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.

The danger of statistics.

    We never forget our first. I remember the first bomb blast that brought this nightmare into our homes. Surprise greeted this story coldly at the door and while we criticized, we wondered why? Today Bomb blasts are gently warming up into a norm. Of course, when these things happen we still ask why, we still criticize but the humane shock is gone, casualty has lost the element of surprise. Our first question is no longer why? But how many people died? We find consolation in numbers, where lives will be condensed into a few neat incorrect figures. The magnitude of this numbers determines the enormity of our grief.

    Today we are alarmed; two hundred of our girls have been taken. Two hundred is a good number. One is not; five is not. Our slumbering humanity needs victims in hundreds to jeer it awake every now and then. We have taken to our keyboards again, to digitally fight this physical war. I close my eyes and try to imagine the fear of captivity, the trauma of being in a coven of not knowing. Sadly, I know what I imagine is nothing close to the reality.

    ‘We are winning the war on terror’ are intended as words of comfort, this and stories of similar invention. Stories that try to mask the surface of the damage while the wound rots underneath, but my brethren there is no comfort in the embrace of false security.

    We are tired of the faceless statistics; there is only so much emotion random figures can elicit, let us find names, let us find faces. The least we can do is to begin to humanize this inhuman situation. We want to know the girls behind the figures.

#BRINGBACKOURGIRLS #BRINGBACKSECURITY #BRINGBACKJUSTICE.

cyber signs,confab spirituality and other stories

    Each day I say a prayer for the originator of the internet. I believe strongly after breast lifts, it is the world’s greatest thing, helping make my crusader hustle easier to manage by digitally bringing incriminating spirits to my notice. I remember a time when I would never have known about the wizard who crashed while flying from Ghana to cape coast for a meeting. This night flying spirit is way beyond my expelling power, I am not too proud to admit this. Such spirits are better left to our pastors who can do the impossible, like float in midair and raise the dead. Night flying spirits do not stand a chance against these warriors.

   I knew the national conference will be a breeding ground for spirit hustle, which is why I have delayed my crusade. The spirit of sleeping sickness, a.k.a Trypanosomiasis and male castration is certainly one we could not afford to leave out of our ‘cast and bind into bottomless pit’ list. When a delegate comes up with the idea that all male rapists be castrated, it must be of a spiritual source. I do not believe any mortal man (or woman) is capable of such mind blowing intelligence that leaves no room for repentance.  I shall bind such idea bringing spirits; not for the rapist sake, certainly not, But for the sake of their family and friends. God forbid we have to guillotine Yemi Fasominu’s son’s testicles someday ,or some girl falsely accuses a man and we only have ‘sorry’ to say after we have fed his genitals to Bingo. No will do. I am all for creative punishment, but let’s think of this punishments in naira and kobo?  Castration is not death sentence; the procedure must punish while keeping the human rights activist happy. Imagine hundred billion naira being budgeted for rapist castration! I rebuke such embezzlement stimulants.

   More importantly is the expulsion of the let us ‘leave it to God and pray about it spirit. We are not paying millions of naira to get more prayer points. I am a crusader and I am all for praying, but we all agree there are things we do not pray about, like praying for Banky W to grow an afro, This will be testing God!. Plus when we feed you Chinese food for lunch, and pay millions to hear what you have to say, we want more than leave it to God!

  The internet is a place where Life is made easy; digital signs and wonders. Where we type amen, and money grows out of our armpit; I have nothing against spirits of good fortune, I will continue to intercede for their hustle to flourish and wait for the time when we all can ‘like’ our beer bellies away on facebook or ‘retweet’ away wrinkles on twitter. Good times. But we shall unleash fire upon all Omniknoweth agents. The breed that cost us sleep when we disregard those annoying send to fifty people and wait for your phone to ring messages; God forbid we don’t buy houses or private jets, or worse still we run mad like that runs girl in Lagos only because we wouldn't just forward those messages. All this little fear factor spirits shall be burnt at the crusade.

   Lastly, I hear a rape movie is in the oven (seriously, I am not talking about anyone in particular. That singer you think this is about, it’s not about him). Heaven knows we are all tired of movies from the victims’ perspective. Sob stories of pant ripping and callous slapping; now we get to see the other side of the story. Alas, the question ‘what was he thinking?’ may just be answered. I am patiently waiting to have my brain raped by this upcoming Nollywood classic. I will advice the script writer to wait a few months though; we do not want to miss out the castrating part, just in case.

With the internet I have come to accept, the shocker of today is only the norm of tomorrow. When our ancestors exclaimed ‘wonders shall never end!’ they didn't know how right they were, because now I am certain with the cyber world; they never will.

Much ado about nothing.

                                                                           photo credit :Okechukwu Ofili

The preceding weekend was historic. Let us all pretend we have good reason to be astonished at the multitude that turned up at various centers across the nation for the NIS employment examination; And the immigration service can feign even greater surprise at the number, even though they  were registered. Probably they were so busy they forgot the golden rule of crowd control ‘where millions of people are gathered in the name of hustle a stampede will follow’. That a number of citizens died in this process is depressing. I wouldn't use expressions such as unfortunate or impatient which graced interior minister Abba Moro’s speech. Unfortunate is when you break a condom during coitus with a sex worker at Ebutemeta, Impatience is when you lose millions of naira to Murtala Mohammed airport fast guys. When citizens die in an employment exam, when almost a million people apply for a job with only four thousand plus vacant slots, when graduates scramble for question papers in a setting because they are certain their one thousand naira registration fee is no longer a guarantee they would get writing materials; it is anything but unfortunate and they are anything but impatient. It is pathetic and sad. Now that the fan has blown open the fowls bottom accusations fly like termites after the first rain; the fatal examination is claimed to not have been handled by the NIS but was outsourced to a private company owned by the wife of the senate president and NIS claim had they handled it themselves the catastrophe could have been avoided, if only.  We can all sleep easy though as a panel has been set up to investigate the deaths, and we all have evidence of the great efficiency and productivity of many panels in the past.

In other news, while people died over the weekend in an employment hustle the media are active with Newspaper spreads being bought daily to congratulate delegates of the national confab; it is like buying a page in the dailies to congratulate a friend for being chosen for NYSC, but I’m not one to judge. Since we are in a season of praise; I congratulate Mr. President on his bold move asking those responsible for the immigration exercise to refund the one thousand naira application fee, even though we all know this will be a feat equal to using a bucket to drain a dam into the Atlantic, possible but practically impossible, But I will praise him still for trying. Also for his automatic immigration employment scheme; now families only have to fight and probably kill between themselves to produce three members to get a job ; what does it matter if one person died?. The injured can smile at their bandages and plasters, luckily they are alive to enjoy the fruit of their bruises and broken appendages. As for those who left their centers singing zumuntamata hymns, grateful for escaping unscathed, they should have remembered that the one person that can turn bad luck around is Goodluck. Lastly, I will congratulate him for his speech in Namibia, claiming that corruption is blown out of proportion in Nigeria. I agree. Why so much ado about automobiles worth two hundred and fifty five million naira, or billions of naira lost to waivers, or even about some missing twenty billion dollars? It is after all not only in Nigeria that money grows wings and flies out of the treasury, or people are caught money in cap, or where lawmakers earn ridiculous salaries. So what if they flew to Kenya in seven private jets? Plus how many did we fly to Namibia with? Yes it is very obvious corruption is blown out of proportion, and how little it is tolerated under this administration is even more unmistakable. 

let us all pretend all is well, that it doesn't matter people died as long as three other living relatives gain employment, that twelve million naira is not too high  a price to pay delegates carrying out a national assignment. let us pretend our worry is just much ado about nothing.

REVIVAL! REVIVAL! REVIVE ALL.

    This is to inform the reader of this article Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or still seeking your place in the broad spectrum of religion of an intended cyber crusade, before you write me off as crazy let me make clear the spirits we shall be expelling;

    The spirit of delayed necessary firing and rapid unnecessary firing; we need to help our president help us.  We shall cast into the bottomless pit spirits of bow-tie resistance and feminine susceptibility. The spirit that will fire a minister first and explain reasons to the electorate later, We must banish this spirit of tactlessness to prevent future sagas of months of due process in the investigation of cases of evident corruption, and lack of any process at all in situations involving drawing public attention to an inaccurate amount of money missing from a treasury, not withstanding that the missing is a constant and the only variable in that sentence is amount. We must banish this spirit.  First it was aides, then bank governors’ and now ministers. There is no other explanation logical or not, it is spirits at work.

    Next we shall face the spirit of falsehood. It is excusable to lie when no one knows better, but to lie when the truth is in the open is like trying to usurp the emperor in 'the emperor’s new clothes', trying to convince us you are regally dressed while your naked genitalia swings distractingly. There is no logic behind this variety of lies. It is obviously a spirit my crusade shall bind and cast from Reuben Abati. That he could go on Aljazeera and claim we are winning the war on terror when the bodies of the murdered school children have barely gone cold is only more prove of the urgency of this crusade. We shall not embarrass ourselves with lies that fool no one.

    When you are a pastor and decide to do the function of a doctor or more precisely a gynecologist, there is only one explanation; Spirits are chasing your hustle. We must purge the atmosphere of spirits that would make anyone decide to test members virginity with fat stubby fingers be it religious, political, educational or otherwise. This virginity testing spirits must go.

  In our prayer points we shall include all hackers who play Robin Hood on our behalf. Taking what these telecom agents will not give us willingly by force. We shall pray for their hustle to continue to flourish, we shall pray for more magic Sims and voodoo codes that open the golden gate of unlimited data heaven. We will exclude the ones who ask you to send recharge cards from between the range of hundred to one thousand five hundred naira to get a cheat code. Our prayers are for honest hustlers, we do not pray for thieves.

   We shall also include MTN in our prayers that they find the spirit robbing us of extra ten naira on recharge cards. This point must not be taken lightly. It is even more important than the dispelling of Reuben’s fallacious spirit, at least that is not taking money from our pockets directly, yet. This one pinches even more every time I get the message ‘MTN has not increased the price of recharge cards’ after paying the inflated rate. I Know MTN are too kind to inflict more hardship on a people who are currently searching for their unremitted disputed twenty billion dollars. They are too kind for such obvious robbery, after all  they gave Jane in Portharcourt a brand new Toyota corolla, they are even known to have given another lucky lady an airplane few years back, just for sending ‘yes’ to 3210. Whoever is trying to truncate the good work of this telecommunication moguls must be brought to book at this crusade.

    If time permits we shall include the spirit of social network lunacy, the spirit of type ‘amen’ if you want to marry Lupita in 2014. Such spirits must return to whence they came. Yes, we will not promise men wives like Lupita if they type ‘amen’ and have them end up with ‘Chewbacca’. That is fraud, fraud I repeat! We must tackle this spirit with fury. ‘Wife na wife’, I agree; but you cannot promise me a Mercedes convertible and deliver a Volkswagen beetle. For the ones that actually deliver on their promise, my facebook page for testimonies is coming soon, I am thoughtful and want you to tell the story of how commenting ‘I love you mum’ on facebook saved your mother’s life and how you became a landlord from a one room apartment you shared with your friend by simply clicking ‘like’ on a post that prophesied how you would be a landlord that year. We must spread this good news. That girl who had an accident that we typed ‘saved’ to save her life must come back and thank us for our contributed effort.  Don’t thank me; I am only doing my part in promoting cyber wonders and bringing national spiritual purity.