The Drawing Board is now full

There is a drawing board located somewhere in the country to which our administrators always claim they are returning to each time they mess up.  They sound like this drawing board was responsible in the first instance for their failure and that ironically their return to this drawing board was going to make their next outing a success.  What we always get however is another failure and another promise that the drawing board will be re-visited.

For example, each time any of our National sport teams flops, our sport administrators stare into Television camera’s and tell us glibly that they would return to the drawing board and come up with something better.  But it never gets better.

It is to that drawing board that Coach Amodu Shuaibu and his now expanded technical crew have promised us they are returning to after their lackluster, stomach retching performance in the world cup qualifying match against the cartage Eagles of Tunisia.

It was to that drawing board they returned four years ago when we failed to make the World Cup in Germany. After fouling their preparations and superintending the sham in Kano which saw little known Angola pick the world cup ticket ahead of us based on the head-to-head rule, the men at the helms of affairs at the then NFA told us they will go back to the drawing board to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

After going to Mozambique in the earlier stage of the South Africa 2010 qualifying rounds and coming home with a point, they told us it was all a matter of going back to the drawing board and all will be made right. On that occasion, the Super Eagles had played like a pack of pregnant women escaping with a draw only by the grace of a rather incompetent referee who denied the Mozambicans two clear goals.

I don’t know where this almighty drawing board is located or of what size it is, I am only certain that that board should be full by now.  Given the number of times it’s been visited and re-visited, there shouldn’t be any space left on that board by now and surely, the board has nothing positive left to offer.

I thus make bold to say, not just to our football administrators who have become to say the least, classical models of corruption and incompetence, but also to all our leaders, that the drawing board is now full. It is time to get to work.

Stop making excuses for your failures. Stop postponing your responsibilities. Stop leaving for tomorrow what you can accomplish today. Stop compromising standards. Stop cutting corners. Stop justifying your irresponsibility. Stop branding your incompetence. Stop giving us that old gist. Its now stale news and quite irritating to hear. Keep your damn drawing board to yourselves. Give us results.

What other justification is there for the existence of a sports commission and various sports federations complete with fat bellied members if the Country can not win laurels in international competitions? What are they doing with all the money if I may ask? Recently, we went to the world athletics championship in Berlin and did irreparable damage to the re-brand campaign. We did not just waste tax payers money in what was clearly a jamboree, we also had our athletes testing positive to banded substances.

If we don’t make it to South Africa 2010, the first time the competition is being staged on African soil, I suggest that we should not just throw bottles of water at them; we should match to the football house where they sit around and sketch on the mysterious drawing board and sack them. They deserve nothing more, than to be openly ridiculed.

So enough of the blames on the drawing board and please, could you stop giving us that bla bla bla of going back to it.?

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

Picture credit: http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com

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The Drawing Board is now full.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

There is a drawing board located somewhere in the country to which our administrators always claim they are returning to each time they mess up.  They sound like this drawing board was responsible in the first instance for their failure and that ironically their return to this drawing board was going to make their next outing a success.  What we always get however is another failure and another promise that the drawing board will be re-visited.

For example, each time any of our National sport teams flops, our sport administrators stare into Television camera’s and tell us glibly that they would return to the drawing board and come up with something better.  But it never gets better.

It is to that drawing board that Coach Amodu Shuaibu and his now expanded technical crew have promised us they are returning to after their lackluster, stomach retching performance in the world cup qualifying match against the cartage Eagles of Tunisia.

It was to that drawing board they returned four years ago when we failed to make the World Cup in Germany. After fouling their preparations and superintending the sham in Kano which saw little known Angola pick the world cup ticket ahead of us based on the head-to-head rule, the men at the helms of affairs at the then NFA told us they will go back to the drawing board to ensure it doesn’t happen again.

After going to Mozambique in the earlier stage of the South Africa 2010 qualifying rounds and coming home with a point, they told us it was all a matter of going back to the drawing board and all will be made right. On that occasion, the Super Eagles had played like a pack of pregnant women escaping with a draw only by the grace of a rather incompetent referee who denied the Mozambicans two clear goals.

I don’t know where this almighty drawing board is located or of what size it is, I am only certain that that board should be full by now.  Given the number of times it’s been visited and re-visited, there shouldn’t be any space left on that board by now and surely, the board has nothing positive left to offer.

I thus make bold to say, not just to our football administrators who have become to say the least, classical models of corruption and incompetence, but also to all our leaders, that the drawing board is now full. It is time to get to work.

Stop making excuses for your failures. Stop postponing your responsibilities. Stop leaving for tomorrow what you can accomplish today. Stop compromising standards. Stop cutting corners. Stop justifying your irresponsibility. Stop branding your incompetence. Stop giving us that old gist. Its now stale news and quite irritating to hear. Keep your damn drawing board to yourselves. Give us results.

What other justification is there for the existence of a sports commission and various sports federations complete with fat bellied members if the Country can not win laurels in international competitions? What are they doing with all the money if I may ask? Recently, we went to the world athletics championship in Berlin and did irreparable damage to the re-brand campaign. We did not just waste tax payers money in what was clearly a jamboree, we also had our athletes testing positive to banded substances.

If we don’t make it to South Africa 2010, the first time the competition is being staged on African soil, I suggest that we should not just throw bottles of water at them; we should match to the football house where they sit around and sketch on the mysterious drawing board and sack them. They deserve nothing more, than to be openly ridiculed.

So enough of the blames on the drawing board and please, could you stop giving us that bla bla bla of going back to it.?

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

www.nzesylva.wordpress.com

Picture credit: http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/drawing-board.jpg

Life Before Death

I have heard enough of that crap. And no, I am not an atheist. I just think that logically as it is in the English alphabet, there should be an “A” before a “B”. If that sequence is generally accepted, I therefore refuse to be continually harangued by the talks of life after death. No, enough of that crap.

Logically, there could only be a life after death when there is a life at the present. Does it make sense to worry about tomorrow when it is still dawn today? Why worry ourselves sick about a life after death when we are not living at the moment? If you ask me, we have proceeded just too fast for our senses. Far away from reality. Guess it’s time we do a little reverse and begin to ponder a little more about life before death.

What is this guy talking about I can almost hear you asking aloud. It’s so simple. I am speaking on behalf of the little boy in rags who approaches your car window in the traffic, with a dirty old rubber bowl in hand. You see him approach, and quickly wind up your window, your face either bearing pity or disgust.

I am speaking on behalf of the six year old girl hawking pure water under the scorching sun at an hour children her age should be in school. She has not even slippers under her feet. Her hair is dirty and unkempt and strings of catarrh hang down her nose. Her eye pleads with you as she announces the sale of her ware. Does she remind you of your daughter of the same age?

I am speaking on behalf of the pre-pubescent girl who is married off to a man three times her age by parents who need the money to keep them selves alive. You read such things in the paper and it sounds so distant. No, you really do not read it, you simply flip past it to more interesting stories about celebrities and beauty pageants.

I write on behalf of the many children who are destined to live but a few days on earth because of the accident of their birth. Children that suckle hungrily at dry flabby breasts. Children that are at the mercy of the elements both hot and cold. Children who can not access common chloroquin to fight malaria. Children who were better of not born.

I speak for the farmer who has watched his produce dwindle every passing year.  He doesn’t read in the papers of his Local Government Chairman’s boasts of spending millions on fertilizer every year. I speak for the Cocoa farmer who has lost his sons and helpers to the scramble for the city. I speak for the palm oil farmer who is losing his trees and house to erosion.

I speak for those women who will die and are dying for trying to bring forth others to this life. Those who have never heard of ante-natal. Those who must continue to satisfy their husbands crave for more children.  Those women who are raped and are too scared to say they were. Those who sign up for shipments to Italy not because they find it pleasurable. Those who are forced to give or throw away their nine months pain.

I speak for that child who is condemned by HIV. And the mother who bore him/her. And the father who has lost his job because his bosses heard he is positive. I speak for those who queue for days to get a dose of the antiretroviral. Those people who we establish NGO’s for. NGO’s that make us rich. NGO’s we administer from the comfort of our air-conditioned four –wheel drives.  NGO’s that don’t exist.

I speak for the child who learns from under a tree. The child who has an AK47 hanging dangerously from his neck. The Child who pushes that barrow around behind us in the Market. That child that has never seen a television. That child who forms the character of our more touching stories. Those stories that win international literary awards.

I am shouting aloud for that graduate who has lost every faith in himself and his country. The one whose shoe tell a million tales. Tales that make the wonderful degree certificate he carries about in that worn out brown envelope seen like a huge joke. He has lost his voice and can’t speak anymore. He is close to losing his spirit too. He has no money to take the next bus.

I am weeping along with that man who just lost his job. The man who has to layoff his workers ‘cos the books are not balancing anymore. The barber who can’t work ‘cos his tiny generator has broken down. The okada rider who can’t buy the spare part to fix his bike. That man who has been paying his tithe and waiting for a miracle. A miracle that only his pastor experiences. The pastor who keeps talking about a life after Death.

No, enough of that crap. I really would wish to know some life now not after. So stop threatening me about what would happen after I die which is very soon given my current state. Stop asking me to wait. I am tired of your deception and sweet talk. Stop postponing my joy. Give me something to hold unto today. Tomorrow will sure worry about it self. I need a life before death.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

What is Your Hostage Value?

For popular nollywood actor Pete Edochie, it was his status as Chairman of the Re-branding Campaign and the possession of a priced MON that made him a choice pickup for the boys. Edochie topped the chart as ‘Top Hostage’ for last week and unlike most other cases of hostage taking, he came out with a feedback.  A clear message from the boys. They couldn’t have chosen a better messenger for the assignment. And in his characteristic way, Edochie shortly after his release, called the press and delivered the message, Hot!

The media had reported Edochie’s kidnap, the demand of 60million and later 10million as ransom, but were rather too silent on what was finally paid for him to get out. Well, as we all know-though the security guys would rather have us believe otherwise- no body goes in there and comes out without dropping something, at least in appreciation of the entertainment the kind of which Edochie alluded to.  And for a big fish like Edochie who ironically heads the Governments effort at burnishing away with a wave of wand the bad image we have acquired for ourselves after many years of failed leadership, one can guess that quite fair amounts must have changed hands.

While Edochie’s kidnap made news headlines, so many other similar events went unnoticed and unreported.  What started as isolated cases of malfeasance by Niger Delta militants has now grown to become a full blown trade and has assumed such heights especially in Eastern Nigeria that is now both alarming and I dare say, interesting.

Time was when it was just foreigners who enjoyed hostage threats in the country. The threat had later flowed down to the relations of political office holders and the rich. Today everybody including yours sincerely who daily does battle with the same realities of our failure as a nation just like the Boys has a hostage threat hanging down the neck. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do, everyone has got a hostage value.

The boys seem well learned in the art of pricing. When you are picked, your worth is ascertained and a price tag put to you. Typical of Nigeria where no agreements is reached except by negotiated compromise, they hike the price just a tad, so that after the usual market place bargain a price just about your real worth is settled for at the end of the day.

Your worth as a hostage is measured by the car you drive or that which a relative of your drives, the house a relative of yours lives in, Your close relationship with someone who is suspected to be of high hostage value, the information that you live and work in Abuja (or any other city) or you have relatives who do, an information that you just came in from abroad, as well as less seemingly worthwhile reasons as the size of your tummy, the swagger in your step when you walk, the impression that you are rich or smell of riches of any form.

“Riches” now doesn’t have to be millions. A friend and her family recently traveled to their village for the New Yam festival and annual August Meeting ritual. Her little brother of fourteen was picked up by persons who were nothing more than village urchins and a ransom of a hundered thousands was demanded. Eventually they settled for Forty thousand naira.

Now what beats me is that save for the case of the visiting female Rotarian who was kidnapped in Kaduna by persons who obviously were amateurs in the game, our security network which funnily is an amphibious collection of so many different bodies funded annually by the federal budget, has irretrievably failed to smash any of the gangs doing this and free a hostage. Did you just say shame on us?

Well, back to the experience of the reigning top ex-hostage Pete Edochie. The message the boys asked him to deliver ironically had the same content as much of what Mrs. Clinton told us some weeks back that got the PDP really ranting. It had the same content as you will find in the writings of all the popular angry Nigerian columnists from Soyinka, to Okey Ndibe and Pius Adesanmi and everybody in-between. It was the same message in all the articles you will find in Nigerian online forums and individual blog sites. It was the same thing we’ve all be shouting about; that these people have gotten so good at stealing that even the very cloths on our bodies doesn’t seem safe anymore.

Pete had undertaken to offer the Government (which he ironically currently serves) some words of advise. I remember very much the word “stipend”. He asked that that word be added to our national recurrent expenditure list on behalf of unemployed youths just like politicians already enjoy. If Edochie was suggesting that cash be doled out monthly, then I wouldn’t quite agree with him simply because, we would only be providing yet another avenue for people to sink their filthy hands into the public till.

These stipends should come instead in the way of a resolution to the ASUU (and other union) strikes, the better funding of education, the provision of constant power to drive the Small and medium industries, the training of youths to enable them to be self employed, the genuine fight against corruption, the establishment of hospitals that are not mortuaries, the fighting of the extreme poverty, an end to the stealing…

Well, until these stipends are thought important enough to receive the attention of our leaders, we can’t help but continue to walk about as hostages each with a distinct Hostage value. On my part, I have been trying to work out what my value could be just in case the boys undertook the misadventure of picking me up one of these days. You might wish to take some time off and do the same.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

The Abyssinian Book

I recently read the book The Abyssinian Boy (TAB) by Onyeka Nwelue.  It was a special experience. First, I read an autographed copy of the book…fresh, well bound, beautiful copy, which makes me want to begin by giving some kudos to Dada Book (the publisher) for such a wonderful outing.

The second reason why reading TAB was a special experience is the same reason why I read the 256 paged book for almost two weeks; The story was free flowing, Sexily crafted, Filled with exaggerations which all combined to make it an entrapping work of Fiction. When I like a book, I don’t rush it, I take each page at a time…I go back to re-read some pages, I read a page and imagine the scene. That’s why it took me nearly two weeks.

The Abyssinian Boy is about a South Indian essayist and his East Nigerian Christian wife Eunice Onwubiko and the hallucination their nine year-old child faces. The book lays bare the many paradoxes of culture clash with thought provoking and often amusing ironies.

At the center of the tapestry is David the Nine year old son of Rajaswamy Rajagopalan who dies on the way back to Nigeria after a visit by the Indian based family to Nigeria. David’s death which is a consequence of some age old breech of tradition (it self a product of the early church-tradition friction in Nigerian villages) that happened many years before David was conceived coincided with the decision of the Nigerian Government by a law of the senate to Send all Indians away from the country.

The first chapter of the book did it for me. It flows, reveals and keeps the reader turning the pages. It introduces the reader to a typical Indian setting; Indian Names, Indian households, Indian dressing, names of Indian towns and Indian streets. The reader finds him/her self in New Delhi or inside one of the many popular Bollywood movies. The writer (who wrote the first draft of the book in India) shows a keen mastery of India. The conversations and expressions are unmistakably Indian. It’s refreshing to read so young a Nigerian writer leaving the comfort zone of writing about Nigeria-the corruption and the fuel queues and attempting a cross-continental novel. I would say without contradiction that this was a good attempt.

However it is pertinent to observe that the language of the book is however overtly childish. Perhaps this could be linked to the age of the writer (Bon in 1988). Adult readers interst might be hard to sustain. There are some unnecessary details with a lot of telling as against showing. Some issues were simply exaggerated for example; I can’t still come to terms with David’s overwhelming intelligence as seen in his expressions when he was only nine.

Still on David. The writer showed us in the earlier parts of the book that he had problems with his written English. It is shocking how his letters in pages 196-198 were so flawless.  It leaves a question mark. How come?

An interesting  character;  “Dada Felicia” was shown to have mother tongue interference in her spoken English. Good! But the writer slightly over did it. Quite ok, Igbos can have problems pronouncing rice (lice), bread (blead), but not words like “sure”, “your” or “are”. Having the character pronounce ‘sure’ in her speech as “sule” (a popular northern name) didn’t read well at all. More so, there was no consistency  in the presentation of the characters speech problems. In pg 211 for example  there was an out burst from Dada Felicia (3^rd paragraph from bottom) and all here pronunciations were ok including words like “responsible” which should have been a good example of mispronounced words due to language interference.  Just after that in pg 212 (last line) we see words like sule (sure) and youl (your).  This is either an oversight on the part of the writer and his editors or simply a typographic error.

I have no problems with the introduction of sex, seduction, lesbianism or homosexuality in literature. If anything, I promote it. But in TAB, there was simply too much of it in my opinion. Accepted, we have gays/lesbians, but their activity is not yet as rampant as portrayed in TAB and the persons (i.e the gays/lesbians) are not yet as confident as the characters in TAB were in expressing their sexual orientation. Well, I guess we can condone this, as after all the work is FICTION! Fiction writers don’t owe anyone the duty of presenting issues as it is in reality.

That said and taking nothing away from this beautiful piece of creativity, I wish to state that for a debut novel, TAB sure made a loud statement and the writer has earned himself a battalion of fans waiting to eat up the next meal he serve. I am one such fan and I think you should pick a copy too.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

The Fraud called Abuja

Many Nigerians (and foreigners alike) especially those who visit Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city periodically often come off with the impression –which they also express gaily- that Abuja is a beautiful, model city- one of Africa’s best.

One can not blame them for their rather myopic and false impression. What they see for the period of their stay, usually from the comfort of their air conditioned taxis leaves them with no better knowledge. From the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, the airport express way (which is now being expanded), the sprawling main bowl of the National stadium, to the massive heaps of concrete and granite in the form of buildings all over the city, it sounds logical that yeah, this is a model city.

But from someone who resides here and who in fact was born here, Abuja is one big fraud and one of the most successful attempts by our leaders to –as they are known to always do- cover up the real situation and give away the impression that we were a great nation and of course with a beautiful capital city.

Abuja is not a model city. Its does not in my estimate meet the primary requirements of being referred to as a model city. It has paved streets. Some of the roads have royal palms. El-rufai tried to salvage some green areas. There are many bridges. Julius Berger’s presence is felt at every turn. It has gigantic electronic billboards. Our mighty rich own houses here. Aso Rock is in the neighbourhood.  But Abuja is not a model city. Not at the least.

Abuja is fake. It is a tale of overwhelming poverty covered up by amazing (mostly stolen) wealth.  Abuja lacks the most basic of amenities that should qualify it as a model city. Recently, NEXT newspapers reported the dearth of ambulances in the city’s General hospitals while Aso Rock had almost an Ambulance showroom. The absence of ambulance is a mirror of the state of health care delivery in the city.  In some of the hospitals, to see a doctor, you must set forth at dawn (apologies to Soyinka) and endure a long wait in a queue made up of persons that had set forth before dawn.

Abuja has perhaps one of worst Basic Education systems in the country. Sometime last year while I was still on National youth service, I sauntered into a primary school (In the Municipal Area Council) and was shocked to find pupils taking classes from the bare floor. That informed my decision to carry out a Personal Community Development Service effort, by providing the school with furniture and very basic materials such as a school bell which they shockingly lacked.  It made me wonder what the Governments Basic Education Noise was all about. If Abuja had it so bad, what situation did one expect in remote arid areas of Zamfara or the creeks of Bayelsa?

A while later, the new minister of the FCT, Adamu Aliero was reported to have come close to shedding tears after visiting a primary school and finding that the pupils lacked chairs. What has happened since then? Perhaps the sad school would have gotten some intervention. What of the rest?  This same minister just recently asked the senate to divert funds meant for education and health into road construction.  This is shocking as majority of Public schools in Abuja are in states that can be best described as shameful and far from model.

Perhaps the money earmarked for it has been embezzled or the developers of Abuja master plan were just plain dumb. The city has a very frustrating transport system.  Which model city In the world exists with a rail system? If you have any official business to conduct in any office in the city, it would be stupid of you to get their earlier than 10.00am as you will definitely not meet anybody in the office. Workers in Abuja go through hell to get to work in a city that was built from scratch and had all the opportunity for a properly designed transport system. The traffic on the Nyanaya  and the Kubwa roads in the mornings are now legendary. The same scenario repeats itself in the evenings. It’s not only in Lagos that a trip of fifteen minutes takes three hours. It also happens in our model city; Abuja.

El-rufai’s administration saw to the expansion of the urban mass transit system (Some thing similar to Fashola’s BRT). Till this date the system which was initially said to be an electronic ticketing system has not evolved beyond the scratch. In fact, the buses have now so degenerated that they are now an eye sore. It’s not unusual to see some spoilt and abandoned along the road. The buses have also not increased in number. So we have the typical picture of 99 standing, 49 sitting. In what model city on earth do you have such a situation; people camped up in public buses as though they were inanimate?

Time was when we could boast that Abuja was clean. Today refuse dump sites greet us on Abuja streets. The Abuja Environmental Protection Board seems only very successful at seizing hawkers and their wares. Grasses get bushy before they are cut. Just the other day Sen. Grace Bent almost shouted her head off in expression of extreme disappointment when she and her colleagues visited what was supposed to be the Abuja waste dump site. She summoned three ministers (FCT, Health & Environment) to appear before her committee. Recently also the monthly sanitation was re-introduced. Today was one of such sanitation days and for most parts of Abuja, it was business as usual.

Not too many parts of Abuja have constant (24 hour) tap water supply. Save for Kubwa and the wuse and Garki districts, must of the other districts in the city center and the satellite towns do not have water. Gwagwalada taps run twice in a week and for few hours. You will be surprised to know that highbrow areas of Maitama and the large expanse of Gwarinpa do not enjoy any city water supply. The water that flows from the taps in such areas is an effort of landlords to provide boreholes.

No need talking about power. The so called capital city is not spared. The situation here is as bad as it is in my village. Ever visited any of the major markets in Wuse or Garki ? Your ear drums would continue to vibrate hours after you must left in rhythm with the many tiny generators that power each shop. I need not say more.

No other city would boast of the number of land and property hawkers as Abuja does. In this model city, agents and fraudsters hold the key to land and property purchases. You see a sea of them-able bodies men- in front of the FCDA complex and The Municipal Area Council secretariat just milling around white papers (land documents) in hand. The direct consequence of their activities is that land and property in Abuja goes for double their actual value.  Should this be the norm in a model city?

And yes, Abuja they say was designed to have satellite towns where most of the persons who work in the city center are supposed to reside in. These satellite towns are supposed to have all the basic amenities. In fact there is a Satellite Towns Development Agency to that effect, yet virtually all the satellite towns are near slums. A visit to places like Mpape (which is just behind the popular Asokoro) and you will marvel at the perfect symbiotic co-habitation between man and filth. Not to mention the unplanned development and complete absence of amenities.

Given, other cities of the world have slums as well as their own inadequacies but that which exists in Abuja, well hidden and tucked away from the sight of a visitor is one to be ashamed of. Next time you visit this ‘beautiful’ city, how about sparing some time to branch off into any of the settlements you see along the airport road. What you see will redefine your impression of this city forever.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

And Dora Re-branded her Daughter.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

While Ghanaians welcomed and celebrated the presence of Barack Obama in their country and most television cameras all over the continent were beaming the proceedings live, our African Independent Television AIT was beaming live what I would describe as the most successful outing of the re-brand Nigeria campaign till date.

The event was the solemnization of Holy matrimony between Njideka (the daughter of Prof Dora Akunyili our Minister of Information and Communication and the Face of the Re-brand Nigeria campaign) and Justin Crosby an American citizen.

Like you would expect, every one who should be there was there. It was a roll call of who is who. From the Vice President Dr Goodluck Jonathan, his wife, Former Head of State Yakubu Gowon, Former senate Presidents Nnamani and Anyim. Ministers,  Legislators, Top Government functionaries, Diplomats, Royal fathers, Priests and religious. Orji Uzor kalu took one of the intercessory prayers.

Apart from the disappointment I felt that AIT wasn’t beaming the events in Ghana as they had earlier advertised, I also felt this sense of irritation watching the wedding on television. It was in many ways a reminder for me that these people up there have it going for them and are daily devising new ways of preserving and advancing their course.

There is nothing wrong with the daughter of a minister and indeed anybody wedding. Getting married to an American wasn’t also an issue. What was an issue for me was the information that the couple had met at college somewhere in the United States.

This reminded me of the fact that our universities had been grounded for a while now by the strike action and that Government doesn’t seem worried about it because most of the children of the top Government functionaries had all their children schooling abroad. In addition to obtaining superior education and superior degrees, they now also get to meet and marry Americans.

Why then should they be bothered about the rest of us. We spend five-six years to get a four year degree; we walk the streets to find a job. We are victims of the worst conditions on earth. We don’t get to meet and marry Americans. When we wed we don’t have a bishop presiding over the wedding. Our weddings are not live on television. We remain of this brand. A distasteful brand. While ‘they’ continue to re-brand themselves.

I have nothing personal against the new couples. If anything I am happy for them. Akunyili’s are my kinsmen. We draw from the same gene pool. But I have everything against a system that has made some people very much ahead of the others. A system that continues to allow a few ahead of the lot. A system controlled by this few who have continued to look the other way because the status quo favours them. A system they say they are re-branding.

All I see is our leaders rebranding themselves. Today Prof Dora Akunyili succeeded in re-branding her daughter. She is now Njideka Crosby. Now she becomes a citizen of the free world. Never again will she worry about our bad roads and our death trap hospitals. Our dry tapes and our dark nights. Our unemployment and our failed universities. She is free. She’s been re-branded.

I wish the Crosby’s a happy matrimonial experience as the rest of us continue to wait for when our own re-branding miracle will happen.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

The Hawking of Insecticide Treated Nets

The Hawking of Insecticide Treated Nets.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

No sight could be more bizarre than this. Young men hawking Parmanet branded mosquito insecticide treated nets in the traffic. My greatest regret was not having a camera on hand to capture this most worrying sight. What is this nation turning into?

The young man holding two blue coloured insecticides packs in each hand and about five more balanced on his head approached the window of the commuter bus. He peered into the bus with that “traffic jam sellers” look, rapidly scanning the bus for buyers. I sat by the window and I had my eyes at him. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He must have thought I was interested in his product so he held on a little longer, pushing his goods closer to my face in an obvious effort at advertisement.

“They don dey sell this one too?” was all I could say. The hawker hissed and moved off to the next car.

He wasn’t alone. There were so many others all hawking mosquito insecticide treated nets like they would do cold pure water and Gala. These nets are provided free to hospitals and health centers with the help of international donor agencies to be distributed free of charge to pregnant women and children as part of the much talked about “Roll back malaria scheme”.

Now, I don’t know how much of malaria we have succeeded to roll back in Nigeria or what figures the Ministry of health brandishes to show off as the success of the Roll Back Malaria scheme but I am convinced (and certainly we need no better proof) that that scheme is achieving nothing whatsoever with the nets intended to drive it now being hawked on our streets and in hold ups.

I feel particularly bad about this development. The truth is that many women and children who these nets are intended for don’t get to receive them at the hospitals. The maternal and childhood mortality rates as a result of malaria attacks continue to rise. We are far from meeting the millennium development goals especially in the areas of Childhood and Maternal mortality. Yet we find pleasure in ridiculing efforts even by foreigners to help us meet them.

What laughing stock we would be (we happen to be already) in the eyes of the international community when they find that instead of distributing the nets to mothers and children and mounting a massive campaign to encourage them use it, the nets find their way into the hands of hawkers. The fact that this is happening right here in Abuja the nations capital makes it even more interesting.

In the hands of hawkers, the nets first do not get to the target users and even worse, it ceases to be free. These nets were produced/procured with donor funds to help fight malaria which remains the highest killer in Africa. Ultimately, the aim is defeated. Why do we insist of making mockery of good intentions?

It is in this same way that subsidized drugs find their way into private pharmacy’s, books and materials meant for primary schools end up in bookshops, and public funds end up in private pockets. There has and continues to be reports of pupils being asked to pay fees in primary and junior secondary schools despite Governments continuous boast of offering free Basic Education.

The question here is, how did the nets get to the hawkers? And is it not criminal for free nets to be hawked freely on our roads?

We shall assume that the authority, in this case the ministry of health is not aware. We shall assume that their workers don’t travel on the roads and have not seen the hawkers. We shall also assume that the nets simply grew wings and flew out of the hospitals or that perhaps every needy mother and child in this country has gotten a net and perhaps there is a need to dispose of the rest of the nets by hawking it. We can assume a lot of things, but one thing should be clear to us all, the lives lost every day especially in our rural areas and urban slums following exposure to mosquito bites which can be prevented by the use of these nets shall be on all those who are looking the other way when the free nets are being hawked.

Sylva Nze Ifedigbo

nzeifedigbo@yahoo.com

Special Church Advert

Let me start by acknowledging the source of this picture. I first saw it on Sahara reporters, but it was from facebook where it is currently being circulated that I pulled it out. Guess this is what my mass communications roommate back in the university would describe as a candid shot. The photographer whether this picture was taken professionally or as leisure deserves credit and I so do give.
This picture tells a million tales. It summaries what religion has come to become in Nigeria. It is an indication that we have clearly plumbed the abyss of permissiveness. It’s a picture that shouldn’t just make us laugh but should make us hide our face in shame. It is a picture that shows that we now preoccupy ourselves in mocking God.

Writing on my blog and on this forum a while ago in a piece titled “Nigeria Men of God As Con-Artists (see www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/articles/sylva-nze-ifedigbo/77.html , nzesylva.wordpress.com/2008/06/24/nigerian-men-of-god-as-con-artists/- ) I had attempted to draw attention to the obvious negative trends in modern day Christianity especially as is now prevalent in our country. Then, I had sounded it as clear as I could that Christianity was now a business venture with prayers at a cash and carry basis. Not a few holier than thou fellows filled my e-mail with scathing attacks on what blasphemy I had indulged in by daring to speak ill of men of God.

In that piece, I pointed to the rich, super star celebrity men of God who wore shinny suits whose price tags read like telephone numbers in choice boutiques in London, spoke with a cultivated accent (preferably American), rode in classy tinted glass four wheel rides, bought private jets, established universities, and had all sort of marital scandals.

This group who went by names such as General Overseer, chief shepherd, founding Bishop and the likes sustained themselves and their high standard of living on the generosity of their congregation after cajoling them with sermons that tells them to part with more and more of their hard earned income in the form of tithes, seed sowing, donations and thanksgivings which was expected to win them more blessings from God. The God of riches.

Just like in every business line, there are the high players and the under dogs. The picture shows us a different group of men of God, the ones at the lower sections of the ladder. The ones who have to actually fix prices for their work. The ones who operate from batchers and shanties in the slum-like part of town, fighting their own poverty by taking advantage of their gullible poor congregation.

Here we see an advert board which is in itself a study in advertisement as a tool in business. The letterings and graphics are nothing to write home about. The spellings leave you wondering how the man of god gets to read the English bible. The message on the board produces a peppering sensation in your lower abdomen. You wind up asking yourself; have we gotten to this level?

It Is interesting to note that in “Holy Japhet Munistry (ministry)” there is a clear difference between “special prayers” and “ordinary prayers”. It also cost more to carry out “anointing” than “baptism”. Deliverance sessions are a very expensive exercise. Perhaps the man of god needs to prepare adequately for it and that might require buying some extra materials hence the extra cost. Generally shaa, Donations are happily received any time, any day. Every day is as stated “for Gods work”.

Need I say more?, the picture says it all. I only hope governor Fashola is taking note. These men of God, whether of the super star class or the likes of holy Japhet Munistry, should be paying tax on the revenue they generate.

Sylva Nze ifedigbo

I Need A Ghanaian Visa, Fast

I need a Ghanaian Visa urgently. Time is running out on me. Can anybody help? I must be in Ghana next month. I am eager to commit treason. Treason as defined by the PDP Deputy national Chairman Dr. Mohammed H. Bello. I want to join Nigerian opposition leaders to the Gold Coast to commit treason. Treason committed with the active connivance of the leader of the free world must feel good to commit. I need a Ghanaian visa fast.

Yes, I want to join forces with a “failed” presidential candidate, two former Speakers, a former Senate President and “a sprinkling of political hangers-on” plus the United States embassy in Nigeria to cause instability in Nigeria. No, not just instability, I want to generate a tsunami. A tsunami with a strength that is yet to be recorded in geography.

The tsunami shall leave no refugees in its wake. It shall blow across the land. To Wadata Plaza. To Aso Rock. To kebbi state. To the palatial mansion of one big mouthed Veterinary doctor. It shall blow roof tops away and bring down walls. It shall open the can of worms and then scatter the piles of papers used to seal dirty deals.

When the tsunami is done, we shall know why the Railway has remained comatose despite all the bla blaa black sheep Government has been singing about it. And wait, did I mention the Presidential panel on Customs shall also be on the Tsunamis flight path? When the tsunami is done, the chairman of the panel, the same talk talk vet doctor will remember where he kept the terms of reference for his assignment.

Did you not read that Siemens recently landed a new contract from the Federal Government? Siemens !, The same Siemens you know. I still have a copy of the daily with a shouting cover page headline indicating that Siemens had been black listed by the Federal Government a while ago. After a macabre dance of sulugede, Siemens is unblacklisted and is landing juicy contacts. Our talk talk Vet, the jack of all trade is also not far from the circumstances that led to the initial blacklisting. I hope my tsunami unfolds the mystery that Farida has failed to reveal.

Give me a Ghanaian visa let me go. I am so eager to destabilize this country. Surely Barack Obama should have the formular. Or perhaps Attah Mills will also play a role. Aha, Jerry Rowlings will not be far away. Who else has a better, tested and trusted way of destabilizing a country but Rowlings? I want to seat down to a glowing tutorial on country destabilization 101. I want to learn from the best.

Abeg I need this visa. Even one day outside this country will help my life expectancy. I need to breathe a different air. Air devoid of election rigging. I want to see light for twenty four hours. My laptop can remain full charged all day. Oh, Oh, Ghana, here I come. I heard I wouldn’t have to push and fight to enter a bus. I need a Ghanaian visa.

This is my dream trip. An experience of a life time. Nothing could be better? Anything that would destabilize this country is welcomed especially when the definition of the word ‘destabilize’ is as conceived by the reincarnation of Abacha’s Wada Nas. I sign up. Mohammed H. Bello thank you so much for exposing the plans of these failed members of the opposition. They wanted to have the booty alone. Now we all know. I am also going to Ghana. I just need a visa.

A REASON TO LAUGH

There are those things you remember doing some years back or events that occurred way back that makes you want to laugh your guts out. These are those things you remember now and you wonder; did I really do this?, did this happen?, How were things then? Etc
For example I remember the television we had when I was way younger. To be fair, the tv was big. I mean big. How did people get to carry those kinds of tv then sef?. Of all its size, it was black and white and wait for this, it had a wooden shelter. The shelter was like a wardrobe or should I say a cabinet with two hinged doors. At 4.oopm when the NTA began transmission (usually with a rendition of the national anthem) the tv door is unlocked. Much later (I can’t say when ‘cos I promptly went to bed after the Network news then) it was locked again. Among the special effects of the tv was its channel searching apparatus. It was a knob just by the screen. To get a channel, you turn the knob like you will while switching on a fan. Gee, it seems so laughable now with buttons and remote controls.
Remember all those childhood plays we used to play. We had this play in which me mimicked a family. The guys acted the role of father. The girls naturally act mothers. There is usually the cooking part, usually with sand and leaves. When it’s done. Its served and consumed via the neck. You just touch some of the food to your neck and then throw the rest away.
There was the war play. Any guy that did not do the “war start” needs to revisit his childhood. There are two teams. Just like in the war movies. You hide, seek out the opponent and make sure you shoot first. Check out the kinds of gun now…Sticks, clubs, broken pipes, paw-paw leaf stalk, name it. Perhaps the more interesting part of the play was the argument on who shot who first and who has refused to die.
Do you remember your favourite tv programes then? Tales by moonlight, Speakout, Sesame street, Super Ted, vultrone. Tom & Jerry are new skool. Jeez, I would do anything for a spider man comic book then.
Remember when we use to go to so much trouble to get the lyrics of a song. You get the cassette and armed with a radio, you play, write down, rewind, play again and write down. When you meet up in school, you needed to hold your own in the company of your guys. I think the last lyric I took pains to ‘download’ was Sisquo’s Unleash the dragon. Did I really get the lyrics right? Lol.
Think of what pains you went through to get a girls attention. Think of how you went to great pains just to get her wave or smile at you. Think of the first time you “chyked” a girl, how long it took you to muster the courage, how well you tried to memorize your lines, how you called her out to that tree shed to deliver your well rehearsed manifesto. Remember her drawing maps with her leg as you rattled away. Then what was the response?, “I will think about it”. Hahaha.
Remember what it was like before the coming of GSM. Then, maybe only one person had a NITEL land line in your street. Rare and far in between calls from distant relatives are received from that line. I remember neighbours coming over and sitting for hours waiting for a call in our small parlour. Yes, I was one of those who grew up with the privilege of having a land line at home.
The other alternative was the public phone booths. Those places were the center of frustration and comedy. Especially on campus. You arrive a phone booth on a hot afternoon and meet a queue. ten or eleven people are before you. Five are there is flesh and blood, while three are in spirit. They have either strolled off are the space had been secured for them by someone else pending their arrival. You wait patiently. The network is usually a mess. Connecting one line could be no mean task. It gets to the turn of one of those activity-chewing gum chewing-chicks and instead of making her call and giving way, she stands there, the phone handset held to her ear by her shoulder, flipping through a phone diary. Each call is to a darling or a sweetheart or to “baby”. She spends ages before she is done. All she had been doing was begging for money from one mugu to another. While her drama lasted, the kind of hisses and grunts you will be hearing from others waiting to take their turn is better imagined.
One that got me really laughing recently was my first birthday picture. Hey I advice after reading this piece that you go back and take another look at your first birthday picture. See all the effort put in to make you stake the picture. You might even be crying. See the table; minerals to either side and the cake in the middle. i wasn’t crying in mine though, but I was not interested in neither the cake no whoever the photographer in front was. I was looking away. I later showed my mum the pix and after a long laugh which got tears to her eyes she recalled with joy how the photographer had taken several shots before he could come up with that shot which was arguably the best.

Life is good jooh, especially when we look back and fond memories remind of where we have been. It presents you a reason to laugh. Whether your laugh comes as a result of the stupidity of the event or the humour content, either way you laugh and each time we laugh, somethinh happens to our physiology. I leave that part to psychologists to explain.

Sylva Nze ifedigbo.