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Tag: nature

  • ‘My love for nature dictates my fashion style’

    ‘My love for nature dictates my fashion style’

    Cristian Munduate is the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) representative in Nigeria. Cristian has 30 years experience in development work with women and children across many countries. In this interview with EVELYN OSAGIE, she speaks on her style, passion, and UNICEF Champions’ initiative, among others.

    My thought on beauty, style

    My thought on beauty: for me, beauty comes from inside, from the soul, spirit. Of course, we have the physical side of beauty. And around the world, the definition of physical beauty is diverse. It is very contextual and not defined by one part. 

    For me beauty is about health: keeping myself healthy, energetic, watching out on my weight, doing my exercises. I wake up at 4am daily and I do my exercises from Monday to Friday. Saturday and Sunday are my cheat days. So, I sleep a little bit late: not too late but not waking up at 4am. Exercise helps me feel energetic and good. Beauty also requires some wisdom. Mainly for women at my age, we start having changes in our appearances grey hairs come out and all that. This is also an interesting moments of our lives. So, we need to help ourselves and also learn to manage our health.

    For me, that is beauty. But style differs from one country/society to the other. So, for example, Nigeria is a wonderful and colourful country, with people of diverse style. Their clothes are so alive. And I’m learning because where I come from we use plain colors – it’s kind of boring. So, being in Nigeria is an experience and looking at the different fashion and style in the country is inspiring, a change in me towards understanding how I can look more alive and livelier in my dress sense. 

     My fashion

    My fashion sense is deliberate. And I think it stems from my contact or connection with nature. I would say my fashion style is simple but connects with my love for nature and my advocacies. I practise some behaviours that are linked to my contributions beyond the organisation I work with. Of course, UNICEF is concerned about water and sanitation. And that has to do with natural resources and climate change. As an individual I am a practitioner of some things that contribute to the climate change advocacy. I am a simple person and it shows in my dressing.

     Inspiration behind UNICEF recent initiative

    We truly believe that everyone can be a champion. But we need inspiring champions who are always concerned about the wellbeing and development of the country, and children in particular. Nigeria has powerful women and men who are the champions in their arts. Those who through their creativity as music producers, musicians and film actors, have been a positive role model for thousands of people in the country. 

    That is what led to the appointment of four Nigerian celebrities – Cobhams Asuquo, WAJE, Kate Henshaw, and Ali Nuhu – as UNICEF Champions for a period of 12 months.

    We, at UNICEF, feel very delighted and have a lot of expectations that together with these UNICEF Champions, all of us can build a vision that has to become a reality that translates into concrete results in the children’s basic social rights, like health, education, nutrition and among others in the country.

    Many children are far behind because of geographical areas, poverty, inaccessibility, insecurity, among others. Many of these problems can be solved: and it’s not that they can take decades to be solved but there should be a will to move ahead. This esteemed assembly of champions will serve as powerful voices amplifying issues around child rights in Nigeria. They can inspire for a change, raise the awareness with your support and definitely persuade decision makers to make the right choices for the children. They will be a leading force in this new journey.

     UNICEF ambassadors vs UNICEF Champions

    UNICEF Champions is a different approach to reaching the government, families and communities so that everyone understands what their role are and are accountable for children in Nigeria. This collaboration symbolises a bridge between the commitment to child rights and the power of art and storytelling. Through music, film, and public engagement, we hope to touch hearts, shift perspectives, and inspire action. 

    The difference in this approach is our coming together as one voice – a very powerful voice that can bring other champions on board. This initiative is next level in reaching the people and all sectors that can come in and make a change. This has to be a cascade; even the media are also champions. And on a constant basis we want to keep practicing this championship through your media so that we can all together make this change.

     Message to government, parents, society

    It’s about time that there are tangible changes in the country. We all cannot continue to be indifferent towards children’s situations. There are too many millions of children facing these adversities and they are alone. We need to be with them. Everybody has a role: we don’t need to step into others role what we need is to do properly what we are supposed to do for change. 

    That is why I’m making this call – first to the government (federal and different levels) – trying to mobilise and convince that the right decision is to prioritise children. Of course economic growth is important but there’s room and space enough resources to also prioritise children’s needs first. And secondly, not just government, families (parents) and community all have a role to play. Parents are the first caregivers of children. They should be informed on what is best for their child. At times it is lack of information like how to breastfeed your child so that they are not malnourished.

    Prioritising for children is prioritising for the county.

     My words to our nursing mothers

    There are many believes around breastfeeding and you know many women choose not to breastfeed their children because they think it’s bad for them. But breast milk is the best thing… I mean the best gift you can give your child. The benefits are many. By breastfeeding your child, you are empowering that child with all the nutrients needed for proper growth and wellbeing.

     My message to women

    To the women, one strong message I want to share is: ‘Woman, you have to first take care of yourself, empower yourself, love yourself; and you’d then love your children and those of everyone else. For those women who really don’t know what to do or where to go to for their children’s health and nutrition education, government-owned health facilities should provide the needed counseling, information, medical attention (vaccines), for your children’s health and yours. The other message is: Every child has a right to education. Education can really change a life. Pay attention to the education of your child. Please, help us to take your child to school.  Children should be in school and if there’s no school demand for one. It is their rights. 

  • ‘Nature has answer to all ailments’

    Dr Olawale Qazeem is the CEO and Consultant, Olaking Naturopathic Clinic, Nigeria.  He is a graduate of Biochemistry, University of Ilorin. He bagged a Doctor of Natural Medicine from the Indian Board of Alternative Medicine in addition to having a Doctor of Medicine in acupuncture. Qazeem tells OYEYEMI GBENGA-MUSTAPHA that mother nature has answers to all that ail man.

    What led you to becoming a Naturopath?

     I’m a Biochemist, Naturopath, and a researcher. I try to know the root cause of patients’ diseases and then treat them naturally, with herbal medicine, diet and nutrition, cupping therapy, and other natural therapies. I hold that there are no incurable diseases, but there may be incurable cases. I’d wanted to be a medical doctor because of my interest in health and fitness. I tried to no avail. I wasn’t admitted. Instead, I was admitted into biochemistry department. Then, I started having interest in researching into herbal remedies. Although, I have the background because my mother is a herbal practitioner coupled with being a nurse. After my first degree, I got started by learning from outstandingly experienced practitioners in Nigeria and then proceeded to study Naturopathic Medicine in Calcutta, India.

    How has the training in naturopathic, nutrition, herbal and acupuncture treatments been for you?

    I look at the imbalances in an individual as  multi-faceted. My aim is to always treat patients as a whole by observing the four cornerstones of good health.  Most of the time, there are physical issues, psychological, emotional and structural issues that we need to bring to balance. This for sure, has been helping.

    I look at each individual’s imbalances, and I also analyse each person’s lifestyle and try to create a programme that is going to enhance their ability about what they do in life more efficiently. Also, I do cupping therapy for patients with diseases like stroke, diabetes, arthritis, hepatitis and so on.

    What are the challenges from working with patients in independent natural health care setting?

    In my book, there is nothing like incurable disease, but there may be incurable cases. People with depression, anxiety, and abnormal blood pressure are all rapturous rewarding adjuncts to what I do. I believe that every single person that comes to me is a challenge. But there is a challenge in getting them to understand that they are partners in their own health care, that they are participants in their care, and I’m not to administer to them, I’m here to partner them.

    Do you consider collaborating with other practitioners as important?

    Yes, I do. I collaborate with other natural medicine practitioners, but not orthodox medicine practitioners. Since 80 per cent of my patients came from them, we have a team that makes us work together. We discuss patients’ health  issues together and come up with treatment protocols. This has really assisted us all. Our teams have 50 per cent success rates in HIV and Hepatitis treatments, which last for four months. Through team work, we have successfully treated many sickle cell anemia patients, leaving them with no crisis or symptoms for years.

    Do you believe that HIV is curable?

    HIV is curable and in fact, to me it seems to be one of the easiest diseases to cure. In my book, there is nothing like incurable disease. Although there can be incurable cases. The most basic is that there are natural non-drug and non-surgical cures for virtually every disease. The treatment duration is a minimum of three months. It’s a nonstop herbal treatment, nothing more. What’s more, the ingredients used are what we know because they are very common and cheap.

  • Lagos state of nature

    So, the Lagos government stumbled in its waste clearing duties. But should that justify an increasing number of Lagos residents reverting to their state of nature?

    Or which 21st century people, except in a state of nature, would blight highway medians with packs of refuse; making fresh piles, as soon as the refuse trucks finish their clearing rounds?

    State of nature!  On that, literature, the wisdom over the ages, has been rather ambivalent.  Yet, the natural state’s sinister side appears more resonant.

    Philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau (French) and John Locke (English), romanticized man’s pristine “goodness”; and rued the rupture latter-day organized society had inflicted on that utopia.

    To Locke, the “law of nature is reason”.  Common sense would naturally drive pain-hating humans to maximize their pleasure, and reduce their pain — true.

    But the snag is, common sense is not common!

    Still, other philosophers have balked.  Mozi, of ancient China, talked of each (wo)man strutting with own “morality”.  With every person bristling, with own moral supremacy, the collective is doomed.

    The English, Thomas Hobbes, was thunderous in his put-down: the state of nature is constant “war of all against all”.  Therefore, life is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”.  Only the Leviathan, the mighty symbol of modern governance, can impose some order on that natural chaos.

    In English literature, the Scot, R.M. Ballantyne, in Coral Island, gushed about man’s innate goodness, as a party of three juveniles, marooned by a shipwreck on an island, manifested their best human traits.

    But this golden tale was later shattered by a mean one, by the English, William Golding, who in Lord of the Flies, saw absolutely no gold in man’s innate instincts.  The British school boys, similarly marooned after a crash-landing, descended into savages.

    That was 1958 — 100 years, and two World Wars, after Ballantyne’s 1858 fictional paradise.

    Even in psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud spoke of the id, the ego and the super-ego — the id, a function of raw cravings, the psychological equivalent of the state of nature.

    But both the ego and super-ego are a function of personal and societal checks, anchored on heavy fear of sanctions; and dire consequences for wrong doings.

    Which brings the issue right back to the Lagos scandalous refuse question.

    Twenty-first century Lagos appears to have slipped back into the stone-age on refuse culture, leaving Nigeria’s “Centre of Excellence” an environmental blight and a waiting ecological disaster.

    It’s time for the Ambode government to wield the big stick, and roll back this shameful atavism.

    Until the Lagos government-Visionscape-PSP refuse players crisis, refuse-as-eyesore was almost a thing of the past.

    But then came the crisis.  Part-paralysis, a logical result from the sudden rupture of hitherto functional, if not efficient, services.

    Part-active sabotage — alleged refuse dumping, by some cadres of the warring PSP operators, alleging economic strangulation by Visionscape, the new refuse turf royal.

    So, refuse came back with a vengeance — and choice dumps are city-wide road medians.  As a result, Lagos groans under hundreds of illegal dumpsites — road medians, roundabouts, junctions.

    Even aside from concentrated illegal dumps, a nasty practice is afoot, where people package their refuse, and in the thick of the night, place them by high median concrete barriers, on major roads.

    So, the PSP “wartime” tactics — alleged or real — of offloading refuse, bang on the road, is bringing out the beast in Lagos denizens.

    Everybody is paying a stiff price: the government in citizen anger and battery; waste managers in increased operational costs; and Lagosians in a debased environment, only a heartbeat from epidemics.

    That is the new epidemic in town.  It, willy-nilly, has condemned waste managers to gingerly moving their compactors, picking up bags of refuse, every inch of the way!

    That’s not all.  Street sweepers hitherto limited to sweeping and packing accumulated dust, are rendered useless; at the sight of smelly garbage.

    And, the ubiquitous illegal dumps!  Even here, at a junction off Fatai Atere Way, across the road from Sterling Bank, in the heart of Matori Industrial Estate, a dump luxuriates, with the occasional pig strolling in, to wallow and feast on the dirt!

    In the atavistic language of Victorian Lagos, Prof. Michael Echeruo’s work on the quaint world of aborigines and settlers of 19th century Lagos, that set the city’s cultural temper till this day, Lagos is again going “Fanti” — but on the refuse plane.

    Yet, the government would appear at last getting a hang on the refuse crisis.  With Visionscape-PSP operators operational cohabitation, regular clearing has resumed.

    Though not quite back to the pre-crisis days, the streets could indeed appear clean, particularly immediately after the gangs just finished their clearing rounds.  A few days after, however, the roads are clogged again!

    That suggests the turnaround time of the clearing gang lags behind the frenetic generation of the refuse.  The government should urgently work on that.

    The faster the turnaround, the more efficient, more effective and more impactful the exercise would be; and the cleaner Lagos would become.

    But even with slower turnaround, the roads are no places to dump refuse.

    Even in those pre-2001 days, when Lagos had its notorious mountains of refuse and the city’s essence was filth, nobody dumped packaged garbage on the roads.  There were instead refuse outlets — “Ile Ile”, the locals called it in Yoruba — in strategic locations in each locality, where folks took their refuse.

    Aside from these congested outlets and untreated dumpsites that rose to become refuse mountains, the only problems was free-wheeling littering, compounded by the absence of street-sweepers — which the Lagos government, as part of its waste management reforms, introduced.

    But this new practice of dumping packed garbage on the road, without a care about environmental wellness, is a new low in urban retardation.

    That is why the government should not spare anything to stamp it out, before it morphs from the moral epidemic it is now, into a public health epidemic, which the state can ill afford.

    The first thing to do is to mount a media enlightenment blitz against the evil, warning of dire sanctions soon to follow it, if not discontinued.

    Then, the government should put in place a neighbourhood refuse watch, with specific mandates to ferret out these environmental saboteurs and bring them to justice.

    As each dumper is dragged into the net of the law, the punishment should be given maximum publicity.

    Then, neighbourhoods should be sensitized to form intelligence units, monitoring and exposing illegal dumping.  In return, however, waste managers must scale up their operations, and make waste clearing prompter and more efficient.

    Lagos can’t afford the present “state of nature” of dumping refuse just anywhere.  The government must play the Leviathan to stamp out the practice.

  • We’ve taken nature for granted for far too long

    We’ve taken nature for granted for far too long

    Desmond Olumuyiwa Majekodunmi, renowned environmentalist and chairman, Lagos State Urban Forest and Animal Shelter Initiative, is a man truly passionate about nature. The son of first republic minister, Dr Moses Adekoyejo Majekodunmi and Nora Majekodunmi, founder of the elite Corona Schools, speaks with Yetunde Oladeinde about his love and campaign for nature preservation and how it all took roots during his three-year stay in Kenya.

    How would you describe the climate changes, rains, storms and hurricane happening in different parts of the world?

     

    It is something that the experts have been talking about and now we are seeing the reality ourselves. For instance, the velocity of that storm that hit Cuba is about 160 and it is a once in a hundred years storm .We had something like that five years ago in Houston. So it goes on and on, entering the Caribbean’s; and those people didn’t have any protection, just like the people in Benue State. We need to support them, even if it is the end of the world, many are called but few are chosen. Gen 2 vs. 15 says very clearly that HE put the man in the Garden to care for it and to keep it. Mind that it is the garden that is our support system, not only our life support but our children’s lives support system. So, I would try my best to keep it and when the day comes, I might be among the chosen. Protecting the environment is the most important duty of every human being. It is your primary assignment, your purpose.

    What prompted your passion for the environment?

    Many years ago, while I was living in Kenya, I got some inspiration there. I worked and lived in Kenya for three years – that was over 35 years ago. It was at a time when the oil boom had really taken off and we in Nigeria had abandoned our land, abandoned our agriculture totally. Meanwhile the Kenyans were really 100 per cent on agriculture and I realised that the mainstay of the Kenyan economy, about 90 per cent of it, was derived from agriculture and eco-tourism. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of visitors came in to see their wonderful nature, and their environment, which was protected very well. That experience really impressed me so much and I told myself that these Kenyans knew what they were doing. They didn’t abandon their land at all and food was cheap. And millions and millions of tourists’ dollars were coming in because they were protecting the environment. So, when I came back to Nigeria over thirty years ago, I started a farm in Lekki; it was just the Majekodunmi Farms, the Tenora Farms Plantations. Then I did a crash course in agriculture at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, IITA.

    Luckily for me, I was advised that in that particular area, I should not destroy all the forest at all. There was thick forest in Lekki in those days; that was even before the expressway started; so we retained a lot of the forest and did what we called Agro Forestry. Then some people from the Nigerian Conservation Foundation came around to our place. When they saw the birds, they were so excited. It was a gathering of who is who; they had foreigners and high ranking people that included S.L. Edu of blessed memory, Philip Asiodu, Francesca Emmanuel and so many other people from the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

    What exactly was their mission?

    They began to talk to me about the importance of preserving nature and the experience opened my eyes to a lot of things. Over the years, one learned and learned about how good and how important it was to care about the environment. In the last ten years, we have all come to appreciate that it is not just good and important but absolutely vital and essential. I also realised that we had been taking nature for granted for far too long. So I just keyed into the foundation and found that man had been living apart from nature. Whereas, the reality is that man is a part of nature and we need to appreciate that reality. We also need to fulfill our major role, which is to be custodians of the creations. We need to care for the creations, and all the scriptures are very clear about it. The Bible is clear about it and the Koran is also clear, that our role, our major duty is to care for our creations and that they are our life support systems.

    Basically, that is how I became passionate (about my environment); by having a deep love of God; and if you love your father, then you want to at least care for his house, especially when he has given you that house. I would also say that the love of my children and other people’s children influenced me greatly. The environment is our life support system and why won’t you want to look after your children’s life support system?

    Let’s talk about your farm. How far has it grown?

    Well, it has now been converted into a park, the LUFASAI (Lekki Urban Forest Animal Sanctuary African Initiative) Park. It is a 20-hectare park, just after Ajah, on the Lekki Expressway.

    What are we likely to find at the park?

    The first thing you would see are very mature palm trees, a lot of nice grass and you will feel very refreshed. And when you go deeper, you will see a bit of forest; and as you go deeper still, you would see a little patch of the original forest, that had always been there. We have made an arrangement with the Lagos State government that this would be preserved in its entirety as the main space for Lagos State. It is very, very refreshing, and when people come there, they usually don’t want to go because they feel so excited, relieved.

    You have talked about the gardens and the forests, what about the animals? What kind of animals are we likely to see at the park?

    We rescue animals at the park. We have horses, donkeys, monkeys; we actually have a couple of monkeys that interact with people. We have a monkey that can play football and basketball at the same time.

    What are some of the challenges faced doing this?

    The cost of maintaining the place is the major challenge. This is important because you have to keep it well. Right now, the cost is on my head but it is something that I am passionate about.

    What are the other things that occupy your time apart from the environment?

    That is all I do now, everything pales in. I am an Electrocutic Engineer. I also went into the production of music a long time ago. I did films, video productions and documentaries. But now, I just concentrate on propagating the gospel of creation care.

     

  • Connecting youths to nature

    SIR: What if I told you that 80% of Nigerian youths lack a basic environmental education? What if I say that 70% of young people around the world do not care about the environment they live in? Yes!

    The bitter truth won’t be found in data logged on some computers or books stacked in libraries. The clear confirmations that we are far from nature stare at our faces: the gully erosion that swept a whole community recently, the daily depletion of the ozone layer and her cancerous effect, the air pollution that annually chokes millions of children to death around the world, the mindless exploitation of wildlife, and the list is endless.

    Indeed, we are disconnected from nature!

    Today, how many parents will have their kids tend a garden, prune a flower, plant a tree, go fishing in a local river, climb mountains, engage in environmental education or even at the least, take a long evening walk across the field?

    How many?

    Growing up I relished the moments we (children) spent in groups; gathering fruits, breaking dried nut, cutting grasses, catching grasshoppers, building mud houses with our foot, playing hide-and-seek game in banana plantations, dancing in the rain, ‘cooking’ with sand, used cans, green leafs, clay and pieces of rocks. That was what my generation enjoyed, the generation before mine enjoyed even more. Now, what will become of the next generation? How can they be made to connect with Nature?

    This time and age, we rather would turn on the Wi-Fi for them to ‘go live’ during a politician’s tree planting ceremony, we would rather encourage them to create a Whatsapp group with the name – SaveTheEarth, we would rather jump on the hashtag #WorldEnvironmentDay, and what have you. Great but not effective, there are better ways we can connect young people with nature.

    So much lies on the shoulders of people who understand what is at stake. Pro-environmental agencies and organizations in countries around the world would do the next generation a whole lot of good, if they can team up to toe the line of groups like America’s EarthCorps International Corps Program, 21st Century Conservation Service Corps, and others support programmes that creatively, patiently and effectively engage young people in environmental restoration activities that practically ‘connects’ them with nature.

    Environmental impact – positive or negative is not limited by boundaries. If you will help connect a young child with nature today, we can hope that it becomes a lifestyle for them, a culture that grows and sticks with the next generation – that alone is a great achievement.

    As we encourage ‘young’ people to connect with nature by participating in public readings, open mics, street walks, social media campaigns and other 21st century approaches that seek to promote the environment, we should often remind them that the effort to connect with nature is beyond chats, tweets and talks.

    We must strive to become more environmentally conscious; we must put into practice everything we can, gradually, till it becomes a habit. This will be realistic if we begin with the youths.

     

    • Adebote ‘Seyifunmi,

    Ibadan.

  • Less can be more, less can be generative: a counter-memory from nature, mythology, science, technology and art (2)

    Less can be more, less can be generative: a counter-memory from nature, mythology, science, technology and art (2)

    Oro p’esi je [The answer, the solution, is beggared by the discourse, the story] A Yoruba adage, typically invoked to indicate an epistemological conundrum

    Some aspects of our national obsession with number, size and scale can be engaged by the straightforward argument that since it is well known that a reduction in size and numbers often leads to greater efficiency and savings on costs, it is in our national interest to substantially trim down on the size of many of our institutions and publicly financed utilities and parastatals. Unquestionably, this argument applies to such things as the number or size of governmental cabinets in Nigeria and officeholders on the public payroll, compared to much bigger and more populous countries like India and the United States both of which have much smaller ministerial cabinets than we have. Indeed, in the early, euphoric days of Buhari’s presidency when Nigerians and the whole world expected much from Buhari and the APC, this was precisely the advice given to the president by the so-called Transition Committee chaired by Ahmed Joda. Mr. Joda and members of his committee were chosen by Buhari. But as we all know, Buhari completely ignored that recommendation of the Transition Committee. Similarly, the boast that we often hear about Nollywood being a producer of more films than any other country in the world with the exception of America’s Hollywood, this boast would be well served by the critical observation that the cultural health of our national film industry would be greatly improved if we produced a lesser number of films of much greater quality than what presently defines the typical Nollywood film at the present time.

    But then, what of aspects of our national craze for numbers and size that cannot be queried by considerations of functional efficiency and/or cultural or artistic merit? Churches and mosques are the fastest growing and ever expanding institutions in this country. Indeed, the head of one of our biggest evangelical Christian ministries, Adeboye of the RCCG, has called for Nigeria to be so saturated by and with churches that there will come a time when there will be a church within five minutes’ walking distance everywhere in the country. Whatever anyone thinks of this idea, it cannot be interrogated by considerations of cost efficiency. Millions of churches as compared with a few hundred thousand? Who is to tell Adeboye and the fraternity of our warrior evangelists how many churches are needed for the battle with Satan and his devilish hordes? The same limitation applies to the bragging rights that we Nigerians have established about the size of our population throughout our continent and the African diaspora worldwide: these bragging rights cannot be subjected to the scrutiny of efficiency or logical rationality. For if you make an exception for the periodic geo-ethnic verbal and political skirmishes that we have on the results of our national censuses, it is a moot point whether Nigeria would be better as a small nation that is no bigger than Gabon or a huge nation that is inching ever closer to the 200 million population mark.

    I make these qualifications in this concluding piece to the series that began in this column two weeks ago in order to underscore the crucial fact that my main concern in the series is not really the usual one of the vital need to substantially reduce or even end the waste, the mismanagement and the squandermania that are endemic to governance and public affairs in our country. By this, I do not mean to suggest or imply that this criticism has been so bandied around that it is no longer useful. Far from such a complacent acceptance of things as they are rather than striving for things as they could or ought to be, I actually believe that the battle against mismanagement and squandermania must be continuously and tirelessly fought in our country. Which is why, on the pages of this column, I have seized every chance that comes my way to remind Nigerians of the outrage in a declaration made by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister under President Goodluck Jonathan, that she would be satisfied if by the end of her tenure she would have managed to reduce waste and mismanagement in the Nigerian system by as little as 4%. No, no and no, compatriots, the battle for cost effectiveness and functional rationality in the corporate affairs of this country has not ended nor is it about to end soon!

    But that is not what is central to my observations and arguments in this series. Nigerians of all socio-economic levels, geo-ethnic identities, ages and religious backgrounds are obsessed with size and number – that is what concerns me in this piece. This takes many forms and expressions: the number of new churches and mosques always and forever springing up; the number of films churned out by Nollywood every week; the number of new public and private universities coming into existence every year; the number of states and local governments already in existence and those being vigorously and ceaselessly canvassed; the number of totally redundant officeholders paid for and maintained on the public payroll. The list seems endless and sometimes assumes quite bizarre manifestations such as when – for a telling instance – the lanes of drivers and cars on our city streets or country highways suddenly balloon from one or two to half a dozen or more when something has caused a temporary blockage on the street or roadway. What am I saying about this extraordinary Nigerian proclivity or indeed, mania, for number and size? And what is the explanation for why it takes so many diverse forms?

    If I told you that I have a completely satisfactory answer to these questions I lie and the truth is not in me, dear compatriots! I think and ask you to think also, dear reader: What is the connection between Adeboye and his dream of a Nigeria in which there will be a church within five minutes of walking distance everywhere in the land and the uncontrolled and perhaps uncontrollable mushrooming of public and private universities and tertiary educational institutions? And the number of Nollywood films made every month, what relationship, causal or speculative, do they have with the uncountable number of ministers, senior special assistants, personal assistants and administrative aides to be found in every state in the federation? In our country, it is not an exaggeration to say that a new pastor or evangelist hears and answers the “call” every day! What does this have to do with the equally startling fact or statistic that mountains of uncollected garbage appear every day on the streets of most of our cities and towns?

    Oro p’esi je: the answer, the solution, is beggared by the discourse, the story. So goes the epigraph for this week’s essay. This would seem to be where we are in the present discussion. Typically, in the epistemological branch of philosophy, when you come across a paradox or a conundrum, the way out is often provided by and through, not a logical answer, but the invocation of another paradox, another conundrum. In the special topic under discussion, this means that we must bring the overwhelming absence of habits and expressions of moderation, modesty and appreciation of smallness in the public affairs of the country into the conversation in order to present our obsession with huge size or large numbers with its reverse image. If this is the case, the question to ask is why Nigerians of all socio-economic groups and identities tend to think and behave on the assumption that moderation, modesty and discrete smallness have no place in our corporate, collective existence as a nation or a society. This is why, in the first essay in this series, I focused extensively on the argument that less is not only paradoxically more, it actually is a pervasive feature of the state of things in nature, science, technology and art. If I am to be completely open about my intention in this series, I should admit that it is my hope that the readers will be prompted to reflect on aspects of life, nature, society, technology and art they know and are aware of in which the smallest units of measure yield the greatest harvests of pleasure, contentment, security, personal satisfaction or public good.

    Why did Buhari reject the recommendation of the Ahmed Joda Transition of a much smaller ministerial cabinet? Why do all lovers, promoters and aficionados of Nollywood continue to argue that the significance of the national video film industry lies in as many trashy films as can be and are made? Why do the evangelical and Pentecostal warriors for Christ believe and act on the assumption that the more churches there are, the more barely trained pastors come forth every day the better? Why does the looting of our national coffers excite the interest and concern of Nigerians only if the numbers run into billions, not (just) millions of naira or even dollars? Compatriots, these questions have no easy, logical answers, especially when set into a relationship with one another. But as soon as you bring moderation, modesty and smallness into the picture, an illuminating clarification appears on the horizons of the mind and the psyche. One small church; one single university; or one Nollywood film: each one can offer more than what a hundred churches, universities or films if the potential that exists in even the tiniest of things is maximized. In other words, this Nigerian obsession for huge sizes and large numbers exist and endure because it keeps our country and its affairs in the present state in which waste, mismanagement and squandermania enrich and benefit the few at the expense of the vast majority of our peoples.

    We must continue to invoke principles of cost effectiveness and rational management of resources and capacities in the face of the monumental corruption and squandermania that make life a hell for the majority of Nigerians in the midst of the plenty enjoyed by our political and economic elites. But far beyond this, there is the rediscovery of the counter-memory of how in nature, science, technology and art the smallest and tiniest units of time and space are often used to enrich life for the benefit of all. Start with and within yourself, compatriots. Forget the numbers and the sizes that obsess the multitudes; think only of small kernels and seeds that can germinate and multiply, endlessly. Nourish them; protect them; spread them; celebrate them.

    • Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

     

  • Less can be more, less can be generative: a counter-memory from nature, mythology, science, technology and art (1)

    Less can be more, less can be generative: a counter-memory from nature, mythology, science, technology and art (1)

    Esu sleeps in the courtyard, it is too small for him/Esu sleeps in the bedroom; it is still too small for him/Esu sleeps inside the kernel of a palm fruit; now he has space large enough for him to sleep in From praise chants to Esu, the trickster god of fate, contradiction and paradox
    Less is more Ludwig Mies van der Rohe

    If, as the well known saying goes, too much of anything is bad, too little of everything is worse. Who prays for less of health, wealth, life, beauty, luck or fortune? Between abundance and scarcity, every woman and man alive in the world will gladly choose abundance. It seems a universal trait, doesn’t it, that we all pray for abundance and give thanks for it if it comes our way. Between having one child or two children and having five to eight, most of us would choose the latter, including people who do not have the material means to raise their children in comfort or in adequacy and security of life’s many necessities. As a matter of fact, and at least in our society and many other developing nations of the world, the poorer the man or woman, the larger the number of children desired. There is no doubt about it: most people alive now and that have ever lived almost always prefer/preferred abundance to scarcity, more to less.

    Postcolonial or neocolonial Nigeria seems to have taken the application or realization of this truism much further than possibly any other society on the planet, with the possible exception of America. Thus, like the Americans, our obsession, our delight in number, size and scale is extreme to the point of being self-defining. The manifestations or expressions of this observation are legion. The previous ruling party, the PDP, used to boast that it was the biggest ruling party in Africa, even if it was also probably the worst and most decadent ruling party in the African continent and possibly in the world. Now, ideologues and opportunistic and sedulous supporters of the new ruling party, the APC, have taken up and appropriated that boastful and empty claim of being the biggest party of all. We have thirty-six states or mini-countries and against the charge by many concerned patriots that this number is too large to be sustained by the pressure of our population size, there are loud and clamant demands for still more states to be created. Too often we read smug, self-satisfied accounts claiming that Nollywood, the national video film industry, now produces more films per annum than any national film industry in the world save Hollywood. But this claim leaves out the fact that we also produce more trashy films than any other country in the world. We have far many more universities now than any other country in the African continent, and yet in the same period that we consummated this “achievement”, the ranking of our universities has taken a nose dive not only in the world at large but also among the universities of or in Africa.

    Perhaps at this point in the present discussion, dear reader, it is important for me to let it be known that it is not a platitudinous jeremiad about Nigeria’s obsession with number and size that I intend in this piece. This obsession is certainly worthy of critique in its own right, most of all in its most debatable expression in the boastful claim that we are “the giant of Africa” simply because we are the most populous nation in the African continent. But far beyond platitudes, what I have in mind in this piece is a conversation in which size, number and scale might be put into conversation with their opposites – smallness, littleness and even minuteness – so as to show that our national obsession with size is not a “natural” or logical effect of our peculiarity as an African nation but is part of an ideological system that our political and social elites deliberately promote in order to run our society as their fiefdom, their modern day slave plantation or makeshift refugee camp.

    There are many discursive steps to take toward a convincing demonstration of the veracity of this claim. The first step is show, in line with the two epigraphs to this essay, that in many aspects of nature, society, mythology, science, technology and art, less often leads or conduces to more; indeed, it is far more generative than gigantic or super scale and size. Moreover, it is precisely because even though it is little known or talked about, this idea that “less is more” or “small is big” pervades so many areas of life and society that I am calling it a “counter-memory” of humankind. The idea is “counter” to the apparently universal belief that abundance and bountifulness are always to be preferred to scarcity and want. Precisely what do I have in mind in this act of reclaiming this counter-memory that we may simply call “less is more”? To answer this question, we must go to our two epigraphs, one at a time.

    First of all, I readily admit it. For a long time that lasted over about a decade, although I was greatly fascinated by the paradox, the enigma of the first epigraph to this essay, I did not really understand the profound meaning of the idea of Esu at last finding a space large enough for him to sleep in inside a palm nut kernel when much larger spaces like the bedroom and even the courtyard had been too “small” for him. This “meaning” is of course the idea of germination in human life in particular and all existence in general: inside the infinitely small space of a kernel or a seed, life can and is often regenerated on an almost limitless scale. Thus, in a literal and rather trivial sense, the space inside a kernel is small; but in a metaphoric and extraordinarily consequential sense, this same space is vast beyond measure.

    A similar notion of infinitely small spaces and their inverse vastness is the founding basis of a large sub-discipline of the science of physics, especially so-called “particle” or subatomic physics. The spaces and entities studied and tapped for their powers in this branch of physics are so small, so minute that they cannot only not be seen by the human eye, they can be apprehended and explored only by super-microscopes powered by high-speed electron magnifiers. Moreover, this process has led to what is now known as “nano-fabrication”, a process that measures and uses possibilities made available by spatial and temporal measurements of one billionth of a second or of a meter. To normal or “ordinary” human sensory and temporal perception, a hundredth of a second or a meter is already mind-boggling. But a billionth? Yes, that is what “nano-fabrication” and “nano-technology” have now made not only possible but a vital part of scientific and technological modernity or even postmodernity. The mapping of the human genome and indeed, cloning and other spectacular forms of gene splicing in use in fields as diverse as agribusiness in the production of super harvests from genetically modified crops; resonant imaging that makes it possible to probe into the innermost recesses of human organs and tissues; and the digital revolution in the production, storage and reproduction of words, images, texts and sounds endlessly in 21st century Information Technology (IT): all these fields and processes are made possible by “nano-fabrication”, the ultimate scientific and technological realization of the mythology of Esu’s preference for infinitely small spaces that generate bountiful harvests that are not limited by time and space. Germination and regeneration through and by small seeds is for all time and all places, including seemingly desolate regions like arid deserts and frigid arctic zones.

    Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, the man from whom comes the second epigraph to this piece, was a world famous architect who was a leader of a so-called “minimalist” movement in modern art and architecture. To the baroque splendors and ornate excesses of feudal and early modern bourgeois architectures, van der Rohe and his followers substituted an austere minimalism that in form, style and function placed emphasis on as little as possible in materials, space and decorations used in the construction of both public buildings and individual dwellings. In modern African drama and literature, the greatest practitioners of minimalism are South African playwrights who were forced by the rigors of apartheid censorship and repression to use as few actors and performers as possible so as to be able to quickly disband and escape when they were raided by the regime’s goon squads. What arose from necessity became a great artistic achievement when opponents of the regime in theatre and performance created two- or three-character plays that used techniques of plays-within-the-play and role-switching to create the impression that many characters, many performers were on the stage when the actual number of the cast was one or two.

    One of my personal favorites in the many expressions of this minimalist principle of “less is more” in the domain of philosophy and theory is the idea present in fields of knowledge and ideas as diverse as semiotics, structuralism and poststructuralism that the generation of reference and meaning takes place through a very limited set of rules and procedures whose combinations are however endless. On this account, if you know and can “play” astutely with the few rules and procedures, you can generate reference and meaning endlessly. What is particularly exciting about this “theory” is the contention that though experts may be able to expound on its operations more than laymen and women, by the very structure of our brains and minds as human beings, we are wired to create, change, play with, revise and renew meaning and reference as much as we like or are compelled by circumstances and/or intention. In other words, every woman and man is a potential activator or beneficiary of this principle of “less is more”. Halleluiah!

    It is necessary at this point to say with as much emphasis as possible that these reflections are not limited to and by ultramodern, millennial scientific, technological and artistic developments. Thus, I do declare that the idea that less is more and can be regenerative, that life can be enriched and or renewed by wanting and consuming as little as possible has always been around in nearly all the cultures of the world. Nearly all the great thinkers, visionaries and moral reformers of the world made it a habit, an obligation on themselves and their followers, to want and own as little as possible. And there is a saying, an adage that is found in almost all the folklores of the world that says that the only real and true way to be “rich” is to want, need and own as little as possible. The late Ulli Beier used to say that the real “Babalawos” or “Dibias” of our traditional precolonial societies never made accumulation of wealth their passion or mission in life. Jesus famously asked of all those who wished to follow him and be his disciples to sell off all their belongings and like him, take the vows of poverty.

    I am not romanticizing poverty and condemning wealth and abundance as values in and of themselves, compatriots. It is the worship, the idolatry of money and wealth that I identify as an obsession foisted on all in our society by our political, social and religious elites that I condemn and unmask in this piece. More specifically, it is the perpetration and perpetuation of this idolatry of money and wealth through our national obsession with number and size that I explore and condemn. We do not deal in small, modest numbers and scale, compatriots. Looting that is countable in millions and not in billions does not get our attention and concern. With us, wastage and squandermania that do not astonish in their scale do not cause outcry and outrage. In next week’s concluding piece in the series, we shall link this obsession to the hegemonic ideology of a demographically and socially tiny elite that sees the country as its fiefdom.

    • Biodun Jeyifo

    bjeyifo@fas.harvard.edu

  • State of nature

    State of nature

    Can Black people handle the modern nation-state? As the twenty first century finally gets into its mighty strides, there has been no shortage of drama and excitement. There have been a couple of “revolutions” against the old order. The Middle East has been on a permanent boil. Externally induced wars have seen to the end of Iraq as it came to be known after colonial surgery in the wake of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

    As a fallout of the fratricidal confrontations in Iraq, Syria and Libya, a humanitarian catastrophe the like of which has not been seen since the Second World War threatens the very foundation of the nation-state in Europe. The whole world is becoming a very unusual place even for its leading nations.

    The nation-state paradigm which has brought humankind its most spectacular achievements to date appears to have reached the end of its tether. Nobody can be sure of what will replace it and how this will be done. We live in interesting times. This is about the only thing one can vouchsafe for now.

    In a sense, it is obvious that this is going to be a shorter century than the twentieth century which the great historian, Eric Hobsbawm, has described as the shortest century in history. Times and epochs appear very short and fleeting when galloping and breathtaking events unfold mercilessly and with a cruel and relentless tempo. If we ever thought that the remarkable twentieth century was “short”, this one promises to trump all records.

    The grim irony cannot be lost on European statesmen and its philosophers of human progress. The very naïve belief that the international order of nation-states imposed on the rest of the world by European states after the treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht will bring peace, progress and prosperity to humanity by osmosis and by heroic imitation now lies in ruins and among barbed wires in a vast no-man -land across old Carthage, the Middle East and the outer fringes of Europe. The ghosts of colonial cartography have finally arrived at the banquet of imperial impunity.

    But if gold can rust, what will dross do? In the beginning, this century was touted as Africa’s own century and the golden opportunity for the entire Black race to struggle free of the millennial savagery imposed on the continent by colonial conquest and confiscation. Ever since the middle of the fifteenth century, an entire continent and race have been reeling from a coordinated and systemic subjugation from Europe and the Middle East which virtually destroyed its traditional political institutions, its traditional belief system, self-confidence and its mode of apprehending and making sense of reality which have been in place for over a millennia.

    In the place of this ancient system, Africa was saddled with inchoate and incoherent political institutions which further distort the African psyche, an absurd legal and judicial system which lacks the rigour of applicability and the terror of deterrence, and a religious arrangement which has seen to the rise of spiritual predators and hypocritical vendors and vultures of venality all over the continent. Hell is on earth and it is here on the African continent in its most troubling manifestation.

    This is the root cause of the trouble with Africa and a gargantuan mishmash and mismatch like Nigeria. To be sure, other peoples and races have been conquered and subjected to systematic pillage before, but they have managed to retain their ontology and fundamental cosmology, yielding only to change that is organically driven and internally powered by local forces at play. No African nation can overcome crippling limitations imposed on Africa by the nation-state paradigm except its talented first eleven are allowed to roll up their sleeves and set to work.

    Africa was never designed as a congeries of nation-states. The Berlin Conference of 1884/1885 in which the “virgin” continent was carved up parceled among the colonial adventurers attests much to this fact. The entire continent was compulsorily and forcibly acquired as a market and trading outlets for European goods. Till date, many African countries, long after the departure of the colonial masters, still behave with true fidelity to the founding charter.

    Yet despite this crippling genetic disability, there was much hope for Africa at the beginning of this century. The optimism was not entirely misplaced. South Africa had finally shaken off the yoke of the monstrous system of apartheid. A new Black elite redolent of hope and possibilities was in power. After almost two decades of the most vicious military despotism, a new democratic dawn arrived in Nigeria just as the new century was birthed. Angola had seen off the cheerfully bloodthirsty Joseph Savimbi.

    A few African countries, particularly Ghana, Botswana, Senegal, Tanzania and Mozambique were also stirring. If only these countries, particularly Nigeria and South Africa, could achieve a linkage of soul and system, then they could serve as the much needed economic hub for the entire continent. The Black person was on song once again.

    Unfortunately, sixteen years into the new century, the hope has spectacularly dimmed. Libya has unraveled under the weight of internal contradictions, leaving many sub-Saharan countries unprotected from the scourge and menace of al-Queda and ISIS. The Arab spring has eventuated in even more authoritarian and paternalistic regimes. With Jacob Zuma, South Africa is stalling and struggling to regain the old magic of the founding patriarchs of the post-apartheid settlement.

    But it is the Nigerian tragedy that is most compelling. Nigeria remains a classic example of how not to run or organize a nation-state except it is a state of nature where everything is short, nasty and brutish. But it is precisely because of this abject nature of human irresponsibility that primitive human kind resolved to put their destiny in the hands of a law-imposing Leviathan.

    Despite the euphoria surrounding the departure of the military, the nation appears to have suffered a complete and comprehensive institutional implosion. None of the three arms of government appears to have been spared. In fact if a fraction of the daily menu of outlandish revelations are to be believed, one can  safely say that the nation has been  saddled with the worst breed of elite vermin ever thrown up by the entire continent.

    It is clear then that under the present circumstances, Nigeria isn’t going anywhere. The damage to the national psyche and fabric has been overwhelming. There is despair and despondency abroad. An eerie disorientation has settled on the nation. Victims applaud their victimizers, in a startling display of what is known as the Stockholm syndrome. A group known as Bring Back Corruption is advocating a return to the shameless old order. As it was in the beginning with old colonization, so it is now with the new colonization.

    But one thing should now be clear from the creeping anarchy and lawlessness.  If the major culprits of this historic heist ever go Scot free or with a slap on the wrist as a result of our derelict legal and judicial system or some shabby political compromise, we can be sure that the Hobbesian state of nature will be a child’s play compared to what may overtake us. The signs are already there in the bestiality, the economic cannibalism, the do or die politics and the flagrant disregard for the sanctity of the human flesh.

    In the light of this, we must now reframe our founding question. Can the Black person ever do nation-states? Certainly not under the current format and structure. In Nigeria, the whole structure has to be comprehensively reworked. The structural logjam places an impossible burden on messianic intervention and the lone visionary. While we must applaud General Buhari’s sense of duty and abiding patriotism, it is now obvious that the Nigerian project requires a total revisioning and reworking to bring the country at par with the dictates and precepts of a true nation-state.

    Nigeria cannot be described as a failed state because it was never designed to work for Nigerians in the first instance. As Chief Obafemi Awolowo famously forewarned as far back as 1945, creating a country is different from creating an organic nation. The humungous mess we are saddled with bristling with enemy nationals and mutually unintelligible cultures cannot be so described except as a cruel joke among political scientists. Nation-building is not a tea conference.

    As it is today, with nothing standing between its primordial instincts and aborted modernity, the post-colonial state in Nigeria is a hybrid monstrosity gradually reverting to a state of nature where hunter-gatherers prevail, no matter what decorative garbs they wear to the cannibal festival. This is the ultimate political psychosis where a state is primitive in soul and psyche but wears the gaudy apparel of modern governance. As an overriding state task, President Buhari must urgently gather a group of wise Nigerians to apprise him of the dangers facing the country and the immediate way forward.

    In order to highlight the critical nature of the trouble with the country, we bring our dear readers a passage from The Remains of the Last Emperor where the following dialogue ensued between the hero and the psychiatrist-protagonist.

    “Doctor, what will happen when madness is finally eradicated from the world?” he muttered at him. The doctor stopped abruptly and then turned towards us.

    “Wouldn’t that be madness?” he began calmly. “We are not saying that madness should be eradicated. All we are saying is that some lower forms of madness should be exchanged for higher ones. Think of us in a hundred years to come still fighting corruption, armed robbery and the wastage of our best and brightest a time when we should be concerned with how to guarantee equal social opportunities for all with maximum political liberty.”(p.81)

    Twenty four years after these words were written and sixteen years into the new century, Nigeria is battling with even more vicious forms of corruption and armed robbery and other social vices even as we continue to waste our best and brightest.

    As the columnist writes this, reports came from Rivers State that an army major and some enlisted men had been shot and killed by brigands while they were on patrol to curb the activities of political thugs and economic miscreants who have turned that area into Nigeria’s axis of evil. It doesn’t get more depressing.

    Where is Thomas Adeoye Lambo who famously advocated a psychiatric evaluation for all prospective office holders in this country? As a youth, Lambo was once known to have worn a mask to his rich mother’s stall thinking that he was beyond recognition. But the matriarch quickly recognized the masquerade as her own son. As at this moment, not even the colonial political midwives would recognize the nightmare that is Nigeria.

  • Understanding the sacred status of nature

    Nature is so important in the existence of man that nobody lives without depending on it for survival. In fact, nothing can exist outside of nature. Human beings live in houses, towns and cities and depend on sunshine, rain, clothes and food for survival and growth. In a sense, nature is the platform on which living creatures ride to live and from which they derive all they require for survival, including their respiration. Nature is ever kind, gentle, patient, honest and helpful to all creatures, showing much understanding and respect for their survival instincts and making adjustment for their incursions.

    Unfortunately, the greed of man and his avaricious tendencies has always made him attempt to wipe out nature or twist its course of operation for his own selfish gains.  From the very beginning of his existence, and with increasing intensity, human society has adapted nature and made all kinds of incursions into it. An enormous amount of human labour has been spent on transforming nature. Humanity converts nature’s wealth into the means of the cultural, historical life of society. Man has subdued and disciplined electricity and compelled it to serve the interests of society. Not only has man transferred various species of plants and animals to different climatic conditions, he has also changed the shape and climate of his habitation and transformed plants and animals. If we were to strip the geographical environment of the properties created by the labour of many generations, contemporary society would be unable to exist in such primeval conditions.

    Man is constantly aware of the influence of nature in the form of the air he breathes, the water he drinks, the food he eats, and the flow of energy and information. And many of man’s troubles are a response to the natural processes and changes in the weather, intensified irradiation of cosmic energy, and the magnetic storms that rage around the earth. In short, we are so connected with nature that we cannot live outside it. During their temporary departures from Earth, spacemen take with them a bit of the biosphere. Nowhere does nature affect humanity in exactly the same way. Its influence varies. Depending on where human beings happen to be on the earth’s surface, it assigns them varying quantities of light, warmth, water, precipitation, flora and fauna.

    Man and nature interact dialectically in such a way that, as society develops, man tends to become less dependent on nature directly, while indirectly his dependence grows. This is understandable because while he is getting to know more and more about nature, and in the process transforming it, man’s power over nature progressively increases, but in the same process, man comes into more and more extensive and profound contact with nature, bringing into the sphere of his activity growing quantities of matter, energy and information.

    However, man’s technological and scientific breakthroughs over the decades have had certain negative impact on the natural landscape of the earth. Forests, for example, have been destroyed for arable land to increase; the land has been over-grazed, thus exposing it to abnormal conditions. This was all done in the name of civilization. But as time passed, the interaction between man and nature became characterized by accelerated subjugation of nature and the taming of its elemental forces. Mankind became increasingly concerned with the question of where and how to obtain irreplaceable natural resources for the needs of production. Science and man’s practical transforming activity made humanity aware of the enormous geological role played by the industrial transformation of earth. Consistently and continually, man discovered and devised new pattern of coping with the daily challenges of life.

    Modern industrial activity has embraced ruthless ways of crushing global natural systems. Indeed, the prevailing trend of the modern world is the pursuit of activities that portend great danger for the future existence of the earth. In finding solutions to the complex world’s challenges, man unconsciously creates other problems that are often too difficult to manage. Climate change, overpopulation, loss of topsoil and fresh water, increasing rates of species extinction, deforestation, imperiled coral reefs, unstoppable invasive species, toxic chemicals that remain for eons in the environment, persistent human poverty and hunger, and an increasingly inflated and unstable world financial system are some of the results that unwholesome human induced activities have brought upon the world.

    The problem of eliminating industrial waste is also becoming increasingly complex. The threat of a global ecological crisis hangs over humanity like the sword of Damocles. His keen awareness of this fact has led man to pose the question of switching from the irresponsible destructive and polluting subjugation of nature to a reasonable harmonious interaction in the “technology-man-biosphere” system. Whereas nature once frightened us and made us tremble with her mysterious vastness and the uncontrollable energy of its elemental forces, it now frightens us with its limitations and a new-found fragility, the delicacy of its plastic mechanisms. We are faced quite uncompromisingly, with the problem of how to stop, or at least moderate, the destructive effect of technology on nature.

    Human activity at various times has involved a good deal of irrational behaviour. Labour, which started as a specifically human means of rational survival in the environment, now damages the biosphere on an increasing scale and on the boomerang principle—affecting man himself, his bodily and mental organisation. Under the influence of uncoordinated production processes affecting the biosphere, the chemical properties of water, air, the soil, flora and fauna have acquired a negative shift. Experts maintain that 60 per cent of the pollution in the atmosphere, and the most toxic, comes from motor transport, 20 per cent from power stations, and 20 per cent from other types of industry.

    Many people seem not to understand that the quality of our lives as human beings is substantially a reflection of the quality of the environment which we inhabit. Many still seem not to comprehend that the environment which we inhabit, like kola in Igbo culture, is life in itself. It is whatever we give to the environment that it gives back to us. No more, no less. Most cities of the world experience environmental abuse as a result of the ignorance of the people when it comes to environmental matters. It is from this perspective that one really takes exception to various habits and activities of Lagos residents that portend great danger to the environment. How, for instance, does one explain such despicable attitudes as defecating or urinating in public places, indiscriminate refuse dumping, drainage blockage, construction on waterways, drainage alignments, throwing  of refuse into canals and such unauthorised places, turning garden and parks into arena for environmentally unfriendly activities among others ?

    As a people, we need to really come to terms with the significance of an improved environmental habit. When we deliberately choose to act in manners that endanger the environment, we are the ones that would certainly bear the consequences of such actions. Hence, preserving the sanctity of nature should be everybody’s responsibility because when nature fights back, no one could cope with its rage.

    • Ibirogba is Honourable Commissioner for Information & Strategy, Lagos State 

  • A 2015 review of Nature’s Friends (9)

    We live in a world that is not ours alone. With us on this earth are not only cockroaches, ants, lions, and snakes but also germs that we cannot see with the unaided eye. We still cannot tell why we have to co-exist with them, except the knowledge that some, if not all of these germs, help to facilitate the decay of any form of life from which life is draining away or has drained. Candida, a member of the fungi/yeast family does this. It is plentiful in breast cancer tissue that is decaying, a signal that the life force is draining from the rest of the body as well. When the tongue is gray, that is a mirror, warning us that candida is overgrowing its population in the intestine. Happily, Mother Nature gives us in the Plant Kingdom enough weapons to protect our bodies against these undertakers, as Dr. Robert Young calls them. This series has been featuring many of these natural weapons. The feature continues today.

     

    Maharani

    Non-Indians who cherish Indian food should be no strangers to Maharani. In India and in the United Kingdom, it is the name of great Indian restaurants which claims to offer the best in Indian cuisine. In Nigeria, I do not know if a Maharani restaurant exists. We hear, always, of Mandarin restaurants. But for some years now, Maharani has been featuring in the Alternative Medicine market as a proprietary herbal blend recipe for many female problems especially those which involve the ovaries. Many women who have heard about it or are using it for health reasons link it with the elimination of uterine fibroids. For this purpose, it is often prescribed along with systematic enzymes such as Serrapeptase, which helps to dissolve unnatural growths.

    Maharani has about ten benefits for a woman’s health, according to its product literature.

    These are:

    ONE: It combats menstrual pain, excessive white discharge and flatulence.

    TWO: The menstrual cycle is balanced through a regulation by this product.

    THREE: Some women take a long time to recover from the strains and rigours of pregnancy. Maharani is said to shorten recovery time.

    FOUR: Women cherish healthy, youthful, supple and radiant skin, Maharani is said to help them achieve them.

    FIVE: For women who have uterine challenges, including uterine fibroids and prolapsed uterus, it should be good news that Maharani helps strengthen, support and align the uterine wall.

    SIX: Also important for a woman’s fertility is healthy blood circulation. Many women sight heavy black cloths of blood in their menstrual blood. This is deoxygenated blood. It means the blood got “hooked” up in the uterus for longer than it should and lost its oxygen content. As fresh blood sluggishly comes to the uterus, oxygen and nutrient deliveries are delayed. This makes uterine cells sick, and germs take advantage of them. Any wonder then, that candida, bacteria, viruses etc are found in uterine fibroid tissue. Maharani literature says “it improves blood circulation prior to the menstrual cycle”.

    SEVEN: Every woman wishes to be fertile, for as long as possible. Female fertility involves many factors, including hormonal balance, clear and open fallopian tubes, healthy ovaries aid a functional uterus and cervix among others. It is not stated in the literature how Maharani helps with these. But there is no doubt that it has a positive impact on the ovaries, which are crucial for the attainment of these factors.

    EIGHT: For women whose tummies continue to bulge after child birth due to slack abdominal muscles, Maharani is presented as an agent which helps to “contract the uterine muscles after childbirth”.

    NINE: What are women without estrogen and progesterone, the two major female hormones? They give a woman her delicate curves, bosom breasts, supple skin and hair and skin and voice. When the hormones are out of balance, a woman’s health is jeopardised. Too much estrogen, for example, has been implicated in breast cancer, period pains, uterus fibroids, elevated blood prolactin levels, which cause nipple discharge and block the ovaries from producing and releasing eggs. If Maharani balances female hormones as promised in its literature, that should be great news for women beset with hormonal imbalance. I have no reason to doubt its capacity for this to call the hormones to order. For Maharani is a compendium of herbs targeted at female reproductive organs and fertility.

    If a woman who lived in the Shomolu area of Lagos a few years ago reads this, she should see herself in a mirror, and laugh. She was in her early thirties and had been married about three years without a child. She was not menstruating. She sought help for her menstrual cycle, and she was advised to try Maharani. She requested other hormone-balancing herbs as well, against advice. When her period came, it was in a flood and ran for more days than normal. The bleeding had to be stopped. Today she is a happier woman with fruits of the womb.

    TEN: What about menopausal women who suffer from hot flashes and other change of life- discomforts, including oesteoporosis? When hormones are not balanced, calcium does not fixed properly in the bones. Many women suffer from deposition of calcium in wrong places, including the joints (arthritis), shoulders (frozen shoulders), eye lens (cataracts) etc. Maharani is said to help this class of women as well.

    e live in an age of mycoplasma diseases. Going by the germ theory of disease, we believe diseases are caused by germs. Therefore, mycoplasma disease would be a disease caused by myco (small germs) in the plasma. Blood plasma is a pale yellow fluid part of the blood, one of the functions of which is to hold blood cells (red or white) in the bloodstream. About 55 percent of the blood volume, blood plasma is, that part of fluid in blood vessels which can migrate outside the blood vessels to, again, form part of the extra cellular fluid, that is fluid outside the blood vessels (interstitial fluid) which surrounds the 100 trillion or, more cells in an average adult human body. Blood plasma is largely water in which are dissolved nutrients such as proteins, glucose, and clothing factor, electrolytes, hormones and anti-nutrients or wastes such as carbon dioxide. In interstitial fluid, plasma supports osmotic forces which send nutrients into the cells and bring out their wastes for evacuation.

    The plasma can be inhabited by mycoplasma and ureaplasma. Mycoplasma and ureaplasma belong to the family of smallest free living bacteria. They do not have cell walls and live inside the cells or in cultures outside of cells. This explains why organs of the body can become infected, especially by mycoplasma and ureaplasma (a cause of working pneumonia) if the blood plasma becomes infected by them.

    When I hear of conditions such as Polysystic Ovarian Syndrome (POS) for example, my mind immediately races to mycoplasma travelling through the blood to the interstitial (extra vascular) fluid into the cells of the ovaries where they can be reached by a special class of antibiotic and antiviral herbs.

    Some of the symptoms of mycoplasma and ureaplasma germs in the body may include discharge, burning, urinary urgency and pain.

    Laboratory tests fail to fish out the culprit. Germs are difficult and expensive, and only a few pharmaceutical antibiotics successfully deal with the germs. Even then, they may have to be taken for months. Patients may become tired of taking the medicines, thereby given the bacteria respite and increasing their leg room.

    About 16 species of mycoplasma have been identified. Three have been linked to human infections such as working pneumonia, atypical pneumonia, urinary and genital infections, including vaginitis, sexually transmitted diseases (STD), and chronic diseases in people with weakened immunity. Some doctors believe that more than 50 percent of sexually active women are colonised by a specie called urealyticam, which they may pass on to the new babies. This should strike a note of warning to men who indulge in oral sex.

    According to a tropical plants data base authored by LESLIE TAYLOR, Bellaco Capsi…

    “…reduces pain, reduces inflammation, kills bacteria, kills fungi/candida, kills cancer cells, heal wounds, prevent ulcers, aids menstruation, cleans lymph glands, reduces fever, calms coughs, cleans blood and expels worms”

    Leslie taylor says different countries which are familiar with Bellaco Capsi use it for different purposes, although there are common uses. He says:

    “In Brazilian Herbal medicine, Bellaco Capsi is considered analgesic, anti-inflamatory, anti-tumoral, anti-fungi, anthel-mintic, (against worms), aphrodisiac, emanogogue (menstrual stimulant), emollient, febrifuge (reduces fever) purgative, tonic, fermifuge (kills parasites) and vulnerary (heals wounds). Practitioners and herbalists in Brazil recommend it for lymphatic gland disease and inflammation, female disorder such as endometriosis, uterine fibroid, tumours, menstrual irregularities and pain, ovarian cyst and ovarian inflammation, cancerous tumours and skin cancers, digestion problems such as indigestion, stomach ache, bowel inflammation and gastric ulcer, general pain and inflammation (arthritis, rheumatism and fractures), cough fevers, headaches, asthma and other lung diseases and various skin issues such as wounds, ulcers, and rashes”.

    In Peru, Bellaco Capsi enjoys similar reputation. The Peruvians add hernias to the list. The guyaness add liver disorders to the lists.

    In 1998, Brazilian researchers reported that Bellaco Capsi bark exhibited greater antifungal effect than control drug that was used (Nistatin)”.

    In 2005, a Brazilian researcher suggested that Bellaco Capsi’s anti-asthma action may be due to its relaxation of smooth muscles.

    About three or four years ago, I suggested Bellaco Capsi to a woman who faced the challenge of bilateral Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (POS)! she could not ovulate and had no child. She had taken many pharmaceutical drugs prescribed by her gynaecologist, to no avail. Suspecting mycoplasma bacteria and candida at work, I informed her of the need to detoxify not only the blood but the plasma and the lymph as well. In those days, there were no systemic detoxifiers as we have today… for example, there were no Diatomaceus, Zeolyte AV (for viruses) and Zeolite pure (for heavy metals, toxins etc) Serrapeptase (to dissolve growths), etc she took the ones available and in addition Bellaco Capsi. Soon, her pains subsided, her ovulation came and she became pregnant. Unfortunately, the pregnancy turned out to be ectopic and was evacuated in the hospital to protect her life. We were in touch for a while, and lost touch afterwards.

    rYemiJohn, a safety engineer full of life and meticulous about naturalness in all things, deserves the credit for inviting my attention to BIOTRUST group of product. They’ve always been around us, but I’d always taken no more than a passing interest in them until I sighted them with this gentleman. In the BIOTRUST groups are such products as:-

    •Biotrust low carb, a milk and whey protein in concentrate mixed with fibre and digestive enzymes including pro-hydrolase. Prohydrolase is believed to facilitate maximum delivery of protein to the muscles than other protein digestive enzymes. It is recommended that it be taken within ten minutes of mixing with water because prohydrolase immediately sets to work digesting the protein.

    •BCAA Matrix. The acronym means Branched Chain Amino Acids, since a few years ago become one of the latest words in natural medicine. With lots of leucine, an amino acid present in it, this products is suggested for dieters who do not wish to lose muscle mass while losing body fat to a sliming diet. This products pride itself as being better than other BCCA products because, as the producers say, it employs a three-pathway delivery system, instead of one in other products, to deliver nutrients to the muscles during a diet fast. It is said that, in other BCCAs, Leucine, Valine and Isoleucine occur in a 2:1:1 ratio. But in Biotrust’s BCCA Matrix, Leucine occurs in a 4:1:1 ratio to the other two because, says BIOTRUST, Leucine has been found by researchers to be the most anabolic amino acid. At this Leucine concentration, it is believed that this BCCA product can melt “Spot Specific belly fat”

    •IC-5. This is a blood sugar balancing supplement which is reported to stop insulin resistance. In insulin resistance, the cells shut their doors against insulin which, accordingly, cannot help sugar burning in the cells and, so, makes blood sugar concentrate in the bloodstream. Improved insulin sensitivity increases fat burning, decreases fat storage and supports blood sugar management. Some of the ingredients include known sugar burners such as (1) Cinnamon (2) Burmannii (3) Berberine (4) Pterocarpus Marsupium (5)Alpha Liopic Acid (ALA)

    •LEPTIN – BURN: Leptin is the dominant fat–burning hormone in the body. Many people have a deficiency of it or are resistant to insulin. To burn fat, high amounts of Leptin are required as are leptin receptors in the cells highly sensitive to Leptin. Leptin levels may drop by half within one week of a fat burning diet. This may be why many people return to status-quo-ante after ending a fat burning diet. In LEPTIN BURN, irvingia gabonensis increases leptin sensitivity while oleanotic acid increases leptin output and effectiveness. Brown sea wool extract also increases leptin production and Thyroid Stimulating Hormone (TSH) which increases body metabolism. There is also Panax Notog Inseng, which decreases appetite and improves leptin sensitivity. Yerba mate  and Green tea extract compliments the ingredients to curb appetite and increase energy and alertness.

     

    Pro – X10

    A few decades ago, the Royal College of Surgeons issued a health or death alert in which it said death begins slowly but surely in the intestines. The intestine of many people is rotten and a breeding ground for killer germs. Sometimes, these germs escape into the bloodstream from where they may colonise some organs, causing organ failures. BIOTRUST reminds us that about 80 percent of the immune cells in our bodies are resident in our intestine (gastro-intestinal system). The 25 feet long system houses about 100 trillion bacteria species. That, says BIOTRUST, is about ten times the number of cells in some human bodies. But the population of bacteria is not the crucial issue. The critical issue is how many of them are friendly bacteria, that is harmless bacteria, and how many, being unfriendly, are dangerous bacteria. The ideal ratio of good or bad bacteria is about 9:1, according to BIOTRUST. But unfortunately, many people have a much, lower ratio of good to bad bacteria. BIOTRUST says:

    “Due to lifestyle and environmental factors, the majority of the population is severely lacking when it comes to good probiotic bacteria. There are more than 200 studies linking inadequate probiotic levels to more than 170 diseases and health issues ranging from gut specific issues to mental health disorders to allergies to obesity. As you may have guessed gut health and the proper ratio of bacteria in the gut flora are extremely important for overall health and play a critical role in immune function, prevention of many diseases, and optimising body composition. In fact, research is now suggesting that supplementing with probiotic every single day is even more important to your health than taking a daily multivitamin”.