Why wait for 1/01...

   Our flight through 2014 is slowly coming to its climax. At this juncture if you, like myself made resolutions, promises, and goals at the beginning of the year you might be taking stock. Assessing the kept, the fulfilled, and the never attempted. Satisfaction being equal to how many do’s we got round to achieving.

   Fact is, we often know what we need to do. The poisonous darlings we ought to kill, the habits we should break, but we all prefer to wait for the famous first of January to begin.

   We must realize the New Year is just that, a new year. It does not suddenly confer on us greater self discipline or stronger will power. You want to shed some weight? Forget the first of January, start running today. Need to quit smoking? Don’t drag that next stick of cigarette. The company that’s doing you no good, if you intend to cut the strings in the New Year you might as well cut them now. Better sooner than later.
   Today, tomorrow, any day is equally appropriate. You do not need to plan towards being a better you next year, enter the next year better, healthier and wiser.

Once upon a 23 year old Nigerian minister.

During an interview session the featured guest mentioned how Nigeria thirty plus years ago had a twenty three year old minister. I was taken aback. With all the compulsory primary social studies education and museum excursions I had never heard anything of the sort. So I did a little research. Oh, the things we find when we bother to look.

Matthew  Tawo Mbu, born on the 20^th of November 1929 in Okundi Crossriver state was a Nigerian lawyer, Politician, diplomat and a figure in Nigerian political affairs for more than fifty years. He was driven into a career in politics by these words from his childhood mentor ‘Fr Patrick Meeham’- “you are for your people; you go and speak for them”.

His legislative and ministerial posts include:

·         Member representing Ogoja in the Eastern house of assembly and House of Representatives (1952- 1953) at the age of twenty three.

·         Member for Ogoja in the House of Representatives (1954-1955).

·         Member of Parliament for Ogoja (1960-1966).

·         Federal minister of labour (1953- 1954).

·         Ag. Minister of transport (1954) e.t.c

The list is lengthy with over twenty official positions, and since this is not a political history thesis I have mentioned only the relevant few. Let me mention briefly, Obasanjo (vice president at 37), Buhari (governor of north eastern Nigeria at 33), and Gowon in 1966 at the age of 32 became the youngest Nigerian  president ever. When did we fall asleep?  We must rise from this passive coma and dump the ‘someone else must do it’ complex. If we are waiting for the system to change first, we will keep waiting. We must learn to serve and serve diligently. Not serving for what we will get but for what we can give. Once upon a time a 23 year old Nigerian minister, that time must come again.

Nigerian Definitions by Elnathan John.

These are definitions to popular terms used by Nigerians. Tweeted by Elnathan John whose ability to create trouble is only second to his excellent writing.

•COMOT (v): To comot means to leave

E.g. If Jona no fit stop the war, make e comot make we see road.

•MUMU (n): 1. a man newly in love

                     2. A dull, foolish or slow person

E.g. plenty mumu people go still vote Jonathan again.

•BLOCCOS (n): Scrotum. E.g. Na only touch I touch am o, na im she come nack me for bloccos.

•DRESS (v): To dress means to make space or shift.

E.g. Please dress so I can sit

•UNCLE (n): 1. Father/mothers male sibling

                      2. An older man known to your family

                      3. An older, married secret male lover

•CLOSEUP (n): Any brand of toothpaste E.g. CloseUp, Macleans, Colgate

•FRIEND (v): To friend means to have a sexual relationship.

E.g. "Na Goodluck dey friend Diezani"

•COUSIN/COUSIN BROTHER/COUSIN SISTER (n):

 1. Anyone related to you, however remote.

 2. One who grew up in your family home.

•ASHAWO (n):

1. (pejorative)Female sex worker

 2. (more common) Any sexually active woman who refuses to have sex with you.

When is tomorrow? why the youths must demand thirty percent or nothing.

FACTS

• Where does charity begin? In Uganda. Proscovia Alengot Oromait, in 2012 at the age of 19 was elected a Member of Parliament. Today she’s 21, older, wiser and still in power.

• Kaniella Ing, 25, state senator in the 11th house district of the Hawaii state house of representatives. He was elected in 2012 and assumed office in 2013.

• Pierre-Luc Dusseault, 23 year is a member of parliament in Canada. He became a member of the new Democratic Party at the age of nineteen.

• Wyatt Roy, 24 year old member of the parliament of Australia. Elected into office at the age of 20. 

• Alex B. Morse is the mayor of the city of Holyoke elected in 2011 at the age of 22, reelected in 2013. Currently 25.

• 22 year old Anton Amade Abele was elected to the Swedish parliament at the age of 18 in 2010.

The brainwashing began way back in primary school, matching in line, in plain shorts and striped shirts we sang ‘we are the leaders of tomorrow’ but When is tomorrow? An uncertain future, an unpredictable period of time. For most of us tomorrow will never come, for others tomorrow will come when we're too old. We must demand our place; if we never ask the answer will always be no. The youths must stop thinking like leaders of tomorrow and begin to think like leaders; for a leader knows there will be no tomorrow if he does not build himself today.

Ebola free Nigeria; How we did it.

On the 23^rd of July 2014 Nigerians were high on panic and low on information. Ebola had come and we were all but prepared. That was not an excuse to do nothing. With the little we had we began to do the most we could as we waited to gather more genuine information in relation to the crisis. And though we joked, we did not only laugh as always, we acted. What can this teach us?

·Unity; Ebola was not eradicated by the government alone. We all played a part, irrespective of how minuscule. If all you did was buy hand sanitizers, or simply obey the rule to wash your hands before entering banking halls. If all you did was protect yourself, you did something, you helped. We put aside our prejudice's and sentiments, we worked as one. So if we all play our part, do what we ought to even if its only within our immediate surroundings. Being just in our dealings and diligent in our obligations. Make little changes that may make a great difference.

· Awareness; I do not know if there was ever a time information traveled farther or faster. Illiterate or literate, everyone knew in the language they understood best what Ebola was and the bad things it could do. Though rumors were used to season the meal rather often, we sought knowledge anyway. We did not wait to be taught, we went out looking for what we could learn. We knew we needed to know. We were not too proud to admit we knew nothing.

·Carefulness and diligence; Ebola took hygiene ratings from a two to an eight on a one to ten scale. Our hygiene was almost impeccable. Health care providers began to respect little safety rules they had long abandoned as either unfashionable or unnecessary. We were reminded that standards are set for a reason. So don’t just go shaking people just yet, or checking patients without gloves, yes, Ebola is gone, but these actions remain equally as unhealthy.

   We did the right thing. The government of Lagos state, the presidency of Nigeria, Nigerians. But we must not forget too soon what this experience has taught us. Congratulations to us as a nation on being declared Ebola free.We have not conquered all our demons, but we must celebrate our victories as they come.

The Nigeria of our dreams.

Dear Nigerians,

We have come to this day, the day you celebrate me. I admit my vulnerabilities hold me back from doing much, but you my child, have you done the little that I ask of you? I have fallen short of your expectations and often I stand amidst my counter parts with my head bloody, but yet for your sake unbowed.

Fifty four years ago when power became yours, the things that made you different were what made you strong. It hurts me so that now you’re being torn apart, broken by the diversity that was once your anchor. Once upon a time I heard children sing in my streets, I heard songs of hope. Now I see fear, I see pockets that are broke, hearts that have been broken, and dreams that are dying. I have come to wake you up, to remind you it is not too late.

The change you desire is not in the power at the top, the change begins in the will at the bottom. The will to do what is right. You want electricity, do you pay your bills; you cry out for clean surroundings, but litter the places you go. You demand water in your homes, but destroy the pipelines that lead there. I see your hearts burdened by the cost of education, where are the schools your churches build? Don’t the places you fill on days of worship remind you to be your brother’s keeper daily? Why then do I see hearts driven by lack living off crime on the streets? Haven’t you heard the story told, of the man who gathered treasures on earth for the moth and the cold? What good is a man who gains the world while his brother has nothing of his own? You are not poor because of  lack, most of you are kept poor by your vices. You drink away your earnings and lust away your savings. You want so much my child, so much that you work against.

The time has come to stop playing victim and really grow up. The Nigeria of our dreams is not filled with perfect citizens, flawless leaders or faultless systems. The Nigeria of our dreams has people who are long on actions and short on words.I know your leaders are faulty and hardly do what they should. But you are also a Nigerian; do you do what you ought to? You might claim I do not understand, but I am mother earth, I have known you from conception to the day of your birth. I see you not for what you are but for what you can be, I see in you only greatness because you are a part of me. We all can attain the Nigeria of our dreams.

                                                          Courtesy; Nigeria.

The Synagogue disaster and National bedlam.

I distrust anything that is not a bird that flies. Be it airplanes, pigs, elephants or witches. Flying is such a daunting affair that it is not all things with wings that achieve it, so imagine the surprise of Turkeys and Ostriches all over the world when wingless pigs began to fly earlier in the week. I saw pigs fly over my home when I read the statement after the collapse of a part of the synagogue church building (that sadly claimed the lives of tens of people). I quote "our CCTV camera caught footage of a plane flying round the perimeter, I was the prime target" The overseer said. I want to thank the gods of aerodynamics and CCTV that it is possible to tell that it is an airplane. It isn't hard to imagine the spiritual uprising it would have caused if it were to be a un-identifiable flying object (U.F.O).We will forgive the using of the laws of engineering to test miracles by attempting to build a five storey building on a two storey building foundation. After all ants carry bread crumbs fifty times their weight and neither has any collapsed nor passed out. Ever! Do not forget, Church service holds on Sunday as usual.

I met Asari Dokubo for the first time last week. His beards and chubby cheeks, fingers strangling the microphone in mid sentence in a picture that came after the caption "no girls are missing" in an interview with an unnamed national daily. This was my first impression of the man. It was not a good one. I imagined the wiggle of his full face of hair as he asserted "what international society? Tell me. The same that claim Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) but couldn't find any? Why haven’t they found the girls?". I understand he may not have heard the saying "the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence". Four months later with enough proof that the abducted girls are really missing, we still hear doubts from the corridors of Dokubo’s mind (proofless doubt, I might add). Ignorance is not a pepper soup affair.

 'The gift that keeps giving' is how I have chosen to summarize the 'Jonathanian' administration. Has kpomo ever really hurt anyone?  Unlike beer, vodka and almighty Alomo that have left some wives toothless and presidents in questionable medical maladies. I beg to suggest that the people Baba listens to please whisper to him (over a few drinks) that if he needs to pass a diversion bill to keep us busy and take our attention from pressing national drama, he could ban alcoholic beverages or better still codeine. After all not everyone drinks, but every household knows the joy that comes with kpomo swimming in the little lake of our soups and stews. It will be embarrassing for all parties involved if we have to advocate for kpomo rights and if need be, we will.
Signed; mama Bashiru, suliat and Bose. Kpomo sellers since 1960(when some people had no shoes)