2012!

You can't trust people with anything these days.
Not even an end of the world prediction.
I really did think the world was gonna end on the 21st!
Really did.
Bloody Mayans!
You should have seen the big grin on my face when I told my mechanic on the 20th that I'd have to get back to him with the payment for my car repairs the next day.
21st passed and 22nd came and I woke up to yet another unbelievably hot day in Lagos.
Not one person had been lost to the supposed doomsday.
Least of all my mechanic!
Aside from doomsday prophecies and maniacs shooting babies in American schools,I had promised myself a month's break from writing on this blog.
It was getting a bit tiresome.
I was starting to sound like a wizkid song.
Its all cozy and nice but if truth be told,if you've heard one,you might as well not bother listening to the rest.

Dance for me baby oh eh.............Errrrrrrm..........you know what bro?Is that line from your 'I love my baby' track?.........No?............Sorry!My BAD!

AND I KEPT MY WORD!
Even when petrol was becoming scarcer than a honest Nigerian policeman,I stayed quiet.
Even when some folks bombed the Nigerian Army college,the pride of our military force,a supposed fortress,I kept quiet.
Even when a Nigerian Navy helicopter was used to transport guests for an owambe party by one of our Oga pata-pata's aides and this gallant bird of the skies later crashed,taking along with it one of the finer and honourable members of this political class,I kept quiet.
Even when my brothers from the East refused to travel to the village for the Yuletide because money no dey,I still kept quiet.
But when I woke up this morning and saw the headline of how a Chinese owned warehouse stockpiled with Afghanistan/Baghdad/Maiduguri grade fire works had caught fire and caused absolute mayhem in the middle of downtown Lagos,I knew enough was enough.
How can anyone in his/her right mind keep such an arsenal in a densely populated area?.
Never did trust the Chinese,always squinting like there was a one Naira coin up their ass!
You can't just close your eyes for a second and assume the bad news would just miraculously stop in this great country of ours.
2012 has been especially gruesome for this country.
We have killed our children and fattened our politicians.
Too many mass graves.....Too many ill-equipped hospitals..........Too many explosions in a once quiet land.
But it's not been all bad.
We've had good,even great moments as a country this year.
I just can't remember any!

The Jetsons

Anyone above the age of 25 with access to cable T.V back in the day;either in the comfort of your living room or the comfort of your neighbour's living room(there's nothing wrong with that bro,nothing at all) should be familiar with the Jetsons.
That uber-weird family that lived in the age of space technology with everyone zipping through the skies in their own space shuttles.
I vividly remember mumbling the scientific and logistical impracticability of that ever happening at any time in our existence to my host and then best friend.
I can also remember with disgust when my friend muttered something stupid in reply about how his dad was gonna buy him his own Jetsons space shuttle.
Yeah we were 5 but I still found him pretty dumb even for his age.
Fast forward many years and happenings in modern day Nigeria could darn well prove my childhood buddy right.
The allure of acquiring private jets seems to be the in-thing. It has slowly crept from being the exclusive preserve of the rich and powerful and has slowly but surely found its way into our churches,like everything from miniskirts,braids for men and the I-pad Bible app!(Dont you just hate when people keep tappng on those things during service)
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a successful man or woman acquiring an aeroplane to ease movement in a country like Nigeria where commercial air travel can become a nightmare.
Where airlines like Aero can turn a 10a.m flight to an 11.45p.m slug fest,with people practically throwing punches to access overbooked seats.
Rumour has it that people once stood on a Lagos-Abuja flight;God forbid that one of the Pastor Krises  be caught dead doing 'attachment' on a flight.
As I said there's nothing wrong in theory with Men of God getting the very best out of life. Nothing at all.
But that,my friends,fans,lover's and well-wishers,is theory! And as we all know,not every theory is founded on logic.
Just ask Hon. Patrick Obahiagbon and his theory of economic Wagba-joism.
In principle,it just does not sit well with me. The reported flying machine is said to worth in the region of 5 million US dollars.

Or did they win it here!!!!!!!!

A tidy sum in a poverty ravaged country like ours.
Less than half of that sum would conveniently take care of the basic educational needs of every single child in these churches.
It would set up widows in small businesses.
It would change thousands of the brethren lives.
Is that not what Jesus would really want?
But then what do I know!
It's not like I'll recognise a Bombardier jet if one crawled down to my height and spat aviation fuel in my face!
P.S:Any news on the Taraba State Governor who crashed the State's *wink wink* private jet while allegedly flying it himself.
Hope the plane feels much better?

Biko,Bring Back Bike!

First of,stop the silliness!
Most of us take or have taken bikes at a point in our lives.
So,you can get that haughty 'I've never taken an Oh-ka-dar in my life' look off your face.

I'm sure that's you in the middle.

Phew!Nice to deal with that elephant in the room straight away.
Last week marked a watershed in the lives of Lagosians with the banning of commercial motorcycles popularly known as 'Okada' on the city's highways.
It was something the people had canvassed for years.
And so many facts support the ban.
1)The high accident rates with its attendant high death and injury rates.
2)The security challenge associated with the uncontrollable influx of aliens a.k.a Aboki into the city.
It's a free country but the rate at which Lagos has been invaded is nothing short of alarming.
Blast me,but there's an Aboki bike rider for every tree in Lagos.
So,the Lagos state government in it's wisdom and in support of the previous yearnings of millions of Lagosians,introduced wide and far reaching restrictions on  Okada activity.
And boy were the repercussions unexpected!
Bus queues longer than Lady Dame Jonathan's entourage to Germany for her 'period of rest' *wink wink*
People quarrelling and fighting for space on the few available buses.

Queue to nowhere

It was a return to the days of yore.
Even the Israelites crossing the parted Red Sea could not have been more chaotic than the scenes witnessed in Lagos last week(I can just imagine the last guy on the queue crossing the Red Sea.Nigger be pushing everyone in front of him frantically.Poor sod!)
And that was just the first day!
The second day was hell on earth,with probably the worst traffic gridlock the city had ever witnessed.
There's this particular guy with an Honda 'something something' that I always seem to meet on V.I roads.The brother always speeds past me in my jalopy like my car was moving backwards.
Met the guy in traffic on said day and I kept making funny faces at him.
I'm like 'cat got your wheels?'
Mscheeww!
So we're caught between the proverbial Devil and the deep blue Oniru beach.
Does the government keep the restrictions in place and maintain sanity on our roads at the expense of the suffering masses or does it lift the sanctions and keep filling our orthopaedic wards and mortuaries at our hospital.
Does it keep exposing it's citizens to the Aboki bike rider who doesn't seem to fully comprehend the fact that because there's a slight gap between two trailers does not necessarily mean he has to pass through that gap or better still under the trailer!

Once had an Aboki drive me like this from CMS to Yaba.I swear! *straight face*

I'm all in support of the Lagos State government plan but when a government(at all levels) has failed in the provision of cheap,decent and readily available public transportation,this is what you'll get.
My final word is,21st century Lagos does not have a bus system.
21st century Lagos does not have a rail system.
21st century Lagos does not have a ferry system.
But 21st century Lagos has a functional if chaotic Okada system.
And has my father used to say,'A bird in hand is worth two dancing Azonto in the bush'

The Devil was there!

That's the only sensible explanation I've been able to come up with.
The devil was there,complete with his baseball cap and cool wayfarer sunglasses,conducting affairs.
Like a puppet master at his peak,pulling the strings,orchestrating the mayhem,feeding the madness.
Because I can't for the life of me imagine how a reasonable people,with a head,heart and conscience would club four(4) young men to an early death,for any reason short of murder.
Not even murder justifies the brutality that took place in Aluu.
I haven't been able to bring myself to watch that video.
No one should,in all honestly!
I've seen the pictures though!
And unlike a certain picture of our commander-in-chief that has been circulating on the Internet recently,

Really!I mean dude,really!!!!!!

the pictures of the Aluu4 was as vile in it's bestiality as that of GEJ was vile in it's pretentiousness.
Four(4) young,good looking,well fed men hacked down by a rag-tag army of dishevelled,worn out villagers.
This was a prime case of the poor lashing out.
Somewhere in the darkest recesses of my mind,I can almost understand when one or two dare devil,murdering armed bandits are captured and lynched.
But those four kids????
I just don't get it!
Did they club them to death in turns?
Or did they just bunch them together at once and clubbed them all?
It takes a lot of mean spirited will power to commit such a heinous crime!
Poverty?
Maybe.
Illiteracy?
Maybe.
But nothing justifies the madness.
Does a supposedly stolen blackberry phone or laptop equate four young lives?
I'm not sure it even equates a plate of goat head pepper soup in a decent Lagos 5-star hotel!
We'll get the usual talk from the police,the usual arrest of innocents and the eventual sweeping of the case under the carpet.
This is a case beyond the police.
Maybe even beyond the devil,the orchestrator.
I can just imagine the devil packing up his bags after the second lad was killed and leaving in a hurry,shaking his head and wondering where God got these Nigerians from!

The world in New York!

The UN general assembly is here again.,
And no,Lateef,UN does not stand for Unlimited Nightcalls,it's the United Nations.

The hall of kings.

That gathering of world leaders;from the greatest to the smallest,from pacifist nations to downright terrorist regimes;everyone is given a stage to air his/her views and opinions,no matter how dumb or downright scary.

Was surely missed this year!

President GEJ was there of course.
A raging fuel scarcity and the near total submersion of Kogi,Benue and Niger states by the maurauding River Benue was frankly not important enough to keep him home(By the way,shout out to my peeps in those states who are not only fighting the flood water but the infestation of their villages by crocodiles also displaced.)

Moses would have been nice about this time!

Anyways,GEJ,complete with his bowler hat and half the political class in Nigeria,addressed the General Assembly on the second day of affairs.
It was a speech as uninspiring as it was unlistened to.
Never have I seen so many empty seats at a public gathering since I last attended an Iyanya concert.Well........that was before Kukere and everybody's now acting like he's the second coming of Michael Jackson!
It was obvious the world had no interest in what GEJ had to say and in extension,what Nigeria had to say.
Frankly I'm surprised they even let us in,considering we tried to bomb the skin off their bodies about a year ago.

Yeah,that was us!

Thirteen years ago,when President OBJ gave his first address to the UN,as president of a newly democratic Nigeria,the hall was packed full.
Not because they thought more of OBJ as a person;honestly,they did actually;but because the world was expectant,waiting to hear from this giant black nation about to fufil all it's great potential.
But as President GEJ addressed a near empty hall,it was obvious the world had written us off.
It's like buying a Dbanj CD,you know you're going to get a lot of incoherent grunting,yelps and sex references,it sounds good occasionally but you know you've heard it all before.
Take heart my dear Presido,they dont really hate you.They just dont care for you and for us much.
The highlights for me so far as to be the speech given by the Egyptian prsident(President something-somebody Morsi).I sure as hell wouldnt want to jam that brother in a dark corner.
You could see the passion dripping from his words and firing from his eyes.
Another was the speech given by Julian Assange,founder of WikiLeaks.Wanted in Sweden on allegations of sexual assault and rape.
I'm not one to comment on alleged matters but that blond hair and long nose................show me a baby goat and I'll show you a perv when I see one.
Anyhoo,the assembly is almost over,if by any chance you're of the nerdy persuasion like myself,make out sometime to watch bits and pieces of it.
And if you're not,still try to spare a few seconds from staring at Kim Kardashians boobs and see what's really going on in the world.

I know it's gonna be hard but try!

Money,the root of all evil!(Dance,anyone?)

When the famous Urhobo philosopher Aristiotle Ejiroghene Umokoro first uttered those now famous words,all those many years ago,little did he know how true it was.And he sure as hell did not figure the reality show,Maltina Dance Hall or All or whatever!
This show clearly proves that money is the root,stem and effing flower of all evil known to man.Or how do you explain the sheer absurdities being allowed to play on!
6 million naira is indeed a tidy sum.In any damn currency mind you;that's 22900.763pounds or $36585.366 ;that's my Nigerian calculator brain working,its just something we do on reflex.
But slap me and hang me by the gonads,I'd be damned if I let my old man make an eternal fool of himself on prime time TV.
For those who don't know,the Maltina DanceAll or Hall,is a reality dance show based on the entire family.The show is in its sixth and hopefully last season and this season'sparticipants have been up there with the very worst of them.
Fathers doing the break dance,mothers doing the swerve!
I initially found it amusing,the entertainment value cannot be denied.

Yeah Dad!Do the rowing boat style!

As I found myself laughing uncontrollably at attempt after attempt by breadwinners and supposed guardians and protectors of their homestead try their utmost best to out fool each other.
Advocates of the show tell me it helps with family bonding.
Enlisting the family,head on,into achieving a common goal is said to help in solidifying the bond in a family unit.
Now that's bonkers if I've ever heard it!
A family getaway to the magical and exotic island of the Seychelles or a quiet evening stroll as a family down the Champ De Mars gazing upon the Eiffel Tower in Paris would achieve the same damn effect.
My final word is,parents don't do the Azonto with their decadent 19 year old son because they are in the least bit interested in finding out whats going on in his weed infested brain,not in Nigeria anyways.
My simple advice?
Make sure you win!
Or you get a pair of the darkest shades you can lay your hands on.
Because it's going to be pretty difficult looking those kids in the eyes after watching you cork your head back,raise one leg up and act like a bloody Calabar Drill monkey in the name of doing the Alanta!

The powerless Minister of power!

So,I wake up first thing in the morning,stretch my old bones,stagger half asleep to the light switch,and automatically expect the light bulb to illuminate the room.
And it does!
Its been that way for about 2 months now and it's frankly starting to freak me out.
And no I'm not in Togo(using the U.K and U.S would be too far fetched,I'm sure when they put on the light switch in those countries,they get power plus a pack of pizza).
I'm in Lagos!
And no,not Lagos,Portugal.
Lagos,Nigeria.
That beautiful exotic city by the beach.
And no,not Kuramo beach.
That now washed away haven of iniquity,that was always full and bustling at night but everyone now conveniently swears they were never there.
We finally seem to be going through our own 'Let there be light' moment,millions of years after the creator uttered those famous words.
Do I now go out of character and praise our good and gentle president?I honestly don't know?It's just so easy criticizing him and not to mention so much fun,its almost sad!

I know right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!It can't always be your fault!

Reciting all the failed sectors under his watch would frankly be a waste of ten seconds of your life you would never get back.
But,just when all hope was lost and Nigerians had come together and agreed in fairness to just write off 2011-2015  from our history(yeah we did,you just weren't invited#inconsequential),this major miracle happened.
I hear its been due to President Goodluck Jonathan finally putting the proverbial round peg in a hole that fits it perfectly.

Now,that's one round peg!

Prof Barth Nnaji,the previous minister of power,may his soul rest in.........oh shit,I forgot,he didn't die!
Just resigned.
Nobody resigns in office dude!
You either die there or go to prison from there.
Prof Nnaji,a proven technocrat with wide and varied experience in the power sector was as round as the peg could possibly be.
And boy did he deliver!
But like everything Nigerian,the bad eggs just couldn't keep their rotten smell to themselves.They had to just come funk up everyone else's space.
His apparent downfall came from his insistence on the privatisation of the power sector.
A lofty goal indeed but for thousands of existing PHCN staff,that would surely mean a window shopping trip to the labour market(now,that's one market where you dont buy nada!).
I'm sure no right thinking private investor would touch that bunch with a Nepa pole;no pun intended.
The only folks more corrupt and inefficient than the good people at PHCN are the Nigerian Police,the Nigerian Customs,The Nigerian Immigration service,The Nigerian...........Well........Nigeria sha!
Inefficiency and a culture of bribes has run deeper into the system than a pair of Usain Bolt's running tracks .
And a total shakeup was urgently needed.
The actual meat around the bone of the matter is still shrouded in secrecy but rumour has it that the former number one man in the power sector allegedly had a stake in some of the private companies biding for a controlling share in PHCN.
If that is in anyway true,then my dear Mr Nnaji,you got it all wrong.
These things are done through proxies,mehn!!!!!!!!!!!
Unfortunately for him,the generator importing and diesel selling cabal,the group most likely to lose the most with improved electricity,smelt blood and quickly went in for the kill and the rest as they say,is history.

I have it on good authority that this gentleman is the head of the now popular Nigerian cabal.

Its being about a week since you resigned Dear Prof and my light bulb still comes on,but that not withstanding,you shall be greatly missed.
Prof Barth Nnaji,rest in...............oh shit,I did it again!