Category: Oyinkan Medubi

If you are commiserating with the president as I am, then it may turn out that, perhaps, you and I understand his job better than he does

One of the contributors to last week’s essay on this column berated me for insinuating in the essay that it was the president’s responsibility for cleaning up the noise pollution in the country. The writer went on to insist that we should stop the habit of piling every known and unknown responsibility on the president, insisting that there are a few things we should be able to do on our own. I would have been half inclined to agree with my esteemed reader’s view but for a tiny winy bit of things which some might call nonsense and some might say are of some national significance. Like it or not, everything still stops at the president’s table.

You, reader, are not raising a new objection because it’s been raised before. When our Obj. was in government, he was said to have been angry that every failure in the country was being attributed to him, including if a woman failed to conceive. He did not understand then. Now I think he does and he it was who, in his famous Epistle to Aso Rock, held the present president liable for everything happening in the polity. Obviously, the shoe is on the other foot now; well it is if someone else is wearing it.

Actually, if you are commiserating with the president as I am, then it may turn out that, perhaps, you and I understand his job better than he does. I, for instance, now understand that if chickens refuse to lay eggs, I hold the president responsible for it. Don’t you know? If chickens are not laying, it is because there is no longer any security in the land. Anyone familiar with chicken behaviour knows that they need absolute peace and quiet to lay any eggs, just like any other human being, you know, when you go to do your business in the mornings in the toilet, if you’re lucky, or bush, if you’re not. Anyway, if a woman cannot conceive either, why, it is the president’s fault. Who is responsible for security in the land? Now tell me, how many men worried about security can think of making any babies when your average boko haram is shooting sporadically into the air anyhow now?

Just look at the example of the fifty-nine school children killed by boko haram shooters in Buni Yadi, Yobe State; not to talk of the thirty-seven people killed even more recently in Adamawa State. Guess whose table that buck rests at: that’s right – the president’s. He is the one who can give the order for all this to stop. Definitely, he cannot give in to their demands that all schools be closed in the country or that the nation should convert to Islam. However, his is still the responsibility and initiative to convince the killers that one really should sit down and think seriously before putting an end to any human life, for money or for game. The reason is that, for sooth, none of us here can manufacture a toe nail. All that cloning business is really only replicating what exists. Only the Almighty can make from nothing. So now, are you surprised that everyone is calling on the president to end all the destruction of Nigeria’s present and potential human resources?

Believe me, governments all over the world are responsible for the level of sanity in their respective lands. Now, you and I know that many things can contribute to this sanity problem. There is first the ability of every individual to believe that waking up in the morning and assaying forth into the sunrise to make a living is worth the effort. I tell you, there are many people closer to you than you think who do not see any reason why they should. Well, for one thing, there is the fact that all their efforts may not produce enough food for the day for them and their dependents. Then there are other things such as fears: of the unknown, of crowds, bridges, rivers, valleys, and even of going outside. Do you know that there are people who are afraid of what would happen to them outside so they do not venture outside their houses? Sick, ehn? Then, there are the extraneous factors such as the sanity levels of others like vehicle drivers, civil servants, fellow workers, noise levels… One of the first thing the new government of a country did recently somewhere in a not-too-remote world was to clean up the noise level in the cities. So yes, it is the president’s duty to reduce noise; just pass a law against it, that’s all.

Let me tell you other bucks that stop at the president’s table. You will agree that many events have been tumbling over each other in a mad rush to out-do the other. There had been first talk of fifty billion dollars missing from the coffers of the NNPC and the nation. Then the figure came down to thirty. Now, it appears to have settled on about twenty billion dollars missing from the coffers. When I translated the money into Naira, I realised it came to trillions of Naira, enough to give the country an effective rail system. You tell me if you don’t think there’s something fishy going on in the land as usual. Worse still, even ICPC is washing its hands of it, insisting that it cannot ‘probe’ and ‘unprobe’ it. I added that last bit, but it did say that it did not have the competency to look into it. Can you just imagine that? What accounts can be so fuddled that it can’t be unfolded? I imagine though that what the body was really saying was that the NNPC issue was a no-go area for it; the issue is so deep that the ICPC is really out of its depths on it.

Rather than attend to all these – national and personal fears, noise level, missing billions of dollars, shooting of children and adults everywhere in the north – I say rather than attend to all these, the government is busy celebrating a centenary which no other person in the country understands. Naturally, with the president at the head of these celebrations, one can only assume that they are to his pleasing. In fact, the celebrations are so pleasing to him that I hear the organisers are even giving out honours now. Imagine that: to be honoured at an event one only wants to gape at in incredulity. It’s still a wonder that my name has not been included. Well, really, when you think that the country is even now in the throes of agony over how nothing in it is working, you honestly do not want to think of celebrations. Instead, you want to take a minute and pause over the country: to systematically restructure or to systematically dismember. It’s a little like reversing the ‘To be or not to be’ formula. Any which way, the answer will still be a slap in the face. Celebrate kini?

Yes, dear reader, the president is liable for everything. He is liable for the police not working effectively; for electricity supply not being regular, for water supply not being regular, for food being expensive in the market, for roads being impassable and in particular, the ones leading to my village, for bad odours or noises in the air, for bad weather, etc. Obviously, the vision of the country that the president had when he vied for the presidency included one of doling out trillions of Naira in oil subsidy yearly to cronies, celebrating unendingly and fighting well-meaning friends. These are things we should focus on putting an end to.

If we had a government, we would have just said ‘Dr. Jonathan, please clean up this noise’

I have a horror of horror films; so I must confess I have never sat down to watch the TV series from which I have adapted today’s title, The Walking Dead. I understand however that it has a bit to do with some zombies eating up another set of zombies. Just like real life, no?! Howbeit, I just could not resist concocting my title pun from that title as you can see above. Generally, though, I regard horror films as being spawned from idle, devilish minds with insufficient grasps of reality. Reality is not made up of horror stories. It’s a lot worse. I’m sure you have heard the phrase ‘life imitating art’ or ‘art imitating life’? Well, it’s true, both ways. I mean, what else can we call the recent firing of the Central Bank governor, Sanusi Lamido, by the presidency if not life imitating art? If someone had put the entire scenario on stage, everyone would be rolling in laughter, throwing legs in the air and howling heads off. But it did not happen in the theatre; it happened in real life. There is just so much laughter you can throw at life. Luckily, I had warned you at the beginning of the year to be a good boy’s scout and be prepared. Anyway, that’s not why we are here today; so let’s move on.

Wait, though, let me tell you about another of my horrors. Have you noticed how horribly hot the African sun has got lately? I tell you, it’s a blistering horror story! When I venture out into it these days and I deign to look up at the sky, I am quite convinced the Almighty has turned up the volume of the rays just to let us know something. Do you know what that something is, ‘cause I don’t? Anyway, listen, I think we need some concerted effort to enable us do some talking to the sun, and maybe tell it how much we really don’t like the way it’s getting things done these days. So, how about it?

Oh yeah, I do have another horror, and its noise, particularly the ones that tend to blast the sleep out of your eyes in the night or in the morning. I wrote about this before but it does not appear as if anyone heard me, perhaps because there has been so much being noised abroad lately. Let me start with the early morning ones. There I am, stretching out my paw about to grasp the check of two million Naira made out in my name and suddenly, a blast rends the air into two separate halves and I think the heavens are trumpeting my win. The persistence of the shrill eventually wakes me up and I check my palm to find nothing, only some earfuls till I realise I’ve been dreaming. Oh no, it’s not the skies, it’s my Muslim brothers calling for prayers. What’s worse, now, there is a multiplicity of such extremely loud calls saying different things and all coming from many loud speakers in the same neighbourhood from around 5.00 am to as long as 7.00 am till I wonder. Now, one loud speaker has added a sermon to its own calls. This is just not fair, I mumble, as I stare at the horror of it all in my pillow.

Then there are the churches. There are my Christian brothers and sisters who persist in conducting their vigils right inside my ears. On some designated nights, the drum taps begin gently enough just as we not so holy ones are preparing for bed. Gradually, the taps begin to grow into gentle beats and I am thinking, not bad. Suddenly, however, someone seizes the microphone and all hell is let loose. I would like to think it’s the demons flying out into outer space but the ratatat of the drums do not resemble demons, only some terrible noises threatening to throw me out of bed. The reason is that the voice that cracks into the air does so like whips and the drums refuse to be outdone by lady nightingale; they pick up their own tempo until they reach a crescendo where they are consumed into an ecstasy. Then you can feel both singer and drummer directly jostling for the inner recesses of the meshed wires of the microphone. The church walls cannot contain them; the very air cannot contain them and the wind helps by dispersing the sound right into my pillow which in turn distributes them into my ears. I don’t know about you but between the two religionistas, I have become The Walking Deaf. What is that? WHAT DID YOU SAY?

Honestly, I no longer know what our religionists are about: scaring the living daylights out of me or raising me to a higher level of spiritual consciousness. If the former, I think they are succeeding very well. I am now going about with eyes rounded from sleep deprivation; legs dragging behind me from sleep deprivation, and a dull appetite from, you guessed it, sleep deprivation. Actually that is what bothers me most: my appetite that is now no longer as sharp as it used to be. Indeed, it is no more than a shadow of its former self. I don’t want to tell you what I used to consume in a day; that would be bragging. I can only tell you that I can now no longer eat more than two meals, and that, my friend, is bad news indeed. Forget what my doctor said.

Wait, there is yet a third dimension. Many, if not all, record sellers feel it is their bounden duty to suffuse the air with the harmful decibels of sound as they advertise their special numbers on the air at all times. Worse yet, the advertisements are at the highest volume which are most unfriendly to the ears. The noise is so deafening there is no hearing yourself speak or even think. That’s right; you walk away from the environment looking more like a zombie than a human; hence The Walking Dead.

If the two religions mean to raise my spiritual consciousness, all I can say is that they are going about it the wrong way. They are not thinking of the third option. That option says that it is possible for me to prefer to commune with my creator through a QUIET snooze in the morning, you know, those early morning hours when you get the promises of a car, house, wife, husband, jet, etc. from your maker.

What both religions are producing right now are unnecessary noises which are no credit to worship and are only contributing to my appetite loss. You know the other things noises do, don’t you? Well, let’s see. According to doctors, when we’re exposed to harmful noise either from being too loud or too prolonged, then we can develop hearing loss. When the sound is repeated, such as a loud all-night night vigil, the ears can begin to lose their power. Ask the doctor nearest to you how loud sounds can also affect your blood pressure and your appetite, you know, that doctor who doubles as your spouse.

Listen people, it is a well known fact that the government has very little respect for us. It does not need us for anything except taxes and sometimes, only sometimes, to vote. Actually, I suspect the government can do without us all together. This is why all we have is each other; that is also why we must look after each other. If we had a government, if we had a president, we would have just said ‘Dr. Jonathan, please clean up this noise’. In the absence of that, we can only plead for some mutual respect. Please, let’s have less noise.

The magic words are only known to the Haves who abuse expense accounts, insult charge accounts, assault subventions, batter budgetary allocations and clubber the country

I have many observations on the male race in Nigeria, mostly because I am not a member. My most profound discovery about them is that nearly every member of that group does not have a single idea what it means to be a gentleman. Just check out the traffic. Many men, even men-in-black, can be seen struggling for the right-of-way with every other road user, lady or ruffian. I have searched in vain for those I can call knights-in-shining-armour to redeem the race. All I see around me are men in burnished armour. Nearly all of them appear to be versed in the veritable art of how not to be a gentleman. You are offended? Wait then till I ask you this: how many of our men, not counting your fashionistas, know how to sew a button on their most beloved shirt? Most Nigerian men cannot tell one end of the needle from the other. Yet, the book of etiquette says ‘a gentleman knows how to sew on a button’.

For that matter, how many of our men know that a gentleman should always walk behind a lady, except of course when there is danger? There you are, none of you! Most men have no idea that they are supposed to walk in such a way that they shield their lady from all dangers, oncoming or from behind. Alas, your Nigerian men appear to need the shelter that women provide; that’s why they make women walk behind them. Yet again, the book says a gentleman always walks behind a lady.

There is a rule in the book of social etiquettes that says men ought always to give their lady friends flowers to mark a variety of occasions: Christmas, birthday, baby bearing, apologies, weekend get-away, valentine, request-to-be-mine… Now, all those men who gave their ladies flowers this last valentine should please stand up. That’s what I thought: two men out of one hundred and something million (or whatever you think the population of the country is). Haba! Did you say something about giving flowers not being in our culture? Mmm! I always wondered why the Almighty caused the silly things to grow around here, seeing they are really not part of the culture of Nigerians. You know the way one would hold a baby’s heavily soiled nappy when it’s full of the stuff? That’s how a Nigerian male holds flowers when he is giving them to a lady. He thinks it’s more than his reputation can withstand to be seen doing that. The only time I received a flower in my house was the year I made a lot of noise about it. Since then, there has been a flowery silence.

From this book of social etiquettes for men, I also see that gentlemen are not expected to leave dirty crockery around. Ha! That is the one I love most. I wait for the day when Nigerian gentlemen will finish their dinner and promptly see that there is no dirty crockery lying around, not just by instructing the little ones to deal with it but by rolling up their sleeves and plunging their hands into the soapsuds. In the meantime, we must continue to watch as Baba Wande finishes his dinner and slides off the table end of the conversation, in person, particularly when he ignores the thin voice of the woman wailing about ‘who will wash these plates’. Well, sometimes, the cuckoo waltzes home and daddy decides of his own freewill to clean up. Such days are rarer than finding ruby on the beach; that is why there usually is a song and dance about it when it happens. Even the neighbourhood knows there is something different in the air because the voice of the turtle is heard clearly in the land.

Once, I came upon a woman who, unprompted, quickly explained that the father of the house was cooking dinner that evening. I never asked her. I rather think that she needed to explain why she was in the sitting room that dinner preparation hour, rather than in the kitchen. I have not been able to decide whether that was occasioned by guilt or a need to fill the time, that she had normally used for pottering around the kitchen, with words.

By far the most profound of the How to be a gentleman’s rules is that gentlemen are expected to laugh and talk quietly. Actually, I think that is where we all fail, both men and women. This abuse of noise is something that is very Nigerian. From waking time to sleeping time in this country, there is no abating the noises buzzing and belching out of every religion-linked loudspeaker, record dealer, transport canvasser, beer parlour adherent, irate husbands, termagants, and all else. To a man (and woman), Nigerians are just mindless noisemakers. One day, we really should talk about why we have not all become The Walking Deaf in this country.

Most importantly, my book revealed that real gentlemen do not abuse expense accounts while on business trips. This is the fine print of a larger law that says gentlemen do not abuse the accounts of their offices or the other privileges of those offices. The finer print of that law says that abusers are liable to be called Common Thieves. I don’t think this rule was written with Nigerians in mind exactly. If it was, then it has fallen flat on its face. Nearly every facet of Nigerian life is peopled with men who do not only abuse their expense accounts, they actually insult them. That exactly is the bane of public life in this country: the fact that Nigerians do not really know the meaning of the epithet Common Thief.

Unfortunately for us all, Nigeria is not a class-minded society. Perhaps, once upon a time in its history, it used to be. At that time, there were behavioural expectations for every segment of the tribe. What qualified one for membership within that segment was no more than conformity to the rules. Aberrations were not only frowned at, they qualified one for exclusion from the segment. That was class behaviour. It did not depend on money; it depended on a certain mental tuning and keying in to a particular degree expected of one. Now, the diffusion that came through the modern life-style has restructured the society to the Haves and the Have-nots. The Haves are those who can rub two kobo together, say the magic words and bring out millions of Naira, while the Have-nots are those who do not know the magic words. No matter how much those ones rub two kobo together, nothing will come out. Zilch. Unfortunately, either by coincidence or luck, the magic words are only known to the Haves who use them to abuse expense accounts, insult charge accounts, assault subventions, batter budgetary allocations and clubber the country. Now, those are the common thieves who cannot be called gentlemen. Does it then follow that the Have-nots are gentlemen? I honestly don’t know; do you?

By the above accounts, therefore, a gentleman is someone who seeks to maintain class behaviour that hinges on responsibility. To say that Nigeria needs gentlemen in its public offices (and private ones too) is an understatement. Responsibility allows one to choose that action which can be called the thing to do, you know, the gentlemanly thing. That is what makes a society successful, when it can count on its public citizens to be extraordinary gentlemen.

Have a hobby to be excited about: it’ll help you get out of bed in the morning 

Let me pause a while to thank you all kindly for your continued reactions, by text and/or by calls, to many issues raised on this column. I specifically want to tender my apologies for not being able to take your calls because of lack of free time to do so and also because the injunction that accompanies this column-head has categorically specified SMS ONLY. This means no calls. Yet, many of us persist in calling. I thank you nevertheless. However, there is a call many of us should make to any listening relative or an appropriate body when the urge strikes: the call to say SOS – help me, please; I feel like killing myself. Killing oneself makes one liable before the law of God and man. Sentence: Death by Self Punishable with Damnation.

Perhaps, many people fail to make that call for the simple reason that they do not want to be dissuaded from their intention. This is why suicide is now said to be as many as tens of thousands per year in Nigeria and about a million in the world, claiming higher figures than wars and murder. The Nigerian figure is alarming. What has happened to our communal living style? That life-style used to be the cure-all for all our socio-psychological problems around here because everyone was indeed his/her brother’s keeper. It not only made every member of the larger family a prop for every other person, it also made everyone responsible for everyone else. In that life-style, if you didn’t have anything to eat, you went to the next hut. If you didn’t have enough clothes to wear, you went to the next hut. If you didn’t even have enough words in your mouth, why, you went to the next hut.

More importantly, if you felt your father was too harsh with his words, you did not point the dagger to your stomach. You just went right up the ladder and moved in with the oldest father in the compound. He would then read between the lines and have a quiet word with your father. He would tell him with one side of his mouth not to confuse his frustrations on the farm with instilling discipline in his son/daughter. Did you hear the joke about the young man who had an argument with his father? Well the long and short of it was that the father asked him to leave the house, and the young man refused because he said that was his father’s house and his father could go and claim his own father’s house if he wished, but he was going nowhere. I tell you, there’s nothing headier than the success of sonship.

And if your mother was headstrong and would not listen to you, you did not go on a one-way swim. You simply went shopping in the family: you picked another mother from the myriads flowing around the compound and moved in with her. I did that when I was young until I felt that my mother had sufficiently learnt her lesson. Then I went back home; although I think it was more because I had begun to miss her cooking after a while.

I quite believe that whoever wrote the adage that proclaims ‘If all else fails, eat’ is surely a genius. My dog believes that too, going by the way he pounces on his food. Indeed, when he sees his food approaching, one could get the impression that a drought was coming the next day. His eyes would light up, his nostrils would flare, his slumped shoulders would tauten, tail flipping both ways at once like the propellers of a helicopter (he’s the only dog I know that can do that), and his tongue, that infernal, red tongue would begin to do the flap dance – flipping in and out of his mouth and stretching itself to reach the plate as you are holding it. For him, nothing fails, yet he eats. So, why can’t we for whom everything sometimes fails?

I know, I know, many people are driven to suicide for economic reasons I hear, what with poverty and unemployment an’ all, so where will they get the food to eat? According to many suicide reports, inability to provide for the family has driven many a man to suicide. Another report says that a young man did away with his own life because he could not get a job five years after graduating. Now, that is just sad. No, not the unemployment thing (that’s bad enough, I know) but the dying for it thing. I know it’s nothing to laugh at but you know me: can you imagine stepping up to St. Peter and having to explain that unemployment killed one? That’s a bad excuse, people, bad excuse.

Worse of course is when substance abuse skews one’s senses so much one cannot see straight anymore; not to talk of relationship related problems, workplace related problems, etc. This column is not suggesting that these are not genuine problems. They are, considering they have led people to the point of suicide. However, they constitute no more than the challenges that help an individual to grow and mature. There are always solutions.

I also understand that some bad mental adjustment can drive one to take one’s life. Now, mental adjustments are funny things, aren’t they? At the risk of being labelled unserious, I must admit there is just no universalising them. Take the mental adjustment between the government and us or between a husband and a wife. While the government thinks the people are blind and stupid, the people think the government is crooked and corrupt. While most husbands insist that a house is no more than a place to lay one’s head and dump one’s belongings that are not being used at a particular time, most wives see the house as a piece of art to show and tell others. This is why many women have taken the gun to their husband’s heads for crimes such as walking on a mopped floor with muddy shoes or seeing the furniture as no more than the floor. In one family, a husband and his two sons got together and killed the wife/mother because she insisted that the men should be properly dressed and washed for dinner each day and strictly comply with the dinner hour. Of course, they went to jail for their skewed mental adjustments.

Truth is, mental adjustments are awkward things. They are fed by things we see, hear, think and experience. One never quite gets it right. Obviously, all husbands and all wives are quite skewed. In fact, anyone who is seeing life from the prism of the straight and narrow is very, very skewed. Conclusion? One needs a little bit of mental maladjustment to stay straight in order to have that little bit of madness necessary for sanity. Now, how is this supposed to help our suicide-inclined individual who thinks suicide is the only way out?

Everyone needs to learn that, just as there are many ways to skin a cat, there are many solutions to a problem. However, one cannot see these many other solutions without a healthy mental adjustment. In order to develop this, an individual needs to see things more positively. Having something to be excited about can help. It could be one’s job but it is preferable if it is a HOBBY. This will give the individual a good reason to get out of bed in the morning and aim for a good life. Having someone to share it with is even better but it should not be a condition, unless it’s a spiritual someone. Nevertheless, one should reach out to others if the urge to end it all comes, but please don’t choose SMS ONLY numbers. Get a close relative who cares.

The only lesson the people are learning is that it is all right to seek only the things of the self and let the country, and others, be damned

My favourite magazine last week featured a story of a new kind of computer printer that prints 3-D inanimate objects. Imagine that! All you need to own various objects like toys in your home is that printer called The Cube, your own imagination and a cartridge that spews plastic instead of ink, and hey presto!, you’re lost in the very depths of your own toy and object factory. You can print practically anything you want. Now, don’t get me started on just what I can do with that kind of machine, because that is one beauty I’ve been longing to see in my lifetime for many reasons. Let’s see why now.

     To start with, I have long had a hankering after serving plates that do not break or require too much care. Now, with a machine like The Cube, I will not only make my own plates, I can make them in shapes, sizes and colours I want. Should I desire to satisfy my palate for a large-sized plate of my favourite dish of good ol’ Amala on a particular day, I would first take my time to design the shape of the container; then I would choose the colour of the day, maybe marigold yellow with a hint of a rainbow mix rimming the edges. Then, I would make the food. With the combination of food and plate simmering in front of me, I can now sing, ‘I’m in heaven… This is the heaven…’ as one morsel follows another down the dark, dark tunnel. Then, when I remember that I can choose another plate design and colour for the next day’s menu, another song will issue forth, ‘It doesn’t get better than this…No, no, it doesn’t get better than this…’ Ah, that sure is the life! Hopefully, with enough coaxing, the machine will be able to print my lunch one day.

     Oh yes, I have also wanted to own something that I can stuff down people’s throats when they are saying what I particularly do not want to hear. Now, with that machine, all I have to do is look at the shape of the mouth of the speaker and design the appropriate object to fit it – round, square, triangular or slit. No problem. When someone around me is complaining about the fact that money is scarce in the town and so the housekeeping money is going to be… I quickly shut the mouth before the word is uttered. When someone in the vicinity of where I am standing is trying to tell me that the country is broke, would I mind a salary… I quickly shut the mouth before the unutterable word is uttered. Beautiful. Now, all I have to pray for is that someday, a machine will be invented that will print people, so that I can surround myself with only my kind of people who will only say things I want to hear.

      Now, I have always wanted a machine that can print me a new dress every day. According to the article that started all this wish list, someone is already thinking like me. There are designers out there, it said, who have printed a pair of shoes and a dress, using different printers. Now, that is music to my ears. No more can my tailor and cobbler be rude to me. No more will I have to grin and swallow their insults of ‘come back tomorrow…’ while the waters are roiling deep inside me worse than the Atlantic Ocean in a storm. Now, all I need to do is dream up a look for the day, and command the machine. Then, when I get to the end of the road and find that the look does not really work for me in broad day light as it did in my head, I can go back home and make the necessary adjustments. I command my machine. The only thing that would be left would be for that beautiful machine to print money for me…

     You’re right, we need money to design and build the machines that will make my dreams come true. Don’t I know it? But, seriously, where do you think the money to fund the technological drive in this country will come from when we are busy funding ridiculous projects? Just the other day, I read in the papers that Senator Abe of Rivers State had been flown abroad for medical attention after being allegedly shot by the police with rubber bullets! I ask you, I tell you! It’s people like these – the one who shot him, him that was shot and agreed to be flown out of the country, and the one who funded the trip – these are the ones who are standing in the way of making my machine dreams come true. They are the Dream Terminators! Honestly, I sometimes feel as if all our money is going into funding the expensive hobby the country is engaged in right now, politics. It’s a little like the head of a family who persists in finding the cure for hunger by locking himself in the kitchen conducting one experiment after the other. The rest of the family can be left to feel like orphans for all he cares. (Actually, he can feel like a childless father for all they care if he would just get out of the kitchen so they can feed).

      Anyway, I just hope this politics will not be the death of this country – through laughter. Take another news report I read the other day. The Speaker of the House of Reps read out a letter written by the chairman of DPP to the house complaining that one of its members had defected to another party. The problem was not so much the defection; obviously that did not rankle. What pained the chairman was the fact that the said member had disobeyed instructions. He had defected to APC instead of PDP as he had been directed to do! I mean, did a group of grown-up MEN seriously want us to believe that they sat down, deliberated and came up with this no-brainer? Unbelievable. It just proves two things. The first is what many people have said before: that this country has NO POLITICAL CLASS. We do not have men and women brimming with ideas, dreams and visions of how to rescue this country from certain doom and self-destruction. All the country has thrown up so far are CLASS 2004, ‘08, OR ‘11 OF CLOWNS AND MARAUDERS. The second point is this: that when I said the year was going to bring up much nuggets of laughter and you should get your sides reinforced so they don’t split, I was serious.

           The only problem is that while we are laughing, like Nero, Nigeria may burn. In the face of complete helplessness, however, what are we to do but hold on to our dreams? We have sublime notions of what good governance is like: politicians, not clowns, directing the affairs of the country; leaders keeping their pulses on the prices of garri, beans, oil and rent in the market so that when all else fail, the people can eat and sleep; leaders knowing the state of the national institutions under their care because they also use them – hospitals, schools, transportation systems, roads, recreation grounds, etc. Like I said, these are sublime dreams but it’s not as if they are not attainable. They are, if the leaders would just put their backs into the job and teach the people how to do it too. As of now though, the only lesson the people are learning is that it is all right to seek only the things of the self and let the country, and others, be damned.

There are things ladies just do not do; they do not let money, position or politics make them lose their sense of propriety

Perhaps, we may regard this age as the ruffian’s age, the rogue’s age, the thug’s age, but certainly not the lady’s age. Good example: just look at our politicians. Can you imagine a good man surviving in their midst? Now then, are you surprised that our female politicians cannot afford to be ‘ladies’ in their midst either? They would not survive. So, our female politicians have learnt to dine with their male counterparts using long spoons. Just ask our First Lady; just look at the terribly loooong spoon she is using to dine all the way from Abuja to Rivers State. Do you then wonder that we have been getting some teeeeeerribly funny results in that region?

They say it takes seven generations to make a lady; and I say it may take seven countries to make one. The reason is that this is the age of THE COOOOOL; the age when bad is good, mean is beautiful, ugly is handsome, wicked is admirable and the unpredictable attracts worse than honey does bees. In this age, ladies have become men of brawn, and gentlemen have given way to laughter. They are splitting their sides watching the women painfully swing all kinds of doors open with fake manly gusto.

Many people think that being a lady only means wearing ruffles, silks and diamonds. In truth, there are many ladies in AJEGUNLE and there are also many JANKARA women in IKOYI. Actually, it is not when one is dressed up to the nines that one can claim to be a lady. Clothes, they say, doth not a man make, nor a woman. Most times, dressing up in the fineries only succeeds in making one look gaudy, untidy and a bad advertisement for the diamond cutter. But you and I know better. We know how to tell a lady apart, don’t we?

We know that a lady is someone who does everything in a calculated, unhurried way. Even when it is raining, a lady may hasten her footsteps, but she will not run giddy-gadding for shelter no matter how wet she may be. She will also not swear at the blasted weather. Her habits must be neat. Now, that’s a tough one. It means that a lady will not bend down to retrieve her keys like a fish seller laying down her fish-load from her head, her bottoms up. Rather, she will stoop, her knees bent, to retrieve her object from the gutter, no matter how dirty. She will not even walk in any which way, flinging legs and thighs around as if she is trying to determine how much they weigh. Indeed, to be a lady, one is encouraged to walk as if the entire body is in a POP cast, like a broken leg or arm.

More importantly, a lady watches what she says. Now, there you have us all Nigerian women. I am told that there are certain words that must not ensue from a lady’s mouth; for example, words heavily laden with abuses, insults, curses, and such shrew-like epithets are not ladylike. I think Nigerian husbands wrote that rule, but never mind, the important thing is that her speech, to the weather and every other unruly element, must always be pleasing. Anger at erring husbands and children must be expressed in an inoffensive way, not with pestle and mortar, but with well-chosen words such as ‘Oh, but you are a funny one, are you not?’ to someone who has stolen a goat; and ‘Oh my, what a lovely rascal you are to be sure’ to someone who has stolen someone else’s house. And to someone who has embezzled billions of Naira, a lady would rather say, ‘Consider yourself slapped!’

When I ponder on why it is that men no longer want to do things for women – you know, like opening doors, drawing out chairs, giving up their seats for them, waiting attentively on the words dropping out of their sagacious mouths, making sure women eat first before the men – I find it is because the women have sold themselves out to the enemy. No, no, the enemy is not the group called men; the enemy is the weakness in women that makes them succumb to the rush of the moment and the rush for the gold of the workplace, which has sometimes been erroneously interpreted as self-realisation. In the process, self-assertion has taken the centre stage and squeezed out the very soul of politeness women are known for.

Worse, in this age of nuclear technology, the preoccupation of most people is directed more at the nuclear bombs they are sitting on and the nuke-heads pointing at their throats. That leaves issues such as good comportment and social manners scraping the forgotten bottom of the barrel of important items to worry about. To cap everything else, I find that there is a deep, deep level of ignorance which is most astounding. ‘Lady?’, my respondents shot back at me when I vouchsafed to ask some women for their opinions on the matter. ‘Wetin be lady? Abeg comot jo; na lady we go chop?’ In this age, I say, the stomach rules, ok. But I say nevertheless.

Now, in many homes, the man eats his fill of the dinner first before the woman, if she is lucky to get any. Perhaps, that accounts for why women no longer care about themselves when they are outside the home, e.g. say in traffic. Oh my, have you seen the way women drive cars these days? It is enough to make Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti turn in her grave. I tell you, if she had driven that way when she became Nigeria’s first female-driver, there would have been a parliamentary move against female-drivers then and we would today be in the same boat as women in one Arab country where they are not allowed to drive, and from what I see now, I can’t blame them much. These days, its women who overtake with all kinds of swoosh from any direction, weaving in and out of traffic and breaking every rule, like the Arabian genie coming in and going out of a bottle. When a woman cuts in and out of traffic like that, please, reader, be kind to her for you never can tell if she is not using the road as the only means she has to assert herself.

Someone commented the other day that Nigerian women carry themselves generally with the most careless abandon in their talk, shape and gait. I agreed and decided to watch myself from then on. However, it was hard going not to fling abuses at taxi-drivers and Okada riders who cut into traffic without any care, children who crossed the roads without checking first, chickens that scurried to and fro without any care. It was tough not to pounce on my food like a famished tiger after a hard day’s work. It was tougher to remember to walk or drive like a human being when I found I was late for something.

It pains me each time I see women straddling Okada with all their dignity packed up with their skirts, or when I watch their waistlines jiggling up and down as the road contours. Clearly, the women in this country need to get their ladylike acts back together. There are things ladies just do not do; they do not let money, position or politics make them lose their sense of propriety. They also do not ride Okada astride in skirts. More importantly, they must retain a good temper and be trustworthy. And they must guard the sanctity of whatever has been entrusted to them (children, power or wealth) with every sense of responsibility for the sake of everyone.

Next time you see a baby kicking in the mother’s womb, check what the government is doing; there may be a connection

Last week, dear reader, I told you to prepare to laugh a great deal this year. Well, hardly had my computer printed the word than I heard that a police commissioner lamented publicly in the media that the army was not assisting him to drive out a state governor. Ha! Ha! Ha! Good for those uncooperative boys. They deserve to be reported to the nation. Then I heard that some thugs caught with ammunition were ordered to be released on orders from above to go and be allowed to use their arms. After all, what are arms for, if not to be used against other people? Anyway, I actually wanted to title this piece ‘Season of Laughters’ but my dictionary protested, so I was forced to remain in the singular. I mean, when events and political somersaults are calling one to bare the teeth in wide grins, what is one to do but to go plural? However, the dictionary rules, ok?

Obviously, there will be no shortage of hilarity this year. So, if you’re minded to, take your own stick and join me as we sit this year at the city’s gates, like those jobless old men in the Gaul tales, and pass not only the time of day but also run some good commentaries on the conduct of the ‘soldiers’ fighting life’s battles ‘out there’. Reader, you will notice as we go along that the said soldiers may sometimes switch sides during the battle depending on which side is paying them the most. So, let us pick our stout sticks (our survival may well depend on them), straighten our creaky backs, pick out a shady spot and some shining logs. Then we sit and watch. First though, we need some ground rules. Call them resolutions if you like, but we need those things to guide our behaviour here.

For instance, we must resolve not to laugh too loudly. True, temptations will come, sometimes in hordes but we really must restrain ourselves, particularly when we remember that all our politicians’ antics may be borne out of ignorance, malice or just plain evil genius at work. More importantly, we need to remember that we can only laugh from one side of our mouths because we need the other side to cry for our beloved country. Ultimately, it is us, the poor, beleaguered citizens, who will have to bear the brunt of the actions of their ignorant excellences.

Also, whatever we do this year, we must resolve to enjoy it seriously. Some days ago, I sat down to tally up the effects of bad governance on me as a person. I found first of all that I don’t eat as well as I should (my doctor won’t let me eat ice cream everyday), drive around in my choice car (the price won’t let me), drive all day on my choice road (the government refused to reconstruct it), read a newspaper containing only good news (the government won’t let me!), or sit in front of my house all day when I like (the armed robbers won’t let me!). And we call this a free country? Eh, eh, what’s this for a free country, eh?!

Secondly, I find I have grown used to complaining. I think I was more or less complaining about the government even before I was born. What do you think all those kicks I gave out while in the womb were for? Next time you see a baby kicking in the womb, check what the government is doing at that material time; there may be a connection. Anyway, I find now that I have grown into a baaaad complainer. I complained about Obj. for eight years and the man left but the marks are still there; now it’s GEJ. I don’t know; maybe it’s all those whose names end in ‘j’ who just bring out the worst in me. (Nigerians, do please let’s vote in someone else whose name does not end in…) So, let us resolve to seriously enjoy our time on these logs and not soon descend into the Hall of Complaints. All we will hear will be echoes.

I mean, what are we to make of the Sanusi-presidency spat over a close to 50 billion dollar fund missing or which the NNPC has inadvertently forgotten to account for? Is it not an echo of the same story of stolen billions? More curiously, why is the presidency speaking for NNPC? Is it that the presidency has become one with the oil company? So many questions, so few answers, because no one is talking who should, and everyone is talking who should not. When you ask about the oil company, the presidency (i.e. GEJ) talks; when you ask about the presidency, the party talks and when you ask about the party, the village talks. That brings us to another resolution. We must resolve not to ask any questions this year. Apart from the fact that no one answers your questions, you are really not better off at the end of the question than you were at the beginning of it. Take my house for instance. Any number of questions has never brought an answer to this vital mystery: why does the dog wear this satisfied smile on his face whenever birds’ feathers litter his environment and he declines his dinner? You see, questions have never got anyone anywhere because the more you ask, the less you understand.

Then, reader, we must resolve to be well armed this year. Oh no, don’t get me wrong; I’m not talking about conventional war armoury. I’m talking about the resolve not to let anything surprise us too much. Remember I told you before that our foot soldiers may switch sides during battle depending on who is paying the most? Well, a great deal of it is going on even now. Is it not ridiculous to you and me that an army of foot soldiers in one state assembly should decide to decamp en masse from one political party to another in one single day simply because their governor has gone that way?!!! Haba! You know who they remind me of? The Pied Piper of Hamelin, that’s who. I’m not sure but I think that’s where they got the expression from, ‘whoever pays the piper calls the tune’ or something like that. Whatever tunes the Gov calls on his pipe, it appears the men must dance. I honestly do not understand this because they seem to have forgotten that the Gov does not pay them, the state does; and more importantly, they have the power of number on their side. Could they possibly have foot disease that compels them to dance en masse? I don’t know, but then, I’m no politician, so I can never understand these things.

Finally reader, we must resolve to keep a well-guarded mouth this year. No blabbing off on anything we see. We can talk (not complain), we can comment (like Craig), we can cackle (like geese), we can guffaw (like donkeys), we can even yap (like your yaks) but we cannot blabber. For the sake of flag and country, land and the gentry within it, we must keep our dignity intact. Watch your words in this year, and let them be precious.

So now, our behinds are perched on these beautiful logs of wood placed at vantage points at the city’s gates, we are holding onto our sticks and we are armed with our steely resolves, piercing eyes, suspicious noses and closed mouths (mainly to prevent flies from taking advantage of us). Let the year roll on, and may we have fair weather in this our outpost, whether or not we live in the same country as GEJ, Obj., Nigerian politicians, armed robbers, okada riders from hell, or even PHCN.

Remember, it is not what you don’t have that kills you; it’s what you have

Today, reader, we are going to wax philosophical because the year is now at an end and as they say, we are not going to pass this way again. This means that we must take stock of what has gone before in order to make what is going to come richer. You will agree that this year has presented very interesting events to the pleasure of some and the consternation of most. After looking through these events, I have been saddened to note that the significant thread that runs through them is this problem of money. Just name any scandal in the year and you will find that at the heart of it is money, running into billions of Naira at year’s beginning and dollars at the year’s close. Clearly, as Hamlet needlessly observed to no one in particular, ‘something is rotten in the state of Nigeria’. More worrisome still, the malodorous content always seemed to stink around or even over the central government.

Now, one of the hallmarks of this material age we live in is the fact that we tend to fill our lives with dross. You know what those are, don’t you? They are perishable items like vegetables, electronics, people, ambitions or even values. Someone once complained that in the mad rush for success now, people have completely lost sight of the real thing. This means that real people like you and me now regularly sacrifice other people literally to obtain our goals. The story is told of how groups of mountain climbers on their ways to mountain summits regularly climbed over the bodies of other climbers too weak or fatigued to continue their climbs. Heaven forbid that they should think of the alternative: stopping to help, which was often considered too costly as it would mean delaying or cancelling their own ambitions. In your typical Nigerian ambition, therefore, human life has been devalued, ritualised or even wasted to reach the goal: get money.

Now, things are so bad it makes you wonder if anyone knows the real meaning of life anymore. Most have imbibed and internalised the dictum, ‘get abundance that you may have more abundance’. Whenever your average Nigerian can, he/she aims for abundance and more abundance. This is why it is possible for an individual to construct compartmentalised, ceiling-high shelves where different currencies and denominations sit day in, day out, worshipped by the stealer. That’s right; that individual (and others like him) is your fellow Nigerian. Pity your poor workman who finds he has to work in houses where such altars have been constructed for money. Just ask one around you. He will tell you stories of how the obsessed money gatherers daily run their eyes and hands and feet over and through them in ecstasies of worship.

Yet, when it has come right down to it, money illicitly and indecently gathered has never been of help to the gatherer. Think about it. Most of such monies are useful for purchasing a lifestyle that is not particularly useful – partying, procuring under-aged minors of both sexes for sexual gratification, purchasing Items of Self Destruction (ISD) such as private jets or Items to be Wasted (ITBW) such as houses and islands because those may not even be remembered again after purchase. It is incredible the number of people who have silently gone down into the grave just after piling up under them such monumental heaps of money meant for the general populace. Even as you read this, dear reader, I believe you can think of one or two examples.

Whenever I have wanted to teach myself a lesson, I have always remembered the story told of M.K.O. Abiola who was said to have pleaded with the doctors to do everything in their power to save his ailing first wife, ‘no matter what it would cost’. When the doctors tried and could not, he was said to have hissed and exclaimed, ‘SHAME ON MONEY!’ You see, he had the money and the power, but that money had no purchasing power. Listen, if you want to know the purchasing power of your money, get stranded on the road in the night with no fuel in your car and with you miles away from anywhere. All you will be holding is an empty gallon and a lot of money in your purse. Then instruct that money to get you some fuel. Alternatively, you might find yourself running around the town at night, going from one pharmacy to another, in search of a rare drug for a relative who is sick in the hospital. Someone who had that experience related that he kept pleading with each pharmacy in turn, ‘I have plenty of money here and I’m ready to pay any amount; please just sell me the drug’, but they did not have it.

It is therefore very perplexing that Nigerians appear to make owning money an end. Some people explain this off as a cultural problem but I disagree. There is no Nigerian culture that licences the owning of money or properties which cannot be accounted for. Indeed, every known Nigerian culture not only frowns at, but even punishes, any illegitimate acquisition of properties. Rather, I think that the faulty physical strapping together of three disparate groups and the absence of a tested, well-formulated foundation (economic, political, moral, etc.) by the founding fathers of Nigeria are responsible for the dissociative life style we are witnessing. Add to that the fact that people have no credible reference points in terms of, say, leadership: for example, China has Mao Tse Tung; Britain has Churchill, France has de Gaulle, etc. In this way, you could say Nigeria constitutes a rudderless ship.

All hope is not lost. Rather than pursue money, Nigeria must join the rest of the world in pursuing things that have more eternal values. As the old year ends and another begins, each one of us must travel right back inside him or her and find those things which make for greater personal and altruistic happiness and pursue them. There are three things we can thus work on emphasising.

First, we can work on emphasising the miracles that happen each day. Miracles still happen and for you and me, they often come at no cost; for no amount of money can be put on the air that you and I draw every moment; our ability to leave home every morning and return at the end of the day; or a helping hand from a neighbour at a right time. More importantly, let us emphasise being miracle workers for someone: rescue a stranded one, bring hope to a depressed and hopeless person, share what little you have with someone else – you will be surprised what you get in return. The second is to work on emphasising moderation in everything. Eat in moderation; live in moderation; own things in moderation. I always say that no one can own the whole world – God already does, so why compete with him? Remember, if you want a slim waist, share your food.

Thirdly, work for the interconnectedness of people. Believe it or not, the world is woven around people. We all exist to meet each other’s needs. Hoarding all the resources of everyone else therefore is futile. Sooner or later, nature will balance itself out, with or without you, by forcefully taking what you will not release and giving it out to others. The story is told of an old man who called his children together and showed them the multiple houses and plots of land he owned. Horrified, the children berated him for his selfishness. ‘Don’t you have poor relatives you can give them to?’ they asked. Remember, it is not what you don’t have that kills you; it’s what you have. True happiness is sharing what you have with others.