Category: Oyinkan Medubi

By Oyinkan Medubi

I am hoping that the smile will take me through the absurdities of the coming year. So, Happy New Year, Reader. May nothing heavier than laughter hit us this year.

Today, reader, we’re tripping the light fantastic: we are not going to talk politics or sing our usual national blues of how nothing is working in the country. Instead, we are going to have an end of year waltz consisting of light matters such as going over what we did for Christmas. Me, I slept. What about you? The waltz also includes what you did to get ready for Christmas. For many of our men, it consisted mainly in opening the purse like a good Santa. For us ladies, there were all those endless shopping trips to get Maggie Cubes.

I have post-holidays blues on account of the Christmas. Now, I do not only not want to go back to work, I find that the sight of the sun shining bright and clear is too hurtful for me. I have no idea what it has to smile about; nothing is that amusing. I even resent the fact that the birds are singing too freely. Why on earth doesn’t someone think of instituting visa programmes for the skies? If birds had to get visa to fly into other people’s countries like the rest of mankind, then I would have less trouble from that long-tailed swallow that has migrated down to the warm south just to chirp me awake in the mornings.

I tolerate his royal chirpiness enough the rest of the year, but one has to draw the line somewhere. You know how it is. As Christmas approaches, everything looks possible. Everywhere you go, you breathe in this air that appears to be filled with helium and laughing gas because everyone’s face seems to be bristling with hope. One can almost read their hearts and thoughts. Hopefully, that contract money will be paid before Christmas then it will be ‘hello turkey…’; maybe they’ll pay salary two weeks before Christmas…; maybe they’ll eventually pay that thirteenth month salary they’ve been promising forever…; I hope that lace will now be affordable… I hope that shoe will still be in the shop….

I’m telling you there’s so much hope in the air you can ignite it. Honestly, when the Aussie fires started, I wasn’t a bit surprised; it was all that Christmas hope that did it. Anyone can tell that too much hope causes fires. That was why I kept my own hope to a minimum. I refused to be drawn in by all that Christmas cheer. Instead, I quietly surveyed the market and kept my peace, especially when the turkey hissed at me because of the price I named and the chickens clucked at me twice in severe anxiety at the price I called. Was that all they were worth to me, they seemed to chorus in indignation? I apologised, to the seller, not the chickens, and left. There was no point in letting them know they were worth much less than the price I called; the chickens, not the seller.

I waited. Somehow, I believed a chicken or two would jump into my pot. You know what they say: a tough duck is hard to eat; however, an absent duck is said to be harder. I was not too keen on an absent duck so I kept my, err…, hope alive.

Dear reader, before long, a chicken-giant did jump into my pot. It was so big it had a thigh on it nearly as thick as a cow’s. From my puny height, I looked up and waived at it. It clucked down back to me. That was friendly enough. Sad to say the friendship did not last long because the knife came out. Reader, have you heard that popular introduction to that horror story: ‘It was the night before Christmas…’? Well, that horror happened again, the night before Christmas.

As soon as Santa’s Kitchen Assistant brought out the knife and made to move towards it, the chicken changed the tune of its clucking from ‘Hallo’ to ‘Hell, no!’; and a duel ensued titled ‘Man versus Chicken-Giant’. Needless to say, man won, but what a victory. Obviously, the chicken-giant died in protest but it really should not matter, should it? The long and short of it is that that knife ended the friendship between me and the chicken-giant, enough to bring on the blues.

Right, with the chicken under my belt, I turned my attention to getting the house ready for Christmas, starting with the ceiling; you know, the top-down approach. Armed with the spider broom, I craned my neck into all kinds of contortions to reach corners never reached before by mankind. I took giant steps up ladders and down slopes to make sure that my broom swept all of the year’s accumulations off. Naturally, the spiders fought back; I had a sneaking suspicion that as soon as I dislodged a spider, it simply relocated. I was sure that I took stabs at the same spider in three different places. And that happened multiple times. For the life of me, I could not find it in me to kill the blighters. I think it’s that Charlotte’s Web experience.

After what I thought to be a well won fight between me and the spiders which they were sure ended in their favour, I turned my attention to the windows. I don’t know if you notice that somehow, the climate has quietly changed. Where I used to have the rains wash my windows for me at least once a week, I have now moved to having them bathed by the dust at least once every minute. In short, the harmattan seems to have come down on us ‘plenty heavy’ as someone says. So, determined to have them windows shining again for Christmas, I brought out my duster and bucket of water. First, I had to get rid of the dust on the duster and I found that the water was covered by a film of dust. I also had to wash that.

Anyway, by the time I was through with the windows, the appliances did not let off shouting ‘me, me next’ until I found myself bringing out the scrub brushes. Going through the contents of the fridge proved very daunting indeed. Many of the items were total strangers to me. I had over the year piled up a whole community of leftover stews, sauces, vegetables of all shapes and colours – red, green or mostly blackened with rage. I would be angry too if I had to suffer such neglect. By the time I was through, we were able to locate the refrigerator door handle again after being rescued from the third-layer grime. Look, I could even see my face in it.

Then, it was the turn of the floors. For them, I needed to bring out the heavy equipment – grader level. Scrubbing was not going to cut it; oh no, they needed some serious intervention. To start with, I could not remember the original colour of them tiles. So, I called in the superior power of pretense: I pretended that it had gone round the cycle of colours and had come back to its original colour. He knows no difference who knows no pain.

Finally, it was Christmas. I had been so busy making ready for it that it met me exhausted when it came. So I slept. Now, I have resolved to greet the new year with a smile, like the sun, and a cheery heart, like the birds. After all, it is not the fault of the new year that I had to go through those hassles to get to Christmas. I am hoping that the smile will take me through the absurdities of the coming year. So, Happy New Year, Reader. May nothing heavier than laughter hit us this year.

Rents in Nigeria are out of control. There is no one speaking for the ordinary renter. There is no department of rent control. There is no government poke-nosing into just how much rent landlords and caretakers can charge people. That is soooo calamitous.

 

Here I am, straining very hard to get myself into the Christmas mood, and here is this country trying hard to make me wish that Christmas had moved to another planet. How? Well, chicken is growing beyond my reach. Forget turkeys; they have all emigrated. Then, there is everything Nigeria represents staring me in the face – chaos, confusion, failures, deepening lack, and despair. Just take a peek at the trending news.

First, there was the news that four new universities, mostly for the armed forces, are to be set up but all in the northern part of the country. This is discouraging and disconcerting news indeed. I’m asking what happened to federal character? It is enough to bring on an apoplexy in one with a not so strong constitution but luckily, I am made of sterner stuff.

]Then came the news that President Buhari had announced a Visa on Arrival programme for Africans coming to Nigeria. As usual, he was said to have made the announcement suddenly, when he was outside of my reach so that I was not able to whisper into his ear: don’t do this. Now, this sudden largesse has caught everyone by surprise; heck, it has even caught the government’s own standing programmes by surprise! Now, the murdering bandits we have been trying to shoo out the door, err, borders, might just turn around and ask for resident visas. Talk of your friendly, resident killers!

To top all that, I then read about the central bank’s complaint that the housing development strategies in this country are too ‘skewed’ towards favouring the rich class while completely knocking out the ‘middle’ and poor classes. I immediately thought ‘Ah ha!, our erudite central bank officials have been reading Soyinka’s Alapata Apata.’ That is where the rhetoric of skewed, asikewed and asikiwu comes to play.

To be sure, the housing situation in Nigeria is adding to my Christmas blues; and it is all the government’s fault. Don’t get me wrong. No government on earth can ever provide all the housing needs of its citizens. The one who came very close to solving that Rubik’s cube puzzle was Ghaddafi who, in one fell swoop, was said to have provided everyone the opportunity to own where they lived. I think those who lived in cramped, crummy quarters about then must have bitten their nails to the roots in regret.

I would hazard that more than half of us in this country do not have access to decent housing, not because we do not want to but because we do not have access to one. While a government might not be able to provide housing for all its citizens, it should at least be able to provide an enabling atmosphere. This begins with the government arranging an easy and tolerable access to loans for citizens to get their own house.

The housing deficit in Nigeria right now is unbelievably huge, and the government does not care mainly because the officials do not have housing problems. People are living in all kinds of housing conditions hidden under the African communal living system. That system has not made the impact of this shortfall to be felt down the line of the equator. One of these days, however, the shock of the failure is going to reverberate and erupt and spout hot, crazy lava of impactful indignation and anger when people can’t find where to lay their heads. Right now, people are living on structures hanging dangerously on stilts in slimy waters, windowless, toilet-less, facilities-less, impossible-to-afford apartments. In my city as of now, many houses that should have housed good families are being turned into brothels or so-called ‘guest houses’ not because the houses are excess but because average families cannot afford the rent on them.

That’s another thing: rents in Nigeria are out of control. There is no one speaking for the ordinary renter. There is no department of rent control. There is no government poke-nosing into just how much rent landlords and caretakers can charge people. That is soooo calamitous. True, the economy is out of sorts with itself, even with the world. However, that does not give anyone the right to fleece people and throw them into gutters. Nigerians are being run into homelessness by the unconscionableness of the greed of landlords and caretakers. So the anger builds up.

In truth, much of the anger people have arises from the fact that they cannot afford the rent to the houses they ought to be living in. Naturally, the anger is nothing but the backlash spreads into terrorism when you add the problem of lack of shelter to hunger and unemployment. With these terrible threesome, any self-respecting youth is bound to become antsy.

The rent situation in Nigeria is exacerbated by the renting system adopted by the government functionaries. In case you don’t know it, many accommodations used by the government are rented from her own officials. Oh come on, what kind of system is this? This is precisely why the government will not, cannot, intervene in the rent debacle. The officials are too busy making money. Just makes you think that Nigerians are the most selfish people on earth; too bad there is no world cup on that one.

Listen, there is a lot of work to be done. Many countries have ministries or agencies in charge of rent control or price control or any control you might want to call it provided it’s of housing. The reason is that they know how volatile a topic housing can be. They also know how important it is to ensure that the citizens who qualify for housing are duly housed. The ministry or agency then ensures that people’s greed does not get in the way of the housing market. That of course includes bringing down the price of cement before it brings down the house.

We must accept that our mortgage banks are not up to snuff. A good mortgage bank should have the statistics on how many housing units we have and how many more we need. I’m not sure they have that information. What they are doing now, I don’t know, but they are certainly not working for us. To remedy that, banks in general, and mortgage banks in particular, should be positioned to lend money to customers for the purpose of building or buying an accommodation. That is the meaning of creating an enabling environment.

The government itself should also continue the building of low cost houses. It did this in the past then stopped. Well, it needs to continue now because that may be the only way most people can gain access to decent accommodation. Estate developers should also be simultaneously assisted to work with the government, and efficiently supervised to prevent sharp practices.

Families must be helped to keep their sanctity. As of now, most Nigerian families have no access to decent housing until the children have grown and left home and the parents are able to put their gratuities (which they don’t get any more) to good use on their dream house. By that time, of course, the family has shrunk and the age is on the parents something terrible.

Everyone is entitled to decent housing, especially when the children are growing up. Every growing child is entitled to his/her space, i.e., a room. That’s right; it is time to enforce the one child-one room policy. That is the way to preserve the dignity of man from childhood. Then we can watch our children grow up into innovative, respectable and self-respecting adults; and family heads can become lords of the manor, deservedly. That should end this calamitous housing policy. Merry Christmas.

We are surrounded by signs. Street signs (No, the Delamis don’t live here no more; they’re now in Bermuda), direction signs (The number you’re looking for is one door to the left, fool!), food signs (No, this is 1,000 calories way beyond your limit!), gate signs (The dog is ok, it’s the owner you should beware of), even armed robbers’ signs (Get ready for us next week, the midnight snack is at your place), etc. But the most important ones are not so explicitly stated. You have to read them yourself. For instance, you have to read correctly when someone is welcoming you into their life (a big, wide smile), and when someone is hoping you will never as much as look at them again (a small, tight smile). I once flashed someone a small, tight smile and he asked, ‘Are you all right? You look as if something you ate is disagreeing with you.’

When I survey the whole gamut of human-specific communicative signs, I find none quite conveys the feelings generated by the pressures of modern living in this modern Nigeria. In those days when I was quite little and growing up in one beatific, remote and rustic village, for instance, electricity was constant and the bills were moderate. It was a very mysterious operation to us children then, which only my grandmother knew how to do. She would just strike a match and light the wick on the wee, palm oil lamp. And to our unending amazement, there would be light!

In those days, too, no one knew the government. It sat in one silent, remote island where no one ever went to visit it, nor did it pay any attention to anyone. Everyone just sort of took it for granted that if you did not pay your tax, a certain government would pay you a visit; and if you advertently or inadvertently went after a madman who lived in the middle of the road with your car, a certain government would come after you with its noose! Really, no one knew the government.

Now though, the government is everywhere and everyone knows it. Listen. Every Nigerian now knows that electricity does not come from oil wicks anymore but from some damned water (forgive the pun!); that rice, the staple food of Nigerians, is not grown by Nigerians but by the rich countries who then sell to the poor ones; and that the price of government is way over our heads. Even the Nigerian order of the criminally insane knows this.

The other day, I drove out in the early dawn of a December morn and, in the gloom-encased misty street, street-lights sans light provided the only punctuation marks along the road. I saw a man standing in front of an electric pole, which, needless to say, was not aware of his presence. I could tell, even in that gloomy mist, that the man was a little wanting in sanity. I mean, you have got to be a psychiatric patient to be standing and gazing at an electric pole at half past six in the morning!

As I approached, I saw that he was doing more than gazing. He was punching the air, his mouth moving furiously and his eyes intent on the pole. Rather! I thought, perhaps, he was in pain. As I moved closer, I saw other signs which did not indicate pain however; they indicated someone caught in a deep conversation. His dirt-brown, emaciated figure swayed slightly to and fro as he talked intently, his cheeks burgeoning new swellings at each enunciation, eyes bulging into the pole and his index finger wagging at it. Then it dawned on me: he was addressing the poor pole, much like Socrates choosing to formally persuade his errant pupil to see the error of his ways rather than beat the living daylights out of him!

Now, that is a thought, the style of address I mean, not the beating. The newspapers have lately been shattering our ear drums with comments and commentaries on the inordinately large amounts of money the country’s assembly members have been awarding themselves in the name of salaries and allowances; and all efforts to make them see reason have sort of fallen on deaf ears. To boot, anyone who has deigned to comment on the situation has summarily been summoned to the hallowed chambers to explain, not themselves, but their English usages. Actually, that is precisely why I am writing this commentary.

The story goes that once upon a time, our very own Tortoise learnt of the plight of his dear friend the lizard. Lizard had been summoned by the king of their town for a minor infringement: for witlessly sitting on the king’s throne that had been taken to the river to be washed. What arrant nonsense, fumed Tortoise as he prepared to go and commiserate with his friend. On arriving at his house, he learnt that Lizard had gone to obey the king’s summons and so he too headed the way of the palace. On getting there, he had to wait for a few moments for Lizard to come out. To his surprise, Lizard emerged from the interview smiling and wearing purple robes. ‘What the…! The lizard quickly explained however. ‘By sitting on the throne, I unknowingly removed a thorn that had been lodged inside it for ages, and so, instead of the punishment I was expecting, I was rewarded because I had helped the king!’ ‘And where is the thorn now?’ asked the tortoise. ‘In my buttocks’, replied the lizard showing him the red spot and wincing. At this, Tortoise knocked down his friend, extracted the thorn, stuck it into his buttocks and ran into the king’s throne-room.

You should have guessed by now just where I am going with this: by commenting on the matter of our legislators’ pay, I am hoping to also receive the legislated command: come and explain your English in Abuja! Oh, how I would sorely like to be summoned! I am quite sure that I would enjoy some relief from the monotony of unrelieved darkness that PHCN is forcing down on me, since the assembly grounds are bound to have enough electricity even for their plants. I am also sure that when I sink my feet into those plushy carpets and my behind into the plushy chairs the owners don’t like to use, I would get some real good sleep while waiting for their legislative highnesses to form a quorum.

On second thoughts, I better not go. For one thing, I don’t think I have enough English to explain my English. For another thing, I find I am highly and inadequately trained to take on such a body of people exuding signs that can only be matched by someone trained in the art of talking to electric poles early in the morning. My early morning psychiatric patient is, I think, infinitely more qualified to handle the job. I have therefore designated him to represent me, for he would employ a more effective method to clear up the problem. Since only the deep can call to the deep, he would talk to the assembly members in a language both of them understand, seeing they both belong to the same order. In my book, there is no greater sign of membership of this order than for a legislative house to be receiving such bloated pays, as alleged, in a country where nothing works and every single household has to source for its own electricity, water, road, waste disposal method, and everything else in between. It far surpasses talking to electric poles at half past six on a gloomy morning.

 

***This is the introductory article to the PU column. It was published in January, 2011. Sadly, nothing has changed.

The Nigerian school system has collapsed mainly because those leaders who should care do not… There is failure of governance in Nigeria … Yet, somehow, we the general public continue to expect miraculous delivery of dividends to flow from the putrefying thrones.

 

SOMETIME ago, reader, I got a text in which a former governor complained that his allowance of N10m, pension and other ‘entitlements’ had not been paid since he left office, and I said, plus ca change…! Another post showed many of our leaders at the graduation ceremonies of their children in various exceptionally built schools in Britain and America. That is certainly a topic for another day but today, I still got education on my mind and when I looked at something I wrote some time ago, I could not help note the aptness of its facts. It’s on the parent angle to our problems in the sector, and how this generation has failed the country.

Fact one. The Nigerian school system has collapsed mainly because those leaders who should care do not. Yet, for some strange reason, everyone is shocked that more than fifty percent of the pupils who sit for WAEC examinations at any given year fail to obtain the required five credits. In a state, I hear less than two hundred even registered for the examination. Fact two. There is also failure of governance in Nigeria. Everyone knows that too. Yet, somehow, we the general public continue to expect miraculous deliveries of dividends to flow from the putrefying thrones.

I think much has been said about the angles mentioned above already. One factor that I think is often overlooked is the fact that the failures we are witnessing at WAEC, and even tertiary, levels actually begin from the failures that are not addressed at the primary level. It is at the primary level that we have the highest number of children. That is also where we have the higher number of parents who do not understand what education means or how to achieve its goals.

All the work of teaching children is being done at this crucial foundational level by teachers who are ill-paid, ill-regarded and ill-motivated. Parents hardly complement teachers’ efforts anymore by teaching the children some more at home. Agreed, many parents are illiterates and may not really understand what is going on in school. They could still care though. Many parents who are rich though use their wealth and position to neglect their children: they forget to teach their children. This is another massive failure.

A good many adults in this country are in some position of authority or the other as civil servants, corporate managers, traders or entrepreneurs, heads of religious bodies, housewives, househusbands, school or college teachers, etc. (Firstly though, if you are an adult and you are not yet a parent, wait for it, it will come — all bad things eventually come. Secondly, if you are a parent and your category is not covered by this list, don’t despair; just find a bench and squeeze in somewhere. Thanks.)

As I was saying, one of the requirements for holding authority is that you must mentor someone else: your children, your wards, your subordinates, your village urchins, your village groups, even your spouse(s). These are your responsibilities, one and all. Unfortunately, practically everyone has ditched these responsibilities in favour of self-aggrandising schemes, or money-making pursuits. Problem is though, work that is left undone has a way of … remaining undone. Nowhere does this show as readily as children that are not taught.

Let’s take the home. I don’t care how important or unimportant you are, but you must admit that you have sometimes been embarrassed by your child in the house as a result of one lesson or the other you failed to impart in the child. (I knew it; you lie). Many times, it eventually shows up anyway. One parent was said to have appealed to his son’s friend to please talk some sense into his ‘friend’ over an issue the father could not handle. This was a sure sign that the ‘big man in society’ had lost control of his own son and needed help from a youngster.

Parental failures can be more brutal. In the news recently, there were reports of a child murdering his father over a stick of cigarette; while another murdered and hacked his father to little pieces that he could easily dispose of; yet another child murdered his mother for over-pampering him and not bringing him up properly; and another child was taught by his father how to rape a defenseless toddler. Just recently, another child drove his mother, while he was drunk, to her death … Should I go on?

Even if you ferry your own children across the seas to some expensive public school abroad, you may be worse off. If we do not give our children a solid foundation whether they are in public or private or overseas schooling, the results will surprise us. You might be surprised that the products of our public schools will still rub shoulders with your expensively educated children in the world either as their work rivals or bosses or subordinates, house-helps, armed robbers, murderers, kidnappers, or 419er – pick whichever one you like. For now, there is just this one world, and we all have to share it.

Take our public schools. Because some people are not doing their work, our public primary schools are the most deplorable shells outside and inside – children are let in by day and goats are let in by night. Yes, there are people in charge of the schools. The teachers, the authorities in the ministries of education, the local governments, the various boards dealing with education, etc., are all … wait for it, parents! Halleluiah!

Let’s face it. This generation of parents has failed to teach the next generation because the gospel of money has taken over everyone’s imagination. We have failed to teach them the value of education. Our Generation W (that’s us) have been a disgrace to the values taught by our parents (Generation V) because we are not teaching our children (Generation X) those values which preach hard work, good sense and kindness. I predict that their children (Generation Y) will be worse than them, because of OUR failures. Don’t even think about Gen Z.

Every generation is supposed to improve on the previous one. I keep remembering stories from our parents about how they walked miles without shoes to get some education. When it came to my turn, the car dropped us off some of the miles and we walked the rest. And I had Angelina shoes. Today’s generation takes their children abroad where the children do not have to walk at all. The Have-nots walk to school to sleep.

The western world became the attraction it is today for the rest of the world because each generation built on the successes of the previous one while avoiding the errors. On the other hand, Nigerians appear to be more interested in mounting their errors on the highest pedestals possible and deifying public recklessness.

I keep wondering what many parents will show their children as their achievements. Let’s see now, I imagine it will go something like this. I was appointed into this juicy position and I managed to send you, your brother and your mother overseas to school and live there, you know, so that you would have quality education, not like what we have here. Is that not enough, eh?

There is nothing wrong with education today that cannot be cured by educating parents to do their jobs. If parents will stop misusing their positions and instead concentrate on teaching children, more money will be available to spend on the Nigerian classroom and its teachers. Children will actually find themselves learning something before leaving primary school, and there will be less tears and cries when examination results are released.

 

***This article was published on 11/11/18

 

When social, political and domestic violence congregate to batter the woman, the strength of the nation is weakened and severely compromised.

Dear reader, we have always tried to draw attention to the fact that women too are entitled to a life well lived. This means that women should be helped to be free of the abnormal burden of carrying the home, children, husband and societies’ responsibilities. Did the men take any notice of this whining? No sir, not so much as a grunt. Nevertheless, we must plod on, for the world set aside November 25 as the day for the elimination of violence against women. For, sometimes, it does appear to me that the world has taken violence against women so much for granted it has become part of the (ab)normal run of things.

Take the streets for instance. On the streets, the women are open to all kinds of abuses – from men, sun, rain, stars, and all. The men rape them; the sun beats down on them; the rain drenches them; and the stars … Oh yes, the stars can contribute to their plight too. Just try moving around by the light of the stars.

On the more serious note, the violence that women suffer during war times is a shameful slap against the faces of men. Indeed, this war weapon is so dreadful that I believe it sinks the war leader who sanctions it below the mud that is beneath his soldiers’ boots. But that is not all. The society that throws its women into the teeth of war is done, all done.

First, there is this abnormal rise in rape cases. Right now, this heinous violence against women is being perpetrated against women of all ages and in all social groups. Naturally, each case that is reported signals the mental and social depravity of the men in our midst, and that should give us cause for concern. Believe me, the society that permits the continuance of this violence against women has gone to the dogs. And men in the position to do so who do not decry it should not raise their heads.

Then, there is the all-time great, domestic violence. This is such a constant in so many women’s lives that it just does not bear mentioning. To begin with, one great violence against womanhood is managing the home on little or no funds at all. But, don’t get me wrong. In many cases, the fault is with the men who probably do not realise that depriving the home of sufficient funds is some kind of violence. I blame them because with such men, their cars, motor cycles and bicycles are more important.

In many other cases, there are men who do try their best and give as much as they can. They have little and they give little. No problem there as long as they give it in love, peace and harmony. Truly, they are not to blame. Rather, in such cases, I poke my stubby little digits in the eyes of the government leaders who are not creating the enabling environment for people to do honest work for honest pay. I have always said that if the focus of any governance is not directed at the betterment of the average home which does not consist of little greedy mouths and fingers, then that government is lost. If governance does not begin the day’s business with the price list of the country’s foodstuff perpetually behind its decisions, then I make bold to say that that is not governance, to use the famous cliché. So yes, insufficient funds in the home can be serious violence against women.

Ah yes, there is also physical abuse. Now, that is a difficult one to track, for physical violence against anyone or thing is simply the loss of governance of the central controls of one’s corporate being. Seriously, raising one’s hands against anyone or anything should be a serious call for help, not by the victim but by the assailant. It is the assailant who is really crying, ‘Help me, I can no longer govern my senses. I deserve to be put on the funny farm.’ Unfortunately, the level at which this kind of abuse goes on in this country (oh yes, and the world too) is incredibly high, and sadly, with no governmental interference around here. This is why women are getting beheaded (as happened recently somewhere in a south western state over an argument) or simply killed. Yeah well, what’s the difference?!

Really, these gory conclusions are exactly that, conclusions to acts that often begin with what you would tag ‘ordinary beating’. I have heard a woman tell another woman to take heart; all that her husband did to her was just to beat her. In other words, he has not yet killed her. Oh people! Where are the laws against domestic abuse? When can a woman in Nigeria walk up to a police station and report that her husband beat her and the police would not bend down behind the counter and laugh their heads off but would march up indignantly to the said batterer, jab at his chest with some hefty fingers and ask him to try them (the police) for size? When, eh, when? Meanwhile, the women continue to suffer violence, like the kingdom of God.

People, these episodes of sufferance call for definitive action, on everyone’s part. Let us start with the government. When a nation’s focus is forever turned on asking, praying and even craving for even mildly tolerable leadership, no worthwhile achievements can be made. Social structures suffer, the very atmosphere is puddled, and the homes bear the brunt. When we say home, we mean women. The burden of the absence of good governance in Nigeria, I tell you, is being borne by women. It is the women who stand between the children and starvation; between the children and insane activities such as playing with guns and killing each other in the home (as happened recently too somewhere in the southeast) and between God and men. Oh yes, it’s the women preventing God from punishing men for what they have done to this country.

Anyway, the government has got to take governance a little more seriously. Everyone knows that the strength of a nation is in the health of the family. The strength of the family in turn rests in the health of the home and the home is a good woman’s focus. Therefore, the strength of the nation is in the well-being of her women. However, when social, political and domestic violence congregate to batter the woman, the strength of the nation is weakened and severely compromised. Good governance must be ensured by all means to end violence against, and strengthen, the women.

I think the time has come to strengthen the legal actions made against domestic violence. Obviously, women are not made of the same physically stern stuff as the men are, so why kit them out in the same boxing gloves? When a woman is regularly battered, it is natural that she would either grow a thick skin against it or don gloves. I know, you and I have seen women boxers on the screen, but I tell you, they look downright ugly there. Those gloves look most unnatural on them. The women are putting their bodies to unnatural uses and I intend to tell that to the World Boxing Federation, just as soon as I am done here. Besides, they provide nothing but merriment for the men. In clearer words, they make the men laugh. No, bring sterner laws against domestic violence and you’ll see changes. Headaches will disappear, peace and respect will come in, and the joy of the birds, bees and flowers will follow. Happy Women’s Day once again!

 

*** Adapted from when first published 10th March, 2013.

 

 

I DON’T own a camera other than the one that comes with the phone I use. Even that, I seldom remember to use. The reason is that I am camera shy. I am not too shy to stand at the end of the camera; after all, I only need to be able to say ‘cheese’. But I do hate to stand at the button end. That’s where the work is. It’s just too much work for me to aim, set and shoot; besides, I need more glasses for that. Obviously, to aim, set and shoot is not the problem of some people, because there was a lot of it on the elections in Kogi and Bayelsa State, especially Kogi State.

Let me tell you, there were so many shots from that Kogi election they made me feel like I was there. Well, what with the camera shots and gun shots, I really did feel like I was in the picture. So, which one should I start with? Let me start with the camera shots. Many of the shots I saw showed people deliberately roiling up serene voting environments by shooting guns and watching people scatter. I saw a lot of such scattering. I also saw a vehicle being used to cart away ballot boxes, deliberate destruction of ballot boxes, and people generally running for their lives or lying dead.

A news item reported that a party’s spokesman in Bayelsa State also complained that the elections in that state were marred by rigging, killings, ballot box snatching, arson, violence, thuggery and electoral fraud. In the two states, there were reports of the presence of heavy state security men but there was no clarity as to their uses there. Some said the security men were to scare away trouble makers; others said they were used to intimidate the voters. Honestly, unlike the people who knew which way to direct their feet when trouble came, me, I don’t know which way to direct my brain.

Altogether, it does appear that the elections in these two states were somewhat less than desired. It would appear that a great deal of desperation had been put into those elections such that one might really hold them into question. Indeed, a cartoon depicted the people’s thoughts on the subject matter. It showed a President Buhari wishing indeed to deliver free, fair and credible elections to the people but what he is looking at is anything but. Instead, dead bodies litter the grounds and guns are pointing at people while ballot boxes are being ferried off illegally. A short skit also shows political parties running a race and one party getting rid of the other runners by shooting them down. Seriously?!

These pictures are dreadful indeed, and they raise two questions in my mind. The first is this: Is this the meaning of democracy? The second is: What is the value of this so-called victory won by the governors at gunpoint? I ask these questions because I honestly believed, maybe naively, that democracy is the government of the people for the people by the people through the ballot box, the symbol of voting power. Never mind the very many academic questions that definition raises; but in all the definitions, there is no mention of gun, coercion or thuggery being elements of the democratic institution. From the pictures I saw of the Kogi election, the elements were clear. And they were not democratic.

So, to our first question. Is this the meaning of democracy? I honestly don’t know. It is just like asking a child the meaning of Christmas. His or her answer will depend on how deprived or privileged the child is. If there is plenty of goods and food to go round, the full meaning of the season comes home to him or her. If, on the other hand, scarcity has pervaded, then he or she feels the assaults of the season and the meaning is negative.

Going by the reports of those who witnessed this election, apart from the pictures, the news is not good either. Many reported losing hope on the sudden introduction of gun wielding thugs into the election scenario. Indeed, some fear that many might not recover their sanity. How did it come to this pass? We will come to that in a moment but first to answer our second question: what is the value of the victory?

To answer that, I will refer to a small anecdote that I heard a long time ago, and I’m sure you would have heard it too. A little girl had misbehaved so her mother asked her to go and kneel down in a corner of the room. Reluctantly and after much argument, she complied but not before giving her mother this parting shot: I may be kneeling down but in my mind, I am standing up. From all the complaints one has heard so far about these elections, the victory appears to have been at the point of a gun held at the people’s head! In a situation where people have lost their lives, one, according to reports, being burnt in her house, there is little to say other than good luck to that victory.

Clearly, Kogi and Bayelsa States are testing grounds for our democracy. From the little we have seen so far, it is indeed doubtful if this democracy can grow here. The reason is very simple: the people are being told that they have very little to do with it. That is not good for our democratic growth. The democracy we saw in action in Kogi and Bayelsa appears to be wearing a garb that states clearly: the party’s will be done. In this case, it was the will of APC to capture the states. The good thing is that in the process, the people also captured them capturing the states.

I am beginning to wonder if Nigeria is not under a curse to never do well in her democracy examinations. You know, when a child does poorly in his or her exams, he or she can blame many things: the questions, teacher, time problem, even food, but hardly the self for not preparing enough. Nigerian democratic experiments have never done well since 1960. Now, who do we blame: the teachers, lack of understanding of what democracy is about or the learner?

What I don’t understand is the role of the youth. I’m really confused. In some areas, some young ones were said to have foiled the snatching of the ballot boxes. In others, the young ones were the ones who were sent to snatch the boxes. What gives, young ‘uns? Truth is that the present generation of politicians have lost their way mostly because they refused to remember nothing, even as they also failed to forget nothing. They refused to learn from the mistakes of the past. We were somehow hoping that our young ones would help us forget some things, such as violence.

These elections showed that the errors of the past have been carried forward into the present, and many young ones were used, as ever before. Such footsteps of the past as violence, arson, murder, burning houses, people and properties, snatching ballot boxes and people’s votes, thus disenfranchising them, have been followed systematically into the present. When are we ever going to learn?

Many do not know that this is no light thing, to disenfranchise people or circumvent their will. When people’s votes are not allowed to count or even be counted, then democracy no longer counts. Our political parties really need to watch it if they want to count.

 

Honestly, the hate speeches I hear from the people at the top in this country – ministers, etc., — are making me so uncomfortable I am beginning to think I need an apology. First, it was against doctors, then our roads…

I don’t know if what I am about to say constitutes hate speech, but honestly I must say it: I am not full of love for our political organisations and even practitioners right now. There! I’ve said it. Is that hate speech? Dunno and don’t care. Obviously, I do not need to tell you that I don’t belong to any political party. Oh yes, I’ve said that before. As a matter of fact, I am at a loss to guess what our senate could be thinking of dreaming up a bill that seeks to kill their ‘fellow Nigerians’ merely for making a hate speech or spreading falsehood?

There I was, thinking that Nigerians had lost their capability to process shocking news, and they go and prove me wrong. Just look at it. Nearly every corner you turn, shocking news accost one: the economy is bad; there are no jobs; the country is living on borrowed funds … It is an endless stream, is it not? Yet, Nigerians receive tonnes of its kind daily without moving a muscle.

This once, however, Nigerians acted surprised and right. The announcement that there exists a bill seeking the death penalty for hate speech threw a pebble to roil the otherwise calm surface of the endurance existence of Nigerians and brought out something resembling their red eye. I mean, we are in a democracy, for goodness’ sakes! Or does that not count? The only pivot strong enough to hold the democratic institution is the belief in freedom of speech. This freedom allows ideas to flow so that the country does not rely on only one man’s ideas who may think to have the prerogative to think for the country. In a democracy, everyone’s thinking is needed.

I’ve also read reports about Nigerians criticising the bill and wondering what it’s all about. Naturally, the party in opposition, the PDP, has also vociferously raised its voice against it and, being the seer it is among other things, insinuated some darker, sinister motives to it. Me, being the fly in the room, I have been watching and sighing.

There were other reactions. Take the cartoon that suggested that if the death penalty can pass for hate speech, then a stiffer punishment should go for budget padding. Like I said, I am only the fly in the room. The thing about flies is their periscopic vision which allows them to detect movement from any direction. Have you ever wondered why you can scarcely ever catch one unaware? Well, the answer is in their prophetic powers.

Listen, even I, the innocuous fly on the wall, had to honestly and seriously ponder what our politicians were about, thinking up such a bill. To start with, death penalty for an offence is so grave that in any civilized society, it is not recommended for anything less than the most heinous crime such as clearly proven cases of murder. Secondly, to suggest it in a bill for a crime such as verbal diarrhea is most baffling. It strongly smirks of hatred against the state itself, i.e., the people. It seems to me that some people are harbouring some serious grievances against the people.

If we’re not living in a tsarist state or a totalitarian society where the instruments of rule include fear and coercion, why the paranoia? Have the people become captured citizens? Have the people become serfs in this fiefdom so that the rulers can make any pronouncements as the fancy takes them whether they mean to carry it out or not?

As I read the news report on this subject, I honestly became more dismayed with each attempt to explain it off. One explanation said, and I paraphrase, that the bill may not pass into an act in that form as the death penalty may be removed depending on the reaction of Nigerians. My reaction of course was that it should not have been put there in the first place. To have done that was to have treated Nigerians without due respect. Now, you’ll probably say that my tirade counts as hate speech, who knows?

There are many crimes in Nigeria begging for the death penalty. Let me just count a few for you and you be the judge. When one reads a news report about a sixty-five-year old man raping an infant of two years to death, what judgment do you think befits such a person? So, I ask you, what penalty befits a man who rapes a woman to death for her audacity to talk back to him or to have owed him one thousand, five hundred Naira which actually happened in this country? What penalty befits a single individual who embezzles enough funds to run the affairs of a country of fifty million people for an entire year? What penalty should be given to someone who performs rituals involving the use of human parts knowing from there the parts are sourced? Shall we go on with my questions? I’m rather full of them today.

Clearly, there are more important things that our national assembly could be concerned about. Each and every day, when I see a child, a woman with a child on her back, or a pregnant woman being ferried on a motorbike, I cringe and weep for my country. They remind me of our callousness, carelessness and lawlessness. There ought to be laws against the ferrying of children or pregnant women on motor bikes. There are taxis which are known to be safer.

Whenever I pass by our roads, I see people eking out a living cooking by the wayside without any state intervention, I again cringe for my country. Most of such foods are exposed to the germs oozing out of the atmosphere or clogged sewage system black with stuff right behind the cook and with no law to cover such pots. This is why we say that our country men and women are feeding right out of the gutters. At such times. I want to shout to the assembly, ‘we need some laws here, folks!’

Whenever I have passed by the roadside and I see a mother struggling with a desperately sick child, it is obvious she cannot cope. Many families, dear law makers, are not capable of handling some determinedly grave illnesses, yet there is often no state intervention. This is utterly careless of all of us in this country, especially, those involved in making the laws.

There is no reason why there should not be a law compelling the state to have a register of all the children who require state intervention in their care, such as autistic children, terminally sick children, children with learning disabilities, etc. The law should include not just caring for them but even funding social workers to monitor their progress. How about it then, our dear law makers? How about enacting laws that will make life more meaningful for such heavily disadvantaged children instead of leaving them to neighbours’ charity instincts?

Government, to me, means organising the society to harness all our strength to protect the weak and make the strong accountable. It does not mean fighting hate speech, the constitutive of which people are not quite agreed. Honestly, the hate speeches I hear coming from the people at the top in this country – ministers, etc., — are making me so uncomfortable I am beginning to think I need an apology. First, it was against doctors, then our roads, and now, there’s an obnoxious, no-good, hateful, speech bill against the whole country. What will they think of next? Ha, o su mi o!

By Oyinkan Medubi

Authors provide that most essential mirror for reflecting the true image of the society for it to be able to gauge its own level of barbarism. Unfortunately, I have yet to see the author that has good news for the society.

I am not taking stock, I assure you, but I must say that Postscript Unlimited has come a long, surprising way. I had intended to keep this column for only a short while, just to fill a time gap for my contact editor. The principal reason of course was that my schedule was already overloaded on account of my principal work. However, the column has persisted stubbornly, like these October rains!

Two things account for this. One comes from the encouragement the column has been receiving from you, my esteemed readers. Oh, I cannot begin to evaluate just what that encouragement has meant to this writer. For one thing, it has pushed me almost to the frontiers of my humorous abilities. The second is that it has made me to bring out my computer to pen to you my thoughts on the goings-on in this country. Yep, it’s been a long journey, and still counting. Thanks to you, dear reader.

There are two comments I have received from readers. You know how it is. You receive a compliment on your dress and you hope it will just stop there. Not on your life. ‘But does it have to be so tight? Are you sure you can walk?’ Anyway, I can’t remember if I have addressed these comments in the past or not but since we are on the subject, I might as well. Some have asked me what Postscript Unlimited could possibly stand for. Well, when I was looking for a name, I thought that everything had been said about the Nigerian story. So, I thought, after all is said and done, what is left unsaid and undone? Postscript Unlimited attempts to capture the rest that has been left unsaid and undone, what Nigerians live by. Gerrit?

The second comment, while legitimate, leaves me helpless. I have been accused of using ‘big, big’ grammar in the write-ups and I said I am innocent. I have since learnt the important rule that communicative sentences need to, well, communicate. For this reason, I have attempted to limit the big, big grammar to a most tolerable minimum. All I can say is that you should pardon me please for the ones that escape my vigilant eyes. Don’t you just know, those difficult sentences are rogue sentences, that’s what.

So now, to the business of the day. Honestly, one is reading so many strange things in the press these days. Imagine, I’m reading things like internet fraud becoming such a glorified profession that the mothers of the practitioners now have an association. Their reason? The young men are veritable sources of pride and wealth for their families and their mothers just have to celebrate them. When I read that one, I wondered what stopped the youngsters themselves from forming their own association, AIF: shyness, fear of renown or just plain old guilt?

Today, we celebrate authors, the greatest thinkers of our age. You know who they are, don’t you? They are the people who write. They write anything from short to long to full length to impossible to read stories in drama, prose and poetry. Have you even seen a novel of two thousand plus pages? I haven’t; if I did, I would give out this review on it: ‘This author should be held for torturing people.’ Anyone who would consign their fellow human beings to reading two thousand pages in a book for no just cause does not deserve mercy. Tolstoy’s War and Peace was bad enough but two…!

I’m sure I have told you this story before. That is why I will tell you again. One author was found frantically searching through his manuscripts. Mind, this happened in the days of typewriters. What are you searching for, asked his wife?  He muttered that he was searching for the ‘damned murderer’. Apparently, that one had escaped through the pages of the manuscript! Then there was another author who was being interviewed by the press. After he had sounded off about writing and authorship, he was then asked to name his favourite work out of the ones he had written. He answered: ‘How should I know? I have not read them!’

So you see, left to the society, many authors would be incarcerated but because we live in polite societies (if you remove the politicians, that is), most of us prefer not to indulge in that habit. If we did, who would provide for us the mirror by which the society can view itself?

That’s right. Authors provide that most essential mirror for reflecting the true image of the society for it to be able to gauge its own level of barbarism. Unfortunately, I have yet to see the author that has good news for the society. Gone are the days of Austenism who only reflected the doings of the polite society of her day in great romances while the ugly, criminal side was left to authors like Sir Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes as he moved in the midst of that lot.

We have thus moved through such romantic authors with blind sides to those who decided to tell the truth about the human condition as they saw it. These were the Eliotic perspectives where man was seen to have merged with his objects paving the way for his total nihilism. Now, in these post-modernist eras, we are wrestling with authors who are perceiving man through prisms of darkness and nothingness, if that is possible. To our authors, the machine age is leading man to the black hole. This is why many want authors stoned; they never have good news to say about us. They don’t know that we don’t want to know.

Why do authors have this dark, dark turn of mind where they see nothing but tunnels with no end or light? I think it is mostly because they can interpret events better than most; so they reserve for themselves the right to jolt us out of our romantic existences into stark unreality. They are thus forever standing on their watch tower, warning, warning about the destructive habits of man. They can see 20, 000 leagues beneath the sea (ask Jules), billions of miles into the atmosphere (ask Sagan) and even right into the very soul of man (ask our philosophers). Rather than listen however, man prefers to poison, denigrate or ignore their authors. Just ask a Socrates, a Ken Tsaro Wiwa or an Osundare about that one. We really do not want to know.

As I write this, it is authors’ day, and they will have their say, willy-nilly. Many authors say they are compelled to write. Something inside them tells them to tell these stories. The stories are for our benefit – to teach us, amuse us, entertain us. Many say that if they don’t write, the stories stay in their insides like ‘balls of fire’, and if they don’t tell the stories, their insides will explode.

Today, I celebrate my favourite authors. They include Neil Boyd (and other humour merchants), Agatha Christie (and other mystery writers), Awoonor, Okara, etc. They are the ones who give me first the bad news, then the good news, dosing it with a good dash of razz and jazz, imagination and plenty of humour to mellow the bitter pill. They go something like this. ‘Once upon a time, there was a land called Nigeria. Her citizens were bad, very bad but it was because their leaders knew no better than to show the people the wrong way to live. Nevertheless, the people lived in the hope that one day, things would indeed change for the better. Then one day…’ Come on, be an author and finish that. Then maybe we will know what authors know.

By Oyinkan MEDUBI

These (animation) characters all exist to make us feel so…so…so… normal in spite of our abnormality and our never getting it… Nothing teaches us more about our nothingness than watching animals imitate human actions… Animation tells us clearly, succinctly and subtly not to take ourselves too seriously because nobody else does.

I celebrate animation every day. No, not necessarily by watching Tom and Jerry (though I do, no, not every day) but by watching the greatest animators in our midst – the fathers, the husbands, the mothers, the grannies, the household heads, all of who transform the hungry, little, limp bodies around them into animated bulls fit enough to scatter the house and demolish walls. You know how they do this? By putting down money for food or by cooking the food; that’s how.

The affordances of animation (I like that word!) include my being transported into a never-never land of all kinds of possibilities where a donkey teaches a human being some good, common sense; a serpent sweet-talks a human being into doing things and doves carry messages around for humans. So, what are we talking about? The Almighty himself started the business of animation! He put the idea in our heads.

As the world celebrates animation, developed from the cartoon arts, we celebrate that unique art which looks like magic but which the practitioners will tell you is so simple. You know, everything great looks very complicated on the surface but is really simple beneath. I mean, take the most complex bridge or ring road you can think of. By the time you analyse its component parts, you will find that it is nothing but an amalgamation of different simple things. So also is the logic of animation, simplicity itself. Don’t let me explain it to you however, I will only spoil it for you. Besides, I don’t know too much about the science of it.

I do know though that the art has been around since the 1800s but did not really pick up till the 1900s when it was mainly hand drawn. Now that we are in the computer age when men have taken to owning computerised toilets, animation has also been revolutionised. Many animation companies now use computer programming to produce full-length features.

Now, with such full-length efforts and other short skits, we have come a long way. Indeed, has the art not given us some of the most unforgettable characters you can think of: Mickey Mouse, Shrek, Fred Flintstone who is your average worker trying to grope his way through life; the irrepressible Tom and Jerry forever chasing each other and forever never quite getting it; Homer Simpson, the husband-father figure who just never gets it either; Spongebob Squarepants the stouthearted adventurer… and so many more? These characters all exist to make us feel so…so…so… normal in spite of our abnormality and our never getting it. When I say ‘us’, please, I do not include this country’s politicians. Those ones are not materials that we can animate because, honestly, they are beyond help. That is what distinguishes them from us humanoids.

Animation, I understand, is all of a combination of art, science and technology. Its basic material is of course the cartoon art of caricature but employs both scientific and technological methods for replicating and sequencing it, a ken that is beyond most of us. Many art works of a scene are drawn but each one is made to be slightly different from the last one so that when arranged sequentially, the figures appear to be moving or talking. That is how we come to see animals talking, eating or doing things. What we should take away from the art form is the lesson these material endeavours are trying to teach us.

To start with, I understand that animation is a multibillion dollar industry which however is not being tapped at the moment in Nigeria because of a fixated attitude. Most people believe that cartoon-related materials are for children and are not worthy of any attention. This is why people have not invested much in children’s literature, wears, food, or time. Mostly, Nigeria has been reduced, with a great deal of connivance from some of her citizens too, to depending entirely on foreign everything.

Animations teach us a lot of things. First, they teach us that with a little bit of imagination, we can make anything happen. With imagination, we can even transform Nigeria from the hopeless case it is right now to a powerful country. All we have to do is apply a little horse sense. Many of our little characters hit highs and lows, but they rise because they press on and refuse to stay down.

More importantly, our little figures teach us to stay in touch with our humanity. The saddest part of leadership in Nigeria is this loss of the ability to feel and behave like human beings as soon as people are appointed leaders. They stop behaving as if they no longer need to go to the toilet because I think they honestly believe they should not associate with mere mortals any more. Nothing teaches us more about our nothingness than watching animals imitate human actions. The foibles and follies we carry around in supreme and ignorant glorification soon become ridiculous. In short, nothing shows our ludicrosity more than substitution – the fact that a cow can be made to do better what I do. That’s the power of animation.

So yes, the other lesson is very clear already. Animation tells us clearly, succinctly and subtly not to take ourselves too seriously because nobody else does. October 28th, that’s tomorrow, is World Animation Day. Please watch an animation piece and experience the validation of your humanity: the feeling that you are not the unluckiest humanoid on the planet. That blighter talking as the donkey in Shrek probably has it rougher than you do.

Actually, the egg experience is worse. In the time it will take you to peel that egg, you would have climbed up and down Mount Kilimanjaro twice. Yes, twice. Oh misery!

I like discourses that begin with ‘Once upon a time’. Usually, it shows that a story is in the works. Well, today I’m beginning this discourse with ‘Once’; this shows that only a quarter of a story is coming. So, here goes. Once, a very long time ago, I wrote an article titled, ‘How not to break your egg and other etiquettes’. Unfortunately, the article ended before I could tell you how to break your egg. Today, after leaving you in suspense for many years, I feel I should put you out of your misery and tell you how to break your egg.

Just a minute. Have you ever endured the routine of eating a boiled egg? You haven’t? Wait then, let me tell you. First, to break their egg, most people just knock it against a hard surface and watch the shell shatter into a thousand pieces. I said most people, not you. Anyway, once it shatters, the thing is that each piece of that shell must now be accounted for and removed individually.

You’re lucky though if some mysterious power still connects many of the broken pieces together, like, you know, with a thread or something. That is when a large layer of many broken pieces stay together like friends and come out together. I say you’re lucky. If you’re not, then you have to remove each broken piece, one after the other. Just imagine yourself climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, one piece of rock at a time. Actually, the egg experience is worse. In the time it will take you to peel that egg, you would have climbed up and down Mount Kilimanjaro twice. Yes, twice. Oh misery!

There is a worse experience. That happens when the shell of the egg stubbornly refuses to part from the egg white. So, as you peel, parts of the flesh are stuck to the shell. You peel the shell, you peel the flesh, until you are down to the yolk. By the time you are through just peeling the shell, the egg is naked to the yolk and you wonder what happened to where the white was supposed to be. My friend, we call that experience The Great Egg Mystery. It has been known to occasion many a misery like no other.

Actually, there are other kinds of miseries. There is the kind that Nigerian politicians are presently bringing on their fellow citizens. Have you noticed that political parties have sort of metamorphosed into chop-chop clubs with membership open to only a few, privileged ones? Worse, the monies meant to construct roads, construct industries, give electricity, establish rail systems, provide water, construct space stations, open roads on the moon for mankind and build industries on Mars, I say, those monies generally just vanish among those chop-chop members. The gawking populace is of course left in … misery.

Then, there is the misery you feel when the power company abruptly plunges the entire nighbourhood into darkness. No problem, you think, as long as it affects everybody. However, when the power is restored by some miracle several hours or days later and your house has been skipped, man, you know you have a problem. You are forced to endure the misery of watching your neighbours enjoy electricity while you sit in darkness.

That will not do. Immediately, your mind tells you that there is a law that says if there is going to be that kind of misery, it must go round the neighbourhood. So, you make that call and your first sentence goes ‘there is electricity in my neighbour’s house but there is none in mine…’ The unasked question of course is ‘Why should my neighbour have electricity and not me?’ and not ‘Why should there not be electricity in my neighbourhood?’ I tell you, misery loves company.

Anyway, talking about politicians reminds me of the other kind of misery the citizens of Kogi state are enduring right now. Not only did they spend the major part of the tenure of the present governor watching their salaries and emoluments emigrate to Mars, it seems they are being forced by the APC political party now to endure some more of such years. Now, I guess, it seems the party has concluded plans to ram the non-performing governor down their constricted throats for another four years. This time, I think their salaries and emoluments will surely migrate to Pluto or Neptune, whichever is the farthest planet. Oh misery!

Still on Kogi State and other inanities. I hear that Adeyemi and Melaye are going throat to throat in a by-election to determine which of them will be senator. Already, they are even at each other’s throat, I hear. This is really sad, no? I ask you, can there be more misery called down on Okun people of Kogi state? I mean, that area has produced so many brilliant people and look who is now fighting to represent them in the senate! Wharra mess! I think the entire people of the state should emigrate to Mars and leave the state to the mindless ‘exploiticians’! I mean, between the Too Young To Know Any Better (TYTKAB) governor, and the Duo of Unknowing Ones (DOUO), the state is in a perpetual state of shock. Why? Because the monies to develop the estates on Mars have vanished into the chop-chop clubs. Oh misery!

Anyway, we must get back to the topic of how to break and eat an egg. I heard someone whisper just now, ‘Who eats eggs? People are dying and you’re talking about eating eggs!’ Seriously?! I mean… gasp… oh dear… so sorry… Oh misery!

Well, miracles happen. Perhaps, one day. you and I will wake up and come to our senses. When we do, we would then realise that the people we call ‘Nigerian politicians’ are not related to the human race but actually come from Planet Jupiter and we will throw them back there for betrayal of trust. Then we would begin to make demands of those whom we call leaders and put our foot down on some eggs to show that we mean it. Of course, we’ll then make one giant national omelet out of the ones we break.

Eating an egg a day can remove some of our miseries caused by such things as a short temper, impulsiveness and lack of concentration. Well, to be honest, those are my words. But, according to nutritionists though, eggs pack quite a bit of protein punch and other things that are essential for the body.

While waiting for the time we can afford it, it will do us some good to know how to break our egg. It is necessary to state here that there are preconditions for knowing how to break your egg. You know, just like when you buy an iron, the accompanying manual instructs you to please not test the iron with your tongue while it is plugged in. So, the precondition is that you need to first boil your egg. Of course the egg producer will not be liable for damage claims if this condition is not met.

To break the egg then, just take a spoon made of stainless steel or any other material made of stainless steel such as a lady’s stiletto heels or a child’s lunch box spoon. Then cut right through the egg to two equal halves. There, you have your egg. Now, to eat the egg, you need another lesson but let me give you a hint: you simply pass it through your mouth. To break an egg for frying, just smash it against a hard surface; that’s what most people do. That way, you just might get to reduce your own misery.