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"I loved Nigeria but now I have stopped believing in her." Read Femi Fani Kayode's new article

Controversial writer and former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode in his new article titled, “Give me Oduduwa or let me die” has maintained that our once enviable country, Nigeria has lost her glory and is now in a pitiable state. Read below.

“If they ever tell my story let them say I walked with giants. Men rise and fall like the Winter wheat but these names will never die… let them say I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses…let them say I lived in the time of Achilles”- the Iliad, Homer.

The words of Odysseus in Homer’s epic and ancient poem titled ”The Iliyad” have always moved me. Those words are deep and profound: they stir my soul and rekindle my spirit. They speak of and reflect the essence of Ancient Greece with it’s rich and exciting history, it’s extraordinary heroes and heroines and it’s all-powerful and all-knowing gods, titans and immortals. How I wish that I could conjure up such great and powerful words about the history of my nation Nigeria and her heroes past. How I wish that the Nigerian people had their own Odysseus’ , Achilles’, Agamemnons and Hectors.

How I wish they had their own ancient poets and great thinkers like Socrates, Plato, Aristotle and Homer who could remind generations to come about our past exploits with their inspiring, compelling and historic prose. Yet I look at the Nigeria of today and I am not encouraged or inspired. As a matter of fact I am deeply saddened. I see no heroes on the horizon but only questionable pretenders and fallen caricatures that have sold their heritage and destiny for a mess of pottage and that couldn’t give a fig about what history or posterity will say about them or their country. Many have asked why I should say such things. Permit me to answer that pertinent question by posing a few of my own.

I start by asking: is this the Nigeria of Murtala Mohammed and Theophilius Danjuma? Is this the nation that helped to liberate Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and South Africa?
Is this the nation that restored sanity and stability to Sierra Leonne, that brought an end to a civil war in Liberia, that fought so gallantly in Burma and Somalia and that quelled a military coup in Sao Tome and Principe?

Is this the nation whose wealth once knew no bounds and whose middle class once owned the finest cars and properties in London, Paris and New York? Is this the nation whose beautiful people once graced the streets of Belgravia, Chelsea, Hampstead and Knitsbridge? Is this the country that once nationalized BP and that gave Margaret Thatcher sleepless nights over apartheid South Africa? Is this the nation that once stood up to the mighty Boers and whose ancestors studied at Oxford and Cambridge as far back as the 1800’s?

Is this the nation whose inhabitants and various ethnic nationalities once ruled vast empires and whose progenitors contributed so much to the traditions, religion and culture of Ancient Egypt?
Is this the country that once fought a bitter and brutal civil war, yet declared ”no victor, no vanquished” and, in the spirit of love, came back as one? Is this the country which has been through thick and thin and yet whose people remained ever so resilient and always put a smile on their faces? Is this the country where giants once held court and where the greats of old once presided? Where did we go wrong? What has happened to our people and what has afflicted our country? When did our leaders become spineless cowards and deceivers? When did the green white green of our nation’s flag become soiled with human faeces and when was it torn to shreds?


When did we shy away from fighting our own battles and prosecuting our own wars? When did we start bowing our heads in shame as events unfold in our country? When did we start sitting down silently as international newscasters speak about our nation in painful, disdainful, hushed and condescending tones?What has happened to the ever courageous, ever smiling, ever confident and ever dependable Nigerian who shook the world with his arrogance and confidence and who spoke of his nation with pride and joy? What has happened to our great army that was once the pride of Africa and that once made us so proud? What has happened to our great intellectuals and our men and women of courage and vision who once, like a collosus, bestrode the world?

What has happened to the stubborn and proud yet warm, friendly and profoundly good people that Nigerians once were? What has happened to the people that were once regarded as the hope of Africa and the pride of every black man on the planet? Where and when did we go astray? How and when did it all go wrong? When did we lose our strength, our wealth, our honour and our power? When did we lose our excellence, our confidence, our dignity and our self-respect? When did we become so weak and so helpless? When did we turn into killers, savages and barbarians?When did we become so pitiful that the whole world mocks us and heaps insults on us so easily? When did they start saying that we have ”no serious government”, that we have ”lost control of large portions of our nation” and that we can’t even protect our own children? When did we become incapable of defending our borders and protecting our people?

When did we turn into a laughing stock and a reference point for incompetence, stupidity, cowardice, ignorance, evil, cluelessness and all that is bad to the rest of the world? When did other nations start giving us lessons on how to fight insurgency and how to prosecute our wars? When did our people start clamouring for foreign armies to enter our land, violate our sovereignty and march on our sacred soil? When did we start having to ask others to come and solve our local problems? O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. Truly ours is a nation afflicted. She is finished and there is little hope of any form of redemption or resurrection. The honeymoon is over and the glory has departed. One hundred years of a forced and failed marriage has ended in a bitter yet undeniable divorce. We have lost it all and there is no going back. Those that wish to break up our nation for sport and bring our people to their knees have had their way.

Those that wish to watch us slaughter one another in an orgy of mindless violence and that wish to establish their AFRICOM in our shores will soon be here and we shall be occupied forever.
O Nigeria, how are the mighty fallen. I loved Nigeria but now I have stopped believing in her. She is saddled with many different sub- nations that were simply incompatible right from the start.
She is plagued and cursed with one particular sub-nation whose ruling elite are dangerous and unyielding, whose guile and deceit is second to none, who treat their own people with contempt and derision, who believe that they were born to rule, who think that power belongs to them, who suppress the religious and ethnic minorities within their ranks and who were taught from an early age that there was none besides them. Those people have killed Nigeria. They and those who have consistently bowed and trembled before them and who have always allowed them to have their way.

Our nation has become a cruel joke- she is a maliciously contrived contraption that has shattered many dreams and frustrated many ambitions and aspirations. This was a country that was created for the benefit of just a few at the cost of the misery and pain of so many. I will never accept the idea of living in a nation side by side with religious extreemists who slit the throats of children, who habitually slaughter the innocents and who abduct and fornicate with small girls. Animals have no place in the homes of men. It is time for us to stop pretending: let the terrorists and their friends in high places break away and establish their own country where they can marry as many young girls as they please and chop off as many limbs as they want. Let them form a nation where they can stone adulterers and turn women into chattels that are not even worthy of life.
Let those of us from the west establish Oduduwa and let us celebrate and enjoy our freedom from the bondage and ineptitude of a cruel failed state that has no soul and that lacks humanity and compassion.

Let us be liberated from the deceit that is known as Nigeria: a nation that once was but that is no more. Let us be free of Nigeria: a nation where injustice, evil, persecution, insensitivity, impunity, terror, graft and wickedness reign supreme. Let us be rid of Nigeria: a country where those of us that had the misfortune of being born on the ”wrong” side of the regional divide or who are adherents of the ”wrong” religious faith are butchered for our heritage and can never be treated as equals. Give us Oduduwa or let us die. Yet we will eventually take our freedom by force if it is not freely given to us. We shall take it by fire: by the shedding of blood and by our own bleeding if necessary. We will take it by fire and by sacrificing our lives if that is what we are forced to do.
What we will never do is continue to live in perpetual slavery in a nation called Nigeria that is afflicted with feeble rulers and peopled by religious bigots, sexual deviants and bloodthirsty terrorists.

We shall not allow ourselves to be consumed by the weakness and ineptitude of our present-day rulers and the sheer incompetence of those that do not have the courage or the moral authority to crush the beasts that have abducted and enslaved our girls.
I have had enough. I say goodbye Nigeria: give us Oduduwa or let us die”.
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Oga at the top and a country called Internet | By: Sonala Olumhense

Once upon a time, a new country came to be.  It was called Internet. It had many states and many peoples and many kinds. On Internet, you could live in different states.  The state of Facebook, for instance. Or Email. Or Twitter.  You could even choose to be a citizen of any or all of them at the very same time.
You could be in the state of Happiness, or of Unhappiness.

On Internet, you could do as you pleased.  You could hold many passports and cause one problem to many.  Or you could hold one passport, and cause many problems to one person. The country of Internet had an avalanche of opportunities and prospects, and everyone began to acquire real estate.  Some people kept their feet on the ground, some chose to travel upside down.  The country was free and exciting.

The young took their places alongside the older.  The sick took their places alongside the healthy.  The women shopped alongside the girls; the grandparents photoshopped with the best of the boys. That made for a lot of citizens who were happy and hopeful for the first time in their lives.  Happy for hope.  Hoping for happiness.

One evening, in one state, Wendell Simlin bellied up to the bar.
“Sir, he said to Oga at the top, “Sir!”
“Yes, Wendell, what is it?” Oga asked, evidently in high spirits.
“May I speak freely sir?” It was very late, but there were still several others at the well-appointed bar.
“Yes, speak, Wendell? Are you alright?  You do not seem to be drinking anything.  This bar is not going to empty itself you know?”
Wendell smiled.  “Thank you sir.  I am just pacing myself.”
Oga thought about that.  “You are at home, you know,” he replied.  “Pace has no meaning when both road and car belong to the driver.  This is your home, your road, your car.  You don’t need to pace yourself.”
“Thank you, sir.  I just want to be sure I am always able to give you my best.  I am grateful for all you have done for me.”
“Don’t worry, we have not even started.  What did you want to say?”
“Thank you.  Sir, have you heard of the country of Internet?”
Oga belched into Wendell’s face as he lifted a cup of beverage.  “That I have,” he said.  “Internet.  You know that is why I brought you here.  I have been told it is at the edge of the cut.”
“Cutting edge, sir!”
“What?”
“Cutting edge.  But it does not matter.  I just wanted to let you know that you are sitting on a gold mine!”
Oga jumped out of his seat.  “Gold mine?  Here?  Under this chair?   In this palace?”
Simlin laughed.  “No, not here sir. Internet.  An exciting land full of students, housewives, the unemployed, everybody.  We can really take advantage of it sir.  With one keystroke we can have all of them eating out of your hands!”
“Really?  How?”
And Wendell talked. Oga at the top listened, nodding.  He nodded off.
And so it was that Wendell, empowered, travelled widely in Internet to extend extending Oga’s reach and his message, using all kinds of messengers who carried different passports.  Oga followed in all the territories, establishing a major outpost in the state of Facebook.  There, he spoke every day.
He travelled to the state of Unhappiness and showed them his feet, clasped in glittering snakeskin designer shoes.
“Remember I once walked barefoot,” he told voters in the city of Poverty, “because we were very poor.  Look at me now!”
In the villages and towns of Promise-and-Fail, he told them to fear no more because he had untold riches planned for them.  He would give them electricity and jobs.  He would build universities and airports and hospitals and roads and farms.  Their wives would never walk naked, and their children would never lack honey.
Wherever he spoke, the people applauded widely, and Oga would turn around and find Wendell with a knowing wink and a grin.  Some of the people were wary, however.  They told Oga they hated the company he represented, but that they would support for him personally.
And so it was that Oga received the endorsement of all the states. The state of Facebook.  The state of Happiness.  The city of Expectation.  The towns and hamlets of Doubt.  The villages of Disappointment and Poverty.
“That caught out edge really worked!” Oga told Wendell.  “You were right!”
“Thank you, sir.  The country of Internet is a marvelous creation.  We don’t even have to rely on the press or the Ministry any more.  You don’t need the journalists.  With Internet, you can say whatever you want whenever you want it, and nobody can tell the difference!”
“Yes.  It is a canoe we will ride as long as we like and we can fish for as long as we want.  And it is your house, Wendell.  Eat what you like.  Drink what you like.  By the way, why are you alone again today?  Na only you waka come?  Have fun!”
And so it was that the exciting canoe ride began.  They traveled whenever and wherever they went.  Riches.  Power.  Life was wonderful.  The only thing that remained was to prepare for another round.
Incredibly, the country of Internet also expanded, but nobody seemed to notice.  Citizens of the states of Happiness and Disappointment, like those of Facebook and other places, began to raise their voices in anger.  There were riots and mutinies and fights.
“What about our rights?” they were asking.  “What about the promises made to us?  Why are we so unsafe?  Why are strangers killing our families and taking our livestock?  Why are there so many thieves and liars walking unchallenged?”
But nobody seemed to hear them.  There was just so much to do that nobody saw the roof as it unraveled, despite all the reports in Internet.
As so it was that, in the end, the country of Internet revealed itself as being everywhere and everything, of being without boundaries and being able to see into the bedrooms of Emperors and the hearts of Kings.
For the first time, the country of Internet was revealed to be the heart of every man and woman everywhere, and Oga and his people could hear, through the tongues of strangers in lands known and unknown, his own people’s anguish for service and responsibility.
In just two weeks, the horror of a government being unconcerned about using its vast resources to rescue and return hundreds of kidnapped children exposed Oga before the world as naked and weak and confused.
Wendell, unmasked as a manipulator and liar in the earlier days of the unraveling, had failed to tell Oga that country Internet gives, but may not forgive, and never forgets.
And now, country Internet roars on beyond all boundaries and beyond Oga’s control, in the effort to find the abducted children, with the unmistakable message that unless they returned home safely, there will be hell to pay, by the few, to the many

Credit: Ynaija.com

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Open Letter to Nigerians – Please stop disrespecting your First Lady | By: Valentine

In the last one week the craze online is quite disgusting but Funny, with many attacking the first lady with malicious intent and purposes. Now I’m here to defend her as my mother and by virtue the mother of all Nigerians in this dispensation. She called a security meeting to contribute her own quota to finding lasting peace that is gradually evading us Nigerians as a nation.

I do know she has no right to summon the Head of the various military agencies, but she did had a security meeting…which those concerned ought to attend which they failed to attend for some political reasons. And you know Mama Peace is not a pretender, she says things the way she feels it, if you like lie about stuffs, when ever she grabs the mantle, she has this penchant of contradicting lies told to the general public.
But what disgusts me is the way many prominent Nigerians have castigated her in the last few days; starting with the Prof. Wole Soyinka to the last man out there who think they are well versed in the usage of English. The way folks undermined her prompted me to challenge and defend her because of the simple truth which is, we all have mothers and no one would fold his hands and allow their mothers disrespected the way we have done lately.
Way back in school the brightest student in our class had this same problem with ‘Spoken English’, the way he abused the language, with mother tongue interference will make one believe he is an Illiterate but he isn’t, when you try him in other spheres you will be amazed that he is a genius in obscurity.
Let’s not forget the language we speak is borrowed and nobody can claim ownership including the originators of the language, over the years many countries are adopting their own pattern of English, in years to come maybe we might just have our own peculiar unique Nigerian English, so before we start abusing the First Lady over some western Pedagogical concept, let us pause for a while and criticize with good intentions not this malicious wickedness that has been trending online lately.

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Comic Relief: As far as I'm concerned, every Nigerian is bleaching | By: Daniel Teinye Boyle

Nb: This is just for laffs

In the 1940s, some Africans made attempts to change their complexion from our default dark skin to a fairer one, Over the years, more women and recently men have found discomfort in owning an extremely dark skin. It is so funny that the aunt you grew up seeing or referred to as “my dark aunt” is now “my fair aunt”. She probably bleached or “toned” as most people would like to put it (to reduce its scorn). Apparently, everyone these days “was born fair”. Nowadays, you go through a lady’s dresser and you see the container of almost all her toiletries having the word “whitening” on them, yet she claims “I was born fair”…if possible her perfume is a lightening one, even her hair cream, now……does it mean the “fairness” you had when you were smaller ran into the wind? (Who you offend?)
Another case is some people claim they were fair-skinned from birth, lost the colour to adolescence and now they are gaining it back by “toning”. These set of people would never agree to you telling them they are bleaching, You are a girl, your boo buys you lightening shower gel? My dear, he likes them fair! ; you are a guy, your babe gets you a whitening cream? “She wan dey see you from 800miles away” some na una parents dey buy am because they feel you are getting too dark? #LegalBleaching

Now bleaching per se, is a strong word (that is why no one agrees to be called a “bleaching” person, so let’s stick with “Rubbing” hehehe. Now, whether it is a lotion, a pill, a soap or a routine that actually lightens your skin, my dear? You are “rubbing”
Whether na ghana red and black soap (that our mothers used in the 90s) or TURA that they used in the early 2000s….or Bio-claire in the mid 2000s or the recent “mixing” of cream craze that starts from the “washing” of skin stage to the actual “change in colour”. The thing is “YOU DEY RUB!”….
Now Nollywood has even made matters worse by putting up the invisible banner “NO RUB, NO SCRIPT”, its so bad that there aren’t any dark skinned actresses again, I grew up knowing Kate Henshaw, Uche Jumbo and Geneveive Nnaji as dark skinned actresses, but today what do you see? (Nor be my mouth una go hear say Queen elizabeth na Isoko-woman)..onwards. Biko. My friend chucks will say, “if you no rub, camera no go see you”..toh, well that being said, let us all be seen then loool.
My point is, most of the people who are quick to calling others out as “bleachers”, are gradually getting fair or have gotten a couple of shades lighter than their default complexion, theirs is “toning” ba? Issorai….. Just know that from the moment you look at your skin and feel “I’m too dark” or “I could get lighter” you are on the train already, so whether its “I avoid the sun”/”I am always indoors” as long as something is making you lighter, YOU DE RUB! Shikena
If you feel am incorrect, please retire to the good old DUDU-OSUN soap and IMBI-OLO (palm-kennel extract) from now on because any foreign chemical that “smoothens” the skin has every tendency to lighten it a bit.
Written by:
@Teinyeboyle

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In Cameroon Boko Haram Is Preached As A Religion | By: Odimegwu Onwumere

The authorities and well-meaning people of Nigeria are yet worried about stopping the trashy activities of the Islamic sect popularly known and called Boko Haram in the country, but the sect is concerned about recruiting as many youths as possible in Cameroon into accepting the sect activities as a religion. As the sect holds influence in the North-East of Nigeria since 1999 killing over 4,000 people and damaging property worth millions of naira, government officials in Cameroon are worried that the apparent activities of the sect in Cameroon’s Far North Region is becoming bothersome. This is coming barely a fortnight the Ghanaian former President Jerry John Rawlings reportedly disclosed at the 70th birthday of Nigeria’s former Foreign Affairs Minister, Chief Tom Ikimi in Igueben, Edo State that, Nigeria should not be somnolent in the fight against Boko Haram, but suggested that tactful measures in the fight would benefit.
From Rawlings’ comment, it has become incommodious that Boko Haram might take over the continent of Africa if urgent measures are not taken and earnestly put in place to curb the activities of the group. After Nigeria, the fight against the dreaded sect without doubt has also become a thorn in the flesh of Cameroon as over 200 suspected Boko Haram members have been arrested in that country and were later set free for what authorities said was because of lack of adequate evidence to prosecute the arrested. When this reporter made a journey of Lake Chad through Maiduguri recently, a young man who introduced himself to this reporter as Adamu and warned that pictures of him should not be taken, said that his worry in the country (Cameroon) is that members of the Islamic sect are preaching about their activities as a religion and not as terrorism.

“I can conveniently tell you that youths in our country Cameroon are being indoctrinated into believing that Boko Haram is a religion and not a terrorism organization. Many youths who refused to accept the volatile teachings of the group are missing today. Few of them who narrowly escaped from their captors narrated their ordeals, saying that they were being given military training in undisclosed areas so that they would be deployed to fight in Nigeria,” the source said.
It was also noted that in Mayo-Sava area and Mora District in Far North Region of Cameroon the residents are apprehensive of the surge of the sect in their areas. When this reporter questioned his informant if he was aware of the news making the rounds that Boko Haram preachers are going around the areas luring youths with monetary promises that they would be rich and better Muslims if they become Boko Haram members, he did not waste time to affirm the suspicion:

“I’ve heard of a thing like that. I also know that Boko Haram members are now dreaded in Cameroon like a scourge because their offer to the unsuspecting youths is tempting. I’ve noted that some parents give out their children to join the sect so that ‘they could become rich and better Muslims than they were.”
Investigations revealed that Boko Haram members do not waste time to send back any injured youth that was training in their camps back home, although blind-folded, perhaps to avert a trace of their training camp. According to sources, Boko Haram preachers kidnap young Cameroonians and take them to Nigeria for training. Some of the affected youths were noted to be those from Banki, Kolofata and Ngeshawa in Cameroon. Apart from the so-called military training that the preachers give to their victims, they also preach the ‘favourable’ side of the Koran that invariably promote violence and tell them that they are fighting a ‘just’ fight to defend the Muslim faith.
A government official interviewed who spoke under anonymity for the fear that he might be attacked should he give his name, said: “I’m not too sure that Cameroonian youths are being preached into accepting Boko Haram as a religion, but I cannot rule out the fact that it might be truth since Nigeria and Cameroon share common ethnic and cultural affinities. This is exemplified in the Cameroon’s Far North and Nigeria’s North-East. It is a common knowledge that these areas share not only semblance of culture, but, also, speak the same language.”
According to sources, many of the youths who joined the Boko Haram-initiated Islamic school have not been seen by their family members since 2012 they were declared ‘missing’. Whether they are alive or dead, no one could give an account of their whereabouts. All the hope of the affected families is that the ‘missing’ persons are with Boko Haram and are expected to come back in the event that they are alive, better Muslims and rich. Asked why the group is in the Cameroon’s Far North; it was gathered that the neo-presence of Boko Haram members in the villages neighbouring North-Eastern Nigeria was not unconnected with the May 2013 offensive that was launched by the Nigerian military that invariably compelled the surviving members of the group to look for safety in the neighbouring Far North of Cameroon.
Notwithstanding, it was gathered that security officials in Cameroon are doing everything within their reach to send the constituents of the group packing from the country. According to an account credited to Emmanuel Bob-Iga, head of the police division at the Far North governor’s office said: “We strongly believe that Boko Haram has elements in Cameroon and the authorities are doing everything possible to track them down.”
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Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet/Writer and a social commentator. He writes from Rivers State.
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The President I Want | By: Chimamanda Adichie

In the wake of the abduction of over 200 Nigerian school girls by Boko Haram few weeks back, award-winning writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie in an article titled, “The President I Want” has condemned the lackadaisical attitude of President Jonathan towards the rescue of the girls and security in general. Read below:
Some of my relatives lived for decades in the North, in Kano and Bornu. They spoke fluent Hausa. (One relative taught me, at the age of eight, to count in Hausa.) They made planned visits to Anambra only a few times a year, at Christmas and to attend weddings and funerals. But sometimes, in the wake of violence, they made unplanned visits. I remember the word ‘Maitatsine’ – to my young ears, it had a striking lyricism – and I remember the influx of relatives who had packed a few bags and fled the killings.
What struck me about those hasty returns to the East was that my relatives always went back to the North. Until two years ago when my uncle packed up his life of thirty years in Maiduguri and moved to Awka. He was not going back. This time, he felt, was different. My uncle’s return illustrates a feeling shared by many Nigerians about Boko Haram: a lack of hope, a lack of confidence in our leadership.We are experiencing what is, apart from the Biafran war, the most violent period in our nation’s existence. Like many Nigerians, I am distressed about the students murdered in their school, about the people whose bodies were spattered in Nyanya, about the girls abducted in Chibok. I am furious that politicians are politicizing what should be a collective Nigerian mourning, a shared Nigerian sadness. And I find our president’s actions and non-actions unbelievably surreal.
I do not want a president who, weeks after girls are abducted from a school and days after brave Nigerians have taken to the streets to protest the abductions, merely announces a fact-finding committee to find the girls. I want President Jonathan to be consumed, utterly consumed, by the state of insecurity in Nigeria. I want him to make security a priority, and make it seem like a priority. I want a president consumed by the urgency of now, who rejects the false idea of keeping up appearances while the country is mired in terror and uncertainty. I want President Jonathan to know – and let Nigerians know that he knows – that we are not made safer by soldiers checking the boots of cars, that to shut down Abuja in order to hold a World Economic Forum is proof of just how deeply insecure the country is. We have a big problem, and I want the president to act as if we do.
I want the president to slice through the muddle of bureaucracy, the morass of ‘how things are done,’ because Boko Haram is unusual and the response to it cannot be business as usual. I want President Jonathan to communicate with the Nigerian people, to realize that leadership has a strong psychological component: in the face of silence or incoherence, people lose faith. I want him to humanize the lost and the missing, to insist that their individual stories be told, to show that every Nigerian life is precious in the eyes of the Nigerian state. I want the president to seek new ideas, to act, make decisions, publish the security budget spending, offer incentives, sack people. I want the president to be angrily heartbroken about the murder of so many, to lie sleepless in bed thinking of yet what else can be done, to support and equip the armed forces and the police, but also to insist on humaneness in the midst of terror.
I want the president to be equally enraged by soldiers who commit murder, by policemen who beat bomb survivors and mourners. I want the president to stop issuing limp, belated announcements through public officials, to insist on a televised apology from whoever is responsible for lying to Nigerians about the girls having been rescued. I want President Jonathan to ignore his opponents, to remember that it is the nature of politics, to refuse to respond with defensiveness or guardedness, and to remember that Nigerians are understandably cynical about their government. I want President Jonathan to seek glory and a place in history, instead of longevity in office. I want him to put aside the forthcoming 2015 elections, and focus today on being the kind of leader Nigeria has never had.
I do not care where the president of Nigeria comes from. Even those Nigerians who focus on ‘where the president is from’ will be won over if they are confronted with good leadership that makes all Nigerians feel included. I have always wanted, as my president, a man or a woman who is intelligent and honest and bold, who is surrounded by truth-telling, competent advisers, whose policies are people-centered, and who wants to lead, who wants to be president, but does not need to – or have to- be president at all costs.
President Jonathan may not fit that bill, but he can approximate it: by being the leader Nigerians desperately need now.
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Female Celebrities Prefer Second-Hand Husbands | By: Etcetera

Some days ago I was at a friend’s place and was asked by his sisters if I was travelling abroad for the wedding of a colleague that is still being talked about on blogs and on all social networking sites in nigeria and I said no I wasn’t. But what struck me as odd was when one of them asked me “is she getting married to a BRAND NEW husband or a 2ND HAND husband”?
I stared at her in shock and confusion because up until that moment, I had never heard of a phrase as “brand new or 2nd hand husband. It became a heated debate amongst people in the house that day. ‘WOW’, I never thought a phrase like 2nd hand can be attributed to a human being. I know it is only applicable to objects. At first i was angry. How could they have said such.
But as crazy and odd as it may have sounded, they drew my attention to their observations that it is a trend currently popular amongst female celebrities in Nigeria. The guys in the house even tweaked it into a joke. Adding that it is a normal thing in Nigeria that when you can’t afford a brand new car you go for a 2nd hand one. I couldn’t help but laugh at that one. But on my way home, I thought about it for a minute and asked myself if truly a 2nd hand or brand new theory can be a determinant in finding a husband? It got me staring at every car passing by, trying to understand the rationale behind the argument of a 2nd hand husband and a brand new one. How do you determine if a husband is a 2nd hand? I asked myself. I was later told that a man becomes a 2nd hand if he was previously married or is still married to another woman before taking a new wife.
And that a 2nd hand husband just like a 2nd hand car comes in two types. Nigerian used and Tokunbo. Meaning the husband who was previously married and living here in Nigeria is the “Nigerian used”, while the one shipped in from abroad is the Tokunbo version. Shocking isn’t it? Ok, let us analyse this for a minute. It is a known fact that in Nigeria, when you want to buy a 2nd hand car you are strongly advised to take a mechanic with you. So can you also do the same with a 2nd hand husband? Should it also be recommended that when going for a 2nd hand husband you should make sure to take a medical doctor to administer all the necessary check ups to be sure you are not getting damaged goods?
 
Because in the true sense of it, a 2nd hand is a 2nd hand whether car or husband. And If the carburetor of a 2nd hand car can easily pack up on 3rd mainland bridge, it means a 2nd hand husband can also pack up on the way to the altar. As these thoughts were spinning in my head, I began asking myself the same questions they asked me. Why do Nigerian female celebrities prefer 2nd hand husbands? Or Why would anyone prefer a 2nd hand husband? But come to think of it, Is it that our female celebrities can no longer afford the luxury of waiting for the brand new ones to come along?
Or have the brand new ones refused to be fooled by the razzmatazz or flashy make ups, thick foundations, artificial nails, Brazilian hair and Peruvian eye lashes? Can it be attributed to a thing of choice? They said a 2nd hand husband is often an Alhaji or an Otunba with pot belly and deep pocket. Is it because of the  money or societal status of the men? As long as he is fully loaded she really does not care. Some went further to say that a 2nd hand husband is already tested and trusted with a confirmed rate of performance and durability?
 
So figure a female celebrity asking her colleague, “What is the mileage of your 2nd hand husband? And she replies “Ahhh I nor know say hin former wives don finish am oo.. Na shaft I marry ooo, My sista nor be small thing ooo, even my doctor sef say him liver go soon park up. And na for hospital I dey sleep for the past 3 weeks. Just like 2nd hand car owner dey sleep for mechanic workshop everyday.
As my Curiosity got the better of me, I asked them for names of female celebrities with 2nd hand husbands. I was shocked beyond recognition that the list they gave me was as long as the distance from mile 2 to Badagry. According to the list, almost all married female celebrities in Nigeria has a 2nd hand husband and even some of the female celebrities themselves are 2nd hand. And some of the male celebrities also have 2nd hand wives or they themselves are 2nd hand. Well, if you don’t believe me, make a list of your own and be amazed as I am right now. My conclusion is that the issue of 2nd hand husband is not peculiar to entertainers. It is a general societal disease and it is as a result of too many failed marriages we have in the society at large. While nobody should be blamed for falling in love or getting married to whoever he or she chooses, it is also important that we position our lives to inspire the children and future entertainers who see us as role models in the society.
 
You may argue that it is not the society’s business what you do with your affairs. Which is very true but also remember that being a celebrity makes your life a public affair. So go ahead girls, take home the 2nd hand husbands, it is your choice and it does not matter even if he looks like an “accidented” car with scary mileage. If you love him that much and he has some money to spend, you can take him to the highly skilled American body mechanic called Dr. 90210 to panel-beat and mask all his dents. And if you are fortunate to find one whose mileage is manageable, you can take him to Ladipo market, buy the missing body parts and get a local panel-beater to fix him. And if you are a handy-woman, You can even do the servicing yourself by getting a complete first aid kit with bandages, Ampiclox and mentholatum and massage his joints every night before sleeping.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Culled from Punch Newspapers
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Amaka Igwe is not dead. |By: Charles Novia

Amaka Igwe lives. The tears we shed for her are futile. She lives. The shock we express over her passing on is carthatic. She lives. Amaka Igwe did not die. She just built her loving ‘house of commotion’ in our hearts. Commotion with co-relation; commotion with emotions.
The brilliant lady who could unarguably be credited as the progenitor of Nollywood as we know it today still lives. Immortalised in our hearts. If there was no ‘Checkmate’, that superb soap opera which had a chart-topping five year run on national television, there would have been no Nollywood. For the tested and trusted actors from ‘Checkmate’ were mostly cast in the trend-setting ‘Living in Bondage’.
Amaka had groomed a new generation of Nigerian actors through ‘Checkmate’, she had prepared our minds for something explosive with her creation. There is yet to emerge a soap opera since then which has all the thrills and frills and popular appeal like ‘Checkmate’. Forget all these tin imitations. Amaka’s soap was solid steel. Unbreakable. Unbeatable. And you say she is dead? But Amaka lives!
She created characters which blew our minds. Anne Harthrope, Segun Kadiri, Chief Fuji, Peaceful Peace, Alika, Akpan, Barry Hughes, Nduka, Bennie etc. She held the nation spell-bound for five years every Thursday 8pm on the network service and gave people gossip points for the next week before the next episode. ‘Checkmate’ was her creation. ‘Checkmate’ was her success. She brilliantly wrote all the episodes, over 500 of them and produced carefully. She was far ahead of her time. The most intriguing thing about her concerning ‘Checkmate’ was that she knew when to pull the plugs. She broke our hearts by resolving the plots and finishing the soap opera on one Thursday evening in 1995.
The country was shocked and mourned. But Amaka was done with the soap. She had checkmated our expectations to see the soap opera run forever. She just knew when to stop. And that last episode of ‘Checkmate’? The best ending I have ever seen in Nigeria for any serial and come to think of it anywhere in the world. It was so brilliant. Amaka ended the plots and sub-plots and showed us all why the serial was titled ‘Checkmate’. Anne Harthrope (played by Ego Boyo who was replaced by someone else for a few months while she was on ‘maternity leave’) married Segun Kadiri ( played by RMD who gave the character a brilliant interpretation with a raspy voice and finger-on-the-cheek affectation) and just as we all sighed that at last the two enemies had fallen in love and tied the knots, Amaka gave us a twist. Anne cleverly ‘divorced’ Segun Kadiri, warning him that she only married him to give her baby a father but that she would never sell or hand over her company to him! The last scene ended with a stupefied Kadiri laughing in shock, knowing he had been ‘checkmated’.
So classic. And that was not all. She brilliantly had the cast talk to the viewers before the end credits in scripted lines about how the soap opera made its run. That episode was so good and popular that NTA Network had a re-run of it the next week. On the set of ‘Violated’ in 1996 ( her post-‘Checkmate’ opus in which I was cast as Jide, the banker) she told me how agonising it was to write that final episode. ‘I was pregnant then and I would write and discard. I can’t count how many scripts of that final episode I wrote and tore. The denouement just was not clicking. Then, finally I got the muse. And I just kept scribbling on my bed. When I finished I was so happy and screamed out to Charles (her husband) ‘Honey, I got it!’ and we both screamed and hugged ourselves!’ That piece of information stuck on my mind.
But Amaka is not dead. With enduring works such as ‘Violated’ (which re-defined and triggered the romantic drama genre in Nollywood) ‘Rattlesnake’, ‘To live again’, ‘Forever’ and ‘Fuji House of Commotion’ , how could she be dead? This lady who has been the subject of various dissertations and academic theses changed our creative landscape. Her contributions to the creative industry cannot be quantified. She was an advocate for professionalism. She was a stickler for excellence. A cerebral contributor to Nollywood’s trudge of progress. She wanted what was best for the industry. She was behind the founding of the Movie Practitioners Council of Nigeria bill (MOPICON) which has been gathering dust at the National Assembly for years.
That bill is supposed to be to Nollywood what NBA is to the Lawyers and NMA to the Doctors. Amaka wanted this bill passed. Could our fractured Nollywood please unite to ensure that this is done if only to honour and immortalise her? Thank God she got a National Honour from President Jonathan a couple of years back. An MFR. A well-deserved national honour for an Amazon of Nollywood. She believed in young talents and had an open door policy for any talent who came to her office. She had an academy too, where young and ambitious filmmakers were trained.
What about her film and television bi-ennial festival in Abuja; Best of the Best (BOB) TV? Or her radio station, Top FM? Or her painstaking contributions to the committee set up to give guidelines for the 3 billion naira grant given to Nollywood by the President? She fought tirelessly for the industry to maximally benefit from the grant. And with all these achievements, you say Amaka Igwe is dead? No, she lives. Her footprints on the sands of achievement on the beaches of our creative economy are there for all to see. Too large to fill.
Credit: Charlesnoviadaily.com
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#Bringbackourgirls, #Nyanyablast: An Open letter to Boko Haram | By: Iyabo Obasanjo

I am moved to write about the current state of affairs in Nigeria. My first inclination was to write to the President but since all letters to him seem to elicit only open derision and even more stupidity from his inner circle, I have decided to address my letter to a group also currently causing Nigerians a lot of pain and agony that may actually have more sense than the country’s leadership.

Dear Boko Haram, the fact that you have taken arms against the Nigerian state is no surprise. The question should be why haven’t more young people organised themselves against the state? Even the fact that your motto, ‘Against Western Education’ is in a way reasonable given the fact that your leader, martyred by the Nigerian state had university education and found no reasonable employment but had to resort to thuggery for politicians to survive, as the story goes.

He, like millions of Nigerian young people and college graduates, seeing a blighted future are doing anything to survive. They have become opportunistic desperados, almost sub‑human as the stepping on and trampling on each other to death at the Immigration employment debacle indicates.

Where you’re wrong, Where I think you have gotten it wrong are in two areas, if you can pardon my giving you some unsolicited advice.

First, your victims are becoming more and more the people you should be attracting to your side. Take the Nyanya bus massacre. The people that live in Nyanya are usually the clerks, messengers and other lowly office workers that live out in relative slums compared to the rest of Abuja and take public transportation to work to receive monthly salaries they barely get by on.

Consult any written work of successful revolutionaries be it French, Russian, Cuban or even the more recent uprooting of communism in Eastern Europe, to succeed you need the people to be on your side. Right now you are not achieving this. You are targeting the group you need most. This does not make for a successful revolution but you are making yourselves into nuisances to the people and in the end while the state, including its military machine may not be able to conquer you, your downfall will be alienating these potential allies, i.e. the oppressed and down-trodden.
Secondly, the abduction of girls. It must be hard to stay in the bush as all male revolutionaries fending for yourselves with no sexual gratification. Cuban example. But again, reading up on past bush revolutionaries like the Cuban, for example, indicates that they were able to convince some women to go voluntarily with them into the bush.
Somehow, revolutionary zeal does not include sexual abstinence and cooking and cleaning by yourselves. Reading must be hard for you since you hate education but the past is a good guide to the future and if you can’t read, you are done for in organizing or succeeding in most endeavours as most things have been done before and reading up on how it was done can only serve as good guidance.

The parents of the girls you abducted are just trying to give their daughters a chance at having successful lives. Without an education there is very little anyone can achieve in this early 21st century. I know living in the bush; it must still seem like the dark ages but the truth is that even with the lack of jobs and opportunities for young people in Nigeria currently, it is still better to be educated.

An educated university graduate who was selling food from a food cart ignited the Arab Spring which was spread by use of the internet which is hard to use if you are not educated. There are writings, videos and stuff you post on the internet which I haven’t seen. But think of it, you can only post and use the internet because some of you have some education. But in the end you have no control over the distribution of your advertising and recruiting information because as you may know, the internet is really part of the western system you despise.

Why you’re succeeding:
The truth is that you have succeeded because the Nigerian state has failed to provide jobs and opportunity for its young people who you can now easily recruit. By disrupting education, you are adding to the burden of the people.
You may say, but how about our religious issue? Let the truth be told, just as there are indigenous southern Muslims, there are indigenous northern Christians even from your epicentre in Borno State and just as you are zealous for your religion, I don’t see them giving up their religion either.
The reasonable solution to this impasse would be for you to advocate for everyone to be able to practice their religion as they see fit with respect for each other’s beliefs. Remember, a couple of centuries ago, all of our ancestors below the Sahara were all animists worshipping various ‘gods. This ‘One God’ — us against them situation — is a relatively recent one in our human history and you will be advised to let the originators fight it out and let your people be.”

Culled from Vanguard Newspaper

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Most Fathers Are Just Husbands | By: Odimegwu Onwumere

Not all husbands are fathers. That a man gave birth to a child legitimately or illegitimately does not make him a father. The man could be awesome, he could have all the aspects that are associated with men, but he is not a father; he could acquire all the property and money in the world, yet he is not a father. As a child, you wouldn’t understand your father better till you are of the age of wisdom and reasoning. At that toddler’s age all you do is look up to your father, who commands you and gives you assignments to do, but without any sense of direction of where he wants you to be in life.
Many homes are like this! He allows you to just grow-up and succeed the way  your peers are succeeding or do things the way of your peers. Whether good or bad, he does not care to know; all he wants to hear or know is that you have succeeded at last. In his estimation he has the belief that your future depends on you. Even when he is financially rich, he prefers the money in his hands at the moment than your future, because the future he knows is just the immediate. Some might say that this is just sheer ignorance or wickedness, but whatever it is. He finds it hard to spend the money even when you are hitting your head on the ground that he should help you to higher school after your primary or perhaps secondary school, which you were the mock of the time in your class, because of the molestations you did not enjoy due to the incessant fees you were unable to pay, the patch-patch school wears you wore to school and all that.
He will not even send you to go learn handiwork or trade. Yet, you love him as a kid. But when you are of age and begin to remember where you are supposed to be had it been that he assisted you when your peers were being assisted by their fathers, that childhood love you had for him would begin to dwindle, would begin to wane, would begin to vanish and, whether you have a father, it would not be waxing passionately in your heart, as it used to wax when you were a kid. The politics he played in raising you up would begin to glare in your own eyes, in your memory and, most times you are depressed, because you trusted your father, because that religion or that culture and tradition indoctrinated in you to love and reverence your father. It was per second sermon that you do just that, but it was not per week or month or year sermon to your father that he should not provoke his children to anger.
As you are growing and he is ageing, your love for him (out of anger) would begin to grow old, while his love for you would begin to grow very strong, because he is realizing the mistakes he had made. He wants love now; the same love he did not show to you as a kid. The house you lived in with him was like a military quarter. In those days, you get the beating you deserved and you did not deserve per second from him. When you remember your house while with your peers, you would not like to come back to your house, you would want to commit suicide, you would want to disown your father, and you would want to elope…You are always troubled, you are always angry and all that.Your mother is the submissive mother who cannot ‘challenge’ the husband, which is not rather bad. Your mother is only bent just on advise that he assists his children. But he is the man of the house, who does not want to be challenged, who does not want to hear the contrary voice of his children to his; what he says is final and no one challenges it, no one dares. Yes, he only remembers that he is your father when you have started to succeed in life, begin to make money and marry and went to higher school and begin to do those things that were his responsibilities he blatantly shied away from, you see him coming closer to you and making boasts among his peers of how he ‘trained’ his son to become who he has become.
Sorry, if you do not want to set your eyes on him at this period that providence is making you to succeed, you would see your mother coming to plead on his behalf for you to forgive him; your mother he severally molested and scolded when she was advising him that he should assist his children. And if you harden your heart, you would hear your mother preaching that ‘Jesus forgave all the people that offended Him’ as if your father was not the first to preach Jesus to you but preferred to draw the shoddy line he seemed was the best in raising you up, as if Jesus was from your village, your town. The memory of how your father treated you keeps living with you. If you do not begin to read books that could expunge the scars from your heart, mind and life you could be volatile and unloving all your life, you could hate. humanity all your life, because you did not experience love in your immediate home, you did not know that which were supposed to be the responsibilities of a father.
All that you grew up seeing was a man who was always scolding you and barking at you without any sense of friendship existing between you and him. You have never had any discussion with him as a father. He is not your enemy and not your friend. Most times you tried to relate with him, ended up in fierce reprisals and reprimands. Conversely, for those of you who are suffering or have suffered in the hands this type of father, Jonathan Safran Foer gives you hope in ‘*Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ *thus: He promised us that everything would be okay. I was a child, but I knew that everything would not be okay. That did not make my father a liar. It made him my father.
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Odimegwu Onwumere is a Poet/Writer and a social commentator. He writes from Rivers State.
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