Long Time No Write

I’m just going to pretend as if everything is normal. As if I posted yesterday. Anyway, for Bumight, Vera, Isha, my sweetheart and my other fans this is just to tell you that I’m fine. The credit crunch has not led me to commit suicide (or maybe I have and I just hired a ghost writer to continue writing my blog). That’s the problem with blogging anon you don’t know who is who. I understand that Afrobabe has vanished into thin air just like that. Na wah O! Or maybe she’s just opened another blog. We kuku don’t know who she really is. Thank God for the Internet.

A lot has happened since the last time I was here O! I’m sure you must have figured out the two bloggers I was referring to in my last post who wouldn’t be blogging for a long time if at all you’ll ever hear from them again. Seriously, I need to write a post one of these days acknowledging the good work consistent bloggers are doing on blogville. I won’t mention names now but there are some consistent bloggers and they deserve my commendation. Yes, Vera, you’re one of them.

Like I was saying a lot has happened since the last time I was here. Have you heard that Barack Obama won the last US Presidential elections? Lol. Yes O, our boy Barack won.

I wanted to put up a post just before the elections explaining to people why Obama and not John McCain deserved to win the election. No, it’s not because it’s the turn of a black person to rule. If that’s the case then the US should be ruled by Native American Indians.

Obama was preaching a message of hope and unity while John McCain was instigating division and relying on scare mongering to gather votes. For me that was the deal breaker for the Democrats.

There are other reasons why the Democrats won but I won’t go into that just yet. When would this post end if I started going on about Sarah Palin?

I understand that Baba, Aremu of Sango-Otta wrote a very beautiful piece on Obama’s victory. In his article, he accused his former friend, Dubya, of spending eight years in office engaging in a senseless war and driving the economy into ruins. Na wah O! How time flies. Was it not the same Aremu who almost set up an annexe of Aso Rock in Washington DC considering the amount of times he travelled to the USA to see Bush?

You should have seen the way Gordon Brown and that mumu fine boy, David Cameron, were using Obama’s victory to score cheap points off each other. The truth is that deep inside them, those Oyinbos are afraid that what has happened in the USA may repeat itself in the United Kingdom. They are all afraid of the day a black man would become Prime Minister of Britain.

Forget about Britain for now. I would like to ask the question I asked in an earlier post again and the question is, ‘where is Nigeria’s Obama?’

President Yar'adua and Queen Elizabeth II

This is another political blog from me. I went astray before but I’ve come back to my original calling now.

I may go astray again very soon.

I’m sure you guys will be wondering, wetin konsain Megida and Iya Charlie?

Well, it happens that Megida and Iya Charlie get one thing in common.

"What is it?"

"Oya, guess now."

“They are both Heads of States of English speaking countries?”

“Yes, but that is not exactly the only thing they have in common.”

“Erm… they are both leaders of Commonwealth nations.”

“Yes, they both are but that was not what I had in mind.”

“I give up.”

“Oh, so soon? ”

“Yes, Naijaleta. Please tell us what the Queen of England and the King of Aso Rock have in common.

“They both celebrate two birthdays in a single year!”

“Otio! I know the Queen was born on the 21st April, which is her real birthday, and her official birthday is also celebrated around the first or second Saturday in June of every year but that’s because she’s the Monarch. Every English Monarch has that priviledge.”

“Well, it appears that the privilege has been accorded to Nigerian Presidents too.”

Recently, state governors in Nigeria blew over NGN35million, that’s around £140,000:00 (One hundred and forty thousand Pounds) to congratulate The President, Alhaji Yar’adua on the occasion of his 57th birthday on 9th July 2008.

The states involved include, Niger, Bayelsa, Imo, Sokoto, Rivers, Plateau, Kwara and Ekiti states. Other states include, Enugu, Katsina, Benue and Edo states.

Even the Senate President, David Mark joined the states to congratulate the President on his birthday.

Some state governors even placed advertisements in their personal capacity as state governors after the ones they placed on behalf of their states.

These are governors of, Kaduna, Bauchi, Kebbi, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Adamawa, Borno, Oyo, Taraba, Akwa-Ibom and Abia states.


Out of the over one hundred full page advertisements placed for the President’s birthday only fifteen were placed by private individuals. The rest were placed at public expense.

I understand that this campaign went on for about a week before a Presidential spokesman came forward to say that the President was actually born on August 16 and not July 9.

Surely, all the state governors who have placed those adverts with public money for July 9th must know something the rest of us do not know. Maybe the Nigerian constitution has now given Nigerian Heads of States the privilege of having two birthdays in a single year.

Nigeria's Lying Generals

It is true that in Africa you do not talk ill of the dead but that does not give you a license to insult the living. How can Babangida (abi se na Babaginda, I no sabi bo), Buhari and Abdulsalami say that Abacha never stole any money from Nigeria’s treasuries? To start with, I love it when the words, ‘steal’ or ‘stole’ are used when describing what these rulers have done. I hate words like ‘embezzle’ and ‘misappropriation’. Barawo na barawo, ole, onyoshi.

Anyway, it’s been ten years so maybe I should refresh your memory. Methuselahs like me have the impression that everybody was around and have a vivid impression of what happened ten years ago.

I think it was June 8 (or was is it June 6?) ten years ago that Nigerians broke into spontaneous celebration. I arrived work late on that fateful and I was already thinking of what fabu to give my boss but when I got to work I met everyone crowded around the television set, watching CNN in the newsroom(I was working with a Newspaper company then). My boss, the editor, looked up as I entered the newsroom and said to me, ‘congratulations, Abacha is dead.’ For those of you who don’t remember who Abacha was that should sum it up for you.

Now on the event of the tenth year anniversary of his death, three of his closest friends are saying he didn’t steal any money. Ibrahim Babangida, actually described him as, ‘courageous, loyal and honest…’ Honest?!! Abacha, honest? Babangida is notorious for double speaking. In an Interview with Newswatch in July 2000, Babangida was quoted to have said Abacha’s death brought relative stability to the country. He also said during the same July 2000 interview that the revelation of Abacha’s loot surprised him. In that interview, Babangida also blamed Nigerians for allowing Abacha to turn himself into a dictator. That was only eight years ago.

On Buhari’s part, he said, ten years after, allegations against Abacha remain unproven. Excuse me Mr. General sir, if you haven’t been shuttling from one courtroom to another in furtherance of your selfish bid to become President for the last six years and had been paying attention to current news you would have known that the Swiss authorities have returned some of the money Abacha stole.

As for Abdusalami, how can he talk ill of Abacha? He was the most fortunate beneficiary of Abacha’s death. He even praised Abacha for Vision 2010. Why did he not continue with the vision when he succeeded him?

The connection between the four generals is obvious, Abacha was the person who announced Buhari’s coup on 31st December 1983, Babangida took over from Buhari and Abacha was a key player in Babangida’s government. Then Abacha took over from Babangida, when Abacha died Abdusalami succeeded him. End of story.

On the other hand, maybe Akinjide, who was disparaging Chief Obafemi Awolowo recently, should borrow a leaf from those three Generals.

Obama's Victory

I may have to start today’s post by making another apology. Two, actually. Firstly, I’d like to apologise for not making any post yesterday. Did I hear someone say, ‘no one noticed.’ Anyway, my second apology is for the fact that my post today is dedicated to Barack Obama’s victory at the end of the US Democratic Party nominations. To some of you, Obama’s victory is like, ‘wetin concern agbero with overload’. May your own no be laik Saddam Hussein. Amen. Wherever he is now he must have learnt in a hard way that you don’t play games with whoever sits at the Oval office.

The reason I couldn’t make any posts yesterday was because I got carried away watching news bulletins on his victory.

As black people there is a lot Nigerians have to learn from Obama’s victory. One of the most important lessons to be learnt from his victory is that black people can rise from our present difficulties and dominate the world someday. It’s interesting that Obama is being referred to as a black person. There is a rule in Western societies called ‘the one drop rule.’ What this means is that you are considered black as long as there is one drop of black blood in your veins. Regardless of the fact that Obama’s mother is white he is considered black because his father was black. If Obama had married a white woman their children would still be considered black because Obama, their father, is black even though they are more white than black. The black blood in them is considered a stain.

Talking about marrying a white woman, one of the very first things I admired about Obama was the fact that he married a ‘sistah’. A beautiful, elegant well educated black woman! Big up for the black woman. He is not like the arse brained, over-pampered, over-paid, over-rated black professional footballers in the Premier league here who think it’s some kind of status symbol to be seen hand-in-hand with a white chick. Now, if this white girl wasn’t some blonde bimbo picked up from some night club in a seedy part of town their actions would have been excusable but... A beg make we tok beta.

Obama’s nomination to lead the Democratic Party forty-five years after Martin Luther King’s ‘I have a Dream’ speech is nothing short of remarkable. When Obama was born forty-six years ago inter-racial marriage was an offence in some parts of the United States; blacks and whites were not allowed to sit together on buses in some other states. Until the late sixties some schools in the United States would not admit blacks as students. That was how bad racial segregation was back in those days. Today however, a black-man is on his way to becoming the President of the United States of America, the most powerful public office in the Western world.

It has happened in the United States, when is it going to happen in Britain? One day, when the average Jamaican on the streets of Brixton stops living on marijuana and fathering babies like a rabbit; when the typical Nigerian in Peckham stops having that ultimate ambition of hitting a large sum of money in a shady deal in order to buy the latest Hummer jeep. One day, when our teenagers stop thinking it’s cool to carry knives and guns around on the streets of London and Birmingham, we just might have a black man leading one of the main Political Parties in Britain.

Hand Over Notes

My fellow Nigerians, di one wey I hia yestade I laff so tey I dey piss for boxers. Talking about boxers, my friend from Nigeria called the other day and asked if I was still a member of the ‘tubeless-club’. Tubeless? Fo this kol’ kontri? Any attempt to do tubeless for dis kontri na kol’ go freeze una blokos.
Sorry for the digression, I just couldn’t but mention that. Anyway, I hia say mai-gida no fit pafom sake of say Aremu, Baba Iyabo no gi’am hand-over notes bifo im go Ota.

I thought about this matter carefully and asked my friends why Aremu, Baba Iyabo could have omitted to perform such an important task and my friends came up with very interesting excuses for the Ota Landlord.

First Friend: “Baba Iyabo actually prepared a very well written and detailed hand-over note which he kept very close to himself in order to personally place it in Mai-gida’s hands. One fateful day however, after a meal of hot amala, gbegiri soup and palm wine, Baba-Iyabo had to go and use the toilet. After doing his business Baba-Iyabo discovered that there was no toilet roll in the toilet so he decided to improvise with the hand-over note and since it took him eight years to write that one Mai-gida would have the hand-over notes in about seven years time”.

Second Friend: “Haba! How can there be a toilet in Aso-Rock with no toilet roll? This was what actually happened. The hand-over notes were actually prepared on a Word document and they were supposed to be e-mailed to Mai-gida but you see Baba got too impatient with the Cisco trained, Microsoft certified, Internet expert, software genius, UN recommended IT consultant who was brought in from the United States to teach him how to send e-mails so instead of hitting the SEND button Baba hit the DELETE button and that’s why Mai-gida never got the hand-over notes.”

Third Friend: “Hand-over notes Ko, leg-under notes nii? Who gave Abdusalami hand-over notes when he took over from Abacha? No be Indian prostitute hand-over apple to Abacha? Abi who gave Baba-Iyabo himself hand-over notes when Muritala was killed? So are you trying to say Mai-gida has not used any toilet in Aso-Rock because he doesn’t have the hand-over notes? Or are you saying the guy has not received any salary since he became President because those are the sort of things you should expect to find in a hand-over note. Look gentlemen, I have a lot of respect for the President and I’m hoping this shameless excuse for gross ineptitude is not coming from him but the sadistic, vitriolic and rancorous vituperations of a redundant civil servant who has….”

At that point I had to stop him, babu turenchi sose fa!

My dilemma is that I don’t know which one of them to agree with because the first two each appeared like they were giving an eye-witness account of the situation.

Abeg fellow Nigerians, which one of the three do you agree with?

Till Monday, have a nice weekend.