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Tag: Gboyega Alaka

  • Expressway to hell: Commuters lament slow pace of works along Badagry Expressway

    Expressway to hell: Commuters lament slow pace of works along Badagry Expressway

    In what may be termed an endless suffering, commuters along the Lagos-Badagry Expressway currently under reconstruction in Lagos are crying out for a reprieve. Gboyega Alaka, who went on a fact-finding mission on the route, reports.

    Saturday October 31 may well go into Blessing Adamu’s diary as one to remember in a long time, albeit for a very bad reason. It was her favourite cousin’s wedding day and she had looked forward to the occasion, especially after the fanfare that was the traditional engagement two days earlier in Iba Estate, off Badagry Expressway. The wedding was billed for Underwater Events arena, Navy Town, Alakija, also along Lagos Badagry Expressway.

    She left her Egbeda home at 10am – which she considered quite early, having informed the groom that she wouldn’t be able to attend the church wedding.  She negotiated her way through Igando to Iyana-Iba in less than thirty minutes, but soon got stuck in an Okokomaiko-Alakija mini-bus that seemed to be taking forever to get to her bus stop.  She boarded the mini-bus a few minutes to 11am, but by 2.pm, she was still battling visible frustration in her corner and perspiring all over. To make matters worse, it was one of those tightly packed buses.

    In no time, she unconsciously began voicing her frustration and pain, to nobody in particular. “What kind of road is this? How can one spend three hours getting to ordinary Alakija here? A distance that ordinarily shouldn’t take more than ten minutes. What manner of road are they even constructing that is taking forever and causing one so much pain. And my husband warned me about coming through this route o. In fact, I should have listened to him and come in through Mile 2….”

    She went on and on and on.

    At this juncture, this reporter who was on a fact-finding mission on the road and seated next to her, started calming her down. Somehow, the driver got affected by her complaints and soon took a detour opposite the Lagos International Trade Fair Complex. The narrow road leads to Old Ojo Road, which also leads directly to Alakija bus stop; but rather than be palliative, it proved to be a worse option, with the drivers driving against traffic and creating a spectacle that can best be described as a cacophony.

    Interestingly, even the celebrator, who lives off Navy Town, had tacitly warned her on the Engagement Day, when he lamented after the ceremony that “Only God knows when we’ll get home today.”

    After another long odd hour at about 3pm, Blessing finally alighted at her bus stop, but anyone could tell that her mood had indeed been fouled. As she strutted along to catch a bike, this reporter imagined that it would probably take an overdose of mirth to get her lively again.

    Blessing’s case is just one of millions other road users suffering along this route. As a matter of fact, hers is even better, as her experience is only a one-off. But it put the predicament of permanent residents in that axis of Lagos, who have to ply that route at least twice every work day in bold perspective.

    The contract for the reconstruction of the Lagos-Badagry Expressway up to Okokomaiko was awarded in January 2012 by the Gov. Babatunde Raji Fashola administration. The plan was to rescue the very important road, often described by commuters as ECOWAS gateway, which had literally collapsed and become an eye-sore. It was to be reconstructed into a more adequate 10-lane international highway, to also include a light railway line, more commonly referred to as the Blue Line and provide a faster and more efficient mass transit to ease the perennial travelling pains of commuters in the area. Chinese company, Messrs China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, CCECC was the beneficiary and it fixed a 36-month time lag, to terminate in January 2015, as completion date.

    A long way to go

    Going on a year after that final date, the road does not look anywhere near completion, thereby compounding road-users’ frustration. Only the first phase or Lot 1 starting from Babs Animashaun in Surulere to Mile2 had been fully completed as at the end of Gov Fashola’s exit from office. Phase 2A, which is between Mazamaza and Agboju had reached 90% completion, while phases 2B and 2C were at 45% and 10% completion respectively.

    Former commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Kadri Hamzat made this declaration earlier in the year while fending off a claim by the federal government that the state could not lay claim to any infrastructural success outside those put in place by the federal government. He also attributed the slow pace of work by the contractors to factors such as challenge of relocation of PHCN pylons and NNPC pipelines, as well as the request for an expanded Right of Way (RoW). Amidst fears of abandonment, former Gov. Fashola also assured APC faithful and Lagos State citizens in general in days leading to the election that the project will not be abandoned by subsequent government, as his administration has put in place structures to ensure its completion.

    But it seems works has literally stagnated since then, raising more anxiety and grumble. As if to soothe frayed verves, incumbent governor, Akinwunmi Ambode earlier in the month renewed the government’s commitment to the project. He said the light rail project will be completed in twelve months. He reiterated that such project can never be abandoned, as it holds the key to more socio-economic development in the state.

    …And the suffering continues

    In the meantime, the citizens continue to groan, hoping as it were, that the promise this time will not fail.

    John Onwaeze a regular bus commuter on the route said the situation, to say the least, has been hectic. He said the road has always been a difficult one, but that the situation became aggravated since the reconstruction works commenced. “Okokomaiko here to Alakija is a distance that shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes, but now it takes an hour and about during the peak of traffic hours. There is a big diversion at Alakija that takes motorists to Festac through to Mile 2. The hold-up there usually builds up right to Okokomaiko, creating kilometres-long traffic and giving drivers and commuters hell. There is also the case of unruly commuter bus drivers plying Igando and Iyana-Ipaja, who make u-turn right on the expressway at Iyana-Iba, facing vehicles coming from the Mile 2 axis, and creating a deadlock in the process.

    Onwaeze continued, “Also at-Abule Ado, there is usually a nagging hold-up, that I really can’t figure its cause. In the past, it was the tankers, but that has been resolved since they were relocated, but the traffic gridlock persists.  There is also a diversion in that area though, maybe that is the reason. I think the main people causing the hold-up are the people working on the road. Sometimes, you just happen on a diversion without any visible warning. Ordinarily, if one is aware that there is a diversion, one would have taken an alternative route. In fact it got so bad one day that I had to get down from my bus and confront one of the Chinese men at work. I asked him ‘Is this how you people construct roads in your country? Is this how you cripple movement and literally halt all economic activities?’

    “I also asked him how it is that they are always quick to demolish houses but slow to constructing the roads. What I have observed is that even when they know that they may not get to an area in three months, they often hasten to demolish the houses and throw the inhabitants unto the streets.”

    Onwaeze said the Chinese guy was so embarrassed and could hardly offer any explanation. He however deduced from his attitude and the much is smattering English could avail him, that the delay may not be unconnected with unavailability of funds. “Obviously, there is little the company can do if the government does not fulfil its part of the contract.”

    On what he thinks of the recent governor’s declaration that the first phase of the road will be completed by 2016, Onwaeze said “That is the way it’s supposed to be, so that people will suffer less. But as it is now, I’m not sure that timeline is feasible. I don’t even know how many companies they’ve given the contract to, because a major road like this one that leads to ECOWAS countries, should have been awarded to at least three different companies, so that the work can be divided into parts and they can work simultaneously and deliver on time.

    Youthful Ehis says it is a mixed grill. Before the reconstruction even commenced, Ehis said traffic was always horrible on the road, which made people in the area heave a sigh of relief when the government announced plans to reconstruct and expand it. He said the people however didn’t bargain for what they’re presently going through, as the reconstruction seems to be taking forever. “Naturally there are times when the road gets freer and times when it is like a no-go area. 7 to 8am has always been hectic, and the pattern has only heightened with the commencement of works on the road. So we only hope they complete the work soon.”

    On what he thinks of the government’s new completion date of 2016, Ehis said “Obviously that is impossible. Don’t forget we are at the end of 2015 already; so going by the pace at which they’ve been working, I can tell you that’s a fairy tales.”

    Baba Kolo Muhammed said the situation on the road was hectic until recently when the U-turn around Volkswagen bus stop was blocked. He said it’s a lot better now, even though there is still room for great improvement.  “The problem on the road now is around Alakija bus stop. That is where we have the bottleneck now and on a bad day, it can be really chaotic. Once they clear that that part, things are likely to get a lot better. Now I get to Mile 2 within one hour, but that’s still not good enough. The government and the construction firm should speed up work on the road.”

    Nyma Akashat-Zibiri, one of the co-host of popular talk show on TVC, YourView also laments the terrible situation on the road and her tedious commuting experience every day. On one occasion penultimate week, she complained during the banter section of the programme that ‘The tankers are everywhere and on both sides of the road, down to Volks bus stop. So it’s like hell, moving out in the morning.’

    On another occasion last week, she outrightly said the little respite commuters on the axis seem to have enjoyed since the government filled some pot-holes on the road are back, as the rains in the last few weeks have swept away the government’s palliative effort. For that reason, she barely made to the show in time.

    ‘It’s a lot better, but…,’ say drivers

    Interestingly, most of the drivers spoken to seem to agree that the situation is a lot better.

    One of the drivers on the route who gave his name simply as Wasiu said “It’s a lot better now. As I speak with you now, the road is free. I think it’s largely because the rain has stopped. Now we use between 30 minutes and under one hour. In the past months, while it was raining, it was really hectic navigating the road, and we usually spend up to two and half, three hours to get to Mile-2 from Okokomaiko here. So one could say the gridlocks were due to the potholes created by the heavy rain. You know of course that once there are potholes and poodles, vehicles will move at a slower pace and a backlog of traffic will build up. If the road is smooth, even if it’s raining, vehicles will move freely.

    As if to corroborate the first driver’s position, Abayomi Taiwo, a Coaster bus driver on the route said ‘It’s not as if the holdup is perpetual. It has time. Now that a good number of people have gone to work (around 10am), you’ll discover that the hold-up is a bit better. What usually causes it, are commuters crossing. This is a heavily populated area and once humans are crossing, one is duty-bound to stop.   Amongst those crossing are also elderly people and young people. In the cause this, the traffic gradually begins to build until it becomes a nagging one. If the government really wants to be of help, I think they should build over head bridges and mandate commuters to use them.’

    Taiwo would therefore not place the blame of traffic gridlock on the road on the road construction, because, as he put it, ‘the construction has not yet got to Okokomaiko, yet there is traffic there.’

    To underline his claim that the situation is a lot better, Taiwo said it would take him around thirty minutes to get to Mile 2. He warned though that that same trip could take up to three hours during rush hour or on a really bad day.

    Overall, he said the construction is a good thing, except that the government never told them it would take this long.

    Another driver, Fatai Ojewunmi said ‘Now the hold-up has minimised. As at this time (10.30am), spend can get to Mile 2 under one hour. But at the height of traffic in the morning or evening, the same stretch takes between 2n to 3 hours. He ascribed the major cause of the traffic while going to Mile 2 to a spot around Mile 2 Oke. He said “Usually, we get into the traffic from Pako/Agboju Bus stop and follow it through to Mile 2 Bus stop, spending up to 30 minutes in the process. For this reason, most passengers alight out of frustration up to two kilometres ahead and take to trekking or motorcycle option to meet up with their appointment.”

    He also says it is a more difficult situation, coming from Mile 2 to Okokomaiko, saying some of the drivers make u-turns at wrong spots on the road, creating a nagging bottleneck for other road users. Good enough, he said the u-turn spots have been recently blocked, paving way for sanity on the road.

    ‘We’re committed to quick delivery’ – CCECC site manager

    An attempt to get an official response from the CCECC saw this reporter visiting their Alakija camp site. The Site Manager, a young Chinese man, who pleaded not to be named, said the company is doing its best to ensure that the works go smoothly and the people suffer less inconvenience.

    He said, “Usually, when there is going to be a diversion or blockade, we normally put signs a couple of metres or kilometres away to notify motorists, but the problem is that most of the time, a lot of them don’t read the signs and jus keep driving down. And when they eventually get to the point of the diversion, they discover they can no longer go further and start blaming the contractor.”

    He also stressed that the company need the cooperation of the federal government. “For example, there are some spots where we have NNPC pipelines, which automatically halt our movement. It is a major problem and we need the appropriate agencies of the federal government to come to our aid and help relocate the pipelines. And don’t forget, there are also the problems of electric poles and pillars that have to be relocated.

    Pressed further to respond to allegations of deliberate delay outside places where there are pipelines and electric pillars, the manager said “The rain is a problem sometimes. Sometimes we fix the road for quick passage of vehicles and the rain comes and sweeps away our effort and a bad spot that has been fixed becomes bad again and people blame us. Also, from here to Okoko, there are many trailer parks and when we do quick fixes to the roads, the trailers destroy them, and traffic becomes slow again.”

    To buttress the company’s commitment to quick delivery, he said “You will realise that works from here (Alakija) to Mile 2 and further down, is almost complete. You’ll also realise that the work has been faster in recent time.”

    On the 2016 timeline, he said “At the end of this year, we should be through with the works from Mile 2 to Alakija, and all things being equal, we can finish by next year.” He finished off in his smattering English.

     

  • Our target is to meet our listeners on the go

    Our target is to meet our listeners on the go

    Boss of Abeokuta-based Rockcity FM radio, Niran Malaolu speaks on the challenges facing the print media, why he pitched his tent with radio broadcast and what a 21st century media chief executive needs to survive. He spoke to Gboyega Alaka in Abeokuta. 

    One would have expected you to go into print journalism, having made a name for yourself in that area. Was going into radio always on your radar?

    When I hear people talk about print, electronic and what have you, I marvel, because if you’re a properly trained journalist, you would have done what is called Mass Communication or Journalism; and usually you would have been trained in the media generally. For me as a person, maybe I have a background in print, but I always understood that for journalism to be business, you need to dig into research. As an editor, I was always worried as to why we have very low circulation in Nigeria. The golden days of Nigerian newspaper journalism was in the days of the Daily Times, when Mr Gbolabo Ogunsanwo was editor of the Sunday Times. At that time, Sunday Times was circulating close to 600,000 copies. As we speak, the entire print newspaper sales per-day in Nigeria is not up to 100,000.

    Are you certain about that statistics?

    Yeah, you can check. It’s the economy. The problem is that we give newspapers to vendors. For instance you’re a Lagos-based newspaper and you print 5,000 copies; then you put copies in a pick-up van on the road, with a driver and a circulation officer and they traverse the entirety of Lagos, Ogun, Osun, Oyo, Ekiti and Ondo State and then they drop 500 copies each. The following day, they go back and bring back say 380 unsold copies. Now you have to look at the cost – petrol, vehicle maintenance, human resources and all. Add that to the fact that agencies are not paying. So where are the media houses supposed to be getting their income from? But unfortunately, we as journalists don’t talk about these. We only complain about not being paid salaries. Journalists need to come together and discuss. How do we deal with circulation problems? How do we deal with the issue of poor reading habit? That is very easy and within our capacity. If we give interesting news and features, they will definitely read. The other one that is technical is the issue of circulation, while the other one that is legal, is the issue of agencies not paying.

    To answer your question, we did a research and found out that people tend to listen more to the radio. Don’t forget, the radio is a blind medium, and it doesn’t require that extra time you spend in reading newspapers. Once our mission is to inform our people, we thought the best thing to do is to go and meet them wherever they may be. We are a proper news station. We keep our people informed, do fantastic interviews and have fantastic current affairs programmes. And they do know that whatever they hear on this station is absolute truth.

    Is Rockcity FM deliberately restricted to Ogun State? Your signal in Lagos for instance, seems a bit low.

    I don’t think so. We’re licensed for Ogun state, but the signal gets to Lagos very well. However, I do not believe that everybody must be in Lagos. Why don’t we have city-based newspapers? The people we’re copying use the train to circulate newspapers. And it’s cheap. The Late MKO Abiola and a couple of publishers tried to have a collaboration, so that what the different newspaper vans are carrying can be done with just one vehicle, but it seems we lack the capacity for cooperation in this part, so that idea broke down.

    The popular opinion is that there isn’t a strong enough market in Ogun State; is the advert patronage adequate?

    If you’re talking in terms of advert patronage, the companies are in Lagos. So we have to go to Lagos, and those who have things to sell to those living here patronise us. When I was growing up, we had 12 states in Nigeria that were economic entities on their own. I remember Ibadan, Port Harcourt, Enugu, Kano, Kaduna, Jos. And they were developing in every facets of development. Recall that we had Mighty Jets in Jos, when we talk about football; Enugu Rangers in Enugu; Stationery Stores in Lagos; Sharks in Port Harcourt; IICC Shooting Stars in Ibadan; we also had bank headquarters in most of these cities. But somehow, we have unitarised everything and it doesn’t augur well for the development of our country.  And that is why we have ended up in this collect and distribute situation. Everything is concentrated in Lagos, and Lagos is saturated. We as journalists need to draw attention to this and generate solutions.

    One of Rockcity FM’s strongest features is allowing your listeners to speak with your numerous phone-in programmes. What informed that style?

    You need to study and understand what your people need or want, whether you’re a print journalist or electronic journalist. We did a research study and found out that Nigerians like to express themselves. When you have a nation of people who like to talk, it is very important that you aggregate those thoughts. On Friday for instance, we have what is called ‘Open Day’ on our Daybreak Show, where the people raise the agenda and talk about whatever they want. The people in that sense understand what governance is, but a lot of our people in government don’t understand what governance is. Government is there like a father to look after the need of the people. And any government that is not doing that is a failure.

    You once boasted that RockCity FM will never owe salaries. What gives you such confidence, especially in a terrain where even bigger broadcasting organisations have been known to owe?

    I have always being a reporter and I understand what it means to be owed salaries. I understand what it takes to go out and get stories, edit and produce a newspaper. A nation can only be built when you have a good media and media can only be made by good journalists. Nigeria has some of the most brilliant journalists. Unfortunately, the government thinks journalists are irritants. People who are doing such a job should not be made to lack to the extent that they’d be looking for round envelops. Our people must have a better deal, not raw deal.

    What does it take to be a 21st century media CEO in a third world economy like Nigeria?

    First of all I consider myself a professional student. You must learn to read and give knowledge every day. Several years back, we began with the print; and then the radio came and they said it was going to kill the print. It didn’t. Then television came and they said it was going to kill both the newspaper and the radio; again it didn’t. Now the social media or new media has come. Is it going to kill all the old traditional media? No. What we need to do is to have a new business module that is going to help us survive, and then go and meet our people where they are on the go. So a 21st century CEO needs to understand very well what the new generations are doing and then go and meet them there. You must keep abreast of developments in virtually every sphere, because journalism as far as I’m concerned, is life.

    Talking about your prison experience, you were supposed to have been convicted of ‘information gathering,’ which literally was, doing your job. Didn’t that threaten your resolve as a journalist?

    No. My foray into journalism was not by accident. I love my nation. You see that book there, ‘Why Nations Fail’ (pointing to his book shelf); it tells you that there is a need for us to believe in our country. I don’t believe that God made a mistake by creating us in this colour. We need to learn to understand and be conscious of who we are. And then God has given us certain resources to live by. We have to be able to harness them for the good of our people. For me every nation must go through a process of evolution. That I was part of the evolution of Nigeria is a sacrifice that was worthwhile. If it didn’t happen to me, maybe it might have happened to you or somebody else. The most important thing is that we should harness the lessons from it, which is: we wanted democracy and we got democracy. We need now to build on that democracy, to deliver the dividends to our people. Ensure that our children go to school and have good education. You and I are speaking to each other in a foreign language; I don’t think that should be. If we use our language, we would build this camera and your smartphone. So specifically, prison was hard. It is not an experience I will recommend for anybody. I think it got to my wife to the extent that she vowed that ‘If my husband ever got out of that place, he’ll never be a journalist again.’ But you see, I don’t know how to do any other thing. It’s journalism or teaching. So when I came out, I just said to her, ‘Look, it’s one of those things. We need to just move on.’ Thereafter, I went back to journalism school, got my PhD and started teaching. I marry both teaching and journalism together.

    TV, are you ever going to go there?

    Surely. The activities you’re seeing around, that’s what we’re preparing for.

    You have a date yet?

    I don’t know. I’m a Christian and God says walk with me. So I’m walking with him.

    You work with a lot of young people. How do you manage their youth and energy?

    One of the ways to build a nation is to invest in the young people. Teach discipline, integrity. Integrity is key for me; so personally I will not soil my name by taking bribe or giving bribe. Those who work with me know me. The sun’s not going to shine every day; you’re going to have some time when things are not going to run smoothly, you take it. That’s my philosophy. Hardwork, discipline, dedication. There was a young man who worked with me at Vanguard newspaper. He’s an editor there now. Anytime he saw me, he’d be crying, because I put him on his toes. But I used to tell him then that ‘Look, I’m training you.’ The last time he saw me, he told me ‘Sorry, now I know you were indeed training me.’ Nigerian youths are very energetic but their energy needs to be channelled.

  • ‘My husband died of pure negligence’

    ‘My husband died of pure negligence’

    Saturday November 21, 2014 started like every other day for the Chaz B Chukuma family-bright, beautiful and full of hopes. But by evening, it had turned bleak, and by dawn the following morning, it was complete darkness. Arrowhead of the family and popular radio presenter, Charles Bruce Chukuyenum Ayibatonye Chukuma, popularly known as Chaz B on account of his highly inspirational radio show, ‘Sharing Life issues with Chaz B,’ on Inspiration FM shut his eyes never to open them  again. One year after, his beloved wife,  and pillar of support, Roseline is up asking questions on the circumstances surrounding his death – especially the part played by the family hospital. She spoke with Gboyega Alaka.

    You recently came out with an allegation bordering on negligence and dereliction of duties against St. Nicholas Hospital regarding the death of your husband, Chaz B Chukuma. Tell us about it.

    It was Friday night, November 21 2015. The day started like every other day. No complaints. I went to my daughter’s school; I was her Class Mummy and we had to do decorations in preparation for the Christmas season; while my husband, Chaz B went to work. At about five in the evening, the show started and I was as usual listening to it in the living room. Then in the middle of the shop, he called to say that he wasn’t feeling too good and that I should come and pick him. Meanwhile his friend, Abiona was in the studio with him and actually offered to take him to the hospital or the house, but he told him “No, my wife is coming to pick me.” And that is expected because we’ve done everything together from day one, 11 years ago. He was my best friend. I don’t have any other best friend order than him. So I went down with the driver, and found that he wasn’t looking too good. I asked, ‘What is the problem?’ and he said his stomach. Meanwhile, he had had incisional hernia the August before. Let me state here that he never had kidney problems like was widely reported and the surgery he had was not about kidney failure or replacement. My husband died with his kidneys intact. The incisional hernia was done at St Nicholas; a doctor there and another who came from India carried out the procedure. And he was fine after that.

    So we arrived the studio and he told me to take him home, but when I saw that he was in pains and very uncomfortable, I said ‘No, let’s go to the hospital.’ We got to St Nicholas and saw Judith, at the reception. Soon after, we met a doctor, Dr Kewe; he asked for my husband’s file, and they said it was in Dr Bamgboye’s office and he wasn’t in town. So Dr Kewe opened an emergency file right there and started asking questions because he practically knew nothing about his medical history. I was the one answering him because my husband was in pains. At a time, he left us, went out and was like ‘I’m trying to reach Dr Balogun, but his lines are not going.’ I called him on my husband’s line and it went through, so I handed him the phone. Eventually, I think Dr Balogun told him to be careful with my husband because he was a post-transplant patient. He also suggested this injection – I don’t know the name; and he was given two shots.

    Meanwhile Balogun said to observe him till the next day, so they sent the nurse to go and prepare for his admission. But before then, I think I heard her say something like ‘I think there’s no room, but let me go and check.’ So my husband told me to go get him his stuff. He took his high blood pressure medication at 10pm; he told me to get him that as well. Then along the way, as we approached Bonny Camp, I got a call from Dr. Kewe asking me to come back. He said ‘Your husband is feeling much better,’ and that I should come and take him home and bring him back in the morning.

    Wasn’t that rather sudden?

    Well, I turned round anyway and went back to the hospital. Meanwhile, they checked his temperature and found that it was high, probably because of the pain and all that; so Kewe sent me to the pharmacist to get Exforge. The pharmacist looked at the prescription and was like ‘Who wrote this? I told her the doctor in Consulting Room 2. She moved to a corner and called him on the intercom. Whatever they were discussing, I do not know, but eventually, he gave me one, which was given to him. But when my husband got up as we made to go, he staggered. And then I asked, ‘Are you sure he’s okay or is it because you guys don’t have a room, because I heard the official expressing doubts about the availability of a room? And before God and man, Dr Kewe looked me in the eyes and said, ‘We don’t have a room, bring him back in the morning.’ He said the injections given to him would sustain him till the morning, and I said okay. Meanwhile right from the moment we got to the hospital, all my husband kept saying was that something was disturbing him around the chest and that if only he could throw up. He obviously needed some kind of medical aid because it wasn’t coming out. But when we got home, I got him a bowl and he was able to vomit something, and looked a bit relieved, so I fell into a slumber and dozed off. Suddenly he woke up at about 6am; he was in this terrible pain. I jumped into my clothes, called Dr Balogun and told him my husband was in a very bad state and that I was driving him down. I also told him that I would like an experienced doctor to be on ground when I got there, to which he said ‘no problem.’

    He said a senior surgeon by name Dr Fadiran would be waiting for me. I lived in Lekki Phase One and it was on a Saturday; so I got to the hospital at Onikan in less than 20 minutes. My husband came down from the vehicle and walked into the hospital all by himself – which I found a bit disappointing, considering that I’d called ahead that it was an emergency. Of course they later brought in the wheelchair and wheeled him into the Emergency Room, but for a hospital like St. Nicholas, that was a minus. And then I still I saw the same doctor from last night. I asked after the Dr Fadiran and he said he was on his way. I asked where he was coming from, and he said Ikoyi. I made a mental note that he should be with us in about 15minutes. Inside the ER, Dr Kewe was struggling to locate my husband’s vein to pass in the drip. I asked, ‘Where is your Anaestasiologist?’ He said he or she was on his way. ‘Where is your radiologist?’ He said that too was on his way. And the doctor too! Virtually everybody that could help my husband was not on ground. At the end of the day, he couldn’t locate his vein on the right hand or so, and he had to switch to the other hand, which was the fistula hand that was used for dialysis before the hernia procedure. Ordinarily, that hand should not be tampered with. He turned to the fistula hand and at a point thought he had got the vein, but of course the drip wasn’t going at the end of the day. By this time Dr Kewe had become confused.

    Meanwhile, my husband kept saying ‘I just want to throw up.’ And Dr Kewe was busy taking instructions on the phone to treat my husband! He may deny it now, but I was right there and saw it all. And then he put him on oxygen. And I found that appalling because it was choking him the more. This person wants to throw up! Even as a non-medical person, I would think that the appropriate thing would have been to help him get whatever it was that was troubling him out. And then he said he wanted to give him an injection. I asked what the injection was for and he said it would stop him from vomiting! He was also given four adrenaline injections. I don’t know what those were for.  To make matters worse, 7.30, 8, 8.30, no doctor arrived. 9’o’clock, no doctor! And then my husband became more uncomfortable. Meanwhile before then, a doctor – not Fadiran came with a suction tube. He inserted the tube. You could tell that he was more experienced, but he obviously came in late. This was what they should have done immediately I came in or even the night before.  Meanwhile my husband continued to struggle and struggle. And at a time some liquid came out of his mouth and nose; and after all of that came out, I knew he had passed because I was holding and massaging his legs. They brought in the shock machine, but alas all that was formality. What should have been done wasn’t done at the appropriate time. My husband passed at exactly 9.30 am. He died because the doctor on ground didn’t know what to do. I still didn’t see the senior consultant doctor until I left. If he was there when he was called that there was an emergency, my husband would still have been here.

    How devastating were you, watching your husband pass like that; at a time when you least expected it?

    My goodness! I almost went mad. If not for the grace of God, I would not be sitting here. At a time, I wasn’t talking to nobody and people were afraid for me. Chaz B and I were so close, like stew on rice. So it’s not been easy at all. But again, looking at my daughter, Monalisa, I get encouraged. I see a lot of her dad in her. Sometimes, she talks and I think that I’m hearing my husband’s voice. It’s one year on Sunday (today), but it still feels like it’s not real. Like I would wake up someday and find that it never happened and Chaz B is still with us. Monalisa’s birthday was approaching and I asked, ‘Mama what would you like for your birthday?’ And she said, ‘I wish my daddy is here.’ And she started crying.

    Why are you coming out to talk about this now? It’s been one year.

    Well I was going to talk about it, but not immediately after his death. I needed time to regain my sanity and be able to talk. He died of pure negligence and I wasn’t going to sweep it under the carpet. I mean this was part of the things he was against and spoke against while he was alive! And I promise him that I would talk. He cannot just die like that. Here was a man I never in my wildest dream thought would leave me in a long time, and then in one week I was being asked to write his tribute. Everybody had submitted their tributes and they were waiting for me. And I was like ‘Whose tribute?’ I certainly didn’t expect him to die from a mere stomach ache, not after he had successfully passed through a more complex procedure like incisional hernia. And you know what? The hospital at the end of the day said he died of dehydration.

    Are you considering legal actions?

    His death needs to be investigated. Professionals should be made accountable for their actions. We should stop managing. If this kind of negligence should be happening in a hospital as ‘big’ as St. Nicholas, then where else is there to go? And then you want to blame people that travel out for medical attention? No. Even my little Monalisa was like, ‘Mummy, I thought hospitals are supposed to take care of sick people?’ I said yes. And she said ‘So why did they allow my daddy to die?’ She’s only seven and she’s already considering not staying in this country. She said ‘Maybe we should just go and stay in America; because she’s been there and as young as she is, she has spotted the difference. I was somewhere in Los Angeles the other day and they were chasing just one man, but you need to see the number of helicopters and personnel that were on the streets. And I was like ‘What! When are we ever going to get here?’ And Dr Kewe in his reply to my petition said that my husband told me he wanted to go home, that he couldn’t share a room with any patient. Here was a sick man, even if he said that while I was away, why didn’t you tell me, his wife? He never said that. Chaz B Chukuma would sleep in a marketplace if he knew I would be there with him. Besides, he didn’t make him sign anything. He should at least have told me ‘By the way your husband opted to leave on his own against medical advice.’

    How have you coped in the last one year?

    Cope? I’m still trying to get used to the fact that he’s gone.

    What kind of a man was Chaz B?

    Chaz B Chukuma was a wonderful man. A man with a heart of gold; very humble. If you knew him, you’ll know what I’m talking about. He was one in a million, down to earth. If you didn’t know him and saw him chatting with security men and drivers, you’d never believe it was him. He was the type that would ply a keke or bike just to get to the studio on time if there is traffic. He’s that kind of a person. Humble to a fault.

    How often did you listen to his show?

    I was his number one fan. Every day, I listened to his show and sometimes when he answered a particular person in a way that I thought wasn’t right, I’d tell him, ‘You have to apologise to that person.’ And the next day he’d apologise. So I was his number one fan, as well as his number one critic.

    What were his plans? He sure had reached a height with his show, where he must have been thinking of the next level.

    This whole office place we got because he was going to go into television. And he was working towards it seriously; had started buying equipment and all of that. We got this place in early October and he passed in November. Not even up to two months. That’s his office right opposite mine.

    What do you remember most about him?

    Everything. We’ve done everything together from day one. Everything around me reminds me of him, especially his sense of humour. Here was a man who’d be on his way home, yet he’d call me countless number of times. He tells me ‘I love you’ God knows how many times a day. And Monalisa does the same. So when Monalisa is telling me that, I see Chaz B. I see him in my dreams. He talks to me in my dream, even though some pastors have said ‘No, no, he’s dead, you shouldn’t have anything to do with him anymore.’ But excuse me, this was my husband!

    I mean, we started from Abuja. This was before he even became the Chaz B that is a household name. We were living in an uncompleted building, a school building in one rough area. At night there were gunshots here and there. He was with Hot FM. But I met him when he wasn’t really doing anything. I was a business woman, but I didn’t have a shop. So I’d gather my goods and take to my buyers and of course they’d owe. We stayed in a room that didn’t have a door, and we used a big plank to create a door for ourselves. Even the floor of our room was just sand. We tiled it ourselves. I got broken tiles from my uncle who sells tiles in Abuja. We called the tiler who charged us three thousand, but we didn’t have three thousand. So we ended up doing it ourselves, which was how I got the mark on my face (pointing to the upper part of her brow). We weren’t tilers; so we ended up having rough and sharp edges here and there. I fell on the tile on my birthday, which was how I got the mark. And he felt so so bad. I mean, we’ve been through thick and thin together! Sometimes, to eat was a problem, and I’d walk down the road to the malams there and speak Hausa to them to get stuffs on credit.

    And having to now lose him at the peak of things…

    Yeah. When we were really settling down; when he should be enjoying the fruits of his labour. I cry every day. I cry at night. Even though I know it’s affecting me, I really can’t help it. Chaz B Chukuma would do anything for me.

    How do you see the future without him?

    What can I say? It’s only going to be by His grace, because the truth is that a future without Chaz B, I never imagined. So I don’t know what it would look like. Of course He that has kept me up till this day will continue to keep me.

    And the dream, are you going to keep it going?

    Well the sad thing is that we’re no longer going to be going into the television aspect of it, because it was going to be a live thing, Chaz B Live. So it was going to be his face. But all that is gone now. All thanks to St. Nicholas. As regards the radio, like you may well know, we’ve been trying, even though we’ve had some ups and downs; don’t forget when the original owner of a brand is no longer there, you can’t expect everything to go as expected. Mr Chike and Mr Stephen have been holding forth. There was a misunderstanding at a point and Stephen left, but he’s back now. The show was an independent programme wholly produced by him. We buy airtime.

    Anniversary plans for Chaz B?

    We have the Ajegunle Project coming up to commemorate one year of his passing. November ordinarily is our month of giving and the Ajegunle Project was something we came up with on the show to help the needy before he passed. Our motto is Strangers, Orphans and Widows. We were going to pay them a visit but he passed before we could do that. So we’re reviving the project and it’s going to happen on the November 28. A lot of people have agreed to be part of it because it’s Chaz B, including musicians and comedians. We’re not really doing much after church; we’ve shifted everything the 28th. So, we’d be cooking right there and distributing to the people. We’ve also asked people to bring out clothes they don’t need. Not necessarily rags. If you have clothes that you haven’t worn for up to six months, that probably means that they’re no longer in vogue with you. You can bring them out for us to give out to those who need them.

  • I was to go out with Ironsi day he was murdered

    I was to go out with Ironsi day he was murdered

    Retired broadcaster, septuagenarian and grandmother, Omobolanle Osatonhanwen Onajide nee Akpata tells Gboyega Alaka her experience as a broadcaster during the turbulent years of the sixties; her Mbari Mbayo experience with the likes of Prof. Wole Soyinka, the peace of Ibadan city and how politics changed everything. 

    Madam Omobolanle Osatonhanwen Onajide nee Akpata will be 80 in just about a month, but you really wouldn’t know from her outlook, conversational power and grace.

    Sporting a lovely evening gown and a white coral necklace to compliment, Madam Onajide looked anything but her age as she sat down with this reporter to while away the free time at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island foyer just before cocktail time at the recent Nigerian Breweries Golden Pen Media Awards.

    Within seconds, she had befriended her little audience, which comprised this reporter and in fact led them on a road to discovering how interconnected human beings indeed are, if only they stopped to make proper introduction.

    What however captivated the  group the most about her was how virtually every word she uttered as she inadvertently took control of the conversation, carried the weight of Nigeria’s history, prompting the reporter to request a quick interview.

    Beginning with her days back at Akpata Memorial School, Benin, Edo State,  owned by her father in the early 1940s, Onajide spoke of how her dad, John Francis Ugbomo Akpata founded the school in 1941 and how  it was suddenly taken away from him. She recalled that her dad founded the school out of passion for education, hinting that he probably took after his elder brother, E S Akpata, who had earlier founded Eweka Memorial School, also in Benin.

    Her narrative however took a sad turn, when she lamented how the government suddenly took the school away from her father around 1950. As a young teenager, Onajide could not really fathom why, but she suspected it was political. She dismissed the incident saying “The government do that all the time.”

    Asked how she has managed to still exude such energy and mental alertness, Onajide said “I don’t know; there is no secret. And I can tell you there is no special lifestyle. As a matter of fact, there was a time I used to wake up early to prepare breakfast for my husband and children before dawn, and being a broadcaster, I still had to be at WNTV Ibadan by 5.30 to present the bulletin to the reader.”

    Broadcasting in those early days was “a wonderful, wonderful experience,” she recalled. She said the seed to become a broadcaster had been sown in her back at Hull University, United Kingdom, where she had gone to study Public Administration and Law, one of the many popular courses of those days. The Second World War had just been over, and England, having lost lots of young able-bodied men was in dire need of fresh graduates to work in different sectors, especially teaching and broadcasting.  “In fact, my husband, when he graduated, was offered a teaching job in Hull. The BBC usually came to the university as well to ask if you were in final year and if you would like to work with them. That was when the interest to be a broadcaster welled in me, but for some reason, I couldn’t stay back and take their offer. So as soon as I got back to Nigeria, I immediately decided that I wanted to be a broadcaster.

    “Luckily for me, my brother Kayode was quite friendly with Olu Ibukun, the then General Manager of WNTV. So when he told him about my desire to be a broadcaster, he said ‘Ah, we’re looking for people’. I went for the interview and I was taken in as Assistant Sub-Editor.

    “My husband was a District Officer based in Warri – that was the position they used to give to graduates in those days. But after some time, he was relocated to Ogbomoso; and that meant we could live in Ibadan.” She reeled off.

    That was also when Pan-Africanism was at its height and Onajide also spoke of Mbari Mbayo, a socio-cultural group founded by the likes of Prof. Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe and co was in the thick of things. “I was Secretary and worked closely with Soyinka and all other top members. I also remember Major Kaduna Nzeogu now. We didn’t know he had such plan. Soyinka was his usual revolutionary self. You see his hair? It’s still the same way and the energy to promote our culture was at fever pitch. Very unlike today when everything  is turning towards idiocy.

    According to Onajide, Ibadan was a quiet peaceful city back then, and a lot different from what we have now. “Many taxis and no buses; so when you come to Lagos back then and saw buses, you were just pleasantly surprised. Things were so peaceful and orderly that if you’re going out, all you had to do was lock the door and slip the key under your doormat. No one nursed any fear of people breaking into your apartment.

    “However, when politics became heated up and weti e set in with arson and murder becoming the order of the day, things became different. Weti e was the Yoruba expression for arson, whereby political opponents’ houses and property were doused with petrol and set on fire. That was between 1963 and 1965 and it I can tell you it was hell.” She said.

    One of the fallouts of that pandemonium, she recalled was when the then Premier of Western Nigeria, Chief S. L. Akintola launched a campaign for all non-Yoruba residents to be expunged from the Western region. “We were the kobokai people, another name for kobokobo or anyone who was from beyond Ore. But the good thing was that the citizens were so angry about how Akintola was going about the matter, even though it was beyond them to stop him.”

    As a broadcaster, how did she cope, considering that she still had to cover her beat?

    “Cope? You don’t cope with such violence. I was the reporter who was to go with Aguiyi Ironsi to the Forestry in Ibadan, during his visit to the Western region in 1966. At about 5.30 am, I received a phone-call in the newsroom from the governor, Col. Adekunle Fajuyi’s sister and I jokingly told her in Yoruba “Ah your boyfriends are not around o,” thinking she wanted to speak to some of her male friends in the office. But what she said next sent shocked me to the marrow.”

    “No ma” she said again in Yoruba. “Some people are here (apparently referring to soldiers who had invaded the government house) and they are beating brother (Col. Fajuyi).”

    She probably wanted whatever help we could offer, probably in the area of reporting or so. But it was a wasted report, as both Fajuyi and his guest; the Head of State Gen. Aguiyi Ironsi were eventually taken away and killed. Fajuyi was a gentleman to the core, and brave too. He refused to give up Ironsi and ended up being killed along with him. He is also one of the finest human beings I’ve seen in my life. But when I saw the way the Nigerian public bowed and literally celebrated their killers, I knew we’d lost.”

  • At 83: Onobrakpeya says

    At 83: Onobrakpeya says

    Renowned artist, art teacher and UNESCO Human Living Treasure winner, Bruce Onobrakpeya recently clocked 83. Gboyega Alaka caught up with him for a brief chat at a recent art exhibition held at the sprawling Greenhouse Empowerment Centre in Olambe, Ogun state.

    You look so alert and agile at 83; how have you managed it?

    I think I owe it all to God. It’s God’s design and destiny that we’re following. And every day I wake up, I thank him. Every step I take and everything I do is thanks-giving to God.

    You are a global artist of repute with great works as a printmaker, painter and sculptor. Which of these aspects are you still active in?

    I’m still in all of them, but specially, I’ve built a classroom for myself, which is the Agbarha Otor workshop. I’m still active there, teaching and also doing my own work and allowing the younger ones to inspire me in what I’m creating. So I’m learning from the younger ones, as well as learning from the environment and learning from everyone who can teach me.

    As an artist of teacher of over 50 years, how fulfilled are you?

    Very fulfilled. But one of the secrets that keep me going is the fact that I’m relating to young people. It makes me feel quite young.

    Let’s talk about your work at this exhibition?

    Well, I have these installations on display. It’s a tribute to the Chibok Girls and their plight. You can see the kidnappers hidden behind the leaves; the pillars in the installation represent the Chibock girls, you can see they are all behind the bamboos in the forest; the central piece shows denied or delayed laurels; don’t forget that the girls would have been inching nearer their goals of becoming great people like the women shown there- Dora Akunyili, Oby Ezekwesili, Deziani Allison Madueke and co; if they had not been kidnapped. So it is our prayer that they are rescued alive soon, so that they can attain the potentials that God has reserved for them.

    Do you think the present government is doing enough to secure their release?

    I think government works mainly underground. We cannot tell exactly how much effort they are putting in. All I can say is that God will give the government and other people working towards the girls’ release enough strength to accomplish. I have faith that God will release them to us alive.

    Would you say art is well appreciated in our society?

    Art is getting very well appreciated in the society. It wasn’t as appreciated as this when we started years ago, but all that is changing.

    And the people; are they willing to pay for it?

    What is important is not the payment for it, but the life that art helps the people to live. Art is something that enlightens you; that sets up your spirit; that records your history and gives you inspiration for life. That is what art is. And once we can attain that level of consciousness, then the money aspect becomes a little part of the whole show.

    You’re saying that it is more about fulfilment for the artist.

    Yes, fulfilment for the artist and fulfilment for the general populace. Art is something that elevates the people for whom the art is meant.

    Young artists of this generation seem to be more about the money….

    The thing is that as they grow and get attention, the need to make money or charge a lot of money for their work will become less.  As they grow older, the tendency would be for them to work hard for the true interest, rather than hope to always make millions from every creation.

    What’s the highest price you’ve sold a work for?

    Really, I would like to play down on the money aspect of my work, but to satisfy you, I think the highest a single work has fetched me is about 10 million naira.

    You look so strong at 83, yet there was so much uproar about becoming president at 73; what do you think of that argument?

    I actually think that was a fallacious argument. Even in the Far East, people don’t get near being heads of state until they are 70 and above. So a person who is 70, 75, even 80 is qualified to be head of state. At that stage, it’s the thought that come from them that is important. All other active things will be carried out by the people that work with them.

    Finally, are you afraid you may be nearing the end?

    It is my belief that man really does not die. We don’t know when we’re born and we don’t know when we will die; but the important thing for me is to live every day as if it is the last; and also live as if I will never die.

  • ‘My gay wedding memoir and close shave with lesbianism’

    ‘My gay wedding memoir and close shave with lesbianism’

    Bimbo Adetokunbo (not real name) relays her experience at an exotic gay wedding in Lagos. She also shares the stories of her close shave with lesbianism, the pressure, threats and attractions  with Gboyega Alaka and Omolewa Oshin.

    IT was an all-pink affair early March. All the girls were in pink bum shorts and rise and fall cropped top – that was the dress code. The atmosphere was surreal, with sensual lights, music, dance, rich perfume and sweat mingling. Wine and food was also in abundance; shawarma, asun, cake. Chicken barbecue… The celebration in the air was also unmistakable.

    At the centre of it all were Tope and Tola (not real names), two women who found love and comfort in each other’s arms and decided to quit the pretences, damn the consequences and get married. Although it is common knowledge that same sex relationship and marriage is outlawed and punishable with up to 14 years imprisonment in the country, this couple was beyond caring, as they revelled in the joy of their day, exchanging vows. Another woman, also a lesbian, served as officiating minister and blessed the union. They also exchanged wedding bands in the form of exquisite ear rings and thereafter went into a frenzy of kisses and endless cuddling.

    As if taking a cue, all the gay lovers in attendance also went into a frenzy of applause, cheers and kisses.

    The wedding took place at a popular nightclub on Victoria Island, Lagos, and the couple, who are obviously from very comfortable backgrounds, wowed all present by capping it up with a presentation of exotic cars to each other as wedding gifts. The party went on until early the next morning, when the couple drove away in each other’s arms to their hotel room at the prestigious Eko Hotel and Suites, and guests sauntered away in trickles after wearing themselves out in a most exhausting bout of fun.

    To tell the truth, it was probably the most exciting party I’ve been to in a long time. Even the nightclub staff and other people who had come on their own couldn’t help but join us, seeing the wild fun excitement in the air.

    Like in normal wedding, both couple considered themselves the luckiest people on earth, having found best friends in each other. Tope could not hide her feelings and actually confided in some us, who are very close to her that the day was her most memorable so far, because she was not only hooking her best friend, but also her confidant. They generally exuded that familiar joy found amongst normal wedding couples. In their joy, they urged all present to enjoy all the food and drinks.

    The party was organised by their gay friends, who felt compelled to host a wonderful bash for the ‘delightful couple’. Other gay lovers were also present in abundance, both the men and the lesbians.

    Tope is a final year accounting student of a frontline private university in Ogun State, while Tola is a final year student of a federal government institution in Lagos. Somehow, they both looked set for a fulfilled family life, except that, as an outsider who got invited plainly on the level of my closeness to them, I kept wondering how they hope to make a life, and more importantly, make babies.

    But from the look of things and the celebration on the night, that worry seemed not to be on their radar at all.

    The whole gay thing

    You may wonder  and rightly so too, why I felt so comfortable in the midst of gay people, when I’m not. Well, I’m not gay, but it has taken me a lot of determination and will-power to resist and weather the temptations they throw at me. I attend the same private university with Tope in Ogun State. Tope was my roommate in school in year one, and a very jolly one too  except for this gay thing. In fact, my five roommates were all lesbians, except for me. And it was not for lack of trying that they didn’t win me over. As a buxom lady, they all seem to have eyes for my body, and you could tell that they’d do anything to get me into their beds. They tried all tricks possible to lure me into lesbianism, promising me all the excitement possible and the fact that I only need to try it out to know why it is the fad today. But I stood my ground.

    My reason? I just couldn’t bring myself to doing it with them, because that’s just not who I am. Often, they’d grab me and steal touches at my sensitive parts, all in the name of playing with me. Sometimes, they’d rush into the bathroom with me and start fondling me, but usually I smile and laugh over it, because I understand their plight and because they were not getting to me.

    Besides, I’ve never had any feeling or affection for girls, and before you could really engage in lesbianism or lesbian sex with a fellow woman, you really must love the person. As I speak to you, the only woman I love is my grandmother, and of course falling in love with her in that skewed manner is not even in my wildest imagination, nor possible.

    Also, the biblical verse that says one of the greatest sin anyone could commit is having sexual relationship with same sex, kept ringing in my head, and strengthened my resolve not to be a part of it.

    But I maintained my relationship with them, because we were roommates anyway, and even if I moved away from that room, there was no guarantee that I would not meet more desperate ones where I was going.

    Same sex relationship here to stay

    To tell the truth, same sex has come to stay, even in this part of the world,  as they seem to be swelling in ranks by the day. Even back in my secondary school, lesbianism had been the in-thing amongst students in boarding house. Although I was an innocent little girl, I still suspected that what they were doing was wrong each time they were at it, and I somehow distanced myself from it. I was sexually harassed by seniors who wanted to initiate me, and some even tried to force me through threats. But I resisted. Even my school mother was a lesbian  don’t know if she still is.

    It wasn’t until I got into the university that I began to really understand what it was they were doing. Prior to that time, I only just felt it was not right and nauseating. Besides, I was sixteen and had become more perceptive. It had also reached an alarming rate and level, way beyond what I witnessed in secondary school.

    So as the only straight person in my room, I was the odd one out. They engaged in open cuddling, sex and all, without giving any recourse to me. I think they somehow felt comfortable with me, even though I refused to be drawn into their ‘sexcapades.’

    They do things together, eat together, reff together (reff is a slang for indulging in Refnol drug or Rohypnol), which sort of gets them high. I think it helps them get maximum satisfaction in their escapades.

    As we became closer and they got more comfortable with me, I summoned the courage to ask them what they derive from lesbianism and why they couldn’t just conform to the natural order of heterosexuality.

    One of them, Sylvia, told me that she got inducted by her aunt (her mum’s sister), who used to abuse her, from when she was a toddler, right through to her teenage years, until she began to enjoy it and suddenly feels nothing for male overtures. Now, she’s hooked and actually believes it is heavenly and most satisfying.

    Another, Vivian, said she was raped by her male cousin early in her teenage years and therefore developed hatred and aversion towards men. Because that rape experience was painful, she came to believe that sex with men is painful, while it is gentle and sensual with fellow women.

    For Temi (short for Temitope), she got into it as a result of peer pressure. She was introduced to lesbianism back in secondary school, and has found it pleasurable ever since. The fact that lesbians are not in short supply in the university also further entrenched her into it. Now, only god can extricate her from it.

    And my fourth roommate, the newly ‘married’ Tope, said she had always been caged at home and never allowed to go out and have a taste of the world, except when going out with either or both her parents. So her first full independent outing was to the university, where unfortunately, she found herself in the midst of lesbians, who wasted no time in wooing her over.

    Five years down the line, she has got so deep into lesbianism and decided it was the only way for her. Following her marriage to Tola, it is left to be seen whether she can ever get out of this ‘quagmire’. Time will tell.

    My close shave

    To tell the truth, they have never stopped making passes at me. I also find that there are more lesbians that many of us who consider it appalling and sinful may be able to imagine. Usually they approach me, ogling all over me and telling they like me as a total package.

     I have also been tempted more than once. You know how it is when your tempters never stop.

    On one such occasion, my boyfriend just left me and I was suffering a heartbreak. They saw that I was sad and brooding and tried to console me in their own way. They couldn’t understand why I wanted to die over a guy, whom they consider a mere wood, and told me as much. They also seized that opportunity to get closer to me and further give their life-long ambition a try. To tell the truth, I almost began to respond, but held back at the last minute.

    Another close shave for me was more recently, when I met a woman on Lagos mainland who, asked me out. She wanted me to be her girlfriend. Because I had heard that she was an incorrigible lesbian, who had even initiated her daughters, I vehemently resisted her offer of friendship, even when she promised to regularly give me N250,000 as pocket money whenever I am going back to school.

    When my friends heard the story, they all told me off and thoroughly insulted me; but I stood my ground. Later they begged me to introduce them to her, which I did. It’s their business if they want to mess around.

    But not long after, I found myself in a dire financial situation and thought of her. I actually went to look for her, hoping secretly that she would show interest in me again, but she didn’t. I later learnt that she has found herself another lover.

    The evil money can do, you may say, but thank God she found herself another lover.

    Money, a big incentive

    Aside my own story of how money almost swayed my resolve, I can tell you authoritatively that most converts to lesbianism are almost always swayed by the money incentive their ‘toasters’ dangle before them.

    Usually, the richer girls, who are already deep into it woo innocent girls by toasting them like a man would a woman, and then they proceed to make irresistible promises once they notice that you’re giving them a listening ear, but not sure of yourself. How many indigent girls would be able to say ‘no’ to regular pocket money, good life, the pleasure of sex and the safety of pregnancy? Don’t forget, you can never get pregnant. So at home, you’re still the little homely mummy’s girl. Most times, when your partner even comes visiting at home, when you’re on holidays, your parents allow her into your room, and leave you both to ‘enjoy some privacy’.

    Sometimes they even permit the girls to go spend days with each other, not knowing that they are lovers. So often, the girls get lured by money. It is a really big attraction. And once you’re hooked, you’re hooked.

    Men, as logs

    I also hear them say that sex with fellow female is more exciting and fulfilling, in the sense that they open even their hearts to each other. So it goes beyond mere sexual intimacy. They complain that men are like logs of wood, while it is more sensual with fellow women. They claim that only a woman can understand a female body; where to touch to get maximum pleasure and all that; whereas men only come with their usual mad rush and fizzle out in two minutes.

    To tell the truth, the way they talk about it is always very tempting.

    Now, it does not matter whether the government frowns at gay relationship or that there is a law stipulating long prison sentences, these people seek themselves out and have great fun.  To have sex, they now use sex toys. They also do mouth job until they reach orgasm and climax.

    Today, technology has made things easier. There is a group called Lesbian-gay bisexual transgender, through which they fight for their rights in public. They connect through this group. They also connect online through BBM, facebook, and at strippers’ clubs. And when they connect, they make friends and then subsequently engage in sex.

    Usually it starts by them getting familiar; and then they come with the line, ”Are you into girls?”

    So you see, they seek each other out and do their thing. They also fight for each other and even go to stations to bail themselves, when they run into trouble.

    Like in the case of Tope and Tola, it sometimes results in marriage, or they may end up living as live-in lovers for as long as they can. As we speak, I can tell you that another wedding is in the offing.

    Are parents aware?

    Maybe, maybe not. How do you want to begin to suspect your daughter or sister with her female friend? It is hard, unless of course you got wind of the fact that her new friend is a lesbian, or you are also an enlightened parent and know the signs.

    However, some parents are fully aware and condone it, since they are also into it or have been into it before. Some parents even consider it harmless. The lady I said proposed to me and promised me huge money has two teenage daughters, whom she has introduced to lesbianism already. She practically groomed them for lesbianism by instilling hatred for men in them.

    Back to Tope and Tola

    Tope met Tola through her friend, also a lesbian. She saw her picture, liked it, begged to be connected, and then it took off from there. Gradually they became inseparable and became engaged. They courted for four years and then announced that they were getting married. Of course they could not announce it openly, since it is against the law, but they passed the information through their friends and clique and it went round.

    They live together now in the exclusive Banana Island Estate. Like I told you, they are daughters of powerful people and they can afford all the luxuries of life.

  • The Buhari change revolution

    The Buhari change revolution

    A coalition of activists, led by Femi Falana (SAN), at Dr. Musa Babayo’s book presentation in Abuja, deliberated on the government’s anti-corruption crusade, economic and foreign policies and the way forward. Gboyega Alaka reports.

    Although President Muhammadu Buhari has embarked on a global pilgrimage to right the wrongs and atrocities committed by successive regimes and improve the nation’s image in the comity of nations, his mission and intentions, however noble, may remain a Sisyphean exercise, if priority is not given to the fight against corruption, economic diplomacy and foreign policy.

    This was made known at the presentation of the book: “Economic Diplomacy and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy,” written by Dr. Musa Babayo, immediate past chairman, Board of Tertiary Education Trust Fund. Legal practitioner, Femi Falana (SAN), and a coalition of activists seized the opportunity of the occasion to provoke a discussion on why the Buhari administration should beam its searchlight on reviving the country’s foreign policy and the anti-graft crusade.

    In a lead paper, titled: “The right to accountable government in Nigeria,” Falana was not happy that what should be a national commonwealth has been hijacked and placed under the control of a few hands. This, he said, runs contrary to nationalism and principles behind demands for independence. Nigeria has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights and is therefore under a duty to ensure the exercise of the right to development and respect the economic, social and cultural rights of the people, with due regard to their freedom and identity and in the equal enjoyment of the common heritage of mankind.

    Falana is not comfortable with the politicisation of government’s anti-corruption crusade; especially with allegations of vendetta being read into the Buhari government’s actions. He said, “Since the allegations of bias or persecution being levelled against the EFCC are deliberately designed to discredit the renewed fight against corruption and shield looters from prosecution, it is high time that the attention of Nigerians was drawn to the fact that corruption is fighting back.”

    He noted that majority of the petitions that formed the basis of the ongoing investigation by the EFCC were submitted before the emergence of the Buhari administration.

    On his part, Babayo said Buhari’s anti-corruption drive should be pursued with all amount of vigour and radicalism, considering that over $157 billion has been lost by Nigeria, according to a Global Financial Integrity report, to illicit financial flows between 2003 and 2012. He said this is where the nation’s foreign policy formulators should intervene.

    Babayo also urged President Muhammadu Buhari to “turn his attention to the activities of multinational corporations in Nigeria, with a view to repatriating the funds stolen from Nigeria and putting a stop to further bleeding of the nation’s economy.”  He drew a parallel between the economic policies of Buhari as a military Head of State and now as a civilian president and wondered if there were lessons from his economic policies then that could be useful in the current administration.

    A former Minister of Foreign Affairs and founder of Savannah Centre, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, on his part, expressed concern about the fact that “Africa has the highest amount of foreign investments abroad.” He wondered how Nigeria and indeed Africa can be great, if the people do not invest at home. He said decades of talks on diversification of the economy from a mono-economy should now be translated into concrete actions, with all major stakeholders coming together to foster better economic management.

    Gambari, who was former head of United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur, said government must tackle headlong the current socio-economic challenges, such as high poverty level, huge youth unemployment and perennial disconnect between the government and the citizens. He advocated “a new permanent inter-ministerial council which would provide an effective link between our general foreign policy endeavours with external trade and international economic interest.”

    His views were supported by a former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Alhaji Yayale Ahmed, who bemoaned the deplorable state of most Nigerian foreign missions saying, “Almost half of our missions overseas are in deplorable condition.”

    Ahmed therefore emphasised the need for the present government to critically review the number of Nigerian embassies abroad. The ex-SGF said, “We have to get the management of our resources right in this country. When we can predict that work on the second Onitsha Bridge will start and be completed in a certain time, then we would have improved.”

    He denounced a situation where Nigerian politicians make every development issue political, wondering how it is that “At the time of campaign, we will go and say Onitsha Bridge will be completed,” only to use the same bridge to campaign at the next election? He therefore clamoured for proper national planning, as was being attempted by the late Yar’ Adua administration.

    President of Public Interest Lawyers League, Mr. Abdul Mahmud, gave a legal insight into Nigeria’s foreign policy, when he argued that for almost a decade and half, Nigeria’s foreign policy has retrogressed almost to a point that her claim of Africa as its centre-piece is today a non-recognisable relic of the foreign policy museum.

    He argued that “In the years following Nigeria’s glorious contributions to the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles on the continent, there has not been any conscious attempt at reinvigorating her foreign policy to meet contemporary realities, globalisation, high modernity and the plurality of global politics.”

    But if others were interested in anti-graft crusade and foreign policy, the Executive Director, Human Rights Monitor, Festus Okoye, wants Buhari to implement the report of the 2014 national conference. He said since the last all Nigerian conference on foreign policy, nothing has been said about it again and posited that “You cannot embark on good and effective foreign policy if everything takes us by surprise.”

  • At the mercy of new wave Lagos traffic robbers

    At the mercy of new wave Lagos traffic robbers

    It seems the bad old days are back on Lagos roads, as the city recently applauded for its relative safety from crimes, seems to be receding fast. Gboyega Alaka reports.

    Some fifteen odd years ago, Tunji Bello, the current Secretary to the Lagos State Government, had a most scary experience in the perennial Lagos traffic. He was on his way to work at the Thisday Newspaper office in Apapa, where he was a member of the editorial Board, when a certain young man, loitering in the traffic popped out a gun and ordered his driver to wind down in an obvious robbery attempt. But rather than comply, stories had it that his driver decided to play a movie hero, and instead stepped on the acceleration pedal and tried to maneuver his way through the thick traffic. Seeing that it was an effort in futility and one that might cost them their lives, Bello ordered his driver to stop and they promptly complied with the gunman’s request.

    The gunman made away with cash, a heavy suitcase of papers and valuables, but at least the now high-profile public officer had his life intact and is forging on.

    In another horrifying case, Toyosi Johnson, then a reporter with a leading glossy lifestyle magazine was driving back home on the Lagos Third Mainland Bridge, when she was attacked a gun-toting robber. She had just learnt to drive, having only recently bought her Opel car and couldn’t have attempted any stunt, as the gruff-looking guy pretending to be selling in the long traffic, popped a short pistol at her. Scared stiff, she handed over her bag, her phones and virtually every valuable object around her. Not satisfied, her assailant ordered her to pull up her blouse, so he could see her plum laps and undies, to which Toyosi immediately complied. One could only imagine how far the robber would have gone if it wasn’t for broad daylight and the moving traffic. The above incident took place about ten years ago.

    At the old Oshodi end of Lagos, before the administration of former Governor Babatunde Fashola liberated the area and made a thoroughfare out of its old gridlock, stories abound of broad daylight and early evening robberies. In fact, it became foolhardy for any Lagosian with his senses intact to attempt driving through the Oshodi-Isale end of the Agege-Motor Road in the early evening, much less in the late evening, because often, they get chastised and blamed, rather than pitied for any misfortune that befell them. A passenger in a public bus once narrated a story of how he was robbed in traffic, right under the Oshodi flyover and how when he finally got to a police point further down the road and complained, hoping for some action or pacification, only to hear the officers on duty telling him “Oga, why you self go pass Oshodi for night?”

    Deadly dangerous

    If the victims in the above instances were lucky, a middle-aged woman, Clementina Saduwa, who was a manager at one of the Ericson Lagos offices, was not so lucky a few years back. Her assailants, who had laid siege at the gallop spot right at the Leventis end of the Eko Bridge around 8pm in February 2007, pounced on her and gruesomely shot her dead, in what many initially thought was a case of paid assassination. A member of the gang of five that attacked her car, wasted no time in shooting Saduwa dead, as she struggled to explain that she had no money on her, while her driver escaped narrowly. The story heard it that the robbers had laid in wait at the end of the bridge, knowing fully well that vehicles inevitably slowed down at that spot.

    Lagosians would however learn four months later, when the police cracked the gang, that it was indeed a case of traffic robbery and not assassination.

    Saduwa’s case was highly publicised because the media latched onto it, but there are several others that never made media headlines, but which were equally gruesome. Some have escaped with bullet wounds, while those who have been fortunate narrowly escaped the criminals’ bullets, but not without serious emotional trauma.

    That incident also caused the Lagos State government to smoothen out the bump on that end of the bridge and ensure smoother and faster drive through the hitherto dangerous spot for motorists.

    The safe era

    Aside cases of robberies in traffic, Lagos had always lived with its share of outright armed robberies and car-snatching at gunpoint on highways; but these dropped significantly at the onset of Governor Babatunde Fashola’s regime in the state and especially during the tenure of the erstwhile Inspector-General of Police, MD Abubakar, then Commissioner of Police in the state. Many would recall also that probably due to the state government’s doubled effort on security, made largely possible by the Lagos Security Trust Fund, the police were duly equipped and motivated, such that even visitors testified to the strategic positioning of the police at suspicious locations in the state, leading to a relative peace, hitherto alien to the commercial city.

    Night life gradually returned and businessmen could afford to stay out late at night, holding business meetings and dinners and confident that they would still get home in peace.

    Olaseni Ayinde, a Lagos Businessman who relocated from the UK to Lagos around 2010 recalls that he was surprised to see that his business partners confidently stayed out late into the night, whenever business so required, and not a single case of violence or robbery was recorded.

    The state also received positive reviews on safety. According to a report released by travelstartblog, an online tourist sight in February 2014, Lagos remained the safest city in Nigeria in recent memory, coming first on a list of top 10 Safest Nigerian cities. And that was despite its over 20 million population and dense business concentration.

    According to the site, “The state government spends huge sum on its security, providing well-equipped response and different security units around the city. Thousands of tourists and visitors visit the city every year and they appear to be at ease  anytime they are around. It has low crime rate, no religious crisis, wonderful parks, environmental supporters and friendly people.”

    The city fondly dubbed ‘city of aquatic splendour’ by its inhabitants and visitors, also made it on the site’s list of Top 15 Safest cities on the African continent, coming in on a comfortable tenth position.

    Bankole Johnson, who used to work on Lagos Island, put that achievement at the feet of a well-funded, well-motivated and organized police command. He recalled how a few years ago, armed policemen used to be stationed on the Iyana-oworo exit of the 3rd Mainland Bridge during the evening rush hours, right into the night. He said “That gave road users a sense of safety and immediately eliminated all cases of traffic robbery, which that part of the city had become notorious for. I do not know if that pattern still plays out as we speak, because I no longer work on the Island, but I can tell you that it is just what we need in Lagos, and it will be nice if the police can replicate that strategy in other crime hot-spots.”

    It was therefore no surprise that Lagos continued to attract investments from foreign interests despite the unsavoury  reputation of insecurity been fostered on Nigeria as a whole by the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northern part of the country, kidnappers in the Niger-Delta Region and numerous ethnic clashes in the North-Central and other parts of the country.

    Even Nigerians from other troubled parts of the country trouped into the city in droves, in search of prosperity and peace of mind.

    Turn of event

    Unfortunately this situation seems to be changing for the negative, much to the chagrin of the state’s citizenry and its government that has invested so much towards its low crime rate and safety.

    More recently, reports of gun-point robberies and phones and other valuables-snatching incidents in traffic have been on the rise in the city, bringing back, as it were, a preferably forgotten past. Hardly does a day go by these days without one case of robbery occurring in one heavy traffic spots of the state or more, or all. Some of the emerging crime hot-spots according to our investigations include Oshodi-oke, Oshodi-isale, Mile-2 Oke, Mile-2-Isale, the Badagry Expressway currently under construction, right through maza-maza, through to the Agboju-Amuwo end, the Ketu-Mile 12 traffic, the Olopomeji entrance to the 3rd Mainland Bridge, and the Apongbon end of the Eko Bridge.

    The Apogbon end of the Eko Bridge seems to have become the hottest spot for crime in the city, with horrifying stories emerging on a daily basis. Just last Wednesday, a Lagos motorist narrated on a popular blogsite the unfortunate story of how his car was brazenly attacked and its occupants that included himself and his sister were robbed just about 9pm.

    Wrote the victim: “This evening, around 9pm, myself and my sister were robbed on Apongbon Bridge in traffic. The robbers didn’t even give us a chance to wind down the mirrors. They just broke the glass with all of us in it and dragged out our bags.

    “It’s unfortunate that in a country like this, with all the news every day from a common spot that there is robbery ever day, nothing has been done about it. Hopefully, one day, something would be done to protect our lives n property.”

    During the past week, a popular television channel did a special news package on the rising incidents of brazen robberies on the Badagry Expressway, complete with interviews. The motorists and commuters raised their voices against what they say has become a daily occurrence, with nearly everyone falling victim at one time or the other. They therefore called on the Lagos State government to speed up the ongoing reconstruction, while also appealing to the police and other security officers to live up to their responsibility and protect Nigerians on the road.

    A young man, Uche, who spoke to this reporter, said the situation has become such that everyone going down the other end of Lagos between Mazamaza, Agboju and Iyana-Iba would prefer to cross over before dusk. “We always want to close early from our shop before it gets dark, because these boys become more deadly at night, and there are hardly any police or soldier around to fend them off.”

    He called on the government to pay more attention to the safety of the people on that axis by deploring police and even soldiers to the road, saying ‘It is not only Boko haram that needs government’s attention. Even dangerous criminals like the ones we’re talking about need to be attended to.”

    At Mile 2 Oke, a newspaper vendor told this reporter how the area, right down to Alaba Express have become a regular spot for traffic robberies. He said this normally takes place at the early hours of the morning, when Lagosians are struggling to beat the nasty traffic on that axis of the road to get to work, or in the late evenings, when it has become dark. He said he knows this because “Usually in the morning, we see people who had been robbed either in the night or ealier in the morning, coming to look around to see if they could recover their vital documents that might have been dumped by the roadside after the robbers would have helped themselves to the cash and other things like phones and jewelries, which they could turn to cash.”

    According to him, the tanker concentration on the road, which has seemingly locked down the place in traffic is affecting road users and making virtually everybody vulnerable to robbery. And to make matters worse, he laments the fact that the police are hardly around to arrest the situation, wondering what it would cost the police to station its personnel on such dangerous spots.

    His story was corroborated by a Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) staff, who said what the guys do is attack a car, force the victims to wind down, rob them of their valuables and cross to the other side of the express. “Usually,” he says “they are so fast that within two minutes, they’re gone.”

    He also says “They usually scare the victims stiff (probably with a gun or knife) such that we only hear of the robberies when the assailants have crossed to the other side and gone.”

    Curiously, a banana hawker on the other (Orile) side of the bridge however said he could not remember any case of robbery in recent time. Pointing to an empty police shed by a triangular spot, as one ascends the bridge, he said robberies no longer happen on that side of the bridge, since the police started posting officers to the spot.

    3rd Mainland, Safe as Aso Rock

    A visit to the Iyana-oworo end of the 3rd Mainland Bridge however revealed an impressive scenario that keeps one wondering why the same police cannot adopt the same strategy to police the other parts of the city. A LASTMA official stationed at the Iyana-Oworo Bus stop said there are no incidents of robberies on that end of the bridge. He actually said “It is near impossible for robberies to happen here, because as soon as it is early evening around 4-5pm, you see fully armed eagle-eyed Rapid Response Police team taking positions on the bridge. Usually, you see one at every 100-metre radius, as you approach the end of the bridge and I tell you, it will be suicidal for anyone to try anything funny under that situation.”

    He said if in truth traffic robberies is on the rise in the city, it has to be in other areas and said “probably the guys who used to operate here relocated.”

    A groundnut seller also corroborated his story. Although, he says he does not hawk on the bridge, he said he hasn’t heard of any case of robbery on that bridge in recent time.

    Another gentleman, an Ice cream vendor however said the only robberies that occur now are pick-pockets, who usually operate in the BRT buses.

    Another LASTMA officer, still at Iyana-oworo bus stop however said the only cases of robberies that occur in the area are on the other side of the highway, near the Olopomeji axis, as motorists ascend the 3rd Mainland Bridge in the early morning hours. He said this is usually perpetrated by hoodlums who take advantage of the fact that there are no policemen on the road in those early hours to rob motorists of their money and other valuables. He pointed accusing fingers at neighbourhoods like Oworo, Bariga and Gbagada as the hideouts of the hoodlums and implored the police to extend their operations to those hours.

    One respondent, John Babatunde, who said he had been a victim of traffic robbery once, said the first thing the government and police need to do is ban hawking and any kind of loitering in the middle of traffic on highways outrightly. He said that stemmed from his own experience. “I was driving along Pako bus stop on Okota Road, a few years back, when someone tapped my car on the drivers’ side. As I turned to take a look at what the matter was, another guy, whom I had noticed earlier but didn’t pay any serious attention to, quickly reached for my phone and made away with it.” He said this would never have happened if the government totally outlaws loitering and hawking in traffic and station policemen to enforce the law.

    He also spoke of a major robbery operation in which a top business executive was disposed of his posh Nissan luxury car just about 8.30pm, almost at the same spot around Pako Bus stop, Okota , as one prepares to link up with the Oke-Afa Road, leading to Ikotun. He however said this took place about five years ago. He said he also learnt that the police retrieved the car the same evening, as the robbers made to take it through Badagry across the border.

    Police PRO speaks

    Following the avalanche of stories of robberies, it became necessary to seek the opinion the Police. Are they aware of the sudden rise in traffic robberies in the state? What exactly are they doing; or is it a case of shortage of personnel or equipment? The Nation caught up with the Lagos Police Public Relations Officer, Kenneth Nwosu, who confessed that the police is aware and “concerned about a few incidents of a robberies along the traffic gridlock places including Apongbon.  Because of that, we have increased the security in those places, Apongbon in particular. If you drive pass those areas recently, you will notice increased number of policemen stationed on the road.”

    He said “The idea is to ensure that the area is properly dominated, so that those hoodlums will not have a field day. This strategy is not only restricted to Apongbon, but several other areas identified as crime hot-spots like Ikorodu, Mile-2 axis and co. You would have noticed our policemen on snap checks doing stop and search as they patrol in motorcycles and vehicles.”

    Prodded further on what exactly the police are doing, considering that cases continue to emerge, the Police spokesman said “We will not tell you the strategies we have adopted, but I can tell you that all those areas are under serious watch.”

    On his advice to Lagosians, he said “Moving forward, we want to assure Lagosians that we have enough policemen on ground, we have our strategies, and we have enough logistics on ground to ensure that they remain safe; but again, we want to advice that anybody who falls victim should please come forward. We need the constant reporting, because the idea is that when we get to know that robberies are happening in certain areas, we move in and map out strategies on how to tackle the area. But what we have noticed is that in such cases, when they attack them, people don’t come forward to make a report. Instead, they complain to you journalists.”

    He said although the police don’t have any problem with people reporting to journalists, but that doesn’t solve the problem. It is by reporting to us instantly that we can recover the things that have been stolen. Sometimes last year, there was an incident like that along Mile 2 axis; we received a call and went into action. Some two hours later, we caught the hoodlums and recovered a pistol from them. The same thing happened in Oshodi area and we moved in immediately. The hoodlums abandoned their loots and ran away; and when the victims came to the headquarters, their belongings were handed over to them. That is the importance of reporting; but when they go unreported, the police are not magicians to know what has happened. So as part of your own responsibilities as journalists, please educated them while writing, to always report to the police when these things happen and as soon as they happen. God willing we will keep dominating our areas for the safety of Lagos and Lagosians.”

    Regarding what the police is doing about hawkers and people constantly roaming in traffic, Mr Nwosu said “The law on environmental is on now; they are mopping all the street of hawkers. That one is ongoing; it is a comprehensive strategy to rid the state of all these menace.”

  • LAGOS BOAT ACCIDENT: One mishap too many

    LAGOS BOAT ACCIDENT: One mishap too many

    Following the recent Lagos boat accident that claimed the lives of six school children, Gboyega Alaka, who went on a fact-finding mission to the jetties, sought explanations and solutions.

    Last year, the Managing Director of Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), Olayinka Marinho, announced that an estimated three million commuters would be transported monthly through the waterways. This, he said, would bring the annual total to 36 million. It would also be an increase from the previously established figure of 2 million per month. He said the figures have been constantly rising, as many more Lagosians were discovering the quickness, cheapness and safety of water transportation, and promised that the government would continually invest in it to decongest the roads of heavy traffic.

    He said the government would continually push out more high capacity ferries to enhance water transportation, even as he acknowledged that over 200 vessels, operated by about 50 operators were already in the business and helping to bring to reality the state government’s plan.

    He also said that the Lagos State Waterways Authority (LASWA), which he heads, was stepping up its efforts to ensure safety, by enforcing the use of life jackets before any passenger embarks on a voyage.

    Many have however queried the purported safeness of the system, citing what they term “regular boat mishaps” in the state waterways.”

    One Mishap too many

    Last week, the nation again woke up to news of another boat mishap. This time, 6 of the 14 school children on board lost their lives, when a boat said to be driven by an illegal oil bunkerer rammed into their boat, as they negotiated their way to school. The hapless kids were said to have been coming from Irewe Village on the other side of the Ojo waterway and heading for Imude, where their school is located, when the oil thief, that was being chased by a marine police boat, collided with their boat.

    Different accounts of events leading to the accident have however been put forward. While some say the boat operator probably looked back one split moment, as his pursuers gave him a hot chase; another version says, he had ear speakers in both ears, which prevented him from hearing the kids yelling for notice that last moment.

    A Lagos State Waterways Authority, LASWA official stationed along the area, however tend to agree with the earlier speculation, arguing that it was far into the morning and that the only way he could have missed seeing the kids, was if he was looking back at his pursuers. He argued that ear-pieces don’t cover the eyes and that he would still have seen the children’s boat and averted the collision, as the waterways are always very broad.

    Naturally, this last incident has attracted a lot of outrage, with many wondering if indeed the Nigerian and more especially, Lagos waterways are really safe, as is been touted by government officials. The incident was all the more painful considering that the teenagers who died, could all have survived if it was just a case of the boat sinking or capsizing, as nearly all of them were said to be expert swimmers.

    However, in a swift reaction, Mr Marinho said at a press conference last week that the accused boat operator has been arrested and detained at the Railway Police Station, even as he added that the children were not wearing life jackets despite the fact that the state government had distributed 3,500 life jackets to boat operators.

    But contrary to general opinion, Marinho said the motorised boat that rammed into the children’s boat actually developed a fault midway in the waters and the operator was trying to fix it, while in motion, when the accident happened.

    He said LASWA operations in this area is unfortunately hampered by shortage of manpower, even as he promised that the government would now pay more attention to them.

    Marinho says the state, as part of its corporate social responsibility, distributed over 3,500 life jackets to riverine communities from Badagry to Epe, stressing that 360 jackets were distributed to the Ojo communities where this accident happened, wondering why people still fail to comply with the simple rule of wearing a jacket before getting on boats.

    He admitted that most of the canoes plying the waterways in the riverine communities are not captured in the government’s operations in the state, which informed the reason some of the students were not wearing life jackets.

    He however announced that 1,800 children’s life jackets will be made available to the communities in the coming days, while another 2,400 would be distributed to boat operators for general use. To ensure adequate planning, he said a mini-census will soon be conducted amongst the communities to provide ready-made statistics.

    The senator representing the constituency, Senator Solomon Adeola, has also promised five hundred life jackets, to be distributed at jetties along riverine areas of the constituency.

    While commiserating with parents and relatives of the victims, the senator said “While the unforeseen can sometimes occur in accidents like this, it is our duty to ensure that losses and fatalities are minimised to the barest minimum through precautionary and safety measures that are strictly enforced by regulatory authorities. But this can only take place when safety gadgets like life jackets and helmets are available for people to use and their use strictly enforced.”

    Boat operators speak

    Samuel is a young boat operator with base at a privately-run jetty near the government’s jetty at Ojo. On this occasion, he was busy handing out life-jackets to passengers, as they got on board his boat. Like in the road commuter buses, one didn’t need to ask where he was headed, as he intermittently shouted out ‘Mile-2, Tin-Can/Coconut.’

    He said boats from the jetty go to different destinations, ranging from Irewe and other villages on the other end of the waters, to Mile-2, Tin-Can/Coconut, Liverpool and even CMS. He says the patronage has been steadily on the rise, owing to the Lagos-Badagry Expressway under reconstruction by the Lagos State Government, and that the quest of people for a quicker option to their destinations, is largely responsible for this.

    Citing the fact that commuters spend as much as three to four hours in traffic between Iyana-Iba (Ojo) and Mile-2 or even CMS, journeys that shouldn’t ordinarily take more than 30 to 45 minutes, he said they have recently begun to embrace the only other option, which is the water-way. He said the fact that boats hardly take more than 30 minutes or thereabout, with no possibility of hold ups, has also made it more attractive.

    Samuel said the fear of water accident or drowning is just what it is, fear; arguing that such accidents rarely happen. “Were it not that the boat (that collided with the children’s boat last week) was being chased, like we’ve heard, and the boat driver was not concentrating on his front view, such collisions rarely happen on our waters. All through last year for instance, we only had two boat accidents, out of thousands of shuttles. Of those two, only one recorded a casualty of one person, a woman, out of ten passengers. I know because I was part of the rescue team. On the other occasion, they all survived, because they were all wearing life-jackets. Now compare that with road transport.”

    Explaining further, he said “I think people should understand that this (last week’s incident) was an accident, just like we have it on the roads, and no-one knows when they would happen. And I think that with the precaution of wearing life jackets, lives may not be lost, even when they occur once in a while.”

    He explained that the operators at his Ojo jetty have adopted the life jacket as the only other compulsory requirement, aside the fare, for any passenger to get in the boats. Besides, he said the LASWA officials are always on hand during the rush hours, making sure that operators comply with the maximum ten-passenger per boat, and making sure everyone properly wears their life-jackets before getting on board.

    The three Musketeers

    Abdul Ganiyu, Toyin and Samuel are three other boat operators at the Ojo jetty who eagerly warmed up to this reporter on this fact-finding mission. They no doubt see this interaction as an opportunity to share the problems of their industry, and eagerly answered this reporter’s questions.

    First, they debunked any thought that passengers still get on board boats without life jackets. “The LASWA officials regulate our business and ensure that we all comply with the life-jacket and ten passengers per boat criteria. During heavy morning traffic, you will always find them here with us, and we are now so used to it that even when they are not around, like now, we still comply. We are never happy when an accident occurs or when news goes round that people have drowned boarding our boats. It affects our business negatively and this is our only means of livelihood. They also inspect the boats to ensure that they are in good condition.” The trio literally echoed, with one filling in the facts, where the other has left something out.

    Regarding safety, Samuel says government should pay attention to sanitation on our waterways, arguing that a lot of people have made it a habit to dump sacks of refuse in the lagoon, including used tyres. “This is more rampant along the waterways in Ajegunle, Apapa areas, where the population is huge and people think the river would just help them sweep the refuse away. But what they forget is that this sacks stay just below the water surface, where they’re not visible to boat operators, but not so deep that boat engines cannot be entangled in them. Often, this can destroy the gearbox, but atimes, the suddenness can cause a boat to capsize. Imagine a boat running into a heavy sack of refuse or tyre suddenly at night!”

    Samuel, who leaves in JMJ on Ajegunle water-side therefore wants the government to create a marine wing of the Lagos State Waste Management Authority, LAWMA, to regularly clear the waterways of refuse and possibly prosecute people and communities, where this is prevalent.

    The three friends also want the government to dredge some parts of the waters, and mark them, so that boat operators would be aware of the safer routes to ply.

    Said Samuel, “You may not know, but there are some parts of the river, far away from the shore that are almost as high as the grounds, and if you don’t already know these places by experience, you just could always hit hard soil and find yourself in a terrible situation.

    How often do accidents occur?

    Asked how often accidents occur on the river, Abdul Ganiyu said “That is rare and far between. In fact, if not that once in a while, these errors just beat all human efforts, I would have told you that water transport is accident-proof. Besides LASWA is leaving no room for any carelessness on the part of the operators as they always insist on strict compliance with rules and regulations, and are quick to sanction us. The unfortunate thing is that because accidents on waters are rare, when they happen, the news always spread wide. The fact that the recent one also involved children has further created a lot of emotions around it.”

    Water commuters speak

    Just as this conversation was coming to an end, a boat arrived from Irede, another village on the other side of the river. As already hinted, all the passengers had a life jacket on and their number did not exceed the maximum ten. Amongst them was Corporal Francis of the Police Headquarters, Ikeja. He says he plies the route everyday to work, since he would only have to take one more bus to get to Ikeja from Iyana-Iba garage, the main terminus in Ojo town.

    He testified to the safeness of the system, saying “I can tell you categorically that these boats hardly have accidents. In fact, I can tell you that boat transport is the safest of all the means of transport.”

    Curiously, Francis wasn’t aware that there had been a boat accident in the area recently, although he said that may be because he had only returned from a trip to Abakaliki a day before this conversation.

    Another passenger, Rafatu, a fish dealer, said the incident of the recent boat accident is unfortunate, but said such is rare. “Boats don’t capsize here. In fact, except one gets really careless, we don’t ever have accidents here. It is because water accidents are rare that so much noise is made about it. Can you count how many road accidents have occurred, since that boat accident last week?

    When reminded that the state can attain a zero level, Rafatu shook her head in negation and said “We are not God, and whoever is destined to die by drowning will never die on the road. That is the way I see it. But as for safety efforts, we are all trying, same for the LASWA officials who accept no excuse, when it comes to wearing life jackets.

    LASWA official speaks

    One of the LASWA officials on duty at the Lagos State government-owned Ojo Jetty, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a reoccurrence of such accident can only be avoided if patrol and regulatory efforts are stepped up by both the LASWA officials and the marine police. He however says a lot still needs to be done by the commuters in term of compliance with basic safety rules.

    “We at the jetty make sure all passengers wear the jackets properly, but you find that the boat would hardly have gone a few metres away from the jetty, when some passengers would be yanking them off – pretty much like the seat belt deception that happens in bus transport. You even find some female passengers, who willingly disobey the instruction, citing excuses that they want to breast-feed their babies.”

    On issues of fake jackets, which many feel may also jeopardize their hardwork, this LASWA official says “That may not be true. I am yet to see a fake jacket. I think people would always make wild claims of sort, when unfortunate events like this happen, all in a bid to be relevant. All I know is that if a passenger wears the jackets properly, there is no way they will go down, if a boat capsizes, except of course, if they panic and pass out.”

    The only other possibility of fatality with the life jackets on, he said, is “if the boat capsizes with the passengers trapped under. This is because the boat will pin them under, and that is why we always insist that a boat operator must be a very good and strong swimmer, so that in such cases, they would go under and free the passengers.”

    On natives of the riverine villages, who still sail with manual wooden boats and who hardly comply with the life jacket because of their dexterity as swimmers, he said, “That will only happen if there are no LASWA officials there.”

    Like other respondents spoken to, this LASWA official also thinks that it is impossible to achieve zero level of marine accidents year in year out, arguing that the statistics at the moment is not really bad. “We will continue to step up our game, with government assistance, but you have to realize that even in Europe, where they are far more safety conscious and sophisticated, we still have them recording marine accidents, many of them far worse that what we have ever witnessed here.”

    On recalcitrant operators, who flout the regulations despite all efforts, he said one of the ways the LASWA management force them in line is to suspend them from plying the waters. That we do by reporting them to their chairmen, who ensure they comply. But when it becomes a regular thing with a particular operator, we may make official reports to our head-office and have his boat confiscated.

  • Nollywood cry of pain Help, pirates are chasing us into extinction!

    Nollywood cry of pain Help, pirates are chasing us into extinction!

    Faced with what seems like a veritable threat to their means of livelihood and survival, major players in the Nigerian movie industry are closing ranks and taking the battle to the movie pirates, while calling on the government to come to their rescue with stiffer legislations and penalties. Gboyega Alaka reports 

    It’s a hot Tuesday afternoon in the heart of Ikeja, a commercial axis of Lagos noted for its huge trading and white-collar business activities. Expectedly, traffic was tight and fast nearing a gridlock situation, as it was just past lunch hour. This will continue until close of business around six o’clock, when more vehicles will be join up. The fact that it had rained the evening before also means that the heat was more intense and both those already on the road and those peeping from their high rise offices know they are in for a ‘swell’ journey back home.  This was certainly one of those days they’re all going to hate working in Lagos.

    But not so for the street traders, who are already meandering through the long stretch of vehicles, taking advantage of the bad situation to do brisk business and make quick money. And not so particularly for the poorly clad teenagers brandishing movie CDs and literally shoving them through the windows of cars and buses that have their glasses wound down. As one of the boys shoved the CDs into one of those tightly-packed 16-seater buses, this reporter’s eyes caught a glimpse of October 1, Kunle Afolayan’s yet to be released block-buster movie. One of the passengers immediately reached for it and started negotiating. Within minutes, money and goods changed hands. As if catching the bug, a couple other passengers quickly made their purchases, as the bus eased forward and the boy-seller moved quickly to another vehicle. The lucky passengers had bought their own copies of a movie currently showing at the cinemas at N5,000 per head at a meager N500. Who would blame them? They can now get home, loosen their ties, possibly have their bath and watch in a relaxed mood. Probably on weekends too, they would invite their family and friends, and they would all have a private viewing session in the comfort of their living rooms. And when they are done and tired of watching, they’re going to lend it to friends, who would repeat the same ritual as described above, and those would most certainly also lend it to some other family and friends. The extension goes on and on and on, such that even the buyer soon gives up on the CD’s where about. After all he bought it with just N500  an equivalent of two English pounds

    Yet these are only pirated CDs high-jacked from God-knows-where and massively reproduced and pushed onto the streets. Without doubt, their proliferation also effectively puts paid to the revenue that should ever have accrued to the original owner of the work. Surely, there would no longer be any need to drive and go see the movie at the cinemas.

    And yet this is a film reputed to have cost a whopping N115million, out of which Afolayan, who was not available for interview at the time of working on this story,  reportedly confessed that he had only raked in just about N100million from its special screening and showings at the cinemas. Aside being one of the most expensive films ever made in the country, it has also been largely adjudged the best ever. The film also features some of the best collection actors across the country and beyond; the likes of Sadiq Daba, who played the lead; Kayode Aderupoko, Kehinde Bankole, Kunle Afolayan himself, Kanayo O. Kanayo, Ibrahim Chatta, Bimbo Manuel, and even distinguished industry outsiders like Deola Sagoe. In recognition of its quality, the movie has also amassed series of top quality awards, including Best Featrure Film, Best Screenplay and Best Lead Actor, Sadiq Daba, at the 2014 Africa International Film Festival; it also won nine of the 12 awards at stake at the 2015 Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards notably in the Best Movie of the Year, Best Movie Director and Best Actress (Kehinde Bankole).

    According to Yinka Akanbi, a playwright and film and music producer, who runs Pisces Audio Visuals Limited, in Ikeja and says he was taught play-writing by the legendary late Ola Rotimi at the Obafemi Awolowo University, this is the scenario across the city of Lagos, and possibly Abuja and other major Nigerian cities. It is also this annoying scenario that got him going after the movie peddlers one faithful afternoon in April this year. He’d been driving on a Lagos road one afternoon and suddenly saw copies of October 1 being brandished and pushed at commuters in traffic. Immediately, his instinct told him something was wrong. He tried to call Afolayan, to confirm, but couldn’t get through; and then he put a call through to Tunde Kelani, a senior colleague and a revered veteran in the industry, who confirmed his fear that it had not been released and also told him matter-of-factly to “better go and sit down, that it’s a terrible situation.”

    Power of anger

    But Akanbi somehow was not going to just go sit down. For a moment he snapped, got into an altercation with the pirate agents hawking on the street, and subsequently confiscated all the CDs in the teenagers’ charge. Inadvertently, Akanbi had started a fight-back.

    The pictures went viral on social media, notably facebook, where Akanbi has a huge followership, and an awareness was gradually been created. Less than one week after, another big player in the industry, Yemi Shodimu followed suit. In a picture that had the usually suave and calm actor looking really mean, Shodimu held out copies of October 1 that he had confiscated, with the caption: “Come on Let’s stop this (sic) bastards before they stop us. More seizures today.”

    As if galvanized, a huge crowd of frontline actors, movie producers and other auxiliary professionals in the industry marched to the office of the Lagos State Governor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, a couple of days later to register their grievances. The group which includes the likes of Tunde Kelani, Jide Kosoko, Adebayo Salami, Iyabo Ojo, Yemi Shodimu , Tunji Bamishigbin, Yinka Akanbi and Kunle Afolayan amongst others.

    Kelani lamented how the theft of their creative and intellectual properties by some dubious people has reached a really critical level, and demanded an immediate government intervention; else it might be swan song for the promising industry.

    Their latest victim, Kunle Afolayan also told the governor the pathetic story of how his highly celebrated but yet-to-be-released movie got into the market ahead of him; while the governor, who acknowledged that piracy is a global problem, in turn promised his support at furthering the battle from legislative angle.

    Asked what spurred him into action, Yinka Akanbi said “It is anger. Anger at the fact that you have so many ideas you want to express and the fact somebody out there is saying you cannot, because the moment you finish work on a project, they are out there on the streets and nothing comes back to you. I have gone to school as society requires; I have my masters in Theatre Arts; I am doing my PhD currently, and at the end of the day, one has nothing to show for it? Could you believe that everything Tunde Kelani has produced has been pirated, everything including his retirement? And these people do it with so much impunity!”

    As if connecting by telepathy, Yemi Shodimu, responding to the same question at a different place and time also said “Anger is one. Anger at what has been going on for so long and disenchantment about the unfortunate things happening within the industry. I also feel the deprivation within the industry, as in the inability of players in the industry to reap from their sweat…. I think I probably just snapped. Here are works being sold on the streets, even when they had not been released.”

    Continuing, Shodimu, who said even Oleku, a Yoruba film set in the early sixties, released about a decade ago, where he played the lead, was also hugely pirated, said what irks him most is the impunity with which the pirates reproduce the works and go hawking them on the streets in broad daylight. “I think there can’t be a better word to describe it than impunity, because you just see the bravado on the part of the pirates. They don’t give a damn about the owner of the work and the law and they just keep doing it. To imagine that a lot of investment has gone into these works, and for somebody who obviously did not lift a finger to just smile to the banks, while the owner of the job languish in debt and penury, is just ridiculous.”

    He also spoke of the perennial damage being done, which he said is grave. “Make no mistake about it. When you have an investor that goes the whole hog to put a creative work together, he expects to reap from it, so as to reinvest into another project; but this hinders him or her. And the multiple effect of this is the greater danger, because we cannot afford to unleash the people in the industry into the about market. We cannot. And for that reason, all hands have to be on deck.”

    Akanbi on his part said the piracy menace “is killing. It is as painful as death. There is no way you will shoot a film in Nigeria and you would not have to get entangled in some kind of debt. Some of us have had to sell our cars and every other sellable to raise money for some films. You can imagine how much was spent on October 1, probably N100million. Let’s say N50million was loan and the rest goodwill. What the present situation spells is that he has squandered that goodwill. Anyone who has watched the clean copies being sold on the street will definitely not need to go viewing at any cinema. Once they’ve infiltrated your work, you don’t get anything again, because there is no way buyers can differentiate.”

    Asked to quantify the damage the pirates are inflicting on the industry and the economy in figures, Akanbi said that surely would run into billions of naira. He said the situation is so blatant that most of the pirates’ distributors insist on selling to only retailers willing to buy 1,000 copies and above. Usually, he says the real retailers are hiding somewhere in a corner of the streets, waiting to collect their money back from the visible teenage hawkers in the traffic.

    He said “Piracy is like a canker-worm that eats up the foundation of your work, leaving the whole business to collapse.”

    Frustration and dearth of creativity

    Shodimu is very wary of the frustration that follows this blatant rip-off. “The whole situation is frustrating to the producers. Look, people go out there to take loans, people use their properties as collateral in an attempt to access loan and give life to their creativity, hoping to reap something in return. So aside the artistic satisfaction you get in seeing your creativity come to life, it is supposed to be a commercial success. But when this is not allowed to happen, how do you go to the next one? Disenchantment sets in. It’s also a big invitation to unemployment. Don’t forget, each production is tied to hundreds of people: the technical hands, the artistes, the creative hands, the distributors, the marketers….”

    Worst of all, he says, is that the creative mind is endangered. Art is endangered, because the creative mind is not been nourished with the expected reward and satisfaction. “You ought to nourish the mind with the feeling that what you’re producing is bringing rewards. If within you, you know that you’re working for some faceless cabal, you’re just disillusioned!

    “Kunle woke up to find his work on the streets. And we’re talking about the best film ever shot in this country. Imagine the resources expended on bringing those great actors from within and outside the country together; a post-production done in and outside the country; and then you just sit back and some idiots take it over and cheapen it! It’s the same with 30 days in Atlanta. You won’t believe that that one too has been pirated. Imagine the amount of money that went into it: the trip abroad, the artistes, the crew, name it. Add these to the emotional investment that went into it.”

    Like corruption, like piracy.

    It was former Chairman of the EFCC who said “when you fight corruption, corruption fights back.” Victims of piracy will tell you that fighting back is not an exclusive preserve of corruption. The Yinka Akanbi’s of this world, the Charly Boys of this world, the Kunle Afolayans, Gabosky, his appointed marketer and all those involved in intellectual property creation, will tell you as a matter-of-fact that piracy fights back, and in a real bloody manner too. Although when pointedly asked if he does not feel endangered fighting these people, whose modus operandi has been likened to that of drug syndicates, Akanbi agrees on the one hand, saying “they are worse than a drug syndicate;” but tend to undermine them on the other hand, when he said: “One thing I know is that they are not as powerful and organised as we think they are.”

    Akanbi’s latter response might stem from the feeble response he has so far got from the boy-traders hawking the CDs on the streets. Some of the artistes and stake-holders, who have however tried taking the battle to the real kingpins in their Alaba International Market den, will however tell you a different story.

    As far back as 2005, when a group led by Charly Boy, Kenny Ogungbe, Kenny St. Best amongst others stormed the dreaded pirates’ base to challenge their damaging actions, they literally came back with bloodied nose. Female gospel singer, Kenny St Best left the market in rags, as the Alaba goons didn’t spare any respect for her sex and gave her the same treatment as the men.

    Most recently, Gabriel Okoye, aka Igwe Gabosky, a popular movies distributor, with whom Kunle Afolayan had entered an agreement to distribute his films, raised an alarm that the movies he had been contracted to distribute were already being massively reproduced and sold.

    The battle almost toed the ethnic cum political line thereafter, when an obviously annoyed Afolayan, a Yoruba, lost his cool and stirred the hornet’s nest, when he allegedly tweeted that the main cabal behind the criminal business of intellectual property theft otherwise known as piracy in Nigeria is populated by people of Igbo extraction. Coming on the heels of a heated election campaign that divided the country along tribal lines, it was no surprise that a lot of people of Igbo extraction went for his jugular.

    But Gabosky himself, an Igbo, publicly supported Afolayan’s claim, reiterating that about 99% of the people involved in professional theft of intellectual works at Alaba are Igbo. He fingered Ubakason Plaza and Obosi Plaza as the den of the pirates and wondered why Nigerians are always quick to cover up criminal acts with tribal cloak. He wondered why his kinsmen were trying to mix criminality with politics, saying that “A criminal is a criminal and should be pronounced a criminal, whether he is a Yoruba, Igbo or Hausa.”

    Gabosky also revealed that “The people in piracy are the big men that you see around. Some of them are former stakeholders who have found lucrative jobs in piracy under different guises.” He said their manner of operation is to pirate the works at night and then sell to miscreants in the day.

    His attempts to confront the cabal along with the Nigerian Copyright Commission, NCC, ironically turned out to be a wrestle with the devil. That confrontation resulted in a bloody battle that left one of the policemen with a broken skull.

    To underline their boldness, the pirates, days before releasing October 1, had allegedly called Gabosky, asking him to negotiate with them; else he would not sell the movie beyond one week before they infiltrated the market with fake copies. It could therefore safely be deduced that it was his refusal to negotiate with criminals that led to the high-jacking and release of the movie, early April.

    Not willing to sit back and watch, Gabosky has also at different times, taken the battle to the criminals. At different for a, he has spoken of how he has had to mobilize the police and even some military boys with huge sums of money, to storm the Alaba den of the pirates. While they were able to confiscate some CDs and make some arrest, Gabosky however lamented the bold resistance put forward by the crooks, narrating how they came out to fight back with sophisticated weapons.

    Gabosky revelation on invitation to negotiate tallies with one made by another player in the industry, Foluke Daramola, who once narrated on TV how she was prevailed upon to negotiate with a pirate, who ‘sat confidently behind a huge desk,’ if she ever intended to make any returns from her movie.

    Like Gabosky, Foluke declined the insulting invitation, and found herself on the losing side.

    Comedian Ayo Makun aka AY, might seem to have opted for the easier way out, when he instructed Gabosky (also his distributor) to release the movies in the substandard copies that the pirates usually sell. But Gabosky, it seems, does not believe in the negative mantra of joining them, if you can’t beat them.

    He lamented that the same treatment being given to October 1 has also been given to his other franchises, including Half of A Yellow Sun, 30 Days in Atlanta; which he said the fake copies hit the market just as he was preparing to release them.

    The above therefore establishes the fact that the pirates may be far more powerful than the stick wielding fake video vendors, who tried to attack Akanbi, penultimate week.

    But the artistes seem to be prepared for this battle. Shodimu says “We’ve never been under any illusion that it will be a tea-party. Even robbers protect their loots. What we’re doing is only a reminder to our people in authority that they’ve got a lot to do.”

    Akanbi on his part says, “now that they have started attacking and fighting back, it means we have to take the battle to another level. We need to let them know that they cannot continue to mess with our livelihood. “

    Way out

    With this renewed vigour, will the artistes be pushing for the arrest of the street peddlers, with the hope of tracing the chain to the final sources?

    Tunde Kelani, arguably one of the biggest and most respected players in the industry says “No, no, no. that is not the objective. The objective is that the law and punishment specified for piracy offences is not strong enough. I think it’s about three months or a fine option of N100, 000. That is nothing more than a slap on the wrist and a stipend; and we’re talking about something that is destroying the economy of the country and threatening the means of livelihood and survival of some people.

    Displaying copies of all his past works that have been pirated, Kelani said “these are all the works I have done all my life; they are supposed to be my retirement benefits; but that’s all gone now, because once they hijack and flood them into the market, we simply cannot compete.”

    Way out for him would therefore be to be proactive, educate the people not to patronise pirated products and get the government “to elevate piracy to the level of financial crimes and drugs, and create an agency to combat it, like the National Drug law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).”

    Akanbi on his part said the practitioners will have to wait and see, following the march to the office of the governor of Lagos State, Babatunde Fashola.

    The solution for him therefore is to criminalise the offense, adding that he was recently told that piracy is a civil offence.

    He also said “the interpretation of a law depends on those who are interpreting it, adding that the government in power also determines the general air of lawlessness or otherwise. “

    Shodimu on his part says piracy is so hurtful that any penalty other than the death sentence would suffice.

    Alaba International Market, the source and the cul-de-sac

    Expectedly, a visit to Alaba International Market, ordinarily reputed as an electronic market, revealed nothing more that the labyrinth of shops and alleyways, plazas and an array of some of the latest home entertainment electronics and appliances. This reporter actually got a friend within the market to point out a couple of buildings where he suspected the illicit productions were being made, packed and shipped into the Lagos market and beyond, but nothing more came out of it, as mute seemed to be the response to all further enquiries. He said on a good day, you could get any movie you need on request, but said you have to be a familiar face, to be able to purchase some of the contraband CDs in huge numbers, as no-one is ready to take any kind of risks with strangers. He revealed that times without number, law enforcement agencies and artistes have stormed the place, some resulting in fierce battles, to arrest ‘the boys,’ but said they always find ways to ‘settle’ and get on with their business.

    A young man, Uche, who will give no other information order than being a printer, admitted knowing fellow printers who have made fortunes from printing movie jackets for the pirates.  He said that in itself, is one huge business opportunity that he himself is trying to break into. At least, no one will accuse him of any illicitness in that one.

    A chance discussion with one of the movie hawkers in the traffic of LASU-Volks, along Badagry Expressway, also revealed nothing. The boy, an Igbo, who refused to give his name or allow his picture taken, said the CDs were given to him by his oga (boss) and said where and how he gets them is not his business. Following more questions, he because suspicious and asked if this reporter wanted to purchase CDs or ask questions: “Oga, wetin now? You wan begin sell CD? I beg, me I no want wahala o.”

    And that effectively put paid to the questioning. Further attempts to speak with the other hawkers was mission impossible, as it seemed our friend had spread the word to them, not to say a word.

    One thing was however sure, these peddlers parade some of the hottest movies CDs in the country including: October 1, Ole ku, Oyenusi, 30 days in Atlanta, and any kind of American movies you want to see.

    Someone actually boasted that the only film you may not find in Alaba, are the ones that are yet to be shot and produced.