It's my birthday

Rejoice with me once again, it's my birthday .I shaln't be blogging tomorrow so I'd rather do it today.
When i wake up in the morning, I shall be a year older.

Merry xmas

I love to wish everyone, including the haters, a big fat merry xmas (on the double) and a wonderfully prosperous new year.

2007 is a year to look forward to. There'll definitely be many wonderful things to happen in the new year. So to those that have lost hope, I say do not despair. Change is coming. To those who didn't really hit it hard, there's greater grace to do more next year. To those who had something big happen for them this year (una sabi una self), I say this year will pause and not end until you wash it for us.
For those who thought we won't amount to nothing, I say they shall open their eyes and see the wonders of the Lord. Kekere na him u don see, thou shalt be flabbergasted when the blessings of the Lord comes upon us like the rushing of the winds.
To those who saw some red eyes and didn't get the best of friendship, I say 'Shit happens'.
For those that used our services and didn't reciprocate financially, ALAWIN NIYIN (bloody creditors)!
And to everyone, gear up for the coming year 'cos ya ain't seen nothing yet!

A special prayer for Bukky's mum that she shall rise on her feet and be made whole in the coming year. Godstrength!

You are all invited to my birthday which I shall be celebrating on Dec. 30th. Of course rice & stew shall be very plenty.

MIxed feelings

Hey all! How's it going? Prepared for xmas? It should a fun one.
I'm getting mixed feelings this year as xmas is approaching. While some issues are interesting some people are just killjoys.
As accepted globally, good news first so you be able to suck the bad news in after that.
I never knew I was such a Chelsea fan until Man. Utd dropped to 2 points above Chelsea. What a sigh of relief I gave. Boy was I glad! It was like getting something bothering your mind fixed. Now we can pump up the volume and ensure Alex Ferguson retires on this one. Way to go Jose!

Now for the not-so-nice one. You know some people are just a pain in the butt for no just reason. Haven't you seen some people be a worry to your life sha? That's why no matter how some people thrive at success, they'll never hit it (no swearing, it's the truth) cos they've always been problems to others. Some of those guys I wanted to get a gun for that many were pleading on their behalf have started again o! I wonder how one person can leave the unrestricted enjoyment and affluence attached to his post high up and start disturbing up-coming big boys (like a frend will call it). The guy just want spoil xmas for me o.
Imagine when Lagos turned to Paris with shows everywhere and at every weekend, they dont want me to enjoy my life. A life that I tried very hard building well this year. The devil is a liar! Wait till I speak with Baba loke to scatter their plans by fire.

How are you gonna spend your xmas? I've already told myself that this xmas is going to be a quiet one for me. No visiting anybody this year. I'll just stay at home & enjoy the holidays. I think it's time to design one's life to please oneself henceforth 'cos there's only one life to live. I'm gonna start treating myself like a royalty henceforth. I aint gonna kill myself on any work. It's either I take my time doing the work or I just leave it. I've learnt that life isn't worth the gragra. So this holiday, either I'm scheduled to be in the office or not I'm going AWOL and there's nothing anybody can do about that. A colleague was buried recently and the best they could do was to give him a minute silence. Upon all his hard work o!
For those not coming home, they are gonna miss a LOT! It's gonna be wow xmas in Lagos with all these preps i'm seeing.

The year is coming to an end & I'm seriously thinking about drawing up plans & resolutions (been a long time I did that). I think it's time I move on up. You know what I'm saying?! It's about time I became responsible. Now isn't that hard?

***** I think we need to form an alliance & sue blogger.com with all these abnormalties o. One cannot even sign in at once sometimes, even to post pictures self na wahala! Sorry Nila & Keshi, maybe I'll send you the picture*****

Some things need a woman's touch

Duhhh......Can that be true? Click on the pic.

Reminiscence

Sitting at home for a huge part of the day has made me realise how much christmas is in the air. The T.V was just blaring with songs of xmas, station after station. I didn't realise that xmas has come so close until that moment.
There and then I started have nostalgic feelings about my 'kid old days'. A great flush of smile painted the horizon of my face. All the songs sang brought back rich memories of very naughty and funny past.
A few of us formed a cartel then that was very good at twisting just about any song and placing the remix in a very wonderful form that they would be hard to differentiate from their originals. We also learned many from God-knows-where.
I remember singing many of those songs so much that I forgot once that I was at home in the presence of my mum when the urge to sing fell on me. I burst into:

Jingle bell jingle bell jingle all the way
Babangida open yash
Everybody shout 'O n run'
Jingle bell jingle bell jingle all the way
Babangida open yash
Everybody shout

Mum immediately shouted the song back to where it was coming from.
Is that the song they are teaching you in Grace that we pay so much for? I'm going to complain to your teachers that they aren't teaching you the right songs.

I was just looking at her and thinking within myself that that was the only song she heard and she had started complaining. What if I then sang a couple of our cartel-remix for her wetin go happen?

I digress....

I remembered many also and the vivid pictures of my young friends came alive in my head:

Iya Dele ti se'be /2ce
Ebi n pa wa
Awa fe je'yan
Iya Dele ti se'be.

It's an adaptation for 'We are H-A-P-P-Y..........'

And this one:

Wherever you go
(Go-go-gon-go!)
Wherever you be
(Sisi eko!)
Do not say yes
When you mean to say no
(Baba Ibadan!)

Whatever we did, we never sang to the hearing of Mrs. Osinowo 'cos she would practically slap the taste out of our mouths. If it was Mr Natnah (we used to call him Ninety-nine), Mr. Zubair (Suberu) or Mr. Ablodepee - I no sabi the spelling jare!( A-bloody-fool was closest to our reasoning). If it was Mr Aful that caught us, then we autopsy would have officially confirmed us dead. All those Ghanian teaches were both funny and weird somehow. I remember the music teacher - Mr. Devor (we used to call him devil 'cos he REALLY looked like the devil himself). I loved music so much, but I couldn't let the devil hold my hands to teach me to play the piano.

I wonder where the likes of Nike Oyediran, Kunle Odekoya, Dennis Adetoye, Tope Shokunbi, Tope Osinubi, Maria Alege, Steve Nmecha, Ikeri Enyinna, Chimezie Onuegbu, Ndubisi Chidebelu, Nike Laoye, Demola Ajayi et al will be at the moment. Possibly married with rugrats and all other entanglements of life.
Or they could be reminiscing just as I am right now.............

How often do you think about your childhood days? Do you get smiles written across your face? What funny/twisted songs do you remember?

No condition is permanent

No way for IBB, says the guys in PDP.
One's own pill must be very bitter. The same big hammer which he was holding only years ago is being used this time on him. Tables have turned.
Now I truly know that no condition is permanent.

IBB collected his retirement benefits while in office and used it.

But who will pet Ibrahim to stop licking his wounds? I guess Mariam should do that well for us.

Presidential meal

Now I know why politicians steal money; their meal ticket at Chicken Republic is higher than that of voters.
Imagine Presidental meal is N2050 when voters meal is N1050.

Lol.

House of humour II

So continuing on the funny side of these leaders. Let me pounce on Jigawa State governor, Saminu Turaki: They say that one stays permanently overseas. The only time he visits his state is when revenue allocation is to be shared so that ha can come and claim his state's share, and when he's on holidays. That means he works abroad permanently. I got to know him during his first term, he was always talking about ICT passionately as if his state was a Silicon Valley. The state is so arid and dry that you begin to wonder where the man got the goggles which he's using for his vision from. His goggles seem to be one stronger than Abe Lincoln's o! He's not even talking about mechanized farming to increase crop yield and boost production or even solar energy generation in a state where the sun is like 100 ft above. Who will leave developed states to start business in a state where there isn't the basic amenities to encourage dwelling and even trade? White men don wash him brain comot. You all know Alams' case, so there's no use repeating old story. Ogun state governor stole so much money during the Gateway games that the President has advised him not to run for second term in his best interest. Gbenga Daniels is known for embracing the press to open the state of things in his state. When the can of worms was opened, we couldn't believe how the governor managed to deceive everybody (including himself) that everything was runnign smoothly. His problem started when he slapped (yes you read well, slapped!!) one of his commisioners who's been helping him day-in day out. People never learn from history, wasn't it the same problem that Tafa balogun had? Temporary governor of Oyo state nko? That one na yellow fever (remember Fela's song?). He bleached every part of his body (including his eyes) and looks like a premature albino. Nothing short of an Area Father, he cannot distinctly express himself in English, especially when engaged in a hot discussion. The man would just switch to SOLID ogbomoso dialect and keep ranting. And this is the man in charge of the coffers of the state?! When I heard what Nuhu Ribadu said about the governor of Zamfara state, I laughed till I pissed. He said sebi people are stealing cows and bicycles in his state and they are cutting their hands, if he opens the different scams and wanton looting of the state treasury that Ahmed Yerima has engaged in, he would be chopped into tiny pieces like suya. Remember it's Yerima's son that dashed out cars to musicians for singing his praise when development is beckoning. And Yerima wants to become president oh. In fact, these people are too nauseating. God help Nigeria!

House of humour

My people, these leaders can make you laugh until you start having heart pain. What else will you get when the structure of partisan politics only allows hooligans (who are worse than British football fans) attain elective positions?
I hear that the poultry scam (which blew open Fayose's butts) is a very funy one. Sit back make I jist you:
Fayose invited President Obasanjo to come inaugurate the N1.3 BILLION (not million o!) poultry farm. When Baba got there, he asked how come the poultry was so neat that the place wasn't smelling at all (abi chicken no dey shit again?). Replying dumbly, Fayose told Mr. President that it was the sophisticated fumigation and different chemicals applied by the white experts that made the place so neat. It was confirmed that Fayose went TO RENT CHICKENS in order to open the poultry. Haba, after collecting N1.3 Billion, you can't spend at most N1 million buying the chickens!
And he was so dumb that it was a practising professional farmer that he called to inaugurate the farm.

I shall continue with more humourous jists in Part II.

A plus for anti-corruption

I've been hearing of corrupt leaders from external bodies, but the case of Abubakar Audu is one very familiar to me. Reliable sources confirm how backward his thinking was when he was ruling Kogi state in Nigeria before PDP took over his second term (thank God for that).
My colleagues told me that then in Lokoja, you needn't do any work at all. Just wake up in the morning and go visit the state governor in his quarters. You might have to wait for 3hrs before he attends to you but it's worth it. Once he comes out, people start singing his praise and counting the good things he's done. That's all that is needed for him to start 'blessing your life'.
They say he personally hands cash gifts to everyone that comes to 'visit' him and praise him (sometimes as much as N50,000 each) EVERYDAY!
I'm so glad to hear that EFCC has nabbed him. He was arrainged in court in his own state yesterday. This should teach his fellow gluttons some lesson.

Ere gele - Dangerous games

It often baffles me how far people will go endangering their lives in the name of making ends meet.
This man should have learned from Steve Irwin. The most people can do when you die is to organise a befitting burial, dedicate a week (at most) to you and pack your grave full of roses. Shikena! After that, life goes on as if nothing happened.
He can go and become snake king in heaven.

Bite kills Malaysia 'Snake King'

A snake charmer who made a name for himself as Malaysia's Snake King has died after being bitten by a king cobra.
Ali Khan Samsudin, 48, had entered the record books for locking himself in small spaces with hundreds of snakes or scorpions for days at a time.
The old adage "once bitten twice shy" simply did not apply to Mr Ali Khan.
According to local press reports, he had his first altercation with a king cobra 27 years ago.
So when, on Tuesday, one of his subjects inflicted what was just the latest of many bites, he had not been unduly worried.
However, two days later, his condition worsened suddenly and his family rushed him to hospital. He died before he could receive treatment.
Ali Khan Samsudin found fame in the early 1990s when he lived for 12 hours a day for 40 days in a small room with 400 cobras.
That earned him the title of Snake King.
In 1997, he acquired another record - Scorpion King - after shutting himself in a box with 6,000 of the creatures for three weeks.
He was reportedly bitten 99 times in his life.
He leaves two wives, five children and a protege known as the Scorpion Queen, who he trained for her own record-breaking stunt two years ago.

All in the name of entertainment? How far can you go to make ends meet?

Aremu goes to school

Information reaching us has confirmed that President Matthew Okikiolu Olusegun Aremu Obasanjo (GCFR) has re-enrolled to go back to school.
The idea sounds nice, but one disturbing fact there is that he's going to study Diploma in Christian Theology in the School of Arts and Social Sciences. Then one wonders, what exactly does he need that course for? If it was a degree in Economics, then we'll say he needed to learn from the few mistakes he made while in government.
The closest explanation to Mr. Aremu's choice is that he is finally planning to rest from partisan politics. He is going to be an elder statesman who will be armed with diploma in settling disputes amongst ethnics, parties and ideologies.
But can Baba Otta rest after May 29 2007? After allaying every stakeholder who was not in the same class of thinking with him.....
Who is deceiving who?
Obo n gb'obo g'ope (Monkey is helping another monkey climb a tree).

The power of hope

The Grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for - Allan K. Chalmers.

If you want to build a ship, don't herd people together to collect wood and don't assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea - Antoine de Saint-Exupery.

One characteristic of black people worldwide, especially Nigerians, is that there's always hope somewhere at the back of their minds, even where there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.
There's always abundance hope in Nigeria. 'E go better ' is the slogan. And whoever doesn't believe in that is perceived to be demon-possessed and heading towards destruction.
Amidst the 39 sitting 99 standing in the molue, hope is not missen in anyone that things will get better (if not with the nation in general, at least with them).
Amidst those who go through hook & crook means, impersonation (ori-olori), and the determination to get to any land where one can see white men living, the bottomline is that hope resides within them that things will get better and they'll come home one day to become Chiefs, Cash Madams, Owambe peeps et al.
From Chinedu whose father sold all his stock investments for him to travel out, who later couldn't get any better/easier thing to do than to be an Odu boy; Tamuno who's selling groceries in Yokohama; to Loretta from Benin who's in Spain trying to make a living; to Hamza who's packing snow this winter for money, hope is the oil that runs their locomotives.

And hope seems not to have diminished with those that are even at home & aren't successful in finding ways to checking out. A workmate recently narrated a scenario in which he saw a man (probably in his late 50s) went to a young lady who is a lottery agent and sat with her, keenly looking at what she was doing and handing what seems to be no small money over to her. He was PLAYING LOTTERY! His mien expressed statements like 'Better play this well, 'cos I gotta win this one or else all hell will let loose'.
The lottery is fast gaining grounds after the seeming demise of the 'POOL' famous with elderly men because they hardly win.
The pool has now been so modernised that it's called lottery and the draws are even aired on national TV and local stations, some even use mobile phones for playing them.
There are three lottery services with various inspiring tags:
1. National Lottery - Levels go change o
2. Lagos State Lottery - E fit be you o
3. Baba Ijebu - Dapada!

Of all the three lotteries mentioned above, none is as popular, widely accepted and lucrative in Lagos as much as Baba Ijebu. Levels go change o and E fit be you o were tags chosen by their operators. But Dapada! (return it) wasn't picked by the operators of Baba Ijebu (headed by one Chief Kessington), it was christened by locals because of the generous way it blesses those that play it. I can confidently inform you that the volume of transaction of Baba Ijebu is more than 100 million a day (it aint a dream, it's reality).
While others are using sophisticated equipments to run and even have websites, Baba Ijebu is simply local and doesn't require much to run his business. And people are winning LIKE HELL!!
My aunt told me she once saw her friend at a Baba Ijebu kiosk playing lottery who urged her to come and play. Her friend played with N2000! Talk about hope.
If you win, Baba Ijebu doesn't give cheques or redeemable instruments but raw cash, even if it's 4 million. Even the IFAs & WC in Etomi blog are gradually taking to it.

All these are happening when people are finding it hard to get three square meals. Many would rather have two and use money for the third to play Baba Ijebu if he would Dapada!
In a civilized and normal world, lottery is meant to be played with small money. But due to poverty which begets the strong belief in hope and a better tomorrow, many (like that man) prefer to invest heavily in lottery 'cos the money sef no reach do all the things you want do. He that is down needs fear no fall.
HELP!!! Some people are using their dry breads to scoop our soup.

****I've got a business proposal for we bloggers; why not let's put money together to organise another Baba Ijebu kinda lottery in Lagos? The return on investment (ROI) is more than 100% in 6 months. The stats? There are more than 15 million people in Lagos. Furthermore, as long as the Nigerian blood runs in the veins of people residing in Lagos, we'll always make money from them. It's what I call the power of hope.*******

I passed | Get me a gun

I've not been blogging consistently because I was preparing for an exam and reading like no man's business.
Well, there's no need to do that again 'cos I went for the exam today and I PASSED!!!!!! Ope factorial! Now I'm a Microsoft Certified Partner.
This time it won't be funny if I send another certificate again to my employers and they still don't do anything meaningful.
That's when I'm gonna switch to plan B.
Plan B: I've been saving some money to GET ME A GUN and do the needful for those Management guys (bloody baggers!). The issue is that I have to plan it well 'cos I can't take them all out using double barrel or AK47 'cos the rounds won't be enough. So I'm saving more so I can get me a sub-machine gun that'll take them all out at once.








Make una thank God for me o.
So where are the oil companies I've been running after?

Loser!

One of them losers - Atarodo.

All those who stole the nation's money shall not come back again.

Different strokes

In Africa, it's the fight against corruption, poverty, greed and dieseases. In some other places.............

India's Supreme Court is to review the fate of 300 monkeys captured roaming on the streets of the capital, Delhi.
The court had ordered that the monkeys be relocated to forests in central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
But the animals are proving unpopular there and locals there have lodged an official objection to the plan.
Thousands of monkeys roam Delhi, mostly around government offices, and are considered a public nuisance.
For years the wild animals have caused havoc, riding on the city's metro trains, roaming through parliament.
They have invaded the prime minister's office and the Defence Ministry, helping themselves to top secret military files.
They cannot be killed because many Indians see them as sacred.
Instead they have been captured, their fate decided by a bench of Supreme Court judges headed by India's Chief Justice.
Some 250 monkeys have already been relocated by a court order to forests in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
But many people there are now objecting, saying the animals are bringing with them their hooligan habits learnt in the city and are terrorising rural villages.
So the Supreme Court has been asked to find another solution. The monkey menace is proving a tricky issue, exercising some of India's most eminent legal minds.

Damn monkeys disturbing people's lives! Don't these people know that monkey soup is a real delicacy? Ask them 404 people.

From frying pan to fire

It's bad enough that there was a plane crash in Nigeria on sunday, which is definitely a symptom of the dysfunctional avation sector proudly managed by Prof. Babalola Borishade. It's more pathetic that the man has, because of his desire for money, power, fame or God knows what, refused to give up his post thereby causing the loss of the lives of many people.
And it's rather gruesome to exchange his duty with CHIEF FEMI FANI-KAYODE! 8-X. Was the man brought in for damage-control, damage increment or what? He on his own is a one-man squad that can cause catalytic damage. At this time when many of those who lost their loved ones' bloods are boiling, the last thing people need is words from the man's mouth when he's doing what he's known to do best.
In a bid to find someone to barb one's hair when there's no barber, there's no need to drop the gardener who can still do something useful for the farmer who only knows how to use his cutlass to fell trees and shrubs.

It's a true saying that blood is thicker than water. The ties between Borishade and Mr. President is similar to that of David Blunkett and Prime Minister Blair.

Crazy world

What actions do you consider the craziest in the world? How often do you see or hear about crazy actions? Here it's a lot easier to catch glimpse of minutes of madness spread everywhere. Hardly does a day go by without you stopping on your tracks to laugh your heart out. Sometimes the memory lingers on so much that you occasionally burst into laughter at a neutral place long after the event occured.
This is not the first time I'm seeing evidently frustrated bus conductors venting their anger in a most absurd manner that you don't have any other option but to laugh & knock your head with your neighbour's.
Popularly known for their arrogance, tenacity and sheer disrespect, bus conductors are Lords of the Manor in the transportation realm. Small time if they see crowd wating for bus, they automatically change their billing system. Dragging money with agbero nko? That one na story for another day.
Once on my way home from Ikeja, I saw this Danfo bus caught by LASTMA (the over-efficient state traffic control unit). There was a hot argument between the driver+conductor vs LASTMA officials+police ('cos they always have police men with them to help put fear in motorists). The driver had been caught earlier in the day and had been dragged to LASTMA office to pay N5K for traffic offence. He was then allegedly caught at that point to have have breached traffic rule again. In his determination to show them that he wasn't gonna be dragged away again, the guy started removing his clothes. He DIDN'T STOP removing his clothes. When he got to his panties, HE DID THE SAME. He was stark naked (LOL) by the highway. HE didn't even stop arguing. Visibly embarassed, the LASTMA officials had to return his key and let him go.
Yesterday's case is even funnier. This guy had been stopped just before Tai Solarin's statue at Yaba, Psychiatric Hospital at the other side. The heated argument had definitely been a prolonged one. This time around, there were more police men than LASTMA guys (about 6 to 1), and whenever you see this kind'a combination you should know that's BIG trouble. The policemen (evidently happy to find someone who will provide all the money they need for the weekend groove) adamantly refused to listen to the poor conductor. Na so the guy begin commot cloth like person wey just turn mad now now. This one too didn't stop until he was STARK NAKED! He ranted and squealed and wriggled his body like Femi Kuti playing on stage. Ol'boy this scene wasn't easy oh. The policemen didn't even do as if they were aware that he's naked. Then he started bouncing and 'floating like a butterly, stinging like a bee', Mohammed Ali caricature. Na so Brocos just dey jump up and down like when Lagbaja dey ring bell Gbagaun! Gbagaun!! Gbagaun!!!

P.S The camera wasn't working at that point, I for show you the picture

Love wantintin

They say love is blind........

ABIDJAN, Ivory Coast (Reuters) -- Two prisoners in an Ivory Coast jail who courted and fell in love through a peephole in an iron door have been released for a few hours to get married, one of their jailers said Friday.
Roland Guy Bouabre, serving a 3-year sentence for stealing a bicycle, courted Emilie Yobouet, who was given a one-year sentence for kidnapping a child, while he was delivering groceries for her to cook.
He would take the groceries to the iron door and then a guard would deliver them.
"You can find love in all kinds of places -- even prison," Daloa prison guard Norbert Bah told Reuters by telephone.
Yobouet completed her sentence two days after the wedding but brings food to the jail each day to supplement her husband's meager prison diet.

enTAGlement

Na Diamond dash me work oh. All the same, it's all good.

FOUR JOBS YOU'VE HAD IN YOUR LIFE

1. Systems Engineer

2. Electrical Draughtsman

3. I.T. Representative

4. One kind work for NEPA/PHCN

FOUR FICTIONAL JOBS YOU WISH YOU HAD

1. Programmer in Microsoft Corporation

2. Robotics Engineer in a reputable robotics firm

3. Design Engineer in Sony Corporation

4. A code cracker/hacker/developer at Langley

FOUR MOVIES YOU COULD WATCH OVER AND OVER AGAIN

1. Shawshank redemption

2. Catch me if you can

3. The Last Samurai

4. Conspiracy theory

5. The man in the Iron mask

6. The Bone Collector

7. John Q

8. Oh, I thought you said 40.

FOUR CITIES YOU'VE LIVED IN

1. Lagos

2. Ibadan (hols)

3. City of Ikenne

4. City of Offa

FOUR TV SHOWS YOU LOVE TO WATCH

1. The X-files

2. The New Masquerade

3. Fawlty towers

4. Some mothers do have them

FOUR PLACES YOU'VE BEEN ON VACATION/TRAVELED TO

1. Ibadan

2. Ogbomoso

3. Ilorin

4. Stockholm (In my dreams)

FOUR WEBSITES YOU VISIT DAILY

1. ***.blogspot.com (blogs et al)

2. BBC

3. Guardian Newspaper

4. Slashdot

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE FOODS

1. Yam & Fried Eggs. In fact, anything with Fried Eggs

2. King-sized freshly-baked doughnut with sweet jelly inside (on the double)

3. Eba with freshly cooked Okro soup+meat+fish

4. And of course Ijebu Garri (to kan dada)+milk+Milo+groundnut+lil sugar

FOUR THINGS YOU WON'T EAT

1. Cherries - Agbalumo (not even when I'm dead)

2. Plantain chips

3. Boiled meat

4. Guinea fowl egg (looks very scary to me, considering the small size)

FOUR THINGS YOU WISH YOU COULD EAT OR DRINK RIGHT NOW

1. Original yellow Ogi - Pap ( Mayflower style) with Beans that contains shrimps & squashed croaker fish

2. Hot Amala + Okro soup and FRIED meat/fish

3. Serious Chicken burger ( not one prepared in Mr. Biggs oh!)

4. Garri Ijebu+milk+groundnut+Milo with fried peppered fish.

FOUR THINGS IN YOUR BEDROOM

1. Bed

2. PC

3. Cloth hanger

4. Book cupboard

FOUR THINGS YOU WISH YOU HAD IN YOUR BEDROOM

1. More space

2. High end research lab (yes, right in my bedroom)

3. A God-damn pillow that doesn't make my neck hurt in the morning

4. The Woman

FOUR THINGS YOU ARE WEARING RIGHT NOW

1. Singlet

2. Black trousers

3. I can't tell you the rest, that's a security issue

4.

FOUR PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW

1. On my bed at home

2. On vacation on that beach they used in The Beach (Leo DiCaprio)

3. Lagoon front, Unilag alone with ____

4. Geneva

FOUR FICTIONAL PLACES I'D RATHER BE RIGHT NOW

1. Eldorado

2. Lagos with some peace and quiet and without power outages

3. Wishing chair

4. Magic carpet

FOUR PEOPLE YOU'D REALLY LOVE TO HAVE DINNER WITH

1. Bill Gates - I wanna know how he beat the whole world to it.

2. Bill Clinton - He should give me lessons on how to talk people to submission & friendliness

3. Jesus - I'll ask him how he was able to pull through in this world. Weren't babes as many and foine as the ones we have now present during his time. Man pikin need special anointing oh. Won ti po ju.

4. Sit tight African leaders+old ones who wanna come back - I sure will ask why they want to further impoverish the people and want to die on the throne.

THINGS YOU ARE THINKING RIGHT NOW

1. I hope I'm not giving too much information for me to be whacked

2. Why didn't I know it's this stressful to simply do this

3. Somebody has to pay me for this amount of time & energy I'm expending

4. When will my time come? I'm doing so much in order to be successful

FOUR OF YOUR FAVORITE THINGS

1. Shoes

2. My Phone

3. Simply designed T-shirt+ Jeans

4. Music

FOUR PEOPLE YOU TAG

Dem go don tag everybody now! Well sha, make I try.

1. Keshi

2. Trae

3. Christabelle

4. Laide

Take am!

You never start your hand don dey shake. Simply hilarious.

A year and counting

Today, I discovered that I've spent just a couple of days more than a year on blogspot. I must admit that I've met many wonderful people on the web and I've been able to broaden my horizon and learn other people's ideologies & ways of thinking.
I cannot but thank everyone who spend time going through my rants. I really appreciate you all. Those that make it a duty to leave comments, I'm deeply grateful. I cannot thank you all enough for your support, correction & encouragement.
My desire for the blogosphere is have blogs that'll impact people's lives for the positive. Those that will encourage the way people live their lives and encourage togetherness, versatility, success, and above all humour.

The next year promises to be one more humourous and tantalizing. Try sit tight like African leaders & enjoy the ride.

Sayonara

It's necessary to note the good works of people who have refused to remain passive in leadership and in one way or another decided to be instruments for change and better ways of doing things.
On this note I wanna say ou revoir to Baba Fryo himself & Junichiro Presley.











Your great works speak volume & will always live after you.
It's very hard to imagine Baba Iyabo as the Secretary-General of the UN, since he was tussling with Kofi Annan then. How would things be worlwide now? Would everything have become privatised? Abi the war in Iraq wouldn't have started if he was there?

I can only imagine.......

Tables turn

The young man standing laughing
But he knows where the shoe dey pain am so
He no fit do anything today
But one day the tables will turn

The little children on the streets
Are working hard so they can eat
Them no fit do anything but cry
One day the tables will turn

My sister with the sexy eyes
Selling her body so she can eat
She no fit do anything but worry
But one day the tables will turn

....................

The average man doesn't ask for too much
he only wants what you & I want
A safe place to lay his head at night
Is that too much to ask?
.....................

Beautiful Nubia's Tables turn in his new album Fere speaks directly to my spirit. His music raises the hairs on the back of my neck, I still cannot fathom why. I keep feeling like a Gani or something each time I hear him sing.
Frankly, he should be applauded for the soulful music he churns out.

Listen to it.

Only in my homeland

Listening to the radio this evening, I heard an embattled state governor accused of embezzling funds meant for state development quoting from the bible. Ekiti state governor, Ayo Fayose is accused of diverting huge public funds to build houses for himself, his mother and for other personal issues. His aides were once accosted in his presence on their way out of the nation and huge sums of money were found in their bags. His words were as those of one seasoned in the study of the holy book.
He said: "I want them to know that the God I serve would definitely put them to shame because their gathering is not of God and it would be scattered."
Quoting from the bible (only God knows if he knows where it is), he said "Those that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength. The shall mount up with wings as eagles".
He said he had taken very good care of the legislators more than any other governor in the country, wondering why they decided to collude with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to get him out of office at all costs.
I remember Alams also saying that God had aided his escape from the UK.
And if these people actually study the holy book as it seems, how come they don't follow the instructions? How come they can easily memorise the verses but fail to live by what they read?
This God must be a very patient God.
It's only in my homeland that you hear of such things happening.

Bomboclart

See me see life oh! I was enjoying myself (working in the office...rather pathetic) this morning, an environmental sanitation morning, busy exchanging text messages with Sunshine (thanks to Globacom who gave us free 35 free text) and this text came in. I picked the phone, hoping to read her next thread and I discovered it's not from her.
Here it goes:
Congratulation! You have won #100,000. Your no. is among the winners of the La Casera drink bonanza. ticket no. 00190. Call 08077240804 to claim your prize.
I was reeling with both laughter & anger at the same time.
Trust me now, it didn't take me time to organise something as solid as a baseball bat to hurl at the jobless farts;
Which Nigerian do you think will fall for such idiotic brilliance? This nation has become too sensitive for you to use such cheap tricks. I suggest you try Ghana. Ode!
I even tried flashing the number so the person can call me back so I can give him the insult of his life/sermon on the mount. He opted wisely, he never called, or hasn't.
There are many hungry people here oh. When we no dey Warri/Prague.
Abi person wey no play lotto fit win am? Bombloclart!

Yeah I got my PC & connection now, so welcome to paradise annex.

You be thief, I no be thief

Chai!! You can't believe the cans of worms that were opened by Mallam Nuhu Ribadu. Massive corruption and embezzlement in a grand scale.
To be sincere, I've always wanted a situation where coruption would be tackled. But I never had any idea that corruption in Nigeria is as immense and mega as it is being unraveled.
Imagine close to N50 BILLION repatriated from the money stolen by Alams!! Agbabiaka oh! In just under about 5yrs of Democratic rule. What if he was ruling in the military junta? And he was the Head of State & not the governor? His looting would have been greater than Abacha's, no doubt.
Then imagine 31 Abacha-like state governors!! More than enough ticks to suck a dog dry of blood. These are not petty thieves oh. They are like zombies appearing at various/different places in the nation. This statistic seems to be staggering, but it seems like there are about 10 thieves to every 8 leaders in the nation.
I wish the penalty could be death by hanging or Jerry Rawlings style we can adopt to deal with these blood-sucking maggots. Then there wouldn't be any leader in Nigeria again, just like there aren't aged people in Ghana.
Now it's time for the argument like Fela sang ;

'You be thief, I no be thief
You be armu robber, I no be armu robber'.

How I wish only two people were alive right now, Tai Solarin & Fela. Even CNN would relocate their head office to Nigeria 'cos there'll be up-to-the-minute news flowing.
After a long while, we all can now sit back & relax to enjoy the nicely spiced cans of worms.

Roforofo fight

Yeah I'm back from the dead.
I've been enjoying every bit of the roforofo fight between our President & his deputy. I never knew mudslinging is this wow. It's simply hilarious. We the people of this great nation have been given the priviledge to learn about all the things that were done in secret.
A new dub has been formed; if you OBJ me I Atiku you!
Some say they are bringing disgrace to the positions they are holding and to the nation. I say do you because of some position let someone who did such dirty things be left alone just like that? You are appointed to such lofty position, you should be ready to account for anything you do while in that position.

Make we left matter, I was surprised to find out in the papers one day that that famous & hugely respected journalist is a member of KGB. I wondered what gave Reuben (you're free to guess, I no tok am) the impetus to boldly express disagreements with top officials of the Nigerian government on the pages of newspapers without thinking about the consequences. Now I realise that that adage that says 'There's someone behind the oracle that gives the Oracle it's sound. I didn't jist you sha oh!

Now to Anita Hogan - the actress that posed nude for whoever the man is (either husband or rich white guy). Some say she should be left alone, some say she's a disgrace to womanhood. I simply say the dirts of every man doesn't trail them anymore, it just boards a bus & overtake them on the way. What do you think of the matter?

And there's a boost to the fight against malaria - DDT has been approved for use by WHO. Now I know that Bill Gates has been anointed to succeed in whatever he does. Focusing on something different from Microsoft must definitely bring results.
Now these useless insects should become extinct by 2015 if our government quickly puts measures in place to implement the use.

Workstralia

Oh no! You guys can't believe it.
I've been posted to a newly created unit where there's no access to the internet. There isn't even a computer yet!!
It feels like hell. I seriously need a pillow.
I think my sins have finally caught up with me.

Not to worry, things will get better.

Talking out of your arse

I sure have seen many people attain political positions without serious academic feats to tally with those highly important posts. The presidency is open to anyone who has a minimum academic credential of primary school certificate. That is why Obasanjo in his early days could open his mouth and say that his fuel doesn't sell for a certain low price, as long as people can buy a bottle of beer for a hundred naira and above, he didn't see any reason why people shouldn't buy a litre of petrol at that price. But Nigerians have seen a more refined Obasanjo. He doesn't dose at venues when he goes on tours anymore.
He wouldn't drink his tea in one gulp anymore when he goes to visit the Queen. He doesn't slap anyone sitting next to him in the arm on occasions when something funny comes up after being corrected by Ali Baba. He doesn't prolong his 3 minutes statement by clearing his throat for 2 mins again. He doesn't poke at his nose with his bare hands when at a UN meeting again. And evidently, his profuse belly has reduced to a size more carriable. Surely Baba has been repackaged.

+ repackaging =

Alaiyemeseigha can blurt out that he sees no reason why his son should be arrested for carrying 50,000 pounds considering his son's status.
Their words can simply be forgiven simply because of one fact - they are politicians/soldiers. They weren't taught to think very deep.
One thing I do not know is if you can become a seasoned journalist without spending many years learning, especially if you report for CNN.

I must admit that Lou Dobbs must have been talking out of his arse for calling America's help to developing nations as 'borrowing to send to lesser souls who are uncomfortably situated in poorer nations that can only aspire to their superpower status'.

No be ya fault, na condition make crayfish bend.

Imagine what weed can do

From

to



Seriously, say NO to drugs.

Plenty nonsense

There are many things going on here. The disappointment there is that 98.5% of them aren't good news.
One was the jist that Funsho Williams, the man who has since wanted to become the governor of Lagos state, was murdered. Then it was confirmed officially that he was slain in his house. The shocker was when I heard his full name : ANTHONY! Olufunsho Williams. I was unhappy with that.
Not that I didn't care at all about someone being killed, I was already expecting that politicians, who by nature don't have the mental capacity to think very far, would start killing themselves like Sicilian mafia. I only knew Funsho Williams to be a very gentle man from far away. I didn't really know what his inner man seemed to be, not nowadays that the most quiet ones (like our VP) are the most gluttonous. But I must admit, he was a gentleman from what most most people saw.
So then I decided to honour him by keeping quiet until he's buried. And he'll be today.
But what baffles me is how those policemen who called their British counterpart to help them by scooping fingerprints at the murder scene will fish out the perpetrators. You gotta have a databank of fingerprints of all Nigerians, if that's too much - Lagosians then, for you to be able to match those scooped. Abi white man don become winch wey dey get people without matching with database? Well, don't let us dishonour funsho's demise.
Adieu Funsho.
Over & out.

Then comes the story of the Bin Laden turned pastor who roasted his church members by fire after charging them with adultery. When God of Elijah refused to send down fire, he organised man-made one to destroy the erring church members.

This pastor caught my attention sometimes ago when I saw the enormous beards he parades and the lavish title ascribed to him: Most Honourable Reverend Doctor Chukwuemeka King. Do you need so many titles to perform your duties? Even the Secretary General of UN doesn't have that! Abi it was God's leading to amass those large beards? Orisirisi dey happen for Lagos oh. If you are a man and are blessed with being hairy, just try join some attachment to it and learn how to shake your body very well & people will visit you, no matter how crude your church setting looks. Just do mysterious things and people will come. You don't even need Juju nowadays, just know how to assess people and psyche them, your church will be filled up in a month. And if you want youths to visit your church, get some texts on motivation and start preaching on better days to come & you'll see ardent youths jump in the congregation shouting 'ride on Pastor'.
This bros no just mercy for those people oh, him roast dem so tey one of dem don die after intensive care.
Plenty nonsense dey happen for hia oh.

Na wah oh

Na wa oh. I heard something very serious.
Got no time. Will gist u guys 2moro.
C ya!

Good riddance to bad rubbish

And there's good news for Nigerian football. The man who didn't know what to say when he was found wanting in his duty when Nigeria didn't qualify for the world cup has just been removed.
Alhaji Ibrahim Galadima had nothing in his head to spew out than to say that the world cup isn't Nigeria's birthright. What a complacent statement! It shouldn't even have come out from the mouth of the NFA chairman. These words totally discredits his job. The top job is also not his birthright.
Thank God he's been booted out now. I'm waiting for Materazzi's spank-in-the-arse by FIFA. Then I'll know that justice always prevails.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.

A legend never dies

Contrary to how negative his actions might be interperted, I do not feel any wrong with what Skipper Zinedine Zidane did. For a man of his nature, Materazzi must have said dome very nasty, unhearable things to Zizzou. You know some Italians have a reputation for spewing out garbage from their mouth. A typical example is Silvio Berlusconi.
They are loose orally.
I only blame Zizzou for putting his bald head close to Materazzi's heart. HE SHOULD HAVE FOCUSED ON HIS HEAD, BUTT THE GUY IN THE NOSE SO HE WON'T FORGET FOREVER!
Whatever happened, Zizzou has not fallen short of being a legend. And he remains one

Aint there no marked one?!

Ever wondered why great things come in small packages? They were actually meant for people like me. ;-)Portable Ladies of average height always catch my attention anytime anyday.
One thing I do not like in a lady is to see any form of incision on her body. Even if it were a miilion naira contract, I would close the damn deal. I hate them diabolics with a passion. You need to see these kinds'a people in church when deliverance service is on - twisting, turning & rolling on the ground. It's frigging scary.
Unfortunately, people see it as a way of life to put incisions on their children's bodies in this part of Africa. They either say it's for spiritual protection or to keep the child from falling sick. Little do they know that it makes people sick of them. Incisions can be made on ANY part of the body. Some are placed just before the hole in the ear, most on the chest and on the arms/wrists.
Mere citing of these small black scars waters me down, no matter how attracted I am to a lady.
Something happened recently that pained me most. First time I set my eyes on this lady, I blamed myself why I didn't wait to see this one before I asked my Sunshine out. I would have had to choose from the varieties on ground - apple juice, mango, pineapple flavour, strawberry et al. Then I summed things up and said if this can't be a lover, then I'll just see if I can put her on the reserve bench. She could just fit in when the regular striker is injured.
She looked so cultured and friendly. Good charisma too.
In short, I've started asking the Lord for forgiveness for the sins I had orchestrated to commit in my heart. She's got the looks to make a man go AWOL! The kind you see walking on the aisle in church and you exclaim HOLY JESUS! while the preacher's preaching. Next time I saw her, she was wearing a V-neck shirt with the upper part of her chest/lower neck bare and DAMN IT!

I could see them. They were about seven. Just like a set of players forming a defensive wall against a freekick. I could see Roberto Carlos at the far left - shorter than the others (not pictured).

I was exasperated. Not a beautiful one like this! It was disappointing.
Why do these dumb people do this to their kids? These people should be shot for devalueing chics. Ain't there no marked ones in Africa?

Enron Founder Dies Before Sentencing

Kenneth L. Lay, the former chairman and chief executive of Enron who was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in the giant energy company's collapse, died at his home in Aspen, Colorado. He was 64. The fraud is considered to be the greatest that happened in recent times.

A spokeswoman for the Lay family, Kelly L. Kimberly, confirmed reports of Mr. Lay's death but declined to discuss specifics. In a prepared statement, Ms. Kimberly said: "Ken Lay passed away early this morning in Aspen. The Lays have a very large family with whom they need to communicate. And out of respect for the family, we will release further details at a later time."
Mr. Lay was convicted in May on six counts of fraud and conspiracy and four counts of bank fraud, and was free on a $5 million bond while awaiting his sentencing, which was scheduled for this fall.
Each count carried a maximum sentence of 5 to 10 years, so he faced the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison.
The Pitkin County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that an emergency crew was dispatched to Mr. Lay's home at 1:41 a.m.; he was transported to the Aspen Valley Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 3:11 a.m.
The financial crimes that Mr. Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, who succeeded Mr. Lay as chief executive and presided over Enron during its implosion, were convicted of committing came to symbolize the corporate excess and greed of the 1990's. While not as large in dollar terms as the fraud at Worldcom, a telecommunications giant driven to bankruptcy by an accounting scandal in 2002, the crimes of Enron's executives resonated the most in the public mind, and the company's name became synonymous with corporate malfeasance.
Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling were found by the jury to have lied to investors, employees and regulators so they could disguise the financial weaknesses of their energy empire.
For his part, Mr. Lay always maintained his innocence. On the day of his conviction, he denied having ever done anything improper during his tenure at Enron.
"We believe that God in fact is in control, and indeed he does work all things for good for those who love the Lord," he said outside the courthouse in Houston after the verdict.
Mr. Lay, who was put on trial twice for crimes connected to his tenure at Enron and was convicted both times, insisted that the only fraud at Enron was committed by underlings who stole millions of dollars in secret deals. Unlike Mr. Skilling, he was not charged with insider trading. Mr. Lay has maintained that Andrew S. Fastow, the company's former chief financial officer, bore most of the responsibility for what went wrong at the company.
Mr. Fastow pleaded guilty to conspiracy and agreed to serve 10 years in prison, and other charges against him were dropped, in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors and testimony in the trials of Mr. Skilling and Mr. Lay.
For his part, Mr. Skilling still faces the possibility of life in prison. He was convicted of 18 counts of fraud and conspiracy and 1 count of insider trading, but acquitted on 9 other counts of insider trading.
Mr. Lay, known for his close ties to President Bush, was Enron's founder and public face. During the 56-day trial that ended in May, he testified on his own behalf, occasionally losing his temper on the stand as he sparred with prosecutors, despite a reputation for coolness under pressure.
He insisted that Enron's collapse was due to a "conspiracy" waged by short sellers, a handful of rogue executives whose activities were unknown to him, and the news media.
As a child growing up in Missouri, Mr. Lay's modest beginnings were a far cry from the extravagance that would define his later years. His luxurious lifestyle became a point of contention in his trial as prosecutors showed the jury examples of his lavish spending.
He was one of three children of a struggling preacher and businessman, and often took odd jobs like baling hay and delivering newspapers to help his family get by. The Lay family was often in and out of financial distress. Omer Lay, Kenneth Lay's father, was a Baptist minister who also tried his hand at a number of other occupations, including running a general store and selling stoves door to door.
At the trial, Mr. Lay defended himself as prosecutors tried to embarrass him by pointing out that he spent $200,000 on a cruise with his wife months before the company collapsed. "We had realized the American dream, and were living a very expensive lifestyle," Mr. Lay said, adding it was "the type of lifestyle where it is difficult to turn off the spigot."

Baba ni yen!

That's my Zizzou!!
I'm just loving every bit of him

Thou preparedst a table before me

I've learnt one thing from the ongoing world cup that I don't think will evaporate from my memory in a very long time. That thing is so great that not knowing it can cripple one's life and make one's work useless at the end of the day.
When a child is being brought up, he/she is taught to work hard and always make sure he/she is alert to make use of opportunities, and most of all aspire big. Many books have been written encouraging people to use their mental faculties to think big and grow rich, be an highflyer in all that one does, always look towards the grass that's always greener in another man's yard. Only a small amount of energy is dissipated in teaching people about the concept of divine timing; when some things will happen at the appropriate time.
Every one of us is living in the microwave world now; everything must be gotten quickly and in the shortest possible time. Biography of the young man whose state of mind & being is controlled by the enticing thoughts of breaking sharp and fast into so great success that he has become something like a prophet whose frame of mind is as unpredictable as an hurricane. Now he's nigh, then he's afar off!
Michael James Owen's career has really blossomed and he should thank God for all that he has been able to achieve. Once he was the wonder kid of England that was very much talked about. He had a wonderful time at at Liverpool. But he always wanted a place where everything was set, only for him to come in and put in small energy for him to outshine.
He left the club that he achieved prominence (Liverpool) for Real Madrid in search of Champion's League trophy. He didn't want to stay there and help them slug it out until they win it. He wanted "though preparedst a table before me" kind'a situation. Just get there and grab the day. There's an addage in my place that says you didn't strike the palmtree with a matchet, neither did you shoot an arrow at the palm gourd storing the palmwine being extracted at the top of the tree, you stand at the bottom mouth agape expecting the gourd to drip. It doesn't freely drip.
Some say it's ironic, some say it's just bad luck, the moment he left Liverpool for Real Madrid was when Liverpool won the Champions League. Real Madrid hasn't won any title since then. Even the league! News that Robinho, the then teenage sensation (though he's not done anything to prove his tag), was on his way to Real Madrid already destabilised Owen. He couldn't just stand ne notion of working to earn a position. He concluded he wasn't gonna be able to grab a permanent shirt there.He immediately wanted to go back home. His excuse this time around is that he wanted to go to the world cup, and to do this he needed to play regular football. He already concluded he wasn't gonna be able to prove his mettle with Robinho's presence. He went to lacklustre Newcastle. Robinho has since not been able to do any magic since he arrived Real.
If not for good old Alan Shearer who was on his way out, he wouldn't have been able to get there. Liverpool didn't wanna take him back.
Do you realise that it's possible that Owen might not win the Champion's League trophy in his entire playing life (Maybe he might if he retires to become a coach)? He wanted to be at the world cup, but he spent only 2 mins, and was stretchered out to be out of action for 5 months. Even if the world cup is suddenly paused and turned to Paraworld cup (just like the Paralympics - a game where paralysed people play football), and all the able-bodied men are sent home to be replaced by physically challenged ones, he'll still not be able to play. This might also be the last world cup for the 26 yrs old striker.

Michael has forgotten that there's divine timing and grace. NOTHING HAPPENS WITH THE EFFORT OF MAN ALONE. If God says you won't get to the other side don't bother climbing the pawpaw tree beside the fence.
The moral is that you can work to make a difference where you are. Change your position to suit your desire and aspiration. Rome wasn't built in a day.If you have read SAME PLACE by Mary Arasanmi, try 2 get it. It's insightful and encouraging.

Que Sera, Sera.

Tribute to Hicham

In my spare time, I like to busy myself by watching sports different from boxing, motor racing, skiing & basketball(yuck! I hate them). Some people have become strong idols who have caught my fancy. But none have thought me so much about dedication, perseverance and focus like the duo of Hicham El Guerrouj and Haile Gebrselassie. And today, it's Hicham's day.
Hicham El Guerrouj is considered as one of the finest runners in the middle distance category. Being the world record holder for 1,500 meters, the mile and 2,000 meters, his records speak volume about him. El Guerrouj became the only middle distance runner to win four consecutive world titles in 1997, 1999, 2001, and 2003.
Born in 1974 in Morocco, Hicham (popularly known as king of the mile) has achieved what many people spend three or four lifetimes achieving. His lessons have been passed across without any duress in transmission; focus on your goal can give you whatever you want (even if you are an African).

This week, Hicham announced his retirement.
God give us grace to run after and achieve what we aspire just like you did.
Thank you Hicham.

Good music

People listen to music for so many reasons. Many for the unending love of it. Some for therapeutic reasons (not like King Saul in the bible) to ease the stress around. However it is, there's one sure fact about music - it places you on a plateau that gives room for relaxation and creates an easier approach to addressing issues especially that which affects a core part of human existence.
The latest album of the self-proclaimed Naija Ninja, Sound sultan, is one I've been looking out for. Though the number of tracks in The (compulsory) textbook is great, I fel in love with two tracks only - Area & Back in the days.
This track playing (Area) encourages those who have gone far and wide in search of greener pastures to please come back home if the situation has turned worse.
So my people, come back home if things are very bad. It's not that bad at home oh!
Ajo 'o dabi ile (meaning There's no place like home).
I also discovered that dearest Tracy Chapman released a new album (Where you live) late last year.
Now where the Alaba boys at? It's like they haven't heard that she's dropped one.
Or could you lend me a copy of Where you live? I just wanna listen to it once, dat's all.

P.S At no point should you try to open his website.

Oh Barc'a!

Phew!!
I told a few of my colleagues yesterday that I had a dream overnight that Barc'a beat Arsenal. They flared at me.
I'm patiently waiting for them this morning to see their reactions.
There you go Ronnie. You're the greatest.

Basket mouth

The late Dele Giwa, a prominent journalist, was a real one. He would be there to confront anything he deemed unfit head-on and even face-long. He dared not what anyone would do to him. He was later handed a parcel-bomb during the Babangida era which he personally took pains to open.
M.K.O Abiola was determined to become the president at all cost. If it were for him to declare the works of the presidency during that time evil, he did not care. He was tenacious about telling people his views about the situation of things. His incarceration later lead to his death which he picked up from the teacup.
Dr. Tai Solarin (of blessed memory) was more explicit about things he never loved. He brazingly castigated regimes when he felt their actions were bad. His package was frequent visits to the prison. He even had a prison bag which he always kept in his room. He would pick it up each time it was time to go on holidays (all expense paid by the military regime of Nigeria).
Nelson Mandela spent many useful years of his life behind bars because he could not just live with the fact that he would have to keep quiet and simply do nothing to what he saw around him.
Ken Saro-Wiwa was not even given a chance to repent of his words and actions before he was executed by the Abacha regime.
Silvio Berlusconi of Italy would have won the last polls if not that he was too outspoken and did not think that there some things should or shouldn't be said. He said the Chinese (the main backers of his rival) used to boil & eat babies. He goes down as one of the greatest people with basket mouth tendencies.

The show of disgust and dislike or love for a particular thing could incur the wrath of those who are ardent supporters of it. I mean to say that being an antagonist or protagonist is a big deal. You're gonna have to deal with everyone who is passionately against your views. God help you if you don't have the capacity to withstand the barrage.
Chief Festus Odimegwu, who happens to be the MD of Nigeria Breweries PLC and a board member of the highly revered Transnational Corporation of Nigeria Plc (Transcorp) has just steered the hornet's nest by saying that he fully backs and infact will die for a third term for the president of Nigeria. His stance reminds one of someone who broke a wasp's mudhouse. Now the wasps have come out in their dozens. The remaining board members have decided that he should step down because of his utterances. He hadn't even talked when people had started saying that Transcorp was institutionalised by the President to fund his third term ambition. He nailed their coffin by his utterances. The board of directors, wary of being pointed out as a machinery of third term has decided to do away with him.
Many say he's expressing his views and should be left alone. I ask when politics and professionalism had a common room which they share. When did seasoned businesspeople become mouthpieces and towncriers for political programmes. Great wonders Obasanjo has a stronghold on many people, wielding them to sing as he pinches them.
Now shareholders of Nigeria Breweries have decided to dump their investments and people have said they would no more drink his beer (I wonder how that's possible) if he continues to take that stand.
Why is it that politics spreads deep into every part of the Nigerian life. Can't this businessman just continue making his money by facing the business before him? Is it necessary for the industrialists to also join in the puppet game? Even if you are a supporter, who asked to know of your opinion?
There's always a reward for being a basket mouth. Silvio will teach you from experience.
I'm definite that he has a price to pay for his open die-hard embrace of the devilish program. We shall no more drink Star, Gulder, Legend or any form of Odekumicine. Shikena!
Please my people co-operate & stop drinking beer.

Lingua Franca

A 30-mins watch of the news will tell you how hard the people are trying to learn another man's language. Passers-by when interviewed show that it aint easy to include the much-adored good spoken English in their list of priorities after the search for food to fill their bellies and shelter over their heads. You see very elderly people (who should have comprehended how to master it a long time ago) code-mixing & code-switching between English and their native tongues.

Signposts and sticker comments on buses like the one in the picture above show that the people are really struggling to speak English. Abi what is the native spelling for 'Such is life'? The answer is ' Curch is life". Some say the energy spent on mastering English is huge enough to make a visible impact on other fields like Engineering, Medicine et al.

Funniest thing is if you make the mistake of making a grammatical blunder (not speak English correctly), you will be the object of scorn and ridicule for as long as the memory of people who heard your blunder lasts.

Then go to other countries and see that what we all carry in our heads to be the language of the intellectuals is not a criteria for achieving astounding feats in fields of endeavour. Or how do you explain the fact that a german Professor who has gotten to great heights in research cannot speak English? How does he teach & learn from science? It's definitely through his native tongue.

That's why the Chinese President would not directly speak English even if he can. He would rather do it through an interpreter. Even if people like these force themselves to speak English, they do not bother if their English is of the most impeccable standard. No one boos them for not speaking it correctly. This can't be done over here oh! It's the dailies that will floor whoever the person is and tell him to go back to school to learn English.

Just imagine if President Obasanjo wakes up tomorrow and he addresses the nation in pidgin English understood by everybody in the nation. Una go laugh am to scorn abi? You will ask 'who gave him the pamison to speak pijin?'.But is it that bad to find other ways of expressing themselves.

As Lagbaja said, 'if I fire & you dodge I don't care".

Even Bill Gates can't afford this

Man Gets $218 Trillion Phone Bill
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia - A Malaysian man said he nearly fainted when he recieved a $218 trillion phone bill and was ordered to pay up within 10 days or face prosecution, a newspaper reported Monday.
Yahaya Wahab said he disconnected his late father's phone line in January after he died and settled the 84 ringgit ($23) bill, the New Straits Times reported.
But Telekom Malaysia later sent him a 806,400,000,000,000.01 ringgit ($218 trillion) bill for recent telephone calls along with orders to settle within 10 days or face legal proceedings, the newspaper reported.
It wasn't clear whether the bill was a mistake, or if Yahaya's father's phone line was used illegally after after his death.
"If the company wants to seek legal action as mentioned in the letter, I'm ready to face it," the paper quoted Yahaya as saying. "In fact, I can't wait to face it," he said.
Yahaya, from northern Kedah state, received a notice from the company's debt-collection agency in early April, the paper said. Yahaya said he nearly fainted when he saw the new bill.
Government-linked Telekom Malaysia Bhd. is the country's largest telecommunications company.
A company official, who declined to be identified as she was not authorized to speak to the media, said Telekom Malaysia was aware of Yahaya's case and would address it. She did not provide further details.

So you mean 'Crazy bills' aren't confined to Nigerian soil?

Royal rumble

It's stale news that the President of my country is at loggerheads with his deputy.


This imbroglio is heating up and as journalists have said, 'body bags count will start'.
I don't see any strange thing in this struggle because these two people are from different worlds, only brought together by similar desires - the quest for power. So it's bound to happen. But as Pirelli will put it, 'Power is nothing without control'. Some have asked Mr. Atiku to stepdown. I laugh at them. It's as if people don't know what these people are at loggerheads for.Is it not this same power that Atiku wants more of? How do you expect him to drop the one he has when he wants more. If permitted, these people will die there. So I won't be surprised if Mr. COJA(won ti kowo wa ja - according to Eedris) refuses to step down.Deep down within me, I know Mr. Obasanjo will go by 2007, the only thing there is that he wants to scare away some greedy people from ascending the throne.Only one song do I have for Baba Iyabo;Be careful, 'cos this life is full of sorrowsWatch the company you keep and the friends you followbecause ****talking gibberish****Eni to mo eniyan lo n pa eniyanNothing stays the same,As you lay your bed, na so you go lie on top am.
Don't mind Audu Ogbe & Atiku.

If na only one, no be three say I
No go fit stand alone na lie......Iro ma ni won n pa.

Tell them that you can do it all alone............to Ota farm though :D


*******Sorry I didn't get a picture of two white sheep but black ones, I could only lay my hand on this one.****

Dumb and dumberer

It's been a while that I heard very funny remarks and I became stupefied when I heard some recently.For someone to be appointed as the Deputy President of a country, it must have been confirmed that he is sound both physically and mentally. His IQ rating would have been confirmed high enough for him to occupy the revered position.It's not news that people who aspire for such posts are astute men of great wisdom and integrity, who are knowledgeable about many things,especially the ones that affect people's lives.I therefore became flabbergasted when I heard that to prevent infection after he knowingly slept with (not raped) an infected lady, he simply went to the bathroom. In his words, " I took a shower to reduce the risk of infection after unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman".What in the world was he thinking? That the AIDS virus is like filth which caan be washed off?! C'mon!Haba! I know without any element of doubt that Mr Jacob Zuma is much smarter.Could it be that the shame of impeachment steals composure and understanding from a man?And to even think that he was once considered to be a favourite for the President of South Africa after Thabo Mbeki is stupefying.
And nothing worries more than the thought that a journalist who works for an astounding media house like BBC who cannot simply relay someone's words to the whole world without manufacturing insinuations.As much as I am against third term, I did not see anything that looked like Mr Fani-Kayode saying that the president will run for third term. "What he [Mr Obasanjo] said is that God is not a God of abandoned projects. What he was referring to are the economic policies of this nation. What he's referring to are the economic reform programmes that this administration has set in place," the presidential spokesman explained.
"It does not necessarily mean that that means that God is going to use him in the future." Abi how does that correlate with "Nigeria's president will consider his options to stand for a third term, guided by God and other considerations, his spokesman says" tori olorun?!
Please report what you hear and not what you think.
The saying is true that the world apppears yellow to a man with yellow fever.
It's a funny world you know.

Legalizing graft - It's cool to take bribes

I don't believe this!

LAGOS, Nigeria (Reuters) -- Football referees in Nigeria can take bribes from clubs but should not allow them to influence their decisions on the pitch, a football official said on Friday.
Fanny Amun, acting Secretary-General of the Nigerian Football Association, said bribery was common in the Nigerian game.
"We know match officials are offered money or anything to influence matches and they can accept it," Amun told Reuters on Friday.
Amun first made the statement earlier in the week to a football -- or soccer -- seminar in the capital Abuja, prompting protests from other officials.
"Referees should only pretend to fall for the bait, but make sure the result doesn't favor those offering the bribe," Amun said.
At the seminar, Nigerian football league chairman Oyuiki Obaseki reprimanded referees for poor quality match reports, saying that bribery was to blame.
"The quality of your reports have not done our league any good, so please desist from corrupt practices," he told delegates..

Is it that bad? Na wa oh!

Tag-de-blogville

I was tagged by Exschoolnerd.

Rules of the Game:
1. The tagged victim must come up with 10 different points of their perfect lover.
2. Need to mention gender of target.
3. Tag 8 victims to join this game and leave a comment saying they've been tagged.
4. If tagged again, there's no need to post a 2nd time.

My perfect lover:
1. Smart: She must be smart and quick-witted. Able to solve many problems without waiting for daddy to come home. It's like blondes are not accepted here, not even with their credit cards.
2. Slim: She must not be anywhere close to being fat.
3. Adorable : Her looks must be breath-taking. Her charisma must be cutting edge.
4. Peppered : Not peppered as in hot, but she must carry well well!. Her pocket must be heavy, not with coins but with gold or even platinum. :D
5. Understanding : In fact, this should have taken the first position.
6. Sexy: Well....you should understand.
7. Educated: Coupled with being smart, she must be well educated.
8. Affable : She must be friendly and people oriented. She mustn't be tribalistic or someone who downgrades people.
9. Decipherable : She must come with a software that can decipher women's thinking and decode her scrambled mind. You know how they are, you just need the right software to make their operating systems stable.
10. God-chosen: One thing that overwrites all others is the biological interconnectivity between somee lovers. It's something that brings beauty and the beast together. Something that makes lovers from very different backgrounds fuse like bread n cheese. She must be God-sent. Just the right person.

Now to the most difficult part - who to tag. Most of the people I tag are too serious for 'this kind thing'. They are being paid (or paying) for every keystroke on blogville, so they prefer to be too serious about many things.
Well sha, I'll try my best - nyjaguy, grandiose parlor, olawunmi, boggywoggy & Emmanuel. There you go.

Lalupon's words

The events (census which entailed God-given holidays) his past week has made me understand how it really feels to be jobless. You come outside on the streets in some areas & see well able-bodied, half-naked men who didn't mind the terrain of the road/estate field, sweating it out big time!

Suddenly, my creative ability came into being and I put this story together...though some parts of it are true. Enjoy!


Oh, see my life!
I should have listened to Lalupon.
Now I am doomed. ……..


I connected the laptop to power supply in order to charge its battery while I read. As I opened the laptop to log on, I felt a great sensation down in my bowels. It was as if the volcano wanted to erupt again. I fought hard, telling myself that it was just an imagination my mind created so as not to read. My assertion was cut short by the movement of magma again.
‘Alas, I told you’, said my lazy mind.
‘Shut up’, I retorted. The volcano sure was going to be a big one. I realized I had to do something quick. Trying to open a map in my head, I began locating the closest toilets to where I was. Mechanical Engineering department toilet is one of the worst toilets I’ve come across in my life. It’s even worse than those in the villages which bowls turned face down to cover the black hole. Though the departmental toilet is a modern day one (boasting of water closet) compared to the pit-latrine, students usually swore that they preferred a latrine to the infamous ‘chemistry lab’ which it was christened because of the stench of various chemical compounds which oozed from it. You could perceive the smell from within 20-meter radius.
I decided that nothing ever would make me use that toilet in my life. As if the volcano heard my decision, the magma started moving uneasily. They say when panic emerges, orderliness and reasoning evaporates. My brain needed not tell my legs where to. It had started finding its way. I met the shock of my life when I got to the door and met a huge (and I really mean huge) padlock at the door. I was transfixed for what seemed like ten minutes. Suddenly realizing what was happening, I held my butts to find the opening so I could use my fingers as a cork to cover the lid, preventing the content from spilling. Simultaneously, I was pacing fast towards the next destination.
‘Jawejura!’, my mind commanded.
I immediately set for the woods. Since the institution was on vacation, the likelihood that all restrooms within the vicinity would be locked was very high. It didn’t take me two seconds to calculate that. I moved like a horse-cart carrying heavy load on a rough surface.
Walking down the road, I listened patiently for passers by or people working in the bush like a hunter waiting to hear the sound of his prey. I heard some rustling sound towards my right. A young squirrel ran playfully on a fallen tree. ‘Now is not the time for you’, I said. I had other pressing issues to attend to. In a normal situation when I don’t have another mission in the woods, five minutes would be the maximum time for chasing the squirrel. In ten minutes, it would have become peppered barbeque. A satisfying meal it would be with akamu or garri. But my mind wouldn’t let me think of that right now. It was my master, and I was compelled to do exactly as it had commanded me.
Convinced that there’s no one around, I branched into the next footpath. And then into another after it.
‘This is a safe ground’, said the master, my mind.
No, Lalupon had told me that it was dangerous resting in the cassava farm of Ogogoro Frank, who earned his name from his look. He pretty much looked like Dr. Frankinstine. And 24/7, he was always reeking of Ogogoro, the local ethanol brand.
Ogogoro Frank up till today is the most feared peasant farmer who has his plot right at the border of the school. Once a student was rushed to the dreaded ‘Death Centre’ (an adaptation of its real name – Health Centre), shouting that it was as if hot charcoal was placed on his anus. He spent five days there. He had gone to rest in the feared man’s cassava farm and escaped uncaught. Legend has it that Ogogoro Frank after warning students not to pass faeces on his farm again decided to use deadly charms on the excreta. Some said he used alligator pepper he had chanted incantations on to spray the faeces. The impact would be supersonic, using microwave transmission to get to the recipient. It would be fire down below for the poor student.
I was always cynical about juju and other native medicines. There was always an over-hype in the talk of the efficacy of juju, so I decided it was just the thinking of people.
Many students shared the same idea with me.
‘Juju no dey catch students’ (meaning juju/charm doesn’t have effect on students) was our slogan then. Lalupon, my good friend would tell me to exercise restraint in doing things and not to downplay the efficacy of Juju. I would repeat the slogan to his face. My conviction about it was rock-solid. Little did I know that the fate of my conviction would be as that of Titanic – the greater the size, the greater the fall.
Taking a survey of the environment again, I bent down to do what I came for. I made sure my eyes were fixed on the coming footpath, so that my case won’t be like that of the boy who was being chased by Ogogoro Frank with his trousers at his knees. By the time he noticed him, there was no time to pull his trousers back up. He was only lucky that Dr. Frankestein was too drunk to maintain his balance in the hot pursuit.
I set myself free immediately. The peace & tranquility that came to my being was unprecedented. As I tried to rise up to wear my trousers, I felt something strange in my torso. I told myself that my mind was playing games on me again. Remember, juju no dey catch student. I neatly buckled the trouser and placed the belt well. No one was going to know that this handsome, well dressed young man went to bo kaka a while ago. The deed was done. I was successful in this ordeal.
I then tried raising my feet to move. It was as if my shoes had been glued to the soil. Ah!
I looked at my feet and discovered that there was nothing wrong with them. Trying again, I couldn’t even raise it half an inch.
Mba! This can’t be happening. My mind flashed straight to Ogogoro Frank. But…..but he hasn’t even seen the faeces, not to talk of pouring his magic pepper on it. What was happening?!
Then like a flash, I remembered that students had strangely (don’t ask me how) gotten the antidote to Dr. Frankestein’s charm. It was tested and confirmed working. It was said that if salt was poured on your remains after excreting, no matter the quantity of pepper Ogogoro Frank pours on it, it wouldn’t have any effect. This had given students the boldness to continue using his farm.
Ah! I hope it’s not what I think oh. Abi Ogogoro Frank has devised another means of dealing with students? And I am the first victim of his new invention? But why must it be me? Out of the scores of guys that visit Ogogoro’s office regularly, am I the one that will be caught pants down?!
Chai! I am doomed.

……….To be continued.

When Juju fails

Does it not sound funny that a man as strong as Chief Frederick Fasheun slumped in court.
I'll start with an intro. Chief Frederick Fasheun is the factional leader of the greatly feared militant yoruba group called Oodua people's Congress (OPC). It can be compared with the Irish Republican Army (IRA), Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), MASSOB et al.This group ruled with a menacing force that leaves sorrow, tears and blood . Guns, machetes, strong charms et al were their instruments.
You mean with all his charms and fortifications (mostly called Bendel Insurance), he could afford to show weakness by slumping in the court?! Fasheun must have met a force more fierce and brutal than his. This force is known as the force of the law.One strange thing is that he's acting the same script that Tafa Balogun acted some months ago. Tafa also slumped, an act to make people feel that his state of health was bad.

And with all the Bendel insurance, he can't even stand tall and be a strong man. Ain't it a shame? Juju no dey work again?

It reminds me of the music of Kenny Rogers - You can't outrun the long arm of the law.

Borrowing technology

I wanna acknowledge the wonderful impact that the internet has had on my life & how it has transformed my reading habit.
We all know that it's very hard to get books in Africa at reduced prices (if not cut-throat sef). So most of us have resorted to photocopying any good book we lay our hands on. In fact, apart from the texts we use in our various fields of study, we don't delve into any literatures or print whatsoever. If it goes with the field we grab them, else ......so long. But in a swift turn of lifestyle, I've found that the ease of getting all sorts of books and nice literatures has increased in exponential proportion.
Once I told someone to help me get Da Vinci code when returning from England (though it eventually turned to me paying for it, a development I didnt like. I for use the money on IT texts), and I really did enjoy the book. I don't regret every penny I paid for it. But the happinness was short-lived when I discovered the full text (and I mean FULL TEXT) on the internet. The cost was just the time to download it. I became suddenly aware of the fact that it was possible to get stuffs erstwhile regarded as luxury and out of reach for free.
I swore never to use my money on texts again. I would download them from the internet. Immediately, I went to the net for Dan Brown's previous books. It was Digital Fortress I saw first. I didn't bat an eyelid before I downloaded it. Reading started immediately, only minimizing when I got other issues to attend to.
The thought of morality and sabotaging of owner's royalties didn't hit me until I downloaded and started reading the same author's third book,Deception point (as usual, for free). Now I'm in a fix as to what to decide. It's not my fault that the books were placed online, accessible to everybody. And these people also didn't make Africa version (cost) of their books, abi they expect us to pay money as high as that just because we want read texts? Say wetin happen? Money wey person go take chop?
So while I gave a few people the opportunity to deliberate on the morality of getting things for free on the internet, I've picked Salmon Rushdie's Satanic Verses, to later pounce on Angels & Demons (Dan Brown).
Is it our faults that there's imbalance in trade? If there was balance of trade, many people won't go for free things though. They won't mind parting with little convenient money in order to get what they want. I think it's high time Africans don't fight for balance of trade. There are other better ways of pulling the plugs on those who benefit the most from the imbalance. I remember that even the Japs and the whole Asian confederation also got their technological improvements not from technology transfer, but what my pastor will call borrowing of technology.
The word is "see good thing, copy it!". Am I wrong?

Hurray, no more sacred cows

Just at the time we were covering our eyes in shame, the Mantu Committee has come out with the only good thing they will come out with - the Immunity clause has finally been removed, Glory to God in the highest.

Thisday newspaper says :
"The National Assembly Joint Committee on the Review of the 1999 Constitution (JCCR) yesterday recommended an amendment to Section 308 of the 1999 Constitution by expunging the aspects that forbid investigation and prosecution of the President, his deputy, the governors and their deputies while in office."

This does mean no more disappearing acts like the Bayelsa scenario.

At least we'll celebrate this one first, then we'll think of how to tackle other issues. Congratulations Nigerians home & abroad.

Blog while you can

My recent preoccupation has taught me one lesson, 'blog while you can'. I've been very busy, no thanks to the infamous Kama Sutra virus and its writer. I must admit that the writer is very smart. He sure is smarter than the writer of the deadly Zotob virus.
Work aside, it's very wonderful to return to blogsville as some will call it. Even with the moountainous workload, I keep thinking that I've missed much happening in the online village. Even Oscar went without my in-depth followup. I think the friggin virus writers should be sent to Guatanamo if caught.
Back at home, many things are happening in the political realm. Speakers (MPs)of State House of Assemblies & their deputies are being impeached day-in day-out. It's no new thing again. Some deputies are even resigning without being shown the exit door. This tells me that the remaining of 2006 and the early part of 2007 will be very interesting. The only bad part of it is that people would start killing themselves.
I think political fundings will reduce this time because of the 25 billion naira bank capitalisation. Are you asking what is the connection between political fundings and bank monetary reserves? It will be strange to know that politicians borrow money from banks for political campaigns. Those that have companies divert all the funds used to run the company (+ staff salaries) to politics, rendering many people jobless in the process. It even happened that one of the Governors that won the election in 2003 used his influence as a member of the board of directors to take huge sums of money (we're talking of billions of naira here) for political use. Sounds weird? That's Nigeria for you oh! At least this time too much funding won't be available for different clandestine political maneuvrings.
As for O3T, it's better to wait till presidential aspirants begin to emerge.

God help us.