My Thots

As the Grass Go Brown

2009-12-30T06:29:00.000-08:00

I ache in my heart
Because the answer does not seem near
Neither the solution close by
When I asked the Lord
I expected immediate answer
But now, the grass go brown

I had decided to wait and truly waited
Telling myself just a little bit more
And it’ll all get better
It’ll all be sweet again
And we shall return

From the waiting
My hands have hung down
My knees have gone feeble
My eyes are getting dim
And my heart is sick

When will I see your salvation oh Lord
For it is in you I hope
It is on you I wait
Your testimony from of old has been my solace

But now, would you consider me too
Would you fight my cause?
Can I rely on you to answer my pleas?
Or should we regard those days sweetly spoken of
As past gone?

Oh God, Am I in your agenda?

YES, YOU ARE

Men I have sought out to raise
I give a promise and then they wait
For every weight to be laid aside
That they might obtain the promise
For the promise is sure and for a certain time

And as for the days of old
Men did wait for my salvation
Even when they saw the grass go brown.

TeeY - 06:00 251209

The Future of Nigeria

2009-01-19T02:00:00.000-08:00

Words are welling up inside me, albeit in a most unusual way. My thoughts are reeling in in my native Yoruba language....

I have actually attempted putting down this post in Yoruba but had to stop because my typing was not aligning with the speed of the thoughts so I was losing a lot of the words flowing forth from me.

I will liken the story of Nigeria to that of the prodigal son in the Bible. When he had it all, he thought not of tomorrow and he could have said to himself, ‘let us eat and drink for tomorrow we shall die’. But alas, after squandering all his inheritance that he got from his father, he did not die. He was wide alive to suffer the consequences of his action. What did we see happen to the prodigal son? He ended up living with animals and had to struggle for food with them.

It is no news that Nigeria is richly blessed in natural resources that can amount to so much money and notably among these natural resources is the crude oil which many have called ‘the curse of Nigeria’. Since the first oil was drilled in Oloibiri in 1956, Nigeria has been benefiting to the tune of billions of dollars from sale of crude oil. Our eyes saw unexpected wealth and our excess crude account was always a bounty to all concerned parties.

However, in our days of surplus what did we do or rather what was done unto us. We know that a person that does not save in the days of abundance will undoubtedly suffer in the days of famine. In these budding days of global financial crisis, I wonder what is going on in the minds of those that have squandered the non-stop wealth that kept pouring in from the sale of crude oil particularly as its selling price kept climbing the charts.

In the days of our boom we refused, rather our leaders refused to establish schools, hospitals, roads, power supply etc. Instead, we were on maintenance mode living off on projects that had been implemented in the days when Nigerian leadership had not been hijacked by greedy and utterly selfish men and women. Intellectual reasoning was useful when it was needed for plotting the next move to defraud the nation and was never summoned for the use of improving the lives of common Nigerians.

I remember a book I read about Nigeria written by Karl Maier. He titled it ‘This House has Fallen’. Well, what do we expect from a house that is built on a shaky foundation of falsehood; it will certainly come crashing down. Falsehood will not last forever, the truth will surely surface. And to the ignoble leaders and people that have participated in depriving millions of Nigerians benefits of civilization, I say, one day the wind will blow and we will see the fowl’s anus.
I am writing this at a time when the naira is currently crashing fast, trust is dipping at our stock exchange, the price of almighty crude oil is at an all low and every time the picture of the president is shown on TV, I’m waiting for the presenter to start with ‘A sick president Yar’Adua... (I’m not blind!).

What’s going to happen to Nigeria if the economic crisis reaches its heights?

“Eni awi fun Oba je o gbo
Eni a soro fun Oba je o gba”

IYABABY: My Blog on Motherhood

2009-01-05T08:46:00.000-08:00

Ok, I finally did it. I have started the blog on Motherhood as promised. Please check it out on www.iyababy.blogspot.com

Gradually Coming Back

2008-12-24T10:29:00.000-08:00

Hmm....It's a great while and i seem not to know how to even make my way to blogospere.

I have been away because of this young man...

The experience has been out of this world. Didn't know Ididn't have the slightest idea about how babies came to this world and now I know I shouldn't have trusted all those biology textbooks. What they contain is not even up to a tip of the iceberg.

As a result of my experience I would say I have grown and matured more than any other time in my entire life. For example -

I didn't use to like to carry children..but now i have no choice but to carry one.
I couldn't stand a baby cry before..but now i have find a solution to one.
I used to be selective about the kind of children I allowed to come near me..but now i appreciate every kid I see either dirty or very smelling.
I never had sympathy for moms before but now...I give all the respect in the world to mothers.
Most beautiful of all, I am now a kinder person.

Ok...now that i am a kinder person, I plan to start a new blog on my experience as a mother because i realize that first time mothers know so little. A reason I have attributed to the fact that mothers rarely share experiences with single women. I also hope the blog will serve as a platform for mothers particularly young and working moms to share their hearts.

I am still working on the name for the blog and will be glad if you can drop suggestions....

Thank you.

How Did The 46 Returning Army Officers Lose Their Lives?

2008-05-26T06:45:00.000-07:00

Were you about to tell me through an autocrash as a result of their vehicle colliding with an oil tanker? Yeah I know that. But what caused the collision? That is the puzzle

• Bad road?
• Bad weather?
• Bad vehicle?
• Bad driving?

We may want to let sleeping dogs lie particularly because of the affected family. But....shouldn’t there be a thorough investigation into why the accident happened? At least for tomorrow’s sake, so that we never record same incident.

Well on a second note, remembering what we could be like in this country, we never really care about lives. Or do we? Considering all the mishaps that have taken place on our NIGERIAN ROADS and no long term remedy has been put in place till date to avert them. As I also remember the infamous Ibadan-Ife road accident that happened sometime in 2000 caused by a tanker transporting fuel. The accident claimed lives of people commuting in more than 20 vehicles on both sides of the road........I remember this sadly because I can still vividly remember seeing the flame of burning bodies and metal rising from my room in the Post Graduate hall of O.A.U.

How many more people would we like to see dead before we find a lasting solution to the death traps we call roads?

Ps: I just had to come out of my hibernation and say something about this. For xxx’s sake, I’m about to have and raise a baby in Nigeria!

My 9 Month Project

2008-04-25T03:50:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys,

I know I've been gone for a very long time.

Well, i guess my diasappearance can be forgiven as it is due to a 9-month project that i have embarked on (good luck to those who don't understand). I may not be able to update as often as I should. However, i would love to read from you via your comments and believe you would also drop your words of prayer for me.

Cheers......

Seven Weird Things about me

2007-12-24T06:22:00.000-08:00

Un:
When i was young, I actually thought all children around the world were rotated to be housemaids and i would sit quietly to watch the house maids whilst they work mentally preparing myself for when i would be taken away :).

Deux:
As you would know by now..i get lost in space very often.

Trois:
My mum feared i would never get married.

Quarte:
I am not particular about food, clothes, shoes, colours, furniture, jewelry. I'm a basic person with only basic needs. I don't go like i want a red-laced, tee-toed, wedge heels shoes..

Cinq:
When it concern roads, i think in one direction, so if i drive somewhere, more often than not i will get missing going back.

Six:
I never ever ever experiment with hairstyles so no matter how much convincing hairdressers or other salon customers try to be, i never yield.

Sept:
I will never be caught dead taking Ogi (pap) or custard!!!!

As was done to me, I do unto others. I hereby tag Ayo Oladejo, Titi Akinsanmi, Toyin Lamikanra, Fiyin,
Folu, Afromusing, and Wordsbody

Here are the rules:
1) Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog
2) Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself
3) Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs
4) Let each person know that they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog

YOU CAN DO IT!

2007-12-20T09:44:00.000-08:00

December 2000

I was a university student and had a total sum of N300 to my name. I had to travel back home for the Xmas break and I also wanted to buy greeting cards to give to relatives and family friends.

I had budgeted my transport fare to be N200 and had decided within me that I had only N100 left for greeting cards. On the day before I was supposed to travel, I went to one of the stores around campus to purchase my cards. I looked around at the cards and realized the average price was N70 per card. I scanned more for affordable cards until my eyes ran across a pack of cards that had N150 written on it. I asked if the price was for each card in the pack and to my surprise, I was told that was the price for a whole pack. The pack contained 10 cards with different designs.

As I write this, I vividly remember standing infront of the shop owner, weighing all my possible options.

I asked the woman if I could buy half of the pack for N75, but she said she couldn’t, I had to buy the whole pack or pick other cards.
If I buy one pack of cards for N150, then I will not have enough money to travel home (In those day, asking for favours was not in my dictionary, didn’t even know they existed. I always took care of myself by myself).
I thought of purchasing just one Xmas card for N70 and then struggle in my mind to decide who deserved the card

After much thought, I bought the N150 pack of cards, went to my hostel and knocked on doors from one room to the other selling the greeting cards @ N30 each. It took me barely one hour to finish selling the cards and I made 100% profit. I stayed back in school that day, went back to the shop to buy another pack to sell the next day. Again, I sold all the cards using the methodology of the previous day, going from room to room knocking on doors.

So, around 12noon, I went back to the shop bought one last pack for my relatives and friends, went back to my room to carry my luggage and headed for the park with my transport fare and extra change of N100. (That meant a lot to a student like me in those days when a plate of fried rice and chicken sold for N120 at the New Buka of Great Ife campus).

December 2007
I had just resigned from my J-O-B on November 30 due to a nudging in my spirit and several other reasons. I did not have a job offer from any quarters and I had two options. I could sit in my house and wait for the next job or I could bring the next job to myself.

I chose the second option. Using skills I had developed from my days of working at V.I.P Consulting under the tutelage of a renowned great man, Fela Durotoye, I designed and produced a marketing communication material on organizing end of the year parties for organisations.

On Monday, December 4, 2007, I got in the car, went to the salon to get my hair fixed and from there went from office to office to offer End of the Year Party services. As I went from one office to the other, the number of ‘no, we’re not interested’ increased. At about 3p.m I was somewhat dejected and was on my way home when I received a call from one of the places where I was told ‘we have concluded plans for our party, we’re sorry…..’.

I was asked when I could come to their office to discuss our services and I replied right now. So I turned back and went to their office. After several, meetings and discussions on different days and telephone conversations, we received letters commissioning us to provide catering, decoration and other event related services.

On December 14, 2007, the event management company which I presently manage, Blossom Creations provided services for our first official client, one of the top 3 HIV/AIDS NGOs in the country.

The event was successful and looking back, I remembered the story of December 2000. And I reminded myself if you could do the little things, trust yourself to be able to do the similar bigger ones. Just like David when he faced Goliath, he reminded himself of his victory with the bear and he won victoriously over Goliath too.

I just wanted to share this to encourage anyone that has been feeling or acting short of who you can be……remember you past victories and trust yourself….

YOU CAN DO IT!

WHAT WAKES ME FROM MY DREAMS

2007-11-21T23:24:00.000-08:00

I remember my childhood, sitting quietly all by myself....amidst six other children and yet I sat alone. Speaking to myself in my head in my own language that only I and I could understand and reckon with. You know my mum said I didn’t use to cry as a baby and neither laughed.

Till date, I can’t remember what went on while I was in nursery and primary 1-2. This is because I lived in another world different from the classroom. I can’t remember any of my classmate or even the teachers and this made me remain close to the bottom of the class at the end of every term.

The only event I get close to remembering is my fourth birthday. There must have been a party thrown for me because I was born on February 29 and so my parents make it a point of duty to throw big parties for me once in four years and just do simple marking in the in-between years. So that meant I didn’t celebrate a 10th birthday but a 12th and I didn’t get the usual transforming 21st birthday notable for every babe but a 20th.

Back to my story….I remember that on my fourth birthday, I had a white top that had a black bib thrown behind and infront of the top was inscribed:

Happy Birthday
Titilayo is 4

I could be in dreamland for days on end..webbing scenarios in my head and living there. The popular scenario was a garden that had swings, chairs and tables and all manners of trees having fruits on them and I would play and take all my meals in the garden.

I remember this one most because I wished so much for it to come to past and when Dad announced we were moving to our own house I daydreamed about it more and more. However, when we got to the new house, all the floor was fully cemented, not even one plant grew within the compound talk less of a tree.

You know, I always say God saved my parents that I was not autistic…….

Till date I still find myself lost in my day dreaming world where everything is as I love it. I still love to go back to that sanctuary where I am all by self, to remain there for days on end and be a recluse. However, there are issues that startle me back to reality, issues that scream for my attention and make me alert to every little development in my environment.

I see these different issues and they make me remain wide awake asking what happened, where did we g wrong, how did we miss it and most importantly how do we get out of here?

This may sound very funny, but whenever I am around Tejuosho market, I marvel at what has become of my childhood London. Shopping for Christmas at Tejuosho was a ritual my mum strictly adhered to when we were kids. The mall was a beautiful sight with lovely wares neatly displayed in the shops and its clear and clean pathways. When I was later taken there as an older girl, a 100level student just out of the secondary school boarding house to be integrated back into the Lagos society I had left behind, I had to ask my elder sister, is Yaba market the same as the Tejuosho market we used to go to as kids?

I consider the situation Nigerians have to go through to apply for a UK visa and the daylight robbery being perpetrated by the UK commission in Nigeria, robbing genuine Nigerian citizens of their hard earned Naira bills and all I can do is scream in my head, THIS MUST STOP!!!!!!!

This list is endless…….and all I will like to do is ask, what must we do?

From Guest Blogger: Big Brother 2.0

2007-11-01T00:22:00.000-07:00

Having thought about this for quite a bit, I finally get to do "sthg". Anyway, I just got off a webpage with the headline Privacy Lost: These Phones can find you (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/23/technology/23mobile.html?em&ex=1193371200&en=cd5c706dac95e6b9&ei=5087%0A).

The gist is GPS isn't enough anymore now since people want to connect hence are signing up to mobile phone services offering such in the US. One can assume as more telecoms operators in Nigeria and other developing countries expand their pool of services, this would be added sooner rather than later.

Speaking of new services by telecoms operators, I saw an ad last night on TV where all you need to follow your favorite Premiership team (note: for football fans only), is to send an sms with a certain layout eg Arsenal text to a short code provided and just like that, you'd get live feeds and updates on all match days for your club. Hmm.

Back to privacy, the truth is Web 2.0 has brought a glut of tools, networks and opportunities to people globally with little or no restriction. However, like I first titled this, do you want to be found 24/7? Do you want a "Big Brother" looking over your shoulder and monitoring your every step anytime of the day.

If I signed up for this service, how much more of "my space" would I be giving up? Its cool to note though that parents, guardians and the likes should find such services when (not if) they are available in Nigeria of great help in tracking and hopefully ensuring safety of their wards. Though this could be assumed to hold only where wards do take their phones with them at all times anywhere they are.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Brief Profile: Having taken forever to start his own blog, 'Tope Soremi is the proud husband of Titilayo Soremi, writer of My Thots Blog. Tope is a guest blogger and would happily share his thoughts on a wide range of issues with anyone interested. He's reachable via babatope [at] gmail. com.

Brown Xmas

2007-10-24T04:10:00.000-07:00

Today is November 6 and guess what is ringing in my head?

:)C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S.

I have been singing Xmas carols in my head and I even adapted a popular oyinbo one to become naijarian. My adapted Xmas song goes thus...

I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas

Jut like the ones I used to know

Where the harmattan wind whistles

And children listen

To hear banger blasting near

I’m dreaming of a brown Christmas

With every Christmas card I write

May your days be merry and bright

And may all your Christmas things be brown

This Woman, {not Udeme} is a Great Woman

2007-10-23T06:33:00.000-07:00

She is the pride of her parents, the envy of her friends
She walks with her head tilted upwards with a well deserved pride
Her gait is evidence of her aristocratic status
When she opens her mouth, she speaks with much authority
And polishes her authority with the oil of humility
She is a source of joy to everyone around her

When she is dressed in her sparkling white nurse uniform
With matching white cap, white shoes and with a pen tucked in her breast pocket
She transforms to a God-sent angel and assumes different forms
Some families see her as a savior
Stepping in to ensure their loved ones remain on earth with them
To many doctors, nurses and para-medicals, she is mother
Rocking, nurturing, chastising and instructing

She never lays any complaint about her work conditions
According to her, every moment she is at her job
That is her breathing. That is her life
This makes every second counts
And every act, a conscientious and deliberate one

She leaves each duty be it morning or night in high spirits
Illuminating her face with beaming smiles
She returns home to gather her children round her
Relaying the day’s achievement with great thrill

She goes to bed fulfilled to awaken the next day
Burning with passion for her calling.

Hmm... all of the above is a description of who and what my mum, Esther Olaiya Obisesan would have been if her father had allowed her to go to school. She begged, cried and strove so that her father would send her to school but he maintained, 'school is for only for boys, the girls will remain on the farm'.

She wanted so badly to be a nurse. However, when she had the opportunity to start the journey to her dream after working as a housegirl, she gave it up for her younger sister. She sponsored her younger sister through school until she became the NURSE she always wanted to be.

Very sad part of the story: We lost the Nurse my mum never was, she died on March 26, 1999 leaving two kids and a husband behind.

Was Paid a Penny, So I'll say My Thot 2

2007-10-16T05:23:00.000-07:00

My mum was raised a good girl by her mum
When she was raising me, she received instructions
From another good woman
So, she raised me a double good girl
And now, here is how I live

I labour so hard for everybody except one……..myself
I think so deeply about everybody except one…myself
I look out for everybody except one……………myself
I willingly sacrifice for everybody except one…myself
I adjust constantly for everybody except one…..myself

I can’t talk back when abused
Can’t shout back when shouted at
Can’t sulk when I feel bad
I have to smile when smiled at
Laugh when laughed at
And remain mute when no one else speaks

Am I proud of this product?

Was Paid a Penny, So I'll say My Thot

2007-10-09T02:01:00.000-07:00

"When you try so hard to be good to people
You easily become a carpet for them to step upon"

Be a good person in the way God has created and molded you
Man does not deserve any alteration of your good person.

The Ailing Baby of the World

2007-10-04T07:23:00.000-07:00

Africa is the ailing baby of the world
And her ailment is like HIV/AIDS
Where the disease can only be managed never cured
All that can be done is to administer anti-retroviral drugs
They can’t cure; they only reduce the viral load
Eat well and do not engage in strenuous activities, the patient is told

And when the patient bothers about child bearing, she is encouraged
Oh there is PMTCT, you can always give birth
Africa’s ailment is worse than HIV/AIDS
In her case, she did give birth to children and welcomed them into her ailing condition
Today, many of them do not want to identify with her body’s stink and rot
They run far crossing mountains, valleys and waters to get away from home

How did Africa ever get infected with this deadly disease?
The disease of poverty, corruption, poor governance and champion of worst practices
How can she be healed from it?
Maybe we should employ extortionists to drive out the disease demons.
Yes, one from a mosque bearing a rosary, another from a church bearing holy water, and maybe the fire-bearing Sango
They may succeed in appeasing the creator for Africa’s sake

For how long will this over 50 year old ailing baby continue to be nursed?
Some say Africa is so comfortable in her ailing state
She refuses to will herself back to health with her own willpower
She’d rather continue to lay on her sick bed enjoying the attention from her nurses
What happens when the familiar nurses retire and others take their place that do not know the fathers that oiled the relationship with the nurses
Just like the later days of the Israelites in Egypt
As there arose another Pharaoh that knew neither Samuel nor Jacob

Must the present nurses continue to cling on to this ailing baby on her sick bed
Never allowing her walk much less running
Must we continue to smile and laugh with this ailing child
Whilst she acts insolently with no respect for rule of law
Must we not smack this baby on the back and declare
YOU MUST STAND UP

My Quest for Fame II

2007-09-25T00:49:00.000-07:00

My friend finally got a regular job and could not go on attending all those auditions anymore. However, one day, she heard a radio announcement calling on an audition for anyone interested in featuring in Super Story, a weekly primetime television family drama. This was when the production just started.

My ears were stretched when she told me because I remembered Super story very well. As kids, my mum ensured my younger sister and I got a monthly dose of super story when it was still a photo-story publication and even when we moved to the boarding house, she always brought past editions for us to read on visiting days.

I told my younger sister about it and she joined me in my Nollywood sojourn. I was auditioned by Antar Laniyan and had to read lines from a Nigerian poetry kinda book. I read the lines, was asked a few questions, answered them to the best of knowledge and I was out of the auditioning room in 5minutes.

My sister and I went back the next week for casting. She went in first and she got a role as an extra in Papa Ajasco & Company and was told to come back on a specific date for shooting. When it was my turn, they said they had exhausted all the extra roles for Papa Ajasco, so they put my name and picture on a waiting list for Super Story.

My sister finally featured in Papa Ajasco, Super Story, went on to audition for a role on Tajudeen Adepetu’s everyday people and today she is the Brand Manager of SoundCity.

My other friend, she got a lead role in a stage play, Child International. She acted alongside Boy Alinco and Gloria Young[big eyeballs], went on to work for mobile phone content provider, relocated to another African country and now travels around the world doing all the United Nations thingie.

And me…….

To be continued….

To Work in Nigeria or Not: Kindly Advise an Indian

2007-09-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

Guys, this is a request I found in the comment section of my post on Port Harcourt. Kindly advise/comment.

Hi
Friends i need a little help. I have got a job in one of the oil companies of the City of Harcourt. I am very confused about a lot of things, Mainly about the Safety and Security.
I am an Indian and i just need a little help in finding out if its a good option to come here or not.
Please help me out
Thanks

My Quest for Fame Part One

2007-09-13T07:58:00.001-07:00

During one of those OAU’s very long strike in my university days, my friend informed me about an audition for a TV soap production by June Jack (a Nollywood producer). She asked if I was interested, I answered in the positive and her sister helped me secure an IV to the audition.
According to the IV, the audition was to be conducted by the acting veteran, Sadiq Daba. When we arrived at the audition which held on a Sunday afternoon, the IV proved useless as there were throngs of young and old people in different shapes and sizes present and when it was my turn to audition, I found out I was sitting in front of a man that was no close to Sadiq Daba. He tossed a script to me from across the table and just started reading from a scene. Then he peered at me from the rim of his glasses and I explained to him that I didn’t know where he was reading from. He directed me to the page and said ‘I read father, you read daughter’.

In two minutes my audition was over and we were all asked to come again the next Sunday for the audition result. When we got there the next week, they had a list of the successful actors and actresses pasted. My friend and I saw our names on the list and we were told the next process was casting for specific roles.

They passed around the list of characters in the soap and asked us to fill a form indicating the role we would like to play. I don’t know what Nollywood is like these days but back then roles could be categorized into major (appearing in most scenes), minor (appearing in few scenes) and waka pass (appear only once with little or no lines to say). I picked a major role, my friend picked a major-minor role and we submitted the forms. On submission, we were all asked to leave and come again the next Sunday. That got me angry but the dream of playing the major role got me going.

We returned again for the third time and they said they wanted to conduct another round of auditions for some people meaning we had to wait till they conclude auditioning for the new set of people. At about 5p.m, they called out a cast list for minor roles.

My name and my friend’s were on that list and I was cast as a friend of the lead character. We were told to expect letters informing us of our specific shooting dates and meeting points. We also signed some contract stating the amount to be paid as N1,500 per scene and that we wouldn’t get paid until the production starts airing on TV.

In those days, there was no GSM and after I had waited long enough in my house looking forward to receiving my letter inviting me to location for shooting, I went to my friend’s office and she had received her own letter inviting her to location on Saturday. We both decided that I should come along on the Saturday.

At the end of the day I played a waka pass and till date I never saw the play on TV and never got paid.

Stay tuned for more on my Nollywood Experience……….

My Friend Sarah

2007-08-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

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?

On my Bed at 12Midnight

2007-08-29T08:24:00.000-07:00

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.......

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

2007-08-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

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 :).

BUSTED! BUSTED!! BUSTED!!!

2007-08-02T04:36:00.000-07:00

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)

RAPE OF THE NIGER DELTA

2007-07-26T02:35:00.000-07:00

I am writing this from Kaduna, a commercial hub of northern Nigerian. I had to travel from Abuja to Kaduna by road and by Nigerian standards, I will call the roads...smoo0ooth roads. This prompted me to reminisce on my first visit to Port Harcourt, Nigeria oil city.

During my days in Management Consulting, the client list of the last consulting firm I worked with included the big names in the oil industry with many of them having their head offices in the oil city, Port Harcourt, Rivers State. Based on this, consultants in the office had frequent opportunities to travel to the oil city.

When I joined the company, I knew I would one day have my chance to visit the oil city. However, I had to hope against hope for a long time before I was even considered to be included on the list of consultants to provide consulting services in the oil city. You know like they say, a man’s gift will make room for him. One day there was a service need in one of the oil companies and I had been the one working on the surveys for which our company needed to present the results to senior management of the oil company.

My immediate boss was just not communicating these results right to the client and so he asked me to help explain to the client better on the phone and alas, they asked that my name must included on the team traveling to the oil city for the presentation.

I was very much elated that my hope had finally come to fruition. I had such high hopes about the oil city. Interestingly I didn’t even ask anyone what the city looked like…..I just reeled away in my dreamland about my expectations of the oil city.

If you have had an opportunity to get treated by the oil companies, you will understand me when I say that my dreams soared higher and higher about what I was expecting to see in Port Harcourt. Right from the airport in Lagos, I was booked on a chartered flight with only fifteen of us on the airplane.

Landing at the Port Harcourt airport, there was already a guide with a placard of the oil company waiting for us at the arrival section of the airport. I followed the guide who led me to a waiting bus. I was ushered into the bus while my luggage was collected from me, I believe that was meant to eliminate any form of discomfort the bag could cause me during the bus ride. I willingly handed my bag over to them which they loaded onto another bus that I will designate the luggage bus.

I sat quietly in my seat as I watched my co-privileged come on the bus. After all the passengers were seated, the driver started the engine of the bus and I also heard the sound of sirens blazing from ahead and behind the bus. We journeyed from the airport to the city central of the oil city in a convoy. First was a police escort pick up van, then the passenger bus, followed by the luggage bus and finally another police pick up van was at the tail of the convoy.

All these special treatments did no less than playing with my mind aa I started dreaming of different descriptive words about the oil city. Words such as wealth, luxury, opulence, sumptuousness.., oil…permeated my mind.

As we moved farther away from the airport, we passed through some local settlements which to me were typical of most airport location to main city routes. I didn’t allow the view of the settlements deter my dream picture of the oil city. I looked forward to traffic lights, mansions, clean long roads with wide junctions breaking out into eight link roads. I held on to my expectations of high rise buildings of oil firms, shopping malls with brightly splashed nomenclatures, digital adverts streaming on the streets, gosh I had big dreams for Port Harcourt. Even the name P-o-r-t h-a-r-co-u-r-t reeked of a glorious city like the ones I had seen in foreign films showing pictures of the beautiful streets in London, U.S and Tokyo.

As we moved along in our journey, I saw scattered stalls along the roads and people speaking to themselves from across the streets as commonly seen in the markets in Lagos. I said to myself, the remaining part of the journey must still be long. All of a sudden, the bus took one more turn, hooted and the gate ahead of us was opened. I asked the person sitting next to me if the oil company's office was located on the outskirts of the oil city and she said… no we are right in the centre of the town. This is the Port Harcourt City.

At that point, all my dreams were shattered; my disappointment knew no bounds… Is this my dream town, P-o-r-t H-a-r-co-u-r-t, the Oil City.

I felt very ashamed and disgraced at the state of Port Harcourt. As if my grief disappointment was not enough, two days later I had the unfortunate privilege to travel by road from Port Harcourt to Warri and then to Lagos. This journey proved to be nothing less than a most nightmarish experience. Saying the roads are very BAD is an understatement.

From the very little my eyes have seen of Port Harcourt and Warri parts of the oil-rich region of the country not to talk of what Bonny, Oloibiri and other parts would look like, the only way I can describe the state of the Niger Delta region is what I have termed the RAPE of the NIGER DELTA.

Additional Notes:
I have been out of the blogosphere for a while now although I have been following other fellow bloggers. I also read about Bellanaija in True Love magazine. I want to say to those that got featured in that edition of True Love including Adaure "Go on girls, the sky is your starting point!!!"

This Day Critic Joins Yar'adua's Government

2007-06-18T07:02:00.001-07:00

Ever heard of Segun Adeniyi, the astute writer of thought provoking lines on Nigeria and a very good critic of government's ineptness who sways you with carefully chiselled and coordinated words that sit on the backpage of This Day newspaper in his coulumn titled The Verdict According to Segun Adeniyi.

If you are one of the ardent reader of his column, you would need to search for his verdict elsewhere............

This is what he has to say for himself:

It was a moment of crucial decision, one that could alter the course of my life, one way or another. But when President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua spoke to me on phone on May 31, asking me to come and work for him, there was only one option left. Notwithstanding the interesting stories that have been published about my appointment, and I have read some really ridiculous ones, between April 27 when I was first offered a job as presidential spokesman and May 31, when I finally accepted to serve, a lot of water, as they say, passed under the bridge. All that would, however, form the prologue of what must be an interesting chapter should I ever write a memoir.

There have been several reactions to my appointment and I appreciate all the people who have either called or sent mails/text messages to wish me well. I have also received encouragement from highly respected people (home and abroad), and I feel sufficiently satisfied that I have taken the correct decision. Just before I boarded my flight from Lagos a fortnight ago, I received what I considered the most important call, at least as far as this page is concerned, and I was relieved by the words of encouragement. If there is anyone who can take credit for The Verdict According to Olusegun Adeniyi, it is Mr. Tunji Bello, until recently the Lagos State Commissioner of Environment.

Ten years ago, Tunji Bello it was who directed me to start a column to replace the one by his deputy, Mr. Sam Omatseye, who was relocating to the United States. That was after he had elevated me to the office of Sunday Concord Deputy Editor vacated by Omatseye who is now back in the country as Chairman, Editorial Board, The Nation newspapers. Bello handed me cuttings of works of respected columnists in several foreign newspapers to read and also gave direction of what he wanted. Number one was humour. Number two was gist (in which case it must be reportorial). And number three was that I come out very strong in my opinion. I did not even have an idea of what name to give the column until Louis Odion, my friend and then assistant coined the name, The Verdict According to Olusegun Adeniyi. And for the first three months, Louis and I were practically co-writing the column even while it carried my name and photograph. Not too long after, I also mastered the craft as I began to attract readership. As it would happen, however, I left Concord in January 1999 for THISDAY.

Coincidentally, a few weeks after I arrived THISDAY in February 1999, it was decided that we should personalise the backpage column and I was assigned Thursday so the column that I thought had died with Concord resurrected at THISDAY and the rest of the story, as they say, is now history. I know many people would be disappointed that I have joined government, and some would be very well justified because I said I would never do such thing. To those people I plead forgiveness. I, am, however, also aware some people would be happy that this column is off.

I have told the story of how the column started to explain why I use my day to day of experience or that of others (be it an okada rider or some casual acquaintances) to drive home my point. This of course never created any problem if the person whose name was mentioned on this page happened to be ‘unknown’. But if he/she were a ‘big man’ that would be ‘name dropping’. To those whose sensibilities I might have offended as a result of what was published on this page, I tender my unreserved apology too.

I go into government as one of a few people who can claim to know the vision of President Yar’Adua having spent three days with him in Katsina in reportorial capacity at a time I had foreclosed the idea of joining government. But I have no hesitation at all that he is one person I love to work with. I do not doubt his honesty and commitment and he espouses values that I believe we need for a time like this. Of course he comes to office with a heavy baggage given how the election was messed up. And our nation has never been so besieged in terms of problems even in the midst of endless opportunities. But I am even more encouraged to work for him given the fact that he is not a man in denial, he has the capacity to admit errors and can take the hard decisions. A day before his inauguration, I was told, Yar’Adua had sat with his speech writers and instructed them on the issues he wanted to address and the order in which the speech should take, beginning with the election. This, I gathered, was not well received with the consensus being that it was better Nigerians were allowed to forget the election matter. But he reportedly insisted by saying: ‘We all know we have a problem and the solution is for us to confront, rather than attempt to run away from it.’

In trying to make the speech writers see the enormity of the problem, the President was said to have given an analogy: ‘What happened is like having a group of students sit for an examination with the best candidate scoring 49 while the second person scored 25. As a teacher I consider that a bad result but the fact also remains that the student who scored 49 took the first position. The point I want you to make is that we have to improve on such dismal performance because that is what I intend to do.

The electoral reform is indeed one of a few key issues Yar’Adua has promised to pursue with all vigour and he means business. In the last two weeks, I have sat with him in high-level meetings both at home and abroad during the G-8 meeting in Germany, and I see him as a man who wants results. I was also around the night preceding the National Assembly inauguration and election of principal officers. I knew how much pressure was put on him to name his candidates for Senate President and House of Representatives Speaker. The important thing for me is that I have always seen public service as a trust and one that everyone so invited should weigh very carefully before making up his/her mind. In my case, I have already given 17 years of my life to journalism and it might help to seek another experience before I return. As some people have argued, after spending years writing about what I consider the failings of those in government, now that I am offered an opportunity at a very high level, it might not be a bad idea to see whether I could help make a little difference. Having examined all the factors, I have decided to join the Yar’Adua train.

I thank the readers of this page who have supported and encouraged me over the years. And I am glad that the angry young man who is succeeding me as Editor of THISDAY, Simon Kolawole, is now the darling of most readers; so in a way it may actually be good for the newspaper that I am moving on. But as I sign off today, I want to assure my readers and all Nigerians that I remain, and will always remain, the Olusegun Adeniyi that I am. I will not compromise the ideals and values I have espoused on this page. That pledge I have also made to my Chairman, Mr Nduka Obaigbena, as he grants me leave of absence from THISDAY, certain I will one day be back to the newspaper.

I see this as an opportunity of a lifetime, one for which I am grateful to President Yar’Adua. I will not betray his confidence. Whatever the problem with the process that brought President Yar’Adua to power, he is one person who understands the enormity of the problems confronting our nation today and has made a resolve to tackle them; after consultations with relevant stakeholders in the bid to adopt a sustainable approach to addressing the myriad of contending issues. That process might appear slow in a society where, perhaps due to the recurring failure from the past, people prefer the quick-fix. It is, however, one that I am much persuaded will ultimately work for us as a nation.

I am also aware some people are apprehensive about the choice I have made and to be honest, so am I. But life itself is about risk. A United States-based citizen journalist friend of mine in analysing my decision wrote: ‘You should understand that you are in a tight spot, but just understand that you put yourself in it so you would have to deal with all the consequences that come with the turf. Certainly you are going into power-raw naked power - as bad as it can get. I guess you have started already and any advice really at this point is belated. You have written about power and what may be wrong with it a lot and as such you need not borrow any lesson from the ‘The Prince’ by Niccolo Machiavelli. All you need do is go back and read your writings as far as way back when you were still very angry with the system; there lies what needs to be done to make a difference. I must, however, say that you have a difficult task. As a cabinet level Communication person, it is your duty to arrange all the lies that need to be told as long as you hold that position. Those include what you would like to be told and what you wish you never will. You are right, you can always leave if things don’t work out but the public (our nation) would like information as cleanly as possible on your honour.’On my honour, I promise to be honest in my job.

Last Sunday evening, Al-Jazeera aired a broadcast of an interview with former President Olusegun Obasanjo apparently recorded a few days before he handed over power. I switched onto the station at the close end of the interview but the last question and answer was instructive: ‘Now President Obasanjo, how do you want Nigerians to remember you?’In the nature of Obasanjo, I expected a long winding response but that was not what happened. He said: ‘That I was given the opportunity to serve my country and I did my best.’That is what I want to say when I leave this job. When that time comes, however, I would also hope that my best, in trying to help President Yar’Adua alongside other credible people I have seen around him, was good enough to have impacted positively on the lives of majority of Nigerians. That would be enough for me.

Will this court please rise?

My Take:
When I first heard that Segun Adeniyi was on the cabinet of President Yar'adua, I must confess I felt disappointed and was asking myself if this was another Femi Fani-Kayode. After reading this piece, I couldn't help but drop this comment on his page (http://www.thisdayonline.com/nview.php?id=80869):

Your Highness Sir,
I am lost for words because I didn't expect you of all peeps...However my husband and I have agreed we will pray for you to succeed in your new position.

I will only give a word of advice though....You will come to crossroads where you would have to choose between integrity and $$$$$$. When those times come, that is when you can prove the worth of all you've been writing till this day.

All the best.

I am Scared!!!!

2007-06-05T02:16:00.001-07:00

Petrol is now officially 75NGN per litre
Vat is now 10%

I know I have always remained an advocate of the Sovereign State of Nigeria, however, it is in times like this that I tend to swagger on my faith in my country. I'm scared because I'm not sure if the events of these past months have not left me more disillusoned than some sworn pessimists of Nigeria.

The first thing is the case of enthroning or installation of a President not elected by the general public. As if that is not enough, to add salt to our injury, Obasanjo is bidding us farewell with 10NGN increase in petrol and a 10% VAT which MTN did not waste the slightest time in implementing.

More in Nigerians are in despair these days as prices of goods and services have taken similar tolls to Baba's decision on price of petroleum with no corresponding increase in salaries by employers (how will they even be able to increase it when their cost of production has increased anyway).

ASUU has been on strike months on end now and students that their parents can't afford to send them to school abroad are made to sit at home to watch and pray .......

God Save Nigeria is all I can say at this time and I pray that we will not only survive these harsh times but SUCCEED!

Lady in Wedding Gown is me

2007-05-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

Please visit http://public.fotki.com/Babat/wedding/ to see some fabulous pix.

The lady in the wedding gown is me......

Been to the page??

I hereby officially announce to you guys that I have been rechristened...... Titilayo Soremi.

From Temitope, the Daughter of ..........

2007-05-22T05:02:00.001-07:00

Femi Fani-Kayode has done a great job of raising some :)dadriotic girls.

The email from Tobilola was not enough, she had to summon more powers from additional sources and so she called in Temitope into the discussion.......

I'd like to introduce myself- My name is TEMITOPE FANI-KAYODE, I am Tobiloba's older sister and Femi Fani-Kayode's second daughter, I am 17 years old and I love politics (challenging games intrigue and even more so motivate me) i would have sent you a personal email, but i do not wish to disclose my email address to the mass, but like I said i love a challenge or two and this to me is my challenge of the day. I am here on behalf of the rest of my sisters and ofcourse my HONOURABLE father to challenge you, to be honest I dont care about your opinion, because you can never dream, let alone ever know the good man God has BLESSED Nigeria with, only because your cold heart and blind optimism from the everlasting stigma of 'rich polticians' or 'public servants' as you put it, having the worst interest in our nation refuses you to.
You say Nigeria is what you would refer to as the greatest country in the world and further sycophantically go on to how patriotic you are, yet you have the time to leave 'blogs' (yes, the word being as trivial as the meaning) about how you 'detest' femi, you agree to fellow 'bloggers' about how he is a rapist, wife beater and more other derogatory terms and then use the same mouth to say it is nothing personal. You are a sheer liar. I think we need to look deeper into this and you need to say what exactly is 'scratching your yansh' is it that you're circumstance is not very fortunate? GO TO CHURCH/ A MOSQUE/ A BABALAWO, what ever suits you best and ask for a miracle, or is it really that you feel the generic nature of 'some public servants' my father being one ofcourse, have not done the nation proud by dancing or singing solo to the tune of our 'embarassing nation' , well there is a contradiction. You claim you are so patriotic, well why then do you see 'the greatest nation in the world' as 'embarassing' and if you are so patriotic why do u leave blogs complaining? why don't you go out and feed the billions of starving children and try to clean up the mess of the country or better yet try and get a job as a public servant and be the 'immaculate' one and the 'saviour' and then SING,SING, DANCE AND DANCE against your fellow government followed by your magic powers to make that difference. Your presenation of your argument I am afraid is very insubstantial, there is no way you as such a 'patriotic' figure, can criticise a man trying to give as much support as he can to his own president, when people like you who aren't even genuinly interested in the people(lets be honest) and just their greedy wants, are ALWAYS complaining. If our people like you can not support the leader who will? You pointed out quite rightly that it is a democracy, you were given the power then to vote i pressume? or was that stripped off you to? YOU ALL voted these leaders into their position, yet you complain..hmm?a tad bit ridiculous dont you think?
My father does his job, both as a minister and as a father. He is a good man undoubtedly in the eyes of God so who really gives a shit about what he is in the eyes of man. He works his socks off, towards the betterment of our nation. Nigeria has come a long way from the years of dreams and silver lined clouds and as his daughters who can see him both publicly and privately can tell you that he has recognised this and he is doing his very best to make things better, it is a slow progress but better slow than non existant ey? I watch him in meetings and on our dining table talking about his high hopes for the nation, persuading and (almost enforcing) that all his girls come back to our MOTHERLAND after school here abroad to continue to make a difference in this GROWING nation, that alone if you asked me is enough to proove the love he has for our country because trust me, I know a lot of leaders of our nation who's children go to school both in England and the states and have no intentions of coming back home because like you, they feel our nation is somewhat 'EMBARASSING' , shameful if you asked me. You say u feel Nigeria is the greatest nation in the world, well I think not, I think it has sunk so low from previous depressions and terribly corrupted years such as that of Abacha's regime, but is gradually getting back on its feet, what it has however, is the BIGGEST POTENTIAL to be the greatest nation and people like my father I am proud to say are working towards that because they have the POWER to..so chidinma or tochucool however u like to be called, you can eat your heart out! he does his very best and I more than u that has been fortunate enough to see him at both work and rest can tell you that he is the most patriotic man I know, he loves his president because he knows how his president tries and even more obviously his president is the most symbolic representation of the country, he loves his nation because he can see its potential, he loves you because you make him stronger.

I do not need to even utter a word to dear Temitope because she has nailed the right spots. Daddy's girl does not live in Nigeria and is certainly not studying in Nigeria, litle wonder she sounds like she speaks the Queen's English and has not being taught that politically, it is not best for you to take an unpopular position on issues you have not witnessed firsthand and certainly not among people that hold their views based on personal experiences and not the television.

Kindly tell your remaining sisters I will like to meet with ...sorry.. read from (since I live, work and wake up everyday in Nigeria) them......

From Tobilola the Daughter of ........

2007-05-21T10:17:00.000-07:00

I received a mail from someone who had dropped a comment on my blog, sent me an email requesting to meet with me in person and eventually hosted in my house in Abuja.

hi dear titi,this is really gonna knock u off ur seat, but i'm sure the child who sent this also sent u an even worse mail considering u r author of the blog site.i really laffed over this and i'm sure her father wud get to read ur blog too, u don become famous oooo.but i understand her position,but we no dey lie now!!! even osama's kids wud love him,cheers keep the good job on.i permit and request that u pls paste this on ur blog site.

He had received the mail from Tobilola guess the daughter of ..guess who…….. Obasanjo, Ikwela, Iwu…., well it was none of these aforementioned that I have done a piece on in this blog. She is none other than Tobilola Fani-Kayode. Her email goes thus:

Hello tochuCOOL! (by the way i love how your yahoo email address ironically contradicts itself). However, moving on to my problem, being the reason i've sent this email. I typed in my father's name on google, (as i do......because....i'm cool), and I came across this!:

hi titilayo,this is really funny,cos i actually "staggered" into ur page while searching for somethingelse.it's actually my first time on this site so forgive watever shortcomings i might seem to have.in one blunt statement, i cant agree with u more on ur views with regards who i wud love to cal "baba's praise singer".though i dint read ur whole article, just scanned through. u seemed to have done ur home work on Mr Fani kayode.having picked interest in this very brilliant man after watching an interview he did on tv.simply put, i do not like nor trust our "honourable minister select!" and agree a 100% with ur views.u go girl! wud realy love to meet or have future correspondence with u.thanks tochucool@yahoo.com

Now, tochucool, i just have to say that when i read this, i laughed....very....very hysterically. I notice the dry humour and sarcasm in your reply to titilayo who's probably even more bored than you are. I can't believe i'm wasting prep time typing this....oh dear i've got to finish my homework! i'll summarize...get a life. it's my advice.. you don't have to take it, but it would do you a great deal if you did. My dad is a good man. you'll see when the time comes. good luck xxx

My reply to the dear daughter of the voluble, subtly power seeking however amiable and very handsome Femi Fani Kayode.

From your email, I can sense you are still in junior secondary, sorry senior primary or the senior secondary level of the post basic education and that is if you are studying in our great country, Nigeria.

Well, this makes it very obvious that you are yet to witness what it is like to seat in a lecture hall that seats 100 but filled with over 700 students waiting to receive lectures fom a frustrated lowly paid professor. I also doubt if you have had to carry a bag containing your certificates, results and C.V walking the streets of Lagos in search of job which most Nigerian graduates have done averagely for two years.

My dear, you are an omobolanle i.e. you were born into wealth worked for by your grand or great grandfather and you would have grown up in the Ikoyi, V/I axis of Lagos, Nigeria or Houston, Texas, or London, United Kingdom and then, you can’t understand the picture of living conditions that exist in Agege, Ajegunle, Amukoko, Badia, Bariga, Ijeshatedo/Itire, Ilaje, Iwaya or Makoko, all in Lagos State. Do you know that today a low percentage of children of school age are not in school but on the streets where they are prone to all sorts of maltreatments and assault because many of them are not protected by the system that should do that, the police. They'd rather be orderlies for wealthy people like your dad. And do you why they are not in school, it is due to the lack of money.

You may wonder why I go ahead reiterating all these bad news about Nigeria, the simple reason is because your dad, Chief, Honourable Minister, Ex Presidential Adviser denies all these facts. Dear, I don’t doubt the fact that your dad is a good man at least to you, the children of General Sani Abacha are saying the same of their dad. Since you say your dad is a good man, I believe you are very close to him and you play on his laps, kindly help us drop this words with daddy… NIGERIANS ARE SUFFERING AND IT IS REAL!!!

Election Results According to INEC

2007-04-18T04:42:00.000-07:00

Click on the link below to see the election results according to INEC

http://www.inecnigeria.org/index.php?cateid=47&contid=265

COUNTDOWN TO ELECTIONS

2007-04-13T03:16:00.001-07:00

1 DAY TO APRIL 14, 2007 - Governorship/State House of Assembly Election
8 DAYS TO APRIL 21, 2007 – Presidential/National Assembly Elections

Countdown to Elections

2007-04-10T05:52:00.000-07:00

I went with my fiancé to his office on Saturday and a jobless and I believe bored Security supervisor came into the office and from the time he came in till the time he left, he said nothing but pessimistic gist on how the present government has no intention of handing over power and their secret plans to rig the elections.

Despite the fact that all his 20mins rambling received little or no attention from my fiancé and certainly ZERO attention from me, he just went on and on about his gist claiming he has inside Abuja sources.

For me, I remain unshaken in my Pro-positive Nigeria stand.

Our elections will hold and will peaceful!

And come May 29, 2007, we will have the first civilian to civilian presidential handing over occasion in Nigeria!!!

I shall be there at the Eagle Square, Abuja either in person if allowed and if not attend by proxy through the television :)

And so, from today, we begin our countdown to the election days…

4 DAYS TO APRIL 14, 2007 - Governorship/State House of Assembly Election

11 DAYS TO APRIL 21, 2007 – Presidential/National Assembly Elections

Emotions @ Work

2007-04-06T02:28:00.000-07:00

I have ALWAYS worked hard at running away as far as possible from getting familiar with people. I usually take my time to assess and build trust for a person before I become relaxed and open to them and they can become my friend. I don’t jump into the Friendship Life.

One day, a guy I had been working with for about two weeks was trying to be friendly with me and wanted to gist me about the problems he was having with his girlfriend and unconsciously, I had shut my mind to the story and kept on trying to change the topic, the guy kinda got the drift and said.. you don’t want to hear abi… and I just nodded my head slightly.

I have always acted formally in offices where I have gone to work and not delving into chit-chats with bosses or colleagues or subordinates. I went to work to work and didn’t socialize and whenever I needed to socialize, I went to my friends. (Now this sounds like a principle I carefully prepared and lived by).

This is because when I get to like people I like with all of my hear, I trust them completely and so I take my careful time before I allow myself to be drift into getting know people and befriending them. It is hard to earn my trust but believe me, when you earn it; you have earned an ardent trust.

I remember a case that happened while I was in secondary school. In my penultimate year in the school, we had a head girl I liked so much. My sister always kept trying to tell me some sinister thing about her but I never listened. I ignored my own sister to pitch my trust with the head girl that didn’t even know me personally because I was too drunk in my likeness and loyalty. At the end of the day everyone in the school except me knew that the head girl had been sleeping with the principal and to completely shatter my any other form of goodwill I could have had for the head girl, she got pregnant for the principal and gave birth to twins.

I have had my heart broken by friends; I have been gossiped about, maligned, deceived and most recently gracefully ignored.

Over these past one week, I have concluded against all former inclinations I have had about myself that I am a very emotional person. On the surface I look like kinda hard hearted and you know the non-tears shedding strong girl. I now realize that I have created this shield around myself and my heart just to conceal the very emotional me.

And now again I have had myself bruised with emotions again and this time it is by someone I respect and look up to as an older friend. I have cried……and now ask myself the question, should I ever trust a friend again?

Hot in Lagos

2007-03-13T07:06:00.000-07:00

I just landed in Lagos some few minutes ago and I know I say Abuja is hot measuring upto 45 degrees some afternoons but, coming out of the cool aired airport, my feeling organ just confirmed to me......Lagos is HOT!!!

And upon the heat.., I saw some women who clean the streets with council uniforms begging for alms........

Must be really very hot for the women..

So long......Dear Blog

2007-03-06T07:29:00.000-08:00

Dear Blog….

Today is the 6th of March, 2007
Looking at our last date it was..January 22
And that means, for over five weeks
I havn’t expressed myself on you

I wonder, if I wasn’t going to be doing what you expect of me
Why did I birth you
Why did I open up for you to come forth
If I was just going to ignore you
And sometimes go for days on end
And return only to copy and paste the expressions of another

I am sorry I went away without mentioning
Gone for days and not looking back
Not knowing what u feel about being left alone
Left, unattended and unspoken for
You opened yourself up and allowed me pour my heart out
On the days I was down and at the times when I had my highs

I remember the episode of my virgin passport
Being deflowered by a visa refusal stamp at the Netherlands embassy
I remember you opening yourself to me as I poured my heart out on Nigeria
And memories of me running to you to when I got back from Nairobi keep rushing in

I ask myself then, why didn’t I talk to you about Amsterdam
Why didn’t I refrain from mentioning the new visa episode
That The Royal Netherlands embassy granted me visa within three days
Why did I keep mum about passing through the Schipol airport
Lodging at the Golden Tulip, taking pictures at the Dam square
And walking through some of the location spots of Ocean’s Twelve

Just thinking......
Can this be because I wanted to leave out the gist about....
My visit to the Red Light District (Lord, Have Great Mercy!!!)
And taking a cup of coffee in a coffee shop

However, no matter the reason
No excuse I state will be enough
To explain away my neglect

Dear blog, I sincerely apologise in the presence of all the witnesses
That have been consistent in visiting us and reading the posts
And promise.....it shouldn’t happen again ……….:)

Hace you seen this?: Dr. Ngozi Iweala's Husband in Sex Scandal

2007-01-22T00:12:00.000-08:00

JANUARY 18--In a brazen shakedown scheme targeting the husband of a former Nigerian foreign minister, a Maryland woman extorted $185,000 in hush money from the man by threatening to go public with details of their sexual affair, federal investigators charge. Queen Nwoye, a 28-year-old nurse, was accused in an indictment filed today in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. of extorting Ikemba Iweala, a 59-year-old neurosurgeon who is married to Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who until last August was Nigeria's finance minister. Prior to that appointment, the Harvard-educated diplomat worked for three years as the African country's finance minister. Okonjo-Iweala, 52, is currently a distinguished fellow at the Brookings Institution.

An FBI affidavit--a copy of which you'll find below--details the alleged extortion plot, which began early last year when Dr. Iweala, who works at Washington's Providence Hospital, received a call from Nwoye. According to FBI Agent William Ronacher, Iweala, pictured at right, acknowledged having a year-long affair with Nwoye in 2002-3, adding that they remained "social friends" after their "intimate relationship" ended. In a February 2006 phone conversation, Nwoye asked Iweala to speak with her cousin, whom she identified as "Ernest Ufondu." In a series of subsequent phone calls spanning two months, "Ufondu" repeatedly demanded money from Iweala in return for his and Nwoye's silence. In fact, "Ufondu" was actually Nwoye's boyfriend Adriane Osuagwu. Iweala initially agreed to make two $20,000 payments. A week after delivering the second installment (which he turned over to Nwoye in cash in the Providence Hospital parking lot), Iweala received a call form his ex-lover. She "told him that she had not had sex in a while and that she wanted to see him," according to the FBI affidavit.

Amazingly, Dr. Iweala agreed to a rendezvous with his extorter later that evening. The pair, in Nwoye's car, drove to a secluded area of the hospital parking lot and disrobed. As they "were engaged in sex, or about to engage in sex," an unknown man approached the auto and began taking photos of the naked duo. Not surprisingly, the brain surgeon immediately began receiving new demands from Osuagwu, who told him, "What happened tonight? That was a terrible mistake. Now I have the photos. You have to pay money to stop all these things." Iweala paid an additional $145,000 before contacting authorities about the scheme. In subsequent phone conversations monitored by the FBI, Nwoye told Iweala the explicit photos "would not go anywhere without her support" and claimed that all the money she received was forwarded to "Ufondu." Nwoye, charged with a felony count of conspiracy to commit extortion, is free on a personal recognizance bond and scheduled for a February 15 federal court appearance.

Source: http://www.saharareporters.com/dn001.php?dnid=240

Been Gone to Dance4Life

2006-12-11T02:37:00.000-08:00

“At exactly 5.45pm (Nigeria Local Time) on November 25, 2006, about one thousand Nigerian youths gathered at the Fantasyland, Ikoyi, Lagos were connected with their counterparts in Egypt, Tanzania, Russia, Vietnam, UK and other parts of the world via satellite to Dance4Life by performing the Dance4Life drill as a demonstration of their commitment to a combined effort to fight HIV/AIDS”.

This is presenting to my boundless audience ‘sans frontiers’ (meaning ‘without borders’ in French) the project that has taken me far from this lovely blog for the past one month… hold on a minute did I say one, gosh the last post reads Oct. 30. The project is …. Dance4Life.

Well, as you can see from the above words in quote, the project was indeed a success. This marks my first attempt at managing a non-profit project of its magnitude.

I had the distinguished opportunity to work with great people, popular and influential companies, people that I didn’t even think of meeting, men and women I read about in the dailies and see on television. In just these times, I have met with musicians, comedians, television stars just through this one opportunity.

I was introduced into the project through my exceptionally business-conscious and savvy boss (who I intend to do a piece on very soon on this blog). We were to go to Lagos fro a meeting and he just called me and said when we get to the meeting, he would introduce me as the person in charge of the project so that I can continue managing communication with the partner organisation on the project and the international body based in the Netherlands.

The Dance4Life International Team came into the country in July to hold meetings with Reproductive Health based organisation and from there four NGOs based in the project pilot states namely Lagos, Abuja, Kano and Cross River were selected for the project. The project is based on using the power of edutainment to involve young people to be committed to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Young people that join in this fight get rewarded by being able to attend a global dance event on Nov.25 which holds in all the countries where the project is being implemented and they all perform a universal dance called the ‘drill’

A major highlight during the dance event is that all the countries are connected by satellite and the participants at the event in all the countries can see one another especially when doing the drill.

After the meetings with the International Team, we started work on proposals, budgets, activity plans, worksplans et al… However, the project planning phase dragged on and on and didn’t leave paper level despite the fact that the peak period of the project i.e. Nov. 25 was getting closer by the day.

We looked for funders, tossed budgets here and there scaling down (when I wished it was really up) and refining plans every other time. Even at a point, we were close to calling the project off.
Well, to cut the long story short, after four months, the project got to implementation stage. We started with a Train-the-Trainer for groups of young people from the four states and had 2 South Africans to facilitate the training and guess what, one of them, a Choreographer was the choreography director the choreography of the Whoopi Goldberg starred South African film, Sarafina.

Workshops were held in schools for students in the four states and the project peaked on Nov. 25 when we hosted the Dance4Life event in Nigeria.

Courtesy of this project, I have learnt at the feet of two great bosses, Laolu Sasore (my NGO boss) and Remi Ogunpitan, the Managing Director of Storm Vision (are you thinking what I believe you must be thinking….It is the very Storm Vision, producer of Big Brother Nigeria). I have had the opportunity to gist with Obi Asika and laugh at his jokes and meet the major female executive in Storm, Nkiru Asika (very adorable woman).

I also witnessed Ikechukwu go in to wax a record, shook hands with 2shotz, smiled at Sasha, booed at Basketmouth at very close range, befriended Maureen (BBN), had a discussion with Gideon (BBN), received a ‘I’m sorry’ text message from Francisca (BBN) and got familiar with hardworking and highly talented Guinness Book of World Record Holder, Kaffi and her dance group, Zebra.

I have had a splendid time these past days and months having my hands on Dance4Life and any time you need a project coordinator on social causes particularly for young people,…… you have my email ad.

The Silent Years

2006-10-30T23:24:00.000-08:00

I have worked with different bosses for the past four years now and over this period of time, I have been privileged to work directly and/or indirectly with a lazy boss, slimy boss, calm boss, overactive boss, thrift boss, extravagant boss, brilliant boss and their characteristic go on and on…However, I have learnt diverse lessons form each one of these bosses

During my working relationship with each of the bosses, I attempt to study their life journey (I think this is partly to satisfy my curious nature) and based on my studies done so far, I have been able to make conscious decisions on some things I have vowed never to do and/or become and I have also committed myself to develop some critical habits that I have experienced in my interaction with these bosses.

In studying these men/women, I pay very careful attention to the successful ones and I adopt a present-to-past approach to carry out the study. In order to feed my curiosity but avoid nosing around unnecessarily, I gather details a little here, a little there from comments, personal conversations held with me, and hmmm, I also turn to my famous detective move by making use of one of the most effective research tool of the 21st century …GOOGLE! I run their names on google to see if can get lucky to know about the schools they attended, their marriage and relatives and past responsibilities.

While studying my bosses’ life journey, I have been consistently hit with one major truth, which is the fact that they have not always been what I, other associates, our contractors, clients and every other person are seeing in the present. They have passed through a phase in their lives where they were obscure and non-desirable in their form at the time and some of them have even been jobless and penniless graduates.

Those were the days when no one knew their names and people were not interested in knowing who they were. I have called this peculiar period of their lives the ‘Silent Years’.

From burying my head in motivational books and listening to preachers and motivational speakers, I have been able to deduce that the silent events in these Silent Years have to a very large extent formed what my successful bosses have become in this present. They held on to their conviction of their business and idea and waited patiently in hope until time and chance happened to them. Just like the saying of one wise man, nothing can stop a great idea whose time has come.

With this faith, I offer myself an encouragement in these silent years of mine, I may not be presently desired or sought by many, I may not have the right amount of money to hold family and friends spellbound, I may not be dining with the high and mighty of the world, but I will keep being consistent, working smarter at achieving my goals and I know that ONE day, time and chance will come my way, I will be ready for it and nothing will be able to stop me nor my ideas.

Airport Experience 2

2006-10-17T06:00:00.000-07:00

If you have been reading along since the very early days of this blog, then you would have journeyed with me through my different experiences in work and life in general. I have been denied study applications, rejected visas, being dismayed about Nigeria et al.

I have not been able to post anything for over a month now and this is because of my current workload. I am presently coordinating a project, Dance4Life in my office. Dance4Life is a service-learning HIV/AIDS project and is being implemented in like 13 countries among which 5 are African including Nigeria.

I was at my desk in the office on Wednesday, October 5 when I saw a mail alert from my Yahoo messenger. I delayed a while in opening the mail when I realised it was from one of the international guys coordinating the project and concentrated on a proposal I was putting together since I knew the mail would require more than 100% of my attention.

When I opened the mail, I wasn't disappointed cos it was a very long mail with about four attachment documents. I began girding myself for the plenty work ahead and imminent screams of deadlines. I decided to take a step by step approach in solving the challenge on the screen infront of me, so I began by first opening the mail then, I opened each attachment in a new tab so I could download all at once within one window.

After downloading, I settled myself in my seat to read, actually to study the long mail. I studied it line by line and took noted of details of meetings, expected activities over the next three weeks and so many decisions and radical adjustments that needed to be made to initially agreed plans.

On a particular line, I read that in order to finalize plans among the African countries, there would be a pan-African meeting of the country managers and the directors in Nairobi, Kenya. I knew I fell into the category and so it remained who among my bosses (2 of them, one direct and the other, indirect) would be coming. It was agreed that my indirect boss and I would go to attend the meeting.

I packed my bags and left for Lagos on Friday, attended the This Day concert on Sunday so I could meet with my indirect boss as he was kinda involved in organising the show. I resumed in the Lagos office on Monday waiting for my indirect boss and expecting letters of invitation from the organisers in Kenya which was supposed to be sent by courier since they could not get through to Nigeria by fax.

I didn't see any sign of my indirect and his telephone lines were all switched off and I just did not see any courier package in view. After waiting till noon, I called the embassy and I was told they had received the fax for the letters and I could use that for the visa application. I was later told that my indirect boss fell terribly ill and his wife, wanting him to remain alive and kicking seized his phones and would not allow him do any work until he had recovered well enough.

So, I went to the embassy hoping to only go and get information on the process since I didn’t have my boss' passport and other documents, however, the lady at the reception admonished me to drop my own application and wait to get the visa even though it was past their closing time.

I submitted the application and bravo………………got the visa on Monday, was told I had to travel alone by afternoon, bought ticket on Tuesday, packed on Wednesday morning and caught the flight to Nairobi on Wednesday by 12noon.

I arrived at Nairobi airport 7p.m, lodged at the Hilton, attended exhausting meetings all Thursday and Friday, went to a club, the MadHouse Friday night till 2.30a.m. I left for Nairobi airport at 5.30a.m Saturday morning and boarded the flight to Lagos, Nigeria. I arrived at my house in Lagos at 12noon, flew to Abuja on Sunday 5.20p.m.

And now I have been back at my office desk in Abuja since Monday morning, 8a.m.

Airport Experience (Part 1)

2006-09-13T00:58:00.000-07:00

I have been doing some journeying over this past week. There are some things that I think you might want to know about me, I don’t like flying because of my fear for heights, I don’t like jumping drenches because of my fear for depths (so my sister calls it and she also says I have fear of length, fear of breadth et al….…… na she sabi.).

An irony to this is that I love airports! I just love going to airports. My colleague expressed a wish that she hoped airports are places you can go to buy pills for specific destinations that will allow you sit calm, close your eyes and within seconds or few minutes you are at your destination. However, she also expressed her fears on its practicality in Nigeria because our Aba boys might manufacture fake pills and you will start seeing yourself in Darfur, Soweto, Rwanda, Kabul, Baghdad ……et al.

Like I said earlier I love airports even though I don’t completely enjoy flying. I love the all obvious scenes and behind the scenes that go on around the whole premise. I love to watch for signs of happy families, angry families, loving couples, displeased couples, excited kids, sad and elated relatives, sleazy airport officials and the exchange of “kola”. I completely love attempting to trace out details from facial expressions, murmured words and body movements out of all the hustle and bustle that go on.

As a young girl, my parents and siblings used to call me the Observer. I was like the little kid you take out who doesn’t play or chat around but just sits quietly, but by the time you return can replay all unnoticed scenes and information. I used to deliver all the behind the scenes gist, detail of conversations and all other juicy stories after we get back home after an outing.

I really think this was as a result of my very observant and sensitive nature coupled with my very sharp sense of hearing.

The same way these days, I go to airports with these attributes, sitting quietly but listening and observing.

I was at the Lagos airport on Tuesday last week on my way back to Abuja when I saw two police officers come in to the waiting area, one of them carried a bag while the other carried nothing. They sat facing one another, one of them sitting on same row of seat as me. After a short while, the one sitting on same row as me, beckons to the other guy to bring the bag. He handed over the bag to the officer and before I could understand what was happening before my eyes, his right hand lifted swiftly to the side of his head, standing stiffly and with the sole of his feet, he titlted himself forward slightly and immediately brought down the hand to his side. With his fist tightly clenched, he made a sharp right turn and walked away………., I went whaooooooo! This happened before over 500 waiting passengers who turned into intent lookers within the period of approximately 10 seconds that it lasted for. Anyway, it ended up being a refreshing scene for all of us after been seated for over two hours waiting for our delayed flights due to bad weather.

After a short while, my flight was called and I had to FLY again……….I went through it successfully sha and landed in Abuja safely and uneventfully….

When we had alighted form the air craft and walking towards the arrivals, I saw a lady run out towards someone behind me, I looked back and it was to the police officer again. The lady curtsied and collected his bag from him. Now, this really interested me and I wanted to speak with the officer, so, paused my walking pace so I could speak with him.

Titilayo: It seems you have people at your beck and call.
Police Officer: (Smiles) Exactly. So how are you doing?
Titilayo: (Puzzled and not sure he had heard me correctly) Very fine. Thank you

He moved ahead from there and I refocused my thoughts on catching a cheap taxi. As I neared the door leading outside, I just saw the security personnel at the door (about three of them) raise their hands to the side of their heads and did a quick salute to…………yeah, you guessed right, the Police Officer.

After the officer had moved on I slowed down my pace and looked into the eyes of the security personnel with an inquiring look asking them in my mind “Where is my Salute?”

None of them noticed me.

The Mona Lisa People

2006-08-23T02:05:00.000-07:00

“Nigerians are one of the happiest people in the world”.

Whenever I am reminded of this saying and realizing that might be what the world thinks of us and the most painful, that the president, members of house of assembly, governors, local government chairmen, councilors and other governmental ruling bodies and individuals think this exactly of the people in their constituencies.

The thought that runs through my mind in these times, I believe are similar to what Leonardo Da Vinci must have been thinking when he painted the illustrious painting of Mona Lisa. She smiles yet she sorrows all within one face.

Nigerians should be credited for what my mentor (Fela Durotoye) calls our resilience. Nigerians have perfected the art of stretching, adapting, managing and above all laughing heartily and attending churches and mosques to praise God for little mercies.

Our leaders have mistakenly misinterpreted our smiles and laughter. They do not now what lies behind the smiling lips and teary eyes and they give a soothing conclusion to themselves, it has to be happiness.

I think we remain happy because of our fears. We do not want war. We are scared we would loose more than a war is worth. Our leaders need to be aware of a fact though, Happiness is not contentment. There are unshed tears in the eyes of many, untold sorrows in the heart of millions, unattended hunger in the bellies of millions of children, death lingers at the doors of millions of families because of the lack of basic things that maintain life in the civilized world which are good roads, medical care, electricity, affordable housing, quality education, and security.

Dear leaders, that is the Heart Cry of the Heart Beat of Africa. We also smile because we hope against hope that one day you would wake up to your right responsibilities to us or leave us and leave the reign of rulership of our land to another and we still wait.

Our desires are not lofty dreams like yours, dear leaders. We are not interested in acquiring the Bentleys, Pajeros, Lexus, not in stacking away unfathomable millions of dollars in bank accounts or flying first class around the world and performing cosmetic surgeries without blinking an eyelid to the stricken poverty of the people. They are simple, we want to enjoy basic and fundamental amenities and provisions due any citizen in a civilized nation.

We hope you yield our gravely humble request or can we conclude dear leaders, that there is a possibility that you are uncivilized and so do not know or understand the needs of civilized citizens. Kindly let us know if this is the case, so we can know how best to direct our efforts in getting attendant ears to our cries because we may appear to laugh and smile, but our hearts wail in deep anguish.

Reflections

2006-08-09T03:46:00.000-07:00

I am reblogging a post from Ready for Life, Dipo Tepede (Tajh)'s blog. I stumbled on the blog which is coincidentally his secondary blog, his primary page is Dipo Tepede.POeT and I ...... begged ( I only asked really) him to allow me reblog the post.

Three days later, I received a call, it was from Tajh and he announced to me that I have the copyright permission to reblog this, so with all jubilation, I hereby present to you this lovely piece which he titled ABORTION 2.

The post kinda perfectly reflects what I am going through, my struggles with God, My Father, and you know the jealous feeling we get when we see our mates who have fancier jobs, drive fancier cars, have the TDH hussie and yellow popo wify.

It's certainly a piece worth reading.

ABORTION 2.
I remembered an intimate situation I found myself 3 weeks ago and I decided to share it with my dear readers on the premise that it might be useful to someone;

I got out of my BMW on this fateful day when a brand new Avensis swept past me to park in front of me in my office garage. I tried to peep into the front car and I was amazed to see my former colleague nodding steadily obviously in tune with music blaring out of his CD. He had just moved from Glo to a bank; immediately he saw me, the glass of the car automatically wound down and an uncontrollable splash of air conditioning breezed through my already frigid skin. He immediately invited me to have a ride in his new car but our conversation was obstructed by my other colleagues who rushed for his attention.

I was immediately jealous and I felt so down that I hurriedly walked away from the scene to my office toilet. On closing the door to the toilet, I could not control the anger I felt as they kept pouring out. I immediately comported myself as the following conversation ensued between God and me;

Me: Why God? I have been praying for a promotion, but you have not done it.
God: Is there anything too hard for me to do?

Me: No, I suppose but you seem to favor some people over me.
God: Those that compare themselves are not wise.
Me: Please, how do I gauge my progress in life? I am not comparing myself, I am praying for something I need.
God: Then what are you doing feeling sorry for yourself. I have given you various opportunities to be promoted but you did not take them.

Me: What?
God: Remember, when I told you about the “automated routing” you were to propose to your boss but you ignored it.

Me: I did not know you were the one speaking to me.
God: You did, but you ignored it because you were afraid of how it will come out.

Me: Yes, I was afraid of being rebuked but I did not know it was you. If I knew, I would have boldly stood up because I could never disobey you.

God: Remember, your undergraduate days when you had a hunch to read some particular part of your physics note and exactly all the things you read came out; that was your first A on the campus. Am I right?
Me: Yes, God. Was that you?
God: Remember, your first day at Student Christian Movement fellowship and you felt at peace with the environment though you were a Moslem.
Me: Yes, were you the one?
God: Remember, when you finally broke up with your first fiancée. Who comforted you?
Me: I was traumatized Lord, that was no comfort.
God: You soul was shattered but your spirit was intact, this was necessary for maturity.
Me: Okay God, you speak in various ways.
God: No, I speak to you in patterns you understand; they may come in various forms but my sheep know my voice.

Me: What am I to do now?
God: I give seed to the sower- meaning anybody that is actively sowing seeds; I don’t give the fruits.
Me: But I pay my tithe and give offerings in church.
God: Giving offerings and paying your tithe is commendable but I am talking about some other forms of seeds. I do not owe any man; when last were u sick? When last did you quarrel? When last did you have an accident?

Me: I am very sorry Lord, but I don’t understand. What can I do to be promoted like my colleague?
God: You do not know what you ask for. Can you drink of the same wine he drinks from or be baptized with baptism he is baptized with?
Me: Yes Lord, I can.
God: That means you are willing to sleep for only 2 hours in a day. You are willing to write various business proposals and see them thrown to the drain by various investors until you can get it right. You are willing to invest your life savings in high risk ventures and lose it various times till you get it right. You are willing to look at your wife in the face, and put her money in places you are not comfortable with.
Me: No God, that’s too much.
God: This is why you should not compare yourself with others but compete with yourself to reach the goals I give to you.
Me: Okay, I understand.
God: I have given you everything that pertains to life and Godliness. You aborted the idea I gave you, if you had obeyed the idea irrespective of your boss compliance, I would have led you to a higher dimension with me. If Abraham had aborted my ideas, there would not have been an Israel. If Jesus had aborted the idea of not dieing, I doubt I will be talking to you today. The light afflictions you are facing now are going to work out for your eternal glory.
Me: Oh God, I am very sorry for aborting the plan you gave me?
God: Do not despise the days of little beginning. Just like I told Moses; the rod he used in tending for his father-in-law sheep is the same rod that he used in delivering the Israelites. The way David looked after his fathers’ sheep conscientiously is the same way I knew he will take care of my people when I make him King. So Dipo, whatever is in your hand, do it with all your heart.
Me: Ok Lord, I will.

God: Do not abort this idea, they are for generations unborn……………...

NOTE: All these conversation with God took place over a period of time.

.......................................................................

So, what do you guys think?

NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA RESIGNS!

2006-08-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

Did you notice that this title case is in all caps which I rarely do? I love my Sentence Case so much....Anyways, the case of this heading reflects the state of mind... I am screaming!!!!

I heard this on the news yesterday night on AIT news and I went …ahh!!!! Now my hopes of her sanitizing the embassies in the country and saving us from their bestiality are all dashed.

News are flying around that her resignation is as a result of Baba’s unrepentant brutal system of carrying out appointments, redeployments, demotions, promotions and reappointments at his witty desire.

Any good faith-seeking leader knows that you just don’t move people away from their area of passion where they deliver excellently and are of best use to the organisation or corporation which they serve without a prior briefing and gaining their consent.

Ngozi was the Minister of Finance and the Head of the Economic team that secured the popular debt relief for our country, Nigeria and in addition has been a good ambassador of the Obasanjo administration. This I know because I have listened to some of her press interviews particularly with Richard Quest of CNN.

The reason (view her resignation letter here) given by the adept former minister is that she will like to attend to pressing family needs. However, many Nigerians believe otherwise. Nigerians believe that the reasons are first her removal from the post of the Minister of Finance which happened 44 days ago and most recently been removed as the Head of the Economic Team, an act that finally broke the camel’s back.

Her removal as head of the Economic Management Team occurred on Tuesday this week while away in London, negotiating another debt pardon for Nigeria There are other insinuations milling around about why she resigned from the Obasanjo cabinet which I have painstakingly presented below for your reading pleasure:

SalStep from the Nigeria Village Square says -
I see a bit of bad belly in all this. Could it be that she is refusing Baba Dauda OBJ's advances? This whole thing stinks.

I find it very hard to believe its all political. Baba no fit shine congo, so don dey witchy the poor woman. This might be a good time to relink that photo of BABA adjusting the headgear of Ngozi.

From This Day Newspaper -
THISDAY also gathered that Monday, the Minister of Finance, Mrs Nenadi Usman had gone to the President to express concerns that few weeks before the 2006 Annual Meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank Group in Singapore, she was yet to be contacted by the Meetings Secretariat.

She was said to have complained to the President that it seems she is yet to be recognised by the two Bretton Wood institutions as the country’s Finance Minister and that both IMF and World Bank may still be thinking that the Finance Ministry was under Okonjo-Iweala and thus be dealing directly with her and undermining her (Usman) responsibilities.

An angry President Obasanjo was said to have immediately taken the decision that Okonjo-Iweala be relieved of her role as the leader of the Economic Team and that her role as the Foreign Affairs Minister be limited to non-aligned movement so that it would be clear to international financial institutions that Usman is now in charge.

Banko from the Nigeria Village Square alleged this reasons -

The unauthorized $34b withdrawal by OBJ brought before the senator, inflated foreign payment challenged when she was the Ministers of Finance she was never a “YES SIR” follow- follow administrator Baba wanted.

Positubosun from the Nigeria Village Square gave alleged this reasons -

There may be a grand strategy to frustrate the woman so that the 'winding up' regime would be able to carry out its satanic agenda of looting the treasury. There are several precedents to this effect.

Let us remember that we are dealing with a very satanic regime.

From This Day Newspaper -

According to information, another reason why Obasanjo had been looking for an opportunity to slight Okonjo-Iweala was as a result of a publication, about two weeks ago, by the London-based Economist Magazine suggesting that the President removed Okonjo-Iweala from the finance ministry because of a last minute effort at looting the treasury.

THISDAY gathered that “though Mr. President had read same story in the local media, he felt slighted and stabbed in the back that Okonjo-Iweala did not make any attempt to correct that impression to the extent that it was now published in the international media.
“The President felt that even if she did not correct the notion when it was published in the local media, if she meant well, she was supposed to have corrected it when it was now being believed and published in the international media”.

Finally, you can view the acceptance of our dear Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s resignation by the presidency here. And just as mentioned in the president's letter, 'we will miss you' Ngozi. Ciao!

Have You Seen Tunde Babalola?

2006-07-28T00:49:00.000-07:00

Life is very funny, the person you dont know they say is only three persons away. I had first seen this caption in my inbox which I received from my secondary school mailgroup. I read it, felt bad, prayed for the family and .........put it behind me.

Only yesterday, I was going through LamikayTy!, Toyin Lamikanra's blog where I got the post below from when I was faced with the fact that the missing person maybe someone I know.

I read from Toyin's blog that missing person's sister is Busola Daodu, and I have a friend named Femi Daodu who attended same secondary school and university and is married to a Busola. I racked my brains to rememebr Busola's maiden name. When I tried Busola Babalola......it seemed like it fitted perfectly.

I was thrown into a brief shock and I immediately sent an offline message to Femi on Yahoo! messenger to ask him about the incident.

This morning as I resumed in the office, booted my laptop and signed in to my Yahoo! messenger, an offline message came up. It was from Femi Daodu, it read
"titi, you are correct, he is Busola's brother."

My worst fears were confirmed. Tunde Babalola is Femi Daodu's brother-in-law. Now, I have to do more than my "feel bad and pray for the family" effort. I am posting the notice on my blog......

Please help in any way you can. You can copy this notice below and forward to your mailgroups, tell your friends about it, tell any influential person yo may have relations with...... Kindly do anything and all you can to help find Tunde Babalola.

The Babalola family has been thrown into anguish and sorrow over their son Tunde, who has been missing since Monday June 19th 2006.

Tunde is the first son of a recently widowed Nigerian mother whose health has been deteriorating as a result of his disappearance. She has been shouldering the responsibility of looking for him without much help from the police, the NYSC and the Enugu state government.

His sister Busola Daodu describes him in these words; "My brother Tunde Babalola is 24 years old, 6 feet tall, light complexioned and slim. He was last seen wearing a black trouser, white shirt and sandals. He has brown eyes and slightly brown hair which he wears in a low cut. He is a Christian and has no facial marks. He goes to cybercafés a lot, and attends the NCCF fellowship and his place of primary assignment -Nkanu East local government - Enugu state, he is a quiet person and doesn't really go out much"

Information available to the family says that Tunde left the NCCF lodge in Emene-Enugu on Monday 19th of June and has not been seen ever since.

In an email conversation over Tunde's disappearance, Tope Ganiyat Fajingbesi who runs the NGO United For Kids Foundation says that "It is sad that Nigeria is at the stage where agencies like the NYSC and the entire government do not realise the enormous responsibility involved with posting citizens on primary assignments, this sort of case should have the Government and NYSC on their feet looking for Tunde because they are responsible for him, since he was in Enugu diligently serving his country, in the light of this lack of responsibility, I beg you, fellow Nigerians, to please help the Babalola family and friends to help find Tunde alive and well", she concluded.

The family though has not given up hope of finding Tunde alive; his passing out parade from the NYSC program is scheduled for next month, and they are holding out hope that their son will come back home, just like other corps members who will be going back to their families after the passing out parade.
The family's major worry is that there is currently no one on ground at Enugu searching for him. Their message is for Nigerians to help spread this news especially to anyone who lives in Enugu state and anyone who can join in the search for this charming young man.

If you have any information as to his whereabouts, please call +234- 8033935720, email temitopef@yahoo.com or contact All Saints Church Yaba, Lagos or the nearest police station.

culled from http://www.nigeriansinamerica.com/articles/1127/1/Have-You-Seen-Tunde-Babalola.html

My Friend's Green Passport

2006-07-13T02:55:00.000-07:00

Hmm.. here we go again

I don’t specifically know what must be going on in my friend's mind, cos she's putting up a strong face I think..., and I think I believe she would be feeling down but she's saying it's not true.

My friend packed her bags from the beautiful city of Jo'burg, South Africa to come home to Nigeria in order to apply for a visa to attend a meeting in the Netherlands billed to hold from July 11-15 where she is to deliver training on the last day and she also decided to use the opportunity to process her Study Permit extension.

She was homebound to Lagos on Sunday, July 2 via a Virgin Nigeria flight. Forgetting she was coming to Nigeria, she planned to go to the embassy on Monday, do an interview on Tuesday and get visa before the end of the week, travel to the Netherlands on Saturday and return to Jo’burg by the next Sunday. She didn't even plan to play with family for a long time during her stay but was forced to courtesy of the Netherlands embassy, they weren't opening visa shop on Monday because of a reason I can’t remember and that meant their telephone line which is the only means for booking appointments was not going through.

Well, considering that my friend is blessed with the Nigeria's tenacity, she pressed on and kept on calling the line which would enter the switchboard, tell you to press 1 for visa purposes, press another 1 to book appointment and hold on for an answer………(which never came for my friend). As I said, she is a Nigerian, so instead of pressing the first 1, she pressed another number for general information.

And the general information given to her was to visit their website or send an e-mail to an address. She chose to pursue her goal further by sending an email to the address begging the person for an interview appointment. Guess what……, she succeed. She was given an appointment via the internet!

I must tell you, even though she didn’t say it, I’m sure she must have felt it was the hand of God and not man. She got an appointment for Wednesday. She flew to Abuja on Wednesday, stayed with me which I enjoyed very much (since I don’t really have friends in Abuja) and attended her interview on Wednesday. She was told to check back the next day for the status of her application.

The next day, she went to the embassy and she was told that she needed to present more documents which could only be received from her on Tuesday. That meant she was stuck in Abuja. She stayed back with me (we had a lovely time together, though I was working on an important project in the office, but we were able to visit an old friend of ours and another of hers).

She went to present the documents on Tuesday and she was again told to check back the next day, Wednesday. I was particularly optimistic that she would get a visa to attend the meeting.
Well dear all, she went to the Royal Dutch (Netherlands) Embassy on Wednesday and her passport was returned to her STAMPED with no visa and with a letter on Refusal of Visa application written in Dutch!

She went back to Lagos today and will deliver her training remotely from Nigeria with the aid of technology.

When will the reign of embassies come to an End in Nigeria???

My Green Passport

2006-07-03T02:38:00.001-07:00

Anyone that works in the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector or understands it will know that there are always conferences every now and then and in different parts of the world.

I had expected that my joining a Non-Governmental Organisation will undoubtedly come with all the goodies of the sector, a major one being Globe Trotting. To be truthful, I really looked forward to all the globe trotting experience I could ever get.

True to my expectations, two months into my joining the organisation, we started preparations for about 15 people to attend a conference which was being coordinated by my organisation and luckily, I was one of them.

I was glad that my plan of attempting to travel abroad only through legitimate means was coming to reality. I actually obtained my international passport in 2004 and since then, I had never presented it in any embassy just because I detested the way Nigerians are treated in embassies particularly the U.K and U.S embassies.

Well, we can say my passport has been what we call a Virgin Passport for the past 2 years since I had no engagement in any other country aside from my home country, Nigeria. My former employers only sent me to Port Harcourt, Warri, Abuja and the streets of Lagos and I looked forward to setting my feet on the soil of another country.

Back to my joining an NGO and being selected to attend the conference. The conference was billed to take place in Enschede, Netherlands and that certainly meant we needed to visit the Netherlands embassy which is situated in Abuja.

We made bookings for appointments at the embassy and we spent money on travel insurance, visa application fee (which was approximately 7,000 Nigeria Naira / application). After all the interviews were conducted, different issues started creeping out, first, they told one secondary school teacher that was being sponsored by one of our funders and lived in Minna to bring his marriage certificate. What connection did that have with him wanting to attend a conference?

On the day we were told to check status of the application, they returned all the students’ passports which we later discovered had been stamped the same day they went for the interview and as we continued going to check status for the remaining applications, they returned more stamped and visaless passports.

When we went for the last but one batch of passports comprising of 3 applications, ……….two visas were granted and one refused. That one was mine.

They had deflowered my virgin passport by adulterating it. I was furious and upon all, they still wanted me to sign one paper or so, of course, I declined.

I once again had no choice but to ponder on Nigeria and Nigerians considering the way these embassies milk billions out of poor and powerless Nigerians and the only thing our government does is to ignore it as if it is the globally acceptable way to do things.

I recently read about the new Minister of Foreign Affairs’ claim to treat this important issue and I pray something concrete that will make us smile comes out of it.

Why must Nigerians experience all the humiliation and degrading treatments from these devious embassies? Why have the embassies become our ‘god’ and critical prayer points in the churches, mosques and other religious worship centres?

I will like to know what you think about this issue. Please drop a comment.

On the March Again

2006-06-13T00:44:00.001-07:00

Today is June 12 - (You have to bear with me, I started writing this yesterday but didn’t finish it until late at night, and I could not upload it from home. I had to do that this morning on getting to the office. I was about laying my excuse for not completing it on time at the feet of workload, but that isn’t in order with my moral fibre. So, I’ll tell you the truth, it was due to sheer laziness… yeah… I get the lazy feeling sometimes….but I had to shake it off and attend to important matters like this blog..)

Well, this day is being marked as Democracy day in some states of the country in commemoration of the June 12, 1993 elections that many Nigerians acclaim was won by Aare Moshood Kashimawo Abiola and the freest and fairest elections ever held in Nigeria, but was annulled by the ruling military government headed by the Evil Genius himself, our very own Maradona, General Ibrahim Gbadamosi Babangida.

The ordinary Nigerian will never know what went on in the powerhouses of the country and their very reason for denying Nigerians the anticipated ruling era of that one in a million business mogul, Chief Abiola a.k.a MKO.

I remember as a young school girl the Television campaigns that ran on almost all the relevant TV stations in the country. And there was one that was the most popular with a song that goes thus:

On the march again (2x)
Nigeria on the march again
Looking for the man to rule (not too sure of this line)
On the march again
MKO, looking is our man oh (2x)

And now June 12, 2006 we are on the march again, looking for the man to rule this blessed country, endowed north, south, east, and west with everything a country can ever wish and pray to God for. We have vast human, natural and material resources which we have left untendered or mismanaged.

We have several candidates lined up and bidding for our vote, reeling out the same lines we have always heard in inauguration speeches in the days when military governments were toppling existing military and civilian governments and recently, when civilians start to campaign for elections.

We are tired of these same old stories. We have only heard words, and as the words increased, we saw fatter bellies, bigger cars, more houses, more trips abroad, more parties and in many of the instances, more wives and concubines.

I just did another analytical thinking session about the unhidden shameful lifestyles of these politicians and do you know that for every Senator, House of Representatives member, state governor, Local Government Chairman, the President and his political appointees and all their allies that dramatically transform into billionaires and multi-millionaires on assumption of office reflects the billions and millions of naira that are siphoned away from their supposedly primary purpose - providing for social developmental needs of the average Nigerian.

We are on the march again and we have to decide what kind of leaders we want for ourselves as Nigerians this time around. You and I can make an effort at deciding that. Simply cast your vote for the woman/man (did those words flow in your mind? Better let them if they did not or else…….) you would want to commit the fate of 120million Nigerians and that of generations unborn to her/his hands. Please don’t waste your vote on candidates that will bribe you and pay us poverty in return.

Your vote counts!!!

Femi Fani Kayode: The Guru-Playa

2006-06-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

I know that by now, our own efficient, promising, uncanny, adept and scheming Femi Fani Kayode will be most glad and shining his teeth (I think I can remember them being very fine and matching his handsome face .......not falling for them, just trying to be nice actually) all over town now and mostly around the Aso villa just in case those who have not fallen for his charm will get another chance to do just that.

Anyways, I'm now getting very interested in Femi Fani Kayode's professional and/or political ambition. I can remember watching this weekly Television programme where he is interviewed by some presenter and he answers every question in profound praises for the Obasanjo administration like he was paid to do it.

I knew my thoughts of him being paid or expecting to be paid for appearing on TV and opening his mouth praising Obasanjo administration without thinking of the words before speaking them was very correct when I saw his name as a Special Assistance to the President.

And now, when I thought his ‘professional fees’ had been fully paid by Baba, I was completely wrong, Femi Fan Kayode still needs to enjoy more of Nigeria’s national cake for his gallant support of President Obasanjo and guess what his ‘professional fees’ are this time,…….Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

What kind of Minster would Mr. Femi Fani Kayode make, a man that is not sure of where he belongs, one minute he was a resolute Obasanjo critic, the next minute he speaks of Obasanjo as if he is as flawless as God. One thing I know for certain is that he is not a man of his person, he is a sycophant and I am sure this is no alien news to any Nigerian.

I think even the Nigerian Senate agrees with me that he is somewhat of a clown, if not, why would there be laughter in the Senate’s chamber and public gallery when his name was mentioned as a ministerial nominee?

I look forward to his performance as a Minister if he is eventually cleared by the Senate and I am sure he will do well in serving jokes since he must have learnt more than enough of it from Baba.

As for me, I strongly recommend Femi Fani Kayode as a Guru-Player, and I will refer every man or woman interested in playing games with hearts, politics, profession, etc. etc. to the master himself, the GURU-Player, Mr. Femi Fani Kayode.

A brief google search on the name Mr. Femi Fani-Kayode and this was what I dug out from the first search page:

From http://aristocratism.blogspot.com/2006/01/femi-fani-kayode-is-chukwumerije-and.html
Now, we have Femi Fani-kayode. A relatively unknown lawyer- whose only qualification for the appointment of Special Assistant to the Very Special assistant- who is also assisting another is being the son of a politician and former deputy premier of the old Western region- Remi Fani-kayode. Whether the president has given the Herculean task of cleaning his Augean Stable to Femi Fani-kayode, Nigerians don't know. But, what we do know is that this Femi Fani-kayode, is rude and he is going to destroy whatever image is left of Obasanjo's regime, if he is not remove from assisting the special assistant.

Recently, Femi fani-Kayode added Prof. Wole Soyinka to his list of those who are not qualified to voice out their opinion on national issues or criticise his boss. .........This same Femi fani-kayode five years ago, never saw anything good with Obasanjo's government and he wrote in the Comet Newspaper, March 18, 2001, titled "Obasanjo May End in Utter Disaster and Shame" in which, amongst many things, he derided Obasanjo for his messianic pretensions.

From: http://www.gamji.com/article5000/NEWS5460.htm

The utterances of Femi Fani Kayode require reflection because they do not seem to come from a person that has received good education and professional training as a government image maker. Furthermore, he lacks sense of democracy that gives citizens the right to self-expression. One will not be surprised because having been recruited by Obasanjo, his assignments must be nasty and devoid of decorum. The venom he spat on Gowon would have been ignored not for the fact that Gowon has to be commended and in doing so reference to Mr. Kayode’s utterances is necessary. His major criticisms of Gowon are that Gowon was not asked for advice on third term bid; that Gowon lacks the right to attack Obasanjo on third term bid because he did not hand over power willingly; and that Obasanjo did not say to any one that he is going for a third term. As an anti-climax, however, he said he respects Gowon because it was him that held Nigeria together!!! These utterances are a reflection of the caliber of people we live within the corridors of power. The statements are simplistic, naïve, idiotic and simply deceitful. No one but his cronies trusts Obasanjo. Thus, the more he swears about a thing, the less it is accepted. This is because of loss of confidence resulting from Obasanjo’s damaged reputation. Currently, Fani Kayode is further compounding the government’s unpopularity.

From: http://www.nigeriancp.net/aremu.html
In fact, Obasanjo as the leader of the members of the institute has carefully picked candidates he is nurturing to further destroy the country. If this is not so, how can one explain the immediate response of unpatriotic and jackass called Femi Fani-Kayode to constructive criticism of Dangiwa?

From: http://nigeriaworld.com/board/viewtopic.php?p=21632&sid=50aa253539492f43a6e35139abc8c94c
This was one of the most brilliant of my results

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Femi Fani-Kayode. I am an ass. I am employed by and am at the service of President Olusegun Obasanjo. In many ways, I am like my father. Long before I came to Aso Rock, I was a fierce critic of my boss and have had reasons to abuse him. Heck, I may have done so without good reasons. Still, he gave me my current job. Today, I am in charge of abusing distinguished Nigerians -- spewing invectives at giants like Professors Achebe, Soyinka and their likes. In addition, it is my duty to deride former presidents and heads of state like the amiable Dr. Yakubu Gowon. You see, my oga is feeble-heated and so I say the things he is afraid to say, do the things he is afraid to do. He is a closet-coward, you know. In other words, I am his attack dog -- a rabid dog with rabies.

You can also check out this page which was recommended by Omoruyi Osagiede http://allafrica.com/stories/200606080523.html

I am not a woman of too many words, but you can see or know who Femi fani-Kayode is in Nigerians' minds.............

It Got Over While Away

2006-05-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

I heaved a deep sigh of relief as I watched the Senate President, Senator Ken Nmamani pronounce that the constitution amendment bill has failed to scale through for a second reading in the house.

And all these happened while I was away on official assignment and did not have a dedicated system to keep you informed of all the nitty gritty happening in the power houses Senate and House of Representative as the debate ensued and till its final demise.

But then, I'm sure you kept up with the news through other means. Did you hear of the N50Million bribe story for senators? The straight 6-year term suggestion by a senator? The non-debate of ALL the other agendas on the 1999 Constitution Amendment Bill?

I also watched President Obasanjo's address his ruling PDP party (PDP.........'share the money!'). Here is an excerpt from the speech which must have been prepared by the eloquent yet garrulous Fani Kayode, a one-time ardent critic of Obasanjo and his government.

Well, for those that might have been missing in action, you can at least catch up by reading this piece from His Excellency, The President of the Federal Rebublic of Nigeria, The Democrat, Nationalist, Statesman and most importantly International Figure, Chief General Olusegun Obasanjo.............. (Applause......)

"When the National Chairman of our party, People's Democratic Party (PDP), decided to call the emergency meeting of the National Executive Committee (NEC), I decided to alter my long-standing programme to be able to address you and, through you, members of our great party and, of course, by extension, the nation.

"The National Assembly as the constitutional and legitimate body for making laws for this country including the supreme law of the land -- the Constitution -- has just concluded as it deemed fit, especially the Senate, the exercise on the amendment to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The outcome is victory for democracy. There is no absolute right and absolute truth except God. And in any argument or debate, there is bound to be an element of right and wrong or truth and untruth on either side. And we must respect each other no matter the human verdict and human foibles. Respect, of course, begets respect.

"At the last NEC meeting, our party took a position as a major stakeholder in the constitution amendment debate, as normal in a democracy. And again, as a democratic party, it did not impose its decision on its members in this respect; no matter what office they hold. Members were allowed to discuss freely and to act or vote according to the dictate of their conscience. That is democracy at work. And it must be hailed in spite of alleged imperfections.

"Many derogatory statements and unfounded allegations have been made about me and my position concerning the so-called third term in the National Assembly and in the media which are false, incorrect and uncalled for. Of course, that is part of burden of leadership in our own type of society. However, I believe that in all situations, decorum must be maintained and different arms of government must perform their functions with mutual respect and dignity.

"Just as the National Assembly and the distinguished and honourable members should be respected, they too must learn to respect others and other institutions. Tolerance is a mark of maturity.

"Throughout the period, I resisted the invitation to be drawn on either side and I maintained studied silence. I was maligned, insulted and wrongly accused but I remained where I am and what I am and I remained focused. However, one thing is clear from the exercise, the constitution has been operated and it stood the test of democracy.

There are some regrettable reports from all accounts that I received, and that is the threat of, or actual use of blackmail, intimidation and violence on both sides. Once debate and discourse are being substituted by intimidation, blackmail, threats and violence, then democracy is in great danger. I have also received allegations of bribery which EFCC is investigating. Apart from these unsavoury allegations, the exercise is another process in the operation of our Constitution. The Constitution should hopefully be strengthened by the process and the exercise that have just been concluded. As a political Party, we should accept the verdict of the National Assembly even though the two Chambers initially concluded differently.
The Constitution must be held hallowed and sacred. And, on the basis of the Constitution in hand, we must start to plan for the next elections.

"I have no doubt in my mind that the acrimony, threats and media excesses that accompanied the constitution amendment exercise, must have created or deepened conflicts and divisions within our Party. As a matter of urgency, Mr. Chairman and members of NEC, I believe that we must embark on fence-mending, soothing of relationships, closing gaps and reconciling and ensuring inclusion wherever possible. Setting up a team of three eminent men and women of great maturity and integrity to carry out the exercise in each zone with the Zonal Vice-Chairman accompanying may be the way to deal with the issues expeditiously within the next two weeks.

"Again, I want to congratulate the proponents and the opponents in our party of the constitution amendment exercise that the National Assembly has just concluded. As a party, we should put the issue behind us, heal the wound of acrimony and together march forward. Once again, it was democracy at work and it was victory for democracy. And all Nigerian democrats are winners.
...................................................................................
Personal Notes.

I think we have watched a film, which was no doubt, very interesting and it has by far beaten the standards of most Nollywood movies.

Whoever cooked it up, wrote the scripts, auditioned and chose the actors and actresses, directed, ensured continuity, took care of props, managed lights and sound, transportation and all location assistants, I say KUDOS. It was a job well done.

You have successfully re-directed the attention of all Nigerians away from whatever valuable stories we should have witnessed and kept our focus on 'the third term saga.'

Now the story is ended, NEXT FILM…........

See how it goes: Obasanjo and Third Term

2006-05-12T04:01:00.000-07:00

I came into my office this morning making up my mind not to talk about the third term saga anymore. But, on carrying out my morning ritual of reading headlines of Nigerian newspapers with global presence, I had a rethink of my plan.

My first visit was to Guardian newspapers and it had a story on the proceedings of the national assembly debate on the constitutional amendment and it was obvious that the hot topic they were focused on and discussing in all of this was the term elongation (a.k.a Third Term) even though, there are other items being considered for amendment in the constitution.

You know, I had planned to just rap away at another topic today, like write a love poem (since I am love sick at the moment) or write on a new topic that has been on my mind for the past week, The World Bank.

But, after reading from the Guardian Newspaper this morning, I made up my mind to delay all of that heart and world bank talks till maybe, the end of this drama.

I want to be able to fill you in on all of the happenings particularly on the floor of the house (since that is where the action is now) and any other developments that come up.

Well, thanks to my blog host, Blogger, I can do all of the above while still being able to write my love poem and other interesting stuffs by starting a new blog on the third term story. So, today, I will be starting a new blog which I call, “See how it goes: Obasanjo and Third term”.

I think the heading clearly identifies the protagonist in this act. I have great faith in his adept acting skills and I will need to tell you to prepare yourself for a ride you've never been on before, because it promises to be rib-cracking(that's what he loves to do most to make sure Nigerians forget about their lacks) and I think full of suspense.

I am sure you will never be disappointed or short of amusement throughout your period of watching this drama. Make sure you always tune in to www.obasanjoandthirdterm.blogspot.com to enjoy the show. Thank you!

The Heart Beat of the People

2006-05-09T04:52:00.000-07:00

I cleared my desk for the week and prepared to go for the usual Friday evening prayer meeting in church. When I got outside my office, a different idea set into my mind and I found myself contemplating whether to board a vehicle to church (spend approx. N700 for a return journey) or go home free of charge by following a senior colleague.

There was a strong battle between my flesh and spirit. Whaoo... the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak, but at the end of the day, The spirit always wins! Shout Halleluyah somebody!

The spirit won and I got on the next cab to attend the church service. At the entrance the flesh set in again, I saw a guy conversing with an usher at the entrance of the church and he was asking series of questions about what was going on inside the church, from the discussion, I discovered that the usual prayer meeting was not holding and the church building was being used as a venue for a special programme.

Oh, oh, I had missed my free ride for a service which was not holding. I stood by till the guy finished with his questioning and with dismay, I asked the usher, can we attend the program? To my amazement he said yes...... but with a but...... I had to register. I was already calculating the remaining money I had in my bag which was what I had left for the weekend, I asked how much it would cost me to register and with a churchly smile, he said.... 'Nothing, just put down your name and address'. I ran to the registration desk, did as was directed and went back to the entrance and the usher ushered me into the church.

I got in and joined in the praise and worship going on, after a while into the service, a man in flowing agbada accompanied by a number of people entered the church from the entrance at the back of the altar. I was able to recognise the man as Prof. Jerry Gana, a member of the Obasanjo cabinet.

Well, the service was fantastic particularly because it was on issues which were of great importance which burns with passion in me – Nigeria. We prayed and prophesied into Nigeria and we had horns to make declarations.

After about three prayer sessions, the main coordinator of the program, Pastor Kure came on and said he would like to introduce someone that was suppose to 'prophetically declare the program open with a message from Mr. President. He called on Prof. Jerry Gana to come up to the pulpit ....few claps and many murmurings from the congregation....

Prof. Gana began his speech, spoke about the guest minister who came in from the U.S and how it was important for us to continue to pray for Nigeria. At a point he mentioned that the President was inviting the guest minister to come to Aso Rock, the presidential villa to attend their monthly prayer meeting, the guest minister stood up and took a bow, .....no reaction from the congregation........

I guess Prof. Gana was astonished at this reaction, he reiterated the message of the president and added that he expected us to rejoice at the mention of Mr. President .......VERY few members of the congregation stood up and clapped....... excluding me.

I looked around the building and saw sullen faces, angry faces, numb looks etc, the atmosphere was COLD. Just with a look, you could decipher what the majority of the people were thinking. Certainly, not good thoughts about Mr. President and most likely not about his acclaimed dividends of democracy either.

I think we got that reaction because we were not a pre-organized crowd and not in a political incited gathering, we were real people, the real Nigerians and we gave the real reaction to what millions of Nigerians think about the impact of our President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo on our country.

That was the heart beat of the people of Nigeria.

Mr. President, please take a pause and feel the pulse.

Nigerians, Shine your Eyes!

2006-05-02T02:23:00.000-07:00

www.motherlandnigeria.com

I just needed to put something down today again on my country. Have you heard about the One-Stop shop for foreign company registration in Nigeria and the visit of the President of China (read more about it here)?

If you ponder on the vast difference in the treatment the Nigerian government metes out to Nigerians and the treatment meted out to foreigners on Nigerian soil, it leaves you to only marvel.

For me, I do not only only marvel, I ask myself a question that I do not know who or where to direct it, but my head (which frequently results in aches in the head) and to you, hoping you would find an answer,

"Who does the Nigerian Government owe its ultimate allegiance to? Nigerians or Foreign Investors?

The Government is working tooth and nail to put all required infrastructure and system in place to make the country conducive for foreign investors and for a desirable International image. This ambition has helped the Obasanjo government to clearly define its priorities and this is reflected in the committees and boards that are set-up, executed/executing projects, commitments made, the pattern of expenditure and the system of justice in the country.

This is why the government can think up a one-stop shop when it comes to the issue of foreign investors in order to ease their stress, but will not have the initiative available to develop at least a three-stop shop for company registration by Nigerians and also build a stadium for N60Billion while neglecting school teachers and university lecturers' request to invest in the eductaion of Nigerians.

The foreign investor is given every opportunity to milk as much as he can from the country's resources, but while making sure he 'shares' the politicians and their allies. The system is tilted to favour all of his moves because he has come as our savior which gives him the right to treat employees at his own discretion (be it crude, cruel or cute).

When the foreign investor has enjoyed all due to him by our government, we, common Nigerians are left to build wings, create a sky and fly on our own. We are advised not say to ourselves, we wait on our Government.

We are not surprised though, because it is clear, the government careth not and maybe knoweth not that we sleep under the bridge, go to school under a tree, drink water from the gutter, beg the foreign investor for food and money on the streets, wear clothes that have been worn by the people of the foreign investor, drive on roads that makes it easy to get killed and live on less than $1 of the foreigners currency per day to mention a few.

Hmm... this makes me cringe. I am scared and wondering if we are not on the way to being sold to Civilized Slavery. There are no obvious sign to provide basic social needs for the 1.3Billion Nigerians that live in this country, instead we only see ostentatious plans that will accommodate the foreign investors, politicians and their allies.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in sourcing for foreign investor at all cost, it sure brings with it many benefits for the economic development of the country, but please, not while neglecting your own growing population and their social needs.

Does the government want the Nigerian citizen to remain poor and helpless so we can beg more, work more, earn less and not question their decisions? Why are there no concrete plans and not just plans but projects being executed to empower every, not some Nigerian citizen to become an independent citizen with the capacity to make choices.

I guess this calls for a sober reflection and I'll say to Nigerians, Shine your eyes!

Much Ado about Third Term

2006-04-21T02:15:00.000-07:00

I was in a really bitter state yesterday. I don't know if any one saw yesterday's This Day newspaper with adverts on the third term bid filling three pages.

I thought an advertisement must be placed by an identifiable sponsor according to Advertising professionals, but i don't think i saw any name or signature of the person or group that sponsored that advert.

My own summation: The Presidency

I am getting more and more infuriated with Obasanjo (click here to see what he looks like) and his unrepentant sycophants who refuse to open their eyes, ears and minds, but are only interested in their bellies (May God do unto them as they do to the common Nigerian!).

At the onset of the third term drama, I was unsuspecting of baba (President Obasanjo) thinking it was only some group of people wagging their tongues, until several events began to unfold. Topmost of all was the constitution review, then the witch hunting of everyone, group or institution that seemingly was against the third term bid and now, they are extending it to governors and using the avenue of the media to cajole Nigerians into this unjust act.

Now I strongly believe with no aorta of doubt in my mind that our dear Baba Obasanjo has always wanted this, and I would not even be surprised if his real plan is to become a Life President and like Tinubu said in a speech, the government wants to rule Nigerians under a civilian dictatorship.

The claim of the pro-third term (rather, pro-Obasanjo) people from my assessment so far is ONLY to ensure continuity of the economic reforms going on in the country.

Where are we going as Nigerians, do we mean that governmental frameworks will always disintegrate with the emergence of a new government. What is the primary function of returning officers in every executive set-up, is it not to ENSURE THE CONTINUITY OF PROGRAMS? So what exactly are these dump pro-Obasanjo peole saying, if Obasanjo is not there, all positive developmental programs of the country will die or what?

They should please go back to what they were doing before the emergence of their cruel plans to reinstitute Obasanjo for a third (or fourth) presidency term.

At this point, I see Obasanjo as a very sly person, I am sure you are asking if I have been blind all this while. Well, I am a very trusting person and I take people for what they say and appear to be but with the drama so far, whaoo.... I don't even know who is a better dribbler, Babangida or Obasanjo.

The reason I am saying this is because, I even more suspect another ploy to this whole third term episode, I think Obasanjo wants to gain a high level of credibility with the international community. He may not go in for a third term and he will affirm that after much persuasion and even though he had the opportunity and full support of all Nigerians, he CHOSE not to vie for a third term. Hmmm... I think I should become a political strategist, seems like I have the mind of one.

As for him returning a fourth time as Nigeria's president, it is a NO WAY TO GO FOR NIGERIA!!!!! He should please return to his farm after May 29, his chickens are missing him dearly.

Gone too Long

2006-04-19T00:38:00.000-07:00

The date of my last post was March 28, whaooo! that was just much too long and many waters have passed under the bridge over this time.

I left my place of residence, Abuja on March 29 to travel to Lagos to sit for an examination which was expected to start on March 31 and last for a week and then start some work on my functions in my office like going to offices to introduce the organisation and delivering our letters of introduction.

The funny thing about the exam I was going to write was that I did not have the materials I needed to study for the exam. So on getting to Lagos, the first thing I did was to go to the school where the courses are taught to pick up my materials. I was on my way going when someone accosted me and asked if I knew the exams had been postponed till the next week? I was............ lost for words........, I didn't know what to say, I just muttered I think some curses to the school under my breadth for doing such a thing and without any notice to the students which was a sign of No Respect at all!!

I don't know if this happens to all people that commit themselves to being students just in order to acquire some more knowledge than the basics you get from a first degree. I commit my self to knowledge and I am being made vulnerable to all administration of the institution and even to some riff-raffs that take too much pride and flex too many muscles just because they are (un)fortunate to be employees of the institution.

Anyways, I have had to read, and read and read and sleep only a little and even then with my head spinning around what I have read and that gave me NO time to post anything on this blog. If I had wanted to, I needed to go to a cybercafe which is a 5mins walk away from my house, that meant 10mins of walking and one hour of browsing totalling one hour 10mins of reading time which I could not afford to spare.

Well, I will still keep to my promise of not abandoning this blog.

Dear blog, I stick with you!!!!

Application Result

2006-03-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes last year, I received a very interesting e-mail indicating an exciting opportunity to participate in a program on Democracy and Development organised by the Stanford Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law to hold at the Stanford Institute for International Studies.

As soon as I saw it, there was an adrenaline surge in my system particularly when I noticed there was even the possibility of sponsorship. I quickly went to the site, scanned through it, downloaded the application form and printed it out.

I read through it studiously as if I was going to write an examination on it and started providing answers to the questions asked in the form. The application took me two weeks to complete as I was taking my time and applying extra care to make sure I was giving brilliant responses.

The application process required me to provide three references and without any delay, I contacted the people in my life that I thought really fitted into the role of referring me so I can take part in the program.

I completed the whole application process and mailed my application form to the center's email address and then ............. I prayed, wished, hoped and eagerly checked my email every morning hoping to see the reply that will make my dream come true. Days and months passed by and finally, this morning I received this email from the center.

March 23, 2006

Dear Applicant,

We regret to inform you that you were not chosen to participate in the Stanford Summer Fellows on Democracy and Development Program to be held at Stanford University in August 2006.

The pool of applicants was extraordinarily competitive and there were many more deserving candidates than we were able to accept. In total, we received more than 700 applications for 25 spaces in the program. The overwhelming majority of applicants were from individuals with outstanding civic and policymaking records It was extremely difficult to reach admissions decisions and we assure you that your application received careful attention by our selection committee.
Once again, we would like to express our appreciation for your interest in the program. We would welcome your application to our program next year.

We will include your contact information on our mailing list and will send you information about future initiatives of the Summer Fellows Program and its sponsoring institution, the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at the Stanford Institute for International Studies.

We wish you success in the much-needed work that you are doing towards better governance and prosperity in your community and your country.

My heart was very heavy and em.. em.... (I didn't cry sha). When the state of my mind came back to its normal analytical state, I thought to myself that all my anxiety on attending a program outside Nigeria (and in the U.S for that matter) might have been generated from my typical Nigerian spirit of wanting to step outside the shores of the country at all cost.

But, to be sincere, I certainly look forward to stepping outside the shores of this country to visit the developed countries and have a feel of what life is like there.

Having missed the opportunity to be on the Stanford Program, I now quietly, patiently, without undue anxiety and stress and with utmost contentment (not satisfaction) in my country, await that beautiful day when I will jet out of Nigeria to a developed country (to visit only!).

There is no place like home.

Census Advocate

2006-03-22T06:40:00.000-08:00

Just for once, I made up my mind to be optimistic about our (Nigerians) abilities in planning and preparations. I was all for the Census exercise, so much that I took it upon myself as a self-appointed advocate to answer questions and handle objections from people who had issues with it.

I was very pleased with the efforts of the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Samu’ila Makama when a trial census was conducted between 29th August to 2nd September 2005 to serve as a dress rehearsal for the actual census exercise which was billed to commence March 21 and end March 25, 2006.

So far, I think my hopes in Nigeria are being successfully dashed again with the turns this census exercise is taking since the past weeks till now. First was the rampage by the recruited enumerators, burning properties to protest the non payment of their wages and now, there are more than enough issues that make me, a self-appointed advocate of Census 2006, to be more confused than Chief Makama.

I no longer understand the process of the exercise even though it has been officially flagged off and expected to have started in various states, I can't see any enumerator or NPC vans on the streets and I can't see anybody being counted, not even me, their Advocate.

One of the factors I presume might be responsible for all of these is the lack of clarification of 'where to be' during the period of the census. People like me are not sure whether to stay at home or go to work because in our usual confused state, information was sent, maybe leaked out that there will be a sit-at-home order for the period of the census and I heard this was to be declared by President Obasanjo. Oh, maybe it was still in its proposal stage before Uncle Sege and his media assistants did a bad job of leaking it out, what more do we expect anyway, with people like the loquacious Fani Kayode.

To get full information on how the first day of the census went in most states so you'll know how broken my Advocacy heart was, I leave you to this article from the Guardian Newspapers -

Census in slow start, officials demand pay
By Our Reporters

THE quest for an accurate population figure for Nigeria census began yesterday albeit on a shaky note. And the feeble start was traceable principally, to logistics problems.
Economic and social activities were paralysed in Lagos and Ogun States, where restriction was imposed on human and vehicular movements. But the residents idled away for much of the day because the officials of the National Population Commission (NPC), who were to conduct the exercise, were not noticed until much later in the day.
Up till yesterday evening, census enumerators and supervisors were still bickering with the state NPC officials over the non-payment of their training allowances.
In other states, the census materials arrived late, thereby delaying the deployment of the officers.
It was essentially in the evening, that the officials began to work, giving an indication that the exercise would be smoother today. The headcount ends on Saturday.
In Oshodi/Isolo Local Council of Lagos, counting started late in some Enumeration Areas (EAs) and did not take place in most others.
From as early as 8 a.m. till late in the afternoon, the co-ordinators and supervisors were still collecting the census materials while the enumerators queued for their training allowances.
The co-ordinators and supervisors lamented that the first day of the five-day census exercise was used in the distribution of materials to them. They complained that the distribution ought to have been completed three days before the actual headcount.
While the co-ordinators waited to collect the materials, thousands of enumerators were in long queues to receive their N5,200 training allowance. The payment, which according to some of the enumerators had been going on day and night for the past four days, started about 10 days after the end of the training.
One of the co-ordinators said: "We were supposed to have received the materials three days ago. This is to allow us enough time to distribute the materials to the supervisors, who will then pass them down to the enumerators. The enumerators were also supposed to have concluded the listing of the houses and completed the necessary forms before the actual headcount. Now, they will do the listing with the headcount."
Despite the delay in collecting their allowances, the enumerators had a difficult time finding their supervisors. Most were seen carrying aloft boards inscribed with the names of their supervisors. Others kept reading aloud the names and hoping to run into them.
Decrying the poor logistics, a supervisor at the council said: "This census cannot go on if the enumerators are not paid their allowances. They are the people to do the actual counting, and they are still fighting to collect their allowances on the first day of the census."
It was discovered that some policemen deployed to control the crowd of enumerators opted to benefit from the confusion. They charged the frustrated enumerators between N200 and N500 to enable them jump the queue.
Two days earlier, a pregnant woman on the queue was rushed to the hospital with a threatened abortion. And angry enumerators had also gone on rampage breaking window louvres.
In some places, verification and clearance exercise were still going on till noon for enumerators and supervisors involved in the census. The development made the exercise to take off very late in areas such as Ogba, Agege, Aboru, Surulere, Mushin and Ikorodu areas of the state, where people stayed at home in obedience to the government order.
At Ifako-Ijaiye council area, hundreds of the enumerators were seen milling around as at 1 p.m. yesterday. While some are looking for their supervisors to lead them to their enumeration area, others were seen clutching clearance papers, needed to obtain their identification cards, a requirement for the collection of their training allowance.
One of the enumerators who spoke with The Guardian said many had gone back home frustrated, as they could not get clearance despite having their names on the approved list. He alleged that political parties might have hijacked the exercise as many strange faces that never participated in the training were seen collecting registration materials.
He added that over 40 per cent of officials were yet to collect their training allowance 24 hours after the NPC chairman, Chief Samila Makama's order to the affected banks to effect payment.
But the Lagos State NPC Director, Mr. J. O. Ajayi, told The Guardian that much of the blame for the late take-off of the exercise should be put at the doorstep of the local councils.
According to him: "All materials for the house numbering/household listing, as well as the headcount questionnaires had been dispatched to all local government councils over two weeks ago. What might have got to them today was only the bags, which we collected only yesterday, and started distributing immediately.
He debunked the speculation that the exercise might have been hijacked by political parties, saying that that was absolutely impossible.
Lagos State governor, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was delighted yesterday, with the residents' compliance with his stay-at-home-order.
Commercial activities were paralysed throughout the 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. period, within which Tinubu insisted that all residents should stay indoor to be counted.
Expectedly, markets, shops, fuel stations, banks and other business outfits were locked while the roads were free of traffic. A trip from Ikotun, a suburb of Lagos to Oshodi took barely 25 minutes, and security operatives were absent on the streets.
While the roads were free of traffic, some stranded passengers were seen at bus stops, apparently praying to be lucky to catch a ride, while a few of them trekked to their destinations.
At the Idimu bus stop however, hoodlums blocked the road, trying to extort money from the few vehicles that were still rushing to get to their destinations before 8 a.m.
The Guardian learnt that counting exercises did not take place in many places in Lagos.
Lack of materials coupled with non-payment of the allowance of enumerators kept the headcount at a low pace in many parts of the Lagos metropolis yesterday. Many residents who were eagerly waiting for the census officials complained that they had not seen the NPC officials.
As at 5 p.m., no official of NPC had shown up in Surulere, Kosofe, Somolu, Mainland and other parts of Lagos.
Tinubu, his wife, Remi, and members of his household were counted at exactly 10 a.m. officially kicking off the exercise in the state.
Apparently determined to ensure the success of the exercise, chairmen of some local governments complemented the efforts of the NPC by paying additional N2,500 for the enumerators. It was after this was done at 5 p.m. that enumerators moved out in droves to different parts of Lagos for the headcount.
Despite the shortcoming of the opening of the exercise, Tinubu and his Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Dele Alake, appealed to residents to stay in their house between 8 a.m. and 4 p.m. in the evening so that they could participate in the exercise.
Tinubu said the exercise was important especially for Lagos State, which he claimed had been cheated in terms of the true number of its population. The exercise, if successfully carried out, Tinubu said, would help in planning and distribution of social amenities in the state. He later went round to monitor the exercise.
While thanking the residents for obeying the stay-at-home order, Alake said it was meant to ensure that everybody in the state had the opportunity to be counted.
Alake restated the decision of the state government to sanction any organisation that went against the order and open its organisation for business.
The headcount did not start yesterday at Alagbado, Meiran, Ijaiye and Abule-Egba areas as census officials did not get there.
Citizens who had eagerly awaited their coming were disappointed at the end of the day when no census official was seen as at 3 p.m.
Policemen at the Meiran Division Police Station who had been placed on alert by the DPO, Mr. Bashir Ade-Ifanola, loitered around their station awaiting the officials, who did not come as at 3 p.m.
A visit to the Agbado/Oke-Odo Local Development Centre, an arm of Alimosho Local Council, revealed deserted offices and premises. The policemen there claimed that they were waiting for census officials from Ikotun headquarters of the local government.
At Ikotun, the payment to the officials was still being sorted out as at 11.30 a.m. with most of them still awaiting their pay. Council officials are finding it hard to cope with the payment, which is apparently very clumsy. Alimosho Local Government is the largest council in Lagos State.
Due to non-availability of working materials, the people of Gwarzo council of Kano State were left out of the nationwide head count.
When The Guardian monitored the exercise at Gwarzo yesterday, it was observed that the headcount was put on hold due to the absence of basic working materials like forms MPC 07 and MPC 07M necessary for the numbering and listing of households in the council.
The development forced scores of NPC supervisors and enumerators to idle away at the council's secretariat complex.
The exercise took off yesterday on a shaky note in Ibadan, Oyo State capital and its environs. Inadequate preparations by officials prevented enumerators from conducting the exercise on the first day while some started work late in some local government areas when officials were seen around 2 p.m. going for duty.
Yesterday's exercise was marred by logistics problems following the inability of the officials of the NPC to pay the training allowances of the ad-hoc workers. Some of the workers insisted on collecting their allowances before going out for the exercise.
Yesterday afternoon when The Guardian visited the Port Harcourt City Council several enumerators were seem there demanding enumeration maps for the areas that they had been assigned to cover.
Some of the enumerators attributed their not being on the field as at 1 p.m. to their inability to collect their transport allowance. Hundreds of enumerators had taken to the streets of Port Harcourt and Emohua to protest against the non-payment of their transport allowances last weekend.
The problem, which persisted till yesterday was however averted in places like Bonny, Andoni and Opobo due to the intervention of the Rivers State Governor, Peter Odili. He released money for the payment of enumerators last Sunday following the refusal of banks to pay that day.
The census took off in Ekiti State yesterday on a shaky note.
A visit to Ado-Ekiti, Ikere, Ikole, Gboyin and Ekiti East Local governments by The Guardian revealed that the exercise was just taking off in some parts of the council areas.
Some of the census officials complained of shortage of materials.
The state governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose and his deputy, Chief Biodun Olujimi, were counted at the Government House at about 11am in the presence of the state Resident Federal Commissioner of NPC, Mohammed Tongo Ahmed.
In Nasarawa State, census officials led by Abdullateef Ejijojo registered the state Governor, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu and his household at noon at the Government House, Lafia.
The governor advised enumerators in the state to simplify questions on the census data forms so as to encourage communication between them and local residents.
The governor made the appeal after he was subjected to various questions about his household and his home.
"You have to find a way of breaking down your questions so that you do not run into problems with the local people. This way, the exercise will go on smoothly. I want to assure you that the state is fully prepared for the exercise", Adamu observed.
Though it took over one hour for the governor alone to complete the registration, he said the stipulated five days was enough to complete the exercise nationwide.
Ebonyi State was calm on the first day of census after the initial confusion that attended the payment of NPC ad hoc staff at Ohaukwu local government area of the state.
Governor Sam Egwu, who declared a two-day public holiday for the census was counted at exactly 10.30 a.m. at his Umuebe country home alongside his wife, Eunice.
Speaking to reporters after the exercise, Egwu, noted that the state was upbeat for a credible headcount, saying that this was the first time the state was getting involved in the population census.
He said: "The exercise is specifically important to our state as we have always relied on estimated population since the creation. We have put all necessary measures in place so as to ensure that all persons in the state get counted".
Meanwhile, most political actors and stakeholders resident in the state capital left for their villages to mobilise their people for the census.
Specifically, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Christopher Omo Isu, in a statement mandated all members of the Assembly to ensure that every member of their constituency was enumerated.
The exercise could not begin yesterday in Kaduna State owing to continued violent demonstrations by enumerators over the non-payment of their N5200 training allowance.
In one instance, the NPC Federal Commissioner for Kaduna State, Dr. Ufot Asibong-Ibe was almost mobbed by angry enumerators protesting in front of the Sir Kashim Ibrahim Government House, the official residence of the state governor.
Asibong-Ibe's convoy of four cars unknowingly ran into the protesters who had blocked the road leading to the Government House despite the presence of a combined team of fully armed security agents.
The protesters carrying leaves and shouting "barayo" (thieves), and "ba' census went wild and pelted stones and other missiles at a convoy of cars conveying the NPC commissioner and other officials.
The NPC however escaped unhurt as drivers of the cars skilfully sped away from the scene of the protest.
In a relaxed atmosphere, officials of the NPC led by the Federal Commissioner, Ondo State, Dr. Timothy Sule, enumerated Governor Olusegun Agagu, and his wife, Olufunke, at the Government House, Akure, yesterday morning.
The governor, spotting a yellow NPC shirt and white fez cap, after performing the civic responsibility, said if the enumerators worked hard based on the number deployed for the exercise, they would accomplish the mission within the time-frame.
Agagu, who urged residents to ensure they were counted, said the reliable data expected at the end of the housing and population census, was important for planning purposes. He said it was necessary so that governments at all levels - federal, states and local governments - could be run in a planned way.
According to him, honest answers to the types of questions asked by the enumerators, will enable the government to know the status of human beings for now and a projected period of time, as this is necessary for their socio-economic growth.
In Abeokuta, apart from late arrival of materials at the co-ordinating centres, the exercise went on without hitches.
The NPC Commissioner in Ogun State, Alhaji Ibrahim Khalil Aliu led a team of enumerators to count the State Governor, Gbenga Daniel and his wife, Olufunke, at the Isale-Igbein Government House. Their children were not around. When the governor was asked his occupation, he replied: "I am the Chief Messenger of Ogun State." When Daniel was again asked whether he was schooling, his answer was: "I am in the school of politics."
In an interview with reporters later, he appealed to the people of the state to stay at home so as to be counted.
"In 1991, the census exercise put the population of our state at 2.3 million. I am hoping that this time around the figure that will be recorded in the state will be acceptable", he said.
Daniel added: "I am hoping that there will not be any controversy over any figure that will be arrived at"
The census kicked off yesterday in Cross River State in a poor note.
As at noon yesterday most of the enumerators in Calabar South and Calabar Municipal were seen in large numbers in different locations without enumeration materials.
In Calabar South, some of the enumerators blocked the streets demanding the payment of their allowances while a set of youths in a blue Kombi bus drove around parts of Calabar saying "no census in Calabar south".
The scene was rowdy as the youths in the Kombi bus encountered the police in a shoot-out at Ekpo Abasi junction near the Cross River State University of Technology (CRUTECH).
However no casualty was recorded.
No major reason was given for the youths calling for no census in Calabar South but sources said this may not be unconnected with the non-payment of enumerators allowances as was the case in Odukpani on Sunday when the Calabar -Itu Highway was blocked and traffic delayed for hours.
By yesterday evening, the exercise was yet to begin in Benue State. NPC officials battled desperately to convince enumerators that their allowances would be paid at the completion of the exercise.
Benue NPC National Commissioner, Mr. Peter Otaigbe told reporters at Makurdi that the delay was due to payment discrepancies which, he claimed, had been sorted out.
He said that top NPC officials from Abuja stormed the state to correct a series of anomalies connected with the authentic enumerators' lists that sparked off protests across the state.

Girls and Pepsi

2006-03-20T04:31:00.000-08:00

I remember in my high school days, most times in the third year, many of the boys start to develop sensual feelings for girls and girls for boys and it was always easy for the boys to express their feelings for the girls according to the ancient dictates of the society.

The boy who has feelings for a girl would devise different means to communicate this. One of the popular devise, especially if the boy was in a senior class, is what I named the 'Savior Mechanism'.

With the savior mechanism, the boy would connive with his friend(s) to pick on the girl. This included punishing her for just and unjust causes, including her name in the list of offenders, giving her larger portions of grass to cut during manual labor and harder beatings during the usual once in a week belting, slapping, 'whozzing' or 'raking' (these are some of the forms of corporal punishment that existed in my high school) sessions.

During the girls' travail, the boy suddenly shows up from out of the blues, like a superman pleading on behalf of the girl and even offering to help her with her loads of added responsibility indirectly inflicted by this same boy unknowingly or knowingly to the girl.

After a while (mostly when the boy tells his friends to end the scheme), the friend(s) will claim to be releasing the girl only based on the boy's pleadings and the girl will have to go and say thank you to the boy and I think that automatically puts her in a vulnerable position. Whao!, see the use of psychology by these small boys.

From there, the boy develops an interaction with girl, popping into her class during class hours, afternoon preps and night preps to chat in the course of which he will toast her (ask her out). If the girl accedes and falls in love with this 'Voltron, Defender of her Universe', you will begin to see the duo together always gisting around the school premises if they are innocent and otherwise, around dark corners and class inner rooms doing more than just gisting.

What amuses me most is that this mechanism has been in use by for a long time and girls have never ceased to fall for the method.

Now to the girls' side.

As stated earlier, it has always been easier for a boy to express his feelings for the girl, but going the other way round could be really funny. Like I remember a classmate who had a non-mutual feelings for a guy in our class and she just didn't know how to communicate the feelings, but we would giggle about it among other girlfriends and tease her about the guy.

We would occasionally code our words because none of us could openly agree or discuss having a crush on a guy or falling in love. So, instead of saying crush, which is also the name of a popular branded orange soft drink in Nigeria, we would substitute the word for Pepsi. Which means, if any girl had a crush on a boy, she would say, I have a Pepsi for ........... .

As a teenager, growing up was somewhat a funny experience, i guess this is courtesy of my too serious nature. Whenever, I was asked by my girlfriends if I had a Pepsi for any guy, my natural answer was No (which was the absolute truth), they would try to attach me to a guy they know is probably getting close to me and I would automatically from there cut all strings with the guy and return all of his greetings or pet talks with cold shoulders. This definitely kept the guys at arms length.

Well, in my over twenty-something years of existent, I think my girlfriends can have a good laugh as I can finally accept and say Yes, I have had a Pepsi for a guy and this happened not too long ago.

I am very happy I am experiencing this at my present age because I didn't go the way of my girlfriends at their vulnerable age when they would do anything to be around the guy or connect him to themselves, even going to the extent of saying he is their cousin and this usually made them the laughing stock of the whole school.

As a big girl, I guess I handled my Pepsi perfectly well, since nobody, not even the guy has the slightest clue that I had (or is it have) a Pepsi for him.

Take me to Trust

2006-03-17T04:41:00.000-08:00

At every second of the day, there are always so many things running around my mind and brains. I am someone you can describe as analytical. I see deep into situations around me and ponder on them. In the process, sometimes, I come up with poems, write-ups and so on, and at times, I come up with a headache.

I will be sharing some of the outcomes of my pondering sessions. This one came out of pondering on my life plans for the future, my expectations, anxiety and how God would love me to handle situations like this.

I titled it Take me to Trust and it goes thus:

I fluster, shiver, and puzzle
Not sure of what to do
Not sure of where to go
Too many information to process and choose from
Too many advices from well and ill-meaning friends and family
I ask myself, what step should I take
Where will it lead me to?
How should I start?

I wonder if I will be happy or sad
Content or discontent, successful or unsuccessful
I guess there are too many options available
Each bidding, 'come to me'
I wish I can see what lies ahead each of the choices
That it may advise my decision

I look at the people around me
Not sure who to turn to
Who to believe or rely on
Not sure of who they are
Be they sycophants, opportunists, fraudsters or angels
I know not

I looked around for help
Looked north, found none appealing
Looked south, saw none rewarding
Looked east, discovered it wasn't worth looking
Looked west and completely lost hope

I came to a LOST state
Not knowing which way to go or who to turn to
I wandered around a spot
Rivelling in my lost world

While I remained at my lost spot
A word came filtering to my mind
Like a cleansing vapour
Reaching down to my innermost ache

The words remain clear till this day,
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And lean not on your own understanding
In all your ways acknowledge him
And He will direct your path”

I absorbed all the words and realised
I can always trust God
To always lead me on the right way
Sensing a release, I said within my soul

Take me to Trust
That I may believe and never question
Any path you take me through
Any turning you lead me to
And any pause you make me experience
Knowing that I am on the path
To a most rewarding and fulfilling life.

Lord I pray, Take me to Trust.

Another Start

2006-03-17T04:38:00.000-08:00

I had actually created my first blog earlier in the year, but only posted once in it. I tried to continue from where I had paused today but just can't seem to make any headway so, I decided to start all over again. And now, I have a new blog which I seriously intend to maintain and update regularly with all the tingerings and lingerings that go on in my mind about everything ranging from emotional thots to religious thots to political thots and even money thots.

I intend to have a lovely time writing my posts in this blog as I expect you'd have a lovely time reading them as well.

This is another blog start for me and it will be my best till I have a new one when I join the United Nations (working with the UN is actually my dream job) and then I will blog about working with the UN.

Till then sha, let's maintain this one while I keep up with my dreams.