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?

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.

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'.
.
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]

Nigeria: Rebuild Not Rebrand

Deoluakinyemi wrote that he wanted me to 'pirate' what he wrote, so I did.

What I want to write today is an article I will love you to pirate. I’ll like you to dub it, and put it on your blog post. Modify it if you like, give me credit if you want, or give me none at all. They say we’ll achieve a lot more if we don’t care who gets the credit.

I have refrained deliberately for a long time to make any comments about our National Re-branding exercise. I hope I will be able to say what boils in my throat and wrists tonight, without making too much reference to it. For all it’s worth though,... the fundamental error I can see is that Nigerians have not been allowed to own it, and hence rather than having people championing it, and helping others buy in, what we have is criticism and condemnation by the same people ....

Having said that however, I have a proposition of an exercise that we can own as Nigerians. It’s a simple idea and it came as a fallout of a discussion that ensued in my office yesterday. It’s an answer of what we can do to focus our leaders on the problems that we have ... and to assist them in giving it the attention it deserves. We no longer need any assistance from any source to know that our most crucial problem in Nigeria is Leadership! If we are all on the same page in this realization, then our efforts towards a better Nigeria must be channeled to support, focus and direct our leaders.

I remember shortly before the elections last year I wrote an article I titled, “Power is all we need!” I pleaded with our would be leaders not to promise us roads or education, but to promise us just one thing - Power! That if in any leaders 4yrs we can celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted power supply, then we should immortalize that president. Haven been to Egypt now to watch tombs, I say we must do the same, but before they die however.

First for the nation, then the states, then our local governments. Once we have a new president for example, we should as a nation analyze our most significant problem that we want solved in his or her tenure. After we have agreed on this problem, we should then go ahead and give that problem the same name with our president. We should substitute the name of our leader with this problem in our conversations, in our articles in newspapers, in our slang’s, in our music and drama. We should do this per state and per local government as well.

Let’s say for example that we have discovered that our biggest problem in Nigeria is Electricity, and for example that our president’s name for the tenure was Yaradua. Then every time power goes, every time we are in darkness, every time we have any issues, our conversations should be like this.

When it is bad as it is - “Chei, Yaradua has gone again”,
“Ah, we have not had Yaradua for the last 2 days”,
“This Yaradua is so unstable”,
“Ah what did we do today oh, we have half Yaradua today”,
” What’s wrong with you, you are complaining that you haven’t seen Yaradua for 3 days, what about people that haven’t seen Yaradua for one year! or ever!”,
“I wasn’t able to do it overnight, because Yaradua kept fainting”,
“We have been using Yaradua as backup to our Generator”,
“Iron your shirts, Yaradua may soon go oh”, ”

When this start becoming good - ” Up Yaradua!”,
“Yaradua is really trying oh, we are not where we want to be, but we are far from where we were”,
“Yaradua has been consistent for the past 24hrs”,
“Ah, we need to celebrate 1yr of uninterrupted Yaradua”,
“Yaradua is so much better these days”,
“With Yaradua so constant, Nigeria is really becoming the most desirable nation to live in on earth”.
“Yaradua is constant in all the states of Nigeria and the structures are in place to get Yaradua into all the local governments.”

Can you form your own new ones?

If we keep speaking this way, our leaders will know that we mean business with our desire for solutions. The next president will also know that one critical unsolved problem will bear his name until it’s solved. I recommend, that whichever president fixes electric power be given the opportunity to forever bear the same name with electricity in Nigeria and be forever immortalized in the lips and minds of Nigerians.

The same for every future identified problem. A similar approach should be taken to the state levels. Whatever problem we align and identify must be instantly changed to the name of the Governor. If the issue in Lagos for example was Transportation and assuming the Governor was Fashola, then by now, people should be saying
“Fashola is getting better in Lagos now”, or
” I entered one wrong fashola and they collected my phone and laptop.” or
“Big Fashola (BRT) is actually making life easy for Lagosians”.

We can identify the states one by one and identify the problems that need to be solved and replaced with their name.

My people say that whatever hurts one, must be primary in one’s conversation -

“Oun to ba duni lo n po loro eni”

Naija 4 Life!

NIGERIA: Good People, Great Nation

For the last few years, there had been a palpable positive movement in Nigeria's image indicators and it was not started by the Nigerian government. In fact the Nigerian government came into it and derailed the efforts with its infamous 'Heart of Africa' shtick.

I really dont know how it started or who started it (though some people credit JJC & the 419 Squad crew) but the 'NAIJA-4-LIFE' slogan was/is still the most successful effort at nation rebirth and national pride.

To me, it was so successful when my cousins who were born in Scotland and had never been to Nigeria before actually started calling themselves '9JA-4-LAIF'. They finally came to Lagos and in spite of all our deprivations, (NEPA, Water, Roads etc) they still enjoyed themselves and would not stop talking about Nigeria.

There were so many variations of the slogan but in all, there was this palpable pride in Nigeria and things Nigerian. Even on Blogville, more and more bloggers identified with Nigeria and were proud to share their stories, even the not-so-palatable ones. Yes, all the problems were still there but we ARE Nigerians and we WILL solve our problems. No be today yansh dey back.

Along the line, the Nigerian government tried to take over the driver's seat of the movement rather than just ride the wave. The result was the disaster called 'Heart of Africa'. I believe that in itself, the 'Heart of Africa' Project was a good idea but the moment it was passed to the clueless bootlickers at the MoI, it was doomed to failure.

Ironically, several African countries have successfully carried out some image laundering in the last few years in efforts that included Nigerians. Botswana, Rwanda, Kenya and South Africa have ran successful campaigns in the past and it even appears South Africa is on a perpetual campaign but its messages change depending on their challenges. You would probably have seen their 'This is my South Africa, tell me about yours' campaign featuring Yvone Chaka Chaka and others on CNN.

Their efforts are geared towards hosting a successful World Cup come 2010. I doubt if they are thinking of winning the cup. They know they can win in many more ways than on the field. They obviously know how to run a good campaign.

I am not one to predict doom but for this Akuyili's campaign, I am just wondering; how long will one million dollars last?

I'm Loving This Girl Right Now

She looks like Tracy Chapman. Sounds like Alicia Keys/Corrine Bailey Rae with full amala flavour. (Probably on paraga or some other Yoruba concoction.)

I don't know why it took me so long to 'discover' her music given that I actually met her about two years ago but by then she was a novelty sort of, an unknown quantity then. Now I read some very good reviews about her on Youtube and all, the girl done done good. I even have her song on my phone as ring tone.

It was funny reading how she came by the name 'Asa' . Yoruba being a tonal language, the same word Asa (Asha) could mean several things depending on the tonal stress in pronunciation such as:

Asa (d:m:) - Hawk; Falcon
Asa (r:r:) - Vagabond, Rebel
Asa (r:m:) - Barren, overused
Asa (d:d:) - Habit, custom

She uses the first one, meaning Hawk.

It is very rare to buy a CD and actually like all the songs on it but I am gbaduning this girl so much right now its unbelievable. All her songs just do me one way or the other but none like 'Bibanke'. And you can't but smile at the satire in Awe - a song about Waidi, son of Sekina, who impregnates a woman old enough to be his mother. Its been some time since we had an artiste who sings and the audience so connects.

Some critics and reviewers have translated the Yoruba word Bibanke (misspelled deliberately, I believe) to mean 'When I cry' but rather it means 'If i cry'. The Yoruba word 'Bi' as an adverb denotes choice while the adverb 'Ti' (as in Ni igba ti) denotes time. Thus 'When I cry' would have been 'Ti m'ba n'ke' and 'Bi m'ba n'ke' is 'If I cry'.

Q: Nimmo.
A: Ehn?
Q: Who send you all these Yorubanalysis you are doing now?
A: Abeg, no mind me jare. Na so e dey do me sometimes. Asa, joo gbe'lu soke! (Asa, raise the beat)

Biiibanke-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e [If I cry]
B'ójo ba n'ro [And the tears fall as rain]
Fi mi si'le [Leave me alone]

The Way We Play

When I read bloggers who say they use their blogging as therapy, I wondered but now I have realized some truth in it. I do use blogging for therapy too. Going through my posts for last year, they were mostly rants. I blog when I'm happy. I blog when I'm mad at something or someone. Yeah. Its therapy. And its free.

My last post was something else. As you all know - even those who are not fans of African football {soccer for those who don't speak English})- The 26th African Cup of Nations (ACN) is going on in Ghana and Nigeria is participating.

In fact, some people predict that Nigeria will win the cup going by some '14 years' permutation. Nigeria won the cup twice in 1980 and 1994, 2008 is fourteen years since the last victory, so ... what happens to Ghana, Cameroun who had won it back to back before? Or Egypt, who are also current champions. Well, since I'm yet to get that memo, I am still watching.

Our first match with Ivory Coast ended in a 1-0 loss for Nigeria on a night when it looked like I was watching a strange team play. I looked again. The players were Nigerians alright, but the pattern was wrong! My darling Super Eagles playing without wingers? My heart almost stopped about the 20th minute when John Utaka picked up the ball from the right flank and ran towards the center of the pitch! What was he thinking? Obviously he was playing to instructions from the German coach, Berti Vogts.

Take nothing away from the Ivoriens, they played very fluid football with their midfield as pivot but thats what should have made them easy to beat. Kanu and Mikel could hold ten of them in the middle any day; Just to take the ball to the sides and run rings round them. Simple! (As any Nigerian will tell you ;)). After the goal the Ivoriens simply went into defence with up to ten men behind the ball at any time.

I have a problem with German coaches for our national teams. Ironically, Nigeria's first ACN victory in 1980 was under a German coach, Otto Gloria but people - well, my father mainly- said he inherited a good team built largely by his predecessor, the Yugoslav monk, Father Tiko. He is also credited with the introduction of foreign-based and foreign players into the Nigerian team. The team had two Ghanaians in the line up; funny nobody remembers them now.

Otto Gloria was smart. He simply adapted to the team he met and added a few 'foreign' ingredients to make his job a success. Other German coaches after him do not seem so smart after all.

German coaches particularly seem to want to impose their own 'German formations' and 'German systems' on Nigerian footballers. And when they fail, they blame it on 'discipline'. It has nothing to do with 'discipline'. Not until the late 1980s did Nigerians begin to see football as anything but a pastime. It was something you do when you are not doing 'real' work. Its enjoyment. Simple.

And, we have a way we play the game.

Just as any group of eleven Brazilians will play their 'samba' football and any group of eleven Britishers will play their 'kick and follow'; pick any group of eleven Nigerians (male or female) to play football and we run on the wings. Its the way we play.

Its even said that Nigerians can play the game with just 8 players. Four guys at the back, one on the left wing; one on the right wing; one guy upfront and one guy running down the middle to do damage. You may or may not add a goalkeeper.

I don't know why the Germans don't get it. They always try to impose one strange formation or the other. They don't understand the Nigerian pattern of play so they try to bring in theirs and it usually always ends in frustrations and failures for the coach and a waste of time for the country.

Manfred Honer tried it in the late eighties and it led to an open rebellion by the players. He left the country without even packing his bags. The Frenchman, Phillipe Troussier tried to be too 'German' for his own good by insisting on his strange 3-5-2 formation which they said worked well in Ivory Coast but hey, we are not Ivoriens. Much as he was liked, he lost out to 'player power'.

The self-styled 'Dutchgerian', Clemens Westerhof is probably the most successful coach of the Nigerian national team because he came, he saw, he adapted. Before coming to Nigeria, he was just a small time coach in a village in his native Holland but when given the opportunity, he studied and understood the politics that surrounds everything in Nigeria.

He introduced power into our 'wingplay'; our wingers ran faster and delivered 'pull outs' more accurately. He adapted the Dutch 'mass attack, mass defence' system to originate from the back to the wings to the center and it can go from 4-4-2 to 3-5-2 to whatever in the same wave. Many theorists said Nigeria had no pattern of play known in football, so we said 'No-pattern? That's our pattern'.

He was also known to be good at motivating his players and there are stories of the occasional joint being passed round in the dressing room at half time. Hey, anything to keep up team spirit right?

On his watch, Nigeria won the ACN in 1994 and qualified for the World Cup for the first time ever, at USA 94. Also attained Nigeria's highest ever ranking of being Number 4 in the world. And the world took notice of Nigerian football. That team is still considered the greatest Nigerian football team ever!

When Nigerians complained of not seeing enough of their team because they always 'trained' in Europe, he brought in his compatriot Johannes Bonfrere who did the actual training while Westerhof played the politics. As taciturn as Westerhof is loquacious, Bonfrere Jo was a silent worker. Nigeria won the Olympic gold for football under him at Atlanta 96.

Now will this German learn anything from history? I sincerely hope so. News from Ghana has it that he had been 'spoken to' and we would revert to our natural wingplay from the next match against Mali tomorrow. I sincerely hope Berti Vogts is as smart as Otto Gloria. If not ... as he is reputed to be one of the highest paid coaches in the world, he could be on his way out.