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.

Mount her, she's yours for the grabbing

I'm not a fan of fuji music, but one of my favourite lines in music is taken from a fuji song. The line, from one of Abass Akande Obesere's songs (I think it's Oba Idan or Fuji Gyration), reads: ko ni ragba fun eni ti'o like obinrin. Literal translation: ‘It shall never be well with anyone who doesn't like a woman’. Now, if you try to explain that line a little further or take it slightly out of context, especially as the translation does not do it much justice, you could end up with anything in the region of: May God punish whoever mistreats a woman; woe betide every misogynist; he who does not appreciate the gift of woman in human existence is not fit to live; only an idiot would dislike a woman; women are a must-have, and so forth. This, I assume covers for all women – mothers, children, sisters, in-laws, wives, aunties, you name it, although it does not give any woman the right to maltreat any man either. However, not every man shares this belief. To some men, women are just objects and are a must-have only like the chairs, plates cars, etc in your house. In the best case scenario, they are merely to be tolerated rather than be valued.

That noted, how many times have we all been faced with people or situations that make us feel like throwing expletives, however, raw and obscene they may sound? Well, last night I had an encounter that almost forced me into directing Obesere's line, in its pure, most serious-intentioned, untranslated and unadulterated form at a specific person. I often hear about female rape victims, but I have never been close to anyone who I know had been a raped. But this almost changed last night on my way home from work. Time was about 11:12 pm as I was walking towards Egbeda from Iyana-Ipaja, having being forced to trek the rest of my way after the bus I boarded from Iyana-Ipaja broke down mid-way. As I approached Banire Bus Stop, just a few yards from the market in Egbeda, I heard some voices - one of them being unmistakably feminine - in frantic conversation behind the wall that separates the main road from the rest of the market and the adjoining Gowon Estate. At first I could not make out what they were saying to each other, but as we drifted closer to each other, the picture became clearer - it was the female voice against two male voices.

The exchange was something like:

Female: leave me alone o.

First male: leave you for where?

Second male: wetin you come do here?

First male: fear no even catch you to come pass this place.

Female: (more frantic now): why can’t I pass here?

Second male: you still dey get mouth to talk? See the kin cloth wey you wear come dey pass for here?

First male: block am for the other side. No let am escape.

Then their footfalls became heavier and more rapid as the two young people, half in fear (I felt) and half in lust (of course), engaged the young girl (who could only mutter a low, H-e-l-p) in a run-walk as they all turned a bend darting across my path. As they did so, I quickly steadied myself, cleared my throat and in as commanding a voice as my nerves could permit, let out a: ‘What is happening here?’ This startled the two men and gave the young woman some leverage to quickly jump over the gutter and dash across the main road. One of the men gave a brief chase but returned after the woman slid into the nearest street. The other man was now face to face with me as his partner returned to us, actually charged back towards me. With nerves jangling inside me and unable to think of anything else, I repeated my earlier line: ‘what is happening here, I say?’, trying hard to keep my voice steady.

From the hasty estimate I made, the one who had gone after the lady was about 6feet tall while his accomplice was almost 5 inches taller than me. They both easily towered above me and of course, had the numerical advantage, plus what if one of them suddenly thought to himself: ‘wait a minute, when did they start recruiting dwarfs into the Nigerian Police Force’ (for I was actually hoping they would pass me for a policeman)? Thankfully though, they both showed enough nervousness themselves for me to seize on to and ask them if neither of them had a sister or any other female relative at home and whether they would like it if she was raped by men like them. Six-Feet replied, ‘wetin the girl sef dey wear trouser dey find for this kind place?’ Without any further word they both hissed and muttered some words I couldn’t understand before they went back through the way they had chased the lady from.

That lady had been lucky for the fields around the corner from where they had chased her are verdant with criminals and criminal activities of every ilk. Therefore, she could have been raped there for as long as those filths wanted without anybody coming to her rescue. Whether she would have made it without my intervention or not, I am not to know. And I know I was staking my safety and even my life by being so rash, but hey what if that lady was wearing just undergarments? Does that give anybody the franchise to her body? For all we know she might have been a commercial sex worker. Afterall the space just off the main road behind Egbeda market from where they had chased her is usually lined with commercial sex workers at night. But even if that were the case, those women are called commercial sex workers because you have to pay an agreed fee to be able to have sexual encounter with them.

One of those dogs blamed the lady for wearing what she wore, (a tank top as top garment, from what I noticed)for their advances, but how does that concern his phallus or groin? How does that rationalize the fact of him or anyone else forcefully having their way with her? You hear people often blaming rape victims for inviting trouble on themselves by the way the victims dress, but I will believe that the woman is to blame only if and when any man will be so titillated by what they see in a woman’s dressing as to grab her and mount her in the full glare of all, whether at the market, school, mosque, church or any other place filled with people. If you claim to be aroused by a woman’s dressing, yet you only satisfy your randy craving when you are alone with your victim in a secluded area, then you must be disturbed by some other demons other than the woman’s. You are simply a lecherous, vile and depraved cowardly beast. And if anybody throws the most serious intentioned ko ni ragba fun e… or something worse your way a zillion times over for so existing, believe me, they are only just starting.

You should count yourself fortunate

Few people would disagree with my saying that one of the groups of people outside our political leaders, who have been most oppressive to the Nigerian people are transport operators in the country, particularly the intra-cities operators. Those who live in Lagos, especially and don't own a car, are quite familiar with inexplicable hike in transport fares up to 200 per cent or more in many cases, in addition to other shenanigans of commercial vehicle operators. With the fuel hardship of the past few months, commuters have been perhaps worse hit in Lagos than anywhere else around the country as commercial vehicle operators in the state continue to squeeze hapless commuters real hard. So when earlier today, I boarded a bus from Egbeda towards Iyana Ipaja in Lagos and the conductor announced that the fare was N50 for a route that normally costs just N20, I was pissed, to say the least. But as I was already more than late for where I was going, I had to board that particular bus rather than wait in the hope I’ll get another at a lower charge.

My irritation turned into out right indignation soon afterwards. The bus conductor, in response to complaints from the passengers of the insensitivity of bus operators to the plight of commuters, looked me in particular in the eye and, with all the coldness in him, said in Yoruba: you should all count yourselves fortunate to be aboard this bus. I countered instantly; what exactly did he mean by ‘fortunate?’ I wasn’t hitchhiking in the bus, of course. And I couldn’t remember him demanding N100 as fare and I begging him to accept N50 from me instead. So, where exactly did ‘fortunate’ fit in with me or any of the other passengers? As I was trying to establish what ‘fortunate’ meant, the driver interjected with: “make I tell una, na Nigeria we dey and nobody send una o.”

I was still trying to match both driver and conductor word-for-word when, few moments later, the full import of the conductor’s words hit home. Come to think of it, I really needed to be thankful considering that our petroleum minister is an overused and over recycled geriatric in government. Yes, grateful I should be for despite the fact of our having such a man who has certainly exhausted his relevance and whose ideas about petroleum issues may be better suited to the petroleum ministry he held 25 years ago, I can still get a vehicle to board to my destination, irrespective of how the fuel in it came to be in this country.

The thought came to me of how much of the route to or from work I have had to trek in recent times in order to cut down the amount of money I spend on transportation per day. I imagined how the soles of my shoes must be feeling for the punishing routine I have subjected them to, and although I cannot not hear their curses, I nonetheless realized that I should be relieved that on this one occasion at least I have enough money and there is a bus to help me take the heat of my poor soles.

I also remembered the man who sat in the front seat of a bus I boarded sometime last week. I recalled how excited he was to be able to catch a bus after almost two hours in the sun. His gestures as he demonstrated how he elbowed and pushed his way through the crowd to secure that most prized seat on the bus, flashed through my thoughts. And that further informed me that the only thing I actually owed that driver and his conductor was gratitude for their being able to provide a bus with enough fuel to take me to my destination.

My thoughts then went to the current face-off between the Nigerian military Joint Task Force and militants in the Niger Delta. I thought of just how many young men and women, however culpable they may be in the whole setup, must have been wasted in the on-going battle. I thought of how more than any other factor, the lives of these people and other helpless innocent ones are being wasted because of the cluelessness and inflexibility of successive government regimes in this country over the oil-rich delta region. I therefore, agreed with the conductor that I must consider myself fortunate to be just one of the ‘on-lookers’ rather than one of those unfortunately caught up in that war. Then again, it also occurred to me that every November 10 in this country we remember Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni activists who, almost 14 years ago, died for the same Niger Delta-government-oil issue and I convinced myself that really, I should consider myself more fortunate than the families of those slain sons of the Niger Delta.

The internal monologue followed me into another bus (as I made my way to Ojodu-Berger) in which I sat next to a widow for whom I was to become an impromptu spokesperson. According to the woman, she had been brought by a friend who lives in Ayobo-Ipaja, Lagos, to Lagos from Ondo State under the guise of getting her a job. On getting to Lagos however, her friend tried to force her into selling her infant son to another woman. Having tried unsuccessfully for days, the friend sent her out of her (the friend’s house). The poor woman she could barely say two consecutive correct words in pidgin English) who had never been to Lagos before, ran into a man who raised N500 for her out of which she had to spend a part to feed her little son. For whatever reason, she chose me to confide her plight in so that I could help her appeal to the other passengers. Hence I took up the role of her mouthpiece and amongst us, the passengers, we were able to raise a tangible sum of money to enable her transport herself back to Ondo. I placed my fuss about a mere N50 side-by-side this pathetic story and I immediately felt the urge to go into the next mosque or church for thanksgiving to God for small mercies.

And when I got into the office about an hour later and this image of President Yar’Adua stared at me from a newspaper page on the desk, all my anger at that conductor or his driver totally evaporated almost instantly. I took a long look at the eyes of the image in the newspaper and saw that they belonged in the face of a clearly overwhelmed, fatigued and clueless man who seems to be asking himself: “what have I got myself into.” So, I surrendered and accepted that N50 or not, clueless as our leaders have been, the fact that between them and oil marketers, oil can still somehow get fuel into the country, be it at cut throat prices, should be celebrated by the likes of me rather than blame or harass drivers and conductors who are only trying to get the most from a honeycomb they have been presented with by those who should guard it.