The Mirror We Refuse to See: Leadership Starts With Us
Look Ever Forward
The Ikenga’s in Museums Around The World: Reflections on the African Art Artefacts Debate
The Evolution of Morality: From Achan
There is a mousetrap in the house
Lying At Bethesda
At the place of kindness in Old Jerusalem, Bethesda, was a pool. Here lay a man, who for 38 years, was afflicted with paralysis.
For 38 years, he had coped with the challenges of everyday living arising from his condition – movement was ardous and slow. Some time, within those 38 years, he looked at his past, his present and future and concluded that a solution to his paralysis was necessary if he were to live a meaningful life. We weren’t told of the options he had considered but we know he ended up taking a spot at the place of kindness. What made the pool at Bethesda special was that the waters of the pool get stirred by an Angel but the efficacy of this renewal was just for only one individual, the one that gets in the water first thereafter, to be made whole.
He was focused, determined and was aware of the times and seasons. He wanted no handouts, no pity, nothing else but healing. But, he was not alone. Around that pool at Bethesda were many others with different life issues ailing them. There could have been other paralytics as well but these other competitors for the kindness that gives healing were not hindered in their ability to move. This much was revealed in his statement of self pity “while I am going, another steps down before me.”
Why he persevered and kept hope alive is beyond understanding as one should ask, ‘ realising his inability and the superior prowess of the others, what was he still doing by the pool?’ Jesus saw him and knew his story, understood his needs but still went ahead to ask him first “Do you want to be healed?”
The question could be considered unnecessary since Jesus already knew but in asking, he established communication with the man so that the work of miracle he was about to do could be meaningful and enduring. Yes, I want to be healed was all he should have said but he has had it and would like this stranger standing before him to know that his being by the pool was not for a fluke. He answered “Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, and while I am going another steps down before me.”
One can say he expressed the hopelessness of his situation. In popular palace, many would be right to regard him a fool, afterall doing the same thing, in the same way, over and over again expecting a different outcome is what foolishness means. One should then ask why was he the one that Jesus directed his question to? As we did agree, there were others of his ilk lying there, at Bethesda, so why not others or why not to everyone of them?
There probably is no better answer than saying that the man’s resoluteness in a hopeless situation must have been known to the Saviour who then decided it was time to make a way where there was no way for the paralyzed man. In essence, the same thing that others had termed foolish was the one thing that brought mercy to him .
Could we also then say, Mercy is not for everyone? Afterall Jesus did not heal any other invalid at that pool on that day? Also, remember, the refreshing of the pool by the Angel was just that only one invalid, the one that gets in first, be healed, not everyone. Well, the Lord himself answered this question when he said to Moses “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy”. Here was a man in need, he did not cry out like the two blind men in Jericho did, saying “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” He did not get on a treetop like Zaccheous before Christ’s mercy found him. He did not follow Jesus around, hoping to touch the helm of his garment as the woman, up north in the region of Galilee, with the issue of blood did.
We could conclude, without being wrong, that up until that day, our man, perhaps, was not aware that there was a living, breathing saviour walking amongst men, healing the sick and setting the captives free. If he did, he wouldn’t have kept on at the pool in Bethsaida and would most likely have asked to be carried before Christ as the four men did with the paralytic whose sins Jesus Christ forgave. What we know is that, where he was, in the hopelessness of all situations, he that carries the annointing that breaks the yoke found him and healed him.
How do these pertain to us? Well, there is one lesson that we need to walk away with – mercy is only of God, it is not by any work that we do. It is God that dispenses mercy as he finds suitable. Why he does so and the yardstick he uses in doing so, we do not know. Not even the foremost Apostle, Paul, knows as he simply concludes that the potter has a right of what to make from a lump of clay – a vessel to honour or dishonour.
How do these pertain to us? Well, there is one lesson that we need to walk away with – mercy is only of God, it is not by any work that we do. It is God that dispenses mercy as he finds suitable. Why he does so and the yardstick he uses in doing so, we do not know. Not even the foremost Apostle, Paul, knows as he simply concludes that the potter has a right of what to make from a lump of clay – a vessel to honour or dishonour.
So, relax. If you are deserving of our Lord’s mercy, at his time, he will find you out and bestow it on you. Till then, keep the faith alive.
Could God have given us brains but not want us to use them?
Schadenfreude
I heard the frogs croak
That candles be brought
To light our paths in these dark hours
Being my response to a planned protest by certain members of the Nigerian Association of Western Australia, planned for 30th September 2021 in Perth.
Having a dissenting opinion is not a ground for us to be uncivil. As such, I will like to crave the indulgence of all on this forum that may disagree with the thoughts that I will be expressing below, to be civil in expressing their disagreements. With that said, please find below my thoughts regarding this planned protest:
All foreign interests in Nigeria are exploitative, no nation comes to Nigeria (and none ever will) out of being magnanimous to help Nigeria become better. So, nobody is going to build Nigeria apart from Nigerians themselves – you and I.
Being convinced that we need to begin with the end in mind, I ask, what is the intent of this planned demonstration against bad leadership in Nigeria, on the streets of Perth? Is it to cause the Australian government to intercede in Nigeria? To levy sanctions against Nigeria or what?
I don’t know the answers that the organizers have but I struggle to understand how this planned demonstration will do Nigeria or her citizens any good. First, except there is an economic incentive, no government will intercede in the running of Nigeria. Second, if ever, sanctions are levied (which will not happen because of the exploitative relationship), I still don’t see how the common man on the streets of Ibadan or Auchi is well served. However, if the intent is to increase the level of despise the average Australians have for Nigerians, this is definitely a great way to achieve that. So let’s go ahead.
On a wall in an alley in downtown Perth I came across this inscription “Every country has the government it deserves.” I agree. Our government is a reflection of the larger majority of Nigerians. We won’t vote, we won’t volunteer for office, yet we want “the government of heaven on earth” but not one akin to that of Sat Guru Maharaji as one enters Ibadan! Where does this ever happen?
As Jesus asked those that were about to stone the woman caught in adultery, may I say that for anyone amongst us to have a moral standing to protest, such a person must have voted in the last elections. If your argument is that you have been away from Nigeria that long, please show that you have voted in previous elections while you resided in Nigeria. Now, the list of protesters has suddenly grown smaller.
This call for protest is against bad leadership in Nigeria. Peradventure, have we considered protesting against bad followership? Good governance doesn’t happen overnight, it requires two things, which we were taught in our Social Studies classes in secondary school – (a) Citizens must actively participate in electing their leaders and (b) they must hold their leadership to accountability. In these two responsibilities of a citizen, many of us have failed. We don’t hold leadership accountable by protesting in Perth, we hold each level of leadership accountable by asking them to account for their actions.
We all have elected representatives in the House of Representatives and the Senate. Recently, these people voted to deny the electoral commission (INEC) the power to transmit results of elections electronically. As members of the diaspora, this should be concerning. Fortunately, we do know how each member of the house voted and thus have enough data to hold them accountable for their vote. Did we get back to our representatives asking them to explain why they voted the way they did? Are we noting these self-serving acts against the time they come again for re-election? These are the simplest things we can do to ensure we have the right leadership and yet, we leave them undone.
All the cries are about Buhari this, Buhari that. However, the majority of issues that affect us as a people are best addressed at our local level – the LG and states. The bad roads within Enugu affects the common man more than the bigotry in Abuja. The youth joblessness in Oshogbo is something within the powers of Gboyega Oyetola to fix. Each month, the FAAC meets in Abuja and money is doled out to the states. When Rivers State receives its allocation plus the 13% derivation, what does it do with it? Has the Ikwerre man looked into why the roads in Port Harcourt are in the sorry state and the once enviable garden city has become so dirty? Do we know and relate with our Councillor, our local government chairman, our governor ….. in that order? We surely don’t but we are quick to jump all these and put the blame in Abuja.
What have we learnt regarding the open grazing issue? We have learnt that most of our issues can be fixed at the local level. After crying against it and with Abuja offering deaf ears, what smart states have done is to institute laws prohibiting open grazing within the borders of their states. Whether Abuja likes it or not, no Fulani man can run his cattle on the streets of Benue now, he will be promptly arrested and his cattle confiscated for free suya meat. I see this as a very effective way through which this issue of grazing routes has been addressed.
Economic well-being gives voice to the voiceless. Good government results when the majority of the citizens have a voice. In essence, where poverty is endemic, good governance will remain a mirage. The reason why I don’t know of any nation with a high poverty rate that is ranked high on the Human Development Index (HDI). The politics of stomach infrastructure is easily curtailed when economic opportunities are provided to the electorate.
Many have abandoned Nigeria to itself and only pay lip service to investing in the country citing high level of crime, lack of infrastructure and all the social ills that currently bedevil it. To show the heightened level of hypocrisy, some are going around seeking international entities to come and invest in a country where they, as citizens, have considered it suicidal to invest! Yet, the flights from the middle-east to Nigeria are always full of Chinese and Lebanese going to Nigeria which make me to ask – What are they seeing in the country that we are not seeing? And, how come we abuse and criticize these folks for their harsh employment conditions when we are not providing an alternative? Please don’t get me wrong, I do not support enslavement employment conditions in any guise. Basically, what I am putting forward is that there is a way to address bad leadership through providing gainful employment opportunities for Nigerians so they have a voice and look away from selling their votes for “Naira-in-Bread”. How many jobs have we created for our folks back home and on what morality do we judge them not to sell their votes to the highest bidder?
In summary, my point is that, we need to look before we leap. Let us answer the question – how will this demonstration in Perth help to achieve the aim of good governance in Nigeria. We should also consider the myriads of things that are currently available for us to do that we have left undone.
Comments are welcome and I entertain all civil rejoinders to this. May Nigeria be blessed.
FAITH AND WISDOM
The Muda in and around Us
My grandfather’s house stands tall in Oke-Labo, Ibadan, after all it was the house of Chief Samuel Tayo Bakare, the Mogaji of Sodun, the Ba’ale of Olorunda, Council Chairman and Grade C judge in his days. The house faces the main road that runs from Beere to Orita Aperin and shields many things from the commuters on that road. One of the things it shielded was a house behind it where mad men and women were brought for treatment, a mad house of some sort.
In the years that I lived in my grandfather’s house, my room was at the back and opening my wooden windows gave me unobstructed view of all the happenstance in the vicinity, especially the mad house. I was not particularly interested in the mad house but I had to leave my window open for most of the days and only keep them closed at night, despite the heat, to save my blood from being the only menu on the feast of the mosquitoes.
In those days, the house was the treatment centre for one middle-aged man that we came to know as Muda. How and when he was brought there, I can’t recollect. The “Doctor-in-charge” was one Alfa, who was mostly seen going around with a cane in hand, wearing a dull coloured Jalabiya, which started its earthly journey as a white piece of cloth.
The agonising cry of Muda was a constant feature that cuts through and above all other noise in the neighbourhood, and trust me there was a high level of noise pollution in those days. Yet, Muda’s could be heard well above all others, There were not that many days that I didn’t hear his cry. It was a given that once you see Alfa sauntering around in the premises, Muda’s cry would follow. As a child, I frequently used that relationship to understand the abstract that I was being taught in Economics on c”ause and effect.”
Of course there were other inmates receiving unorthodox treatment for madness from the Alfa. There were a couple of women too and I can recall an event where one of them gave birth leading to questions in the gossip community as to who did the implantation works and how. However, Muda stood out from all the inmates. For most days,Muda sat idly in front of the house, chained. On some occasions, where he was allowed to wander around, probably under the belief that his sickness was being cured, he did so with an iron rod linking two iron bracelets that were firmly locked to his legs. It was a pathetic sight to look at Muda as he walked, aimlessly for most part, around the neighbourhood. The sadness in his looks was perturbing but, as kids, we had the impression that the cure for madness was by caning. I could almost say this was evidence based, in that we saw the caning though we couldn’t ascertain that any was cured. It became written in our subconscious through what we saw, what we heard and the songs we sang. One of the song goes like this:
Ki l’ògùn wèrè
Ẹgba ni.
Years went by and I moved on from our house but Muda never moved on, he continued receiving the treatment at the house, though I can’t tell what eventually became of Muda. I forgot about him and in the years thereafter when I had made visits to our house, all I noticed was that the mad house had fallen into ruins following the death of the Alfa. Not a soul is there any longer.
Then my wife became a mental health nurse. She comes home at the end of each working period to give me snippets of the cases that she handled and educates me on the prevalence of mental health challenges in Australia. Suddenly, everywhere I looked, I started becoming conscious of the challenges as well. Folks of different ages and background are having to cope with different levels of this illness. It is prevalent in the society as just any other health challenge like hypertension is.
Earlier this year, I attended an Health Consumer workshop in the beautiful city of Nedlands. Gathered in the big hall were different folks from the public whose intent was to listen to representatives of the Graylands Hospital Management team talk about their plans for the future and provide responses to these plans.
Seated next to me in the high ceiling hall within this sprawling mental institution complex was a middle-aged man, probably nearing 60. He introduced himself and added that he is a mental health patient and has come to ensure that the hospital plans were broad enough to address the salient needs of other patients like him. I introduced myself as a Community Advisory Committee member and my interest is to ensure that my community’s voice was also heard.
There, next to me, was a Muda. Everything about this Muda was normal, normal just like me. He took active part in the workshop and did everything everyone else did. I thought about it, why was this Grayland’s Muda different from the Oke-Labo Muda?
Less than 2 months later, a high flying ex-colleague of mine found his “mojo” and declared on Facebook that he was and had been battling mental illness all his life, I was taken aback. I thought I knew him well, he was primus inter pares, how could he have been a Muda? For years he had kept silent about it and has only recently become very vocal probably because of concerns about how he probably would have been castigated at work. He wrote that his episode developed from just an incident at work that he had insufficient ability to cope with. Despite this challenge, he still went ahead to have a very successful career lasting 26 years because he had the needed medical care.
It was in his response that we see why there are differences in Muda outcomes for different individuals. Imagine if he had ended up in Oke-Labo under Alfa? He could have ended up living his life in tattered clothes with deep sunken eyes begging for help. This is the image of Muda that I have. One that hunts me these days, thinking I could have raised a voice had I known what I know now.
The point here is a need for us all to embrace our mental wellness. And, if out of ill-luck, we end up being psychotic, we need to speak out and realise that help abounds. Of course, I am not suggesting the kind of help from Oke-Labo. Though each case is different but there has been significant developments in this sphere of healthcare that every case can be managed in a way that each person will live life to the fullest.
Nigeria on my mind
The RED LADA
Life is NOT about YOU
Guaidó, have we been here before?
Oh Yes, we have Guaidó. Though our attention span is short but thank goodness we now have the internet that is a great reservoir of all our human stories.
So here we go, the dateline is 11 June 1994 and we find ourselves at the previously little known Epetedo in Lagos Nigeria. History was about to be made, so Juan Guaidó please pay attention.
Bashorun M.K.O Abiola would mount the stage that date and do what no one had previously done in the history of Nigeria, declare himself President in his speech that has come to be known as the Epetedo Proclamation and assume office as the democratically elected President of Nigeria.
The events that rapidly unfolded thereafter will see Abiola going into hiding and then getting arrested and thrown into the prison by the military government. His offence, treason! He never emerged alive from the detention which yielded his corpse in 1998
But, let’s backtrack a little for your sake Guaido. Abiola’s journey to his grave all started much earlier but definitely on June 12, 1993. That was the day that Nigerians went to the poll and elected Abiola as President.
The military junta of Ibrahim Babangida refused to release the full results and declare Abiola winner. Sounds familiar? I think it does. If you replace the names in the Nigerian debacle with yours and Maduro, you have the current happenstance in Venezuela.
The period of one year from the elections to 1994 saw Abiola globetrotting. Just as you are being assured right now, these same governments promised support for Abiola’s government. He was granted audience by the United States of America, the United Kingdom and even at the United Nations he met with Boutros Boutros-Ghali, its Secretary-General. Given these assurances, Abiola grew bold, took a flight back to Nigeria and declared himself President. It is certain that without the assurances, Abiola would not have made the Epe proclamation.
But, there was a problem, one that Abiola never considered and obviously one that you may not be considering as well. Nigeria is a major Oil producer, just as Venezuela is. Now, the west has not cured itself of its appetite for oil. The world understood, Abiola did not, that any curtailment in oil supply from Nigeria will lead to a rise in crude oil prices. Just in a similar manner, a curtailment in supply from Venezuela will affect world prices and hence reduce he disposable income of many in the western world. The economics is simply and it meant that the western nations became a dog that can bark loudly but cannot bite. If you disagree, I will like to remind you about the soft gloves with which the United States is handling the brutal murder of Khashoggi where all unrefuted evidence shows the complicity of the Saudi government in his death but the United States has refused to take action! And we know the reason behind this being the turmoil that Saudi’s disruption to world oil supply will cause the United States.
So, back to our story, Abiola was detained and killed in detention. Not a single shot was fired by the west nor any noticeable action taken against the government of Abacha by all the nations that had promised support for Abiola. In fact, rumours are rife that Abiola was murdered with the active connivance of the United States as his death was within hours of meeting with a delegation including Susan Rice, the American Ambassador to the UN!
If Abiola’s experience is anything to go by, Guaido YOU CAN’T TRUST THE WEST. As your unofficial adviser, please take their words with a pinch of salt except you want to be like Abiola and become the best president Venezuela never had. Am I suggesting that you abandon enforcing the constitutional provisions of Venezuela making you the President of the National Assembly? No, not at all. I am just advising that in all your political calculations, please discount massively any anticipated support from the West, no help will come from these nations.
History is, it’s never was. As William Faulkner reminds us, “The past is not dead; it’s not even past.”
I am with the LGBTQs
The ancient city of Ibadan. The city of Ogunmola and Oluyole also happened to be the city that prophet Abodunrin chose that fateful day in 1991 to inscribe on my youthful mind an important lesson about God. It was the Christian Easter Lenten season and it was at the Zoological Gardens of the University of Ibadan that the hitherto unknown prophet appeared, dressed in red garment, clutching a bible in hands. Somehow our “wannabe” Daniel got himself into the Lions’ den, a move made to re-enact the famous biblical story. Quite as expected, his story did not end in the same way that the biblical Daniel’s ended. What we know for a fact is that despite Prophet Abodunrin’s recital of all the famous and not so famous biblical passages and promises of God, including that in Gen 1:26 where God made man as ruler over all animals, in the twinkling of an eye he was no more. Even his blood was licked by the Lions after they had devoured the meat that the good Lord had graciously provided to them.
Did this event make God a liar? No, not at all. Does it mean that God’s promise in Psalm 91:13 is of no effect? No I don’t think so. What I learnt that day was that the Bible is contextual and a need to be very wary of those who teaches and take the Bible as definitive for all situations, that biblical teachings are absolutes.
I am the Lord, I change not says Malachi 3:6 and, using this verse, many would have us believe that God’s approach to a particular event or issue will be the same. Well, to such people I have only one question to ask – How come David was not punished for eating the shew bread while both Kings Saul and Uzziah were punished for offering sacrifices and burning incense to the Lord? After all, the three of them did things that were reserved only for priests, the Levites, to do? Some will argue that the difference is Grace. Let’s hold our thoughts on this, just for now, we will come to this later.
I hate to admit it, I disliked Barack Obama! When he won the election as the President of America, I had a sweet and sour taste in my mouth, I could neither swallow nor vomit. Why? Because I love Jesse Jackson and was convinced that he deserved the office much more than Barack. I grew up in the years of Jesse’s democratic push to become a candidate for the prestigious office. He had pushed for it, first in 1984 and again in 1988, unsuccessful in both attempts. He had everything I wanted the President to be. So when Barack won, I asked why this green horn and not Jesse?
Well, I was wrong, I admit it. Barack was no green horn. He didn’t just spring up from no-where to win the coveted seat. Unbeknown to me then, he had painstakingly planned it, investing in himself, in people and gaining the needed experience and trust to be whom he became. Not only that, he already had in the public domain, his philosophy of faith – an Obama’s version of Karl Marx’ the Communist Manifesto, his number one national bookseller the Audacity of Hope.
Years have passed and we have witnessed eight years of Obama’s presidency followed by two years of that of “our man Friday”. In the very first years of his presidency, my distaste turned into a fanatical liking for the man Obama. The following years of Trump have even transformed my fanatical liking into a cult worship. I reverence the man.
I had come to the conclusion that, except by chance, I may not have the good luck to meet the man. I had thought of taking a trip to Chicago and camping out at his popular restaurant, MacArthur’s, but sooner concluded that it would be a futile attempt. Even if he were to visit, the Presidential guard would form such a formidable wall around him that I would still not come close to him. Well, I settled on buying his books with the intent that by reading what he wrote, I may have a good insight into his composition as a man. There is no better way to get to understand the man than to read his thoughts, his word on marble, so to say. It was in Abuja, on 19th Oct 2011, that I picked two of his books – Dreams from My Father and the Audacity of Hope. While I had taken time to read “Dreams from My Father”, the cares of this world had not provided me with the ample chance to read the Audacity of Hope till now. Well, I am now into the closing chapters of the book and, so far, I have not been disappointed.
Not until now, I should have said. And the disappointment? Well who in his right frame of mind will look the multitude of Bible believing, Church going, Bible carrying Christians in their eyes and tell them that their famous evangelical hero’s letter to the church in Rome is obscure? No one else but Barack, and he did it with great gusto. A sort of look me in the eye gusto that says you can take a jump into the ocean if you don’t like my words.
Unfortunately, he has a convincing reason to hold this position. The same position that has caused me a great re-thinking of my faith and what that faith means? I am having a re-birth and I have gone through a deep conscious evaluation before deciding to make a U-turn, one that may cost me a host of friends and surely will make many doubt if I am a Christian after all. I am now with the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, trans-genders, intersexes and the queers (LGBTQs). Judge me not yet, keep calm and take time to read through my social awakening, one akin to that of Paul on his way to Damascus, persecuting the church.
Taking the cue from the Apostle Paul who argued Abraham to be a father of faith, Barack asked who amongst us will, in his right frame of mind, do exactly what Abraham did today. Perhaps there is one amongst us, insane enough to attempt sacrificing his child in obedience to an instruction from God that only him has heard, would the majority of us not rush him down, hold him immobile and call the cops? I can hear a few grunts but that is the truth. Let’s pause a minute and think about Boko Haram or ISIS. The report is that their fighters are promised “al Jannah” with a harem supposedly full of virgins for succeeding in converting many to Islam or killing them. Why have we not allowed them to be? Could it be because we are not bound by their faith and convictions? So if this is the popular position, why do we want to bind others by our faith and convictions? Why castigate LGBTQs?
I have heard my Pastor, Margaret Court, a very fine lady and one with enviable records both in the world and in Christendom, said times without number that she loves the sinner but hates the sin. She is not alone in taking this position, it is the position of many Christians and Pastors across the world. I was hitherto convinced of this position just as Barack must have been also, but not anymore. Simply because such a position is judgemental and hurts! As Barack puts it, it is a hurt that inflicts needless pains on people who are often truer to Christ’s message than those who condemn them. They, too, are people made in the image of God and in his true likeness.
I had often wondered why he took so much interests in legalising homosexual marriage in the United States. It suddenly dawned on me that we are all sinners and in the front of the God that we have to deal with, no sin is greater than another. Of course it is debatable if being an LGBTQ is even a sin. In saying that he was not willing to accept a reading of the Bible that considers an obscure line in Romans to be more defining of Christianity than the Sermon on the Mount preached by Christ himself, Barack opened my eyes to a different truth out there. One that I would have missed if I had not painstakingly taken a reading of Romans 1 and Mathew 5 once again.
To start with, it will be fallacious to argue that Paul did not condemn homosexuality, he did! His condemnation was brutal – he held them as being worthy of death, people to be murdered, I suppose. However, the whole discourse would have been fully settled by this portion of his Epistle had Christ not spoken to us about 30 years earlier than Paul in his sermon on the mountain. In that sermon, Christ enunciated what it means to be a Christian. In several verses he talked about those who are blessed for their actions and then he defined some sins. He didn’t mention being a LGBTQ as sin, he needed not to. However, the multitude of the sins that he mentioned and their magnitude in the church makes LGBTQ, if it is sin at all, of no greater evil than those. Remember sin is sin, no degrees of sin with God. So when Christ, God’s son, says anger without a cause (v22), speaking falsely (lying) (v11), breaking the ten commandment and teaching others to break them (v19), calling someone a fool (v22), lustful looking (v28) are sins, then we have more grievous things to resolve and spend our time on than trying to pick the speck in our brothers’ eyes while we have logs in our own. I dare those who have lusted after other women to abide with Christ’s request for them to pluck out their own eyes first and then and only then would they have gained the moral right to hound the LGBTQs, if they still want to.
When Pope Francis stood before the world in 2013 and said “if a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” he justly summarized the approach we all should take on this issue. We are all servants of God and are responsible and reportable to God and to him alone. Cast your mind to Peter on the roof top, praying and having a vision of a great sheet being let down to earth from heaven containing all manners of unclean animals. Consider yourself as the Peter that was instructed thrice to kill and eat and that “What God hath cleansed, that call thou common?” Now also consider being Cornelius and that Peter had shown up condemning you for being a gentile. How would that have felt? Yet despite being a gentile, Cornelius was just, feared God and had a good report. So also is that bloke, your neighbour. He is just, feared God and has a good report albeit he is a LGBTQ!
In Peter’s declaration, is a very important lesson for us all, that “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in every nation he that fears him, and works righteousness, is accepted with him.” It may not be a far fetched conclusion to suppose that the first baptism of a gentile might not have taken place if Peter had not forsaken his filthy labelling of the gentile? So, if we do not forsake our filthy labelling of LGBTQs, we are most likely distancing from the church many who could become heroes of the faith and then we become guilty of raising stumbling blocks before them. This is the whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness that Jesus talked of in Mat 23:27.
Immortality for sale
Adam and Eve lost it when they ate the forbidden fruit. Now the tree of life, in the garden of Eden, is being guided by a Cherubim with a flaming sword. I guess, getting to eat of this tree is now an impossibility. So we can all forget about becoming immortal this way.
It was on the Island of Patmos that John saw God and was commanded to write the book of Revelation. It was here in Den Haag that I saw Andrew Carnegie and he taught me how to buy immortality, though he didn’t ask me to share the lesson.
I had arrived here not by planning but by destiny, my itinerary has nothing in it concerning the city of peace and justice. Growing up, I had always fancied Prince Bola Ajibola. Remember him? He made putting on a bow tie cool and a fashion statement. I admire him for a different reason, his brilliance. It was this that earned him a seat as a Judge of the International Court of Justice. So on noting that the city, where he dispensed justice, was a mere stone throw away from me, I altered my travel plans to visit it.
Early this morning, I set out for the Peace Palace. This is the most important building in the world perhaps, but definitely it is in this city. The amiable lady at the reception desk had handed me the audio guide and I made my way through the exhibits on display. I took a seat, directly opposite the replica of the $1.5m cheque issued by Andrew Carnegie for the building of the palace. Somehow I felt a need to wipe my face and it was on doing so that I saw Carnegie. Our conversation?
Andrew: Hey young fella, you made it here at last. I have been waiting for you ever since your Dad made mention of you to me?
Me: You know my Dad? How come?
Andrew: Long story but let me just say he is so proud of you. He told me of your ambitions and sought my help to guide you.
Me: Really? He never stayed long enough to know my ambitions and isn’t it now a bit late for you to guide me?
Andrew: Nothing in life is too late, you will understand with time but I guess you are on a quest here, yeah?
Me: True sir. I am mesmerized by your acts of generosity. Wao, what moved you to donate that huge…..
Andrew: [Cutting in] No, no, no young man. Don’t join them in making the same mistake. It was an investment. I am an investor. That was what I lived and died doing.
Me: Now you are confusing me the more, you gave them $1.5m as donation to build this place.
Andrew: I invested $1.5m in people. It was my way of buying the future cheaply.
Me: Cheaply? You call $1.5m in 1904 cheap? That is like giving away $400m today!
Andrew: O boy, by making that meagre payment, I have my name resounded to every soul that steps here. If not for that token, I would have long been forgotten but I bought immortality for $1 5m. Do you remember what Christ said about the woman with the Alabaster oil? Expensive right? She bought immortality with that action. She is long dead but because of that deed, Jesus said wherever the gospel is preached she will be remembered.
In my case, I also got more. Dividends. When the world talks peace they have to mention me forever. Why? Because I was also smart in my generosity. As a condition for the money, I asked them to maintain a library here. Think about it, why didn’t I ask for my statue to be mailed and placed at the entrance?
You see, because of this library millions of legal luminaries and brilliant statesmen, like your friend Bola Ajibola, have had to write or say my name in their works when referencing materials that are made available for their use here. It’s the cheapest amount anyone can spend on advertising mate. Tell me, isn’t that why you stepped in here today?
Me: But you are long dead, how are you then here?
Andrew: [Laughing uncontrollably] How can I be dead? I can’t even get to sleep! My spirit is constantly being aroused each time my name gets mentioned. I had intended to be somewhere else but right there in your room yesterday when you made an appointment to be here, you called me up by writing my name next to the Peace Palace. Before you leave, let me tell you something more. The man who dies rich, dies disgraced. Take some tine to think about this but now, wipe your eyes again.
Me: [I wiped my eyes only to find myself sitting alone on the bench in the information centre with the copy of the cheque still in front of me ]
It’s all been a trance, one in which I learnt that immortality is available for sale.
Are you interested in buying?
What it means to be a Nigerian
Mikel Obi, yes we all know him. That fine gentleman that captains the Super Eagles.
Well, what was news lately was that his father was kidnapped and this happened just before that all important 2018 World Cup match that the Eagles had with Agentina. Sad, we all agree. The side of the story represented by most media was all about how dangerous it is to live in Nigeria. Truly these are not the best times for the motherland especially with the news of killings by cattle rearers maurading across the land, unrestrained.
But there is another side to the story. A side that many media failed to acknowledge. A side that shows the resilience of the Nigerian, the doggedness of the Nigerian Spirit. Mikel symbolised the true character of the Nigerian, an unwavering commitment to purpose and team. Or how else can one explain his calmness on the field that day? He played some of his very best football, marshalling his team and commanding the midfield. All these while going through extreme psychological pain and torture. Yet he chose not to bring to fore the calamitous news that he had received on the fear that it will do more harm than good to the 180 million strong nation. In doing this, he demonstrated his belief in the greater good of the nation over self.
When we speak of true heroes, let’s remember him as one, albeit while alive and not dead as we do of Stephen Keshi now. Let’s also be quick to point out to the world, from this unfortunate incident, what type of men Nigerians are. These are truly perilous times but the nation boasts of the finest of minds that could teach the world a thing or two about managing adversity.
Nigeria, good people, great nation.
Show me a God
It’s been raining cats and dogs here and I am having what I regard as a Banji’s problem. It was Banji, a friend of mine that propounded the theory that house roofs only leak when it rains! You may laugh but it is true and his theory has stood the test of time. Nobody has come to fault it since he propounded it. In my case, the leaks were traced to a failure by the solar panel installers to seal up the holes through which the cables were passed into the house. It was to this team that I made a call to come over and fix their error.
For now, let’s put this issue aside, we will come back to it later. Remember Apostle Paul? Just haven been driven away from Thesalonica and Berea, he arrived at Athens. It was while there in Athens, waiting for Timothy and Silas, that he observed the proliferation of idols in that great Greek city. He could have kept his peace, just as many of us do. After all, he was neither Greek nor a resident of Athens. He was just passing through.
It was not in Paul’s nature to lose an opportunity to preach Christ, was he not him that said to live is Christ and to die gain [Phil 1:21]? For days, he had been dialoguing with atheists [Epicureans] trying to show them God. As he stood on Athen’s Mar’s Hill, he was committed to preaching Christ. How did he do it? Days earlier, he had found there in Athens an altar to the unknown god. It was to this he latched on to preach Christ and show his listeners that there is of course a God who is so close to each of us but yet needs to be sought out and found. His speech was a success, he converted not a few among whom were Dionysius (a member of the court), Damaris and others with them.
Reading the Bible is a challenging task, most often we gloss over the events and the circumstances that are briefly summarised in not so many words. More challenging however is how to fully appreciate these events since we are all using our modern experiences to understand events that happened centuries before our incarnation. So any modern reader could easily be forgiven for reading Acts 17: 22 – 34 and not fully appreciating the enormity of the challenge that Paul faced and commending this fine man for how gracefully he handled it.
The Epicureans are alive and still very much with us today. I had my Epicurean encounter a few days ago but unlike Paul, I failed. I could not summon the words or courage to address the question so vividly thrown at me. Getting back to my solar installers, a team of technicians was sent. At the head of the team was Jordan, a lad in his late twenties.
As he introduced himself to me in his cool, calm and friendly voice, what I saw was the tattoo on his right arm which he thrusted at me as we shook hands. It was a statement of faith or more importantly a challenge of my faith. Boldly tattooed for anyone to read was the statement “Show me a God”? I knew I needed to address his question but I just couldn’t fathom out how to do so. I thought of all ways to connect with this lad so that I could have a go at showing him my God but found none. I pondered about what to show him and how to prove to him that my God is Alive but lost all my oratory prowess. I ended up not saying a word to show him God.
Jordan and his team spent the next hour or so fixing the leak and eventually we parted ways. I still couldn’t understand what my fears were that made me to lose the wonderful opportunity to just open my mouth and allow the Holy Spirit to teach me in that very hour what I ought to have said [Luke 12:12].
I failed and I right now all I am looking for is redemption.
The Russian-Croatian Conspiracy against Nigeria
That I am an Ibadan man is not news. It is also no longer news that Nigeria lost to Croatia. What remains news is that we lost because Russia denied us the opportunity to appease the powers that be. We had built our plans not so much on training and tactically matching the Croatians man for man. Rather, unlike the Croatians, we knew that there is a god of soccer. We knew also that to appease this god to be favourable to us, we need to make some sacrifices. Chickens, that’s what the god delight in and we have identified where to get them in Kaliningrad. Of course the local god’s taste is local, bringing Nigerian chickens all the way to Russia would not suit its taste buds.
Everything was in order, at least that was the situation until late in the day the Russian authorities decided to spin a curved ball at us. They won’t allow us to bring the chickens into the stadium. How are we going to appease the god? Now you all know why we lost to Croatia, it was due to nothing else but the conniving Russians that made our sacrifices impossible.
But wait a minute, do you remember Baba Eleran? Oh yes, you remember him, he was that popular! You will be excused for not knowing him only if you had not reached the age of maturity in the eighties. His real name? Ganiyu Elekuru but many didn’t know him by that name and that doesn’t matter in this case.
You remember how much feared he was? His mere presence at any IICC Shooting Stars match was an assurance of victory. He was said to commune with the spirits, he wined and dined with them. He was no ordinary man. By 1984, “sooting” was yet to win the CAF Cup of Champions Clubs and all hopes were high on sooting to win the trophy. Their opponent, our enemy, was Zamalek of Egypt, the dreaded pharaoh boys. All hands were on deck, sootiing just had to win the match. To Baba Eleran, they all look.
Weeks before the arrival of Zamalek, we were taught a potent chant
Egipti ki ri ran t’osan o
Balubalu n’táfin
Afin ki ri ran t’osan o
Balubalu tafin
This became a national anthem all over Ibadan the week before Zamalek arrived and then Lagos took it over. As youths, we memorised it, we sang it. Even though we did not understand the full ramification of what was going on. This was 1984, December 8 to be precise. The whole nation rallied behind IICC. Their rivals in the local league, Stationary Stores of Lagos and Enugu Rangers had their supporters club in the national stadium, all routing for “sooting” to win the cup that had been elusive to Nigeria.
At the appointed date, right inside the National Stadium, sacrifices had to be made. To counter the strong juju of the Egyptians, the chanting of balubalu reached a crescendo. It was followed suit by another dreaded incantation:
Oju oro ni n’leke omi,
Oshipata ni n’leke odo,
Awa lama segun ota wa
It was rumoured that a cow was buried alive in the grounds of the National Stadium. Chickens were brought into the stadium too, their feathers plucked off one by one. Everything hat needed to be done was one and we got assurance hat the gods were pleased with sooting and the cup would go to Ibadan. It was one hell of a crowd in the National Stadium, the seats were fully sold out and the expectations were high.
By the time the final whistle was blown, the drawn faces told the whole story. Sooting lost to Zamalek. Neither the incantations nor the sacrifices stopped Zamalek from defeating IICC and taking the cup along with them to Egypt. Some said that the Egyptians’ juju were more potent. Whatever it was, Baba Eleran was not the same again following that defeat. Many started doubting whether there is any impact that the supernatural plays in football. It soon became clear that there is not really any replacement for preparation, team work and tactical planning.
I wonder if the lessons from this was shared with our fashion icons that are currently in Russia but we can safely assume it was not. Why? The news reported that the supporters’ team felt angered that they were not allowed to bring chickens into the stadium. In this instance, I couldn’t help but to remember Ganiyu Elekuru.
Will we be remembered?
Today, as it does annually, Australia marks ANZAC Day – the anniversary of the landing of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli during World War I in 1915. It goes beyond this, though. It seems every public space in this country is set up to remember them- the millions of her war dead. Wherever you go, you will sooner come across an ANZAC memorial, not far from you. I see this as Australians commitment to the promise, “We will remember them”.
We will remember them, is a popular line from the Ode, traditionally recited as part of commemoration services in Australia since 1921. The Ode used is the fourth stanza of the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon. It was written in the early days of World War One and its words are touching an thought provoking:
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Australia remembers. She remembers that the freedoms of today and its liberties were won with the blood of so many who sacrificed their lives in different theatres of war. We will remember them and so did Victory Life Centre.
Victory Life Centre, a church pastored by the Australian tennis sensation of all time and a woman of God, Margaret court used Sunday 22nd April to honour the memory of these men and women. With pomp and pageantry, as the whole church stood up, the veterans of war were acknowledged as they marched to the pulpit area. Many have become frail with age but they still marched forward. There were two main speakers, Arthur Legged born in Sydney in 1918 and who took part in the Second World War and Peter Jackson 71yrs old and who was called to serve in 1968 in the Vietnam War.
Arthur, now 100 years old, took us through his call to the war and how he suffered as a prisoner of war fighting in Europe. As we listened to him recounting his experience of war, we were all full of adulation for the sacrifice that people like him made for Australia, for the free world. At his age, he still has a great sense of humour and was quick to point out that if not for the war, he wouldn’t have met his wife, one that he has remained married to for 63 years now. The high point of his presentation was his reciting of the poem “Mates“. This happened to be a beautiful poem written in 1974 after the war by Corporal Duncan Butler. The poem highlights the significance of mateship amongst prisoners-of-war. Just like Arthur, Butler was an ex-prisoner of war. He was captured by the Japanese at Tjamplong in Timor in February 1942, moved to Java in September 1942, then to Singapore in January 1943 and Changi, before being sent to Thailand to work on the railway. He was repatriated and returned to Australia in October 1945.
The poem, available in full here, is worth a reading and memorizing by many. It begins:
I’ve travelled down some lonely roads,
Both crooked tracks and straight.
An’ I’ve learned life’s noblest creed,
Summed up in one word … “Mate”.
What was touching was that Arthur recited the whole of this poem, without missing any of the lines, being a 100 years old. His clarity of though was exceptional. It was therefore not unexpected that Peter would have an uphill task of matching the performance of Arthur. Peter, in his speech, painted a vivid picture of himself receiving a letter drafting him to serve in the war at 20 years old. He was ferried out of Australia on the HMS Sydney, straight to the Vietnam’s Tropical jungle to chase after Vietcong. As expected, after years at the warfront, he fell into depression on his return to Australia and recovery was painful and slow but he did recover.
Siting in the auditorium, I watched with admiration and was very moved, at points almost to tears. My brain soon started thinking of my fatherland, Nigeria and how
They’ve asked us to lay our lives for Nigeria.
They said, we should ask not what the nation can do for us
but what we can do for the nation.
We ask, when we do this, will the nation remember?
All we heard was a deafening silence
The national anthem says
The labours of our heroes past
Must not be in vain.
So we think of the labours of
Dele Giwa and Ken Saro-Wiwa
In sport, the world was marvelled
By the gangling Rahidi Yekini
Samuel Okwaraji died on the nation’s call
Dele Udoh was slaughtered
But does the nation remember them?
Oh yes, the heroes of our democracy.
Abiola and Simbiat laid down their lives
So did Alfred Rewane and Abraham Adesanya,
Gani Fawehinmi. Tai Solarin and the Ransome Kutis.
Tafawa Balewa, Okotie Eboh and Samuel Akintola
They are gone and how have they been remembered?
We remember the civil war and
The millions that died in that war
Brother fighting against brother
Victor Banjo, Emmanuel Ifeajuna and Isaac Boro
How has the nation remembered them?
On the streets of Port Harcourt, Abakaliki and Onitsha
Where the Ogbunigwe sounded loud and killed many.
The soldiers dying, fighing Boko Haram
How have they been remembered?
I thought of how we destroy even those pieces of monuments, that had given us some rays of hope that the nation remembers. There was the statue of the unknown soldier in Idumota and another at Dugbe in Ibadan. Where are they now? Right at the government house in Ibadan was a statue erected to the memory of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. This is long gone and stands no more.
A nation that forgets its past has no future” Winston Churchill
Persist, Persevere, Succeed
I gave up on wearing suits almost 2 years ago, but today I had to put on one. It is another important day in our lives as a family. My “sugarbobo” is getting conferred with the Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing. Given the efforts she had put into this, she deserves this and much more.
We made our ways to the Perth Convention Centre in the city, the venue of the ceremony. The programme of event had requested an early arrival if we want to take some pictures to commemorate the occasion. Of course, we do and did arrive early. As we made our ways into the auditorium and the official programme began, we were reminded of the Edith Cowan University values of Integrity, Respect, Rational Enquiry and Personal Excellence. These were all the values, and more, that my wife had exhibited in her quest to get this degree, I can attest to this. Whether I was here with her in Australia or thousands of miles away across the Indian Ocean, I am a witness of her struggles. She literally moved her nights to the study, forsaking the comforts of our bedroom. Oftentimes when I woke up at night to visit the restroom, her spot by my side was nearly always vacant. A peep downstairs, seeing the lights in the study on, always left me reassured that all was well. I became envious, she seemed to have fallen in love more with her study than with me. Her efforts have yielded the results she wanted, the ones she really deserve, and today we celebrate with her.
As it is with many formal ceremonies across Australia, respect had to be given to the first Australians. The indigenous elder that declared the ceremony open was impressive and did a splendid job. He acknowledged the owners of the land, past and present, and followed up by wading off any evil spirit that may be lurking around while he welcomed the good spirits. In doing this, he set the stage for the epoch occasion. Experiencing this, I noted the similarity between the African and Australian Aborigine culture. I need no other argument to convince me that there is a strong kinship between the two people.
This year’s valedictorian is Natalie Sutherland. In her speech, she laid before the audience what is possible when the human spirit says YES. She is married, lives in regional Australia and mid-aged, all sufficient reasons for anyone to give up from pursuing an academic laurel and chase after some other easily achievable goals. Not Natalie, she is a woman of steel. In addition to her challenges, she has to mother three teenagers aged seventeen, nineteen and twenty-one. And one more thing, she hasn’t been in any formal classes since finishing high school thirty years ago! What laid ahead of her was a weekly commute of 250kms to and from Perth to study. At forty-five years old, she resolved to face her demon and today she stands, with her head held high, with all grace as the valedictorian at this year’s graduation. What an extra-ordinary Australian story, a story of remarkable doggedness!
Edith Cowan University (ECU) was never a feature in our life when we moved here about half a decade ago. Today, we are proud to congregate with other families to honour the dedication of these bold souls that won’t say No in their quest for knowledge.
As we watch in quiet adulation as she joins others, who had expended similar energies, to be awarded a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing, some will ask “why is this important and what is the big deal with achieving this late in life”? I make bold to say it is a big deal! A really big one when we all do pause to reflect that life is a continual journey at making oneself better than one was yesterday. When an ambition is accomplished is not as important as the fact that the ambition is accomplished. She could have given up, but just as Natalie didn’t so didn’t Saf.
As the graduands get called to collect their certificates, I was filled with gladness when her name got announced by the Dean of the School of Medicine. I think she called Saturafu but this didn’t matter to us nor to Saf, this mispronunciation is easily forgiven. She would still face this many times more in the workplace. As she took those fair steps towards the Deputy Vice Chancellor, I sat as a proud husband, surrounded by our two kids, watching her face beam with a radiant smile as she got bestowed with the degree.
I am a blessed man. The journey had not always been swift but having a companion that shares the same ideals and life goals makes it worth it. Today, as she graduates, my little Red Pumpkin will be starting her course of study at the same school to become a Medical Doctor. As I look into the future, I could see us congregating here again, in 3 years, in her honour. Life is good, only for those who are bold enough to hold the bull by the horns.
Humiliated again!
Back in 2013, I had complained about the targeted discriminatory practices of the Singaporean Authorities to Nigerians arriving Changi Airport. I had written a piece, titled – Blaming Singapore Immigration. I also wrote to the Nigerian Embassy in Canbera and Singapore to complain. The then Ambassador Olukoni, a gentleman per excellence was humble enough to give me a call and promised to take it up with the Singaporean authorities. Whether he did, I can’t tell but I received a response to my complaint from the Singaporean authority. It was a very bland response saying Singapore does randomly subject visitors to further inspection and my experience was exactly this, random! I knew it was a lie but how was I to prove it?
The opportunity came this year and as our plan to visit Singapore was being developed, I complained to high heavens, to all who were patient enough to listen to me. It wasn’t my choice and I abhor the idea of being humiliated again but I really can’t deny others the opportunity they had anxiously been waiting for, all year long. I conceded and so started my adventure at being demeaned as a human being. To be candid, I think my humiliation started much earlier, earlier at the Ikeja Passport Office where I had gone to apply for a new passport. You asked why? Well on home soil in Ikeja, the Nigerian government did not consider me worthy enough of a decent treatment. My experience is well documented in the open letter that I had to write to the minister of interior. The Singaporean authorities only built on the foundation that my government has laid.
First to get a Singapore Visa, unlike in 2013, I had to show up at VFS office for an interview, fingerprinting and the works. You can guess how that went. Why? In the few years that had passed, Nigeria is now been categorized by Singapore as an Assessment Level 2 country along with Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Iraq and a few others. I just couldn’t fathom it that we still call ourselves Giants of Africa? There are 54 countries in the African continent, 9 of which are subjected to extra rigors in issuance of Singapore Visa and Nigeria is one of the 9! If we are a giant, what should the other 45 countries call themselves? I won’t be surprised to know that the Nigerian External Affairs ministry might not have protested this. Since Singapore excludes holders of diplomatic, official and service passports from the added scrutiny, why would they care? You know what I mean, why should they be perturbed if the citizens that they represent get treated shabbily? More so, they don’t treat us better at home so on what basis will they protest our shabby treatment by others?
I wasn’t much annoyed as per the interview but for the daylight robbery that was associated with it. VFS charged me a ridiculous amount for doing nothing! Nothing that I couldn’t have done otherwise by myself. Even the return envelope, for the passport to be mailed back to me, I had to pay for it. The passport, with the visa label on it, got mailed to me a few days later.
Well, fast-track to my arrival at Changi, I was in a party of four Nigerians – three traveling on non-Nigerian passports and my patriotic self, clinging to the green booklet. In order to demonstrate that the humiliation in 2013 wasn’t random, I decided to carry out a social science experiment. I requested 2 of the 3 Nigerians traveling with non-Nigerian passports to go ahead and get to Immigration first. I came a distant third and then to be followed, with some gap by the last Nigerian, also holding a non-Nigerian passport. My hypothesis, yes I know you would want to know, was that the other 3 people will be allowed entry without any fuss while I would be pulled aside.
It didn’t take long when Nigerian 1 and 2 got through the counter and I, Nigerian 3, followed suit. I knew something was fishy, when the Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) Officer had to reach for a paper on his left side. He gave it a quick look, made some entries on the computer and then gently told me that my entry would need to be approved at another point. I was taken to a different counter, a door was opened and was asked to take a seat inside. The glass door got closed and there I was, waiting. Minutes later, a man showed up and asked me all sorts of questions, some that I considered mundane. I coolly and calmly answered them all. For him to leave the room where I was, he had to knock twice on the door before it got opened for him from the outside. It was only then that I realized that I was in a locked room, a bird in a cage! Minutes later, another ICA official called me to the outside counter and I had to go through another barrage of questioning, finally my passport was stamped and I was asked to proceed on my journey into Singapore through an open door.
Trust me, I wasn’t going to leave without a fight, even if a very feeble one it would be. I was like Ijapa, the tortoise, that had to scatter his dwelling place on being arrested. When asked why, he responded so that people will at least see evidence that he did not give in to being arrested easily. I asked to see the ICA officer’s supervisor and was shown another gentlemen who had been standing there all along, by the counter. His demeanor doesn’t show he cares and I knew he wasn’t going to own up to this institutionalized targeting of Nigerians. I explained my grievance at being targeted just because of my green passport and he responded that it was a random check, remember it was also random in 2013. I told him of my social science experiment and that the A330-300 SQ224 that brought me to Changi is a 285 seater plane and no other person was randomly selected apart from me. I narrated my prior experience and the fact that the 3 other Nigerians who were subjected to the same embarrassing random evaluation in 2013 were let go this time because they traveled on non-Nigerian passports. He still insisted that all they did was random. I noticed that a Malaysian woman was also at the counter earlier but was given a seat at the VIP section in the open. I brought his attention to the inhuman and discriminatory treatment of getting me locked behind a closed door while the other lady was given a seat in an open space. At this time, I could see his face turning red and he said they have their procedures and he was just following them. I was annoyed, but again, at no time did they beg me to come to their country. I asked him to consider how he would feel if the table were to be turned and he is at the receiving end as I just did, I left thereafter.
As we were driven to the hotel, we noticed the beautiful tree lined roads which were spotlessly clean. The great aesthetic appearance of the city and the apparent order in everything the eyes could see. I gave this a bit of thought and concluded that I have gotten Singapore’s message. Singapore has never hidden its message, it has been there all along, I just failed to comprehend it. It was loud, it was clear – We don’t need Nigerians here. I jokingly mentioned that there were no pure water sachets on the road and that it was a crime for you to chew gums openly in Singapore. I needed no one else to tell me that Singapore has a right to determine whom they allow into their country and defend their culture, traditions and love for an open green environment, things that many of my brothers would willingly destroy.
Singaporeans are 5.61million people in number. Nigerians? we are 190 million and counting. It wasn’t until 1963, 3 years after Nigeria, that Singapore declared its independence from Great Britain and joined Malaya to form the Federation of Malaysia. It took it another 2 years to be thrown out of Malaya and a truly independent republic on August 9, 1965 . In these years, these 5.61million people have achieved enviable heights that the 190million of us in Nigeria are still dreaming of. No wonder they can tell us to go to hell. What this means is that if you are a Nigerian, no matter what you have accomplished in life, to the Singaporean, you are nothing. Given the hundreds of Nigerians being sold as slaves in Libya, I know it that the Singaporean looks at all Nigerians as that worthless. What makes any of us different from those being sold to slavery in the 21st century and our government was dragging its foot to act?
This really got me thinking and I renewed my commitment at entrepreneurship to develop Nigeria into such a state that it will be self-sufficient and the cynosure of eyes like that of Singapore. And to Singapore? Not a dime of my money will be spent in this economy ever more, I guarantee it.
Sharpen your tools
Lawn Tennis. The turf of the greats like Rafael, Roger & Novak and of course Nduka Odizor of yesteryears. I love this game but unfortunately it hasn’t been one that I have excelled in. I have been getting on the Tennis Court since 2007 with mixed results. From VGC Club House, Ikoyi Club and a couple of Club courts here, I was hopeful, and rightly so, that I would become a force to reckon with in the game. It hasn’t been so.
Here, I have been a regular with the sport for upwards of two years. The irony had been that the more I played, the worse I became. Doubts, about my abilities started setting in. The body didn't make it easier as well. Plantar fascia, tennis elbow and cramps all wear the body down. I know I am not getting younger but seeing a 78 year old hitting the ball on the court, I became certain that my body is just being rebellious.
My racquet was a suspect but I quickly dismissed the idea. Isn’t it said that a bad workman quarrels with his tools? I could have jilted that antiquity that saw me through the hard courts of Ikoyi Club but took to work on my skills. My serving became worse, almost of no threat to even a beginner in the game. My returns did not fare better. Then fate seemed to get tired of laughing at me, it became bored with my performance and by happenstance allowed the grip on my racket to get damaged.
Instead of throwing this piece of shame away, I embraced it and was seeking out someone who could help with fixing a new grip. The cost? 30 quid! That marked the turning point as I reasoned that I could get a better deal. With a new racquet selling for a 100, it’s ludicrous to spend 30 just to get a new grip fixed. In my search for a replacement, I was able to get a Federer branded Wilson Racquet. It looked good and I stepped on the Tennis Court with a renewed vigour. It was mid-week and I was unbelievable on the courts. Everyone was amazed, dumbfounded at the sudden and steep transformation. I had gotten my mojo back.
As I left the courts that week, I drove back home with much joy. I gave some thought to what happened and was so angry with myself that I allowed a deplorable situation to continue for that long. I concluded that the saying that a bad workman quarrels with his tools maybe true but doesn’t imply that everyone that quarrels with his tools is a bad workman. It also dawned on me that no matter how skilled you are, if you are working with antiquated tools, you really can’t be productive. Consider someone, in this computer age, still insistent on typing letters using a manual typewriter, what an headache that’s got to be?
Lesson learnt, we need to constantly sharpen our tools. The shining tools of today become dull with use and passage of time.
The Texas Massacre
There was a country, so wrote Chinua Achebe. He was writing about Nigeria but the same description can aptly be applied to the United States of America. It is a great nation, this is not in dispute but it amazes the casual observer that the US portends to always be different. In most cases, this difference makes the US uniquely what it is and, no doubt, has worked in its favour. However, in some other situations, it easily come off as an exercise in foolishness.
Take the case of the spate of death happening in modern America today. We all have gotten used to the violence in Chicago which makes the city notorious as the murder capital of the world. What we are getting used to is the fact that American life has become so cheap that more gets killed within America itself than outside it! Lets pause a little and give a thought to this. If the same level of violence and death from gun totting psychopaths that is happening in America today were to be happening in a backwater third world country, all the foreign ministries of the highly developed countries would be heads over their heels to issue statements to their nationals and the world that it is highly unsafe to travel to those countries. I guess different standards for different people! We will come to this another time.
Back to the gun capital of the world. The whole world, or majority of it I suppose, mourns with those who have been impacted by one shooting or another. It will be inhuman not to do so, being unfortunate recipient of unplanned sorrows and miseries. More so we are encouraged to mourn with those who are mourning and rejoice with those who are rejoicing, isn’t that so? However, where is the place of common sense in America today? Must there be another death before the nation and its leaders wear the common sense caps? I am no American but that country has been good to me. The more reason why I am outraged that what seems so simple to do, and have been done by others, has become the most difficult thing to be accomplished by a nation that had sent men to the moon. I am no prophet but I can stake a bet on this, a couple of weeks from now. The Texas massacre, for sure, won’t be the last of these deaths, I predict more to come with more casualties as well. Hey, don’t shout at me, shout at your leaders! Common sense and evidence from other nations suggest that mass killing will continue to be the norm in America until America comes to its senses about guns. Let it be shouted at the Capitol Hill, America, the second amendment is killing you! Do something SMART about it.
Just this weekend, I was at the gun range for target practice. Every time I handled the weapon, I got terrified. Terrified of the power, the speed and ease at which the bullets discharged…. and kills. A millisecond is all that separates “He is” from “He was”. Now, I wouldn’t want a psychopath to have access to this weapon, no not in a million years. However, this is exactly what the American forefathers have done through the second amendment. Well, we can’t blame them for being short sighted about the rise of a set of racists, bigoted, religious and ideological fanatic that will be committing mass murder, contrary to the intent of the amendment, can we? The reality, however, is that this is now the case. I am positive that were the writers of the second amendment to be in our midst right now, they would have quickly put pen on paper to make an amendment to the amendment. It sickens me that the nation does so much to make access to prescription medicines difficult for people who can abuse its usage but would not extend same process to gun possession. Having these guns in the hands of psychopaths, for which the US has an abundance, to me is a certain recipe for more deaths. Barack Obama wept, just as Jesus did at the tomb of Lazarus. While Jesus was able to raise Lazarus, the tears of Barack availed nothing…they didn’t stop the killings and neither have they woken up the dead. They will never accomplish any of these two., no, never. Our tears and our sympathies will not avail much either. The one and only thing that will sop this madness? Get the guns out of em’s hands.
Leadership is about boldness to take the right decisions, even if unpopular. Will our man Friday in the Whitehouse be bold enough to lead so that Americans weep no more?
If Nigeria Fails?
With all the clamor for restructuring and separating the current entity called Nigeria into its separate ethnic nationality, I reached out into the archive to bring out this note of caution. It was the sincere message of Lyman to Nigerians to pull together to build rather than allow the nation to continue on its downward spiral into a failed state.
As with all prophesies, the prophet has sounded the alarm, i is now left for the people to heed the warnings or not. Years back, Christine Lagarde was in Nigeria. As the Managing Director of the IMF, she warned Nigerians of the impending recession if efforts were no taken to address the structural imbalances and fragility in the Nigerian economy. Her warnings went unheeded and the nation paid for it, big time. Let this warning of Lyman not suffer similar fate.
————————————————
If Nigeria Fails?
By Princeton Lyman
Providence, Rhode Island. USA.
December 11, 2009.
Thank you very much Prof. Keller and thanks to the organizers of this conference. It is such a privilege to be here in a conference in honor of Prof. Achebe, an inspiration and teacher to all of us.
I have a long connection to Nigeria. Not only was I Ambassador there, I have travelled to and from Nigeria for a number of years and have a deep and abiding vital emotional attachment to the Nigerian people, their magnificence, their courage, artistic brilliance, their irony, sense of humor in the face of challenges etc.
And I hope that we keep that in mind when I say some things that I think are counter to what we normally say about Nigeria. And I say that with all due respect to Eric [SILLA, SEE NOTE 3] who is doing a magnificent work at State Department and to our good friend from the legislature, because I have a feeling that we both Nigerians and Americans may be doing Nigeria and Nigerians no favor by stressing Nigeria’s strategic importance.
I know all the arguments: it is a major oil producer, it is the most populous country in Africa, it has made major contributions to Africa in peacekeeping, and of course negatively if Nigeria were to fall apart the ripple effects would be tremendous, etc.. But I wonder if all this emphasis on Nigeria’s importance creates a tendency of inflate Nigeria’s opinion of its own invulnerability.
Among much of the elite today, I have the feeling that there is a belief that Nigeria is too big to fail, too important to be ignored, and that Nigerians can go on ignoring some of the most fundamental challenges they have many of which we have talked about: disgraceful lack of infrastructure, the growing problems of unemployment, the failure to deal with the underlying problems in the Niger-Delta, the failure to consolidate democracy and somehow feel will remain important to everybody because of all those reasons that are strategically important.
And I am not sure that that is helpful.
Let me sort of deconstruct those elements of Nigeria’s importance, and ask whether they are as relevant as they have been.
We often hear that one in five Africans is a Nigerian. What does it mean? Do we ever say one in five Asians is a Chinese? Chinese power comes not just for the fact that it has a lot of people but it has harnessed the entrepreneurial talent and economic capacity and all the other talents of China to make her a major economic force and political force.
What does it mean that one in five Africans is Nigeria? It does not mean anything to a Namibian or a South African. It is a kind of conceit. What makes it important is what is happening to the people of Nigerian. Are their talents being tapped? Are they becoming an economic force? Is all that potential being used?
And the answer is “Not really.”
And oil, yes, Nigeria is a major oil producer, but Brazil is now launching a 10-year program that is going to make it one of the major oil producers in the world. And every other country in Africa is now beginning to produce oil.
And Angola is rivalling Nigeria in oil production, and the United States has just discovered a huge gas reserve which is going to replace some of our dependence on imported energy.
So if you look ahead ten years, is Nigeria really going to be that relevant as a major oil producer, or just another of another of the many oil producers while the world moves on to alternative sources of energy and other sources of supply.
And what about its influence, its contributions to the continent? As our representative from the parliament talked about, there is a great history of those contributions. But that is history.
Is Nigeria really playing a major role today in the crisis in Niger on its border, or in Guinea, or in Darfur, or after many many promises making any contributions to Somalia?
The answer is no, Nigeria is today NOT making a major impact, on its region, or on the African Union or on the big problems of Africa that it was making before.
What about its economic influence?
Well, as we have talked about earlier, there is a de-industrialization going on in Nigeria a lack of infrastructure, a lack of power means that with imported goods under globalization, Nigerian factories are closing, more and more people are becoming unemployed and Nigeria is becoming a kind of society that imports and exports and lives off the oil, which does not make it a significant economic entity.
Now, of course, on the negative side, the collapse of Nigeria would be enormous, but is that a point to make Nigeria strategically important?
Years ago, I worked for an Assistant Secretary of State who had the longest tenure in that job in the 1980s and I remember in one meeting a minister from a country not very friendly to the United States came in and was berating the Assistant Secretary on all the evils of the United States and all its dire plots and in things in Africa and was going on and on and finally the Assistant Secretary cut him off and said: “You know, the biggest danger for your relationship with the United States is not our opposition but that we will find you irrelevant.”
The point is that Nigeria can become much less relevant to the United States. We have already seen evidence of it. When President Obama went to Ghana and not to Nigeria, he was sending a message, that Ghana symbolized more of the significant trends, issues and importance that one wants to put on Africa than Nigeria.
And when I was asked by journalists why President Obama did not go to Nigeria, I said “what would he gain from going? Would Nigeria be a good model for democracy, would it be a model for good governance, would he obtain new commitments on Darfur or Somalia or strengthen the African Union or in Niger or elsewhere?”
No he would not, so he did not go.
And when Secretary Clinton did go, indeed but she also went to Angola and who would have thought years ago that Angola would be the most stable country in the Gulf of Guinea and establish a binational commission in Angola.
So the handwriting may already be on the wall, and that is a sad commentary.
Because what it means is that Nigeria’s most important strategic importance in the end could be that it has failed.
And that is a sad sad conclusion. It does not have to happen, but I think that we ought to stop talking about what a great country it is, and how terribly important it is to us and talk about what it would take for Nigeria to be that important and great.
And that takes an enormous amount of commitment. And you don’t need saints, you don’t need leaders like Nelson Mandela in every state, because you are not going to get them.
I served in South Korea in the middle of the 1960s and it was time when South Korea was poor and considered hopeless, but it was becoming to turn around, later to become to every person’s amazement then the eleventh largest economy in the world. And I remember the economist in my mission saying, you know it did not bother him that the leading elites in the government of South Korea were taking 15 – 20 percent off the top of every project, as long as every project was a good one, and that was the difference. The leadership at the time was determined to solve the fundamental economic issues of South Korea economy and turn its economy around.
It has not happened in Nigeria today. You don’t need saints. It needs leaders who say “You know we could be becoming irrelevant, and we got to do something about it.”
Thank you.
Princeton N. Lyman,
Adjunct Senior Fellow for Africa Policy Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, Former U.S. ambassador to South Africa and Nigeria, made these remarks at the Achebe Foundation Colloquium on Nigerian Election at Providence, Rhode Island, USA, on December 11, 2009.
It’s okay to vote NO….It’s natural, not inequality
A few months ago, I made the conscious decision of joining a political party. Of the two predominant parties, Labour and Liberals, I chose Labour. First and maybe subtly, I don’t like the name liberal. It connotes to me a view that is fluid. It’s going to always be a little to the right and a little to the left, no firm stand on any issue. It connotes anything from “generous” to “loose” to “broad-minded.” Importantly, I chose Labor because I believe in its two objectives of “maintenance of and support for a competitive non-monopolistic private sector” and “the right to own private property”. At the time, I was not unaware that Labour’s leadership was actively supporting equality in marriage. It was supporting equality in all forms. All things considered, I do not support this objective but this did not deter me from joining the party. I knew that there will always be “issues of the day” in which the party and I will hold opposing views. That will happen, no matter which political party anyone joins.
For those who may be unaware, Marriage Equality is a movement that aims at legalizing marriages between people of the LGBT orientation. Simply put, it makes gay marriage legal and changes the definition of marriage being the union between a man and a woman.
Last week, the two law suits standing in the way of the Australian Postal Plebiscite on marriage were ruled out as lacking merit by the High Court. Consequently, the surveys will be landing in the postal boxes this week. The Australian Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, has been very vocal on where he stands on this plebiscite. He is all over the news urging that people vote YES and has expressed that he and his wife will be doing the same. Bill Shorten, the leader of the Opposition and of the Australian Labour Party, is not singing a different tune. He is also campaigning for a Yes Vote. Their arguments? It’s the fair thing to do as the current marriage definition promotes inequality. The cacophony of voices, all drumming into the public ears, is to vote YES. The argument is unconvincing and I really struggle to understand it.
On this issue, the opposition and the government are unusually united. United not because the change being requested is right, but because they are afraid. Afraid of standing affirmatively with the truth. It is for this that I commend Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy Prime Minister. He stands affirmatively with voting NO because to him, that is the right thing to do and unlike the rest, he isn’t campaigning that the populace change their minds but they should vote according to their conscience.
A few weeks earlier, the accomplished Margaret Court, sounded a note to differ with the cacophony of voices saying yes. She seemed to be the only loud voice opposing this impending doom to society, as we currently see it. Following Qantas Airline’s promotion of same-sex marriage, she wrote the airline and stated:
“I am disappointed that Qantas has become an active promoter for same-sex marriage…..I believe in marriage as a union between a man and a woman as stated in the Bible….Your statement leaves me no option but to use other airlines where possible for my extensive travelling.”
All hell broke loose, when the content of this letter became public and got published in the West Australian. Kill her! Crucify her! Remove her name from the “Margaret Court” Arena! Erase her history from the Australian Open!. These were the shouts and screams coming from the lobbyist. The bullying from the LGBT community was without bound. It was a repeat of what had been experienced in a certain Australian business where a Director was summoned to resign from the board of a Christian Charity if he wants to continue to hold his office. His membership of the charity was said to be a cause of concern to certain employees in the company. Pastor Margaret, as she is called by many of us, her church members at Victory Life Bible Church in Perth, was perturbed but gladly would not give up. The way the argument for the YES vote has been conducted, any dissenting view is killed and cursed, striking fear and terror in the heart of the populace from speaking and expressing their views.
In fact, the whole premise of Bill Shorten’s request that the plebiscite should not take place but be voted on by parliament was to assure that the very few vocal voices in Parliament were the ones that would vote on this and hence assure the result they wanted – a redefinition of marriage.
So one would ask, why is this important? It is important because it hits at the very foundation of family. For a reason, God created us male and female. Many reasons could be adduced for this but it is not farfetched to know that both sexes are required for procreation. Marriage is simply the union between a man and a woman and this institution has been established, from the foundation of the earth, when God saw that Adam needed help. He could have created another man for Adam but he did not. In his wisdom, he went into Adam’s bones and brought out a woman, an help sufficient to complement the man.
Taking the Bible out of it, this vote strikes at the freedom of millions of other Australians were the Yes team to have their way. The freedom of speech and religious freedom would soon be thrown out of the window. We have seen what is happening all around the world. In Sweden, the PM is threatening that Christian Pastors should get ready to celebrate gay weddings or get another job. That isn’t a helpful statement to anyone or is it?
On another front, it is frightening to think of what will happen in schools. Currently under the Australian Safe Schools programme, the Gender Fairy book is being read to students as young as 4 years old and are being told no one can tell you whether you are a boy or girl, only you can. In essence, identity is becoming very fluid. You can be a boy today and tomorrow become a girl. The reconditioning in the classroom will be so swift and massive and yet as a parent, one would not have the right to pull his children out from such wrong education.
Nature will have the last laugh, it always does. We have seen experiments where male plants have been grafted on female trees. No matter what you do to them, they still retain their genes, male genes. Scientist can go ahead and pump men up with female hormones and give ladies testosterone and muscle building injections, the original nature of the being cannot be erased.
Now, peradventure you are asking where I stand. I do not support LGBT as a life choice. I love them as fellow humans but I detest the choices they have made. Some have argued that homosexuality is natural, I say no. it is not natural in animals, not in plants and of course not in man. A group of baboons have been pointed at as evidence of homosexuality in animals. My position is that these are the exceptions and not the norm. Homosexuality is a choice. A choice like any other and is not a creation of nature.
Asking for equality in marriage for homosexual is an abuse of the English term “equality”. If you are still both men or women, there is no way you can be said to have become equal to a man-woman relationship. So what equality are we talking about? The freedom for a man to marry a man or the freedom for a woman to marry a woman? If this is the equality, by the very definition of the word marriage, that cannot exist. And this is why if the LGBT decide to choose another word to refer to their relationship, perhaps there would be a cause for less concern with many. You can’t fain marriage
For those who are undecided and too afraid to take a stand. Please be assured that you are not a bigot, not homophobic, not irrational if you choose to say No. It is marriage equality today, what will the LGBT be asking for tomorrow? We simply don’t know and neither can we see where the line will be drawn and this ends. Simply put, where does the frontier stop?
Am I now on drugs?
As with other families out there, my wife and I call each other very frequently each day. This day was not different, except as it regards the nature of the call she made. As I picked up her call and said my “Hello”, the words were still in my mouth when she asked how I was and whether I was taking any medication. Of course she knows the medication that I was taking but apart from these, I wasn’t taking any other. Well, she said “you must start taking some multivitamins”. It was an order and I knew I wasn’t going to win any argument if I were to start one. Having been married to her for close to two decades, somethings have become very obvious.
As soon as she picked me up and welcomed me back home, off she went and when she came back it was with some packs of pills. Okay, I was taken aback and asked must I really take these? She gave me the silent look and continued with selecting a combination of these pills. As I watched, it was like an attempt by her to replicate the colours of the rainbow. She held the pills in the pill bottle cover in one hand and with a glass cup of water on the other hand, she asked that I open my mouth. Like a baby, I opened my mouth and in went the water and then the pills. It was a great effort for me to swallow the pills as they were big but I eventually succeeded. Without further being asked, her training as a medical personnel took over and she started explaining to me how our bodies age and become unable to fully breakdown food nutrients. As this occurs, she mentioned, the body needs help through the use of supplements for it to continue to function at tip top shape.
Well, she went ahead and brought the different packs of the supplements that I had just swallowed and told me they are one of the best in the market and that they had cost her a fortune and if I was interested, I should go online and read a little more about them. As we went to bed that same night, she told me how much she worries about me and cares. That in recent times, we’ve witness the loss of a couple of close family friends and colleagues and that she felt that the little way she can help was to get both of us to take care of our bodies. She mentioned that she wanted us to age gracefully together and does not wish any of us to spend our old age alone without the other. She added that she realized that God is in control and surely is the one who will decide when it is time to call us home but before he makes that decision, we should do what is needful to keep ourselves in great shape – Spirit, Soul and Body.
As I held her and listened to the words she was speaking, I was deeply touched. I have never had course to doubt her love for me but I was again moved by the extent of her care and concern for our wellbeing. I pulled her close and gave her a peck to her face and told her how grateful I am to have her as my wife. I jokingly asked her, what was in this for her? She turned towards me and said it was her insurance for a graceful old age. I knew it, she wanted me alive so that I could run those little errands for her and provide for our daily living. You are using me, I cried out! In her sleepy silent voice she responded “isn’t that what you are good for”?
Each day since, she has kept me on a daily regimen of these multivitamin, multimineral and concentrate dietary supplements to which she also added an omega-3 complex. Sweetheart, I know you will read this and it is another way through which I am saying thank you. Thank you for being there, dependable and truly caring for me and for our great kids. Love you tons, now that you have made me a “drug addict”.
These Unoccupied Houses in Lekki
I pride myself in the quality of education that I got. It wasn’t costly but it was top notch. It has served me well and I remain eternally grateful for it. I passed through the classes of notables like Professor Familoni who I consider a wizard in econometrics…till today, I can’t say I really grasped the essence of that harrowing course.
As I was taught, the invisible hands, first proposed by Adam Smith, is said to be the best determinant of price as well as allocator of resources in a free market economy. But is it really? Up comes the challenges posed by the increasing number of unoccupied houses in Lekki. It is the case of the more you try to rationalize it, the more confused you become. Is economic theory really applicable in Lekki?
The major puzzle here is that given the large stock of real quality houses in Lekki, rental prices should be on the downward swing but they are not. The second challenge is similar to the first, why are there still a large number of house rental houses construction projects ongoing when the occupancy ratio of the current stock is low?
Any economist out there with reasonable answers to these question is welcomed to express his thoughts.
School of our Pride….Those school songs of yesteryears.
As I sluggishly raised myself off the bed yesterday morning, made a little prayer to the Almighty God, I started the now habitual routine of singing to the almighty. However, just after a few songs, I found myself singing out the Government College Ibadan school song….School of our pride built on the rock.
Yesterday, was a different day. After going through the three (3) stanzas, something compelled me to start once again from stanza one and sing the anthem over and over again. I brushed my teeth and kept on singing the school song, I started meditating on the words. Not that I haven’t done this before, in reality it is something that I do frequently. However, yesterday, it all came to me with a different meaning and a question that I haven’t asked myself before stirred up in me – how have I held true to the words of the school song that I have professed with my lips?
Well, to be candid, I think I have done well, really well. Stanza 1 verse 3 is a prayer that our learnings in school should affect our conduct in life. In my case, those two (2) years I spent within the walls of this great institution kept on shaping my attitude to life and my daily conduct. Given where I am in life today, I will say this prayer is largely answered.
Stanza2 verse 1 professes that I should not be selfish in the rendition of my services; I seem not to have been fully compliant in this regard. Well, to some extent, I will concede that I fell short of the service requirement and …., before you crucify me, I think as a student of Adam Smith, I am justified! Was it not Adam Smith in his “Wealth of Nation” that propounded the gospel that men should be self serving and it is by doing so that the larger society prospers? Like it or not, Paul Samuelson, the renowned economics also supports this when he penned down the following words in his book Economics:
“As every individual … therefore, endeavors as much as he can,….. By pursuing his own interest, he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it”
There you have it, the society is much better off when I promote service to myself (being selfish) than when I seek the common good of the society! For those who have watched the 1987 film, Wall Street, and the 2010 sequel Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, you would not deny knowing Gordon Gekko. He was the one that uttered the statement that Greed is Good in 1987. After spending 23 years in prison, he came out in 2010 to reaffirm that Greed is not only good but it is legal!
Yes, I am aware that many will ask – Bimbo are you nuts? No not really. I still believe in service to others but I disagree with the “not to self” ending in that stanza. I think it should change to service to others and to self.
The next stanza encourages consideration for Nigeria first in all my doings. Well I have always been moved by this and despite the happening on in Nigeria, I still remain committed to this ideal. The Christian Faith, which I profess, in Psalm 122:6 commands us to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. In my case, Nigeria is my Jerusalem and it is important for me to pray and seek its peace always. In Jer 29:7, concerning the captives of Israel, God commanded that they should:
“…seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.”
So if God commands us to pray for our captors, it does naturally follow that we should seek the peace of our own land.
When it comes to showing honest labours dignity, I will give myself a pass mark in this also. I have endeavored to do this through my actions and not by the words of my mouth but as many will agree, this is rather a herculean task.
At the end of this monologue with myself, I recommitted myself to the vision of the school and sang the school anthem with a new sense of pride, knowing that I have not deviated from its ideals. How I wish I can stand again before Principal Fashina and sing the school song.
For my readers, can you share your school songs in the comment to this piece? Have you hold true to the ideals enshrined in the words of the song?
Government College Ibadan – School Song
School of our pride built on the rock,
By order, justice and fair play ruled,
May what we dare to learn from thee in youth
Be our guide light throughout our lives
School of our pride we build on thee.
Service is to others not to self,
Consideration for our Nation first,
By our examples and not by precept,
Show honest labours dignity,
School of our pride we build on thee.
Generations shall come and go,
But our pride youth will for aye remain,
May be not in the confines of your walls,
But in Alumni world-renowned.
School of our pride we build on thee
Lagelu Grammar School, Ibadan – School Song
Who are students bright and gay,
here they are in Lagelu
Diligent and disciplined,
here they are in Lagelu
Chorus: Wherever I go; whatever I be,
I’ll always uphold your name.
Hold you dear;hold you near,
to my heart, Lagelu
In classroom work;
in the field of play
social life and everything,
lazy drones, cheats and idlers,
have no room in Lagelu
Blaming Singapore’s Immigration…
Being an African or a Nigerian does not make me a criminal.
The country of my birth is not a factor that should be used in determining my criminal tendencies. Of the various life choices that I can make, neither the circumstance of my birth nor who my parents are was within my power of choices, the reality is that others made these choices for me, before I had my first breath on this planet. This holds true for each and every human that shares this space called Earth with me. What each of us can then only do is to live out our lives within the confines of these two choices that have been made for us.
As Martin Luther King rightly looked for, many today are still looking for a world where they will not be judged by the colour of their skins but by the content of tbeir character. Unfortunately, this simple dream made public at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on 28th August 1963 remains a dream for many almost fifty years after MLK groaned it out.
I was born in the rainforest of Nigeria to a family of modest means. In my years of existence on this part of eternity, I have jealously protected my name and created an expectation around the name – one that many have come to agree stands for honesty, justice and godliness. I stand untainted by blemish, of any form. This is my little light that I am making to shine. To be fair, given the thick darkness that pervades my environment, my little light shines really bright.
Unlike many that share the same circumstance of being Nigerian with me, I have been favourably smiled at by the creator who has taken me to the far and near of this wonderful world that he made in six days. Starting with road trips to the Republic of Benin, my world sojourn grew to encompass other countries as the United Kingdom, the United States and then France. My travel map covers such countries as South Korea, Germany, Hong Kong, Thailand, Qatar, UAE, China and South Africa. Oh I forgot to mention Singapore as well. Yes, same Singapore which I visited visa free in 2006.
In these sojourns, I had gone through various experiences at the hands of immigration officials, some not so good and others simply wonderful. The very first was in California in 2005 while trying to cross the Pacific to Korea. My family and I got pulled back, from the entire passengers that were to board the United flight, for bomb tests .Of course, I protested that this was racial profiling.
I had always told the world, at least those who cared to listen, that when it comes to acts of terrorism, the world should focus its energies somewhere else away from Nigeria. It was a sound argument, and it held true, until my countryman Abdulmutallab decided to give a Christmas gift to Nigeria by becoming the first recorded Nigerian suicide bomber. Arguments abound as to whether one can truly regard him as a Nigerian, given that he spent more years out of Nigeria than he did within it. However the reality is that he carried a Nigerian passport. Shortly after, I was leaving Houston and words are not enough to describe the humiliating experience of being pulled aside and being thoroughly searched because I some from a country of interest. Thank God that, with much outcry, the United States soon changed her policy and the Nigerian passport does not necessarily put you on the radar for special treatment.
I thought I had seen it all, how wrong I was! It all started with a desire of the family to vacate somewhere outside Australia. The plan was to spend a few days in the Phillipines and since we would transit in Singapore do same as well in Singapore. We sent in our papers for Visa to the Singaporean embassy, paid the required fees and gotten the eVisa. Remember, as at 2006 when we visited this country, as a Nigerian you do not need a visa. The pre-approval for the Phillipines Visa came a little below two weeks before our planned departure. To send our passports to the consulate for tbe phillipines visa was adjudged high risk as we may not get this back before our planned travels. So we decided to spend all the travel days in Singapore.
We arrived Singapore in the early morning hours and then going through immigration, I was reminded of my reality that I am a Nigerian when the official pulls my son and I apart for further examination. We watched as the entire passengers of our flight were allowed through immigration and no other persons were pulled aside. We were taken to a different room and our passports subjected to such scrutiny as a medical researcher would do to a specimen under a microscope. Then followed the barrage of questions – Who were we, what were we doing in Singapore, What do I do In Australia and on and on. Thirty or more minutes passed and we were then handed over our passports. I asked the official why we had to go tbrough this and he said it was because we are Nigerians. And why was that an issue? Simply they’ve had issues with some Nigerians that were travelling on fake passports.
When I got reunited with my wife and daughter, my girl in the innocency of a child asked “Daddy, why were you taken away and nobody else was from the passengers? How do I start explaining to her that it is the burden that comes with carrying a Nigerian passport? How do I complain to the Singapore officer that what he just did was ridiculous and is racial profiling? Given the news about the monstrous atrocities of the Boko Haram sect in Northern Nigeria, the MEND in the south and the continued piracy along the coasts of the Nigeria state, how do I convince the Singaporean officer that subjecting me to such scrutiny in their desire to protect their people and border was wrong?
I was angry, angry that my family and I had to go through this ridicule, angry at each and everyone of our citizens that has made the name Nigeria synonymous with 419 fraud, religious bombings, public corruption, moral delinquency and a tendency towards a failed state. I was angry at myself that I have not done enough in changing the trajectory of that country. My anger was more about us as a people and less about Singapore.
The very next morning, my son drew my attention to an article in a Singapore Magazine stating that a Nigerian Internet Service Provider leads the world when it comes to sending out sham mails – 62% of the addresses controlled by the ISP were noticed to be sending out spam.
As you read this piece would you join me in being the change that Nigeria needs. Remember, our little lights will shine brighter and will eventually overcome the thick darkness.
Now it’s Yakowa and Azazi….Who next?
Many might have forgotten but in March this year, we had a Nigerian Police Chopper crash which took the lives of four (4) top policemen, including DIG John Haruna. In the wake of this accident, I wrote a piece on my blog Ooh the Chopper went down!. The premise of my write up then was that these machines don’t just suddenly stop flying, it usually has to do with human failures in maintenance as per the dictates of the manufacturers.
Maintenance is costly and I need not re-check the budget of the federation to know that huge sums of money are earmarked for these, for the Police and the military forces. So the question that needs be asked is what happened to these allocations if they were not used for the maintenance schedules for which they were appropriated? One doesn’t need an Harvard degree to reach a conclusion that these funds were consumed by the corruption that has eaten so deep into the fabrics that weave the Nigerian nation together.
While all death is saddening and the nation mourns the death of Yakowa and Azazi, we should brace up for more! I am not a saddest but the truth is always a bitter pill to swallow. If we continue on the path of misappropriating funds and starving critical needs of funds, there will be increasing mishaps similar to the one that has claimed the lives of these two gentlemen, amongst others.
The mystery of death is that not many of us knows when and how we are going to die. Unfortunately the grandiose attached to the office of those who are ruling us has deluded them into thinking they are not as mortal as the majority of us are. This in itself is not a phenomenon new to man. In Ancient Rome, legend has it that victorious generals while parading through the street were often trailed by servants whose job it was to repeat to them “Memento mori”:Remember you will die. While our death is a certainty (except for those who are fortunate to witness the rapture), lest it not be said that we hasten our death by being directly or indirectly responsible!
If there is any lesson at all to learn from this loss, it is the need for all of us to shun corruption and get our dilapidating equipments and infrastructure maintained. Again, the paper is awash with news of how the government will investigate the cause of this naval crash in Bayelsa, who is fooling whom? When the Police helicopter crashed in March, the Inspector General was also all over the press promising an investigation. Have we stopped to ask what was the outcome of that investigation? What lessons did we learn from that investigation? What measures have we put in place to assure this will not happen again?
The bell is tolling again and who is next, we do not know. Lest those who are in the corridors of power stop a second and think of their mortality. Let them think of what legacy they will leave behind. This corruption is killing us all.
Our “Men of God” and Private Jets
Not all things that are lawful are necessarily expedient! Apostle Paul makes this known vividly when he said that “All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not” in 1 Cor 10:23
No matter how we decide to slice this issue, I think these purchases (as it is with such other purchases by many of our men in white robes) are a result of error in judgement. Many people do judge books by their covers (despite the conventional advice that we should not). Rightly or wrongly, many men of different faith persuasions will never step in a church in their lives but their understanding of the Christian faith will be assessed by the flamboyant wealth display of our jet owning pastors. Of course they are more glamorous and adorn the cover pages of our magazines than those faithful few that are tucked in the remote corners of the country doing great missionary works for God.
As I understand it, the word Christianity means to be Christ like – it was first used for the disciples at Antioch where they had everything in common and touched every life. Jesus was able to command money out of the mouth of a fish to pay his taxes. This suggest, at least to me if not o anybody else, that if Jesus were to be in need of money to meet with any of his “wants”, he could have easily gotten this but he chose not to fulfil his wants but was content with satisfying his needs – which he expressed as basically to do his father’s will. Have we considered that in the days of Jesus Christ there were horse driven chariots and Jesus owned none? Could Jesus also not have acquired one on the pretext that such was needed to spread the gospel to the “uttermost part of the earth”. I can’t recall the master has having done this.
So let’s ask ourselves, what is the excuse for the jet planes that our pastors have now come to crave in a country where many are living in squalor? Have we run out of people that we can make impacts to their lives? Would society not have been better served if these funds were otherwise used to “buy the future” by investing in missionary schools, the likes that gave many of them the lives they are currently enjoying?
Judgement is coming and it will start from the house of God!
A Chase In The Shadows
Startled, stunned,
You begin to run,
Till you hear the gun,
Then the baffling is done.
Frightened, stricken,
Your feet steps quicken.
Another gunshot then,
You hear the sounds of dogs and men.
One-thing echoes through your mind,
Run! Run! RUN!
One-thing is on their mind,
Gun! Gun! GUN!
Please read Daniel’s book available on iTunes for free download titled “A Chase in the Shadows” by Daniel Abimibola. Downloads available only on iPad.
You finally escaped,
But then shouts the man in the cape,
‘Don’t stop until he is done’,
The chase has begun.
Then appears a man clothed in shadows,
Through the darkness he follows,
Searching for prey,
In night and day,
Tonight you are in his way,
And now he does say,
Today,
You shall pay.
The chase has begun,
And now before dawn,
He attacks swiftly,
Moving gently,
You are a dead man,
Your death will be quite grand,
For even though rules of survival you follow,
Which man can run from his shadow.
A Poem by Kiiti Abimibola (c) 2012
A Mosquito in Perth…
The process of applying and getting approved for a Visa to stay in Australia was not one of the easiest in the world. After getting my job offer, the hurdle was to prove to the Australian authorities that we were not coming over to Australia to infest the resident population with diseases from Africa. The medical results from our reputable medical practitioners were not enough, the Australian Immigration insisted that the results must be from one of only two approved practitioners for the whole of Nigeria.
One beautiful morning, we left our abode to get the required medical tests done. We succeeded in tracing the obscure address in downtown Lagos. The medicals involved filling a series of questionnaires and then getting examined by the doctor focussing on such diseases as Malaria, Hepatitis, Fever, Whooping Coughs, etc. Tests for HIV were carried out as well Following this, there was a need for Chest Xrays and we have to make another tortious and, to me, an unnecessary journey to Victoria Island. The results were then mailed to Sydney for the authorities gracious review and approval for visas. The way the examinations were conducted, I left with the thought that Australia must be a rodent, pest and disease free piece of God’s heaven on earth.
On arriving at Perth, it didn’t take long for us to be pulled aside by the Australian Immigration Officers having noticed our Nigerian Travel documents. Politely, questions were asked as to whether we have taken Yellow Fever vacinnations to which our answer was No. With friendly smiles, we were issued a ticket requesting that if we develop any of some listed symptoms within two (2) weeks, we should show ourselves to a Doctor for treatment. Well, I was not expecting that we would develop any sickness and none of us did.
Our sojourn in Australia began on this note until I saw a cockroach. The creature with its feelers was busy strolling out of its hiding on a cold evening when we met by the door of the laundry. Of course, I won the contest of who has the right to live in the house.
It wasn’t long after this that I had to visit the University of Western Australia (UWA). I simply could not stop thinking about the similarities and differences between this university and my alma mater – the University of Lagos (Unilag). Both Universities are situated next to large expanse of water – Unilag is by the lagoon while UWA is by the Swan River. The location of these campuses by a body of water brings some beauty to the views that accost their patrons. I think that is where the similarities end. While the Ijaws have managed to take over the waterfronts of Unilag and build shanty houses on stilts on top of the water, their relatives have not managed to get themselves into the Swan River and do the same. I believe this must be one of the results of the strict Australian regime for Visa approvals. However, in the absence of the invasion from the Ijaws, the bourgeoises have taken over the waterfronts of UWA and turned these into a park for their luxury yachts. The colours and ambience that this adds to the view from the grounds of the University is beautiful. Years of non enforcement of environmental laws to control waste disposal in the Lagos lagoon has resulted in the pollution of the water at the Unilag Lagoon. It is virtually impossible to see clearly beneath two or three inches of the water. This was not the case at the UWA, I was able to see clearly beneath the waters. In fact I was tempted to drink from it as it was.
On leaving the shores of the Swan River at the UWA, I needed to ease myself and found my way to the rest room of the Faculty of Arts. As I started the task that brought me to the restroom, I lifted up my eyes and there it was. I almost shouted and then I pulsed a little, I just couldn’t believe it. It was a Mosquito, unperturbed with what I was doing, lying on the wall near a spider’s web. Then my attention was drawn to another and then another and I counted at least six (6) of them.
Finally, I got the evidence I needed. Australia is not really the piece of heaven I had been made to believe it was. It has its own mosquitoes, cockroaches and spiders as well. The question then is – what makes Australia free from Yellow Fever, Malaria,cholera and other such diseases that are prevalent in Nigeria? Answers anyone? Did I hear someone say leadership?
Syria, an exception?
The world is watching while Syria is burning. The Arab Spring that started in Tunisia on 18 December 2010 with Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation has seen to the change in government in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen. The self styled Brother Leader was captured and killed by opposition forces, largely with the aid of the US and France.
Now the Syrian people have been on this path for more than a year – to be free from what they consider the repressive regime of Al-Assad but despite the brutal force that the state is using to crush the opposition, none of the world powers have come to the aid of the people of this country to stop the killing, stop the war.
I frequently ask myself where the US is on this issue. A fair argument can be made by the US that this is not its war. Added to this, the US can also say that Syria is a sovereign nation that should solve its problems by itself. However, lest we forget, it was Ben Parker, Spiderman’s (Peter Parker) great uncle that succinctly define the responsibilities of power to the world in his saying that “With great power comes great responsibilities”. The size of responsibility that one carries is directly proportional to the powers that one wields, and the US wields great powers in our today’s world.
The US cannot continue to stand aloof and watch as thousands are being sent to their early grave. Many co-inhabitants of this planet earth see the inaction of the US as deplorable and sometimes could be described as the ultimate height of irresponsibility. Others ask whether an intervention in Syria by the US has been discussed on the investment analysis table and a conclusion made that there is not enough oil to guarantee a decent return on investment for the US.
The argument that China and Russia should take the lead on this one, as they are the one that have consistently been blocking the security council from acting, is weak and absolutely an excuse for inaction. Someone should help me to jiggle my memory of where these two nations have ever acted to interfere in cases of gross abuse of human rights to life in the world, I bet the answer is never. Whatever the issue is, the world is watching and the world considers the US as the only nation that is bequeathed with the resources to stop the genocide that Syria is fast becoming.
Let it be known that if the US doesn’t act and Syria goes down in history as a tyrant and despotic nation where the people are repressed continually, the US will have no moral grounds to preach democracy to anyone in the world. Maybe it would preach it but the world will not buy the thrash that such would be considered to be. The blood of those opposed to the ongoing repression of opposing views by the Bashir government would ever remain as a memory to our collective psyche – we can’t just choose to act only when it is convenient. We must ALWAYS act when the fundamentals of human freedom is being abused anywhere on this planet.
Will someone nudge our dear President Obama and his people to act?
Nigeria has talents – Bindir is one
I am a man of faith. The happenings, in and around Nigeria, most times put this faith to test. However, with a resilient faith like mine, it’s been tough but hardly have I ever given up on Nigeria. Albeit, there have been very few occasions that have caused the light of my faith to burn brighter, one such occasion happened yesterday.
As I was driving home from my lawn tennis practice, I happenstance tuned my radio to FM97.7 and there, online, was Dr. Umar Buba Bindir talking about his team’s work at and vision for the National Office for Technology Acquisition and Promotion (NOTAP). Prior to that moment, I have never heard of the name Bindir but my interest was aroused in the program because of a faint familiarity that I have had with NOTAP. While growing up, we had as a tenant in our house a staff of NOTAP and I have always been curious as to why this office was set up and how it is expected to go about delivering on the vision of it’s founding fathers. Was this to be a Nigerian espionage office to “steal” technology from countries like Japan, South Korea, the USA etc?
The interview session with this great Nigerian was a pleasurable experience. Pleasurable in the way and manner this Fulani doctorate degree holder in Engineering went about with dissecting the issues around why Nigeria has remained undeveloped, on why technology has to be the bane of our development and the position of NOTAP in all these, especially with facilitating a coordinated development of such technology that is indigenous ti Nigeria. He was just brilliant, both in the display of his knowledge of what he and his team have to do as well as in his communication. He was not ignorant of the challenges his team has to face in getting to their eldorado however he believes that none of these is insurmountable.
In showcasing the progress his team had made so far, he mentioned the cooperation being received from Friesland in developing a Research & Development group within their Nigerian operation and facilitating the insemination of dairy technological knowledge fir Nigerian research fellows at Netherlands institutes. He pointed out progress with acquiring sperms from thoroughbred cows from Holland to be used on Nigerian cattle so as to, in years to cone, have a local dairy industry that could provide much needed cow milk for Friesland in Nigeria so as to put a stop to the decades long idea of milk importation into the country. Similar progress was mentioned with Indorama.
When the interview was rounded up by 8pm, I was yearning for more. Bindir has a brilliant mind and clearly understand what his vision of success is. He is a perfect definition of having a round peg in a round hole. How I wish we have many more minds like him holding different positions of repute in Nigeria. When he mentioned that he is a Fulani man, my mind could not disentangle itself from the present show of shame being canvassed by our northern governors blaming their incompetencies and inability to develop the region on not having enough share from the federally allocated revenues of Nigeria. Let’s consider this, if these governors will invest in education of such that has produced such a brilliant scholar like Bindir, will we be talking of Boko Haram and Almajeris in present day Nigeria? Would the story of the North not have been one of a big farming basin that supplies the whole nation with cost efficient farm produce and cause an economic turnaround in these states as a result of the income that would have accrued to these states from this venture?
Ooh the Chopper went down!
Things ain’t looking good in the news for Nigeria, it’s another tragic date. The newspapers of 15th March 2012 report the crash of a Chopper belonging to the Nigerian Police and causing the death of four (4) top policemen, amongst others. While we mourn this tragic loss, it behoves us to investigate the circumstance in which the Chopper came down.
A good friend of mine, a couple of years ago, pointed out clearly the difference between maintenance for these flying machines and those for road vehicles. For flying machines, you maintain and repair before something breaks while for road vehicle you have the luxury of waiting until something breaks before you fix it.
It is good to know that the Inspector General of Police has requested an investigation into the cause of the accident but I won’t be surprised if this has to do with the chopper not being maintained as prescribed by the manufacturers. It has happened before and if our habits is anything to go by, I believe it will happen again. We just don’t have that maintenance culture in us, either from the wide prevalent corruption or just our sheer inability to focus on doing the right thing at the right time.
In any case, the nation is at a loss again, a loss of another one of its finest brains (DIG Haruna John was described as such by the IGP. we also loss the massive state investment in training and bringing these policemen to the levels they were holding prior to their death. Our reputation as a nation also suffered another dent. I hope we’ve learnt a lesson and someone who has the responsibility for the maintenance of these aircraft is up and doing right now asking what could go wrong next with our military fleet.
Obeying the nation’s call.
I have always sung the national anthem, both the old and the new, with passion. The passion, then, derived most probably from the beats that went with it. Many of us can remember the school assembly lines of old. Yes, those lines – out in the open, columns of neatly dressed pupils in their well starched and ironed uniforms, singing and marching to the beat of the drums.
As I grow older, I sing the new anthem with a lot more passion, a different kind of passion. A passion that derives more from what the words mean to me and what the words were meant to invoke, in the hearts of my fellow citizens, as the nation calls. It is a very simple call that the nation makes daily to us – to Arise and Serve. In these two words, Arise and Serve, we have the embodiment of the whole national anthem. This call is the message of the first three stanzas of the national anthem.
Each time I have the opportunity to drop my kids at school, or stand at a national event, and I hear the wording of the national anthem, my hopes in the greatness of this nation is rekindled. Rekindled in the sense that I simply know that, out there, just out there, are people of like persuasions as I am that listen to the call and are motivated to obey. I love this call and cease not to think of the many others, who have the same persuasions as I do.
Unfortunately, the nation bleeds and she is dying. As it dies, with all her strength, she keeps calling. The calls, not as strong as they once were but now faintly she cries, as her strength wanes – Arise O Compatriots, Nigeria’s call obey. The nation is dying, not because she had not cried loud enough for help but because many of us simply did hear but really could not understand her. The few that understood and obeyed took advantage of her. While she called for us to serve, she also dictated the kind of service she needed – one to be done with love and strength and faith. Here lies the crux of the failure, for the majority of the few that obeyed; it was a different kind of service they gave – one without love, without strength and without faith.
As I sojourn through time and places, meet with my countrymen from all walks of life, there is just one question that those who cares keep asking – How do we stop the nation from bleeding to death? As with most manners of breakthroughs, the answer had always been right before us but we knew it not. In this case, the answer lies in simply obeying the call. In doing this, we are called to Arise from our slumber and serve. We are called to serve with love for our people and our nation. We are called to serve with all our strength and with an unyielding faith in the greatness and prosperity of our fatherland. If there is anytime, that it is most important to ACT, the time is now. There are consequences for both our action and our inaction. If we act timely, we can stop the bleeding, wrap up and heal the wounds. If we refuse to act, the wound will become mortal, the nation will die and the blood will be on us and on our generations yet unborn. As we obey the call, it is important that we understand the purpose of the call. Our heroes past had spelt these out in the last stanza of the anthem – To build a nation where peace and justice shall reign.
As we heed the call, it is important to realize that the work is not easy and that is why we need strength, great strength, to make right all the wrongs that have occurred. We need also to pray, that the good Lord should guide our leaders right. In our different households, as fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, we are saddled with the responsibility of helping our youths to know the truth and to grow in love and honesty.
The anthem is singing again. Let us listen. Let us obey. Let us Serve, with a different kind of understanding. God bless Nigeria.
Arise, O compatriots,
Nigeria’s call obey
To serve our Fatherland
With love and strength and faith.
The labour of our heroes past
Shall never be in vain,
To serve with heart and might
One nation bound in freedom, peace and unity.
O God of creation,
Direct our noble cause;
Guide our Leaders right:
Help our Youth the truth to know,
In love and honesty to grow,
And living just and true,
Great lofty heights attain,
To build a nation where peace and justice reign.
This is culled from my 2009 post on bloggers.com. You can view other posts at http://nigeriascallobeyed.blogspot.com/
The Lekki Epe Expressway Roundabout.
Finally, thanks to Governor Fashola and his visionary leadership, NIGERIA is having road infrastructure that can be used as a showpiece compared to what obtains in other parts of the world.
Before our very eyes, the Lekki-Epe Expressway is wearing a new look – classy! With the streetlights, wide three lanes each way, drainage and pedestrian walkways where needed, this is impressive. Coupled with these are the road furniture in place, I simply beam with smiles when I drive on this road – there is great hope for NIGERIA with visionary leadership. Suffice it to say that I have been a regular commutter on this road for 15 years and we have never had it this good. YES, I know that the citizens of this area are still at war with the governor requesting that the toll gates be reduced in number and the toll fees slashed down. My thoughts on the appropriateness of these demands, I will keep to myself for now.
Now, I do have concerns about the roundabout and hopefully I will be representing the views of many. Firstly, I think that having roundabouts on this piece of road was ill-advised. Given the volume of traffic on the road and being labelled as an expressroad, I would think that our road planners should have opted for flyovers. At the very least, the intersection at Lekki Phase 1 and Ajah ought to have had flyovers and not roundabouts. We are already experiencing the end result of this less than perfect choice, “go slow” at these roundabouts.
The other concern that I have is with the “massive” size of these roundabouts. For those that cared to listen, I have said that these should earn us a place in the Guinness Book of Records – they are just disproportionately wide when compared to the three lane roads they serve. The concern is much more than the diameter of these roundabout but for the safety risks they present to the road users. Here is the issue – as you approach the roundabouts, the three wide lanes that you have been driving on suddenly tapers into two lanes. Lekki Construction Company would argue that we still have three lanes at the roundabout but this is not true. If you take the measurement of the three lanes away from the roundabout and compare to the said “three” lanes that go round the roundabout, you will know that the latter measurement is much smaller than the previous. This ought not to be. All drivers, approaching the roundabout, have to be extra cautious as they cannot retain their lanes, in defiance of other traffic, without ending up in an accident. In normal climes, each driver is expected to retain his lanes and not crossover to othersblanes. If you keep to this rule, at our roundabouts in Lekki, this is a sure recipe for an accident. The attendant effect of this is the traffic build up at each of these roundabouts in the mornings and late evenings.
I hope LCC and Lagos State Government read this and take necessary measures to either reduce the roundabouts or increase the width of the road going ound it – as a nation, we cannot afford more deaths on our roads, especially those that can be prevented.