How to be an activist.

    These are dire times and everyone must be active about something, be it political, sexual, or personal;  It doesn't matter, because we all need something to fight for. This article promises to help active activist flourish, and ‘want to be activist’ begin their hustle;

    The first step to activism is emotion and the emotion of activism is anger. You must never forget this, and in the instance that you do forget, quickly remind yourself to remember. You do not want to be caught on camera looking happy and relaxed. so in public distort your facial expression. The more distorted the better. And I must warn you, this anger must be what we term ‘healthy anger’, the kind that keeps you out of trouble and out of jail. There is after all no activism behind bars. You must therefore feel a deep anger that analyses, speaks plenty of queens English and waits for somebody to do something about it. You should speak with a passion and advocate for a messiah, a messiah that you must not be. Your activism hustle must obey the cardinal law ‘safety first’

    This is the computer age or hash tag age(#); you must promote your cause socially. Twitter especially. Activism promotes activism, so while your cause is in quintessence take up any other hash tag cause you can find and carry it on your head like a scalp infection. Tweet, retweet and hash tag important issues into triviality. You must not necessarily understand it, just promote and tweet.

    Next you must look like and sound the part, most especially when your cause is at hand. You do not want to be termed a fraud, that word is bad for activism. Let me paint this graphically; to be an activist for nudity( yes, activism is not always about being against) you must in particular first, never wear clothes, or better still never be ‘caught’ wearing clothes, or best never be ‘caught dead’ wearing clothes. You must in fact convince everyone who wears clothes that clothes are ridiculous and scoff at them; you most certainly must not be caught rubbing shoulders with cloth wearers. That is activism suicide.

    You must have this next and final point at your finger tips; it is to activism what white is to rice, because it sums up everything else. Remember to be active as I said earlier is to first stay alive, safe and out of Kiri-Kiri, this next point will tell you how to do all three; If there is ever a law passed against your cause in the time of your activism you must immediately divert. Yes, forget the hash tags of the past and all the talk; dump that cause like hot plantain. In fact it will be best to condemn this cause, delete all post in support of and begin to tweet your applause and humble appreciation of the government and the new development. If anyone reminds you of the past you should quickly reiterate that old things have passed away. To be happy and free activist we must ‘let bygones be bygones’

    Activism is no longer about doing, it is majorly about saying and tagging. No placards, no matching, or even if you intend to match take permission from the authorities you intend to match against, if permission is not granted stay safe by remaining a keyboard warrior.

R.I.P- Right It Please (May 20- one month later)

   The first lesson we learn from the cradle is acceptance. The ability to agree, acknowledge and give in; the ability to put away our logic and succumb to what is. One month later, we have accepted that we will never understand why? Why May twentieth played out the way it did.

   Today is the twentieth of June. We remember sadly, but fondly our friends who transcended in a national tragedy, members of our family who were martyrs of circumstance, children who were victims of insurgence. We have never forgotten but we have chosen to again remind the nation;

   That we do not have to wait for bad things to happen for us to realize the right things need to be done. We cannot continue to be passive; to rely on toxic doses of ‘God forbid’. To remind us that we cannot continue to watch and wait for a messiah, the Messiah no one wants to be. Our voices from Jos, the cries from Chibok, Nyanya, Gwoza and anywhere the circumstance of insurgence has left shadows of lives that are now only memories, as we say in one accord ‘R.I.P’ it is our prayer, it is our plea; that our loved ones ‘rest in peace’ and that those who can ‘Right It Please’.

    It is madness as they say to continue to do the same thing and expect different results; In the light of one tragedy too many we realize, it is not the time to condemn, deny, and accuse. It is the time to act. We have accepted we cannot change what has been, but we know we can change what may be. Fire burns as far as it burns fast. In the embrace of insecurity we are all potential victims.

 IN HONOR OF THE SEVEN 500 LEVEL STUDENTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MEDICAL LABORATORY SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY OF JOS AND ALL VICTIMS OF THE MAY 20 BOMB BLAST IN JOS,PLATEAU STATE.

Why we must not forget ' There is God oh!'

   There are many situations we come to in life that we are brutally reminded by the forces of nature of a supernatural existence, but too often nature forgets to stimulate our memory, it is at times like this that we need crusaders like my humble self to bring us back to reality;

    For example, if you are planning to pay someone, anyone, to write your Child's WAEC or NECO examination, most especially the English paper; and you are caressing the excuse that English is not our father tongue; you must remember our first lady’s tears. After all it will do us no good, no good I repeat if in the future your son or daughter is the source of the next national catch phrase, or becomes a marketing strategy for desperate shirt makers. In fact I rebuke all hurdles of English drama in all facets of our life.

 

    I think telecommunication networks that constantly harass us with calls and messages should also be categorically reminded. I imagine that the first lady’s message be played every morning at opening hour, maybe then we will not need to pay fifty naira to get tips on how to make heaven, or better still  on realizing the importance of the message, they might give us the keys to unlimited data paradise. This is how to treat your customers like you took that passionate speech to heart, not by calling us with more frequency than our lovers.

    In summary; when we claim to spend millions on engine oil to service vehicles in the national budget, before we take seven private jets to Kenya, seize national newspapers and clamp down on the media, deny knowledge of national irresponsibility, dance at rallies at the dawn of tragedy, act like a re-election bid is contest or die. but most importantly,  send ‘world-cupious’ warning broadcast messages to our girlfriends when we do not own personal television sets; in any of this situations we must be reminded of  the tears, the passion, and remember the voice calling ‘there is God oh!’.

Christ is NOT a social exhibition.

  Facebook, twitter and the likes since inception, have brought a new dimension to our generation, to how we love, who we like down to our religious expression, but Christ my friends is not a social exhibition;

  He’s not a status update we put up on Sunday, as a substitute to the notions we make public from Monday to Saturday. He’s not a play thing to flow with our latest attraction, like ‘doro Jesus’ or whatever else attracts our attention.

  He’s a Nazarene slain on a roman cross, who knows fear, pain and human loss. He’s a king who put aside his crown and owned our imperfection, a king who lost a fight to win the battle against our fatal addiction.

  I know this to most may sound like religious indoctrination, but I’m not judging; this is only a passive observation. That the most important of things have been made trivial by the notion, that there really is no harm in the art of expression. Like the cross that was converted to jewelry and for most is now only a cosmetic addition to an accessory;

  Because being a Christian should not be solely a public affair, the parade of self righteousness is almost too much to bear. It’s a day to day way of life, for the good, for the bad, not a goodluck charm for when times get hard.

  Before you ignore this as the ramblings of a writer, there are questions that are vital to answer. What have you done with the king of glory? Is he now a means to an end? Or a lesson in history? It’s not about a like, retweet or comment on a post, it’s not about mentions or a prayer shared the most. As Christians we need to make this one modification, and learn to not treat Christ like a social exhibition.

An appeal to the nation; let our loss save a million lives.

  Sound travels fast, then light, then matter. The newspaper reports don’t tell you this. They don’t tell you ten meters from a blast it feels like the apocalypse. It feels like the end.

  They cannot tell you about the tension, the anxiety, the fear. No one mentions that our rescue system was wheelbarrows used to transport victims; they wouldn't reveal that ambulances were cars of passersby who were willing to stop and help.

  The news must have forgotten to mention that 118,200 or 250 dead, that those figures are one. one way of putting together everything; One way of condensing family, friends, classmates, colleagues and loved ones. They forget to mention that numbers are a way of turning a hundred different stories into a numerical index that says nothing.

  No one tells you of the smell of death in the corridors of the morgues, lined with bodies as you try to make your way around, to find friends who never came back home. They don’t tell you of hope, how you hope to not find your loved ones carelessly packed on the cold floor of this room but pray you do, because you know after searching through the casualty wards whatever you find now would mean the end and not finding at all would mean worse, it would mean never knowing, never forgiving yourself for giving up because you feel you tried but didn't do enough.

   Why have i chosen to tell you this, it is neither to earn sympathy nor stir anger. It is to open our minds to the things we need. It would be insanity to say the government is doing nothing, but it wouldn't be wrong to suggest they are not doing enough. We are so busy fighting terror we have forgotten that we need to control it’s effects. In a nation wrought with this level of insurgence is it not illogical that our medical system still does not have rescue ambulances, that there are almost no paramedics. That on explosion it is the police and fire service only that respond, that most of us died because of the long hospital drive. As much as we spend massively on security because we need too, we should spend even more on health, because we have to. We do not want Nigerians to only shake their heads, comment on our post and share our pictures. We want these seven deaths to save a million lives.

May God grant us the fortitude to bear our loss, the faith to not question and the grace to forgive a nation that promised to protect us but didn’t.

Because we believe- A photo tribute to our seven fallen dynamites.

God looked around his garden and saw an empty space, he looked upon the earth and saw your tired face. He put his arms around you and lifted you to rest, God's garden must be beautiful he always takes the best.

 Late Francisa Nwafor.

 I don't think of you as gone, your journeys just begun, life holds so many facets this earth is only one.
 I think of you as resting from the pain and the tears, in a place of warmth and comfort where there are no days and years.

 Lydia Oluwadolapo Komolafe.

 I know how you must be wishing that we could know today, how all our pain and sorrows could really pass away.

 Late Michael Ogbole

We are believers, we do not die, so we that live will not say goodbye,

Because to live with Christ and call it death is to call his word a lie

  

                                                                            Vivian Chioma Obilor.

                                                           Millicent Yusuf
You will live forever in the hearts of those you loved, for nothing loved is ever lost and you were all loved very much.

                                                             Wingak Monday.

                                                                  Doris Udegbunem.

  A picture profile of memories of the seven five hundred level medical laboratory science students of the department of medical laboratory science lost to the may 20 bomb blast in Jos, Plateau state Nigeria.

What time is.

Like water under a bridge time is, ever changing, ever flowing, never ending. Time is a memory, of treasured ones who left too soon, of children now all grown. Time is progress, knowing we are far from where we started even when we are not yet where we want to be. Time is a currency, a means of exchange without measure. where we take as we are given, but don’t know how much more we might get.

 In a money-centred world, money is everything; and a good time is good money. It helps to remember, we are given money to live, but money won’t give us life. It helps to learn, that wealth is grand, but wealth is deceitful; that Time is free but finite, and money is luxurious but infinite. The pursuit of prosperity ends only when the voyager learns contentment.

When we learn what time is, we would refuse to crowd tomorrow with things we should do today? There is always the tomorrow excuse for today, but tomorrow is not forever. A day will come when tomorrow will not be ours. When we learn that bad moments don’t make a bad day?  That what may not take money out of our pockets might take time out of our lives. When we learn what time is, we learn to live. Everything is permissible but not everything is profitable, Time is free, waste it wisely.