Nigeria:#Doro Boko, thieves of girls and other stories!

I've never really had a love for dreams.
Even as a kid,my dreams were always vivid and scary.
So it came as no surprise to me when just the other day I woke up screaming and totally soaked in sweat and gasping for breath due to what I had just witnessed in dreamland.
It started pretty mildly enough,with me in my living room watching the video to Don Jazzy's new hit single Dorobucci.
Don Jazzy took the first verse,all 120kg of fat in him trying to dance while at the same time trying to look cool.
It went pretty well but you would not believe for all the oil fields in the Niger-Delta who took the next verse!
It was my Commander-in-Chief,all decked up,complete with bowler hat looking like a Sudanese school teacher 30 years out of vogue.
'Doro Boko,(ehn ehn)
Doro Mad, (ehn ehn)
Doro Crazy, (ehn ehn)
Doro Terror, (ehn ehn)
Doro carry any girl wey Doro see oh oh,
Doro bomb anybody wey Doro jam ehn ehn,
Doro Haram,
e be like say we no fit catch am,
Doro mad pass militants wey don dey mad before'

My Physiology teacher back in the day ,God rest his soul, always believed that your dreams were a fair reflection of your environment and your present thoughts and preoccupation.
In a crazy country, you definitely would dream crazy dreams.
Its been a month or so to remember or to forget,depending on how you view disasters.
My Psychology teacher used to say....................you know what,he was never the  sharpest tool in the box, so I'm just gonna skip what he said and save you some megabytes.
But my emotions in the last month have ranged from surprise to fright for the nation at the level of terror pervading the land to fright for the level of intelligence of our leaders and their cronies to just a pure 'get me outta here' feeling.
Well.................................to be honest though the 'get me outta here' moment really had nothing to do with the events in the nation.
I think that was the weekend my car broke down, dead centre of the Third Mainland bridge with not a soul in sight apart from two Mermaids crying about how the hot new Merman from River Benue used and dumped both of them!
Benue people though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Anyway, I've not had to follow so much drama in a short space of time since I stopped watching 'Keeping up with the Kardashians'.
How their male partners do not realise that their careers and lives always go down the drain after stepping foot on that show is way beyond me, my beef for them and my barely five figure salary.
Anyhoo, two bombings, a kidnapping, a presidential media chat for the ages and a very First Lady like outpouring of grief later, we somehow are still here.
Still going about our daily lives.
Still not too exhausted to start our generators in the evenings to follow the madness on the news.
Still alive.
Tensed and scared.
But somehow still alive.
Musa Yaro  up north wakes up every morning and prepares to go to the office,farm or grazing fields and  wonders if he would make it back home in one piece while Gbenga Okonkwo down south glances in alarm at every very dark skinned fellow with an accent slightly different from his who dares to sneeze with his arms outstretched;wondering if this was the day terror came South!
But strangely we seem to have gotten used to the killings and bombings
The daily murders been committed by the infamous 'unknown gunmen'  up North have become little more than happenings in a remote part of our land.
We know it's there but we refuse to truly acknowledge it.
In fact,very much like the famous 'Expo' of days gone by,you know its tucked somewhere in your inner thigh but you don't dare glance at it until you totally have to!
But the kidnappings?
That shook us!
276,220,210,even 2,whatever the number.
The fact that young innocent girls could be boarded up into trucks like feverishly excited University of Benin girls been taken taken for an Igbinedion(Lucky or Gabriel,take your pick) after party and carried away in the dead of the night was too much to bear.

Even Nollywood agrees!

Even if it happened in the Northernmost border of Nigeria.
Even if it happened at the bottom of Lake Chad or just across the border from the Palace of the Oba of Mali,the fact that it happened within our borders and our government said nothing for three weeks appears to have stunned and shook us in equal measure.
Nigeria,a nation of 'It-is-wellers' and passive-aggressives,poured its people out unto the streets to speak out in one voice to #BringOurGirlsBack.
World leaders have taken turns to express disgust at the act and also express support for the Nigerian government in its quest to get these girls back.
Nigerian celebs have also taken to twitter,more in an effort to gain publicity than anything else but we thank them all the same.

A placard with an hash tag would have done just fine bro.Just fine!

CNN has made casting Nigeria as a whole in bad light as its next God sent mission.
In a week when Nigeria was supposed to get all the world's media attention from hosting the World Economic Forum,CNN chose to portray us as a nation of terror and for that we also thank them.
We know that the next plane crash,earthquake or landslide somewhere would get them scampering off like my Etisalat data plan;here today,gone tomorrow!
Anyway,Something tells me we'll get those girls back.
Every one of them.
Not a hair out of place.
Not a scar on the face.

Oga Bola,na only you write this thing?You for ask person na!

Why am I so confident?
Because there is indeed God and good always prevails over evil and secondly.....................................the Americans just sent Jack Bauer!
#Doro Bauer!

P.S:@drsid, I serioously doubt that your 'knack' line.With that pot belly?????????Nigger please!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Follow the flipside of life @doctorrotcod

Shekau my skelewu!(Check out my skelewu!)

The news making the rounds in the past two days points to the possible death of dreaded Boko Haram leader,Abubakar Shekau.
The JTF spokesman said and I quote "Mr Shekau was mortally wounded in the encounter and was sneaked into Amitchide,a border town with Cameroon and it is believed that he MIGHT have died between July 25th and August 3rd".
I ask with all sense of responsibility and humility(from my Apple MacPro and tortoise shell Ray-Ban),HOW CAN SOMEONE MAY HAVE DIED?!
I may be ugly.Yeah,I get that!
I may be broke.Like all the time!
Infact,I may or may not like my boss but I dare say that I may not say it openly.
But can someone as divisive and accountable to Nigerians as Mr Shekau 'May have died?'
Unacceptable!
It is true that intelligence reports at times may be difficult to back up with  evidentiary proof but strong words and decisive language always make up for photos or videos.
The American example readily springs to mind.
When announcing the death of low level Al-Qeada commandants,the words 'may' or 'probably' were often used but when announcing the death of Osama Bin Laden,I doubt if Barry 'Check out my beautiful family' Obama said "You know what folks,Osama was shot today.I know y'all are glad but hold on a second,just hold on,this ain't the time to go yanking your doodle.HE MAY HAVE DIED!"
No my dear fellow citizens of the country of 'He may have died',Obama's words were swift and decisive.
Even without photo or video evidence,we held it as truth.
AnD we haven't seen an Osama video since by the way!Unlike the damn scary video of Shekau that made the rounds on the Internet a couple of days ago which made reference to recent brutal attacks by the sect.Infact,the dude stopped short of congratulating the Super Eagles on winning the Mandela Challenge just a week ago.

Is he dancing Skelewu somewhere as we speak?

All we ask for is finality and a decisive truth.
We have been too hurt to be 'MAYED'!
Follow @doctorrotcod

Nigeria's 37th state!

In primary school,there were three things you don't dare come to the assembly ground without knowing;First was your multiplication table a.k.a times table,Second was the national pledge and Third was your states and capital.
Woe betide you and Mr Oshunkoya's koboko,in no particular order I dare say,if you were found wanting in any of these three.
I,as the unbelievably smart kid that I was.............True............ask my mum!
I always found the times table and the national pledge to be a bit of a breeze but states and capitals????Just never could the hang of it.

And I wonder why?

It was a really traumatic period.
Mind you,when I was in primary school Nigeria had just 30 states;it's not these days when every man,his nuclear family,ten cousins and their dogs have a state to themselves.
So I truly have no idea how kids cope with 36 states these days.
Anyway,on one sunny day in the early 90's under the ebelebo tree a.k.a fruit tree a.k.a almond tree(depending on what part of town you stayed) while pretending to do my home work under the not so watchful gaze of my Dad,it hit me!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Like a bolt out of the blue,I realised that all(well that's what I thought at the time)the northern states had their capitals named after the states.
Not until much later and a good dozen koboko lashes after,did I realise that because the people of Kano,Kaduna and Sokoto and a couple of others were too lazy and unimaginative(I can just visualise the head of the Capital naming committee all those years ago telling the rest "You know what folks?We've been here a good 4hrs,I don't know if you guys have much else to do at home but I've got a new 12 year old bride I'd love to get back to.So can we just wrap this  meeting up and just name the damn capital Kano?Koh!)

Daughter?.........Sister?...............Wife!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

,the good people of Borno had to be the same.
Maiduguri.
That's the capital of Borno.
That ancient city in the north-east of the country.
The once quiet and beautiful(#eyeofthebeholderthingz) city has now become a killing field where men,women and children have been gunned down and blown up in their hundreds in the last 2years and any semblance of law and order seems to have taken a tumble into Lake Chad.
Until a couple of days back when President Jonathan took the bull by the horn and announced on national T.V,looking all presidential and authoritative,standing tall........................................Hey Jude,was he standing during the address?..........What?...........You're not sure?........You did not bother watching too..................Damn!
Anyways,President Jo did what had become inevitable and declared a state of emergency,giving the military sweeping powers over the security in the state and three others.
It simply means if you as much as stare at a soldier patrolling the streets of Maiduguri with the wrong eyeball,you could be asked to frog-jump from Borno to Niger Republic!

Niggers be keeping their eyes to themselves henceforth!

If you ask me(I'm  guessing you didn't but I'm still gonna tell you anyway),it's the damn right move!
A tad too late but the right move anywhere.
How do you deal with an amorphous organization?
How do you deal with an insurgency that's been allowed to fester for so long?
How do you protect unguarded and unwatched borders?
I'm sure if I knew the answers to these questions I'd be sending this post from my guard post in Maiduguri,Nigerian Army issued Kalashnikov in hand,instead of from my air-conditioned office in Lagos.
Regardless though,a nation has to protect it's territorial integrity and sovereign state by all means and at times at a very high cost.
My thoughts and prayers go to all the men and women in the armed forces.
It's a honourable and unbelievably brave thing to put your life on the line for your country.
Even if it's one like Nigeria!