The Pounded Yam and Pure Water Awards 2011

THE POUNDED YAM AND PURE WATER AWARDS 2011

2011 has drawn to a close, and it is time to announce the first Annual Pounded Yam and Pure Water Awards 2011 (APYPW), also known as the Poundos. The manner of handing out this awards shall  be systematic. I shall list my favourite things (or persons) and they shall receive a Poundo (a wrap of pounded yam, and a plate of soup of their choice). The losers shall receive a satchet of pure water manufactured in a dirty Ajegunle workshop with H20 from a mossy well.

3 GBOSAS

1. What a year 2011 was. Nigerian entertainment got exported as a premium product while we imported refined petroleum.  People complain that Nigerian youngsters are not militant enough like our Arab cousins. Maybe it is true, but no-one can deny that their ingenuity, business saavy and resilience are the shining spots illuminating Nigerian positively to the world. And by youth, I am referring to those between the age group of 17 and 35 doing positive things and creating instead of taking from the system.

There are some that say people in their 30s should not be classified as youths, but there are actresses/actors or those in entertainment and businesses who claim their official age as 30 even though they are really in their 40s. So I want to capture those who are doing us proud with their accomplishments.

The one who grew up watching Kiddie Vision 101 on TV, but now have to contend with a government with no vision. The entertainers and those in the fashion industry, and those in business creating jobs and opportunities for the economy deserve a pat on the back, and their promise to us that they wouldn’t rest on their oars.

I won’t mention any names.

2. I am loving so many things right now – Cole Haan patent loafers, watching Katt Williams show while eating pepper-soup (the combination has me suffering and smiling), Chicken and Bacon Pressata (a delicious sandwich made with flaky flat bread and toasted with cheese,  any kind of food with a sprinking of suya pepper, the black actress Paula Patton in Mission Impossible 4 (Esco has a crush), button up shirts with stripes. In fact I am loving life in general. Life is good!

I am also feeling new Nigerian music videos. I really liked Wiz Kid’s Pakuramo – Funke Akindele made that video, but the cameos by other artists or entertainers, and the tones and concept used made that video worth watching again and again. By the way shout out to Whiskey (Wiz Kid)- the song itself could grace any dance-floor on planet earth. The intro especially was awesome.

Skale’s Mukulu was a good one as well. But side note, isn’t anyone else also alarmed at the manner girls shake their nubile bodies in our music videos these days. Dem nor wan marry?

You no try

Mondiots

1. Boko Haram killed more people than hunger and disease for the first time in Nigeria while our lame duck government cowered. They affected the social and economic life in Abuja, the seat of the Nigerian government, and many people lost their lives in Abuja, the North and even Sapele recently. Boko Haram deserve a big fat pure water (with car battery water inside).

2. Lekki a high-brow area was hit with the low-blow of tolling.  VGC is now officially the most expensive area in the world. You not only pay for the land, but also for the priviIege to go visit it.  I think its time for me to go back to my village. I go plant cocoa, I go plant cassava; even though na yam. I dey go back to my village. I refer you to my hit article Pump Pump and the Scramble for Lekki.  It has had over 47001 hits alone since publication. Nuff’ said. Fuck LCC by the way.

3.  The price of pure water finally defied Adam Smith’s and Keynesian economic theories and rose to N10.00 for the first time (not liquid contents only sha). Our award for losers just got more expensive, but I am not happy about it. The price of pure water, and food in general, deserves a pure water award.

4.  Fuel subsidy was finally removed. There have been various economic theories about the pros and cons of removing fuel subsidy. Apparently, it is supposed to stimulate competition among fuel producers and create an incentive for lowering prices, as opposed to subsidy and a price fix by government. But the fear is the Nigerian factor, where for some reason, the prices of items never ever go down, so N141 may the cheapest fuel will ever be. What goes up and never comes down? Age used to be the answer. Prices of goods in Nigeria may be the more correct one.

Besides we have a weak regulator in the PPPRA so how will collusion among illegal price cartels be monitored or curbed. Two or three or 10,000 beer drinking CEO Alhajis and Chiefs may meet in a hotel in Abuja and agree to peg fuel at N200 a litre, and promise to co-operate with each other, instead of competing to drive the prices down. And who would stop them?

Regulation in Nigeria has always been non-existent. I mean this is a country where crooks have been mixing kerosene with aviation fuel, and selling them to airlines. No wonder some of our airlines engines rattle and rumble like Molues. I have been in a domestic airplane where the aircraft’s shock absorbers were not working at all. The plane ‘fell’ from the sky, and landed with a huge thud that shook all the passengers. Some people screamed “Blood of Jesus”, while a few who had been pretending to read newspapers started screaming for their lives.  Some unfastened their seat belts and switched on the phones, and started making emergency calls to their family “Darling, our plane just crash-landed. Please just in case, make sure you send Felix my assistant to go and collect that cheque from Chief Akpanjo.”

Thank goodness these airline people no longer served refreshment but sold it instead. As I didn’t buy, thankfully there was no watery hot tea/coffee to spill all over me from the impact of landing.

So despite the pleas of the people, the government under Pa Jona went on with the subsidy removal. What is it about Aso Rock that makes our leaders turn to brutes. You see a meek and homely looking politician, but immediately he tastes power, he turns into a monster. It is like this scene from the movie “Waiting to Exhale”. Watch from 1.06 on the video, and just imagine that the guy is Pa Jona (or any top government official) and Whitney Houston is Nigeria. Immediately the government official discovers how sweet the perks of power is, he turns into a raging uncontrollable lunatic.

syz9P-waiting-to-exhale-movie-my-body-needs-this

My Body Needs This Scene from Waiting to Exhale Movie (1995) | MOVIECLIPS.

Receive the last Pure Water award! Gba!

Gone Till November

Whether na one naira....

Ah, it is that supposed date of champions – the eleventh day of November, the year of our Lord 2011. According to the Chinese calendar (even though I prefer their cuisine to their calendars), 2011 is the year of the rabbit. It is the year of the anu nchi, the okete rat, the oke, the otapiapia. And this is the penultimate month before the year draws to an end.

Why is November very significant? It is seen as the month of stock-taking and inventory. Igbo people especially start preparing for Xmas earnestly around this time. Village homes are retouched, and invitations are sent and received concerning  upcoming Xmas events like the iwa akwa (wearing cloth ceremony), or ibankwus (traditional weddings or ‘black account’ wedding as it is so damn expensive), or other traditional carnivals. Where I am from, we have a ceremony called Mbomuzo. This should attract a global media showcase – it features traditional fireworks, people running amok, masquerades and whips. People gather in the village square and set off fireworks and dance like a crazed banshee. Food is cooked, and everyone goes from house to house stuffing their faces with all manners of delicacies. Long story, depending on whom you talk to, November can be a pre-cursor month to the good  or a stark reminder to some of how bad the year has been.

Crimes notoriously go up around this period. Yahoo yahoo guys get more desperate, and as my spam box can testify, you get inundated with scam emails, sometimes from the same person twice a day. I am getting 419 emails from the supposed Central Bank Governor of Burkina Faso. Only me?

Even our ‘wazzup” brethren, home and abroad are gearing up for Xmas, and November is a particularly busy month. There are concerts and parties coming up, so everyone is trying to make sure they are on point. Plane tickets have to be booked, free cash is needed for tripping in Lagos, and for ‘landing’ Rhythm Unplugged or Caliente or wherever is the freshest place now. People for Jand done dey do 8 a.m to 12 midnight over-time shifts, in their “per hour” jobs. People would buy tickets with stop-overs in Qatar just to get a cheap deal to be able to land Naija for Xmas.

Kidnappers also up the ante around now, snatching people and demanding kings ransoms for stolen relatives. There was a case where one kidnapped an oil worker’s daughter, and asked for 600million naira before she would be released. The oil worker abused the kidnapper: “You can get lost. No be only 600 million. Did they tell you that I am impotent and cannot have another daughter. Ewu!” and slammed the phone down on the kidnapper’s ears.

The kidnapper called him back bewildered: “Oga why you dey talk like this na. E be like say you no love this your pikin”

The oil worker was not swayed “So because na my pikin make I go kill myself? How much her husband go give me when them dey pay dowry for her head? Abeg, abeg, I dey busy”

With that he terminated the call pronto.

The kidnapper called him a few days later, but the oil guy cut the phone without picking it up.

When the kidnapper saw that he was not ready to play ball, his price dropped by more than 3000 per cent: “Oga oya, abeg pay N50,000. We don spend money on credit dey call you. And this your butta pikin dey only chop Indomie noodles for here. We go even charter taxi wey go drop her for your front gate when we dey release am.Abeg, do, make we too chop. Country hard.”

After much deliberation and haggling, the rogue settled for 10 grand, and the guy’s daughter was released to him unscathed. She had even gained small weight, sef. Ogboju pass power.

So how has your year been so far? Have you taken stock? Are there any things you would have done differently? Did you achieve your goals or anything significant? Maybe you got to travel out of Nigeria for the first time and now your Facebook followers have been regaled to tears with photos of you on the desert dunes and gold shops of Dubai. You even brought them some grains of sand from the UAE as a sample. Or you made your first trip to Ghana, and now you insist that everyone call you Kwaku Frimpong. Perhaps this year, you officially became a land-owner in the dire straits of Lekki, albeit in a shanty ridden outpost on the outskirts of Ajah, surrounded by swampy jungles, with your plot land-locked by 2 flooded square meters of land. Or it could be that maybe this year you broke bank and limb to go for your Masters degree in the U.K, even though Mama Charlie and Davido Cameron are desperately trying to get rid of your likes. Or did you marry your aristo boyfriend finally this year? Or you started a business, or revamped your faith, or moved jobs (from banking to wherever – it seems an upgrade nowadays) or your wife gave birth to junior, and he has your big conk and elephant ears. Whatever it is, are you glad with here you are, this November? Whether you own millions or a Yipee tank, at least you are alive.

How has it been for me? Well I am my worst critic. I get sad on my birthdays (except my 18^th one where I celebrated my independence) or my 26^th one (more about that one in a later post, promise). I am not really a fan of the whole birthday wishes, singing ‘Many Happy Returns’, posts on Facebook and celebratory wishes kind of thing. Girls I have dated used to be amazed at how moody and reflective I got on my birthday. One gave me a gadget I had really always wanted, but all I really desired that day was for my father to remember and give me a call. When he did, it brightened my mood. Sad I know.

So I am not a fan of birthdays. This year has been so and so for me. I brushed up on a new language and how to write it – pidgin English. Let me give you an example. I will translate this into pidgin: Oh happy days, I am mighty glad that I am quite proficient at Pidgin English. Shonkongbelete o, nothing do me for pidgin English,

I do wish my career had gone differently – these days engineers and accountants seem to have more job flexibility. A pharmacist I know, chooses jobs on a whim, and a physical therapist friend of mine works on her own schedule, sometimes on 20 hour weeks, earning up to 150k (dollars) per annum. My godmother passed away this year; it was at her house I had that sliding door/Superman crash that I mentioned in an earlier article. She was a darling. She bought me my first house-coat as a kid, with my name engraved on it, ala Hugh Hefner. She was a very elegant lady, the likes of which are getting extinct in this country. A very dainty lady with a smile for everyone. She never lost her cool, not even when she was very upset. Someone once confronted her with evidence that her son has stolen another kid’s lunch box (bread and Geisha) at school. She simply replied “That is preposterous! As if my son would ever eat fish from a tin – he knows better than that.”

Elbows off the table, she would instruct at the dinner table. She taught me the cursive form of handwriting and how to pronounce words properly, when I was just a little bairn.  The day I heard she died, I wrote 2 of my most popular articles then cried bucket loads for days afterwards.

Rest in peace Aunty C.

How has your year been so far? Me, I have had a life you could write a blog on.

Janded Riot

Gimme The Loot

“A riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard” – Martin Luther King, 1967

More than a month ago, the rest of the world looked in horror (except for Nigerians) as England endured almost 2 weeks of rioting, looting and banditry. Shops were smashed into, cars tipped over, and properties set ablaze. This would elicit a yawn from someone who has been residing in Jos for the past decade, but this needs to be taken into context. What surprise most people was not the rioting and lawlessness in placing like Tottenham and Leyton – it was the craziness which occurred in more upscale neighborhoods like Kensington and Ealing. That is the equivalent of someone frying akara for sale on a VGC street. Haha.

People blamed the riots on yob (slang for area boy) culture, disgruntled youths and disenfranchised communities. I think the love for consumer goods may have played a part. Did you see some people carting away large screen plasma TVs. I even saw a picture of a lass with a pack of Uncle’s Ben’s rice. If, heaven forbid, a full scale riot were to occur in Lagos, there are many things people would loot before thinking of a bag of ofada  or Abakiliki rice.

Nigerians prefer instant gratification. Stealing ofada rice is burdensome – you have to heave the heavy bag, and then look for oil, salt, tomatoes and meat to cook the dish. You may not even have gas/kerosene for your stove. How do I know all this?

I remember sometime in the 80s, there was a crazy riot in the Surulere part of Lagos. Parents came to collect their kids early from school, and businesses shut down, as a mob of rioters went from shop to store breaking in and carting away ‘valuables’ (perishables as you will come to find out later).

Adeniran Ogunsanya Road was the worst hit, predictably. These inconsiderate fools smashed up my dear Chicken George, an eatery ala TFC, which used to serve up the awesome-est breaded chicken and a side dish of perfectly cut fries. Chicken and chips were their specialty, and each potato chip was precisely cut like a diamond gem, spiced with flavors to excite the tongue and deep fried to an inch of perfection. The chicken itself was a work of art – breaded, crunchy but not flaky chicken skin with a well-cooked interior. These looters, these brutes, these vagabonds  trashed that joint up, smashing the windows, scattering the furniture, and dismantling the grills. Chicken George was never the same again. It lost its custom to Little Chef, then Terris, and now when people outside Surulere hear the word Chicken George, they think of Kunta Kinte’s grandson, the chicken fighter from the famous book/ TV series “Roots” by the famous author Alex Haley.

Across the road, a famous supermarket, the “Shoprite” of its day, was not spared either. A group broke into the store, and someone opened the freezer, and started helping himself to some Walls ice-cream! Yep, a grown-ass man who joined the rioting for some bedeviled political cause, was sitting in a store, the sweat of the owner’s labor, licking Fan Ice and Walls ice-cream. In Nigeria, you lick ice-cream, not eat it.

UTC a large departmental store suffered the same treat. I hear rioters helped themselves to ice cream, jam donuts and rolls from the deli within the store, while boxes of gold watches and 24 carat gold trinklets laid in the show-glasses untouched. What is it with Nigerians and ice-cream sef? Even kids are in on the act. Uncle please buy me ice-cream na. What?! You are lucky I came to get you, and you are not walking back home from school, like the Jakande school kids your age do.

The London riots took an ugly twist when famous historian David Starkey made a ‘racist’ comment in the aftermath with his comments on a talk-show about how black culture was impacting Britain negatively. There was an uproar in the UK around that time. I was more incensed with the weak rebuttal the black lady in the interview offered. I hate when people only cite hiphop and entertainment as negro contributions to world culture

Well that one no concern us for Naija. Besides we have contributed to world  immensely. I mean this is a country that has produced Wole Soyinka, Chinua Achebe, 2 of the world’s 6 black billionaires, Fela,  Kanu, James Ibori, Terry G, Jim ‘Shoes’ Ikye, OBJ and Tonto Dike. Go figure.

A few people tried to act like the rioters were pre-dominantly black. Some Naija people opined that as far as some of the rioters were black, there is a good chance that some Nigerians would have been involved. These same people bleat that same old line that one in four black persons is a Nigerian. Apparently this statistic is only ever brought up when there are a group of 4 bandits or rogues, and never when its 4 successful black people.

Unfortunately, a Nigerian engineering student was part of the rioters remanded at Her Majesty’s prisons. This unfortunate Masters student had ‘thiefed’ a plasma TV from a mall in Surrey, thereby contravening the conditions of his kpali. Sorry o. So because of 32 inches, he is about to experience 32 feet of separation. Imagine what his folks back in Nigeria would think. Some people said Britain will collect their kpali back, but that is the least of his problems, he will have to foreit his eduction. And you know what they say – when  you close a school, you build a prison. I can just imagine one of those people who queue day in day out outside the British Embassy on Walter Carrington, desperately trying to “Andrew’ out of Nigeria, sighing at disgust at this story. You blew it brother. TV dey Naija na.

And forget all that bollocks that Naija folks like awoof too much, and cant help but steal given the opportunity. My answer to that is that have you ever seen an Naija illegal immigrant in Jand before? Or a Naija person whose idea of a nightmare is having to return to Nigeria after his study? Or the ones who even come for hols and want to stay out of trouble, so that they will be able to continue to get visa? They are like Bambi on ice – the personification of good behavior.

Even the illegal immigrant Naija person is well behaved. If he sees wahala or riot coming, he will flee in the other direction. They stay away from areas or situations where police are likely to gather or arrive. One even had his flat robbed, and begged his bemused oyibo neigbour not to call the cops, as he didn’t want to file a report. He explained to the bewildered neighbor: “Mr. Smith, all is vanity; besides I have forgiven the burglars. I was even about to donate the things to Oxfam charity, before the robbers struck sef”

After the oyibo person had reluctantly agreed and left, he was like “Ewu! So na me go carry myself go report for police, after I don dodge them for 7 years. Biko buru ga wa.”

Even the legal Nigerians who come for hols are likely to be timid, and stay out of trouble. A 10 year ban on your E-passport to some is a valid death sentence and social suicide. Some Naija people had their return flight cancelled and delayed for 12 hours. As compensation, BV put them up in a hotel close to Heathrow. Then later that evening, they received knocks on their doors, as the hotel staff came to inform them to come down to the hotel restaurant for dinner, as their flight had been rescheduled for later that night.

Some of the naija people came down to the restaurant but were scared to touch the food. Make someone no go chop 100 pounds food, when he don spend all him money for Next on Oxford Street. Even the ones with cash, were scared to eat because that VAT tax-refund money was for a return trip next summer or the foreseeable future. Food dey Naija na.

Sensing their reluctance, the restaurant manager told a few of them ‘Go ahead and serve yourself. The meal is complimentary.” Compli-wetin? The fait accompli.

The one he told panicked and explained to the others “ The oyibo man talk say the food is very sweet. But mami, me I dey go upstairs. I no get pounds to waste just because I wan chop oyibo salad”.

About 33 of the other travelers followed him up to their rooms. Only 8 of the passengers sat down and got something to eat. Four of them were Sierra Leoneans.

Over-reaction is my only reaction which only sets off a chain reaction/

that puts five more zany acting maniacs in action/

..a lot of people say misogynistic which is true/

I don’t deny it – matter of fact I stand by it/

So please stand by at the start of a damn riot/

If you don’t wanna get stampeded, then stand quiet/

 D12 (I Spit On You, 2000)

I Am In Your Area

A naira for your thoughts; in fact I would take 500

‘Settle us, we are loyal!’

These are the five worst words any commuter on the unforgiving dirt-roads of Lagos would want to hear when stuck in traffic or alighting from their vehicle. Ok, that and the immortal five words from the gentlemen of Lagos State Traffic Management Agency (LASTMA): ‘Oya, stop and park here.’

Area boys in Lagos introduced a new plethora of street vocabulary when the menace was at its highest in the pre-Tinubu years. The word ‘settle’ means you should pacify or appease them or get what is coming to you. You decide.

You cannot visit any market or major streets without being accosted by rough-looking thugs who have invented a way of asking politely for cash favors in the most menacing manner. I have spoken previously about how Nigeria is the only place where someone can use ‘please’ and still insult you: Abeg, abeg or abegi!

Area boys are street urchins who try to make a quick buck by obtaining innocent road users. Think about Debo the bully from the Ice Cube movie ‘Friday’ who rode a 2-wheeler bicycle around the neighbourhood beating cash demands out of his victims. Like Chris Tucker said at the end of the movie when Debo was finally checked: ‘You got knocked the f—k out!’

Nigerian area boys mask their demands in a polite tone but still threaten you indirectly: ’Oga/Madam, na we dey your side. Settle us, we are loyal. We dey pray for your safety progress, abeg make you provide for us a little. Settle us, we dey watch you, make nobody interrupt you.’

And the area boy saying the above, may be clutching a hidden knife, as he butts his face through your car window and makes his plea. Sometimes, they even lean their face against your car window, if you have it up, so you feel the menace none the less.

There are also the chaps who do community road-works. They construct mini-barricades which make motorists have to slow down when they get to the work area. As the driver is navigating past, the group of workers, with their shovels, pick-axes, and cudgels in hand, gather round the car and start demanding payment for the community work they have put in.  When you the driver explain that you do not have any change to spare, they insist that you give them whatever you have. If you resist, they slap the boot or doors of your car with a loud thump, as they usher you on, with hot curses:’ Make you dey go jare; you dey drive big car, but you no get money’

If you live in Lagos, you are bound to run into area boys one way or the other. You see them on Ahmadu Bello Way just opposite Bar Beach trying to flag cars down to come to the beach, so that they can collect payment for giving you a parking space. They are also situated in front of Silverbird Cinema and at Oniru beach as well, where they demand payment from beach-goers for parking spaces or entry into the beach.

The following are a few stories regarding area boy activity:

1. A good few years back, my ma once went to Akpongbon market in Lagos Island to buy a few supplies. She parked her car under one of those parking spots under the bridge. A park-warden who was there stepped forward with a ticket which had to be paid for before anyone could park in that car park. My mum paid for the ticket and went into the market.

When she came back an hour later, the car refused to start. She tried everything but the car wouldn’t start. It was late in the afternoon, and that area was a hotbed of area boy activity. If the car was left there over-night, area boys would strip it off all its parts or break into it and steal it. So she decided to hail a cab home. When she got home, she called the mechanic and gave them the keys of the car to go check it and fix it, and bring it home.

The mechanic got to Akpongbon around 6.30, and noticed that area boys had already gathered around the car, and were moping inside as they smoked their hemp. They stood around while he tried to fix the car, even helping him by passing him tools. Unfortunately the car refused to start as the problem was more complicated. That is when the area boys’ kindness ended.

They started demanding payment for ‘services rendered’ i.e. passing the tools, and ‘watching’ the car while it was unattended after my mum took a cab. The mechanic was like, who the hell asked you? But that one didn’t hold weight with these thugs.

The mechanic knew that it would be a bad idea to leave the car there overnight because these chaps were eying the insides of the car. The chrome, vehicle logo, battery, engine and steering wheels of a car fetch a pretty penny in the tokunboh market, you see.

The problem was that the area boys said that they would not allow the mechanic tow the car away either without payment. One of them said he even doubted that the mechanic had been sent by my ma, after-all they did not see him when my ma had come with the car. Fair point.

 

Do you know what the compromise was? Some of the area boys – about 4 of them – ended up pushing this car (a Mercedes) all the way from Akpongbon to Surulere where we lived so that they could be ‘settled’. Yes, they pushed this car up Eko Bridge, all the way down, past Iganmu, Eric Moore, Bode Thomas, Babs Animashaun, Adelabu – a journey of over 10 miles. The mechanic had sat inside the car to stir the wheel, so 4 people had pushed a car with a passenger in it! The Guinness Book of World Records should eat their hearts out.

By the time, they got to our house around almost 10pm, they were dripping of sweat from every pore in their body. When we in the house heard the story, we were upset at first, but when we considered the distance and their motivation, it made for a funny story and sighs about how Nigeria had failed its citizens. My ma arranged for food to be made and given to them, and she gave them some cash as well. At least we saved on towing fees, huh?

 

They left our house, arguing amongst themselves about how the fractions of the money were to be divided, and whether ‘Chairman’ who was waiting back at Akpongbon, deserved a share.

 2.  When I was a teen, I and the driver went somewhere off Marina Road on an errand. As we were driving out of the side street, a guy who was driving in, swerved in with reckless speed and scratched our side. We all got down from our cars, and started doing the blame game thing customary to Lagos. Whoever talks the loudest and angriest wins the argument. A crowd started gathering, including some area boys and it became like the video of that Jah Bless song ‘Jor O!’

It turned out that the other driver was a local champion who had a shop around the area, so the crowd around there were supporting him, saying that he did nothing wrong, as he had ‘trafficated.’ The crowd started getting restive with everyone chipping in. The area boys there started asking how we wanted to settle our little accident.

Then one really elderly man dressed in an old school suit and a portfolio stepped in and started blowing serious grammar. He looked like those old school village headmasters and spoke like one: “What is all the pandemonium about? This vagabond’s vehicular transgressions nearly up-ended this two fellows with tragic consequences. It is an anomaly that questionable nit-wits are permitted to pilot the cockpits of fast motor cars in our society. This lynch mob is clearly being partial by turning a blind retina to the reckless driver’s antics. Please release these two gentlemen forthwith.’ Basically he said that everyone in the crowd was lying because they knew the reckless driver personally, and that we had been in the right, the crowd should chill.

For all his grammar, the elderly man had been buying roasted corn around the corner and saw all that had happened. His grammar seemed to bamboozle the crowd, so it started ‘changing their mouths’ and dispersing. The other driver apologized, and since it was a scratch and a bump which could be remedied by a good rub with engine oil.

As I and the driver, entered and started the car to drive off, we heard a thud coming from behind the car. In horror, we turned, and saw one of the area boys running to catch up with the car as we gathered speed, then grab the door handle of the door behind, open it and jumped inside.

‘Una wan drive off like that without paying anything?!!’ he growled dispersing saliva all over our velour seats.

The driver slowed down the car, but kept on moving, while I turned around to face the intruder.

Pay wetin?Shebi we and the driver don settle our issue finish’ I asked furiously.

‘But una never give us money. Na me help una for there sef. Make you turn back, make we go back to that place go see that driver.’ he insisted.

At this point, I had lost my ‘temperature’: ‘Would you get the f—k down from this car now!’

 

He looked at me for a brief minute without saying anything, then opened the car door and jumped out, with the car still moving at like 25 kilometers per hour. He landed feet first, and quickly ran across the road to hassle another set of drivers who had  just had a head on collision.

I wondered how come he thought he could obtain money for doing nothing but hassling people. Maybe he is a consultant?

 3. My friend Wole was driving on 3^rd Mainland Bridge in the afternoon, when one of his tires burst. He got it under control, and parked on a ramp, so that he could do a quick tire change as he had an appointment to make. No sooner had he cut the engine, than was he approached by 3 rugged looking touts. He didn’t know where they emerged from as the road was a long empty stretch of cars speeding past. In fact he could have sworn that those guys came out of the lagoon under the bridge.

They gathered around and watched him remove the spare tire, jacks, caution sign and wrench from the car boot. They offered to help change the tire. He replied courteously ‘Don’t worry, I have got this.’

They did not answer him. One of them made to grab the wrench to start loosening the bolts on the wheel. Wole, who didn’t want any help, tried to grab the wrench back.

One of them now said ‘We dey try to be good Samaritan now o. Don’t make us turn into bad Samaritan.’

I am not aware that someone could be a bad Samaritan? How can you force help on others?

They proceeded to ‘help’ him change the tire.

Then they demanded ‘payment’ for work done. Wole was wary at this point, as he had a wad of cash amounting to about 50 grand in his inner blazer pocket. One of area boys seemed to have Superman’s X-ray vision, as his eyes kept on zeroing on that area of Wole’s blazer.

Another one started trying to pat Wole’s pocket to extract any cash. Acting quickly, Wole dipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out some notes from the wad. Unfortunately a huge batch came out – about 3k.

One of the area boys quickly grabbed the money, ran across the culvert on the bridge, barely avoiding onrushing traffic, and cross to the other side, and kept running. Another of them quickly ran after him in hot pursuit.

The last area boy still remained behind. He was the ‘bad Samaritan one’ and he sighed as he watched his two accomplices bolt away. He still had the spanner in his hands.

He said ‘Make you settle me na.’

Wole was perplexed ‘No be una I just give money now now’

Bad Samaritan winced ‘No be me you na. I nor sabi that other man before. Since you done give am him own money, he and him brother done go. Where my own money?’

Unbelievable! These chaps were getting along like bosoms buddies some seconds ago. It was obviously a scam.

Wole had to ‘re-settle’ the lone area boy. It was either that or be thrown into the lagoon. And the cash would be removed from his dead body anyway.

Part 2 of this article is coming soon. Please share your experiences with area-boys and street urchins.

When it’s time to eat a meal I rob and steal

Notorious B.I.G (Gimme The Loot, 1994)

Who Are The People In Your Neighbourhood (2)?

There goes the neighbourhood....

Who are the people in your compound, yard or street? Growing up, mine were more plentiful and colorful than the ones on Sesame Street. In fact for Big Bird, we had a thickset mama by the name of Iya Basirat who fried puff puff for every social occasion. For cookie monster, we had my neighbor’s son who only ate Okin biscuit (square) for breakfast, lunch and dinner, much to his mother’s despair. For Oscar the Grouch, well we had huge rats and mice playing hide and seek in the large dumpster that serviced our street.

Follow me down memory lane.

Most of my formative years were spent in Surulere, which was a very popular place with Ibos in the 70s and 80s, especially the areas of Aguda and Ikate, most of which had Ibo names for streets. This was before FESTAC, Maza Maza and Okota became even more popular.

I was born in a 2nd floor flat in a 2 story building in a ‘close’ (yes, me too) somewhere around the Adelabu part of Surulere.  It was quite a close-knit environment where everybody knew your business. In the house I lived in along with 2 other families, life began, ended and revolved around the ‘yard’. Even though ‘yard’ had broken walls, with gaps where lizards formed a colony. It was the kind of place where boys carried catapults as toys, and girls played ‘ten-ten’ on the street. Everybody’s eyes ‘chooked’ and even youngsters were up on schemes to make a quick penny (or kobo; penny sounded better).

You would see Simon my neighbor’s kid run out with a gigantic stack of graying Daily-Times newspapers, as soon as he heard the Hausa newspaper buyer shout ‘I wan buy paper!’ He would then sell the papers, and use the buck to buy minerals (‘soft drink’ pronounced ‘milala’).  Every adult groomed every kid at least in manners.

On my close, if you celebrated a birthday or if there was an event in your house, your neighbors came whether or not they were invited. Sometimes crates of ‘mineral’ were even stored in their house, so that they would not run out fast. They also had a spare key to your flat, and you were often sent over to ‘go and collect key’. They also intervened in each other’s domestic quarrels. In fact my uncle was once a referee when Papa Sunday was involved in a boxing match with Mama Sunday. He came back home with a black eye but he had succeeded in keeping them married. Mama Sunday sent over sweet moi moi as thanks the next day. My uncle only gave me half – moi. I ran and ate it under the steps – I will explain why soon.

My mum tried to keep us kids on the straight and narrow as she was a bit of a disciplinarian. She had wrung my ears many times to prevent me from playing in the sand due to an insect that chewed on toes called ‘jigger’ (not Jay Z) and inflicted terrible sores. She also drummed into my blocked ears not to accept food from neighbors and strangers. For where?

She would say “if you are hungry, come home and eat.’ I was not convinced – the neighbors cooked nice ‘Yoruba rice’ with ponmo (which I love to this day) and ‘round-a-bout.’ In my house, we ate ‘Ibo’ food, which to my mind was rice with a dull looking stew. Home food is always boring. Besides I wanted to sample Yoruba yam pottage ‘asaro’ – it was red and did not have too much vegetables, unlike my mum’s which had more ugwu leaves than pieces of yam in it. Yep, I disliked fruit and veg. But I still grew as tall as Green Giant!

It was as if my neighbors just existed to tempt me into disobeying my mum. Once my mum saw Iya Basirat, our next door neighbor washing her kids bum into one of the gutters in front of her house. The woman then took a broom she had been using to sweep, turned it upside-down and used it to pound raw okra.

Several months later, Iya Basirat gave birth to twins, and they had a naming ceremony. They then started frying puff puff in front of their house, and the smell permeated through the window of my room. I was like Homer Simpson with donuts on the brain.

They sent over a big batch of hot puff puff wrapped up in an oil soaked newspaper. My mum was very strict about us eating food from out of the house, so she put the parcel high on top of the fridge with a mind to toss it away later. That night I did not sleep a wink. Suddenly everything looked like puff puff to me. I looked up in the sky, I saw puff puff as clouds. The pebbles on the floor of our yard looked like puff puff. I did not even want any of my dinner. I was fast becoming Puff Daddy.

Later that night, I stole some of the puff puff and received a lashing for it the next morning. It was worth every bite.  Years later, a kleptomaniac in my dorm in boarding school would steal a tin of Vitalo beverage, would get caught in the act and get beaten to within an inch of his life by a group of irate teen males in the same dorm. Was that worth it? I think the two black-eyes and the almost broken arm he received are not worth anything. If you must steal beverage, please ‘thief’ Ovaltine.

My ‘close’ in Surulere had its own melodies. There was post-war, post FESTAC 77 Lagos, and the last years of the oil boom. People had a song in their hearts as they went about their business. Even the plantain seller had a special song which she sang as she entered our close to hawk her plantains. That song made every dad bring out a fiver, so to buy plantain which was diced, fried and combined with beans.

Bad people were very bad, and the good people were trustworthy. But people applied for jobs and got them. Loafers and never-do-wells were people who really chose and wanted that path in life.

There was definitely a community feeling. It was the kind of place, where if an outsider pulled up in his mint Peugeot 505 on a Sunday evening to come and see a spinster, the visitor had to ‘settle’ the little kids sitting outside on the wall with some ‘Butter mint’ or ‘Malta’ toffee so that they could act as a lookout, or keep shut, so as not to alert the girl’s father Pa Shakabula.

And sneak, she had to. Back then, unless you had ten heads, you could not go to see a lady in her house unless it was to ask for her hand in marriage. Even then, her father would stare at you dead in the eye as he questioned your motives. Fathers then usually sat in front of the house or in the sitting room reading newspapers and scoping all that happened in their ‘yard’. They also wore ‘wife-beater’ singlets

My old man started making some decent money from his business so our family moved to a crescent in another part of Surulere when I was about six.  It was meant to be a brief stop-over on our move to V.I but we ended up staying. For more than a decade. There was a definite difference between my old and new neighborhood –  the latter had a leafy suburban look, the gutters were covered, and kids rode their bikes on the street till their parents called them home for supper. Night food? Ah, this one na ajebo area.

We even had bicycle wars – BMX owners vs. Chopper owners. Even toddlers came out with their tricycles and were doing Ruff Ryder type stunts. Here, I noticed that kids disappeared during the summer and Xmas hols and came back with the newest looking Voltron robots, He-man and Thundercat action figures. You had to be fresh here – who had the most amount of toys was the alpha kid. This was a far cry from where I lived before where kids only left Lagos to go to their village for Xmas. And then their folks usually brought back abacha, ugwu leaves for my folks and groundnuts for me.

Here, most of my neighbors were professionals, successful businessmen and some members of the West African diplomatic corps who had been posted to Nigeria. The place had huge almond trees, popularly known as ‘fruit’ lining the street. In the second week after our move, I was enticed by the ripe looking fruit hanging high in a tree of our adjacent neighbour’s house. I quickly took off my Cortina shoes, and started aiming and throwing them at the fruit to pluck them. The eerie looks and sighs I got from passing people made me know that that was a wrong move. Nobody ‘plucked’ fruit here – hell, they did not pick any up even when they fell to the ground. Even the lizards here did not run when you approached them. They were not scared of humans because no one was trying to hurt them – kids here carried water guns during play-time, unlike my former streets where we sported catapults.

A decade later, Nigeria won the Olympic Gold in soccer following the mercurial Emmanuel Amuneke’s golden goal against Argentina. I ran out to the street, shouting my head off in celebration and found the street as empty,  dark and quiet as a graveyard. In my old close, Iya Basirat would have sent her daughter to go and grind beans for an akara fest.

When it comes to neighbors, co-tenants and flat-mates, I have seen it all. Some of the following stand-out in my memory:

• Most people have had neighbors coming over to borrow a cup of sugar or a spanner/wrench.  I have had the ones who borrow everything from you but the kitchen sink. The ones, who borrow stuff, keep them so long that you have to borrow it back as it has spent more time in their possession than yours.

This particular neighbor once even came over to borrow ‘egusi soup’ from me, because he had started making semovita, when he discovered that he had run out of soup in the fridge! I mean who does that? Please Joe, let me use this forum to beg you to return my 30-in-1 War Film DVD and my Spartacus Season 1 DVD as well. They both cost me N300.

•   My cousin, who lives in Ikeja, had an arrangement with his neighbor who lives in a different apartment in the same building, regarding watching football on cable. My cousin had DSTV which used to show  only the Spanish La Liga and German Bundesliga. His neighbor had Hi-TV which used to show the English Premier League and the Champions League. So they ran a very long wire measuring about 30 feet, so that they could exchange connections, so both of them could catch all the matches. Once though, my cousin was not at home, and a football match was about to start, but his unknowing wife switched the channel to African Magic.

She was about 10minutes into her movie, when she heard loud thumps on her front door. She went to open it, and as soon as she unlocked the door, the angry neighbor brushed past her hastily without saying a word in greeting, went over to the DSTV set-top box, switched the channel to SuperSports 3, and then rushed out quickly, like Match don start since na. Thank God say them never score sef.

• Neighbor A connected about 7 extension boxes and came over to Neigbour B’s house, requesting him to allow him (A) ‘tap’ light whenever B put on his ‘I Better Pass My Neighbor’ generator. A had no plans to contribute to the upkeep of the plant.

• The situation does not get better in Jand or Yankee. Or at least, it did not for me. In the UK, I had this very chap who lived in the upstairs flat just above mine. He was in the habit of bumping very loud metal music by bands like Korn, Metallica or Led Zeppelin. Man, that shit was bloody loud. Sometimes he had his noisy band of mates over, and they partied and played Guitar Heroes video game till the early hours of the morning.

 One evening, after I had gotten fed up with the loud music, I decided to go up to his flat and voice my complaint. The door was opened by a heavily tattooed oyibo lad in his mid-twenties. He had a huge nose ring and a pirates eye patch. I snuck a quick look into his apartment and saw a huge Denon speaker in the background, along with huge amplifiers and music equipment. This dude had night-club music equipment in his crib.

After he listened to my appeal to tone things down a bit, he nodded and shut his door. As soon as I hit the stairs to go to my apartment, I heard him crank the volume back up.

And the music just got loud and worse every evening. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t drink. Every item in my flat vibrated with the heavy bass sound coming from upstairs. I would try to stir eba in my kitchen, and both my hands and the bowl were vibrating – I ended up making a stone. I felt like smashing his window with it.

 I thought of what to do. I could report him to the police or the local council. They could give him an ASBO (Anti-Social Behavior Order) and seize his equipment. I decided against this as I remembered the story of a Naija chap who reported his female co-tenant for anti-social activities and constituting a nuisance with her noise making.  She was given a warning and fined.

The female, a 45 year old woman, decided to retaliate. And she over-did it. If the guy shuffled his feet in his flat, she would call the cops and say he was playing loud music. If he so much as whistled a note in the shower, she called the local council as well. She called the TV License people to report that she suspected that he was watching TV without a license. The people came to his house one day at 9a.m and knocked and knocked, while the guy tip-toed around in fright.

She was just getting started. She called the local council to complain that he was not sorting out his trash properly and leaving milk bottles in the bags.

One evening she called the police and reported that he was having a late-night sex party with a ‘posse of Africans’. The cops came over and banged on his door until they nearly ripped the hinges off, only to discover that he had been watching a Nigerian movie where Jim Ikye went on a female slapping spree. The guy moved out the next week.

Thinking to myself, I decided that I should leave out the cops in this matter. I would fight fire with fire.  The next day, I went to a pawn shop called Cash Converters and bought a really decent home entertainment system. I connected it and fixed one of the speakers by a window which was directly below my neighbor’s bedroom window.

I slipped in a Femi Kuti CD and cranked up the volume – “Wonder, wonder, wonder…wonder, wonder, wonder, wonder!!!! Till you turn to Wanderer!!!’

I doubt if he got any sleep that night. I made a mental note to purchase Faze’s Kolomental CD the next day at the African shop.

Next day, one dudu chap who I usually saw on the steps of our flat building, and at the bus-stop walked up to me, and said ‘ How far na? I hear you dey bump Femi Kuti. I no know say you be Naija sef. Nice one.’

At least, I gained a new Naija friend even though I had made a new enemy.

 

Mommy where’s the toilet paper, use the newspaper/
Look Ms. Rose gave us a couch, she’s the neighbor/

Ghostface Killah (All That I Have Got Is You, 1996)

Who Are The People In Your Neighbourhood?

Apapa or the Island?

Nigeria is a class conscious society; When CNN or the BBC shows a news clip about Nigeria, the casual viewer sees a slip shod litany of dirt streets, shanty-ridden outposts, and the signature kwashiorkor-ed child with blue-nose flies the size of moths on their faces. Every now and then MTV, SoundCity or Silverbird would broadcast the other divide – castles and smart tenements in the rich neighbourhoods of Maitama, Lekki, Ikoyi and Asokoro.

IndeedNigeriais a class conscious society – not likeEnglandwhere blue blood, guts and ancient glory differentiates the titled from the common man. No, in our dear country, the moneyed are the new gentry. There is no better test of this class divide than where you live. And I don’t only mean whether it is Ikoyi or Ikotun, Wuse or Wukari,Banana Island or an executive hut in a banana farm in your village.

Where you live inNigeria, seems to matter more and more these days. Not just with the unnecessary and ridiculous social status thing, but also regarding your safety and your access to a quality life. Your kids can become a victim as well – gangs, bad schools, and insecure neighborhoods. A similar area or zip code divide exists in many Western countries as well. InLondon, a Chelsea or Hampstead address is not the same thing as a say, Streatham or a Brixton one. However there exists a threshold which binds all levels– constant power, water and basic facilities.

To cater to the different ‘levels’ of wealthy pockets, many areas (boroughs) of the major cities in Nigeria are such that there are more expensive parts of areas than others: For example, South-West Ikoyi (the Awolowo Road area) has nothing on really expensive ‘Old Ikoyi, and generally the further you go down Lekki-Ajah Road, the less grand (except for Chevron/VGC oh!). If someone told you that he resided in, say Lekki, you would find that Tipper Garage area though it is also in Lekki, does not reach Lekki Phase One in status. Some people even probe further once you casually mention that you live in Lekki, as they try to size you up. Na them sabi o, abi na them dey pay my rent? Lagos people na wa, I swear.

 Before strangers reveal what area of town they reside in, you can get a whiff of whether it is ‘high-brow’ (as City People writer would say) or if that is a ‘no-go-area’. Because a pako person would say “In our yard’ or ‘In our compound’ when referring to his homestead.  They would always say something like ‘in my yard, our neighbour stole a goat’ or ‘our landlord’s son was the first to marry in our compound.’

However, the person who lives in a flash part of town, knows nothing about a yard or compound because he probably lives in a detached house which is his own world. Even if he lived in one of those posh block of apartments in Ikoyi or Lekki, privacy is key as some of these places even have a speed limit and a notice warning ‘No horning or noise louder than 5 decibels’ If you lived in Ogba, you would think, deci –wetin?

 Also the posh areas always have addresses which end with words that roll off the tongue nicely like ‘avenue’ or ‘boulevard’ or ‘crescent’ or ‘drive’. The name of the street is easy to remember and is probably named after a former colonial lord or a pre-independence type activist who did a lot of good forNigeria. For example ‘Alexander Avenue’ or ‘Queensdrive’ or ‘Itirin Court’. It may also be a name that conjures up images of grandeur or excellence like ‘Admiralty Road’ or ethnic brilliance ‘Etim Inyang Cresent’

However, when you get to the rugged areas, the addresses also end with a shot-stop name like Close or Street. You are likely to hear names starting with the title, first, middle and surnames of the Ibo chief, rich trader, business man or church leader who was the first person to plant a flag or sand-fill the street.- ‘Chief Nze Isiadinso Agakwala Ochuru-uzo Close’ or ‘Prophet Elagbara Minisitries Street’ or ‘Architect Salami Ishola Rahimi Road.’

 Another rule of the thumb is that in Naija, people in nice parts of town use the word ‘apatment’ in they live in a building, while the opposite use ‘flat’.

Also a person in a posh part of town wants to give you directions to their place, they would say something like ‘Drive down Bar Beach Road, and take the first left after the traffic light, you would see a police post, proceed and take the 2^nd right, you would see a white house….’

In a harsh area, the directions are never straight forward, especially if the person is hoping that you really do not come visiting: ‘Take a bus going to Iju, drop at Ikpekere Industries  bus-stop. Cross the over-head bridge and take another bus going to Okokomaiko, tell the driver you want to stop at Ipetumodu market. Drop and take an okada to Chief Jonah Otufuoleya Njoku Close. Drop at the MTN phone stand there, and call me…’

Good luck finding it, you would need it.

 

I’m trying to get me a V.I. address/

M.I. (Anybody, 2010)

Fly With Me

Shokongbelete o!

I did a bit of travelling last December, trying to connect America through England from Nigeria. I got to Murtala Mohammed International on time, but met the longest queue ever, and a busy departure area. It seemed that every person and their dog in Lagos had decided to travel on that particular day.

KLM ‘s line looked like an after-work queue for the BRT bus in CMS; British Airways too resembled a gas station queue during one of NUPENG and PENGASSAN’s off days. Lufthansa did not fare better. I did not even check for Virgin Atlantic or Virgin Nigerian or whatever it is called nowadays.

I got my luggage weighed and failed the test, like any true Nigeria, In our dear country, it seems to be a huge taboo to travel light internationally. Even if you plan to, people just would not let you. Please could you help me deliver chin-chin and ground-nuts for Sister Chop-chop in Kentish Town. Please she will come and meet you at Kentish-Town Tube station on Wednesday. Well, will you pay for my Zone 1-4 Travelcard? Na wa for you o.

Abeg, carry this bale of jacquard lace for Auntie Chinyere in New Jersey. She wants to wear it for her daughter’s graduation ceremony from University of Chicago.

Esco, please no vex. Make you take this Nigerian movie DVDs and CDs for me. My bros go come collect am for your hand, I don give am your number.

In my case, I was carrying a bit of all of the above and more. My mistake was letting some people know I was flying out briefly. One of them had made a late night trip to my house at 11 pm to give me items to help him ferry to long lost relative in Yankee. When I explained to him that his relative lives in Utah which is miles away from anywhere, he refused to take no for an answer. Yankee na Yankee naa! Even if I was going to Rhode Island, he wanted me to take the items and mail them, all 20 pounds of them, to Utah via UPS. At.my.own.expense.of course.

I paid for excess luggage reluctantly as I calculated the number of things I would have to forgo with the $80 charge – fast food, clothes, video games, music. I was not smiling when I got to the Immigration officers who unzip and physically search your boxes.

One of them saw me and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Pulling the latex gloves on his grubby finger taut, he smoothed the creases on my box, and unzipped it with much speed like someone busting for a pee.

‘Good travel day sir’ he and the others chorused in unison. I thought to myself, good travel day?!

I ignored their verbose greetings, and replied with a grunt like Okoronkwo in ‘Things Fall Apart.’

One of them caressed the neatly packed items in my box, and his greedy eyes fired up as he saw 5 plastic bottles of chin chin and groundnuts. Licking his cracked lips he inquired ‘Why you de travel with all these foodstuffs? So na only you go chop all these items? You de carry chin chin and gra-nut go America? Why na? Food already boku for America.’

I replied curtly ‘ It is for my cousin who has not been in Nigeria for years. He likes Nigerian confectionery.’

The word must have confused him, as he waved me away.

I did not crack a smile when one asked me for a ‘parting fee’. I would have rather given him a parting shot, if I could.

Please I know I have broached this subject before, but why are the airport immigration top brass in Nigeria usually thick set with huge pot-bellies. Wetin full am? Someone once remarked that na egunje money full the belle so. Another person added that that explains why Fashola is trim. Then why isn’t  the slender Buhari our new president then? And maybe it is true, because ill-gotten or easily made money is always spent on thrifty things. I means the immigration man is not likely to use the bribe money to plaster or paint the parlour of the private house he is erecting. It is more likely to end up paying for big stout at a beer parlour.

And the extortion bid did not stop after I had passed the first batch of immigration. In fact, extortion in Nigerian airports begins from the moment your car drops you at the drop off point.  Forex merchants try to convince you to buy CFA even though you are going to Dubai. The trolley-guy tries to coerce you by snatching at your luggage, into renting a 2 wheeled contraption called an airport trolley, which is not free! And if you oblige him, you discover that he is also a part-travel agent. He can move you to the top of the check-in queue, or help you repack your heavy luggage to reduce the weight.

The chaps who man the X-ray machines are the most persuasive extortionists I have ever met, more tenacious than those sea shell and ornament sellers at Alfa beach; these X-ray guys should be political campaign fund-raisers. I cringe for womenfolk when I think about the immigration officers in charge of the X-ray cameras and who views the images. If you are a voluptuous female, then it is happy days.

Then I got to the final officers at the post before the waiting area. These people look through your hand luggage. I was carrying a laptop bag, and once the inspecting officer saw me he smiled. I knew what that meant – he wanted mula.

‘Anything for us sir, we are loyal’ he saluted.

‘Nah mate, sorry. I spent all the naira I had on excess luggage’ I explained

‘Bring any change you have; I am loyal’ he insisted.

‘Ok o, but you would not like it o’ I warned.

‘Make you surprise me’ he dared, closing his eyes.

I reached into my pocket, and out came the only change I had in naira. It was the crummiest, most tattered looking and cello-taped  10 naira you could imagine.

I attempted to squeeze it into his hands discreetly, but as soon as his eyes caught a whiff of the red coloured notes, he suspected that I had given him the ‘wrongest’ denomination.

And he withdrew his hand like I was a leper trying to make contact. ‘Ah! 10 naira, na him you wan take tip me? And you talk say na abroad you de travel. Abeg carry go jor; save journey.’

Na wa o. So this chap is the last line of hospitality between our dear nation and another country? And he is doing security!

These chaps are so focussed on getting tips that I would be surprised if they did their jobs properly.

I can just imagine Mutallab or any other stupid terrorist wanna-be being searched by one of these money hungry security agents.

The agent would open the chap’s bags and say ‘ What are these brown candle sticks with peanut powder inside? You de go celebrate birthday for abroad? Abi NEPA de take light for oyibo land?’

The threat would reply uneasily ‘ No, it is just dynamite. I, em…’

Not listening, the agent would interrupt ‘Leave that thing abeg. Anything for the boys…’

With a sick smile, the bomber would reply ‘Yes, how much do you want…’

Stay tuned next week for part 2 of ‘Fly With Me’. Besides do please share your own experiences in Nigerian or foreign airports.

I don’t land at an airport/

I call it the clearport/

Jay Z (Excuse Me Miss, 2002)

* picture courtesy of www.emnnews.com

Say Hello To The Latest Couple In Town

Hush jare......Wedding In Progress

Every Nigerian chick has a well constructed fantasy about her wedding day. Fabricated with peaches and cream, this dream has her being wed in a sprawling cathedral just like the ones in Archbishop Vining Ikeja, Church of Assumption Falomo or Our Saviours Church CMS. Her wedding dress would be the stuff of Cindarella’s dreams – and be pure white in color, whether or not she had done ‘runs’ in the past. She would be the toast of the day, chauffeur driven in a stately convoy, slicing through hectic Lagos traffic until she touches ground at the wedding reception – usually one of Oriental Hotel, Civic Centre, Kaffa or Landmark.

Her prince would be waiting for her in a dark chiselled suit. Her father will dance with her, taking back the years as he crams himself into a fitted blazer too. Then after dancing the night away with her boo well into the evening, many Naija brides dream about being driven away by him in a luxury sedan or a convertible with a ‘just married’ liscence plate, along with a string attached to empty ‘La Casera’ and ‘Gulder’ cans rattling on the dirt roads as the car speeds off. If Lastma catches you, eh?

More realistically, some chicks  like the idea of leaving the reception with their new husband on a yatch or speed boat, especially if the venue is a water front one like the Civic Centre. The National Theatre, Iganmu, has a water-front ‘lake’ too, but you may need a canoe for that.

Row, row, row your boat..

Every Naija chap’s idea of a marriage is a bit different. Dudes deal more with facts and figures. How much will the wedding cost? How many chicks did I forgo to get hitched? Am I not too young to get married? How the heck did i get into this? I hope Obinna, my best man did not forget to bring the wedding ring with him. Scratch that, I hope Obinna remembered to take off the price tag from the cheap case of that panjo ring that was made in China.Will my wife lose her hourglass figure after she drops one or two kids? Ah, I told you we deal with facts and figures.

 

I am sure you would agree that there is a slight truth to it when you contrast what expectations men and women have on their day of marriage. Men want it done fast and painlessly. Girls want it to be like a slow fairytale, taking no prisoners.One thing is clear, the couple expect a successful wedding, surrounded by friends and family they both hold dear, with plenty to eat for all. In Nigeria, you hope for the best, prepare for the worst. Invite 500 people, prepare to cater for a teeming multitude of half of Lagos’s in-crowd population.

Even the most dedicated wedding planner would be naive to ever discount the Nigerian factor. In our dear country, anyone could show up at your wedding unexpectedly including the president. It is so true – my friend Chidi got thrown and locked out of his father’s sitting room by a governor’s security detail at his brother’s  traditional wedding. The governor had been invited by his sister-in-law’s family, about 2 hours into the ceremony, arrived sirens blazing, with gun-toting SS men in a 20 car convoy. Immediately His Excellency arrived, the security agents ‘shifted’ everybody from the sitting room of the house where the wedding was holding so that the governor and his entourage could be alone with the couple and their folks. My friend and his own guests were thrown out. He was upset like, who invited the bloody guv’nor?

Well, for every couple who wants a wedding similar to the one in the Tyler Perry flick ‘Madea Family Reunion’, they should be beware of the ‘wedding crashers:’

1. Battle of the Geles/ Jacquard Laces – Sometimes the mothers of the bride and groom may fight each other or may try to outshine each other in attire and dance. This happened at a wedding my sister went to. First of all, they both stacked up their ‘geles’, competing against each other to see who is decked out in the more expensive lace, till one looked like Madam Kofo and the other one looked like Madge Simpson. Then at the start of the reception, the mothers competed vigourously in dance while guests lined up by the sides; it looked like a scene from Step Up 3D! And for a good 20 minutes while the two mommas boogied, everyone forgot about the bride and groom!
2. The self-indulgent best man who forgets his role as a designated wingman to the groom and keeps trying to chat up the disinterested chief bridesmaid. This buffoon usually is nowhere to be found when the ring is needed for presentation, making the bride nearly eat her veil with anxiety. He invariably pops up on time however to give  hugely embarrassing speech about he and the groom’s garri-soaking days in boarding school. * will type away on his Blackberry throughout the proceedings*
3. The aso-ebi clad crew – a group of pretty young females who didn’t read or get the memo – do not try to upstage the bride. They arrive fully decked out in lace fronts, jewelry and a digital camera. Since they are not getting married, they can afford to go wild on the aso-ebi designs, including strapless  or mini skirt ankaras.These bevy of hotties take it in turns to catch the bouquet at weddings.
4. The distant relative who nudges the couple mid-train to report that he has not been served anything to eat. However take a look underneath his table, you would see 4 empty bottles of big stout, and several greasy plates with a few remaining grains of jollof rice and cow-leg bones. This greedy dude usually samples every item on the menu, and even makes sure he collects souvenirs meant for female attendees (kitchen utensils etc). You can forget about any wedding gifts from this one. His present to you is to minimise food wastage at the reception, and keep your decorated chairs warm.
5. The un-invited guest who shows up at the middle of the reception, but commandeers the bar for his group of Wayfarer shades wearing group of cool friends. He gets a pass cause he brings the cool crowd in. He and his posse ‘the Admiralty Road set’ usually chill at the back of the reception hall enjoying women and wine. *BellaNaija and ThisDay style photos material*
6. The cousin who makes sure she close-marks the couple when the spraying of money starts. She snarls at other cousins, friends or sisters who try to help pick up the naira (or pound) notes, and arranges the scattered notes into bankable wads. She also takes it upon herself to smuggle the cash in a Ghana-Must-Go bag out of the venue at the end of wedding, at great risk to her personal safety. Ah, bless. So blood is thicker than water, eh? Not quite, she secretly deducts her 20% commission before handing the couple the balance
7. The overzealous photographer (toto-grapher as my mate calls them). These paparazzi form a nuisance twisting and turning to take as many shots of attendees as possible at the church, then return with the photographs and negatives and demand payment. Some even insert the photos in a cheap frame, and demand a king’s ransom for them. Some even threaten to display your pictures in the front glass of their lab in Mushin if your refuse to pay for them. You would see them walking around the reception trying to match the faces on the photographs to individuals, sometimes stepping over people or squeezing between tables. A really overzealous one toppled over the wedding cake in an attempt to extract payment from the narcissistic best man.
8. The bitter unmarried friends and cousins of the bride. They sit in a circle at the back of the reception, scowling, and dissecting and criticizing the supposed ‘disorganization’ of the wedding. Their ‘player-hating’ usually comes back to haunt them, as it makes them unattractive to single men on the prowl.
9. The caterers that cater only to themselves. Do not be surprised that you may spend a fortune on fancy caterers with french cuisines on their menu, but end up starving your guests. These caterers somehow convert the food meant for the guests, and inform the couple during the reception, that food has run out. I know a wedding where the caterer put up a “Closed for Business” sign, despite the fact that they had been given about one million naira for food, and 2 live goats to prepare  pepper-soup and suya for the guest as afters. The goats never quite made it to the wedding even though ‘goat-meat’ pepper soup and asun appeared on the menu. They claimed food had finished, but someone saw two of the caterer’s staff eating a mountain of food from a huge tray somewhere behind the tents.

Ah, don’t you sometimes miss the era, when agonyi women did the cooking.  It was messy but one serving of food from them usually satisfied any Oliver Twists. What about when food was already pre-packaged in a take-away pack, and during Item No. 7, ushers distributed the packs by hand. Each pack was a self-contained – rice, moi moi, chicken, meat and a dash of salad. Not the poshest, but every body ate and was a happy camper.

10. The MC that takes liberties. I could write a whole post on this one and maybe I will sometime soon. I know one who cracked some ‘tribalistic’ jokes aimed at a particular ethnic group, so much that the tension in the reception rose. After a while, these people seated in a part of the reception stopped smiling. Some of these MCs really need to give it a rest especially with laying into single girls during the ‘catch the bouquet’ sequence. Abi make the single girls marry themselves?
11. Uninvited guests #2 – there are people only at your wedding for their own economic benefit. They do not need your invitation, neither do they want it. They go wherever the hell they want, and your wedding to them is a field of naira-notes waiting to be harvested. These wedding crashers include – ‘fund raiser’ beggars, new naira notes peddlars, networkers, mo gbo mo yas, area boys, pick pockets, desperate ‘runs’ girls, traditional drummers….(please add to the list)
12. Force Majuere (aka Force of Nature). There are forces beyond your control and can happen to anyone but the prayerful. Even the world’s most celebrated wedding planners are powerless to prevent these ‘wedding crashers’. They include – Lagos go-slow, the music system messing up, rain rain go away or  Nigeria /Arsenal playing a big football match that day.

Rain falling on her wedding day is every bride’s nightmare. Alanis Morrisette in her 1996 hit “Ironic” even sang “It is like rain on your wedding day..” though Majek Mashek crooned “Send down the rain..” Word of advice then, do not play Majek’s songs on your D-day.

There is nothing anyone can do about this one. A good twist may be to humour your guests by giving out umbrellas or ‘rain coats’ as  wedding souvenirs. Just saying o.

We should have hired the rain-makers in our village

The football one may be the biggest pain for anyone getting wed. There was this wedding which took place on the same day as premiership football title decider. Once the match kicked off at 3pm, chaps at the reception hall were gathering around to watch the match between Arsenal and another club on a guest’s Ipad. The best man even joined them. When Arsenal scored, he forgot where he was and shouted ‘it is a goal!!!’ See the venomous looks he got, especially from the bride’s folks.

You should also pray that Arsenal wins if they play on your wedding day. If they lose, and your hubby is a fan, he may decide to postpone the wedding. Sore losers, the Gunners.

There are also factors like wardrobe malfunctions, but that one no concern me. I am a fella, so if palm-oil spills on my suit, I would just wipe it off with Omo detergent. If that fails, I would exchange jackets with the best man. That is what he is there for, abi

So, there you have it. May your wedding never be crashed by any of the above. Pray tell your thoughts on this.

this is a thug’s wedding day/
In love? Will we make it? Let us pray../

Nas (Getting Married, 2004)

Fatty Bum Bum

Great, I have shed a couple of pounds..

Lounging on my lazy boy sofa  yesterday, I was flicking through channels on the TV bored to tears,  when the Tyra Banks show came on. I was about switching the channel when a part of the conversation between Tyra and a dark-skinned plump lady caught my attention. The woman had discriminatory issues against overweight and obese people, saying that they disgusted her so much that she had stopped talking to her best friend who had gotten very large by gorging on sandwiches, cookies and fast food.

The lady also argued that the American society should quit trying to dance around the issue of obesity in the name of political correctness by encouraging the use of terms like “big”, “curvy” and “chubby” rather than “fat” and “obese.”

The show had a roundtable discussion with about 4 or 5 women including some obese ones. One of the ladies said whenever a “ fat” person tried to seat next to her in a bus or a public place, she changed seats. She also added that she, like many employers post-recession apparently, was adverse to hiring overweight candidates for jobs as they could not perform as efficiently as slender employees. Someone else with the same inclination, added that obese people usually smelled bad as “dirt and body sweat were likely to accumulate in between stomach folds.”

Tyra was amazed. She felt that this was a discriminatory issue that needed to be brought to American national consciousness in the same manner as racial discrimination or religious bigotry. Having been a victim of abuse herself when her cellulite-laden derierre was snapped on camera spilling out of a one-piece bikini while on holiday in a beach and appeared in various tabloids some years ago, she sighed as she observed that there were no laws which guarded against weight discrimination.

Do overweight people have it rough?

In the 2009 movie The Watchmen, one of the “superheroes” a character named Rorschach refused to answer a question, saying to the interrogator – “I dont like you…because you’re fat.” O ga o.

Weight is also an issue in Nigeria, but perhaps many people still mis-read how serious of an issue it may be. There were traditional fattening rooms in ancient Calabar for adolescent teenage girls in preparation for marriage and adult life – but the ladies were not only fed and plumped up, they were thought very useful life skills; Ibo men are known to have huge girths due to having fufu, carbohydrate in a lump form, as their traditional staple diet. When people see a strange dark woman in her late 40s and above with a large bosom and a massive bum enter a room, they are likely to greet her by half-kneeling and saying “E ka aro ma” as quite many older Yoruba women are built like that. I won’t say it is because of the ewedu.Jo o, my Yoruba friends; I am just illustrating a point.

 

Many Nigerian foods have a high calorie content. Even moi moi if cooked with groundnut oil, egg yolk and corned beef included can be potent, steamed as it is. A huge loaf of Agege bread and agonyi beans (palm oil and all) may hurt your waistline nearly as much as a steak and bacon double whooper with cheese from Whattaburger.

Eba anchors the stomach, and ogbono soup goes straight to the thighs. Its sooo hard.

 

Mind the fish-bones...and the calories

There was a time people equated your social status with the size of your stomach, face and thighs.  E-Honda was rich and respected, Dhalsim was not. A muffin top or a double chin was a sign of affluence. If you were an middle-aged Ibo man on the come-up, those thick-folds behind your neck, nicknamed “obi oko” signified that you were a man of means. If you had a 32 inch waist and a slender build, you were presumed to be a man of beans. And beans in Naija used to be seen as poor man’s food.

Now attitudes are changing a bit especially in the urban metropolis of Lagos, Port city and Abuja where the demography of middle Nigeria has been changed forever by the “blackberry generation” and the “repatriates” (Diaspora returnees). Okay let me break this down: fat may no longer seen as cool. And we have some people in this country who will want to tell you this to your face. Every.chance. they. get.

At a wedding, whether you are a guest or the groom – bros, see as your belle dey shoot comot from inside your coat.

 

In a danfo or molue bus – Madam, e be like say you go pay double o. See as you fat reach. Make you dress inside well well, or make you come down make my 2 passenger enter motor. E san wo iseyin.

 

At a Tejuosho market shop buying clothes – Aunty, if you like make you divide yoursef into 3; this cloth no go size you. See as you don stretch the material go. Abeg free am, I no get ya size. Make I call my brother for shop B23 see if im get your size.

 

In Nigeria, strangers are friends who will know you in a minute whether you like it or not. Someone whom you have never said a word to before is likely to grab at your love handles, or slap your muffin top as they lament about your weight gain.

 

And even outside the shores of our dear country, the criticism goes un-abated.

An elderly woman of about 70 from Warri travels to Atlanta, USA to visit her son whose wife has just given birth to twins. Iya ibeji or twin tower of doom? On the 2nd day of her stay, the man takes mama to a chinese buffet for dinner ( a rite of passage for most Nigerian people visiting Yankee).

The man and his mama go for their “first round.” Mama does not recognise all the strange-looking dishes in front of her, and plays it safe by ordering rice, vegetables and the steamed tilapia.

As mama sips her drink, she spies a 20-year-old, 280 pound oyibo girl in the booth next to theirs who has just returned from the food-tables with a plate loaded with fried rice, spring rolls, fried biscuits, chow mein, fried pork, spare ribs etc.

Mama is amazed as she watches the girl make short work of the huge plate of wood in mere minutes. Mama eyes the girl sternly. The girl does not notice or pretends not to notice as she works a huge pork rib laden with honey glazed sauce.

This process repeats itself, as the girl finishes her food, and goes for more and more.

Mama decides to have some fruit as desert and strolls to the fruit section, which also has the ice-cream and cake. As she serves some diced paw paw on her plate, she notices the 280 pound girl pouring chocolate/vanilla ice-cream into a huge cup.

Mama cannot keep quiet this time. Yelling in perfect Waffi pidgin, she chides “ E never do you?! E never-never do you?!!! You still de shop food again! Na only you?!!! E never do you?!!!”

The oyibo girl dropped the contents of the cup on the floor, as she turned away bursting into the tears. Everyone in the restaurant turned around looking dazed. Some mothers covered their chubby children’s ears and eyes with their palms.

The son came and led angry mama away.

I think mama should be chosen to be a trainer on The Biggest Loser.

Tyra despite her brief “annus horribilis” during she added ‘weight’ and received criticism has no idea. She should come to Naija, a place where overweight people are likely to be called more than that.

Forget terms like BBW (Big Beautiful Woman) or “curvy”. Even “fatso” sounds tame. Try words like fatty bum bum, fuji ropo ropo, spare tyre, 50 litre jerry-can, fatilizer…

The word “Orobo” does not count because when you hear that word used to describe a person, you imagine a curvy girl with cute weight or baby fat in just a few places. Think Jasmine Sullivan or Ini Edo. By the way, much props to Wande Coal for bringing Nigerian bootylicious sexy back.

While we are on the subject, why do people generally use the term “morbidly obese” but never “perilously lekpashandous” or “fatally thini-beku”?

There used to be some parts of Lagos where overweight people are taunted on

the streets. Someone once told me that the story of her life could be summed up in this bit of poetry:

People used to see me and say “Here comes the Michellin (tyre) / Later I became immune  to their insults like penicillin /

Mama is not the only one that I have heard or seen have a serious go at an overweight person, with good intentions or not.

Many years back, I used to go to a gym 2 days a week to lift weights. The gym was owned one of the slimmest 50-year-old Nigerian women I had ever seen. She  was also absolutely gorgeous, with firm legs and washboard abs. The gym had a trainer who took on clients on fitness programs.

There was this  middle-aged, light-skinned,  married Ibo woman who had just joined the gym and had taken on the trainer who had planned a steep weight-loss regime for the lady who was quite big. The woman always clashed with the trainer as she could never keep pace in her work-outs and kept on complaining of fatigue.

There was a day I got to the gym, and saw the woman munching on boiled groundnuts while she casually did a slow walk on the treadmill. The trainer was furious as he had instructed her to do a 5 min brisk walk, then 10 minute fast jog and alternate this until she had done 45 minutes. The lady had ignored him, and reduced the treadmill pace to a very slow stroll, as she shelled and chewed a huge bag of peanuts.

At that moment the owner of the gym walked in, in her sports vest, showing her brick stomach, and some Nike running shoes. When she saw the big woman chewing peanuts, she lost it and laid into her:

“What the hell do you think you are doing. As fat as you are, you still snack on groundnuts?”

The embarrassed pea-nut woman turned red as she tried to feebly explain “ But they are the boiled ones, na”

The gym CEO disregarded the explanation “ Boiled or fried, you really should not be eating groundnuts. Each nut contains 5 calories. You keep on coming to my office for weight counselling and complaining that you are not losing any weight, but we now know what you do when you go home. As overweight as you are, you should only snack on fruits like pawpaw or orange. All the weight you have are on your stomach and thighs!”

Turning to the trainer, she ordered him to confiscate the bag of groundnuts and throw it in the trash bin downstairs for good measure.

Then she walked up to the treadmill, and increased the speed to sprint-mode. Groundnuts woman ran herself into the ground that day.

Me, I was weak. I remembered that I must have had at least a 1000 peanuts earlier that day. Inside my Ijebu garri. With 5 cubes of sugar. With 4 big table spoons of Dano powdered milk. Full cream, not  Dano slim. Plus a huge plate of beans. Agonyi, not baked beans.

I got on the treadmill asap.

Thankfully, it is not all doom and gloom for heavy or curvy people in modern Naija. Sometimes there is reverse weight discrimination.

In some joints or eateries, waiters may serve big people large portions of food subconsciously and get call them madam/uncle to boot. For example, if Apollonia from the Nollywood blockbuster “Blackberry Babes” (a.k.a Bobo Bigz Girls from Jenifa) and say, Agbani Darego went for lunch to Olaiya Food Services or Bank Olemoh to buy ‘designer’ rice, and they both bought N200 rice each, Apollonia would receive jara.

In many rural settings or smaller cities/towns, big sized men are better regarded or respected on default.

And there are still many Nigerian men who like a bit who love heavy women. I know someone who only fancied orobo girls. When he saw Monique for the first time in a Busta Rhymes video, he was in love, and totally disregarded Vivica Fox who also appeared in the same video. This chap also believes that Jenifer Hudson has sculpted her body to ugliness. And he would gladly buy Apollonia 10 Blackberry smartphones if she so desires.

Toh bad

In Nigeria, most managers or top executives have a 40- inch waist or over. You are perceived to be chopping life if you sport a huge pot-belly and you can do that if you are as slender as say Sadiq Daba of the 80s TV soap “Cock Crow at Dawn” (no disrespect).

Even our army generals and the top brass of the Nigerian military are barrel chested and are built like Baron Greenback of the Dangermouse cartoon series. Only Idiagbon of blessed memory looked trim and as slender as a character from Top Gun . Okay,  Buhari looked trim when he was Head of State, and still does, but since he is Fulani, it is in his genes and so does not count.

I hear Obj eats pounded yams like crazy, You are what you eat; if mama catches him, eh?

 

Yeah, and if I may say so myself, I think Wana looks nice.

What is your take on all of the above?

…used to call me fatso/

Now you call me Castro, my rap flows/

 

Notorious BIG (Victory, 1997)

Far from ugly but they used to say that I was too chubby/

But now I have got money, the honies aint got nothing but love for me/

 

Big Pun (I’m not a Player, 1998)

Why Should We Hire You?

 

The applicant must have a Masters Degree, 5 years post NYSC experience and be no older than 25

 

There are many daunting aspects about the recruitment process. In this period of economic recession (which has been forever if you are a Nigerian born after the oil boom years of the mid-70s) applicants for jobs have to get their acts right if they want to land a dream role.

Almost all the professionals in Naija want to work in either banking, oil and gas or telecommunications. Except if you are an engineer, lawyer or IT professional, in which you have the alternatives of an Engineering, Law or IT firm. Doctors are in  a lane of their own. The Human Resources executives or top management of these banks, oil firms or telecoms organisations know that they are like the promised land. Their recruitment processes, tests and interviews are arranged in a manner to make sure that many will not enter.

There are also scam artists who put up fictitious job vacancies on even the most respected and well-circulated dailies. If you apply, you enter your personal information at your own peril. There are cartels in Naija who use people’s phone numbers for God knows what. You may be awakened many a night from your slumber by texts or calls trying to entice you into some elaborate scheme or  fraudulent“oil and gas” investments. They call you and claim to have met you at an event which you can swear you never attended. I mean, imagine some scam artist claiming he met me at the Argungu Fishing Festival. I have never been to Zamfara, sorry, Sokoto state before. Using your resume, as background info, this tricksters reel out personal information about you to convince you that they know you indeed.

They are still tenacious even when you ‘catch’ them out. One tried to trick a friend of mine by claiming ‘I even met your sister last week in the market’

My friend replied ‘I do not have a sister. I am an only child’

Without pausing, the man insisted ‘I meant I met your sister-in-law’

My friend wasn’t even married and his CV indicated so! He dropped the phone pronto.

Ah, no country for the un-sharp man.

 

I have been for a few interviews in my life and have been asked different types of interview questions. I have had the HR manager of an oil service firm ( a dark skinned man with ‘tiger whisker’ tribal-marks on his cheeks) ask me what my hobbies were, as he peered down at my resume for cross-confirmation. When I mentioned that I liked hiking, he sneered at my reply with disbelief as he probed “How can you say you like hiking, eh? Where in Nigeria, do you see people going hiking? Abi do you slap on Eko Bridge?”

Truth be told, the resume I had presented was the one I had been using when in England for job applications, and I had not bothered to edit the “Extra-curricular activities” section. I had actually done some small hill climbing/ outdoorsy ‘hiking’ in the English country a few times, though nothing of the Mount Everest summit climbing sort. I remember a HR professional advising that it was always wise to put diverse interests on your resume, as you may have a recruiter at an interview with similar interests. Or so I thought, as I sat facing this one-man army of a panel.

To lighten the atmosphere, I tried to joke lightly “ No, that would be hitch-hiking.”

The HR manager didn’t laugh at all and he hissed loudly. Like I should take a hike.

Why is that in Nigeria, people who conduct interviews act like they do not want you to get the job? They make unnecessary demands, some requiring interviewees to travel across 7 mountains, 7 seas and even past zones known for kidnapping to write very weird tests. Some jobs set calculus type exams for entry-level positions. Some testing areas are over-populated with thousands of candidates even if the positions being tested for are just a few? I know a situation last year, where a whole stadium was used to conduct a test for a few positions in the NDLEA.

In America or England, some companies check applicant’s profile on facebook to discern the type of person applying for the job. While not fool-proof is a fair way means, this may catch out people who have turned Facebook into their village drum or diary.

However, some Naija recruiters discovered their own ingenious means of asessing clients other than facebook. Some look at your face, some look at whether you know ‘book’. The ones that look at face, prefer ajebo looking candidates, especially fresh, light-skinned beauties who they reserve for marketing, front-desk, customer service and any promotion roles. Some look at face, but are more interested in your family’s pedigree. If you are related to a well-known member of society (especially if he is the PDP or AC in Lagos), you may be hired. If you share the same surname with a well-known member of society, you may be hired. I know someone whose surname is Abubakar. This chap really enjoyed himself during the Obasanjo era and got into a top position in an energy firm on the strength of that.

Me, my own surname is Jesus.

 

Some years ago, circa 2004 friend of mine Jide was invited for a screening for a leading telecommunications firm in Victoria Island. He was ushered into a large waiting area where there were about 30 other applicants. The waiting area had various chaise chairs and a huge magazine rack in the middle, which had different newspapers, journals, dailies, softsells, pamphlets etc. There was also a huge flat screen television showing CNN. On one of the walls was a huge window with an opaque glass.

After waiting for about 3 hours, many of the applicants started reading or browsing through the magazines to pass time, until everyone was reading something.

Then immediately, a man in a black suit burst through doors and announced  “All those who are reading The Economist, Smart Money, The UK Times, Newsweek, The Guardian, ThisDay, Time, Forbes, Fortune 500, come with me now.”

With everyone looking stunned he added “Those of you with City People, Cosmopolitan, Ebony, National Enquirer, Complete Football, Ikebe Super, Hints, National Encomium, Ovation…Please leave immediately, we have the selected candidates to go through. Good luck with your future job search.”

We regret to inform you that after a careful review of your job skills, we are not able to take your application further....

Thankfully, my friend had been reading Gaurdian newspaper – the astrology section though. Well his star sign did say today would be his lucky day.

 

Bosun, someone I know once went for an interview where the man interviewing was an eccentric, clown of a character called Mr. Ralph. This chap wore a brown corduroy coat and a polka dot bow tie to work. He also loved toney red or light brown shoes and spoke a funny kind of pre-colonial type English. All this belied the cruel part of his nature.

The position was for the marketing of the company’s new product – some  motor anti-theft device that realistically would not deter any tenacious Nigerian armed robber.

He had barely settled in when Mr. Ralph walked in, with a cup of hot black coffee in his hands. He introduced himself and started to speak:

“Welcome to Dagbolu Enterprises. You have been selected to prove yourself worthy of the chance to be a part of an aggressive market team which I am personally assembling myself, selling an anti-theft device to motorists. There are over 750,000 motorists in Lagos State today. Each device costs about 10,000 naira. Multiply that by the number of motorists, and we are talking about serious turnovers here. I want you to penetrate the Lagos market. We must sell our product to banks, government agencies, leasing companies, families, churches, mosques, NGOs. We want people who can market in Oshodi, that can sell in Ajegunle, that can get supply contracts in Iju…” his words trailed as his eyes were bulging with excitement at the possible huge profits.

Sell our product, sell your body, sell your soul...just keep selling and selling and selling

With that, Mr. Ralph then started drilling Bosun.

He said “ I will start by asking you a question. What is marketing? Answer correctly and you may get hired.”

Bosun smiled, because he knew the answer from Marketing 101 in LASU “Marketing is the act of…”

Mr. Ralph interrupted him with venom “Zip it you novice!! Marketing can never be an act! What are you acting for? You should be selling and generating revenue. Marketing is all about selling. Simples!”

Mr. Ralph hissed and continued with his interrogation “How will you market our products; what strategies will you employ to meet your sales figures if employed?”

Biting his lip with anxiety, Bosun replied “I will do whatever it takes. In my former job as a Sales Coordinator, I befriended clients, extended them lines of credit, visited them at home. I always try to shadow potential clients, visit directors or supply chain managers at their offices, so build a familiarity. I even once met up with one in his church to…”

Irritated, Mr Ralph interjected “Here at Dagbolu Enterprises, we dont want our employees doing that. Think of yourself as a bee, and our esteemed clients as beautiful flower. Do not pollinate; do not fraternize. Haba!!”

Bosun was weak.

Mr. Ralph continued with his riot-act interview questions, until dismissing Bosun with a promise to be in touch in the future.

On Bosun’s way out, he ran into a former classmate of his from LASU, a chap called Kelechi who up to a week ago was working for the organisation.

They exchanged pleasantries, and when Bosun told him about the just finished session with Mr. Ralph, Kelechi laughed.

Kelechi told him about how Mr. Ralph had sacked an employee (Jaja) who had worked for the company for 13 years just on a whim because he wanted to replace older employees with “world-class” graduates with foreign or Masters Degrees.

Mr. Ralph had called Jaja into his office and spoke of “re-shuffling the office to increase productivity, lower costs and increase the threshold”

Sensing the worst, Jaja asked “Mr Ralph sir, am I being fired?”

Adjusting his bow-tie, and snickering sarcastically, Mr Ralph said “You fired? No, no, no, don’t be ridiculous. You are not being fired, it is your position that is being made redundant. Think of it as a mere ‘repositioning’. You will be fine. Go home, we will call you soon.”

The call never came.

 

 

 

 

 

Dont be mad….UPS is hiring/

You should have been a cop/

 Notorious B.I.G (Flavour In Your Ear, Remix, 1994)