Has Nigeria Changed Me?

Someone asked me the question recently if my wife has changed since our move to Nigeria. I get asked this question fairly frequently only that the question is usually about me not my wife. Has Nigeria changed you? This, I suspect, in many instances is tinged with an expectation of a foreboding answer.

Has Nigeria changed me is certainly not a $64,000 question to answer. I must admit however, that it is one that requires serious thought as I know that the answer I give, even to me, may not be palatable. I will explain why.

It is, of course expected that if you move to a new place, you will imbibe some of the traditions, fad and culture of the land. However, when I moved to Nigeria, I came with the personal mandate, right or wrong, to influence the country and not allow myself to be influenced. This is set as a weekly calendar activity on my phone, a reminder of the great task before me and a personal code of conduct to which I must scrupulously adhere. Did I come with a sense of foreboding? Yes I did. Why then did I come you may ask. The same reason why some people volunteer as aid workers to go to Afghanistan and some climb the Everest or walk to the North Pole.

Am I admitting I felt Nigeria could influence me for bad before I came, I’m afraid, Yes. Is this fair? I hope to write about this another day.

Back to the original point; given the foregoing, you may now understand why answering the question often asked of me – 'Has Nigeria changed you, is, for me, a huge one. If I answer Yes - if I say Nigeria has changed me, I am admitting that I had failed in the original mandate I set for myself and that for me is a serious issue.

Perhaps a further question is this; Is the change for good or for bad? In answering this, let me simply say, I frequently wear buba and soro which I feel suits our weather better. I like the odd slang like ginger-swagger which I came about a week before this article, although it sounds arrogant. I admire some of the talents in music, in the arts and in literature particularly Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie who in my view is one of the most expressive writers I’ve read.

On the other hand, I feel more conscious of what I wear and how I look in Nigeria, a ‘predicament’ I never noticed when I lived in England. For example, although I have been greying since my teens, it had never been an issue for me. Nobody was strongly concerned about it either, or felt the need to refer to me as ‘Sir.' A few people in England did suggest I consider the tint option; this was never part of my script and I had no cause to feel the slightest urge to do so. In Nigeria however, I have thought about this option, not the least because of a new found aggressiveness of the greying process but also because most people I meet erroneously believe I’m older than I am. As a result I get the respect I do not deserve from people who left secondary school whilst I was still languishing in primary school. Many people even believe that I am in my fifties, and my wife in her twenties making me an aristo - a Nigerian slang for older men who prey on very young women. I suppose the issue here is that I feel vainer and it pains.

I have also found that I feel more helpless about the hopelessness around me, a departure from the brimming enthusiasm that I brought from England. This ordinarily would be expected given the many issues we face in Nigeria. However, it appears that I now suffer from the occasional doubt that being on the ground presents. I must say that my optimism for Nigeria has not waned, only that I have moved the goalpost a bit. Call it ‘progressive optimism’, I know Nigeria will be better, I just sometimes doubt whether it will happen within the next five years.

Coming to the question that my friend asked about my wife, the answer I gave was ‘Yes’. She has changed in many ways. She is certainly more at ease with herself, she even eats the occasional white bread, an abomination in England. Could it be that she is being pragmatic or wiser, I still can’t say. What I know is that there are a few things I can’t discuss now that I hope and trust I will be able to write about in the future. Would she get to know of me writing about her this way? I guess so given that she edits most of my writings. Would she be pleased that I have written about her? It’s a risk worth taking, after all I took the risk of moving to Nigeria and some people are still climbing Everest.

Nigeria at 50 - Optimism and Responsibility

We celebrate our 50^th independence anniversary today. We are divided as a nation on the significance of this day and whether to celebrate or not. Americans and Europeans - who are better organised, with good infrastructure etc - are also divided on several issues of importance to them like Wade vs Roe and how to manage the economy. So we are not alone in being a divided nation on issues that are important to us. If anything, the fact that we register our anger, anxiety and frustration is proof of our engagement in the discourse that will ultimately change our nation.

I understand the emotion of those who argue that we have nothing for which to celebrate - no good roads, no electricity, non existent medical care and the collapse of the public school system. Like many other Nigerians, patriotic or not, we do not only suffer from these problems together; we must resolve to solve them together. However, I feel that just talking about the issues has not got us anywhere. We need to do more! That is why I am today advocating the following:

Optimism

If Nigeria must be better, we have to be upbeat about the possibility of making change happen. Nobody has succeeded in making change happen by nursing despair and pessimism. Whilst there may be the odd moments of doubt, for real change and success to happen, these doubt moments must be dwarfed by the consistent wellspring of optimism.

With optimism, I’m not advocating vacuous parties or entertainment-loaded, face-capped celebrations at Abuja’s Eagle Square or Lagos’ Tafawa Balewa Square that only numb the pain of our protracted failures. Such non-events often at the behest of fame-seeking individuals egged on by their huge ego only take advantage of people and have no lasting relief for our national problems. These non-events places us squarely with the analogy articulated by St. James of a man who beholds himself in the mirror, probably thinks he is cool, but forgets what he looks like the moment he walks away.

Proper optimism is not only about keeping hope alive; what it does is to motivate the optimist to do something to make change happen. It is no rocket science that it is much easier to give your all to when you believe in a course. If we despair about Nigeria and join the bandwagon of those who believe that Nigeria will never change, then we defer the moment of change.

Only a fool will argue that the problems our country faces are not formidable. They are! We all know it. But do we stop there and just accept that it is not possible? Do we just accept our police are corrupt and there is nothing we can do about it? Do we just accept that bribery is a way of life and it can’t be changed? If we do, it will be a case of the Yoruba adage which says “when a bird lands on a string, there is no rest for the string and no rest for the bird”. We all will continue to suffer the consequences if we do not accept that it is possible to make a change. A good way to engineer change is through optimism.

Responsibility

Once we nurture optimism, the next level is to be individually responsible. Whilst optimism motivates, responsibility is the beginning of the action that changes society. We accept that our governments are largely irresponsible, but we, the citizens, can become responsible. I say again, we, the people can be responsible!

• Through individual responsibility, we can stop throwing litter on the streets and dispose off our refuse properly.

• Through individual responsibility, we can treat our staff, subordinates and colleagues with dignity and fairness.

• Through individual responsibility, we can drive responsibly and with due care for other road users.

• Through individual responsibility, we can force the police to change by not giving bribes, we can make governments – local, state and national to sit up and shape up.

• Through individual responsibility, we can begin a revolution devoid of guns, spears and arrows that will go viral and transform our society.

Becoming responsible does come with a cost. It will inconvenience, it may lose you contracts, but these are hardly huge prices to pay for social and national change. People paid with their lives in Britain for the right to vote. Martin Luther King Jnr and many others paid with their lives for the civil rights enjoyed by millions of black Americans today. School children paid with their lives in the Sharpeville massacre of 1960 for today’s black majority rule in South Africa. My point is that, responsibility is not lame. True responsibility is an action thing. It talks, it refuses, and it is often painful.

Community Action

What can make change faster is when we join efforts through community action. This is an extension of individual responsibility. Community action is in effect community responsibility. In Nigeria, we have several community groups such as religious bodies, schools, social clubs, sports clubs, unions, corporate organisations, professional bodies, residents associations that can begin to act as think-tanks and pressure groups.

Let us use these community groups to pressure our local, state and national governments to make change happen. If a significant number of these groups change their tack and become responsible, we will make change quicker and faster.

We can use these organisations and groups to support and fight for members who suffer because they refuse to give bribes. By standing together, it will be easier for individuals to stand up, knowing that they have the backing of others, and then we will be able to slay the Goliaths of bribery, police brutality and government irresponsibility.

So on this, our 50^th independence anniversary, keep optimism alive, be responsible and use your influence to ensure that any organisation or group that you belong engages their community responsibly. The change we all yearn for will be nearer than we first believed.

Happy anniversary.

Neglicide - The Blood-Stained Inferno of 15-08-2010

There it was on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, just before the area known as Ojodu-Berger, the often talked about and much dreaded accident pile-up that I have read about and seen on television. This was now on my doorstep, I saw it all, not everything but enough to dampen a Sunday afternoon, enough to make you wonder why?

I had left church at about 1230 with other people to visit a family who had christened their child earlier in the day. It was a familiar route. Suddenly we saw vehicles doing a u-turn on one side of the motorway. I made for the nearest exit point which was about 30 metres away to take another route that took us through 7-UP to Agidigbin and under the bridge to Ojodu.

We eventually made the visit, saw the blissfully beautiful baby and after the usual pleasantries made our way back through the back gate of Omole Phase 2 Estate placing us on CMD road, which is parallel to the Lagos Ibadan expressway. Then I saw what can only be expressed as a carnage on a bridge along the expressway not too far from Mobil petrol station. A damaged car was precariously delivered on the bulwark, next to it was a burnt out trailer and several other rumpled and burnt vehicles. I also saw police officers in riot gear, three fire trucks and a sea of onlookers who had climbed the bridge. It was difficult to see everything that had happened because there were so many onlookers. Traffic was heavy and completely stalled.

By late evening when I was finally able to catch the news on television, 20 people had died including all the passengers in a bus, many of whom were roasted alive. The paper the next morning made the number of the dead to be 40.

The accident was allegedly caused by the driver of the trailer who lost control and rammed into other vehicles. Why were so many vehicles involved, apparently police had mounted a road-block to extort money from drivers of commercial vehicles and harass other drivers, as was customary of them, only that this was a sloping section of the road. Survivors of the accident and eye witnesses all agreed that the police checkpoint made vehicles to slow down in turn causing the accident.

There are many issues raised by this unfortunate accident:

1. Why police checkpoints on motorways?

2. The location of this particular checkpoint throws up the issue of our inability to think. If you are going to have a checkpoint why have it at a stretch where the road descends into a slope knowing fully well that we also do not have thinking drivers.

3. Why is it that no one is able to stop the police practice of extorting money from drivers, commercial or otherwise?

4. The Lagos State police chief came on television the day after the incident, and in impeccable English denied the claim that there was a police checkpoint at that stretch of the road and therefore the accident could not have been caused by the police. His argument was that if the accident was caused by a police checkpoint, some police officers would have died in the inferno. In other words, because no police officers died in the inferno, there was no police checkpoint and therefore it couldn’t have been caused by the police. QED

5. Why was it difficult for the police or FRSC to direct traffic through other routes rather than allow traffic to mount up for hours on the only route that leads out of Lagos to the rest of Nigeria? Again, our inability to think ruined several peoples’ day. No doubt, the traffic did not move for hours.

6. The saddest part is that 24 hours after, no newspaper is calling for the Inspector General of Police to be sacked or the FRSC chief, tasked with preserving safety on our roads to go. The President has not yet spoken about the loss of up to 40 of its citizen in an inferno that happened in the nation’s commercial capital. Imagine 40 Americans roasted in a road accident in Washington DC and no word or visit from Barack Obama!

7. Barely 24 hours after the incident, Ibrahim Babangida and Abubakar Atiku declared their intentions to run for President in 2011. Not a word from either of them about the incident, and they believe they are qualified to preside over this country!

I just read the Presidents’ comment about the accident on his Facebook page. This was in reaction to postings by Nigerians on his page. Apparently he was in Gabon with Ali Bongo for two days to celebrate the country's 50th independence anniversary. What a President! What a Nation we have!

Why do I feel Nigeria leaders be charged with neglicide - the violent and systematic destruction of hundreds of thousands of people through road accidents, lack of medical care, inadequate security and poor sanitation as a result of the deliberate and callous neglect of government.

Scenes from Lagos, Africa's mega-city. (4) - By Will Connors - Slate Magazine

Scenes from Lagos, Africa's mega-city. (4) - By Will Connors - Slate Magazine

Things I miss about England

I have now lived in Nigeria for over two years. I love Nigeria and I often do not complain. However, I still miss a lot of things about England some of which are as follows:

1. I miss ready access to anything – books, videos, fantastic TV features, great magazines, good shoes.

2. I miss the European breaks – the shot hops to the Continent, to Paris in France by Eurostar (you must go First Class to really enjoy it), to Barcelona in Spain with a visit to La Ramblas, to Dublin, (I have done this for £12 return in the past), to Frankfurt, Rome, Brussels, Antwerp, etc.

3. I miss ice-cream on carrot cake – what can beat home-made carrot cake with ‘Lidl’ Vanilla ice cream? You tell me.

4. I miss Radio 4, Smooth FM, Classic FM, Trouble Channel, BBC TV’s Newsnight, Panorama, Impressionists Bremner, Bird and Fortune and Question Time.

5. I miss Wimbledon – the most prestigious tennis tournament in the world. You will understand what I mean if, like me, you’ve seen Nadal and Sharapova live on the green courts of Wimbledon with strawberry and cream to match. It’s Game, Set and Match!

6. I miss uninterrupted power supply – obviously! Not even the four sources of power supply we have – NEPA, Inverter, petrol-powered generator and diesel-powered generator can remotely compare to the simple uninterrupted supply that England effortlessly offers.

7. I miss broadband internet - that never breaks and can stream a video without buffering. I mean real broadband internet that delivers your mail before your mouse says go.

8. I miss not having to wash cutlery and china before usage. You must wash these items with soap and water in Nigeria because you can never tell whether cockroaches have had their own dinner with the cutlery and china before you.

9. I miss our home in North London – you often run into world-class novelist, Oscar-wining directors and newscasters in the grocery stores and barber shop and with no pretensions too. And the restaurants are better than in the West End.

10. I miss salad, kiwis, plums, peaches, and nectarines – although bananas, mangoes and pineapples more than compensate in Nigeria. Certainly bananas in Nigeria are a million times better than the rubber-tasting ‘thing’ they call banana in England.

11. I miss ‘The Sunday Times’ – the best weekly newspaper in the world and the perfect completion to a Sunday afternoon.

12. I miss the drive to the countryside with their well choreographed green and breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

13. I miss the incredible politeness and the rather amusing general British stiff-upper-lip mannerism.

14. I miss simple effective prayer meetings with Christian brethren who are not engaged in a shouting match at God or trying to outdo one another - simple prayer meetings where everyone is equal, where the focus is to see God’s kingdom come rather than calling forth your next 4X4 or fighting off what in many instances are imaginary enemies.

15. I miss people, friends, colleagues, family - all of whom created the experience of England.

The 7 Wonders of Nigeria Part 5 - The Nigerian Wedding

I have always loved weddings. As a young boy, I longed to have a big wedding. I can remember the joy of a couple whose wedding reception I stumbled upon at the University of Ibadan. I watched as the groom was celebrated and the bride danced with panache to the beat of the uninvited gangan drummers.

I enjoy the solemn part of weddings more – the joining at the church when vows are taken and the couple pledge their undying love to each other. I like the bit where they invoke the name of God to confirm in the presence of witnesses that only death could do them part. I love the fact that it is only in marriage that the Christian faith expressly allows two people to become inextricable.

As a licensed registrar and pastor, I usually come into my elements when I conduct weddings, I often invite the couple’s parents to pray for their children, I would do everything possible to make it a special day for the couple. Weddings can make me teary-eyed in a joyful way. I would advise the couple to get the photography and video right and of course the groom to arrange a fantastic honeymoon for his bride.

I’m sure my love for weddings have something to do with the choice of the ‘Nigerian Wedding’ as a wonder of Nigeria. Additionally, the choice is influenced by the undeniable fact that Nigerians know how to put on a spectacular wedding celebration. The event usually provides an opportunity for Nigerians to cast all aspersions to the wind and indulge in our greatest and probably only national pastime, the owanbe party celebration.

Nigerians go for broke when it comes to weddings and usually the bride and groom are not the only celebrants. For some parents, it’s an opportunity to be in the limelight, to show off their wealth, who they know and to measure the level of goodwill they enjoy, so they go for broke. The couples themselves are extremely joyful and rightly so, they too go for broke.

The wedding proper is preceded by an engagement party - an understated name for a traditional wedding that is as elaborate as they come – usually on the eve of the wedding proper. The engagement party is an entirely African show with colourful African attires, tradition, songs and sometimes pranks like getting the groom to carry out military exercises or press-ups before he can claim his bride. This is usually at the instigation of the hired representative of the bride’s family (known as alaga ijoko). This 'entity' called alaga ijoko can determine the success of the engagement party. Some really good ones do things in moderation and carry the crowd along. I have also encountered some terribly bad ‘OTT’ ones who have messed up the show.

The Nigerian wedding is not complete without the aso-ebi, sometimes several aso-ebis. Aso-ebi is the uniform for the special day, the parents of the bride will have theirs, so will the groom’s family and sometimes friends of the bride will get theirs separately. The men in the family may wear a different aso-ebi from the women or they may just go for special caps matching the gele (head-tie) for women. The Nigerian wedding is an extremely colourful experience.

Nigerian women usually come up tops at this gathering. They are always pushing the boundary with their innovatively-designed dresses, exquisite jewelry and matching shoes and bag. This is topped with sharply crafted geles that ooze ingenuity and industry.

The Nigerian wedding is a public affair, meaning that literally anyone could attend. No matter how well you plan the day, even with RSVPs, British MI5, EFCC, American FBI and Russian KGB in tow, many of the guests will bring their own uninvited entourage. These guests don’t mind to bring their own food to augment the catering arrangement by the celebrants. Any right thinking planner of a Nigerian wedding will need to cater for at least an extra 200 uninvited guests depending on the social standing of the family.

The wedding day is also an occasion for the chairman of the wedding reception to show off. Many of them go on and on with stories and advice that are stale and cold. My advice to couples is to do without a chairman or read the riot act to them before the day.

The Nigerian wedding is also for area boys who will invade the wedding perimeter in their numbers.

Both the engagement party and the wedding reception are concluded with music and dancing, a live band in the case of high society weddings where the couple, their parents, family members and the musician will be ‘sprayed’ with money. To my knowledge, only the Greek have a similar tradition. I still can’t figure out why we love to publicly ‘spray’ money when you can financially support the celebrants privately

I can’t do justice to the Nigerian wedding without bringing in the Nigerian party. The highlight of any event in Nigeria be it naming ceremony, wedding or a funeral is the party. In reality many guests do not give a toss about the event proper; if you get half of your guests at the main event, you will be lucky. Most people come for the party afterwards where they will eat, socialise and dance.

Not forgetting that the celebrant and friends and families of the celebrants dole out gifts to their guests at the party. These gifts can range from unwanted cups, plastic bowls to clocks, notebooks, mobile phones and sometimes very expensive gift items. The one that really got me laughing and intrigued at the same time was the party where the important guests were said to have each received a party gift of live goat tied to their respective seats.

What a party souvenir. What a people.

I have always wondered why Nigerians love partying with a capital ‘L’ and I have come to realise that without the social parties, dancing, and aso ebis, the suicide level in Nigeria will probably be astronomical. For an average Nigerian, the weddings and the parties acts as stress relieving opportunities from the vagaries of lack of electricity, bad roads, inept politicians, poor sanitation and other challenges that daily confronts our people.

For its colour, its tradition, its stress relieving power and for the way it adds colour to the lives of Nigerians, the Nigerian wedding is a wonder of Nigeria.

A Tale of Two Countries in May; Why I’m happy for David Cameron, Helen Grant, Chuka Umunna, Chi Onwurah and other Lag-Lon stories

I was in England a few days after the May General Election that ushered in the Lib-Con coalition, so I witnessed some of the intrigues surrounding which party will form the government. Who will be the next Prime Minister? How will the Cabinet look? Will it be a coalition of losers? Why can’t Cameron force his way to the Queen and demand he be allowed to form the government? All of these were the questions on peoples’ minds fuelled by the anti-Gordon Brown Tory press. The scenario was stuff that I have read in history books and newspaper articles about Britain except that it was much more interesting witnessing it live on TV, on Radio and on the Internet.

A few days before my trip, Nigeria also saw a change of guard with the inauguration of Goodluck Jonathan as substantive President after the death of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.

Below are some of my thoughts and highlights of my latest ‘Lag-Lon’ trip. They cover politics, religion and social issues. They may reveal my bias for England and why I am unflinching in the belief that the United Kingdom is probably the most decent country in the world.

1. An image that has repeatedly been on my mind in recent weeks is that of David Cameron and his wife on the steps of 10 Downing Street. The picture shows relief, genuine affection for each other and more importantly it’s a picture that silently cries “we made it at last”. Sky News has been using it as one of its current videos and each time I see it, I feel like tearing up.

2. I was very happy for David Cameron not necessarily because of his politics but because I love to see people achieve their life aims. For him, it was a gilded climb to the top - Eton, Oxford, a stint in the corporate world, MP in 2001, leader of the Conservative Party four years later and now Prime Minister at 43 - all these attest to this remarkable achievement. For me, it is just gratifying to see someone achieve his goal. I admit that Cameron, given his background, may never truly understand life for the man on the street, however, it is not always true that justice for the common man is best achieved by leaders who have tasted poverty, after all Tony Blair, just like David Cameron was a public school boy and Oxford graduate.

3. Talking of Oxford education, it is rather interesting how self-deprecating British politicians and people are, and how on the contrary, Nigerian politicians like to drum up their achievements. British people generally do not always accentuate their personal achievements as we do in Nigeria. For example David Cameron had a First from Oxford. His predecessor; Gordon Brown also had a First (from Edinburgh) plus a PhD. And so do some members of the new and past Cabinets. However, they will rather die than say or admit this in public. It’s almost like they feel ashamed for being brainy. Interestingly, in Nigeria, anyone who has ever attended a course at Harvard proudly parade themselves as ‘Harvard-educated’ and hold alumni meetings even when they’ve only been on a 2-week programme.

4. The civility with which the party leaders handled the rather difficult days between May 7^th and May 13^th showed political and personal maturity, and also a determination to put country first.

5. Although I’m not a Brownite, I feel Gordon Brown was more a conviction politician than any of the other party leaders. I also admire people like Mr Brown who are not taken over by power.

6. I feel it is much easier to plan your political future in England than in Nigeria. David Cameron obviously wanted to be Prime Minister, so much so he was called Prime Minister since his school days. Can the same happen in Nigeria? Well, nothing is impossible. It’s just a little bit more complicated. Many good people who should be in politics cannot see themselves joining any of the corrupt political parties we have. If you can sum up the courage to join a party, you will then be faced with having to grovel before full-time political Godfathers. For example, if it were Nigeria, William Hague will be a Godfather to David Cameron, not serving in his Cabinet. It’s really a challenge. Do I think this will change? Yes, I do.

7. On the bright side for Nigeria, for the very first time, three British-born Nigerians were elected into Parliament. Like London Buses, you wait a long time for one and get three at once. Chi Onwurah, 45 became the MP for Newcastle Central, Chuka Umunna, 31 was elected MP for Streatham and Helen Grant 48 is the new MP for Maidstone and The Weald. I’m happy for them just as I am for Cameron.

8. During this trip, I stayed in the leafy part of Streatham surrounded by two parks and one ‘common’. On one occasion, I went for a walk around the parks with my host. Although it was colder than normal at this time of the year and I was initially reluctant to go, I eventually enjoyed the walk. People jogging, some walking, a pub serving meals, a massive house with a large garden that was left by the owner to the community, a man-made fountain, a deep bath that is no longer in use, cleverly shaped shrubs and beautiful rainbow-coloured flowers, mothers with baby in push chairs, a personal trainer and her client who we spoke to, pupils on their way home from school were all part of the sight and sound of the walk. Although, I lived in England for nearly two decades, I was still intrigued by the order, the determination to make life easier for people, the devotion to duty of the people that keep the park. After a while, I felt lighter, hungry and almost feeling faint, so we walked to the local Sainsbury where I bought a prawn sandwich which I devoured as soon as we left the store.

9. The potholes! Yes, the potholes, I noticed the unusually high number of potholes on London roads in my last trip as well. I’m told this was caused by the ice from the snow of last December to March this year. Na wa o!

10. I had missed our Church in London, so it was nice to be back and to fellowship with them.

11. I joined three American friends and my host for a meal at the Café Rouge restaurant in Dulwich Village on one of the evenings. I settled for Chicken Caesar Salad. I never imagined how massive Dulwich College is with its well-manicured fields, impressive buildings and very rich culture. Again, it is almost impossible to beat the English in maintaining tradition and building things to last.

12. Coming back to Nigeria, it’s interesting how people came out to describe in flowery words the character, the politics, the integrity and adherence to the rule of law of our late President, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Two things came to mind:

Firstly, if he was that good, how come the same people blamed Obasanjo for imposing on the country such a very ‘good man’. Shouldn’t we rather have been thanking Obasanjo all along?

Secondly, wasn’t it Yar’Adua that gave us Andoakaa, preserved Maurice Iwu, disgraced and chased away Ribadu whilst protecting Ibori, made Edevbie (Ibori’s corrupt aid) his Private Secretary, drove down EFCC and sat motionless on the country for two and a half years without any education, health or social policy?

And I hold no briefs for Obasanjo who in my opinion squandered a great opportunity to turn the country around but who nevertheless is head, shoulder and torso better than Yar’Adua or any other imbecile that has 'ruled' our country.

Fresh Fish on Eko Bridge

My wife loves fresh food – fresh produce, fresh fish, anything fresh. She particularly likes fresh fish, yet she hardly gets to eat fish because the majority of what you see on the market are frozen fish.

Her love affair with fresh fish is so passionate that a few years ago when we visited Nigeria, we opted to travel to Abuja from Ibadan by road mainly because she had been told that roads in Lokoja were ‘paved’ with assorted fresh fish, and she wanted to sample them. In the event, we neither encountered fresh fish in Lokoja, nor were we able to sample the roasted ones we saw simply because we were still rather smug and couldn’t handle the flies that accompanied them.

So Easter Sunday, April 4, 2010, we left Church refreshed by the benefits of the sacrifice of Jesus - including the hope of eternity, the brilliance of becoming God’s children, and freedom to live life to the full. Afterwards, we made our way to Terra Kulture in Victoria Island to see a show titled ‘Prisoners Chronicle’. Written by Wole Oguntokun, it’s the story of four prisoners, a warder and his wife, and it’s a satire on Nigeria. The actors were very professional and gave an impressive performance although the hall was rather cold from the efforts of four giant air-conditioners bleeding their cool air into the theatre without fear or favour.

Before the show we had a meal at Terra Kulture’s restaurant and I got to speak to a Spanish lady who moved to Nigeria two years ago to sell building tiles. Who says only Nigerians move to Nigeria?

At roughly 5pm, we left Victoria Island via Eko Bridge which in my view is livelier than the long, lonely and boring ‘Third Mainland Bridge’. As we climbed the bridge, we saw a group of men and women displaying all manners of freshly caught fish. We stopped! Some of the fish, still full of life were dancing around the hard tarmac and in the plastic bowls. We bought some Red Snappers. The fishmonger pried open the fish’s heads revealing their red gills - proof that they were freshly caught, proof that we didn't need.

We soon got home, grilled some of the fish grilled and settled to a nice roast-fish dinner with grilled potato and plantain. At last, my wife was able to fulfil her life-long ambition of cooking fresh fish in Lagos. It’s a case of what she was going to ‘Sokoto’ for is in her ‘sokoto’.

Eko Bridge, she will be back. Trust me, she will!

By Order! – suffering from militariatis infection

One of the notices you will definitely come across in Nigeria will say something similar to this:

Do not urinate here. By Order!

Or

Do not park here. By Order

One of the sad relics and certainly a giveaway of our long and unfortunate military-rule past is the tendency to act military by Nigerians. A good example is that no notice is complete without a ‘By Order’ trademark. Nearly all the signs you see even on private properties are marked with those two words. Whose order? You may want to ask.

What is apparent is that living under military rule for a considerable length of time has significantly altered our brains so much so that almost everyone invokes a form of military lingo, and many exhibit military behaviour without giving their actions or words a thought. ‘By Order’ is just one aspect of this militariatis infection. I guess the thinking is that adding ‘By Order’ to any notice will stop a perpetrator from doing No 1 on the nearest wall he sees when he's pressed to go. I’m not sure, it always does.

Wherever you go, in schools, in places of worship and in places of work, people bark out all manners of high-handed warnings and threats. ‘I will deal with you’, ‘I will teach you a lesson’, ‘You will be punished’, are a few of the militarist expressions now rooted in the vocabulary of the average Olu, Chike or Aliyu.

Even, politicians with no military past are not immune to this virus. Rather than say something like this (as it may be said in some other countries)

‘those who commit crime will face the full weight of the law, or face justice’

Our politicians with eyes blazing, face concocted and adopting a thundering voice, for maximum effect, prefer the military lingo:

‘anyone caught will be severely dealt with’.

Although I admire the courage of Dora Akunyili, she however used to irritate me to no end whenever she speaks to the press after the weekly Federal Executive Council meetings in her capacity as ‘Minister of Information’. I’m sure she never realised her presentations were similar in style to that of the head of a military junta imposing a new curfew or announcing the number of people that have just been rounded up for not bowing to the image of the ‘Dear and Revered Leader’.

I must say that I have come to the conclusion that the military has a romantic appeal to Nigerians because of the power they wielded and still wield. I think we like the way a few untrained soldiers forcefully and illegally take over government, keep people under oppression and end up becoming statesmen. It gives the impression that this is an alternative and legitimate way of getting to the top quickly and easily. We think we like their uniform, their 'discipline', their sternness. We think we make this decision independently. In reality, we don’t, we just think we do. It’s the infection.

It’s also the infection that accounts for why it’s impossible for a Nigerian politician to say the name of the President without preceding it with the title ‘Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces’ as if he’s not complete without that title. We like the way soldiers bark out orders so we adopt their style and behave like dictators at home, at work, in the church and in government to the detriment of our family members, employees, congregation and citizens. Who will deliver us from this high fever of militariatis?

Last word - Haven’t you noticed that the ‘Minister of Information’ position is in itself a relic of military rule? It’s a position created to launder the image of illegal governments. We have however imported it into our democracy. Only communist regimes have a similar Ministry. My point exactly!

On this note, please let me have your comments on this article. By Order!