jackals moved freely among the animal populace under the veil of fear and intimidation. Under his rule, the molluscs with the hard shells pillaged the land for more and more palm oil. When a bold and fearless lion rose proudly and roared in disapproval, the troglodyte sent his hyenas to hang him.

His reign, fortunately, was not to last for much longer. The rest of the animal world took notice and whether by accident or whether by design, the troglodyte met his end mid-coitus, in the company of two specially imported Indian pythons. Coincidentally, exactly a month later, Waitandsee also met his fate in equally suspicious circumstances. It was the very day that he was set to be released from incarceration. Some say that the American bald headed eagle -self proclaimed guardian of the animal kingdom- was behind their deaths but there is nothing really to substantiate this claim. The Indian pythons were never seen or heard of again.

What of Machiji? Did he live happily ever after? I wish I could tell you that he did not and that a hunter caught him one day and cut off his head. I wish I could tell you that but I would be lying. Machiji is still alive today and still slithers in the same venomous, reptilian company that he always kept. Would you believe that he recently even tried to be King of Lacunia again? A snake sheds its skin every year but even the Lacunians recognised that underneath this new skin was still the very same gap-toothed snake that had plunged the Republic into chaos so many years ago. He still talks out of both sides of his mouth. Recently, he crawled out of his lopgpile house and attended the ten year memorial of his dear friend, the troglodyte. He tried to tell us that the troglodyte was not really a troglodyte at all. He said that the troglodyte did not stash those cowries in Gongo rock all those years ago. He assured us that the billions of cowries that were sent to Helvetia, and have since been repatriated, had nothing at all to do with his dear friend and was some kind of administrative error. Snakes do not blink so he said all this with an entirely straight face and without a sense of irony. It is only after all these years that it has become very clear. Machiji, for once, was telling the truth. The troglodyte had not really been a troglodyte at all. He had merely been a serpent in human skin. The grimace and the dark eyewear had fooled all the animals into thinking they were different creatures when, in fact, they were one and the same.

On.....the corner of 14th street and Serenity

2008-05-25T17:00:00.004+01:00

Starting Monday 26th May. See here for more information.

On......the price of fear

2008-05-22T16:32:00.005+01:00

I wasn’t quite sure how to approach her as she stood there in her red dress. I am rarely prone to overwhelming lust but at that minute I wished to tear her clothes off and fuck her. Repeatedly. However my nerve failed me as it often does in these situations. You see I do not know how to approach women, never have done. All my female associations have been purely through mutual introductions or in ‘safe’ settings like educational establishments, workplaces, etc. The fear of rejection always weighed heavier than the potential euphoria of a girl's promise. Thus, I have never chatted up a woman. Sure the signs are usually obvious enough. A woman will do any one of a half dozen things to indicate that she has earmarked you as a potential suitor. She will give you a further half dozen signs to suggest that she wants you to come over. I can read all the signs but like an illiterate I fail to comprehend a single one of them. Actually I do comprehend but then in the process of the brain registering signal and transmitting instructions to my feet to start the walk, something breaks down. I freeze.

So once again I stood, or rather leaned, in that familiar position by the bar, eyeing a girl I liked yet powerless to do a damn thing to build up the courage to just go and talk to her. I wanted to know so much about her and it hurt me that I lacked the guts to just get her name.

How was I ever to discover that her name was Mandy for example? Or that she liked Art and was currently working in a dead-end job but was hoping to open up a gallery someday? How could I possibly know that after our second date she would invite me up for coffee and that we would kiss the night away never once wishing to spoil our innocent caress with anticlimactic sex? I would be forever ignorant that when we did eventually have sex, I would dream of the tightness and moisture of her pussy all day long. How was I to ever know that one evening, after eight months of indecision, I would propose in Venice where we are attending the film festival? Would I ever be able to reciprocate the joy and pride I felt after her immediate acceptance? Or the jubilation that followed when she ultimately introduced three beautiful baby girls into our lives? Or the fact that for every setback I faced in my early career it was her that cajoled, supported and encouraged me to keep persevering? Would I ever reach the heights that her mere presence propelled me to? Would she ever have quit that dead-end job and pursued her dreams?

I guess not. For here we were at 2.53, with the club closing at 3, remaining at the same level of acquaintance that we were an hour ago and damned to remain at for eternity. We will remain two soul mates drifting apart into oblivious anonymity without the even the grace of knowing what we never knew. For want of some courage a lifetime was lost.

On......the bizarre incarceration of Ra'id Tajudeen Hussain

2008-05-01T11:19:00.005+01:00

I awoke blind to the stench of urine and sweat, not knowing where I was or how I came to arrive there. I tried to move but my enclosure was miniscule and my legs, cramped as they were, bounced off the walls of my cell.

I was in a crouching position and movement of any kind was a remarkable effort.

I called out but no sound was distinguishable to my ears. I was either deaf or mute. Or both. I knew then that I was under incarceration and this small, dark, humid place was to be my cell. I had been deprived of all my senses. But wait.....no.......I had my hearing still. I could just about make out, from some great distance, a ticking sound, thumping, rhythmic. Like a bomb. The ticking was at times loud, more urgent, closer, imminent. At others it was faint, steady, distant, but ever present.

I feared for my safety, for my survival, my base instincts wishing to thrive and continue existence despite my desolate environs. I could do nothing for now but sleep.........

I awoke to loud noises from outside the cell. Again I cried out but again my voice died on utterance. I tried to discern the noises, to give them meaning, to understand who my captors were and what they wanted with me. All attempts to understand were futile. The language they spoke was foreign to me. Again tiredness overwhelmed and sweet sleep embraced me.

As I grew stronger I began to grow more aware of my surroundings. The cell was largely dark and devoid of any discernible doors or windows. On occasion, the cell would be partly illuminated with a faint, dull glow, like a great light from beyond was trying desperately to force its way in. The walls seemed soft, padded and worryingly seemed to move occasionally in constrictions, as they had a life of their own.

I was kept alive intravenously. A long tube was attached to me and the other end extended somewhere beyond the walls of my confines. Many times I would lie awake to try and hear a sound to see how this tube was replenished with food and nutrients. Each time I would sleep and fail in any attempt to make contact with my captors. Perhaps the nutrients that came through the tube also contained overpowering sedatives. In any case the tube was my only means of sustenance and I was reluctant to tamper with it.

I was left largely in silence and for many months the only consultation I had was with my own thoughts and memories. I had somehow grown accustomed to this place. I was getting stronger each day and I knew that I was being kept alive for a reason. The voices I heard outside the prison assured me that there was some sort of life out there in spite of my solitary confinement. Through my own imagination or perhaps even in reality, I felt that the voices would sometimes address me, speaking calmly, gently, and even lovingly. At other times the voices would be a series of loud yelps and exclamations. I felt that I had a friend on the other side, perhaps they were even fellow prisoners. There was one voice in particular which I began to find pleasurable. Despite the babble it would always be there. It was the voice of a female. There were times when I would go into great distress and kick and flail wildly in desperation and discomfort. Even at those times of anguish, I could hear the voice and it would return me to the placid, dormant state that had become a predominant sentiment in my institutionalised solace. So many times I wished I could regain my vocals and master her tongue so that we could communicate. I desperately wanted to meet this voice that had become a companion these past few months.

The cell reduced in size each day. Little daemons would come at night to silently remove small blocks that would constrict the space. I knew this for each time I slept I would feel movements within the cell and yet there were no physical presence when I awoke.

It is true that those in captivity will, over a period of time, begin to feel a certain attachment to the prison that holds them. After a while I thought less of my previous life, its incandescent lights and perpetual joys. The truth is I even forgot altogether what it felt like to be free. All I had now was darkness and voices and I had begun to cherish these two nebulous things. Even the movements and vibrations within my cell no longer frightened me. They were now a part of me. I felt safe and comfortable, no longer caring who my captors were

It is one of life’s injustices that at the apogee of comfort, there shortly arrives discomfort. The vibrations (were they earthquakes?) grew more uncomfortable and more periodic. Each time those lifelike walls would tighten and close and squeeze. I felt that I must surely be the subject of some cruel experiment but wait........there was a light in the distance. Not a faint hum of a thing but a distinct glimmer. There it was, it grew brighter and it drew me closer. Suddenly, and without warning, the light revealed a door. There had always been a door! But it had been sealed shut. It was now opening to whom? To what? A paralysing fear gripped me and I did not want to leave my cell but those vibrations were getting worse; they were expelling me from my dungeon and into the light. Gloved hands grabbed me around my head and pulled me roughly towards the great light. A great blade shimmered above my stomach and cut away at the intravenous tube that had been my saviour. I wished to return to my prison. This world was too cold, too exposed, too...........light.

I opened my lungs and I spoke for the first time in 9 months. I asked for food and for water. I complained about the cold. I begged for return to the darkness as the light hurt my eyes. My voice had returned and therefore I screamed and screamed. And then I was placed into a shawl and ignobly carried and placed into the arms of one of the captors. The captor spoke and it was her. The voice that soothes. My eyes still refused to focus properly in this new light but I could just about make out her figure and she was looking at me and smiling. I stopped my complaints and suddenly I felt very safe again. This was my mother, Halima Hussein, and she was to name me Ra’id Tajudeen.

The Bizarre Incarceration of Ra’id Tajudeen Hussein

On......my penance to past loves

2008-04-21T03:53:00.003+01:00

To Hauwa:

With the unique embellishment of nostalgia, the Samco orange drink that you shared with me that break time, retains, to this moment, the immortal sweetness of ambrosia. That feeling of victory, attained in spite of a clutch of suitors, was as gratifying a moment as any significant landmark I have achieved since. I remember how you used to watch me playing football – from a distance. With little tactical acumen and with even less consideration of my teammates, I would seek to impress you by picking the ball and dribbling as many players as I could. Scoring a goal was merely an incidental bonus. I would often beat no more than five players before being rugby tackled by Obiajulu who I could never get past. On the one occasion I shimmied left and feinted right, sending him sprawling to the ground and tackling air, you had already returned to the classroom.

I apologise now for the lack of manifestation of my heart’s true intentions. The eight year old boy is poorly acquainted with grandiose displays of affection. In the event, you left school convinced that I hated you. I remember one incident where in a fit of overflowing, uncontrollable love, I threw a blackboard duster at you. Even as I knelt down outside as punishment for my transgression, I swear that I have never been more sure of my love for another person. If only I loved you older, my love would surely have exhibited itself as love and not cloaked itself in explicit abhorrence.

To Jackie:

Remember Ikoyi Club 1938? Men we haunted those grounds like the spirits of old lovers. I still remember that first wet, awkward kiss in the rotunda that tasted like suya and onions. You giigled and ran off to tell your girls. You had a secret nickname for me – MJ. You said I looked like a pre-pubescent, pre-cosmetically altered, pre-white Michael Jackson. In the 1980s, MJ was the epitome of fineness so it is a nickname I cherished. Remember Friday night movie club? Our wet kisses soon became the main feature.

Yours was the first love that hurt. It is a most traumatic day when you learn that love is bittersweet. In retrospect I should have spotted the signs. You were the older woman. You were at least a head taller than me. You already wore a bra. Those two small mounds on your chest sparked a carnal curiosity in me but it was one which I never dared to explore. Perhaps a sneaky hand during a rerun of Herbie goes bananas would have cemented our union.

I remember the day I saw you with Basil. At Ikoyi Club. In the Rotunda. On a Friday. My haunted soul fled from purgatory and descended into hell. It would be a while before I glimpsed heaven again.

To Farida:

The entirety of our love was spent in non communication. It was a crush of gargantuan proportions and I repressed it, coward that I was. My crush actually preceded our initial acquaintance by at least three years. The affair began on celluloid when you starred in that Ogbanje film I used to tease you about. What was it called again? Ah yes.....The Reign of Abiku. I think your name was Motara in it. That NTA Channel 5 production scared the bejesus out of me and I spent the majority of the time watching it from behind the couch, emerging only when you appeared on the screen. Years later I confessed this to you and my proclamation sent you in to alluring, melodic hysterics. By that time our relationship was firmly in the realms of Plato and I had long since crossed the dreaded threshold of “Too friendly to be a boyfriend”.

Even as you complained about the quality of boyfriends in the periods of plenty and lamented about a lack of them in the times of drought, I would playfully entertain thoughts of a time when I could call you my girl. It is not true what they say about lasting friendships not budding from early romance. You remain one of my best friends to this day.

To Tinuke:

My bow legged Lou. My queen of indescribable perfection. Our love was never meant to be. My best friend and blood brother was crazy about you and it is the unwritten code between men that “Thou shall not cock block thy best friend”. To further complicate matters, you had dated my other good friend and therein lay another rule in the code of men.

But we could not help the way we felt could we? I saw those covetous glances during Thursday lunchtime. I perceived the stolen looks as we passed each other in the hallways on the way to Chemistry. I ignored all these pleasing portents until that dream. It was not a wet dream o. No, it was far more innocent than that. We merely held hands and it was as if the cumulative tension of repressed desire congregated in such a simple act. I awoke from slumber in love with you.
But how could I betray my friend? It soon became obvious that your interests lay with me and not he but I could not jeopardise my friendship. We had our moments though. Remember after school that day when we made out behind the SS3 boys’ toilet? You allowed me to squeeze your breasts as we kissed and your hand explored some parts of my body. I have never had such a guilty erection in my life.

My emotional maturity had begun to develop and I eventually had to explain to you that because of the ongoing attentions of my friend, no good could ever come out of our feelings. I made the audacious offer of quietly cutting shows on the side without the ceremony of an open relationship. We called it UnderG in those days. You were a lady of honour and rejected such an arrangement.

To Monica:

My sister yellow with your skin like paw-paw in the wet season. I ignored your overtures for three years barely even throwing a careless word in your direction. And then one summer, school resumed and you had bloomed. It was too late, boys started taking notice, no longer were you the quiet hibiscus that resides in the corner of the garden; you had blossomed into the bold bougainvillea that sprawls with undeniable beauty beyond its limited confines. Even boys from Kings College, ISL and St Gregs were alerted to your beauty. They would travel from far and wide to gaze and to toast. However in spite of the newfound attention, you still retained some residue of emotion for a blind fool and I capitalised in those moments we had together sitting private SSCE.

Our love did not last because of my jealousy. I grew wary of the unwelcome gifts and the unsolicited telephone calls. I felt inferior because some of these toasters were richer and more attractive than me. My behaviour towards you became despicable and I grew aloof. You implored all my friends for an insight into the genesis of my mood change. I felt I was letting myself down easily for the inevitable moment when your head would be turned by some governor’s son. I should have had greater faith in your unwavering love.

Our love was tragically brief but was one that endured and I am grateful that we managed an encore performance in subsequent years. However distance intervened and served to fizzle out the promise of a lasting romance.

To Evie:

My Waffy girl. My amazon. Why was I so unfair to you when all you ever did was care about me? Was it because of Monica? Was I still getting over her? I was selfish and un-gentlemanly to you many times and yet you persevered. How many times did I call you? It is not that I did not care about you Evie. It was just that my heart had not yet been completely returned to me and the part that had was capable only of yielding a diminished output.

We had potential with your big brains and my big ideas. We worked so well together and your Waffy blood ensured that sexual relations were always very charged. I wasted too many years dithering and holding you back. By the time you ended it I had become a bitter person. I respectably befriended you on more favourable terms and I am pleased to call you a friend once more.

My darling Scholastica:

My brother has recently written you a very public note. And I will always remain sworn to secrecy. After all as they say - what happens in Warri stays in Warri. Let us leave it at that...........

Yours

Atutu

On......NY inspirations, California frolicking and the Water theory

2008-04-15T02:11:00.015+01:00

New York was merely a two day stopover and it was my intention to use the time to recover and save some money for the west coast jaunt that lay ahead. That was the objective until the moment Kollington, my party loving friend, arrived on the scene and said we had to rock on Friday. I dragged myself out of bed and cursed my easily susceptible self. We ended up at the Hudson and the night itself was a non-event and the only noteworthy episode involved my foolish dalliance with champagne – the one alcoholic drink that induces a hangover in me.

I did not need to wait long to regret my foolishness because I had to rouse myself at about 8am in order to return the rental car ahead of time. A word of warning – DO NOT EVER ATTEMPT TO USE A GPS NAVIGATION SYSTEM IN NEW YORK CITY. I attempted to plot what should be a 20 minute drive from Central Park West to 22nd street and it took me damn near an hour. The bloody GPS kept attempting to take me down one way streets and send me hurtling to my doom. The rental assistant had her hand on a stopwatch as I managed to drive the car in one minute before the deadline. There was an unmistakable look of disgust on her face for not being able to impose a late penalty charge plus one day rental cover plus taxes. I managed to walk back to the hotel – a journey which took me ten minutes -and there was Kollington’s grinning face waiting for me. He is one of those medical marvels who are somehow able to consume copious amounts of alcohol in one night and yet somehow retain the presence of mind to wake up in the morning with an unblemished clarity of thought. He and his brother were going for some gym training and did I want to come along? What the hell I thought. It turned out to be one of those boot camp type of things where the instructor physically abuses you for one hour. After the session I felt violated with my heart beating at a rate that it had not reached in many a year.

In the evening I somehow found the strength to meet up with an old friend who works as an actress in the city. She was late so we skipped dinner and headed towards Chelsea and a book reading by one time blogger Teju Cole (a pseudonym). He has recently published his first book Every Day is for the Thief which is a very promising debut. I was a huge fan of his as a blogger and I sense that there are great things to come from this author. A further rallying cry to you literally inclined bloggers out there – STOP SLEEPING. In less than 18 months Teju (picture below) has gone from updating his admittedly brilliant travel blog to becoming a fully fledged author. Make una wake up o!

The morning belonged to San Francisco and California dreaming. It is a city that I fell in love from the moment plane tyre touched tarmac. It is hard to describe this bay side city in words so feast your eyes a bit on the pictures above

California was unarguably the finest state I visited on this trip and has a strong claim to be regarded as a country in its own right. You will never savour a finer driving experience than the eight hours (broken up in chunks) that I spent on the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco to Dana Point. I enjoyed it so much that I got clocked doing 104mph by the local sheriff in Salinas. He took one look at my license, decided that it was probably not worth prosecuting a foreigner and let me go after and making me promise to “ease up on the ol’ gas pedal”

LA was the endpoint of my California trip and in many ways it was an anti-climax to the preceding days of the serene, unspoilt beauty witnessed in Carmel-by-theSea, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. In terms of adventure, however, LA was unrivalled. It is a city that reminded me greatly of Lagos, at once basking in the opulence of palm tree lined boulevards coupled with the very immediate squalor and hardships of so many tramps and layabouts. It is also the only other city I know where “shakara” and “effizy” are the order of the day, more important than any other thing of substance. Big shots and high rollers do not even look you in the eye when they address you. They are constantly looking past you, beyond you, trying to check out other people checking them out.

At the Sky bar on Sunset Boulevard, one Yahooze guy decided he was going to buy everyone drinks. I am not talking one sachet of pure water each o! This guy was popping champagne like say tomorrow no go come. I shack tire that day and even made friends with the guy sef. He said his name was Chad and that he was some producer or something. I lied that I was a screenwriter (everybody in LA na screenwriter). At the end of the night he invited me and the friends I was with back to his place. He said that there was going to be an after party with ample babes and that he had bountiful amounts of “Bolivian cocaine”. Which one be Bolivian cocaine again? Is that somehow different from your garden variety, buy-off-the street cocaine? He lived on Mulholland Drive and we promised to meet him there. We actually did roll there in the hope of witnessing a fully fledged LA orgy but when we reached, the place was looking kinda spooky with its long winding drive and unlit gates. We carefully reversed our car and sped away. No be me they go use do ritual!

LA was a trip and in the end I felt sad to leave but I was convinced that Vegas would provide even more delightful hedonism. I was disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, the self-indulgence is very much in place but it is of the manufactured kind. Everything is ingloriously over the top in Vegas – the buildings, the food, the clubs, the women. It is also full of bloody foreigners and you cannot move without hearing a hotchpotch of various accents and languages. Not a bad place but you could literally be anywhere in the world (there is even a mini New York and Paris for crissakes). It was just a little too touristy for my liking and in retrospect I would have knocked it off my list of destinations for this particular trip. The dusty drive through the old Route 66 was a great treat though but avoid doing it at night. I was a bit frazzled cos we spent a bit too long taking pictures and nightfall caught us on that old road with no streetlights.

I was not sad to leave Vegas a few days later and the early morning flight to Miami could not come soon enough. It was my first time in Miami and the first thing that you notice is the women. Even the women notice the women in sheer appreciation. They are of every hue, body size, ethnicity, inclination and sexual persuasion under the sun. I am not an ashewo but I am a lover of beautiful women and to my mind, Miami has a greater concentration of beautiful women per square foot than any other worldly place I know - apart from my village in Benue state of course where even the mammy water hides her face in shame anytime a female child is born. There is perhaps a link there – water. Are riverine men and women the finest? Think about the finest people you know. I bet they grew up near water. Or perhaps even just a very well dug-borehole. I will accept that. IS there something about the water that makes them very fresh? Surely worth further investigation no?

We spent most of our days in Miami in South Beach between Washington Avenue (clubs), Collins Avenue (shops) Lincoln Road (restaurants) and Ocean Drive (beach and people). Was sick of clubbing by the time we get to Miami and even sicker of the small-minded staff that inhabit the realm of their doorways. However I must give a big up to Opium on Collins Avenue. This was quite simple the best joint I went to on this trip. It is an open air concept that could only ever work in a temperate climate.

On the fourth day the skies opened and they wept. The trip was over and inside I joined in the celestial downpour. It was time to leave and I was satisfied that I had achieved many of the things I sought out to accomplish. I was well rested. I had made good headway on the story I was working on. I had met some fantastic characters. I had dined at some very fine establishments. Life was good.

Many thanks to my travel companion, Bournvi, who at various points of this trip reminded me of the true meaning of friendship. Many thanks to the DC cops who harassed me – e no go better for you. Much love to the understanding sheriff who took pity on me. Thank you to Sierra – you taught me a lot. Thank you Aloha – you saved me cheddar. Many thanks to all American ATMs that will never give you ten dollars when all you need is ten dollars. I will be back soon, perhaps, not wiser, but undoubtedly older.

On.....the back bay, DC and the law

2008-03-31T19:17:00.002+01:00

The flight to Boston was via a Grayhound coach ride to Buffalo (a city I had vowed never to return to after I visited last year). We got to the airport in very good time but during check-in my duffel bag weighed the size of a crudely severed body and I had to painfully part with $20 in excess baggage charges. Interestingly as I went through security, the lady who checked my passport advised me that I had been selected by my airline to go through an additional screening.

It is my experience that where one has nothing to hide, the best way to deal with such situations is to grin and do exactly as you are told. Even your grin has to be gauged at just the right width so as not to appear too cocky. Don’t grin at all and you look like a moody terrorist. Anyway, I wondered casually why my airline had awarded me with such a dubious accolade. Is it because I is black? Who cares? One can never be too careful these days and it gave me a paradoxical comfort to know that dodgy looking people like me were being screened thoroughly. My shaggy, slightly dreadlocked, beard could perhaps do with a trim I thought as the TSA official frisked me doggedly. I suppose that it was also very reckless of me to still be donning the hotel towel that I had wrapped around my head that morning after my shower. You would have thought that someone would have pointed it out to me during the three hour trip from Toronto. I dunno. I suppose the declaration “Sir you have a damp towel wrapped around your head” could be construed as an overtly racist statement these days.

Boston itself was beautiful. I stayed at a charming hotel called The Colonnade which is in the Back Bay area of Boston. There is a neighbourhood feel to the city and walking down the wide, lamposted streets you get the impression that everybody knows your name. As a matter of fact someone should write a sitcom to highlight this neighbourhood aspect of Boston as the backdrop. They could use, I dunno, a bar or pub as the central setting and just have a bunch of people yammering all day about anything and everything. I tell you that sitcom would be a smash hit. What’s that you say? Cheers for the suggestion? Most welcome.

Boston and Washington are separated by some 450 miles of road. The drive is one that takes about eight hours on most days. It is a trip that falls very neatly into two halves. The first four hours allows you to navigate through the lush redness of New England foliage. The journey takes you through Connecticut and you end up in New York. The second half is in sharp contrast to the first as it is all industrial concrete from New York to New Jersey to Pennsylvania to DC.
D.C is a weird little place and I do mean little. It is divided into four quadrants and measures merely about ten miles in radius from north to south, east to west. I was hosted and dined by my dear friend Kulutempa who also acted as an unwilling tour guide. I found it strange that some of the more historic buildings are merely yards away from low income housing projects and ghettoes. It is also a city which appears to have a surfeit of crack-heads in its population. I lost track of the number of times that I was approached for a dollar. A dollar to a crack-head is that magical amount that will get him one step closer to his fix.

The high of my DC experience was immediately followed by a low. The high was my brief nocturnal meeting with a fellow blogger which I had hoped would be for longer. When I say that she has a feline strut then I am sure you will know who I mean. She is as witty and delightfully sardonic as she appears on her page not to mention sexy as hell. The one and a half hours we spent enjoying a drink before being kicked out was certainly a paean of rapturous note. On the way back I encountered a distasteful incident with DC’s finest when I was pulled over for no apparent reason. Unclear of my legal rights in this country (and having watched one too many movies) I suddenly became very meek and did not dare to ask why I had been stopped. They spotted my uncertainty and used this to nourish their nightly enjoyment. I was grilled for a further half an hour as they seemed to find the idea of a guy on a road trip a bit too incredulous. As they continued their questioning I relaxed and realised I had nothing to hide. I was not an illegal, I had a valid license and I was not inebriated. Surely the basic human rights that I was entitled to in England were equally applicable in Washington D.C (or indeed anywhere else in the free world). They sensed the slow transformation in me from rabbit to eagle and let me go with apologies.

In California now and heading to the Nevada desert. There is so much to report on the intervening trip (including another run in with the cops) that I will dedicate another post to that.

On......the beginnings of the road trip and getting a year older

2008-03-17T05:53:00.001Z

Here I am teetering on the edge of the age gap, wondering what adventures the other side of the great chasm will afford me. Let us just say that I am celebrating a “noteworthy” birthday this year and that I had decided that I would celebrate it by dissecting North America in a Ford Mustang. However my journey was to start in Toronto, Canada, a city which I had always planned to visit and which had always held a certain mystical allure. So here I am, teetering on that age gap, reflecting on the past tri-decade and feeling distinctly underwhelmed.

I should have known better really. I mean, what did I expect? I have lived in London now for approximately half of my adult life and once you’ve lived in one big city, you’ve lived in them all. I can therefore say categorically that I have visited Tokyo, Munich, Paris, Sydney, New York, Los Angeles, Moscow, Chicago and Seoul. The stamps in my passport are irrelevant. I have lived in a city therefore I have lived in all cities. Toronto is no different. Although I must say there is something particularly soulless about this great city. Yes I know what you are thinking. The city is artifice, it is constructed, manmade. But no, there is something that found spookily bland about Toronto. It is a city that appears to live in the shadow of another great city. It is the younger sibling that strives to find its own identity yet labours under the personality of the more dominant offspring. It is America-lite or Yank Zero if you like.

I had come to Toronto hoping to find my own private slice of Canadia. I wanted to discover the distinctions that provided Canadians with justified umbrage every time one mistook them for Americans. I hoped to understand the culture of the people and to see what it meant to be Canadian and not American. I wished to become fluent in the Canadian tongue and understand the distinctions that existed between the Canadian accent and its American cousin. So how did I achieve this? I went to Toronto, and stayed at the Sheraton. Beat that for immersing yourself in Canadian culture. It is like the man who travels to Abuja for the first time, spends two nights at the Hilton and feels qualified enough to deliver a three hour sermon on the ills of the entire Nigerian nation, simultaneously offering remedies for its improved economic performance. I felt like a fraud and I had to get my hands dirty.

On the Friday I landed I was Toronto bourgeoisie, sipping Patron and dining a la carte. On Saturday I devolved to the middle-class. By Sunday I was a plebeian. The irony is that I endured the greatest joys as a plebeian. On that day I explored parts of Toronto that I doubt any respectable tour company would include on its itinerary. I went to Chinatown and ate Indian. I went to College Street, stood on a soapbox and orated. I talked of my wanderlust. I spoke of human passion and its unvarying ability to surprise. My audience was small but captive. I visited Yonge Street and listened, nay vibed, to Soular. I marvelled, as I always do, at artists who swear by their passion. They were not famous. They were not rich. The words were often not theirs, but for the sake of a free meal at the establishment that provided platform, they sang and they performed like gods. An extraterrestrial visitor would have witnessed their performance and compared it with the MTV radio signals they received in Delcrum 9. They would have struggled to identify who was the more talented, Soular or Beyonce or Rihanna or whoever. At last my hands were grubby and I realised that this was the fragment of the city that I most loved – its heart. For even amongst the mechanical and the logical aspects of every city - its imposing skyscrapers and dirty, overcrowded public transport systems, you will always find a small but thriving organ that allows for the rest of its adjuncts to thrive independently and function harmoniously.

On now to Boston for St Patrick’s Day. The colour of my money and my underwear are both green so I suspect that I will fit right in. The rest of my four week sojourn will involve a variety of accommodation from the opulent rooms of Las Vegas to the cockroach infested motels that are strewn across Route 66. Each moment will be an adventure and I promise that there will be images, plenty of images. For all my American dwelling friends I may be coming soon to a town near you. I am hopefully meeting with at least two fellow blog-villains. If you holler at me then lunch is on me. If not then look out for the cherry-red Ford Mustang. You will recognise me I think. I will be the black guy getting stopped by the Police in every State for doing 100mph.

On......a very intriguing opportunity for all writers

2008-02-19T12:01:00.004Z

Newspaper Man: A Collection of Short Stories

Newspaper Man is the brainchild of a young and prolific writer seeking to understand the role of the media in shaping modern-day ideals and standards of human behavior. It is a writing project based on a simple premise, one that will compile the most profound, exploratory works of creative short story writers who wish to explore the notion of media mind-control, and question a society's capacity to withstand it.

All authors involved in this project will be willing and able to answer such questions as: do the actions of man determine what appears in our media forms; or does the mainstream dictate our reactions to what we read/see/observe?

Through this collection of short stories, we - the writers - reclaim the power of the written word, using the force of our combined creativity to show that neither we nor our thoughts will be controlled by the contorted reality of sensationalist journalism. Likewise, we will imaginatively describe the possibilities that exist for people who cannot escape this social mire.

We invite and encourage all interested writers to put pen to paper and engage in this process with us. Use whichever literary voice suits you best - satire, macabre, noir/thriller, science fiction...whatever. We recognize the negative effects that accompany restrictions on personal creativity. The pride of this collection is the opportunity we have provided to let the writer's voice shine through his/her work, unrestricted by genre limitation, so that you can speak to your audience the best way you know how.

The endpoint of this project is publication. Once we compile the submissions that speak most closely to our directive, the editors will seek to have our stories published, and we hope to do so before the end of this year. All entries must be submitted to newspaperman2008@gmail.com by April 15. No entries will be considered that are submitted after that date. Stories should be 2500 - 3500 words.

Look for our group on Facebook if you've got an account. Once you join, please check back often and share your news and ideas with the rest of the group - no input is without value. Feel free to email me, though; I'll do my best to keep you abreast of all group discussions. Thank you for our interest and participation in this project. We look forward to working with you!

On……the way home last night (or On prejudice and prejudgment)

2008-02-07T17:01:00.000Z

They were pubescent and perhaps a tad immature the two girls on that train. At that age the thrill is in rebellion and non-conformity. The irony, of course, is that non-conformity is itself the ultimate form of conformity. There is not a single fad under the sun, nor ideology, nor fashion sense that does not find company in the minds of a significant number of others. I give you the Goths as an example; they rebel by piercing various parts of their bodies, dyeing their hair, using eye shadow liberally and slapping their faces with paint and powder. And yet are they really different from the half a billion other Goths you see around? They are so different in fact that they outnumber the so-called clean cut kids one sees in any given school these days. But here I am again, doing what I do best, digressing. We must return to the tale of those two girls on the train.

So there they sat, nattering and tattling, those two girls on the train, observing, yet disregarding, their fellow commuters on the southbound District line. It must have been sometime between 6 and 6.30 pm, for the carriage was only three quarters full, and most of its occupants had at least one seat available, except those that elected to stand. The girls possessed, to a magnified degree, that ugly quality that we humans hold, to identify the physical imperfections in another, and to scrutinise, and to ridicule and to quietly rejoice that we are free of that flaw.

This was a trip that the two girls made routinely and they would whittle away the minutes by indulging in their favourite pastime – prejudice and prejudgment. As I have said, it is a game that we all play in one form or the other. Most people have the good grace to jettison the malicious thoughts the moment they enter our minds, others will go one step further and whisper between themselves, children will point, our girls spoke out loud. You see they had a secret weapon in their armoury – a foreign language. Though they had adopted the mannerisms and dress sense of the young British afro-carribean, they still spoke Yoruba with a verve and fluency that did not allow for easy interpretation by the idle eavesdropper. Theirs was not the corrupted Yoruba of the Lagosian, infused with lazy slang and Westernisms, no theirs was conc Yoruba. It was the Yoruba of the natives, the kind that Oduduwa himself would have spoken even as he laid his head to rest all those many years ago.

And so it was that their target today was a middle aged, white man who sat directly opposite them on the train – a most un-Yoruba looking of gentlemen. He was of unspectacular appearance but one of the girls had decided to take offence at the existence of his blotchy, bulbous nose, his parched skin and his old, slightly tatty , clothes. The other girl had gladly joined in the verbal beatdown – conformity abides.

Oh! How that poor man's appearance was corroded with those tongues of acid. They abused him from Earls Court to Parsons Green. Parsons Green to Fulham Broadway. Even at Putney Bridge there was no let up to their vitriolic comments and laughter. The gentleman sat down concentrating on his newspaper, occasionally putting it down to check the name of the station, oblivious to the insults that were raining on his head.

As the train approached Southfields station he folded his newspaper neatly and parked it into his old leather briefcase and rose from his seat. He was an ungainly man and his rise was far from graceful, yet when he stood at full height and ambled towards the door there was something faintly magnificent and noble about his gait. Before reaching the door he turned and looked at the girls, who were still playing their game, regarding them properly for the first time. He looked at the girls square in the face and said to them "Thank you for your very kind words. May your future children live good lives and may they bear no resemblance to their witch-mothers" He spoke in flawless Yoruba.

The train slowed to a halt and the doors parted. He strode unto the platform and he would not have seen the look of inimitable shock registered on the girl’s faces, nor would he have witnessed as they sat there, mouths agape, remaining speechless, for the rest of their journey and for evermore. He would not have seen any of that, the most un-Yoruba looking of gentlemen.

On......an evening with Norah

2008-01-19T00:35:00.000Z

I picked her up about seven from the Grosvenor hotel on Park lane. As soon as I stepped in it was as if I had been transported back to 1897. The hotel was so Victorian that a portrait of the monarch who lent her name to that era adorned the walls as you walked in. The hotel lobby was a marriage of oak and leather with the furnishings, subtle and homely. I announced my name to the butler (not a concierge) and picked a discreet seat in the corner to wait for Miss Jones. My wait was a surprisingly short one as I had barely begun twiddling my thumbs when the butler ushered her in my direction. I momentarily forgot my manners and remained attached to my seat. She was a vision. She wore a black and white polka dot dress with a black sash across the middle. Her lips were bright red to complement the ruby slippers that decorated her feet. She reminded me of Judy Garland in the Wizard of Oz. As she smiled and extended her hand towards me, the analogy became the realer as I instantly lost my brain, my heart and my courage. I mumbled out some words that bore some resemblance to my name and an introduction. Her coy smile indicated that perhaps the words had not manifested themselves in quite the order that I had rehearsed them.

The walk to the car is an awkward affair, punctuated only by perfunctory questions that I already knew the answers to. The autumnal leaves swirled around us in earnest and brought with them a melancholy sort of surrender .The car allowed for the silence to be broken. The husky vibes of Tom Waits filled the air upon ignition. We are now on terra firma. We spoke of the sterling job she had done in updating the Waits Classic “The Long Way home”. She speaks of him in revered terms and it is clear that his music has been a major influence.

She is a meatarian and I rejoice at this fact. There is therefore only one place in London to take her to. London can be quite magical in the fall and it was a day that was, thankfully, without seasonal rain. I suggest that we drive halfway to the restaurant and walk the remainder of the journey. I regret the suggestion on utterance but, surprisingly, she agrees, apparently oblivious or immune to the possibility of autograph hunters. This is London she says. No-one troubles you. Well, not unless you are David Beckham she says. I laugh.

I had the foresight to provisionally book a table at the Gaucho but unfortunately lacked the wisdom to say that I was myself a celebrity. We waited as our table was prepared by the unhurried Argentine waiters. We are seated at a quiet table near the entrance to the kitchen and presented with the menus. We share a plate of ham and cheese empanadas for starters. As the main course I select the Gran Parrillada which is a glorious ensemble of grilled lamb chops, bife de cuadril, chorizo pinchos, Morcilla, sweetbreads and marinated chicken dressed with chimichurri. Norah orders a cheeseburger. She is a cheap date. We submerge the victuals with one and three quarter bottles of Château Beychevelle which is, to my mind, the greatest red wine God ever made. I find that it also serves as the bedrock for the most humorous and agreeable of conversations. We remained in the Gaucho until closing time, laughing, smiling and joking, with the ease of a couple who had been in pleasant acquaintance for many years.

We both wanted the evening to continue so we returned to her hotel room, beyond the paternal gaze of the butler and her security staff. We tumbled into Room 314 and I immediately spotted a Spanish Guitar in the corner. A little alcohol stirs in me the restless spirit of a failed musician and I found myself grabbing the guitar, strumming a few chords and singing a song I had written long ago. She sat on the edge of the bed gazing intently into my eyes as I stood there, strummimng, swaying and singing. I was unsure if the intoxicated look in her eyes was more to do with the good Monsieur Beychevelle or as a result of my warbling. I did not care. She rose from the bed and glided towards me. The effortlessness of her movement made me conclude that she actually found my singing agreeable. She put one finger to my lips and the very touch murdered rationality. Suddenly we were back in Oz again. No brain. No heart. No courage. She drove and I became passenger. She carefully slid the guitar over my stiff, rigid shoulders, holding my eyes all the time with hazel tinged intensity. The ensuing embrace is a moment that froze time. The gaze remains. It is intense and describes desires that a tome of a million words could not. Her hand is on my waist and I feel it’s softness as it creeps under my shirt and works it’s way up my back………

to

the

real world. 2007

My reverie is rudely interrupted by my friend who pokes me in the ribs. After all the warm up acts, Norah is finally on stage. The soothing chords of “Sunrise Sunrise” fill the auditorium and I begin to love her all over again.

On......the aftermath of the accident

2008-01-04T16:38:00.000Z

He thumped the car brakes. The action was a token one. The impact was to be full and comprehensive. Metal, glass and acrylic fused with skin and bone, forcefully and finally. The horrific union was interrupted only by the perforation of human organs. Wounds shortly gave way to the lamentation and gushing of blood. The thick viscous liquid disregarded the amalgam of metal and flesh, flowing freely and disdainfully in various directions, relentlessly seeking all available avenues in its escape. The pain, as is often the case, was the last thing to come. It arrived, like a corrupt dictator, with an unnecessary entourage and staggered ceremony. It had neither the courtesy nor the consideration to fixate itself in the areas of direct impact. It raced through his entire body with the speed of a bush fire in the harmattan months. The accident was complete save for the immovable, irrefutable shock that transfixes its victim. The kind of shock that causes temporary paralysis and tricks the mind into believing, for a split second, that your injuries are not severe.

This was not yet the time for remorse or for reflection. This was not the time to mentally recreate the events that led to the accident, to question what manoeuvres could have been executed differently to avoid the pedestrian and the traffic light.

This was not the time for pity and penance. It was not yet time to question the madness of drinking the cocktails of vodka, tequila, gin and that obscure punch drink yet still insisting that you had the wherewithal to drive home. This was not the time to curse the friends who should have wrestled you to the ground and ordered you a taxi.

This was not the time for regret or repentance. This was no time to start thinking about loss and the overwhelming baggage that it brings with it. It was not time to think about the two seconds it took you to partially overtake the car in front of you. Two seconds for a lifetime of guilt. A poor trade.

All those emotions are for another day as you lay in the hospital bed recovering from your wounds, praying that God give you the strength to one day recover from the mental anguish of stealing the lives of two people.

This was the time to feel scared, helpless and mortal as you remain attached to the dashboard, with the lifeless body of your best friend by your side and the other hapless victim somewhere between the car, the road and the leaning traffic light.

This was the time for realisation and revoked responsibility.

On......the search for my biological mother

2007-12-07T17:26:00.000Z

I feel sorry for adoptive parents sometimes. They spend a lifetime investing financially and emotionally in the well being of a child only to one day hear the words "I wonder what my biological mother looks like". What drives this curiosity that makes an adopted child, such as myself, want to seek out a complete stranger? I find myself, with increasing regularity, thinking about my birth mother. I want her to hold me and to tell me that she loves me. I want to see her cry and regret ever putting me up for adoption. I want to know why she gave up on me when all I ever wanted was her love. I want to know why she failed me.

My adoptive mother has not been particularly unkind to me nor has she violated me in any way. Quite the contrary in fact, she welcomed me with open arms into her home even though she had other children to attend to. I suppose I am just growing older and starting to see things with the eyes of an adult. It is very clear to me now, for example, that she loves her own children a bit more than she loves me. She will never openly admit this of course but she treats them with just enough more favour that I cannot fail to notice.

The dilemma of the adopted child is a complex one. On the one hand you are thankful for the safe environment that your adoptive mother has created and nurtured you in. You are grateful for the opportunities she has given you. You are beholden to them for things that every child should have. Security. A sound education. On the other hand you can't help wondering if your biological mother could have and perhaps should have tried to provide all these things for you as well.

I still remember what my biological mother looks life. To this day she remains the most beautiful woman I have seen. She had beautiful brown skin the colour of earth. Her eyes were luminous and always filled me with hope and optimism. Her voice was like the sound of Benue night, rich and magical. This is how I remember her.

I have found her. My search was not long. She remains where she always was, steadfast and resolute. She is dying though. She needs a series of operations to make her well again. She needs my help. Not just my financial help. She needs my presence. In my mind I can hear her calling for me. I miss my mama. Although she gave me up at the age of 16, I now feel the overwhelming urge to return to her side. I want for us to rediscover each other. I want her to be proud of the man that I have become. I wish to gaze into her eyes again and feel that hope that I once felt.

If you see Mama before me tell her that I am coming. Her name is Nigeria. England will miss me but she will understand.

If you see my mama, Hosanna

Tell am say o, Hosanna

I dey for Jand o, Hosanna

I dey come my village, Hosanna

On......seven 5s

2007-11-30T14:25:00.000Z

5 most versatile actors alive
Daniel Day-Lewis
Johnny Depp
Chiwetel Ejiofor
Forest Whitaker
Sean Penn

Top 5 movies that I have seen this year
Ratatouille
Lions for Lambs
The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
3:10 to Yuma
The Bourne Ultimatum

Honourable mentions for Atonement and American Gangster.

Top 5 best things currently on TV (excluding any reality TV)

The Wire (arguably the best TV show ever made along with The Sopranos)
Entourage - Funniest thing on TV bar none
Heroes - Sort out Hiro's storyline sha it is a bit wack right now.
Grey's Anatomy (although this has slipped a bit this season and I may replace with Lost which is slowly getting back into my good books)
CSI - Consistently brilliant

Special mention goes to 24 which would have made the list if not for the debacle that was Season 6.

Top 5 people that may one day drive me to murder
- Middle lane drivers on motorways
- Malnourished, council estate women, who smoke outside bingo halls and wear leggings.
- People who wear fucking hats in the gym. WHY?
- Twats who use an ATM machine for anything else other than withdrawing cash. There are people behind you! Also those that use multiple cards
- Babangida. The man that made corruption okay in Nigeria.

Top 5 books that I have read this year
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Moshin Hamid (Sweet sweet prose)
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Simple. Concise. A master at the top of his game)
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (The best postcolonial novel I have read in a long long time and I include Half of a Yellow Sun in that assessment)
Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson (This is a translation from Norwegian. You may not read a better novella on the overwhelming feeling of loneliness and solitude)
Matrimony by Joshua Henkin (if you are married, read it. Nuff said)

5 babes that I could gaze at all day
Paula Patton
Kelis
Scarlett Johansson
Norah Jones
Pam Grier (even till today the ultimate MILF)

Special shout out to Jessica Biel and Rihanna for the sheer beauty of their bodies. Unfortunately their faces did not allow them to make the final cut.

Top 5 attacking footballers in the world
1. Lionel Messi
2. Cristiano Ronaldo
3. Kaka
4. Cesc Fabregas
5. Ronaldinho

On......my recent journey to the Edge of Reason

2007-11-20T23:03:00.000Z

What a complete and utter waste of time that was! Well for the most part anyway. I have been meaning to take the journey for a while now but time was always an obstacle. It was only meant to be a quick trip and I hoped to be back in time for the Arsenal – Man Utd match. Fat chance! I underestimated the journey time to Reason and was caught in Limbo on the Friday before the big game. Fortunately you can get Sky Sports in Limbo so I was able to catch the second half.

SO what exactly was the point of this trip I hear you ask? Well for a while now I have been questioning my very existence and wondering whether or not everything that I thought was real is in fact just a figment of my imagination. I wanted to find out more about meta-epistemology and the canard of unromantic love. The only way I could find the answer to these great uncertainties was to take a trip to the Edge of Reason; you know the place that shares a border with the Land of Craze-Madness. The Guardian advised me that I had to tread very carefully because the border between the two domains is inconspicuous and one could easily find oneself in the Land of Craze-Madness before one realised the difference. That was one place I did not want to end up The Guardian advised.

I had hoped that the journey would be a profound one and that I would return with life-altering titbits that might revolutionise your thinking. Sadly I learnt very little. I have come back with an awareness that my Edge is self -defined and very different from yours. We have all visited Reason at some point but my Edge began where many others had ended long ago. The entire domain of Reason was not as big as I had imagined and I must confess that Craze-madness land looked considerably bigger (not to mention more fun!).

All the locals in Reason were stony faced, hard-nosed and pragmatic. They rarely spoke and they didn’t even answer me when I asked where the nearest McDonalds was! The food was nourishing without being enlivening and their idea of fun was Scrabble parties and Su-Doku nightclubbing. I did meet a nice girl at one of the Su-Doku nightclubs but she told me later (over a bowl of Tofu) that she was not really an indigene of Reason and had crossed the border from Craze-Madness for the sake of a night out. I asked her to tell me more about her land and she said it was a place completely devoid of accountability and rational thought. She hated it she said and escaped to Reason whenever she had the chance. This sparked my curiosity somewhat because a place where accountability lies dormant is surely a male paradise. Just imagine…….I could fuck around as much as I wanted and not have to answer to anyone. Paradise I tell you. But wait….a lack of rational thought as well. Does that not mean that some girl I had two-timed could shoot me without her batting an eyelid? Hmmmmmm…. the land of Craze-Madness. I guess there is a clue in the name. I remembered the warnings of The Guardian and eradicated any thoughts I had of crossing the border.

My subsequent days in Reason were spent with the beautiful Osite of Craze-Madness and we killed many hours playing reverse chess and solving quintic and polynomial equations. We did not make love because despite our intense chemistry I was aware that she was little more than the fabrication of a dichotomised mind. I was not quite prepared to discover the epistemological ramifications of fucking a figment of my imagination.

Anyhooo….. I’m back in the land of Free Will now and as I already mentioned my trip was without fruit. Cogito ergo sum I guess. It appears though that I have acquired some soothsaying abilities during the journey and I can now see into the future. Go back to the first line of this post and I predicted exactly what you are thinking right now.

On......the memory of Izehi

2007-10-30T00:52:00.000Z

The next time a major tragedy occurs remember this. You will go through what I call a 3 day wake. On the first day you will digest the news and scour your brain for any loved ones that may have been involved. Who could have been on that plane? Who do we know that lives in California? On the second day you continue to absorb the news and question such mindless disaster. On the third day, you will move on. The tragedy will become a footnote in history and you become zombiefied as the media continues to show you images and drip feeds you with news of the latest disaster. I learnt about Izehi’s death on the third day.

The tragedy in question occurred one year ago today with the ADC crash that claimed the life of the Sultan of Sokoto and 97 others. The news came, as does all Naija breaking news, in fits and starts. Was the plane Abuja bound or Sokoto bound? Where was it’s point of origin? How many were on the plane? The facts and figures changed as the day wore along. After ascertaining that the crash took place in Abuja, I made several calls to friends and family that lived there to make sure that none of them was on the plane. It was a successful headcount and my world was safe again. On the second day I offered prayers to the families of the dead and thanked God for sparing the lives of the few survivors. On day 3, Charles called me from Philadelphia and asked if I had heard. Heard what I asked. That our old classmate, Izehi Oleghe, had been on that plane. He was travelling from Lagos to Sokoto to start his Youth Service. I was no longer a spectator to this tragedy. I was now a part of it.

It is hard to talk about Izehi without resorting to cliché but he had a heart the size of the world. I first met him almost twenty years ago when I started in Atlantic Hall. In a school filled with elitist, snotty nosed kids, Izehi stood tall as the very antithesis of their pseudo-bourgeoisie culture. We shared a mutual love of Asterix and Obelix comics and a lifetime bond was sealed. He remains, to this day, one of the smartest people I have ever met and I will never forget the sight of him standing up on no less than a dozen occasions one night to collect prize after prize. Even when the priorities of a teenage boy started shifting to more carnal matters, Izehi still managed to find a way to stay within striking distance of the top of the class.

In 1994 I made the leap across the Atlantic to come to England whilst Izehi went on to Ibadan to study Medicine. Once distance comes into the equation I become the poorest of friends. I struggle to keep in touch for months on ends and sometimes lose friends altogether. Izehi never gave up on me. Even in the days before e-mail and instant messaging became de rigueur, he somehow found a way to always get in touch with me. I have a large family and Christmas was always spent under one roof. Izehi spent about two Christmases with us in succession and a visitor would have been hard pressed to distinguish Izehi from any member of my family, such was the ease with which he assimilated. He had a very mischievous streak and many of those Christmas nights were spent arguing about the most inane topics under the sun. Like could Superman defeat Flash in a sprint race? Was Star Wars really just a parable of modern life? Who was the best dancer in school? Sometimes he argued just to give his brain the mental workout. Such was the breadth and depth of his knowledge that he felt confident talking about virtually any subject.

He finally graduated as a doctor in 2000 after years of incessant strikes and stoppages. It is sad that the only thing that Nigeria could offer this bright young man was an unnecessary and untimely death. I travelled to Lagos less over the years but we still made a point of seeing each other at least once a year. This culminated in him spending a month in my house the summer before he died. I will forever be grateful for this time that God afforded us. I miss his booming laughter that reverberated through our house and shook the foundations. I miss his gleaming white smile that lit up the world. I miss his big head that was jam-packed with all sorts of useless trivia and information. I miss his brutal honesty and gentle soul. I miss the hours wasted reminiscing about events long gone and faces forgotten. Most of all I just miss my friend.

Dr. Izehi Oleghe (March 15 1977 - October 29 2006)

On......3 marriages? or 3 mirages?

2007-10-24T22:54:00.000+01:00

He was surprised to wake up with her hand draped against his chest. He could not remember the last time that there had been any post-sleep contact between the two of them. They slept in the same bed, as they had for the past twenty years, with an invisible wall between them. Occasionally a renegade foot or hand would stray into opposition territory. Sleepy recoil usually followed. Perhaps it was the discomfort that had awoken him. Her arm felt alien. Heavy. Sweaty. He wanted her to move but was reluctant to wake this most fragile of sleepers. He enjoyed this brief period of peace. There was no pressure to retort or respond to the quips of another. Tranquillity reigned. But that arm! It was a weight on his chest. He had to take the risk. He bent his spine and sunk his back deep into the mattress. This created a small space between arm and chest. In one movement, he rolled to his left side and tried to wriggle under her arm. His manoeuvre was too swift and poorly rehearsed and he ended up on the floor. He found the carpeted ground not entirely uncomfortable. The carpet was made from sea grass and had been specially woven and imported from Panama. Last year he and his wife had argued at great length over the price. In his sleepy state he quietly thanked her for her ability to discern quality carpets. He extended his hand over the bed and pulled his pillows on to the ground. Sleep at last!

*

It was not that she was unhappy - far from it -but Adaobi had started questioning her own sanity. On the face of it life was grand. She had been married for eight years and had three lovely children that she adored. Her husband, Chike, had a big job in the city that paid big bucks so they could afford the big mortgage repayments on their big house. Big deal. Life had become a series of chores. She wondered, with increasing regularity, how the path from graduating top of her Stanford business class had led to a beautifully finished oak and granite kitchen. Her aspiring whirlwind career had been replaced by the quotidian beats of suburban life. Still there were many people in worse positions she thought. Mustn't grumble. Mustn't grouse. If only Chike spent more time at home maybe she would have someone to talk to. Maybe if she took a part time job. Maybe when the kids grow up. Maybe if her damn friends didn’t spend the whole day complaining about their bloody husbands. Maybe if she stopped getting these fucking headaches. Maybe…….
The sound of tyres on gravel cut short her mental meanderings. Chike was home and his food was not yet ready. He would not be happy today.

*

She couldn't recall the last time she had looked forward to a date with such fervour. Maybe it was his inimitable charm. Perhaps it was his endearing elusiveness and apparent worldliness . He travelled all the time and they had postponed this date many times. They had met cordially enough but an exchange of emails and text messages followed, each slightly bolder and braver than the last. After a month, it had become very clear exactly what they wanted to do to each other and the number of times they wanted to do it. She arrived at San Lorenzo's a few minutes after seven and was ushered to a discreet table in the corner. In spite of their electronic courtship, they had actually only seen each other a few times. He was more handsome and charming than she remembered and the dinner was a rousing success. She talked about Venice and DaVinci. He talked about Inarritu and India. They found common ground. He dropped her off at her place and she invited him in for a night cap. The sexual tension of a compatible couple is a terrific thing. They were tearing each other's clothes off before the key was in the lock. The sex was furtive and forceful but no less gratifying. They crumpled into a sweaty heap and slept the sleep of long-time lovers. She woke earlier than he and silently marvelled at his naked body. She betrayed her instincts and started playfully thinking of their next date and beyond. Had she had sex too soon? Were here emails too brazen? What would he think of her? Her eyes fixed on his hands and her dawn light reverie was cruelly ended. She cursed herself for not noticing before. How could she have been so blind? She averted her gaze to the ceiling but her eyes forcefully returned to the single, solitary digit on his left hand. The fresh imprint of a wedding ring was unmistakable…..

**

Marriage was once sacred. Now they tell us that 1 in 3 marriages will end in divorce. I met a man the other day who was on his 3rd marriage - at the age of 40. Where does it start going wrong? When do people stop trying for each other or making the effort? When do the early joys and euphoria of being part of a collective start turning into a dull routine? When does marriage start becoming so unbearable that you can no longer stand the sight of the person sitting across the breakfast table? When do you stop eating breakfast together? When do dinners start going cold as a wife waits for a husband who is 'working late'?

They cease to be marriages. They become mirages. They mask the pain and the suffering of people who have long since stopped trying or giving a shit. If you are married and you are reading this, never stop trying. The day that your 100% slips to 98% is the day that you start creating a mirage. Do not become a statistic. Yes it can be tough. You will peak and you will trough. But do not treat every dip like a knockout blow. Always find commonality in the things that you enjoy and never forget the reasons you started loving your partner. Indeed, find even newer reasons to love them everyday and I promise you that you will be together until the Reaper parts you.

On……the Gold Digger: I salute thee

2007-10-11T14:59:00.000+01:00

………..so Heather Mills heads back to Family court today to hear how much she is entitled to following her split with Paul McCartney. Depending on who you believe the final figure is likely to be anything between £30 Million and £70 Million.

WHAT?

Yes. Between $60 to $140 Million

EHN?

Do I stutter? As I said, 7.5 to 17.5 Billion Naira.

In any currency that one na money. Kai God o why did I enter this world as a man sef? If I was a babe no one go do ashewo work pass me. 70 Million kpon for four years of marital service. The babe made roughly about 17.5 Million a year. And for doing what exactly? No be say they torture am for those four years o. No be say Paul dey flog am every day with koboko. No, quite the contrary. Film festivals, awards shows, St Tropez, Dinner with the Queen, etc, etc. In fact open any glossy magazine in the last four years and if you don't see Heather shining teeth inside then no be correct magazine you buy. Before you start telling me say na love, don't forget that this is the same woman who, on meeting Paul McCartney for the first time, ditched the poor schmuck she was engaged to - four days before the wedding. Ouch!

My question of the day is a very simple one. Ladies, is there any shame in marrying a rich dude? Biko make una think well before una answer o! Is a man's wealth and success really not an issue for you? I bet your instinctive response is Hell NO! The thought of a gold digging female instantly conjures up an image of some mini-skirt rocking, make-up plastering, high-heel wearing hoochie who has no better prospects other than to marry rich. But why? Why can't you be a successful woman who wants to be spoilt a bit as well? Sure you can buy that Lex by yourself but if somebody can just come and dash you one, will you turn an indignant nose up at it? There is a perennial stereotype that the rich guy is always some craggy, saggy, wrinkled, grizzled, 87 year old geriatric (RIP Anna Nicole). But again to refute this, there are many attractive, successful and personable men who just happen to be rich. Success does not always breed arrogance or an undesirable personality.

Fairytales have corrupted our thinking somewhat. The poor student is always so sweet and whimsical; his love is somehow more genuine than that of the rich dude who is invariably hard-nosed and egotistical. Sometimes there is just no winning either way. It is the same poor student that might be the first to ditch your ass as soon as he has made it big. Na minor dilemma but the solution is simple though. Marry someone with at least a sense of purpose and direction. Someone you can go on a journey with. This person should ideally be somewhere between scrub status and big man level. It is a sweeter life journey.

My guys nko? Can you marry in an attempt to upgrade your lifestyle? There is an increasing number of men who will answer yes to that question. See Kpakpando's hilarious post that addresses this new breed of man. This may sound old fashioned but Atutu wants to be the one to look after you in a relationship. When we go out I want to be the one to pay for dinner dammit. I dunno maybe it makes me feel more like a man. Many guys I know swear blindly that they could not go out with a girl that earned considerably more than them. Well bloody work harder then I say to them! But seriously does this mean that we men subconsciously (or perhaps even consciously) go after women we assume will depend on us? Are we wary of those independent, feisty types that look like they will only use you for occasional gbenshing and nothing more? It explains, then, the prevalent nature of the Gold Digger. The Paul McCartneys of this world could easily marry women who are dooched up in their own right. Yet they seem drawn to these women that enter the relationship with six naira fifty kobo and exit with £70 Million. If they ain't no punks, holla "we want pre-nup, we want pre-nup"….

I will leave you with the online exchange between the woman looking for a rich husband and the mysterious Wall Street banker. She placed an ad on some online dating website proclaiming how young and attractive she was and how she was seeking a partner that made at least 500 thou a year. She had recently dated a guy who was on 250 a year but according to her she hit a roadblock because "$250,00 won't get me into Central Park West". She obviously reached her target audience because a rich guy did indeed respond to her ad but perhaps not quite in the manner she was hoping:

"Your looks will fade and my money will likely continue into perpetuity ... in fact, it is very likely that my income increases but it is an absolute certainty that you won't be getting any more beautiful!" the banker wrote.

"So, in economic terms you are a depreciating asset and I am an earning asset," he said. "Let me explain, you're 25 now and will likely stay pretty hot for the next 5 years, but less so each year. Then the fade begins in earnest. By 35 stick a fork in you!"

"It doesn't make good business sense to "buy you" (which is what you're asking) so I'd rather lease"

Suffice to say that the woman pulled the ad shortly after. The shame that should have caught her before placing the ad eventually made a belated appearance. If I was her I would have offered a long term lease with option to buy after ten years. After all Heather Mills only offered four…..

Gold digger: I salute thee

On......the story of Nigeria's first astronaut (well...nearly)

2007-10-03T13:01:00.000+01:00

Pius Igede was excited. Tomorrow he was going to be the first Nigerian to land on the Moon. He had won the first prize on the Silverbird produced reality TV show, Who Wants to be an Astronaut? In conjunction with NASS (Nigerian Aeronautical Something Something), 24 contestants vied for a chance to fly to the moon. To tell the truth Pius did not even know what an astronaut was before the show began, he had applied only because the application fee was 'just' fifty Naira. His third cousin from his mother's side had reached the final 12 of African Idol and he was determined that he too must appear on TV before he died.

His packing consisted of:

1 tube of toothpaste (Close-up)
1 Goodmans personal cd player
3 CDs (Olu Maintain, Tony Tetuila and 2Pac's All Eyez on Me)
5 Clean St Michael's underpants
5 Slightly worn string vests
1 Bible (King James Version)

Anti-gravity training in Kaduna had been a bit of a nightmare. First of all the special guests from NASA had missed their connecting flight from Abuja and had to travel by road. Secondly the simulation software that had been couriered had somehow ended up in Sokoto. To make matters worse the live screening of the event had to be postponed because Area boys had stolen one of the electric transformers. In spite of this, Pius managed to impress the judges enough to get to the final round.

On receiving the good news via SMS text, his first reaction was to send money to his village and ask the elders to pray for him on his voyage. In addition to the star prize of flying to the moon, Pius had been presented with a cheque for five hundred thousand naira which he planned to use to build a house in his village. Pius’ mobile phone had been inundated with phone calls in the days leading up to the big take-off. He had to explain many times that on this particular trip , there were no way he could buy them soccer jerseys , Ipod Nanos or Nintendo DS. They did not believe him and accused him of being a poser “now that you been don see small money” After a while he switched off his mobile altogether.

The day arrived with much fanfare despite the fact that take-off had been delayed from 9am until 1pm as the various senators and ministers made their way to the space centre. This was a momentous occasion in Nigeria’s history and the event was quite fitting. ThisDay had sponsored a music concert in Pius’ honour and had invited the likes of Beyonce, Jay-Z and Kelly Rowland. Unfortunately Miss Rowland had declined to attend unless something was done about the humid conditions.

The space shuttle was an STS-116 that had been specially imported from North Korea albeit after their aborted space mission. Silverbird were at great pains to explain that this was not a Tokunbo space shuttle because technically it had never really left the earth’s atmosphere - it had merely crash landed about 70000 feet from the ground before actually entering space. After some remedial work by Aba’s finest, Silverbird were confident that the STS-116 was in even better shape than when it was new.

On the day, Pius was beginning to have serious doubts and felt that the training he had received was slightly less than adequate. His brother, Absalom, confided to him that the money he had sent for goodwill prayers had been used instead to perform funeral rites. By the time he walked up the red carpet and spotted a mechanic making some last minute adjustments to the rear wing, his doubts had become a major conviction. He knew that there was no way in hell that he would be entering that thing. Imagine! Somebody who had never even entered ordinary plane sef, they wanted him to go and die for who? Tufiakwa! God forbid! His mother was still alive in the village and he had not yet bore her any grandchildren. The unwavering gaze of the promoters pierced his skin as if to say "ol boy make u no fuck up for here o!" How could he possibly turn back now he wondered? He remembered a film he had watched where the actor had pretended to faint before going on a plane he was reluctant to board. But who would really believe that an ajepaki like him could actually faint? He had once worked as a labourer carrying cement on his back for 12 hours a day. He had not fainted then. Na now him want faint? They go just use slap wake am up. He decided he just had to come clean. An impassioned plea to the gathered crowd would surely carry some resonance. After all could they byforce him to enter the space plane?

About a hundred yards from the shuttle the decision was made for him. Providence, it seemed, was a mechanic named Eric. Eric emerged from the rear of the shuttle with a look of unmitigated gloom on his face. He shook his head in that foreboding way Nigerian mechanics have mastered and announced that the carburettor had blown and that the kick-starter was not responding. He said that the spark plugs had been stolen but were easily replaced, unfortunately the carburettor needed to be ordered from Onitsha. It was agreed that the take-off would be postponed for two days after which they would all reconvene at the same venue. Beyonce complained that she had an awards ceremony to attend the next day in New York and would not be able to perform in two days time. The concert went ahead anyway and nobody really noticed as Pius slipped through the back door. It was the last that anybody was to see of him. Some say he had died in an accident on the way to his village whilst others report that he was now living in Togo under an assumed identity. His house in the village was never built.

On......friendships

2007-09-25T16:27:00.000+01:00

I have been reminded in recent weeks about the different kinds of friends that exist and how we subconsciously react to the different types. We instinctively know where we stand with a particular friend and what we can expect from them. Some surprise us. Many disappoint us. Everyone essentially has three types of friend; those that love us, those that are indifferent to us and those that hate us. I have tried to break these categories down even further:

There is the type of friend that only belongs to a certain period in your life. This is not to say that you do not forge a close bond with this person. It is just that this friend does not easily make the transition from one phase of your life to another. The classic example is the Uni friend with whom you are inseparable for about three or four years. When your professional life begins, this friend doesn’t always make the jump with you. It is not that you don’t make the effort to keep in touch; it is just that the hedonistic days of yore cannot quite be replicated these days. You both have different commitments now, a family perhaps. You will meet up occasionally for the odd drink but you spend most of the time reminiscing on your salad days. In reality your time has passed.

There is the childhood friend. You have known this person practically all your life and you are as comfortable in their company as you are with family. This person can never form or demo for you. You know their entire family, they know yours and sometimes the over familiarity has given way to contempt as you are not quite as close as you should be.

Then there is the acquaintance. This one is barely a friend but you keep meeting or bumping into them on more than the odd social occasion. You have hardly exchanged more than a few words and no very little of each other but the face is a familiar one and with some perseverance (and desire) this could morph into a better relationship. Be wary, however, of the constant acquaintance. The person that has a host of friends and slaps the back of everybody he meets is regarded as a friend of nobody.

How about the parasitic friend? The one that needs you just that bit more than you need them. There lives are constantly in need of your intervention. You are continually the one providing advice, support and assistance to the parasitic friend with very little in return. When you start to talk about your issues the focus invariably switches back to their lives. This friend can also take the form of a scrounger or freeloader who brings far less to the friendship than you do.

Everyone’s favourite friend has to be the symbiotic friend - your second skin, your brother/sister from another mother. This could well be the same as your childhood friend although not always. You have little qualms about sharing your problems, hopes and fears with this person, safe in the knowledge that the person can do the same. It is the most beautiful of friendships and geographic location is no deterrent to the intensity of your bond, nor is daily contact for that matter. With this person, after a ten year separation where he/she is in Antarctica and you in the Outer Hebrides, you can still sit down, talk and laugh as though the parting had only been ten minutes. If you are a fortunate enough then this person will also be your life partner. It is rare though.

Then we also have a friendship which I confess I have not quite had the pleasure of enjoying properly – the friend with benefits. The friend that you can gbensh with no strings attached! It is a mutual arrangement in which both parties can see other people and still remain friends without the formal arrangement that coupledom brings. Just make sure that you both know what’s up at the beginning sha!

There is a much newer breed know as the Facebook friend. I hate these fuckers. I’ve got about 215 of them, at least a 100 of which I barely know. They want to bite me, buy me beer that I cannot drink, turn me into a zombie and all kinds of dumb ass shit.

Last, but by no means least, is the blogville friend. These faceless (and sometimes nameless) friends follow you everywhere you go and abuse you when you don’t UPDATE!! UPDATE!! They have that most desired of attributes in a friend - the ability to listen. It doesn’t matter if you are talking about taking tango lessons, taking pictures of oil rigs, losing your purse/wallet, creating international academies, analysing the different types of fart, Brownian motion, complaining about dogs, moaning about Nigerian politricks, abusing men or whatever. They will be there to listen and to offer their unsolicited (and usually honest) advice.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few. Please add at your leisure.

On……the brief meeting between Sherlock Holmes and King Jaja of Opobo

2007-09-12T17:09:00.000+01:00

'Extraordinary' exclaimed Holmes one late summer evening in 1882. It had been a fallow period for the criminal underclass and my friend had become quite restive. At such times he was given to sustained periods of cocaine abuse. It was a terrible sight to witness him in those periods and despite my best attempts to wean him from the drug, I could offer no substitute for the euphoria that filled him when he was immersed in one of his cases. He would often go days and weeks without so much as uttering a word in my direction, thus it was with no small amount of surprise that his exclamation met my ears.

“As I suspected the mixture of three parts manganese and two parts bisulphate of barysta produces a compound that is quite potent if used as a sedative"

“Remarkable” I responded weakly. Despite my own scientific background I was admittedly a novice in the field of experimentation.

Holmes slumped into his favourite armchair by the fire and I was relieved to see him reach for his pipe and not the leather case that contained his syringe.

“Today’s criminal, Watson, is an incurably lazy fellow” remarked Holmes

“In the past three weeks alone, I have noted no fewer than four state visits from varying royal families across Europe, each parading as many expensive jewels as they are hoarding official documents and treaties. Yet my attention has not been drawn to any significant cases in the past month save, perhaps, the rather trifling affair concerning the Duke of Northumberland’s missing cygnet. Were I a criminal, Watson, I daresay that I would be the craftiest and hardest working in my profession”

“It is perhaps fortunate then, Holmes, that you are not a criminal” said I “You might prove so successful in your alternative profession that you would be forced to revert to your true one in a bid to catch yourself”

Holmes laughed dryly and continued sucking on his pipe. Our exchange was cut short by the sound of the doorbell and the promise of a night-time guest. Holmes eyes lit up as, moments later, Mrs. Hudson ushered in our visitor, King JaJa of Opobo.

Our caller was a tall Negro who stood well above six feet. His features were typical of the Negro, a wide, brutish face accentuated by a flat, squat nose and thick, protruding lips. He was powerfully built and I found my fingers instinctively tightening around my cane as I recalled the last unsociable visit that we had received from a Negro.

“That will not be necessary Watson” said Holmes reading my thoughts. “I daresay that our guest is here on rather more personable business than our last friend from the dark continent. Although he has experienced a childhood of slavery, I note that our guest is of noble stock in his homeland. Pray, King. Jaja won‘t you sit down?”

“Thank you Mr. Holmes for seeing me” responded the Jaja of Opobo in stilted, heavily accented English “There are several of your esteemed peers who have turned me away at the door at the mere sight of my countenance. I must warn you, however, that my business here is of a very sensitive nature and I would much prefer if I had the opportunity to speak with you in private”

“Dr. Watson is my personal physician and long time chronicler. I can assure you that his discretion is of the utmost eminence and that you may speak as freely before him as before myself”

“Very well, then. I know of your reputation Mr. Holmes and that you are a fair and just man. As an Englishman some of the revelations I make may sit uncomfortably with you. Nevertheless, my presence here is not so much to enlist your aid than to bear witness to the questionable actions of some of your fellow kinsmen.”

“I have had occasion to deal with some very poor specimens of the human race irrespective of their nationality. I can assure you that I will be unfazed by anything you may have to say. Pray continue”

“It would be best, perhaps, if I were to start at the very beginning” our guest said, finally sitting down.

“In my experience there is often no better place to start” said Holmes

“I hail from Amaigbo in Igboland. I was sold as a slave at the age of twelve and was given the name, Jubo Jubogha. I was fortunate enough to learn English to a high degree and began using this to my advantage. I soon managed to pay my way out of slavery and gained a reputation noteworthy enough to allow me become the head of the Anna Pepple House in the Bonny Creek after the incumbent passed away. Our people can be a discordant race, Mr Holmes. Almost from the start of my reign, there was conflict particularly from a rival chief, Oko Jumbo, who headed the Manilla Pepple house. It is sad that this internal strife forced me to break away from the House and set up an independent city state by a river formerly called Ekomtoro in Andoni country. I have since renamed the town Opobo”

“You must be aware that oil- palm oil is enjoying a roaring trade in the Bonny hinterland this past decade or so. Many of the rival chiefs have been forced to deal with the Europeans who live in the coast. However, over the years I have built strong contacts with the British to such an extent that I am now the principal exporter of palm oil directly to Liverpool. In fact it is a meeting with Hatton & Cookson, one of my primary contacts, that brings me to England”

“There has been great unrest in recent years, Mr. Holmes. The thirst for power and riches has turned our people against each other. Greed and envy have become rife in my homeland. The Itsekiri will not even dine at the same table as the Urhobos. Association with one makes you the enemy of the other so you can only deal with either of them through the Ijos. The Kalabaris and the Okrikas will sooner kill themselves then to help the other out. The Ikwerre and the Ibani have not even spoken to each other for a lifetime. This is a most sad state of affairs and the British are using this to their full advantage.

Our guest had managed to work himself into quite an animated state but he declined my offer of a glass of brandy and continued.

“They say the Atlantic slave trade is dead yet many pf our finest sons still go missing. Most of the chiefs have become so powerless that they cannot even mobilise enough men to search fro them. In any case, it is easier to just lay the blame of these kidnappings at your neighbour’s feet and start a civil war. Of late, the favourite British pastime has been to wave a piece of paper under the nose of our kings. In exchange for free trade they are forcing them to abdicate their thrones. Of course half of these kings cannot read the documents in front of them and are being wilfully deceived. They call this piece of paper the Protectorate treaty but who or what is being protected? I have refused to sign the document as it is tantamount to a warrant that will make us serfs on our own land. I have been threatened with bombardment and force, Mr Holmes. My crime, it seems, has been to restrict fair trade which takes precedence over free trade. Never mind the fact that I have created jobs all across the Opobo river and beyond. I have paid all my predecessor's debts to the Europeans and have never resorted to violence despite provocation on several occasions. I fear that my days are numbered, my oracle has already warned of this. However our fight for free trade will continue long after I am dead. The British cannot lay claim to a land that our forefathers toiled so long and hard for. I will no sit idly by, Mr Holmes, I cannot"

“Your narrative is most revealing. However I must confess at being at a complete loss as to how I may be of any assistance to you. I am neither a government official nor in the direct employ of Her Majesty” said Holmes after a short pause.

“Quite right Mr Holmes. As I said at the start, I have approached several individuals of repute, including members of Parliament and Commons in an effort to state my case. Until now, not one person has so much as opened the door to me. I have grown tired of writing letters without so much as the grace of an acknowledgement. No Mr. Holmes you cannot help me but you have kindly given me your ear this past half hour. There are good men here in England who I know will continue to fight the cause of an oppressed people. I am confident that you and Dr. Watson have been greater enlightened by some of the events transpiring in Africa"

King Jaja rose to leave and Holmes rose to shake his hand "I am in great profit for your visit this evening. I only wish that there was more that I could do to help "

We both sat in silence for some time after King Jaja had left. "There goes, Watson, as noble a gentleman as any royal I have ever met. On the subject of Empire, you know that I am a most ardent devotee. Yet I fear that the sophistication of those that we call savages on these lands is advancing at such a rate that one begins to question our continued interference. Invasion is only an attractive option where one has a clear and prescribed exit strategy. I fear that there are dark and bloody days ahead and we may yet rue the incessant expansion of the Great British Empire"

"Anyway" said Holmes springing up. “I have skulked indoors for far too long and I am in need of some mental invigoration. There is a rendition of Chopin's second opus at the Lyceum and if we catch a hansom we may yet be in time for the third act"

On......solitude

2007-09-07T14:34:00.000+01:00

The relationship ended last night in almost exactly the same manner it had began - haphazardly and with the minimum of fuss. As with any break-up, the dissolution was down to a combination of several minor factors and one or two major ones. The biggie here was the age old adversary of many a relationship - distance. Any healthy relationship is nourished by the banalities of day to day life. It is a paradox but it is the inanity of life that provide the most fertile ground for communication and daily interaction. The bus conductor that was rude to you, the asshole that almost crashed into your car, the weekly shopping list, all are just as important in the health of the relationship as the trip to Dubai, the meeting with the parents and the beauty of your two bodies colliding. We never had a weekly shopping list but we did go to Dubai together.

The euphoria of regaining my independence has quickly given way to a most dreaded foe - solitude. The weekend already seems like a long stretch of emptiness. What do we seek in a partner? Regular sex? Companionship? Good conversation? Someone to witness your life and achievements? Yes, the human in us constantly tries to rebel against our natural solitude. This is evident in the company we keep and the relationships we seek. Yet even amidst the sweetest of relationships or wildest of nights out, we still secretly crave some personal space or our warm, warm bed.

Solitude or the feeling of loneliness is the bitterest pill to swallow.
I believe that this is the hemlock that Socrates partook, the wine that Jesus drank at his last supper- the vinegar on the cross.
It is a heavy burden, loneliness. The whole brunt of the world with its cares is cast on the shoulders of one person- poor Atlas.
It brings with it a sort of heartache that cannot be described in words.
It is this feeling, the feeling that one is separated from life, from love; this is what kills – not death itself.
No, it is this that is capable of killing the spirit of man.
But I have heard it spoken that it can also give him life, freedom.
It leads to loneliness, fear, to grief, to pain, to anger, to hate, to bitterness and all of these roads lead to death.
Solitude is the beginning of death.
Solitude is the first step to heaven.

P.S No be say I want kpeme o!

On……the pursuit of a penis: An Atutu™ guide to getting the man of your dreams

2007-08-30T12:52:00.000+01:00

It is a truth, universally acknowledged, that a single woman in possession of sound mind, must be in want of a good man. I don’t care how indie you are or how career focused your life is, if you are a woman reading this, your entire wellbeing and outlook will be immeasurably bettered by the love of a good man. Note the adjective - good. This is not interchangeable with the word - Any. Many women are unable to distinguish between GOODman and ANYman. Another day I will write about the difference. For today’s lesson this is a step by step guide to finding and keeping that special someone. If you have achieved the finding part you can go straight to Holding on.

This part is called Not Looking

I believe it was the legendary Professor Peller who said “the more you see the less you understand”. The same underlying principle can be applied when seeking a partner. The more you actively seek a man, the greater the likelihood that your pursuit will be a fruitless one.

Some of my female friends are like “Ah Atutu come and find me husband now” I’m like I wasn’t aware you lost one to begin with. Have you checked behind the sofa? Under the stairs nko? So, no, don’t look. Glam up. Watch TV. Blog. Go to school. Go to work. Do everything except be on the lookout and be amazed by unexpected attention you will receive from somewhere. The woman who gets on best with men is the one who knows best how to get on without them.

I’ll tell you two places where you won’t find GOODman – weddings and nightclubs. The kind you will find at the former like to pose like they are all that, the kind you find at the latter just want to gbensh (which is cool if you are looking for ANYman).

This part is called the first date

You need to make a good impression. Smile. Laugh at his useless jokes, even the ones you have heard before. You need your laugh to be a demure one, practice into a Dictaphone if necessary. Watch loads of 50s movies and mimic the way women laughed in them. Save your belly laugh with the pig snort until such a time when you are on more familiar terms. Don’t talk about what you don’t know. Find out his favourite sports team but don’t pretend to support them too.

Under NO circumstances will you open leg at this point.

This part is called being yourself

By now you have passed the initial hurdles and can start to expose yourself a bit more. There is a limit to how much of you a guy really wants to know. Do NOT, as one girl who I had gone out on just two dates with did, come into the bathroom when I’m taking a shower and proceed to start shitting right there and then. I promise you a man can easily go through life without wondering what his wife’s shit smells like. You must retain an air of mystery.

Oh yeah and if you have false teeth, remove them only at night AFTER your bobo has slept. This will form the foundation of a very successful relationship. This will also ensure that he does not freak out and start pouring holy water on you when he sees you minus teeth for the first time.

Sex is permissible at this stage. You must, however, bring your A game and give him something that will make him come back for more. You need to perfect at least one party trick. If you perform this party trick and his toes don’t curl then you have failed miserably. It doesn’t have to be anything freaky; you don’t have to master the Kama sutra. Just being a darn good kisser can be enough. Explore his body and find out, through trial, how he gets his kicks.

This part is called Holding On

You must always try and keep your man guessing. Be unpredictable. Be irrational sometimes. It is a woman’s prerogative. The moment you start becoming over accommodating, over understanding then Mr. Man will start to take the piss. It is our nature. We will stop trying that extra bit harder and making that extra effort. If we forget an anniversary or birthday, you must let us know that it is NOT cool. You don’t have to go all crazy and shit, but be sure to get your point across.

Trust in a relationship is over rated. One can always recognize women who trust their husbands; they look so thoroughly unhappy. I’m not saying you should ransack his pockets every night but a healthy level of suspicion will go far in any relationship.

The final part, and it’s a goodun, is called Happily ever after

The cardinal rule here is the more you seem to obey, the more you rule. Women are fussier than men. They like things the way they like things. Our needs are fairly basic, food, sex and sports. If you try to over assert yourself, we will rebel. Yes, even if there is no worthy cause. We will try to stamp our masculinity all over the relationship and the war of the sexes goes to Def-CON 5. The most successful relationships are the ones where the man is living under the illusion that he is running things. These ingénues make sheep of their men at the same time telling them that they are lions with wills of iron.

Arguments will happen but be fair and attempt to stick to the situ at hand. A lover’s tiff is merely the renewal of love so make sure that insults are never exchanged. The abuses will be harder to shake off in the make up sex that will ensue. Unless, of course, you are into that sort of thing. Which is fine. Really.

Love is the one thing that can be divided endlessly and still not diminish. So remember to save a little bit for yourself. If you don’t get your happily ever after, and not everyone will, it is the small love you reserved for yourself that will allow you to start rebuilding.

All of these nuggets are not worth a damn until you learn how to distinguish your feelings between need, lust, like or love. I will paraphrase Judith Viorist who has provided one of the most succinct explanations I have read.

Love is the same as like except you feel sexier.
And more romantic.
And also more annoyed when he talks with his mouth full.
And you also resent it more when he interrupts you.
And you also respect him less when he shows any weakness.
And furthermore, when you ask him to pick you up at the airport and he tells you he can’t do it because he’s busy, it’s only when you love him that you hate him.

On......boarding school days

2007-08-17T15:40:00.000+01:00

“Atutu” said my mother “it is time”

I languished in the bathtub for a little while longer, knowing that my love affair with clean, running water was about to be brought to a halt. It was time to go back to boarding house.

I contemplated the three hour journey that lay ahead of me and contrasted it to the same ruminations I had twelve months ago before my first year in secondary school. Where there had once been hope and a sense of adventure, there now lay dread in their wake. The only strand of salvation that availed itself to me was the fact that I was no longer the most junior of junior students. Anyone who has gone to a federal school will tell you that your JS1 year is the single most painful, humiliating and downright depressing twelve months that you will experience during the course of your natural life. In fact, a year that consists of a job loss, house eviction and divorce would pale in comparison next to it. I thanked God that at least in JS2 I can now begin inflicting the same sort of misery that I suffered in my first year.

The three hour drive was scarcely long enough. I made a last ditch attempt to feign an ailment of some sort. I spent the majority of the drive racking my brain for any kind of disease that would force the immediate curtailment of the journey. Trypanosomiasis? White malaria? Yellow Fever nko? There had to be something I could convincingly pull off I thought. By the time I settled on kwashiorkor of the brain, we had already reached the gates of hell. The most depressing thing about those gates is that once they were closed, you knew that for the next three months your ass belonged to Federal.

I had arrived just in time for dining hall and, this being the first day, supper was going to be a particular treat. For starters we had entrée of nada with cream of zilch. The main course was a particular favourite; weevils and stones with a small side order of beans. This was garnished with three small black organic substances which, at some stage of their gestation, were known as ‘plantains’

I found the evening’s dinner far too rich for my palate so it meant a trip to Blockys (Bloh-KEES) Island had to be arranged. Blockys Island was an area about 100 metres or so from Dodan Barracks (the dormitory) and was a playground for amoeba, maggots, bacteria and just about any other microscopic organism you can think of. It also had a part time job as a toilet. In my first term, I refused to shit for one week in protest of the sanitary conditions. By third term, I was not just shitting there but I was on a first name basis with all the maggots living in Blockys. The flies did not move when you swatted them, they just perched there and stared back at you. I still grieve to this day over Okoro, my favourite pet maggot, who died in the second term after consuming Senior Okechuckwus shit.

The seniors – CHAI!! - the seniors. They owned the school. Once upon a time, Federal had been run by the principal and head teachers. When incidents of teacher beating started becoming rife, the shift in power became very apparent. Now the teachers just taught, packed their bags and ran to hide in their homes. There was one senior in particular, Senior Nwokedi, who was like Abacha before even Abacha himself. The guy was evil personified. There is no doubt in my mind that had he lived in the Western world, he would have been withdrawn from all educational establishments and evaluated for psychological purposes. He was the kind of guy that would rip off a pigeons head just to watch how it died. As you can imagine we juniors were often the target of his sadism. I will never forget the three boys that he locked inside Blockys island for four hours forcing them to clean the place with just a bucket of water between them. By the time the boys came out, one had practically passed out from the stench of the place. Despite all of them bathing twice a day thereafter, the smell of faeces lingered on their skin and hair for weeks after.

Then there were the girls – or rather the lack of them since I was at an ‘All boys’. There was, fortunately, an all girl’s catholic school not far from us. Every day the girls would pass by the main gate on their way to Mass. If you timed it well you could catch the girls for a chat on their daily sojourn. The older you got, the more confident you became in arranging dates with some of the babes. There was no local shopping mall or cinema nearby so your date consisted of eating groundnut and mango under the evening sky. Sometimes you would rain insults at some of the girls as they were passing by; “Your small breast like five kobo groundnut” “Your scatter-scatter teet like machine gun bullet” – and so forth. It was just good banter and usually the girls gave as good as they got -“Your small prick like James Bond rifle” but one particular day we picked on the wrong girl to fuck with. I don’t know if she was on her period or just having a bad day but before we knew what was happening the girl had scaled our fence and was in hot pursuit of me and three others. She caught two of us and delivered the kind of beating that even an angry mother would struggle to replicate. She later became known as ‘Flo-Jo the husband beater’. Don’t let anyone tell you different, FGC girls were the hardest of a hard bunch.

Garri – almighty garri. It was classified as contraband but people still found a way to smuggle it in. If you had garri to trade then you were the Bill Gates of Dodan Barracks. Even a half cup of garri could fetch as much as two of those Kellogs variety packs that ajebota children used to bring. If it was famine period then the going exchange rate was three Kellogs variety packs. People used garri for everything; they smoked it, sipped it, drank it, ate it – anything you can think of. They made garri burgers, garri sandwiches, garri cakes and even garri stew.

Every night was fight night. We invented pay-per-view. If you could afford the gate fee of NIDO milk or Cabin biscuit then that was as good as a Visa or Mastercard. The gladiators were randomly picked juniors who had no option but to fight against each other or risk the wrath of the seniors. It was pugilism at its worst and I regret to say that witnessing a fellow junior’s head been pummelled in form part of my best memories of boarding house. Then one day it was my turn and they put me against one boy whose nickname was kpako. He was a junior like me but I suspect even some of the seniors feared him. The events of the brushing are a haze but all I know is that I woke up in sick bay the next morning. My mother arrived in the afternoon and swore to the principal that her son would never come back to this school of vagabonds. Despite my pain I managed a smile because that word always conjured up memories of Josco, the vagabond of Eko bridge, from Basi and company.

I was transferred to one Ajebota school in Lagos and it made me laugh that there I was one of the hardest boys in school. I often wonder what became of some of those boys from back in the day. I don’t imagine that they will be on Hi-5 or Facebook anytime soon. Looking back it wasn’t really that bad and if anything instilled some character in me. Unfortunately I still cringe when somebody mentions kpako. It just brings back too many memories.

On......how the love of two young people missed road

2007-08-09T16:13:00.000+01:00

Theirs was a love that had existed since their childhood. As far back as she could remember, Kunle Odemuyiwa had always been there for her. They were both products of broken homes and Kunle was the one male figure that she had as a role model. After Kunle's father absconded, he was sent to a boarding school and she saw him infrequently. Her adoration never waned. The holidays were spent almost entirely with each other and they would spend several hours playing, fighting and talking. He always seemed very assured and this only added to the high esteem in which she placed him.

Their relationship had not been without tribulations along the way. The dynamics of their association undulated with time as two young people came to terms with their feelings for each other and the new sensations that arrived with each metamorphosis.

The love affair proper had begun in their early teens and it was kept quiet for fear of the unwelcome scrutiny. The first time they had sex was a culmination of several failed attempts in which trepidation, shame and nerves had hitherto combined to ruin the occasion. Here were two young people, barely a year apart, who were going through the entire gamut of emotions of the adolescent who has yet to experience sexual intercourse. The first time, as is usually the case, had been no less clumsy and awkward than their earlier attempts. Kunle laboured long and hard before judging the exact location of the desired orifice. Even then, the job was barely half done. His next task was insertion; and he had to do this with the right amount of force to penetrate yet avoid hurting either of them in the process. She, as ever, lay in rigid silence, offering neither encouragement nor dissuasion. The truth be told, she could have lived to her end of days without yearning for the physical consummation of their relationship. On each failed occasion, it had been Kunle's hormonal urges that instigated the attempt. Loving him too much, she had been only too willing to relinquish to him her most sacred of treasures. She secretly abhorred the idea of sex. She considered herself abnormal for feeling this way and her silence was an apology of sorts.

There would be many more sexual encounters but they felt no less illicit and unnatural to her. Their relationship suffered as a result of this. The openness and joy they shared as children had been replaced by hollowness and muted exchanges. By the time Kunle had started university, they were hardly on speaking terms. They avoided each other and spent very little time in each other’s company.

Her mother died shortly after she started university and Kunle attended the funeral. She was happy to see him and they both cried in each other’s arms. The awkwardness of the past few years temporarily lifted by the tragic event. Kunle introduced her to his girlfriend and they promised to stay in touch. They did not.

Many years passed and she was now in her late twenties and a married woman. Her and her husband, Alan, had just bought a house and he was in the attic storing up the miscellany of her old apartment. He descended with a tattered looking photo album which he had bookmarked in the middle with his index finger.
“Look what I found love. An old album of yours”

“My goodness I honestly thought I had left that in Nigeria. They are mostly old pics Alan.”

“Excellent! Now I can find out more about the life that you never talk about”

“I like this picture here, looks like some sort of birthday party. Is that your mum on the right?”

“Yes o! I still can’t believe that you never met my mum. She would have really liked you even though you are an oyinbo pepper”

“How about this brooding looking chap on the left next to you?”

“Oh that’s just Kunle”

“Kunle? Hmm....don’t think you ever mentioned him. Childhood friend?”

“No. Kunle is my senior brother”

This is loosely based on a story I know to be true. Names and events have obviously been altered. I did not remember it until a ridiculous article I read a few months ago. It is, arguably, the last great taboo but how long before laws are being passed to make it acceptable? I fear o.

On.......my film noir beginnings and how I became Atutu

2007-07-29T04:03:00.000+01:00

The rain fell hard and the drops felt like lead. It was one of those kinda nights that all you needed was a quarter glass of whiskey and the love of a good woman. The first part was easy enough to obtain so I waded across to the liquor store on 27th and Poplar. I had just wrapped a case involving a well-known actress and her fiance. I'm getting sick to the stomach with them type of cases. Man suspects broad, I tail broad and take a few pictures, things get ugly I grab my swag and bail. 99% of the time the broad IS fucking around which makes my job an easy one.

I approach the liquor store and, even in the monsoon, my car is advanced by two street dames as I pull up. One of them has a face like a bag of smashed crabs so I tell her to hightail it and start negotiations with the cuter one. She looks like a mermaid standing there in that rain. She has red hair down to the back of her shoulders and the lightning reveals a blowjob friendly mouth. We fix a price and I tell her to wait in the car as I get the booze. Could I get her some she says. The nerve of it I think. The rain had eased up some as I make my way into the liquor store. The place is filled with all kinds of filth and lowlife so I quickly grab the liquor and head back to the car. I ain't big on the ol' small talk so the ride back to my apartment is a long and solemn one. As soon as we gets there she asks for a towel to dry her hair. Now I'm not about to share towels with no hooker so I oblige her with the dirty one I use for the bathroom floor.

We get to it and she looks a whole lot better than she fucks. She has a pussy like a hippo's yawn and fucking her is like feeding tic-tacs to a whale. The sex is over before it even starts and I settle for a blowjob off of that sweet mouth of hers. The broad is all teeth and I grip the edge of the chair several times before the ordeal is over. She mistakes my grimaces for pleasure and blows even harder. I'm about to call it a wasted fifty bucks when the door flies open and two goons jump in. I reach for my heat on the mantelpiece but I get clubbed at the back of the head before I reach it. A black pool appears at my feet. I dive in and there ain't no bottom.

When I come to, I'm still in my apartment, half naked and strapped to the chair. The hoods have done a number on me and I'm left with two broken fingers and one good eye. I've taken hits before and I can usually handle the pain, it's all part of the job description. Right now though I feel about as sprightly as an amputated leg. My good eye scouts the room, struggling to focus and settles on a glittering mass of gold and white sitting in the corner near the window. She calls out my name and I manage a response. Shit, the bastards have loosened a tooth as well.

I've visited this scene before. The mark wants some kinda revenge, wants to teach me a lesson for having screwed them out of their inheritance or whatever. Never mind the fact that they did that themselves by fucking around. I spit blood and tell her to go to hell. The goons, who have been standing behind me this whole time, blackjack me again and the loose tooth becomes a missing one. I plead with her to put me wise. If I gotta go at least let me enter the darkness with enlightenment. She starts talking and the more she talks the more I know I’m gonna be shortly wrapped up in a wooden overcoat with a one way ticket to Hades. It all comes back to me. She was part of the 1% that wasn’t fucking around. Business was rough so I set up her up and took the cash. The photos, the phone calls, I doctored them for the sake of a lousy extra couple of hundred bucks. Her husband kicked her ass to the kerb and left her with a bag of peanuts and a toothbrush.

I’m about to be a dodo. I ask them to make it quick but the dame ain’t even gonna give me that privilege. They gag me and get to work on me. When the breaths stop coming. My last sensation is of a long chiv across my neck. In New York they call it a Harlem Sunset.

LONDON. Winter 1980

It’s a boy!!!!! We thank God O!

Congratulations Mrs Poyoyo.

Ehn? Ehn? Jesus what is this scar on his throat? Doctor!! Doctor!! Why are his fingers bent like this? And his penis nko? Are these bite marks? E gba mi o! Doctor!!

Madam could I just ask that you remain calm. It is perfectly normal. Many children are born with birthmarks that appear scar-like. His fingers will eventually straighten and the scars on his erm ….penis are just part of the foreskin.

Ah! Okay doctor. Sorry o! It is just that my husband took me to watch that Omen film recently and I am now fearing any scar or anything on my child’s body. My God is a good God o and the Devil is a liar.

Nothing to worry about love. You wouldn’t believe what that film has done for the anxieties of new parents. Have you decided on a name yet?

Yes……..We are calling him Atutu because of the bitter cold he was born in.

On.......being broke and loving it

2007-07-24T16:44:00.000+01:00

I'm dead broke this month. Bank manager saw it fit to halve my overdraft limit from 2000 to 1000. This was done with such subterfuge that by the time I realised it was too late and my salary had already gone in for the month, effectively wiping of 1k from my available account balance.

You see, I live beneath the line of positive equity, my brother calls it the land of the red. In fact I have not seen any black figures in a while and I have become strangely accustomed to this. I tell a lie, there was that one time my balance bopped it's head above sea level. I think that was in May 2004 when my account had been credited in error. Before I could even breathe the rarefied air of positive equity, my head was slapped back down to the murky depths of overdraft by the brusque hand of the bank manager. Bastard.

This month I have had to re-adjust my budget and prioritise the things I can and cannot afford:

This month I will be able to buy butter but no bread to eat it it with;
This month I'll take a girl on ONE date but there will be no money to treat her with

There will be money for soap but no toilet roll to clean my yansh with;
There wil be money for internet but not broadband and, thus, I will suffer a 56k bandwidth

Bele go shrink, pocket go tight;
I go try find money settle gas, settle phone, settle light

Visa, MasterCard and Amex will all smile with glee
as they assault me with an average APR of 18.3

I have decided that despite this enforced period of cheddar scarcity, the bank manager is actually doing me a favour. He has monitored the trend of my account over the past few years and come to the conclusion that I could do with a bit of a leg up. Think about it, this time next month, I will actually be back in the land of the black. I will be free from the shackles of the gbese that had become an all too familiar bedfellow.

I have also come to find that there is a certain paradise to be found in poverty. It strips you of the artifice in your life and you focus on the fundamentals. For example I have been recently ogling the Nikon D80; a 10 Megapixel behemoth of a digital camera and would probably have closed eye and bought it this month. What is wrong with my current 7.2MP camera I ask you? Nothing. What tangible difference will there be in the quality of pictures that I will take with the two cameras? Well, apart from the higher resolution, faster image processing and superior night acuity - not that much.

Thankfully, because of my brokage, I will not only save my money but can also reapportion the three hours I had earmarked to devour the camera's 87 page manual. I can instead use this time to go for a walk and become one with nature. I am surrounded by woodland and on this walk I would reflect on many things; the unique flying patterns of geese, the peculiar courtship calls of the chaffinch and the various sexual techniques employed by a porcupine when mating [1]

Add to this the number of hours I will save not calling people because of a lack of phone credit and by the end of the month, I could be well on my way to an advanced level of inner tranquility and even achieve nirvana. I could even change my name to Zen which be like totally cool dude.

Yes, I am truly finding a certain bliss in this brokage of mine. Capitalism can wait and so can I; the Nikon D80 goes on sale next month. :-)

[1] Porcupines have soft underbellies and some of the males suffer a spike to the heart when they attempt to climb the female from behind. Tragic but at least the rodents die happy!

On........the alternative history of Nigeria (as it came to me in a dream)

2007-07-17T01:56:00.000+01:00

So I wake up from this dream right and I’m still shaking by the sheer intensity of it. My dreams are usually set in grey Kansas but this one was in full Oz Technicolor. It had dates, faces, names, everything. All chronological too! I ran to my computer and just started putting everything down as I remembered it. Although many of the historical circumstances were far removed from fact in my dream, there was an eerie inevitability about the end results. Fate, it appears, has many modes of transport but only one final destination.

October 1960: Nigeria granted freedom charter on behalf of HM The Queen who remains head of state.

October 1963: Nigeria proclaims itself a federal republic and Nnamdi Azikiwe is named as the nation’s first president

January 1966: General Aguiyi Ironsi succeeds in overthrowing the civilian government and assumes control as Nigeria’s first Military leader citing fraud and mismanagement as reasons for the overthrowing. Several Igbos are promoted to high ranking positions in the military government.

The prime minister and premier of Northern Nigeria, Tafawa Balewa and Ahmadu Bello, respectively are assassinated.

Vast reservoirs of oil are discovered in the Niger Delta area.

July 1966: A counter-coup is launched that succeeds in establishing Major General Yakubu Gowon, a Christian Northerner, as Nigeria’s head of state. Murmurings of Igbo secession begin to gather pace at the perceived injustice that ensues.

1966-1967: In a bid to counter Igbo secessionist sentiment, Gowon divides Nigeria into 12 states. There are reports of widespread genocide of Igbos living in Northern Nigeria.

May 1967: General Odumegwu Ojukwu emerges as the leader of the Eastern block and declares the region an independent republic with no ties to Nigeria. The new republic is dubbed Biafra and a new constitution, flag, currency and government is introduced. Ojukwu amalgamates the oil rich regions of the Niger Delta and Cross River as part of the new Biafra.

June 1967: Gowon responds by placing heavy economic embargos on the new republic. Ojukwu responds by opening trade with several countries including Portugal, Sweden and Israel.

July 1967: On the back of several failed peace accords, civil war breaks out. The Soviet Union and United Kingdom immediately lend their support to Nigeria. In a secret tryst with J Edgar Hoover in Lisbon, Ojukwu receives a pledge of advanced military training and strategy from America. In addition Israel promise to provide the Biafrans with aircraft.

May 1970: After three years of war there is a stalemate. However support grows for the plight of Biafra after wide spread images of starving women and children are released to the outside world. Already reeling from the lack of access to the oil reservoirs, several countries cease to trade with Nigeria until the atrocities end. Gowon bows to public pressure and concedes defeat to Biafra.

September 1972: Gen Mohammed Murtala overthrows Gowon in a bloodless coup, blaming his poor handling of the Biafran crisis. His first act is to launch a full scale invasion into Biafra in an attempt regain control of the oil resources. Major Olusegun Obasanjo, who is retained from the previous regime, orchestrates the attack. Following the death of J Edgar Hoover, Biafra loses it’s strongest ally and it’s major cities are ransacked. Ojukwu flees and the Bight of Biafra is renamed the Bight of Bonny. Obasanjo is feted as a national hero.

1973: Nigeria joins OPEC.

February 1976: Obasanjo and Mohammed are targeted in an abortive coup led by Col Dimka. Mohammed is assassinated but Obasanjo survives and regains command of Dodan barracks. He pledges to honour Mohammed’s plan to hand over to a civilian government by 1980. The announcement is made over the radio so unfortunately no one can confirm if his fingers were crossed when he made the promise.

March 1977: General Olusegun Obasanjo puts on fifteen pounds in just 12 months at Dodan barracks. He blames the lack of active warfare and a decent gym in the area.

1979: Six political parties are granted candidature. Alhaji Shehu Shagari’s National Party of Nigeria narrowly wins the presidential race ahead of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti’s Movement of the People party. Fela vows to re-contest in four years time.

August 1983: Shagari wins a second term in a landslide victory. Fela tries contesting again but is imprisoned on a trumped up charge of smuggling currency.

December 1983: Major General (aren’t they all?) Muhammadu Buhari stages a coup d’etat (another one?) and replaces the Shagari regime with the Supreme Military council (SMC). Newly minted senators and ministers are cast aside, many of whom never enter the political sphere again. Till this day, their tears are still falling for the measly three months that they were afforded. Bloody military partypoopers.

1984: Buhari and his rather intimidating number two, Tunde Idiagbon, launch a series of no nonsense policies to eradicate corruption and disorder in Nigerian life. The principle scheme is dubbed War Against Indiscipline (WAI). There is zero policy for drug trafficking and an arrest on sight policy for anybody publicly urinating, littering or defecating public property. The number of dread locked madmen roaming the streets drops markedly.

August 1985: Buhari’s best chum and number three in command, General. Ibrahim Badamosi gets tired of his buddy’s dithering and figures he can do a better job. He cites the misuse of power, violations of human rights by key officers of the SMC, and the government's failure to deal with the country's deepening economic crisis as justifications for his takeover. Remember this one people because we will come back to it.

1986-1987: Babangida approves severe pay cuts in the public sector. Nigeria enters into a period of austerity which it arguably never recovers.

1988: There is widespread rioting and public uproar as the dollar hits the five Naira mark. “Our money done become shit money” was a placard that stood out prominently at the time.

1989: After huge external intervention, General Babangida promises to return the country to civilian rule “soonest possible” The address is made on live TV and it is confirmed that he was not crossing any of his visible appendages.

1990: Gen. Babangida’s promise of civilian rule fails to materialise. Replica Argentinian jerseys with the name Diego Armando Babangida and the number 10 emblazoned at the back fly off the shelves.

1991: The dollar hits the 20 Naira mark but Nigerians are either too dumb to notice or too numb to care.

1992: Election time (finally!) and Moshood Kashimawo Olawale Abiola is the overwhelming winner of the June 12 presidential election. Shina Peters represents the 777 party but fails to register a single vote. Babangida throws his toys out of the pram and claims the whole thing was rigged, rigged I tell ya. The supreme court say “Yes masser” and throw Abiola in jail; a fitting reward for the best electoral campaign Nigeria had ever seen.

1993: Babangida ignores the domestic riots and calls from the Western world to release Abiola. He uses Nigeria’s strength as an oil producing nation to stave off the empty threats of economic sanctions.

January 1994: For the first time in history, Nigerians put aside ethnic and religous differences in an effort to reinstate MKO Abiola as the rightful president. The unions collude to bring oil production to a standstill. Abiola is released from prison and Babangida crosses his heart and hopes to die that he will handover “soon”

June 1994: Amidst econimic uncertainty, the Super Eagles become the first African team to lift the World Cup after defeating Brazil in 3-2 in the final. Rasheedi Yekini scores a hat-trick in the last match thus equalling Gerd Muller’s record of 10 goals scored at a single World Cup. Clemens Westerhof is immediately granted full Nigerian citizenship and offered the job of sports minister. He refuses.

August 1995: MKO Abiola is sworn in as president of Nigeria. The outgoing defence minister, Sani Abacha, is sent into exile. He escapes to America where he is mistakenly shot dead by a hunting party who mistook him for an oversized, human shaped bat.

1996: Ken Saro-Wiwa becomes the third African to win the Nobel prize for Literature.

July 1998: President MKO Abiola dies after heart failure. His vice president, Baba Gana Kingibe, is sworn in as president.

February 1998: Fela Anikulapo-Kuti is awarded a posthumous lifetime achievement award at the Grammys.

1999: To much public incredulity, the now retired Olusegun Obasanjo contests in the presidential election flying the flag of the newly created People’s Democratic Party. He loses out narrowly to Olu Falae who represents the Alliance for Democratic party.

2000: Olusegun Obasanjo re-enlists with the Army with the ultimate aim of staging a coup and seizing power. However, he is forced to wait two further months to hatch his evil plan as his old uniform no longer fits, and a custom made one is on order from Switzerland. He feeds his pigs as he waits for the FedEx to arrive.

2001: Field Marshall Olusegun Obasanjo (NCC, RSM, PHD,ABC, 123, BBC, etc,) gains control of Aso Rock. He promptly resigns his army commission and leads the country under the guise of a “civilian”. Nigerians fail to notice the difference as they are all too busy sending txt msgs wiv their nu fones. After all, they say, a president that gifts cellular telephony to the masses can’t be all that bad.

2003: President Obasanjo or Sege as he insists on being called (just call me Sege) is quite enjoying this democratic lark as it actually affords him more flexibility than he had as a dictator. He sweeps the election and gains a second term.

May 2007: Despite Obasanjo's efforts for a third term election, he reluctantly hands over to the newly elected president, Umaru Yar'Adua. The new president gains instant kudos by successfully rising from the dead, Lazarus style. The world waits for him to form his new cabinet.

July 2007: The world waits a bit longer... any second now

January 2008: The world gets sick of waiting and after much meandering Yar'Adua becomes the first President ever to occupy all 40 ministerial positions at once. He specially advises himself, bodyguards himself, baths himself and can even write his own speeches himself.

Nigeria is fortunate to have him.

On......the art of making a successful Nollywood blockbuster

2007-07-14T05:23:00.000+01:00

I was going to write something on Nollywood(hate that name) but remembered that a friend of mine had forwarded this to me a while ago and summed up everything I could have said far more eloquently.

My wife and I are keen watchers of Nigerian films and are always tickled by the inescapable similarities that seem to spring up in virtually every other movie. So here is your very own blueprint to making a Naija film. Follow these golden rules and you too can tap in to an estimated £120 million industry.

1.It is unthinkable that your protagonist goes through this film without some kind of family intervention. Even if he is currently without a family, he has either lost them at an early age or will magically acquire a new one during the course of the film. If I'm watching a movie with Russell Crowe in it, I am not concerned about his relationship with his mother nor do I particularly care if he is regularly sending money to his brother in the village. Too much information!

2.When a character is deported/returns from America, he will immediately adopt an incomprehensible dialect This dialect is unique to Nigerian films and contains a disproportionate number of Rs , every other sentence ends in 'men' and affords a liberal use of expletives. This clearly means you have been to America. The character will also be decked up in a variety of tank tops or equally skimpy outfits. There is obviously not enough cloth in Yankee to make complete outfits.

3.Every polygamous family is doomed. Stepmothers in particular are to be avoided of you want to survive in a Naija film. The minute you hear stepm.... fade, just fade. She will kill your ass.

4. Jazz, Jazz and more jazz. If in doubt, the obligatory 'Baba Alawo' scene will answer many plot holes and keep our movie ticking along. Jazz is also an invaluable tool in explaining any irrational behaviour. Oh that madman? Na jazz. Oh he started beating his wife? Na jazz. Impregnated his sister's cousin's youngest daughter? Jazz, Jazz Jazz. For mental disorders in Hollywood, read Jazz in Nollywood.

5.No matter how rich or succesful a character is, their office must not exceed 12 X 9 ft in dimension. The decor is something straigth out of Carpenter's monthly with square edges everywhere. During the course of the movie, that same office will also double up as the bank manager's office, baba alawo's shrine any indeed any other interior location you can think of.

6. Stella Damascus Aboderin must cry in any movie she is cast in. If you do not include this in her contract, then you are wasting the woman's talents and you might as well cast someone else.

7. Similarly Ramsey Noah must have facial hair in all his films. No Ramsey I don't care if it makes you look fine, the part requires you to be a Tibetan Monk godammit!

8. Every flashback must be in either black and white or sepia, preferably with a dream like effect. Without this we are obviously too dumb to differentiate past events with current ones.

9. No one ever loses or gains any weight in Naija films. 20 years later abi?...abeg just pour small powder for my head. My diet is exactly the same and I have not succumbed to middle age spread. I now have six kids but not the waistline to show for it.

10. Do NOT under any circumstance try and incorporate special effects of any kind. They will fail miserably. If you want to make a movie about a man who flies or shoots thunderbolts from the tips of his fingers, think again or move to Hollywood. Don't forget to close the door behind you.

11. And finally whatever you do, NEVER NEVER cast Nigerian children in your film. Child actors are notoriously bad but Nigerian child actors deliver lines in a manner that makes you just want to slap them and curse their parents.

On…….the very subtle differences between an oyinbo party and a Naija party

2007-07-12T16:47:00.000+01:00

Oyinbo party: The host is central to the success of the party. A good host is at once flitting from guest to guest, introducing them to one another, telling anecdotes and is quite rightly, the centre of attention.
Naija party: The host, if you even now her name, is just another face at the party. If a quick poll was taken, roughly 40% of guests would have no idea who was actually throwing the party. All that they know is that they heard a party was happening in Wembley sha and they decided to 'show face'

Oyinbo party: Invitations are sent out a month in advance with at least two WORKING numbers that you can RSVP to. If you do not RSVP then it is presumed that you are not coming. Even close friends will not attend unless in possession of an invitation.
Naija party: Heenvitation is by word of mouth only or if you are lucky via Facebook. A lack of heenvitation is not a deterrent to attend the party. Ivs are for wusses.

Oyinbo party: The start and end time are clearly stated at the onset. You will find most guests arriving no more than half an hour after the start time and well in advance of the end time. The more charitable guests will even stay behind and offer to help with tidying up.
Naija party: The start time is night. The end time is morning. If you like tell people to come at 5pm that is your business. It is not uncommon for people to still be trooping in at 2 or 3 AM. Ending the party is usually the only time the host avails herself to the guests. Yes that distraught, haggard looking person begging and pleading for you to leave is actually the host.

Oyinbo party: Guests are generally mingling and genuinely trying to learn a bit more about each other. "How did you meet ?" is a particularly good ice breaker.
Naija party: Guests could care less about meeting other people. You will have landed with a posse of no less than 4 or 5 and your immediate concern is looking fly. If needs be you are quite happy to spend the whole night/morning posing, moving your shoulders up and down and drinking. The boys will huddle together in some corner smoking, drinking and laughing way too loudly. They will inevitably be discussing Arsenal, Chelsea or Manchester United. The occasional lone ranger will wander from the pack and actually speak to a girl. It is a temporary measure to obtain her number before he returns to awon boys.

Oyinbo party: The neighbours are preadvised that a gathering will be taking place and things might get a tad noisy. Post-gathering, the host will send round a bottle of wine to thank them for being such good sports.
Naija party: The neighbours are the last to hear of any party. This results in a cold war in which you become the most hated person in your apartment block/street. Unless of course your party is in East London in which case your neighbours are also Nigerians and are drowning out the noise from your party with their own music.

Oyinbo party: Guests are asked to bring a bottle of wine with them
Naija party: Guests leave with a bottle of wine

Oyinbo party: There will be a selection of hor's douvres and finger food.
Naija party: There will be cooked food that people will still be devouring well after midnight.

Feel free to add a few more……..

On.......the (sometimes) banal act of sex

2007-07-10T01:13:00.000+01:00

I was moved to write this after reading the new novella, On Chesil Beach, by the unwaveringly brilliant Ian McEwan. The book is set in the 60s and centres around a young, recently married couple who are about to consummate their marriage on their wedding night. How quaint I thought. The fact that there once existed, not quite fifty years ago, an ideal to save oneself until marriage. Nowadays when a girl doesn't give it up after two dates you dismiss her as frigid and go home for a wank. Similarly is there still such a thing as a virgin bride? When was the last time you were at a wedding when someone didn't snort incredulously when the bride walked down the aisle in a white wedding gown? At one wedding I attended recently, one member of the bride's party had to be forcibly ejected after breaking into a fit of convulsive laughter at the sight of the bride in white.

My mind inevitably harks back to when I lost my own virginity and the perilous circumstances that surrounded my decision to go with an older woman (she was 17, I was 15). You see the thing is, as a 15/16 year old boy you are walking, talking phallus with a slightly higher IQ and a time bomb attached to it's head. You are quite liable to explode at any second. At that age you are convinced, well I was anyway, that the whole world is having sex. Everyone, that is, except you. Your mates, even the efikos, are all paragons of sexual conquest. You listen in quiet awe as they describe the most intimate parts of a girl's anatomy, nodding sagely with familiarity whilst silently cursing yourself for your own inadequacies and lack of experience. Thinking back now, it was all just a pack of lies. You know this because you perpetuated the very same lies. You practiced them, you rehearsed them to yourself, you recited them with such conviction that, shyeet, you damn near started believing in your own damn sexual prowess. And it was easy too! That clumsy fumble up Ada’s skirt in the back of your father’s car became a forty minute shagging session in which you made Ada come four times. The twenty second kiss that you stole behind the Form four block with Nike became a blow job in the toilet. And so on.

I marvel now at the creative output of the teenage boy. I playfully wonder how many Booker winners would have emerged in the last decade had that collective tempest of creative imagination been better harnessed. We are barely talking ten years but times have moved on somewhat even from then. You best believe that today’s 15-year-old boy is not only shagging more girls than you ever will, but also he is even down playing the event to avoid the scorn of his mates over the quality of some of his conquests. No such luck for us back in the day. Even if the girl you were describing was a complete munter, she got just as much airtime as the finest girl. Yup that’s right even wor-wor girls need love to. Matter of fact you had a far better chance with the wor-wor ones. Y’all know who you are.

Seriously though, far from being some bitter old dude who didn’t have enough sex in his teens, is there not something to be said for the couple in On Chesil Beach? Is there any value to be had in waiting a bit longer for your first sexual experience? I for one was distinctly under whelmed by the huge anticlimax of my first sexual experience and indeed many since. You soon come to terms with the fact that as pleasurable a pastime as it is, it is perhaps no more or less fulfilling than eating large amounts of chocolate. There happens to be considerably less cleaning up afterwards as well. The emotions, the sensations that sex evoke are very much ephemeral. They are so fleeting and often unsatisfactory, particularly if you are woman.

I have a brother who at last count had slept with roughly 200 different women. This is extreme but I still fail to see the enrichment in his life and indeed would argue that each experience has been a mild case of vampirism as it has sucked away a little bit of his ability to feel. To each his own but I would advise, with humility, that people should place far less emphasis on this most hollow (no pun intended) of leisures. Ladies do it for the right reasons and more importantly with the right men. I promise you if he is worth it he will hang around waiting. Men I have no advice for you. Half of you would not have finished reading this and would have stopped at the word wank because you were reminded you hadn’t danced you daily five finger shuffle. The other half are probably going off for a fuck. And I don’t blame you, that’s where I’m headed too.