Friday, March 31, 2006

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!

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

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.

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

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.

Friday, March 17, 2006

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.

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

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?

Saturday, March 11, 2006

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.

Thursday, March 09, 2006

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.

Saturday, March 04, 2006

As hot as .......

There are several reasons that can make you lose your cool or make your body system make you feel that you've got fever. The propaganda, or reality as it's unfolding, about Obasanjo's third term (o3T in short) is one that makes you be at your wit's end. Not knowing what exactly the cunning old man has in mind.
I downloaded IE 7.0 beta recently and wanted to have a feel of what Microsoft has got for us pronto. I forgot that every beta is as good as student doctors - it's only a test to know how well they can perform. And this test , annoyingly, doesn't only waste your precious time, but also rids you of many other valuble things that are attached to time. I wish I could sue someone for half a million dollars.

Back to normal rants, I have discovered this week that it's true that the ozone layer is wearing off. Infact, there's no ozone layer anymore in Africa. The heat has been intense since Monday. I get scared to go out when the sun is up. It gave me nostalgia about those times Uncle Tai would chase those of us who were scared to enter the cold for morning drills about our dormitories. I guess Nigeria shouldn't even be talking about nuclear plants for electricity generation. The hot sun we have here is enough to run many homes if the resources being scheduled for nuclear plants is redirected to research on Solar electricity generation. It sure is very hot in many areas of Nigeria except in Aso rock & the office of the Minister for Science & Tech. They aren't just feeling the heat. Maybe they must have developed thick skins. I wish I had the means myself to generate solar electricity. I will immediately cut off from the erratic National grid.

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

All animals are equal

If you've been wondering where I've been, I've been on a vacation at Jeremy's blog. I guess that site was worth the time. I resume blogroll every time to catch every action that occurs there by the minute.
One very important thing I've learnt from my vacation is that you don't shout down/insult/downgrade/underrate/trample on other people's ideas because you feel that yours is better. Everyone has an element of uniqueness/royalty we assign to ourselves at every point. So it's natural to get negative reactions from people when their ideas/worths/values are treated mundane.
Pardon me if it sounds very irky, I was wondering if humans were less mortals. Or if we eventually wake up one day to find that some beings are superior to we humans, what would we do? Or, let me put it in a pill easy to swallow, what if there exists an energy strata in animals (say chickens) like that present in humans? That means that though chickens have a lower IQ and thinking faculty, they would have the capacity to understand and cherish their rights (as humans have human rights and fight for them).
If this energy level exists, it means that it would be unfair and unjust to kill any animal for game. Chickens would have chicken rights and it would be a gross misconduct to take laws into our hands by wiping out an entire colony of birds because some of them have flu. It would be like the Rwandan genocide . And if chickens have their way, they would sue humans for infringing on their rights to life and be given proper healthcare.
Think this not to be of any sense? Does it sound as if I'm blogging for chicken rights?Then why not read Animal farm by George Orwell or any of H.G Wells' books.

It sure is true that all animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.