The Wonderer is Dead. Long Live the Wanderer

New e-ddress

2009-06-02T04:25:00.000-07:00

The Wanderer Moves Again!
(why else is he The Wanderer!)

Meet the Wanderer here

Hurry before he slips out of the building again...

Fela Meets Abba meets the Wanderer... in Uppsala

2008-10-27T05:04:00.000-07:00

Not all who wander are lost.

The Wanderer has moved... HERE

http://www.felameetsabba.blogspot.com

News Update: Omo Alagbede selected as Nordic Africa Institute Guest Writer 2008

2008-03-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

http://www.nai.uu.se/scholarships/awarded/guest-writer-2008/

Click on the image to read an enlarged version

About the Nordic Africa Institute

Nordiska Afrikainstitutet in Uppsala is a research, documentation and information centre on modern Africa for the Nordic countries. It promotes research and studies on Africa in the Nordic countries and co-operation between African and Nordic researchers. It also disseminates information about current African issues. The Institute was founded in 1962. It is financed jointly by the Nordic countries and has a Programme and Research Council with members from all the Nordic countries.

The Nordic Africa Institute website is here

The Wanderer is Dead. Long Live the Photo-Wanderer

2007-12-27T11:29:00.000-08:00

Hi,

This is Omo Alagbede.

This might be the last time you will be reading from this blog(ger). After more than a year of meritorious wanderings The Wanderer has decided to annul himself, and re-incarnate - as a photo-blogger. I bought a NIKON D40 camera about 2 weeks ago, and I have decided to spend 2008, God willing, recreating Omo-Alagbede as a paparrazo.

The journey/journal shall proceed on shutterchance.com. About to begin is a journey whose end I cannot predict. To be a part of this journey, visit

http://toluogunlesi.shutterchance.com

Below is one of my pictures, taken on my first wandering with my new weapon - Alpha Beach, (Lagos) Saturday 22nd December 2007

Yours Wanderingly,

Omo Alagbede

Omo Alagbede's Letter in Time (2)

2007-12-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

RECEIVED FROM TIME MAGAZINE YESTERDAY (FRIDAY, 14TH DEC, 2007)

Dear [Omo-Alagbede]:

I am happy to tell you that your comments appear in the Inbox of the December 17 issue, available on newsstands now. We are pleased that you took the time to register your thoughts, and we're sure that other readers will be interested to read your comments, too.

Thank you for your engaged interest in TIME, and best wishes.

Sincerely,
[KT]

My Letter to the Editor appears in this week's edition of TIME Magazine (December 17, 2007 issue), available on newsstands now. I wrote the piece in response to the TIME Dec 3, 2007 issue cover story on the demise of French culture.

(Scroll down a bit if you click on the link. It's the letter from the "ABEOKUTA, NIGERIA" fellow)

This is my second appearance in the TIME's Letters pages. 1st appearance was (almost exactly) a year ago - Dec 4, 2006 TIME Europe Issue): MY LETTER IN TIME EUROPE AND OTHER STORIES.

Next time I want to appear further inside the magazine (smiles).
Will let you know once that's done...

Chika Unigwe Lagos Book Tour: December 2007

2007-12-04T13:00:00.000-08:00

Do you know any Nigerian songs that denigrate women?

2007-11-28T10:47:00.000-08:00

In resonse to my Bank PHB post, (see below) lamenting the crudeness of Bank PHB's ongoing "Stash and Cash" Promo radio ad Raven commented as follows:

I haven't heard the ad in question but I have to say that (based on the short snippet of transcribed dialogue) it hardly seems to denigrate women in general. Most stereotypes have a basis (even if it is merely a flimsy basis) in fact and this particular one stands, I feel, on pretty solid ground. There is a certain category of Nigerian women (or maybe we should say "girls" in this instance) for whom this sort of behaviour is de rigeur, this routine badgering of boyfriends, uncles and proximate males for substantial sums of money. It may be sad, but it also happens to be true. If a similar advert showed several young men planning internet scams in an attempt to get some cash for their "babes" one would be unlikely to say that this was insulting to "Nigerian men in general" even if one were not entirely pleased at the portrayal. So lets try and cut the Bank PHB people some slack. It might not be a great ad campaign, it might not be particularly tasteful but, let's face it, it's hardly a moral outrage.

Well said Sir. The stereotype's not completely unfounded. But, truth be told, I don't think that this [other] message is what the bank intended to pass.

This is what we might call a case of competing messages: the actual, intended message vs the unintended, but overriding (subliminal?) message. The end result of this conflict of ideas is something like "static" - the mental equivalent of it at least.
The Bank wants to portray females (perhaps the ad is targetted at women, who often seem to have more "disposable" income than their male counterparts - see footnote) who are zealously participating in the Stash and Cash promo, but what they end up doing is masking that message with another, one that enters the (nebulous) realms of morality, and borders on unflattering/denigratory representation.

But again, I agree with Raven's point. There are a lot of Nigerian girls who exist to "GET". I get, therefore I am. Popular (Nigerian) Culture is full of representations.

Our comedians probably get away with these crude jokes because of the elements of reality embedded in them.
A lot of Nollywood storylines are about the "Girl-Grabber" - a girl(s) who maintains a set of pot-bellied funders, unbeknownst to one another - at least one of whom will be a "Senator" - or go by the name "Chief". There's almost no Nollywood movie that doesn't have a scene where a love-struck male is shown buying up a boutique or supermarket to win - or keep - the heart of his beau, to the haunting music of a soundtrack.

How many Nollywood-portrayed women actually work at making their own money? If they're not married to or concubined to a rich man, then they are heirs to their father's empires (in which case you'll find them falling in love with penurious men)

So you see, our problems are deep-seated. Self-reinforcing negativities.

This is where Misan's comment comes in:

Yes, we do have a long way to go, but how for do? a letter to Bank PHB telling them to withdraw the ad? Why do Nigerian men feel this way? i was raised in the "where there's smoke, there's fire" camp so we need to establish our dignity (by addressing the root cause of our materialistic society, whatever that might be (poverty, perhaps)) AS WELL AS fight for our dignity (i don't believe the two to be mutually exclusive).

We need to address both the root cause (materialism) and the flowering (unrestrained denigration by generalisation).

Let's start here. Let's try to compile a list of (popular) Nigerian song lyrics that portray Nigerian women as money-grabbing species. Do you know any? Anytime from the highlife days to the afro-hiphop days? Or even folk songs? Please post them as comments, and include the name of the musician, the song title, and the offending lyrics.

*
1.Women are undeniably often the managers of the (not meagre) family "shopping income"
2.See the illiterate market women of Agbeni and Balogun who run trading businesses worth millions of naira and yet somehow manage to evade the official SME data-gathering exercises.

Bank PHB "Stash and Cash" Promo: Nigerian Women Have Work To Do!

2007-11-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

Nigerian women have work to do.

They should stop mourning their loss of the Honorable Speakership, or ranting about Ofunneka's vodkaventure-fuelled ordeal in the hands of that Animal Called Rich; and instead face matters of Current, Pressing Reality (CRP). One of which is the ongoing Bank PHP Stash and Cash Promo advert. I’ve heard it on Radio a couple of times, I can’t say for certain if it’s on television as well.

It has two men talking. Their conversation goes something like: (I’m writing from memory, not transcribing the gist):

Man 1: The world’s coming to an end
Man 2: What is it again?
Man 1: I’ve been getting calls from girls professing their love for me, only for them to demand for the sum of 25,000 naira
Man 2: Hey, me too. My girlfriend’s been badgering me for 25,000 naira as well…

It turns out that what all the "grabbing" girls need the 25 grand for is the Bank PHB Stash and Cash Promo! The Promo asks consumers to deposit 25 grand and automatically stand the chance of winning millions in monthly draws. Of course, the more the deposits (multiples of 25 grand), the more your chances of winning (and of getting angry when you hit nothing!)

This ad is a Mama-of-All-Insults. As I see it, is a celebration of the belief (stereotype) that the Nigerian girl is a money-grabber. Our comedians (the basket mouths and co) have already hit jackpots cracking jokes about the Greed of the Nigerian Chic. (A common one goes like this: The bird-flu epidemic was a messiah to the pressured pockets of the Nigerian Male. It meant that Nigerian Girls no longer ordered expensive Chicken meals at their men's expenses. The comedian would then hope aloud that the flu spread to other female necessities like Recharge Cards, Cinema tickets etc)

She doesn’t earn money; she doesn’t want to earn money, she’s content with depending on their boyfriends and husbands for everything.
Recharge cards, sweet Sensation chicken, Fan Ice-cream, hairdressing bills.

Or are we supposed to be rejoicing with Bank PHB that they’re portraying a new breed of Nigerian girls who, while still milking their men dry, refrain from squandering the money on the bric-a-brac of "feminine maintenance", but rather choose to "invest" the loot/ransom?

Seen from another angle, this is PHB’s message: Nigerian girls are so money-conscious that they will terrorise all terrorisables to obtain money that will allow them reap from a disguised gambling opportunity – save 25 grand and win millions in a draw.

True, Robert Kiyosaki talked about leveraging Other People’s Money (OPM). But this one doesn’t sound like that. This advert, as I see it, is demeaning and insulting to Nigerian Women. It portrays them as "Get All You Can; and Can All You Get" varieties of the Homo Sapiens species.

Naija Women, Stop mourning Etteh and Ofunneka, and start fighting for your dignity.

A MESSAGE FOR MTN, CELTEL AND GLO

2007-11-27T04:40:00.000-08:00

MTN: GO IMPROVE YOUR NETWORK

CELTEL: CHANGE. YOUR WAYS

GLO: RULE YOUR WORLD!

Omo Alagbede wins 1st Facebook Poetry Competition

2007-11-23T05:17:00.000-08:00

Last Friday (16 November 2007) Omo Alagbede was announced as the Winner of the 1st Facebook Poetry Competition (judged by Todd Swift and Daniel Mitchell) - for his poem "Instructions".

Facebook Poetry Competion 1.0
The Winners:
#1 Tolu Ogunlesi (Nigeria)
#2 Janet Vickers (Vancouver, BC)
#3 Dominic O’Rourke (London)

You may read the press release(s) here:
www.facebookpoetry.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2416793140
http://toddswift.blogspot.com/2007/11/facebook-poetry.html

PS. Omo Alagbede will be pocketing a $150 prize for this win. Watch this page for more details on a forthcoming e-party and ink-and-beer-throwing session (facebook style)!

Maggy Delvaux-Mufu: The African Woman Who Set Herself on Fire

2007-11-11T09:44:00.000-08:00

Update:

Comment from an informed reader: (thank you frederic):

Check your information before publishing them or relaying them. Because, this information about Maggy Devaux-Mufu Mpia goes back to 2004 and not 2007. This woman burned herself on October 5, 2004 in Luxembourg and she died on Saturday October 9,2004 in Metz in France. Take care

Omo Alagbede's Note: The news below is not recent, as was made to originally appear. The facts though remain correct.

---------------------------
She set herself on fire.
To protest racism.
Maggy Delvaux-Mufu. 40-something year old mother of three. Belgian citizen (?) of Congolese Origin.

Omo Alagbede's Musings
Mama Africa. The "Mama" who doesn't act like one. The Mama who abandons her children to the cruelties of other mothers
All Belgian citizens are equal, but apparently, white ones are more equal than black ones.

Warning: The pics below are disturbing. So is racism.

Pictures (c) http://www.opamizik.com

From http://www.opamizik.com
The 42-year-old Belgian citizen and her husband had been facing financial difficulties. They had recently indebted themselves by buying a Citroën garage in Oberwampach, before realising they were missing the documents that would allow them to set up a business. Delvaux-Mufu wrote a letter to Le Jeudi recounting her story of bureaucratic difficulties and economic despair. “I’m against all forms of violence, but day after day, my family and I have to endure moral violence, discrimination, insults and much more from Mr Juncker’s administration”, she said in the letter published last week. Money problems had driven the woman to desperately plead her case at the Prime minister’s office early on the same day of the incident. Her threat to burn herself alive on Place des Martyrs after being turned away by the authorities caused government officials to contact the police. A city-wide search was organised, but nobody could foresee the woman would change her plans."

Read the full story here

Love or Madness?

2007-11-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

A while ago this pic started a heated discussion (plenty of e-saliva spraying and ranting and shaking of e-fists) in an email group I was part of. Photos like this are classic discussion starters, esp in cultures like ours, where "enlightenment" (Western-style feminism etc), mysticism (belief or otherwise in juju/voodoo) and tradition/conservatism are the threesome (stones) holding up the cooking pot of human existence.

CAVEAT: The "Love or Madness" title was not my coinage o. Ah, I must let you know quick quick, before I land on some bomb-strapping f******t's hit-list, lol.

This was Omo Alagbede's contribution to the discussion:
---------------------

See the dull look in the man's eyes.
Not only that, can't you hear the noise from the parlour. His wife and her girlfriends (all founding members of the "Madam Etteh 4 Life" fans club) are watching "Paloma" and laughing and licking ice-cream. This is a classic case of "Gbewudani" - translation - "take, hold my blouse for me". The man's destiny is in a calabash in one of those kitchen cupboards. This one goeth not out except by hot prayer, and 30-days dry fasting, under the watch of a a man of God not less than the position of General Overseer!
jus' kidding o, abeg. Na true love be dis. I Cor 13 Updated Version:
Love does not take off its tie before washing Madam's dishes

AND THEN, IN A FOLLOW-UP EMAIL Omo Alagbede ADDED:

why are we talking about LOVE or MADNESS as though it had to be an "either-or":

he might be
a divorcee
or a widower
or hubby to an invalid wife
or a remorseful hubby doing penance for a "sin"/"sins" ranging from adultery to forgetting his wife's mother's birthday.
And it could also be Love AND Madness. They don't have to be mutually exclusive. The line b/w the two blurs faster than the pin number on a substandard MTN recharge card...

---------------------------------
"Love" or "Madness"? What thinkest thou?

Flashing as an "African" Invention

2007-09-28T07:50:00.000-07:00

Another "how to write about africa" piece:

Africa invented AIDS. Now, Africa has invented another Condition - a social one this time, not a biological one. It's called "flashing!" While the rest of the non-Western world is consolidating on their hi-tech innovations: (Korea: KIA; China: Chery Motors; Iran: Nuclear Weapons; India: IT Outsourcing, etc), Africa is inventing ingenious ways to manage (without attempting to solve the underlying problem) its POVERTY.

Welcome to Flashing.

Initially the Reuters article (below) was going to get me pissed off. How dare anyone say that such a no-brainer as "flashing/beeping" sprang up only in the poverty-stricken mental ghetto that is the typical african mind.

But when I remember an encounter with BE (British-Nigerian novelist, poet and creative writing teacher) last year at the lobby of Sofitel (Ikoyi), I have no choice than to smile, even if ruefully, and dispose of my irritations.

BE came in to Nigeria for a reading tour organised by the British Council. She was given a mobile phone by the BC to use while in Naija. The phone apparently contained an old sim card, one that must have been in use by someone before it was given to BE.

So, it would happen that every now and then someone (a friend/acquantaince/creditor/lover/stalker/etc of one or more of the previous owner(s) of the SIM) would "flash" the line. BE had apparently been "picking" (more like trying to pick) the call. Poor BE. There she would be, chanting "hello" endlessly like a one-dollar CD on a skipping-scratching binge, perhaps even long after the "flasher" had forgotten about the flashing. Poor BE.

So, finally, one evening, as we sat at the lobby of her hotel, another flasher flashed. BE picked, and helloed. Silence. She gave voice to her exasperation.

I realised that she had been getting herself worked up over mere flashing. I explained (more like tried to explain) to her what flashing meant. It's a way of staying in touch. An e-card that says:

Thinking of you.
or
I'm around (I'am downstairs; I'am at your gate; I'm nearby)
or
Where's my money
or
Hope you haven't forgotten what I told you
or
I'm bored
or
Call me now
or
blah blah blah

BE didn't get "it".
Why would anyone flash instead of simply making a genuine call?
It's called African Culture (and includes other phenomena like African Time/Nigerian Time)
I didn't get why BE wasn't getting it.
Flashing is normal, abi?

Now I know why.

Scientists/sociologists have finally recognised it as an African Disorder. Like sickle cell that afflicts only the black race, Flashing as a habit is imprinted only upon African DNA.

So, we can't get angry at the Yahoo News article, can we?

They're not lying about us...

Read the Article:

Phone credit low? Africans go for "beeping"
KHARTOUM (Reuters) -

If you are in Sudan it is a 'missed call'. In Ethiopia it is a 'miskin' or a 'pitiful' call. In other parts of Africa it is a case of 'flashing', 'beeping' or in French-speaking areas 'bipage'.

Wherever you are, it is one of the fastest-growing phenomena in the continent's booming mobile telephone markets -- and it's a headache for mobile operators who are trying to figure out how to make some money out of it.

You beep someone when you call them up on their mobile phone -- setting its display screen briefly flashing -- then hang up half a second later, before they have had a chance to answer. Your friend -- you hope -- sees your name and number on their list of 'Missed Calls' and calls you back at his or her expense.

It is a tactic born out of ingenuity and necessity, say analysts who have tracked an explosion in miskin calls by cash-strapped cellphone users from Cape Town to Cairo.

"Its roots are as a strategy to save money," said Jonathan Donner, an India-based researcher for Microsoft who is due to publish a paper on "The Rules of Beeping" in the high-brow online Journal of Computer Mediated Communication in October.

Donner first came across beeping in Rwanda, then tracked it across the continent and beyond, to south and southeast Asia. Studies quoted in his paper estimate between 20 to more than 30 percent of the calls made in Africa are just split-second flashes -- empty appeals across the cellular network.

The beeping boom is being driven by a sharp rise in mobile phone use across the continent.

Africa had an estimated 192.5 million mobile phone users in 2006, up from just 25.3 million in 2001, according to figures from the U.N.'s International Telecommunication Union. Customers may have enough money for the one-off purchase of a handset, but very little ready cash to spend on phone cards for the prepaid accounts that dominate the market.

Africa's mobile phone companies say the practice has become so widespread they have had to step in to prevent their circuits being swamped by second-long calls.

"We have about 355 million calls across the whole network every day," said Faisal Ijaz Khan, chief marketing officer for the Sudanese arm of Kuwaiti mobile phone operator Zain (formerly MTC). "And then there are another 130 million missed calls every day. There are a lot of missed calls in Africa."

'CALL ME BACK'

Zain is responding to the demand by drawing up plans for a "Call-me-back" service in Sudan, letting customers send open requests in the form of a very basic signal to friends for a phone call.

The main advantage for the company is that the requests will be diverted from the main network and pushed through using a much cheaper technology (USSD or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data).

A handful of similar schemes are springing up across Africa, says Informa principal analyst Devine Kofiloto. "It is widespread. It is a concern for operators in African countries, whose networks become congested depending on the time of day with calls they cannot bill for.

"They try to discourage the practice by introducing services where customers can send a limited number of 'call-back' request either free of charge or for a minimum fee."

There are plenty of other reasons why mobile operators are keen to cut down on the practice. One is it annoys customers, pestered by repeated missed calls.

A second is that 'flashes' eat into one of mobile phone companies' favorite performance indicators -- ARPU or average revenue per user. Miscalls earn very little in themselves - and don't always persuade the target to ring back.

Orange Senegal, Kofiloto said, lets customers send a 'Rappelle moi' ('Call me back') when their phone credit drops below $0.10. With Safaricom Kenya, it is a "Flashback 130" (limited to five a day -- and with the admonishment 'Stop Flashing! Ask Nicely'). Vodacom DR Congo's 'Rappelez moi SVP' service costs $0.01 a message.

Read the rest of the article here

senryu by omoalagbede

2007-09-23T10:21:00.000-07:00

multitasking. poem,
Memo, novella, Report.
all in a day's work.

Guess Who?

2007-09-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

UPDATE:

ANSWER: NGOZI OKONJO-IWEALA (PIC TAKEN BY OMO ALAGBEDE IN 2005 AT THE NU-METRO BOOKSTORE, SILVERBIRD GALLERIA, LAGOS, NIGERIA, AT THE LAUNCH OF BEASTS OF NO NATION, THE AWARD-WINNING NOVEL WRITTEN BY HER SON, UZODINMA)

Clues:

She is a woman
She is Nigerian
She is very famous
She has a son who is about as famous (in a sense) as her.

Call for Submission of Bids: Upgrade/Renovation of FIFA U-17 World Cup Trophy

2007-09-13T09:47:00.000-07:00

Our Client is the parastatal in charge of the round-leather game in Nigeria, under the supervising influence of the National Sports Commission. Arising from the recent win of the Under-17 World Cup by Nigeria for a historic 3rd time, our client observed with dismay the disgraceful and dilapidated state of the trophy, and the fact that it does not currently befit the status of Nigeria as a giant of Africa , and 3-time winner of the Trophy. Our client is therefore desirous of renovating/upgrading the esteemed Cup, in line with the rule of law(making).

SCOPE OF WORK

Major Work:
· Re-electroplating of entire trophy with 64-carat gold.
· Replacement of Map of Africa on the trophy with updated version to reflect the emerging United States of Africa.
· Enlargement of the map of Nigeria within the map of Africa, to reflect historic, groundbreaking, 3-time win.
· Installation of Nigerian coat of arms on the base of the trophy.
· Procurement of bullet-proof vest for the Trophy.
· Production of U-17 soccer world Cup history manual in all the two-hundred-and-fifty languages of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, to accompany the Trophy.
· Provision of supporting stand for Trophy to allow for easy movement on National occasions.
· Provision of satellite tracking device to be embedded in Trophy to discourage kidnap by militants.

Supporting Work:
· Drafting and express delivery of complaint letter to FIFA on the poor maintenance of the Trophy by Mexico , the 2005 winners.
· Construction of befitting, airconditioned, bullet-proof glass display case for the Trophy.
· Construction of state-of-the-art display hall for the display case. (The Hall shall be known as the Patricia Etteh Under-17 International Trophy Display Hall.
· Provision of CCTV cameras, and satellite security equipment for the Hall.
· Provision of bullion vans, and power-bikes to form a secure convoy for the conveyance of the Trophy on nationwide tours.

QUALIFYING COMPANIES:
In responding, qualifying firms should send the following documents and details:

· Company profile, including names and contact details of directors. (At least one Senator, Minister or Member of House of Reps of the Federal Republic of Nigeria must be on the company board)
· Company UNAUDITED financial report for the past two weeks.
· A 100-word (max) proposal in any Nigerian language.
· Certificates of Tax-Evasion for the past twelve years.
· Evidence of previously attempted renovation and/or upgrade projects. (Such projects preferably carried out on brand new buildings, cars and infrastructure).

Caveat: RIDICULOUSLY AND EMBARASSINGLY LOW BIDS WILL BE REJECTED, AND OFFENDERS WILL BE SENT TO THE ICPC FOR PROSECUTION, AS WELL AS MANDATED TO FACE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY JOINT COMMITTEE ON RENOVATION AND UPGRADING MATTERS.

All proposals should be addressed to:

U-17 FIFA World Cup Trophy Renovation/Upgrade Coordinator,
White Elephant Consulting,
628, Patricia Etteh Crescent ,
Asokoro, Abuja ,
Nigeria.
Email: under17trophy@whiteelephantconsult.com

on or before the 31st of October, 2007.

The sum of 500,000 naira only, enclosed in a suitably labelled ghana-must-go, should accompany the submission as bid fee. Proposals unaccompanied by a bid fee will be forwarded to the Undue Process Unit for blacklisting from future government patronage.

(c)Omo Alagbede, September 2007

Changing the World in 30 minutes: A Baby Sniper's Guide

2007-09-12T06:08:00.000-07:00

I tried my hand at this mini-essay ("pseudo-rantelligent piece" - my coinage) in response to TBWA/Concept's (Nigeria) call for applications from potential "baby-snipers".(Advertisers have all these crazy, fun-sounding nominal tags they unleash on their "people", targeted specifically at presenting them in the strongest of "creative"/"anarchistic"/"revolutionary" lights).

They asked us to tell them how we intend to change the world in 30 minutes. You can't? Well, I can.

---

Every sniper aims to inflict MAXIMUM IMPACT (creative damage?) with MINIMUM ammo, and in MINIMUM time.

1)Imagine if the Sniper that killed John F. Kennedy had missed at first. Losing even a few micro-seconds would have given the Secret Service more than enough time to SAVE the President.
2)Snipers do not use machine-guns. No Sniper plans on using a whole belt-load of bullets to accomplish his or her task. The goal of a sniper is to finish his or her work with that FIRST projectile.

Snipers have changed the world in the past. The sniper who killed Kennedy changed the course of the destiny of countless people, in far less than 30 minutes. A whole Nation (the most powerful on earth) was thrown into mourning. A whole generation was disillusioned by the senseless murder of one they had come to look up to. Lyndon Johnson became President. The “Age of Camelot” came to an end. Jackie Kennedy became a Widow. Eventually she would remarry, and become the wife of one of the richest men in the world. The Kennedy Obsession started, evident for example in the conspiracy theories that have flourished, and the bestsellers that have flooded the bookstores.

The Sniper who killed Kennedy went for his head. His brain. The seat of reason, of consciousness.

To change the world in 30 minutes, I will not kill anyone. No. I will not hold a gun. No. I will not be destructively destructive. If I destroy anything in the few minutes left after I have become a Mature Sniper, it will be a Creative Destruction. A pulling down of ONE faulty paradigm in the minds of men.

But, come to think of it, instead of destroying, I’d rather build. Build a VISION within myself. And then launch forth into the world, armed with that VISION. The VISION may seem to need a lifetime to change the WORLD (see Mandela, Mother Theresa, etc), but in truth, it is the TIME IT TAKES TO EXPLODE INTO REALITY in a mind/consciousness that really matters the most.

We think it takes decades for OAK trees to mature. Wrong. It takes only the length of time needed for the OAK tree seed to realise that it IS an OAK tree. The twinkling of an eye. If it is the seed of an OAK tree, then it will surely become an OAK tree.

Dispatches from Lagos - the new Lagos Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) System

2007-09-11T04:11:00.000-07:00

A CLASH OF TASTES

I

Wasiu (Ayinde Marshal), King of fuji music is crooning, as passengers file in. It will soon roar into life, and begin its journey to Berger. The fuji music is a bit on the loud side. I don't care for fuji (with its reputation as the music of motor-park touts and marijuanaed, thug-like entities), and would instead prefer the Yinka Ayefele, or Fela, that I have grown used to on those buses.

I am not alone. Someone asks the bus boy to switch the fuji off. Change it to something else. Another concurs. I do too, silently. And then someone protests. Angrily.

How dare you ask him to change the fuji.

These "corporate" people sef, another person says. (It is a tie-and-suit man/men who doesn't/don't want the music).

What is wrong with fuji music?

It is either they leave the fuji playing, or the music goes off!

The bus boy has already removed the fuji CD. The driver, who is outside the bus at this time, rushes in, and, protests. He puts the fuji music back in.

II

- Do Not Talk To Driver
- Seated 46
- Standees 36
- No Smoking.

More on Oyo State, Bayo Alao and Adedibu...

2007-09-06T12:09:00.000-07:00

“Oyo State is being bogged down by government of illiterates by the illiterates for the enlightened.”

- Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) - Daily Punch, Tuesday, 4th September, 2007

New African Magazines

2007-09-02T07:28:00.000-07:00

Mimi Magazine

Sea Breeze Journal of Contemporary Liberian Writings

MAZWI Literary Journal

African Writing

England in Ibadan and other Amala Tales

2007-09-02T07:11:00.000-07:00

"Mapo Hall has been renovated. If you go there now, you would think you are in England"

Bayo Alao (aka Adebayo Alao-Akala), Governor of Oyo State, South West Nigeria, on (one of) his achievements since becoming Governor on May 29.

Governor Akala is currently at the centre of a "dismissal" scandal, details here

Dispatches From Lagos: Caveat Emptor

2007-08-21T10:31:00.000-07:00

Spotted from somewhere around the Oworo end of 3rd Mainland Bridge this morning:

--------------------
CAVEAT EMPTOR

THIS LAND IS NOT FOR SALE

OWNER IS VERY MUCH AROUND WATCHING THE ACTIVITIES OF 419s
---------------------

(The "land" in question is beneath the bridge, in a sprawling slum that something tells me will one day be demolished, Maroko-style, by the Government)

***

Once upon a time, it used to simply read:

Caveat Emptor: Let the buyer beware.

Now, it has lengthened.

And something tells me it will continue to get longer. More and more English (and perhaps Latin or Greek) will need to be added as fraudsters get more sophisticated in their acts...

Until:

One day we shall see a warning, thusly:

CAVEAT EMPTOR
THIS LAND IS NOT FOR SALE
OWNER IS VERY MUCH AROUND WATCHING THE ACTIVITIES OF 419s.
IN OWNER'S ABSENCE, A STATE-OF-THE-ART SATELLITE SERVICE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA HAS BEEN COMMISSIONED AND PAID FOR TO KEEP WATCH OVER THIS PROPERTY. TRESPASSERS WILL BE PHOTOGRAPHED AND TAGGED ELECTRONICALLY FROM OUTER SPACE, AND WILL AUTOMATICALLY ENTER AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL TECHNOLOGICAL DATABASE FOR CRIME, YAHOO-YAHOO, DOLLAR-CHOPPING AND OTHER RELATED FORMS OF DEFRAUDMENT.
BE WARNED.

HOW NOT TO WRITE ABOUT BINYAVANGA!

2007-08-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

I read Mr. Uche Nworah’s blog posting on Binyavanga Wainaina - Binyavanga Wainaina Owes Nigerians An Apology - and all I could say was “Oh dear!”

I was – and still am – very painfully embarrassed that Nigeria’s “award-winning Internet columnist” could so shamelessly display his ignorance. And ironically, he has chosen to do so through the same medium by which he has made a name for himself.

Let us take his points one after the other:

Before that, this is the cause of the vexation that vexed Mr. Nworah’s righteous soul:

"I couldn’t also believe that Binyavanga had actually written these words in his article – “The Ancient Wise Man always comes from a noble tribe (not the money-grubbing tribes like the Gikuyu, the Igbo or the Shona)”. "

Now, let us listen to the internet commentator himself:

NWORAH: Such unfounded allegations and stereotypes will not do the African people any good, but rather supports the subservient 'Master's mentality' - the act of sacrificing the interests of the African people to please the Guv'nors in the west.

OMO ALAGBEDE: Where was Mr. Nworah when Binyavanga turned down, publicly, the World Economic Forum Nomination as a Young Global Leader 2007. Is that a symptom of “Master’s Mentality” as well. You turn down a to-die-for global award, and instead prefer to spend your time calling your people names?

NWORAH: I would also have used the opportunity to remind him that Richard Ihejiahi, the man who facilitated his trip to Nigeria is of the Igbo tribe, and that the bank itself (Fidelity Bank, formerly Fidelity Union Merchant Bank) was co-founded by another Igbo man in the person of Chief Onwuka Kalu of Onwuka Hi-Tek fame (Okpuzu of Igbo land)

OMO ALAGBEDE:I think that I should use this opportunity to inform Mr. Nworah that Binyavanga is from the Gikuyu tribe of Kenya (which Mr. Nworah might better understand as “Kenyan Igbo”) – Gikuyu is included in that “money-grubbing” class in the Granta Article.

NWORAH: Would they have still paid his flight ticket, put him up in a five star hotel and feted him like a celebrity if they knew what he thinks about them?

OMO ALAGBEDE: Mr. Nworah apparently assumes that Binyavanga came to Nigeria in order to be “feted like a celebrity.” And in order to escape from “Nairobbery” to enjoy 5-star hotel treatment in Victoria Island, Nigeria. Yeah, Binyavanga turned down a Young Global Leader Nomination, and a chance to travel to China to hobnob with Princes and Prime Ministers and jawjaw on the 2030 World Vision, in order that he might more thoroughly appreciate and enjoy 5-star hotel treatment and a flight ticket to Nigeria months down the line. How sweet of him!

NWORAH: Perhaps this would serve as a lesson not only to Fidelity Bank but also to other Nigerian businesses that are increasingly importing ‘foreign experts’ to facilitate seminars and workshops in Nigeria.

OMO ALAGBEDE: Any Nigerian company that will be inviting a “foreign expert” to facilitate a seminar should be made to, apart from a visa application, submit evidence of his lack of prejudice against all two hundred and fifty tribes of Nigeria:

The Uche Nworah Declaration:
I, “Foreign Expert” do solemnly swear and affirm that I do not currently hold, nor have I ever held, espoused, blogged, published or thought anything unkind or uncharitable against the [Name all the ethnic groups in Nigeria] of Nigeria.

However, indigenous or local experts like Uche Nworah should be allowed to take a bow and go ahead to give their seminar, irrespective of what they believe.

NWORAH: Again I wonder if Binyavanga is aware that her new chum, Chimamanda Adichie is also Igbo

OMO ALAGBEDE: This is where my embarrassment begins to become a malignancy. Binyavanga as Chimamanda’s new “chum”. Laugh out loud. Now!
Now listen to this next piece of bull:

NWORAH: And speaking about Chimamanda, I would like to believe that she is not aware of what Binyavanga said about her people; else one would have expected her to demand a clarification or even an outright apology. Perhaps it is for this reason that she should mind the company she keeps. As an 'Igbocentric', I’m sure that she knows that even the elders would counsel her likewise.

OMO ALAGBEDE: Here our award-winning columnist is warning Chimamanda to beware of the company she keeps. Yes. It is true. Now that Chimamanda is a global celebrity at such a young age, she needs proverb-laden elders like Mazi Nworah to dish out unsolicited guidance and counsel, so that dreadlocked, Igbo-hating Kenyan fundamentalists like Binyavanga do not mislead her and destroy her shining star.

NWORAH: It would help the African literary course if Binyavanga sets out to educate himself a little more about the Igbos seeing that he is now benefiting from them.

OMO ALAGBEDE: I think it’d also help if Mr. Nworah sets out to educate himself a little more about Satire, take a course on “How to Read ‘How to write about Africa’”, and learn a bit more about Binyavanga (the internet will help here).
Apparently (I’m repeating myself here): Binyavanga came from wherever he was (Nairobbery?) to come and be “benefitting” from the “Igbos”.

Last but certainly not least in BC (Bullshit Coefficient) is this:

NWORAH: Perhaps an apology from Binyavanga Wainaina and a clarification from both Fidelity Bank and Chimamanda Adichie may be necessary at this stage to prevent the Nze na Ozors in Igbo land from calling on their Chi and on Amadioha to get on Binyavanga’s case. We don’t want that, do we?

OMO ALAGBEDE: Nworah has finished his part. Now he is handing over to Amadioha to “get on Binyavanga’s case.” At this point, he can no longer trust Chimamanda and Fidelity Bank to “deal” with the Kenyan racist. Amadioha must step in.

But of course I trust Amadioha to know that this battle is not his battle. No. It is not a matter for the gods at all. It is not even Fidelity Bank’s battle, or Chimamanda’s.

The battle is Nworah vs. Nworah, and the boxing ring exists solely in the satire-phobic mind of Nigeria’s award-winning Internet Columnist.

Bell! Bell! Bell! ROUND 1. BEGIN!

PS>
1. Binyavanga won the Caine Prize, Mr. Nworah, not the Commonwealth. Update that on your blog now.
2. All through the article Mr. Nworah is complaining bitterly about how the Ndigbo have been slighted. Then it’s time to title his article and he packs Nigerians under an Umbrella and asks them to demand apology.
You might need to change that title sir – to Binyavanga Wainaina Owes Uche Nworah An Apology.

Dispatches from Lagos: Two Policemen

2007-08-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

1.

Saturday, Aug 18, 2007.
Early Afternoon.
Unilag Gate Junction, Akoka.
A mobile policeman (aka MOPOL or Kill-n-go!), gun aloft (cocked most likely). He marches menacingly to the junction where there the cause of the gridlock is, to clear the traffic for his “convoy” to pass. He looks mean, barking out orders aimed at making bloody civilians piss in their pants and clear their bloody cars out of the F***ing way.
But it is his gun that catches my attention. It is pure poetry. A rust-scarred, trigger-happy, stray-bullet-loving, battle-weary, armed-robber-fearing AK-47, it has a sticker on it.

The kind of sticker you see on cars.

The sticker simply read: JESUS.

2.

Saturday, Aug 18, 2007
Late Evening (close to 11p.m.)
The Road connecting Mobolaji Bank Anthony in Ikeja, and Toyin Street.
I sight a band of blue lights (from torchlights), dancing excitedly in the darkness. I slow down, brace myself for whatever might come my way.
Park!
I halt, then swing off the road, and park.
Open your boot!
At this point I’m wondering what I have in the boot that might earn me regret.
I greet the policeman who is “handling my case” (others are busy flagging down new prey). I greet him very nicely. Then I step out of my car. Greet him again. I head for the booth. I open it.
As it springs open he immediately asks me to close the booth. Without even inspecting the contents.
And what does he say next?
He tells me that he has decided not to search me anymore because of the way I greeted him. And because I smiled. (I didn’t even know I smiled).
My name is “A*** I****, he says. What is your name?
He holds out his hand for a handshake.
I tell him.
I must open the door for you, he insists. He does, dashes ahead of me to open my car door for me.
I am looking like mumu, calculating how much this unmerited, unsolicited kindness will cost me. He tells me that he knows that I will make his weekend fine. I sigh, in my most regretful tone of voice I tell him that I am on my way home, and I am empty. Nothing. But that I pass that way often. And I will look out for him when I pass.
He doesn’t protest. Doesn’t plead. Simply tells me that he, A*** I**** is usually at that checkpoint. He smiles and asks me to proceed.
I wonder why we do not have more of him in the Nigeria Police (Extortion by) Force.

MADE MAGAZINE ISSUE 2

2007-08-17T00:01:00.000-07:00

MADE MAGAZINE II is out with a bang!

Be sure to grab your copy (and subscribe!).

Omo Alagbede appears with a restaurant/bar review in the Issue (sneak preview here). My piece on "Getting Rid of Unwanted Houseguests" appeared in Issue 1.

MADE MAGAZINE – PRESS RELEASE

Following the hugely successful launch of MADE Magazine Volume 1 Issue 1 in June 2007, Issue 2 will be available as of Monday 20th August throughout Nigeria , Ghana and the UK. MADE is Africa ’s No. 1 publication.

Issue 2 is NOW available for digital download from MAG TANK. This tool has been developed due to growing demand from readers as far as Australia, Israel and Hong Kong.

We are delighted to launch Issue 2 to market. MADE presents a significantly improved publication; with Issue 1 we were happy to finally be out there because dreams have a way of being just that until they actually come to fruition. However, with Issue 2 we can truly say now that we have begun the great ascension in terms of design quality, editorial, content development and overall packaging.

MADE launched in June this year with 5000 copies and sold 1000 copies in its first week, with the remainder selling out soon after. MADE is available in the business class section of every Virgin Nigeria flight in and out of the country.

Due to the success of Issue 1 and the considerable volume of traffic to www.mademags.com we will also be distributing MADE Issue 2 outside of Nigeria and providing a great digital download publication for our truly global audience.

We implore readers to subscribe as this is the surest way of getting a copy of the magazine. For our readers based in Nigeria, a cheque for N6000.00 (6 issues, including postage and packaging) should be made out to Nebula Media Ltd accompanied with a small letter (business card will suffice) stating name and address at which you would like to receive your magazine.

Yours sincerely,
Gbenga Ashiru
Editor-In-Chief
www.mademags.com

NYSC - In Memoriam

2007-08-14T09:43:00.000-07:00

Today, the 2006/2007 Batch B NYSC comes to an end. I can imagine the relief that most of those thousands of poor things must be experiencing (lol)... it is not for nothing that NYSC is called Now Your Suffering Continues...

A year ago, August 19, 2006, my NYSC (Batch B 2005/2006) came to an end. I served in Asaba, Delta State, at the Okwe General Hospital, along the Benin-Asaba Expressway, five kilometers from the Niger Bridge...

While we were in orientation camp at Issele-Uku(August 7 - 28, 2005), I kept a diary. Recently I stumbled on the entry I made on the last day of camp.

---------------------------
WED 28TH SEPT 2005
06:06 a.m.

Everyone woke early today, in order to submit their mattresses. There was a queue as usual. I submitted mine at 3 a.m.

The hall looks like a rotting body, hacked at angrily by a band of vultures – more and more of the flesh is disappearing, leaving the skeleton beneath. The beds have all been shorn of mattresses, the bunks stand like iron skeletons. All that is left is folks and their luggages.

Most are giving out their buckets, pillows etc, both to lighten their load and be philanthropic in one act.

In a few hours, I can imagine what this place will look like. The ghosts we chased out will file in one by one, singing “It is good to be back Home.”

---------------------

In the last few weeks the papers have been awash with the NYSC quota controversy... apparently the NYSC intend(ed) slashing down the number of persons to be mobilised this year, claiming funding problems... so they sent quotas to Universities. The University of Ibadan for example was given a quota of about 600 out of its eligible student population of 1,500...
Considering that NYSC is a prerequisite for MOST jobs in Nigeria (unless your father or godfather is a VERY BIG man), the implication was that the destinies of thousands of Nigerian youth would have been placed on suspension for at least the next one year.

If that had happened, I can imagine a swelling of ranks of the armed robbers in Lagos, and the kidnappers and militants in Lagos, and the "Amala" thugs in Ibadan...

Read about the NYSC controversy here

The Federal Govt has however since stepped in and ordered the NYSC to "behave"... read about it here

Dispatches from Lagos

2007-08-13T03:08:00.000-07:00

1
Yesterday (Sunday) Night I was walking along Idejo Street, Victoria Island, at around 8.30 when I saw this drama:

A taxi takes off a few metres ahead of me. Then this mobile policeman (apparently one of those attached to IBTC-Chartered bank) emerges from the darkness and tries to stop the taxi. He hits his gun on the bonnet and barks at the driver to stop. The driver picks up speed and leaves the cop behind. The enraged cop lifts his gun, cocks it and points at the speeding taxi, all the while running after it and barking angrily. I stand transfixed, a cauldron of terror and excitement. The taxi driver eventually slows down metres ahead, and parks. The mobile policeman throws himself upon the taxi, gun cocked and aimed, and orders the occupants to come out. From where I am standing I see the driver and his sole occupant come out, hands raised in surrender. The cop ignores the driver (most taxi drivers in Lagos are harmless, tribal-marked, elderly men from Ibadan – slight exaggeration) and seizes the passenger. The prisoner-of-war, hands in the air, is kicked to the security post by the cop, who then proceeds to assault him. The POW is very terrified, and is pleading. Of course by now a crowd has gathered.
I wonder what exactly he must have done? Did he attempt to rob the bank?
The taxi had an Oyo State Number – XA 997 SHK.

2
Yesterday Night, in an Ogba-bound danfo (yes, I take those contraptions) a woman sitting in the row in front of me had her NOKIA phone bound up in a knot in the hem of her wrapper, in the manner of Yoruba market women who tie up their money in knots which they expertly untie every time they need to add more money or give a customer change.

She removed it to take a call from someone whose “caller ID” read SERIKI’S MUM.
The woman with the phone in a knot must have sensed that I was intrigued. She turned back to smile and tell me why she knotted-up her phone. It was a way of safeguarding it, especially as she was carrying too many things. I quite understand. Phones are the easiest things to misplace.

3
The guy next to me also took a call. From someone with caller ID: Bro Gbenga.

4
Sometimes I like to imagine and create lives for these strangers at the other ends of telephone conversations in buses. At the motor park in Ogba a woman came to a business centre to call someone called SUNKANMI. She spoke for less than 10 seconds. She only wanted to ask a question: had Sunkanmi helped deliver a message? Yes. Thanks. Bye-bye. She paid 20 naira.

Sometimes I like to imagine and create lives for these strangers at the other ends of telephone conversations in buses. These Seriki’s Mums and Bro Gbengas and Sunkanmis. Their hopes, their fears, their secrets, their sex lives or the lack of it, their eating habits...

5
Coining Words – over the weekend, a couple of friends and I, over fish barbecue and Smirnoff Ices at Kuramo Beach, coined a new terminology for "masturbation" (pronounced MAH - STORE - BAY - SHEUN):

"SELF-LITIGATION".

Synonyms: Self-Mutilation, Self-help, Self-study

PS> NaijaBlog has a post HERE on the dangers of the unspeakable act.

6
How Nigeria works. Nigeria is a deadly virus. It infects victims and attacks the cells in the human soul that produce a sense of wonder and a capacity to be surprised and astounded. That is what Nigeria does. A few days/weeks/months/years (doesn’t matter, all those times are the same; a thousand weeks is as one hour is as one million months) after infection, victims progressively lose the following:

MEMORY:
which is why just a few years after Abacha, we were clamoring for another Eternal President. Him only the cap fitteth; him only the key that unlocketh our national destiny.

CAPACITY FOR SHOCK:
Nothing shocks us anymore:

- dead bodies on our streets, bloated and torn to pieces by speeding cars

- armed robbers who invade a neighbourhood and for FOUR hours go from house to house, raping, killing, maiming, emptying...

- Police who go around arresting every arrestable thing:
“improperly”-dressed men and women,
cars,
laptops,
danfos,

which are all eventually "bailed" without receipts.

- Universities that refuse to give certificates to graduates who have successfully completed their course of study but have contracted HIV/AIDS or failed pregnancy tests.

- Police Inspector Generals whose capacity and talent for stealing would make armed robbers envious...

Been doings and To dos

2007-08-12T11:19:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit busy in the last few weeks:

- The Chimamanda Workshop

- A Young Adult Novella commissioned by a UK publisher seeking to enter the African educational market (I'm new to YA fiction. Huge learning experience)

- An episode of an ongoing Nigerian drama series (I'm new to screenplay writing - my only experience before now was as a member of the writing team for Episode 9 of the BBC Worls Service Trust Radio-drama STORY STORY in 2006 - steep learning curve it was, very challenging but also exciting. It's not the easiest thing in the world switching gear from "poetry" to "screenplay". It's manual transmission, not auto.
But after doing it, one will never see the world in the same way again)

- Regular submissions (poetry mostly - anthologies, journals)

- My articles for MADE Magazine. (restaurant reviews, an interview)

- A 6,000 word piece on Mental Health in Nigeria (should be due out in -------- magazine before the end of the year.

TO DOS

I want to enter for the Acbebe Adaptation (Theatre) Competition organised by the Association of Nigerian Authors to mark 50 years of the publication of Things Fall Apart

I want to enter for the BBC African Playwriting Competition 2007

I want to do a few short stories - short stories are a weak point for me. I always get caught up in the temptation to be over-literary, playing with language at the expense of telling a good story, Chimamanda style. (I read Helon Habila's story THE IMMIGRANTS this afternoon. Men, I wanna write stories like that. Subtle, understated, filled with emotional truth, stories that linger with you long after you have left those pages...)

I learnt a lot of stuff in the writing workshop, that I'd like to put into practice. And of course it goes without saying that, as I write any story, I will be glancing over shoulders regularly, hearing a voice behind me saying:

WHAT WOULD CHIMAMANDA AND BINYAVANGA THINK? LAWL!

Tom Clinton Baba vs. Alhaji Jerry Gore Atiks

2007-08-10T09:12:00.000-07:00

This came into my mailbox today... hope the text is readable... (YOU MIGHT HAVE TO DOWNLOAD/SAVE THE "CARTOON" ONTO YOUR COMPUTER AND OPEN WITH ONE OF THESE PHOTO-IMAGING SOFTWARE BEFORE READING. THAT WAY THE TEXT SIZE IS BIG ENOUGH. UNFORTUNATELY MY TECH-CHALLENGED BRAIN-MATTER CANNOT THINK OF ANOTHER WAY OUT. SORRY)

WE ARE BUT GHANA-MUST-GO IN THE HANDS OF THE PDP...

TO GOD BE THE GLORY... WATCH OUT FOR PART 2

Chimamanda's Workshop...

2007-07-27T13:55:00.000-07:00

Dear Reader,

Omo Alagbede asked me to inform you that he will be back soon... he is currently immersed in many things... one of which is the Chimamanda Adichie/Binyavanga Wainaina Writing Workshop in Lagos, where he is having the time of his life...

More details later...

Another Friday the 13th....

2007-07-13T10:27:00.000-07:00

October 13 last year was a Friday the 13th...

Now it has come again...

Here's from Omo Alagbede's Archives - the post I put up that Friday 13th last October:

Welcome, listeners, to this special FRIDAY THE 13TH edition of your favorite blog-dio programme, TALKING BULL! Before we go on, let's hear a message from our sponsors, TONGUECORP, makers of false teeth, toothbrushes, ventriloquimeters and truth detectors.

[Audio]

Welcome back, it's me, your popular and regular host, B. Shit. Today is Friday the 13th! Really, I shouldn't have agreed to host your favorite show today, due to the numinous implications of this day, but the truth is that an empty pocket is far worse bad luck than any numinous numeral! (In case you didn't know, I am paid per show!) Sorry for the digression. Back to our big story! Let's hear what our inhouse expert, and author of the Online Times bestselling compendium, Everything Under The Sun, Prof. Wikipedia*, has to say. Over to you, Prof!

Thank you, B... Good day viewers and fans of this absolutely fantabulous Friday show on Blogistan's No 1 Radio Station, WWBS. I'm glad to be here, I tell you! Did you know that a Friday occurring on the 13th day of any month is considered to be a day of bad luck in English and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe. Similar superstitions exist in some other traditions. In Greece and Spain, for example, Tuesday the 13th takes the same role. The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia, a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen.

Paraska-what?[chuckles]

Paraskavedekatriaphobia - the scientific term for The Fear of Friday the 13th! It's a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, which is a phobia (fear) of the number thirteen.

Oh dear, what a mouthful! Why the hell don't they just leave it at "The Fear of Friday the 13th?

Beats me too, B... [chuckles again]...wait for this, do you know what the scientific term for the fear of long words is?

Longrammarphobia? [chuckles proudly]

[laughter] No.... Hippopotomonstrosesquippedalio... damn short word, in my opinion

[Both laugh for five minutes]

[Prof continues] ... Back to what we were saying...In the Spanish-speaking world, it is Tuesday the 13th (as well as Tuesdays in general) that brings bad luck; a proverb runs En martes, ni te cases ni te embarques, simply meaning: On Tuesday, neither get married nor start a journey.

Different strokes for different folks, I'd say...

Precisely... a reflection of the fetishistic inclinations of Homo Sapienic species... Did you know that in Formula 1, there is no car with the number 13. The number has been removed, after 2 drivers were killed in crashes — both driving cars numbered 13.

Don't cars without the number 13 regularly crash as well...?

Good question! They do! ... And did you know, B, that infamous serial killers Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, Jeffrey Dahmer and Theodore Bundy all have 13 letters in their names...

Jeez! Thank Goodness "B. Shit" is only... hol'on a sec... yeah... only five letters [deafening sigh of relief]... if it had been thirteen letters I'd have ripped you apart with my bare hands right here in the studio right now... ha ha ha... well... thank you loads Prof... once again, we have benefited from your immense wealth of wisdom. We hope you'll join us again next week to impart to us out of your bottomless well of bull...

Sure, B, my pleasure to be on Talking Bull anytime

Uh, Prof, before you go, any last words for our listeners?

Yeah, just remembered this... it'd interest them to hear that Fidel Castro and Wole Soyinka were both born on "Friday the 13th", Fidel on Friday, Aug 13, 1926, and Soyinka on July 13, 1934... and wait for this, Tupac Shakur died on Friday the 13th - September 13, 1996...

[Sudden Power Failure in the studio, the sound of static fills the airwaves...]

*All facts courtesy of Wikipedia

RE: Exciting Job Opportunities in the Niger Delta (Application by Celestina Afakiriya)

2007-06-27T13:18:00.000-07:00

Application received Wednesday June 27 2007 (posted in my COMMENTS page):

In response to vacancy, here
--------------------

The Employer
Niger Delta Militant Group
South South Nigeria
West Africa,
Africa,
Earth,
Milky Way,
World

Dear Sir,

Expression of Interest for the post of Area Head, Kidnapping

I wish to be considered for the above post because I believe I have the requisite training, experience and innate ability required for the job.

For the past 15 years, I have been an active member in various organisations whose main thrust is militant agitation. These organisations include �Struggle for the liberation southern kaduna sons�; where I was assistant head of the guard room, Movement for the electrification of the Ishan Community; where I was the coordinator of the militant mothers wing, and Zango Kataf Community Progressive Force where I was in charge of recruitment for young soldiers just to mention a few.

I am presently on active duty as the assistant commandant at the kafanchan School of Basic Combat Training in Militancy and other Related Endeavours. My duties include drafting willing and unwilling members to the academy between the ages of 4 and 90, physical training and strategic military intelligence to wrest power from the hands of the councillor of felele ward Mr Gabe Ohimoja and hand over to our commander Major Izaiah Godlove.

I am fluent in Hausa and Ijaw. And also fluent in Italian; after all, I know words like pasta in Italian and Berger in German.

I have successfully been able to distinguish between Oyinbo and albino and as a result was able to save the BCPF some funds when our assistant area office kidnapper wanted to kidnap Mr Oyibo Uwaezuoke, thinking he was a British National. Due to my impressive credentials in this area I have also been able to comprehend that Mr Ben Bruce is a juxtaposition of Scottish blood and albinism and that Mr Eddie Iroh of FRCN fame is an albino who had the foresight to make money early in order to purchase some packaged melanin to improve his lot.

Swimming is one of my greatest strengths and I hold the potiskum record for underwater water diving for holding my breath in the shower for over 30 seconds.

I am able to recognise fake naira notes as I have undergone the Fake Naira Detection Course at the Afghanistan School of Weaponry and Military Strategy.

I have a strong ability never to forget a face which enabled me to recognise one Mr Elijah Efepariola when he tried to infiltrate our training camp when I was at the Abraka School of Bomb Manufacture and Explosive Fabrication; recognising the senators and ministers will be a work in a military park for me.

All the above combined with my innate skill in weapon acquisition, bomb detection and detonation, otumokpo recognition and neutralisation and hostage taking in extreme weather conditions, make me the best person for the job.

Please find attached, photos of my exploits in Hostage taking and kidnapping.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon.

Celestina Afakiriya

----------------------

My Heart is Buried Somewhere In this City

2007-06-27T13:10:00.000-07:00

Abeokuta, by Omo Alagbede, 2005 (c)

Update: Picture taken from Olumo Rock. In the distance - if you look hard enough) you can see the River Ogun...

Don't you miss OBJ?

2007-06-21T18:37:00.000-07:00

Nigeria has shut itself down again. The battle that used to be between OBJ and OSH (Oshiomole) has now become a Umar vs Omar rumble(thanks to Tayo Odukoya for this appellation). Past two days I have been under house arrest, like many other citizens of this country. The negotiation meetings keep stretching into midnight in Abuja, just as the fuel queues and the frustrations stretch into the dark recesses of our individual and collective patience.

Meanwhile, Babasanjo is back in Ota, feeding his chickens and probably chuckling at his capacity to engineer mischief for a hundred and forty million "animals called men" - or is it "animals called masses". He poured sand into the VAT garri and attached a kite to the price of petrol; and like a naughty schoolboy ran off the playground to watch from a hideout the confusion he had invented.

How I wish Fela were alive to sing about these latest happenings...

Of course, if OBJ were still in power, you think there'd be all these midnight meetings between Govt and Labour... I trust my OBJ. He'd simply have conjured up another G-something meeting in Turkmenistan, hopped onto his JET and disappeared. When labour don strike tire, na dem go use dem mouth call the ting off! By then, of course, Baba would have departed Turkmenistan, and entered Kathmandu, in search of chicken farmers to invite for "foreign investment" in Ota, sorry, Nigeria... enroute the North Pole to visit the Association of Nigerian-born eskimos and the entire Nigerian community there...

Now, poor Yar'Adua is left fighting another man's battle...

I have heard people say that OBJ decided to punish the country for refusing him a third term... it might be true, those who know the man say he is an 80-year-old, oops... sorry, 70-year-old bundle of vindictiveness...

And I have heard too that the Supreme court verdict concerning Anambra state was payback time by the Judges for the 8-year rascality of Baba... it was their way of hitting him by hitting his adopted son, Andy Uba(sanjo), the man who reportedly

1) doesn't have the doctorate he is claiming
2) used the Nigerian AirForce 1 to smuggle hundreds of thousands of dollars,
3) "appointed" Maurice Iwuruwuru as INEC Chairman.

Check these sites out:

Uba 1
Uba 2

Now Uba is gone, plus all the money he spent to get elected. I wonder if this scenario would have played out had Baba still been in power... methinks OBJ would simply have declared a state of emergency in Anambra state and appointed Andy Uba as sole admin-is-traitor, or better still, declared a state of emergency in the Supreme Court and declared Justice Lamidi Adedibu as the Sole Administrator of the Supreme Court of Nigeria...

But in the meantime, I hear that the next "the-owner" of the largest "Umbrella" in Africa, may be Chief, uhm, uhm, abeg read the full story here HERE... no be for my mouth you go hear am...

Globalisation

2007-06-18T09:50:00.000-07:00

From my "iYahoo" Msngr

2007-06-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Before the marriage:

He: Yes. At last! It was so hard to wait.
She: Do you want me to leave?
He: NO! Don't even think about it.
She: Do you love me?
He: Of course!
She: Have you ever cheated on me?
He: NO! Why are you even asking?
She: Will you kiss me?
He: Yes!
She: Will you hit me?
He: No way! I'm not such kind of person!
She: Can I trust you?
He: Yes.
She: Dear!!

Now, after the marriage - you can read it from the bottom upwards!!

Writing Contests and Prizes

2007-06-16T06:38:00.000-07:00

INTERNATIONAL LITERARY CONTEST
A. B. C. Words in Action
Authors for the Betterment of Children

WORDS IN ACTION:

10 (ten) first prizes will be granted. The prize will consist in the
publishing of a book, of which each awarded work will constitute
a chapter. The book will be published under the title The
Unending Book with the subtitle In Search of the End, and will
be presented at the 2008 Miami International Book Fair, under
the auspice of Words in Action. The laureates will be invited to
participate in the presentation of the book where they will sign
autographs and will receive 10 (ten) books plus an honor
diploma.

RULES

AWARDS

FIRST. – The contest is open to all authors, of all nationalities, in English or Spanish language, without restrictions regarding the amount of stories entered. The stories should be unpublished and not pending for resolution in any other literary contest.
SECOND. - The extension of the works will not surpass 30 pages in model DIN A 4, Font: Times New Roman, Size: Double-spaced 12, Format: PDF
Read on here

The ElectroBooks Competition
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To help us find these new voices, we are running this competition with prizes up to US$500 and opportunities to be published in serial form. So if you have a fast-paced novel, a short story or even the first few chapters then we want to hear from you.

THE PRIZE

1st Prize US$500
2nd Prize US$200
3rd Prize US$100

TO ENTER Just email your entry to the following address making sure to include your name and contact details: competition@electrobooks.net
CLOSING DATE - The last day for entries is the 7th of July 2007. Winners will be notified by email on the 20th of July 2007. Payment is in the currency of your choice.
QUESTIONS - If you have problems sending us your entry or if you have any questions about the competition, please contact us at questions@electrobooks.net
LEGAL - All entries submitted to this competition are copyrighted by the individual authors and cannot be reproduced without their permission.

Guidelines for the 2007 Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest

We will award $2450 in total prizes, including the $1000 cash grand prize.

Submission Period
Entries accepted May 1-Dec 31 (postmark dates), 2007.

What to Submit
Original, unpublished poem of any theme. Limit of 3 entries per contestant. Entries should not exceed 100 lines each.

Prizes
First Prize, $1,000 cash and publication on Franklin-Christoph.com
Five Merit Award Winners, each to receive a $290 1901 Fountain Pen, or alternate FC product of their choice of equal or less value, and publication on Franklin-Christoph.com.

Entry is Free
There will be no fee or other obligation for entering this contest.

Deadline
December 31, 2007. Your entry must be postmarked or submitted online by this date.

Preparing Your Entry
Submit one copy of your poems online or by mail. Provide your contact information within your email, or on a separate cover sheet if submitting by mail. If your poem contains complex formatting, such as centered text or italic type, we recommend submitting by mail. Please make your entry easy to read — no illustrations, fancy fonts or decorative borders.

How To Submit
Email to clientservice@franklin-christoph.com by either pasting within message or attachment.

or mail to:

Franklin-Christoph Poetry Contest
7511 Mourning Dove Rd. Ste. 104
Raleigh, NC 27615

Please include a cover letter (or email) with your name and contact number. The poem itself should not contain your name or any contact information. We will hold original copies at our headquarters, and submit anonymous copies to our panel of judges.

Announcement of Winners
The winners will be announced in our Client List Email and on Franklin-Christoph.com on January 15, 2008.

Entries Must Be Original and Unpublished
Your entries must be original, written by you, unpublished (either in print or in an online journal), and not have received a monetary award from any other contest. Self-published work is not eligible. Exceptions: Poems posted to the web outside of online journals, such as to a bulletin board, email list, personal web page, critique site or public forums are eligible for entry. Please email us if you're unsure of eligibility. Our staff will research all submissions for prior publication.

Simultaneous Submission Allowed
You may submit your poems simultaneously to this contest and to other contests and publishers. Please notify us if one of your entries wins an award in another contest or is published elsewhere.

English Language
Poems should be in English. Poems translated from other languages are not eligible.

Privacy
We respect your privacy. Franklin-Christoph does not sell or rent customer or contestant information to third parties.

Copyright
You retain the copyright to your submission. If you place as finalist or better, Franklin-Christoph only requests permission to publish your work on Franklin-Christoph.com, in our email publications and in our press releases. Any other potential use will be negotiated with you.

Judging
Franklin-Christoph will utilize a panel of independent judges from a staff at a local college. Members of the FC Staff, or other economically affiliated persons are not eligible to enter.

Form
We are open to poetry in all forms, on all subjects, short or tall, large or small.

Thank you for you participation, and we look forward to receiving you entry.

We will not solicit entrants in any way other than to confirm entry and announce winners. If you would like to join our Client List for writing contest updates, enter below.

---------------------------------------------

http://www.spu.edu/depts/uc/response/spring2k7/features/essay.asp

At Seattle Pacific University, we’re learning to engage the culture, with the ultimate goal of bringing about positive change in the world through the gospel of Jesus Christ. In the pages of Response, we offer glimpses of the many and varied ways in which that mission is being fulfilled. But we know that there is much more to discover, many stories that have yet to be told. You may have observed some of them. You may have lived some of them.

Response invites you to submit an essay (750–1,000 words) that conveys in some way — whether through a personal story, investigative reporting, or some other form of creative nonfiction — the theme of “engaging the culture, changing the world.”

The winning entry will be featured in the Winter 2008 magazine, and the writer will receive a $250 prize.

Deadline: August 1, 2007

Send your essay to yourresponse@spu.edu, or mail it to Response, Seattle Pacific University, 3307 Third Avenue West Suite 116, Seattle, Washington 98119.

Please include your name, address, email, and daytime phone number when you send your entry.

Competition Rules

Each entrant may submit one essay to the competition. Essays must be original, unpublished works.

Your entry must be accompanied by your name, address, email, and daytime phone number in your email.

The competition is open to anyone, except Seattle Pacific University employees and their immediate families (spouses or children).

Entrants will receive an email acknowledgement that their entry has been received. The winner will be notified by December 1, 2007.

Chimamanda Adichie = Orange + Purple + Yellow

2007-06-07T11:01:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to Chimamanda on her winning the 2007 Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction(http://www.orangeprize.co.uk/) , which she narrowly missed (after making the shortlist) in 2005...

...A fitting prize-name for the author of a purple hibiscus and a yellow half-sun...

This "half of a yellow sun" is in reality one full, brilliant, blinding sun of a book!

Way to go, Sister!

Goings-Ons (June Update)

2007-06-07T10:25:00.000-07:00

A quick one on what Omo Alagbede has been up to lately....

My short story, Husbands-Abroad Anonymous appears in what has turned out to be the greatest of all the great Farafina Magazine (http://www.farafinamagazine.com/) issues that have appeared thus far... Toni Kan's WOMEN issue (Issue 10). An all-women issue, save for 3 male "lesbians" (as TK termed us in his editorial): TK, Omo Alagbede, and my big bros Vic Ehi with his hilarious "owambe" photography...

Funmi Iyanda (Nigeria's Oprah, she is called) is there with a humorous, subversive "feminist" piece (memoir), My Sis Chika Unigwe is there with a short story; Ijeoma Iromantu is there with her poems (her first appearance in print, and the first of what I know will be many more), Marie Fatayi-Williams is there with an excerpt from her book FOR LOVE OF ANTHONY in memory of her son Anthony, who was killed in the July 7, 2005 London bomb blasts, Onyinye Egenti (I remember her from secondary school, The International School, Ibadan - she was my senior; and her bro Afam was my classmate); Kaine Agary, editor of TAKAII and author of the wave-making Niger-delta novel, Yellow-Yellow; amongst a handful of others.

Molara Wood (Wordsbody) has a review of the issue here: http://wordsbody.blogspot.com/2007/06/farafinas-woman-issue.html

3 of my pieces appear in the newest glossy magazine in town, MADE magazine (http://www.mademags.com). It's True Love + Genevieve + GQ for AFRICAN MEN. The launch was on Sunday June 3 at the News Caffe, The Palms Shopping Mall, Lekki Lagos. Cool affair: the Storm crew (Sasha, Ikechukwu et al) led by the boss himself, Obi Asika; Olisa Adibua (compere), Uzoma Dozie, Tunde Folawiyo, and a host of other celebrities whom the celebrity-ignorant Omo Alagbede had no one to point out and identify to him.

Left the place feeling slightly floaty, yet I had only 2 glasses of wine (one white, one red) and a chapman... must have been the exhilaration of seeing my work in such a finely-wrought magazine that catalysed the fastforwarded fermentation of the wines...

And,

a few weeks back I was on Metro FM Lagos (interview)... (thanks FT for the opportunity!)

One or two poems have appeared here and there... Sentinel poetry June 2007, The Guardian Lagos, and a number forthcoming in the coming weeks...

Last but not the least, this poor neck is breaking under the weight of writing assignments and deadlines... don't forget that I work at an 8 - 5, so I'm not your sit-at-a-mahogany-desk-in-a-heavenly-resort-and-dreamily-fill-reams-of-computer-screen-with-award-winning-critic-wowing-work kinda writer...

To Think is to Differ

2007-06-07T03:45:00.000-07:00

Sent this piece in as part of my application for a consulting job with a Nigerian consulting firm in April 2005 (hadn't even started my NYSC then...) We were asked to send in our CVs, along with a one-page essay on "to think is to differ".

I never heard from them, he he he...

Whad'ya think about it? Tries to sound over-learned?

TO THINK IS TO DIFFER
(c) Omo Alagbede, 2005

What progress individuals could make, and what progress the world would make, if thinking were given proper consideration!
- Thomas Edison

To think is to differ.

The above equates Thinking and Thought with Difference, with Change, with a shift of Paradigm. Probably the biggest distinguishing factor between man and animal is the ability to think, to ponder, to take a thing/concept/idea and roll it around on the floor of a mental Gymnasium and come up with new perspectives and alternatives. That is probably why Thinking doesn’t show up in the List of Functions of All Living Things – MR. NIGER – Movement, Respiration, Nutrition, Growth, Excretion etc.

Thinking is the sole preserve of the Homo Sapiens.

To think is to toss around, to examine, to question, to challenge, to view from a succession of differing viewpoints all in the quest to see a fuller picture. To think is to refuse to accept at face value, to be skeptical of the status quo. Thomas Edison, the American inventor, links progress to thinking. In his words “By developing [our] thinking powers [we] expand the capacity of [our] brain and attain new abilities.” He considered Thinking to be the true labor and not Sweating. He had the following quotation by Sir Joshua Reynolds hung in every room of his laboratory:

There is no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking.

What more proof of the indispensability of Thinking to Progress can we find than in the immense successes of Edison in the area of Creative Prowess?

To think is to differ. When we think, and allow our brains to function uninhibited, we are far more likely than a majority of the population to discover what has not been discovered; what is different. It has been said that the true definition of insanity is “doing the same thing and expecting different results.” Thinking helps us to avoid doing the “same thing”. We are more likely to find proof of why we should move in a different direction than the majority of the population – who are satisfied with living according to “cut-and-dried” traditions and norms and would prefer to exist and function through life in “auto-pilot, don’t-raise-dust” mood.

Virtually every great person and entity has, throughout history, had to plough on in a direction different from the norm, and endure mockery and opposition, in order to achieve what they achieved. The only way to discover this “different direction” has been – and still remains – to Think, to throw every possible option open to questioning and challenge, and consider even the seemingly “crazy” idea.

To think is to differ. To think is to Think. There’s no alternative.

For May 29 (This Version Not Final)

2007-05-30T06:37:00.000-07:00

The Night God Hung Our New President

The night God hung up
Our new President, poisoned umbrellas
And long knives were the new stars.

The werewolves showed up pot-
Bellied with long dead promises;
And shrouds swaddled our age-

Less questions, now eight years older.
Beneath tents of green & white smog
Bats in agbada played Jazz on saxo-

Phones that bled petro-naira
From knife-wounds in the neck.
The scorpion and the tortoise took their place

In the eagle square ball,
So that from that moment,
Another retromingent night began to drip

Black dew through its fallen zipper.
Dear God, for my sake, smile. Please.

(c) Buki Omo-Alagbede, May 2007

Exciting Job Opportunities in the Niger Delta

2007-05-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

Our client, a Niger Delta Militant Group with branches in strategic locations throughout all the six South-South states of Nigeria is seeking to expand its operations to Abuja, the Federal Capital territory. This expansion has brought about vacancies for qualified and experienced young officers. The positions are:

Area Head, Kidnapping:

The successful applicant who will report to the Executive Council, and the Executive Director, Abuja, is expected to possess the following competencies:

1) Minimum of 10 years experience in militant agitation. (Membership of Al-qaeda, Hamas or other similar organisation will be an added advantage)

2) Fluent knowledge of Hausa, Ijaw, English, Italian and German

3) Expert ability to distinguish between Oyinbos and Albinos

4) Ability to swim in deep waters

5) Ability to recognise fake/marked naira notes by sight

6) Ability to easily recognise all Senators and Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Evidence of previous successful kidnap of BIG MEN must be provided (pictures preferable)

Photographer:

1) Minimum of 5 years experience taking photos in war zones. (Domestic fights do not qualify as war zones for these purposes)

2) Proficiency in the use of explosives as camera lighting.

3) Knowledge of the different skin tones of expatriates, as an aid to taking high-quality pictures, is a must.

4) Proficiency in the use of Adobe Photoshop, and Internet photo uploading software is a must.

Please include a portfolio of previous photo-samples (must contain kidnapped persons OR be taken in war-zones OR be nightshots in blackspots like Oshodi, 3rd Mainland bridge, Apongbon, etc)

Militant Trainee:

1) Candidates must be between the ages of 13 and 50, be at least 4m tall, and may be male or female.

2) Minimum of Nursery School/Kindergarten certificate.

3) Jobless university graduates, and serving policemen will be given special consideration.

4) Possession of jungle boots and face mask is a must.

5) Preference will be given to persons with knowledge of foreign European languages, and persons with the ability to swim.

Renumeration:

Very attractive, competitive, and comparable with industry standards (payments in foreign currencies).

Official guns, boats and grenades will be provided.

Excellent training, involving offshore secondment (Iraq, Afghanistan etc) from time to time

Regular appearance on CNN, Alaaroye, Time Magazine, The Economist and other International magazines.

Excellent networking opportunities with Nigerian politicians, oil magnates, and foreign businessmen.

Interested applicants should forward their applications and detailed curriculum militae within two weeks to:
militant_recruitment@OsamaConsulting.com

From the Archives: Interviews with Ordinary Nigerians

2007-05-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

This piece is about two years old, forgive the rambling and the ranting, Omo-Alagbede Live went onto the streets to talk to "ordinary" Nigerians... sorry, you'll have to insert the stones of Full-Stop yourself into these raging streams of consciousness...

INTERVIEWS WITH ORDINARY NIGERIANS

Q: WHAT IS THE WORST THING ABOUT WHAT YOU DO FOR A LIVING?

Taxi Driver
The worst thing about being a taxi driver is when some idiot drives nonsense for you and makes you drive like as if you are a bloody LEARNER and you speed to catch up with him and point your angry mouth at him and pull the trigger and the bullets just PISHAO! PISHAO! on the side of his winded up glass because of the AC he’s enjoying and he cannot hear one word and there’s no single blood on his face and he doesn’t even look at you intentionally and you’re all mad inside with no one to shoot again except an okadaman and it doesn’t worth it because God created them in the first place to be cursed …

*
Petty Trader
The worst thing about being a petty trader is when a band of school children invade your stall at 2:30 and HOW MUCH BE DIS ONE AUNTY and your eyes are tired of running after their sprinting fingers AUNTY DON’T YOU HAVE OKIN BISCUIT and those fingers are clearing your medals across the finishing lines of their school bags and pockets and MUMMY GIVE ME MY FIVE NAIRA CHANGE and their two o’clock smell invades you like the smell of fried sweat plus eight-hour armpits plus two year old tokunboh sneakers plus and you think what shit you daily endure and you think of moving to the Federal Secretariat to sell your wares to jobless NA MONTH END WE GO SETTLE YOU MADAM civil servants who at least are more orderly IYA BADE, E SE SUURU O, KO SOWO O, WON N SE SCREENING GHOST WORKERS LOWO NI O but as per the smelliness and pilfering you’re not so sure…

*
Bloody Soldier
The worst thing about being a bloody soldier is when some demented General begins a transition to Ci-evil-ian Rule and decides it is time to step aside and give those bloody Alagbadas a chance to have their own go at ruining Nigeria, and they laugh and say thank you for giving us the opportunity to show you How To Ru(i)n A Country in One Term or Two At Best (since one good term deserves another) and we have to watch them from the shadows because power has changed hands and leaked out of the Barracks like an idiot’s balloon…

*
Butcher
The worst thing about being a butcher is when all day you chop meat and cut meat and slice meat and the whole world stops to price your meat and buy your meat and even mosquitoes included and you get home and your soup is all empty and all water with no islands and your wife says its nobody’s fault its government’s fault its SAP’s fault and IMF and you are annoyed at nobody in particular and its not her fault after all they didn’t complain in her family when you were dragging two cows to their compound as her bride price when your father was dying of protein deficiency at home and you storm out to eat in a buka and they say no beef only snail and bushmeat and you shake your head and say no give me four fufu no meat because snail meat is one whole day’s profit and…

*
Civil Servant
The worst thing about being a civil servant apart from the servant part of it is when they call you a clerk and you are not a clerk and you must emphasize it again and again that you are a clerical officer and not a clerk and there’s a big difference you didn’t know well now you know that I’m a clerical officer on level six and a half and just one more screening and I’ll be on level seven and I’ll be a senior clerical officer and then one more interview and I’m a principal C.O and by then no more carrying dusty files from office to office no I’ll be in charge of my own files and I will open them every day first thing in the morning and blow all the dust out and straighten their edges and I will have my own desk and of course that is not
the terminal point there’s still assistant chief C.O and then the Big Boss the C.C.O oh my God if I haven’t retired by then oh God massive thanksgiving service at the Cathedral and I will get chance for potbelly and you will check me in the office with a ceiling fan not wall or standing and they will tell you Oga is not on seat come back later do you have an appointment with him and…

Omo Alagbede wins Guardian (UK) / Ziji Publishing Nanotales Competition

2007-05-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

My nanotale Sweet Mother was on Tuesday May 1, 2007 announced as one of the twenty-five winners of the Guardian(UK)/Ziji Publishing/Bebo Nanotales Competition, and will be published in an anthology of nanofiction by Ziji in 2008.

Right now I'm working on polishing/editing the story, aiming to tweak Sweet Mother's voice slightly - to be more faithful to her age and to reflect her Nigerian sensibilities better, while still keeping her quirkiness intact.

"Writing" is simply an abbreviation of "Rewriting".

My Story on Guardian UK / Ziji Publishing Nanotales Competition Shortlist

2007-04-30T18:29:00.000-07:00

My short story SWEET MOTHER has recently been shortlisted for the Guardian Books(UK) / Ziji Publishing Short Story (Nanotales) Competition. As part of the final selection process, the finalists' stories have been posted on the nanotales website, and a voting system has been introduced.

* A nanotale is a story of less than a thousand words

I'd like to have as many votes as possible for my story, and would like you to please take some time to read it and see if it's worthy of your vote.

The entire shortlist is here

Sleeping Beauty, Move Over: The Sleepy Pilot Cometh

2007-04-17T23:28:00.000-07:00

From yahoo news:

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Passengers on a British Airways flight from New Delhi to London faced a 13-hour delay as the pilot felt he was too sleepy after a noisy night in a New Delhi hotel, newspapers reported on Monday. Angry passengers were offloaded from the plane early Sunday morning after the pilot refused to fly until he caught up with his sleep...

I read it and could not but wonder: Would a Bellview or Aero or Virgin Nigeria pilot ever do this? Or would they take the kolanut shortcut and fly a hundred plus passengers onto the newspaper headlines...

Read the article here

Pictures from Bank PHB's The Intern Reality TV Show After-Party

2007-04-17T12:05:00.000-07:00

Intern Amina

AY(comedian and party host), Toni Kan of Bank PHB and Charles O'Tudor, the Boardroom BOSS

Intern Bose

Intern Dami

Intern Kola

The winner, (Afolabi) a proud Dad, and the prize

All hail the champ!

The Keys of Success

The Nissan Tiida Grand Prize (there was 3 million bucks as well!)

The Boss and Toni kan

Driving Lesson?

Coming Up Soon on Omo-Alagbede BlogLive

2007-04-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

# Exclusive Pictures from the Bank PHB Intern Reality TV Show 1 After-Party (March 2007)

# Feasting on Words: Is Omo-Alagbede CareerThreateningly-Wrong About Oprah?

# From the Writing Archives: Is Omo-Alagbede Stranded on a Dogonyaro Tree of Words? Problems, Pain, Panacea...

Damilola, one of the 10 interns poses for Omo-Alagbede's lenses. More later...

The Portrait of Omo-Alagbede as Bloggistan's 007

2007-04-03T10:42:00.000-07:00

Omo Alagbede recently went undercover:

From: Association of Concerned Nigerian Parents Who Never Clubbed in their own Youth (ASSCONPNECYO)

To: Special Agent Omo Alagbede, Federal Bureau of Blogvestigations

Aim: To find out how Nigerian youngsters are spending their Saturday Nights.

Modus Operandi: Inflitrate a popular Nite-Club in the Lagos Metropolis

Date: Secret

Time: Night (It's a night club, stupid!)

Equipment: Camera, dancing shoes, insomnia tablets, chewing gum, charm, Burn energy drink, Map of Lagos metropolis, gas mask (protection against poisonous nicotene-oxide fumes).

Results:

Ye African, When ye Pray, Say...

2007-04-03T10:21:00.000-07:00

Our Masters
Who Art in Geneva & Elsewhere
Haloed be thy manes
Thy Condoms Come,
Thy will be done in this heart of darkness
As it is within your snow-sniffing skyscrapers
Give us this night
Our AntiRetroviral Therapy
And forgive us our inability to pay
As we forgive those who continue to have sex without condoms.
And lead us not into extinction
But deliver us from ourselves
For thine is the Condom, the Strategy and the Wherewithal
Forever and ever,
Amen.

(c) Omo Alagbede, 2005

Quote of the Week: Terry Eagleton on Jeffrey Archer

2007-03-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

"Many celebrities who get put away come out of prison having found Jesus; Jeffrey Archer, nothing if not idiosyncratic, has discovered his betrayer instead."

- Terry Eagleton in his review of Jeff's latest novel, The Gospel According to Judas, by Benjamin Iscariot

Read the full review here

Still on "Lorenzo and Maria"

2007-03-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to listen to my poem, Lorenzo and Maria, live, on the BBC World Service. I listened online instead.

Listen to Lorenzo and Maria on the BBC Weekend Africa Sunday Programme, here.

The poem starts at 20:10 on the audio player (20mins:10secs)

You can also read the full poem on the BBC website, here.

You can also submit your own slavery poem on that page - a selection will be posted online and broadcast on the BBC Weekend Africa.

New Book: Unbridled by Jude Dibia

2007-03-22T01:09:00.000-07:00

UNBRIDLED, the latest offering from the novelist Jude Dibia, has just been published

Jude is the author of Walking With Shadows, which was shortlisted for the 2006 ANA/NDDC KEN SARO-WIWA PRIZE FOR PROSE.

Unbridled (Fiction)
Jude Dibia
BlackSands Books, Lagos
278 pp

ISBN 978079396 - 8

Onyeka Nwelue spoke with Jude recently on his new book. Read the interview here

You can also read an extract from the novel here

And there's a short story by Jude, Among Strangers, in blackbiro, here

Omo-Alagbede on the BBC

2007-03-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

I've decided to take a break from my fixations on Oprah, Angelina and other powerful women, and direct them (all fixations) onto Number 1.

My poem, Lorenzo and Maria, will be broadcast on the BBC World Service Weekend Network Africa on Sunday the 25th of March, at 0400GMT and 0600GMT; in commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.

LORENZO AND MARIA

Love, Lagos and Havana were the three ends
Of the rope that bound Lorenzo and Maria.

Of course
They weren’t always Lorenzo and Maria.
Once upon a time they must have been
Lamidi and Mojisola,
Growing somewhere in Isale Eko,
Thinking of who to fall in love with
And when, and how many seed to spawn...

Listen to the full poem on the BBC World Service Weekend Network Africa on Sun 25 March 2007

NB> The Slave Trade was formally abolished by the British Government in 1807. The Abolition of the Slave Trade bill (passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20, and in the House of Commons by 114 to 15) become law on 25th March, 1807.

Links
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/ism
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/Lslavery07.htm
http://www.antislavery.org/homepage/news/UKabolitionanniversary070105.htm

Other News:

I've got work forthcoming (soon, soon) in the following print and online journals/mags:

Farafina Issue 9 (short story)
The Arabesques Review (short story)
Jelly Paint (poem)
Main Street Rag (poems)
Weaverbird Anthology of New Nigerian Fiction (short story)
Boxcar Poetry Review (poem) -- I got the email informing me of acceptance this afternoon
Tipton Poetry Journal (poem)
Crossing Borders magazine (poems)

Angelina Jolie; I told you I wasn't CRAZY, and Other Adoption Stories

2007-03-14T09:32:00.000-07:00

Today, on Yahoo's Entertainment News & Gossip, is the news: Jolie Expected in Vietnam to Adopt Boy. :

Angelina Jolie was expected to arrive in Vietnam late Wednesday night to adopt a 3-year-old boy, adoption officials said. Jolie was expected to attend an adoption ceremony with Vietnamese officials in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday morning, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the matter. After she receives the child, Jolie will meet with U.S. consular officials, who must review the adoption before a passport can be issued for the boy. If all goes according to plan, Jolie could bring the child home by the weekend, officials said. A message left early Wednesday for a Jolie representative in Los Angeles wasn't immediately returned. The boy has been living at the Tam Binh orphanage on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City since he was abandoned at a hospital as an infant, according to adoption officials. Shortly after he arrived at the orphanage, the Tam Binh staff tried unsuccessfully to locate the boy's birth parents. The boy is healthy, friendly and a little bit shy, they said. He gets along well with other children and loves to play soccer. Jolie filed adoption papers as a single parent, because she and her partner, Brad Pitt, are not married. They have three children: 5-year-old Maddox, adopted from Cambodia; 2-year-old Zahara, adopted from Ethiopia; and another daughter, Shiloh, who was born to the couple in May. The pair made a surprise visit to the Tam Binh orphanage at Thanksgiving, when they were spotted cruising around Ho Chi Minh City on a motorbike.

Just days ago I announced the formation of an NGO dedicated to facilitating the adoption of white kids by African celebrities. Angelina dearie must have read my blog (which tells you a bit about the calibre of readers of this blog), and on the basis of my displeasure about the adoption of african kids, hurriedly abandoned her plans to adopt another african kid. Instead she ran off to Vietnam, since the Asians have not complained yet.

Talk about the power of one man, the power of one blog to change world affairs. This, happening at a time when Omo Alagbede is thinking of "selling" once his daily blog-hits reach twelve, is encouraging news, and will mean that you will keep reading me for a long while to come.

You all thought I was crazy and crying wolf when I raised an "adoption" alarm a few days ago, now you know that it's called the POWER OF FORWARD THINKING, also known in management lingo as VISION, FORESIGHT, etc.

I will continue to raise TRUE alarms until the world grows deaf. We must start to reciprocate the kind gestures of the West. For every one african kid that they adopt, SAAWKAC will strive to ensure that a dozen white kids are adopted and tranplanted to Africa.

Talk about globalisation.

PostScript.
Think about this. The West has been adopting Africans forever. They have adopted our brightest doctors and engineers and students and lawyers etc etc, adults all. Now they are adopting our children.

I foresee a time when an American millionaire will, on one bored-stiff-of-cocaine-and-playboy-afternoon, sail on hir (the new politically correct term for his/her) yacht, dock in the Lagos port, and with a wand-like wave of hir blackberry, "adopt" a dozen Nigerian kids.

The parents of the kids will object, but the kids will insist on going with the American. The case will end up at the ICJ in the Hague, and the distinguished Judges will take time off from playing monopoly with Charles Taylor (am I mixing courts up here?) and Robert Mugabe, and declare:

"We the distinguished and honorable Judges of the International Court of Justice, having listened to the facts of this matter, and in consonance with the ideals of global justice, hereby rule that, in toto, and sans sub judice, in the case of (American millionaire - insert name here) & 12 Nigerian children vs 12 Nigerian parents, the onus of dispensation of justice lies with the wills, desires and preferences of the children, nothwithstanding their underaged status, and in pro bono publico errata cognisant of the mitigating circumstances of the locus standi judgement."

Translation:
African parents have no powers to keep their children if an American millionaire decides otherwise. The children will decide who they want to go with.

And the 12 Nigerian parents will plead with the American millionaire to employ them as nannies to take care of the twelve children in his Miami beachfront home.

Society for the Advancement of the Adoption of White Kids by African Celebrities

2007-03-09T10:52:00.000-08:00

We are all aware that it has become a fad for white celebrities to run over to Africa with the world press in tow, to adopt kid after black kid, especially for one or the other of the reasons below:

1) After a RARE moment of sudden spiritual enlightenment

2) After an affliction by a Weapon of Mass De-popularity e.g a failed movie/album

3) After another cocaine/heroine/ecstasy fuelled delusion

4) As an act of penance after another crazy gold-plated-cloth-hanger shopping spree

5) As an act of reaffirmation of innate humanity after another stint in rehab

The Society for the Advancement of the Adoption of White Kids by African Celebrities(SAAWKAC) is a newly founded not-for-profit organisation devoted to raising awareness about the dire need for successful Africans to adopt orphaned, homeless or confused white kids, as a gesture of appreciation to the West for their tireless quest in assisting a continent that ungratefully refuses to renounce its darkness.

We are still a voluntarily-funded organisation, but plans are underway to convince icons of African origin like Michael Jackson and Oprah Winfrey of the need to finance laudable objectives such as ours.

Why adopt a white kid?

To save them from:

1) Obesity

2) Ignorance of world affairs (ignorance for example about the continent of Nigeria)

3) The war in Iraq (which might continue for the next few decades if the Americans elect yet another Bush to power)

4) Al-Qaeda

5) The Bush Dynasty

6) Spiritual emptiness and aridity

For more info, send us an email today at savingawhitekid@copyingmadonna.com

Go Sit Down, Oprah!

2007-03-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

The school will teach girls to be the best human beings they can ever be; it will train them to become decision-makers and leaders; it will be a model school for the rest of the world." — Oprah Winfrey

Go sit down Oprah!

Me don't like this her idea of a special school for African girls... and I think Oprah should go sit down. Say what you may, but I'm not kidding. 40 million dollars on a fugging school for a handful of African girls, when the lives of millions could be changed with far less.

I can't stick this idea of coming to "Africa" to play the role of Messiah, doling out millions of dollars to reproduce yourself in a few out of the multitude. I don't see what she's doing as different than what the Belgians did when they split people into Hutu and Tutsi in central Africa, based on such things as the shapes of their bodies etc.

Forty million dollars would be better spent building hundreds of schools for young Africans, instead of an elitist institution that will create little Oprahs out of these girls. She might as well have flown the "lucky" girls off to get American accents and a great education in America.

We need to begin to make it clear that if these muzungu philanthropists cannot make the efforts and sacrifice to make GENUINE changes/impact in Africa, then they should keep their fugging dough to themselves and continue to invest in their Louis Vuttons and yatchs and Cuban cigars.

What Oprah has done in my opinion is nothing to congratulate her about. Let her keep her money! Of course I know all the arguments. Multiplier effects of the few girls she will rescue through her school, blah blah blah. Whatever! It's irritating to imagine a forty million dollar school for the purposes of saving a handful of girls out of the multitude who need saving.

Let's get it clear! Let's fight this mentality that what Africa needs from the West are extravagant schools for the development of an elite few, or magnificent concerts (Geldofesque) or AID agencies that spend far more on consultancy fees, parties and expatriate salaries than on actual aid activity.

When the colonialists were around (not as if they still aren't) they concentrated on building a tiny African elite, giving them all the available opportunities and using them to oppress the unenlightened multitude. The elite, masquerading as independence heroes, became (mostly) the corrupt home-grown politicians of the sixties, neo-colonialists over the bulk of the African continent.
Decades later, people like Oprah are still trying out the ancient tricks!

About the controversial school
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation operates The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls - South Africa. The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation is a Section21A company registered in South Africa, a branch of The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation, an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, and a US 501(c)(3).Students The Academy’s purpose is to offer academically talented girls an opportunity to develop their full intellectual, social, and leadership potential. To be eligible to attend, girls must be South African, academically talented, able to demonstrate leadership qualities, and come from a disadvantaged family or community. The 152 girls starting school in 2007 are entering grades 7 and 8. They make up what will be the Academy’s first graduating class. When each of the grades, 7 through 12, is filled with students, approximately 450 girls will attend the Academy.Curriculum The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy will allow girls to explore the changing world through advanced education techniques and technology. South African teachers and administrators have been selected from the best and the brightest. The curriculum is based on South Africa’s national standards, which includes math, languages, arts and culture, social science, life orientation, and natural science. The Academy’s curriculum expands to include a theme of leadership and leadership development across all courses and activities. Additionally, the curriculum focuses on technology and e-learning.
Facilities and Location
After years of construction, the school’s doors opened. The Academy sits on 52 acres in Henley-on-Klip, Meyerton, Gauteng Province, South Africa. The school provides state-of-the-art facilities including residences, large library, dining hall, theater, gymnasium, wellness center, and much more.

Bestseller Lists... what/how/why

2007-03-06T09:17:00.000-08:00

(From Slate)

What is a best-seller list? It is a ranking of the relative sales of particular kinds of books at certain groups of stores within a one-week period. Best-seller lists tell us not which books sell the most, in absolute terms, but which fiction, nonfiction, or advice books sell the fastest at the bookstores list makers think deserve attention. A how-to book that sells 20,000 copies in one week will shoot to the top of the best-seller lists, whether or not those are the only copies it ever sells. A novel that sells 200 copies a week for 10 years will never appear on the lists, because each week it will be beaten by faster-selling books.

Read more

An early (Greek) birthday gift for Omo Alagbede?

2007-03-02T11:07:00.000-08:00

Saw this insensitively-worded email in my inbox this morning, sob, sob, sniff:

Date: Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:49:17 -0800
From: Seth.Fournier" Sean_Lang@jmerealty.com
To: thailandreservation @ yahoo.com
Subject: Re: At Work

Hi, I hate to be the one to mention this, but people continue to
talk about your weight issue and it just disgusts me. Whether you
know it by now, people are always chattering about each other at
work but you come up more than enough. I wasn't the happiest or
best-fit up until a year ago or so but that did change. Thanks to
my dam brother-in-law(of all people). Anyhow, it was for the best.
What I am saying is that you need to do something different and
maybe you can make the same difference I did. Try this stuff I used.
I took it on the idea it's just more junk but it worked great. I
see more positive reviews on it nowadays and makes me feel even
better. So, I am encouraging a change, not only in the chatter
around here but in you personally.
-Anonymous for now
Using an anonymous email website to send this btw;)
When it helps/works just send a memo out with the name "Angel" in it.
Then you can take me out to lunch to thank you. Talk to you sooner
than later I hope;)
Website---huricaneroou.com

-------------

Dear Seth,

Cruel cruel you
I spent the whole morning sobbing just because of your big mouth!
how can anyone who claims to be human make such cruel fun of my weight...
it's not fair, sob, sob, sniff....
and you want me to take you to lunch for this?
To thank you for your emotional cruelty?
You mean you want me to lose weight, and then celebrate it with LUNCH?
You must be Dubbya's twin bro or sthg...

Yours very obesely, and unrepentantly
Omo Alagbede

Omo Alagbede, Obasanjo and Awolowo

2007-03-02T05:22:00.000-08:00

At 2:34 am on Saturday, 3 March, 2007, Omo Alagbede will celebrate his silver jubilee. I narrowly missed the clan of the Midnight children. I'm a post-midnight child.

Two days after me, my good friend Segun (Obasanjo), who also happens to be the President of Nigeria, will be celebrating his entry into the Septuagenarians' Club.

And a day later (March 6), my mentor Obafemi (Awolowo), former Premier of the Western region, Introducer of Free Education in Western Nigeria in the 1950s; former federal Commissioner of Finance and Vice-Chair of the Federal Executive Council; philosopher, legal luminary, and "the best President Nigeria never had" will posthumously clock 98.

For we are jolly good fellows, for we are jolly good fellows, for we are jolly good feeeeelllooooowws, and so say all of us! Hoorah!

Nigeria's Top 10 Bestselling Books (February 2007)

2007-02-22T05:46:00.000-08:00

- The Godfathers Are Not to Blame, by Adebayo Alao-Akala, Two Kings Press

- The Foreign Oil Worker's Guide to Ijaw, MEND Press

- Korean for Militant Beginners, MEND Press

- King Baba - Plays by ex-PDP Chieftains, edited by Atiku Abubakar, Broomhouse Publications

- This Animal called Atiku, by Olusegun Obasanjo, EFCC Press

- Morality and Nigerian Politics - A personal testimony (PhD Dissertation by Chris Uba, Onitsha Market University Press)

- Chicken Noodle Network - The Suppressed Scandals of Ted Turner's Conglomerate, by Frank Nweke Junior, Aso Press

- The Virtues of Taciturnicity - A Memoir, by Femi Fani-Kayode, Bulldog Press

- Who is Who of Corruption in Nigeria (Revised Standard Version), edited by Ahmadu Ali and Olusegun Obasanjo, Leaking Umbrella Press

- The Nigerian Navy's Guide to Navigating the Niger Delta Creeks, by Jeff Koinage, CNN Press

Another Self-Portrait

2007-02-22T04:26:00.000-08:00

Omo Alagbede in Giorgio Dior Armani face-cap, 2007

Omo Alagbede: A (Gentleman's) Self Portrait

2007-02-22T04:03:00.000-08:00

Omo Alagbede in scottish bowler-hat, gecko bow-tie and hawaiian neck-tie; self-portrait on canvas; 2007

(created using SCRIBBLER and paint)

MRS. NOVEMBER AND MISS MOLETE (A one act play)

2007-02-22T00:52:00.000-08:00

MRS. NOVEMBER AND MISS MOLETE
(A one act play by Omo Alagbede; 2006)
For Ladoja, Ngige and DSP

HIS EXCELLENCY: I hear men’s voices. I smell the blood of a politician…

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: What are you saying, Your Excellency?

HIS EXCELLENCY: Go onto the balcony and tell me what you see.

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (goes and returns) I see nothing. You confuse me, your Excellency.

HIS EXCELLENCY: Your inner eyes fail you, and that, for an aspiring politician, is a tragedy of the highest order. Now go back and look again.

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (goes, screams, and runs back) I see them now, now I see them. How – who – why – did they get here? So many – what…

HIS EXCELLENCY: Blessed are they who do not see, yet believe

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (still in a panic) Who are they, your Excellency?

HIS EXCELLENCY: (chuckles) They are friends. I think that you had better summon all the strength in you. We have a long night ahead.

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: I’m not sure I understand you Sir. Do you know those people. Were you expecting them? Don’t you want to come to the balcony to have a look at them?

HIS EXCELLENCY: Before they were, I knew...

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: Are they for us, Sir?

HIS EXCELLENCY: (laughs) You know nothing? You see nothing? Are you alive or are you not? Is there nothing in your head? You, on whom foolishness sits like a corrupt Judge…

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: I’m sorry to upset you Sir, but… I.. am…

HIS EXCELLENCY: Quit the speech. They that are against us are more than they that are for us. They that are against us are they that were for us.

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: So they are enemies…

HIS EXCELLENCY: This is the night of long … poisoned umbrellas. Pray, where is my deputy?

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: Your deputy, Sir? Your Excellency, I don’t mean to be uncouth, but the Alfa is charred and yet you ask for his beard? Your deputy left this morning. He said he was going leave. Was it not you who approved his leave?

HIS EXCELLENCY: That, precisely, is the point, my young friend. What used to be the Government House, has become The Government Garden of Gethsemane (chuckles).

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: That doesn’t sound comforting at all, your Excellency, even though I understand it not…

HIS EXCELLENCY: You will understand, young man. But then again, you never may… Our camp has suffered plunder. The gods are not to blame, blame the godfathers instead..

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: Again Sir, I do not mean to be rude, but are you sure you do not need some rest…?

HIS EXCELLENCY: The season of rest is long past, sadly. This is the season of the final stand. Call me my Chief Security Officer at once!

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (dashes off and returns; pants) He’s not at his seat Sir. His office is locked. Wait a minute Sir, I think I remember something? Yes, yes, I overheard him telling your deputy that he was summoned to Abuja for an important meeting…

HIS EXCELLENCY: Abuja, you said. Excellent. I will lift up mine eyes to the Rock, from whence cometh my downfall. Call me my lawyer, now!

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: Which one of them Sir? The one who defended you against the allegations of certificate forgery, or the one who defended you at the election petition tribunal? Or shall I call the Senior Advocate of the Moneyed who helped the First Lady to sue that magazine that claimed she imported a container of lipstick with Government money.

HIS EXCELLENCY: Just get me any damn lawyer and for Heaven’s sake stop the cheek!

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: I’m sorry Sir. (dashes off and returns). There are two lawyers downstairs Sir, but both of them have a splitting headache. At least that’s what they said…

HIS EXCELLENCY: Good. That leaves my Campaign Organisation. Get me my director of mobilization.

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (dashes off and returns) He’s in his office quite alright Sir, but he says that on the basis of the memo you wrote officially disbanding the organization when you won a second term, technically he is no longer your Mob. Director.

HIS EXCELLENCY: I see. I told you. That leaves you and me, perhaps only me. I fear to ask you to get me the First Lady. I fear she may decline to come, she may say she’s got nothing to wear.. Here we are, you and me, caught between the devil and the deep green-and-white marshes of Abuja. Prepare for your death. (chuckles). Just kidding. Get me the phone. I need to speak with Switzerland… (he dials a number)… hello, hello, is that the Manager in charge of African Funds… good …this is his Excellency speaking… yes, from Nigeria… my code… NG544210… I need to.. what! Who? Are you in your right mind? Freeze! Who gave you such orders? This is a breach of…hello.. hello…hello…

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: (calling from the balcony) Sir… those people outside, the mob, they are beginning to climb the fence. They are waving swords in the air. They are … is that not your godfather, Chief Dr. Egowokudi that I see? Eepa! Sir, your deputy is amidst them, look at him leaping over the fence like an antelope…

HIS EXCELLENCY: Get inside at once, my friend. This is no time to be a football commentator! We have come to the end of ourselves, and this I say both metaphorically and literally. Drastic situations, drastic solutions. Where is the key to the wardrobe? I hope the contents are intact. The skirt-suits, the wigs, the bras? The jewellery? I shall wring someone’s neck tonight if the wardrobe has been tampered with…

PERSONAL ASSISTANT: Now you confuse me beyond confusion your Excellency!

HIS EXCELLENCY: Watch and pray, my young friend. Do as I do, and you will be as I am. (chuckles). Now listen! I shall be Mrs. November, Official Massager of His Excellency. And you shall be Miss Molete, Chief Cleaner, Governor’s Office. Here, use the pink lipstick. Not too flashy, just right for a cleaner. The mob is not after massagers and cleaners. They seek the big fish. We are no longer the big fish – at least for now, my dear Miss Molete…

-- CURTAINS FALL –

(c) Omo Alagbede, 2006

3 Things flu

2007-02-15T11:09:00.000-08:00

This flu has been wandering around blogsville for a while... I finally caught it in laspapi's compound...

OMOALAGBEDE'S LIST OF 3 THINGSES

Three things that scare me:
1. The thought that blogging might actually be the new arrowhead of Aliens & UFO Inc's (age-old) conspiracy to finally take over (read "Acquire") majority shares on Planet Earth! (Don't ask me how! Just imagine if they paid every earthling blogger a decent sum to put up a post on "100 reasons why Aliens should take over on Planet Earth". I'm sure I'll effortlessly think up 200)
2. The thought that the novel might truly be dead - yet mine remains unwritten!
3. Poverty

Three people who make me laugh:
1. The Nigerian Politician
2. A bragging Nigerian
3. Dubbya.

Three Things I love:
1. Books
2. Bookshops
3. The Internet.

Three Things I hate:
1. Those idiots who think misruling Nigeria is a competition that they must win.
2. The absence of a viable publishing industry in Nigeria
3. A sluggish Internet connection

Three Things I don't understand:
1. Nigeria
2. Why I'm finding it so difficult to start my novel
3. Women (Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't)

Three things on my desk (right now):
1. A stamp pad
2. My mobile phones (yeah, plural!)
3. Earphones

Three things I’m doing right now:
1. Filling this questionnaire
2. Thinking hard
3. Endlessly clicking the "refresh" button in the hope that good news (You have just won the Booker!) will have arrived in my email.

Three things I want to do before I die:
1. Write a great novel.
2. Enter the Guinesss Book of Records for the author with the longest booksigning queue ever since the invention of print
3. Write another great novel.

Three things I can do:
1. Procrastinate
2. Browse
3. Write novels (The Power of Positive Thinking!)

Three things you should listen to:
1. A Nigerian politician
2. A Nigerian football fan
3. Your heartbeat (for musical and also for confirmatory purposes)

Three things you should never listen to:
1. A Nigerian politician
2. Any politician
3. George Bush's suspicions

Three things I’d like to learn:
1. Salsa
2. Bass Guitar
3. The English Language

Three favourite foods:
1. Chicken Republic's Chicken wings 'n chips
2. Amala and ewedu soup
3. Milo (the FOOD drink of future champions)

Three beverages I drink regularly:
1. Water
2. Coca Cola
3. The Fountain of Knowledge

Three TV shows/Books I watched/read as a kid:
1. Famous Five (read)
2. Voltron (watched)
3. Tintin (read)

Book 'n Chips

2007-02-15T10:13:00.000-08:00

The Book

The Epilogue / Postscript

Pictures taken by Omo Alagbede at the launch of Love's Lie, a novel by Seye Oke; Nu-metro Bookstores, Lagos; December 2006

Yacht on Alpha Beach (Bidders Welcome!)

2007-02-15T10:01:00.000-08:00

Pic taken by OmoAlagbede on Alpha Beach, Lagos, December 2006

100 things you didn't know you didn't know - and never bothered to find out!

2007-02-12T22:51:00.000-08:00

That is the title of the latest series you should watch out for on this blog. Let me repeat the title again. (Repeat again, as in "reverse back"):

100 things you didn't know you didn't know - and never bothered to find out!

First in the series (aka No 1) is: The Origin of Valentine - and maybe of the species (2 for the price of 1)

How did Valentine's Day come about?

It started in a garden. You-know-which-garden. Yeah. The serpent gave the historic, first ever val's gift, to Iv, thus launching Valentine's Day. (Forget the St. Valentine's nonsense. It was an afterthought invented by atheists to avoid talking about the garden).

The first ever val's gift, as you have guessed, was an apple. (A bite from an apple, actually, not the whole apple, damn the stingy serpent!)

Where did this leave Heydam?

The angry, jealous, first-man, arrives from the farm to realise that his wife has been valled. He kills the serpent, and in a sparkling moment of brainwave (smb), prepares it (roasting, boiling) and serves it for supper, thus producing, by (more or less) one act, the following:

1) The first act of culpable homicide (a serpenticide) in human history

2) The species known as Homo-Serpent (the "t" is silent, the "serpen" is pronounced with a twist of the lips)
NB. After the supper of snake-suya, snake-burger, snake-in-apple-and-curry sauce and apple juice, Heydam made his way into his wife's leaves (remember, cotton pants, G-strings, tampons, sanitary pads, wrappers and what-have-you were still centuries away from invention) and performed his, uhm, duties, as a husband, or better still, as a MAN. Ehem. Which, uhm, uhm, explains the genetic, uhm, basis for "Homo-Serpent". Or does it?

3) The world's first barbecue night

4) The event that Africans now regard as primal in the evolution of African cuisine (bushmeat!). They (Africans) have since moved on to bigger bushmeat conquests like lions, cheetahs, baboons.

I guess that the question uppermost on your disbelieving (that's your bleddy bizness!) minds is:
"So how did flowers and chocolates come to displace apples as valentine gifts?"

I won't answer it! I put it to you to think hard and come up with your own answers. The answer closest to the true answer (which only I know) will win an autographed copy of my forthcoming book "More banal tales from the you-know-which garden" (Bullshit Press, 2007)

Quote of the Day

2007-02-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

"... when you begin your career as grandly as [Shapiro] did, where can you go but down?
-- JIM HARRISON (New York Times)

OmoAlagbede says: Selah!

Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize 2006

2007-02-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

I start off my blogcarnation with good news. My good news (lol).

Last week came with the announcement that I have been awarded a (2006) Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize.

The prize awards between $1,000 and $25,000 annually for the finest lyric poems celebrating the spirit of life, written by poets under 40.

I won a $1,000 prize for my poem VISITING THE YELLOW RIVER.

I consider this my first Poetry Prize*

*Last year, my poem LIFE SCIENCES, earned me a "Noteworthy Poet" selection in the 2006 Castello di Duino poetry competition (plus publication in the competition anthology, translation of my poem to Italian, and a recording of the poem on audio CD); but the Dorothy Rosenberg is my first "win", if you get my drift...

Blogging, like Satan, is alive and well on planet Earth

2007-02-11T07:54:00.000-08:00

Don't misinterprete the title of this post. It is simply an allusion to a book by the American evangelist and Christian writer, Hal Lindsey, titled Satan is Alive and Well on Planet Earth.

Blogging and the devil have nothing in common -- other than the fact that both of them love to walk to and fro on the face of the earth, seeking whom to devour. Last time we checked, blogging was winning. Far more people are under the influence of blogging that the devil's.

Sin is out, bloggin is in.

It used to be said that "The devil findeth work for idle hands". Now, how can he any longer, when the once-idle hands are now busy in eternal conversation with computer keyboards.

Sorry for the digression. Twas da devil.

This is what ChristianWriter had to say in response to my last, despairing post:
"But of course you must blog. Don't be selfish. Think of the people who stalk your blog daily when they should be doing more grown-up things like working.Blogging rules. Don't abandon ship. And that's an order. "

Talatu-carmen said: "but, alas, the spirit of blogging has fully possessed me."

My friend, Chude, has just joined the blogging train, just when I was thinking of abandoning ship.

Even iGwatala, who first caught the blog-fatigue (blog-flu?) disease, has been cured miraculously.

What shall we say to these things?

OmoAlagbede is back to reclaim his place in Blogaria.

PS> If this blog will not allow the novel to see the light of day, then perhaps the novel was never meant to be. Ha ha!

A prayer

2007-01-29T02:42:00.000-08:00

I've been having temptations lately. But as they say, it is not having temptations that is bad; it is giving in to them. And by this very act of writing what you are currently reading, I am refusing to give in to my temptations.

Going biblical (again), you remember one of the Psalmist's prayers (in the Psalms of course!):

Cast me not away from your presence O God, Take not your Holy Spirit from me...

It is a prayer I'd like to borrow from the Bible, and address to the god(dess?) of blogging. (I swear, there's a spirit of blogging!)

You will notice that I have blogged only once this new Year. 2006 seems to have washed my desire for blogging along with it; handed me over to 2007 with chromosomes 47 and 48 (blogosomes) missing from my DNA.

I'm not the only sufferer of this condition, my friend iGwatala was also afflicted. Prognosis seems very very poor.

All I can say is that, the struggle continues.

To (continue) blog or not to blog?

Merry Go Round

2007-01-10T11:25:00.000-08:00

For want of what to say, let's start off the New Year with HAPPY NEW YEAR (FANCY YOU HERE!), and a photo essay.

196?/197?

An undated photo, I reckon it was taken sometime in the late sixties or early seventies. The boyish looks of those men (except OBJ) makes me think I'm right. Three of these men would eventually go on, over a total of 30 years to (more or less through coup plots) take turns as military Heads of State of Nigeria. (Obasanjo went a step further and secured a second stint, this time as an elected (?) civilian President.)

Abacha - (the late) military head of state of Nigeria 1993 - 1998

Danjuma - Chief of Army Staff during Obasanjo's military stint in Government, 1976 - 1979, Minister of Defence in Obasanjo's first term as civilian President, 1999 - 2003

Babangida - self-styled military President of Nigeria, 1985 - 1993

Obasanjo - Head of State of Nigeria, 1976 - 1979; President of Nigeria, 1999 - 2007(?)

Decades later, the same men still playing checkers. This time, the people of Nigeria are the wooden pieces ;-)

2007

Babangida (right); Obasanjo (third from right) at the National Council of State meeting on Tuesday.

Also in the picture are

1st from left: Buhari (military head of state 1984 - 1985, overthrown by Babangida)

2nd from left: Yakubu Gowon: military head of state 1966 - 1975, overthrown by Obasanjo and Murtala Mohammed

1st from right: Shehu Shagari, first civilian president of Nigeria, 1979 - 1983, handed over to by Obasanjo, and deposed by Buhari)

oh dear, this is beginning to sound like fiction...

A Poetic Christmas with Taban Lo Liyong and Obu Udeozo

2006-12-22T01:38:00.000-08:00

This morning I dashed off from the office to do "Christmas card delivery" at Bookshop House, Marina. (Cards for my lawyer uncle whose chambers is on the 8th floor, and my grandmother).

Stupid building had a refugee-camp queue for the lift. Nigeria has its wonders, which wonder itself has no knowledge of! After a few minutes of waiting for godot's lift to arrive and belly us up into the building, I decided to "step" up. 8 floors.

You should have "seen" the pain that radiated from my waist upwards as my nimble feet gobbled the concrete! The staircase was tucked away in one corner of the building, and, if you're a fan of the TV series 24, all sorts of conspiracy theories and lurking shadows and disguised cleaning-personnel begin to pop up in your mind and around the corners of the staircase.

Suddenly, I was on the eight floor. Uncle not in office. Dropped the cards, and began the descent. Much easier. Lost my way briefly.

On the ground floor of the Bookshop House is the CSS Bookshop -- I'll be damned if that isn't why the building is called Bookshop House!

I decided to step inside - in case I never told you, bookshop haunting is one of my top 5 hobbies (University ofIbadan bookshop and Booksellers anytime I'm in Ibadan, Numetro in Lagos, the secondhand b/store at Yaba busstop etc etc).

When I emerged onto the hustle and honking of the Marina, about twenty minutes later, I had added to my library 3 books - all collections of poetry:

1) Stimulus and Other Poems by Obu Udeozo (FAB Educational Books, Jos, 1993)

2) Excursions by Obu Udeozo (FAB Educational Books, Jos, 1993)

3) Homage to Onyame by Taban Lo Liyong (Malthouse Press, Lagos, 1997)

Globalisation

2006-12-22T01:23:00.000-08:00

From the May 15-22, 2006 issue of Newsweek:

A BOEING OF ASIA?

The prototype of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner is being built in a virtual factory so big, it effectively spans continents.

Engineers in Japan build the wings, Koreans add the raked wingtips, Brits refine the Rolls-Royce engines, while Italians and Texans fit the horizontal stabilizer and center fuselage. Project managers in Everett, Washington, watch it all take shape with 3-D glasses that allow them to walk around the digital prototype and monitor every change made by their 6,000 workers worldwide, just as if the model were being assembled in a real factory.

Read the rest of the article here.

And then, of course, you want to ask, where are the bleddy Africans?

A: They're the stowaways on board, stupid!

Now that's what I call true globalisation.

From the Archives: On Happiness

2006-12-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

Article first written by yours sincerely in 2004. Back in the day, when I used to suffer Acquired Immune Delusions (of "philosophical" grandeur) Syndrome. (I wrote it around the time Nigeria won the award of HAPPIEST COUNTRY ON THE EARTH). Needs major overhaul ;-) -- a bit on the stilted (is that the right word?) side esp towards the end, parading a scattered reasoning... ok, maybe I shouldn't always resort to self-deprecation... but it does need to be reworked anyway...

AM I HAPPY? YES I’M NOT!
by BOA (c) 2004

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness – Eric Hoffer

Some time ago, some organization crowned Nigeria as the country with the Happiest people on Earth. Now, if you knew Nigeria well, you’d almost think of that as a kind of Joke. I’m not too sure how they came up with their Judgement. Did they judge our Happiness by the astonishing amount of parties we organize every weekend. Or by the exploding number of stand-up comics our society is churning out by the day.

Is there a Happiness Index? Y’know, a kind of :

Happiness Index = The Odds Against Happiness / Sum Total of Happiness Opportunities

Or is there another equation, one that would rival Relativity in its profoundness. Is Happiness the elusive “x”, the unknown and unknowable? Is the value a fluctuating decimal? Is it like water, existing in a multiplicity of states? Is Happiness the direct opposite of Unhappiness? Can it be learned, and taught, imitated and practiced? Can it be stored or stolen, or even copyrighted? Is happiness a fleeting fancy, or an assured ambience? Isn’t one man’s Happiness another’s Dampen-ness?

Happiness, to some elation,
Is, to others, mere stagnation

- Amy Lowell

Henry David Thoreau said that the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. I think these lives of quiet desperation are somewhat like longwinded sentences. I therefore suggest that Happiness Are the commas that punctuate these longwinded sentences. For the minority who are privileged to (on the other hand) lead lives of desperate quietness, who have Expensive Toys to show for their Ambitions, Happiness for them Exists as Full Stops. Rests in the scales of the Sym–phonies of Existence.

Kin Hubbard said it is pretty hard to tell what brings happiness, since Poverty and Wealth have both failed. I say it is pretty hard to tell what happiness is. Is it Joy, or Excitement? Yes? Okay! What then is Gladness?

Happiness seems to drag Questions along, like a huge electric tail. You then begn to wonder why John Stuart Mill says “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.” Does he mean that Happiness is allergic to questioning, to probing? Yet we have come to the conclusion that Happiness itself is almost one big Question. A question averse to questioning?

More questions: How long can a man exist or survive without the faintest piercing ray of Happiness illuminating. For how long can the engines of existence operate without the lubrication of Happiness?

You are seated by the River of Life, feet nestled in the salt-ness. Assume that Happiness is in the form of the fishes that inhabit the depths. You sit still, silent, prepared to wait as long as it will take you to catch some fish. You mind swirls with the pictures and names of super-achieving people who had Happiness elude them, how they suffered in silence as an oblivious world worshipped them and envied them. You can recreate in your mind how so many of them ended up – an overdose, a slit wrist, a noose, an Asylum ID….

The sun is beginning to exchange it’s yellow for a bright, dull-orange. The dough of night rises slightly. Yet your line remains unmoved, unmoving, in the still glory of slackness. Suddenly, Something tugs hard. Not on your line though. The pull seems to be more on your heart, your soul. Despair sets in. By the way, Despair is only one of the numerous variants of Non-Happiness.

You gaze into the water and watch the illusions and mirages created by an absence of Happiness. You stop seeing your reflection in the water, you stop seeing the periodic ripples triggered by your restless bait, instead you begin to see the Bright Darkness of your Unhappiness, and the Bright Unhappiness of your Darkness.

You can’t help giving Power to your Despair and Despair to your Power. You are a self-pitying statue. (Interestingly, self-pity turns out to be another variant of an absence of Happiness). It is as though ice has seeped into you, and you can sense your Free-"ze"-dom. Your Happiness can only return by Positive Thinking and by Positive Comparison.

Positive Thinking says “ C’mon, cheer up. Everyday isn’t Xmas! You may have caught nothing, but at least you sipped of Nature in its stark nakedness (sic) all day long.

Positive Comparison thinks of Rwanda and Iraq and Afghanistan and Gaza, and says “C’mon, yours ain’t that bad. Folks there are worse off than you, so you must by implication be happier than they are.”

Which is not true, since you remember that Nigeria is the happiest country in the whole world, not America.

Seye Oke Book Event @ Nu Metro, Sat 23rd Dec, 2006

2006-12-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Date:

Saturday, 23rd December 2006

Time:
4pm

Venue:
Nu Metro Bookstore, Silverbird Galleria, VI, Lagos

An inspirational writer, Seye Oke was born in Lagos. Her first novel, Debbie’s Diary was used as a reference book in school libraries. Seye founded Splendour Dynasty in 1998; an organization committed to creatively publishing God's love, mercy and grace. She presently works with an International Management Consulting firm and writes monthly newsletters on her site http://www.seyeoke.com/

She will be reading from her new book, Love’s Lie and discussing her life, works, writing career and her thoughts on inspirational fiction in the exquisite ambience of the Galleria.

Crash Landing @ ThursdayNite.com

2006-12-18T10:09:00.000-08:00

Saw a movie on channels tv last thursday night. Channels movie slot starts around 11pm. I missed the opening portions, but still I think I must have started to pay attention quite early on in the movie.

*
Two girls are in a car (one of them is driving) on a road that winds across a cliff. The brakes fail, the car loses control and leaps off the edge of the cliff into the water below, with a sickening splash (sounds like the car broke on impact).

*
A girl is preparing to take her bath. She undresses, and goes into a filled bath. Camera also follows the movement of a gloved intruder in the house, watching the girl, preparing to strike. Girl settles comfortably into the water. Intruder picks up electrified object (hair dryer?) and from where he is standing tosses it into the bath. Girl jerks to death. Obvious electrocution.

*
Girl enters train, and makes her way to an empty coach at the back, in search of a seat. Man (already seated) gets up and begins to follow her. Once they are alone, he begins to talk to her. Apparently she knows him. Next thing he’s flung coach door open and pushed her off, to her (instant) death.

At this stage, anyone watching is (most likely) going to be hooked. You start to see a connection between the strange deaths that open the film. Why are girls dying? What’s happening? Serial killer?

Then your fears get confirmed when, a few scenes later, two men (pathologists) converse in a morgue, and examine the bodies of the two drowned girls. And one of them says something like: “It’s a bad day for air hostesses!” he goes on to explain to his perplexed colleague that this is the fourth air-hostess corpse he has seen that day.

And then the hook gets hookier.

Then, when a plane carrying a billionaire’s daughter and her “revelryous” friends is hijacked by the crew (the supposed “hosts” and “hostesses”), everything becomes very clear.

Now we know why the real hostesses were done away with.

The billionaire’s daughter’s bodyguard is the hero of the movie, taking out all six (five fatalities, one arrest) hostage-takers through the course of the movie, and landing the Boeing 747 on an improvised runway on an atoll in the middle of nowhere (atoll populated by American soldiers doing God-knows-what) , whilst a not-small storm is raging…

One has come to expect these things from Hollywood. Blissful suspension of belief ;-)

Twice, when he is at the mercy of a gun-totting hostage-taker, seconds away from the trigger’s last dance, the billionaire’s daughter saves him by
1) hitting attacker from behind
2) arrowing attacker from behind (with something that looks like an arrow-gun)

There’s something we say in Nigeria: Actor no dey die!

I enjoyed the movie, apart from the co-pilot who was killed by the hostage takers, there were no fatalities amongst the passengers (Pilot was shot too, but he made it). Unlike in Snakes on a Plane, where the snakes carried out a massacre of plane passengers. Shudder, shudder!

When the credits were showing, I thought I might see the name of the movie. I didn’t, but I made sure to take the name of the hero. Antonio Sabato, Jr.

This morning I turned to Wiki. Wise, wise one, tell me the name of the movie. To my disappointment, Wiki said “sorry, can’t be of help!”

IMDB eventually turned out to be the saviour.

Movie Title: Crash Landing (2005)

PS. Channels was acting stupid that Thursday Night. Early part of the movie they were showing adverts every 3-4 minutes. They do that often though. Crazy. Eventually, I guess the guy pressing the “show advert” button dozed off. The adverts died along with the kidnappers ;-)

PostScript

Below is a "murderous" ;-)) review of the film by mianobekes from Hungary, on the IMDB page

"This film was embarrassing in its clichés, poor acting and generally low production values. It starts out badly with the long haired 3 star general calling the hero, Masters, "major" when he is obviously wearing the silver oak leaves of lieutenant colonel. But what was most distressing was the crew of soldiers on Neptune Atoll. How out of touch with any kind of reality can you get? They were all experts on flying a 747 and the scenes of the soldiers digging the ditch were beyond comical.
WARNING: THIS FILM IS DANGEROUS TO YOUR INTELLECTUAL HEALTH! WATCH AT YOUR OWN PERIL! "

Lamentations: Why I Can't Marry Valyusha

2006-12-13T09:14:00.000-08:00

I got this loving email on Monday from a certain Valyusha:

From: "Valiusha" <allenluv@btopenworld.com>

To: "Thomas" <>

Subject: Hello, I want to know you!

Date: Mon, 11 Dec 2006 16:56:58 +0200

Hello, Dear!

I am looking for a man who can make me happy. I want to hear the whisper of tender words in my little ears every morning I wake up. Iwant to feel the tender touches of his strong hands every evening when we are alone. I want to smell his perfume and to see him smiling when we are together out in the restaurant enjoying each other. I want to make his life a miracle... I am looking for a husband and I am here: http://loveonlyme.com/goodforlove

If my words found an answer in your soul, I am waiting for your note...

Warm hugs!

Valyusha

***

Dearest V,

I got your letter, and read it utmostly flattered to be on someone's longlist/shortlist for human husbandry.

However, sadly, very sadly, I regret to inform you that I will not be able to husband you; for the following reasons (apart from something to do with an abnormal "SPAM COUNT") -

1) You will not hear my whisper of tender words in your little ears every morning when you wake up because I sleep till NOON!

2) You will not feel the tender touches of my strong hands every evening when we are alone because we will not be alone in the evenings. My second job takes the evenings.

3) You will not smell my perfume because I am allergic to ALL perfumes. And you will not see me smiling when we are together out in the restaurant enjoying each other because in the restaurant we WILL NOT be enjoying each other. Not when I will be thinking of the bill I alone will have to pay afterwards.

4) You got my name wrong in your email; you called me "Thomas". Conclusion: If this is the kind of "miracle" you intend to be performing in my life, NO THANKS!

5) On this page of your site where you list gifts you want from me, you did not consider the fact that I am from Africa. You asked for chocolates and flowers and private email lessons and email access, instead of asking for African things like, uhm, uhm, an assurance that I will not marry more wives after you.

Yours Lovely

And loads of feline (not bear) hugs,

Moi.

2006 Nigerian CEO of the Year, Bunmi Oni, Booted Out

2006-12-12T10:12:00.000-08:00

Bunmi Oni, 53, erstwhile Cadbury (Nigeria) CEO, was today sacked by the Board, for his role in the falsification of the company's financial statements over the last few years. Also sacked was cadbury's Finance Director, Ayo Akadiri.

This is nothing less than tragic. Reason? Oni won the award of Nigeria's most highly respected chief executive on September 14, 2006. And, very ironically, it was the same Price WaterHouse Coopers (International audit consultants) that conferred the award on him, that was engaged by Cadbury barely 3 months later to investigate the alleged manipulation of results by him.

Bunmi Oni was awarded the national honour of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) in 2001, and was Cadbury helmsman for eleven years.

Here are excerpts from a tribute in the Tribune (Monday 25th Sept. 2006), written just after he won the award:

...As reported in the press, if profit was the most crucial factor in the survey, Oni would not have ranked that high, nor would his company. But, he is acknowledged by peers as a CEO who would rather make less profit than cut corners. In a country that has been almost completely quartered by “corner cutters”, Oni would rather see his company go through tedious and complex litigation with local and state governments than pay “a simple bribe”...

...We salute the integrity, excellence, industry, innovativeness, vision, and exemplary leadership of Oni, not only in Cadbury, but also in the larger society where his contributions have provided the needed light in the tunnel...

"Can there be two Kings in a Palace?"

2006-12-12T09:50:00.000-08:00

Those were the rhetorical words of Adebayo Alao-Akala, deputy-governor of Oyo State, in response to a TV journalist who enquired about who was truly in charge of Oyo State. That was on the 12th of January, 2006, the day Akala "became" Governor after the super-controversial impeachment of his boss, the Governor, Rashidi Ladoja.

Ladoja, protesting the injustice of the jungle impeachment, had vowed not to relinquish power. Akala, on his own part, has been "sworn in", and was exerting his authority as the "Last Man Standing in Agodi Govt House". So, you see why that question may have been relevant then.

Interestingly, at this time, eleven months later, that question is proving relevant again.

Why?

Because the Supreme Court of Nigeria has just upheld the decision of the Appeal Court declaring the impeachment a nullity. The picture above is of Usurper Akala being sworn in, last January. Now, he is returning to his position of deputy governor. And finally getting to answer the question he asked many months ago.

New Fiction: "SeaHorses" in Litro

2006-12-07T05:05:00.000-08:00

My story SEAHORSES will be appearing in this week's (print) issue of LITRO - Original Fiction for the Underground.

LITRO is the literary equivalent of METRO (the free newspaper), and is distributed every Friday at

Stockwell (around 0730 to 0825)
London Bridge (around 0815 to 0845)
Libraries in the London Borough of Lambeth

...and more generally or sporadically in:

Random bars/cafes in the East End
Derby
Trams in Sheffield
Buses in Durham
Munich

You may also read and/or print the story online here:
http://www.litro.co.uk/pdfs/Seahorses.pdf

Letter to BOA about BOA's Letter To TIME

2006-12-06T03:34:00.000-08:00

A reader, Nilla, posted the following comment on my blog

I didn't find your letter to the editor in response to the Fela Kuti article, in the Dec. 11 2006 issue.
9:41 PM, December 05, 2006

And I almost suffered a heart attack. Then I replied her immediately:

Dear Nilla, Thanks for pointing this out. Perhaps because of distribution delays I have not been able to get a copy of the December 11 TIME issue here in Lagos. Hopefully I should get a copy today. But I made the decision to blog about it based on the (detailed) - and genuine :))) email I received from TIME magazine. I shall withhold further comments until I see the magazine myself. Best, BOA

And then, still dreading the still-loitering heart attack, I fired off an email to the TIME editor for clarification. Still not satisfied with waiting for a reply, and trying to fend off the thought that had started to paint my impending public humiliation in bright colours, I launched an attack on the TIME website. I was going to smoke out my letter at all costs :) the way the Marines smokedMr. Hussein out three years ago.

At long last, I found a lot of things! :)
I discovered that there were as many as four different editions of TIME, all carrying different pieces (Sometimes the same cover story though). I'm sure a lot of you already knew this, but then that's you, not me.

There's TIME Asia, TIME Pacific, Time Europe, TIME Canada, TIME for kids, and TIME International(?).

Back to my main gist. I finally found my letter on the TIME Europe website, here. It's the second letter from the top. Of course I was very relieved, I hate to imagine the "fallout" had I blogged/bragged about the appearance in TIME of a letter that wasn't published.

The letter is published in the Dec. 11, 2006 issue of TIME Europe magazine. I guess I'm a li'l too old for TIME for Kids :))

So, Nilla, while I thank you for the observation, I also want to say YOU CHECKED THE WRONG TIME! :)))

More Found Objects

2006-12-05T03:13:00.000-08:00

Reality 2 : Fiction 0

2006-12-05T03:07:00.000-08:00

Reality always, always, always, trounces fiction - in humor, in "shameless", "ego-less" absurdity, in everything...

Or what else could one say to these:

Ziggy Stardust, an indiscreet parrot in England, blew the cover on its mistress's love affair by repeating her amorous exchanges in front of her companion. The latter, named Chris, realised something was up when the bird started squawking "Gary, I love you."

A 68-year-old man in northern Nigeria told reporters that after having married a total of 201 women in 48 years, he had resolved to make do with the four wives he still had. His main complaint: older wives had an unfortunate tendency to turn the younger ones against him.

Drinkers had to be evacuated from a Welsh pub when somebody realised that a tubular object that the landlord's wife had long used as a rolling-pin was in fact a World War II shell.

Read more

My Letter in TIME Europe and other stories

2006-12-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

My Letter to the Editor appears in this week's edition of TIME Magazine (December 11, 2006 issue), appearing on newstands today, Sunday December 4, 2006. I wrote the piece in response to the profile of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti in the recent special TIME issue 60 Years of Heroes (November 13, 2006).

My poem, THE HOUSE AIDS BUILT also appeared today in LIFE (December 10, 2006 Issue), the magazine of arts and culture published alongside The Guardian on Sunday (Nigeria).

Found Object

2006-12-01T10:41:00.000-08:00

2006 Macmillan Literary Nite @ Muson Centre, Lagos

2006-11-30T07:21:00.000-08:00

From The News (article by Blessing Ogunli)

Come Thursday, 30 November, the annual Macmillan literary night, would take place at the Shell Hall, MUSON Centre, Onikan, Lagos, at 6 p.m. The event, which will bring literary lovers and enthusiasts and with theme: Nigeria writing: New works, is organised by foremost publishing house, Macmillan Publishing Nigeria Limited.

Speaking at a media briefing, Professor A.B. Fafunwa, vice chairman, Macmillan and Chairman, Literary Committee, stated that this year's edition will take a critical look at the works of the new generation of Nigerian writers—prose, drama and poverty—with a view to understanding what they write about and at the same time to promote their works.

"The night would afford us the opportunity to look at the issues that today's writers are writing about in relation to the society. Is there any similarly between what the male and female writers write? Or are they concerned with different issues? Who is writing poetry? Who is writing prose?" he asked rhetorically.

The former Education minister, however, added that though it will be impossible to cover all the writers in order to give definite answers to the questions posed above, it is hoped that the programme of the evening will give the audience an idea of what they write about and also help them to draw out their own conclusion.

This year’s edition, which is the fifth in the series, will also witness the presentation of Macmillan UK award for the most promising writer for children to Nigeria’s Ngozi Ifeanyinwa Rasak Shoyebi, whose work, The house that Kodjo built, came tops in the children category.

Furthermore, the night will not only be about works alone as the Crown Troupe and Nephetic Group will also be around to thrill the audience with songs and dance drama, which will leave everyone with a message of hope for a better Nigeria.

From The Guardian (article by Gregory Austin Nwakunor)

...Prof. Fafunwa, who is also, vice chairman of the board of Macmillan, posed a rhetoric, which captures the thrust of the event. "The new writers of prose, drama, poetry - who are they? What issues are they concerned with? Is there any similarity between male and female writers? Or are they concerned with different issues? Who is writing poetry? Who is writing prose?"

Even as answers to his questions would be difficult, he reasoned that the 2006 edition of the literary night would provide ample feedback to the puzzles. It would "be impossible to give definite answers," he acknowledged. But "the programme of the evening will give us an idea and may be, answer some of these questions.

"Some of the new writers that come to mind are Toyin Adewale Gabriel, Lola Shoneyin, Ify Agwu, Ayeola Mabiaku, Eman Usman Shehu, Angela Nwosu, Ken Wiwa, Sefi Attah, Hope Eghagha, Chimamanda Adichie, Promise Ogochukwu, Nike Adesuyi, Uzodinma Iweala, Akin Adesokan, Remi Raji, Tolu Ogunlesi, Ogaga Ifowodo, among others," and the programme will include some of them...

The Limericked Bible (a.k.a Revised Limericked Version)

2006-11-29T09:22:00.000-08:00

The people were all at a loss.

'However shall we get across?

'But then - hand on heart -

Moses waved sea apart,

And praised, 'God Almighty! You're Boss!'

Don't gape so, my dears!

1)The above is not my creation.

2) yes, it is the Bible. Theologians amongst us will easily recognise the above as something that happened in, uhm, uhm, the Psalms... no, 'course not... Exodus... yeah, Exodus!

An English clergyman, Reverend Christopher Goodwins, has translated the Bible into limerick verse.

The Limericked Bible is published by O-Books.

Quote of the Day

2006-11-29T09:18:00.001-08:00

The truth is that magazine publication is very difficult--and sometimes achieving it is an anticlimax: if you had a poem in The New Yorker next week, there would be a pleasant interval when your friends and neighbors see it, and when you can think about people you don't know getting some emotion from it. But the next week, another issue of the magazine comes out, and for many weeks after that, and you still have all the same large and small problems, including the problem of ambition and frustration, that you ever had.

Robert Pinsky (former US poet laureate)

Ian McEwan: No Time For Atonement?

2006-11-29T08:31:00.000-08:00

British Novelist Ian McEwan is fighting charges of copying/borrowing/lifting from No Time for Romance (1977), the memoirs of romantic novelist, Lucilla Andrews (1919 -- 2006) for use in his Booker-shortlisted novel, Atonement (2001).

The Times online (UK) has helped to make things clearer by "tabulating" the similarities:

Excerpts from Atonement (Ian McEwan)

“. . . she had already dabbed gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on a cut, and painted lead lotion on a bruise . . .”

“. . . practising blanket baths on life-size models — Mrs Mackintosh, Lady Chase, and baby George whose blandly impaired physique allowed him to double as a baby girl.”

“These bandages are so tight. Will you loosen them for me a little . . .There’s a good girl . . . go and wash the blood from your face. We don’t want the other patients upset.”

Excerpts from No Time For Romance (Lucilla Andrews)

“Our ‘nursing’ seldom involved more than dabbing gentian violet on ringworm, aquaflavine emulsion on cuts and scratches, lead lotion on bruises and sprains.”

“. . . the life-size dolls on which decades of young Nightingale nurses had learnt to blanket bath. Mrs Mackintosh, Lady Chase and George, a baby boy of convenient physique to allow him to double as a baby girl.”

“Go and wash that blood off your face and neck . . . It’ll upset the patients.”

Other famous writers accused of "borrowing" include

1) 2002 Booker prize winner Yann Martel

2) Pulitzer-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin

3) Harvard undergraduate Kaavya Viswanathan

4) South African writer Antjie Krog

5) 1996 Booker Winner Graham Swift

6) Chinua Achebe, accused by Professor Charles Nnolim of borrowing heavily from a historical pamphlet The History of Umuchu, for his novel, Arrow of God

7) Calixthe Bayela

8) Tony Blair/Downing Street

9) Most bloggers :)

3 Events: Odia Ofeimun, Abidemi Sanusi and Bernardine Evaristo

2006-11-26T08:10:00.000-08:00

This blog is in dire need of reforms (apologies to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, for my plagiarising of a trademarked word).

English Translation: This blog has to start getting serious. (y u laughn?)

In line with the new spirit of reforms permeating every sphere of our national life and of our polity, I am hereby tendering an unreserved apology to my millions of readers for assaulting your hungry visions with disgruntled and miscreantic junk from my email box, prehistoric, middle-class cartoons, and all what-not.

As proof of my repentance, I am bringing to you, live, sizzling, and exclusive pictures from 3 recent literary events in the city of Lagos, Nigeria.

1) Bernardine Evaristo's reading at the British Council Lagos, Thursday 3 November, 2006

2) Abidemi Sanusi's reading at Bookworm, Lagos, Saturday 26 November, 2006

3) Odia Ofeimun's stage play, Feast of Return, Saturday 26 November, 2006

Femi Osofisan(L), Odia Ofeimun (R)

The Masters again

Abidemi Sanusi reading from Kemi's Journal at Bookworm

Abidemi Sanusi @ Bookworm

The Bookworm audience at Abidemi's reading. In blue shirt is Anthony Oha, lecturer in English at the University of Benin

Poet, novelist and banker, Toni kan and another guest at Bernardine Evaristo's reading

Denise Waddingham, deputy Director, British Council Lagos, discussing with Mordi Ochi, poet and Crossing Borders particpant

Kaine Agary, author of Yellow-Yellow (debut novel), forthcoming in December 2006

Folu Agoi, Chairman, Association of Nigerian Authors, Lagos State chapter

Bernardine Evaristo

Voltron, Defender of uhm, uhm, Many Childhoods...

2006-11-23T08:27:00.000-08:00

Wandering around the internet as I regularly do, I clicked on a link (on The Raven's blog) that led me to the Voltron website. What happened next is best described by a Simile:

The feeling that I felt was LIKE the feeling that Adam must have felt when he woke up in the Garden of Eden and saw Eve staring unblinkingly at him.

Adam: (in ecstasy; at the top of his voice): Holy Adam!!! ("Moses" wasn't in existence yet, remember) ...WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? ... (cautions himself) ...we have met before, uhm, uhm (fails to find a suitable name) ... haven't we?

Eve (shyly): I, uhm, I... (looking away)... was a part of you... uhm, uhm, I actually watched as you were being formed...

Adam: So, where have you been all the while, leaving me all alone to stew in my aloneness...?

Eve: gazes sadly at him in edenic silence (in actual fact her gaze is directed at the broad, muscular cliff :) of his chest)

Adam: (suddenly feels his ribcage) ... Oh!... (thoughtful silence follows, it's difficult to tell if it's sweat or tears streaming down his face)... To God ...be ... be.. the ... Glory...

(Trivia: Did you know that Adam was the first citizen of Nollywood)

Fade out

To all you precocious ones who read Shakespeare (in the original) at 8, Sartre at 10, and Dostoyevsky at 13, three-hundred hearty cheers to your grey matter. Sadly, some of us were not so gifted. (sob, sob)

When I, BOA, wasn't reading Enid Blyton or Why the Cat and the Rat are Enemies, I was watching Voltron and SuperTed. [And when I got tired of the passivity of reading or watching, I immersed myself in the "activity" of starting - or abandoning - one of the many debut novels (The Mystery of the Disappearing Cat, featuring the Mystery Trailers, was the only one that made it to THE END) that I have to my (dis)credit :o) lol.] (pardon my brackets... idio(t)syncratic is the word for 'em)

Voltron was there when I was being formed. But I lost him/it/they, at some point, as I strove to be cured of that virus called childhood. Worst of all, I forgot that I had lost him/it/they... until now, catching sight of the images above...

...In that heroic contraption must be chunks of many childhoods rattling around :)

There's more to life than rejection!: New Work & Other Stories

2006-11-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

I have bored you enough with "rejection news", don't you think! It's time to swing into another gear. There's more to life than rejection!

Moral of the story: A good review/acceptance a day keeps the ego (& Muse) aflame ;))

1

My poem I Dared To Call Him Father (for Fidel's Daughter) appears in the latest issue (Issue 7) of the Agenda Broadsheets (Page 6).

The Broadsheets feature exciting poetry and paintings by young people (16 - late 30s), and this issue (7) is published to accompany the latest Agenda, Vol 42, No 2.

Agenda (and the Broadsheets as well) is edited by Patricia McCarthy.

2

Below are the reviews I have seen online, of my story TO A CARTOONIST (in Obituary Tango, the 2006 Caine Prize Anthology).

From Tonight
Equally brilliant is Nigerian [BOA's] To a Cartoonist in which the narrator addresses the cartoonist who produced those famous cartoons depicting Mohammed, published in Denmark, which caused a furore. It's a clever, witty piece of writing.

From Volksblad
[BOA] se “To a cartoonist” aktiveer die debakel rondom die strokiesprente oor Mohamed en die effek van satire. Hierdie Nigeriese skrywer ondersoek die effek van hierdie omstrede strokiesprente op sy liefdesverhouding. Met die ontdekking daarvan het sy verloofde hom verlaat en hy maak oënskynlik ’n objektiewe analise van die effek hiervan; maar dan kom die onverwagse slot en hierdie sterk gestruktureerde verhaal: Hoe sal jy maak om jou geliefde terug te kry?

Translation (by Muthal Naidoo)
[BOA's] “To a cartoonist” brings to life the debacle over the cartoons of Mohamed and the effect of satire. This Nigerian writer examines the effect that these controversial cartoons have on his love relationship. With the discovery of it, his beloved leaves him and he makes what appears to be an objective analysis of its effect; but then comes the unexpected conclusion and this strongly structured story: What must you do to get your lover back?

Quote of the Week

2006-11-17T08:04:00.000-08:00

And the winner of our contest for quote for the week is an internet creature called "samjordison"; for his comment posted on the Guardian (UK) Books Blog

"...don't forget all that time wasted reading other writers blogs when you really should be doing some real work. I bet the internet has destroyed a number of promising careers."

Who am I to disagree.
Now you know the reason why, a century after, my BIO still keeps reading "He's saving up the courage to start a novel" ...

"In came the blog, and hush went the novel..." - BOA: (Quote of the minute!)

This is CNN & Other Stories

2006-11-17T07:26:00.000-08:00

It's one of the world's most famous words. That deep, confident voice that has grown to become one of CNN's trademarks. I always assumed the voice belonged to a white guy. (I was wrong. James Earl Jones is of Irish, Cherokee and African-American heritage)

The most famous [CNN] ID is a five-second musical jingle with James Earl Jones' simple but classic line, "This is CNN." Jones' voice can still be heard today in updated station IDs. - Wikipedia

His story is amazing:

James Earl Jones possesses one of the most instantly recognizable voices in entertainment history: a commanding basso profundo with a built-in echo chamber that is the very sound of authority. Jones' great range as a performer has made him a legendary American artist. He is a major classical stage actor-his performances as Lear and Othello are towering achievements.....Surprisingly, Jones suffered from a severe stutter as a child, which left him virtually mute. The remedy he found for his affliction was acting. As a child, he was estranged from his prizefighter father and raised by his grandparents on a farm in Michigan. His early years were lonely; he was quiet around other children, self conscious about his speech problem. At the University of Michigan, where he went to study medicine, he began to develop his voice with acting lessons. His rapid improvement gave him an appetite for further theatrical experiences, and soon he quit medicine to devote his attentions to the theater.

More:
According to National Public Radio, as a boy Jones "had such a severe stutter that, for eight years, he refused to talk and was functionally mute"...

Still on Rejection (Paranoia?)

2006-11-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

I received this email on Monday:

Date: Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:12:12 -0500

From: [American Print Journal]

To: [ME]

Subject: Re: Fiction Submission (Novel Excerpt)

Hi ----

I wish I could tell you great news. If you consider that I really liked what I read and would probably read the entire novel great news, then maybe you'll be okay. I don't feel like this is quite self-contained enough, so we're going to have to pass. But I hope you'll send us more work in the future. Your writing is sharp and lively.

---

Can I trust you to keep a secret? I have been getting some quite "nice" (quite detailed, quite encouraging, "We'd like to see more of your writing") rejection letters lately; I almost forget the fact that a NO is a NO is a NO :))

If I remember well, the novelist Chimamanda Adichie once said that, during her early days in the submitting business), she discovered that as time went on, the rejections ("They come with the territory" she says) moved away from impersonal, form letters, to custom-made, kindly notes (from what I guess we'd call "truly-saddened" editors...)

Whoever said a rejection always had to make you sad?

Kim Addonizio on Rejection

2006-11-16T07:09:00.000-08:00

From Kim Addonizio's blog, (March 23, 2006)

Rejection letters—Get used to them. “Butch it up, Kim,” said my writer friend Lisa Glatt, once when I was whining to her on the phone. If you don’t want to be rejected, don’t send out.

Better odds of acceptance: work seriously for 7-10 years first before sending.

The logic: just because it’s rejected doesn’t mean it’s bad. Just because it’s published doesn’t mean it’s any good.

And: The work is more important than the publication, but you may not really understand that until you are published.

Also: it is actually very easy to get published. Somewhere. By someone. Once that happens, it will not be enough. You will want to be published somewhere else, somewhere better. Then you will want books, then awards for the books, then big grants and fellowships and endowed chairs, and then eternal youth. The desire to publish is usually composed of a dash of desire to give one’s gifts, like vermouth in a double martini. The drink itself is ego and insecurity. I call this the Pinocchio Syndrome: Publish me! I’m only a wooden puppet writer! Make me a real writer!

The work is more important.

If you achieve success in publication, further rejections are inevitable. Some of them are: Reductive, misguided readings of your work, sometimes by the people who admire it most. My favorite of these is “Bukowski in a sundress,” an enthusiastic (?) comment offered by the judges of the National Book Critics Circle Award one year.

Condescending reviews by sexist, retromingent Visigoths (I stole this phrase from another writer, I forget who, but it has come in handy many times, and you can see that retromingent is a versatile word for anyone's poetic lexicon), if you are a woman. Some male reviewers are like those boys in high school, who tell everyone you’re a slut and then, when they catch you alone on the hall stairs after classes, push you against the wall and try to stick their hand down your pants.

Being envied. Some people will despise you for doing well, or for their perception of your greater luck. This is called projection. They will make you a god, and then they will try to crucify you.

Another rejection: Being ignored. No one listening. You can see what a blessing this could be.

How to write a short story

2006-11-15T02:29:00.000-08:00

There's a review of Alice Munro's latest offering, The View from Castle Rock (Knopf; 349 pages) here. It's titled HOW TO WRITE A SHORT STORY, which is precisely why I am posting it. I love articles with titles that sound like they have the capability to show me how to pull the rabbit of a polished, finished book out of my hat of (mere) desire.

But of course, you write a book by writing it, not by reading about how to write it, and certainly not by wishing you had written it. Many, the saying goes, wish not so much to write, as to have written. But if an article will increase the prospects of my arriving at the land of HAVE-WRITTEN without having to go through the narrow, dusty, haunted catacombs of WRITE, then I must grab the article, and milk it for all it's worth!

From the Archives: A Story's Journey

2006-11-10T08:10:00.000-08:00

Came across this old email in my inbox. It was a response to a flash-fiction submission I made to Ink-Pot:

Date: Sat, 04 Sep 2004 09:37:23 -0400
Subject: Re: FF, Tolu Ogunlesi, Matilda, 1000 words

Thank you for submitting "Matilda" to Ink Pot. As usual, I enjoyed your fresh voice, images and vignettes. Unfortunately, though, I'm going to have to pass.

While this piece is interesting, it feels a bit scattered. It feels a bit, in the end, as if it doesn't quite know how it got there. One of the difficulties I had was with tense. You begin in present tense with the couple together, in the middle you recall their falling out and you end in present tense with the couple apart. It was hard for me to reconcile, then, just what exactly was going on, when.

I hope you will continue to send us your work and wish you best of luck with your writing.

I eventually reworked the piece. It became:

1) Longer, and more importantly
2) Less "scattered" - I hope! :))
3) Renamed

and was accepted for publication by Pindeldyboz almost a year later (July 2005)

Wed, 27 Jul 2005 22:23:21 -0500
From: "pindeldyboz online"
Subject: Re: Fiction Submission: THE MAN OF THE LAST WORD by Tolu Ogunlesi

Hi Tolu --
If it's still available, I'd love to accept "The Man of the Last Word" for publication in Pboz. I'll use the bio at the bottom of thedocument unless you decide on a newer one, and we'll let you know when it's going live...