My end-of-2009 chart

Moment of the year

From San Francisco to Sango Ota, Tashkent to Taraba, Port Elizabeth to Porto Alegre, London to Laos, whether on the internet or over the radio, television or telephone, there was unanimity in spirit, some unspoken camaraderie across the globe for those few hours of uncertainty. ‘Oh dear, could this be the end of a colossus?’ seemed to be the question on millions of hearts and lips on June 25, once news broke that Michael Joseph Jackson had been rushed to the hospital. Collectively, the world has hardly ever witnessed a more intense moment of baited breath than the period between when MJ was rushed to the hospital and his eventual death. And it is similarly difficult to find one development to surpass the news of his death as news of the year.

Revelation of the year

Thanks to the combination of the global economic meltdown, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigerians got to know how much rot had been covered up in the banking sector in the country. People got to know who spends whose money in this country and I for one got to appreciate how much of a ‘big guy’ I could become if only I could get some bank to borrow a hefty enough sum of money from.

Asshole(s) of the year

In all probability those six days weren’t the goriest or bloodiest in Nigeria’s history. But the philosophy leading to the gore and blood was as jejune, ludicrous and anal as any you will ever hear of. Even in places like Afghanistan, Iran or Palestine acts of terror have often supposedly been a show of defiance against the perceived overbearing posture of the West, never about eradicating western education and the whole gamut. But here we had a band of simpletons called Boko Haram who engineered a carnage in which hundreds of lives and millions of naira worth of property perished. Saudi Arabia the spiritual home of all Muslims has centres where scientific research is conducted. Mathematics, physics, biology and other such paraphernalia of western education are studied in places like Iran and Lebanon. Now, add to that the fact that the imbeciles, led by their vile leader, planned their dastardly acts while most definitely talking over cell phones (a product of science and western education) all the while, then you might begin to understand why any of those nincompoops certainly stands out as idiot of the year.

Product promoter of the year

Globacom Nigeria Limited has to be by far and away the winner in this category for sheer tenacity of purpose. What didn’t they do to sway and might I add, irritate subscribers? Most subscribers to the services of the telecoms outfit should be familiar with such lines as ‘Luck don jam you,’ ‘make you no let this awoof pass you,’ how will you spend… millions?, ‘Sshh… make you no tell any bodi o,’ and numerous others. For the naked effort in persuasion or nuisance value to the customer, Glo certainly ‘Ruled’ our cell phone ‘world’ more than any other this year.

Feud of the year

I can tell you that at the height of it, there was absolutely nothing civil about this feud. It was pure roforofo fight in which every instrument was permissible as long as it gave an edge and for any length of time. I am talking here of the rivalry between two newspapers owned respectively by a serving governor and a former governor of two neighbouring South-West states, two personalities who also belong to rival political parties. There was such evident small-mindedness on both sides that you could aptly predict what makes front page news in either publication every morning, for once one carried any news item, the other was sure to cover the other side of the same story. And the major stories for either publication in the most, revolved around whatever dirty detail could be dug up about the rival proprietor.

Joke of the year

That as we go into year 2010, 10 years before 2020, in spite of the country being barely able to light its homes while its roads are hell-holes, Nigeria will, come 2020, become one of the 20 most industrialised nations of planet earth. Please, shoot me for not being enthusiastic, curse me for not been patriotic but I will still tell you tales of pipe dreams and of a place called Sugar Candy Mountain.

Person of the year

I could choose Barack Obama, Babatunde Fashola, Yar’Adua or any other person for this, all with justifiable reasons. But for his sheer resilience, his perseverance and iron-cast will at surviving all that nature, bad leadership and even his own folly and misguided adventure keep throwing at him, the Nigerian man has to be my person of the year.

End of the year prayer

Oh no, dear God, please don’t let it be true that we are now on the verge of being tagged a terrorist nation in addition to whatever black tag they have already put on us. We sure have too much on our plate already.

End of the year question

Who is Nigeria’s president?

For the sake of sanity

It was a humbling experience to be part of the procession in Lagos on Friday December 4, 2009. The procession was a vigil in honour of 24-year-old Grace Adie Ushang, the female youth corper who earlier this year, was most bestially violated and murdered in Borno State by yet-to-be-brought-to-book perverted cowards.

Earlier same day, there was a similar procession in Abuja, also to remind those in authority of how much they have neglected their vows and duty to protect us all. Those in authority may be silent on this because they may be thinking, 'what's the life of a 24-year-old worth to anybody anyway. Moreover, she got what she deserved.' That is the voice of cowardice, apathy mysoginy and ignorance.

But luckily for those who have identified with this cause and the push for a bill against violence against women, that is not our own voice. Let's continue to do something to shame the ignorant ones and to help bring culprits in cases of sexual violence against women to book.

The next victim could be you or someone you know or care for, someone you love.

Up Pillars!!!!

The news didn’t come as a surprise to me, for I had expected the barbarity of man to rear its head once again, in that encounter. A week ago, as I sat watching the CAF Champions League Semi-final first leg match between Heartland of Owerri, Imo State and Kano Pillars of Kano, I literally told those around me that ‘there will be blood’ in Kano come the return leg in the Pyramid City. Heartland was of course, leading by four goals at the time, rendering the return leg a little more than mere formality. The calculation was simple: Pillars were not going to beat Heartland by up to four goals, if they managed to beat them at all.

And having witnessed many a less-important match end in wanton fan violence in Kano over the years, I needn’t necessarily be a Nostradamus to predict what would naturally follow during the match and after the final whistle in Kano. And so I was proved spot on as the Pillars fans did not only attack the Heartland fans in the stadium but also pelted the Imo State governor, Ikedi Ohakim and his Kano State counterpart, Ibrahim Shekarau with all sorts of objects. As if that were not enough, the fans also allegedly took the governors hostage for about 15 minutes after the match while more about an hour after the final whistle, some of the heartland supporters were still caged in at the Sani Abacha Stadium as irate Pillars fans bayed for their blood. And you are right to ask, all because of an ordinary football match?

It is a shame anyway that the Pillars fans reacted the way they did. Here was a team that had handed mighty Al-Ahly of Egypt a most humiliating exit from this year’s competition. Yes, Pillars it was that I glowingly wrote about after they did the seemingly impossible by holding African club football mega powers to a 2-2 draw in Egypt, a result that led to the exit of the six-time CAF Champions League champions from this year’s competition. At the hands of African club football debutants and total unknowns like Pillars, might I add.

Many followers of the African game had expected Egyptian fans to intimidate the Nigerians before, during and even after that duel, but suffice to say that even if they did, it must have been rather insignificant compared to what happened in Kano over the weekend. Shall we, therefore, say in as diplomatic terms as possible, that Pillars fans are sour losers? Of course, yes. If none of the teams they played away at and picked points from thought it appropriate to resort to riotous tendency against them during their fairytale journey to the semis of this year’s competition, the Pillars fans should have just savoured this experience and look forward to similar experiences in future, rather than giving CAF and football followers a dark label to put on their darling Pillars.

To think that this was coming at a time when I was starting to half-concede my memories of after-match scenes in Kano to the stuff of history. The history of the days when we needed to brace ourselves for doses of teargas, bruises here and there, missing personal effects, burnt cars, second degree injuries and even the occasional death, all from violence of mini ethno-religious colouration. I remember those days of the irresistible 3SC Shooting stars of Ibadan, the tenacious Bendel Insurance of Edo, the swashbuckling Iwauyanwu Nationale (now Heartland), the irrepressible Enugu Rangers, all teams whose performances against Pillars in Kano year-in-year-out sparked riotous scenes amongst supporters. Scenes to which I lost countless pairs of flip-flops, sniffed from dozens of teargas canisters, sustained numerous cuts and bruises as I was caught in the crossfire between opposing fans and the mediating team of teargas-hauling policemen. These were the sorts of riots to which I most fondly lost a part of my pair of Dan Medina (made in Medina) flip flops just three days after buying the pair for which I had saved up money for weeks. Dan Medina had been the in-thing back then. It was the most durable type of bathroom slippers known around Kano and its status as having (supposedly) been made in Medina, Saudi Arabia, added to its prestige and legend. If you didn’t own a pair back then, you hadn’t quite simply worn a pair of flip flop - it was a status symbol of sorts. And I lost a part of my pair after a riot broke out between fans of Iwanyanwu and Pillars in the aftermath of a dramatic Nationale victory in Kano.

Such times were reenacted at the weekend. Times when several hours after a football match, it was still considered suicidal for a lot of us to cross from Sabon Gari to Brigade Quarters. It was such times when for hours after a match you were holed up inside the main bowl of the Kano Township Stadium until policemen, at their own risk, too, managed to smuggle you out later in the night. Those were the times when even as a reasonably neutral fan you were forced to chant ‘Up Pillars!’ to save your neck. After any of the afore-mentioned teams had dished out the usual dose of agony to Pillars, and you happened to be caught in a mob of irate Pillars fans, you had one of two choices – remain steadfast, even in your neutrality and receive the beating of your life or manically shout ‘Up Pillars!’, before gloating Pillars fans. And in those circumstances, ‘Up Pillars’ was a small price to pay in exchange for a sojourn to the orthopedic centre. It was back to those Up Pillars days again last Saturday, shamefully so, for a team Nigerians had up until then been very proud of.

Four men, one barrel and two bags

Nothing prepared me for that occasion, and I guess nothing ever prepares you for it. Time was around 7.38 pm as I strutted down a street in the GRA part of Ikeja, Lagos. I had just left an eatery where I spent the previous three hours or so filing a feature article to the deputy editor of the Saturday desk of my newspaper. I had been running around, almost in circles all day, gathering material for an article I had to file same day otherwise I simply forget it. Uppermost on my mind at the time, therefore, was the thought of getting home as soon as possible, take a bath, eat dinner, watch some TV, if possible, and then hit the sack. Such was the jaded nature of my body and mind that I desperately sought to catch the most efficient, if most dangerous form of transport in Lagos – commercial motorcycle (okada).

The first few okada I tried to hail down either had a passenger already or they wouldn’t just go my way, so I decided to walk on in the hope that I would catch one eventually. There was obviously no hint of danger and although I didn’t know GRA that much, the street I was walking down at did not carry any hint of what was to hit me (if they ever carry any that is) – well-paved road, perimeter/electric fences, tightly-locked gates, bla bla. But then it happened. Around the middle of the long street (more than 400 metres), I saw an okada dropping off a passenger. There was also another one about 20 metres from the first one, also dropping of a passenger. From across the road I hailed “PWD,” the name of the bus stop where I was going to board another okada or bus, towards my home. Unlike the others, this okada beckoned on me but was also rummaging in his pocket for what I thought was change for his passenger.

Then I fell for it and crossed the road to meet him as the other okada man was asking if he (my okada man) could spare him N40 change. His own passenger came towards us and I thought he was coming for the N40, so I just turned towards my okada man. In split seconds I was starring at the barrel of a locally made pistol. The ‘passenger’ had crept from behind me and grabbed my shoulder, holding the pistol to my face. “Give me the bag,” he barked. I handed him my laptop bag which had no laptop in it but had my digital camcorder, my ID card, some money, my tape recorder, a few books etc. “Where is the money,” he barked again. “I don’t have any money I said,” as he tried to frisk the side pockets of the jeans trouser I wore. I kept shifting back tapping his hands away and then just dug my hand into one of my back pockets and brought out some money, which I threw on the ground as I stepped further away. Quickly, he bent down and picked the money. By then the other okada had turned his bike towards where I was coming from while the other ‘passenger,’ the one who had been on the okada I flagged down, crossed the road and mounted the bike as Mr. Gun jumped on ‘my’ okada and they sped off. Only then did I manage to shout “ole, ole,” prompting some of the guards in some of the houses on the street to come out. But it was too late. The deed was done. I immediately put a call across to the state police public relations officer who in turn urged me to report the incident at the Ikeja Police Station.

Funny though, at the police station, as I was writing my statement/complaint, another man came in to report that he, too, had just been robbed of his laptop (an official laptop he had just been given, having just been employed newly) right in the middle of a traffic slow-down in the same GRA. From his description of the man with the gun, I suspect it was the same gang that did the job on me. And as we walked out of the station and my partner in distress carried on complaining, I just kept thinking of the irony of it all. Here I was, a crime reporter who has often felt so much pity for some suspected robbers, especially those on okada to the extent that I have had to wonder if the police were not been too fussy with some of the arrests. To think I had so helplessly fallen victim to the people I have always felt such pity for.

Come to think of it, I have often wondered how robbery victims, especially the on-the-road-and-at-gunpoint ones felt. Well, as I walked on silently that night, I had my long sought answer – drained, befuddled, benumbed, breathless, helpless, maybe even slightly touch-and-go, edgy and tetchy, but grateful it didn’t get any worse.

Hurray(?), we are 49

So, it's a hefty 49 years ago now since the Brits left these shores and we claimed independence? Great. I was reading a newspaper article by an editor of one of the national dailies recently in which the author wrote something quite instructive. He observed that one of the funny things about writing about developments in Nigeria is that one ends up writing about the same issues every time - no water, bad roads, poor if any attention to education, brazen corruption, and the whole gamut of which my grandparents and my parents complained about. The gamut I have found myself also complaining about since I first knew how to say 'daddy' or 'A is for apple.' Sadly, as we celebrate 49 years as an independent entity today, I have justifiable fears that my children, their own children and their children's grand children will also have same complaints to make.

So, I have in my wretched wisdom, culled back an article I did two years ago, just to weigh how much things have improved in those two years. But the reality is we still only seem to have the sordid, the bizarre and the lurid to hold on to….

The Happiest-Looking People on Earth

As the Nigerian flag fluttered in the air in celebration of the country’s 47th independence anniversary on October 1, this year, one man in particular would have been weeping. That man is Pa Taiwo Akinkumi, the old man whose idea gave birth to the Nigerian flag. He would have been weeping for having been neglected by the powers that be in this country; neglected to slowly die in acute senility and penury whereas his place in history as the architect of one of Nigeria’s national monuments deserves to fetch him a more tranquil old age and passing on. The old man would have wept for this country because the potentials which influenced his design of the Nigerian flag – a fertile land with vast amount of natural resources that should bring about unity, stability and progress – have not translated to socio-economic fortunes for the masses of the people.

And Pa Akinkumi is not alone in his despair. Millions of Nigerians share his despair about a system that has spectacularly failed its people, no matter what anyone would say. As Nigeria continues to junket around the African continent trying to export resources – political and economic freedom, stability and the rule of law - that it cannot even provide for its own people, socio-economic comparisons are invariably drawn between the country and others like India, China, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, even South Africa and Ghana. And boy, how vast and sharp the contrasts are! It just seems like these other countries have enlisted the use of jets to continue their part of the journey they started on about the same pedestal with Nigeria while Nigeria has stuck to the use of her rickety bicycle for the same journey. The result is that, in a lot of ways, it is safe to say that the Nigerian government at all levels continues to act in ways that makes it seem that the labour of our heroes past have indeed been in vain.

But in the midst of it all, amidst all the chaos and despair, and despite their own individual negatives, it is the resilience of the Nigerian that remains the driving force. The Spartan drive and tenacity of the common Nigerian has continued to engender - if not freedom - some form of unity and peace - which provide us with a place we can still call Nigeria today. The only thing that has kept this molue called Nigeria trudging on is the sacrifice continuously made by millions of socio-politically battered (physically and psychologically) Nigerians - the Iya alakaras, baba Mulika the welder, Ekpo the panel-beater, the petty trader in Ariaria market in Aba, hordes of perennially underpaid and unpaid public workers – with the assistance of the media, despite its own shortcomings.

In spite of their political elite, the uncanny and almost insane sense of humour of the common man in Nigeria, to smile through a plethora of man-made catastrophe engineered by their own leaders, has continued to provide the veneer by which the world has, for almost five decades, labelled Nigerians ‘the happiest people on earth’. And to many people, as the sound of the national anthem rents the air in government quarters among rented crowds on Independence Day each year, the one thing truly worth celebrating about Nigeria is the combination of iron-cast will and a Mohammed Ali endurance of the Nigerian. It is the Nigerian man’s ability to survive situations that would easily lead to socio-political combustion a hundred times over in most other nations in the world that is truly celebratable here.

But with the sound of each aeroplane taking off from any of the country’s international airports comes the thought that, that aircraft may well be another drain pipe; a pipe draining away yet another of our best and most promising brains because this entity has failed him or her. That realisation makes you wonder just how furiously our heroes past must be turning in their graves for the sorry extent to which their dream has been allowed degenerate. And with a seemingly never improving socio-political state of affairs you are tempted to ask just how many more punches this Mohammed Ali can take, just how many lives this weary old cat called Nigeria would be required to live on before it starts to get it right.

Oshodiiiiiii!

Gunpowder?


I bumped into this scene on Friday evening and decided to get a few shots. It was of course at perennially chaotic Oshodi in Lagos, around 5pm and I'm sure the situation steadily worsened until God knows when. I just hope they complete the new pedestrian bridge soon, otherwise, at this rate, this may be a keg of gunpowder waiting to go off.

Wow!

Two weeks of breath-stopping action wound up this morning and whooooa, what a two-week! America sure knows how to take the lead in a lot of things, and even though this two-week-long extravaganza wasn’t solely an American affair or did not become the thrill it turned out to be because of any peculiar American flavor only, this was nevertheless, another American Wonder as we are wont to say in these shores.

The 2009 edition of the US Open tennis tournament will live very long in the memory of many fans of the sport. And there are reasons aplenty for this. First, there was the Cinderella story of Melanie Oudin, the previously unknown 17 year old Atlanta, Georgia-born American girl who took our collective breath away with her fiery brand of tennis. In her run-up to the quarter finals of the tournament – the first time she had ventured past the second round of a grand slam in her career – pichichi (tiny) or El-Nino (the little one) as I privately Christened her because of her suit case-size 5 foot frame, left four Russian players in her wake. These included three seeded players, Elena Dementieva (2nd round), Maria Sharapova (3rd round) and Nadia Petrova (4th round). Although she eventually met her waterloo in another teenager, 19-year-old Caroline Worziniacki of Denmark in the quarter finals, Oudin got many tennis fans to believe in dreams, fantasies and fairytales not just by having “Believe” inscribed on her tennis shoes, but by the way she consistently fought back from seemingly overwhelming positions for a player of her physical size, amount of experience and age. In each of her matches against the afore-mentioned, Miss Oudin had to do the Houdini by coming back from one set deficit to win the matches. If she keeps it up, we could well have an improved female version of Leyton Hewitt, the Australian tennis player who has carved a niche for himself as the most feisty and toughest character to beat on the men tennis circuit.

Then, of course, there was the fairytale comeback of 26-year-old mother of one, Kim Clijsters whose only career grand slam title was the 2005 US Open crown before she took two-and-a-half years off the game to start a family, during which time she gave birth to her 18-month-old daughter, Jada. The Belgian came back into the circuit only five weeks ago and entered the tournament as a wildcard. In doing so, she was attempting to do what only one other woman had ever done in the history of the women’s game – win a grand slam title after becoming a mother. The first and only time this had happened previously was back in 1980 when Evonne Goolagong Cawley beat Chris Evert to win Wimbledon in 1980. But Mummy Clijsters has ensured a second 29 years later. More impressive was the manner she did it – knocking out both William sisters, Venus in the fourth round, then Serena in the semi finals and becoming only the second woman ever (after fellow Belgian Justin Henin) to beat both sisters in a single tournament.

Added to the spectacle was the sight of John “Superman” McCenroe climbing down the stands for that mock game with Djokovic, and oh, who can forget Rafael Nadal being mauled in the semi finals by Del Potro like no other player had ever done before. and of course there was also the fact that lanky Croat Marin Cilic so comfortably defeated men’s second seed and one of the pre-tournament favourites, British world number two, Andy Murray. In dusting Murray in such convincing manner, Cilic also reinforced the belief of Doubting Thomases like me that though a good player Murray may be, he is obviously way better in the eyes of the media, as a tennis player simply because he is British and media opinion and reportage in world sports is right now firmly choreographed by the sensationalism of the British media. My meaning? Andy Murray is highly overrated.

One player who is certainly not overrated, however, is the amazing Roger Federer. If anything, I have for several years, personally underrated the Federer Express, but not because I have not been aware of what he can do with a tennis racket and a ball, but simply because I am a die-hard Pete Sampras fan. So, all these years, I have been directly backing any other player other than Federer. Even after he won the French Open earlier this year, equaling Sampras’ record of 14 grand slams, I still told myself and even said it openly that he only won because an injury-ravaged Rafael Nadal had been beaten in the semi finals by Robin Soderling. Federer also sauntered to the Wimbledon Open title a month later and my excuse was the same – Nadal’s absence. But I guess now, even though I was happy, just like some of the fans at the Arthur Ashe Stadium this morning, to see someone else apart from the Swiss master win the US Open for first time since 2004, I have to give it to the Roger. Hate him or like him, he is arguably (and there is scientific evidence to support this) the best male tennis player to ever step on a tennis court.

I have always attributed his dominance of the male game to the stark lack of strong tennis characters in the mould of John McCenroe, Bjorn Borg, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi, Sampras, etc, in the modern game, but what I have consistently ignored is that Federer is the most complete racket swinger of his generation, and perhaps even backwards into some of the earlier generations. The man can serve-and-volley; his shot-making is second to none; he has the most solid backhand and a beautiful footwork to go with it ala Muhammed Ali; he has an amazing forehand and a strong serve – stronger than Sampras’ I must say; he is about the fittest player on the circuit – hardly gets injury lay-offs; his defensive game is as strong as his offensive game; and to crown it all, Federer has the killer instinct, the ruthless streak that the other players don't quite have – on court he seems so calm, irrespective of the situation, but look in his eyes and you see pure ice as he goes for each ball.

On top of all this, he reads the game better than anybody I have seen in the game. To illustrate some of this, in the semi final match against Novac Djokovic, Djokovic was serving at 6-5 down in the third and final set. At 30-0 up, Djokovic hit a ball over the head of Federer who had rushed to the net. Ninety-nine-and-a-half times out of 100, Djokovic would win that point with the shot, but Federer scampered back to the baseline and with his back to court, hit a winner between his legs that flew over the net and past Djokovic into the corner for match point (40-0). Another example of his inventiveness came earlier. He had played a bad ball presenting Djokovic the opportunity at the net, to smash the ball into any part of the court he wished. Somehow Djokovic did not hit the ball as everyone had expected,hitting it almost into the path of the wrong-footed Federer who was going right as the ball sailed through the middle towards the baseline. But even in that motion, and with so little time to maneuvre his body, Federer still somehow flicked his racket across from his back, hitting the ball back, although off the mark to Djokovic’s left side line. In the final match, Federer also pointed out to us why he is so successful – his perception and awareness are second to none. In the middle of the third set, he was serving and a couple of balls had sailed into the stands and were not returned, leaving him to serve with only four balls instead of six. But whereas most other players would never remain calm or focused enough to keep tabs on the number of balls they are serving with or the condition of the balls, Federer rightly pointed out to the umpire that the balls were in fact, short by two. Now, why won’t I give up trying to prove that such a man is not the best ever?

...And of course, the thrilling story of US Open 2009 had to fittingly cap off with the triumph of 20-year-old 6 feet, 6 inches tall Argentine, Juan Martin Del Potro, comfortable conqueror of Rafeal Nadal, in a spectacular tennis showpiece which ended 3-6, 7-6, 4-6, 7-6, 6-2 after more than four hours on court. Both men fought into the ground for every point, displayed an enthralling range of shot-making abilities, stayed steady, defended well and generally covered the court admirably. In the end though, the rangy Argentine surprisingly outlasted, outsmarted, out-broke and out-served the master himself, earning himself a maiden career grand slam in the process. And so US Open 09 ran all the way to the end with drama, intrigue, surprise and delight for all watching, especially the crowd at the Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York, who got more involved in the final match than you could have ever before seen.

Needed urgently: 140 million mathematicians; prayer gurus…, please

We have been down this road before. In fact, just about three years ago we were singing similar tunes. That time the blame game was centered squarely on whether the weather had been conducive or not. This time around one wonders where exactly the blame will mostly go.

Three years ago, after the Super Eagles of Nigeria failed to get the better of their Angolan counterparts in a Germany 2006 FIFA world cup qualification match most people blamed the Nigerian football authorities for allowing the match to be played in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. The argument then was that the weather in Kano was too hot and therefore favoured the Angolan national team more than it did the Nigerian team which comprised almost entirely Europe-based players.

Another debacle is here again so soon. This time around, the same Super(?) Eagles have failed to beat Tunisia in another world cup qualifier, this time in Abuja. We may harp on about poor technical input by the coaching staff and we would all be right. We could also point out that the weather this time was this or that and again, we may not be too far from the mark. We may also accuse God of siding with the Tunisians because the players and coaching staff were observing the Ramadan fast and therefore, were spiritually closer to God. Hence, His propensity to want to side with them given the prevailing spiritual gulf between the two teams at the time of play. This, too, may not be too anal a claim for us to throw around given the circumstances.

So, long after the Tunisians land in Tunis and between now and November this year when those who will fly to SA next year start to book their plane tickets for the Mundial, let our usual 140 million mathematicians, statisticians, stargazers, Shamans, coaches, analysts and what have you get down to doing what they do best. Let’s all start all the permutation about how a blade of grass on the turf in the Mozambican national stadium in Maputo will lead to a miss-kick by a Tunisian defender and how an onrushing Mozambican attacker will gleefully plant the ball in the Tunisian net for the winning goal. Let us calculate how many points Tunisia could secure and how many they would not secure in the next two matches. Let us declare a national praying and fasting day and special vigil in aid of our Dodos’ quest to get to SA 2010. Let the delirium set in about the ‘ifs,’ the ‘it could have beens,’ the ‘this was good and that was bad’ and the ‘we can still make it because…’ And to it all I say a fervent a-m-e-n as a patriotic Nigerian.

But this much was evident this evening:

• The FIFA ranking is a terrible lie especially where Nigeria is concerned.

• For the past 13 years and even more, there has not been anything super about the Nigerian Super Eagles.

• Football teams are built, not just picked. To build one you need football players, not tourists or vacationers. And in football, as in pretty much everything else, you either have the quality or you don’t. In that case,if you haven’t bought the ticket, you quite simply shouldn’t expect to win the lottery

• On the evidence, we shall tread this road all over again soon, for the calendar may not be that easily cheated, after all.

My five fabulous Nigerians

We all have people who simply delight or inspire us, don’t we? These are usually people who give you some ‘x’ feeling, whether that means you want to be with them, be like them or just hear, smell, touch and watch them as they live out their lives. I’ve my own such Nigerians, five of whom I glorify here today. These are the five Nigerians by whose spirit (in the past few years at least) I feel constantly enchanted and challenged on account of their individual gutsiness, energy, unbridled passion, sincerity and tenacious dedication to how they do their ‘thing’.

Kaffy (Kafayat Shafau)

Four words - passionate, creative, talented and energetic – perhaps describe this young woman. A few years ago you were considered wayward and, for a female, an ‘ashewo’ to be a dancer in musical videos in Nigeria. Enter the likes of Kafayat Shafau, and parents themselves are today queuing up to enroll their children for dance lessons across the country.

With a dance/mentoring academy – Imagneto Dance Academy –, A-list appearances in musical videos and a Guinness World Records entry (in 2006, she danced for 55 hours and 40 minutes non-stop) to her name, Kaffy has helped elevate the art of dance in the country. Not only that, she has also undisputedly helped to build the foundation for what is becoming a professional dance industry in Nigeria, and in the process, becoming arguably the foremost dancer/music video choreographer in the country. The most admirable part of it is that Kaffy never attended a formal dance school. Rather, through an unquenchable desire to be better always, sheer ‘opportunism,’ passion and energy, she has revolutionalised dance in Nigeria. She is certainly a pointer for many young people in our society.

Pee Jay

PJ is my eight-year-old cousin, Alexander. PJ is the name that has stuck with him ever since when, as a toddler he would insist on picking his clothes to wear by himself only to end up combining attires in which he looked so funny that we would jokingly liken him to Pa James of the Papa Ajasco comedy drama series. The name stuck on further on account of his unpardonable and almost incurable spoonerism and malapropism, a la Papa Ajasco’s Pa James.

This little terror is loudmouthed, stubborn as a he-goat, inquisitive as a philosopher and daring as Don Quixote. PJ may not be top of the class in school, but a constant B and B+ student is not a bad one either. And with his keen interest in and fair share of knowledge of subjects like current affairs, sports, (especially football), books and entertainment, he gives me more reason to always strive to expand my base of knowledge, for you never know in which subject you may have to explain an issue to him next. Ultimately, it is his intuition, self-confidence and remarkable tenacity, as well as his don’t-you-just-try-to-mess-with-my-sanity attitude that endears him to and ennobles many of us who know him.

Funmi Iyanda

Broadcaster/talk show host, media producer, MC, writer/columnist/blogger, all of award winning proportion - that is Olufunmilola Aduke Iyanda. She is also a philanthropist and an advocate for women/children, although FI, as we her fans love to call her, would tell you that she is no philanthropist but just a woman living her life the way she knows how to. The female broadcaster/writer axis of Ruth Benemesia Opia, Bimbo Oloyede, Chris Anyanwu and Bunmi Sofola is some company to belong in. But even in such exalted company FI still stands out for her versatility in being able to handle issues in sports, arts/entertainment, politics, economy, name it, with almost equal ease. That fashion as a field is not included in the above list is in itself testament to her wacky and radical ‘my own style’ attitude to fashion. And guess what – so far, we are still only dealing with an extremely abridged version of FI.

I first caught the FI flu after a young FI left UI as a geography graduate, traveling Nigeria and the world and regaling us with interesting tales on a range of issues, both on TV and in the defunct Tempo newspaper. By the time she started serenading 30 million Nigerians with New Dawn - a show that became a movement while FI grew into a brand, teetering towards a religion of sort, for many adoring fans - I was already a bonafide Funmi Iyanda groupie. From opinionated loudmouth, bra-burning feminist, unconventional TV anchor, mentor, free-spirited reckless dresser, to philanthropist – Brand FI is today, different things to different people. And that very fact speaks for her multi-faceted personality - a veritable amoeba that defies specific definition and description.

Babatunde Fashola

By all accounts, Lagos is still a dirty city, but someone is clearly making an effort to make it cleaner. Fewer road users are cursing as they drive along Lagos roads today not because the roads are necessarily smoother to drive on. If anything, many of them are now more hellish to navigate. But because Lagosians acknowledge that someone somewhere is genuinely making an effort to improve the roads, many seem ready to show a little more patience and understanding. In recent times, I have come across many Lagosians who, after years of tax evasion, are now enthusiastic about paying taxes because they are convinced that someone is sincerely putting their money into good public use. And one man - Babatunde Raji Fashola - is arguably responsible for the fresh air sweeping across the state.

Pre-2007 elections in Lagos, there were whispers of how Fashola was not going to make a good governor because he was “an administrator and a bureaucrat.” Back then, I wondered what all that meant. And although a lot of that cynicism still prevails (and with good reason, some might say), but if his antecedents in office so far are what those comments meant by “administrator,” then I think I love bureaucracy. With Fashola’s antecedents so far, one could boldly say that for once in this generation (at least) in this country, a state government is working for its people and you needn’t read newspaper and magazine supplements or watch television documentaries to know of it or the extent. More heartening for me is the all-action almost single-minded manner he goes about his business of bettering the lot of Lagosians. And that is a template for governors and governance in Nigeria to follow.

Xee

Xee (just Xee because she would eat me if I let out her real name here) is a friend of mine whom I first met over two years ago. She had requested to take a look at a novel I was holding, and the sheer energy and wisdom that sipped through from her every word and gesture during our brief conversation thereafter, got me riveted. Quickly and steadily, the acquaintance we built from then became friendship.

Xee is gutsy, feisty and uninhibited, all with the energy of a teenager. But beyond that teenage energy is a smart woman who is untainted by the vacuity, vanity and sense of frippery associated with many a teenage girl. She is one of the most driven and focused teenagers you would ever come across, for this is one young woman who knows what she wants and does what she must to get it. Cold Cow, as I jokingly call her (apparently many other people also call her ‘cold’) because of her penchant for and ability to shut out all things she considers unimportant towards achieving any goal she sets out to achieve, Xee is this strong-willed package of only about 5ft. And in that package is a woman of ‘ancient’ wisdom, one who is very much at home with herself.

Isn't this why he's the Prof?

Hate him or like him, he is one of the most respected men in his trade. His views about the profession hold a lot of weight with practitioners and outsiders alike.

Just read this or this one, paying attention to the words instead of the background of the speaker, and you may begin to see why that is so. People in his kind of job aren’t supposed to be that universally insightful, cerebral and philosophical, are they? But he is.

That true confession

At what point do we truly confess our iniquities to God? In other words, when can one sincerely come out and say ‘I have confessed my sins, big or small, to my maker?’ Some people are of the opinion that one is in true confession more during the Friday Muslim worship or on Sundays during church service, or even during similar religious festivals like the vigil worship, Sallah, Chrismas and Easter. But what obtains in those or similar occasions or other religious festivals could be automated prayers compared to what you are squeezed into doing when you are in immediate distress like being ill and suffering relentless pain or when nature calls.

Yes, when nature calls, categorically put, when you must sh*t. That is the time you may be in what I accept as true confession to whoever you believe in and supplicate to. Unrepentant sinner me was in such a situation yesterday. But yesterday’s was nothing compared to what I once experienced on a journey from Lagos to Ebonyi during my time in Ebonyi as a youth corps member. My journey to the confessional on that occasion a year ago started like play like play o; I had spent Easter with my family and was scheduled to return to Ebonyi a day after Easter. As I did not eat the Easter pepper soup with the rest of the family on Easter Sunday, I decided to eat my share on Easter Monday night, the eve of my departure. Toyin, the house help sensed what I was about to get myself into and cautioned me, but like the proverbial fly destined to end up in the grave with the corpse, I refused to listen. “No be today I don dey eat pepper soup and im never do me anything before” I told her. So, I proceeded to devour a bowl+ of hotly spiced hot water and goat meat, topping it with a bottle of chilled malt drink before retiring to bed.

We were barely out of Lagos the next morning when my ordeal began, starting with a rumble down there. At first, I just thought, ‘C'mon, this is nothing Good Ole Fart can’t take care of.’ So, I went f-a-r-t. But it didn’t solve anything. Very quickly, it started fizzing, sizzling, churning, burping and sputtering Downtown, all in one seemingly choreographed movement. Next, all the sweat pores and glands in my system went into hyperactive mode as sweat broke out and dried up on my skin with equal rapidity. I kept shuffling my feet, adjusting to different sitting positions just to keep the blowhole from popping open. As I struggled with the enemy within, the woman sitting across the aisle from me asked me what time of day it was, and after a long look at my wristwatch I told her it was just 15 minutes before 9am. I didn’t need more than the look of incredulity on her face to confirm that I was now officially in a time warp, for time was actually 15 minutes past 10 am.

I decided to deflate the wanton energy coming from under to some other things, so, I tried reading from the book I was holding, - Vijaya Kumar’s World’s Greatest Speeches. But words from Gandhi, Mandela, Mother Theresa, Lincoln, Hitler, Clinton, and several others offered no sucour. As for Martin Luther King and his I have a dream, the only dream I could dare have at that time was one in which one day soon, a Nigerian man would enter the Guinness Book of World Records as the first recorded person to have died of inability to sh*t.

Long stories short, after a period in which I kept saying ‘bros’, ‘my guy’, ‘chairman’, and the like, to one of the bus stewards (molue conductor more like it), the driver reluctantly stopped somewhere along the road in Edo State. Pronto, I got off the bus, skidding down a slope by the side of the road to do the thing. Funnily, two or three other people who had obviously been going through similar predicament also shamelessly joined in the act, after which we got going again. Alas, my reprieve was only temporary, for the front wheels of the bus had barely crossed from Awka in Anambra State into Enugu when that now familiar sound came calling once again. This time I could even swear I heard Luciano Pavarotti leading the orchestra that was playing down there. And that was when the true confession really started all the way from Enugu to Abakaliki, Ebonyi.

First, I thanked God for His mercies for seeing me through the earlier episode and expressed confidence in His ability to do it for me again. Next, I thought of how, years ago, while being in charge of my uncle’s provisions store, a tin of garri, beans or rice, or their cash equivalent would fly into the blue, so I prayed to God to please forgive me for my part in it, for I knew not what I was doing back then. I equally remembered how, while standing in a queue at a corn mill years back, I kept tapping current from the bom-bom of the girl in front of me. I fervently prayed God to forgive me for that little period of misguided judgment. As that blasted potential entry in the Guinness Book of World Records flashed through my eyes once more, I confessed to God about being guilty of picking that piece of meat from the pot so many years ago, an offence for which one poor boy had been kept on his knees with a bucket of water on his head for about an hour. As the sound effect from under became more furious, I generalised all my sins, asking God to please forgive me for all of them, whether known to me or not. Then the urgency went up another wrench, and I employed all the languages I know and started a mantra of, ‘abeg o, abeg o’. Thankfully, the road was very coarse and the bus from Enugu to Abakaliki was a locomotive, with thundering noise levels and I was sitting close to the window, so even though I muttered my mantra fairly audibly, none of the other passengers seemed to hear me do it.

He must have accepted the confessions of my poor soul, for miraculously, we made the journey from Enugu to Abakaliki about 15 minutes faster. Once in Abakaliki, I frantically begged the first okada man I met to lead me to where I could do my thing. Luckily, it was about 9.35 pm and the man happened to know of the site of a freshly demolished building-cum-temporary-dump-site. He took me there and with a, ‘thank you sir’ I paid him the bike fare, plus a pretty hefty tip before hurrying, with two travelling bags in tow, to discharge that pesky waste. Once I was sufficiently relieved, I looked up into the starry sky and something told me that someone somewhere up there was laughing their heart out at the sight of sinner like me scrambling for cover from mere sh*t.

So, when yesterday it started churning and rumbling Down under again, you can imagine how relieved I must have felt to be able to release after only about 30 minutes in the traffic. And when one of my cousins sped into the house this morning and ignored my calls as he dashed through the passage, I felt slighted. But after I traced him 10 minutes later only to see him emerge from the toilet area, I instantly recognised the demons he had been running from or trying to appease, and as they say in Yoruba, oro just pesin je.

I’d rather be naked than...

If you live in cyberspace you probably have seen some pictures currently making the round on the internet, especially in Nigeria. The first time I saw the photographs I almost puked. I was repulsed so much that I wanted to let out a big ‘damn you all, you idiots.’

The pictures in question are those of a man and a woman, both members of staff of Zain Telecommunication in Uganda. The man’s name I learnt is Basillo Sadindi and the woman simply identified as Rossette. In the said pictures they are both seen naked inside what is said to be a hotel apartment. In some of the images the couple is actually seen making it out. Hell no, I can’t post any of the pictures here for you to see.

The pictures were reportedly taken while the couple was on vacation in Dubai. Somehow they misplaced the memory card containing the images and someone got hold of the card and leaked the nude photographs of the couple to the press and unto the internet. A slightly different version of the story says the pictures were discovered by an IT guy who unearthed them in one of the couple’s computers and demanded a ransom to cover it up. Instead, he was reportedly given a written warning after the owner reported him to the human resources department of the company. To get back at the couple, the IT guy exposed the pictures on the Internet.

Trust us Nigerians, the sanctimony and moralisation I have seen and heard thrown at the issue is what repeatedly makes me want to puke. When I saw the pictures for the first time, my reaction was, ‘how the hell does it concern anybody what someone else, especially two consenting adults get up to in the privacy of a room?’ That reaction has not changed one bit. Many of us get up to nastier things in the private comfort of wherever we find enough privacy. And I am not talking about sex and related matters alone here. For me, it’s an invasion of privacy for anyone to leak such obviously very private part of another man to the public.

The couple are said to be married, but to different people. And it was highly indiscreet and negligent of them to let such a private affair slip out to a third party. Besides, they both sure as the current global credit crunch have questions to answer before their respective spouses, but it still doesn’t change the other mechanics of the issue.

1. They didn’t do it in public

2. If, as I heard, it’s true that their employers forced both of them to resign, it is highly unprofessional of the employer. Why? They didn’t do it in the office or even while on official engagement. Hence, it is first and in all, a private thing for them. Moreover, whatever they did out there has not affected their productivity at work, has it?

3. That IT guy deserves to be sued.

4. Show me a virgin saint amongst us and I will eat my head.

Let’s all get a life, please.

Blessed people, low will, little direction

Nigeria is indeed an interesting place to live in and to observe. The expression “never a dull moment,” is hardly more aptly descriptive of the antecedents of any other country. Even amidst the current global economic meltdown and a concomitant urgency by governments and other corporate institutions to keep their countries or institutions going in the right direction, all we seem to, in our characteristic comical manner, demonstrate is that we cannot be bothered to change the status quo, however unbeneficial it may be to us. What with the likes of grand old Rilwanu Lukman back in power as petroleum minister more than 20 years after he first held the same position while Minister of Information, Dora Akunyili positions the horse right behind the cart as we run into a blind alley chanting “Nigeria: Good People, Great Nation.” I have picked bellow, three current/recent issues, to encapsulate my meaning.

Iwu, INEC and the rest of us

Thirty-six state election results, 12 nullifications on first instance or appellate proceedings, five partial or full re-run; and so far, two unseating without re-run. By all accounts this represents the outcome of a shambolic process. And these are figures from the election conducted by the Maurice Iwu-led Independent(?) National Electoral Commission, INEC, in 2007.

Statistically put; 12 out of 36 is exactly 33.3% of the total number of governorship elections that took place in 2007; five re-run means that approximately 40% of the 12 nullification so far has led to the preventable sacrificing of voters’ precious time and scarce government resources. In saner climes whoever oversees such a shoddy process would throw in the towel or be shown the exit as soon as tongues start wagging about inconsistencies in the process. But Nigeria is an appalling exception on such issues - here, such people are even canonized. Any wonder then that rather than throw in the towel, the man who oversaw the elections has remained as steadfast in his resolve to remain in office as he and his cohorts had been about holding those mock elections? Little wonder also that those who should show him the way out have decided that, as tainted and culpable as Iwu’s INEC is in the mortgaging of our political soul, the man is still morally and intellectually fit to continue in office as Nigeria’s principal electoral umpire.

Tragically, we have reduced a serious social, moral and economic subject matter to a mere legal issue in which few seem to be interested in the fact that precious resources of the masses are being wasted in the electoral trials and re-runs that have been and will be the game until 2011. No one is paying attention to what should happen to the likes of Olusegun Agagu and Osarheimen Osunbor or those who put them in office wrongfully for two years. As we are all engrossed with legalese, few are saying anything about what this mess could do to the attitude of the electorate during futures elections in this country.

Once again, therefore, we are inexorably setting the stage for another round of political simulation come 2011. And from there, of course, another manic rush to election petition tribunals across the land until 2015 and then we start again. What a circus!

Siasia, the Messiah of Nigerian football

Talking about circuses, that the powers that be in Nigerian football, in their wretched wisdom, have decided that Samson Siaisia is the solution to our acute lack of knowledge of modern football business surely qualifies as one.

Since the last FIFA U-17 World Championship in 2007, youngsters like Bojan Krkij (Barcelona and Spain); Dan Gosling (Everton) and Danny Welbeck (Manchester United), both of England; and Toni Kroos (Bayern Munich and Germany), to name a few, have continued to rise to football prominence. Our supposed equivalents to these players from the same tournament - the likes of Ganiyu Oseni, Chrisantus Macaulay, Rabiu Ibrahim and Lukman Haruna – have continued to move in exactly the opposite direction, football career-wise. And there are no prizes for guessing the reason this is so.

However, if you argue that the problem does not begin with our players’ ‘certificated’ age and you try to tell me that others cheat also, I will feign agreeing with you and tell you in plain George Orwell Napoleonese that: ‘all national cadet football teams have over-age players, but some teams are more over-age than others,’ fin.

Given his coaching antecedents, Siasia could go on to win the U-20 Championship for Nigeria in Egypt in September. After that we may also require him to handle the Super Falcons or any of the female national teams. In the same breath, we shall await the fortuitous discovery of the hidden talent of the next footballer anywhere in the world, with the minutest amount of Nigerian blood in his veins, to try to convince into wearing the Nigerian colours in international football.

After all, because Siasia is that good, because we have perpetually failed to plan, because we must win at all costs, because we lose our moral footing once a few wads of whatever currency are involved and because we cannot separate priorities from everything else, we may well never have any discernible sports policy. We may as well also never have proper football academies or train our coaches and respect those of them who have what it takes to do a decent job of coaching any of our national teams in any sports whatsoever. Let serendipity continue to rule in our sports.

Painting warped pictures and begging topical questions

As for priorities, where exactly do you start relating to a man who does not know but does not know that he does not know and does not even have enough independent judgment or inclination to wanting to know?

I sit here typing away furiously because I fear that the electricity that miraculously beamed into my house this morning will go off soon. The Niger Delta is still simmering, amnesty or not. There are even more graduates without jobs to hold on to today. ASUU is still on strike while the blokes in Abuja want us to believe that education cannot exhaust its budget for the year. Children and mothers are dying every second in hospitals across the country, and those who can afford the fee daily fly out to China, India, Malaysia, South Africa, Israel, and even Ghana, for ailments as common as dental surgery.

But in spite of and despite all of this, the only issue that seems to be of life-and-death value to our president and his cabinet is the existence of some so-called illegal Local Council Development Areas in Lagos State. And to tell you not to ever get your hopes up on him, the northern part of the country are up in conflagration but dear Mr. President has quietly and comfortably slipped out to Brazil to do some Salsa and Samba, I suppose.

But then this is all in keeping with the programme, isn’t it? It fits perfectly with the lack of direction and sense of priority in our economic, sports, political life, etc, that has made us buffoons before the outside world. And for these and similar shortfalls, Dora Akunyili, like others before her, is now in Sokoto in search of that which is right inside our sokoto.

I first posted part of this article to www.nigeriansinamerica.com two months ago.

Happy birthday to moi

Hurraaay! It’s my birthday today as I’m a year older today, and of course, another year closer to my grave, isn’t it? I don’t personally count birthdays or any other anniversaries as overtly special, as I believe every single day calls for celebration for the most wonderful gift of all: waking up to the knowledge that you are still breathing and alive, although whether you or someone else believe you are more useful alive or dead is another topic altogether.

This particular birthday is kind of special in that it was the same date, the same day, the same month, those many years ago that one morning, in some far-flung place amongst the innings of a certain woman, I, after adjusting my initial posture, jumped down into this world, feet first (yes I’m sure I came feet first) through a tiny hole between the woman’s legs. Some nine months or so prior to that, two young people both of Edo extraction, one estrogen-filled, the other testosterone-pumped and both certainly adrenaline-charged, had one hot afternoon (it has to have happened not on a morning or evening), cuddled into each other’s arms and proceeded into a little room where they locked the world out in the heat of canal passion. they had been that determined to display their erotic prowess to each other. A little boy had emerged from that tiny hole about nine months after, as a product of that brazen exercise of biological liberty and conjugal right.

Sometime afterward, someone somewhere had, after what I suspect must have been painstaking consideration, pronounced the new child Jibril. Later on, someone also added another name, calling the boy Oyake, meaning ‘it is a human being we desire’. The little boy later decided that Oyake was somewhat outlandish, even inane, in meaning. Bless you, what else should we expect to result from a pregnancy by a human being, a piece of rock or bamboo? Suffice to say that the boy changed that mundane name, first to Amhanoghena = ‘you can’t decide for God,’ through many others, before finally settling for the potentially tongue-wrenching Atsaguoghena (God’s ways are beyond prediction), a name he has only once ever used in writing and rarely even been called by. However, he pays pecuniary attention to the usage of his other name as he has spent the last one score-plus years protecting it from being bastardised with variants like Zibri, Jubril, Jubrila, Jibrin, Jubrin, Jibiri, etc. It is that boy - Jibril’s -birthday today.

Now, I know that since I am not blowing out any candles on a birthday cake today, then I should at least, make a birthday wish. So, I will make three. And dear God, I know that when earlier this morning I sat down praying to you for what I am about to ask of you again now, I, for whatever reason, shut only one eye while pretending to shut both (as if I even needed to close the eyes), I hope you can all the same overlook that tiny winy indiscretion and consider this particular request as I make it again.

You see, I have been under intense scrutiny lately from friends and relations who feel that I should have some company of the opposite sex each time they see me. They fear that I might not be doing something right, hence the fact that, as they accuse me of, they don’t know my girlfriend and I don’t seem to have any immediate plans to marry. If I must convince them of my desire to marry, they say it must be noticed in my ability to punctuate every of my contribution to a conversation with “my girlfriend,” “my fiancée,” and so on. Even the ones, both male and female, who are geriatrics compared to me and who are as unattached as a baby separated from its umbilical cord, also subject me to this verbal volley. And I am only just one score and some years old o.

Dear giver of wife (girlfriend and fiancée first), please let this be the day you start to direct my girlfriend-cum-fiancee-cum-wife my way. Actually my specifications are not that stringent. Please let her be in the mould of an Agbani Darego, but hey, not quite an Agbani. I mean lips like Angelina Jolie’s should be part of her bucal package, and they should not be quite as large as Jolie’s. Of course, you know Rita Dominic, ehen, just some hybrid of hers and Jolie’s, or preferably Salma Hayek’s. The eyes should be set like Bimbo Akintola’s, half asleep, half awake, but they should also carry as much fire as Regina Askia’s. That is not to say I want her to have exactly Askia’s eyes o, just telling you that they should inculcate an element from hers. In case that is confusing you, how about Ayo Adesanya’s eyes, I’d like those too, OK, maybe not entirely, at least not in exactly the same size, perhaps in the size and with the colour of that Indian woman, what's her name now? Yes, Aishwarya Rai’s own.

As for her legs, dear giver of woman, I’d prefer one with Tina Turner’s legs - strong, straight and without blemish, but they should not be quite as big either. Let them come in a similar package to the ones a sixteen-year-old Whitney Elizabeth Houston had, but maybe not as skinny, close to Beyonce’s, but not really in that size. Mmmmh... ok just let them be somewhere in between Halle Berry’s and Anna Kournikova’s legs (hope you still remember Anna?).

I have told you before that she should be like an Agbani, and I hope you realise that means she should not be an orobo? And you also realize that that does not mean I want a stick figure, abi? Let me summarise that thus: bust: check; hips: double check; breast: check, check, check. Let me remind you that this does not mean I want a Cossy Ojiakor or a Ronke Oshodi Oke, just something between Salma Hayek, JLo, with a tincture of Omowunmi Akinifesi, with the dimples, although in Jenifer Garner’s dimple size and with the wacky appeal of Funmi Iyanda’s own.

Then, giver of wife, let me not bother you too much with details of her intellectual composition, but just know that I would prefer anything in that respect to include the spontaneity of Funmi Iyanda. She must also be able to speak the English language with a hybrid accent from Queen Elizabeth II, Omotayo Omotosho, Bimbo Oloyede and Joke Silva, to start with. It doesn’t matter how she achieves it, she should just manage to do it. Lest I forget, as my standard test, she must also be one who can pronounce water as water instead of worer, wotaah or any such ridiculous modes. This is in addition to pronouncing chair as chair, instead of share, sheer, chei, chear, cheer, etc. And also … ok even I am exhausted now, so I’ll save the rest for now.

Over to request number two, dear mighty One. Please, biko, jowo, dan Allah, abeg, tse, s'il vous plait, when I go to sleep later tonight, I want to wake up tomorrow morning to the knowledge that Chief Dr. Lecturer Mr. Alhaji Mallam Go-slow Umaru, son of Musa Yar’adua, GCON, GCFR, President and Commander-in-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, has finally woken up from what right now, still seems to me like a two-and-half-years-long slumber on duty. Either this, dear God or that he has decided to take a break and has handed in a resignation letter. If you saw the front page of the Guardian newspaper on Thursday, you may be able to understand how urgently he needs to heed to my alternative solution.

Finally, just like Robert Frost, I’d like to take a little holiday, not to Hawaii, not to decadent Las Vegas, not to Obudu Cattle Ranch, not to divine Bahamas, not to sexy Las Palmas and not to Dubai, but to somewhere out of this world, somewhere beyond the clouds above, although not in an aeroplane or space machine. But may no fate willfully misunderstand me and snatch me away forever.

Second finally, God bless Nigeria, starting with me, of course!

Hip! Hip!! Hip!!!

Grand King Michael (1958-2009)

Been too devastated to say anything about this huge loss to all of us. I was following the news on Thursday night up until 11.49 pm when PHCN did its bit and I went to bed praying that of all the conflicting reports, the one about MJ being in coma would turn out to be the truth the next morning, but it didn’t. And the import of it all has been numbing and draining to contemplate.

There is has only ever been one King of Pop, and for many, king of music itself. That king was in music for at least 40 years and was king of his genre for at least 30 years. He is was King Michael Joseph Jackson. He lived his life out in the open. From age five, this king could no longer live like the person next door. He was forced to become an adult even before he understood what being a toddler meant to him. But we never really sought to understand the implication of all that to him. Hence his latter life was more about the man than the music. But still no one could dim the star with mega sparks. Not where there were billions sleeping, eating, thinking, drinking and even dying MJ.

I have never really been a devotee of King Michael, but, like most people around the world, including your father, your grandfather and your children I have always been a follower of the true king of pop music. How could I not when he has been a phenomenon, a course in the study of the subject called GENIUS. I remember once being a panelist in a teenage hood discourse in which our subject matter led to us wanting to know who the most popular person in the world at the time was. I remember one of us advancing the theory that the three best known or most famous people/phenomenona were: Football(call it soccer or football, somehow everybody seems to know it); God (whther you are an atheist or deist or whatever else, everybody seems to have heard about Him at one time or the other, although worshipping him is another subject altogether); and Michael Jackson(your 2-year-old daughter born in 2007 for instance know about him already, just like your father and your do), in no particular order. Years later, I remembered that theory as I watched the Jackson behemoth in concert, and from then onwards I accepted that childhood theory as a semblance of the truth if not a fact in itself. That is the measure of MJ.

King Michael loved life and nature and truly celebrated it. He thrilled us all because he was forever desirous of sharing his life with the world, although the world did not know exactly how to relate with him. He believed we human could heal the world, of its myriad of disease, literally and figuratively. And for him, that had to start with our appreciation of true human nature. He was not bad, although the media made him seem terrible. Truth is, we could not just explain his enigma in black or white, perhaps that was why he needed to teach us some history and that is why even though he lived for us all and we enjoyed it all, we cannot but feel he has gone too soon. Rest in peace King Wacko Jacko. You are not alone, even in death,although sometimes we may have made you feel like a stranger in the moscow cold while you were here with us. We all love you. You have left a huge vacuum in the world. Thanks for ever being here.

No one to trust?

I am shaking my head with a mixture of amusement and amazement as I punch away on my PC’s keyboard. I had an encounter on my way home this evening, which I am still trying to get my head round.

I was at Egbeda earlier this evening walking down to where I was going to board an okada home. As I did, I noticed a small boy of not more than nine years old standing by the side of the road, a tray of fufu on his head, crying. I approached him to know why he was crying, and his story instantly touched me: he narrated how he had had lost the entire money he had made from the sale of his fufu – five notes of N200, meaning he had lost N1,000.

The boy further explained that the money had been snatched from his hand by some people from a moving vehicle, as he was counting the money. I felt his story was quite possibly plausible, so I sympathized with the poor boy. I asked him where he lived and he mentioned Iyana-something-I-could not-comprehend. On whether he lived with his parents, he answered that he lived with his aunt. I felt some chill course down my spine on hearing that. Some aunties would skin any child who dare throw away a N10 note and only God knows what this aunty could do to this poor thing this night if and when he got home without that ’whopping’ N1,000. So I started to think of how exactly to help him. I concluded that giving him another N1,000 would not exactly be the smart idea to adopt, so I toyed with the idea of going to see his aunt and help him explain to her.

At that point another man noticed the agitation of the boy and joined us. He also expressed empathy with the boy’s situation. Between the two of us, we decided to put the money together to give to the boy rather than follow him home. The man was rummaging in his pocket while I was trying to find out more about the boy’s plight, when another man passing by said, calmly but sharply, “You this boy, na everyday you dey come cry for here?” He said that without waiting or looking back. I tried to call him back to shed more light on what he had said, but he wouldn’t budge. “I no know am o,” was the only thing he added. But he had sounded honest and the import of the conviction with which he said those words was unmistakable.

We turned back to our little ‘angel’, with the other man asking shebi you hear wetin that man talk? I added, ‘na true im talk? The little thing seemed to be lost for words momentarily, then quickly gathered himself together and claimed, in a stuttering voice, that the only other time such had happened before was once when he also lost his money. And you happened to have stood at the same point as you are now standing that other time? How very convenient I said to myself.

Suddenly it all started to come together; his tray still had about 12 wraps of fufu . At N10 per wrap, that would amount to N120. Even at N20 per wrap, that will still be just N240. If truly he sold part of his wares to the tune of the N1,000 he claimed had been stolen, that would mean that he initially had about 62 wraps of fufu on his tray – that is not impossible but it is highly improbable and, in fact very doubtful considering the size of the tray. Pray also, a fufu seller who only has N200 notes, no N10, N20, N50, N5? That is quite interesting. Interesting indeed that those N200 notes conveniently rounded off to N1000 and not N850, N700, N520 or some other figure not so round in total.

The other man was already too pissed off and was raring to go, urging me to leave the dubious thing there and go my way, too, but I tried one last time to salvage the seemingly unsalvageable: I asked him once again, where the incident had happened and he shifted the crime scene to ‘inside estate, I come shout but them hold me, come run’. I don’t think the other man heard everything else he said after that before he turned and walked off in anger and disappointment.

I gave the little imp a you-are-lying-through-your-dirty-teeth-you-little-con look and also walked away as he stood there determined to act out the remainder of his script to an imaginary audience. I felt the urge to go back to him, give him some good spanking and haul him, kicking and screaming, off to his house, wherever it was. But I reconsidered that. Beside a little twine that can cook up such obvious deceit is sure capable of a little more. And God help me if he suddenly yells out for help, claiming I was trying to kidnap him or even worse. So, quietly, I pocketed the Samaritan in me and took the next available okada home, asking myself what the world has come to. But did I hasten into conclusion on that little thing? I may never know now.

Obama in Nig... eh, Africa

Shhh... this is from the grapevine. Have you heard? They say President Barack Obama of the US will be coming to Africa on a five-nation tour this week. But he will not be coming to the ancestral home of one in every three Africans. It's his first visit to his mother continent as president of the most powerful nation on earth, but his tour will not take him to the giant of Africa and most populous black nation in the world.

Obama departs Friday June 19, on a 15-day tour that will take him not only to his father's homeland, Kenya, but also to South Africa, Congo, Djibouti and Sudan. Why not Nigeria? Is there something we are missing in this picture? Methinks this tells us how relevant we have become in the scheme of things around the world. Can you imagine Obama on such a tour to the Middle East without touching down in Saudi Arabia. Again maybe it is my oft reckless imagination, especially where political matters are concerned, that is again in overdrive here

Anyway, welcome, karibu, ukwemuleka, boyei bolamu, merhaba to Africa, Mr. Obama. Hope you are not offended that I can't find the ka 'abo, sannu da zuwa or nno, to usher you in here? Have a nice stay all the same.