UN-JOS-TIFIABLE

Jos. Still on my mind.

Just today, the Police has finally been able to draw up a list of 162 people to prosecute for the massacres in Jos. What I find most interesting are the offenses for which the suspects are being 'prosecuted'.

- 41 suspects are to be charged with terrorism and culpable homicide, punishable by death'

- 82 would be charged with unlawful possession of firearms, rioting and "mischief by fire"

Terrorism? Culpable homicide ? Pray, how many will be charged with 'Murder'? None.

'Mischief by fire'; is that the same as arson? Maybe not.

No wonder nobody seems interested in the trials, if ever they actually take place. From the onset, we have refused to call a crime by its name; we glorify criminals and call them 'muslims' or 'christians'.

I am not sure if we have learned anything from all these killings and a people who would not learn from their history, are bound to repeat.

Will we ever forget what happened in Jos? Unfortunately, yes. Sooner than later, we will.

Did we not forget Ife/Modakeke? Aguleri/Umuleri? and the many wars of the Ijaw/Itsekiri/Urhobo?

Cunning Man Die ...

For Nigeria and Nigerians, these are very interesting times.

With a president who has been AWOL for almost 80 days and a clique of hangers-on who have decided NOT to do the right things even when the right things are as simple as writing a letter (or a communication) to the Senate President. Things had got so heated up that people were afraid of a breakdown of law and order and probably a breakup of Nigeria.

It is true that we take Nigeria's resilience for granted and we subject her to all kinds of pummeling but then if such be the path of our nation-building, then so be it. We are still a country trying to become a nation. Nigeria will definitely outlive all of us. In fact, I am not afraid for Nigeria, it is Nigerians I pity.

I have come to know enough of Nigeria to know that it will take more than Turai Yar'adua and her band of hangers-on to bring this country to her knees. Their game was so obvious even to a child right from the onset, what remained to be seen was how Nigerians would react to it.

We were not voted the happiest people on earth for nothing. We have learned the art of meeting our challenges with humor. The latest one was even very funny. It was like a game of draughts. For most of January the clique reacted to every single act of the Nigerian people:

- Every time Nigerians vowed to go to Court: Aondoakaa went to Court. The same court, mind you and gets the same judgment over and over again in such record time.

- When newspapers reported that Yar'adua was either dead or brain damaged, the next day, he gave an interview to the BBC Hausa Service in English.

Now, that interview has become their undoing. I remember that when he asked why the President would give an interview in English to an Hausa station, Aondoakaa said the transmission was meant for all Nigerians and not just Hausa speakers.

I agree that what we have is a political resolution and may not be the actual end of this logjam as it presents its own challenges. For instance, by this resolution - if we accept it for arguments sake - Nigeria now has two Presidents -though one is acting. Yar'adua never left power and Goodluck should be very careful what actions he takes. If he tries to remove Aondoakaa, Kaase will go to Court. Remember he was the one who got the spurious judgments from Abutu in the first place. All the same it is a step forward.

Now that the National House of Assembly has adopted the BBC interview as direct transmission by the President to it, I wonder how Aondoakaa will wiggle out of this.

Some lawyers have contended that an interview in which the President clearly declared that he was not well and fit enough to carry out his duties was not equal to a letter written to the Senate President.

1. That the interview was not authored by the President but rather by the BBC which is not even a Nigerian medium.
2. That the mode of transmission was not directly to the Senate President but rather a broadcast to the whole world.
3. That the Constitution (s. 145) clearly states that the transmission must be written because it says 'writes' and besides, it was not signed by Yar'adua.
   

These might be true, but the Senate (and some other lawyers) responded that:

1. We all know that Presidents don't usually write or type letters; they get some Secretary to do it and if they feel strongly enough they may actually dictate the letter to the Secretary who transcribes the dictation and it is the final transcript that is transmitted to the Senate President. We all know that the paper (medium) on which the letter is written is not likely be made in Nigeria.
2. The Senate president is part of the whole world and has decided to accept the interview as a direct transmission to himself. The messenger is not important, as long as he gets the message abi?
3. The BBC interview has been transcribed and published on the BBC website with the express permission of the President who has not come out to deny any part of the publication besides, the Constitution did not require any signature on the document.
   

We can even go further to say that the President's voice signature was all over the transmission, unless of course, Aondoakaa can prove that it was not the President's voice on BBC.

That will take us back to square one.

See? Cunning man die, cunning man bury am.

The Code Of Silence

The silence surrounding the state of being of President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is deafening.

Nobody seems to know exactly what is happening with/to him right now.

Well, they know but nobody wants to get the 'Baba Gana Kingibe' Treatment.

Remember the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the circumstance of his sack? He had announced the demise of his principal, only for the man to miraculously wake up a few hours later (after some serious prayers) and sack him - some say with the promptings of the First lady. Understandably.

So here we are again at the same pass. And yet again, we expect a miracle.

But this time, there is a code of silence in force. From the VP, to the Ministers, to the cleaners in Aso rock, the answer to every question is: Let us pray for the President to recover quickly.

Let us believe the best.

Myth #2: It Takes Two (Fair Is Fair!)

"Every marriage tends to consist of an aristocrat and a peasant."
- John Updike

Not everyone will marry. That's a fact we must learn to live with.

If you are one person with a rather acute sense of fairness and equality, the institution of marriage might just not be for you; unless you are prepared to chuck some of those ideals out the windows. Marriage, by its very nature is steeped in inequalities. In fact, that's what makes marriage unique.

A marriage is not a partnership, it is a union.

That is why the very idea of a pre-nuptial agreement totally negates the idea of marriage. Unless of course its a business arrangement.

Someone once defined a marriage as like the relationship between a statue and a pigeon. The pigeon perches on the statue and shits on it and what not; the statue does not seem to complain -at least not openly. If you are in a marriage, on some days you are the pigeon, on some other days you are the statue. Live with it.

It is not possible for two people to love each other equally, one must love the other more -at different times in the life of the relationship. Whatever the reasons for getting married, of necessity, one must need the other more.

A clergyman friend of mine once told me this: It does not take two people to make a marriage work, success in marriage depends on the 'Power of One'. At any point in a successful marriage, one person is giving more, doing more, being more for both of them but because of the deliberate opacity of marriage, people on the outside do not usually see this.

Examples abound of this for me and I believe you have a few examples of your own too.

My friend Chinedu works in telecoms with an annual salary of about N4m, his wife Amarachi works in a bank with take home close to N3m per annum. They are from similar family backgrounds, children of retired civil servants. They have two beautiful children.

Nedu and I have been friends like forever; our families are like 5 and 6. I know that he pays the rent, the children's school fees and other fees around the house including feeding money. His siblings go to public schools - his kid sister is in LASU while the brother is in secondary school. Nedu pays their fees too because his parents are retired.

Sometime in 2006, Nedu's mum had to queue in the sun at LASUTH, Ikeja in order to get the free eye surgery for cataract removal sponsored by the government of Bola Tinubu, she also got a free pair of glasses. I know these because I drove her there.

Amara's brother is in Covenant University and she pays the fees. Her two sisters are in private secondary schools. Sometime last year, her employers sponsored a vacation for the famly in the UK. She went with her Dad and the children. Her Dad actually went for a comprehensive medical check-up in London and was treated for some minor ailments while there. Amara paid for it.

For some time, I used to think that the marriage was not fair to my friend. Until one day it hit me, Nedu had never complained to me! For as long he was happy in his marriage whatever the configuration, it was not any of my business.

Marriage is an eternal work-in-progress, a perpetual balancing act.

Marriages fail when one person decides that its not worth it anymore.

Myth #1: Its All About You!

"When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man, the very angels desert heaven and come and sit in the house and sing for joy." - Brahma Sutra

People get married for so many reasons.

Some marry for love. Some marry for money. Some marry for security. Some marry for comfort. Some marry for positioning. Some marry for the baby. Some even marry for the wedding.

Usually, we all have our idea of a dream marriage (or dream wedding) and this idea/wish forms the basis of our 'reasons' for getting married but we mostly keep our 'reasons' to ourselves. We play our games right up until the wedding (or after) without the other person suspecting a thing. Then we settle down to 'live the dream'.

Problem is: We expect the other person to fit perfectly into our dream. And they don't. Then we get mad and wonder if we married the wrong person. Truth is, we married the right person for our 'reasons'. But then, our 'reasons' may have changed.

After all, he still owns that same airline and earns that same fantastic income as when you were courting and it fitted right into your 'reasons'. She's still the Most Beautiful Girl in Nigeria 1974 and she still earns good money from endorsements. She's still the daughter of Lord Rumblesbottom with all her Dad's connections. Besides, the PT stick still shows positive.

Nothing has really changed. Or has it? For one, you are now Mrs. Rumblesbottom-Ugbodikoko. But the change is more than in the name.

At the point you get married, everything changes. It is so subtle and you might have missed it but it happened. You may wake up to it the morning after or a year later, but it happened.

Since I came to this realization, I have watched wedding officiators try to explain something to the couples they wed. They try to tell them about the 'Divine Equation'; some times they fumble IMO and even when they get it right, the couples just don't get it.

The Divine Equation can be expressed as 1+1=1. Simple, abi?

I have seen some Pastors using the 'leave to cleave' passage from Genesis to explain this. Some have even used it to justify their arguments against hyphenated surnames - since they are supposed to become the mythical 'one'.

I don't want to go spiritual here but let me just say that the Divine Equation states that at the point of marriage between two people (usually a man and a woman), a third entity is formed. That entity is the Marriage.

From the moment they are married, the Marriage takes precedence over and above the constituent parts. It really does not matter who or what you were before, when you marry, you work at the Marriage. People shouldn't see you any longer rather they should see the Marriage.

People - especially Africans - will stop asking about your job, car or house once you are married. After 'How are you?' they ask about your spouse or the children. From then on it is about the Marriage. Remember, 1+1=1.

Does this mean that you lose your self in marriage? No. It means you are willing to submit of yourself in marriage. Remember, all former documents remain valid.

Some people say marriage is sacrifice. I don't agree wholly. Sacrifice can be forced. You can be made to sacrifice even against your will. Marriage is about submission. Its about what you are willing to give; about acceptance from the power of choice not a resignation from powerlessness.

The Marriage is only as strong as what both parties in it are willing to submit. If either or both gives 0.9 then it can't be 1+1=1. If he has $1 billion but is only willing to submit $900 million to the Marriage, beware. If she starts giving you conditions before she can be called Mrs. Rumblesbottom-Ugbodikoko, beware.

Think about the most successful marriages you know and try to decipher what either party in the marriage is doing to make the marriage work. If you can, then the marriage is not as strong as it appears. When a marriage is successful, it looks effortless. Its like they are doing nothing.

In reality, they are doing nothing. The Marriage they have built does it all for them.

It is really not about you. Neither is it about you too. Its about the Marriage.

Live with it.

The Six Myths About Marriage

"A happy man marries the girl he loves; a happier man loves the girl he marries."

Yes, I still have Laspapi's Tarzan Monologues on my mind.

The same weekend that my uncle was celebrating his fortieth wedding anniversary was also our own fifth wedding anniversary. Expectedly, my wife and I had several interesting discussions on what we will do to make it to forty. We concluded that it was best to just live it one day at a time.

I do some work with an NGO as a sort of relationship advisor. In the course of my duties, I usually meet with couples - both married and intending to marry. Most of the time I just listen and you will be amazed at the kind of things that people say they go through in their relationships. I have discovered that most people have created myths about the institution of marriage.

Most of these myths are based on misinformation. Misinformation fuelled by wrong attitudes.

Most of these misinformation unfortunately come from so called 'experts' and contained in books and magazines. For the wrong attitudes, I hold magazines like Cosmo responsible. And some of our 'Singles & Married' pastors. Some of them just don't have a clue.

Most of these myths are about the other sex. Myths about Men or Women in marriage. If these were all, there really wont have been much problems but sometimes, people have created myths about marriage itself.

I have tried to compile some that I have discovered both in the course of my own marriage and from listening to others. Some of them I had myself going into marriage but I believe I am wiser now.

I do not claim to know it all. After all, I am still married. And still learning. Please feel free to disagree with me.

These myths are about the Who, What, When, Why and How of marriage. The sixth myth I am still trying to grapple with. Here's hoping we will unravel it together in the next six weeks.

Happy Married Life!

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”
-Rodney Dangerfield

I was at a recently married friend's place over the weekend and they were obviously still in their post-honeymoon daze. Everywhere in the house was littered with photographs, cards and gifts -opened and unopened. Since most of the gifts were wall-clocks anyway, the couple decided to stop opening until probably later.

I also noticed so many cards, many wishing them a happy married life.

How would you describe a Happy Married Life? Is there really anything like a happy married life?

Or is it as my good friend Abadingo said, that the words 'happy' and 'married' cannot exist in the same sentence? You are either happy or you are married. They are mutually exclusive.

I told about an uncle who recently celebrated his fortieth wedding anniversary. I went to see him during the week. I looked at their wedding picture again, he was a young man of 23, recently graduated from university and just got a job. She was a wide eyed, very pregnant woman of 20, recently qualified as a teacher.

I couldn't help but ask him if he had thought about what they would be doing in forty years time. He did not. Remember that this was in the middle of the Nigerian Civil war. They were afraid but they lived everyday as it came.

So I asked him: Has he had a happy married life?

He answered emphatically in the affirmative. I wonder can he be for real?

What do you think?

Me, Tarzan

So I finally went to the Theater@Terra with Madam to see the Tarzan Monologues.

Yeah, I know. The whole world and his wife had already seen it.

We were probably the last couple in. We had to attend an Uncle's 40th wedding anniversary (yes 4-zero) and thus missed the 3 o'clock show. We barely made the 6 o'clock.

I finally saw Laspapi. No, I did not get to meet him. He was just too busy. I think the guy took on too many roles.

Writer, Producer, Director, Ticket seller, Ticket puncher, Doorman, Compere, Show Opener, Show Closer. etc etc etc. I know the budget was tight but there must have been other guys who could do other things.

But the show must go on.

The show itself was superb. I cannot now say whether it was superb acting or superb directing. I think all the actors gave a good account of themselves. But then, the play itself was very well written. An actor's delight, you might call it. Allowed them a lot of freedom to express themselves.

All the monologues were well delivered.

One question. Why Tarzan Monologues? Why not Penis Monologues? Or just P-Monologues? Like the female version.

Why Jack Gowon's Mother? Why not Yakubu Gowon's Mother? Most Nigerians don't know him as Jack. Maybe this was written for a British audience. Maybe.

And the 6 Myths About Marriage , Madam would not let me hear the last of them. Particularly the 6th one.

We got home quite late last night. We went elsewhere after the Monologues.

My mother was with us. She had come for her brother's wedding anniversary. And she asked me. Remember, there were two of us who came home late but she asked me:

N'ibo n'iwo ti n'bo l'oru yi? (Where are you coming from this night?)

In my own house?!!!!

Why Do Women Have Sex?

Simple question, right?

Wrong.

Even in a study conducted by women on women, it still comes out that no one but NO ONE can understand women.

In the online survey of 1,000 women aged from 18 to 87 by Meston and Buss, as reported by Deborah Kotz in the USNews, you would have expected to get simple straight forward answers like for procreation, or for pleasure but the number one reason women have sex is ... wait for it ...... because they are attracted to their partners!

What has attraction got to do with anything? Hey, what do I know, I'm just a man abi? Lower down the list were reasons connected with love and emotional bonding.

There were other reasons too:
- to bring them closer to God. Really?!
- to get back at partners who weren't faithful by having sex with someone else.
- Competition 'Gotcha' sex: who gets him first!
- to get another notch on their belt, which we typically think of as something men do.
- to get rid of their virginity. O m'eziokwu!
- Sympathy sex" because they felt sorry for their mate. The poor guy will NEVER hear the last of it.
- Economic Exchange sex to land a job or promotion or to get money or drugs. OK.OK.OK.

But you will not believe that after all these confessions and enlightening revelations, the authors still arrived at some very strange conclusions like
" .... we see that men are still more likely to engage in uncommitted sex, like one-night stands .. "
"... more women still make the connection between love and sex..."
"... men are definitely more willing to have sex because of physical attraction ...". W-h-h-a-a-a-a-a-t?!!!

Anyway, was it not a woman who said that men are dogs because they sleep around. As if they sleep with goats.

And this lie that women make the connection between love and sex should stop o. If this were so, why do men fall in love with prostitutes? Hello, Pretty Woman!

Maybe Nkrumah Was Right

I had wanted to post this on Nigeria's independence day but somehow work got in the way and I could not.

Monday 21st September 2009 marked the centenary of the birth of Osagyefo Kwame Nkrumah and the government of the Republic of Ghana actually declared a year-long celebration culminating on the anniversary of the birthday of its first Prime Minister and President.

The more I read about this remarkable African, the more I appreciated why Ghanaians celebrated him thus.

I got an audio copy of Nkrumah's 'Africa Must Unite' speech at the founding of the Organization of African Unity in Addis Ababa 1963 and I could not but marvel at the profundity of his vision. His vision, as expounded at the summit was obviously very far ahead of his time. Also, his speech at the United Nations in 1960 was a masterpiece in all respects and must have been seen as a sort of 'bring-it-on' by the Western powers at that time.

As a Pan Africanist and leader of an independent Ghana - Africa's first independent nation - Nkrumah's major preoccupation was to encourage the other African countries to continue to demand for independence and he did this with a swagger that was infuriating to the colonial powers, particularly France which did not seem to have had any plans to leave its African colonies - even till today.

Nkrumah looked to Nigeria even at that time to become an African regional power given its sheer size and resource wealth but the Nigerian leaders at that time were very suspicious of his intentions and also of themselves.

Zik, his fellow Lincoln University alumnus and Pan-Africanist, had found himself in the position of a ceremonial President that was powerless and limiting while Awolowo appeared content just playing his politics locally.

As far as the pan-africanist agenda was concerned, Nigeria was of no use. Of all his seminal speeches however, the singular statement that Nkrumah made that was of significance to the Nigerian government of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and most Nigerians of that time was the one about Nigeria being ' ... big for nothing ..'

Domestically, Nkrumah ran a unitary government in Ghana in spite of it being composed of up to fifty different ethnic nationalities. He believed more in a federal Africa with the countries as the federating units than in a country with federating units. He practically forced Ghanaians to inter-marry and live outside their native environments.

Achievements were purely on merit. The whole of Ghana competed with itself. No 'local champions'. No 'catchment area'. No 'quota system'. His style of government is credited in part for the unity among Ghanaians till today.

Comparing all these with Nigeria, I just could not help but wonder where we got it wrong.

I could not help but think; Maybe this federalism is just over-hyped after all.

Maybe Nkrumah was right after all.

Maybe Nigeria is just big for nothing.

Ponmo, My Foot!

I was in Abuja recently and happened to walk behind a couple who were obviously not residents. Like all visitors, we were just going round the shops looking for somethings to buy as a memento of our visit to the nation's capital. From their conversations, I reckioned they were Yoruba.

After some time, we chanced upon a leather shop with all kinds of leather sandals, shoes, wallets and something that looked like thongs. Faced with such an array of choice of leather ware, the woman could not but exclaim, in Yoruba.

'Ha! Awon Hausa yi ma ni bata orisirisi o!

(These Hausa people have so many types of shoes o)

To which the husband replied sarcastically and rather self derisively:

'Eyin Yoruba o ni bata. Nigba'to je pe gbogbo awo yin le ti je tan ni ponmo. E wa ma wo roba kiri abi ke ma wa Italian leda l'Aba'

(You Yoruba people cannot have shoes, when you have eaten all your leather as ponmo. That's why you wear rubber sandals about and look for 'Italian' leather in Aba).

Ouch!

I couldn't help but laugh particularly as the man with his bald head and full tribal marks was really putting on a show to everybody's delight.

With the number of cows, rams and goats slaughtered daily in Lagos alone, the hides and skin industry should be booming seriously. In fact we should be exporting leather but unfortunately, we eat more than 95% of all the hides generated. Given that ponmo actually contains little or no nutritional value known to man, it is a mystery why Lagosians (not just Yorubas) savor it so much. It is like a Lagosian's meal is not complete without some ponmo on top.

Did you hear about the Yoruba man who was invited to Buckingham Palace as a guest of the Queen for whatever. After the dinner in his honour, my country man was asked to give a vote of thanks. he thanksed the Queen profusely for the honour done him and went ahead to comment on the meal itself. He said:

'It would have been a sumptuous meal but unfortunately there was no ponmo!'

What exactly makes ponmo a delicacy? Anybody knows?

The Message

Read the message and stop eyeing the Messenger!

That's What She Said!

The last two posts have been about a little problem I had to help a couple deal with but the variety of responses to it has been interesting to say the least. And it seems to get more interesting by the day.

Let me also state here that there was no issue of breaking the relationship or calling off the wedding or such. I sincerely don't know if I gave that impression anywhere. We are trying to find a solution and you guys were already calling it off. Haba!

I have known the couple in question for quite a while and though I cannot say that I introduced them to each other, I have been quite close to them and know a little about the relationship. I have been like an Egbon to both parties and that was why they brought the matter to me.

Moreover, the Boss in the story is an acquaintance of mine and I am certain there is nothing going on between him and the subordinate. While he is not a saint, he operates on the maxim that 'elephants don't eat the grass under them'. If you know what I mean.

Definitive said:

"I think the main issue here is her fiancee OFFERED to come pick her up, but she PREFERRED to go with her boss, especially [when] she knew her relationship with her boss was already suspect, I definitely think she said the wrong thing. She should try and talk to her fiancee and sort things out. More like ask someone whom he respects to talk to him on her behalf".

Men are such jealous animals. She wounded his ego and that was his way of getting his pound of flesh. Anyway, that was my conclusions and the basis of my counsel. Thanks Definitive.

TemmyTayo also said:

" ... My yoruba is not perfect so I sometimes get into trouble with my husband too. But well, he trusts me. So when I say rubbish he gently reminds me how many meanings people can read into what i have said... "

It is actually more common than we want to admit particularly with couples who do not speak the have the same proficiency in the mother tongue. My wife speaks Yoruba very well but sometimes, I cringe at some things she says in Yoruba.

Several years ago, the then Bendel Broadcasting Service used to end their late night news bulletin in Yoruba with 'Ka sun re o' (May we rest in peace) to bid its listeners a good night's rest. After some time they changed to 'Ka sun l'ayo o' (May we rest with joy) which did not quite hit the mark too. Eventually they settled for the universal 'O d'aaro o' (Till the day break/morning).

Beneath that however was the issue of how some things we say can have more than one meaning and the alternative meaning usually carries a sexual connotation. In the US -I believe -the exclamation 'That's What She Said! is a statement used to draw attention to a phrase that could possibly be interpreted as sexual innuendo.

This occurs in every language. The Yoruba one about 'Eddie and Okonta' still cracks me up anytime.

Do you remember any one?

Re: Use of English

The last post was more of a call for help. Right now we are trying to douse a fire caused by what I think was a slip due to a wrong use of English.

It actually happened to a friend whose fiancee works in a consultancy firm. They are going to the altar in December; date and aso-ebi already chosen.

Unfortunately, she chose option A!

Every body believes there are some underG moves between her and the boss. My guy now says that she had been working there, with same boss for quite a while and despite the late hours and all, she has rejected all entreaties for her to find another job though she is very qualified. You know how all kinds of talk come out at times like this.

I think she is just happy where she is. But even Wifey says it was a slip, not a mistake.

I think it was just a problem of translating her thought in Yoruba to words in English. if you speak Yoruba quite well, please how else would you translate the following:

1. Mo n'ba Oga mi lo s'ile.
2. Emi ati Oga mi a jo ma lo s'ile.
3. Oga mi ma gbe mi lo s'ile.

We are still trying to douse the fire caused by that slip. I just needed a woman's perspective to this and my wife is already biased.

Meanwhile, the poor girl has been crying her eyes out.

Use of English

You are a female professional; you have been at work all day and just about closing time, your phone rings; Its your significant other -husband, boyfriend, fiancee etc -and you have the following conversation. Choose the most appropriate answer from the choices provided:

SF: Hey babe,
YOU: Hey you.
SF: You sound tired; How has your day been?
YOU: It's been hectic, been on my feet all day, y'know sorting through so many reports and
trying to collate something for my boss. My feet are killing me right now
SF: Eeh yah, sorry... but have you had lunch?
YOU: Oh yes, we did ... my boss ordered Chinese and we had lunch right here in the office!
Can you imagine? The man has been on my neck all day!
SF: Ndo, so when are you getting off work? Will you be working late?
YOU: Ermm ... I should be done by seven or thereabouts?
SF: OK, I should be done by then too; I will pick you up on my way back home ....
YOU: How sweet of you, hon, but don't worry ..

A.) ... I am going home with my boss tonight ..
B.) .... my boss is taking me home tonight ....
C.) .... my boss and I are going home together ...
D.) ..... my boss is giving me a ride home ...
E.) None of the above. I would have said ..........................................................................

Remember, the wrong answer can wreck your relationship.

Inchoate Minini?

I believe that the judgments and pronouncements of the Supreme Court and indeed all the courts in Nigeria should be translated into as many local languages as requested by the litigants and other members of the public who are interested in or affected by the pronouncements as is done in India and some other countries.

While this will generate employment for the numerous graduates of Edo, Fulfulde, Gwari, Yoruba and Ijaw that we have, it will also help in clearing up any ambiguities that may be present in the said pronouncements before it becomes a big problem.

It also appears to me that their SC Lordships deliberately want to cause confusion with the kind of big grammar they use to describe rather simple cases. They use big words where simple words could suffice and refuse to simplify sentences so that whoever wants can choose whichever of the words apply to him since they mean the same thing anyway.

I am not a lawyer but the case(s) cited below are open and shut and straight forward to me, sans the contentious grammar.

The wahala between The Federal Government and the Lagos State Government ref AG LAGOS STATE vs AG FEDERATION (2004) can be summarized to be over the literary or judicial meaning of the word inchoate as used by the Supreme Court Lordships.

To the LASG, inchoate means valid but incomplete; i.e. its creation of 37 Local Governments was valid but subject to ratification by the National Assembly. They had even likened it to a baby that was born but not yet registered by the Registrar of Births. A baby just awaiting a 'naming ceremony'.

To the FG, inchoate means illegal and therefore invalid until approved by the National Assembly. Likened to a pregnancy carried beyond the term of 9 months and the said child cannot be named until it is born or at worst could be likened to a stillbirth with His Lordships as the morbid midwives.

We all know that it is partisan politics at play but the extent some people would go to just make a point is frightening. Some PDP stalwarts have even gone as far as to say that inchoate means non-existent, ultra vires, null and void.

Don't blame them. If only the SC declaration were translated into Yoruba.

Our ever hardworking Attorney General - and Defender of the Powerful - has been threatening to enforce the orders of the Supreme Court citing section 287 of the Constitution but curiously has not been able to pinpoint one single decision (order) made by the SC in that case. This is so because both parties in the matter ONLY sought and obtained declaratory reliefs. The FG got three out of nine while the LASG got four out of four.

A Declaratory Judgment only proclaims or declares what is the law, right and the existence of a legal relationship. It does not contain an order to be enforced against a Defendant which in this case was even the FG.

Besides, our AG must not be aware that a Bakassi Local Government was excised out of Nigeria recently but the said Bakassi LGA is still listed in the Constitution as one of the 774 LGAs in Nigeria even after the handover of Bakassi to Cameroun by the President on the orders of the ICJ . The National Assembly has not ratified/approved this dismemberment of the Federation and thus the action remains inchoate until this is done. Yet the AG does not deem it necessary to enforce this yet.

But of course, we know that as far as Yar a'dua is concerned, Aondoakaa is the law.

Another serious matter arising out of a SC judgment is that of Nnamdi 'Andy' Uba and his purported election as the Governor of Anambra state.

The SC had ruled that the election in which Andy Uba was purportedly elected as Governor of Anambra state was illegal since the office was not vacant as at the time of the elections. The said elections are considered null and void and never even took place in the eyes of the law.

Curiously, Andy and his supporters have taken this issue to ludicrous extents with some of his lawyers pronouncing that the SC judgment's legal effect evaporates on March 17, 2010 at the expiration of the present tenure of the Governor Peter Obi. he has since gone back to a High Court to declare him Governor from that date.

He has gone around calling himself His Excellency and his wife, Her Excellency because he was Governor illegally for how long? 20 days? What should Dr. Chris Ngige, who was Governor of the same state illegally for three years call himself? His Greatness?

His case is like that of a man who after sleeping with a married woman starts claiming husbandship. See why they needed to have translated that judgment into Igbo?

Forgive Me Blogger ...

.... for I have sinned.

In thought, in words and in deed.

I have forsaken thy updates and not updated my blog for so long.

I have called myself a Blogger in vain; I couldn't even remember my username or password.

I have worshiped other 'gods' apart from you. (Damn that Facebook!).

Forgive me Blogger, for I have sinned.

Then & Now

As any fan knows, most Nollywood movies are not complete without the mandatory scene involving a visit to the babalawo or dibia or pastor or alfa or some form of spiritualist or the other for help or for resolution of the plot. Usually, the plot has been so twisted that even the writers do not have a way to unravel it so they resort to 'deo machina' (hand of god) for resolution.

However, if the stories I heard recently are anything to go by, then Nollywood must be very far behind in its depiction of these native doctors in the movies. Nowadays, native doctors have gone nuclear. take a typical scene:

THEN
Client (highly agitated): Ha! Baba please help us o.
Baba Faleti: My child, talk to Ifa and explain yourself.
Client brings out a twenty Naira note and whispers inaudibly into it, then places it onto a wooden stauette or some other receptacle provided.
Baba Faleti: (after some long incantations and gibberish): I have spoken to the gods on your behalf and the gods have agreed to help you. You have to carry out a sacrifice. For the sacrifice, you will bring one big white ram, the shell of a tortoise, one keg of palm oil, four yards of white cloth, four cockerels, three pieces of chalk, four kegs of palm wine and forty Naira. If you can bring these items, then all your problems are over.
Client: Is that all Baba?
Baba Ifaleti: Yes, that is all. Unless you have anything else for Ifa.

Client will bring out a two hundred Naira note and promises to bring the items for the sacrifice the next day.

NOW
Client: Ha! Baba, please help us o!
Baba Ifatomoscores: My child, Ifa knows everything but have you seen Ifamuyiwa to pay for Consultation? It's only twenty thousand Naira. If you dont have cash, there's an ATM across the road.
Client: Baba, we have paid for Consultation o. Please help us, my daughter's marriage is in trouble, serious trouble. Her husband is sleeping with the househelp and wants to marry her. We want you to do it so that her husband does not look at another woman again lai lai.
Baba Ifatomoscores: (after some incantations and gibberish). My child that is a small problem for Ifa. Don't worry, now that you have come to see Ifa, all your problems are over. Which bank do you use?
Client: I use Fortunate Bank Baba.
Baba Ifatomoscores: (hands over a piece of paper): Ifamuyiwa will give you an invoice for one hundred and sixty five thousand Naira. Just go and pay into this account. Come back here with the payment slip tomorrow and all your prayers will be answered.

Naija Till I Die!

N-A-I-J-I-R-I-A.

That's how its spelt in Ibibio, Idoma, Ijaw, Hausa, Urhobo, Itsekiri, Yoruba, Igbo, Fufulde, Gwari, Edo, Efik and the thousand other languages and dialects within the geographical space called Nigeria.

You wonder why an intelligent person like Reuben Abati just don't get it.

And it is not a recent phenomenon. It's a process that has been on since the end of our civil war. We have consistently made spirited efforts as a nation to find the things that unite us and define us as a people. Be it something as simple as the spelling of a name.

When Nigeria wanted to change its currency from the Pound/ Shilling regime in 1971, it reverted to the spellings of its name in the then three major languages and they all agreed that the name is N-A-I-J-I-R-I-A. That was where the name of our currency came from and since then we have been spending the Naira and Kobo. 'Kobo' is the Hausa name for copper - from which the coins were made - since the other two languages did not have a different word for it.

I remember that in 1985, prelude to celebrating our nations 25th Independence anniversary, an idea was mooted for a change of name of the country and several suggestions were put forward -from the ridiculous to the sublime - but the one I found most intriguing was the suggestion by somebody that we should just change the name to its local version such that any person who calls and write the name in any language would know what it means.

In the Yoruba worldview, names are very important and it is believed that a person's name actually affects the fulfillment of his destiny on earth. And that a person who does not know the meaning of his name may never actually fulfill his destiny.

The then military government of General Babangida did not go ahead with the renaming citing among other excuses, the volume of documentary changes that would need to be made. Besides, what would the people be called - Omo Naijiria? Ndi Naijiria? Umu Naijiria? Dan Naijiria? Naijirians? Nah, sounded 'too local'.

Instructively, around the same time, a group of young soldiers in a country then called Upper Volta (meaning?) took over the government of their country and renamed it Burkina Faso - Land of Dignity. The people now call themselves Burkinabes. Its been over twenty years now.

It is actually the word NIGERIA that is meaningless to us. We are not Latin or English. When we think, we think Naijiria but when we have to write, we write Nigeria otherwise we would fail the exams that were usually set in English. Since we cannot find Naijiria on the world map, we settle for the closest in spelling - Nigeria.

Jude Fashagba actually said it .. 'I love my counry but I hate its symbols'. Most of the times, the symbols that are used to depict Nigeria do not even remotely resemble its essence. They are just makeshift respresentations. 'Let's just put something make e no be like say we no do am'. That is why the recent re-branding exercise is such a disappointment.

The name Naijiria had somehow remained in our national consciousness in one form or the other for the last forty years, surfacing every ten years or so until its most recent incarnation as Naija. We are Naija people from Nigeria. How difficult is that?

I had written some time ago on this blog about the resurgence of patriotism in this generation of Naija people. A patriotism defined not by governments but by the youths themselves both at home and in the Diaspora. Seemingly without any formal synthetic arrangement but by a somewhat osmotic process. It is just seeping through the fabric of our national psyche without the usual baggages of tribalism, ethnic jingoism and all the other negative isms that have characterized all our previous efforts at nation building.

Naija youth is creating an identity for itself and for Nigeria. Rejecting the negative conotations that the world has tried to pin on it for years and rebranding itself creatively in sports, academics, movies, arts and music (yeah, and militancy too) so forcefully that the world took notice. Naija youth has given a new lease of life to this country. Saving it from the edge of the precipice and pushing it back to the top, where it rightfully belongs.

And it is succeeding, that is why people like Reuben Abati have noticed.

I think it is people like Dr. Abati, with their British mentality and orientations that miss the point. If we want to dance to our own national anthem, who can stop us? What exactly is wrong with that? Let's start it and see how many other countries will copy us.

I do not believe that this generation suffers from a crisis of identity. Rather, it is a generation that has found its identity among its peers in the world. It has chosen to bear its name and thus define itself as seperate from the confused illogisms that was its past.

It is a generation that is finally ready to meet and fulfill its destiny.

If only the ghosts of the past will let it.

If You Can't Beat Them, Forgive Them ...

You have probably read/heard about the Nigerian Federal Governement's Proclamation of Amnesty to the militants in the Niger Delta. What we do not know is if this amnesty extends to kidnappers and militants in other parts of the country -like Jos for instance but if I know Nigerian politics well enough, we will be hearing something about that very soon.

I am not usually this cynical but seriously, I will want to wait and see how effective this pardon will be. Nobody has said anything about addressing even the remote causes of the militancy in the first place. We are still expecting the Niger Delta 'Marshal Plan' that had been promised for so long and now we have an Amnesty. I just love this country.

Listening to the President proclaiming the Amnesty, something rang insincere in the words. A kind of bravado to mask a helplessness. What I will call 'ogboju of the highest order'. I believe even Yar'adua did not believe what he was reading. MKO Abiola would have called it 'clapping with one hand'. A resounding silence.

Some respected voices in the Niger Delta have suggested that that there should have been an Armistice before the Amnesty. Instructively, the MEND struck Shell again a little while after Yar'adua read the Amnesty Proclamation.

Some others have began to define who is a militant and who is a criminal in the context of the Amnesty. This has already set the stage for all manner of creatures to come crawling out of the rotten woodwork of the Niger Delta -bearing all kinds of rusty flintlocks and dysfunctional dane guns and machetes - calling themselves militants. It is boon for the criminals.

According to my extremely learned friend, Abadingo Abadanga ESQ of the illustrious firm of Abadingo, Abednego and Co, this simply buttresses his time-honored maxim of 'Ist nolle prosequi im ceteris paribus'.

That is to say, 'If you wan commit offense, e better make you commit de one wey be say when dem carry you reach court, the Judge sef go just look your case free you ; because your matter don pass the Law or in other words, your case is Over-the-Bar'.

Some other sources say that there is more to this than meets the eye. That is, knowing the family politics of the Niger Delta, it is possible that someone, somewhere may not want to be seen as aiding and supporting militancy in the Niger Delta particularly if it is close in the family.

No be my mouth dem go hear say Oga brother na criminal - sorry, militant.

Abadingo also told me that not all criminals are outlaws, some are in-laws.