Thursday, August 30, 2007

My Friend Sarah

Last week Friday, I walked in the bank to transact minor business, courtesy of the ATM machine being down. I walked up to the transfer section and as usual, threw my head up to make a quiet observation of all that was going on around. While busying my self with that and as the bank staff took his dear time in processing my transaction (Now I say God bless him). I saw a bespectacled light complexioned lady standing in front of one of the paying cashiers. I said to myself, this lady has a nice stature standing at above 5ft 7in and with an even toned skin, nicely dressed in an adire print top. The top was shredded at the bottom and this made the top rest on her jeans enveloped hips in a most fashionable way.


Her adornment with jewelry was at its optimum state. She had a cord around her neck fitted with a pendant that accentuated the hidden beauty that exists around a woman’s neck area. On her left hand, she was wearing a wristwatch and on the left a wrist chain. And as knowledgeable person in jewelry quality, I could tell all that all she had on were screaming G-O-L-D.


My eyes then roved to her face, she had a the kind of face that had everything in its rightful place, eyes well seated in their sockets, the nose looking like a perfect bridge, full and well rounded lips and satisfactorily protruding cheek bones which gave her fat-less cheeks and a perfected facial structure.


As I looked more intently at her face, something struck me, she looked familiar to me. At this time, I stopped stirring and started stealing glances at her just to know if she took any attention of me. Looking through her glass I could see I was not on her mind as she was looking away from the area where I was standing.


I seized this opportunity to stir once more and this time, with the purpose of trying to remember who she is and where I might have known her. A name suddenly rang in my mind. She reminded me of Sarah Wela (not her real name at all and not an inch close to the real one).


Sarah and I had attended same high school. We ended up in the same class arm in senior secondary courtesy of the usual science/art reshuffling. Sarah Wela was an only child and her parents fed her well. As a result, she was the fattest girl next to a senior and when the seniors graduated, she was the fattest girl and student in the whole of the school.


Overtime Sarah and I grew very close. We would walk to class together from the hostel and to the dining hall and even gossiped about other issues together and even during the holidays, we would visit one another at our homes. Our friendship had even continued after we left school.


Sarah had some experience going through school. Being fat in a mixed (i.e. boys and girls) boarding house secondary school can prove to be a harrowing experience. Both boys and girls would jeer at her and even make side comments. Whenever, we were taught a new topic and there was a new term learnt that associated with fat or shapeless, my friend would be acquiring a new nickname attached to her.


I also think another factor that made my friend unpopular was because she was a Deeper Lifer (she attended the Deeper Life fellowship) and that meant she couldn’t wear earrings and her housewears were sown in long non-body touching styles.


About ten years after we had left school, a rumour made its way around that Sarah denies anybody that walks up to her to say he/she had gone to same secondary school as her. When I heard the gist, I reasoned that maybe she doing that to those people that made fun of her back in secondary school and so does not want to associate with them.


Coming back to reverie state, the lady I was staring at in the bank made a gesture. She raised up her hand to run her fingers through her hair. I was seeing same arms and same finger structure. I became convinced beyond any reasonable doubt that this is no other person than Sarah Wela.


In an excited state, I walked up to her, stood infront of her and called her name. For a slight second she pondered in her mind who I was and when she finally comprehended it she exclaimed quietly with a facial expression that belonged to the Sarah Wela I knew back in the days ….“Titi!!! Look at you.”

Titi: “You’ve lost a lot of weight, how did you do it?”
Sara: “I was slimmer than this a week ago, I just added a few kg”

Knowing that she had mistakenly lost her composure and maybe her determination not to be the same girl from Secondary School, she changed the tone of her voice and started giving me the girly “I’m no longer at that level” attitude. She even added a britico kinda accent.

I got the message and so, quickly wrapped up what was becoming fake pleasantries. We exchanged phone numbers and I went back to conclude my bank transactions.

None of us has called the other person since that day and I wonder if she really intends to wipe out that part of her life, even me?

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

On my Bed at 12Midnight

I drifted to bed last night with these songs playing on mind:

Song 1:
Join us come with us
We are on our way
Education for all
By the year 2000

Song 2:
Mamser is the answer
Economic recovery
Mamser is the answer
.................................
.................................

Song 3:
Andrew no go go o
Nigeria go survive
Nigeria go survive
Africa go survive
My people go survive o
Nigeria go survive


Nigeria has really come a long way. What year are we again.....some years to 2000 or have we passed it.

Please wake me up in the year.......

Friday, August 17, 2007

You Must Have Heard...1,000,000NGN will become 10,000 NGN

Announcing the Proposed Death of These Notes:
















(Most Painful because demise is too sudden)


Sure you must have heard of redenomination of the Naira by CBN (Central bank of Nigeria). As a result of this new policy, from August 1, 2008:
  • The naira would be redenominated to knock off two zeros to the left
  • The exchange rate would be N1.25 Kobo to $1
  • N20 would be the highest denomination
  • State allocations would be shared in dollars.

Read below what the the economical effect of this policy will be according to the Economists:

  • Easier manageability of the currency
  • Internationally benchmarking of value for easy cross boarder understanding of transaction value
  • Possibly the speeding up of the move to a less cash intensive economy because of the shear inconvenience of having to transact tangible purchases in coins.
  • Reduction of CBN's influence in the market and letting the Naira find its level by a way of demand and supply

All that one na big big grammar, this is the girl next door's economical point of view about the redenomination of the Naira:

1) Now that means my salary wil become how many kobos.....you just dont want to hear it.

2) How much will I be giving to my mum..(hmmm...) now that sounds scary

3) Will the iya onigari (cassava flakes sellers), pepper sellers and suya mallams agree to sell for kobo kobo, wont they turn everything to one naira?

4) How much will all those Italian shoes and Gucci bags sell for in Abuja shops.........dem wan kill me finish

6)Finally, the kobos will find their way back to churches' offering baskets

At this point, I am considering relocating to Japan and marrying a Samurai or the Shogun, at least the Japanese Yen still changes 117 to the dollar.

Koinichi Wa!......Hai!!!!!!!!!!!

See you in Tokyo :).

Thursday, August 02, 2007

BUSTED! BUSTED!! BUSTED!!!




Early last year, I attempted a career change from Management Consulting to Social Development. Some days after I resumed at my new NGO job, I got a form from the accountant at the close of the day.

From the form, I was expected to write down a list of all the activities I had done for the day. On sighting the form, ol’ witty me could not help but blog about it.

By the time I finished filling the form, I had two versions of it….one for my boss and one for my blog. I was the proper staff on the form for my blog and I was xxx on the form for my blog.

The activities I listed on the form for my blog included:

o Blogged
o Updated my blogroll to include Bella Naija and Adaure’s blogs
o Downloaded Dare Art Alade’s Fuji courtesy of Bella Naija

I titled the blogpost: My Boss Must Not See This.

The post generated the highest number of comments on my blog. Some were on my side notably among whom was Nigeria, what’s new and others were against the post. I particularly remember Seun Osewa of Nairaland stating that if I don’t want my boss to see it, then I should not have put it on the internet because one day, he would see it and I would be in trouble. I promised Seun that I would finally delete the post but in the mean time, he should allow me enjoy it while it lasted.

There was also a comment from one Olusare Adegbagi: his comment was quite sarcastic. He wrote something like “den den …now your boss will catch you”. I replied him by saying my boss was a charming, admirable and other nice words kinda person. I was just enjoying myself believing all this was completely oblivious to my boss.

However, one day when I had one of those emotionally down moody thingie, I heeded Seun’s advice and deleted the post.

Last week, we sent off my very good friend and colleague to join her husband in the UK and the boss decided to take us all out to a bar. While we were seated, he asked me when last I updated my blog, I answered yesterday. He now started jeering at me in his sometimes jocular nature saying that I just write away and that my blog was boring. I was cooking up my reply to that when he asked me if I knew any Olusare Adegbagi. The name sounded familiar. Of course Olusare…. that is the name of the person that drops sarcastic comments on my blog.

He asked me if I knew what the name meant. If you went to high school in the South-Wet part of Nigeria, I don’t know if you are familiar with the name everyone says he will mention when accosted by masters after sensing trouble. Most Yoruba folks say Olu-sare: Olu is a common name prefix in Yoruba and Sare means to run.
Ade-Gbagi: Ade is also a common name prefix and Gbagi means to flee.

Olusare Adegbagi is a popular fake name that almost everyone that attended high school in the South-West part of Nigeria (not the American schools o) is familiar with. And a whole me that pride myself as SSS* gawked for that completely. To say the gospel truth, I had even related the name to some royal prince of Ondo town.

Now to drop the bombshell, Olusare Adegbagi was my boss. My boss was Olusare Adegbagi. He had been disguising as Olusare Adegbagi on my blog since March, 2006 and kept it to himself, not sharing it with anyone in the office till Friday, July 27, 2007.

I have been busted, someone better than me has beaten me at my own game. I thought I was SSS, my boss must have received training from the fierce KGB and Mossad.

*: (SSS stands for State Security Service, the Nigerian Intelligence Agency)