EBOLA: The Battle Part 2.

Good day. Hope you've had your salt bath today? Well, I even thought of adding maggi, crayfish and other condiments to my own bathing water so that that stupid and senseless idiot called Ebola will surely die!

It appears the thicker your reportage on current juiciest news item, Ebola, the wider your readership and followership status. When switching on the tv to watch, probably CNN or even Supersports, or buying your favorite newspaper from your diligent vendor, just attune your mind to the 3-syllabic word: Ebola. Variants of the name have even appeared, so that maybe due to typographical errors, you see such outlay as: "F.G set to combat 'Evola' virus, or "Enola virus reported in Nigeria" lazily scrolling across your tv set, when switched on. My uncle's 2 year-old son, who is finding it difficult to properly communicate, now has a very beautiful song, which has 'Eboya' as it's recurring theme.

Away from the joke now, but seriously, this attitude of blowing every little thing out of proportion is certainly the actual killer of many Nigerians. Don't get me wrong, I am not disputing the deadly prowess of current news item, Ebola, neither am I arguing if it truly exists or not, but for goodness' sake, waking me up by 3 am, and bombarding my dazed mind with the 'helpful' and 'preventable' effects of bathing with salt-water by my old aunt in the village-because the news was spread by whoever she doesn't and probably won't know-is way out of the line. To take us just a little back in time, at some point in the history of the earth, there was an outbreak of a deadly contagious flu which threatened the existence of mankind, yet flu today, is no longer adored as a deadly disease, the earth and its fullness thereof continues to be inhabited by humans. Before the whitemen ever stepped their foot on African soil, diseases as simple as malaria were quite dangerous, because our ancestors never had the wherewithal of its consequent mode of transmission. The AIDS virus which was spreading like a bush-fire in the dry season wrecked its own untold havoc in the late 20th century, but mankind was able to survive by discovering anti-retroviral drugs which helped in managing the AIDS virus. My point is, it takes knowledge to defeat whatever it is we are facing in life. Knowledge, as they say is power, and it won't be different in Ebola's case. That men previously labelled some diseases 'supernatural' was because they had no knowledge of how and what constitutes it, but once such knowledge is gotten, that disease immediately became a normal thing which could be conquered.

And my acquaintance with the word 'knowledge' certainly isn't related to the overblown way such rumours are being circulated about the Ebola item. It wouldn't cost us more to spread the real facts about the Ebola disease, than it would cost us in spreading the wrong information about same. Nigerians, as is the custom, tend to rumourise any given situation to unprecedented proportions, that were they to tell you that Jesus Christ is certainly coming this night, it will be hard for you to be convinced otherwise. They will give such fine excuse for you to indulge, that believing otherwise wouldn't even near your reasoning faculty. It is always easy for many a Nigerian to create causative monsters of every little situation, than it will take him to find a possible solution to such problem. Just like our ancestors who contributed every case of child death to witchcraft, we are yet to untangle ourselves from the same misinformation and ignorance that guided them into a state of oblivion in today's world. How on earth salt water is expected to 'cure' the Ebola outbreak remains a mysterious fact to be fathomed by me. So after bathing our meat in salt water,fish in salt water, and our vegetables in salt water, it is now the turn of our bodies, but unlike the aforementioned, our bodies will not be dressed with the follow-up condiments like maggi, onions and crayfish which the former are normally dressed with.

Except for the handful of those who steal public funds within their proximity, that can afford to buy fleet of cars and always be in close quarters, because of the fear of real and imaginary enemies, it will be funny to see how Nigerians can sufficiently prevent the collision of bodies when commuting to and fro work in public vehicles. And in a predominantly ordinary 'buy and sell' commercial society, it will be highly unimaginable to see Nigerians avoiding the obvious and inherent touching of bodies when probably, in Main Market or Balogun Market.

And so, when you are about to take your bath tomorrow morning, you might want to add ogiri, uziza and utazi to that bath water, for Ebola must die! whether it likes it or not.

EBOLA: The Battle.

This post is dedicated to the lady doctor who lost her life, in the battle against Ebola.
May her gentle soul rest in peace. Amen.

FREEWILL TO EDUCATION

A friend posed me a question his mother had asked him, and it’s “what would
you be doing now if you weren’t in school?” . Immediately he asked, I
pondered on an answer to counter the question, and surprisingly, none came
readily to mind. This did not happen because I haven’t fished out my
lurking God giving talents, no, nor was it because I have no ancillary
interests in things other than law, no again. This, I perceived was so
because of the narrowing of my mind, begat from our monotone educational
system. Right from our inception into a formal learning environment, the
Nigerian educational system has inculcated that without the accredited form
of learning, we, individuals aspiring to live comfortable lives as those
seen in movies or TV, cannot and will never be as successful as we aptly
should be.  This misconception creates in the impressionable mind of
youngsters that without school, we are doomed. Although as we grow older,
we see different things which influence our decisions in pursuing our
careers, but nevertheless, the foundation has been laid down. That is one
of the reasons, in my humble opinion, why people fervently preach that you
should chase your dreams, and give examples of people who do and soonest
became successful. Even with the growing number of these sermons, most of
the Nigerian youth and their parents/guardians still wade through this
narrow conception of life by making entirely sure that a degree is attained
in the family. While I sat wondering on this issue, it dawned on me the
mentality of the Nigerian individuals. I saw the intricate woven strings
connecting the thoughts and actions of the youth in our society and the
standards and expectations of society. It’s really all connected, what
we’re taught, our actions and inactions. I realized the reason why
most creative people drop out of school. The first instance to come to
reason would be that this genre of persons cannot accommodate the burden of
the educational system and the stress of their dreams. True, but also,
beyond this is a hidden reason. The reason here implies to the cold war
betwixt those who are dogged in the pursuit of a career against those who
aim in chasing or developing their talents. What cold war you may ask? I
bid you to indulge your creativity for a moment. Imagine in a class of
medical students, most really “aware why they are in school” (a statement
that contributes to my point) and there’s there is a student who goes to
class with a guitar, and doesn’t dress in the stipulated corporate
dress-code, who sings beautifully and aspires to be a musician. If you’ve
imagined this, imagine how such a talented individual would be comfortable
amongst his dogmatic peers. You’ll unanimously concur that such an
individual would be tagged as irresponsible. I, myself, fall guilty of
this. If such an individual feels that the course he’s studying is not
meant for him due to the actions and attitude of others directed at him,
eventually, he’d drop out of school or not really care much about his
studies and may fail out, under the pretense that it wasn’t his calling.
This is an aftermath of the over-emphasis we place in our educational
system. Parents go with the assertion that their children would be lawyers,
doctors, engineers, accountants, etc, and thus fail to consider that
children have individual talents that need to be harnessed properly and
accordingly. I’m not against education, so do not get me wrong. I
personally believe individuals need to be educated, and through education
most of societal inadequacies and aberrant actions can be quelled. But,
however, I do not limit my concept of education to the degree gotten in
professional courses. Rather, I’m interested in the whole sensitizing of
the populace on what should be, and what shouldn’t.  Education, in my
perspective, should be the teaching and advancement of the interests of
individuals on how to burgeon the society. So if, for instance, I’m
interested in singing, while I get education on majorly everything that
would be to the betterment of society, individually I should be learning on
how to ennoble my talents, for it to open the proverbial flood gates of
comfort and luxury. If this can be inculcated into our educational system,
I greatly believe it would enhance the society and the phrase “education is
fun” may come into fruition. We need to do away with the notion that
whatever is not ‘professional’ is not profitable to individuals who keenly
pursue such desired ventures. And besides, I think the number of
‘professional’ graduates that gush out of universities is becoming way too
much, another reason why there’s constant unemployment in our society. I do
not want to join the band wagon of people who render the gospel of
“following your dreams”, so I’m going to revere back to my starting point.
If I wasn’t in school, reading law, what would I be doing? What would I do
to get the appropriate comfort and luxury I deem fit for me. Personally,
there’s no outstanding option for me to indulge in, not because such
options cannot grant me the affluence I desire, no, but because I’ve been
goaded to believe that such ventures are meant for people who aren’t going
to be great in life. This is very fallacious, but like they say, crayfish
back nor fit straight again. So now, I shall ask the blessed readers of
this article the same question posed to me, “what would you be doing now if
you weren’t in school?”



Tami Koroye (@tami_koroye)

RAMBLINGS OF A BELIEVER.

                                                

                           

The entire Crew of the LW wishes to apologise for the little hiatus which this blog underwent.

We are back now, bigger, better and stronger. We also wish to thank our viewers and readers who have been sticking with us till date. We promise not to disappoint.

Now, for today's article, the writer is a strong believer in the women-folk, and is fed up with their psychological inclinations. Hence, no attempt should be made to treat this as the work of a bigot.

  WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WOMEN-FOLK?

The initial title for this write up is WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THE WOMEN FOLK?

Women have a history of relegating themselves to the side-lines,

And being content with nothing more than an observatory role.

Since the creation of Adam in the Bible,

Women seem to occupy the second position to man.

They seem to hardly take the initiative, refuse to break bounds.

They console themselves with the maxim that

WHAT A MAN CAN DO, A WOMAN CAN DO BETTER.

But why do they have to wait for a man to do it first?

What is preventing them from taking the first step in this game of life?

In elective positions in organizational hierarchy

Especially in schools and businesses

The post of the VICE PRESIDENT is automatically reserved for a woman.

While the big posts of PRESIDENCY and SECRETARY GENERAL are reserved for men.

It is very unheard of to see women contesting for such “competitive” posts.

And the women-folk seem totally content with this.

Even in churches, and mosques.

The Pastor is always right! The Imam has spoken!

Women hardly hold ministerial positions by virtue of their qualified status quo.

The female pastors are so by virtue of being the pastor’s wife.

Hence, their “pastoral” position is dependent on that of the male folk.

The situation is not different in mosques.

Of course, we have women in this country who have made a name for themselves.

I am not talking about First Ladies or Gbagaun Ladies.

I mean women, who dared do what no man has done.

Women like the ex-NAFDAC boss and former World Bank Madam.

We also have the likes of Madam #BringBackOurGirls

And other women out there reading this post.

But the problem is, and will continue to be:

THEY ARE SO DAMN FEW IN NUMBER.

Only a minute number of the multitudinous females on this earth

Task themselves to better men in their dealings in life.

Many will read this post, and say to themselves:

What can I do? What can a woman do? I am but a woman.

These are mere excuses.

Nothing more than a fragmentation of the imagination.

I challenge the women out there to a duel

I challenge them to a battle to prove themselves

I challenge them to challenge themselves.

I want every lady, woman or girl reading this post

To take a seat, and ask herself:

WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME?

I am oluwanonso_esq on Twitter.

P.T.A. REVISITED.

The recent startling revelation coming from all corners that, “Nigerian graduates are unemployable!” is a fact which ought not to be customarily overlooked nor treated with kids gloves. Apart from having the stinking underpinnings of a worrisome situation, the appalling signals clearly spell danger and doom if nothing is urgently done to remedy the situation. It behoves me to write on this issue, because, as an undergraduate currently, I will eventually join the multitudinous batch currently in the labour market, swelling each day like the sands on seashores.



Let's call a spade a spade. The fact remains-and remains as such-that, the educational certificate we come out with will be and will remain a piece of paper. Our education will therefore, unquestionably be the residue we acquired while studying. That said, I recently encountered a first-class electrical engineering graduate who cannot do a simple electrical wiring! To my utmost surprise and dumbfoundness, he had confessed to me that he has never handled screwdrivers while in school. According to him, there was no need for practicals in their school because volumes of textbooks abound that sufficiently and efficiently taught what they were to learn. Unsurprisingly though, it is a well-known fact that we have a lot of graduates who can barely pen down their names. Roadside mechanics have proven to be more knowledgeable in mechanical machines than our first-class mechanical engineering students. Our science students are only acquainted with laboratory apparatus in textbooks. Law students barely appreciate the gimmicks and rituals of the courtroom until they get to law school, which then makes it hard for them to grasp. The reason for this anomaly is obviously not far-fetched. Students' lackadaisical attitudes towards learning has known to be the frontburner why education is on a decline in the country. However, apart from this major factor, I have identified what I believe to be three other factors which add their own grease to the wheels that smother our employability. And these three factors, I wholelabelled: P.T.A. Yes, P for Parents; T for Teachers; and A for Administrators. These three factors individually and collectively contribute their quota towards graduate unemployability.



Well-to-do parents have been known to largely influence their childrens' choice of life careers. The poor ones more or less don't care what their children become because they being illiterates-schooling-wise, will mostly not appreciate what their children do in school. Over glasses of champagne, childrens' fate as to what they will become and how they will become what, will be sealed. The children will never grow up to ever think of becoming something else. Renowned doctors, lawyers and engineers will be the only examplars and models they are acquainted with. Any other 'unprofessional' course is forbidden to be spoken of. God forbid the child says s/he wants to become a musician or a footballer! Such professions are undignified! However, it is not hidden that people in such fields are making good money and repute. The children will then grudgingly have to read what is not their passion and interest. Another attitude of rich parents is padding the way for their children in almost everything that the child is as good as useless when s/he comes out of school. They will bribe their way to have their children be in either of medicine or law, for they believe those courses to be the most lucrative. And when the child has barely managed to scale through the university, s/he will have nothing to offer.



What is the need of sending me on a never-ending journey to find "x" in a quadratic equation, where the value of x is not equal or less than the square root of its mean, taking "y" to be a constant? Of what use is it asking me the cube root of the simultaneous equation which has tan&cos as intergers of the matrix of sine? Such was the impatience of my primary school teachers with anybody who had no head for maths. In fact, they had unhiddenly made it known to us that if you don't know maths, you are doomed for life! Just like the eternal damnation of sinners in hell fire. Not that they were wrong by any means, for maths is very much important in our lives as we need oxygen, but where I've come to class one chilly morning debating in my mind, struggling with my conscience whether to accept Achebe's killing of his hero in 'Things Fall Apart' or not, after an enjoyous reading the previous night and then failing to calculate the circumference of the radius of a circle which has 'x' as its diameter, only for me to receive strokes of the cane says much about our teachers insensitivity towards our welfare. Till date, I am still having nightmares of my maths teachers in primary and secondary school. The females with their ugly, coarse and intelligent faces, while the males with their bloodshot, crinkled and heavily-moustached faces. My teachers will never tolerate you if, should you be unmaths or unscience oriented. Arts, they believed, was meant for lazy students. But students, like me, abound that all our lives we like reading. In fact, I had been such a voracious reader, that I was picking sheets of papers from the ground to read. One day of reading a page of a written word was like one week of straight partying to me. One incident that nearly had me stopped school remains fresh in my memory. I was sitting down on my own one hot afternoon reminiscencing about the novel which I just finished reading, whether to give it a pass mark of 3 out of ten or 1 over 10, when I suddenly felt my neighbour nudging me and pointing to Uncle P, our maths teacher. Unknown to me, Uncle P had asked us to give him examples of whole numbers, and everybody else had given, until it got to me and Uncle P was the type that never repeated questions. I had turn my eyes to the guy behind me, hoping he meant him, but Uncle P would have none of that nonsense. I stood up and muttered, “3 over 10.” I said it because I knew that since it was a maths class, the question would be one that concerns numbers. I don't know where the inspiration fell from, even till today. Uncle P's eyes, I noticed, started emitting little sparks of fire when he called me out to receive my due reward. Whoosh! Whish! was the only sound heard as his koboko went all over my body. My eyes, ears, nose, mouth and my head were all double their sizes by the time I got home. It had to take a week of constant hot-water pressing by my mother before they returned to slightly their normal sizes. I had refused to go back to that school until threats from my father to do more of what Uncle P did took me back.



Ah! Our leaders(Administrators), those ones are as guilty as sin itself. Their barefaced disdain for education in the country is something even the blind can clearly see. Polytechnics are currently on strike, but our leaders, in their usual Hobson choice attitude, don't give a hoot. After all, their kids are in choice schools abroad. Such a brazen display of idiocy like Hitler's, that our leaders are earnestly trying to uphold. For Hitler was reported to have said that, his teachers, apart from a select few, were the worst people in his life, or maybe it is their own hearty conviction which begs for a credible explanation. We were witnesses to the inglorious six-month ASUU strike of the recent past, which untenably halted educational activities in the country. In short, I hold our leaders to be the major culprits in making Nigerian graduates unemployable.



The remedy of the situation is invariably the opposite of the problems herein outlined. Parents should allow their children choose what they intend to become in life, though with a little guidance. "Beyonce" is a course now offered in an American university. If you should enter any bank and say you are the nephew to the cousin of Cristiano Ronaldo's uncle, let me see the bank manager that will refuse to do business with you. There's no such thing as undignified or unprofessional courses. The passion to read a course should be the determining factor here.



Again, our teachers, especially the ones at our formative level, should help guide us, rather than destroy us. Until now, many of my secondary school classmates who joined sciences because they were persuaded by our teachers to do so, are still seeking admission to higher institutions. And this time around, they will be glad to accept admission from just any institution. Perhaps, its because our teachers were meant to teach us academics side by side morals, that they are unable to draw a line between both. They have to impose their ideals on us.



As for the government, theirs is like a malignant tumour. Growing worse each day. Paying only lip-service to education in the country. When a major issue, such as the one under consideration, receives little or no attention from the powers that be, then there is a great chance of impending doom.


On the whole therefore, there is an urgent need to revisit the P.T.A. That I believe would ameliorate the stark inadequacies of graduates to a large extent.


Please if you have a different view, feel free to share with us, as different opinions will be entertained.

LAWYERS, NOT LIARS!

This is an 'article-cum-poem' written by a colleague of mine. I fell in love with it because it seeks to correct a prevailing albeit erroneous belief in Nigerian reasoning faculty.

WHAT GERMANY TAUGHT ME IN BRAZIL.

It isn't as if last night's match between host nation, Brazil and host conquerors, Germany was something out of the ordinary. Far from it. We've seen matches where the hosting nation or club will be beaten by far wider goal margins. Check out the different leagues in Europe and you will see this fact substantiated. Also, countries have fared worse in previous tournaments-particularly host countries. The myth surrounding a country not winning the World cup consecutively is still there, and remains likely not to be broken. At least, football fervents like us never gave Germany that benefit of doubt as to beating Brazil, talkmore of beating them by that 'mother of shoutouts' goal difference. Brazil definitely would have had the extraordinary self-confidence to draw on because they were at home. What's more, what will be the quantitative and qualitative ratio of noise coming from over 50,000 Brazilian fans in a 60,000 capacity stadium compared to the paltry few thousands of German fans? Not to mention the double number of those outside the stadium. By all odds and initiative, Brazil ought to have won the match last night, but the world all over was shocked to see a total and complete reversal of expectations. Very few bookmakers will have willingly and clear-eyedly bet that such a scoreline as was witnessed last night was predictable. As a German player was heard to have confessed after the game,

"We started scoring immediately the game started and we forgot to stop." 

Yes, a whole lot of jokes-some sleazy, some naughty, some not-so-funny, others outright bad-had trended following the match. Trust Nigerians as usual. Nigerians will not be left out of the pack, and so various epithets were created by 'geniuses' to show their disapproval or approval, as the case calls for, at what Germany did to Brazil. The adjectives: sabotaged, mauled, butchered, truncated, obscured did not even come near to describe what Germany did to Brazil on that eventful night of July 8, 2014. Thus, different after different types of ready-made jokes-mostly by Nigerians-began trending everywhere from Twitter to Instagram, Facebook and many other online and offline social and print media. Hardly will you not be accosted with such jokes on your timeline, should you ever bother to check. But trust Nigerians, they will always be at the forefront of the noisemaking without necessarily, looking beyond the surface of the match to see if any lessons can be learnt from the game. Such lessons I believe I have learnt which I intend to share here.

The thoughtful and intuitive observer can, will, and must see through the ordinary theme that characterised the match. Far removed from the ordinary meaning of the match, some deep and insightful lessons will be humbly set out below.

Firstly, the distinction between 'I CAN' and 'I WILL' were clearly enunciated to me in that match. Man, from time immemorial, has been engaged in a perpetual search for gratification, but, however, there always appears those primitive obstacles in life called, 'adversity.' The German team, it appears, recognised the inherent peril associated with this lifes' stumbling block. From the group stages of the tournament, the German team had played with a shared morality of fighting spirit. Their quest for winning knew no bounds. The pysche and credo of the team had been, 'so long as it is a challenge, we would face it.' And so, they had accustomed their mentality towards playing against any 11-manned team while winning was foremostly etched on the fronts of their hearts.

Secondly, the German team had taught me that indeed, 'actions and deeds speak volumes than mere words.' To borrow a leaf from the literary giant, Prof. Wole Soyinka,"A Tiger does not announce its tigeritude; it pounces!" The German team did not need to announce their 'Germanitude', rather, they pounced! My simple message here is that, your Pastor, Prophet, Medicine-man or whoever might say all he has to say about you defeating your stumbling blocks in life which you must face, but my dear, to tell you the truth, it takes you to put in that sheer determination before you will achieve in life. The determination that equals the zeal with which tiny termites put in to build gigantic anthills. No one, at least I am sure, in the duration of the earth, has ever climbed a hill by merely looking at it. Only the man who says failure is his name would never achieve in this journey called life.

Further, the German team had demonstrated the spirit of comradeship paramountly needed in life. The connectivity of rungs in life's ladder. We've heard of many aphorisms and sayings expressing the strength in unity, but the German team had clearly demonstrated that. Other teams were building and focusing their strengths on world bests and future world bests. The German delegation had at the onset clearly shown themselves to be a team without any preferential candidate. Nigeria can learn a lot from this by uniting in one common purpose to fight the onslaughts facing the country. The fourth and final lesson which I learnt will be a matter of conjecture. From the inception of the World Cup till date, any World Cup hosted by a South American nation has always been won by a compatriot South American country. With what I have learnt from the Germans so far, that record is clearly about to remain not so. The German team had thus far played with that degree of passion and zeal which can and will definitely change the status quo. It takes a daring and bold individual to bring about that much-needed change. That passion-filled and dedicated individual. That individual that will see above life challenges and potholes. And that individual, is YOU. Life's lesson, in a nutshell:"Your best self is the most powerful." It takes you to be you. Nobody can do it better than you.

See you at the top.

DAYLIGHT ROBBERY

Nigerians still hold the record for being the most ingenious and creative human beings in the world- especially when money is involved. Living conditions have forced us to resort to all forms of extra-orthodox means in a bid to survive in this highly competitive society. Consider the case of the well-dressed First Class graduate from the University of Ilorin who meets you in Benin and has no transport fare to attend an interview in Kaduna after searching for a job for 5 years (how did he get t-fare to Benin, and what is he doing in Benin?); to the brilliant undergraduate who was on his way to being the youngest First Class graduate in his department in, but had his dream cut short by circumstances occurring beyond his control and urgently needs money to do one surgery or the other.

Then consider the case of the victim of Sharia Law in the North who converted the property of another and had his hands cut off with no visible means of livelihood, other than displaying his mangled limbs to the hustlers and hardworking people of Lagos State. And then the classical case: that of the able bodied man, who has no visible impairment to his morphological structure, nor disadvantaged by any circumstance of his birth, nor any other extraneous act of man occurring beyond his control which serves to be detrimental to his success in life. Yet, he meets you at the park at Ring Road, at Yaba Market, and on the busy streets of Surulere, where you are jejeciously minding your own business with a very sorry face and a cock and bull story (which I like to refer to as Chukwuma and Nwawo tale) about how his Grandmother in the village prevented him from succeeding in life, or the story about his pregnant wife who is currently in the labour ward and needs money to do a ‘Sheasarian Operation’.

Now, how this concerns me as a tax-paying Nigerian citizen (or rather, the son of a tax paying citizen), I can’t say, but these men on journey from Jerusalem to Jericho in search of Good Samaritans are extremely experienced in the practice of getting you to part with your hard-earned naira notes, and have a way of making you feel bad if you can’t help them. Some of them can perform better than most Nollywood actors when recounting their tale of woes. In fact, a Literature student preparing for WAEC can rely on their story to practice how to identify literary elements and Figures of Speech.

Apart from these unfortunate individuals, we also have begging by corporate agencies and respectable business organisations. Many will attest to the fact that hardly a day goes by without you receiving a plea for monetary assistance from these network providers which is couched in an intuitive manner. Consider this message I once received:

“Do you know that sitting down on a cushion chair for prolonged periods can cause cancer of the buttocks? For more interesting health tips, text YES to 3000.”

I am justified in regarding this type of message a plea for monetary assistance because the information they are offering to supply you with is not something not already known to an average Nigerian. Besides, the offer to supply information on a specific subject matter such as health tips is such that someone actually requiring such information will not be helped beyond the rudimentary knowledge he already possesses if he actually subscribes to such service. The better consensus will be for such a person to resort to the internet where he will get a wider range of such specific information at a cheaper rate.

Then when you subscribe to these information services, the issue of renewal of subscription comes up. Here, the network providers cross the terrain from begging to stealing. In short- you won’t be informed or reminded that your subscription will be automatically renewed. They impose it upon themselves to deprive you of your precious 50 NGN airtime for a week of disturbing SMS’s which consume space in our phone storage. Then when you call Customer care to complain of this unwelcome trend, all they have to offer you is their apologies.

Recently, network providers crossed the line from mere stealing to broad-daylight robbery. That is, deducting money from your airtime credit without even informing you that you spiritually subscribed to one service or the other. Many times you just receive messages that your exquisite 50 NGN Airtime credit has been deducted for Caller Ring Back Tune or whatever, and you can’t even remember subscribing to such service, and the funny thing is that it always happen when you just heavily recharged your line after a long credit- drought.

Inasmuch as MTN and other network providers are prepared to continue this brigandry, I am also prepared to continue in my boycott of recharge of my phone lines. Thank God for sophisticated services such as wifi which ensures that I can connect to the internet without the help of mobile networks.

I am Oluwanonso_Esq on Twitter.

THE MONSTER CALLED RAPE

            I guess that my difficulty in being able to write about women related themes in my writings stemmed from the fact that when I had grown to the level of self-realization, my mother who could properly guide me through the mountainous range of knowing and appreciating the opposite sex was no more of this earth, or perhaps because I didn't have any female siblings, or even maybe, because I grew up in a conventional Nigerian family , ferociously grounded in morals, where it would amount to a taboo for a man to ever think of stooping so low to the level of a woman( Infact, God help you if Papa should as much as catch you innocently daydreaming about the opposite sex).                                             I had methodically embarked on a joyous voyage of Thank-God-I-Am-A-Man themed writings. A moment of introspection had awakened in me and opened my eyes to the wonders and amazing world of being a woman. A task which I will not set out here, but suffice it to say that being a woman is a very beautiful experience. That sadly seems to be on a sharp decline as evinced from the various acts of violence against women. Questions after question continually barraged my mind. What if my future wife was someone who had undergone the damaging and traumatizing effects of being raped? What if I am nowhere to be found tomorrow, what will the fate of my future daughters in a world of prejudiced values against women? What if my only sister, had she been alive, grows to become a victim of rape? Worst of all, what if I had been born a girl, who could tell, if I wouldn't have experienced such traumatic moments of being dehumanized and downgraded? As these unanswered questions kept nagging at me, I found myself invariably departing from mainstream Collins; trademark Arikor, who naturally is stone-hearted when it comes to matters concerning the opposite sex. Because whichever way you decide to look at it, the issue of rape touches us all in one way or the other. And then an inner voice told me it was time to wear the shoes of rape victims so as to feel how it pinches; it was time to lend my voice to the dastardly act of rape; This monster called rape.
       A casual glance through daily newspapers will reveal the alarming rate at which rape is now jostling positions with the now 'perceived-normal' Boko-Haram endemic. For every page that reports about the inhuman activities of the evil Boko-Haram sect - which are very many - there is a corresponding page of a rape report somewhere from Abia to Sokoto; Lagos to Kaduna; Ebonyi to Rivers etc. The custom of blaming the act on the devil seems out of vogue now( I believe maybe the devil must have angrily cautioned any rapist to mention the devil at the rapists' own peril). The flimsy and unreasonable excuse now is that the sheer dressing of the victim and her flirtatious lifestyle called for her to be raped!. What sexual appeal, if any, premised on her dressing, a five-year old toddler has can best be answered by the rapists themselves.
            There is no gainsaying the fact that our society is a jaundiced and bigoted one, where the male folk reign supreme. And so we were born into such a defective system, and we find ourselves as men, being tutored to exalt ourselves above our female counterparts-even our elders, thus our lives are shaped by this societally-accepted ill. A judge of the Court of Appeal once captured it concretely when he held obiter, that our own society is of a patriarchal heritage, where everything ought to be done according to the wishes and whims of the man! What a myopic view? And so, the woman finds herself at odds with a father who desires to choose her husband for her, or his 'happy' thoughts whenever he recalls the handsome sum she would fetch as bride price, or even the so-called husband, to whom she is expected to submit however unreasonable his sexual urges are. If the husband ever forces her to have sex against her will, that is not rape! We now have many animals, to say the least, roaming in the body of humans, holding on to their bigoted and short-sighted views that every woman ought to be ravished and subdued. I know my future children - male or female - will not forgive me should they ever find out that I had the opportunity to speak against this evil and I never did.
             In short, the damaging ordeals which society imposes on women leaves much to be said. In a  rape trial not long ago , after the victim had painstakingly narrated the heart-wrenching pains she went through, the judge still dismissed her claim based on expert opinion given by male medical doctors, who opined that she could nonetheless consent to the sexual act even in a drunken state, and because a former girlfriend of the accused had testified that he was a 'gentleman' who would never force a lady to sleep with him against her will. In another scenario, a lady's claim of attempted rape was dismissed because the accused person had only removed his clothes after entering the room she was in and locked the door, when( thank goodness) he was interrupted by someone else. In the words of the judge,"...the actions of the accused cannot amount to attempted rape, for he was only in the process of having a connection with the lady and nothing more...!" Whatever the judge might have meant by 'connection', only him can sufficiently explain, whoever told him that the lady wanted to enjoy the unwarranted and unjustified naked sight of the accused man? In yet another disturbing scenario, a clear and established case was struck out because the accused led evidence, which was easily believed by the court, that prior to the rape, the victim had told him of her numerous earlier sexual escapades and one-night stands with different men. On the day of the rape, she had gone out with him and had started kissing him amorously at some point, which consequently led to his arousal... I guess the judge in this case had no difficulty forming the words: cheap slut! dirty whore!! common prostitute!!! You deserved what you got! There abound cases where women who might be shy or soft spoken are forced to graphically paint the lurid pictures of the ordeal they went through, much to the pleasure and joy of the audience. They will have to re-create the unsavoury scene, from grabbing her against her will, to pinning her down, to beating her up in order to subdue her, to the shredding of her clothing, to the dastardly act of invading the essence of her womanhood, only for such cases to be thrown out on basis of technicalities. All the mentioned instances, are, of course, obtained abroad. I don't have to describe what is seen here, for everybody knows of the absurdity of our legal system.
    We have a further situation where the male folk having adorned themselves with pornography, which basically reduces women to mere vaginas, breasts and buttocks, will set out to experiment what they've seen. And when the desirable becomes unavailable...we have cases of fathers raping daughters, brothers raping sisters, uncles raping nieces and so on. I don't have to tell of the numerous women whose lives have been threatened should they ever speak up against the ordeal they went through.
           The time, I believe, has come when the status quo ought to change. Guys, take my advice, which is a very good antidote. Whenever you see a semi-nude woman, or even a nude one as some of them prefer, just become momentarily blind. Again, this issue of the man having dominion in a marriage or relationship should stop. Granted that the Holy Scriptures designated that the man should be the head of the home, it never said to the point of annihilating the woman! For all I know, marriage is a contractual agreement between consenting adults of equal status. Where then lies the basis of positing that the women ought to submit to the sexual urges of the man, for he owns her, her body and even her soul? If the marriage was premised on a consensus ad idem from both parties, then the consummation of same  ought to involve a consensus from both parties.
Finally, as a word of quintessential wisdom to fellow men, there is a great difference between wishing pain and suffering on someone and actually inflicting such pain on that someone. The traumatized survivors of the various Boko-Haram engineered bombings will easily attest to the truism of the above statement. The pains they go through is not different from that of many a rape victim. Civilisation should be the key word here. And to be civilised, one doesn't have to see the four walls of a classroom. The psychological make-up of women does not allow for such ordeals we put them through, so we shouldn't ever delude ourselves into believing  that women actually enjoy being raped. Even a prostitute takes offence at being called a prostitute, how much more the innocent and decent woman on whom you  unleash your animalistic tendencies? Infact, to say that any man who rapes a woman is an animal would be insulting to animals. It is time to cage that monster between our legs. And if any man feels he is too prominent to obey this simple rule, well, as the Igbo adage goes:"When the hen digs an unfathomable hole, it should not run away from whatever comes out of the hole."



                                                                                                                      COLLINS ARIKOR




AUTHOR'S NOTE: This article owes its inspiration to:
Oghosa Annabel, Victoria Nkechi who unknown to them, readily provided their brains for me to pick, in order to fulfil my selfish ambition of relieving my competency in writing.
Nkechukwu Andrea, Kosisochukwu Goodness and Imosieme Khadeejah for leading me through the intricacies and delicateness associated with womanhood.
Ogochukwu Ethel-who assumed the role of a mother in my life and taught me what every true mother ought to teach her son(s) concerning the female gender.
I am proud to call all these great ladies my girlfriends for showing that being a lady is truly a beautiful experience.

WHERE RIGHTS ABOUND...

Since the primary and most essential duty of every writer is to portray an image of society, I will be basing my write-up around the much needed societal word: RIGHTS, which you might readily take to mean, inalienable entitlements or you will hereaft appreciate to mean a world-known cereal, which is mostly eaten boiled, and which has the botanical name of Oryza Sativa. Whichever way you might get to understand it, don't get confused and don't get mad at me, either, for I am only mirroring what society-our society, particularly-has sadly degenerated into.

I had never really believed the news that filtered out of Ekiti from the last gubernatorial elections, because knowing Nigerians' penchant for exaggerations and misinformations, it wouldn't be surprising to see that the facts and figures which emanated from the conduct were politicised. In every rumour, there is an atom of truth. Well, this one has compounds in it. I was told that Ekiti people were keen to exercise their rice to vote, for they strongly believed their votes were their rice. They had consequently trooped out en masse-defying the scorching Nigerian sun-to cast their votes, so as to secure their rice. Some even had theirs being measured on the hands to them.

As if we haven't swallowed enough shit, another Rice-man went on the prowl. Only that this time around, he seems to be smarter than his Ekiti counterpart. He seemed to appreciate the significant connection between early birds and worms. His advisers knew that of the over 180 million Nigerian souls, over 65% were youths. And so, they had decided to catch them young, unlike their Ekiti counterpart. And what were they to do. Rice-man(or iPAD-man, as you might want to rightly call him), a politically-motivated philanthropist, organised a nationwide essay competition for university students which had 3 iPADS and some sums of money as prizes to 3 winners.

At the last count by Nigerian Universities Commission, we had over 120 universities in Nigeria. And thus, in a no-category barred competition, iPAD-man was sure to have over 2000 students from each Nigerian university vying for the ultimate prize of an iPAD and some money. He was not far from the riveting truth. University of Benin where this writer is a student had two 1000 capacity lecture halls filled to ceiling, and more students were being expected for the essay was to take place on the last saturday of June, which every Nigerian knows in common-parlance as 'clean-up' day. His political do-gooder boys; bottom lickers, were very happy at the wide range of publicity their boss would receive. And so, they were all mouth and teeth that day.

Anybody who wasn't a witness wouldn't readily appreciate the injury suffered by this writer, and why he's complaining, but for goodness' sake! the essay had such a daring and audacious topic as 'Securing Nigeria: Our collective responsibility!' and to think all this while, we have a substantial number of youths who had the idea and knowledge of how to secure a frailing and disintegrating Nigeria and they kept to themselves! We never knew that Nigeria indeed had a lot of 'sensitive' youths who could proffer solutions to the seemingly never-ending issues of the country, until 3 iPADS!-I repeat, 3 iPADS!-brought them out of hiding. Virtually every youth that came out to write the essay in my school had one thing in mind: iPAD and money. For the first time in my well, limited life, I saw Nigerian youths united in one common goal and purpose: iPAD!

I had asked myself, what if on that day, the organisers had sent out a clarion call for all youths to come out en masse and lead a daring and frontal attack on the devious boko-haram sect... Or even to come out so as to protestingly march to government house and register our displeasure at the way our leaders are mishandling the affairs of the country? Only then will inevitable excuses be outdoing each other. It will be foolhardy to ignore the trumpeting aberration on ground. It will amount to the highest form of mental denial to become blind at the glaring and appalling situation at hand.

A very near perfect scenario of Ekiti has sampled itself this past saturday, and is clearly emitting signals of what to expect in 2015.  Why did it have to take an iPAD-motivated test for such a tremendous number of Nigerian youths to show that all along, they had the initiative and wherewithal to secure Nigeria from cascading down the hill of political tumults? Clearly, therefore, it won't take a soothsayer, pastor, prophet or an imam for a true Nigerian to know that the little of this mestasized and festered anomaly called Ekiti is patiently waiting to manifest on a grand scale in 2015, unless-and unless-drastic measures are taken to prevent this oncoming catastrophic head-on collision with doom! Enough is enough on this heavy reliance on rice( oops! rights), before we would do what is right and necessary. This is what you get where rice abounds.

UNWISE DEATH

                

                                              

          

  But death, ye be no respecter of circumstance of person

          And your actions, you perform without regards to understanding

You serve as cape to further the fuel of the mysteries of the diabolic

Balance to check the superiority of the highest medics

And incontestable fact beyond and without burden of proof

that any judicial line could testify.

        But death, little do you know that silence itself is a supreme answer to every question

And the sovereign solemnity of eternal quietness

Is more a confusing mystery than death itself

         A mystery to those who acquire it.

And being humans that we are,

Silence we know can only relate to negativity

Unrolling rivers of tears and deep hearts full of grief

            The mistake you make death, unknown to you is that

             You put the good ones to rest

             Censor silence on the wicked and

             Storm up confusion in the hearts of the living wicked

Death, ye be no respecter of circumstance of person

And even at that, the swift and unthinkable ways you perform

Depict that ye be the least of the wisest of unnatural emotions.

                         

              By  AKIN-DEKO OLUWABUNMI.

THE MOST HANDSOME REWARD

      I grew up always believing that the many foodless days I and my siblings experienced, and our many holefull clothes had constituted poverty, but my opinion changed when I got to see poverty on a firsthand basis. On my arrival at Ajegunle; blessed A.J. City of Lagos. I empirically felt poverty in its strictest sense. There, rats, the size of small cats, were busy scavenging and darting to and fro the shacks made of rusted zinc and termites-infested boards which the inhabitants called home. Mosquitoes, as big as butterflies were siphoning what little blood they could suck from the glistening bodies of the brown-haired, kwashiorkor-imprinted and skeletal children playing. Among the sights that met the eye were naked children jumping in and out of pits, which I guessed had to be the latrines because of the pungent smell emanating from within. The women, tying their threadbare wrappers with exposed breasts sat huddled with that faraway looks which were not of this world, but of the world beyond and I heard that they were living in an urban area.

     My August discovery was made even more profound by what my companion had to say “ These people have scores of people collecting a constant supply of emoluments and other numerous benefits on their behalf at councillorship level, local government level, state level, Federal level and even International level! “ What crime had these people committed to be rewarded with such was still a mystery to me.

   My personal experiences had necessitated my desire to become a writer, not because my little arsenal of words should be used to impart a life in what little way I could, but because I strongly felt that my extraordinary childhood afforded me the right to create my own world of refuge; where I would always run to and hurl blame at other people. At least, I had a roof over my head (even though we usually collected a substantial amount of water through the ceiling whenever it rains, and God help us when it rained during the night, we would have to kiss sleep goodbye). Yet here were a group of imperturbable people living despite these inhumane conditions and they didn’t even have the slightest intimation that they had the right to better lives.

   2015 is around the corner, and as usual, posters and billboards will spring up at every road one bothers to look, televisions and newspapers will all tell of the American-wonder type of achievements of these various office seekers, and why they should be ‘duly’ rewarded by being elected or re-elected as the case may be, for they self- assuredly believe it to be so.

   I have always engaged in a personal war on the proliferation of fake politics in Nigeria, not because I understood the simple fact that much, if not all of what we need to live a quality life in Nigeria can only be guaranteed by the quality of politics we receive but because I now solidly understand that, every upright citizen, no matter the position occupied in society, as a matter of natural logic, has a duty imposed on him/her to see that the lives of people around him/her are positively touched in the least manner possible. For the reward that awaits can only be the most handsome reward.

                 ARIKOR COLLINS……..   

WAY BACK WHEN....

       In honour of children’s day, I just wanted to take a moment to remember the craziest parts of our childhood. All the good times before physics, beards, work and life itself began.

       Do you remember when we were little and would believe anything, our parents would tell us all kinds of stories to make us behave. My mum always tells me about the time I was wailing because I wanted the peppersoup my dad was having and so she went in and poured meat stock in a plate and gave me to drink. And then there was the very popular ‘if you eat too much of this, it will grow in your stomach and out of your mouth’. That one worked so well on me, after my aunt told me, I stayed away from groundnut for a long time. Even with all the lies our parents told us, they weren't as bad as the ones we told ourselves and our siblings. It always cracks me up when someone talks about how they deceived their younger siblings into thinking half meat was better than full meat lol.

   Then there were the cartoons, as far as I'm concerned, kids nowadays don’t know cartoons. These things they watch now just come with long straws to suck their IQs. The real cartoons were Tom and Jerry, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races and all the rest. I remember rooting for Daphne and Fred’s relationship and how happy I got whenever they showed any Tom and Jerry episode when Tom was ‘in love’, with his pupils turning into hearts and then New Year Tom and Jerry marathons, heaven! Then there were those hilarious dwarfs in Wacky Races .

    It was good to not have to worry about anything; back then my biggest problem was that I thought 10 + 10 was 100. Don’t judge me. All it took to impress girls was goody goody and shapes if you were rich.  Whatever happened to goody goody anyway and Nice biscuit and that ring sweet? Thank God kidnapping wasn't rampant then though, because with that ring sweet they could probably have kidnapped my entire class.

   I remember I used to want to be an artist, I would imagine that I had painted flowers and the sun in a room. I traced pictures from all those activity books and my siblings would be hailing me like I was Da Vinci. I was so convinced that I was the next best thing in art until I got 3 out of 10 in visual art in JS1, at what point I quickly advised myself and changed career.

    Watching movies when I was young, if I even sensed from a mile away that they were about to kiss, I would cover my eyes for  like five seconds, that was the deepest it went back then. If there was a sex scene that they covered with blanket that was the end of the movie, to your tent O  Israel! That movie would find itself at the bottom of a cupboard somewhere, blue films were things you only heard of in church ‘ Don’t watch blue film or you will go to hell’. No one even says blue film now.

     Most of my childhood memories are probably too embarrassing to be shared; I'm sure most of us have the one where we forgotten in school. I remember they didn't come to pick me and my siblings, I was probably in primary 2 or 3 then, I remember being the one that directed them home though, funny how I was better with directions then than I am now.

    And then there was the time I was preparing for common entrance, all that Ugo C. Ugo stress while everyone else was playing and enjoying themselves. According to my parents, I wrote a note saying ‘ mummy and daddy, please I'm tired’. That sounds like something I would do though. Most of the childhood memories are just pictures, like the first time I used a pen and the pen I used; then I remember the seat arrangement of my primary 5 class. I remember the 1^st to 6^th position in my primary four class. Weird? Maybe. Share your own funny childhood memories, I’d love to hear them. Happy Belated Children’s day to all our inner children!

THE LIE THEORY

                

The Microsoft Encarta Dictionaries defines the verb to lie as to: ‘deliberately say something untrue: to say something that is not true in a conscious effort to deceive somebody’ ©Microsoft Corporation 2009 (Make I put copyright before them sue me abeg).      The important thing to note is that before somebody can be said to have lied: his statement must be deliberately untrue, and it must be made with a conscious effort to deceive. *clears throat** This means that if an untrue statement is made, but in the absence of that conscious effort to deceive, it cannot be said to be a lie, even though the false statement was made deliberately. Thus, if the intention or effort to deceive was subconscious or unconscious, then it is not a lie.             Similarly, if someone makes a statement, which at the time of stating it, he had reasons to believe his statement was true, and it turns out to be in fact false, then it can be said that the person has not told a lie.            Consider the example of a person who is asked about the whereabouts of another, and he gives a location based on where he reasonably believes this other to be, he cannot be presumed to have lied.           Then the case of a girl who is expected at a party, but is sleeping at home, receives a call from her friend who asks her, “where are you”, and she replies, “I am on my way.” Can it be said that she lied? If she had the intention of putting that statement into manifestation at the time of making it, then she is justified, even if she doesn't actually carry out that intention. Besides, the statement was not made in a bid to deliberately deceive her friend as to her location, but rather with the intention of lessening the concern on the part of her friend.           What about the case of the secretary whose boss instructs her to inform visitors that he is not around. When a customer eventually comes in asking for her boss, and she replies in accordance with her boss’ instructions, can it be said that she lied? It can be said that she fulfilled the requirement of consciously deceiving the person, but the issue of whether or not her action/statement was ‘deliberate’ comes into play. She was no doubt acting under express instructions, which can be presumed to be against her will. At law, it will be said that she acted under duress. The same Encarta Dictionary which I am relying on defines ‘deliberate’ as something carefully thought out and done intentionally. In the instant scenario, the secretary didn’t carefully think out her actions, rather, it was her boss who fulfilled that requirement, and her boss also fulfils the requirement of intention, because the original intention to tell a mistruth originated from him. It can be possibly that the secretary had no intention of telling the lie, but had no choice in the matter. Hence, she is excluded from any liability. Besides, it can be argued that her deception of the customer was not conscious, since it was not intentional.           The same principle applies where a father instructs his wife or kid to inform his creditor that he is not at home when he is in fact hiding under the bed. In fact, a kid acting under this scenario cannot even be said to be acting deliberately especially when he is below the age of 12. Neither can his action/words be said to be conscious or even deliberate because he lacks the capacity to carefully think it out, and it was obviously not intentional because it was under the express authority of his father, with the threat of sanction in case of non-compliance. That’s why sometimes we hear things like: “My daddy said I should tell you that he is not at home”.            But where a wife acts under the same circumstances, she may be liable, depending on the degree of interest she has in the matter. Where she supports or encourages her husband to make such deception, or where she has spent out of the money that the creditor wants to collect, then she has fulfilled all conditions of deliberate intention, and conscious effort to deceive.           Therefore, since deliberate intention, and conscious effort to deceive are the key factors in determining lies, anyone wishing to justify a lie not in any of the aforementioned categories just needs to show that the lie did not originate from him. Or he can train himself in such a way that he himself is unconscious to the fact that he is telling a lie. For instance, engaging the use of split-second timing i.e. answering questions immediately they are asked in such a manner that would seem to be your sub-conscious answering. When one wastes time before answering a question, there is a presumption that he has carefully thought out his answer.         There is also the doctrine of necessity. Where a lie is told to protect the person being lied to. It cannot be said in such circumstances that you are deceiving the person-not when the lie is told for his own benefit.                     But the crux of the matter is that he who lies unjustifiably is going to hell. And when you try to justify an unjustifiable lie, you are going straight to hell. I am Oluwanonso_Esq on Twitter; and that is not a lie.