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!

Lets face(book) it!

I don't know about you ladies but if a 33 year old guy I meet on Black Berry Messenger tells me he's still an undergraduate,I'll tend to find that a bit creepy!
But hey,what do I know?

Why you backing the cameras boys?Thought you'd be proud!

Took me a while to write on this story.The intricacies,the emotions and the callousness of it all was almost to much for me to bear at times.
Almost too much!
So,I decided to take my time and for once truly do an in-depth research into the facts of the matter.
The whys,the whens and hows.
Hmmmmmmmmmm!
Well,that effort took a whole glorious 20 minutes!

I guess they call them researchers for a reason!

So,I,m just gonna go all out and call a spade by its family name and not an earth moving farming implement!
Social media does no good!
Its not gonna cure Malaria or HIV.
Its not gonna bring world peace.
And it sure as hell not gonna put food on your table.Except you're Mark Zucker-can't spell his name.

Hope you ladies know I'm really the one making him rich*wink wink*

 Miss Cynthia's case tore my heart out,still does.
A young lady shouldn't have to lose her life to two  horny little beasts like she did.
But tucked within  the bowels of emotions involved in this story lies a pertinent question.
At what point did it become safe to meet up with a complete Black Berry Messenger stranger in a secluded hotel room in a dodgy part of town?
I must have missed the answer on the news!
Call me a jealous,washed out old man,who wishes he could get his youth back,but too much gets shared on the world wide web(Yeah,that's what we oldies still call it!) these days.

WhatsApp!!!!!!!!!!

Ladies posting pictures with their neck almost bent backwards;cant you just take a picture standing straight,for Pete's sake.
Guys updating statuses like "Guess what I had for lunch?"
I'm like............I'm guessing nothing!.Cos that's the way you look,brah!
Social media might have its pluses.
I remember the first time I logged unto facebook,I was blown away!
Seeing the then pretty young girls I went to high school with(who never knew I existed),all looking fat,stressed and ugly was joy become solid.
Chatting up with old friends,making contacts,networking.It was good for a while.
But its all gone sideways now;like Gala,that used to be good too!
The best fun to be had on social media is with friends.Known friends.
But if life and events throws up a particularly intriguing character who you deem fit to accept as a friend,always think with your head,not your heart and most definitely not your jolly machines!
P.S:apparently,i still did not say much on the case.Who am I to judge anyone?Lets live that to the Nigerian Police*ROTFLMAO*

Bolt from the blue!

It's a bird...it's a plane.....it's Facrook Lawan running from the law.............No.....it's Usain Bolt!!!

This was the race the Olympics was made for!
The estimated 11 billion pounds spent on organizing the London Olympics was all geared towards this day and this race.
Eight ridiculously fast(and ridiculously muscled,I must say) men,grinning from ear to ear,all engaging in different forms of theatrics and swagger-do as their names were announced round the stadium.
Waiting eagerly for the starting gun to go off.
The cameras slowly panned from athlete to athlete.
Somewhere in Lane 4 or thereabout was the new kid on the block,Yohann Blake,the prince,about to be king.This was the day many had predicted he was going to take centre stage.
But then,two lanes away(I'm intentionally skipping the inconsequential American athlete between them) was the King himself,looking more self assured and confident than a Nigerian politician looting the treasury!
All smiles,all confidence,all swagger.
My heart pounded with anticipation.Not because there was a Nigerian athlete in the race;I'm guessing the Nigerian participants have since escaped from the Olympics Village and crossed the border into Scotland or Ireland or whatever land that is sure better than home,never to be seen again;

You go boy!!!

 but because the whole world loves a winner and I'll be damned if ain't part of the world!
My mind quickly flashed back to last year in Daegu,South Korea,when Usain Bolt was disqualified from the finals of the 100meteres because of a false start.
Fingers crossed!
No such drama this time!
A usual slow start was followed by that incredible surge we've all grown accustomed to enjoying.
Long legs pumping ahead akwardly.
Head;big,black and balding like a Badagry cocunut,swaying in the wind.
He ran past the rest like someone had announced the race had stopped to his competitors.
This was the fastest 100metres final in Olympic history.7 of the 8 men ran under 10secs;an incredible achievement.
It was indeed a race of champions.
I breathed a deep sigh of satisfaction!
Happy,from celebrating another man's glorious moment with him;SMH.
Lightening does strike twice on one spot.
The Olympics just got it's second bolt.
P.S:If anyone sees Blessing Okagbare for me,kindly thank her for wasting 11 seconds of my life!

The whole world hates a loser.Especially one that comes last!

The Chinese are here!

This could definitely not have been the plan!
I can just imagine the founding fathers of our once great nation on their lofty chairs in heaven,hands in head,shaking in sheer horror as little dwarfish China men run around the streets of Lagos.
I doubt if there's a single Lagos resident who does not have an encounter with those slanty,beady eyed folks at least once a day.
Be they construction workers,Chinese restaurant owners,Tech company entrepreneurs,market men and women(check out the China town in Ojota,Lagos,them Chinese be selling tomato and pepper these days) or just your plain good for nothing lay-about.
There's an epidemic upon us and its made in China!
The first trickle of Chinese into Nigeria began about 10 years ago,at the tail end of the first term of  President OBJ's tenure.They were brought in to help with infrastructure development;roads,electricity,stadia,water works;not like they've done much now,have they?

Typical Nigerian Highway before the Chinese

After the Chinese.Spot the difference.The tyre looks smaller though!

And to be fair,it was not just a Nigerian idea.It was an African conception at the time.
Zambia,Uganda and Malawi all had their influx of the yellow people.
To also be fair to the Chinese community in Nigeria,they have also been a hell of a lot more docile,at least sexually,compared to their counterparts in other African countries.
The Chinese in Zambia!!!
Horny little critters!!
In less than a year of staying in Zambia,they were already fathering kids with the local women.
Chinese-Zambians!!!!!!!!!
Its not like the Zambians don't already have an ugly epidemic to contend with in the first place!
The economics of it seemed good at the time.At least our current crop of political leaders got this one right.
After spending the better part of 50 years under-educating and under-developing their own youth,they realised they had mechanical engineering graduates who couldn't spell engineering,talk more of building a bridge.
It just made absolute sense to endorse the mass importation of educated China kids to fill the technological gap.
The plan must have been to bring the workers in to serve under a Nigerian head but they forget or at least are ignorant of the fact that the China man serves nobody;a fact they would have known if only they had watched those goddamn Chinese films of the late 80's;wa sere Bruce Lee toh quality!

They have steadily grown in influence,from being the ones doing the dirt work to being fully in charge!
My first encounter with a Chinese restaurant was about 10 years ago in Benin City.It was then owned by a Nigerian who employed Chinese folks to do the cooking and menial work around the establishment.
The chef was a sly looking China man who spoke better pidgin English than i could possibly ever muster;after the meal got delayed for about 10 minutes,he came over to the table and his exact words were ''Guy,how far?Abeg no vex,the food go soon done"
That scared the shit out of me and should have been a pointer to the fact,even back then,that these Chinese were not here for jokes.
To be frank(I've never come to terms with why 'frank' was chosen,why not Steve or Charles),with the way things are being run in Africa as a whole,I wouldn't mind if we were recolonized by the Europeans or maybe even the South Africans;the white ones at least;but to be oppressed by Mr Wu Di Fuhk and his wife Mrs Wu Shi Be,its just to much for my oft stepped upon black pride.
So,as I sit in traffic,typing this post om my Ipad 3(more like a Techno 2580) while waiting for the Chinese traffic warden on Awolowo Way Ikeja to pass me.

I really don't care if you think I made this up!

 
I look up to the sky`and tell those wailing ex-presidents to weep no more for Nigeria and to respectfully relay same message via SMS to Gen Zanni Abalcha in hell!

Adam in the Garden of Edo!

First of,the name is Adam not Adams;its a first name Your Excellency!
Just had to get that off my chest!
The elections in Edo have come and gone.
After months of campaign,name smearing,threats ,counter threats and assassinations,Governor Adams(you've got to call a man whatever he calls himself)Oshiomole was returned unanimously in an embarrassingly one sided contest to the Government House Benin City.
His work and achievements spoke as loud and clear as a coherently incoherent Kris Okotie sermon.
Tales abound in the media of the wondrous things the Comrade Governor was doing the Land of the Oba.
Roads built,schools built and upgraded,hospitals renovated and equipped.The peoples money working for the people and not used for grooming moustaches.

Did this moustache not hint the Edo people?

Oshiomole is a man short in stature but extremely large of heart.
But Gov. Adam might have had his work simplified for him by the charlatans in power before him.
If all he had done in the four years of his first term was to plant one hibiscus flower at the entrance to the state,he would still have been branded a hero and overachiever by the people.
Such was the ineptitude of the Lucky Igbinedion(the previous governor)Administration!
People still say in Benin City,that if all Lucky had done in his 8 years was to come out every morning and dance for them in the village square,the effort would have been appreciated.

GO LUCKY!GO LUCKY!!GO LUCKY!!!

Instead,all they got was 8 years of stagnation,poverty and dilapidated roads.
It is on record that not one road was built in Benin City,except those leading to his and his father's of course, in those locust years.
But today is not about the past and what the locust has eaten.
Its about the present and the future.
Its about a man who has successfully combined leadership with serving.
A man who has brought back pride to a people.
When Edo State is mentioned now,the talk is more about development and less about deported  workers *wink wink*

You couldn't have been this shy on the streets of Milan!

No one man can change the system or Nigeria but Adams Oshiomole would rather be damned than not try.