By Olukorede Yishau

Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph — Haile Selassie

Today I write about a group of men who relish ignoring leprosy and concentrating their energy on curing ringworm. Day in, day out, one mad man or the other sees a girl, loses what is left of his senses and pounces on her to satisfy his devilish sexual urge. In several cases, the victims are ladies, but there are myriad cases where the victims are minors— babies who are still trying to understand this life and before they do, they have fallen victim to sick souls who are nothing but well-dressed lunatics. And as though they have won medals, they have supporters who labour to help them twist facts on its head. But, the incontrovertible truth is: They are rapists!

These rapists are not only street urchins, they are not only hooligans, they are not only secondary schools boys or undergraduates; they are also men whose standing in the society will never let you suspect them. They are business owners, they are priests who dish out fiery messages against the devil from their pulpits, they are step-fathers, they are biological fathers, they are teachers who are supposed to impart knowledge, they are Pentecostal pastors in designer suits, they are uncles, they are mummy’s or daddy’s friends and they can be just anybody.

The priests and the pastors among them use their position of influence to advantage. They pretend as though they want to heal their victims of some conditions or deliver them from some evil spirits or offer some counselling sessions. They hardly just pounce; instead, they bait and pounce eventually. This group, because of their position of influence, has a ready army to fight for them when their secret is left out. The victim is tagged a devil’s agent, among others.

And when the aggressor is a celebrity, it is a different kettle of fish. Social media is taken over by those for and against. Decorum is thrown out of the window and truth is stood on its head and emotions take the position of sense and sensibility.

A Nollywood actor, James Olanrewaju, better known as Baba Ijesha, is in the police net for assaulting a minor. A CCTV footage confirms the accusation levelled against him. Some sad developments have come up since the news broke. One very disturbing one was the speculation that the victim’s guardian, Princess, who is a popular stand-up comedian and actor, set his colleague and friend because she was angry he dated her and dated her ward. Apologists have been doing all in their ability to dress Baba Ijesha in the wrong garb. The truism of the relationship between Princess and Baba Ijesha is immaterial to the case at hand. The questions for resolutions are: Did Baba Ijesha inappropriately touch the girl in question? Is the age of consent? Commissioner of Police Hakeem Odumosu offers answers: “It is true the victim was defiled seven years ago, but the present case at hand is a case of sexually being assaulted. The Baba Ijesha case is in two aspects, one, he was alleged seven years ago of defiling the girl, now she’s 14 years, as at this time there is no complaint, but now a video was seen where he was sexually assaulting the girl. When a man touches a woman where he’s not supposed to, it is an indecent assault to which the suspect admitted that he assaulted the girl. That was done without her consent and that is an offence in the law. But the case of defilement added to it is still under investigation. He also admitted to assaulting the girl, but pleaded for forgiveness from the girl’s parents.”

Read Also: Police arrest 35 suspected rapists in Jigawa

Lagos State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Moyosore Onigbanjo, after due consideration of the case file forwarded to the Directorate of Public Prosecution by the police, said it has established a prima facie case against Baba Ijesha. So, Baba Ijesha is to be charged under the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015 for indecent treatment of a child punishable by seven years imprisonment; defilement of a child punishable by life imprisonment; sexual assault by penetration punishable by life imprisonment; attempted sexual assault by penetration punishable by 14 years imprisonment and sexual assault punishable by three years imprisonment.

For me, the issues as spelt out by Odumosu and Onigbanjo are what matters; whatever was between Baba Ijesha, if any, is of no consequence and does not absolve the comedian of guilt and the law should take its pound of flesh. Raising extraneous issues such as this is akin to abandoning leprosy to cure ringworm. Left to these apologists, the so-called existence of a relationship should have made Princess keep shut. For argument, she should even be commended for speaking up despite everything, if there ever was any romantic past between them. This reminds me of my short story in which a girl’s guardian’s man friend was trying to molest her and she dealt him a dirty slap. Her guardian came in, believed her ward and chased out the stupid man from her life.

We also need to get something clear: Never blame the victim of rape. I feel sad when people give excuses for raping. The funny excuses range from the way she dresses and being in the wrong place. These are shameful excuses to give. The way a girl dresses should not bring out the animal in you, except you are an animal already just waiting for an excuse. A victim should never be asked, “what were you doing there?” The victim’s well-being should always come first and every other thing should be secondary. How on earth can anyone fault Miss Iniubong Umoren’s decision to search for a job only to be raped and killed by a sick man and buried in a shallow grave? She did not die because she was careless; she died because she was killed by a man who should rightly take his position among lower animals.

Some clowns are also fond of bringing up the unarguable fact that boys and men are also raped. But, we all know that the percentage of men and boys who are sexually assaulted is bound to pale into insignificance when placed side by side with women, girls and minors who every single day are violently violated.

My final take: Rapists and paedophiles are animals and do not deserve to dwell among the human race. Pets are incomparable to them. Children should be protected from paedophiles and ladies and women should never fall to the evil whims of rapists. Sick people have their place and they should be led there without further ado.

By Olukorede Yishau

One of the promotional materials reads: “Love IBB or hate him, every Nigerian needs to see Badamasi, portrait of a general, an Obi Emelonye film.”

The face of Nollywood actor Enyinna Nwige glitters on the poster of the biopic on Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, Nigeria’s only military ruler who chose to address himself as President. It will hit the cinemas on June 12, the 28th anniversary of the celebrated presidential poll won by the late MKO Abiola, which IBB shamelessly aborted. From the clips I have seen, the biopic traces his beginning, his military training, and his ascension to power. I have also seen a clip showing a protest and bonfire.

IBB, as he is widely known, was and is still beautiful, charismatic, and even friendly, but he personifies the concept of ‘evil genius’. Many coups in the country’s history had this son of Niger playing one major role or the other. IBB was there when Murtala Mohammed overthrew Yakubu Jack Gowon; he backed Muhammadu Buhari to terminate the democratic administration of the late Shehu Shagari; he is also credited with foiling the Dimka coup which killed Murtala Mohammed, and he was not missing in action when Buhari was shown the exit for him to take the crown.

When he came into power, it was like a messiah had come from unexpected quarters. He behaved as if a friend of the common man was finally manning the purse and fairness would dictate the disbursement of its goodies. He started talking about the rule of law, he was talking about ending poverty, he was talking about human rights, and he was talking about a government with a human face- an obvious criticism of the government he overthrew, which had zero respect for human rights, rule of law and many others.

IBB followed up his talks by setting up committees to work out the implementations of his ideas. He attracted some of the best brains from the academia, the Bar, and everywhere else. Many were excited about the turn of events and natural critics of government pleaded for the man to be given a chance. It took time for it to become clear that a political Diego Maradona was in the saddle, and he would dribble Nigeria into a tight corner, which, years after, it would be trying to get itself out of.

One of the populist moves IBB took was to get his Attorney-General, the respected Egba Prince, Bola Ajibola, to assemble a National Committee on Corruption and Other Economic Crimes. It was chaired by the late Justice Kayode Eso. Its task was defined by its name. One of the suggestions the committee made, as Eso recalled in his book, ‘The Mystery Gunman’, was the enactment of rules against living beyond one’s means. It also sought the establishment of the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which I suspect was the root of the one Olusegun Obasanjo later set up. IBB showered Eso and his committee with encomium when he received their report. He described its recommendations as the real panacea to the ills of the nation and promised to act on them, but the only action he took was to dump the report. If he had not done that, many in his government and his friends would have had their times in jail.

Several other populist moves, including the one which gave the impression he was going to be in power for a short period, went the way of the Eso committee. The Maradona was just playing games. Another game in which he was at his best was to gift us political parties, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and the National Republic Convention (NRC) as though ideology could be decreed. He kept disqualifying candidates until the late Bashorun Abiola decided to be a presidential candidate and went on to win convincingly across the country, even with a Moslem-Moslem ticket. Of course, the Maradona annulled the election and, when the heat was too much for him to deal with, he introduced another lexicon by announcing he was stepping aside. And he completed his assault on our sensibility by installing a civilian, Chief Ernest Shonekan.

Whether by omission or commission, the decree IBB rushed in to justify Shonekan’s leadership of the country did the opposite because it had no provision to enable anyone to appoint an Interim National Government, and a Lagos judge declared the government illegal. The late Gen. Sani Abacha, who was like IBB’s right-hand man, ‘slapped’ Shonekan out of the Villa. Evil followed evil after that. It was all IBB’s making.

The country practically went up in flames. There were protests, there were bombings and innocent people were clamped into jail. Amid the discontent in the land, Abacha sponsored groups to campaign for him to become a civilian president. They went by all kinds of names, including the infamous Youth Earnestly Ask for Abacha (YEAA) led by Daniel Kanu, who mesmerised with his acquired American accent. To cow the nation, prominent figures were clamped into detention; and a few were lucky to escape abroad. Madam Kudirat Abiola and Pa Alfred Rewane were gunned down. Bagauda Kaltho, who was a correspondent with The News, was bombed. It was a terrible era in the annals of the country. All thanks to IBB’s error of judgment. The heavens eventually intervened and the man who wanted to be a life president became history in circumstances we are yet to fully unravel.

In the run-up to the 2003 elections, and later in the run-up to the 2007 polls, there were signs IBB considered stepping back into power under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), but Obasanjo, the man he helped midwife his ascension from prison to power, and others, checkmated him and with time, he gave up the dream. The Maradona finally settled down for full retirement in his sprawling Minna Hilltop mansion. There he receives visitors regularly and appears in the media occasionally. One unforgettable appearance was when he and Obasanjo gleefully described each other as a fool. The hullabaloo blew over and he returned to his quiet moments.

Africa Today publisher Kayode Soyinka, in his ‘Born Into Journalism Memoir of a Newspaper Reporter’, reserved a copious space for the story of the first and only parcel bomb incident in Nigeria’s history. It happened under IBB and killed Dele Giwa, one of the brightest minds in Nigeria’s journalism. Soyinka was with Giwa when the incident happened and survived miraculously.

Recalling the day Giwa was killed, Soyinka writes: “During my time at Newswatch, a horrific incident, unique to Nigeria, occurred on 19 October 1986. It was the gruesome murder of Dele Giwa. I miraculously survived the attack. I was on an official visit to Nigeria from London. As usual, I was staying with Giwa at his Lagos home, which was then on 25 Talabi Street, Ikeja. That was when a parcel bomb was sent to him.

“The deadly package was delivered to him by his unsuspecting son, Billy, in his study, where we were having our breakfast. He took a quick look at the parcel and handed it over to me to see. I held it in my hand, looked at it, and handed it back to him. When he took it back from me, he said: ‘This must be from the president.’ The padded envelope, just slightly bigger than A4 in size, had marks that suggested it had been sent from the ‘Cabinet Office’ in Lagos. It was addressed to ‘Chief Dele Giwa’ – though he was not a chief – and with the instruction printed on it that it must be opened by the addressee only. Dele thought the envelope contained some vital documents which may help Newswatch with some stories. As he readjusted his chair and tried to tear the envelope open from the top left-hand corner, the envelope exploded. It was a huge and horrific explosion. There was a big ball of fire.

“Dele absorbed the shock and most of the impact of the massive explosion on his body, as he was the person who held the envelope and had tried to open it…Dele Giwa was in deep shock. He was still alive, as helpers rushed in and helped to carefully drag him out of the rubbles of the explosion. He was rushed to First Foundation Hospital, in Opebi, owned by a close friend of ours, Dr. Tosin Ajayi. There, he died early afternoon that Sunday.”

The Babangida junta said it had nothing to do with the murder, but it took only feeble steps to find the perpetrators. People formed their opinion anyway and many hold the regime responsible.

My final take: As we throng the cinemas to see the biopic, which features some of Nollywood’s best, we must never forget that IBB is one of the leaders who failed the country, who left the country worse than they met it, who became richer than when they came into power and who deserve nothing but the harsh sides of our tongues. We should never forget.

By Olukorede Yishau

As a boy growing up in Lagos and schooling later in Ogun State, there were things I experienced and nothing forewarned me that some decades later, they will be relics. Forgotten. Consigned to the museum.

In those days, owning a cassette player was a big deal and owning a video cassette player was a bigger deal. Kids from homes without these devices would look for opportunities to perch by the windows of homes with these luxuries. With time, audio CD, VCD and DVD players took over and we all scrambled to belong. Though CD, VCD and DVD are not totally out, their time in the sun is almost long gone. Memory cards and other forms of data storage are relegating them to the background.

Time was when photographers could not do without dark rooms, chemicals and Polaroid cameras. We had to wait for days before we could get our photographs delivered to us. If you wanted your photos badly, you had to pay the photographer to destroy the rest of the film.

Do you remember when IBM typewriters were the king after overthrowing manual typewriters? Computers have taken over and IBM is history. Before the IBM typewriters, there were manual typewriters. No office was complete without the typewriters and there were the ubiquitous typists/secretaries who manned them. Journalism training was incomplete without taking a course in typing and shorthand writing. If you tell young journalists about that era, it will appear as though you were talking about the 60s, but this was still the situation even up to the 90s. It is all about time and season.

So popular was Daily Times that it became a generic name for every newspaper in Nigeria. That was the era when reporters in outstations had to send their reports through fax machines and the frustration of waiting for dialing tones. Fax machines are now relics.

About the time Daily Times was reigning, Macleans was the name every other toothpaste was known by. Though Macleans is still in the market, that era of it dwarfing every other toothpaste is no more.

Before DSTV and private television stations, there was no way of becoming a star in the entertainment industry without appearing on NTA. Now, many of us only mistakenly find ourselves watching NTA. The power dynamics have changed.

Back in the days, if you never used a Nokia phone, you were on a long thing. Saigem, Trium and Motorola also had their time. Many will still remember “Hello Moto” with nostalgia. Now, Samsung, I-phone, Huawei and some other new comers are running the show.

Time was when musicians celebrated the purchase of Peugeot and many would scream:”ÌkÍÌ ni pijó, Àwé!” (My friend, Peugeot is the ultimate vehicle).

Time was when a musical concert in Nigeria was unthinkable without Daddy Showkey, Baba Fryo and so on. Now, younger musicians have seized the podium.

There was a time Lagos was incomplete without Joseph Adeniran Ajao and Da Rocha; they were rich in cash and property. Ajao was the brain behind Ajao Estates in many parts of Lagos. They enjoyed their time and season and left.

Gen. Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida’s words were law for eight years. When he sneezed, multitudes caught cold. But today, his words are no longer law. They stopped being years ago and they never will again. Our annals are replete with many like him, who are now just grateful for the gift of life. It is all about time and season.

Do you remember the time when the demi-god called Idi Amin in Uganda saw himself as the beginning and the end, tore his country and people apart, laughed at Asian-Ugandans’ misfortune and never saw a tomorrow without him. He forgot that time moves, and once it moves away from your side, your season is up and there is no turning back? His brothers— Mobutu Sese Seko, Laurent Kabila, Saddam Hussein, Robert Mugabe—also never understood the concept of time and season. Time is not like a piece of clothing that one person can use and over-use until it becomes a rag. Time outlives all.

The concept of time and season is a sermon for us all and, if we can internalise it, we will know that life is nothing much and should be used only for the good of the majority. There is nothing wrong with making money, but it is better when we use our wealth for the greater good because that is the only way posterity will remember us. The size of our bank account, the number of cars we have, the acres of land on which our houses are built, and so on, will not amount to anything.

A major proof of the lesson taught by time and season can be seen in homes on acres of land which are now wasting away. The homes, which once hosted who-is-who, are now controlled by reptiles, rats, and geckos and they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in sitting rooms that used to host men of money and influence.

If we appreciate the concept of time and season, we will be rid of sick men who rape minors and adults, we will have a society free of avarice and we will say bye to bandits, kidnappers, armed robbers and ‘ritualists’.  But, the bad news that take over our nation shows that many of us will never appreciate the sermon being preached by time and season. Only some days back, a girl, who just finished university education and was job-hunting, was found dead. She was raped and killed by a monster in human form who lured her with a job offer. The killer is a good example of men who are not bothered about their tomorrow. Today is all that matters. To hell with tomorrow is their attitude to life.

My final take: If video cassette players, IBM typewriters, men and women of influence can become relics, it is a matter of time before we are all overtaken, and if being overtaken by time is as sure as the oceans being interconnected, why can’t we be exceptionally good to the cause of bettering humanity? It is not a difficult thing to do. We just need to try.

By Olukorede Yishau

As a young woman, what will your reaction be if a toaster tells you: “Let me be your nightmare if I cannot be your dreams”?

Please permit me to ask another question: Will you be shocked if you tell a male soldier not to come into your room because you were naked, and he replied in a voice laced with anger “na breast I never see before, stupid girl.”

These two scenarios happened at the Kano State Orientation Camp of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) scheme. It was also at this same camp that pandemonium broke out because soldiers were said to have caught two ladies and two guys playing ‘rough’— the euphemism for having an orgy.

You need to hear this too: An asthmatic Corps member suffered an attack and there was no oxygen at the Orientation Camp to help him. Even at a nearby clinic in town, help was unavailable.

A number of lapses in the scheme have made many call for its scrapping. But NYSC Director-General Brig-Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim believes those calling for its scrapping will not do so if they know that without the presence of Corps members, the health and education sectors would have collapsed.

Some weeks back, Ibrahim said Corps members in rural areas were holding the schools and hospitals in the country. He spoke at the opening ceremony of the 2021 NYSC management’s meeting with representatives of state governments, FCT administration and local government councils in Abuja.

Ibrahim said: “Without the NYSC and Corps members, the education and health systems would collapse. In the rural areas, they are the ones holding the schools and hospitals.”

Reading ‘Memoirs of a Lazy Korfa’ by a dentist and writer, Tunmise Usikalu, has shown me that as good as the scheme is, there are issues that must be addressed. Usikalu participated in the programme over a decade ago, and the challenges faced then are still experienced now. With the book, she threw open the doors to the Kano Orientation Camp of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), and reading her memoirs was like being there with her.

The book is a frank and hilarious account of her 24-day orientation programme that always kicks off the one-year compulsory NYSC scheme. The memoirs offer many a dramatic scene, moments of laughter and instances that provide reasons to be worried about the security and infrastructural development in Nigeria.

The author recalls interesting characters such as Man O’ War men and soldiers who derive joy in cracking their whips, petty traders who go everywhere with the Corps members (even Endurance Trek), itinerant photographers, boys and girls not afraid of breaking from the norm and ‘victims’ of unrequited infatuation or love.

The first entry in the memoirs starts in Lagos, where Tunmise is seen boarding a flight from the Murtala Mohammed International Airport to Kano. Her flight is scheduled for 11.15am but by 11.am, there is no sign the flight will leave in the next thirty minutes. She is due to resume at the Kano NYSC Orientation Camp that day. All other flights are also experiencing delays. She eventually gets to the Camp at 2.30pm and her baptism of fire begins.

Completing her registration is hampered by a lack of proper organisation and Nigerians’ love for shunting queues. Officials get angry from time to time and abandon the exercise, thus prolonging her ‘suffering’ in the sweltering hot hall where the Corps members queue. Getting the NYSC kits is another kettle of fish. Only a few get all the kits at once. Many get footwears that don’t fit, leaving Corps members searching for colleagues to exchange the right sizes with. Tunmise gets a crested uniform that she likens to her father’s agbada.

The sanitary condition at the Camp, the author finds out, is terribly low.  She and many others are left with no choice but to take their bath in the open very early in the morning or very late at night to keep away prying eyes! Another shock is the low-quality food served in the kitchen, which she avoids throughout her stay.

Religion, she soon discovers, rears its ugly head at the Camp. Christian and Moslem fellowships take stands that Tunmise finds herself worrying about. Perhaps none disturbs her like an incident during the parade. A Moslem sister finds herself in between two male Corps members during an exercise that involves locking hands. A protest ensues and is only resolved when the two guys are replaced with two ladies! Memories of Kano’s past religious crises also hang in the air and always make the author consider running away from the city after the orientation programme.

In the book, Usikalu does not shy away from proffering solutions where she has them. Aside from being an account of her days at the orientation camp, themes, such as, influence-peddling, the failure of those in authority in Nigeria, loyalty to loved ones and boredom-induced sex and romance, jump out. The work also echoes the power of temptation and how to deal with it.

She also highlights the military command structure in the camp, which expects people who are intellectuals to obey without complaint, a development that is antithetical to intellectualism which their university years were all about. But, trust students, they forget fear from time to time and challenge the powers-that-be at the camp. The book has a curious instance involving a lady, but it climaxes ironically with her being bribed with a malt drink!

The author highlights how loneliness can make unlike poles attract even when they have a commitment outside of the restricted environment they currently find themselves in. The solemn and vivacious moments in the book are presented in simple language with the capacity to pull the reader into its world. Usikalu’s dexterity in presenting the good, the bad and the ugly with panache makes the about 100-page book worth every time invested in it.

My final take: ‘Memoirs of a Lazy Korfa’, which displays the beauty of journaling, should be read by intending Corp members, undergraduates, administrators, and others. They will find the information in it useful, and its humour, wit, and uncomplicatedness will make assimilating this documentation of a once-in-a-lifetime effortless.

By Olukorede Yishau

On Saturday, prose refused to hold my attention, poetry tried and failed woefully, but movies triumphed where the two met a brick wall.

A 1996/1997 two-part movie by Tunde Kelani, ‘Oleku’, was one of the movies that rescued me from boredom. I had seen the movie at least twice in the past, but seeing it again on that Saturday made me wonder again why people hold on to life as though it is their fathers’ private fiefdom, and chase vanity as though there is room for filthy lucre in the hereafter.

The movie, which is a cinematic adaptation of a Yoruba novel by the late Prof. Akinwunmi Isola, parades giants in television and film production. Of these giants, seven have since done their parts and quit this world we like describing as wicked when it shows us its rough edges.

Isola, who did the screenplay and played a cameo role as a lecturer, is long gone. Others who have also gone are Wole Amele, Toun Oni, Dr. Larinde Akinleye, Chief Tunde Oloyede, Chief Wale Ogunyemi and Pa Adebayo Faleti.

Amele, at the time of his death, was the Alara of Aramoko-Ekiti. Oni was still active on television and film till her last days. Oloyede, the husband of respected broadcaster Bimbo Oloyede, was running his company and running it well until death slowed him down and eventually took him out. As for Akinleye, he was active on the field and in the classroom imparting knowledge; so was Ogunyemi. Faleti, who wrote many novels in Yoruba, was the oldest of them all at the time he answered the last call. They all gave their best and their lives showed they were cognisant of the fact that we came to this world with nothing and we will leave with nothing. Absolutely nothing!

Death comes in different attires. At times, it comes via slumping and expiring; at other times, the kidneys just pack up. What about when hearts just get arrested or when wounds bleed out every pint of blood, or when tumours hold the keys to the hereafter? Many a time malaria becomes the proud agent of death and delivers the end without any remorse.

No matter our accomplishment death will surely come. When it does, we will go the way we come. Like our first bath, which was done for us by someone, our last bath will be done by someone. We will have no control over it. Whether it is well-done, whether enough soap is used, or whether our ears will be properly cleaned will be irrelevant. We will have no control over many of the decisions that will be taken on our last day and, for some of us, even people we would have wished never have anything to do with our funeral will play key roles and we will be helpless.

Read Also: In search of answers for questioning voices

As you read, someone somewhere is busy stealing our commonwealth, someone is ensuring supplies meant for hospitals are diverted, someone is putting the salaries of his or her subordinates in a fixed deposit account to earn undue profit, and someone is claiming to be someone else to get what belongs to another. Not a few are punching their computers, phones, and tabs and pretending to be who they are not to access someone else’s life savings. They promise love they are incapable of giving to love-denied women, all to get the money they do not deserve.

Look around you and you will see many who are tired and ought to quit their seats for young and fresh blood to inject new ways and ideas into their companies, countries, or organisations. But, for avarice’s sake, they stay and plunder.

It is good to be wealthy, but it is not good to use your wealth for your own good alone. Knowing that you will die and go with nothing is enough reason to use your wealth for the greater good because that is the only way you will be remembered. It is not by the size of your bank account, the number of cars you have, the acres of land on which your houses are built, and so on.

All over the countries, there are homes on acres of land now wasting away. The homes used to belong to rich men. Now that they are gone, their children are not interested or they are so many that agreeing on what to do with the homes is impossible. They could also be abroad and uninterested in returning to the concentration camp that our dear nation seems to have become. Now reptiles, rats, and geckos leap from one room to the other, and have breakfast, lunch, and dinner in sitting rooms that used to host men of money and influence. The butlers, manservants, and cooks, who saw to the many dinners in the mansions, have since found new ways to survive.

There are many who are not bothered about how history records them so they do everything to secure today. A video of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni in circulation shows he is more concerned about today. In it, a journalist with Al-Jazeera asked him if he was worried he would be remembered as a dictator instead of a democratically-elected president, and his reply was: A dictator re-elected five times must be a wonderful dictator.

Many men of God also carry on as though they forget they are men first. They carry on like assistant God and make proclamations capable of generating bad blood and making things difficult for the people. They talk and act as though they will never die.

My final take: Life is nothing much and should be used only for the good of the majority. We are only walking past this earth and making the best of the time we spend so that history will be kind to us. Someone once said history would be kind to him because he intended to write it. I add that the best way to write history is to live for humanity and shun avarice.

By Olukorede Yishau

Why do men rape minors and women? Why do the high and the mighty derive pleasure in taking advantage of women who seek employment under them? Why do people in power abuse their positions of influence? Why has our value system changed so much? Why has hatred replaced love? Why are there paternity frauds? Why do we prefer war to a truce?

This world of ours is filled with questions that we need answers to, yet the answers elude us. It is baffling why we have to go to war when history has shown us that no war ends at the battlefield. Always we return to the truce table.

The bulk of us agree that there is an all-knowing Being who created heaven and earth. He is known by different names: God, Allah, Chineke, Chukwu, Olorun, Olodumare and thousands of others. It is to honour Him that we have religions. But we fight because of Him. We claim one religion is the true religion, we say one religion is evil, we say that religion is bad, and on and on we go about boasting about our position on how best to worship God. We even go to the ridiculous extent of fighting for God. How on earth can mere mortals fight for God? Just how? We say someone deserves to die for blasphemy. We turn ourselves to God’s ambassadors and warriors and we apportion punishment to those we feel have gone against God. Why can’t we leave God to handle the situation? Why are we judging on His behalf and sentencing supposed offenders?

The inequality in this world is so much that while some people have nothing to eat, some have so much to waste. Their waste bins are filled with leftover food capable of doing something good to the body of the poor. Why do some have so much and others have almost nothing? Why?

There is also inequality of leaders with empathy. Some countries have leaders with milk of human kindness and others are unlucky to have beasts in the seats of power. Because of this challenge, the bulk of the world is in trouble; there are wars everywhere; there is an abundance of poverty here and there, and there are diseases and deaths where there should be health and life. Also because of this challenge, roads that have been supposedly fixed with billions are riddled with potholes shortly after. When it is election season, you see these men of deceit parking by the roadside, buying corn and eating like commoners.

I am also baffled about why policemen have become tax collectors as though they are on the payroll of the revenue authority. I was flabbergasted some days back when I saw some policemen on a rainy afternoon wearing raincoats and busy harassing drivers. They just could not stay away for the rain to go.

These questions I seek answers to are impressed on me by ‘Questioning Voices’— Olalekan Ajayi’s collection of poems. Aside from raising these posers, the 153-page collection also examines what COVID-19 has made of our world. The poet wonders when we will be able to shake hands again, have a warm embrace, stop hearing news of deaths, and when fear will no longer rule our hearts and minds.

Almighty America also gets some punches from the poet for some of its peculiarities. He remembers how a border control officer renames him Lincoln because he could not pronounce Lekan. He is ‘amazed’ neighbours are strangers in America and ‘disturbed’ when he is seen as speaking in tongue when he actually greets in English. He writes about seeing despair, hate, fear, men who engage in what beasts abhor, and caged souls in the land of the free. He also raises concerns about what is considered sexual harassment, wondering why “a smile to a maid with lesser melanin” can be read as molestation.

Ajayi, in this collection, offers himself as the emissary of voices desperate to be heard. He also presents in free verse a series of questions the society needs to answer. The poems capture our everyday experiences in areas such as politics, religion, relationships and so on. The revolutionary streak in the lines is unhidden, not even by the fluid narrative elegance. The poet’s writing is layered with images of nature. His chic poems play with the absurdities of splendour and gruesomeness, inferring that they are not contraries, but proximal.

The poems are free verse in form, but their frugal, measured use of techniques, such as repetition and rhyme, make them musical and deeply emotional and thus appealing to attentive readers. Ajayi’s consistent use of powerful images, startling similes, and witticisms do the poems a world of good. Some lines meditate on how even the most trying issues can be understood in new lights. The poet’s elasticity and readiness to comprehend issues guide readers appropriately.

Ajayi’s poetic tribute to Tolulope Arotile, the female Air Force pilot who died after being hit by a driver reversing a car, is fitting for an amazon. The poet mocks death saying Tolulope’s exit at 24 is actually a rebirth for the “sky-warrior”.

The Air Force has named a remodelled Pilots Crew Room at the 115 Special Operations Group in Port Harcourt after her. Since Arotile’s demise, according to the naval authorities, no fewer than 12 female officers are undergoing flying training to become fighter pilots.

Alhough she died early, but because she lived for the right cause, forgetting her will be difficult. That is the point emphasised in Ajayi’s tribute in verse. We need to live for the right cause!

My final take: We came into this world naked, we will leave it naked. Someone had our first bath for us; our last bath will also not be our responsibility. We arrived in this world weak, we will leave it weak. We came into this world with no dime; we will leave with absolutely nothing. Therefore, why do many of us try to appropriate the world when no one has ever succeeded in doing so?

By Olukorede Yishau

I want to tell you a story about the grit of a Nigerian-American married to a Swede.

In the beginning, fiction writing found Lola Akinmade Åkerström. It was beautiful and marvellous in her sight. Over the years, however, she relegated it and made creative non-fiction and travel writing the darlings of her life.  Two non-fiction books— ‘Due North’ and ‘Lagom’— later the jealous lover called fiction staged a comeback. It was while Lola was on vacation in Portugal’s Algarve region and reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s ‘Americanah’ that she visualised a novel about three black women and one influential white man. Right there she pulled out her notebook, outlined scenes, descriptions, characters, traits, features, interactions and quirks.

By May 2018, as Lola recalled in a July 2020 piece, the first five or so pages were ready and she was so ecstatic. She had a dilemma: “I wasn’t sure which way I wanted to go with the book in terms of prose; whether or not I wanted it to be pure literary fiction which is what mainstream publishing expects from me as an African writer in the diaspora, especially, if I wanted to be taken ‘seriously’ as a literary writer. We needed to keep proving our command of language to primarily white audiences while writing stories mostly rooted in Africa.”

The war between literary fiction and upmarket fiction was eventually won by the latter after she struggled to get into the second chapter of another African author’s literary fiction book. She did not want to write a book that readers will struggle to get into.

“I didn’t want to hide what I wanted to say behind pretentious literary prose,” she wrote. So, she decided to write a novel that is in between literary fiction and commercial fiction.  Lola engaged the keyboard and after months of typing away, a character-driven novel with relatable plots was born. She christened it ‘Afroswede’.

For a well-known travel photographer and author of ‘Lagom’, a book already translated into 18 foreign languages, you will expect Lola’s sojourn thereafter to be bump-free. But, in the forest of a thousand daemons that international publishing is, her road was rough, and it only recently ended in praise with publishing deals (in the US, UK, Canada and the Commonwealth) sealed for her debut novel now renamed ‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’.

After working with a writing guru, Leigh Shulman, to get the manuscript ready for submission to a literary agent as required for mainstream publishing, nothing prepared Lola for the heart-breaking rejections to come.  To get an agent, she participated in a Twitter pitching initiative called #DVPit.  Several agents requested her manuscript, but nothing came out of it. Later in 2019, two-times Booker Prize finalist and Booker Prize judge Chigozie Obioma came to Stockholm, where Lola lives, to promote ‘An Orchestra of Minorities’. Obioma’s agent, Jessica Craig, was also on the trip. Lola’s friend, Yomi Abiola, sent Jessica a brief email introduction. Lola and Jessica met for 30 minutes.

“I think it’s a remarkably polished first draft, and I really like your voice and writing style! And you bring a refreshing and intelligent new perspective to women’s fiction,” were Jessica’s words to Lola after reading the manuscript. Thus, she crossed the first hurdle to getting published by mainstream publishers.

But then daemons in the forest of a thousand daemons were waiting for her. How dare she cross genres?

“We were so eager and positive that the book would be snapped up right away in an auction. It was unique, different, epic, genre-crossing, and boundary-breaking. But traditional publishers were nervous about it. My book didn’t fit into a neat category they could easily check off even though many of them liked it.

“The main problem is that most publishers are either literary or commercial. So, my book was too commercial for literary imprints and too literary for commercial imprints.

“We got lots of positive feedback with the rejections which stumped even my agent and she’s one of the best in the business,” Lola wrote.

As time went by, seventy commissioning editors had rejected the book and thirty-five others kept mute. Sourcebooks Landmark came through on June 10, 2020, with a pre-empt book deal to publish it in the United States and Canada.

“Publishing a book comes down to who truly gets you, your voice, and your vision for what you’ve created, not who pays the most at auction for your manuscript. Getting to this point in any author’s life, especially as a debut novelist, is in itself a huge privilege and dream,” Lola said.

On April 8, a deal for the UK and the Commonwealth was announced. Head of Zeus saw the vision and is running with it. On September 7, the American and Canada editions will be out and in February 3, 2022, this tale of three Black women whose lives are intertwined with a wealthy White man will be out in the UK and Commonwealth.

The story follows Kemi Adeyemi, a marketing executive, who is lured from the U.S. to Sweden by Jonny von Lundin, the CEO of Sweden’s largest marketing firm. Kemi’s immediate task is to help fix a PR fiasco about a racially tone-deaf campaign.

There is also Brittany-Rae Johnson who meets Jonny on the plane on his way to the U.S. This chanced meeting ushers the former model-turned-flight attendant into a life of wealth, luxury, and privilege. An unhealthy obsession develops.

The third in the tripod is refugee Muna Saheed, recently granted asylum, whose day job is cleaning the toilets at Jonny’s office.

These three Black women are shown ‘pepper’ by the man of means.

We can now safely add novelist to Lola’s belt in addition to being the editor of Slow Travel Stockholm, speaker and an award-winning writer and photographer— whose works have appeared in National Geographic, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, Sunday Times Travel, The Telegraph, New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Slate, Travel Channel, Adventure Magazine, Lonely Planet and many more.

My final take: If Lola Akinmade Åkerström had given up after 70 rejections, the world will not have a taste of the delight (‘In Every Mirror She Is Black’) that has blown the minds of internationally-renowned novelists such as Taylor Jenkins Reid, Imbolo Mbue, Nicole Dennis-Benn and Deesha Philyaw, among others. So, it is not time to give up yet. Get up, stand up; don’t give up the fight. You deserve a place in the sun and will defeat the daemons.

By Olukorede Yishau

In the last few days, London has been on the minds and lips of many a Nigerian. Reason: Our dear President Muhammadu Buhari is there on medical vacation. He is not due back until later this month. So, today, I have chosen to tell you about my first experience of this Queen’s city whose medical doctors are giving our President the best service available at a time their colleagues in Nigeria are on strike over poor welfare and Minister of Labour Dr. Chris Ngige (a medical doctor, by the way) is threatening them with the activation of the no-work-no-pay policy.

London is an old city, so old its buildings pay allegiance to their ages in wear and tear. Orderliness reigns in this Queen’s enclave. There is no excuse for lateness. The people are the centre of the government’s attention and here is a land where lives matter in all ramifications.

I had left on my first trip via the Murtala Mohammed International Airport. The British Airways flight flew into Heathrow Terminal Five before 6 am. Passing Immigration did not take time and was without hassle. Bags picked up, it looked like all was set until I stepped out of the doors, just after the baggage area, and experienced the tyranny of cold. I had never experienced that sort of cold in my life so I rushed back inside to catch my breath. It was my first time in London and anywhere in the United Kingdom.

After some minutes, I braced the odds and returned to the taxi area. I saw a black cab and approached the driver. I showed him my destination and he told me it would cost at least 100 Pounds. I ended up paying 110 Pounds. This was at a time one Pound was a little over N300. By my later trips to London, I had mastered the underground train system and was saved from burning my hard-earned money on a black cab.

I jumped to the back of the cab with my luggage and about an hour later I got to the hotel, which had been reserved and paid for before I left Lagos.

Fatigue had taken the better part of me so I struggled to make a few calls, including the one to my friend who would be my guide in Liverpool, where I was billed the following morning. After that, I went to sleep. The following morning I had a breakfast of bread and tea and some oat in a restaurant where I was the only black man. That was the first time I would feel like a minority. The sea of white men and women made me feel far from home.

After breakfast, I checked out and headed for the London Euston Train Station where I was to join a Virgin Train to Liverpool Lime Street Train Station. The train station was crazily busy with people from different parts of the world. I saw Africans, I saw Asians, I saw Europeans and I saw Americans. Many of us gathered at the large screen mounted in the massive hall to check the next available train. I had bought a two-way ticket that allowed me to return anytime I wanted.

Through deciding which train to join and rushing to the platform, I was slightly delayed by an official who wanted to crosscheck that I had the requisite ticket to join the train. My first impression of the interior of the train was that it looked so much like that of an aeroplane. I sat comfortably and soon the train began the over two hours journey to the port city of Liverpool, which was the entry point for the earliest travellers from Nigeria and the home of the popular Liverpool Football Club. The train had a shop where passengers bought coffee, soda and snacks.

The train stopped in towns along the route for passengers to alight and for new ones to join.

Liverpool Lime Street Train Station, though not as massive as London Euston from which different parts of the UK can be connected, welcomed me with grace. My guide received me and led me to a cab that took us to her home before I later retired to a bread-and-breakfast facility from where I explored the city for two days before returning to Lagos through London.

The streets of Liverpool are so clean you will feel like a devil for dropping any form of waste on the ground. The roads are wider than London’s. The houses are unlike the crammed spaces people call homes in most parts of London. You have to pay through your noses for the poky stuff they call flats in London.

Like London, Liverpool boasts of efficient bus services. Unlike London, it has no tubes. Its trains are only for moving goods. Unlike in the bulk of Nigeria, you have to work with the bus schedules, which are at regular intervals though.

St Johns is in the city centre. It was bubbling when I got there. This shopping mall, which is Liverpool’s largest covered shopping centre and has sat in the heart of the city since 1969.

If you assume that as a Nigerian you will not have language problems in the UK, you need to think twice, especially when you find yourself in a ‘not-so-cosmopolitan’ place like Liverpool, where there are regional accents that make the English you and I understand sound ‘inferior’. If you listen to some speakers in Liverpool speaking their regional accent called Scouse, you will not believe it is the English language. This dialect (said to have originated from Merseyside) is highly distinctive and has little in common with those of the neighbouring towns and cities in the United Kingdom. London’s cosmopolitan nature frees it from this challenge of wondering what language is being spoken.

In Liverpool, any day their football club has a match, the traffic situation goes gaga. I was there on one of such days, but I was insulated from it because of my disposition to the game. I was safe in my room, far away from the madness football is known for inducing in its lovers.

Back in London after two days in Liverpool, Woolwich Train Station was where I waited for my host, who had talked me out of booking a hotel room. While waiting, I noticed that that axis could pass for Osodi or Isale-Eko— with people freely speaking Yoruba passing me by.

My final take: Mr President has the right to seek medical attention overseas, but as Nigerians, we deserve a country better than the one he is ruling and has led for over five years. We deserve a country with a functional health system, we deserve a country where orderliness reigns, we deserve a country where infrastructure is top-notch and we deserve a country that will be so good its president will not have to seek medical succour overseas at a time resident doctors are on strike over welfare issue. In short, we deserve our own London!

Olukorede Yishau

 

In Singapore, life is good. You begin to have this feeling right from the airport.

The walls glittered. The roofs shone. The floors were sparkling. The toilet was so clean that one could eat a sumptuous meal there. I did not hesitate to rate it excellent on an electronic rating board hung on its wall. Synthetic flowers added a green touch to the immigration hall. Special motorised ‘brooms’ ensured the roads were always dirt-free. It was razzmatazz everywhere.

Right from the Changi International Airport, Singapore began to amaze me. So beautiful was the airport that I could not but keep looking while the immigration officials kept those of us with green passports on one side to issue to us, what I believe, is the real visa to enter the sparkling domain called Singapore. The one we got from Lagos expired at the airport and we were actually told it was henceforth useless.

Singapore is cool. I saw no crazy sides in this great city-state. I saw organisation. I saw good management. I saw great hotels with walls and floors glittering so well that you wonder if they ever get dirty. I saw a small country made up of 63 islands, which shows resilience. I saw vision by this country, which is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia’s Riau Island to its south. I perceived deliberate efforts to have a corruption-free land.

Described as the best entertainment centre in Asia, the magnificent Marina Sands Bay hotel, with three towers, a penthouse built like a boat, is breath-taking. Adjacent it is the multipurpose centre, with a similar name. There is a connecting bridge between the centre and the hotel towers. The connecting bridge also serves as some form of lobby of relaxation point.

Not far from the Marina Sand Bay Hotel lies a stadium, where Singapore hosted the Junior Olympics in 2010. The stadium has a floating football field. I was happy that names of Nigerians such as Bukola Abogunloko, Muideen Akanji and Rachael Ekoshoria are engraved in a hall of fame alongside other young Olympiads from across the world.

Walking the streets of Singapore, I saw deliberate efforts to make the street clean and green. Here cars are recycled or destroyed after 10 years of use. I saw a pedestrian bridge in Marina, which has shops by its side. I also saw small girls, old men and women smoking their lives away, in designated smoking areas. You dare not smoke in smoke free areas. I saw young girls who love to flaunt their legs, wearing micro-mini skirts, but took efforts to ensure their boobs were well-covered. Not even cleavages were on display.

Singapore, for me, is planned to be enjoyed by the rich who have made enough money and are looking for where and how to spend it. Singapore has succeeded in selling itself as a tourist playground where you can see the best. I was told annually it receives more visitors than its population. Almost every hotel has a mall, where designer wears, wristwatches and the good things of life are sold at cut-throat prices. Everywhere you turn, there is a mall. Even the Suntec Convention and Exhibition Centre has a mall attached to it, where you can shop till your credit cards reach their limit.

In Singapore, land is scarce, so, storey-buildings are everywhere. Skyscrapers upon skyscrapers occupy the landscape. Land is being reclaimed. Car parks are usually in-built, such that one may wonder if no space is left for parking before discovering that basements and ground floors serve as parking lots. Many of them, even the ones in hotels, are pay-as-you-park garages.

I saw only one church known as The Quite Place St Andrew’s Cathedral throughout my walk around. The bulk of the population practice Buddhism. Many others have no religion. Christians take the second slot.

Singapore, like New York, encourages you to walk. The streets are largely crime free; sense of fear is almost zero. But there are scary incidents once in a while. For example, on the day I got there, a Chinese hijacked a taxi and ran into a Malaysian who had lived the better part of his life in Singapore, with his family, and worked as a cleaner. The victim died hours later, leaving behind a young family.

Newspapers are sold in stores. The country has one major English newspaper known as The Straits Times, well-printed in broadsheet format, which in terms of content I felt was empty.

The roads of Singapore are not difficult to navigate, as there are no traffic gridlocks. It is a city-state of a little over five million people. Its orderly grid, which sees streets running from east to west, avenues from north to south, makes traffic not cumbersome. There are street lights everywhere and people obey them like Buddhism teachings. It boasts of an underground rail system which further eases the road. Taxi drivers are polite and they charge using metres. No room for cheating or over-charging. The streets are well-marked, with bicycles having a track. Zebra crossings are respected.

Houses in Singapore do not have high walls. Many other buildings, including hotels do not even have walls at all. Government buildings, including Parliament Building, have no fence. Those with walls use see-through materials. Yet, crime rate is extremely low.

Singaporean policemen are not ubiquitous. You need to break the law to know they are watching and patrolling the streets of this marvelous nation, where electricity generating sets are not needed. Electricity supply is a right, not a privilege. Singaporean weather is friendly. It is not freezing. It never went below 25 degree centigrade while I was there. There were light showers too. The sun, throughout my stay, was mild and friendly. No need for a thick sweater or jacket. Maybe light sweater or jacket.

The big global banks such as HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank have their homes in high-rise buildings on Marina Boulevard, which is like the business district. Many of the hotels are around Stanford Road, which is not far from the Suntec, where major international conferences are usually held. I guess it was deliberate to have hotels and conference centres of international standard all within walking distances.

The country has indeed come a long way since it was expelled by Malaysia, with which its leaders formed a federation in the 60s after declaring independence from Britain. Its leaders had joined Malaysia because they did not believe that Singapore can survive on its own, due to scarcity of land, water, markets and natural resources. Now, Malaysians, a Singaporean told me, come to live, work and earn better living in Singapore, whose currency is almost as strong as American dollars.

But, don’t let me leave you with the impression that Singapore is a country where everyone is contented. While it is acknowledged that there is no abject poverty, many see the government as authoritarian. They point at the fact that police permit is required for outdoor public processions or assemblies. The only place in Singapore where outdoor public assemblies can hold legally without police permit is known as the Speakers’ Corner. There, CCTVs adorn every available space and before the place can be used, the organisers must register online with the National Park Board. You can say this is another form of permit.

Anyway, nowhere has thrilled me like the city-state of Singapore, where a shop attendant told me many are afraid of raising babies because it is expensive to parent them.

My final take: When will Nigeria join Singapore in becoming a world leader in oil refining center, have many US dollar millionaire households per capita, be rated by the World Bank as the easiest place in the word to do business. Though Nigeria and Singapore got their independence about the same time, the two countries are poles apart in terms of Human Development Index (HDI), tourist friendliness and many more.