Whitney O!

Truth be told, I didn’t watch the live screening of Whitney Houston’s burial on CNN this past weekend. I did later catch up on some clips the next day. And of all the tributes by various celebrities and family friends, Kevin Costner’s really touched me the most. This is really strange seeing that his flop movie Waterworld really hurt my feelings when I borrowed it from the video club back in the day. He redeemed himself a bit in the flick 3000 Miles to Graceland; but let it be known – MJ is the king.

But jokes aside, I had done my own private mourning on week of her passing. I was grouchy at work, and kept on replaying “The Preacher’s Wife Soundtrack” on my work PC. Even my manager knew to leave me be. At least I wasn’t Facebooking on company time.

To make matters worse, the day after the sad news of her passing broke, I got to work and stumbled into an argument between some of my co-workers. A few of these new school juveniles were comparing Beyonce to Whitney. I laughed in Mbaise Igbo ( trust me it sounds like a Coke counter scrapping the floor). No disrespect to Mama Blue Ivy, but that is like comparing Uncle Ben’s rice to Abakiliki rice (with stones inside). And besides Whitney is the better actress. Haha.

Why was Whitney special? I am not going to bore y’all by spewing what you have probably heard this past weeks about what a talent she was. Okay, sorry, I will actually have to bore you. Whitney could ‘sang’. And I have not gotten my tenses wrong; she could ‘sang’, the way Ron Isley, Mary J Blige and Jill Scott can ‘sang.” I don’t know if any Nigerian artist can ‘sang”; I know a few that can ‘sung’, but I no go name names o. Today is about Whitney.

You see the problem with some of these new singers is that a few hide behind some smokescreen so that you don’t see their talent for what it is. There is choreography, designer clothes, bling bling, auto-tune, top-notch production which masks those with voices that can break glass. How could I forget the new trend of wearing sunglasses. Every artist these days sports a pair in the videos, and when they croon love songs about how a dame has made them kolo, it is hard to believe them. Their body movements and dance routines say one thing, but their eyes tell a lie. No “R &B” or soul artiste should ever wear shades unless they are Aaron Stone, Ray Charles or R-Kelly from back in the day. D’Banj is also excused, but he nor fit sing sef anyway.

Whitney sounded sincere and original. A song like “I will always love you” had the range to appeal to the most heart-broken spinster, as well as the most hardened thug or armed robber. Even my grandmother loved that jam back in the day when she heard it on MTV during the time she came to do omu-ugwo for my baby sis. An I will or-wares ruv yoo…….

Some of these new singing cats just bellow out tunes like they are more concerned about how they come across. Open ya eye make we see whether na apollo dey do you. Abi you know say you dey deceive yourself and shame don catch you.

Is it not amazing when you notice that Whitney never broke into dance. Her voice alone could captivate you. She didn’t need any fancy video by Clarence Peters or Hype Williams to get spins. And when she displayed her magnificent vocal range, she didn’t show us her 32 molars, pre-molars and incissors. Her mouth was barely open, like I nor fit shout sef. An I will or-wares ruv yoo…….

Hers was a pure beauty and elegance. She looked every inch a super-star. She was the kind of entertainer you could take home to mama (not mommma). And actually not have mama scream in disgust and irritation like “This geh done waka well well. Make you find innocent geh marry.” Whitney’s pure unbridled talent took her to fame and fortune – she didn’t need to appear half-naked on the red carpet (Aladdin syndrome) or flash her punani when alighting from a car. Heck, she did not need Brazilian weave, or Twirra (twitter).

Have you seen some Nigerian singers try to hold a note?  A music note, not a bank note. Compare that to the video of “Shoop” where Whitney was doing her mouth like she was chewing hot eba.

What makes Whitney so memorable? I listened to Whitney during the period a girl did turn turn turner with my emotions for the first time in my life. A girl with the code name C.A.N shattered my heart into tiny little pieces. She ripped my heart out of my chest like Goro (Mortal Kombat) and laughed into the sunset. She pulled my heart out of my chest like Apocalypto. I drank many bottles of Calypso, but it was Whitney not alcohol that got me through it. I can recall listening to “Why does it hurt so bad” from the “Waiting To Exhale Soundtrack” while eating yampo in my room in pitch darkness. No, craze had not caught me – NEPA had taken light, and I need to lem.

Whitney’s music inspired. I once listed the lyrics of “I believe in you and me” and put them on a card, and ‘supplied’ it to one chick like that. It worked more than buying her a BB Porsche or a weave. Not that I will ever try that nonsense anyway.

Listen to a jam like “Run To You” off The Bodygaurd Album and see if it would not make you feel like crossing 1000 Obudu Cattle Range mountains and 1 million River Nigers to find love.

That was not the only time Whitney came through for me. I recall also jamming “Until You Come Back” off the “My Love is Your Love” album with a girl I was dating because she loved that tune. When we broke up, I used to think about her a bit whenever I heard that song, and half-wish she would walk through the door. Or the gate. I even instructed our aboki to look out for her incase she came, so she wouldn’t miss me at home. I kept asking the mallam if someone had rung the bell. Well she never did walk through my door again, but Whitney had another correct song to console me with – “It’s Not Right, But Its Okay”. Or as I preferred to call it “Its all good”

And don’t you lot go thinking that Esco is mushy. Men need love too. Sensitive thugs, you all need love. Silent morning, they say a man is not supposed to cry. I hated that jam.

Truth be told, anytime I was having women problems, I kept that shit to myself, and I found music therapeutic. I have the sort of friends who if you tried to tell them about your emotional drama or relationship woes, would laugh in your face. Like you can’t be serious; abeg leave that thing. As my friend Kola once said it, the solution to woman problems is more women.

Personally, why I will miss Whitney Houston so much is that her music was there during many parts of my formative years. I was an 80s baby, but it was the 90s I came into my own, and that was when she was at the peak of her powers.

Whitney_Houston

Everybody has a song that punctuates or is the soundtrack to different times in their lives.

My driver had huge Beyoncé posters on his wall in his room.  He liked Bey so much that he even bought the Nollywood movie “Beyonce and Rihanna” and was disappointed and almost inconsolable when he didn’t see Mama Blue Carter in the movie. Dude, didn’t you see the poster?

One day, I mustered up the courage and time to ask him why he fancied Jay Z’s wife so much/

He said it was because of one of the songs when she had recorded when she was still in Destiny’s Child.

I closed my eyes, as I inquired. Which song, pray tell?

“I go survive o, I go survive o” he sang in answer, smiling. Proud of himself, he continued “Na that song help me when I step on poisonous nail for my village, and my oga come reduce my salary.”

I racked my brain. Was he confusing Destiny’s Child with The Mandators or Tosin Jegede that 80s child star?

Eureka! You wrecker, “Oh you mean, I am a survivor”.

I was just blowing English jare. He had put his own twist on a song that motivated him and made it his own.

So he didn’t like Bey cos of her bootylicious curves or her thunder thighs then? Interesting.

As I end this, my heart goes out to Bobbi Kristina, Whitney’s daughter. May Whitney also rest in peace. This is a woah-Nigerian blog, but she was an honorary Nigerian because we blasted her music, and helped contribute to the millions of records she sold (Alaba or not).

Rest in peace to a great songstress and a unique talent – the late Whitney Houston. 

I leave you with this great tune from The Preacher’s Wife Soundtrack. It is called “You Were Loved.”

As you enjoy, please share your life and music memories with me. Make sure you post a comment if you read this, or I will stop writing posts.  Just joking. But I am serious though. Lol.

 

Go Esco!

Hey everyone, my birthday is in a few days’ time, and here I am up at night thinking about my life story and pondering on my journey so far.

Having a birthday in January as a  kid was always a tough affair; most people are too broke after splurging their life savings on flenjoring during Christmas, and to them, your birthday couldn’t have come at a more inconvenient time financially. So there went your hopes for any presents or “raising’.

And when I was old enough to start dating, some girlfriends would be trying to channel the money they had into buying me a Valentine’s Day gift instead as it was just around the corner, being 2 weeks away, and so my birthday was just a stop gap measure. It’s not fair o.

Truth be told, I have said it many times here, that I never really enjoy the concept of birthdays. To me the glass, sorry the hourglass, is always half empty (no pun intended). I tend to self-assess and I am my worst critic. I am not also a huge fan of the whole birthday song singing thing, and having to unwrap my gift in front of the gift-bearer. One reason is that I don’t ever think I show gratitude enough. I get really thankful for receiving a gift, but I am not sure if the way I have shown it conveys the message enough. For some reason, my heart may want to say “Oh, thank you. This is really wonderful” but my stupid mouth may end up saying “You shouldn’t have; you really shouldn’t have. Mscheeww”

Anyway here I was, up in the middle of the night like winch, staring at my ceiling and watching the ceiling fan swing slower and slower. Then suddenly I had an epiphany – what would I want for my birthday? What birthday present would give Esco a sick smile?

For one, I want a present and not a gift. Confused? There is a difference between present and gift, however subtle. Just like crocodile and alligator, or toad and frog, or groundnut and gra-nut. A present is something you give somebody gratuitously without any ulterior motives, and is usually given on their life anniversary or a really special occasion, for example birthday present. A gift is something you give because you want something in return, or if there is a catch to lure, bait or winch someone eventually. For example, the Trojan Horse was a Greek gift. You give the bride and groom a wedding gift, because you expect to eat all their jollof rice and drink their Chivita juice at the reception. No Item Number 7, no wedding gift. Esco dey school una sha.

So I want a present. And I will take cash or cheques too. Inbox me a “birthday greeting” at woahnigeria@yahoo.com or Twitter (Twirra) @EscoWoah. In reply, I will send you my Zenith and Bank of America accounts. Those living in the UK are not left out either o. I have 2 choices for you – NatWest or Nationwide.

My birthday list (other than naira or pounds or dollar, of course) is:

• I want out government to be more accountable and more visible to the common man. I want to be able to stroll by Aso Rock, point fingers and take pictures with my camera with flowers and pigeons in the background, like the way tourists and punters do in front of Buckingham Palace and the White House
• I want to have a legacy. I want something really epic named after me so that my name can live on through the centuries. I wouldn’t also mind something huge or eternal named after my village in Imo State, just like Pontiac the automobile manufacturer is named after the town of Pontiac where the original designer is from. Weatherford the oil and gas corporation is named after Weatherford a place where oil was discovered. Or maybe like okada motorcycle transport and the town of Okada in Edo State.
•  I want a Sony Vita. It is a handheld gaming device with a touch pad behind, 2 joysticks, an internet browser, WIFI, a back and front facing camera and it is coming out in February. I have always liked Sony products, and almost every electronic device I own in Sony (*hint at Sony for free gifts*). Even when I could not afford Sony back in the day, I would go to Alaba market, and buy Sunny instead.
• I want shoes by Fratelli Rossetti. There is nothing like premium Italian leather, and not some of this synthetic crap sold as leather nowadays. Fratelli shoes speak class but they cost a pretty penny. There is a saying that you can tell a man’s class by his shoes. And I hear that some girls look at a guy’s shoes, when they first meet him because there is a belief that a guy treats women the way he takes care of his shoes. What if he is wearing sandals?

I also want a Hugo Boss 2 button suit with dark lapels. There is nothing like a good suit with a fine cut to present your features as chiseled.  In Nigeria, girls have Body Magic girdles; boys have to make do with a good suit. Suck belle, make shirt fine.

 

Add Rayban Wayfarer sunglasses to my Hugo Boss Suit and Fratelli slip ons, and I am “ThisDay Style” ready. Now let me just find my phone, so I can text everyone in Lagos to say that I appeared in ThisDay Style. I have finally arrived as a Lagos Big Boy.

 

• I want Nigeria to remain one. With so much going on in the country recently, the signs are not very good. People want Nigeria to split up but we have not really looked at the ramifications of us breaking into smaller entities. We are like Voltron together, but when we split up into 5 lions, we may have bigger robeasts to contend with.

Imagine this scenario- Nigeria breaks up into smaller nations: Oduduwa Republic (Yoruba), the Democratic Republic of Biafra (Igbo), United Arewa Emirates (Hausa Fulani), United Soviet Niger Delta States (Urhobo, Itshekiri, Kalabari etc.) and the Confederate States of the Middle Belt (Tiv, Idoma etc.)

What are the consequences? For one, smaller nations usually have compulsory national military service or conscriptions to be able to defend their territory, or else they may get chanced by bigger countries. Under this national military service, every adult between 16 and 35 may have to serve in the military and undergo military training in boot camps around the country. Yes that includes you BellaNaija browsing, Brazilian hair fixing, Blackberry Bold stroking fashionistas. Even those ones wey dey fear to do ordinary NYSC orientation, and pay bribes to the commandants and NYSC higher-ups to be able to dodge camp. There would be no escape. Scared yet? Ok o.

 

If we split, what would become of my degree? I schooled all my life in Lagos and Western Nigeria. Would my degree now be foreign and unacceptable for employment in my new country of Biafra? Would career counselors or HR administrators sneer and say “Enyi, so you got your education in Oduduwa Republic. You need to get another degree from University of Biafra, or no one would employ you.”

 

I was born in Lagos – and so I am an Oduduwa citizen by birth. Will my new compatriots accuse me of being a closet ofe mmanu, indoctrinated in mgati-ism? I prefer amala to akpu anyday, by the way. No, I am not a traitor. And yeah, owambe parties rock. There I said it, so shoot me.

 

If we split, what would happen to investments in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt by different ethnicities? Will they be nationalized or appropriated? Fuck that big English – so I won’t be able to enjoy efo riro, kilishi and edika-ikong anymore? Tiwa Savage would now be far away from me, as she would be a foreign national, and so that will dash my dreams of dating her. Anyway sha, I would ‘manage’ Genevieve and Munachi.

 

Our national teams nko? Okay, Mikel Obi, Kalu Uche, Kanu and Ike Uche are decent footballers, but what about Osaze, Yakubu and Sani Kaita nko? Granted, we will whoop you all at soccer tournaments sha. Our team would be too mad.

But there are other logistic problems if we were to split, and I am worried about Biafra. Who would be our president. I would have rooted for Ekwueme if he was younger, as he looks distinguished and has oratory skills like Obama, but something tells me that we may end up with Pius Anyim instead. And where would the capital be; Owerri could be the Las Vegas of Biafra, but what about the capital? Abakiliki, Enugu, Nkalagu, my home-town (Umu-Esco)?

 

One last question though, what would be our Independence Year? 1967 or 2012? Or 2000 and never? Ok, just asking.

• Finally, rewind to a good few years back. It was my birthday, and I was seriously dulling in my school apartment with a couple of my friends. We were drinking garri without groundnut ( a travesty), when some-one asked a question “Esco, if a genie appeared and granted you a choice out of 2 wishes as your birthday present. Either become a citizen of any country of your choice, or take 20 million naira cash here and now, and remain in Nigeria. Which would you choose?”

That provoked a lively debate. Ol boy, any of those is an upgrade on drinking garri on my life anniversary date. So which do I choose? Visa Lottery or Cash Lotto?  One thing is for sure – I would rather be a lion in the jungle than a cat in the city. I would rather be a crocodile in the bush, than a lizard on a Lagos fence with broken bottles. I would rather be an IBB in Minna, or an OBJ at Ota than a GEJ in Aso Rock. Or whatever that means.

 

With the number of people that were seen at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport trying to ‘escape’ Nigeria on the week of the nationwide strike last 2 weeks, Visa Lottery may be king. But 20 million naira nor be joke o. Although rent in Lekki phase one for one year plus the agency fees will put a big hole in that amount, leaving just enough for ‘suffering and smiling.”

 

So what would you choose, and where would you go? And don’t forget my present. Or gift.

 

Happy birthday to me…..

Birthdays was the worst days/

Now we sip champagne, when we thirsty/

Notorious BIG (Juicy, 1994)

Salute Me

Watch the birdie....

 

SALUTE ME

What are the worst vices affecting Nigerian society today? Squalor, poverty, illiteracy, perversion or even its brother-in law – corruption? Most people would argue that corruption is the greatest of them all.

What does corruption stem from? Why has this cankerworm, tapeworm, earthworm, eroded every facet of our national life. It all has to do with our flawed reward system.

Corruption exists because treasury looters and crooked people are celebrated because they have cash to burn. In England, a corrupt public officer would be stared at, pointed out and maybe even spat on in the streets. In Nigeria, he would be called to the high table at a function, and politely asked his choice of liquor.

In Jand and Yankee, the names of ex-sex offenders (people who have either been convicted of rape, sexual harassment  or sleeping with under-age persons) would be put in a Sexual Offenders List, and they would be prevented in living in certain areas (especially near schools, daycares and nurseries), and the public would have access to their records. In some cases, if they embarked on a bus, someone may stand up to avoid having to share a seat with them.

In Nigeria, a sex offender could move to Abuja or another state, get connections or a government contract and get nominated to become a State Commissioner or Special Adviser.

Only in Nigeria can an ex-con become a president or senator, or an ex 419-er own a bank. Our system seems to encourage people to do whatever is necessary to stack paper, and the rewards are uncountable – recognition, fame, chieftaincy titles, streets named after you, honorary degrees from dodgy state universities,  your name being toasted to by a juju musician at an owambe and your pick of cream aristo girls.

There was a lot of brouhaha late last year when Chinua Achebe declined to receive a national award from President GEJ. A lot of people were a bit miffed with the manner in which our national awards have been cheaply dished out to men of questionable characters and achievements who have done nothing to uplift this nation. Sometimes some of the recepients are serving public office holders, who happily accept the award, use it as a paper-holder on their office table, and proceed to award themselves and their cronies contracts, misappropriating public funds.

And I wondered to myself, a national award should be the highest form of reward for excellence giving to a citizen. Look at the United Kingdom for example – Sir Alex Ferguson (manager of Manchester United) was not knighted till 1999, a whole 13 years after he joined the club, and only after he had won a historic treble of trophies. The year before, he had won his 5 Premiership title, but Mama Charlie had not yet deemed it right to knight him.

David Beckham, soccer star, actor, perfumer, icon, poster-boy is not even yet a knight of the realm. The Queen’s honor roll is only reserved for distinguished personalities, not pudgy bankers who have not paid their workers for the past 2 months, or who pimp female markets to secure lucrative accounts. It is not for half-assed civil servants who flood their ministries with only their blood relations and party members.

If Beckham were a Nigerian, he would have been award more titles than his passport book could bear – Chief Otunba Nze Sir Architect David Beckham, GON, MFR, GCON, MFON.

And it is because people who have wealth, rather than those who are committed to selfless national service that are accorded recognition, it makes people want to lie, cheat and steal for glory. There are more award ceremonies conducted in Nigeria than there are credible recipients. There are  a gazillion award ceremonies to honor musicians and entertainers, including the ones who are encouraging us to party and be merry while Nigeria is burning around us. It seems Nigerians were in danger of becoming Emperor Nero who played the harp while Rome was up in flames around him. There are award ceremonies to honor bankers and banks, even though not a single bank in Nigeria is capable of giving the common man a loan unless he has a C of O for land in Ikoyi, 3 gaurantors who must be senators and commissioners, and he agrees to sign away his life with the shylock interest rates. EFCC may even be engaged by the bank as a ‘signatory’ to the loan agreement. You are what EFCC says you are.

In Nigeria, there are award ceremonies for event planners, though I have not gone to a single event which has not had African time computed into the start time. I have even been to a wedding, where the groom came late, and had to be fined by the bride’s family. The bride, was just relieved that he had shown up at all; she had been sweating buckets, and had almost eaten her bouquet in anxiety, thinking that her fella had abandoned her at the altar.

There are award ceremonies to honor brands in Nigeria, even though Indomie noodles has been in Nigeria for more than a decade, and is in every home’s dinner table in the country but the price has never dropped. Multichoice also does brisk business here, but you still have to pay for the decoder and dish, a practice which is obsolete among the major cable companies in the world. But why?

We have award ceremonies to honor politicians and state governors of the year – usually available to the highest bidder (paid from the treasury).

And sometimes parents and relatives are also to blame for coercing their kids or wards to crime or steal money. Even in the villages and rural areas, there are mothers who warn their sons leaving for city not to come back without riches, no matter the cost. And it is the same in the cities as well.

I remember someone complaining to me about his mother some years back. This was circa the summer of 1996, just after the Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The guy’s mum kept on ‘yabbing’ him:”  See what your fellow man is doing. Kanu just won the football gold medal for his country and would receive millions of naira and parcels of land from Abacha. Meanwhile you are here, sitting at home and consuming 15 wraps of eba every day. You are a disgrace! You wont go out and hustle like your fellow man”

And this guy replied his mum” But mummy, Kanu is 20 years old (his football age in 1996), so we are not mates. I am only 16, and I am waiting for Jamb results.”

His mum didn’t want to hear that one o. This boy was later caught trying to steal high power drills  and equipment from a neighbors warehouse. He was lucky there was fuel scarcity around that time, because they had already put a tire round his neck.

That policeman who asks for a bribe, or that immigration officer at the airport who begs you to tip him or risk being stripped searched for contraband, does so out of greed. But he also does so because by the time he accumulates all the 20 and 50 naira notes he has received for the week,  the tidy sum becomes a pretty penny, and he can go to his community and enjoy being a local champion. Nobody would question how a cop ends up being able to buy beer for everyone at the beer palour. It is just classified that he is doing ‘runs’.

It is time we took our values back. Point out that dodgy millionaire whose generator looks like a small nuclear plant to EFCC and Egbesu Boys. High-jack that loot stealing ex- governor when you see his convoy in traffic, and seize one of the keys of the cars – it is rightfully yours, as it was bought by money stolen from our commonwealth. Watch out for his security orderly though.

Interrupt that wedding between that oil baron son and the cabal member’s daughter, when the pastor/bishop asks “if there is anybody who thinks that this wedding should not go on, speak now or forever hold your peace.” Put up your hands and scream “This wedding should not go on. This Civic Center wedding has been bankrolled with stolen oil subsidy money.  The bride’s wedding gown was bought with bribe money received in a Ghana Must Go bag on the floor of the Senate. The catering was done by the same cabal who claim that they spend over N1 billion on food in Aso Rock. I submit that this illicit union should be prevented forthwith, and the food and cake should be distributed to Ijewere Motherless Babies Home. Thank you”

 

 

Happy New Year!

Flashing lights....

Happy New Year y’all! Glad we all made it to 2012! Your tracks could have been stopped in any other year, but you are in 2012! To God be the Glory!

Its funny how we take it for granted sometimes that we are in a New Year. The year 2012 itself sounds so futuristic, like a year one would have seen in one of those Sci-Fi movies to denote some cutting edge future where man became half-machine, cars were flying saucers and a robot wiped your ass for you after taking a dump in the toilet. A futuristic world where energy was produced from some kind of atomic water, solving all the world’s energy needs, so PHCN was but a bad memory. A future where people bought shuttle tickets to visit Mars, Venus and other planets, so taking pictures of your trip to Jand and Yankee and posting them on Facebook was as laughable and ordinary as it is now of posting a photo of you posing because you crossed Lagos’s border into another state.

A year where fuel subsidy would be like a bad joke, because fossil fuel was obsolete and petroleum was only used to make pomade, okwuma  and KY Jelly. 2012 would be so far ahead that toll-gates would be damn near impossible. We would be using rockets and jets to propel ourselves on inter-galactic highways in the air, and air is free, right? And it needs no maintenance or any long-term concessions to build. Eat your heart out LCC; I am fast and free.

2000 used to seem that futuristic when I was a kid growing up in the 80s. In fact people like Prince 2000, the Nigerian entertainment anchor who added the year to his name, did so to make it look like he was so ahead of his time. He was – but that was because he also wore sequined shine shine jackets with huge shoulder pads, sported a juiced up Jeri Curl perm with enough oil to fry akara for a small village, and hype the crowd by encouraging it to strike him (Hit Me! Hit Me! Hit Me!). Prince would be kicking himself now, whenever he looks at his name.

And who can remember that 80s movie whose poster featured an army commando carrying the hugest gun ever seen? The movie was supposed to best its competitors Rambo and Commando in the action movies genre. To make sure it did that, it was also given a futuristic, out of this world name: Equalizer 2000.

So we are now in 2012, I am in the mood for merry making, because I made it “back to the future.”

So how were your Christmas and New Year celebrations? Was Santa good to you? If you don’t believe in Santa, what about your sugar daddy? Was he good to you? Even if Santa wasn’t good to you,  at least Boko Haram wasn’t bad to you. That is worthy of praise to the Most High.

There lies the problem with Nigerians sometimes. We either over-count our blessings, focusing on the mundane, ahead of what should really matter; or we do not count them at all. A few days after Xmas, I was chatting with a friend of mine via BB, and I asked him how his Xmas had gone, and he replied “Terrible.”

So I inquired further “Terrible? What happened? You didn’t eat jollof rice, fried chicken and drink minerals at your folks place? Or you didn’t receive a hampa (hamper) from one of your clients? What made it terrible?”

He really couldn’t explain.

I said “ You are alive, and you can piss unassisted – that has to count for something.”

As my pastor used to say (don’t worry, I am not one to quote pastors as the sole authorities on wisdom),  it is a privilege and not a right that when you sleep, you wake up the next morning. Urinating without a dialysis is a blessing, not a right. Being able to walk and talk is not promised to anyone. These are blessings from God. And you don’t know what you have till it’s gone.

Any spirit of non-enjoyment disturbing or hampering (not Xmas  gift hamper o) your joy, I countermand and rescind it (or them) forthwith. Say Amen!

During a class, a teacher of mine some years back opined  that most Nigerians go around grumbling: I want millions and billions in the bank. I want a gigantic house with 20 en suite rooms in Old Ikoyi.  I want the phone numbers of all the top models, fresh girls and red carpet fashionistas in Lagos and Abuja, so that they could visit me for booty calls and ride me all night. I also desire all the LV and Channel bags I can carry in the crux of my elbow, and enough Brazilian weave to put She-Ra to shame. I desire 4 smart phones so that I could be on all the networks – Airtel, Glo, Etisalat and MTN, and never have to switch sim-cards between one phone when any network starts its connection ogbanje. Why was my dad a sucker, who didn’t leave an inheritance for me?

The teacher continued: “Try being sick and you will notice that health is more important than wealth, and your only pre-occupation would be how to get better. All those paper-making plans would pale in comparison.”

With that, the teacher suddenly looked up, and caught a late-comer student trying to sneak into the class from one of the back doors. He exclaimed “Get out of my class, you big fool! In fact what is your name? Ajayi Bembem? Okay you have minus 20 marks from your total to pass this course.”

By the way, that was my Philosophy lecturer.

In 2012, pay a visit to any Nigerian hospital, especially the ones in less high-brow areas. You would eat your heart out, after you have cried it out. That bridge you drive over, barely stopping except in traffic, you need to pay a visit to shanties under it, and see how poorly some people live in this unequal country. Sometime one needs to see how it is on the other side, so that you can get some perspective and be thankful for this New Year.

2012 is a new beginning, and gives us 2012 reasons to pursue our dreams 2012 per cent. So help us, God.

Happy New Year, my fellow Woah-Nigerians.

 

Say goodbye to the brainwashed/
Say goodbye to the young kids who are not smart/
Say hello to the one world…/
Say hello to the sky, something’s out there watching you and I/
..I might be old fashioned, stuck in my ways/
But nothing make me more happier than seeing today/

Nas (New World, 1999)

One Chance

Lets go back to December 31st of 1999

What would you do differently if you had the chance to start life from scratch? If you could rub a lamp (or rechargeable lantern) and make a wish, or if you were given an opportunity to change some of your previous life choices, what would you do? If there was a time travel scientist called Doctor Who Sai, and he offered you a chance to travel in his time travel telephone box (not operated by Nitel o), where would you travel to, and what would you change? Would you go back to 1950 and beg your popsie to complete school and go to Uni, so that he would succeed so that you can have a better chance of being born with a silverspoon in Ikoyi?

Or would you go back to 1914 and slap Lord Lugard into a stupor to prevent him from amalgamating the Northern and Southern protectorates to form Naija, and thereby save us all this anguish. Or perhaps you would travel to 2005 and invest your hard-earned salary in 1st Bank and Nigerian Brewery stocks and shares, instead of Transcorp, Finbank and Intercontinental Banks like you ended up doing and loosing your life savings. Maybe you wouldnt have married that girl – you have now found out that she was too good to be true. She claimed she was a virgin and had never seen man, and did not let you ‘violate her’ but on the wedding night, once you straddled her, you almost ‘fell inside”. Now a sex video of her planking different Alhajis has now gone viral. You have also become viral from her infections.

Or would you rather time-travel to 2003 to major in music in school, rather than banking and finance? I mean Tuface and Don Jazzy are cleaning out almost as well as the Jim Ovias and Pascal Dozies of these world (key word – almost). Or you may choose to go back to 1992 to buy 20 plots of land in Lekki Phase One and Wuse, when these were worth half-a-penny. My uncle was offered land in Banana Island in 1996 for 2 million. He decided to invest in Festac instead, and now his house has appeared in many Nollywood movies, as opposed to Fortune 500 or MTV Cribs.

Now don’t get me wrong, I prefer not to dwell on mistakes I have made, or wrong choices when I was younger .Whatever happens has happened, and what  is done, is done. People espouse that philosophy of life where you look forward and regret nothing including past mistakes, writing them off as life experiences. It is even embodied in the French term “Regrette Rien” which means “Regret Nothing”

In Pidgin English parlance, it is called ‘E don happen” so why you wan kill yourself?

However, sometimes, you do reflect on your journey through life, and  try to imagine how much different your life would be if you had passed the right or left fork on the road, and had gone straight instead. Here would be my choices, if I could start again:

• I would have become an engineer. I was a proficient Lego brick builder as a youngster. I may have made a good civil engineer though a civil child I was not.  In Junior secondary, I was initially great at Introductory Technology, but the teacher put me off because he was always hitting students with the T-square.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the legal profession but there are too many insincere jerks and old school monuments dogging the institution. Besides try watching one of those World War or invasion movies – lawyers are always the first ones to be killed or imprisoned in concentration camps when a dictator takes over a nation. Doctors and lawyers are spared because they can provide anciliarry services.  Nuclear physicists are spared too because of their technological prowess. But lawyers don’t have anything to offer because their talk talk is too much. I put it to you that you cannot kill or imprison me. I will invoke a wreath of Habeus Corpus and have you reprimanded forthwith. 

Even people who studied Yoruba Education in school have a better chance of surviving in an invasion or dictatorship than a lawyer. They could prostrate and plead for their life: Ejo o, e ma bi nu.Ma pa mi, iku mi o wulo fun e (Please o, don’t be angry. I am useless to you dead). The person would be more successful with his plea, if he impersonates Jide Kosoko’s facial expressions.

The worst people are those who studied Philosophy. They would try to rationalize with the arresting soldiers by applying logic: You arrest and kill some innocent victims. I am an innocent victim. But it does not mean you have to kill me.

So engineers are indispensable. They have the pick of the choicest positions and benefits. When I worked at Nigerian Breweries as an intern, I once overheard a manager sigh as he guzzled a huge mug of Harp “The most important people in this company, and the only ones immune from sacking are those who oversee production – the lager engineers. All you analysts, business administrators, interns are on borrowed time here”

Dude, we are all on borrowed time. Nor be you papa company na.

Engineers have all the advantages. There are different kinds of engineers – civic, petroleum, mechanical, electronic, marine,, aeronautic etc etc. There are only 3 kinds of lawyer in Nigeria – charge N bail, baby lawyer and the erudite ones (Gani, FRA Williams, Babalakin etc). Aim to be among the last category.

Engineers rise to the top of their professions, and get to wear jeans and nice yellow helmets even in corporate settings. They use terms like “rig, petroleum, platform,  crank, production.”

Lawyers rise up in the profession, but always usually wear a black wig and gown in a hot court-room. They use words like “adjournment, frustration, lapse, laches, statute of limitation, I put it to you, sue,  please be advised..”

Anyway  I still ended up being an engineer regardless – I am a social engineer, building blocks of hope.  My bic is my spanner. In fact sometimes I introduce myself as Architect Esco at public gatherings. At one recent gathering, the other person looked at me interestingly as I introduced myself as an architect. He was one himself, so he inquired further:  “Interesting stuff. What buildings or projects have you designed.”

I wanted to reply “Motherfuck designing mansions in water logged Lekki, I help rebuild and rehabilitate people through the medium of blog satire”

Instead, I pretended like I had just received an international call, and excused myself “Ehnn, sorry Joe, the line is breaking. What time is it now at Singapore? It must be MTN’s network, please let me go outside for better reception. Please excuse me, Architect Dagbaru”

• I would have made better choices in my relationships earlier on. I would have bitten the bullet, been bolder and hooked up with Chineze. I would not have stood up Damola on Valentines Day to hang out with the lads. I would have treated Oyin differently and not have taken her for granted. I can remember taking a train all the way from Borehamwood to Swiss Cottage to meet Oyin who was meeting me all the way from Edmonton for a movie at the O2 center. After a huge meal at Weatherspoons, I embarrassingly fell asleep during the movie. Don’t blame me, it was already around 8pm, and besides the movie showing had musical bits in it. It was Gerald Butler’s “Phantom of the Opera.”

Oyin was pissed that I dare fall asleep during our date, even spilling our popcorn all over the place as I shifted in my snooze. My excuse was let me sleep, so I can dream of you.

 Oyin, I apologize. I am also sorry for taking you to my new girlfriend’s house and making out with her in front of you, because I stupidly thought you were over me. Now that I am older and wiser, I realize that girls have a secret radar and no chick would like to see her ex with another hotter chick. Sorry, I meant another chick equally as hot. Please accept my apologies for 2011.

• I would dance with my father one more time, if I had the chance. He passed away a few years ago, and now I realize that all the life lessons he taught me are gems for living.  I recently caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window, and I could see my father’s features creeping in a little. His mannerisms, his modus operandi, his figures of speech are all engrained in me. Miss you Dad.

• I would have started a business a long time ago. I guess it is never too late, but I am inspired by the life stories of self -made men like Richard Branson and Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs who started really early in life. The former had a paper route when he was barely in his teens and the former was a record company “A and R” by his early twenties, and formed Bad Boy Records when he was just 23.

On a side note, a friend of mine wants to start a clothing company, and has started importing tee-shirt printing and embroidery machinery. He hired me a design consultant because he felt I had a creative spark. His vision was for a urban wear line  with designs that could make a statement, sort of like those Che Guevara revolutionary tee-shirts, or Doc Marten boots with grunge or punk rockers, or how Ben Sherman shirts were popular with U.K chavs, or how college kids like Abercrombie and Fitch and snap back hats. Or like Hawes and Curtis and pudgy Nigerian bankers.

He wanted a line of tee-shirts with a range of designs peculiar to the Nigerian hip fashionista. It had to be cool, but distinctively naija.

My first few suggestions were wide off the mark, and I am sure he is seriously thinking of asking me to resign.

I suggested a T-shirt with an inscription “I am the bomb”. He looked at me like I was crazy. Ha, make Boko Haram catch you.

What about a shirt with the PHCN logo, and then the phrase “I got the power…Not”

I wish I had learnt a special skill. Like I had taken up lawn tennis classes, or learnt how to play the piano, or the Yoruba talking drum. My father really wanted me to learn how to play tennis, as he felt it was a good form of keeping fit and networking for life. I really always wondered what the racket was all about. Besides there were few places to practice in Lagos. I am Igbo, and imagine the ill looks I would  get if I waltzed into the Yoruba Lawn Tennis Club. I wish I could play chess as well as draught. I am a champ at Ludo though. When I throw the dice, I am fairly proficient at getting 2 sixes. Siki one, siki two…oya carry ya seed.

 

And for all the nights and all the fights/

That I had for all this money over all these dice/

All my cars and homes and all my ice/

If I could do it all again, I’d do it all for Christ/

 Mase (From Scratch, 1999)

7 Things About A Versatile Awardee

otu, abuo, ato, ano.....

Oh happy days! I was recently nominated by 2 of my fellow bloggers (Stelzz and Che)  for the Versatile Blog Awards. Una too much jare. May your lot in life be award, reward, forward and never hospital ward or coward or backward. Or even way-ward. Amen!

This award comes with the proviso that I tell everyone 7 things about myself and nominate 15 other bloggers. The latter is very easy – I refer everyone to the blogs on my blog-roll (to the right of this page). The former – 7 things about myself – is a hard ask. For one, you would notice that I never really talk about myself on this blog. I endure a reluctant passion towards self-promotion. Okay, let me see if I can find up to 7 interesting things to say about myself. I took a template from a blog which had also been given the award, so that I could create a question and answer session. So I get to interview me.

1.     Favorite Color: Blue is the color. Blue jeans, blue bed sheets, blue shirt. And of course I am the biggest Blues fan (Chelsea). I am an avid Chelsea fan, and yes I was supporting them before Roman (yep I know him on a first name basis) bought them (us) over and injected money for transfers. In fact I started supporting Chelsea in 1997 when Gianluca Vialli joined from Serie A. Someone (an Arsenal fan who had never even been to the departure lounge of Murtala Mohammed Airport, to talk less of the Emirate Stadium or Highbury) once remarked that you are not a real fan until you have gone to see your team play – that statement irked me, so I am happy to say that I have been to Stamford Bridge (the home of football) to see my beloved Chelsea play. I also got good seats, courtesy of my friend whose Uncle is a season ticket holder, so I was pitch-side. I was at that Blackburn Rovers game where Ashley Cole got injured and Shevchenko missed a million easy chances (yawn). I kept trying to get Mikel’s attention through-out the game by shouting in Igbo whenever he dribbled near when I was sitting “Nwanne m, biko nye tu m pounds sterling”

 

Though blue is my favorite color, it also depends on the item. I for one wouldn’t wear blue leather shoes, though I could rock a light or navy blue suit. I also wouldn’t dare snog a female wearing blue lipstick (there is something about blue lipstick that ‘fears’ me; I think it has something to do with that poisonous kiss Nagin the snake girl gave a man in the Indian movie “Nagin” that made his lips turn blue before he died). So for different things, I have different favorite colors. I used to have a thing for chocolate or olive skinned girls (Latinas not Naija girls using bronze ‘pancake’ make-up); however I prefer white chocolate (Hershey’s Kisses); for cars, I prefer silver or black (but any color if it is a Mercedes though); I like red lingerie on my lass; for ice-cream, strawberry is my thing; I prefer white to yellow garri but I would rather eat amala (the darker, the better); I also prefer white teeth on a female (go figure); my mp3 player is black but it is full of blues music; I prefer blondes to brunettes or red-heads; I like LBDs, and nude lipstick on chicks. I like egg-shell white for room walls, and my favorite Hula Hoops flavor is the one with the green packet. I also like the Nasco biscuit with the blue packet best. Red velvet is an igbotic color for a living sofa. For couches, I prefer coffee brown.

2.  Favorite song: There are so many, I can’t choose. It cuts across genres so I will pick 10 Nigerians songs I really like in no order. Deal?

 

• M.I. – Imperfect Me
• Danny Wilson – Mr. Raggamuffin
• Duncan Mighty – Ijeoma
• Sauce Kid – Won so pe
• Wiz Kid – Holla at your boy
• Junior N Pretty – Monika
• Onyeka Onwenu  Iyogogo
• Bigiano – Shayo
• Tybesmen – Na which kain life be this
• Fela – Beast of no nation

 

By the way, I am really feeling a particular song right now. You should have a listen when you can. It is by an act called Foster The People and the song is called “Pumped Up Kicks.”

Great for blasting out of your car stereo on a warm summer day with the windows down. Unless you are creeping through some tough Lagos neighborhoods. 

I would like to see an M.I and Modenine duet album – that would be fire. Hands up if you would like hear music from a super-group made up of Jim Iyke, Goldie, Shan George and Omotola. Meeeeee!

3.  I know that a few of you find this blog funny, but I am more Frank Sinatra than Frank Spencer or Frank Olize – I like to do things my way. Often times, I find that I have different tastes than the average person, and I really thrive on daring to be different.  I do have quirky tastes. Small example, I don’t think Kim Kardashian is all that; in fact I think Khloe is the hotter sister. In the Archie comic series, I always rooted for Reggie. In the cartoon series “Battle of the Planet”, I always taught that Jason was cooler than Mike. The yellow and green lions are were my favourite in Voltron, and I cant stand Apple I-pods due to I-tunes (I think Sony makes better music players). I open my box of cereal from the bottom up. I didn’t wear socks for a long time because I don’t get them (I do now). When I download an album, I remove the hit singles from my playlist. I make my bed after I get up no matter how untidy the rest of the room is. I try to follow my intuition because from experience when I follow people’s advice, I get burned. I only ask people for advice if I am absolutely clueless or just to flatter them into a feeling of self-importance. I have got no patience, and I hate waiting. I don’t like being told what to do.

 

I learnt how to drive by stealing the car keys from the driver as a 15 year old, and rolling out with my little posse of pals. I had one or two mini-accidents (give and go) but I was driving from Surulere to Victoria Island, Ikeja and Lekki by my 6^th try.

 

Me dad ordered me to go to driving school regardless or he would bar me from taking any of the cars out. I was livid. Driving school was hell for me because I felt it was a waste of time, as I could already drive but the tutor, a stout, Igbo man called Mr. Ignatius was a kill-joy who wanted me to obey every sign, slow down to a halt at every intersection, and never speed up even on a busy road. He even refused to permit me change gears past gear 3. This tutor was born to be a driving school instructor because he wore thick soles driving shoes with looked like Scholls, and wore driving gloves too. I nicknamed him Mr. Ignition because anytime I disobeyed his command, he would shout “Cut the ignition” and stamp on the spare brake on his side of the car). He would bellow in  Igbo-English “Press the clush, before you change the jear” or “ you have not yet mastered the steering wheel, drive with ya two hands.”

 

After 2 weeks, the man had had enough because I did the opposite of whatever he asked, and he said that he didn’t think I would ever make a good driver. Well I have disappointed him now, because I have more mileage than a Chanchangi airplane. Haha.

4.  I like good food.  There is a Greek proverb that says “he who does not like women or wine is a fool.” I gbadun the latter. I believe food should be painstakingly prepared – and I am about quality and not quantity. I used  dodge going to the dining hall at boarding school. I always looked in horror at the way the kitchen matron served and dished the food from a huge aluminum tureen, like it was mass production.  It was a real mess of pottage if I ever saw one, and I was not selling my birthright for that. When it comes to the economics of food, I prefer specialization to mass production. That’s how I learnt how to cook. I was tired of my roommate in Uni serving horrible portions and cooking up tongue twisters in the name of jollof rice.This dude was throwing in every ingredient he could find into a pot and creating a mish-mash. He would go over to our neighbors in the next BQ and ask for oil, then run over to the next flat and collect yam, and then he would throw them in in pot, add rice, and pour ketchup in.

 

One day, I had had enough. People ask me how I learnt how to cook so well. When hunger catches you, you will cook by force. I really should invite one of my readers over for dinner.

5. Favorite pet – I must confess I am not really into pets. Dogs poo all over the place, and while I like cats because you have to earn their trust, they don’t really send you, do they?  Plus their piss smells worse than the loo at Murtala International Airport. Plus if you have superstitious or paranoid neighbors, they may think that you are a winch for owning a cat. No I am not one of those people who think that animals belong in a zoo or a cooking pot depending on the type.  There are some exotic animals I would like for pets, like  a potbellied pig (elede) or a parakeet (parrot) or an eagle. The unfinished building next to my house is infested with agama lizards and rats, so feeding the eagle would not be a problem.

To answer the question, I don’t have a pet and I don’t send them, so I would say my favorite pet is my baby sister. She is now 21 and has started knowing boys, so I am now the uncool older brother. I recall when I used to go see her at her boarding school in QC on visiting day, and smuggle her fast food, and laugh as I watch her and her friends demolish everything in my car. But recently, I ran into her at Rhythm Unplugged with her friends, and she said a cute hello, before disappearing. I sniffed my armpits, and checked out my gear. Like I am not looking embarrassing, am I?

6. I have a scar on my forehead. It isn’t really visible now because it stems from a childhood incident from when I was just 5. After watching Christopher Reeves in Superman, I wanted to transform and take flight. I begged my dad to buy me the Superman costume, and fantasized about all the places I would fly to – Apapa Amusement park, Bar Beach, the Walls Ice Cream or Samco factory. My dad never bought me the outfit. I then asked for the Captain Afrika one, and my old man still refused.

 

One day playing with my cosuins in their house, I had a eureka moment. Feeling like Led Zeppelin, I tied my aunt’s wrapper around my neck, and started diving about. The momentum from one of my dives took me smashing through a sliding glass. I was in a coma for 2 days and sustained injuries on my forehead and kness.

My best mate’s experience when he was a youngster is worse. He and his elder brother were ‘fencing’ with broomsticks as their swords, trying to act like the 3 Musketeers. Egbon no de carry last, so his brother poked him in the eye with the broomstick. He still has a spot in his eye till this day, and it especially shows whenever he smokes gbana.

By the way, have you guys ever heard this joke? A mother was telling her 9 year old son a story about when he was much younger. She said “ When you were about 2, you fell really sick, and had pneumonia and malaria. You had to be admitted to a hospital, and put on a drip. You were really ill.”

The son looked at his mum and asked “Mummy, did I die?” Ok sorry, just thought I would throw it out there.

 7.    I must confess that I have run out of things to add to make up the list, so let me un-ashamedly say that I am a huge ‘Jersey Shore’ fan. There I said it. I really don’t have a lot of time for reality TV shows. I prefer blood, guts and glory (like  Spartacus) or history (The Tudors) but Jersey Shore is a good watch, I must say.

So there you have it. Enough about me, pease could everyone, use the above Q & A format to tell me what their favorite things are

The Pounded Yam And Pure Water Awards (10)

Supepper

 NICE ONE!

• I read somewhere recently that the United Nations is to recommend China’s one child policy to Nigeria. This may not be a bad idea after-all,  because there are too many impoverished couples with a football team number of kids whom they can scarcely afford to take care of. You see people in rural areas who can barely scrape a living, but  the husband and wife have a set of children who are almost the same age – 12, 11, 10 and 6 months, 9, 8.5, 5,4, 3.

There was a man in my village like that. He had 6 kids all close to the same age, and his wife was knocked up again. Here he was begging me for money for school fees for his kids and to start a business, but his wife was only 27, and she had dropped 6 kids already.

The kids came one by one to the living room as he introduced them to me: “You people should come and greet your uncle from Lagos, and thank him because he brought us groundnut and bread. Esco, this is the first born, his name is Monday.”

And I kid you not, so it continued. The next one’s name was Friday. All of the male kids had the days of the week as their names, except the 2 girls who were named after months – Augustina and Julie (July, as he pronounced it).

Looking at his wife’s huge pregnant stomach, I sneered as I said “And let me guess, that one would be called D-day.”

His wife laughed uneasily, and the man hissed. By the next Xmas season, the foetus in the belly (D-Day) had a younger sibling too. He was named Valantyne (Valentine).

Forget all these condom and contraceptive programs by the Ministry of Health, our government should start preaching self-control instead of birth control. Having a large family has its own distinct advantages, once you have the means to cater for all – I am from a large family, but I know how stressful beginning of school terms was for my folks – school fees for kids always ran into 5 -6 figures.

Going to school in the morning was always a huge logistics nightmare. My old man had to buy a Hiace bus to ferry us all. First the seats had to be removed, and new rows of seats welded in to create room, just like Danfo buses. And shopping for food in my house was like shopping for an owambe party. Traders in the market fought against each other, and competed to get my mums custom because her average monthly shop was usually like this: 6 fowls, a bag of rice, a bag of yellow garri, 15 tubers of yam, a 300 liter gallon of palm oil. Before the days of frozen chicken, it was a whole fowl per meal to feed everyone, and even the last child ended up with the chicken head and comb. Haha

 Another disadvantage was having to wear hand-me-downs. To save cost, you may have to wear your older’s siblings old clothes, while they rocked trendier new season gear. Except if your elder sibling was a smaller size than you, and then they rocked hand-me-ups which is even more humiliating. Despite being a guy, I still didn’t escape hand-me-downs from my older sister. Relax your mind, no, I wasn’t a cross dresser or Ken or anything. Bata by Choice sandals and shoes were mostly unisex, you see. Advise: keep your family unit small.

I am all for everybody’s right to procreate and spread their glorious seed across the earth but it is my personal philosophy that your whole family should fit into a car. Husband driving, wife riding shotgun, and the 2 or 3 kids at the back. I said car, as in sedan car, and not a jeep o! Not a Kia Picanto, Daewoo Racer or Nissan Q45 (House on wheels). My model family size would be Uncle Phil’s in the TV series The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, or to hit close to home, who can remember the Bako family of 4 who undertook a Nigerian road trip through the states of the federation in that primary school Macmillan’s English textbook?

• I have decided to eat healthier and cut down on carbs, espousing a diet filled with vegetables. I like to cook sometimes, and I have started doing a mean stir-fry. Ingredients needed – low cholesterol vegetable oil, mushrooms, onions, shrimps, green and red bell peppers, onions, minced meat, mixed vegetables (carrots, broccoli, peas). All you need is a Wok pan and some decent spices, and Esco’s secret recipe. If you add and ask me nicely on Twitter, I would send you my recipe.Below is a picture of stuff I put together myself. I know my presentation is off, but I am not a star chef, besides blame it on the poor Blackberry camera. I should cook dinner for one of you sometime.

Veg and ranch sauce - Esco special

It is an expensive way to eat in these expensive times, but hospital bills are equally as expensive. I put fuel in my car, and not kerosene, so why should my body ingest less?

I decided to cut back on snacks and sugar because I was finding it hard to lace my shoes and breathe at the same time. Haha. Eddie Murphy once said that if you wanted to know how fat you were, look at your stomach when you are sitting on a toilet bowl. Some weeks ago, after a heavy dinner of swallows, I screamed when I saw my girth, while in the loo. I looked like half a bag of pure water. I have embraced better eating habits, and the occasional work out thrown in.

And I am eating healthier to improve fitness and not just finesse. In fact my new mantra towards my health goals is lifted straight from a Ghostface Killah song lyric: Hit the gym for 2 weeks, come back chiseled/ elbows unique, meet the new me….

 

And I feel like a million bucks. I recently needed to dash out somewhere for an appointment, and got to my car and remembered that I had forgotten something upstairs. I dashed up he flight of stairs in a jiffy without breaking a sweat, and without puffing for breath. You should have seen the way I was celebrating at the top of the staircase. It was like the Philadelphia steps scene from the movie Rocky.

Now if only older 1004 estate in Victoria Island still existed, I would have tried to test my new fitness levels. The elevators never worked in the old 1004.

• Seeing as the Super Eagles have fallen our hands after failing to qualify on Saturday for the 2012 African Nations Cup, I have shifted my attention to my new love – Pro Evolution Soccer 2012.This soccer game for the Sony Playstation and Xbox 360 consoles came out 2 weeks ago in America. What a game!

I don’t know how many of you play video games, but if you are into your football, this is the Ferrari of soccer games. By the way, I have also played FIFA 2012 and it sucks. It is glossy but lacks substance. Let me put it this way, FIFA is like moi moi with eggs and corned beef inside but cooked in a tin, and served as beans casserole. PES 2012 is like plain moi moi with no filler, nice steamed in the traditional plantain leaf, over a nice stack of burning firewood.

I have been handing out beat-downs to challengers online on Xbox Live. So if any of you want to throw down, my gamer tag is EscoWoah. Yep, your neighbourhood “Literati:Satires On Nigerian Life” is now on Xbox Live. Next stop,  Sonny Iraboh Live, Saturday Night Live, then Hollywood (or Nollywood), Android and I-tune applicaions,  then clothing brands, toys, franchises, books, journals. Say Ameen!

 

If you are online, please let’s have a game. If you are one of those glory hunter players who only choose Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan or Man U, worry not – I have something for you. I recently beat 4 consecutive gamers who chose Barcelona, and I used Athletico Madrid and Bordeaux.

It is also available for the Iphone, I-pad or I-pods as a free download initially, and then you have to pay 3.99 pounds (about N1000) for the full game. You should try it. Don’t say Esco doesn’t try to hook you up.

You no try

CAN YOU IMAGINE

• About 32.5million Nigerians are unemployed, the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said recently. They should make that 32,503,000 because  Airtel recently sacked 3000 employees prompting an investigation by the House of Reps. Unemployment is a huge problem in Nigeria, and our government are just folding their arms clueless about the scale of the problem.  Unemployed or  idle youngsters are more dangerous than Boko Haram or Niger Delta militants

I actually believe the the NBS’s figure is modest. When I heard them say 32.5m, my first thought was, is that number for Lagos or the whole of Nigeria? Drive down some parts of Lagos in the early hours of the morning, and you would see scores of people just chilling, looking on. Our figures for those out of work are way more than that amount. I personally know about 100,000 people that are not gainfully employed, and they have cousins, sisters and uncles.  People just don’t have anything doing, and if everyone should open a business, who would be the customers? Where is the capital by the way? A lot of Nigerians are idle, and that’s why when there is an incident or accident in a public place, you see swathes of by-standers surrounding the place for hours on end. Una nor get work?

And not just the rural areas, the problem is also with the middle class as well. I know people that returned from completing their post-grad degrees abroad, and could not get jobs. Many returned back. People in Lagos especially put up a façade, and would tell you that they are ‘consultants’ or general contractors, when in fact they do nada. Some of those unemployed 32.5million include your Lagos-town fashionistas, social circuit huggers and red carpet aladins.  Dem no dey write ‘umemployed’ for face. Some people are working but not employed. What is the difference? They have an office that they go to, but they have not been paid salaries or received any benefits in months.

The unemployment situation worsened with the shake-ups in the banking sector in 2009, when several CEO’s were removed for alleged gross embezzlement, banks started laying off staff by the thousands. It has continued to present.  It is anomaly of epic proportions that we have youths willing to go to school in this country, some reading up to doctorate level, but there are not nearly enough jobs to go round.

And if you have your dream job, do not turn your nose up at the un-employed. Being employed in Nigeria these days seems to be about who you know, than what you know., and not about merit. Also being at the right place at the right time with the right company helps too. Some years ago when he was the president, Obasanjo went to a state in the north to commission a project. He was taking questions from reporters when a lady who had just completely NYSC interjected that she was frustrated because she was looking for work. OBJ commanded his security detail to find her a job asap. “Strings” (I didn’t say g-strings o) were pulled, and the lady was hooked up with a plum position in Abuja. I am looking for Obama.

• Girls who refuse to go on dates with you unless it is to the Galleria to watch movies or some swanky restaurant when they can stuff their faces. What is it with some Nigerian girls and refusing to do something different? A few girls seem to think that a date must equal food and film? What happened to peeping the aesthetic, hanging at the beach. Heck, can’t we go to the National Museum at Onikan, so that I could show you Igbo Ukwu Bronze pots, Nok terraculture plus the limousine Murtala was slain in? Or why don’t we head to the National Theatre at Iganmu, and catch an Ola Rotimi play? Nah, she would rather watch a Jon Favreau romantic comedy at Silverbird, but not before we visit the sharwama and popcorn stands.

A friend of mine recently met this girl he really fancied. He decided to take her on a date, and wanted to do something different. They both lived in Abuja, so he had a good idea. Or so he thought

He showed up at the girls house, and picked her up. The girl got into the car, looked at the backseat and screamed “What are you doing with a bed sheet?”

The back seats had a basket filled with a loaf of premium sliced butter bread, butter, crackers, cheese, bubbly, baked beans, sausage, ham, some juice, a small deck and a cloth.

He replied “Nah, it is a table-cloth. I wanted us to go to a park for a picnic.”

She opened her eyes in disbelief “Pick pin? No oh! I can’t go to any park, the sun would make my skin dark. Take me to Ceddi Plaza or somewhere to eat or drop me off.”

He dropped her off. Like a bad habit.

• People who say “My names are….” I don’t know why certain people do this. They are the sort of people to adhere stupidly to this plural rule, but fail ‘grammatically’ in other instances by saying something like “Are you from where?”

As a social rule of the thumb, never ever say my names are unless you are possessed with a demon or unclean spirit called Legion (they said they were many), or if you are bi-polar, or if you are a blue blooded aristocrat with titles to boot. No, Otunba, Nze, Chief do not count.

• Ever since I posted up my email address to be contacted for the writing services I offer, I have been inundated with emails from spammers. With subjects names like “Urgent Confidential Respond”, “Lottery Winner”, “Hello Dear” and “Please Get Back to Me”, I have received yahoo yahoo bait emails from fictional Central Bank governors, widows to men with fortunes who need a business partner, and I have even been told that I have won the U.K Visa Lottery (which I don’t remember entering in the first place if it does exist).

To these scammers, if you are reading, why na? I am a P.I.M.P, you can’t pimp me. You cannot spam and scam me at the same time so please quit forthwith. I don’t even read your emails anymore, I just delete them. My dedicated readers who wish me well, you know I love you.

Writing Services Offered

I offer writing services for blogs, websites magazines, newspapers, columns, businesses etc. at very competitive rates.

Here are a summary of the kind of writing services I provide:

• article writing for media prints
• contents for blogs, websites and online journals
• blog posts
• press release writing
• ghost writing (including songs, lyrics, scripts and poetry)
• speeches
• columns for magazines and newspapers

Clients are assured of a fantastic service as my writings are all original, well-crafted, fresh and professionally edited, without copy and paste jobs or plagiarism.

If interested, contact me at woahnigeria@yahoo.com or on Twitter @EscoWoah

Abegi

oya, have it...

I apologize for the brief hiatus. I had so much going on privately (in a good way). How has everyone been? Well, I am back to doing me, with more articles and my warped points-of-view.

I also want to thank everyone who inquired about how I was getting on, either via blog comments, Twitter messages or emails. Una too much jare. This goes out to you, and you, and you….

With that said, scroll up for an article, keep ‘patronizing’ this blog, and yeah please – I want to hear you. Post a comment, send me a sweet Tweet, shoot me an email (woahnigeria@yahoo.com).

Forever And A Day More

Esco

3 Things I Hate About Esco

Me too, Me too o...

I had a week from hell a fortnight ago. For some reason I just kept on upsetting and annoying people around me. Yep, Esco could be a jerk sometimes. I must have been going through the motions, and rubbed off people the wrong way. And the truth is that I think I know when I am being an asshole – in those instances I just can’t help it. Even my clone would have said “Esco, go fuck yourself” (not literally though).

I had mini tiffs with my girl, her aunt, my sister, my mother. Notice that they were all females. I even killed an ant with a sledge-hammer. No, I really did – I was walling a picture near the food pantry (sounds better than cupboard) when I saw an ant. Yeah, you can call the animal conservationists, but there was ant juice all over the wall. Even atom ant would have gotten it. Maybe I was just ‘bugging’ out. Okay bad joke.

To be honest, it wasn’t all my fault. It was just one of those weeks where I seemed to say and do the wrong things at the wrong time. A friend of mine Ogbonna has a term for that kind of situation where nothing works out for you for a period. He coined that term when he had off days socially when every girl he tried to hook up refused to give him the time of day or refused to give him their phone number.

Ogbonna had had a particularly bad week at work, with his new boss pressuring him with project after project. We decided to hit the club that night for a couple of drinks and just to hang out. His luck didn’t change. It made for sorry viewing as he approached girl after girl, but none chewed on his bait. He even tried to sandwich one drunken blonde lass ( sneak behind her while she is dancing with her friend), but she turned around angrily and shook her fists at him as she staggered away. Frustrated, he bellowed out ‘E be like say my mouth dey smell. Nothing dey gel for me today.” And a new phrase was coined.

You post up a comment on Facebook or a tweet, and it rubs people the wrong way, and scores of people proceed to rain insults on your point of view – your mouth dey smell.

You drive out, and it seems that every okada rider wants to redesign your car paint with their handle-bars as they drive recklessly, and danfo and molue drivers keep driving neck to neck with you, almost touching your bumper. Then the hawker selling MTN recharge cards presses his stack of cards against your glass, smudging it and refusing to budge. Then you nearly become a victim of road rage, as some impatient idiot behind you, blaring his horn, over takes you suddenly on the bend, nearly sending you crashing. As the fool drives off, he gives you the waka sign, and you feel like you are playing bumpy cars at the Getz Arena. Since you are rushing to meet an urgent appointment, you mistakenly drive into a ‘one-way’ stree in your confusion, and get pulled over by LASTMA officials who despite your frank pleas, and puny bribe of N500 insist on towing you and your vehicle to Alausa – ‘your mouth dey smell.’

Anyway, that was my lot some weeks ago. My mouth seemed to be smelling, as I kept on getting into conflicts with all around me.  Being that I have chosen to remain anonymous, a lot of you my dear readers, do not know that much about my characteristics. One of the things about being a blogger, an anonymous one at that is that you get to choose the better parts of your life story to share with blogosphere, which makes you come across as uber-cool. There may be a myth that Esco is cool, calm and collected. Or crazy, sexy, cool. Far from it. As part of a sick reverse therapy, to atone for my wrong doing, and ‘mouth smelling’ ways, I have decided to share some of the things I hate most about myself.

M.I the rapper, tried to do the same thing with his song ‘Imperfect Me’ off his latest offering MI2. He invited his friends and associates at the end of the song to say a couple of things that they didn’t like about him. Trust Naija people, we always have a mouthful to spew. Some didn’t get the memo or the fun gist of the concept, and proceeded to lay into him with some bad belle observations – “Jude (M.I’s government name) is dirty and his room is always filthy”.

If it were me, I would have edited it sharp sharp – the friend who made the remark and their comments. By the way, dirty is unattractive and gross. The friend should have said ‘durrty’ instead.

So in order to have damage control, I would be criticizing myself by myself, thank you very much. The caveat is that you must also tell me 3 things you hate or wish you could change about yourself. Yep, your less endearing qualities. You guys may have a diminished view about me after this, but here goes:

• I am a bit careless. I really don’t care about things I don’t care about. I remember an observation made by my teacher in Primary 4 under the character traits section of my report card. She wrote ‘Esco is very intelligent and engaging but he is too careless.”

Yep, I did misplace a lot of HB pencils and work assignments. I only kept all my biros well because I was a biro game champion. The teacher knew I didn’t send her and most other things that were not related to food and water, but I think she exaggerated a bit out of bellus for me. She once caught me eating a pack of Malted Milk biscuit during a class session. She seized it, and later on, I saw her chewing some, and handing it out to her son who had come to see her from the nursery section!

I am care-free too – a bit too much. Fast and free is the word.

I am type of person not to bother nagging or mouthing off to about anything. My expensive possessions can actually embarrass me especially if people start to inquire about the price or origin. I am more Purple Label Ralph Lauren than Big Polo Horse ‘eshin’ logo on the chest of the top for all to see. So in that way, I am not a typical flashy Nigerian – I prefer an Indie lifestyle. If I had my way, I would rather live in the suburbs, own my own newspaper blog like the Huffington Post, smoke a nice Havana cigar once in a while,  have 2 kids who would call me “pop dukes” and make me akara in the morning.

I do not care for chieftaincy titles, I don’t want the longest popular un-tarred street named after me.  I am not interested in becoming the most famous person in the Lagos social scene; and I don’t want to ‘oppress’ (I hate that word) my fellow Nigerian with my show of wealth or affluence.

I am not interested in being that big shot who zooms past in a convoy of SUVs, horns and sirens blaring, running pedestrians off the road, with the hazard lights blinking like an apollo patient. I remember a Nollywood film where a rich dude did this, his convoy splashing flood water on Clem Ohameze’s character who was walking on the road. Clem, visibly oppressed and intimidated by the show of wealth and flashy cars, shook his head enviously as he said “Look at what my fellow man is doing to me. Money is good o.”

Don’t get me wrong – I want paper, especially to help people around me. It is just that money is not all there is to life. I would really fancy a couple of original Andy Warhol paintings, a Mercedes or another unique piece of German engineering and the love of  my peers. Plus some nice cooked food and good and fitted clean clothes. And forget a Stepford wife- I always knew I would end up with an All-Nigerian Girl. Yep, I vote respect over money and power; one of my greatest fears is being wealthy but being grossly disillusioned or dissatisfied with life. C.R.E.A.M – Cash Rules Everything/Everyone Around Me (except me).

• I am a bit scared of commitment – I was class monitor for a minute in my first  year in secondary school. I got the title revoked for getting the class jumping. Being answerable to anyone socially or emotionally is a nightmare, though it has gotten better for me with age.  Emotional commitment in particular was like a horror flick.

Readers please berate me – I have the unenviable record of dating a girl for 2 hours officially. In fact I have done it twice – I have dated 2 girls for a couple of hours. No, not at the same time, but on 2 different occasions. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Let me get my apologies in order, here and now – Toyin and Chioma I am really sorry. I never meant to cause you any pain. By the way, Chioma if you are reading this, big ups to your brother for hooking us up. However I heard he was looking for me with a cutlass, when he heard we had broken up 120 minutes after deciding to go steady. Tell him, I had to skip town momentarily. Something ‘urgent’ came up – nothing to do with him.

I would talk more about this at a later time.

• I am a super flirt. This has gotten me into trouble plenty of times. People have said I actually flirt without knowing – with the way I smile, and show lasses attention even if I am not interested in them that way. I am told I have an uncanny ability to make a girl feel special by just being friendly and chatty. I think that is all absolute bollocks, because it never seems to work when I do really fancy a girl. It is not my fault if some girls misread what they deem as green light. What one girl deems flirty may be nothing to another girl, right?

The problem is that nowadays people read meanings into every single thing a member of the opposite sex does. I told a girl that she looked like the girl in Neyo’s ‘One in a million’ video, and she thought I was trying to get fresh with her.

  I even had a girl who tried to ‘ban’ me from smiling with other females. Yeah, blame it on my dimples. I soon started walking around with a face like Tony Umez (haha – Noble Igwe is a fool). Or Bill Duke (click on link to see facial expression).

I will be frank though, I have flirted a bit harmlessly with females to gain a small advantage or get better service. Like female cashiers at banks or airport ticketing ones, just to squeeze out better or faster service. Works a treat with Zenith Bank female workers. First Bank workers – not so much.

I think I may have even flirted a bit with my boss. She would ask me “Esco, aren’t you going home yet? It is almost 8pm. You can pack up your desk if you are done’.

I would reply with a spark in my eye ‘I can’t leave you alone here, Ma.’ With the ‘Ma’ pronounced like a Spaniard or Latino would say it.

And it wasn’t me trying to suck up. I was being charming and friendly with her, because she was wonderful to work with.

But when she and one of the directors started asking me inappropriate questions about my dating life during lunch breaks in the cafeteria, I knew I had to chill.

Ladies, I apologize if I have ever flirted with you against your own will. I don’t want you to get the wrong idea – it wasn’t intentional. It is all love though.

So those are a few of my less flattering traits – please share your with me. By the way, when you can, have a listen to M.I’s ‘Imperfect Me’ off his most recent album. Here are lyrics from its final verse:

 

There’s so much dirt I have covered/
It’s dark inside my cupboard/
It’s got me bothered I agree, yes/
I see, I am only human/
And it’s bad consuming/
Every good is blooming/
My actions each are ruining/
I am disaster walking/
Can’t hear the master talking/
But still I hear the Savior/
In all of my behavior/
Cos love remained over every single shame/
Let me be/

M.I. (Imperfect Me, 2010)