Blogging Bloggers Blog About Blogging About Bloggers

Doesn't make sense does it?

Its like saying 'Plantain planters planting plantain in plantain plantation'. But that makes sense. In a way.

This is about blogging. And bloggers. And bloggers blogging. [Or blogging bloggers]. And blogging about bloggers. [Or blogging bloggers blogging about blogging bloggers.]. Anyway, you get the point.

Besides, I needed to update my blog before Bumight comes to remind me again.

Sometime last week, I was in conversation with a friend over lunch and suddenly he switched our gist to blogging. My first thought was that I had been outed and I was thinking of just denying it. It turns out though that our friend did not know about this blog but his peeve was with the Naija bloggers in general. He had been going round blogs and he finds it disturbing that most of the Naija bloggers actually write negative stuff about Nigeria.

I reminded him about the right of anyone to write as he/she will, a right enshrined in the constitution and also of the right of 'Nigeria' to respond if she feels any write-up is not positively reflecting upon her. [NOTE: Re-brand Nigeria still does not have a website/ web-presence. Are those guys thinking at all?].

His response actually shocked me; they had been 'reliably' informed that these Naija bloggers are actually the children/ agents of former Nigerian politicians or rulers who have fallen out of favour with the 'government' and are using the Internet to spread negative reports about Nigeria and the government in a 'campaign of calumny'.
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Sincerely, my jaw was on the ground. Na so I dey look am

He then launched into a tirade of expletives to describe in unsalutary terms, the 'unpatriotic' acts of these so-called Nigerian bloggers. He even gave some names of those he called 'discredited politicians and agents of destabilization'.

Now, I am not so naive. I am old enough to know enough that some people can put up blogs to push an agenda. I also know that some bloggers are children of or related to some Nigerian politicians or former military rulers but I do not think/ never thought that constituted any reason to deny them their right to write as they will.

I do not know if anyone else has got this info but I seriously wonder at its intentions. It may probably be to introduce a sort of paranoia among Naija bloggers. I just can imagine reading Afrobabe, Badderchic, Deolu Akinyemi, Baroque, Solomonsydelle, Bumight, Vera Ezimora, Jide Salu, Woomie O, Roc Naija, Chari & Buttercup and wondering how much of their posts are 'subversive'. It is a worrisome thought.

Maybe this will eventually shut us all up. I must tell you that since that conversation, I have been thinking about blogging and whether its worth it after all. Several times I had logged on to Blogger but was too 'afraid' to blog about anything. Not that anyone might 'catch' me or anything as I have done nothing to be ashamed of. I am rather proud of my blog and have directed not a few people to it. Surreptitiously though.

I believe that bloggers are readers and readers are leaders and I have expressed that severally. I believe that out of this crop of Naija bloggers will come a crop of leaders in this country. A blogger is affecting minds with his/her writing. Yea, including Afrobabe and her 'total fuckery'. If all Nigerian youth were bloggers, they won't have time to send yahoo mails. That is a fact.

When Obama started out as a community organizer, I doubt if anyone believed that he would someday become President of the US.

Blogging is like community organizing but though the community is largely invisible or virtual, real minds are being affected by our posts and stories. Our personal failings and triumphs as shared on our blogs are read by millions of our countrymen and women who share our pains and laugh at our foolishness.

It is also their story. That's why they keep coming back.

That is why we write.

I De-baptise Thee In The Name Of ......

According to this article, 'More than 100,000 former Christians have downloaded "certificates of de-baptism" in a bid to publicly renounce their faith'. The online service started about five years ago and is provded by the London-based National Secular Society (NSS)

I think the issues here are more political than parochial.

'According to Argentine campaigner Ariel Bellino, a former Catholic: "The church counts all those who've been baptized as Catholic and lobbies for legislation based on that number, so we're trying to convey the importance of people expressing they no longer belong to the church."

In England, its a bit more desperate:

"Official estimates are that fewer than one million Britons regularly attend Sunday services, but there are currently 26 Church of England bishops sitting in the House of Lords. With churches, everybody checks in, but nobody checks out. There's no exit strategy except the funeral."

Some protesters have published renouncement of their Christianity in newspapers but Nick Baines, the Bishop of Croydon, says such notation makes little difference.

"Sticking [a] note in the register is not 'de-anything', it is simply a note in
a register that has no effect whatsoever other than to make him feel better
that he has been heard."

In Africa - where religion is the opium or 'primary sustainer' of the people in the convenient absence of government- particularly in Nigeria where the churches are always full and some even hold up to six 90-minute services every Sunday, this may be a tall order. Or may just take longer in coming.

The decisions of baptism were taken on your behalf by your parents when you were too young to decide just like your 'choices' of school, residence or even friends. Even if you don't agree with them now, can you change them? Do you have to put yourself through the stress of trying to change tham even if only symbolically?

More importantly, is it really possible to de-baptise yourself? Since true religion is between between an individual and God, the renumnciation of that relationship - if at all possible- should also be between the two parties only. The Church is just a third party.

Re-branding: A D-I-Y Guide

My Naija peeps,

Ever since the news broke on this Bernie Maddof's scam (Ponzi, Hedge - same difference), how many Americans have you called up to talk about America being a land of scammers and how afraid you are to even talk to them or counting your money near them?

What?

None?

Exactly. You don't go around calling people names and you know the difference between one person's greed and a people's aspirations. Your Mama taught you better than that.

I am so proud of you.

The next time some e.diot gets in your face and wants to talk about some 'Nigerian' scams or what not, just look at him from head to toe (you know how) and let out one of those famous long hisses or just pronounce him 'F-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-l' in your best Talab Abass voice.

Better still, you can just re-brand his face with a dirty slap.

[At your own risk sha]